Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warnings:

Rape/Non-Con, Major Character Death

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova, David Hollander, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Grigori Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau

Additional Tags:

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Kidnapping, Rape/Non-con Elements, Angst, Honorifics, Master/Slave, Ilya Rozanov is an Unwell Freak, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, I will update the tags as I go, Autistic Shane Hollander, Mommy Issues, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Oral Sex, Not Beta Read, Stalking, Blood and Violence, Original Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), Domestic Violence, Starvation, Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Anal Sex, Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Cockwarming, Gun Violence, Blood and Gore, Minor Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, weird confusing shit is happening idk what to say, Torture, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Character Death, Suicide

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-23 Completed: 2026-06-15 Words: 47,592 Chapters: 10/10

strangers

Summary

“Why am I here?” Shane asks, braver than he feels.

“Because you are very special, Shane. And it was time for me to bring you home.”

-

Or, a kidnapping fic

Notes

Yes, this is definitely inspired by the Tracker clip. Yes, I keep putting Shane in situations where he's chained up by an evil Ilya. This is a terrible coincidence. This is just what I do to my blorbos. I promise the stories actually branch out and won't be very similar at all as we move forward with the upcoming chapters.

Uh, in this universe, Shane and Ilya are not hockey players *gasp*. They are regular civilians, as you will see. Shane is in his early twenties and Ilya is like at least eight years older because tbh we love an age gap inspired by the source material.

I'm still not very happy with my prose but the story won't quit rattling around in my brain so I need to let it out anyway.

Please mind the warnings and tags and I hope you enjoy reading :)

Work and chapter titles from the song "Strangers" by Ethel Cain

Chapter 1: i tried to be good

Shane wakes with a start. He is on a strange mattress and there is a man sitting at his feet, and he remembers, a second too late, the arm around his neck and the damp cloth pressed suffocating against his nose and mouth. Shane scrambles up the mattress on instinct, pressing his back up against the wall behind him, drawing his knees up to his chest, putting as much distance as humanly possible between himself and the strange man. He notices belatedly the cuffs tight around his wrists and shackles rattling around his ankles, tethering him to the bed frame. This is bad, this is so so bad and what the actual fuck is even happening right now–

“Hello, Shane,” the strange man says. He has an accent. Blue eyes train heavily on Shane. The man is young, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties if Shane had to guess, with short dirty-blond curls and a goatee and mustache to match. He’s wearing a gray tank top and dark jeans. Shane is still wearing what he put on this morning, which is a slight relief in the back of his mind, but not much. The man looks strong, stronger than Shane, which is saying something. His face is sharp and eyes sharper. The man is too calm. He looks quietly dangerous, Shane thinks. Shane glances furtively around the space he’s found himself in. Fucking fuck, it looks like he’s in a goddamm basement. This is so, so bad, is all he can seem to think. 

“How do you know my name?” Shane asks, because, yeah, how the fuck does he? But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t thrash. The man is too still, like a snake waiting to strike. Shane can only think, don’t freak out don’t freak out don’t make him strike, just stay chill and figure out a way fucking out of here. 

“I know everything about you,” the man says easily, voice low and conversational. “I know how it sounds, but I’ve been watching you for a while. Could you feel me watching you?” 

So he was a stalker. An insane fucking stalker who knocked Shane out and chained him up in a basement and was going to–

Shane shakes his head in answer. 

“Why am I here?” Shane asks, braver than he feels. 

“Because you are very special, Shane. And it was time for me to bring you home.” 

“Special, how?” Shane questions, trying his best to keep his voice even. To stay calm, like the strange man. 

“Special for me. You’re perfect for me. You’re exactly what I need, and I’m exactly what you need.” 

Shane doesn’t like the sound of that. He could– this guy could be an actual fucking serial killer. Shane doesn’t want to die, he thinks stupidly. He wants to go home and hug his mom and he wants this to be a nightmare and he wants it to be over. 

“What do you want from me?” Shane asks, quieter. The man smiles, a small thing, friendly, reassuring. He reaches over to place a hand, warm, on Shane’s knee. Shane flinches under his touch, but doesn’t pull away. Don’t make him strike. 

“I just want to take care of you, Shane.”

Shane inhales shakily. He doesn't know what that means. 

“Please don’t hurt me,” Shane begs, feeling small and useless. “I don’t wanna die. I’ll– I’ll do whatever you want, I swear. Just please don’t kill me.” A plea so obvious, Shane doesn’t even know if there’s a point to voicing it. But if there’s a chance he can appeal to the man, get him to see Shane as a real fucking human and not just something to steal and break and throw away–

“Oh, no, Shane, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to kill you. I want to take care of you. Okay?” The man coos like Shane is a lost child, the hand on his knee sliding down his shin, wrapping around his calf, grip firm. Shane sees it for what it is. He doesn’t want to hurt Shane. But he will if he feels he has to. Shane nods. Shane wants to bark at him, fuck off, get your fucking hands off me, I don’t fucking know you. His skin buzzes with indignation. 

“Okay,” he agrees instead. Shane watches, his stomach dropping, as the man looks him up and down approvingly. Fuck, he’s really going to be…

“I’m so happy to have you here with me, finally. So close, and warm. You’re so beautiful, you know that?” The man says tenderly. Shane tastes bile in the back of his throat. 

“Thank you,” Shane murmurs, heart beating wildly with anxiety. Be nice, be calm, and it might not hurt as much. 

“Will you give me a kiss?” The man asks, drawing Shane out of his internal panic, like it was the most reasonable request in the world. Shane nods slowly, lips parting in surprise. Oh, Jesus. Of course, he can’t say no. He’s not stupid. He leans forward into the strange man’s center of gravity, until he can smell him, grease and soap and cigarettes, and presses a chaste kiss to his cheek before pulling back. The man’s face breaks into a smile, a true grin, this time. “Try again, sweetheart,” he says, a teasing edge to his tone. There is a pulsing headache growing behind Shane’s temples. He was drugged.

“Sorry,” Shane says, feeling himself go red, because he knows what the man wants. He leans forward again, the cuffs on his wrists digging into his thighs, and presses his lips to the man’s for a short moment, slightly chapped, catching on coarse facial hair as he draws back for the second time. He looks up at the man from under his lashes, jittery and unconsciously chewing on his own lip. The man doesn’t chase him. He just smiles, a bright thing, like he can’t believe his luck. 

“Good boy,” the man rumbles, and embarrassment flushes high on Shane’s cheeks, utterly mortified. The fingers around Shane’s leg loosen.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” The man asks, sounding genuine. 

“Yeah, um. Yeah. I could eat,” Shane says softly. There is a small sliver of a window across the room, adjacent to the ceiling. It’s dark outside. Shane has no idea what time it is, but he had last eaten in the early hours of the morning, before. Well. 

“Alright,” the man says easily, hand traveling back up to rub soothingly at Shane’s knee. “I’ll go fix you something. You’ll be good while I’m gone?” 

Shane nods.

“Yeah,” he says faintly. “I’ll be good.” Like a dog. 

The man smiles at him again. 

“Good,” he repeats simply. The man stands and retreats across the room, towards the stairs. Shane watches him disappear, hears the beep and click of a door and its lock opening. He can’t hear anything once the door closes again, not even a hint of footsteps on a floor above him. Maybe this place is soundproofed. It’s probably soundproofed. Fucking hell. 

The basement is nondescript. Cement walls, cement floor. A metal-framed cot, bed properly made with colorful sheets and blankets and pillows. When Shane leans over to inspect the shackles on his ankles, he realizes the chains are bolted into the concrete, and so is the bedframe. He has maybe five feet of allowance, which could be worse, he notes, cringing internally. At least he is not actually tied down to the bed. Small victories.

To his right, in the corner out of reach, is a built-in toilet and sink system. To his left, near the stairs, a small table and two folding chairs. The only source of light in the room is an overhead fixture. There’s a switch by the stairs. Jesus Christ. There isn’t anything he can do to get free down here, is there? Unless maybe he could try to break the cuffs and shackles on the metal bedframe. But then how could he get through the door? He could stand on the table to get to the window, but there were bars over it, and what could he break the glass with? This was a nightmare, an actual fucking nightmare. This couldn’t really be happening. How could Shane be so unlucky as to have a fucking psychotic stalker? 

Statistically, it happened to some people. Statistically, survival wasn’t great. Shane can’t start thinking about this right now, he can’t. He just needs to focus on being kind and calm. If he can make friends with his captor, get the man to trust him– that’s his best shot, isn’t it? Maybe the man would let him upstairs. That’s what he had to hope and pray for. That’s what would have to happen. 

Shane doesn’t know how long it is before the man returns. Time is already moving weird and syrupy down here by himself. 

He brings a paper plate with a grilled cheese in one hand, a paper cup with tomato soup in the other, and a plastic water bottle tucked under one arm. The meal smells strongly of butter and oregano. He sits back at the foot of the bed. Shane hadn’t moved from where he was pressed against the wall.

“I already ate earlier, and I wasn't sure when you’d wake up,” the man explains. Shane catches onto the part where he wasn’t sure. Maybe this is the man’s first time fucking abducting someone. Is that better or worse? He also notes that they aren’t using the table and chairs yet. Shane remains in chains. For practical reasons, probably. The man doesn’t trust Shane to not freak out. 

“Thank you. It looks nice,” Shane says politely, scooting forward, because he was hungry, and fucking parched. 

“Such good manners,” the man praises. “I knew you would be good for me, baby.” 

Shane doesn’t know what to say to that, so just nods shyly, and reaches for the plate in between them, a little awkwardly with the cuffs. He eats and drinks slowly. Cheese sticks to his gums and crust scrapes his throat and soup burns his mouth. Shane is too busy trying to get out of his own head to even register much of a taste at all. The man watches, unhurried. 

“I don’t know what to call you. What’s your name?” Shane asks eventually, because he might as well try. The man looks at him conspirationally. 

“You can call me Master, because that’s what I am to you. I found you, caught you, put you in my chains, made you mine, after all. You can say yes sir, no sir. You should be polite, and you should do as I say, without complaint, like a good slave. And I will take care of you.” He says it like it's almost amusing to him, but it doesn’t seem like it’s a joke at all. This is something sexual, surely, it must be, but there is something more to it that Shane can’t put a finger on, and it feels deeply wrong. 

“Yes, sir,” Shane says, trying to match the man’s conspiratorial tone while being obviously deferential. The words taste like ash on his tongue. Shane wants to be angry. Who the fuck do you think you are?

The man exhales through his nose, clearly pleased. He places the empty plate and cup on the ground and snakes a hand up Shane’s thigh, too high, his meaning clear. Shane’s heart never stopped beating in his throat.

“You’ve never been with anyone, have you, Shane?” 

“No, sir,” he whispers. 

“You’re afraid,” the man says. “That’s okay. Let me take care of you. Let me make you feel good.” 

Shane nods, almost an imperceptible movement, but of course the man notices and takes it for the answer it is, the only possible answer. The man cradles the back of Shane’s neck and kisses him tenderly, deeply, pressing him into the mattress with the solid heat of his entire body, Shane’s bound wrists over his head. Shane does his best to check out of his own mind as wandering hands slip beneath his shirt, pushing it up and revealing skin. The man leaves kisses down Shane’s chest, down his stomach, feverish, wet. He wants Shane, and the thought makes him dizzy. What is he going to do to him? He prays it doesn’t hurt too much. So far, the man has been firm and gentle with him. He isn’t actually sure if this is better than if he were simply cruel. Shane wants to push him away. Shane wants to yell and cry. Instead he just lies there and lets it happen, and he isn’t sure if that’s worse, either. A tongue in your mouth and hands on your skin when you don’t want it is revoltingly mechanical. 

The man places a hand over Shane’s clothed crotch, and he jerks away, then, or tries to.

“Stay still,” the man hushes. “I’ll make it good for you.” 

Shane thinks of the swingset in the backyard of his childhood home, how he could stay out there, swaying back and forth, for ages. Surrounded by green and chirping birds. He does not think about the strange hands pulling down his shorts and underwear and touching him. He does not think about how his own body betrays him under the man’s dry hands and shockingly warm, wet mouth. He does not hear the awful noises being drawn out of himself.

“You’re so fucking pretty like this, baby,” the man says, and it rings in Shane’s ears. 

An orgasm is wrenched out of him, dragging him into the present, and he expects the worst in the aftermath, expects rough fingers or the hard length of arousal to force its way inside of him in retaliation. He braces himself for it, holds his breath, tries desperately to fade away into the back of his own mind before he has to truly feel it. 

Shane’s clothes are pulled back up, covering his nakedness, and the body over him shifts. A hand threads through his hair, not tugging, just holding. Shane is confused. He is too afraid to open his eyes. A hot mouth presses against his throat, the man’s hard-on nudging his hip but not grinding. 

“How do you feel, sweetheart?” the man asks gruffly, breath puffing across Shane’s jaw.

“Feels nice,” Shane lies quietly, feeling fuzzy and not-all-there. 

“Good,” the man says, sounding satisfied. “Good boy. You did so well for me.” The man kisses Shane again on the mouth, and he tastes bitter, now. He tastes like Shane’s shame. “Look at me, Shane.”

Shane does, finally. The man’s eyes are startlingly clear and lucid. 

“I have work to finish tonight. I wanted to be with you when you woke up, but I have to go now. Will you take care of yourself while I’m gone?” he asks, and he really does sound concerned for Shane. Like maybe he isn’t capable of being alone. 

“Yes, sir.” 

The man smiles.

“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning. Try to get some sleep,” he says fondly, and Shane wants to laugh in his face. How can he possibly sleep tonight? 

“I’ll try, Master,” Shane says, just to see how the man reacts, the title sitting oddly on his tongue. Something shifts in the man’s gaze. He pats Shane on the cheek, extracting himself.

“Goodnight, Shane.”

“Goodnight.”

The man leaves, turning off the light as he goes. Shane lies still on the mattress in the dark because he is afraid that if he moves, he will start crying, and he will not be able to stop. Just the thought of crying feels too much like defeat, even in the privacy of darkness like this, and if Shane accepts defeat, accepts this fucking situation for what it is, then he might shatter and be incapable of putting the pieces back together again. 

Chapter 2: thinking back to what i was always told

Chapter Summary

He’s handsome, Shane thinks blearily, then hates himself for the thought. It’s terrifying that someone can just do this to another person.

Chapter Notes

I'm afraid of how many times I end up saying "sorry for the delayed update".

Just a heads up, this is in fact an alternate universe, so the character backstories definitely diverge from the canon in a way that makes sense to me. Hopefully it makes sense to you, too. Just let me know if anything is too confusing, though.

I hope you enjoy reading :)

Shane does sleep, eventually, fitfully, because there is nothing else to do, his mind racing and heart beating too fast to allow for a full REM cycle. He dreams of a body over his, kissing, kissing, kissing, and Shane can’t fucking move. He dreams of hands wrapped around his throat and squeezing as he tugs and kicks uselessly. He dreams of his mom stirring a pot on the stove on a muggy summer’s evening and it makes something deep in him ache like nothing else when he wakes in the early hours and the moment fades away from him like smoke in the air. 

Does Mom know he’s missing? They usually text every day. He and Hayden always text every day. It wouldn’t take long for people to notice Shane was missing, even on the weekend, right? Certainly by Monday, when he would be missing from work. Maybe someone can find him. Someone has to find him. 

Shane is awake when pale morning light filters in through the small, high, barred window, awake still when the man returns to the basement. He balances a tray with two full plates, two mugs, and two more cups, placing it on the small table. He doesn’t turn on the light. Shane watches dust float around his head, a backlit halo. This morning he’s wearing dark sweatpants and a soft blue t-shirt. His sleep clothes, probably. He’s handsome, Shane thinks blearily, then hates himself for the thought. It’s terrifying that someone can just do this to another person. 

“Goodmorning,” the man says warmly when he notices Shane is awake. He looks truly delighted to have Shane here with him. 

“Goodmorning, sir,” Shane murmurs, not quite meeting his eye. Tucked under the man’s arm is a bundle of clothing. He sets it on the bed, stopping to kiss Shane on the top of his head, who accepts it without anything else to be done. The man pulls a key out of the right-hand pocket of his sweatpants. Shane stares.

“Time to get up and ready for the day, yeah?” the man says easily. Understanding, Shane holds out his cuffed wrists, and then ankles, for the man to unlock. It feels weird. It feels wrong. Why is the man like this? It doesn’t matter if Shane can move around in this space. He can’t get past a locked door like this. 

Shane stretches, pisses, washes his hands, brushes his teeth with the brand new toothbrush and toothpaste waiting on the sink’s edge for him, all under the man’s watchful eye. Shane doesn’t know what to say. Should he say something? Or is it better to be quiet? The man doesn’t watch Shane like he’s distrustful, exactly. He watches Shane like he might disappear if he looks away for too long. That might be worse. 

“I brought you fresh clothes,” the man states the obvious, pointing his head towards them. “You should change.” Keeping his head down, Shane does. He angles his body away from the man, but he’s not sure what it matters, really, when he can feel his eyes on him anyway. The new clothes are much like his own. Underwear, socks, basketball shorts and a cotton t-shirt, all his size. 

Breakfast is coffee, french toast, sausage, and grapefruit juice. It’s a gorgeous, delicious spread dripping in butter and sugar. Shane hasn’t had food this indulgent since he was a kid. 

“Thank you,” Shane says when the man encourages him to sit and eat. They both take a seat on the folding chairs, creaking beneath their weight and scraping along the floor. The man’s knee brushes Shane’s, maybe on accident, maybe on purpose. He sits back in his chair across from Shane. Open. Relaxed. He appears actually content and happy. He’s happy that Shane is here.

“You like your food?” the man asks, taking note of the way Shane eats too fast, then forces himself to slow down, then begins eating too fast once again. 

“Very much. Thank you.” 

“Mm. You’re very welcome.” 

He should be begging to be let go, maybe. Or maybe that’s just what someone else might think. Pleading for freedom at this point would just be stupid, realistically, right? Shane has never been a particularly confrontational person. He knows this is different, obviously, but the added pressure of fucking– everything– makes his head spin. 

“Your, uh, accent. Where are you from?” Shane asks, because it feels too awkward not to talk, because he’s genuinely curious about the man who fucking abducted him. Maybe if he can get him to talk about himself, Shane will figure something out, he doesn’t know what. Maybe he’ll understand why this is happening and how to get home. A childish hope, maybe.

“Moscow,” the man says, taking a sip of coffee.

“Oh, wow,” Shane says, “How long have you been in the States?” 

“I came here when I was seventeen. So, more than a decade, now.”

“Have you always been in Boston, then?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Shane feels like a prying interviewer. The man doesn’t have much to say and he doesn’t have any questions in return for Shane. He told Shane last night that he knew everything about him. 

“My mom, uh. She was born in Kobe. Japan. But her parents moved over here for work,” Shane tries, and the man just nods, like this makes sense, like he already knew, “Did you move here with family?” 

“No,” he answers simply. 

“Oh. Um. So, what do you do for work?” Shane verbally stumbles. The man shifts forward in his seat, eyes tracing the way Shane unconsciously crimps and uncrimps a paper towel in his lap. 

“I’m a private chef. I work for various households, businesses, events, what have you,” the man says, gesturing with his hands, and it’s the first time he seems interested in answering.

“That sounds cool,” Shane attempts to build momentum. 

“It is. I like it very much. I love cooking, but I don’t usually cook very fancy at home, you know, it gets boring. I’d rather have the good, dirty stuff for myself.” 

“Yeah, for sure,” Shane agrees, just to sound nice, be pleasant and keep him talking, “How long have you been doing it?” The man tilts his head. 

“Almost seven years. I was just a line cook, for a while, before I started my own catering with a friend. We were happy in the back, but we wanted something more, eh?” 

“That’s fair,” Shane says. “That’s really nice.” He tips his cup all the way back to sip the last few drops of juice like he might never taste juice again, just to have something to do. The caffeine he downed too quickly is starting to take a hold of his system and he feels twitchy. The back of his eyes burn with exhaustion. 

“You like to cook? Maybe I’ll put you to work sometime,” the man asks, and Shane pauses. He hadn’t expected a question in his direction in the rhythm of things so far. He doesn’t understand what this one means, really. Work, where? When? How?

“It’s not my favorite thing ever, but I like it okay, I guess. I don’t know if I’m very good. I mostly just cook boring stuff. Fuel to keep me going,” Shane says honestly. The man smiles widely.

“In that case, I will definitely need you to cook for me. It’s an important skill to practice,” the man says, serious, but with a light edge to it. Shane thinks the phrase reminds him of his dad asking him to pick up on family dinner more often as a teenager. It almost feels like a normal conversation. 

Shane wants to ask, where is my phone? My car? You must know people will be looking for me. What the hell is your plan? But it would be stupid to share his anxiety with the man. Nagging him bore the risk of escalating things when Shane wants to do the opposite. The obvious questions are even more pointless. What made you want to steal me, a whole person? What made you think you could do it? How sure are you that you can get away with this? How afraid are you that you won’t? Nevermind how confrontational they were, or how dangerous it might be to reference the reality outside of the bubble the man had constructed in his head and in this basement– the man just might not have any answers to the questions even for himself. This could be planned-out, psychopath shit. This could be random psychosis. It could be something inbetween. Does it really make a difference what it might be? Was one way more predictable, reasonable, honest, survivable? Shane isn’t sure. 

After breakfast, the man puts Shane back in his chains. He takes the empty dishes upstairs and returns with a newspaper, a book, a paper bag of something, and a disposable water bottle. He leaves it all on the bed with Shane. 

“Your lunch,” the man says, pointing to the paper bag, “I’ll be back later tonight, okay?” 

“Okay,” Shane says, looking up at him from where he sits on the bed. He tries to make his body look relaxed like the man is, his face calm. Shane is not freaking out, not at all, nope. 

“Be smart. Be safe. Behave. I’ll see you soon, мой дорогой,” the man says, and Shane thinks he sounds like when his mom used to drop him off at school.

“Yes, sir,” Shane says softly. “See you soon.” 

The man gathers up Shane’s old clothes and switches the light on as he disappears back up the stairs.

Shane’s first thought when he’s gone is, He’s kind. Why is he kind? Like if he could figure it out, everything would make sense again. 

The man is capable of violence, no doubt about it. He captured Shane with violence. Shane knows that what happened last night was a kind of violence, too, no matter how gentle. This basement is a kind of violence. 

Why doesn’t he yell? Hit, shake, push? Is it because he likes Shane? Is it because Shane has yet to give him a reason to? Why doesn’t he make his power clear, preemptively? That would be the obvious thing to do, to lay the boundaries in the sand. Do this, or I will hurt you. Do nothing, and I will still hurt you. I am unpredictable. I am dangerous. Simple. Clear. Effective. 

The only hint of a threat Shane has received was when the man established his weirdass role as master and Shane as slave, and even that was easily obscured. Maybe in his parting words this morning. Behave. The meaning there, at least, is plain. But it could be lost, also. Shane is dizzy thinking about it.

Maybe the absence of violence is a threat in itself. There has been violence before. There is none now. How will you conduct yourself to ensure there is no more in the future? 

What does it mean to hold such power and surety that you don’t even need to be openly cruel in order to command a person and know they will follow? Is kindness, then, another type of violence? Shane has always, before, thought kindness towards another person to be some sort of attempt at suicide prevention. A charity. What the fuck even is real charity between people? 

Shane thinks he should test the boundaries, probably. Otherwise, how will he find a seam to pick at, a way out alive? 

The problem is he is afraid to die. He is afraid to die now, he is afraid to die later, he is afraid to die in the process. What a stupid, necessary way to live. 

Maybe he should wait for the cracks to show first. Or just wait for someone to find him. That’s what he would prefer to do, because Shane is a coward, probably. Things are probably going to get worse on their own accord. Why wouldn’t they get worse? The man has already fucking touched him. He most likely will again. Is that– should Shane fight back at that? If the man tries to fuck him, if he beats him, will Shane just lie there and curl up and take it? 

Shame twists in his gut, making him sick. The thing is, Shane is afraid of making things worse. He thought he knew the smart thing to do, the safe thing to do, the thing his body fucking does for him anyway and fucking freezes like playing dead or some bullshit like that was coded into his evolutionary biology as a means of survival. It’s bullshit, all of it, but what else is there to do? Biology, to be fair, probably has a good fucking idea of what to do. 

Usually, maybe in any other environment, fighting was high risk, high reward. Caged in here, it might be all goddamn risk, no reward. So, no. Shane shouldn’t fight physically, he thinks, not yet, not unless he was more certain of anything. But if he can find a way to push with his words in the right circumstance, he will try. He’ll try. 

Shane sits hunched over in the bed ruminating for how long exactly, he isn’t sure, but the sun through the window is coming in higher when he emerges from the depths of his thoughts and takes in his surroundings once more. Beams of light and shadow stretch farther and farther across the floor, reaching for him.

The basement is cold. Shane has hardly noticed until now. He’s pretty sure his body has been doing a good job at trembling on its own due to, well, everything else. Yesterday had been a cool day in early October. The blanket is a small reprieve. In the light of day, Shane can see an air vent on the floor along the wall to his left, maybe ten feet away. The entire space from end to end is maybe twenty by thirty feet. If the vent is blowing any warm air, it's weak, and he can’t even hear any evidence of it from where he sits. 

The vent gives him pause, though. It connects to the rest of the building, house, whatever, wherever the fuck he was, and maybe even connects to the outside if he’s really lucky. 

And where the hell is Shane? He hasn’t been able to hear anything beyond this room all night and all day, no regular bird sounds or moving cars or something that indicates life. If he listens very closely, he can imagine that he hears the electricity of the light above him buzzing. The glass is probably soundproofed, reinforced, maybe not even actual glass? The walls must be thick. He has no way of knowing if he is still in the city or somewhere else entirely. It smells overwhelmingly of mildew down here.

But the vent. Even if Shane can’t hear anything, sound should travel through the vent. If he makes enough noise, could someone hear him? The man said he would be back later tonight. Is there a camera in here, or a listening device he couldn’t see that would tell on him? Shane doesn’t know. Getting on the floor with what slack he has on the chains to inspect underneath the cot and table and chairs and toilet and sink, Shane can’t see anything weird. But he has no idea what’s in the stairwell, shadowed and angled out of sight. Fuck, fucking fuck this shit.

Shane creeps as close to the vent as he possibly can, the shackles on his ankles pinching bone and skin. He weighs his options, the risks and rewards, one last time. And he just fucking screams.

Desperate cries tear out of him like something living, a panic held firmly down beneath the surface he hasn’t let himself be conscious of until it is allowed to come up, pushing harshly on his vocal cords to the point that his voice cracks and tears sting his eyes.

“Help! Help! My name is Shane Hollander! Shane! Hollander! Help! Fuck, please! Help!” 

He does this until his voice breaks, hoarse. Shane lies face down on the floor, breathing heavily with the effort of his noise, palms and forehead against the cool concrete like he’s genuflecting to the vent. There is a suffocating tangle of hope and terror crawling around inside of his chest with nowhere safe to settle. He has to believe he’s going to get out of here. He fucking has to. 

As miserable as he is and drowning in too much– too much feeling, even the solid edge of the concrete becomes too much itself after a while. Shane makes himself stand and relieve his protesting joints. His eyes fall on the items left on the bed, things left to keep him occupied, and an involuntary bubble of laughter escapes him unbidden. Water. A newspaper. Lunch. And a fucking Bible. He hadn’t realized it before, his mind too loud and distracted, but the book left on the bed is a Bible. 

“Oh my god,” Shane says to himself, rasping, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” He flails, like he doesn’t let himself often, like he hasn’t regularly since he was small and his parents became concerned by the way emotions seemed to outpour from him, a pressurized faucet, and took him to the doctor, to therapy. He balls up his hands into fists and drives the heels of his hands into the sides and top of his skull over and over and over again, a satisfying strike, a dull hurt that doesn’t even really matter because of how cathartic the release and driving home of energy is. His head aches when he stops, when it feels like enough, and he welcomes that feeling, too. He paces back and forth on his short lead until it's too much too much too much and he throws himself onto the cot, the frame squeaking, himself huffing with something more than mere frustration. He punches the pillow for good measure.

After a minute of catching his breath, trying to remember how to breathe, just breathe, you idiot, Shane reluctantly pulls himself up to a sitting position and eyes the water and bag of food like it might bite him. If he doesn’t feel like eating, he should drink, at least. The seal on the water bottle is unopened. So it's safe. Anything could be unsafe, he supposes. The man has already drugged him once. Shane doesn’t really want to think too hard about that right now. He drinks the water slowly. It does something to soothe the scraped raw feeling in his throat. 

Flipping through the newspaper proves a kind of relief, or distraction, the rough texture and rustling of paper and bleeding ink on his fingertips as he reads debatably useless information in black and white. It’s today’s paper for Boston. So Shane is still somewhere in Boston, most likely, unless the man is messing with him. Which he might be, Shane doesn’t fucking know. 

Shane kind of wants to chuck the Bible across the room. Not that he has anything against the book, exactly, but because the weight of it is substantial or more so than anything else he has access to, and because he was kind of insulted by it. Either the man left it for him because he thought it was funny, or something– or he left it for him because he’s so completely sincere that it should be something for Shane to read. Shane honestly isn’t sure which is worse in this moment. 

Instead of throwing shit, Shane places the water bottle, newspaper, and Bible on the floor next to the cot. He sort of wants to call it his cot, in his head, but he catches himself. Just because it’s the space he occupies doesn't mean anything. This is not Shane’s bed. It would not be Shane’s bed. 

He opens the paper bag to at least take a look and see what the man left for him to eat. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wholewheat bread in a plastic baggie. Baby carrots in another. Green grapes in another. And a granola bar, the nice, chewy, hefty kind with added protein and chocolate chips. There’s a paper towel included as a napkin. 

It’s such a simple thing. For some reason Shane doesn’t comprehend, looking at the meal laid out on the fleece blanket in front of him makes him want to cry. It does make him cry. His throat tightens and his eyes well up and spill over without Shane having any say in the matter, and he’s too bone-tired to fight it. He packs the lunch back in its bag with blurry vision and sets it down on the floor, too, before retreating under the covers and silently begging for the escape of sleep. 

Before he realizes it, Shane is dreaming. 

Shane is in his parents’ apartment and he is doing homework on the couch, immersed in a data set on his laptop. On the other end of the couch, his mom is folding laundry. 

“Have you applied for that summer camp yet?” Mom asks. Real Shane doesn’t know what summer camp she’s talking about, but Dream Shane must. 

“No. I don’t know if it’s something I’m really interested in,” Shane says. 

“It would be a very good opportunity for you. You should at least try for it,” Mom presses. A familiar irritation flashes through him.

“I’ll think about it some more,” Shane says diplomatically. Mom’s face pinches in the way it does when he doesn’t follow the script she wants him to. 

They’re in the bathroom, now, in that space-and time-bending way dreams are. Shane is rinsing cleaner down the tub’s drain and Mom is scrubbing the counter and sink. The chemical scent is too strong, scorching his nose and eyes. 

“You know, all I wanted when I was your age was to go to college,” Mom says, and it’s the same monologue Shane has heard over and over again, the same end to most all arguments. “You really need to take advantage of this time in your life, Shane.”

“I am, Mom,” Shane says. “Just– not in the exact way you expect me to.” 

“Fine, then,” Mom says, her voice rising. She tosses her sponge down into the sink, splat, throwing her arms up in exasperation. “Just throw away this time in your life, if that’s what you want to do so bad.”

“I’m not throwing away my time,” Shane retorts, raising his voice to match. He finds himself looking at her through the mirror, and saying next, “It’s not my fault your life hasn’t gone the way you want it to. I’m grown now, Mom. At this point, you’re either going to finally do something you want with your life, or you’re just not.” 

And the thing was, Shane has always known it wasn’t his fault. He had always been able to see how Dad had cornered her into the place she didn’t want to be. But as the very words leave his mouth it hits him like a freight train, for the first time in his life, that maybe it really is. It is precisely, directly Shane’s fault and no one else’s that his mom’s life has gone the way it has. It’s his fault she’s unhappy. 

Footsteps on the stairs. Shane wakes, pushing himself up on his elbows, heart pounding with anxiety the instant he’s registered the sound. He feels like he’s been caught doing something wrong, somehow. But it’s dark outside. It’s not so crazy that he might be found sleeping. 

The man, Shane’s captor, stands at the bottom of the stairs. The man doesn’t give a hint of a smile when their eyes meet, this time. His face just looks kind of blank. He doesn’t say anything, and a long silence passes between them. He knows he knows he knows Shane’s mind screams at him. 

“Hi,” Shane tries, because it is better than the quiet, going for normal, chill, relieved, even. His voice is weak. The man visibly sighs.

“Hello,” he replies without much energy, the sound clipped. He crosses the room, approaching Shane. Tonight the man is wearing a button down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, khakis, and worn-in loafers. His curls are sticking up, unkempt in some places like he’d ran fingers through his hair without much thought. Just now back from work, maybe. 

“Is everything okay, sir?” Shane makes himself ask instead of shrinking away as the man draws closer, unhurried. He resists cringing at the way his voice comes out broken, scratchy evidence of what was surely misbehavior. The man reminds Shane of a big cat stalking its prey. Eyes trained unblinkingly on his target. 

“Yes. Just tired. Long day,” the man says shortly, and he settles on the bed next to Shane’s hips under the blanket. Shane, who is still mostly lying down. “But it is good to see you, мой дорогой,” the man adds, tone softening a bit. Up close, Shane is startled by a strange emptiness behind his eyes he doesn’t recognize from this morning or last night. 

“It’s good to see you, too,” Shane whispers, trying to mask his hoarseness. He flinches but doesn’t pull away when a hand reaches out, fingers trailing across his cheekbone, down his jaw, to his neck. Shane wonders suddenly if there are bruises he can’t see from when he was attacked. 

“You’ve been crying. Or screaming. Maybe both,” the man says. It’s not a question, so Shane doesn’t answer. “I don’t want you to be sad here. I know you must be thinking of your old life. You are wanting to go home, probably. But this is your home now, Shane. This is your new life. The past is past and you will not be going back. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Shane says, and he doesn’t understand, not really. 

“I’m the one who takes care of you now,” the man presses, like he can sense Shane’s uncertainty. “I know it will take some time to adjust. But I really believe this will be good for both of us. The sooner you learn to accept it, the better. And I will help you. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Shane blinks rapidly. The man’s hand remains at his throat, tender. It’s nothing forceful, but still Shane feels pinned down by it. He leans in and kisses Shane on the mouth, a slow, soft thing that makes something in his stomach flip, a sensation he can’t parse out for himself. This is way too intimate, as bad or somehow even worse than yesterday, maybe compounded by the too-recent memory of it, and Shane wants to climb out of his skin. 

“How did you spend your time today?” the man asks. 

“I read, and slept, mostly,” Shane says. He doesn’t understand the empty expression on the man’s face. 

“Did you eat?” the man asks next, glancing down to the things on the floor and back up to study Shane. 

“No, sir,” he answers. “I wasn’t hungry.” 

“But you’re hungry now?”

Shane isn’t sure if he is, but he nods anyway. The man’s hand on his throat travels again, landing solid on his shoulder, squeezing. 

“I want you to come upstairs with me. We’ll cook together,” the man says. Shane’s eyebrows raise despite himself. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nods again. A dozen different thoughts pierce through his sleep-fogged mind at once in no sensible order. It’s a trick. It’s a test. The man is going to kill him upstairs. The man is going to rape him upstairs. The man is going to torture him upstairs. Shane is going to have to fight and run and he’s probably going to die anyway– “But you should know,” the man continues, voice lowering, very, very serious, “I know what you are thinking. You still think you can run from me, and I understand why. But you should know that you can’t. We are miles from anything. You cannot reach anyone. No one can hear you. And I will crack your skull open and watch your brain leak out of your pretty head if you try to leave me.” He shakes Shane by his grasp on his shoulder, not wildly, not even really much, but enough to drive the point home. 

And there it is. Violence, clear. It twists cold and sharp in Shane’s chest, like a knife. And yet it makes more sense than anything else he’s experienced in the last twenty-four or so hours. 

“I won’t– I won’t run, Master,” Shane promises, mouth dry, not knowing if he means it. The man’s eyes don’t leave his face. Searching for something, maybe. 

“Please, don’t,” the man says, softer once more. 

“I won’t,” Shane repeats. “I want to be good for you.” And that part is true, he guesses. 

The man kisses him again, pressing harder, this time. Wordlessly, when they part, the man procures the key to undo Shane’s chains. He guides Shane towards the stairs with a hand low on the small of his back. 

Chapter End Notes

Autistic Shane Hollander and Mommy Issues Shane Hollander is very special to me. Immigrant Ilya Rozanov is very special to me as well. I really hope y'all will see the vision I have for these alternate universe characters and their backstories as we go along.

Chapter 3: but god is telling you and i

Chapter Summary

“Shane,” the man cuts through his thoughts, noticing Shane’s hesitation, the pot on the stove, his fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the handle for just a moment too long. His voice is soft, “Is this too much for you, мой дорогой?”

Chapter Notes

I'm very excited for y'all to read this chapter. I have no idea what my update schedule is going to be, sorry, but my goal is at least two chapters a week for either of my WIPs and I believe this is feasible.

Shane makes himself breathe consciously– in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four– as the man shunts him up the concrete steps with a thumb pressed into the ridge of his spine. He tells himself, a mantra, do whatever you have to do, just don’t freak out. And that is all he can afford to keep in his head.

The man tells Shane to turn around when they reach the top, and he inputs the code for the huge fucking solid door definitely installed ahead of time for a goddamn kidnapping. He has Shane turn away again after they take the last step, shutting the door behind them with a secure click and locking it once more. 

It smells like cigarettes and incense up here.

Shane is standing in a modest kitchen with peeling laminate counters and basically ancient looking appliances, which leads right into the living room. 

The house is small. Because it is just a house. The lights are on, dying, yellowing, softly glowing fixtures and lamps. The blinds are closed and curtains drawn. It’s an old place, like Shane’s Pop Pop and Gram’s, where his Dad grew up, the kind of cozy half-falling-apart house you find in the countryside or city and nowhere near the suburbs in between with creaky floorboards and heavy antique furniture and more rugs and throw blankets than strictly necessary. It’s not messy, though. In fact, it’s really fucking clean. But it feels like a real home. One Shane is already too familiar with.

Shane can see glimpses, from here, of photographs of strangers and places he doesn’t know right beside portraits of Mary and Jesus and the Saints along the walls. So. Maybe the Bible wasn’t a shitty joke. 

“You have a nice place,” Shane says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and because he means it, and the man laughs, not un-kindly, but like he didn’t expect to. 

And then there is a blur of movement and a furry brown dog patters right up to Shane, yapping and sniffing and jumping with excitement. 

“Oh,” Shane says dumbly. He twists his body away, hands hovering in the air. The man laughs again.

“This is Anya,” the man says. “She is a terrible guard dog. Anya, this is Shane. Come on. Come on, go to your crate, now.” The man points, and with some nudging, Anya retreats to a crate next to the living room couch that looks like it's had better days. The man shuts the crate behind her, leaving Shane to stand stupidly by himself in the kitchen. A dog. Could the dog give him any leverage? The clock on the stovetop reads 7:26. 

He doesn’t see a set of keys. He doesn’t see a phone. If he’s smart, which he seems to be, the man probably locked up anything like that. But then again, he literally brought Shane upstairs. Maybe impulsively. There is a back door right fucking there.

But Shane doesn’t run, because he doesn’t have enough information. He can’t see outside at all. Assuming the man wasn’t lying, there’s nothing out there for him, anyway. Up here, he can hear the loud hum of the refrigerator and the chirp of crickets outside. If he hears a car outside, Shane thinks somewhat wildly, then he’ll run, because that’s his fucking chance, right? Either he makes it or he doesn’t. But he has a chance, and that’s got to be worth it. 

There is a full knife block on the kitchen counter. That could go very badly very quickly, and so Shane tries to put the idea out of his mind. 

The man turns back to Shane, and he still isn’t smiling like before, exactly, but something on his face has shifted. The hold of his jaw, maybe. He looks almost relaxed again. 

“You’ve had lamb before?” the man asks, like everything is normal, like Shane is a regular guest in his home. Shane is still manually forcing himself to breathe.

“Um. A couple times, I think, yeah. Not for a while, though. But I like it,” Shane rambles. 

“Okay. We’ll make ground lamb tonight. Stuffed peppers,” the man says, satisfied. 

“Sounds good, sir,” Shane nods, feeling weirdly exposed just standing here freely in this house. It was kind of really a lot worse to be here among evidence of the living instead of being confined to the simplicity of the basement.

The man opens the fridge and begins pulling out ingredients. Meat in a gallon bag, one block of cheddar, one block of mozzarella, and poblano peppers. He gathers an onion, tomato, spices, and a bag of rice on the countertop. 

“You go ahead and start the rice and then the meat, okay? I will do the vegetables,” the man says. Shane nods. All he fucking seems to do is nod and say yes, so he refrains from saying yes, this time, to see if the man calls him out. It doesn’t seem to phase him at all.

“Where are, uh, the pans and stuff?” Shane asks belatedly, looking around like he might have x-ray vision into the cupboards. 

The man points.

“Left of the sink.”

“Thanks,” Shane says.

Shane retrieves a pot and lid for the rice while the man cores shiny, deep green peppers over a bowl in the sink. The pot is a substantial weight in his hand. He could hit the man in the head– and then what? Hit him again until he died? He could do it. Is Shane prepared to do that? Does it fucking matter? He has to do it. He has to try. 

“Shane,” the man cuts through his thoughts, noticing Shane’s hesitation, the pot on the stove, his fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the handle for just a moment too long. His voice is soft, “Is this too much for you, мой дорогой?” There is a knife in his hand, an innocent, not so much, gleaming thing. Is what too much? This kitchen? This house? The man who looks at him like he’s something to be devoured? Of course it’s all too much, Shane wants to respond hysterically. 

“No,” Shane says quickly, letting go of the handle like it had burned him. “No, sir. I’m good.” 

The man is not stupid. He chops vegetables on the counter next to Shane at the stove. Shane wants to take back his lie. Actually, yeah, this is way too much, can we maybe go back to the creepy basement, please? 

Shane starts on the rice and meat. A familiar, mind-numbing process, done on high alert as Shane strains his ears to notice something, anything, beyond these walls. Harder to do over the thacks of the knife on a cutting board and sizzling meat. The man leans over to preheat the oven, a shoulder just barely brushing Shane’s.

“How much seasoning do you want?” Shane asks, pointing to the bottles of garlic powder, thyme, and cumin on the counter. He can’t make himself look at the man, in this moment, not when he’s standing so close, not when Shane is fervently searching for a way out. 

“Whatever you think is good,” the man says, a little stuffy sounding from the onion.  

“Ok, cool,” Shane says weakly. He likes his spice, so. They’re having spicy stuffed peppers tonight. 

Soon the man adds half of a fresh, pungent onion and a perfect looking tomato to the pan of browning meat. The rich aromatics of spices and meat and onion melding together is genuinely mouth watering. Fuck, maybe Shane really is hungry. 

The man aligns six pepper halves on a baking tray. 

“This is the longest part, waiting for these to roast so we can peel their skins,” the man explains, holding up the tray. Shane steps out of the way so he can get to the oven. Blistering heat spills into the kitchen, slapping Shane in the face, and it’s not an unwelcome feeling in contrast to the chill of the basement that had begun to seep into his bones. The oven is shut with a rattle. As the man retreats to rinse off the cutting board and knife– another sound getting in Shane’s way– Shane turns off the burner before the meat can burn and busies himself with stirring the pot of rice with a wooden spoon and bringing it to a simmer. 

The man holds out a large ceramic bowl to Shane. “Put the lamb in here, yeah? We’ll mix it with the rice and cheese before it goes into the peppers.” Shane nods, taking it from him. He keeps careful track of the man’s whereabouts while he does as instructed. The floor squeaks behind him, the fridge opens and shuts, bottles clinking. Rumaging in a drawer. Two hisses one after the other of released carbonation. Shane can feel the man’s eyes on the back of his head, keenly watchful. When Shane turns around, task complete, a cold beer is extended to him with an encouraging nod. He has to step forward to accept it.

“Thank you, sir,” he says, the title just a half-second late, almost a stutter. Shane rarely drinks. But one beer is nothing. He takes a sip, mirroring the man. It’s fizzy and bitter on his tongue. He ignores how the man watches his mouth. Jesus. 

“You wanna watch some TV while we wait? There should be a game starting,” the man says. 

“Yeah, sure,” Shane agrees, because what the fuck else is there to do? The man leads him into the living room with a hand on his shoulder. Almost like Shane is a friend, not a captive. Almost. Anya whines for attention from her crate when the man plops down onto the couch and pats the cushion beside him for Shane. Shane sits. From here, he can see the front door and hallway where he couldn’t before. The man switches on the TV, loud, and yeah, there’s a game on. Shane looks at the TV without really watching, flashes of color and sound washing over him. He keeps his body completely still, not rigid, but still, unease buzzing through his blood, except for the blunt nail of his right pointer finger carving into the skin around his right thumbnail. He’s just waiting for a noise outside– a car, a dog, a voice, whatever. He wishes he could look out the fucking windows. The scent of roasting peppers fills the small house.

The man’s presence beside him is gravitational. Here he is, sitting on a couch with the man who had attacked him and abducted him not two days ago. Violence. 

Who had kissed him and touched him. More violence. 

Who looks at him like he is already wanting more. 

This is not over. It is probably not even near to being over, no matter how badly Shane wishes it were. 

At some point, Shane doesn’t even know after how long, time is liquid, time is only now, waiting for a way out– the man stands, and he beckons for Shane. They leave their beers on the coffee table. In the kitchen, they peel the skin off of the peppers, slimy and slippery under Shane’s fingertips, and toss them in the trash. Shane is in charge of grating the cheese as the man drains the rice and dumps it into the bowl with the meat.

“How much cheese do you want?” Shane asks.

“However much you want,” the man says. Shane doesn’t know how much cheese he wants, so he settles on a healthy amount. Everything is mixed together, the peppers are stuffed, and they go back in the oven to bake. Shane thinks he might be starving. 

In the living room he points to a framed photograph on a sidetable of the man and a beautiful woman with dark skin and dark curls. They’re dressed up nicely, sitting at a restaurant table and smiling widely. They look awfully young. It is the only photograph in the room that includes the man.

“Who’s she?” Shane asks, curious, because questions have not yet been dangerous. 

“My wife,” the man says, without a hint of a smile. Shane’s eyes widen. “We don’t live together anymore. I married her for the green card, and she knew, of course, she agreed. She has always been a good friend.” 

“Oh, cool,” Shane says uselessly. He wonders if the woman is still in Boston. If she visits. If the man would ever tell her about him. He feels like at any moment he might jump out of his own skin with the anticipation of hearing proof of life outside. 

When the man rises from the couch again, he tells Shane to stay put. “I’ll bring the food to you.” Shane wonders if he should run out the door while the man pulls the sheet from the oven. Or if he should charge him, tackle him, strike him with something hefty and damaging. 

The moment is gone too soon. It all feels too risky. Unpredictable. 

Shane watches the man plate their food, his body moving in strong, graceful, unhurried lines. He is so sure of himself. So sure that this is exactly where Shane should be. He brings a tray holding two sets of plates and utensils and sweating glasses of water and sets it down on the coffee table in front of him. 

“Thank you, sir,” Shane says, polite polite polite, hating himself, hating this, needing to be good, to be grateful. Needing to live. 

And, well. Maybe Shane is grateful, in a way. Maybe not to the man, exactly, but to whatever rule of fate has decided that the man will be kind in all the moments he has been kind thus far. Things could be much worse. Shane needs to make sure things do not get worse if he can help it. 

Someone on the TV scores. They eat together in silence. It’s good food. Really good. Shane chews and swallows mindlessly, until his hunger is satiated, listening, listening. When Shane makes himself look, there remains something empty behind the man’s eyes. 

“You want dessert? Ice cream?” the man asks once their plates are clear. 

“Sure, yeah,” Shane says, because he can’t bring himself to say no, anyway, because it’s been a while since he had ice cream. Because if this is his last meal, if that’s why the man brought him up here, then he might as well prolong it if he can. 

“Strawberry or vanilla?” the man asks. 

“Vanilla, please,” Shane says. 

“Of course,” the man says. 

The man fixes two bowls of ice cream. One vanilla. For Shane. The other strawberry. For him. This, Shane eats slowly. He savors it, the sweetness melting on his tongue and sliding down his throat, cold, settling in his belly. He gulps down the remainder of his water when his bowl is scraped and the spoon is licked clean. He keeps his eyes fixed on the TV. He does not feel the man’s eyes on him, he does not care, he does not care. All he cares about is listening for life outside. He will run, he will run and do what he has to do if given the chance. Anya sighs from her crate.

The man throws an arm around Shane’s shoulder and Shane blinks away any budding protest. 

They sit in silence for so long, the game ends. Commercials keep running, impossibly bright, obnoxious, ear-splitting assaults on Shane’s senses. 

Shane remembers, suddenly, a commercial from his childhood that might have been a nightmare or fever dream. He remembers falling asleep in his parents’ bed when he was still little, maybe eight, while Dad read and Mom watched TV. He doesn’t remember why he was in their bed that night, just that he was. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he had woken up in the middle of the night. Whatever the case, he was. 

The commercial that played still doesn’t make sense to Shane. It comes in bits and pieces. A family. A husband and a wife and their son, a new baby boy. The baby is named after his father, Shane knows this, though he can’t remember the name. Then, it’s much later. The boy is older, maybe grown, or still a teenager. He gets a gun and he kills a woman, maybe his mother, maybe his girlfriend, Shane can’t remember, but he thinks it was the boy’s mother. Maybe it was a PSA for something, not a commercial. Shane doesn’t know. He remembers being quietly frightened by it under the covers in between his Mom and Dad. And that is the end of his memory of that night. 

“Are you okay?” the man asks. He turns Shane’s head with a hand on his jaw to face him, and Shane’s vision is blurry. 

“I don’t know,” Shane says honestly, voice broken. “I’m sorry. It’s not– I just remembered something strange.” 

The man hums. The hand on his shoulder slides to grip the back of Shane’s neck, an anchoring touch. The hand on Shane’s jaw grasps his chin. He kisses Shane’s cheek, wet with tears he hadn’t realized he’d been crying. He kisses Shane firmly on the mouth, and Shane is trapped between his hands. He tastes like artificial strawberries. 

“I want you to suck my cock,” the man murmurs, and Shane’s brow furrows. He hurries to smooth it. Something ugly rears in his chest.

“I’ve never,” Shane falters, then shuts his mouth. What’s the right thing to say to that? 

“I know,” the man says. “I want you to try, sweetheart. I want your pretty mouth.” 

Shane lets his eyes slip closed for a second, nodding, nodding, remembering how to breathe. Because what else is there to do?

“I’ve wanted you for so long, Shane,” the man says, and it’s supposed to be an encouragement, stroking Shane’s jaw with his thumb. Shane’s eyes flutter open again. 

“For how long?” he whispers, looking into blue eyes he can’t read. He needs to know. How long was this man watching him before he decided to kidnap him? 

“More than two years,” the man says, lowly. The words hit Shane like an electrical jolt. How had he been watched for so long and never known? The man doesn’t break away from Shane’s gaze, doesn’t allow Shane to look away, either. “I’ve needed you for more than two years. I knew I had to have you since the very first day. I thought I would get over it, that the feeling would go away. For a year, I denied it. But then I knew. I just knew you were supposed to be mine. So I waited, patiently. I prepared. And now I finally have you here with me.”

“How did you know?” Shane asks, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. It’s a distraction, a delay. But also. Shane has to know. Even though he knows there’s probably not much actual rhyme or reason to something like this, the feelings and decisions likely already felt and already made by something desperate in the brain before the so-called right person comes along. Shane isn’t special, he knows this. It could have been anyone who captured the man’s attention on a particular day. Shane is just unlucky. A horrendous understatement. 

“It’s difficult to explain. One day, after work. I followed you to your friend’s house. I don’t know why I did that day, I just did. I saw you going up the front steps, the smile on your face when the door opened, so bright, so warm– I had adored you for so long, but that was when I knew.” 

Shane wants to cry again. The admission is so earnest. It’s terrifying. This man had been following him, had seen Hayden’s house, he had probably seen everyone important in Shane’s life in two fucking years, knows exactly where they live and work and– this is insane. This is unreal. It has to be. 

“Hey, hey,” the man says, almost gentle. “It’s okay. You’re okay. This will be good, I promise you. I need you, Shane. I need you so badly. Please. Please, can I have you?” 

The begging is worse. The begging is so much worse. The man is already at least half-hard in his pants. There is nothing Shane can do but say yes. 

Reluctantly, Shane gets to his knees. The hardwood creaks beneath the plush carpet on his skin. He shuffles in between the man’s legs, and then he stops, and he doesn’t know where to look. He glances up at the man, and that’s a mistake, because he’s looking at Shane so intensely, it nearly burns. 

Shane has seen enough porn to know what happens next. Shane is attracted to men. Shane, in a confusing spiral determinedly shoved to some back corner of his mind, is attracted to this man. But that doesn’t mean anything here, it doesn’t. It’s a stupid fucking coincidence that the delusional freak who abducted him is kind of really Shane’s type. The universe must hate Shane. What the fuck did Shane ever do to deserve this? Is his karma truly that bad? 

He can feel his face going red as he keeps his eyes on his own hands, unzipping the man’s slacks and pulling out his rapidly thickening cock. Shane tries not to think too hard about what he's doing, tries to detach himself from it like he did last night, but he needs to be present for this, to a certain degree. He’s never fucking done this before, he’s never fucking touched another man like this before, and this man is violent and dangerous and he looks at Shane like he hung the fucking moon and stars in the sky. Shane feels humiliated, mostly, under his watchful gaze. 

Shane could hurt him like this, he realizes. Oh, fuck. Should he? Is that too risky? Shane doesn’t know. Probably. It probably is. 

Okay. It’s not that big a deal. This is just something he has to do, to be smart, to be safe. This is fine. Totally neutral, even. Shane can do this. No big deal. 

God, he’s so fucking warm in his hand, flushing and pulsing with arousal. He looks huge, no fucking way is all of that going to fit in his mouth. Shane wants to shrivel up and actually die of embarrassment. The universe must be telling some sick fucking joke. 

He’s startled out of his head when he finally leans in, don’t be a fucking pussy, and licks the man’s cock and the man immediately groans in response. Oh, Jesus. He has to– he actually has to pretend this isn’t fucking happening right now. 

Shane pretends not to notice how the man grips his hair between his fingers when he kisses the tip experimentally. He pretends not to notice how the man is already wet and tastes of musk and salt and bitterness. 

It doesn’t mean anything when Shane places a hand on the man’s thigh for stability. It doesn’t mean anything when, movement by movement and moment by moment and Shane takes him into his mouth like how he thinks he’s seen other people do in videos, hollowing his cheeks and closing his eyes, the man moans and sighs and grunts, deep in his chest. 

Shane just keeps moving, not thinking. He keeps his hand moving, his head moving. His own spit is spilling down his chin and he slurps and it sounds gross and he can’t help when heat sparks low in his belly as he takes the man another inch deeper, his mouth full and lips surely swollen, and the man fucking keens, a strangled noise, tightening his hold on Shane’s hair. He struggles to breathe through his nose. His jaw is beginning to ache. God, can this be over yet? This is nothing. This is completely neutral. 

The man’s hips buck forward, and Shane gags at the head of the cock suddenly grinding into the back of his throat. On instinct, he attempts to pull away, but the man keeps him in place by the hand on his head. 

“Sorry,” the man gasps, not sounding very sorry at all. “Fuck, малыш, you feel so fucking good.”

Shane stares at the back of his eyelids and fucking counts, in five second increments, until the man’s breath goes ragged and he pushes at Shane’s head. He gets the message and draws back unhindered, letting the man’s length slip out from between Shane’s lips with an obscene wet sound. 

“Oh god, m’close, Shane, m’so close, please,” the man practically slurs, his free hand falling over Shane’s working on his cock, and it’s the last warning he gets before come hits his face. Shane flinches, then stills. It’s over.

 He feels disgusting. 

“Look at me,” the man says breathily. Shane opens his eyes, blinking against the light flooding his retanas. The man appears absolutely blissed out, jaw slack and eyes hazy even as he meets Shane’s. “You were perfect,” he says. “You’re perfect, мой дорогой.” Shane kneels between his legs feeling like he’s looking down on himself and the picture they must make together right now in this living room. “Come here,” the man says, and Shane doesn’t know if he’s disappointed in Shane for not saying something back, but Shane goes to him, his knees protesting as he rises, because there is nothing else to do. 

The man pulls Shane into his lap and Shane goes with a small sound of surprise, bracing his hands on the man’s shoulders. 

“My sweetheart,” the man coos, kissing him, licking his face, licking up his own come, and Shane feels vaguely ill. He kisses Shane deeply, licking into his mouth, then, hands digging into his waist, and Shane wants to ask him to stop, please, it’s over, can we be done? 

“Come shower with me?” the man asks, chest heaving, lips spit-slick, and Shane’s stomach twists. He just nods.

He still hasn’t heard anything promising outside.

Shane doesn’t remember undressing and getting into the shower. He thinks his brain turned off at some point in the hallway, after he caught sight of the bedroom doorway and something in him fucking shortcircuited and shut down. It’s the hot water hitting his bare skin that drags him back into his body in a strange bathroom with a strange man. 

Something like life has returned to the man’s eyes, too, here under the spray and steam. He doesn’t touch Shane in this small space. He just looks. They wash themselves in peace. It’s something to be grateful for, Shane thinks dully. His thumbnail is bleeding from where he’s been picking at it relentlessly. He thinks maybe he could fall asleep standing up in here if his bones would just stop feeling like they were vibrating beneath his skin. 

Shane blinks, and the man is handing Shane a change of clothes. They’re standing in a bedroom. The man’s bedroom. Much like the rest of the house, it’s small and low-lit and crowded with furniture. But everything is in its place. It’s almost like a stageset of a bedroom, surfaces clear and bed made and laundry hidden away behind closed drawers. 

There is a mirror behind the man, full length. Shane watches himself, naked, take the clothing from the other naked man. He watches himself pull on boxers and a soft pair of sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt. He doesn’t think he looks anything like himself in this room. The Shane in the mirror is a poor imitation. 

Shane watches the man dress, too. He doesn’t know why. He’s already seen all of him by now. Maybe if he can watch the man back like he watches Shane so often, he’ll be able to figure shit out. Like, how can he get home? How can he escape this man? Will he have to kill him, or try, and die trying? 

“Shane,” the man says, touching his elbow gently, and the sensation makes Shane want to snarl. “You’ve done very good for me. But I think tonight has been a lot for you. It’s time to go back downstairs, yes?” And Shane panics.

“Not yet, please,” he says, the words tearing out of him, the first words he’s said since he had to ask how the man knew Shane was supposed to be his. He can’t go back downstairs when he hasn’t even been able to hear fucking anything real outside yet. 

A stinging pain blooms across the left side of Shane’s face and suddenly he’s not looking at the man but at the bed to his right. A strike of skin on skin echoes in his ears. Oh. 

“Do not make me repeat myself,” the man says, and the thing is, he doesn’t sound angry. His voice remains even. Okay. So. There is no room to negotiate here. Not that that’s what Shane had meant to do– he had only said what he felt, hoping, stupidly, that he might be heard. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says, dizzy, “I just, I’ve had such a nice night with you–”

The lie falls easily from his tongue, an over-correction, maybe believable, he thinks, and the man seizes him by the jaw with one hand, effectively shutting him up. Shane bites the inside of his cheek, hard. It’s like metal coating his tongue.

“Do not give me excuses. And do not talk back to me again. It is very bad manners. Do you understand?” the man demands. Shane nods. He doesn’t understand the man’s mood at all. 

“I understand, sir,” Shane whispers, like if he talks too loud again, that would be an infraction. 

“Who am I to you?” the man presses. Shane’s nose wrinkles nearly imperceptibly. 

“You’re my Master,” Shane answers, realizing his mistake. His skin is buzzing and he’s sure his ears are flushing. 

“That’s right,” the man says, and though Shane is looking pointedly at his feet, he can hear a smile in his voice for the first time this evening. “You can be good. Now. Let’s try again. Can you do that?” 

“Yes, Master,” Shane says quickly. 

“Good,” the man says, only Shane thinks he does hear a hint of irritation poking through now. “It’s been a long day. It’s time to go back downstairs, Shane.” 

“Yes, sir,” Shane says, even as his heart is in his throat. There is nothing else to do. 

Chapter End Notes

*Ilya Rozanov voice* I don’t want you to think Shane is weak.

I once wrote a short story for a creative writing class in which, while on their honeymoon, a man is suddenly trapped in a room by his new husband/partner of many years. The man fights verbally, because that’s his husband, he knows this guy, wtf, he should be able to talk to him. The man doesn’t physically fight because– that’s his husband. He loves him. And, he’s scared.

My professor didn’t understand why he didn’t fight, but at least one of my classmates vocalized that she understood why.

Shane is a very different character from that man tbh and this story is very different from that one, but you’ll definitely see a theme in most of the stories I write, if you look, of people being trapped and fighting or not fighting in different ways. You could say it’s on the brain.

Of course this story is not really just mine anymore after I post it here because I believe the reader’s interpretation plays its own part in creation, but I really hope you do understand my Shane. As much as I have to give up some control, he will always be a closely held part of me.

Chapter 4: she'll cry and wait up for me

Chapter Summary

David Hollander is not a violent man.

Well.

Three times in his life, Shane has seen his father’s capacity for violence.

Chapter Notes

A slightly shorter chapter, but packed full of important slivers (to me). I haven't been very good about content warnings so far, sorry, but heads up for this chapter in particular for domestic violence, starvation, and self harm.

There is a song that plays a part in this chapter, a Japanese folksong known as the Lullaby of Takeda or Takeda No Komoriuta. The English text translation is provided by me from a mix of sources I found online based on what I thought sounded best/made the most sense.

I am going to attempt to link to my favorite cover of the song on YouTube in the beginning and ending chapter notes so you can listen to the song either before, during, or after you read the chapter, whatever you feel like, which I highly encourage!! It's a beautiful and emotional song. Please do listen to it, it's important!

YouTube link for copy and paste: https://youtu.be/YGINNkS0q-w?si=t5F4bENt0qpAUEWD

YouTube hyperlink (which hopefully works): Takeda No Komoriuta

Spotify link for copy and paste: https://open.spotify.com/track/5ZS9wgYOc2JHfZOgOrcx3f?si=416d05f987054340

Spotify hyperlink: Takeda No Komoriuta

David Hollander is not a violent man.

Well.

Three times in his life, Shane has seen his father’s capacity for violence.

—

Christmas, when Shane was ten. They always spent Christmas Eve at Shane’s Gram and Pop Pop’s in upstate New York with the rest of Dad’s family, Shane’s aunts and uncles and cousins, even as their numbers grew over the years to too many to properly fit in the old farmhouse. They were used to sharing space like that. Dad had two sisters, one older, one younger, and while Shane’s parents only ever had him, his aunts were married and had four kids each. 

Shane was a quiet kid. When he wasn’t being dragged around by his cousins– whom he loved and adored very much, but they could be a lot at times– and he found a way to escape and take a break from the chaos of other children running wild and talking a million miles a minute, he often found himself sitting in a corner reading a book or playing on his gameboy. 

Shane found he could be invisible like that. He was a good kid, well behaved, kept to himself, and none of the adults ever objected when he came to sit quietly by his mom or Gram while they were talking about whatever boring things grownups liked to talk about. 

This Christmas was different, though. 

Early on in the day, Shane heard his Gram tell his mom, not loudly, but loud enough, “Kristen had red marks on her neck when she came to see me the other day. She told me, Mark said if she changed the locks, he would bring his gun and shoot the damn door open.” Kristen was Shane’s aunt, Dad’s younger sister. Mark was her husband. Shane didn’t know why uncle Mark would ever say anything like that to aunt Kristen.

“Something’s got to be done about that boy,” Mom said. “Did you send her to the hospital to get checked out?” 

“I couldn’t get her to go,” Gram said. “You know how she is.” 

Mom clicked her tongue in disapproval and was swept up into some other conversation about dinner plans with Shane’s aunt Jo, Dad’s older sister. 

Later, after nightfall, Shane heard the ruckus outside. He was sitting in the living room with his mom again. All the kids had just opened their one present for Christmas Eve. Shane was pressing the glittery silver wrapping paper from his gift into a careful square so he could keep it safe in his pocket. He remembers a small group of adults heading out the door, presumably for a smoke.

“David, no!” he heard his cousin Hailey shout from the front yard, desperate. Hailey was aunt Jo’s eldest child, eighteen years old. The way she had sounded, the way she yelled no, like it was clawing out of her throat, the way it reached through the thin walls and curled around his heart and squeezed, rang in Shane’s ears all night. He remembers his stomach dropping. Was Hailey hurt? He sat there, frozen. Everyone else in the living room just sat, listening, staring at each other. He could hear a scuffle outside. Strikes of skin on skin, men cursing. Aunt Jo stood up and ran out the front door, and she was yelling, Shane doesn’t remember what.

Dad came back into the house, aunt Jo close behind with an arm wrapped around Hailey. Aunt Jo looked furious. Hailey was crying, but she didn’t look hurt. Dad’s head was hanging low. It took Shane a moment to register that his lower lip was split open and bleeding. He had never seen his father like this before, so repentant and defeated. 

“I’m sorry,” Dad said to the room, not meeting anyone’s eyes, “That asshole’s hurting my little sister. I had to do something.”

His words hung in the air. And Shane understood, then. Dad had hurt Mark. 

“Someone get Shane out of here,” aunt Kristen said, and her voice was shaking, and Shane didn’t understand why she said that, and he still doesn’t, really. Maybe she hadn’t even known why she said it at the time. The only thing Shane could think of was, all of Kristen and Mark’s kids were under five, too little to understand what was happening or even really remember it. Shane was old enough to understand, old enough to remember, and old enough to cause real problems right then and there if he was upset enough about his dad and Mark. 

“Why me?” he had asked reflexively, voice rising with anxiety, too-loud in the too-quiet house. Mom shushed him and tugged him to his feet and towards the kitchen by his arm, away from the others, away from the sight of Dad bleeding in the doorway. 

“I’m calling the cops,” aunt Jo said. “All the kids, go to your Gram’s room and keep your mouths shut until we tell you to come out again.” 

There was bickering between the adults then, but Shane and his cousins were quickly sent away to Gram’s room anyway. His mom didn’t say a word, her jaw working all the while, and she hardly looked at Shane as she pushed him in the direction of Hailey, who herded the children like sheep with tears in her eyes. Once Gram’s door was shut and locked, Shane didn’t see Mom, Dad, or Hailey again for a week. He wouldn’t see Mark again until one Thanksgiving, briefly, ten years later. No one ever did talk to Shane about that night, and he knew better than to ask.

—

Shane was twelve and sick. He was getting a glass of water in the kitchen when Dad arrived home, hands full of grocery bags. 

“Come help with the groceries, Shane. There’s more in the car,” Dad said. 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Shane said.

“Not in a minute. Now, Shane,” Dad said, impatient, and he was like this, sometimes.

“I’ll be there, but I’m not feeling well– hey!” Shane cried out. 

Dad had grabbed him under the arms and was dragging him to the door. Shane kicked and squirmed instinctively. It happened so fast. Dad picked him up and literally tossed him over the threshold of the doorway. Shane landed on his butt on the concrete, and it hurt. He later found out his tailbone had been bruised. Dad had never handled Shane like that before.

“Go get the fucking groceries,” Dad barked. He had never sworn at Shane before. Shane was on his feet, scrambling away and into the apartment complex’s hall. He wasn’t even wearing shoes. 

When he returned with the remaining groceries, he had had a short time to process what just happened, and he was so worked up about it that, for some reason he didn’t understand then, Shane kicked Dad in the shin where he saw him standing in the kitchen.

“Shane!” Mom exclaimed, shocked, having just come out of her bedroom, “What on Earth is wrong with you?” 

Shane had never struck anyone before. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane said immediately, shame washing over him like cold water, replacing the adrenaline of anger. 

Dad was silent.  

Mom sent Shane to his room. 

She broke Shane’s left wrist, by accident, when she later went to spank him with a large wooden spoon for kicking Dad. It happened by accident because Shane had put his hands over his behind to protect the already sore area. She had cried and cried and apologized profusely. She told him how much she loved him. Shane had forgiven her, easily, because he knew she hadn’t meant to. That was the very last time she hit him. They agreed together to tell the doctor he had fallen off his bike, and that was how Shane learned about his bruised tailbone.

Dad never did apologize, and Shane never told Mom what he had done, and Shane never did forgive him for it. Those ten seconds of reckless mistreatment remained something secret and nasty, curdled between the two of them. 

—

Shane was fifteen and Mom and Dad were arguing again. Shane was watching and listening from around the corner. He doesn’t remember what they were fighting about this time, most of their big arguments seemed to come from the same issues– Dad’s gambling, Mom’s spending, how Dad treated Mom in public, how Mom nagged Dad when he went out with friends, and on and on it went. 

“I want a divorce, David,” Mom finally said. It was the first time she said those words to Dad, Shane’s pretty sure, because she had told Shane earlier that week for the first time how she was seriously considering it and it was really probably going to have to happen. 

Dad punched a hole in the drywall. A sickening thud and crunch. 

“Damnit, Yuna!” 

Dad stared at the wall, breathing heavily. Mom stared at him, eyes wide, not breathing at all. Shane held his breath, too. Dad had never done that before. 

“David–” Yuna said, voice smaller and more uncertain, more afraid than Shane had ever heard her, and Dad turned around to face her again, and stepped forward, and Shane was moving before he knew what he was doing, flying across the room to put his body in front of Mom’s in the blink of an eye. 

“Don’t fucking touch her!” Shane yelled, angrier than he had ever been in his life. Shane had never cursed at an adult before.  

Dad reeled back like he had physically been hit. 

Mom sobbed and clutched at Shane’s shoulders from behind, trying to move him away, but Shane wouldn’t budge. 

“I’m okay, Shane. Go back to your room, baby–” 

“I would never hurt your mother,” David said, voice rough, and Shane realized Dad was crying, too. “I would never hurt you, Yuna. I love you.” 

I don’t know that, not when you’ve hurt me before, not when you’re pulling this bullshit–

“Get the fuck out of here, now!” Shane shouted, and his volume hurt his own ears, crackling.

“No, Shane,” Mom said, but Dad was already nodding. 

“Okay,” he said, “Okay, I’ll go. I’m going.”

“David,” Mom tried again. Dad was already heading out the door. 

—

David Hollander did not beat his wife and child. He refused to even spank Shane when he was small and Mom would ask him to, instead opting to lock the screaming toddler in his room out of sight and out of reach. Shane knows his Pop Pop, the man who had only ever been smiley and playful with his grandchildren when he wasn’t distant and busy with farmwork, who died of a heart attack when Shane was seven, had beaten his wife and children. He knows this because Dad told him so. Shane has never felt the bite of a fist or switch or belt like his dad had in his childhood, though Mom spanked him with her hand when he was small and with a wooden spoon when he was a little older. He imagines her parents did the same to her, maybe worse. She’s never told him. 

Shane thinks of all of this as he lies on the cot in the dark in the basement. He doesn’t know why. He just does. The man left him down here, unchained, free to use the toilet and wash his hands and brush his teeth. Shane doesn’t know if this is an oversight he’ll pay for later or just something the man decided to allow for some arbitrary reason. It’s not like Shane can get out of here anyway. 

As tired as he is, he can’t seem to sleep at all. He’s trapped here. He was trapped upstairs. The man had hit him for saying something stupid. He said he’ll kill Shane if he tries to leave him, and Shane believes him. He just has to wait for the exact right opportunity. Or wait to be found. How likely is it that he can be found?

The sun rises. Shane stays in bed. He doesn’t feel like moving. There is a roach down here, god knows where it came from, a small shiny black bug traipsing along the far wall by the stairs, back onto the floor, back onto the wall again. Shane could get up and swat it with the newspaper. For now, he prefers to watch it move aimlessly, a deranged thing. Shane knows they’re not good to have, but it’s not hurting him down here. 

Shane waits. And waits. 

The man doesn’t come. 

He waits some more. He tries to nap, with some success. The sun is high in the sky when he wakes again, and after some deliberation, Shane decides to eat the bagged lunch that was left down here from the previous day. He doesn’t know when the man will be back. Maybe he’s busy. Maybe he’s truly angry with Shane for saying the wrong thing last night. 

After he eats, Shane stretches. He does pushups and situps and lunges and squats until his breath comes laboured and there is sweat at his temples and his muscles are burning. He jogs the short length of the basement back and forth, because suddenly he needs to keep moving or his brain might catch fire. He rereads the paper, once, twice, three times. 

As the sun sets, he realizes he has access to the light switch. 

He could flick the lights on and off. S.O.S., the old fashioned way. Try to get someone’s attention. But he doesn’t know if the man is home, when he’ll be home. He hadn’t been in trouble for screaming, exactly, but the man had made himself clear, and he seemed so sure of himself. Shane doesn’t know how to parse delusion from projection from reality with someone he hardly knows. The options rattle around in his mind. Do it and risk punishment or worse for the possibility of being saved. Don’t do it and know you’re safe, for now, and risk losing out on an opportunity to be saved. 

Maybe another day, he’ll try it. The risk feels worse without having seen the man all day. 

Shane sleeps fitfully, finally, exhaustion taking over his body. He kind of thinks it might be a good thing that the man is leaving him alone. 

—

The next day is the same. Shane is alone. He has water from the sink, but no food. The roach disappeared back into whatever crevice it came out of somewhere in the night. He’s hungry. But he can handle the hunger for now. He wonders, his heart aching, how badly his parents and Hayden are freaking out. They’ll know it’s weird for him not to answer the phone. They’ll check his place, they’ll check his work. 

Fuck. Do they think something happened to him, or do they think he did something to himself? They’ll be searching for him anyway. It’s been four days and Shane has never been so homesick, ever. He keeps warm by moving. He keeps his brain from melting by moving. 

—

The third day Shane is alone, the fifth day since he was taken, he wakes with a song in his head he hasn’t thought of in a long time. An old lullaby his mom used to sing to him when he was little, a Japanese folksong she was raised with. 

Mori mo iyagaru, Bon kara saki nya /

(When the summer Bon is over, I start to dread)

Yuki mo chiratsuku shi, Ko mo naku shi /

(The snow begins to fall, and the baby cries)

Bon ga kita tote, Nani ureshikaro /

(How can I be happy, even when the Bon festival is here?)

Katabira wa nashi, Obi wa nashi /

(I don’t have nice clothes, I don’t have an Obi sash to wear)

Kono ko yō naku, Mori wo ba ijiru /

(The child continues to cry, and is mean to me)

Mori mo ichinichi, Yaseru-yara /

(Every day, I grow thinner)

Hayo-mo yukitaya, Kono zaisho koete /

(Soon, I want to go, and leave this place)

Mukō ni mieru wa, Oya no uchi /

(On the other side of the mountain I can see, my parents’ house)

Mukō ni mieru wa, Oya no uchi /

(On the other side of the mountain I can see, my parents’ house)

Shane doesn’t speak much Japanese, but his mom had taught him the song and its meaning. It told the story of a young Buraku girl who was taken from her home and made to be a servant, taking care of a child who isn’t hers and longing to go home instead. 

As Shane grew older, he began to privately associate the song with his mom, who had just been twenty years old when she had him with his dad, ten years her senior and by that point in his life successful in his career in software engineering. 

“My mother wanted me to hurry up and find a nice man to settle down and have a child with,” Mom told him one night, tipsy, or more than a little. “I found my nice man. I had my child. Now what, Mama?” 

The song doesn’t leave his head all day. He thinks of his mom. He thinks of himself and how much he wants to go home.

The hunger hurts like nothing else, a burning pit in his stomach that aches and aches and radiates out to the rest of his body. He keeps drinking water, but it does nothing to soothe his relentless headache and shivering body. 

—

By his fourth day alone, the sixth since he was taken, Shane can’t even think straight. He doesn’t get out of bed except to drink and piss, feeling impossibly sluggish and fatigued. His head spins and stomach lurches when he moves. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe that’s just what this kind of hunger does to him. He sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. His only lucid, waking thought is, I’m going to die. I’m going to die in this basement. 

—

On the seventh day since Shane was taken, the basement door opens. Shane hardly stirs. Half-asleep, he registers the faint clink of dishes.

Suddenly, a hand is on his shoulder, rousing him.

“M’sorry,” Shane slurs, the first thing he can think, what he had planned to say, “M’sorry, M’so sorry…” 

“Shh,” the man hushes him, “You need to get up, Shane. You need to eat.” 

Shane blinks up at him like a cat. The man’s eyes are soft, his mouth relaxed. Maybe he isn’t angry with Shane anymore. It’s morning, he realizes belatedly. 

The smell of food hits him, then. Something toasted and sweet in the air. Shane’s mouth waters instantly. 

“Thank you,” he breathes. 

The man down looks at him with a certain fondness in his eyes that makes Shane squirm. He leans over and kisses him on the forehead, a quick peck.

“Come on,” the man urges, and Shane gets to his feet at dizzying speeds. 

Buttered toast, sugary oatmeal, and orange juice. Shane could actually cry, delirious with joy and immense relief. 

“Slowly,” the man reminds him. Shane goes slowly. 

He will never fucking take food for granted ever fucking again.

“Thank you,” Shane says again when it’s all gone, “Thank you, sir.” And he means it. He is grateful. Maybe more than he has ever been grateful for anything in his life, and that’s a frightening thought. But the man hasn’t left him to die, after all. 

The man watches him, contemplative, his blue eyes bright. 

“You said before you’re sorry,” the man says thoughtfully, and Shane’s heart clenches, “How sorry are you?”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” Shane says, and when he gets no response, because he needs to fix this, “I was stupid. I wasn’t thinking, and I was rude. I didn’t mean to disrespect you. I don’t want to. It won’t happen again. I’m really sorry.”

“I forgive you,” the man says, and Shane breathes a little easier, “But I need you to repent properly.” 

Shane doesn’t know what he means. He still feels ill.

“How can I do that?” Shane asks, swallowing down bile.

“Three Our Fathers,” the man says, “Ten Hail Marys,” he pulls a small object out from his pants pocket, holding it delicately before placing it on the table and sliding it over to Shane, who doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to, “You cut yourself for each.” 

Chapter End Notes

YouTube link for copy and paste: https://youtu.be/YGINNkS0q-w?si=t5F4bENt0qpAUEWD

YouTube hyperlink (which hopefully works): Takeda No Komoriuta

Spotify link for copy and paste: https://open.spotify.com/track/5ZS9wgYOc2JHfZOgOrcx3f?si=416d05f987054340

Spotify hyperlink: Takeda No Komoriuta

Chapter 5: am i making you feel sick?

Chapter Summary

“I heard once, years ago now, that the Prophet Muhammad was visited by angels who ripped open his chest and scrubbed his heart clean with snow before putting it back in its place again. I thought it sounded like an unnecessarily violent and painful process. It sounded like something from my nightmares."

Chapter Notes

This chapter ended up much longer but I couldn't bring myself to split it up. It's more than 6k words. Oops. But hopefully this is a good thing.

Major content warnings for this chapter though: explicit self harm, mentions/discussion of suicide, explicit sexual assault, and discussions of childhood sexual abuse. Yeah, there's a lot going on in this one. Please please take care of yourselves and I hope you enjoy reading <3

“You cut yourself for each.” 

Shane stares at the razor blade on the table and thinks, This guy is a fucking liar. He doesn’t want to take care of me. He wants to torture me and get off on it. 

His head spins a bit, because the man appears sincere. He doesn’t look at Shane with malice or contempt or even wry delight. Maybe he really does believe this is repentance. Did he leave Shane down here to repent, or because he was afraid of what he might do with his anger?

“Blood needs to be spilled, for true atonement,” the man says, like he’s explaining something to a child, when Shane takes too long to respond, “Only blood can wash away sins. Your blood is the sacrifice you offer up. It shows your Lord your devotion to Him.”

And that is… concerning. To say the least.  

“Okay,” Shane says, finding his voice, weakly. “It’s just, um. I’m sorry, I don’t know those prayers.” 

“You will learn,” the man says easily. “They’re in the back of your Bible. You can read them to me.” 

Shane nods. Inhales, exhales through his nose. His head hurts like a bitch and he’s nauseous as all hell, doesn’t know when that will go away, either. 

He’s going to do this. It will hurt. But it will be safer if he has the razor in his own hand. It is better to do this thing and survive, survive longer, as long as possible, until he can find a way out of here. It is better than death. 

“Where should I cut?” Shane asks, because he has never cut himself before, because he doesn’t know what the man wants for him, and he hasn’t noticed any obvious scars on the man’s body. Not that he was looking particularly closely if he could help it. 

“Your arm,” the man says. “You want to bleed, but you don’t want to cut too hard. You go when I say and you stop when I say.” 

“Okay,” Shane echoes, numb and off-kilter. 

“Okay,” the man says, sounding soft. Encouraging. “Bring your Bible here.” 

Blinking, Shane stands, his chair scraping, and he retrieves the book. When he makes to sit back down, the man scoots his chair closer to his, more metal against concrete, until a thigh presses against Shane’s. He takes the book from Shane and flips to a page in the back. 

“Start here,” the man says, pointing to a header that reads Our Father. His free hand slides up Shane’s back over his shirt, a gentle caress, a steady presence. Shane wants to tell him to fuck off. 

“Our Father,” Shane begins, tongue clumsy in his mouth and doing his very fucking best not to tremor, thank you very much. He is still hungry, insatiable, convinced he is dying. This is totally fine. This is just something that has to be done. “Who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our tresspasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.” 

The man kisses Shane on the jaw, surprising him. 

“Good,” he says, breath on Shane’s skin. “First one, now.” 

Shane picks up the blade, holding it between his thumb and forefingers. 

“What if I bleed on the table?” Shane asks stupidly as the thought crosses his mind. 

“Then we will clean it up,” the man says simply, “Go on, малыш.” 

Shane places the blade to the fragile skin of his inner forearm. His mother’s wrist. He presses slowly, carefully. He has thirteen marks to make. He will make them small and close together, if he can. 

The blade bites, sharp, until he sees blood beading there, red welling at the surface. He drags it across his skin, grimacing at the pain of it. This is not right. This isn’t– this isn’t something that should be done to oneself, to slice open one’s own flesh, an obvious thought, but one that floats to the forefront of his tired mind nonetheless. 

He lifts the razor to inspect his handiwork. Is it good enough? He’s bleeding. It isn’t deep, but he’s bleeding. 

“Good, Shane,” the man breathes, and Shane keeps his eyes fixed firmly on his own arm even though the sight of blood has always made him squeamish and woozy. “Next.” 

Shane reads it again. 

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our tresspasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.” 

The man’s hand stills on his back. He kisses Shane again, this time on the back of his neck, and Shane shivers at the contrast of his warm mouth on chilled, sensitive skin. Fuck off, he thinks vehemently. 

Painstakingly, Shane makes another cut below the first, pressing his lips together. He starts reading again before the man can say anything else.

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our tresspasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.” 

A kiss on his shoulder.

Fuck off, fuck off.

Shane draws the blade across his arm. He bleeds some more.

“Here,” the man says, pointing to the heading, Hail Mary. 

“Hail Mary,” Shane reads, wishing it were over. The three tedious cuts are stinging already, delicate drops of blood weeping down the side of his wrist, wet and tickling, forming tear tracts and falling to the wooden table’s surface, collecting there on grainy wood. The scent of copper fills Shane’s nose, overwhelming, mingling with his nausea. “Full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” 

A kiss beneath his ear. 

Stop that.

Blade meets skin. 

Shane feels his mind drifting as he settles into a rhythm. It will be over soon.

“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” 

A kiss to his cheek.

Don’t fucking touch me. 

Shane bleeds. 

“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” 

A kiss at his temple.

More hurt and blood. Shane feels light headed. Not from the loss of blood, it’s hardly anything, but because he is beginning to feel far away from himself and he thinks maybe he lost his anchor when the man put his lips to Shane’s ear. Is this even real? He must be dreaming. He doesn’t feel real at all. The man won’t stop touching him, kissing him. Shane is praying to a god he has never prayed to before. Shane doesn’t even believe in God. Maybe the man means for Shane to be praying to him. 

“That’s enough, Shane,” the man draws him out of his stupor.

Shane looks down at his arm. There are thirteen horizontal stripes of red from his wrist nearly down to his elbow, like bad cat scratches. 

“Oh,” Shane says eloquently. 

“You did well,” the man says, turning Shane’s face towards him with one hand, plucking the razor from his hand with the other. He presses a firm kiss to Shane’s mouth, now, and Shane flinches before remembering himself. “Do you feel better?” 

Shane doesn’t see how he possibly could. 

“Yes, sir,” he lies.

The man offers him a small smile. 

“Good,” the man says. “Good. You’re clean again, Shane. You’re a pure thing. You can stay this way. I’ll help you, мой дорогой.” 

So Shane is something pure to him. Something to be kept that way through blood. The notion of it sits uncomfortably in Shane’s chest. He is not anything like that. He does not want to be anything like that. It’s all delusion, anyway. If the man means what he says, then there must be something horribly wrong in his head. If he is only doing and saying this to watch Shane squirm, then, well. There is still something wrong in his head, and Shane understands it even less. 

“Shane,” the man says, interrupting his thoughts, his useless silence. He grasps Shane’s free hand in his, intertwining their fingers. His eyes are so, so tender and blue. He brings Shane’s hand up to his mouth and leaves a barely-there kiss on his knuckles, more a brush of lips than anything. 

“I love you.” 

Oh, shit. 

Maybe Shane should have expected that. 

If someone is crazy enough to stalk you for two years, longer, and hurt you and abduct you and chain you in a basement and call you beautiful and kiss you and touch you and make you come and threaten to crack your skull open and beg you to suck his cock and hit you and starve you and tell you to cut yourself knowing you will do it– why wouldn’t he also believe that he loves you, a stranger? 

“You don’t have to say it back,” the man adds, tender still, “I know I’m still new to you. But I want you to know. I love you so much. More than anything. You’re so good, Shane. You deserve goodness. You deserve cleanliness.” 

Shane nods, swallowing hard. Still dizzy. 

The man looks at him like he adores him. 

“I have to go to work,” the man says forlornly, “Clean up after yourself. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you for dinner, yes?” 

“Yes, sir,” Shane agrees. 

The man kisses his knuckles again, and Shane watches the shape of his lips meet his only slightly shaky hand. The man stands, slipping the razor wet with Shane’s blood back into his pocket, gathering up the tray of breakfast dishes. He pauses.

“Have you been reading your Bible?” he asks curiously. Shane falters. He doesn’t know how to answer. 

“No, sir. I’m sorry. I’ve never– I’ve never read it before,” Shane admits, spitting the words out with a stumbling haste. Something like approval crosses the man’s face. Maybe he appreciates the honesty. 

“That’s okay, I understand. It’s new. But you should start. It has good things, you know. I think it will help you.” 

Shane nods, relieved.

“I will,” he promises. 

“Bye, Shane,” the man offers a small smile. Like he’s happy. Like everything is in its place.

“Bye,” Shane says.

Shane is left dripping his own blood, now drying onto the table. He stares unseeing at the image for a while, he doesn’t know how long. Standing up and doing anything about it feels like too monumental of a task. 

He closes the Bible, snapping it shut with one hand.

He throws it onto the cot. It flies through the air and lands atop the twisted-up blanket with a soft whump. 

He doesn’t cry he doesn’t cry he doesn’t cry he doesn’t cry. He has no reason to cry. Shane is fine. Everything is fine. Shane is safe and not dead and the man is happy and gone away to work. He hides his face in his unmarred arm and he breathes. He feels like his body is trying to collapse in on itself. 

Shane launches himself from his chair like if he were to move slowly, he would never get anywhere. An object in motion stays in motion. He beelines for the sink and he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs at the blood crusting on his skin, watching it wash down the drain in watery shades of pink. The cuts have long since stopped bleeding, but the wounds remain raw and open. He has nothing to cover or soothe them. He has nothing to clean the blood from the table where he eats. He has nothing to drown out the muddled ramblings of his mind but the rush of water and his own heartbeat in his ears. 

He does not read the Bible. 

Shane sits and wonders what his mom is doing right now. It’s been a week, a fucking week. She must be losing her goddamn mind. She’s always been so anxious about him, even when it was just innocuous things like staying out late or traveling for a weekend trip somewhere. 

He wonders if he should be mentally preparing himself for the very real possibility that he is going to die. He has hardly been able to think beyond the next two minutes in the last seven days. He has survived only because the man has wanted him to, so far. If the man tries something truly dangerous, if he is so angry with Shane he tries to kill him, then Shane will fight, of course he will fight and try his hardest to survive and get back home. Shane will run when he gets the chance. If he gets the chance. But he might die. He will not– he will not think that he will probably die. He only might. But if he does– how long does he have left? He doesn’t know, of course he doesn’t know. He really might not see anyone he loves ever again. His entire life ahead of him– gone. Shane is making himself sick. He sits with the feeling until he has to puke up his breakfast into the toilet. A waste. His entire body is shaking involuntarily and he can’t fucking stop it. 

Sometimes people in these kinds of situations are held captive for weeks, months, years, decades before they’re found or before they can escape. 

Shane lets this thought linger instead. It’s still horrifying. It’s still pessimistic. But it’s something survivable.

After sunset, Shane flicks the light switch on and off, three short, three long, three short, continuously, for maybe half an hour until his good wrist is sore and he is afraid of the man coming home and seeing his attempt at signaling someone. Nothing comes of it. 

It is a long time until the man comes home. The sun set hours ago. 

When Shane is brought upstairs and into the kitchen, the clock on the stove reads 10:56. Dinner is Chinese takeout on the table. Shane is so hungry and Shane is so afraid of puking again. 

The man takes in Shane’s ashen complexion and hesitancy to eat, pressing a hand to Shane’s forehead and frowning slightly. 

“You need to eat, мой дорогой.” 

“I threw up, earlier,” Shane confesses. 

“Oh, you poor thing. I am sorry. Try a little, first, and see how you are feeling. I have some ginger ale to settle your stomach, if you’d like.” 

“Yes, please,” Shane nods, “Thank you.”

Shane wonders why the man doesn’t address the last four days. No explanation, no speech about why it had to happen. It happened, and it is done. Shane downs a ginger ale and successfully eats a small dinner of mostly rice and some mild chicken for protein he knows his body needs to get better. Getting more food in him does help him feel less like he’s dying.

Neither of them speak. The man appears perfectly comfortable eating and watching Shane eat, the hum of the refrigerator and chewing filling the silence. 

“Master?” Shane asks tentatively. He knows what he wants to ask. He doesn’t want it to come out the wrong way.

“Yes?” the man asks warmly, sipping on a beer. 

“I– you’ve taken good care of me. But I’m– I’m worried about my mom, not hearing from me in a week.” 

It’s not even a question. It’s just a worry. Shane thinks it could be offensive. It could be stupid. How idiotically dangerous was it to talk about the world beyond these walls and the life the man had crafted for them? Shane doesn’t know and he finds he doesn’t really care, not now in this moment. He told himself he would pry if he could. He needs to know what’s happening outside. 

“You are sweet to worry. Of course you worry,” the man says, genuine, “But you don’t have to. I texted her from your phone. I texted your friend Hayden, too. They will be okay.” 

“What– what did you say?” Shane asks, his heart rate picking up. Did the man still have his phone? It could be easy to track him if he did. 

“I lied,” the man says, with a surprising degree of self-consciousness, “But I did not know how else to make sure they stay out of our business. I pretended to be you. I disabled your location sharing. I told them that you loved them but you couldn’t do it anymore. I told them goodbye for you. Then I turned off your phone. Later, I threw it in the river.” 

Shane feels like the breath has been knocked out of him. 

“You told them I was going to kill myself?” Shane rasps. He wants to ask, which fucking river? Where was my location last on?  

“Yes. Not in such words. But they understood. I told them not to blame themselves, not to be too sad for you because it won’t hurt so much anymore where you’re going. They were very upset. They love you very much. But, like I said, I told them goodbye for you. They will be okay.” 

Shane’s chin is wobbling dangerously. He nods curtly. No words come out. They would still try to track his phone. The movement might be suspicious. They would search for a body. They would label him a missing person if they couldn’t find anything or get any leads. How long would they search and ask the police to search until they gave up? 

“Sweetheart. I know you are sad thinking about them. But I promise you, this is for the best. Can I tell you something important?” the man asks, voice light in that way one gets when you are desperately trying to keep someone from crying. He places a hand over Shane’s knee under the table, and the touch is like a live current. Shane just nods. He has no other choice. “I heard once, years ago now, that the Prophet Muhammad was visited by angels who ripped open his chest and scrubbed his heart clean with snow before putting it back in its place again. I thought it sounded like an unnecessarily violent and painful process. It sounded like something from my nightmares. But, Shane. When I saw you for the very first time, it was the only way I could describe how I felt. I felt you had torn my heart out of my chest with your bare hands and made it clean, and it hurt in the most incredible way. It made me new again. You made me new again, моя любовь. I believe you are the angel sent to me. I believe we were made to take care of each other. Do you understand?” The man’s eyes shine with unshed tears of his own, which scares Shane.

“I understand,” Shane whispers under softly flickering light. He believes the man is sincere. But he doesn’t really understand. Shane is something pure, Shane is an angel, Shane is a slave, Shane is a captive. It doesn’t make any sense to him how someone could hold all of that in their head and being at once. Shane is a person. He is supposed to be free. There is something very, very wrong in this man’s head. He supposes that was obvious from the beginning, but it frightens Shane a great deal more to hear out loud just how nonsensical things really are.

“Come shower with me. You will feel better,” the man says.  

“Okay,” Shane breathes. 

He tries not to think too hard about undressing in front of the man, of seeing him bare again. The world outside seems perfectly still and quiet and uncaring in regards to the crashing devastation in Shane’s head.

Under warm water that burns the fresh cuts on his arm, Shane tries to keep his eyes to himself and ignores the gaze that looks over him much too easily. Shane washes his body with soap that smells of nothing and his hair with shampoo that smells strongly of citrus. Days worth of oil and grime go down the drain. He doesn’t feel clean. 

Suddenly the man is standing much too close in the already tight space and there is a hand on Shane’s hip and Shane is frozen in place as a wet mouth hungrily meets his own. He hums in surprise and aborts the small, instinctive twisting-away his body attempts to execute. He lets it happen, again, because there is nothing else to do. The man hums in response and finally pulls back after a long moment, panting.

“God, you’re beautiful,” the man says reverently. Shane blinks at him, his head buzzing. He’s trying to imagine what his mom and Hayden might have said to his pretended-last-words, how Mom and Dad and Hayden and Jackie and Gram must have been feeling all week thinking he’s fucking killed himself. It makes his head ache worse than it has been. Shane isn’t sure he’s breathing properly at all.

Shane sits naked on the man’s bed, feeling horrifically exposed, and allows him to rub cooling antibiotic cream into Shane’s cuts, his touch steady and firm, eyes sharp and focused on the task at hand. 

“I want to kiss you,” the man says when it's finished, threading his fingers through Shane’s. “I know you’re not feeling well. But I just want to kiss you tonight. And then we’ll go to sleep, together, here. How does that sound?”

Sleep here. In this bed. With him. 

“Good,” Shane says. “That sounds good, sir.” 

And Shane means it. Not the kissing– although that is better than something more– but to sleep upstairs is maybe the best opportunity Shane could get. He won’t actually be sleeping, of course. He couldn’t possibly. 

The kissing is too much. The man makes out with him for what feels like ages. The lights are off and Shane is on his back against the mattress beneath a plush duvet and the man settles over him, between his legs, and they aren’t wearing anything, and Shane can feel fucking everything, the animal warmth of him and how hard he is against Shane’s hip, his fingers kneading his skin and tongue licking into his mouth. Shane keeps his eyes determinedly closed and his mouth slack. His hands are fixed on the man’s shoulders, as if that could offer him any protection. There’s nowhere for him to go. This is just something to endure. 

There are worse things to endure, Shane thinks, but the thought doesn’t do him any good and kind of only makes him feel worse for feeling gross, actually. He listens to the man’s laboured breath and quiet moans and the slick sounds of spit and his nausea compounds. He tries to listen to what’s beyond this suffocating room instead, but the trouble is, there’s nothing. Fucking nothing. Shane feels too real. He wants to melt somewhere far, far away, but he can’t. 

The man sighs, pressing his nose into the crook of Shane’s neck. 

“я тебя люблю,” he murmurs something in Russian, “You’re so precious.” Shane feels much too warm all over. Finally, the man rolls off of him, but he’s quick to gather Shane back into his arms from behind, the length of his body pressed against his. “You’re very sweet,” the man says lowly, “But I am so tired. Do you feel okay? Can you sleep like this?” 

“I’m okay,” Shane croaks, “I can sleep.”

The man hums, his forehead resting against Shane’s shoulder.

“I’m glad. Goodnight, Shane.”

“Goodnight,” Shane says. 

He listens to the man’s breathing behind him. He listens and listens and listens until it goes deep and even.

The bedroom door is closed and the curtains are drawn. It’s very dark in here. Shane can make out faint watercolor lines of the room’s layout through the cloying shadows. He faces the window, opposite of the door. A sliver of light from outside, maybe the moon, maybe another lightsource, too, peaks through the curtains, splashing onto the hardwood and across the bed covers, illuminating Shane’s arm littered with new marks. 

He lies awake for hours and hours. Outside, he can hear the chirp of crickets and occasional coo of an owl. Nothing else. He waits with bated breath for something more. 

Awake still when the sun rises, Shane has an idea. There are birds chirping. He just wants to see out the window.

Impossibly slowly, Shane removes the arm thrown over his waist. The man doesn’t stir. Inch by inch, Shane moves away from him, lifts the duvet so he can get out from under it. He cautiously pulls himself to the edge of the bed and into a sitting position, like molasses, and carefully lowers his bare feet onto the floor. The wood creaks beneath him, and Shane winces. This is the kind of house that announces every step. 

But the man is still asleep. Shane glances furtively over his shoulder to look at him and make sure, his face soft and relaxed, brow smooth. He shifts his weight until he is standing, little by little, in an attempt to minimize the noise of warped floorboards. 

He makes it two small steps towards the window. 

“Shane?” the man asks groggily, “Where are you going?” Shane freezes. 

“I just need to pee,” Shane says, “Sorry to wake you.” 

“Is okay,” the man mumbles, waving a hand like he’s swatting a fly. 

Shane treads lightly to the en suite bathroom, forgoing the bedroom window. The man is awake. He is sleepy, but he’s not stupid. He will watch Shane and wait for him to come back to bed. 

Shane closes the bathroom door behind him. He doesn’t know why. Or, he does, but he thinks it might be a mistake the second he does it. 

He pisses, flushes the toilet, and turns on the water to wash his hands. There is a small window in the bathroom facing westward. He tilts up a slat of the blinds to peak through.

Green farmland and trees turning orange and brown as far as the eye can see. Ok, fuck. That’s something. That’s just one direction. He tilts the slat back down and hurries to wash his hands, shutting the faucet off with a too-loud thunk. The man watches him return to bed with half-lidded eyes, drawing him back against his chest, muttering something unintelligible, and Shane keeps his breathing under control, maybe a little too well, because he is drifting off to sleep before he knows it. 

Shane wakes with a wet finger pressing into his hole. He returns to consciousness, a slow fade into wakefulness until he registers the odd intrusion and he jerks, startled. A hand pushes his hip back down onto the mattress and holds it there. 

“Whatryoudoin?” Shane’s voice slurs with sleep, his words and brain not yet quite caught up to what’s happening. 

The man hushes him where he’s knelt between Shane’s spread legs.

“You’re okay, Shane. Just let me take care of you. I’ll make you feel so good, моя любовь.” 

Shane is fully awake and realizes what’s happening, now, and he considers kneeing the man in the fucking face and bolting, or hitting, or just plain yelling his head off over how fucking wrong this is. He swallows down the panic bubbling up in his throat, instead. He can’t even make himself look at the man, if he does, he– Fuck. Fuck, fucking, fuck. He knew– he thought he knew this was going to happen, but he didn’t– 

“M’not ready,” Shane begs, and to his great embarrassment, there are tears stinging his eyes. Half a second later, too late, he expects to be hit for the protest, and he tenses. The man just hushes him again. Shane doesn’t understand anything. 

“You are, sweetheart. I promise you, you are,” he says, tone soothing, and he pushes his finger in the rest of the way. Shane’s breath stutters and he feels himself clenching down instinctively, his body trying to expel the intrusion. “Relax,” the man scolds lightly, “You need to relax, baby.” He bends down, pressing kisses into Shane’s stomach as he works his finger inside of him. 

Shane stares at the ceiling, chipping white paint, his feet planted on the mattress. And he doesn’t move. Shane has touched himself before, he knows what this feels like. But this is so fucking different. He listens to his own ragged breath fill the room, the man’s low sounds of approval, kisses left on the insides of his thighs, the awful wet noises of lube and one finger working in and out of him, then two, then three, the stretch burning. And Shane just lets it happen, because he feels sick and pinned down by an animalistic sense of terror, because if he doesn’t– 

Fingers brush over a bundle of nerves deep inside of him, and Shane feels like he’s been electrocuted, warmth pooling low in his belly. A tiny, pathetic sound escapes him and his hips twitch against the sensation. His arms remain useless, clutching at the sheets and pillow.

“That’s it, baby,” the man coos, and Shane wants to bite his head off. 

Again and again, the man grinds into his prostate with his fingers, and Shane wants to fucking die. He bites his lip, hard, and tries to think of anything, anything else. He can’t seem to leave himself. 

By the time the man has removed his fingers and is nudging the bare, slick head of his cock against his entrance, Shane is hyperventilating. The man has hitched one of Shane’s legs up over his shoulder, folding him in on himself, and he peppers his face with little kisses, and Shane can’t not look at him now, his vision eclipsed. The man’s eyes are dark and wide and hazy with lust, curls wild, face flushed, taking in Shane like he’s– like he’s something to consume. 

“You’re okay, Shane,” the man murmurs, punctuating himself with a wet kiss beneath his jaw, “I’ll make it so good for you.” 

He pushes in slowly. He’s not rough. Shane moans at the agonizing pressure of it, the intense heat making way inside of him, and the man moans in response, something guttural. 

“Breathe, моя любовь. You need to breathe,” the man says, strained, once he’s bottomed out. Shane doesn’t think he remembers how. He’s itchy with sweat and proximity and he can hardly believe how full he feels, how deep the man is inside of him, and he thinks he might be choking on air, he’s so turned on he can’t see straight, his hard cock bumping the man’s stomach, and he fucking hates himself, hates himself, he wants to scream and push the man off of him but he doesn’t. He doesn’t. The air between them smells of sex and morning breath and inoffensive lube, and it’s so much, too much, Shane wants it all to go away, to be anywhere else. 

A mortifying sob is punched out of him when the man begins to rock and thrust inside of him, and as he squeezes his eyes shut against the shame of it, he feels actual tears running down his face.

“I know, I know,” the man pants, groans in pleasure, and Shane doesn’t know what he knows, “Oh, God, Shane.” 

When Shane was eleven years old, he went with the neighbor kids to watch the Fourth of July parade go through downtown. There was a boy walking alongside one of the floats, not much older than he was at the time, he looked like he was maybe thirteen at most. It was clear he was a part of the parade, all dressed up in stars and stripes, waving a flag and cheering and occasionally circling back to chat with another kid walking with the float behind him. It was a hot summer’s day and Shane remembers sucking on a grape popsicle he had gotten from god knows where. 

When the boy was in front of Shane and the neighbor kids, he jumped up onto his float, but he didn’t make it, slipping and falling to the pavement. Before he could move, a wheel rolled over the boy’s right leg. Shane didn’t hear the crunch, but he has always been able to imagine he did. People shouted and screamed for the float to stop, and it did. Someone rushed over to help the boy. A woman behind Shane called 911. Probably several people did, but he remembers her voice, especially. He doesn’t remember the rest of the parade.

The man wraps a hand around Shane’s leaking cock, and Shane is panicking, because he can feel it, that tight coil of pleasure in his core despite everything, everything, and suddenly he’s coming, his entire body seizing up with the force of it, and it feels so fucking good it hurts and his vision goes white behind his eyelids. The man moans, wanton, and he’s speaking in gibberish, no, Russian, his thrusts erratic, and he presses his face into Shane’s throat. Shane vaguely registers that he is still crying. The man comes and stills inside him with a grunt deep in his chest, and Shane can fucking feel it pulsing hot inside of him. 

It’s over. It’s finally over. 

The man all but collapses on top of him, a heavy, all encompassing weight, a fucking furnance. He doesn’t pull out, softening inside Shane. Together they lay, chests heaving for breath, sweat and come smeared between their bodies growing tacky.

“How do you feel?” the man asks roughly, and Shane really wishes he would stop asking him that. 

“Good, sir,” Shane breathes, feeling anything but. 

“Good,” the man echoes, sighing. “Малыш, you are fucking perfect. I love you so fucking much.” 

Shane doesn’t know what to say to that. A long silence falls between them, until Shane can kind of sort of mostly breathe again. He wonders, a bit wildly, if this will be the day he tries to run. 

“I was twelve when my older brother took my virginity. It was a week after our mother died,” the man says, his lips brushing Shane’s throat.

Shane listens to his heartbeat in his own ears. The man’s words gut him in a way he didn’t think was possible. For a long moment, he doesn’t think he remembers how to speak.

“I’m so sorry,” Shane whispers. 

The man begins to weep. Not loudly. Choked off, muffled sobs, excruciating.

Angels scrubbing insides with snow.

“I’m sorry,” Shane repeats, and he starts to talk, thinking that what he’s saying doesn’t really make any sense at all, “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here. I’m right here for you.” 

The man inhales and exhales, ragged. Shane feels like he is holding something fragile in his teeth.

“I knew our father must have touched him, because he had touched me when I was small. But my father never went all the way. My father was gentle and kind– not usually, but when he touched me like that, in my bed, he was. He played with me. He kissed me. He made it nice. He stopped– I never knew why he stopped. Maybe he was afraid. My brother, he was not gentle or kind. He made it hurt. He loved me, I knew he did, but he hated me, too. He wasn’t afraid of being found out because he knew I would never tell. How could I tell anyone what he was doing to me? If I hadn’t left– I think he would have kept doing it forever. I couldn’t– I couldn’t make it stop. I don’t know why. It hurt, and I didn’t want it, not like that, but I think I liked being close to him, in some way, this one way that I could. I think I missed being with my father like that. I was like, like, his mistress, or something. His secret. So I had to leave. That was the only way I could figure out how to make it stop.” 

Shane’s chest hurts more the more the man speaks. 

“That’s awful,” Shane says, throat tight. “I’m really sorry. I’m glad you got away.” 

The man laughs tearfully.

“I’m glad, too. I’m glad I have you, Shane. You make it all better when I’m with you.” 

Shane just nods. He doesn’t know what to say. Shane is glad he can’t see the man’s face like this. 

“I’m glad I have you, too. You’re good to me,” Shane says wetly, more than half a lie, and a quiet one. It’s what the man needs to hear right now and Shane can’t deny him it. They lie together in tears for what feels like eons, sniffling like children. The world beyond this room doesn’t even exist. 

“I never thought I’d tell anyone. But you’re a part of me, Shane. I couldn’t not tell you, you understand?”

“I understand,” Shane says. 

“Did your father touch you?” the man asks, tracing Shane’s palm with his thumb, and Shane recoils from the shock of it. It takes him a second to answer.

“No. No, he never...” 

“Are you sure?” the man presses, and his voice is impossibly gentle. He lifts his head to look Shane in the face, eyes red and swollen and skin blotchy, mouth set,  “You can tell me, Shane. You’re safe here with me.” The irony of it makes Shane want to cry all over again. 

“I’m sure. He never touched me.” 

“But he did something, yes? I can tell. You’re so tense when you’re with him. You can hardly stand to look at him, to be in the same room as him. In your journal, you wrote that he ruined your family. You hate him,” the man says, and Shane’s brain blips at the implication of how the man came to know those things. 

“He never… nothing sexual, nothing ever like that. It’s nothing like that. It’s not, it’s not that bad, I guess,” Shane says quietly. 

“He hit you. And your mother, probably,” the man says, not so much a question. 

“He never actually hit us. He did– other things like it, I guess. I don’t know how to explain it,” Shane whispers, at a loss. The man hums.

“I understand. My father used to put his hands around my neck, just for fun. Just to see how long I could take it. Things like that, they fuck with your head worse than others, sometimes.” 

The man squeezes Shane’s hand where he holds it and Shane squeezes back. He considers his words carefully before speaking, but he finds them spilling out of him anyway.

“He hurt me badly, once. Bruised me and broke my wrist–” because Shane has always considered his broken wrist to be his dad’s fault– “Maybe scared me more than anything. And I never forgave him for it. But I think it was the way he treated my mom that bothered me the most–” Shane swallows back the old fear rising in his throat– “And she could never just leave him, you know. She always accepted it. He could always convince her to stay.” 

The man huffs into his shoulder, “I’ll never hurt you, Shane. Never. I always want to be soft with you. I love you.” 

Shane believes the man believes himself. 

But Shane doesn’t believe him.

Chapter End Notes

If you have a sick brain disease like I do (PTSD), then perhaps you too immediately interpreted Ilya and Alexei’s confrontation at the funeral (in the show) and every other scene involving Ilya and his family as alluding to a history of incest abuse. The fucked up family dynamics compel me. I feel seen by my own sick hallucinations. But, well. If you relate to this, I hope you can feel seen, too. I think it’s important to be able to see yourself outside of yourself, sometimes. It’s rough, but it can really help. Please always be kind to yourself <3

Chapter 6: while you were torn apart

Chapter Summary

Shane dreams of a wolf with great big teeth.

Chapter Notes

Aaah thank you for being so patient with me! I have finally locked in the chapter count for this work: most likely 9, possibly 10. I can't guarantee it yet but I'm pretty darn sure at this point. I'm so excited for the rest of this story. Thank you for your comments and kudos that make my day. I should have more time on my hands this week and I hope to get a lot more writing done for this fic, so fingers crossed.

I feel like this chapter is kind of all over the place (in a good way?) but the only major content warning I can think of is for sexual assault. Please take care of yourself and I hope you enjoy reading <3

“Let’s have a day together, you and me,” the man says over breakfast, more oatmeal and toast for Shane’s roiling stomach. Shane wishes he could just sleep all day, exhaustion tugging at his eyelids, his body sore in a way he’s never really felt before and his head is buzzing like static. He’s not sure any one conscious thought has made it through his head since the man pulled out of him, soft– there is simply a dark pit pulling him down, down into the man’s misery, into a hopelessness threatening to swallow Shane up for good. They showered together in a deafening quiet stretching between them, and the man had given Shane a set of fresh clothing to dress in. Shorts, t-shirt, underwear, simple. Shane wonders almost idly if he got rid of what Shane had been wearing when he was– attacked. It doesn’t matter now, he supposes. God, he really looks at Shane like he cares, which just makes everything worse, because Shane believes that he does, however it was this man came to care– self-indulgent fantasy, grandiose delusion, psychosis, whatever. There is something unbalanced in his head. Something hurting and hungry in his brain had latched onto Shane and the man had been unable to tear himself away from that attachment, and now here he is. It doesn’t really matter now, Shane guesses. He doesn’t know what to safely do about it besides play along. 

The tears spilled between them this morning still feel heavy, but the man is smiling again. He’s truly so happy to be with Shane. He had opened the blinds like it was nothing, like it wasn’t what Shane had been desperate for all week, as they made their way through the house together, and Shane had tried not to stare. All he could see were trees and more trees. Fuck, maybe the man hadn’t lied to him and they really are miles from anything. Maybe they aren’t even in Massachusetts anymore. 

“That sounds nice,” Shane says quietly, because he does want to stay up here and out of the basement. Repulsed as he feels in the aftermath of the man’s advances, there is something about his presence that draws Shane out of his own despairing mind. The man is something else to focus on and Shane does not want to be left alone with the turmoil inside of him right now. 

“You want to take Anya out with me?” the man asks. 

Oh, shit. 

Oh fuck. 

Hell.

Is this it? 

Is the man sure that Shane can’t run, or is he deluded that he won’t? 

“Yeah, sure,” Shane agrees, keeping his voice level. 

Anya darts out from her crate like a bullet, zipping around the house and yipping with excitement. Shane watches the man smile at her antics and call her over to him by the back door. There’s no key needed to unlock it, just a couple latches undone. He meets Shane’s eyes and gestures for him to follow, too. 

Shane steps outside, barefoot, down a couple wooden steps onto the dirt and grass. It’s a chilly morning, but as the fresh air hits his lungs, Shane thinks he breathes fully for the first time in a week. The sky above them is clear and blue in that striking way it gets in the colder months. The man closes the door behind them and together they watch Anya scamper across a wide, green pasture surrounded by trees, unleashed. She barks and lunges at a small bird in the grass, who promptly takes flight to safety. Shane can’t see any other buildings through the trees– it looks like they’re in the middle of the woods. He wants to see the front of the house. He wants to see where the man’s car is parked, wants to see a driveway and a path to follow to a road before he thinks about trying something drastic. 

“It’s beautiful,” Shane says, about nothing in particular, about everything, and his stomach clenches with a sudden realization that he had sort of kind of started to really believe, down in that basement, that he might never feel the sun on his skin again. Now, its rays caressing his face, Shane is terrifyingly aware that this very moment could be his last time to experience it. 

“It has been nice out, lately,” the man agrees. In the not-so-far distance, Anya plops down and rolls around in the grass, belly up. Shane honestly wants to do the same, his limbs pulling him down like weights. 

He does.

His knees weaken and Shane finds himself on his back, grass prickling his skin, a rock poking into his shoulder, and he’s blinking up at perfect saturated blue meeting his retinas directly, unmitigated by the glare and separation of glass, expansive and endless, the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen, will ever see, but his head is spinning and his breath is going in and out of his lungs in too-short, too-shallow bursts– 

“Shane,” the man says, urgently, and Shane senses more than he sees him kneel at his side, hands hovering, “Shane, are you okay?” 

“M’okay,” Shane mumbles, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth, “Jus’ need to lie down, I think.” Which is stupid, because Shane is already lying down. The man presses a hand to Shane’s rapidly rising and falling chest, over his heart beating frantically. 

“You’re not well. Fuck. You need to breathe, Shane,” the man says, pleading, like Shane is really scaring him. Which is also stupid. Shane is fine. Or, he’s not fine, but he’s– Shane doesn’t know. 

“S’just so pretty,” Shane says dumbly, breathless, and there is a wind whooshing in his ears, tugging at the back of his eyeballs, his body is so, so heavy, he couldn’t move if he wanted to, and the blue in front of him is swimming, refracting into shades of reds and yellows,

Shane is in a bed, the man’s bed, he recognizes the mattress beneath him before he sees the familiar ceiling above, and a sound of distress escapes him, and he’s moving, listlessly, his body slower than he wants it to be, to get up, get out–

“No, please–” Shane begs, barely conscious, as a firm hand pushes him back onto the bed by his shoulder.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” the man shushes him, “You’re safe. You just passed out for a little bit. You need to lie back and rest.” 

Shane is still fully clothed. The man is not over him or touching him. He’s just sitting on the bed with Shane, also dressed. Jesus. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says, a thin whine, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know– I was so happy to be outside with you.” 

“No, no, it’s alright. You’re okay. Things have been difficult for you, I understand. Hard on your body. It will be okay. You’ll feel better, be stronger again.” 

“Thank you,” Shane says, and it feels wrong. He feels like an idiot. What the fuck is wrong with his stupid body that something like this would happen to him? Shane is not weak. He is not helpless. If his chest is tight and he struggles to breathe, he fucking deals with it. 

Maybe the man is right. This is just what happens when you’re living in life or death, although he doesn’t think that’s exactly what the man meant by it. When things were too much, before, in Shane’s life, and he felt stupid for feeling like it was too much, it made sense. He lived a good life, a lucky life. He had food and water and clothes on his back and a roof over his head and safety and people who loved him and an education and a good job and on and on it went. 

Now, Shane doesn’t know what he has. All of the same things, maybe, debatably, but the context has been entirely ripped out from under him. This is not Shane’s life, it makes no sense in the narrative of Shane’s life, and he has nowhere to put it. He feels unreal. Shane doesn’t know if or when the man is going to be bored of him, or so angry he can’t see straight, and Shane will die– not because he’s weak, not because he doesn’t fight, but because there is very little leverage you can gain when you are backed into a corner, no matter how strong you are. 

Shane closes his eyes and breathes, sinking into the pillow and the warmth of the duvet. He does need to rest. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so tired in his life. Time passes, Shane doesn’t know how long. He lets his world narrow into the breath going in and out of his lungs. He can’t afford to think about anything else. 

“How are you feeling?” the man’s voice intrudes after some time, fingers stroking the inside of his good wrist. 

“Groggy,” Shane murmurs, wishing he had a glass of water, “But other than that, good, I think.” 

“That is good,” the man says, “But. I mean, how do you really feel, мой дорогой?” 

And Shane thinks he knows what he means by that, but he doesn’t know how to answer. 

“Uh. Overwhelmed, I guess. But, also, grateful,” Shane says, not untruthfully. He is grateful to be alive, he is grateful to not be in a warzone and to not be bleeding and flayed open and staring down a true weapon. 

No, instead Shane is in a house in the country with a strange, sad man who says strange, tender things, who touches him and stole him and threatened once to kill him. 

He opens his eyes again to see the man watching him, of course, always, unwavering. 

“I know you’re scared of me,” the man says, and his voice remains gentle, “And I am sorry. I’m trying to be– I’m trying to be good to you. I want you to feel good and safe here. That’s all I want.” 

“You are good to me,” Shane protests quietly, because he can tell that’s what he’s supposed to do, and he said it earlier this morning after the man cried in his arms, “I’m just, um. Everything is so new to me. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be, like, I’m afraid, or–” 

“It’s okay,” the man stops his rambling, “I know you can’t help it. I only want you to see how good things can be. And I know you will. I just, I wish I could make you better all at once.” 

“That would be nice,” Shane agrees faintly. It would be nice if he could believe the man. 

“Can you sit up?” the man asks next, “Slowly. I will get you some water. And some crackers, maybe.” Shane nods.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.” 

The man squeezes his wrist and leaves Shane in the bed. Things feel calmer, somehow. 

Surely there are cameras, all over Boston. Cameras that would have seen Shane in the parking lot, would have seen the man and his car and where he took Shane. There has to be something. When they try to find where he went to supposedly kill himself, they will find something. They have to.

“Do you know the story of Rama and Sita?” the man asks. He sits comfortably on the bed with Shane, like he’s occupying a space he was simply meant to. Shane shakes his head, gulping down ice water, too much and not enough. “Sita is my favorite, probably. She reminds me a little bit of you.” 

“I don’t know anything about her,” Shane admits, and he doesn’t know why the man wants to tell him a story about her. He’s heard of the Lord Ram, Hare Rama and all that. But he doesn’t know anything, really. 

“You’ve heard of the Ramayana?” the man asks. 

“Vaguely?” Shane replies. 

“Yes, well. It’s an ancient poem telling the story of the life of Rama. Very long. It was passed down for centuries before it was ever written, you know, as those things go. But I think Sita is my favorite. She’s Lord Rama’s wife, an avatar of the goddess Lakshmi. Her story has always fascinated me. I don’t know why, exactly. It began before she was even Sita. Before she was Sita, she was Vedavati, who dedicated her entire life to the Lord Vishnu– Rama is an avatar of Vishnu– and prayed to have him as her husband. But one day the demon Ravana found her and tried to take her by force, and so she threw herself into a fire that she would not lose her virtue, promising that when she was reincarnated, she would bring about Ravana’s downfall. And then Vedavati was born again as Sita, born from the Earth, and finally made Rama’s wife.

As his wife, she went with Rama and his brother into exile in the forest. It was there that she was captured again by the demon Ravana and imprisoned, but Lord Rama was able to find Sita with the help of Hanuman and kill the evil Ravana. Still, Rama doesn’t trust her chastity, and she is made to self-immolate once more to show her devotion to him. When she survives, she is made queen. 

And yet later, when Sita is pregnant, her chastity is questioned again, and she is banished to have her children in the wilderness before she can return to Rama, and then the Earth.” 

Shane thinks her story sounds pretty depressing and unfair. He supposes that must be why the man is so drawn to it. 

“How does she remind you of me?” Shane asks, equally curious and apprehensive. He also thinks that the man’s wording is interesting– why does Sita remind him of Shane, and not Shane remind him of Sita? 

The man hesitates before answering, like he’s organizing something in his head before he can even put it to words.

“Your beauty. Your dedication. Your purity. Your birth from both the Heavens and the Earth. I have this dream where– a nightmare– you leave me, in flames. Once every couple of months my mind shows me the image again and I can’t sleep or eat for days.” The man’s eyes go far away, his mouth pinching, sour. 

“That sounds very upsetting,” Shane says sympathetically, what he thinks he should probably say to this, even if it’s useless. The image strikes a particular fear in Shane’s chest. The man doesn’t answer, still far away, his gaze directed somewhere past him. Shane pries, confused, maybe too curious for his own good, desperate to bring the man back to a state he understands, “What do you mean about my birth, sir? I don’t, um. I feel like I don’t know anything about those kinds of things.” 

The man’s attention shifts back towards Shane. But he’s not looking at him. He’s looking through him. Shane tenses. He mentally prepares to run. 

“The strangest thing,” the man speaks, eventually, a whisper like anything else is too much effort, “You might not believe me.” 

Shane might not. He probably won’t. He doesn’t think he’s really believed much of anything the man has told him, actually. 

“I will. I believe you. I can tell this is important,” he says, instead. 

“I didn’t know it, when I first saw you. I found out later. You were born the very same day my mother died. Within the hour of when I found her.” 

Shane swallows thickly. This is something really bad, connections that shouldn’t be made, links in the brain forged in desperation, in an awful sickness. It might not even be real, it probably isn’t even real, the man is confused, or mistaken, he’s remembering wrong, he’s only attributed the day of a death to a birth in retrospect. Or it’s a terrible fucking coincidence and it’s the reason he chose Shane in his illness. 

“You mean, like, on the– anniversary, or–”

“May 10th, 1991. It was about 4 in the afternoon, in Moscow. Around 11 at night, in Boston. I was twelve. It was a Friday, after hockey practice, after school. The USSR was done with seven months later.” 

Ok, fuck. 

“You don’t believe me,” the man says, and he just sounds so sad, and he’s looking at Shane again, he’s present and scrutinizing him, “The date is on her grave, Shane. My whole family remembers it. The coroner wrote it down. I have my birth certificate, still, from 1979.” 

“No, I believe you,” Shane says, more urgent than he would have liked, “I believe you, sir. I was just surprised, I’m sorry. That’s… wow.” 

Shane isn’t sure if he believes the man and he’s not sure if it even matters whether or not he does. The man is quiet for a long time. Shane focuses on the way his hands fall over his knees where they sit beside each other in bed, too-still. 

He thought learning more about what the man was thinking would help him understand, would help him feel more confident in how to take the best course of action. 

He only feels more scared and lost. 

Does the man believe that Shane is her? He wonders how she died. He doesn’t want to ask. 

“Was she good to you?” Shane asks instead, horrifically soft. 

The man blinks.

“Very.” 

Three more weeks pass.

The days bleed into one another, uneventful and life alternating. 

Shane and the man develop a routine.

They don’t talk much. Little things, here and there, but mostly they exist together in a delicately draping silence. Carefully controlled. 

Shane stays in the man’s bed most nights. The man fucks him most nights. Sometimes he just uses his hands or his mouth, or he asks Shane to do the same to him, but he often goes all the way. The worst part might be that it doesn’t hurt, or if it does, not for long. He’s never rough. He kisses Shane for ages and tells him how much he loves him, sometimes crying. Shane lets it happen, hating himself, not knowing what else to do. He wants to fight. He wants to survive.

They shower together. In the mornings, they let Anya out the back together, eat breakfast together in the sunshiney kitchen. Shane spends his days locked in the basement while the man is at work, where he sleeps, mostly, because he doesn’t sleep in the man’s bed– he is still waiting to hear a sign from outside, and also afraid of something horrible happening if he does falls asleep in that bed. 

When the man is home, they cook together, watch TV together, play cards together, take Anya in the backyard together, before retiring to the bedroom for the evening. 

Everything is simultaneously calm and unsettling. The man does not raise his voice at Shane, nor a hand, for that matter. Shane does not talk back to the man. He says “yes sir”, “no sir”, “please, Master”, “thank you, Master”. The man seems content, usually. Sometimes elated beyond words. Other times, maybe the worst times, he’s gone. Mentally, emotionally. Checked-out. 

Shane’s cuts scab over and the flesh knits itself back together, leaving pink marks behind in evidence. He loses track of how many times the man has touched him, kissed him, carved inside of him with with his fingers and cock, twinges of pain that fade into white noise, left spit tacky on his skin and made him come, sticky and shivering from the aftershocks of it, tender bruises in the shape of fingerprints lingering on his thighs and hips and a loving mouth at his throat. He loses track not by accident, but on purpose, because he has found that the only way to get through it without hot tears stinging his eyes is to pretend that it has never happened before and will never happen again and is not happening now. He does not go hungry or thirsty. The house is growing colder with the changing weather outdoors. 

It’s been a month since Shane was stolen. He does not read his Bible. The man does not ask him if he has, and Shane wonders how long he can get away with this, if this is reckless. If this is rebellion. He doesn’t mean it as rebellion. He just doesn’t want to.

 Shane can see, out the front-facing windows, that the man drives a blue camry, and the gravel and dirt driveway stretches and winds into the trees where Shane can’t see any more. Shane thinks the man must keep his phone and keys locked away in a closet that he has yet to have a chance to snoop around in. 

Shane dreams of a wolf with great big teeth. 

Sometimes he’s home and the wolf is stalking him in his own house. Sometimes he’s outside on a regular walk. It’s always nighttime. The wolf does not chase him, even when he runs. It watches him with glowing yellow eyes. It moves with a slow and steady confidence, slinking across the ground like oil. It knows it will get what it wants. It wants Shane. No matter what Shane does, he can’t escape it.

Each time he wakes with his heart thudding out of his chest, drawing up the covers like a child and searching the room, frantically, for a moving shadow or glint of sharp eyes and sharp teeth. He’s always so sure it's real. 

Sometimes Shane thinks of attempting to smother or strangle the man in his sleep. Actually, he considers it every single night. He could do it, probably. Shane is strong enough. He could sit on the man’s chest and pin down his arms with his knees and he could push and hold and squeeze as the man thrashes and bucks until all the air from his lungs is gone and his body goes limp and he is dead and it is over and Shane is free. 

He doesn’t know why he doesn’t do it. Well, he does. Shane is afraid it won’t work. He’s afraid his leverage will be lost and the man will be able to free himself and the man will be able to kill Shane, instead. It would be safer to hit the man in the head with a fucking metal pan. But he doesn’t do that, either. He is terrified, maybe more than anything, that it just won’t work. That something will go wrong and Shane will die sooner than he has to. 

When it gets to a month, Shane decides to do something else, also possibly stupid. He’s been mulling it over for days. He thinks it's the right thing to do. He thinks there is more reward than risk. He needs to do something to shift the horror of quiet monotony and see where he can get himself when he is careful with his words. 

The man kisses him lazily in his bed, still clothed, and says, “I love you,” like he has dozens of times now. It makes Shane’s stomach twist with grief and a different kind of fear rises in his throat when he knows what he has to do. 

“I love you, too,” Shane says quietly. 

The man freezes. He stares at Shane like a deer in headlights. 

“Shane,” he breathes, “Shane.” 

“I love you,” Shane repeats, hoping that the warble in his voice is understood as raw emotion and not the uncertainty of a liar. The man has seemed to mostly accept Shane’s other lies. 

“Shane,” the man repeats, voice cracking, “Do you mean it? Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, please.” There are unshed tears shining in the man’s eyes. 

“I mean it,” Shane whispers. 

The man marvels at him. He looks scared, Shane thinks. Truly scared. Despite everything, Shane feels cruel. 

“I love you more than I can say,” the man says wetly, “I love you so much I thought it would kill me,” and he kisses Shane like he’s dying. Shane tastes salt. 

It could be a mistake. It could make the neuroses in the man’s brain worse. But it could also soothe him. Maybe even heal a part of him to feel loved like that. Most importantly, it could make him trust Shane. 

He makes Shane come three times that night. 

The next night, Shane falls asleep in the basement before the man returns home from work. He wakes with a start to a hand on his shoulder rousing him from sleep.

“Hi,” Shane croaks, his eyes not even open, “M’sorry, I fell ‘sleep. What time‘sit?” 

“Almost three in the morning,” the man says, and there is an unusual edge to his voice. Not in a bad way, exactly. He sounds very, very cheerful. Shane scrubs at his eyes and readjusts to the faint light of the moon cutting through the darkness. Shane doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s never been woken up this late by the man before. The man is settling on the cot, sitting near Shane’s hips. “I have a gift for you, sweetheart.” 

Shane pushes himself up onto his elbows, bleary and more than a little frightened. This is weird, right? Is it going to be bad? 

“What is it, sir?” Shane asks sleepily. Because what else is there to do? 

The man brushes Shane’s hair back from his face and presses a kiss to his cheek as he pushes something small and cold into Shane’s hand. Shane stares at the shape of it in the weak light.

A gold cross on a delicate chain. 

“It was my mother’s,” the man says, “My father hated that she wore it, but he could never make her take it off or get rid of her icons. She loved them too much. She was a bad soviet, but he was a policeman, so. I rescued it from her corpse. But I could never wear it. I’m scared I’ll break it or lose it, so I keep it safe closed up in my bedside drawer.”

“You want me to have it?” Shane asks, uncertain, struck by the weight of such a tiny thing. 

“I do,” the man says, “You’re safe here, моя любовь. And I know you’ll keep it safe with you.” 

Shane falters.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll take good care of it,” he lands on. 

“I know you will,” the man says, and there is an odd glint in his eye. It’s not the same as when he is sad or when he is far away, “I want you to wear it. Here, let me help you put it on.” Oh. Shane obliges, twisting himself so the man can see the clasp behind his head. It’s short on him, hardly reaching past his collar bone. “She’s as much a part of you as she is me, you know,” the man murmurs when it's done. 

Before Shane can think twice, he throws his arms around the man’s shoulders and holds on. Shane feels him tense under his touch for a second before relaxing and wrapping his own arms around Shane’s waist, completing the hug. He doesn’t really know why he does it. It just feels appropriate for the moment when he can’t seem to find the right words and the energy in the room is off in a way he can’t place. Shane’s forehead is pressed into the crook of the man’s neck, his chin resting on the top of Shane’s hair. 

“Mama,” the man says into the night, and Shane holds his breath, “Can I sleep in your bed, tonight?” 

What the fuck? What the fuck does he mean by that? Is he talking to Shane? Why the fuck would he say that? It doesn’t make any sense. 

“Please, Mama?” the man asks, squeezing tighter. And Shane thinks he probably is really talking to him, and he doesn’t know why, and it scares him. 

“Of course,” Shane whispers, afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid to speak at all. 

The man hums, satisfied, and extracts himself from Shane’s grasp. Without another word, he lies down beside Shane, tugging him down with him. The cot is barely big enough to fit the two of them like this even as the man draws Shane into his arms, spooning him close from behind. 

Shane startles when, suddenly, a large, warm hand is sliding down his shorts and taking hold of his soft dick. He doesn’t say anything, his breath growing laboured as the man plays with him, mouthing along the back of his neck. This has happened so many times, now, and he wonders if it will ever stop feeling so new. 

Jesus. Shane can’t fucking help it. It feels good. 

He grows hard beneath the man’s grip, and then he is stroking Shane in earnest, wetting him with spit and precome. Shane moans softly, instinctively, bites his lip hard for it. The man rumbles in response. 

“So pretty,” the man says, and Shane hates when he calls him that. An exquisite pleasure pools in the pit of his stomach anyway. His breathing goes ragged, he’s close, Christ, he can taste it, and he wants it, he wants to come, he wants that sweet release now that it’s so near. His head feels fuzzy and too-hot and he just wants to feel good, cheap endorphins, a need for relief and maybe something else, something supposedly normal to cut through the strange tension in the air. 

The man removes his hand and an undignified sound leaves Shane. Fuck, fuck, why did he stop? 

“Sorry, baby,” the man hushes, “But not yet.”

He pulls down Shane’s shorts and underwear, bends Shane’s knee, and presses the very hard head of his cock to Shane’s hole. 

“Wait, wait,” Shane pleads, panicked, squirming, but the man holds him in place. He pushes in, dry, and it hurts like hell, burning shocks and sparks lighting up inside of him and pinning him, immobile for fear that it will hurt more. He feels like he’s being split apart. His erection completely flags. The man groans, low, as pained noises spill from Shane’s lips. 

“Master,” he tries to communicate, strained.

“Shh, be good for your Papa, малыш,” the man murmurs. 

His voice washes over Shane like ice. The man has never said that word to Shane before. Shane can’t help but immediately make connections, to think what that must mean, to wonder just how far from reality the man really is right now. Shane feels like he’s going to be sick. 

“Fuck. So tight for me,” the man grunts, bottoms out, and, deliriously, Shane has the urge to laugh. Maybe it’s the notion of Shane being tight when he’s raped, or the memory of his very first night with the man, when he had asked if Shane has ever been with anyone else and he had answered honestly, no. 

Before the man had stolen Shane, he had secretly hoped that he would find a good guy one day. Someone to really settle down with. Because by twenty-two, Shane knew what he was, and he was done with school, and he had his whole life ahead of him. He knew his parents and extended family would likely never react well to it. Hell, he didn’t even think Hayden and Jackie would be very cool with it if they knew. 

It wasn’t like he was planning to go around telling people, hey, I’m gay. But he still dreamed of finding love like most people. He fantasized about what his first time might be like. If he was being honest, he thought it would be easier to run away and never speak to anyone he knew ever again. He had always sort of dreamed of doing that. Something about starting somewhere new where no one could have any pre-planned expectations of him and how his life was supposed to go. 

Well. Here he is, now. The man clinging along the back of him, still mostly clothed, much too warm. He doesn’t move. He stays still inside of Shane, throbbing where he aches and burns, likely torn. 

“I just want to stay like this with you,” the man says, caressing Shane’s hip, “I want to be this close to you, so deep inside you, always.” 

Shane doesn’t respond. He thinks if he opens his mouth he is going to say something he’ll regret. 

The man falls asleep like this. Shane listens to his breathing even out. He feels him soften inside of him, eventually. 

Shane is so angry, he cries. He does not go back to sleep. 

Chapter End Notes

Freud has entered the chat? It's up to interpretation, honestly.

Chapter 7: i would still wait with you there

Chapter Summary

He wonders if this is really what his life is supposed to be. If this is where he was always going to end up, or if there are other universes where things go differently. Maybe there’s a universe where Shane ran away at eighteen, maybe even sooner, like he always wanted to, like he missed his chance to.

Chapter Notes

Tbh I don't even know what to say about this chapter in preface. I think It's a bit of a rollercoaster. It was a doozy to write. I think it means a lot to me. I'm excited for you to read it <3

Uhm just mind the tags, same warnings still apply and I'm still updating as I go. As always, please take care of yourself and I hope you enjoy reading in some capacity <3 <3

Shane pretends to be asleep when the man stirs past daybreak. He’s been staring at the wall and the sink for hours, mapping over each contour and blemish in the concrete, ceramic, and plumbing as the light outside changes gradually. It soothes him, or something close to it, at least a little bit to trace the same lines over and over again, a kind of meditation. The picture of it is probably tattooed on the backs of his eyelids. He does not think about his body, how vulnerable it is, or how it hurts– he registers, of course, but he refuses to let it sit in his mind. If he allows himself to think, he thinks of his family. He thinks the grief they must feel is sickening, because he feels sick thinking about them, being away from them, the very real possibility of never seeing them again. 

The man pulls out slowly, their bodies sticking together uncomfortably. The pain pulsing within Shane changes into a new kind of hurt. Shane shifts, then, stretching and groaning wordlessly. Fuck, it hurts like a bitch. But he can take the pain, Shane tells himself. It’s better than being dead. The man leaves a kiss on Shane’s neck as he rises, and Shane feels the weight of him leave the cot, hears the soft sounds of socked feet on concrete floor, the slow scrape of a metal chair and the squeak of a seat being taken. 

Shane hears sniffling. His heart sinks, and he sits up, squinting through the sunlight bleeding into the room towards the man where he sits at the table. He’s crying, quietly. 

This isn’t unusual, as Shane has learned over the course of this past month. The man cries maybe every other day, sometimes several days in a row, sometimes multiple times in one day, overcome with emotion when he’s with Shane. It never fails to be something startling, even frightening to witness, because of how it comes out of nowhere, how Shane doesn’t understand what’s happening in the man’s head that makes him so upset. Each time, Shane scrambles to reassure the man, desperate to make it stop as soon as possible. 

“What’s wrong, sir?” Shane asks, voice rough with disuse. 

“I don’t know,” the man says, “Everything. Go back to sleep, мой дорогой.” The tears continue to flow, the apples of his cheeks and tip of his nose grow red with the effort he’s attempting to not cry, and still the tears spill over. 

“Hey, no,” Shane says, trying to be gentle, “It’s okay. I wanna– help.” He doesn’t want the man to be upset, which is maybe another thing entirely, but still. Shane shifts forward, wincing slightly. “Do you wanna talk about it?” Playing damage control for something he doesn’t even understand. 

The man looks at him, utterly miserable. About ten feet away from Shane, it almost feels like a safe distance.

“There are people out there,” the man says, “Who want to take you away from me. I can’t– I can’t let that happen.” 

Shane’s mouth goes dry. Why is the man talking like this? Are there really people looking for him? Or is the man just paranoid? 

“No one’s going to take me from you,” Shane says, trying to sound convincing, soothing, “I would never let that happen.” The man lets out a shaky sigh. 

“You don’t know that, Shane. You don’t know how much they hate me.” 

“I don’t think anyone hates you,” Shane challenges softly. 

The man is quiet. 

“Do you think I’m bad?” he asks, his face crumpled, defeated. The words stick coming out of his throat. Oh, Jesus. 

“I don’t think you’re bad at all. You take good care of me. I love you,” Shane lies, his voice shaking only at the edges, passable as remnants from sleep he didn’t get. 

“But I hurt you, last night. I knew it hurt and I did it anyway, because I wanted you so badly,” the man says, and Shane pauses.

“I can take a little hurt. It wasn’t… so bad. You just– surprised me, mostly,” he says, because he is afraid of what might happen if he admits yes, it hurt like hell, please never do that again. 

“You bled over me and the sheets.” 

Shane’s throat clicks.

“It’s okay. I’m not upset with you. I love you,” he says, because what the fuck else is there to say?  

“I love you, too,” the man says, “But you’re also scared of me.”

“I’m not,” Shane retorts, struggling to keep his tone even. 

“You should have hit me. You should have screamed at me. You didn’t even say no or ask me to stop. Why didn’t you?” 

And that doesn’t make any sense, because Shane isn’t supposed to do any of those things. The man had told him himself, he was supposed to be a good slave and not complain. Shane might not believe in any of that bullshit, but he does believe in the real consequences he’s faced before. 

“I– I just want to be good for you, Master,” Shane tries, “I didn’t want to do any of those things.” 

Shane doesn’t understand the look in the man’s eye, clouded over by something unidentifiable. 

“I think,” the man says, “That I must be bad, because of the things I want to do to you.” 

The words fall between them like a weight across Shane’s chest.

“What do you want to do to me?” Shane asks into the quiet, shivering, because he has to know. The man leans forward in his seat, leaning towards Shane with his elbows on his knees, and his eyes are clear, now, and sharp, boring into Shane as if he could affix something to the very soul of him. His eyes are dry again, the evidence of his tears in the red ringed around them and the tracts down his cheeks, snot still shiny just beneath his nose. He looks handsome like this, still, and fuck that thought. 

“I want to see you cry. I want to see you angry. I want you to fight me so I can put you in your place. I want to make it hurt because you’re so beautiful, always, even when you’re in pain. Maybe especially. I want you to yell and beg for mercy just so I can hear the sounds coming out of your throat. I want to make you bleed so I can taste your blood as I taste you, because nothing is enough. I can never be close enough, I can never have enough of you. I want you all the time, so much, there must be something wrong with me. You’re all I’ve been able to think about for years and now that I have you I still can’t stop thinking about you. But you’re so kind, Shane. You’re so polite. So quiet. And it’s so pretty. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. I love hearing how good I make you feel, I love to see it. But I still want more.” 

Well, shit.

“You can have me,” Shane says softly, the only thing he can think to say to appease this man and his appetite, “Whenever you want. I’m yours.” Because he is, isn’t he? The man already has him whenever he wants.

“You don’t want me to hurt you,” the man responds, a warning, and Shane agrees. 

“I guess I don’t,” he says carefully, “But if it’s what you want– I can take it. I– I trust you to take care of me. I know you love me.” 

Shane has never been more afraid in his life. He feels like he’s playing a character, someone so far removed from himself. He believes the man loves him, but that doesn’t lessen the blow of his darkest desires and what this man could do to him. Shane just doesn’t want to die, a stupid, stupid hope. 

The man regards him, brow furrowed. 

“I love you so much,” he says, “But I think I must be an unclean thing soiling something pure. I have this spot on my face marking me, marks all over my body setting me apart as something dirty. I don’t think I’m good like you are, Shane, but I don’t know what to do about it.” 

Shane considers this, and he makes himself look the man in the eye again.

“I don’t think that makes you dirty. My Gram used to say marks like those are where the angels kissed you before they sent you down to earth. That would make you very blessed, I think.” 

The man hums, and speaks, and as he does, the timber of his voice seems to wrap around Shane’s heart and hold it there, suspended.

“I have never seen a human being who was not beautiful to me as a creation of God, even when they were terrible to other human beings. My favorite interactions with people have always been talking with a stranger at a party or the bar or club or orchestra or ballet and never seeing or hearing from them again and feeling like I am carrying them and their hopes and dreams forward with me forever. I have just as much fun getting drunk with people as I do walking and getting a meal by myself, which is to say a great deal, equally. My favorite and most desired jobs will always be where I get to give a stranger my full and undivided attention for a short amount of time and then do the same thing many times over in just one day. I love to meet people and make them feel seen, and I feel I do truly see them. Sometimes, by chance, I too feel seen by someone else. 

I love watching people. God, I adore it. They don’t give a shit about me, but I love watching them so much. At the same time, sometimes it makes me so incredibly angry to hear them talk and laugh without me. Why are they happy without me? They just don’t care. Walking by people I don’t know makes my heart ache, I want to know them so badly, but we just walk by and I don’t know whether to look at them or for how long if I do. I want to smile and say, “You’re so beautiful, I love you, yes, even though I don’t know you. But I could. And I think you’re a part of me already. It hurts to be away from you. It hurts me when you don’t see me as I see you.” Even when people do see me and stick around, I can never seem to believe that they love me as much as I love them. If they show it, I must be blind to it. I’m afraid that I will never believe it. It rolls off of me like water from a duck. I think something about me is not incapable of being loved, maybe, but incapable of absorbing it. It makes me feel awfully cold and lonely. For a long time, I thought it was the fault of everyone else, and I hated them for not returning my love. But I am beginning to think that I am the thing that is broken. I try very hard to pour my warmth into others, Shane, but I have never been able to feel it from someone else. I think I am maybe a broken vessel and I have no idea how to fix it, if it can even be fixed. I want to cry whenever anyone is kind to me. I’m so overwhelmed by simple generosity. I am very happy, I think. I think I am also probably very sad. I love this world, but I don’t believe it loves me. I can hardly ever get anyone to really look at me. They are much too concerned with themselves, and I understand. And when they look at me, finally, they only see what they think I am. But I am not what they think I am. Not at all. I think there must be something evil in me. I think I am maybe possessed by something too hungry and too greedy. I am a very, very selfish man, Shane. I think it is my worst sin, how much I want. I think there is a demon in me that only makes that want worse, and I can’t get it out. I just can’t.” 

Shane listens to all of this, his heart hurting for the genuine feeling and anguish in the man’s voice. 

“I don’t think you’re possessed by a demon,” Shane says weakly, “I think you’re just very human.” 

The man nods slowly, but Shane can tell he doesn’t really agree.

“Whatever it is,” the man says, “I’m sorry I don’t know how to make it better for you.” 

“It’s okay,” Shane says, “Maybe we can figure it out together.” 

“Maybe,” the man says, and the way he says it, it’s clear that maybe means no, and his word is final.

And Shane is still angry. He is angry because the man had hurt him, badly, and yet Shane is the one who has to comfort him. What fucking bullshit is that? 

To Shane’s surprise, another week passes without incident. The man does not hurt him. He fucks him, yes, but he does not make it hurt again. He doesn’t penetrate him until his body is healed. Still, Shane is far from relaxed. He does not stop listening for a sign of life outside the house.

Shane considers hurting himself before something truly bad happens. Every day he spends here, every hour, he feels like his time is running out. He has nothing to measure it by, but he still feels the urgency of it. 

If he is hurt badly enough, would the man take him to the hospital? Or would he risk Shane never healing right, risk Shane dying? Maybe Shane needs to pretend to be sick. 

Shane doesn’t want to hurt himself. But if Shane cuts himself, deep, will the man call an ambulance? What if he cuts his own fucking finger off? If he bashes his head into the corner of the wooden table enough times, the man will restrain him, surely, but will he take him to the hospital to check his head? What if Shane pretends that his chest hurts, that his stomach hurts, that his head hurts, that he can’t breathe? What if Shane makes himself puke again and again? What if Shane pisses himself and shits himself? If Shane refuses to get up, refuses to move, refuses to speak and refuses to open his eyes, will the man be angry enough to kill him or scared enough to get help? What if Shane cries and pleads please, please, I want to die, I don’t want to die, I want to die, I don’t?

What if Shane takes a kitchen knife and says, give me a fucking phone or give me your fucking keys or I’ll fucking slit my own throat? What if he threatens to kill Anya? Will the man care enough? Will there even be a chance to negotiate?

Oh, God. 

It’s all so dangerous. But if Shane just sits here and waits to fight until something bad happens, he– it feels so much worse. He feels like a fucking caged animal. He should probably start with something small. Plausibly innocuous. It’s been more than a month and Shane doesn’t know if anyone is going to find him. It makes his stomach flip to consider it, but he has to. He has to. Lying awake in the man’s bed, Shane resolves to try in the morning. He’ll say his stomach hurts, make himself throw up. Something easy. Just to see how the man reacts. 

He falls asleep in the early hours of the morning by accident, which happens, sometimes. 

“Get up!” the man yells, and Shane is awake, his heart in his throat, “Get the fuck up!” Shane can hardly pry his eyes open, there is sunlight shining into the bedroom through open curtains, too-bright, but he clambers out of bed, stumbling, adrenaline racing because the man has never fucking yelled at him before and he’s standing on what has become Shane’s side of the bed. His first, desperate thought is, someone is here, someone found him, oh God, please.

“Sir–” Shane manages in his confusion, and he shifts on the balls of his feet, ready to run blindly, to scream for help. 

A mechanic click reverberates in the small room and he’s squinting at a small black pistol pointed in his face. Shane’s stomach drops out from underneath him. Holy fuck holy fuck what the fuck he’s going to fucking die–

“Get on your knees,” the man demands, and he actually sounds pissed. 

Quaking involuntarily, Shane obeys without lowering his head. His arms are dead weights at his sides. Animal instinct tells him to throw his arms in front of his face, to duck, to fucking run. He ignores it, his heart beating so hard he wonders if it’s possible for it to be heard, because he does not want to startle the man into action. He is a rabbit in a snare of a threat. When he is able to look past the gun, he takes in the man’s face, jaw set and lips pressed together in a fraction of– disgust? Disapproval? Disappointment? Shane doesn’t know and Shane doesn’t understand. His eyes are trained on Shane as always, an unusual glint to them. 

“Sir, please, I’m so sorry, I don’t know–” Shane pleads lowly, his own eyes wide and wild and unable to look away.

“Shut up,” the man barks, and Shane shuts up, “You,” the man continues, “Are a fucking liar. Tell me why I shouldn’t put a bullet through your head right fucking now.” And Shane doesn’t understand, what the fuck does the man think Shane lied about? And all of a sudden the shock makes way for the fall, and there are tears springing to Shane’s eyes, and he crumples, gasping for air. 

“I love you,” Shane begs for his life, “I love you. Master, please, I love you so much. I’m so sorry. I don’t– I don’t understand. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, please, just give me another chance, please, help me understand what I did wrong, I swear it will never happen again, I’ll make it up to you, I'll be good for you, I’ll be so good for you. Please don’t shoot, oh God, please. Please don’t kill me, please, please, please, please, please don’t kill me. Please. Please. Please. Please, please, please, please,” Shane babbles, a raw, frantic mess, the only thing he can think to say. He’s going to fucking die, he’s going to die and he can’t breathe and he can’t say anything but please, he has no goddamn defense, there’s nothing he could possibly say to change the man’s mind. 

There is another click, and Shane can’t even see in front of him anymore, his vision is blurry with tears, but he’s kept his face upturned towards the man. 

Shane whimpers tearfully, an involuntary sound, and truly grovels.

“Please!” he sobs, choking.

Nothing. 

“Shane,” the man says, quiet, gentle again, and fuck, this is it. Shane’s breath rips in and out of his chest, a rattling, heaving thing. “Stay still.” Shane nods his head violently where his forehead is now pressed to the floor, still sobbing, unable to form words any longer. Vaguely, his head spinning, Shane registers the sound of footsteps on creaking floorboards, the squeak of the closet door, more clicking of metal on metal. Shane doesn’t know what it means and he doesn’t dare look up. The closet door shuts. More creaking floorboards. 

“Shane,” the man repeats, and Shane flinches, “Look at me, моя любовь.” With effort, Shane lifts his head. The man is crouched in front of him. He is not holding the gun. “Sweetheart,” the man says, sounding kind, “I needed to see what you would do if you thought you were going to die.” 

Shane thinks it’s not impossible that he is about to have a heart attack. He is still crying. 

“What?” he breathes, because the words aren’t processing, he must be confused. 

“You are okay,” the man says, chasing Shane’s tears with a thumb, “I will not kill you. I just needed to see. And Christ, baby. You are so pretty.” 

Shane pukes on the bedroom floor. The smell makes him gag more, acid burns his throat, and the man coos useless words, cleans up Shane’s mess, cleans up Shane without complaint. Fuck this, fuck this so hard, Shane can feel himself spiraling, this guy is fucking insane, he’s a psychopath, there’s nothing Shane can safely do. He lets the man handle him. He will rethink his plan later tonight. 

Shane doesn’t really stop shaking, minute tremors that refuse to let his body settle. He exists in a haze. He has breakfast with the man– like everything is fine, what the fuck, nothing has ever been fine, but it especially isn’t today– who puts him back in the basement and kisses him goodbye. Shane cannot sleep like he wants to, but he lies down on the cot with the covers pulled up anyway. His mind is sort of blank. Buzzing. Like his brain went offline when the gun was pointed at his head, when he was sure he was going to die, and lived because the man wanted to– what? See how he pled for his life? Shane doesn’t know what to think. He is tired of trying. So he doesn’t. He lets himself float away to wherever it is he needs to go to survive. Somewhere towards the sky. 

As the sun sets, the man builds a fire in the backyard while Shane entertains Anya by playing fetch. She and him have become something like friends. She really is a sweet dog. Shane’s family has never had any pets. The man has dragged out dusty camper chairs for the two of them, and there is a knot tangling tighter and tighter in Shane’s chest.

Shane leans his head back, heat from the fire licking at him to fight off the cold, and watches the sky aimlessly. There are a lot of stars out here, but the only constellation he recognizes is Orion’s belt. Something about the night air and smoke clears Shane’s mind, momentarily, and he finds the courage to speak. 

“Master,” Shane starts, polite, because this is important. He meets the man’s eyes, who raises his brows in response.

“I know you said you have these certain– feelings. About me. About, like, hurting me, or seeing me a certain way. And I’m okay with it, I understand. But you did scare me today, I was scared, and I just– I wanna know, please, if you can tell me– do you ever feel like killing me?” 

It comes out of Shane in a rush. He doesn’t shy away. He needs to know. Maybe it’s a stupid question, but at this point, Shane can’t find it in himself to much care or attempt to measure the risks. Communication is supposed to be a good thing, right? Even if Shane is supposed to have a certain place. 

The man is quiet for a long moment, mouth twisting, and Shane holds his breath. 

“I never feel like killing you. I never want to. I want to take care of you, Shane. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know I scared you today, but that was on purpose. I needed to know how you really felt, you know?” 

Shane exhales. 

“No, yeah. I get it. I just– sorry. I guess I was just– I don’t know. I know you wanna take care of me. I wanna spend the rest of my life with you, too,” Shane lies.

“Mhm,” the man says, and Shane thinks that’s good, maybe, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yeah, of course,” Shane says, schooling his face into something he hopes is welcoming. 

“It’s bad,” the man says softly, looking self-conscious.

“It’s okay,” Shane encourages gently, “Whatever it is, I promise, I understand,” because that feels like the kind of thing he should say. 

“There is a difference,” the man says, “There is a difference between feeling, and really meaning it, and thinking, okay, but. I think about it. Killing. Sometimes. Not only you. Way before you. But. Yes.” 

The crickets chirp in response. The secret sits in the air, thick like smokefire. 

“I think probably most people think about it at some point,” Shane says slowly, because that feels true. Because he’s thought about killing, too. 

“Hm. Yes. But also. When I think about it, it’s– maybe I don’t know how to stop it. It seems so real. So possible. I can see it. It scares me, a little, probably. Sometimes I think about– killing myself, and it won’t go away, and I can see exactly how I’ll do it, what it looks like. When I thought of my brother, the same. When I think about you– it’s different. I love you. I don’t want you to die. It’s maybe my worst fear. But I think, sometimes, what if I have to? What if you try to leave me? What if someone tries to take you from me? I couldn’t– I don’t know. I think about how beautiful you are, too. How beautiful you’d be. But it would also be so terrible, so, of course not, I don’t want that. But I can’t help thinking it. Maybe because I saw what happened to my mother. She was still so beautiful. She wasn’t there, but she was still there.” He looks at Shane expectantly, like he desperately needs him to understand. Shane thinks he does, partly. 

“I think that makes sense,” Shane says, “I don’t think that’s… bad. But, you know. If you ever wanna talk about anything, like, if it’s too much, I’m right here, and I wanna help, if I can. However I can.” And that is partly true, he thinks. 

The man sighs.

“Thank you,” he says, but Shane thinks he sounds a bit disappointed, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He brought up his mother. Maybe he wants to speak about his mother.

“How did she die?” Shane asks, wincing at the blunt shape of the words coming out of his mouth. 

“By accident,” the man says, and Shane notices how he hesitates, like maybe he was surprised by the question, or he doesn’t know how to answer, “She accidentally swallowed a whole bottle of pills.” 

Shane doesn’t know what he expected. Maybe he thought it was an illness. Maybe he was worried, and wondered, in the back of his mind, if the man’s father had killed his wife. He thinks this is worse, somehow. 

“I’m so sorry,” Shane says.

Blue eyes reflect flames. 

“It was a long time ago, now,” is all the man says. 

They sit with the fire until it dies. 

Shane does not think of a plan that night. He thinks he’s done trying to think of one. At least for now. He’s too tired, beyond tired, exhausted down to the bone, mentally, physically. This man is not well, and neither is Shane, anymore, if he ever sort of was. 

He wonders if this is really what his life is supposed to be. If this is where he was always going to end up, or if there are other universes where things go differently. Maybe there’s a universe where Shane ran away at eighteen, maybe even sooner, like he always wanted to, like he missed his chance to. Shane isn’t a very existential person, usually. It used to be, late at night or in the early hours of the morning and he was awake and it seemed no one else in the world was– which is ridiculous to think, but it still feels that way, sometimes– he might spiral. Wonder what the fuck his life was even supposed to mean, if he was worth anything at all. He doesn’t know why, but sometimes he feels guilty just for existing. Like someone else deserves his life, could make something more of it than he is. 

Is there something about Shane that deserves this? Cosmically? Is Shane such an ungrateful fuckup that the only place the universe could put him is in a house alone with a violent man? If Shane survives this– and God, he hopes for it, he does, he wants it– will a score finally be evened? Is it possible? Like, if he experiences enough bad now, will the universe be kind to him for the rest of his life? 

If he doesn’t survive, does that just mean he’s paying a price? Does he owe a debt, like some people believe?

Or is Shane just one of the unlucky ones?

There are worse things to experience, Shane reminds himself. Broken legs. Melted faces. Actual torture. Brutual physical and sexual assault, disfigurement, dismemberment. People die all the time in all kinds of horrible and stupid ways. People kill people all the time. However Shane dies, so many other people have died like that before, will die like that after him. Innocent people are dying right now. Shane isn’t special. Shane isn’t very innocent, anyway, he thinks. There’s a lot he could have done differently, probably should have done differently in his life. But he didn’t. He doesn’t. He doesn’t know why. Maybe that’s just what makes him who he is.

In the morning, the man doesn’t get up. Shane watches him stare at the ceiling. It’s going to be one of those days. The kind where the silence is suffocating. Shane tries his best to help it, anyway. 

“What was your mother’s name?” Shane asks into the quiet. He doesn’t know why the question has been so impressed on his mind, but it has. He doesn’t even know this man’s own name. He feels like it’s more important, somehow. 

The man turns his head to face Shane, his shoulder pressing closer, their legs still entwined. He looks at Shane for a long, long time. It’s possible he didn’t even hear him. 

“Don’t ever ask me that question,” the man says, like gravel, “If you don’t know her name, you shouldn’t know it.” 

And Shane thinks he kind of gets it, actually.

“Okay,” he whispers, “I’m sorry, sir.” 

Something tiny shifts in the man’s gaze. He reaches a hand up to trace the line of Shane’s lower lip.

“Get on your stomach,” the man says, and Shane blinks. He knows what that means. 

He does it. Rests his head on a pillow he wraps his arms around as he’s learned to do. Feels the man’s hands on him, the covers drawn back, touching, caressing, leaving burning kisses down the notches of his spine. The click of a bottle cap, the familiar squelch of lube. Slick fingers prodding at his hole. A warm body over his. Shane has gotten used to this, in some ways. He knows what to expect. He takes it without complaint, because he knows better than to do anything else, even when protest flares in his chest. It is not what he used to imagine sex would be like. It feels good, physically, sure, but there is something rotting in Shane’s lungs as it happens, because Shane does not want to be here. Because the man does not care or bother to ask if he does. 

The human body is a disgusting creation, Shane thinks. How is it that someone can touch it and it means everything good and bad at once? It shouldn’t mean so much. It shouldn’t make his heart ache as much as it does. How could the man have experienced this, something even worse than this, and gone on to do it to Shane knowing how much it withers what might very well be the soul? Maybe he believes it’s different. Or maybe he just wants Shane to feel what he feels. 

But the man could do anything to him. And Shane thinks he would let him. 

In the basement, after the morning routine is done with, Shane dreams of his mom.

She’s weeping. Shane can only look on. He sees her, in a black void, on her knees, crying. She’s wearing a cream sweater, and there are fresh tears on her face, sparkling, and she is crying silently. She lifts her head as if she is looking at him directly, and Shane wants to shout for her. But he can’t. He just can’t. The words don’t form, no sound comes from his throat. 

In her lap, in her arms, lies a man, naked. Oh.

He’s dead.

Chapter End Notes

La Pieta reference, my beloved.

Feeling sentimental, I seriously love you, reader <3

My sincerest apologies for all of the angst, but I think it will be worth something.

Chapter 8: we find that the scriptures also tell us

Chapter Summary

“I am not Rumpelstiltskin, am I? Do I ask you to spin straw into gold? Do I ask you for your firstborn?”
Shane shakes his head.
“No– just. You never told me your name,” he says faintly.

Chapter Notes

Hello! Chapter count has been changed again! It will be at least 10. Probably just 10. We'll see. It really all depends on how the pacing turns out for the vision.

I feel like this chapter is all over the place, again, but it's special to me. I'm very excited for y'all to read it.

Important content warnings for: sexual assault, suicidal ideation, blood and gore, minor character death, domestic violence, and mentions of childhood sexual abuse/incest abuse. And also, like. General abusive psychological fuckery and confusion as per usual but I feel like things are getting muddier in that department and that's worth mentioning.

As always, please take care of yourself and I hope you enjoy reading <3

Shane is in his bedroom. In his apartment. It is daylight, and it is summer, warm sunshine streaming in through his window. He is naked on his bed, on his own new clean white sheets he bought when he moved out of his parents’ place, leaning against the headboard. He is touching himself, pleasure burning in his core, spreading indulgent warmth through his veins.

The man is here.

Watching him.

He watches Shane like he is starving, light and shadows falling across his face, and Shane can’t seem to tear his gaze away from him, the way his shining eyes roam Shane’s body, hooded and dark, catching and stuttering along his skin. He looks gorgeous, is the only way Shane can think to describe him, gorgeous like a panther would be in the sun, all firm, bulging, sleek lines of muscle and slow blinking eyes just before it is about to pounce. A paralyzing kind of beauty. 

“Are you gonna fuck me?” Shane asks softly, sounding so unlike himself it startles him. There is real heat in his voice. Real want. Fragile. 

Time is a liquid thing. The man is over him and inside of him, an impossible, perfect heat surrounding him, pressed deep within, and Shane’s pleasure is molten. His fingers scrabble against the man’s back and shoulders, nails digging, leaving marks, thighs clutching and ankles crossed, holding the man to him as he moves in torturously unhurried strokes. 

“Oh, god,” Shane breathes, sounding wrecked in his own ears, “Fuck. Please. Please, more. I need more.” 

The man hums, and it vibrates against Shane’s flushed, sensitive skin. Blond curls tickle under his chin where the man leaves languid kisses on his chest. 

“I don’t know if you deserve it,” the man says, low and kind, still. 

“Ah,” Shane gasps as the man shifts and presses against his prostate, and he sees stars, struggles to reorient himself, “Master, please.” 

The man fucks him in earnest, and Shane thinks he is losing his mind, because he has never enjoyed anything more, has never wanted anything more, to come apart at the seams as he is under this man. His head is like cotton and his insides are wonderfully gooey-warm. He feels fucking incredible, maybe better than he ever has in his entire life. 

“Oh, oh, oh,” Shane moans breathlessly, tiny, helpless sounds in the onslaught of pleasure. The man moans in response. 

“Perfect, so perfect,” the man groans, “Shane. My sweetheart. Mine, all mine.” 

“Yes, yes, yours, yours, yours,” Shane chants, and he is close, so fucking close.

Shane wakes in the man’s bed, hard and grinding against his thigh. He chases that sweetness, on instinct, for a moment or two more before he really realizes what he is doing, and his hips come to a stop. Oh, fuck. He feels his ears going red with the shame of it as it hits him. It was a dream, because of course it was, a fucking wet dream. The man slides fingers through Shane’s hair, gripping and holding, forcing him to look him in the eyes, wide and dark like he’s drinking him in where they lie face to face, tangled up together beneath the covers. 

“Keep going,” the man says, hoarse.

Shane just stares, frozen. He’s woken up hard, before, of course, in the man’s bed, has woken up with a hand or mouth on him before. But never this. 

“Go on, baby,” the man murmurs adoringly, his free hand tracing the crease of Shane’s hip, “I want to see you come like this.” He shoves his thigh closer, against Shane’s hard-on, and Shane shudders, overly sensitive, a small sound escaping him. 

It’s so easy. Animal instinct. The hazy edges of pleasure, remnants from his dream swimming in his mind mingling with the real presence of warm flesh here, now, close. As a nasty embarrassment rings in his ears, Shane moves. He still wants to come.

“You’re so pretty,” the man coos, letting Shane rut against him like a dog in heat, “What were you dreaming about?” 

Shane considers lying. He can hardly think straight like this, besides. The truth is more romantic, even as it twists, sour in Shane’s gut. It’s what the man wants to hear. 

“You,” Shane huffs out, breath labored with effort. God, if he could just– 

“Mm. Me, what?” the man asks, voice rough. 

“You– inside– inside of me,” Shane stammers, and moans softly, not a performance, but honesty as the false memory combines with the want he’s now experiencing, “Feels so good,” Shane mumbles in a stupid attempt to explain himself, tongue loose and promptly bitten for the lapse of it. When was the last time he chased his own pleasure like this? The man is not doing anything to him now. Shane is taking it for himself. Is this– what is this? Shane should have better control over himself, he thinks. This is idiotic, getting off willingly in the bed of the man who by all definitions rapes him, just because Shane is horny, because he had a wet dream and woke up hard. This might be the most mortifying moment of his life. 

But the man had told him to keep going. He’s so tender with him, it makes Shane’s head spin. 

And Shane doesn’t want to stop. 

“Sweet thing,” the man says lowly, “Do you want me to fuck you?” 

“I–” Shane opens his mouth in surprise, “Oh.” 

 Two fingers are pressed up against his hole, swollen and still a little slick from last night. A thrill of panic runs down Shane’s spine. His body is confused. No, he doesn’t want that, not now, maybe not ever. He just wants to get off. His hips move faster, racing for it, that honeyed coil in his body growing tighter as fingers circle his rim, teasing, the air between them humid, little wet sounds where his dick meets the man’s bare leg and Shane’s breath puffs against the man’s throat. 

“Christ,” the man breathes, “You’re so eager for it. I should just hold you down and take you like this, моя любовь” 

And Shane spills over, come splashing across hot skin, hips bucking wildly, then slowing, twitching. The man kisses his nose where it scrunches up. 

Shane releases his bicep where he had been grabbing it, mindlessly, pink crescent moon indents left behind, chest heaving. The man pets his hair, snatches up Shane’s right hand and leaves a litany of kisses on it. 

“Such a good boy,” the man says quietly in between the soft noises of lips on skin. 

And in the humiliating after-glow of a desperate orgasm, Shane finds it hard to reconcile this man, the one who is so, so gentle with him and makes him come, who so clearly loves him, with the man who pointed a gun at him, locked him in a basement to starve, promised to crack his head open, made him bleed, admitted to stalking him for years, admitted to thinking about killing, and on and on it goes. How is it possible for a person to be all of these things at once? 

“Thank you, sir,” Shane whispers against the man’s shoulder, eyes squeezing shut. He’s sleepy. He just wants to go to sleep now, his head floaty and far away. 

But the man is already nudging Shane onto his back and lifting his hips to press his thick cockhead to his entrance. Shane does not protest. He never does. He isn’t sure, anymore, if he even has the right to at all. 

 The mostly dry slide of it forcing its way inside of Shane aches and stings, far more uncomfortable and painful than the fantasy from his dreams. Shane barely registers it through the lingering buzz of too much as he teeters on the edge of pleasure and hurt. He thinks his brain shut down somewhere in the aftermath and now he only exists as a thing untethered between here and there, his whole being instead consumed by a blue winter’s sky. 

He only realizes he bled when he sees the sheets, later, as the man strips them from the bed, that he cried when the man swipes thumbs under his eyes and kisses the delicate skin there. That sharp ache inside of him has become something dulled by familiarity. 

It has been two months since Shane was stolen. 

Nothing has changed. 

No disaster has struck. No terrible mood of the man’s, no reckless attempt to upset the boat from Shane. Just routine. Sleep, shower, eat, sex, sometimes soft, sometimes rough. Shane lives in some forgotten corner of his own mind, and he waits. He thinks he still knows what he’s waiting for. He wonders, idly, at times, if he should try to kill himself. Not because he wants to die, but because he is tired of waiting to be killed. It would be better to take it into his own hands, wouldn’t it? He will know exactly what to expect. He won’t have to wonder when it will happen. Shane will get to choose how he dies. He replays his conversation with the man by the fire over and over again. He doesn’t want to kill, but he thinks of it. And the thoughts won’t stop. 

They have a quiet day together.

Shane and the man sit on the couch, eating sandwiches, watching dumb daytime television. Sleep still calls to Shane in that way that makes him feel not-all-there, his body heavy and his mind light. 

The man’s left knee is jostling, his movements jerky as he eats. Shane notices how his eyes flit to the TV, to the window, to Shane, back again and again and again. His nervous energy sets Shane on edge. He gets like this, in the daytime, sometimes. Anxious. Paranoid. Shane doesn’t know how to calm it, but he still tries. 

“Hey,” Shane starts, quiet, placing a careful hand on the man’s shoulder, turning to him, because touch and proximity between them has become, in the last weeks, a thing that Shane has learned he also has a small power over. It soothes the man just that little bit when he is distraught or his ambiance strange and unidentifiable. It puts Shane at a vantage point where leverage the man might have would be difficult to execute. 

This is Shane’s life, now. Minute by minute, day by day, he gets through, and he placates the man who hurts him. 

“Are you okay? Do you wanna go back to bed?” 

Because bed is someplace the man likes to linger, where Shane thinks he must feel the safest, because sometimes he will stay there for hours in the daylight, unmoving. Like it’s the only place he could possibly imagine he exists. 

“No,” the man replies, lip curling slightly, “No. There is something I need to tell you.” 

“Okay,” Shane breathes, surprised, but he doesn’t draw back. 

“Do you remember Cliff Marleau?” 

The memory knocks Shane’s head back with the impact of it. 

Cliff. The data analyst when Shane was just an intern. He was a striking man, terribly handsome and certainly too old for Shane, some fifteen odd years his senior. A boisterous, rough around the edges kind of man, who twenty year old Shane thought was surely too cool to be working in that stuffy office, who was nonetheless attentive and friendly to all on their floor. 

“I remember Cliff,” Shane says weakly. 

“He wanted you,” the man says, and he isn’t looking at Shane, his eyes unseeing in the direction of the television. 

“I don’t know if–”

“You know he did,” the man interrupts him, voice firm. 

Well. Shane had thought he did. 

Too many excuses to stand close to Shane, leaned over his desk. Fingers pressed into the small of Shane’s back, brushing deliberately along his waist. Eye contact held for too long. Invites to bars Shane couldn’t even get into. He gave Shane his personal number, one Friday afternoon. “I want you to have it, call me if you ever need anything. You’re a good kid, you know? I know what college is like. I don’t wanna see you getting into any trouble.” It was innocuous enough, maybe, not really, but it still hadn’t made much sense on paper. Shane had chosen to interpret the gesture as kindness. Cliff was a kind man. Shane didn’t have the time or wherewithal to pine after a stupidly good looking man beyond a simple workplace crush that would be forgotten by the fall. And besides, maybe Shane really was reading into it all wrong, and wouldn’t that just be a disaster?

“Nothing ever happened, sir,” Shane says, because he thinks maybe that’s what the man must be getting at. 

“Of course not,” the man says smoothly, “But you have no idea, Shane. The things he wanted from you.” 

“...What do you mean?” Shane asks tentatively, brow furrowing. 

“He watched these awful, ah, films, videos. He was obsessed with them, got off on them. And he wrote about you. The kinds of things he wanted to do to you. How beautiful you are. The most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. How beautiful you’d look dying on his cock. He wanted to eat you,” the man says, disgust disfiguring his features. Goosebumps prickle Shane’s skin, his stomach lurching. Is the man lying? He must be, or he’s deluded. Is he really telling Shane what he wants to do to him? Cliff is a normal man. A good man. 

“I–” Shane falters, “Even if he wrote terrible things, that doesn’t mean he would really do it,” he tries, reasonable, swallowing back dread. 

“He was planning for it,” the man says, still refusing to look at Shane, “Preparing. He bought what he needed. Pills, plastic, a good knife. A freezer. Discretely, of course. He wasn’t stupid. He was going to bring you back to his home, and drug you, and fuck you, and cut into you. He was going to get away with it, probably.” 

Shane says nothing. He doesn’t think there is anything to say to that. This man is not well. He’s mistaken. He wants to kill Shane, he must. 

“Do you know what I did to him, Shane?” the man asks, watching TV hosts laughing together. Shane struggles to get the words out.

“No, sir,” he whispers. 

“I took his drugs,” the man says, “And I took his plastic, and his shiny new knife, and freezer, and I used them as he intended, on him. I think it is the best thing I’ve ever done. The most right thing.” 

Shane can’t look away from him, searching the planes of his face for a hint of– anything. Anything that makes sense. He wishes, for once, that the man would fucking look at him. 

“You’re joking, sir,” Shane says, uncertain, voice small. 

“I’m not,” the man says easily, and his knee has stilled, and he’s looking out the window, now, “I buried most of him in the woods. Do you want to see? I will dig him up for you, if you want to see.” 

“No, thank you,” Shane chokes out, too-fast, tasting bile. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. He’s fucking with Shane. He’s a liar. He wants to scare Shane. That’s all. 

“Okay,” the man says softly. And he stands, suddenly, and retreats down the hall to the bedroom without another word, and Shane just sits there on the couch. Shane hears the closet door open, where he thinks the man must keep a safe for his gun, probably for his keys, too, and for his phone, though he has never been left alone long enough to see for himself. And Shane has been left alone, now, his breathing coming uneven. 

He should run. 

His heart in his throat, he does. He doesn’t think, doesn’t calculate. He just does.

In an instant, Shane is on his feet, and he is in the kitchen, and he is grabbing the biggest knife from the knife block like he has envisioned so many times before, flinging open the back door, and he is running. 

He runs around the side of the house to the front, gravel driveway sharp and cold beneath his bare feet, past the car, up the trail and towards what must be a road, what has to be a road, where cars will pass, maybe even where someone else lives. Faintly, through the rush of adrenaline, Shane can hear Anya barking, the man shouting. 

He only has one objective: run to the road, run as far as he can. He has no other plan, nothing. He is like prey. Nowhere to go but forward, nothing to do but pray he isn’t caught, to snarl and claw like hell if he is. If Shane is about to die, he will die outside. This is the best he can hope for. He thinks it is maybe what his entire life has been pointing towards.

Shane stumbles, curses, feeling his left sole sliced open, blooming pain with each step, and he keeps running. The small gold cross jostles on his chest.

“Shane,” the man calls, “Shane, come back! There is nothing for you!” Calling him like a dog who got off his leash. 

Gravel driveway turns to dirt, a relief his hardly registers, and the trees are thinning, towering evergreens and skeletal oaks, freezing air burning Shane’s lungs. 

It leads to a dirt road. No other houses or cars in sight. Left or right?

Shane chooses left without pausing.

But his legs are slowing against his will, muscles protesting, heart beating frantically, breath wheezing from the effort of his prolonged, break-neck sprint away from the house. 

A shot rings out, and Shane yelps, ducking, stumbles once more, and crashes to the ground. 

“Help!” Shane screams, as loud as he can, scrambling back up to his feet.

He freezes when he catches sight of the man, thirty-odd yards away, pistol in hand. 

“Shane,” the man calls, “You need to stop. You will not get anywhere like this. I will shoot you if I must.” 

Shane does not say anything. He does not do anything. He stands there, knife in hand, useless. 

The man steps closer, chest heaving, sweat glistening at his temples. He gets closer and closer and Shane lets him. The sky above them is gray, the air thick. His curls are wild. His gaze is measured. 

“You are scared,” the man continues, “I understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It was a good thing. I wanted you to see it for the good thing it was. Please, Shane. There is nowhere for you to go. You are safe with me. Put down the knife and come back with me, мой дорогой.” 

“You’re going to kill me, anyway,” Shane says, voice trembling, mouth dry.

“No, Shane. I will not kill you. If you try to hurt me, yes, I will have to defend myself. But I do not want to kill you. I killed Cliff Marleau because he was going to destroy you.”

“You said it yourself,” Shane spits, “You think about it. Just do it now, please. I can’t stand this. I would rather die, now. I’ll fight you, if that’s what you want. Just do it now.” 

“Sweetheart,” the man says, calmly, like he’s soothing a skittish horse, “I will not kill you. Just come back to the house with me, and I will take care of you, and I swear to you, you will be safe. You are always safe with me.” 

The man steps closer, close enough to reach out and touch, and Shane does not move. 

“Shane. Give me the knife,” he demands, still soft. 

And the thing is, Shane thinks he means it, like the man means everything he says. Even when he had lied, it had been the truth– Shane is a liar. 

“You promise?” Shane asks, voice cracking, the words sounding childish to his own ears. The man nods encouragingly, eyes bright.

“I promise.”

Shane gives him the knife. He extends the handle, sideways, the sharp edge facing the man, his grip firm until the man is tugging it from his hand by the middle, fingers brushing his own. He shifts his hold on the knife so that it is secure, then, but he doesn’t brandish it at Shane, or the gun, for that matter.

Shane is too tired to fight, his bones leaden.

He is going to die either way, he thinks. But by the chance that he doesn’t– if he can survive this, if the man puts the gun away and Shane can attack him without the promise of a bullet–

“Come on,” the man encourages, gesturing with his head back towards the house. 

Shane follows. Shane feels like a fucking idiot. He’s ruined everything. He shouldn’t have risked it. Now he knows his only option is–

Anya runs and jumps with excitement to greet Shane when he steps back inside the house, tracking blood, and his heart squeezes. This dog is just– a dog. She understands nothing. She has no idea what is happening to Shane, what he is trying to do. 

He pets her, scritches behind her ears where he sits on the couch, Anya pressed against his side, where the man directed him, where the man is bandaging his bleeding foot. He’s brought out a dusty old first aid kit from under the bathroom sink, applies a cotton pad of hydrogen peroxide to the cut, stinging, and wraps his foot with gauze, securing it with tape, still gentle. He is sitting on the floor at Shane’s feet. 

“I’m really sorry for running, Master. And for saying those things. I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t thinking right, I wasn’t even thinking. I was just– I don’t know what it was. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” Shane speaks into the silence, because he needs to do something to salvage this, to ensure his chance. That word still doesn’t feel right in his mouth– he knows it’s wrong, knows it comes out wrong each time. He doesn’t say it if he can’t help it. The man sighs, looking up at him with wide blue eyes. 

“You were scared. But you listened to me, and you came back. That is what’s important,” the man says simply. Shane nods fervently. Wary. Because Shane is supposed to be punished, isn’t he? Why is he being kind again? The man pats his knee. “I was getting something to show you. Will you see it now?” he asks slowly, like maybe he thinks Shane will protest or do something stupid again. 

Shane does not want to see, whatever it is the man has for him, whatever this has to do with Cliff, a supposedly dead man. But he will. 

“Yes, sir,” Shane answers. His heart is still racing.  

The man leads Shane back into the bedroom, and sprawled across the bed are papers. Documents. What looks like a journal. Envelopes. 

“This is my proof to you,” the man tells Shane, “I have no one else to show this to. To explain that man and what he was going to do to you. How close to danger you were. And no one could see it but me. No one else cared to. I want you to understand that.”

Shane does not want to touch anything. Gingerly, he sits on the edge of the bed. His eye is drawn in to the most colorful item on the bedspread. An ID. Looking closer, it’s Cliff’s. Of course it is. But Shane does not want to believe this is real. It isn’t. 

There is a slip of folded up paper beside it that gives Shane pause. Because he remembers that slip of paper. 

A phone number.

In case you ever need to call - Cliff M.

Shane had looked at it probably dozens of times. He had it burned into his memory. But he knows what it is, now. It’s a writing sample. It’s proof. 

Shane opens the journal, flips through the pages. There aren’t many filled, most of it left blank. Flipping back, Shane stops where he sees his name, feeling more than a little dizzy. And he reads.

The way Shane looks at me, I can tell. He would go home with me if he was sure he could. But it’s been two weeks since I gave him my number and he hasn’t texted or called. I need to be more obvious, I guess. I might have to corner him after work and ask him out properly. He seems like he would like something like that. I would be shocked if the kid’s ever hooked up with anybody in his life. And Lord have mercy, I need to be the one who ruins that tight little hole. He would let me fuck him even without the roofies, I’m sure of it, but he’s too smart for his own good. If I get my hands on him sober, he’ll try to run afterwards. It will scare him off. I can’t have that. He’ll make too much noise and cause too much trouble. I need him to be quiet when I slit his throat. 

He’s going to be the most beautiful thing when I have him. I think the meat from his thighs will be the most

And Shane has to stop, pushes the journal away from his line of sight like it burned him. His cheeks are burning, he’s sure. By habit, he looks back to the man, a strange anchor. 

The handwriting matches, because of course it does. 

It takes Shane a few tries to speak.

“He really meant it?” he asks the man, almost a whisper. Not reverence, but fear. 

The man nods, somber where he stands, watching Shane.

“Open that envelope,” the man says, pointing to the larger of the two, white and still crisp.

Shane does so with trembling fingers. It’s filled with polaroids. 

It takes a minute for Shane to understand what it is he’s seeing.

Six images. His eyes dance back and forth between them all.

Cliff’s face, unmistakable, eyes wide and glassy, mouth open, skin pale. 

Cliff, naked, spread eagle on the floor. A large red gash across his throat, bleeding onto the tarp below.

Body parts. Dismembered arms and legs. 

A severed dick. Testicles. 

An open freezer.

A freshly overturned patch of dirt in the woods and a mossy rock. 

Shane stares and stares and stares like it will make more sense the longer he looks at it. A dead man completely taken apart. A man who wrote horrific things and maybe, probably meant them. A real, live man Shane knew. It’s real. This is real. He can’t look away. He can’t say anything. 

The man takes Shane’s chin between his fingers in order to make him look up again. His face is stone. Shane blinks, and the images are pasted onto the backs of his eyelids. 

“When I was sixteen,” the man says, “I thought my brother was going to kill me. I caused too much trouble. I was too loud. I did not tell anyone what was happening between us, and I never planned to, but I fought him in other ways. I argued. I was disobedient. I began to struggle. I told him, for the first time, don’t fucking touch me, and he threw me down the stairs for it. I ran to my room and locked the door. When he pounded his fist, I thought he would break down the hinges. I kept my hand on the doorknob and my weight against the door and I begged him not to kill me. And he said, Ilyushka, I will not kill you, just open the damn door. But I would not. I would not open it. So he gave up. And the next day, I let him fuck me, like nothing had even happened, imagining I was driving a knife into his throat instead. And then I knew I had to leave before my imagination became true.” 

And Shane can see, then. He understands why the man killed Cliff, even if he is a liar, even if Shane doubts he is. And Shane can only think of one thing to say. 

“Your name is– Ilyushka?” 

A corner of the man’s mouth twitches into something of a wry smile, barely contained. 

“I am not Rumpelstiltskin, am I? Do I ask you to spin straw into gold? Do I ask you for your firstborn?” 

Shane shakes his head. 

“No– just. You never told me your name,” he says faintly. 

The man hums. And he doesn’t appear displeased, at least. He releases Shane’s face, carding fingers through his hair, instead. 

“My true name is Ilya. It means, the strength of God, after the prophet Elijah. Do you know what your name means?” 

“I don’t.”

Ilya smiles widely, now. And it is strange to know this man’s name after so long without it. 

“It means, a gift from God, after the beloved disciple. I think it’s beautiful.” 

“Oh,” Shane says, “That is nice.” 

Ilya presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“You hate the pictures, don’t you?” he asks Shane, who tenses. 

“I– they just scare me, I think,” Shane answers, not dishonest, still dazed. 

“That is okay,” Ilya says easily, “They mean a lot to me. They might not to you.” And he draws back from Shane, reaching to gather the photos and papers together. 

“They mean a lot to me, too,” Shane manages through a lump in his throat, watching helplessly, “You saved me. Thank you. Really.” He’s not sure if he believes it or what it means, exactly. But he’s sure that’s what he should say. He thinks he has become good at knowing what to say, at least better than he was before, even if he doesn’t feel like himself at all. 

Curiously, Ilya hardly spares him a glance. 

“It was what I was supposed to do,” he replies, and it sounds dismissive of Shane’s thanks. He doesn’t know what to do with that. 

He watches Ilya return the evidence to the closet. And he sees the safe, then, a metal box only a couple of feet high, the combination lock and its contents obscured by Ilya’s body as it clicks open and closed again. 

And their day is normal, again, whatever normal is. Shane tries to focus on his new plan. All he can seem to think of is Cliff’s face. 

“Tell me about little Shane?” Ilya asks into the night, holding Shane in bed, unable to sleep, like he gets, sometimes, “What were you like when you were small?” 

And Shane thinks that might be the first real question he’s asked about Shane’s life in two months. Shane considers it for a long while. He hasn’t thought about little him in a long time. 

“I think I was mostly confused when I was small. Gullible. And easily frightened. I was a crybaby,” Shane admits, and it feels true to what he remembers being little was like. 

“What was confusing for you?” Ilya wonders, breath ghosting the back of his neck. Another long quiet.

“I was scared of the vacuum. I was scared of strange men. I saw movies I shouldn’t have, with my cousins, and I had nightmares about these horrible aliens for years. I remember my mom holding me and rocking me a lot while I cried. I remember her and my dad fighting on my fifth birthday, and thinking, for some reason, oh, someone would think this is sad. It wasn’t like, I was thinking it was sad. I don’t know. It was just what happened. I remember going to the aquarium and there was this space in the glass where you could poke your head through and you were, like, surrounded by a bubble of glass and water and sea creatures, and I could have sworn, once, that when I stuck my arm out, it went through the glass, and I was reaching into the water. I swear, sometimes, still, that the movies would come out of the TV screen, just for a second. My dad once told me, joking, that he had been abducted and replaced by an alien, and I think I believed it for a whole year, maybe longer. I purposefully came up with imaginary friends because that seemed like something I was supposed to do, and I would think about them, like that, like stories I had to think hard about to imagine they were right in front of me. And I was sure for years that there was a ghost in our house, when we still had a house, when I was really little, because when I was walking down the hallway one day, I heard a woman’s voice calling my name. At first, I thought it was my mom, but it was different. It was someone else, someone I’d never heard before. It was like she was above me, somewhere, or maybe sort of in my head. And when I went to find my mom afterwards, she was just folding laundry and listening to music. She hadn’t been calling for me, she had no idea what I was talking about. So, yeah, I was. Definitely confused by lots of things, when I was little.” 

Ilya traces lazy circles into Shane’s stomach as he listens to him ramble on. The most he’s spoken in months. It doesn't feel like a relief. It feels like something rotten has been yanked out of him, leaving a gaping wound, oozing. 

“I don’t remember much about being small,” Ilya says quietly, “Besides my father. But it sounds like you lived a lot in your head.” 

“I guess I did,” Shane agrees, because that sounds right. 

Chapter End Notes

Who among us doesn't have a crush on Cliff Marleau, honestly? This chapter has been in the works for a while. I just really hope it makes sense lol because I am so tired but I've had this story in my head for so long now omg. Please forgive any awkwardness, I have no beta or desire to reread and revise this again.

Chapter 9: for those who believe

Chapter Summary

“It will go away on its own,” Ilya says, sounding unconcerned and maybe even a little amused.
“No, because I’ve seen roaches down here before, but never in my bed,” Shane argues, the words coming out faster than he can regret them.

Chapter Notes

I'm sorry for the wait omg! I wasn't feeling my best and I was struggling to get this chapter exactly how I wanted it, but I believe it's finally done and I'm excited for y'all to read it. Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoy reading <3

Major content warnings for this chapter: suicidal ideation, blood, torture, sexual assault, and drug abuse. As always, please mind the tags and take care of yourselves <3

Shane dreams of a prophet. A shining, golden man. It’s Ilya, of course. It’s never not Ilya. 

“Marry me. Marry me, and have my child,” he says, as prophets always do.

And Shane can never say no, as servants never can. 

He knows this because he picked up his Bible, the Bible Ilya had given him, the day after everything. The day after Shane learned Cliff was dead and buried and his life made even less sense than it ever had. 

He began with Genesis, as many do. And he had heard of some of these stories before. He read because he couldn’t sleep and his mind couldn’t stop turning and there was nothing left to do except to bash his head against a wall and he wasn’t ready to do that, yet. So he read, and got midway through chapter twenty-one, before he realized, nauseated, that he didn’t want to know what happened next. 

The LORD took note of Sarah as he had said he would; the LORD did for her as he had promised.

Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated.

Abraham gave the name Isaac to this son of his whom Sarah bore him.

When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded.

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Sarah then said, “God has given me cause to laugh, and all who hear of it will laugh with me.

Who would ever have told Abraham,” she added, “that Sarah would nurse children! Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great banquet on the day of the child’s weaning.

Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac; so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son! No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!”

Abraham was greatly distressed because it concerned a son of his.

But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Obey Sarah, no matter what she asks of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name.

As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, since he too is your offspring.

Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back, he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, the water in the skin was used up. So she put the child down under one of the bushes, and then went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away; for she said to herself, “I cannot watch the child die.” As she sat opposite him, she wept aloud.

God heard the boy’s voice, and God’s angel called to Hagar from heaven: “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear; God has heard the boy’s voice in this plight of his.

Get up, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand; for I will make of him a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert bowman.

He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

And so Shane dreams of a prophet, and Shane dreams of his child sleeping under a bush in the desert. Which doesn’t make any sense, because Shane doesn’t have a child. Of course he doesn’t. Stupid fucking weird upsetting dreams torturing him in what is supposed to be his reprieve. Bullshit fucking brain. Shane wakes in the middle of the day, alone on the cot in the basement, and thinks clearly for the first time, oh god, I really want to die. I would rather die than keep doing this. Why am I even still alive?

He forms the shape of the words with his mouth, small whispers of breath.

“I want to die. I want to die.” 

He lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, shivering under the fleece blanket. 

Ilya loves Shane. He must. He loves Shane, or thinks he does, or he loves Shane for how he makes Ilya feel. The distinction doesn’t really matter. It all means the same thing, doesn’t it? He hurts Shane too much for it to matter. 

When Ilya returns that evening, Shane doesn’t stir. He can’t bring himself to. And it is still strange to think of him as Ilya. Maybe it will never stop being strange. Shane hasn't even said his true name outloud. But Ilya has not been angry with Shane. 

“Shane,” Ilya says, from the foot of the stairs, “Are you awake?” 

Shane says nothing. 

“Shane,” Ilya repeats, treading to the side of the cot he is hiding his face in. Shane can only look with tired eyes. “Are you sick?” 

It takes Shane a few tries for something to come out.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. Ilya studies him for a moment.

“You are upset with me,” Ilya says, and it isn’t a question. 

“No,” Shane tries, “No– fuck!” he exclaims, jerking erratically in reflex to a sudden tickling sensation against the back of his hand. And there is a fucking roach on the cot, panicking much the same, and Shane is up and out from under the covers as quickly as humanly possible, shuddering. It’s just a bug. It’s just a bug. Fuck. He watches it scuttle across the sheet, crawl under his pillow, and he feels Ilya’s eyes on him all the while. 

“Fuck,” Shane repeats, “Fuck, can you give me your shoe, or something?” 

“It will go away on its own,” Ilya says, sounding unconcerned and maybe even a little amused. 

“No, because I’ve seen roaches down here before, but never in my bed,” Shane argues, the words coming out faster than he can regret them. His bed, the cot, what does it matter anymore? Maybe it is his bed, now, if he is never going to have any other. 

“I hear if you kill it, it only brings more,” Ilya says.

“Well, if you leave it, it brings more too, so what the fuck?” Shane retorts, on edge, only vaguely horrified at himself for talking back like this, because this is a stupid fucking roach and he has the actual heebie-jeebies right now. 

Ilya laughs. He laughs, a childish giggle that sounds startled out of him. Shane doesn’t think he’s ever heard Ilya laugh before. 

“You are really scared,” he observes, grinning, and Shane bristles. 

“I’m not. It’s just gross. I don’t want bugs to be where I sleep.” 

“Ah,” Ilya says, moving closer, and Shane’s breath stutters when hands fall to his waist, “But you are supposed to sleep in my bed, yes? Problem solved, easy.” 

“Hm,” Shane says, not meeting his eyes, crowded and antsy and hands hovering awkwardly–

“Give me a kiss?” Ilya murmurs. And Christ, Shane hates this the most, he thinks. It feels worse than anything, turning up his own face, leaning into his space, offering up his lips to this man. It’s too intimate. Humiliating. A kiss is worse than anything, Shane thinks, because he is giving up too much of himself, more than any other way. It feels like betrayal more than anything. It feels like it’s supposed to be romantic, but it’s not. It’s something wrong. 

Shane kisses Ilya, fingertips pressing into his jaw. It’s tame. Ilya kisses back for only a short moment, his eyes crinkling with a smile when Shane draws back. 

“I always miss you,” Ilya confesses, “Let’s go upstairs.” 

And so they do. 

Shane is trying to form a new plan. He knows he doesn’t appear even a little bit present, and he doesn’t really care. 

“You are sad about Cliff,” Ilya says where they sit on the couch watching more hockey, and again, it isn’t a question. Shane struggles to answer, anyway. 

“I don’t know,” Shane says, again, “If he meant all those things, it doesn’t really matter, does it?” 

“Then what are you thinking so hard about?” Ilya presses, nudging closer, “You can talk to me, sweetheart.” Shane huffs out a breath. Maybe, maybe now. Why not now?

“Does your friend– your wife, does she know about me?” 

Ilya is silent, like he’s surprised by the question. Maybe he should be. 

“No. We haven’t spoken in some time,” he says, finally. 

“When was the last time you spoke? You said you were good friends, still,” Shane asks, unsatisfied. Ilya’s brow furrows, just a small fraction. 

“Mm. The last time we called, we argued. Maybe a year ago. She said I was– she didn’t understand me. What is the English word? ‘in-co-her-ent’. I wasn’t, I knew I was making sense. She just didn’t understand. So I told her I didn’t want to speak to her again, I was so– frustrated. That, she understood. I haven’t heard from her since. I believe we are still friends, we have always been friends, we will always be friends. We just don’t understand each other right now.” 

“Do you think you would ever tell her about me?” 

“You want her to know about you?” Ilya counters, and he doesn’t seem upset by the question. Maybe confused. 

“I don’t know. Maybe? I miss other people, I think,” Shane says carefully. Ilya watches him curiously.

“You say that, but I know too much of people drives you crazy,” he says. 

“I know,” Shane agrees with a sigh, because what else is there to say to that? Except, his skin is buzzing, and there is something else he has been rehearsing, sitting heavy behind his teeth, “I want to have this life with you,” Shane says, “I like our life together. I have– you give me so much. But do you think– don’t you think I can go outside, some time?” 

“You do go outside,” Ilya says, perplexed, like he genuinely doesn’t understand. 

“I mean, outside, like– to the store. Or, like, fishing somewhere. Or, even, getting a job, going to work. I feel– useless. I don’t do anything all day when you’re not here. You know? I feel restless, maybe. I want to go out and do things. Does that make sense?”

“You sleep all day when I am gone,” Ilya says, and it isn’t accusing, but matter-of-fact, “because you do not sleep through the night, still.” Shane swallows back his anxiety. Okay. Okay, he can do this. 

“I know, I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I can’t– I just can’t sleep. I don’t know why. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still want to do things.” 

“I know why you don’t sleep,” Ilya says, a hand on the back of Shane’s neck, glancing from Shane to the television, “It’s because you are afraid of me. And I know why you want to leave, Shane. You ran from me just yesterday. I am not stupid.” 

“I don’t think you’re stupid, I didn't mean it like that. Yesterday was a mistake, and, yeah, I was, I was scared–” Shane presses on, the words clawing out of his throat, necessary. 

“No, I know you don’t mean it. You really can’t help it. You are weak, Shane. You think these things and say these things, like you’re convinced what your mind tells you is what’s right, that I am a danger to you, that you need to get back to your old life. But it’s not true. It’s just a weakness. I don’t blame you for it. I understand it. But that’s why you need to stay here with me. You need me to take care of you.”

“I’m not weak,” Shane says reflexively, because Ilya’s words hit him like an offending strike. He tenses, expecting something bad in return.  

“In many ways you are not,” Ilya says, softer, “In many ways you are very strong, and I love you for it. But you are a human, and humans have weaknesses. It is just a fact of life.”

Shane isn’t sure how they got here. Shane still doesn’t know why Ilya is being kind. 

“...You said I was an angel,” Shane says eventually. 

“You have an angel’s soul,” Ilya corrects, “Sent to a human body and human mind and human heart. It is unfortunate, maybe, in some ways. But I think you are a miracle, Shane.” 

“I liked my old life,” Shane says quietly. 

“No, you didn’t,” Ilya says dismissively.

“I did,” Shane persists, and it is getting easier to defy him, a burning in the back of his throat. He’s gone so long without arguing, without telling the truth, that it feels foreign. 

“You were aimless. Lost. In danger, constantly. You know how much danger is out there, with other people. People who hurt you, people who hurt their own children. People who hurt without even knowing it. Family, strangers, friends, coworkers. They don’t care about you. They only care about themselves. They will hurt you for their own gain. It has been happening to you your entire life. You are safest here with me, away from them, away from others.” 

Something in Shane’s chest snaps. For a terrible second, he is afraid he is going to cry. Instead, an avalanche of frustration comes pouring out. 

“I’m twenty-two!” he retorts, indignant, pulling back from Ilya, away from his gravitational field, “I’m allowed to be– unsure. I’m still figuring things out. I have time. I was supposed to have time. The world will always be a dangerous place, but it isn’t all bad. It’s mostly boring! And mostly people are nice! I could be hurt just as easily in this house with you as I could out there.” 

Now, Ilya’s eyes on him change. Quietly burning with displeasure.

“Why are you arguing with me right now? Why are you acting like you know best when you clearly don’t?” Ilya demands. 

“Why do you think I don’t know what’s best for me? It’s my life! I know what’s best for my life!” Shane explodes, balling his hands into fists in his lap, and he wants to get up, he wants to get away, he wants to shake this man, he wants to somehow knock sense into him, he doesn’t know what he wants. 

“Because you are my slave,” Ilya says with feeling, with building irritation, like it’s the most logical thing in the world and Shane is an idiot. 

“You say that,” Shane says, his breathing coming faster, more shallow, “But I don’t know what you mean by it. I don’t think you even know what it means. I think you just say it because you think it makes sense. It doesn’t. I cannot just be your slave. I am a person. I don’t have to listen to you. I choose to listen to you. I choose to let you hurt me without fighting. Do you get that?”

“This is what I am talking about. Your weakness. You are my slave, and you listen to me, because if you don’t, then you will die. That is how this works.” 

“So you’re going to kill me? Then why haven’t you already?” It tears out of Shane, almost a laugh. 

“That is not what I mean,” Ilya says, voice hard. 

“Then what the fuck do you mean?” 

“I mean, there are consequences to your actions, Shane. If you live out there, with other people, they will hurt you. If you don’t listen to me, then I have to make you listen to me. You have to listen to me because if you don’t, it will kill you.”

“What will kill me?” Shane asks, incredulous. 

“Your disobedience,” Ilya says, and he is not shouting, but he is growing louder, “Your disobedience is a danger to yourself, not me. If you were to leave me, you would be putting yourself in danger. You will die out there without me, Shane.” 

“That’s not true. You don’t know that. You’re just afraid of that. You don’t– you don’t have to make me do anything. We could have a fucking regular life out there, if you would just be fucking normal! You could have asked me out. We could have– we could have dated. We could live in a normal house together, and live normal lives. I don’t have to be fucking stuck here in your basement!”

Shane is breathing heavily, and he thinks it is a miracle that he hasn’t been hit yet. Ilya isn’t making any fucking sense. He just looks at Shane like he is disappointed, his mouth pressed into a hard line. 

  “And you know what I think?” Shane continues, because it feels good, it feels really good to tell the fucking truth, “I think you’re confused. I think you’re really, badly confused and fucked in the head and sick, and I think you are the one who would die if I left you, because I am the only thing in your sad life you can even pretend to control. Is that right?” 

And Ilya just watches.

“I know you have been thinking these things,” Ilya says lowly, “I know what your quiet means, what your agreement means. I know you don’t trust me– “

“I fucking hate you!” Shane spits, and he makes to stand, then, but Ilya puts a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down. 

“--There is a demon in you, Shane. It makes you believe these horrible things–”

“Oh, fuck you! You’re the one who’s fucking possesed by your own goddamn misery and fear,” Shane retorts, shoving Ilya’s hand off of him, and that feels good, too, the weight of bone and skin and muscle forced away, under his own grip, “You can’t just say– you can’t just say that to a person. It doesn't mean anything. It only means what you want it to mean. You can– listen to me. Listen to me, okay?” and Shane is up now, pacing the floor, and Ilya is just fucking watching, “We can still have normal lives. You can let me go. You can let me leave this house, and neither of us will die from it, okay? You can get help. You need help. I won’t– I won’t press charges, if you let me go. I swear. I wouldn’t. Why would I? It would– I don’t know if anyone would even believe me, if I could even prove anything. It would be, fucking, humiliating if people knew, alright? It would probably kill me, if people knew what– what happens in this house. I don’t want to go to court. I don’t want to tell people. I don’t want to tell anyone, whether they believe me or not. I can say we’re– boyfriends, and I love you, and I ran away to live with you, but you’ve been through so much and you’re sick, and that’s why you took my phone and told people that I killed myself, and you’ll get the help you need. Okay?” 

Shane stops where he stands. And this is weird, he thinks. Standing while Ilya is sitting. He looks smaller like this. He looks offended, outrage ticking in his jaw. But he is just sitting there. 

“We will do no such thing. I am not sick. I am not sad. I am the happiest I have ever been, the most clear-headed. And I know you need to stay here with me. Your weakness will not convince me otherwise.” 

“Then,” Shane says, “If you won’t let me go, and both of us live– which I don’t think is going to fucking happen– then you will go to prison, for something. Fucking something. Maybe just for Cliff. If I can’t– if I can’t tell anyone about me, I’ll tell them about Cliff. Do you understand that? And prison isn’t the end for you. It isn’t. But it’s a lot worse than it could be. You’ll still get help. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll– I’ll do what I can to make sure you get a psychiatrist who gives a shit. I’ll give you money. I’ll visit you, call you, write you, whatever you want. Whatever you need. We can still be– whatever the fuck this is. You’ll still live a whole life. You can still be changed, in there, truly, and you could even get out one day and be fucking free and healthy. It’s possible. Okay? I know the system isn’t fucking built for it, but I know people can change anyway, if they really want to, if they have the right support. It’s possible. My friend– my friend Jackie, her step-dad killed her mom when we were teenagers. It was over a stupid fight, he was drunk, he says it was an accident, a mistake, whatever. He’s going to be in prison for a long time. But he has learned shit, and he has gotten better than he was, even after, what, eight years? That doesn’t mean she forgives him, that doesn’t mean that what he did is un-did, but it means something. It means something for him, at the very least.” 

“You are a liar,” Ilya says, “You lie, and you lie, and you lie, and you can’t help it. You lie because you think it will protect you. Even when you tell the truth, it is between lies. Even when you think you are telling the truth, it isn’t. And you think I can’t tell. Or maybe you know I don’t care that you lie, because I already love you, Shane. There is nothing you can say or do that will make that love stop. I won’t go to prison. You won’t leave me. Neither of us is going to die. We have a normal life here. You’re going to learn how to live it. You just have to let me help you.” 

“And how exactly are you going to help me learn? All we do– all we do is sit, and eat, and fuck, and I haven’t learned shit. I’m not going to learn shit. There is nothing to learn. What, do you think you can just fuck me until I want it?” 

“You are supposed to fight,” Ilya says, and Shane is startled to see that there are tears in his eyes, now, his chin wobbling dangerously, “You are supposed to fight me, so you can be corrected, so you can learn what you like, so I can learn what you like. You aren’t supposed to do what I did, Shane. It isn’t fair to yourself.”

What Ilya did. 

Ilya, who let it happen, who took it without fighting.

“How can you fucking say that?” Shane cries out, anguish twisting inside of him, threatening to constrict his air, to choke him with the force of it, “How can you– ugh!” he presses his face into his hands, inhaling shakily. He feels like they’ve been talking in circles, getting nowhere but more and more tangled up in some gordian knot, a sickness deep in the bones, spreading, a cancer he can’t escape. 

“You are hurting yourself, by keeping it all inside of you,” Ilya says, voice lowering, “I know this. I was hurting myself, too, in Russia. I thought I had to. But you don’t have to. We don’t have to, sweetheart.”

“You are hurting me!” Shane exclaims, frusterated beyond belief, “I’m not hurting myself, you are hurting me! You just– you take what you want, without ever asking. You didn’t ask me if I wanted to live in your house, you didn’t ask me if I wanted you to touch me, if I wanted to touch you. You just tell me what you want, and I have to follow it, because if I don’t, you’ll do something fucking insane, like starve me, or make me cut myself, or point a gun in my face, or show me pictures of a man you fucking killed! You are fucking crazy, and there is nothing I can fucking do, you’re just going to do whatever it is you want to do, because you like hurting me, you like having control over me, and I know you’re going to fucking kill me, I fucking know it, okay?”

“I will not–” Ilya interjects, voice rising.

 “If you don’t let me go,” Shane continues, “I am going to die here because of you, one way or another. You don’t love me. You don’t. You love the idea of having someone like me to use to make yourself feel better. I could be anyone. I could be literally anyone. As long as you have someone to be infatuated with, to feel like you’re protecting, to lock away, to fuck, to think about killing just because you can, then maybe you feel a little bit better. Maybe you actually even feel happy. But it isn’t real, I’m not a real fucking person. You don’t love me, because you don’t give an actual shit about what I want if it doesn’t align with what you want. I’m not real because I’m not a person outside of you! You just want me to be a part of you.”

“I am hurting you?” Ilya parrots, “You are hurt? Fuck, if I was really hurting you, you would fucking know it. You don’t know what the fuck pain is. Is that what you want? You want me to hurt you for real, so you feel like a real thing? So you can feel sorry for yourself? Go to the bedroom, now, I’ll fucking show you what pain is. You’ve never felt real pain a day in your life.”

Shane stands, frozen, Ilya’s words ringing in the air. 

“I said, go to the fucking bedroom!” Ilya yells, truly yells, voice booming, and Shane full-body flinches. It’s the first time he’s yelled at Shane since– that morning with the gun. 

Still, Shane doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to and he can’t bring himself to, he can’t allow what is about to happen to happen next. Despite everything, he is still afraid. 

“Oh, now you won’t listen? You are that scared of what I will do to you that you can’t even fucking listen? I will not tell you again. Go to the bedroom,” Ilya sneers. When Shane doesn’t move, Ilya stands, and grabs him, shoving him towards the hallway. But Shane plants his feet, and he tugs himself from Ilya’s grip, rough fingers slipping from his arm, his waist, and he stumbles into the wall. 

“What are you going to do?” Shane asks, voice smaller and shakier than he meant it to be. 

“You have been so good, and now you are being so bad. You need me to help you. Move, before you make this worse for yourself.” 

“I’m not doing anything,” Shane says, and it comes out wrong, but he means it both ways, anyway, he thinks, “Ilya,” he tries, the name awkward on his tongue.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Ilya barks, and there are tears stinging Shane’s eyes. 

 “Please. I’m sorry. I don’t– I don’t want this. Please don’t hurt me.” And he wishes he wasn’t begging, but there is only one other thing he can do besides beg. 

“Isn’t this what you fucking want?” Ilya asks, “That’s why you want me to kill you, isn’t it? So the lies you tell yourself can finally come true, that I am the bad guy, that I am an evil one. I don’t want to hurt you for real, Shane. You know this. I just want to take care of you. I want to keep you away from real pain. I would like to see you cry and beg for me only because you are so pretty. Because I need to see every single feeling you are capable of, because you are how I feel alive.” 

“You won’t kill me?” Shane asks, uncertain, and he isn’t sure if this is better or worse.

“Боже! How many times do I have to tell you until you believe me? Just go and do what you are told, and let me fucking help you,” Ilya says, long-suffering. 

Incredibly confused, momentum lost even as adrenaline pumps through his veins, useless, Shane does as he’s told. The pressure behind his eyes– which must be fear, but he can’t tell anymore– urges him to get this over with. What’s one more awful thing? He’s going to die soon, anyway.

The air is thick with tension. Ilya is angry, finally angry with Shane. 

“Take off your clothes,” Ilya says in the bedroom, and there is no more yelling. Shane can hear the murmur of the television, still on, down the hall. He knows Anya is still in her crate. Slowly, Shane removes his clothing in front of him, in the middle of the room. Something he’s done too many times now. He hardly takes his eyes off of Ilya, waiting for him to strike, ready to be pushed, to be hit, because surely that is what’s going to happen. 

“Get on the bed,” Ilya directs, “And sit against the headboard, and do not move. Do not fucking move, or I will have to beat the fucking evil out of you, you understand?” 

Shane chews the inside of his cheek, and nods. He does as he’s told.

But Ilya does not take off his clothes. He steps into the bathroom, out of Shane’s line of sight, and he can hear Ilya rummaging around for something. Fuck, fuck, what is he doing? 

He returns with the first aid kit, a ratty old towel, and a razor blade. This is like– 

“For your atonement,” Ilya says, surprisingly soft, looking intently at Shane and his naked body with a certain admiration. Still, Shane can tell how he holds himself– there remains, beneath the surface, a kind of righteous anger. Ilya settles on the bed, sitting by Shane’s knees. Wordlessly, he shifts his legs, situating the towel beneath Shane’s thighs flat against the covers, his hands warm and precise as he positions him. Seemingly satisfied, he places a hand over Shane’s knee and picks up the razor. 

“It will hurt,” Ilya says, meeting Shane’s eyes, “You need to keep very still. Can you do that for me?” 

“Yes,” Shane breathes, tensing, because what else is there to do? If he struggles now, he doesn’t think he will have a chance to enact his plan later, and he knows that’s all that matters now. He has handled this before. He can handle it again. He has to. 

“For I am the Lord your God, who holds your right hand, who says to you, ‘do not fear, I will help you’,” Ilya recites, and as he says it, time seems to slow. Shane feels unreal. This isn’t real.

The blade bites into Shane’s left thigh. It cuts deep into his flesh, pressing hard, much harder than he had cut himself, and Shane does not move, but a small sound escapes him. He watches, grimacing, as blood wells to the surface, and Ilya lifts the blade, and places it down again.

He isn’t just making lines. In the silence, in the shared breath between them, deep in concentration, he is carving– a symbol? A word, maybe, in a script Shane isn’t familiar with. His blood spills down the side of his thigh onto the towel below. It hurts, yes. But Shane has become good at biting his tongue. The pain doesn’t make Shane feel real again.

It must only take a few minutes. It seems to last for hours. Ilya sets the blade down on the towel and surveys his work. His thigh feels like it’s on fire. 

“What, um. What does it say?” Shane asks, hoarse, a little nauseous. Ilya drags his eyes up to Shane’s face once more. 

“παῖς,” he says, a strange word Shane has never heard before, “It is Greek. It means, a servant, or a servant of God. It’s how it’s written in the Bible.”

“Oh,” Shane says faintly. 

Ilya hums, a small noise of assent, and wipes up Shane’s blood with a clean edge of the towel. There is so much blood, maybe too much blood. He disinfects the wound and rubs antibiotic cream into it with precision, and it is still oozing blood, and so Ilya tapes a piece of gauze over the marking that takes up the better part of Shane’s upper thigh. He changes the dressing around Shane’s sliced open foot, too. 

And Ilya kisses him. A hand threaded through Shane’s hair, another low on his hip, and he kisses him, mouth warm and wet against his cheek, down his jaw, across his neck. It feels– dizzying. It feels like he wants to eat Shane alive.

Shane stares past him, looking out into the hallway, straining to hear the television still droning on.

“I love you,” Ilya gasps against his throat, “I love you. You did so good. Nothing is going to ever make me stop loving you, Shane, ever. I forgive you. I forgive you, okay? You need to believe that. It will be okay. This will protect you. I will protect you.” They might be comforting words if Shane believed they meant anything. 

Eventually, he extracts himself from Shane and returns the first aid kit, the blade, and the soiled towel to their rightful places. And Shane just waits. There is nothing for him to do. Nowhere for him to go. In the morning, when it is safe, he will act. 

Ilya comes back to him with a glass in hand. He holds it out to Shane. At first, he thinks it’s juice. Until he smells it and it reeks of alcohol. Ilya’s eyes betray nothing, blue eyes dull and tired.

“What is this?” Shane asks, his heart thumping. 

“It will help you sleep. You need to sleep, Shane.” 

“Will you have some?” 

Ilya pets Shane’s hair.

“No. It’s special, for you. You will wake again in the morning, do not worry. But it will help you get through the night.” 

Shane knows he pauses for too long. 

“Okay,” he says, voice breaking. He takes it and sips. It tastes god-awful. 

He thinks he believes Ilya, that he’ll wake up. But if he doesn’t. Well. It would be a much easier way to die, wouldn’t it? He gulps it down, his throat burning, not quite meeting Ilya’s eyes. The lights are out, and Ilya crawls into bed with him, taking the glass from his hand and setting it on the empty side table. 

He hardly feels the man’s hands on him as he drifts into too-heavy sleep. He just feels so warm all over.

Ilya asks him something he can’t really hear. 

“Hm?” Shane can’t keep his eyes open. 

“Do you ever pray to God?” Ilya asks again, slower, enunciating clearly, his mouth against the shell of Shane’s ear. 

“Mm. No,” Shane answers honestly, his filter broken, tongue loose near to sleep. 

Ilya says something he doesn’t hear in reply. 

Chapter End Notes

One more chapter left!! It should be out much faster than this one was.

It's possible that before the last chapter is posted, I will post the first chapter of a new longer Hollanov work that I will be focusing on once this one is complete (I also haven't forgotten the vampire fic I started; that one will be updated inbetween updates for the new fic!)

Chapter 10: found you just to tell you that i made it real far

Chapter Summary

He needs to get out of this room.

Chapter Notes

A shorter chapter– that’s just how the pacing ended up. This was always how the story was going to end, even when I didn’t want it to.

You’ve seen the updated tags, I hope. I’m really torn about content warnings for this chapter because I don’t want to spoil it, but, again, you’ve already seen the tags, so I guess I’m being silly, and I don’t want anyone to be totally blindsided because personally reading dark hollanov fics never fails to devastate me so I know what that’s like if you also are someone who gets really invested in what you’re reading and feels a lot of feelings like me.

Content warnings for: major character death, suicide, blood, gore, vomiting

As always, please take care of yourself and I hope you enjoy reading <3

BANG.

Shane’s entire body flinches, and he’s awake.

Silence. 

He tries to open his eyes, gummy and blurry with sleep.

“Wha– what?” the words come out weakly.

Nothing. Did he have a bad dream? 

Rolling over, groaning, head already pounding– Ilya’s side of the bed is empty. Where is he? What time is it? There’s light coming in from behind the curtains, Shane can tell by the way it’s trying to stab him in the eyes.

“Hello?” Shane calls, voice crackly, mouth like cotton, “Hello? What was that?” He thought he heard a loud sound in the house, maybe like something had fallen. 

Did Ilya leave him here? Or is he just ignoring Shane? The bathroom door is open. He’s so, so tired, head fuzzy and limbs heavy, but Shane also really, really has to piss. The fresh wound on his thigh is throbbing.

With a heave, he pushes himself upright, and the world spins violently.

“Fuck,” he breathes, bracing himself against the mattress, suddenly and dangerously nauseated. He has to close his eyes and breathe through it for a short while before the world around him starts to reorient again. Fuck, he’s alive, and hungover, and something worse. 

He kind of forgets what he was even doing. 

Oh, yeah, he needs to pee. 

Shane swings his legs over the edge of the bed, gets on his feet, and then the floor comes up to meet him before he even knows what’s happening and now he’s laying crumpled up on the floor, breathing shallowly and clutching his head which is now blooming a sharpness, radiating across his skull. 

Oh god. Did he just hit his head on the edge of the bedframe? He thinks he did, he thinks he did, and he feels something wet in between his fingers in his hair, shit, he’s bleeding, and all he can do is press his forehead to the floorboards and try to remember how to breathe. 

Shane decides to just stay here on the floor for a while. He doesn’t know for how long. Where’s Ilya? If he’s in the house, he must have heard him fall, didn’t he? If he is, he’s probably still upset with him. 

The urge to be sick is unavoidable. Shane pukes where he lays, and whines, quietly, utterly miserable. This is actually the worst he’s ever felt in his life, physically, it has to be.

He doesn’t know how long he lies there in a puddle of his own sick. Time doesn’t exactly seem real anymore. He exists in a perpetual state of ow, fuck, fuck, ow, when is it going to stop? He still has to pee, bladder tight and uncomfortable on top of everything else. 

The nausea and dizziness subsides, eventually. Shane sits up, slowly, cautiously. All he can smell now is the acrid scent of his own vomit. Lowering his hand from his head brings the evidence of blood, red and crusting on his skin. 

If Ilya is home, Shane hasn’t heard proof of it in his ringing ears. 

He’s able to stand on his own two feet without disaster after God knows how long it's been. He stumbles to the bathroom doorway.

And freezes in his tracks. A pit opens up in his stomach. 

“No,” Shane finds himself saying, “No, no, fuck you.” 

He turns around and presses his face into the door frame, eyes squeezed shut like maybe that will erase the image from his brain. But he can still see it. Maybe he won’t ever be able to see anything else. Maybe it’s not real, maybe he’s hallucinating. Maybe he’s still dreaming. 

Ilya, slumped over in the bathtub, leaned against white tile and molding grout. His arms hang in his lap and the gun ended up pressed between his right hip and the tub and there is so, so much blood. His face, his head–

Shane’s legs feel like jelly. He realizes belatedly that he’s crying. 

“Asshole,” he hisses nonsensically, lifts his head just to let it fall back against the frame with a thud, sees stars behind his eyelids. I was supposed to be the one who dies today, is all he can seem to think. 

He needs to get out of this room.

Like the world has tiltled sideways, Shane escapes the bedroom and its bathroom into the hall, and his brain is static as pushes open the door to the guest bathroom, which sticks, and he doesn’t notice until mid-piss that he must still be naked. Fuck. 

Reluctantly, he returns to the bedroom and in a haze pulls the first suitable items he can find out of the dresser. He pointedly does not look in the direction of the bathroom.

He stares at himself in the full length mirror for too long before dressing himself. His vision is still blurry and now his sinuses feel congested from tears, too. 

He thinks he looks like death. He appears as pale and clammy as he feels, his hair matted from sleep and likely a bit of blood, bruises stark and mottled against his neck and hips, the bandage on his thigh stained dark in spots. He’s still wearing the little golden cross that was Ilya’s mother’s. He still doesn’t know her name.

It’s over, he thinks dully. Fuck. It’s over. Just like that. He still doesn’t feel real. But he thinks this must be real. Ilya is still and silent and disfigured in the tub. Shane shuts the bedroom door behind him as he leaves.

Anya is waiting anxiously for him in her crate in the living room, and the sight of her kind of makes him want to collapse all over again. 

“Hi, girl,” Shane says weakly. 

He opens the crate and, by instinct, heads for the back door to let her out as he and Ilya do each morning. He doesn’t bother to open the blinds; his head is aching too much as it is. 

The clock on the stove reads 12:37. On the kitchen table sits: a wallet, a blackberry phone, and a set of keys. 

Shane lets Anya out for the bathroom, hovering by the open door while he watches her do her business in the yard. Maybe the cold air does something to shock him awake, because now he’s wondering, somewhat frantically, what the fuck, what the fuck? Did Ilya plan this? Is it because of their fight? Is it spite, meant to drive something home? Or was he just that distraught? In all of the strange ways he reacted to Shane’s outburst, did he quietly come to a new conclusion? Or had he been waiting for this morning all along, like Shane had been? Did his mind supply a new dream last night, or an old one, something he had no other feasible path to get away from? He thinks, for some reason, viscerally, of a little curly-haired boy playing hockey after school in Russia, and of the man with ocean blue eyes who kissed him so fervently last night. What had Ilya said to him last night? He had said something. Shane can’t remember what. 

Anya comes back to him, and he fills up her food and water bowls. He gulps down one glass of water from the sink as she munches away, then another, and another. He thinks if he tries to eat anything solid right now, he might be sick again. So he sits on the couch and turns on the television. He doesn’t know why he isn’t feeling any kind of urgency to leave, but he isn’t. The house feels too empty, and Shane is so tired. Getting up and walking around what little amount he has has exhausted him. So he sinks into the too-squishy cushions of the old couch, Anya curled up by his feet. 

He turns on the news. He doesn’t mean to. It’s just what comes up first. Shane watches and listens through a fog. 

A fire at a restaurant. Muggings. A missing fifteen year old, they think she ran away from home. A trap house busted. The police are getting more vehicles worked into the budget. Moving on to the weather. 

There is a thrumming in Shane’s chest that has nothing to do with a nasty drug-mixed hangover or the adrenaline of seeing a dead man in a bathroom. 

He wants to call his mom. 

He should call his mom. He needs to call his mom, probably. 

He turns off the television when they go back to the news, and then he just sits there, because the idea of actually standing up and getting the phone from off of the table and dialing a number sort of feels impossible. 

There is a bird screeching outside. Anya yips back, and Shane takes that as his cue.

He stares at the worn down wood of the kitchen table, traces a finger along the grain, wincing at how the inflamed skin of his thigh stretches and contracts with each fidgety movement of his shaking body when he sits. 

He calls the only number he ever memorized. She picks up within two rings.

“Hello?” Mom’s voice plays through the speaker, uncertain, and, like a vision, Shane imagines her picking up every call from known and unknown numbers alike over the past two months, waiting to hear news, any news. And he realizes he has no idea what he’s going to say. 

“Mom,” Shane says, and it comes out quieter than he meant it to. A pregnant pause.

“...Shane?” Mom says, like she doesn’t believe it. He isn’t sure if he does, either. 

“Mom,” Shane says again, a little stronger, “It’s me. It’s Shane.” Mom exhales shakily over the line. “I’m sorry,” Shane adds, and he doesn’t know why he says that. 

“Shane,” Mom says, “Shane, are you okay? Are you hurt? Where are you right now? I thought– you said– it’s been months, honey. Are you hurt?” She’s repeating herself, and that’s how he knows she’s absolutely frazzled. 

“I’m okay,” Shane says, and he doesn’t know if that’s true, but he’s all in one piece, and he’s alive, and he can speak and move freely, and he feels an insurmountable grief for her like a weight over his chest, “I’m okay, Mom. I’m not hurt, um, very badly, I think. But I should probably see a doctor, soon, I guess, uh– I’m sorry. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how to explain.” His own voice sounds far away to him. 

“Oh, baby,” Mom says, and she’s crying, he did that, he made her cry, “I’m so glad you called. I’m so grateful to hear from you, I’m so grateful you’re okay. I’m right here for you, we’re gonna figure this out together and everything’s gonna be okay, honey. Is– can you describe where you are, what’s around you? Is there anyone nearby you can ask for help? How did you get this phone?” 

Shane chews at his bottom lip, struggling to form a coherent thought. A part of him feels warmer just from hearing her voice. 

“I’m in a house,” he says, “In the woods, somewhere. I guess I don’t even know if I’m still in Massechutestes. But I probably am? I think so. He said he’s been in Boston for years. The news is for some county I don’t know. There’s a car, and I have the keys, but I don’t know if I should drive right now. And I don’t know if that would be, like, stealing.” And he can tell he’s kind of rambling, his thoughts jumbled, he doesn’t think he answered her questions right, but he doesn’t know how to stop it. 

“He?” Mom asks, “Who’s, ‘he’? Is there someone there with you? Can I speak to him?”

Shane swallows against the lump forming in his throat. 

“No, um. No. I’m alone now. Just– I’m sorry, I don’t know where I am. I really wanna see you right now,” Shane whispers, and, ah, shit. He’s crying again. 

“Okay,” Mom says, “Okay, that’s okay, baby. We’re gonna find you and get you back home. I wanna see you right now, too. I’m gonna see you soon, Shane. You should call 9-1-1 after you call me, alright? They can find out where your call is coming from.”

“Okay,” Shane sniffs. 

“Shane,” Mom says suddenly, and he thinks she sounds very brave, “Did you take something? Are you feeling okay? You said–”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean– last night. I had a drink, and there was something in it. I don’t know what. Some pill, I guess, maybe. He said I would be fine. It knocked me out, like, tranquilized me, and I was really sick this morning. I hit my head trying to get up, but I don’t think it was very bad. I feel– I feel sick, still, but I feel a little better. I can walk, and breathe, and everything. I’m okay. I should probably get checked out, but I think I’m okay.” 

Mom hums in that nervous cadence he recognizes from when she hears something she doesn’t like, something she’s skeptical of.

“Alright,” she says, even-toned like she’s trying to not freak out, “I’m glad you're feeling better, then. And you don’t– you’re not in any danger, right now? You don’t feel– you don’t feel like hurting yourself, do you? You’re not going to do anything else?” 

Right. Because she thinks he told her he was going to kill himself. Ha. 

“No,” Shane says softly, heart clenching, “No, I’m safe. I’m sorry, I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“Good,” Mom breathes, “That’s good. But don’t be sorry, honey. I’m not upset with you. I’m– I’m sorry I couldn’t help you before.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Shane says quickly, “It’s, uh. A long story. And I don’t know how I’m going to be able to tell it. But we’ll– we’ll figure it out together, like you said, right? We’ll figure it out.” 

“Yeah,” Mom says, “Yes, of course we will.” 

A quiet lull. If they could just stay like this, maybe everything would be okay. 

“Should I let you go now so you can call emergency services? I’m so happy to hear from you, baby, but I hate to think of you all alone and hurting somewhere right now. I want to see you.”  

Shane nods before realizing he should respond verbally. She must have been thinking about him all alone and hurt somewhere for some time, now. 

“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll do that now.” 

“Okay, baby. I’ll call too, to let the police know I’ve heard from you and forward them this number.” 

“Smart,” Shane says, and Mom laughs weakly. Oh. He made her laugh.

“I love you,” she says, “So much.”

“I love you, too, Mom.” 

“...Bye, honey. I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye. I’ll see you.” 

There’s a long pause where the call is still going, before Shane thinks there’s no way she’s going to hang up on him. So he ends the call. 

Shane looks out the window, out to the browning leaves swaying in the wind. Hypnotic. He could watch the trees forever, probably. 

He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain anything to anyone. 

Chapter End Notes

Wow, we made it. This was a huge writing journey for me. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything this long, ever. These characters and their story just begged me to try my best to do them justice, and so I tried my hardest and I’m very satisfied with how the vision turned out. I know I’m not the best writer and I’m sure I could have taken more time than I did with each chapter, but then of course it wouldn’t be exactly the work it is now, and I think this experience has helped me to learn and improve as a writer at least a little bit.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate y’all for reading, for leaving kudos, for your sweet and thoughtful comments that absolutely invigorated me. I usually write weird dark stories that are frankly mostly just me rummaging around trying to make sense of my own psyche and experiences by putting fictional characters in situations, which are stories I also usually keep to myself, but I’ve never had this much of a positive and engaging response before and it’s maybe even healing something in me. Thank you very much for coming on this journey with me.

I feel sad, of course, that this Ilya is dead, like I think this Shane is. But he was always going to have to die and Shane was always going to have to be free and have another chance at life.

I mean it when I say my big three inspirations for this fic were by far the Tracker kidnapping clip with Hudson Williams, Rumpelstiltskin, and of course the song Strangers by Ethel Cain. And I mean it even more when I say that this Ilya is literally Rumpelstiltskin, y’all. He simply had to die after the truth was spoken out loud by Shane, I’m sorry. Shane deserves freedom and peace <3

I want to say, I don’t think anyone is ever without potential and a hope to change. Sadly, still many remain stuck in their ways. I don’t know if that’s one’s fault or not, but it’s just what it is. This Ilya makes me very sad because I know people like him and I relate to him in a lot of ways, too (not the actually evil shit, obvs, but you get what I’m trying to say).

I hope it’s clear Ilya was written as a kind of dramatic archetype based on real people and not at all meant to stigmatize mental illness or victims of incest abuse; those were the parts I related to the most and wanted to be realistic. Sometimes people who do terrible things have also experienced really terrible things and it’s quite tragic. I think this dynamic is basically like a super exacerbated version of Shane and Ilya from the show.

I’m not going to lie, the Freudian elements for both Shane and Ilya in this version of the story is a huge driving factor for their dynamic as well. Shane as an incarnation of Irina, imagined so by a mentally ill man or not, is really fucked up and really interesting to explore.

Idk, man. I think some people are just hurt really badly and can’t let themselves see how they go on to hurt others just as badly. But not everyone who is hurt goes on to hurt others, so. I think we’re certainly allowed to hate the people who hurt us and want them out of our lives even if they too are hurting badly and we feel a lot for them. A revelation, I know, lol. We’re allowed to have peace and safety.

This Shane is very special to me as well. He’s got a difficult road ahead of him, but I believe in him. He’s very strong. It was important to me that he kept putting off taking action, because tbh that’s extremely relatable and realistic for someone in an abusive situation. It was also important to me that he survived despite his hesitancy to take certain action, because hell yeah, he deserves hope and he deserves to live even if he doesn’t act like someone might expect him to.

Thank you for reading all of these many words. Please talk to me in the comments if you feel so inclined, I would love to hear from you!

And I have big news! I made a Tumblr lol so I can post moodboards for my fics and maybe even talk to some of y’all if anyone wants to. I have a moodboard on there for this fic, now!

I wanted to have exciting news about a new Hollanov series I wanted to start but I am having so much paralyzing writing anxiety (not quite writer’s block? I think maybe the scope of the project and/or the pressure I’m putting on myself is too much right now. Summers have always been bad for me for some reason), so sadly that’s been shelved at the moment. I will however continue with the random oneshots and hopefully updating the Hollanov vampire au soon, too.

My Tumblr is here: My Love Letter To Georgia