Sorry, this is going to be angsty and soapy and might have already been done. Please try and like it! xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Syed trudged down the stairs of the underground station. His head pounded with the beat of a tension headache, the smell of massage oils wafting up from his skin making him feel nauseous and light headed. Flexing his fingers as he placed his Oyster Card on the barrier, he tried to ease the ache in the sinews of his hand. His brain frazzled with trying to remember the different names of muscle groups, the Latin terms moving stickily inside his skull like jam.
'Pectoralis sodding Major.' He hissed under his breath, a quiet smile forming as he allowed himself the delicious thought of laying his head on Christian's glorious Pectorals and falling gently asleep.
'A little snooze before dinner, and a big something else after..'
He grinned at Billy, who slouched grumpy and cold, surveying the remaining bruised apples on the stall.
"Nice evening!" He called.
Billy looked at him as if he were mad.
"If you say so mate. You on a promise?"
Syed laughed, beginning to look forward to the weekend ahead, thoughts of the day's exam, in which he was convinced he had done appallingly, starting to recede.
"Always Bill, you know Christian."
Billy shuddered slightly and looked embarrassed, and Syed surprised himself with the realisation that, this sort of reaction to his sexuality, was beginning to bother him slightly less than before.
"Hey babe!"
Christian twitched the Hoover's cable away from the chair leg and manoeuvred it under the table.
Taking off his jacket, Syed eyed him suspiciously.
"Cleaning again? What's this in aid of?" He shouted.
"Sorry petal, can't hear you. What?"
Syed bustled past him and bent to switch the power off at the socket. The machine slowly puttered to silence.
"Turn it off then, dumb head. I gave this place a good going over yesterday. Are you trying to say I didn't do it properly?"
Christian frowned at him in confusion.
"Course not, tetchy. You do everything beautifully, and I mean everything…"
He hooked the cord over the neck of the Hoover and opened his arms to receive a hug.
Syed, too tired to register the gesture, wearily walked around him and slumped on the sofa.
"I suppose I'd better start getting ready. Zahida expects us at seven…" He yawned and shut his eyes, wanting to sink against the soft cushions and allow himself to doze for a year.
Christian bit his lower lip. Hovering anxiously in front of Syed he said;
"Ah…"
Syed sat up suddenly and fixed him with a steely glare.
"Ah what?"
"She rang and left a message, Barry's got man flu and she's got to tend to him…She wondered if we could rearrange it for next week."
Syed's face lit up with relief.
"Really? Oh thank goodness, I'm knackered. Yay! We can spend the evening in. Shall we get a video? Not that sort, dirty. And a take away, can't be arsed to cook…"
He noticed that Christian was shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
"What's up with you? Do you need the toilet?"
"It's just I.."
"It's just you what?"
"Well, they called and…"
Syed's eyebrows lowered dangerously.
"Christian.. What have you done?"
Christian picked up a duster from the coffee table and flicked it playfully at him, practising what he hoped was his most winning smile.
"I invited Sam and Steve round for drinks. There's a new bar opening in Stratford, they've got us tickets. I said we'd feed them and then go on there later. Won't it be fun?.."
The last word hung in the air between them, an unanswered question in big flaming letters.
After a pause, when the atmosphere in the flat had frozen to a sub zero temperature, Syed quietly groaned.
"You've fucking done it again Christian."
"Done what?"
"Arranged stuff without asking me. Maybe I don't feel like having those two round here shrieking like over grown schoolboys and rifling through your porn collection? Maybe, after the day I've had I don't want to spend the night surrounded by pissed people, nodding and smiling because I can't hear a word anyone's saying over the crap music, and even if I could, it would all be drunken gibberish anyway. Why the fuck didn't you ring me and ask me?"
Christian took a step backwards and held up his hands.
"Woah! Where's this coming from? I couldn't ring you because you have your phone switched off, I thought you liked them, I thought they were OUR friends, and, most importantly, I did ask you, I sent you a text."
Syed fumbled around in the back pocket of his jeans and held up his mobile.
"Did you Christian? Are you sure? Or did you just think 'Oh Syed won't mind, he's happy to go along with anything I decide to do.."
Christian snatched the phone from him and scrolled through the messages.
Triumphantly waving it in his face, declaring;
"HERE! Here's a message I sent you.." He twisted it round to read it and muttered;
"Oh, maybe not that one.."
"No Christian. That one was from this morning, and 'I'm going to fuck you until you scream' and eighteen kisses doesn't constitute any sort of inclusion in the decision making processes of our social life. You won't fucking learn.."
Christian mentally clocked through the day, he was convinced that the message had been sent as soon as the plans had changed, and it had been a suggestion. He had assumed Syed's lack of response had been an affirmation that he was okay with the idea.
He gulped guiltily, then the fault began to anger him, the uncertainty about his innocence, the realisation that he had, indeed, taken things for granted again, making him defensive.
"I can't do right for doing fucking wrong with you, can I? How many times, I'm sorry. I'll ring them and tell them not to come.."
Syed glared at him and shook his head furiously.
"Don't bother. Have them round, wreck the place, get blind drunk, throw up a bit. I'm going out.."
He clambered over the back of the sofa, ignoring the pleading hand of contrition that Christian held out to him, and grabbed up his coat.
"Sy, please!"
With a parting shout of "bollocks!" Syed slammed out of the flat.