Title: Bodily
Author: MercuryPheonix (Your Angel of Music)
Rating: M (sex and language)

Summary: Christian is lost in a sea of pain. To cope, he turns to the only behaviour he knows. The only problem is: Christian isn't the same man he was all those years ago.

Author's Note: I've seen a few fictions from Syed's POV regarding both the recent break up and the spoiler that Christian has a one night stand at the beginning of January. And although I adore Syed, I can't help but wonder at Christian's POV. We aren't seeing it on screen. And, although I understand the dislike for what happens, I really wanted some understanding for perhaps why he does it. I wanted to explore that part of Christian, explore those actions, explore those coping mechanisms which we aren't seeing onscreen. So here it is. It went a bit odd and dark and bleak, but I hope you like it just the same!

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Bodily
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Christian had an innate ability to shut off his brain during sex. It was like he could split his body in two, cleaving it down the middle, separating the emotional and the bodily with a wall that was too high to cross. Over twenty-odd years, he'd become an expert at cutting himself off; jumping from body to body, losing himself in the physical and protecting his emotions in an impenetrable compartment of his brain.

It was survival. And Christian was a survivor.

Still, it surprised him how quickly he was able to fall back into the old façade – fossilizing his heart and burying himself in as much sex as he could find. His brain had clicked over, flicking into survival mode from the moment he had sunk dejectedly into the ratted seat of the taxi. He didn't want to think, to remember, to sit and let his heart bleed out; so, instead, he began to feel.

It wasn't even a conscious decision. He couldn't remember making it.

All he knew was that it was as if something of Syed's self had fused with his own somewhere along the line. Wherever he went, whatever he did, he could feel it: fingerprints seared into his skin, the last remnants of touch tingling his nerve endings, the scent that clung to the tip of each hair, the gentle breaths that had crooned him to sleep every night for eighteen months lingering in his ears…and the words, the final words, venom spat between them, rumbling like thunder through every waking thought.

It stung. It hurt more than Christian could possible say. It made him want to curl up in a ball on the couch of the crummy bedsit he had found, bury his face in his hands and scrub every last inch of it from his skin.

He loved Syed. He loved him so much that every free second was another second to miss him, another second to remember, another second to feel the bubble of love-hate-heartbreak-rage bubbling over the sides of his sanity. He wanted rid of it. He wanted to cauterize the wound, stem the flow of raw bloody emotion that threatened to drown him.

And so he did the only thing that he had ever known.

He fucked.

Twenty years of isolation and loneliness - twenty years of a loveless life - twenty years filled with sex. Sex to help him forget. Sex to make him feel good. Sex just to fill some of the endless hours as he trudged towards whichever goal his life was headed for. To feel close. To feel alive. To feel like a human being rather than a robot.

But, this time, he found himself drowning in flesh for another reason – because it was the only thing that stopped him thinking.

Syed had been the only person for whom he'd ever been able to detach the net between physical and emotional; he'd let down the walls, he'd let someone in, he'd held and burrowed and felt the raw joy of two pulses synchronised as one. He'd kissed and held and stroked, carding his fingers through hair, tipping back Syed's chin to make sure he saw the look in his eyes when he came.

He missed him so much…he wanted him so much…

Christian fucked to shut off his brain, calling on those instincts that had kept him going for so many years. He fucked to separate his heart from his body. He fucked to prove that he could do this. He fucked to prove to himself that he wasn't dead yet. He fucked and he fucked and he fucked because, to be honest, he didn't know what the hell else he was supposed to do.

Syed was his life. Now that that had shattered beyond repair, what else was there but fucking?

He didn't want to think. He didn't want to emote. He didn't want to hurt.

So he pushed the pliant body down into the mattress; he reared up, keeping as much air between his body and the skin beneath as possible; he closed his eyes, the dark of the unlit room not quite black enough; he lost himself in a faceless mound of flesh, trying desperately to diffuse his brain as he fucked and pounded and came with enough noise to drown out the bitter words that still rang in his ears.

But he was older, now. He knew what it was like to love. He knew what it was like to lose. He wasn't the same. It wasn't the same.

Spent, but nowhere near sated, he rolled to the side; twisting his entire body as far way as possible, one hand buried beneath the pillow like a child seeking comfort.

"Get out."

There was a shuffle from behind him; a raised head.

"You meant you don't…"

"Get out."

A huff, the sound of a tongue clucking against the roof of a mouth. Christian ignored it, the strength of his brandished back louder than any words he could summon. There was movement as the stranger (Christian could barely remember what he looked like; he didn't want to know) hauled himself from the bed; the sound of clothes being found and pulled over heated flesh; a brief moment of silence that sang with disapproval, before the man left with one parting shot:

"Wanker."

Christian lay where he was, unmoved: nothing but the slow stretching of his lungs indicating that he was anything more than a corpse. His eyes stared out into the darkness, dry as a desert - he didn't even bother to try and sleep. There was no point. The blackness closed in on him, wrapping around him, suffocating him with the weight of it. The last tingling remnants of orgasm smarted in his groin, reaching up no further than his stomach. His mind was untouched. There was no release. Not really. But he'd keep trying. He had to. There was nothing else he could do.

Christian was a survivor. He would fuck to survive.

And if that made him a wanker, then so be it. He'd be a wanker.

At least he'd still be alive.

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Fin

Thank you for reading! I know that 'enjoyed' really isn't the right word, but I hope that it met with your approval. My mum kept interrupting me whilst I was writing, and writing something like this takes me into such a bleak place that I snapped so hard I think I was almost thrown out of the house. I think it's withdrawal symptoms. I want Christian back. TWO MORE DAYS!