You May Be Taller, But I'm Still Top

Oh my god, I haven't posted anything in ages. Sorry! The editor for Keith Ch. 02 didn't get back to me and I haven't been checking my mail so I don't know if they have yet at all, so if they haven't I might just post it unedited... but here. (: This one isn't edited either, m'fraid! D: Enjoy anyway.

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Syro bit hard into the strap of leather that bound his mouth as the whip came down on his bare thigh with a resonating crack.

'Jesus fucking Christ, what did I do to deserve this?' He managed to think as his mind was overflowing with 'oh fucks', 'Jesus Christ's, and 'Omigod omigod omigod ow's' that he dared not voice.

The whip came down again and he couldn't hold back the muffled cry of pain as it bisected one of the larger healing whip marks along his back. How pathetic he looked; bound, gagged, and on all fours having the living shit beaten out of him by his patriotic, homophobic, devout Christian father? Syro'd always been big on bondage but this was obscene.

His head spun violently as he felt a steel-toed boot connect with his right flank. The blow knocked him onto his side and as his gaze met his father's steel gray one, he could see the regret in those eyes that he despised so much. A second later, and it was gone. The doors were closed again.

"Fucking fag," his father snarled, untying him and leaving the door unlocked. Syro barely heard him as the dim light that illuminated the small room with it's whitewashed walls faded to blackness.

---

Syro was adopted.

His 'parents' - Jean and Michael - thought he didn't know, though he'd found out when he was seven (despite the fact that the word at the time held no significant meaning for him) and now he was eighteen. Eleven years. How long had they been intending to hide it from him, he wondered? Would they have ever told him at all? Damn if it wasn't obvious though. Michael had dark brown hair and eyes to match, and Jean's was strawberry blonde at best with eyes like her husband's, whereas Syro's hair was an odd silvery colour and his eyes were purple. They always had three foster kids or more at once, as well as having two of their own. The adopted kids didn't know they were adopted, excluding Syro and choice others who'd been reckless enough to steal their own files and look through them, but it was always one of those sorry bastards and not Jean and Michael's kids that got beaten all the time. 3 months prior, it'd been Alec, before he moved out after turning eighteen.

During the days when Michael had no one to pick on he'd stalk the house like a pissed off tiger, making growling sounds to add to the effect. Sometimes he would even raid the rooms, looking for any reason to kick a foster kid simple. It was during one of these that he'd walked in on Syro and his boyfriend - Gabe - in a 69. His father, being not only homophobic but actively racist, and Gabe being black, gay and ten years older than Syro, chased his boyfriend out of the house and just like that, Syro was bearing the brunt of his rage.

'I could always leave...' he used to think, but he stayed because he knew that if he left then some other poor sucker would end up in his position. He was made of stronger stuff than Michael thought. Despite this it was the one thing on his mind as he packed his duffel bag with some clothes quickly, ignoring the warm sticky feel of the blood on his bag as he tugged a shirt that was ages too big and some pants on, escaping quickly out of the back door and over the backyard fence. He'd have coaxed one of the foster kids that knew how to drive into giving him a lift to Gabe's but he didn't trust them not to rat on him later. It was a short walk anyway, but with the limp he was sporting he guessed he'd make it there in 30 minutes... at best. God, his leg was killing him. He tried to remain inconspicuous, going down back alleys instead of taking easier routes to avoid people stopping him. He was rarely out of the house so it'd probably seem odd, and he didn't want questions being posted to Jean and Michael because he knew damn well what would happen.

Twenty-nine minutes later he was stumbling out of the elevator to Gabe's apartment. He knocked on the door, five times in rapid succession, then two slow knocks. A kind of lovers code, he supposed. Nothing happened. Syro fished his old key to Gabe's apartment. He'd forgotten the last time he'd had to actually use it, because Gabe was almost always in. It took a few tries to fit it into the slot, because his vision was still a bit hazy. First fifteen tries it wouldn't go in because it was upside down, the last two because he was stabbing it into the woodwork by accident. When he finally got it in he pushed the door open slowly, wondering how he was going to explain away the partially mauled front door.

The creaky floorboard made him start suddenly, hitting his knee hard on the edge of a polished, chocolate-coloured table. He cursed and looked around carefully. Everything was in it's right place, nothing had moved except the golden-framed picture of Syro that used to be on the same wooden table that'd just injured him. He shrugged off the feeling that something was wrong. But what if... well, he hadn't seen his boyfriend in two weeks as he couldn't sneak out that often. What if Gabe'd gone to his house? And was waiting? What if Michael caught him lingering by the apple trees in their front yard, third to the right, closest to his bedroom window? Shit.

'Don't be stupid, Sy. He'd call you,' He reassured himself. It made him feel a bit better. He closed the door behind him and flicked on the lights because he'd watched way too many movies where people oh-so-stupidly leave the lights OFF, and the door OPEN, then walk further in to whichever place they had just entered without a second thought. He took great care to avoid all tables. There was no light coming from the kitchen, and no sound of water splashing... so Gabe couldn't be in the bath or the shower. His apartment was so small that you could hear when someone was in the bathroom having a bath, or shower, because whenever you turned the taps on the cold one started dripping and stayed dripping for the next god-knows-how-many-hours. Usually it drove Sy crazy but now he'd give anything to hear it, just to know that Gabe was in, or had been in recently. There were towels on Gabe's bed, pressed and clean, and flowers in the Chinese-style vase on the right hand desk. Odd. He never folded his towels like that... come to think of it, he didn't fold them at all. And he was allergic to pollen. So...?

It felt as if steel hands had closed around his windpipe. He couldn't breathe momentarily, panicking. He stepped into the front room. Everything had a thick film of dust on it, like...

Like it hadn't been cleaned in two weeks. In the kitchen, no food in the fridge or cupboards. No hair products in the bathroom. Syro sat down on the sofa, sending a cloud of dust into the air, staring at nothing in particular. He didn't even know he'd been crying until he felt the warm, salty tears dripping from his cheeks onto his open palms.

Gabe was gone.