Sex in C Major

Then warmth..

The coat crumpled between them. Daz's grip was firm. All-encompassing. Certain. And Stefan sagged into the hold, feeling ripped apart between the terror that was dissolving his brain and the need that was dissolving his heart. He felt home and heartbroken all at once. He wanted to pull away, and pull Daz closer.

So he covered his own face with his hands, leaned against Daz's shoulder, and sobbed.

"You're fucking mental, you know that?" Daz said, but his voice was a soft murmur. A gloved hand was rubbing Stefan's back. "Ssh, come on. Rein it in, yeah?"

"C-can't..."

"Then listen. Listen."

Stefan sniffled, turning one hand over to clutch at the coat under his cheek.

"What's your safeword?"

"Ch-checkmate."

"You used it once. Remember?"

"Mm."

"What happened?"

Stefan took a shaky breath. "I didn't the cage-"

"No. After. What happened after you said checkmate."

"You...you hugged me."

"And?"

"You didn't make me go in the cage."

"And?"

"Y-you let me sleep in the bed. A-and you put me in cuffs because because I said it helped."

"Now why would I do that for a slave?"

Stefan's breath caught. His fingers tightened on Daz's coat.

And some of the raw panic flooding his veins...eased.

"I care, you cretin. Yannis is a moody sod but he cares, as well. If you didn't like what happened-"

"I did. That's the problem."

"Liking something that doesn't hurt people is not a problem."

"It's fu-"

"It is more fucked up, by far, that Jack and I like to watch someone crying and screaming while we fuck them, than it is for someone wanting to be fucked like that."

The words rubbed over Stefan's ears. Pierced them. Sank in. Burrowed.

"Jack rang asking if I knew anyone willing to loan a sub for a session. When I offered you, the first thing he wanted to know was your safewords. Not your measurements or your looks or even your damn gender. He wanted to know what protests from you would be play, and which ones meant no. Your get-out clauses. Your boundaries. I've had guys ask for my subs and slaves before who don't ask those questions, and they don't get to play. Yes, you agreed to be my property, effectively, but it's not real. Property doesn't get safewords. I don't listen for my sofa's consent before sitting on it. If my kettle doesn't want to boil water, tough titties, it boils whatever the fuck I put in there and whenever I want it to."

Stefan laughed. It was a wet, broken sound that hurt his abused throat, but it was a laugh all the same.

"Is that why you ran off?"

"What?"

"Because you got scared about how deep this was all going?"

"Y-yes."

"Is that a checkmate?"

"No."

"What do you want, then? Because this-this isn't okay. You stink of drugs and drink, and you've obviously been self-harming. There's no halfway point anymore, if this is going to be what you do to yourself when you're out of control."

"What's what's the extremes, then?" Stefan mumbled, stepping back and scrubbing at his face.

Daz's own face was impassive. Blank. And didn't flicker as he said:

"Checkmate. Or come home. And stay there."

"Stay-"

"Permanently."

Stefan swallowed.

"We'll scale back on the sex. But we'd scale up on the supervision. You've got some bad headspace and I'm not having this in my house."

"Then leave me here."

"Then checkmate."

Stefan's chest seized at the idea.

Checkmate.

No.

It was an immediate response. No. He couldn't. If he checkmated, then this would be it. Forever. This shitty flat, and blowing Dean's dealers in other shitty flats to get a hit. To forget. He'd end up some kind of prostitute just to forget what he'd had, and what he'd thrown away.

Because it was all still true.

He liked being fucked by Daz's friends, on Daz's command.

He liked being chained up in his master's house.

He liked feeling that cock sliding in and out of him, and the trickle of cum down his legs, and the pain of the third, fourth, fifth round.

He even liked Yannis' experiments, and being tortured to symphonies in C major in the shed.

God help him, he liked all of it.

And he'd been better. There.

He'd made Yannis dinner at Christmas, and slept deeply between them in the night. Had felt content after sex, and wanted it when they'd held him down in the middle of the night and fucked him. He was better there.

"No."

"No what?"

"No checkmate."

"Then get your things. You won't be coming back."

Stefan turned away-and had his chin seized. His face turned back.

And Daz's-Master's-voice in his ear.