Title: Poena

Author: Dingo

Summary: I offer grace, I offer blood. I offer everything till my heart is crystal clear. On the way I saw five hours of sleep but your fire makes it all worthwhile.

Note: Summary comes from AFI's 'Sacrifice Theory' and '6 to 8'.

It was hard, sometimes, to know exactly what his place was in Shane's life.

Back, earlier, in Years Before, he had been nearly everything. Confidant, best friend, ally, rival, spotter…he was always there, ready with a smile to be anything Shane wanted him to be.

Tori had come along, and she never knew just how hard it was to give up that tiny amount of Shane's time, and to give it to her. How painful it was to watch Shane and Tori, and know without a doubt that there was nothing between them that was not platonic, and still to feel so angry and jealous and frustrated because Shane had decided to talk to her, to make her anything more than a brief acquaintance.

He had spent so much time alone in his room, resolutely tearing up little bits of paper with their names written down so many different ways, Shane's last name becoming his and his becoming Shane's, and finding out exactly which way they should be hyphenated to sound best (he had decided that Shane's would go first, then his).

It had been nerve-wracking the first time he realised that his doodling had resulted in such things; he'd torn them up and then vacuumed for an hour, making sure all the tiny scraps of paper were taken up and wishing the very thought of he and Shane went with it. It had been many days, weeks, many months before he'd finally discovered there was an easier way to dispose of the paper; he dove into the Earth and scattered the pieces, making sure the places were well watered for easy decomposing.

It had only gotten worse as they grew up and found more people suddenly included themselves in their circle. He'd nearly punched Cam's lights out once for assisting Shane to stand as he'd fallen from one of his Air tricks, and he'd taken up throwing rocks at a brick wall when he realised Shane had a crush on one of the older girls in his Air-only class.

Hunter and Blake…as nice as he knew they were, they took parts of Shane away from him.

Hunter became Shane's number one rival – he could count the number of times he and Shane sparred after the Thunders returned on the fingers of his left elbow.

Blake…Blake was a strange mix of confidant and ally. He could count the number of times Shane and Blake disagreed the same way he could count his and Shane's spars. And regularly, whenever Blake and Shane were left alone, he'd walk in on sudden silences, the air whispering of secrets that they didn't want told.

It had gotten down to the fact that they were spending slivers of time together; time that had once been only parts of their days were becoming the only time they saw each other in weeks. It was worse when he woke up one morning and realised that the most in-depth thing they'd said to one another in the last week was 'Horrible weather, isn't it?'

He'd suddenly realised it wasn't him and Shane anymore.

It had suddenly dawned on him that he was deluding himself.

Shane had always been his friend, and while he'd been locking himself away and figuring out marriage names when same-sex marriage was non-existent, Shane had been growing up and making friends. Making relationships.

It hurt to know without a doubt that Shane had grown up, unaware of his feelings.

It hurt even worse to know Shane had grown up and away from him.

It hurt Dustin more than he could say.

That's why he wrote Shane a letter, explaining everything he'd every felt. Everything he'd ever thought, so selfishly and secretly, everything he'd ever dreamed, even the dream that made him wake in the middle of the night sweating and whispering Shane's name into the coldness of the dark.

And he burned it, watched it go up in flame, wishing that the painful jealousy would burn with it. Wishing that the flames, somehow, would cure him. But he didn't want to be cured. He wanted to be with Shane, wanted to be next to him for the rest of his life and beyond.

He wanted Shane.