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Shane is running.
His shoes hit the forest floor in an agonizing rhythm – I can’t do this, I can’t do this – as he dodges the lower limbs of surrounding trees and barely avoids tripping over a root. Maybe he’s permanently shaken off his pursuers (however many of them are left after he struck back at one of them with a branch), or maybe they’re just hiding behind the nearest tree. One of his favorite things about the cottage is how thickly these woods surround it; he can spend an entire day jogging or hiking these trails without running into another human being. He’s never entered the woods so close to nightfall, never strayed this far from the path, never gotten as hopelessly lost as he is now.
But then, he’s never been chased by inhuman beings before, after saying “I can’t do this right now” to another vampire and walking out on him –
Something slams Shane against a tree trunk, and his vision flickers.
– maybe for the last time.
“Be still, Shane,” a familiar voice purrs, and a cool fingertip traces a line from his temple, down his cheek, to the healing bite on his neck. Shane’s pulse jumps for a moment before heaviness floods his limbs, which makes his mind hum with contentment and excitement every time Ilya gives that command.
From very far away, someone chortles, “You were right. Rozanov really does have him panting like a dog.” The beginnings of a thought – Who? – try to take shape in his consciousness, but then Ilya’s other hand slips under the hem of his shirt and strokes gently. Weren’t they arguing earlier? What was that fight even about? A whimper escapes Shane’s lips, and in the fading light, Ilya’s own mouth curves into a wicked smile, fangs sharpening before he lowers his mouth to Shane’s throat.
When Ilya licks and kisses and finally bites, Shane no longer cares about the tree pressing into his back, or that another, indistinct figure hovers a short distance away, watching them, or that his whimpers have risen into a continuous whine. A few minutes might pass, or a few hours.
“Careful, man! Are you trying to drain him dry?”
Ilya’s fangs recede, and Shane’s knees would buckle if the order to “be still” wasn’t holding him upright.
“Wasn’t that the plan?” a voice (is that Ilya’s voice?) demands.
“We could leave him alive for Rozanov to find. He’ll still be marked. Still smell like us.”
Something is wrong. Unease slips into the warm bliss that was wrapped around Shane, and suddenly he’s not embraced or cocooned or protected, but trapped. He tries to shout, but he can only manage another tiny, desperate noise. His eyes sting as if tears are threatening to slide from them.
“Is he going to cry for us?” one of the voices snickers.
And now Ilya’s voice (no, no, it isn’t) is in his ear again: “It is all right to cry.”
And Shane summons every ounce of strength that he’s used to push himself, in the gym, on the ice, on every lap around the lake, to squeeze his eyes shut and force three words through clenched teeth: “You’re not Ilya.”
The vampires’ laughter rises into the night. “Where is he, then?” one of them sneers.
The next words that Shane hears, as the hand on his waist stiffens for a moment and is pulled away, are, “Right here.”
There are sounds of a scuffle, then the thud of a body hitting the ground. Shane isn’t sure when he dropped to his knees, or when he regained the ability to move, but he’s able to raise a hand to the sharp pain at his throat. Blood wells beneath his fingers.
“Shane. They are gone. Let me help you.” Shane shuts his eyes again and shakes his head. “I did not take on two vampires just so you could bleed out in woods next to nearest corpse.”
It sounds so much like Ilya, exasperation and all, but so did…
“Let. Me. Help.” The firmness in those words automatically relaxes Shane’s hand enough for his rescuer to pull his hand away from the bite and press two spit-dampened fingers in its place. The pain starts to fade immediately.
But he doesn’t open his eyes. “You’re not really here.” When Ilya tries to take his chin in one hand, Shane wrenches his face away. “‘S too good to be true,” he insists.
“Many people have called me this,” Ilya says gravely, and Shane surprises himself with a shaky laugh. “Listen. I will make sure we find our way home, and you will know that I am not imposter. You already invited me into your house, yes? Not them.”
“Not them,” Shane agrees.
“If you want to run before we get there, I will not stop you. But I hope you do not run.”
Shane might not make it very far if he tried, but he doesn’t say so out loud. A hand slides into his, and he knows the pressure of those fingers, the shape of the knuckles, too well to entirely believe that they could be faked convincingly. He lets himself be pulled to his feet.
Light spills from a few windows as they approach the house. Ilya crosses the threshold first, as easily as if this were any other evening. After a moment, Shane staggers after him, relief adding an extra waver to his step.
“You want to wash off, yes?” Ilya asks as they enter the bedroom that, as early as this morning, Shane thought of as “ours.” He nods, all too aware of the blood that’s grown cold and sticky on his neck, on his palm.
“He’ll still smell like us.”
Was that why Ilya’s teeth were still a little bit sharp as he looked back over his shoulder at Shane from the doorway?
“...need company?” Ilya is saying, as seriously as he can ever manage to ask that question.
“I don’t think so.” Shane was tempted to say yes, but if he can’t stand on his own two feet in the shower, he’s even weaker than he believed, than he must have appeared.
“I will be here if you change your mind.”
Once Shane is alone in the bathroom, he makes himself glance at his reflection. His freckles stand out against skin so pale that he looks half-undead himself, and his hair sticks up in every direction. He runs his hands through it anyway, checking for bumps and bleeding, finding none. When he tosses his ruined shirt onto the floor and turns to glance at his back, he sees that bruises have formed on and around his spine. His body has taken harder beatings than this, but he still doesn’t want to look at them for too long.
The new bite on his neck has almost vanished; vampire saliva usually speeds up the healing process. The fingers that stroked his face and lower back, and the invisible ones that shoved into his head and rummaged through his memories – pulling them out, taking everything that was supposed to be theirs alone – didn’t leave any traces that he can see.
“He’ll still be marked.”
And maybe if he’d been stronger, faster, quicker to tell fantasy and reality apart, he wouldn’t have been.
Shane stays in the shower for longer than he needs to, making the water hot enough that he can actually feel it through the numbness that threatens to steal over him. He braces his hands against the wet tile and resists the urge to call for Ilya, just to prove that he can. Nobody else has to know whether a few stray tears mix with the water on his face, and he can watch the last remains of the blood disappear through the drain, dry himself off, reach for the sweatpants that Ilya must have left for him, without thinking about much of anything.
When he steps back into the bedroom, Ilya is perched on the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to go?”
“You mean, am I still angry at you? Can’t you just –” Shane cuts himself off. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.” He crosses the room and sits down on the bed, but doesn’t close the distance between them.
“I will not look at your mind unless you want me to,” Ilya says, “but I can tell when it is full of questions.”
Shane does have questions, and, yes, one of them is Can’t you just read my mind instead of asking? But those words are a little too close to the ones that started their argument, and they don’t seem as important as they did a few hours ago, not with so many other unknowns chasing each other around his brain. Do you know who came after me? Can they sometimes walk around during the day like you can? How did they know that we’re together? Will this happen again? What he actually asks is, “Would it be better if you made me forget?”
Ilya rests a hand on Shane’s back, and when Shane doesn’t shove him off, he moves it lightly up and down. “Forget what? That they hunted you?”
Shane takes a deep breath and exhales his next words in a rush. “No. Forget about us – that we care about each other.”
The night presses in on them from all sides. “Do you want this?” Ilya asks finally.
“No! I mean… maybe. When they got in my head, it wasn’t like when I let you…” Because I didn’t let them, Shane wants to say, but does he really believe it?
“You do not have to explain.”
“They used my memories of you to hurt me because they knew it would hurt you,” Shane continues. “Maybe it would be easier if whatever vampires you piss off next, can’t do that.”
Ilya snorts. “And Shane Hollander is famous for doing what is easiest?”
Shane clenches his teeth. Either he’s an even worse communicator than he always thought, or Ilya is misunderstanding him on purpose. “I mean, you wouldn’t have to fucking worry about the next time.”
“Do you know where your attackers are now?” Ilya asks suddenly.
“I stabbed one of them with a branch before the other two started chasing me.” Shane stares at his hands. “I think I killed him.”
“Because you can defend yourself,” Ilya points out. “You always could.”
“And you took out the one who bit me, probably the same way. But his friend…” After Ilya showed up, Shane might have heard quiet words that he couldn’t quite make out, followed by retreating footsteps, but it all happened too fast for him to be sure.
“I sent him running away,” Ilya tells him. “He does not remember where he found you, but he knows what I will do if any of my kind threatens you again.” The intensity in his next words turns them into a threat and a promise. “I want them all to know.”
“So… that’s a no? You won’t take my memories away?” Maybe by tomorrow, Shane will have decided whether that’s a relief or another reason to be afraid.
“It is not a decision we can make tonight, I think. But I would not choose to do this to you, not now.” Ilya cups the back of Shane’s neck with one hand without forcing eye contact. “I think we would both lose something if I did not have to worry about you anymore.”
Shane finally meets Ilya’s eyes, and the concern in them is so human. He reaches out, and Ilya pulls him in, and somewhere in the stream of syllables whispered into his hair, Shane recognizes the Russian words for love and proud and safe, and he no longer tries to hold back his tears. Somehow he manages to respond, “Thank you for finding me.”
Shane is running, and the forest is a dark blur all around him. Just as he starts to believe that he’s outpaced whoever or whatever is chasing him, someone grabs his shoulder and spins him around, and suddenly the branch is in his hand, it’s buried in the vampire’s chest, and Shane can see plainly that the last part of Ilya to rot away is his horrified face.
When he opens his eyes, there really is a hand on his shoulder, thumb stroking back and forth. He knows who it belongs to, even as he chokes out Ilya’s name, even before he reaches for the bedside lamp, even before the voice he loves most in the world murmurs, “Right here.”