Work Text:
1.
Engrossed in researching how vulnerable Canada’s fiscal position was to coordinated capital reallocation triggered by U.S. climate legislation and digital taxation shifts, it took a moment for David to clock the tall figure hovering at the end of his cafe table. It was a four-top but David had spread papers, folders, reference materials and a selection of rainbow-coloured highlighters all over the table as he’d worked, and in the hours since he’d started, the cafe had gotten a lot busier..
“Oh, sorry,” he muttered, dragging Cooper and Schott’s Capital Reallocation and the Cyclicality of Aggregate Productivity paper away from the end of the table with his hand placed flat on top of it to make room for the guy, bumping his second… third… sixth?... cup of coffee as he did so. “Please, sit.”
“Thank you.”
The voice was deep, Slavic accent thick, and David glanced up as the stranger sat opposite him, an enormous plastic takeaway cup filled with ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles and three different colours of syrup in it held in one hand. There may have been coffee somewhere in there, too, but David couldn’t be sure. “Just move anything that’s in your way,” David said, picking up Cooper and Schott and flipping through to- ah, page seven. Which he’d already highlighted. Hmm. Maybe the Bhandari theory would support-
“'Frictional capital reallocation with ex post heterogeneity’,” the newcomer read, his accent twisting as he read the clearly-unfamiliar title of the paper he held. His eyebrows rose and he looked up at David. “Fascinating.”
The tone was so dry and unexcited that David couldn’t help but laugh. “Only if you have an interest in macroeconomics,” he admitted. Then, with a wry smile, “Which you look like you do.” It was a lie, of course; the guy couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, all tousled golden-brown curls, hazel eyes and insanely sculpted musculature flaunted in a black tank top, and while David wasn’t one for making assumptions, he felt pretty safe about this one.
Thankfully the guy didn’t take offence. “Only in my spare time.”
He was so droll, and it made David’s grin widen. “A hobby, then.”
“Of course. My true passion is microeconomics.”
It was funny, and clever wordplay from a non-English native speaker. “David,” David told him, extending his hand over the table.
The guy switched his drink to his other hand, wiped his palm on his jeans and clasped it, cold and firm. “Ilya.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Ilya inclined his head in agreement, and watched as David sighed and pulled his glasses off to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You have headache from too much boring papers?”
“Too many,” David corrected automatically, then winced. “Sorry.”
Ilya waved his apology off. “No, is good. My English?” He held out a hand and tilted it side-to-side, and David couldn’t help but notice the old scars on his knuckles. “Eh, not so much.”
“It’s very good, actually,” David told him. “I work with a Romanian guy who’s lived in Canada for ten years and still requires translation services for staff meetings.”
“Ah,” Ilya said, taking a sip of his drink. “You are Canadian? I understand now.”
“Hey,” David protested, his research momentarily forgotten in favour of his companion.
“Is okay,” Ilya said with false reassurance, “is compliment in Russian.”
That made David laugh again; the kid was a hoot. “I’m sure.” He glanced at his watch, then did a double take when he caught the time. “Oh no, I’m late,” he said, and began collecting everything up. “I’m sorry, as much as I’d love to continue getting insulted- sorry, complimented- in Russian, I’ve got a meeting.” He loosely arranged everything and stuffed it into his messenger bag, then tucked money beneath his mug. “It was actually really nice to meet you,” he said, holding his hand out again.
“Likewise,” Ilya said, and when he grinned he looked even younger. “Stay well, Canadian David.”
“And you, micro-Ilya.”
The laugh that followed him out as he left turned heads, and David grinned to himself as he dashed for the Red Line to MIT.
2.
“Why did the economist cross the road?”
The question was soft, but even six weeks later the Russian accent was distinctive enough that David recognised it instantly. “Ilya? Hi!” he exclaimed, turning from the bookstore shelf he was perusing to find the young guy leaning against a concrete pillar at the end of the aisle, dark hoodie on and hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Fancy meeting you here!”
Ilya smiled and came over to clasp David’s hand in his own. “In the city I live, no less,” he smiled. “It is good seeing you.”
Getting over the surprise of running into Ilya again, David frowned. “Wait, did you just tell me an economist joke?”
“Da. Why did the economist cross the road?”
David was beyond amused. “Why?”
Ilya shrugged. “To show the chicken how to optimise his utility.”
He said it casually, like the answer should be self-evident, but slowly enough that David suspected he had no idea what it actually meant. That just made it even funnier, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Did you look up economist jokes after we met?” he asked.
“I look up many things, perhaps I get stuck in internet bunny hole and come across jokes.”
He looked shifty about it, and David was certain he was lying. “It’s called a rabbit hole, I think. Happens to my kid; he watches videos on strange animal friendships.”
A smile curled up the corner of Ilya’s mouth. “I see one about snake and baby friends, once.”
“Hey, I’ve seen that one, too!” They shared a moment of mutual amusement before Ilya shifted, standing up straight. God, he was tall. “What are you up to?”
Ilya glanced around. “This bookshop has good Russian section. I like reading Russian when I am sad for home, or when English is too hard.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “And poetry sometimes, too.”
David’s heart caught in his chest. “‘I well recall a wondrous meeting/Before my eyes you were a vision/Like a brief spirit of pure beauty/Like a soft genius of pure grace’.”
Ilya’s eyes lit up. “You know Pushkin?”
“I know my wedding vows,” Daivd said, pulling out his wallet and opening it to show Ilya a photo of him and Yuna on their wedding day, Yuna ethereally beautiful in a lace dress, the two of them smiling besottedly at each other.
Coming closer to take his wallet and study the photo seriously for a moment, Ilya managed a smile tinged with sadness before handing it back. “Is nice. You are both very beautiful with love.”
“I’m very lucky,” David agreed. “Are your parents…?”
Ilya shook his head, and simultaneously looked a decade older and younger than he probably was. “My mother died when I am twelve. My father…” He gusted out a sigh. “We are not close.”
“I’m sorry,” David said, and he was.
“Thank you.” A mildly awkward silence descended upon them, softened somewhat by the quiet atmosphere of the bookstore. Ilya then cleared his throat. “What have you escaped Canada for this time? More meetings?”
“Yeah,” David sighed, thinking of the next three days of back-to-back meetings regarding provincial bond spread outcomes if U.S. pensions funds were to divest rapidly from fossil-fuel-linked Canadian assets, and what effects second-order labour markets would have in financial services hubs. Thrilling stuff. He was suddenly very tired.
To his surprise, Ilya laughed. “They must be boring if they make even your face look like that,” he snickered.
“Hey,” David feigned outrage, “what’s wrong with my face?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Ilya tried to say seriously, but couldn’t quite manage it.
David’s eyes narrowed. “You know what? Just for that, you can buy me dinner.”
Ilya sobered, stared at him, then smiled shyly. “Yeah, okay.” He shifted on his feet. “Now?”
It was only early evening, but David was hungry. “I’m game if you are.”
With a decisive nod Ilya gestured back towards the entrance of the bookstore. “There is a good Russian restaurant not too far from here.”
“Okay,” David said easily. “Lead the way.”
“Is very good restaurant, very authentic,” Ilya told him as they stepped out onto the street. “You like fermented reindeer meat, yes?”
David couldn’t tell if Ilya was joking or not, but he followed gamely and hoped for the best.
*
Spending three hours discussing coordinated OECD digital minimum tax alter profit-shifting patterns between Toronto and Boston-based multinationals while ferociously hungover from very top shelf, too-smooth Russian vodka? The ninth level of hell, David decided, heaping creative mental curses on Ilya’s head as he tried to make sense of his own god damn presentation.
3.
“No, no, no,” Ilya laughed, the buzz of the tattoo machine a soothing background hum to the most bizarre meetup David and Ilya had yet had. “We do not fight bears in the street in Russia, this is a mythconception.”
God, the kid had a way with wordplay that just tickled him. “And yet,” David said, gesturing to the fiercely snarling bear head that Ilya was currently getting tattooed on his chest.
“I tell you before, this is for my hockey team.” He shrugged carefully so as not to disturb Katya, the woman controlling the needles. “And maybe a little for Russia.”
“I’m a fan of the Blue Jays,” David said, disbelievingly. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to get a baseball tribute tattoo across my chest in appreciation.”
Ilya laughed, Katya dipping the needles back into the ink as he did. “Maybe you should get a bull, on opposite side to me,” he suggested, and David was incredibly touched that Ilya had researched his job enough to reference bull and bear markets in a very suspicious-looking tattoo studio in Mattapan. “Then we could match.”
David snorted, relaxing back into the swivel chair he was watching from. “If I came back from a work trip with a tattoo that matched a random friend I’ve had for a handful of years in an entirely different country, Yuna might actually kill me and get away with it.”
“Then get one for her,” Ilya suggested. Katya levelled a disparaging stare at him, and muttered something in rapid Russian. “Katya says only idiots get lovers’ names on them.”
“Yes, because that would be the mistake in this room tonight,” David said, eyeing Ilya’s tattoo again, as though bad choices were contagious.
This time Ilya and Katya both laughed.
Three hours later David had a red ‘Y’ inked on his left ring finger, designed to be hidden beneath his wedding band.
Yuna was going to kill him.
4.
It was months before they managed to catch up again, Ilya having to cancel plans twice and David once when the political risk analyst he was meant to meet in Boston made the trip up to Ottawa instead. But they eventually managed to find time, and soon he found himself sitting opposite Ilya in the same Russian restaurant they’d first shared a meal in.
“Oh Ilya, I’m so sorry, son,” he said, devastated by Ilya’s admission that his last rain check on their dinner had been due to the death of his father. “How are you holding up?”
Ilya was silent for so long before he finally spoke that David was certain he wasn’t going to speak at all. “The world feels wrong,” he admitted eventually. “I…” He swallowed hard. “I feel much guilt that I could not be the one to care for him at the end, but I had to work to pay for everything, and my brother hates me, and he makes me someone I don’t like very much. What is this word… shame? I feel like shame.”
“Ashamed,” David supplied softly.
“Da. Yes. I feel ashamed.”
They sat like that over the remains of their beef stroganoff and pirozhki, a glass of the cursed vodka before each of them. Ilya reached for his, tossed the last of it back.
“Who do you have to talk to about this?” David eventually asked, rolling the heavy base of his own glass back and forth on the tablecloth in a slow arc. “I mean, obviously you’re welcome to call or text me any time you need to, but do you have someone, a friend or partner to work through all this with?”
Ilya stared at him, expression more guarded than David had seen it in years, before lifting his hand and signalling for more vodka. His glass was refilled with a heavy hand and David consented to the same while Ilya managed a faintly approving smile. “There is someone,” he said slowly. “Internet says is called ‘situationship’. It is… we are complicated.”
David nodded. “His family?” The startled expression on Ilya’s face was all the confirmation David needed.
“No,” Ilya said. “Well, he does not think so, thinks they would be alright if he told them he was gay.”
“Just him?” David joked.
“I am bisexual, so I am only a little gay.” The joke broke some of the tension that had fallen over their quiet conversation. “No, there are other reasons, work stuff,” he continued vaguely.
“You trust him?”
This time Ilya didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I love him.” He looked as surprised as David felt by the vehemence of the admission. “And I think he knows, or at least suspects, but I have not yet been brave enough to tell him. In English, at least.” Hands clasped together in his lap, Ilya stared beseechingly at him. “He makes me crazy, you know? Very stubborn. Very serious. Thinks too much.”
David thought about Shane, about some of the conversations he and Yuna had had about their son over the years, their suspicions about his sexuality, about their fear for his heart in the unforgiving, homophobic world of elite professional hockey. Thought about him needing the person he loved the way Ilya did, and not being able to tell him. “Ilya, if my boy had to go through something like that, it would kill me to think he was doing it alone,” David said carefully, not wanting to overstep. Ilya had stilled, watching him closely. “And if he had someone like you to love him and support him through it, I don’t think I could be more pleased.” Ilya’s startled wide eyes grew glassy with tears he refused to let fall. “Life is full of risks,” David added when Ilya stayed silent, processing. “Loving is rarely one of them.”
He picked up the menu after a beat and pretended to peruse it, as though either of them ever ordered anything other than medovik for dessert. He practiced his atrocious broken Russian to place the order, the waitress grinning broadly at his attempt as Ilya collected himself.
“You are getting better,” Ilya lied generously, and by unspoken agreement that was the last they spoke about his lover. But when dinner was over, when Ilya had dropped David at the airport for his late flight home, he hugged David at his departure gate, allowed himself to be held back just as tightly. David was content to wait and let Ilya step back when he was ready, let him have the time and affection he needed, then pulled a slim book and a pen from the front pocket of his carryon, opening the pages to where an improvised bookmark lay. He underlined something and closed the book again, passing it to Ilya as last call for his flight was announced.
“No matter what happens with your young man, I’m proud of you,” David told him, patting him gently on the cheek before disappearing from view.
As they taxied down the runway, David thought about the book of Russian poetry he’d given Ilya, the English translations inline beside the Cyrillic, and the lines he’d underlined:
Yes I loved them, those gatherings late at night,—
the small table, glasses with frosted sides,
fragrant vapor rising from black coffee,
the fireplace, red with powerful winter heat,
the biting gaiety of a literary joke,
and the first helpless and frightening glance of my love.
They had just reached altitude when David realised which draft document he’d been using as a bookmark: A Treatise on Coordinated Messaging between Finance Canada and Bank of Boston. He smiled at the irony as the seatbelt light flicked off, and made a mental note to hug Shane when he got home for as long as his son would let him.
5.
David was in the best shape of his life. He’d been training for the Boston Marathon for months, egged on via text and the occasional call by Ilya’s own frankly insane training regime, but the day had finally arrived and he and Ilya lined up in sequential numbers to run together. The weather was sublime, the atmosphere electric, and neither of them could help the smiles they traded as they waited for the starting pistol.
Then, suddenly, they were moving with the pack, David keeping pace with Ilya’s easy long-legged stride. They slowly worked their way through the most dense cluster of runners to a more open space, trading the odd quip and check-in as they went, and it was good. Not easy exactly, but David had begun to love the so-called runner’s high, to appreciate the strength and capability of his own body, the satisfying result of his hard work and hours of suffering. Ilya, however, made it look obnoxiously easy, and towards the end David began to hate him, just a little.
Still, they finished comfortably, and David was more than happy with his time, accepting his medal with a wide grin and back-slapping hug from Ilya who hoisted his own for celebratory finish line photos, the two of them red-faced and beaming. They celebrated with the traditional Sam Adams 26.2 Brew, but didn’t have much time before they were heading back to the airport- together this time. As they shared an Uber David couldn’t help but smile to himself as Ilya’s knee bounced restlessly. David didn’t think reassurances would do much to calm his nerves, so he decided to take a different tack instead.
“What are your thoughts on building a cross-border Capital Stress Index prototype?” he asked.
Ilya turned slowly from where he’d been staring blankly out the window, an incredulous expression on his face. “What?” His eyes narrowed, though, and a moment later he began to smile. “Well, David,” he said, trying out a truly horrendous American accent for the first time that David had ever heard, making him start to laugh out loud, “are we trying to quantify mounting instability in Canada–U.S. relations?”
David lost it, laughing so hard he was almost doubled over. “Oh my god, Ilya,” he gasped, and then Ilya was laughing too, loud and rich. “That was one of the more deeply unsettling things I think I’ve ever heard in my life, never do it again.”
“Might have to save that one for special occasions only,” Ilya snickered in his usual Russian accent.
It was still strong, but as his amusement settled David thought about how good his English was now, how much the accent had softened, and how much he missed it. He sighed softly, then smiled when Ilya bumped his knee with his own. Instead of contemplating the past, David just pulled a copy of the New Yorker from his bag and worked on the crossword for a bit before passing it and the pen to Ilya to fill in some of the gaps. They continued in this vein for the wait at the airport and then the two hour flight. They argued fiercely over the cryptic crossword, David deliberately needling Ilya to greater heights, but when the descent was announced Ilya got quiet and seemed to almost shrink in on himself, his knee back to bouncing with unassuageable anxiety. David just smiled at him fondly and made sure their things were all packed up.
Ilya became more and more shut down as they breezed through customs, until David gently pulled him out of the stream of foot traffic before leaving the terminal. “Deep breaths,” he murmured, turning them with gentle hands on Ilya’s forearms so he was facing away from the majority of people around them. Ilya nodded sharply once, closed his eyes and did as David instructed, breathing slowly in and out to his soft count. When Ilya looked a little less like he was about to be sick, David squeezed once and let him go. “You’re going to be just fine,” he promised, calm and certain. “Trust him, trust in the two of you, okay?” Ilya nodded, attempting a tight smile before letting David pull him into a close hug.
“You’ll be just fine, Ilya,” David told him, his throat aching with honesty. “You have no idea how easy you are to love.” And with that he patted Ilya on the cheek, forever gentle and fond, and left in search of his ride, beyond excited to see Yuna and share his marathon success with her. He didn’t look back, didn’t have to to know that Ilya would be moving on with his customary bravery.
+1.
Four days later David held the elusive phone charger aloft in victory, shoving Shane’s junk-drawer closed. He’d been looking for the stupid thing for the better part of fifteen minutes, but as he gathered his keys to leave he caught voices, hoped Shane had invited Hayden and his family over; it had been too long since he’d gotten to see the kids. As he waited for them to enter the house he checked the fridge to make sure there was plenty of real food for everyone, almost shutting the door before registering the familiar blue bottle of vodka Ilya always ordered for them when they had dinner. Hmm. Maybe Shane was starting to enjoy his break. David was pleased.
He heard Shane laugh, closed the fridge and headed towards the back door just in time to watch as his son, wearing swim shorts, hair wet and towel wrapped around his shoulders, was pressed willingly up against the window by a larger, equally undressed figure who wasted no time tilting his face up for a sweet kiss, his other hand grabbing a good handful of oh god, he should not be seeing this, this was not great timing on his part at all. Hoping to sneak out without Shane realising he’d been there, David began creeping back towards the front door, but abrupt movement dragged his attention back to Shane and…
Ilya?
What the fuck?
Two pairs of ridiculously familiar, shocked eyes met his, and all three of them froze before Shane was wrenching open the sliding door, pushing Ilya behind himself as though he could be hidden. “Shane,” David said, pretty pleased with how calm he managed to keep his voice. He felt hysterical laughter bubbling up in his throat.
“Dad, what are you-?”
“Dad?” Ilya demanded, pushing past Shane, mouth hanging open as he stared back and forth between David and Shane, slowly connecting the dots.
“Hello, Ilya,” he nodded, keeping a close eye on his increasingly-confused son. He was at somewhat of a loss, but when he caught sight of Ilya’s expression changing, relaxing into a smile that threatened to outshine the sun, all he could think about was the chance encounter all those years ago that had brought Ilya into his life, the coincidence of their second meeting and Ilya’s thoughtfully researched joke. “I hope you’ve been optimising his utility?”
A second, then two, and just as Shane scowled and opened his mouth to demand an explanation Ilya began to laugh, immediately triggering David’s laughter, too. He came around the island counter and was met halfway by Ilya, sunwarmed arms wrapping around his neck in a tight hug, neither of them able to believe the ongoing quirk of fate that had brought them here, together, once more.
“You were right,” Ilya murmured into his ear on the back of his laughter. “Loving him is worth the risk.”
“What the fuck is happening right now?” Shane asked faintly, and Ilya released David, but David kept a proprietary arm wrapped around his shoulders.
“Ilya’s told me a lot about you,” he said, which explained nothing but had the fantastic benefit of Shane’s eyes growing comically wide.
“Is my fault your dad has tattoo now!” Ilya announced proudly, and David was helpless to do anything but laugh again, never more grateful for U.S. digital taxation shifts than he was in that perfect, glowing moment.