The paragraphs in Italics are Syed's thoughts, the ones in the normal font are Christian's

'I've... got to go...'

He sees I can't move, sees my words are a lie.

'Then go.'

What else can I say?

My feet move before I can stop them. Slowly they slip along the floor until I'm stood in front of him. I can't think of anything but him. His eyes, his lips, his heart.

'Sy...'

My eyes close instinctively as his silent whisper fills the room, bounds from the walls and finds its way back to me. One word is all it takes, all it's ever taken, and I'm lost again. Lost in him, in us. I'm his again. My skin awakens from his hushed growl, my blood spates through my veins, my heart happily cries as it recognises it's owner and I know there's no way back, there is no choice. It's him. It's always been him. It's easier to block out the world whenever he's near me, standing so close. It's easier because he's the only one that exists.

I can see it, the pain in his eyes, and I know he's going to break soon. He tries to hide it but I see it. I see everything. His shoulders have carried his strain for to long and they're not going to hold out much longer. It's only a matter of time before he crumbles and falls, and he'll fall hard. As stubborn as he is I know he won't let himself climb back up, wont feel he'll deserve that second chance. I feel cruel not warning him, not telling him I can see it coming. He's cracking but he won't admit it. He's dying a little inside but wont embrace it. He's loosing himself and who he is with every second that passes.

He's falling, and I'm not leaving his side on his way down. I'm his, no matter what.

'I can't... I can't leave you'

His eyes shine in the dim light and hold my gaze. How does he do it? How does he capture me like this? How does everything else just melt away when he's around? This isn't just love any more. Love is happiness, contentment. This? This is so much more. He is so much more. Something I never knew existed or believed in. He makes my soul crawl out from its hiding place in search of his. What we have, it's bonded us, connected us in a unified link. We are empty without the other. The depth of what I feel for him cannot be measured, it is a story that can never be fully expressed because words cannot convey it. What I feel for him is unique, just like he is.

'Then don't'

I speak before I can stop myself because I know I shouldn't say the words. I need him to leave but what I want goes against what I need. I want him, here with me. There is no greater want than him, next to me, with me. And how I want him. How I want to be lost inside him again, feel his eyes bore into the very depths of my soul, his soul. Because they are one and the same, mirrored images of each other desperate to live side by side for an eternity. He is more than my soul mate, we are of the same flame. I see past his imperfections and see the beauty of the person he is inside, the true beauty no one else has ever experienced. He is not perfect, but he is perfect for me.

'And if I stay?'

I hold my breath as his eyes avoid mine. His desperation to release me overwhelms me. He can't stand to see me like this, the turmoil flowing from me at such a pace I'm powerless to stop it. But I see his as well. I see him slowly sink as his head tells him to stop fighting but his heart pleads not to let go. I see his fight to keep me drowning in his tears. How can what we have be so wrong when the lengths we go to keep it are beyond extreme? How can something so right be seen as being so wrong? It's pure, it's clear and it's the answer to who I am.

'Then you stay...'

I'm helpless, at a loss to him, and I strangely feel happy at it. Despite the years of protests my heart has made I never allowed myself to fall. Never let myself become a part of the wonder that I'd heard of but feared above everything. Because to fall in love showed weakness didn't it? To give yourself, all of yourself, to someone else meant you lost control, were half the man you were. You had no control, you belonged to someone else. And then I met Syed and without warning, he not only transforms my life, my heart. He transforms me. I'm no longer the shallow cry for attention I used to be, flitting from bed to bed doing my utmost to avoid the only thing I actually craved. Because no matter how much I convinced myself that I would never be happy in love, it was the only place I knew I could be happy, be me, be complete. Now, I am a man in love, the deepest kind of love imaginable runs through my veins and it doesn't feel out of place like I thought it would. I don't feel incomplete, I feel absolute. I may have given half my heart away to him but in return I got the greatest gift I could have ever wished for. In return I got him. I am in love and it feels right, it feels just. He's changed the way I've looked at life, what I want from life. Him. Only him.

It's my choice, he's made that clear but how can I listen to my head when my heart pounds so fiercely in my chest. It would never forgive me if I refused to follow it. But if I stay will he reject me? Tell me that this will never be enough for him and I have to choose between him and the farce that I have waiting at home? Or if I go will he pull me back into him, wrap his arms around me in the effortless way he does and make me feel like the only man he's ever wanted. Because that's how it feels with him. He claims he's never loved before but he's such an expert at loving me that I sometimes can't comprehend he's virginal in it. He knows too much of how I feel, of my wants. He knows how to love me so expertly that I feel like I was made for him. And maybe I was. Maybe Allah created me for him and him for me. We are the same inside, in our feelings and I know we were meant to be. Our meeting, our connection, it would have found a way for us to be together at some moment in time. But that time came and now I am here, alone with him, and I have never wanted anyone so much in my life.

I can't pull away, I know that I should, for my own sake I should but I can't. How can I? How can I deny the only person that has ever touched my soul and swollen my heart? It's times like this that I wish I could think rather than feel. Wish I could remember the arguments I've had with myself about why I must give him up. But I can't. There's not a single memory in my head at the moment that doesn't have him beside me smiling and lighting me in a way I could never have prophesied. In my thoughts we are always together and he is always mine and mine alone. There is no family to battle, no wife to compete with. It's only ever us. How can I fight those thoughts, fight him? I watch as his eyes close from the fear of my actions. Does he really think I'd deny him? Reject him? I couldn't even if I wanted to, and I've never wanted to. Ever. He and I? It's just perfect.

I close my eyes as I lean closer and find myself praying he wont turn away. I need to taste him, need to re-awaken the man I truly am. He is the only person I know that can do that and I never want to search for another. He is my other, my half that makes me whole. He fills the part of me that I never knew was empty until I met him. Even then, during our first words, our first meeting I could see something in him, something that told me I would loose myself if I let myself. But I didn't let myself, I had no choice. My heart was his from that moment. I just didn't realise it at the time.

I love you. I love you. I chant the words over in my head because I need an outlet for them. For him to hear them would make him buckle, make him powerless and that isn't what I want. I want him to want me because that's what his heart tells him, not because a declaration from me will cause him to loose control. But I love him, more than I ever thought was possible. My eyes close as I can almost taste his lips against mine. They hover in the nothingness between us and I long to feel them on mine again. Even since this morning I've missed the taste of them.

He doesn't flinch as I move in closer. He still wants me, despite everything I've ever done to him, everything I've ever said, wants me. Me.

My breath halts as our lips collide. Those soft full lips that I know only I truly feel crush against mine in the way that they do and I am alive again. I am me again. I am the man I've missed being. I am in love.

One taste I'm taken back, back to the world we've created. Our perfect, unseeable place where no one else exists. No one knows of us and our devotion, our adoration for each other. No one can touch us here for here we exist for each other and no one else.