I thought I'd take a break during clippy cloppy times but VF, Clarkey, Poppy and Giant Seagull pressed for this to continue. They were right. The fixing must continue! I hope so anyway - do let me know what you think. Thank you to all reviewers!

"Did you put something in this tea?"

"What?"

Christian glances up, dedicating small attention to what is being asked.

"The tea, it tastes foul. Are you slipping whiskey in caffeine now?"

He isn't. He is no longer actively searching for stupidity or racing for nothing in the hope he could only fall. There was no realisation, a toll that struck with simple sense. The attempts just stopped one day, at a certain minute he had had enough. He tired of it, somewhere between eating cereal with a glass of wine at lunch time and forgetting the name of the strangers passed out in his bed.

"This isn't whiskey though it's…"

He grips the cushion he has been holding for what may have been a day and says distractedly;

"I think the milk's off."

"You think the…?" she screeches, spluttering the contents back into the mug. "Jesus, are you tryin' to kill me?"

"What?"

"The milk Christian. Bad dairy product. Death."

"Oh…it's fine," he murmurs. "I haven't been shopping. Sorry."

Roxy rubs her mouth from the drip and watches as his eyes turn back, staring blankly out the empty window glass. She decides he has been distracted for three days now and wailing drunk about her lack of underwear was the last time she saw him smile.

"What's wrong Christian?"

"Nothing."

"Yeah it looks like nothing," she says, budging his arm with her hip to squash down next to him.

"You've been sitting here like a stuffed corpse since I came in. I called you yesterday, five times. Why didn't you pick you?"

"I didn't feel like seeing anyone."

"I'm not anyone though am I? I'm your one, Roxy Mitchell."

The words get a customary smile but there is nothing to it and she is not without enough sight to catch the added shadows that have arrived in the night.

Her voice is quiet;

"You thinking about him?"

"No."

"Liar."

He exhales quickly, the edge of a laugh as he catches her eye. He looks at her, waiting for something, and his glance turns to the floor;

"It was Eid yesterday."

"Eid?"

"You know, the end of Ramadan."

"Right."

"And that reminded you of Syed?"

"What? No, well yes, but… I mean…"

Christian shakes his head slowly, almost at himself.

He says as if a secret;

"I mean it was Eid yesterday…and I hope he was okay. I don't even know what he did for it, if Zainab let him home."

"Yeah well, now you two have broken up he's probably the darling boy again, taken his place as his mummy's favourite. He probably spent the whole day with them."

It comes out loud;

"I don't know though do I? I haven't got a clue, how he is, what he's doing. I can tell myself that they've let him back home, just like I can tell myself that I don't want that just to make myself feel better, but it doesn't mean it's true. I have absolutely no fucking idea about anything because I haven't been anywhere fucking near him."

He drags his hand over his face, murmuring on a shake;

"I can't get this picture out my head of him in the flat by himself."

"So he had a quiet one, that's alright…"

"A quiet one is what we had last year. Me and him…making him breakfast in bed and cooking…"

The words catch in his throat.

"Being by yourself is being by yourself. It's like spending Christmas without anyone…he deserves so much better than that."

"Except that isn't your responsibility Christian…"

"That isn't quite true though is it? He lost them when he came out, he lost them when he chose me. When I was with him, he had me. He missed them…I know he missed them so much but he had me, it was us…he had that. Now we're done…apparently…and it's not like he can go back. He's just got the crumbs being with me left him with. I don't know how he is, I don't know. I don't know anything."

His head turns, eyes finding the nothing space out the window;

"He told me once, about the Eids without his family. He didn't really talk that much about the bad bits of Leeds, just the good stuff, the work stories you know. We were in bed once and he told me. Only once but he told me. I promised him he'd never have an Eid alone again. What a liar."

"You hardly knew what was going to happen did you? You're not psychic."

"No…that's one thing I'm not. I wouldn't have predicted this if you'd paid me. I'd have said I wouldn't have let anything screw this up. I was going to be a great boyfriend, show him just how right this was…"

"You were the best boyfriend."

"Yeah, which is why I'm sitting here alone with stale milk."

"You're not alone. You've got me. And you're building things back up, a brand new flat, a new home for a new life."

"I'm sitting here with blue walls Roxy. Dark fucking blue walls. I'm not building anything."

He looks back at her, eyes pressing;

"Do you think he's told him? Tamwar?"

"What about the guy? I don't know, maybe. It's not like you're in a relationship with him is it?"

"Which one?"

"The random. It's not like you're dating someone else yet, I mean that'd be news to pass on it. It's just sex, it doesn't change anything."

"'Cos I'm the sort who can be in love with someone and then screw someone else. What a man."

"It's more complicated than that."

"Yeah…that's what I tell myself too."

She pauses, nudging him;

"Someone you love huh?"

"What? You thought that was it? All gone?"

He shakes his head to the floor;

"A couple of months is nothing. I'll be eighty two, with a dodgy liver, eating mush, and still be completely and utterly in love with him. That's the thing with finding the love of your life. You can do and say what you like. They're still in you."

"I feel like I should clean your kitchen or something after that, like I did serious damage."

"You cooked in it, that isn't anything to apologise for."

Syed smiles gently, a relieved laugh falling from Munir.

"It sort of got out of hand quickly", he muses, placing himself on the sofa cushion next to him. "If it still looks like a bomb's hit it in the morning, let me know okay."

"Hey I don't think you're obliged to come back to clean, not if you came over in the first place to cook it."

"I was kind of surprised when you called. I mean pleased…just surprised."

He had wanted someone. His eyes had stared at the walls with cruel thoughts in the silence and he had needed someone there. He thought of Tam by default but it hadn't lead to knocking on the family door. He couldn't bear to be pitied, to have it hanging on Tam's tongue as if it all was real, though in failing to dial for Tanya was aware that it was not just the comforter knowing what had happened that meant he had gone elsewhere. He had told Munir nothing; he didn't want to speak of it, he didn't want him to know. He had just wanted someone to be next to, and if he could admit it, a man that wanted to be there.

"I just…felt like some company I guess."

"Well then I'm really glad you called."

Syed's eyes dip;

"Thank you for the text on Eid by the way."

"I was trying to figure out a way to type Eid Mubarak in text speak but I failed miserably."

"Is this just something you do?"

"Yeah I like to text ironically. Albeit encouraged by sitting through a two hour dinner with one of my brothers telling me that my iQuran app was blasphemy. He ignores the fact I have male lovers and concentrates on the important stuff like technology. Seems to make him feel better so I let him. I was this close to texting him 'God is gr-8' last night but I refrained."

"Are you secretly evil?"

Munir gives a little smile;

"Not even close."

"It was nice to see them though? Your family?"

"Course. You ignore the pink elephant in the room and they're just your family. I'm really glad that you could spend Eid with yours. Did you get any good presents? That top looks new."

"It is, but not from anyone. Mainly because I've just about passed the phase where my mum dresses me and Tam would never even think of a clothes department. I just bought it for Eid."

"Well…it looks good."

Syed's eyes dart;

"Thank you. For coming over…I mean thanks for coming over."

"I wanted to."

Munir moves slightly, the distance on the sofa shrunk;

"I like you Syed. I know I'm not really allowed to and this isn't me putting pressure or expecting that anything's changed, I just…I guess I wanted to say it."

"I…"

"I think you're gorgeous and it's none of my business and I shouldn't say it but your ex is a complete idiot for letting you go. You're just lovely and I can't imagine how he could want anyone else –"

Syed's mouth rushes to his and takes it, drowned by a touch that wants him and the hum of longed for words through his lips. He ignores that it is not the right tongue that has uttered them and strokes at the base to encourage the substitute in. It is sweet and drapes and twists with a nip, pleasured by the access granted, the way this mouth wants and cries to be kissed. The nips are the edge of a gasp later than is used to though and they don't caress as they should. He feels his heart beat quicken; the thud that comes with touch and trapped breath. It does not flutter; there is no heated burst that spreads tingle down the tip of his spine. He widens his mouth as if he is searching, silently asking for something, clinging to the attention of lips and a hand moving to the back of his neck. It strokes through hair with heated weight and all he can think is how these fingers feel different, that no thumb is falling to play beneath his ear.

"Stop," he murmurs it and the hand loosens, quick breath falling as bruised lips pull away.

"I'm sorry," he says and he pulls his arms around himself. "I shouldn't have. I shouldn't… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

A hand goes to touch his arm as if in sympathy but it is wrong. He just wants that of someone else.