Chapter 4: Christmas
At seven thirty on the dot, a dog started barking outside Mark's flat. He looked out the window to see Sarah and Iggy standing outside, and was surprised to see Ben with them. The past couple days, according to Sarah, Ben had been sleeping in and hadn't been out of bed before at least noon. Mark ran down the stairs and met the small group.
"Sarah, Iggy," he said, nodding his head. "How are you Ben?"
"Bit tired, actually. Mum insisted that I run today. She said I'd feel better."
"Exercise releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy," Mark said cheerfully.
"Ugh, Mum. He's as much of a morning person as you are. Morning people are disgusting."
"I'm only a morning person if I'm not hungover," Mark said quietly to Ben with a wink.
Ben stared at him, trying to determine whether or not he was taking the piss or not.
"C'mon guys. I've Christmas dinner to make. We need to go now."
Hearing those words, Iggy immediately started pulling at his lead. Sarah started running behind him, and Ben and Mark stared at each other.
"After you," Ben said snidely.
Mark gave a sarcastic smile and started running, catching up to Sarah. "I'm not coming straight over after our run," he said, while he still had breath. "I've got to grab some things before I do."
"You're welcome over as soon as you are ready," she said, trying to smile, but it ended up as more of a grimace than anything. Mark nodded, starting to concentrate on his breathing and not on the fact that he felt like he was going to die. They changed the route slightly so that they passed back by Mark's flat again, and said goodbye. Ben looked rather the worse for wear, extremely red faced and slightly green at the same time. He heard Ben ask to walk the rest of the way home.
Mark smiled as he entered his flat, going straight to the bathroom for a shower. He turned the water on as hot as he could stand, loving the feel of the heat warming him and at the same time the water washing away the sweat. Running outside in the winter was probably a stupid idea, but Sarah loved doing it, and so did he. Besides, Sarah had fallen ill for a few days earlier in the month, and she had ended ringing him to run with Iggy because the dog kept dropping the lead on her face. He had done so, and ended up spending the day with her, even though she felt like shit. He had made her eat soup, even though she wasn't hungry, and had nearly force fed her fluids at one point.
Of course, this had resulted in him getting the lurgy a few days later, but she had done the same thing for him when she wasn't teaching. There was something special about their friendship; he had known that from the start. There was no pressure to be anyone but himself, and he didn't have to be the constant pillar of support like he had been with Alex. For him, it felt like a load had been taken off, and he was finally thinking that faking his own death had been worth it to meet this wonderful woman and her mental dog.
He got out of the shower and dried himself, standing in front of the sink to shave. He had been debating about growing a beard, but he had yet to get out of the habit of shaving every morning for work. However, as he smeared shaving foam across his face, he stopped, considering. Well, it was close enough to a new year, wasn't it?
Mark put his razor away and washed the foam off of his face, stepping out of the bathroom and into his bedroom. The flat was a decent size, but he had no separate room for his paintings, so at the moment, they were stacking up in the hardly used kitchen.
He opened his wardrobe and put on a light blue button up shirt and a pair of jeans. He had half-considered wearing a Santa hat, something that he thought Sarah would find amusing and Ben, irritating, but eventually decided against it.
He finished getting ready and grabbed the presents he had wrapped only the night before. When he was ill, he was terrified that Sarah would see hers, so he had leapt out of bed when she told him she was coming over. He had run to the kitchen, grabbed her present and stuffed it under the bed so that she wouldn't find it. For his efforts, he spent the next twenty minutes sitting next to the toilet.
He was excited though, because he thought it truly would be a surprise for her to see. He had even got something for Iggy and Ben.
Mark walked to Sarah's house, which wasn't too far from his flat. He rang the bell; even though they had long exchanged keys, he felt it was best with Ben there to ring the bell. Sarah answered the door, dressed in a soft red jumper and black leggings. She was barefoot.
Iggy came bounding up behind her, jumping all over Mark in a frenzy as though he hadn't seen him for weeks.
"Down Iggy!" he commanded to no avail.
"I think your luck with dogs is over," Sarah said teasingly.
"I've never met one this stubborn," Mark said.
"I've already told you, it's not stubbornness. It's stupidity."
"I know, but I want to believe the best in him."
Sarah laughed and he shrugged off his coat. "I've got some presents. I'll put them under the tree and help out in the kitchen?"
"Don't put them under the tree. Put them up where the rest of the gifts are. Otherwise Iggy will tear the presents. At least he did mine. He leaves Ben's alone."
"What is it about Ben?" Mark asked.
"My son must be a dog whisperer or something."
Mark laughed, going into where the tree was, and saw bookcase sitting next to it. On the upper shelf and the top of the bookcase were several neatly wrapped gifts. Iggy had followed him into the room and watched him closely, his tail thumping.
"One of these is for you, if you're wondering," Mark said. "But you're not going to get this until later."
Iggy's ears and tail drooped. Mark just shook his head, going into the kitchen, where Sarah was mixing ingredients together for pies. She had warned them that they stopped doing the traditional Christmas a few years before, after Jack had walked out. Instead, they were having steak and kidney pies, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, carrots and peas, and for dessert, a different country's dish. She made two every year, and this year, it was Russia and Belgium. For Russia, she was having him mix grated chocolate with vodka, in a recipe surprisingly called 'Chocolate Vodka.' For Belgium, she was making Christmas bars made of almonds and butter.
"Where's Ben?" Mark asked.
"He was going to go back up to sleep, but one of his mates rang and asked if he wanted to go to the pub for a few hours, so he did."
Mark nodded in acknowledgement, concentrating on grating chocolate.
"I'm really sorry for how he treated you the other night." Since Ben had come home, they had not spent any time together besides their runs, and those weren't the best to have a normal conversation.
Mark shook his head. "It's not that big of a deal. He's just being protective of you."
Sarah smiled sadly. "He watched me cry at one point. I couldn't control it, and..."
"Sometimes that happens," Mark said softly.
"He won't even speak to his dad now. Said that he should have thought before screwing over his family. He got so angry after his dad left, and there's nothing I can do about it."
"His dad took away sixteen years worth of trust. For you and for him. He's no idea what to do right now. He doesn't want you to get close to another man because he doesn't want to see you hurt again."
Sarah turned to look at him, and he could see tears swimming in her eyes. "But what if... what if I want to be close to someone?"
Mark set down the chocolate and the grater. "Then you do it. Ben loves you too much to let you go. If you stay single the rest of your life, then he won't trust any man near you. If you start giving it a go, it may be easier."
"I don't want to end up like you and your mother though."
"Don't deny yourself happiness," Mark said. "He's growing up. He may be very mature about the whole thing. And besides, if you find the right man, he's not going to run off."
"I was so young the first time around," Sarah said. "The only reason I married his dad was because I was pregnant with him."
"You made a mistake. All people do."
"It cost me sixteen years of my life."
"Do you really regret having Ben?"
Sarah looked at him a moment before shaking her head.
"Then those sixteen years weren't wasted." Suddenly, her arms were around his waist, her head pressed into his chest.
"Thank you," she whispered. Mark said nothing, putting his arms around her and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She pulled her head away from his chest and looked up at him. "Arthur?"
"Yeah?"
"You know that the someone I was talking about...it was you, right?"
Mark gave a soft smile. "I guessed."
"I wanted to tell you, but I was nervous," she murmured.
"Same. I didn't want to do anything before you were ready."
"I think the other night showed that I was," she said. "Why did you hesitate?"
"I was scared," he admitted quietly. "That you'd regret it."
"You were wrong," she breathed. "I've been wanting to kiss you since the day we met, but that's not exactly British, is it?"
Mark smiled. "Not in the slightest. But now..."
They stared into each other's eyes for a moment, before Mark moved his face hesitantly forward. A moment later, their lips met. He moved his hand from her waist up to the back of her head. She moved her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her.
"So he's not a poofter then," said a male voice, torn between amusement and anger.
Sarah pulled away from Mark. "Ben!" she said.
Ben looked from Mark to Sarah with narrowed eyes. "I thought you said there was nothing going on between you two."
Sarah, who was quite flushed, responded. "There...er...wasn't. Until about five minutes before you walked in."
He looked between the two again. "Right...Well, Mum. Simon says hi. Where's Iggy?"
"Last I saw, he was staring at the presents," Mark said.
A look of concern passed over Ben's face before he rushed out of the room, calling Iggy's name.
They both started laughing, dispelling the tension in the atmosphere.
"I wasn't expecting that!" Sarah said.
"I'm always right," Mark said, smiling proudly. "It's a curse, but I deal, me."
Sarah threw a fistful of flour at him.
"Is that how you're going to play it?" he asked.
In response, she threw another two fistfuls of flour at him.
Mark stood stock still, looked at her, and nodded. "Alrighty, then."
He reached his hand into the flour canister and threw a fistful at her. She shrieked, responding by throwing a handful of sweets.
"Ow! Those hurt!"
"You shouldn't have touched my flour then!"
"You shouldn't have thrown it at me in the first place!"
Sarah just laughed, tossing icing sugar at him.
"Why do you even have out icing sugar? What the hell do you need that for?"
"Throwing it on you, apparently."
She grinned as Mark glared playfully at her. He heard the clicking of nails on tiles as Iggy came into the kitchen, promptly falling over in the mess on the floor and causing a white cloud to form momentarily.
"Annual Christmas flour throwing?" Ben asked her.
"Getting Mark into the traditions. It's not Christmas dinner unless you're covered in some form of powdery baking product."
"She didn't tell me it was a tradition," Mark said, trying to stay serious, but failing miserably. Damn, where was all his MI-5 training when he actually needed it?
"She stocks up on flour and icing sugar the week before. When we first did this two years ago, she nearly bought out the supply at Tesco."
Mark just looked from mother to son. "Maybe it's not your dog that's the mental one," he said slowly.
Sarah and Ben just laughed as Ben went to the cupboard to reveal a shelf stacked with icing sugar and flour. "Usually it's flour against sugar," he said.
"Don't worry," Sarah said. "I thought of Arthur. Look behind the icing sugar."
As he pulled out the sugar, Mark saw several boxes of bicarbonate of soda.
"We all get the same amount," Sarah said, throwing towels over the counter. "Usually we do a kilogram of each, but this year, I thought it'd be more fun to get even messier. So we're doing three kilos of each.
Mark just stared at the two in disbelief. Ben was grinning wildly, grabbing large bowls from the cupboards and pouring in the ingredients.
"When we did this two years ago, we didn't put anything over the food, and ended up having frozen dinners because all the food was ruined," Ben said. "We timed it just right last year and finished as the pies did."
Mark frowned, still unable to fully comprehend what was going on. A bowl of bicarb was sat in front of him and Sarah and Ben faced each other with identical smiles. Before he could process it, Mark was hit in the face with flour and icing sugar at the same time. He stood, shocked for a moment before responding by putting his hand in the bowl and throwing a handful at Ben.
This continued until all the ingredients were gone from the bowls, at which point, they started to take flour and icing sugar off the floor to throw at each other. Iggy came in halfway through and started barking and wagging his enormous tail, joining in all the fun by rolling around in the mess on the floor. By the time the timer buzzed, they were all completely white and laughing their heads off.
They ate in the kitchen, throwing down towels on the chairs to eat. "It'll be presents after we shower," Sarah said as they finished. "You're the guest, Arthur, you can go first. Ben'll go next and then I'll go last. I've got to clean up the kitchen."
"I'll help you out, Mum," Ben said as she got up, looking at Mark a moment before he did as well. Mark noticed that while the look wasn't filled with love, it wasn't the pure contempt from a few days earlier. He went upstairs to take the second shower for that day, changing into a pair of jeans and a red button up shirt he had left there. He went downstairs and joined Sarah in the cleaning of the kitchen, something that was difficult, as Iggy kept coming in and rolling in the mixture before standing up and shaking himself off. Finally, Sarah blocked the doorway as Ben came down the stairs.
"We'll finish up, Mum," Ben said. Sarah nodded and went upstairs.
They worked in silence for a few minutes before Ben spoke. "I'm going to give you a chance," he said. "I still don't exactly trust you, but Mum does. This is the first time I've seen her happy since Dad left. If you ruin this though, just know that I will find you. I'm not letting Mum get hurt like that again."
"I don't want anything like that to happen between us," Mark said softly. "I just want to spend time with her."
Ben narrowed his eyes, considering. "I may be in London, but she'll still tell me everything. And I'm sure Iggy would love to use your bollocks as a springboard again."
Mark winced and Ben smirked.
"Since we've got that out of the way, why don't we get this into the rubbish?"
Mark nodded. They had just finished when Sarah came down wearing an outfit much the same as before, only this time, it was a purple jumper.
"Presents?" she said, walking to the room with the tree. She sorted them into three piles, which Iggy sniffed eagerly until Ben had told him to 'lay.'
"Iggy's got a present too," Sarah said, grinning.
"I found it, and I couldn't not get it for him."
Sarah opened the present and laughed. It was a laurel wreath. "Ben, put this on him," she said. Ben, wearing a grin as wide as hers, did. Iggy immediately tried to take it off but with Ben's command of 'stop,' stopped and looked up at the three with morose eyes.
"Ben, you go first," she said. Ben opened up a jumper and groaned.
"Really, Mum?"
"Standard gift!" she said, grinning.
He went through all his presents, stopping in amazement at the last one, the one from Mark.
"What is it Ben?"
"He got me Arsenal tickets for the rest of the season!" Ben exclaimed.
"Don't think I'm trying to buy your approval," Mark said. "I just thought you'd like them. Gave you two for each, so you can take a mate as well."
Ben stared at Mark in something close to adoration.
It was Sarah's turn to open her presents. She three, one from Mark, and two from Ben. Ben had gotten her a necklace, and to Mark's overwhelming surprise, a glass banana.
"It comes from when he was six and he insisted that I would want a fake apple for my Christmas present," she said.
"Now she's got a fake fruit basket, " Ben said, "and we're trying to see how long we can go before we run out of fake fruits to get."
Mark just nodded, thinking that maybe it was a bit too early to join their Christmas. Maybe he should have waited a few years, until they really knew each other. Still, he had to admit that he was having the most fun on Christmas than he had had in years. Last year, he and Alex had done nothing, and he ended up getting called in for the next thirty-four hours. When he was a child, he had been forced to stiff dinners at his grandparent's house.
Sarah started unwrapping her last present, excited. "It's one of your paintings, isn't it Arthur?"
Mark simply nodded. Sarah finished unwrapping it and turned it over, laughing. The painting was of the chest and head of Iggy, Sarah standing in the background waving angrily. Iggy was wearing a laurel wreath on his head.
"It's the day we first met, from my vantage point," Mark said.
Sarah doubled over in laughter, and Ben looked confused. Eventually, she recovered enough to tell Ben the story. He started laughing and leaned over to Iggy, whispering in the dog's ear. Mark figured it was along the lines of 'good dog.'
"Your turn, Mark," Sarah said. He was surprised to see two gifts in front of him. The first was neatly wrapped, which he figured was Sarah's. He opened it to see a new paint set, with twelve different size brushes and a new palette. Mark opened his mouth in amazement.
"Maybe when summer comes, you can start selling your art to the tourists," she said, winking.
"Fair idea," Mark said. "Thank you."
He turned to the other present, one that looked hastily wrapped. It suspiciously had the shape of a beer bottle. Mark unwrapped it, and sure enough, a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale was sitting in front of him. He smiled at Ben, knowing it was a peace offering of sorts. Ben gave a half smile back. At that moment, Mark felt reasonably confident that he and Ben would be much closer come Christmas next year.