It's a tired admission, one that feels kind of like losing a battle, when Alex, half asleep beside Matt, speaks into his pillow - "Think I'm in love with him."
Matt, with all his grace, waits to respond, working something up in his head. What he lands on is still a terrifying question. "Mean like, more than me?"
"No," Alex says, immediately, impulsively, and then considers. "Maybe. No. No, it's, uh... it's different, isn't it? Not more, just different." He rolls over, looks at Matt, who's lying on his back, eyes squinting like he's stuck between keeping them open for the discussion or closing them and falling asleep. They're both exhausted. This was a bad time for this conversation. "Sorry for bringin' it up right now."
Matt, through the squint, visibly rolls his eyes. "Could never have a mature conversation in the mornin', could you." He rolls his head to the side to look at Alex, and fireworks go off in his chest, quelling in a moment any worry he had in his head that he were falling out of love with Matt, and then it hits him that he is a little bit up shit creek.
"Fuck," Alex mumbles, because words are fuckin' hard, alright. Matt nods. He gets it. Always fuckin' gets it, don't he. "S'not like I meant to go and fall in love with Miles Kane, is it."
Matt hesitates, then turns to fully face Alex, reaches up to run his hand through the hair on the side of his head. It's shaggy. Alex has been thinking of cutting it again. That's not important right now - Matt pushes his fingers through his hair. Alex shuts his eyes. "S'pose you've been waitin' on sayin' it for a while."
What the fuck is that supposed to mean.
Alex cracks an eye open and looks at Matt, whose expression is impossibly soft. It seems at odds with the conversation they're having, and - ah, they're having different conversations. "You already knew, didn't you."
"Figured it out," Matt says, "when you were on tour with him. When I called and you didn't pick up."
Alex feels something horrible curl up in his chest. He stays quiet, though, just watches Matt. Matt does not look upset. Alex is too tired to understand what that means, he thinks, and he closes his eyes again. Matt's fingers, rough and calloused and ever so gentle in the way they slide against his scalp, lull him to sleep in short order, but not before he hears Matt mutter something short, something along the lines of -
"Talk about it in the morning," and "Love you, Alex."
"Suppose I ought to be jealous," Matt says - not necessarily directly to Alex, more to the open air, although Alex is the only other person in the room, so it's not not directed to him. Before Alex can respond, a sense of uneasy, confused guilt in his stomach, he continues - "I'm not, though. Jealous."
Alex sits in silence for a second, working on a response. It starts coming out before he's done with it. "I think, yeah, you should- I mean, I don't want you to be, but. But if you were, it would- I would, like, get it. Would make sense, right."
Matt, when Alex glances over to him, has a smile on his face. Charmed by Alex's failure to string together a coherent sentence, probably. "But that's the thing. It would make sense if I were jealous. So I were - eh, confused that I'm not. But I figured, that's something for me to figure out." He's turned to Alex, at this point, is moving closer, is meeting his eyes. Alex watches, keeps his mouth shut, because Matt doesn't look like he's done talking. "So I asked myself, how would I feel if you slept with Miles, and-" Alex's head rushes, and he nearly misses the end of the sentence. "Realized I'd only be upset if you didn't tell me before."
Alex blinks- "Uh. What?"
"I'm not jealous," Matt reiterates, and it washes over Alex like a bucket of water thrown over his head. "You love me, yeah?"
Alex nods, eyebrows furrowed, because he can't help but feel a little hurt that it's even a question. "Of course."
"And you love Miles."
Alex hesitates, and then he turns his head to the side. "Yeah."
"Then that's that." Matt catches Alex's head in his hand, runs his finger against his jawline, where scruff has been starting to grow. Alex hasn't decided whether to shave it or not. "If you want it to be, I mean. Don't have to do anythin' about it if you don't want to."
It takes what feels like ages for Alex to figure out how to reply to that - he ends up just leaning into Matt, watching him. It must not actually be very long, because it doesn't seem like any time has been lost when he finally manages to say - "Love you."
Matt grins, and Alex wants to never stop seeing it. "Fuckin' love you too. Let's get breakfast, yeah?"
Alex feels like he's positively buzzing when he makes his way back off stage after singing with Miles for the first time since the tour - the air itself feels electric - he was, admittedly, a good bit nervous about it, but he thinks it certainly could have gone worse.
Of course, it's not like they would have had the exact same dynamic as they did on their tour. It's like they had developed a certain kind of language, one that thrived off of closeness, of singing to each other - sometimes into each other's mouths, faces close enough that their lips are touching - one that felt almost like they were connected. But it's been a couple years. The language changes - all languages do.
They still sing into the same mic, near the end. Part of that is because of the feedback, but it still feels right.
They don't have plans to make another album, so they manage not writing anything together the next time they see each other, but Miles sprawls across the couch with a guitar in his lap, and Alex, sitting upright underneath him, mumbles along, not exactly in the right space to sing. It's been, like, a while since he and Matt had their conversation, and Alex is starting to wonder if he'll ever say anything.
The issue is that sometimes the enormity of how he feels about Miles is overwhelming, like thinking about the size and the heat of the sun. It was by Matt's intervention that they started anything together, not Alex's - despite his attempts to project something confident, he isn't, not particularly. If he were feeling self-pitying, he might even call himself a coward.
And Alex is not single, and the likelihood that Miles would ever make any kind of move on him, assuming he even feels like that, while Alex is in a relationship with Matt, who Miles gets on with, is astronomically low.
Miles looks up at Alex from his lap. "Al? Where'd you go?"
Alex has, apparently, fallen silent, staring off into the mid-distance. "What? Oh," he says, blinking and looking back down at Miles. "Ah, nowhere. Just wandering."
"Go anywhere good?" Miles asks, because he knows, too, how Alex finds things while walking roadside in his head.
"Well," Alex says. "I've been thinking about... vastness. Size. Bigness, y'know."
Miles cocks his head as best he can while horizontal across a couch. "Vastness," he repeats. "The vastness of anything in specific?"
The answer is yes, but Alex can't just go and explain that. Y'see, I've been thinking about the size of my feelings for you, and how it feels like they could dwarf the Earth easily, and they might be able to keep it warm, too. No, absolutely not. Although he might write something like that down - it probably wouldn't see the light of day anyways. "I think just vastness in general. The size of space, of the sun. Size of the Earth, if you think about it. Size of a person, on a smaller scale."
Miles hums, considering, and his hands move a few times on the strings of the guitar that's still resting on his lap, a quick strum, pluck. "Guess it's as good as any a topic."
Alex nods, leans his head back, and they go back to humming along to whatever Miles is playing.
Alex slumps against Matt in their hotel bed, sighing and stretching his back. Nobody ever does a good enough job expressing how thirty-two is so much worse than thirty - his back cracks as he stretches out, and Matt winces.
"Sounded bad," he says, wrapping an arm around Alex's back and pressing his hand against the offending vertebrae. Alex melts into him, face pressing into his shoulder, and mumbles something useless into the seam of his shirt.
Matt presses his fingers into the muscle just to the left of Alex's spine, and it's like a new type of pain relief bursts into Alex's head through his nervous system. He lets out a strangled shout, something that walks the line between 'ow' and 'god damn it' and 'thanks', and somehow Matt seems to get that, presses a kiss to the top of his head. Can't be comfortable, given the scruffy nature of the buzzcut, which, despite Alex deciding on himself, he still occasionally regrets.
They already had that conversation, though:
"Think you look good, yeah. Kinda miss fluffing your hair up, though."
"Sorry."
"What for? It's your hair."
So Alex doesn't worry about it. Well, that's a lie - he tries not to worry about it, though, and that's gotta be close enough.
There's a distinct realization Alex has, about a day later, that he is feeling quite unwell.
Not physically, really. Except for the occasional twinge he gets when he doesn't treat his body right or fails to take it easier after a show, he feels like he's doing pretty good in that regard. He almost wishes he weren't - it would be easier for him to deal with a problem like a head cold, or a broken leg, or maybe a heart attack, assuming he's fast enough on the uptake to realize that's what's going on.
Look, his head has been a mess. It isn't just that he realized he's in love with somebody that it's gonna be hard for him to be in love with, even - like, okay, that contributes a little bit, but he's been feeling it since before that. It might have even started right around the time the Puppets tour ended.
The thought does make him feel guilty, because when he was done with the Puppets tour, he got back home and Matt was right there, like nothing had changed, like Alex hadn't just been away from him for longer than he had in ages.
He should probably tell Matt about it. He should probably do a lot of things.
Matt runs his hand over his head when he passes him, scratches at the back of his neck, and Alex decides he'd rather flounder for a bit in the open water than upset the balance it took them such time to find.
He probably isn't hiding it from Matt as well as he'd like, and he gets that, but he completely fails to hide it from Miles, who, when Alex meets up with him again, does not even give him the opportunity to defend himself.
"You've been acting weird," he says - it is not the first thing he says, but it does come pretty early in the conversation. "You feelin' alright?"
Alex does not reply immediately, and has the instinct to hide his hand with its bitten nails behind his back. Miles is close up on him, though - any movement is sure to be noticed, so he keeps his hands in place, and he scrambles to find something to say to defend himself.
He fails. Instead of saying something helpful - I'm fine, yeah or just a little under the weather - he freezes up. "Um," he manages, and "Uh. No, it's, uh."
Look, in his defense, he wasn't prepared to have to put up a front around Miles, nor does he want to. Their relationship has run on openness since day one. Alex has never considered that that could be an issue.
"Al," Miles says, kinda quietly, and he moves his hands towards his face - Alex flinches, for reasons he doesn't quite understand - and Miles holds his hands up and open, like he's soothing a startled horse, before taking Alex's sunglasses in his hands and lifting them up and off of his head.
The light feels harsh, or maybe it's Miles's gaze, burrowing into Alex's head like a fox does to make a den - scrabbling at the surface, looking to make a home in there, maybe, although that might be wishful thinking on Alex's part. Regardless, Miles does already occupy his head.
That being said, when Alex manages to flick his eyes up to actually meet Miles's gaze, it feels like he's got something being yanked out of his chest through his mouth, and he rushes out - "Haven't been feeling my best the past while," which is an understatement and a half, but it feels less horrible than admitting he's been off for something more than a year.
"You sick?" Miles presses his hand to Alex's forehead. "Don't feel hot," he says.
"Not- not that kind of not feelin' my best, Miles," Alex says, blinking and looking away again. "Been havin' trouble, uh." Alex struggles to figure out how to say it, in his head goes over what it is he's even trying to say. "Feelin', I guess. Don't feel right. Can't, or summat."
Miles moves his hand away from Alex's head, after a beat. Alex blinks quickly and deliberately does not lean towards him.
The exact length of the pause after that, Alex can't be sure of - his internal clock has been unwound for a while - but it feels like a significant one, Alex looking somewhere around Miles's right shoulder, Miles looking at him still. Alex can just catch out of the corner of his eye the way Miles's eyes flicker up, down, side to side like he's reading something on Alex's face, and yeah, maybe he is.
"Have you told anyone you've been feelin' like that?" Miles asks, his hand resting on Alex's arm.
Alex grabs for his hand, pulls it away so he can tangle their fingers together in one of the least comforting hand-holds he's ever experienced. "Not really. No," he corrects. "Haven't even managed to talk about it with Matt, 'n I sleep in the same bed as him."
Miles nods and squeezes his hand. "He's noticed," he says. "No way he hasn't."
Somehow, that manages to be both reassuring and absolutely not reassuring. Alex's head drops, and suddenly he's not looking at anything anymore, really, though his eyes are open. Miles moves in for the kill.
"Oh, Al," he says, beside Alex's head. "Let's get you back to the hotel."
Miles deposits Alex at his and Matt's room, and Alex considers asking him to come in with him for moral support, before deciding against it. Miles kisses the side of his head when he leaves, tells Alex that he's there for anything he needs. Alex pushes the way that makes him feel down inside of his chest.
Alex enters, and Matt waves from the bed, before he's looked up from his phone. "'ey, Alex, you got a-" he starts to say, and then looks up and sees Alex's expression, which he's sure isn't pleasant. "Oh."
Alex immediately crosses the room to fall face-forward onto the bed beside Matt, because the exhaustion of forcing himself to be open has been miserable, and he's about to have to do it even more.
After a beat, Matt pats Alex's shoulder, the one that's closest to him. "Alex, what's goin' on, you're back early."
Alex sighs and rolls onto his side to look up at Matt. His eyes are intense, like they normally are - where Miles's stare felt like being burrowed into, Matt almost makes him feel like no digging needs to happen. Benefit of knowing each other for so long, or a drawback, depending on the situation. Alex isn't sure which it is this time.
Alex had sort of rehearsed what he needed to say on the way here - not out loud, God, no, but in his head. And he's gone over it a few times, and he's whittled it down to what he thinks he needs to say. It all flies out of the window when it comes time to actually say it.
So he does his best. "Think I'm havin' some kind of breakdown."
Alex wakes up wrapped in Matt's arms, exhausted beyond belief from the conversation they had -
"Yeah, 'course I noticed. Figured you would tell me when you were ready."
"Thought you knew me better than that, Matthew," Alex says, lightheartedly, and when Matt doesn't even smile he realizes it is serious as all that, really.
Matt mumbles something really quiet and presses his nose against the back of Alex's neck, and Alex cannot bring himself to understand why.
Why Matt is still around, that is. He knows, intellectually, right, that Matt cares about him, and for him, and he wouldn't leave him in the dust the second Alex admitted any weakness when it comes to feeling unstable. Destabilized. Whichever of those better implies the all-encompassing disorientation Alex has been feeling. That isn't enough to stop the part of him that truly feels like he should, like Alex is a time bomb strapped to Matt's chest, heavy and burdensome and waiting to go off and all, and the best thing for Matt to do would be to cut the strap and run.
Alex rolls himself over to look at Matt, watches him closely. If there is any kind of regret rattling around in Matt's head, Alex can't find a sign of it on his face.
Matt blinks his eyes open. "... What're you starin' at me for?"
"Tryin' to figure something out," Alex mutters.
"What's that?"
Alex hesitates, trying to figure out what it is exactly he's studying when his line of sight meets the lines in Matt's face, the angle of his eyes, the expression on his eyebrows and his mouth. Alex breathes in deeply. "Love, I think."
It would be impossible to miss the smile that breaks out on Matt. "Don't let anyone accuse you of bein' a sap," he says, through the grin that's pulling his half-asleep face into something radiant.
Alex bats at his arm. "Shut up."
Miles calls, in the morning. Alex tells him he talked a lot of stuff out with Matt, that he's at least got a bit of a plan now on what to do. Miles tells him that he's proud of him, even, which makes Alex's heart uselessly patter in his chest. He follows it up with a little bit of lighthearted ribbing, and that does nothing to stop it.
Alex drags himself to the balcony to have a smoke, and finds the morning air feels a little bit brighter than it did yesterday.
Alex, over the next few weeks, makes a lot of phone calls.
With a clearer path forwards, Alex finds it a lot easier to focus on the smaller stuff that makes the path worthwhile. Matt brings him tea in the morning; soundcheck goes by without a single fuck-up; Miles, on a phone call, tells Alex what he liked from the new album.
And the smaller stuff makes way for the bigger stuff to break through the barrier.
Matt, wholeheartedly, tells Alex he thinks they should move in together. Alex immediately starts trying to figure out what, of his things, he wants to keep in a move.
A show plays through with amazing energy flowing from the stage to the audience and back, and there's only one time the mic is too low, and Alex really feels like he's connecting with the music, for the first time in a bit.
Miles, in one of their in-person meetups they manage to pull together, tells him that he loves him.
Alex really had thought he would be the one to tell Miles how he felt initially. And he was going to, alright - he had held off for a while, but he was making progress, had even started to pick through the mess of feelings in his chest and in his head that had all been shoved into a file labeled 'Miles' and hidden in a storage closet. He'd thought about the part where he's already with Matt, had written out something about that, had tried to get through why he feels the way he does about the two of them. He'd thought about the differences in size and shape of his feelings for the two of them - how Miles is like, as he'd thought to himself before, the sun, vast and warm and capable of great devastation if it were to disappear from Alex's life; how Matt is, has been, for a very long time, the earth, where Alex considers that if he didn't have Matt, he would be adrift. He had even taken a stab at practicing what he would say to Miles.
It is, in fact, completely thrown out the window, that planning. Miles, when the two of them are piled on top of each other on the couch, suddenly sits up, turns to Alex, and tells him - "I'm in love with you."
Alex is not proud of his response, which is "... What?"
"I'm in love with you," Miles repeats. "I love you."
Alex is, of course, startled into silence for just long enough for Miles to start to pull away.
"I'll go," he says, and he starts to climb off of the couch.
Alex does manage to move fast enough to catch Miles's hand in his own. Miles turns back to him. "Hold on, hold on," Alex says. "Give me a second, Miles, I'm- I- hold on."
Miles does that, holds on, gives Alex a second. After several more seconds, Miles starts to pull his hand out of Alex's. "Come on, don't... don't make me wait here for-"
"I'm in love with you too," Alex says, finally, and it doesn't feel like losing anymore.