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Chapter Text

While the lobby of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino aims for a glossy façade of five-star luxury, Alex’s initial impression is one of nauseating gaudiness.  

His feet have landed upon spotless marble floors, but he retains little memory of them carrying him here. The reflective sheen of polished marble has the unwelcome effect of amplifying the atrium’s already eye-watering brightness; blinding beams shoot from a glittering overhead chandelier, its light bouncing off the walls in a coordinated assault on his retinas. Oversized leather couches in shades ranging from candy-apple red to rich burgundy coalesce around a coffee-table littered with flyers advertising the latest attractions and eateries, however no guests occupy the inviting space. Where one might expect to hear mindless chatter and slamming doors, there is only a gentle Morricone piece emanating from unseen speakers. A shiver caresses Alex’s spine as Edda Dell'Orso’s pleasant croon elicits an inviting air which feels wholly unearned. 

Directly ahead, the marble floors give way to a steep, bifurcated staircase ascending to level one. From there, narrow corridors guide visitors towards concealed stairways which ascend towards the upper floors and beyond, ultimately reaching the dizzying heights of the rooftop taqueria. Labyrinthine corridors sprout from every landing, guiding visitors towards their luxurious suites, but not before tempting them with a plethora of tacky restaurants first. 

Even the reception betrays a distinct lack of good taste. What may once have been an inviting space has been rendered cold in Alex’s long absence. The lone welcome desk has been coated in a chrome finish, rendering it indistinguishable from the control panels peppered throughout the nearby space station and incoming rockets. Only a display of dangling keys in a sleek oak cabinet and a faded sign urging new arrivals to ‘Take It Easy For a Little While!’ convey any sense of Earth-like hospitality.  

As Alex’s feet guide him towards the desk with little regard for his wishes, he finds that even the receptionist exudes an air of peculiarity. A tight smile resides on the man’s thin face as though affixed there with sticky tape, mirroring his statuesque posture and unblinking blue eyes. Slender hands remain clasped before him - his arms unnaturally straight within the confines of a cream blazer - and though Alex cannot place him, there’s an unnerving sense of familiarity to his appearance that he cannot shake. As he examines the beady blue eyes resting atop a prominent nose and razor-sharp cheekbones, it occurs to Alex that he might as well be studying a Picasso painting rather than a genuine human face. Even his milk-white skin appears remarkably unblemished; his complexion spared from acne scars and deep wrinkles despite the scrutiny of overhead lights, betraying a life which has barely been lived.  

It occurs to Alex far too late that he is allowing himself to become preoccupied with impolite observations when he should be initiating conversation. In his defence, he is bone-weary and happens to be nursing a splitting headache. Tactfulness tends to be the first casualty whenever he’s afflicted with that deadly combination. 

“Welcome sir!” the receptionist announces once Alex reaches the desk. In motion, the peculiarities of the man’s face dissolve to make way for an easy friendliness, rendering him almost handsome. A pair of dimples flank a white-toothed smile, and a twinkle in his eyes betrays an inner kindness that leaves a coil of shame in Alex’s gut. “It is an honour to be your steward today. Though I must admit, I am surprised to see you here on our off-season.” 

“That makes two of us,” Alex croaks, frowning when his voice emerges as a strangled rasp. He can’t remember the last time he spoke to anyone. 

Truth be told, he can’t remember much at all from the past twenty-four hours. His unannounced presence on the moon is as much a surprise to him as it is to his steward; even the arduous flight from Earth is little more than a smudge on the canvas of his memories. A deep throb at his left temple implies that the source of his amnesia is a chemical one, and he cringes against the golden light bouncing off the silver chrome desk. If he closes his eyes and focuses on the rhythm of his breathing - tuning out the excitable pulse of his heart - perhaps the moment he decided to upend his life to visit a half-forgotten dump thousands of miles from home will present itself in perfect clarity. 

Alas, it is not to be. No matter how much Alex tries to cast his mind back, the memory he seeks remains unobtainable, like a cookie jar perched on a particularly high shelf.  

Other echoes do present themselves, however. Echoes he suspects his past self took great pains to forget. Echoes of raised voices and strangled explanations; of stinging tears as a slammed door left silence in its wake; of an encroaching numbness encasing his heart, far more acute in its severity than physical pain could ever dream of being.  

Alex’s cheeks burn as the foregone conclusion presents itself. It would seem that, in an act of pure desperation, he has decided that his best course of action in the wake of Miles leaving him is to hop on a rocket and fly to the moon; booking himself a guest-slot in a hotel he technically owns but has barely visited in years. If the searing pain exploding behind his eyes is any indication, he must have spent the entire journey drowning himself in every alcoholic substance he could get his hands on, stopping short only at the onboard hand sanitisers (or so he hopes).  

Handling break-ups in a healthy manner is hardly his forte, but this seems extreme even for him. 

Still, there’s nothing he can do about that now. Much as common sense screams at him to book an immediate flight back to Earth, the promise of a luxurious bed is too enticing to ignore. Tomorrow should offer a clearer head and a new perspective, and from there he can decide how to go about confronting his problems like a functioning adult.  

Assuming he doesn’t succumb to alcohol poisoning in his sleep first.   

“My name is Brian,” his steward announces out of the blue, his Trans-Atlantic twang reaching through the fog and dragging Alex back to the present. Brian’s smile appears unwavering despite Alex’s obvious distraction, making him wonder if his humiliated musings have spanned only a matter of seconds. Either that or Brian is so desperate for a glowing end-of-stay review that he’s willing to tolerate Alex’s eccentricities with endless patience.  

“It is my responsibility to ensure your stay is as relaxing as possible. Anything you need, just give me a call! Of course, due to the season a lot of our restaurants are temporarily closed, but we should be able to provide any meals you desire alongside our usual high-quality room-service.” 

The spiel escapes Brian with a perkiness that betrays their rehearsed nature, sounding more like a 1950s radio advert for the hottest new resort than the words of an actual flesh-and-blood human being. The façade makes way for refreshing candidness, however, as Brian leans over the desk to assess Alex’s condition; his practiced smile making way for an amused smirk and the twitch of a perfectly shaped brow. 

“I take it you won’t be requiring help with your luggage?” he asks. 

The teasing edge to his tone compels Alex to glance at his occupied left hand. Only now does the presence of any weight register at all, as though the bag has simply materialised from thin air.  

Hell, it’s only now that Alex is able to appreciate how woefully unprepared he is in general. His muddy trainers and torn jeans and too-long band t-shirt must grant him the air of a vagrant stumbling in from the street, rather than a guest at the most expensive hotel in the universe. His hair feels sticky with sweat, as though he’s just been out jogging in the rain, and the itch of a five o’clock shadow betrays itself before he can assess its progress in a mirror.  

To make matters even more pathetic, looking down at the contents of his hand reminds him with brutal efficiency that he didn’t bother packing a trusty rucksack for his trip. Instead, the luggage Alex has deemed appropriate for a spontaneous trek to the moon is a single plastic Tescos bag. The cardboard container of what appears to be a six-pack of Coors Light peeks out between the handles, and judging by the bag’s weight, it would appear he has packed little else.  

For his own sake, Alex hopes he had the foresight to leave some clothes behind during his last stay here. 

“Doesn’t look like it,” Alex concedes, attempting a sheepish smile which no doubt looks merely tortured. 

If Brian notices his discomfort, he at least retains enough professional courtesy to leave it unacknowledged. 

“Excellent!” he says instead, clapping his hands together before typing away on his keyboard.  

Within a matter of seconds, a hexagonal panel opens on the front of the desk, followed by a mechanical whine as a drawer protrudes before Alex, housing a familiar key encased in a glass dome. With a further clack on Brian’s keyboard, the dome swings back like a jewellery box exposing its dazzling contents, encouraging Alex to take the proffered key. As soon as its weight is lifted, the dome returns to its rightful position with a click, while the drawer retreats back into the desk like an obedient dog. 

“Room 521 is ready for you now,” Brian announces, an air of dismissal underlying his usual politeness. An unexpected twinge of nostalgia lances through Alex’s chest as he gazes down at the deep-blue keyring; a solid link to happier days he can now barely recall. “I trust you know where to find it?” 

Not fully trusting himself to speak, Alex answers with a single nod and a muttered “ Thanks ”, before raising his eyes to a fifth-floor which towers above him with unflinching menace. A lump rises to his throat at the sight. Unable to pinpoint whether it’s borne from trepidation or nausea, Alex shivers as a wave of dread urges him to return to the desk and guarantee himself a ticket on the next flight home. 

The moment passes. A bone-deep weariness takes the place of trepidation – the bags under his eyes so pronounced they’re almost painful – and with a heavy sigh, Alex ignores every instinct settling in his gut and makes his way over to the looming staircase. 

By the time his key slides into the lock of Room 521, Alex’s entire body is screaming in discomfort.  

The worst offender is his left hip which twinges with every step, continuing to assault him with aftershocks even when he stands perfectly still. The trek up multiple flights of stairs had been more arduous than Alex anticipated. He had initially considered an alternative means of reaching his floor, only to be met with crushing disappointment as his approach towards the elevators greeted him only with giant signs marked with blatant red X’s.  

His warped reflection on the elevators’ golden exteriors had mocked him as he hopelessly pressed the UP button regardless. Only when he was greeted with utter silence had he finally surrendered to the stairs, uttering a curse under his breath as he went. The climb would have been manageable on a good day, but a combination of his brutal hangover and a variety of aches of origins unknown had left him panting, desperate for a break on every landing. Now, the only solace he can envision is the promise of a warm bed. 

The key turns with a pleasing click and Alex mindlessly flicks the light-switch as his old room is unveiled.  

Little has changed during his five-year absence. A freshly made bed calls to his exhausted mind like a lover, while his many surfaces remain free of dust. His scattered belongings appear relatively untouched. Beside the inviting king-sized bed decked with lush scarlet sheets and plump white pillows, an unfinished novel rests upon his bedside table; a bookmark peeking out at the exact place he left it. The spotless white walls are adorned with collected paintings of familiar sights from home rendered in delicate watercolour; the local forests where he climbed trees and risked life and limb as a child; the sparkling shores and golden sands of Malibu; the sandstone townhouse where he and Miles spent so much of the past summer.  

Flanking his bed are two massive lava-lamps - impulse purchases which are now in urgent need of replacement, the wax having congealed into grey blobs within their glass domes. Above his head, dangling fairy lights affixed to the ceiling bathe the room in warm shades of gold and pink. Against the far wall, his bookshelf stands proud and untouched, the spines displaying the works of his beloved Camus and Nabokov and García Márquez. Beside the shelf and rendered in a similar shade of ivory, his neglected piano sits patiently, awaiting a new masterpiece that Alex fears is unforthcoming, even as his fingers twitch in anticipation at the sight of its polished keys. 

The lump in his throat returns as his sights fall upon the room’s centrepiece. Dumping his meagre luggage onto the bed with a muffled clatter, Alex ignores the persistent throb in his hip as he draws closer to the large, circular window offering a view of the moon’s lonely surface. Up until now it had been easy to pretend he was still on Earth. For all of Tranquility Base’s gaudiness, it could still have been a regular hotel in London, aimed at those desperate to part from their ridiculous wealth in exchange for a night of lavish fun. 

Such pretence is no longer an option.  

After all these years, Alex still finds himself floored by this view. Before him, the vast grey expanse of the moon’s dusty horizon stretches on as far as the eye can see; its surface pockmarked with deep craters and concealed valleys, like scars marring the surface of a face that was once perfect. The sky blankets over the horizon with an oppressive stillness, its inky blackness interrupted only by distant burning stars and the lone planet suspended above his head.  

From where Alex stands, the surface of Earth looks like a whirling concoction of blues, greens and whites blended carelessly on an artist’s easel, yet his heart still aches with acute longing at the sight of it. Beneath a mass of cloud cover, he can just about decipher the elongated coastline of Argentina, and he wonders if Miles will soon be greeting the rising sun over on his own corner of the world. 

Thinking of Miles makes the view before him even more intolerable. Alex yanks his eyes away before the weight of his newfound solitude can crush him, rubbing them with a trembling hand before wandering back to the bed to inspect his luggage. Upending the crinkled bag until the contents spill inelegantly onto the duvet, a flare of shame burns his cheeks as he’s faced with a six-pack of beer and a single carton of cigarettes. He shakes the bag to see if anything else wishes to present itself, but nothing does. The pathetic hoard on the bed is all he thought to bring, as if he merely nipped into a service station enroute to his flight.  

It strikes him as unusual that the beers remain undrunk despite his amnesia betraying a ravenous appetite for alcohol. Perhaps the promise of Lagavulin and expensive martinis had been more enticing on the rocket. 

Alex supposes his lack of foresight hardly matters. A casual inspection of his walk-in wardrobe reassures him that he has plenty of dapper suits and dress shoes waiting for him. Freshly stocked toothpaste, shower gels and deodorants are laid out on the bathroom countertop alongside a new electric toothbrush and razor. The mini-fridge is stocked with fruit and sandwiches and bottled water, with hot meals a mere phone-call away should Alex desire them. His lack of care while packing will have no practical drawbacks during his stay. This is possibly something he’d anticipated in the first place, but the pathetic display on the bed still bothers him.  

His penchant for self-deprecation can wait, however. Once a yawn finally bursts free from his throat, Alex gathers up the beers and stuffs them gracelessly into the fridge. For a moment he studies the pack of cigarettes, feeling like he should crave them far more than he does, only to abandon them on his desk. No doubt the urge to smoke will greet him upon waking. 

Despite how grotesque he feels, Alex finds he has no energy for a shower. Instead, he merely sheds his clothes until he’s left in nothing but Miles’s old shirt and his boxers, pointedly ignoring the deep ache afflicting his body as he crawls beneath the inviting duvet.  

As his head comes to rest upon the pillow, he finds his eyes drawn towards the neglected book resting by his side. He doesn’t know why. He hardly has the energy to read and it’s been so long since he abandoned this particular novel that he can barely remember picking it up in the first place. The scarlet paperback cover displays a ridiculously long title in which the letters coalesce into an indecipherable mass, with only the corner image of a cup and saucer sparking a hint of recognition. 

Instinct forces him to reach for the book anyway, sitting up as his fingers nimbly remove the bookmark and flick to the page he read last. 

As Alex studies the page further, a groove settles between his brows and a frown tugs at his lips. He flicks to another page, one which he must have read before, but it too is incomprehensible to him.  

It’s not so much that the words are blurry. That would be understandable in light of his exhaustion and the faint illumination offered by the twinkling fairy lights. What bothers him is that the words and their layout have been reduced to a jumbled mass; whole passages bleed together with letters resembling Cyrillic more closely than English, while whole lines appear to have been removed completely, leaving only a grey smudge on the paper. A skim through the succeeding chapters does reveal the occasional clear passage amongst the dreck, but it isn’t long before they too dissolve into incomprehensible mush.  

As his heart threatens to climb into his throat, Alex slams the book shut and throws it against the wall, revelling in the distressed clatter it makes as its pages crease against the floor. Only now that the words are no longer dancing before his eyes does it occur to him that he may be overreacting. He’s tired and drunk. For all he knows, this book may be one of those experimental prints with obscure fonts aimed at LA hipsters. It may even have been a misprint, albeit one he somehow failed to notice during his last visit. 

Despite these attempts to cling to logic, Alex finds himself compelled to launch out of bed and stumble over to the bookshelf. His hands grab for a distinctive hardback he recognises instantly as Orwell’s ‘1984’, the all-seeing eye of Big Brother providing him with far more relief than is strictly appropriate. For a moment he simply stares at the cover, basking in its familiarity; in the solidity of the numbers and the brick-red artwork. For a moment he can feel his heart calm and his hands grow steady, and he inwardly scolds himself for getting so worked up over nothing at a time when so many aspects of his life lie in shambles. 

Alex finds that his curiosity – his desire for reassurance – is not yet sated however. Though he knows he shouldn’t, he cannot stop himself from opening the book to a random page. 

Only to be faced with the now familiar sight of mismatched letters and blurred smudges, as rebellious words dance across his vision like a mocking trickster.  

Chapter Text

Alex wakes to the caress of a ghost.  

Consciousness returns with patience, guiding his mind into the present with sensations too pleasurable to abandon with any great haste. His limbs feel heavy, weighted down by tangled sheets and a firm body draped across his back. Any light he senses behind closed eyelids is honeyed and warm, promising the embrace of a golden sun, as morning birdsong and soft breaths tickle his ears. As he crawls towards reluctant wakefulness, he finds himself unable to contain a small, sated smile as slender fingers graze along his arm, eliciting goosebumps in their wake. Alex knows whose face will greet him when he wakes, and he’s torn between the urge to throw himself into Miles’s arms and his desire for this moment to stretch on forever.   

Miles must be growing bored, however. Either that or Alex’s attempts to conceal his smile have been woefully insufficient. The gentle caress of his arm stops without warning, yet before Alex can complain, a trail of kisses is left on his nape instead. He remains still as Miles migrates from his neck to his shoulder; from his shoulder to his cheek and into his tangled mop of hair.   

Much as Alex wants to wake up fully and return the favour, he’s also wary of breaking the spell. Wakefulness will bring a new day with new responsibilities, and much as he’d like to convince himself otherwise, Alex knows they can hardly spend all day in bed. They’ve tried that on multiple occasions in the past, and while it always sounds like a good idea first thing in the morning, it’s never long before interruptions arrive in the form of ringing phones or knocks on the door (often at the most inopportune moments) or often just sheer restlessness. The space Alex occupies now – this unknowable space between dreams and waking – is the only thing sparing him from the eventuality of Miles no longer resting by his side.  

It isn’t long before Miles leans over to brush his lips against Alex’s own, and he finds himself incapable of holding back a contented smile. A musical laugh tickles his cheek and a delicate finger brushes a stray curl behind his ear, eliciting cool tingles across his scalp. What was once pleasant light glimpsed through closed eyelids is now a tad too bright, and with a sense of finality, Alex finally flutters into wakefulness before turning to face his sweetest tormenter.  

An ache of longing grips his chest as he takes in Miles’s gentle smile. His sun-kissed skin appears golden in the morning light, the glow bathing him as though he were a Greek god setting his sights upon a meek mortal lover. His hair is starting to grow long again, with dark strands curling at his nape, and Alex yearns to run his fingers through it and pull him in for a kiss. A heavy-lidded gaze and lazy grin betray Miles’s own residual sleepiness, but he’s no less beautiful for it, and Alex wishes he could find an excuse to gaze at him until the sun elects to devour the Earth once and for all.  

“Morning beautiful,” Miles says, as he always does whenever he’s the first to wake.   

Alex can’t help but frown as the words reach him just a second too late; too distant and broken to have emerged from the smiling man before him. The Miles he hears and the Miles he sees are two entirely different entities. One looks content and peaceful while the other sounds lost and scared. The mismatch shatters the illusion before Alex can salvage his grip on it, leaving him with the impression of having stumbled into an antique mirror. Cold grief washes over him as cracks trail across Miles’s skin and the morning glow dims to ghostly moonlight, and in the space of a blink, Alex wakes to find himself alone in an unfamiliar bed, his hand unconsciously reaching out for a lover who may never return to him.  

The brutality of being thrust into reality robs him of breath. His chest burns and his eyes prick with unshed tears as his hand comes to rest on the mattress, feeling cool sheets beneath his fingertips as he gazes at the unruffled pillow by his side. Miles isn’t here. Miles is on the planet looming above him, thousands of miles away, no doubt unaware that Alex has fled so far from home. He knows this as surely as he knows that night must follow day, and yet the reminder breaks his heart regardless.  

Knowing that sleep will not return to him, Alex reluctantly casts aside his duvet and sits up. Upon reflection, he doesn’t remember falling asleep after his moment of madness with the books. Nor does he have any idea if morning has even arrived. There is no conventional sunrise to look out for and the sky beyond his window is as black and formless as ever. The mugginess of his thoughts betray a sense of having slept too long, although other useful clues like a grumbling hunger or full bladder are noticeably absent.  

At least his headache has abated, having clearly decided that he has suffered enough retribution. Rather troublingly, however, Alex finds that his memories of yesterday remain indecipherable. Not quite a blank slate, per se, but certainly one shattered into useless fragments. Any attempt to reunite the pieces into a cohesive whole promises to leave his hands cracked and bleeding in the aftermath, so he elects not to bother. Clarity will come to him in its own time.  

That’s what he’s trying to tell himself anyway.  

With a groan, Alex swings his legs over the edge of the bed and drags himself to his feet. To his relief, the persistent ache in his left hip has taken a sabbatical, leaving him feeling almost good as new. Also absent is the wave of vertigo he’d anticipated in the wake of yesterday’s binge; the room doesn’t so much as tilt in the wake of Alex pulling himself upright. He briefly wonders if his body has decreed that he has suffered enough, only to cast that notion aside before it can take root in his brain. His body is rarely so kind.  

While he may not need to empty his meagre stomach contents into the toilet bowl or raid the mini-fridge for sustenance, he is uncomfortably aware of the sweat clinging to his skin, and therefore decides that a shower should be first on the agenda. What he intends to do after that is less clear. He truly has made zero plans for his visit besides ‘Put as much distance between myself and Miles as humanly possible’, but he supposes a wander around the hotel wouldn’t hurt anyone. It’s been years since he last graced these halls with his presence and he may find that much has changed in his absence. If what Brian says is true, he may even have free rein of the premises; the fifth floor has certainly been free from any extraneous noise since his arrival.  

Only when he starts to head towards the sterile ensuite does he notice the discarded book splayed on the floor, its open pages creased in a blatant display of neglect. An echo of unease creeps along his spine as he remembers his own eyes playing tricks on him, but the moment passes in a heartbeat. Last night he was nursing a headache and exhaustion and a whirlwind of confusion, a cocktail devised from his own questionable decisions. It would have been stranger if he could read the words on the page with any sense of clarity.  

Still, that doesn’t tempt him to pick up the novel and return it to his bedside. Instead, he swans past its carcass, guided solely by the promise of a warm shower and the allure of reclaimed humanity.  

An hour later, Alex feels fresher and more put together than he has since fleeing Earth. He had forgotten how heavenly the hotel showers could be; the temperature of the spray just hot enough to dye his skin a faint pink, but not so hot as to cause discomfort. The scents of the hotel-provided body wash and shampoo had evoked sweet notes of tea-tree and apple, the lather soothing any lingering tension from his scalp and washing away the last remnants of his migraine. He’d stood under the spray for almost half an hour, watching his residual aches disappear down the drain, while the humming ceiling fans prevented him from being swallowed by a thick wave of humidity.  

His wardrobe – when he had dried off enough to peruse it – was as richly stocked as always. Flanking him on either side of a narrow walkway had been outfits designed for every occasion. Elegant three-piece suits reserved for restaurant openings or important meetings with the hotel’s most distinguished clientele. Lighter jacket and trouser combos in rich shades of blue or lilac for a ballroom date. Even old Halloween costumes set aside for the annual bash hung loyally towards the back of the closet. Alex had set his sights on a casual white shirt and flared black trousers, with polished leather brogues completing the look. Perfect for wandering around a classy establishment, but not so fancy that he risks being drawn into conversations about the state of the stock market by guests who have a personal stake in the matter.   

Assuming any such guests remain – Alex has yet to encounter them.  

Now, fully awake and feeling human at last, Alex finds himself strolling along corridors which should feel familiar, yet harbour an air of the unknown about them. As far as he can see, everything remains much the same as it was when he was last here. The marble walls are sleek and glossy, with dangling golden orbs illuminating his path. Displayed along the corridors are a myriad of paintings in elaborate silver frames; mostly abstract renderings of exploding nebulas captured with careless splashes of colour, but occasional portraits are sprinkled here and there. Opposite Alex’s room stands a portrait of his dad when he was younger, noodling away on a saxophone with his eyes closed, the music carrying him to realms beyond Alex’s understanding.   

On his trek along the maze-like corridors, he catches photorealistic renderings of teachers he respected at school, including one of Mr Baker donning sunglasses and a lanky posture, a copy of ‘Ten Years in an Open-Necked Shirt’ in his hands as he recites ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ to an unusually engaged class. Alex spots Nick and Jamie on the walls, sprawled out on lounge-chairs with easy smiles on their faces as their kids paddle in an aquamarine pool. He spots a teenaged Matt hammering away on an amateur drumkit, intense concentration reddening his boyish face.   

No doubt if Alex walked every inch of the hotel he would find portraits of his mum, or perhaps even portraits of Miles – he remembers commissioning them after all – but the prospect of seeing either of them makes the void in his chest feel ever-denser, so he elects to keep his eyes fixed to the floor in an attempt to shield his heart from further harm.  

He’s led towards the grand balcony by a vibrant red carpet decorated with broad hexagonal patterns, the outlines composed of solid black and orange thread. Once he reaches the landing and settles his weight against the balustrade, Alex allows himself to appreciate the grandeur of his creation.   

Time has not been kind to his memories of this place. What was once a labour of love, borne from intricate pencil drawings and carved sheets of cardboard, had rapidly exploded into a monster of his own making; a resort so exclusive and remote that only the 1% could ever dream of purchasing a ticket. A place at war with itself - sleek architecture and exquisite artworks clashing with the gaudy flair of the casino and the successive openings of ever-more tacky restaurants.   

Alex sometimes thinks that the best days of the hotel were the weeks in the run-up to its opening, when it remained solely his baby. When everything was exactly the way he’d envisioned it and the hotel stood tall and pristine, her floors unsoiled by the boots of guests and management contractors. Once other people’s opinions started creeping from the woodwork, he experienced the indignity of his ownership slipping away like sand through an hourglass, until any remaining pride dissolved to ashes on his tongue.  

With the benefit of hindsight, however, and the knowledge that her glory days are far behind her, Alex gazes over his creation and allows himself to bask in her legacy. Below him, the floor falls away to the atrium, the golden embrace of the lobby visible even five floors up. Above his head, a vast glass dome separates him from the desolation of space. The tiny form of Earth is currently caught in its sights; so far away and yet so comforting in its presence that Alex feels he could reach out and touch it. Surrounding the exterior dome on all sides, he knows, is the rooftop taqueria that caused quite the stir in its heyday. If he squints, he can make out the odd splash of red and green from assorted tablecloths through the unmarked surface of the glass.   

The winding hotel corridors are mostly hidden from view of where he stands, but Alex can envision them clearly; stretching for miles with so many twists and turns, it’s a miracle the guests rarely get lost. Even in his most drunken state, Alex has always trusted his feet to guide him back to Room 521.  

The presence of fellow guests becomes apparent in subtle ways. From a corridor two or three floors below, Alex hears a muffled slam followed by an even more muffled argument in accents which sound vaguely North American. Other voices arise in sporadic bursts, most unfamiliar to him but some less so, and he wonders if the frequent fliers of yore still make regular reservations. Here and there he catches snatches of music – gentle guitars and raspy baritones – despite the fact that it’s far too early for live entertainment to have taken to the ballroom stage.   

No physical evidence of human guests appears before his eyes, however, and as Alex finally makes his way down the stairs, the only sound that stalks him is the muted impact of his heels hitting the carpet.  

The lobby, once he reaches it, is as deserted as ever. The chandelier continues its mission to blind new arrivals, but Alex can now acknowledge its elegance as warm light is refracted by hundreds of glittering crystals. The flyers on the coffee table remain untouched, the swinging doors to the entrance corridor remain fixed together, and even the gentle music persists, albeit Morricone’s understated genius has been replaced by generic lounge music with lilting piano notes. A quick scan of the reception desk confirms Brian’s absence, though strangely no-one appears to have taken his place.   

Alex does not dwell on that peculiarity for long. Instead, his eyes fall upon the one fixture of the lobby that failed to register upon his arrival.  

Beside the reception desk, a sturdy set of solid oak doors rest, their surface disturbed by a pair of frosted glass windows which conceal the contents of the adjoining room. There’s no sign affixed to the doors to advertise their purpose, only a sheet of paper displaying the same strict ‘X’ that barred his entry to the elevator.   

Alex has no particular memory of these doors. No real inkling of what may lie beyond, despite his innate familiarity with every inch of the hotel. This is not so surprising however; he has not stepped foot on the premises for five years and stopped attending business meetings three years ago. It makes sense that changes would be made in his absence. For all he knows, he could be looking at a new storage cupboard.  

As he draws closer, however, he realises that it’s not the room’s mere presence that irks him. Rather, it’s the sense of something – or someone – lurking within that he cannot shake. With each hesitant step towards the barricade, the hairs at the back of his neck stand to attention as the rest of the world is sucked into a vacuum. Ghostly black shadows flicker across the frosted glass before hiding away in shame, and when Alex forces himself to listen, he finds that he can hear whispers seeping through the cracks. The voices don’t sound inherently malevolent, but his body reacts as if they are regardless; tightening his throat in a claw-like grip as a shiver races along his spine, reawakening phantom aches he’d hoped his shower had banished.  

It occurs to him that the whispers may have been there all along, brushing against his eardrums but not quite penetrating to the machinery beyond; his mind tuning them out in the way one might ignore the screech of cicadas in the dead of night. Now, however, that gentle brushing has graduated to a demented clawing, plucking at his ears with all the grace of untuned viola strings. Instinct screams at him to run, and yet he remains fixed in place. If pressed, he doubts he could explain his inaction, beyond a vague sense of recognition. As though he might somehow be able to pick out a loved one amongst the chorus of inhuman whisperers.  

This instinct is gratified further as he unconsciously reaches for a polished doorknob, the brass cool beneath his fingertips as an elongated ‘Aleeeeex’ slips between the cracks, carried along on a wistful sigh.

“I’m afraid you can’t go in there.”

Alex leaps out of his skin as the spell is prematurely broken. His surroundings return to him with a rapidity that leaves him dizzy, and it takes several seconds for the room to stop spinning on its axis. Only when he turns to face Brian - standing reliably at his desk with not a hair out of place - does his heart begin to calm in his chest.   

“Sorry Brian, I didn’t hear you comin’,” Alex says once he finally regains his breath.   

It takes more effort than it should to tear his eyes from the door completely in order to face his steward, and only then do the whispers stop. Alex starts to wonder if they were ever there at all as gentle piano trills fill the void left in their wake.  

“My apologies. I’ve been told I have a very light gait,” Brian admits, somewhat sheepishly, although his tight smile remains severe on his youthful face. “That corridor is currently off-limits while renovations are put in place. Only authorised personnel can enter. For safety purposes, you understand.”  

The words are delivered in the same corporate tone that characterised yesterday’s welcoming spiel, though something deeper seems to lurk beneath the politeness. Certainly, the explanation given would explain the presence of human voices, but Alex has not heard any evidence of actual work being carried out beyond those doors. No hammering, no drilling, not even the usual blokeish chatter one might expect from such activities.  

“Take it I don’t count as authorised personnel?” he asks, testing the waters slightly. As much as he has neglected the hotel in recent years, he is still its rightful owner and in theory his influence should be absolute.   

Brian’s unflinching posture and ever-tightening smile suggests that he is not a man who will be easily swayed by such posturing.   

“Only messin’,” Alex adds with a weak, defeated smile.  

“Indeed,” Brian says stiffly, attempting a placating smile which fails to reach his narrowed eyes. “May I instead recommend a trip to the guest buffet? We are just about to serve lunch and I’m told we have a delicious variety of soups and seafood platters on offer today. All-inclusive, of-course.”  

That’s a clear dismissal if Alex has ever heard one. In a way he’s grateful for the abrupt ending to their confrontation. For the first time since he arrived, it strikes him just how deep a façade Brian is really putting on and that, beneath the smiles and polite commercial pitches, the man probably can’t stand him. Alex finds himself craving actual human conversation, and while he can’t say he feels particularly hungry, perhaps the company of other guests will ease his mind.  

Like an obedient child, he acknowledges Brian with a polite nod, before wandering absently back to the staircase.   

As he follows the unmistakable scent of warm broth and the distant rattle of cutlery, he tries not to dwell too deeply on the fact that neither were apparent until the exact moment Brian mentioned the buffet.  

The food court resides on the second floor, resting in a tiny enclave between the hotel’s more affordable rooms and the vintage movie theatre. No signs point towards it, but during mealtimes it’s impossible to miss as the corridors become packed with guests emerging from their rooms, often in a state of dress far too pretentious for a glorified cafeteria.   

The sight of actual human bodies jostling along the corridors is initially disconcerting. While the number of guests appearing from occupied hotel rooms is relatively low compared to busier seasons, there are still far more people confined within these walls than Alex expected in light of his earlier solitude. Normal conversations arising around him now seem amplified in contrast to the silence he has come to expect, and with each new face he sees among the throng, all he can think is ‘Where were you yesterday? Where have you been hiding?’  

It occurs to him that he is merely following the crowd for the sake of it. As enticing as the smells of carrot and coriander soup and freshly baked cakes are to his fellow guests, the idea of eating has Alex’s stomach roiling in disgust. His earlier desire for human connection abandons him as he surveys the faces of his prospective conversationalists. The few guests who deem him worthy of a fleeting glance regard him with downturned lips and quiet suspicion, while the majority shove past him in an attempt to claim a seat before their options run out. One elderly lady, who bears a startling resemblance to his spiteful old maths teacher, regards him with such beady-eyed disgust upon leaving her room that he finds himself wondering if he’s just become the subject of a witch’s curse. The way her black skirt spills out behind her as she dodders past him does little to dampen that impression.  

By the time the entrance to the food court is in sight – flanked by two stewards in identical cream blazers offering wine lists to each passing guest – Alex has half a mind to turn back the way he came. The stronger the smells from the kitchen become, the more he wants to retch, and he finds himself craving the safety of his own room.   

No sooner has he decided to turn on his heels, however, than he’s greeted with a sight that steals the breath from his lungs.  

Emerging from the buffet - keeping his head down to avoid undue attention – is none other than Miles. His Miles, the one Alex assumed he’d left behind on Earth. The sight of him dolled up in a Bond-esque tuxedo, his long hair neatly curled behind his ears, is enough to leave Alex gaping like a lovestruck fool; open-mouthed and desperate to find his voice before he loses Miles again.   

By the time his soul returns to his body, it’s almost too late. Before Alex can summon the nerve to shout his name, Miles vanishes into an adjacent corridor.  

Unable to care about the many eyes watching him now, Alex pushes forward, shouting Miles’s name at the top of his lungs as he bypasses the overflowing food court and rushes past countless guest rooms. Amidst the crowd of perplexed newcomers trying to shove him out of their way, Alex spots Miles advancing towards the next junction, and he quickly charges ahead with another frantic shout of “Miles!”  

If Miles hears him, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he turns a sharp left at the end of the corridor, forcing Alex to break into a sprint in a bid to catch up. Guests and portraits and frozen statues perched on granite plinths rush past him in a blur, yet the corridor’s length refuses to shorten until it’s almost too late. By the time Alex reaches the junction, all he can catch is a glimpse of Miles’s black sleeve vanishing down another corridor, this time to the right.   

For the first time in his life, Alex considers the possibility that he may well get lost within these walls and never escape. He’s sure he’s already made more turns than are strictly possible in view of the hotel’s layout, but that doesn’t deter him from speeding along the – mercifully empty – hallway and banking right in the hope that he hasn’t lost Miles for good.  

Only for such hope to crumble to dust. As he draws to a skidded halt, Alex feels his stomach drop as he’s brought face to face with a dead-end; the door to Room 237 staring at him with a malice no inanimate object should possess. He can’t remember hearing the slam of a door after Miles vanished round the corner, but then, that’s hardly surprising. Even now the roar of blood in his ears is deafening, drowning out the distant rumble of dining guests with ease.  

There’s nowhere else Miles could have gone. The corridor before him is a mere stump, with no other rooms branching off besides 237. A twinge of hesitation grips him as he lowers his eyes to the door handle – so tempting yet so dangerous – and it occurs to him that he may well be suffering from a case of mistaken identity. Why would Miles come here? Miles had wanted to create some distance between himself and Alex, so why would he choose to travel somewhere that had Alex’s fingerprints all over it?  

And yet, it had been Miles he’d seen emerge from the food court. He’s sure of it. There hadn’t been enough distance between them to justify him being a mere lookalike, and Alex would recognise that face anywhere. He will dream of that face until the end of his days.  

Before he can lose his nerve, Alex turns the handle and is rewarded with a satisfying click as the door gives way. For a moment he freezes, having expected to be met with resistance, yet his trepidation passes quickly as he takes a tentative step into the room.  

“Miles?”  

His voice sounds small within the dank space before him, and no answer emerges from the dark. Alex carefully flicks the light-switch at his side, but nothing happens. Not even the fizzle of a reluctant bulb. With a few careful steps, he finds himself in a room not unlike his own, albeit much smaller and lacking in homely comforts. A tiny, rectangular window refuses to bathe the room in light, but as Alex’s eyes adjust, he can make out a king-sized bed parked against the wall and a comfortable desk housing a disused coffee-machine.   

Dust motes float around him, undeterred by his presence, and the air tastes thick and oppressive as he ventures further. Running his finger over the surface of the desk unveils a layer of dust so thick he could write his name in it, and a grey cloud arises with each muffled footfall upon the faded carpet.   

There’s no doubt about it – this room hasn’t been cleaned in months, let alone housed any guests in all that time.  

Alex bites his lip, trying to fight back tears of disappointment. He was so sure he’d spotted Miles coming this way. Had he been mistaken? Had what he thought was a dark sleeve actually just a trick of the light? Had Miles already escaped into one of the other guest rooms before Alex could catch up?  

Whatever the case, he certainly isn’t here. Alex has no explanation for why the room is in such a state when the rest of the hotel is gleaming, but that’s hardly a priority. The desire to escape sinks its teeth into him and he turns back to the door, but not before casting one final, hopeful glance around the room as though Miles may yet appear from the shadows.  

No promising silhouette reveals itself, but the instant Alex turns, he’s ensnared by a familiar scent of cologne with a musk that is uniquely Miles’ own lurking underneath. Alex’s heart pounds in his chest and he has to fight the urge to turn back. Miles isn’t here. Miles can’t be here, because that would mean he heard Alex calling for him and ignored him anyway, and that revelation would break his heart.  

The mysterious scent refuses to abate, however, and as Alex slams the door shut behind him, he’s forced to hold back a sob as a familiar, broken echo utters his name against his ear.    

Chapter Text

The rest of the afternoon passes in a haze. Alex is vaguely aware of one foot loyally following the other, but all sense of direction appears to have deserted him back in Room 237. Dazed eyes affix themselves to never-ending patterns strewn across vibrant carpets as one corridor bleeds into another, the hexagons burnt onto his retinas to the point where their outlines linger with every blink. 

A change in lighting forces him to raise his head eventually. Warm golds and clinically white marble fall away to darker hues of lilac and teal as he emerges into the hotel’s infamous casino.  

The place is deserted. Every footfall echoes across the cavernous space, his route lit by golden displays of slot machines advertising their riches with lurid satisfaction. The welcome desks remain unmanned, while neighbouring cabinets flaunt vast towers of poker chips behind unlocked doors, leaving them vulnerable to opportunistic theft. Roulette tables stand around with little fanfare while the poker tables themselves lie bare, awaiting the thrills that evening will bring.  

Above Alex’s head, the lighting shifts from delicate, deep-sea blues to vivid reds, and he takes that as his cue to leave. Even at peak capacity, the casino is not a particularly bright and inviting space, and the desire to leave plants itself beneath his skin like an incessant itch. 

Quickening his pace, Alex stumbles through the casino’s solid gold doors as he crashes into a brightly lit hallway. For a moment his sense of orientation refuses to take root. Logically he knows he must have returned to the ground floor – the casino is only accessible via the main atrium – but he has no memory of descending the two levels required to get here. He has little memory of anything from the past couple of hours, truth be told. All he knows with any certainty is that he needs to keep moving. Stillness invites silence, and that is where the whisperers roam.  

He follows the corridor for several paces, finding comfort in the reliable patterns flourishing beneath his feet, before drawing to a halt as impossible noises fill the air. Focusing intently on the distant clamour, Alex realises that he is not mistaken; he can hear birdsong. Distant cawing and sweet chirrups fill the air, a gentle remedy to the oppressive silence, and like a sailor drawn to a siren’s beckoning call, Alex is left with no choice but to follow. The singing amplifies as he draws closer to its source, the pitch shifting as the performer swoops through the air, and it isn’t long before the snapping of twigs and bubbling of water joins the fray.  

Before long, Alex finds himself facing a door moulded from pure frosted glass, a proud bronze plaque perched on the wall by its side. An attempt to examine the plaque reveals more of that infuriating writing he found in his books – the letters making as little sense to him as the Armenian alphabet – but for the first time in hours, Alex feels safe. A warm, inviting light shines through the glass, dancing across his vision like the sun breaking through clouds, and before he can change his mind, he reaches out and pushes the door inward. 

The sight which greets him takes his breath away. A blast of humidity caresses his face, the air sweet with dew and tropical fragrances as he steps onto a tiled, moss-strewn path. It would appear he has stumbled upon an impossible greenhouse. A marble fountain greets him, depicting a shy mermaid on an elevated plinth; her delicate features concealed behind flowing stone locks, while her body curls longingly towards the clear waters below, yearning for home. Within a vast curved basin, the waters are topped with algae and guarded by a family of carp, minding their own business as they circle the depths, mouths gaping in search of precious sustenance. The waters flow from a gourd clasped in the mermaid’s slender hands, eternally filling the basin with a clear, steady stream.  

Surrounding the fountain is a collage of oversized greenery, contained within a sheer glass dome which looms overhead. As Alex follows the tiled path into the depths of the foliage, he finds himself flanked by towering ferns, their leaves bending down from fat stalks to kiss his sweaty cheeks. Dew sparkles on their green surfaces, with occasional drops drifting towards his face, leaving a cool trail of tears along his skin.  

Above his head, a complex array of spotlights desperately attempt to mimic warm sunlight. As rudimentary as the set-up appears, their effect on the plants is clearly exceptional. Twisted vines crawl towards the ceiling in an attempt to escape their cage, battling the ferns for dominance, and as Alex emerges from the tropical display into a cove recreating the arid desert, he’s faced with swollen limbs of cacti sprouting like deformed fingers from the sand. 

Alex does not remember such a garden ever residing within the hotel, yet the sight stirs memories he cannot fully place. As the rush of water diminishes behind him and artificial birdsong erupts from hidden speakers, it occurs to him that this garden resembles a hodgepodge of those he’s visited before. The calming atmosphere echoes the beauty of Kew Gardens; the grandeur of Berlin’s Botanischer Garten marries the humble nature of Glasgow’s Botanics to create an unlikely echo of Eden.  

The path curves impossibly, surely taking him beyond the room’s logical architectural limits. Any threatening unease vanishes, however, as the air becomes filled with the scent of honeysuckle and sky-blue forget-me-nots, so perfect and pristine that Alex half-expects to discover they’ve been moulded from velvet. Their petals seem genuine however, soft and fragile beneath his fingertips as he kneels beside the rich soil.  

He could stay here, Alex thinks. He could admire the flowers for eternity, letting the ferns and ivy dwarf him beneath their towering mass. As he glances up towards the overhanging leaves and watches the light struggle to breach a natural shield, he feels akin to an ant brought face to face with its own irrelevance in an unflinching world. 

The perfection of the moment is interrupted by the tickle of a cool breeze against his cheek.  

Confused, Alex waits, lifting his hand in the air but feeling only the same thick humidity he has grown accustomed to. He gazes in the direction of the breeze, yet sees nothing more exciting than a display of flowering plants resting atop a long, wooded table as the path winds around them. Above his head, the recordings of robins and crows and hammering woodpeckers continue undeterred, while the multitude of leaves betray no sign of movement. 

The moment he rises to his feet, however, he feels it again. A short gust of wind, blowing in his direction like a cool sigh; brushing his hair back from his face and kissing his damp cheeks. Around him, the towering ferns creak, voicing their displeasure as the shadows of their leaves dance across the soil-strewn floor.  

Before he can second-guess himself, Alex wanders along the path, following the source of the breeze as it continues to wash over him. The squelching of his heels hitting the tiles gradually gives way to gentle snaps, as feathery moss is replaced with fallen twigs and gutted chestnuts. The long tables displaying potted roses and lavender and cringing foxgloves eventually make way for solid earth, caked in twisted roots and fallen leaves; the ferns make way for the familiar sight of pines and oak trees, twisting towards the sky and drowning out the sunlight with gnarled branches.  

The distant birdsong is soon accompanied by the flap of wings as a solitary magpie takes flight. A rustle of leaves draws Alex’s gaze skyward, and he finds himself caught in a staring match with a lone grey squirrel; the creature regarding him with suspicion from its chosen branch, before scrabbling upwards and vanishing amidst a sea of green. 

The cool breeze is more pervasive now, almost pleasant, carrying with it a sweet nostalgia for home. When he looks down at his feet, Alex finds that the tiled walkway has disappeared; the path before him is entirely natural as it skirts between the trees. The urge to turn around grips his heart but he resists it. He knows what he will find if he looks back. He knows without requiring proof that the garden, encased within the safety of its dome, will have vanished from sight.  

The impossibility of this is hardly lost on him, but neither is the impossibility of the blue, cloudless sky leering down at him through twisted branches, nor the faint rush of a flowing stream snaking its way down a steep hill. The impossibilities have been adding up ever since he stepped through the frosted glass into a garden he didn’t even know existed. Fighting against them all will only bring more confusion and dread, and that way madness lies. 

Besides, though he can hardly explain why, instinct tells him he should continue along this path. 

His descent into the forest is orchestrated by the snapping of twigs, the crunch of crisp brown leaves, the trickle of water as a slender stream sneaks through gaps in the earth, spilling onto a wider river in the valley below. Above his head, crows chatter amongst themselves, warning of his approach. The path twists fitfully between dense roots and thick mounds of nettles, tall enough to brush past his knees if he dares trek through the thicket. Sunbeams dance across the forest floor, bathing him in warmth whenever he turns his face to the sky. Above him, the trees are ablaze with a thick coating of auburn leaves, swaying in the breeze with a rustle that mimics the waves of the Malibu sea. 

Alex knows these woods. It takes miles of trekking for recognition to sink in, but as he passes one particular oak with low-hanging branches, his memories unlock like a precious pendant. As a fearless eight-year-old, Alex had scaled that tree, ignoring his mum’s repeated warnings and earning himself two scraped knees in the process. He remembers wandering along this footpath one spring, when the bluebells where out in force; his Walkman headphones fixed to his ears as he kicked aside fallen acorns and scouted for chestnuts. He would have been around nine then, maybe ten. Such walks had lost their charm once girls entered the equation and weekend band practice became a ritual, but his proximity to the forests surrounding Sheffield had always brought a sense of comfort. A connection to his childhood that he was unwilling to fully sever. 

It’s impossible to tell how much time passes. No matter how far he travels, the sun remains a permanent fixture in the sky. Besides an occasional twinge in his hip, his muscles betray no sense of fatigue and the path never opens up to join larger trails like he knows it should. At one point Alex passes an oak he’s sure he noticed earlier, a distinctive split in the trunk mocking him like a Chelsea smile, but he knows he can’t be running in circles. The river has remained a fixture on his left side since the forest materialised around him, a reassuring constant in the midst of so many impossibilities. 

Eventually he draws to a halt, breathless with effort and frustrated by his lack of progress. The hotel now feels like a half-forgotten dream, but the memory of it makes him yearn for the familiarity of its uniform corridors. More than anything, Alex wants this narrow forest path to carry him home, to the unchanging streets of childhood and his mother’s arms. He wants to spill his heart out to her, confess his love for Miles while she strokes his hair and assures him that he hasn’t fractured his relationship beyond repair. Perhaps that is why he chose not to turn back when doing so still felt like an option. Perhaps in the cold breeze he had recognised a call towards home; had chosen to bare his soul on Earth rather than embrace his solitude on the moon. 

Yet even here, home remains unreachable. The notion that he may be left stumbling through this forest forever, trapped in a Sisyphean quest to reach a home that is no longer waiting for him, makes Alex want to collapse to the ground and never get up. 

He’s pulled from despair by a new voice in the distance, calling out in desperation. Not a bird this time, though the idea that the source may belong to a person feels somewhat absurd. He hasn’t encountered so much as a dog-walker during his travels, and yet sure enough, as the voice draws closer, its tone is distinctly human. Human and desperate and so close that Alex can hear the crunch of twigs giving way beneath stomping feet. 

“Alex?” 

Ice creeps into his veins. His heart does a little flip in his chest as his lungs hoard his breath like dragons guarding their riches, and for a moment he’s rendered as statuesque as the fountain’s homesick mermaid. Only when his mind finally allows him to comprehend that it’s Miles who is calling his name – that Miles has come back for him – do his lungs remember that he actually needs the oxygen they are depriving him of. 

“Miles?” he yells, breaking into a sprint as he races off in the direction of Miles’s voice. Doing so guides him away from the safety of the path and into the surrounding thicket; stray branches and nettles nip at every inch of skin they can touch, but he doesn’t care because Miles is here, Miles is looking for him, and he can’t let him get away this time...  

“Alex?” Miles is getting closer now, his voice so clear he may as well be shouting in Alex’s ear. “Alex, can you hear me? I’m here love, I’m not going anywhere.” 

Alex wants to scream his affirmation until his voice grows hoarse, but he can’t. He can only run, ignoring the blood trickling down his cheek from the bite of a stray branch and the sting of thistles scratching at his ankles. It occurs to him that this may be another trick – that Miles may vanish into the shadows without a trace like he did in Room 237 – but no sooner has this notion taken hold than he sees Miles emerge into a small, sunlit clearing. 

He’s looked better. Alex imagines they both have; his own cotton shirt is torn and sweat-soaked, and his polished brogues are now caked in dried mud. Miles’s patterned shirt shows evidence of a wrestling match with a bush - in which the bush won - and his hair is sticking up at odd angles.  

And yet, his face is as beautiful as it has always been. His hazel eyes shine in the gentle glow of the afternoon sun, wet with unshed tears that refuse to slide down his cheeks. A shadow of grief clings to him as he stares at Alex, his chest heaving with emotion as he’s rendered mute under their shared gaze, but that crooked smile Alex loves so much creeps across his face before too long. Within a heartbeat, Alex finds himself ensnared by a strong, suffocating hug.  

“I thought I’d lost you,” Miles chokes, still fighting tears which are threatening to spill forth at any moment. He pulls back, cradling Alex’s cheeks in his trembling hands, studying him with so much intensity that Alex feels breathless in his wake. “Please don’t leave like that again.” 

Despite the joy threatening to overflow from his throat and ears and any other orifice it can find, Alex can’t help but frown. Something about this doesn’t add up. It was Miles who left him first. Alex is the one who should be lamenting how close he came to losing Miles, not vice versa, and he can’t imagine why Miles would have been rendered so distraught by his subsequent absence. It was he who had requested some distance between them; Alex merely pushed that notion to extremes by escaping the planet.  

There’s something else that doesn’t sit right. Despite Miles’s sudden proximity and the solidity of the arms embracing Alex’s slender frame, his voice has become distant, as though he were still stuck on the trail several yards away. It feels like they’re talking through a window, the words muffled behind glass. When Miles presses a firm kiss to Alex’s forehead, the sensation is one of being kissed through a layer of film. They’re as close as it’s possible to be without shedding their ruined clothes, yet some unseen spectre insists on separating them in all the ways that matter. 

Any attempt to voice such thoughts results in his traitorous throat clamping shut, reducing Alex’s words to a choked gasp. Miles must notice his distress, for any lingering joy on his face slowly morphs into wide-eyed panic.  

Even that is rendered irrelevant as another voice pierces the air. 

“Alex!” 

Alex spins without thinking, looking out to the undergrowth for any sign of his mother. Her voice continues to call for him, high and desperate, and suddenly he’s eight-years-old again; young and stupid and out far too late for comfort. There’s no sign of Penny - not even a tell-tale sway of foliage parting in her wake - but Alex knows she’s out there and afraid and that it’s all his fault. 

“Miles, we have to -” he starts, relieved to have found his voice at last, yet when he turns he finds that Miles has vanished. For a moment he can only stare in horror at the empty space where Miles once stood, but then his mum calls out once more and he has no choice but to rush towards her. 

As he breaks into a sprint, barging though the undergrowth and climbing the hill he’s spent hours descending, it occurs to him how dangerous this is. More experienced hikers with far better senses of direction have become stranded in these woods after straying from demarcated trails, and he’s lost all sense of where the path begins again. Some buried instinct tells him that so long as he keeps the river within his sights he’ll be fine, but he isn’t entirely sure he believes that. 

It’s hard to care, however, as he follows the sound of his mother’s desperate cries. Unlike with Miles, his mum’s voice grows more distant the closer he gets to her, until the echo is louder than her initial strangled yell. Panic gnaws at his chest as he clings desperately to any remaining trace of her. He may as well be a lost child again, wandering the woods with tears trickling down his face; blood seeping from his grazed knees as he cries out for his mum to wrap him in her arms and take him home. He can almost feel her hand cradling his own; can feel her fingers carding through his hair as her lowkey rendition of Bowie’s ‘Kooks’ lulls him into slumber. The words ‘I’m right here sweetheart’ brush against his ears like a stray breeze, but the effect is as muted as Miles’s desperate pleas had been, and before long all trace of her vanishes in the dark. 

Because it truly is dark now. The sun has abandoned him while he wasn’t looking.  

A sob threatens to unleash itself from Alex’s throat as he spins in a circle, desperate to make out a safe route among the shadowy silhouettes of trees. The warm, artificial sun blanketing the garden feels like a sweet delusion now. The dark was always waiting for him, luring him here with precious memories and the promise of a loved one’s embrace.  

Even now he can hear it trying to trick him. Creeping through the silence, drowning out the rush of the distant river, Alex can hear snatches of conversation; the clipped tones of Jamie, bickering playfully with a deeper, more deadpan sparring partner who must surely be Matt. He hears the familiar warm tones of his dad recounting his day in that inimitable Yorkshire drawl, and the promise of ‘I’ll see you soon, mate’ from an unusually reserved Nick, before the pressure of soft lips pervades his forehead. For the most part all Alex can interpret is incomprehensible babble, with only the odd phrase making its way through the void, but the traces of his friends and father are so sweet that the instant the silence devours them, Alex has to suppress a scream. 

In the aftermath, all he can hear is the sound of his own ragged breathing and the weak trickle of a nearby stream. The river – his sole remaining guide – registers as only a faint whisper carried on an icy breeze that slices through his thin shirt.  

Teeth chattering and barely able to see his own hand in front of his face, Alex takes a couple of baby steps in an attempt to get the lay of the land. The ground slopes downward at a steep incline on his right, leading to a narrow valley which should at least reunite him with the flowing river and a moonlit clearing. Only a faint glow manages to penetrate the tightly packed forest ceiling, but he glimpses enough light to know that the darkness is not the all-consuming foe he feared it would be. 

Trekking down a hill blind proves to be an almost insurmountable challenge, however. With every snap of twisted gorse or near-miss with a thick root or unforeseen burrow, Alex’s heart leaps into his throat before pounding against his eardrums. Even the birds have fled to safer realms by now, and the trees merely watch dispassionately as he shuffles down unforgiving terrain in the hope of surviving the night with his bones intact.  

There’s a small part of him – lurking deep within his subconscious – that wonders if falling would be such a bad thing. The series of events he’s endured today have been so improbable that he must surely be dreaming, and what better method than a fall to yank him back to consciousness? Perhaps, if he’s lucky, he’ll even wake in his own bed, cradled in Miles’s arms with the moon’s glow draped across their naked bodies, only to learn that he never left. That there was never any reason to abandon Earth, because he never pushed Miles into breaking up with him in the first place.  

His hypothesis is abruptly tested when his foot lands awkwardly on a twisted branch. With a lurch, Alex finds the ground falling away until there’s only a rush of air and an almost-pleasant sensation of floating. 

That feeling ends with a sickening crunch as his shoulder collides with solid ground, and what little of the world he can see spins mercilessly as he plummets into the depths of the valley. Pain explodes in rapid bursts as his body is wracked by the impact of branch against shoulder, of stone against hip – his descent a constant assault that leaves him bruised and bleeding. 

Even when the ground finally evens out, there is little relief to be found. His fall is brought to a sudden halt by the blinding impact of his left temple against solid rock, and a wave of nausea threatens to consume him as his vision whitens. Warm liquid trickles down his cheek, seeping into his eyes and sticking his lashes together, but it makes no difference. All he can see now is a blanket of white, a blinding void that does nothing to dull the fire consuming the entire left side of his body. Already he can sense that something is broken, but it’s impossible to tell what. His body is too heavy – the parts not consumed by pain instead encased in numbing ice – and though he knows it would be a terrible idea, all he wants to do is sleep. 

Alex nearly succumbs to his desire – the white almost fading to a familiar empty blackness – but a mechanical whir returns him promptly to the present. With considerable effort, he turns his head to find that the whiteness he thought was the result of agony may actually be more solid than that, as a blurry figure emerges into his sphere of awareness. A spark of recognition alights within Alex as he spots a familiar cream blazer amidst the staticky fuzz. 

“Oh Alex,” a voice says, tutting like a disappointed teacher as its source tilts its head to regard the creature lying at its feet. “What are we going to do with you?” 

Alex doesn’t get a chance to answer before creeping blackness returns, and he slips into blissful unconsciousness with only minimal resistance.  

Chapter Text

It was a sweat-soaked, sultry summer that heralded the birth of their third baby.   

At the height of an oppressive heatwave, the fierce sun had radiated the sleepy London streets; projecting illusions of melted tarmac and puddles that vanished the instant one drew near. News channels became preoccupied with reports of the third record-breaking summer in a row, the south of England depicted in blistering red on their displayed maps, and Alex’s delicate skin had adopted a permanent pink hue in spite of his ritualistic application of suncream.  

It had been easy to ignore the fact that the planet was on fire. Within the safe, air-conditioned confines of Abbey Road Studios, Alex and Miles had shed all thoughts of the outside world as they noodled away on guitars and drew up new melodies on the piano. During lunch breaks they sat together, knee to knee like the old days, poring over lyrics and celebrating whenever a perfect metaphor joined their frantic scribbles. Within their safe cocoon, inspiration flared like an Olympic flame; unflinching and undying even in rare moments of creative conflict. The album came together almost too smoothly – certainly too quickly for Alex’s taste – as Miles’s reawakened love for Northern Soul married Alex’s seventies head in perfect harmony.   

When their third baby was finally complete and they listened to her all the way through alongside James and Owen, Alex had searched desperately for a flaw. For a song that needed reworking, or even a point where the tracks didn’t flow properly, signalling the need for a new addition to bridge the gap.   

Nothing presented itself. The album was as perfect as their summer had been.  

The prospect of coming together to write a new Puppets record had never felt like a certainty on the horizon. Certainly not in the wake of their last tour; itself a perfect summer filled with longing and intimacy. Alex struggles to remember a more perfect time in his life than the summer of 2016. Even as the world itself hung over a terrifying precipice, Alex had been unable to comprehend anything beyond the perfection of Miles’s face and the feeling of his hands roaming across his skin; the warmth of Miles’s breath against his lips – both onstage and off – and the perfect contentment that came with waking up in his arms.  

But then the summer had ended. The tour’s climax had severed their connection as normality beckoned, reminding them of their separate homes and neglected girlfriends.   

Alex has to shoulder the blame for the ugliness that followed. Miles had actually been willing to explore an alternative outcome in which they stayed together. In which their fling was not a mere dalliance relegated to the past, doomed to remain locked away in their memories. They could have tried to be together properly. They could have walked away from their normal lives and explored a beautiful new one in which they co-existed as an actual couple.  

Alex had turned his offer down. To this day, he cannot say why. A spark of fear, perhaps, or a lingering sense of loyalty to Taylor that he would go on to squander anyway. The fallout had been ugly and the resultant silence had stretched over months, sending Alex into a dark pit he feared he would never emerge from.  

Only an impromptu visit from Jamie and an extended olive branch from Miles had succeeded in bringing him back into the light.  

Their friendship had recovered. The progress had been slow, reliant on a degree of second-guessing that always felt alien between them, but they made it work. Miles would call Alex up in the middle of the night from halfway across the world, debuting a new song as Alex listened with intent adoration. They found excuses to meet up at the pub, just the two of them, to talk about nothing and everything. They’d find their way into each other’s homes and curl up on the sofa to watch the Euros or a wrestling match or an old movie that Alex used to love. Such sleepovers would often end with Alex nodding off, his head perched on Miles’s shoulder, and he would invariably wake in Miles’s embrace, a warm blanket draped over them both as they curled up on the couch.  

They drew the line at sex. That had been agreed years before; one of Miles’s tentative caveats as they rekindled their relationship. It made sense. As wonderful as their friends-with-benefits dynamic had felt at the time, the ugly fallout had left them both heartbroken and confused.   

Less destructive displays of affection worked their way back into their lives over time. Miles had always been very free with his kisses, and Alex was often subject to a peck on the cheek or forehead, or even the lips if Miles was feeling bold. Equally common was a declaration of love on Miles’s part, and the warmth that blossomed within Alex’s chest whenever he heard those precious words was addictive. Ultimately, however, they avoided falling into each other’s bed for eight long years, and Alex had been relieved to find that the absence of sex did nothing to destroy their re-established status quo.  

That had all changed during their perfect, sultry summer. Neither of them had offered much resistance in the end. It was like they were doomed to fall back into old habits the instant they started writing together. From the moment Miles regarded Alex with a shy smile and asked “Why don’t we try for another baby?” their fate was set in stone.  

The timing was perfect. They were both based in London – so too were James and Owen as it turned out. They were both in-between projects; the tour for Miles’s fifth album had recently concluded while the thought of an eighth Arctic Monkeys record felt like a very distant dream. They were both newly single and had recovered from their periods of heartbreak well enough to appreciate the merits of having unlimited time to spend in the studio, with zero obligations tearing them away.   

Securing Abbey Road for the summer had been the cherry on top of a very delicious cake. Walking through its halls for the first time had felt like exploring a musical legacy that dwarfed them in its wake; iconic history dripped from every wall in the form of photographs or priceless instruments or framed vinyl covers. There were times where the spacious white setting fit their seventies-inspired concoctions so perfectly that walking out into the 21st century at the end of a session felt deeply unsettling.  

One evening they both wound up in Alex’s lounge - an arrangement that had become semi-permanent since the first week of recording. Alex had poured them both a glass of red wine, though neither would become inebriated enough to chalk up the night to a drunken mistake. Miles rested on the sofa beside Alex, slender fingers working out the melody to a song they’d drawn a blank on in the studio, eager to rescue it from the cutting-room floor. For several long minutes, Alex had been content to simply watch, fighting a smile as Miles started to hum a new version of the bridge that had eluded them all day.   

Eventually Alex began to sing over the melody. Nonsense words really, not something that would make it to the final recording, but Miles didn’t mind. He simply played on, taking the bridge by the hand and guiding it back to the chorus with a chord change so perfect, it felt absurd that it had eluded them for so long.  

By the time the song came to an end and Miles set his acoustic aside, the air had become thick and heady. Even with the windows thrown wide and a fan working valiantly in the corner, the heat sauntered towards them undaunted, leaving them soft and sleepy in its wake. Something in the way Miles raised his eyes had forced Alex’s breath to leave him on a shuddering exhale, and he’d known then how the night would unfold.  

His heart performed a somersault as Miles lifted a hand to his cheek, merely watching his face for a few seconds as though seeking permission. Alex had been quick to grant it, though his aptitude for words betrayed him to such an extent that he had been forced to resort to a shaky nod.   

The need for words vanished in an instant, as his mind was suddenly consumed by the warmth of Miles’s lips against his own and the taste of wine on his tongue; by quiet whispers of his name uttered between ragged breaths, and a liquid fire raging in his belly as he carded a hand through Miles’s hair and acquiesced to his desire.  

After - once they’d collapsed onto Alex’s bed and were lying sated amongst tangled sheets - Alex had rested on his side and gazed at Miles’s face, searching for any hint of regret; unsure if he would survive the moment Miles realised he’d made a terrible mistake and climbed out of bed uttering strangled apologies.   

No such indignity awaited him, as it turned out. Miles merely drew Alex into his arms and smiled that boyish smile he’d always loved, planting a sweet kiss on his cheek and cradling him until they both drifted into contented slumber.  

The rest of the summer felt like that one night stretched over weeks. Miles’s presence in Alex’s house became a permanent fixture, one which Alex was only too happy to accommodate. Every morning he would wake to a gentle sunrise and the sight of Miles, either still asleep and angelic in his slumber, or already greeting him with a lazy smile and a whispered “Morning beautiful”. Alex’s lack of culinary skills was remedied by Miles’s natural flair in the kitchen, and their breakfasts became an assortment of omelettes and baguettes and freshly made pancakes with crispy bacon. They’d make their way to the studio together, often choosing to walk the whole way simply to extend their conversation, and they would share a cab on the way home, high off the creativity of the day. Miles would make Alex dinner in the evenings, or they’d order take-out if they got home late, and their conversations would inevitably devolve into frantic kisses and needy moans as they determined to make up for lost time.  

It was perfect.   

On the rare occasions where Alex woke up first and could let his eyes roam over Miles’s sleeping form, he would wonder what he’d done to deserve such a sublime creature. Certainly nothing he could think of. In a sane world, Miles would be free to pursue someone who actually deserved him, rather than finding himself drawn back to Alex time and time again. In retrospect, Alex should have known to distrust the contentment of that summer. He should have known he would inevitably sabotage everything all over again, but at the time it had been easier to surrender to bliss and pretend the summer would never end.  

The completion of the album stuck a pin in such hopes. The arrival of their third baby inevitably led to discussions about press tours, about live shows and radio interviews, about exposing themselves to the world after so many weeks encased within a safe bubble. With an album’s upcoming release came scrutiny and the prospect of being torn away from the domestic bliss they’d created for themselves.  

The most brutal reminder of this came in the form of an offhand comment from James as they sat around the mixing desk discussing possible album titles. Miles and Alex had been perched side by side, shoulders touching and eyes pinned to each other, throwing out one ridiculous suggestion after another with very little regard for James. A throwaway remark from Alex – one which he can no longer remember – had made Miles laugh so hard that he’d rewarded him with a firm kiss to the cheek, and only then had Alex remembered the other man in the room.  

The stunned expression on James’s face had been comical at first, however his disbelieving exclamation of “Give me strength, you’re fucking again!” had sent ice shooting through Alex’s veins.   

He knows, even now, that James didn’t mean anything by it. The man had protected their secret for years, having discovered them in an awkward position during the recording of their second album. Miles had certainly picked up on the jape, laughing sheepishly before draping a possessive arm across Alex’s shoulder, but the lightening of the mood had failed to stop Alex’s heart from racing.  

James was one thing. Alex knew he genuinely cared for them and would take their secret to the grave if they asked him to. Public opinion and media personalities were another beast entirely, and if their relationship was so obvious that James could uncover the truth through mere observation, who knew how long they’d survive under a spotlight?  

That was all it took. With that seed of doubt planted, Alex’s mind was set on a course that would destroy everything he loved for the second time in eight years.  

“D’you think we should tone things down?”   

Alex finds himself voicing his musings later that evening, already hating himself before the words leave his mouth. “On the next tour, I mean?” 

They’re holed up in Alex’s lounge, sat around his coffee table and drawing up a list of potential venues for the winter leg of their tour. The Roundhouse and Sheffield City Hall are already inscribed in black ink, but they’ve come to a disagreement over whether Edinburgh’s Usher Hall or Glasgow’s Armadillo would be the better option for their Scottish date. Miles had been in the process of writing down both venues followed by a giant question mark when Alex pulled his question out of thin air. 

“Hmm?” Miles hums, lifting his eyes from the page and regarding Alex with an apologetic smile that shatters his heart. “Sorry, you’ve lost me.” 

It’s at that moment that Alex realises he can’t get away with disguising his concerns as a casual proposal, and he lowers his eyes to his clasped hands as he picks at his nails. 

“I were just thinking, what with the tour comin’ up. You remember how people used to talk about us last time; how we’d get all these suggestive comments no matter what we did. And we were only foolin’ around back then...”  

Miles gently scoffs at that, but Alex presses on regardless.  

“I’m just worried people will catch on. Now that we’re...”  

We’re what? Serious? Actually acting as if we’re in a relationship and not just finding excuses to fall into bed for a cheap fuck? Now that Alex thinks about it, he isn’t so sure himself. 

He forces himself to look up at Miles, still sat beside him on the carpet, clearly trying to school his expression into that of a passive listener. For a moment he simply waits, allowing Alex time to complete his thought, only to shake his head once it becomes clear that isn’t going to happen. 

“We were doin’ a hell of a lot more than just foolin’ around last time, Al. Those comments didn’t come from nowhere,” Miles teases, trying to laugh off Alex’s concerns but not quite succeeding. The scars from that heady summer still run far too deep.  

As the room descends into silence once more, Miles reaches for Alex’s hand and cradles it like one might handle a grenade.  

“Would it really be such a bad thing if people knew?” 

His voice sounds so small, so afraid of Alex’s answer, that Alex wants to renege on his argument and cast his fears aside. Already a stirring of self-loathing has awakened in his gut, making him desperate to curl up and hide under the covers like a small child. 

“You know it would be,” he murmurs, tearing his eyes from Miles’s face before his resolve can go up in flames. “Our managers would hate it for one. We’d lose whole chunks of our audience - it’d affect the other guys’ careers as well. And let’s face it, people would blame you for corruptin’ me or summat idiotic like that, you know they would.” 

“I’m not worried about that,” Miles states firmly, leaning forward to press a warm kiss to Alex’s cheek in order to execute his point. “People have been blaming me for corruptin’ you ever since we were teenagers. And if we lose any fans then fuck ‘em! We’re clearly better off without them.” 

Alex can’t resist a choked laugh at that, his cheek still warm where Miles marked him. He envies Miles. He wishes he possessed his self-assurance, his unwavering confidence and knowledge of his own worth. He wishes he too could face the world and flip the bird to those who would seek to hurt him and those he loves. 

Perhaps he did possess that confidence once upon a time, but it’s been chipped away over the years by media scrutiny and label expectations and a string of failed relationships. 

“I’m just scared,” Alex admits, turning to face Miles again with a sigh. The hand still locked in Miles’s own becomes subject to a reassuring squeeze, but Alex has become so numb that the limb might as well be severed from his body. “You know what people will do if they find out. They’ll pry. They’ll dig into our private lives until we have no secrets left. They’ll start calling up our friends for statements about our sex life. We wouldn’t get a moment’s peace and it would ruin everything we have. I don’t wanna risk that.” 

In the immediate wake of his spiel, the only sound pervading the space is the ticking of the clock on his mantelpiece. In that moment, the persistent ticking is the only assurance Alex gets that the world hasn’t frozen around him. Miles too sits still, pondering his budding retort for a few seconds, before releasing a sigh and shuffling closer to Alex, close enough to drape an arm around him and hold him tight. 

“You’re overthinking this, Al,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to Alex’s temple that feels like a brand. “It’s 2024. People aren’t as fussed about gay celebrities as they used to be.” 

“We’re not gay,” Alex retorts with a flinch.  

He’s not offended by the acknowledgement that he can hardly call himself straight anymore. He’s already made peace with his inability to label his sexuality; he knows it’s not necessarily men that he’s attracted to but Miles - his Miles - in his singular beauty.  

He also knows that the media will allow no room for such complexity. That in spite of his previous relationships with women, the presence of a man in his love life will render him a ‘gay celebrity’ with no room for further nuance. 

“Bi then,” Miles concedes with a tiny smile. There’s a softness in that smile and a twinkle in his eyes that implies he understands Alex’s grievances all too well. The moment passes in a heartbeat, however, and when Miles speaks again there’s an underlying uncertainty in his voice that makes Alex want to weep.  

“What is this really about, Al? When you say we need to tone things down, do you mean when we’re onstage? In interviews?” 

Alex has to bite his lip and can only shake his head as Miles studies him, like he’s a child refusing to admit to some wrongdoing. The air suddenly feels oppressive, their conversation too heavy in light of their recent laughter over dinner and drinks, and he’s afraid, so afraid, that Miles will stumble upon the truth before he can figure out a way to explain himself articulately.

Too late. Miles is already two steps ahead of him. 

“Or d’you mean you don’t want what we have to go any further than it already has?” Miles asks, sounding so small and frightened it’s like he fears that voicing the question will automatically make it true. And the worst thing of all is that Alex can’t refute him, not entirely, and the sight of Miles’s face falling brings the sting of tears to his eyes.  

“Mi...” he chokes, his words swallowed by a lump in his throat. A stray tear finally defeats his resolve, leaving a trail that Miles instinctively starts to wipe away, before lowering his trembling hand.  

“Oh god. That is what you mean, isn’t it?” Miles breathes, his face blanching as the unspoken implications sink in. Chest heaving, he rises to his feet and paces the living room in a mindless daze, running a shaky hand through his hair before leaving it there, as though that contact is the only comfort available to him. 

“It’s not what you think!” Alex insists, clumsily rising to his feet and planting himself before Miles resolutely, cradling his face in his hands and forcing him to look in his eyes. “I love what we have. I love spending time with you every day. I love waking up next to you.”  

I love you, he wants to say so badly, but the words stick to his throat like glue and refuse to budge.  

“But you know what I’m like. I fall in love quickly and violently and the instant I hit the ground, the impact destroys everything around me. Every time I think I’ve figured it out - that I’ve found someone I can settle down with - I find some way to ruin it all in the end. And if we become more than what we are now - if we’re serious about this - then I’ll find a way to ruin it with you too. Whether through my own bullshit or as a side-effect of people finding out about us and deciding it’s their place to dig into our lives until there’s nothing left.”  

By the time his voice gives out on him, Alex is left breathless and deflated and he can feel yet more tears trailing down his cheeks. There’s a certain release in unrelenting honesty, however. He’s known deep down that he’s not good enough for Miles – that Miles could do so much better if he put his mind to it – and he knows he’d never be able to forgive himself if he tied Miles down to a relationship that was doomed to fail. What they have now - this quiet domesticity - is a taste of sheer perfection, but Alex knows he has to draw the line before the fantasy becomes too enticing to resist. 

“It’s better this way,” Alex concludes with a broken nod. “It’s better when we’re just having a bit of fun. I can’t risk breaking your heart again, Mi. We barely survived it last time.” 

He drops his hands from Miles’s face, letting them rest on his shoulders instead. For a moment Miles simply stares at him, open-mouthed and restless, before he deflates and lowers his gaze to the floor. 

“What if I wanted more than that?” he whispers, so softly that Alex almost mishears him, before heaving a great sigh and facing Alex with a newfound conviction. “Alex, sweetheart, I’ve known you for years. I’m well aware of your flaws and your tendency to overthink yourself into a crisis, and it hasn’t made me love you any less. It never could. Even when things got bad...” 

Miles flinches then, and it’s hard not to be reminded that their current argument sounds very much like the one that ruined them after their previous tour. Alex’s heart races at that notion, gripped by a sudden desperation to pull everything back from the brink, but he doesn’t know where to begin. 

“Even when things got bad and I told myself that it was over - that we’d remain friends and nothing more - I still loved you,” Miles admits. Those simple words - that admission Miles is so fond of - no longer brings with it the pleasant warmth that Alex has learned to crave. Instead, every utterance of ‘I loved you’ feels like a knife in the gut, with liquid guilt spilling from the wound instead of blood. “There’s nothing you could do that will change that. Nothing you could do that would destroy my love for you. You do realise that, don’t you?” 

Yes, Alex wants to say so badly. I love you too lingers on his tongue like a sacred cure to all his ills, but the hateful part of himself takes control of the driver’s seat before he can stop it and proceeds to light his world on fire, turning his unvoiced confession to ashes in his mouth.  

“You can’t know that,” Alex snaps, seized by a sudden volatility that has him backing away, until he’s no longer touching Miles. “You can’t possibly know that!” 

Miles opens his mouth to object, but Alex interrupts him before his resolve can weaken any further. 

“I can’t do this,” he admits, his chest burning with the pain of an unreleased sob. “I wish I could. I wish I could see myself spending the rest of my life with you. I wish we could grow old together until we’re stuck in the same nursing home in our matching tracksuits. I wish I could trust myself to be someone worthy of that kind of love. But I’m not. And I know that if we try - if we really try to turn what we have into that kind of relationship – then it’ll all go up in flames and I’ll lose you forever, and I’m sorry Miles but I can’t let that happen.” 

A pathetic sob does erupt from him then. Miles simply watches him in a daze, eyes staring at nothing, his fingers clenching as though yearning to reach out and comfort Alex but not quite managing to muster the strength. The words settle in the air like stubborn dust motes, a death sentence to any hope they may have had that things could carry on as normal, and it’s a long time before either of them break the silence. 

Miles ultimately shatters it first. The air is sliced through with an eruption of mirthless laughter that descends into a sob, as Miles buries his face in his hands. 

“I’m such an idiot,” Miles utters, glancing up with red-rimmed eyes only to reconsider, spinning on his heels as though the sight of Alex burns him. “I really thought... I really let myself think that we could do it right this time. That you were ready to take us seriously. God, I’m such a moron .”

There’s so much self-directed anger in that statement that Alex has to fight the urge to pull Miles into a hug. This is wrong. Miles shouldn’t see this as his own fault, shouldn’t be standing there admonishing himself for Alex’s own deficiencies. This whole evening feels like yet another of his colossal failures and the sight of Miles in pain resounds like a dagger in his heart. 

“Miles-” Alex starts, making his way over to hold Miles or kiss him or beg at his feet for forgiveness. He hasn’t quite decided yet, but he’s willing to debase himself in any way Miles sees fit. 

Miles doesn’t give him a chance, however. Instead he turns to face Alex, his expression stoic despite the blotches on his cheeks, and he places his hands on Alex’s shoulders as though afraid that Alex will leave and slam a door in his face if he lets go. 

“Listen to me,” Miles says, reserving far more gentleness for Alex than he gave himself, and Alex knows he could never tune him out even if he wanted to. “I love you. I’ve loved you since I was a dumb teenager who barely knew what love was. I’ve loved you even after you picked someone else over me. But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t wait around forever while you let your insecurity dictate our future.”

His hands drop from Alex’s shoulders as he takes a step back, and the impact of his words punches Alex in the gut. Cold dread consumes him like a shower of torrential rain, and he wants to beg Miles to stop talking, to forget everything Alex has said and stay with him, but his voice refuses to emerge from his traitorous throat. 

“And if this is as far as it goes - if all I’ll ever be in your eyes is a casual fuck as opposed to someone you can actually settle down with - then we need to stop this charade because I can’t do this again,” Miles chokes as new tears prick his eyes. “It hurts too much.” 

The words ‘casual fuck’ echo in Alex’s head and for a moment it feels like he’s been slapped in the face. The idea that he would ever regard Miles as something so meaningless rather than seeing him as the most important person in his life is preposterous, and the awful thing is that – at least in this moment – Miles seems to believe it.

“You’re not,” he tries to explain, but the words he needs remain in hiding. “Miles, I would never...” 

His explanation dies in his throat as newfound motivation grips Miles and he storms out of the lounge, his heavy footfalls bounding up the stairs as Alex stares numbly at the space he once occupied. Common sense grips him eventually, forcing him to wipe the tears from his face and follow Miles up to the bedroom. Their bedroom, he corrects himself immediately, although the sight which greets him as he stands in the doorway casts doubt on that particular detail.  

Miles has dug out his rucksack and is rummaging through the drawers, trying to discern which items of clothing were originally his and which are Alex’s. He stuffs a handful of shirts into his bag before picking up a pair of trousers and socks from the floor, adding them to the messy pile. Alex can only watch in numb terror, gripped by a sense of déjà vu that leaves him breathless. How is it that he’s managed to fuck things up so completely again? How has he managed to fulfil his own prophecy about the fate of their relationship in the space of a single evening? 

“You’re leaving?” he asks, rather redundantly given that there’s no other feasible explanation for Miles’s actions. He can’t help but cling to a stubborn ray of hope though, no matter how miniscule it may be. 

“I don’t know,” Miles admits, pausing for a moment as he regards his hurriedly packed rucksack. He turns to Alex – still glued to the doorway – with a gentleness he doesn’t deserve, and in that split second Alex foolishly wonders if his hope will bear fruit.  

“Yes, I think so. I need to clear me ‘ead.” 

Alex can’t speak. A vice tightens around his chest as he fights the urge to scream, and he has to grab the doorframe in order to remain upright. Miles must notice his distress, for he immediately abandons his packing and rushes over to pull Alex into a tight hug. It’s far too brief and the glancing kiss against Alex’s cheek is barely there, but those few seconds where he’s encased in Miles’s arms feel like the only time he’s been able to breathe since James unleashed his fateful remark. 

“Alex, look at me,” Miles urges, and Alex forces himself to open his eyes. They’re both crying now, but neither makes a move to wipe the tears away. “Whatever happens, whatever you decide, I will always be your best friend. And if there’s a part of you that wants us to be more than that - that seriously wants to give us a shot - then I’ll be right by your side in a heartbeat. But that’s a decision you’ve got to make on your own. I can’t help you with this. All I can do is assure you that I don’t give a fuck what the media or the fans will say. I don’t care about the sides of you that you’ve decided are so unforgivable they’ll destroy any chance we have to be happy, because I’ve already seen you at your worst and it hasn’t made a damn bit of difference to how I feel.”  

He pauses, and for a moment Alex wonders if he’s made the decision to stay. If he can be convinced to stick around while Alex attempts to comprehend what he’s just said; that they could have a future together, if he can only summon the bravery required to embrace that chance with open arms. 

The moment passes, as Alex knew it would, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like a limb has been severed from his torso as Miles walks back over to the bed and grabs his rucksack. 

“But I can’t stay here and pretend we’re okay when I don’t even know where we stand,” Miles concludes, unable to look at Alex as he does so. Without another word he wanders into their – that word again – ensuite and grabs his toothbrush and toiletries, before zipping up his bag and making his way past Alex and into the hallway. 

Panic grips Alex then and he launches himself down the stairs after Miles, freezing at the bottom step as he watches Miles’s hand hover over the front door handle. Miles appears to be frozen in place, caught between two worlds, and the thought of him disappearing into the night shatters whatever’s left of Alex’s wretched heart. 

“Don’t go,” he begs, knowing that it won’t make a difference. “You’re right, I should never have said those things. It wasn’t fair.” 

Miles doesn’t move, doesn’t even give a sign that Alex’s words have registered. His knuckles are white where they grip the handle of his rucksack and he eventually turns his head vaguely in Alex’s direction, but not enough to face him fully. Perhaps he’s afraid his resolve will weaken if he allows himself one look back, or perhaps he thinks Alex will simply disappear and be lost to him forever like Eurydice. The sight of him deliberating over whether to stay or go is agonising, so much so that when he finally makes his decision, it’s almost a relief. 

“Goodbye Alex,” Miles says finally, pulling the door open and letting the muggy heat engulf him. As though breaking a spell, he casts a final, fleeting glance back at Alex and throws him a weak smile which fails to reach his eyes. “Let me know what you decide, will you?” 

Alex can only nod his promise before the door closes with an amplified slam and Miles vanishes from sight. In his absence, the house suddenly feels devoid of life; the only sounds being the hum of a refrigerator and Alex’s own ragged breaths.  

The colours around him suddenly become muted as though viewed through a sepia filter, and with a sickening lurch, Alex feels himself being pulled from his body until he’s viewing his own trembling form from the safety of the lounge; watching as he lingers on the stairs in the hope that Miles will find an excuse to come back. 

As Alex approaches his past self with weightless steps, he’s gripped by a sense of loathing that burns like poison in his veins. He watches the pathetic creature wait and wait, already knowing that Miles has no intention of coming back unless Alex gets his act together. 

“You fucking idiot,” he hisses under his breath, but the other Alex gives no indication of having heard him. Instead, he simply surrenders to his self-inflicted grief and collapses to the floor, too numb to even cry.  

Wakefulness develops a habit of hovering before Alex, just out of reach, before flitting away the instant he tries to grasp it. The state he finds himself trapped within is not exactly sleep – he's far too lucid for that – but his impressions of the world around him are too faint for any other possibility to apply.  

As he remains trapped within a senseless void, he watches memories whiz by like comets. He watches the moment Miles slams the door behind him so many times that the sound no longer makes him flinch. He hears the echoes of Miles and his mum resounding throughout the trees of the impossible forest; feels the crack of skull meeting solid rock as his fall grinds to a brutal halt. Glimpses of his perfect, ruined summer clash with images he knows to be more recent – snapshots of endless corridors and marble walls and a secret garden tucked away at the centre of it all.  

The two experiences struggle to gel within his exhausted mind. Too much connective tissue is missing for his liking; the pieces of the puzzle don’t fully click, leaving a massive question mark looming over the past three days. 

And then, with a gasp, he finds that morning has arrived.  

Alex wakes to find his head resting on a soft pillow, vibrant red sheets embracing his knackered body. Snapshots of yesterday flash before his eyes like a film reel, showing him stills of a flowing river and towering oak trees and the battered form of his own body sprawled on a bed of twigs. The latter memory sends a prickle of agony along his left side, seizing his shoulder and hip and dissolving everything in between, yet when he finds the strength to look down, he finds that he is impossibly intact. His clothes are the same as yesterday, but where he would expect to find mud and bloodied tears, the cotton is pristine and whole.  

An experimental lift of his left arm and leg assures him that nothing is broken; even the pain has deserted him. When he lifts his fingers to his temple, expecting blood-matted hair and a deep gouge, he finds only soft, unmarked skin beneath his touch. 

Had it all been a dream then? A vivid delusion borne of intense solitude? Alex doesn’t think so – the details are too rich for that – but unless medical technology on the moon has progressed far beyond the capabilities of Earthen hospitals, there’s no other explanation. Why else would he have heard the voices of his mother and his bandmates, all of whom he’s rather neglected since shacking up with Miles? How else does he explain seeing Miles on multiple occasions since his arrival, when he must surely be back home? 

Unless he’s going mad - which is a distinct possibility - what Alex saw must have been a dream. So why then is that explanation so unsatisfactory? Why can he never remember actually laying his head down to sleep? 

Tired of his mind going in circles, he forces himself to sit up and rests his spine against the stack of pillows with a weak groan. Coming here was a mistake. Instead of running away from the void Miles left, Alex should have reached out to someone. He should have gone home to Sheffield and allowed his mum to make everything better with her signature combo of tea and hugs. He should have picked up the phone and exposed his heartbreak to Matt or Nick or Jamie, allowing them to be there for him in the same way he had their backs during similar relationship hiccoughs.  

Glancing across to the bedside table, he spots a bright red phone which he knows can make Earthbound calls – albeit for a considerable fee – and lets himself consider the possibility of picking it up. He memorised his bandmates’ numbers years ago in case of an emergency; he could call any one of them at random and be better off for it. 

The instant this idea takes root, the phone itself shatters the silence with a piercing ring. Alex can only stare at it for several seconds, his heart pounding from shock and a childish hope that maybe, just maybe, his friends have read his mind and are reaching out to him across the stars. The notion is ridiculous, yes, but their connection has often felt like a telepathic one and literally nothing has the power to surprise him anymore. 

It’s with this vague hope that he picks up the phone, only to be instantly disappointed as his steward’s unplaceable twang arises from the speakers. 

“Good morning, Mr Turner,” Brian chirps happily, blissfully unaware that Alex would hardly describe his morning in such terms. “I trust you are well. Just thought I should check in after yesterday’s excitement.” 

A chill grips Alex as the events of yesterday are all but confirmed. Alex doubts Brian is referring to their brief encounter in the lobby, and while he’s sure Brian has eyes planted all over the hotel, his wanderings to Room 237 and the casino can hardly require follow-up either. 

It occurs to Alex then that Brian may have been responsible for rescuing him from the garden, and a coiling unease settles in his gut for reasons he cannot explain. 

“What was that place?” he asks eventually, lacking the patience for meaningless niceties.  

“That was our rather aptly named ‘Memory Garden’. Not the most imaginative of titles, I must confess,” Brian supplies without hesitation. Alex can clearly envision his eyeroll despite barely knowing the man. “It’s a new prototype. I’m not surprised you weren’t aware of it. The basic premise is that we use state-of-the-art virtual technology to access a guest’s memories and recreate a place they have a particular fondness for. Some of our longer-term residents have complained of homesickness in recent years and this was felt to be an effective method of relieving such anxieties.” 

Alex fails to hold back a bitter laugh. 

“It’s designed to relieve anxiety?” he asks, incredulous, as particular memories return to the forefront; the panic in Miles’s eyes and the crushing force he’d used upon finding Alex in the clearing; the desperation in his mother’s voice; a distant Nick bidding him farewell before leaving a ghostly kiss on his forehead. The terror that had raced through his veins as he’d tried to find his way in the dark. The sickening roil his stomach gave as he lost his footing. The agony that exploded across his broken body when he finally hit the ground.  

“Not bein’ funny but it were a little intense.” 

Brian must have been anticipating this response, for he communicates his agreement with a sympathetic sigh. 

“Yes, so I’ve been told,” he concedes. “It’s still in the development stages and we’ve had similar hiccoughs in the past. I do apologise for your experience. I had been led to believe that area was cordoned off to visitors.” 

The urge to deliver a snarky retort grips Alex for a split second, but his annoyance dissolves as quickly as it came. For all his overreliance on corporate phrasing, Brian at least has the grace to sound genuinely apologetic. 

Alex tries to cast his mind back to his discovery of the hidden garden. Had it been closed off to the public? He doesn’t remember encountering any barriers besides the single sign he couldn’t read, and the glass door had opened easily with only a gentle push. Then again, in the wake of sighting and then losing Miles, Alex had been rather distracted. For all he knows, he may have wandered past multiple cordons or barriers without registering a single one. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says a tad belatedly, not quite assigning blame to himself but not quite denying it either. “So you’re sayin’ none of it was real?” 

That prospect seems so unlikely, even factoring in variables like futuristic technology and mind-reading probes. Perhaps the air had been suffused with hallucinogens, but Alex has had ample experience with those and the comedown isn’t usually this arduous. 

“The room has some props here and there,” Brian explains. “The plants and fountain are intended to set the scene and lure our guests towards a pleasant destination. Everything else that arises is entirely down to the vividness of one’s own imagination, for better or worse.” 

Alex can only hum in response. So in a sense, the whole sorry affair was his own fault. No doubt such technology was not intended to cater to someone who, in the aftermath of breaking his best friend’s heart, had decided that fleeing to the moon would be a better idea than picking up the phone to make amends. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Brian asks eventually, and only then does Alex remember that he’s left him hanging. He wonders what help Brian could possibly offer if he chooses to be honest and says ‘no’, but he hardly has the patience to find out.  

“Yeah,” he says, no doubt unconvincingly. “Thanks for checking in.” 

“You’re welcome, sir,” Brian replies, his usual perkiness restored at last. “Have a wonderful day.” 

With a final click, Brian vanishes and a drawn-out dial tone takes his place. Alex returns the phone to the table and simply stares at it, trying to summon his earlier motivation to call his friends. As much as he longs to hear their voices, the moment has passed and he finds he has no idea what he would even say. “Hello, I know it’s been a while, but I may have just broken Miles’s heart and taken an impulse trip to the moon...”  

Besides, as much as Brian’s explanation seems to rationalise his hallucinations in theory, there’s one major factor that’s still nagging at him. 

Miles.  

Miles was a presence in the hotel long before Alex stepped foot in the Memory Garden. Alex saw him amongst the other guests, and while he only really spotted him from a distance, he can fairly confidently say that he would recognise Miles in any setting. He’s studied every glorious inch of his body; has observed him from every possible angle. There’s no way he’s mistaken in this regard – Miles was here long before his mind was exposed to hallucinogens or futuristic tech. 

Not only that, but Miles was the only person he saw in the garden itself. Everyone else was present only in the form of voices or the faint suggestion of touch, but Miles had been solid. He had held Alex in his arms, had cradled his face in his hands. True, one could say that other elements of the garden had felt equally real when they were mere illusions, but Alex can’t shake the notion that the Miles he encountered was real; that he was truly reaching out for him in desperation. 

And of course, there’s Room 237. The faint scent of Miles’s cologne. His unmistakable voice whispering Alex’s name as he pulled the door shut behind him. 

As it stands, Alex finds himself facing two main possibilities. On the one hand, his delusions may be even worse than he thought and he may be ‘seeing’ Miles as a manifestation of his own broken heart. 

On the other, Miles may well be a guest in the hotel. As ridiculous as that notion sounds, it’s the only rational explanation that doesn’t involve the possibility of creeping madness. 

And if Miles really is a guest here, then Alex knows the one person who can tell him exactly where he’s staying.  

Chapter Text

If Alex were feeling paranoid, he may have surmised that every guest in the building had crawled from their rooms with the sole intention of blocking his route. 

He emerges onto a bustling corridor thick with the buzz of conversation. All around him, suave gentlemen and gentlewomen dripping with diamonds stop to admire the portraits displayed on the walls. An elderly couple adorned in matching emerald gowns side-eye him warily as he stumbles from Room 521 in his rumpled shirt, before concluding that a marble bust of a tragic Greek hero holds far more worth than he does.  

Figuring out a suitable route through the mass of strolling bodies takes a toll on his overwrought mind. No matter how carefully Alex weaves between guests who refuse to accommodate him, he fails to prevent the odd collision or trample of an expensive gown’s overlong hem.  

A rotund, moustachioed man with thinning black hair and straining shirt buttons shoves past Alex with all the grace he would offer a swatted fly, forcing him to stumble into the path of a man who resembles none other than Mr Baker, his old English teacher. Alex freezes, half-expecting a flash of recognition to cross the man’s face, but the ghost pays him no heed and instead saunters past without a word.  

Alex simply stands still for a moment, waiting for the penny to drop. Waiting for Mr Baker to turn around and proclaim in his immortal Yorkshire twang, “I knew I recognised you from somewhere!”. But he doesn’t. When Alex finally summons the energy to turn his head, he finds that his favourite teacher has slunk away into the evolving mass of human bodies, seemingly unaware that his face resides on one of the very portraits his fellow guests are admiring. 

A peculiar pattern emerges once Alex finally fights his way onto the stairs. Mind racing, he starts to regard the features of every guest he passes with newfound interest. Amongst a sea of mask-like faces, he spots an occasional standout: the neighbour who allowed Alex and Matt to pet her German Shepherd whenever they passed by her gate; the roadie who introduced him to the wonders of grape margaritas; the girl who broke his teenaged heart and haunted the lyrics of countless unreleased songs.  

He spots the pub manager who let them play sets despite their youth (on the condition that they didn’t cover any of that ‘American indie shite’), and the teacher who cracked jokes to distract him from the pain of a broken arm as he waited for an ambulance following an ill-fated PE lesson. Faces from the past flit by like hummingbirds fighting through a mass of pigeons, offering occasional glimpses of a simpler existence that has since been rendered irretrievable. Alex wonders who else he will spot as he descends into the atrium’s lurid expanse. Will his mum fight her way through the crowd to hold him in her arms? Will Nick and Matt and Jamie greet him in the lobby and drag him onto the next flight home without preamble? 

Will Miles finally summon enough forgiveness to show his face without vanishing into the ether? 

Alex tries to focus on the conversations happening around him; tries to identify a familiar voice amidst the chorus echoing off the marble walls. Such a task quickly proves to be impossible. Despite the volume piercing his ears like a fine needle, individual words are tricky to discern, and any attempt to pick out a friend amongst the onslaught fails to bear fruit. The few familiar faces who draw close enough to meet his gaze betray no sense of recognition and simply push past with so much force he almost stumbles. It reaches the point where he’s almost grateful his closest friends and family have failed to materialise; Alex doubts he’d survive the heartbreak of his mum or Miles treating him with such contempt.  

Eventually, after what feels like hours of sifting through a human soup, the bodies disperse. Something on the first floor must be snatching the guests’ attention en-masse, for when Alex finally stumbles onto the grandiose staircase, he finds the atrium blessedly empty. His steps echo off cool marble as he saunters towards the mouth of the reception, drowning out the muted lounge music as he goes. The cordoned off doors retain their no-nonsense warning signs, but to his relief, Alex notes that the wave of vicious whispers has finally been silenced.  

As he draws closer to the reception desk, he spots Brian donned in his spotless cream blazer; dirty-blond locks slicked back from his porcelain face with gleaming gel. He doesn’t immediately acknowledge Alex - too preoccupied by flickering security footage on his monitor - but when he finally does raise his head, he straightens with uncharacteristic surprise, his thin lips moulded into a perfect oval.  

“Mr Turner!” Brian exclaims, fighting to morph his expression into one that conveys pleasure at finding the hotel’s owner standing before him. “I didn’t expect to see you up and about so soon.” 

A sliver of dread tickles along Alex’s spine, emboldened by the fact that Brian is almost certainly the one who carried him to bed last night. It occurs to Alex just how little he trusts his steward – how much that thin-lipped smile and those piercing eyes invite a wave of disgust – but he’s forced to cast that aside out of necessity.  

“I need you to look up a room number for me,” he says, feigning a casual air that sounds woefully unconvincing to his own ears. “There’s a guest staying here called Miles Kane. He’s my... He’s a friend of mine. I really need to talk to him but I don’t know where he’s staying.” 

The more he speaks the more desperate he sounds, until he’s left voicing a broken plea. His hands grip the edge of the silver-chrome desk with so much force he’s amazed it doesn’t snap under his weight, and his pride is bitter on his tongue as he swallows it whole. 

Brian simply studies him with a miniscule tilt of his head, like a tiger assessing its prey before leaping for the kill. His twinkling blue eyes adopt an icy sheen as Alex shrinks under the weight of his scrutiny, and though it’s difficult to tell, Alex could swear those pale lips have formed a subtle smirk. 

“I’m sorry Mr Turner, but I can assure you that your friend is not staying here,” Brian says plainly, without so much as consulting his monitor. 

“Could you just look him up?” Alex asks, his voice escaping in an almost petulant whine, before he tears himself away from the desk and starts advancing over to Brian’s side. “At least let me see the guest list, he might be using a false name...” 

“I’m afraid that would be equally pointless,” Brian interjects, hastily blocking Alex’s path and drawing himself to full height. Which, as it turns out, is at least three inches taller than Alex. His slender brow lifts in warning as he stares Alex down, forcing him to unconsciously take a step back. “There are no guests here.” 

The sheer boldness of his statement is so ludicrous that Alex releases a startled bark of laughter. He has half a mind to grab Brian by the ear and drag him towards the fifth floor so he can see for himself just how many residents the hotel currently hosts, creeping along the endless corridors like ravenous parasites. 

“Of course there are!” he snaps, though even as he says it an illogical seed of doubt plants itself within his mind. “They’re everywhere. I’ve seen them.”  

“You’re mistaken, Mr Turner,” Brian says, undeterred, as though explaining a simple concept to an unruly child. “There are no guests here. We haven’t had guests for years. Or staff, for that matter. Even the rats are gone. You currently have the distinction of being the only living creature on the premises.” 

The world folds in on itself. All sound evacuates Alex’s ears with a sharp whoosh, leaving only a faint ringing and the relentless echo of Brian’s cold revelation. A distant burn informs him that he needs to take a breath, yet he fears that any attempt to do so will suck the air from his lungs and leave him weightless; floating into the void as a dispassionate Earth watches on, shrinking to a mere speck above him. 

“You’re here,” Alex utters, clinging to that small inconsistency in the hope that the rest of Brian’s words will also crumble and reveal themselves as a cruel joke. Brian’s mere presence proves that Alex is not alone on this wretched rock. 

“Me?” Brian asks, brows raised as though Alex has just told a crude joke. The implication settles upon him quickly, however, and the tension leaves his body as he releases a huff of laughter. “Ah, I see why my presence may confuse you. We never did shake hands, did we?” 

Before Alex can begin casting his mind back to assess the legitimacy of that statement, Brian extends a slender hand with a degree of expectation that Alex can barely interpret. His eyes lower to the steady limb resting before him, wondering what, exactly, Brian could possibly wish to prove.  

Its appearance is almost notable for how unremarkable it is; the smooth skin advertising an overuse of moisturisers, the fingers slender but not too bony, the purple mass of veins wormlike beneath their milk-white shield.  

And yet, if Alex truly allows himself to focus, certain anomalies do present themselves. Like his face, Brian’s hand betrays an unnatural lack of blemishes. No freckles dot his skin. No scars betray a childhood spent climbing rocks or digging for buried treasure. There are no calluses, no dirt beneath the nails, no ink stains despite the mass of papers piled on his desk. 

A sinking feeling overwhelms Alex as he extends his own calloused hand, his mind whirling as impossible notions whisper in his ears. He almost lowers it again out of spite, but the desire for answers overwhelms that urge, and before he can second-guess his decision, he grasps Brian’s proffered hand in his own. 

Or rather, he tries to. The instant his hand makes contact with Brian’s own, his skin fizzles with electricity and he can only watch as Brian’s form shimmers in a wave of blue static. Alex’s hand passes through air where it should meet solid flesh. He stumbles backwards as Brian’s image reforms before him, a self-satisfied smirk twisting across his cruel face. 

“You had me installed in 2020. One year after you last graced us with your presence, if I recall,” Brian explains, though Alex can barely register his voice above the blood roaring in his ears; above the force of his instincts screaming ‘get out, get out, get out!’... “I believe I was part of a cost-saving exercise. Holograms aren’t famed for holiday requests or pay disputes after all.” 

Alex feels his heart leap into his throat, yearning to escape a prison which has grown too cramped to contain it. His lungs are equally irate, and he’s all too aware of the rapidity of his frantic breaths as he fights for precious oxygen. He’s vaguely aware of his body backing away from Brian, but any control over his actions has been overridden by sheer panic; his mind racing as the whispers return in full force, screaming at him to get out of here, to come home, to wake up... 

He should never have come here. He should have left the hotel to rot and fade into obscurity instead of sullying it with his presence. He should have run after Miles that night and told him the truth; that he’d been a selfish idiot and he’d rather risk his entire career than lose him again. That a life stewing in his own regret, dreaming of happier days, was not one he wished to embark upon.  

Perhaps there’s still time. Perhaps if he leaves now, Miles will still be waiting on the end of a phone, willing to hear him out. Perhaps one day, when they’re old and retired and sitting on their porch in matching tracksuits, they’ll look back on that time Alex took an impulse trip to the moon and laugh. 

If he truly wants that to become a possibility, he needs to get home before the hotel’s solitude drives him to madness. 

“I need to get out of here,” Alex chokes out, gasping and breathless, trying not to set eyes on the falsehood standing before him. Only when Brian refuses to acknowledge him does he lift his bloodshot eyes in naked desperation. “Please. I need you to book me a ticket for the next flight home.” 

Brian simply regards him as though he’s a test subject that has gone off the rails. His head tilts minutely, his lips pressed into a cruel, unflinching smirk, and despite the fact that Alex needs his help, he finds himself wishing he could break the steward’s nose.  

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Alex,” Brian replies without the slightest alteration in facial expression, his voice a crisp monotone that sends a shiver down Alex’s spine.  

The effect is immobilising, fixing him to the marble floor as though his feet have been nailed down. Only when the whispers start clawing towards his eardrums does he summon the strength to pull himself free from terror’s harsh grip. 

Without a second thought, Alex sprints towards the main entrance. Swinging glass doors give way easily as he barrels through them onto a slender corridor, the exterior doorway greeting him with a face of solid mahogany. As he runs, the corridor seems to elongate before him; the red carpet stretching out like toffee, gluing his shoes to its surface.  

Fighting his way to the door feels like wading through treacle. His thighs burn with the effort, his heart hammers against his ribcage as his freedom looms ever-further on the horizon, and it occurs to him that he must be dreaming. Nothing this terrible could possibly be real, and if he just allows himself to close his eyes and focus, he may yet find himself safe in Miles’s embrace, having woken to morning birdsong and a whispered ‘Morning beautiful...’.  

The pleasant illusion shatters as his body slams against solid wood. The impact leaves him momentarily winded, before common sense takes hold of the steering wheel and directs him to reach for the brass door handles. The pair screech in agony as he pushes down with all the force he can muster - the inner mechanics scraping together like nails on a chalkboard - and for one dizzying moment it occurs to Alex that the doors may have welded shut after years of disuse. 

The resistance ends with a muted click, however, and without further ado, Alex pulls the doors open with an almighty heave... 

...only to be faced with an impenetrable wall of sheer marble. So great is Alex’s shock that he almost runs directly at it, before drawing to an undignified halt, his chest heaving and eyes wide. For a moment his mind fills in the blanks and he sees the hotel’s outer balcony stretching towards a curved balustrade, as the space station looms in the background like a towering lighthouse. Reality promptly sets that image alight and reduces his hope to ashes.  

A trembling hand extends towards the marble barricade, perhaps harbouring the childish wish that it too will dissolve into static when touched. The surface that greets him is cool and unmistakably solid, however, and Alex leaps back as though electrocuted. He’s trapped here. Someone – or something – has gone to great lengths to keep him imprisoned within his own derelict hotel, and he needs to find another way out before he’s confined within its walls for all eternity. 

Scanning his mind for concealed exits and hidden passageways known only to him, Alex spins in the direction of the atrium and grits his teeth before making his way back. The corridor has clearly decided to bounce back to its original length, for he crashes through the swinging lobby doors within mere seconds. A gentle Morricone piece greets his ears - but so too do the incorporeal whisperers with their frantic pleas and screams of ‘Come back to us!’ - while Brian stands at his usual spot, waiting with a smile and a sardonic, “Back so soon?” 

Alex ignores him. He fights the burn in his chest as he launches himself up the stairs, taking two at a time in his desperation to leave the steward far behind him. The voices refuse to quieten no matter how far he travels. Some of them venture so close, he can almost feel their cold breath against his cheek, and he finds to his despair that disappearing down a narrow corridor does little to throw them off his scent.  

Once again, the corridors elongate and twist beyond comprehension, entrapping him within a never-ending maze. The drumbeat of his heavy footfalls bounce off the walls, joining the clamour of voices conspiring to assault his ears. The voices have now taken shape, cruelly mimicking the beloved tones of Miles and Jamie and his mum, twisting them beyond recognition until all that is left is their broken, discordant screams. It would no longer surprise him if those screams morphed into the roar of a Minotaur, waiting patiently in the shadows to devour him as he loses himself within an ever-shifting labyrinth. 

Pressing his palms over his ears does little to spare Alex from the onslaught, and when he clenches his eyes shut, he finds that he can still envision the hexagonal carpet stretching endlessly before him. The barrage of stimulation expands against his skull to the point where he fears his head may simply explode. Part of him can’t help but wonder if that would be a mercy. A tightness in his jaw alerts him to the fact that he has resorted to screaming, but any sound he makes is quickly lost amidst the relentless din as the sheer volume of voices threatens to suffocate him. 

Rescue eventually comes in the form of a gentle guitar melody.  

Alex peels his eyes open with breathless trepidation, only now realising that he has collapsed to the floor. Tension grips every muscle in his body, and he’s rewarded with a sweet ache as he releases it, extending his legs and peeling his hands away from his face. The deluge has passed. The corridor around him is solid and unremarkable, a flickering lightbulb the only sign that something is amiss. Now that he’s stopped shielding his ears, the allure of sweet music becomes more enticing, as muffled guitar notes complement a silky baritone.  

As Alex pulls himself to his feet, ignoring his body’s many protests, the sound of distant applause trickles towards him like a river flowing over submerged rocks. He turns in the direction of the noise with hesitant interest. Applause means guests. Guests mean Brian was wrong, and if Brian was lying to him about that then perhaps there’s still a chance he can escape. 

Before he can second-guess his decision, Alex creeps in the direction of the music and soon finds himself standing before a set of arch-like double-doors. The resemblance to the doorway guarding the hotel entrance sends of thrill of fear to his heart, but he ignores it. The wood facing him now is composed of oak, not mahogany, and warm light spills through the gaps like a promise. The music has taken shape now, and a weak smile pulls at his lips as the silky tones of Richard Hawley caress his ears.  

Whatever lies beyond this door, Alex knows it will keep him safe. That it will hold him at bay from the shadows where the faceless monsters lurk. 

With that in mind, Alex anchors himself with a deep inhale before drawing the doors open and bathing himself in a veil of welcoming light. 

Chapter Text

Stepping over the threshold into the ballroom feels like taking a trip back in time.  

A glittering chandelier radiates a soft, honeyed glow over the elegant mass of dancing figures below. Astride the polished dancefloor, cylindrical marble columns hold the ceiling aloft, while packed circular tables sit beautiful couples flirting over glasses of red wine and lit cigarettes. Immediately to Alex’s right sits the main bar, manned by a server he does not recognise but who nods at him in acknowledgement regardless.  

Alex nods back out of a misplaced sense of politeness, before studying the beverages proudly displayed behind the man. There are enough unopened bottles of priceless scotch to render him incapable of remembering every mistake he’s ever made, albeit he doubts he’d survive the process of downing them all. 

Choosing to maintain his sobriety – albeit with considerable reluctance – Alex follows a series of brightly patterned, carpeted steps and approaches the thriving dancefloor. Beyond the outlined square, a curved stage stands tall, flanked by towering red curtains interlaced with gold thread. A handsome singer perches before a vintage microphone, plucking away at an acoustic guitar while his humble four-piece band fleshes out the sweet melody. The man behind the mic bears only a passing resemblance to Richard Hawley, yet his voice carries the same silky warmth as he delivers a rendition of ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’.  

Familiarity washes over Alex as the brief electric guitar solo rings out, and he closes his eyes to savour it. For the first time in what feels like hours, he can no longer hear his frantic heartbeat. There is only the music and the sound of hushed chatter and tinkling glasses. 

Opening his eyes again brings the dancers into focus. Despite consisting of individual couples, there is a certain coordination to their routine which promises to become hypnotic if he stares too long. Handsome young men in tuxedos take the lead, raising their arms as their female companions spin in delicate arcs, their skirts blooming before them like rose petals greeting the sun. The air becomes charged as the couples reunite and join hands, gazing into each other’s eyes with matching smiles before setting off again, spinning around the dancefloor in their own little worlds. 

Alex’s heart is barely given time to ache before he’s approached from the side by a handsome stranger. 

“May I have this dance?” his suitor asks in a familiar Scouse twang, and Alex’s breath catches in his throat as he spins to find himself face-to-face with Miles. 

Miles has rarely looked more handsome. A bashful, crooked smile graces his lips in the wake of his request, causing those gentle brown eyes to crinkle under the weight of his happiness. His sun-kissed skin appears to glow amidst the pallor of the moonbound guests, while a five o’clock shadow rests atop his jaw, promising a pleasant burn in the event of any prospective kisses. His hair has grown long enough for Alex to tug on, if he were so inclined. Part of him wants to take Miles by the hand and guide him to his room so he can do just that – and much more besides – but he restrains himself before he can ruin his chance at redemption.  

If Miles is here – truly here – then Alex has a lot of grovelling to do. 

“Always,” he breathes, not bothering to conceal his desperation as he takes Miles’s proffered hand and allows himself to be led into the circle of waltzing bodies. 

The crowd parts for them without so much as a sideways glance. Miles guides him to the centre of the dancefloor, the chandelier illuminating him as he stands beneath and turns to Alex with a shy smile. His white cotton shirt is rendered almost transparent under the light. Alex finds his gaze drawn to the artfully undone top buttons, swallowing as he lingers on the teasing glimpse of a sharp collarbone. A heady rush threatens to overwhelm him, not helped by the firm grip Miles establishes on his hip – warm and solid even through the barrier of his rumpled shirt – and Alex’s gaze meets Miles’s once again as their free hands intertwine. Alex wraps an arm around Miles’s waist and draws him closer until he can practically feel their hearts hammering in unison, and as the opening notes of Hawley’s ‘The Ocean’ spill out across the hall, he begins to sway in time with the music. 

Miles quickly takes the lead, for which Alex is grateful. Dancing with Miles is far from a novelty – their audiences have been privy to such displays on numerous occasions – but the intimacy of having Miles so close is one usually relegated to lonely evenings at home.  

Home... Such a presumptuous word. It implies a state of permanence, a place he and Miles can truly call their own. Whether such a place still exists, Alex doesn’t know. But for a brief time, home was his London townhouse, and it was not uncommon for Miles to extend a hand and invite Alex to dance within the confines of their lounge. Many pleasant evenings were spent in Miles’s arms, head resting against his shoulder as Leonard Cohen’s worldly drawl lulled them into an illusion of serenity. 

An ache grips Alex’s heart then, squeezing the tortured muscle until it threatens to burst, and only then does Miles’s voice pierce the veil and soothe his pain. 

“Hey,” Miles says, slowing his movements until they’re almost, but not quite, standing still. Around them, the remaining couples continue dancing with little acknowledgement of the fact that their centrepiece has faltered. “What’s goin’ on in that head of yours?” 

His tone is so gentle, so Miles, that Alex releases a broken huff of laughter before shaking his head. The question is a familiar one, often posed with an inquisitive smile in moments where Alex’s mind carries him beyond even Miles’s grasp, but the look in Miles’s face now is one of faint concern. 

“The usual,” Alex sighs, not entirely sure what he means by that but preferring it to the prospect of telling the truth. Reminiscing about a summer he personally destroyed feels suddenly inappropriate, and a flush rises to his cheeks as the echo of a slamming door erupts from his subconscious. “D’you think I’m an idiot?” 

Miles has the grace to look taken aback, before a startled laugh sweeter than the music enveloping their bodies escapes from his throat. 

“You are many things, Al, but an idiot isn’t one of them,” he teases, giving Alex’s captured hand a reassuring squeeze. 

“I’m serious,” Alex says, fixing Miles in place with a hard stare. It occurs to him that they’ve stopped moving altogether. They’re still poised as if they’re performing a waltz, but they may as well be frozen in a black-and-white photograph, with Miles’s hand imprinting itself on Alex’s waist as their eyes remain locked in an undying gaze. Even the music becomes muffled; so narrow has Alex’s focus become that the lyrics sound like they’re being sung underwater. 

“I love you,” Alex admits, so easily he can only wonder why he’s rarely said it before. Miles’s eyes widen, but he schools his expression admirably, his jaw clenching as he fights to maintain a semblance of calm. “I’m at my happiest when I’m with you. This whole summer felt like I was glimpsing a future I never thought I could have, and I threw it all away for... I don’t even know what for.”

Miles’s eyes soften in an instant. His hand migrates from Alex’s hip to his face, and only when he feels a gentle swipe across his cheek does Alex realise he’s crying. 

“You were scared,” Miles offers, as though that could possibly excuse Alex’s mistake. Fear feels like a completely new animal to him after the whirlwind of the past twenty-four hours. Now that he’s acquainted with terror in its purest form, he can appreciate how truly pathetic he was to surrender to it so early.

“Why though?” he asks, as if Miles could possibly answer for him. The sting of tears threatens to blur his vision but he blinks them away, lest Miles be unveiled as an illusion once more. “What could possibly be so terrifying that I’d risk losing you over it?” 

“Oh Alex,” Miles breathes, and with a flare of shame, Alex realises that he too has lost his battle with tears. “You could never lose me, not completely. You know that.” 

Does he? He supposes he must deep down. Miles has already welcomed Alex back into his life once after he chewed up his heart and spat it out. Even when Alex set their second chance alight, Miles had left a door open in case he chose to beg forgiveness. There’s no trace of anger in Miles now, only a tired melancholy behind an easy smile that he can’t completely hide. Not from Alex at least. 

“I do,” Alex concedes with a sigh, before pulling his gaze from Miles’s face and resting his head against his shoulder.  

The fragrance of Miles’s favourite cologne fills his nostrils with a heady sweetness that makes the room spin, and he has to close his eyes to maintain his stability. Forgetting that they should technically still be dancing, Alex wraps his arms around Miles’s lean frame and simply takes a moment to bask in the sensation of solid muscle beneath his shirt; in the heat radiating off his skin and the subtle movements of his chest which accompany every inhale. He never wants this moment to end. He wants to hold Miles for all eternity, breathing in his scent and feeling the tickle of his lips as he presses a soft kiss to the crown of Alex’s head. 

“You asked me to make a decision,” Alex says finally, pulling back just enough to look Miles in the eye. He can’t hide in this moment; he needs Miles to see the sincerity bleeding from every word. “Well, I’ve made it. I want us to be together. I want us to hold hands in public and send joint Christmas cards. I want us to be so disgustingly in love with each other that our friends can’t stand to be around us. I want to stay with you until the day I die, because I’m sick of losing you when there’s no-one else I’d rather grow old with.” 

Miles simply stares at him, frozen in numb disbelief that quickly morphs into something far more bittersweet. A weak smile pulls at his lips, but his eyes soften with an emotion that could be equal parts joy or regret. The possibility of either option sends Alex’s heart into overdrive, and the sight of tears gathering in Miles’s eyes is as agonising as a dagger in his chest, forcing him to cradle Miles’s face in his clammy palms. 

“Alex, I-” Miles chokes out, but Alex interjects before he can complete his thought. 

“I’m not done,” he says bluntly, only for any defiance to melt away like butter, leaving his heart exposed as he addresses the love of his life. “I just... I know I don’t deserve you. And I know I’ve fucked up more times than either of us can count. But if there’s a chance that we can make this work, then I want to take it. It’s time I stopped running.” 

An eternity passes in the space between heartbeats. The instant Alex finally unloads the contents of his soul, he feels lighter, freer. No longer at the mercy of feeble emotions like doubt and fear as he gazes at Miles with all the adoration he can muster, hoping against hope that his face betrays even a fraction of it. The music slows to a muffled drone, as though played through a radio in the middle of nowhere, and the surrounding dancers merely buzz around in his peripheral vision like persistent moths. Only Miles deserves Alex’s attention, as his smile blossoms and those beautiful brown eyes shine like the sun. 

Alex’s heart beats once again and the music rushes back as he’s pulled into a desperate kiss. Miles’s lips are warm and soft beneath his own, tasting faintly of a rich whisky which leaves a pleasant burn on Alex’s tongue. Their noses crash together more than once, forcing them to break apart with a giggle before coming back together again, hungry and eager. Alex’s eyelashes flutter as Miles’s hand creeps along his nape and tugs gently at his hair, and he surrenders to sweet darkness as Miles takes the lead.  

All that surrounds him is Miles. His hands roam over Alex’s body like a sculptor moulding his masterpiece; his lips claim Alex’s own with a possessive need, taking only occasional detours to migrate along his jawline, nipping at delicate skin as he goes. Even the music filling his ears carries Alex back to hotel rooms in Paris and Edinburgh and Berlin; to sleepy post-coital conversations scored by Scott Walker or Leonard Cohen or Richard Hawley. 

His lips tingle from a lack of oxygen, and with considerable reluctance, Alex pulls away to ease the wave of dizziness creeping along the contours of his brain. For a moment they simply stare at each other, their ragged breaths mingling as they lock their surroundings away into the depths of their shared consciousness. When the lack of contact between them becomes disconcerting, Alex leans forward and rests his forehead against Miles’s own, closing his eyes in hard-won contentment.  

“Stay with me?” he breathes, so quietly he can barely hear himself over the music, the volume of which has risen considerably over the past few seconds. The effect is unnerving, bringing to mind a spell that has been broken before its time. 

The sensation of a warm palm against his cheek anchors him slightly. He opens his eyes with an exhausted sigh, suddenly wanting the world to fall away so he and Miles can retire to bed without scrutiny, and the look on Miles’s face only strengthens that desire. A stray tear has slipped from his eye and is trekking along his nose, yet any desire Alex has to wipe it away is quashed by the sudden weight of grief that claims Miles in its jaws. 

“Oh Alex,” he says, the words caught on a shuddering exhale as more tears escape from their confines and slip down his beautiful cheek. “I should be the one asking you that.” 

“What?” Alex asks, aiming for flippancy and missing the mark by miles.  

Cold fingers of dread weave their way through his nerves as implications he would rather ignore sink in his gut. Around him, the lights are suddenly far too bright, the music too loud and harsh as discordant notes fill the air. The distant chatter of their fellow guests has become pointed, to the point where Alex can imagine them heckling him with bitter jeers.  

Closing his eyes brings no relief to the overstimulation. If anything it makes things worse; it makes Miles feel more distant, more fluid beneath his hands, as he reaches out to caress a cheek that now feels as solid as liquid clay. A rush of warm breath against his cheek reassures him that Miles is still present, still looking out for him, but when his voice pierces through the din, Alex is reminded of his vanishing apparition in the impossible forest.  

“I need you to wake up, love,” Miles urges, his voice heavy with desperation and grief. 

No sooner have the words sunk in than the clamour around them grinds to an abrupt halt. In its wake, Alex becomes all too aware of his feeble heart, his quickening breaths, the faint ringing where music should resound. A chill settles over his bones and the world concealed by his eyelids no longer promises a warm, hazy glow.  

He knows what he will find when he opens his eyes and so he chooses to linger in the dark, just for a little while longer. Just long enough to let the pleasant ache of denial soothe his mind, before curiosity can snatch all hope from his grasp. 

Too soon, his eyes creep open to confirm what he already knows. In the space where Miles once stood, there exists only empty space; floating dust motes swirling beneath Alex’s outstretched hand.  

Around him, the ballroom is deserted and has been for some time. The wooden dancefloor is caked in a layer of dust so thick, his lone footprints look like echoes left behind on a snowy waste. Glass shards litter the floor as the neglected chandelier creaks above him, and deep cracks wind along the marble columns like coiling snakes. The stage before him is littered with equipment that has clearly seen better days, as the broken neck of a guitar lies forlornly on the floor below. Even the bar is a derelict relic of the past, displaying shattered bottles of priceless scotch and not much else. 

This was always how the night would end. Alex knew that. He suspects he’s known it from the moment Miles approached him near the bar. The illusion was always too good to be true – especially in light of Brian’s revelations – and yet indulging in it had been so sweet that he had failed to prepare himself for the devastation he would endure in the aftermath. His eyes sting as dust fills his lungs, but no tears escape. Alex is too numb to cry, too numb to bother trying to seek an escape and make his way home. He bared his heart tonight to a ghost – a façade of his love – and the knowledge of that drains him of any energy he has left.  

When the pain hits, and it will, it promises to be exquisite.  

For now though, all Alex can do is gape at the ruins of his life and wonder where it all went wrong.  

Chapter Text

Consciousness ebbs and flows like waves obeying the tide. Any awareness of the outside world fades before Alex can fully wake, sentencing him to float in a hazy void where coherent thought is discouraged.  

The passage of time has become an enigma. Sometimes it feels like he has been adrift for mere minutes; other times he can feel the passage of days in the ache of his bones. There’s no light to herald the dawn of a new day; no clock to announce the transition from one hour into another. All Alex has are his instincts, and those have hardly served him well of late.  

When wakefulness does return, it assaults him with an electric jolt. His full-body flinch disturbs the dust on which he lies, sending motes into the atmosphere and eliciting a harsh, hacking cough from his throat. Alex tries to pull himself up, but even careful movements awaken deep cramps in his tortured muscles and he eventually relents; returning to his adopted foetal position in the hope that the dust will smother him. The mournful squeal of the swinging chandelier reminds him that it looms directly overhead and that, should it fall, its crystal shards will crush him under their weight and pierce his skin. Given the precarious state of the hotel, such a fate no longer seems entirely unfeasible, though Alex can’t quite summon the motivation to escape its path. 

Adrenaline finally forces him to crawl out of his funk, as a distant echo of footsteps disturbs the thick silence. It occurs to Alex that this echo may well be what woke him in the first place. Still lacking the energy to force himself upright, he instead rolls onto his back and directs his gaze towards the set of doors guarding the ballroom, now standing ajar and exposing him to the mercy of the twisting corridors beyond. He watches as a shadowy figure emerges into the welcoming arch - its form rippling like curtains in the breeze - before breaching the threshold and approaching the desolate dancefloor.  

As its features become clearer, Alex feels his heart sink. The muffled footsteps reaching his ears must be an illusion; an attempt by his brain to fill in the blanks. Brian is too weightless to leave a mark on the world after all. Even the dust remains undisturbed by his approach. 

“Get up!” the steward snaps, staring down with a face twisted in pure contempt, as though Alex was merely a stubborn stain on his polished shoe. “The Manager wishes to see you.” 

“The Manager?” Alex croaks, sounding like he’s just smoked a hundred cigarettes. The dry scrape of air leaving his throat adds weight to his theory that he’s been rotting here for days, though the absence of hunger tips the balance slightly in the opposite direction. 

“Indeed,” Brian says, lips curling into a cruel smirk as he refuses to elaborate. “I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter. I have ways of forcing your hand should you refuse, so I would strongly advise that you pick yourself up, make yourself presentable, and follow me.” 

Alex’s instinct finds itself waging a war with his curiosity. On the one hand, Brian has made his disdain perfectly clear and the possibility of him taking Alex anywhere that would offer him a single benefit is infinitesimal. 

On the other hand... What else can he do? Any attempt to escape will inevitably end in failure as more barricades erect themselves before his path. Staying in the ballroom is hardly an option unless he wants to be entombed there, alone with the memories of a Miles who never existed. And though he now knows that Brian has no corporeal form, Alex finds that he cannot disbelieve him either. He somehow lured Alex from the Memory Garden to his bed with minimal effort. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he could also drag Alex kicking and screaming to the feet of this enigmatic Manager. 

Throwing all sense of self-preservation to the wind, Alex pulls himself to his feet with a pained groan. His joints creak in protest as he unfurls them and adopts a human stance, leaving a dark shadow on the floor as proof that he once lay there. A cough escapes him as he hurriedly brushes himself down – his rumpled shirt and flared trousers now stained beyond repair – but once he’s done, he matches Brian’s defiant stare with one of his own.  

The tall hologram dissects him for several seconds, before responding to Alex’s unspoken challenge with a half-hearted shrug. 

“Come with me,” Brian mutters, almost as an afterthought, before guiding Alex from the ballroom into the labyrinth beyond. 

The layout of the hotel appears to have rearranged itself into a logical structure. Only two left-turns are required to reach a landing Alex could have sworn was miles away, overlooking a darkened atrium which no longer sings.  

This rearrangement of the maze-like corridors is the only improvement to be found. Everywhere Alex looks, the impact of time and decay makes itself felt. The patterned carpets are torn and faded; once vibrant hexagons reduced to beige beneath faint, flickering lights. Deep cracks snake along marble walls while hotel-room doors stand ajar, showcasing cluttered cells not fit to house a rat, let alone a wealthy guest. On the walls, the intricacies of the portraits have been reduced to a memory, the paints peeling like candlewax as the features of friends and loved ones melt beyond recognition. A handsome bust which once depicted a Greek hero now lies shattered at Alex’s feet, one surviving marble eye gazing up at him with accusatory spite. 

The atrium fares little better. The welcoming lounge music is gone. Torn pamphlets litter the floors, advertising attractions that closed down years ago. Dust rains down from the ceiling like flakes of snow, coating the chandelier and drowning out its faint light. Only the set of double-doors guarding the forbidden corridor remain untainted, and it’s here that Brian guides Alex. With a click of his fingers, the doors swing open and crash against the walls, revealing a dark, sloping corridor with no clear end-point in sight.  

Brian tilts his head just enough to confirm that Alex is still following him, before proceeding into the darkness without a word. 

For lack of any better options, Alex follows him on tentative footsteps. With the exception of its slight downwards slope, very little serves to distinguish this corridor from those on the upper floors. The hexagonal patterns on the carpets are identical to those upstairs. The walls are composed of the same cool white marble. Their trek into the bowels of the hotel is marked by hanging frames, which Alex presumes are supposed to house portraits or photographs but instead remain empty, the protective glass revealing only a warped reflection of his own exhausted face.  

The hall appears to stretch on for miles. Whenever Alex risks a backwards glance, he finds the square of light left by the doorway growing smaller and smaller, until it’s a mere speck in the distance. No evidence exists of the refurbishments Brian had been so protective of, nor any workmen for that matter. And yet, the deeper they roam, the louder the whispering voices become. Hairs rise on the back of his neck as the disembodied whisperers climb through the walls, shrouding him in a thick air of malevolence as their grating tones fill his ears, but Alex ignores them and pushes onwards. He no longer has the luxury of cowering in fear. 

After what feels like hours, Brian finally draws to a halt before a modest office door. The air is cold and draughty here and the walls themselves appear to be shifting around them, but the door remains perfectly solid. Once again, Brian opens it with a click of his fingers, but instead of slamming open, the door merely edges forward just enough to betray the impression of warm light.  

His role apparently complete, Brian steps aside and motions for Alex to take the lead, which, after a beat of hesitation, he does.  

The door opens to reveal a cosy, well-lit office space. The room is circular, the ceiling curving to form a narrow dome above his head. A desk formed from polished teak stands before him, boasting an exact replica of the cardboard model for Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino; proudly displayed on a makeshift wooden plinth. A plush leather armchair rests beside the desk, inviting Alex to rest his weary bones should he wish to, and a round burgundy rug fills the centre of the space. Lining the walls on all sides are packed bookshelves, the spines proudly displaying the works of Alex’s favourite authors; Nabokov, Camus, García Márquez, Orwell, Adams, even the short stories of Borges and John Cooper Clarke’s poetry collections.  

The only portion of wall not concealed by tall bookcases is the section that immediately faces the doorway. That space is reserved for what appears to be a narrow door composed entirely of cast-iron, with a circular handle rendered in solid gold affixed to its centre. The sight of it evokes a sense of facing a bank vault, though its pure black surface implies a more sinister purpose. What that may be, Alex doesn’t know, nor does he wish to find out. 

“Wait here,” Brian orders, and Alex turns to find him preparing to make his exit. “The Manager will be with you shortly.” 

With his role fulfilled, Brian retreats back into the corridor, slamming the door shut behind him. Alex is left with the distinct impression that he has been sealed off from the rest of the hotel. His hand itches to reach for the handle and flee, but he suspects that doing so would be pointless. Besides, apparently he’s not as alone here as he thought he was, and he cannot deny that he’s curious to discover who could possibly be so eager to meet him. 

Only when a shiver wracks his frame does it occur to him that he may not even be alone in this room. A new drone – similar to the whispers yet somehow distinct in its harshness – penetrates through his eardrum and infects his temporal lobe. No words appear among the deluge. If pressed, Alex would be reluctant to identify the voices – if that is indeed what the drone represents - as human.  

Cautiously, he turns on his heels - eyes scanning every inch of the warmly lit office - but no assailant leaps from the shadows. In truth, there are very few shadows to leap from. The room is cramped, and suitable hiding spaces are considerably sparse. Only the vault-like door offers a potential candidate for an ambush, yet on closer inspection its iron surface appears to have been welded to the doorframe. 

Ice sneaks into Alex’s veins, however, as his feet carry him towards the whispering door. For that is where the noise is coming from, he’s sure of it. The closer he gets to its oppressive surface, the higher the tone becomes, until his ears ring in the wake of its siren call. Without thinking he finds himself extending a steady hand, shivering as an icy chill radiates from the metal, but he’s dissuaded from making contact as the indecipherable mass of whispers make way for a distant, piercing cackle. 

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” a voice calls from behind him, a voice so familiar yet so alien to his ears that Alex freezes in place. Only when the severity of that warning sinks in does he step back and spin towards his visitor, though the face that greets him is no less terrifying than the whispering vault. 

For a moment Alex considers the possibility that he’s looking directly at a mirror. There are certain elements that preclude this theory of course, but he is willing to ignore those for the sake of his fraying sanity.  

It doesn’t matter that the background of this ‘mirror’ fails to capture the metal door looming at his back, nor any of the bookshelves flanking his sides. It doesn’t matter that his reflected self bears little resemblance to how he’s currently dressed, eschewing a white shirt and black trousers in favour of a washed-out grey jacket and baggy beige slacks. Nor does it matter that his reflection’s face does not align with the warped image he saw in the empty glass frames along the corridor. The dark bags clinging to haunted brown eyes are a feature he no doubt shares with his double, but Alex hasn’t grown a goatee in years and his reflection’s hair is longer, casting shadows upon sharp cheekbones as it falls across his face.  

It occurs to Alex that, rather than encountering his exact mirror image, he is in fact getting a preview of what his reflection will look like in five years, complete with tired lines around the eyes and a grimace which appears to be semi-permanent. 

If this is a glimpse of his future, Alex can’t say he likes what he sees.  

“Who the fuck are you?” he snaps, once the initial shock wears off. Alex remains frozen as his double gently closes the door behind him, before wandering over to the leather armchair and letting his pale hands linger on its backrest.  

“Honestly Alex, is that any way to speak to your gracious host?” The Manager – for that must be who this imposter is – asks, his lips twisted into a cruel smirk which swiftly dies.  

There’s a sense of uncanny valley to his voice. Alex can clearly recognise the cadence as his own, but the accent is off. It’s like hearing a version of himself who never left Sheffield, yet also grew up in a much posher area.  

“Need I remind you that you’re the one trespassing on my turf. I’m not exactly thrilled to be stuck with you either.” 

Before Alex can decide whether he should take offence, the Manager moves to sit on the chair. Perhaps a more apt description would be to say that he drapes himself over it like an overgrown cat, sprawling across the seat and resting his legs over the precipice of an armrest. The position looks almost as comfortable as sleeping on a dusty ballroom floor had been, but Alex’s doppelgänger betrays little trace of discontent. Instead, he merely studies Alex with hands clasped in his folded lap, as though he is an intricate puzzle that needs to be solved. 

“In simplistic terms, you could say I’m your subconscious,” he declares suddenly, with so much confidence that Alex nearly scoffs. “In other words, hello! I’m the part of your brain that has to put up with all of your shit. But you can call me Mark. I’ve always liked that name.” 

Alex becomes very aware of the fact that he is staring. His mouth opens and closes but no words come forth, leaving him gaping like a fish who’s been left to suffocate on dry land. The sheer impossibility of the past ten minutes fractures something deep within his consciousness, to the point where he may as well commit himself to an asylum. There is no sane explanation for what is unfolding before him.  

Or rather, there is one, but it feels impossible for the sole reason that said explanation tends to come with an easy escape route. Nonetheless, Alex voices it anyway, because accepting the alternative – that he truly is losing his mind – terrifies him in ways he is not prepared to acknowledge. 

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” he offers, almost begging ‘Mark’ to smile and reassure him that he’s bang on the money. “The hotel, Brian, you... All of this has been one fucked-up nightmare.” 

“In a sense,” Mark concedes, though the laziness of his tone denies Alex the rush of hope such a confirmation should provide. Mark studies him closely for a moment, as though anticipating a rebuke, before tearing his eyes away with a weary sigh. “God it’s strange meeting you face to face. I prefer it when you’re stuck upstairs.”  

Alex has half a mind to point out that Mark is the one who invited him here, but the words stick in his throat and threaten to choke him. Hearing such a dismissive remark from someone who, in theory, shares his mind sends a rush of blood to his cheeks, forcing him to bite back a snarky response. 

Seemingly bored of sprawling across his plush armchair, Mark unfurls himself and swings his legs onto the floor. Like a shot, he makes his way over to Alex until they’re practically nose to nose, his eyes roaming over every exposed inch of his body. A tight-lipped frown betrays the fact that he doesn’t appreciate what he sees.  

From this distance, Alex can make out details he didn’t appreciate before. Like the fact that Mark’s skin carries an almost sickly pallor, betraying his many years locked away in an office with no chance to feel the sun on his face. 

“Do you have any idea how exhausting it is living with you?” Mark asks, his voice failing to produce the venom he clearly intends. If anything, he just sounds sad. “I swear, you’re on a one-man mission to sabotage every inch of happiness that comes your way. If you beat yourself up any more than you already do, there’d be nothing left but a bloody pulp.” 

Mark encircles Alex as he speaks, effectively ensnaring him beneath a hypothetical spotlight. Alex is left with the distinct impression of being a villager tied to the stocks, forced to endure a tirade of bile from his fellow men as a barrage of rotten fruit robs him of any dignity he has left. 

“That’s not fair,” Alex retaliates, but the fight is gone. If Mark truly is a representation of his subconscious, then he must know that there is nothing he can say that Alex hasn’t already told himself a thousand times over. That doesn’t mean he has the strength to endure a further onslaught, however. 

Mark seems in no hurry to spare him.  

“Isn’t it? I thought I was being kind,” he says, though to his credit he stops encircling Alex like a predator toying with its wounded prey. Instead, he steps back and leans against the sturdy desk, finally allowing Alex room to breathe.  

“I know your mind better than you could possibly comprehend. I’m aware of every fleeting thought that has ever passed through that thick skull of yours. I know you’ve spent half your life loving Miles Kane, for instance. Yet whenever I think you’re starting to accept that, you decide you’d rather bury your head in the sand. You’d rather pre-emptively break your own heart than risk the possibility of him rejecting you down the line. It’s pathetic.” 

Those last two words are practically spat out, but any residual rage appears to leave Mark in an instant, and he deflates against the edge of the desk, exhausted. Alex is grateful. As much as he’s come to terms with his failures where Miles is concerned, the reminder still renders him numb with grief for all the opportunities he let pass him by. Yes, he still has a chance to pick up the phone and make things right once he escapes this nightmare, but what about the opportunities he wasted at twenty-one? At thirty? In an alternate universe in which he was slightly less of a coward, he and Miles may well have been happy together for nearly two decades. 

“You done?” he asks, rather redundantly. Mark’s eyes have migrated to a spot on the rug, his face frozen in a thousand-yard stare that Alex isn’t sure he can shatter. 

His voice must rouse him however, for Mark blinks twice before raising his head, his brows furrowed as though he’d forgotten Alex was there. 

“Not necessarily,” he says, once the power of speech returns to him. “I have nearly forty years of grievances at my disposal.” 

Mark’s tone is so flippant that Alex snorts, unable to tell if he is joking or not. He thinks he sees the beginnings of a smile creep across Mark’s lips, albeit the goatee effectively shields it from view. 

“You’re right,” Alex concedes. He’s rewarded for this admission by a raised eyebrow on Mark’s part, which only encourages him to elaborate further.  “Were you expecting me to deny it? It’s true. How I feel about Miles scares the shit out of me. I’ve found a way to fuck up every relationship I’ve ever had, remember? Hell, I’ve already broken his heart once or twice.” 

Once again, he’s resorting to baring his soul and revealing the ugly scars concealed within. Only it’s not a version of Miles he’s trying to convince – sweet, forgiving Miles who had listened to his appeals for a fresh start without judgement – but himself. He knows from experience that the latter is a far more brutal judge and that one wrong word will invite a barrage of self-loathing, but he no longer has the energy to care. 

“You were right,” Alex reiterates, and when he lifts his gaze to meet Mark’s own, he’s momentarily taken aback by the softness lightening his double’s sullen features, shedding years off his lined face. “I love Miles. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. And yeah, maybe I’ll find a way to fuck it all up down the line, but right now I don’t care. I’d rather die than lose him again.”  

A flare of passion simmers within him, bubbling beneath the surface as he finally stops hiding from his desires. By the time he’s completed his outburst he feels winded but also weightless, as though his crippling doubt surrounding his future with Miles was a heavy load he desperately needed to shed. 

Mark, in comparison, appears oddly unmoved. His weak smile has vanished without a trace and his dull eyes remain infuriatingly distant, so much so that Alex wants to take his face in his hands and scream at him to wake up.  

He doesn’t though. There’s something he’s missing, Alex is sure of that now. Something Mark knows that he doesn’t, and the implications of Mark’s silence sink in his gut like a stone. 

“Happy now?” he asks, extending his arms in a weak display of levity that fails to elicit the intended response.  

Mark lifts his eyes for a mere second, before glancing down at his clasped hands, shoulders hunched as though carrying a weight Alex cannot see. 

“It’s too late,” Mark admits, his voice so small that Alex almost misses it. 

“No it isn’t” Alex insists, edging closer to Mark against his better judgement. His other half at least has the grace to look up at him this time, though his attempt to provide a response is quickly aborted as he clamps his mouth shut.  

Alex refuses to be deterred, however. 

“Miles said he’d come back if I asked him to,” he elaborates, though his brows furrow as his conviction falters. Had Miles said that? Has he been misremembering their final encounter this entire time? Had Miles actually severed all ties to Alex when he slammed the door behind him? “I can still fix this.”  

He can no longer conceal the lingering doubt from his voice, and it has the undesirable effect of forcing Mark to regard him with something that may well be pity.  

“Oh Alex,” Mark sighs, not unkindly, yet the air of exhaustion clinging to his slender frame stings Alex more than a pointed barb ever could. “Think about it. You deduced that you were trapped within a dream. And so you are. You’ve been dreaming from the moment you set foot in the hotel.” 

Mark doesn’t give Alex a chance to experience a renewed thrill of hope at this revelation. With a grunt of effort, he pushes away from the desk and meets Alex on unsteady legs, his strength sapping away from him before Alex’s very eyes. The sight is alarming in itself, but the grim determination on Mark’s pale face and the dimming of the glint in his eyes makes Alex’s heart stutter out of fear. It’s like he’s watching himself succumb to a terminal illness at an unprecedented speed. 

“Has it occurred to you why, after all this time, you still haven’t woken up?” 

Yes. It has. Over and over again, from the moment the possibility of the hotel being a creation of his own mind started to creep into his consciousness. The major factor that always led to him dismissing the idea before it could proliferate like a tumour was the knowledge that, if he were truly dreaming, he must surely have woken up by now. He has encountered enough hellish visions to have startled even the heaviest sleeper out of bed, and yet whenever he blacks out in the wake of such trauma, he finds himself waking up right where he started. 

Within the hotel. Within the building he forged from cardboard in a dimly lit basement many years ago, with zero intention of it ever existing in any reality. 

There’s only one answer to what Mark is asking and it’s a deceptively simple one. 

“Because I can’t,” Alex concludes, swallowing past a lump in his throat as his chest tightens with newfound terror. 

Any hope that Mark will refute him and offer an explanation which doesn’t fill him with existential dread is instantly quashed when he lowers his eyes and gives Alex a single, devastating nod. 

“Not for lack of trying, you understand,” Mark elaborates, venting his frustrations with a weary sigh. “I’ve thrown as many hints at you as I can. Even managed to let some outside stimuli slip through the cracks. It hasn’t made a damn bit of difference. Every time I think we’re getting close to waking up, you end up back at square one.” 

Mark’s exhaustion suddenly makes perfect sense. He hasn’t rested in days. He’s been dogging Alex’s every step since he arrived, constructing the hotel from scratch using old memories and sketches Alex once thought to be lost to time. He’s been constructing replicas of Alex’s loved ones, some so convincing it had been easy for Alex to believe they were the real deal. Even their voices were recreated in perfect detail. Though now that Alex thinks about it, some of those disembodied voices may well have originated from the world beyond his buried mind. 

As though the weight of such efforts is finally crumbling down on him, Mark staggers back to the desk and uses it as a crutch, the overhead light casting a grey sheen over his clammy face. Alex instinctively follows, offering a hand to help him upright, but Mark simply shakes his head, averting his gaze as though the mere sight of Alex distresses him. 

“We’re dying, Alex,” he admits with a shaky exhale, confirming what they both already know deep down.  

Despite the fact that on some level he has prepared himself for this admission, the process of hearing it is one that sends a shockwave through Alex’s chest. His heart stutters, drowning in a fresh wave of adrenaline, and his still outstretched hand trembles with the force of his panic. 

“How?” he chokes, knowing that denying the obvious will only make things worse. If he truly is knocking on death’s door, he needs answers and he needs them now. “I don’t remember anything.” 

A sudden lurch overwhelms him and his heart does a little flip as black-painted possibilities kneel before his feet, awaiting his consideration. The last thing he remembers in any great detail from his time on Earth is Miles leaving him and the descent of numb grief freezing him in place by the stairs. He remembers a gaping chasm opening within his chest as all of his insecurity and regret poured into it, leaving nothing behind but an empty husk.  

He doesn’t remember getting up from the stairs. He doesn’t remember crawling into bed, nor does he remember waking up in the morning. The most obvious possibility is also the least plausible; even at his lowest points, Alex has never once considered harming himself. And yet, who knows what he might have been capable of with enough alcohol and self-loathing circulating throughout his bloodstream. 

As if having read his mind – which now that Alex thinks about it, he probably did – Mark quickly meets his gaze and puts such notions to rest with a tender smile. 

“It weren’t self-inflicted, if that’s what you’re worried about.”  

A flood of relief soaks through Alex’s skin at those words. True, they hardly change his current situation in any meaningful way, but at least he has confirmation that he hasn’t sentenced Miles to a lifetime of unwarranted guilt.  

Not deliberately, anyway. 

Mark straightens as much as he can, capturing Alex in an intentional gaze and reaching out to press two fingers to his left temple. 

“Think back to the night Miles left,” Mark prompts, his dark eyes almost black as he captures Alex in a hypnotic trance. “Where did you go?” 

“I told you, I don’t...” Alex starts, only to falter as a cell within his memory unlocks.  

“I needed to clear me head. I were runnin’ out of cigarettes and used that as an excuse to get out of the house...” 

The subsequent events return to him as broken snapshots, with all extraneous detail surgically excised:  

A lonely walk to an all-hours Tesco lit by flickering streetlamps.   

The rattle of beer cans orchestrating his walk home.   

A short wait at a convoluted traffic junction, with cars whizzing past in sporadic bursts.   

The pedestrian light switching to green.   

A sudden flash of headlights followed by the tortured squeal of brakes.   

His attempt to evade the oncoming vehicle coming just a second too late.  

The sickening crunch of bone snapping against metal.  

Then nothing.  

Only this inescapable nightmare.  

Only the hotel. 

An invisible hand claws into his chest and pulls a gasp from his lungs as Alex crashes back to the present. Hot tears slip down his cheeks, leaving burning streaks in their wake as harsh sobs threaten to smother him. Mark’s fingers migrate from his temple to his cheek, swiping a stray tear in a gesture which feels almost paternal, but the mournful expression on his face conveys Alex’s own grief in explicit detail. 

“I’m sorry,” Mark says, making no attempt to banish the tear slipping down his own cheek. “I truly am.” 

There’s an air of defeat underlying his tone that Alex immediately baulks at. They aren’t dead yet. So long as he draws breath and his mind continues to soldier on, there’s still hope that he can fight back. There must be. 

“Help me get out of here,” Alex pleads, grabbing Mark’s elbow for support and forcing him to maintain eye contact. The muscles beneath his fingertips stiffen momentarily before going slack, offering no resistance to Alex’s crushing grip. “Help me wake up. There must be something we can do.” 

Mark simply laughs at that proposal; a wet, broken thing that quickly descends into a choked sob. 

“Why should I?” he asks, a trace of his old bitterness slipping back into his voice, though his heart clearly isn’t in it. “I’ve been with you from day one. I know how your mind operates more than you ever could. Do you honestly expect me to believe you’ll change? That you’ll throw away all those insecurities on a mere whim?” 

He shakes his head with a huff in answer to his own question, before freeing himself from Alex’s grasp and turning away, choosing instead to lean over the desk and examine the hexagonal model. 

“I’m tired, Alex,” Mark admits, offering only a cursory glance in Alex’s direction. “I’ve already tried everything. We’re not getting out of this.” 

The air is sucked from the room and Alex is left frozen, breathless in the wake of the harsh sentence Mark has bestowed upon him. There’s a certain absurdity in the notion that his impending death is not the result of his own stupidity, but someone else’s. Alex would have preferred the former. Blaming himself for his own misfortune is a skill he has spent his entire life mastering, and perhaps he could have gleaned some comfort in being able to do that now; in being able to exercise an old habit in order to alleviate the fuckedupness of his situation.  

As it stands, the only person he can blame for guiding him towards the precipice of death is a shadowy figure sat behind a steering wheel. Alex can barely even picture their face. 

It isn’t fair. This isn’t how his life is supposed to end. This isn’t how he’s supposed to leave things with Miles; his beautiful Miles, who shouldn’t be forced to bury Alex while wondering if he was ever truly loved by him. Alex should have been granted an opportunity to hold Miles close and expose the full extent of his burning adoration. The possibility that he may have been robbed of that chance - that he may have wasted years of his life hiding his true desires only for them to remain unfulfilled - is something he cannot accept. 

He casts his eyes over the office, dissecting every detail he can find. The burgundy threads composing the rug beneath his feet. The sleek wooden floorboards beneath stretching on towards sheer marble walls. The intricately carved model on the desk which has been recreated perfectly from his memories. The faded spines of the books and the browning pages contained within.  

His mind created this. His dying mind created this in favour of floating within an endorphin-induced void. Even now that Alex knows the truth, his surroundings feel as present as they always have. Even his body feels corporeal, complete with all the aches and pains that accompany such a state of existence.  

No doubt Mark is partly responsible for that. Even in the midst of exhaustion, his subconscious has been fighting for survival all this time, keeping Alex’s imagination active and directing him away from the darkness that awaits him.  

With that realisation, Alex’s mind is made up.  

He isn’t going to die today. He doesn’t care how tired his subconscious is; how little faith Mark has in his ability to find happiness in life. If he has to punch the face of God himself in order to stay alive then that’s exactly what he’ll do.    

For his friends, who don’t deserve to be abandoned so cruelly.

For his parents, who shouldn’t be forced to bury their only child.

For Miles, who deserves to spend the rest of his life knowing that Alex has loved him all along. 

For himself, because he deserves a chance to tell Miles the truth.  

“Fuck you then,” he spits at Mark, forcing him to glance up with thinly-veiled surprise. “I’ll find my own way out.” 

Alex isn’t entirely sure where to begin on the logistics of that plan, but he doesn’t particularly care right now. So long as he completes the first step of creating a lot of distance between himself and Mark, he’s sure he can wing it the rest of the way. 

Step one requires him to leave the office, so he marches towards the closed door and tugs down hard on the handle, only to be met with firm resistance as it refuses to budge. 

“Any chance you have a key?” he asks, trying to keep his tone light in order to conceal the rage simmering beneath his skin. That generosity is quickly revoked, however, when Mark simply stares at him blankly, an infuriating furrow resting between his brows.  

“Could you just come over and open the fucking door? Please?” 

“I didn’t lock it,” Mark admits, meeting Alex’s gaze with a confused frown.  

For a moment they simply stare at each other, then at the locked door. Only then does Alex realise that there is no keyhole or obvious lock mechanism; even if Mark did hold a key, it would no longer be capable of freeing him. 

In the wake of their shared confusion, the creeping whispers return with a vengeance, coalescing into a discordant wheeze that drains the blood from Alex’s face. Mark must hear them too, for he turns to follow Alex’s gaze. The only possible source for the voices must be the vault; a gaping black void in the wall that does not belong, yet demands the eye of anyone present.  

The whine ascends to a bloodcurdling scream that forces Alex to slam his palms against his ears, but his blockade does nothing to dampen the noise. Agonised screeches accompany the hammering of his heart in a combined effort to obliterate his eardrums, and he closes his eyes in an attempt to stave off the overstimulation.  

Only to open them again as a resounding crash silences the barrage. 

The vault door - which Alex had assumed to be welded shut - has been flung open with such extreme force that deep cracks arise on the adjacent wall where it has embedded itself. Beyond the threshold, there is little to see. No adjoining room or endless corridor greets him, nor any obvious stairs to a concealed basement. There is only a shifting darkness; a suffocating, hungry void characterised more by a lack of colour than any particular shade of black.  

For a moment, all Alex and Mark can do is stare into the abyss as if expecting someone – or something – to emerge from within. But nothing does.  

Even the screaming has stopped. The only thing Alex can hear is a persistent, monotone ringing, as though he’s just stepped offstage after playing a full gig without ear protection.  

Not even his frantic heartbeat makes a reappearance.  

The implications of that sink in a moment too late. A tightening sensation grips his chest to the point where it feels like his head has been forced underwater. Around him, the curved walls start to crumble under the weight of the domed ceiling as the room spins on its axis, and a pulsing wave emanates from the void, simulating the effect of gentle breathing as an inaudible whisper compels Alex to draw closer. 

A shot of dread returns him to his senses, allowing him to resist the void’s call and stagger back to the relative safety of the desk. 

Whatever lies beyond the door does not take his refusal lightly. As soon as Alex takes a backwards step, a tortured scream erupts from the depths, and he finds himself being thrown to the floor by an unseen force. He chokes on a strangled yell as he falls, scrabbling for purchase on the polished desk as invisible tendrils mercilessly dig into the flesh of his calves, leaving scarlet welts along his skin. With a brutal tug, Alex suddenly finds himself being pulled towards the gaping chasm. A scream tears from his throat as he digs his fingernails into the floorboards, leaving deep, bloodied gouges in the wood as he’s guided towards his fate.   

Mark can only watch in powerless shock as Alex fights against his unseen assailant. Only when Alex’s legs are pulled over the precipice - forcing him to use every ounce of his strength to cling to the metal doorframe - does Mark finally meet his gaze, his expression frozen in open-mouthed terror. Alex ignores him for a moment, grunting with the effort of trying to free his lower half from the screaming pit, but when the cold metal starts leaving deep scratches in his palms and his skin tears beneath rope-like tendrils, he’s forced to appeal to his other half for mercy he sincerely doubts he’ll be granted.  

“Help me!” Alex begs, his voice hoarse from the impact of his screams. “Please Mark!” 

Sweat drips from his forehead and trickles into his eyes, conspiring with his stinging tears to blind him. Another brutal tug has him slipping even further over the edge, until only his arms are free from the dark. Alex’s shoulders scream with the effort of remaining in their sockets as he clings onto the doorframe for dear life - his knuckles whitening from the strain of maintaining his grip on reality - and though he knows it probably won’t make a difference, he uses the last of his breath to scream for help once more. 

He hopes that Mark can read his mind, even now when he is almost lost. He hopes Mark knows that he is not only begging for his own wretched life. He is begging for the chance to make things right, to repair the damage his mistakes have wrought. Alex cannot do that if Mark stands aside and watches him die.  

If Mark won’t save him for his own sake, perhaps he’ll do it for Miles’s. 

Such flickers of hope are extinguished within a matter of seconds as one final tug forces Alex to lose his fragile grip on the world, his mouth caught on a silent scream as he starts to fall. 

Chapter Text

For one fleeting moment stretched over an eternity, time stands perfectly still. A rectangle of light from the doorway floats above Alex with no obvious foundation, soon to be snuffed out like a dying flame. His arms linger in the air, hands claw-like as they reach for purchase which no longer exists. His stomach has established a permanent residence in his throat, while his mouth remains fixed in a silent cry long after his last startled gasp has passed his lips.   

He wonders if this is limbo; a cruel space which lies between two worlds yet grants him access to neither. If that is the case – if he truly is fated to be suspended here for all eternity – Alex knows he would rather endure the unknowable embrace of oblivion.  

The moment passes without warning as time decides to hit play on the remote, dropping Alex further into the depths with a sickening lurch, until something stops him in his tracks. His vision whitens as pain blossoms within his left shoulder, the joint screaming with the effort of remaining in its socket. Alex unleashes an inhuman scream as he finds himself pulled in different directions – the snake-like tendrils fighting to wrest him free from his would-be rescuers grasp – and only when his vision clears is he able to make out the lone figure clinging to his arm for dear life.  

Mark has finally sprung into action.   

Alex has never been so relieved to see his own face staring back at him. A pair of hands clutches his wrist in a vice-like grip as Mark leans over the precipice, dangerously close to being pulled into the chasm himself. His teeth are gritted and the veins of his neck bulge as he releases a tortured snarl, before pulling Alex towards him as far as the opposing tendrils will allow.  

“Hold on!” Mark yells, spit flying from his teeth as he does so, but the words are almost lost amidst an assault of reawakened screams as the void proclaims its displeasure.   

Alex doesn’t need to be told twice. With considerable effort, he battles gravity and swings his right arm up to the light, feeling hope grip his chest as Mark captures his flailing hand in his own. With what little energy he has left, Alex kicks ferociously at his invisible restraints, ignoring the searing pain as they tighten their grip. He can’t determine how long he spends caught in this brutal tug of war – at one point he entertains the possibility that it may end with him being bisected – but at long last a prospective winner becomes clear. As Alex batters his invisible bonds with numb feet, Mark summons a burst of strength sufficient enough to allow him to crouch onto his heels, lifting Alex an inch or two in the process.  

He almost loses his grip when, with a deafening snap, the tendrils’ grip finally slackens and Alex is left flailing in the dark. A cry of terror escapes him as Mark stumbles, but he recovers quickly, freeing one hand to grip the doorframe for purchase. In the absence of resistance, Mark’s scarlet face relaxes and he braces himself as he tugs Alex towards him with all the strength he can muster.  

Alex tries to help in any way he can; reaching wildly for the edge of the doorframe and lifting his legs as high as possible in the hope of reuniting with solid ground. He must resemble a circus performer tangled up in floating ribbons, but he’s rewarded for his efforts as Mark finally manages to rise to his feet, lifting Alex with him and offering him a precious glimpse of the crumbling office. With a couple more flailing kicks, Alex finally gains purchase on the wooden floor and finds himself being pulled forwards with one mighty heave, crashing into Mark with so much force that they both wind up collapsing, reduced to a panting tangle of bodies on the floor.  

Only when he’s within safe distance of the chasm does adrenaline rush forth, and Alex chokes on a broken sob as his body trembles with relief. With a light shove, he rolls away from Mark until they’re lying side by side on the threadbare rug, gasping from sheer exhaustion and the wonderful sensation of simply being alive. Alex tries to turn his head, but even that feels like an insurmountable challenge with the aches wracking his every muscle, so he’s forced to simply stare at the ceiling as he chokes on a ragged, “Thank you.”  

The screams emanating from within the chasm have become muted, but their closeness still sends a chill through Alex’s spine. So too does the knowledge that he’s hardly out of the woods yet, and he’s grateful when Mark finally scrambles to his feet and starts trying to drag him up.  

“You need to get out of here,” Mark says, almost matter-of-factly. Only his wide doe-eyes and the clumsiness of his movements betray a sense of urgency. They both glance in the direction of the locked door, expecting to be met with an impassable barrier, but their fears are allayed as a loud click resounds throughout the room and the sloping corridor beyond the office is slowly revealed.   

The sight of his potential salvation fills Alex with renewed energy, and he straightens as much as his tired muscles will allow before proceeding towards the open door.  

“Wait!” Mark cries out, taking hold of Alex’s hand and locking him in a desperate stare. A hint of colour has returned to his cheeks and he looks younger somehow, as though paradoxically rejuvenated by his brush with death. “Promise me you’ll make things right? Promise me you’ll be happy with him?”  

Alex doesn’t need to think twice.  

“I will,” he promises, offering Mark’s hand a reassuring squeeze and feeling his own chest lighten with the knowledge of his own conviction.  

Mark must sense his resolve, for he releases the last remnants of his fear with a shuddering sigh, before releasing Alex’s hand and nodding towards the waiting corridor.  

“Then go,” he orders, offering Alex a smile which may even be genuine. “I’ll hold down the fort.”  

Alex doesn’t hesitate. Emboldened by Mark’s newfound faith, he launches himself towards the door and starts running as fast as his legs will carry him.   

This, admittedly, is not as fast as he’d like. Around him, the elongated corridor is crumbling from within. Metastasising cracks trace his route along the walls and ceiling, showering him with dust and debris which leaves him choking as he soldiers on. Between the gouges, thick gnarled roots sprout green leaves of ivy which spill onto the floor and litter his path, and the air feels thick as though he’s wading through mud. The screams from the void trail after him in one congealing mass, attempting to form words but lacking the humanity required to do so.  

Alex pays such obstacles no mind. He cannot afford to dwell on them now. He crouches before each shower of debris can blind him; he leaps over every sprouting root before he can trip and become buried among the burgeoning thicket; he clings to memories of his loved ones’ voices as he drowns out the screams of those who would seek to tear him from their arms. His heart remains stubbornly silent, but a sudden jolt like a punch to the sternum sends him reeling and he’s forced to grip the shifting wall to catch his breath. Not for long though. Already he can see coils of ivy trying to ensnare his feet, and he kicks them aside before setting off again.   

The farther he travels from the gaping chasm, the more its inhuman screams make way for familiar voices. A lance pierces his heart as he makes out an ear-splitting wail, and he powers on in the hopes that doing so will prevent his mum from ever sounding like that again. There are disorganised voices he doesn’t recognise breaking through the fog and a cacophony of beeps and blaring alarms pour over him like a wave before receding into the dark. Another jolt zaps his chest, more forcefully this time, sending him crashing against the wall and onto the floor as a shock of pain radiates from his skull to his hip.  

Gritting his teeth, he starts to scramble to his feet, only to find that he’s frozen in place. An unseen force has taken possession of his left ankle. When Alex turns to look, he catches sight of human hands clawing at any hint of flesh they can reach, their owner slowly suffocating as snaking roots tighten across a cream blazer and leave deep scratches along his unblemished face. A wave of horror grips Alex as he spots a pair of bloodshot blue eyes shining within the thicket, but he doesn’t have time to question Brian’s acquisition of a corporeal body.   

The steward merely growls with rage, his teeth bared in a snarl as the vines ensnaring him creep towards Alex’s exposed ankles, and any pity Alex may have harboured vanishes in favour of self-preservation.  

With a brutal kick, he succeeds in freeing his leg from Brian’s clawing grip. He leaves another one for good measure, and a satisfying crunch echoes off the walls as his heel makes contact with Brian’s nose. The steward’s howl is instantly swallowed as hungry vines creep over his jaw and into his mouth, cutting off his scream and replacing it with a choked gurgle.   

Alex doesn’t linger to watch him succumb to his fate. Before the roots can set their sights on him too, he scrambles to his feet and breaks into a sprint, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead before fear can immobilise him.

“Don’t do this, Al,” another voice cries out from the dark, harsh and broken and caught on what sounds like a wrenching sob. “Please, love. You can’t leave like this.”  

“I’m not going anywhere,” Alex wants to scream, until his words find their way to Miles through their telepathic link. “I’m not leaving you. I’m staying right here.”  

As impossible as it seemed mere seconds ago, such a promise finally feels achievable. The screams haunting his every move have abated. The walls and ceilings around him remain intact as he climbs the sloping corridor, the deep cracks left behind in the crumbling belly of the hotel. His feet land on soft, patterned carpet as opposed to twisted, gnarled roots and his heartbeat roars in his ears as his destination finally emerges on the horizon; a slender rectangle of white light appearing where the atrium once stood.   

As much as running towards the light is generally viewed as terrible advice in situations like these, Alex is willing to make an exception in this instance. What awaits him can hardly be as awful as the hell he’s just escaped, and as he draws closer to home, he’s sure he can hear Mark’s voice in his ear, whispering words of encouragement.  

With the walls no longer collapsing around him, Alex is able to appreciate the new paintings occupying what were once empty frames. The works are hardly masterpieces but he adores them all the same. He basks in the renditions of himself with the lads at afterschool band practice - their faces still riddled with spots - or recreations of them knocking back pints at the pub while Sheffield Wednesday games play on an overhead TV. One painting shows them all crammed in the back of a tiny van after their very first gig away from home, curled around each other as they fend off sleep.  

Paintings of his friends make way for artistic interpretations of the Christmas he got his first guitar - his beaming face directed towards his parents as he cradles his new love - alongside even older memories of himself curled up in bed, sick with a fever, as his mum runs a soothing hand over his forehead and lulls him to sleep with a story or improvised lullaby (which he would later learn were all Bowie or Zeppelin songs).  

The most beautiful works are all of Miles. Miles grinning at him over a mic during their first Puppets gig. Miles sat on the sofa, composing a melody on his guitar, so lost in his own little world that he doesn’t notice Alex watching him in adoration. Miles pulling him into a loving embrace or pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. Miles bathed in the glow of the morning sun, an earnest smile gracing his lips as Alex stirs into wakefulness.  

The paintings whizz by as mere glimpses, but Alex’s mind fills in the blanks with ease. The resultant yearning propels him onwards until the light is mere yards away. Only when his breaths shudder in his chest does he acknowledge how exhausted he has become; his left side is aflame with new agonies while a dull cramp seizes everywhere else, and breathing has become an insurmountable chore. He’s half-tempted to collapse where he stands, so desperate is he for rest, but instinct propels him onwards.   

If he takes just a few more steps, he can be with Miles again. Sacrificing that chance is not an option.  

And so, with one final push, Alex crosses the threshold into what was once the atrium of his hotel, surrendering to sleep with a contented sigh as the light swallows him whole.  

From a very young age, Alex has always loved submerging himself in water.   

From the moment swimming pools became a fixture of his boyhood, he leapt at the chance to dive into their turquoise depths, relishing the moment where the screams of his friends faded away to a pleasant rush of bubbles. The brief interlude between complete submersion and the pressing need for oxygen was particularly precious. Alex would often close his eyes and allow his body to simply float, statuesque, as he ignored the ripples pulsating towards him from other children diving beneath the surface. He would remain in that state until a familiar burn settled in his chest, forcing him to act upon instinct and swim back towards reality.   

So addictive was this contentment that whenever his parents took him on walks to the park, he would gaze into the depths of the pond and watch the tadpoles with a flare of jealousy, wishing he too could simply exist underwater without harbouring an inconvenient need to breathe.  

That feeling has never left him completely. Long after graduating from the local swimming baths in High Green to the shimmering waves of Malibu and beyond, the water’s depths still hold a particular allure that is impossible to resist. The desire to simply float in space without dwelling on responsibilities above the surface is a childish one – Alex knows that – but it doesn’t stop him from craving such stillness every time his life spirals into another wave of constant performances, onstage and off.   

That stillness is one that envelops him now.   

His slow return to reality feels like waking up in a pleasantly warm bath. The floaty feeling he craves has returned, salving the aches littered across his body and rendering him soft and languid. The air around him feels thick without being cloying, rushing through his outstretched fingers like water as he basks in its haze. Giving his legs an experimental kick, he finds that he truly is suspended in space; not yet part of the world he so desperately wants to return to, yet not too far away from it either. Perhaps when he reaches the crucial moment where his lungs remind him to breathe, his ascent to the surface will be rewarded by the sight of Miles waiting by the shore, his tanned skin golden against the bleached white sands.  

Times passes strangely in this place. If he allows himself to reach beyond his pleasant haze, he can hear the monotony of human voices and beeping machines. His ability to interpret anything is hindered by two factors, however: one, the fact that the voices are so muted he may as well be wearing earmuffs, and two, the fact that everyone sounds like they’re stuck in slow motion. Distinguishing between friendly voices and total strangers is impossible unless he swims closer to the surface, yet his attempts to do so are so taxing that he blacks out before he can make any headway.  

It doesn’t take long for his efforts to bear fruit, however. After a particularly strenuous attempt to breach the surface of the waves, Alex is rewarded by the sound of his mother’s voice; hushed and gentle, as though he were still her baby boy tucked up in bed with the flu. His scalp tingles as unseen fingers stroke his hair behind his ears, and a homesickness so profound he may as well be six years old again seizes his heart when the words “I’ll be back soon darling” grace his ears.  

His body doesn’t react well to this brush with consciousness. The instant his mother’s presence vanishes, Alex falls into a dreamless sleep so profound, he half-expects to wake up in the hungry void. When he finally resurfaces in his floaty haven, the distant voices are drowned out by a fiery cramp in his hip as a sharpness like embedded daggers accompanies every breath. A pathetic whimper passes his lips as he ponders whether to dive into the painless depths once more, but the assaults soon dwindle to a mere nagging throb without his influence.  

It’s impossible to determine how long he spends in that in-between state, desperate to reunite with his loved ones but too immobilised by pain to proceed with anything more than a baby-step. Eventually the pain that greets him as he draws closer to the surface becomes less alarming. Knowing what to expect removes some of the teeth from his unseen torturer, though Alex would be lying if he said the effort was tolerable.   

The only reward that makes his efforts worth pursuing is the snatches of conversation he overhears; Matt chatting away about Amelia’s latest art project, or Jamie mentioning how excited the kids are to see Uncle Al once he’s all better, or Nick taking the piss and telling him he still looks better now than he did when he shaved his head.   

Alex hears his mum recounting tales from his childhood – his aborted piano lessons, the stress of receiving his school reports, his brief obsession with Gangsta Rap that convinced her to invest in a good pair of earplugs – all with an air of pride that’s potentially unbecoming of a retired schoolteacher. Occasionally his dad will chip in - his gruff yet unmistakably warm voice promising to teach Alex the saxophone when he wakes up - but for the most part his presence is felt in a firm grip encasing Alex’s hand.  

These conversations are often fleeting and jumbled, as though disrupted by a faulty aerial, but Alex doesn’t mind. He would endure all the agony hell itself could unleash if it meant he got to hear those voices for the rest of his days.   

So he kicks and swims and hauls himself towards a surface that hovers above him like a promise, ignoring the fire raging across his left side out of spite. For every throb in his hip or wheeze in his lungs, there’s a squeeze of the hand or a kiss on the forehead to remedy it. The sensations are considerably dulled, but Alex can’t bring himself to care. It’s still the closest he’s felt to reality since he stepped foot in Tranquility Base’s lobby with a plastic bag and a migraine.   

After what feels like years wading through the honeyed depths, the universe finally decides to reward him with the voice he wants to hear most. The words are still muffled somewhat, but Alex can cope. The knowledge that Miles is here with him is all the reassurance he needs.  

“’...the last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do.... somersault through a hoop whilst whistling... but in fact the message was this: So long, and thanks for all the fish.’”   

A soft chuckle punctuates Miles’s retelling, warm and musical and so familiar that Alex would cry if he physically could. It occurs to him that music is also playing – something soft and nostalgic underlying the cadence of Miles’s words – but the melody isn’t clear enough to make out. Not that it matters. His absolute favourite Bowie or Strokes record could be playing and he would still prefer to listen to Miles any day of the week.  

“I always liked that bit,” Miles says, his voice ebbing and flowing to such an extent that Alex can’t tell if he’s referring to the snippet of ‘Hitchhikers...’ he overheard or something else entirely. “Most of the books you like are pretty depressin’ - no offence - but this one’s a classic.”  

Alex’s heart aches with the longing to fire a witty comeback in Miles’s direction. To defend his beloved Russian and French classics, or argue over whether ‘42’ really is the meaning of life. He wants to pull Miles into an impromptu hug and bury his face in the crook of his neck until they both fall into blissful slumber. He wants to caress Miles’s cheek and kiss his lips and declare his love in dramatic, overblown fashion until Miles can be sure that he truly means every word.   

Doing any of those things almost feels possible. Miles sounds so close that Alex wonders if opening his eyes will finally reunite them, but all that greets him when he tries is the golden haze that has become his home.  

“Al?” Miles asks out of the blue, his voice suddenly crystal clear and full of so much hope that Alex’s heart breaks.   

He wonders what could possibly have grabbed Miles’s attention. Was it the twitch of a finger? A flutter of eyelashes? A grimace in response to his beloved philosophical novels being dismissed as ‘pretty depressin’?   

Whatever it was, it would appear he does not have the energy for a repeat performance.  

“It’s okay,” Miles says eventually, his voice little more than a faint sigh, carried on a cool breeze that kisses Alex’s cheeks as it passes. “We’re okay. You wake up in your own time, love. You’ve already pulled through the worst bit.”  

Any attempts to compose himself must crumble to dust, for a choked sob breaks into Alex’s sphere of awareness, sending ripples in its wake. The urge to reach out to Miles overwhelms him once more, and his legs give an involuntary kick in the hopes of edging closer to him. The memory of his devastated pleas as Alex ran for his life has imprinted itself on his soul like a searing brand, and he would give anything to shield Miles from experiencing that pain ever again.  

His conviction only heightens as a pleasant tingle shoots through his scalp, so vividly he can almost feel the warmth of Miles’s fingers caressing his hair.   

“I love you so much. I don’t think I realised how much until...”   

He’s cut off by another broken sob, and a warm pressure graces Alex’s forehead in the brief silence that follows.   

“So you take all the time you need, you hear me? And when you’re ready to come back to us, I’ll be right here. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”  

That assurance is all the motivation Alex needs.   

Casting aside any doubts over what breaching the surface of the waves may mean, Alex kicks wildly upwards, adopting a makeshift breaststroke as he swims through the mist. As expected, his body protests immediately, but he powers through the pulsing throbs and vice-like pressure against his ribs with a new resolve. The golden haziness shimmers and morphs to a clinical whiteness as the surface looms closer, and he becomes aware of a tightness in his throat that paradoxically makes it harder to breathe the further he gets from the comforting depths.   

That doesn’t stop him though. Miles is waiting for him. That’s all the motivation he needs to keep him going. Not even the creeping threat of dreamless slumber can get its claws into him now, nor can the sense of his limbs turning to jelly as exhaustion creeps into his bones. With only a couple more uncoordinated kicks, the dense waters make way for the light of a looming sun as Alex’s head pokes above the frantic waves.

Wakefulness collapses on him like a ton of bricks, a harsh gasp ripping from his throat as he tries to breathe around a nebulous obstruction. The sensation of a solid tube snaking past his tongue makes him gag, fresh tears springing to clenched eyes as he releases a strangled cough.  

“Alex?!” Miles cries, the piercing scrape of a chair accompanying his shock as he leaps to his feet. “Oh, god...”  

Alex can sense Miles hovering, torn between wanting to stay at his bedside and his very real need for expert assistance. The gravity of the situation must descend quickly however, for the air is soon filled with the wail of a buzzer as Miles’s feet scamper towards an unseen door.   

“I need some help in here!” Miles yells to anyone willing to listen. There’s a commotion of raised voices and running feet beneath the continual blare of the alarm, but the threat of being blinded by overhead lights forces Alex to keep his eyes shut. He’s still struggling to breathe past the tube jammed down his throat, but the sound of Miles’s voice in perfect clarity acts as a soothing balm regardless. “I think he’s waking up!”  

The room suddenly feels too busy, his bed surrounded by too many chattering bodies to count, with the only one that matters lost among the crowd. Alex tries to bury his cheek against a pillow even as careful gloved hands attempt to spare him from his breathing tube, and he groans in frustration as his useless body responds to his commands with only weak obedience. His limbs are too heavy for comfort and the lights are too bright and his throat is wracked by harsh coughs in the newfound absence of its abuser, but all of that stops mattering the instant a familiar hand starts stroking through his matted hair, its owner perched so close that Alex can feel his warm breath caressing his cheek.  

“Shhh, you’re okay sweetheart,” Miles whispers, clutching Alex’s hand in a death-grip as he presses a firm kiss to his forehead. “I’m here, love. I’m right here.”  

Chapter Text

Any illusions that Alex’s recovery will be a peaceful process are promptly quashed.  

His new morning routine consists of endless reviews led by doctors from various specialties. Neurosurgeons, ICU consultants, and orthopaedic surgeons all battle for a piece of him in the days following his impromptu awakening, studying every inch of his body like ravenous hawks assessing a meal. Each ward-round beckons a new barrage of tests, from X-rays to CT scans, blood tests to mental-state examinations, all aiming to paint a picture of how Alex’s recovery will unfold.  

The afternoons are less intensive, but only just. As soon as the lunch trays are cleared away, Alex’s physiotherapists descend with new exercises for him to try, reacting with perhaps excessive excitement whenever he accomplishes such monumental tasks as wiggling his toes or lifting his arm above his head. Their enthusiasm is infectious, however, and Alex learns to crave their visits whenever he’s being poked and prodded by various doctors. 

Any time not spent under the watchful gaze of medical specialists tends to be reserved for naps.  

For someone who spent a grand total of seven days in a coma, Alex is completely exhausted. Nobody particularly blames him for that - albeit Matt can never resist a pointed “Oh I’m sorry, are we boring you?” whenever Alex drifts off mid-conversation - but the notion that he spends more time dozing than actually interacting with his friends ignites a spark of guilt regardless. His loved ones didn’t sit by his side for seven days - desperately begging him to wake up - only to watch him escape back into slumber all over again. 

In Alex’s defence, the constant stream of sweet, sweet morphine doesn’t exactly promote a state of wakefulness. Not that he imagines he could cope without it. Since emerging from his coma he’s become overly familiar with an extensive – yet somehow not comprehensive - list of his injuries, so regularly is it recited in his presence:  

• Fractured neck of left femur (now held together by metal pins)
• Four fractured ribs on his left side, with one fragment narrowly missing his lung 
• Ruptured spleen with associated internal haemorrhage, necessitating its removal in surgery and multiple blood transfusions
• Fractured clavicle and dislocated left shoulder which is now supported by a sling (Alex has developed a habit of trying to escape its confinement while he sleeps, much to his nurses' chagrin) 

Most concerning at the time of his arrival had been the head injury which sent him barrelling towards a coma. His unfortunate collision with the tarmac had left him with a skull fracture which, by some fucking miracle (his neurosurgeon’s exact words), had caused no damage to the brain - nor any injury to his spine - but had ruptured enough surrounding blood vessels that he’d ended up being rushed into surgery regardless. 

Ultimately it was the rib fractures that proved the most problematic. By restricting the movements of his chest, they left him vulnerable to a pneumonia which easily ravaged the rest of his weakened body. Alex had spent two whole days hanging over a precipice, nursing a fever through the roof and a blood pressure in his boots, before momentarily tipping over the edge into cardiac arrest.  

His heart had stopped for four endless minutes, while his mum and Miles watched on in helpless terror. 

That had occurred on day three. It would be a further two days of powerful antibiotics, blood transfusions and enough IV fluids to fill a river before his condition could be described as remotely stable, and only then was he deemed well enough to be weaned off sedation. Days six and seven were reduced to a waiting game, in which Alex’s loved ones could breathe a little easier with every twitching finger or flutter of eyelashes or pained moan, but were still forced to watch the hours scrape by as these hopeful signs largely failed to bear fruit.  

What was supposed to be a slow, graceful return to Earth instead resulted in a dramatic crash, with Alex nearly giving poor Miles a heart attack when he awoke with a strangled gasp.    

This lengthy summary of his time in ICU is often followed by an awed declaration of how lucky he is. By the third time Alex hears this proclamation, he wants to laugh in the doctor’s face. Not out of malice, per se, but more at the ridiculousness of such a statement being delivered to someone who had one foot in the grave mere days ago.  

A lucky man would have managed the simple task of crossing the road without sustaining a list of injuries the length of his arm.  

A lucky man wouldn’t have had to fight so hard to make it back to his loved ones. 

And yet, Alex supposes there’s some merit to his doctors’ consensus. He’s alive for a start. Despite sustaining a significant head injury, he appears to have retained most of his mental faculties. Barring a mild case of amnesia regarding the immediate aftermath of the accident, he's passed every memory test the doctors have thrown at him. He almost got full marks on the latest one, but the medical student conducting it had squandered his chances by misinterpreting his stutters as “word-finding difficulties”.  

Despite the heaviness of his body upon awakening, Alex has already regained full range of movement in his hands and can lift three limbs against gravity, barring his left arm which remains stubborn and sore. His physiotherapists are so pleased with his progress that they’re already discussing the possibility of getting him up on his feet in the coming days. The initial projections for his recovery are all optimistic, so much so that Miles has joked that he’ll be right as rain in time for their winter tour. 

 (After some debate, he jokingly conceded that if Alex isn’t ready by next spring, they can pull a Dave Grohl and wheel him onstage on a makeshift throne). 

He’s going to be okay. As difficult as that is to believe whenever pain breaches morphine’s brittle defences, Alex knows deep down that it’s the truth. Through sheer force of will, he has bought himself years of time he wouldn’t otherwise have had. Time in which, if he’s lucky, he can make things right and grow old with Miles by his side. 

If only he could catch Miles alone.  

Alex will never complain about having his parents and best friends gathered around him, but their presence is hardly conducive to a heartfelt reconciliation with the love of his life. It would appear that a strict rota is in operation; one in which Miles stays until someone eventually kicks him out, his parents arrive after the morning rounds and leave for their hotel at around eight in the evening, and Matt, Nick and Jamie cycle in whenever childcare obligations allow. Matt in particular has made a point of supplying Alex’s nurses with an unlimited mountain of biscuits, a courtesy which has earned him several cups of free coffee. And not even the terrible NHS kind either. 

The one evening in which Alex assumes he finally has Miles to himself – five days into his intensive rehab - is swiftly interrupted by a pair of police officers flanked by a disapproving nurse. Apparently someone in the department let slip to the police that Alex is now well enough to provide a semi-coherent statement. The officers are suitably polite and endure his poor memory with endless patience, but Alex finds himself wishing they would simply fuck off. The incessant scratch of pen meeting paper throughout their interrogation makes Alex feel like he is the one facing charges, and despite sending Miles away in the hope of sparing him from the gruesome details, Alex can’t help but wish he was there to calm his nerves. 

Only when the officers start to wrap up their questioning do they offer anything of value. Almost as an afterthought, the younger of the pair digs out a folded photograph from his notebook and hands it over to Alex, asking if he recognises the suspect pictured within the mugshot. 

Perhaps Alex should be surprised to see Brian’s face staring back at him, but he isn’t. Given that most of Tranquility Base’s guests spawned from buried memories, it figures that Alex must have encountered Brian somewhere in the waking world.  

The likeness isn’t exact, of course. Gone is the uncanny valley effect that once haunted Brian’s every expression. Instead, his porcelain features have been replaced by a youthful face pockmarked with acne. Familiar beady eyes are underlined by dark circles and faint blotches, and what was once neat blond hair has been reduced to a tousled bird’s nest.  

The officer promptly identifies Brian’s doppelganger as a Mr James Spencer and goes on to explain that the mugshot was taken on the night Alex was hit, a mere three hours after the initial 999 call was made.

Apparently James had chosen to mourn a fresh break-up by embarking on an almighty binge at home, before unleashing himself upon the London streets. Caught in a paranoid delusion that he was being hunted by the Met, he’d hesitated for only five seconds after crashing into Alex before speeding off into the night, blissfully unaware that he was enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy. Only the actions of a lone witness – a young nurse walking home from her backshift – had spared Alex from the indignity of dying alone on the street. 

Alex’s favourite nurse – a motherly Scouser called Geraldine - has a habit of telling him that he has the right to be angry. That in the wake of a traumatic injury it’s normal to be thrown into deep emotional turmoil, and that he doesn’t need to bury his anger or frustration or grief for his loved ones’ sake.

Such reassurance is comforting, and yet, Alex doesn’t feel angry at all. Not at James. Not at Mark for giving up too early. Not even at himself. He feels tired and more than a little apprehensive about the lengthy recovery that awaits him, but mostly he finds himself gripped by an overwhelming sense of relief.  

Relief that the expert consensus is that a full recovery is not only possible, but incredibly likely.  

Relief that his loved ones can finally talk to him without being met with devastating silence and the whoosh of a ventilator. 

Relief that Miles is still here. Still waiting by his side, in spite of all the stupid things Alex has said and done. 

In the end, Alex hands the photo back to the officer, mumbling something vague about having never met Mr Spencer before. Only then is he spared from their presence. Their departure allows Miles to reappear in the doorway, nursing his fifth cup of coffee of the day, and his concerned frown vanishes as Alex greets him with a sleepy smile.  

Despite the fact that opportunities to have Miles all to himself are rare, Alex is unable to resist the tempting lull of sleep once he finally returns to his side. If Miles minds however, he gives no indication of it. Instead, he simply digs out a battered copy of ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ and resumes his dramatic retelling with appropriate gusto, forcing Alex to conceal an unconscious smile as he slips away to the pleasant sound of Miles’s voice. 

The silky-smooth vocals of Richard Hawley ease Alex back into consciousness.  

With dawning awareness comes a handful of other details. Namely the persistent beeping of nearby heart monitors; a niggle of pain every time he takes a deep breath; the sweet pressure of a warm hand intertwined with his own. Soft snores break through the din of medical machinery, and as Alex flutters into wakefulness, he’s rewarded with the sight of an exhausted Miles slumped over the bed, his body in severe danger of sliding off his chair as his head rests upon Alex’s mattress. His hand is still clutching Alex’s like a lifeline, and his sleep-mussed hair looks so soft that Alex yearns to reach out and stroke it back from his face. Perched over Alex’s blanketed legs, ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ lies dejected, its page corners creased in the wake of Miles’s unconscious fidgeting. 

The clock on the opposite wall informs Alex that it’s five am. The muted lights and Miles’s opportunistic nap support this, although Alex can still hear the bustle of activity in the adjacent bays. An intensive care unit in a busy London hospital is one that never sleeps after all, or so he’s learned.  

Miles must have pulled various strings in order to remain at Alex’s bedside overnight. Either that or their favourite Charge Nurse is on duty – the fabulous Geraldine who, as it happened, went to school with Miles’s mum and has enough fond memories of Pauline to allow Miles to wrap her around his little finger. Miles has credited her more than once for keeping him sane as Alex got sicker and sicker; her offers of tea and hugs being the only things tethering him to earth while his heart shattered in two. 

Only Miles receives special treatment from Geraldine. In contrast, Matt once received a stern lecture on the principles of hygiene from her after he dared enter Alex’s room without applying a healthy dose of hand sanitiser beforehand. Even Alex gets told off if he doesn’t manage an entire jug of water quickly enough for her liking. 

Whatever the explanation for Miles’s presence, Alex is grateful to see him. There are still moments where he wakes up completely alone, panting in the wake of a fading nightmare and unable to interpret the meaning behind his bizarre surroundings. More than once he has woken with the distinct impression that he is still trapped within Room 521. His memories of Tranquility Base are trickling away slowly – soon to be lost at sea forever – but the impression of being confined within a hell of his own making has lingered like a vengeful spirit. Miles being here dampens the fear; calms the hammering of his heart until he can no longer feel it slamming against shattered ribs.  

Alex knows he would happily wake to this sight for the rest of his days if he could. Even when the music stops, as Miles’s playlist reaches an abrupt end, a sense of peace remains in the space where gentle melodies once livened the air. 

No doubt Miles would want Alex to rouse him, but Alex can’t resist the opportunity to simply watch him doze peacefully. The past couple of weeks have not been kind to him. Dark circles have set up camp around his eyes, their usual twinkle dimmed from exhaustion during daylight hours. His jaw is lined with stubble which casts a dark shadow across his cheeks, and his growing hair is in desperate need of a good wash. His cheeks look somewhat sunken in the muted light of the room, owing to the fact that Miles’s main source of sustenance lately has been cheap coffee, and he’s missing a button on what Alex knows is one of his favourite patterned shirts. Alex has overheard his mum urging Miles to go home and have a proper rest on more than one occasion since he woke up, but it would appear Miles has not yet seized that opportunity. 

Not that any of those observations matter. Miles is still the most beautiful man Alex has ever seen. 

Perhaps subconsciously sensing that he’s being held under a spotlight, Miles flinches - his hand tightening around Alex’s own - and his eyes clench as he releases a tortured groan. A weak laugh escapes Alex as he watches Miles lose his battle against beckoning consciousness, and the sound appears to end Miles’s torment. A sudden eagerness to greet the dawn claims him, and a soft grin settles upon his lips when he finally opens his eyes to meet Alex’s sleepy gaze. 

“Morning beautiful,” Miles says, his voice rough from sleep. 

Alex fails to hold back a weak scoff at that. Perhaps on other mornings such a compliment would be warranted, but certainly not on this one.  

Geraldine finally caved to his begging the other day and lent him a mirror. While not as horrifically mangled as Matt had tried to make out (he’d wasted no time in telling Alex that he was willing to inherit the title of Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Sex Symbol’ until Alex underwent facial reconstruction surgery), he still looks rough. Purplish-yellow bruising has blossomed from his left temple towards his eye, stopping midway down his cheek. Scattered cuts continue to heal across his face, while one slender gouge splitting his left brow promises to leave a scar (“A cool one, though!” Jamie had assured him). All of his teeth survived intact but a sharp canine dug into his lip when he hit the tarmac, leaving a stubborn cut that makes him look like he’s just lost a fight with a bouncer.  

The worst offender is his left temple, where the neurosurgeons worked their magic. A considerable chunk of hair has been shaved on that side, showcasing a narrow scar which runs from his temple to the back of his ear. Their efforts have left him looking like a ‘1980s punk’ according to Nick. The comparison had been an affectionate one, but Alex still finds himself caving to vanity and hoping his hair will grow back sooner rather than later. Miles has already vetoed any suggestions of him shaving his entire scalp in the meantime, much to everyone else’s amusement. 

“Mmmh,” he groans intelligently, his mouth too dry to offer anything substantial for a moment. “You’re looking stunnin’ yourself.” 

“Now who’s takin’ the piss?” Miles asks with a raised eyebrow that makes Alex laugh, before a protesting twinge in his chest cuts him off. Miles’s eyes instantly soften with concern, and he drags his chair as close to the bed as space will allow. “How are you feeling, love?” 

The utterance of that single pet-name is filled with so much affection that heat rises to Alex’s cheeks, and his heart monitor chirps traitorously at his side. 

“Tired,” he admits, cringing at his ability to lie in bed all day taking constant naps without experiencing a single ounce of rejuvenation. Turns out healing lungs and bones consume a fuckton of energy, and while Alex can hardly begrudge them for that, he would be grateful for the chance to stay awake for longer than three hours at a time. “Still a bit sore.” 

“Do you need me to fetch a nurse?” Miles asks softly, his eyes narrowing as they dart towards the drip feeding Alex a continual supply of morphine. The dose has been weaned down slowly over the past couple of days, but Alex is not yet ready to part with the sweet substance completely. 

“Nah, I’ll be alreyt,” he assures Miles, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. The last thing he needs is a breakthrough dose of morphine to render him zonked. He and Miles haven’t had this much time to themselves since their fateful conversation on the night Alex wound up in the jaws of death. “How are you feeling?” 

Miles huffs a breathless laugh, ducking his head as though stunned to have his own question served back to him.  

Alex can sense the lie coming before it even leaves his mouth. 

“Fine,” Miles says with a dismissive shrug. “Better now you’re awake.” 

They sit in heavy silence for a moment, both well aware that Miles is lying through his teeth. No doubt he does feel better now than he did in the hours where Alex’s life hung in the balance, but he’s clearly still struggling. His usual vibrancy has dimmed and his shoulders are hunched like those of an old man bent over a walking stick. Exhaustion clings to him like a disease and at busier times, Alex occasionally catches him staring into space, blinking back sleep with only minimal success.  

Alex imagines the only reason his mum hasn’t dragged Miles home and smothered him in blankets is because she too has been run ragged with worry, and a sudden shock of guilt strikes him like a punch to the gut. 

“How are you really feeling?” 

Something in his voice must betray his desperation for the truth, for Miles lowers his eyes with a sigh that seems to carry the weight of his façade with it. 

“Honestly? I’m knackered. Thought I’d sleep easier once we knew you were gonna be okay, but it hasn’t made a difference. Every time I close my eyes, I keep thinking back to that night.” 

Alex feels like he’s swallowed a gallon of ice. Deep down he knew this was coming. He knew they’d have to address their sudden break-up eventually. If anything, he’s been anticipating this moment with a sense of eagerness, desperate to grovel at Miles’s feet and apologise.  

That hasn’t prepared him for the pain that laces Miles’s voice now, however. Nor has he allowed himself to consider that Miles may blame himself for the events that followed his departure. 

“Miles...” Alex starts, but the sight of Miles’s eyes filling with tears slaughters his argument before it can be brought forth. 

“I should never have left you alone,” Miles chokes, before swiping away a tear that threatens to slink down his cheek. “I knew it were a mistake the second I left your place. I should have swallowed my pride and gone back to you. If I’d been there, you wouldn’t have gone out that night. Or we’d have at least gone out together and... and...” 

“And what?” Alex prompts, unable to hold back a weak smirk as Miles’s hypothetical scenario plays out in his mind. “Both gotten run over, you mean? Like the Smiths song?” 

It takes Miles a second to catch the reference. In his defence, Alex supposes a Honda Civic with an expired MOT isn’t quite the same as a double-decker bus, nor were the protagonists of said song technically pedestrians when said bus smashed into them. 

When the penny finally drops, however, Miles’s tension momentarily abandons him, accompanied on its way out by a weak laugh. “Oh, shut up you prat!” he scolds, sounding so much like his old self for a moment that Alex can’t resist a smile of his own, feeling his chest lighten with renewed hope. The reprieve doesn’t last, but Alex clings to its echo for as long as he can before Miles elaborates his point.  

“I mean it. Deep down, I knew you wanted me to stay. I knew that. So why the hell did I leave? Why did I risk that being the last memory you would ever have of me?” 

The brutality of that notion leaves Alex winded. An alternate reality unfolds in his mind; one in which he suffered a lonely death on the street, or surrendered to the screaming void despite his doctors’ best efforts, leaving Miles behind to drown in grief. He imagines his last ever memory of Miles being the sight of him turned away, closing the door in his face. He imagines Miles having to move on with his life, smothered by guilt, wondering if what they had was real or if Alex truly had been pretending all along.  

The notion that it was his own inability to handle the seriousness of their relationship that led to such possibilities makes Alex recoil with shame.  

A childish wish consumes him then. He wishes he could go back and stop himself from voicing his fears. He wishes they had never fought, and that the summer had continued to cradle them in its warm embrace, shielding them from harm. 

And yet, perhaps he needed to fuck up that night. Perhaps he needed to voice the insecurities preying on his mind in order to come to terms with how meaningless they truly were. Perhaps he needed to lose himself in his fabricated hotel in order to focus on what was real and accept the knowledge that a life without Miles by his side was one he had zero interest in pursuing. 

“It weren’t your fault, Mi,” Alex says eventually, his voice so small that the distant chatter of nurses almost drowns him out. “It weren’t mine either. Neither of us could have seen this comin’.” 

That at least is something Miles cannot deny. Alex can tell that part of him wants to; that deep within his psyche, a traitorous voice is twisting the sequence of events in order to label them as solely Miles’s fault, but Alex will be damned if he allows that voice to get away with such treachery. 

“Besides, I’m the one who fucked up that night,” Alex admits with breathless ease, powering on before Miles can offer a rebuttal. “You were right. I don’t know why I said any of those things to you. Even at the time, I think I knew it were all bullshit. I were just letting my fear chase you away.” 

A cocktail of emotions weaves its way across Miles’s face, the most fleeting being hope. Alex watches as his lips lift into a smile, almost imperceptibly, before tightening into a thin line once more. 

“Al, love, we don’t need to do this now,” Miles says, though deep down he clearly wants to. His eyes have darted to their hands, still conjoined like a lover’s kiss. Perhaps the fact that Alex hasn’t yet relinquished his grip is the sole driver of Miles’s fragile hope.  

Alex gives his hand another squeeze in an attempt to convey that such hope is warranted.  

“I know,” Alex admits, and as desperate as he is to bare the contents of his soul, he can’t help but wonder if doing so at 6am is entirely wise. Any remaining doubt is easily cast aside, however. Miles doesn’t deserve to be kept waiting any longer. “But I want to.”  

A wave of calm washes over him. Ripples spread out from his heart to his mind, submerging him in a shimmering aura of tranquility. No matter what happens from this point onwards – what effect his words will have – he already feels lighter, secure in the knowledge that his tendency to bury his true desires has reached a long-awaited end. 

“I love you,” Alex says, the words as light as air on his tongue. The confession escapes with so much ease that he can only wonder why he kept it buried for so long, relegating those three words solely to onstage flattery or a whispered release of bliss in the dark. Miles must sense the weight behind them, for his breath visibly catches in his throat and his grip on Alex’s hand grows tighter. “I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t completely gone for you. But you’re right. I’ve always let fear get in the way, thinking that’ll make everythin’ easier, when all it’s ever done is make us both miserable.” 

His chest grows tight as the weight of so much lost time falls upon his shoulders, his eyes stinging with the force of his guilt. Miles must notice, for he draws closer until their foreheads are almost touching. For one moment, Alex is returned to the stage – gazing at Miles in awe with only a microphone separating their lips – and the familiarity is so sweet that he wants to weep. 

“I’m done with letting fear destroy everything I love,” Alex promises. A tear does escape then, and he closes his eyes with a sigh as Miles reaches out to swipe it from his cheek. “I want to do things properly this time. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I don’t care who knows it.” 

He opens his eyes once more, capturing Miles in a gaze that he hopes conveys even a fraction of his adoration. 

“If you’ll have me, of course,” he adds with a shy smile. Perhaps he’s being presumptuous by assuming Miles will go along with his desires. Perhaps breaking his heart a second time was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Such suppositions are easily set aside once the intricacies of Miles’s face stop being blurred by tears. A small, disbelieving smile rests upon Miles’s lips, activating the creases around his beautiful brown eyes. There’s a twinkle in the depths of his irises that was missing before, and he seems lighter somehow. The weight of Alex’s injuries no longer rests upon his shoulders, haunting him with black-painted possibilities. Instead, he can indulge in the fantasy of a shared future, one which ends with them both as old men cuddling together on a garden porch, still as hopelessly in love as they were fifty years prior. 

That future suddenly feels so tangible that Alex can envision the grass swaying in the breeze; can smell the tang of petrichor in the crisp air as the wool of Miles’s sweater tickles his grizzled cheek. 

“Was that a proposal?” Miles asks, his growing smile implying that he’s only half-joking. His acceptance of Alex’s love is implicit in the joy radiating from him like the morning sun, and Alex’s heart fills with so much relief he fears it may burst. 

“Dunno,” he shrugs, adopting a casual smirk. “Could be, if you wanted. We’ve already mastered the Old Married Couple act; might as well skip the ceremony and go straight to planning names for our seven kids.” 

“We’d draw the line at five, surely?” Miles asks, barely managing to swallow a scoff.  

It occurs to Alex that he cannot discern if they’re talking about albums or actual children. As much as the concept of fatherhood has always felt like a foreign novelty to him, he'd be lying if he said the idea of raising children with Miles didn’t fill his heart with a tremendous ache of longing. 

“Seven,” he says firmly, his smirk widening to the point where he can no longer restrain an earnest grin. “Plus a couple of cats.” 

Miles laughs at that; one of his full-bodied, breathless cackles that Alex hasn’t heard in what feels like years. He could write a million songs and still never conjure the right words to describe how much he loves that laugh. 

“Only a fool would say no to that,” Miles concedes, before sobering up with a hint of reluctance. They simply stare at each other for a moment, silenced by the wealth of opportunities available to them now, until Miles breaks the spell with a final utterance of hesitation. “Are you sure you want to give this a shot?” 

“I’ve never been surer of anything,” Alex says. With more effort than he’s used to exerting, he raises his hand to Miles’s cheek, his fingers trembling as they caress his stubbled jaw. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.” 

“However will I cope?” Miles teases, raising his own hand to lightly stroke Alex’s bruised cheek in turn, before resting their foreheads together.  

The air is suddenly alive with the sound of their shallow breaths. If Alex closes his eyes, he can pretend they’re already back on tour; gazing at each other with naked longing as the lyrics to ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ spill forth from their lips like a confession. 

“I love you too,” Miles whispers, a long-awaited crescendo that raises goosebumps along Alex’s arms. “More than anything in the world.” 

Alex wants so desperately to kiss him, no matter how much they’re both suffering from the effects of morning breath and shit coffee, but there’s a couple of things he needs to clarify first. 

“You need to know that I will fuck up from time to time,” he reminds Miles. 

“So will I,” Miles fires back with an unbothered shrug. “’m not exactly the patron saint of long-lasting relationships meself, you know.” 

“And I’ll be a massive pain in the arse,” Alex adds, shoving past the preposterous implication that Miles could ever be the fuck-up in their dynamic. 

“That doesn’t matter so long as you’re my pain in the arse,” Miles retaliates, barely managing to get the words out through his breathless giggles. 

It hits Alex then that they’re really going to do this. They’re going to be a proper couple. They’re going to share a house and wake up in each other’s arms every morning; limbs tangled and breaths mingling as the sun rises beyond their window. Miles is going to make him every variation of breakfast his mind can conjure, while Alex spoils him in turn with new vinyl records and wrestling memorabilia. They’re going to order overpriced takeout whenever they can’t be bothered to cook and curl up together on the couch every night, watching old movies until they fall asleep or start getting other, more creative ideas.  

They’re going to keep making music together until their fans grow sick of them both, and when they finally retire, they’ll grow old together too.  

The mere idea of it already feels like heaven, and Alex’s heart monitor makes his excitement hopelessly transparent to anyone listening. 

“Miles, are you sure -” he starts, because he needs to know if that life is ever going to be snatched away from him. He needs to know if any doubt remains between them so he can at least shield his heart from further devastation. 

Miles refuses to let him spiral down that rabbit-hole. 

“Alex,” he says, almost sternly, though the kindness pouring from his eyes conveys his true intentions. He rests his other hand on Alex’s unmarked cheek, cradling his face with the utmost care, painfully aware of how easily Alex can break. “Look at me. I’m sure.” 

And with that, Miles finally breaches the gap and presses his soft lips to Alex’s own, eliciting a contented sigh as Alex closes his eyes and allows himself to simply feel. To feel the warmth of Miles’s lips. To feel the roughness of his stubbled cheek and delight in the pleasant burn of it teasing his own sensitive skin. To taste the hint of coffee and tobacco on Miles’s tongue as their kiss grows deeper. 

Alex finds himself incapable of holding back a needy moan as desire pulses through his veins. Miles releases a soft chuckle at that, the warmth of it caressing Alex’s cheek like a breeze on the Mediterranean, and Alex retaliates by running his fingers through Miles’s hair and giving the strands a light tug, forcing him to release a gasp of his own. As much as Alex loved the buzzcut, he does enjoy getting to play with Miles’s hair once it reaches a length where he can pull on it and elicit beautiful noises in his wake.  

Miles appears to share a similar sentiment, for it isn’t long before his fingers are massaging Alex’s tender scalp, occasionally skirting just a little too close to his ragged scar. 

“Ow,” Alex utters when one of Miles’s fingers presses just a little too hard on his healing bruise, though a small grin sneaks onto his face when Miles instantly goes into mother-hen mode. 

“Oh god, did I hurt you?” Miles asks, pulling back just enough to allow his darkened eyes to scan Alex’s face, searching for any sign that he may have caused irreparable harm.  

As much as his concern warms Alex’s heart, he would very much like to get back to the part where they were making out like teenagers. 

“No,” Alex says honestly, before pulling Miles closer with another firm tug on his hair. The hiss Miles elicits in response is so exquisite that if Alex were in a fit state to do so, he would crawl out of bed and straddle Miles’s lap, medical equipment and nearby nurses be damned. “Shut up and kiss me again.” 

Miles doesn’t need to be told twice. Their second kiss is sweeter; their desperation having dissipated into vapour. Miles’s thumb strokes along Alex’s cheekbone as he kisses him softly, his every action so tender that Alex can feel his heart crack from sheer contentment. His own grip on Miles’s hair lessens until he’s simply running his fingers through the soft strands, yearning to take him home to his luxurious shower so he can run shampoo across his scalp, filling the air with the sweet scent of lavender.  

A soft thud rudely interrupts such pleasant fantasies.  

They break apart, rosy-cheeked and breathless, casting an eye over the bed until the source of their interruption presents itself. Miles’s battered copy of ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ has slipped from its perch and is now resting precariously against the bedrails, its pages splayed open and threatening to crease beyond repair the instant they hit the floor. Alex rescues it mindlessly - just in time to spare it from slipping through the gap - and brings it closer, recognising the neon imprint of the title from his childhood. 

Without really thinking, he flicks through the yellowed pages, glancing at the dense passages and letting the words soothe his mind.  

Gone is the unreadable language of dreams. Gone are the blurred smudges and dancing letters which cannot decide which of the world’s alphabets they belong to. Instead, Douglas Adams’s beautiful metaphors leap from the page with perfect clarity, painting a vivid picture of the titular restaurant in all its glory.  

Focusing too hard on the sentences forces him to blink away the stirrings of a faint headache, but Alex finds that he doesn’t care. 

“This is real,” the words assure him, wrapping around his mind like a warm blanket. “You’re home.”  

“You okay, love?” Miles asks, seemingly out of the blue, until Alex realises he hasn’t said anything since their untimely separation. He looks over at Miles, basks in his beauty in the sleepy morning light, and can’t quite bring himself to believe that he’s real. That he has chosen to spend the rest of his life with Alex of all people, when he could have anyone he wanted. 

“Kiss me again?” Alex asks, casting the book aside with less grace than it’s owed as a soft smirk tugs at his lips. 

“You’re insatiable,” Miles chuckles, but his eyes are warm and his hand cradles Alex’s cheek with a gentleness that makes him want to fall asleep, safe in Miles’s arms. A persistent beep resounds in perfect time with the pulse drumming in his ears, and Miles’s eyes glance in the direction of the snitching monitor. “The nurses’ll be thinking you’re in trouble.” 

Alex laughs, ignoring the twinge in his ribs as he envisions Geraldine storming in, her affection for Miles evaporating in an instant as she points accusatorily at the frantic heart monitor. Truth be told, he can’t bring himself to care about such possibilities, especially now that Miles is gazing at him as though he’s just unveiled the secrets of the universe. 

It isn’t long before Miles grants his request, kissing him with so much care and love that their surroundings melt into oblivion. Alex finds that this is a rather pleasant state in which to exist, and so he ignores his creeping exhaustion and the slowly awakening aches across his body in favour of letting his mind be consumed by the man he loves more than anything in this world and beyond.  

The final remnants of Tranquility Base are vanquished in the wake of their kiss, and for the first time since his awakening, Alex allows himself to bask in the knowledge that he is free from the hotel’s grasp. Such brutal solitude will never infect him again. It doesn’t matter that normality is still beyond his reach. It doesn’t matter that he will remain confined within the hospital’s walls until his doctors elect to set him free, and that it could be many weeks before he steps over the threshold of his house and embarks on his new life with Miles. 

So long as Miles is here, Alex knows that he has found his way home.