I watch him as he drifts through the quietness of morning sleep, finding myself taken with a consuming gratitude that he is here, that he is anywhere. This is the sleep I could watch, the sleep that does nothing but calm. He's half smiling, that little secret smile that twitches the right corner of reddened lips when his breaths reach the point of peaceful depth. I wonder what after the week that has past could take his dreams to let him smile, and whether it is possible to love him anymore because of it.
He sighs quietly, a satisfied sloth like sigh as he squashes himself further into the warmth, his cheeks flushing against the burgundy of the sheets. 'We could be here all day' I laugh, and as pleasurable as that thought is, this day shouldn't be slept away.
"Time to wake up", I whisper low, his lip widening at the familiar feel of my breath on his ear.
I laugh at the ease in which my request goes ignored, as a sleeping mumble is released in pleasure.
"Hey mister", I try, pressing my mouth slowly onto the flash of peaking warm chest, "Don't you know what day it is?"
"Happy birthday to you," I murmur in song against his skin, "Happy birthday to you."
"Happy birthday dear…" the words halt with the punctuation of gentle kisses and lathes, "…disgustingly young and gorgeous one…"
"Happy birthday…" I nuzzle into the groove of his heated throat…" to you."
"Are they your own lyrics?"
I grin as I feel the words sleepily mumbled, moving my lips to see the stretch of his own.
"Hey you, when did you wake up?"
"About the part when you started licking an inch from my nipple…" he smiles, wriggling to budge himself slightly from beneath the quilt. "I was hoping there was a second verse."
"Oh were you now…" I tease, sliding over slowly as I lean down onto him. "So demanding."
"Well it is my birthday."
"Yes it is, you are the birthday boy. And this birthday boy can have whatever he wants."
He lifts his arm to rest on the back of my neck, keeping our gaze joined as he pulls me close.
"Anything?"
"Anything," I whisper into the soft stubble of his jaw.
He moans gently, that undetectable deafening moan that hums from him helplessly, willingly when his skin feels my tongue. I'm grabbed, his loving hold on my head tightened, fingers scrunching playfully through tufts of hair whose single role is to have me led to his lips, those that open, that are now widening with mine, tasting, nipping, caressing.
Instinctively I press into him, slide a hand beneath the sheet to give him more, lifting and moving, him struggling with me to exchange the flat of the mattress for the squeeze of my touch.
"Ow", he mutters, and I freeze, forcing myself back.
"Shit, did I just…?"
"No, no it wasn't you. Just a bit sore you know, and I can't put pressure on my…"
I must badly hide the worry etched on my face as he quickly adds;
"It's fine. I'm fine," placing a hand to my cheek and stroking me back to calm.
"You're more than fine," I tell us both. "You're the birthday boy…and I think…" I smile, with a chaste kiss, "…it's officially present time!"
"Christian it's enormous!"
"Words I always like to hear…"
"And you've got two!"
"That's a new one…"
I kick the spare room door nimbly, and grin at him, sitting up in bed with his best child-like expectancy and bed hair gently scrunched down his face.
"It's not enormous anyway," I say, hopping cautiously into bed, "one's tiny and the other one's shoe box size… Fuck."
"It's okay I didn't hear that," he smiles sweetly as I shake my head.
"And they say you've got to be married and fat before selective deafness creeps in…" I mumble with a grateful kiss on the side of his head.
"You didn't have to get me two things…" he says, arranging them on his lap.
"If you only knew the restraint it took to stop there."
"I can imagine." I watch him as he twists his head to one side. "And they look expensive."
"How can you tell? They could be boxes filled with shredded newspaper. You're an impressive one, but you haven't got x-ray vision. Have you? That is so dirty…"
"I can just tell."
"Are we actually having a fight about money on your birthday?"
"No!" he exclaims, with the promise of a laugh. "We should be cutting back, that's all, now you've taken some time off and I won't be bringing anything in, again, for weeks."
He pauses shaking the little box and says earnestly, "I just don't want you thinking you have to spend loads on me."
"Yes Sy. When I think of you I think shallow and demanding. Now open one bloody up! Start with the big one."
"Okay okay," he says obediently, beginning to tear at the wrapping. "This is very nice paper."
A laugh escapes me and I chuckle, "You'll be playing with the box next. I thought I was the child."
"No, it's pretty I mean."
"Maybe he is gay after all," I kiss into his neck.
"Yeah I can see how my lack of interest in style and moisturising must be confusing for you in between all the sex. A shoe box!"
"You had no idea, right?"
"Completely unaware", he lies, pulling at the cardboard lid. "And inside the shoe box we have…"
"A present brought three weeks ago and in retrospect is less than sensitive…"
"Running shoes…"
"Or trainers as some call them."
"I'm ignorant to running… Thank you, they're great," he smiles, instantly pressing my lips with his open, giving kiss.
I smile into him; he doesn't need the explanation, or proof there was a thought. The present on his lap seems as right as pork marinated in vodka, but he kisses me anyway, and pulls back with a look of such gratitude and happiness it makes me tingle.
"No but not just trainers," I persist, turning the box around to show the point, "…trainers for actual running. I know you don't, but I thought…we could."
He stares at me, an eyebrow slightly raised, with that look he gets when I've said something weird.
"You want to be a couple that runs?"
"Yeah, go with me here. I like the gym stuff, you hate it, and that's fine, being interest twins is odd and a co-dependence nightmare, and besides I want to keep you all weak and little, but I thought maybe we could try running."
"Just sometimes…" I murmur towards him, as I watch his confusion turn to a smile. "…I could help. Plus now it might help your delicate leg get its strength back, like bambi."
"My own personal trainer?"
"Exclusively personal. We could go just round the gardens at first or something, and I'll even yell encouraging instructions at you."
He bites his lip, asking guilelessly;
"Harder, faster, down on your knees?"
"In the middle of the square? You have a filthy mind Syed Masood. Eleven days without sex and everything comes back to…"
"Says the one who knows it's been eleven days without even thinking," he says under his breath.
"Don't change the subject. So, what do you think? Hate the idea?"
Inspecting the soles and laces with precision, he considers it.
"Will you let me win?"
"This is a race now is it?"
"It's always a race. I mean obviously once I'm fully fit I'll win easily…"
"Obviously."
"But in the meantime, you know, just to get my confidence up."
"I won't even pout afterwards."
"Then I can't wait," he smiles, grinning into my lips.
"I know, me either. From the losing view, I get to watch your arse. I'm the winner after all," I laugh into his kiss.
"Should have got you tiny shorts, or those looser ones that just hang. Tight and teasing in just the right places…" The image of the curve of his arse as he runs in youth, glorious, takes my thoughts, "…yeah, definitely need to get those."
"You mean they're not in here?" he says, shaking the second box.
"I'm an idiot."
"I'm relieved. It's a very small box…"
Throwing the waste off the side of the bed, I nudge closer to him, running my fingers recurrently along the soft of his side.
"Open it then," I say quietly, wishing it gently as he quickly does as I ask.
"Oh Christian…"
I find myself staring at him, trying to read his expression, my stomach doing an unfamiliar jumble of nervous indecision.
"Do you…?" I pause, suddenly giving an insane level of thought to whether a watch was wrong.
"I love it," he says in such a hush it's almost our secret. "It's gorgeous. Thank you."
He glances up at last from the box to my hovering face, his dark eyes low and shining in a way I suspect I've never seen.
"I love it. I love you."
And then he is kissing me, and I can feel it, what he says, what he doesn't. With the stroke of his lips, the realisation hits the thud of my heart like an obvious truth: I need this next year, and every year after.
I pull back, keeping my fingers running through the nape of his hair.
"When I'm a hundred and you're…fifty two, however old you'll be then, will you still get excited at my presents?"
"Depends what they are," he says flatly, wriggling away. "You'll have to improve each year obviously, so by then…maybe a small island?"
"Liar," I pout.
"No you're right, a mansion. A mansion will do. I don't want to be greedy."
"No, no, of course not," I tease, tickling his throat as he giggles with mirth.
"I really love it," he says quietly, stopping me simply with his hold on my face. "I'm officially spoilt."
I look at him, the cuts and harm hiding in the carefree strength of a genuine smile.
"Not even close."
To be continued (probably)…