Lost Fic: There's Always a Duckie (Miles/Juliet)

[ozmissage]

Title: There’s Always a Duckie
Pairing: Unrequited Miles/Juliet; pre-Juliet/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1,340
Warnings: Sexual innuendo, language
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Miles Straume doesn’t fall in love. Until he, you know…falls in love.
A/N: This is a rather belated birthday present for the awesomephelipa.

The oh-so welcoming Dharma folks cram them all into one house when they arrive so that they’re living on top of each other like they’ve been dropped right in the middle of some sort of twisted 1970s reality show. Only Miles knows there was no such thing as reality television in the ‘70s, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he found out one of these hippie wackjobs went on to sell The Real World to MTV.

It’s a three bedroom house with six full grown people, none of whom are thrilled about the prospects of sharing a bed. Juliet gets her own room by default and Miles swears she looks smug about it. James and Jin take the other room with James sleeping on a cot so his depressed buddy can have the bed. This means Miles has to give Dan the bed in their room or end up looking like a colossal douche which normally he wouldn’t care about, but Juliet would shoot him one of those “you’re being an asshole” looks that she seems to dole out between him and Jim in equal measure and he’d just end up giving in anyway.

So he takes the cot. The lumpy, smelly cot with the metal bar that jabs him in the back making it impossible to sleep just so a blonde chick he barely knows won’t be disappointed in him. And that’s pretty much the moment he realizes he’s epically screwed.

***

Miles Straume does not fall in love. He has sex, he has lots of sex in fact. And sometimes he has sex with the same girl more than once. But he doesn’t have relationships. He doesn’t buy flowers or write fucking love poems and he sure as hell wouldn’t stand outside of any chick’s window holding a boom box over his head blasting a crappy pop ballad. Mostly, because who the hell would want a chick who was that into Peter Gabriel anyway?

But that’s not the point. The point is he’s never been anyone’s boyfriend. And he’s okay with that.

So he’s a bit unnerved when Juliet comes clomping downstairs one morning wearing nothing but an over-sized t-shirt and casually snatches his toast from his hand, takes a big bite, grimaces and then hands it back without a word.

He shouldn’t find this cute. He should find it annoying. Very, very annoying.

“Is that strawberry jam?” she asks.

“I’m sorry would her highness prefer something else on my toast?”

He tries to sound pissed, but then Juliet winks at him and crosses over to pour her coffee and he’s staring at her legs and God, they’re long…

But that doesn’t mean anything. That’s just biology. He’s a dude and she’s hot.

When he reaches for the grape jelly the next morning that…well that means something.

***

He tries not to dwell on it too much. He’s got lots of other things to worry about like how his parents are here on this island and how he’s going to be here twice if they don’t get the hell out of this place soon and how his roommate has covered their bedroom walls with equations and keeps muttering to himself in a manner that suggests he has completely lost his ever loving mind.

So the fact that he’s having rather un-friend like thoughts about Juliet is not exactly his top priority.

But sometimes when she stops by the surveillance room to bring him coffee or drapes her legs across him when they’re sprawled on the couch listening to Rolling Stones records, or when she talks to him about her sister and it’s late and no one else is awake he can’t help but think about kissing her or running his fingers through her insanely long hair or doing her right there on the couch.

Inevitably she’ll pick that moment to yawn or pat his arm like he’s her adorable little brother and he’ll remember that he can’t do her on the couch. Or anywhere else for that matter because apparently he’s the Duckie in this scenario.

And isn’t that just his fucking luck?

***

One night he commandeers the bed from Daniel because really it’s been over a month and the guy can only play the my-girlfriend-died-from-overexposure-to-time-traveling card for so long. Not that Dan was actually playing the card in the first place, but since he spent the entire day yammering to Miles about the laws of probability Miles figured Dan owed him one for not locking him in the closet.

He had almost forgotten how nice it felt to sleep in a bed that couldn’t double as a torture device. He was just about to drift off when he felt someone poking his side.

“Dan, I swear if you say whatever happens, happens to me one more time I will kick your ass,” Miles mumbles without bothering to open his eyes.

“Miles, it’s not Dan.”

Juliet. Juliet is in his room. He sits up, rubbing his eyes. He’s had this dream before. A couple of times actually. Only Juliet didn’t look so pissed off in his head.

“Scoot over,” she demands.

Miles arches an eyebrow and doesn’t budge.

“I don’t usually ask hot girls why they want to get into my bed, I tend to just go with it…but seriously Juliet, what are you doing in here?”

“James is in my bed,” she says flatly.

“Congratulations?”

“Don’t be a smartass. He passed out. Again.”

Miles nods. Their illustrious leader has certainly had his share of benders since they got here. Miles can just barely make out Juliet’s face in the moonlight. She looks anxious and tired, and he almost gives in and scoots over but he has one more question to ask, even though he knows he’s not going to like the answer.

“Why don’t you just sleep with him?”

Juliet looks away from him and shrugs. That’s what he thought.

Miles sighs and tosses the covers back. Juliet flashes him a small smile and climbs in.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

Miles turns on his back and stares up at the ceiling, trying hard not to make too much contact with his new bedmate. But it’s not exactly a big bed and her feet are pressed against his legs, her hair tickling his arms. And here he thought this bed was going to be torture free.

“You know he’s still hung up on that Kate chick, right?” he asks.

Juliet’s quiet for so long he starts to think she’s fallen asleep.

“Yeah, I know,” she replies finally.

“He’s a fucking idiot.”

Juliet tries to muffle her laugh by burying her face in her pillow.

“You’re going to make me wake Dan,” she hisses.

“Oh God, don’t do that unless you want to spend the next five hours listening to a lecture about how not to rip a hole in the space time continuum.”

He feels the bed shift as Juliet rolls over to face him. He’s never been quite this close to her lips before. He tries not to think about that. She reaches out and cups the side of his face and for a minute he thinks maybe he actually has a shot, but then she leans over and presses a quick kiss to his cheek.

“You’re not as tough as you pretend to be, Mr. Struame.”

“Shut up,” Miles says.

“In fact you’re kind of a marshmallow,” she continues.

“I will make you sleep on the couch.”

“Night Miles,” she says and even in the dark he can see the grin on her face.

He shakes his head and turns to face the wall trying valiantly not to think about the fact that there’s a gorgeous woman’s ass pressing into his backbone.

Because apparently he’s a nice guy now and he’s betting nice guys don’t have impure thoughts about their hot, platonic bedfellow. He looks down at his boxers and groans; it looks like a certain part of him didn’t get the memo.

Somehow he can’t help but think this all fucking John Hughes’s fault.

Comments

[ozmissage.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! :)

I love writing Miles, he's so snarky.