Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The air in the apartment was stale and sweet - it smelled of cheap whiskey, menthol cigarettes, and something chemical that Illuga had already learned to recognize unerringly. This smell ate into clothes, into hair, into the skin itself, and no matter how much he scrubbed himself with a loofah under scalding hot water, he couldn't get rid of it. He woke up in the middle of the night, feeling it on his pillow, and understood: it wasn't just a smell. It was a brand.

Outside the window hung a dense, cottony darkness - either the deep of night or the pre-dawn hour, when even the dogs in the yard fall silent and the streetlights begin to flicker, as if they themselves are sickened by what they see. Illuga sat on the floor, leaning his back against the cold wall, and watched the sleeping Lohen.

Lohen lay on the crumpled sheets - sprawled out, taking up almost the entire bed, one arm hanging to the floor, his fingers still clutching an empty pack of cigarettes. His long dark hair was spread across the pillow like an oil slick, his lips slightly parted, breathing deeply and evenly. Beautiful. So beautiful it drove you senseless, to the point of grinding your teeth. This was how Illuga had first seen him three months ago - and he had already understood then that he was lost. But back then, he didn't yet know that "lost" was not a metaphor. That he would disappear. Dissolve. Cease to exist as a separate person.

Lohen stirred in his sleep, and Illuga flinched, as if from an electric shock. He was still afraid of him. Afraid to the point of trembling knees, to a cold sweat between his shoulder blades. But even more than that, he was afraid that one day he would wake up and Lohen wouldn't be there. And that thought was more terrifying than any beating.

"I broke the law, I fell for love..."

The line surfaced in his head on its own - from a song they had listened to yesterday, when Lohen was turning the dial of an old radio, searching for a station, and accidentally caught a wave playing something slow, drawn-out, with a female voice full of doom. Illuga had frozen then, a cigarette in his hand, because every line fit what was happening so precisely, as if someone invisible was writing the soundtrack to his destruction.

Lohen had snorted then, without even turning around: "Sappy chick crap." He switched the station. But Illuga remembered. He generally remembered everything that happened in this apartment - the way a prisoner memorizes every crack in the wall of his cell. Because this was all he had left. This was the only thing that was his reality.

He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. His head was pounding after yesterday - they drank a lot, too much, and Lohen had again taken out the little bag of white powder, the one that made Illuga's heart stop every time, only to start beating somewhere in his throat afterward. "This is pure," Lohen had said, cutting lines with a razor blade. "Don't piss yourself. I wouldn't give you bad stuff."

And Illuga didn't argue. He hadn't argued for a long time. Because when Lohen looked at him with his dark, almost black eyes, in whose depths devilish sparks danced, Illuga forgot all words. He forgot that he wanted to say "no." Forgot that he had planned to leave today. Forgot the promise he had made to himself - the last, most important one, which he had given to his own reflection in the bathroom mirror while Lohen wasn't looking.

"I will leave. Today I will pack my things and leave. I am stronger than this. I can do it."

Ridiculous. Laughable to the point of tears.

Because when he tried yesterday to hint that he needed to go home - just for a couple of days, just to visit his mother, who had probably been calling non-stop - Lohen simply took him by the chin. Took hold firmly, painfully, forcing him to lift his head. And said quietly, almost tenderly, which made it a hundred times scarier:

"You're not going anywhere."

And it wasn't a request. Not a question. It was an order. As immutable as the sunrise, as the change of day and night, as the very fact that Illuga now belonged to Lohen entirely and completely, body and soul, with his guts and innards, with his thoughts and fears, with his pathetic attempts at resistance that ended even before they began.

Illuga closed his eyes. Yesterday flashed before his inner vision again: how Lohen, already pretty drunk, pulled him onto the couch. How his hands - rough, with dirt ingrained under the nails, with battered knuckles - slid under Illuga's T-shirt, and he shuddered as if from an electric discharge. How both their pupils dilated - Lohen's from the dose, Illuga's from what he felt when those hands touched his skin.

"Your hands under my T-shirt - our pupils dilate..."

Yes, exactly like that. That's exactly what the song was about. And about how every time is like the first. And about how he stops recognizing the person he shares a bed, air, life, and death with.

"Not sleeping?"

Lohen's voice came unexpectedly, even though Illuga was looking right at him and should have noticed him opening his eyes. But Lohen always woke up silently, instantly transitioning from sleep to wakefulness - probably an ability developed over years of living on the street, among similar outcasts, among fights and night raids, among all the things that Illuga, raised in a warm, albeit not wealthy family, had not the slightest idea about.

"Not sleeping," Illuga answered quietly.

"Come here."

Two words. Just two words. But they contained everything - an order, a caress, a threat, and a promise. Illuga got up from the floor. His legs had fallen asleep; he swayed but steadied himself on the edge of the table where the lines had been laid out yesterday. Chaos reigned there now: empty bottles, crumpled cigarette packs, some loose change, a lighter with no gas, a shard of a broken glass - yesterday Lohen had thrown it at the wall when Illuga said something wrong. Or didn't say something. Or stayed silent for too long. He no longer remembered the reason, and it didn't matter anyway. The reasons for Lohen's anger rarely had anything to do with what was actually happening.

Illuga crossed the room - three steps, no more, the room was tiny, rented, with flowered wallpaper that seemed to remember Soviet times - and stopped by the bed. Lohen looked up at him from below, and that gaze was like a punch to the gut: hunger was written in it. Not sexual - or not only sexual. The hunger of possession. The hunger of power. The hunger of someone who had been a nobody for too long and now had gotten his hands on a living person whom he could knead like plasticine, reshape to his liking, make his property.

"Lie down," said Lohen.

And Illuga lay down. Because he couldn't do otherwise. Because an order given in that low, slightly hoarse-from-sleep voice passed through him like a knife through butter, meeting no resistance. Because his own body no longer obeyed him for a long time; it obeyed only Lohen.

Lohen turned onto his side, propped his head on his hand, and now they lay face to face - so close that Illuga felt his breath on his skin. It smelled of stale alcohol, tobacco, and something else, that same chemical, sweetish thing that made your cheekbones ache. Illuga knew: this was the smell of death. A slow death, stretched out over time, packaged in a beautiful wrapper. But this smell felt more familiar to him than the smell of home.

"You've been crying again," said Lohen. It wasn't a question. A statement of fact.

Illuga didn't deny it. His eyes were indeed red and swollen, and the wet tracks on his temples hadn't dried yet. He had cried at night while Lohen slept - quietly, almost soundlessly, burying his face in his knees so as not to wake him. Cried from powerlessness. From self-hatred. From a love that was like a sickness.

"I wasn't..."

"Shut up," Lohen interrupted, but his voice sounded almost tender. As tender as only he could be - and this tenderness made goosebumps run down Illuga's skin. "You think I don't see? Think I'm blind? You bawl every night, whine like a beaten dog. You think I like it?"

Illuga was silent. He knew there was no right answer to this question. If you said "yes," it would be bad. If you said "no," it would be bad. Because Lohen always found a reason for anger, and this anger was fuel for him. It nourished him, made him stronger, confirmed his power.

But today Lohen seemed to be in a different mood. He reached out and touched Illuga's cheek - didn't hit, didn't squeeze, but precisely touched, ran his fingertips over the damp skin, almost weightlessly, almost tenderly.

"You're beautiful when you cry," he whispered. "You know that? Your eyes become transparent. Like spring water. I can't stand it."

"Why?" Illuga was surprised he could even force out a word.

"Because it makes me want to finish you off," Lohen answered simply, and his lips curved into a smile - that very smile that made normal people's blood run cold and made Illuga's knees go weak. "Understand? There's something about you... so fragile. That makes you want to break it completely. So you wouldn't suffer anymore. Neither you, nor I."

Illuga understood. That was the most terrifying part - he understood. He understood Lohen's logic, his perverted, inside-out tenderness, his desire to destroy what he loved so as not to see it suffering. Because Lohen suffered too. In his own way, differently, but he suffered. And Illuga felt it - felt it in those rare moments when Lohen forgot his armor, his mask of a son of a bitch without a heart or soul. In those moments, he became almost human. Almost...

"You know - this doesn't hurt. You know - this is serious..."

"I want to leave," whispered Illuga. He hadn't expected these words from himself. They escaped somehow on their own, as if someone else had spoken them with his lips.

Lohen froze. His hand, still resting on Illuga's cheek, tensed. Something flickered in his dark eyes - not anger, no. Something else. Something resembling fear. But a second later, it disappeared, replaced by his usual smirk.

"You've said that before," he said. "Many times. And what? Where did you end up in the end?"

"I'm serious this time."

"You're serious every time," Lohen pulled his hand away and turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling. "And every time you come back. Know why? Because out there," he waved his hand vaguely towards the window, "no one's waiting for you. It's boring out there. You're a nobody out there. But here... Here, I need you. Isn't that enough?"

Illuga looked at his profile - at the sharp Adam's apple, the jawline, the tattoo snaking out from the collar of his T-shirt like a serpent. Lohen was handsome with that terrible, destructive beauty that's impossible to resist. And he knew it. He knew everything.

"It's not enough," said Illuga. "That's not enough. You're killing me."

"I'm making you live," Lohen sharply turned his head and looked at him. "Before me, you weren't living at all. You existed. Like a potted plant. Went to your stupid classes, obeyed your mommy, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't fuck. You were nothing. An empty space. But now you have me, you have all this," he gestured around the room, and there was so much sarcasm in that gesture that Illuga physically felt its bitterness. "And you say - it's not enough?"

"This isn't life. It's..." Illuga faltered, searching for the word. "It's a drug. It only feels good in the moment. And then comes the withdrawal. And you know that."

Lohen burst out laughing. Abruptly, hoarsely, mirthlessly.

"Oh, so you're a philosopher now? A drug, withdrawal... Nice words. Maybe you should write books? About our great love? How two idiots sit in a stinking apartment, snort crap, and fuck until they lose their pulse, and then one of them cries into the pillow because he's too good for this life? Is that it?"

Illuga flinched as if slapped. Every word hit its target exactly - the sorest spots that Lohen had thoroughly studied over these three months. He knew all the passwords to Illuga's soul. Knew which buttons to press. And he pressed them mercilessly, methodically, with a kind of sadistic pleasure.

"That's not what I meant," whispered Illuga, feeling traitorous tears welling up in his eyes again.

"Then what did you mean?" Lohen propped himself up on an elbow and loomed over him. "That you feel bad? That you're suffering? That you want to go home, to mommy, eat her cutlets and watch TV? So go! No one's holding you!"

He grabbed Illuga by the shoulders and pushed him sharply - not hard, but enough for him to hit his back against the wall. Illuga gasped but didn't try to break free. He knew: resistance would only provoke Lohen. It was better to just wait out the storm.

But the storm didn't subside. Lohen sat up in bed, ran his fingers through his tangled hair, and Illuga noticed his hands were shaking. The comedown was starting - that moment when the effect of yesterday's dose ended, and the body began demanding a new one. In such moments, Lohen was especially dangerous: unpredictable, twitchy, capable of anything.

"Damn," Lohen exhaled. "Damn, damn, damn. Where's that crap? Have you seen the bag?"

"You used it all up yesterday," Illuga said quietly.

"Bullshit. I couldn't have. There should be some left."

"You gave me the last line. Remember?"

Lohen froze, then slowly turned his head to Illuga. The expression in his eyes made Illuga's heart skip a beat.

"I gave you the last one?" Lohen asked again. "To you? The last one?"

Illuga nodded, feeling everything inside him turn cold. He understood: this was going to be bad. Because Lohen could give him anything in a moment of euphoria, when the drug made him almost happy. But later, when the euphoria passed, he only remembered that he had given away what was his. And he never gave what was his to anyone, ever.

"You..." Lohen began, and his voice trembled with rage. "You took what's mine? Without asking?"

"You yourself..."

"I myself?!" he was already shouting. "I myself?! And you couldn't refuse?! You couldn't say, 'Lohen, keep it for yourself, you need it more'?! You fucking selfish bastard!"

Illuga pressed himself against the wall. It was useless to remind him that Lohen had practically forced that line on him, that he had held the tube himself, directed his head himself, whispered in his ear: "Come on, baby, this will help, you'll feel better." Useless, because Lohen didn't remember that now. His brain, demanding a new dose, was rewriting reality, making Illuga guilty for everything.

"I'm sorry," whispered Illuga. He had learned to apologize for things he wasn't guilty of. This was the most useful skill he had acquired over the last three months.

"Sorry?" Lohen spat. "'Sorry' won't get me a dose, got it? I need to find more urgently. And you, sit here. Sit and don't stick your head out. Understood?"

He jumped out of bed and started frantically pulling on his jeans. His movements were sharp, jerky; he kept missing the legs of his pants, cursing through his teeth. Illuga watched him and thought: here it is, that very moment. Lohen is leaving now. Leaving him alone. The door wouldn't be locked - Lohen was in too much of a hurry and too angry to remember the lock. Illuga would have a few hours. He could pack his things. He could leave. He could end this nightmare forever.

This thought should have brought relief. But instead, he felt everything inside him clench into a tight, painful knot.

Leave? Where to? To his mother, who would look at him with horror and pity? To former friends who had long stopped calling because he himself had pushed them away? To an empty apartment where no one was waiting, where the silence would be deafening, where at night he would lie sleepless and think about Lohen - where is he, who is he with, is he even alive?

Illuga suddenly understood with terrifying clarity: he couldn't be without him. He physically couldn't. Like an addict without a dose. The withdrawal was starting already, even though Lohen hadn't even left yet - trembling in his knees, cold sweat, an emptiness in his chest that nothing could fill except the presence of this terrible, cruel, beautiful person.

"Lohen," he called.

Lohen was already standing in the doorway, putting on his jacket. He glanced back. His face was tense, his jaw muscles working under the skin.

"What?"

"Take me with you."

Lohen squinted. Something akin to surprise - and satisfaction - flickered in his gaze. Like a hunter seeing the prey walking into the trap by itself.

"Why?" he asked. "Want to watch me humiliate myself in front of a dealer? Want to see what kind of shit I can be?"

"I want to be with you."

It was the truth. The most terrible, most humiliating, most honest truth Illuga had ever spoken. He wanted to be with Lohen. Even in the shit. Even in humiliation. Even at the very bottom - as long as they were together.

Lohen smirked. But there was less venom in this smirk than usual.

"Alright," he said. "Put your shoes on. Just be quick, I'm not going to wait for you."

Illuga got up from the floor and started looking for his sneakers. His hands were shaking, his heart was pounding somewhere in his throat, but at the same time, he felt a strange, perverse relief. He was staying. He was staying again. He was choosing Lohen again - and this choice was the sweetest and the bitterest at the same time.

"And again we've lost our feelings - propaganda..."

They went outside when the gray, bleak morning had already begun to spread across the sky, pushing out the remnants of the night. A fine rain was drizzling - not exactly cold, but nasty, clammy, from which clothes instantly became damp and hair stuck to the face. Illuga shivered, wrapping his thin jacket tighter - he hadn't dressed for the weather when he ran out of the house three days ago after another call from Lohen. "Come," Lohen had said then. "Urgent. Can't do without you." And Illuga had rushed off, not thinking about the weather, nor about the fact that he had an exam tomorrow, nor that his mother would be worried. He just rushed, because Lohen had called, and when Lohen called, everything else ceased to matter.

They walked through back alleys, past peeling five-story buildings, past rusty garages and overflowing dumpsters circled by fat pigeons. Lohen strode quickly, with long steps, not looking back, and Illuga almost ran after him, trying not to fall behind. The rain intensified, turning from a drizzle into a full-blown downpour, but Lohen didn't seem to notice. He walked as if wound up, clutching something in his jacket pocket - maybe money, maybe a phone, maybe a knife. Illuga had no idea if Lohen had a knife, but he wouldn't be surprised. Lohen lived on the edge, always on the edge, and a weapon was as natural a part of his image as a cigarette in his teeth or the tattoo on his neck.

"Is it far?" asked Illuga, out of breath.

"Don't whine," Lohen threw over his shoulder. "You'll see when we get there."

They passed a vacant lot overgrown with weeds and littered with construction debris, climbed through a hole in a concrete fence, and ended up in an industrial zone. It was even more dreary here than in the residential quarters: gray boxes of workshops, boarded-up windows, graffiti on the walls, broken glass underfoot. Illuga had never been to this district and had no idea where they were going. But he no longer dared to ask - Lohen was on edge, and any extra word could trigger an explosion.

Finally, Lohen stopped at one of the abandoned buildings - either a former warehouse or a factory. The iron door was slightly ajar; from inside wafted dampness and something sour, reminiscent of the smell of stale urine. Illuga grimaced but stayed silent.

"Wait here," Lohen ordered. "I'll be quick."

"But..."

"I said - wait here!" a metallic note rang in Lohen's voice. "Don't follow me. Understood?"

Illuga nodded. Lohen slipped into the darkness of the doorway and disappeared. Illuga was left alone in the rain, leaning his shoulder against the cold concrete wall. The minutes dragged on endlessly. He was chilled to the bone, his teeth starting to chatter. From behind, inside the building, muffled voices came - Lohen's and someone else's, whose voice was low, rough, with threatening intonations. What they were talking about was impossible to make out, but the tone didn't bode well.

Illuga stood and thought. He did this often - thought, analyzed, replayed the same thoughts in his head like a worn-out record. How had he come to such a life? How had he - a quiet, homebound boy who just a year ago couldn't even conceive of anything forbidden - ended up here, in an abandoned industrial zone, in the rain, waiting for a man who might be buying drugs right now? Or maybe not buying - maybe taking them by force? Or selling something himself?

Illuga didn't know exactly how Lohen earned his living. Lohen never spoke about it directly. Sometimes he would disappear for a few hours and return with money. Sometimes he brought things - a new phone, or a watch, or a leather jacket, clearly from someone else's back. Illuga preferred not to ask. Because he might not like the answer. And he wouldn't do anything about that answer anyway.

That was his main weakness. Not that he couldn't leave, but that he consciously closed his eyes to the fact that Lohen was a criminal. A real one, no jokes, no romantic aura. He broke the law - and not the way petty hooligans do, but seriously. Illuga suspected that in Lohen's biography, there were things much worse than drugs. But he forbade himself to think about it. Because if he started thinking, he would have to decide something. And he couldn't. He was too weak. Too dependent.

"I didn't understand it myself, I was as if delirious..."

The noise from inside the building grew louder. Illuga made out the sound of a blow - dull, heavy, the kind that makes a normal person's blood run cold. Then another. Then a shout - Lohen's, it seemed. And cursing - elaborate, filthy, which Illuga wished he'd never had to hear in his life.

He froze. His heart started pounding wildly. What was happening in there? Was Lohen being beaten? Or was he beating someone? Should he intervene? Call for help? Call the police?

But he didn't move. Didn't take out his phone. Didn't even try to look inside. Because he was scared. Scared to the point of stupor, to complete paralysis of will. And also - because Lohen had told him to stand here. And disobeying an order was scarier than hearing the sounds of a fight.

A few minutes later, everything went quiet. Footsteps sounded - fast, approaching. The door swung open, and Lohen came out. He was pale, a bruise was blooming on his cheekbone, and a thin trickle of blood ran from his split lip, which he kept licking away with his tongue. But his eyes burned with a dangerous, feverish fire, and in his hand he clutched a small package.

"Let's go," he said and, without waiting for Illuga, strode away.

Illuga hurried after him. He wanted to ask what had happened, who hit Lohen, if everything was alright. But the words stuck in his throat. He just walked behind, looking at the tense back in the wet jacket, and felt his love for this person intertwine with his terror of him into some incredible, heartbreaking pattern.

They returned to the apartment. Lohen immediately went into the room, unwrapped the package on the table - Illuga saw the white powder - and began dividing it into lines. His hands were still shaking, but his movements were precise, practiced, almost automatic.

"Sit down," he said, without turning around.

Illuga sat on the edge of the couch. He didn't want to. He truly didn't want to do this anymore. Every time afterward, he felt devastated, dirty, used. But refusing meant angering Lohen. And angering Lohen now, when he had just been in a fight and was on edge, meant getting at least a verbal lashing, at most - something worse.

"I probably won't," he said quietly.

Lohen froze. Turned around slowly. On his face was an expression Illuga couldn't decipher - a mix of surprise, anger, and something else, almost like hurt.

"You won't?" he asked again. "Why?"

"Because..." Illuga hesitated. "Because I feel sick afterward. And tomorrow I have... things to do."

"Things to do," Lohen smirked. "What things could you have? You haven't been anywhere in three months except this apartment. Your things are me. Me and everything connected to me. Isn't that right?"

Illuga lowered his head. Arguing was pointless. Lohen was speaking the truth - a humiliating, cruel truth. Illuga had indeed abandoned everything - his studies, friends, family, himself. His entire life had shrunk to this room, this person, these powders and bottles, these sleepless nights and days without light.

"I'm just tired," he whispered.

"Tired," Lohen repeated. He walked over to Illuga and sat next to him on the couch. Their shoulders touched. "I'm tired too. Tired of fighting every day for a piece of bread, for a dose, for a roof over my head. Tired of the whole world being against me. But I don't whine. I do what needs to be done. And you'll do what needs to be done. Understood?"

He took Illuga by the chin - again this gesture, again this possessive, commanding touch - and forced him to lift his head. Their eyes met. Lohen's were red from fatigue and withdrawal, but in the depths of his pupils, that very flame still danced, the one Illuga saw on the first day and couldn't forget to this day.

"You're mine," said Lohen quietly, almost in a whisper. "Have you understood that? You're mine. And you'll do what I say. Because I know what's best. Because without me, you're nobody. Without me, you'll die of boredom in your dull, proper life. But with me, you're alive. Truly alive. Like you've never lived before."

And Illuga, looking into those bottomless, devilishly beautiful eyes, nodded. Because Lohen's words sounded like a spell. Like hypnosis. Like that very line from the song he remembered: "I just wanted it that way - to be with you, too grown-up..."

He wanted this. He wanted to be grown-up, to be alive, to be real. And for this, he was ready to pay any price. Even if the price was - himself.

Lohen smiled. The smile came out crooked but almost tender. He ran his thumb over Illuga's lips - softly, almost weightlessly.

"That's a good boy," he whispered. "Now come here. Let's forget ourselves. At least for a couple of hours."

And Illuga went. As he always did. Because he couldn't do otherwise. Because Lohen was his drug, his disease, his curse, and his only salvation.

"Finally, just the two of us in a synthetic paradise. Every time as if it's the first - I don't recognize you..."

?

Inside the apartment, time flowed according to its own laws. It would stretch like chewing gum, then compress into a single blinding point where there was no past, no future - only now, only this moment, only the two of them. In such moments, Illuga almost forgot who he was and where he was. Almost forgot that a world existed outside - with its rules, laws, expectations. Here, in this smoke-filled, alcohol-and-chemical-soaked refuge, only Lohen's laws applied. And Lohen recognized no laws except his own desires.

Several hours had probably passed. Or maybe an eternity. Illuga lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling, where a yellow water stain was spreading, resembling some unknown country in shape. His body was light, almost weightless, yet at the same time alien - as if he were watching himself from the side. The effect of the drug hadn't fully worn off, and reality was perceived as if through frosted glass.

Lohen sat on the windowsill - feet on the radiator, back pressed against the cold glass - and smoked, blowing smoke into the slightly open vent window. He was shirtless, and Illuga could examine his body in detail: thin, wiry, with protruding ribs and collarbones, with tattoos covering his left arm from shoulder to wrist - dragons, runes, some inscriptions in an unfamiliar language. And scars. Lots of scars. Some - thin, white, almost invisible. Others - rough, crimson, clearly from a knife. Illuga never asked where they came from. And Lohen never told.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Lohen, without turning around. He had a supernatural ability to feel when Illuga was looking at him.

"Nothing," Illuga answered.

"You're lying. You're always thinking about something. It's written all over your face."

Lohen stubbed his cigarette out on the windowsill, threw the butt into a cola can that served as an ashtray, and jumped down to the floor. He walked over to the couch and sat down beside him. Now he was so close that Illuga could smell his sweat - sharp but not unpleasant, mixed with tobacco and something else, something that was Lohen's own scent, his pheromones, his essence.

"Tell me," Lohen asked.

"Tell you what?"

"Anything. Whatever. How you lived before me."

Illuga blinked. This was strange - Lohen rarely showed interest in his past. Usually, he didn't care about anything that wasn't about the present moment. But now, apparently, the drug had softened him, made him more... human.

"I lived normally," said Illuga. "Studied. Prepared to enter university. Helped my mom."

"Boring," Lohen concluded. "What about friends?"

"I had some. A few. We hung out, went to the movies, played video games."

"And that's it? No drinking? No smoking? Nothing like that?"

Illuga shook his head.

"I was... a goody-two-shoes. Like you said."

Lohen smirked and leaned back against the couch.

"And what, did you like it? Being a goody-two-shoes?"

"I don't know. I just lived that way. I didn't think about whether I liked it or not. It was... natural."

"And now?"

Illuga turned his head and looked at Lohen. He was staring at the ceiling, and his expression was thoughtful, almost melancholic.

"Now everything is different," Illuga said quietly.

"Is that bad or good?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Sometimes it seems bad. That I'm ruining my life. That I'm losing myself. And sometimes... sometimes it seems like only now have I truly started living."

Lohen turned to him. Their eyes met, and at that moment, something passed between them - not a spark, not electricity, but something deeper, almost metaphysical. As if their souls touched for a fraction of a second.

"You're not losing yourself," said Lohen. "You're finding yourself. The self you always wanted to be but were afraid of. The self that doesn't give a damn about rules. The self that can do anything."

"Except one thing," whispered Illuga.

"Except what?"

"Except leaving you."

Silence hung in the room. Heavy, viscous, like honey. Lohen was silent for a long time - maybe a minute, maybe more. Then he reached out and placed his hand on Illuga's chest - where his heart was beating.

"It's beating fast," he said. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"And what else?"

Illuga swallowed. He knew that if he told the truth now, there would be no going back. But he said it anyway.

"Love."

Lohen froze. His hand on Illuga's chest tensed. Then he slowly leaned in and kissed him - not as usual, not roughly and demandingly, but softly, almost tenderly. It was a kiss containing more questions than answers. A kiss in which all words dissolved.

When he pulled away, there was something in his eyes that Illuga had never seen before. Fear? Confusion? Maybe even - pain?

"You're an idiot," whispered Lohen. "You're a complete idiot if you love me."

"I know," answered Illuga, and a tear rolled down his cheek. "But I can't help it."

"You know - it's already too late for us. You know - this is just how it has to be..."

Lohen said nothing. He simply lay down beside him, hugged Illuga - tightly, to the point of cracking bones - and buried his face in his hair. Illuga closed his eyes and allowed himself to forget. To forget in the warmth of his body, in the smell of his skin, in the beating of his heart, which Illuga now heard as clearly as his own.

Somewhere far away, beyond the walls of this apartment, the world continued. A world where Illuga had obligations, plans, a future. But here and now, in Lohen's arms, none of that mattered. What mattered was only that they were together. In their synthetic paradise. In their hell. Which they had chosen themselves.

Illuga woke up to the sun shining directly into his eyes - brazen, sharp, unfamiliar. In this apartment, they usually drew the curtains tightly shut, barricading themselves from the outside world as from an enemy. But yesterday, it seemed, no one had thought about the curtains. Or they had thought about it, but were too preoccupied.

He squinted and rolled onto his side. His body ached - not from beatings, no, from something else. From lying in an uncomfortable position for too long, from tension that didn't let go even in sleep, from the chemicals still circulating in his blood, slowly destroying what was left of his health. His mouth was dry and foul, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and a dull, nagging pain pulsed in his temples.

No one was beside him.

Illuga sat up abruptly, and the room swam before his eyes. He clutched the edge of the couch with his fingers, waiting out the dizzy spell. Lohen was gone. His clothes, thrown over the chair yesterday, had disappeared. His jacket from the hanger by the door - gone too. And silence. That special, peculiar silence of an empty apartment, distinct from the silence of an apartment where someone is just sleeping.

Panic surged instantly - a hot wave from his stomach to his throat. Illuga jumped off the couch, though his legs still barely obeyed, and started darting around the room. Empty. Bathroom - empty. Kitchen - empty. Tiny hallway - empty, and only his own sneakers stood forlornly by the threshold.

He left.

Lohen left.

Without him.

Illuga leaned against the wall and slowly slid down it until he was sitting on the cold linoleum. His heart was pounding as if trying to break through his ribs and burst out. His thoughts jumped like frightened squirrels: where did he go? Why? Will he come back? What if he doesn't? What if something happened to him? What if he just decided he was tired of Illuga?

The last thought was the most terrifying. Illuga realized this with horrifying clarity: he wasn't afraid that Lohen got into trouble, that he was beaten up or arrested. He was afraid that Lohen had abandoned him. That he would be left alone. That this whole nightmare - toxic, suffocating, destructive - would end not because Illuga found the strength to leave, but because Lohen simply lost interest in him.

"Pathetic," Illuga whispered to himself. "You're pathetic."

He sat on the floor and didn't know what to do. He could leave. Here it was, the chance - the one he supposedly had been waiting for. The door wasn't locked. Lohen was gone. Pack your things - and run. Run home, to mom, to a normal life, to the existence Lohen called "nothing." Run while you have the chance.

But Illuga didn't move. He sat on the floor and listened to the sounds. Footsteps in the stairwell. Someone's voices behind the wall. The noise of cars outside the window. And silence inside - that very silence that screamed louder than any scream: "You won't leave. You can't. You will wait for him. You will always wait."

An hour passed. Or two. Or three. Time became viscous and unpredictable again. Illuga moved from the floor to the couch, then to the kitchen, where he drank water straight from the tap, because there were no glasses left in the house - all had been broken at different times and for different reasons. Then he returned to the room and started pacing from corner to corner, like a caged animal.

He found a half-empty pack of cigarettes on the windowsill - Lohen had forgotten them. Or left them on purpose? Illuga took one, turned it over in his fingers. He hadn't smoked before meeting Lohen. Or rather, he tried a couple of times in his school years but quickly quit - he didn't like it, and his mom would have been upset. But now he lit up with trembling hands and took a drag. The smoke burned his throat but brought a strange, bitter calm. The smell of tobacco reminded him of Lohen. Everything in this apartment reminded him of Lohen.

"Millions of thousands of times I promised I would leave. I didn't understand it myself, I was as if delirious..."

He repeated these lines from the song over and over, like a mantra, like a prayer, like a spell that could save him. But it didn't save him. Because the promises made to himself were worthless. They crumbled to dust at the mere thought that Lohen might not come back.

When the lock in the door finally scraped, Illuga started so violently that the cigarette fell from his fingers and rolled across the floor, scattering sparks. He jumped up, not thinking what he was doing, and rushed to the hallway. His heart was pounding somewhere in his throat, and his hands were shaking as if he himself had just taken a dose.

The door opened. On the threshold stood Lohen.

He was in the same state as when he left yesterday - disheveled, with dark circles under his eyes, in a crumpled jacket hanging open. But in his hands was a bag - an ordinary one, from a cheap supermarket, the kind that tears on the way home. And there was something in the bag. Something he had apparently gone out for.

"You..." Illuga exhaled and stopped short. Because he didn't know what to say. "You came back"? "Where were you"? "I almost went out of my mind"? All of that would sound like an accusation, and he had no right to accuse Lohen. Lohen hadn't given him any promises. Had never said he would be there. Had never said that Illuga was needed - not as a toy, not as property, but truly needed.

"What 'you'?" Lohen stepped into the hallway and slammed the door behind him. "Did you sit here all this time? Didn't even go out?"

Illuga was silent. Lohen swept his gaze over him - from head to toe - and that expression appeared on his face that Illuga hated and adored at the same time: a mix of superiority, satisfaction, and condescending tenderness.

"You're an idiot," said Lohen. But he said it almost tenderly. "I was only gone for a couple of hours. You could have taken a walk. Breathed some air. Remembered that you're a living person."

"I didn't know if you'd come back," Illuga said quietly.

Lohen froze. The bag in his hand swayed. He looked at Illuga for a long time, very long, and something changed in his face - as if for a second, from under the mask of a son of a bitch, something real showed through. Vulnerable. Alive.

"I always come back," he finally said. "Haven't you figured that out yet? I always come back. Even when I don't want to. Even when I try not to come back. Something pulls me back. Probably, it's you."

Illuga felt tears welling up in his eyes. Not from grief, not from fear - from a strange, perverse happiness. Lohen said he came back because of him. Lohen admitted that Illuga had some power over him. Tiny, almost invisible, but power.

"I thought you left me," whispered Illuga.

"Left you?" Lohen smirked. "I don't leave what's mine. Remember that."

He reached out and ruffled Illuga's hair - a rough gesture, but at the same time possessive, almost intimate. Then he walked into the room and put the bag on the table.

"I brought food," he said in a casual tone. "Real food, not chips or instant noodles. You haven't been eating anything lately, you're going to turn into a skeleton soon. And I don't want to sleep with a skeleton."

Illuga walked over to the table. From the bag, Lohen took out bread, cheese, some canned food, tomatoes, even a chocolate bar - cheap, in a crumpled wrapper, but still. It was so unexpected, so incongruous with the image of Lohen - cruel, selfish, thinking only of himself - that Illuga was momentarily speechless.

"Why did you buy this?" he asked.

"Because you want to eat," Lohen muttered, without turning around. "I heard your stomach growling at night. Annoying. Disturbs my sleep."

It was a lie - or almost a lie. Illuga knew: Lohen could sleep through any noise, even the racket of a jackhammer, even a siren outside the window. If he bought food, it meant he was thinking about him. Thinking that Illuga was hungry, that he had lost weight, that he needed to eat. And from this realization, Illuga's breath caught.

"Thank you," he said.

"Shut up and eat."

They sat in the kitchen - Lohen on the windowsill, Illuga on a rickety stool - and ate. Or rather, Illuga ate, while Lohen mostly smoked, looking out the window, and occasionally bit off a piece of bread. The rain outside had stopped, and through the torn clouds, the sun was breaking through - unnaturally bright, as if mocking the gloom of this apartment.

"I'll need to go out this evening," said Lohen. "On business."

Illuga froze with a piece of bread in his hand.

"Again?"

"Yes. And this time for a while. Maybe all night. Maybe until morning."

"Can I come with you?"

"No."

One word - short, sharp, like a slap. Illuga lowered his eyes. He knew arguing was pointless. If Lohen said "no," it meant no. But everything inside him clenched with a premonition of disaster. What were these "business" things that required going out all night? Drugs again? Another fight? Or something worse?

"Don't look at me like that," said Lohen. "Nothing will happen to me. I'm tough. You know that."

Illuga nodded, although he knew: Lohen wasn't tough. Lohen just skillfully hid his wounds - both physical and emotional. He was like a wild animal that doesn't show pain so as not to become prey. But the pain was there. Illuga felt it. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was the only one who truly felt it.

"It's just..." he started and stopped.

"What 'just'?"

"Just be careful."

Lohen jumped off the windowsill, walked over to Illuga, and stopped so close that Illuga had to tilt his head back to see his face.

"You worry about me?" asked Lohen. It wasn't a question - rather, a statement that sounded surprised. "About me? Seriously?"

"Yes," said Illuga. "I worry. Constantly. Every time you leave. Every time you don't call. Every time you're late. I go crazy, understand? I..."

He didn't finish, because Lohen suddenly leaned in and kissed him. Greedily, forcefully, so that Illuga almost fell off the stool. There was no tenderness in this kiss - just some desperate, almost animalistic need. As if Lohen was trying to drink him, take him for himself, lock him inside himself so he would never lose him.

When he pulled away, they were both breathing heavily.

"You're the only one," whispered Lohen, and his voice wavered - for the first time in all the time Illuga had known him. "You're the only one who gives a damn. Do you know what that's like? To live so many years knowing no one gives a damn? And then to meet you - so... proper, so gentle, so stupid. And to realize you give a damn. And not know what to do with it. Because I don't know how. I don't know how to handle it when someone gives a damn."

He turned away abruptly and went to the window. His shoulders were tense, the fingers holding the cigarette turned white. Illuga watched him and felt his heart breaking. Here it was - the moment of truth. The moment Lohen shed his armor. The moment he showed that beneath the mask of a ruthless bastard hid someone wounded, someone broken, someone who had never known love and didn't understand what to do with it.

"You'll learn," Illuga said quietly. "I'll teach you."

Lohen laughed bitterly, mirthlessly.

"You? Teach me? You, who's falling apart yourself? You, who cries at night? You, who can't even leave me? What can you teach me?"

Illuga got up from the stool and walked over to him. Stopped behind his back, not daring to touch him.

"That it's okay to be weak," he said. "That it's okay to be afraid. That it's okay to need someone. You think it's shameful? No. It's normal. It's human."

"I don't want to be human," Lohen snapped. "People are shit. People betray. People cause pain."

"I won't betray you."

Lohen turned around. His eyes - dark, bottomless - looked at Illuga with a kind of desperate hope that he, it seemed, hated in himself.

"How do you know?" he asked. "How can you know you won't betray me? Everyone says that. Everyone promises. And then..."

"And then what?" Illuga took a step forward and took his hand. Lohen's palm was cold and tense. "What did they do to you? Who betrayed you?"

Lohen yanked his hand away.

"Don't go there," he said. "Just don't."

"Lohen..."

"I said - don't go there!"

He slammed his fist against the windowsill - so hard the old plastic cracked. Illuga recoiled. An instant - and before him was once again that very Lohen he feared: with furious eyes, with clenched jaws, with a wave of anger that could crash down on anyone, including Illuga himself.

"Sorry," whispered Illuga, lowering his head. "I didn't mean to."

Lohen was breathing heavily. A few seconds passed, then he exhaled and ran his fingers through his hair - a gesture that meant the storm had passed, at least for a while.

"Alright," he said. "Forget it. Just... forget it."

He took the pack of cigarettes from the windowsill, pulled one out, and lit it. His hands were trembling - Illuga saw it. Trembling not from withdrawal, not from fatigue - from something else. From memories. From the pain he had carried inside for years and had never shown anyone.

"When I get back," said Lohen, looking out the window, "we'll talk."

"About what?"

"About everything. About what's happening to us. About what will happen next. I..." he stumbled. "I don't know what to do. With you. With myself. With all this. But I don't want you to suffer. Do you hear? I don't want that."

Illuga was silent. He didn't know whether to believe these words. Lohen was saying them now - sincerely, with difficulty, as if every word was a struggle. But what would happen in an hour? A day? When he took a dose again, when he got angry again, when he forgot everything he had said?

"I'll wait," said Illuga. "I always wait."

Lohen nodded, stubbed out his cigarette, and headed for the door. At the threshold, he turned around.

"Lock up," he said. "You never know who might come. I'll knock three times when I'm back. Three times means it's me. If it's different - don't open."

"Okay."

"And eat some more. There's a chocolate bar. Sweet stuff is good for the brain."

He smiled - crookedly, but almost kindly - and left. The door slammed. The key turned in the lock. The footsteps on the stairs faded.

Illuga was alone.

He walked over to the table, took the chocolate bar, and broke off a piece. It was bitter and a bit crumbly - probably the cheapest one Lohen could find in the store. But it seemed to Illuga that he had never tasted anything more delicious in his life.

"You didn't let me leave again, the doors are locked again..."

He sat in the kitchen, eating chocolate, and thinking. Thinking about what Lohen had said. About not wanting Illuga to suffer. About wanting to talk "about everything." About Illuga being the only one who gave a damn.

Maybe this was a chance. Maybe their relationship - toxic, suffocating, destructive - could change. Maybe Lohen could change. Maybe together they could climb out of this pit.

Or maybe it was just another illusion. Another mirage in the desert of their shared madness.

Illuga didn't know. But he knew one thing: he would wait. He would wait as long as it took. Because Lohen was his disease, his addiction, his curse. But he was also his only medicine.

Night descended on the city like a wet blanket - heavy, stifling, without a single star in the sky. Illuga sat on the couch, his legs tucked under him, staring at a single spot on the wall. Several hours had passed since Lohen left. At first, Illuga tried to occupy himself with something: cleared the table, washed the only surviving mug, even swept the floor, finding a broom in the corner behind the refrigerator. But then, when all the chores were done, all that was left was to wait.

He hated this state - the state of suspension, of uncertainty, when every minute stretches into eternity. His imagination painted pictures, each scarier than the last: Lohen in a police station, Lohen in a hospital, Lohen in an alleyway with a knife in his side. Illuga chased these thoughts away, but they returned like an obsessive melody.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Illuga flinched and snatched it out. The screen read: "Mom."

He stared at this word and couldn't bring himself to answer. Mom called every day - sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening, sometimes several times. Illuga would decline the call or simply not pick up. Sometimes he sent her short messages: "Everything's fine," "I'm alive," "Don't worry." But Mom worried. She felt - with a mother's heart that cannot be deceived - that something was wrong with her son.

The phone rang and fell silent. Illuga put it aside. The feeling of guilt - familiar like an old wound - ached somewhere in his chest again. He imagined Mom sitting in the kitchen now, looking at the phone and waiting. Waiting for her son to come back. Waiting for him to become the same - kind, obedient, proper. But the old Illuga no longer existed. He disappeared the day he first met Lohen.

How did it happen? He often recalled that evening, replayed it in his memory like an old film. There was some party - apparently, at someone's mutual friend's place. Illuga went there by chance, dragged along by a buddy: "Come on, it'll be cool, music, drinks, let's let loose." Illuga, as always, hesitated but eventually agreed. He was eighteen, had just finished school, life seemed endless and full of possibilities.

The party was noisy, stuffy, and smoky. Illuga felt out of place - everyone around was drinking, dancing, laughing loudly, while he stood against the wall with a plastic cup of cola and thought about how to leave as soon as possible. And then Lohen appeared.

He emerged as if from nowhere - tall, thin, in a leather jacket thrown over a bare body, with tattoos on his arms and a cocky smirk. He smelled of cigarettes and danger - the very kind that triggers the self-preservation instinct in normal people. But Illuga wasn't normal. Or rather, he didn't yet know that he wasn't.

"Bored?" Lohen asked, walking up. His voice was low, with a hoarseness to it, enveloping.

"A little," Illuga admitted honestly.

"Me too. Can't stand these gatherings. Bunch of idiots pretending to be cool. Come on, let's have a smoke on the balcony?"

"I don't smoke," said Illuga.

"Then I'll teach you."

That was the first trap. Illuga followed him to the balcony - just out of politeness, just because Lohen looked at him in a way that made it impossible to refuse. They stood on the balcony, smoked (or rather, Lohen smoked, and Illuga held the cigarette, not daring to inhale), and talked. Lohen asked, Illuga answered - about school, plans, favorite books, music. Lohen listened attentively, didn't interrupt, and his dark eyes looked at Illuga with a strange, almost hungry interest.

"You're amusing," Lohen said at the end of the conversation. "So... proper. I've never met anyone like you before."

"Is that bad?" asked Illuga.

"It's interesting. Makes you want to find out what's inside you. Under all that properness."

Back then, Illuga didn't understand what that meant. He understood later - when Lohen started calling him, inviting him out, introducing him to his world. At first, it was harmless things: night walks around the city, talks until dawn on the roof of an abandoned building, music Illuga had never heard before. Then - alcohol. "Just try it, it relaxes you." Then - cigarettes. "You're an adult now, stop pretending to be a mama's boy." Then - drugs. "It's not scary, it's just another level of freedom."

And Illuga tried. Because Lohen looked at him, and in that gaze was the promise of something forbidden, dangerous, alluring. Something Illuga's life had never had. Something he had, it turned out, always dreamed of without realizing it.

He didn't notice how he fell into this pit. How he stopped answering friends' calls. How he abandoned his university prep. How he started lying to his mom, making up more and more excuses. How all his thoughts narrowed down to one thing: when would he see Lohen again.

And here he is - three months later. In a strange rented apartment, saturated with the smell of tobacco and chemicals. With a phone ringing off the hook from Mom's calls. With a body accustomed to substances it could no longer function normally without. With a heart belonging to a person capable of destroying him.

Illuga looked at the clock. Midnight. Lohen still wasn't back.

He started pacing the room - five steps there, five back. The anxiety grew, becoming unbearable. Something had happened. He felt it - not with his mind, but with some animal instinct. Lohen was in trouble. Lohen needed help.

But what could Illuga do? He didn't know where Lohen had gone. Didn't know whom he was meeting. Didn't even know his phone number - Lohen had a phone, but he never gave the number to Illuga. "It's necessary," he would say. "For your own safety."

Illuga took his phone again. Looked at the contact list - Mom, a couple of old school friends he hadn't written to in months, some study chats he hadn't opened in an eternity. Not a single number that could lead him to Lohen.

He felt completely helpless. Like a child lost in a supermarket. Like a puppy abandoned on the roadside.

And at that moment, there was a knock on the door.

Knock-knock-knock. Three times.

Illuga rushed to the door, forgetting everything in the world. With trembling fingers, he unlocked it and flung the door open.

Lohen stood on the threshold. But in what a state...

He was pale as death. His face was busted up - a split eyebrow oozing blood, a split lip, a bruise blooming on his cheekbone. His jacket was torn at the shoulder. His hands were covered in blood - either his own or someone else's. He was breathing heavily, leaning against the door frame, and looked at Illuga with clouded, unseeing eyes.

"I'm back," he breathed out and began sliding down to the floor.

Illuga caught him - held him up by some miracle, though Lohen was taller and heavier. He dragged him into the apartment, slammed the door, hauled him to the couch, and laid him down.

"What happened? Lohen! What happened? Talk!"

"Everything's fine," Lohen muttered. "Everything's fine. Just... had a bit of a disagreement."

"A bit of a disagreement?!" Illuga felt panic rising to his throat. "Your face is covered in blood! We need to call an ambulance!"

"No!" Lohen grabbed his wrist - tightly, painfully. "No ambulance. No cops. No one. Do you hear? No one."

"But you're bleeding!"

"Nonsense. I've had worse. Bring water and... there, in the bag, there should be some food. And a first-aid kit, I think, in the bathroom, in the cabinet. If not - just a rag and water."

Illuga dashed around the apartment. Found a half-empty first-aid kit in the bathroom, grabbed a clean rag, wet it with water. Returned to the room and began carefully wiping the blood from Lohen's face. Lohen winced but endured.

"What happened?" Illuga asked again. "Were you attacked? Robbed? Was it over drugs?"

"Long story," Lohen grimaced. "Basically, I was supposed to deliver something to someone. The delivery didn't go well. And there were... disagreements."

"Disagreements? They beat you up!"

"I gave them some too. Don't worry."

Illuga looked at him and didn't know whether to cry or scream. Lohen lay on the couch - beaten, bloodied, but still with that same devilish spark in his eyes. And he spoke about it so casually, as if a fight with some people over some things was business as usual for him. Which, actually, was true.

"You could have died," whispered Illuga.

"But I didn't. Told you - I'm tough."

"This can't go on forever. One day, your luck will run out."

Lohen turned his head and looked at Illuga. His gaze held weariness - a deep, years-long weariness that he hid behind bravado and rudeness.

"I know," he said quietly. "I know. But I don't know any other way. Understand? I don't know how. I've been living like this since I was twelve. Since I ran away from home. Since I ended up on the street. Out there, you either fight or you're dead. There's no other way."

"You ran away from home?" Illuga froze. Lohen had never talked about his past. Never.

"Yeah," Lohen closed his eyes. "Ran away. My father drank and beat my mom. Mom cried and did nothing. He beat me too, when I tried to protect her. One day, I couldn't take it. I was twelve. I took a knife... Anyway, after that, I left. And never went back."

Illuga felt everything inside him turn over. There it was. This was why Lohen was the way he was. This was where all those scars came from - not just on his body, but on his soul. This was where the cruelty, the inability to trust, the need to control and possess came from.

"And you've been alone since then?" asked Illuga.

"Not alone. Was in different crews. Bad ones. Very bad ones. Learned everything I know. How to steal, fight, sell dope, cheat. Everything that helps you survive."

"But what about... a normal life? A job? Friends?"

"Not for me," Lohen smirked. "I don't know how to live normally. Tried a couple of times. Got a job at a construction site - fired within a week for fighting. Tried to rent an apartment legally - got ripped off. It's always the same. The world doesn't accept people like me."

"I accept you," Illuga said quietly.

Lohen opened his eyes and looked at him. For a long time, intently, as if seeing him for the first time.

"You're stupid," he said. "You accept me, and I'm killing you. Slowly. Every day. Don't you see that?"

"I see it," Illuga lowered his eyes. "But I can't help it."

"That's called addiction," said Lohen. "I know what that is. I'm an addict myself. To dope, to adrenaline, to all this crap. And to you too."

"To me?"

"Yes. You're the only bright spot in my whole crappy life. You're like... a window. To another world. To that world where people live normally, where moms wait for their sons to come home, where you don't have to fight for a piece of bread. I look at you - and I remember that such a world exists. And I hate you for it. And love you."

He reached out and touched Illuga's cheek. His palm was still cold and sticky with drying blood, but the touch was gentle - almost like that very first evening on the balcony.

"If you were smart, you'd leave," whispered Lohen. "Right now. Pack your things and leave. Because I will destroy you. Sooner or later. I won't be able to stop, I won't be able to change. I'm a son of a bitch, and that's forever."

Illuga looked at him, and tears flowed down his cheeks. He knew: Lohen was speaking the truth. The most terrible, most honest truth. This man would not change. He would not become kind and caring. He would not quit drugs, find a normal job, meet Illuga's mom, and bring her flowers on Women's Day. He would always be like this - cruel, dangerous, unpredictable. And he would always pull Illuga down to the bottom.

But Illuga couldn't leave. Because that bottom had already become his home. And Lohen had become his life.

"I won't leave," he said. "I've tried already. Remember? Millions of thousands of times I promised I would leave. And I never did. Because I can't. Because without you - it's worse."

"Worse than with me?" Lohen laughed bitterly. "I highly doubt it."

"A different kind of worse. A different kind - it's emptiness. But here - it's you. Sick, cruel, toxic as you are. But you."

Lohen closed his eyes. Such torment reflected on his face that Illuga almost regretted his words. Almost.

"Alright," Lohen said after a minute. "Alright. Since you're not leaving, then listen."

"What?"

"Tomorrow we're leaving."

"What?" Illuga thought he had misheard. "Where? Why?"

"I have problems. Serious ones. Those people I had... a disagreement with today - they won't let it go. They'll look for me. If they find me - that's it. So I need to disappear. For a while. Maybe forever."

Illuga was silent, digesting what he heard. Leave. Disappear. Abandon everything - the city, Mom, his studies (which were already hanging by a thread), the remnants of his past life. Burn the last bridge.

"I understand I'm asking a lot," said Lohen. "So... you don't have to come. I'm not forcing you. It's not an order. It's... a request."

A request. Lohen never asked for anything. He only demanded. "Do this," "Bring that," "Don't leave." And now he was asking. And that meant more than all the declarations of love Illuga could imagine.

"I'll go," he said, without hesitating a second. "Of course, I'll go."

"Are you sure? Think carefully. There may be no way back."

"I've thought a hundred times already. I can't be without you. You know it. I know it. So stop testing me."

Lohen smiled - a busted, bloodied smile, in which there was so much relief that Illuga almost started crying again.

"Then pack your things," he said. "We leave at dawn. I know a place... No one will find us there."

"What kind of place?"

"You'll see. It's a surprise."

Illuga nodded. He still didn't fully understand what he was getting into. But some part of him - the part that had lain dormant throughout his entire proper life - was rejoicing. An adventure. Danger. Escape. All the things he'd read about in books and watched in movies but never thought would happen to him.

"You're still bleeding," he said, returning to reality. "Let me properly treat your wounds."

"Go ahead," Lohen relaxed, allowing Illuga to fuss over him. "Just no alcohol. We'll drink the alcohol, not waste it on scratches."

Illuga smiled and went to the bathroom for the first-aid kit. His soul felt strange - a mix of fear, determination, and some kind of perverse happiness. They were leaving. They were disappearing. They were starting a new life - or ending the old one. Who knows.

But one thing Illuga knew for sure: at dawn tomorrow, he wouldn't be alone. Lohen would be next to him - his tormentor and his savior, his drug and his medicine, his curse and his only love.

?

Dawn found them already on their feet. Or rather, Illuga was on his feet, while Lohen lay half-reclined on the couch, smoking and watching his packing with the air of a commander observing the bustle of troops before a decisive battle. Outside the window, a gray, cheerless morning was slowly spreading - the city was waking up, unsuspecting that two of its inhabitants were about to disappear forever.

"Don't take a lot," said Lohen, blowing smoke at the ceiling. "Only the essentials. Leave all the junk. You won't need it where we're going."

"And where are we going?" Illuga froze over his backpack, into which he was trying to stuff a warm sweater, a couple of books, and an old player. He took the books automatically - a habit left from his past life. Although when was the last time he read? Before he met Lohen.

"There's a place," Lohen stubbed out his cigarette and sat up, wincing from the pain in his ribs. Yesterday, Illuga had spent a long time treating his wounds, taped up his split eyebrow, applied cold to the bruises. Lohen still looked terrible but held on. "I have a... debt owed to me there. One guy owes me a roof over my head. So we'll stay with him for now. And then we'll see."

"Is it far?"

"About six hours by train, then a bus, then on foot. A remote place, a village almost abandoned. No internet, no signal. No one will find us."

Illuga nodded. The thought of disappearing from the sight of the entire world was both frightening and exhilarating. He glanced at the phone lying on the table. Mom had called three more times during the night. He hadn't answered. Now he turned the phone off completely and shoved it to the bottom of his backpack. The SIM card went there too, pulled out and broken in half. Now he couldn't be tracked. Now he couldn't be found at all.

"Good," Lohen nodded approvingly, watching his actions. "That's how it needs to be. Clean slate. New life."

"Will we have a new life?" Illuga raised his eyes to him. The question sounded naive, almost childish, and Lohen smirked - but without his usual sarcasm.

"We will," he said. "Some kind. I doubt it'll be worse than now. And better... we'll see."

They left the apartment when the sun was only just starting to break through the gray veil of clouds. Lohen locked the door and dropped the key into the mailbox - a gesture signifying they wouldn't be coming back. Illuga shivered in the morning chill. The light jacket he'd put on didn't warm him at all, and the warm sweater was in his backpack, but he didn't want to stop and change. He wanted to run. Faster. Away from this city, from this apartment, from the memories that soaked the walls like cigarette smoke.

They walked through the back alleys to the bus stop. The city was slowly waking up: street sweepers were cleaning the sidewalks, the first cars honked at intersections, somewhere an entrance door banged, letting out a sleepy person with a dog. Ordinary life. The life from which Illuga had now finally cut himself off.

The bus was almost empty - just a couple of old women with shopping trolleys and a man in work overalls dozing in the back seat. Lohen sat by the window, Illuga next to him. Their shoulders touched, and this touch was the only thing keeping Illuga from panicking. He looked at the houses floating past the window, at the familiar streets, at the school they drove by - and understood he was seeing it all for the last time.

"Don't regret it," Lohen said quietly, as if reading his thoughts. "Regretting is the most useless thing. It just eats you from the inside. Better look forward."

"I don't regret it," Illuga lied. "It's just... strange. I never thought I'd just up and leave like this. To nowhere."

"To nowhere?" Lohen smirked. "No, baby. We're not going nowhere. We're going where no one knows us. Where we can start over. Where there's neither your mommy with her calls, nor my creditors with their knives. Just you and me. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Illuga didn't answer. He didn't know if this was exactly what he wanted. He only knew that he wanted to be with Lohen. And everything else didn't matter.

The train station was noisy and bustling. Crowds of people with suitcases, loud announcements over the PA system, the smell of fried pies from the station kiosk, which made Illuga's stomach ache with hunger. Lohen bought two tickets for the next train - at the counter, he acted confident, even brazen, although the bruises from yesterday still darkened under his eyes, and a band-aid adorned his cheekbone.

"The train leaves in forty minutes," he said, returning. "We have time for a snack."

They got a pie each and a cup of hot tea that burned their fingers even through the cardboard cup holder. They ate standing, by a dusty window overlooking the platform. Illuga looked at the railway tracks stretching into the distance and thought that somewhere out there, at the end of these tracks, a new life awaited him. Or an old one - just worse. Who knew.

"Are you scared?" asked Lohen, lighting a cigarette. Passersby glanced at him - the station was non-smoking - but he didn't care.

"A little," Illuga admitted.

"That's good. Fear keeps you sharp. It's when you stop being scared that you should worry."

On the train, they found their seats in an open-plan carriage - side berths, not the most comfortable, but at least by the window. Lohen immediately threw his backpack onto the upper bunk, took off his jacket, and sat down, stretching his legs into the aisle. His movements were stiff - apparently, his ribs hurt more than he let on, but he wasn't about to complain. Illuga sat opposite and began looking out the window.

The platform slowly drifted back. Then houses, warehouses, garages, vacant lots - the city outskirts, unsightly and familiar. Illuga watched it all and felt something inside him snap. The thin thread connecting him to the past stretched and broke. That was it. Only forward now.

"You know what I dreamed of as a kid?" Lohen suddenly said. He was looking not at Illuga but somewhere into space, and his voice sounded unusually thoughtful.

"What?"

"To leave. Far, far away. To the sea. I've never seen the sea. Only in pictures. I thought - when I grow up, I'll steal some money, buy a ticket, and leave. Sit on the shore, smoke, and spit into the water. And no one would bother me."

"What stopped you?"

"Life," Lohen smiled crookedly. "It always stops you. Either no money, or problems, or some other crap. And then you think - why do you need the sea? You're a son of a bitch. Sons of bitches don't go to the sea. They rot in back alleys and die in gutters."

"Don't say that," Illuga leaned forward and took his hand. Lohen's palm was cold, his fingers trembling slightly. Either withdrawal was starting, or just nerves. "We'll see the sea yet. I promise you."

Lohen looked at him with a long, studying gaze - as if trying to understand whether Illuga was mocking him or serious. Then he grunted and pulled his hand away.

"Alright," he said. "We'll see. Maybe we will."

Outside the window, fields, copses, rare little villages with rickety fences floated past. Illuga looked at this simple, almost idyllic landscape, and the same line kept sounding in his head: "Finally, just the two of us in a synthetic paradise..." Although right now, on this train, there was no paradise - synthetic or real. There was only the road. And two people running from their demons, not realizing that the demons were riding along with them.

The place they arrived at was indeed remote. After six hours on a train, two hours in a rattletrap bus that seemed ready to fall apart on every bump, and an hour on foot along a broken forest road, Illuga could no longer feel his feet. His backpack weighed on his shoulders, his sneakers squelched with water (they had crossed a stream, and Lohen, of course, slipped and pulled Illuga in with him), and the mosquitoes were biting as if they hadn't seen human flesh in years.

Lohen walked ahead - confidently, as if he knew every tree here. And maybe he did. He didn't tell where this hideout came from or who the person was who provided it. Illuga didn't ask. He was already used to the fact that Lohen lived in a world of secrets, where outsiders were forbidden entry. And even though he was no longer quite an outsider, many doors still remained closed to him.

"Almost there," Lohen threw over his shoulder. "Just around that bend."

Around the bend stood an old wooden house - rather, not even a house, but a large izba, blackened with time, with a mossy roof and a crooked porch. Around it - not a soul. Only the forest, dark and silent, and an overgrown yard with the remains of a wattle fence. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, but the sound was so muffled and distant that it seemed the nearest living being was at least a kilometer away.

"Is this it?" asked Illuga.

"This is it. Welcome to 'Lohen's Estate,'" he spread his arms theatrically and immediately winced - his ribs reminded him of themselves. "The key's under the floorboard. I'll open up now."

Inside, the house turned out to be surprisingly lived-in. A small room combined with a kitchen, a stove, a table, a couple of chairs, a couch with sagging springs - but everything was relatively clean, as if someone had tidied up recently. On the table stood a kerosene lamp; on a shelf - a few cans of food and a packet of salt. In the corner - a rusty washstand with a bucket. The outhouse was in the yard.

"Was your friend here?" asked Illuga, looking around.

"Debtor," Lohen corrected. "I helped him once. Seriously helped. Now it's his turn. He prepped the house, brought some supplies. He won't come here again. This place is ours for the next..." he pondered, "until we get bored."

"And if they find us?"

"They won't. There's not even cell service here. I checked. So relax."

Illuga took off his backpack, threw it on the couch, and sat down. His legs were buzzing, his head felt empty and resonant, like a bell. He looked around the room - old flowered wallpaper, yellowed with age, a photo of some strangers on the wall, a fly-spotted mirror above the washstand. And silence. A huge, all-consuming silence that, after the city noise, seemed almost deafening.

Lohen, meanwhile, was busily inspecting the house: opened the stove damper, checked the chimney, looked into the cellar, found firewood. He moved quickly, energetically, despite the pain in his ribs, and Illuga was once again amazed by his endurance. This person was made of some other dough - not the kind ordinary people were made of.

"We'll fire up the stove," said Lohen. "Nights are cold here. And we need to find water. There's a spring nearby; I'll show you tomorrow. Today - rest."

"You're wounded," Illuga reminded him. "You need rest yourself."

"I heal like a dog," Lohen waved him off and began lighting the stove.

Evening came quickly - the forest surrounding the house sank into a darkness that seemed almost tangible, thick as black velvet. Illuga sat at the table by the light of the kerosene lamp and watched Lohen fussing with the stove. The flames cast warm, living shadows on his face, and in this uncertain light, he looked almost... peaceful. Almost domestic. If not for the tattoos on his arms and the hard line of his lips, he could have been mistaken for an ordinary guy who came to the countryside to escape the city bustle.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Lohen, without turning around.

"That it's beautiful here," said Illuga. "Quiet. Calm. Like another world."

"This is another world. The world that existed before people ruined everything. Forest, silence, air. Without all those chemicals, without the hustle, without cops and dealers. Maybe we'll stay here. Forever."

"Are you serious?"

"Why not?" Lohen turned to him. "What holds us back there? You - a mother who's lost you. Me - creditors and enemies. Here, no one will find us. We'll live like hermits. Fire up the stove, pick mushrooms, catch fish in the stream. Romantic."

Illuga smiled weakly. He couldn't imagine Lohen picking mushrooms. Or himself, for that matter.

"But what about..." he fell silent, not knowing how to phrase the question.

"What 'what about'?"

"What about... everything? Without drugs, without alcohol, without all the things we lived on?"

Lohen was silent for a moment. Then he pulled a small flask from his jacket pocket and put it on the table.

"I have something with me," he said. "For the first while. And then - we'll see. Maybe we'll kick it. Here, in the fresh air, they say it's easier."

Illuga didn't believe it. But he didn't argue. He was too tired.

They had dinner with canned food, heated right in the can on the stove, washed it down with spring water (Lohen went to get it after all, despite Illuga's protests), and lay down on the couch - the only sleeping place in the house. It was narrow, sagging, with springs poking out, so they had to lie right up against each other to avoid falling on the floor. Illuga felt the warmth of Lohen's body, heard his breathing, and this closeness made him feel both calm and anxious.

"Sleep," whispered Lohen, hugging him across the chest. "Tomorrow will be a new day."

And Illuga fell asleep - for the first time in a long while, without nightmares.

?

The first week in the forest house passed almost idyllically. During the day, they walked around the area: Lohen showed Illuga the forest paths, taught him to distinguish mushrooms (and laughed when Illuga confused an edible one with a toadstool), told him about animal tracks in the damp earth. They found a spring with icy, crystal-clear water, set up a spot for a campfire, even built something like a bench out of a fallen tree. In the evenings, they sat by the stove, talked, or simply stayed silent, looking at the fire.

Illuga felt something inside him slowly coming back to life. A part of his soul that seemed hopelessly buried under layers of chemicals, alcohol, and fear. Here, in the forest, far from everything, he started thinking again - not about where to get a dose or how to please Lohen, but about simple, ordinary things. About how the pine needles smell after rain. About how beautifully the sun sets behind the treetops. About how life, it turns out, could have a different taste.

But Lohen was changing in the opposite direction.

At first, it was unnoticeable. He became more irritable, more often silent, less often smiled. Then he started sleeping worse - tossed and turned at night, ground his teeth, sometimes cried out in his sleep. Illuga would wake up, ask what was wrong, but Lohen would just wave him off: "It's fine, go back to sleep."

Then his appetite disappeared. Lohen, who used to be able to eat a whole can of food alone, now picked at his meal with a spoon and pushed it aside. He lost weight; his already sharp cheekbones became even sharper, and his eyes sank in. Illuga noticed how his hands shook when lighting a cigarette, how he constantly licked his dry lips, how he flinched at sudden sounds.

"Our supplies are running out," Lohen said one day. He stood at the table, sorting through empty cigarette packs. "Of what I had with me. I thought it would last longer. But... it didn't."

"Maybe it's for the best?" Illuga said cautiously. "Maybe we can try... to endure it?"

Lohen turned around sharply. Something dangerous, wild blazed in his eyes, making Illuga involuntarily recoil.

"Endure it?" Lohen repeated. "Do you even understand what withdrawal is? Have you ever been through it? No! Because I protected you! I didn't let you get as deep into it as I did! And now you're telling me to 'endure it'?"

"I was just..."

"What 'just'?" Lohen stepped toward him, and Illuga saw his pupils were dilated, despite the bright daylight. "You think it's like quitting smoking? Sweat it out for a couple of days - and that's it? No! It's hell! Your body starts eating itself! Your bones twist, your guts cramp, your head splits! You can't sleep, can't eat, can't lie down, sit, stand - can't do anything! You're ready to climb the walls to make it stop! And you're suggesting I 'endure' that?"

He grabbed a mug from the table and hurled it against the wall. The mug shattered to pieces. Illuga flinched but didn't move from the spot.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to make you angry. I just thought... that here, in the forest, maybe it's easier. Fresh air, peace..."

"Fresh air won't save you when you're in withdrawal," Lohen said, quieter now. He dropped onto a chair and covered his face with his hands. "I don't know what to do. I need to find a dose. But where? There's no town for a hundred kilometers around. Only villages where old people live. They don't have what I need."

"Maybe we should go back?"

"Go back?" Lohen lifted his head. "Why? So they can kill me? Or jail me? No thanks. I'd rather die here from withdrawal than there from a knife."

The next three days were the most terrible in Illuga's life. Lohen was in genuine withdrawal. He screamed, thrashed around the room, threw things, sobbed, begged Illuga to find anything - "just a drop, a crumb, anything." His body alternately burned with fire and shook with cold; he could neither eat nor drink nor sleep. Illuga tried to care for him - brought water, applied cold compresses, held his hand when Lohen felt he was dying.

"Don't leave," Lohen whispered in rare moments of calm. "Don't abandon me. I know I'm horrible. I know I'm torturing you. But don't leave."

"I'm here," Illuga answered. "I won't go anywhere."

He said this and almost believed it himself. But inside, everything trembled. Seeing Lohen like this - helpless, broken, stripped of all his armor - was unbearable. And at the same time, Illuga felt a strange, shameful relief. For the first time in their relationship, the roles had reversed. Now he was the strong one, and Lohen the weak one. Now he was caring, and Lohen was accepting care. This was new. This was scary. But it gave hope.

On the fourth day, Lohen felt a little better. The peak of withdrawal had passed. He lay on the couch, pale as a sheet, staring at the ceiling. Illuga sat beside him and held his hand.

"You could have left me," said Lohen. "At any moment. I wouldn't have even noticed."

"I couldn't."

"Why?"

"Because I love you. I told you already."

Lohen turned his head and looked at him. There were tears in his eyes - for the first time in all the time Illuga had known him.

"I don't deserve it," he whispered. "I don't deserve you."

"Maybe not," Illuga smiled. "But I have you. And you have me. And let's leave it at that for now."

"You know - it's already too late for us. You know - this is just how it has to be..."

Lohen closed his eyes and, it seemed, for the first time in days, fell asleep peacefully.

After the withdrawal subsided, life in the forest house entered a new phase. Lohen was weak but calm - for the first time in a long time. He stopped twitching, stopped screaming at night. He woke up late, ate little, but at least he started eating, and Illuga rejoiced at every spoonful of soup he managed to get into Lohen.

They talked a lot. About anything and nothing. About the stars, which here, far from the city lights, were visible more clearly than ever in their lives. About the books Illuga read in childhood. About music - Lohen, it turned out, loved old rock and could hum melodies for hours that Illuga had never heard before.

"Listen," Lohen said one day, as they sat by the campfire in the yard. The flames illuminated his face, making him look younger and softer. "Remember that song? About 'I broke the law, I fell for love'?"

"I remember," Illuga nodded.

"Back then, I thought - sappy chick crap. But now I hear it in my head - and I understand. It's about us. About how you can't leave. About how the doors are kept locked. About how pupils dilate and how every time is like the first."

"And about a synthetic paradise," Illuga added.

"Yeah. About paradise. Only now it's not synthetic. Now it's real. The forest, the fire, the silence. And you. That's better than any powder."

Illuga felt a lump rising to his throat. Lohen had never said such things. Never admitted that anything could be better than drugs. And now he was sitting here, by the fire, saying that Illuga was better.

"Do you really think that?" asked Illuga.

"I don't know how to lie," said Lohen. "I know how to deceive, manipulate, intimidate. But lie - no. Not to you."

He reached out and touched Illuga's cheek. His fingers were still cool, but the touch was warm. Tender. Loving.

Illuga closed his eyes and surrendered to this moment. A moment for which, probably, it was worth going through everything - through pain, fear, humiliation, through all the circles of hell he had descended into for Lohen.

At night, they made love - slowly, carefully, like never before. In their past life, their intimacy had been greedy, demanding, almost aggressive. Lohen took what he wanted, without asking, without interest in what Illuga felt. And Illuga gave, because he couldn't not give, because in this giving lay his strange, perverse power over Lohen - the power of being needed.

But now everything was different. Now Lohen touched him as if Illuga were something fragile, precious, something that could be broken with one careless movement. He whispered something in the darkness - words Illuga couldn't make out, but whose meaning he felt with his skin. And in response, Illuga pressed his whole body against him, hugged him by the shoulders, kissed the scars on his chest - every single one, each of which was a page in the book of Lohen's life, which Illuga was only just beginning to truly read.

"I want to stay here forever," whispered Illuga, when they lay, exhausted, in the darkness, and an owl hooted outside the window. "Just you and me. And the forest. And no one else."

"It's an escape," said Lohen. "From the world, from problems, from the past. But escape can't last forever. Sooner or later, we'll have to go back."

"Why? Why go back where they want to kill you?"

"That's where my life is. Such as it is, but it's mine. Here, I'm a nobody. A forest hermit without documents, without money, without a future."

"Here, you're the person I love."

Lohen said nothing. He just hugged Illuga tighter and buried his face in his hair. And in this silence, there were more answers than in all the words they could have said.