This is something new and slightly different. I'd be really interested in your thoughts in a bid to help me figure out where I'm going with it, but either way, I hope you like.
The glass filled slowly, fighting with the disobedient water to be quiet, to fulfil its task dutifully. Christian was a heavy sleeper, the large arch of his chest would rise and fall in unconscious heaves as shallow breaths whistled on contented sighs, nightly, but the water was asked to go quietly nonetheless. Syed didn't like to wake him.
He turned the tap and drank in soothed gulps, enjoying the murmur of sound in the near silence of home at dawn. Silence had been something to fear at times, that let him be crushed in hateful doubts or left hollow in the reminder of being alone. He hadn't forgotten. It could be a comfort though, reminiscent of prayer, a calmer state where thoughts could float and things would slow. He liked that, that hadn't changed.
A vulnerable row of goose-bumps suddenly pricked his skin and he thought how cold it was in here, colder than yesterday. Placing the glass down on the glistening counter to free his arms to wrap themselves, he rubbed his nakedness. It was December he supposed, the dressing of boxers and the creeping sun streaks through the slats of the blinds are not the things to keep you warm.
"Are you going to stand there all night?"
His breath shuck, the familiar sense of heated hands on bare skin startling the tips of his nerves, the murmur of Christian's sleep roughed voice humming through his ear. He smiled, sighing as he calmed into the feel of touch, his warm chest pressing the chill of his back. There was a comfort in the grip of Christian's arms; it had been there when there was a terror in it too. Something about the firmness of forearms and the way padded finger tips played on the soft of his stomach. Protective strength and gentle affection, as if he had been waiting for it before he knew.
"Technically, it's morning," he smiled. "That's what the sun means."
"It's before eight, it's night time."
The correction widening into the stretch of a vocalised yawn, Christian hung his head sleepily into the morning ruffle of Syed's hair.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, earnestly. "I've just finished, I was trying to be quiet."
"As a mouse," Christian adored, bending his head to press hot waking lips onto Syed's shoulder skin.
"I like waking up and seeing you," he mumbled into the soft warmth. "I need to make the most of it."
"I know…but it's only five days, you'll barely notice I've gone."
That Syed knew that last utterance was a lie gave him more of a comfort than he was prepared for. He wanted Christian to miss him, to hurt a little when he found he wasn't there. His head pressed itself back into the crux of Christian's collar bone, a silent apology for a cruelty he didn't understand.
"Why do I have to notice at all?" Christian grumbled, turning him, keeping him in the hold of his arms. "Getting on a train to train is stupid, I don't like it."
"It's practical Christian, and for the same reasons I told you when I first booked it. If I do it partly in Leeds I can do the intense course..."
"Intense massaging?" he chortled, low. "I think I'd like that."
"You said that first time. It was Leeds or Manchester and I don't know Manchester. Anyway this way I'll get qualified ten times quicker, if I pass..."
"'Course you'll pass. You couldn't fail at anything if you tried…"
Syed gave a dismissive laugh, an anxiety and a past Christian suspected was less than funny.
"…and if you did I wouldn't even make fun of you mercilessly," he added, smoothing his nose into the dip of Syed's throat.
"You romantic."
The cool of the sink pressing the base of Syed's back, they stood, skin caressing slowly in the silence.
"It'll be fine you know," Christian murmured.
"I know."
"You do your thing, get reacquainted with the north, and you come home."
Words breathed into his listening skin, Syed closed his eyes. The walls of the flat blinked from light to dark and he held onto the feel of loving touch.
A crush of pink paint hung itself on the greyness of the shrunken wall and he felt the unnerving strain of apathetic eyes stare out at him. It was a single room, cramped and unkempt with the damp half stench that comes from lack of care, but it would do he guessed, and only partly because it had to.
"I can do it for like sixty or something…" he heard the voice cogitate, "…but you've got to get your own food. The last guy just ate everything and I'd come in and they'd be nothing left and he'd leave like a beer, that's it. Twat. Oh and don't steal the beer right?"
"I don't drink."
"What, like ever?"
He didn't need to turn to be aware he was being looked at with an expression of discomfort, the custom flex of the mouth, silenced, and the creased display of the brow. You have to fit in, be popular, liked, something that's special but won't offend, that fits with what they want. His breath caught a little, knowing he'd slipped already. He was tired, just tired, he knew he could do better than this.
"It's no problem, I just…not really a beer man, you know."
"Yeah, cool. So like Paul's here sometimes, he might take the sofa. But usually it's just me and Michael. And India, my girlfriend, but she doesn't pay rent, obviously and…"
The foreign voice continued, a mundane nothing ramble that told him that he'd recovered, that he wasn't going to be asked to leave, that he was okay. The cold flutter of agitation calmed in his chest and he resumed tracing his sore eyes over the carelessness of part re-painted walls, a streak of change slopped over the old but standing abandoned, a mistake and one unimportant enough to be left un-dealt with. The bed at least was fine. It looked clean and it was nice enough, lacking the bed spread of blue stripes with the neat black trim, and he was only partly surprised at that, but it was fine. It's alright, he promised on a whisper. Its fine and you'll be fine.
He had stayed with an old friend for a few nights, since it happened. Well, as old as it could be, as he could let it, but Graduation wasn't that long ago, he told himself, and it wasn't strange to just turn up late off a train with a bag asking for a place to stay. It was no big deal, and when he was fiddling in the kitchen at 3am it was because he was young and fit and needed the sustenance, nothing else. He'd always liked Rhys, kind and funny and almost put him at ease. He liked him for now as much as anything, the right distance between someone he knew and who didn't know enough. It couldn't be for any longer though, there was no space and the girlfriend had started parading on the sofa in her bra, touching assets for attention that was promised as secret. He needed something permanent, and saying that out loud would stop hurting soon.
He was being spoken to his shaking thoughts said and he turned to stare at the interrupting voice, confident skinny leg bent, black ruffled jeans scuffling the bitted floor. The guy looked back at him, shifting his gaze from him to the walls attempting to express some sort of pride, he imagined.
"So, what do you think?"
It was cold in here, and it didn't smell like home.
He caught himself. That was a good thing, it was a smell that was new and dirty and fresh and he didn't need anything other than this. This was exactly how things should be and he'd be a man about it. Flash the smile, the lift of the mouth and the white spread of cut teeth that said happiness and complete comfort.
"It's just what I wanted," he heard his voice say, proud of himself.
"Alright, move in tonight if you want. Rooms all yours Syed."
"Do you think there's room for me in your suitcase?"
Syed laughed, pulling his smiling face from the crux of Christian's neck.
"That would be the biggest suitcase ever made."
He stroked his fingers up the curve of his bare spine.
"You said it yourself, I'll go, I'll do it, massage things or whatever I'm doing, and come home. No need to suffocate in my luggage. And I'll call you whenever I can…I want to hear your voice."
"You'll be too busy painting the town red, eating pies and chips with gravy or whatever these people do," he pouted into skin.
"That's exactly it, I did that all through university and…"
"I'm going to miss you," Christian found himself murmuring, unsure whether he had imagined the way Syed's body had tensed, just slightly, under his hold. "Come back to bed and let me show you how much."
