Work Text:
It rains on the thirteenth of January, 2021.
Ilya - 13/01/21- 08:34
yes I know this, любимый
you are always reminding me loud like гагарочка
i will buy dinner in airport
[image attachment]
good healthy meal, yes?
Ilya - 13/01/21- 9:02
i win for you today
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Shane Hollander downs his first drink of 2021 in his apartment in Montreal on January twenty-eight at nine in the evening. The bottle is something Ilya brought with him one night because Shane wouldn’t “stock the fucking fridge”, the dark-grey and gold label spelling out Beluga, Gold Line. Shane’s only had it a few times, but he knows the taste. Before eleven, he’s filled two more of his—Ilya’s—nice, crystal glasses and throws up in his bathroom, takes a cold shower, does all of his laundry and cleans out the fridge. He swears off alcohol while still drunk. He has another drink at four in the morning, sips it in the shower with the cold water rushing down on him, because he woke up feeling like someone had shoved a furnace into his chest and maybe lit him on fire. By the time he wakes up, his hangover is so bad he swallows four painkillers and tries to toss the vodka bottle out. He shoves it in the back of a cabinet instead.
Ilya - 13/02/21- 9:02
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You - 13/02/21 - 9:03 - Outgoing Phone Call ↗
7:24 minutes
[Blocked Sender] - 13/02/21- 9:12
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There are a lot of things Shane plans to get rid of and doesn’t, like his Montreal apartment. His house stands semi-abandoned as Shane shuffles his belongings over from one place to the other, keeps duplicates of toothbrushes and changes his body wash for something stronger in fragrance, suddenly develops an interest in cologne and purchases silk shirts for outrageous prices. Because they feel worth it, now. Because there’s some weight to what they offer him.
At the end of February, Shane drives to Ottawa, to Ilya’s house, if only to catch a glimpse of the cars in the driveway. And the thing is, that code to the gates is going to be the same, but he doesn’t go in. He parks his car in front and stands there, like an animal, until one of the neighbors comes to check on him. They don’t ask who he is.
[Blocked Sender] - 13/03/21- 9:02
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Ilya said this about returning to Russia, one time: it is like being in a place and no one sees you. They are looking at you but not seeing you, and what they do see is whoever they hope you are. And I do not think I am this person. I think I have maybe never been this person. But when I was little I thought I could be, or maybe some version of him. Parts of it are the same, maybe. Like being amazing hockey player and very handsome, of course. Shane rolled his eyes. He stroked Ilya’s cheek and used his forefinger to follow the bow of Ilya’s top lip. This conversation happened in Ilya’s Boston house, which was decorated with an opulence that Shane, frankly, found kind of alarming, but at some point the numerous paintings grew on him, the leopard print blankets and the leather couches and needlessly tech-forward fridge not so offensive anymore. There’s a similar blanket in the cottage, which Ilya brought with him one time, though it’s tiger print. Shane used to stuff it into his rattan blanket basket. Nowadays, it is always draped over the back of the sofa.
[Blocked Sender] - 13/04/21- 9:02
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Hayden looks at Shane’s phone one time, in the locker room. Shane’s almost gotten over it, the immediate need to turn his screen away. Guess some things shake out quicker.
“Whoa,” he says. His brows are pinched together. “Kind of a fucked up thing to do for a prank, right? Have you talked to the cops about this? Or, like, anyone? That’s stalker behavior, dude. Do you know who’s sending it?”
And yeah. It’s really fucked up, Shane wants to say. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. If he says so then it’s real.
[Blocked Sender] - 13/05/21- 9:02
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Add Ilya Rozanov to your contact list?
It rains this week, too. A noise like summer bugs chirping endlessly.
[Blocked Sender] - 13/06/21- 9:02
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Like clockwork.
“You still getting those texts, man?”
Shane thinks: Yeah. Sure am, Hayden. Please stop asking about them. I need an excuse to forget about them so that when they come I can explain why I haven’t changed my number
Shane says, “Dinner tonight at yours still on?”
Hayden’s eyes light up. “Really? You feel up to it?”
And Shane is such a good liar these days that he thinks he’s sold it. He’s made himself convincing enough for even Hayden, and that makes him think he’s going to be fine. That everything’s going to be fine, someday.
[Blocked Sender] - 13/07/21- 9:02
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You - 13/07//21 - 9:03
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[Blocked Sender] - 13/07/21- 9:02
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Like clockwork, but worse. So no, not fine.
This is early July: it rains. Slant against his house. Such downpour he can’t see past the porch of the cottage; water pools on the lawn; flower arrangements around the property break stems. At one point, Shane goes to stand outside, at the edge of the driveway, staring down the gravel road. There are broken tree branches pinned under rocks. Everything washes off him. He bleeds into the world. Nothing sticks.
He stays there for five minutes, ten. Fifteen. His t-shirt soaked to his skin, hair to his face. He wonders how much rain it’d take for the lake to overflow and take the cottage and him with it. Maybe he could sit inside his oversized, empty house, water pushed up on the grand windows, and watch the fishes. Bass, pikes. A bullhead or two.
He retreats inside but leaves the door unlocked. Shane doesn’t peel any of his drenched clothes off until he’s already in the shower, and then he turns the water on so it runs scorching hot. Burns when it touches his skin, turning it red. Wrings out the clothes, after, and dumps them in the sink.
It doesn’t stop raining until well into the night. Shane’s barely asleep, has let the news stay on in the background while he pops a Coke open and survives dinner.
His phone pings; he swipes to see the full message. Every time it sounds, he looks. It’s the usual blocked sender. Maybe it’s worth calling again, if only to listen to the static on the other end of the line. Because someone’s answering. Someone on the other end is picking up, as fucked as that is.
He unblocks the sender. Goes to bed.
Ilya - 13/07/21- 9:03
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Shane folds himself over the kitchen island and reconsiders sobriety.
He imagines himself in the cottage-aquarium again. But this time the water comes inside, through a small crack or a leak or the unlocked front door. It pools at his feet and he does not move. In this dream, he is conscious and painfree for all of it. The rising and the overflowing. There’s nothing terrifying about the water outside the house being so dark he can't see anything. His feet are cold from the water. It creeps up his shins; past his knees; his hips; his waist; his shoulders; it laps at the curve of his chest; his throat; then it finds his mouth, and it tries to break in there, too.
And because it is all in his head, he can part his lips and swallow the water and it fills him. He has already made room for it inside of him. It can take up to ten minutes to drown, but that’s in open water. For Shane, in his house, a little longer maybe. He thinks about whether he would sit down, or if he would stand the whole time. If he would actually panic and climb the stairs into his bedroom, look at every photo in there, wondering what the altitude of a plane would need to be for the downfall to equal ten minutes.
He googles this, later. He doesn’t like the answer because it does nothing for him.
If July eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth are rainy, the following day burns hot-yellow before Shane’s even roused from where he fell asleep on the couch. The sun is big and bright and fuzzy in the sky, which is nearly white. On the news, there’s a story about rising water levels. Shane cycles through his usual list of channels: CTV, CBC, ONN. Mostly it’s out of habit. Some months ago, he was able to set up keyword alerts to his phone. But the sound is nice, it rounds out all the empty space. White sky. Blue sky.
Their first summer at the cottage, Shane had called them dog days, and Ilya barked. Slobbered all over Shane’s mouth like they were nineteen again, kissed him with tongue until Shane was sure he’d fucking crawl into him, and that’s when he broke. As in, he laughed until he cried. As in, there was nothing he could do but let the heat take them. That next morning Ilya said, If dog days, then maybe golden retriever, I think, and Shane laughed again, the kind of noise he didn’t know he was capable of making. Honked at the end, and Ilya called him my loon. Okay, okay. Golden dog days. Golden retriever days.
He thinks about turning his phone off, if only to get away from the date glaring at him. It’d really be preferable to stop counting the days, but Shane’s mind has never been able to do anything preferable for him. But he sits around and waits for the notifications. Even the ones he doesn’t read.
For part of April, Shane considered going to a therapist. He scheduled an appointment and showed up, and when she told him that part of moving on is accepting there will be times that your life—and the people in it—are moved by forces out of your control, Shane thanked her. He did not go back.
He measures his meals to the tenth increment of a gram, nowadays. He finds it very rehabilitating.
By now, the damp clothes in the bathroom sink smell like mildew. He shoves them into the washing machine. Brews two cups of coffee and then goes to sit on the dock. Part of him considers dumping the coffee into the water, but he feels guilty about that thought the moment he’s had it. Like, it’d probably be a pretty shit thing to do to all the animals in there. Enjoy your Colombian bean brew with milk and sugar. Shane takes his black, still. Can’t break that habit.
It’s worse now. He won’t use that word—worse—but Hayden had, and ever since he did it sits in the back of Shane’s mind. You’re worse now, and Shane wonders what about him gave it away, and if worse here means all parts of him. Including hockey. The numbers tell him he’s not. The stats are sacrosanct.
There’s an email in his inbox from Kirsten Foster asking if he’d like to swing by camp, to show his face. Shane has told her he’s probably not going to make it out. Issues with his car. She offers a ride. He doesn’t answer her. Farah Jalali forwards another email from the Voyageurs about contract signings, tells him it is mostly finalized, and wishes him a good rest of his July.
He thinks about that word again, preferable, and turns the clock on his wristwatch back so many years it throws the rest of his apps off. He reprograms the oven timer to a random number. Spins the wall clock in the living room to six in the morning. His phone tells him it’s July, 2010, and tomorrow he’s going to shoot his first ever ad for CCM. Later that day, Ilya Rozanov is going to kiss him in his hotel room, and it’s going to bring them where they are now.
Shane finishes his cup of coffee, then drinks the second one for good measure. He’s not planning on sleeping, anyway.
And then he takes his shirt and pants off and lies on the dock in his underwear, feet in the cold water, the weight of the sun on him, and waits out the hours. He won’t be able to tell when afternoon leans into evening except for the sky. Leaves the TV off for the first time in months.
So it’s understandable, then, that there are many reasons to leave the door unlocked, like: if the rain continues and can fill the house, and if someone is hoping to answer the question about dog days and white skies, and perhaps someone hopes to have that second cup of coffee and could Shane please prepare it with milk and sugar, and wow, Shane, do you see the sunset—this is like you are to me, so warm.
And it makes perfect sense that eventually the door does open. Shane’s in the living room, gets off the couch. Ilya is wearing his Ottawa jacket and dumps his beat-up training bag on the floor.
“Sorry,” he says, “I’m late.”
Shane shrugs, holding his faulty wristwatch up, and tells him, “I don’t even know the time.”
Ilya’s wide smile is white and stark in the hallway. Shane takes his face into his hands and listens to him say “любимый” like gravel in his mouth, kisses that same mouth, pries the affection out of him. Shane rubs his thumb against the side of Ilya’s nose, which is smeared with blood, and neither of them turn to his hand, instead looking only at each other.
“Ottawa summers are so hot,” Ilya tells Shane.
Shane asks, “Did you walk here?”
“Like it is under my skin,” Ilya says, “all of the sun. We should swim. Can we?”
Shane asks about coffee and about maybe putting his stuff away and changing into something different and about the dog days and once again, did he walk here, and Ilya stares at him with the eyes of someone who doesn’t care about any of those things right now, and what can Shane do but say, “Yes, sure, let’s go swimming,” and then go?
“What day is it?” Shane asks.
Ilya shrugs, undressing as they walk, and once they’re on the deck Ilya’s jacket falls onto the wooden boards, then his pants, socks, his t-shirt off last until he is naked but for his underwear. He hooks one finger on the waistband, raising his eyebrows, as if asking for permission, and Shane’s pursed mouth tugs into a smile. Ilya shoves his underwear down, too, and Shane can see where the tan lines cut across his thighs and hips, the curl of his dark pubes and the trail of hair to his navel. He has all the moles on his back and chest, one of them hidden right above his groin.
“Is dog days,” Ilya tells him. “What does it matter? Get naked, come on,” and he pats Shane’s hip, then twists his hand into the front of Shane’s shirt. “Let me see you.”
Shane must’ve gone swimming every day the last week, but he strips down dutifully. Ilya seems to be taking him in.
“You are upset?” he asks when Shane remains quiet. He taps the corner of his mouth. “See, here, you are unhappy with me.”
Shane is all water. He doesn’t know what to do with his limbs.
“Sweetheart,” Ilya says, kissing the bow of Shane’s cheek, over his freckles. His lips are cool and nice on Shane’s skin, which is warm. He tells him, “Sorry,” and then again and again, “Sorry, sorry, I know, it’s been hard, I know this. Come on, look at me, Shane, look now,” and he takes Shane’s face into his hands so that there’s no other choice but to do just that.
Shane presses his lips tightly together. Tries to imagine them from an outsider’s point of view, naked and ridiculous enough to give him something to smile about. But Ilya’s eyes are right there, pupils thin like needle points. He is so close that Shane could count his lashes. Ilya rubs their noses together, then kisses Shane on his cupid’s bow.
They swim in the lake. Shane stops himself from saying anything he really has to say. He watches Ilya swim laps around him, then races him far out to the buoy. Shane touches it first, by the length of a fingertip, and Ilya howls his disappointment and wraps an arm around Shane’s waist, paddling them both back while Shane struggles against his tide, laughing, also. It is a difficult thing to swim and laugh both, but as with all things, it is easier with Ilya.
By the time they haul themselves out of the water, Shane’s fingers have pruned. He touches Ilya’s hand, which is smooth except for all of his scars, and he pushes Ilya down there on the dock for his own taking. Ilya goes down without struggle, spreads his legs for Shane to crawl between, and holds him when Shane lies on top of him without moving.
Ilya twists Shane’s hair around his fingers. He puts a kiss to Shane’s forehead and the arch of one brow.
“This red bird,” Ilya says, pointing at the cardinal on the branch of a tree, “we have this one in Moscow, also.”
“It’s a red cardinal,” Shane murmurs into the swell of Ilya’s chest, then turns his face so he can rest his ear over Ilya’s heart. “There are lots of them here.”
“I see.” Ilya continues stroking his hair, then moves his hand down to Shane’s back, touching his shoulderblades. Shane’s skin prickles at his touch, damp from the water, still.
Perhaps they should get dressed. Go inside, make dinner, participate in routines. Shane wants to lie there until they melt together.
Sticky with sweat, Shane rolls over onto his back. He hitches his legs up, knees knocking together, but next to him Ilya stays flat.
“Blue sky, no clouds,” Ilya says. The sun on him blows out the details, but Shane can recall them from memory: knows the precise angle of Ilya’s nose, the silvery scar on his lip and by his brow, his jaw, doesn’t need the sun to show where his fainter moles are. Sunshine pales him but all of this is irrelevant because at least he is there.
Ilya says, “Perfect day, yes?” and Shane tells him, “The day isn’t over yet. It’s probably not even afternoon.”
“Okay,” Ilya murmurs. “Not even afternoon. So now what? Drink? TV? Soccer?” He gives Shane a cheeky smile. “Sex?”
Shane feels it again, the weight of him there. Falls short of words, and this is where Ilya has to reach out and squeeze his face again, like he is attempting to coax an answer out of Shane where there’s none to be had, decides for him, says, “Okay, we can sit on the porch and have beer and relax. This is fine?”
“Yeah,” Shane says, voice dry. “That’s great.”
Ilya rolls over and grabs his t-shirt from somewhere down by his feet, uses it to whack Shane’s ass when they stand up and Shane pushes him back into the water for good measure. Then he memorizes it, Ilya floating in the lake, hair pushed back and eyes creased with a grin. Today, the water has a green tint. As if it can’t decide whether it’s grass or water or something in between. Ilya blends in. Every bob of his head above the surface, the waves cluck as they hit the shore.
Shane keeps waiting for it to rain again.
“Very stupid thing to do, I think,” Ilya says while standing in front of the living room clock. In his hand he is holding Shane’s wristwatch. “All this time and it is going nowhere. Is easier when there is a schedule, right? This is what you said to me. Better to have routine.”
Shane nods. “Yeah, it’s probably better that way.”
And he burns, you know? His eyes burn.
“I do stupid things also, for you,” Ilya says, because he’s the only other person who’s going to understand this. He’s going to be the only other person who understands this, always. “Stupid men in stupid love, maybe.”
“Well,” Shane says, “it’s something.”
“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “Is something. Better than nothing.”
They turn to the clock together. It’s stopped moving, a neat 14:10, but Shane’s wristwatch still works, technically, and so does his phone. He sets all the notifications on silent, his email on autorespond: I am currently unavailable, in case of an emergency, please reach out to… And maybe it’s because he’s had a sort of shit year that people let him get away with this more than usual. They will buy into his silent retreats and his solitude and his rigorous, habitual existence because perhaps they understand that if he doesn’t get to have this, right now, then he is going to be worse.
“Did you win for me?” Ilya asks. “The Cup.”
Shane swallows hard. “Next year, maybe. You’ll have to come see it during my cup day.”
Ilya takes a deep breath, touches the rounded, wooden edge of the clock on the wall, and then nods. Lowers his hands. Uses them, instead, to touch Shane’s waist. Hold him really tight. Shane thinks he might get bruises, and the pinch of Ilya’s fingers isn’t comfortable, but he doesn’t wriggle away.
“Okay,” Ilya promises. “Next summer, during your cup day.”
They insist that they are going to sleep; they do not.
Shane’s circadian rhythm has been off-beat ever since the season ended, so he’s not surprised. He tells Ilya this, and Ilya goes, “Like the bugs? Cicadas?” and gestures outside, as if it isn’t completely dark out there. During the day they get the buzz, though, a big wave of noise, so loud it might as well be part of the air.
“No, it’s like, your body clock. This sort of... internal timer? How your body processes things throughout a twenty-four hour day. You know, when you fly between countries and you can’t sleep easily because it feels like you’re living in the wrong hour? As if you’re not in tune with the world around you.”
Before they tucked themselves in, Shane hid his wristwatch in the drawer of his bedside table. He chucks his phone in there for good measure.
Ilya makes a noise of recognition, then turns back to him. They’re in bed, the tiger blanket from downstairs draped over their feet.
“Living in the wrong hour,” Ilya repeats.
“Just for a little bit,” Shane tells him. “Not like, forever.”
“Could you do it?” Ilya asks him, on his side, face to face. They have turned all the lights off. Shane feels Ilya’s body lined up with his, his leg pinned between both of Ilya’s. He wiggles his foot and Ilya nudges his knee into Shane’s. “Live in the wrong hour forever?”
Shane tries to make out his features, but that night is this:
cicada buzz ; dark on dark, no edges, not even the outline of Ilya, only the shape of him ; cicada buzz, like a clock now, ticking ; running water ; “—the wrong hour, forever?” but kissed into Shane’s collarbones ; kissed into his stomach, the scar that runs from his waist to his navel, fresh from this season ; kissed into his groin ; kissed into his inner thighs ; kissed ; cicada buzz ; it sort of thrums into him ; into him, Ilya ; that dark clock, into him ; between them, in a sense ; the swell of him everywhere ; as if Summer is inside of them ; is a thing ; is a thing they can hold onto ; is a thing for them to keep ; is anything other than temporary;
is Ilya Rozanov back in his bed after six months.
“Good morning,” Ilya says, kissing Shane’s nape. “We stay here, today? Or go for a walk?”
Shane brews coffee, two cups. Holds the other one out for Ilya, has already added milk and sugar. They wander down to the dock and sit at the edge of it, feet in the water. Ilya taps Shane’s knuckles with one finger, holding his cup in his left hand so they can hook their pinkies together.
“We stay here,” he answers Ilya, a bit too late. As if the answer hadn’t already become obvious.
Ilya squeezes his finger, takes another sip of coffee and says, “Okay, любимый, whatever you want,” and the thing is, he probably means it. Shane knows this. Whatever he wants.
The species of periodical cicada that unearth themselves every thirteen years belong to the genus Magicicada. During their time underground, they are wingless nymphs, devouring sap from tree roots and digging tunnels.
You get a few weeks, after those thirteen years. He remembers the crunch of dead cicadas under his sneakers, when he was younger. Picked up a body or two, studying the translucent wings. They were like paper animals in the palms of his hand, so surreal. He couldn’t believe that for years, there was life tucked into that body. He sort of misses the sound of them when fall arrives, as if someone has stripped a whole layer of the world clean off. Left it a bit ajar, not quite right.
In 2008, Shane Hollander lost to Ilya Rozanov. Fresh-faced, hungry. Like he’d been living off victory points that were scraps compared to the real thing, compared to beating Rozanov, the first man in the world to make him feel second-best. Back then, he’d thought that was the only thing he felt, too. That the electric pulse jostling between them in the gym some time later was a trick of the mind. It was like seeing sky above for the first time. See you at the draft. Life in that paper body.
Some night-time, Ilya slips out while Shane is rearranging the photos on the fridge magnet to be in chronological order.
Shane finds him as he brings the cigarette to his mouth. There’s a lighter in his hand—that one he keeps on him. Plain and plastic, with the Boston Bears logo on it. It hasn’t worked in years. Trophy, he says. Got it my first season, from Marleau. To light fire under my ass.
Shane looks at Ilya, who looks back.
“You always listen,” Ilya says. “This is why I was not scared.”
Shane puts his hand on Ilya’s arm, squeezing the bicep, and then his fingers follow a vein to the inside of Ilya’s elbow, which is silvered and waxlike at night. He scratches at the skin and it rasps against his nails, and Ilya nudges him. Shane pushes his nail in harder, sharp enough for Ilya to flinch, for them both to turn their eyes to the place where his skin splits open—and then Ilya’s hand covers the wound.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” Shane tells him.
“Okay.” Ilya’s smile is at the wrong angle. Too low. Like only that part of him is reflected in a mirror, and everything else is the same. “This is my last cigarette.”
Shane’s wristwatch dies. It won’t charge, either. Two for three. When he clicks the side button, it flashes 14:10 on the screen, then promptly goes black.
“Sorry,” Ilya says. He’s been saying that an awful lot.
Shane shakes his head, puts that wristwatch right back into the drawer, where it’s out of sight, not real. Can’t say anything about time or rhythm or what is passing by or on and what is still around. They’ve got stuff to do. Chores, laundry—the laundry, Ilya, the fucking laundry. His damn clothes in the washing machine and he’s not taken them out hasn’t dried them they’re just sitting there soaked and probably ruined and he can never wear that shirt again and it was Ilya’s and he has ruined it and he will never be able to put it back on and why’d he leave it in the bathroom sink why didn’t he wash it right away why didn’t he put it in the drier and why are these things that are easy so hard when he is perfectly capable of living in this world alone and he is succeeding he is making it he is moving on and it’s just fucking laundry.
They’re on the floor, somehow. Shane takes a breath so sharp it cuts him and he takes Ilya’s face into his hands but buries his face in the crook of Ilya’s neck and they are wet and salty together. They shake and there is that cicada hum again, that terrible reminder. Shane imagines the water, again. Rising. Maybe it could swallow them both. Maybe they could be buried together.
“It’s okay,” Ilya murmurs, mouth to Shane’s ear, trembling. He is taut in every way. He shivers under Shane’s touch.
Shane grips him harder. Worries, for a flash of a second, that Ilya is going to crumble in his arms. Paper-thin. Reaching for the blue sky.
Surely time is passing; Shane doesn’t want to know.
They stay awake through the night, sleep the morning away. Fall out of sync with the rest of the world. Ilya never moves more than a few steps away. Touching, always, at some point or another: their elbows brushing together, ankles hooked, chest-to-back, hips lined up, tongue inside cheek, hands shoved into underwear, breaths mingling, their fingers entwined. It’s like there’s an anchor point between them that demands to be honored. Some new center of gravity.
Shane does the laundry again, listening for the end-of-cycle tune. Nothing's ruined, as he’d thought. Just a bit wrinkly, and the smell has mostly washed out because he uses a great detergent and it’s not the catastrophe he expected. Ilya helps him put it away, and he even does the inside-out fold for Shane’s long athletic socks that stops them from mixing together. He must’ve picked it up sometime over the years. Shane wants to teach him a lot of other things.
But he also wants to just be next to Ilya, who nudges Shane’s legs open so he can get in between them, hands on either side of Shane’s waist.
“Please,” Ilya says, as if he has to ask for this, when really it is all Shane needs right now, too. “I want to hold you. I need to remember, after.”
Shane doesn’t like thinking about after, and he doesn’t need to, not with Ilya kissing his way down his chest, tongue following the ridge of a muscle. He bites the skin right below Shane’s navel, putting his nose over the pink indents and inhales, stays with his face pressed into Shane’s stomach before continuing down. He blows Shane slowly, takes his sweet time with it, really. Shane has to fight not to close his eyes and let his head fall back into the pillows. He puts his thumb to Ilya’s cheek, feels his cock on the other side of it before Ilya takes him in deeper, humming around him, sharing vibrations. The sound is a sensation, drones inside of Shane’s body, as if they’re splitting a soul, the same resonance. Like they've waited thirteen years for this.
Ilya keeps him on his back, slicks his cock with the lube from Shane’s drawer and pushes into him slowly, watching Shane’s face, says, “смотри на меня, любимый,” as their foreheads touch. Normally, Shane would turn Ilya’s gold necklace around for him so that the cross doesn’t hit him in the chin every time Ilya thrusts into him, but he doesn’t. Even that part of it matters, as stupid as it is.
Ilya rocks into him shallowly, doesn’t pull all the way even once. He takes Shane’s hard cock into his hand, kisses him while he strokes it slowly. Shane pants into his mouth, puts one hand on Ilya’s neck to drag him down, down, so that their chests can push together, for it to be impossible to carve out any space between them. Ilya comes inside of him and then stays there, then fucks him again, harder this time, hard enough for Shane to choke on his own moan and cry, and that feels as good, needs it a bit harder. Crosses his legs behind Ilya’s back and urges him deeper, faster.
It’s messy. Shane’s not sure what’s what but it’s messy and Ilya kisses his cheeks and licks the tears instead of wiping them, and then he says, “смотри на меня,” again, and Shane does, he does look at him, at his needle-tip pupils, his pale eyes, his sunburnt skin and the golden cross that’s tarnished, the shadow of a beard. The light shifts and Ilya’s eyes do not, but they’re real, and Shane is peering back at him, as he asked, is not averting himself from this moment in time, knows he will not have it again.
“I’m sorry,” Shane says.
“No need for sorry, любимый,” Ilya promises, kissing his jaw. “It is not what I want from you. Just for now, look at me. Okay?”
“Okay,” Shane tells him. Swallows. He brushes Ilya’s damp bangs out of his face, squishing his cheeks with his thumbs. Ilya turns his face so he can kiss his palm, eyes closing for a moment.
“What about after?” Shane asks.
“I don’t know,” Ilya murmurs, sinking into Shane’s arms. He puts his head on Shane’s shoulder. Allows himself to be held. “I don’t know many things, I am realizing. Even about you. So many things I do not get to know now.”
“I’ll tell you,” Shane says. “Anything you want to know, you ask me now. Anything, I mean it.”
Shane hasn’t charged his phone in days. Plugs it back in while Ilya’s asleep on the couch, his head on Shane’s lap, eyes closed. At least Shane believes that he is sleeping. Before, Ilya would always murmur, would turn and shift around restlessly. Now he lies heavy and still, completely at ease.
Hayden - 00/07/21 - 14:10
Hey man
I know you asked to be left alone for a bit
because it’s the anniversary but I’m worried
about you and I would love to just swing by
maybe have a chat. It can just be me and you
or if you want Jackie there also then I’ll find
someone to babysit the kids. But I don’t think
it’s good to spend all this time alone especially
right now. Anyway, just extending the offer
and letting you know we love you and we’re
thinking about you. It’s probably best to stay off
social media right now anyway, but yeah, shoot
me a text or give me a call and I’ll be right over.
Love you buddy
Shane runs his fingers through Ilya’s hair, puts a curl between his forefinger and thumb and follows the bend of it. He sinks into the sofa. Then he shoves his hand under the collar of Ilya’s shirt, his arm resting against Ilya’s throat, hand over his heart, and just tests his fingertips against the thrum inside of him. The insistent hum. He spreads his fingers wide, imagining his hand sinking underneath Ilya’s skin and rummaging around for an organ, any of them.
Any organ, but really, it’s about the heart.
“You carry me here,” Ilya tells Shane as they’re laying in bed, tapping the skin over Shane’s chest. “I told you this, yes?”
Shane follows the bumps of Ilya’s knuckles. Ilya flattens his palm over Shane’s heart, maybe feeling his pulse at the center of his hand. It’s steady. It’s steady when Shane is not.
“I’m only thinking about you right now,” Shane says.
Ilya kisses him on the tip of the nose. “Is hard not to, when I am naked and so handsome.”
Shane pushes Ilya onto his back and straddles him, and they have lit every lamp in this room. It’s unbearably bright. Normally he wouldn’t want to be this exposed, but who cares, right now? He drags his hands down Ilya’s chest and revels in his hitched breaths. And Ilya’s body unravels for him. Shane pushes his fingertips down, curls them, until Ilya gives way, allowing him in there. There’s so much noise inside of him. A hum a buzz a thrum everything they’ve shared between them and Ilya tips his head back, groans, nose wrinkling.
If Shane’s going to carry Ilya with him, he will need to know what’s in there. So he touches the shapeless static in Ilya’s body and closes his eyes for the first time, and he just feels. He’s so hot against Shane’s palms he burns, scalding water. Shane’s eyes fill in for him: he must be dark pink or red, a hot color, maybe sunshine warm, because the humming of cicadas is surely the color of gold, and there is his cross to consider, also, maybe he has taken in some of your blue rain. Shane closes his fist around something and Ilya jolts, whimpers, his chest spasming, but he tells Shane to do it again. At some point, Ilya reels him in for a kiss, then grabs Shane’s wrist to nudge him further up, to where his heart is, and the noise is more concentrated there. Not a heartbeat but something quite like it. A million sounds overlapping.
Ilya laughs, says it kind of tickles, to be rummaged around in, “You are spinning my insides around, like washing machine,” and Shane finally opens his eyes and Ilya’s just regular Ilya underneath him. No bones sticking out or strange, new organs in strange colors.
“You understand?” Ilya asks. “I have one million memories in me. Maybe more. I think I am made up of you. Sometimes I think I was made for you,” says, also, “I love you,” and, “Forever, now. But I would have loved you forever even if not for this.”
Shane wonders if there will come a time where he can laugh at the memory of Ilya saying he is a washing machine, even without Ilya there.
“Maybe you should sleep through it,” Ilya says. “I do not really know how to go, so.”
Shane stares at him. It’s morning and they’re shoulder to shoulder on the front porch.
“It could be like dreaming. You go to bed and I am there, and you wake up and I am gone. Not so different from other times,” Ilya explains.
Shane tells him, “Fuck you,” tells him, “You told me to look, so. I’m going to look at you the whole fucking time. Okay? Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to turn to you?” One last time.
Ilya agrees, “Is true. I asked you to look.”
Reaching up to touch his face, Shane rubs his thumb under the sad curve of Ilya’s left eye, watches as he closes them both and leans into Shane’s palm.
So he’s there for it. He’s there for the leaving, this time. Takes that as a final act of grace from the world, as if it’s hoping to balance the scales out a little. Look at everything I put you through and look how at every turn you chose love, and how you turned back to him, and how he turned to you, and see how you look to each other now even when there will be no more, and see how he asks you to look ahead, and there is the world, and you have felt it inside of him. You have held the whole part of him that is yours, together.
And aren’t you lucky, Shane Hollander. Aren’t you so fucking lucky.
He has never smoked a cigarette in his life. And he’s not about to start to, either, but he contemplates it for a second when he pries the pack of Marlboro gold out of Ilya’s leather jacket, the one he left in Shane’s closet because “I will be back, anyway, and I have other jackets,” and then didn’t come back. But, yes, he considers it as he stands on the gravel driveway leading up to the cottage and has an empty house again and just needs it filled with something. He lights one cigarette and watches the cherry burn through it slowly, but it’s not the same and the scent he’s hoping for doesn’t stick. He lights another one inside the house, and this one he does smoke, awkwardly, shreds his lungs on his coughs and stomach tensing until it aches, then cusses and gives up. Hopes whatever smoke he's hacked out of himself seeps into the floorboards of the entire house every single panel and he’s never going to open a window again he’s going to burn through every cig in this pack until the last one, and then he’ll keep the pack in Ilya’s drawer with his underwear and socks and silk shirts.
So it’s not that it rains forever. It’s just that Shane has a lot inside of him, rain, that is, and it all comes down from the sky all at once because he can’t get it out when it’s just him, because things like crying and laughing and swimming while laughing and loving are much easier when Ilya is around, and Ilya is decidedly not around.
He should call Hayden. He thinks the scent of smoke might scare him, though. Shane’s not really looking to get lectured about what he, as a professional hockey player, needs to do. Or not do.
It rains on the thirteenth of January, 2021.
The Ottawa Centaurs’ plane does not land; it doesn’t end up anywhere. There’s a mass vigil held in October. At some point, people have to give up.
And afterward, when Shane has stripped off his fine suit and laid down on his bed and when it is finally raining again, like it did during July, he lights the last cigarette in the Marlboro pack and smokes this one all the way down. He’s not good at it. He coughs the whole way through, wishing July would come back around, because July, well, July is summer, and:
Do you know this about summer, Shane Hollander? I love this season only because it is for us. It is like I am a child again waiting for school break. I am always wishing it is a little longer. I am always wishing you will ask me back. And I want you to tell me summer is your favorite season also. I want this to be true between us and I want to know that when summer comes you will remember me. I guess I am scared of being forgotten even if I know you would not forget. But it is a little easier, I think, to ask for summers. And you can say you like summer and I will know that when you say summer you mean me. So I do not have to be on your mind always, but I will come back. You will see the blue sky and think I saw that too. And listen to cicadas and you will remember golden dog days and being alive in the wrong hour of the world. You will think summer and then think of these things and then of me.
This is what I want to ask you, Shane. Do you know this about summer?