"Ivo."

Martin had looked up from his stack of papers and visibly swallowed.

"How have you been?"

I thought it oddly brazen of him to be so cheery, or rather, attempt to be. Perhaps it was to signify that whatever had gone on between us was in the past. But that wasn't his decision to make.

"Oh, you know, not so bad considering."

He stood then and eased his way to hover in front of his desk. Was he trying to seem bigger, like something in the undergrowth of the wild, stretching out it's form as a defense mechanism? He would have been safer behind the desk.

I leaned against the door frame and searched through my pockets for a cigarette. What Tim didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"It's no smoking in here," Martin puffed out irritably and I smirked while I continued to light it.

"So," I said, taking a quick drag of the cigarette. "We have a lot to discuss, wouldn't you agree?"

Shuffling his feet on the carpet he perched himself on the very edge of the desk, ready to take flight if necessary.

"Oh? Do we?"

"Yes we do," I replied abruptly, putting an end to his raised eyebrow stare. "You're to stay away from Tim."

Martin blinked in rapid succession and gave a smirk.

"Oh am I now?"

I strolled towards him casually until we stood directly in front of each other.

"Yes."

There was no mistaking that Martin looked anxious, even fearful. His eyes traveled around my features as he tried to assess the viability of the threatening figure in front of him.

"You seem to be under the impression that I don't know what you are doing, what you have been trying to do all along," I said.

"What is it you so rudely suspect me of doing, exactly?"

"You love him," I sneered. "And you can't even deny that Martin, it's obvious. The thing I don't understand however is how you think you can win him over by trying to get him to leave me."

"I have never..."

"No? He was here last night, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he wished to include me in his celebration of his new book," Martin stood proudly. "but it is none of your business what Tim and I discuss."

"It starts to become my business when you try and get him drunk and twist things in his head," I growled. Martin went a very off shade of grey.

"How dare you!"

"How dare I? He trusted you Martin and you betrayed that, he doesn't understand what you are really like, he thinks your word is gold. Do you realise how damaging what you say can be?"

"Ivo, be reasonable," Martin scolded and I laughed.

I took a minute to breath.

"What did you say to him?"

Martin's eyes narrowed for a split second and then he smirked.

"You only wish to know because you're obsessed with everything about him, what you feel for him, Ivo, isn't normal. That boy deserves so much more, you have manipulated him into loving you!"

I had nothing to say to that and I just had to stand there as Martin went on.

"You think he hasn't told me about you? You think I have no idea what he is thinking or feeling but I have a better idea than you, Ivo," he gave a half laugh.

I wanted to say something that would put me in a position of power, that would give me some ground to stand on, but there was no logic to my thoughts. My silence was only spurring him on.

"He has confided in me how he really feels Ivo and I'm helping him to understand," he spoke gently, as though he were trying to explain to an idiot child.

"His writing reflects the things that you wouldn't understand, you are a scientist, not a writer."

"Oh and you're a psychiatrist, are you," I raised my voice. "Asking him about his father when he told you about our sex life, do you get some sort of sick pleasure in ruining our relationship?!"

Martin shook his head with a sad smile.

"I merely show him what his writing shows me. Have you ever even asked him about his past? It seems to me that you simply use him to warm your bed when it is convenient."

I could feel rage pulse through me.

"That is not true, you have no idea of what we have," I yelled, thinking of all the late night talks, tears and hugs that featured in my relationship with Tim. There had been so many times when we would simply say nothing but still know. As much as I had been a comforter to Tim he had been the same to me.

In the beginning, one of our biggest issues was communication but after everything that happened it had changed things. Now I felt I knew everything about the boy, the way he thought, where he had come from, what he had grown up in, even up to what he would be having for lunch the next day.

Did Tim tell Martin that? Did he think what Martin said was true? That all he was to me was something convenient?

Martin folded his arms and re-settled his weight, looking at me to go on.

"He is everything to me," I said simply. "And no matter what you say it will not change the fact that I love him, if it's obsession, then so be it. It also won't change the fact that you love him too, but I'm warning you Martin, if you make me fight for him I will win."

"There's no need to be so dramatic Ivo, I'm merely pointing out what is obvious. Perhaps I have no chance with Tim, but it doesn't mean you deserve yours."

The car felt far too hot now that the heater had been on full blast. As much as I relish the feel of cold arctic winds, I was not overly in the mood for them on an English country road at night after having just had an argument.

It had been tempting to call Tim from my mobile but I knew that would just mean it was longer until I saw him in person.

I'd stayed in the car as I had tried to calm myself before starting the snowy drive home.

The radio played out something classical that I knew was a favourite of Tim's. It never did quite make sense to me that he should love classical music, being so young and trendy, but then again, here I was wearing a leather jacket, opposites attract as they say.

It had reached the particularly beautiful violin solo and I imagined the soft feel of Tim with my arms held at his waist as we had dance to it in the living room, slow and sensual before he had slithered down like a vixen and sucked me off, entirely inappropriate for the music.

The comparison sprang to mind, of Tim being like that jolt of terror and fear that causes you to feel more alive purely because of the risk and what you stand to lose. It was certainly fitting to the black ice I had just hit and just slightly less than the windscreen shattering in as I collided with the barrier at the side of the road.

There was little to be said for the situation as I felt a trickle of blood slide down my cheek and a jolt of pain across my arm as I had flinched. There would most definitely be glass in it.

Having spent years as a paleontologist, I had simply reached one conclusion from this current predicament. It seemed an inconvenient and illogical part of the evolutionary process that just at a time when you only have yourself to depend on for your own survival, rather cruelly, you slip into unconsciousness.