The Hard Part | Chapter 2/5 (ish)
Title: The Hard Part (or How I Let The Boys Boil Over Now In Order To Simmer Down Later)
Chapter: 2/5 (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
Summary: The true challenge in any relationship comes not in times of peace, but in times of conflict. Can Christian and Syed rebuild from the rubble of their first major fall out? Or has the baby issue just taken them too far?
A/N: Since this episode I've seen a few people gravitating one way or the other: that is, either siding with Christian or siding with Syed. The majority are all for kicking Christian for being a silly boy - which he was - but I do feel a lot of sympathy for him. He was rash and hasty and impulsive, but that's also part of his charm; and Syed knew that when he decided to be with him. As shall be made clear in this chapter, both of them handled this wrong and both of them are to blame for the situation that arose: Christian for not thinking things through and for failing to notice Syed's hesitancy, but also Syed for failing to tell Christian what he really wanted and then getting cross when it wasn't what he wanted (I know people like this: it's incredibly disheartening and upsetting to learn that you've been getting it wrong all along without them saying). This chapter is about their own internal conflict as they come to terms with the fact that they are both to blame - and whether they can do anything to fix it.
Part 1: Explosion | Masterlist | Part 3: Rescue Effort
The Hard Part
Part 2: Debris
'Some of us are born, and then some of us are born again.
Some of us are scared to death, and some just don't believe in it.
Something's always wrong, there's a line, an idea I can't get behind
No one knows what's right.'
~
'Who Will Save Us Now?'
- Straylight Run
Syed could still feel the door shaking on it's hinges as he slumped against it, the fire in his veins cooling slightly as he slid to the ground with a soft thud. Now that he was out of the flat, the air felt cold; the tightness and fury had gone, blown away by the draft that always managed to sneak in under the front door.
It was replaced by a bubbling, simmering resentment that made his whole body tense against the cold wood. He sank his teeth into his tongue as he crooked his knees and buried his head in his hands, drawing his legs to his chest to make himself as small as possible. His hands were shaking against him, even as he threaded his fingers through his hair in an attempt to anchor them in stillness.
Every inch of him was thrumming with emotions that were too erratic to place; too vague and quick-changing to pin down and fully absorb. He scrabbled for a short while, fingers tightening painfully in his hair as he tried in vain to sort them into some sort of coherency. But they just kept slipping from his grasp, running from his desperate fingers and flinging a single, mocking word over their shoulders as they fled.
Hate.
He'd actually used it. He'd never used it before, not even in the darkest of times - and this last year had been the darkest of his life so far.
It was a word that rang in the air all around him, swimming through his synapses and taunting him mercilessly. He could hear it on Christian's lips, could picture each letter falling deftly from his tongue: tell me you hate me.
As if he'd wanted him to say it. Isn't that what he'd wanted? To hear it from Syed's own lips - closure maybe, or the smug satisfaction of knowing just how weak he was to his emotions?
Or maybe it had been a silent plea - maybe, in asking him to say it, Christian had actually been begging for reassurance that he didn't. And Syed hadn't even been able to give him that, just as he hadn't been able to give him the one thing that he wanted more than anything in the world:
A proper family.
There was a flurrying in his stomach, an anxiousness swirling away amongst the disappointment and the hurt. Panic was gripping hard at his insides, twisting and wrenching as echoes of their argument flashed through his mind. A large part of him wanted to go back inside, to grab the front of Christian's shirt and pull him into a fierce hug; to forget about everything and anything and just pretend that everything was okay.
That he was okay.
But Christian didn't want that, did he? He wanted confrontation and open emotions; something that he knew from the start Syed would struggle to give him. Syed had always been the tentatively bound journal in direct opposition to Christian's loud, public story. Christian knew that he hated this: he hated fighting, he hated shouting, he hated conflict. He would rather just let everything bubble over in the calmest of ways. Let it work itself out. It was a slower approach, but Syed was sure that it would have worked if only Christian had been patient with it. If only he had been able to wait. If only he had been willing to accept that confrontation was not the answer, not always.
Syed knew he should have learned that lesson a long time ago. No one said 'no' to Christian Clarke - not without feeling the full sting of the repercussions.
A fresh wave of anger pummelled into him, his breath drawing harshly into his lungs as he hauled himself to his feet. He'd left his coat back in the flat, but he barely noticed the desperate bite of the wind as he walked briskly out into the street; it was as if the fire in his veins had been restored, scorching every inch of him and overpowering the freezing temperatures that battered his body.
It wasn't his fault.
It wasn't.
Christian pushed too hard. He always had. He pushed, and he pushed, and he pushed. He wanted things to be different; he wanted Syed to be the man that he had always envisioned being with. But Syed couldn't do that. He could only disappoint him. After he'd given up so much, after he'd lost everything, after he'd set aside everything he had ever known in order to be with Christian - and still the man wanted more. Wanted more than he could give.
He wouldn't flout his faith. Not again. Never again. Choosing Christian had been the point at which he had stopped. He refused to go any further than that. Christian made him a better person, a truer person, an honest person, and wasn't that what he needed to be in order to fulfil his faith? That's why he'd done it. That's why he'd given up everything - because he loved Christian and because he loved his faith.
But this - this was beyond anything. It violated everything he had ever been taught; everything he had ever believed. He remembered a time when Christian had begged him to tell him more, to teach him, to help him understand. He'd wanted to know. He'd longed to understand.
Syed kicked out at the ground as he neared the park, a stone skimming across the pavement ahead of him before halting in the tangled grass.
It was amazing how quickly that longing to know - to understand, to respect - had dissipated. Once the novelty had worn off, then Christian hadn't even been…
He stopped suddenly, his arms wrapping around his torso as the biting wind finally took a hold of his skin.
Go to the library…get a book…
He'd known Christian would never do it. And hadn't that, honestly, been the point?
There was another gust of wind, the chill rustling through his hair and forcing a shiver along the length of his spine. Syed took a few more steps forward, the grass brushing against the skin of his ankle as he headed for a bench; niggling, poking, brushing softly and yet pointedly. As if even the grass was telling him that he'd done something wrong.
Sinking down, Syed rested his elbows on his knees and brushed a tired hand through his hair. The flames began to settle inside him, flickering faintly as they searched hungrily for the last few remnants of his anger. He could feel it sinking back, cooling the blood in his veins and calming the rapid thoughts in his head.
Perhaps, he thought grudgingly, he'd never really given Christian a chance. He'd never really let him into that part of his life; sealing it off like a box of precious memories, preventing the man he loved from tainting the one thing that he still saw as pure. He'd actively pushed Christian's attempts at understanding away - was there any wonder that he'd given up?
Religion, children, morality…rolls and bagels…he'd never told Christian how he really felt. Perhaps he was right in that sense - how could he possibly do the right thing if Syed didn't tell him what the right thing was? In his silence, he might as well have been giving Christian permission to press ahead.
But he was so insensitive. He'd never even considered that it might have been a problem, never bothered to ask, never stopped to think for one moment that bringing a child into their lives…
Syed leant back and closed his eyes, sucking a calming breath into his lungs to try and still the stream of conflicting thoughts. He felt like a crooked see-saw, wrenched from one side to the other as he struggled to regain the perfect balance that he longed for.
Christian was right - but he was so, so wrong as well.
After a few moments of wrestling, Syed forced his eyes open so that he was staring up into the dark of the sky. It hung like a curtain of black velvet; the stars obscured by the orange of the streetlamps and the clouds hovering above him.
As if the light was hiding from him - just beyond his grasp.
Suddenly, he reached into his pocket to grab his phone- thanking Allah briefly that he'd had the good sense to leave it in his pocket - and began to punch at the keys.
He couldn't clear the clouds away. But maybe someone else could.
x
x
The flowers were sat on the table where Syed had left them, wilting slightly in the air. Christian had relocated to the couch, his phone abandoned on the floor along with the glass; he had purposefully turned his back on the darkening plants, his elbows rested on his knees and his spine hunched protectively.
It wasn't working.
He could feel the drooping petals glaring at him, crinkling and crumpling accusingly as he sat staring into the near distance. He should probably get up and put them in some water - it wasn't their fault, after all - and when Syed came home he didn't want him to think that…
Christian dropped his face into his hands, his fingers rubbing roughly at the corners of his eyes as if trying to gouge out something he couldn't quite reach.
I hate you.
He'd made him say it. Practically forced it out of him; he might as well have stuck a hand down Syed's throat and wrenched the words from his lips. Christian was beginning to wonder why Syed would ever want to come home after that. The longer that the door remained firmly closed, the more he could feel his whole world crumpling along with the flowers he had bought.
They'd argued before. Their relationship had never been anything other than passionate - that had been established right from the beginning. But their fights had all, thus far, led to one thing: furious, desperate and rapid reconciliation. Hell, even after Christian had made the biggest mistake of their relationship thus far - before this, of course - it hadn't taken long before Syed had turned up in their house with forgiveness in his heart and a kilt around his waist.
Christian groaned and threw himself back on the sofa, reaching for the cushion and hugging it to his chest. He hadn't done this for a very long time, not since he'd thought he had lost Syed forever, and the soft material felt fresh as rested it against his chin. In a way, it was comforting to wrap his arms around it and crush it for all it was worth; but, in another, it was a sensation that brought back a flood of unpleasant memories.
Christian thought that he'd put everything that had happened in those twelve months behind them, casting it aside like an unwanted toy the moment that Syed made his choice. But, he figured, that obviously wasn't true. It wasn't true for either of them.
The gentle softness of the cushion began to grate against his flesh, nothing more than an irritating contrast to the coarse stubble he would usually feel tucked just beneath his chin. A sudden wave of anger coursed through his veins, sparking against his synapses as he straightened his back and flung the cushion against the wall. It hit the hard surface with a satisfying thud, seeming to pause in mid air for a brief second before sliding slowly down to the floor.
God, he had no idea what he was doing wrong. He had no idea how to make things right with Syed - because Syed was still hiding. There was no way he could break through that prison of concrete he had built up around him. He'd just assumed, when Syed hadn't offered any objections, that that meant that he was okay with it - how was he to know otherwise? How was he to tell what was right when he didn't know what was wrong?
Christian was so angry with Syed. Anger that he'd only felt during the see-saw of their non-relationship; a fury born from the constant uncertainty and, most prominently, the sense that Syed was ashamed of what they had. He'd thought that, in those few, life-altering minutes in the Square six months ago, Syed had put that behind him. He'd thought that, in those few words, Syed had ceased to see their relationship as something to be hidden, to be disguised, to be locked away behind a false door of 'normality'.
That's what he'd said, wasn't it, right back at the beginning?
I'm not like you…I'm normal…
He remembered how happy Syed had been to learn that Amira was pregnant; how his face had lit up, how he had so obviously adored the fact that he was going to be a father. Christian wanted that with him. He wanted to see those emotions, that love, but in this reality rather than that lie. He wanted to take away all those heartbreaking premonitions he'd had at that time - the scenes of Amira, Syed and their baby, together as the family he could never have - and replace them with something tangible.
He thought Syed would have wanted that too.
And he wanted to make Syed happy.
But he'd been wrong. He'd obviously been wrong about a lot of things.
As much as he wanted to bury his head in the sand, he couldn't hide from the fact that Syed's hesitancy hurt. After everything that they'd been through, all the pain and the heartache and now, finally, they had some peace and he yet still, still, saw what they had as abnormal…
That didn't just hurt: that was agony.
It cut deeply; gouging invisible holes in his flesh and then, as if that wasn't enough, pouring molten wax into the wounds with each reiteration. And that hurt had emerged as an intense, almost childish anger. Christian knew he had all but stamped his foot and demanded his way - but, at the time, that had seemed better than letting himself drown in all those emotions he had long since put away.
Not again. He wouldn't do that again. He'd felt them all, too frequently, all too sharply, for far, far too long, to let them back in now. He had cried too much.
Perhaps he'd been deluding himself all along - forcibly pasting his wants on top of what Syed needed. Maybe he'd been trying too hard to try and enforce the normality of this whole thing. He'd forgotten, somewhere along the line, that it would take a damned sight more than a few words to make the thought of actually being in a life-long - oh God, he still hoped so - gay relationship any easier.
Because this was new for him, too.
He'd never wanted to call anyone his life partner before Syed. It had never even crossed his mind to think about commitment, about children, about how he would still love someone even when they were old and grey and possibly incontinent. And that he was feeling all this for the first time - it was terrifying.
He knew now that he'd pulled on the mask of 'gay guru', hidden himself behind his 'experience' and his stupid, misplaced pride. He could tell himself that he'd done that for Syed, to make it all easier for him, but that would be a lie. It was for him, to convince himself that he knew what he was doing; to kid himself into believing that he wasn't in any way as terrified as he was.
And so he'd just plunged in head first, jumping through all the wrong hoops and finding himself back where he'd started.
Alone on the couch without even a pillow to hold onto.
A knock on the door startled him just as his throat began to tighten, the shock of it forcing out a sob. He turned quickly, pressing his palms against his eyes to ward off the moisture that was gathering in the corners before hauling himself from the couch.
He didn't expect it to be Syed. He knew it wasn't Syed. He knew who it was. He'd called her, after all.
"Christian, what've you done?"
And suddenly he was a teenager again, curling himself into a ball in his sister's arms as he railed and cried about the world and how fucking, fucking unfair it all was.
"I've screwed up," he managed as he buried his face in her hair, feeling her arms rocking him backwards and forwards as she eased them back into the flat.
"I've screwed up and I don't know how to make it right."
TBC...
Part 1: Explosion | Masterlist | Part 3: Rescue Effort
Ah, the angst, the sweet sweetness of the angst!
Thank you all for reading. I know this was quite jumpy and disjointed - but hey, interior monologues never seem to make sense. At least, mine never do.