Title: Star Quality
Fandom: The Libertines
Characters: Carl Barât, Peter Doherty
Rating: Mature (just for language)
Length: 835
Notes: Part of a larger AU series, but stands alone as well.
Content notes: None



Songwriting was harder than it looked. Under a few lines of crossed out complete bollocks - albeit complete bollocks that had looked like utter genius at 4am with half a bottle of whisky down him - all Carl had managed to scribble was a list of the current impediments to his dreams of greatness.

Why I am not a successful musician already

1. No guitar
2. No money to buy a guitar
3. No band
4. Can't fucking write a song anyway

He threw his pen across the room, where it bounced off the old fridge he'd rescued from the front garden scrap heap last week, and landed in the puddle of water that explained why it had been evicted from its previous owner's flat in the first place.

The room was hot and stuffy, even with the window open, and it smelt of despair and stale whisky. He didn't want to be there, and he didn't want to be with himself, let alone by himself. It didn't seem particularly fair to inflict himself on others in this mood, but fuck it, life wasn't fair, so he went in search of distraction, or as it was better known these days, Peter.

Peter wasn't in his flat, though the door was wide open. Following the sounds of shouts from outside and the slamming of doors along the second floor corridor though, he wasn't hard to find. Carl found him on the stairs with two ice creams dripping all over his hands.

"Carlos!" Peter thrust an ice cream at him. "Extra sauce and two flakes in this one, you want it?"

Carl wasn't going to say no. "Need sweetening up, do I?" he said, in a tone that was admittedly just a little sour.

Peter grinned at him. "Couldn't say. Haven't tasted you, have I?" He leaned in, tongue sticking out, and Carl kicked him in the shin.

"I don't know why I like you," Peter said, pretending to limp as he made his way back to his flat. "How many times do I have to sleep in your bed before I'm officially a battered wife?"

It had been happening quite a lot lately. There was little enough comfort around that Carl found himself unwilling to object to a warm body in his bed, even if it did sometimes seem to be composed entirely of legs and bony elbows.

"You do know we're not married?" Carl asked him, sitting on Peter's sofa. "Though it would explain a lot."

Peter nodded thoughtfully. "The lack of sex."

Carl snorted.

"You know what I mean."

"I know the nights I woke up with your knee up my backside were the only nights you made it home this week."

Peter shrugged. "I met a girl."

Carl tried not to look surprised, but he obviously failed, judging by Peter's laugh.

"I didn't know you liked girls."

"I like everyone, really." Peter finished his ice cream. "Well, some of the telly and film people I don't like much, but I quite like the sex."

"Unless they bite."

Peter pulled a face. "Yeah, damaging the goods is just rude. Animals, they are."

"You're not goods." Carl hated it when Peter talked about himself that way.

"I am, though. We all are." Peter ruffled his hair, which he knew Carl hated. "It's no different from going for a job interview. Package yourself up, smile, look respectable--"

"—or disreputable," Carl added.

Peter acknowledged that with a grin. "Get them to pay attention to you long enough to show them what you can do. In my case, show off the obvious star quality they'd be crazy to pass up."

At that, Peter jumped up, did an impromptu tap dance that miraculously didn't end up with him on a heap on the floor despite his uncoordinated and gangly legs, spun his hat from hand to hand, knocked out a few lines of some song Carl thought might have been The Smiths, and dashed into the other room to grab a guitar. A guitar.

"See, so much potential you're dumbstruck with shock, right?" Peter said, as the jangly echoes of the two chords he could sort-of-but-not-really play faded. "I can't believe I'm not a household name already."

"I'm dumbstruck, all right," Carl said. He stalked over, and moved Peter's hands into the proper position, squeezed his fingers until they pressed down hard enough on the strings and Peter winced, and made him strum again. And again. And again.

Finally, Peter made a sound that was if not perfect, then acceptable. He let Carl take the guitar out of his hands, and watched as Carl played the tune that had been in his head for days, for weeks, his fingers moving deft and sure over the strings.

"You can play the guitar," Peter said, his voice full of wonder. "Why didn't you tell me you could play the guitar? Will you teach me? Carlos!"

"I think," Carl said, patting the guitar fondly, "we may be able to come to some sort of arrangement."