Archive of Our Own

The thing was —

When Shane was six, and hockey was a new but not yet wonderful thing, he sat in the back of Mom's car listening to Depeche Mode, and counted down the lamposts leading to the Tim Hortons closest to the rink.

"So, Coach told me you did a really good job this season, Shane," Mom said.

"Yeah?" Shane perked up, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. His baby teeth had just begun to knock themselves loose, and so Shane was a gap-toothed wonder: the youngest and fastest member of his mini mites team. It was nice to be praised, Shane thought. It was nice to be good. He liked the feeling it sparked in him; that little golden bubble, warming him from where it sat tucked inside his chest.

"Yep." Mom stopped for a light. Shane kicked his legs against the leather of his seat — sharply, four times. There were seven street lamps left between the light and the Tim Hortons. "…You're having fun out there, right, Shane?"

"Uh huh," Shane said. He kicked his seat three more times and then stopped, shifting back and forth in his seat to try and get comfortable. Shane had never felt uncomfortable on a rink; hockey told him what it wanted from him, and Shane either did it or couldn't do it yet. The simplicity of it — puck, stick, ice — was nice, Shane thought. The world was quieter there, pared down to its simplest, most essential components. All Shane had to do is follow the signs. If someone was turning left, then Shane needed to figure out a way to move right. Where was the goalie? Shane needed to be where he wasn't.

The light turned green, and Mom urged the car onward. Shane counted lamppost number thirteen. Unlucky. He waited until fourteen came, and then said: "I like it a lot. S'nice."

"Just nice?" Mom asked. When Shane looked up, she was staring at him — little darting glances, as though trying to measure a pass — through the rearview mirror.

Shane laced his hands together in his lap, then unlaced them, and began to scratch at the soft skin beside his thumb. The motion loosened something inside of him — the back and forth rasp of his nail against the cuticle, and the way it changed. The way it shifted, from soft, barely there sensations, to the tugging, insistent reminder of pain.

"Um, I like…skating," Shane said. He pulled again at the flap of skin, now coming loose. There was blood beading up, almost invisible against the fresh, raw pink of his new skin. "The ice is really nice."

"You like the ice, huh? What's the best part?" Mom asked. It reminded Shane of school and the way the teachers asked their questions: coaxing and prodding, already pointed in a fixed direction. Sometimes, Shane had the answers. It felt, often, like he didn't. His stomach flipped at the memory.

"Um," Shane said. He stared down at the blood on his thumb. When he pressed another finger into it, the little bubble burst, red rivulets spilling across his nail and down the side of his thumb. It hurt, searing like the sunburn Shane had gotten last summer, when he'd fallen asleep outside the cottage in Lanaudière, and hadn't heard Mom asking him to come in for more sunscreen.

He'd missed three lamp posts, Shane realized, glancing back the way they'd come. The stoplight was a gray blur in the background, now holding up another procession of cars. They were almost at Tim Hortons.

"Shane?"

"I 'unno," Shane whispered. He didn't know how many lamp posts were left. There was blood on his gray sweatpants now, the nice ones he'd gotten for Christmas last year, which had quickly been forgotten when Dad had shown him his new pads. It had been seven at the light, and Shane had counted — three, maybe four? Shane bit his lower lip and tried to grasp the memory; to rewind it, like a game tape, and watch the posts pass by in reverse.

They pulled into the Tim's drive through. Shane slumped into his seat as Mom rolled down the window, leaning halfway out to order their usual post-practice snack at the speaker. A double-double and a french cruller for her, and a kid's cup of Timbits for him, glazed only. Shane hated the way the sprinkle Timbits crunched. The chocolate ones were too sweet.

Mom parked their car at the gas station afterwards. She shifted in her seat, turning around to hand Shane his snack, and then stopped, mouth half-open.

"You're bleeding!" She said, and set the cup back into its holder. "When did that happen, I don't remember you bleeding when we left the rink?"

"Dunno," Shane said, quietly. His pointer fingernail was red, the blood already crusted underneath. There was a dark, rusty splotch on his sweatpants, and he picked at it, worrying the wet fabric between his fingers. Would it ever come out? Shane remembered his teacher complaining about pasta sauce — tomato, because he could smell it across the classroom — never washing out from a white blouse. There was something about red, Shane reasoned, that made it hard to wash out. It stayed and it stained. It turned dark and inky. It wanted to stick around. It wanted you to know it had been there.

Shane squished his bleeding thumb into the stain. The sensation made his skin crawl, but he rubbed it around anyway, hoping to pick up any of the blood that had yet to leach through.

"Don't do that, don't do that," Mom scolded, batting his hands away gently. She tsk'd as she turned Shane's hand over in hers. "Oh, Shane. I told you, didn't I? You've got to stop doing this. Picking at your cuticles like that is just gonna make things worse, honey."

"M'sorry." Shane tucked his hands underneath his butt when Mom gave them back. He stared down at the dark stain on his nice, new sweatpants, and tried not to be upset about it. It was his fault. Mom had already told him no.

"Well, the proof's in the pudding," Mom said, the words rote, almost sing-song. "Don't pick at it anymore. We'll patch you up when we get home." She looked back at him again, and Shane caught the way her eyes lingered on the splotch of blood, a beacon against the heather gray of his pants. "I'll also throw those pants into the wash." Mom sighed, and finally handed him his cup of Timbits. "Don't worry, Shane. It'll wash right out. Just don't touch it, okay, baby?"

"Okay," Shane muttered. He took the Timbits from her, and carefully pushed the cup into its holder in the little pocket in the door. The outside of the cup had been sticky with glaze, left by someone else's hand. Shane felt it joining the thin crust of blood on his fingers. If he put them in his mouth, he would taste it all: the coppery tang of the blood and the cloying sweetness of the sour cream glaze, all mashed together.

Shane stared at the stain all the way home. Weeks later, long after it had gone through the spin cycle — not once, but twice — he thought he could still see the shape of it. It was fuzzy and faded, but still there, now a part of his sweatpants. Like Peter Pan and his shadow: cleaved but never separated. Impossible, really, to truly take apart.

Sometimes, Rozanov fucked Shane as though he was chasing something. They were hockey players — neither of them strangers to pain, nor the things that brought it — so Shane knew that there wasn't much that Rozanov could dish that he couldn't take.

"Take it, fucking take it," Rozanov panted above him. The percussive slap of skin on skin bordered on obscene. Shane felt as though he was being set on fire — a controlled burn. Rozanov was the match and the fire and the person setting it. It was a blunt-force solution to a many layered, complex problem. A stopgap for an unsolvable equation.

Earlier in the evening, Rozanov had kissed Shane against the wide windows of his living room. He had slid his palms underneath the thick weave of Shane's henley and rested them, splayed possessively wide, across Shane's ribcage. They had both known where the night was heading — with Shane face down, ass up in Rozanov's cavernous bedroom, Rozanov hissing dirty little ditties from above him.

But before they got there, Rozanov broke the kiss. He was still running his hands up and down Shane's sides. "I have a game," Rozanov said, walking Shane toward his room.

They were always playing games, Shane thought. On ice and off it. Sometimes it felt as if they were always tripping, stumbling like children over a new rule, the world shifting, monumental, with each discovery.

Rozanov threw Shane onto his bed with a firm shove. "I think you will let me fuck you dry," he cooed, dangling the bottle of lube above Shane's head, as though he were a hypnotist and it, a fucked up pendulum.

"You're fucking crazy," Shane spit. His face felt so fucking warm, as though he'd run an entire marathon, right then and there.

"Maybe," Rozanov agreed, his smile very wide and almost all teeth. "But I also know you, Shane Hollander." He said Shane's name slowly; rolled through each drawn out syllable with a languid, easy sort of sensuality. "You are hungry for it."

"For what?" Shane asked. His mouth was dry.

Rozanov reached down with his spare hand, palming at the thick line of his cock in his trackpants, the movement douchey and obscene. This, his smirk said.

"Fuck off. Your dick's not that good, asshole," Shane lied. He looked away, pressing his face into the pillow underneath his head, and tried to will away his own growing erection.

Rozanov leaned in close. "Liar," he whispered. They were of a size and a height, but like this, he felt so much bigger — all-encompassing, penning Shane into the darkness of his arms. Rozanov smelled like old cigarettes and his warm, woodsy cologne. Shane wanted to lick the taste of him from the shadowed hollow of his throat.

Rozanov crawled over him. He hovered above Shane's neck and mouth, his curls a golden halo in the lamplight, and then ground his dick, still clothed, against Shane's nose and cheek. Shane gasped at the contact — the sudden heat, burning like a furnace, that singed the inside of his nose, then tugged at the corner of his lips. It was an awkward angle, but it did what Rozanov had intended.

"You like it," Rozanov murmured. He nudged his cock closer to Shane's half-opened mouth. The fabric of his sweats caught on the crease where Shane's upper and lower lips met, and Shane swallowed, suddenly salivating. He was a dog beneath the dinner table: drooling and panting as it sat on its haunches. Hoping, desperately, that something would drop low enough that it could open its maw and swallow, greedy and unsatisfied. "Don't lie to me, Hollander, I know you like it."

Shane mashed his face desperately into Rozanov's pillow as he tried to squirm further away from Rozanov's dick. He could feel the heat of it, like a brand, and the weight of it, embodied. Shane thought he could even feel the blood as it pumped into it, making Rozanov hotter and harder, as though he were a star on the cusp of becoming a supernova. Nine goals, one for each inch of the dick you want, Rozanov had texted him once. Shane had never quite believed him until now.

"I — don't," he groaned.

"No?" Rozanov asked, coy. He shifted, the hot line of his cock dragging across Shane's cheek and the bridge of his nose. This close, Shane could smell him through his pants, musky and almost sour, in that way bodies always were at their core. His breath shuddered, and Shane squeezed his eyes shut, desperately trying to avoid looking — and then there was no sensation at all. The bed creaked, and the heat vanished. Some of the winter chill crept in, present despite it all.

Shane turned to look. Rozanov was sitting at the foot of the bed, criss-crossed, his eyes flinty as he stared at Shane. Shane tore his gaze away from him, eyes flickering to the bottle of lube still in Rozanov's hand. He passed it from one hand to another, the arc of each toss small but precise.

"What—?"

Rozanov looked at him. He held the lube up, letting it really catch the light. The liquid moved and winked at Shane as Rozanov swung the bottle back and forth between two fingers, the movement languid and mocking. "I think lube is for good boys," Rozanov said.

"I—" Shane licked his lips. He looked at the bottle, and then back at Rozanov, whose eyes had gone dark and intent. Rozanov's cock was still hard, Shane realized. It was a thick, insistent bulge, obvious where it lay against Rozanov's muscled thigh. The fabric of his track pants were pulled tight over the meat of it, making Rozanov's hardness somehow even more obscene. "I'm —"

"Good? No." Rozanov tsked. "No, not at all. If you were good, you would not lie to me."

"Fuck off," Shane hissed. He could feel the sting of humiliation; it sat hot and high in the apples of his cheeks. "You're a fucking animal. Who — who just does that?"

Rozanov cocked his head. "That? What is this that, Hollander? You will have to be more specific. My English, you know." He shrugged. "Is not so good."

Shane scoffed, swallowing wetly as he looked away. There were seven lamps in Rozanov's bedroom. Two mounted on either side of Rozanov's bed. One tucked in the corner between a window and a dresser. Another beside the door leading to the bathroom. A lamp that was more globe than bulb, nestled in a gleaming chrome cage atop Rozanov's dresser. Another floor lamp, this one behind the leather armchair angled toward the bed. The final one wasn't really a lamp: it was a candle, the triple-wicked kind. Its light cast strange, flickering shadows across Rozanov's headboard, and it made the entire room smell of sandalwood and smoke. In an hour's time, maybe two, it would be the only thing keeping Rozanov's bedroom from smelling like sex — damp and overripe, two bodies left too long in the summer sun.

"Hollander," Rozanov said, sing-song. "What is so interesting about my candle? Hm?" He was lounging, legs spread. There was a dusting of golden hair on his belly, Shane noticed. It was like a helpful little path: follow this way, to his dick. "Will candle give you what you want?"

"Fuh — fuck off," Shane whined. "I don't — you can't —" He had never taken anything without lube. Rozanov already burned with it. He was big — not that Shane would have ever told him that — thick and long, and every time Rozanov finally shut the fuck up and started to fuck him, Shane felt as though the air was being pushed from him to make space for Rozanov's cock.

"I can't?"

Shane thought about Rozanov fucking him without lube. It would burn, worse than it ever had before — Shane thought that it might be like the burn of a muscle, pushed to the edge of exhaustion. It would hurt, too. Shane would have to endure Rozanov fighting his way in, inch after agonizing inch. He would have to bite down the instinct to cower away from it, would have to white-knuckle his way through the slow, sinuous drag of Rozanov's cock, in and out of him.

Shane bit his lip. He worried it between his teeth until the barely-healed scab from the elbow he'd taken to the face earlier in the night split open. Shane swallowed down the blood, and it scalded him.

"You know what I think?" Rozanov asked, eyes intent. Shane watched as he pushed a hand down his pants, gripping himself inside of his boxers. "I think you want this."

"I don't," Shane lied.

"I think you do." Rozanov began to jack himself off. Shane dug his teeth into his split lip, and let the hot pulse of pain lance through him. His dick twitched in his briefs. "I think you want me to take you—" Rozanov groaned, the bulge of what had to be his thumb swiping over the weeping head of his cock. He was so far away; Shane was cold from the distance. "Would not be hard. You get so wet, Hollander. Wet like girl."

Shane rubbed his legs together as a familiar heat blossomed in the pit of his stomach. "I'm not a fucking girl," he said.

"No. I said wet like one. Keep — keep up, Hollander." Rozanov threw his head back. His hand was moving faster, each tugging motion more violent. Shane was rock hard and desperate; he could feel the slow trickle of precome beading at the tip of his own cock. His own breathing was so loud in his ears — he was panting, overheated, as though he had just skated a full shift.

"You want this." It wasn't a question. "Say it. Say it, or I come like this, Hollander. Say it or else I will not fuck you tonight. You want this."

"I —" Shane wanted to reach for his own cock. He wanted to slip his hand underneath the band of his briefs and feel his own length, searing in the palm of his hand. Maybe it would feel like nothing at all: Shane felt as though he was boiling, a stoppered kettle atop a hot stove, something pressurized and fit to burst.

They locked eyes from across the bed. Rozanov let his mouth drop open, his neck a long, golden strip in the lamplight.

"I want it," Shane blurted. He was starving — he was flush with hunger and heat, desperate and squirming and wet, just as Rozanov had said. The word, the thought of it, made him squirm. "I want it, please, I want it."

"Want what?"

"Your cock," Shane pleaded. "Please. Please."

Rozanov smiled, white and nasty. He slid his hand from his pants, agonizingly slow, and raised it as though surrendering. His fingers and palm were slick, gleaming with his precome, and Shane desperately wanted to lick it off him.

Then, he kicked the bottle of lube off the bed. Shane made a choked off, questioning noise.

"No lube," Rozanov said, and crawled across his duvet to hover over Shane. "I told you." He was so close, his breath ghosting across Shane’s skin.

"No," Shane moaned, breath hitching as Rozanov lathed a tongue over his nipple. "No, I didn't—"

"Told you, told you," Rozanov murmured, giddy off his own victory, "knew you would beg, knew would let me, I knew." He tugged Shane's briefs lower, pulling blindly at them until Shane reached down and kicked them off himself, too dizzy with arousal to care much about where they landed.

Rozanov's finger was warm and dry. He stroked and circled around the pucker of Shane's hole, ignoring the way Shane desperately bucked up, trying to rut his cock against the hard plane of Rozanov's stomach.

"Shh." Rozanov prodded the same finger against Shane's lips. "Suck. Lightly." Shane took the finger into his mouth eagerly; he ran his tongue up the length of it, hollowed his cheeks and sucked, as though it was Rozanov's cock and not his finger. "Good."

The praise settled, gently golden in the pit of Shane's stomach.

It burned when Rozanov pressed his finger in.

It might as well have been dry. He gasped, the sound punched from him, the further in Rozanov got: tip, then knuckle, then root. Shane could feel every bit of resistance his body had to offer.

"Hurts." Shane squirmed on Rozanov's finger. He wanted more. He wanted the heat of it, he wanted the burn, the way it felt to be cored open and empty, waiting desperately for more.

Rozanov wormed another finger into him in response. He was muttering nonsense into the meat of Shane's pec; fluttering little whispers that tickled and left a hot dampness behind. When he scissored his fingers apart, Shane kicked out instinctively. It tugged, made him feel raw and sore. There was nothing cool to soothe the ache; no lube, dripping from his ass or Rozanov's fingers. There was only the sticky heat of Shane's guts and the barely-there whisper of his drool, already dried on Rozanov's fingers.

Shane tossed his head, a beast in distress. “Hurts.” Rozanov's fingers twisted and crooked inside of him, each movement like being dragged by the ankle down asphalt. "Hurts, hurts, hurtshurtshurtshurts —"

Rozanov pushed off of him, and then spit — a loud, guttural hock — straight onto Shane's hole. Shane shrieked at the sudden sensation, the cold drip of it shocking. He thought, delirious as Rozanov pressed a third finger into him, pushing the glob of spit in with it, that you might be able to cook an egg atop of him. Shane felt as though he were catching on fire, and Rozanov hadn't even put his dick in him yet.

"Told you, you could take it," Rozanov muttered. He sounded concussed. "Told you, I told you." He groaned, low and long, and pulled his fingers from Shane's ass. "Look at you. Slut."

"M'not," Shane said. "I'm not, I'm not —"

"Slut." Rozanov rose to his knees, ignoring the way Shane keened when he took his fingers out. Shane watched as he shucked his wife beater off, then pushed his pants and briefs down around his knees in one smooth motion. His cock sprung loose, red and hard, precome catching the light. "I know you are." Rozanov reached over and grabbed Shane's cock — Shane sobbed at the contact, whining and writhing as Rozanov kept him pinned, one large hand pressing down on his stomach like a warning — and squeezed, tight and mean.

"Fuck!" Shane saw stars. He jerked, knee grazing Rozanov's side. "Fuck," Shane panted. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Let go. Oh my God, let go. Please, let go, it hurts, you're hurting me, let go!" Rozanov squeezed harder, as if testing him, and Shane moaned, high and reedy. His dick felt like it was about to pop. "Please, please, oh God, please."

Rozanov leaned in close. "Liar," he whispered.

"Please," Shane sobbed. "Please." He tossed his head, a fish in a net, as Rozanov's grip, somehow, tightened. There was a mechanical buzzing, growing in his ears, and every pant felt fever-hot. Shane wondered if it was possible to die from this: too much sensation, pressure, heat.

Rozanov's cock was a burning line where it laid, hard and leaking, on Shane's stomach. "Wan' it." Shane thought he could cry from how badly. "Wan' it, please. Please. Please, I want it."

"You can have it—" Shane nodded, squeezing scalding hot tears from his eyes. Thank you, he wanted to say. Thank you, thank you, thank you. "—just like this," Rozanov finished. He swept his hand up, over the head of Shane's cock, then held it out like an offering, precome dripping onto Shane's chest.

Rozanov pulled back. He set his hand atop his cock, and wrenched it down, the movement painfully slow. It would hurt, Shane knew. It would hurt like Rozanov's fingers had, but worse: the burn would linger. Maybe, Shane thought, he would even bleed.

He let Rozanov in anyway. Rozanov pressed his dick up against Shane's hole, the tip blunt and just the slightest bit wet. When Rozanov breached him, pushing in the same as he always did, Shane felt something in him catch alight. He shook and strained, toes catching and curling against the duvet, little bitten-down whimpers escaping the deeper Rozanov got. The slowness of it almost hurt more. This way, Shane could feel every yielding inch; the way Rozanov made a space for himself within Shane, that burning, carved-into sensation of his body giving in.

Here was the softest part of himself, the wrung-out, strung-out truth of him. This was the animal that lived in Shane's breast; the dog that sat underneath the table, begging for scraps, chasing the flame-like lick of the belt, and yelping as though the hit was unwanted, undeserved.

The rubber band stretched, strained, and then snapped. Shane was sobbing now, loudly and openly, tears boiling as they slid down his cheeks and gathered in the dip of his Cupid's bow. "Take it, fucking take it," Rozanov panted above him. It was the only thing Shane understood. Rozanov leaned down, mashing their lips together messily, licking, slobbering, into the gaping-O of Shane's mouth.

"Fuck," Rozanov groaned, the word slipping sideways into a guttural moan, more noise than language. "Fuck, Hollander, fuck."

He nipped at Shane's lower lip, and Shane tasted blood. When Rozanov pulled away, there was blood on his lips too. Cross-eyed, Shane saw it, so dark in the nighttime that it was almost black, caught up in the strand of spit that hung between his lips and Rozanov's, like some kind of fucked-up red string.

Rozanov came quietly. Shane felt it when he hit the precipice: the way Rozanov lost his rhythm, which had already been more a suggestion than anything, and then shuddered, pressing deeper and harder into Shane. Then, he ripped his dick free, the motion violent and sudden, and came — scalding spurts of cum, all over Shane's chest and face.

Shane laid there, open-mouthed and panting, his head spinning from every sensation pulling, insistently, at him. He couldn't categorize them all. There was Rozanov's cum, dripping down the plush swell of his pecs, mixing with the spit and blood on Shane's lips. There was the cored-out emptiness inside of him, that sort of gaping, wanting feeling that Shane had become well acquainted with. There was the thrumming buzz that was growing inside of him. And there was the hot, painful edge of his untended arousal. Shane hadn't come yet. He hadn't been able to.

Rozanov panted. His curls were dark with sweat, stuck to his forehead in strange patterns. He smeared his cum across Shane's face with a single finger, a distant look in his eyes, and then gingerly reached down, back between Shane's shaking legs.

Shane moaned as Rozanov's cum-covered finger brushed across his hole — the sore unfurling of it — and then pushed in, barely a stretch and not even a burn.

"Can come like this," Rozanov said, pensive. His voice was hoarse. "I think you can." He stroked around Shane's insides, the glide unbearably smooth compared to what had been inside of Shane, only moments before.

"Please," Shane begged. He wanted to buck up, to press his dick against Rozanov's stomach and rut against it as though he were an animal: something mindlessly seeking its own pleasure. He twisted his hands into the sheets.

"Okay," Rozanov said. He reached up and took Shane in hand. His palm was dry and body-warm. "You were good, yes?" Shane nodded wordlessly, Rozanov blurry through his tears. "Took me very well. Did not even come without permission."

"You know," Rozanov continued, as though he didn't have Shane's dick in the palm of his hand, "you are soft down here?" He pressed his finger up inside of Shane, the motion searching. "Not wet, no. But soft." Rozanov's nail grazed over that sensitive spot inside of him, and Shane choked out a moan, the sound garbled. "Next time, I will fuck you until you are — what is word? Gaped?"

He smiled down at Shane. Rozanov's eyes were so blown out, the pupils so wide and dark, that Shane thought he could see his own reflection in them. "Come, now," Rozanov ordered, his voice like silk.

The world went golden and bright behind his eyes — like something exploding, or something bursting into being. Shane sobbed out something that might have been an agreement and, on command, came — his dick still in Rozanov's open hand.

Afterwards, Rozanov cleaned Shane's cum off his hand, and kicked off his pants to amble off, naked, to the en suite. He returned with a damp hand towel, and began wiping Shane down. He started with slow even strokes, soft across Shane's face, and then down his chest, where Rozanov's cum had started to dry and flake off. Shane laid there and let him, his head still spinning from the force of his orgasm. He felt lazy and sated — a cat, lying in a beam of afternoon sun.

When Rozanov got between Shane's legs, he frowned. "Hm," he said, and grazed the towel over Shane's sensitive hole. "No lube was sexy, but maybe we need for next time." He held the cloth up. There were little splotches of blood on it — small, not even the size of a fingernail. "You did not tell me you teared."

"It's tore," Shane croaked. He frowned at the blood on the washcloth. "And I didn't notice. I mean, I didn't feel anything." It felt good, he didn't say. Rozanov was still staring at the bloodstains with an emotion Shane was certain was horror. It had felt good. The stretch, the burn, the way that Shane had to earn the intrusion — had to earn Rozanov's dick, and the sweet relief that came with it.

"Hm." Rozanov wiped at the insides of Shane's thighs, the motions perfunctory. It was late, late enough that there was no light to reflect off the snow outside anymore. Each of the seven lamps — six lamps, one candle — in Rozanov's room cast a warm glow, illuminating the sweat that had gathered on his brow, and in the dip of his clavicle. The candle had burned low, and the smell of sandalwood was stronger, now — just barely buried under the stench of sex and sweat.

"I'm gonna shower," Shane said, sitting up. His legs felt like jelly. His ass was on fire — that deep burn of exertion that he had always associated with a workout, or a particularly grueling game.

Rozanov stared at him, expression inscrutable. He was still holding the washcloth in one hand. Shane could see the bloodstains from here — little drops of red, almost neon against the white terrycloth.

"You can stand?" he finally asked.

Shane pushed himself, fawn-like, to his feet. “Fuck off.”

It took a second to find his footing — Shane hadn't felt like this since the first time Rozanov had been inside of him: wobbly and weak, as though he had just come off a week's journey at sea. Shane braced himself against Rozanov's nightstand, and pointedly did not look his way. The candle, its three wicks still lit, winked at him, still a bright, orange flame. There was an oily puddle beneath it, now, reflecting the night in a dark sheen.

Shane leaned over and blew the candle out. The flames guttered, then died, and Shane watched as wisps of gray smoke curled up from the dead wicks. Now the room smelled of smoke too, like the moment after a fireplace went cold.

He limped past Rozanov to the en suite, and shut the door behind him. Rozanov's bathroom was all gray marble and dark penny tile. He had a massive mirror that nearly stretched the length of one wall, and Shane stared at himself in it. His lip, he realized, was bleeding too — sluggishly, the place where it had split already halfway scabbed.

Shane pressed a finger to it. It was tender to the touch, and it hurt like a bruise. Shane pressed harder, then tugged, one finger pushing the skin until it went taught — the pain sharpening to a point — and then split, bleeding anew. Shane licked it up. It tasted like copper: cold, and a little dull.

"Idiot," Shane told his reflection. He turned on Rozanov's shower and stepped under the spray.

It was ice cold.

But it was also —

Shane was thirteen the first time he took a hit hard enough to lay him out on the ice. It happened so suddenly: one moment, Shane was flying through the neutral zone, tape-to-puck, and the next he was hitting the floor, a strange ringing noise in his ears.

Shane was breathless, all of sudden. Winded and nauseous, his nose pressed to the ice as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to coax air back into his lungs. Fuck, he thought, spitting out his mouthguard as he coughed. Fuck. His helmet felt too tight. His face was burning. And he could feel the ice through his jersey, the chill a shocking point of contrast.

A ref skated over to check on him. His body blotted out the overhead lights as he leaned over Shane, silver whistle dangling between them. "Can you stand?" The ref asked.

"Yeah," Shane said. He pushed himself to his feet. There was a scraped, burning feeling across his chin — which had hit the ice as he'd skidded across it — and dull, pulsing tightness across his right side. But he could stand. "I can play."

The ref gave him a once over. Shane tugged his glove off with his teeth and wiped one hand under his nose, snuffling wetly. He could hear the faint sound of Mom arguing with someone: maybe it was Coach or maybe it was the parent of whichever kid had checked him. Shane wasn't sure he cared. "I can play," he said, louder this time. "I feel fine."

"Go to your coach, kid," the ref said. He raised his voice, his next words louder: "Forty-seven — charging, two minute minor." Shane watched as the kid turned from where he was talking, shoulder to shoulder with his teammate, goggling in open disbelief at the ref.

"It wasn't on purpose!" He yelled. Shane started to skate back towards the bench. "I barely clipped him, he's like ten years old, that's the only reason he fuckin' flew like that!"

"Two minutes, forty-seven," the ref repeated tersely. "Let's not hold up the game."

Shane's back hit the boards softly. When he turned, Coach was staring at him from the other side. "Rough hit," he said.

"I'm okay." Shane shrugged, and slid back onto the bench. He was the youngest on the team by a longshot, and he thought he could feel it now, the years between him and his teammates like a lodestone. "It happens."

"Dude, it was crazy," one of the oldest boys, Davies, leaned forward, looking down at Shane across the bench. His eyes were wide and Shane thought he looked reluctantly impressed. "I mean, I thought for sure you weren't getting up."

"He threw you pretty far," Michel Dagenais chimed in from beside him. He was one of Shane's linemates — and Davies' before that, at least until Shane had been catapulted up into their division, forcing Davies down to 2C. They had both been icy to Shane all season. Davies refused to sit next to him on the bus. Dagenais only passed to Shane when pressed for options — and when Shane scored, they both always avoided touching him during the celly. "But you recovered well, Hollander."

"Yeah," Davies said. "Pretty fuckin' good, Hollzy."

"Hollzy?" Shane asked.

"Well, Holly's a girl's name," Davies said. "Dunno why they went with that in your old peewee team, but whatever. You're not playing with 'em anymore."

They didn't call me Holly, Shane wanted to say. He looked down at his feet. There was still fresh powder on his skates, glittering as it caught the light. Shane tapped the butt of his stick against his blades to shake it off — two times on each skate, just to be safe. "Thanks," he said instead. "Let's, uh, let's crush them."

Davies grinned. He had braces, the bands the same dark red as their jerseys. It was the nicest expression he had made toward Shane all season. "Atta boy, Hollzy." Davies leaned back and snaked an arm around Dagenais' back to grip the top of Shane's helmet and shake, like a dog with a bone.

"Davies, Meisner, Brulotte, you're up," Coach said, and tapped Davies on the back.

Dagenais knocked his stick against Davies'. "Kill 'em, man," he said, then looked back at Shane. "Gotta get them back for knocking Hollander on his face, right?"

Shane brushed a hand against his chin. It stung, rubbed raw in a way that had Shane blinking back tears. Davies slid off the bench and vaulted the boards, skating quickly toward center ice.

They won the game. 3-2, and Shane had scored the winning goal — a beautiful shot to top shelf that his line had barrelled into him for. Ellerman, the left winger, had screamed incoherently into Shane's ear, talking so fast that Shane only caught every third word.

Dagenais skated into the celly too. He slung an arm around Shane's shoulders, the motion easy, almost practiced. It was as if he hadn't spent the past two months acting like Shane had the plague. "Beaut of a goal, Hollander," Dagenais said. The arm of his kit stuck to the back of Shane's sweaty neck. Shane could feel his body heat through the fabric. It radiated from him, bleeding through.

Shane looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"Totally." Dagenais pressed closer to him. They were penned in on all sides now, their teammates piling onto the ice from the bench, giddy from the win. Someone was yelling about going to a sugar shack after. Another guy was complaining loudly about a dirty backcheck in the second period. The noise folded into itself, words blurring into pure sound until all Shane could hear was his own breathing and Dagenais' vaguely Quebecois accent as he said: "You were really good out there."

Shane smiled at him, closed lipped and a little shy. He felt warm; bubbly and golden, as though spring had come early, and Shane was standing in season's first ray of sunlight.

He turned to Daganais to say thank you, because it was polite — but before he could, another boy crashed into their huddle. Dagenais stumbled forward, his arm hooking tighter around Shane's neck, and his stick knocking into the sore stripe that ran up and down Shane's side. A lick of pure heat raced up Shane's ribs. He couldn't help the tiny gasp that burst from him as it did.

Dagenais stared at him, wide-eyed. "Shit, sorry." He jockied back against the boys pressing into them, unwinding his arm from around Shane's neck. They stood apart, still in the center of the team's celly. "Sorry. I didn't mean to hit you there."

Shane pressed a hand to the tender spot, just atop his lower ribs. The pressure brought pain with it, too. "It's okay," he said, a little teary eyed. "I'm okay."

"Really?" Dagenais asked. "Are you — are you sure?"

"I'm fine." The team was beginning to line up for a handshake, clusters of boys slipping away from their victory celly in fits and spurts. Shane spotted Davies lingering nearby, watching them placidly as he leaned against his stick. "I'm fine."

Dagenais nodded at him. "If you're sure," he said. He started to skate away, drifting backwards toward where Davies was waiting, still watching. "Seriously, Hollander — good game today. It was a tight one, but you really came through for us."

He reached over and gently tapped at Shane's ribs with his stick. Shane inhaled sharply. "Got a trophy for it and everything, too." Dagenais grinned. "Tough guy. You're really playing with the big boys now, Hollander."

"We gotta line up, dude," Davies hollered. "Can you guys stop gossiping like fucking girls?"

Dagenais gestured toward where the team was waiting with a jerk of his chin. "Coming?" he asked.

Shane nodded. "Yeah," he said. He skated half a step behind Dagenais. "I'm coming."

They shook hands in a line, sweaty palm to sweaty palm. The boy who had knocked Shane to the ice — just forty-seven, since Shane still didn't know his name — didn't look Shane in the eye when it was their turn to shake. He just took Shane's hand in his and jerked it up, then down, his grip bruisingly tight.

Shane shook his hand out after, frowning down at it. It was a little pink around the sides — though if that was from the cold or the grip, Shane really couldn't tell.

"Asshole," Davies remarked as they all piled off the ice. "Betcha he's feeling real embarrassed about that hit, eh, Hollzy?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know — he knocked you around like that and didn't even manage to get his team a goal after." Davies smiled meanly. "You're pretty tough, huh?"

"I guess." Shane sat heavy on the bleachers, bending down to unlace his skates. His side pulled and burned, the ache growing stronger the further down he went. "I mean, it's just — hockey."

Davies hummed. "Okay, sure." He clapped a hand, hard, on Shane's back. Shane twitched at the contact — the sharp sting of Davies' palm against his back, which he could feel through his pads. "See ya later, Hollzy. Good game and all that!"

Davies clumped away, cutting up across the stands to where Dagenais and a handful of the other boys were waiting. Shane watched them from his seat down low. They gathered around each other like the birds around the fountain Dad had put up in their backyard. They chattered and jockied for space, each of them flush, golden with victory.

Mom sat down next to him as he finished stripping off his skates. She set his sneakers down next to his feet, wordlessly packing his skates in their bag. "Nasty hit," she said, after a long moment. "I can't believe that ref only gave him a minor!"

"It's fine, Mom," Shane muttered. "Seriously, I'm okay. It's whatever." He pulled his jersey up over his head and folded it carefully before he gave it to Mom. She handed him his hoodie in exchange — it smelled like detergent and dryer sheets, that warm and toasty scent that Shane always associated with fresh laundry.

Mom clucked at him, her fingers ghosting over his ribs. "That's gonna be a bad one," she mused, pressing a single finger into the dead center of the forming bruise.

Shane yelped, the sound echoing off the rink's rafters. "Mom!"

"What?" Mom raised her hands in faux surrender. "You said it was fine, so I was just checking to be sure."

"So you hit me?"

"I did not hit you, Shane, don't be dramatic." Mom rolled her eyes. "Now come on — it's clearly not fine. I want to get home so you can put some ice on that, okay? And then I'm going to call Coach LaBelle and ask him what the hell he was thinking not contesting that penalty call. Two minutes my ass, that was clearly a major and they both know it."

"Don't," Shane blurted, his head only halfway through his hoodie. "Mom seriously, don't." He pulled his head through. She was staring at him, brows knit. "Mom. Seriously. I'm fine."

"Shane," Mom said, slowly. "You're going to have bruises up and down your side." She leaned in and swiped her thumb across his chin. Shane hissed, tears beading in the corners of his eyes as he squirmed away, trying to escape her touch. "And you're bleeding."

Her thumb was stained red. It was just a faint wash, obvious in the little whorls of her thumbprint and nowhere else, but Shane stared down at it for a moment, silent. He pressed the back of his hand to his chin again. It burned, that same sunburn sensation as before.

"Oh. I didn't know." Shane rubbed his hand against it, harder this time. "I didn't even realize." He shook his head. "Seriously Mom, it's fine. I mean, it's like you said — it's just hockey, right? The physicality— it's like, part of the game."

"So are penalties for excessive physicality," Mom argued. She stood, shouldering Shane's gear bag. "I don't like the precedent this sets, letting older boys — I don't know — throw you to the ground like that."

"It's just the game, Mom." Shane followed her down toward the tunnel. "I'm — I'm in the older kids' league, now. They can't just avoid checking me like I'm still a peewee, that's not how that works. Besides," he added, ears warm with the memory, "Dagenais, he said it was kind of like a trophy."

"Oh, did he?" Mom let him push the door to the parking lot open. The air was cold and smelled like winter. They were on the cusp of it now, that in-between season where the trees were either ablaze with the last of the autumn foliage, or barren and spindly — witch's fingers, reaching for the cloudy sky. "A trophy, huh?"

"Yeah." Shane placed his gear bag into the trunk. "I mean. You know. It's like I'm starting to play for real."

Mom hummed. "Seatbelt, Shane," she reminded him, the car sputtering beneath them as she turned her key in the ignition. "I still think I should say something."

"Don't," Shane begged. "Mom, seriously. Don't. That's so embarrassing. Everyone's gonna think I'm a baby. That, that I can't even take a hit."

"You're thirteen." Mom turned onto the main road. Shane leaned against the passenger window, the glass cool to the touch. He idly brushed a finger over the abrasion on his chin. It tingled. He ran a nail across it and let it catch on the dried parts — the places where soon it would start to scab.

Mom swatted blindly at him. "Shane! Would you stop picking at that? My God." She took a deep breath. "I know you're excited about getting bumped up a division. And I'm also excited about it. Okay?"

"Okay."

"And you're a great player, Shane. Seriously, I know I sound biased, but I'm not. They'd have to be blind not to see that you're the fastest kid out there. Most skilled too — I mean, God knows you handle your stick far better than that stonehands, Davies. How he only got bumped down to second line, I swear to God, I'll never know. But that's besides the point. You're gonna go and do incredible things, Shane. You're gonna play some amazing hockey, I just know it." They rolled to a slow stop at a light. Mom looked at him across the console, her expression distorted through the reflection in the glass. "Just — look at me, Shane. Please? Look me in the eyes."

Shane peeled his forehead from the window. He locked eyes with her for a moment, then looked away, gaze settling somewhere just above her right ear.

"Shane," Mom said. "You're gonna be amazing. You already are. Nobody works harder than you. Nobody wants this more than you. But I want to make sure, as your mom, that you're not taking stupid hits that keep you from playing to your potential. Okay?"

"Okay."

"So, I'm just gonna bring it up to Coach LaBelle at practice tomorrow."

Shane groaned. "Oh my God, Mom, no!" He slumped over in the seat, chewing miserably on one hoodie string. "Look, this is the first time something like this happened, so — I don't know, can you just wait and see if it's actually all that bad?"

"Shane, you have bruises up and down your side!"

"Okay? So does half the team by the time the season comes to an end. I'm not, like, special. This is actually pretty normal, if you think about it."

Shane tried to imagine Davies' and Dagenais' reactions if Mom went and complained to Coach LaBelle. There was a chance that today had been a fluke — the ice thawing momentarily, only to freeze over again — but if it wasn't, Shane knew that making a big deal out of a stupid bruise was a surefire way to lose any new ground he'd uncovered with the team. See ya later, Hollzy! Good game! Davies had said. Dagenais had thrown an arm around him — had brought Shane into the celly. Got a trophy for it and everything, he'd said. Tough guy.

"I don't know, Shane, I really think —"

"Mom," Shane interrupted. "If it happens next time we play, you can talk to Coach about it. But all the other guys get checked, take hits — I mean, we're not kids anymore. It's a part of the game." He rubbed one foot against his ankle, and shifted, feeling the way the forming bruises tugged and burned. He had played hard; he had earned them. "I got the wind knocked out of me and I'll have some gnarly bruises for a bit. S'no big deal."

Mom sighed. "Okay, okay, fine. Fine. We will — do it your way. This time." She smacked the palms of her hands against the steering wheel, the impact rhythmic. "Just this time, though, Shane."

"Thank you," Shane muttered. He leaned back against the window and idly counted the street lamps as they passed them by. Seventeen streetlamps, he counted — seventeen streetlamps, between that final intersection and home. Shane pressed his hand against his side as he counted: each lamp was a squeeze, and the space between them the breath between.

When they got home, Mom threw an ice pack at him and made him sit at the dinner table while she cooked. And when Dad got home, he bent down, knees creaking, and pulled the hem of Shane's hoodie up to examine the bruise.

"Wow," Dad murmured, tracing the blurry edge of it. "They got you good, huh?"

"Just skated it off," Shane said. Dad's fingers were warm, almost a shock after half-an-hour spent pressing the ice pack to his skin. "No big deal."

"Good job." Dad smoothed a gentle hand over top of Shane's head. "Though next time, maybe we don't scare your mom so bad?"

Shane shrugged. "I'll do my best." No promises, he didn't say — but he thought Dad heard it anyway.

Shane always knew when Ilya snuck out to smoke. The smell never stayed outside the cottage; it seeped in through the half-cracked windows and the sliding doors that Ilya never remembered to close fully. It was late at night this time when Ilya crept outside for a smoke. Shane saw him through the bathroom window, a shadow moving against the darkening summer sky. He paused, towel still draped over his head, watching as Ilya dragged a chair across the porch then sat, hunched over as he tried to coax a spark from his lighter.

It was so quiet by the cottage that Shane heard each attempt: the click-click-click of the ignition, failing to cough up a spark and Ilya's muffled swearing, garbled around the cigarette in his mouth. He watched for a moment longer. The late hour had turned the orange skies to a deep purple, streaks of both mixing to a darkness like night.

Shane hung his towel on the hook and stepped into his underwear, shrugging on the first shirt he could find on the floor. When he stepped out onto the porch, the air was cool, nippy despite the summer month. Ilya was staring out into the horizon, his cigarette hanging loosely from two fingers, putting off soft, pale curlicues of smoke.

"That'll kill you, you know," Shane said softly. Ilya startled, pressing a hand to his chest as he turned to look.

"Blyat! You need — I should put fucking bell on you, Hollander. Bozhe moy! Who cares about stupid cigarette? I think you will kill me first." He reached out anyways, one arm brushing, gentle, against Shane's hip. "Come here."

Shane stepped towards him, one eye on Ilya's cigarette. The cherry was a brilliant red in the dying light, and this close to it, the smell was overwhelming — more than just a bonfire in late winter. It smelled, Shane realized, like Ilya. Ilya was the only comparison he had.

"Hi," Shane murmured. He wrinkled his nose as Ilya took a drag from his cigarette. "Do not blow smoke on me, Ilya, I swear to God."

Ilya leaned back, one eyebrow raised as he tilted his head high, then exhaled: a long, thin plume of smoke that vanished quickly into the night.

"So picky," he crooned. His voice was raspy around the edges, liquid smooth around the consonants and crackling on the vowels between. "Cannot smoke inside the house, cannot smoke in your bed, and now I cannot even blow smoke on you. What am I to do?" He tapped the ashes into an empty terracotta pot. "You ask so much of me."

"Oh, well, sorry for not wanting you to die of lung cancer," Shane muttered. "You're a professional athlete, you know that, right?"

"How could I possibly forget." Ilya rolled his eyes. It was softened, though, by the way he was rubbing his thumb up and down the jut of Shane's hipbone. Shane could feel him — the body to body heat — even through his briefs. Each motion sent tiny shocks up and down Shane's spine.

"I just lit this," Ilya said, and took a deep drag from his cigarette. He turned his head toward the lake as he exhaled. "And to put it out now would be a waste. They are special, you know? From Moscow. Hard to get here." He shrugged, smirking at Shane. "Oh no! I guess I will just have to finish. You are always lecturing me about waste, yes, Shane?"

They had gotten into a small argument over Ilya's inability to properly sort recyclables earlier in the day. "Is too complicated! In Boston, you throw all bottles and paper into one bin, and bam! Done! What is this whole — three bin bullshit?" Ilya had asked, watching incredulously as Shane painstakingly resorted their recycling. Shane had, while pointedly chucking each bottle and paper item into the correctly labeled bin, given Ilya a nearly fourteen minute long (according to Ilya, who had apparently been counting) lecture about recycling and municipal waste disposal.

"That is not what I meant and you know it," Shane said. He let Ilya draw him closer anyway, his boyfriend inching into his space. Ilya let his cigarette hang low to his left. He rested his chin against Shane's stomach, five o'clock shadow catching on the soft fabric. Shane smoothed a hand through Ilya's curls. They were a little greasy, frizzy toward the ends from the humidity. "You smell."

"You like it."

"No," Shane lied. "You smell like an alleyway. The kind with a dumpster. Behind a club or a bar, or something. I don't know."

"Would you sneak back to find me there?" Ilya asked. He looked up at Shane through his lashes, coy. His eyes were dark, the blue almost black in the dusk. The sunlight, brilliant as it faded, limned his lashes in gold. He was beautiful like this: a statue come to life. Ilya was perfect and boyish, even though Shane could pick his fake teeth from the real ones with practiced ease. "Come give me kiss?"

"Not when you smell like an ashtray, Ilya," Shane whined. Ilya stuck his cigarette between his teeth. His jaw flexed as it held it there gingerly, a dog with an egg in its maw.

Ilya wiggled his eyebrows. Shane stared down at him, cross-eyed. The cherry glowed between them, impossible to ignore. It was a sniper's dot in the movies, the blinking red button, frantic before the bomb exploded.

He wondered, the thought blooming quietly within him, what it would feel like to have that against his skin. It was a perfect red, the kind of red that you found in traffic lights, winter birds, and poppies; seduction and danger and things that only came for a season. It would sting at first, Shane thought. Pinpricks dancing up and down as though his limbs had fallen asleep. And then, maybe, it would sizzle in that way a piece of meat did on the grill — the heat of it would burn and sear. And Shane would flinch and cry, but the cigarette would still be there, unmoving, the ash as much a part of him as anything else. It was the sensation, Shane thought, but it was also the mark: in a week's time, maybe less, Shane would be able to turn to it and find proof that it had happened. He would run his fingers over it and feel the way his skin had puckered and bubbled; the way it had scarred over, pink and unnaturally smooth, and he would be able to point to it and say you were here. This is where you marked me. This is what you left behind.

Shane stared at the ember for a moment longer, cross-eyed and getting dizzy from it. Then he blinked, twice in rapid succession, and said: "Gross."

Ilya groaned. He took his cigarette in hand again, and blew the smoke from his nose. Unbidden, Shane's cock twitched. You have got to be kidding me, he thought, tugging at the elastic waist of his briefs. I should've worn pants. He knew better than to hope that Ilya had somehow missed it. Did you hope a wolf somehow lost its ability to smell blood? Maybe — but you did so with full knowledge of your own, futile stupidity.

"Ah." Ilya raised an eyebrow, eyes flickering down. "Gross? I don't think so." Shane watched him move, each motion fluid and practiced: Ilya would take a breath, then blow the smoke. Then, he would tap his thumb against the fingers holding the cigarette, and let the ash crumble from the tip, to be caught by the dish waiting below. "Do you want something?"

"No," Shane lied, voice a rasp.

Ilya pulled away. "Okay," he said. "If you are sure." He folded back into himself, a picture of indifference — an old Hollywood starlet in repose, thoughtlessly blowing smoke into a perfect, lit-fire dusk.

Shane lingered within reach. Do you want something, Ilya had asked. Yes, Shane thought. But his wants were an iced-over pond: deceptively calm on the surface, the ice a clean sheen — but deep and fathomlessly dark underneath. There were depths that Shane was still discovering; dead fish yet to truly see the surface.

Do you want something, Ilya had asked. The answer was, as it always was, yes. But that had not been the question.

Shane shifted from foot to foot. Ilya was watching him, he realized. It made him feel naked; exposed and stripped bare, strangely cold in his briefs and Ilya's shirt, despite the balmy summer weather.

Ilya's eyes were cool. His pupils were wide, dark and blown out. Shane's gaze flickered down to the fullness of his lips. Ilya puckered. He sucked the butt of his cigarette, and blew the smoke down low, the space between his lips invisible, barely a shadow.

He raised an eyebrow. Drew one leg up to his chest, balancing his elbow on the knee. There was a scar there, Shane knew. Ilya had taken a skate to his knee four seasons ago — twelve stitches, and the still-fading mark.

When Ilya pressed it, did it hurt? Had he stretched it and felt it pull, the edges burning as they strained to keep pace? Did he remember who had marked him? Could Ilya remember the face, the number, the team, the name? Could he recall the moment of impact? The blade cutting clean, the blood on the ice?

Shane was suddenly, nauseatingly, jealous. He swallowed around the lump in his throat. It sat there, cold and heavy, as Shane tried to breathe through it. In through the nose, out through the mouth: it was meant to be grounding. Shane wasn't so sure that it was.

They had spent a near decade as ghosts in one another's story. There was no part of himself that Shane could point to and say here. This is what he left me. This is how I knew, how I know. To ask for it would be dangerous.

Ilya's cigarette was burning merrily to the end. It was smaller now, closer to a stub than a stick, almost comically small between his fingers. Ilya licked the smoke from it, then blew it, obnoxious, right into Shane's face.

Shane swatted it away. The smug tilt to Ilya's smile was familiar; it was the moment before the faceoff. Do you want something, Ilya had asked.

"Put that out," Shane said. His throat felt desert-dry. "Ilya."

Ilya leaned forward in his chair, legs spread, arms braced against his thick thighs. "Should I?" He asked. "I don't want to."

"Ilya." The air smelled of old smoke and something green, lush and dark — growing.

"Okay," Ilya acquiesced, suspiciously easy. "I will put it out." He turned around, head on the swivel. "Where?"

"Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you."

"Doesn't it?" Ilya asked. His grin was wide, white, and mean.

"It doesn't, asshole," Shane snapped. "And I don't appreciate the secondhand smoke."

Ilya groaned. "Fine, fine! I will put it out." He made a show of raising his cigarette in the air, then paused. "Where?"

What? "What?" Shane blinked. "Anywhere. I don't know."

"Anywhere," Ilya repeated, slow and intent. "I can put it out…here?" His hand hovered, barely an inch from the arm of his appropriated chair.

"No," Shane said. "You're going to burn the wood."

Ilya rose to his feet, fluid. He took a single step forward, bullying into Shane's space. "How about…here?" The lit end of the cigarette ghosted across the hem of Shane's borrowed shirt. It was an old one of Ilya's — the collar was stretched and loose, and the 81 on the back was faded from years of washing.

Shane swallowed. "You're going to set your shirt on fire," he murmured.

"Hm. You are right," Ilya said. "I would be very sad. I like this shirt, you know." He rubbed the hem between two fingers, considering. "Okay. Not there, not here, but how about—"

He moved the cigarette closer. Shane took a deep, shuddering breath, every hair on his body standing on edge as Ilya lingered: first over the soft, pale inside of his wrist; then the swell of his forearm; and finally, the tender skin just underneath Shane's armpit.

"Here." The cigarette was so close, Shane could feel the heat of it, warmer than the day, a hair's breadth away.

"Should I put it out here?" Ilya asked. He met Shane's gaze squarely. He did not flinch. "What do you think?"

Shane nodded dumbly.

"Ask. Good boys use words." Ilya spoke quietly, each word a gentle command.

"Please," Shane whispered. His ears burned.

"Please what?"

"Please — please put your…please put your cigarette out. On me," Shane whispered. He set his hands, shaking, against his thighs. His palms were slick.

"Louder," Ilya demanded. "I can't hear you."

"Please," Shane ground out. "Please, Ilya, please. Put it out on me. Please."

Wordlessly, Ilya pressed the ember to Shane's arm. Every single nerve caught alight. There were a lot right there, Shane knew. It was a sensitive place; it hurt, sharp when pinched. But Shane had never felt pain like this: it was hot and cold, all at once. There was that low, insouciant sizzle that happened when flesh met fire, and then there was the prickling. Not quite a needle, but something close to it. Shane felt it when he breathed; the way it buzzed in his throat and chest.

"Thank you," Shane said. His world had gone dark and quiet. There was only this: the sharp bloom of the burn, tender on his skin, the chemical and ash smell of the cigarette, and the ghost of Ilya's warmth, hovering just out of reach.

Shane felt rough fingers brush underneath his eyes. There was a wetness gathering there, he realized. At some point, he had closed his eyes.

"Thank you," he said again. His voice sounded far away, as if it had come from somewhere beyond his body — skipping like a stone across the water, from somewhere far beyond the lake.

The world was a watercolor smear. Each moment bled into the next, and Shane remembered them in bright, phosphate flashes. Ilya abandoned the cigarette on the deck, the butt mingling in the terracotta pot with its own ashes.

He lit another in their bedroom, and Shane remembered that as the snap-fwoosh of his lighter catching fire, and the way the flame played across Ilya's features. Each one became sharper; the firelight turned Ilya hungry, made something starving of him.

"How many times will I light this?" Ilya asked. He was kneeling over Shane, straddling Shane's waist. "Would you like to guess?"

Shane gaped up at him, gaze locked on the cigarette. "I don't — I don't know."

Ilya laughed at him. He leaned down and rested one hand, tender, against Shane's cheek. Then he slapped him — more of a tap, than anything — twice against the cheek. No palm, fingers only. The sting of it wasn't enough.

"Moya pepel'nitsa," Ilya said. "You want more?" He wedged one knee between Shane's legs and pressed up, cruel pressure against Shane's balls. "I think you do."

Shane gasped, nodding.

"Okay." Ilya kissed Shane's neck, wet and open-mouthed. Shane fantasized, drunken and wanting, about Ilya pressing the cigarette against each spot he kissed. "What do we say?"

"Please," Shane sighed, arching into Ilya's hand as Ilya kissed lower and lower, one palm splayed possessively over his chest. He sobbed into his pillow as Ilya moved his knee away. The pressure had ridden that fine line between pleasure and pain, and Shane — flush with one and bereft of the other — wanted both with an intensity that might have otherwise sickened him.

Ilya rewarded him with a sharp press of heat, startling against the inside of his thigh. It seared, a hand atop a hot stove, the cherry so much younger than the first. Shane heaved, the air punched from him as he kicked out, the movement pure instinct.

"Count," Ilya commanded. His voice was like silk.

Shane blinked. "One," he croaked. He listened, blindly staring at the wood slats on his ceiling, as Ilya dragged his thumb down the wheel, the rasping click like a gunshot in the night.

There was a soft, sizzling sound as Ilya relit his cigarette. Shane tracked it, the brightness of it, that glowing point of pure flame.

Ilya looked at him through hooded eyes. The light was caught in them, turning them amber in one moment, then black in the next. He bent down and then pressed a kiss to the burn, featherlight.

"Next one," Ilya said. He brandished the lit cigarette like a conductor's baton.

There was a syrupy heat pooling in Shane's stomach. When Ilya marked him next — the cigarette lingering against the inside of Shane's opposite thigh — it caught alight, sparking like a forest in deep drought.

"Tw-two," Shane said, a moment behind. He shuddered when Ilya ran a finger down his thigh, the callouses on the pad of it catching on the edges of the burn.

Ilya groaned. "Fuck." There was a rustling sound as he shucked off his pants. "Fuck, Shane." Ilya spat, the sound like sandpaper. Then, the sound of his hand gliding wetly over his cock filled their bedroom.

More, Shane thought. He was awash with want; the ice was broken, floating in chunks and floes, the water crystal clear. Every desire was floating to the surface, the bloated corpse of them brilliant in the unforgiving light of day.

"Beautiful like this," Ilya panted. He was hunched over Shane, one hand fisted angrily over the length of him and the other gripping the cigarette, crushingly tight. There was ash on the quilt: charcoal really, smeared in wide, hand-shaped arcs that broke up the cream fabric like some post-modern painting. "Moya shlyukha, moy prekrasnyy mal'chik, so good, so still. You would let me do anything, I know it, I know it."

"Ilya," Shane begged. He was achingly hard, sweating with it.

Ilya groaned, picking up speed. "Take it. Take it, Shane, tell me you want it."

"Please. Please."

Ilya wrenched his hand off his cock. "On your knees," he said, teeth gritted. His head weeped, red like the cherry of the cigarette — which laid, crushed and gone cold, halfway across the bed. It bobbed between them, lonely.

Shane scrambled to shift. He let Ilya knock his legs together. Shane fell, arms buckling, face first into the pillows. His own arousal hung low between his legs, nearly brushing the blankets.

When Ilya thrust between his thighs, Shane yelped. Ilya felt feverish, his skin boiling. When he pulled back, it tugged at the tender skin inside Shane's thighs. Every push and pull rasped against the fresh burns. Shane cried out as the pain crested, blistering and golden behind his eyes.

He couldn't escape the burns. They were there — he was marked. Shane felt them now, at their freshest, their rawest. Every time Ilya fucked into his thighs, it was as though he was being burnt all over again. The pain repeated and multiplied: a funhouse of sensation that made Shane's head swim.

Ilya chattered on behind him. But language was a foreign concept, something Shane had left behind. He could understand as much English as he could Russian in this moment. It all washed over him, second fiddle to the furnace in the pit of his stomach, and the brilliant, star-like brightness of the pain between his thighs.

Ilya came with a wordless shudder. He gasped, then went still, a warm wetness trickling down Shane's thighs.

Shane mouthed at the pillow, jawing uselessly at the wet spot he'd made there. More, Shane thought, his hips twitching — little downward motions, each restrained as he fought the urge to rut up against his mattress like a bitch in heat.

Ilya reached underneath, and gripped Shane, tight and sure. He pressed a kiss to the sweat-slick nape of Shane's neck and then pulled, thumb swiping over the wet head.

Shane sobbed. He was sore and oversensitive; hot in the face and tight in the calves in a way he normally associated with conditioning. But still, he rubbed his thighs together, pressing them, trembling, into one another. The marks — perfect circles, each the shape of the cigarette that made them — kissed one another. Shane tilted his head up to gasp, high and breathless, as his orgasm crashed over him.

When he came to, Ilya was rubbing his cum into Shane's thighs, the motion meditative, mindless. He pulled one burn taught, and Shane hissed as it protested the stretch.

"It will scar," Ilya said, as though he were commenting on the weather.

Shane nodded, still too far from language. It was coming back to him in pieces. Soon, he would have a word. Maybe two.

"You do not mind?" Ilya looked at him, one hand still between Shane's thighs. Shane could feel it, a ticklish sensation circling around the mark.

After a moment, Shane rasped, "I'm okay." He paused. "What did you call me — earlier?"

Ilya wriggled low, and kissed inside Shane's thigh. Shane's dick twitched at the nearness, but laid flaccid, soft and spent.

"Moya pepel'nitsa," Ilya said. "My ashtray." He smiled into the crease of Shane's hip. "You like?"

Shane laughed, hoarse. "You asshole," he said, and fisted a hand in Ilya's hair.

"Mm," Ilya hummed, and arched into the touch. "Yours." His chin, scratchy with stubble, brushed against that same tender spot. Shane gasped, blinking back stars.

Ilya smiled up at him, hot and slow. "Mine," he said, intent dripping from the sole syllable.

And now there's proof, Shane thought. It was there: three marks, each a promise of their own. One day, after they left the cottage and their lives resumed, the trajectories of them mapped against the ice, Shane would be able to part his thighs and press on the scars that hid between them.

The ache would be a reminder, the heat the last embers of a hearth fire. This is what he left me, Shane would be able to say. This is how I knew, how I know.

It would be a secret, but it would be theirs. Shane watched as Ilya kissed him between the thighs again, and let the sear that came with it linger, buzzing in his body and tucked just underneath his tongue.