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Johnny still couldn’t feel his own legs. Not them, not anything around him. But there was one thing—one single thing—that overpowered every real “no” and every hopeless “never will be.”
Gyro underneath him was hot. The kind of body heat that only comes with the fiercest fever. But Johnny would swear on the very last, most precious thing he still had left—no twinge of conscience, because fever had nothing to do with it. He had hard, physical proof that the man beneath him wasn’t sick at all—he was very much alive and well—and that same man was gripping his hips, nails digging into flesh where Johnny was about to feel something. Or thought he might feel something. And the fire swallowed them both again, fiercer this time. It reached places that, for two agonizing years, nothing had touched. Nothing except his own fingers, vainly trying to wake up a hope that refused to come.
Johnny is in control: he steers himself, sets the rhythm, decides when he wants deeper, when faster, when gentler. None of this is new—being the one holding the reins in bed. Years of being a jockey taught him mastery: the scraps of knowledge still left were enough to know where to press, when to spur, when to ease the bit. A body beneath you is the same as a horse—only it breathes hotter and looks at you like it would carry you to the edge of the world if you asked. Johnny knows these games. Knew them. Thought he knew them.
He moves on Gyro. Slowly, building amplitude, then slowing again—almost to the point of pain—testing, probing the borders of whatever sensation is left. Whatever is still there. Whatever has suddenly started coming back—or maybe he’s only imagining it—in hot, rolling waves from the place where he and Gyro are joined.
The body obeys. The body remembers, even when the mind screams that this is wrong. Every minute of closeness is betrayal.
From the very first meeting Johnny has carried one single purpose: no matter what, Gyro must not reach the finish line alive. But with every passing day—now already months—the end has never once justified the means. Because with every day that goal drifts farther away. A mirage: it’s right here, resting in the palm of his hand—and yet it isn’t, as though it’s thousands of miles off, somewhere in the dust and the endless sea of wheat.
He thought he could do it. That climbing into bed with the enemy was just the price of the ticket, just one more filthy step toward finally zeroing the slate. He’s slept with men before. He’s used other bodies for pleasure before. The world of jockeys taught him one thing: every deal is temporary, every partner replaceable, every promise just pretty noise.
This isn’t a woman—no trembling, no quivering lips, no fluttering lashes, no eyes rolling up to the ceiling. There’s no coy fragility here, no pretend surrender, no playing at “take me, I’m yours.” With women Johnny always knew which coin to drop in the slot to get exactly what he came for. Smile, touch, say the right words at the right moment—and then you’re alone again, and no one is looking into your soul.
With Gyro everything is different.
Gyro simply looks.
And that is a million times worse.
The gaze is cruel in its directness: straight on target, from below, unblinking, almost never breaking. Gyro isn’t playing—he is really here, fully, in the moment.
The only thing alive in Gyro—and alive spitefully, first and foremost against Johnny—is the Adam’s apple under his throat, jumping every time he swallows. Dryly. Often. Almost convulsively. And his cock, ploughing the walls inside Johnny.
The last one Johnny doesn’t feel—and that is the only mercy, the only indulgence his body has decided to grant him. Because if he did feel it—if he knew exactly where he ended and Gyro began—he would lose his mind completely.
But if he ever hopes to carry out his purpose, there is still time. No need to close the doors yet.
Right now he doesn’t even have to think. Doesn’t have to try. Just close his fingers around the throat. Right at that Adam’s apple that lives to taunt him, jumping in time with breath, teasing, tempting—and finish it.
And all of this is still possible. While Gyro is here. While the wheat and dust haven’t clouded his eyes again.
Johnny doesn’t even notice when his hand lifts off the pillow. When it reaches forward—on its own, as though it has a life separate from his mind.
Fingers find the neck. Settle on it—almost weightless, barely touching. The skin is hot, damp; beneath his fingertips the pulse hammers—fast, hard, so very alive.
Don’t think—just press.
Don’t think.
Press.
And don’t think.
“You’re bloodthirsty even here,” Gyro breathes out.
He says it calmly. With a strange tenderness.
And then he catches the hand.
Not to pull it away—to cover it with his own palm. To lace their fingers together. To press them tighter against his throat, forcing Johnny to feel the life beating under the skin, so easy to stop. Life he could stop.
And don’t think.
“Well?” Gyro whispers, looking straight into his eyes. “Go on.”
Johnny swallows. Everything inside drops.
He squeezes his eyes shut—sharply, as though he wants to blind himself, anything not to see anymore. Drops his head, presses his forehead somewhere near the collarbone, closer to living warmth, to the smell of sweat and Gyro. Like a guilty child. Like a boy caught red-handed reaching for someone else’s throat.
Just the throat.
“Nothing to be ashamed of if that’s what gets you off,” Gyro’s voice sounds tired. “I’ve heard enough about the local quirks. You people are all a little unhinged. I’ve made my peace with your twists.”
Johnny lifts his head. Looks at him from under his brows, heavily, still not quite believing he’s been spared. That a miracle happened.
He exhales—and isn’t sure whether it’s a laugh or just relief.
Bickering. Good. Bickering is safe. They’re just talking. They’re almost normal.
“You’ll get used to it,” he leans lower, almost brushing his lips against the sweaty temple. “We’re all savages here. For us sex is breakfast, lunch and dinner. Special cuisine. Keeps things from getting boring.”
Gyro snorts. Warm breath tickles skin, breaks the rhythm, makes something inside clench—sweet, anxious, wrong.
“Look at that,” he breathes out. “Nothing but advantages.”
“Trying to keep up the national face for our guests,” Johnny says and feels himself let go—just a fraction, the thinnest sliver. “As an exemplary citizen,” he adds after a beat.
And his lips have stopped trembling. And he has almost forgotten that a minute ago he was about to kill the man now looking at him like Johnny is a gift from fate.
“Very commendable,” Gyro smiles at him. “One should remember one’s roots.”
“Exactly.”
Even if those same roots have long preferred to forget about him.
Strange, but inside there’s suddenly emptiness. And no urge to howl. Not like before.
Before—when the word “Kentucky” still meant something. When he was ready to tear himself bloody just to keep disbelief alive, just to postpone the moment he’d have to admit: no one is coming. No one will write. No one will call him back.
He believed. Waited. For long months in the wheelchair he stared at the horizon—stupidly, childishly, until his eyes burned. Thinking: any moment now, any moment, Father will come to his senses, give the order, and one of his men will appear and say it was all a mistake, that Johnny is still one of them. That he’s needed at home.
But no one came.
And now—emptiness. As though something was cut away, cauterized, left to heal into a rough scar that doesn’t even hurt anymore.
No one is waiting for him in Kentucky.
Not because the letter got lost or the roads washed out. Because there’s no one left to write to. No one anymore. Father erased his name from the family Bible—at least in his mind, if not on paper. And thinking about his mother is too late now.
A home you cannot return to is not a home. It’s just a building where someone else’s life once happened. Long ago. Not his.
“Johnny,” Gyro’s voice is hoarse, warning. “Maybe…”
And his own voice reaches him as though from very far away:
“No. I want inside. I won’t feel anything anyway.”
Won’t feel anything except.
Except this moment.
Except the truth he doesn’t have the courage to admit.
Except Gyro.
Gyro looks at him—long, searching, as though reading something in eyes Johnny has forbidden himself to look into. Then nods. Gently pulls him down, helping him sink again, take it deeper, fuller.
“And this I regret,” he whispers.
Johnny squeezes his eyes shut one last time. Moves. Makes one final roll of the hips with sheer willpower. Before everything collapses.
And when it’s over, Johnny slowly opens his eyes.
Looks down at Gyro coming back to himself—slowly, heavily, struggling to unglue his eyelids.
Waits for Gyro to recover enough to help him off. Because he can’t do it himself—legs won’t obey, hands are shaking, and inside everything has knotted into a tight, painful ball from what just happened.
But Gyro doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.
“Help me,” Johnny insists then. “Help me.”
“Right now,” Gyro whispers, eyes still closed. “Just a second. Let me… give me a second.”
Johnny nods. Even though Gyro can’t see.
And sits. Waits. Watches Gyro’s chest rise and fall more slowly, breath evening out, color returning to his cheeks.
And here it is—the moment.
Hot. Vulnerable. When the bones are still soft, the mind fogged, the body disobedient—and right now Gyro is exactly that.
Johnny could.
Right now. While Gyro hasn’t gathered himself, hasn’t opened his eyes. One movement—and it’s over. Spin would be his. The legs would be his. Life would be his. And Gyro—his too.
But he should have thought of that earlier.
Gyro is already coming round.
“Stay,” he coughs. “I’m coming. You’re heavy.”
And he does help. Slides hands under Johnny’s hips, lifts him, carefully slips out. Johnny feels only the loss of heat—and nothing else. The rest is someone else’s hands seating him beside, someone else’s fingers reaching for his stomach, his thighs, wiping away the wet, sticky evidence of himself.
“You came a lot,” Gyro says aloud for some reason.
Johnny is silent. Stares somewhere at the wall, into darkness, into nothing. Fingers curl into fists on the sheet.
“Didn’t even notice,” he says quietly, not meeting his eyes. “It happens.”
Gyro freezes for a second. Then continues—wiping between his legs, erasing traces Johnny can’t feel anyway.
“But the body remembers,” he says simply. “It never forgot.”
Johnny flinches. Wants to pull away, cover up, hide—but can’t. Legs won’t move. Gyro is still there. Still holding.
“What are you trying to say?” His voice comes out darker.
“That it’s still too early to put a cross over miracles,” Gyro says, reaching for Johnny’s discarded shirt, starting to button it from the bottom up, unhurried. “Your street will have its holiday yet.”
“You mean the legs?”
“I mean everything,” Gyro fastens the last button at the throat, smooths the collar, runs a warm palm over the shoulder. “The legs. Life. Us.”
Us.
One murderous word.
It slips under the ribs quietly, soundlessly, and only then does Johnny feel something hot and sticky spreading inside. Not blood. Worse. Hope.
This is a race. A spectacle for the rich with nothing better to do. A battlefield for those who have nothing left to lose—or something to prove. Crowds, horses, money on the line. And one single finish line for everyone.
Only one can survive.
That’s the law of nature. The law of rivalry. Johnny didn’t invent it.
Gyro rolls onto his side, back to him. Tucks a hand under his head and goes still. As though everything is fine. As though they aren’t rivals. As though there isn’t a race creeping closer to its end every day.
Johnny is still sitting.
Watching.
Watching the golden hair spilled across the pillow. The line of spine just visible under the thin shirt. The steady rise and fall of shoulder blades with each breath.
And to hell with the shirt—it’s already starting to cling damply the moment it touches skin. Or maybe the heat never left. Maybe it will always be there now—this heat, this fire, this fever whose name is Gyro.
Only one can survive.
Johnny looks at the defenseless back.
Looks for a long time. Too long. Seconds stretch like rubber, stick to his fingers.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Two in the race. Two in the bed. In a world that has shrunk to the size of this room, this mattress, this body beside him—there are no rules. Only the law: you or him.
Gyro doesn’t even snore—breathes quietly, evenly, slipping into sleep with the ease of someone spoiled, someone certain that tomorrow will come. Someone with nothing to fear.
Bad luck.
Johnny reaches for the pillow.
Slowly. Carefully. Heart standing at attention.
Fingers close on the down filling—dig in, claw, nails pressing through fabric to the soft core.
The pillow in his hands is a weapon. Stupid, pathetic, almost comical. But it’s the only one he has. And it’s enough. Grip it tight, throw his weight forward, press it to the face—and wait. One minute. Two. Three. Until the struggling stops. Until it goes still forever.
Johnny raises the pillow over Gyro’s head.
The motion is swift—almost beautiful, almost resolute, almost victorious. Hands don’t shake. Elbows locked. Eyes fixed on the nape—there’s your target, there’s your finish line. The dawn of your new life. Your new miracle.
Pillow in hands.
Tears in eyes.
He doesn’t know when they came. Just feels the sting, the heavy blinking, the way everything blurs. Gyro beneath him melts into a golden blur. Easy prey.
Inside—hysteria.
Ripping up from the depths, while outside not a single muscle twitches.
Johnny looks at his hands, at the pillow, at Gyro—and he can’t.
Can’t lower it.
Can’t let go.
He hangs suspended between kill and love.
Neither here nor there. Neither up nor down. Neither alive nor dead—just caught in the middle, smeared across the border between who he was and who he is becoming against his will.
It used to be simple.
On one side was the Johnny who used to be. The one who rode onto the track to applause, drank champagne from ladies’ shoes, fucked everyone and never remembered names. The one who divided people into winners and losers. That Johnny didn’t know what it felt like to be petted on the head after sex. That Johnny knew the price of everything and believed in nothing except his own legs, which he had to get back at any cost.
And it should be noted that that Johnny would have already strangled him. Just written it off as part of the race’s expenses.
On the other side is the Johnny who is here now.
The one sitting naked, sweaty, face wet, clutching a pillow he could kill with—and can’t. This Johnny remembers the exact smell of Gyro after a long day in the saddle. The way he rasps when he comes. This Johnny feels someone else’s pain sharper than his own. This Johnny has long forgotten why legs are even necessary when there are arms that hold you at night. This one doesn’t want to kill—he wants to keep. Doesn’t want to take—he wants to give. Doesn’t want to win—he wants to lose. With him. For him. Together.
Only this one has felt a sharp, real desire to live for the first time in two years. Not just exist, not wait for death, not drag the chain—but live.
And here is the abyss between them.
Johnny hangs above it. Looks down—darkness. Looks up—light. And he is in the middle, torn, a stranger to himself, unable to choose which of the two is real.
Because both are real.
The one who wants to kill. And the one who would rather die himself than cause pain.
One second.
Step left—and he kills the one who knew how to hate.
Two.
Step right—and he kills the one who saw an equal in him. Another first, just like himself.
Three.
Gyro sighs in his sleep. His shoulder moves, just barely.
And Johnny’s arms give out.
The pillow falls back—soundless, soft, defeated. Right beside the golden head. Almost touching the hair.
Johnny squeezes his eyes shut. Clamps a hand over his mouth to keep from howling. Falls onto his back, stares at the ceiling with blind eyes.
I can’t.
I can’t.
I can’t.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something…” Gyro’s voice is sleepy, slow, like molasses, and he doesn’t even turn—just lies there on his side, but Johnny sees the shoulders tense, sees the hand freeze under the cheek. “Been meaning to for a while. Just never the right moment.”
Johnny freezes. Heart skips. Then skips again. Then breaks into a wild gallop.
“What?” he mouths, almost soundless.
“You didn’t let me turn into a tree,” Gyro says without turning. “Why?”
Bile rises in Johnny’s throat—sour, hot. He swallows once, twice, three times. He’s going to be sick. Right here. Right on this fucking pillow he was just holding over someone’s head.
“What do you mean, why?” he forces out.
Gyro turns.
And from his eyes it’s clear—he was hardly sleeping. If at all.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Gyro looks straight at him; in the dark Johnny sees only glints—pupils, wet shine, the line of lips. “You would’ve been first. All the Corpse Parts—yours. You know it. I know you know it. No one would’ve blamed you if you’d walked away.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Johnny, I’m not some green kid anymore,” Gyro sits up on the bed. “I see how you look at my Balls. How you follow them with your eyes every time I take them out of the holster. How often you ask about the Spin itself. Like you’re counting in your head—how much longer to wait. How much longer to endure.”
The shadow of his shoulder falls across Johnny’s face, blocking the thin moonlight that seeps through the dusty window. And in that shadow Gyro suddenly stops being just Gyro—he becomes Zeppeli. The one with executioners’ blood in his veins. A man raised with the certainty that one day he would have to sever someone’s head. Only now the head that should be severed is Johnny's own. And the executioner is the one lying beside him.
And looking at him now, Johnny understands for the first time: Gyro could have. If he’d wanted. If he’d chosen that path. He could have become the one people run from in terror.
He could have. Just like Johnny himself.
“I waited,” Gyro exhales noisily through his nose. “Every night. Every time you fell asleep next to me, I thought—maybe tonight. Maybe now. Maybe you'll have the strength.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Johnny’s mouth has been dry for a long time.
Gyro gives a short, mirthless laugh and crosses his arms over his chest.
“And how do you picture that going?” Gyro throws his hands up, spreads his palms wide, fingers splayed, and their shadows dance—across the walls, across the tangled sheets, across Johnny’s face. “ ‘I know you’re planning to kill me. Want some help?’ ” His voice jumps, turns high and mocking.
Pause. Gyro shifts—now he’s playing thoughtful, propping his cheek on his fist, tilting his head.
“Or maybe, ‘Hey Johnny, I know you’re only fucking me to throw me off. Cover, right? So I won’t guess why you’re really hanging around.’ ” He rolls his eyes theatrically. “And then add: ‘So, Johnny, you topping tonight or we doing it the old-fashioned way? Or should we just get to business?’ ”
The clowning snaps shut. Gyro falls silent and sits straight.
“That’s how it is, Johnny. Can you imagine that scene? I can’t. So I just waited. Every night.”
Johnny still feels sick. He presses a hand to his mouth.
Gyro turns away.
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t make yourself sick. That’s not why I said it.”
“Then why?” Johnny chokes on the words. “So I’d know what a piece of shit I am? A scum?”
Gyro shakes his head.
Slowly. Once. Twice. Silent.
Arguing with Johnny is pointless.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Gyro says at last. “So why, Johnny? Why?”
And the only answer Johnny can find:
“The devil got into me, that’s all.”
Gyro gives a short, joyless chuckle.
“That’s not funny,” Johnny mutters.
“I’m not laughing,” Gyro yawns. “Want a drink?”
Johnny shakes his head. Then freezes.
“I…” His voice cracks. “I need the bathroom.”
He says it—and feels his face burn.
Stupid. Fucking idiotic. After everything that’s passed between them—after confessions, after fingers on the throat, after the pillow raised over a sleeping head—to be embarrassed about this. After Gyro wiped his own come off Johnny’s stomach, after he held him on top, after all the nights when nothing was forbidden—to blush over something so trivial.
Johnny hates this weakness. Hates asking. Hates being a burden. But the body doesn’t lie.
Gyro looks at him. One second, then two. And something flickers at the corners of his mouth—not quite a smile, just a shadow.
“Why so red?” he asks quietly. “I’ve seen all of you already. Literally.”
“It's just—”
“And held your dick in my hand—”
“Gyro.”
“What’s wrong? We’re pretty well acquainted by now. Anatomically speaking—we’re basically best friends.”
“Shut up,” Johnny hisses, but there’s no real anger in it.
“I’m serious,” Gyro says. “I came inside you half an hour ago and you’re choking on the words ‘I need to piss.’ Where’s the logic?”
Johnny opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens again.
“You’re torturing me.”
“Torturing?” Gyro raises an eyebrow. “I’m just curious. Trying to understand how your brain works. Is there any logic in there or just pride? Stupidity?”
“Gyro.”
“What?”
“Help me already. Or I’ll do it right here.”
Gyro snorts—short, almost silent. But he gets up. Sits on the edge of the bed, turns to him, and his arms are already reaching—on instinct, no command needed.
Johnny doesn’t wait to be lifted. He takes the initiative—grabs wide shoulders, wraps arms around Gyro’s neck, presses chest to chest. So he can feel the heartbeat. So he doesn’t have to think.
Gyro grunts—for show, for form’s sake, because Johnny is lighter than he pretends to be. He hooks him under the ass, pulls him up, and now they’re sitting—Johnny on Gyro’s lap, nose buried in his neck, breath against collarbone.
“Just try saying one more thing, and you'll count your days.”
“I’m silent. Like a deadman.”
Johnny feels the chuckle vibrate against his cheek. Gyro tries to hold it back—and fails. Shoulders shake, chest heaves.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“Madonna mia,” Gyro exhales through laughter. “It’s not about you. I just… remembered something. And you always take everything personally. Even my laugh—you want to control that too.”
“Let’s go already.”
Gyro chuckles one last time, sniffs, and stands. Adjusts Johnny more comfortably, pushes the door open with his shoulder, steps into the corridor.
The bathroom door closes behind Johnny with a quiet creak.
Wood. Latch. Silence.
“Coming in,” Gyro mutters, nudging the door with his shoulder.
He carries Johnny inside, lowers him to the floor, steadies him by the elbow.
“Can you manage from here?”
“Yeah.”
Gyro steps back toward the door. Starts to leave—and freezes when Johnny suddenly speaks to the doorframe without turning:
“Don’t listen.”
Gyro rolls his eyes—Johnny can feel it even with his back turned.
“I won’t.”
“And don’t sniff.”
“Won’t do that either,” amusement threads through Gyro’s voice. “I’ll stop breathing altogether if you ask.”
“Did you plug your ears?”
“Yes.”
“Like hell you did!” Johnny whips around, glares at the dark silhouette in the doorway. “Plug them right now! And don’t sniff!”
“Fine, calm down,” Gyro raises both hands—placating, tired. “I’m going. Outside the door. You’ve got five minutes. For pissing, jerking off, whatever else. Five.”
Johnny opens his mouth to snap back, but Gyro is already slipping into the corridor.
“Five!” comes from behind the door. “Not a second more. Then I’m breaking it down and dragging you to bed. Time starts now.”
The door shuts. Footsteps fade.
Johnny sits for a minute. Stares at the door. Then turns to the sink, grips the cold porcelain and does what he came for.
Then washes his face. Looks in the mirror. Counts to himself.
Johnny wipes his face. Looks at himself—red eyes, wet lashes.
“Three minutes,” he whispers. “Three minutes, Johnny. Pull yourself together.”
Pulling himself together doesn’t work.
Tears come again; he clamps a hand over his mouth, chokes on a sob, stares at his reflection and doesn’t recognize it. Who is this man? What has he done to his life? How did he reach the point where the only person he wants to kill has become the only person he wants to live for?
I didn’t kill him.
I can’t.
I don’t even want to.
Three times. Three perfect moments. Three chances to get the legs back, life back, the old self back—the one who only knew how to take.
And three times he chose Gyro.
I need him.
“Thirty seconds, Johnny,” and there will definitely be a fourth.
Johnny startles. Looks at the door. At the thin stripe of light under it. At the shadow standing there—waiting, not leaving.
“I remember,” he rasps.
Wipes his face with his sleeve. Once. Twice. Rubs his eyes until they stop stinging. Breathes—deep, slow, the way he taught himself when the world first collapsed.
Gyro has no idea.
He doesn’t know.
Doesn’t know that tonight, this very night, he was born again. That Johnny held his death in his hands—and let go. That the choice wasn’t for legs, not for revenge, not for the past.
It was for him.
For Gyro.
“Time,” Gyro says through the door.
Johnny looks at himself in the mirror one last time.
“Okay. Now it’s fine.”
And crawls to open the door.