AN: Almost a year after it began on LJ(!), this is the final chapter. Thank you to anyone who took the time to let me know what they thought, and a special thank you to the regulars who just kept on commenting. All your words have meant very much – I hope this ending (strangely rushed and very long) is vaguely like you had hoped.
This chapter ends the story as it began, being told in Christian POV.
I trace my fingers blindly over the neglected pillow at my side. It is cold, as it has been since the night the warmth of his body left. The cold feels different though, the loss that drapes it now more of a chill than on the first morning without him to which I woke.
Lids scrunch open at the thought of it and I drag my hand along my half-sleep hazed face to calm my frantic pulse. He was here. I blink slow and I can feel the sight of him standing at my door, breathe in the fragility of lash wide eyes. Last night was no dream, he was no ghost. I love him more than love could be but the beauty of him is such that the depths of it could not be etched even by me.
He came back to me.
He returns and he is of a sudden everywhere, as if he were waiting, as if he were dancing on the tips of my senses, and with the gifted presence of him, they are again living. Unable not to, my heart drags my nose along the crumple of the empty bed. I can smell him where he was not. He is in these sheets.
My lips grazed the kiss of his cheek last night and he has taken me, he tingles through my ridge-dipped spine and the flecks of hair on my cradled arms. I saw the doubt in his eyes and sent him away before I could take him to my bed, but I can smell him. With precious words and barely a touch, it is as if he has never left.
I want his forever.
A knock on the door sounds. It is sense wakening me, telling me to move myself, to get a grip. More rationally, it will be Jane, though with one look at me I imagine the sentiment will be the same. Squashing my head down into the sheets, I groan at the insistence of a second tap.
My breath catches for a second at realisation that no door buzzer rang. He must have left the outer door open in his haste at my masochistic suggestion that he should run, that force inside of me that sees his ache and cannot bear to use it to stop my own.
The stale whisky lacing my tongue and the truth that he is gone tells me doing the right thing is not as rewarding as they attempt to say. This is the love I am because of him, the one that kept him away when all I desired was to pull him close. I shake my head at the irony. It is the beauty of him that has, at my best, made me this man, but selflessness would barely be sacrifice if it were not with him.
With the third drum of the door, I'm forced to drag my moaning legs out the sheets and stumble, bare, out the bed.
Pulling grey bottoms on as I go, I remember the café shift I said I'd do and through the closed wood, lamely yell.
"I'm up Jane, I'm coming!"
With barely bothered sight, I unclick the door. "I'm…"
Senses that had said they were awakened feel what life is, my chest tightens as if my heart gives it no room to breathe.
Widened eyes are staring out at me and I am stolen by the depths of their gaze.
"Syed."
…
"It's looking at me funny again."
"No it really isn't," he says to the grass, unfolding the blanket with a billowed swoop.
"It is, I think it's eyeing me up Sy."
Being sure to look around me cautiously, I shiftily squash my back down against the oak.
"It's definitely the same one from last week, and the one before…it's been waiting for us by this tree since Saturday, I know it. It's obsessed with me."
"You are not being stalked by a wasp Christian."
"I am and you'll be bloody sorry when it actually does whatever it is it's planning. You'll feel really guilty then," I insist, giving him my best needing pout that at times gets me every bit of sympathy I could ever crave.
He misses my finest work though, too cutely engrossed with flattening the soil bumped-cheques that rest beneath his bended knees.
"Look now! It's staring at me all suspicious, like it wants to eat me."
"Well I can't blame it," he grins, raising his head from the fabric, his brown waves ruffled with the move, "you are quite…delicious."
I doubt there will ever be a time when my heart won't respond with a flutter, faced with that breath consuming look he is giving me now. That smile that is at once wide as to send beams to his flickering eyes, and subtle to be a private curl of the lip, designed for only my blessed sight.
I watch as he crawls over the blanket, the hot sun streaming down on him as if made to light his skin with that beautiful glow. Distant squeals of energetic children and neighbouring chat of lounging couples fall to nothing, and my pulse quickens as he reaches me.
"But…" he says, rolling up our newspaper meticulously, "it's probably best to send him on his merry way." With a deft swipe aimed at the ground, the harasser is left to buzz through the summer air. Strong and merciful, I think proudly to myself, my perfect love.
"Any admirer should know you are strictly taken," he smiles, stroking his thumb leisurely over the side of my cheek.
I laugh agreement into the layers of his velvet hair as my eyes squint to the streaks of sun that bathe his smile.
"You look tired…" but gorgeous, I think, stroking the base of his neck with my hand "…you've been working too hard."
"I like it, and I'm fine, you don't have to worry about me. Besides …" he says, turning to nestle his slight frame into the perfect fit of my arms and chest, "this feels pretty comfy thanks…I might just have a nap here…"
…
"Did I wake you up?" he asks slowly, as I twist my racing head to watch his body brush past mine; I forgive the passing thought that in the shy certainty of its movement, it is finding its way back to where it should always be.
My legs spin to let my eyes find his face, needing the grounding that only the sight of him can bring when barely sure of where I am. There is something so entirely innocent at the worried statement from his voice, as if after everything, the worst thing that could happen to us is another disrupted sleep, that with all the pain I know he feels, my lack of sleep is a brow-heavy concern. I would miss a thousand sleeps if I could wake to him.
"No, it's fine," I hear myself saying, rubbing an attempt at composure through me with a hand to my stubbled face. "I've been up a while."
He is smiling at me, gently, and in his gaze, I find myself barely aware of my aesthetic mess.
"You have…" he starts quietly, pointing a cautious finger to the top of my head, "…bed hair."
It is said so incredibly sweetly and the side of his lip curls so gently, I feel both an idiot and completely adored by him in an instant. Rubbing a hand quickly over short disarrayed tufts, I curse them under my breath for their betrayal.
With the drag of my palm down the flecked hair on the base of my neck, I am of a sudden acutely aware that I am barely dressed.
This would be the instance when most would blush and a second does pass in which I consider the strengths of convention. The thought is fleeting though, as I stand stark, pin pricks of flush refusing to cover me. Even in the sight of the one I have craved the approval of, it is not simply arrogant assurance of it that keeps them away. The widest of open eyes are staring out at me, hardly a blink from the lashes that flit. They are giving me flashes of the elation I felt in those rare times he would lay himself bare for me. In the warmth of their exposed depth, it feels as if in this moment, I should do the same.
The hue of his eyes is the darkest I have ever seen them and the way his brown curls drape his brow and stubbled jaw frames him with a depth that stills my breath. I could tell myself that he looks lighter, as if being in front of me has taken a weight from him, that he is elation, that in the night, a kiss of liberation came and lifted it all from him. It would not be true though, and as we hold a space apart, I know it need not be.
He is exactly as he should be. I wonder how I could know the state that he must be, when since the beginning I have barely known, when I have no grasp at why he stands at the feet of me. I suppose it is now as it has always been, it is purely felt. I feel the slightest edge of calmness, a peace, the smallest hint of words that need to come that it has never been my role to push.
"I'm sorry…" he says suddenly, and the words tumble to rip the gentle silence "…about last night."
"Don't be," I shake my head with the sink of my heart; he shouldn't have to apologise, and I shouldn't be such a fool as to think his standing here would be for a purpose greater than that.
"It's not like I haven't wanted you to come here when you needed it, asked you to even," I murmur, beginning to turn. "You don't have to be sorry for coming…"
"For leaving. I'm sorry for leaving last night."
My legs still and in his words, he steals my movement and my air. I cannot see him but with his voice, I can feel him, sense the little breaths of nerves laced on the strength of certainty. It has always evaded me how there was so much of him I did not understand, that he could not show me or I would not see, but that above all I saw him, every pause, every breath, every manner, were known as if they were me.
I turn back to him, breath only able to flow quicker, sunken heart unable not to rise. In the way his eyes are pouring out at me, I know that as always I can see him, but that he craves that I understand.
"You were right," he stumbles with insistence, "what you said…about me not being ready. Except, you weren't...right, that is. I just thought you were, and have been believing it for a while, a long time before you said it. I do that, it seems. Tell myself something and I say it enough, and I almost believe it."
I give myself to the honesty of his words, said on a voice that is shaken but assured, as I watch the tender dance of his feet edging close.
"I've been telling myself that being a good son is being whatever they need me to be, that doing best by my wife is keeping her in this…sham, that observing Islam devoutly means, for me, living a life that isn't actually living at all. Thing, is…Christian, I don't think I believe that anymore. I don't think I believe it at all."
…
"I don't believe a word of it."
"That hurts…" I mock, stroking my fingertips down the trail of his silken spine, on impulse resting in the dip to thrust our skin to meet, "…deeply."
"This can't go on forever you know," he breathes.
"Mmm I think it can," I smile into the sweet scent of his throat. "In fact," my tongue languidly licks the flickering heat of his pulse, "you're right, I was lying. Staying here forever is actually very similar to the plan I was concocting..."
Grasping his lithe tensed thighs in my hands, I encourage the firm softness of his legs to wrap around me, "We're so in tune."
"Christian..." He murmurs the sound of his voice on my name into my chest; his attempt at protest lost in the open lipped kisses he gives to the skin.
"…we have...to get up."
"We are..." I smirk "I think that's the problem."
"That's it," he lifts up his head, his crumpled waves deliciously wayward in the move "…talk dirty, that's the way to get food for six on the table."
"You mean it's not?"
I am given a gentle clout for my helpful tease and grin up at him widely. My laughter ripping the air is stifled for a second with the sight; a gaze that is still, after a thousand times, fully entranced by his lust flushed chest and pink plumped lips.
"Why are we always the incompetent ones," he sighs, threading long fingers through the fuzz of my chest. "…the ones who say we're going to go to that really great Thai shop but forget to get out of bed so just order the take-away type…or…" he adds, lowering his eyes teasingly "make ridiculous promises whilst drunk about five courses that miraculously get forgotten when sober. We have friends who must think we can barely…dress ourselves."
"Well no, we can do that. If only for the undressing..." I smile low, leaning up to pull his body back to me.
"We do excel at that," he murmurs, unable to protest as I kiss the line of his neck.
"It's not like we've got anything to compete with," I say, stroking the back of his velvet locks. "After that chutney and ice cream shit Michael served us last time, we give them anything above edible and we're stars. The poor deranged thing, he thinks he's the gay Heston Blumenthal."
"It's Naadir I feel sorry for. He must never eat..."
I murmur agreement supportively, nibbling along the lobe of his ear to find the most stunning taste a tongue could ever have.
"Christian…" he moans predictably, gorgeously.
"Yes Syed…"
My hand finds its way to running back down his golden spine and I feel him shiver on a tingle.
"We are getting in that kitchen after…"
"Oh definitely, hand on heart…"
…
If the words did not ring like long craved tolls, they would not be heard over the shameless beat of my frantic heart. After a year of us, or a forever for him, he is declaring he deserves more to life than the cage he is locked in, and if he can let his lead, I will let mine race.
When he is staring out at me as if he is ready to rip from him his own fragile world, it seems only right all caution is sacrificed, that breath can only flow quickly, that beats can only flutter with pounds.
Though a thousand thoughts consume my mind, my tongue sits empty, it seems forgetting how to speak. Every fibre in me could be dedicated to the thudding drum of my heated pulse, or my lips could know to let his speak. I can't help but want to kiss the shyness of his steps, his feet still shuffling under worn out jeans, but I force myself to accept restrain. This is not when I save him or tell him how it should be; it is when I start to listen, when I am there for him as he begins to set his own self free.
"I've been terrified for so long…" he bares open, eyes laced with a sadness I cannot help but wish in this moment, would cease to be.
"…but I think that's okay, because thinking of being myself, when it is so difficult and when it hurts so many people, people I love, it is actually terrifying. The thing is though, that does scare me still, I won't lie, it does…but what really scares me, what keeps me awake at night now is the thought of what it would be like to not be myself, what it will be like in a year, or five, or twenty. What it would be like to crush this part of myself for my whole life, to pretend…forever."
I watch as he edges almost next to me, as, in every way he takes the final steps that have cruelly taken him from me.
"Pretending I am the person they need to be, pretending I am not completely in love with you, for another minute let alone forever…that terrifies me."
...
Bent over in puzzled terror, lamenting the offensive ugliness of a stranger's carpet, I hear the puffy groans of stumbling legs and failing arms.
Turning on a crouch, I can only grin at the sight as chocolate waves bob and peak, a giant cardboard box covering much else.
Seeing the cute precariousness turn to outright wobble, I stop admiring and leap to catch it.
"Allow me," I say, reaching both hands to firmly rest under the base of the box.
"Thank you very much but I am quite capable. I may not be quite at your seismic levels of muscle, but I'm not a complete weed."
"No need to convince me. You, Syed Masood, are a man of the utmost power. Lithe and firm and ever so…forceful." Through the opaque cardboard, I see the roll of his eyes to meet my grin. "It's just when I said help me bring in the last of the stuff, I meant something in proportion to your size…like a book."
"Cute."
I grin at the muffled sound and decide it may be time to gently nudge male pride, taking the weight of the box from his struggling hands.
"Yes I am," I agree, heaving it onto the remaining scrap of the littered floor.
"Oh it's you," I mock grin, turning back to meet his newly visible face. "I'm ever so glad," I kiss onto his pink plumped lips. "I thought my gorgeous boyfriend had turned into a Box-person."
"Then I'd fit right in here wouldn't I," he bemuses, surveying the war-zone like path of bags and boxes heaped up around us.
"Did you know we had this much stuff? How can two people have this much stuff? I mean seriously Christian, what is in half these boxes…"
"Porn and crack?"
"What?"
"Probably crap." I kick a box lovingly. "It's our crap though, which I think makes it that much more endearing crap. Besides, due to the most anal packing system known to man, all we have to do is look at the number on the box and look at the paper with the key on and we'll know what's where."
"Just have to remember which box we put that paper in I guess."
Laughter bursts from me, the sight of his guilty mirth prolonging its rippling glee.
"I don't even care," I tell him. "All I care about is that that giant box that you heroically carried in was number thirty six of thirty six."
My own watches in bliss as his face lights up; that beam of unrestrained happiness that I willingly live for. "That means…"
"Yep," I grin, threading my arms around the familiar curve of his waist and pulling him in to hold with me tight. "We are officially moved in."
"Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a crippling mortgage, one million boxes…" I whisper into his ear. "All ours."
…
He is standing a breath from me uttering our words of eternal love. Despite its present song, and those fleeting moments when cruel doubt crept in, it is not news, I always knew. It is the revelation that sees my chest barely able to calm and breathe. My love has told me that not only does his heart worship me, but that in the face of forever, his head will let him be mine.
I let my shaking hand reach out to the nape of his wave draped neck, coming alive with its silken warmth and the hum of his comforted tremble. My fingers scrunch in, adoring the familiar softness that they have craved to nestle through each empty day that he has been gone.
The tip of his nose strokes on me, and I can hear the pounding of his pulse, feel the anticipated heat upon my skin. The most beautiful lips I have or could ever taste are pausing at the need of mine and in a frenzied rush, they have pressed forward, their delicate firm embrace taking all he tells me they have desired.
His mouth widens and mine can only follow, desperate at the feel of his tongue's caress to find all of him, to worship in flicks and lathes the scent and taste that is only made for me. I feel him moan into my cheeks as he revels in the squeeze of my hands up the cloth of his back, and exhale, as in a gasp, he drags his pinkened lips from mine.
Standing breathless, time has slowed once more. It is quiet, the only murmurs are his little intakes of air and the soothing thumps of two pounding beats.
His gaze low, I watch as silently, he lifts his hand to reach the edge of my cheek. Slowly, the delicate tips of his fingers trace my skin, stroke with tenderness along my softened jaw. Dark brown lashes flittered down, he investigates the contours of my heated face. I can only hold my breath.
He looks at me.
**And that was it. I hope you enjoyed and would love it if you let me know what you thought. Thank you for reading…**