Broken
Please let it not be true. I need it not to be true. His reflection in the mirror stares back, offers nothing. Only the sight of his face, desperate and scared, wet with splashes of cold, cold water. The aftermath is so much more frightening than he imagined. Images crisscross through his mind in heated colour together with the memory of lips, tongues and skin. Olli's touch still so real, burned into his flesh, imprinted through the heat of sex, and clinging stubbornly. His breath warm against Christian's stomach, the soft pressure of his palm around Christian's cock. He can't shake the feel of Olli everywhere.
Tell me it's not true.
But the mirrored image can't, it can only throw back the fear and panic rising from his belly, pushing out across the skin that Olli caressed and kissed.
He had fucked Olli. No matter how Christian talked and twisted his way around the circumstances, that fact remained. He had fucked a man; did it, wanted it, loved it. New tears fall on his face as the trembling of his limbs takes over. He turns away from the shamed filled image, his body crumpling and folding in on itself. Arms wrapped around legs pulled tight against his chest, he tries to protect himself from the truth. Olli; bright, beautiful, his. Panic rises again. He doesn't want Olli to be his, doesn't want this need, doesn't want to want Olli all over again. It shouldn't be right with Olli. It shouldn't be Olli who makes him feel safe and loved, utterly secure and yet brittle with exhilaration.
It's not true. Olli above him, eyes glittering darkly, lips swollen luscious by Christian's kisses. Tell me it's not true. Olli's hands across his skin, stroking, soothing, inflaming a hunger in Christian that was new and dark. I can't let it be true. Olli's voice softly speaking, "What do you want, Christian?". His own, strangely certain, "You". I need it not to be true. Olli's face twisting beautifully as he comes, with Christian buried deep inside as his own climax shatters his shaking soul.
It was true. Olli, somehow a part of him now, somehow essential. Olli, tenacious, stubborn, infuriating Olli who Christian wants back, close and calming; Olli, who has pushed and fought, who has never given up just being there and has met Christian's lying gaze with his own steady one, time and time again. Olli, who Christian wants to kiss, to touch, to fuck. It was true. Why Christian doesn't know, he only knows that finally, denial was harder than truth and all of the resistance Christian has shown hasn't been enough to convince Olli. With Olli there was no reason to pretend because Olli seemed to know exactly who Christian was. All of Christian, with all the difficult, angry, unpleasant pieces that Christian knew were there and shamed him. Olli had seen all of those and wanted him anyway, had kissed him anyway, had touched and tasted and loved him anyway. He buries his head in his arms as he remembers the way Olli had loved him. Allowing him into his body, showing Christian what to do, how to be with him and yet all with a gentle grace that only made Christian want him more. Olli had taken him apart, first with words that he couldn't fight and then with his mouth, his fingers, his trembling skin brushing against Christian, all pulling from him the last pieces of denial and fear. Those parts of him that were locked down and hidden breaking free under Olli's steady touch. Despite all the uncertainty, it was easy with Olli and in him Christian found pieces of himself reflected, pieces he could believe in and trust. The feel of Olli's body had pushed and pulled at Christian, leaving him open, vulnerable, laid bare.
Olli has changed everything. Everything Christian was, everything he is, everything he thought he would be, changed in one moment. Changed into something he can't see, can't understand and that frightens him. He's been scared before, but never entirely lost for he'd had people who loved him; but that was the old Christian, not this Christian. The Christian who has fucked another man, the Christian he doesn't even know himself.
Does he want to know him? A flicker of something like hope flushes through his belly but disappears just as suddenly, drowned out by the memory of the hard won battles to get here. There was a time when this life was just a small fantasy, flickering at the back of the reality he found himself faced with, twice. Yet here he was contemplating risking it all, risking his life, his friends, his family. Gregor. An agonising pain twists at his heart, vibrating fear-filled adrenalin throughout his cramped body. The image of Gregor's face creased in rejection has tears threatening again, splintering through the memory of Olli curled around him, holding him safe. Gregor or Olli. He can't not lose Gregor, not for anything, not even for Olli. Warmth drains away; all is cold and dark and empty. No future will Olli, no future without him.
It can't be this way. It has to be a mistake. A mistake he made, goaded by Olli, by his own confusion, his loneliness, Coco's absence, something, anything. It shouldn't have happened. But in the heat of anger, he stumbled and there had been no-one to catch him, only Olli, who let him fall. The tears slowly dry on his face and his eyes become tired and heavy. The tense hold he has kept on his body only minimally lessens as he pushes back up to face himself again. Fear still lines his face, but he repeats the same word, telling the Christian he sees in the mirror this is the real truth. Mistake, mistake, mistake.
It doesn't have to be this way. I can fight it, ignore it, push it down so deep it can't get out. The face before him clears and hardens. I don't need Olli, I don't want him. Panic slides behind an expression of fierce certainty. It was a mistake, an aberration, an experiment. And then he begins to believe it. I can be strong, I can make it not be real, not be right. I can fix this and I can make it not be true.