New fic, just in case anyone thought I had life-defining exams coming up in just over a month. I have no idea where this came from. Whatever. Set post-blackmailing, because I now look upon those days with nostalgia and optimism. I cannot believe that Christian and Syed are now so relentlessly depressing that this could be looked upon as 'fluff'. I feel like I should be writing stories about neverending despair or something, but, hey, looks like EE's got that covered. So, yeah, this isn't meant to taken seriously at all.

'A Matter of Time' is coming, by the way, slooooowly but surely. I must've needed to get this out of my system or whatever first.

Syed's still fairly pissed off that Christian apparently thinks that Lucy being mugged for a phoneshe'd boughtwith the money she'd blackmailed from him excused her previous behaviour and somehow, that meant that Syed no longer has the right to be pissed off. Because being mugged by someone else excused six weeks of torturing someone, totally, and the one on the receiving end of the torture had to lay down his burdens, because it was clearly fine. It's insane troll logic at its finest. While Christian's seemingly infinite capacity for forgiveness and lack of ability to hold a grudge when he saw people he cared about in distress had been a major advantage in their relationship, and probably wouldn't exist without it, it's goddamn annoying when it's directed towards the person who'd made his life a living hell for weeks.

Syed expresses his point as calmly and neutrally as he possibly can. This of course involves yelling and, in retrospect, some rather overdramatic storming out, telling Christian to leave him the hell alone.

He really ought to have wondered why such a comment would make Christian smile.

As usual, by the next day, the anger had burned out, leaving behind a sort of shameful regret, even if Christian is being a bit of a prat regarding Lucy, he's just doing it because for some reason that's beyond Syed, he loves her. Not that he'd let Christian actually know that. He's an awful lot like his mother in some regards, he's painfully aware –and the lack of ability to swallow his pride and admit he was wrong is one of those regards. He finds it incredibly difficult and always has. Christian gets it, gets him, though, and while he knows he shouldn't take this for granted he still kind of does.

Which is why Christian refusing to talk to him the next day is more than a little surprising. Their argument had been small fry compared to some of their more memorable blowouts and Syed can't recall saying anything notably hurtful. Well, at least by his standards, which says a lot by itself, he supposes. And it's weird, because it's not like Christian's being unfriendly or anything, he doesn't look angry or anything, and it's not like he ignores him. Syed greets him and gets a nod-of-the-head acknowledgement but Christian doesn't say anything, which is a bit strange. Yesterday, he'd said 'morning' and Christian had sang at him. To be fair, Christian had had significantly more reason to be jolly yesterday morning, but still. He's normally annoyingly chirpy. Well, he says 'annoyingly' but it's actually kind of infectious most of the time, except if Syed's more "angry" than just grouchy at lack of sleep. It's hard to not be a morning person when Christian is singing 9 to 5 at you. If anyone else had done it, Syed would have sunk into a further slump of irritability, but Christian has that quality about him that just makes people brighten up around him. He'd only had a maximum of four hours sleep, and since he'd known for a fact Christian had had the same and for what reason, the fact that he'd had exactly seven minutes to get washed, dressed and ready and felt, and looked, like a dirty, under-rested hobo seemed to fade into insignificance. What a difference twenty-four hours and having an argument instead of sex made. Syed squints at him, checking for signs of tiredness or a hangover or any particular reason that he'd be prickly but finds nothing. He looks happy if anything. Which is weird in itself. Pissed off he'd been anticipating, maybe upset, but contented and silent? Not quite.

Syed keeps trying to start conversations but Christian either pretends he can't hear or just nods to indicate he's heard. He starts asking him questions, but somehow they all manage to have yes/no answers and don't require a verbal response. After the sixth rebuff, Syed gives up and resigns himself to silence. He doesn't think he's ever heard Christian be so quiet and it's starting to freak him out a bit. He genuinely does wonder if he has laryngitis or something because Christian Clarke being able to keep his trap shut for one minute is a sign of the apocalypse, never mind extended periods of time, but the complete lack of attempts to otherwise communicate make him think otherwise.

When his mother walks in after three hours of this, he doesn't think he's ever been so pleased to see her in his entire life. Christian'll talk to her, which is fairly terrifying anyway, and definitively disproves his 'Christian's voice box has been removed in a divine act of justice for completely abusing the privilege of being able to talk' theory. It's amazing, though, how Christian doesn't ever talk directly to him once but never once flags up to his mum that he's not talking to him. Syed starts chattering away nervously about nothing in particular because he just wants to talk and be responded to. His mother keeps giving him odd looks because it's not like he's one to particularly care about the advantages of cutting with this knife or that one, never mind go on at length about the disadvantages and advantages of said subject. But she looks pleased he's taking an interest, so whatever. He looks sideways a couple of times, and he'll be damned if Christian doesn't look amused as hell. Sometimes, he really, really hates him.

"I need to go and get some supplies, we're running low..." his mother says, finally, and he can hear Christian snorting with repressed laughter because she's making it perfectly clear with her manner that Syed's nervous chatter is getting on her nerves. He wonders briefly if he could punch Christian in the face without arising his mother's suspicions.

"I'll go!" he says, too fast. "I mean, you're pregnant and you shouldn't be up on your feet too much, you know. It's not good for the baby. You stay here, and... rest. Or go home, even, I'm sure Christian can manage on his own. Can't you?" And then Christian nods and he wants to punch himself for managing to score the fourth closed questions in a row.

She looks at him strangely, but agrees and tells him all of his instructions. And then repeats them as if he's a five-year-old who has a habit of eating paste. He'd be insulted if she didn't act this patronisingly to everyone. She has a 'if you want anything done well, you have to do it yourself' attitude except without, you know, actually letting anyone else have a go first to disprove the 'done well' part.

"Are you listening to me, Syed?" she asks, and her eyes are narrowed.

"How could he not? You sound like a drill sergeant. Maybe you should write him a list," Christian suggests brightly.

Going with Christian's falsely light tone, his mum brightens at the suggestion, as if every syllable wasn't drowning in sarcasm. Syed wants to crawl into a hole and die. He wonders if enduring another five hours of deliberate-clearly-to-wind-him-up silence is better than going into the cash-and-carry with a note pinned to his lapel. "Mum, he's joking."

She deflates a little bit. "Oh. Well, you won't forget anything, will you?"

"No, Mum," he says, and thinks if she sounds like a drill sergeant, he sounds like a dutiful underling.

"Because if you forget anything, I'll just have to go myself and... you know, thinking about it, I might as well..."

"No. No," he says, again with the over-eagerness that he's desperately trying to avoid. "I'm twenty-five. I'm sure I can remember we need some mayonnaise." From the look of utter panic on her face, you'd think he'd just announced... well, the truth. "Mum, I'm kidding." He recites the requirements from heart without so much as taking a breath between items. He'd been paying far too close attention so he could ignore the black hole of silence coming from his right.

"You know, Zainab, I think you should check he knows how many kilograms of everything he needs 'cos, clearly, he hasn't understood your instructions quite," Christian tells her, with a note of smugness in his voice as if he'd been the one to recite a ten-point list from memory.

"Do I require a running commentary? No," she snaps. "Thank you, Syed."

He nods and smiles slightly. "See you." That's directed more at Christian, who has turned his back and waves with fingers.

Two days. It's been two days since Christian's uttered a single word to him. About him, through others, but never to him. Syed almost has to admire him, it's quite impressive that he's managed to completely blank Syed without making anyone else the least bit suspicious he's giving him the total cold shoulder, and yet has made Syed painfully aware of the fact. To be fair, short of standing in the middle of the Unit with a speakerphone announcing ...whatever it is he feels for Christian, nobody would notice anything anyway. Actually, thinking about it, even then, he's fairly sure no-one would believe it. Still, it's impressive that no-one's even noticed the tension which weighs so heavily on Syed. Maybe it's just more noticeable to him because he knows the full circumstances behind it. Well, except for why, exactly, Christian's doing it in the first place. Except that. He goes over and over their last, well, conversation would be putting it kindly, but it was hardly a particularly vicious argument by their terms.

After a couple of hours of nothing but the sound of the fridge and Christian's occasional, incredibly annoying show tune humming. He normally finds it endearing, but, hell, everything is irritating to him at the moment. His overwhelming desire to commit violence against the birds for chirping outside of his window this morning, for example. He throws down the knife he's holding and it clatters loud enough to raise Christian's eyes to him. He swears he can see the spark of laughter in Christian's eyes, though his lips don't so much as twitch. "Okay," he says finally. He asks what he's been dying to for what feels like forever. "What is it?"

Christian doesn't respond, just cocks his head as if confused. Syed tries not to get pissed off, but his hand curls into a fist.

"Come on, you know what I'm talking about. Because I'm talking. See, with the communication? Actually vocalising meaningful sounds and stuff. There's this whole thing called 'human interaction', maybe you missed the lecture on it as a kid, I don't know, but generally when people talk to you, you do this thing where you talk back."

That does it. Christian full-on bursts into laughter and sounds like he's been dying to do it for ages. Bastard.

"What?"

It sounds like Christian's attempting to say something through the guffawing but the words just sound like a random string of sounds. He's at least hopeful that Christian's attempting to communicate, even as he repeatedly slams his hand against the counter of the unit in a desperate struggle to stem the flow of laughter.

Still, he feels frustration rise up, as he feels ridiculous standing here being laughed at. "Seriously, Christian?"

He manages to compose himself, and only sniggers a few times as he says, "Don't get your knickers in a twist, eh?"

He tries to pretend that the words aren't music to his ears and quite possibly the best thing he's ever heard. "When you're deliberately winding me up?" he asks, accusingly.

Christian looks at him, curiously. "Doesn't exactly take much, does it, Sy?"

"You've been blanking me for two days. That's 'much'," he says, and feels faintly embarrassed that he's just all but admitted that Christian not talking to him was horrible.

"I thought that was what you wanted," Christian says, wide-eyed with faux-innocence.

"What? Why the hell would I...?" The argument comes back to him. Of course, his last words. "Just shut up and leave me alone, all right?" He'd analysed that argument backwards and forwards, word-for-word and he so obviously hadn't meant those words that it hadn't occurred to him that Christian might've taken them literally in order to, well, give him a taste of poetic justice or something. "You know I didn't mean that."

"Funny, sounded like you meant it," Christian retorts.

"Yeah, well, I..." he trails off, unable to finish that sentence. What could he say, really, that wouldn't be an admission of defeat?

"What? You say things you don't mean all the time? Yeah, well maybe I'm getting sick of it. You just... saying things that you don't mean, and then the next day us going back to normal 'cos I know you don't mean them and you just said them because you were pissed off at me and you know I know you don't mean them and just assume I'll automatically forgive you."

"So, what? This was to teach me a lesson?" Syed asks, incredulously.

Christian shrugs. "A little bit, maybe. But mostly 'cos I thought it was funny."

"Oh, yeah, hilarious. I'm cracking up," he drawls.

"You know how they say you should ignore bullies and not rise to give them a reaction 'cos they'll lose interest?" Christian says. "That's sound advice. Looking like you're about to either punch me or burst into tears of frustration, not so much. If you'd just ignored it, I'd have given up after about five minutes. I don't have much of an attention span, except if I find stuff entertaining.

Syed opens his mouth to reply, and then something occurs to him. "Wait. You're calling yourself a bully?"

"Well, no. But taunting you, trying to get a reaction out of you... pretty much kind of the same thing."

Syed feels a sudden rush of relief at the words. "You know, I thought I'd really upset you," he admits.

"You kind of did," he replies quietly. "But, then, I decided to take you at your word. You know, if I did that with everything you said, my head would explode because you contradict yourself so often."

It's hard to argue with, especially as it's said in a relatively light-hearted manner, though it's apparent that Christian means every syllable. He doesn't really want to argue anyway. But what he really wants to do is impossible, and full to the brim with promises he can't ever keep. So it's his turn to be silent.

Christian takes pity on him or something because he smiles warmly. "Who would've thought it, that you'd miss the sound of my voice?"

It's another one of those things he says light-heartedly because he wouldn't dare say it in all seriousness. Just like Syed wouldn't dare admit that the words cause a spasm of warmth to go through his stomach. He wants to roll his eyes at himself for acting like a teenage girl with her first crush. "I wouldn't go that far... it's actually starting to grate on me again..."

"Well, if you say so..." He clamps his mouth shut and zips it shut, throwing away the key.

"Shu... just pack it in, all right?"

Christian's still smiling at him with such open affection- more than affection, Syed knows, but saying what it really is would involve invoking that word that he'll never say, not even to himself- that always unnerves him because it makes him wonder what he's ever done to deserve it. Nothing, as far as he can tell, except cause Christian a world of hurt and he doesn't see that it's going to end anytime soon. But he's too selfish to let him go, and he doesn't know that Christian would let him, anyway.

He realises with a jolt of horror that this was a glimpse into what life was going to be like without Christian. The two of them skirting around each other, pretending that nothing's wrong when they're welling up with frustration and other, more painful feelings. This was only two days, and it wasn't pleasant, but he'd known it wouldn't last forever and he's been granted a reprieve. But he knows it's only temporary.

He's getting married in just over two months and he doesn't think he's ever been so terrified at the thought.