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When Alex woke up, he was alone.
He rolled automatically onto his side, reaching over to find no one in the bedsheets next to him, and he returned to lying on his back, snuggling contentedly into the duvet that he, for the moment at least, had to share with absolutely no one.
Alex loved sharing a bed, really he did. Loved being the big spoon to his wife, the little spoon to Greg, and, back in the days where they shared a flat in London and Edinburgh (and on occasion still when they’d had more beer than sense), lying shoulder to shoulder with Tim. There was no better way to spend his time than cuddled up with the people he loved most.
But he also really loved having the bed to himself. He loved being able to stretch in every direction, take up as much of the bed as he wanted, and doze lazily without the sound of Rachel’s snoring, bless her, or Greg’s irritated mumbling as he again dropped his phone on his own face because he was too lazy to just put his reading glasses on.
Still, as much as Alex would’ve happily stayed like that for hours, the scratch of the sheets and the lumpy pillow under his head served as reminders that he was in a hotel room, not his bedroom at home, and he would in fact need to face the world at some point. So he sighed and rolled over in the opposite direction from before, reaching for his phone on the bedside table.
Had there been anyone there to see, he was sure he must’ve done what had to have been a fairly comedic double take when he saw the time on the clock. As it was, there was no one there to see it, nor to see his bleary confusion turn to absolute panic when he double checked the time on his phone and was greeted by the horrible confirmation that it was two full hours past when he was meant to have woken up.
He sat bolt upright just as the hotel room door opened. “Good morning,” Greg said calmly – too calmly, especially considering that Greg was usually the one hurrying them out of the door and to the airport on the off chance that their flight decided to leave three hours before it was scheduled to. “I brought you coffee—” He broke off, raising both eyebrows as he saw Alex still in bed. “Are you just now waking up?”
“I overslept!” Alex told him, his tone and pitch roughly akin to a very small dog yelping in sheer terror. He scrambled madly out of bed, casting about for his clothes from where he’d, like an idiot, casually chucked them the night before without a single care in the world. “My alarm—”
“I turned your alarm off,” Greg said, still in that same calm tone. “Figured you could do with the extra sleep and you’ve always got about eight backups set.”
“Yes,” Alex says tersely, pulling his jeans on backwards. “I do. In my hotel room. Where I am not.”
He didn’t mean to say that as accusingly as it came out, because it wasn’t as if it was Greg’s fault that he’d crashed in his room, in the rather literal sense, given how exhausted and jet lagged they both had been. Greg’s room had been about thirty feet closer to the lift, so they’d both stumbled there before very nearly passing out fully clothed.
It would, Alex reflected sourly as he tried and failed to pull his jumper on, his head getting stuck in the shirt sleeve, have been better if they had.
And yet somehow Greg seemed remarkably unconcerned as he sipped the coffee he’d ostensibly brought for Alex, pulling a face at how sweet it was. “Breathe,” he said, as Alex finally got his jumper on properly and perched on the edge of the bed to pull his trainers on. “We’re fine. We’ve got time.”
Alex cast a panicked look at the clock. “We do not,” he said shortly. “We were meant to leave for the airport an hour ago.” For the first time, Greg looked suitably concerned about the time and Alex stood. “You’d best get packed or we really will be fucked,” he advised before bolting to his own hotel room to do the same.
Miraculously, they made it through security at O’Hare airport in record time and with only a few sceptical questions from TSA about their travel arrangements and why anyone would go to Boston at this time of year (as if Chicago was some sort of bastion of warmth instead of a frigid -4C). Still, it was only when they made it to their gate that Alex finally allowed himself to relax.
Or at least, he allowed himself to allow to relax.
The actual relaxation, as it turned out, was hard to come by, whether because of the panic at getting to the airport or just the incredible confusion his body still felt trying to determine what time of day it could possibly be.
Which was probably why Greg wisely chose to let him stew, popping on his headphones and taking a nap both in the waiting area and once they were on the plane. Alex, for his part, was happy to let him. He had an entire morning’s worth of work to catch up on, after all, and hadn’t quite forgiven Greg for turning his alarm off in the first place, even if his heart had been in the right place.
And his heart undoubtedly had been, Alex thought, a little guiltily, as he glanced over at Greg, sleeping with his head tipped back against the aeroplane seat, his mouth hanging open just slightly. He knew Greg would never purposefully do something to mess this up, knew that it meant nearly as much to him as it did to Alex, and now that they were safely on the flight, Alex was beginning to feel a little guilty for panicking as much as he had.
It had been rather out of character for him. Almost as much as sleeping in had been in the first place.
His guilt only increased when they landed in Boston and Greg stopped on their way to retrieve their luggage, digging in his bag. “Where the bloody fuck is my charging cable—” he huffed to himself before plopping down on the ground like an overgrown child to search through his bag properly.
Alex’s stomach squirmed uncomfortably as he watched him. After all, it’d been his fault they’d had to pack in such a rush just to make it to the airport in time. He quickly got his phone out to record a brief video for social media, hoping that in the time it took, Greg would have found his cable and all would be well again.
Sadly, Alex’s luck appeared to have run out as Greg appeared to have emptied almost the entirety of his bag with no cable in sight.
He sighed and tucked his phone back in his coat pocket before wandering over to Greg, finally ready to make his somewhat reluctant apology. “No luck?” he asked, even though he could tell from the look on Greg’s face that his search hadn’t been successful.
“No,” Greg sighed, looking balefully at the bevy of items he now needed to cram back into his bag.
Alex bit his already-chewed bottom lip, worrying it between his gapped teeth. “I’m sorry,” he offered.
Greg glanced up at him, a frown puckering his forehead. “Not your fault, mate,” he said dismissively, shoving things back in his knapsack.
“Except that it is,” Alex said, a touch stubbornly. “I was the one sleeping so that you couldn’t pack. I was the one who made us so late that you when you finally did get to pack, you only had about five minutes to do so. I was the one—”
He was just getting into his stride with the self-blame when Greg cut him off without even looking up at him again. “Who was so dead on his feet last night that I made him sleep in my bed so that I could make sure he didn’t pass out in the corridor,” Greg finished, amused, his eyes crinkling with a smile. “I could’ve packed this morning when I woke up. Might not even have woken you up if I had, you were sleeping so heavily. But I figured I’d not take my chances.”
He shrugged as if it was an entirely inconsequential thing, and Alex shook his head. “Which is exactly what I mean,” he said. “If I hadn’t slept in—”
"You needed the sleep,” Greg repeated for about the eighth time that morning, and when Alex started to interrupt, he added, “How many times have you pushed back the start time of a recording by a half or quarter hour so I can take a nap?”
“That’s—”
“How many?”
Alex scowled. “That’s not the same thing.”
Greg raised both eyebrows, zipping his knapsack up with a flourish. “How?”
“Because if we’re a few minutes late onstage for a recording, we have a lovely audience who’s been warmed up and primed to forgive us,” Alex said impatiently. “I don’t think American Airlines would be so forgiving.”
Greg just shrugged before cracking his neck, pulling a face as he did. “Maybe not, but, and I’m sure this will shock you to learn, there are other flights from Chicago to Boston.”
As much as Alex knew he had a point, and as much as Alex preferred not to argue when he knew the other party had a point, he was too deep in it now to do anything other than dig his heels in. “Other flights that Avalon would pay for us to have business class tickets on?”
“Fairly certain my bank card works in the States just the same as back home,” Greg countered easily.
He was enjoying this, Alex realised, which only served to make him grit his teeth even more. “But—”
“Mate, will you accept someone taking care of you for once in your life?” Greg interrupted, an edge of impatience to his words for the first time. “For my sake, at least? The world didn’t end because you slept in. We didn’t miss our flight. We haven’t missed anything, in fact. The itinerary is intact, and we will even still be able to do your twerpy little side trip to the Cheers bar. So you’ve nothing to be sorry for, and if you try to apologise again, I will roundhouse you into the fucking Atlantic Ocean.”
He gestured emphatically toward the window and the body of water outside. Alex tracked the gesture, wrinkling his nose just slightly. “Massachusetts Bay, I think,” he corrected, which was as close to ceding the argument as he was ever going to come.
Greg huffed a noise that was part-laugh, part-sigh, and part-groan. “Oh, fuck off.”
“Yes, Greg.”
“Now help me up, will you?” Greg continued grumpily, holding his hand up to Alex, though he softened his words by adding, “So I can give you a proper cuddle?”
It took a considerable amount of effort to heave Greg off of the ground, and Alex muttered under his breath as he did, “You realise this is somewhat undermining your threat to roundhouse me into the nearest body of water, right?”
“Alex?” Greg said, dusting off his jeans.
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
Alex did as ordered, miming buttoning his lips before Greg pulled him into a hug, a proper one, the kind that let Alex duck his head and rest his cheek against Greg’s chest, feeling soft and safe and warm, and like the harried events of the morning were finally behind them.
They stayed that way for a long moment, as long as they dared, even if they were in a foreign country where the likelihood of anyone either recognising them or caring was practically nonexistent. But finally, Alex pulled away far enough to glance guiltily at where their tour manager, Paul, was waiting patiently nearby, pretending not to have seen or heard any of that. “He’s seen worse,” Greg muttered in an undertone to Alex, the hint of a smile in his voice. “Portsmouth, wasn’t it?”
Alex glanced up at him, a smile of his own twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Mm, where you got adjoining rooms and the lock didn’t work?”
“First and last time for the adjoining rooms,” Greg said, bending down with a groan to pick his knapsack off the ground.
“Told you that you should’ve just stayed at my mum and dad’s,” Alex reminded him.
Greg gave him a look. “If you think there’s a world in which I’d’ve done all of the things I did to you in Portsmouth at your fucking parents’ house—”
Alex laughed. “Fair enough,” he agreed. He hesitated before bumping his shoulder lightly against Greg’s arm. “Greg?”
“Yeah?” Greg asked, glancing down at him.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t say what for; he didn’t have to.
Greg smiled at him, Alex’s favourite kind of smile, soft, gentle and always only for him when it was just the two of them. “Of course,” he said easily, wrapping his arm around Alex’s shoulders and squeezing him. “No one I’d rather do this with. You know that.”
Alex nodded. “I do.”
Together they started toward where Paul was still waiting for them, and Greg casually added as he slung his knapsack over his shoulder, “I am going to make you buy me a new phone charger, though.”
Alex laughed again. “I think I can manage that.”