
Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com
Copyright ©2007 by Laney Cairo
First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2009
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Thanks to Mel, for lending her Aussie Rules expertise. There actually are rules.
This is for my son, Vic.
Life's a one way street; you can't turn back and there's no reverse gear
Shane's breath rasped in his throat, his lungs felt like they were about to burst, and black blotches swum in front of his eyes. One of his team-mates---he couldn't tell who through the fog in his brain---slapped him on the back as they ran past.
"Last lap," the team mate called.
Last lap? Shane was supposed to be fit this early in the footy season, stripped back and injury free, and the cool-down jog around the oval at the end of a training session shouldn't hurt.
Which didn't explain why his knees felt like they were on fire.
Lindon, coaching assistant, team-runner and Shane's personal angel, loomed up out of the blur, grabbed at Shane's arm and hauled him off the track to a bench. A water bottle was thrust into Shane's hands, and Shane gulped down the cool, sweet liquid, pouring the contents of the bottle across his raw throat.
"You pulled up sore?" Lindon asked, his fingers probing through Shane's lycra hamstring-warming tights, digging into his quads knowledgeably. Lindon had fingers of steel from massaging Shane and his team-mates.
Lindon tapped Shane's knee and Shane lifted his leg, giving Lindon access to his hamstrings. There'd been a time when he'd resented the intrusive nature of being coached, but he knew now that the coaching staff owned him body and soul.
"Feel awful," Shane said.
His vision cleared enough to make out the figure of the head coach of the Hammers, Jerry Gordon, pounding across the grass toward them.
"Davis!" Gordon called. "Get up and run if you're planning on playing this week."
"Shane's quads have locked up," Lindon said, standing up. "I pulled him out of the cool down."
Gordon made a disbelieving noise, and Shane just wanted to hug Lindon for covering for him. "Looks like he's hungover to me," Gordon said. "Get him rehydrated."
Shane lifted his head to meet his coach's gaze, then struggled to his feet. "Thanks, boss," he said.
"You're damned lucky this training session isn't open to the public," Gordon said. "Last thing we need in the run up to the game against the Devils is the media filming you falling over at training because you were on the piss last night."
Shane nodded, blinking eyes that stung, not trusting his voice enough to try and reply.
Gordon's rumpled face softened and he said, "I know you work hard, Shane, and you're not like some of the kids in the squad who have to be fined for binge drinking mid-week. Stretch, get your arse into the shower, then I want you and Lindon in my office."
Shane nodded, and when Lindon gave the middle of his back a shove, Shane managed to jog over to the patch of grass where the rest of the squad were stretching hamstrings and hip flexors.
In the shower, his back turned to the rest of the squad in the locker room, Shane rested his forehead against the tiles and let the water stream down him. Thinking back, he'd drunk most of a bottle of chardonnay the night before, but that shouldn't have been enough to make him crook. There'd been lines on the table, but he hadn't done any...
It took effort to drag himself out of the shower, and he pulled sweats on over his damp skin, rather than deal with drying himself.
Budgie, shivering and naked after a post-training ice bath, sat on the bench in the locker room as Shane struggled with his shoes.
"Mate," Budgie said, and Shane lifted his head. "Denise wants to know if you and Madison want to come over to our place on Saturday night. She and Digger's missus are doing something for his two hundredth game."
"Sure," Shane said. "It won't be karaoke, will it?"
Budgie grimaced. "Probably," he admitted. "Still, gotta keep the sheilas happy."
"Gotta keep them happy," Shane agreed.
Budgie wandered off, heading toward the showers, and Shane propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his hands. There'd been a time, before Madison, when he'd rather have done an extra run than go to a karaoke evening, but things had changed. He could now pass informed comment on skirt length, lip gloss and heel height, and not in the context of a drag show.
He must have looked as gloomy as he felt because Lindon sat beside him on the bench and said, "Cheer up, it might never happen."
"It will," Shane said. "It always does."
The crease between Lindon's eyes deepened and he said, "If you want to talk, you can. I won't tell Gordon."
Shane shook his head. "Thanks for the offer, but there's nothing to talk about." Some things couldn't be changed, and there was no point in going back over old ground.
"Alright," Lindon said. "Let's go find out what Gordon wants."
Gordon pointed at the empty chairs in front of his desk and lowered his substantial bulk into his own. He was as tall as Shane, one hundred and ninety five centimetres, but whereas Shane was lean and strong, Gordon had gone to fat. He'd been a damned good ruck, twenty years before.
Shane was a ruckman, too, tall enough to contest when the umpire bounced the ball in the centre square at the beginning of quarters and after goals. He was fast enough to play on the ball, following the action up and down the oval, and strong enough to survive the mid-air collisions that were part of rucking.
None of that meant that Gordon wouldn't replace him with one of the rookie rucks if Shane was off his game.
"Is there something wrong?" Gordon asked Shane. "What's going on?"
Shane knew what the real query was. What was he taking recreationally? Drug testing was a joke in Australian Rules Football, and all the squad partied hard.
Shane shook his head. "I'm fine," he said. "Knees are sore, that's all."
Gordon nodded. "See the doc. You'd better be bright and bouncy for the match against the Devils on Saturday; I've got a board of management and a slew of corporate sponsors to answer to. And Lindon?"
Lindon, who had been sitting silently beside Shane, said, "Yes?"
"Give Davis some extra time on the table, and take him on a couple of long runs before the next training session. Get him fit enough to run twenty kilometres hard."
Shane tried not to groan at the thought.
The team doctor prodded Shane's knees, then his shoulders. "The pain is just from training," he said. "I can give you some decent analgesics, if the codeine isn't covering the knee pain. You'll need cruciate ligament repairs after the finals, and I'll write you up for some ultrasound on your knees, too."
Shane nodded. Time off for surgery early in the year would kill his season, so there wasn't much choice.
"Just watch the drug-testing," Dr. Teal added. "I'll let Gordon know to give you some notice if it's your turn, because the opiates in the analgesics will give you a false positive. When it's your turn, you'll just have to tough out a few days, until your system clears."
"What about urine replacement?" Shane asked. "I'd heard that was an option."
The doctor chuckled. "Guess it is, but I doubt you'd want to be catheterised and have someone else's urine pumped into your bladder unless it was an emergency."
"Apart from the knees, is there any reason I'm feeling off?" Shane asked.
Dr. Teal looked up from the desk drawer he was rummaging through. "Not that I can see," he said. "Ease up on the partying, that's all."
In the car park, Shane leaned against the wing of Lindon's car and looked through the bag of medication the team doctor had given him.
"What did you get?" Lindon asked, peering into the bag, too.
"Caffeine pills, stronger analgesics, muscle relaxants and dexies again," Shane said. "What do you think?"
Lindon shrugged. He wouldn't pass an opinion that countered the team doctor, and Shane knew it. "I'll swing past your place tomorrow morning, take you out for a run, so don't have a late night," Lindon said. "Five?"
Five in the morning was an ugly time, but Shane nodded. "Sure. See you then."
In his car, Shane twisted the top off the bottle of analgesics and took two of the white tablets, washing them down with electrolyte replacement fluid. He was going to go home and sleep, and hope like crazy it was just the flu and he'd feel better soon.
Dale slouched in the client chair in Frank's office and grimaced at his business partner.
Frank pulled a face back at him and pushed a glass of whisky across the desk.
"That's the Clover account covered," Frank said. "Another crazily wealthy customer who loves us."
Dale sipped the whisky and nodded. "Funny that," he said. "We set up trust funds, shuffle people's assets around, point them at some tasty real estate, and they adore us."
He and Frank ran a property investment business, brokering real estate deals, setting up tax shelters and supervising asset distribution, all at the big end of town. Frank was a corporate lawyer and the legal brains behind the partnership; Dale was an accountant, primarily in charge of charming and placating the clients. They got on remarkably well considering they'd briefly been lovers many years before.
Frank propped sock-clad feet on his desk, amongst the piles of printouts and contracts, and rocked back in his chair. "Going to the game on Saturday?" Frank asked.
Such a loaded question.
"Fuck you," Dale said, and he knew he sounded bitter.
He was bitter, no point in attempting to disguise it.
"Why don't you?" Frank asked. "You used to live for the footy, and it was your idea that we get into corporate sponsorship of the Hammers. 'Excellent exposure, and think of how great a corporate box will be,' you said."
Dale winced. When Frank mimicked him, it was never good.
"It has been great for business," Dale said. "Look at the new clients we've gained."
Frank smiled, but he didn't look amused. "Oh yes, all those tall, gorgeous football players in your office, wanting their hands held while they invest squillions. Not my office, I just have to do the damned trust paperwork."
Dale looked above Frank's head to where a glass case held a Hamilton Hammers team guernsey, signed by the previous year's team. The red and orange striped sweater with Dale and Frank's corporate logo on the shoulder was damned ugly, but there'd been a time when Dale had adored it.
"You go," Dale said. "I'm not interested."
Frank banged his fist down on his papers, making Dale jump and rattling their glasses. "It's been a year!" Frank said. "Exactly how long are planning on grieving for Shane?"
"Eleven months," Dale said. "It's only eleven months."
"Too damned long, considering the way he dumped you. Go to the bloody game, face your demons, then get on with your life."
Dale's stomach twisted at Frank's words. Shane had dumped him, he'd walked out, left Dale for some skinny girl. No reason at all for him not to go back to using their corporate box.
"I've missed the matches," Dale admitted. "And you're right, it's time to move on."
"Good lad," Frank said, lifting his whisky glass and toasting Dale. "You'll be out screwing strangers in bars in no time."
The glowing red light on your dashboard is a warning that you're in trouble.
As a corporate sponsor, Dale could have taken his car in and used the priority bay that went with the corporate box, but he found himself at the train station, red and orange scarf wrapped around his neck. The platform was crowded with Hammers' fans, jostling Dale. Someone had a trumpet with them, and was tootling at the other end of the platform, the crowd around them cheering in support.
Dale had missed that, missed the pre-game buzz when it felt like the world was full of opportunity and anything might happen that afternoon.
The sky overhead was clear, translucent blue, not a cloud in sight, and the early winter sun made him blink. Someone slapped him on the back and said, "They're gonna win today, today's the day."
Dale nodded and found himself smiling, the other fan's enthusiasm infectious.
Today was the day he got over Shane Davis, Hammer's ruck and star player, and the man Dale used to love.
"Go the Hammers," Dale said to the fan, and a low cheer went through the crowd as the train rattled around the bend in the track and slowed at the station. "Go the mighty Hammers."
In the clubroom before a match, Gordon was at his best, ranting at the players, spit flying from his mouth in his attempt to whip them up to the required level of adrenaline-powered rage to win the match. Forward line plays and defence patterns had been scribbled on the white boards, but it was too late for that, too late for strategy and planning. It was time for battle.
The finger moved from the half back line of hulking monsters to Shane and the other on-ballers. "Davis!" Gordon snarled. "You're starting on the paddock, Kingston's on the bench."
Shane nodded. He'd rotate around the paddock through the match, with either himself or Kingston responsible for the aerial work. Whoever was being relieved would either try and pick up some ball contact while another player rested, or grab a break on the interchange bench.
"You and Budgie will bracket Spider, you get up in the air, while Budgie tackles Spider."
Budgie nodded beside Shane. Spider was the ruckman for the Devils, and was a monster at two hundred centimetres and a hundred and five kilos, so it would take two of them in tandem to get control of the ball. Tackling Spider would involve Budgie getting his knees into Spider's kidneys, amongst other things.
"Baz, you rove the ball, grab it when Shane taps it to you, then run like fuck until the Devil's half back line take you out."
Baz, on Shane's other side, was only one hundred and eighty centimetres, but he was stupidly fast, with the emphasis on 'stupid'.
He didn't say anything, but Shane could hear him making vroomvroom noises under his breath.
Ineffable, that was a good word for Baz. Along with stupid.
Gordon's accusatory finger had moved on from the on-ballers to the wings. "You bastards, just pretend the Devil's wings are dinner and you're mad dogs."
"Mad dogs," one of the wings muttered around his mouth guard. "Righto, boss."
The wings were marathon runners with aggression issues.
Deano---star full forward, leading goal scorer that season for the entire league, Gordon's golden boy who could do no wrong---copped an empty water bottle to the side of his head from Gordon. "Wake up, Jeff!" Gordon shouted at him. "What you gonna do this game!"
"Fucking win!" Deano shouted back, spitting his mouth guard across the room.
"That's right!" Gordon said. "Get the ball, run up to the goal posts, and score goals!"
Deano had his own water bottles with his initials on the outside, and Shane didn't know what pharmaceuticals were in Deano's electrolyte replacement fluid, but they took twenty points off his IQ and made him play like an angel.
Assuming angels liked to run the entire length of the paddock, bouncing a ball in front of them and hurting people with their free hand.
Digger, full back and mountain of strength in defence, needed no instructions from Coach Gordon. He'd been playing league football for ten years, and looked like he'd been hewn from concrete with a chainsaw. Last time the Hammers had played the Devils, Digger had been so enraged by the Devils' full forward scoring goals that he'd pinned the hapless player against a goal post with his body and held the bloke there until the police had dragged him off.
Outside the clubroom, and muffled by the bulk of the stadium above, a siren wailed.
Gordon said, "Let's go spill some claret!" and the team roared and leapt to its collective feet.
Despite knees that already ached, Shane's spirits soared as two tonnes of elite athlete, kind of like a dinosaur with forty-four thumbs, stampeded out of the club room, intent upon winning.
Dale slid his club membership pass into the machine and the turnstile clicked open, letting him through into the teaming crowd that milled around at the stadium entrance. It was all coming back to him; the way kids ran around screaming with their faces painted red and orange, the ebullient adults in stupid team hats shouting out greetings to each other, the overwhelming smell of beer and pies. He'd missed more than just Shane in the past year, he'd missed the best fucking game in the world.
The crowd thinned as Dale climbed the flights of concrete stairs up the stadium, past the open terraces and beer-and-pie vendors, past the stall that sold scarves and banners.
The concrete gave way to carpet, and a security guard inspected Dale's corporate membership card before waving him past, out onto the stadium terrace that housed the corporate boxes.
Another security check, and a waiter held out a tray of drinks to Dale. Dale took two beers off the tray and pushed open the gate to the box he and Frank owned.
The padded plastic seats were all empty, so he'd beaten Frank to the game. Damn, he thought. Now he'd have to drink both of the beers himself.
The front seats gave a wonderful view across the oval; the bounce down circle in the centre, larger centre square for controlling opening play around it, the goal areas marked out by an arc, fifty metres from the two tall central goal posts, the shorter posts for minor scores beside them. Kids in team colours were playing demonstration mini-matches on the oval, while the terraces below Dale filled steadily, the dominant colours of the supporters red and orange, since it was a Hammers home match. Pockets of blue and red marked groups of Devils' supporters, who were braving the parochial Hammers' crowd.
For years, Dale had lived for Australian Rules Football and the national Australian Football League matches. Eighteen players a side, plus four on the interchange bench. Eighty minutes of high impact, full contact football, spectacular leaps to catch the ball, and bruising contests for possession of the ball. Based on many years watching the game and a couple of seasons playing at amateur level, Dale figured the use of 'rules' in the name was probably ironic.
The code really did have very few rules; no contact from the neck up, no tripping, and if a ball was kicked and travelled more than fifteen metres with no bounces at all, then the player catching had uncontested possession. It was a gladiatorial sport, one that made Dale's blood sing, and he had missed it unbearably.
Just as the gate to the box opened and Frank clambered down to sit beside Dale, the siren sounded, reverberating around the oval and stadiums, warning the match was about to start.
"Mate," Frank said, solid hand on Dale's shoulder, and Dale handed Frank the second beer he'd collected. They touched plastic cups and drank a long draught each, while the kiddies cleared off the oval, leaving it empty for a moment.
"Mate," Dale agreed, leaning forward over the balcony, watching the enthusiastic fan club members carrying out the huge banners and setting them up directly opposite the corporate boxes.
'Congratulations Digger! 200 Matches,' was written in orange and red tissue paper, on a banner three metres tall. 'Happy Birthday, Snaggy!' was on the Devils' banner, in lurid blue and red.
Digger, real name Ian Miner, played full back for the Hammers. He was getting on for a league player and wasn't as quick as he used to be, but he was rock solid in defence, never letting a ball past without making the opposition pay for it.
Martial music blared, the crowd roared, and the Devils came through their banner, accompanied by the obligatory kiddie mascots in team colours, but Dale didn't care. He had binoculars pressed against his face and was trying to locate Shane in the Hammers squad, milling out of their clubroom.
Then the orange and red banner tore as the Hammers squad burst through, Digger at the front, a little kid in team colours holding his hand proudly. The rest of the team ran behind him, beginning their pre-game posturing by tossing footies around.
There Shane was, taller than most of the players, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, tossing the ball back and forth with a player Dale didn't recognise, dodging the kid mascots as they were led off the oval.
Dale had seen plenty of photos of Shane over the past eleven months, in the newspapers, on cereal boxes and on billboards. He'd seen him being interviewed on the TV, but this was different. Shane was right there, no more than a hundred metres from Dale, looking amazing. Tall, athletic, all bone and muscle. As hot as ever in sleeveless guernsey over tiny shorts, flesh-coloured hamstring protectors peeking out below his shorts.
Dale's memory headed for treacherous ground, but Frank whacked him on the back, bringing Dale back to the present. "No moping," Frank shouted in Dale's ear, over the sound of the siren and the cheer of the crowd.
"Deal," Dale shouted back.
The team captains tossed a coin, and the Devils' captain pointed into the breeze, making sure his team would have the advantage of the prevailing wind in the final quarter.
The siren sounded, the centre umpire bounced the ball, sending it sailing up into the air, and the ruck and ruck rover from each team were up in the air, leaping impossibly high, arms swinging, fists curled. Shane got solid contact on the ball, his wrist rotated in a way that seemed almost magical but that gave him complete control over the ball, and he punched the ball out of the tangle of arms, directly to the Hammers' rover.
The rover grabbed the ball on the run, bolting out of the pack, dropping the ball onto his boot as the Devils' defence threw themselves at him, kicking it forward, inside the fifty metre goal line.
The Hammers' full forward soared into the air, hair flying, knees planted on one of the Devils' half back's shoulders so he towered three metres over the ground, and snatched the ball out of the air.
The umpire whistled, calling possession, as the full forward and half back hit the ground in a bruising welter of limbs and mud.
The full forward took a moment, shaking his head and breathing hard, to get back to his feet.
He walked back ten paces, turned around, then began his loping run up, dropping the heavy ball onto the top of his boot perfectly, right at the peak of his stride. With the ball lined up to the boot, power was transferred from the full forward's momentum, and from his massive thigh and calf muscles, exploding out of his body into the ball. The ball flew up, higher and higher, angling across toward the goal posts, tumbling perfectly through the two tallest posts for a six point goal.
The crowd erupted, Dale and Frank leapt to their feet, screaming too, and the ball spun into the crowd in the stadium behind the goal posts.
The goal umpire, dressed in fluoro green to stop the players from hurting him accidentally, stuck both hands out, index fingers extended, then dashed to the goal post and grabbed the white flags. He gesticulated with the flags, an extravagant flourish designed to be clearly visible down the entire one hundred and sixty-one metres of the oval.
Seventeen seconds of play, one tap, two possessions, an airborne tackle and mark, and a goal. Six points on the score board for the Hammers, the game clock frozen for fifteen seconds as the teams regrouped. The goal umpire retrieved the ball from the crowd and kicked it half the length of the oval. Then the rucks and rovers were in the centre circle, ready for the next bounce down.
Four quarters of twenty minutes each. Aussie Rules was impossibly fast paced and demanding for the players, brutal and hard, played without body armour, but right then Dale's pulse was pounding as adrenaline poured into his system, and it was the best bloody game in the world.
Second quarter, and the Hammers were kicking into the breeze. Kingston was rucking, dealing with contesting the bounce downs and throw ins. Coach Gordon had sent Shane to the wing, replacing Ant, who'd split his forehead on the Devils' centre half forward and was being sewn up again.
All of the sudden, the extra training runs were looking like a good thing. The Devils' winger, a rabid little man Shane didn't know, was lunging randomly at Shane, tagging him. At the next assault Shane swung his elbow, connecting with the winger's ribs solidly.
In the Devils' goal square, the ball went up in the air high, and Shane sighted for the Hammers' winger on the other side of the paddock.
His opposite number pointed back, toward the Hammers' goal, then took off toward the action, so Shane bumped against the winger hard with his shoulder, knocking the smaller man off-balance, and bolted in the direction he'd been told to go. The Devils' winger was right behind him when Shane craned his head over his shoulder to check for the passage of the ball.
The crowd roared, an umpire shouted, "Play on," and the ball soared up in the air, travelling fast down the paddock. It was a gorgeous kick, travelling seventy metres, a true torpedo punt, spiralling through the air in a graceful arc. Only Digger kicked like that. Shane dodged around one of the lumbering Devils' defenders, twisting around, losing the winger, so he was running back toward the ball.
Someone grabbed Shane's guernsey, but he struck at the player's arm, escaping their grip.
He was completely out of breath, running on lactic acid, his ribs heaving and thighs burning, so it was pure adrenaline that powered his leg muscles, sending him leaping into the air to meet the flight of the ball as it descended.
Someone tackled him, but he got some anchorage on their thigh, pushing himself higher, over the heads of the other players converging on him.
The ball smacked into his outstretched hands, at the top of his flight, and he hung on tight, falling hard.
Shane had read something dreadfully pretentious once that took the idea that nothing was as quiet as a telephone that wasn't ringing and applied it to footballers, claiming there was no stillness as great as a footballer at repose.
Lying facedown in the mud, crushed by several other players, too winded to draw breath, with the ball trapped underneath him, Shane did not feel reposed. What he felt was agonising pain.
Umpires' whistles blew, the weight was lifted from his back and he was rolled over roughly. The umpire peered down at him, took the ball off him, then whistled, signalling the free kick Shane had earned with that aerial mark. Deano retrieved the ball from the umpire's hands, and Shane watched Deano's feet pound past as he took the free kick in Shane's place.
Shane mentally counted the seconds---one, two, three---that it took the ball to cover the fifty metres to goal, then the crowd roared as Deano converted the free kick to a goal.
One of the Hammers' runners, dressed in fluoro yellow, knelt down beside Shane, one hand on Shane's diaphragm to check he was still breathing.
The runner's hand moved to Shane's arm, where it felt like it had been wrenched off, and Shane had to bite his mouth guard to stop from whimpering.
"C'mon, Davis," the runner said, then Lindon's face appeared over the runner's shoulder.
"Need the cart?" Lindon asked.
The cart was a modified golf cart, fitted with a stretcher, for removing incapacitated players from the paddock, but the code of honour of the club required that it was only used for fractures, complete unconsciousness and spinal injuries.
Shane spat his mouth guard out and shook his head. "No way," he said.
The runner and Lindon grabbed Shane around his chest, with handfuls of his guernsey, and Shane stuck the arm that would work into the mud and forced himself up, the other arm hanging uselessly. He knew that TV cameras would be trained on him, recording his every move, so he shook the runner's hand off his back, gripped his injured arm against his chest, and managed a trot across the paddock, Lindon's hand securely latched on the back of his shorts, holding him up.
The jog to the club bunker, directly ahead, seemed further than any of Lindon and Gordon's crazed endurance training runs ever had.
Inside, out of sight of the TV cameras, Shane stumbled against a bench and almost fell onto it, waves of darkness breaking over him. Someone cut his guernsey off, and hands held him steady.
"Wrenched shoulder," one of the match medics said. "Shane!"
Shane forced his eyes open.
"Here," he said, blinking at the bright lights and the faces peering at him.
"Want to go to hospital to have your sub-luxed shoulder put back in? Or do you want me to do it here?"
Hospital ... anaesthetic...
Something jabbed in his uninjured shoulder, and bliss spread through his veins.
"Gotta play," Shane said.
"Righto," the medic said. "Someone grab Shane's other arm, and give the man a mouthguard to bite on."
Plastic was shoved into Shane's mouth, hands gripped him, and the medic grunted and wrenched.
The stretched skin and ligaments in the injured shoulder let go as the top of Shane's humerus slipped smoothly back into the shoulder socket, and Shane almost wet himself as shock rattled his bones.
Another needle, guided by the medic's fingers, slid into his shoulder joint, and he yelled around the mouth guard as something burned into him.
"Strap it and ice it hard," the medic said. "He's out for the rest of the game."
Lindon wound wide adhesive tape around Shane's shoulder, then around his torso, stabilising the joint. "Just think," he joked. "Rugby players think they're tough because they have to use tape to hold their ears on through a game. Aussie Rules players have to tape their arms on."
The ice cocoon went over the tape, and someone draped a team jacket over Shane's shoulders.
"Back to the bench," Lindon said. "Let's go show the huddled masses you're not seriously hurt."
Shane nodded, the world feeling a long way away.
Frank pushed another beer into Dale's hands. "Here you go," he said. "Shane's back on the bench, you can stop panicking about him now."
Dale nodded, dragging his gaze away from the Hammers' interchange bench, where Shane was hunched over, looking pale. He'd watch the game, not fret about Shane.
It had been like that when he and Shane had been lovers. Each match injury, each torn tendon and corked thigh, had been painful to watch, though never as painful as they were for Shane to sustain. Each time Shane had shrugged, his eyes twinkling. "All I've ever wanted to do is play footy," he'd said. "People love watching footy, I love playing it. What does it matter if I get a few bruises?"
The beer slid down Dale's throat, and down on the oval, the match umpires waded into a particularly messy tackle, whistles tooting over the top of the crowd's roars.
Frank pushed newspapers off Dale's couch and slumped down on it. Dale kicked a pile of clean clothes off the armchair and sat down too.
"To the Hammers," Frank said, lifting his glass. "Go the Hammers."
"The Hammers," Dale said, lifting his glass, slopping the whisky a little.
The late afternoon sunlight filtered weakly through the open French doors to the deck, the ocean murmuring in the distance, and Frank sighed contentedly.
"I do like your house," Frank said. "Be even better once you get around to unpacking."
Dale picked a pair of balled up socks off the coffee table and tossed them at Frank. "If I unpack, I have to put everything on the shelves, after I've put shelves up. Then I have to dust everything. It's better like this."
"Loser," Frank said. "You're letting the rest of the gay community down. We're supposed to have fabulous taste."
"Do I look worried?" Dale said. "Besides, if I unpacked, I'd just have to pack it all back up when I moved again."
"You could stay in one place," Frank said, then he removed the underwear Dale tossed at him from his chest.
"You know I had to move this time," Dale said.
"Dreadful break-up, blah blah," Frank said. "Bad memories. You're such a fragile thing."
Dale poked his tongue out at Frank. "I can always count on you for sympathy."
"Three months, that's all you get from me," Frank said. "After that, it's tough love."
Dale couldn't help but smile at Frank. For all Frank's gruff words, he'd been incredibly patient with Dale in the aftermath of Shane leaving.
"That's better," Frank said. "You didn't look like a man whose team had thrashed the Devils and secured a position in the top four on the ladder."
Dale grinned. He was mellow from the beer and the afternoon shouting himself hoarse, the Hammers had won, and he'd survived seeing Shane in the flesh for the first time.
"Life's sweet," Dale said. "I'm ready to get rid of that damned apartment."
"I'm not helping you clear it out," Frank said. "I don't love you that much."
Madison, wearing full make up, painted-on jeans, and a floaty blouse that showed the bones where her cleavage should be, slid behind the steering wheel of Shane's car.
"Sure you want to go out, babe?" she asked.
Shane, having got the seat belt done up one-handed, nodded and then regretted moving his shoulder at all.
"It'll be fun," he lied. "And I owe it to Digger and the team." That bit was true.
While Shane was a professional footballer, he still appreciated that there was magic to be found in elusive team spirit, and sometimes that magic was all that got the team over the line for a win.
Madison patted Shane's knee through his jeans, her hand tiny against the bulk of his thigh.
"Got your analgesics?" she asked, starting the car.
Shane touched the pocket of his shirt, feeling the vial of pills rattle.
"Can I have one? And if you want to fuck tonight, I'll get on top," Madison said. "You know, later."
Madison was busy backing out of the parking bay and through the garage, so all Shane had to do to hide his face was look out of the passenger window.
"I'm pretty sore, hon," he said. "Not sure if I'll be up to it."
The look from Madison was pure poison when Shane glanced across at her.
"Do you know how long it is since we've had sex?" she asked. "Do you even care?"
"Don't," Shane said. "I'm hurting here."
His shoulder was mottled purple, his arm strapped in a sling. Lindon had plastered another ice cocoon over Shane's shoulder before he'd left the clubroom, and he had an appointment for the following morning at the club rooms. Gordon had lined up some sports shoulder injury specialist to review Shane's shoulder then.
It hurt, but so did Shane's knees, thighs and back. Just another match injury.
Budgie and Denise lived in a three storey monstrosity of a house, over-looking the river, with a spa and a lap pool. Thanks to his ex, Dale, Shane understood exactly how badly Budgie had over-borrowed, exposing himself unnecessarily to interest rate changes.
Shane, on the other hand, had a solid portfolio, spread across real estate and resource stocks, with a small debt load and minimal risk from changes in his income or the market.
For a kid from the country who couldn't do anything except play footy, he was doing alright.
The long, sweeping flight of stairs to Budgie's front door was difficult, and Madison stomped ahead of him, her stiletto heels hanging over the edge of each step. She couldn't have helped him up the stairs anyway; the reality was that she was so thin and light that she wouldn't have provided anything except moral support.
Far too many stairs, plenty of time to consider the fate of players who had retired with injuries. This was what Shane's middle age would look like.
He was going to be living somewhere without steps.
Digger's wife, heavily pregnant with her fourth child, was waiting at the top of the stairs, ready to relieve Madison of the car keys.
"Come on through," she said. "We're all out the back on the patio. Taxi vouchers are on the table beside the front door."
Club policy, after the spate of player drunk driving convictions the year before had caused a public relations disaster. Much cheaper to taxi everyone everywhere.
The drunker his team-mates became, the more depressed Shane was. He leaned over the edge of the balcony, looking down at the river, reflected lights rippling across its dark surface.
Inside, somewhere, Madison was off her face on Shane's painkillers, and he could hear her shrieks of laughter over the sound of the dance music pounding through the house.
He was sober, having used his mangled shoulder as an excuse to avoid the beer swill, and he regretted it right then. If he was wasted, he might not feel so bleak.
From his vantage point on the interchange bench, Shane was sure he'd seen Dale in his corporate box. Frank was always there, every home game, and the dark-haired figure beside Frank could only have been Dale.
What did it mean, if Dale had come back to watching matches? Had he forgiven Shane? Forgotten him?
The idea that Dale might be over the break-up, and moving on with his life, hurt Shane physically. He couldn't afford to hang onto the memory of Dale or he'd go mad with regret. Letting go and moving on had failed, too.
His hand went to his throat, where the heavy silver choker Dale had given him still pressed against his skin.
Budgie, reeking of bourbon, slung an arm over Shane's shoulders, making Shane wince and rub at his face hurriedly.
"Oops," Budgie said. "Sorry, mate. You right?"
Shane looked at Budgie's face, where the scar from the kick to the face he'd received the year before interrupted his smile.
"Can I ask you something?" Shane said.
"Sure," Budgie said. "Long as it's not too technical."
"Between games, how do you feel?"
"Feel?" Budgie asked, his face creasing as he grappled with what was obviously a new idea. "You don't mean just sore and tired, do you?"
Shane shook his head.
"Dunno," Budgie said. "I love Denise and stuff, but mostly I just can't wait to play again."
"What about when you can't play?" Shane asked.
Budgie's features rearranged into a sympathetic grimace. "If you're worried about missing matches because of your shoulder, you shouldn't be. Gordon won't drag you down to the reserves or anything, just because you're hurt."
"I'm just dreading having to get through those weeks off," Shane said.
Budgie punched Shane gently on the arm, luckily on the uninjured side. "You got Madison," he said. "She'll look after you."
"Guess I'll go find her," Shane said.
"Good idea," Budgie said. "You should marry her."
Madison was bouncing off the walls in the entertainment room downstairs, eyes closed, karaoke microphone held to her mouth as she warbled through a Madonna track, so Shane went in search of Denise, who was in the kitchen, stuffing used paper plates into a garbage bag.
"My shoulder's killing me," Shane said, and it wasn't a lie. "So I'm going to head off. Can you let Madison know I've gone?"
"Sure, babe," Denise said, tying the bag off. "Just let me write that down."
Shane watched Denise scribble a note to Madison on the kitchen whiteboard. 'Shane's tired, going home,' she wrote.
"Thanks, Denise," Shane said. "Budgie is lucky to have you."
Down the steps, carefully, and out into the deserted suburb, the noise of the party fading behind him. He'd flag down a taxi on the main road, well away from the party. Shane had taken a taxi voucher, just for appearance's sake, but he didn't intend to use it. He only ever paid cash for taxis to where he was heading, and always got out of the taxi a block away.
He'd go home early in the morning, before Madison roused from her hangover, and shower and change, ready for the doctor's appointment, but until then he needed to be alone.
Life's a one way street, and if you take the wrong turning, you're lost.
Full of resolutions of virtuous tidiness, a week after he'd decided to sell the apartment, Dale parked his car in a visitor's bay at the apartment block. The apartment had a garage, but Dale's frantic searching through the mess in his office had only revealed the door key, not the key to open the garage.
Wouldn't kill him to lug the boxes to the car.
He'd swapped cars with Frank for the weekend, since Frank drove a beast of a wagon which would hopefully hold all the boxes of mess from the apartment.
Dale hated all apartments in general, thought they were god-forsaken hell-holes that crushed the spirit out of the occupants. He hated this one in particular, as a symbol of how wrong he'd been about Shane.
The power was still on, the utilities were all paid, but his memory said he'd left the place in a mess after the last argument with Shane.
This was supposed to have been their hideaway, an anonymous apartment in an anonymous block, private and discreet. This was supposed to have been their compromise with the rest of the world: they'd stay off the radar, protect Shane's career, keep it quiet; and the world would leave them alone.
Dale was in a vile mood.
The key still worked on the lobby door, and on the door to the walkway. No elevators. That would imply security and cameras and all the other things they'd wanted to avoid, but the apartment was only up one flight of stairs.
His key fitted into the lock and it turned easily, and Dale pushed the door open.
The apartment was in darkness, it was dusk outside and all the blinds and drapes were closed, so Dale flicked on the kitchen light, and the living room one, too.
Dale had expected more dust, and the air didn't smell too bad, just kind of stale, but he had always tried to take the garbage out when he left, after the first time.
He sat on the couch, leaned back and closed his eyes. It still hurt, far more than it should, despite all his brave words to Frank.
Morose introspection sucked, so he made himself open his eyes again.
He folded together one of the flattened boxes he'd carried up from the car and began to pack. Books from the coffee table went into the box, and the newspapers went into a pile, to be hauled out to the rubbish. Magazines were rubbish, coffee mugs with their own desiccated biosphere in the bottom were, too. He didn't want to keep anything.
Debris cluttered the bookshelves; notepads, books, CDs, and journals filled with Dale's scrawl.
He opened a journal at random, out of curiosity. He hadn't written a word since Shane had left, but there'd been a time when he'd wanted to record every moment. Even then, he must have subconsciously known Shane wouldn't stay.
He'd been so in love then, and the fragments of poetry brought it all back. No one had ever seen these words except himself and Shane. Some things were too important to share.
In the bathroom, as he dried his hands, Dale realised he didn't recognize the towel he was using. Other things were wrong, too; toothpaste and brush on the sink, a different razor, tell tale white powder traces on the laminated surface.
It was one thing to know that Shane still had a key, but something entirely different to think that he'd been back to the apartment, presumably more than once.
Curiosity made Dale open the door to the bedroom. The bed was unmade, clothes were dropped on the floor, pill bottles beside the bed. He sat on the bed and found himself reaching out to touch the rumpled sheets with a disbelieving hand. Shane, with his pretty life and his painful choices, had slept there.
Dale had no way of knowing what had driven Shane back to the apartment, what had gone wrong in his life to make him come back, and if Dale was honest then he liked the idea that Shane still used the place as a bolt hole.
He found vodka in the freezer, but no whisky in the bottle that was stuck to the shelf by dust and old liquor, so he rinsed one of the abandoned tumblers that were in the sink and poured himself half a glass of vodka. He needed a drink desperately.
The vodka made his eyes water, and tasted vile, but he turned off the lights and took the second tumbler of it back to the bedroom. It was his apartment, his bed. Sure, he'd bought the bed specifically for sex---solid construction, just the right height---but that didn't mean he couldn't lie down on it once the vodka hit him.
He added his jacket to the mess on the floor, bunched up one of the pillows and buried his face in it.
The walkway light was blown, but that was one of the things Shane liked about the place. No one had ever glanced at him, never mind spoken to him, in all the times he'd stumbled to the flat.
He let himself in with his key, the one that Madison thought was for his mother's house.
He ignored the kitchen light, and the hall, too, and flicked on the bathroom light. He needed a shower, he could smell the stale sweat on his skin, and he would feel a little less sick if he showered. Hot water might even ease the pain in his shoulder.
The team had lost its away match with the Golds in Brisbane that afternoon. The Hammers had been pulverised, by a seventy point margin, while Shane watched helplessly on the TV.
Shane stood under the scalding shower, the water pounding his aching shoulder. Somewhere, on the other side of the country, the team would be in a hotel function room getting trashed under the watchful eye of Gordon, Lindon, and the other assistant coaches. There'd be no post-loss nightclub excursions and fights for the team, not after the arrests of last year; just massive hangovers and then the flight home to a recovery training session and a bollocking from Gordon the next morning, which Shane would have to attend.
Until then, Shane was hiding from everyone, including himself.
It wasn't until he pushed the bedroom door open and the light from the hallway spilled into the room that Shane realised he wasn't actually alone.
Dale was struggling out from under the covers, bleary and rumpled and dazed, and Shane thought long and hard about throwing up.
"Shane?" Dale said, blinking and rubbing at his eyes.
"Oh fuck," Shane said. "I'm so sorry; I'll get dressed and go."
His clothes were on the bathroom floor, and Shane tossed the towel that had been around his waist into the sink and grabbed for his jeans, dragging them on over damp skin. He could see Dale in the fogged-up mirror. Without turning around, Shane reached for his shirt and said, "I'll give you back the key, I'm so sorry, I had no idea you still came here."
"Don't apologise," Dale said, and he sounded exhausted. "This is the first time I've been back."
Shane went to squeeze past Dale, his shirt only half-buttoned, and Dale put an arm across the doorway, blocking it. "Why do you come here?" he asked.
If someone ever asked Shane what his idea of hell was, he'd know the answer.
"Please," Shane said, and he pushed Dale's arm aside and barged past.
He needed to get his medication from the bedroom. That was the only thing he really couldn't leave behind. Anything else that was here wasn't essential, not even his stash.
But of course, this was Dale, and a simple break for freedom was just not going to happen. The bedroom door slammed hard, making Shane jump from where he was crouching over the bedside table, scooping up vials.
He dropped the pill bottles, scattering them across the floor so some of them rolled under the bed, and Dale's hand clamped on his sore shoulder and hauled him upright.
"Tell me!" Dale said, and Shane's hands shook.
He couldn't make himself look at Dale's face, focussing instead on the buttons of Dale's rumpled shirt.
"Please don't do this," Shane said. "Just let me leave."
Dale had never struck him, but Shane had seen him in enough rages to know he had a vicious temper. Perhaps he had mellowed over the previous year because this time his hand just dropped from Shane's shoulder and he sat down on the bed heavily.
Shane knew that the moisture on his face wasn't only from his dripping wet hair, but if he could just keep moving, he'd be able to get out of there anyway.
"I feel like you owe me an explanation," Dale said, as Shane knelt down again and scrabbled through the clothes on the floor, looking for his muscle relaxants and sleeping pills.
Shane paused, sleeping pills in his hand, and looked up at Dale.
Dale looked bereft.
"You're right," Shane said quietly, and he sat down where he was, abandoning the sleeping pills and pressing the heels of hands against his eyes to try and stem the flow of tears.
Dale leaned forward and touched Shane's hands gently, guiding them away from his face, and his eyes were watery-blue when Shane dared to meet them.
"Tell me," Dale said, and regret bit at Shane's heart.
It hurt so much, felt like someone was tearing his chest apart, hurt far too much to feel ashamed about crawling over pill bottles and shoes to bury his face against Dale's jean-clad knee and sob.
Dale's fingers stroked the hair that clung wetly to Shane's neck, gentle touch. He smelled of sleep and sweat, and it was so fucking easy to crawl the last little distance into his lap.
Shane's shoulder hurt, slicing pain that shot down his arm, but that was nothing compared to the sheer relief of being held by Dale after so long.
Ten minutes later, Shane wiped his face on the sheet, slumped back against the side of the bed and said, "How embarrassing was that?"
His voice wasn't steady, it wobbled and he sounded like shit. He kept his eyes tightly shut, and Dale's fingers stroked at the creases on Shane's forehead.
"Right up there with the time you threw up in my mum's garden, I'd think," Dale said. "Is there any coffee in this place still?"
"Yeah," Shane said. The bed beside him creaked and the butterfly touch of Dale's fingers stopped.
Shane waited until he heard the tap in the kitchen run and the kettle clatter before braving opening his eyes. Ten minutes ago he'd been desperate to escape, but now it was all he could do to drag his body onto the bed so he could stretch his spine out and try and ease the muscle spasm.
He stayed like that until Dale appeared in the doorway again, holding two mugs of coffee. "I was going to put these in the living room, but you don't look like you can move," he said.
Shane nodded carefully, so as not to jolt his neck and shoulder.
The coffee smelled good when Dale put the mugs on the bedside table and squatted down beside the bed. "Is this what's been going on?" he asked.
"Some of it," Shane admitted. "My body's fucked, completely fucked. My whole life is fucked."
"Got a habit?" Dale asked.
"Depends," Shane admitted, eyes fixed on the cobwebby ceiling. "Do prescription meds count?"
"Depends," Dale echoed. "But they probably do."
"I've gotta have a long break after the season is over."
"Doesn't explain why you're here," Dale said, and he brushed one knuckle over Shane's cheek.
"I come here when I can't stand being anywhere else," Shane said, and the chest pain started up again, only he knew it wasn't physical. "When I feel like this."
"You don't need to give me back the key," Dale said. "I won't come here again, or sell the place."
Shane made a gulping noise involuntarily and his vision blurred. "Oh fuck," he whispered.
"Why don't you take whatever it is you need to?" Dale said. "And go to sleep?"
The clock said it was quarter past three in the morning in numbers that glowed accusingly in the dark room, and Shane felt himself beginning to succumb to the gentle seduction of the chemicals in his blood stream. Muscle relaxants, opiates, sedatives, all of them taking the edge off reality enough for his brain to shut down.
Dale hadn't left, and the light from the living room shone under the closed door.
Dying looked tempting, but the thought of the mess he'd leave behind stopped Shane from reaching for the pill bottles.
He would go to sleep and hope that the next day wasn't as bad. Maybe, if he slept long enough, Dale would go away and he wouldn't have to face the man ever again.
Life's a one way street, and if you drive too close to the kerb, you scrape the paint off parked cars.
A few hours before, Dale had been in a vile mood. He probably wasn't quite as bitter now, but how he actually felt was on the long list of things he didn't want to think about. Drinking himself into oblivion was his first impulse, once Shane had gone to sleep, but he'd lose the moral high ground if he did that, and the moral high ground was the only thing between him and complete collapse.
No more vodka then. He sat in the living room, on the stained couch, and stared at the wall. He had loved Shane once; he probably still did love Shane. Love was something that Dale didn't let go of.
Shane was a walking disaster area; that was clear. Dale should get the hell out of there; leave Shane to whatever fucked-up mess he'd made.
Only he'd seen more genuine feeling from Shane in the previous hour or so than he'd seen in the last months they'd been together.
It was daylight, white and bright around the edges of the closed blinds, when Dale groaned and rolled over on the couch.
Shane was hobbling into the kitchen, half-bent over, stiff-kneed, when Dale disentangled himself from the rug and sat upright.
"What did you do to my phone?" Shane said, poking at the pile of parts on the counter.
"It kept ringing," Dale said. "It was dismantle it or smash it, so I took the battery out."
"Fuck," Shane said under his breath. Water gurgled as he filled the kettle then set it on the stove top. "Guess I've missed training and the team session."
Shane looked like shit in the half-light from the blinds. He was haggard, far too thin, and not in the way he'd been at the end of previous seasons. He looked old.
Dale didn't necessarily move too well himself first thing in the morning, his knees and lower back were inclined to seize up, especially if he'd done something stupid like sleep on a couch, but he still moved better than Shane.
"Didn't think you'd still be here," Shane said, studiously keeping his face turned away from Dale, rinsing out coffee mugs, wiping a spoon on his shirt.
"You looked like you were in a bad place," Dale said neutrally. "Didn't want to leave you alone."
All he did was touch Shane's shoulder, a simple act of support, and Shane was in his arms in a moment, clinging to him.
He hugged Shane back, and the familiar smell of Shane kicked a sense-memory, back to the early days when the wild potential between them was first unfolding. He'd carried the aching longing for the young player around like a stone in his pocket, enduring random drunken hugs at team social events, until his control had finally crumbled and he'd gone to Shane's house and hit on the man.
Within minutes, Shane had been sprawled across his bed, moaning and writhing while Dale blew him, much to Dale's delight.
Not the best memory to retrieve under the circumstances, and Dale pulled away and busied himself making black instant coffee for both of them.
Shane made a strangled noise behind Dale, and when Dale turned back, the bleakness of Shane's face cut through him.
"Fucking hell," he said under his breath, and he pulled Shane back into his arms.
They sat on the couch, mugs of coffee cooling in front of them, and Shane struggled to find words.
"It's all gone wrong," he said. "Every single thing. This is not what I wanted, and I can't even play again until my shoulder heals."
The weight of Dale's arm was gentle across Shane's back, and he could smell that Dale hadn't showered for a couple of days.
"Tell me," Dale said gently, and it was more than Shane deserved, far more. "What's happened with Madison?"
That Dale was prepared to say her name without an obscenity attached to it was a surprise. Shane had dumped him for Madison the previous year, and done it badly.
"It's not working," Shane said. "She's ... got stuff of her own going on. I think she feels like I ripped her off somehow, like I owe her more than I've given her."
Dale's chest was solid when Shane leant his aching head against it, and Dale's fingers curled around the sharp point of Shane's elbow.
"Is it over?" Dale said, and it all just hurt so much that Shane shook his head mutely.
"Why not?" Dale asked, and it even hurt when Shane lifted his head.
"I don't know how," Shane admitted.
Dale raised one eyebrow and there was a trace of ridicule in his voice when he said, "Really?"
"Do you hate me?" Shane asked suddenly. "Because of what I did?"
That was a dangerous place to go, probably the most dangerous place there was.
Dale's face was unreadable, an implacable mask, but the hand that cupped Shane's chin was gentle, the fingers cradling his jaw, and it suddenly occurred to Shane that the ache in his belly wasn't just from twisting guts.
"Tell me one good reason why I shouldn't kiss you," Dale murmured.
There were at least seven reasons that Shane could think of, starting with Shane not actually being single, working through the issues of their history, and culminating with the fact that Shane felt like shit, but the seconds ticked past and Shane swallowed and kept silent.
The flat smelled stale, of dust and cockroach droppings, the couch was shabby, Shane felt as old as time itself, and the rational part of his mind was pointing out that he'd found an entirely new self-destructive behavior, but it was all irrelevant at the moment when their noses bumped and their lips brushed together.
"Oh, God," Shane whispered, and Dale's hand sliding under his shirt felt like a benediction. This was what had kept them together in the face of repeated separations and the difficulties of Shane staying closeted; the way they were together.
Shane endured sharp moments of agony as he crawled backward to lie down on the sagging couch, then Dale's mouth was coaxing kisses out of him, and Shane was so hard that he just wanted to scream.
Sex with Madison was mostly an intellectual exercise, a skill test perhaps, and he'd almost forgotten how utterly real Dale was; under-washed, short-tempered, rough-handed, but uncompromisingly real.
"Close your eyes," Dale said, and Shane felt him kneel up and begin to undo the buttons of Shane's shirt.
The air of the room was cool, the fridge hummed and whirred, and the feel of Dale's mouth on Shane's nipple was unbearably good, making his hips twitch involuntarily, which sent pain stabbing up his back. Lying there, feeling Dale trail a path of saliva from one nipple to the other, his stubble scraping at Shane's skin, was some kind of torture, the best kind.
The rasp of his zip made Shane's stomach muscles flutter, and he realised he couldn't remember the last time he'd come. Had he had a wank in the shower the previous week? The week before?
His balls hurt, pulled up tight against his body, adding to all the other aches, but the hand that touched his cock was gentle, carefully freeing him from his jeans.
"So beautiful," Dale said, and the flat of his tongue dragged up the length of Shane's cock, then a strong hand curled around him, slipping through the saliva.
Shane groaned loudly, surrendering to the feelings, letting the heat build inside him far too quickly, but he couldn't hold back. This was too much, making him twist helplessly, and he couldn't keep his eyes closed any longer, not once the fire had started to burn.
Dale's eyes were half-closed, his tongue protruding between his lips, and he looked like his heart was breaking or something, and for all that Shane knew, it was.
It didn't slow Dale's hand, the calluses dragging agonisingly across Shane's tender skin, and Shane's orgasm landed on him like a load of bricks, pinning him to the couch, making him cry out, and it was so burningly good that he couldn't breathe.
Shane watched almost disbelievingly while Dale licked his own hand then leaned forward briefly over Shane and kissed him. Shane could taste his own come, forgotten until then.
Dale knelt back on his heels, between Shane's spread legs, and unbuttoned and unzipped himself, taking his cock out and groaning quietly. The head of his cock was flushed deep red, foreskin pulled right back, and it was still the most erotic thing that Shane had ever seen.
If Shane could move, if he wasn't both made of jelly and crippled by pain, he'd do something more than touch Dale's thigh, but he couldn't move, not a chance. When he lifted his eyes to Dale's face, Dale met his gaze.
The crushed nerve in Shane's shoulder made it feel like someone was dragging razorblades down his arm, but he tried not to let that show, tried to keep everything except how fucking good it felt to be there from showing, and it was worth it when strands of come flicked across his bare chest and Dale's face creased with pleasure.
No one had held Shane for so long, not just held him and kissed him, and even though every inch of his body hurt, Shane didn't care.
Dale's shirt was undone and untucked, and Shane closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of skin against skin. Dale's fingers traced over his arm, up to his neck, then down over his shoulder, making Shane's skin tingle. It was enough to make him ignore the creeping misery in the rest of his body and keep his eyes shut, just to focus on the touches.
"Shane?" Dale said, his voice rumbling through his chest under Shane's ear. "What the fuck happens now?"
If your car breaks down on a one way street, someone is bound to rear end you.
It was too much to either think or feel about, so Dale opted out of both options. Later he could deal with the self-recrimination, but right at that moment he was focussed on holding his jeans up with one hand while he adjusted the temperature of the shower.
Shane's hands slid inside his jeans, pushing them down, and Dale didn't resist. They could shower then talk, and if there was touching and kissing in the shower, that didn't count.
He kicked his jeans off his feet and dumped his shirt on the floor, and turned back to help Shane undress.
Shane was naked already, leaning against the wall, and Dale could almost pretend that he looked like his usual self, only more sombre, with mottled purple and yellow bruising spreading across one shoulder underneath adhesive strapping. "Hey," Dale said over the rush of the shower water. "You alright?"
Shane shook his head slightly, but he took the hand Dale held out to him and stepped into the shower cubicle.
Two shower heads. It had been on the list of requirements for the apartment, and it had meant that Shane could turn around so the stream of water pummelled his back without Dale having to freeze. Dale was worried, a deep gut-clenching, foreboding-of-impending-doom kind of worried, about Shane. There had been a time when Shane had been everything to him, when he had known every mood and every inch of Shane's body, but that Shane seemed to have been replaced with a sad stranger.
They kissed, open-mouthed and slippery, and Dale wrapped his arms around Shane and began to stroke Shane's back. The muscles were like steel cable, too close to the skin, and the groans Shane was making weren't the sort that meant he was enjoying the touches.
"Want me to stop?" Dale asked, and Shane nodded.
"Just touch me," he said, so Dale did, sliding hands over Shane's ribs, kissing his neck, letting their bodies rub together with the kind of wet, abrading friction that would leave them both rubbed raw the next day.
The flesh over Shane's ribs, what there was of it, was dimpled and corrugated, and Dale pulled back a little and looked at Shane's face closely.
Shane was slumped against the wall of the shower, eyes closed and mouth open, so Dale pushed his concerns aside and concentrated on kissing Shane.
They were both turned on, and Shane's cock pressed against Dale's hip invitingly.
"Oh, God, fuck me," Shane whispered, almost too quietly to be heard over the rush of the water, and there was no way Dale could have concealed the throb of his cock.
"I can't," he said. Shane was so tempting, squirming against him, kissing him hard, and it would be so easy to just give in.
Shane pulled out of Dale's arms and turned around, and God knows what it must have cost Shane with the amount of shoulder pain he had, but he braced his hands against the tiles and spread his legs. The water streamed down his back, coursing in rivulets over his arse.
There was nothing on the planet as good as barebacking Shane, no sensation like it, and Dale was weak, weak enough to slide behind Shane, let his cock brush down the crack of Shane's arse, and for one blinding moment the head of his cock pressed against Shane.
But he had no lube, and he had no idea who Shane had been fucking, and they were in a world of pain already, so he guided his cock between Shane's legs so it pressed up against Shane's balls instead.
Shane slumped back against Dale, shaking, and Dale curled his hand around Shane's impossibly hard cock and jerked it roughly.
It wasn't the same, nothing ever was, but if they could get through this, get out of the shower and just talk for a while, stop the craziness for a moment...
Shane was shouting, begging, clutching behind himself to grab at Dale. It was wild and dangerous and this was how they had been before. Shane wasn't able to hold back, and once he'd come, writhing and twisting, then slumped back against Dale, the only sound over the roar of the water was the rough gasps of Dale's own sobs.
He left Shane in the shower, stumbled blindly into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed, dripping over the bedding.
A moment later the mattress dipped beside him and a hand spread across his back. He loved Shane so much, always had, and to have Shane blunder back into his life, spreading disaster everywhere, was too much to take.
When Dale stopped crying, the pillow he'd burrowed his face into was wet and his head hurt and he hated everyone, but most especially himself right then. The hand stayed where it was, solid comfort, and Shane said, "Take me home, Dale."
When Dale rolled over, wiping his face on his forearm, Shane's eyes were bleary and swollen, but his face was calm.
"Home?" Dale asked, and his voice cracked. "I don't know where you live," he pointed out.
"Your home," Shane said. "Somewhere with more than one towel and something other than vodka in the fridge."
In Dale's car, Shane tipped the seat back as far as it went and lay back with his eyes closed. He hadn't had his morning pills and his body was a fucking mess because of it. He had varying levels and types of pain running through him. Shoulder pain, excruciating and sharp. Knee pain, making it hurt to walk and impossible to drive. His skin stung, his head ached dully, his eyes were raw and too light sensitive. Even the inside of his mouth hurt, but that could possibly have been from the amount of kissing they'd done.
His re-assembled phone was on the dash, set to silent, all his calls going straight to the message service, and eventually he'd have to call Madison, explain his absence somehow. She was used to him disappearing for a few hours, or a night, and it kind of amused him that she assumed he was on a bender when that happened. She was the one who did that, not him.
Not that Dale wasn't addicting. Fuck, what that man could do with his hands and mouth and cock, and just thinking about that made Shane reach down and adjust himself a little, even after having come twice already.
Once they were off the freeway, Dale reached out his hand and spread it over Shane's thigh.
"Have you seen a doctor?" he asked, and it sounded like he was choosing his words carefully.
"Yeah," Shane said. "Why?"
"And what did the doc say?"
"Need a cruciate ligament repair or seven. Take the pills so as I can keep playing," Shane said, bringing his seat back upright so he could see Dale's face. Dale looked worried.
"Have you seen a doctor who wasn't a team employee?" Dale asked, glancing sideways at Shane as a truck overtook them illegally.
"No," Shane admitted. "No time."
"Will you?" Dale asked, and right then there wasn't much Shane wouldn't agree to, just to keep hearing the concern in Dale's voice.
"Do you think I should?" Shane asked. "Because I will if you think I need to."
Dale changed lanes, pulled into a side street and parked the car. He turned sideways so he was facing Shane and took hold of one of Shane's hand.
"I know your body," he said gently. "At least I did before. You're not the same, everything's different about you."
"I'm not positive," Shane said. "You could've fucked me."
"That's not why," Dale said, and he looked as hurt as Shane felt. "At least, that's not the only reason why. There're two of us here, Shane, and I can't just give everything to you again."
"You could have," Shane insisted, and he could feel how irrational he was being, but he was in so much pain he didn't care.
Now Dale was angry, eyes narrowing slightly, mouth tightening. "No," he said. "Not if you're going to fuck off again, and I have to keep on living."
Oh, God, Shane needed codone, right then. Codone, valium and doxy, the holy trinity of pain control. Except they wiped him out so completely he had to use dexies to stay awake to play. He wrenched his hand out of Dale's and scrabbled through the bag of vials he'd scooped up from the flat, finding what he needed. It wasn't like it mattered if he fell asleep.
Dale rummaged around beside his seat, then handed him a murky-looking bottle of water. Shane washed down the handful of pills, not caring how brackish the water was.
"Alright," he said, turning his head away from the steel of Dale's face. "I'll see a doctor."
Shane was hard to wake and was confused and bleary when Dale guided him to the front door, then through the empty house.
Shane didn't resist being undressed, only saying sleepily, "I think I took too much."
"Sleep it off," Dale said, pulling the rumpled blankets over Shane, then kissing his forehead. "We can talk about this later."
Shane nodded, eyes already closed.
Dale left Shane and went to find his phone. He needed to call in some favours.
Frank was asleep when Dale rang him, taking ages to answer the phone, then mumbling.
"Hmm," Frank said blearily. "What? Why the fuck are you ringing me, Dale? Do you have any idea what the time is?"
"About ten," Dale said. "On a Sunday morning. I wouldn't have rung if it wasn't an emergency."
"Hang on," Frank said, then Dale heard muffled voices. "Sorry, mate, but I pulled last night. Right, I'm in my study now and can talk. What's the drama?"
Dale looked at his own study, with its snowdrifts of paperwork, and had to smile at the image of Frank, naked and sleepy, sitting behind his chrome and glass desk in his executive massage chair.
"I went to the apartment yesterday, to start packing, and Shane turned up. Seems he's been using the apartment as a safe house or something."
Frank groaned. "You didn't sleep with him, did you? You fucking idiot."
"Anyway, he's at my place now---"
"You're all kinds of stupid," Frank said, and he sounded seriously pissed off.
"Just let me talk, then you can get stuck into me," Dale said. "He's here, and he's sick, really sick---"
"For fuck's sake," Frank cut in. "Grow a brain, and get him out of your house and life."
"Frank," Dale warned. "Can we pretend that you're a supportive friend here?"
Frank grunted, but he didn't argue any further.
"Shane's sick, his life is a mess, and he's here. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to need some help from you."
"Alright," Frank said. "As long as I get to gloat afterwards. What can I do?"
"Can you get hold of Rachel Fletcher? Her personal details will be in at the office, in her portfolio documents. Ask her if she'll do a house call here, as a favour?"
Frank sighed. "I can do that. Is Shane really sick, not just drug-fucked?"
"I think so," Dale said. "But I don't want to have to take him to a hospital, because someone will talk, and his life is already falling apart without media coverage."
"Anything else?"
"I won't be at work tomorrow. Think you can cover my appointments?"
"Good thing I love you," Frank said. "Since you want me to send the pretty boy in my bed home, go into work on a Sunday, and do your work tomorrow."
"Love you, too," Dale said. "Send my apologies to your pretty boy. Give me a chance on this one. If Shane comes back..."
Frank sighed, but he sounded like he was smiling. "Alright, hon, if you think this might make you happy, or at least less miserable."
"Thank you."
Shane was sound asleep, curled up on his left side, when Dale came back into the bedroom. Dale took off his shirt and jeans and slid under the covers beside Shane. He murmured sleepily when Dale curled up behind him, calling Dale, "Madison," but Dale shrugged mentally and held him closer.
Dale was tired, emotionally drained and physically exhausted, but not so tired he couldn't stay awake and relish the way Shane smelled and the warmth of Shane's body. He'd slept alone for so long, been alone for so long. Sleep could be delayed for a while.
If your car breaks down on a one way street, maybe the person who rams into the back of it will get out of their car and help you push yours to the side of the road.
The sheets were worn soft, washed over and over, smelling faintly of soap, but mostly of familiar skin. Shane rolled over carefully, stretching bits of himself out and yawning. No one was beside him, but he was sure that someone---Dale---had been holding him not long before.
His clothes were piled on top of the dresser, dumped on books and coffee mugs and newspapers, and Shane could move well enough to dress; the worst of the day's pain seemed to be over.
He couldn't find the thick silver chain he wore, or his phone, so he hitched his jeans up a bit and shuffled down the hall, in search of Dale. Or possibly someone else, since he couldn't assume Dale still lived alone.
Dale was sitting at his kitchen table, surrounded by plates, yet more coffee mugs, printouts and books, and he looked up when Shane slid carefully into a spare chair. Shane's chain was in his hands.
"You kept it?" Dale said, and his voice sounded rough. "The chain?"
Shane nodded. "I wear it, sometimes. I think I hoped you'd see it."
Dale shook his head slightly, but Shane couldn't figure out what he was negating, then pushed Shane's chain across the table, and Shane's phone.
There was a challenge there, unmistakeably.
Shane flicked his phone open and hit the speed dial button for Madison.
"Shane?" Madison answered, sounding frantic. "Where are you, babe? Did Lindon get hold of you? You missed training, and I didn't know where you were."
"Madison," Shane began, and Dale's face was bleak, but he let Shane reach out and cover his hand. "Madison, um, I'm not coming back. We're over."
"What!" Madison shrieked, loud enough that Shane moved the phone a little away from his ear. Her voice was tinny and harsh, and she was shouting.
"You bastard! You fucking arsehole!" she shrieked, and Shane closed his phone, cutting her off.
"Well," Dale said, and he sounded amused. "That was almost as bad as how you dumped me."
Shane winced, and his phone vibrated in his hand with a call.
He gripped it and slung it hard at Dale's kitchen wall, where it broke into shards of plastic and dangling bits of wiring as it fell onto the counter beside the toaster.
"I should have done that this morning," Dale said, taking his hand away from Shane's.
"And I should have told her to check herself into rehab and to buy a burger on the way there," Shane said, resting his head on his folded arms on the table. "Do you have any food?"
"There've been changes since you were last in a house of mine," Dale said, standing up and opening his fridge door. "I have discovered the joy of internet grocery shopping. I click the button, someone brings a box of food to my door. We have food."
Dale took a package of plastic wrapped sandwiches out of the fridge and put them on the table in front of Shane.
"Expiry dates and all," Shane said, and he found he could manage a small smile. "So I can know if the food's bad."
He took a cheese sandwich and unwrapped it, then bit into it. He could feel something like normalcy about sharing a sandwich with Dale, and it took the hysterical feel off the afternoon.
They drank coffee, sitting on the couch in Dale's quagmire of a study, and the feel of Dale's arm around his shoulders made Shane feel like there was a chance, that somehow he'd muddle through, and that maybe he'd be happier, even if he was alone.
The phone rang somewhere else in the house, and Dale extricated himself from the couch, stepped over the piles of papers in the doorway and disappeared off.
Shane leaned back and closed his eyes, willing to let the afternoon flow over him now until he could go back to bed with Dale, and then Dale's voice interrupted him.
"It's Madison," he said in a low voice. "What do you want me to say?"
"Don't care," Shane said.
Dale was leaning around the doorframe and shrugged back at Shane when Shane opened his eyes. Dale disappeared.
A minute later and couch creaked beside him, sagging as Dale settled back where he'd been.
"I told her to check herself into rehab, and to get a burger on the way there," he said, stretching his legs out, one foot propped on a cardboard box of printouts. "Wonder how she got my number?"
"Lindon," Shane said. "Arsehole. He's the only person that would know to look for me at your place, and would know your full name."
"I'll kill him," Dale said cheerfully. "That'll teach him to hand out my number. I blacklisted her number with the phone company."
It felt good to Shane to close his eyes again, stopping them from stinging, and it felt even better to be kissed comprehensively. Shane reached for the top button on Dale's shirt and thumbed it undone.
Dale chuckled, a rumble against Shane's mouth, and covered his hand, stopping him.
"Not now," he said. "I'm expecting a friend who's a doctor to drop around. How are you feeling?"
Shane rested his head on Dale's shoulder and considered. "I'm tired still, and I feel kind of weird inside. It just seems that with all the misery with Madison, it can't be as simple as telling her to fuck off, and then smashing my phone."
The doorbell rang, and Dale said, "That'll be the doctor. I'll be back in a moment."
Rachel was middle-aged and tired, kissing Dale on the cheek and then putting her medical bag down on the couch beside Shane and shaking his hand. A dyke doctor, of course Dale would know a dyke doctor who would make a Sunday house call.
"Hello," she said. "Dale said that you've been having a lot of pain. Why don't you tell me what's been going on, and then I'll have a look, see if I can find out where the pain is coming from."
"It hurts," Shane said, and found that he was struggling for composure. "The mornings are worst; I can barely walk." Dale crouched down in front of Shane, and moisture leaked out of Shane's eyes unwillingly. "I take too many drugs," he admitted. "It's all gone wrong."
Rachel nodded and took hold of his hand and examined it, then peered into his eyes. "What sort of drugs?" she asked. "Can you tell me?"
"Oh, God," Shane said. "Codone, codeine, um, doxy something or other. Sleeping pills, valium to stop the back spasm. Anti-inflammatories. Dexies and caffeine to play. Coke, too, sometimes. Fuck, that sounds awful."
"It's not good," Rachel said. "You using anything else? Recreationally?"
Shane shrugged. "Guess I've tried most stuff, but nothing recently."
"Let's have a look at you then," she said.
Her hands were cool and smooth, and she felt his wrists and elbows, and when he'd taken off his shirt, she ran her hands over his back and tutted at the bruising. When she squeezed his knees gently, they felt strange, and she looked at the sole of each foot carefully.
She checked his mouth and eyes, took his temperature, too, then sat back down on the couch once he'd dressed again.
"Have you had an STD recently?" she asked. "Noticed any pain on urination, or discharge?"
He shook his head, and avoided Dale's enigmatic gaze. "Ah, I've not had multiple partners," he said. "And I don't think my partner has either."
"I'll do a work up, to exclude an STD. Gastro?" Rachel asked.
"A few months ago," Shane said. "End of last season, the entire team went to Bali to celebrate making the finals. Everyone got sick."
Rachel nodded. "I'll have to do some blood tests, look for a protein on your cells and the inflammatory factors, too, but I think you've got arthritis."
Shane felt bewildered. "Arthritis? In my knees and shoulder?"
Rachel shook her head. "Sorry, I'm talking about a variety of arthritis that's attacking your entire body. Your knees are swollen, you've got a rash on your feet, ulcers in your mouth and sore eyes. That's enough for me to make a provisional diagnosis. This is not musculoskeletal, this is everything."
Rachel hugged Dale and unlocked her car. "I'll be back tomorrow," she said. "Feed him the anti-inflammatories I've left, and let him take whatever he needs for the pain. This is not the time for him to come off opiates."
Dale nodded. "Thanks, Rachel. Thank you so much for doing a house call. I know it's an imposition."
"After how little tax I paid last year because of your advice, I'm happy to help you out."
Shane was curled up on the couch, eyes closed and face damp, and Dale crouched down in front of him.
"Hey?" he said gently. "Anyone in there?"
"What if I'm really sick?" Shane asked, and his eyes were red and bleary when he opened them. "What'll I do?"
"Whatever you have to do to get well again," Dale said gently.
It was late afternoon, the room was full of shadows and dust motes, and Dale kissed Shane long and slow, then carefully unbuttoned his shirt. His fingers were shaking, and it was a relief to be able to close his eyes and lean forward and kiss Shane's chest.
Shane's fingers brushed over his hair and down his neck, slid under his shirt, and Dale paused long enough to undo his own shirt and push it off his shoulders. His mouth slid down Shane's sternum and Shane's belly muscles fluttered when he kissed his way down them.
There'd always been a dark undercurrent between them, an obsessive edge, and even when they'd used latex, what they did could never be considered safe. Dale had relished that, the wildness between them, it had fuelled him, made him embrace life completely, and the idea that Shane could have been satisfied with a pretty and safe life afterwards had never seemed right.
Dale dragged the flat of his tongue across Shane's belly, falling into Shane's belly button while he fumbled to free Shane's cock from the jeans. Shane cried out, loud and clear, and Dale groaned around Shane's cock.
His own belly was tight with lust, twining around his guts, making it hard to breathe, and the feel of Shane's cock jabbing against the back of his throat, already leaking, just made him harder.
He dragged Shane's jeans down and jammed his fingers between Shane's thighs, pressing into the damp, sweaty folds. Shane had said, 'Fuck me,' earlier, and fuck, the offer had better still be on the table, because there was nothing he wanted more.
He tore himself away, scrambled to his feet, and Shane was sprawled across the sofa, partly naked, flushed and damp with sweat. Dale said, "Don't move," and plunged out of the room for the bedroom, intent upon condoms and lube, and not even the feeling of his toes connecting with the doorframe was going to stop him.
Shane hadn't moved when Dale came back, not even to take his own clothes off, which Dale would have considered as keeping to the spirit of the instruction, and Dale knelt down beside the sofa. Shane's back was twisted, legs hitched over the arm of the sofa, head turned sideways to press into the worn fabric, and his mouth was twisted too.
Dale slid his arms under Shane, eased him up the sofa a little. There was a passivity to Shane that made Dale want to do bad things to him, things they would both love, but for the moment Dale settled for pulling Shane's jeans and boxers off completely, and then undressing himself.
When he knelt back down and squeezed lube onto his fingers, then slid his hand between Shane's spread thighs, Shane grabbed for his wrist, stopping his hand.
"Don't," he said. "Just fuck me."
Some things didn't change.
The sofa wasn't quite wide enough, and the wood of the frame dug into Dale's knee, but Shane opened his eyes and met Dale's gaze as Dale's cock pressed against his body. There wasn't anything Dale wouldn't have endured for Shane right at that moment.
This was the raw essence of love, something Dale could never find words for at any other time, but that he understood with all of himself when it happened. It had to be hurting Shane, he was unforgivingly tight, but while his mouth was clamped shut, his eyes were wide open.
He didn't make a sound, not while Dale eased himself in, just let out a deep groan once Dale's weight settled on top of him. The faded floral upholstery of the sofa was marked with lube where Dale's hand was braced, darkening the pale greens and blues, and Shane wound his arms around Dale's neck and used the leverage to lift his body a little, pushing Dale in even deeper.
The light was fading, but not so much that Dale couldn't see Shane's face still, and he began to rock his hips, not thrusting or sliding, just rolling his cock gently inside Shane, holding himself back. This was not the time for hard-and-fast, he'd hurt Shane and only last a few seconds; slow and deep, he could hold himself back for longer.
They were both grunting and the sofa was creaking alarmingly, connecting solidly with the wall with each thrust.
Their voices rose, and the tightness gripped Dale, making him push harder and harder. It was all too soon; Dale wasn't ready to let go of the feelings, but he couldn't hold back either, and coming was so intense it hurt.
It took some time to manage to lift himself off Shane with one last kiss, and he slid out, clutching onto the condom one-handed.
Papers and files and things that Dale couldn't name littered the study floor, uncomfortable under his knees as he slid down onto the floor. He pressed his cheek against Shane's cock for a moment, temporarily overcome, and fluid welled up, spreading across his face and Shane's belly.
Shane cried out when Dale slid his cock into his mouth, jerking roughly, jamming his cock down Dale's throat desperately, and Dale swallowed hard, overriding his gag reflex, and kept swallowing as Shane came.
He stayed there, kneeling amongst the debris of his life, his face pressed against Shane's smooth belly, and Shane threaded fingers into Dale's hair, carefully tugging on his scalp. It was completely dark in the room, the last of the daylight was gone.
Sometimes, when you're walking away from the wreck of your car on a one way street, the passing cars are actually trying to run you over.
He was in pain, real pain, after the sex, even after Dale had helped him back to bed. His back was spasming, his whole body burned with pain, and breathing was difficult.
Dale handed him the plastic bag of drugs from the apartment, and a bottle of water.
"I don't want to," Shane said through gritted teeth.
"Idiot," Dale said, and he stroked Shane's forehead gently. "You're in agony, I can see."
"I've gotta stop," Shane said, but his gut was clenching and Dale's stroking wasn't doing anything about the pounding in his head.
"Not right now," Dale said. "Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow, when Rachel comes back, you can talk to her about stopping, but it seems to me that if you're in pain, you shouldn't have to suffer."
Light fell into the room from the hallway, and Shane could hear Dale clattering around in the kitchen. He was heavy-limbed and peaceful, codone and valium washing through him again. The phone rang, and Dale's voice was familiar, sounding grouchy though Shane couldn't make out the words.
The door opened further, and Dale appeared, silhouetted by yellow.
"It's Lindon," Dale said. "Madison's dog just bit him."
"Oh fuck," Shane said, and he took the phone that Dale held out for him. "Hey, Lindon. Did Perry really bite you?"
There was barking behind Lindon's voice when he said, "Just a nip. She's trashing my place. You really need to come and get her."
"I can't move," Shane said. "My shoulder's completely fucked. Where's Madison? Can't she look after her own dog?"
Dale was leaning against the door frame and he nodded when Shane glanced at him pleadingly.
"Of course her dog can come here and destroy things," he said.
"What's happened?" Lindon asked. "You disappear, there's panic over you missing the training and team meeting, then Madison rings me up, shouting and swearing, saying that you've left her and demanding that I take her lunatic dog. She is one angry woman, Shane."
"I can't help that," Shane said. "I just had to get out. Is there any chance you could go and rescue some of my stuff?"
There was silence on the other end, apart from the frantic barking, which was punctuated by howls.
"The dog was one thing," Lindon said. "I didn't want to risk her hurting the mutt."
"I'll have to go myself then," Shane said. "I need some of my stuff."
"I'll go with you," Dale said. "You don't have to do it alone."
Lindon said, "I'll need to know where you're staying so I can bring the dog over."
Shane looked across at Dale, who smiled back at him. "I don't actually know where I am," Shane said. "You'll have to give Lindon the address."
Dale took back the phone and Shane could hear him giving Lindon the address as he walked back down the hall, and Shane closed his eyes, content to no longer be in pain.
Dale knew Lindon. Lindon had been around at the end of their relationship, and Gordon's insistence that Shane had a personal trainer-slash-assistant had been one of the many sources of conflict between them. At the time, it had almost made sense. If each player had a baby-sitter hired by the team management, then it would put an end to the drunk-driving arrests, and increase the chances of all of the players making it to all of the training sessions. Then there'd been the crap with Madison. It had always made a creepy kind of sense for Shane to be seen with a range of wannabe starlets, but Dale suspected Lindon, Gordon, and Shane's agent, Lukowski, had engineered Madison's elevation to genuine girlfriend.
Personal assistant. Rent-a-girlfriend. An image. What did "having an image" mean anyway?
Lindon was a nice enough young man, earnest and apologetic when Dale had to help him drag a yowling poodle out of his car and into Dale's back yard.
"Sorry about this," Lindon said, and he had a waterproof dressing stuck to his left hand. "The dog is a shit. I hope there's nothing of consequence out there."
Perry howled mournfully, and Dale shrugged. "I like dogs," he said.
"How is Shane?" Lindon asked, and he sounded genuinely worried.
"He's sick," Dale said. "Really sick. The doctor who saw him wasn't sure exactly what was wrong, but it's serious."
"Fuck," Lindon said, and Dale opened his front door. Lindon followed him into the hall, and a bleary Shane appeared from the bedroom.
"Hey Lindon," he said, and he shuffled up to Lindon and hugged the man. "Sorry 'bout Perry."
"No problem, Shane," Lindon said, and his face creased with worry when he looked at Shane. "Does Gordon know you're sick?"
"Dunno," Shane said. "He knew my shoulder wasn't responding to physio. Are you going to tell him?"
It was a good question, in Dale's opinion.
Shane looked pleadingly at Dale, then said, "If you do, he'll make me see Doc Teal."
Shane looked so vulnerable, holding onto the doorframe to keep himself upright, and Dale had just about had enough.
"You're employed by the team, not owned by them," Dale told Shane. "If you don't want to see Doc Teal, then no one can compel you to. It might breach your contract with them, but I suspect being so ill you can't walk already does."
Shane flinched at Dale's words, and Dale touched his shoulder. "Sorry," he said. "I'm kind of strident about the limitations of your contract at the moment."
"I'll lie," Lindon said. "Tell him you're hungover or something."
Shane slumped against the doorframe a little. "Thanks, Lindon," he said. "You'd better get out of here, before I make your job any worse."
Lindon nodded and patted Shane's shoulder. "Take it easy," he said.
When the front door had closed behind Lindon, Shane said, "Let's do this."
Shane wasn't sure which was worse, the dread of what stunts Madison might pull, or the dour look on Dale's face as they rode the elevator to the inner city apartment Shane had bought with Madison.
He slipped his hand through Dale's elbow, and Dale leaned across and kissed him quickly, and murmured, "Remember who just fucked you."
There was only time to nod and to hang onto Dale's elbow until he could get his knees moving adequately.
His key still worked, so Madison hadn't changed the locks yet, and she appeared almost instantly, blank-eyed and pale.
"Baby?" she slurred, and Shane heard Dale's snort of derision behind him. He was not a man who used pet names.
She was enveloped in one of Shane's bathrobes, all smiles at him until she spotted Dale, who was looking around the living room, lips pursed. Shane would hear all about tasteless conspicuous consumption later. That was alright, Dale had bought part of a football team, and consumption didn't get much more conspicuous than that.
"I've come to get some stuff," Shane said, and her face shrivelled.
"Who is he? Both of you, get out," she said. "Right now."
"Forget it," Shane said, and he felt so tired that moving to slump down on the couch was hard work.
Madison went off, just like Shane thought she would, but he turned his head so he could see Dale.
Dale looked like he was carved of stone, completely implacable. Shane had never seen Dale's face so bleak.
"My passport's on the top shelf in the closet," Shane said. "There're bank statements and contracts and stuff. There's a box of medication there, too."
Madison was shrieking now, and Shane turned his attention back to her. "Shut the fuck up," he said. "Just for once."
His feet were on fire, at least that was how they felt, his knees were spongy and rubbery, and the couch was deep and comfy, so he had no chance at all of dodging the shoe she chucked at him.
She was a spindly thing, but the heel caught him on his cheek. It fucking hurt, more than any high tackle in a match, and he could feel blood trickling down his cheek.
Madison froze, but Dale must have heard something, perhaps the sound of disbelief Shane had made, because he rushed back into the room, file box in his arms, laptop bag over his shoulder.
"You fucking bitch," he snarled at her, and Madison squeaked and ducked, but Dale just put the box down on the couch and gripped Shane's arms.
"C'mon," he said, and when Shane met his eyes, there was so much love there that Shane could barely breathe.
They made it out of the apartment and into the elevator. When Shane rested his lips against Dale's face he could smell the tang of his own blood. "Oh, God," he whispered, and Dale kissed him, kissed him hard and long, so that the elevator doors opened at the lobby and they were still kissing.
Shane sat in Dale's car, laptop between his feet, box on his lap, and flicked through the belongings that Dale had salvaged. "No meds?" he said, when his hand found sheafs of papers and photos, but no box or bag of medication.
"Nope," Dale said. "The box was full of empty vials, so I think your supply had been raided."
Imperfect memory told Shane that Dale didn't sleep much. He'd wait for Shane to fall asleep, then get up again, lock himself in his study, come back to bed late and stay asleep after Shane had got up to go to morning training.
"Don't go," Shane said sleepily, and in the bedside light, Dale looked sad.
"Not going anywhere," he said, and Shane rolled over and settled with his head on Dale's shoulder. He was in a good space again, nearly ready to let go and sleep, and not even the adhesive dressing on his cheek made him feel unhappy.
He'd try and remember the next day, when he hadn't taken codone, sleeping pills and doxy, how things had been before with Dale. He was almost sure that, in the last months they were together, there hadn't been sleepy kisses and the comfort of falling asleep while being held.
If you can't walk to get help, then it's time to call a friend.
Waking hurt.
Shane needed to piss so badly that his bladder was screaming at him, but he couldn't get his body to work. It was the nightmare of his first knee injury all over again, wanting his body to move and having it fail.
His feet burned, and the bedding over his toes was crushing. His knees seemed locked in place, his back was absolutely fucking awful, and he grunted and struggled.
"Easy," Dale's voice said, but Shane's eyelids were glued together and he couldn't get them open.
"Help," Shane said, and he clutched wildly at Dale, finding warm, bare skin.
"Take it easy," Dale said. "Tell me what's wrong."
Shane groaned, his bladder hurt so much.
"My fucking eyes are stuck," he said, and cold air hit his chest and belly as the weight of the bedding left him. "Gotta piss."
Shane rubbed at his eyes, freeing one set of eyelids, and Dale was crouching over him, lifting his shoulders off the bed, helping him sit.
"Stay there," Dale said, and it was almost funny, because Shane couldn't have moved if the house had been alight.
There was a crash that made Shane wince, and the vision in the eye that was open was blurry, but Shane could still make out Dale dashing back into the room, something in his hands.
Cold plastic pressed against Shane's thighs, and one of his hands found the rim of a container, and he used the other to press his piss-hard cock downwards.
The feeling of being able to relax his muscles was blissful, and he groaned as the stream of urine hit the plastic with enough force to send splatter over his thighs. He didn't care, he'd been so close to wetting himself that splashes didn't count.
The bucket was heavy, and Dale took it off him and put it down, then helped Shane lie back down.
"Is that better?" Dale asked, and Shane curled up on his side and groaned.
"Tea," he said. "Please."
"Sure," Dale said, and when he kissed Shane's forehead, his stubbly lips tickled.
Shane gave up trying to see, just kept his eyes closed, and he listened to Dale emptying the bucket and flushing the toilet. A tap ran briefly, and footsteps came back into the room.
"Let me fix your eyes," Dale said, and a warm, damp cloth brushed over Shane's face.
He lay there, wracked with pain, and Dale slowly and carefully wiped his face until his eyelids came free and he could open his eyes.
Dale didn't stop once his eyes could open. Dale wiped Shane's face, gentle dabs, and then his hands, and finally his thighs, and it made Shane remember that he had a cut on his face and that Dale loved him.
"Tea," Dale said, when he'd finished. "Coming right up."
Dale carried a steaming mug of tea into the room, straw balanced in it, and Shane didn't care if it was going to make the tea taste of plastic. It meant he could sip his tea without doing more than lifting his head off the pillow, Dale's hand behind his neck for support.
"What pills do you need?" Dale asked when Shane laid his head back down.
Dale stayed with Shane for the twenty minutes it took for the pills to start working, lying beside him on the bed, holding his hand, and while every second of the pain dragged, it made it easier to have Dale there.
When Shane's eyes slid shut as the relief washed through him, Dale kissed his lips, and whispered, "You and me are going to talk, when you're through this."
Muted voices woke Shane, and this time his eyes opened right away. There was daylight in the room, and the door was closed. He could make out Dale's gruff voice, and doggy wuffling from outside the door. Of course, Perry was there.
Shane crawled off the bed, knees stiff and back refusing to bend, which made pulling on his jeans something of an adventure.
Perry barked, quick and sharp, and Shane said, "Yes, puppy, I'm here."
The door opened and Perry lunged into the room, wagging her tail so hard that she shook the back half of her scrawny body.
She would have leapt up, no doubt, if Dale hadn't been holding her securely by her collar, and Shane bent over carefully to let Perry lick his face.
"Hey, beautiful," he said, scratching Perry behind the ears. Shane looked up at Dale, whose hair was wet, so he must have showered while Shane slept. "What's the time? Have I been asleep long?"
"Midday," Dale said. "So, about four hours. Want some food and coffee? Frank's here, and he brought lunch with him."
"How come my ex is a psychotic bitch, and your ex brings lunch?" Shane asked, following Dale as he dragged Perry down the hall.
"I am a psychotic bitch, babe," Frank called out, and when Shane shuffled into the room, Frank hugged him. "I'm just a psychotic bitch that likes to eat."
Frank kissed Shane's cheeks, hugged him again, then helped him lower himself into a chair beside the kitchen table while Dale restrained Perry.
As soon as Dale let go of the dog, she flung herself into Shane's lap, yammering away in dog talk, and Shane hugged her.
"Missed you, you silly puppy," he crooned. "You can stay with me while your mummy's drying out."
It proved to be impossible to even attempt to keep Perry off the table when Frank took the salad he'd brought with him out of the fridge, so she was left to sit mournfully outside on the deck, slobbery nose pressed against the glass, quietly moaning to herself while they ate.
Frank put a flask in front of Shane after they'd finished and said, "Here, this'll help you detox, hon. Worked wonders for me."
"What is it?" Shane asked, unscrewing the top and sniffing and wrinkling his nose at the stench.
"Kombucha," he said. "Wonderful stuff. It'll help you clear all the toxins, get your liver working again."
"That doesn't actually tell me what it is," Shane said plaintively, and he lifted the flask to his mouth and sipped the green liquid.
"It's fermented whale's vomit," Dale said, chuckling at the face Shane pulled.
"Shut up, Dale," Frank said. "It's an active herbal drink. I'll keep you supplied, along with wheatgrass juice and a couple of other goodies."
Frank was in his work clothes, classic charcoal suit, crisp shirt and conservative tie, but Shane had seen him dressed for the club scene, in leathers and heavily buckled boots, which made it easier to remember Dale's ex had been wild once.
"What did you come off?" Shane asked. "When you detoxed?"
"Coke," Frank said. "I used everything, but I'm a lawyer, so it was coke I got stuck on."
"Was it bad?" Shane asked, and he could see Dale's face in his peripheral vision.
"Fucking sucked," Frank said. "Absolute agony. If you get offered a choice between being weaned off and going cold, take the weaning option."
There was a relief in talking to someone else who understood, and Shane nodded and said, "Any other advice?"
"Really?" Frank asked, and Shane nodded. "Clean your whole life up, not just whatever it is you're jammed on. Make all the changes you've always longed to, start afresh. Dump Dale, find yourself someone sweet-tempered who works sane hours and can cook."
Shane looked down at his hands, and his knuckles were red and spongy. "Seems I'm going to have to find a new career anyway," he said. "I can barely walk, so I'm not going to be able to train next week, never mind play."
Dale covered one of Shane's hands with his own. "Hey," he said. "If you're sick, you're sick. The team management can go fuck themselves."
Shane nodded and touched his own cheek briefly with his other hand. There didn't seem to be any doubt that things were over with Madison, too, and even though his body was a wreck, his heart felt light.
Something crashed on the deck, and Perry reappeared, backside first, towing a branch from a tree across the decking, scraping twigs across the planks.
"Oh, God," Frank said, gathering up papers from the table. "With that, I'm going back to the office. Dale, don't you dare try and come into work; I'm firing you as an ex if you do."
The sheets were gritty and grubby, and Shane leaned against the dresser while Dale stripped the bed quickly then replaced the sheets.
Despite Shane's sheer size and muscle bulk, he looked gaunt. With a bruise spreading across one cheek and the beginnings of a black eye, Shane looked so fragile that there was a lump in Dale's throat, and he wondered how much of what he felt Shane could see.
Words were a nuisance, slippery and imprecise, but it was time they were said, so Dale pulled his T-shirt over his head and crawled onto the bed beside Shane.
"Talk to me?" Dale said, and he lifted Shane's hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles.
"What about?" Shane asked, and a smile tickled the side of his mouth.
"Painful stuff," Dale said. "Why you left me. What happened with Madison. Whether you want to be with me, or if this is just a rest stop for you."
The smile was gone from Shane's lips, and Dale slid a little closer on the bed and bent forward to kiss him briefly.
"The last months we were together, you always went home after we'd fucked. I don't remember ever waking up and finding you beside me," Shane eventually said. "Why did you never sleep next to me?"
Dale nodded slowly. "Things weren't good," he admitted. "I did pull back from you."
"It felt like you hated everything I did," Shane said. "Every choice I made."
"I especially hated the one where you left me," Dale said, and his throat was tight. "It seemed like you did every single thing you could do to push me away. I'm not saying I was blameless..."
Shane was crying, and Dale's face was wet, too, and Dale blundered on, hoping that they were making some progress.
"I loved you," he said, and Shane's hand found his and squeezed it. "I still do, and I need to know if you've come back to me."
"I don't know," Shane sobbed, and he threw his arms around Dale's neck and hugged Dale tightly. "It was so bad with Madison," he gasped.
Shane was shaking, and Dale held him close and rocked him gently. "It's alright now," he whispered.
"It's not alright," Shane sobbed. "It's never going to be right again. I'll never be able to play, and I'll have no money, and Madison will..."
Shane trailed off, and Dale squeezed his own eyes tightly shut and held Shane as close as he could.
"We all dream about the abyss, about lettin' go of the rope," Dale whispered. "I won't let you fall, I've got hold of you."
When your car has both broken down and been wrecked, it's time to call the specialists.
The pain crept in around the edges, one tendril at a time, starting in Shane's back, neck, head and feet and spreading out slowly, and he kept his face buried against Dale's chest long after he'd stopped sobbing, holding out against the pain.
Dale's fingers were gentle, stroking his back carefully, but he smelled of sorrow and Shane had the feeling that he'd missed something somewhere, or said something stupid. He could hear Perry in the back yard, hauling garden furniture around by the sound of it, and intermittently scratching and digging outside the window. It would be good for her to live somewhere with a real garden for a while.
Shane needed to make plans, or at least phone calls, needed a shower, too, and he must have said something out loud because Dale kissed the top of his head.
"Would a bath help?" Dale asked. "With the pain?"
"I've seen your bathroom," Shane said.
"I can clean the bath," Dale said, and his fingers trailed down Shane's back and brushed over his buttocks, intimate but not sexual, and it made Shane want to stay right where he was. "Have you thought about just coming out? About being an openly gay footy player?"
Lying there, being held by Dale again, so sore he could hardly breathe, Shane tried to imagine a life without being closeted. He wasn't sure he could.
When he didn't answer, Dale sighed. "Do you want me to go and take the mess out of the bath and scrub it?" Dale asked, and Shane nodded.
"I need painkillers, too," he said.
Dale's last house hadn't had a bath, but this one did. It was a deep, tiled rectangle, and Shane put the lid of the toilet seat down and sat there, trying not to moan, while Dale emptied the dirty clothes out of the bath.
The codone started to work, taking the hurt out of Shane's belly, and the sight of Dale kneeling naked in the bath, scrubbing brush and bottle of detergent in hand, bashing away at the layers of grime, turned out to be amusing.
"Stop fucking giggling," Dale said, and Shane gritted his teeth again and tried to stop.
"Sorry," he said through pursed lips. "Just can't remember seeing you clean anything before."
"When's the last time you scrubbed something, pretty boy?" Dale asked, and they both burst out laughing. Shane kept laughing, even after Dale squirted his bare legs with some kind of cleaner spray.
The bathwater smelled of ammonia and detergent when Shane clambered into it, a pleasant relief after the vile floral gunk that Madison insisted on using. He lay back in the water and closed his eyes.
"Hey," Dale said, and an arm slipped under his shoulder, making him jerk his eyes open. "Don't think you should be in there alone when you're out of it."
"Feels good," Shane said, and it did, floating weightlessly in the hot water, easing all the aches deep inside him.
"Sit up," Dale said.
Shane struggled up out of the water, and Dale clambered into the bath behind him, sending water slopping over the sides, soaking the clothes piled on the floor.
"Oops," Shane said. Dale settled behind him, a leg on each side, and Shane leaned back against him. "Much better," he said sleepily.
"Is it?" Dale said, and he kissed the side of Shane's face, his stubble brushing against Shane's. "Don't go to sleep," he said, and his arms tightened around Shane's chest.
"No," Shane agreed, and he wrapped his arms over Dale's and squeezed them. He wanted to play 'Do You Remember?', but the past was a minefield and he wasn't sure he was thinking straight, there were too many broken places inside his head. "What's for dinner?" he asked instead, and he tried to remember being hungry.
"Lasagna from the freezer," Dale said. "I went online this morning and ordered dog food for Perry, too, since Lindon only brought a small bag with him. I figured Perry ate the most expensive food there was, as befits a ferociously groomed monster."
The water was cooling, spider webs draped around the corners of the room, and when Shane lifted a foot out of the water, it was starting to wrinkle. "Will you fuck me again?" he asked.
Dale was quiet for too long, and Shane listened to the tap at the other end of the bath drip.
"I'm not sure," Dale finally said.
Shane twisted as much as he could, given that his shoulder was useless, Dale was holding him securely and his toe was stuck in the tap temporarily, to try and see Dale's face.
"I wouldn't have thought it was that difficult a question," Shane said, frowning at the side of Dale's face. "You, me, sex. It's worked before."
"Things are not clear," Dale said, and Shane managed to yank his toe out of the tap and turn all the way over so he could see Dale's face clearly.
He looked exhausted.
"I'm so sorry," Shane whispered. "I was stupid, I thought that my career was more important than what you and I had."
"You're not even talking about a career here," Dale said, and he might as well have been miles away, instead of holding onto Shane in a tub of cooling water, for all the distance between them. "You're talking about some kind of popularity contest."
This was where they'd been when Shane had ended it before, and Shane had to tell himself that all those miserable months and a hell of a lot of heartache meant that this was no longer an argument they should be having.
Shane nodded, with a gentle slosh of water, and managed a small smile. "It sucked," he said. "It was a completely new and different kind of hell. Would you still love me if I came out?"
"I didn't think it was the immutability of my love that was under discussion here," Dale said, and his eyes were smiling at Shane again. "Want to get out the water?"
Shane was tired, the kind of deep-down exhausted that meant he had to lean against the basin and let Dale dry him. Dale patted his face dry last; it was sore over the top of all the other pains, and Shane winced.
"I want to take some photos," Dale murmured. "Of the cut and bruises. And I think you should consider filing assault charges against her, and talking to a real lawyer, not just a corporate lawyer who brings you fermented whale vomit."
In the mirror, Shane's face was mottled and dark on one side, and the small dressing was stark white. It looked like he'd been beaten up.
"It all sounds too difficult," Shane said. "Don't want to have to do that."
A box was buried in the bottom of Dale's closet, beneath his snow gear and his boots, and when Dale dragged it out, clothes of Shane's filled it.
"I meant to get rid of it," Dale said. "Never got organised."
The clothes smelled a little musty, like all of Dale's house, but the worn jeans and battered Tshirts were old friends that Shane had thought were gone.
He sat on the couch in the living room, door to the deck open and Perry squirming happily in his lap. Dale was on the phone in his study with the door closed, being lectured by Shane's mum, and the idea made Shane all silly inside.
Though not as much as having some of his old clothes back did. While he was well aware of Dale's propensity to hoard, Dale had moved house during the past year, and inertia alone didn't explain the clothes.
Dale leaned over the back of the couch, handed the phone back to Shane and said, "You owe me one."
Shane kissed Dale on the cheek and took the phone. "After I've rung everyone else who is gunning for me," Shane said.
He had a list beside him, dictated to him by Lindon and written in a wobbly hand since he couldn't get his fingers to grip the pen properly.
Lawyer next.
The call took four minutes, which no doubt Shane would be billed for, and he put the phone down on the couch and stared numbly at Perry, who was savaging one of Dale's shoes. He must have made a sound, because Dale knelt down in front of him and said, "Shane? What's wrong?"
"Madison's, um, started legal proceedings against me. There're papers at my lawyers..."
"What kind of legal proceedings?" Dale asked, and his palm cupped Shane's unhurt cheek.
"She wants the apartment, half the house in Scarborough, half my income for the time we were together, and spousal support. And there're breach of contract papers for calling off the engagement."
Dale sat on the couch beside Shane and hugged him gently. "Thing is," Shane continued, hiding his face against Dale's shirt, "if I can't finish this season, then I might have to pay out my contract with the Hammers."
Dale kissed Shane's scalp, little kisses right where Shane's head was pounding. "Wait and see what Rachel has to say," Dale said. "Before you start panicking about that. What did your attorney say to do?"
"He's going to talk to the divorce specialist in the company," Shane said.
"Call him back," Dale said. "Right now. Tell him Madison assaulted you yesterday."
Perry had to be locked outside when the lawyers arrived, since apparently thousand dollar suits and badly behaved dogs were an unacceptable combination. The divorce lawyer, once Perry was removed, was positively gleeful when he examined Shane's face. "This is marvelous," he said. "This makes such a difference."
It took time, writing out statements and having photos taken, and Shane didn't make it all the way through without losing his composure, though his contract lawyer and the divorce lawyer were either polite enough or so completely indifferent that they didn't comment.
"I'll handle the police," his contract lawyer said. "At least at the beginning. They'll want to take their own statements, but I can use the ones you've just done to start civil action." He looked at Shane speculatively for a moment. "This isn't my area of expertise, but I think you should call your manager. This is inevitably going to be public."
"Oh, God," Shane said, and he felt like he was going to cry again.
When the lawyer had gone, and Perry was back inside, still demolishing Dale's shoe, Shane wiped his face, forgetting for a moment that one side was sore.
"Well?" Shane asked. Old territory, Dale hated Lucky Lukowski, whose job it was to negotiate the crocodile-infested waters of Shane's football career and handle his endorsement deals and public appearances.
Dale shrugged. "He's right. If there was ever a time you needed Lukowski, it's now."
There's that bit, after your car is wrecked, where the tow truck operator shakes his head and says, 'Back axle is fucked, I'm going to have to call for a flat bed truck.' And all you can do is hope your insurance covers it.
Shane was in distress, his fingernails digging into Dale's hand, but Dale couldn't tell if it was pain, fear or withdrawal.
The doctor Rachel brought with her was a rheumatologist called Alan, a thin man with long fingers and a gentle smile, and his fingertips left indents in Shane's knees when he examined them.
"I agree with Rachel," he said. "Based on your blood results and your joints, you've got Reiter's Syndrome, sometimes called reactive arthritis, as a complication of a gastric infection a while ago."
"You can fix it?" Shane said, and Dale decided that as soon as the doctors had gone, he was cutting Shane's nails.
"We can help," Alan said.
Shane cried, just a bit, when Alan put a hypodermic in first one knee, then the next, and removed syringe after syringe of viscous, pale yellow fluid.
"How does it feel?" Alan asked quietly.
"Fucking weird," Shane said without opening his eyes. "I can feel the pressure going off from the inside."
"This is the icky bit," Alan said, and he fitted another syringe, this time full of clear liquid, onto the needle. "Putting the cortisone in."
"Is that it?" Shane asked when both of his knees had been done.
"Not a chance," Alan said. "I'm going to prescribe oral cortisone, but I want to give you an injection to get you started.
"I can't take oral steroids," Shane said. "I'll fail drug testing for weeks."
Alan shrugged. "Your inflammatory factors were in the thousands, rather than tens. I want you to take indomethacin, too, and I'll prescribe something to stop you from getting gut problems from that. And I suspect that you'll be needing methotrexate, but I can make that decision in a week's time."
"A week?" Shane said, and he looked panicked. "I've got to be back at training."
Alan shook his head regretfully. "Three to six months before you're back to normal, six weeks off work at least. I can write you a medical certificate for your employer."
Shane looked shattered. He shook his head mutely, and Dale picked his hand up and kissed it. "Hey," he said. "We'll sort this out. If you're sick now because you got food poisoning on a team Bali trip, everyone will have to put up with it."
Rachel sat on the other side of the couch from Dale and took Shane's other hand. "Yesterday, you asked me about coming off opiates and benzodiazepines. It's not going to be easy; do you still want to do it?"
Shane nodded. "Yeah, I'm either trashed, asleep or in pain, and this has got to stop."
Rachel nodded. "I understand. Doing it while you're already in pain isn't a good thing, but on the other hand, you're not trying to keep on working and pretending nothing is happening. Will you trust me?"
Dale wanted, more than anything, for this not to be happening right then. Frank had gone through hell getting clean, and all he wanted to do right then was tuck Shane up in his bed and keep the man safe, but Shane said, "Yes, I need to do this."
Rachel touched his cheek, the cut and bruised one, and said, "You've been to a bad place, but you're safe now."
Rachel had taken away every opiate in the house, even the analgesics Dale had left over from when he'd had work done on his teeth the year before. She'd taken the muscle relaxants, valium and sleeping pills, too.
All that were left was a plain white bottle, unmarked or labelled, with a small number of tablets in it, and a whole regime of anti-inflammatories for Shane. The white pills were an opiate of sorts, and Shane could have four a day, six hours apart. He'd had a cortisone injection, and the first pill, and had gone to bed.
He wasn't asleep, his breathing was too sharp, but Dale stayed beside him as the room darkened, stroking his back, keeping him company.
Perry was on the bed, too---in triumphant possession of it perhaps---nose on her paws, quiet and still for a change, with Shane's arm slung over her.
The smell of garlic from the reheating lasagna filled the house, and Dale was sure that there were weighty thoughts he should be having, difficult decisions to be made, but words kept slipping away from him, and he lacked the will power to chase them down. He would stay there, with Shane and the dog, until the room was dark.
The doorbell rang, and Shane muttered in the dark and hunched his shoulders, so Dale left the light off and padded through the dark house.
Perry joined him, making little wuffing noises around Dale's feet, then pressing up against the crack of the door as Dale opened it and flicked the porch light on.
He got hold of Perry's collar in time to stop her from plunging through the door, and dragged the dog back.
Lucky Lukowski stepped through the open door and Dale stood back to let him in the house. This had not been in any agreement he'd signed. He'd already let two Prada-shod sharks into the house that day, no one had told him about a third one.
It should have been an uncomfortable moment, while Dale worked out whether he actually wanted to greet Lukowski at all, but Perry had gone ballistic, hurtling around the kitchen and dining room.
"Hi Lukowski," Dale said, scratching at his stubble a little.
"Nice dog," Lukowski said. "I'll go get Shane's stuff."
Lukowski was old guard, having played Aussie Rules in the Seventies, and he'd turned that experience, an MBA, and a fancy suit into a career of herding generation after generation of new players through the national footy draft and into merchandising. He walked like a man that had had every joint in the lower half of his body replaced. It had been his idea to arrange for Madison to date Shane, and that was almost enough for Dale to just slam the door in Lukowski's botoxed face.
Dale settled for standing guard at the door, fending the dog out of the way, while Lukowski dragged two suitcases across the porch and into the hall. "There's more," he said. "At his apartment. I didn't have space in the car to bring it though."
Dale nodded as Perry leapt up onto the larger suitcase, and Lukowski touched his arm.
"How is he?" he asked. "I was so worried when Gordon rang to say Shane had disappeared."
He sounded genuine; he was genuine.
"He's sick," Dale said. "Really sick."
Lukowski nodded. "Thank you, for being here for him."
The dog disappeared down the hall, and there was a muffled shout from Shane.
"Guess he's awake," Dale said, and he led Lukowski down the hall to his bedroom.
The bedside light flicked on, revealing Perry clambering over Shane as he struggled to sit up. Dale lifted Perry off Shane's chest and helped him upright.
"Lucky!" Shane said, and Dale held a squirming Perry while Lukowski and Shane exchanged some blokey back-slapping.
It was easiest to just carry Perry out into the yard. He dropped Perry on the deck, then locked her outside. Really, his ability to deal with disruption was wearing thin.
Lukowski was examining Shane's face, bedside light turned toward Shane, and he looked upset. "...sorry. This should never have happened."
Alright, it was Dale's bedroom, his bed even, and he sure as hell wanted to know what had been going on, so he rubbed the sole of each bare foot on the leg of his jeans and sat on the bed.
"Madison's mum's flown in," Lukowski said to Shane.
"Madison?" Shane asked, and Lukowski shrugged his shoulders.
"Meltdown," Lukowski said. "I've only spoken to her mother, who was in your apartment, so I don't know the details. I don't think it had ever occurred to Madison that you might leave."
"I couldn't do it any longer," Shane said, and he sounded bereft.
Lukowski nodded. "Madison's not my client, you are. Now, do you have everything you need?"
Shane glanced at Dale briefly, and for a moment he smiled. "Yeah. Doctor and lawyer are both taken care of. I've got a letter from the doc for the team. Is that something you can deal with?"
"I can take it to Gordon," Lukowski said. Shane picked up the envelope from the cluttered nightstand and handed it to him, and Dale could feel the effort it was moving his arm.
Lukowski must have too, because he said, "Shit," under his breath. "Do you need me to bring you anything? A replacement phone?"
"Don't think I'll need a mobile phone for a while," Shane said, and his knuckles were red and sore-looking when he patted Lukowski's arm. "For now, I just need to sleep."
On the front porch, with Perry yowling in the back yard, Lukowski said, "I must admit I hadn't expected to see you again, Dale, and certainly not like this."
"Me either," Dale said. "Thank you for bringing Shane's belongings over."
"Call me if there're any problems. I'll do what I can."
Shane was still sitting up in bed, chin resting on his knees, when Dale went back.
"I'm starving," he said. "Can we eat that lasagna now?"
Shane was on the bed, naked with only a sheet over his hips, kissing Dale. His skin was sunset-flushed in the lamplight, slick with oil, mouth open and eyes closed, and Dale trailed his fingertips down the underside of Shane's arm, where the skin was parchment fragile.
Dale hadn't intended to do this, hadn't meant to, but kissing had led to touching, and there was never enough touching happening. This was an old way they had of being together, something they'd done before; oil and slick fingers, lightest pressure, nips of teeth and brush of thighs. It was a way to lengthen things, delay and subvert and side track, and the damp patch on the sheet over Shane tormented Dale.
But Shane, with his eyes closed, wouldn't know that Dale's eyes were fixed there, all he'd be able to feel was the trail Dale's fingertips were making across his chest now, dragging around each nipple, circling, then sliding into the notch at the base of Shane's neck.
The damp patch was spreading as Shane leaked, and it occurred to Dale that maybe no one had touched---really touched---Shane in the time they'd been apart.
Dale peeled the sheet back slowly, breathing the thick smell of Shane's cock and its precious fluid, and kneeling like he was, he could use both hands. His left hand slipped between Shane's spread thighs, cupping Shane's balls, then pressing fingertips behind. His right hand stroked the groove on Shane's sternum, then his oiled fingers slid slowly upward, across Shane's windpipe.
Shane was trembling, hopefully on the edge of coming, and if Shane had been well, they'd have done this differently. But he wasn't well, and Dale was too heartsore to do an entire scene. Beneath Dale's fingers, when he pressed against the cartilage, he could feel Shane moaning helplessly.
Bead after bead gathered at the tip of Shane's cock, glistening then spreading across his belly as he moved with the tension building in his body. Dale lifted the weight off his right hand, so his fingers just curled around Shane's throat, and leaned forward and licked the most recent drop off.
"Oh, God," Shane said, and Dale slid the length of Shane's cock down his throat and sucked.
When Shane had finished coming, Dale gathered him up in trembling arms and held him close.
Shane was relaxed, but it wasn't the limp relaxation of drugs. This was better, where he kissed Dale back, touched Dale slowly, and his eyes were clear, not glazed.
"Fuck me?" Shane asked, and Dale wanted to so desperately, ached unbearably to be back inside Shane.
Before, he would just have slicked his cock with the bottle of oil beside the bed and slid in, but too much had happened for that, and Dale shook his head.
"Maybe tomorrow," he said, and he curled his fingers around his cock and pumped himself hard. It wasn't the same, wasn't as good, but he was so fucking turned on that it wasn't going to matter.
This way he got to watch the lines of his come splashing across Shane's belly, spreading and becoming translucent, and he rubbed the pad of his thumb through the fluid, spreading it evenly across Shane's skin.
When the wreck of your life has been hoisted onto the back of a tow truck and driven away, it becomes easier to work out what matters after all.
It wasn't too bad. It wasn't real withdrawal, just getting his dosage back under control.
At least, that's what Shane kept telling himself.
Dale was asleep, snoring and snuffling, and Shane rubbed his face against Dale's shoulder for a moment, just for the contact.
Sleep was an impossibility, there was no point in even closing his eyes. The light from the hall was enough for him to be able to make out the shadows of the paintings that were on the wall.
Perry was on the floor beside the bed; Shane could hear her chewing away at something. He felt kinda bad that he'd actually forgotten about Perry when he'd staggered to the secret apartment, determined to never go back.
He'd forgotten about Dale, too, and it had certainly not occurred to him that Dale would be there.
Dale muttered in his sleep, and Shane pushed one palm against Dale's side, just to touch him. His hand felt strange, like it belonged to someone else. His whole body was consumed by pain and the belly-twisting need for something unknown that Shane recognised as cravings from when he'd quit smoking. Dried come flaked off his hip, and he really didn't want to look at how good it had been to have Dale touch him again.
Inside his head was rough and painful, feelings kept welling up then melting away---panic and fear and failure---and the clock beside the bed was mocking him. One in the morning, that was when he could have the next pill, and it wasn't midnight yet.
He slid awkwardly out of bed, stumbling a little over Perry and the clutter on the floor, and made his way slowly to the bathroom. He pissed; the bathroom light hurt his eyes, and in the mirror he looked like shit. The bruising on his face was dark and blotchy, though when he peeled the little strips of sticky off the cut, it had closed up. His eyes were swollen, all puffy and red, and it was a damned good thing he wasn't supposed to be playing, because no amount of shaving and hair combing would hide how ill he looked.
Things were jumping around inside his head, making his skin crawl, and he was too restless to go back to bed. Shane pulled Dale's robe off the hook behind the bathroom door and dragged it on.
His knees were still weird, kind of absent, so he held onto the wall in the hall, and Perry bumbled along in front of him.
It was cold in the kitchen, and the light flickered a little. He needed a cup of tea and some distraction, but his hand shook too much get the lid off the tin of tea bags, and it was all impossible...
Dale's arm around his shoulders was solid and comforting, and Shane buried his face against Dale's neck and stopped trying not to cry.
"Hey," Dale said, and his arms wrapped around Shane securely. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"It's a fucking cuppa," Shane said. "How fucking hard can it be?"
"Sit down," Dale said, guiding Shane across to the kitchen table and onto a chair. "Give me a moment to put some clothes on, and then we can talk about this."
He was back in a minute, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, hair sticking up and bedroom lint in his stubble, and he was the weirdest guardian angel Shane had ever imagined.
Dale made tea for them both and sat down beside Shane. "Talk to me?" he asked.
"Oh fuck," Shane said, wrapping his hands around the mug to hide the way they were shaking, but not trusting his grip enough to try and lift the mug. "I'm just hurtin'."
Dale nodded and covered Shane's hands with his own, and the double heat warmed Shane's fingers right through. "You don't have to face this alone," Dale said.
"How the fuck did I not see this happening?" Shane asked, and Dale's eyes were still and calm when Shane lifted his gaze.
"Our ability to delude ourselves is not the least of a human's defining traits," Dale said. "You didn't see it because you didn't want to."
"It was all right at first," Shane said, and the words tumbled out of him. "I must have known you were miserable, but it seemed that if I could just keep playing, keep talking, keep smiling, it would all sort itself out. I didn't have to worry about what I said or did, it was like no one would ever know."
Dale nodded, just once, and said, "So what went wrong?"
"I don't know how to explain," Shane said. "It was like each single thing was bearable: remembering to wear straight clothes, going places, sleeping with her, everyone thinking we're marrying. She always used, but everyone uses, and that sounds so fucking pathetic."
"At least she wasn't a lawyer," Dale said. He didn't seem upset at what Shane was saying, and that was good because Shane didn't think he could face Dale being all virtuous at him.
"It just went on and on," Shane said. "My knees hurt all the time, then my shoulder didn't even start to heal..." He stopped and swallowed. "How fucking pathetic? I thought things got better, but I just got drug-fucked."
"It's not pathetic," Dale said gently. "You're not pathetic. You were strong enough to know to run."
"I wasn't strong," Shane said, and he could feel tears trailing wet down his face, but it seemed like he was finally past crying. "I think I was going to overdose. I wasn't leaving just her."
"Would you have called me?" Dale asked, and his voice was kind.
"Would you have come?" Shane asked. "If I had?"
"Every time," Dale said. "So wake me up next time, alright? We can wait this out together; the middle of the night and I are old friends."
"Maybe you're right," Shane said, and he disentangled his hands from Dale's and leaned across and hugged the man.
Shane and Perry curled up on the couch in the living room, and Dale wrapped a blanket around both of them. Music played on the stereo while Dale dragged a disassembled bundle of shelving into the living room and began to slot the supports together.
The minute hand on the clock in the kitchen crept around, and Shane chewed at the side of his thumb while Dale slid shelves into brackets.
When the shelves were assembled, Dale moved to clearing the coffee table, shifting the books and papers on the coffee table to the shelving and carrying the coffee mugs to the kitchen, as the clock hand eased toward the hour. When Shane dragged his eyes away from the clock, Dale sat on the newly cleared coffee table and took his hand.
"Want some more tea?" he asked. "To take your pill with?"
He wanted to scream, 'No! Gimme the fucking pill!' but this was Dale, who had done nothing to deserve it, at least, on this occasion, so Shane nodded. Saying, 'Please,' however, would have meant getting his jaw to relax, and that seemed too much.
None of Shane's medication was locked away, something that had seemed like a profound expression of trust on Dale's part at first, but had become more like torture.
It took two sweeps of the second hand on the clock for the kettle to boil, and another for Dale to jiggle the tea bag and put milk in the mug.
If Dale had smiled or said anything remotely like a platitude as he gave Shane the mug and the white pill, Shane might have finally screamed, but Dale's face was serious when he put them down. Dale turned away, went back to the kitchen, and Shane didn't have to try and hide his relief at swallowing the pill.
It wasn't instantaneous, of course, something Shane had forgotten, he'd been so focussed on getting through to one o'clock, and he had to put the mug down again because his hands were shaking too much to hold it without slopping yet more tea over himself.
Dale put his own mug down on a bookshelf, changed the CD, and went back to shoving books onto shelves.
It took a while, but Shane felt the first trace of the opiate hit his bloodstream, he was certain of it. A minute later the burning in his gut began to ease; another minute and his skin stopped crawling.
Then the pain in his body began to fade, starting with his headache and spreading to his knees, shoulder and feet. If he'd taken more, if he'd taken enough, he'd just go to sleep, but even when he pushed Perry along the couch and laid down beside the dog, his eyes still stayed open.
Dale's fingers were gentle, pulling the blanket around Shane's shoulders, and when he knelt down in front of the couch, Shane was acutely aware of the scent of Dale's body.
"Want to go back to bed?" Dale asked, and Shane nodded.
The bedside light was on, making the inside of Shane's eyelids glow, and Dale kissed his forehead and held him close. "I'm so sorry," Dale murmured. "For pulling away from you."
"I made bad decisions," Shane said. "You tried to tell me, but I didn't listen. And I wasted so much time because of it."
"Time is never wasted," Dale said. "Almost everything can be changed. You can undo the things you did."
"Madison..." Shane said. "What about her?"
"She has to be responsible for her own actions, same as everyone else," Dale said.
Shane lifted his hand, touched his throat where the chain circled it. There wouldn't be any marks, Dale had barely touched him, but the memory of the pressure of his fingers was strong. "Did it ever worry you?" he asked. "What we did?"
"Did it worry you?" Dale asked. "Was that why you left?"
"It scared me," Shane admitted. "It still does."
Dale was silent, but Shane could feel him breathing, feel his hand stroking down Shane's back. Shane kept his eyes firmly closed. He'd come, come so hard, just from the tiniest touch, there was no way past that.
"Oh, God," Shane whispered. "Is there something wrong with both of us?"
"Perhaps," Dale said. "But if we both want it..."
"I want to know if you do it with other people," Shane said, surprising himself with the question.
"Since you left?" Dale asked, and he sounded just as surprised.
"Yes," Shane said.
"No," Dale said. "I've fucked a few people, but that's all."
"Who?"
The hand was gone from his back, there was a draft of cold air as Dale got out of bed, and Shane listened to Dale pull a robe on.
Perry murmured at the foot of the bed, and then the door to Dale's study opened and closed.
It took effort to crawl out of bed, but when Shane tried the handle on the study, it wasn't locked, and Dale was sitting cross-legged on the couch beside the open windows, in the darkness.
"It's not reasonable for you to ask me who I've slept with in the past year," Dale said. "You left."
Shane sat down tiredly on the end of the couch, and Perry appeared in the doorway, sniffing curiously and proceeded to rummage through the mess, making rustling noises.
"I was never unfaithful to you," Dale continued. "There was none of this shit about needing to sleep with a woman, too. And I could never do what we did with a stranger, or even someone I didn't trust utterly."
The curtains, pulled wide apart, billowed as cool ocean air poured into the room through the open windows.
"I'm sorry," Shane said. "I'm not functioning very well at the moment."
"You're not," Dale agreed. "Do you remember?" he asked, waving a hand, pale movement in the darkness.
Shane looked at the open window, through at the night, and it was as if he'd forgotten a word momentarily, because he recognised the feeling but couldn't find the name for it.
"What? Where?" he asked, because his heart was pounding harder and his eyes were wet, and this meant something but he didn't have a clue what.
"Do you remember the first time?" Dale asked. "We were at your place, in Scarborough, near the beach. It was a cold night, but you wouldn't let me close the curtains..."
A curtain blew through the darkness, against Shane's face, and he remembered. They hadn't fucked that night, just touched and kissed and it had been warm under the thick feather duvet, warm and safe.
Moisture leaked out of Shane's eyes and dripped off his nose and chin, and it felt like Dale had just peeled all the layers, all the years, off him.
"I want to go back," he said.
"To Scarborough?" Dale said, and fingers curled over Shane's bare shoulder, making Shane realise how chilled his own skin was.
Shane shook his head and sniffed. "No, back to feeling like that."
When the insurance company writes your car off, the best thing to do with the payout is not to buy an identical car. Sometimes, the money is enough to do something you've always wanted to do.
Shane was curled up under the bedding, his face in shadow with the bedside light over his shoulder, and Dale pushed aside the drapes at the bedroom window, the hooks screeching on the disused runners. There were blinds underneath the drapes, the kind that stopped all sunlight, and Dale gave up trying to get them to glide and settled for wrenching them off their brackets.
The insect screens popped out of their slots reasonably easy, and he leaned them against the dresser. They were going to provide hours of amusement for Perry, who licked the base of one experimentally.
The keys for the windows were in the locks, which meant that he wasn't going to have to go hunting for them, but the locks were so stiff he did wind up having to go find some oil to coax them undone.
The windows propped open and a cool wind blew in off the coast, carrying the promise of rain.
Shane was shivering when Dale crawled under the covers beside him. Dale drew the bedding up higher and pulled Shane's head over onto his shoulder after leaning across Shane and turning off the bedside light.
Perry was on the bed, too, a big patch of heat, and when Dale nudged his toes against her, searching for warmth, Shane's feet were there already.
The suburb wasn't silent, there was a distant hum of traffic, and the trees in Dale's yard rattled and creaked and sighed in the breeze, and the half-drawn curtains billowed and blew into the room.
When they kissed, so gentle it gave Dale pangs of melancholia, it was Shane whose lips moved first, flickering against Dale's in the dark.
Through the pain and struggle it was the hope for this that had kept Dale going, the hope that somehow, in the midst of the disaster, Shane would reach out for him.
Their tongues touched, and it might have been three in the morning and uncomfortably cold outside of the blankets, but it was warm enough where Shane's body pressed against his.
Perry grunted as Shane clambered across the bed to lie across Dale, presumably she'd been thwacked by a foot, and Shane said, "Sorry," to her with his lips pressed against Dale's again.
Shane was smiling, Dale could tell by the shape of his mouth in the dark, and it made Dale almost laugh out loud with happiness. The friction of skin against skin was doing good things to him, too, and God, if Dale couldn't remember the last time he'd been happy, what had he been doing wrong with his life?
The wind picked up outside, lifting the drapes high, the rain in the air smelled sharp and sour, and while it was nothing like their first night had been, it was still perfect.
A thud and the mattress dipped, and Perry stuck her nose into Dale's left armpit, where his arm was lifted above his head. It made Dale squawk just a little.
"Get out of it," Dale growled. Perry slunk back across the bed, and Shane rested his head down beside Dale's on the pillow and laughed.
It was funny, of course, if Dale was willing to go with a definition of funny that involved his armpit hair and dog saliva, and he couldn't help laughing too.
He hugged Shane, safely removing his armpit from doggy temptation, and Shane said, "Hey."
"Hey what?" Dale asked, nuzzling Shane's hair and sliding one hand down his back to squeeze a buttock.
"Wanna run away somewhere? Start again?"
Dale could hear the rain now, pattering against the open windows. His belly was filled with warmth, and he lifted his head a little to kiss Shane's forehead. "Can't think of anything I'd rather do," he said, his voice was thick with happiness.
The morning sun woke Dale, and he thought bitter thoughts for a moment about the absence of material to block the sun, but Shane was curled up beside him, buried under the bedding still. Happiness bubbled up inside Dale, and he decided he'd be willing to face the sunrise every morning if he had to.
Shane muttered and squished his eyes tighter shut, so Dale settled for kissing his cheek and sliding out of the bed with minimal disruption to the bedding.
Perry trotted into the kitchen behind Dale, pausing for a doggy stretch, and Dale took the sack of dog food out of the pantry and went and opened the door onto the deck to let Perry out.
He'd have to take the mutt for a run that day, she'd been caged inside for too long, and he wasn't sure how many more boots he was willing to sacrifice.
At ten to seven, Dale took a mug of tea and a warm, damp washcloth into the bedroom, and Shane emerged slowly from under the mountain of blankets. The bruising on his face was fading, but his eyes were still all puffy and stuck together. Dale put the mug down and crawled across the bed to wipe Shane's face carefully, cloth gentle across his eyelids, and his eyes came open.
"Morning, sleepy," Dale said, and Perry nosed her way between them, snuffling at the wash cloth.
Shane hugged Perry, making her wag her tail, and then took the mug that Dale handed him.
"Wasn't asleep," he said. "Woke up before you did." He sipped the tea appreciatively. "Didn't hurt as much this time, or maybe it did but I wasn't as afraid of it."
Perry was worn out. Dale had walked her down to the beach and let her throw herself into the foam on the shore, chasing waves in a way that made him suspect she'd never been to the beach before.
Leaving Shane alone in the house had worried Dale, but Lindon had appeared as Dale was leaving, and Dale had been able to stop agonising over whether to leave the bottle of painkillers where they were or take them with him. His sense of honour would have won, he knew that, and it was high time he stopped having these debates with himself.
Cars cluttered his driveway when he walked up, more than just his Ford and Lindon's orange thing. He recognized Lukowski's Porsche, but the black Beemer was new to him. He sincerely hoped that no one he knew drove a tank like the monstrosity blocking the drive.
Dale opened the front door and turned the dog loose. She bolted down the hallway, trailing sand behind her. Shane's luggage was still in the hall, he'd have to get around to unpacking that for Shane soon. It was that or wash some clothes.
People sat around his dining table, and someone had cleared the surface off. Lawyer-types from the day before were arguing with Lukowski and Shane. Dale nodded at the others and leaned over to kiss Shane's cheek. "I better take the hound outside," he said, and scooped Perry up from where she was trying to hump one of the lawyer's legs and hauled her out onto the deck.
Dale slid the glass door shut and nodded to Lindon, who was washing the dishes with a resigned look on his face. Looked like PAs did do housework after all.
Shane looked up at Dale at that moment, some kind of entreaty on his face, so Dale dragged a chair across from the living room and sat down beside Shane, nudging one of the lawyers over.
"...a reasonable compromise," Lawyer One said. "Pecuniary settlement advantages, and no harmful publicity."
"How much money?" Shane asked, and he rested his hand on Dale's knee.
"Madison's lawyer has indicated that she'll give up any claim to the Scarborough residence, which at current property values would be in the order of a million dollars," Lawyer Two said.
Dale carefully spread his hand over the top of Shane's, trying not to press any weight on Shane's swollen knuckles.
"In exchange, you'll agree not to pursue criminal charges against Madison over the assault," Lawyer Two said. "She's buying you off, but it is a lucrative offer."
"However," Lawyer One said, "it's possible that her claim to that property would be considered invalid when the property settlement is thrashed out. So you might be saving nothing."
"How long do I have to decide?" Shane asked, and when Dale glanced at Shane's face, the fading bruises made the whole issue seem irrelevant, but no one was asking his opinion.
"Forty-eight hours," Lawyer One said, gathering up the papers that were spread across the table. "Let us know what you decide."
Lukowski undid the folder of paperwork in front of him. "My turn," he said. "I contacted Gordon personally about you being ill. I'm afraid you're going to have to agree to an examination by one of the Hammers' medical examiners."
"No," Shane said firmly. "I'm not seeing any team doctors ever again. I was sick, and they did nothing about it except give me addictive painkillers which I now have to be weaned off."
"They can insist," Lukowski said, pushing papers across the table toward Shane. "It's in the terms of your contract. Right, Simon?"
Lawyer One nodded. "Absolutely."
"So break the contract," Shane said, and he pulled his hand out from under Dale's and splayed both hands over the paperwork on the table. "Look!" he said. "Just look. I've got knees like melons, I can barely walk, and I'm going through fucking withdrawal. Do whatever you need to, but I'm not letting one of their doctors touch me."
Silence surrounded the table, except for Perry scratching at the glass door and Lindon clattering dishes in the kitchen. Dale just wanted to hug Shane, and it was hard not to grin at the varying degrees of horror on people's faces.
Lukowski said, "This is the Hammers, Shane. You can't just ignore them."
"I can if I'm never going play for them again," Shane pointed out, and Dale couldn't help it, he had to stroke a hand down Shane's back. Personally, he could go beyond ignoring the Hammers, all the way up to denouncing them, but he was bad-tempered and belligerent on the subject.
Lawyer One said, "You're contracted until the end of next year."
"I don't see how they can force me," Shane said. "Players quit all the time. I can just leave the team."
Lawyer One, who had passed beyond dismay and was now expressing frantic disbelief, said, "No. No. No."
Lukowski leaned across the table and patted Shane's hand. "Of course you don't have to finish the season if you're ill."
There was a spluttering noise from the more distressed lawyer.
Lukowski shook his head. "I'll set up a meeting with Gordon, just the three of us, and see what we can do to get you released from your contract."
The lawyers left, taking all their papers with them, though Dale could see through the front windows that they were in a tight huddle in the driveway.
Shane leaned forward so his forehead rested on his hands and said, "Oh fuck. Oh fuck." Dale leaned his own head down on the recently scrubbed table and smiled at Shane when he made eye contact.
"That wasn't hard, was it?" Dale said. "It's really easy to piss people off if you try."
Lindon put a teapot that Dale didn't recognise down on the table and stacked mugs next to it.
"A celebratory drink?" Lindon asked, and Dale helped Shane sit back up again. "And if you're not using your career, Shane, may I please have it?"
"Fuck, yeah," Shane said.
"Hey," Lukowski said. "This isn't irretrievable. Madison's management has made a statement saying she's been admitted to a clinic for an eating disorder. I'd like you to respond to that somehow, let people know you're ill. If the Hammers let you go, then I think someone like the Goannas will snatch you up, even ill."
"Forget it," Shane said. "I don't want to talk to anyone about this."
"It's important," Lukowski said. "There'll be rumours. We need to pre-empt them, before the media has you addicted to ice. A simple, brief appearance would be good."
Dale stood up and walked across to the sliding door and let the dog in. If he had to listen to Lukowski for a second longer, he'd remember that he used to hate the man. Lukowski would start talking about positioning any moment, then Dale would have to lock himself in the study.
Shane looked across at Dale, then at Lukowski. "I'm going to come out," he said.
"Jeeeesus," Lukowski said.
Shane smiled at Dale, who sat back down.
"If you feel ready, I can't think of a better way to reclaim your life," Dale said.
"I'm tired of lying," Shane said. "No amount of sponsorship money or league games can make up for how miserable I've been."
Sometimes it helps to let someone else deal with the driving. Sometimes you have to do it yourself.
Shane was weak, ravaged by the anti-inflammatories, and he didn't open his eyes when Dale squatted beside the bed and wiped his face with a warm flannel.
"Sorry," Shane whispered, and Dale wrung the cloth out in the bucket of warm water.
"Shh," Dale said. "I'll clean up here, then you can float in the bath while I change the bed."
Shane heard him turn the taps on in the bath, then he came back to the bedroom and half-lifted Shane off the bed and guided him to the bathroom.
The water wasn't too warm when Dale helped Shane in, and Shane laid back in the bath, feet on the taps, head on the tiles, eyes closed.
"Will you be okay for a few minutes?" Dale asked worriedly.
"Toothbrush?" Shane asked, opening his eyes.
"Of course."
Shane was sitting up in the bath, brushing his teeth, when Dale knelt down beside him and stroked his back. "Ready to go back to bed?" Dale asked, and Shane spat into the bathwater and nodded.
"Fuck, I feel crook," he croaked as Dale wrapped a towel around his shoulders.
"Too sick to go with Lukowski to see Gordon later?" Dale asked.
Shane shook his head. "I've got to do this."
"You don't have to do it alone," Dale said. "I'm a corporate sponsor; I can prove to Gordon that not all the club's financial supporters are homophobic pigs. Let me come with you."
"And what? Tell him you're my lover?" Shane said. "Is there any way that taking you with me wouldn't be provocative?"
Dale shrugged. "I guess," he said. "You know the situation better than anyone. Just try and throw up on Gordon."
In his car, Lukowski put the keys in the ignition, but didn't start the engine.
"Is there any way I can talk you out of coming out?" Lukowski said. "It's going to cost you all of your endorsement deals, for a start. No other national league club of importance is going to select you from the draft, because there won't be any sponsorship money in it for them. It will be the end of league footy for you."
Shane nodded. He'd spent enough time doing the extraneous work that went with playing with the Hammers to appreciate what Lukowski was saying.
"Is there ever going to be a better time to come out?" Shane asked. "Assuming I'm about to be put onto the permanent injury list with the Hammers anyway."
Lukowski studied Shane's face, and Shane could almost hear cogs whirring.
"Pity you're not going to win the Brownlow Medal this year," Lukowski said. "Because that would really be the best time."
"I don't think you can convince me to stay closeted indefinitely, just in case I one day get better, play amazingly, and win the Brownlow and the wholehearted support of my peers."
Lukowski shrugged. "It's my job to get you as far as I can in your footy career, and make you rich through sponsorship and contract deals, with a percentage going into my bank account. It's my job to tell you not to sabotage your career."
"If you want to drop me as a client, I'll tear up that contract too," Shane said.
Lukowski started the car. "Don't be ridiculous. You're young enough that you'll be back playing at state level in a year or two, and I'll do my best to get you there. No state team will give a damn about your sexual preferences, as long as you're still tall and can ruck."
"I'm not planning on getting shorter," Shane said, and Lukowski grinned at him.
"I've always hated Gordon," Lukowski said. "Let's go ruin his week."
Shane closed his eyes, to ease the stinging rawness, and the car rumbled down Dale's driveway.
How did he feel about no longer playing league footy? Would he be content with the slower pace of footy at a state level?
It didn't matter, as long as he could be himself and still have a chance to play again.
Lindon met Shane and Lukowski at the reception desk at the club headquarters, damp towel and water bottle in his hands, so he'd obviously seen Shane throw up in the car park.
"Thanks, mate," Shane said, grateful for the chance to wipe his face and rinse his mouth.
"I've not said anything," Lindon said, as he led Shane and Lukowski to Gordon's office.
"I appreciate that," Shane said.
"Don't thank me," Lindon said. "I just wanted to make sure I didn't get blamed for any of this."
Lindon knocked on Gordon's office door, and Gordon's voice called out, "What?"
Lindon cracked the door and peered around it. "Shane Davis and Lukowski are here, boss."
"Come in," Gordon said. "You too, Lindon."
"Bugger," Lindon said under his breath.
"You look like shit, Shane," Gordon said, as soon as Shane had lowered himself carefully onto a plastic chair. "Good to see you again, Lucky."
"You too," Lukowski said neutrally.
Gordon waved a piece of paper at Shane. "Got your medical certificate. Doc Teal says you'll be out for a couple of months at least. I'm happy to move you to the long term injury list, until you recover. Doc Teal suggested you get your cruciate ligaments done now, too, ready for coming back to play in the finals."
Lukowski went to speak, but Shane jumped in first. "I'll do this," he said to Lukowski, then he turned to Gordon. "I'm coming out," he told Gordon. "Agreeing to staying closeted was a stupid thing to do, and it's almost killed me."
Beside Shane, Lindon flinched, but Shane didn't shift his gaze from Gordon's face.
Gordon's cheeks blotched red, and the medical certificate crumpled in his hand. "Your contract contains clauses about your public persona, which we negotiated at the beginning," Gordon said, his voice hard. "Have you forgotten? The deal was that we'd sign a gay player, as long as no one knew. You have contractual obligations to the team sponsors, which this will breach. No cornflake or beer merchandiser is going to be happy if the pretty boy on the carton is arrested for buggering some poor bastard in a public toilet. You will be held to the terms of your contract."
Shane stood up on unsteady knees. "I've never been arrested, unlike most of the squad. I've never given the Hammers any hassles, unlike most of the squad. Fuck you, and your contract. I quit."
"You can't quit, because I've just fired you," Gordon said, standing and glowering at Shane across his desk. "Clear your locker and get the hell off my team. Our lawyers will contact your lawyers."
Lukowski stood up, too, and the three large men filled the office.
"You're making a mistake," Lukowski said. "One that will cost you the premiership, since you don't have a replacement ruck."
"I'd rather lose the premiership than all the team sponsorship," Gordon said.
In the corridor outside Gordon's office, after Gordon had slammed his door and started shouting into his telephone, Lindon said, "The squad are in the gym. Do you want to tell them you're leaving?"
Lukowski slapped Shane on the back. "Go on," he said. "They will probably feel that you owe them the truth."
Shane nodded. "Alright," he said, and he had to take a deep breath to steady his nerves. If he could come out to thirty footy players, some of whom were supposed to be his friends, he could come out to the whole fucking world.
The gym was down a flight of stairs that Shane had to creep down, but as soon as he walked in, Budgie tossed his hand weights aside and bounced at Shane.
"Shane! Mate!" Budgie said, and his hug made Shane stagger back and almost fall.
"Bloody hell," Budgie said, standing Shane back on his feet. "You look crook, mate."
"I am crook," Shane said. "Really crook."
Deano, towering behind Budgie, said, "We heard about Madison going to rehab. I'm so sorry, mate."
Shane nodded and looked around at the crowd of faces, as more and more of his squad mates abandoned their weights and stationary bikes to cluster around.
Digger, Ant, Toddo, Bluey ... They were all calling and jostling. Adrenaline hit Shane hard, but it wasn't the good surge that got him through matches. This made his stomach twist and his palms sweat.
Not even playing in last year's finals against men like Killer McKenzie had been as scary as facing friends and telling them the truth.
Lindon whistled, two fingers in his mouth, and the questions and greetings stopped.
"Thanks," Shane said, lifting his voice a little, in spite of the croak in his throat. "I've come to say goodbye. I've just been fired for breaching my contract."
Digger said, "Stone the crows," and Shane could hear other players muttering unhappily.
"Hang on," Shane said. "I need to tell you why. When I joined the Hammers, there was a clause in my contract saying I had to stay closeted. I can't do that any longer, so I'm coming out to all of you first, out of respect for my friends here. I'm gay."
At the back of the crowd, one of the rookies sniggered, then whimpered as someone made him stop.
"Fuck," Deano said. "Um, we had no idea, mate."
Shane lifted a hand, his knuckles swollen and raw. "I'm sick, too, so this is a good time for me to step back from playing, work out what I want to do."
Budgie's brow creased and he blinked a bit. "We're gonna miss you," he said. "I don't care if you're a poofter, you're still a good bloke and a bloody great ruck."
Digger wrapped arms like sides of pork around Shane and squeezed him for a moment, blinking tears out of his eyes. "Do you want us to tell Gordon he's a stupid wanker?"
Only Digger, who feared nothing and no one, except possibly his missus, could suggest that.
Shane patted Digger's shoulder. "Management won't let me stay because of losing sponsorship money, but thank you for the thought. Thank you, all of you." As he turned to leave, one person started to clap slowly, then another, until he was being given the Hammers' traditional farewell. He wasn't just walking off the paddock, he was walking into the sunshine.
Lindon carried Shane's kit bag, stuffed with the contents of his locker, out to Lukowski's car.
Shane grabbed Lindon's arm before they were within hearing range of Lukowski. "Thanks, mate, for everything," Shane said.
"No need to get sentimental," Lindon said. "I'm not planning on disappearing. You won't be seeing me at five in the morning anymore, but I was hoping we could still be friends."
More than Digger's outburst of emotion, Lindon's words made Shane's eyes prick.
In the car, Lukowski handed Shane a notepad. "Want to have a look at that for a press release? If you've burnt your bridges with the Hammers, we'd better make some kind of announcement about you retiring."
Shane read Lukowski's scribble, then took the pencil that Lukowski held out. "I want to do this right."
When Lukowski had left, Dale put a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of Shane and sat down beside him. "Hey," he said. "You might not have noticed, but it's twenty past one."
Shane nodded and hid his face against Dale's shoulder. "Yeah," he said, and even with his voice muffled, Dale could still hear the pride in it. "My body hurts, but I think I'm winning."
Dale hugged Shane gently, making sure not to bump his hands or elbows. "I'm so fucking proud of you."
"Are you crying?" Shane asked, lifting his face.
Dale nodded. "You spend all night throwing up from your first dose of methotrexate, get no sleep at all, both quit and get fired, come out to the team, and you're still so fucking strong."
"I'm weak."
"Strong enough to fight this," Dale said.
The studio door was ajar, and Shane could hear Dale's voice, gentle rise and fall, as he talked on the phone.
This time Shane managed to slide off the bed and drag himself upright unassisted.
A robe was draped over the foot of the bed, so he pulled it on.
His knees felt better, perhaps. Less spongy and wobbly. And the soles of his feet weren't burning as much. Head ached, but wasn't pounding, mouth was raw, but not bleeding. Maybe, just maybe, he was making progress.
Dale looked up when Shane pushed the studio door fully open, smiled at him, and slid his arm around Shane's shoulders.
"He's awake now," he said into the phone. "Sure, I'll tell him."
Shane let Dale lead him back to bed, kicking the bedroom door closed behind them.
"Frank says hello and he's glad you're feeling better," Dale said, and he turned his attention back to the phone. "Sure," he said. "It'll be up to Shane, if he feels well enough."
Dale put the phone down on the bedside table and hugged Shane. "Better for some sleep?" he asked.
"Better in general," Shane said. "Maybe even hungry. What's up to me?"
"Frank invited us both to his place this Sunday. He's having some friends around and thought you might like to get out of the house."
Shane considered the idea, turning it over in his head. "Will it be a big thing?" he asked.
Dale shook his head. "Frank puts on lavish brunches. Lost Sundays, Frank calls them, because people turn up for breakfast and have to be sent home at midnight. But it won't be loud or boisterous. These people are lawyers and financiers."
"No karaoke?" Shane asked hopefully. "No anorexics?"
"Nope," Dale said. "Just good people. You don't have to decide until it's time to leave, there's no rush."
Shane leaned his head against Dale's shoulder and closed his eyes. He felt calm and quiet, and there was happiness in the idea that Frank, who had never liked Shane, had asked them both over. Both of them, together. And Shane would meet Dale's friends for the first time, after so much secrecy.
The windows were open in the bedroom, daylight pouring through the glass, air moving through the entire house, doors propped open, the dog rattling in and out, food smells wafting into the room.
Shane opened his eyes and cocked his head to listen to the clatter of a pan from the kitchen, and the squeak of the fridge opening and closing.
"Who's here?" he asked.
"Lindon," Dale said. "He's got mail and stuff for you, and he's doing something about the mess in the kitchen. He's unpacked your cases, too, and brought more of your belongings over."
"You asked him to?" Shane asked, surprised at the idea.
"Rang him up," Dale said. "Once you'd gone to sleep."
"But you can't stand him," Shane said.
"That was before I realised he cooked," Dale said. "He offered to help out, last time he was here. Seems to me that we need that at the moment."
Shane smiled against the cotton of Dale's shirt. It was going to work out; it was going to be all right.
"Shhh," Dale whispered as he shrugged his shirt off his shoulders and dropped it on the floor.
Lindon was singing along to the radio, his voice muted by the bedroom door, persistent reminder that they weren't alone in the house.
Dale undid his jeans and pushed them down, and in the shifting daylight of rising and falling curtains he was thin and tired.
Shane hadn't really seen Dale until then, he'd been caught in the darkness, but the paleness of Dale's skin was new.
Dale was half-hard already, as he kicked his jeans off, and he gave himself a twist and pull, eyes slitted as he watched Shane, then slid under the blankets beside Shane.
They kissed, long and slow, and Dale's hands scraped over Shane's skin, dragging gasps from him, touching his chest, belly, thighs.
"I'm on fire," Shane whispered when Dale lifted his mouth.
"Are you?" Dale whispered, and fingertips traced across Shane's cock, making him squirm.
"Please," Shane murmured, and fingers slid between his thighs, making him gasp.
"Have you come back to me?" Dale whispered, and his eyes were grey and opaque when Shane met his gaze.
"I have."
Dale's tongue slid across the stubble of Shane's neck, laving the skin, pressing against his windpipe, then down to his chest.
Back up again, and Dale began to suck the skin of Shane's neck, drawing it into his mouth, nipping and marking.
"Turn onto your side," he whispered against Shane's mouth, and Shane rolled away from Dale.
Stillness settled upon him, and Dale's arm slid under his neck and curled across his chest, drawing them close.
Shane eased his top leg forward, opening himself up, and the fingers that touched his arse were cool and wet with lube. He felt pressure, then a finger slid into him, and he moaned.
"Wait for me," Dale murmured, and Shane let out a slow breath and stopped resisting, his body opening up to Dale's touch.
"Can't," he whispered. "Oh, God, need to come..."
"Soon," Dale said. "Very soon..."
The finger slid out of him, and a moment later the head of Dale's cock pressed against his body, pushing in.
There'd been no rustle of a condom packet, and no sour smell of latex; Dale was taking him bareback.
Shane's eyes were leaking and love rushed up from his belly and into his chest. This was it, this was the moment when he would be safe and loved and cared for. The world fell away, Lindon's whistling was a distant echo, and Perry's backyard caterwauling tapered off.
"Love you," he whispered, and it should have been a shout.
"I can feel," Dale whispered back, and he was all the way inside Shane now, buried deep and hard.
Dale's fingers dug into his thigh, holding him steady, and his other arm moved, sliding across Shane's chest, coming up around him so his neck was held snugly in the crook of Dale's arm.
Shane wasn't bound in any way, he seen no indication that Dale still had any of their equipment. Even the bed was different, no eyelets set in the bed head, nothing for Shane to hang onto as Dale slammed into him for the first time.
They both grunted, the bed squeaked and thudded against the wall, and it was faintly absurd that a moment ago Dale had been trying to keep Shane quiet.
Except Dale knew exactly how to keep Shane quiet, flexing his arm slowly, increasing the pressure on Shane's throat.
His thrusts slowed, turning into slow slides, and his fingers no longer dug into Shane's thigh. Instead, he ran one hand over Shane's belly and up to his chest, feeling for his breathing.
Shane didn't struggle, he just let himself go, hands releasing the sheet and pillow, stopped trying to breathe in, just thought of the feel of Dale's cock pushing into him. His body tried to panic, now he couldn't breathe, but there was no need, and he let the panic go too.
The world began to grey, and Dale's hand was firm against his diaphragm, waiting. He'd stopped moving inside Shane, but Shane could feel how turned on he was, feel every throb of his cock, hear every sub-articulated moan.
Then the pressure was gone from his throat, oxygen flooded Shane's lungs, and Dale's hand was wrapped around his cock as the endorphins screamed through Shane's bloodstream and he came, thrusting helplessly into Dale's hand, back from the edge.
Afterwards, while his lungs gasped and stung and his mind reeled, Dale ground into him hard and fast, belly slapping against Shane's back, slick with sweat.
Dale came, spreading wetness deep inside Shane, thrusts slowing until he began to soften, but he stayed where he was, his face pressed against Shane's shoulder.
"I burn for you," Dale whispered, pressing kisses across Shane's skin.
It took effort to lift his hand to cover Dale's where it still pressed against his chest, but Shane managed it.
In the dusk the room was shadowed, the curtains billowing as the breeze shifted, and the house was silent, no human or dog noises. A fly buzzed somewhere in the room, battering wings against the wall.
Dale's hands turned Shane over carefully, touching his face and neck, pushing his hair out of his eyes, then Dale pulled the bedding over both of them.
Shane touched Dale's face, traced his lips, found that day's stubble, touched each eyelid in turn.
His own body hurt: back, knees, gut, throat, eyes, elbows. Bits of him were aching, other bits were screaming or spasming, but Dale's hands were soothing across his skin, finding each point of pain, brushing it away. Shane craned his head forward enough to press his lips against Dale's in a tiny kiss, then settled it against the pillow, close enough that each breath of Dale's flitted across his cheek.
The front door opened, then slammed shut, dog claws skittered through the house and Perry woofed at the bedroom door, just once, asking for the door to be opened.
"Dinner, puppy?" Lindon called out, voice muted by the door, and Shane closed his eyes, content to listen to the clatter of a metal dog bowl and the run of the tap.
"Go to sleep," Dale murmured. "I'll be here when you wake up."
Shane felt relaxed, blissfully so, but without the fuzziness in his head that valium gave him. He yawned and stretched in the passenger seat of Dale's car.
"Are you too tired for this?" Dale asked as he parked the car. "I can just take you home; Frank will understand."
"Not tired, just thoroughly fucked," Shane said. "I blame you for that."
"All my fault," Dale agreed, reaching behind him for the esky of cold drinks. "Next time, fight me off."
"Fuck, no," Shane said. "I think I've had more sex in the past two weeks than in the past year."
Shane winced mentally when he realised what he'd said, but when he glanced through the windscreen at Dale, who was coming around the car to help him out, Dale looked amused.
"That is not my fault," Dale said through the open car door. "But I am enjoying the bit where you try and make up for lost time."
Shane had crutches to try and keep the weight off his knees, and it took some organisation to get himself out the car and propped up on them.
Frank lived in an elegant villa, with views over the river and city. Shane wasn't sure how Frank managed to put up with Dale, who lived and worked in free-floating mess, when Frank himself was so orderly.
Frank met them at the front door, his face split in a wide grin. "Congratulations, Shane," he said, taking the esky from Dale and peering in. "Oh, thank God you brought tonic water."
"Congratulations on what?" Shane asked, as Frank kissed his cheek.
"Coming out, darling," Frank said.
People were gathered on Frank's deck, seven or eight men and a dyke couple, and they gave a low cheer as Shane hobbled out onto the deck, into the cool, clear winter sunshine.
Dale said, "Everyone! This is Shane." He then rattled off a list of names Shane had no chance of remembering, especially since he'd just spotted the Sunday papers, spread across the table between champagne flutes and stubbies of beer.
He sat down in a hurry, his crutches clattering a little, and Dale said, "Fuck."
One paper had a photo of Shane on the front cover, with "full story on the back page" printed underneath. When Shane turned the paper over, the paper had another photo of him, in full flight taking a mark. 'Davis: I'm gay' was the headline. "Shane Davis announced his retirement from senior football this week, citing a serious case of arthritis and a round four shoulder injury that wasn't healing. The star ruck for the Hamilton Hammers used his sudden retirement to announce he was gay, stunning the football world."
The article went on to list his season and career stats, and to quote Gordon as saying how sad he was to lose Shane, and how the Hammers had always been aware of Shane's sexuality and had supported him in his decision to come out.
"Wanker," Shane said, tossing the paper down. "Fucking arsehole. Lying hypocritical creep."
Dale picked the paper back up and read it quickly, sitting beside Shane. "So Gordon lied," Dale said, handing the paper back to Frank and taking the glass of champagne Frank offered him. "What matters is that it's done, and you're out."
"Champagne, Shane?" Frank asked.
"Can't," Shane said. "Medication. Pity, because I could do with something to take the nasty taste of Gordon's lies away."
The man sitting on the other side of Shane, who Shane thought might be called Connor, said, "You've become an instant celebrity in the gay community. When I saw the papers this morning, I ran around screaming. It was about time we got ourselves a hunky footballer as a hero."
Dale put his arm around Shane's shoulders and said, "Don't panic, Shane. Connor is one of the editors of Pink, the gay newspaper here. He's not some sleazeball. Well, he is, but he's just glad you've come out."
Shane nodded and glanced sideways at Dale. "I hadn't thought about how anyone else would feel about me coming out."
"Gay teenagers across the city are plastering your photos over their bedroom walls as we speak," Connor said. "Across Australia, even. You coming out will mean so much to so many people."
"I didn't do it for them," Shane said. "I did it for me, because being closeted had made me so miserable I couldn't take it any longer."
"Back off, Connor," Dale said good-naturedly. "We're not all evangelists for the cause."
Connor shrugged. "Sorry," he said. "Guess I forget there are lots of gays out there who---"
"Who what?" Dale cut in. "I don't think there's much you can add to that sentence that isn't going to offend someone here."
Connor grinned at Dale, and Shane realised they must be old friends, or perhaps ex-lovers. "I'll shut up now," he said. "Sorry, Shane. I was being tactless and rude. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for you to stay closeted all that time, or to come out, knowing it would be in the mainstream papers."
"And I'm sorry if I'm jumpy," Shane said. "It's been a rough week."
"When you feel better, would you do an interview with Pink?" Connor asked. "We'd love to hear your side, and you can tell everyone how oppressively hetero-normative the Aussie Rules world is."
Dale said, "Connor, you're being a wanker. Leave Shane alone."
"Maybe later," Shane said. "But I need to get better first."
Shane lasted an hour, sitting in the pale sunshine, watching sailboats glide past on the river and listening to Dale and Frank's friends talk, before Dale noticed Shane's gritted teeth.
"Are you in pain?" Dale asked quietly, his head close to Shane's and his fingers stroking the back of Shane's neck.
"A bit," Shane admitted. "Would you mind if we went home?"
"Of course not," Dale said.
Even on the hardest journeys and the roughest one way streets, it's possible to glimpse the destination.
Alan, the rheumatologist, handed the printout to Shane as Shane sat on the examination table, and Dale peered over Shane's shoulder, reading the numbers.
"What does it mean?" Shane asked. It couldn't be bad news; Alan looked far too smug.
"See the highlighted numbers? That's your ESR, which gives an overall guide to the amount of inflammation in your body. It's actually dropped a little from last week. Let me see your knees."
Dale's hand squeezed Shane's shoulder, and Shane felt absurdly proud, considering he had no direct control over the ESR levels himself.
"How have you been feeling?" Alan asked, as Shane pulled up his sweatpants, exposing his legs.
"Tired," Shane said. "The methotrexate still makes me throw up. My knees feel better, though."
Alan prodded Shane's knee, pushing fingers into the spongy tissue. "This one looks less swollen. So does the other one. This time, the draining is optional. Do you want me to take some fluid off, when I put the steroid in?"
Shane touched his knee, feeling the fluid sitting around the knee cap. "Will it make a difference to my recovery?"
Alan shrugged. "In the long term, no. It might protect the joints from further damage a little, though, and it should decrease your pain levels in the coming week."
"Do it then," Shane said. "I want to stop taking analgesics."
Beside him, Dale said, "Don't push yourself so hard, you're sick and in pain."
Alan nodded. "I agree with your friend. There's no therapeutic benefit in you having joint pain. It might work against you, because I was about to recommend a return to some gentle exercise."
Shane shook his head. "It's been months and months since I've not had painkillers in my system. I don't care if my joints hurt, I'm used to that."
"Let me drain your knees first," Alan said. "Then I'll have a better idea how your joints really are."
Alan put the small plastic tray of syringes, vials, and needles onto the examination table beside Shane and pulled gloves on.
The needle slid into Shane's knee joint, and Shane took a deep breath to steady himself. Alan screwed a syringe onto the needle as yellow fluid welled out of the needle, then pulled back on the syringe, dragging the thick fluid out of Shane's knee.
Once the fluid had gone the knee was no longer hot and swollen, then the cortisone stung the joint.
When the other knee had been done, Alan disposed of the syringes and needles, then peeled his gloves off.
"That was eighty millilitres from each knee," Alan said. "Significantly down on last week's drain. I think you're winning."
Shane said, "That's great, isn't it?"
"You're supposed to have three millilitres in each knee," Alan said. "The fact I drained more than fifty times that from each knee last week is an indication how advanced the disease is. Let's not get excited too soon."
"When you said gentle exercise, what did you mean?" Dale asked. "Because I suspect Shane is envisioning long distance marathons."
Shane pretended to glower at Dale, who just smiled smugly back at him.
"Walking is good," Alan said. "Just ten minutes at a time to start with. Swimming, too."
"And when can I stop taking methotrexate?" Shane asked. "It's been four weeks."
Alan sat on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms as he thought. "I have to say, given how sick you were when I first saw you, and how long your condition had been untreated for, you're doing really well. I can only assume your excellent physical fitness has helped you recover."
Dale said, "Don't push it, Shane. There's no rush, don't drive yourself so hard."
Alan shook his head, smiling. "Another two weeks, as an absolute minimum," he said. "Then you can negotiate with me."
In Dale's car, Shane leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.
"You're exhausted," Dale said, his hand touching Shane's cheek.
"Rooted," Shane said. "But I'm going stir crazy, not being able to do anything."
"Bouncing off the walls?" Dale asked, and when his fingers dragged down Shane's cheek, to the side of his neck, Shane's eyes opened wide.
"Boundless energy," Shane said, though it was blatantly untrue.
"Do you want me to do something about that, when you're not so tired?" Dale asked, his voice husky.
"Yeah," Shane said, because the way Dale's eyes had hooded made his blood burn. "As long as we're talking about not just going for a walk."
The crutches made Shane slow, and he had to keep resting to catch his breath, but Dale didn't complain about waiting.
No one else was around, not with the clouds spitting rain and the wind blowing in cold from the south, but it was still a surprise when Shane pulled Dale closer, out of the rain, under the tree he was resting against.
Perry latched her teeth onto the end of one of Shane's crutches, but Dale ignored her. Shane's face was red-cheeked in the cold and he was laughing silently.
"I feel like I've woken up from the longest nightmare," he said, tilting his head to rest against the tree so fragments of bark were trapped in his hair.
Dale pushed Perry's leash more securely around his wrist and used his other hand to loosen the scarf wound around Shane's neck, freeing the material.
A car slid past them, spraying water across the verge, but Shane didn't shift his gaze. Dale's fingers caressed Shane's throat, where he'd held Shane, and the skin was unmarked.
Shane was tall enough that he had to lean forward to press his lips against Dale's, just a brief brush of contact, but it was as significant as anything that had happened between them, because it was the first time Shane had ever kissed Dale in public.
Perry bellowed, and Shane laughed. "Let's walk," he said. "I might be used to freezing my arse off in the rain at training, but you're a soft office worker and you might get cold."
Dale drew himself up so he was a mere ten centimetres shorter than Shane.
"I'll have you know that I played for two years with the Brentwood D Grade Reserve team," he said indignantly. "The D Grade team used us to kick the dew off the grass before their matches."
Shane smiled widely. "I'd forgotten that," he admitted. "Why'd you stop playing?"
Dale stopped trying to stand quite so tall. "Someone hit me during a game," he said. "It really hurt. It was unsporting of them."
Shane burst out laughing, making Perry howl until Dale bent over to pick her up.
"See?" Dale asked Perry, holding the squirming dog up to Shane's face. "He's not hurt or anything."
Perry licked Shane's face, then Dale lowered her down again.
"The fact that the dog couldn't identify the sound you were making as positive is a worry," Dale said. "Can we walk on, before you decide to mock me?"
"We can walk," Shane said. "But I'm going to be making the most of your cowardly stature for a while."
Shane's crutches clicked on the paving, and Perry hurtled forward, barking at the rain, until she reached the end of her leash and was jerked back again.
They didn't make it far, just to the nearest corner and back again, but Shane looked like he'd run a marathon when Dale unlocked the front door again.
"Go back to bed," Dale said.
Shane rested his crutches against the wall, hands braced against the plaster for balance. "You coming to bed, too?" he asked.
Dale parked his car in the driveway beside Lindon's orange thing and retrieved his briefcase and laptop from the back seat.
It had taken a couple of weeks, but Frank had eventually moved from insisting Dale stay home with Shane, to demanding Dale return to work. "The footballers," he'd groaned. "I can't deal with another fucking footballer. They're so fucking macho, with their broken limbs, tight jeans, and million dollar contracts."
The front door pushed open, and the smell of roasting meat hit Dale's senses, overlaid with wintergreen. It could only mean one thing: Lindon was not only massaging Shane, he was cooking dinner, too.
"I love you, Lindon," Dale called out, ditching his briefcase and laptop on the couch, then throwing his suit jacket over a chair.
Lindon called out, "I'm still not returning your affections."
Lindon's massage table was set up in the dining room, beside the newly installed shelving. Dale's house was turning into a home, with remarkably little effort from him.
Shane looked up from the massage table and said, "You're a tart, Dale. One good home-cooked meal and you've ditched me for a man who operates a can opener."
Dale bent down and kissed Shane's cheek, then ducked out of the way of Lindon's elbow as Lindon lifted Shane's arm behind his back and held it in place with a knee.
"How do you feel?" Dale asked, touching Shane's cheek briefly.
"Right now? Like some bastard is trying to rip my arm out of its socket."
Lindon chuckled, and Shane winced.
"In general, when the bastard isn't torturing you?" Dale asked.
"I'm telling my mum you both called me a bastard," Lindon threatened.
"I slept until lunch," Shane said. "Then Lindon took me for a swim, which killed me. Now he's rearranging my corpse."
Lindon lifted his knee off the table, releasing Shane's arm and lowering it over the edge of the table.
"You're done," Lindon said. "And I have to go to evening training, so enjoy the dinner."
"Evening training?" Shane asked, pushing himself upright carefully and shaking his arms, then sticking one elbow up in the air in a stretch.
"Not the Hammers," Lindon said. "My mate, Evan, trains an amateur side, and I said I'd go help out tonight, see if I could pretend to be Gordon and scare them out of their losing streak."
"Is it a bad streak?" Shane asked, and Dale could see a gleam of interest in his eyes.
"No wins this season," Lindon said. "Now get off the table so I can fold it up."
"Which team?" Dale asked.
"It's the Forrest C Grade squad," Lindon said, steadying Shane with one hand as he clambered off the table. "Good natured losers, the bunch of them. Evan is fond of them, and he doesn't seem to be able to achieve the level of abuse that might inspire them to actually win."
"Good luck," Shane said, as Dale bundled the towels from the table up, ready for the washing machine.
"They'll need it," Lindon said. "I'll see you both again soon, and don't forget to check the dinner every ten minutes."
The only way forward is to get back behind the wheel again.
The kids with the footy shouted in the twilight, and seagulls swooped in the spotlights that shone on the oval. Dale sat on one of the park benches, and Perry fell in a heap at his feet, panting.
"The dog has no stamina," Dale observed breathlessly, but Shane didn't look at him, he was too engrossed in watching the kids run around, kicking the ball.
"Yes!" one the kids shouted, getting a decent connection with the ball so it sailed off his sneaker and through the air toward Shane and Dale.
All the kids waved their arms in wild excitement, and Shane jumped up in the air, arms extended, and grabbed the ball.
"Mark! Mark!" the kids called, rushing toward Shane, across the oval.
Shane whistled, like an umpire's whistle, then took two steps and dropped the ball onto his own sneakered foot.
The ball was a lightweight imitation, not one of the heavy leather balls Shane was used to, but he still got some flight into it, and it shot through the air, well above the kids' heads.
"Thanks, mister," one of the kids called. "Come and have a kick around."
Dale laughed and waved his hand, when Shane glanced at him, so Shane trotted across the grassed oval carefully, being gentle on his joints.
His knees stung, but lacked the deep ache that meant the joint was severely inflamed, so Shane stretched out a little. Relief, and joy at being able to move his body again after so long, ran through him.
One of the kids, a girl who looked about ten, retrieved the ball and kicked it back toward Shane, so it dribbled across the grass toward him. Shane scooped the ball up, bounced it a couple of times, then handballed it back to the girl.
"You're Shane Davis, aren't you?" a red-headed boy called out. "I recognise you from the TV."
The ball barrelled back at Shane in a very competent handball, and Shane snatched it, balanced it on his palm, then thwacked it with his fist, handballing it to one of the other kids.
"I'm Shane. What're your names?"
"Tod," the red-head said. "That's Suze, Fossie and Mick. When you going to play for the Hammers again?"
Suze kicked the ball back toward Tod, who grabbed it and kicked it toward Shane. Shane jumped up and marked the ball, then mentally measured the distance to the goal posts.
Only twenty metres, but the ball was too light to be sure of it carrying. Shane moved back a little, just a few paces, then ran at the goal, timing it right so the ball went from his hands directly onto his sneaker and it soared through the posts.
The kids cheered, and one of the boys bolted after the ball. Shane looked down at Tod and shrugged. "Don't think I'll ever play for the Hammers again," he said. "But maybe I'll get to have a kick with another team soon."
Perry barked, and Shane looked across to where Dale was walking toward the kids. "My partner's here, so I'm going to go. Thanks for the kick. You tell Suze that she's got a great handball on her."
"Sure, Shane," Tod said, and he bolted toward the other kids, calling out, "Suze! Suze! Guess what!"
Dale was smiling at Shane fondly. Shane slid his hand inside Dale's elbow and stepped over Perry's leash.
"Have fun?" Dale asked, as they walked back across the oval, the kids shouting in the distance behind them.
"I did," Shane said. "You heard?"
"You telling someone they had a good handball? Or the bit where you want to play again?" Dale asked.
"Playing again," Shane said. "What do you think?"
"You're not talking senior level competition, are you?" Dale asked. "Because you've only been off methotrexate a week, and I don't think your body is healed enough for that."
"Can't play senior football for ages, not until the steroids have washed out of my system. I was thinking of asking Lindon's mate, Evan, if I could get a kick and a run with his team."
Dale nodded, and Shane could see he was smiling. "Do you reckon they'd let me train with them, too?"
"Bet they would," Shane said. "As long as you promise not to cry if someone hurts you."
They stopped on the edge of the oval while Perry peed, and Shane slid an arm around Dale's shoulders, pulling him close. "Can't think of anything I'd rather do in public with you than go to amateur footy training," Dale said.
Evan was short and fat, making an unlikely footy coach despite the whistle around his neck and loudhailer in his hands.
"Bloody hell, I thought Lindon was joking," he said, stuffing the loudhailer under one sweaty arm and holding out his puffy hand to Shane.
"You're Evan?" Shane asked.
"Could be," Evan said. "Coach of this team and all."
"I'm Shane, and this is Dale," Shane said. "Reckon we could get a run with your team?"
"Anything you want, anything at all," Evan said. "We're just warming up. Lindon said you're coming back from injuries, so take it as easy as you need."
Dale exchanged glances with Shane. Dale shrugged and said, "Let's go see if you can outrun me without even breaking into a jog."
Shane grinned at Dale. "Weakling."
The oval was wet, and Shane could see a smattering of players toiling around the perimeter.
He dropped his water bottle onto a picnic table, along with his sweatshirt, and he could feel he was grinning. After endless weeks of inactivity, then the hellish swims with Lindon, it felt like he was actually getting somewhere at last.
Dale slapped him on his back. "One lap to warm up, then some stretches?" Dale asked.
Shane nodded and the two of them headed out onto the grass. Shane had to keep his pace slow so Dale could keep up, his legs were that much longer than Dale's. Halfway around the oval, Shane's heart rate and breathing had picked up and his knees were still completely pain free underneath the layers of tape strapping them.
"It's working!" he called to Dale, looking back at his lover, who had dropped behind.
Dale was breathing too hard to reply, but waved a hand at Shane, urging him on, so Shane stretched his stride out, really testing his newly healed body for the first time.
It felt like flying, to run again, the grass under his feet cushioning each stride. His fitness was poor, if a simple run pushed his heart and lungs so hard, but it was a beginning, and it felt fucking fantastic.
He slowed down again as he approached Evan and the rest of the squad, Dale pounding in behind him.
"This is Shane, and his mate Dale," Evan called out. "They're gonna train with us."
Shane lifted a hand in greeting and walked the last few metres to the gathered squad. They were a motley bunch, an interesting mixture of overweight, middle-aged men and gangly fifteen year olds. Old players, who hadn't let go, and new hopefuls who hadn't grown into their bodies yet, but who were still looking for a kick.
Evan called out, "Stretch, folks. Then we'll do some ball skills."
The grass was wet, smelling of rain, and the people around Shane smelled of sweat and liniment. Shane's hamstrings were painfully tight as he eased himself into the stretches, another reminder of how long he'd sat around doing nothing.
The kid next to Shane said, "Hey, you play with the Hammers, don't you?"
"Used to," Shane said. "You aiming to play senior footy?"
"Want to," the kid said. "Evan says I'm not strong enough yet."
Shane had a look at the kid's spindly legs and arms. "I'd listen to him. You've got time, though, haven't you?"
"I'm fourteen," the kid said. "So I need to make the preliminary draft for the training camp next year to get into the senior program."
Shane switched legs and started to try and work some give into his other hamstring. "You can work your way through the ranks," he said. "The training camps and draft aren't everything. I came into state footy from a country team, and then went into the league from there."
"Gosh," the kid said. "How come you're playing with us?"
"Got fired from the Hammers," Shane said. "See the bloke on the other side of me?" Shane waved at Dale, who was lying on his back, one knee lifted up to his chest. "He got me fired."
"Fuck you," Dale said, though he sounded amused. "You got yourself fired, you wanker."
"Wow," the kid said. "It's really cool you're going to play with us."
"It is, isn't it?" Shane said.
"Get up," Evan called through the loudhailer. "Let's have some running passes, full length of the oval. Ten minutes, people."
After half an hour of handballing, kicking, and running, Shane was so tired he was wobbly on his feet. Lying on the wet grass, listening to Evan calling out stretches and Dale labouring to breathe beside him, Shane was also unbearably happy. He'd come back, and it felt damned good.
He was going to sleep well, and when he woke he was going to eat a high-carb breakfast and then go for a run.
Assuming he could move by the morning, which was not certain, not when Dale had had to help him back to his feet and to the car.
Dale opened the car door, and Shane lowered himself carefully into the car. His feet tingled, his face was cold and wet with rain, and he could murder a burger.
"How do you feel?" Dale asked, climbing behind the wheel and starting the car. "Are you sore?"
"I feel like I could take on the world," Shane said. "After I've had a nap."
Dale grinned, his teeth gleaming in the light from the car's dash. "Good," he said. "Because that just about fucking killed me."
What people don't realise about one way streets is that, although you can't turn around on them or reverse down them, if you drive around the block back to the beginning of the street, you get a second chance.
Shane was almost bouncing in his seat while Dale parked the car, and it made Dale laugh.
"Christmas time?" Dale asked Shane, who was reaching onto the back seat for his duffel bag.
"Better than Christmas," Shane said. "As exciting as my first senior match, but without the stark fear of failure."
"Whereas I'm more concerned with the possibility that someone will injure themselves, and I'll have to get off the interchange bench and run around."
Shane leaned across and kissed Dale's lips briefly. "You'll be fine. Just remember real players don't cry."
Shane's high spirits were infectious and Dale found himself filled with anticipation too.
The pair of them walked across the car park, toward the group of players wearing blue-and-green striped sweaters and Tshirts that were gathered around Evan.
Shane tossed their duffel bag onto the pile of bags and joined the pack, but Dale paused, his mouth open.
The match had attracted the usual ragged collection of spectators; mums, dads, long-suffering partners and kids. One of the kids waved a homemade blue and green pompom.
And beside them, sprawled on picnic blankets and brandishing champagne glasses and pink flags, were Frank and the Lost Sunday crowd.
"Oh, God," Dale muttered, wrapping an arm around Shane's back and leaning into the huddle, where Evan was giving instructions.
"Defence, don't drop the ball. On-ballers, if you get a touch, hand it off to Shane who's playing centre half forward. If Shane yells at you to do something, then listen to him. Everyone, one lap warm up, then stretch. We're going to thrash Beddington today."
"Have you seen Frank?" Dale asked Shane as the huddle broke and the team set off for their warm up lap.
"Couldn't miss him," Shane said. "Not in that pink shirt."
The squad thundered around the oval, and if there was a certain amount of preening and sneering at the other team's supporters brandishing purple and yellow scarves and pompoms, then Dale couldn't blame them. Shane was half a head taller than anyone else on the squad and he loped along like some fucking Greek god, muscular and gorgeous and so damned competent. The other side should be quaking in their footy boots and considering forfeiting the game.
Dale heard someone, wearing a homemade purple and yellow sweater, say, "Bloody hell, that's Shane Davis," as they went past. Then it was on to where Frank and friends were shouting and whistling, with Connor running out onto the oval to take photos.
This match wasn't going to be boring, even if Dale did spend the whole eighty minutes on the interchange bench, where he belonged.
The result was never in doubt, not from the moment that Shane had taken his first mark, grabbing the ball out of the air effortlessly, then kicking a goal from fifty metres out on an angle.
They were well up, kicking into the breeze, and the rain had held off.
Dale wasn't fortunate enough to sit out the whole match and he found himself running out onto the oval part way through the third quarter, filling in for a bloke called Clive at the full forward flank, who was filling in for Greg on the wing while Greg had his ankle iced.
Shane grinned at Dale as he settled himself behind the kid from the other team who was playing in defence, and Dale grinned back.
The kid Dale was playing against said, "How did your team wind up with Shane Davis?"
"Just lucky," Dale said, looking up the pitch to where the harassed-looking umpire was throwing the ball in from the boundary line. "Come on, let's go get some action."
The kid grinned at Dale. "Yeah. I wanna go to school tomorrow and say I played against Shane Davis."
It was fun; running around in the spring sunshine, crumbing for some ball contact, hoping to grab the ball as it bumbled out of the thrashing tackles through people's legs. Dale had a stitch in his side and he was sweating like crazy when the ball soared through the air toward him, just inside the goal square.
It was a sweet kick, so Dale suspected Shane had sent it his way. Trouble was, the pimply kid beside him had ambitions toward the ball and was going up in the air, arms battering at Dale.
Dale leapt up off the ground, arms outstretched, and the ball thudded into his chest, winding him as he grabbed at it.
He and the kid went down, Dale's face smacking into the grass and mud.
"Owwww," he whinged, then hands grabbed his sweater, hauling him to his feet, and Shane shoved the ball back into Dale's hands.
"This is yours," Shane said.
"Free kick," the umpire shouted, tooting on her whistle as she ran up the oval toward Dale.
"Go for it," one of the older blokes from Dale's team said.
Go for it.
Dale wiped the mud off the ball onto his sweater and walked five steps back, then turned around and faced the goal.
He was only fifteen metres out, on a slight angle. In the distance, he could hear the pink cheer squad shouting his name.
Dale strode toward the goal, ball held in his hands, lacing down.
Oval balls were bastards to kick, being subject to wobble, but Dale held it as steady as he could and guided it down onto his boot, just like Shane had taught him, down at their local park.
The ball thudded against the top of his boot and went tumbling forward, arcing through the air, over the hands of the full back defender who was leaping around, trying to spoil the kick.
Through the taller, central goal posts, and Dale stood frozen, watching in disbelief as the kid who was umpiring the goal posts at that end of the oval stuck both of his index fingers out in front of himself, signalling a goal.
Shane scooped Dale up swung him around, hugging him, and as Shane spun Dale around, Dale caught sight of Frank jumping up and down on the picnic blanket, waving both arms in the air.
Shane smacked a kiss on Dale's muddy cheek and set him back on the ground. "Fucking brilliant," Shane shouted, and Dale's team-mates slapped him on his back, shouting too.
The rest of the game passed in a blur of Shane thrashing the pants off the other team, scoring seven goals in a row. The whole match was suffused with wild joy, and when the car horn that marked the final siren sounded, Dale was just a little disappointed, along with thirsty and starving.
Shane hugged Dale, a huge embrace, as they came off the oval.
Dale, hugging Shane back, asked, "How are you? Are you sore?"
"Hamstrings are tight," Shane said. "Knees and shoulder are fine. And you?"
"Dying," Dale said cheerfully. "Don't care, though, because Frank is holding a glass of champagne that is hopefully mine."
"It is, darling," Frank called out. "You were wonderful; you both were."
Dale kept an arm around Shane's back, hugging him, and drank half of the glass down. "The rest is yours," he said, handing to the glass to Shane.
Shane kissed Dale, then took the champagne off him and emptied the glass, and their friends cheered.
"Food?" Connor asked. "I've brought a hamper of food."
"Food, please," Shane said.
Dale sprawled across the grass, Shane's hand held securely in his, his belly full of sandwiches and champagne, and listened to his friends laughing and chatting.
Shane nudged Dale, and Dale propped himself up. "Come for a walk," Shane said. "Before I seize up completely."
They wandered off, around the oval, and Shane said, "You were grinning like an idiot back there. What were you thinking about?"
Dale stopped and looked at Shane, then at himself. "I'm not sure that mud counts as romantic, but I was wondering if you'd like to regularise this."
"Regularise?" Shane asked, looking puzzled and amused.
"You know, make it legal," Dale said. "Your lawyer and my lawyer draw up contracts, then we wander down to the registry office and take the limited legal steps available to us to formalise the relationship."
Shane stared at Dale, his mouth open. "You're proposing?"
"Guess I am," Dale said. "We can sort the property out, make some of it shared title. Frank will wear his tuxedo and cry, while Connor takes photos. Your mum can come along and throw rice, preferably uncooked. My mum will try and work out if any of the nice lesbians there will have a grandchild for her. I love you, Shane. I always have."
Shane lifted Dale's grubby hand up and kissed his knuckles. "Let's---what did you say?---regularise this then."
"What a day," Dale said, his throat tight. "I kick a goal, and we agree to get married."
"I kicked twelve goals," Shane pointed out.
"Well, you're just a show off. I want to go home and have a long, hot shower, then fuck you senseless."
Shane hugged Dale, squeezing him hard. "You going to have the strength?" Shane asked, his mouth against Dale's ear.
"A shower, a nap, then a fuck?" Dale asked. "Easy on the shoulders there."
"A shower, a nap, I'll give you a massage, then a fuck?"
"No wonder I love you," Dale said.
The oil was hell on the sheets, but Dale didn't give a fuck about the sheets, not right at that moment. Shane had him pinned down, sitting astride his buttocks, and Shane's thumbs were deep in the knotted muscles of Dale's shoulders.
"Is that good?" Shane purred, his thighs tightening their grip on Dale's flanks. "Do you like that?"
Dale groaned deeply as Shane's fingers worked into to the top of his shoulders. "Fucking hurts," he said. "Don't stop."
More oil trickled down Dale's back and Shane's thumbs drilled circles in Dale's shoulders, but when Shane leaned forward, lowering his weight briefly over Dale then lifting it off again, his cock slid across Dale's arse deliciously.
"Feels good," Dale said. "Really good."
"Slut," Shane teased, as Dale tried to lift his hips a little, just to give his cock room to harden further.
"Tease," Dale said.
Shane's hands slid down Dale's back, smoothing the muscles beside his spine, then back up his ribs, and Dale groaned again.
The weight lifted from his hips, and the bed dipped as Shane sprawled beside him, oil slick on his belly and chest.
Dale propped himself up on one elbow, then slid a hand across Shane's solid chest and down his belly, to his cock.
"Now who's a slut?" Dale asked, curling his fingers around the hard length of Shane's cock, coating it in oil.
They kissed, hard and deep, and Shane rolled onto his back, underneath Dale.
"Do it," Shane said.
Dale knew what Shane meant, knew what it was. No need to clarify, or question; some things were crystal clear.
"Hold the bed head," Dale said. "Both hands. Don't let go unless you need me to stop."
Shane let go of Dale's hips and reached above his head to grip the bars of the bed head securely. He tensed the muscles in his arms, making the bed head creak. If they broke the bed, Dale would make sure the next one was stronger.
"Fuck, I want this," Shane said, as Dale straddled his thighs and leaned forward to suck his nipples.
"Good," Dale said, and he let his teeth scrape at Shane's nipple. He slid up Shane's body a little, so their cocks brushed, and bit at the skin on the side of Shane's neck, hard.
Shane gasped, tilting his head to give Dale better access, and Dale turned Shane's choker around and unlatched the chain. "Just so we're clear what this means," Dale said, draping the chain across Shane's face, then moving back down the bed, pulling the chain through the oil.
"Yeah," Shane said, then his head jerked and his eyes closed as Dale wound the chain around his cock, the edge of the chain digging into his flesh.
The chain tasted sour on Dale's tongue, when he pushed his mouth down Shane's cock, sharp against the salt of Shane and the fruit of the olive oil. Dale mouthed the chain against Shane's cock, using his teeth to drive the metal harder against Shane's skin.
Blood stung Dale's mouth, making his cock throb. He lifted his mouth off Shane's cock and unwound the chain carefully, then licked across the grooves left by the metal. More oil, poured over Shane's cock, making Shane thrash around on the bed, but when Dale glanced up, Shane's hands were locked around the bed head still.
Back up the bed to kiss Shane briefly, then Dale clambered across Shane.
Shane whispered, "Fuck," as Dale reached behind himself to steady Shane's cock.
"Definitely," Dale said, guiding the head of Shane's cock with his hand, then lowering himself back on Shane's cock.
Shane howled, arching his back convulsively, shoving himself hard inside Dale, and Dale yelled too. It hurt in a way that made every part of Dale burn with lust, so that his breath rasped and sweat sprung up on his back.
Dale rocked forward, slid backward, then forward again, as Shane drilled himself in as far as he could.
"Ready?" Dale asked, and Shane nodded, his eyes trusting.
"Love you," Shane said.
Dale leaned forward and pressed his lips against the corner of Shane's mouth.
"Love you, too," he said, then he rested the heel of his right hand against Shane's mouth, sealing his palm across Shane's lip and pinching Shane's nostrils closed.
The idea that Shane, with his intense physical presence, should want Dale like this, thrilled Dale. Shane was more than strong enough, even when ill, to throw Dale across the room if he wanted to. But Shane didn't want that, he wanted to hold the bed head and bury himself deep inside Dale, handing himself over completely.
Dale's breath was loud in the room and his heart hammered against his chest wall as he kept gentle pressure on his hand, stopping Shane from breathing.
The muscles in Shane's arms bulged, his knuckles blanched white where he was hanging onto the bed head and his face mottled red. His cock, deep inside Dale, throbbed rapidly with his pulse, but his eyes were wide open, his gaze locked with Dale's.
The moment his gaze faltered and his focus drifted, Dale wrenched his hand off Shane's mouth, and Shane dragged breath into his lungs.
Shane let go of the bed head and grabbed Dale's shoulders, rolling them both over and pinning Dale to the sheet, then he dug his knees into the mattress and fucked Dale hard, driving them both up the bed.
Dale's head crunched against the bed head, a pillow bunched under his neck. The feeling of Shane's cock slamming into him made him flail at Shane's back, trying desperately to get some grip on the oiled skin.
Nothing to hang onto, nothing except the certainty of the two of them being together and the feeling of Shane coming so hard it rattled the bed
A pause, while Shane slumped on Dale, crushing him briefly, then Shane dragged himself off and down the bed, taking Dale's cock in his mouth and sucking hard.
Dale grabbed Shane's hair, driving his cock deeper into Shane's mouth, as the burning in his balls and groin built. Shane's finger slid into Dale's arse, across abraded skin, and Dale's knees jerked and he began to come, shaking and shouting.
When he'd fallen limply back on the bed, hands slipping out of Shane's hair, Shane clambered up the bed and flopped down beside him.
"Oh, fuck," Dale managed to whimper.
Shane's arm was heavy across Dale's chest, a comforting weight, and he pressed his mouth to Dale's shoulder. "That was amazing," he said, his voice muffled as his lips moved across Dale's skin.
Dale managed to move enough to kiss the top of Shane's head. "Yeah," Dale whispered. "Welcome home."
Some journeys don't end; they last for all your life.
First match of a new season and Shane was unreasonably nervous, considering he was a battle-hardened veteran of the national league.
Lindon, wearing the purple and black of the Koalas, the state footy team based in Gwerup, looked around the tiny, crowded clubroom. The squad weren't as rough as Evan's C grade team had been, but they were uniformly young. Shane suspected he was the oldest player there; the rest of the team were talented kids who had missed the national draft and wanted a chance to play senior level footy anyway, in the hope they'd eventually be recruited directly into the national league.
"I'm not going to shout at you," Lindon said. "You're a new squad, with something to prove, and that's enough motivation for anyone. So go out there and play the best footy you can, all of you. If you're floundering, look to your captain for guidance. That's what Shane's job is."
New coach, new captain, new year.
Shane had been happily playing C grade football, slowly getting back his strength, when Lindon had been head-hunted from his assistant coach position at the Hammers to take over the ailing Koalas as head coach. Did Shane want to go back to playing senior footy for a state team, with Lindon as his coach? Was Shane interested in playing pharmaceutical-free footy? Was he prepared to take a chance on a young team who were just starting out?
There was nothing Shane would rather do, and no one he would rather trust with his return to form than Lindon.
Shane slapped the back of his vice captain, an eighteen year old kid from Kindinup who was even taller than Shane. "Come on, Mikey," Shane said. "You get to lead us out onto the paddock."
The squad, in brand new purple-and-black guernseys, scooped up water bottles, and the siren on the oval sounded.
Lindon caught Shane's eye and nodded slightly, and Shane grinned back at him. It wasn't just the first match for a new team; it was the first time an openly gay man had played at senior level, and whatever happened in the match, that was a huge victory.
The banner waiting for the team to run through wasn't as grand as some that Shane had seen before, but he was still grinning as he followed Mikey through the tatters of tissue paper, out onto the paddock.
Shane had played state footy before, as an eighteen year old kid from the country, so he knew that the grandstand would be almost empty, with a smattering of knitting grannies on the benches, and that the rest of the spectators would be spread out around the grassed banks, picnicking, playing with their kids and enjoying the autumn sunshine.
What the knitting grannies made of the Lost Sunday crowd, with their pink flags and banners, Shane wasn't sure, but he hoped none of the old dears fainted.
Lindon tossed some practice balls amongst the team, and Shane grabbed one and handballed it to one of the new kids, then gestured for the kid to run with him, passing the ball between them.
Frank and Dale's corporate advertising was plastered around the paddock fence. The letter Frank had sent the Hammers, withdrawing corporate sponsorship, had made Shane wince, but Frank and Dale seemed pleased with it. Money talked, at least on that occasion.
No corporate box now, not with them sponsoring the Koalas.
Shane ducked and turned, testing the strength of his knees under rotation, making sure the layers of strapping were holding, and gestured for the kid he was handballing with to head up the other side of the paddock.
Someone whistled, loud and piercing, then shouted, "Shane!" and when Shane looked over his shoulder at the grassed bank to locate the shout, the ball whistled past him.
"Sorry, Shane," the kid said, dashing past Shane to retrieve the ball, but Shane didn't reply.
He was staring at the unlikely looking group clustered against the fence. Deano, Digger, Baz, Ant, and Budgie, with matching wives. No Toddo, since he'd transferred to a Melbourne-based team, following Madison across the country so she could take up a recurring role in a soapie. Most of the time, Shane felt sorry for the pair of them, at least until he was confronted with yet another fucking magazine spread about Madison.
"We weren't going to miss this!" Budgie shouted, while Digger waved a massive arm in greeting.
"Gotta support you and Lindon!" Deano called. "Go and win the game, you wanker! We'll catch you in the bar after."
The siren sounded again and it was time for Shane and the other team's captain to call the toss and choose ends. Somewhere in the grandstand would be Dale, wearing the purple and black scarf Shane's mum had knitted him, with Shane's chain and ring around his neck for safe-keeping. Shane and a very shaggy Perry would watch Dale play for the Forrest C grade team the following day, and after Dale's disastrous black eye at training that week, Shane couldn't wait.
Shane waved at the grandstand as he ran back to the centre, the rest of his team scattering around the paddock to their positions.
"Heads," the captain for the visiting team called, as the umpire tossed the coin in the air.
"And it's tails," the umpire said, retrieving the coin from the grass.
The sea breeze was in and wouldn't fade before the match was done, so Shane pointed into the breeze and said, "That end."
He was playing centre half forward, the traditional captain's position, so he loped up the paddock, ready to play.
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