Title: A Never Ending Story
Author: MercuryPheonix (Your Angel of Music)
Rating: M overall, but a lot of it will be lower than that.
Spoilers: Everything
Summary: Christian and Syed know better than anyone that there's no such thing as happy endings - just new chapters in a never-ending story.

A/N: The first few vignettes will feel more like chapters in a plotty fic, because I'm covering a short space of time. However, they will definitely become more vignette-y (Shakespeare made up words, I can do it too) as time goes on and I get past this initial stage. Thank you so much to Elphie for beta-ing the first chapter, and to Jenn for beta-ing this one. Love you, girlies!


A Never Ending Story

Firsts

As far as first meetings go, Christian thinks as he drowns in a sea of unpacked clothes, today could have gone a hell of a lot worse.

Sitting on the bed in the middle of the spare room, with his bag half unpacked on the pillow next to him, Christian can't help but focus in on the strangeness of the whole situation – moving into a room in his parents' house, his whole family together again, and all that with Syed by his side (wherever he is – Christian thinks he's in the bathroom, unpacking their things, but to tell you the truth he could very easily have been taken downstairs for his mother's expert interrogation by now).

He'd expected his mother to give Syed a hard time (after all, she knew why Christian initially planned to come here on his own), but she'd seemed to put 'keeping the peace' above 'being a tiger mother' on her list of things to do today. Which, to tell you the truth, he was grateful for. A tiny part of him felt a tiny bit disappointed – if there was anything that would serve as punishment for how Syed had hurt him, it would be a tongue-lashing from his mother – but the past was the past and now is now, and that's all Christian wants to focus on.

And his mum seems to like Syed well enough. She'd warmed to him quickly during their Skype conversations over the past few years. She saw Syed as quiet, reserved, yet also stern, able to keep some of Christian's wilder and more impulsive traits in check (which, as she'd told him on many an occasion, was something he sorely needed). She also saw him as the man who had finally taught Christian that he could love, and who had stolen a space in the 'big-as-the-Atlantic' heart that she kept going on about. And for that, as she also never failed to mention, she already loved him.

This, Christian guesses, overshadows everything that she's been told about recently (and the extent of that was up for debate. He really should interrogate Jane about how much she's said) as she took Syed's hand and led him unsteadily on a tour of their house. She is a lot more fragile than she had been the last time Christian saw her, and that's enough to twist uncomfortably in his gut. She looks ill. Even though she managed to fuss and bluster with as much gusto as she always had (the memory of Syed's whispered 'oh god, she's just like mum' brings a smile to Christian's face as he begins to near the end of his unpacking), there's a fragility to her that he's never seen before.

But that's the future. For now, he's here, and no one has ripped anyone's head off, and she likes Syed, and that's fine.

Jane wasn't quite so easy. But then again, she's always been more protective of Christian than their mum had. Even when he was seventeen, and everything went so very wrong, she'd been the one to take a stand for him rather than his own mother (and wow, didn't that still hurt). So a curt nod and brusque 'Syed' of acknowledgement was as good as Syed was going to get at the moment – and actually, as Syed had confessed to him later on, it was a damned sight better than what he'd been expecting.

As for his dad – well – Christian uses more force than is really necessary to fold the final t-shirt that he pulls from his bag – that's going to be interesting. Very interesting. And although Christian likes interesting – revels in it, even (it was one of the words that best sums up his relationship with Syed, after all) – this isn't the kind of interesting he's looking forward to. At all.

His musings are interrupted as Syed walks in; hoisting the now empty bag into the corner of the room, Christian turns to face him, a smile on his face which is part 'I love you and I like seeing you' and part 'thank you forever for blocking that particular train of thought'.

"You know something?" he balances the pile of folded clothes on his palm, making his way over to the chest of drawers and dumping it away and out of sight. "You're lucky - I think my mum likes you, which means you're only going to get the partial interrogation and not the full bamboo-sticks-under-the-fingernails job that she'd probably do on anyone else."

He turns to Syed, the smile still on his face, waiting for a response. He doesn't get one. Syed is shuffling from one foot to another; meeting his gaze and then looking away, his eyes sliding to the side as if he can't quite control it. There's guilt written onto his features. Christian swallows. Hard. That look – that 'I've done something' look – has never meant good things for them in the past.

Oh god, no, please don't let it be anything else.

"I found these – " Syed clears his throat, holding his clenched fist in the air. At first, Christian can't see anything. He opens his mouth, whether to ask or reassure or whatever (he isn't sure), and then he spots the corners of the box poking out from in between Syed's fingers.

Ah.

"I just found them, when I was unpacking the stuff in the bathroom, and I didn't know – whether you – I mean, when you – "

"When I bought them?" Christian folds his arms as Syed lowers his fist, pinching the box of condoms between the fingers of both hands nervously. There's something bubbling in his stomach. He can't tell whether it's anger. He could probably let it grow into anger, if he wants to. But he doesn't want to.

"D'you mean: did I buy them before or after you decided to come with me?"

Syed freezes for a moment, before jerking his head in a sharp little nod, a blush creeping onto his cheeks. There's that bubbling again, this time in Christian's chest. He tries to hold it back. Because he knows what Syed is trying to say. Did he buy them for them, or did he buy them on the thought that, once he got America, there would be others; new bodies, new boyfriends, new anything that wasn't Syed? And he wants to shout at Syed for that - what gives you any right? – but one look at him – the guilt that he's even asked the question, but the plain fact that he couldn't not ask it, that somehow means something – and he can push the bubbling back.

"I bought them this morning," he says quietly, perching on the corner of the bed. "From that little shop near the hotel. Before you woke up."

There's a mixture of relief and guilt on Syed's face, his shoulders noticeably loosening as Christian speaks. He looks down at the box in his hand, still shifting it quietly between his fingers, before looking up at Christian again.

"Christian, we – "

"No," Christian holds up a hand to cut him off mid-sentence.

"But – "

"I don't wanna know. Not yet. Not right now. So we'll use them. For now or as long as we have to. I just - what you did with him – I just don't wanna know."

The silence hangs uncomfortably for a few seconds as Syed searches his face, reading every line and crevice in a way that Christian's never known anyone else to do quite so thoroughly – and then Syed looks down, quietly opening the box and drawing out a single condom. Christian watches as he then closes the box and sets it on the bedside table, fingering the wrapper for a moment before stepping forward and holding it out towards Christian.

"Okay."

As Christian will later recall with a smile, there's nothing particularly romantic about the first time they have sex in their 'new life'. His parents are just down the hall, so there's an awful lot of hushing, and shushing, accompanied by a stream of whispered admonishments and silent laughter at how adolescent it all feels; making their movements as small and smooth as they can so as not to rock the bed against the wall or get the springs going (which is a mean feat in itself, Christian muses, considering this bed appears to be about thirty years old). Syed allows a hint of shame to creep onto his features as Christian opens the condom wrapper and gives it to him – which was sort of the point, and Christian doesn't actually feel all that guilty about it – but, after rolling it on almost tenderly, his hands catch behind Christian's neck and pull him into a kiss that says 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' and 'I'm an idiot' and 'but you're an idiot too' all at the same time.

Despite the unfamiliar surroundings, there's a comforting familiarity as they settle into well-rehearsed positions: Syed's back flush against Christian's chest, one leg nudged up and over Christian's to give him better access; Christian's hand on his chest (moving to his mouth to block a particularly loud moan halfway through, letting Syed bite down gently on his fingers to muffle the sounds), Syed's reaching back to Christian's hip; Syed's hair filling Christian's mouth, absorbing the vibrations from his vocal cords as they move slowly, and quietly, and together.

Afterwards - when they've cleaned up and Christian lies stretched on his back with Syed's head pillowed comfortably on his chest - Syed clears his throat nervously; waiting for Christian to incline his head questioningly before beginning to speak.

"You know, when I had that guy trying to 'cure' me," he stutters, unsure, his fingers drawing tiny subconscious circles on Christian's chest. "And he tried to tell me that this was unnatural, I told him that it wasn't – that I couldn't breathe unless I touched you, like my heart was breaking out of my chest, and I told him that I would never ever not feel that way. And I still – I still believe that, I still feel that way – it's like my heart stops in my chest every time I look at you, and I know what I've done wrong and I know that I've hurt you but that doesn't change that, I still feel that way, I love you so much and I never ever want to lose you again. I can't. I want to make this work. And I think we can. I love you too much to not fix this. I just – " he looks up, meeting Christian's eyes before dropping back to focus on the figures of eight his fingers are now tracing around Christian's nipple. " – I just wanted to tell you that."

There's a beat. Syed's hand wobbles slightly in its pattern. Christian watches him for a while, his fingers combing gently through the tangles in his hair.

"How much time did you spend practising that?"

Syed flushes, and he tries to hide his face in Christian's chest hair.

"Twenty minutes," he eventually mumbles, his face hot against Christian's skin. "In the bathroom mirror."

Another beat.

And then Christian laughs.

A big laugh. A proper one. Rumbling right through from somewhere deep in his chest. Syed huffs, unburying his face from the warm chest and angling his head towards Christian.

"I was trying to do something nice."

"You're so crap."

"No I'm not, I'm romantic."

"You're ridiculous."

Syed considers for a moment, letting Christian's fingers skitter down his arm and back again before letting out a sigh of resignation.

"I'm ridiculous."

"You are."

"Hopeless."

"Utterly," Christian smiles again, softly, brushing his fingertips through Syed's hair. "But thank you. The effort is appreciated."

Syed grins; kissing Christian's chest once, twice, before extricating himself and settling himself onto his side of the bed to sleep. He's out within seconds. And Christian just listens to his breaths, even and slow, closing his eyes and letting that one sound drown out everything else.

He doesn't sleep for a while. But he doesn't mind.

Because, right now, he's feeling okay. And he'd quite like to hold onto that.


Thank you for reading!