Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid, Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Original Male Character(s), Rose Landry, Svetlana Vetrova, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Second Chances, Explicit Sexual Content, idiots to lovers, Slow Burn, Cheating, not on each other, but with each other, Dual Timeline, We all hate Shane's husband, but Ilya Rozanov hates him more than you do, What do you do when you meet your ex situationship five years later, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Russian tutor Ilya, Russian student Shane, lawyer shane, Emphasis once more on cheating but WITH each other not ON each other, Miscommunication, re-learning how to communicate, Idiots in Love, Shane's husband displays behaviours of coercive control

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of North of Nowhere

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-18 Completed: 2026-06-20 Words: 84,013 Chapters: 13/13

State Lines

Summary

Ilya’s brows quirked again, and he flicked open the first page of the textbook, ‘and you decided to learn Russian now because...?’

‘Because I married a Russian man, and I figured it was about time I learned.’

‘You never learned with me.’ Ilya said.

‘No.’ Shane replied, tersely, ‘there was a lot I never did with you.’

Or: After Shane's college relationship ends in heartbreak, he patches up his wounds by marrying a wealthy, older man, and he's so sure his life is perfect. That is, until his ex re-enters the picture, and he wonders if maybe he got it all wrong.

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

I hear you saying 'but JJ, it's the final two weeks of semester, don't you have a masters degree to be doing?' And to that I say: HOLLANOV!

I'd like to make three short notes before the fic gets started:

1. Because Shane cannot speak Russian, when people are speaking it in front of him, I have opted to have the text written in Russian. The reason I’ve chosen to do this is because Shane doesn’t understand, so I’ve decided to express it in a way that means you won’t understand, either (unless, of course, you are a Russian speaker.) Instead of opting for Latin text, I've used the Cyrillic so that you can translate it. (I did try to code it but it made me so stressed that I'm sticking to analog, baybeeeeeeee).

2. This is a general note about Maxim (Shane's husband) as a character, and his relationship with Shane. There are vague, mild spoilers, so consider it more of a content warning.

Maxim is the bad guy, but I am creating him a complicated character. This is not to explain away or justify his treatment of Shane. Maxim is written to be the villain, but his character is still nuanced, because even the worst guy you know is nuanced. I am not making excuses for his behaviour, Maxim is a person who is damaged and who is not dealing with that damage, but instead internalising it in a way that only serves to hurt everybody. Again, this is not to make excuses, or to somehow relinquish him of responsibility for his actions: Maxim is written for you to hate. I also hate him.

However, I chose to give him a rounded character so that you can understand Shane’s motivations for staying with him. Shane is a kind, generous and empathetic person who sees Maxim’s trauma and it is his mental gymanstics that use that trauma to justify his behaviour. I do not think Shane, in this work, is the kind of person to stay in a relationship that is abusive in this way if he did not see something in Maxim that gave him reason to care. Shane is doing his best: he wants to be perfect, and he doesn’t like what he perceives as ‘failure,’ he wants this marriage to work and he wants to look after Maxim.

Ie, the fic where Shane says ‘I can fix him’ and Ilya says ‘someone being a cunt isn’t your responsibility, we should kiss instead.’

3. I do, as an extension of this comment about Maxim, want to make the disclaimer that I am not critical or have any moralistic issue with relationships that have an age gap. I'm not trying to demonise age gaps, I'm trying to demonise Maxim, who is a power obsessed bully that likes control over his partners and who I also made up 🙂‍↕️

4. As is customary in the year of our lord 2026, this is my disclaimer: I do not use AI, I have never used AI, every word of this fic was written by me and all ideas have been mine, other than when I have bounced ideas with friends. No AI platform has been considered, consulted or utilised. If you accuse me of using AI I will kill you and then myself.

The fic title is from State Lines by Novo Amor.

The first rule of a tragedy is that the end is written before the beginning: it’s inevitable. There are things already in motion that can’t be stopped, like a boulder speeding down a hill. But Shane didn’t know that, when he met Ilya on the eighth day of first year, two rows from the back of lecture theatre four. He’d been late, uncharacteristically, and slipped in silently while the old professor, complete with tweed jacket and combover, drawled on about attendance and etiquette and some French theorist no nineteen year old in the room had heard of. It wasn’t like Shane to get lost, but his early semester nerves had all the twisting paths and old stone buildings of McGill university blur into one and a walk he’d calculated to take him six minutes exactly had blown out to an unforgiving twelve.

He reached down to his bag and pulled free his notebook, flicked through to a new page and then dug his hand in again to search for the plastic of a pen. It wasn’t in the front pocket, nor the side, and he hated the way his heart rate picked up in panic when he realised for probably the first time in his short life, he’d forgotten a god damn pen.

‘This class is compulsory for all students of the humanities, regardless of your major, so take it as an opportunity to meet people you might not get the chance to otherwise.’ The professor said, right when a jet-black ballpoint was held up in front of Shane’s face.

Any other day, he’d have noticed him immediately, this boy with the blonde curls. Really, when Shane turned finally to face him, he couldn’t believe he wasn’t the first thing he’d seen, when he’d walked through the door. There was something about this boy that demanded attention: his strong nose and pouted lips, the mole on his cheek and the cherubic gold of his hair, peeking out from beneath the navy knit of a store-bought toque. His forget-me-not blue eyes were curious, too, as he looked back at Shane, with an intensity that read more as analytical than judgemental, like an animal not quite sure if it had been confronted with prey.

‘You need this, yes?’ He asked, and his voice was deep and accented, and it made an unsteady feeling settle at the base of Shane’s stomach. The kind of feeling one gets, when something unknowable slots into place.

Shane must have hesitated, because the boy shook the pen in front of his eyes again, ‘Yes, thank you, fuck I never forget stuff, I’ve just had such a fucking day I-‘

‘Someone want to share something with the class?’ The professor interrupted, and Shane’s head whipped around to see half the theatre looking back at him.

He winced immediately, and slid down in his chair, ‘No- I’m sorry.’ He answered, meekly. Beside him, the boy laughed.

When the lecture ended, and they’d packed up their things, Shane held the pen out, ‘thanks, man. Really.’ He said.

‘Keep it, you need it for more classes today, yes?’

‘Oh- are you sure?’ Shane replied, and the boy shrugged with a turn down of his lips.

‘Is just a pen.’ He said.

‘Okay.’ Shane said, ‘I’ll uh- I’ll give it back to you, next week or something.’

‘Sunday.’ The boy replied, ‘there is party in my house. It’s off campus, everybody will come. You should come, too, with pen.’

‘You want me to come to a house party, to return your pen?’ Shane asked, blinking his dark eyes when the boy gave him a lopsided smile.

‘Yes. It’s only reason, of course.’

‘I don’t really-‘ go to parties Shane started to say, but stopped. He wasn’t quite sure why he did, what reason there was to change his mind, ‘okay. I’ll be there. I’m- uh- Shane Hollander. By the way.’ He held out a hand and tried not to wince at the awkward formality of it.

‘Ilya Rozanov.’ The boy, Ilya, replied, and touched their palms together, wrapped his fingers around Shane’s hand, held on for a fraction too long, ‘I’ll see you on Sunday, Shane Hollander.’

He left, before Shane could ask him where he lived. He just stood there, dumbly holding a black ball point pen.

The second rule of a tragedy is that everyone’s actions are in their control, how the story runs is up to them. It was Shane’s decision in the end, to find the party and show up, just like it had been Ilya’s to invite him. It was Shane’s decision to kiss Ilya, Ilya’s to kiss Shane back, both of theirs to stumble into bed for the first time, the second time, every time after that. Shane also had the choice to communicate and to face his fears, to choose Ilya time and time again; Ilya had the choice to choose Shane, too, over the drinks and the clubs and the late nights out that ended in early mornings walking home in the pale light of sunrise, when the hurt had dug so deep he’d been afraid of closing his eyes.

But the third rule of a tragedy is that even when presented with all the right options, heroes choose the wrong ones every time, because really, it’s the human thing to do. Shane needed to be perfect, Ilya to stifle his pain, and to their credit, they’d tried for well over a year, in the fractured way they’d known how. But shame and longing walk hand in hand and the thing about closets is that they’re comfortable, you see, and Shane found he’d grown quite fond of the quiet. Ilya on the other hand, was desperate for noise. So the fear led to shouting, the hiding to tears, and on the first day of Autumn rain, they walked away without looking back.

What followed had been silence: Ilya chose to lick his wounds by never letting his bed grow cold; Shane by not letting anyone close enough to feel warm, until the loneliness burrowed too deep under his skin to survive it anymore, and there at the end of the tunnel was Maxim Dmitriev.

Older, wiser Maxim, who told Shane how smart he was, and funny, and beautiful to boot, with astounded declarations of ‘you’re so mature, I honestly do not believe that you’re only twenty-two.’ They’d met in the Spring of his final year, and by Autumn Shane had fallen so completely in love that it was a no brainer he would come out, move in, plan a wedding and give up on graduate roles in law firms across Montreal, because they didn’t need the money, not when Maxim made so much.

Maxim charmed his parents, his friends, who always turned to Shane with gasps of ‘oh my god, where did you find this perfect man?’ when Maxim left the table to buy another round, or bought his mum flowers, his father expensive scotch, or showered Shane’s old roommate Hayden with gifts, every time a new child was born. Behind closed doors, he charmed Shane, too, with stories of his tragic past. How he’d defected from a crumbling Soviet Union at nineteen years old and fled to the west, where he could safely practice the worst of his sins where only a souvenir store bought icon could see him. He’d put himself through University and built his life up from nothing over twenty-five gruelling years so that he could offer Shane the chance to rest after a lifetime chasing perfection.

So, Shane forgot his ambition, his drive, the plan he’d set in motion when he’d been eight years old and carried his mum’s briefcase around the house while the grown ups around him laughed ‘he’ll be an excellent judge one day.’  Instead, he settled his burnt-out body for a life spent at home. And when people asked him in those first five years ‘how are you liking it, married life?’ He didn’t quite know how to describe the increasing feeling that every day is Monday, wrapped in a patchwork quilt of grey.

‘It’s perfect,’ he always said, instead, ‘absolutely perfect.’

He said it so much, he even believed it, too.

📓

Shane’s fingers were wrapped loose around his untouched flute of champagne; it was cold and slick with condensation. If he were honest, he’d admit that he hated the taste of it: bitter and saccharine, with bubbles that went straight to his head and left him with a headache, but he was always handed one, when he went to formal events as the accessory on Maxim’s strong arm. So he resigned himself to holding on to it until the bubbles went flat and the liquid warmed up at the heat of his hand.

Beside him, Maxim threw his head back and laughed, and Shane tried to re-centre his attention. They were standing at the centre of a reception room at the back of Montreal City Hall, surrounded by couples in tuxedos and gowns laughing politely at dull, impersonal stories designed to impress. Maxim’s arm was heavy around his middle, as the other gesticulated through the air with a casual grip on his champagne flute and he told a story in fluid, rapid-fire Russian to a middle-aged man and woman, with their arms linked together.

The couple laughed, and Shane found his lips cracking into a smile, as though if he played along, he’d understand the words that washed over him like water on stone.

‘Вы, должно быть, дома целыми сутками смеетесь’ the woman hummed when she turned to Shane. Her red lips were spread over white, straight teeth, and her hair was pulled back into a bun so tight he wondered for a moment if it hurt, to have her skin stretched so taught across the bony ridges of her skull.

‘Ah- my Shane does not speak Russian.’ Maxim said and turned towards him.

‘Oh!’ The woman replied and switched to English with a sympathetic nod Shane couldn’t help but find patronising, ‘I’m sorry, I assumed you spoke it at home.’

‘No.’ Shane said with his best, charming smile, and a turn towards his husband, ‘we speak in English, or French when the mood strikes.’

‘And what mood is that?’ The woman’s stocky husband said, his hair the same dull grey as his wrinkled skin.

‘When Shane wishes to put me in my place. My French is not so good, but how can I say no to this beautiful face, hm?’ Maxim hummed and pressed his lips adoringly to Shane’s temple.

‘I do not put you in your place.’ Shane replied, but he allowed himself to be drawn in closer to Maxim’s side, for his hand to splay out against Shane’s waist under the hem of his jacket. It was a rhythm they’d perfected early on, these back-and-forths that charmed an audience. Maxim liked the way Shane demurred to him, after a performance of strict control: a play of equals where Maxim always had the final word.

‘No you do not, but I cannot say no to you, can I?’ Maxim smiled.

‘Nor can I to you.’ Shane replied, and he returned the smile in a way that had the couple before them swooning.

‘Oh just lovely, look at you. What a handsome pair, you are both so lucky,’ the woman sighed and pressed a hand to her chest.

‘I am the luckiest in the world.’ Maxim agreed, then slipped back into the familiarity of Russian.

In Shane’s pocket, his phone buzzed with a string of incessant text messages, and he excused himself with a polite smile and dip of his head. He pretended he didn’t feel Maxim’s eyes on his back as he passed through the crowd with polite apologies, and left his champagne flute on the tray of a passing waiter, then slipped through the door into the quiet of a pink marble bathroom. He pressed his palms on the edge of the sink and took a series of slow breaths through his nose, out through his mouth, and he willed for the overwhelming heat of his clothes against his skin to subside, or else he’d need to yank the bowtie from around his neck and he wasn’t in the mood for a scolding.

His phone buzzed in his pocket again, and he pulled it free to flick through the bank of notifications, newspaper headlines, texts from Hayden about his promise of babysitting the coming weekend.

Hayden Pike 19:54

Thanks so much man

Like I owe u my life

Will Maxim come?

Or just u?

Shane Hollander 22:31

No, he’s going to Vancouver again for the week.

It’s no worries, any time.

Really, he was relieved for the change in the formless shape of his drawn out weeks. Sometimes, if he squinted at his calendar just right, he could pretend he was busy. He had pilates three times a week, the gym six, he’d just taken up a volunteer role on the art gallery’s fundraising committee, who he’d convinced to meet twice a month, instead of their originally planned once. Then there were the books, too, the scheduled in time to spend reading, the recipes he’d wanted to try, calls to catch up with his mum and dad, friends whose lives had veered into trajectories so unlike his.

Rose Landry 22:32

Stop ignoring me?

Shane

Shane

Shane

The text came as a banner across the top of his home screen and he huffed out a laugh.

Shane 22:32

Dramatic

I’m at an event, I have a life.

Rose Landry 22:32

Barely

You leave your house twice a year

Before he could reply, she called, and he answered without leaving her waiting.

‘I leave my house all the time and you know it.’ He said in lieu of greeting.

‘Only when I drag you out kicking and screaming, which is what I have been trying to talk to you about.’ Rose hummed down the line and his lips twitched into a smile at the sound of her voice.

Rose Landry was an actress, and the best thing yet to come out of one of these boring events. They’d met years ago, when she’d found him alone at the bar, while Maxim entertained a group of strangers with a story Shane had heard a thousand times before. She’d hooked her arm around his and dragged him to a table, where they’d talked until last drinks, and Maxim had impatiently come to collect him, like a child from a playdate.

‘I’ll be in Montreal in three weeks, and I’m staying until late March.’ She said, and Shane looked up to catch his reflection in the mirror. The heat of the room had his hair falling over his forehead, a faint flush washing beneath his freckled cheeks. His stomach grumbled, too, not at all satisfied by the conservative meal of canapés he’d tried to satiate it with.

‘I already know this, it’s in my calendar.’ Shane said, and swiped a thumb beneath his left eye. The sconced lamps caught the glint of his gold wedding ring, sending light flashing in his reflection for the briefest of moments.

‘Well I’m reminding you.’ Rose huffed.

‘You made it sound like you were dying.’

‘I could have been and you didn’t respond fast enough, so think about that tonight.’

‘You’re so dramatic.’

‘You love me.’

‘You’re up there.’ Shane said, and laughed when Rose gave him a scandalised gasp.

‘When is Maxim’s next trip?’ She pivoted and Shane couldn’t help but role his eyes. Rose and Maxim had given up the pretence of liking one another early on in her friendship with Shane, and the only mutual understanding they had was their adamance to avoid spending time together at all possible junctures.

‘He’ll be in Vancouver next week. Then he’s home for a couple days, then Berlin for two weeks, London for one, then home mid-March.’ Shane recited, because really Maxim was gone more than home these days. He didn’t let himself ponder whether it was a relief or not.

‘Okay so I’m hearing sleepovers.’

‘Please no.’ Shane groaned, but she tutted.

‘Oh come on I have no free time when I’m filming, you know that, I am trying to give you what little wriggle room I have and you give me nothing.’

‘One sleepover. But I’m not doing a sheet mask.’ Shane reasoned. What he didn’t say was that Maxim wouldn’t like it, having her in his space, her perfume on their sheets, her jokes pulling laughter from his chest bent over the kitchen island. He used to reason, ‘baby, I’m gay. You know nothing is ever happening.’ But he’d given up when he realised it wasn’t about sex or hands on his skin. When Rose talked, Shane listened, and Maxim didn’t like knowing someone else might implant his mind with ideas.

‘Yes!’ Rose gasped, ‘okay go back to your stupid party, I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in three weeks.’

‘See you.’ He sighed.

‘I love you!’ She called, ‘say it back!’

‘I love you.’ He replied, and the line went dead.

Outside, the crowd was starting to thin, the music had dimmed and Shane found Maxim leaning against the counter with an impatient purse of his lips, and Shane’s coat hooked over his arm.

‘Where were you?’ He asked.

‘I’m sorry, Rose called.’ Shane said and pressed his palm to Maxim’s chest, a pre-empt to the displeasure he knew was likely to come his way, ‘she’s got her filming schedule, and just wanted to update me on her dates.’

‘She takes up a lot of your time.’ Maxim said and pressed his palm to the small of his back to guide him towards the door and the early February cold beyond.

‘She won’t this time, it seems like this role will be more demanding than normal.’ Shane demurred and let himself be lead towards the black car waiting to take them along the river and up into the winding, leafy streets of Westmount, where their historic pale stone home sat in the shadow of Mount Royal.

‘Hm.’ Maxim said, when he let Shane go to open the door for him to climb into the car’s backseat. Shane looked up to see the eyes of the driver glance back to them until their buckles were done, then the car was moving, and they turned out onto the Boulevard.

Maxim’s hand settled on his mid thigh, and Shane turned to look at him with a smile, ‘Did you have fun?’

‘Yes.’ Maxim said, and sighed so the tension would melt from his shoulders. He didn’t ask Shane if he’d enjoyed himself, and Shane wondered if it was because he didn’t care, or if he just assumed that if he did, then Shane would have, too. Shane decided it was probably better not to figure that out, because he couldn’t quite decide which option he liked more.  

‘I was thinking.’ He said, instead, ‘maybe I’ll learn Russian.’

‘You want to learn Russian?’ Maxim quirked an eyebrow, while his fingers dipped forward, between Shane’s thighs. They parted just slightly, so Shane could lean into the touch.

‘Yeah, I mean, it’s your language, right? I want to learn your language.’ He said, ‘I could go to night classes, or day classes. I’d love for you to teach me, but I don’t want to take up too much of your time.’

Maxim wrinkled his nose, ‘I would love to teach you, love of mine, but you’re right, I don’t have time. I’m not sending you to some local community language school though, if you want to learn, you need to learn properly.’

‘Then maybe I can look at getting a tutor. Someone who can come here, or who I can go to lessons with.’ Shane suggested, hopefully. He had graduated from his Bachelor of Law not long after he and Maxim had met, but it had been five long years since he’d studied and he missed the act of learning, putting his mind to something meaningful.

The car turned into their driveway, and he dipped his head to look at their home through the windscreen. They’d left lights on, and the yellow glow spilling out from the wide windows looked welcoming, cozy, like home. The trees were bare of leaves, stripped back like ravished bones, bitten clean. Old, greying snow was piled up at their bases, the last of the dump of white they’d enjoyed for Christmas, but that had already started melting by New Year.

They climbed from the car, walked over the neatly paved drive to the dark, hardwood door. Inside, the house was quiet, and Shane waited for Maxim to disarm the security alarm, then stepped up to him, right as his finger slipped under the knot of Shane’s bowtie. Out of the corner of his eye, Shane could see the red light of the security camera blinking. There was one in each room, because Maxim insisted they were vital. It’s all about safety, he’d said, for close to every inch of their home to be meticulously, constantly surveyed.

‘Grateful boys say please.’ Maxim said, in a soft voice and Shane swallowed.

‘Please.’ He replied, automatically. He wondered if this was footage Maxim would watch back later, once Shane was fast asleep. Maybe once he’d left for Vancouver, he’d open the app on his phone, scrub through the history to this exact moment and relive the invigoration of giving his command, and watching Shane submit to him, like he does every time.

‘Ask nicely.’ Maxim hummed with a single tug to the knotted black fabric, and Shane did what Maxim had trained him to do best: he dropped to his knees, and opened his mouth.

Later, wrapped in the soft cotton sheets, chests still heaving, Maxim turned to look at him, ‘I’ll have Olivia call the university tomorrow.’ He said, and brushed his index finger over the bruise he’d left on Shane’s left breast, where his muscle was thudding with the heavy beat of his heart.

‘The university?’ Shane asked. His eyes were heavy, his lips red raw.

‘If you’re going to learn Russian, it will be from the best. They have a Russian literature department; I will find someone suitable. Only the best for my good boy.’

Shane smiled and rolled over to press his muscled stomach in close to Maxim’s side, ‘thank you.’ He whispered and pressed a kiss to his shoulder, then his chest, the underside of his jaw, ‘thank you, thank you. I’ll make it worth it.’

‘Yes, you will.’

The arrangements were made faster than Shane expected. Maxim’s assistant called the department, charmed her way to the top of the food chain, to the senior most Russian professor in the faculty.

‘He said he couldn’t do it himself.’ Maxim scoffed, ‘but he has someone he recommends, a PhD candidate. Uniquely gifted, so he says, the best anyone could hope for. He’ll send them here on Thursday morning for your first lesson so I can meet them, then they’ll come once a week on Thursday afternoons.’

On Thursday, Shane woke up eager. To learn, maybe, to meet someone new for sure. He sat through a quiet breakfast, a drawn out gym session, then showered and dressed in an understated kind of way: jeans, a blue woollen sweater and his glasses perched on his nose.

Maxim was still getting ready to leave for work when the doorbell rang once, twice, three times impatiently.

Shane’s socked feet padded silently against the cold stone vestibule. He hadn’t quite been sure what he’d been expecting when the dark wood of the front door swung open. Maybe an old man, complete with a fading tweed jacket and bowtie, a pipe to boot; maybe he’d been expecting a young woman, with blonde hair, sans smile, like a Russian stereotype from a spy movie. Whatever it was, he definitely hadn’t been expecting Ilya fucking Rozanov.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you again for reading! I've had so much fun over the last few weeks working on this fic. As of posting the first chapter, I am already halfway through writing chapter nine. The word count will likely end up being around 70k, and I am pretty confident that there will be 13 chapters but depending on pacing, I may need to add one more. I'm expecting to post a new chapter every 3 or 4 days.

This work will be dual timeline - it will navigate both Shane and Ilya's relationship in the present and unpack the history of their first relationship and where it went wrong. It has been such a genuine joy to write, and I am already so so so excited for you to read it. It was originally supposed to be funnier, but then someone (Noah Kahan) released an album and I can't be held accountable for what that did to the angst level.

I have tried my best to do as much research as possible into Montreal, Canada and Russia to make this story feel as real as it can, but at the end of the day I am an Australian, which you may notice from my spelling, or language use from time to time. I promise I am trying to find the right words, but I'm not perfect and I miss things!

This is also why I have to extend my most heartfelt thanks to two people. Parker, who is, to me, the bible of information about Canada and who has tirelessly answered every single one of my hyper-specific questions about details no one cares about. And Marchoskaya, who not only translated a hell of a lot of Russian for me, but also helped me make young-Ilya's English grammar mistakes more accurate and answered every question I've had about Moscow, Russian literature and Russian culture. Thank you so so so much, I am so grateful.

I hope you enjoyed it! Please drop me a kudos or a comment, it would mean the world ❤️

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

The first thing Shane noticed was that Ilya’s hair was shorter. When they’d been in Uni, he’d had a habit of waiting too long between haircuts so that the ringlets would fall over his forehead, and stick out from under his toque in the winter. Shane had liked how the curls wrapped around his fingers, and he spent hours with Ilya’s head heavy on his thighs combing through the soft, long strands at the nape of his neck. Now, instead it was cropped neatly, pushed back from his forehead and swept behind his ears in a way that made him look so much older than he had back then.

Later, Shane would convince himself it was the shock that made him do what he did next. He looked at Ilya standing there, with years of history between them and offered out his hand and said, ‘I’m Shane. Shane Hollander. It’s really nice to meet you.’

Ilya’s left eyebrow twitched once, and his eyes glanced past Shane and into his home, where the sound of Maxim gathering his things echoed, impossible to ignore. Without pause, he slipped his fingers up the length of Shane’s palm, wrapped them around his hand and replied: ‘Ilya Rozanov. It’s very nice to meet you, too.’

‘Shane.’ Maxim’s voice came from over his shoulder and Shane turned his head too fast to watch him walk down the hallway towards them, ‘invite our guest in, don’t be rude.’

‘Yeah- of course, sorry.’ Shane said, and pulled his hand back from Ilya’s as quickly as he could. He stepped aside and held the door open for Ilya to pass through and into the entranceway, right as Maxim’s chest pressed to Shane’s back, and his left arm snuck around his middle so he could press his palm flat to Shane’s firm stomach.

‘Maxim Sergeevich Dmitriev.’ He introduced, and Ilya shook Maxim’s free hand with a formality Shane had avoided. He should have expected Maxim to slip into Russian, and he pretended not to notice the way Ilya’s eyes flicked over to his face briefly, before he responded. Shane only caught a few words: Москва, Moscow, a few numbers he assumed were years, or dates, or durations of time spent exchanging one snowy north for another. McGill, too, Ilya supplied, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, and Maxim said something with a puffed chest that had Ilya agreeing with him easily. That part Shane didn’t need to understand: posturing looked the same in any language.

‘I need to go to work.’ Maxim said, suddenly, with a squeeze to Shane’s waist and a kiss pressed to the side of his head.

‘So early?’ Shane asked. A part of him was itching for Maxim to leave, but the thought of being alone with Ilya unsettled him.

‘I have meetings.’ Maxim smiled, ‘and you have studying to do.’

‘I do.’ Shane replied. Maxim leant forward again and captured Shane’s mouth in one kiss, then another, and Ilya cleared his throat.

‘I’ll set up.’ He said, and toed off his shoes. Shane had been so distracted he hadn’t even noticed the bag slung over his shoulder, heavy with books.

‘Yes, yes.’ Maxim laughed, ‘the kitchen is down the hall. You can use the table in there.’

Ilya said nothing, he followed the directions without looking back to see Maxim draw Shane in again for a third, final kiss. This one was firmer, deeper, the kind Shane knew was a stake of claim, and a reminder of who was coming home to him, after his long hours of solitude.

‘We’ll go out for dinner tonight.’ Maxim murmured, ‘you can show me what you’ve learned.’

‘Okay.’ Shane smiled, ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too.’ Maxim replied, and slipped out the still open door. Shane closed it with a click, and pressed his forehead against the cold, hard wood, to wait for his heart rate to slow.

📓

On the night of Ilya’s house party, Shane sat on the edge of his bed and listened to Hayden’s prepared speech on all the reasons why he should absolutely go.

‘You never go out, man.’ Hayden reasoned.

‘I’ve only been living here for two and a half weeks.’ Shane replied.

‘Yeah and I’ve been to about nine parties, all of which you’ve been invited to, and not come.’

‘What makes this party so special?’ Shane asked and scratched his nails up the length of his bicep. It was a nervous tick, one he’d developed when he was a teenager with an anxious need to do something with his hands when the thoughts in his mind were ricocheting fast enough to give him whiplash.

‘It’s Ilya Rozanov and Svetlana Vetrova hosting, man. Those guys host legendary parties.’ Hayden said, exasperated.

‘How can they be legendary if we are two weeks into semester.’

‘Shane, I swear to God.’ Hayden groaned, and fell back onto his bed.

Hayden had first mentioned the party the same day Ilya had invited Shane, and he’d felt all the confidence drain out of him like snow on the first day of Spring sun. Ilya hadn’t been joking when he’d said it was a house party, because Hayden assured him the invites were open, even though he’d professed to never having met either of the hosts. Words like huge and crazy hadn’t done anything to boost Shane’s comfort with the idea, either, because if it was such a massive deal, he couldn’t even imagine how he’d get a chance to see Ilya anyway. So he’d kept the personal invitation to himself, tucked away and stuffed in the back of his chest, like a letter unopened and shoved in a drawer.

But then the itch to see Ilya had been on the underside of Shane’s skin since the moment their hands had touched in that lecture hall. There was something about him that Shane couldn’t quite place, and the only word he could use to describe it was curious.

‘Jackie’s going to be there, isn’t she.’ Shane said, and Hayden lifted his head from the mattress with a despairing expression.

‘Yes.’ He confirmed.

Jackie was a girl from Edmonton Hayden had met on the first day of orientation, and he’d been besotted in the three weeks since. Shane got it: she was pretty and petite with a bright smile and a genuine kindness that made her impossible not to like. She was majoring in teaching, and Hayden was one step away from transferring majors from sports science to education, just for the chance to spend more time with her.

‘Okay.’ Shane said, finally, ‘I’ll go.’

Ilya and Svetlana lived in a three-bedroom house on a leafy street in Hampstead, with a small backyard and a huge oak out front. When Hayden and Shane got there, the party was already spilling out onto the footpath. Music was thumping so loud from inside that even out there people had to shout to be heard properly. Shane had a six pack of beers under his arm, Hayden mirrored him with one of his own, already cracked into to calm his nerves before he saw Jackie again – as though he hadn’t seen her that very afternoon in the education elective Hayden had picked up late ‘just to see what it’s like.’

They pushed through the busy doorway, and Shane surveyed the house. It was nice, definitely more than he’d expect a student to afford: a wide open living room fully furnished with couch and coffee table, barely visible beneath the piles of people trying to squeeze in to sit. Through a door to his left he could see a kitchen, and then on the right a long hallway down towards the string of closed doors concealing the bedrooms.

‘Hey, I’m gonna go find Jackie.’ Hayden said, in a tone that had Shane thinking he was building himself to do something potentially incredibly embarrassing.

‘Do you want me to come with?’ He asked, just to be sure.

‘No. No, I need to do this on my own. Can you take these to the fridge?’ Hayden held out what was left of his six pack – Shane hadn’t even noticed that he’d gone through two full cans on the trip over.

He took them, tucked them under his arm and sent Hayden off with an encouraging, ‘good luck,’ and headed for the kitchen.

It was crowded in there, too, and Shane suspected it would be the same in every room. He weaved his way through a group of guys, talking about something that happened at the last party, passed by three girls, with their heads dipped down close, and finally made his way to the ice filled sink. The likelihood that he’d see any of these cans again was low, he knew, so after tucking them safely to cool, he took a single drink and cracked it open for a long, slow sip, then turned around and came face to face with Ilya Rozanov.

‘Shane Hollander.’ He said, in a low, accented drawl.

‘Hi.’ Shane replied, a little too loud. Ilya laughed, and Shane winced, and took another long drink from his can in the hopes it would cover up the flush of his cheeks.

‘What are you drinking?’ Ilya said, and snatched the can from his hand, once he’d pulled it from his mouth.

‘It’s uh- beer.’ Shane said, helplessly, when Ilya looked at the label and made a face.

‘Is this what you drink normally?’ Ilya asked.

‘No. No, I usually drink ginger ale. I always liked it, even when I was a kid. I used to get anxious and my mum bought it for me…’ he was rambling, and Ilya snorted out a soft laugh.

‘No, this is not good. Come.’

‘Oh you don’t need-‘ Shane tried, but Ilya silenced him with a roll of his eyes.

‘You are my guest, Hollander, you will have proper drink.’ He said, and wrapped his hand around Shane’s wrist to pull him back into the crowd and over towards the fridge, where a bowl of something pre-mixed and disastrous took up most of the shelf.

‘Isn’t everyone here your guest?’ Shane asked. He tried not to notice the heat of Ilya’s fingers against his skin, the way they didn’t loosen or let go until the very last moment.

‘No. I don’t know any of these people.’ Ilya said. He handed Shane a solo cup full of something strong.

‘You don’t know me.’

‘But I invited you.’ Ilya replied.

Shane brought the cup to his lips, and tried his best to keep his face neutral as the burn ran down his oesophagus. He couldn’t even begin to guess what the fuck it was, but he didn’t expect it to take long before his muscles loosened, and his mind hazed over with the familiar buzz of alcohol.

‘Good, yes?’ Ilya grinned.

‘Yeah- yeah it’s great.’ Shane agreed.

‘You can put your jacket in my room, if you want.’ Ilya said, and before Shane could respond, he was leading the way down the hall, towards the string of three bedrooms. The first door was closed, the second open and Shane glanced in when he passed to see a group amid a game of beer-pong, set up on two desks pushed together. Ilya opened the last door, and beckoned Shane through with a wave of his hand.

‘Just put it on bed. It’s very hot in house.’ Ilya said, and Shane shrugged his arms out from his jacket, trying not to stare at the room in front of him. It was bare, impersonal, lacking in decoration other than the teetering stack of second-hand paperbacks leaning against the opposite wall. The bed was big and covered in a black bedspread, with two simple pillows, and a handful of coats thrown in a haphazard pile. It was still early in September, and it wasn’t cold enough yet to need proper winter clothes.

‘Oh wait.’ Shane said, right as he tossed his jacket onto the pile. He set his cup down on the bedside table and slipped his hand into the inside pocket to withdraw the pen. He’d dutifully carried it around with him all week and had checked three times before leaving home that he’d not somehow forgotten it.

‘You brought my pen.’ Ilya said, amused.

‘Well, yeah.’ Shane replied and he frowned, because he wasn’t quite sure he understood the joke, ‘yeah, I mean- that’s why you invited me, right? To return your pen.’

Ilya laughed, ‘No, Hollander.’ He said, ‘I did not invite you to my party to return pen. I bought a packet of fifty.’

‘Oh.’ Shane replied, ‘then…’

‘I invite you to my house for party because I think you are very hot.’ Ilya said, slowly, like he was making sure Shane understood.

‘You-‘

‘Ilya!’ A voice called from outside the door, ‘Иди сюда, помоги мне!’

‘Бегу!’ Ilya turned his head, called out over his shoulder. Shane’s heart rate was picking up again, he could hear it thudding in a steady rhythm in his ears. Ilya turned back to him, with a lopsided grin, ‘I’ll see you soon, Shane Hollander.’

‘Yeah.’ Shane said, ‘see you.’

When Ilya left, Shane picked up his cup. He didn’t even wince when he downed it all in one, burning gulp.

📓

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Shane hissed, when he finally pulled himself from the front door and followed Ilya into the kitchen.

‘Standing.’ Ilya replied, with raised eyebrows. He’d shrugged off his coat and hung it on the back of one of the dining room chairs, revealing a black sweater that clung all-too-right to his broad chest and strong arms. Shane must have stayed by the door for too long, because Ilya had time to unpack his bag and set a textbook, workbook, notepad and computer neatly on the table, too.

‘Not what I meant.’ Shane huffed.

‘I’m teaching you Russian, apparently.’ Ilya replied. He didn’t move while Shane crossed the room to the cupboard and sink, where he filled up a glass of water and downed it in long, slow gulps. He set the glass down on the counter, then changed his mind and filled it up again, as though hydrating might somehow change everything impossible about this situation.

When Shane turned, Ilya was still watching him, with those same analytical eyes he’d had, seven years ago in the back of that lecture hall.

‘You look the same.’ He said, and reached one hand out to touch his fingers to the tips of Shane’s hair, ‘maybe a few more grey hairs but-‘

‘Fuck off.’ Shane said, smacking his hand away, ‘there are cameras.’

‘Don’t want your husband to ask questions, huh?’ Ilya cracked a smirk, but Shane saw the way his eyes flicked up from his face to the corner, where the red light was ever blinking, ‘or does he like to watch?’

‘Don’t be an asshole.’

‘He’s hot. In an old man kind of way.’ Ilya shrugged.

‘He’s not that old.’ Shane argued and scowled when Ilya levelled him with a disbelieving look.

‘He’s what- fifty? Sixty?’

‘Fifty-two, and he’s a good husband. I love him.’ Shane replied.

‘He’s an asshole.’ Ilya said, bluntly.

‘No, he’s not, he’s just- he’s particular, okay? He’s had a hard life, being gay and Russian hasn’t exactly been easy.’

‘Oh.’ Ilya said, drily, ‘hasn’t it.’

‘You know what I mean.’ Shane sighed, and filled up his glass a third time, then carried it to the table.

‘So, perfect Shane finally got his perfect life, huh?’ Ilya mercifully dropped it and followed him over to the table. The sound of the chairs pulling back echoed through the wide, open plan space, bouncing off the grey furniture and beige walls, decorated with soulless, uninteresting art Maxim had paid someone to choose for them. Wide open windows flooded the room with light, and Ilya leant back in his seat while he made a performance of looking around to the plush, cream carpet in front of the fire-place they never really used, the sofa that looked out the double doors and over the winter grey and white of their big back garden. Down the hall was another living room in the image of this one, with a TV and a staircase up to the small library of books Shane had collected over the years, and read to fill the time in the hours and days between kissing Maxim goodbye and kissing him hello, and preparing to be left all over again.

‘I did.’ He agreed, because it was easier, really, than the truth: that the house was too big and too comfortable, and too empty most of the time. That if he had to listen to the sound of his own breathing echoing off the walls for much longer, he might start plucking his hairs out one by one.

‘You’re not a lawyer.’ Ilya observed.

‘No.’ Shane replied, ‘I don’t need to work. Not when Maxim-‘

‘Is so rich?’ Ilya supplied.

‘Enjoys taking care of me so much.’ Shane corrected.

Ilya’s brows quirked again, and he flicked open the first page of the textbook, ‘and you decided to learn Russian now because...?’

‘Because I married a Russian man, and I figured it was about time I learned.’

‘You never learned with me.’ Ilya said.

‘No.’ Shane replied, tersely, ‘there was a lot I never did with you.’

‘He doesn’t know about me, then?’ Ilya gestured over his shoulder, back towards the front door, and the moment that Shane had wordlessly asked Ilya to lie, and the moment Ilya had, without question.

‘Nobody knows about you.’

‘And his security cameras. They don’t record audio.’ Ilya assumed.

‘No. They don’t.’ Shane agreed. For a moment, they looked at one another, from across the table. There’d been a time when Shane had imagined this: meeting each other again. He’d wondered what questions he’d ask, if any would come to mind at all, but he found all he had were observations. Shorter hair, brighter eyes, no longer weighed down with dark bags beneath them. His shoulders were broader, too, in a way Shane put down to being the change from a teenage boy into a man, and maybe if he tipped his head just right, he could believe Ilya had grown even taller, than he’d been back then. ‘Your English is better.’ He stated.

‘Yes.’ Ilya agreed, ‘I’ve lived in Canada for nearly ten years.’

‘How’s your French?’

‘Buh,’ Ilya groaned and rolled his eyes, ‘it’s terrible. I can’t make sense of that stupid language. I already learned stupid English, now everyone expects me to learn stupid French.’

‘Your French is probably better than my Russian.’ Shane offered, and Ilya smiled, soft this time, with eyes raw-blue and honest.

‘Not for long, knowing you.’ The words hung heavy between them, and Shane let himself wonder if Ilya could claim to do that anymore: know him.

Though he guessed in some ways he always would. Maybe better than anyone else.

The thought sent something sobering through him, like a splash of water, or the shock of rain. The softness leaked from his chest, replaced with the memory of hot tears and  clenched fists and a throat raw from screaming, and he wanted to pinch the sensitive fleshy skin on the inside of his arm, to remember all the reasons he hated Ilya Rozanov.

‘We should get started. I don’t want to take up too much of your time.’ Shane said, clearing his throat.

‘Yes, of course.’ Ilya replied, and turned his gaze back to the page, ‘start by telling me what you know, and we’ll go from there.’

‘I should go.’ Ilya said, a little after midday. Shane blinked up from the notebook, where he’d been dutifully and repeatedly copying Ilya’s neat script of the Cyrillic alphabet.

‘Already?’ He asked, then glanced over to the clock, ‘Jesus has it been four hours?’

‘Yes.’ Ilya said, ‘and I have somewhere I need to be.’

‘Of course, I’m sorry.’ Shane replied, and closed the textbooks, pushed them over towards Ilya.

‘Don’t be sorry. And you can keep these. We will need them next time.’

‘You’re coming back?’ Shane couldn’t help but ask. Ilya’s lips twitched to a smile.

‘Yes. I am employed by your husband to come once a week to teach you Russian.’

There was something in his eyes, though, an honest statement that neither one of them was going to say out loud: I won’t come back, if you tell me you don’t want me to.

But he didn’t say it, and Shane didn’t either, he just said, ‘yeah. Okay.’ And got up to follow Ilya down the hall, back towards the door. Once it was open, he leant against the frame, ‘I’ll see you next week, then.’

‘I will see you next week.’ Ilya nodded, ‘bye Shane.’

‘Bye, Ilya.’ Shane replied, and watched him go.

There were empty coffee cups on the table, surrounded by scribbled notes, stray pens, but Shane left them there, just for a moment longer. Part of him liked the sight of it all, now the silence had descended: a momentary reminder that it had been real.

He crossed the kitchen and rounded the table, to the plush cream carpet just beyond the couch, then dropped down until he was laying there on his back. High up on the wall, there was a square skylight window, hardly more than half a metre wide. When they’d first moved in, soon after they’d been married, Maxim had suggested covering it up.

‘It serves no purpose.’ He’d said, with a wave of his hand, but Shane found it was one of his favourite parts of the whole house, because when he lay back, right there in the middle of the floor, it framed the clouds in the sky like a painting. Some days, he could stay for hours to watch the colours change over their billowing white, washing them peach and gold; pink, or grey. And he pictured himself like a bird, flying amongst them, dipping and diving, beating his wings.

📓

Shane didn’t know how long he’d been at the party, or how many drinks he’d had: all he knew was that his head felt like it was filled with buzzing bees, and his vision was like tv static. After Ilya had disappeared, he’d gone back out into the living-room to look for Hayden, and found a handful of classmates he half knew. He listened to them talking about one of their professors, a middle-aged woman, who apparently had ‘the most insane tits you’ve ever seen.’ Shane couldn’t say that he’d noticed, not when he hardly looked beyond his pages of colour-coordinated notes, desperately holding on to content in fear of falling behind in a race he’d set himself. But then he hadn’t noticed any girls since coming to Montreal – or before either, if he had to be honest.

He drank one beer, then two, then accepted a red solo cup of something even worse than what Ilya had given him until eventually, he couldn’t take the noise, nor the heat, and he stumbled down the hallway, past Hayden and Jackie kissing by the bathroom door, and out onto the back patio.

The yard was surprisingly empty, other than a handful of people who’d all seemed to have the same idea as him. Underneath the illuminated bedroom window a girl was crying, with one friend’s arm wrapped around her shoulder, and at the side, nearby the back door, Ilya was standing there alone, smoking. For a second Shane thought he was imagining him, until their eyes met, and his rose-blush lips twitched into a lopsided half smile and he said, ‘Hollander. I thought you went home.’

‘No.’ Shane replied, and took a stumbling step closer.

‘Whoa there.’ Ilya laughed, and left his cigarette balancing between his lips as he reached out to steady him.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Shane waved him off, and righted himself again.

‘You are having fun, yes?’

‘Yes. Yeah. I think so.’ Shane nodded.

‘Shane Hollander, who does not go to parties is having fun at my party.’ Ilya laughed. He pulled the cigarette from between his lips and blew the smoke out the corner of his mouth, so that it billowed away from Shane.

‘I go to parties.’ Shane argued, because he felt like he should.

‘No, you don’t.’ Ilya disagreed, and Shane didn’t really know what he was meant to say to that because, well, no, he didn’t.

So instead, he blurted, ‘what you said back there. What- what did you mean?’

‘When I say you are hot?’ Ilya asked, that lopsided smile still pulling at his mouth, ‘I meant you are hot, Hollander, it is really- uh- not ambiguous, if this is right word.’

‘Are you gay or something?’ Shane asked, and he couldn’t help but wince at the way it came out.

Thankfully, Ilya looked more amused than annoyed, ‘No, I am not. Are you?’

‘No.’ Shane said, too fast. Then swallowed, ‘I mean- I don’t think so. Not that it would be bad or anything. For anyone to be, I mean.’

‘I haven’t seen you talking to any girls tonight.’ Ilya quirked his eyebrows, and it was Shane’s turn to twitch a smile.

‘I thought you thought I went home.’

A sly, satisfied smirk settled on Ilya’s mouth then, the first time he’d heard Shane bite back. He looked up and over Shane’s shoulder, towards the girls under the window, ‘what about them? Do you think they’re hot?’

Shane grimaced, ‘the girl crying? No, Ilya, I don’t.’

‘Okay.’ Ilya nodded, his head dipping side to side as he looked around again, ‘there is swim team in there. Do you think they’re hot?’

‘I’ve never met them.’ Shane replied, ‘they seem- I don’t know.’ The buzzing in his head was subsiding, now that the cool air was on his face and his bare arms, but everything still felt hazy and dull around the edges.

‘Do you think I’m hot?’ Ilya asked, finally.

Shane choked at the question, his eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline, ‘I mean- yeah. Yeah, of course, but like- obviously you’re hot.’ He stumbled, his words outrunning his mouth in a way that had his face flushing, ‘everyone thinks you’re hot.’

‘Everyone.’ Ilya repeated.

‘Yeah, everyone.’ Shane replied, ‘surely everyone.’ Really, Shane couldn’t imagine anyone not being attracted to Ilya Rozanov, with his perfect curls and soft skin, and the bright blue of his eyes. The tilt of his mouth into that confident half smile was enough to make Shane’s knees feel loose, and he didn’t realise he was staring at his mouth, until Ilya’s hand lifted, and he wrapped his lips around the butt of his cigarette again, took in a slow, deep drag, and let the smoke slide from his nostrils to billow up into the early autumn air.

‘I think you’re hot, Shane Hollander.’

‘Why do you keep saying my name like that?’ Shane asked and he tore his eyes up from the red pout of Ilya’s lips.

‘I think it’s good name. Very pretty.’ Ilya shrugged, ‘very Canadian.’ His voice was low, the accent drawing out his vowels and rolling his r’s in a way that made Shane tremble. He wanted to hear more of it, he didn’t want to hear anything else.

Beside them, the back door swung open, then closed as the girls finally went back into the house and left them alone.

‘You have such pretty freckles, and pretty eyes, and pretty mouth.’ Ilya said, and he lifted his palm to press warm and feather light to Shane’s cheek, then ran the pad of his thumb over the arch of his cheekbone. 

He didn’t really know why it was that he did it, but before he could stop himself, Shane lurched forward, and pressed his mouth to Ilya’s own in a messy, imperfect kiss. His eyes slipped closed, and his nervous hands lifted to settle awkwardly on Ilya’s shoulders. He stumbled just slightly, and Ilya’s arm automatically lifted to wrap around Shane’s waist to bring his body in closer to his broad chest. Ilya’s other hand tossed the last embers of his cigarette onto the dew-wet grass, and lifted it to brush over Shane’s other cheek, into his hair as he returned the pressure, just lightly. The reciprocation left Shane bold, and his lips parted, tongue searching right up until the moment that Ilya, gently, guided him away.

‘You are drunk, I think.’ He said, in a tone that wasn’t unkind.

‘’m not.’ Shane replied, and leant in to kiss Ilya again, but the hand on his face was firm.

‘Shane.’ Ilya said, with a tender brush of the tips of their noses, ‘I think it is for the best we revisit this when you are sober, okay?’

The words pushed through his alcohol hazed mind, and Shane pulled sharply back. Suddenly, he was hyper aware of Ilya’s hand on his face, the arm around his middle, the taste still lingering of cigarettes and alcohol and Ilya on his tongue.

‘I-‘ he said, but he didn’t know what there was for him to really say, as his body flooded with white hot, humiliated panic, ‘I have to go.’ He said, all in a rush, and pulled back from Ilya as fast as he could.

‘Shane-‘ Ilya tried, but it was too late. Shane rushed back into the house, down the hall, through the living room and out onto the street beyond. He didn’t stop to think about his jacket folded neatly on Ilya’s bed, until his back was pressed to the inside of his dorm’s front door, and his hands came up to cover his face.

📓

The sound of tires crunching on gravel outside made Shane blink. It was starting to get dark, he didn’t know how long he’d been laying there. A car door opened and slammed shut, and he pushed up to his feet to gather the cups from the table, close the books, like he had to remove any evidence that Ilya had ever been there at all.

‘I’m home!’ Maxim called, and Shane ran his hand back through his hair just in time for Maxim to emerge from the end of the hallway.

‘Hi.’ Shane said, with a sleep-soft smile.

‘Hi.’ Maxim smiled and caught him around the waist, pulled him in for a soft, greeting kiss, ‘how was it?’

‘Fine, I guess.’ Shane sighed. His hands lifted to press to Maxim’s biceps, then slipped up to his shoulders, to cup the sides of his neck, ‘it’s going to be a lot of work, my brain is fried.’

‘I’m sure you were a very good student.’ Maxim’s hands on his hips guided Shane back towards the counter, where he helped him jump up until he was seated there, with Maxim’s hips between his spread thighs.

‘Are we going out?’ Shane asked, ‘I just need to get changed.’

‘We are.’ Maxim agreed, though his eyes were searching, ‘once you tell me more about today.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’ Shane smiled with a shrug, ‘it was just a lot of grammar. Polite small talk, you know, that kind of thing.’

‘He’s hot.’ Maxim observed, and Shane wrinkled his nose.

‘He’s kind of an asshole.’

‘Oh? If you don’t like him, I can find you someone else.’

‘No, no.’ Shane shook his head. His fingers brushed back through Maxim’s hair. It was greying, a dusting of salt and pepper, but still thick between his fingers, ‘he’s going to piss me off, but he’s a good teacher, I think.’

‘If you say so.’ Maxim replied.

‘I missed you.’ Shane hummed, and dipped his head down to nudge their noses together once, then twice.

Maxim’s lips twitched into something more convincing, ‘let me take my handsome man to dinner.’ He said, ‘then you can show me just how much.’

‘Okay.’ Shane agreed, and let himself be pulled in closer, for a long lingering embrace. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was Ilya, standing alone in the pouring rain, the last time Shane had left him.

Chapter End Notes

Lucky Shane and Ilya lied to Maxim, I'm sure they'll never see nor face consequences for that!

Thank you so much for reading, and thank you for the bright, brilliant encouragement I've received in only the first chapter. State Lines has been a little pet project of mine for closing in on two months, and every kind comment, bookmark, kudos or share with your friends gets me genuinely feeling quite big feelings. I really really appreciate every comment, and I promise to do my best to reply to every single one of them as quickly as I can!

Thanks again as always to the King of Canada, Parker, who answered my niche questions, and to State Line's godmother, Marchoskaya for her translations into Russian, her proof reading of my Ilya-speaking-Russian-as-a-second-language dialogue and for listening to me ramble out half-conceived ideas for months before this even saw the light of day.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'd love to hear your thoughts 🥰

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

Shane struck his shoes together to knock the snow from the soles as he waited for the front door to open. Hayden and Jackie lived in a cozy three bedroom house in Laval’s sprawling suburbs, across the Prairies River from Montreal. They’d bought it with help from their parents just before the birth of their twins, two years out from University, when Hayden got his first full-time job as a Gym teacher in one of the local Anglophone high schools, where Jackie taught English.

Shane had helped them move because Jackie’s stomach had been so huge that she couldn’t help lift a single thing, even if Hayden would allow her to, and he’d marvelled at the normalcy of their life. University sweethearts married in the summer after graduation, normal jobs and table-top bills and two perfect babies on the way. It was the kind of life Shane had pictured for himself, when he’d been younger, because it was the only kind of life he’d known to expect, before hot lips touched his, and even hotter hands wondered over his skin and he realised with cosmic certainty, that he wasn’t like everyone else.

The door cracked open, and Shane’s lips spread into a warm, genuine smile at the sight of Hayden standing there, in a button down shirt and loosened tie with a smear of pureed carrots on his cheek.

‘Hey man, come in, come in.’ He ushered Shane in, who dutifully followed, closed the door, pulled off his shoes and hung his coat, then wandered into the kitchen. It was a picture of domestic chaos – as it always was. Empty, dirty bowls were piled on the counter, with spoons smeared with baby and toddler-safe food. Shane bent down to pick up a toy car from the floor before he could step on it, and set it on the counter.

‘Big day?’ He asked.

‘Fuck, man.’ Hayden sighed, ‘Our reservation is for seven, we couldn’t get in any earlier, we’re gonna try not to be out too late, but-‘

‘Hayd, it’s fine. Take as much time as you need.’

‘You’re the best, have I told you you’re the best?’ Hayden sighed, ‘Jacks is just finishing up the twins’ bath, and Arthur is already asleep. I’ll just finish up cleaning the kitchen and then we’ll head out.’

‘Don’t worry about cleaning, I’ve got it.’

‘I could kiss you.’

‘Would probably be weird if you did, man.’ Shane huffed out a laugh.

‘You’re right, Jackie would be too jealous.’ Hayden laughed, and finally took a tea-towel to his cheek to wipe the carrot smear clean.

‘Why would I be jealous?’ Jackie asked when she came into the room, and pulled Shane into a warm hug in greeting. Her round belly pressed into his hips, and he rubbed his palm up and down her back. She’d just hit the six month mark of her third pregnancy, barely more than a year after their youngest, Arthur, had been born.

‘Hayden’s threatening to kiss me on the mouth.’

‘He offered to do the dishes.’ Hayden explained.

‘In that case, I’ll kiss you on the mouth, too.’ Jackie laughed and pulled away with a kind pat to his cheek.

‘Where are the twins?’ Shane asked.

‘They’re choosing the books you’re going to read to them. They’ve already brushed their teeth, don’t let them convince you they haven’t had dessert.’

Shane nodded dutifully, ‘you look nice.’ He said with a nod towards her dress and she smiled.

‘Careful, that kiss is still on the table.’

‘Where’s Maxim again?’ Hayden asked as he rinsed his hands in the sink.

‘Vancouver.’ Shane replied. The index finger and thumb of his right hand twisted his wedding ring as he spoke, ‘he left this morning. Wanted to get there early so he’d be refreshed for tomorrow.’

‘Meetings?’

‘Yeah. An acquisition.’ Shane replied.

‘What are you doing while he’s away?’ Jackie asked. She’d started picking up toys from the floor, and Shane wished she wouldn’t. He’d take care of it, he wanted to tell her, he liked feeling like his time was spent doing something useful.

‘I’ve uh- I’ve started learning Russian. It’s taking up a lot of my time.’ He tore his eyes away from her armful of soft toys to Hayden, who was nodding encouragingly.

‘Neat. Like, as in classes? Where?’

‘No, a tutor, actually. Someone Maxim found from the University, he’s coming to my place once a week, but there’s so much extra work, I’ve only had one class and already I’m doing hours of extra stuff every day.’ Shane replied.

‘What’s he like? Your tutor?’ Jackie asked, finally sitting down at one of the stools up against the counter. It was closing in on half past six, and Shane knew they’d need to leave soon. But they were such good friends to him, just like they always had been, and he hadn’t always been as honest as he knew he should have been.

So, he was honest: ‘It’s Ilya Rozanov.’

‘Ilya Rozanov?!’ Hayden balked, ‘like, Rozanov Rozanov? From McGill?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Holy sh- heck.’ Hayden said, saving the cuss at the last minute with a look from Jackie, ‘what are the chances, man?’

‘Maxim hired him. I had no idea until he showed up at the front door.’

‘Man, that must have been a surprise.’

‘Yeah, it was a shock. For both of us.’

‘How is he with the- y’know.’ Hayden said, lowering his voice.

Shane frowned, ‘with what?’

‘You and Maxim.’

Shane’s heart jumped in his chest at the sentence: you and Maxim, and his mind hit the ground running. Shane had never told Hayden about Ilya, about what they were after dark and between the sheets, on all the nights Hayden had spent at Jackie’s flat across campus. The information had felt all too big. Telling Hayden about Ilya would mean telling Hayden about him, and Shane hadn’t even known what he was, back then, other than terrified, and alone in a way that couldn’t really be described with words.

‘Me and Maxim?’ Shane prompted, in an even, flat voice he hoped didn’t betray the hammering in his chest.

‘Yeah, I mean, I dunno, man. You hated Rozanov so much, and I just went with it, I figured you’d have a good reason cause he’s always been kind of an asshole, but it felt personal, y’know? Then when you came out in your final year, I kinda just assumed he’d said something homophobic, his being Russian and all that.’ Hayden explained, and the panic washed out of Shane so suddenly, he almost felt lightheaded.

‘Maxim is Russian.’ He reminded Hayden, who waved his hand.

‘Yeah, but Maxim is gay. It’s not like he can be a homophobe.’

‘No.’ Shane agreed, ‘Rozanov never said anything like that. I think we just kind of clashed. He seems different now, though. We probably both are.’

‘Water under the bridge?’ Hayden quirked an eyebrow.

‘Something like that.’

Down the hall echoed a soft thud, followed by a series of light giggles, and Hayden pushed back from the counter, ‘I’ll go sort the girls, then we should get going.’

‘Sure.’ Jackie smiled and watched him go. The door to the twin’s bedroom opened, then clicked closed again, and the sound of Hayden’s gentle voice came through the door, followed by the indignant tone of two toddlers, used to getting their way. They were about to again, Shane guessed, if he knew Hayden as well as he thought he did. There was a beat of silence, before Jackie turned to look at him again, ‘how is it? Seeing him again?’

‘Rozanov?’ Shane asked, and shrugged, ‘it’s fine. Hayden’s right: water under the bridge.’

‘But you and him were friends, weren’t you?’ Jackie prompted gently, ‘for a little while, in first and second year.’

And it came back to him in a wash of colours and light, their friendship. The red of Ilya’s rundown car, the whitewashed walls of his dorm, the green of fir trees in the first summer sun, glittering off the surface of a lake and sending patterns across the roof of a small wooden cabin. He saw the shape of them, too, laying there under the sheets like it was the most natural place for them to be.

‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I guess we were.’

‘Does Maxim know that?’

‘No.’ Shane replied, too quickly, then amended with ‘I don’t want to bother him. He’s been so stressed with work stuff at the moment, and he’s travelling so much. He’s only coming back for a few days next weekend, and then he’s in Europe for two weeks. I don’t want to put anything else on his plate.’

‘And is that what Ilya is?’ Jackie asked, not unkindly, ‘something that would be on his plate?’

‘No.’ Shane said again, ‘we’re different people now. It’s like meeting a stranger.’

‘Okay.’ Jackie said with a nod. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his forearm, then squeezed, ‘then that’s that.’

Really, Shane should have guessed, that Jackie Pike had figured him out all the way back then. She had a habit of playing her cards close to her chest, and his heart felt fuzzy with static, at the knowledge she’d kept his secret for all these years without ever being asked.

‘Yeah.’ Shane said, ‘that’s that.’

Down the hall, the twins’ bedroom door clicked open, and little feet pattered down the hallway. Shane dropped down to kneel on the floor and opened his arms.

📓

After the party, Hayden started dating Jackie. He’d collapsed on Shane’s bed early the morning after and startled him from sleep with an announcement that he was in love. They’d been out all night, first at the party, then the twenty-four-hour Tim Hortons around the corner then eventually Jackie’s place where, Shane learned in more detail than he’d ever wanted to, they’d consummated their new relationship.

This newfound relationship had its benefits for Shane, too, because Hayden had hardly been home in the four days since, giving him ample opportunity to do what he had taught himself to do well: hide. It wasn’t that he’d meant to, not really, but when he’d sat down on his bed and opened up his textbook, he figured he could watch the recordings of his lectures that week, rather than going in person. It wasn’t about the kiss, he told himself. It just made sense because there was so much reading to do, that the precious minutes he could save walking back and forth from his dorm to the library was best spent right there, at his desk by the window.

So, when a knock came at his door, he all but jumped clean out of his skin.

In the time he spent hesitating a second knock came, then a third, incessant and impatient and so god damn annoying that Shane knew it was Ilya there, before he even pulled it open.

‘What.’ He said, more a statement than a question, and Ilya pushed past him into the dorm, without waiting for an invitation. Annoyingly, Shane found himself grateful that he could close the door, before anyone saw Ilya step over the threshold.

‘You are not dead.’ Ilya said and dropped down to sit on the edge of Hayden’s bed.

‘No.’ Shane said, with a single, distasteful glance to Ilya’s shoes still on his feet. The look didn’t go unnoticed, and Ilya toed them off and kicked them towards the door, with a single roll of his eyes.

‘You do not come to classes, so I think maybe you’re dead.’

‘I’m not dead, just,’ Shane huffed, annoyed, ‘busy. How do you know where I live?’

‘I asked.’

‘You asked.’

‘Yes, I asked. I say do you know where very boring pretty boy with pretty freckles and loud, annoying housemate lives, and everyone gives me your address.’ Ilya shrugged, gesticulating with his hands in a way that read to Shane as just so- European.

‘I’m not boring.’ Shane retorted.

‘Ah but you agree you’re pretty, yes? And that Pike is annoying.’ Ilya quirked an eyebrow.

‘What do you want, Rozanov?’ Shane said and folded his arms over his chest.

‘You are so angry, why?’ Ilya frowned.

‘I’m not angry.’

‘You seem angry.’

‘I’m not angry.’ Shane insisted.

Ilya shrugged and turned at the waist to his backpack, dumped beside him on the bed. He unzipped the largest compartment and pulled Shane’s jacket free. It was crumpled, but otherwise fine, and he threw it across the room, directly at Shane’s head.

‘You leave this at my house when you run away.’

‘I didn’t run away.’

‘You’re embarrassed.’ Ilya observed, and Shane huffed, again.

‘I’m not-‘

‘Yes, you are.’ Something in Ilya’s expression softened at that, and he tipped his head to the side, ‘Hollander-‘

‘Just drop it, okay?’

For a long moment Ilya just looked at him. Analysing, studying, like he was committing Shane to memory, or like he was approaching a wounded animal that he wasn’t sure if it would bite. After a moment, his gaze pulled from Shane’s face to instead flit around the room and finally, mercifully, he dropped it.

‘Law.’ He said, and gestured with a tip of his head to the stack of textbooks on Shane’s desk, already stuffed with post-it bookmarks.

‘Yeah.’ Shane said, ‘it’s my major.’

‘You want to be a lawyer?’

‘Yeah.’ Shane said again, ‘my mum’s one. My grandpa was, too.’

Ilya nodded, looked back at his face, and the weight of his blue-eyed gaze on him almost knocked the breath from Shane’s chest. ‘What kind?’ He asked.

‘Depends what I can get, I guess. But Human Rights would be the dream- international law. I want to be a judge, eventually.’ Ilya nodded along with his words, and turned to look around again. His eyes trailed over the books on his bedside table, the photo of Shane and his parents from that summer, their cottage by the lake. He took in the poster-free walls, the neatly closed cupboard, then finally, settled on his face again.

‘You are ambitious.’ He stated.

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Shane shrugged, ‘I don’t see the point of doing something, if I can’t do it my best.’

‘And being a judge would be your best?’

‘It would be the best.’ Shane replied. He sucked in a breath through his nose, then returned the analysis of Ilya’s gaze. He was wearing a hoodie, the same navy blue toque he’d had in the lecture the week before, with jeans, and thick white socks on his feet. The perpetual smirk he’d had at the party was gone, replaced with a flat line of his plush lips, like they were weighed down by something he couldn’t say. Eventually, he nudged his head at the air and asked: ‘what about you? What’s your major?’

‘Literature.’ Ilya replied.

‘Explains the books.’ Ilya’s brow twitched up and Shane explained, ‘in your room. There were a bunch, I noticed them when I put my jacket in there.’

‘Ah. Yes. It explains the books.’ Ilya agreed, ‘Why are you embarrassed?’ He asked, and Shane groaned. His fingers had sunk into the fabric of his jacket, which he held in his lap where he was perched at the side of his own bed.

‘I haven’t-‘ he tried, ‘I’ve never-‘

‘Kissed a guy before?’ Ilya prompted, not unkindly.

‘No.’ Shane said, even though his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, ‘you told me to stop. I panicked.’

Ilya’s eyebrows raised, ‘you think I was rejecting you?’

‘Weren’t you?’ Shane asked.

‘No.’

‘You said you’re not gay.’ Shane reasoned, weakly.

‘I’m not.’ Ilya said, ‘but I said you were hot and that you were pretty and that we could revisit when you were sober.’

‘I thought you were just… Being nice.’ Shane winced.

‘No.’ Ilya’s lips finally twitched into that lopsided smile, ‘I’m not that nice.’

He pushed himself up from the edge of Hayden’s bed, leaving his bag open and spilling its contents onto the mattress. Notebooks with bent and folded pages, a pristine, new textbook that must have cost him hundreds. Pens, too, Shane saw, and if he weren’t distracted by Ilya approaching him, he’d smile. He really did have more than enough to go around.

Ilya stopped in front of Shane and looked down at him with cautious, curious eyes. He bent forward and pressed his palms flat to each of Shane’s thighs, just above the knee, and hovered until their noses were almost touching.

‘Are you sober?’ He asked.

‘It’s eleven in the morning.’ Shane replied weakly, though he guessed that wasn’t the point, it wasn’t really the question Ilya was asking him. Do you want to? Was what he meant. Yes, was Shane’s fluttering, terrified reply.

When Ilya pressed his lips to Shane’s, it was gentle: more an offering than a demand. It started with one press, just more than a peck, followed closely by another that lingered a few drawn out seconds. Shane exhaled through his nose and relaxed into the pressure. His eyes had squeezed closed, but now they relaxed, too, and one hand pulled from the crumple of his jacket to slide up the length of Ilya’s bicep to his shoulder.

‘It’s okay?’ Ilya murmured against his lips.

‘Yeah…’ Shane breathed out. It was all the encouragement Ilya needed and soon his hands pulled from the heat of Shane’s thighs to instead gently grasp either side of his red-flushed face. The pad of his right thumb brushed once over Shane’s freckled cheek and his lips parted so his tongue could press forward into Shane’s own, drawing a sound soft and needy from Shane’s chest. It made him dizzy, really, in a way a kiss never had before, and he realised he finally understood what all the fuss was about.

Ilya stepped forward and pressed one knee to Shane’s mattress and with one hand, nudged him back until his spine was pressed down into the bed, and Ilya was hovering above him. The hand on Ilya’s shoulder slipped up, and he pushed his jacket aside and onto the floor so he could pull Ilya’s toque off and sink all ten of his fingers into the soft gold of his curls.

He must have liked the feeling because a sound rumbled from his chest, and Shane could feel the vibrations of it against his own, like an earthquake. Ilya’s weight settled down onto him until they were chest to chest, hips to hips, and his spine arched up because, impossibly, it wasn’t enough.

‘Still okay?’ Ilya asked, when he pulled back to run his lips down Shane’s jaw to his neck, where he pressed open mouthed kisses to parts of Shane’s skin that he hadn’t even known were sensitive.

‘Yes-‘ he gasped. He knew Ilya must have been able to tell that he was hard, concealed by the tightly closed zipper of his jeans, and one single rock of his hips downwards confirmed it.

‘This okay?’ He clarified again, and Shane emitted a laugh that was breathy and soft.

‘Yes.’ He replied, before he could convince himself otherwise because God was it good. Maybe he should have been embarrassed, to be so turned on from rutting like high schoolers, unsupervised for the very first time, but the pressure on his cock was enough to shoot pleasure through him in rolling waves.

‘Shit-‘ Shane gasped, and used his hands in Ilya’s hair to bring their mouths crashing together again. Ilya chuckled into his mouth, but he didn’t pull away, he just slipped a hand beneath Shane’s hips, helping to guide his movements up until the rhythm grew frantic, and he came with a stutter and a groan.

The kiss slowed with their hips, and Shane melted back into the mattress to enjoy the lingering buzz, before the reality of what he’d just done settled back in. Ilya nudged him over, then lay down beside him. He adjusted his own erection with one hand, and tucked the other behind his head to catch his breath.

‘Oh my god.’ Shane said.

‘You feel good?’ Ilya asked, and Shane groaned, covered his face with his hands. The sticky heat of cum smeared on the inside of his underwear was already enough to disgust him, but he couldn’t deny the creeping satisfaction softening every muscle.

‘Yeah. Fuck- yeah.’ Shane breathed. He turned his head towards Ilya and let his eyes drift down, over his mussed hoodie to the bulge still prominent in his pants, ‘do you-‘ he started, hesitated, continued, ‘can I-‘

‘No.’ Ilya shook his head and pushed himself back to sit up, after pressing one final, chaste kiss to Shane’s bruised lips, ‘you can do that next time.’

‘Next time?’ Shane asked. He watched Ilya stand, readjust himself again and straighten his clothes. He picked his toque up from the floor, packed his things back into his bag.

‘Yes, next time.’ Ilya replied while he levelled Shane with a knowing look.

‘You won’t- tell anyone. Right? About this. Me.’ The words came out so fractured and stunted, and Shane put it down to the daze still clouding his mind.

‘No.’ Ilya replied, simply, ‘I’ll not tell.’

Shane finally pushed himself to sit and reached out his right hand, pinkie extended. Ilya looked at it, then flicked his eyes to Shane’s, who said, ‘it’s a pinkie promise.’ It felt dumb, having to explain it.

‘Why am I making promise to your pinkie?’ Ilya asked, and despite himself, Shane laughed.

‘It’s just something people do, when they’re making promises to each other. I promise I won’t tell, you promise you won’t tell, and we seal it by linking pinkies.’

Ilya stepped closer again, wrapped his pinkie around Shane’s own, ‘in Russia we do this when we are fighting, to promise to end fight.’

‘Well I’ll remember that.’ Shane said, ‘if I ever decide to start a fight with a Russian.’

‘You would win, I think.’ Ilya said, wiggling their hands side to side, ‘goodbye, Shane Hollander. Don’t run away again.’

‘Bye.’ Shane replied.

When Ilya left, Shane lay back on the mattress again, covered his face with his hands and whispered: ‘holy shit.’

📓

‘You’ve been practicing.’ Thursday again, and Ilya took Shane’s notebook as soon as he arrived in the kitchen, to leaf through the pages and assess the drills Shane had spent his week repeating over and over. He’d always prided himself in being a good student, not one to leave stones unturned, but rather to turn them over again and again, so many times until he’s memorised every pattern and groove. Ilya remembered this, Shane could see in his eyes, his diligence was entirely expected.

‘You’re doing very well. Your lettering is good.’

‘I find it interesting.’ Shane said, playing it down because he hated how much the praise made him preen, ‘besides, I figured if I learn the letters, it’s easier. Rather than learning vocabulary in the Latin alphabet and then having to re-learn all the words again once I can read Cyrillic.’

Ilya nodded, flicked through the pages again, ‘are these written from memory?’ He turned the book around to show Shane where his lettering had gotten rougher. He’d started by tracing, then copying Ilya’s neatly printed script, until eventually, after hours staring at the page, he’d tried to repeat it all again from memory.

Maxim had left on Sunday, and after his night babysitting for the Pikes, his days had been drawn out and shapeless. He had regular appointments, sure, training at the gym, pilates with a group of suburban housewives who fawned over his twitching muscles and nervous smiles, but the static itched under his skin. Sometimes, he felt as though he were living the same day over and over again. Nothing changed, nothing moved forward, or backward, he just existed. He woke up and he kissed Maxim goodbye, hours passed, the sun arched through the sky, and then he was kissing Maxim hello again, bidding him goodnight, waking up, kissing him goodbye, kissing him hello, bidding him goodnight on and on and on and on it would go until his muscles gave out and his brain failed and his bones crumbled to dust.

Committing pen to paper, copying the letters, it seemed small but it was something. It was new.

‘Yeah,’ Shane said, eventually, ‘they’re not perfect, but I figured I should practice.’

Ilya glanced up at him, shrugged one shoulder and pulled the book back, ‘it’s good. You’ll be fluent by spring if you keep this up.’ He joked.

‘I have time.’ Shane said, ‘I might as well use it.’

‘Well, when your Russian is perfect, you’ll have to teach me French.’

‘That might be a lost cause.’

‘Mean.’ Ilya sniffed and flipped through the textbook for their next lesson.

‘Aren’t you writing a PhD? I can’t imagine you’d have time.’ Shane watched him, how his fingers leafed through the pages, the wool of his knit sweater pulled up to his wrist. The metallic edge of a wristwatch was visible just beneath the fabric, it was the same one he’d worn during university. Something expensive, a gift for his eighteenth birthday from the father he never talked about, but whose phone calls had weighed down his exhausted shoulders. Ilya always drank after his father called, but then he drank when he didn’t, too.

‘I am.’ Ilya glanced up.

‘What’s it about?’

‘Russian literature.’ Ilya replied, simply and Shane rolled his eyes.

‘Thank you, I would have never guessed.’

Ilya huffed out a laugh, ‘it’s a comparative study on common themes in a handful of different books.’

‘What are the common themes?’

‘It’s mostly-‘ Ilya cut himself off when Shane’s phone, face down on the dining table, blared a loud, shrill ringtone. Shane knew who it was, before he flipped it over and saw the name bold across the screen: Maxim.

‘Hello?’ He answered, without moving from his seat.

‘Hello, sweet boy.’ Maxim’s voice was crisp and clear, as though the breadth of the continent between them meant nothing.

‘Hey. How did you sleep?’ Shane’s tone softened, and he dipped his head, as though it would afford him the privacy he’d get if he stood up, left the room. But he didn’t want to move, leave, hide, pretend. He just wanted to stay right there, where Ilya could watch him.

‘Good. Not as well as I do with you.’ It was saccharine, rehearsed, ‘I’ve been thinking about you. My mornings are always better, when your mouth is there to help them.’

‘Maxim-‘ Shane said.

‘Humour me, Shane.’ His tone was impatient, unimpressed, ‘I want to listen to you touch yourself.’

‘Maxim, I’ve got my Russian class. And I’m seeing you tomorrow.’ Shane replied, firmer, and he glanced up at the corner, to the ever-watching blinking red light of the security cameras. For all he knew, Maxim was watching, like he often did.

‘Go into another room. Make an excuse.’

‘I can’t right now, I’m sorry.’ Shane hoped his tone was clear, apologetic, enough to be firm but not draw Ilya’s attention. Wishful thinking, he guessed, with Ilya’s eyes boring into him. ‘I’ll call you tonight, though. When you finish dinner.’

‘I’ll be out late. There’s an event.’ Maxim said.

‘I’ll stay up.’ Shane promised.

Maxim exhaled a long sigh, ‘fine.’ He said, tone like a stroppy child, kept from his favourite toy and all too used to getting his way. He hung up, before Shane could say anything else.

He put the phone back down on the table and pushed his chair back with a scrape against the floorboards, ‘Do you want a cup of tea? Coffee? Water?’ He asked, on his way into the kitchen to flick on the kettle.

‘Does he always talk to you like that?’ Ilya asked.

Shane’s hands pressed to the cold marble of the kitchen counter, ‘like what?’ He asked, and Ilya quirked one eyebrow, all he needed to do to show Shane he’d heard everything.

‘He travels a lot, we spend a lot of time apart. It’s super important to get all the time we can.’ He reasoned, diplomatically.

‘A lawyer’s answer.’

‘What’s that meant to mean?’

‘You didn’t answer the question, you said something vague and tangentially related as though it was a meaningful response with the intention of not actually saying anything at all.’ Ilya leant back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest.

‘I don’t really know what you want me to say.’ Shane replied. The kettle was starting to roar, he didn’t even want a drink, he just needed to do something with his hands, ‘we’re married, we have sex. I love him, he loves me, it’s all kind of part of the deal, and our relationship is exactly what I want it to be.’

‘Okay.’ Ilya shrugged, ‘tell me about him then.’

‘What?’ Shane asked, warily.

‘Your perfect husband, your perfect marriage, tell me about it.’

The kettle beeped and Shane went through the motions of opening the cupboard, pulling out one of his cups. They were a matching set, just the way he liked it, every one of them the exact same wash of navy blue porcelain, that held the same volume of liquid. At Uni, Ilya’d had a mismatched cupboard full of thrift store finds, and novelty gifts. They’d been different colours and shapes, all complete with obnoxious slogans. The first time Shane had stayed the night Ilya had brought him coffee in bed, in a red mug stamped with a comic sans motif declaring him to be the World’s Best Grandma!

‘What do you want to know?’ Shane asked, while he filled his perfect, matching mug with the same brand of green tea he always bought from the Asian grocer downtown.

‘How did you meet?’

‘At an event on campus, just before graduation. It was a networking event, there were a bunch of speakers from major law firms and financial firms in the city. We got talking and just didn’t want to stop.’ Shane walked back to the table, sat back down and faced Ilya head on.

‘And that was that?’

‘That was that. We started seeing each other regularly, and then when I had to move out of the dorm, he asked me to move in with him.’

‘Here?’

‘No.’ Shane shook his head, ‘Mount Royal. We moved here a few months after we got married, he said he wanted a place that was ours, not his old bachelor pad.’

‘What did your parents think?’

Shane hesitated, then frowned, ‘they love him. At first I think they were- surprised. More about the age gap than anything else, but once they got to know him, and saw how much he loves me and wants to look after me, they were thrilled.’

‘I remember you being scared of them finding out.’

‘About you?’

‘About you.’ Ilya clarified.

‘They were fine. They weren’t really shocked, I don’t think.’ It had been Maxim who convinced Shane to tell his parents. Shane hadn’t blamed him, really, he had learned the hard way how people don’t like being kept a filthy secret, and he’d believed early on that what he had with Maxim was real. He was grown up in a way Shane and his friends weren’t, and all of a sudden, the closet hadn’t felt safe anymore, it felt infantilising.

Ilya nodded. The textbook lay open between them, forgotten, as he leant back in his seat, ‘where is he from?’

‘Moscow.’ Shane replied, ‘but he moved to Canada when he was young, right when the Soviet Union was collapsing. His dad was a real bastard, violent, nasty, and he came here because he knew he was gay, and he knew it wasn’t safe.’

‘Brave.’ Ilya deadpanned, and Shane shot him a sharp look.

‘It was really hard for him.’ He said, ‘he struggled a lot, but he put himself through Uni and worked himself up to a senior role. He’s completely self made, and I’m so proud of him, being out and living like we do has destroyed his ability to ever go back to Russia, to see his family.’

‘Nothing more inspiring than a man living the capitalist dream.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘All- Soviet.’ Shane said, and despite himself, Ilya laughed, ‘you don’t know him.’

‘No.’ Ilya conceded, ‘I don’t. Is he angry? About his life. His struggle.’

Shane lifted his eyes again, to Ilya’s where they watched him, and he didn’t know how to explain the way that Maxim fucks him like he’s punishing himself. Some nights, he undresses Shane slowly, and revels in every arch and curve of his muscled chest, waist, arms, then fucks him hard and fast from behind with a fist in his hair forcing his face into the mattress, as though the savouring of Shane’s masculinity is his deepest possible shame. Maxim toys with him, too, when they’re home and when they’re not: fingers grip Shane’s jaw as he pushes his cock deep and hard into his throat as he kneels at Maxim’s feet under his desk in the fragile privacy of his office downtown. His hands are rough when he tugs Shane off in his lap on lazy Sundays at home, whispering depravity into his ear, and smearing Shane’s own come over his mouth and cheeks after, while making him repeat over and over again who it is he belongs to.

Shane figured out early that it’s the humiliation that Maxim gets off on, although he covets Shane’s body and life jealously. He loves Shane because he’s a man, but he hates him for it, too, and he’ll never forgive himself for being so weak as to want him at all.

‘Yes, and no.’ Shane replied and Ilya’s mouth quirked into that half smile again. It was enough to make him roll his eyes, ‘lawyer’s answer?’

‘Yes.’

‘He is.’ Shane explained, ‘but not with me.’

‘Is he kind to you?’ Ilya asked, finally.

‘Yes.’ Shane replied, and when he looked back at the camera, blinking, Ilya’s eyes stayed on him, because they both knew it wasn’t the whole story.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you everyone for your kind comments, kudos and sharing with your friends! I cannot possibly thank you enough, honestly. I wish you knew how much it makes my heart just BURST when I wake up to a string of emails. I love love love knowing what you think of my chapters!

And again, of course, thank you to Parkerini for his Canadian wisdom. And once again thank you to State Lines' fairy godmother Marchoskaya for her help with everything to do with Russia and Russian, and also just listening to my yap constantly.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! If you'd ever like to chat hollanov, hockey or anything else, you can find me on twitter.

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

Please be aware that this chapter briefly mentions suicide and physical abuse against a child/young adult.

The afternoon Ilya’s feet touched Canadian soil for the first time, it was five years, seven months and eighteen days since he’d found his mother, dead.

There wasn’t much from that day that he remembered. It mostly appeared to him in flashes, like snapshots and freezeframes: the light under her door, the shape of her unmoving on the bed, the sound of his own voice echoing in the house when he called her name once, then twice, a third time just to be sure. He can’t remember if he’d called the ambulance, or if someone had found him, too, with his face pressed into her belly, weeping and desperate. The room smelled like sick, he knew that, and the sheets were cloyed with her sweat and vomit, when her body tried to reject the pills she’d forced down. He remembered, too, that she’d still been warm.

Then, a whole lot of nothing. At some point he knew his father had come home, his brother not long after, and eventually, Ilya had been shut away alone in his bedroom, where he stared at patterns of flashing blue light refracted through his window and across his ceiling.

Svetlana held his hand the whole way through the funeral and for the months after, until summer came and she told him she was leaving.

‘My dad has been offered a contract by Montreal, in Canada.’ She said to him, under the big tree in the garden behind her house. When they’d been smaller, they used to chase one another around it with sticks. Back then its trunk had seemed so impossibly huge, and its canopy of leaves had sheltered them from the brightest of the summer sun. Even at only twelve, Ilya felt like his childhood was lost to him behind a door firmly closed.

‘How long are you going for?’ He’d asked her. Their fingers were intertwined on the grass between them, and they leant forward so their foreheads touched.

She didn’t respond, not for a long time, and Ilya’s blue eyes cast down. Her father was Sergei Vetrov, a legendary goal tender for Krylya Sovatov Moskva and the national team, but by then, he’d been aging out of the competition, and Montreal made him an offer better than any team in Russia could have hoped: a multi-year playing contract to see out his career, followed by a coaching role once he decided to hang up his pads and helmet. The money the NHL paid had the KHL looking like child’s play, and Ilya knew that Svetlana would probably never call Moscow home again.

He had been right, in a way. For the long winters, she lived in Montreal, but every summer she came home, and they went back to how they’d been as children: camping on their bedroom floors, watching movies too late, sharing secrets under the tall tree, which didn’t seem so big to them anymore. Ilya’s dad cursed Vetrov for leaving the KHL, he told Ilya that the NHL makes good hockey players weak, and Ilya replied with yes father every time, then started on his drills again, hockey stick in hand, chasing the puck down the ice.

With Svetlana gone and his mother dead, Ilya turned to hockey in earnest. He’d always been good – the way children were – but alone, he breathed it. He saw more of his teammates than he did what was left of his family, and for her second summer back, Svetlana marvelled at how his arms had grown and his voice had dropped, and the way his skin was marred with new scars.

‘You look so different.’ She’d said, the first time she saw him, and he couldn’t explain it, but it had made him want to cry.

Hard work paid off more than talent, and Ilya’s reputation outgrew him, until heads were turning and whispers spreading that he was the future of the KHL, of Russian hockey too. He captained an under sixteens national team to an international gold when he’d been freshly fourteen, then did it again the year after all the while wondering when the trophies would start filling the hollow cavity in his chest.

They didn’t, but he kept playing, and the sadness made him reckless. First it was girls, who he’d fool around with at the back of the rinks after games, then it was the boys, too. The first was a stranger, some kid equally as terrified as him in a hotel in Czechia. He played on the Finnish team and bit down on his own forearm so hard when he came that Ilya was worried he might draw blood.

The riskiest had been Sasha, the eldest son of Ilya’s junior coach, who hung around after practice in the stadium seats, doing his schoolwork while he waited for his father to take him home. They noticed one another around the same time with furtive glances and nervous smiles, until eventually, the summer he turned sixteen, Ilya kissed him in the woods behind one of the grand houses in Rublyovka during a party.

Svetlana figured it out first, and she warned him what would happen if they’d ever be found out, but Ilya was emboldened by the recklessness of a teenager on a self-destructive path, and he played too close to the edge. Ilya Rozanov, boy extraordinaire with a future stretching ahead in the KHL, or even the NHL if he could swing it.

But it ended in tears, as things always did from Ilya’s experience, and late in winter when they were seventeen, Ilya and Sasha were discovered so undeniably that everything fell apart. He was stripped of his captaincy, bullied off the team, and the future he had been waiting for was replaced by a wide-open expanse of nothing.

‘Ilyushka…’ Svetlana sighed to him, down the phone, and he’d been relieved for the first time that she’d left Moscow, because it meant she hadn’t been there to see the bruises on his face from when his father found out. For weeks he walked around waiting for the blue and purple on his eye and cheek to fade to a sickly green, but his four broken ribs had taken months to heal, and they’d still ached on the long flight over when he bent himself down half way to press his forehead to the cold glass of the double glazed airplane window, and stared out over the dull grey of the tarmac.

‘Bienvenue au Canada; Welcome to Canada.’ The flight attendant announced over the intercom, and Ilya guessed he was home. McGill had been Svetlana’s idea, as their schemes often were, and really it suited Ilya’s father to have him out of the country, because he didn’t even want to look at him from the shame. The University was prestigious enough that it looked more like an honour and less like an exile, and so Ilya packed his bags and kissed his mother’s headstone goodbye.

Svetlana was waiting for him at the gate, by the time he finally collected his luggage, and she pulled him down and into a hug when he stopped in front of her.

‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ She said and he let himself be folded into her, to suck in the scent of her curly, auburn hair and close his eyes. He didn’t say it back, because he didn’t really know where it was that he wanted to be. Not Russia, that was for sure, probably not Montreal either. All he could think about was the warmth of the sun on his face, the scream of summer bugs, and the arms of his mother wrapped around him.

They drove in silence through the streets of Montreal to Hampstead and the three bedroom house Svetlana’s father had bought for her with his bloated bank account, stuffed full of NHL money. Ilya would live there rent free, though he would survive off the money his father sent to pre-empt him being a nuisance. It paid to be disappeared, Ilya guessed.

‘How are you feeling?’ Svetlana asked, when the door fell closed behind them.

Ilya stood in the living room. His clothes felt stiff from being worn for so long, and he had that kind of fuzz people get on their teeth, when they go too long without brushing them. What he needed was a shower, and sleep, a walk outside to orient himself, but all that felt like too much to ask of his heavy body.

So instead, he said: ‘like we should throw a fucking party.’

It had been getting dark by the time he’d left Shane’s mansion and wound his way through the streets of Westmount which were lined with big, old trees, stripped of life for the winter. Under his feet the snow crunched the way it did when it was days old and re-frozen, but one glance at the sky told Ilya it was likely to fall again. It had been that kind of winter: dumps of snow left to brown and re-freeze when the temperature hovered just below freezing. When Ilya’d first moved, he’d gotten used to weeks of fresh powder, just like he’d grown up expecting in Moscow, where the long winter nights were brightened by the moon’s reflection on the stark white sheet of snow.

Westmount suited Shane, Ilya thought, sucking in on the cigarette he’d been carrying between his lips for the better part of a block. The big, stone houses, quiet streets and long driveways, it was the kind of place he’d always expected Shane would end up, once he was buoyed by lawyer money. He guessed it had been what he expected, too, when he first saw the profiles appearing in magazines in the weeks after graduation.

Russian Entrepreneur’s Canadian Love Story the headlines boasted, with interviews, profiles, specialty shoots of the happy couple laughing together in matching, boring suits.

‘When you know, you know,’ Maxim was quoted as saying over and over again, while Shane was described as shy, demurring, devoted, and Ilya had wondered if he’d even recognise him anymore, if they were ever to meet again.

But of course he did, when that front door cracked open and he’d been winded at the sight of him: every inch just the same as he’d been the first day, rooting anxiously through his bag, flushed face dusted with those fucking freckles.

Ilya pulled the last of his cigarette from his mouth and exhaled a cloud of smoke, threw the butt into the garbage bin, glanced over his shoulder and ran across Atwater Avenue, then down into the stomach of the STM. He boarded a train heading north, and didn’t bother finding a seat, because it was only a few stops from there, past McGill and into the city, where he trudged back out onto the street, shouldered his way through the Thursday night crowds and down again to Club Centurion, underneath Boulevarde de Maisonneuve.

‘You’re late.’ Svetlana said, when he eventually rounded the bar after dumping his coat and scarf in the staff room.

‘Got caught up.’ Ilya replied, and dipped to press a kiss to her cheek in greeting, then threw a towel over his shoulder and surveyed the room. It was still a few hours until the tables would fill out completely, but already a healthy after work crowd were starting to gather. The Centurion had been Svetlana’s pet project, after she’d graduated from McGill with a degree in business and a deep-rooted disinterest in ever working a corporate job. She’d built it from the ground up with custom interiors, specialised events and it had gone from a dingy basement to Montreal’s trendiest club. On weekends the line stretched so long it rounded the block, but people were eager to wait the hour or more for entry, just to say they’d been.

‘How come he gets to be late all the time but when I do it I’m not taking my job seriously.’ Cliff Marleau said with a peevish curl of his lips. He’d been the first barman hired, five years ago, days out from opening, and he’d worked his way up to management once Svetlana begrudgingly admitted he was good for the job. He was tall, with dark hair and permanent stubble, a few years older than Ilya and Svetlana were, which he held over their heads like a wise mentor whenever he could. It would be annoying, if he wasn’t such a damn good guy.

‘Because Ilyushka is family.’ Svetlana said, ‘and you can’t fire family.’

‘You called me family last week.’

‘Well, there’s family and there’s family.’

Ilya laughed and bent over the bar to take an order, then grabbed a glass, filled it with ice, poured shots from the glass bottles on the shelf behind him and topped up the cup with soda from the tap. The customer paid and Ilya flicked a stray ice cube clattering into the sink when they turned away.

‘What did you get caught up with?’ Svetlana asked in Russian this time.

‘Tutoring.’ Ilya replied and wiped his hands on the towel against his shoulder.

‘Tutoring.’

‘Yes. Russian. I was offered a job teaching private lessons to some rich guy in Westmount.’ He pictured Shane again, leaning over the table with the end of his pen slotted between his teeth. He’d self-consciously put his glasses on sometime after two, and Ilya’d caught himself staring one too many times. He’d always liked them.

‘You hate tutoring Russian.’ Svetlana stated and Ilya glanced over at her.

‘The money for this one was too good to turn down.’  

The offer had come in a phone call when he’d been on the street outside the gym. Cliff always made fun of him, ‘I think smoking a cigarette after a workout negates some of the effort you’ve put in.’  But Ilya had given up so many of his vices by then, and a man had to have something. He dropped his gym bag to the ground and sucked in a low, deep drag, relishing in the way his lungs expanded to take the smoke down. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it free to see the name: профессор Кузнецов. Professor Kuznetsov.

‘Professor.’ Ilya answered and backed up against the wall, as though it would protect the receiver from the sound of rushing traffic.

‘Ilyusha.’ The professor greeted, ‘I have an offer for you.’

Ilya had met Kuznetsov in his first year at McGill when he took introduction to Russian literature. He’d moved to Canada in the early nineties, in the wake of the collapsed Union, and had developed a profile so broad that students travelled across borders to take his classes. He’d taken a liking to Ilya early, and had encouraged him through his first degree, then his second, then offered to supervise him into his doctorate. They weren’t friends, not in any real meaning of the word, but Ilya guessed he was the closest thing he had left to any kind of paternal figure, and it felt good to speak Russian together, even if they never mentioned home.

‘An offer?’

‘Maxim Dmitriev, the financier, have you heard of him?’

The images had flashed through his mind: Shane laughing, his hand pressed to Dmitriev’s chest, Maxim’s arm around his middle, nuzzling into his neck. ‘I didn’t know it was possible to be this in love,’ Shane had said when the interviewer prompted him.

‘I know the name, yes.’  Ilya admitted.

‘He’s looking to hire a Russian tutor to privately instruct his husband. I understand he is a beginner, so it may be below your skill level, but I put forward your name.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you’re the best I have, Ilyusha, and Dmitriev demands the best.’

‘What does he want?’

‘Go to his house once weekly, teach his husband the basics: small sentences, Cyrillic, some nouns. I don’t know how serious he is, or how much he wants to learn, I don’t think it will be too trying.’

Ilya’s lips quirked, because the Shane he’d known had never done anything by half. The Shane he’d known had stared at his textbooks so long, he’d memorised every page. He’d eaten well, avoided drinking during semester, and taken regular exercise and rest breaks because he’d read an article once that told him it would earn him the best study results. He’d skipped parties, University sports, even his own birthday because every minute he was awake could be better used learning.

And Ilya’s stupid heart thudded in his chest. He knew it would be foolish to agree, after so many years of digging Shane out from under his skin, and yet, and yet and yet and yet.

‘Okay.’ He said, watching his words come out in a breath of smoke and fog from the winter cold, ‘when does he want me to start?’

‘Four gin and tonics, three vodka sodas and- wait- Stéphanie, qu'as-tu commandé?’ A young brunette shouted over the pounding music, her English perfect and Canadian, even though she’d wrinkled her nose at having to speak it. Ilya had shrugged his shoulders in that I’m sorry, I’m Russian way he always did, when Quebecois expected more of his French.

It was close to midnight, and the club was so packed it was overflowing out onto the street above them, with crowds so tightly pushed together they could barely move across the room. Ilya had settled into the rhythm of the work, his elbows bumping Cliff’s when they leant over to fill glasses with ice at the same time. The work was good – steady – and Ilya liked the way hours passed by faster than they did anywhere else. Well, almost anywhere.

The first lesson he’d done with Shane he’d set aside two hours. Dmitriev’s assistant had been vague over the phone, but he’d been expecting to get turned away at the door, as soon as Shane saw him, so it wasn’t as though he’d been anticipating the drain of his time.

But Shane had lied, and Ilya had, too, and instead they sat face to face at the dining table that cost more than Ilya made in well over a month at the club, pretending to be strangers for the benefit of Shane’s husband who Ilya hated, and who he expected a part of Shane hated, too.

‘Hey, man.’ Cliff shouted over the noise, and Ilya glanced over at him, cocktail shaker rattling in his ear as he pumped his arms by his head, ‘can I stay at your cabin?’

‘Yes.’ Ilya said, unscrewed the cap, poured the contents into a tall glass, ‘for one hundred dollars a night.’

‘What the fuck! Last time you just said to cover usage!’ Cliff scoffed, reached passed him and scooped a glass full of ice.

‘Yes, and then your stupid brother set my dock on fire, I had to up my insurance policy.’ Ilya garnished the drink with a twist of lemon rind.

‘Fuck you he paid to fix that.’ Cliff groaned, and they slid their drinks over the bar to their customers at the same time. Ilya beat Cliff to the card machine, so he leant at the bar beside him frowning, ‘there’s this girl.’

‘There’s always a girl.’

‘Fuck off, there’s a girl and I want to take her to your cabin.’

‘So you can pretend it’s yours?’ Ilya said, thanked the customer and leant in to hear the next order, three beers. ‘Again.’ He said, when Cliff’s customer had paid.

‘That was one time. I won’t pretend it’s mine, I’ll say it belongs to my super-hot, magnanimous friend.’

‘Magnanimous is a big word for you, Marly.’

‘Man please.’ He all but groaned.

Ilya set the beers on the counter and rolled his eyes, ‘fine. Fifty.’

‘Thirty.’

‘Forty.’

‘Done.’ Cliff clapped him on the back, ‘I’d kiss you on the mouth, but I don’t vibe like that.’

‘I’ll take the compliment either way.’

‘You haven’t taken a break.’ Svetlana said in Russian when she came up behind Ilya and touched one hand to his shoulder.

‘I’m fine.’ He replied and slid the first of the beers over the bar to be distributed amongst the eager, suited men.

‘I’m going to get a labour code violation if people start thinking I’m not giving my employees breaks.’

‘I’m not an employee.’ Ilya replied and handed the card machine across the bar, the music so loud he barely even heard the beep of the transaction registering, ‘I’m family.’

‘Don’t be cute.’ Svetlana added, then pulled back. Cliff watched her stalk away, like he always did, with a low groan.

‘She’s the perfect woman.’ He said, in a moment of pause between customers.

‘She’d eat you alive.’ Ilya replied, then bent over the bar to hear the next order clearer. Four long island iced teas for two women double parking, purchased by a man Ilya was pretty sure they didn’t know. He was tall, sandy blonde, with pupils already blown from drinks, or whatever it was that went on in the customer bathroom that Ilya decided early on was definitively not his business.

‘Yes, and I’d love every minute of it. I can’t believe you’re not on your knees at her feet every day begging to lock her down.’ Cliff shook his head and handed Ilya the bottle of triple sec he was holding.

‘She’s-‘

‘Yeah. Family. I know.’ Cliff rolled his eyes, and watched as Ilya shared an appraising glance with a tall man who had lines of intricately woven braids and was waiting for the bar, ‘you bisexuals, man, greed they talk about in the bible.’

Ilya’s lips quirked and he swapped the bottle for one of tequila, finished off with a wedge of lemon, ‘you’re just jealous.’ He called over the music and Cliff laughed.

‘Damn fucking straight I am, asshole.’

The real irony of his exile was that for the first time in his life, Ilya was free. On his third day in Canada, Svetlana walked with him hand in hand to a gay bar downtown, where they’d danced until his hands migrated to the broad chest of an older man, who gripped his jaw and licked into his mouth in earnest. When they’d stumbled home, drunk and laughing in the first light of sunrise, he’d turned and looked back over his shoulder, at the pride flag billowing in the wind, hanging out front of the building.

But in the heat of his own liberation, he’d still seen the way the closet punished others. He’d recognised fear in Shane as soon as they locked eyes in his kitchen, the night of that stupid party. It was a look he’d seen enough times before: in that Czech hotel room, in Sasha, the day they’d been caught, in his own reflection, too, on too many nights spent reckoning with the monster he was becoming. The abject horror at the thought he could be that thing no boy ever wanted to be. Ilya heard it thrown around locker rooms since he’d been small, but something told him it was different for Shane, who had a plan. He’d decided aged six what marks he needed when he rounded off his schooling, perfectly bilingual in a francophone school in Ottawa; he’d structured his university experience starting with a bachelor’s degree, likely postgraduate after, and finishing off with a high-flying legal position at a firm in the city. Then maybe New York, Geneva, the Hague if he played his cards right, and finally, a three-bedroom house with a wife in the suburbs of whatever city his textbook career took him to. Shane had looked at Ilya like his life was unravelling, and Ilya had been the one to pull the thread.

But he saw the want in those eyes, too, and the week after he’d been to Shane’s dorm, he wasn’t surprised when Shane sat down in the seat beside his at the back of lecture theatre four.

‘Hey.’ Ilya had said with one sideways glance.

‘Hi.’ Shane replied. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed once nervously, then sent a sidelong glance of his own Ilya’s way.

‘This class sucks.’ Ilya said, and something like relief slid across Shane’s tense face.

‘Yeah.’ He sighed, ‘yeah it really fucking does.’

The outside of their thighs brushed under the tray table of the amphitheatre seats, and Shane glanced around first to see if anyone was watching, before he returned the pressure in earnest. At the front of the room the same old professor was drawling slowly on, and Ilya leant over in his seat to touch the tip of his pen to the corner of Shane’s notes.

A soft-huffed exhale of annoyance brought a smile to Ilya’s lips as he scrawled his phone number down, one digit at a time, finished off with a small smiley face.

For a long time Shane stared at it, right up until the tail end of class, when he packed his bag in too much of a rush, and raced out the door. But Ilya was patient, and he knew how the game went, so when he felt his phone vibrate against his chest when he lay back for a movie and a vodka on the couch with Sveta, he didn’t even have to look before he knew exactly who it was.

Unknown Number 21:12

Hey

It’s me

Shane

And that was where it all started, really, the flirting, the jokes, the witty back and forths that turned into late night invitations of come over, my housemate isn’t home. For over a year, Ilya never wanted his phone out of his sight, because a small, pathetic little part of him craved those messages just as much as he craved the other things that kept him going: cigarettes, clear spirits, baggies of white powder when the silence got too much. His friends made fun of him for it, Ilya Rozanov who had a reputation as a playboy a month into semester, smiling at the phone in his hand. Svetlana had seen it immediately, too, when Shane had run from his party that first night and he’d stalked in alone and reached for a bottle of imported vodka.

‘Where have you been?’ She’d asked him and Ilya shrugged.

‘Looking for trouble.’ He said and drank straight from the bottle, because he didn’t see much of a point in wasting a cup when he was going to finish it anyway. Which he did, and half another after, until his memories of the night faded to a soft, velvet black other than the feeling of Shane’s warmth against him.

Shane wanted to keep him a secret, and Ilya convinced himself it was fine, because he had secrets too: a dead mother, a dead hockey career, a father who wished he was six feet under. So, he kept crawling back, like a stray dog offered his first loving hand, until the messages didn’t come anymore and he realised he was Laika: tricked into loving and set adrift in the infinity of space with nothing to bring him back down to earth.

Ilya’s hands were on autopilot as he took orders, poured drinks, handed over the card reader, rinse and repeat. His fingers were starting to prune, there was lemon juice and simple syrup sticky against his palms, and eventually he pulled back for a breather. Cliff stepped forward, flanked by the other barmen Svetlana had called in for the heaving night.

He filled a glass with water and drank it down, then followed it immediately with another. His hand slipped down to his thigh, then into his pocket where he drew free his phone. The battery was close to dying, it was well after one by then, and he opened up his text messaging app and scrolled down, down, down. There were plenty of ads, the kind you never mean to sign up for, messages from old classmates or coworkers, inviting him out for drinks. He kept scrolling back one year, two, four, six until his eyes caught on the name: Shane. Just Shane. He opened the thread and tentatively scrubbed through the last few messages they’d exchanged.

Saturday October 14, 2013

Shane 14:03

Are you free tonight?

Ilya 14:39

I’m going out

There’s a party

Shane 14:41

Where?

Ilya 15:59

Residences

On Rue University

Shane 16:15

Okay

Cool

I might come

Ilya 16:32

Shane Hollander wants to go to parties now?

Shane 16:33

New year new me or something, right?

Shane 20:51

Hey

I’m outside.

Ilya 22:17

Shane come on come back

Shane

I didn’t mean it

Shane

Ilya 23:59

Fine.

He stared down at the open thread on his screen, the curser blinking expectantly. There were a thousand questions itching at the tips of his fingers: do you still only eat wholemeal bread, do you still take your coffee black, do you still time your showers to a dignified three minutes because any longer feels like you’re wasting time? Did you ever read that book that sat on your bedside table for the entirety of first year and over summer and well into the next? Did you stop digging your nails into your arms and scratching when you’re anxious or overwhelmed or scared? Do you still hate me for the things I said, and the things I didn’t say and the things I’ve wished I did every day since the last time I saw you?

He didn’t say those things, though. That would be stupid. The likelihood Shane even still had the same number was surely slim to none, so he rolled his shoulders back and typed eight words out, then pressed send without a moment’s thought.

Ilya 01:34

Shane Hollander

You didn’t change your number

After only a few moments a little notification popped up just beneath the message. It said delivered.

Chapter End Notes

Did someone say Ilya's POV?! I know this chapter is a little different - in a lot of ways it's more stream of consciousness, and Ilya's memories are more integrated into the text, but I hope you enjoyed getting into his head!

Thank you everyone so so much for all of your comments and kudos, and sharing this work with your friends. It honestly means the world, I mean that. I'm currently midway through writing chapter 11, I can't believe it's so close to done, and I can't wait to share more of it with you. Maybe once I've finished writing I'll start posting it a little faster??? Who knows. I should really be working on my masters degree instead of working on this at all but hey! Nobody! Is! perfect!

Thank you once again to Parkeroodle, who is the holder of all Canada related knowledge. And thank you to Marchoskaya who is the holder of all Russian language and cultural wisdom. I am eternally grateful to you both.

I'd love love love it if you could drop me a comment, or a kudos to show that you're enjoying this! And I'd also love if you like it, for you to share it with your friends.

If you'd like to chat anything hockey or hollanov, you can find me on twitter Mclrnshitposts x

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

Shane woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing on his bedside table. It was still dark, mostly, and he blinked blearily as he peered at the shining light of his bedside clock: 6:45 in the morning.

Without opening his eyes, he pulled the phone free from its charging chord and swiped across the screen, ‘’llo?’ He murmured.

‘Were you asleep?’ Rose asked, in lieu of greeting and with a tone of shock in her voice that he’d read as manufactured if the call had come at any other time of day.

‘Rose it’s not even seven a.m.’ He replied, ‘are you dying?’

‘No, but you might be. I thought you went to the gym at six every day.’

Maxim had stayed true to his promise the night before, and he’d called Shane after midnight from his hotel room in Vancouver. Shane had been in bed, reading his book with an intensity he hoped might convince his body he wasn’t falling asleep. Ilya had stayed late into the afternoon, going over the same grammar and sentence structures he had spent the morning explaining to Shane, until they were so hammered into his mind that they swam in his vision when he closed his eyes. Of course, after Ilya had left, Shane’d returned back to the vocabulary he’d learned in their first lesson and dutifully started writing down nouns on post-it notes and labelling items around the big, empty house.

Книга Book

Холодильник Fridge

Чайник Kettle

Камин Fireplace

Eventually, he made himself a simple dinner of flavourless protein and vinegar drizzled greens, and settled in for a night of waiting.

‘How was your lesson?’ Maxim asked, when Shane answered his call, minutes away from one in the morning.

‘It was good.’ Shane said, ‘I’ve been practicing so I can impress you when you come home.’

‘I’m already impressed with you.’ Maxim replied, and Shane smiled, softly.

‘Yeah?’ He asked. When they’d met, it had been those words that tripped him up the first time, and resulted in him falling: into love, into Maxim’s arms, into this whole life that he adored, he really did.

‘You know that.’

‘Yeah, but it’s nice hearing you say it.’ Shane replied. He closed the front of his book and set it down on the mattress beside him. It had started snowing again, a few hours after sundown, and he’d dressed warmly for bed because he always hated sleeping with the central heating on too high, and there wasn’t anyone beside him to help him keep warm.

‘Take off your glasses.’ Maxim hummed, and Shane’s eyes flicked up to the corner of the bedroom, where the camera light was blinking. He swallowed, did as he was told, all while thinking he really should have known that Maxim would be watching. ‘You’re overdressed.’

‘It’s cold here.’ Shane replied, but already he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on top of his book.

‘My poor boy. Do you miss me?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Show me how much.’

They’d done it before, of course, in the weeks Maxim spent away from home. Sometimes he called, but sometimes the instruction came as a text: take your shirt off, your shorts, touch yourself here the way I always do. The first time, Shane had been in the kitchen, bent over the countertop with three fingers inside himself, the second time he’d been in Maxim’s own study, teasing himself at his desk, but Maxim’s favourite always seemed to be in bed. He enjoyed coaxing Shane out of his clothes, free of the sheets, naked and panting as he touched himself the exact way Maxim wanted to see.

So he followed the routine: he kicked off the sheets, stripped out of his underwear and angled himself just right for the camera to capture everything. He put the phone down on the pillow beside him, speaker turned on, as he willed his body into arousal. For Shane the fantasies had always been amorphous and simple, just ample to efficiently get himself hard enough for the show to be worth it. He imagined hands on his skin that weren’t his own, wrapping first around his hips, then his thighs, until finally they pressed hot and heavy against his cock, which he palmed at until he was satisfied it would do.

‘Beautiful boy.’ Maxim murmured, and Shane arched his spine to show how he appreciated the praise.

‘Can I touch?’ He asked, breathily.

‘Good boy for asking.’ Maxim praised again, ‘show me how much you miss me.’

There were any number of things Shane could have said, but instead he chose to wrap his hand around his cock and give an experimental tug. The pleasure was dull, uninteresting under the heavy drag of sleep, but he arched his spine anyway and purred at the sensation, too desperate to please still, after all these years. More praise flowed through from the receiver, and he squeezed his eyes shut while scraping through a memory bank of sensation to find just the right one to help him along until something snagged on the edge of his mind and came undone like an unravelling thread.

Practiced hands on inexperienced skin, soft whispers into his ear of is this okay? He’d been a virgin, the first time he and Ilya had sex, and when he’d finally come with Ilya buried deep inside of him, for a fraction of a second, he’d sworn he’d seen God.

‘Jesus-‘ Shane gasped, because his head flooded with that agonising burn, the first time he’d been stretched open to take him all the way in. Before Ilya, Shane had never imagined how emotional it could be, to be so full, and the first time Ilya’s hips had met his own, he’d wanted to cry in earnest to feel so complete.

The experience had been sinful, too, in all the best ways. His cock had been pinned between them, tortured gloriously with every grind and rock of Ilya’s hips forward, and the skilful grip of his hands on Shane’s waist that angled him just right to have his prostate struck every time.

‘God, you’re beautiful,’ Ilya hadn’t said it like an appraisal, but like a true to God realisation of something holy he’d never known before, and Shane’s eyes had rolled back into his head.

‘Please-‘ he gasped, now, with his hand wrapped around his cock, pumping desperately to chase that high he’d hardly felt in the years since.

After they’d come together, the first time, they’d lain on the mattress skin to skin to wait out the hammering of their hearts and found, in the end, that when the sweat cooled and their pulse grew regular, they’d wanted to do it all over again. Ilya watched as Shane explored over him, tasting parts he’d never let himself try before, with clumsy lips and stumbling hands, and uncertain glances up in search of approval. The skin of Ilya’s dick still tasted faintly of latex and lube, but Ilya had nodded at him so tenderly, that he still swallowed him whole and realised how much he loved that, too. With the bitter-salt flavour still on his tongue, Ilya fingered him again, until he was panting that he couldn’t take it anymore, and he’d brought the black-cased pillow over his face to muffle the scream torn from him when it was all over.

‘Oh my god…’ Shane panted, swiping his thumb over his tip once, then twice, while his free hand came to fit the knuckle of his thumb between his teeth.

‘That’s it, that’s it.’ Maxim praised, ‘look at you, you desperate slut. You like being watched, don’t you? You love to perform for me, like the whore you are.’

Shane muffled a moan out around the muscle and bone in his mouth and spilled over his hand and stomach with an agonising, desperate buck of his hips and a panic hammering in his heart when he realised that he’d almost said Ilya’s name.

‘Shane!’ Rose said, and Shane blinked his eyes open again, tried to focus on the arrival of morning, ‘did you fall asleep?’

‘No, no. Sorry. Just had a late night, I’ll go to the gym this afternoon sometime.’

‘What kept you up so late?’ Rose asked. In the background he could hear a sound chime over a loudspeaker, an announcement in French.

‘Where are you?’ He asked and glanced at the clock again. It was barely four in the morning in Los Angeles.

‘Paris. I’m coming home from Fashion week. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have called if I thought you were asleep.’ She said.

‘No, no. It’s okay.’ He replied and finally pushed himself up to sit. After the phone call he’d gathered the last of his energy to drag himself out of bed to clean up and re-dress, for which he was grateful then as he climbed from bed and folded the sheets up neatly, as though he’d never been there at all.

‘Why were you up so late?’ She asked again.

‘I’ve started studying Russian. I just- I got caught up. It’s really difficult.’

‘I hate how you say it’s really difficult as though that fact turns you on.’

‘Well-‘ Shane said, and Rose laughed.

‘Don’t you dare ever change, Shane Hollander.’ She hummed, affectionately, ‘But why now? You and Maxim have been together for, what, six years?’

‘I don’t know. I think I’m bored.’ Shane admitted while his knuckle pressed to his left eye and he trudged quietly through the big, empty home, towards his ever-faithful coffee machine.

‘Of course you’re bored.’ Rose huffed, ‘but if you listen to me about that modelling gig-‘

‘Rose.’ Shane said, in a warning tone.

‘Shane be serious. You’re hot, the world deserves to know it.’

‘I don’t think Maxim would see it that way.’

‘Fuck Maxim.’ Rose scoffed, and he almost said her name, in that same admonishing tone.

‘I have.’

‘Gross.’

‘Nice to know what you think of me.’

‘You know exactly what I think of you.’ Rose replied, ‘I think you’re perfect, and Maxim should be worshipping the ground you walk on, not keeping you sitting pretty in Westmount like a painting bolted to a wall.’

The buzz of an espresso pulling from the machine ricocheted off the white marble interiors. He pulled a mug free from the cabinet, matching, a sugar cube from the jar, matching, and a teaspoon from a matching set of cutlery, neatly arranged in the kitchen’s top drawer. World’s Greatest Grandma! He thought, again. He’d grown to like that mug, his hand wrapped just right around it.

‘I got your email.’ Rose said, changing the subject the way she did when she thought she’d gotten her point across enough, but didn’t want to push.

‘What do you think?’ Shane’s position on the Montreal Museum of Fine Art fundraising board had seemed exciting when he’d first joined. He thought it was his chance to engage in something meaningful, to meet people he wouldn’t otherwise. Maybe even to make friends. But he’d quickly realised the people he met there were the same as the people he met at every event he went to, hanging from Maxim’s arm as a decoration: the wives of wealthy and influential people, living lives just as listless as his own. He was different to them in many ways. The only man, and a gay one at that, the only person whose entire bloodline wasn’t from west of the Rhine, and they drew him into the fold with affectionate pats to his cheek when they asked him his opinion on the curatorship of the new Asian wing, as though a Japanese mother made him an expert on mid-century Thai sculpture.  

‘I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll come.’ There would be a new fundraiser in March, and the women on the committee had been positively titillated at the thought of a movie star in attendance, after Shane had been photographed with Rose by Paparazzi not long before Christmas. They’d begged him to ask her to come, and he’d made them loose promises to extend an invitation.

‘Honestly, having you there would make the night more bearable for me.’ He admitted, and she hummed.

‘See you do love me!’

‘Oh shut up, as though that was ever in doubt.’

Shane’s phone vibrated in his hand once, then twice, then a third time and another announcement came tinny down the line. A direct flight to Los Angeles was starting to board.

‘Shane I’ve got to go.’ Rose said, ‘but next weekend we’re going out and we’re getting a drink, having a dance and then I’m sleeping in your bed because it’s ridiculously comfy and you’re a good cuddler.’

Shane laughed and something billowed in his chest, the way clouds do when they grow so tall their tips are gold from the sun. Rose always had that effect on him, when she reminded him that she was staunchly situated in only his corner. ‘Okay.’ He agreed, ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

‘You’re a terrible liar.’ She said, a smile in her voice.

‘Well, I’m looking forward to seeing you.’ He amended, and she laughed.

Silence again. The espresso machine was finished its pull, and he clattered the mug free, topped it up with boiling water and left it to steam on the counter. He needed breakfast, if he would make it down to their gym at all.

His phone vibrated again, and finally Shane unlocked it. Eighteen unread messages, Jesus. Three from his parents, a photo of the beach in Cancún, a selfie of them both in the sunset and a customary wish you were here!  Two from Maxim, praise for the night before. There was a string from Hayden, too, thanking him for babysitting and taking him up on the promise to do so again in a week’s time, the weekend Rose would arrive in Montreal. He scrolled through them one at a time, until his thumb stopped at the bottom of the screen.

Ilya 01:34

Shane Hollander

You didn’t change your number

For a long time, he stared at the notification sitting there, amongst those from his friends, his family, the emails that had come through overnight from newsletters he’d never intentionally signed up to, a warning of incoming snow. There’d been a time where he’d been anxiously waiting every day for that name to pop up on his screen. He could still remember the giddy hiccup that would ricochet across his chest every time a message came through. They’d never talked much, both of them preferred to do that in person, but whenever the door would close between them, Shane’s whole body would vibrate with the eager need to see him again.

With a steady finger, he opened up the thread and scrolled back through the six year old messages from the night they’d last met and back further across the twelve months before it. They’d never gone more than a day without talking, other than the Summer Ilya spent in Russia, and they ranged from stupid, to needy, to horny.

Shane 09:31

You left a sock at my place

How do you leave a sock behind?

Ilya 09:35

How else will I have excuse to see you again?

Oh no I must see Shane

He has my most favourite precious sock

Shane 09:35

Last time I tried to return something you looked at me like I was stupid

Ilya 10:21

I don’t think that’s how I was looking at you

🥵🍆💦

Shane 10:25

Jesus Christ

Just come get your sock

Ilya 10:30

8 o’clock work for you?

Shane shook his head and scrolled back down again, past photos he didn’t want to remember, promises neither one of them tried hard enough to keep to the very bottom of the thread and the cocky assumption of you didn’t change your number.

Shane 07:15

Sorry, who’s this?

He sent the message and had barely turned his phone face down on the counter when it buzzed again. His fingers wrapped around his mug, still too hot to drink and he flipped his phone over.

Ilya 07:16

Wow you got so funny

Shane 07:17

I was always funny

Ilya 07:17

Sure

Shane rolled his eyes.

Shane 07:18

Are you conducting classes via distance now?

Ilya 07:18

If you’re practicing sixteen hours a day, I figured you might have questions.

About grammar

The second message came when Shane’s response was half typed:

You have no idea how many questions I ha

He backtracked, deleted every word, and stared again at the blinking cursor. He wondered where Ilya was. Maybe bent over his own kitchen counter, elbows to stone or wood, plastic, whatever else it might be made of. Maybe he was at the gym, or still in bed, beside the sleeping body of whoever it was he shared his nights with those days. It struck Shane then that he’d never asked. It struck him too, how much he’d hate the answer.

Shane 07:22

Do you still live with Svetlana?

Ilya 07:23

No

She lives in an apartment in the city

Shane 07:25

Where are you then?

Ilya 07:26

Not too far from Svetka’s old place

Somewhere small, on the hill

Alone

The word sat there on the screen like a beacon and Shane hated the way relief flooded through him, immediately followed by a sickening twist of hypocrisy. How could he of all people seek comfort in Ilya’s lack of attachment- or at least lack enough to negate cohabitation.

He shook his head from side to side, as though he were shaking the thought from his mind. Ilya’s life wasn’t his business, it hadn’t been for well over six years, and even then the distance he had forced between them had festered into the rot that ultimately ended in their downfall.

His thumbs pressed to the screen again and he thought about all the things he could say, with one core question rearing its head time and time again: are you happy?

Shane 07:31

Do you like it?

He settled on and hit send with a slow exhale of breath.

Ilya 07:40

Yes.

When Shane took the first sip of his coffee, it burned.

Ilya had been right, of course, because when Shane finally sat down at the table and spread open his textbooks and notes, he had a list half the length of his arm of questions and clarifications. In a way languages were like maths problems: it was all equations and rules, carrying over clauses and subtracting suffixes. He’d written out each word so many times by then that he was starting to see his own handwriting touching the repetitive recitations of Cyrillic, and his chest swelled with excitement at the improvement. His pronunciation needed work, so he repeated sentences aloud to himself, listening to how they echoed around the empty room.

‘Здравствуйте, меня зовут Шейн.’ Hello, my name is Shane he said, and illustrated on the page which vowels to emphasise, how the consonants rounded and blurred together into sounds he’d never tried before. He’d spoken French so long that he barely even remembered a time before he understood it, and English predated even that, but he’d spent so long listening to Russian that it felt good to make sense of the words he’d heard a hundred times over.

Maxim didn’t speak it often, at least not in front of Shane. There was the odd gala or event where he’d turn on his charm and Shane would stand beside him and listen to the rhythm and melody of the words flowing from his mouth. Maxim’s English had been perfect by the time they’d met, there’d never been a moment of barrier between them, but something felt different about hearing him speak in his mother tongue. He approached Russian like a necessary evil. It felt as though he blamed the language as much as the state for his exile, and even, maybe, like he didn’t want to admit to it being the voice that came to him first.

It was different with Ilya. When Ilya spoke, he sounded like he was singing. The words came out of his mouth like they were a part of him, something so integral to his soul that there wasn’t a way to tell where he stopped and the music began.

‘There are words in Russian that you just don’t have in English.’ He’d said to Shane once, years before, when they’d been in bed side by side, ‘English feels hollow and colourless, kind of, uh.’ He closed his eyes and brushed his palm across his forehead. Shane liked looking at him when he was like that, when he could see the thoughts turning in the wrinkle between his eyebrows, ‘clinical, I think.’

‘What language do you dream in?’ Shane asked him, and Ilya had turned his head, opened his eyes and Shane gave himself a moment just to stare at them. When he’d been small his grandparents garden had a patch that always grew over with forget-me-nots in the summer. Ilya’s eyes reminded him of them.

‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘I don’t know if I dream in words, or in a language.’

‘Do you dream at all?’

‘Yes.’ Ilya replied, after a moment of pause, ‘sometimes.’ Shane didn’t push, but he felt like there was something else Ilya had yet to say.

Behind Shane the front door clicked open and closed with a heavy thud. It was so abrupt that he felt a jolt run through him, and turned his head fast in time to see Maxim emerge from the end of the hallway. He was unbuttoning the front of his coat and his lips pulled up into a lazy smirk.

‘Look at you, so studious.’

‘There’s so much to learn.’ He replied and pulled his glasses from his nose and set them down on the table top. Maxim glanced around the room, at the notes Shane had stickered there, labelling every object one by one.

‘You can’t memorise the entire language in one week.’ Maxim said, dotingly. He dipped his head down and pressed his lips to Shane’s once, then twice, and when Shane pulled back, Maxim pressed his winter cold face into his exposed neck.

Shane huffed out a laugh, ‘Cold.’ He said, though his eyes dropped down to his phone, where it vibrated on the table. He’d messaged Ilya just over an hour ago with pictures of his notes, asking for feedback on his progress, and when Maxim finally pulled back enough to slip his arms free from his coat and hang it over the back of the chair at the table’s head, Shane chanced a look.

Ilya 18:12

I should be charging more if I’ll be doing all this extra marking

Shane 18:12

You texted me first, asshole

‘What are you smiling at?’ Maxim asked with one quirk of his eyebrow. Shane’s eyes flicked up and he flipped his phone over again.

‘Nothing.’ He said, ‘just Rose.’ And he wasn’t even sure why it was that he lied. He should have deleted the thread, in case Maxim were to cast a glance over his shoulder, but the thought of it had an ache of loss churning in his stomach. As though letting go of those messages would somehow make the whole, turbulent affair feel less real.

‘Rose Rose Rose.’ Maxim shook his head and leant back at the table beside Shane, his arms coming up to cross over his chest, ‘how was your lesson yesterday?’

‘It was good.’ Shane smiled and pushed his phone, vibrating again, back across the table with the books and pens he had arranged neatly around him, ‘how was your flight?’

‘Fine.’ Maxim said. Shane blinked up at him lazily, waiting for what it was he was pretending he didn’t want to say until, finally, he reached down to toy with the black strands across Shane’s forehead and observed, ‘you and Ilya must be the same age, right?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’ Shane replied and leant his head forward into the touch.

‘You and him must have been at McGill at the same time, then.’

‘Yeah.’ Shane nodded, feeling his mouth go dry.

‘Did you know him?’ Maxim asked. His eyes were analytical as he looked down at Shane, and for a moment, Shane saw it: the lecture theatre and the pen, the party, Ilya’s bedroom countless times, his own just as many. Laughter, tears, the whole fragmented mess of the thing.

‘It’s funny you say that.’ Shane heard himself say, ‘I went to Hayden’s last weekend and I was talking about my lessons and Hayden remembers him. I went to a party or two at his place in first year, I think. Apparently, he and his housemate threw them all the time.’

Maxim’s eyebrow quirked, ‘so you did?’

‘Well- no.’ Shane wrinkled his nose, turned his face to press his lips to Maxim’s palm, then his wrist, nuzzled into his cuff, ‘I think I probably knew of him. I didn’t take any literature classes, and I didn’t really go to parties unless Hayden dragged me. I can’t see how else we might have crossed paths.’

‘So you haven’t been reminiscing about the past?’

‘No.’ Shane smiled, ‘he’s been kicking my ass with grammar and vocabulary.’ His hands pulled from the edge of the table to brush over the hem of Maxim’s shirt. They slipped just under and brushed over the course hair growing there, just beneath his navel, travelling down to the top of his perfectly tailored pants.

‘Good.’ Maxim sighed and slipped his hand further back into Shane’s hair, ‘I don’t want to look like an idiot, if I found out you two were all buddy-buddy, because I donated some money to the faculty in your name.’

‘What?’ Shane asked, in honest surprise.

‘Hm.’ Maxim hummed and curled his fingers into a fist. The tug felt good on Shane’s scalp, but he winced either way at the pressure, ‘you were very generous with your donation. They’re naming an academic award after you, for some essay or paper or whatever it is Universities give awards out for now. The Shane Hollander Prize for Russian Studies. The faculty has a function in March, full of donors and alumni, where it will be awarded to someone the faculty chooses.’

‘March- isn’t that a little soon?’

Maxim shrugged, self-satisfied, ‘they’ve re-arranged their run-sheet a little. You’ll present the award, of course.’

‘Me.’ Shane said again. Maxim’s other hand came up to brush his jaw, then grasp it gently, as his thumb ran over his lower lip, then pressed to his teeth and finally settled against his tongue.

‘You.’ He agreed. Shane closed his eyes.

📓

Ilya lay back on Hayden’s bed and threw a scrunched up ball of paper in the air. He threw it up, caught it, threw it up, caught it, while Shane stared down at the laptop in front of him. He used his index finger to push his glasses further up on his nose and tapped against the keyboard.

It was almost mid-semester exams, and Ilya, infuriatingly, had opted for a major that didn’t have any.

Ilya had been going to a party, and he’d turned up at Shane’s door with a worn paperback in his right back pocket hours ago, tipsy and begging him to come out. It will be fun, he’d said, just come for one drink and when Shane kissed him, he’d tasted like cigarettes and vodka downed without a mixer, and a hangover in waiting. He’d started on Shane’s bed, then migrated over to Hayden’s when Shane had determinedly continued to study.

‘You’re going to give yourself a headache if you keep doing this.’ Ilya said, and scrunched his eyebrows together dramatically when Shane looked over towards him.

‘I’m concentrating.’ He replied, and turned back to his screen.

‘I can see that.’ Ilya said. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then tapped his foot against the wooden floor and looked over the messy pile of books and empty water glasses piled on Hayden’s bedside table. He had a half-full box of tissues spilling out and over his things, a lamp covered in dust and a pair of folded glasses Shane didn’t really know how he could be surviving without. He figured maybe he wasn’t doing all that much studying. ‘Does Hayden ever come back?’

‘Not really.’ Shane replied and flipped the page of his textbook. The words were starting to blur and one glance at the clock told him it just hit ten. With the door closed Ilya had kissed him. First on the mouth, then along his jaw to his neck, under his ear. Shane reminded him he had studies to do, and rolled his eyes when Ilya suggested he could suck Shane off just fine under the desk without him having to look away from his page. Eventually, he’d given up and dropped back with a dramatic groan onto Hayden’s unused single bed and pulled his book from his pocket.

‘And he thinks, what, you are just sitting here alone like sad lonely bunny?’ Ilya pulled Shane’s chair back now and spun it around until their knees knocked, and Ilya was standing over him.  

‘I guess he does, yes.’ Shane folded his arms over his chest and looked up at Ilya. On the desk, beside his laptop Shane’s phone buzzed once, then twice, then twice more in quick succession.

‘Wow, mister popular.’ Ilya said, and didn’t move while he watched Shane turn to flip it over, ‘your girlfriend asking you over?’

‘No.’ Shane dismissed, even though he didn’t have to. He wanted to tell a lie that would cushion his ego from bruising, but he knew Ilya would see right through it. There were no girls he talked to, boys he called, the only ambiguity that existed in his personal life was six feet tall and standing right in front of him.

‘It’s my mum.’ He said, reading through the texts, ‘she’s just- asking me how I am. They’re away right now, in Japan.’

‘And what do you tell her?’ Ilya asked.

‘That I’m studying.’ Shane replied, and set the phone back, face down on his desk. It vibrated again; he ignored it.

Ilya nodded his head, with the kind of thoughtful look that had Shane prompting, ‘what?’

‘You talk to them a lot.’ He shrugged again and pulled back to sit down on the edge of Hayden’s bed. The room was small enough that when he extended out his right leg, the tip of his socked toe bumped against Shane’s own.

‘Yeah, I mean. They’re my parents. I talk to them every day.’

‘Do they know?’ Ilya asked, and really Shane could have laughed, because it sounded so stupid, to put it so simply. Do they know. He wanted to ask Ilya know what? That you’re here all the time, looking at me the way you do? That your hands touch my skin like it’s what they were made for? That I miss you at night, because I’ve learned I sleep better when I can hear you breathing? That every time I follow you to bed, you’re unbuilding the foundations of a life I’ve been planning since I was eight years old in the backseat of my parents car.

But that all felt too big, Shane’s need for Ilya sat inside of him heavy as a stone, so instead, he turned back to his books and said: ‘there’s nothing for them to know.’

And in their reflection in the wide dorm window, Shane saw something like a flinch flick over Ilya’s face. It was gone as fast as it appeared, and his expression was schooled back to the threadbare neutral he’d grown so used to in the last few months.

On the bed, Ilya’s phone vibrated once, then twice, then a long prolonged buzz signalling an incoming call. He pulled away from Shane and swiped his thumb over the screen, answering with a low, ‘Что,’ Shane guessed that meant it was Svetlana, and the Russian fell out of him like cascading rain: as though it’d been heavy in a load-bearing cloud, desperate to fall. The sound of a heavy beat was coming through the receiver, and Ilya’s tired eyes glanced to Shane once, then to the window through which they could see the first snow beginning to fall. ‘Да да да, хорошо.’ He hung up the phone and Shane watched as he tucked it away in his pocket, followed it with his book, cigarettes, grabbed his toque from Hayden’s unused pillow.

‘It’s late.’ Shane said, watching him over the gaping distance he himself had placed between them, only moments before, ‘you don’t have to go home.’

‘No. Svetka’s at a party.’ Ilya said, and Shane felt the urge to ask him to stay bubbling up in his chest. He would tell him that the alcohol would weigh him down, that the lack of sleep would punish him, that whatever else happened in the hours after midnight wouldn’t fix whatever it was that stopped him finding sleep. He wanted to say that he knew Ilya was stressed, that Uni was a lot, and that he wanted to understand whatever else it was that Ilya wouldn’t tell him.

‘Oh. Okay.’ Shane said, instead, because he also knew the safety of the space in between, where things remained unnamed, and everything between them remained deniable.

‘You can come.’ Ilya said, in a tone that told Shane they both knew he wouldn’t.

‘No, it’s okay.’ Shane followed the script, and when the door closed behind Ilya, he stared at it until the lump in his throat descended into a pit in his belly.

Chapter End Notes

So here is the situation. Was I at a party tonight? Yes. Is it after midnight here? Yes. Do I have work tomorrow? Yes. Do I have another party to attend tomorrow night after work? Yes. Am I choosing to stay up late on a work night to post this chapter, a day earlier than scheduled, because I didn't want to post it a day late? Yes.

Thank you so much everyone for your comments. I really cannot express how much it means to me whenever I get to hear your thoughts. I write this for fun, and I am so excited about it, so knowing other people are excited too is actually everything to me. I have learned that I can only reply to 30 comments in one go though so I apologise for the reply delay for others!! (Also side note, if you get a reply that starts with either weeeee or aaaaaah please note that this is me screaming.)

As always thank you to Parkeroodle for his infinite Canadian wisdom, and to the godmother of this fic Marchoskaya for her help with translations and patiently supporting me as I yap about literally nothing else.

I'd love to hear any and all thoughts you have! Either here or on twitter.

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

Thursday, and Ilya was sitting at Shane’s table again. It was a little after midday when he’d arrived and was presented with Shane’s pile of notes. His brows creased down over his eyes as he ran a red pen over the paper set before him, making small changes where they were needed, while Shane watched on. He’d stayed up too late again, caught in the rhythmic flow of the words and sentence structures repeated on the page. Ilya had given him extra work during the week, when it had become clear that he’d already run through everything Ilya had set him to practice.

‘You’re staring.’ Ilya said without looking up as he struck through a word, corrected another.

‘You’re slow.’

‘Thorough.’ Ilya corrected when he flipped the page and ran his pen hovering down the length again, ‘good. Your declensions need work, but you’re good.’

‘What work?’ Shane asked and lifted his head to try and peer over the page where Ilya crossed out a letter, replaced it with another.

‘Impatient.’ He said, then finally turned the book around so that Shane could see what he’d gotten wrong. Ilya’d been right, there had only been a handful of changes, but mostly on his nouns, since his verb forms were encroaching upon perfect. It wasn’t as though they’d gotten very far in the three lessons Ilya had guided him through, but what Shane lacked in instruction he made up for in sheer force of will, and already he was champing at the bit for more.

He’d always been like this: like a dog with a bone. It had been his approach to schooling and University, too, studying for hours before and after classes. He read every required reading, all the recommended ones, too, because he had a plan, and there was so little he could control in the world, but at least he could control that. So he woke up early on the days when Maxim was gone and he played Russian music in the gym while he counted in Russian through his reps. He recited the words printed neatly on his post-it notes to himself out loud and set up at the dining table to go over the drills again. It was something new he could perfect, and Ilya was someone he didn’t want to let down.

‘Do you go outside?’ Ilya asked, while Shane finished going through his corrections.

‘Of course I go outside.’ He replied.

‘This doesn’t make it look like you go outside.’ Ilya said with a gesture towards the notebook. Less than a month in, already three quarters full.

‘I take studying seriously.’

‘I know, Shane. I’ve seen how seriously you take studying.’ Shane looked up at him again, caught him watching with one eyebrow quirked.

‘You’re the one writing a PhD.’ Shane shrugged, as though it were a comeback. He didn’t think about how he might have, too, if he’d stuck to the plan, the original one he’d set when he’d been eight years old staring out the car window at the evergreen trees that lined the road on their way to their family summer cottage.

‘I know what I want to be!’ He had declared to his parents, when they’d been half way through unpacking their things from the boot of the car.

‘And what is that?’ His dad asked in the indulgent way dads do. He’d been expecting a firefighter, maybe an astronaut, a marine biologist because that’s what every kid says they want to be, even though Shane had never seen the sea.

‘A lawyer.’ Shane said instead, seriously. His mum beamed and held his cheeks between the palms of her ever-warm hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

‘Like me?’ She asked, and he’d shaken his head. It was true he wanted to be like her, sure, she worked in an office in Ottawa’s downtown, she carried a briefcase and stayed up late pouring over documents he didn’t understand at the dining table. But he wanted more than that, too.

‘No.’ He replied, ‘I want to be a judge.’

‘A judge!’ His dad said, while they all stood there outside the cottage, listening to the birds and the bugs.

‘I will.’ Shane insisted, and so they’d sat with him all summer long, answered the questions he had on how he might get there. Law at McGill, his LSAT exams, a Juris Doctor, post graduate articling and his bar exams. A PhD would earn him the credibility he would need to take his career international, to progress on to New York, Geneva, maybe even The Hague.

‘I am writing a PhD, but I go outside.’ Ilya said, ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘I don’t know if it counts as outside if it’s your job, or the library.’ Shane quirked his eyebrows, and Ilya laughed.

‘Fuck you, I went to Ottawa on Monday. That’s outside.’ Ilya scrunched a piece of paper into a ball and threw it at Shane, who bat it out of the air.

‘Oh my god are you a child?’ He said, even though he was laughing, ‘why did you go to Ottawa?’

‘Nearly ten years in, I thought it was time to see what all the fuss is about.’

‘You’d never been to Ottawa?’ Shane raised his eyebrows.

‘Shane. Why the fuck would I go to Ottawa.’

‘Isn’t there an embassy or something you have to go to?’

‘There’s a consulate in Montreal.’ Ilya shrugged again.

‘So you, what, just decided to drive down the trans-Canada to check it out?’

‘Yes, exactly. I wanted to see the famed city that raised Shane Hollander, the world’s most dedicated Russian language student.’ Ilya said, and Shane picked up the ball of scrunched paper and threw it back. Ilya caught it midair and laughed when Shane wrinkled his nose.

‘Fuck off.’ He replied.

‘I delivered a paper at a conference at the University of Ottawa.’ Ilya relented and set the ball down on the table again.

‘Very professional.’

‘I’m a very professional guy now.’ Ilya folded his arms over his chest and tipped his head to the side, ‘do you go back there much? For your parents?’

‘To Ottawa?’ Shane asked, then shook his head, ‘no. Not really. My parents are so busy with work, and with Maxim always going in and out of town, it’s hard to find time.’

‘And they like him?’

‘I mean- yeah. Of course. What’s not to like?’ Shane said, and as soon as the question left his mouth he found he didn’t really want to know what Ilya might answer to that, so he asked, ‘what about you?’

‘Do I go and visit your parents? No, not very often.’

‘No, asshole. Do you go back to Russia much?’ Shane rolled his eyes. He wished he’d held onto the fistful of paper, so he could throw it at Ilya again.

‘No.’ Ilya replied, ‘I haven’t been in…’ He tipped his head from side to side, as though he were crunching the numbers, ‘five years, maybe.’

‘Five years?’ Shane frowned. The summer after first year, Ilya went home to Russia in the days following the end of exams. It had been obvious to Shane that he’d been on edge about the trip, but there’d been relief there, too. Whatever it was hanging over Ilya’s head had been lined with the silver thread of home.

‘Almost. It will be five years in the summer.’

‘Why?’ Shane asked.

‘My father died.’ Ilya replied, with the ease of someone who had said that fact a hundred different times. The words didn’t sound raw, or complicated. It was a fact: I had a father, and now he is dead.  

‘Jesus, Ilya. I’m sorry.’ Shane replied and Ilya offered him that half-shrug again, the lazy lift of a single shoulder. It was a movement that reminded him so much of the Ilya he’d known back then, all toothy grins and languid limbs and the weight of the world on his shoulders. ‘I wish I’d known.’

‘We weren’t exactly talking.’ Ilya reminded him, ‘he was a bully, then he was sick, then he was dead. My father was not someone I grieved, Shane, he was someone I endured up until I didn’t have to endure him anymore.’

‘That doesn’t mean it was easy.’ Shane observed, and the corner of Ilya’s lip twitched upward.

‘Ah but I am Russian. We don’t believe in easy.’

📓

By January, Shane’s exhaustion had started to creep down and into his bones. What had been dedication filling his tank had been replaced by adrenaline, and every alarm come morning felt more and more like a punishment. He’d spent the Christmas break hidden away in Ottawa with a law textbook he’d half memorised and a bank of case studies to analyse and repeat back when expectant eyes turned to him at a dining room table. Shane: the only son of two only children, thousands of ancestors funnelling down to him.

His grandfather was impressed, and Shane hated the relief that filled him when he was assured once again that he was what his family always expected. Through high school he’d studied hard, given up his weekends to volunteer at charities and retirement homes in English and French. He didn’t date, go to parties, or school sports because everything was a distraction when your only goal was to be perfect. And he was. He had perfect grades and perfect behaviour balanced on an impossible tight rope he was always just inches away from tumbling off.

‘You will be a brilliant lawyer. You will make us all so proud,’ His grandfather told him, just as his father’s mother had told him the night before, and Shane wondered if it was something they’d still say, if they saw the texts from Ilya waiting for him unread in his phone, if they knew just what it was he did when his books were closed and the nights got late and all he craved was the feeling of hot hands touching his skin.

‘That’s all I want.’ Shane lied with a smile.

When he made it back to Montreal, three days before classes resumed, Ilya convinced him to come over. He’d gone away with Svetlana’s family to a cabin in the woods north of Laval but had come home early to an empty house. I’m so bored. He’d whined at him over text repeatedly, until Shane finally closed his books and rode the tangled metro west. Hampstead was buried under a fresh dump of white snow, and Shane kept glancing over his shoulder while he waited for Ilya to pull open the front door. He cycled through the excuses he’d have, if someone he knew caught him there, because to him, still, Rozanov was someone he needed to explain away.

‘You came.’ Ilya said when the door swung open, and Shane drunk in the sight of him as the excuses melted away because the truth was he just wanted to see Ilya. He always did.

‘I came.’ Shane agreed, and when the door was closed behind him he dragged Ilya forward and into a kiss. Fingers tangled into soft, golden curls, a palm pressed to his strong shoulder and Shane let himself sigh with relief when he felt those strong arms wrap around him.

They stood there for a long while, until sweat started to creep down the length of Shane’s spine, and Ilya’s hands slipped between them to undo the buttons of his jacket and unwind the scarf from around his neck. Shane kept a hand on his arm as he bent down to unlace his boots and toe them off and then allowed himself to be drawn through to the living room, where he sagged against Ilya’s chest when hands found their way under Shane’s shirt and against his warm skin.

‘Feel nice?’ Ilya murmured into his ear, and Shane’s heavy head fell to his shoulder. He hummed in agreement and closed his eyes, and Ilya’s touch eased from eager to gentle, stroking long lines up the length of his spine, ‘you are tired, I think.’

‘’m not.’ Shane murmured, even as his arms lifted to wrap loose around Ilya’s shoulders and he sucked in a long, deep breath against his skin. Ilya always smelled like cigarettes and rain-wet cement in the summer, fresh and clean and musky.

‘Come.’ Ilya murmured and backed them slowly over towards the couch where he pulled them both down to sit.

‘But I want-‘ Shane said, and Ilya smiled, pressed a kiss to the tip of his still cold nose.

‘Later.’ He replied, ‘for now, just rest.’ He lay back on the length of the couch and drew Shane up alongside him. If they squeezed, they only barely fit, and Shane huffed a laugh when Ilya pulled him up to be laying half on top of him, chest to chest.

‘I’m heavy.’ He murmured, when Ilya brushed his lips across the warmth of his forehead, the edge of his hair.

‘I think I can manage.’ He said.

Shane didn’t let himself think about the fact that this was the stuff they didn’t do. They had sex, yes, they studied together sometimes, side by side when Ilya had books to read and Shane had notes to write, and they fit comfortably in Shane’s dorm on the evenings when Hayden was away. Sometimes they went to the same parties when Hayden begged Shane enough, and he and Ilya ignored one another, even though they kept catching each other’s eye from across the dark and crowded rooms. But this thing between them remained consciously undefined, because if they never talked about it, then they’d never need to map out the tangle of what was growing like a vine connecting their gaping, open chests. So, they didn’t lay chest to chest on Saturday afternoons, weighing down a couch barely big enough for the two of them. They didn’t fall asleep, lulled by the rhythm of the other’s breathing, and fingers stroking through freshly washed strands of hair. They didn’t press kisses to the crowns of heads and they didn’t twist fingers into the cotton of shirts, because all of that would mean something they didn’t want to know.

But God, would it feel good if they did.

When Shane woke up it was dark outside and his body felt heavy with the ten-tonne weight of a nap that overstayed its welcome. Ilya’s hand was still on the back of his head, and it moved when Shane lifted himself to turn and look around the room. The tv was on, playing a movie with the volume so low Shane wasn’t sure Ilya could even hear it, but one look showed him the Russian subtitles flitting across the screen, so he figured it didn’t matter, all that much.

‘Hey.’ Ilya said, softly, and Shane finally lifted his head enough to look at him. He looked tired, too, or maybe just lethargic from the hours laying still.

‘Fuck, how long was I asleep?’

‘Not very long. Two hours, maybe three.’ Ilya replied.

‘Fuck- Jesus, I’m so sorry.’ Shane withdrew fast and winced at the developing ache at the back of his skull, the kind you get when you’ve overslept.

‘It’s fine.’ Ilya replied, but he let him go and raised himself to sit, too, ‘you needed it, I think.’

‘Yeah. I guess I did.’ Shane nodded, then cast his eyes around the room, in the bleary way he always did when he’d just woken up. He’d been there before since that first party, but it looked so different to him then. Usually, he slipped through the front door and followed Ilya to his bedroom down the hall, with its open chest of drawers and stacks of books leaning against the wall and no pictures on his bedside table. The living room felt more like a home, somewhere that held a whole life. There was a plant on the windowsill that looked as though it were desperately clinging to life, a stack of PlayStation games underneath the tv. There was an empty glass on the table that had been there since Shane arrived, and a discarded hoodie hanging over the back of an armchair. Shane could picture Ilya there, playing a game, eating a meal, laughing at a joke Svetlana made that Shane would never understand even if he could speak Russian, because it brought with it a lifetime of inside jokes that made no sense to anyone but them. Ilya was someone whose life went on when Shane wasn’t there, and it made his stomach hurt because for the first time he really thought about how he wished he could be.

‘I’ll get you water.’ Ilya said, and Shane turned to blink back at him again.

‘Okay.’ He said, ‘thanks.’ And he leant back on the couch and listened to Ilya’s feet plodding down the hall, the click of the light switching on, a cupboard opening, then closing and the tap running. It all felt so simple, domestic, two bodies made to fit.

‘Here.’ Ilya said, and Shane blinked up to him, he hadn’t heard him come back, and he took the glass in his hand and downed it all in one go. His eyes closed, and Ilya’s fingers brushed over his crown again, as he looked down and watched how Shane’s Adam’s apple bobbed in time to each desperate gulp.

‘Do you need more?’ He asked, when Shane was done, but Shane shook his head and let the glass be pulled from his fingers. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘No.’ Shane said and leant forward to press his forehead against the top of Ilya’s thigh. He was wearing black sweatpants, and they felt soft against his skin, so he turned his face into them until his cheek was in against the heat of him, the tip of his nose just nudging the front of his crotch.

‘Shane.’ Ilya said, softly. It was an offer, a promise that he could leave it, but Shane liked the feeling of the heat, and he nudged himself in just that little bit closer. His mind was still fuzzy around the edges, the way it always was after sleep, and it amplified the need that simmered just under his skin. Ilya’s hands were so warm and so gentle, he smelled so good, and when Shane’s fingers finally slipped under the waistband of his pants and pulled him free, Ilya made a sound deep in his chest that was all the encouragement he might need.

‘Shane…’ Ilya hummed at the first slide of eager tongue over the length of him. It had only taken a few nudges of Shane’s nose in against him to get half hard, because it had never taken much of Shane to get that fire burning in his belly.

Shane didn’t say anything, instead he wrapped his lips around Ilya’s very tip and sunk his way down with eyes falling closed in satisfaction. He’d realised early on how much he enjoyed doing this, when Ilya’s fingers stroked tenderly through his hair, and he rained that adoring praise down onto him.

‘Fuck-‘ Ilya murmured with heavy lidded eyes that watched Shane’s head bob back and forth in a lazy, even rhythm, eyes closed and jaw slack and hands curling into the cotton of Ilya’s half-down pants to keep himself steady. Spit slid down his chin as he sunk as far as he could go, and Ilya’s fingers brushed feather light over the straining muscle at the base of his throat.

‘Fuck- Shane-‘ He panted again, and Shane shifted forward on the couch to get better purchase, sending a cushion tumbling from the side and onto the coffee table. The glass Shane had emptied just minutes before wabbled once, then tipped over and crashed to the hard wood floor, sending shards of glass flying in every direction, but when Shane’s eyes snapped open, Ilya’s fingers tightened in his hair, and he shook his head, held on to the eye contact, ‘leave it- leave it-‘ He panted, and Shane could see how he was getting close. So he did as was asked of him, and he closed his eyes, bobbing his head faster with spit dripping down and onto his shirt until finally, Ilya’s stomach muscles tensed and his thighs went still and Shane’s eyes clenched tighter closed as he felt the hot, bitter ribbons of come over his tongue, and hit the back of his throat. He swallowed it down, the way he always did, and suckled just gently to help Ilya ride out the wave of it, until he pulled back with heavy, panted breaths.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Ilya groaned and reached down to wipe his thumb over Shane’s chin to clear the drool away, then glanced down to the floor around his feet, glittering with shards of glass reflecting the light from the tv, ‘shit.’

Shane blinked, his chest still heaving as he caught his breath, ‘wait, shit, don’t move, you’ll cut yourself.’ He said and pulled back just enough to glance around the room. There was a cupboard beside the hallway, and Shane managed to climb over the back of the chair and head towards it.

‘Do you have a vacuum in here?’ He asked, and turned to look back over his shoulder, where Ilya was tucking his softening cock back into his pants.

‘Yes, and a- uh-‘ He gestured sweeping with his hand, and Shane laughed.

‘Broom?’

‘Yes, broom.’ Ilya replied, ‘hurry up.’

‘Don’t be dramatic.’ Shane said, the sleepy haze was fading, and he pulled open the cupboard door to find it stuffed full of junk. Suitcases, cleaning supplies, a set of skis that were too small for Ilya, so must have been Svetlana’s.

‘I’m not being dramatic; I want you to hurry so I can finger you.’ Ilya replied drily, and Shane looked back at him again with a quirk of his eyebrows, and a stirring of heat in his abdomen. He turned to the cupboard again, and knelt down to clear away a stack of shoe boxes and duffle bag, weighed down by a pair of Bauer ice skates, battered from use. They were black, a shiny plastic exterior and soft padding, with white laces and geometric shapes laser cut into the rubber for flexibility. They weren’t just skates, they were skates, the serious, customised kind that cost close to two thousand dollars.

‘Why the hell do you have professional ice skates in here?’ He asked, even as he pushed them aside to pull the vacuum cleaner free.

‘Gift.’ Ilya replied, impatiently.

‘Generous gift.’

‘I am loved by everyone,’ Ilya added, ‘now hurry, I want to fuck you.’

‘I thought you were going to finger me.’ Shane quirked his eyebrows.

‘Well, it’s gateway drug.’ On the coffee table, Ilya’s phone started to buzz, and he leant back to lift it up and look at the screen. The expression that crossed his face was one Shane hadn’t seen before, somewhere between anger and fear, and the childlike guilt of getting caught.

He glanced down at the floor, where the glass glittered still, then carefully stepped up onto the couch, and over the back of it like Shane had done, and wordlessly walked into the kitchen.

‘Привет, пап.’ Shane heard him say, then turned the vacuum cleaner on to drown out the conversation he suspected Ilya didn’t want him to hear. It didn’t take long to suck up the shards of glass, and Shane coiled the power cord around his arm three different times, as Ilya’s voice carried back down the hall in an increasingly confused and frustrated tone, ‘Папа, где ты? Нет… Нет, пап, я в Канаде. В Канаде, в универе.’

The conversation went on like that, and even Shane could tell, it was moving in circles, until finally there was silence. He wasn’t sure what time it would be in Moscow, if that was even where his father was, and the house sunk into a low, heavy silence.

After a few minutes, Shane tucked the vacuum back into the cupboard where he’d found it, and walked into the kitchen, where Ilya stood facing the window out onto the back garden, with the corner of his phone pressed to the seam of his pouted lips. The moon was reflecting off the snow in a bright white blaze, they didn’t even need to turn the light on.

‘Are you okay?’ Shane asked, from the doorway.

Ilya turned his head too fast, startled as though he’d forgotten Shane was there, ‘yes. Fine.’ He said, then moved his gaze back out onto the garden. There were paths through the snow, cleaved through since the night before, little footprints probably made by a rabbit or hare, maybe even a squirrel. The silence stretched out between them for a long moment, punctuated only by the canned laughter filtering through at a low volume from the tv. Shane wasn’t even sure what show it was, he hadn’t thought to ask.

‘Hey do you-‘ He started, then paused when Ilya didn’t look back at him again, ‘Are you sure everything’s okay?’

Finally, Ilya turned fully. His hand was still wrapped around his phone, but this time he faced Shane head on, and there was a tiredness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, like an adrenaline rush that had liquified his limbs and left him in as much of a hurry as it had appeared, ‘yes. I need to call Svetka.’

‘Alright. Okay.’ Shane nodded and took one step closer, then another, until there was less than a foot between them, ‘I might go.’

Ilya nodded, like it was a relief, ‘okay. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’

‘Yeah, okay.’ Shane agreed, and allowed himself to be drawn in for a chaste but lingering kiss. Ilya’s mouth worked against his own for one second, then three, then pulled back and he swiped his thumb over the screen of his phone. Svetlana was the top of his call log, her name punctuated by a little red star. Emergency Contact it said, and Shane wondered, briefly, if that might ever be him.

‘Text me when you’re home?’ Ilya called after him, as he left the kitchen, crossed the living room, gathered his things by the door.

‘Sure!’ Shane called back, and closed the door with a soft, muted click, as Ilya’s voiced hummed in low Russian behind him.

📓

‘Isn’t that the infinitive?’ Shane asked with his palm pressed against his forehead in a way he hoped wasn’t obviously holding his head up.

‘No.’ Ilya replied and touched his pen to paper again, ‘it’s the masculine first person, see here?’

Shane looked down at the scrawl of Cyrillic, freshly circled with Ilya’s red pen, which added an arrow and an underline and didn’t penetrate the newly built brick wall of exhaustion at the front of Shane’s mind. They were only two hours into the lesson, and already everything was swimming together into one. The week before they’d made it to six before his mind had given out, and Ilya had to rush away to wherever else it was that he went, other than Ottawa, apparently.

‘Wait then what’s this?’ Shane asked, pointing to another verb form that looked so like the last that he was starting to get tangled.

‘The feminine, see this letter?’ Ilya underlined the gender suffix, then looked up to Shane’s dazed expression, ‘I think you’re too tired for this today.’

‘No, I can manage.’ Shane argued, and Ilya replied with a disbelieving raise of his eyebrows.

‘No you can’t, because you got all these right ten times over last week, and you’re not going to learn anything if you’re half asleep.’

Shane wrinkled his nose, but he didn’t argue. He just pushed off the table and leant back in his seat, while Ilya surveyed him thoughtfully.

‘We’re going to do something different.’

‘Different?’ Shane asked.

‘Yes. Different. We’re going out.’

‘What, Ilya, where?’ Shane gaped as Ilya pushed back from his seat and stood up, gathering the pages into a neat pile atop the textbook he’d flipped closed.

‘We’re going to have a practical lesson. This isn’t what a language is-‘ Ilya gestured at the stack of papers, ‘languages are living, breathing things, they’re not repetition and grammar and pages of notes like this. Besides, if you don’t go outside you’re going to die of a vitamin D deficiency, and I don’t want that on my conscience.’

‘It will be dark in like an hour.’ Shane replied, drily, even though he was already standing from his seat and following Ilya towards the door.

‘A fresh air deficiency then.’

‘That’s not a thing.’

‘I don’t believe you’ve been outside since I saw you last week, so go get changed into something warm, and get your skates.’ Ilya waved a hand at him.

‘My skates?’

‘Yes, your skates I am assuming you own your own skates, stop asking questions.’

Shane, finally, didn’t argue. He went upstairs and changed into clothes that would keep him warm: thermal pants and shirt, a woollen sweater that he’d bought on Maxim’s card because he’d liked the colour, and he’d needed something to show for a short winter day he’d spent out of home, when Maxim had been in London or Beijing, maybe Washington DC. They all blurred into one by then.

He came down stairs and pulled a beanie on over his head, then his coat and boots, and grabbed his skates from inside the cupboard by the door, and followed Ilya out into the snow.

‘Maybe not quite what you’re used to.’ Ilya said when he pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the black Toyota parked on the street at the bottom of Shane’s driveway.

‘It’s a step up from what you used to drive.’ Shane replied, as he climbed into the passenger side, and leant between the seats to put his skates in the back.

‘You loved that red Hyundai.’ Ilya argued, once they were on the road headed north.

‘It made a noise, and the seats were lumpy.’

‘I remember you not having any complaints about the seats.’

‘Ilya.’ Shane said in a warning tone, because he remembered that, too, and the nights they spent driving up to the top of Mount Royal and parking amongst the trees, where Ilya would kiss him breathless, with his hand down Shane’s open pants.

‘Okay, okay.’ Ilya replied, lifting one hand from the steering wheel in a sign of surrender. They turned left on Avenue des Pins Ouest, then wound through the streets until they hit the 138 north.

‘Are we going to Parc Maisonneuve?’ Shane asked, with a glance back over his shoulder and through the rear window.

‘Yes.’ Ilya replied. He wrapped both hands around the steering wheel again, as though he needed to keep them there, solid, so they didn’t wander. Shane wondered where they’d travel to, if he let them stray from anchor. His knee, maybe, his hand, or the top of his thigh, where the muscle was strong and his skin was the hottest, and he could remind Shane again, after all these years, whose hands it was that taught him to love.

The car slowed to a stop at a red light and Shane consciously folded his arms over his chest and cleared his throat to look out his window. They were passing by Parc La Fontaine and the hospital, approaching the bridge over the railway line.

‘Are you cold?’ Ilya asked, and Shane shook his head.

‘No.’ Ilya wasn’t looking at him, his eyes were trained on the road, with only a few glances back to the rear-view mirror. It gave Shane the chance to take in the car’s interior. Shane didn’t have a car of his own, Maxim said it was a waste when he already had a collection of them: sports cars and flashy sedans that cost more than most people make in a year, maybe even two. They all had leather interiors and engines that rumbled and a broad host of impracticalities that Shane found tiresome. He liked this car because it was simple in every meaningful way. The seats were grey fabric, the dashboard made of plastic, and it smelled like stale cigarettes and pinewood air freshener. It felt real, it reminded Shane of who he used to be, the things that used to matter.

‘I’m going back to McGill again.’ Shane said, and Ilya turned to look at him.

‘To finish your law degree?’

‘Oh-‘ Shane winced and subconsciously scratched his nails into his upper arms- even if he could barely feel it through the sleeves of his shirt and jumper, his winter jacket on top.

‘No.’ He said, ‘for a function. In your department actually.’

‘Mine?’

‘Maxim- he donated some money. For a prize or whatever you call them. There’s a function. In March?’

‘Yes.’ Ilya nodded, flicked the indicator and turned left, ‘Kuznetsov has asked me to go. Lots of alumni and important people at events like that. People he wants me to meet.’

‘You still have Kuznetsov?’ Shane asked, because he remembered the days Ilya spent, alternating between complaining and lauding the old, kind professor. Ilya had loved him because he pushed him, but he hated him for it, too.

‘Yes.’ Ilya said, with his lips twitching into one of those half-smiles Shane knew too well, ‘so you’ll be there then.’

‘Yes.’ Shane nodded, and Ilya nodded too.

‘With Maxim.’

‘Yes.’

The parking lot was half full, and Ilya reached behind Shane’s headrest to brace as he looked over his shoulder and parked in reverse, then climbed out from the car without waiting. He opened the boot and rifled through the bags there, emerging with a pair of black Bauer skates that he tucked under his arm. They weren’t as flashy as the ones Shane had found in his closet all those years ago, but they were still nice.

‘Fancy.’ Shane said with a quirk of his eyebrows.

‘Svetka’s father takes skate quality very seriously.’ Ilya shrugged, then added, ‘he also gets given them for free.’

‘Probably helps.’

‘Yours aren’t bad.’ Ilya commented, when they changed from their boots to their skates, and Shane twisted his white laces around his hands to pull them tight.

‘Yeah well…’ He said, not wanting to say the words, that Maxim had given them to him.

‘They were a gift too?’ Ilya asked, and Shane shrugged.

‘Something like that.’

The ice beneath Shane’s skates felt like breathing, and he’d forgotten how it felt to be so weightless. The rink was simple, not too long, shaped across the grass of the park’s flattest point, but the crowds hadn’t grown too big yet for the nine-to-five people, and it felt nice to be out in the fresh air and amongst the trees.

Ilya kept pace beside him and skated as though he’d been born for it, while he pointed down at the ice: ‘лед’ he said.

‘Led.’ Shane repeated, and Ilya nodded.

‘Коньки,’ he added, doing a smooth crossover to illustrate his point.

‘Kon’ki.’ Shane said, mirroring the move with one of his own.

‘каток,’ Ilya continued, with a gesture to the rink around them.

‘Katok.’ Shane repeated again, ‘are you just going to make me repeat nouns?’

‘I’m sorry, I thought this was a Russian lesson.’ Ilya rolled his eyes, and pulled to a harsh enough stop that snow sprayed across Shane’s skates. 

‘You said languages are living, making me memorise nouns doesn’t feel very alive.’ Shane said and lifted one foot to shake the snow off.

‘Semantics.’ Ilya waved his hand. Shane slipped past him with a swift push off his right side and Ilya darted to keep up, ‘what do you want a lesson on, then?’

‘You.’ Shane said and Ilya’s eyebrows raised.

‘Me.’ He repeated.

‘What’s your place like?’ Shane asked when Ilya overtook him and glided past.

‘Small, mine. It’s a house. One-bedroom, small kitchen, study. Nothing impressive, but it’s enough for me.’

‘Don’t have people over much?’

‘Svetlana, mostly. She has a key, and a habit of dropping by uninvited.’

‘Why?’

Ilya paused and folded his arms over his chest, if Shane didn’t know any better he’d think he was showing off, ‘she worries about me, I think. I spend a lot of time reading, and not enough nights with her.’

‘You spend a lot of time alone?’

‘I do.’ He shrugged, ‘but I like it. This quiet life.’

‘If you told me back then that you’d be saying that I wouldn’t have believed you.’ Shane admitted.

‘People change, I think.’ Ilya shrugged.

‘Some things stay the same.’ Shane replied.

‘Yes.’ Ilya agreed, ‘they do.’ He pushed off again and skated a slow, lazy loop around Shane then asked, ‘you didn’t change your name. When you got married.’

‘No.’ Shane replied.

‘Why?’

The thought had occurred to him, the day the papers were spread out on the table. Shane Dmitriev, he thought it had a certain ring to it, but it also made his limbs feel heavy, like he’d been treading water and the effort was threatening to pull him under. He’d decided he wouldn’t be going back to McGill by then, and the plan he’d had for all those years was fading before his eyes. Giving up his name felt insurmountable, when he’d already given so much.

‘Maxim said it’s not really a thing in Russia.’ He said, instead.

‘Not always.’ Ilya shrugged, ‘some people do, but not everyone.’

‘And surnames are gendered, right? Maxim made it sound like if would be weird for us both to be Dmitriev, and I can’t really be Dmitrieva.’

‘And he wouldn’t take yours? In Canada people double up their names, no? Hollander-Dmitriev. Dmitriev-Hollander.’

‘He didn’t want to.’ Shane replied, ‘business stuff, I guess.’

Ilya turned back and looked at him, ‘yes. I guess.’

‘Anyway, less paperwork for me.’ Shane said and nodded towards Ilya’s feet when he crossed his skates over and pivoted direction, ‘you’ve been holding out on me. Could you always skate?’

‘Shane, of course I can skate.’ Ilya called over his shoulder because he was off again, his skates biting into the ice as he sprinted down the length of the rink, with all the confidence of someone who’d grown up with the blades strapped to his feet. Shane took off after him, though he couldn’t quite work up the same speed or ferocity, and by the time Ilya slowed enough to meet him, he was panting and his thighs were beginning to burn.

‘Okay, could you always skate like that?’

‘Yes.’ Ilya grinned and spun around to skate backwards, his eyes on Shane.

‘Why did you never-‘

‘Say?’ Ilya shrugged, ‘you never asked.’

‘Are you some kind of figure skating prodigy and you never told me?’

‘Bah!’ Ilya scoffed and turned around, ‘such a Russian stereotype, Shane, I expected more of you!’

‘Hockey then!’ Shane yelled, picking up speed to make chase again. He couldn’t help it, a laugh bubbled up in his chest as he felt the air whipping at his face, his arms pumping as he progressed on to as close of a run as he could behind Ilya, who was sprinting down the ice. When he got too far in front, he turned a corner sharply and glided up alongside Shane.

‘Hockey, yes. You’re not bad, yourself.’

‘I grew up in Ottawa, skating on the canal.’ Shane replied.

‘No, you’re better than that.’

‘I played junior hockey, too, but I quit before high school, I couldn’t keep it up with all my academic stuff.’

‘Maybe the world is lucky that we both stopped.’ Ilya huffed a laugh, ‘or else we’d be making problems for everyone in the NHL.’

‘How long did you play?’

‘Until they wouldn’t let me anymore.’

‘What, like you outgrew it?’ Shane asked, and he slowed too, then braced his palms against his knees to catch his breath. Ilya was panting too, with a wide smile spread across his face, which was flushed from the exertion, and the cold, and maybe exhilaration, too.

‘No, but the Russian Hockey Federation doesn’t exactly like it when their players get caught with a mouth full of cock.’ He said, bluntly.

‘What?’ Shane frowned, ‘seriously? When?’

Ilya shrugged, ‘before I met you.’

‘I mean- yeah, obviously, but when exactly?’

Ilya hesitated for just a moment, wiped his forearm across his sweaty face, ‘the winter before I came here.’

‘But you would have been…’

‘Seventeen, yes. Probably would have gone professional. KHL definitely, NHL more likely. Olympics, world championships. You weren’t the only one with a plan.’

‘Why did you never tell me?’ Shane asked, before he could help himself.

‘There were a lot of things I didn’t tell you.’ Ilya replied.

A group of kids sped past them, yelling out to one another in French. At the front, a boy with lines of black braids tucked in under a navy-blue Voyageurs toque was laughing, he had speed on them all, and a thrilled glint in his eye. Shane would have liked to see what Ilya had been like, when he’d been small. He wondered if he’d had the same halo of unruly golden curls, the same cheeky, up-to-no-good grin, not yet weighed down by a world that didn’t want him in it.

‘Yeah.’ Shane nodded, ‘there were.’

Ilya pushed off again, gliding slowly this time. He extended one leg out, then brought it back down and pushed the other out behind him in a lazy, comfortable circle.

‘Do you-‘ Shane started, out loud, then caught himself before the thought could breach containment. Do you think things would have gone differently, if we knew, and he couldn’t follow that thought, because it would only lead to madness.

‘Do I what?’ Ilya prompted with another glance over his shoulder.

‘Race. Do you want to race?’ Shane said instead, and the same sly curve slanted Ilya’s ruby red lips.

‘I’ll beat you.’ He warned, and Shane grinned.

‘Not if I have anything to say about it.’

Their feet cracked against the ice as soon as Ilya called ‘Go!’ And they pumped their arms as fast as they could back and forth in a fight for momentum. Shane had the edge through the first curve, mostly he thought because his reaction time had him beating Ilya out of the gate. Of course he’d been caught within the next new metres, and when Ilya passed him, he lunged forward with too much urgency, and his skates slipped right out from under him. When he crashed to the ground, he was already laughing, and when Ilya came up to his side, he was laughing too.

Chapter End Notes

Congratulations to my close personal friends the cast and crew of Heated Rivalry for their clean sweep at the Canadian Screen Awards! Congratulations also to my close personal cousins, the national Finnish men's hockey team, for winning gold at the IIHF Hockey World Championship!

Thank you as always for reading, commenting, kudosing and sharing with your friends. This is your daily reminder that it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside (and also sometimes I cry in the bathrooms at work about it but that's NOT RELEVANT.)

Thank you to Parkerini for his boundless knowledge of the Canadian experience, and to Marchoskaya for her love, support, encouragement and infinite wisdom of Russia and the Russian language.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I am currently in the weeds of writing chapter 12 and I promise whatever you're feeling right now, you'll soon be feeling way worse. I'd love to hear your thoughts ❤️

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

‘I don’t know, Rose.’ Shane said as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was wearing dark grey jeans, the straight legged kind that clung to his strong thighs and curved around his ass in a way that felt significantly sexier than he usually chose. It was paired with a black button-down shirt, undone way too far and showing way too much skin and this was already such a terrible idea and unfortunately, it appeared that he was spiralling.

‘Trust me.’ Rose said from the bed, where she sat amongst piles of clothes they’d already tried and discarded. Shane had made an argument for a plain white t shirt, even gone so far as to suggest a black one when Rose told him it wasn’t enough. Well, first he’d tried to go for a sweater that reached his chin, until Rose gave him a look that said you cannot be serious and he’d given up on that dream.

‘Trusting you is what’s gotten me here.’ He said, and she pushed herself up to stand, holding a vintage black leather jacket for him to slip his arms into, ‘it’s also minus ten out there, I’ll freeze to death. It’s meant to be snowing all week.’

‘A car is picking us up from your front door and dropping us off out the front of the club, then picking us up from the club and dropping us off at your front door. We’re going to be fine.’ Which was a relief to Shane, too, because she was wearing a dress that was more cutouts than fabric. She looked beautiful, as she always did, the whole piece glinting and glittering with silver sparkles, and her makeup exquisitely understated to emphasise her blue eyes and red hair, and rosebud pouted lips. Every man in the club was going to be staring daggers at him, he knew, and he couldn’t be prouder to be the one she chose to spend her evening with.

She’d already been in Montreal for close to a week, going through the early phase of her filming schedule. It was a big one this time, she was expected on set for ten, sometimes even twelve, hours a day, with only a few merciful days off in the whole month, and when she’d knocked excitedly on his front door, he’d dragged her in against his chest for a warm, tight hug.

He himself had only been home for an hour when she turned up in sweats with her overnight bag on her arm. He’d spent the day in Laval with Hayden’s three small children, allowing him and Jackie a rare day of rest at a nearby spa. Jackie’s back was starting to hurt, and when Shane asked how she was feeling, she matter-of-factly reported that she’d booked Hayden in for a vasectomy.

Shane liked babysitting, though, and three hours in, once the children were fed and had worn themselves out by racing rings around the living room, they collapsed for a movie. The girls curled up on one couch, sharing a pillow set between their little heads, crowns almost touching. Shane took the other, and held Arthur in close against his chest as he fell asleep, lulled by the low sound of whatever film it was the girls begged to watch again.

Against his thigh, Shane’s phone buzzed. He wrapped one arm around Arthur’s back and shifted just carefully to pull it free. He had a handful of missed texts from Maxim, and swallowed thickly as he pretended to himself that he didn’t see them.

Ilya 15:21

Have you given up on Russian?

No questions and it’s been almost two days

Shane rolled his eyes. After he’d fallen on the ice, Ilya had helped him back to his feet, and they’d eased into another handful of laps around the rink, but once it had been fully dark the crowd was growing, and Ilya told Shane he needed to go.

‘I have work.’ He said.

‘How many jobs do you have?’ Shane asked him, when he climbed back into the car.

‘Just the two.’ Ilya replied, and when he’d dropped Shane off, they’d kept on messaging back and forth, just about dumb stuff, like they used to. What Shane didn’t tell Ilya was that later, once he’d showered and eaten and brushed his teeth, he pulled open his laptop and searched him up by name. Ilya hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said he’d been more likely to end up in the NHL than anywhere else. His stats were exceptional, and a range of pixelated highlight reels on YouTube told him everything it was he needed to know. But then, the summer before McGill he just disappeared from lists, like he’d never existed at all. The future of Russian hockey, gone without a trace.

Shane 15:22

I haven’t given up

Just busy

He paired the message with a photo of himself, with Arthur sleeping soundly against his chest. His entire little body was limp, other than one single fist gripping the front of Shane’s shirt.

Ilya 15:23

Who the hell is that?

Shane 15:23

Hayden’s youngest

Well, for now

Jackie’s pregnant again

Ilya 15:24

How many children does he have????

Shane 15:25

Soon he’ll have four, but right now three

He managed to snap a photo of the girls, too, staring with heavy-lidded focus at the screen. Ruby was sucking her thumb, Jade gripping her soft toy cow tight, as though it might run off if she let go.

Ilya 15:25

I’d offer you help, but you seem to have it under control.

‘How are your parents?’ Rose asked as she toyed with his hair again, to make sure it was sitting just right.

‘Good, I think.’ Shane replied patiently and he almost went cross eyed as he looked up to try and see what her fingers were doing.

‘How long since you’ve seen them?’

‘I don’t know. A while.’

He did know, though. The last time Shane had seen his parents had been Christmas dinner, when they’d sat around his dining table with Maxim. A wide spread of expensive, chef prepared food was arranged between them on crockery Shane and Maxim owned, so they could all play games of pretend that the food was home cooked by loving hands.  Maxim still liked to show off when Shane’s parents were involved, he always said it was a sign of respect.

‘They gave me the love of my life.’ He said to Shane once, when he’d tried to tell Maxim his parents didn’t need all the fuss, ‘I want to show them I can take care of you.’

By then, Shane rarely saw them without Maxim at his side, and he’d spent a long time convincing himself that it was for the sake of a happy family, as though Maxim was theirs now, too. And they really wanted Shane to feel as though he was: they welcomed him into their home with warmth and love, kisses to his cheek and ardent thank you’s for the gifts he always brought. But Shane could see the uncertainty there. Their perfect boy steered from his perfect path and into the arms of a man who was still part stranger to them, and Shane wondered when he’d started to become a stranger to them, too. It had been a long time since he’d let himself be their little boy, because he didn’t know what would become of him if he learned they were disappointed.

‘They’re always in and out of town, so it’s hard to pin them and Maxim down in the same place at the same time, y’know?’

‘Where’s Maxim now?’ Rose asked.

‘Paris, no Berlin.’ Shane said, ‘I think. I can’t keep track of his schedule on these trips. The time difference is confusing.’

She nodded once, her eyes cataloguing, ‘yeah, no. I get that.’

Shane turned and looked at himself in the mirror again and tugged down his shirt, because his fingers were itching to reach for his phone, plugged in on the bedside table beside the empty glasses of Maxim’s alcohol they’d already drained. Ilya hadn’t messaged in hours, but he felt that same desperate ache for it he’d had years before, on nights he’d stayed up too late, just out of hope that he’d call.

‘You’re not going to let me change again, are you.’ He said, and Rose smiled.

‘No.’

‘Well, I guess we’re leaving, then.’  

‘Oh yes we are.’ She said, then cocked her hip in a dramatic pose and snapped a photo of the two of them in their reflection. He glanced over her shoulder down at the screen, his hand low on her hip, the leather jacket and shirt open enough to see some skin, and the front of his hair elegantly flopped over his forehead, just the way she’d made it, and he thought yeah, maybe he looked good after all.

The car journey into the city didn’t take long, even in Saturday night traffic. Rose was telling him a story about a disaster of a date she’d been on in Paris, and when the car pulled to a stop outside the club, cameras caught him mid laugh as he climbed from the car after her and the gathering crowd realised that it was Rose fucking Landry.

There was a line outside of Club Centurion that wrapped around the block and out of sight, but on approach to the door, the bouncer let them in without a second glance.

‘Bienvenue, Madame Landry.’ He said, with a courteous bow of his head, and she smiled while slipping her fingers between Shane’s and dragging him down the stairs into the belly of the beast.

He’d heard of Centurion before, mostly because there wasn’t a soul in Montreal that hadn’t, but his knowledge was slim. He knew it was popular, yes, run by a Russian businessman, yes, and most importantly, it was impossible to get in. He should have known Rose would bring him to the coolest spot in town, and that they’d make it in without so much as a moment of waiting.

‘Have you been here before?’ Rose asked right into his ear. She hadn’t let go of his hand, and he was grateful for the weight of it in his, as his eyes adjusted to the dark and flashing lights.

‘No!’ He replied. Really, he was always grateful for Rose. Other than Hayden, she was the only friend he had who was purely and unapologetically his. They’d met at a gala years before, and although her immediate animosity with Maxim had proven inconvenient, Shane couldn’t help but love her for it: there wasn’t a battle he couldn’t rely on her to fight, and at the end of the day she was loyal to him, and nobody else. Just as he was for her, too. His gaze hadn’t been coloured by her fame, and she’d always appreciated the fact he saw her not as a road to success, or an accessory for his arm, but solely as his friend.

Ironically, he’d ended up splashed on the cover of more than a handful of tabloids because of it, but when she climbed into his bed at the end of a long, exhausting night, they were like children at a sleepover. Tangled limbs and cold feet and laughter long after the lights went out, with not an expectation between them to colour the warmth of their intimacy.

‘Tabarnak, c’est qui cette Rose Landry?’ A voice called from just by Shane’s ear, but his focus was entirely on her as she surveyed the room.

‘Okay well, I’ve booked us a booth, but first I need to get you to the bar because there is a hot as hell bartender checking you out and I need you to flirt with him as a matter of urgency.’ She said, and he followed her gaze across the crowd of people.

‘Rose I don’t think-‘ he started, and promptly stopped, because there, behind the bar, was Ilya.

He was wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans, with a red and white checked tea towel flung over his shoulder, which was moving under the rhythmic shakes of the silver cocktail shaker in his hands. His hair was swept back at the sides, tucked behind his ears, and both of his eyes locked on to Shane’s. He’d mentioned he’d worked at a bar, Shane was the fucking moron who hadn’t considered asking him which.

‘That’s my boy.’ Rose laughed. She’d mistaken his hesitation for interest and dragged him by his hand through the crowd and into line behind a group of girls excitedly glancing over their shoulder towards her. By morning there’d be a whole host of rumours tumbling across the internet about Rose’s mystery man. They’d speculate about his origins: was he Canadian? Chinese? American? Did he work as a model, or an athlete, an entrepreneur or one of those other professions people pretended to understand. Last time a small corner of the internet decided he was a half-Korean businessman doing dodgy stock trades on the dark web before someone dug up an old profile from Le Devoir, confirming he was a nobody, married to a somebody, living the kind of dull life people thought they wanted.

When they finally made it to the bar, Ilya leant forward with his palms pressed against the black marble. His gaze lingered first on Shane’s face, then dropped down to the exposed skin in the open collar of his shirt, over the shoulder of his leather jacket and back up to his eyes.

‘Shane Hollander. I didn’t think clubbing was your style.’ He said and Rose’s head snapped to between them.

‘I didn’t know you worked here.’ Shane replied, ignoring her, and Ilya’s lips twitched again into that knowing smile.

‘You didn’t ask.’ Beside him, a tall man with scratchy dark stubble was mixing a drink with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbow.

‘’Scuse me.’ He said and reached around Ilya to scoop a glass full of ice, then retreated back with a curious glance between them.

‘Shane Hollander.’ Another voice added, and Shane pulled his eyes from Ilya long enough to glance over at Svetlana, who looked exactly the same as she had when he’d last seen her, across the quad in his final year. Her head of auburn curls was pulled back into a bun, and she was dressed better than either of the other bar tenders, in a sleek black dress that hugged her curves.

‘Svetlana, hi.’ Shane said, and Rose finally slipped her hand from his to instead wrap around his bicep.

‘Wait, I’m sorry. How do you know each other?’ She asked, pointing between Shane and Ilya.

‘Ilya is teaching me Russian.’ Shane said, before he thought better of it, and by the way Svetlana’s gaze snapped to Ilya’s face, he figured that wasn’t a piece of information he’d shared with her, either.

‘Поговорим позже.’ Ilya said, and Svetlana pursed her lips.

‘Нам лучше это сделать.’ She replied, and pulled away to serve another drink.

‘What are you having?’ Ilya asked, and Shane glanced over his shoulder at the gathering line they were holding up. He hesitated, and Ilya said kindly, ‘we have ginger ale.’  And it made Shane sick, when he thought that Ilya would remember that about him: how he used to get so anxious when he was small that his mum would buy him cases of ginger ale to keep in the cupboard when the worries in his belly made his stomach hurt. How he’d carried the comfort of that drink with him into adulthood, when he didn’t like the way alcohol left him with frayed nerves and a head filled with static.

‘No, tonight we’re letting loose.’ Rose said, before Shane could reply, ‘we’ll have two vodka sodas and two long island iced teas, please.’

Ilya’s eyes flicked from her face to Shane’s, as though he were waiting for authorisation, and when Shane finally gave him the smallest nod, he pulled back to make the drinks.

‘I was going to tell you.’ Shane lied, when Ilya was out of earshot.

‘It sounds like there’s a whole lot you have to tell me.’

Ilya set the glasses down on the counter before him, and waved his hand when Shane reached for his wallet, ‘on the house.’ He said.

‘I don’t want you to get in trouble.’

‘Svetka can’t fire me.’ Ilya replied with a wink, ‘I know too much.’  

Centurion was owned by a Russian businesswoman, Shane guessed as he wrapped his hands around his glasses and followed Rose through the crowd to a section at the back lined with cordoned off booths. A man was standing there with a red velvet rope that he pulled back as soon as Rose was close enough, and they fell face to face into their seats.

‘That is your Russian teacher?’ She hissed, before she’d even taken a sip of her drink.

‘Yes.’ Shane replied. He pulled his straw out and set it down onto the table as he brought the first glass to his lips and downed the whole thing in three, ice cold gulps. The temperature froze his palette, and he closed one eye in a wince as he rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth in hopes of bringing the feeling back.

‘Holy fucking shit Shane.’

‘Rose-‘ He tried, but she shook her head and reached out to twine their fingers together again.

‘Does Maxim know?’

‘Of course Maxim knows, he hired him, he’s seen him.’ Shane argued, and rubbed his free hand over his forehead. The drinks they’d had before coming out were already buzzing at the edge of his mind, and Ilya’s generous pour wasn’t going to help.

‘I’m not talking about what he looks like, though now you’ve mentioned it, Jesus Christ, Shane.’ Rose said, pausing to take a long sip of her drink, then looking back at him, ‘I mean does he know about that.’ She waved her hand through the air, gesturing to the space between them, ‘you know each other.’

‘Rose, it’s complicated.’

‘Oh I know it’s complicated, it fucking looks complicated.’ She insisted, ‘what is going on here?’

Shane turned his head and glanced back to the bar. Ilya was leaning over the counter, trying to hear someone’s order, though his sharp blue eyes kept casting around the room, moving between crowds of people on the dancefloor, then up to the mezzanine, until finally they landed on Shane.

‘Look we.’ Shane started, tore his eyes away, faced Rose again, even when he felt like every atom in his body was desperate to face Ilya, the way a compass faces north, ‘we dated, or well- we were sleeping together, at Uni. The whole thing was super fucking messy, I was so closeted and so freaked out by the fact I was even into him, and he had some shit going on and he was drinking and partying a lot. It didn’t last long, and it all ended in tears, and it was a million years ago.’

Rose balked, ‘he’s your ex?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess.’ Shane replied. Someone came over to the table and took Shane’s empty glass, and he lifted his next to take a long, slow sip.

‘Okay, okay, okay. Jesus, Shane. How long were you hooking up?’

‘I don’t know. A year? A year and a bit?’

‘A year?’ Rose repeated again, and if the room was any quieter, he’d be begging her to lower her voice, ‘does Maxim-‘

‘No!’ Shane said, immediately, ‘no, God, no, and he can’t ever know, okay?’

‘Shane…‘ Rose said, her tone warning now.

‘I know, I know how it sounds, but trust me. It was just- it didn’t work, okay? We didn’t work. The whole thing was more of a catastrophe than it was a relationship.’

‘He is coming to your house, Shane. Where you live with your asshole husband who takes you for granted but would kill him with his bare hands if he knew you’d slept with him.’

‘We were just kids.’ Shane said again, ‘we had no idea what we were doing. We had no idea how to make it work.’

For a long moment Rose watched him, then she leant forward and looked him in the eye and asked: ‘do you wish you had?’

When Shane didn’t answer, Rose waved down a waiter, edging his way through the crowd. She reached into her bag and handed him her credit card.

‘Can you please open up a tab? We’re going to need a couple more of these.’

📓

Shane woke up to the pounding of a fist on his dormitory door. At first, the noise broached his dream in a disorienting spiral. A wash of colours and sounds were swimming behind his eyes, until they were interrupted with the slams, once then twice, then three times, followed by a rapid fire fourfivesix.

He woke with a jolt, his heart hammering in his chest as his brain caught up with his ears and he stumbled out of bed to pull the door open. It was Ilya, of course it was, with his face flushed from cold, and the front of his jacket undone.

‘Ilya?’ Shane asked, still blinking his bleary eyes, ‘what the fuck are you doing here, it’s-‘ He turned his head and glanced over his shoulder to his bedside clock, blinking a helpful 3:00am, ‘Jesus, it’s the middle of the night.’

‘Shane-‘ Ilya said, a little too loud, and stumbled over the threshold so that Shane could close the door, ‘wanted to see you.’ It was obvious he was drunk, Shane would know even without the smell permeating on his breath, and seemingly from his clothes, too, which appeared to have absorbed a shot or two, in whatever shitty bar he’d dragged himself this time. They hadn’t spoken in days, not since Shane had left Ilya’s house after the nap, the broken glass, the phone call that sent his head somewhere Shane had never seen it go before.

‘What are you doing here?’ Shane hissed.

‘Wanted to see you.’ Ilya repeated. Alcohol made his accent stronger, but these words were clear as day.

‘Ilya it’s three in the morning, I have exams this week, you have exams this week.’ Shane tried unsuccessfully to keep the anger from his voice, ‘Hayden could have been here.’

‘Oh fuck Hayden,’ Ilya whined, ‘I hate Hayden, Hayden is so annoying.’

‘Hayden is my friend, and Hayden doesn’t know about-‘

‘I don’t think Hayden gives a fuck that you’re sucking my cock.’ Ilya groaned, as though they’d had this fight before. Maybe they had, to Ilya. Maybe this was a fight that circled in his head like water around a drain.

‘Keep your voice down.’ Shane hissed again, ‘I’ve got neighbours, and you’re being an asshole.’

‘They don’t give a fuck that you’re gay, either.’ Ilya said.

‘Just- fuck. What do you want? Why are you here?’

‘I wanted-‘

‘To see me, I get that.’ Shane said and rubbed his hand down his face again, ‘Ilya it’s late, and I’m tired.’

‘You’re cute when you’re mad.’

‘Don’t say shit like that or I’m going to get less cute and more fucking mad.’

‘C’mon, I want to be inside you.’ Ilya reached out for him, stumbled out of his shoes and drew Shane in against his chest. He nuzzled into his cheek first, then his jaw, then down the side of his neck where his cold lips pressed open mouthed kisses, leaving a wet trail across to his throat.

‘Ilya, stop.’ Shane insisted, and Ilya pulled back with a soft, frustrated whine.

‘Shane…’ He said, with an expression twisted by something Shane didn’t know how to read.

‘Ilya, what’s going on. What’s wrong? You’re freaking me out.’ He asked, with his hands wrapping around Ilya’s upper arms.

‘Nothing- fuck I just.’ He insisted, but his voice was thick with emotion Shane couldn’t place, ‘I missed you, I hate him and I missed you.’

‘You hate who?’

‘Stop asking me these fucking- questions.’ Ilya pulled away, shaking off Shane’s hold and making space between them for just a moment, until he swayed and stumbled again.

‘Okay, okay.’ Shane hushed, ‘no more questions. I promise. Why don’t you lie down.’

‘’m not tired.’ Ilya huffed, but he let Shane help him from his jacket and scarf, his toque, too. He even let Shane pull his spirit-soaked shirt over his head and drop it with his pants in a pile with his shoes by the door.

‘Come on, just- sit down.’ Shane said, and pulled him across the room to his bed, with its blankets pushed back, and his pillow still warm. Ilya let himself be led, his eyes heavy lidded by then as he mumbled something under his breath.

‘What’s that?’ Shane asked. He pulled the blankets up to cover Ilya’s naked chest and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

‘Я хочу свою маму.’ Ilya murmured, and Shane didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what he said. So, he just sat there, stroking his fingers through the soft strands of Ilya’s golden hair.

‘Sleep.’ He whispered, and kept stroking, long after Ilya had succumbed to the pull. Then, he pulled back from his side and quietly crossed the room, to get under the covers of Hayden’s neglected bed, heart still hammering deep in the centre of his chest.

By morning, when Shane woke, Ilya was long gone.

📓

Three drinks in and Rose made him tell her the whole story twice more.

‘Nobody knew?’ She asked, then downed the last of her fourth drink. Shane had slowed, he was cradling his own in the palm of his hand without having taken a sip. He was tipsy, his limbs felt as loose as his tongue, and the heavy beat of the music was ricocheting around his vibrating skull. There was something in his stomach, too, nerves, or anticipation, a giddy quiver that sent his heart stuttering. He’d stripped his jacket off sometime around drink two, and finally felt grateful for Rose’s unbuttoning of his shirt halfway down his chest, to give him that fraction more relief from the heat.

‘Nobody knew.’ He confirmed, ‘or- Svetlana, maybe. I think Ilya probably told her, or she figured it out.’

‘Hey, sorry excuse- excusez-moi-‘ Rose said, reaching out to a waiter as she passed, ‘can we have another round, please?’

Shane didn’t comment, she hadn’t seemed to notice he’d not touched his, but it would be a losing fight, so he watched the waiter go, pretending he couldn’t feel the prickling burn of Ilya’s eyes on him from across the room.

Rose continued, ‘but Hayden? None of your friends knew?’

‘Jackie figured it out, too, I think. She said something recently.’ He finally brought the drink to his lips and took a long draw. There was no harm, really. He had nowhere to be tomorrow, or the day after, nor the day after that. He had no plans at all until Thursday, when Ilya would be sitting at his table again, and he’d look at his blue eyes and his blonde hair and wonder if maybe, just maybe, he’d gotten everything terribly wrong.

‘I always knew I liked Jackie.’ Rose said.

‘You’ve never met Jackie.’ Shane laughed, took another sip, winced at the bitter burn across his tongue and leeching down the back of his throat.

‘No, but women have intuition about these things.’ Rose said with a wink, ‘it wasn’t serious?’

‘No! We really just hooked up.’

‘No dates? You never hung out at all? Just booty calls?’

‘No, not really, well-‘ Shane hesitated again, picturing the flat water of a lake behind a small wooden cabin. Ilya seated cross legged on the dock, a cigarette burning in his hand, ‘we studied together sometimes, in my dorm. And we watched a couple movies after sex and- we went away once.’

‘What- like a holiday?’ Rose’s eyebrows lifted and Shane shook his head.

‘No, not a holiday, it was just.’ He paused, swallowed, ‘it was a coincidence. He was already going, it was barely even two full nights.’ He reasoned, right as the waiter came back around. She set two drinks down in front of them, another cocktail for Rose, and a glass of pale sparkling liquid, garnished with a lime for Shane.

He glanced down at it, then up at the waiter, who shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘barman’s orders.’ Shane brought it up to his lips. Ginger ale. And it made him feel reckless, the fact that Ilya cared.

‘Let’s dance!’ Shane changed the subject, shouting over the music, once he’d downed the last of his alcoholic drink.

Rose’s brows lifted, ‘Shane Hollander, did you just ask me to dance?!’

‘Yes! You said you wanted to, so come on!’ Shane pushed himself up to stand, his ginger ale in one hand, his other extended out for Rose to take, which she did and then promptly dragged him out and onto the dance floor.

Her hand pulled from his and instead slid up his bicep and over his shoulder, while his arm wrapped low around her waist. They’d perfected this before, on nights she’d dragged him out and to the club and while physical affection wasn’t always something that came easily to him, it did with her. Maybe it helped that there was nothing uncertain between them: he touched her because he loved her, but she knew not to expect anything more, just as she touched him like she loved him, with the trust of a friendship uncoloured by attraction.

Someone pushed past them, and Shane brought Rose just that smallest bit closer, her breasts against the bottom of his ribs, her eyes lifting to look up at him, ‘he’s watching you.’ She said, and Shane spared a glance to the side, over the bar, where Ilya had taken a step of his own back. He was holding a glass in his hand, water probably, half empty and half way to his mouth.

‘You’re a movie star.’ Shane deflected, and Rose laughed, drew him in even closer and rocked them from side to side in time to the thudding beat.

‘That’s ginger ale, isn’t it.’ She said, ‘in your glass.’

‘Yeah,’ Shane nodded, and Rose smiled, moved her hand to press to his heat-flushed cheek and lifted onto her tiptoes to kiss his face.

‘I love you so much, you stupid, stupid idiot.’

In Shane’s pocket his phone vibrated, and his alcohol fuzzy mind considered for just a moment that it might be Maxim, somewhere in Brussels or Budapest. Maybe he was checking the cameras of the house, seeing piles of clothes on the bed, empty glasses on the bedside table, wondering where it was Rose had dragged him this time. Maybe the text was a warning of don’t embarrass me hidden between mild enquiries dressed up as concern. The ring on his finger had never felt so heavy, the empty chasm of his home so unwelcoming, and the fuzzy edges of his mind were clouding over with the overwhelming want for simple things. The steady weight of hands on his skin, the tender brush of lips against his, a voice in his ear guiding him to let go.

Another push to his back, and Shane stumbled, disoriented and shouted over the music, ‘I’m going to the bathroom, will you be okay?’

‘I’ll be okay.’ Rose said, and he withdrew from her to push through the crowd towards the relief of the toilets, with cold tile walls, an underlaying smell of cleaning agents, and a door heavy enough that it muffled the thudding, intense beat. In Shane’s reflection his hair was a mess, his face was red, and his lips were wet from alcohol and ginger ale, and he could see the daze in his eyes. Behind him a group of men lined the urinal, laughing about something he ignored. He leant forward towards the running tap and splashed his face with cold water once, then twice, trying to suck in deep breaths as drips fell from the tip of his nose back into the white porcelain basin. The men washed their hands and left, and for a brief moment he was alone.

Until the door opened again, fell closed, and the lock was flicked with a muted click.

‘Are you okay?’ Ilya asked, and Shane whipped his head so fast he almost stumbled, and his eyes fuzzed with pins and needles, ‘whoa, whoa.’ Ilya said and reached out his arms, as though he would catch Shane, if he were to fall.

‘I’m fine.’ Shane said once he’d steadied himself. The thudding of the music in his ears had been replaced by the thudding of his heartbeat, and he could feel it everywhere, all through his body: his ears, his face, his throat, the tips of his fingers, too, if he focused his attention on them for long enough.

‘Okay.’ Ilya said, though his gaze was still wary.

‘You remembered.’ Shane said, unhelpfully, and he watched the way Ilya’s eyebrows dipped down over his eyes, ‘the ginger ale. You remembered I drank ginger ale.’ He wasn’t sure what it was about this fact he clung to, but he also couldn’t remember them ever talking about it other than once, that first night, when Ilya had looked at the pen in his palm and used his full-chested confidence to tell Shane that wasn’t why he’d asked him over.

‘Yes.’ Ilya nodded, ‘I remembered.’

And Shane, well, Shane’s alcohol dazed mind thought he was due some stupid choices. So, he pushed away from the bathroom sink and crossed the room in three short steps so he could press his mouth against Ilya’s in a crushing, desperate kiss. His hands, still wet from the running water, lifted up to grasp first at his jaw, then sink back into the golden curls he’d never let himself miss, while Ilya’s arms wrapped steady around his waist.

The pressure was returned immediately, and Ilya dipped his head, parted his lips and kissed him in earnest the way he used to, all tongue and teeth and desperate need. His fingers dug into the muscle at Shane’s sides like an anchor, as though this feeling, right here would be enough to cause everything else to make sense.

First, Ilya’s spine pressed back against the heavy wooden door, then he pushed off and spun them around until Shane was the one pressed there, and his head fell back with a dense thud, ‘Ilya-‘ He groaned, eagerly trying to pull him close again, but he resisted, ‘Ilya-‘ Shane tried again.

‘Shane, no, you’re drunk.’ Ilya managed, and stepped back with a palm pressed to Shane’s chest, as though the physical barrier between them was necessary to keep them apart.

‘I’m not- I want this.‘ Shane tried, but Ilya shook his head.

‘I know you do.’ He replied, so tenderly that it hit Shane like a punch in the gut, ‘but it can’t happen like this.’  

‘Like what?‘

‘Drunk, in a bathroom covered in coke that smells like bleach and piss, with your friend waiting outside the door.’ Ilya replied, his eyes clear blue with sobriety behind the billowing clouds of want. Because he wanted this just as much as Shane did, he realised with winding clarity, maybe he always had.

Ilya’s palm against Shane’s chest slid upwards, along his neck to his jaw, which he cradled tenderly in his palm. His thumb swiped over Shane’s chin, then his lower lip and he leant forward again to draw him in for another blinding kiss. This one wasn’t hard like the ones before, it lacked desperation but maintained the same level of urgency. Shane closed his eyes and leant into the touch, and for a moment he let himself imagine them again, out the back of a house party in autumn with a beat thumping harder than their hearts but only half as fast.

‘Go home, Shane.’ Ilya murmured against his mouth when he pulled away,  ‘I’ll see you on Thursday.’

When Ilya unlocked the bathroom door and stepped back out into the club, he didn’t look back.

In the morning, Shane’s head pounded. He woke up under the covers by Rose’s sleeping side and ran his hand over his puffy, exhausted face. The air in the bedroom was crisp and cold, and with one look around he saw their clothes and all their discarded outfits dumped in piles across the floor.

He looked down at himself, pleased that they’d both had the decency to change into their pyjamas, then swung his legs out from under the covers and staggered down the stairs, to the wide open kitchen. On the counter, face down, his phone buzzed as soon as he passed it by, and he glanced up at the camera blinking in the corner.

‘Hey.’ He said, when he answered the call. He didn’t really need to see who it was.

‘Shane.’ Maxim bit, too sharp for the agony in Shane’s aching skull, ‘what were you thinking? Going out dressed like that, getting photographed wasted by every paparazzi in town with your hands all over her. Sleeping with her in my bed.’

‘Nothing happened, we just went out. It was fun-‘ Shane tried, but Maxim cut him off, like he always did.

‘You call that nothing?’ Maxim snapped again, ‘you’re being reckless, you’re acting out.’

‘I’m not a fucking teenager, Maxim, I can’t act out.’ Shane snapped back, and when Maxim stayed silent on the other end of the line, he folded himself down and over the cold marble island to feel the temperature against his aching head.

‘I don’t like that you hang out with her. She’s a bad influence on you, you always come back acting less like yourself.’

‘She’s almost my only friend, Maxim. Other than Hayden and Jackie and-‘ Ilya, he almost said, and his vision swam with the image of him, holding Shane at arm’s length after kissing him like he was his first drink of water after forty days and forty nights lost in the desert.

‘And?’ Maxim prompted.

‘And I guess Ilya, too.’ Shane admitted, finally.

‘Is he your friend?’

‘He’s the only person I see regularly, other than a bunch of housewives twice my age who argue about fucking school pickup.’

‘I see.’ Maxim said, finally, ‘his teaching style is unconventional.’

‘What does that mean?’ Shane asked, harsher than he should have because he could hear his heart now, thumping in his ears. He wondered if Maxim could hear it, too.

‘I saw you leaving. During your lesson.’

‘We went skating.’ Shane said, and he hated the fear that made his insides seize up, as though everything was a thread just one tug from coming undone, ‘with Rose.’

‘With Rose.’ Maxim repeated, unimpressed.

‘Yeah she-‘ Shane’s whole body was screaming for him to stop, but the panic blurred the lines between self-preservation and naïveté, and he wished so desperately that he could stop feeling the heat of Ilya’s hands on his skin, marking him like a brand. He touched me Shane’s body was screaming, and it should have terrified him that he’d tell any lie right then, to drown it out, ‘I thought they’d get along, he spent most of the time teaching me fucking nouns anyway.’

For a moment, Maxim paused, then said ‘I don’t want to fight with you, Shane.’

But you give me no choice, was the line Shane could hear hanging heavy in the air, and the doubt crept into him again. Maxim was right, in a way. The life he lived, the luxuries he enjoyed, were available to him because Maxim made them so. It was a lifestyle built on his reputation, which he had cultivated tirelessly through nobody’s effort but his own. When Shane had been so tired that all he wanted was to disappear, Maxim had been the one to bear the weight of him, and now he was nobody: no career, no network. The life he had was the life Maxim made for him, and without Maxim, that life was nothing but a gaping, empty hole.

‘I’m sorry.’ Shane said, eventually, even though he hated the taste of the apology on his tongue.

‘I know you are.’ Maxim replied, ‘I miss you.’

‘I miss you, too. I love you.’ Shane said, and he stood there in the kitchen long after the call ended, wondering for the first time if it was even true.

Chapter End Notes

Everyone kiss good friends Rose Landry and Svetlana Vetrova on the cheeks please. But gee it appears Shane is in a pickle. I wonder who it is that put him there (it was me, I did that.)

Something I always do when I start a fic, is I make a Pinterest board. I forgot to actually share it, so if you're curious, here it is for your perusal. I've had a breakthrough with chapter 12, which means I am close to working on Chapter 13, which means I am almost (almost) finished writing this fic. Which feels exceptionally bittersweet, even though it's still a few weeks until I'll actually be finished posting it.

Thank you as always to sweet baby angel Parkeroodle for answering my Canada questions, and of course the ever wonderful Marchoskaya for being State Lines' fairy godmother.

Thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos, commenting, sharing with your friends! I appreciate it so so much and I'd absolutely love to hear your thoughts. As always you can find me for a yap on twitter x

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

Content warning for self destructive behaviour, very vague references to suicidal ideation and a single use of a homophobic slur.

When Ilya had been small, he used to hide in the hem of his mother’s coat and picture that he was climbing mountains. The folds of the grey felted fabric cast shadows over his face in the shape of rough, stony peaks with bright spots like snow caps that never ease into a thaw. He would listen to the muted tone of her voice while she spoke to the greengrocer, the butcher, the woman who lived down the road, and it lulled him into the soft safety of a daydream.

When they walked, she held his hand, and he’d jump tip-toed between cobblestones and narrate an elaborate story about what fate may befall them if he were to land on a snow-stuffed gap.

‘I’ll protect you, Mama!’ He’d assure her, and she’d lean down to kiss the plump red of his cold-flushed face.

‘I know you will, my brave boy, Ilyushka.’ She’d say.

At church he’d sit with his legs swinging, because they weren’t yet long enough to reach the floor. She sat beside him on the benches that lined the walls, because he was too small to be left there all on his own, and not yet big enough to stand through the long, drawling sermons. His small hand would press into her palm, and while she sang the liturgy, he’d gaze up at the blue and gold painted ceiling, bruised grey by years of burned incense. If he squinted, he could still make out the angels amongst the stars, and he liked the painting of Gabriel most, with his head of golden curls, because he reminded Ilya of his Mama.

At night, before he fell asleep, she’d climb into his bed and read to him from a hard-cover book so thick with stories that he could hardly lift it. Then, her arms had felt so impossibly wide, and he’d curl up into them with his legs pulled to his chest, and the crown of his head fit perfectly in the hollow of her shoulder. His favourite was the one about Vasilisa the beautiful, and the cruel witch Baba Yaga, because his Mama would do all the right voices to make him laugh. She had read the story so many times by then that she knew it by heart, and he loved her so much that when he fell asleep his fingers would still be curled around her wrist, because his body hadn’t yet figured out that they didn’t share a soul.

When she died, he’d taken that book into his room, and he read it to himself every night. He’d been so much bigger then that he couldn’t imagine a time when he hadn’t been able to lift it. The stories washed over him one by one, until he’d read them so many times that he could recite every page before he’d even turned to it, and eventually he’d dragged himself down the hall in search for more. His father and brother thought so little of reading, but his mother’s collection had stayed on the shelves gathering dust, because not one of them could have borne the thought of throwing them out.

And so, Ilya read.

It was obvious which she had loved most because the pages were dog-eared and worn, the spines cracked with seams from where they’d been left face down and come back to again and again. Anna Karenina had been adored so many times that the front cover was almost loose, The Queen of Spades by Pushkin, too, creaked when it was open from how the spine had split. Her favourite, though, was a collection of short stories by Turgenev, and tucked at the back was Муму. The first time she must have read it was at school, because in the margins, she’d scrawled notes of her thoughts and her feelings, and the morning after Shane had kissed him in the filthy club bathroom, Ilya lay back on his couch, and he read it again.

The story goes like this: Gerasim was born deaf and mute and into the bondage of serfdom. He was as big as he was strong, and he laboured in the fields until the volatile widowed mistress of the land had him brought to Moscow. There, he met Tatiana, a laundress with an unlucky mole on her left cheek, and he fell for her into desperate adoration. But Tatiana feared his size and strength, and the way he couldn’t speak, and she married a drunk and together they were sent to the country. The day she left, a heartbroken Gerasim found a puppy drowning in the river, and he rescued her, and named her Муму, Mumu. She loved him the blind way an animal loves their master, and he loved her deeply, too, but her distrust of others undid them, and she growled at the widow who was so enraged she demanded that Mumu be destroyed. Gerasim tried to hide her, but his deaf ears didn’t know when she was whining, and once discovered, he promised to rid them of her himself. So, he took Mumu back to the river, where she was drowned by the hands that loved her, and then he walked from Moscow to the fields where the widow had found him, reaping.

The story was short, barely thirty pages, and he was halfway through when a key struggled into the lock of his front door.

‘I don’t remember inviting you over.’ He said in Russian when the door swung open the same time he flipped the page.

‘You gave me a key.’ Svetlana replied. She tapped her shoes against one another to knock off the snow, then toed them off by the door. It had been snowing since midnight, and it was meant to continue for the coming days, even though blue sky had been trying to edge its way between the persistent, mouse-grey clouds. The sun was shining the way it did in March: a taunting reminder that it would be weeks before spring came in earnest.

‘A key isn’t an open-door policy.’ Ilya said and glanced over the edge of his book. He was reclined on the couch, one arm flung over the backrest and his toes buried under the cushions at the opposite end. The floorboards of his small house got cold in winter, and for Christmas Svetlana had gifted him a stack of woollen socks, like the ones his mother used to knit him in October.

‘Why are you reading that?’ Svetlana asked, ignoring him and hanging up her coat and hat by the door, ‘it’s depressing.’

‘When you find a feel-good Russian novel make sure to let me know. There’s coffee in the kitchen.’ He said.

She crossed the room to greet him with a kiss to the top of his head, then carried on to the open plan kitchen to rifle through the cupboards for a mug. He set the book down and picked up his own cup, one they’d bought from a thrift store soon after they’d moved in together and had doubled over with laughter at the thought of owning a mug decorated with the sign World’s Greatest Grandma.

‘I thought we were passed calling ahead.’ Svetlana said when she came back to the couch.

‘I could have had someone over.’

‘What, like Shane Hollander?’

When Ilya had come back to the bar from the bathroom, Svetlana had raised her eyebrows at him and he’d shaken his head in the hopes it would buy him time. But Svetlana was like a dog with a bone: she’d never been good at letting things go.

‘Svetka.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Well considering that you’ve turned up to my house at-‘ he paused, reached for his phone and flipped it over, ignoring the twist in his gut that there was no text from Shane, to announce, ‘nine-thirty on a Sunday morning, maybe this is why.’

She pursed her lips at him and smacked her hand against his ankles so he could lift them up enough for her to slide underneath his legs. Her palm rested down on his shin, and he liked the feeling of the warmth of it, skin to skin.

‘How long?’ She asked.

‘A month, give or take.’

‘Ilyushka…’ Svetlana said, and tipped her head back until it was pressed against the back of the couch.

‘I have it under control.’ Ilya replied, and she turned to give him a disbelieving look.

‘The fact you are seeing him at all makes me think you absolutely do not have anything under control.’

‘It’s just tutoring.’

‘So when you followed him into the bathroom last night, that was for a Russian lesson?’

Ilya twitched his nose and brought his mug to his mouth, hoping that the bitter coffee would stop him from remembering how Shane had tasted exactly the same. He hadn’t meant to kiss him, Shane had been drunk, but when that mouth was against his again it tasted like a lifeline. How remarkable, he thought, that years of sobriety could be undone with just a sip.

‘He made you miserable.’ Svetlana said, before he could reply.

‘He didn’t make me miserable, the rest of my fucking life did.’

‘He forced you back into the closet.’

‘No, he didn’t. You know I was still out. He had things to deal with, which he’s dealt with.’

‘Fantastic, I’ll make sure to congratulate him on that right after I congratulate him on his marriage.’ Ilya turned to give her a look, and she held his gaze with raised eyebrows, ‘oh, I’m sorry, does he still have a millionaire husband?’

It had been so long that the reminder didn’t even make him flinch anymore, even if it made him sick to picture another man’s hands spread out on Shane’s hot skin. A part of him had resented the way Shane made him a jealous man, but he’d grown so used to it in the months of their clandestine affair, when he’d caught eyes lingering on what he’d always hoped could be his. It wasn’t only that Maxim wasn’t worthy, it was that Ilya believed nobody was. He knew what it would take to pull Shane apart piece by piece, until he was blurry eyed and begging, just like he knew how to bring him back together again.

‘I’ve got you, I’m here.’ He used to whisper in Shane’s ear when the pleasure got too much and hands had pulled at his limbs. Sometimes it was as though Shane forgot how to talk, Ilya would render him blind and dumb, and scoop him up and against his chest until the trembling stopped. The whole while he’d stroke fingers through his sweat-slick hair and remind him how safe he was, how good, how beautiful and adored. Did Maxim do that for him, too? Did he know just where to press his thumbs into the muscle of his back to have him melt into the mattress, how he liked nails to scratch gently against his scalp when the daze started to clear? Did Shane like the weight of Maxim atop him to anchor him back to earth after an orgasm ripped him so thoroughly apart that he felt as though he’d start to float away?

Ilya had learned Shane like a language: in poetry and metaphor, he wondered if Maxim could speak it, too.

‘No need to be mean.’

‘I’m not being mean, I’m being realistic.’

‘I need a cigarette.’ Ilya sighed and tipped his head back onto the cushions.

‘You need a lobotomy.’

Ilya snorted and picked up his book, folded over the cover with his index finger tucked between the pages, the way he’d tucked his fingers between Shane’s thighs on the long afternoons they’d spent side by side on Ilya’s couch, pretending it was the normal thing for lovers to do, when there were no feelings and no uncertainty and no questions to be asked.

It had become Ilya’s favourite part, the after. Once they’d moved past searching mouths and needy hands and settled instead for the heat of skin, side by side. It was when things felt most fragile, though, too, as they talked around the things neither of them knew how to mention: Shane’s fear, Ilya’s pain. Walls that needed to be rebuilt, after their desperate hands had dismantled them.  

Shane was laying on his stomach on Ilya’s bed, naked. It was early afternoon on the first day of spring, and the sun was shining through the trees, sending shapes dancing across his back. Ilya liked looking at him when he was like this, after sex when he was still warm with the thrum of pleasure and comfortable enough in his own skin that he wasn’t reaching for the means to cover himself up.

Ilya had cleaned them off with a warm washcloth which he dumped in the bathroom sink and came back with a glass of water because he’d learned just how desperately Shane got thirsty after he’d come. He followed the same rhythm: first stillness while he waited to catch his breath, then discomfort at the sticky mess on his skin, then he’d drink and after, he’d lie languid like an animal in the sun, with a need for the warmth of Ilya’s skin to touch his wherever it could. Sometimes Ilya thought Shane pressed so close it was like he wanted to climb into the hollow beneath his ribs. To rearrange the placement of Ilya’s vital-most organs and fit himself somewhere between his heart and his lungs where he could be squashed down by every hammering beat, every draw in of breath.

So Ilya climbed back onto the bed to lay alongside him, and spied the old paperback he held grasped in his hands. It was one of his mother’s favourite books that he kept perched on his bedside table. Short stories, by Turgenev. Shane had flipped his way through to the back of the book, where the pages were dog eared and frayed from use. His eyes glanced over the Cyrillic writing, and Ilya wondered what they looked like to him. As foreign as hieroglyphs, probably, like ants squashed into the page, and Ilya rolled close and pressed an open mouthed kiss to his shoulder blade.

‘What is it?’ Shane asked, when he flipped back to the front.

‘Short stories, by Turgenev.’ Ilya replied.

‘You’ve read this one a lot.’ Shane noted, and flipped to the back again.

‘Mm.’ Ilya hummed, pressed another kiss, closer to his spine now, ‘it’s one of my favourites, every child in Russia reads this.’

‘What’s it about?’ Shane asked and Ilya thought for a moment. It’s about servitude and poverty and anguish, he thought, just as much as it’s about love. It’s about loving something so much you’d rather destroy it yourself, than let unworthy hands take the task on.

‘It’s about a deaf and mute man who has a dog who he loves very much, but he kills her because he’s told to.’ He says instead.

‘Are you serious?’ Shane asked, all wide eyed incredulity, and Ilya thought how lucky he was, to have only ever known love without violence.

He shrugged, ‘yes. There’s more, but that’s the most important stuff.’

‘Kids read this?’ Shane asked again and flipped through the pages as though he’d understand them this time.

‘Yes, every kid does.’ Ilya nodded, laughing because he couldn’t help himself.

‘But it’s so sad.’ Shane frowned, and Ilya’s hand reached out to slide down the length of his spine.

‘Russian literature isn’t famous for being very happy.’ He chuckled and grazed his teeth over his shoulder blade, still wet from his open-mouthed kiss, ‘what did you read at school?’

‘I dunno.’ Shane said, frowning down at the pages still, ‘Anne of Green Gables, I guess.’

‘I do not know this Anne.’ Ilya replied as he looked over Shane’s shoulder.

‘It’s a book series about, like, an orphan girl who goes and lives with a brother and sister on Prince Edward Island.’

‘Ah, so your Canadian books can be sad too then, yes?’

Shane scoffed and turned to look at him fully, ‘yeah but nobody drowns their fucking dog!’  

‘Russian winters are very cold, we must teach children to be very tough from young age.’ Ilya grinned and Shane laughed.

‘Canadian winters are just as cold!’

‘Yes, but Canadians are so…’ Ilya trailed off and lifted one hand to wave it through the air, keeping his elbow braced on Shane’s back and feeling the muscles twitch there, just under his skin, ‘nice.’

‘Hey fuck you that’s a good thing!’

‘No, it’s boring.’ Ilya replied, blowing a raspberry out the side of his mouth, ‘this is why I must keep Svetka around because otherwise I will drown in all this niceness. It gives me toothache.’

‘Sure, that’s why you keep Svetlana around.’ Shane rolled his eyes, and Ilya could see he aimed for playful, but landed right on sour.

He raised his eyebrows, ‘ah so you don’t like Svetlana?’  

‘No, that’s not what I said.’ Shane replied with a sniff and a shake of his head.

‘Mm you’re jealous, I think.’ Ilya growled low into his ear, and Shane reached a hand up to push him away.

‘Oh fuck off, I am not.’

‘Oh, you are, you see sexy bisexual Russian man and beautiful bisexual Russian woman and you think about all the sexy bisexual Russian sex we’re having.’ Ilya nipped at his earlobe as it flushed.

‘So, you are having sex with her?’ Shane scoffed and Ilya wondered if he knew that he lay his heart bare every time he tried for banter.

He paused for a moment to press another of those wet, lingering kisses to the side of Shane’s neck, then pulled away to roll onto his back with his arms tucked behind his head. Shane turned and looked at him, the book forgotten on the sheets and a red wash underpainting the freckles on his face.

‘No.’ Ilya said, ‘I’m not having sex with Svetka. Living together, it would make things very complicated.’

‘So you would be.’ Shane tried and Ilya laughed.

‘I can if you want me to so badly, but she doesn’t like it when people watch so you might be in bad luck.’

‘Oh fuck off that’s not what I’m saying.’ Shane groaned and shoved hard at Ilya’s side. He was strong, but Ilya was stronger, and he grabbed a hold of Shane’s wrist to haul him up and over his chest again.

He took mercy, ‘we hooked up a little bit when we were teenagers, when she came back to visit Russia, but it was just dumb teenage stuff.’

‘You never liked her?’ Ilya could see Shane’s teeth working at the inside of his cheek, the way they did when he was thinking, and he wondered what it was going on in his head. For the better part of two hours, he’d had Ilya bare and desperate, with possessive hands that grasped at his skin, but that didn’t seem enough to convince Shane of- whatever it was he needed to be sure of.

‘No.’ Ilya shook his head, ‘Svetka to me is… is…’ He hesitated and tipped his head to think. There was any number of things he could say she was. He’d known her so long that he couldn’t remember a time before he’d had her. She knew him in ways he didn’t even know himself, like two sides of the same coin.

‘Family, I think.’ Ilya finally settled on.

Shane was watching him, and he nodded as though he understood, ‘yeah, okay.’

‘Yes.’ Ilya nodded, ‘we used to spend very much time together, playing and things. Then, when she moved to Canada, I only saw her in the summer when she came back to Russia.’

‘Will she go with you, when you go back this year?’

Ilya hadn’t been intending to go back to Russia so soon. He missed it, sure, the way everything was so effortlessly familiar: the brands on the grocer’s shelf, the pattern of the metro lines, the old oak behind Svetlana’s house that didn’t seem so big to him anymore. But the shame might crush him, when he faced a father he’d disappointed but who he couldn’t even rely on to remember his name.

‘Yes.’ He said, ‘for a time. I go back first, and she is here until the end of June, then she will join me there.’

‘What will you do there?’ Shane asked, ‘I bet the forest is beautiful.’

‘We will probably go clubbing.’ Ilya said, like it was an apology. It wasn’t like he could do much else. He was a pariah, and although his indiscretions were yet to spread too far, the friends he’d had all knew. Ilya Rozanov: cocksucker; Ilya Rozanov: faggot. Ilya Rozanov: disappointment. He was hoping to come back to Canada after a summer of getting so black out drunk he couldn’t remember where days started and nights ended, just like his father.

‘I am going to a cabin the weekend before I go, though.’

‘Yeah? Where?’ Shane asked.

‘North of here somewhere. Svetka booked it for me, as birthday gift.’

‘You and her?’

Or you and me, Ilya had wanted to say, recklessly, foolishly.

But Shane was biting at the inside of his cheek again and so instead Ilya’s lips twitched back into a laugh, ‘oh, you’re still jealous.’ He said, and rolled them over so Shane was on his back.

‘I’m not.’ He said, with his eyes closed and his spine arching, when Ilya’s lips found the side of his neck, the hollow of his throat, his hand sliding down, down, down, down.

‘You are. You know everyone on this campus wants to fuck me, yes?’ Ilya tried, testing the waters to see what got the blood rushing under Shane’s skin, ‘I go to all these parties and there are lines of people so desperate for me.’

‘I said I’m not.’ Shane said, and reached a hand down to push Ilya’s away, right before it dipped between his thighs, ‘you can do whatever you want. You’re not like- my boyfriend or whatever. Fuck whoever you want.’

Well. Ilya’s eyebrows lifted and he pulled his head back, ‘Shane.’ He said, I could be he meant, but the balance between them felt so fragile, that he didn’t want the words filling the space between them, expanding until whatever cracks there were finally gave out under the pressure, and Shane went running.

‘Just- it’s whatever, okay? You see other people, I see other people, it’s just whatever.’

‘You see other people.’ Ilya repeated, disbelieving, and Shane levelled him with a glare.

‘Yes.’ He lied, and Ilya let him have it, because if Shane wanted him to think that, then he’d let himself believe it. But they both knew the looks Shane ignored at parties and social events, lecture theatres, too. Sometimes, Ilya had wondered if it was the fear that kept stopping Shane from pursuing the interest, or if it was Ilya keeping him satisfied.

‘Okay. It’s casual.’ He acquiesced, even though it wasn’t for him. It hadn’t been, really, since the day Shane had first texted him and shown his hand as someone who wanted Ilya more than he wanted to hide, but unfortunately, Ilya was willing to play whatever game of pretend Shane wanted. He’d rather adore him in secret than not at all.

‘Okay.’ Shane nodded, like he agreed. Like either of them wanted it this way.

Down the hall, the front door swung open and slammed closed, and colour drained from Shane’s face like he’d seen a ghost.

‘Shit.’ He said, and pushed Ilya off him, ‘shit, shit, shit.’

‘Shane-‘ Ilya tried, but let himself be manoeuvred out of the way so that Shane could gather his clothes from where they’d been scattered across the floor. He pulled his underwear on first, then his socks, and when he wrestled his legs into his jeans, he stumbled and knocked over the teetering tower of second-hand paperbacks Ilya had been collecting in thrift stores across Montreal. The selection wasn’t great – they were always mostly in French, but he’d gather up every English book he could find, hoping it would make his language better.

‘Shit!’ Shane hissed again when the books went flying.

‘Leave it, it’s fine.’ Ilya waved his hand. Svetlana called something down the hall, gossip about a friend back in Russia who’d gotten a girl pregnant. Ilya called back, a promise he’d meet her in the kitchen, knowing she’d get enough of a hint to avoid the hallway so Shane could fly free.

‘Fuck, okay.’ Shane’s heart was hammering, Ilya could see the twitch in his neck, and he smoothed his palms down the front of his shirt and glanced around the room, like he was searching for evidence he’d ever been there. Ilya stood, still naked, and reached a hand to tentatively touch his waist.

‘You need to get your shoes from the front. She’s in the kitchen, if you’re quick she won’t see.’

‘Okay.’ Shane agreed, and Ilya was grateful that he didn’t turn away, when he leant in to kiss him.

‘Go.’ Ilya said, ‘text me when you’re home, yes?’

‘Yeah, sure, of course.’ Shane replied.

Ilya pulled on his boxers and sweats, and he was still dragging his hoodie down and over his naked chest when he followed Shane down the hall and parted ways with him at the front door.

In the kitchen, Svetlana was leaning against the counter with her arms folded over her chest, and her eyebrows raised when the front door clicked closed.

‘Are we going to talk about it?’ She asked, in Russian, and Ilya rolled his eyes.

‘Talk about what.’ He replied, pointedly.

‘That you have a guy in your room a minimum of-‘ she tipped her head from side to side, like she was calculating, ‘maybe twice a week, and you’re out half the other nights.’

‘I am sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m sure you don’t.’ She replied and watched him as he opened up the cupboard. The bottle of vodka was there, staring at him, and his fingers twitched to reach for it. If she’d not been there, he might have, but then if she hadn’t, Shane would have been and that was another story altogether.

‘I thought coming here meant you wouldn’t have to hide things like this anymore.’ She said, and he took hold of the coffee grinds instead.

‘I didn’t exactly choose to come here because I was on some journey of becoming or whatever.’ Ilya replied and put the coffee on the counter. He didn’t even want it.

‘I don’t like that you’re sneaking around like this.’ Svetlana said and Ilya tipped his head back to groan.

‘Would you prefer it if I gave you notice for my hookups instead? Forty-eight hours?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘What do you mean then?’ Ilya raised his eyebrows at her, and she finally dropped her arms from over her chest and came up closer to him again. Her palm pressed against his cheek, thumb brushing along the bone.

‘I don’t like that he’s keeping you a secret.’ She elaborated, and Ilya leant into the warmth of her touch.

‘It’s easy for me. I don’t have any family left to disappoint.’ Shane had half explained it to him once: the only son of only children, every hope coming down to him.

‘That doesn’t mean you don’t have a heart that gets hurt.’ Svetlana replied, and Ilya hated her then, for just a fraction of a moment, for knowing exactly when his heart was close to cracking.

‘My heart is used to it, I think.’ Ilya replied.

Svetlana sighed and pulled herself back, ‘movie night tonight? I’ve got to go to the store, I’ll get the snacks that you like.’ She asked, and Ilya nodded. They didn’t say what they already knew because nights like those only went one way. A movie under a shared blanket, laughing until they cried. At some point Ilya would yawn and Svetka would roll her eyes and they’d walk down the hall to her bedroom where they’d climb under the covers and fall asleep holding hands, like they did when they’d been children.

📓

Ilya liked the club before it opened. It looked to him like a stage, waiting for the arrival of a performance. The tables were empty and wiped clean, the floor still shiny from being mopped, and the bar was stocked with lemon wedges and lime, garnish neatly stacked in plastic containers.

Cliff was already there when Ilya and Svetlana arrived, wiping down a chopping board sticky with juice.

‘Afternoon, Boss.’ He greeted, then sent a nod Ilya’s way.

‘Cliff.’ Svetlana said, without sparing him much of a glance.

‘Roz, who was that with Rose Landry last night?’ Cliff asked, raising his eyebrows when Ilya flopped a towel over his shoulder.

‘Old friend.’ He replied, then started drying the glasses left on the counter, still hot from the dishwasher.

‘Old friend, huh.’ Cliff shrugged, ‘sure sure sure, right right right.’

‘You’d like to say something, Marly?’ Ilya raised his eyebrows.

‘No, no nothing. Just. He was hot, y’know? Objectively speaking.’

‘I can give you his number, if you’d like.’

Cliff barked a sharp laugh, ‘okay not what I meant. He was just checking you out, is all.’

‘He’s married.’ Ilya said, even when he imagined the weight of him against his chest up against the bathroom door. There’d still been no text, and Ilya wasn’t quite sure what it was he was waiting for, because it wasn’t like he’d sent one, either.

‘Never stopped people in the past, is all I’m saying.’

Svetlana glanced between them with knowing eyes. In the bright light her auburn hair framed her face like a halo, and her lips pursed in thought.

‘Can you work Saturday night? I need to go to Vancouver and I need someone with a key.’ She said, instead of whatever it was she was thinking.

‘No.’ Ilya frowned, ‘I have that gala thing, at McGill with Kuznetsov. Can Marleau do it?’

‘Sorry, Bud, I’ve got family stuff back in Quebec City.’ Cliff shrugged and Ilya sighed.

‘I can come after to close up. I’ll let Connors in, but he’ll have to manage without me for a few hours.’

‘Thank you.’ Svetlana said and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

When Ilya had been young his father would take him to the indoor rink in the Khamovniki District and make him skate until blisters burst, and his toes grew wet with blood.

‘Again.’ He’d say, after every drill Ilya completed, and so he’d do it again, and then again, and then again. Even from a young age, perfection, to Ilya, had been punishment.

When his mother had been alive, she’d taken his sore little feet into her hands and bound them in bandages with ointments that smelled strong and herbal, that she said her grandmother had shown her when she’d been small and hours of ballet tore into her ligaments and flesh. Once she was dead, he’d been left to treat his own wounds.

So he had, with alcohol first, in public parks with his friends when he’d been thirteen, cigarettes soon after. The drugs came later, but once they had, he’d leant on them the most. Every party came with a pill, pressed and stamped with a face or a tongue, little hearts or stars. It had been his favourite thing to do with Sasha, too: lines off the back of his imported phones, then fucking him down into the mattress of his expensive bed. He’d been high the day they’d been caught, and he wondered if it was why the beating hadn’t hurt as much as it should: his face was already numb. 

Svetlana had been the first person to touch him with tenderness, she’d been the only one other than his mother, until Shane. Sweet, gentle and terrified Shane, who always thought he was on the right path, as long as the only person he was hurting was himself.

But Ilya was so used to cruelty that the mess they created had made him snarl and bite, the way dogs do when reared by a heavy hand. By the time he’d realised he’d loved Shane, everything had already collapsed under the weight of them, so he took strangers to the cold desolate plain of his bed, reconciled to loving him in silence, as Pushkin says, and without hope.

In the weeks after his final journey to Russia, Svetlana had shown up to Ilya’s place in the same way she had that morning, but instead of a judgemental raise of an eyebrow, she’d climbed in beside him in bed, where he’d been sweat-soggy and hungover and given him an ultimatum.

‘I remember what your Mama looked like, Ilyushka, in the months before she died.’ She’d said, and it had been like the first shock of icy cold, the kind that punches your breath from your lungs, the realisation that he didn’t want to die. He’d sat on the dining table, his feet on a chair, as he watched her tip the bottles from his cupboard down the kitchen sink, and she’d held his hand in the student services recommended psychologist’s waiting room, while he waited for his name to be called. The pills had taken adjusting to, they felt sterile compared to the hedonistic rush of his vices, but slowly, he felt the parts of himself folding back together again. Torn muscle fusing, broken bones on the mend, a lifetime of bruises and bloodied burst blisters finally healing over.

Svetlana’s hand slid over his bicep right when the doors opened and she said to him in Russian, ‘I’ll come over tonight. I can stay.’

‘It’s okay, I’ll be fine.’ Ilya replied and looked down at the empty screen of his phone. Zero new text messages.  

Chapter End Notes

Thank you so much as always for reading! I have officially started work on chapter thirteen and I'm so so so excited to keep getting chapters out to you. I do, however, have two 2.5k word essays due this Thursday and unfortunately for all of us, I do need to care about my Masters degree. So there MAY be a small delay on the next chapter because I may not have time to edit it until Friday. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, thank you for being patient with me!

Also I have changed the summary for this fic. I thought the previous one was a little too silly when it's actually like- kinda serious in here 😅 so apologies for any confusion!

This chapter mentions two works of Russian literature. The first is Mumu by Turgenev, which is a short story read by children at school in Russia. If you wish to read it yourself, which I do recommend you do, it is available for free in English here.

The second is a poem by Alexander Pushkin titled I Loved You. The entire piece goes as follows:

“I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul
The former love has never gone away,
But let it not recall to you my dole;
I wish not sadden you in any way.

I loved you silently, without hope, fully,
In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain;
I loved you so tenderly and truly,
As let you else be loved by any man.”

 

Thank you as always for reading! And my thanks as always go to Parkerini my Canadian hero, and Marchoskaya, for her endless information about Russia, Russian literature, language and culture (and also for screaming with me over telegram at literally any time of day please Polina, I am begging you to go to sleep.)

Sorry this one was a little heavier, I know. I'd love to know your thoughts ❤️

Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

'I'm not going to update again this week' lol me when I lie

(I had such a productive day at the library yesterday I'm actually ahead of where I thought I'd be for both my essays and I am NOT a woman who is interested in gatekeeping finished chapters ily kiss kiss I hope you enjoy)

‘You’re too good at this, it’s not fucking fair.’

‘You’re right, and you’re bad at it.’

‘Hey!’

‘Aren’t hockey players meant to chirp?’

‘That’s not chirping, you’re just being a dick!’

Hayden mashed his thumbs against the controller, then collapsed back against the sofa when Shane won the faceoff and immediately scored, bringing the total up to a dismal 7-2 as the minutes died in the third period. It was late on Tuesday, and Jackie was spending the night with her sister to try and squeeze in as many girls evenings as possible before the baby came.

For Shane and Hayden that meant a boys night of their own: taking the kids to the movies after school and carrying them home exhausted and stuffed full of sweets, desperate for the warmth of bed. Which, of course, left Shane and Hayden to their own devices, whisper-chirping their way through three straight games of NHL as quietly as they could, so they didn’t wake the kids up. It had been snowing since Sunday morning, and it looked like it would continue on for days to come.

When the clock finally struck out, Shane leant forward and picked up his can of ginger ale. He’d been offered a beer, but he declined with the excuse he was driving, and took one of the green cans of Canada Dry instead.

‘How’s Maxim?’ Hayden asked, finally, as he tossed his controller onto one of the nearby cushions and folded his arms behind his head.

‘Fine.’ Shane replied. The edge of the metal can was resting on his lower lip, and he remembered another clipped call they’d shared that morning. Maxim had perfected the kind of silent treatment that wasn’t really silent at all: the same calls at all the same intervals, but lacking in the warmth Shane was used to. Where he was usually flirtatious or teasing, even downright filthy, Maxim maintained a cold, disinterested distance. He talked to Shane like they were sitting on opposite sides of a boardroom table, and it was obvious it was to give Shane the opportunity to think about what he’d done.

‘We’re fighting right now, I think.’ 

‘You think?’ Hayden raised his eyebrows.

‘The Rose thing.’ Shane shrugged, ‘he thinks she’s a bad influence on me. Getting photographed drunk with her didn’t make him thrilled.’

Hayden waved his hand, ‘he’ll get over it. He’s obsessed with you, I’m sure he just worries you’ll get hurt or something. When is he back?’

‘Friday night.’ Shane said, ‘and we have a function Saturday, some thing at McGill, and another on Sunday for the gallery. I’m one of the organisers and Maxim is giving a speech but Rose will be there, and I just don’t want to be fighting when we’re out in public like that.’

‘Once he’s home it’ll be different.’ Hayden replied, confidently, ‘missing each other makes all that shit harder.’

‘Yeah.’ Shane nodded, ‘want another game?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Hayden sighed and picked the controller up again. It was closing in on ten, Shane should head home soon, but he didn’t want to go back to the big, cold emptiness of that house, with the cameras ever watching.

They took a moment to select their teams in silence. Shane always chose Ottawa, even though he’d been a Montreal fan since he’d been small, because Hayden liked Montreal, too, and he’d grown up in Eastern Laval, in an Anglophone family who’d moved there for work. His parents met at university in Calgary, and Shane found it funny how they talked about Quebec like it was a whole different country. They don’t have culture like this where we’re from, they’d told Shane when he’d met them out the front of a University hockey game and he hadn’t known what to say, because he was pretty sure they had hockey in Calgary, the only difference was that it wasn’t in French.

The puck dropped and Shane won the faceoff.

‘No fair.’ Hayden sighed, and Shane’s lips twitched upwards.

‘Get faster.’ He said and flicked the joystick left, then right as he passed the puck up the line to his first line centre, who took a shot from the endzone faceoff dot and it flew right over Hayden’s goalie’s shoulder. A goal horn blew through the low volume speakers of the tv, and Shane grinned at the sound of Hayden’s groan.

‘I think my dream of becoming a Voyageur is slipping through my fingers.’ He said, ‘you should have tried out for the McGill team.’

‘I don’t think PlayStation hockey is a transferrable skill.’ Shane replied. He won the next faceoff, too.

‘No and besides, you were trying to morph into a law textbook. I don’t even know how you had time to see me and we lived together.’

‘Barely.’ Shane snorted, ‘once you and Jacks were together, I saw you like once a week.’

‘Would have been more if you’d lifted your head out of a textbook for more than five minutes.’ Hayden said and shifted to elbow into Shane’s side in the hopes to dislodge his controller. It half worked and Shane let out an indignant hey! when Hayden stole the puck and raced down towards the endzone. He scored a goal, levelling the game 1-1 into the first interchange.

‘Hey…’ Shane started, and lifted a hand to rub over the back of his neck, while the animated Zamboni did its laps of the ice, ‘were you surprised? When I didn’t go back after graduation.’

Hayden glanced at him when he reached for his beer, took a long, thoughtful sip then said, ‘I don’t know. Kinda, yeah, I think. But also I think I was so sideswiped when you came out that I didn’t even really, like, notice the law stuff, y’know?’

‘What do you mean?’ Shane asked.

‘When you came out I was just surprised, I think. Not in a bad way or anything, I love you man no matter what, I just hadn’t been expecting that, and I think since I hadn’t been expecting that then you not going back to finish your law stuff didn’t feel like- quite as unexpected. Y’know?’

Shane frowned, ‘yeah. I guess.’

‘But once I met Maxim it made sense. You were pretty burnt out, and you seemed pretty in your head for that last semester or so, but then coming out and being with Maxim, it all just made sense. Made me feel like a bit of a dumbass, really, that I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Hadn’t noticed what?’ Shane asked, ‘that I’m gay?’

‘Yeah that. Or at least that you were trying to figure something out.’ Hayden shrugged. Their teams were coming back onto the ice by then, the referee held the puck over his head, ‘looking back now it feels so weird, because you’re Shane Hollander, married to Maxim Dmitriev.’

‘Yeah.’ Shane said, again. He flicked his thumb over the joystick, stole the puck from Hayden after he’d won the first face off and immediately wove through the traffic up to the endzone again. The goaltender leapt forward, but Shane timed it just right and another goal flew over his shoulder and hit the back of the net. 1-2.

‘I was pretty shocked when you said Rozanov was surprised to see you.’

This made Shane frown, and he glanced over to Hayden and asked, ‘what do you mean?’

‘Well, you said he was surprised to see you, right? When he turned up at your house?’ Hayden shrugged and fumbled a pass enough that Shane’s defence tore apart his first line, ‘Maxim’s famous. I know when you hang out with Rose Landry you get all those weird articles and stuff from people in America, but I don’t think there’s a soul in Montreal who doesn’t know who Maxim Dmitriev is. Plus Ilya is Russian. Maxim’s surely the most famous Russian guy in Canada at this point. One google and he would’ve known exactly who he was married to.’

‘I don’t know if that’s true.’ Shane deflected, even as he felt his stomach twist.

‘Dude, you’re literally listed on his Wikipedia page.’ Hayden laughed, ‘I just can’t imagine taking a job where I was going to someone’s house to hang out with their spouse and I didn’t google them first. Guess Rozanov’s just not a curious guy.’

‘Yeah.’ Shane said, ‘I guess.’

He lost the face off.

And he didn’t mean to dwell on it, but his teeth sunk into the thought again come morning, when he was leaning against the counter with a mug (matching) of coffee in his hand. It stuck to the inside of his mouth, like chewy toffee caught in the grooves of his molars, and he couldn’t really believe that he’d never conceived of the idea that Ilya had known. He rattled back through his memories of that first day, and he’d been so dazed by the sight of him there again, in the flesh, bigger and broader and exactly the same to register Ilya’s lack of surprise.

‘You look the same,’ he’d said.

Shane wasn’t sure if he did, because when he caught his reflection he barely recognised himself. Back then he’d grown used to seeing bags under his eyes from not enough sleep, pimples on his forehead from the stress and cuticles torn by teeth that dug into his skin when his head started spiralling. Now his skin was clear, his muscles toned, his fingers delicate and soft from the work he didn’t do, but wanted to and couldn’t figure out how to get.

By early afternoon Shane set up at the table again with his books and notes around him. Grammar drills, vocabulary practice, letters to be copied over and again, but instead he opened his computer and hovered his fingers over the keys.

Maxim’s name was somewhere he never looked because he didn’t think there was anything left to know. When they’d first met, he remembered scurrying home to his dorm (empty) and climbing under the covers to read every article about him: how he was so brave, so strong, such an inspiration. Maxim had excised himself of the shame that had still threatened to drag Shane under, and he’d thought of Maxim as someone who could buoy him above water, even if he realised now that he’d never quite bothered to help Shane to shore.

The search came up with thousands of results, spanning over hundreds of sites. There were articles about his company, the mergers he’d facilitated, how he was the most powerful businessman on this side of the country. There were puff pieces too.

What millionaire Maxim Dmitriev does to wind down: “Life can’t all be business, you need balance, too.”

Twenty books Maxim Dmitriev says you must read before you die. Shane clicked into that one and scrolled swiftly through. Harvey Milk, Dostoyevsky, some Emily Ratajkowski for feminist flair and Shane was fairly sure he’d only seen Maxim pick up two books in the whole time they’d been together.

He backtracked and scrolled back up to the top then clicked on the first result, Wikipedia, and scrolled down the sidebar past Maxim’s name, his birthday, the place of his origin until finally his cursor hovered against the black text, no hyperlink.

Spouse: Shane Hollander (m. 2014)

It was funny, how it didn’t look like his name when it was written there like that. There was an irony to it, like the name belonged to a life he’d never lived. A doppelgänger, maybe, someone who wasn’t him with the same name living a life he wouldn’t recognise as his own. One where he understood what he was doing, perhaps even one where he was happy.

When the laptop was slammed closed he turned to stare at the pages spread out in front of him on the table, lined with Ilya’s red-pen notes, and he thought about the feeling of those fingers on his face, the thumb pressing into the centre of his chin. It had been a while, he realised, since someone had touched him so gently.

By Thursday he’d gotten himself all twisted again. The snow had yet to yield and through the window high on the living room wall, Shane could see the relentless dark clouds hanging low and heavy in the sky. The garden was stark white from the fall over the last few days, and he wondered how much more of this there’d be, before the whole house was buried under.

He woke up early and stared at the blinking security camera lights while he thought about Ilya again. Maybe he’d figured it out on the trip over, like Maxim’s marriage to Shane had been on the tip of his tongue, until it hit him at high velocity, on the train under the Boulevarde Décarie, when it had been too late to bow out gracefully. Maybe he’d looked it up but Maxim had already given him the money and it had been too good to turn down, even if he had to hand over the tax of seeing Shane again. Maybe he’d always known, and it was why he’d taken it, that he’d wanted to see Shane, that he’d rushed his way across the city with anxious nerves in his belly hoping to God that Shane wanted to see him, too. There was even a little part of him, one he wasn’t proud of, that thought maybe, just maybe Ilya’d grown cruel in the years they’d been apart. That he was doing all this just to mess with him and carve his way back under his skin to fester in the wounds Shane had spent years willing himself to believe were long healed.

When midday came, the black clouds over the sky had blocked out most of the sun, and Ilya knocked on the door.

Shane sucked a deep breath through his nose as he walked down the hallway and pulled it open to take in the sight of him. Ilya was wearing a winter jacket over a black hoodie and a navy toque pulled low over his curls. The tip of his nose was red, and he rubbed his hands together when he stepped inside after tapping the snow from the soles of his boots.

‘Hi.’ He said, when he slipped his arms from the sleeves of his snow-wet coat and shoved his hat into the pocket.

Shane turned around and walked back into the kitchen without saying anything, waiting for Ilya to follow.

‘Shane-‘ Ilya started, once he stood beside the kitchen table.

‘Did you know that it was me?’ Shane cut him off, hating the wobble at the end of the sentence.

Ilya paused and his eyebrows dipped momentarily low over his eyes when the question washed over him. Shane realised he’d been expecting the fight, but that it must have been the kiss that had been looming in his mind, ‘did I know what was you?’

‘That it was me, that this was me.’ Shane gestured between them, ‘that you were coming here to teach me.’

‘Ah.’ Ilya said, when realisation dawned across his face, and he didn’t even hesitate, before he nodded his head and said: ‘yes.’

‘Jesus Christ, Ilya.’ The confirmation flooded through him like the comedown from an adrenaline rush and he had to press his palms against the kitchen counter to keep himself steady. The cold bite of the marble felt good against his skin, grounding, as the snow started falling heavier over the garden. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘Your husband requested the best, Shane, and I am the best. I’m giving him exactly what he wanted.’

‘You think he wanted this?’ Shane cried.

‘What should I have said? No thank you, take your very nice money and give it to somebody else because I’m not grown up enough to see my ex boyfriend again after almost seven whole years.’ He mimicked his own voice, in an accent thick like the one he’d had in that first year.

‘I was never your boyfriend.’ Shane snapped back, maybe out of habit.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I know. That was made very clear on multiple occasions.’

‘Fucking hell, Ilya, I’m not having this fight with you again!’ Shane pressed his hand palm down against his own forehead as Ilya thrust his out in front of him in a helpless, angry gesture.

‘You are the one fighting with me!’

‘What the hell possessed you to come? The money? That’s it?’

Ilya cursed, in Russian this time, then said, ‘I think there are probably some blanks you’re capable of filling on your own.’

‘Ilya I am married!’

‘And he’s an asshole, Shane!’

‘He’s not-‘

‘He is!’ Ilya cried, rounding the table and coming closer towards the counter, ‘I know a hundred men like him! He whines about his sad fucking story to hide the fact that he is a bully! He is a bully at work, he is a bully at all your stupid fucking functions and he bullies you, too!’

‘You have no idea how hard his life has been!’

‘Yes, Shane, I do! I know exactly how hard his life has been! And I know how much work it is to not let it fucking rot you from the inside out, and I know exactly how easy it is to not take it out on the people you’re supposed to love!’

Thunder rumbled overhead, snow was falling so quickly that it was getting hard to see the trees between the thick, heavy flakes. A gust of wind swirled them around, and the windows rattled from the force of it.

‘You don’t know him like I do.’

‘No, but I know you.’ Ilya bit, ‘you were the smartest person in that entire faculty, and he’s got you here like this? Sitting around in his house waiting for him to call you and beg you to fucking perform like a cam boy?’ His arm extended up, his finger pointing accusingly at the red light, ever blinking, and Shane’s face flushed again with that shame he hated so much, ‘there were things you wanted, there was a life you had planned!’

‘I was exhausted!’ Shane’s tone was pleading now, his hands reaching out in front of him again, as though they could make Ilya understand, ‘I was so tired, I didn’t want that life anymore!’

‘So you chose this?’ Ilya gestured around them, ‘this isn’t a life, Shane!’

‘Yes it is! This life is- it’s perfect! It’s everything I want!’

‘You can’t sit here saying that it’s perfect over and over again as though you’ll believe it if you say it enough!’

‘Well it’s perfect for me!’

‘It’s not! I can name fifty reasons why it’s not, just like I can name fifty reasons why you’re not! But you’re still obsessed with this concept of being fucking perfect all the time in every fucking way!’

Shane scoffed, ‘okay great, give me your assessment then, now I know you’ve got a list of everything wrong with me.’

‘You’re taking it like an insult, not as something that makes you a real god damn person.’

‘No go ahead, I want to hear this.’

‘Okay. You’re an asshole.’ Ilya said, holding up his pinkie finger to count.

‘Sorry, I thought this wasn’t supposed to be an insult.’

‘You’re stubborn, you’re a perfectionist in all the worst ways. You let your own shame control your experience of the world because you think it’s better to hide here than admit you’re not living up to your potential.’

‘Fuck you.’ Shane snapped, as Ilya lifted his fifth finger, then lowered them again to start counting a second hand of five.

‘You’re lying about who I am.’ He said, lifting his pinkie finger, then the next, ‘you’re cheating on your husband.’

‘Cheated.’ Shane snapped, ‘cheated. It was one kiss and I was drunk.’

‘But you didn’t ask me not to come back,’ Ilya said, finally lifting a third, ‘because you want to cheat on him again.’

‘You’re such an asshole!’

Another crack of thunder, and overhead the lights flickered once, then twice before settling again.

‘You haven’t told me I’m wrong.’

‘Okay, you’re wrong.’

‘Convincing, thank you.’

‘What the fuck do you want me to say? Wow, Ilya, thank you, you’re right. I’ve been sitting at home for years waiting for you to show up and ruin my fucking life.’

‘Is that what I’m doing? Ruining your life?’

‘Well you’re not exactly helping it.’ Shane cried, exasperated.

‘It can’t be all that secure if the whole fucking thing gets dismantled after seeing me, what, five times?’

‘What was the plan?’

‘What plan?’

‘Your plan! In coming here!’

‘I didn’t have a plan!’ Ilya groaned, ‘I just-‘

‘You just what?’

‘I just wanted to see you!’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re not-‘ Ilya sucked in a deep breath and shook his head once firmly.

‘We’re not what?’ Shane prompted with his heart hammering in his chest.

‘Done.’ Ilya said, finally, ‘we’re not done.’

‘Jesus.’ Shane said and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

‘Don’t act like that, Shane, don’t act as though this is all fucking ancient history to you when you kissed me.’

‘That was a mistake, I was drunk.’

‘Do you regret it?’ Ilya asked.

‘It was a stupid thing to do.’

‘Thank you, Lawyer Shane, but that’s not a yes.’

‘Ilya, we were terrible for each other! You were drinking, and I was closeted and so fucking terrified and neither one of us knew how to tell each other how badly we were hurting, or how badly we were being hurt.’

‘We were doing what kids do.’ Ilya said, in a tone that made it sound like the fight was leaving him. He looked tired, Shane thought, he guessed he must, too.

‘What’s that?’ He asked, finally.

‘Trying.’ Ilya replied, ‘the best we knew how to.’

‘We didn’t do a very good job.’ Shane said and Ilya’s lips twitched into a worn, half smile, like the threadbare ones he used to give him, when they’d been in bed side by side.

‘That doesn’t mean we didn’t try.’

The wind whistled outside with the force of a gale and the windows buffeted again. They rattled in their panes and the lights flickered until finally, they shut off and the room plunged into darkness. It was barely after lunchtime, and still the heavy black clouds hanging low in the sky smothered the sun enough to make it feel like late evening.

Down the hall a series of three short beeps ricocheted off the tile vestibule and Shane looked up. For the first time since he’d moved in, the red light wasn’t blinking.

They were completely alone.

Shane turned back to look at Ilya again, standing there in the low light and found him already watching, as he always did. If he’d been a numbers guy, maybe he could calculate the cumulative time Ilya had spent looking at him. It may be hours already, days even, if he added in the time they’d spent studying together, catching each other’s eye across a dancefloor at a party Ilya needed and Shane wished he could leave. He wondered, briefly, how much time Ilya had spent looking at him when he’d been sleeping, or his eyes had been closed with his head thrown back in pleasure. How funny, he thought, how cold the eye of surveillance felt when Ilya’s gaze had always been sunlight warm.

‘I don’t want to fight with you.’ Shane said, and took one step closer. He lifted his right hand, his pinkie finger extended out, ‘you said Russians do this when they want to be friends again.’

‘Is that all we are, Hollander? Friends?’

‘No.’ Shane said and watched as Ilya’s pinkie curled its way around his, ‘of course that’s not all. That’s never been all.’

Another clap of thunder sounded, and they turned to look out the French doors where the storm was raging. The snow was piled up high by then, and the leafless trees thrashed from the wind that whistled and hammered the windows in their panes.

‘I don’t think the power is going to come back anytime soon.’ Shane said, then turned back to look down at the heating vent in the floor ‘the heating is electric, it’ll have turned off.’

‘You have a fireplace, no?’ Ilya asked. He pulled back, let their fingers fall apart and rounded the kitchen island to cross over to the living room, ‘is there wood?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Shane followed and knelt down in front of the inbuilt sideboard, neatly designed to conceal a storage cupboard for a small stack of wood, ‘we don’t use the fire, so most of it’s in the garden, but there’s some in here.’

Wood was stacked in the centre of the burner, and with the help from a candle lighter from the kitchen drawer, and a few spare pages from the back of Shane’s notebook, the fire crackled to life and basked the living room in a warm, orange glow.

‘Do you have blankets? The fire is good, but it might not be enough for long.’ Ilya said and knelt back on his haunches, looked up and over his shoulder to Shane standing behind him.

‘There are some in the sideboard, but there are proper down duvets upstairs.’ Shane said.

‘Okay.’ Ilya nodded, ‘show me.’

Shane had loved this house when they bought it. It was the third they’d seen on their ninth day of trying, and as soon as he’d stepped through the hallway and into the living room glowing with early afternoon light, he had turned to Maxim and confidently announced, ‘this is the one.’ They’d moved in six weeks later, Maxim had wanted to hire someone to do everything for them, and Shane had agreed, but when he leant against the kitchen island and watched strangers stacking dishes in the cupboards, he’d felt like they were doing it all wrong. So, when Maxim had left three days later, he’d unpacked it all onto the island and done it all again from scratch, the way he wanted it. The way that would make the house feel like his.

But it never really had. Maxim had told Shane to choose the palette for the walls and the furniture, then stood over his shoulder and contradicted each one of his choices with a hum of, ‘but wouldn’t this work better?’ He’d selected the artworks for the walls, the positioning of the sofa, the table, against which wall they’d set their bed, and in the end Shane had felt more like a toy in a doll house, than he did the resident of a home.

He was self-conscious then, of the tasteful, soulless design, as Ilya followed him down the hall and up the stairs that creaked under their feet. Ilya turned his torch on to help guide them down the hallway, past two guestrooms nobody went into, and a third set aside for Shane to use, even though he had nothing to use it for. Mostly it held his books, which were hidden away so as not to disrupt the aesthetic, and on long days when he was bored of staring at the living room walls, he would relocate to stare at the walls in there, instead.

The shelves were stacked with paperbacks and hardcovers, everything that caught his eye: Steinbeck, Atwood, Camus, Rooney; books he read because he thought he had to sitting alongside the ones he felt like he should pretend he hadn’t.

Ilya followed in silence, sparing only a few glances into each open door that they passed, until finally Shane led him into the master bedroom, ‘I keep a few extra duvets in here. In case I get cold,’ he explained, needlessly, and stepped into the open plan wardrobe between the bedroom and the ensuite. He flicked the light switch, uselessly, then instead opted to reach through the dim for the cupboard door. The wardrobe was too big, like everything else in the bloated house, and instead of leaving drawers and cupboards empty, he’d stuffed them full of anything that would fit. Blankets, pillows, towels, too. He pulled out two king duvets and tossed them into the middle of the bedroom floor.

‘Is this your wedding?’ Ilya said, and Shane stopped still, looking from the wardrobe to see Ilya standing beside the bed, holding a frame in his hand. It was a photo of him and Maxim in their tuxedos. Shane was laughing and turning away from a grinning Maxim, who was smearing frosting over his freckled cheek. His hair was cropped close to his head neatly, and his face was flushed with excitement, and maybe embarrassment from having all those eyes on him.

‘Yes.’ Shane replied when he’d crossed the room to see it, and it struck him then, just how young he looked.

‘You look happy.’ Ilya commented.

‘I was, I think.’ Shane replied.

‘You think?’ Ilya asked, finally pulling his gaze away and looking back up to Shane, once he’d stopped close enough that their shoulders were almost touching.

‘I was happy.’ Shane said, more certain this time, ‘but thinking about it now, maybe it was… relief. I’d just been trying so hard, for so long. I wanted to be the best, and I loved law, but I was so overwhelmed by the fear that I was going to let people down. That I wouldn’t be as good as everyone expected me to be. Maxim made me feel like I could be- perfect. Without having to try so hard.’

‘Did I ever make you feel like that? Like you had to be perfect, I mean,’ Ilya asked.

‘No.’ Shane said, finally looking at his face head on, ‘I think that’s why you scared me so much. You didn’t want me to be perfect and I- I wasn’t quite sure what I was meant to be if it wasn’t that.’

Ilya set the photo back down on the bedside table and turned to face Shane again. His gaze dragged slowly over his face, starting with his eyes and dropping down to his freckled cheeks, his mouth, ears, nose, and finally up to his hair, which he reached to brush gently aside, ‘I like it more like this.’ He said, ‘longer.’

Shane leant forward into the touch, and his eyes fluttered closed when Ilya’s hand followed the path his eyes had taken: starting at his forehead and smoothing down the slope of his nose, the arch of his cheekbones, the line of his jaw, his lips, then his chin. When his thumb pressed to Shane’s lower lip it didn’t push, nor pry. It just settled there, like an offering, a gift upon an altar.

‘It was never the same, as it was with you.’ Shane said, his dark eyes opening.

‘What wasn’t?’ Ilya asked.

‘Any of it.’ Shane said, ‘he never touched me the way you did.’

‘How did I touch you?’ Ilya’s face was barely inches away from Shane’s own by then, and Shane could feel the heat of him, radiating between their bodies, and all of a sudden he felt as though he’d been lost at sea and finally he’d found the glow of a lighthouse, beckoning him home.

‘Like you just knew.’ Shane whispered, softly against Ilya’s lips, ‘like I never had to tell you.’

Ilya’s palm drew from Shane’s face to run down over the heat of his neck to the centre of his chest and his head turned so that his lips could brush over his cheek, until they were against his ear, ‘and did you think about me? When he was fucking you?’

‘Yes.’ Shane admitted, bringing his own hands up first to Ilya’s shoulders, then the sides of his neck and finally slipping up into his hair, ‘I think I always did.’

‘Will you let me touch you again?’ Ilya asked, finally.

‘Not here.’ Shane said breathlessly, with a glance sidelong towards the bed, ‘not- just not here.’

Ilya pulled back to look at him again and Shane knew that he understood what it was he’d said in the spaces between the words that were stuffed full with meaning like gaps between cobblestones stuffed with snow. I don’t want to lie with you in the place where I’ve lain with him, he’d said, I don’t want to lie with you in the place he leaves me alone. Shane swallowed, and Ilya’s hand lifted to feel his Adam’s apple as it bobbed, I don’t want your body wrapped in the sheets that are used to hurt me.

‘Okay.’ Ilya said.

‘Okay.’ Shane replied.

They carried the duvets back down the stairs and lay them on the thick cream carpet in front of the fire. Ilya dragged the cushions from the couch, Shane the blankets from the sideboard, and they piled them together like the insulated nest of a bird that didn’t migrate south for the winter: too stubborn and resilient to give up their home.

The rolling thunder was further away by then, and with the blankets warm around them, Ilya kissed him, finally, with a palm against his cheek as though he’d been waiting for this moment. Maybe he had, Shane realised, because with his lips parting for the reach of Ilya’s tongue, he realised that he had been, too, since that October too many years before, when he’d given Ilya up in favour of locking himself away.

Shane felt his whole body hum in recognition as he arched up and into Ilya’s wandering hands that slipped underneath his sweater, then his shirt and splayed out against the heat of his skin. At first, they just mapped him, Ilya’s thumb rubbing over his ribs like he was counting them, making sure that the Shane he was being so graciously given was still the one he’d had before: no parts missing, nothing damaged. Then, they teased, with those same thumbs smoothing over the buds of each nipple in slow, easy circles, until they were taught and tingling.

‘Ilya…’ Shane sighed, when the kiss broke, and he tipped his head back for Ilya’s mouth to join his hands in exploring. He started on his jaw, then smoothed over the line of his neck with open mouthed kisses and slow laves of his tongue.

‘Is this okay?’ Ilya asked, mouth against his skin.

‘Yes.’ Shane acquiesced, and reached behind himself to push the pillows aside, so he could lay back and drag Ilya down atop him. He was heavier than he had been the last time they’d been like this, but Shane found he already liked the weight of him – safe, familiar even now after years spent willing himself to forget.

‘Then take this off.’ Ilya requested, and Shane shifted just enough to help him pull off his woollen sweater, then the shirt underneath, and he watched as Ilya did the same. With his shirt off, Shane took time to really admire how much bigger he was – his biceps, the breadth of his chest, the trail of hair down from his navel to the hem of his briefs, sticking out from beneath his jeans. He looked different – older – and Shane wondered if he’d ever have a chance to mourn the time they’d lost.

‘You look different.’ Ilya said, with a palm firmly sliding down over the muscles of his stomach.

‘Different bad?’ Shane asked, because it mattered to him so much more than he had ever wanted it to.

‘No.’ Ilya shook his head, ‘just different.’

‘You do, too.’ Shane said, with his hand brushing over his neck, his shoulder, the curve of his strong pecs.

‘Different bad?’ Ilya mirrored, and Shane despite himself, smiled.

‘No.’ He replied, ‘just different.’

When Ilya’s weight settled onto him again, it was with his hips flush against Shane’s own, and Shane arched with a low groan rumbling from his chest at the pressure on his hardening cock, ‘fuck…’ he breathed, and Ilya kissed him again while giving his hips a few, slow, experimental rocks. The kiss was harder, by then, with teeth scraping over swelling lips, and Ilya swallowing down each one of Shane’s needy keens.

‘Please-‘ He gasped, when Ilya’s hand finally dropped low enough to pull the clasp of his jeans free, ‘please, please.’

‘Shh…’ Ilya hushed against his lips. He pushed himself up just enough to undo Shane’s button and relieve some of the tension on his straining cock, ‘don’t beg. You don’t have to beg with me.’

‘But I want-‘ Shane gasped again, eyes rolling back into his head when Ilya’s palm slipped down under his briefs in a firm, slow press. The pressure was perfect, and Ilya’s fingers curled to cup him, to cradle him in the heat of his hand, ‘I want-‘

‘I know what you want.’ Ilya said again, against his lips, ‘you can have it. You can always have it.’

It only took a moment for Ilya’s hand to withdraw and pull the jeans and underwear from Shane’s trembling legs, and only one moment more for him to do the same with his own, and soon their clothes lay in a haphazard pile on the living room floor as their bodies pressed together again, skin on skin, the only thing left between them being Ilya’s gold Orthodox crucifix, which glinted in the low firelight.

‘Fuck-‘ Shane groaned.

‘Do you know how much I’ve thought about this?’ Ilya breathed against his lips again, while his hand slipped down between them to press in against Shane again.

‘Ilya-‘ Shane gasped, arched, spread his legs impossibly further in the desperate hope he’d somehow manage to bring Ilya’s heat in closer against him. His nails dug into the strong muscles of Ilya’s back as his fingers wrapped around Shane and gave him a gentle squeeze. Ilya’s thumb brushed over his leaking tip, and in a moment of brief refuge Shane asked, ‘how much?’

‘So much.’ Ilya replied, and pressed their foreheads together, ‘you think I don’t remember you when I close my eyes, Shane? You think I haven’t thought about touching you like this again?’

Ilya reached his hand over the blankets and wrapped them around the bottle of lubricant Shane had brought from his bedside table.

‘What do you think about?’ Shane asked, when slick fingers slipped down over him again, nudging first at the root of his cock, then sliding down further until they gently massaged at his rim.

‘You, Shane.’ Ilya murmured, ‘all of you.’ Shane’s head tipped back and his mouth fell open, while Ilya teased him there.

‘Ilya-‘ He panted, ‘please. Fuck- please, please.’

And Ilya gave him what he wanted, with one finger easing itself slowly in. He didn’t rush, and his mouth lowered to kiss at the column of Shane’s neck again as his digit pushed past the ring of muscle until the first knuckle, then the second, until finally it was pressed in to the hilt. His nose nudged along Shane’s jaw while his other hand slowly guided Shane’s thigh up and over his hip, keeping his legs spread as he slowly withdrew the finger and pressed it in again. Every muscle in Shane’s body loosened at the sensation, and his chest punched out rhythmic gasps that faded into soft, agonising pleads for more, which Ilya readily gave him. Soon, his finger was joined by another, soon after that a third, and together the digits were curving just right to find that place inside of Shane that made him sing.

‘You’re so good, so good.’ Ilya said, when his head lifted to watch the trembling of Shane’s muscles, his skin already slick from his leaking red cock, ‘tell me what you want, Shane.’

‘I want-‘ Shane tried, when Ilya pressed into him again and a soft cry was ripped out from his chest. His head was clouding over with the pleasure building up in his abdomen, like tv static, or pins and needles, and he was reminded how easily Ilya dismantled him, even back then.

‘Tell me.’ Ilya repeated, patiently.

So, he opened his dazed eyes to look up at Ilya’s own forget-me-not blue and he said: ‘I need you, please. I need you.’

And Ilya smiled like it was simple and said: ‘okay.’

After one final deep press of his fingers, he withdrew his hand and reached again for the lube and rolled on the condom neither one of them wanted between them, then he guided Shane’s thighs back until they pressed in against his chest. One glance between them and Shane could see how Ilya’s cock was red, too, the angry skin begging for the stimulation, and if he hadn’t been so dazed and desperate himself, he’d be begging to have it in his mouth again.

‘Is this okay?’ Ilya whispered, when they were laying chest to chest, Shane’s legs pinned between them and the tip of his leaking cock pressed to Shane’s entrance. He opened his mouth to speak, but only the softest whimper came out, too dizzy from need, ‘Shane…’ Ilya murmured, gentle, and nudged their noses together, ‘I need you to tell me.’

‘Yes- please, Ilya, please.’ He begged, and Ilya hushed him again, moving his free arm to brace his elbow to the blankets beside Shane’s head, so he could smooth his palm over his crown.

‘Okay.’ He said and finally pressed inside in one long stroke, until their hips were flush together.

Shane arched again and his whole body buzzed with the awe-struck static of feeling Ilya fill him again, just like he used to: as though they were made for this, two halves of a single whole, fractured celestial atoms finding their way home.

Ilya drew back and pressed in again, punching out a breathless gasp from the hollow of Shane’s chest. He drew back and did it again, then again, until he built a rhythm of steady rocks in and out of his keening body.

‘Beautiful, you’re beautiful,’ Ilya whispered, too, when he pushed up enough to glance down between them. The angle gave him more purchase, and the thrusts of his hips into Shane’s body were just right to have him crying out again, when he found those tender nerves, so deep inside.

‘I mis-‘ Shane tried, but he trailed off again into another garbled moan. I missed you, he wanted to say, but the pleasure was crashing in waves coming so fast that his mind couldn’t make his mouth work, other than to utter desperate, pathetic whines.

‘I know.’ Ilya said, ‘I know,’ and Shane wondered if he did. If he really had thought about this too, every time he’d been alone in bed and his hand travelled south. The first time, Shane had been mortified, but soon it had become his own precious secret. He’d pretended even to himself that the fantasy had been anonymous, but he’d always known who the hands he imagined on his skin belonged to, because he’d learned to memorise them in secret.

‘Ilya-‘ Shane gasped, because the pressure was building in earnest now, and Ilya’s own hips stuttered with the same desperate need Shane knew he was feeling low in his gut.

‘I’ll catch you,’ he said, mouth against Shane’s lips, his aching red cock pinned between them, ‘you can come, baby, you can let go,’ and Shane did, with a cry that sounded more like a sob and he painted ribbons between them. Ilya followed him too, and Shane’s jaw went slack when Ilya pushed as deep as he could inside him, pressure agonising against his overstimulated nerves.

Ilya dipped his head until his forehead was pressed against Shane’s shoulder, his panted breaths cooling the sweat soaking his skin. For a while, they just breathed, until Ilya pulled out, and slipped to lay along the length of Shane’s side.

The duvet had been pushed down to only cover their lower legs, and Ilya’s palm ran firmly along the length of Shane’s thigh, soothing the muscle after having it pressed so long in the one position. His nose brushed against Shane’s cheek, then down to the hinge of his jaw and pressed to his left peck, just above his hammering heart. Shane’s eyes fluttered closed, and basking in the aftermath, he could forget all the years between them, in favour of this, here.

‘Stay still,’ Ilya whispered, once their breathing slowed, and Shane’s eyes blinked open just enough to watch him walk to the kitchen, where he pulled open enough drawers to find a clean tea-towel and ran it under the cold water. He squeezed out the excess and knelt on the blankets beside him, ‘this will be cold,’ he warned, as he started wiping Shane’s stomach clean.

He hissed at the shock of it, and Ilya’s lips dipped down to press kisses along the trail of prevailing wet. The cloth smoothed over his pubic bone, the hair growing there, and finally between his thighs to clean up the sticky mess Ilya himself had left, all while trailing his lips after.

‘These are new.’ He said, when his mouth brushed over the white lines like tide marks stretched across his hips and thighs.

Shane’s fingers brushed through his hair and he looked down. He’d hated the stretch marks since they’d first started appearing, but he’d learned they came to his body naturally. With the more muscle he grew, the more lines stretched around his skin, and although Maxim had never mentioned them, Shane knew he disliked them too.

‘Don’t,’ he murmured, tiredly and tried to fit his hand between them and Ilya’s mouth.

‘No, I like them.’ He insisted, following the words with a string of tender kisses when he caught Shane’s wrist in his hand.

When he was done, Ilya tossed the wet cloth onto the tiled floor in front of the fireplace and lay back on the floor again, with the covers pulled up and over them. Shane turned automatically to press in close, with his head against the swell of Ilya’s chest. Outside the snow was finally slowing and the wind had died down. The clouds, once black, were starting to glow with the fading light of the sun. He wasn’t sure what time it was, and he didn’t really care, he was content just lying there with the warmth of Ilya’s skin pressed up close to his.

‘You okay?’ Ilya asked, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.

‘Yeah.’ Shane replied, and he was, ‘are you?’

‘Yeah.’ Ilya agreed, and started a rhythm of stroking his fingers through Shane’s hair. Shane glanced up to him, and saw how his eyes were trained on the window, high up on the living room wall, where the tips of the clouds were billowing goodbye to the dying sun. In his dorm, there’d been a way Shane used to angle his head just right to get a similar view, hidden behind the cheap cotton curtains. He’d caught Ilya staring at it then, too, in the moments after when they’d lay together just like this, but Shane had never known how to ask him what it was that always snagged at the edge of his mind. He wondered now if it would have changed things if he did.

‘You feel the same as you did back then.’ He said finally, and Ilya pulled his gaze away to look down at him.

‘During sex you mean?’

‘No. After, like this.’

‘What does it feel like?’ Ilya’s hand had stilled, and his palm lay over the crown of Shane’s head, just holding him there.

‘Safe.’ Shane admitted, ‘right.’

‘Do you not often feel safe, or right?’

Shane thought about it, how every morning he woke up into a life he didn’t recognise as his, but when he turned to look back over his shoulder, he could see the path of his own choices that led him there. He’d been his own undoing, the way the hero of a tragedy always was.

‘I didn’t know that I’d still recognise the feeling.’

Ilya’s eyebrows furrowed and he frowned, ‘Shane… Does he-‘

‘He’s never hurt me,’ Shane was quick to assure, ‘I don’t think he’d ever hit me or- or anything like that.’

‘But he isn’t kind to you.’

A hundred things flooded through Shane’s head then, and he wished there was a way to say all of them, because nothing was ever as simple really, as kindness. Had it been kindness that brought Maxim over to talk to him at a function, when he’d been fresh-faced and twenty-two with a heart cracked open? It had felt like it, to him. Just as it had when Maxim made the promise to look after him, to keep him safe, to guide him like the hand of God, rearranging his destiny before his eyes. ‘Don’t worry, babe, I’ll take care of it,’ had run between them like a mantra, and finally with a framed degree tucked tight under his arm, Shane felt like he didn’t have to prove himself anymore. But it wasn’t kindness that had Maxim standing there, at the end of the altar, kindness didn’t buy him this house, nor did it keep him there, constantly surveyed, performing for the hand he relied on to feed him. It felt more like indentured servitude than it did kindness: he worked for his keep with pliant limbs and an open mouth, and a breathy moan of thank you, even though he was the one who was giving his body and his time to a man acting like he’d earned them.

‘No.’ Shane replied, ‘no, he’s not.’

And Ilya was a generous man, so he neither gloated nor preened with declarations of I told you so. Instead, he brushed his nose into the warmth of Shane’s forehead, then reached his right hand down to nudge his knuckles under his chin just enough to tilt his face up so they could kiss.

‘Sleep.’ He said, against his lips.

‘Will you stay?’ Shane asked.

The snow was piled up so high and the wind still swirling enough that he didn’t have all that much of a choice, but still, Ilya smiled and said ‘yeah. I’ll stay.’

Shane tucked his face in again to the side of Ilya’s neck and sucked in a deep breath. He smelled like cigarettes and concrete after rain, the way he had back then, and when he slept Shane dreamt that he was Eurydice, following  Orpheus up from the cold dark of Hades. He watched the strong breadth of his back, the flexing muscles of his legs climbing up, up, up, all the while pleading, silently, for him not to turn around.

Near the top, just before Shane could feel the sunlight on his face, Ilya stopped and turned his head barely enough to look back, because he loved Shane so much, he just couldn’t help it.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you so much, as always, for reading! I have been inundated with the kindest response and the most generous comments both here and on twitter in the last few days. I actually do not have words to express how grateful I am for everyone's support. I know it must sound so saccharine and repetitive, but truly. Thank you thank you thank you ❤️

Thank you to Parker for his endless Canada knowledge, and thank you to Marchoskaya for being the best Russian fact and language checker and friend this lil egg could ask for.

I'd love to know your thoughts, I know one or two kinda important things happened in this chapter 😅

Chapter 10

Chapter Notes

By sunrise, the wind had blown the storm east and the sky was washed pale blue. Shane woke with Ilya’s arm heavy around his waist, and his chest rising and falling with each slow breath, pressing against Shane’s spine. Shane’s fingers were twisted into the blanket, and he drew them back to brush down over his own chest, the length of Ilya’s forearm and settled his hand atop Ilya’s own, where it curved around his stomach.

They’d woken again not long before midnight, and Shane had watched Ilya kneel naked before the fire to feed it and stoke it back to life. When he’d slipped back under the covers behind Shane, their bodies had pressed together again and in their half sleeping daze Ilya had fucked him hard and slow in the glow. Shane had come with his spine arched and his head tipped back, his whole body had felt like an exploding nebula, and tears had leaked from the corners of his eyes. Ilya’s arm around his middle was all there was anchoring him to earth, and when Shane whined at the overstimulating final pushes of his hips, Ilya hushed him with soft, adoring whispers of, ‘I’ve got you, I’m here.’  

After, on the comedown, they talked again. Not like they had in the kitchen, or the bedroom, this time it came easier. Ilya’s palm rubbed long, slow rhythms down Shane’s aching thigh, and they laughed like children do after midnight, when everything is funny and meaningless and all the grownups are asleep.

‘What else have you done?’ Shane asked, because he wanted to create a map of Ilya’s life, since the last time it had touched his, the way astronomers map the route of a planet on its pilgrimage around the sun.

‘I’ve just studied and worked. It’s really nothing exciting.’ Ilya dismissed, but Shane looked at those five blank years like a puzzle or a painting, something he wanted to stare at until he’d memorised every detail. Ilya was on his back with Shane up on one elbow to lean over him. His palm was flat to the centre of Ilya’s chest, taking in the even, heavy thud of his heart.

‘Tell me something boring, then.’

‘I broke my arm.’ Ilya said, ‘the summer my dad died.’

‘Which one?’ Ilya pulled his left hand from where it had been behind his head and wiggled his fingers, ‘what happened?’

‘After I came back from Russia the last time, I used the money he’d left to buy a cabin, a few hours north of the city.’ As he spoke, his knuckles came to brush over Shane’s cheekbone and Shane remembered it like a dream. The glitter of sunlight on the surface of a lake through the windows, the smell of pine wood and fir and fresh coffee gurgling on the stove, ‘after that first summer, I went back with Svetlana. At first, we went in June, right before going home, then we started going in August too, October, over Winter and in Spring. I loved it, just going and doing nothing. So, after graduation when I realised I didn’t have to keep going back to Moscow, I put a deposit down on a similar place, on the next lake over. I bought all this shitty furniture, and I built a dock and threw a big party in the rain because of your stupid Canadian weather. I went outside to show off and prove the weather wouldn’t cancel the party, then I slipped over on the dock and broke my fucking arm.’

‘Was it a bad break?’ Shane asked, as a laugh rippled from his chest like a pebble hitting water.

‘No.’ Ilya smiled and carded his fingers back through Shane’s dark hair, ‘everyone signed my cast, it was very cool.’

‘Oh yeah, I’m sure you were the coolest kid at graduation.’

‘Fuck you, people were lining up to sign it!’ Ilya scowled teasingly and pulled his hand back to smush his knuckles into Shane’s cheek. He laughed and wrinkled his nose, then pulled his hand from Ilya’s chest to bat him playfully away.

‘You’re right, you’re right, I’m just jealous I missed out.’

‘I stopped drinking too, for the most part. Started therapy.’ Ilya said while he lowered his hand again to settle on the warm of Shane’s neck. His eyes followed the movement, the swipe of his thumb down over Shane’s Adam’s apple to settle in the hollow of his throat.

‘When?’

‘After my arm.’ Ilya replied, and his gaze flicked up, ‘after you got married.’

And he thought he should be used to it by then, the way Ilya knew just how to knock him flat, but really he shouldn’t be surprised how he could still say things that left him gasping.

‘So, you knew?’ He asked, ‘even back then?’

‘I always knew.’ Ilya said.

Ilya’s hand on his stomach tensed for a fraction of a second when Shane’s fingers slipped between his, then smoothed up and over his stomach to settle them twined on his chest.

‘Morning.’ Ilya whispered, voice still thick with sleep. He kissed the back of Shane’s shoulder, along the ridge of it to the highest notch of his spine. Shane hadn’t meant to wake him.

‘Morning.’ He replied. Up in the corner, the cameras still showed no sign of life, and in the hearth only the last glow of embers was left. The snow was piled high against the French doors and weighed down the branches of the skeletal trees until they bowed under the heft of it.

‘I should go.’ Ilya said, ‘before the power comes back on.’ And it was mercy, really, for Ilya to offer to leave before Shane had the chance to beg him to stay.

‘Yeah.’ Shane nodded, ‘okay.’

Ilya slipped out from behind him, and once dressed he knelt before the fireplace to load it again with wood and paper, which he stoked until they were bit by flame. He helped Shane dress, too, even though his body was still heavy with sleep, and pleasure, and the bone-dense relief of Ilya against him again.

‘Will you be warm enough?’ He asked, and smoothed his palm over the crown of Shane’s sleep and sex-mussed head.

‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’

When the front door clicked closed, Shane turned his head to look back up at the skylight, the bright blue of the morning sky.

📓

Hayden’s half of the dorm was packed within hours of finishing his last exam, and by the time Shane was half way done he was already ailing at home in Laval while Jackie boarded her flight back to Edmonton for the summer.

‘I miss her so much, man.’ He said, his voice fuzzy through the phone speaker so Shane could use both hands to fold his clothes.

‘It’s been, what, seven hours since you last saw her?’ It was Friday night, and already the campus felt quiet and empty as half the student body migrated like birds to their summer nesting grounds. He was leaving too, of course, back to Ottawa and the job his mother had lined up for him, interning at a law firm downtown. His dad was due to drive up on Monday morning, the same time Ilya was due to fly east.

‘She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you think we’ll get married?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Should- should I ask her?’

‘Probably not right now.’ Shane glanced at the time, it was a little after seven, ‘it’s three hours until her flight’ll land and that’s not the kind of thing you do by text.’

‘You’re right, you’re right. I should go to Edmonton though.’

‘Yeah, I think start by visiting her in Edmonton.’

Shane knelt to place the stack of shirts in the box, then turned to start gathering books from the shelf. They were textbooks mostly, but there were other titles there, too: Murakami, Kerouac, and a slim paperback he’d found in a used book store in Longueuil. Mumu the narrow spine read, Turgenev.

On the bedside table his phone rattled with a second incoming call, and Shane dropped the books on his mattress to pick it up. Ilya, it said, in simple white writing.

‘Hayd, I’ve got to go. My mum’s calling.’ He lied, easily.

‘Yeah, yeah sure.’ Hayden said, and they said swift goodbyes so Shane could answer before the call rang out.

For a moment, the line was silent, and if Shane hadn’t heard Ilya breathing, he might have thought the call had been an accident. A pocket dial, or a mistyped name. There was always a bruised part of him that thought it had to be a mistake, the way Ilya reached for him.

Caught in the current of exams, Shane hadn’t seen Ilya in over a week, and barely twice in the fortnight before, when they’d met up for hard and fast hookups when Shane had been between the library and bed, and Ilya between first drinks and a party. They hadn’t talked about what the months in between would look like, all Shane knew was that Ilya would be in Moscow until September, and he would be in Ottawa, and it wasn’t like they talked, really. It wasn’t even like they were friends. But something about that distance between them had Shane feeling like a bird veering off course, disoriented and waning.

‘Hi.’ Ilya said, eventually.

‘Hey.’ Shane replied.  

‘How were your exams?’

‘Good.’ Shane said, ‘fine.’ He sat down on the edge of his bed and brought the phone to his ear. Something about Ilya on speakerphone felt all wrong: too loud and buzzing, the static distorting the curves of his accent.

‘Good. Has Hayden moved out?’

‘Yeah. Are you packed? For Russia I mean.’

‘Yes. Mostly.’

‘How long is the flight?’

‘Not too long. Seven hours to Amsterdam, then another three to Moscow.’

‘That sounds long.’ Shane replied, and Ilya huffed out a breathy laugh.

‘I guess.’ He said. It was one of his favourite phrases. He’d learned it in January, when Shane had said it to him in bed one morning after he’d been raw enough to stay the night.

‘This phrase is stupid.’ He’d groaned, when Shane had explained it, ‘English is so stupid. You don’t guess, you know, but you have to invent a way to pretend that you don’t. Guessing is what you do in children’s games.’ But he’d loved it, because it made him feel Canadian, in a way, less burdened by the weight of his own foreignness. Languages were like that, Shane thought, the bits that mattered were the parts that weren’t in textbooks.

‘I’m going to the cabin tonight. By the lake.’ Ilya said, in the space before Shane knew what to reply.

‘With Svetlana you mean? For your birthday?’

‘Yes.’ Ilya exhaled, ‘or, well, no. Svetlana cannot come.’

‘Oh?’ Shane fit the tip of his thumbnail between his teeth and dragged it until it pinched at his skin. He’d hated the way that thinking about Ilya with Svetlana there had made something turn in his stomach. Just like he hated the relief that was flooding him now.

Ilya paused again, then said, ‘come with me.’

‘What?’ Shane asked.

‘Come with me.’ He said again, ‘It will just be us, nobody will know and I can’t go by myself, it’s so boring.’

‘Ilya…’ Shane tried, and he cast his eyes around the room, piled high with boxes and open suitcases spread out on the floor. The right thing to do was to say no, to keep packing his life away in neat little piles waiting for his dad to come and collect him. Because that’s what he was raised to be: no risks, all safety, every inch of his life wrapped in padding.

But it snagged like a thread, the thought of them alone. Bodies like mountains side by side; a migratory bird carried home.

‘Okay.’ He said, ‘okay, I’ll go.’

‘Okay.’ Ilya confirmed, down the line, and Shane’s lips twitched.

‘Okay.’ He said again.

Ilya picked him up out front of the dorms in his rundown red Hyundai. They took the road north, over the Prairies River and through the lights of Laval until the city gave way to fields and creeks, the woodland beyond. Somewhere outside of Prévost, Ilya’s hand fell from the wheel and pulled like a magnet to anchor on the heat of Shane’s thigh, by Saint-Adèle Shane’s hand had landed there, too. Miles from Montreal, the warmth of their fingers interlocking still only felt safe if he kept his eyes trained out the window.

It had been dark when they left the city, but it felt even darker on the road down to the cabin, canopied by tall pines. Shane stayed by the car as Ilya found the rental’s lockbox and pulled out the key, unlocked the door and dragged him inside. It was small, with a cozy living room just big enough for a couch facing the window overlooking the lake and a table with four tucked chairs. The kitchen was simple, a stove and oven, a shoulder-height fridge with a row of tiny packets of milk, like the ones in a hotel mini bar, stashed in the door. Ilya took their bags from by the door and carried them into the bedroom, with its double bed and big window, and a closet door that creaked.

‘It’s so quiet.’ Shane said, when he followed and came to a stop over by the bedroom window, which he opened to take in the smell of trees and fresh water, dirt, too.

‘I feel like I should be whispering.’ Ilya agreed. He left the bags by the bed and stripped off his jacket, the cap he’d been wearing even though it was after dark. Shane watched him in the low light, reflected on the glass of the window, as he came up slowly behind him and wrapped an arm around his middle. Ilya’s warm hand slipped beneath the hem of his hoodie and shirt to press skin on skin against his stomach, then run up the length of his chest, while his head dipped to press a slow string of kisses along the back of Shane’s neck.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ Shane asked, when his eyes finally slipped closed. Ilya knew all the simplest ways to undo him, and so he unravelled when those full lips parted for the first press of tongue.

‘It’s not so late.’

Nor did time matter to them there, so Shane melted into the heat of his hands and tipped his head just right for Ilya’s mouth to work over the sensitive curve of his neck, the spot just behind his ear, the highest notch of his spine. His breathing grew laboured, and when Ilya’s hand finally, mercifully, drifted south to palm him through his jeans, Shane arched back against him.

‘Please…’ he sighed, and Ilya’s arm around his waist tightened to pull him in closer.

‘Anything you want, I’ll give you anything you want.’ He whispered in reply.

And Shane’s hands had grown better at taking, than his lips had ever been at asking, so he turned towards Ilya and pushed up the hoodie he was wearing. Ilya followed his prompt and pulled it up and over his head, tossed it aside onto their bags. Next, Shane did the same with his shirt, then smoothed his palms over the shape of Ilya’s strong chest. His thumbs ran along the length of his collarbones, then slid lower and his mouth followed them down to press warm, open-mouthed kisses to his clavicle, his sternum, his left nipple then his right.

Ilya’s fingers combed through his hair, the nails scratching gently at his scalp as he watched Shane drift lower and lower, between his pecks, then his abdominals, his navel, then the trail of hair leading down to the hem of his boxers. His fingers popped open the button of his pants, then drew them down until Shane was fully on his knees, with his open mouth running feather light over the length of Ilya’s cock.

‘ты такой красивый.’ He murmured reverently, and smiled when Shane’s eager eyes lifted to look at him, ‘beautiful, you look beautiful like this.’ Pleased, Shane ran his tongue from root to tip, and swallowed him down.

Shane sucked him long and slow, and after, when he pulled Shane off so he could last, he took his time stretching him open on the creaky rental cabin bed. Shane whimpered with every press of his slicked fingers inside, and Ilya kept humming soft praise, a mixture of raw honest Russian and fractured English, telling him how good he was when he rolled his hips down onto Ilya’s just right. He drew it out long enough that when Shane finally came with Ilya buried deep inside of him, his eyes had been glazed wet with tears, his pupils blown and his tongue heavy in his mouth. Ilya pressed his thigh in against his chest in the aftermath, as he kept rocking in against Shane’s tender prostate and listened to him whimper from the overstimulation.

After, Ilya cleaned them up as he always did, and Shane drank the glass of water he was handed, then extended his leg until his thigh was leaning against Ilya’s own, anchored by the touch of their skin.

Outside the bugs were humming, but the breeze coming through the window was cold with the last remnants of spring melt, and Ilya pulled the covers up and over them while they lay there in the silence.

‘Are you excited?’ Shane asked, after a long while.

‘For what?’

‘Russia.’

Ilya paused a moment without turning to look at him. With their eyes adjusted and the lights off, they could just make out the lines of wooden slats that made the roof, some stained with age.

‘Yes.’ He said, ‘and no. Are you? You will be working over summer, yes?’

It was Shanes turn to think, because he’d never really stopped to consider what it meant to be excited. He was grateful, yes, relieved, too, that he’d been given the opportunity. It would be good to see his parents, the friends he had left from School who he still caught up with in social media messages from time to time. There would be time away in his family’s cottage up on the southern Ontario lakes, visits to his grandparents, and time for studying, too. Networking, meetings, opportunities to show face and show off at the guidance of his family, who were decades into moulding the shape of the man he was yet to become.

‘I’ll be working, yeah.’ Shane agreed.

‘But you’re not looking forward to it?’

The smell of fresh water and fir came in through the window, and Shane sucked it down deep, alongside the scent of sweat and the cigarette Ilya’d had after sex and before brushing his teeth for bed. Something about it felt grounding, real, and Shane found he quite liked the simplicity of it all. The quiet of the woods, the heat of Ilya’s skin, the knowledge that tomorrow was shapeless and open, with room only for their bodies. Maybe they’d get up early and swim, though he guessed that was increasingly unlikely now that it was late, early, somewhere between darkness and dawn.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘sometimes I feel so tired that I wish I could get in a car and just start driving.’

Beside him, Ilya turned his head and his eyes traced over Shane’s face in the same slow, rhythm his warm hand was stroking the inside of his thigh.

‘Where would you go?’ He asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Shane admitted, ‘Anywhere, maybe nowhere. I just want to get in and keep going until I can’t go any further. Just stop somewhere where nothing matters.’ Under Ilya’s fingers, Shane’s thigh twitched, and he must have felt it, because the touch became firmer, as though he was trying to knead the lingering aftershocks of his orgasm out from his tired muscles.

Shane emitted a soft, breathy laugh and turned his head to face Ilya, too, ‘I’ve never told anyone that before.’

‘It sounds nice.’ Ilya agreed and Shane smiled.

‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘your turn.’

‘My turn?’ Ilya prompted and Shane nodded.

‘I told you something I’ve never said to anyone, now you have to tell me something, too.’  

Ilya turned his head back so his eyes could return to their observation of the roof. Shane could see them moving across from left to right. Maybe he was counting them, one slat at a time.

‘Если бы моя мама узнала бы про нас, она бы возненавидела меня. Но знаешь, что еще хуже? Мне совершенно наплевать.’ Ilya said, finally.

‘What does that mean?’ Shane asked.

‘I fear I am addicted to your ass.’ Ilya said, seriously, and turned to look back at Shane again.

‘Oh my god, shut up. I gave you a real one!’ Shane said and rolled onto his side to shove at Ilya’s chest.

‘No, so did I, it’s very serious problem, I might need to go to rehab.’ Ilya said, with his mouth cracking into a smile as he caught Shane’s wrists and tousled him over onto his back again.

 ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you my secrets and you pull shit like this.’ Shane huffed, when Ilya managed to pin him to the mattress. He jolted once to try and free himself, but Ilya leant his weight down over him.

‘I will keep your secrets, Shane Hollander.’ He said and let go of one of Shane’s hands to hold his own up in front of his face, pinkie extended, ‘I promise your pinkie.’

‘It’s called a pinkie promise.’ Shane said, even as he reached out to wrap his own little finger around Ilya’s.

Ilya rolled off him, but only a moment later he drew Shane in close against the warmth of his chest. And Shane let himself be tugged closer, folded into the heat of Ilya’s arms. Beneath his ear, Ilya’s heart was thudding in his chest, and Shane finally closed his eyes.

‘Maybe one day you will.’ Ilya said, after a moment, ‘drive away, like that.’

‘Yeah.’ Shane said, ‘maybe I will.’  

In the morning, Loons were calling over the lake, and Shane woke up in bed alone. The spot beside him was still warm enough, and he curled down into it to protect his skin from the lingering cold. They’d need a fire, probably, once the sun went down again. When it was clear sleep wouldn’t come back to him, Shane stood and dressed in the sweats and hoodie he’d dug out of the moving boxes, still spread out on the floor of his home in Montreal. The living room and kitchen were both empty, but through the window Shane could see Ilya sitting with his legs outstretched on the bobbing dock, leaning back on one hand, while the other held a burning cigarette. The sky was still pale with early sun, and tall clouds washed yellow billowed up, their silhouettes reflected on the lake’s surface.

The breeze flexed the flyscreen in the open window, and at the seam at its base, a beetle lay dying. It buzzed as its weakened wings tried to lift its heavy body up again, but it only managed to run low along the window frame. Shane could see more bugs there, their small dried out bodies trapped between the window and its frame, and for a moment, he was washed over with an inconsolable grief, that he hadn’t been there to save them. He wasn’t sure exactly what he would have done, if the hands of a man could offer life to a dying ant, but he wished so desperately to try.

When he’d been a little boy, at his parent’s cottage for the summer, a firefly had gotten trapped in his room. Its wings were bent from its fight against the windowpane, and Shane had pressed his chin against the sill to watch the bulb of its abdomen glow and fade in desperation. He hadn’t known what to do then, either, and while his parents slept soundly down the hall, his little hands weren’t fast enough to catch it. He’d fallen asleep like that, and come morning it had died. At breakfast, his mother asked him why he’d wept, and he didn’t know how to explain to her that it felt as though he’d lost a friend.

Shane reached out and caught the beetle between his forefinger and thumb. Its little legs struggled against the grip, and he gently placed it down into his palm to carry outside, into the cool fresh air of morning. If it was going to die, he thought, it may as well die free.

There was a small burner in the corner, but only a few sticks of kindling were in the bottom of the nearby basket, so Shane pulled on his shoes and slipped quietly out the back door. He placed the beetle on the banister of the porch, then trudged down the stairs, which he peered under to find the stacks, uncut, and wrapped his hands tight around the hilt of the axe leaning against them. It was simple work, rhythmic, and he liked the sound of the thuds as he swung the weapon up and over his head and brought it down to split the remaining logs on the block. They wouldn’t need much, but he felt satisfied that he could do this, that he could give Ilya something, when Ilya had chosen to bring him here.

‘Shane.’ Ilya said from behind him, and he turned to look over his shoulder. There was sweat on his forehead, already cooling in the morning air, and Ilya leant against the side of the cabin, holding the butt-end of his cigarette as he watched.

‘Hey.’ Shane said and lowered the axe. He’d split one log already into four equal pieces, they’d probably only need another more.

‘I can do this.’ Ilya frowned, ‘it’s cold, you should be inside.’

‘It’s okay.’ Shane said, ‘I don’t mind.’

Ilya tipped his head and stepped closer to him again, then brushed his fingers over the warmth of Shane’s cheek and pressed a single, warm kiss to his mouth. It didn’t carry the heat theirs usually had, it was something different, new. It said good morning, and Shane thought he tasted different outdoors, in a place where no one could see.

‘Thank you.’ Ilya said.

When the door fell closed, Shane swung the axe over his head again, dividing the logs into smaller and smaller pieces. Maybe there’d be enough for them to have a fire outside that night, he’d seen the pit over by the dock, and he wondered if they could drive out to the nearest town for marshmallows to roast, sausages, too. He could picture them there as the sun went down, their thighs touching and his head leaning down against Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya would kiss the top of his head, he thought, and wind an arm around his middle, just to make sure he was warm.

Inside, Shane dropped the wood into the basket by the stove and turned to see Ilya sitting at the table. He had a book, like he always did, and in front of him were two small steaming mugs. One had a spoon, and was chestnut brown from the added milk sachets in the door of the fridge. The other was black, unsweetened, and the sight of it had something rushing through the tender wound of his chest. How raw it made him, to see the things that Ilya remembered. How he’d offered Shane his pinkie when he made a promise, just the way they had the first time they’d touched. How he brought Shane water after sex, and that he hated mess on the sheets, how he liked his coffee black and hot and unsweetened.

And he thought he might say it then, because really there by the lake, in all their safety and their solitude, it would be simple. I love you, he’d say, and maybe Ilya would turn around and he’d look at him with a shock-slacked jaw and wide eyes, like he didn’t expect it. Maybe he’d say it back, or he’d say it first, or he’d sigh with relief that what they both knew was finally out there, in the open.

Shane stepped up behind him and touched his hands first to the strength of his shoulders, then slipped them across his chest, and he leant into the heat of him from behind. His chin settled down, his cheek in against Ilya’s neck, whose hands lifted from his pages to slide over the warmth of his arms.

‘I made coffee.’ Ilya said, needless when it was right there between them, the steam caught in the tree-filtered rays of morning light.

‘Thank you.’ Shane replied.

‘What is it?’ Ilya asked, with a slow turn of his head, his nose nudging in to the strands of Shane’s hair. His lips brushed over his crown, too, so feather light that Shane thought he could blink, and he’d have missed it.

He didn’t say it, in the end, because somewhere tucked behind a daydream he remembered the car driving down from Ottawa, the plane on the tarmac waiting for fuel. The prospect of ten thousand kilometres between them and a Russian summer hanging over their heads. He thought, too, of the look on Hayden’s face, if he were ever to find out, the disappointment in his mother’s eyes. And he imagined Ilya, explaining to him that it had never been like that, that he’d gotten it all wrong, that all this was, in the end, was sex and heat, and no feelings caught between.

‘Shane?’ Ilya asked, his fingers dipping beneath the cuff of his hoodie to slowly stroke along his skin.

‘Nothing.’ Shane said, because his heart was better protected, the way a cage keeps a bird safe from the dangers of flight.

📓

By the door, at the end of the cold, silent hallway, three low beeps echoed to signal the return of the electricity. A moment later, a low whir rumbled, followed by the whisper of air feeding through the vents. The fridge hummed to life, and the lights flicked on uselessly overhead, and when Shane turned to look back up to the corner, the red light was on again.

He ran a hand down over the side of his face and blinked against the harshness of the downlights right above him, then he pulled himself out from under the covers and dismantled the safety of their nest. He folded the blankets first and tucked them away into the sideboard, then re-placed the cushions and stripped the duvets of their covers. In a few moments it was as though the bed had never been there, and with it Ilya, whose hands Shane could still feel, like phantoms on his skin.

Once the washing machine was rumbling through its cycle and he’d taken the trash out to hide the mess of their used condoms, Shane climbed the stairs and stripped naked in the centre of the ensuite. Over the hiss of the shower, he heard the front door swinging open, then falling closed, and Maxim calling out that he’d come home.

‘Shane?’ He called, as his feet carried him up the hallway, into the kitchen.

And when Shane leant forward to bring his face under the scorching spray, he realised he was crying.

Chapter End Notes

When, in 2016, Kylie Jenner said that it would be the year of realising things, what she was actually referring to was State Lines Chapter 10. I know everyone is anxiously awaiting the McGill gala, and I promise it will be yours very very soon but first it is important we make time for Shane to realise things. Things such as maybe he's experiencing insurmountable grief at the loss of a relationship that ended seven years ago that he never let himself mourn. Maybe not tho like idk. (Also btw if you didn't hit translate on that Russian section you should probs give it a go because ooooooft).

Thank you to Parker for his Canadian Wisdom, and of course to Marchoskaya, for her infinite love and support and encouragement and knowledge like for real guys her brain is insane you should all be obsessed w her like I am.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting and kudosing and sharing, I appreciate it so so much!! All the comments I've received have been so thoughtful and generous and kind and I really am so grateful.

If you'd ever like to chat hollanov or hockey, you can find me on twitter.

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

cw for low level physical violence.

The first rain fell the way it does when seasons change: in big, fat drops that seeped down into the snow to corrode it from the inside out. By Saturday morning, almost all the evidence from the storm that had buried the city had washed away and left everything grey with mud and slush. The rain didn’t stop, either, and when they were in the back seat of the car on the drive to McGill, it hit the windscreen, unrelenting, while cars banked up in traffic along the 138.

‘Well tell him that.’ Maxim was saying into his phone as Shane gazed out the window. The days were getting longer by then, but it had still been mostly dark already by the time they’d left home, because Maxim didn’t think it was important for them to be there for the speeches. They’d arrive, mingle, and leave once Shane had done his presentation, and enough photos of them had been acquired.

‘Do you think I give a fuck? Tell him to get it done, or he’s fired.’

When Shane had emerged from the shower the evening before, red eyed and drained Maxim had been in the kitchen, still wearing the suit he always wore for flights.

‘Darling boy.’ He greeted with a warm hum and a palm to Shane’s cheek so he could rub his thumb under his eye, ‘what’s wrong? What’s happened?’

‘Nothing, nothing.’ Shane said, with his best, softest smile, ‘shampoo in my eyes.’

‘Silly boy.’ Maxim cooed and kissed over his face, then finally his mouth, ‘did you miss me?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘There must have been quite the storm last night.’ Maxim noted and guided Shane back and up onto the kitchen counter so he could stand with his hips between Shane’s knees and his hands rubbing up over his thighs.

‘Yeah, the power blew and everything.’

‘I saw the fire.’ Maxim said and gestured with his head towards the burner. The flames had long since burned out, but the embers still glowed at the back, eating away at the last remains of fuel.

‘I slept down here. To keep warm.’

‘Clever.’ Maxim said. He slipped his hands up and underneath Shane’s shirt, and for a moment Shane closed his eyes to think again about how different Ilya’s hands had been when they’d held him.

‘Was your flight okay?’ He asked, eyes still closed and head lolling to the side.

‘It was fine.’ Maxim murmured against the skin of his neck, ‘I got you something.’

‘You didn’t need to do that.’

‘I know, but I like to.’ Maxim replied. The gift was a silver broach in the shape of a swooping red breasted swallow, garishly encrusted in diamonds and rubies. It must have been worth thousands, and Shane pinned it to the wide lapel of his tuxedo jacket before they left their home for McGill. Maxim hadn’t commented on it, but he’d smiled with approval, the way he always did when Shane passed a test he hadn’t known he was taking.

Shane caught the driver’s eye in the rearview mirror and leant forward, ‘is something wrong?’

‘Nothing, Mr. Hollander, just might take us a minute or two longer than expected to get there. City’s busy tonight.’ The driver said with a smile, and Maxim’s hand on Shane’s upper thigh squeezed.

Ilya hadn’t messaged Shane since he’d left, and Shane couldn’t hold it against him because he hadn’t, either. He wondered if the McGill gala was hanging over Ilya’s head the way it was his. Shane had every intention of avoiding him, the way he had at parties before, when the fear of getting caught had coursed through him like adrenaline, but he worried Maxim would see it anyway: the ease of two people who’ve shared in that kind of intimacy. He could imagine the way his body would orient itself towards Ilya’s own, the way a sailor finds the north star and follows it home.

‘No, you told me those documents were ready. Dubois is a fucking idiot, the whole firm is, that’s why this is going to work.’ Maxim barked into the receiver, ‘just get it done!’ He snapped, before pulling his phone back from his ear and hanging up.

‘Everything okay?’ Shane asked, once he’d glanced down at his own phone to check for a notification again, which he’d done a hundred times before in the last few hours. He wished he’d have charged it before they left: it was hovering just above twenty percent.

‘Fine.’ Maxim sighed, ‘this acquisition will never go through if everyone else is determined to be as big of a fucking moron as they can be.’

‘Right.’ Shane nodded as Maxim’s fingers slipped between his thighs and squeezed the muscle again, ‘do you want to talk about it?’  

‘No. I don’t want you to have to worry about these things. I’m sure you’d find them very boring.’

The car peeled off from the queue to turn right onto the 112 and slipped through the dark and muddy backstreets until they were on campus.

‘Feeling nostalgic?’ Maxim asked when Shane leant forward to gaze out of the window and up at the stone buildings as they passed.

‘I guess so.’ He nodded and glanced over his shoulder towards him, ‘I’ve- actually been thinking.’

‘Hm?’ Maxim was looking down at his phone again, flicking through emails as they rolled in.

‘About getting my Juris Doctor.’ Shane added.

Maxim frowned and looked up, ‘why?’

‘I don’t like leaving things half-finished. If I got my JD and did my supervision and exams, I’d at least be qualified.’ He leant forward a little bit and slid his hand up the length of Maxim’s arm. The fingers between his thighs twitched when Shane’s hand curved around his bicep, his touch just firm enough to be suggestive. Maxim loved giving Shane what he wanted, when he asked just the right way.

‘There’s no need.’ Maxim dismissed, and drew his hand up from Shane’s lap to instead take hold of his jaw. The grip wasn’t hard, but Maxim’s nails bit just enough into Shane’s skin to have him wincing, ‘you’re not going to work anyway. It would be a waste of your time.’

The car pulled to a stop outside the arts building, with its neo-classical doric column façade and McGill flag billowing proudly from atop the green copper cupola. The lights in the windows were warm and welcoming, and people were milling in the open door, beneath the awning. Maxim climbed from the car first and came around to open Shane’s door with an outstretched arm for him to hold onto, then led him up and inside.

The function was held in a reception hall at the back of the building that was musty and prestigious and lacked all the glamour of the usual galas they attended. There were waiters handing out hors d’oeuvres and a makeshift bar set up against one of the carved stone walls. At the back, through the crowd of a hundred or so people Shane could see a stage, too, complete with wide plinth and microphone, waiting for the presentation to continue.

Shane glanced around the room as Maxim’s arm pulled from his to instead wrap loose around his middle so he could press a palm to the small of Shane’s back. He was yet to see anyone he recognised, until finally his eyes settled on Professor Kuznetsov, gesticulating wildly with a champagne flute through the air. Shane had never met him before, but Ilya had pointed him out across campus once, when they’d been leaving their shared lecture in that first semester. He looked the same, with grey bushy eyebrows and a hairline that receded back to a widow’s peak across his forehead.

‘Misters Dmitriev.’ A warm voice greeted, and Shane turned at the same time Maxim did to see a woman in her thirties, with a clipboard pressed against her chest. She clutched her phone in one hand, and extended the other for Maxim to shake, ‘thank you so much for coming, and thank you again for your generous donation to the University.’

‘It was my pleasure, the least I could do.’ Maxim said, and Shane figured he should have expected Maxim to retake the credit for the gift, no matter whose name it had been in.

‘And you must be Shane.’ She said, turning towards him, ‘I’m Béatrice, I’ll be the one prepping you for your presentation a little bit later. For now, feel free to mingle with the guests, and when we’re ready, I’ll come over and collect you, okay?’

‘Alright. Nice to meet you.’ Shane said with a warm, firm shake of her hand.

‘I believe Professor Kuznetsov was eager to meet you both, if you’d allow me to please make the introductions?’ Béatrice offered with a friendly gesture of her hand into the hall.

‘Please, lead the way.’ Maxim said, with only a little pressure on Shane’s back to urge him forward.

Béatrice led them through the crowd to the back corner, where Kuznetsov was still telling his story in the same accented English Shane had grown to know so intimately. His rolled r’s and heavy vowels slipped through the language to weigh it down with a melody Shane found comforting by then, but he paused in his speech when he saw them approaching.

‘Ah Maxim Dmitriev, our generous patron!’ He said, with outstretched hands, as though he were greeting an old friend.

‘Professor.’ Maxim laughed, and took his hand in a firm shake.

‘And this must be the brilliant Shane Hollander. I’ve heard your studies are progressing very well.’ Kuznetsov said, letting go of Maxim’s hand and immediately taking Shane’s own.

‘I’m studying my hardest, Professor.’ Shane replied.

‘Well, our Ilyusha says it’s more than that. He has nothing but praise for his best student.’ The old professor announced, then looked around through the crowd, ‘I had him here just a moment ago.’

‘Ah, Rozanov is here?’ Maxim said, with the kind of forced casual tone that Shane knew covered his dislike.

‘Of course, of course, I’m sure he wishes to meet you also.’ Kuznetsov said, then stopped looking to wave someone over,  ‘Илюша, иди сюда!’

Shane turned then, to look back through the crowd, which parted for him like a curtain. His hair was swept back neatly from his face and dressed in a clean-cut jet-black suit and bowtie, he looked unrecognisable from the boy Shane had caught smoking out the back of a party, two weeks into first year.

‘Do you think I’m hot?’ He’d asked Shane back then. Seeing him like this, all sharp-lined formality, reminded Shane again that they were all grown up.

Ilya’s face was schooled to neutral, and in his hands he held two glasses as he sidled up alongside them while the guests Kuznetsov had been entertaining turned away.

‘Professor.’ He greeted, right when Maxim snagged two flutes of champagne from a passing waitress. He held one out to Shane, who touched his fingers gently to the exposed skin of his wrist in a gesture he hoped was subtle enough not to catch anyone else’s attention.

‘I was hoping not to drink tonight.’ He said.

‘Well, I’ve taken it now, so you’ll need to drink it.’ Maxim replied. His lips were spread over his straight, white teeth in a forced, friendly smile.

‘Here.’ Ilya cut in and held out one of his glasses, ‘the barman misheard me and gave me this. It’s ginger ale.’

Shane turned and looked at him, the glass held there in his hand, and his eyes flicked up to hold Ilya’s own. He could feel the stillness of Maxim’s rigid body, he saw the flute in his hand, but still he reached out to take it. For a fraction of a moment, Shane’s fingers touched Ilya’s own, and his breath hitched at the memory of the broad body that had blanketed his by the crackling heat of the glowing fire. ‘Is this okay?’ Ilya had asked him, when he’d been buried deep inside, and Shane felt haunted by the memory of feeling so full after years of being left wanting.

‘Thank you.’ He said.

Ilya shrugged, ‘you’re welcome.’

‘Ilyusha, I was just telling Mr. Dmitriev that you have been praising Mr. Hollander’s work.’ Kuznetsov said, with another circular motion of his free hand.

‘Yes, well, it is very rewarding when a student is so eager to learn.’ Ilya nodded and gestured with his own flute towards Shane.

‘Thank you, I’m enjoying it immensely.’ Shane added, with a glance to Maxim, who still held both glasses in his hands and his lips twisted with irritation.

He turned to the professor and slipped, as he always did, into the warm familiarity of Russian. ‘Профессор, я так погляжу, народу у вас на направлении много.’ He asked, and Shane drew breath in through his nose and brought his glass to his mouth. The carbonation fizzed on his tongue, and he listened with the same silent obedience he always did. Maxim liked him like this, Shane knew, something to be seen rather than heard.

‘Да-да. К нам приезжает много студентов из заграницы. Вот Илюша, например.’ He said.

‘Ты из Москвы, да?’ Maxim turned to Ilya next.

‘Угу.’ Ilya replied, then glanced once to Shane and added, with a smile, ‘I am flattered, Mr. Dmitriev, that you think I’m such a good teacher that Shane is fluent, but maybe it’s fairer if we stick to English for now.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, we do not want to exclude the star student.’ Kuznetsov said with a friendly pat to Ilya’s shoulder, ‘so, tell me Shane, why did you decide to study Russian language?’ There was a warmth to his attention that made Shane smile. It was grandfatherly in its quality, as though Shane’s petty whims were fascinating to him the way a child’s were. But he didn’t feel patronised, he felt as though the old professor cared, and he understood immediately just why Ilya liked him so much.

‘Well, my husband is Russian.’ Shane said and turned to brush his fingers over Maxim’s arm, maybe in apology, but maybe the same kind of performance it always was, ‘and, well, it’s been a while since I’ve studied. It feels good to really sink my teeth into something difficult again.’

‘Ah we have another academic on our hands!’ Kuznetsov beamed and Shane gave him a breathy, nervous laugh.

‘No- not really. I studied for a while, a long time ago now.’ He tried to dismiss.

‘Shane studied law.’ Ilya supplied to his mentor, ‘at McGill.’

‘At McGill!’ Kuznetsov brought his hands together, like the detail thrilled him, ‘do not tell me you are committing all this time to study while also being a lawyer!’

‘No, I never finished my qualification.’ Shane admitted, only glancing to Ilya’s face for a fraction of a second, so as not to be caught lingering.

‘No matter, no matter. We’re very lucky that you are turning your clever mind to our language then.’ Kuznetsov said to him, earnestly, ‘what else fills your time?’

‘I uh-‘ Shane stammered, hating his own anxious uncertainty that simmered at the question. He knew Kuznetsov’s intentions were kind, but it still reminded him of his own inadequacies. All the reasons why he’d fallen short. ‘I volunteer mostly. Charitable projects. I’ve taken on a role on the fundraising committee for the Museum of Fine Art, my first gala with them is tomorrow evening.’

‘A patron of the arts!’ Kuznetsov nodded enthusiastically, as Shane took a sip of his drink to cover his self-conscious flush.

‘Rozanov, Shane tells me that you may have known one another, when you were studying here at the same time.’ Maxim said, and Shane huffed out a soft laugh against the rim of his glass.

‘No, I don’t think that’s what I said.’ He tried, hand to Maxim’s arm again, his smile all conscious diplomacy. Maxim had already finished the first of the two flutes, and set the empty glass on the tray of a waiter passing by.

‘Ah.’ Ilya tipped his head from side to side, ‘no, I’m sorry. I was quite a party boy in those days, I don’t remember much, so we may have crossed paths, but I don’t believe we knew one another.’

‘The campus isn’t so big, there must have been mutual connections.’ Maxim pressed and returned his now free hand to sling low on Shane’s waist.

‘I didn’t live in campus housing.’ Ilya shrugged, ‘I lived in a house in Hampstead, with a friend of mine.’

‘Hampstead.’ Maxim quirked his eyebrows, ‘expensive for a couple of students.’

‘I guess so.’ Ilya replied.  

‘So what brings a young Russian man to study literature in Canada? Surely any University in Moscow would take you.’

‘I think you and I have a fair amount of mutual understanding as to why a young Russian man would come to Canada.’ Ilya said, bluntly, as Shane’s heart started to hammer heavier in his chest. He glanced to Maxim, then to Ilya again, as he continued, ‘in addition to the opportunity to study with the Professor here of course.’

‘Mutual understanding.’ Maxim repeated, ‘is that what you and I have?’

‘I think it is.’ Ilya confirmed.

‘Ilyusha is doing some very interesting work. He just presented an exceptional excerpt from his thesis at a conference in Ottawa.’ Kuznetsov said, with his slow eyes sliding between them. Sweat was gathering at the small of Shane’s back, under the heavy weight of Maxim’s palm.

‘And what is your thesis about?’ Maxim asked.

‘Representations of motherhood, in the canon of several Russian writers.’ Ilya replied.

‘And what does your mother think of that? Fleeing to Canada to write about her?’ Maxim tried to joke.

‘I don’t know.’ Ilya admitted, ‘she’s been dead for fifteen years.’ Maxim’s smile faltered, ‘she took her own life when I was twelve.’

‘What?’ Shane asked, his head whipping around to look at Ilya, whose eyes were already on him.

A stone sunk heavy down in the centre of Shane’s gut when he thought of Ilya at twelve years old: his golden halo of curls, the bright shining blue of his eyes, his mother laying before him, dead. He’d never mentioned her then, and Shane had known better than to ask, but now his chest ruptured open with grief for the loss of that little boy. It must have still been fresh, a wound barely healing over, when Ilya’d first arrived in Canada, angry and aching.

‘It’s why I’m so interested in the literary representation of Russian mothers.’ Ilya continued, when his eyes flicked back to Maxim’s own.

‘Yes, and his work has been of a very high standard.’ Kuznetsov cut in.

‘A commitment to one’s craft is a noble thing.’

‘I care a lot about my work.’

‘Yes, I’ve noticed that you seem very passionate.’ Maxim nodded.

‘Meaning?’ Ilya prompted.

‘Nothing, it just looked as though you and my Shane were having a fight, during your last lesson.’ Maxim said, casually, as Shane’s blood ran cold, ‘I checked the security footage because of the blackout, just to make sure everything was in order. It looked quite heated.’

Shane’s eyes snapped to look at Maxim’s face as he was drawn in closer to his chest. The grip Maxim had around his waist tightened until his pelvis was pressed in against Maxim’s hipbone, his stomach to his side. The hold was as much of a performance as everything else had been, and Shane knew that Ilya was the intended audience: proof that it wasn’t just Maxim’s eyes that were everywhere, but his hands, too.

Maybe it was also a reminder to Shane. He hadn’t mentioned that he’d seen the fight, and the anxiety already tight in Shane’s chest bloomed through his tender nerves until his fingers were left tingling at the reminder that Maxim always played with a card up his sleeve.

‘Ah.’ Ilya said, and laughed, ‘that was my fault. I gave Shane some prescribed reading and then took it too personally when he didn’t like it. I take my Russian literature very seriously, you’ll understand.’

‘Prescribed reading.’ Maxim repeated, flatly.

‘Mumu.’ Shane said, too fast. He cleared his throat and pulled his gaze from Maxim’s face to look over at Ilya, ‘by Turgenev.’

‘Turgenev!’ Kuznetsov exclaimed with a clap of his hands, ‘what a remarkable piece, Ilyusha. Though not known for being so divisive!’

‘You had a fight over Turgenev?’ Maxim’s asked again. 

‘He kills the dog!’ Shane cried, ‘Ilya told me that children read that story!’

‘You see?’ Ilya replied, ‘and now it appears we must fight again. But, Professor, I believe there were people you wanted me to meet.’ Ilya said, ‘excuse me, Mr. Dmitriev, Shane, but I have to leave early this evening.’

‘Better places to be, Rozanov?’ Maxim quirked an eyebrow.

Ilya’s eyes dropped from Maxim’s to the place where Shane’s body met his, then back up, ‘my friend owns a night club, I work there, and she’s asked me to looking after it for her while she’s away.’

‘A night club.’ Maxim chuckled snidely, ‘how you have enough time in the day to be working two jobs while you do your motherhood project, I don’t know. I admire your resourcefulness.’

‘There are many ways for a man to make himself, Mr. Dmitriev.’ Ilya replied, ‘I hope you enjoy your evening. I’ll see you on Thursday, Shane.’

‘It was very good to meet you, Mr. Dmitriev.’ Kuznetsov said, and then took Shane’s hand in both of his to give it a warm, kind squeeze, ‘I hope we talk again soon, Shane.’

The two of them disappeared into the crowd, leaving Maxim and Shane alone in the thrum of bodies. Maxim tipped his head back to down the last of his drink, and set the flute aside on a passing tray.

‘You weren’t kidding.’ He said, and Shane turned to look at him.

‘About what?’ He asked.

‘The fact he’s an asshole.’

‘He isn’t so bad.’ Shane tried, ‘you were antagonising him.’

‘Why are you defending him?’ Maxim asked and his fingers curved to press just slightly into the small of Shane’s back.

‘I’m not defending him.’ Shane replied.

‘How did he know you did law at McGill?’

‘He asked me, Maxim, and I told him.’ Shane said, ‘I’m not fighting with you here.’

‘Hm.’ Maxim pursed his lips, ‘my Shane wouldn’t want to fight with me at all.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Shane!’ Béatrice slipped through the crowd and stopped before them. Shane forced a smile onto his face and reached his left hand to push Maxim’s gently away from where his fingers still dug into the small of his back.

‘Ready for me?’ He asked, while trying to pretend there wasn’t dread hammering alongside the beat of his heart.

‘Yes, please. I’m so sorry, Mr. Dmitriev, but I’m going to have to steal him away.’ She said, apologetically.

‘Be my guest.’ Maxim replied as he snagged a third drink.

Shane followed her through the crowd to the side of the stage where she handed him a small open, velvet box and a heavy cardstock envelope. Inside the box was a medallion, like a coin, minted with the faculty’s logo, alongside the title Shane Hollander Prize in Russian Studies. He winced when he read his name, because it felt like just another one of Maxim’s humiliation rituals. His over-the-top performances of charity that Shane knew were masturbatory in their self-service. Maxim wanted to see Shane up there handing over this prize, because he wanted people to think of him as someone who gave, the way a patron gives to a serf. Conditional generosity delivered by Shane, Maxim Dmitriev’s most beautiful asset.

‘I’ll introduce you, and once you are up there open the envelope and just read out the name,’ Béatrice said, her low Québécois accent tilting at her words.

‘Okay.’ Shane replied. He was only one of several presenters, he’d known that, and they’d missed the keynote speech and first handful of awards because really, Maxim didn’t care about any part of this evening that he couldn’t make about him.

Béatrice took a flute of champagne with her to the podium and tapped against it gently into the microphone, so the room would fall silent.

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, students and guests.’ She started, ‘at the University of McGill we are proud of the exceptional standard of academic output made by our students...’ Shane tuned out most of her preamble with his eyes trained down on the coin again, reading over and over along the ridges of his name. How strange, he thought, that someone would take this home with them. Maybe he’d sit on their mantel piece or be shoved away in the back of a drawer, be taken to a family dinner table and presented with pride. Would his name be included on someone’s resume, or an heirloom passed on, forever linked to the achievement of another, just because he had a husband whose loyalty was to his own vanity before anyone else.

‘To present the inaugural Shane Hollander Prize in Russian Studies, please welcome Shane Hollander.’ Béatrice announced, and Shane took the stairs one by one to the echo of polite applause.

‘Thank you.’ He said, into the microphone and set the prize down on the plinth. He dug the tip of his index finger into the open corner of the envelope. The hard paper bit at his skin, but he forced it through anyway, tearing along the seem in a single, slow, swipe. His fingers gripped the piece of card and he leant forward again.

‘The Shane Hollander Prize in Russian Studies goes to-‘ he said, and drew the card out.

Through his nose he sucked in a deep breath, and he pictured coffee steaming on a table, the shape of two wet bodies left behind on a dock.

‘What is it?’ Ilya had asked him, that morning at the cabin when Shane had been so close to risking it all.

‘Ilya Rozanov.’ He said into the microphone.

The applause ruptured again, more enthusiastic this time, and Shane squinted into the bright lights facing him to watch Ilya slip through the crowd and mount the stairs two at a time. He came to a stop alongside him and reached out his right hand.

‘Thank you.’ He said, and Shane shook it.

‘Congratulations.’ He replied.

When he handed the box over, a photographer pushed to the front to get a photo, and Ilya’s lips spread wide into a grin as he and Shane pressed in side by side. Ilya’s free arm wound around him, and behind the plinth he rubbed slow, soothing circles into the small of Shane’s back.

The car ride home simmered with tense silence as Maxim scrolled through the emails on his phone again. Shane pulled his phone free, too, and swiped past messages from Rose and Hayden, while his battery depleted down below ten percent.

Rose Landry 20:45

I’m dying to know about your lesson

It was during the storm right????

That legit sounds like something from a movie

Did you have to shelter together???

THE BLACKOUT??????

I’m expecting you to tell me every detail tomorrow night

And I mean EVERY detail 🫦

He exited out of the message after marking it as read and tucked the phone into the inside breast of his jacket. The rain was getting heavier, and Shane kept his eyes focused on the lights, refracted by the heavy drops sliding down the window. The driver avoided the main roads he’d taken them on earlier in the evening and instead wound around the base of the mountain to the heart of Westmount, where he dropped them off outside their door.

‘I don’t think I ask for much.’ Maxim said, as the engine idled. Shane didn’t respond, he just kept staring out the window at their looming, grand home. It would be cold inside, Shane knew. The heating would warm under the floor, the vents would pump hot air into each one of the rooms, but it would still make him feel so cold.

‘All I require of you is loyalty, Shane, and you’ve been so out of character recently.’

‘Out of character.’ Shane repeated. He wondered, briefly, if it was true. Had it been out of character for him to go with Rose to the club? It was true he’d never enjoyed parties like that before, but he enjoyed her, and the way she listened to him talk as though he had the full chested ache of a real person. He didn’t think it had been out of character for him to study, either, to ask for the amorphous concept of more that had been hovering just out of his reach for five long years. It hadn’t been out of character to lie, not about Ilya, because really what was truer to him after all this time, than keeping Ilya a secret?

‘Yes, out of character.’ Maxim replied and pushed open the car door, then slammed it closed behind him.

‘Thank you.’ Shane said to the driver, then climbed from the car himself to follow Maxim to the front door and into the vestibule, with its security panel and hanging coats and neat mat welcoming them home.

‘You let him embarrass me.’

‘I didn’t let him do anything.’ Shane refuted. Maxim scoffed and peeled his coat from his arms as he walked down the hall, leaving wet footprints on the floor behind him. He always liked fighting with his shoes left on.

‘Yes, you did.’ Maxim turned when Shane followed him into the kitchen, once he’d hung his coat by the door, ‘taking his drink, listening to him praise you like that. It was pathetic, you were practically salivating for his attention.’

‘I was being polite!’

‘All that horse shit about mutual understanding.’

‘Well maybe you’re not the only person who’s had a difficult life.’

‘What the fuck do you know about how difficult his life has been?’

‘I don’t know-‘ Shane scoffed, ‘we talk!’

‘You talk.’

‘Yes, we talk! About- just- stuff. He’s here for hours, things come up, I don’t know!’

‘So he makes you listen to his fucking sob story, is that it? You like that, don’t you. Poor Ilya, unfortunate Ilya.’

‘He’s my friend.’

‘Are you fucking him?’ Maxim asked and it hit Shane like a buffeting wind.

He almost wanted to stumble, but he stood his ground and lied: ‘No.’

‘He clearly wants to fuck you.’ Maxim approached him, his fingers curving around Shane’s jaw again and forcing him to turn so they were eye to eye, ‘is that what this is? Some pretence of learning Russian as an excuse to get your little whore mouth around his cock?’

‘You tell me.’ Shane said, wrapping his own fingers around Maxim’s wrist to pull his hand away, ‘you’re the one watching the security footage like I’m a child in need of supervision.’

‘You expect me to trust him? To trust you? That you were in here fighting like that over fucking children’s stories?’

‘What I expect, Maxim, is for you to respect me enough to not be watching me at all!’

‘Well clearly that isn’t possible when everything you do is just another thing to humiliate me?’ Maxim growled and reached for Shane again, who stepped back once, then twice to maintain the space between them.

‘You don’t think I feel humiliated? You don’t think it’s humiliating for me to be paraded around like that? To go up onto that stage as though my invitation wasn’t bought for me?’ Shane cried, ‘how do you think it makes me feel that those people- smart and important people see me as your fucking lap dog? At least when Ilya talks about me, he talks about me like I’m a person who has achieved something, fuck, someone who is something, not just the hole you keep at home to get your cock warmed in every few weeks!’

‘You.’ Maxim said with a step forward again so his hand could take hold of Shane’s upper arm and drag him stumbling closer, ‘you are exactly what I decide you are. Do you understand?’

‘What if what you decide isn’t what I want to be?’ Shane asked and tried in vain to yank his arm free, ‘have you ever once thought about what I want?’

‘And you want what? To whore yourself out to some Russian bastard?’

‘No, I think I’ve already spent quite enough time doing that.’

The hand gripped around Shane’s arm squeezed tighter and in one hot blooded rush of movement, Maxim threw him hard against the table. The momentum of the swing caught Shane off guard, and his tangled feet led him to slam against the hard wood surface, the edge biting into his side and forcing the air from his lungs in a single wounded shout. The pain of the impact dazed him, and the force of his body made the table shift with a jolting sound of wood on floorboards that echoed off the marble kitchen, shocking them both into silence.

‘Shane-‘ Maxim said after a moment, his own voice betraying his shock. When Shane pressed his palm to the flat surface and pushed himself up he winced at the ache already reverberating from his side in slow, throbbing waves.  

‘Stop.’ Shane said as Maxim tried to take a step closer and his palm pressed in against his own waist. He put pressure onto his ribs, hissing at the tenderness but satisfied that they weren’t broken.

‘Baby-’ Maxim tried, and Shane extended his free hand out between them, as though it could stop him coming closer.

‘Don’t you dare touch me or when I walk out that door, I’m never fucking coming back.’

‘Shane, please, I’m sorry-‘   

But Shane’s feet carried him away, before his mind knew what it was that he was doing. He went down the hall and back to the door, not even wasting time to grab his coat again as he stumbled out and into the rain. The heavy drops clung to his hair and his lashes, drenching his suit through as he rushed down the drive and onto the street, squinting through the deluge. The gutters were overflowing by then, the grass either side of the foot path sodden with thick mud that splashed up over the cuff of his suit pants halfway to the knee. His dress shoes were a mess, and the ice-cold water was leaking into his socks, between his toes, and he wrapped his arms around himself to try and keep warm.

Behind him, Shane could hear Maxim still calling his name, so he kept going forward, down the street in the direction of the city. If he moved fast enough, he could make it to the STM station on Atwater Road before Maxim had time to bring the car around, but his pockets were empty, other than the keys to the house and his waterlogged phone teetering on the edge of a flat battery.

He rounded the first corner, pushed his dripping hair back from his eyes, and up ahead, he saw the car that had brought them home. The break lights glowed, the indicator flashed and it pulled to a stop.

‘Mr. Hollander?’ The driver called with his window rolling down, as Shane rushed up alongside it, ‘are you alright, sir?’

‘The Centurion. Can you take me there? The club, in the city.’ Shane asked, eyes blinking against the rain.

‘Of course, sir.’ The driver said, and Shane scrambled into the back seat.

‘I’m so sorry.’ He exhaled, but the driver only smiled.

‘It’s okay.’ He replied, kindly, and turned the car around to head back for the 138, then down Rue Saint Catherine to the heart of Montreal. Shane pulled his phone from his pocket again and pressed at the buttons in frustration, it was finally dead.

Outside The Centurion was empty, the weather had kept the lines away, and Shane thanked the driver again, then the bouncer, when he rushed from the car and through the door, then down into the stomach of the club. The crowd was thinner than it had been when he’d gone with Rose, and with only a handful of people waiting at the bar, Ilya was easy to see. He’d taken off his suit jacket and bowtie and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, showing off his flexing forearms as he held a cocktail shaker beside his head.

He saw Shane before he’d even reached the bottom of the stairs, and handed off his shaker to another tender, to meet him at the edge of the bar.

‘Shane?’ He said with a frown, ‘What are you doing here? What happened? You’re soaked.’

‘Can I stay with you?’ Shane asked, in one breathy rush, ‘tonight. Just for tonight, I promise, just- please-‘

‘Of course.’ Ilya said, like the answer was obvious, then reached his hand up to brush his knuckles over the ice cold arch of his cheek. Shane leant forward into the heat of him, but winced when his tender side nudged the black marble countertop, ‘Shane, what happened?’ He asked again, warily this time.

Shane shook his head, ‘I can wait around here, until you’re finished. I don’t mind.’

‘No, you’re freezing. Come.’ Ilya slid his hand down Shane’s back and pushed open the swinging door into the back room, where lockers and coat racks surrounded a series of small tables, ‘take this. Go to my place, change into something dry and warm. I’ll have to be here another few hours, but I’ll close up early, I’ll meet you there.’

‘Really, I can stay, I don’t have a wallet, or anything, and my phone is dead.’ Shane replied, when Ilya pressed his overcoat against his chest.

‘Wet like this, you’ll be too cold. Here.’ He said and pulled his wallet from his pocket and pressed a wad of cash into his palm, alongside a key he pulled off a cluttered ring, ‘take a taxi. I’ll write down the address, if your phone is dead, he won’t be able to follow your location.’

‘Thank you.’ Shane breathed, as tears stung at the edge of his eyes, ‘Ilya, thank you.’

Ilya’s fingers brushed over his cheek again, then lifted to push his dripping hair back from his eyes. After only a moment, he dipped his head and pressed his mouth against Shane’s in a firm, assuring kiss.

‘Go.’ He said, ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘Okay.’ Shane said, once he’d slipped his arms into the coat. The pocket was weighed down with the heavy velvet box, the prize trapped inside. Shane Hollander, it said, and Shane hoped he’d keep it.  

‘Go.’ Ilya said again, and Shane went.

Chapter End Notes

Happy birthday Ilya Rozanov you'd hate most of what happened in this chapter.

As always, thank you so much for reading!! I appreciate it more than words can say and I mean the hell out of that. Your kind comments and kudos mean so much, and thank you too for anyone who has shared this work with a friend or on socials or wherever it is people share things. It means so so much to me that you're as excited as I am!

Thank you to Parkerini for his Canada knowledge, and thank you to Marchoskaya for helping me with all the Russian dialogue, especially in this chapter, where I sent her a screenshot of what I had and she had to gently tell me that what I had managed to produce was Russian gibberish ❤️ fr state lines wouldn't exist without her help so everyone pls blow her a kiss.

Also thank you to twitter user silver spoon emoji baepshane for always being so kind and encouraging.

If you'd ever like to chat hockey or Hollanov, you can find me on twitter.

Chapter 12

Chapter Notes

The lock was stiff, and when Shane’s cold, shaking hand pushed the key in, it took a moment to twist. Ilya’s house was at the end of a long, residential street where Hampstead turned into Snowdon and started to scale the first slope of the mountain. It was built on the highest ground, and so the stairs up to his porch carried Shane high enough to be level with the mid-way branches of the surrounding skeletal trees, and he imagined how nice it must be in summer up there, with the birds and the breeze whispering through sun-glowed green leaves.

Eventually, the key turned and the door swung open. Shane stepped inside and toed off his waterlogged shoes and rubbed his hands together to try and get his fingers warm again. Ilya’s coat had helped, but the rain had clung to the suit he wore and went clammy against his skin, then cooled again every time the wind blew.

With the door closed, he smoothed his palm over the wall until he found the light switch, and flicked it so the room was bathed in a soft golden glow. It was warm- the last heat of a fire had held while Ilya had been out, and it felt good as Shane walked across the room, hung Ilya’s coat and his jacket on the back of the dining room chairs to dry. In the low light the bird broach glinted, and he averted his gaze from its tawdry glitter, because it looked so out of place in a home that felt real, the way Ilya’s did. Because that was the only way Shane could think to describe it: real, a home that felt lived in, not dressed up like a set. There was a blanket folded on the grey canvas couch, shelves of geometrically stacked books, where volumes had been stuffed upright and sideways so  to make them fit. There was a hoodie there, too, a pile of clean laundry yet to be put away, and a fireplace with a window clouded from years of use. The table was marked with a ring where someone had set their coffee cup without one of the coasters piled up nearby, and one of the chairs had a leg that had been chipped and likely wabbled when it took on someone’s weight. The kitchen was the same with dishes drying in the rack and magnets stuck to the fridge with the names of plumbers and electricians, and bills still in their ripped open envelopes waiting for payment.

Shane wanted to take it apart piece by piece, to have every inch of this home held in the palm of his hand to turn over and over until he had every side of it memorised.

A gust of wind rattled the windows, sending rain spitting at the panes, and a draft had him shivering again, so he turned from the kitchen and headed down the hall, past a bathroom, a small study, until he was standing in Ilya’s bedroom. The bed was big, nicer than the last one he’d had in Hampstead, with a pale wooden headboard and matching bedside tables, one piled with books Shane expected were yet to be read. On the other, a twist of charging chords was curved around the base of a reading lamp, with an empty water glass, a pair of folded reading glasses and a yellow bottle of prescription pills. One of the drawers was open, a pair of socks hanging out, and opposite was a built-in wardrobe with mirrored sliding doors. He pushed it open and curled his fingers around the soft cotton of black sweatpants, a grey and maroon hoodie that declared McGill University across the front, and a plain white t-shirt to match. He undid his shirt, then his belt and stripped quickly down to his bare bones, only to dress again, in fabric that smelled warm with Ilya. His detergent, his cigarettes, the undeniable smell of him that couldn’t be washed out, no matter how many times anyone tried. Shane would know, he hadn’t been able to wash it off for seven, long years.

It was a relief when he was dressed again and he started to feel his skin begin to thaw. He peeled off his socks and replaced them with the pair hanging from the drawer that were stretched out and too big and stopped his toes from aching. He picked up his suit and took it out into the living room again so he could drape them over the backs of the chairs, leave his dead phone on the table beside the change from the taxi and the key, then knelt on the floor in front of the fire to light it up. There were stacks of wood and firelighters, plenty of kindling, too, and soon, it was crackling low as Shane turned to the books again.

It was a haphazard mix of novels, mostly. There were classics, contemporary, books by young men and old women, mixed together with no rhyme or reason. Giovanni’s Room was stuffed between Murakami to the left, Persuasion to the right, with Anne of Green Gables balanced on top. On some shelves there were framed photos, or souvenirs, a pile of American coins Shane imagined Ilya pulled from his pocket on his knees by the washing machine, after a trip across the border. On the shelf above it sat a plain white frame, with a photo of Ilya and Svetlana on the day of their graduation, mortarboards perched precariously on their heads. Svetlana had been in the midst of saying something, and Ilya was laughing, and for a moment Shane wondered if it was the happiest he’d ever seen him, he only remembered him looking so sad back then. A tie was peeking out from the neck of his graduation gown, his hair looked neat and trimmed, and his arm was slung against his chest, wrapped in a white cast scrawled with colourful names and patterns. It must have been months, weeks even, maybe, after his father had died, and his shoulders looked so weightless standing there with a hand clutched around his rolled-up diploma.

Shane remembered what he’d been like when he’d come home from Russia, that first summer, because it had stunned him, the way Ilya dragged himself around as though he had lead-laden limbs. He’d been cold, too, short with his words and even shorter with his temper, always replying to Shane hours late with vague responses. The drinking, although it had always been heavy, had taken on a recklessness that had frightened Shane, not because he’d ever think Ilya could be someone who’d hurt him, but because he saw with terrifying clarity, that he could be someone who would hurt himself. That first year he’d go out to parties three or four times a week, but by September, he’d be gone every evening as soon as class was out. He never told Shane where he’d been, or who he’d been with he just showed up to Shane’s new single dorm after midnight, stumbling out of his clothes and begging to be pulled from his own head.

The first time Shane had seen him he’d been drunk, the second time he’d been unable to stand up, and Shane didn’t know what had happened to the Ilya from the cabin, who’d made him coffee, built a fire, convinced him to go skinny dipping even though the water was still so cold.

Ilya’s newfound destructiveness snowballed into something of a mess of unanswered text messages and mixed signals, until Shane had followed him to a party in mid-October, at one of the old dorms on Rue University. He’d gone with Hayden and Jackie, who had found an apartment together just off campus and had asked Shane to move in. He’d declined, as polite as he could, because he quite liked the idea of living alone. Across the silence of Summer, when the ocean between them had stopped them from talking, Shane had imagined what it could be like, without the fear of Hayden coming home and finding them there, tangled limbs and heaving chests, desperate for a closeness mortal bodies couldn’t provide.

In apology, Shane had promised to go out with Hayden more, and if Hayden had been surprised when Shane asked him if he was going to the house party that night, he hadn’t said, he’d just slapped him on the back with an enthusiastic, ‘fuck yeah, dude! Lets get you laid!’

The party was packed, as the early semester events always were, and Shane spent the first hour nursing a beer as he listened to Jackie explain a pedagogical theory he’d asked her to elaborate, just to keep his mind focused on something. Ilya knew he was coming, Shane had told him as much, but Shane hadn’t seen him yet as the crowd lulled back and forth in one unified movement, the way a tide does when it advances onto the shore.

‘I just think it’s an interesting way to implement bilingualism into anglophone schools!’ Jackie said, and Shane nodded.

‘Yeah, yeah, totally.’ He said, as his eyes scanned the room taking in the faces one by one. He recognised some people from classes they’d shared or parties he’d attended, just to stand in the corner and wish he could leave. A handful of Jackie’s friends were by the door, Hayden’s by the stairs, and eventually Shane saw that Svetlana was by the window. He’d met her once, in the kitchen at a party in April, when she’d introduced herself with a tone that had Shane confident that she knew exactly who he was. She’d frightened him a little, to be honest, with her big intelligent eyes and a thoughtful purse of her lips, but there was a kindness to her, too. She was protective of Ilya, that much was clear, and she wouldn’t tell anyone about Shane.

Out of the corner of Shane’s eye he saw the light bounce off a head of golden curls, the glint of metal against pale skin in the open neck of a shirt.

‘Jackie-‘ Shane said, and she smiled and squeezed his hand.

‘No worries, go ahead. I need to find Hayden, anyway, before he tries to lose at beer pong.’

She was swallowed by the crowd, as though she’d never been there at all, and Shane followed Ilya through the door and into the hallway with its row of mirror image bedrooms. He glanced over his shoulder, in the low light nobody was watching, and Shane stopped by the last door, opened it and stepped inside.

‘Ilya-‘ He said, when his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he saw him there, bent over the body of a woman, whose hands were tangled in the curls of his hair, her mouth against his.

Ilya’s eyes opened and he looked up. Shane could see they were dazed with drink, maybe something else too that took Ilya out of his mind in a way Shane knew his own hands could never compete with. The sight of him there took a moment to register, and Ilya’s brows furrowed, his eyes closed in a slow, lazy blink, before Shane was stepping back and out into the hallway, ‘I’m sorry- I shouldn’t have- I’m sorry.’ Shane said, as he turned to leave.

‘Shane-‘ Ilya called after him.

Shane didn’t pause as he pushed back through the crowd, which felt oppressively hot and tight around him, and he felt as though his lungs were caving in right up until he was out on the street again with pavement under his feet and the crowd had thinned to a handful of small groups, smoking and laughing in the crisp Autumn air. He turned back towards home right when Ilya came up alongside him, his hand curving around Shane’s bicep to pull him to a stop.

‘Shane-‘ he said again, but Shane yanked his arm free and kept walking until Ilya called out from behind, ‘you said you wouldn’t run again!’

‘I’m not running!’ Shane hissed, when he turned to face him.

‘It looks like you’re running.’ Ilya replied, as he walked to catch up.

‘Well it didn’t look like you needed me in there.’ Shane said. Heat rose in his chest to flush over his cheeks, his ears, accelerated the hammer of his heart. It was embarrassment, maybe, humiliation, showing up to the party like that and searching the crowd for someone who’d never been looking for him, ‘why the fuck did you even let me come?’

‘Fuck, Shane, you’re an adult, you can do whatever you want!’ Ilya threw his hands up, ‘it’s a fucking party, come to the party, don’t come to the party, whatever.’

‘Whatever.’ Shane repeated and lifted a hand to slip through the strands of his fluffed hair. The air felt heavy, wet, it was going to rain.

‘Yes whatever!’ Ilya repeated, frustrated. His speech wasn’t slurring, not the way it had three nights ago, when he’d pushed Shane against the door with clumsy hands trying to wrestle with his belt, tripping over his words in the rush to get them out. Been thinking about you, I want you so bad, you’re the only thing on my mind, he’d managed, until Shane had pulled him to bed and forced him to down three glasses of water.

‘I don’t fucking understand you!’ Shane hissed, frustration of his own weighing down the heft of his words, ‘you come to my house fucking begging for me, and now this- is that what this has always been? I’m the bed you crawl to when you strike out? How many nights have you fucked someone before you’ve even come to me?’

‘You’re not my boyfriend! This is what you wanted!’ Ilya replied, too loud, and Shane grabbed at his arms to pull him further down the street.

‘Be quiet-‘ Shane tried, but Ilya cut him off again.

‘You have consistently and repeatedly told me you don’t want to be my boyfriend. It’s a secret Ilya, nobody can know Ilya, it’s fucking casual Ilya! You don’t want to be seen with me, you don’t want anyone to know about me, you won’t go to parties-‘

‘Go to parties with you? So, what, I can watch you get so fucking drunk you can’t stand? So I can carry you home like a dead weight and check you ten times through the night to make sure you haven’t choked on your vomit?’ Shane hissed, his voice still low, ‘I don’t fucking want that, Ilya, and you’ve never chosen me over a party!’

‘You have never chosen me! Ever!’

‘The cabin-‘

‘The fucking Cabin? In the middle of nowhere? Where nobody could ever see? Have you ever thought that I don’t want to hide out in secret, as though this would be something I’d ever be ashamed of!’

‘I’m not ashamed!’

‘Yes you are! You’ve been nothing but ashamed this whole time!’

‘It’s complicated-‘

‘It’s not that fucking complicated!’ Ilya said again, his voice raising, ‘nobody fucking cares that you’re gay!’

‘Ilya shut up people will hear you! They’ve already seen us together-’ Shane bit again, as the panic started to set in because he’d lost track of what they were even fighting about and he felt as though the ground was moving beneath them as they accelerated towards a place he didn’t know how to turn back from.

‘So?’ Ilya replied, ‘is being seen with me so fucking bad?’

‘Yes!’ Shane gasped, before he could stop it, ‘yes!’ He said again, as everything came crashing down around them, ‘it would be that bad. Everything would be bad, nobody can know.’

Ilya’s forget-me-not eyes, still dazed with substance, were cold when they looked on him then, ‘and that’s it? That’s the life you want?’

‘It’s the life I have to have.’ Shane replied, and Ilya tipped his head back to bark out a sardonic, humourless laugh.

‘Fuck you, Shane. Fuck you.’

‘You don’t under-‘

‘Don’t tell me I don’t understand, you have no idea what I understand! No idea!’ Ilya shook his head, ‘you’re not choosing this because it’s what you have to choose, you’re choosing this because you’re a fucking coward!’

‘I’m not-’ Shane started, when Ilya turned towards him and jabbed a finger hard at the centre of his chest.

‘Yes you are!’ He nodded, ‘you let this go now and you convince yourself it was the brave choice. You’ll marry some nice girl, you’ll buy a house in the suburbs, and in ten, fifteen, twenty fucking years, you’ll wake up and you’ll look at yourself in the mirror and you’ll know that you are everything that you’re terrified of being. You always were, and you always will be. And you’ll have wasted all this time trying to be perfect, but all you’ll ever be is a gay fucking coward.’

A lump was growing in Shane’s throat, tears stung at the edges of his eyes, and Ilya was looking at him in a way he never had before. There was anger there, disappointment, too, but what terrified him most was the certainty. Ilya was looking at him like he knew that this was it, the point of no return, a hero in a tragedy, embracing the inevitable.

Shane felt the slow slide of the first tear, he heard the stutter of his breath from his chest and he pictured them a year before, at the back of the lecture theatre, pen in hand, the moment that sent them on this catastrophic trajectory.

‘I wish we’d never met.’ He said, and his voice sounded like he was drowning, like the current was pulling him under, ‘I wish we’d never met.’ He said again, and a cruel part of him hoped those words hurt Ilya, as much as Ilya’s had bitten into him.

The clouds overhead finally gave way for the first drops to fall. They hit the ground in a rhythm of slow taps, as Shane turned his back on Ilya for the final time, and started on the short walk home.

‘Shane, come on!’ Ilya called after him, ‘Shane! Wait!’

Shane hadn’t turned back, instead he’d sprinted hopelessly forward, eyes trained ahead out of fear of letting himself regret if he’d ever remembered just what it was he’d left behind. Between exams and essays, he tried to remember everything there was to hate about Ilya Rozanov until he’d created a version of him in his mind that wasn’t worthy of being missed. But soon, the anger gave way to aching, the adrenaline to pain and when he finally looked back he realised he’d let his weary legs carry him too far and it had been Maxim’s arms that opened for him to rest between.

And the first time he’d spoken to Shane in Russian, Shane had felt relief, because when he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine it was Ilya’s voice, welcoming him home. Because of course Ilya had never been the monster Shane had wanted him to be. All he’d been was nineteen years old and far away from home, with a sick father who didn’t want him, and a dead mother he needed, desperate to be loved but too terrified to know how to ask.

Shane ran his fingers along the spines of the books, and it felt intimate, the way it had the last morning in the cabin, when he’d lain against Ilya’s back and counted the notches of his vertebrae through his skin. He’d said the numbers in Russian under his breath, and he’d pretended not to notice the way his accent had made Ilya smile.

The books were a mix of old and new, some obviously second hand, others even older than that. His index finger smoothed over a thin hardback with yellowed pages, and he pulled it free from the case. It fit easily in the palm of his hand, and he sounded out the Cyrillic: Белые ночи, Belye Nochi. White Nights. It was a story Shane had read, soon after he’d married Maxim. It followed an unnamed narrator as he met a woman named Nastenka four nights in a row, as she waited for her lover to return. The narrator falls in love with her innocence, her kindness, her childlike view of the world, but she remains true to the man she’d loved, who’d left her in search of a chance to make himself. I like to shape the present in the image of the irretrievable past, the narrator says, and Shane had wondered, with Maxim’s arms around him, if he was cursed to always be looking back.

He stepped from the bookcase until he was seated back on the grey canvas of the couch and leafed through the first few pages. His reading was good enough by then to make out the sounds, but he didn’t have the words in him to read it, so he drifted through each page with slow slides of his finger and thumb, until, in the centre of the volume, he found a photo. It was folded in half, bent with age, and when Shane opened it up, his heart felt like it had been chafed red raw. In the centre of the image was a small, round face, with red flushed cheeks and a mess of golden curls. Ilya was peering over the shoulder of a woman, her hair the same colour of early spring sunshine. Only half her face was visible as she turned to look back, but Shane could see the matching forget-me-not blue of her wide eyes, the edge of her ruby red rosebud lips.  

The wind rattled the window pane, the fire crackled in the hearth, and while Shane ran his thumb over the folded crease between the cherubic baby and his mother, Ilya unlocked the door.

‘Dostoyevsky.’ He said, as he toed out of his dress shoes. Shane looked up at him, dressed in his suit. He was wet, too, the rain was still falling, and Ilya had come home without the protection of his coat, ‘you’ve got good taste.’

‘You must be cold.’ Shane said, and he almost flinched at the rawness of his voice.

‘I’m okay.’ Ilya said and crossed the room slowly to come and stand in front of him.

‘No.’ Shane said, and set the photo and book down, gently, on the table so he could stand, too. His lips turned down into a frown again as he slid his palms up the front of Ilya’s jacket, feeling where the heavy raindrops had soaked into the fabric, one splotch at a time, the way they had that October when Shane had turned away. Ilya’s hands reached out, too, and settled easily on Shane’s hips, as he watched Shane’s face, the intent way his eyes followed each brush of his fingers, until they were dipping beneath the collar of the jacket.

‘Shane…’ Ilya murmured, softly.

‘I never got to tell you...’ Shane replied, voice thick, drawn, and Ilya pulled his hands back from Shane’s hips just long enough to let the jacket be pushed from his shoulders and down over the length of his arms, ‘I never got to say that I was sorry.’

‘For what?’ Ilya asked,

‘For everything I said.’ Shane replied in a harsh rush, and finally looked up from the collar of his shirt, into the blue of Ilya’s eyes, ‘for- for half the stuff I didn’t say, too.’

‘Shane, what’s happened? What did he do?’ Ilya’s voice was so gentle, and he brought his palms back to Shane’s hips, then his waist, then took hold of his elbows.

‘I’ve made such a mess of everything. Fucking everything, Ilya.’

‘Has he hurt you?’

‘No- Well, we- we fought, he’s going to figure it out, he knows I’m lying to him and he’s going to figure it out and I don't know what he'll do when he does.’ The panic was setting in, Shane could feel the heat flushing his face, and he could feel his stuttering heartbeat hammering. It felt like it was going to burst through his sternum, rupture his skin, break free of his trembling body to fall at his feet. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know how to keep it inside of his chest.

‘Shane.’ Ilya said and pressed his palm over his heart, adding just that little bit of pressure, like he was holding it down, ‘take a deep breath, okay? You’re safe here with me, all you have to do is breathe.’

‘But I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t- I can’t ask this of you. After everything I’ve done- I was never fair to you, Ilya, and I’m not being fair to you now. I’m selfish, it’s so selfish of me to come here into your life, to be asking this of you again, to be making you keep this secret again-‘

‘You aren’t making me do anything, Shane.’ Ilya said, and his thumb rubbed slow circles against his sternum, through the thick cotton of his hoodie, ‘I’m here because I want to be.’

‘Why? Why could you possibly want this?’

‘Because I love you.’ Ilya said, and slid his hand up from Shane’s frantic heart to instead cup the firm angle of his jaw. Shane hated the way it made him flinch, because it felt too much, it felt impossible after all this time.

‘You can’t just say it like that.’

‘Not saying it won’t make it not true.’ Ilya shook his head, ‘There aren’t stakes for me, the way there are for you. It’s simple. I wake up and I love you, I read, I love you, I go to your house, and sit at your table and I stare at you, and I love you. Simple.’

‘Simple.’ Shane whispered, and softly, tenderly, Ilya smiled. Their faces were so close now, the tips of their noses almost touching.

‘Loving you was always the simplest part for me, Shane. It was everything else that made it so hard.’

Shouting in the rain, phone calls abruptly dropped, Shane feeling as though he was chasing Ilya for the weeks after he’d come back from Russia, agonised and waning. Naked bodies, side by side, billowing clouds through the window pane, the two of them like migratory birds dipping, diving, beating their wings.

‘I’ve always thought that admitting to loving you would ruin my life.’

‘Good.’ Ilya replied, ‘ruin it.’

And so Shane kissed him, the pressure firm and aching, while Ilya’s hands moved to reverently grasp at his face. With the heat of their bodies pressing closer together, Shane remembered Ilya’s wet clothes, and he slipped his hands between them again to fumble with the row of his buttons. He managed the first few, but his hands were shaking, and Ilya pulled back just enough to help him.

‘You’re cold,’ Shane noted, when his hands finally pressed against his skin, but Ilya shook his head and drew Shane back in for another hard kiss. Their lips parted, and the press of Ilya’s tongue had Shane’s eyes rolling back into his head, as he mapped out the shapes of his ribs, the slope of his pecs with his necklace nestled between them, then wrapped his arms around him to trace slowly down the length of his spine. Every inch of Ilya’s skin felt so good under the heat of his hands, and Shane thought he would never get enough.

Behind them, one of the logs in the fire cracked with a pop, and sparks ricocheted off the sides of the burner, then settled back down into the coursing flame. Shane moved his mouth to Ilya’s jaw, then his neck, until he eventually dropped down and onto his knees. Ilya was standing by the couch, and when Shane’s hands wrestled with the clasp of his belt, the fly of his dress pants, he eased himself down to be sitting.

‘Baby…’ He breathed, when Shane finally had his pants open, and he looked up at Ilya again, with his eyes dazed and face flushed from wanting. Ilya was already mostly hard against the fabric of his briefs, just like Shane was, dressed in Ilya’s soft, comfortable clothes.

‘I’ve missed this.’ He replied, ‘I missed you so much.’

‘I’ve missed you, too.’ Ilya promised, and exhaled a low, rumbling groan when Shane finally swallowed him down whole. The weight of Ilya on his tongue felt familiar, and the panicked hammer of his heart started to settle into the low thud of desire. Ilya’s hand slipped tenderly into his hair, and Shane closed his eyes to focus on the slow, languid rhythm. He pulled back, then sunk down again, all while taking breaths in through his nose. Ilya didn’t push, he didn’t pull at Shane’s hair or buck his hips, he let him control each and every movement, while words slid breathy and deep from his mouth.

‘Fuck, Shane…’ He sighed, ‘fuck, you’re so beautiful- I wish you could see yourself. Wearing my clothes, do you know what that does to me?’ Shane made a sound around him while his mind faded into the warm safety of a fuzzy blank. He wished Ilya knew what it was that he did to Shane, how the feeling of hands in his hair with his mouth wrapped around him could unwind the tight coil of his nervous system. Had they always been like that? He thought so, maybe, when they’d been young and Shane hadn’t really understood just what it was Ilya could offer. Maybe he’d just assumed that all sex was like that, because what had he known, before Ilya’s hands first touched him.

What he’d learned after, was that no, sex wasn’t like that. He’d learned it was used to control, to demand, and to punish sometimes, too. He’d learned how satisfaction could be gained from the pain of another, and Shane was the one hurting every god damn time. He’d used it to his advantage, himself, too. It was the fastest way to get what he wanted, but harsher hands than Ilya’s had made him unlearn what it was to be loved with care, when they’d replaced those lessons with one that taught him his purpose was to be spread open and fucked into, marked as property, and burdened with shame.

‘You’re so good, you’re so beautiful.’ Ilya said again, and when Shane looked up at him, he could see the haze across his eyes, ‘Shane-‘ Ilya said in warning when he sunk down again, bobbed his head faster with a draw of his tongue against Ilya’s sensitive underside. He could feel Ilya’s thigh muscles tensing under his palms, he could hear the stutter of his breath as he tried to hold on, ‘baby-‘ Ilya growled, in a voice that was low and guttural as he came, and Shane swallowed him down without hesitation, as Ilya rode out the wave of his orgasm.

Shane pulled back with panted breaths right as Ilya surged forward again to capture his mouth in another bruising kiss. His tongue didn’t hesitate as it licked into the wet heat of Shane’s mouth, tasting himself and drawing forth another groan, ‘c’mere.’ He murmured into the kiss and his hands reached down to pull Shane up from the floor and astride his strong thighs.

Shane arched his back as Ilya’s hands slipped underneath his shirt and his hoodie to curve around his ribs. His own cock was aching to be touched, and he rocked his hips forward in pleading need, while Ilya pulled his hoodie up first, then his shirt, and the kiss broke for long enough for Shane to be rendered bare.

‘Shane, Jesus-‘ Ilya said, when his palm slid down the front of his torso, and Shane glanced down between them, to the burgeoning bruise smeared across his side. It was already a mottled red and blue, and he’d almost forgotten it had been there, until Ilya’s fingers touched it just firmly enough to draw out an uncomfortable wince, ‘Shane what happened?’ Ilya asked again, more serious this time.

‘Later,’ Shane said, as he rocked his hips forward again, ‘please- I need-‘

Ilya reluctantly drew his eyes up from the bruise, to search Shane’s own, which were still dazed with that same want they’d had when he’d been knelt between Ilya’s thighs, sucking him down. One look at the flush of Shane’s face had him relenting, though, and he dropped his hands to push at the fabric of his sweats, until they were half down over his ass, and his cock was free. Ilya brought his hand up to his own mouth and spat twice into his palm, then held it up for Shane to do the same. His hand curved into a fist, spreading the slick across it, and dropping to wrap around Shane.

‘Fuck,’ he sighed, with a sideways tip of his head as Ilya worked over him, practiced and sure of himself, even with the awkwardness of the angle, ‘fuck, please, please.’ He wasn’t even sure what it was he was begging for, but Ilya’s head lifted again to catch his mouth in slow, breathless kisses, between each one of Shane’s desperate pants. Ilya’s thumb paused to slide over his sensitive tip then dropped down to smear his precome across the length of him as he brought Shane closer and closer.

‘That’s it, my love, that’s it.’ Ilya breathed against his mouth, and slipped his other hand around and under the waistband of his pants to grip hold of his ass and pull him in closer.

‘I’m gonna- fuck-‘ Shane gasped again, and his mouth went slack as the heat built in intensity at the base of his abdomen, until he was spilling over Ilya’s hand, his stomach, the front of both their pants, too. Ilya’s hand didn’t slow until Shane whimpered softly at the overstimulation, and he tipped forward so their chests were touching, so he could press his face into the space between Ilya’s shoulder and neck while Ilya wiped his hand on Shane’s sweats.

It was late, well after midnight by then, and everything was starting to catch up with him. Maxim, the gala, seeing Ilya there. The fight, the rain and the panic, and the years of regret finally crashing down over him. His muscles were relaxed, his bones heavy, and Ilya pulled his hand from inside Shane’s pants to smooth over the crown of his head, ‘shower.’ He whispered into Shane’s hair, ‘I want to get a proper look at your stomach.’

Shane winced when he pushed himself up to sit again, and Ilya’s eyes dropped back over the front of him.

‘Did he hit you?’ he asked, when his hands lifted to steady him across his lap.

‘No.’ Shane said, ‘we were fighting, he pushed me or shoved me or something like that. I hit the table, I don’t think he meant to. He looked as shocked as I was.’

There was a darkness in Ilya’s expression when he surveyed over him again, one hand holding him in place while the other pressed down onto the bruising. Shane winced, but the pain wasn’t too bad, just tender skin, a flesh wound, everything vital still intact.

‘My ribs are fine, I already checked.’ He said, and Ilya pursed his lips unsatisfied. Shane could see that there was more he had wanted to say, but first, he helped Shane stand, tucked him back into the warmth of his pants, and led him hand in hand down the length of the hall to the bathroom by the study. The tiles were pale blue, and Ilya pulled a fresh towel from a mismatched set stacked on a rack above the toilet while they waited for the water to heat up. He kicked off his pants into a pile beside the hamper, then helped Shane out of his and they stepped under the spray together, ridding themselves of any lingering cold.

In the bright bathroom light, brown-blue finger marks were visible blooming under the skin of Shane’s bicep where Maxim had gripped him, and Ilya’s palm ran down over them, too.

‘We could go to the police.’ He offered.

‘And say what?’ Shane asked, already sagging against him, ‘that I tripped over my feet and that I’m pretty sure he didn't mean to.'

‘That you’re not safe there. With him.’ Ilya murmured into his hair. He wrapped his arms around Shane’s middle, more careful this time of his injured side.

‘He’s never hurt me before.’ Shane hummed, ‘at least not like this.’

‘But would he again?’

‘I don’t know.’ Shane answered, honestly when he closed his eyes and lowered his head to Ilya’s wet shoulder.

‘Tired?’ Ilya asked.

‘Mm,’ Shane confirmed, then wound his own arms around Ilya’s shoulders. The water slicked the space between them, but it still felt good to be there, skin against skin, ‘thank you.’ He murmured, against Ilya’s neck, ‘for letting me stay.’

‘Of course.’ Ilya replied and nosed into his hair again, ‘always.’

‘You’ve been so kind to me.’ Shane murmured, ‘I don’t think I deserve it. After everything I said to you, the way I was cruel.’

‘You were never cruel.’ Shane pulled back to give him an uncertain look, and Ilya continued, ‘you were scared, and I was never honest, you took me at face value because I wouldn’t let you know everything else that was going on.’

‘We weren’t good for one another.’ Shane said, again, because it was what he’d told himself so many times before.

‘Yes, we were.’ Ilya replied, ‘it wasn’t perfect, I think it ended the way it was always going to because we didn’t give it the chance to survive, but there were good parts, too.’

‘Like the sex, you mean?’

‘Well, yes, obviously.’ Ilya said with a low growl as he nipped at the skin beneath Shane’s ear, and levelled his ass with a gentle, wet slap, which made Shane laugh. ‘But it was more than that. We worked.’

‘Maybe I just spent too long trying to convince myself that we didn’t.’

Ilya’s eyes were searching as he looked at Shane’s face then, his hand smoothing down over his hair, then his shoulder, the bruises under his skin. ‘Remember when I made you watch The Exorcist, when Svetlana was away, and you made me check all the cupboards in the house and under the bed before you would go to sleep?’

Shane huffed out another laugh, ‘I was terrified! And so fucking mad at you for making me watch it!’

‘You were so funny, I had to check the wardrobe in my bedroom three times before you’d even close your eyes.’

‘You’re such an asshole.’

‘I literally had to blow you to get your mind off things.’

Shane wrinkled his nose and pinched his fingers teasingly into Ilya’s side, ‘well the morning after I kicked your ass in a snowball fight.’

‘Bah- I let you win.’

‘You fucking did not, you were trying so hard and you know it, but you missed me every time.’

‘I got you once!’

‘And how many times did I get you? Ten? Eleven?’ Shane laughed and his chest felt light, in a way it hadn’t for a long time.

‘Remember when you tried red wine for the first time, during our Autumn week off. Your teeth went all red.’

‘It was so gross,’ Shane wrinkled his nose, ‘I didn’t drink wine again until I graduated, I was so mortified.’

‘There was that party, just before Christmas, and you were wearing those pants.’ Ilya growled out again and slid his hands back down to cup Shane’s ass, ‘I was staring at you the whole fucking night, it was a miracle the whole student body didn’t figure it out. That asshole Econ club loser was trying to flirt with you, and I thought I was going to go insane.’

‘Troy Barrett?’ Shane asked with his eyebrows raised, pretending he didn’t feel the stir of arousal again when Ilya’s possessive hands brought their hips closer, ‘I thought you were friends!’

‘Yes, we were, but he was following you around and laughing so loud at all your terrible jokes, and he kept on trying to get you a drink while you were sipping on your damn ginger ale.’ Ilya made a face, and Shane laughed breathlessly, when his lips travelled down the side of his neck to his sensitive throat.

‘My jokes aren’t terrible.’ He said, but he remembered clearly, how his phone had buzzed in his pocket, not long after ten as Troy had been rattling off some boring story about his friends. The text had been Ilya, asking Shane to meet him outside and they’d sat side by side in a taxi for the short drive to Hampstead, with their arms crossed securely over their chests so as not to let them wander, and with the front door closed behind them, they couldn’t even make it beyond the couch.

‘I was so smug, too. Half the people at all those parties wanted you so badly, and you didn’t even notice.’

‘I’ve never been very good at noticing.’ Shane sighed.

‘You noticed me.’ Ilya hummed against his skin, ‘that’s all I care about.’

‘I liked when we went driving in your car, up the mountain.’ Shane added, ‘the cabin, too. Skinny dipping, going walking out in the woods.’

‘Yeah.’ Ilya drew back to look at him again, ‘it was nice. Kissing you on the grass, laying with you on the bed in the afternoon.’

‘You made us go the whole way back into Sainte-Anne-du-Lac because we’d forgotten to get marshmallows and we didn’t even end up having a bonfire.’ Shane laughed. His hips pressed forward again in a languid, lazy rock, and Ilya's firm hands brought their hips together again, their half hard cocks pressing against one another in the wet heat.

‘Hm, no, that was your fault.’ Ilya said. Finally, he slipped his hand down the cleft of his ass, his fingertip rubbing against the tight heat of his hole, then nudging at the muscle there. Shane couldn't help the soft, breathy moan that slid from his lips. Even in the comedown of his adrenaline rush, his body searched for Ilya's like they were made to fit together. ‘I wanted to have a bonfire, you didn’t.’

‘I’m pretty sure it was your idea to fuck over the dining table.’ Shane reminded him and Ilya turned off the water. He opened the cubicle door and drew Shane out to wrap him in the dryer-puffed fabric of the towel.

‘Hollander, you presented me with your ass, I am only one simple man.’ He reasoned as he dried himself off, too, and left the towel in a pile on the floor.

‘Ilya-‘ Shane started to scold, but Ilya was grinning, and he took Shane by the hands again, pulled him across the hall to the wide expanse of his bed. He threw Shane’s towel towards the bathroom door, and down the hall the living room glowed in the final remnants of the firelight.

‘I didn’t present you with anything.’ Shane said, when Ilya pulled back the covers, and he slid across the mattress. Out the window, the rain looked as though it was starting to slow, and they pressed close, side by side. Ilya kissed Shane’s shoulder, then his mouth, and reached over to the bedside drawer for the bottle of lube he kept in there.

‘You did, it was there, you were wearing my boxers and my shirt and if I didn’t fuck you right then I thought I’d die.’ Shane laughed, as he spread his legs for Ilya’s hand to slip between them again.

‘And on the couch?’ He asked breathily, when Ilya’s first slicked finger pressed inside.

‘And on the couch,’ Ilya nodded, ‘and on the dock, and the bed, and in the morning when you rolled over and you gave me that fucking look.’

‘What look?’ Shane asked, blinking up at him with hazy, dizzy eyes.

‘That look.’ Ilya replied, another finger soon joining the first.

Shane arched, ‘Ilya-‘ he gasped out and rocked down onto the digits, ‘fuck, please hurry.’

‘Your beautiful fucking eyes. I always loved them, I always loved you.’ Ilya groaned as he spread his fingers slowly, always gentle as he curved them just right inside of Shane to have him gasping again.

‘Please, now, it’s okay, I-I can take you now.’ Shane whispered, but Ilya shook his head.

‘No, you’re not ready.’ He said, ‘and I refuse to hurt you.’

‘Ilya…’ Shane breathed once more, and another finger finally followed until all three were working inside of him. He’d almost forgotten, the reverence with which Ilya always touched him, and he twisted his torso towards him so that he could reach out his yearning hands to hold on.

‘I’m here,’ Ilya reminded him, softly, and leant his weight against Shane’s side to kiss over his face, pressing his lips to his freckles, then his jaw, his mouth last as he was finally satisfied that Shane was ready.

‘I don’t know-‘ Shane sighed, ‘how I’ve lived without this.’

When Ilya pressed inside of him, the first of Shane’s tears finally fell. Ilya’s mouth was against his chest, one hand gripping his thigh to keep him spread open. His other hand curved over the muscle of Shane’s shoulder, Shane’s fingers tangled into his hair, and he threw his head back in a silent, desperate scream as their hips drew together. Ilya was so deep inside of him, Shane could feel his heat all over, and he realised now what it was that he should have done then, with his arms wrapped around Ilya’s shoulders, the coffee cup on the table steaming. I love you, he should have said, because really the answer had been obvious. It had been there all along, written between every word Ilya had ever told him.

‘Ilya-‘ Shane gasped, when the build up became too much, and Ilya’s hand curved around the front of him, grasping hold of his aching cock.

‘Shane,’ he gasped, and they came together like that, their feet tangled in the sheets.  

They lay there to wait out their heartbeats slowing. Shane’s body didn’t have it in him to shower again, so Ilya went to the bathroom for a cloth and wiped them both off, then turned off the last of the house’s lights, and finally collapsed into bed on his stomach, with his hand reaching to touch Shane’s own. That darkness was still there in the blue of his eyes, as he looked over where Shane had been hurt.

‘I antagonised him.’ Ilya said, ‘I pushed him, and he punished you.’

‘This wasn’t on you.’ Shane replied, and rolled over onto his side. His hands were warm as he pressed his fingers to the back of Ilya’s head, then slid down to count the long line of his vertebrae.

‘Adeen, dva, tree, chyetirye, pyat,’ he whispered, while Ilya watched his face.

‘Will you leave him?’ He asked, finally, and Shane looked up.

‘I don’t know how to,’ he replied honestly, ‘even if I want to. I don’t have any money of my own, I don’t have a home. I don’t know where I’d go, or what I’d do. Who I’d be, really.’

A low silence stretched, and Ilya exhaled a long, slow breath as Shane’s fingers walked down his back.

‘vosyem, dyevyat, dyesyat.’ He whispered, just under his breath.

‘You’d still be you.’ Ilya said, after a short while, ‘you’d get a job, and rent an apartment, or stay here with me. You could move back to Ottawa and in with your parents, too. You’d finish your law degree, if that’s what you want.’

‘What if I don’t know what I want?’ Shane asked, eventually, with his palm pressed against the small of Ilya’s back.

‘Then you get in a car, and you drive until you get somewhere where nothing matters. And you figure it out.’

Shane looked back up again, at Ilya looking at him, and he wanted to say it, those three simple words that he always feared would change everything. ‘Ilya I-‘ He started, stopped, sucked in a deep, slow breath, because he figured maybe they would. With that between them, he knew there was no going back. 

‘I know.’ Ilya replied.

‘But I want…‘ Shane tried again, and Ilya just smiled. 

‘I know.’ He said again, ‘but you don’t have to say it. Not yet, not until you're ready for what it would mean for you to.’

‘I should have told you back then.’

‘There’s a lot we should have said back then.’ Ilya agreed. He shifted closer on the bed and rolled over onto his side to draw Shane in against his chest, ‘but I pushed you too hard to say them last time. I don’t want to make that mistake again.’

‘What happened wasn’t your fault.’ Shane murmured, when their foreheads touched together.

‘It wasn’t yours either.’ Ilya reminded him.

‘I never regretted you, no matter what it was I said.’

‘Neither did I.’

Ilya’s hand covered over the side of his face, his thumb smoothing over his cheekbone. Every inch of Shane’s body was warm and loose, as though every ounce of tension was gone, melted away like snow in the early spring rain.  

‘Shane, I’m not asking you to choose between him and me, this isn’t about me.’ Ilya said, with the tips of their noses touching, ‘I just want you to know that you’re not trapped, that there is a way out. I’d come and get you from anywhere, at any time, without questions or expectations. But you must leave him, because it’s not safe for you to stay.’

‘What if I’m not brave enough?’ Shane whispered in return.

‘You were always brave enough.’ Ilya replied, against the softness of his lips, ‘you’re here, after all.’

Outside, the trees swayed in the slowing wind. Neither of them knew what the time was anymore, just that it was late, the point of the night when everything was quiet. When Shane didn’t reply, Ilya dipped his head just enough to capture his lips in a tender, loving kiss. It lingered for two seconds, then another, as Ilya kept brushing his thumb across Shane’s face. Plans could wait until morning. When he pulled away, Shane found his eyes had grown so heavy that he didn’t know how to open them anymore, and Ilya’s hand slipped back and into his hair to bring his face down and into the space beneath his chin.

This time, when Shane slept in the warmth of Ilya’s arms, he didn’t dream at all. He just saw billows of cream white and pink, soft peach and forget-me-not blue.

Chapter End Notes

The penultimate chapter 🥹

Now let's all be very gentle with our precious friend Shane here, he's really going through it, but he is seeing the light and we are so close to the end and ILYA LOVES HIMMMMMMMMM. In the safety of Ilya's arms around him and one last gala hanging over his head, there's a lot for our Shanebug to figure out. Leaving your husband who controls literally every single aspect of your life is scary! But Shane! Is! Brave! (Also Ilya would like to please rip Maxim to shreds with his bare hands but he's Kinda Prioritising Shane's Collapsing Life Right Now). There was a bunch of this chapter that I have actually moved to the next one, so I'm really sorry if the pacing feels off! I'm nervous! Can you tell!

Thank you, once again and as always, for everyone's kind and generous support. To the people sharing this with their friends, or on twitter, or any other social media, I cannot tell you just how grateful I am for it. I appreciate it so much! Your comments and excitement are more valuable to me than gold.

Thank you to Parkeroni for his Canada knowledge and my queen Marchoskaya for her wisdom about Russia and her brains and how funny she is like everyone SHE'S THE COOLEST AND SHE WANTS TO ME FRIENDS WITH ME?????? WOW!!!!

Thank you also to twitter user Silver Spoon Baepshane for listening to me rant and rave. And for anyone else who has had to listen to me on the timeline rattling on about this fic.

If you ever want to yap, you can find me on twitter.

See you in the last one 💔

Chapter 13

Chapter Notes

Morning came, and Shane woke up in bed alone. He lay there for what felt like a long time to wait out the clearing of his groggy head, and stretched out his limbs which were still heavy with sleep. The soft sheets felt good against his naked skin, and he rolled over to press his face into Ilya’s pillow while he arched out the muscles of his back with a low, rumbling groan.

Down the hall he could hear the rattle of the dryer going, and when he finally lifted his head, he saw the hoodie of Ilya’s he’d worn the night before folded neatly at the end of the bed, with a clean pair of underwear and sweats set beside it. Outside the sky was still overcast, but Shane found he liked the way the light filtered in through the window and bathed the room in a soft glow. The same glow flooded the whole home, he saw, when he stepped from the bedroom dressed in Ilya’s clothes, and walked down the hall. The large windows stretched along the building’s façade made the living room bright and welcoming, and he could finally take in the details of it. Ilya’s coats hanging up on hooks by the door, the house plants he’d nurtured through winter, and the view out through the trees over the rooftops of the homes beyond. The warm wooden detailing of the kitchen almost matched the wood of the dining table, too, and the countertops were covered in neatly arranged bottles of oil, jars of sugar, salt, pepper and spices, empty jugs repurposed to hold cooking utensils. Through the window there, Shane could see the first bursting leaves growing like fuzz at the tips of the tree’s branches, and it finally felt like it could soon be spring.

Shane turned from the kitchen and back towards the front of the house where he could see Ilya standing outside on the porch, in a woollen sweater that slouched comfortably from his shoulders. His forearms were leaning down against the railing, and he held a cigarette loose between his fingers, half burnt down to the end. Shane crossed the living room in silent steps and pulled open the front door to join him. It was cold still, but the sunshine felt nice against his face.

‘Morning.’ Ilya said, when he glanced over his shoulder towards Shane, who joined him against the banister. He moved his cigarette from his right hand to his left, so he could smooth his preferred palm over the small of Shane’s back and bring him slightly closer.

‘Morning.’ Shane smiled. He leant forward, bending at the waist to rest his head against his forearms and curled his toes in on themselves. They were cold out there, only in his socks, even though the wind had blown the porch dry

‘Sleep okay?’ Ilya asked, and Shane nodded.

‘Yeah.’ He hummed and Ilya’s hand lifted from his back to push his sleep-mussed hair away from his eyes. He must look more than a little dishevelled, Shane thought, but he didn’t mind, he just said: ‘I like your house.’

‘Thank you.’ Ilya replied, took a long drag of his cigarette and laughed when he added, ‘I hate yours.’

‘I think I do, too.’ Shane huffed a tired laugh of his own. He closed his eyes, and succumbed to the slow rhythm of Ilya’s fingers stroking through his hair, his nails scratching tenderly across his scalp. It had been a long time since Shane had slept so well. He could feel it down in his bones, the honey rich feeling of renewal he’d never attained from his bed at home, which had cost so much he’d physically recoiled when he’d seen Maxim’s receipt. He’d not experienced it in the five-star hotel rooms across Europe or America, the wide expanse of Canada, either. Every part of him was bathed in the kind of warm radiating calm money couldn’t buy, and he wanted to bask in it forever.

‘Still tired?’ Ilya asked when he dragged his nail gently over the shell of Shane’s ear and dipped his head down to kiss him.

‘Mmm-‘ Shane whined, ‘don’t, I taste bad, I haven’t brushed my teeth.’

‘Go brush them, then.’ Ilya replied against his mouth.

‘That’s gross.’

Shane’s eyes opened and he made a face when Ilya kissed him again, then a third time, ‘Shane, you had my dick in your mouth less than twelve hours ago, I think we can share a toothbrush once.’

‘You’re so gross.’ Shane wrinkled his nose, and lifted his fingers to rub at his eyes and he glanced out to the road in front of them again, ‘what time is it?’

‘Late.’ Ilya responded when he pulled back, ‘after midday.’

‘Midday?’ Shane balked, and bolted straight upright again, ‘I slept until midday?’

Ilya shrugged, ‘you looked like you needed it. I didn’t want to wake you.’

‘Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ Ilya said with his cigarette between his lips, ‘I don’t mind.’ He stubbed the butt out against the banister and flicked it into a water-logged ash tray. It was hand made from porcelain, mostly clean save for a few scraps of ash. Shane followed Ilya into the house towards the kitchen, and he emitted a shiver when the warmth of the room engulfed him again. It was as they’d left it the night before, their now-dried clothes thrown over the backs of the dining room chairs, the book and photo sitting on the coffee table.

While Ilya went into the kitchen to pour them both coffee, Shane picked the photo back up.

‘Will you tell me about her sometime?’ He asked, and Ilya looked back at him over his shoulder. His eyes lingered on the image, and he nodded.

‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘not now. Not today. But I will.’

‘Thank you.’ Shane replied, and tucked the photo back where he’d found it, then slotted the book back into the shelf. Ilya slid a mug across the island, and Shane’s insides twisted again, when he saw which one it was.

‘World’s greatest grandma.’ He read, and curved his fingers around its circumference, ‘this was always my favourite.’

‘I know.’ Ilya said with a nod, ‘I couldn’t get rid of it when I moved.’

‘You kept it for me?’ Shane asked and leant against the island, but he misjudged the height and flinched when the edge pressed into the bruise across his stomach.

‘Can I take a look?’ Ilya asked and Shane nodded. He set the coffee cup down and huffed a laugh when Ilya came up alongside him to scoop his hands beneath his thighs and lift him up onto the counter.

‘Show off.’

Ilya winked, then pushed up the hem of his hoodie, tucked the bunched fabric under his arms. His head dipped down low and he pressed his thumbs to the mottled colour – it was bigger than it’d been the night before, darker too in parts. He pressed the tips of his fingers around the edges next, leaning in to kiss their wake when he saw the way Shane’s face flinched.

‘Does it hurt?’ he asked, softly.

‘A little.’

‘He pushed you hard.’

‘Yeah.’ Shane sighed, and the silence lingered there between them. Neither one of them needed to say it, they both knew what it had meant.

‘When is your event tonight?’ Ilya asked, without raising his head from where he could press slow, feather-light kisses to the firm, flat expanse of Shane’s belly.

Shane sighed and dropped his hands to comb back through Ilya’s hair. ‘I need to be there before six. I’ll have to go home first, too. Back to Westmount.’ Home felt like a funny thing to call it, Shane thought, when warm in a place that felt so meticulously lived in.

‘You both have to go?’ Ilya asked. His fingers dipped into the hem of Shane’s sweats, pushing them down just enough to kiss the line of muscle below his navel and then to the first tufts of hair growing at the base of his pelvis.

‘Yeah. I’m the organiser,’ Shane affirmed, ‘and he’s giving a speech. But Rose will be there, too.’ His eyes fluttered closed and carefully he lowered himself down, until his back was pressed against the cool wood of the kitchen island. It was barely wide enough for the length of his torso, and Ilya hooked his arms under his thighs to pull him closer to the edge with his knees over Ilya’s strong shoulders.

Maybe with anyone else, Shane would be embarrassed that he’d half-hardened, just from the feeling of Ilya’s mouth against his skin, but when the fabric of his pants and briefs were pulled down just enough to expose his twitching cock, he didn’t bat an eyelid. How could he, when Ilya looked down at him with such hungry, devoted eyes.

Ilya’s tongue ran in a long, slow slide up from his root to his tip, and Shane emitted a breathy, low groan. With one hand pressed to the base of Shane’s stomach, Ilya held him steady, as the other held firm around his cock and Ilya’s lips wrapped hot around his tip.

‘Fuck-‘ Shane gasped, his fingers in Ilya’s hair tightening their grip for just a fraction of a second, until he forced himself to relax. Ilya wasn’t going easy on him, though, and he sunk down lower, lower, lower, until most of Shane was wrapped in the scorching, wet heat of his mouth. He bobbed his head agonisingly slowly, always pulling back enough for his tongue to press to the sensitive underside of his cockhead.

‘Ilya, f-fuck, Ilya-‘ Shane sighed, and he didn’t even notice the way his thighs tensed to draw Ilya’s body in closer against him until the hand pulled from his stomach to grip his thigh instead, massaging the muscle in time to the bobs of his head. The sounds he was making were debaucherous, and Shane’s still sleep-fuzzed body could barely control the way the pleasure was washing over him in long, rolling waves. Without Ilya’s hand on his stomach, he arched up and gasped out breathy, soft moans, until Ilya’s finger slipped down to brush gently over the puffy rim of his hole. It was still tender, from the night before, and the slow, circling teases of Ilya’s fingertip were enough to have him crying out and shooting his release into the heat of Ilya’s waiting mouth.

‘Oh my god,’ Shane whimpered, when Ilya’s suckles slowed, until he was pulling off him with a pop, and swallowing him down and when Shane looked at him, standing there between his open legs, lips spreading into a self-satisfied grin, he wondered if they could have always been like this. If there was a version of his life that was slow mornings and sleep ins, sharing clothes and coffee out of his favourite mug that didn’t match the rest. A version where things felt easy, one where he hadn’t done it all wrong.

Ilya had said that he wouldn’t make Shane choose, and Shane trusted him not to present an ultimatum. But Shane knew that choosing was what he needed to do, and that really, there had only ever been one option.

And his plan started formulating quickly in the post-orgasm heat of his daze. The ache in his side reminded him of the look of shock on Maxim’s face as Shane had pushed himself up off the table, and it was that expression that told him for the first time, what he had was leverage. His mind wound around that small scrap of control and took hold.

Ilya tucked Shane back into his sweats and when he helped him sit up, Shane lurched forward to bring their mouths together again in the heat of a desperate kiss. His fingers hadn’t fallen from Ilya’s sleep-mussed hair, and as Ilya’s hands slid up the outside of his strong thighs, Shane gripped onto him tight to keep their mouths from pulling apart. Ilya tasted like cigarettes and coffee, and the bitter salt of his come, and Shane wanted to taste him for the rest of his life.

They pulled apart, Ilya with a raise of his brows, ‘what happened to brushing your teeth?’ He asked, right as Shane said, all in a rush.

‘I want this. I want you.’

‘Shane,’ Ilya said, and pulled back to bring a little more space between them, so he could properly take in the expression on Shane’s flushed face. His blue eyes were searching, flicking back and forth between Shane’s own with his eyebrows creased together in a way that evoked worry, as much as it did hope, ‘this isn’t about me, it’s not about choosing-’

‘I know it’s not.’ Shane cut him off, and leant forward again to bring their foreheads together. The sides of their noses brushed, and Shane liked how Ilya’s morning fresh stubble scratched against his skin, ‘it’ll take some time. He won’t- he’ll be angry. I need to do it the right way. But I know what I want. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sure about anything.’

When Shane had been young, a bee had stung his arm. The pain had been instant, and he reacted the way people do: he’d shaken his wrist, brought his hand to his skin, and watched as she’d been forced to fly away, gutted and dying. Later, he’d learned that bees didn’t have to do that. With patience, they could unwind themselves, one sharp barb at a time. A little discomfort from him, the gift of life for her. After Ilya, Shane had felt like that bee: frightened into flight, leaving his insides behind, and he’d sworn he would never make that mistake again, that he wouldn’t survive it if he did.

What Maxim valued most was his pride, and so Shane knew that if he ran, the humiliation would drive Maxim’s spite and anger, which would threaten to tear them apart from the inside out. So instead, he looked at the method of unwinding, extracting himself piece by piece from Maxim’s hold. It would take time, days at least, but with the bruise aching in his side and Ilya hot against him, he saw it for exactly what it was: a chance to live.

‘Will you be safe?’ Ilya asked, lips against his ear.

‘Yes.’ Shane replied, ‘all I have to get through is tonight, then tomorrow I’ll tell him that I’m leaving. He can’t know about you, not yet, I have to make him understand the reasons why I want to leave – that I’m not happy, that I want more than the life he’s chosen for me, that I miss me.’

‘And if he doesn’t accept that?’

‘He’s going to have to.’ Shane replied, decidedly, and drew Ilya’s hand from his hip to press against the bruise in his side. He swallowed and sucked in a long breath before he finally said, ‘because of this. Because I’m not scared that he’ll hurt me on purpose, I’m scared of what he doesn’t mean to do but does anyway. He lashes out, he has a temper, but he can be reasoned with if I do it the right way.’

‘If he lays a hand on you-‘ Ilya started, low, and Shane pressed his palm to Ilya’s cheek gently. Their chests were rising and falling, meeting in the middle like they were drawn together with magnets under their skin. Shane marvelled at it, the way their bodies, even though they were so different now, still fit together like it was what they were made to do.

‘He won’t.’ Shane said, ‘he won’t. He isn’t kind, and he’s controlling, he can be cruel, but he does love me, Ilya. He’ll want to stop me from leaving, but he’ll hear me out, because he loves me. You didn’t see his face after I fell, he scared himself, too.’

Ilya’s fingers smoothed slowly over the skin of Shane’s sides, then lifted to tenderly cradle his face. The pads of his thumbs brushed over the heat of his skin, the tips of their noses touched and Ilya, finally, nodded.

‘Okay.’ He said, their mouths brushing again.

‘Okay.’ Shane replied, determined.

‘Okay.’ Ilya added, a third time.

It was as though a fire had been lit between them, and once Shane had started to formulate his plan, he couldn’t stop fitting the pieces together, like the first lain bricks of a path. Ilya urged him to finish his coffee, then they showered together to rinse Shane’s skin free of the memory of Ilya’s hands and sweat, spit and seed. Ilya had washed his underwear while he’d been sleeping, and they were still warm from the dryer as Shane re-dressed in his crumpled suit.

‘You’ll call me if you need me, yes?’ Ilya said, against Shane’s lips as they kissed beside the door. The weight of Ilya pressed the sharp angles of the diamond bird into Shane’s chest, but he didn’t care as his fingers tangled their way into his blonde curls. Ilya’s hands slipped his still-dead phone into his pocket, alongside cash for the cab-ride home.

‘I promise. And I’ll call you when it’s done.’ Shane murmured and reached behind himself for the front door handle. Outside, the cab was idling on the street corner.

Against his thigh, Shane could feel the buzz of an incoming call in Ilya’s pocket. He pulled back from their kiss with a low, annoyed groan, and withdrew it to look down at the screen. Shane caught something in his expression, the furrow of his brows, but in only a moment, he looked back up.

‘Go.’ He said, with one final kiss to Shane’s bruised lips, his left hand dropping to pat the outside of his thigh.

And Shane went, down the stairs with the door left open behind him, and Ilya answered the call in Russian.

The house in Westmount was silent when Shane arrived home and toed off his shoes by the door. He dropped his keys into their dish and walked quietly down the hall, peering first into the kitchen, then the living room, finding both empty. It looked as though nobody had been there for a long time. There were no dishes by the sink, no tea towels hung up to dry, nothing really to suggest anyone had ever been in there at all. Other than the dining table, pushed out of place by a heavy body thrown against it, a chair left eschew, Maxim’s coat still hanging from its back.

‘Shane.’ Maxim said behind him, and a jolt of fright rushed through him.

‘Jesus, you scared me,’ He gasped, before he could help himself, as he turned around. Maxim looked as though he’d barely slept. His hair was a mess from fingers running through it, dark bags were drawn out underneath his drained, tired eyes, creased with age. For the first time, Shane thought he looked old.

‘Baby. Oh my baby,’ Maxim said in a rush, as he crossed the floor and caught Shane around the waist, dragged him in against the breadth of his chest, ‘I’ve been calling. I called you forty times, Shane, I was so worried. Where have you been?’

Shane rose his hands between them, pressing his palms firm against Maxim’s chest, ‘My phone died.’ He said, even as he felt the need to apologise rumbling in his gut. He ignored it, stood firm.

‘Where were you?’ Maxim asked again, but let himself be pushed back and away from Shane’s body, just enough to create space between them.

‘I was with Rose.’ Shane said, ‘she didn’t- she didn’t have a charger.’

‘I was so sick with worry, I didn’t sleep. I called Hayden, I almost called your parents. Running out of here like that, Shane, anything could have happened to you.’ Maxim said, but when he tried to pull Shane in against him again, Shane winced at the hand on his side.

‘Something already did.’ He responded.

Maxim’s hand pulled back, as though it had been burned, to hover over Shane’s body, not quite touching. His brows dipped low over his eyes, and Shane saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed, then said, ‘show me.’

Shane undid the button of his suit jacket, then the first few of his shirt, which hung loose around his hips. When he drew the fabric up, he heard the air that Maxim sucked in through his teeth, as his fingers lifted to brush feather light over the mottled bruise.

‘Shane, my baby…’ He started, but Shane shook his head, dropped his shirt and pulled away, until he could no longer feel Maxim’s heat.

‘I don’t want to talk about this now.’ He said, voice firm.

‘Baby, you have to know that I’m sorry.’ Maxim said anyway, ‘I never meant to hurt you, I would never mean to hurt you. Please forgive me, I’ll give you anything you want.’

‘Maxim.’ Shane said, with a long, slow sigh.

‘I mean it, Shane, anything. A car, a house. I’ll call McGill tomorrow, arrange for you to start your Juris Doctor in the Autumn. Just please, you have to forgive me.’ Shane looked up at him then, and he wondered if Maxim could even see the irony of holding Shane’s future in his hand as a bargaining chip. One ounce of freedom in exchange for his clemency, like a bird with clipped wings and an open cage door.

‘Later, alright?’ Shane said, ‘we’ll talk about this later.’

‘Shane-‘ Maxim tried again, but Shane shook his head.

‘I just want to get through tonight.’

Maxim’s eyebrows twitched. It was an uncertain gesture, the kind that reminded Shane he was a man unused to not getting what he wanted. Shane could only imagine how he’d expected this to go: how he’d stumble through the door, fall into Maxim’s arms and beg. For what, Shane didn’t really know. His forgiveness, maybe, for speaking out, for giving his attention to another man, for defying him in public. Maybe he’d wanted Shane to plead for his righteous anger, to be punished for his indiscretions, to be given the chance to earn his place back by Maxim’s side and in his bed. Or maybe Maxim had expected his apology would be dismissed with a wave of a hand and a whisper of of course I know that you’d never mean to hurt me.

But Shane wouldn’t give him any of that, because he didn’t want Maxim’s mercy, or regret. He was tired of apologising when Maxim sliced him open, for having the audacity to bleed.

It was that uncertainty that Shane held onto, though, as he left the kitchen and climbed the stairs, because it was the first time he’d ever seen Maxim’s foundation shift. It hung heavy in the air between them: the clear understanding that Maxim wasn’t the sole purveyor of control. The screech of the table across the floor when Shane had been flung against it still bounced off the walls of the house like an echo. And it reminded them both that some things couldn’t be resolved so simply.

He plugged his phone in to the charger by his bed, unpinned the diamond broach to sit beside it, then stripped out of his suit to wash himself clean for the second time in only so many hours.

He stood under the spray for what felt like an age, scrubbing his skin and washing his hair with products that smelled expensive and didn’t seem to do anything special. Then, he emerged into the wardrobe and dressed again into another well pressed suit. White, this time, with a silk shirt beneath open enough at the collar to show off a tempting strip of skin. The cream of the fabric made his skin look gold, his freckles stand out and his jet-black hair shine, he hoped it would appease the gallery crowd. A small part of him hoped it would be what Maxim remembered him by.

Downstairs, Shane toyed with his cuffs and twisted the front of his hair, so it sat on his forehead as close to the way Rose set it as he could manage. Maxim came down the stairs in a suit of his own, black, with a neat bowtie at the neck. He appraised Shane with a long, dark-eyed look that took in every shape of him, from his exposed chest to the curl of his hair. After a moment, he pressed his teeth together in a firm clench of his jaw, as though it was what he had to do, to stop from reaching out.

‘Ready?’ He asked.

‘I just need to grab my phone.’ Shane replied, but Maxim stepped up before him. He held both his hands out, Shane’s phone in the palm of one, the bird broach in the other, a silent request, a test of the waters.

‘Thank you.’ Shane replied, and took his phone from Maxim’s hand while ignoring the diamonds in the other, and turned towards the door. The car was waiting out front, and Shane slipped his arms into a long, grey coat as he approached it, opening his own door and climbing in. 

‘How is your Russian coming along?’ Maxim asked with his eyes trained forward as the car turned left onto the 138.

‘Well, I think.’ Shane replied, shortly.

‘So you’ve learned a lot from him then. Ilya.’

Shane glanced across towards Maxim, his face illuminated under the passing streetlights, ‘I guess I have.’

The rest of the drive was silent as the car inched through banks of traffic until it was pulling up outside the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, with its modernist façade, and light glowing from its wide windows. The event wasn’t big enough for much fanfare, just a handful of hired photographers, and a few paparazzi Shane assumed were there almost entirely to catch sight of Rose.

He walked ahead of Maxim into the venue, which bustled with an already growing crowd. Shane recognised most of the faces from other events they’d been to across the city: bankers, businessmen, entrepreneurs with more money than sense who donated from their bloated pockets to any cause they thought made them look good. Councillors, politicians, people who were known for doing nothing at all, but still managed invites to stand in front of cameras with practiced smiles. Maxim’s hand came to rest on his back when Shane shrugged out of his coat and handed it over to an usher by the door, and he ignored the touch to instead smile warmly at a woman who approached them.

Jeanne was the wife of a prominent Quebecois judge who flitted between Ottawa and Montreal, and she sat alongside Shane on the committee and told him stories about her children’s over achievements.

‘Léo just won a trophy in debating, he’s already got such an impressive resumé.’ She’d told him in January. As far as Shane understood, Léo was thirteen.

‘Shane.’ She greeted him with hands to his forearms and an air kiss to both cheeks.

‘Jeanne.’ Shane smiled, thankful for the reason to pull away from Maxim’s lingering hand.

‘It’s lovely to see you.’ She appraised him with an approving look, and sent a warm smile to Maxim, even as she continued in French, ‘come, I’d like to go over the run sheet with you before everyone is seated.’

‘Of course.’ Shane agreed, and turned to glance at Maxim, ‘I’ll come find you.’ He said, then followed Jeanne without looking back.

The event was spread through the first floor, and guests held champagne flutes as they admired the art on the walls. Through an open-door Shane could see the main reception with dining tables spread out in even formations, each seating eight people and decorated with floral arrangements at their centre. Jeanne led him to another woman in a black suit, who held a clip board with seating plans and the order of events, and Shane pretended he was listening, as his eyes ran down the page. There’d be time for viewing the collection, then the tables would be seated, and the entrées would be served. When the tables were cleared, and before mains, Maxim would speak, followed by Jeanne’s husband the judge. After dinner, the gallery’s curator would make his pitch and give his thanks, in the hopes that donations would flow beyond just the cost of a seat at one of the gala’s rounded tables.

‘It looks good.’ Shane said, as his eyes lifted to survey the room again, and Rose stepped through the door. She was dressed in a suit of her own, burgundy, with her red hair tied back in a neat bun and a black leather clutch tucked under her arm. She spied him immediately, and Shane could feel Jeanne buzzing beside him in utmost excitement.

‘Madame Landry.’ She greeted, before Shane had a chance, and took one of Rose’s hands in both of hers, ‘my goodness, it is such a pleasure to meet you.’

‘Thank you so much for inviting me.’ Rose beamed, and when Jeanne released her hand, she slipped it around Shane’s upper arm.

‘Of course, of course.’ The woman with the clip board cleared her throat, and when Jeanne excused herself, Rose took the opportunity to pull Shane in for a warm hug.

‘Shane you look gorgeous,’ she said, right as Shane said in a rush.

‘If Maxim asks, I need you to tell him that I was with you last night.’

Rose’s brows lifted and she glanced over her shoulder, to where Maxim was standing amongst a small group of men in expensive suits. He was waving his champagne flute through the air, a clear indicator that he was midway through a story, but it didn’t stop his eyes from drifting towards them between every few words.

‘Shane, what are you-‘ Rose started, and Shane shook his head.

‘Please, we don’t have time for me to explain right now, just please,’ He said and she pulled back to take both of his hands in her own.

‘Shane, of course I’ll do it, but you have to tell me what’s going on.’

‘He and I fought and I left. I’ll tell you everything, I promise, just not right now.’

‘Okay.’ Rose nodded and squeezed his hands, ‘where were you really?’ Shane didn’t answer, he just gave her an imploring look and she inhaled sharply, ‘Ilya? Fuck, okay, but Jesus, Shane, you need to be careful.’

‘I know.’ He nodded.

‘Champagne?’ A waiter asked when he approached them, and Shane and Rose pulled apart just enough to take a flute each. Shane took a long sip of his, in the hopes the alcohol could calm his buzzing nervous system.

‘Thank you.’ Rose smiled, and when the waiter walked away she asked in a low voice, ‘what have you told him we did last night?’

‘Nothing.’ Shane shook his head and she nodded again, then curved her hand around his upper arm and they stepped together into the gallery.

‘Rose.’ Maxim greeted, when they approached the gathered group and she smiled with more warmth than Shane knew she meant as she pressed up onto her toes to kiss his cheek, without letting go of Shane’s arm.

‘Maxim, you look lovely.’ She said.

‘As do you.’ Maxim replied once she’d pulled back.

‘And as does our Shane.’ She added, turning to look at him again, ‘who taught you to do your hair like that?’

‘You did.’ Shane said with a roll of his eyes, and she gave him a satisfied smile.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘I hear you had quite the sleepover last night.’ Maxim added and took another sip from his glass. His eyes dropped to the flute hanging loose in Shane’s hand, already mostly finished, ‘you’re drinking tonight, baby?’

‘Figured I might as well let loose.’ Shane replied.

‘We did.’ Rose said, pretending she didn’t notice the tension between them, ‘I made Shane wear a rabbit ear headband and do sheet masks with me in bed while we watched Legally Blonde.’

‘I’d like to see a photo of that.’

‘Nu-uh. Some things are between me, Shane and God.’ Rose smiled, then squeezed Shane’s bicep, ‘and I’m in Montreal so rarely, I need to get as much Shane time in person as I can.’

‘As do I.’ Maxim agreed, ‘you and I see eye to eye on so much, Rose.’

‘That we do, Maxim. Shane is someone we’re both very privileged to have.’ She noted, pointedly, and Shane could see Maxim’s jaw clench again, his eyes resisting a roll.

‘Madame Landry.’ Jeanne again, standing there with the clipboard in her hands as the first of the crowd were starting to get ushered over and towards their tables, ‘might I please ask if it would be possible for us to take a few photos of you with some of the collection? It will take no more than fifteen minutes, I promise.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Rose agreed.

‘Would you like me to come?’ Shane asked, but Maxim’s hand had already curved around his side, urging him to follow towards the table.

‘We’ve got to take our seats, baby.’ He said, and Jeanne nodded.

‘Yes, yes, I promise I’ll have her back as soon as I can.’ She said, and Shane felt as though his hand had been forced, so he let Maxim guide him carefully towards the table.

‘Sounds like you had quite the night.’ He said, low as they crossed the room and inched between the tables, sharing smiles with the other guests on their way.

‘I like spending time with her.’

‘How lovely for you both.’ He replied, coldly.

Their table was at the centre of the room, and when Maxim and Shane arrived, it was already mostly full. Maxim pulled out his chair, and Shane dropped down into it, beside another empty place saved for Rose. Across from him, an elderly couple were laughing as a champagne flute was spilled across the table, and into the man’s lap. Shane watched as the liquid fizzed against the perfect starched white of the cloth, seeping in between the threads and onto the wood below.

‘I am so clumsy sometimes!’ The woman laughed, while dabbing at her husband’s pants, as he assured her it was fine, it could be washed away, because saving the woman he loved from embarrassment was worth more than the pricy dry-cleaning bill. Shane wondered what it would be like if that were them. He could picture the heavy hand on his thigh below the table, the nails digging in, the silent treatment in the car on the way home and how his mouth would open when his knees dropped to the cold tile of the vestibule, so he could make it up to Maxim the best way he knew how.

Shane’s fingers touched to his wedding ring and he twisted it in a slow circle around his finger. It felt tight. It was starting to pinch.

‘I am so sorry,’ the woman announced to the table, when the flute was cleared and a waiter had deposited fresh glasses to them all, ‘what a mess!’

‘No need to apologise,’ Maxim shook his head, ‘everyone makes mistakes.’

‘Well seeing you two together, I find that hard to believe!’ The woman said, her face still flushed, ‘you two always look so held together, so chic!’

‘Thank you.’ Maxim nodded with an easy smile, ‘but I assure you, we’ve both made plenty of errors.’

‘Nothing quite like this commotion.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Maxim chuckled, ‘at our wedding Shane got icing all down the front of his suit.’

Shane sat stoic and silent beside him. Maxim had taken a handful of the icing and smeared it across his cheek, letting the cameras shutter in quick succession as the crumbs and cream slid from his skin when softened by the heat. It had fallen onto his lapel, sullying it with white, and Maxim had laughed when Shane had frantically tried to clean it off.

‘If I remember correctly, you put it there.’ Shane replied.

‘Ah yes, well of course I make errors too.’ Maxim leant forward in his seat, as though conspiratorially sharing with the couple across from them, ‘most recently, I accidentally hired Shane’s ex-boyfriend to tutor him in Russian.’ He said, and Shane thought for a moment that his heart had stopped.

‘No!’ The woman gasped, and Maxim nodded enthusiastically along to her scandalised expression.

‘Oh yes. You can only imagine how awkward that was for everyone involved.’ Maxim laughed, with his head tipped back and his arm hung loose across the back of Shane’s chair. Shane’s head filled with dizzy, turbulent static. His breath rattled in his chest and the ever-present adrenaline ran through him at a desperate rate, making his hands shake where they brushed against the edge of the table cloth in his lap. He shouldn’t have been surprised, really, that Maxim had known.

Behind him, waiters emerged from the entrance way, carrying white plates loaded with fish and vegetables, the lights had dimmed low, and the sound of the room was swallowed by a buzzing in his ears.

‘I need to find Rose.’ He said, barely managing to force a smile when the plates were set down before them, ‘she needs to know that the food is here.’

‘Of course, baby.’ Maxim replied, saccharine sweet, as Shane pushed back in his seat, apologising again, and he walked rapidly out the door and into the heart of the gallery. He lifted his head and looked left, then right, then kept walking until the palm of his hand pushed on the heavy bathroom door.

Inside it was mercifully empty, and his palms pressed down against the cold stone counter as he sucked in deep, slow breaths through his nose and out his mouth, the way his mother had taught him when he’d been small, and his own thoughts had overwhelmed him. His legs felt weak, as though he were standing on the unsteady deck of a boat, lost on a tumultuous ocean, and his vision swam as though he’d gone overboard. The muted sound of music and talking filtered through the door, and with the weight of panic on his chest, Shane wondered for the briefest of moments if this was what it felt like to drown.

Behind him the door swung open, then fell closed with a muted thump, and when Shane opened his eyes, Maxim was standing there.

‘Did you think I wouldn’t find out?’ He asked, when their eyes met in their mirrored reflections, ‘with all your long lessons and your ice skating, your fight in the storm. I called him this afternoon, you know, that little boyfriend of yours.’

‘He’s not-‘

‘I think you’ve lied to me enough, don’t you?’ Maxim cut him off. He stepped closer, until they were almost touching, and reached his hands around Shane’s hips to press his palms to the counter top on either side of his, ‘You told me you hadn’t fucked him, and I trusted you, Shane, because that’s what good husbands do. I was ready to put all of this behind us, for both of us to move on together like this little flirtatious blip never happened. I did a lot of thinking last night, because I didn’t like the way he’d come between us. So I called him and I said we wouldn’t be requiring his services anymore. I said you and I had talked, that we agreed you’d learned enough and do you know what he said?’

Shane didn’t respond, he just kept his eyes on Maxim, the way an animal does a predator.

‘He said if it’s what Shane wants.’ Maxim sighed, ‘and it got me thinking. What does Rozanov know about what my Shane wants? How much talking is it that you’ve been doing, so that he knows about your degree and your interests, your fucking ginger ale. Just how much extra-curricular chatting are you doing? When you were in the shower, I looked at your phone. Texts and texts and texts, Shane, going back so many years. Come over, Ilya, fuck me Ilya, I miss you, I need you, Ilya.’

‘It was a long time ago.’ Shane replied, and he knew it was weak. Maxim’s hands drew back from the counter and landed low on his hips as their eyes held.

Early on in their relationship, Maxim had told Shane a Russian fable. A frog and a scorpion meet at the edge of a stream. The scorpion asks the frog to carry him over, ‘I can’t swim,’ he says. ‘But you’ll sting me,’ the frog replies, ‘I’m afraid of you.’ The scorpion pleads with him, he promises, ‘I’d not hurt you, because if I sting you, I’ll drown.’ So the kind, stupid frog agrees, and halfway across the stream, the scorpion stings him. ‘Why would you hurt me?’ the frog asks, ‘now we’re both going to die.’ The scorpion just says, ‘you see, I didn’t want to sting you. But it’s in my nature.’

In the mirror, Shane looked at Maxim and the boiling rage in his eyes, and he realised that his plan could never have worked. Maxim was always going to hurt him, if only because it was in his nature.

‘You lied. Good boys don’t lie.’ He said, with a hand curving round Shane’s front, drawing him back against his chest. The fingers brushed at the top of his pants, dipped just below their waistband, and Shane thought of that bee again, her insides stretched like bunting over the skin of his arm. He understood that sometimes you need to gut yourself hollow, just for the chance to flee.

‘You and I will talk about this when we get home, when you will tell me everything.’ Maxim continued, and Shane didn’t move, he just kept his eyes trained on Maxim’s face, not even flinching when his fingers pressed down into his bruise, ‘now, come back to the table. You’re being rude.’

When the hands pulled from his body and the door fell closed behind Maxim, Shane let go of the breath that had been trapped inside the hollow of his chest. He thought about his perfect life again, it came back to him in flashes: the pinch of cold tile under his skin, the red light ever blinking, bedsheets twisting around his limbs and an ocean of emptiness come morning. For five, long years, he’d let himself disappear into the shape of the life Maxim had moulded for him, and he knew, too, how easy it would be to fall back into it again. He’d apologise with his legs spread, he’d earn his forgiveness, Maxim would bask in his own benevolence, and Shane would have a lifetime of turning the other cheek, reminding himself that everything could have been worse.

But he remembered, too, the feeling of laying naked by Ilya on the cabin dock, after they’d skinny dipped in the afternoon sun. It had been Ilya’s idea, as things often were, to strip from their clothes, for hands to wander over skin, and by the time they’d fallen back on the sun-warmed wood, their chests had been heaving with the last gasps of their laughter.

‘Summer.’ Ilya had announced, over the humming bugs, the whispering wind in the trees. Shane had turned his head and looked at him, the wide spread of his grin, it was the biggest he’d ever seen it.

‘What about it?’ He asked, when Ilya had looked back.

‘It won’t be this much fun without seeing you, I think.’ He said. Shane saw it now, for what it had been. I love you, Ilya had been telling him, the best he’d known how. I love you.

Shane reached into his pocket.

📓

Ilya stood in the dark of his living room, with the corner of his phone pressed to the plush pout of his red lips. When the call had come in that afternoon, he’d known who it was before he’d even answered, his eyes on Shane’s back as he rushed down the stairs to the idling taxi. Since they’d stood face to face in the centre of that McGill ballroom, Ilya had suspected the dismissal would be coming, and he figured Dmitriev wouldn’t have had to try very hard to get his hands on his number.

‘Shane and I have been talking.’ He’d said, all bravado and confidence in the boldness of his lie. Ilya knew that while Maxim had been scripting his call, his hands had been pressed to the slick wet of Shane’s skin against the tiles of his shower wall in the home he’d run to when Maxim had hurt him. A spiteful part of Ilya had wanted to say as much, too. He wanted to ask Maxim how he’d slept, knowing that Ilya had been buried deep inside of Shane, giving him something that Maxim could never dream of providing: love and safety fused into one; passion without violence.

‘Whatever Shane wants.’ He’d replied instead, and when the line was dead, he’d stood there for a long time, waiting. For a while, he’d considered sending Shane a message, but he wasn’t as confident as Shane that he would be safe in the cold of that home, with Maxim’s eyes bolted to every wall. So he stood there at the window, watching cars as they came and went, trundling down the road.

The last time Ilya had been to Russia, he’d stood just like this at the window of his father’s home as it was cleared out around him. Paintings and ornaments were wrapped, clothes folded and put away in boxes. He wasn’t sure where they were being taken, but he knew they’d not be seen again, swapped out for white powder his brother could snort up his nose. The ice in his drink chimed as the heat of his hand around the glass melted it, and he looked down at the last dregs of the vodka. He was pretty sure he’d been drunk since the moment his feet had touched the ground, but maybe he had been before then, too. If he were honest with himself, Ilya had forgotten what it felt like to be sober.

He had turned his head, looked back over his shoulder to the gutting of his childhood home, and he’d thought of Shane, because when the news had come that his father was dead, Shane had been who he’d wanted to call.

‘I’m sorry,’ he’d wished he could say, ‘but I need you.’  Laika, lost in space; a stray dog, finally dreaming of home.

And he never thought of himself as a man who would wait, but then he’d never realised just what he’d been missing until the first time he and Shane had fallen into bed. Ilya wondered if Shane even knew that he’d shown him how he’d been half a body, half a soul, half a life waiting to be lived tangled into an irreconcilable whole.

He loved Shane the way Mumu had loved her Gerasim: entirely and completely, and at the mercy of his hands. He had always known he would have spent his whole life waiting, just for a moment of what they’d had on the floor in front of that fire, when Shane had gasped with want for him.

Ilya watched the cloud cover come over, then be blown away again as the sun dipped lower, lower, lower, until it touched the horizon and kissed the treetops gold. He stood in the dark of his empty home as the street lights turned on, the houses lit up with silhouettes crossing through kitchens and living rooms, tables were set for dinner. And it was in that black, that his phone rang again.

When he answered, he held it up to his ear, and for a moment they just sat there, listening to each other breathe. In the background Ilya could hear the sound of traffic, the honking of a horn, the low hum of a francophone pop song playing on the radio, until eventually, Shane let out a long, slow exhale and said: ‘I love you, too.’

And it flooded through Ilya like alcohol. It made him feel drunk, dazed, knocked back off his feet. The wonder of being told when he’d already known and the certainty of what it meant.

‘Ilya, I love you.’ He said again.

‘Where are you?’ Ilya asked.

‘In a cab, I’m on my way to Westmount.’ Shane replied, that determination in his voice he’d had all those years ago. I’ll come to your party, he’d told him, pen clutched in his hand, and maybe a part of Ilya had always known, that it had set them on a path that would wind them up here.

‘And Maxim?’

‘He’s still at the gala, I have- maybe thirty minutes. Forty-five max. If I’m lucky, I’ll be gone by the time he’s even noticed I’ve left the gallery.’

‘Where?’ Ilya asked.

‘Anywhere.’ Shane replied.

And Ilya smiled, glanced back over his shoulder into the dark of the home he’d built, like a bird making a nest, waiting for its other half and said: ‘I know a place.’

The drive to Westmount was short, and he parked on the street out the front of the old, grand home. His feet carried him up the drive fast, and his palm pushed open the front door that had been left ajar.

‘Shane?’ He called, his eyes lifting to take in the blinking of the security camera light.

‘I’m up here!’ Shane called back, and Ilya didn’t waste time with his shoes before he took the stairs up two at a time, and rushed down the hall to the open door of the bedroom.

Shane was standing there, in jeans and a sweatshirt, leaning over piles of clothes and electronics spread out on the top of the bed. His hands were moving fast, haphazardly folding shirts, underwear, sweaters and pants, setting them beside his laptop, charging cables, his Russian textbooks, too. There was a suitcase open on the floor, and Ilya knew they barely had enough time to fill it.

‘Shane,’ he said, but before he could step closer towards him Shane turned and rushed in against his chest. His hands grasped at the sides of Ilya’s face as he drew him in to a deep, desperate kiss.

‘Ilya, fuck, Ilya, he figured it out, I can’t stay here, I can’t explain this, I have to go, we have to go.’ He said, all in a rush, and Ilya nodded, wrapped his arms secure around his middle to hold him steady and close.

‘Okay, okay.’ He said, capturing Shane’s mouth in one more kiss, ‘let me help you. Tell me what you need me to do.’

‘Tell me that you love me.’ Shane replied, his forehead touching Ilya’s and making him huff out a disbelieving, breathless laugh.

‘Surely I can do something for you more difficult than that.’ He said, and he didn’t think about how he’d once have been mortified by the raw-red honesty in every syllable of his words. How foolish it seemed now, that he’d ever wanted to hide them.

‘It’s all I want forever.’ Shane insisted, demanded, begged, and Ilya – well Ilya had spent enough time waiting.

‘I love you. I love you.’ He said, and kissed him again, ‘Я тебя люблю.’

A calm spread over Shane’s face, and he closed his eyes to bask in the sound, ‘I love you, too. My god, I love you, too.’

‘I’ll ask you to tell me that a thousand times soon, my love, but we’ve got to go.’ Ilya reminded him.

‘I need to get my papers, my passport and birth certificate,’ Shane pulled back just enough to say, and Ilya nodded.

‘Okay. I’ll pack these things; I’ll find you downstairs.’ And he wished even as he pulled his hands from Shane’s body, that he’d never have to be without his warmth again.

Shane rushed down the hall, and Ilya knelt on the floor to toss his things into the case, leaning his weight on it to zip it all closed. He carried it down the stairs and grabbed a few pairs of Shane’s shoes, too, to throw onto the backseat of his car. Shane emerged from the study, his hands gripped around a manilla folder, just as Ilya was opening the door.

‘Wait-‘ Shane said, glancing down at his left hand where the ring sat. He ran his index finger over the ridge of it, feeling where it had been indented with scratches from years of wearing it every single day.

‘You can keep it.’ Ilya reminded him, but Shane just shook his head and walked down the hall. Ilya followed, and he could see where the table had shifted over the hardwood of the floor, and he watched as Shane slipped his ring from his finger and set it down atop it. It looked so small in the low light, insignificant even, but Ilya could see how the weight of it fell from Shane’s body like shackles. Without it, he was free.

Beside it sat the small broach Shane had been wearing the night before, and with one final glance up at the skylight built high in the sitting room wall, Shane curled his fingers around it and slipped it into his pocket. His hand took Ilya’s, pulled him back down the hall to the open door, the fresh spring night beyond.

On the doorstep, Shane hesitated again. He turned and looked back over his shoulder to the cold, dark chasm beyond. His eyes flicked up one final time to the blinking red light, and Ilya wondered if somewhere in Montreal, Maxim was watching.

‘Shane,’ he said, gently this time. It was his final chance to change his mind.

‘I’m ready.’ Shane said, when he turned back towards him, ‘let’s go.’

‘Okay,’ Ilya nodded, palm touching to the heat of his face, ‘let’s go.’

📓

When the car crossed the Prairies River, Shane felt the adrenaline melt from him and be replaced with heavy, bone-dense relief. It seeped through every inch of his body, starting with his toes and easing the tension from every muscle in his legs, his hips, arms, chest, until it flooded his mind so completely that he felt lightheaded and dazed. When he breathed in, his lungs expanded to their fullest capacity, he didn’t know how long it had been since they’d been able to do that.

In his lap his phone buzzed with messages from Rose, and he unlocked it to read them as they flooded in.

When he’d left the bathroom, he’d seen that she hadn’t yet made it to the table, and in one panicked rush with trembling thumbs, he’d messaged her.

Shane 19:14

I need you to talk to Maxim

Distract him, just keep him talking for as long as you can, until his speech.

Rose 19:15

Of course

Where are you?

Is everything okay??

Shane 19:17

Tell him I’ve been dragged into something organising related

I don’t care what, just anything you can think of

Something that sounds complicated

Rose 19:18

Shane what’s going on???

Are you okay?

I’m heading back to the table

Rose 19:56

He’s gone for his speech

That intense French lady came and got him

Where are you?

Rose 20:01

Shane????

Rose 20:11

Shane where are you???

Maxim’s freaking out

Like fully fucking freaking out

Shane

SHANE

Baby you’re freaking me out too

Shane’s head tipped back to rest against the back of his seat. The streetlights were making patterns over his legs, strips of gold with shadows in between. Ilya’s car smelled like pine air freshener and stale cigarettes, and he found he quite liked it.

Shane 20:12

I love you

Thank you

I’ll explain everything, I promise

Rose 20:13

Are you okay?

He’s leaving, he’s going back to your house

Shane figured maxim already knew. He could picture him sitting in the back of his chauffeured car, scrubbing back through the footage and watching it again and again: Shane coming home, how he’d stripped out of his suit and gathered his things, Ilya arriving, kissing him, the two of them leaving together. Right before the door had closed, Ilya had aimed an arrogant salute at the blinking camera, and Shane, in all his adrenaline fuelled overwhelm, had still had it in him to laugh. He still felt so giddy sometimes, the way he had when Ilya had first told him he was attracted to him. I invited you because I think you’re hot, he’d said, and it still ran through him, effervescent and pure.

Shane 20:13

Yeah

I think I’m probably the best I’ve ever been

The house is empty

We’ve already left

Shane watched as the three dots appeared, disappeared, popped up again, until finally Rose said:

Rose 20:14

Wherever you’re going

Tell me when you get there

And tell Ilya I say hi.

Shane’s phone started ringing with an incoming call. In the taxi on the way home he’d turned off his location sharing, removed Maxim from everything that mattered. He declined the call, then the one that came after it, and finally he switched it off altogether, after a text to his mum, to tell her he’d reach out when he could, but that everything was fine. In his pocket the bird broach dug into his skin, and he pulled it out, watched the way the streetlights made it shine. He’d sell it, he’d decided, it would get them more than enough to live off for at least the first few months, and he liked the thought of it out of that house, flying free.

He put his dead phone and the broach into the drinks holder and crossed his arms over his chest as the car engine rumbled beneath them.

One of Ilya’s hands pulled from the wheel and slipped in between the rest and Shane’s head to thread into the soft strands of his hair, ‘you can sleep.’ He said, with one glance over to the heavy lids of Shane’s eyes, ‘it’s a few hours still. I’ll wake you when we get there.’

‘No.’ Shane hummed and turned his head just enough to press a kiss to the skin on the inside of Ilya’s wrist, ‘I want to remember this part.’

‘What part?’ Ilya asked.

‘All of it.’

Ilya scratched his nails gently over the back of Shane’s head, then ran his hand down the back of his neck, along his shoulder until it pressed down, palm up against the heat of his thigh. Shane’s hands dropped down too, he curled his fingers around Ilya’s own, squeezed them three times.

‘I love you.’ He said again, and Ilya pulled their hands up to press them against his lips.

‘I love you, too.’ He replied.

‘Simple.’ Shane hummed and Ilya nodded.

‘Simple.’ He agreed.

📚

In summer when the sun rises, it washes the lake light blue and gold. The water is cold, and it laps over Shane’s bare feet with soft whispers between pebbled stones. Overhead a bird is calling, and Shane looks up to find it, and is greeted instead by cotton candy clouds, billowing like towering castles in the sky. They’re massive and he wishes he was a thousand metres tall, so he could slide his fingers over their rounded shape, feel their texture beneath his skin.

A time would come for paper forms and mediation rooms and declarations of ‘I’m not asking for anything. I just want it to be over,’ but none of that mattered yet. Not here.

Not with the sound of the screen door opening and falling closed behind him, and he turns to look at Ilya there, shirtless with his hands braced against the wooden balcony railing. The sun is higher now, his skin looks like molten gold, and he’s beautiful – even more than Shane remembered him being over all these years. Neither of them says anything, Shane just steps from the shore onto the green grass, then the stone path to the wooden steps up one, two, three. There’s a light on in the kitchen, the kettle is on the stove, Shane folds in against Ilya’s chest and he presses his nose into clean, warm skin. It smells like cigarettes, and fresh, wet soil, cement after rain.

The first rule of a tragedy is that everything is set before the story begins: it’s inevitable.

Lucky for Shane, this isn’t one.

It’s starting to rain and each drop is illuminated in the bursting light of dawn. Can it be called a sun shower, when there’s barely yet sun at all? Ilya’s arms wind around him, steady and secure, a hand presses tender to the back of his head, and their chests rise to meet with each incoming breath, like a tide seeking the shore. In the house the kettle sings, but Shane can’t hear it over the sound of his blood pumping in his ears, the patter of rain drops hitting the earth, the sound around them of nothing, really, at all.

He closes his eyes when Ilya’s lips press against his skin.

Some things are worth the wait.

Chapter End Notes

So. Yeah. 🧍‍♀️

State Lines has been my baby since March, when I first came up with the idea and started my plotting (scheming, planning). At first I thought it would be a one shot, but it kept blowing out until it was this, and it is very very precious to me. I’m really proud of her, and I am so grateful to you for taking the time to read her.

If you haven’t already, I strongly strongly recommend listening to State Lines by Novo Amor, after which this fic is named. I want to thank Parkeroodle for his Canadian wisdom, as always, and of course Marchoskaya for being an amazing friend and giving me SO much language and literature help. Thank you for introducing me to Mumu, specifically.

Thank you to everyone who shared this fic with a friend, or posted on twitter or anywhere else. Thank you for all your comments and kudos, and for the friends I’ve made along the way. I especially want to thank everyone who has been here from the start, commenting every update. You have NO idea how many times I've cried because of how kind you've been.

If you’d like to read anything else by me, I have a pair of two standalone one shots comprised of a 5+1 Jealous Ilya fic called An Uncomfortable State of Being (Jealousy, Jealousy), and a character study of Ilya's homesickness for Russia featuring his teenage (then adult) niece, called Anchor.

Now I think we can all agree that Shane has been through it. The last four chapters - from the storm until the Cabin - being over three days is a lot, and there’s still MUCH that needs to be grappled with. How will he and Ilya navigate their new relationship? Will Shane go back to Uni? How will his parents respond? Will Maxim go after him? I am not someone who thinks everything needs to be tied up into a bow, but I do think there are things left to be said. For that reason, I am working on a companion piece. It’s a sequel, kinda, but will just be a one shot. It will probably be somewhere between 15-20k words (maybe less, maybe more?) and is a series of vignettes covering the twelve months after Shane leaves. It will be called Homebound, and the summary I have is: Shane and Ilya, the (second) first year.

I’m hoping to post it in the coming weeks, but until then I just want to say thank you so much for reading. I cannot stress enough that State Lines is my baby, and I feel so lucky to have received so much support from people who like her, too.

Until next time, you can find me on twitter.

xx JJ