Title: Magic Mirrors
Author: MercuryPheonix (Your Angel of Music)
Fandom: EastEnders
Warnings: Some violent imagery, some sexual references
Spoilers: Set just after Tamwar and Afia's wedding (Early July '11).
Summary: In the midst of a turbulent period in Christian and Syed's relationship, a mysterious figure from Christian's past emerges with a revelation that rocks him to the core. In a world of uncertainly, there is only one thing that can be guaranteed: the couple's lives will never be the same again.
'Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.'
~Gail Lumet Buckley
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Chapter 1
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It took exactly three and a half seconds for Christian to decide that he didn't particularly like waking up in an empty bed.
It would have taken considerably less time had he not had to fight through the groggy recesses of sleep that had clung on stubbornly as he tried to make sense of the situation. The cold of the opposite pillow had been like a bucket of cold water being thrown over him, shooting through the tips of his nerve endings as he reached out, expecting, with total confidence, to feel warmth at the end of his fingertips. In the just-over-three-seconds that followed – the length of time it took to process the information being fed to him and realign it with his memories of last night – Christian came to the irrefutable conclusion that he should never have bothered opening his eyes in the first place.
Rolling onto his back, a low groan thrumming from somewhere deep in his chest, Christian scrubbed a hand across his face and tried to work out why the bottom had just dropped out his stomach. In almost forty years – and that wasn't going to make him feel any better about this whole situation – he had spent a great many more mornings waking in an empty bed than a shared one. Even those times when he had woken to find someone lying next to him, his overriding emotion had not been one of elation or relief; mostly, his first instinct had been to remove the intruder as quickly as possible and with as little fuss as he could manage.
He sometimes wondered where that part of him had disappeared to, when that Christian Clarke had waved goodbye and shut the door to make room for this new one: a Christian Clarke who felt his whole world disintegrating upon one touch of a cold, empty pillow.
Running the back of his hand along the stubble that peppered his chin, Christian sat up and surveyed the flat. Nothing seemed out of place. In fact, ever since Syed had moved in almost a year ago, the flat had been more ordered and more right than it had ever been with him as the only inhabitant.
The normality of the flat spurred him onwards, urging him to pick up the phone and dial the number (which was so well-rehearsed that the relevant keys had worn down considerably more than those around them). The dialling tone thrummed through his ear for a few moments, the dissonant notes doing nothing to subdue the frolicking butterflies in his stomach.
"Christian, this really isn't a good…"
"Where are you?" A part of Christian knew that interrupting Syed wasn't the best way to forge forward with any kind of reconciliation, but a much bigger part of him was too curious, too worried, too frightened to give a damn about repercussions. "It's only seven-thirty."
There was a huff of air that caused the line to crackle.
"I'm with Tanya at the salon. We needed to set up early. I left you a note."
"You did?" Christian glanced over into the kitchen, squinting slightly to make out the bent corner of a folded piece of paper by the coffee machine. "Oh, right. Well, I didn't have a chance…I rang as soon I saw that…I mean, you could have told me."
"No, I couldn't," Christian could swear he heard something in the voice break, but it was so slight that he couldn't be sure whether it was coming from Syed himself or from a break in the line. "You weren't exactly in a listening mood last night, Christian."
That sinking feeling cut even lower into Christian's stomach.
"But you never…"
"This really isn't a good time. Can we do this later? Please?"
There was a plaintiveness that slung to that last syllable, slicing through the sharpness of the tone and embedding itself into Christian's mind. All moisture left his mouth, his tongue sticking uncomfortably to the roof before he could extricate it sufficiently to wrap around the syllables.
"Sure. Okay. I'll see you tonight?"
There was a beat, during which Christian's heart stubbornly refused to get going again.
"Yeah."
Well, it was some hope at least. At least the prospect of seeing Syed, even if there was no reconciliation at the end of the meeting, was enough to stop the bottom from falling irretrievably away from Christian's stomach. As much as he refused to admit it, especially to Syed himself, he knew deep down that that was his greatest fear: losing Syed for good just as he thought he'd finally gotten his happy ending. To be so close to perfection, to everything he never realised he'd wanted, and then to have that snatched away because of his own stubbornness...
Letting out another sigh, Christian dropped the phone onto the bedside table and hauled himself into a seated position, waiting a few moments for the blood to stop pounding in his head before he swung his legs out of bed and planted his feet firmly on the ground. It was good to feel something solid beneath his feet. It reminded him that the world was still there, waiting to catch him.
The world wasn't quite falling apart. Not just yet.
As he went through the usual routine of preparing himself for his first client – shower, teeth, breakfast, clothes; normal things, far too normal – he tried to work out just when and where his world had started to crumble. It hadn't been a sudden moment; that was the difficult thing. It was a steady trickle, dust pouring through the tiny gaps without them even realising that anything was wrong to start with.
Maybe it had been the roof collapse at the Argee Bhajee. That had, after all, been the moment that the Masoods had come crashing back into the perfect little circle they had created together. Maybe it truly had started with an implosion of the literal sense – opening up the cracks and allowing all the insecurities and the doubts and problems to trickle through. As he switched off the shower and roughly scrubbed himself dry, missing the adorably unfunny quip that would usually follow his emerging from the bathroom in nothing but a towel, he began to wish that it had just been them in their little honeymoon bliss forever.
Them against the world.
Wasn't that how it was supposed to work?
Then again, he pondered as he grabbed an apple and bit into it with a savagery that was almost feral, maybe the cracks had been there all along. Perhaps he'd just been so caught up in his own idealised view of what they were as a couple – the two troubadours, standing strong together with no need for anybody else – that he'd missed something fundamental in Syed's own psyche.
If only Syed had opened up to him, had spoken to him rather than just remaining silent. He'd thought that was one of their strengths – their ability to talk. It was something that they'd learnt after that horrific year of lies and deception. Perhaps it was telling that he couldn't even remember what last night's disagreement had been about. It usually followed the same pattern; disagreements over Zainab and Masood, perhaps a misguided quip from Christian's direction, or more disagreements over the adoption.
No, it was the adoption. He couldn't remember what exactly, but there had been a tangible frostiness to the air – which usually signified a disagreement over the adoption. He grimaced slightly, pulling on the nearest vest to hand (not caring whether or not it was particularly clean) and wishing beyond all hope that they could just have an argument, a reconciliation and get it over with. The cold words were worse than the shouting; the lack of emotion more damaging than any of the passion that had defined their relationship.
He'd thought that adoption was supposed to bring them closer together. For a while, it seemed to have done that. Syed had been so excited. They both had been. A family, them and a child, everything they could ever wish for. At least, that's what he'd thought.
In fact, Christian was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, Syed didn't even want to...
A knock broke through his reverie, snapping him out the spiral of thoughts that had held him still with one arm in, one arm out, of his vest. Tugging his clothes on properly, he barrelled to the door, hoping beyond all hope that...
"Package for you. Wouldn't fit through the door."
A messily wrapped bundle was shoved into his arms before he could fully register the down-trodden face of Masood Ahmed at his door. Just as he opened his mouth to reply, the man had turned on his heel, moving away from the door as if he were fleeing from a rapidly advancing fireball. Christian bit his tongue, feeling the anger bubbling in his blood and rising to his face – but he fought back the urge to shout something at the man's retreating back.
It wouldn't do to add more ammunition to the Masood's already considerable arsenal, especially as he wasn't one hundred percent certain that Syed would take his side any longer.
A low growl rumbled in his throat as he shut the door and made his way back up to the flat. Even he wasn't entirely sure whether it was the type of noise that signalled an animalistic, protective anger, or whether it was the pained rumblings of a lion with a thorn embedded in its paw.
As he tried to sort his thoughts into some kind of coherency, he absent-mindedly ripped open the package, emptying the contents on the table and rifling through the mess of papers that fell from the hastily sealed shroud.
He wasn't sure what it was that he was expecting to find.
But one thing was for certain: the last thing he expected, as he perused the mysterious parcel, was for all thoughts of clients, salons, in-laws, adoption, and even the love of his life, to be banished from his mind.
And then it took Christian exactly three and half seconds to realise that, finally, he knew what it was like to have the bottom fall out of his world.
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TBC
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Thank you so much for reading. It feels so good to finally get into these characters heads and take them vaguely in the direction I want them to go!
Please let me know what you think, as this is currently a work in progress and feedback/suggestions/comments will filter into the creative process.