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loved even deeper, and that was what drove him, even if he didn’t like to admit it none. Especially ‘cause he didn’t like to admit it.”  

Chapter 7
    London  
     
    There was a hard and insistent banging on the door of the flat. Stephen looked at the clock on the nightstand and got up, not believing that any bloke he knew would be rude enough to be pounding on his door at this ungodly hour. Even his closest neighbors wouldn’t be that uncouth unless it was an extreme emergency, and then they would likely be screaming about it at the top of their lungs.  
    When he got to the door and looked through the spy hole he froze at the sight that greeted him.  
    Dustin had left the flat several weeks before, shouting accusations and screaming vile things about feeling abused and molested after they had spent their first night together. Stephen had been utterly demolished. Not only with the harshness of Dustin’s departure, but also because he had opened himself up so much and had mistakenly thought it reciprocated.  
    He had felt an odd connection with Dustin from the very onset. So odd that he had been unable to put his thoughts into words, an utter first for him. Their shared night had left him with the only blank spot in a journal decades long. The fact that most of that night had been in almost total silence, and in complete and unreserved intimacy, only added to the mystery behind that void and his attraction to the bloke.  
    He sighed, unlatched the locks, and slowly opened the door, completely unable to explain why he was willing to put himself through another potential confrontation. His view through the spyhole had told him that there were obviously still some issues that Dustin was dealing with, and though Stephen didn’t know the particulars, he also couldn’t deny the tears running down Dustin’s downturned face.  
    He stood with the door in his hand and waited for a moment, but it didn’t seem that Dustin was willing to raise his eyes any further than the floor. Just as he was about to reach out to him, Dustin looked up with a barren weight of self loathing in his eyes so heavy it made Stephen worry that if he reached out in compassion, Dustin would step back, spin away, and never return. So he let Dustin cry for a moment while they stared at one another; let the night kiss Dustin’s tears and pull the scabs on the cuts deep in his heart.  
    Stupid fucking wanker , Stephen thought of himself. He realized why he opened the door now, he was already in love with this bloke, and that definitively couldn’t be explained.  
    How had Dustin’s needs on that first night so quickly and suddenly filled so deep a requisite in his own life? This wasn’t the usual longing for companionship that drove him out pub crawling. Their single night together had been beneath the surface of life, an invisible thing that Stephen couldn’t put his finger on, and he realized that was why he’d been unable to capture it in words. Maybe that was also why Dustin had run; maybe he had felt it too. And maybe it was that unseen thing that drove him back to Stephen’s flat again. Maybe.  
    But Stephen also understood that he couldn’t guide Dustin with this; couldn’t hold that nameless thing for him and could not steal all his misery away. He didn’t know how to do it for himself, so how could he do it for Dustin? Dustin had to grasp that reflection on his own and make it his reality. But that simple reflex was so hard for some people; so very hard...  
    “Dustin...”  
    The moment his name was out of Stephen’s mouth Dustin moved, smashing Stephen’s body face first into the wall as he pivoted and pinned Stephen from behind. Stephen heard the quick snitch of a knife unfold and suddenly wondered if he would die there; die because of his own loneliness and the loneliness of a man whose soul ached with the arid sands of pain and regret.  
    When the knife point pressed against his back and slid down to cut through the