Chapter Text
The afternoon after his encounter, Shane was surprised to find himself awake. Morning sun crept through, dousing him in light, blinding where it reflected off the snow. The ferocious storm had been declawed, reduced to a soft flurry, snowflakes careening listlessly to join the feet piled up below. The hearth in the next room still burned somehow, staving off the cold, and a heavy blanket helped him sink into the bed.
Six punctures in his skin had healed over, leaving only the faintest trace of their existence. If that were the only evidence, there was still hope to pass off the night as a feverish dream. Shane felt the marks before he saw them, peeling the blanket off and revealing his naked body to the refracted light of snow.
He examined himself, but not out of need for confirmation. Shane assessed the status of his body like one might the wreckage left after a hurricane; with certainty the roof had caved in, merely assessing the damage to tally the bill for repairs.
Most of the blood had been cleared from his skin, but he spotted a few faint smudges of dried, rusty red littered about his body. Impressions of fingertips dug into his hips, a deep red peppering of bruises on his chest and pelvis where a practiced mouth had sucked in reminders. The blanket over his body wasn’t so bad, but the bloodied sheets under him told a sordid tale. Even his necklace, wrapped around his hand instead of his neck, served as a memento of his abandoned virtue.
Shane’s mind remained foggy, a dull ache persistent in its drum against his temples. Even if he’d woken to perfectly unmarred skin and bleach-white sheets, Shane would know what happened. He would remember.
After forcing his sore, bruise-addled body to retrieve food from his stores and drink copious amounts of water, Shane sat at his desk, staring absently at the book he’d left there what felt like millennia ago. It remained open to the page he’d fallen asleep on the night prior, a description of nightwalkers he could now fact check with his own experience. The thought was… numbing. Last night hollowed something out of him. If he were to die, his body taken for autopsy, he would leave the medical examiner disappointed and empty handed.
He’d taken out a freshly bound book, the pages thick like he preferred for his field journals, and without consciously deciding on any particular words, began to transcribe his encounter with Rozanov.
Despite the lethargic absence his brain and body had been carrying in his aftermath, the words poured out of him without resistance. He was driven by a singular, unconscious desire; the refusal to forget even a second of detail. Shane imagined it was similar to the detached, clinical nature a surgeon might transcribe their errors in a fatal operation; he had failed, given in to so many vices he’d sworn off, and owed it to himself to record the mistakes in detail. Maybe then, with an itemized list of his shame, he could hope to correct himself.
He alternated pages of words and sketches. Shane didn’t regularly take people’s likeness; he’d done it enough times before, when he learned a new method for topical applications or minor triage and wanted to depict the details for his own reference. But nothing like this; nothing that required him to hold his breath as carefully-sharpened charcoal curved into individual eyelashes, or captured light in cascading curls. Shimmering spots appeared in his vision after the first few hours, altering him that a migraine was imminent, but he persisted.
It needed to be perfect. He refused to forget.
— — —
Night fell on an untouched blanket of snow no one dared attempt to shovel. Shane reached over to his bedside drawer before he remembered he wasn’t home, and huffed a sigh.
He needed to rest; the week leading up to the previous night had exhausted him. That was beside the blood loss, which he’d been recuperating from, grateful for the food stores he kept in the shop. Setting his head down, after the week he’d endured, after the day he’d spent poring over notebooks until his wrist cramped around the pen — it should’ve taken him mere seconds to fall asleep and give his body the rest it needed.
Sleep eluded him. His migraine, the only company he’d had in the silent aftermath of the blizzard, waned but persisted, leaving a faint body ache. The reprieve from the pounding behind his eye served as a cue to sleep, but it refused him. When he got back into his bed, the sheets abandoned for spares in the wake of their defilement, all Shane could do was remember.
Blue iris devoured by pupil, flecked with hellfire red, ringed with dark telangiectasias like a starburst in the skin.
Sweat licked at his nape, a rose flush starting at his ears and spreading down to his chest. Despite the frigid air swirling just outside his walls, feverish heat prompted Shane to kick the heavy blanket off his body, strip his sleep clothes, and —
And lie still as a corpse, hands clasped together over his stomach like he belonged in a casket. Because what he much preferred to do would set a terrible precedent, and Shane knew better than to cave like that, to succumb to base instinct like an animal.
Not a second time, anyway.
Wind whistled outside, not so violent as the night prior, but enough that the building creaked around him. Before, this was mechanical. A simple act of maintenance for his body, a box he needed to tick off on occasion to keep himself running smoothly. Nothing to be said about where his mind went those nights; it was like dreams, really, one had no control over such matters. Now would be… different. Last night should’ve been enough to sate him for months, considering the escalation from his typical routine; a rushed affair, a chore, sometimes employing help of book to get his mind in the proper place.
Instead, the encounter with Rozanov had unearthed a crater of want, leaving Shane with a ravine of untapped desire. Memory was the squall of wind at his back, upsetting his balance off the edge, battling vertigo at the drop beneath his feet.
You would not push me away, if I fed from you.
Shane needed to sleep, the fatigue leaden in his eyelids, but the message had not reached the rest of his body. He was straining hard against his boxers, which he covered with a blanket to hide from his walls and his window and the moonlight filtering into the room. Each image behind his stubbornly shut lids rose to meet his consciousness, bubbles of air from a deep dark nothing, until reaching the surface and popping with a snap. Lips pressed into a tight line before curling into a smirk. The deep crest of his iliac furrow, carrying Shane’s gaze down, down.
You will remember me, wont you, zaichyk?
Shane turned over to his side, determined to ignore the ache, and gasped when his hip pressed into the bed, right over one of many bruises. Dull pain curled up his spine, stoking the slow burning fire, a pathetic simulacrum of…
You bleed beautifully for me.
Oh, fuck this!
With a frustrated huff, Shane got out of bed clad only in his boxers, and threw the door open from the spare back room of the shop. His feet padded against the wood floors to his workstation, ignoring the pages of his account to rifle through his supply drawers. He plucked a bottle of oil, plain, something he used as a base for medicinal suspensions or topicals.
On other nights, this took a while. Coaxing his brain out of practicality, allowing his imagination to curl into amorphous figures he knew he preferred, but would never seek out. Layers of shame took minutes to shuck off, employing loopholes and technicalities as he inveigled his own permission to conjure calloused hands rather than dainty fingers, to audiate voices of a rougher pitch, in a lower register. All in the silence and solitude of his room, Shane would serve as defendant to his own desires, presenting a case to himself the judge.
Tonight, that was all unnecessary.
Shane’s day of solitude, trapped inside by the snow and his aberrant thoughts, had been spent transcribing his encounter with Rozanov to the letter; he did not need to reach for an illicit novel written in riddles to hide its meaning. The images already plagued his mind, crowding like fever; if his brain were tapped, the vial of liquor cerebrospinalis would be dark and viscous as treacle. Shane laid back in bed, oiled his hands, and shoved his boxers past his hips. He wrapped a hand around himself, releasing a shuddering sigh at the pressure. Leaving the room had almost been unnecessary with how much he’d leaked already.
All that just from the image of him, an echo of his voice. Of Rozanov. A man; a nightwalker. The creature that bled him like a stuck pig and drank his life from the tap, all at Shane’s willing offer. Fuck. Shane was far beyond saving, wasn’t he? Irredeemable, without a shadow of a doubt.
A sonorous voice lured him back. The words were composed of syllables Shane heard him say, precariously rearranged to fit the syntax and cadence he wanted to hear.
Go on, sweetheart. You need this.
Rozanov had never called him that name. Shane didn’t care. He listened, working himself faster, obedient even to the thought of him. His eyes rolled shut, his breaths laced with a whine he’d normally bite down, no matter how isolated he was here or in his room at home.
What would Rozanov do, if he were here? He was gone, left in the night, Shane would likely never see him again. But he could persist on fantasies, like he always did. Even the thought had him worked up much faster than normal. The curl of his wrist around his cock tried to find the pace Rozanov had set the night before. He couldn’t replicate the grip; it had been so perfectly tight, his broad palm the perfect size, with the perfect rough callous. Shane groaned in frustration, in want.
Not twenty four hours ago, Rozanov had been in this bed, pressing his lips to Shane’s body, sucking at his skin until blood bloomed at the surface. Shane’s free hand traced the pattern of the marks from his neck, down his chest, trying to evoke the feeling, replaying the encounter in his mind for the thousandth time.
And there he was again, the image coalescing behind the lids Shane squeezed shut; Rozanov’s eyes wild as he sunk his teeth in, composure abandoned, seeking animal pleasure, moaning into Shane’s taste. He canted forward into his own hand at the memory, picturing these fresh sheets covered in his blood, too. The image got him so close to the edge already, mind reeling in a supercut of hands and fangs and blood and — oh, fuck, and pain —
Unthinking, Shane took his free hand and pressed into his hip, hard, his hand slotted over the five wine-red bruises Rozanov’s fingers branded him with. A sob ripped from his throat, his body folding in on himself in a cheap imitation of the painpleasurepain of twin fangs burrowing into his skin, and Shane came onto his chest with a strangled cry.
Panting with exertion, the rush of blood in Shane’s ears finally tapered down to silence. Exhaustion returned, full force, and his eyes nearly fell shut before a flicker of light caught his eye. Reflected from his necklace, the head of the silver snake glinting moonlight his way. He’d never drawn the curtains, exposing the most rotten parts of himself to the moon and her stars.
As sleep took him, he was left with the impression of Hygeia abandoned on his windowsill, whispering solemnly to the moon herself, his guardians hanging their heads in shame.
— — —
After the days of clearing snow alongside the rest of the townspeople, Shane found himself swarmed with customers again. Many came to restock what they'd depleted during the shut-in days of the blizzard, a handful came down with fevers after being trapped indoors with sick family, others sought his advice on whether their cyanosed fingers and toes would re-perfuse on their own, or if it was worth making the several-days journey to seek a true doctor's attention.
Distraction was welcome, after days alone with his thoughts and the snow, nothing to occupy him but filling page after page with indulgent memories.
As early winter darkened into bleak days of little sun and endless cold, the original text portion of his account — scrawled in a nearly-illegible frantic handwriting, unlike the practiced script Shane normally penned — had been edited significantly. He would recall details at random intervals, stopping mid-sentence when speaking with a customer to jot the note down before it escaped. He was grateful, then, for the reputation he’d garnered; helpful, sure, but a recluse, hardly ever seen outside of his work. Customers thought little of this strange behavior, if they noticed at all.
For a better description of the red flecks in Rozanov’s iris, he’d hurried away from mortar of velvet sumac and scrambled for parchment. Once he’d been clearing dirt from the feathered roots of goldenseal he’d plucked before the storm, and nearly dropped the bundle to adjust the rendering he’d done of the darkened vessels that appeared around his eyes. These were minutia, getting in the weeds; but the accounts he’d read before lacked these fine details, so, ever the perfectionist, Shane was determined to include them.
After the first few days, he reworked the text heavily, removing certain descriptions to save for a separate, personal account. Not that he would ever share either; he was determined to keep them close to his chest, to conceal them like the murder weapon in a cold case.
He carried a distinct frustration where the second-by-second playback blurred around the edges; it didn’t take long to put together why. The analgesic, that miracle fluid Rozanov had oxymoronically called venom, placed a haze over the seconds he’d been under its effects. Shane could remember enough context, and his preoccupation with the matter reassured him he hadn’t really forgotten anything, but it vexed him nonetheless. If he had known the venom would tamper with his memory, he would’ve rejected it; if he ever saw Rozanov again, he would refuse the pleasure outright. What a ridiculous thought. After a week without a knock at his door, Shane was convinced Rozanov wasn’t coming back.
This only made him more determined to perfect the accounts, preserve his memory of the creature. Writing, when he wasn’t working with customers or minding the stock of his shelves, occupied much of his time. Once every detail had been wrung out of the sulci and gyri of his brain, he abandoned the text for more sketches, until he had a notebook or several full of Rozanov’s likeness.
Page after page of his eyes, his fangs, the tendons flexing on the back of his hand, the planes of his body burned behind Shane’s eyelids, and he impressed them into paper with all the skill he could channel into the charcoal.
And when that was exhausted, every angle captured, Rozanov started to materialize on his own, neglecting the need for a canvas and superimposing himself into Shane’s senses at will.
— — —
The incidents waxed and waned, more copious at night but bleeding insidiously into the days.
It started small. A flash of darkness across the glen easily dismissed as the broad wingspan of a raven, or the cracking of branches behind him explained by a passing troupe of deer. Shane was jumpy, that was all, on edge after a visitor in the night had upended all he knew to be true. Never mind that it was coming up on two weeks since his encounter, and the night still burrowed into his brain, manifesting into his days like a specter.
Having risen with the sun, Shane set out on a foraging trip in the early morning. He took care while he dressed in his layers, topping off his heaviest wool with a thick scarf around his neck. His jaw ached again this morning; he’d previously attributed the pain to the growing cold, but now suspected it was from grinding his teeth in his sleep. Bitter cold met him in the wood, now settled deep into winter, the rare clear sky providing the hint of warmth Shane needed to encourage his trip. He’d spotted a thatch of elderberry in the outcropping of trees near his home the last time he'd come out for firewood, and was intent to collect some before the forest’s winter foragers took their fill. With a relatively simple goal in mind, Shane hoped to use the leftover time to clear his head before the work day began.
Winter challenged Shane in a welcome way; the task of foraging in the cold was unique, looking for the hardy stragglers that would survive the lack of sunshine and suffocation of snow. In the warm months, the abundance ate away his time, parsing through myriad beautiful yet ineffective foliage to find what he needed. The winter’s biting cold did a number on his stamina, but it made the dark berries easy to spot in the snow-spotted landscape. He took care collecting them to keep the plant alive, hopeful that he could return to a full shrub again when he inevitably ran out of the dark syrup he made from the berries.
Patches of snow remained from the storm and the few light flurries in recent days, focused at the bases of tall trees that shielded them from the sun. Satisfied with his haul, Shane settled on a flat expanse of rock at the bottom of a small hill, the face composed of all shades of exposed slate gray rock. Occasional breezes generated little sound in the bare trees, and Shane turned his attention to each layer of the forest, his dark watchful eyes gliding carefully across the landscape. Aside from the collection of elderberry, he’d toted along his sketching material, hoping to pass some time drawing and distance himself from the shop and the memories it held. Shane removed the leather-bound sketchbook and set out a few charcoals, and let his gaze travel about the landscape for a subject.
Several times in the two weeks since his encounter with Rozanov, Shane felt the unmistakable presence of something over his shoulder; always in quiet moments like this, when he should have been occupied with focus. The first few times, it happened in the cover of night, his mind confusing shadows, conflating the whisper of wind against his walls. After a few painful instances of whipping his head around to check over his shoulder and finding a coatrack or a broom or truly nothing at all, Shane’s nerves had eased, slightly.
The feeling was uniquely concerning in broad day, with no trick of light or shadow to blame for his discomfort. It was needling, two pinpricks of focused eyes burrowing into the back of his head until he finally conceded, shifting his feet on the rock and facing the opposite direction.
Thankfully for the tally against his insanity, his eyes stuttered on a figure, confirming a true watchful gaze behind him. A break in the monotony, blending almost perfectly with the mottled brown and white of the snow-kissed decidua that surrounded it, pensive eyes of pure onyx met Shane’s. He identified a Strix perched lower than he’d ever find it in the warmer months. The spotted owl had a beautiful coat, a careful pattern to camouflage it from its prey. It should’ve been sleeping at that hour, but it stared back at Shane, or somewhere past him, as if to reward him for his attention.
You've spotted me, it seemed to say with a twitch of his head. Now what?
Never one to back down from a challenge, Shane set his sketchbook in his lap. He flipped through to an empty page, avoiding eye contact with several iterations of Rozanov as they flitted past. The owl remained focused in Shane’s general direction and perfectly still; a wonderful subject. Early morning sun cast a warm glow on the paper as Shane sketched the beautiful bird, forgetting his preoccupation with being watched to mind a subject of his own choosing. Relief trickled through as he rendered; maybe he was fine, and his fixation on Rozanov would soon fade into obscurity. He could do this, go on a walk or start a sketch or throw himself into work when his mind started to wander. It was practical. It was the right thing to do.
The sun perched higher in the sky, almost time for Shane to head back and open the shop for the day. With only the eyes left, the sketch was nearly complete. He’d left them for last so the darkness of them wouldn’t smudge — but when he looked up, the beautiful spotted owl had disappeared from its branch; he’d missed its departure, with the creature’s wings designed for the silence of a nighttime hunt.
Shane frowned at the tree where it had perched, then glanced back down at his almost-completed drawing. Blank, cream-white paper occupied the space where the owl’s eyes should’ve been near-black, helping it to camouflage in the night like its spotted wings did in the day. He massaged his aching jaw with his hand — had it been clenched this whole time? Minding the hour, Shane packed up his materials and headed for the shop, hoping the distraction of work would convince him better that he wasn’t still off-kilter.
— — —
By the time the weeks summed into a month, Shane felt it in himself, the degree of effort it took to focus on people around him. Apparently there was no indication in his demeanor; if anyone noticed his preoccupation, they did not mention it. People sought him out for help, were grateful when he produced results, but they did not concern themselves with the vacancy of his eyes, the steady stream of consciousness humming behind them.
Was it always this way? Was he always invisible?
"Wouldn't have come in, but you know how it is; the missus didn't like the look of all that bruising.”
Shane hummed in response, fastening the bandage so it would hold around the moving joint. He should’ve answered, but his train of thought was running laps around the track, looping and winding, and the words seemed so distant. That was besides the migraine he felt coming on. The aura bloomed with lethargic phosphenes in his vision for the better part of an hour, and the pain could arrive at any moment.
He looked up at the man whose shoulder he'd been wrapping with bandage after applying a generous coat of salve. The tissue was bruised deep burgundy, but the mobility he'd tested left Shane hopeful it would recover with rest and let him get back to work on his small farm just outside of town. One of his horses had startled when he'd gone to fetch her for a ride in the early morning; luckily he wasn’t positioned directly behind her, otherwise the injury might've sent his shoulder out of commission for good. Shane’s lack of response apparently didn’t deter the man from continuing.
"Ah,” the man nodded at Shane's hand, the absence there. "Not married, are you boy?"
Shane shook his head as he adjusted the bandage.
"Oh, I mean nothing by it — surprised a young lady in town hasn't tied you down yet, is all. But you're the quiet type, I can respect that. Got a good business to show for it."
It wasn't the first time he'd been asked. It was an easy topic of conversation for most, one that Shane often stunted to awkward silence with a nod and smile and hoped would pass on quickly. He'd felt that way before Rozanov, but it was pointedly worse, now. Before, he could grin and bear the wary look or shrug without too much trouble. Now that he knew with certainty there was something wrong about him, something irreparable, the benign comments mutated into malignancies. Without meaning to, the man had sent Shane’s thoughts far deeper underwater, the surface of conversation distanced by miles of darkness and suffocating pressure.
"…yesterday. Must've really spooked her, poor thing."
There it was; pressure clamped down on Shane’s head, forcing his blood to the furthest edges of the dura to thrum painfully against his left temple. He could feel his pulse beside his ear, rather than hear it. Like someone knocking at a door he couldn’t open. Closing his free hand into a tight fist, Shane managed to stave off a wince at the pain.
Oh. Had the man said something?
"Spooked her?" Shane repeated.
The old farmer chuffed a laugh, "Tuning this old man out, aye?" Shane opened his mouth to apologize, but the man seemed in good humor and waved him off with his good arm. "Oh, just rambling on, don't worry yourself. Had a wolf or some such nab a few deer near my property, left 'em there rotting for me to find.”
Shane frowned, imagining the scene against his better judgment. It folded into his absentminded daydreams, the wolf from the man’s story contorted into a fox, smiling between snarls, rich garnet lining its mouth, coating its bared teeth.
“I only noticed them yesterday, had to clean the mess myself. I reckon she saw the carcass, must've scared the daylights out of her, to make her kick like that. She's got an easy temper, that one."
With a hum in acknowledgement, Shane excused himself to gather a roll of bandage and a tin of salve for the man to take home with him, to save him the trek out to the shop. His migraine darkened, the aura waning to make room for the thrumming pain gathering behind left eye. Shane wanted to ignore the vision coalescing there, but it carried on against his wishes, as his thoughts seemed apt to do these days.
Behind his eyelids, the wolf was still a fox, and fox was clever, hunting at night, getting as close as it could without detection before it struck, precise and ravenous. Maybe the fox had noticed the deer’s lame back leg, and thought to make an easy meal of that vulnerability.
“You keep the change, boy,” the man rubbed his hand into his shoulder. “Whatever you did burned like hell, but its already feeling better than this morning.”
The deer probably ran, when it spotted the rusty coat in the snow. It probably tried to escape. That was natural.
Miraculously, Shane managed a small smile, “Thank you, sir. Happy to help.”
—
The day passed in a haze, and for the first time in months Shane closed up an hour early on account of his persistent migraine. After his typical tidying the store and locking up, he made the trek home, the harsh cold doing nothing to ease the throbbing.
He powered through his nightly routine, keeping accounts of his sales and inventory, ate as much dinner as he could manage, and the pressure finally receded by the time he got into bed. Shane cast a mournful glance at the moon through his curtains. Every night he played this game, did this dance with himself like he wouldn’t always concede. And concede he did; but not before he removed his necklace, unclasping the silver chain from his neck. The motion was practiced and smooth, because wearing it while he did this felt all the more wrong. He set it down on his nightstand, then reached into his bedside drawer, finding the small bottle of oil he’d hidden under useless clutter and first aid and papers.
Like clockwork, the cogs all meshed together and ticked in time; night reminded him of Rozanov, and Rozanov reminded him of pain, and pain reminded him of pleasure. Around the wheel he went.
His body stirred to life as he coated his fingers, the slight scent only setting him off further, conditioned to remember what it represented. Shane dressed for bed every night, completely kidding himself, and every night he shoved his clothes down past his hips and indulged in this simple depravity.
Shane was already hard, the memory of that deep voice echoing against the shell of his ear. So steady and sure, coaxing out what he took such care to keep locked away. His jaw ached were he’d kept it clenched shut for the shop’s last two open hours. He huffed a tight breath, knowing with a few strokes that that wouldn’t be enough, tonight.
Not when the farmer’s story cast his mind off on a wild tangent, prompting all the rotten thoughts to the surface. Of being watched, pursued like a fawn in the woods, running until his breath went ragged, only for sharp teeth to dig into him anyway. To be worthy of claim, so valuable that he’d sustain the life of a beautiful creature.
The thought sent him reeling, and again Shane was conceding, raising his white flag as he circled a slick finger against his entrance. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But he couldn’t stop, his eyes already fluttering shut, his breathing already stuttering. Behind his lids, scenes flashed in series; the shine of watchful eyes glowing in a dark forest, blood coursing down his raised arm from twin punctures in his wrist, an impossible, beautiful creature’s figure lit only by the moon. Shane grunted, the sound punched out of him as he pressed a finger past the tight ring of muscle.
It was foolish, in hindsight, to have been surprised with how much he’d loved this, the first time he tried it. It was like trying on his own boots and being surprised they fit. Shane worked his finger in further, swearing as he added another. Of course he’d like this, this complete undoing. Leave it to Shane, really, to never do anything in half measure. He was only good if he could be the best, and he was only bad if he could be the worst, the most depraved, the most vile. Oh, and not just to want it; to covet it, form a dependence on it, indulge in that gluttony at any chance he got, and still crave more.
You’d let me do anything I wanted to you, wouldn’t you?
The awful truth was that Shane would. He had. He’d offered, hand outstretched, head tilted, neck bare, practically begging Rozanov to take, take, take. And if he ever saw him again, was ever so privileged and inauspicious to find the creature at his door, he’d offer this, too. Not in reverence, but in his own selfish need, mindless animal desperation to fulfill a craving his fingers just couldn’t on their own.
Shane’s pace picked up, breathing gone ragged, when he felt a chill against his skin. His eyes flew open to the window he’d left ajar, the curtains fluttering into the room. Shane was far enough on the edge of town that he shouldn’t have worried, but he was horrified at what the thrill meant, the rush of blood, his hands which did not stop moving.
“Fuck. This is — fuck, fuck —”
Revulsion dimmed as the pleasure disarmed him. The gates opened on a menagerie of beasts; thoughts piled up and stampeded out to consciousness. The window ajar was an invitation, like his half-naked, writhing body was. The invitation was the unclasping of his necklace, the removal of a threat, the display of his intention, the severity of his depravity. Shane curled his fingers, brushing up against the soft spot that made his pressed-shut eyes squeeze down harder. He keened, close now, delirious with the thought of that beast, that creature who saw him and unmade him, somewhere in the woods, god, maybe hearing him —
“Rozanov,” fell from his lips, a whisper, a prayer, “please.”
Please, hear me. Don’t leave me like this; fractured but not cut clean through. Too broken to scar, not broken enough to start over. Please, finish what you started. Please, find this open wound; bleeding, bleeding, bleeding…
Da, that’s it…
Shane came with a broken cry, his body closing in on itself, spilling onto his hand and stomach. He remained tense, panting, until a wave of exhausting poured over, and he let every clenched muscle relax. This was his least favorite part, coming back to himself and picking up the pieces, the pleasure ebbing its tide to shame. While he summoned the strength to rise and clean himself, he stared at the sway of his curtains, welcoming in frigid air and nothing else. Fuck. He’d do better tomorrow.
— — —
Late winter held more ice than snow, and prompted Shane to check the tread on his boots before he set out in the late afternoon for a walk. It was far too cold to justify the excursion, even in his heaviest wool and an absurd amount of layers. Nevertheless, Shane locked up the shop and set out with his drawing materials in tow, intent on dropping by the forest to sketch and clear his head before bed tonight.
His indulgence of late became hard to ignore. And last night felt worse, the perversion in his mind entangled with the farmer’s story, the ugly, rotten things in him bearing forward into consciousness. Shane had been a little comforted by this, a month or so ago when he’d had the spare time and went out to sketch. Maybe that would work again.
Conscious of the hour and undeniable cold, Shane entered the edge of the forest not far from his home, determined to drown out the noise in his head. His path was unconscious, his muscles moving on their own memory, and recognized a familiar outcropping of birch trees. Shane jotted a mental note to return closer to spring to harvest sap to make candies, maybe to offer at the store or to hand out to customers during the week of the equinox festival a few weeks ahead.
The pond was a few minutes walk further through the white trees, but it was already late and cold, so he found a stump to rest on and retrieved his supplies. He started with a few simple sketches of the nearby trees, of the dark lenticels on their white bark, waiting until the noise of his arrival had been forgotten by the wildlife.
Shane’s patience was rewarded as an orange blur entered the far left of his vision. It was far off, but approaching quickly, the distance closing as Shane noted a second, smaller white figure just ahead of it. The fox flitted through the winter detritus, elegantly weaving through fallen branches and ice as it pursued its prey; Shane couldn’t make out the species as it ran, but it was a rabbit or hare, with that coat. The prey was fast, but moving erratically, careering to one side as it evaded the fox. Injured, maybe?
The chase brought them closer to Shane, close enough that he could hear the cry of the lagomorph as the fox sunk its teeth in. Only a few meters away now, Shane saw it was a hare after all. At full speed, an adult snowshoe should’ve evaded most predators in a chase, but from its place now, twitching as the fox suspended it from its neck, Shane made out the contorted angle that ruined one of it’s back legs. The hare squealed a few high pitched cries, unsettlingly human, before the last spasms of its body stopped, and the clonus of fear gave way to stillness.
Without any sense of urgency, the fox padded over to the base of a nearby tree, checking its surroundings before it started to tear into its meal. It either didn’t see Shane, sitting perfectly still across the clearing, or it didn’t find him to be a threat to his catch.
Sickness pooled in his stomach; not disgust, but maybe guilt. Not for the rabbit’s fate, but for watching, like he was intruding on something private. Still, Shane continued to watch as the fox’s fur went scarlet around its mouth, and around the white-pink fur of the hare’s belly. He didn’t consciously start to sketch the scene; his hands moved of their own accord. Between his fingers, he held the charcoal tight enough to snap it, then carried on with the too-short piece in an awkward pinch. The saturation of bronze and ruby against the bleach-white landscape was stark and visceral, and Shane hardly looked down at the page as he worked in silence.
There were so many details to capture; the blood staining the fox’s teeth, his paws a mess of viscera, the contented focus in his yellow eyes. He finished one sketch and started another as the fox tore meat from a different limb, and soon he was on a fifth page, the movements of his hand out of his control, absent of thought.
A harsh gust of wind sent one of the charcoals beside Shane tumbling unto the ground, and the subtle sound broke him out of his trance, reminding him of his cramping hand and freezing fingertips. The sun was setting, painting the white birch in a golden glow.
Shane sighed, satisfied; it worked, the drawing removed him from his head entirely. Twice now, he found some success with this method, and he was freshly resolved to try it out more, to come and work on drawing when his mind was a mess. Even the bitter cold had relaxed its grip, a flicker of hope warming his chest. He had done something awful, sure, but this could become step towards righting it. Maybe he’d even sleep without… doing anything that warranted taking his necklace off, tonight. He stood to retrieve the fallen charcoal, packed his tools away, then reached to put away his sketchbook and —
Oh. Oh, no.
“What the fuck?” Shane said aloud to himself, snatching the book where he’d set it down.
What? What? He stared at his final sketch, eyes going wide, a feeling of dread rising so fast from his stomach to his throat that he nearly retched, mistaking it for bile. He ran a hand over his face, rubbed his eyes, and took a deep breath that quickly transformed into a dyspneic pant. No.
Shane flipped back a page to the previous sketch. No. The page before. No. The one before that, and before that.
“No, no, no…”
A twig snapped. Shane whipped his head up, and saw the fox, advanced a few paces closer to him. It stopped in its tracks, staring dead at him. Blood stained the white fur around its mouth. Shane ignored it looked back at his sketchbook. There was no fox, no hare.
Rozanov. Shane had drawn Rozanov, over, and over, and over.
There was not a single drawing he’d made that night without his face. Blood staining Rozanov’s teeth, his hands a mess of viscera, the contented focus in his eyes. Hunched over an item of prey Shane had not drawn at all; an empty space where a body should be, his hands wrapped around a void, his burning gaze set on blank white page.
Even when Shane turned back further, to the sketches he’d made of the foliage, Rozanov was there, his shadowy figure a mere suggestion in the smudges of charcoal between the trees. Fuck. Shane rubbed his eyes again, harder. In a delirious last throw of hope, he returned to one of the portraits he’d done of Rozanov’s face. Maybe this was all in his head, a dream. He took a deep breath, and rubbed his thumb against the drawing, and it smudged. It was no mirage.
“Fuck!” Shane shouted, his frustrated sob cutting through the quiet wood.
The fox, who had been drawing in closer, whimpered and scurried back into the forest. Shane, with trembling hands, bound his sketchbook shut, shoved everything in his bag, and got home as fast as his legs would take him.
—
That night, when he took off his necklace, he missed the clasp twice with the tremor in his hands. He tried, he really had tried, but when he opened the sketchbook at home for final confirmation he saw his own rendering of Rozanov’s bloodied face and his body seized with want. Feverish in its heat and pollution of his mind, this onset was acute. Shane tore the pages clean out of the book and took them to bed, the depictions of Rozanov ripped straight from his memory with a skill he was unaware he possessed.
From his eyes, to his fangs, to his bare torso, to the blood on his mouth, Shane’s eyes darted about the pages as he worked himself open on his fingers, his breath ragged, sweat falling from his temple. His mind fogged, a desperate cry stuck just behind his teeth;
Please, find this open wound; bleeding, bleeding…
At the very last moment, Shane removed his hand from where he’d been stroking himself and bit down into his own wrist. The pain shot up his arm, and he sobbed into his own skin as he came, the choked sound ripped out of his throat. It hurt, but with a sick twinge in his gut he recognized it didn’t hurt enough. Oh, god. His breath left in pathetic whines, his body alight with aftershocks. A faint trail of blood trickled into his palm. He needed to get up, probably bandage his wrist. Instead, Shane stared out his window and blinked up at the moon, massaged the ache in his jaw, and made the same apologies he always did.
— — —
Spring approached by the measure of equinox, only two weeks out, but the weather paid that little mind. The cold remained bitter, and Shane remained exhausted.
A long day to end a long week. Local tradition demanded a celebration of the equinox, no matter how persistent the cold. The pre-festival preparations prompted a flurry of business Shane was grateful for, but panting to keep up with. By the time he’d finished cleaning up and settling his earnings, the sun had bade farewell and let the moon take her place as tonight’s last quarter settled in the sky.
Preoccupied with the rush, Shane hadn't been sketching much of late; work was the excuse he provided himself and easily took. He had not returned to the grove of birch since the incident weeks ago. His charcoals sat abandoned at the far end of his busy working desk in the back room of the shop. It was a mess of clutter, and it was late anyways, so Shane abandoned any hope of a full night’s sleep. Resigned to spend the night at the shop, he set out to clear the miscellanea; husks of garlic that hadn’t been swept away, his own instructions for a tincture distillation, the cutting board and —
“Fuck! Ow, damn it —” Shane swore and withdrew his hand, trying to shake out the pain, then watching as blood ebbed from a new cut. He must’ve left his stupid paring knife on the table under some papers, the fine edge splitting his skin. It wasn’t a terrible cut, he could—
Shane’s breath halted in his throat. His paring knife. But he’d given his paring knife to —
“Rozanov?” he whispered to the empty room.
As it often did, the name fell from his lips as a prayer, reverent, a believer desperate to hear back from an apathetic god. His head whipped around the room like a hawk. He'd been here. Rozanov. He'd returned. Had he?
With his heart thrashing in his chest, Shane threw open a drawer under his desk and rummaged through, easily finding the completed version of his account. It was embarrassing how well he knew the pages, flipping through the carefully transcribed script of his memories, reading it back to himself to confirm what he already knew; he’d given away this exact fucking knife to Rozanov months ago. He’d offered it to him, presenting it and his necklace in deference, disarming himself before bared teeth.
Shane closed the book, wrapping the leather strap to shut it before setting it back in the drawer. He winced when the spine pressed into his palm, where he’d already forgotten the cut. Headed towards the door, Shane met a potent sense of déjà vu; only now he’d left his cloak and knife behind when he sought out the nightwalker.
With a trembling hand, he pushed open the door of the work room out into the shop, dark and empty.
“Rozanov?” he called again, louder.
Shane paced the room in near complete darkness, looking for something, anything, any sign of him. The man that ruined him, the beast he could not forget. But there was nothing. He was alone.
“Are… are you fucking with me?”
Silence.
“Am I going insane?”
Shane looked around the abandoned shop. It was ridiculous, he was making a fool of himself to an audience of no one, the building was empty, but he…
He looked at the door, which hadn’t opened or moved or rattled with a knock. It did nothing, because nobody was fucking there. Shane was alone, always alone, for the months since Rozanov and the many years before that, only now he was losing his goddamned mind. He ran a hand over his face, forcing his eyes shut for a few breaths to steady the ground that swayed under his feet.
“Fuck,” Shane said aloud, and no one responded. Because he was alone.
His heart slowed some, but remained leagues above its resting rate. Shane walked back to his work room, cast a forlorn glance at the knife he'd nicked himself with, and got ready for bed. He’d spend the night there, not keen on making a midnight trek to his home. Obviously he was not in sorts for travel.
When would this end? Every night he thought he’d gotten closer to ridding himself of his tormentor, a cruel reminder reared its head. The face he drew against his will, the voice he sought in voids of silence, the hand whose touch reverberated in mockery of the real sensation. Was this to be his life? Alone, always alone, but haunted by a specter, begging wordlessly for his possession?
—
In the end, Shane could not bring himself to bandage the shallow cut on his palm. The few drops of crimson that seeped out had fueled those rotten parts of him again. He stroked himself with one hand as he brought the other to his mouth, pressing his own blood to his lips, imagining the distinct taste when Rozanov kissed him. Tobacco and Shane’s own blood, metallic and woodsy and wrong. The taste made it easier to imagine it wasn’t his own hand he wrapped tight around himself, helped him picture a broad figure caging him in, coaxing him closer to the edge until his vision sparked white and he could relax, if only for a moment. These days the urge was less of an itch to scratch and more of an emergent surgery, and Shane had to throw himself on the operating table and rip his own center open to make the incision before he succumbed entirely.
Shane dreamed in moonlight, the haze of exhausted sleep painting his room in silver and blue. Tired still, even while sleeping, he curled in on himself, shivering in the cold seeping through his window, huddled into the epicenter of his hollowed chest. Sleep closed in like ocean waves, rolling and wading around him in a rhythm of the moon’s choosing.
‘Do you miss me?’
Oh, it'd be another dream of Rozanov tonight. Shane allowed himself this indulgence because he had no other choice, and felt free in the guiltless, blameless business of dreaming. It normally filled him with longing, but recently, and after what he’d done tonight, he welcomed the apparition. Letting his subconscious take the reins, he relaxed his body, the tension melting into fantasy.
‘I have missed you too, zaichyk.’
Shane sighed, his curled posture easing and opening to the words. Not for the first time, Shane wondered what that word meant; he’d gotten as far as guessing it was a nickname, and no further. Even in this mirage, the smooth roll of Rozanov’s voice disarmed him, unlocked what Shane kept concealed in the subliminal. The paradoxical phase of sleep was tricky, and his mind was keen on playing tricks of late.
Where others were cruel yet vivid, this dream was kind and amorphous. Shane keened into a hand that carded through his hair, tilting his head into the sensation, but his sight remained absent. This was suitable; Shane could never have this in its entirety, and had become content with scraps. Even in his dreams, only scraps. The hand in his hair moved languidly, never breaking contact. Two fingers brushed against his cheek, from the side of his nose up toward his ears.
‘Sozvezdiya. So pretty.’
The hand shifted to cup his face, a thumb brushing over his cheek. Shane’s breathing was slow and even, a peace he’d lost familiarity with in his waking hours. Without the power of lucidity, he couldn’t lift his lids, but he could feel eyes on him, spanning his face with careful attention. Another hand slid down his arm, from his shoulder down past the elbow to his palm, lifting the limb with no resistance but its weight against gravity.
‘Cruel of you to tempt me. You test my patience.’
In this dream of shifting perception, with no visual input to distract him, Shane felt the unmistakable wet glide of a tongue against his injured palm. He grunted in his sleep, his hand twitching as if to close, but not nearly conscious enough to make a fist. Again, the flat press of tongue against his hand, the sensation so close to real in his dream, his hand relaxed and opened to welcome the attention. It was warm and comforting where the night was cold and unforgiving. Shane sighed, leaving in a contented hum, and let the heat wash over him, the waves rolling out of the dream and into deep sleep.
— — —
The sun had set hours ago, leaving a near-full gibbous in his wake. It was a cloudless night, allowing her to illuminate through his window, but not bright enough to explain why Shane couldn't sleep. With a frustrated huff, Shane stripped his bedclothes and redressed, snatched his heavy cloak off the coat stand beside the door, and headed out for a drink.
Shane could recall on one hand every occasion he’d been drunk; never had he set out like this, on a tirade intent on wasting his brain for the night. He supposed this was the natural chain of events for some; he’d tended to enough drunks, between bloodied fists and raging hangovers over the years, to be familiar with the appeal. In the months since his encounter, he’d been closed off to the idea, knowing the drink washed down memories; now that his accounts were complete, every detail transcribed to the exact letter, a spare copy penned in case of damage, Shane allowed himself the night off from his haunted memory.
All this to say, he wasn’t so terribly intoxicated. The tavern was rowdy, one he’d overheard was popular with his customers and sure enough could hear from down the street only a few blocks into the busiest part of town. The festival had ended, but there were still plenty of visitors leftover, finishing their weekend in town before they traveled. Shane could feel the warmth in his cheeks, hoping the dim light wouldn’t be enough to show the rosy flush he got whenever alcohol hit his system.
Shane wasn’t sure how to handle himself here, the environment so foreign, but the patrons were too drunk to pay him any mind. Without much thought, he took a stool at the far end of the bar, and asked for a glass of whisky, neat, like his father used to drink.
The taste was acrid, and it burned as it went down, but with an oddly pleasant smokiness. Without a journal to sketch or note-take in, Shane found himself content to people-watch, comforted by the few other lonely souls scattered about the tavern doing the same. Before he knew it, the bartender replaced his cup twice, then three times, and the cold air outside seemed distant to the warmth brought on by the drink. The bar filled considerably, the end of the workweek and festivities drawing in all ends of town. Dockworkers took up large booths, swapping boisterous stories, their boots hefted onto the tables beside their cups. A few shopkeepers throughout, some whose businesses he recognized and others he guessed at; he could tell a lot by people’s hands, where they were calloused, how they moved. There were a decent few from out of town, passing by for the festival, their voices accented differently or otherwise languages carried in from the docks from distant shores.
Now well into the night, Shane removed his cloak, rolled his sleeves up on his forearms, and started an idle conversation with the man behind the bar between his patrons. The barkeep — he part-owned the place, Shane learned — was about 10 years his senior, and had no trouble keeping up with the bar’s popularity alongside his conversation. He nodded at Shane as he filled a pint of beer from the keg.
“Son, that charm you're wearing — you wouldn’t be the apothecary, would you?
“That’s me,” Shane said. His usual formality had waned, encouraged by the drink and the barkeep’s easygoing nature.
The man smiled, handing over the pint he’d poured to an off-duty nightwatchman sitting a few stools down. Well, Shane hoped he was off-duty, at least, with how drunk he seemed, grinning dopily as he accepted the glass. He looked a few years Shane’s junior, young for the role, though he supposed the ports took on extra staff to manage the influx of visitors in town for the festival.
The barkeep turned his attention back to Shane, regarding him before he reached for an expensive-looking bottle of deep amber liquid and poured a glass.
“Well, if that’s the case, this here’s on the house. Got you to thank for my boy making it through winter.”
Shane parsed through his memory, with more effort than usual. Yes, he’d seen a boy not two weeks ago for an awful fever. The boy looked more like his mother, who had brought him in with tearful worry, but he could see the resemblance now.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting the glass, “just doing my job.”
“Bah, don’t sell yourself short, Hollander,” the man dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Not enough years in this life to be so humble.”
Shane couldn’t conjure a response, thankful the man’s attention had been taken by a call at the other end of the bar. He would’ve been fine for a while, left to nurse his fancy whisky — it really was nice, much smoother, less of a burn — mulling over his surroundings in a haze, but a gloved hand set down a purse at the bar beside him.
“Mr. Hollander, is it?” Shane turned his head to the woman beside him, “This seat is taken?”
“Oh — no, all yours.”
She smiled and took her seat beside Shane. The woman was, by any standard, very beautiful. She had a warm tan complexion and a crown of full, reddish brown curls. Her skin was smooth and perfect, and though Shane was by no means an authority on the matter, her clothes were sharp and elegant. There didn't seem to be anyone accompanying her. Women were often unchaperoned in his shop during the day, but Shane wasn’t out at this hour often enough to discern if it was odd for her to be alone at night. Some of his higher profile customers turned their noses up at that sort of thing, but the people of Shane’s rank were less concerned with nitpicking about propriety, having work to get done. As such, he dismissed the thought; it was none of his business.
The woman nodded toward Shane’s cup. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Hm. When had he finished this glass?
“… I shouldn't. But sure."
"Not much of a drinker, are you?" she commented. She had a light accent he couldn’t place. With so many new faces in town for the festival, he couldn’t find the file for it in his mind; or perhaps the drink was to blame.
She waved the bartender down, ordering for the two of them. Her eyes were bright and careful like a cat’s, watching him closely. The comfortable posture and easy smile she wore made Shane shift in his seat. Most of his conversations were with customers, and they were typically in a rush to get in and out, or were otherwise concerned to get his medicine to whomever needed treatment. He’d endured longer exchanges with some patrons, but they were usually older and only looking for someone who would listen to their troubles, with Shane a willing ear. But this woman spoke like she knew him, a relaxed overfamiliarity he wasn’t accustomed to. Was it so obvious? Did he seem out of place here? Shane turned his necklace over in his hand, tracing the pendant with his fingers.
"No, not usually."
Her eyes flitted down to his throat. "Your necklace is curious. A snake?"
The charm was getting a lot of attention tonight, it seemed; Shane realized then he didn’t have his shirt buttons done all the way up like he usually did, and he was playing with the pendant between his fingers.
"Yes, for Hygeia,” he answered, “I run the apothecary's shop on the east side of town.”
The woman looked at him with recognition, clearly having heard of him before. A wry smile curled unto her face. Catlike indeed. Shane wasn’t sure where the smile was directed, though, as their drinks were set down on the counter a moment after. The woman passed Shane his drink, and he wondered absently if he should feel emasculated by the gesture. Did it say something about him that he didn’t? Would something like that bring attention towards him, and the fact that he was —
"Ah, I see. I'll have to stop by, next I am in town."
Her casual reply was followed by a sip of her drink, something clear and smelling of astringent. Shane would’ve let the conversation die there, content to return to his evening of silent observation in the loud tavern, but she kept smiling like she was withholding on purpose. Was he missing something?
"You were in town for the festival, then?” he prompted, lifting the glass to his lips. There was something about her, a slight focus where the rest of the room had blurred.
The woman opened her mouth to reply, but their attention was caught by a raucous bout of laughter across the tavern. Shane turned his head to the sound, finding a table of boisterous nightwatchmen, all red-faced, their table covered in empty glasses. The young man — only a boy really, the contrast apparent in the group of older men — who’d been a few stools from Shane moments ago, sat at the end of the table, saying something to one of the barmaids as his companions leered. The poor girl was flustered, shoulders drawn up to her red-tipped ears, her arms crossed over her chest. Even a bit drunk himself, Shane felt distinctly uncomfortable, and started to rise out of his stool.
Before he could get far, the barkeep arrived at the scene. Shane and the woman beside him watched from across the room as he placed a protective hand on her shoulder, ushering her behind him, and said something to the group of men as she scurried off, disappearing behind the bar. Shane huffed a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and turned back to the woman beside him. She cleared her throat, resuming their conversation.
"Happy coincidence, actually. Just passing through," the woman took a slow sip of her drink, "I'm not in one place for long."
Shane nodded absently, fighting the sluggish, viscous way his thoughts sloshed in his brain. Behind his eyes he toyed with nagging worry, like he’d forgotten something at home, or left a burner on. Maybe that exchange across the bar had unsettled him; she seemed in good hands now, at least. Oh, he should respond, shouldn’t he? He looked back at the woman sitting beside him and traced her gaze down to his unadorned left hand resting on the bar.
"I have accommodations here,” the woman’s knowing eyes found his again, this time taking a slow journey down his body and back up. “But, I am amenable to a change in plans."
Oh. That must’ve been it, then, the smiles and attention. Shane swallowed, embarrassed he hadn’t caught on sooner. Any other man in the tavern would’ve been through the roof with the offer, he was sure of it, and that only made the truth of his apathy taste more bitter on his tongue. He understood acutely how absurd it was, having no interest in the objectively stunning woman whose eye he’d caught somehow. And maybe, had this exchange happened a half year prior, he could’ve played pretend. But even at two drinks past the most alcohol he’d ever downed in one sitting, he couldn't bring himself to lie.
Not when he knew what it felt like to really want someone.
"I'm sorry,” he offered a small smile, “I can't."
She really was beautiful, too perfect, a symmetry only truly found in paintings; all the more fitting that he could only appreciate it in such an abstract way. The whisky must’ve been strong, because Shane read her expression as amusement; not sardonic or sarcastic or bristling, but a genuine smile that reached her eyes. Paradoxically, she seemed pleased by his answer. Normally he wouldn't ask, would hope the awkward moment passed quickly, but the reaction confused him and his tongue was loose with drink.
"Have I offended you?" he asked, his brows knit.
"Oh, not at all,” she replied. Her eyes flitted somewhere past his head, held there for a moment, then returned to Shane.
“I should be going, actually…" the woman reached into her bag, presumably to pay for the drinks.
Shane reached his hand out, hovering over hers. "Please, let me. I’ve been terrible company."
"Nonsense. You have been a perfect gentleman,” she teased, but obliged his request, fastening the clasp of her cloak.
The embellished metal under her well-manicured nails had been engraved into a curious design, one he might've recognized if it weren't for the honeyed daze of alcohol. Maybe a customer had worn a similar one? The woman slung her bag over her shoulder, and gave Shane another indulgent once-over before pulling her cloak over her head.
As she passed him to make for the door, she leaned in and whispered, the smile audible in the smooth lilt of her accented voice.
"I can see why he's obsessed with you."
She can see why… huh?
Shane turned in his stool, the world spinning too far, too fast, his vision over-correcting.
“I'm sorry, what did you —?"
"Goodnight, apothecary. Do get home safe."
Cold clarity hit Shane like a bucket of water, blood gone icy in his veins. His reaction was sluggish, lazy drunken neurons dragging their heels at every synapse. His brow tensed, then relaxed, then tensed again. He? Shane blinked hard, frustrated with his confusion, the somnolence of his thoughts. She couldn’t mean —
"Wait, what did you…"
When Shane opened his eyes, the woman was already across the tavern, about to disappear out the door. He stood in his chair, jaw hanging open stupidly until he remembered to close it. He debated chasing after her, taking a scan of the room to see if anyone had overheard, as if the words would be earth-shattering to anyone but him. Surrounding his panic, the tavern was still lively, moving on as if nothing had happened. The table of nightwatchmen had dwindled to a mere few, the jeering youth absent from the head of the table.
Shane should’ve gone after her, pressed for more information, but his heart was racing too fast, his mind forced to parse through more information than he could handle. It was hopeless to think if he couldn't even manage getting the room to remain straight; he needed to devote a decent sum of his focus to keeping his horizon line truly horizontal, lest it tilt and take him down with it. Fuck.
—
The barkeep cut him off after one more drink, which was three too many.
Thankfully, this wasn’t prompted by Shane embarrassing himself too horribly; he had no penchant for rowdiness, nothing so unseemly to unleash when he was drunk. Maybe it was obvious, how he’d gone quiet, his eyes languidly moving about the room as they chased sound and light and color, his head nodding occasionally to other patron’s drinking songs.
All the while, thrumming behind his eyes, the woman’s words looped, over and over. I can see why he’s obsessed with you. The barkeep had politely declined his request for another glass, instead giving him a knowing smile and a pat on the shoulder as he handed him a tab with far too small a charge for how much he’d been drinking.
Not trusting his voice, he nodded in thanks. Shane held himself together long enough to purposefully overpay his tab and get himself out the door. That apparently exhausted the last of his mental efforts, because the ground whorled as he stepped outside. He stumbled slightly, irritated at his perfectly good legs that wouldn’t work right, and tried to focus on the sharp sting of cold air against his face. Shane had gone out to clear his head, but it backfired so hard he could almost laugh; now instead of losing control over only his thoughts, his body wouldn't obey him either. Figures. He just needed to get home, and pass out, and he could feel sorry for himself tomorrow. Fuck, why on earth had he thought this was a good idea?
Once he’d righted himself, Shane took a forced deep breath and set out the way he'd come, navigating the cobblestone streets with landmarks he’d passed on his way into town. He wasn’t confident he was walking in straight lines, but at least he didn’t fall, and the night had gotten late enough that few were out to watch him struggle.
There was no reliable sense of time available to consult in Shane’s head, but he loosely registered that he’d been walking far too long, the cold gnawing into his nose and fingertips. He came to a fork in the path he recognized, and stared up at his two options with a slowly building panic. The two directions looked equally familiar, and he didn’t venture into this part of town enough to tell them apart, especially not in the dark, after enough whiskey that the last couple glasses hadn’t burned at all on the way down.
Shane shook his head, like he usually defaulted to when he wanted to clear his mind, but that was a mistake; when he stilled his head, his vision continued to rattle around, producing doubles of the surrounding buildings.
“Fffuck…” he slurred, then grunted in confusion at his voice.
His consciousness was attached so loosely to his body, hovering above his brain, mere inches out of reach. With a huff of breath pluming into condensation, Shane took a blind guess and started walking. His brow was tensed in focus, one foot and the next, just get home, just a little longer in the cold…
‘Wrong way, zaichyk.’
Shane whipped his head over his shoulder, not having learned his lesson, and the motion was again too fast for his brain to keep up. He stumbled, righting himself lest he fall and his head hit the stone. The street was completely empty behind him. He knew that, and yet —
“Rozanov?”
Shane found himself whispering that name again, the syllables blending together on his heavy tongue. That name, that fucking name again. Even when the whisky threatened to send him to the ground, that name rested on his lips, plagued his mind. His exhale swirled into the cool night air until it dissipated to nothingness. He wasn’t intoxicated to the point of blindness, but auditory hallucination was apparently not beneath him; there was no one there. He was alone. Always alone.
And yet, Shane obeyed the echo.
He retraced the mere few steps he’d started, and headed the opposite direction at the fork. Time was gelatinous and mottled, stretched out and shrunken as he trudged through the empty streets. Sure enough, the voice his subconscious conjured had remembered the way after all. Shane came up on the edge of town, where the businesses and storefronts dwindled into a more sparse residential area, the distinction evident where cobblestone became a worn gravel footpath. His home at the edge of the woods was still a fair trek, but after the walk so far, his hands and face were already desensitizing to the cold. What was another fifteen minutes?
That was what he thought. A mere half kilometer from his home, Shane’s swaying became more turbulent, each miscalculated step careening closer to the ground. It grew darker, the streetlights further and fewer between as he distanced himself from the town’s epicenter. Shane was freezing to near numbness, exhausted, and frustrated that despite how important it was to direct his energy toward getting home, all he could think about was —
‘Did it work? Did you forget what needed forgetting?’
Right on cue. His voice was so crisp, honeyed and warm against the night air. Shane winced; the voice came from behind him, but he didn’t turn to look this time. He couldn’t keep entertaining his own delusions. Just get home, just a little further. That’s what had gotten Shane in this mess, wasn’t it? Trying to forget him, even if just for the night? It hadn’t worked, just as letting time pass hadn’t healed the gaping chasm the creature tore in his chest, months ago.
Would he be broken like this forever?
“Stop it,” Shane muttered, to give his head something less cruel to do than torture him with phantoms, “stop —mmph…” fuck, it was cold, and he was so tired, “stop fuckin’ with me, Roz’nov…”
‘Ah, I guess not. Pity.’
“I said… ugh, fuck!” the ground heaved under his feet, and Shane stumbled, “jus’ get outta my head, y’fuckin’… cruel bastard.”
‘You poor thing,’ Rozanov’s voice cooed.
Shane could hear the mocking pout, and the condescending tilt of his head, he could fucking see it behind his eyelids. Fuck him, fuck this, fuck everything. It was so cold, and he was so tired.
“‘S fun for you?” Shane lost momentum with every step. He’d lost control of his whisper, near-shouting now to a voice he was sure only he could hear. “Y’like watchin’ me go crazy?”
‘You’re almost home, you know'.
“Fuck you,” Shane spat, “this ‘s your fault. You —” Shane’s voice faltered with a whimper, then blinked, confused, now looking down at the floor where he’d caught his fall with both hands. His palms stung where the gravel was digging into them, a dozens of tiny pinpricks. He remained there, stunned, breathing as his vision focused and unfocused.
‘Get up, Hollander.’
It was so cold, and he was so tired. Couldn’t he rest his head, just for a few minutes?
‘You will freeze.’
Shane was so tired. And alone, always alone. Had it always bothered him this much? Had it always been this unbearable?
‘Hollander. Get up.’
An uncomfortable buzz swelled at his fingertips, and at his knees and feet. It was wasn’t painful, but he wanted it gone; almost like an itch, an parasthethic tingling that he needed to do something about, even more than he wanted to lie down and meet sleep on the gravel path.
With a grunt, Shane walked his outstretched hands back towards his feet, and took a deep breath before pushing out from a squat to a stand. His head lolled to the side. The world spinning wasn’t so terrible when it was so dark; he couldn’t see enough to determine what was whirling.
‘Ah, much better.’
“Fuck… you,” Shane huffed to no one, running a hand over his face. He resumed the pathetic trudge back toward his house, where he’d be alone again.
Always alone.