And where would I be?

Feeling lonely, separated from my one and only.

And what's there left to say?

Far as I can tell, that day could be on its way.

CHRISTMAS 1981

It's the first time Rick ever sees snow. Shane's seen it once, the time he and Mrs. Walsh visited his dad where he was stationed, but Shane's feeble description of it didn't begin to match how magical it really is. Rick sits on his heels in front of the wide window at his grandma's house as his mother points a camera at him. Jess sits behind him, giving his cheek a kiss that he's unable to flinch away from. Jess' glossy red hair falls over the side of his face and gets in his eyes, and whatever his mother is seeing has her laughing as they pose. Shane's momma is looking up and past them from where she stands helping with the dishes, and her eyes are dark as ever, even with her bright white sweater. She groans something about Shane, and Rick turns around to see his best friend standing in the window, snow glittering on the blue mittens Rick's momma made for him. Rick laughs, and his eyes are drawn to the scene behind Shane: the sprawling, dense field of fluffy-white, and the dormant trees that crawl like mountains into the sky behind it. Shane slips and falls face-first as he tries to run away, and Rick charges for the front yard so fast, he almost forgets to wear his coat.

APRIL 20, 1984

Shane doesn't seem to have much to do over where he lives. It's a quiet dinner at an empty dining room table with an empty kitchen sitting behind it. There are cereal boxes and stray cans of food that Rick spots when Mrs. Walsh opens the pantry, and the refrigerator has half of the amount of stuff Rick's has. The residence itself is small enough that Rick can see most of the apartment from where he sits. There are no lamps or decorations except for in Shane's room. Rick eats spaghetti from a bowl he recognizes from before they moved into the bigger house and got all-new things. There's an old TV in the dark living room, and Shane's new Atari sits vacantly next to it, unboxed, but unassembled. It's the one Shane opened up from Mrs. Walsh at Rick's house a day ago when he turned eleven. Mrs. Walsh closes the door to the patio with a box of cigarettes in her hand, and Rick sees her lean against the railing oddly, elbows on the metal, hands twisted in her hair, head down.

"Hey, Shane?" Rick says.

Shane shovels a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth, then talks, and Rick thinks to himself that Mrs. Walsh would put a stop to it if she weren't outside. "Mmph?"

"Wanna set up the new Atari?"

Shane shakes his head, wiping his mouth with a napkin, cupping his hand around a glass of tap-water because the chocolate milk was too old. "We can play video games at your place tomorrow."

Rick gestures toward the Atari nestled on the carpet. "Yeah, but this one's for you. "

Something in Shane's expression darkens, and Rick watches him put up a wall; sees him get that face he gets so rarely; the one when he's lying to him. Shane only ever lies about things that are important. "I'm tired."

"I can set it up if you —"

"I'm tired, Rick," Shane says, and Rick's startled by the volume in his voice; it's the loudest thing he's heard since the door closed behind them and Mrs. Walsh took his bag to Shane's room. "Let's just go to sleep after this, okay?"

Rick eyes Shane like a stranger would eye someone next in line at the grocery store. He remembers the Atari in its brand new box sitting in his parents' room just before his momma got to work wrapping it. He doesn't know how Mrs. Walsh's name ended up on the birthday present, but Rick knew it wasn't hers to give, and something about Rick's momma buying it for him made Rick that much more frustrated that Shane wasn't going to use it. "Shane," Rick says, "Momma told me not to tell you, but she bought it. My momma, not yours."

Shane lowers his fork, looking genuinely shocked. Something about his expression makes Rick suddenly feel sorry for him, and that's something Rick has never had to feel for his best friend. "Serious?" Shane's voice is quieter than it should be.

Rick nods, though the air has been sucked out of his lungs, and his chest doesn't puff. "Yeah. Saw it in their room 'fore she and Jess started wrappin' gifts. Momma wanted you to have it—"

The patio door softly squeals, and the lukewarm breeze of evening April air brings mosquitoes and the odor of cigarettes in with it. Rick sees Shane nearly jump out of his skin, and Mrs. Walsh eyes him briefly, critically, before looking up at Rick and letting her dark gaze soften. She walks toward the table with her lighter in hand, and Rick watches her heavy night robe drag behind her, blue and dense and three sizes too big. She wears her husband's clothes almost every day, Rick notices. "It's getting late, boys," she says, depositing her lighter in a bowl on the counter. She immediately starts spooning the leftover spaghetti into a Tupperware container, and that strikes Rick as strange; his momma always asks if they want seconds.

It isn't late at all. The sun is just about to set, but it can't be any later than eight. Rick's about to mention that, but Shane's already taking their bowls and setting their tableware into the sink basin. Rick looks back at the Atari, but Shane already has something to show him in his room, and Rick decides it's best to simply follow. Shane plays spades with him on his old bed, and they share an uncomfortable blanket between them on the full-size mattress. Rick doesn't mind — Shane's slept over in his bed dozens of times. What bothers him is that the bed is old and weak and lumpy. They don't get told goodnight at Shane's house. It's odd for Rick. Shane seems used to it.

APRIL 2, 1989

The streets are slick with lukewarm rain that twinkles steady on the ground, insistent, but not altogether forceful. It was the weatherman's promise of a springtime storm that earned them an early release from Boy Scouts. It's why Rick can spy the darkening clouds through his bedroom window; it's why they aren't with the troop, why Shane is in his room with him in the empty house, why they wait for the rain to pass by or for the rest of the family to come home from Jess' recital before Rick drives him home. Whichever comes last.

Rick's car rests on the empty, dark pavement as if in a commercial, glistening under the steady rain. A 1989 Honda Civic sedan, four-door, new, and prettier than any car Rick had ever seen, just because it was his. Plus, it was blue. That's what Rick couldn't shut up about when he walked into the snow to see it on the morning of his birthday. Stark, fierce, electric blue against the flurry of white that consumed them.

"It's more turquoise, don't you think?" Jess said, smiling madly behind the tail of her pink scarf.

"I don't see any green in that paint job, Jess," Shane pressed, ever the one to make a point when he thought it was worth mentioning.

Though she couldn't hold back a grin at Rick's affectionate treatment of the steering wheel, Jess stuck her tongue out at Shane like it was her job — even if the sting of the biting cold had to have been anything but soothing on the raw skin. "Well, it ain't royal blue, is what I'm tryna say."

"Still blue," Shane said, walking around to the back to marvel at the trunk while Rick stayed at the wheel, frozen with glee. "Blue like Rick's eyes. I ain't ever looked at Rick and thought, 'gee, what a beautiful turquoise pair he's got on him.'"

While Jess argued with him and Shane kept holding his own — 'cause the car really was blue — Rick found himself briefly distracted by Shane's implication that he'd ever looked at his eyes and thought they were even pretty, much less beautiful. Beautiful was too flowery a word for Shane, Rick was sure of it. But he'd said it.

Rick looks out of his bedroom window. It's too wet to go out; they're too tired to find something to do. As addressed in the car on the way back from Boy Scouts, both of them prefer sitting in silence to Rick taking Shane home any sooner than he has to. They've changed into loose gym shorts and shirts they don't have to button, Shane promising he'll bring them back to Rick's house washed, and Rick telling him he doesn't have to bring them back at all if he doesn't want to. It's how they ended up on Rick's blankets, in a room that became too small for Rick years and years ago. It's a companionable quiet. A quiet that nothing but a tired, rain-soggy day could hope to bring. Rick's so lost in it, so focused on tracing every last raindrop that falls, that it takes him far too long to notice that Shane's been watching him the way he's watching the rain.

"I always wondered about your blue eyes, man," Shane says. Instead of looking away when Rick catches him, he owns it; doesn't budge. There's hesitation in his smile, however. Rick attributes that to Shane feeling awkward in the quiet.

Rick cracks a smile, unwrapping his arms from around his knees and laying his forearms atop them instead, balancing his chin on them so he can look at Shane right. "What's so mysterious about my blue eyes?" Rick asks him, making sure to layer the words with a tone that's sufficiently mocking, just to poke at him.

"Blue eyes and brown hair," Shane says, his mouth splitting into a grin. He shifts his leg and it brushes Rick's own. It's another testament to how small his room is, but Rick is suddenly only aware of Shane's proximity to him. "I mean, how's that even happen? Like, genetically, you know."

"If you can't explain it, it's probably magic," says Rick with a shrug. He lets himself enjoy the roll of Shane's eyes.

"I forgot you think you're the shit," Shane says, his voice carrying on a chuckle. His eyes search him in a way that makes Rick feel vulnerable, different. It could be that it's quiet; could be that the rain's putting them in a mood. Rick's not expecting Shane to pull his eyes away, even if it is accompanied by a small smile. It isn't like him to back down.

"I don't think I'm the shit," he says in earnest, returning his eyes to the window. "It's different from the jokes."

Shane raises an eyebrow. "Different how?"

"Different because we joke like there's a competition. We always gotta be better than the other, always gotta compare ourselves, because it's funny. But really, Shane…" Rick trails off on something that would have been a sigh had he not felt Shane move closer to him. "I'm not on the football team like you. I haven't kissed anyone like you have. I—"

"You got a sweet ride," Shane says. He doesn't seem apologetic for cutting Rick off, so Rick doesn't mind it. "And it matches your eyes, too. Total chick magnet." He tilts his head to the side like he's telling him a secret. "If I got a car that matched my eyes, I tell you what: it'd look like literal shit."

That makes Rick laugh, harder than he thought he could today. "Your eyes don't look like shit," he says.

"You messin' with me?" Shane laughs, and he leans in closer, purposeful, widening his eyes like Rick's supposed to observe them. "You're lookin' into eyeballs the color of shit right now, and you're telling me lies right to my face."

"Well," Rick says, " Shit is a harsh word. I'd say they're more like soil. Brown. Healthy. Soil's got a good connotation."

Shane smirks less than four inches from his face, close enough that Rick can make out sunspots on his tawny skin. "Dirt ain't much better than shit, Rick. 'Sides, what do you country folk use to fertilize y'all's soil?"

"Oh, shut up ."

"What is it, Rick? You tell me, man." Shane looks him straight in the eyes with that Cheshire grin. He hasn't moved back yet; still sits close enough for Rick to feel the heat burning off of his skin, close enough for Rick to feel almost dizzy. "You gonna tell me, or you just want me to keep starin' into your baby blues?"

"In agriculture, you can use a lot of things," Rick tells him, and he can't keep a straight face at the emergence of the exasperated grin of amusement that crosses Shane's mouth, his face, his eyes. "You can use fruit waste, old lawn trimmings—"

"It's shit, man. They use shit and you know it." Shane's laugh brings out the best in Rick, tugging out a laugh he didn't know he had in him; a laugh that doesn't match how the rain has begun to pound outside like it's remembered the prophecy of the weatherman. Shane quakes on the tail end of his mirth, his eyes shut, and he rubs his head like he always does, fingers catching the curls as he leans on his elbow and breathes. It doesn't bring him any farther from Rick. Rick can still smell the Old Spice on him, the stuff Rick's momma got Shane for Christmas. "You always wanna be difficult with me, man," he says, but his smile tells Rick he doesn't mean it.

Rick doesn't know where it comes from — maybe it's the closeness of Shane's body, or the faint scent of his skin, or the way his canines are the first teeth he sees when he smiles at Rick the way he's smiling right now. "You know, man, I like your eyes."

Shane doesn't give him any time to regret it before he talks — he never does. "Oh do you? That strokes my ego."

"No, man, I do. I like them. They're nice. Brown and … soothing, almost."

Shane takes his gaze away from Rick's in that moment, and his teeth worry the skin on his lip, brows crinkling. When he looks at Rick again, he looks skeptical. "Soothing." Shane says the word just to repeat it, not even a question. Just to taste the sound.

"Yeah," Rick tells him, looking straight into his eyes. "They ain't even fully brown. Got some gold in there. Maybe even a little black. It's a lot of colors. More than just blue."

Shane's quiet for a while. Doesn't look at him, but doesn't move away, either; he just sits back a few inches, resting, stationary. Not sad, just silent, thoughtful, maybe. Settling back into that companionable silence, Rick thinks it's fair enough. The storm's picking up, and he watches his breath spread over the glass, watching see-through drops slither quickly behind the cloud of fog. There's soft thunder. It's far away, but the clouds are getting dark. Rain's getting angrier.

He feels Shane shift next to him. "Hey, Rick," Shane says, the same tone he uses to get his attention. Rick faces him, a word on his tongue, but his response is choked out of him when he turns into the feeling of Shane's palm sliding over his cheek and feels Shane's fingers gently grasp his hair like Rick might pull away. Rick halfway expects Shane to pull him in to tell him a secret, and he anticipates it for a moment. He imagines Shane's lips brushing the shell of his ear, his breath on the side of his face, a blooming warmth, a baritone sound to remember. It's all cast to the wind when Shane presses his mouth to his, a gentle sideways slant to their chins, his hand a guide, his lips leading the dance, and Rick's trying not to seem so paralyzed.

It's a breath on each other's lips, moist mouths, closed eyes, hot skin. The inch of separation between their mouths isn't enough for Rick to murmur his thoughts. As soon as there's air in their lungs, Shane's closing the distance again, and he won't let Rick breathe until he wants him to. Rick's putty beneath Shane's lead; he melts like mercury beneath his hands, lets himself be guided onto his back, Shane's body hot atop him, the blankets at his back as warm as smoke.

"The pastor's not gonna like this, Shane," Rick hears his own voice murmur, wrecked and honest. The sentiment couldn't feel any more futile than it does when Shane pulls back from his ravished mouth to look at him, his rosy image quieting the thoughts in Rick's mind in one measure. The light filters grey behind the dense web of rain clouds, and it makes Shane's skin a canvas for the gentle slide of raindrop shadows that streak down his flushed face through the window.

Something like fear ghosts Shane's features. "What do y'mean?"

"It's wrong," Rick says.

There's a crucifix in the entryway carved in snow-soft stone, grey and heavy with the limp and dying body of a god whom Rick was told weeps for him. There's a granite stone cuddled by the snow princess flowers near the front door: 'But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!' Rick pleads for the fabled furious lightning, a ripple of thunder, a shockwave in the clouds that coat the sky, but it never comes; like the answers to his every prayer, it never does. His fingers still clutch warm hair; his skin still flushes at the gentle huffs of Shane's breath over his face; the steady buzzing sound of rainfall washes over him like an ablution.

"Tell me to leave, Rick," says Shane. Dark brown eyes search his face, blown-out and thoughtful; more tender than Rick had thought him capable of. "If you don't want it, tell me to leave and I'll walk right back home."

"I don't know, Shane," Rick says, but he knows. He knows it maybe better than anything he's ever known in his whole life. He waits for Shane to read his mind like he always has; he lays patiently beneath Shane's body for his best friend to make the right decision for him, like ordering the ice cream he knows Rick wants before Rick's indecision ends up in a line out the door. Shane doesn't, for some reason. Maybe that's why Rick spotted the fear. "Shane, I just don't know."

Shane shakes his head, imperceptible, and Rick's fingers aren't gentle in his hair; he can feel the resistance making his skin ache. "That ain't good enough. I need you to know."

When it comes, the violent crack of lightning sends recoil through the walls and whuffs the electricity out of a light on the street; it brings a sudden haste to the shedding of the clouds, and like a curse, Rick can't hear the sounds of their breath over the thrashing rain anymore; in the silence of cacophony, he's left with only the vivid, frantic shadows sprinting on his friend's skin. He feels Shane's body endure a shockwave of surprise, but neither of them let go. It frightens Rick enough to make him bold. "Yeah," he blurts, not because the word makes any sense, but because it'll make sense to Shane.

Shane's eyes hood again; to Rick, it's the image of pure sin. "Yeah?"

Rick swallows tightly, nodding swiftly like he'll lose his voice; manages: "Yeah."

Shane produces a truly shameless sound, his hand heavy and warm and suddenly bruisingly tight on the back of his neck. Rick pulls Shane in so quickly, he fails to notice Shane already diving for his mouth, and there's a brief scrape of teeth before it's heat and security and the taste of the Coca-Cola Shane loves so much. Shane shifts and Rick moans urgently, startled, suffering goosebumps at the wanton groan spilled into his mouth. It's a white-hot lash of pleasure that turns his spine on itself; it's blinding stars he sees when Shane moves like that again and again; it's how his mouth moves on its own to the languid shape of moans and Shane's name, Rick's punishment for this transcendental sensation, because anything that feels good is sinful, and there are too many things that feel utterly perfect about this.

It's frantic grinding through loose boxers; stifled friction, and they're too sensitive, too urgently needy to spare the briefest instant to take them off. Rick's felt like this before; hard after a dream, baffled, repentant, confused because his memory was so foggy, it was only fingerprints of sensations: short, dark hair, a friendly voice, and the faint scent of Shane's laundry soap. He'd stopped before he could follow that trail too far – he thought he could feel phantom hellfire burn the hairs on his neck. There's no similar shame now, just nerves and heat and lust running circles in his stomach, and Shane's breath in his ear, spiked by desperate sounds and murmured words.

"You want this, don't you, Rick?" Shane breathes on a cracked voice, his composure hopelessly undermined by the sensation of it all. Shane looks so unused to it, so boyish and mindblown, but he's trying to will himself not to be so starstruck, Rick can tell. It's the unflinching quarterback voice Rick hears him use on the field, but it's vulnerable, and it's wrecked. Rick can't begin to fault him for that; he understands. God, does he ever.

He's surprised he allows his hand to sneak under the waistband of Shane's boxers and linger on his behind, the youth-soft skin of his palm on the bare, warm flesh and freely clutching without the other boy's permission. Rick's fingers — the ones clutching Shane, the ones gripping at curly black hair — dissolve into an unsteady tremble as Shane forces him to focus on his eyes. "I just want you," Rick tells him.

Shane looks caught between a groan and a question, and Rick can't kiss him quickly enough to stop him from choosing the latter. "How long has it been?"

Rick's paralyzed under the attention of his friend's gaze, that earnest brown distracting him from even the sheen of Shane's kiss-reddened mouth. When Shane slows to allow for an answer, Rick's desperate enough to tug Shane's hips closer with the hand on his behind, grinding up, savoring Shane's twitch, panting at the restrained moan Shane tries to swallow. Truthfully, it's been longer than Rick cares to tell Shane; longer than he wants to admit to even himself. Too long, because same-sex anything is a sin. Too long, because there's nothing Christian about admiring how Shane's football practice is bringing an appealing kind of curvature to the muscles in his arms. Too long of enjoying the feeling of Shane's hand pulling him up by the forearm when Rick needs a hand. Too long of feeling like there's something righter than right about Shane holding him up on his shoulders and gripping his thighs in place while they play volleyball in the pool with Jess and her boyfriend.

So Rick tells him, "Since Rose."

Rose, the brunette with the big boobs and the sweet disposition; the one who was always too gentle for Shane, Rick thought. He remembers the day Shane told him he'd kissed and touched Rose all over. Shane told him she had been his first kiss, his first touch, his first anything — but of course, Rick already knew that. Rick knew everything about Shane. Shane hadn't done it with her — Rick knew Rose was too shy for that — but Shane told him that when he kissed her, Rose said she'd felt something in her heart. Rick supposes it was only then that he'd begun to feel jealous listening to every detail.

No matter how flippant Shane tried to play it, Rick knew that Shane felt something deeper for Rose too, just from the way he talked about her. It was different than Shane's lusty musings over Playboy models. He was talking about how Rose had picked wildflowers and pressed them in wax paper for him as a bookmark; how her hair smelled like her namesake, and how he thought he actually liked it short like that no matter how much her so-called friends teased her over her pixie cut.

When Shane started pushing Rose away, Rick felt particularly disappointed in himself for deciding he wouldn't tell him not to. He saw it clear as day; saw that the only reason Shane pretended not to love her was that he was afraid of the feeling. Rick had the choice to tell him that, but he didn't. Shane was a little more solemn about girls ever since Rick let him make that mistake. Maybe at the time, Rick was relieved about that.

"Rose Jefferson?" Shane asks, grinning lopsidedly at him now. Because he still feels ashamed of it, Rick only nods; covers the flood of remorse with a laugh. It must be convincing, because Shane's got that glitter in his eyes that means he's about to tease him. "Been almost a whole year since Rose."

Rick laughs, genuine this time, and suddenly it feels less like he's groping a lover and more like he's fondling his best friend. It doesn't sit quite right with him just yet, but he doesn't move; it's too late. Besides, Shane's never let him back out of a good thing before, and Rick's only ever been better for it. "I just didn't think I could tell you, Shane. Not back then."

Shane's face turns goofy and he pitches a shoulder in a shrug that he can only briefly manage, being plastered to Rick like this. "See, I hate to be an asshole, but technically, you never did," he sing-songs, familiar confidence beginning to reclaim his voice. "This—" Shane says, moving his hand from his hip to Rick's hard member between them, "—I take full credit for this."

Rick moans louder than he should, canting his hips, twitching in his friend's warm grip even through the cover of shorts and boxers. "You don't shut up, maybe I'll change my mind."

Shane laughs, and even the furious storm can't temper how happy Rick is to hear the sound. "I could read you my whole shitty rhetorical essay I forgot to turn in, and you still wouldn't change your mind."

Shane's right — god, he's right — but if Rick's learned anything from him, it's how to bullshit. "You wanna try me?" He asks, and for how lost his mind is, it comes out sounding like an impressive threat.

Shane groans, moving back to clutching Rick's hip, this time hard enough for Rick to wonder if it'll leave a mark. Shane's voice is satisfyingly breathy and guttural above his mouth. "Not really."

It's clockwork, mouth on mouth and moans against moans, Shane grinding against him smooth with a total absence of restraint. It's Rick wanting to hear Shane's voice because he's learning Shane gets quiet when it starts to feel too good. It's Shane twitching and moving more reverently every time Rick pants his name. It's Shane murmuring something Rick can't decipher but nonetheless understands. It's Rick's hand on his face and his thumb on Shane's lips when he bucks up and he clutches Shane hard. It's Shane's moan at the sound Rick makes as he's sapped, stolen, frantic, wet, warm. It's the way Shane's final sound against his lips is almost like a muffled shout as he finds release against Rick's spent body.

Rick breathes out something even he can't understand, something that has Shane teasing him for the sound of his slurred voice. It's a long time as Shane lays boneless atop Rick, and Rick nearly groans in frustration when Shane moves off of him. "It's not safe for me to drive you home, you know that, right?" Rick asks him.

Rick's pressed deep into his own blanket snow-angel and content with staying — and most likely dying — there. He would be fine with that. He'd be okay. After he laid in his own contentment for days and eventually died of starvation that didn't even hurt, Shane would probably pick him up and set him in a coffin, bury him somewhere nice. Maybe he'd even go to the trouble of picking wildflowers for him like Rose did and tuck them around the edges of his body, dried reds and blues and a few blinding white bushettes of his momma's beloved snow princess.

"I ain't keen on sittin' in my own spunk, dipstick," Shane says, grinning at him over his shoulder. It's a thing that brings Rick right back down to Earth; right back out of the clouds of euphoria and to his best friend, this moment, the rain, the deep relief in his bones.

Rick watches him for a sober moment; just observes. He watches the glittering dark shadows of rain spill wildly over Shane's skin as he sheds his shorts and boxers and digs into Rick's drawer for fresh pairs of either. Shane seems to notice him watching him, but he doesn't say a word. He just smiles affectionately — maybe even turns red, if that's even possible anymore — while he buttons Rick's shorts over his waist. Rick sees him crouch for a moment. Shane's fingers dig for something in the pocket of his discarded shorts and produce a wallet.

Unable to keep the grin off his face, Shane tosses two ten-dollar bills onto Rick's bedside table with a wink. Shitty New York accent from a noir film they watched once: "I'm takin' a shower, toots. Don't spend it all in one place."

Rick disturbs the dried sweat on his forehead when he laughs, standing despite his sated muscles rebelling against him. He scoops Shane's discarded underwear off of the floor, and when he throws it at the center of Shane's retreating back, it earns him a glittering grin. He's witnessed it a million times: the origami crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the dimples in the center of his cheeks, the glow that Rick wouldn't expect from a pair of eyes as dark as Shane's. After sixteen years, it's just like any other given thing: the way home from school, the good station on the radio, his paw-paw's trick to tying his shoes just right, and every detail of Shane Walsh's smile.

But this time — and this spooks him just a little — he sees it differently.