Title: The Hard Part (or How I Let The Boys Boil Over Now In Order To Simmer Down Later)
Chapter: 3/5 (ish)
Fandom: EastEnders
Characters: Christian Clarke, Syed Masood, Tamwar Masood, Jane Beale.
Pairings: Christian/Syed
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up until Thursday 27th January '11

A/N: Okay, people, it's time to bring in the support team! These boys have buried themselves in the rubble of their argument and inability to deal with said argument, and they need someone to come along and shift some of the rocks. The next two chapters will chronicle this - it was going to be one, but I quickly realised that I would need to stretch it to two (one for Syed and one for Christian). As you've probably guessed, I am loathe to take sides in this argument because I genuinely believe they have both done wrong; they need to accept their own wrongs and forgive the other's wrongs before they can go any further. They also need to realise that they love each other more than life itself, and that that is something that they need to fight for, no matter how hard it gets. I know I promised sooner updates than this, but, as some of you will know from reading my Torchwood fictions or following me on LiveJournal, I am member of our LGBT+ Campaigns Committee as Trans Officer (I'm actually bisexual, but I was elected as Trans Officer). We're currently working towards a huge LGBT exhibition and the installation of Gender Neutral Toilets in our Student Union, which is taking a lot of my attention - I also recently wrote an article for our student magazine on bisexuality. On top of that I have a very hectic social life - as in, I often lounge on my friend's couch and watch Disney movies - which means that I never know when I'm going to be able to write. But I promise you that I do it whenever I can! Just bear with me; it should be a few days, but if it's not then at least you know why. Here endeth the long Author's Note.

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3. Rescue Effort

Faith means living with uncertainty - feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark.

~Dan Millman

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"This had better be good," Tamwar wrapped his coat further around him, shivering in the wind as he neared the bench. "Because you just know that I am going to be locked up in my room for a whole week if mum finds out that I…"

He stopped mid-sentence, the wind snatching his words away as he caught sight of his brother. Syed was sitting with his head in his hands, his fingers threaded untidily through his hair as if he were trying to tug on the very surface of his brain. Tamwar took another tentative step forward, noting quickly that his brother wasn't even wearing a coat to protect him from the wind.

"Syed?"

The figure jumped at the sound of his voice, his head jerking up out of his hands as his body swivelled around to face the source of the noise.

"Are you okay?"

Syed's whole posture seemed to hover in mid air for a second, his jaw hanging open slightly before it was clamped into a tight, unconvincing smile.

"Me? I'm fine," his head nodded vigorously, bobbing up and down with a ferocity that made Tamwar's brain do a somersault. He could swear he saw moisture just on the ridge of Syed's cheekbone, a glistening something which stained just beneath his eyes.

"You're crying."

"No, I'm not," Syed rubbed furiously at his eyes, pressing the palm of his hand violently against the side of his face. "It's a damp evening. I must've caught a few drops of rain. It's been trying to do that for ages. You know it can never make up its mind about what it really wants…"

His voice seemed to cut out, drowned by a strange, hesitant noise that erupted from his throat. Tamwar could see his throat bobbing as he swallowed it back, his head tipping backwards against the edge of the bench as if gravity could force whatever it was back down where it had come from. After a few moments he lifted his neck into an upright position, leaning forward so that his elbows were rested on his knees.

"I'm fine," he said softly, his palms rubbing together as he took his weight on his arms. "I'm…I'm absolutely fine."

The last words hung for a few moments before a small, disbelieving snort echoed around the park.

"Riiight…" Tamwar took another step forward, his face scrunching inwards as his brother refused to meet his eyes. "So…what? You just thought you'd call me out in the middle of the night for a brotherly chat? See how things are going? Because, you know, I could actually be tucked up in bed right now not dying of frostbite and not waiting for my parents to find out and have one more thing to hold over my head like some kind of…"

"Okay, Tam!" Syed held up his hands in surrender, throwing himself against the bench as if the stream of words had forced him backwards. "Would you just sit down? Please?"

He shuffled along the cold seat, making room so that Tamwar could flop heavily down beside him. As he sat down next to his brother, he could feel the heat rapidly escaping from Syed's body as shivers seemed to overtake him. He opened his mouth to ask where his coat was - to suggest that, maybe, it would have been a good idea to put it on in the first place when he knew that the weather at this time of year was freezing at best – but then something ticked over in his brain as to perhaps why he wasn't wearing a coat. He could feel his mouth forming an 'o' as the clogs clicked together, an uneasy awkwardness gathering in his stomach.

"So," he clasped his hands together between his knees, squeezing his whole body between his arms as he injected an air of forced joviality into his voice. "Did you talk to Christian, then?"

Syed's eyes fluttered closed for a second before opening tiredly.

"Yes."

"Ah," Tamwar nodded, purposefully letting his eyes follow the squirrel that had decided to take a jaunt across the grass. "And…uh…how'd it go?"

There was a pause as Syed seemed to consider his answer, his jaw tightening once more and his throat bobbing as though it were being tugged in both directions. Eventually, he took a breath, his tongue lashing across his bottom lips before he opened his mouth fully to answer.

"Not too well."

"Right," Tamwar began to fiddle with his fingers, picking at his nails whilst keeping his hands tucked warmly between his legs. "Not too well as in 'well, that's disappointing', or not too well as in 'I hate you and I never want to see you again'?"

Water seemed to gather in the corner of Syed's eyes, the whites reddening slightly as his mouth hung open; as if it were trying to catch the words from the air, his jaw twitching as he struggled to suck in the right answer. A few seconds ticked by before he clamped his mouth shut, his lips rolling together tightly as he turned his head away from his younger brother.

"I'm guessing that means the second one?"

Syed ran a shaking hand through his hair. It wasn't something that he'd ever really done before, not whilst he'd been at home; but now, of course, everything was different. Tamwar had been around him enough in the last few months to see the effect that Christian had had upon him. The older man was seemingly obsessed with Syed's hair, using it as some sort of reassurance or worry bead whenever he needed to. Even though he tried his level best to avert his gaze – he wasn't prejudiced, he didn't have a problem, but he just wasn't, well, used to it yet – whenever they showed any affection, it hadn't escaped his notice that Christian's fingers were forever entangled in his brother's hair.

It was something that Syed seemed to have picked up on. Something else that was new about him.

"I don't know," Tamwar was brought thudding back into reality as he heard Syed's voice crack with hesitancy and uncertainty. "We…we fought, we argued, we blew up and now…now I don't know whether he wants to see me again. I don't know what to do. A part of me wants to wring his neck but the other part of me just wants to…just wants to go back and forget that anything ever happened."

"Yeah, well, biologically I'd say it's bit late for that now," Tamwar muttered, just loudly enough for his words to register but softly enough for them not to sound as harsh as he was sure they could. Syed looked up at him, eyes scanning his face before he dropped his gaze and let out a grating huff of a laugh.

"That's my problem, right there," he focused his gaze back on his hands. "This isn't something we can just brush under the carpet and pretend it didn't happen because this could…I mean, this could be for life. How could he have been so stupid?"

Tamwar shrugged, his shoulders shivering slightly as the wind seemed to pick up in response to the gesture.

"Because…I don't know…because he's Christian. He's always been like that. You know that; I know that; we all know that. You chose that, remember?"

"Yes, but I didn't choose this," Syed closed his eyes, rubbing his thumb and forefingers against his temple. "This goes beyond anything else. This isn't a stupid, drunken kiss on New Year's Eve – this is a kid's life. It's my life. Roxy could be pregnant with his child, and then what happens to me? Do I just let them go along with it without telling them once what I really think? I can't just let them push me to one side like I don't count"

"So don't."

"I didn't. That's the problem. I told him what I think, he told me what he thinks – and here we are. I don't know if me not wanting to have a kid with him is more important than me wanting to be with him. I don't know if I love him more than I hate this idea. I don't even know if I'm making any sense. What am I gonna do, Tam?"

Tamwar leant backwards, away from Syed's desperate, grasping gaze, throwing his hands defensively in the air as he did so.

"Wait, you called me to ask my advice?"

"Why else would I call you?"

"Well, maybe you should have considered the fact that my love life has been totted up to a big fat zero until just recently. I'm still freaking out over the whole her father tried to kill my mother thing, which is obviously a perfectly normal, average problem to come up against when trying to work your way 'round a relationship."

Syed looked at him blankly, his brow creasing as his eyes scanned Tamwar's face.

"What?"

"I'm not exactly the fountain of all knowledge when it comes to relationships, okay?"

A tiny smile spread across Syed's face as he turned away, resting his weight on his elbows once again as he returned his gaze to the near distance.

"D'you remember I once asked you when you got be so wise, and you told me that you always had been but I just hadn't noticed?"

There was a brief pause and then a hesitant nod.

"I sat here for ages, running over everything in my head and not getting anywhere – and, when I realised that I couldn't do it on my own, you were the first and only person I wanted to talk to. Why is that, little bro?"

Tamwar shrugged again, pressing his hands together in his lap and shaking his head.

"Because you're clinically insane, maybe?"

"Because you are wise. You see the bigger picture in a way I never can because I'm so wrapped up in all my own rubbish. You didn't just rush in with Afia because you saw that if you waited and did it right, then maybe they'd accept it. I wanted you to do it then and there because I wanted you to stand up for yourself, but you saw everything from…I don't know…a better vantage point, maybe. I need someone with a good view in this, Tam. I need someone who will tell me straight what he sees and what he thinks I should do about it, not someone whose going to bombard me with their own opinions. I don't need someone who's going to take sides, because me and Christian…well, we pretty much did that ourselves already and we don't need anyone wading in to make it worse."

Tamwar sank back into the bench as Syed spoke, extricating his hands from the warmth of his legs and wrapping them around his torso. He sat for a few minutes as his brother finished speaking, hugging tightly onto himself as he bit the inside of his cheek and stared outwards into the dark greenery of the park.

"Okay," he paused for a moment, shuffling through things in his head in an attempt to put it all in order. "You want me to tell you what to do?"

Syed looked to the side and back again, an action that was almost a shrug with his eyes.

"Yeah – I want you to tell me what to do."

"D'you still love him?"

Syed's nostrils flared at that, his whole body stiffening.

"Of course I do. Why would you even ask that?"

"I dunno," Tamwar pulled back defensively. "Just had to check. I mean, you're acting like it's…never mind. Does he know?"

He was met with a look that managed to be both blankly questioning and frighteningly dangerous.

"Know what?"

"That you still love him."

There was a rush of air as Syed opened his mouth to retort, his eyes flashing for a brief moment before a sudden coldness seemed to descend. His mouth softened; his jaw loosening as he sank back into the bench.

"I don't know. He thinks I hate him. I told him that. I mean, he wanted me to tell him; he pushed and he pushed and he pushed and it just…came out. I didn't mean it."

Tamwar raised an eyebrow.

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," for the first time that night, Syed was emphatically certain, his words dripping with conviction. "I hate what he's done; I hate what's happening; I hate the fact that he didn't talk to me, or ask me, or even go over it with me before he went through with it. I hate that he's chosen Roxy of all people. I hate that I'm shut out. I hate that he didn't give me a second thought; that he betrayed my trust. I hate that every single moral teaching in my head is screaming at me not to do it and yet I let him do it anyway. I hate that I didn't let him in when he asked; that I didn't tell him how I really felt. I hate that he didn't go and read a book when I asked him to. I hate that he's not a Muslim and that however hard we both try he is never going to understand. I hate all that, but I don't and never will hate him."

Syed stopped to breathe, as if he had been suffocating under the weight of his words. Tamwar gave him a few moments of space as he sucked the oxygen into his lungs, leaning away from his brother slightly as he watched him gather himself together. As soon as Syed's breathing had evened out and his tense shoulders had lowered to a more natural level, Tamwar sucked in a breath and spoke again.

"So tell him."

"How can I?"

"Open your mouth and vibrate your vocal chords, that usually works for me."

"I'm serious, Tam," Syed looked at him, his whole face drained and tired. "How can I tell him all that? How can we possibly get through this? I can't see a way out even if I know all that, because he doesn't and he'll never understand."

"So make him understand. Talk to him. Give him a lesson or something, I don't know. I've been a Muslim my whole life and I still struggle with some of it – so he's got exactly zero chance unless you put some effort in too. Unless you tell him."

"What? Tell him that my religion forbids us from ever having a proper family? It'd break his heart."

"Not as much as losing you would."

The wind rustled through the trees, the leaves seeming to whistle in encouragement as the words sank through Syed's shell. Tamwar watched his thought processes play out on his eyes, the whites reddened and covered with a film of gentle moisture as he struggled to keep his mouth even.

"And I don't want to lose him," his lip quivered slightly before he could catch it. "I don't want to lose him, Tam. I don't want to lose him more than I don't want to go against our faith. And I think that makes me a bad Muslim, but I can't help it. I can't. I love him and I don't ever want him to think that I don't."

Tamwar smile a tiny, sad smile, glancing down at the floor awkwardly – just as he always did whenever he heard his brother expressing his obvious adoration for the other man - before raising his gaze back to Syed's eyes.

"You know, in the past year I've been convinced so many times that mum and dad had gone beyond the point of no return, like there was no way of fixing them after…" he stopped as Syed winced, quickly skipping over the words that had threatened to leave his mouth. "…anyway, what I'm trying to say is that they got through that. They got through it because they love each other, no matter how impossible they can be at times, and they wanted to fight for it."

He glanced upwards, meeting his brother's gaze.

"We all lost something when you and Christian got together. I lost my brother…"

"Tam, you didn't lose me."

"Well, I have to see you in secret, without mum and dad knowing, and that's not great, is it Syed? Not exactly the way I envisioned it would be. Like, if they find out that I'm visiting my own brother, they're going to lock me in my room and not let me speak to another human being for the rest of my life. Or they'll pack me off to some business rival's bride in order to make a sound investment whilst at the same time punishing me for the heinous crime of speaking to my own flesh and blood."

"I'm sorry, Tam," Syed's voice cut in, sadness permeating his tone. "You know I didn't want this."

"You did. You wanted him, and you love him, and even though I'll never understand that, I know it and accept it. Just…you gave up so much. Don't throw that away over this. It deserves to be fought for. In my opinion, that is. But, you know, you do what you want, because I'm still convinced I'm not the one you need to be talking to."

Syed scoffed slightly, his eyes soft as he surveyed his little brother fondly.

"Who should I be talking to then?"

"Him," Tamwar smiled encouragingly before checking his watch, jumping to his feet as the time registered in his brain. "I really need to go: the prospect of staring at my bedroom wall for the next twenty years is not a pleasant one, so I'd be keen to avoid it at all costs. If that's okay with you?"

Syed nodded, his eyes burning into Tamwar's as he sent a reassuring wave of his hand in Syed's general direction before turning to leave.

"Wait, Tam!"

Tamwar stopped in his tracks, rocking slightly awkwardly on his heels as he turned to face his brother. Syed had managed to haul himself to his feet, standing slightly hesitantly before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around his little brother.

His embrace was stiff and uncertain, like the majority of their hugs – and there hadn't been that many to choose from – had always been. Tamwar waited a few seconds before raising his own frozen limbs, resting his palms on Syed's back in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. They stood in the awkward embrace for a few moments, arms knocking against one another and elbows digging uncomfortably into flesh as their very different bodies were pressed together.

It wasn't long before Syed pulled away, his hands immediately delving into his pockets as he took a step backwards and flashed a slightly awkward smile.

"Thanks, Tambo."

Tamwar threw out his arms a little and shrugged his shoulders.

"I aim to serve."

And then his mind was once again focused on the task at hand; on getting back to the house before his parents would notice that he had slipped away. He was certain they would think he'd been with Afia, and he wasn't sure which answer – yes, I was with Afia or no, I was with my brother - y'know, the one you disowned for falling in love with another man - would get him into the biggest trouble. All he was sure of was that he needed to get back before they discovered he was gone; that way was much less complicated and lot less messy for all involved.

He did glance back, however, as he made his way towards home; scanning the park and nearby streets before turning back with a sense of – was that satisfaction or smugness? – running through his veins.

Syed had gone.

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TBC...

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Thank you for reading!

I do so love Tamwar. Especially with how he reacted to Syed and Christian getting together - his acceptance and also his awkward, geeky wisdom has burned him into my heart forever. He's also a helluva lot of fun to write for. I hope I got him right; if you have any comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to tell me what you think!