25. Chris
Chris
December, Cardiff
The world felt like an infinitely better place as Christmas approached than it had this time last year.
Chris’s good mood was dampened only by the fact that Nick was back, and making his presence known as always with less-than-subtle digs at Chris about everything from his weight (too low), to his friends (too loud), and of course, his doping.
It was a lot easier to shake off though when his day was peppered with texts, photos, and even the odd email from Isaiah, of both the explicit and adorable varieties.
Isaiah had heard nothing from the ethics board, but he hadn’t expected to over the holidays.
His coping method seemed to be avoidance, and Chris wasn’t going to push him on it.
Isaiah was spending the holidays with Elliot and Jackson again this year, a proper family Christmas from what Chris understood, but that hadn’t stopped him from spamming Chris with suggestive photos throughout the day.
Sometimes they were outright spank bank material, but he’d sent plenty that were just holiday fun as well, including what was apparently now a customary hair colour change to a festive but still tasteful green.
After his morning shower Chris snapped a quick photo of his own, towel slung low around his hips and water still dripping down his torso, and sent it off to Isaiah.
Isaiah
Please tell me you have time to talk tonight.
A real private show, for old times’ sake
Chris
Anything for you, cariad
And he fucking meant it. He’d hide out in the back shed if he needed to.
Isaiah had burrowed his way into his heart and life, and Chris was desperate for the holidays to end so he could manufacture some sort of excuse to go back down to Oxford and see him.
He’d even started looking up training facilities nearby because he was fucking obsessed, and more than ready to uproot his whole damn life to be closer to him.
He figured it was all the time they’d spent together anonymously that made them fit together so easily, or maybe it was just fate.
Either way, the idea of letting him go made Chris feel physically ill.
Christmas dinner rolled around, and more family members filed into their house.
Chris’s mum was hovering on the brink of a breakdown, third glass of wine in hand as she rushed out of the dining room to find something her brother had requested.
Despite reassurances from Chris, his dad, and even Nick that the chestnut stuffing was epically delicious, Uncle Johnny still turned up his nose at it, stating he couldn’t possibly eat it as she’d obviously not made it the way their mum used to.
Uncle Johnny could be kind of a dick sometimes.
Like now, for example, when he wouldn’t stop reminding everyone how much harder things would be for Nick to sign with a rugby team because he’d be tainted by Chris’s “mistake,” as he’d taken to calling it.
“I’m just saying, even the lower-tier teams are testing athletes more and more these days,” he ranted as he downed his second bottle of beer. “Poor kid’s going to be under a whole lot of scrutiny now.”
For the first time in well over a year, Chris felt united with his brother as they rolled their eyes at their uncle.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Nick said.
“Doesn’t deserve the attention you lot are giving it, honestly.
” He shoved a forkful of mash into his mouth.
“Can we fucking talk about someone other than Chris, please.” It wasn’t exactly kind, but it was better than most of his interactions with Nick had gone in the past year.
Chris’s phone was burning a hole in his pocket. He’d felt it vibrating against his leg while he’d been half-heartedly engaging in the conversation around him, and desperately wanted to see if he had more messages from Isaiah.
The effects of the turkey started to kick in, and family members started drifting off, either back to their own homes or, in the case of Johnny, upstairs to crash in the guest bedroom.
Nick announced loudly that he was meeting his mates at the pub and left through the front door.
Chris waited what he deemed an appropriate amount of time then let out an exaggerated yawn before heading down to his room.
The first thing he did was open his texts with Isaiah. They didn’t disappoint. Starting with a simple Happy Christmas, Isaiah had swiftly moved onto corny festive pickup lines. Chris laughed as he read, Want you to stuff me like a turkey.
Chris kept laughing as he scrolled through, then abruptly stopped cold at the photo that greeted him. It was Isaiah, sprawled out on his bed in a crop top with his hand in his shorts, the hard outline of his dick clearly visible, captioned with You free?
Chris grabbed his tablet, and without even thinking hit the video call button.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all day.” Isaiah grinned.
Chris believed him. Even though they were back across a screen from each other just like when this had all started, it was different now.
“I don’t have long; Nick could be back any minute,” Chris warned.
“We can be quick.”
They could.
After coming down from his orgasm, Chris cleaned up quickly and settled on top of his covers to chat with Isaiah.
“Fuck, I really needed that,” Isaiah said, a smile playing at his lips.
“Long day?”
“It was nice, just…a lot. Christmas always kind of makes me think of my own childhood, you know? And what I lost.”
Chris furrowed his brows. “What they lost. They don’t deserve you.”
Isaiah’s reply was quiet. “I know. I still wonder though, sometimes.”
Chris could tell Isaiah didn’t want to talk about it, and he wasn’t going to push him.
“Tell me about your Christmas,” Isaiah said. “Was your brother a dick?”
Chris laughed. “No more than usual. It’s my uncle you’ve got to watch out for at the big gatherings. Think my mum was either going to burst into tears or crack a bottle over his head if he said one more thing about her cooking skills.”
“Brutal.”
“At least we only really have to bother with him once a year. Nick, on the other hand, is here to antagonise until after New Years.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. That must be hard.”
“It is sometimes. I don’t know what it’s like for all twins, but Nick and I, growing up we were glued to each other constantly. It was like we shared one mind sometimes, and I remember thinking I was so lucky because I had this built-in, guaranteed friend for life, and then…”
Chris paused. The deterioration of his relationship with his brother had been slow at first. So slow he’d barely noticed it happening.
“We went to different colleges, had different interests, different friend groups, but we were still us, you know?”
Isaiah nodded. It was hard to explain the dynamic between twins, but Chris wanted Isaiah to understand.
He’d always assumed Nick would be the one person who would be there for him through everything.
“Then the summer of the Olympics, things changed. We didn’t see each other much.
We were only really in the same room at our grandpa’s funeral, which obviously wasn’t a great time. ”
“Were you close? With your grandpa?”
“Kind of? He wasn’t well for most of our lives, but I have some good memories of him from when we were little.”
Isaiah nodded.
“I’d never gone so long without talking to my brother and it was so weird. Then when we finally saw each other, he was just such a fucking dick to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Isaiah said.
It still hurt to think about. When Chris had been called up for the Olympics, Nick had been right there with him, celebrating and telling every damn person they knew that his twin was going to be an Olympian.
But something had changed over the summer.
They’d fought about Sam, and then there was the funeral, and Nick had started to pull away.
By the time the news had broken about his drug test, Nick had disappeared.
It fucking hurt. Nick was supposed to be the person he could rely on above all others.
They weren’t just siblings, they were twins.
Wasn’t that what everyone always said? “Oh lucky you to have someone who knows you so well.” But they didn’t really, did they.
Because if Nick knew Chris as well as was meant to then he’d have known he desperately needed his brother’s support.
Now, with his ban nearly over and sponsorship talks not nearly as exciting as they had been the first time around, he couldn’t help but wonder what went wrong.
Isaiah stifled a yawn and Chris realised guiltily that it was inching past two in the morning.
“Sorry, cariad. You should sleep.”
“No, want to stay up and talk to you more.” Isaiah’s protests were weakened by another yawn that punctuated his sentence.
“Isaiah, get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Promise.”
“Of course. Love you.”
Isaiah’s eyes widened comically as Chris exited the stream in complete shock at what had just come out of his mouth. He had no fucking chill. Why would he say that? He closed his eyes and tried to breathe.
For the next three days he ignored it and threw himself into being excessively normal in their back and forth messages, as he desperately tried not to think about how Isaiah hadn’t even acknowledged the words, much less said it back.
Fireworks over the bay had been a Green family tradition since Chris could remember. He sat next to his mum on a rock wall overlooking the harbour, sipping mulled wine from a thermos and watching the sky light up with colour.
When he was younger, Chris had believed that the New Year wiped everything clean; poor races, arguments, stupid choices. The sky would split open over the bay and whatever had gone wrong would dissolve in colour. It wasn’t quite so simple these days.
Across the water, boats bobbed gently, masts threaded with fairy lights. A rocket screamed upward and burst into gold.
Nick’s voice drifted clearly through the cold. “…just saying, Dad, elite sport isn’t exactly stable income. Especially not after a ban.”