Thank you very much for the lovely reviews for the start of this story, they really help. Breaking the boys up is never nice, but it seems very fitting with where the producers have taken us, and as long as you all want it (please do let me know how it's working for you) I'll do my best to write the path that canon seems to be screaming out for, but is instead opting for unhealthy relationship limbo. This chapter is an angsty one - but call me old fashioned, a Chryed break-up should be no other way. Love to hear your thoughts x
Syed pulls the coarse thinness of a shared sheet over his head and closes his eyes slowly. His chest shakes slightly, aching with the first breaths. For a second he had forgotten, actually forgotten, and he wonders how with the dig of foreign springs and the absence of large warm arms that were possible. Three days have passed since it ended, or at least he thinks it has. It ended. He knows that much. He reminds himself of the news kindly, physically unable to return to the fourteen hours when he had convinced himself that perhaps this was fighting, that this was just what passionate couples did sometimes, that in a day or so it would be okay. Christian lashed out when he was hurting and would say things he didn't mean. He didn't always say the right thing to him or understand how it all works. They loved each other to the point of fire; their bodies couldn't bear to not be holding, touching one another. This was just a fight, a bad one in a long line of late, the painful product of a combination of things that made up them. Syed rubs his hand through his hair, scratching the scalp through the scruff to force some feeling and remind himself that those thoughts had got him nowhere, that the early hours of delusion were there to comfort you, they were not there to be clung to. He hadn't called, he hadn't knocked, and Syed shut out the gentle voice that promised that was just because he didn't know where he was.
The walls housing him were painted in clean Magnolia and he was grateful for it. There was no stench or disturbance of neighbouring stranger's yells or moans and he had taken something from that when falling into a rented bed with the knowledge of nowhere else to go. This time he wasn't a thieving teenager or a failed husband lost in the dark. He was a failed fiancé with enough money in his pocket for a clean room and a bed. Progress was being made. It meant little. The fact was that he was homeless and he was alone, when he had lulled his head into believing he would never be that again. He curls his legs up against the mattress, wrapping his arm tight around his knees. In this second he wishes he had taken himself to the family house, that he was with people that loved him, that he could be cuddled by his mum. He knows with sense that he wouldn't have been able to bear it, that despite a lack of cruelty meant, she would have been pleased that it was all gone. He couldn't bear for anyone to do anything but mourn it, or to ask for comfort from those he had hurt unimaginably for what now seemed to be no end. He feels the shame of it, of sacrificing everyone for just one, someone he had stupidly believed would never leave. Squeezing his legs to his still clothed chest, he isn't even sure if he was the one that was left. He remembers on a blur it was him that walked out the door but can see it being opened for him, hear words that were said that meant it was desired for him to go through it. All he can think of as he lays there is how it was only a year ago that he had stood in the street and asked him to come home.
A vague buzzing sounds through the pillow and he tells himself it's his phone, the rhythm of his heart quickening rapidly as he leans to grab it and register the name. Tam. The pit of his stomach dips achingly and he feels as if he is losing something all over again. He doesn't answer, but on the third go he feels guilty enough to re-learn how to form words. It comes out hoarsely.
"Tam..."
"There you are...well not really, I don't know...where are you? I went round to the flat and Ian said you'd moved out?"
Syed feels his chest tighten at the confirmation of what is happening and regrets instantly having picked up the phone. He isn't ready and he murmurs what truth he can.
"Yeah, we er...it all happened kind of quickly."
"He said you were at Janine's old place?"
"Well, yeah...Christian is."
"But you're not?"
"No."
"Right. Wait. Why?"
He stumbles through the words quietly.
"Because...um, we...Christian and I, we...we broke up."
"What? That's insane, since when? Why?"
Tamwar registers the following silence and asks something more logistical.
"Where are you Syed?"
He bites his lip, swallowing hard in an attempt to re-gain a flat voice.
"At the B and B."
"What, with dad?"
"No, no. I couldn't handle that. The one on the high street."
"What happened? I don't understand, you were fine. Mum even got on board, well slightly. You two were..."
"I've got to go Tam. I've got to... "
His voice is breaking and he can't hear any more of what is being said.
"I'll call you later okay, don't worry. I'm sorry. Don't worry."
"Syed –"
He opens his eyes gradually, the weight of them greater than he is used to, sticky with the damp and crisp of crashed out sleep. He can't think how long it's been but thinks perhaps an hour and is trying to piece together some sense of in and out dreams when he notices the drum on the door.
Through sleep and flimsy wood he hears the muffle of a familiar voice;
"It's me – Tamwar."
"Tam?"
He crawls out of the bed, his legs shaking slightly as they remember how to walk. A hand over the door, he creeps it open slowly. Tamwar pushes it, in a perfect combination of force and gentility, and invites himself into the stuffy, dank room with a terrifying show of purpose.
"What are you doing here?" Syed stutters, unable to get a grasp of things or, despite the lack of strength used, stop the door from opening. "How did you get up here?"
"The woman let me in. The lady, the tubby one with the hair."
"She just let some random up to my room?"
"We're Asian, we're all related."
Syed sighs, already half defeated.
"What are you doing here Tam?"
Tamwar looks at him, standing small in a three day old crumpled black t-shirt and the bareness of boxers. His face is darkened from a build up of stubble and the grey lines shadowing worn out eyes. There are tear marks on his cheeks and it is a hollow look he has seen before.
"I've come to see you," he says. "To see you're alright."
"I really just want to be by myself right now."
"Well I don't want you to be."
Syed shakes his head and begins to move back to sit on the sanctuary of the bed. He discovers he has little energy to fight and murmurs almost pleadingly to the sheets;
"I really just need... I can't. I'll call you later Tam, I promise, I..."
"I can take you home. Mum will be okay..."
"No Tam."
"If you won't come with me, let me stay."
"I just need the quiet, to just sleep or..."
"You shouldn't be by yourself."
"Why?"
"I don't want you to hurt yourself!"
Syed looks up quickly, the tone and the sentiment startling.
"What, why would you..."
"That's what happened last time. Last time you broke up that's what happened. You look the same. You sound worse. I'm not stupid, I remember what happened."
Syed's stomach aches with the realisation. He feels guilt that he ever did something that would result in the fear stretched on his little brother's face and a need to push down the memories of it for his own sake, to ignore any similarities to now.
"Tam...I'm sorry," he stumbles. "I would never, ever...not again. I promise."
"No one ever plans to break a promise, they just do it. You didn't even mean to do anything last time, you were just upset."
"Well I won't, okay. I swear," he says with certainty. "It hasn't even crossed my mind to go to the off-licence let alone anything...I would never. It's different now, I'm different."
Tamwar relaxes slightly, sitting himself awkwardly on the edge of what he debates to be an unhygienic bed.
"I know," he mumbles, fingers mirroring Syed's in tracing the line of the sheet. "You're sad though."
They sit. There is nothing that can be said to that.
"Where are you going to stay?," Tamwar interjects to the silence. "Half of my family's in a B and B, it's getting ridiculous."
"Here. It's fine."
"Well what about the old flat? Couldn't you rent that?"
"A new tenant's probably moving in, besides..." Syed says, the words quietening as they're said to the bed, "I don't want to be there without him."
"I'll be fine okay," he reassures them both, opting for the long-held tradition of hoping saying it will make it true. "I'm going to put my jeans on and I'm going to get my stuff...and I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out and I will be okay."
Tamwar lifts his lips slightly, doing that confused pained expression that Syed knows is his attempt at support. His head is suddenly dipped down into the cushion of a small shoulder and he feels the tight squeeze of arms around his back. He pauses awkwardly for a moment before pulling a hand out to return the brotherly hold, telling himself the seconds he stays like that is for Tamwar's benefit and not for anthing else.
Syed places his palm on the door of the flat and though he hates himself for the cowardice, considers instantly running out of it. His mind can't take in the emptiness of it, how a home can within days be broken and sparse. It was everything and now it is nothing, and the only bit left of them is a cleared kitchen and a stripped empty bed. He leans slightly, his body suddenly weaker, before shutting the door quickly in a bid to keep the secret from getting out. He doesn't want to be here, but he has an unexplained feeling of not wanting others to walk in either, not to see what has become of it, them, not to infect or spoil the smallest signs that may be left. He tells himself that he can go soon, he just needs to collect his things and he'll be done. He is unable to focus for a second on the truth that to be done is the last thing that he wants.
Walking in a few feet slowly, he finds it in him to look at the boxes scattering the room. Christian had told the truth. Syed's things were waiting for him and he presumed, if he looked, would be sitting in the wardrobe too. They sit neatly, packed up and divided in painful simplicity. Syed can't look. He tries to understand the mindset of the man that had said he loved him as he put his things in each box, as he calmly rolled his prayer mat and folded each of his clothes. Syed wonders what he had done to make such a thing easy, what he had said to make that sweatshirt he wore to cuddle on the sofa in the evening just another meaningless piece of cloth.
He finds himself making his way across the bare carpet, standing at the foot of what last week was their bed. It's the same and different, mocking and tempting all at the same time, and his feet take each step leading up it without a second thought. His body presses into the familiarity of it, squashing himself into the mattress cold from the missing bedding, and above all, body. He remembers the day when they bought it, silly fighting in the market, an aftermath of being told he was loved, he was loved, and that his love could never want anyone else. It was the start of everything and he has no comprehension of how they are now at the end. All he can think, as he squashes himself into the half-comfort of the bed, is that they will never be back here, and as he remembers the first shyness of a time to the laughter of forever in a summer afternoon, he cannot breathe at the thought. His legs are refusing to move and he lays there, noises that seem barely recognisable shaking out of his throat. Time is nothing and he lays there, he can't be anywhere else.
In the back of his mind the door is rattling and he hears feet, achingly familiar in their pace and weight, starting and stopping at the entrance of the flat. He drags his head up slowly, murmuring the only word that has been sitting on his lips;
"Christian."
