Sex in C Major

God, he missed them.

It was a jolt to realise it, staring at the sky and feeling alone in an entirely different way. No, not quite in a different way. Before, he'd felt lonely. Isolated. Now, he felt alone-temporarily. There were people now. Only two, but still people. And they were gone, for a few days.

So he was alone.

But not quite lonely, with the rumbling cat under his hand, and the smell of sleepy someones that lingered in the bed.

He missed them. Both of them.

He missed his master, obviously, but he missed Yannis, too. Missed watching from the sidelines as they bitched at each other. Missed talking about stuff Daz didn't understand. Missed hearing Yannis mutter to himself, and slowly beginning to recognise the Arabic from the Turkish. Missed the sound of their breathing in the night.

Missed...home.

It felt shockingly like the hole that had been torn in his chest when M-Helen had thrown him out. That sense of loss that wasn't quite rational, because all he'd lost then was a bitch of a woman and a constant drone of how he was the shitty product of a shitty sperm donor, and all he'd lost now was four days of sex and sarcasm.

But-

It felt similar.

That emotional hole. That quiet yearning. That sense of something being amiss, even in the tiniest of ways. Like not being snapped at for daring to close the bathroom door. Like the empty spaces on his skin where his master's hands would have touched him by now. Even down to the cat's fur, the cat that ignored him and infinitely preferred Yannis.

Even the silence from the instruments in the corner of the living room was wrong.

Stefan played the cello that evening. Played until the floor rumbled and the neighbours banged on the wall. Played a part of that symphony, strange on these strings, and—

For the first time since that very first experiment in the shed, under Yannis' closed stare, felt nothing.

He went out the next day.

They'd left fifty pounds and an emergency credit card on the counter for him. Stefan took the card. Drug dealers didn't take cards. And anyway, he was going into the city centre, not to Roundhay Road or Harehills.

He had woken up feeling-thanks to the music-better.

He was doing better. Day three, he'd been a mess, the last time. When he'd run away. Day three, this time around, he felt...good.

The cuff on his thigh, the belt tightening around his waist at eight thirty, the tiny light of the tracker on the lock-they were coming back, and he was doing better. He wasn't lonely. He wasn't isolated. He was simply alone.

And if he could do this, do well without them, then...Daz would start to trust him again.

Properly.

So, quite suddenly, Stefan had something to prove. After years of nothing, he felt an old, unfamiliar rub in his chest, like pride. He wanted to prove he could do this. And earn back something he'd had in the beginning-trust-and thrown away. He'd thrown it away, so it was up to him to go and get it back.

So he put on his jeans, slid his headphones over his ears, and walked.

The first half-mile was almost terrifying. His body wanted to go back and wait for his master to come and take him to town if he had to go. But his brain, clinging to that newfound pride, struck out, and demanded action. It was a nice day. Lots of people walked to town on nice days. Daz did. Yannis did. Maybe next week, he could walk with Yannis to a class, then get a coffee and walk home. Walk to meet Daz from work some evenings. Go round the chip shop sometimes.

So he walked.

The half mile after that, the panic started to recede, and was replaced by such absurdly normal thoughts that Stefan almost wanted to laugh. It was too hot. He needed a drink. Why did nobody know how to use an indicator? Why was that girl staring at him? God, so average. He'd never been so normal, and it felt both wonderful and oddly self-betraying at the same time.

When the edges of the city centre closed around him, Stefan allowed his mind to wander in the odd fantasy, always cutting them off before they got too intense and would cause issues with the chastity belt. If he was free to come and go, perhaps Daz would kidnap him from some street somewhere. Maybe they would use alleyways and public toilets, like the first few times. Maybe Daz would start calling him again, or just ringing and ringing until those traitorous bars on his ringtone dissolved Stefan all on their own.