i. inhabit my imagination, my thoughts, my head

The architecture of Ilya’s desire is such that rooms are constructed in false dimensions. The walls are hollow and in those hidden spaces, rot festers. It is not the rot his father cultivated that transforms a home into a coffin, but it is the rot that never leaves and props up a facade, entwined in the foundation and creeping up the walls—softening them in an illusion of welcome. 

Shane makes Ilya want to pretend. Even a rabbit bites when cornered. 

Ilya watches a video on YouTube entitled “UNLIKELY FRIENDS - PART 18”. A snake wraps around a rabbit, and Ilya thinks about the squealing rabbit in his maternal grandmother’s backyard. Alexei (“Lyosha” had been one of the first words Ilya could lisp out) and he had never known rabbits could make such a sound. Mama had wept, and Alexei had looked at Ilya with a face defined by absence. He had said, “Stupid. You can’t hug rabbits like that.”

The rabbit in the video makes soft, short sounds. The comments call it purring. Its chest rises and falls, rises and falls, rises—

The only reason that the video is still one of Shane’s “UNLIKELY FRIENDS” videos is that the snake lets go and coils near the rabbit, tongue flicking in and out—scenting the air. (Ilya loves the scent of Shane when he is under Ilya. It is where he belongs with the taste of salt on his flushed, freckled face.)

Ilya replays the video on his laptop and increases the volume. As the rabbit purrs, he rotates his phone and slides open the keyboard.

JANE

youtube.com/…

ILYA

rabbit is you )))

JANE

LOL

Are you the snake?

ILYA

)

ii. idle compliments

Ilya opens a door and is never the same afterwards.

He asks Alexei, “Why?”

And through a haze of cigarette smoke, Alexei says hoarsely, “Why not?” 

Ilya does not cry, but the monster inside him grows larger. 

Why did Mama die?

Why does Papa forget?

Why did Lyosha leave?

(Why does Shane—)

iii. you have not yet had time to grow to love me truly  

One night, in a club, Ilya leaves his unlocked phone unattended at a table populated by his drunk teammates riding the high of a win and women riding the high of vice. (He will later say that he too was drunk.)

The next morning, Ilya’s phone is nigh unusable with the volume of phone calls and texts he receives. 

Hours later, Shane calls and Ilya picks up after a few rings, staring at the flashing of “JANE”.

“How could you be so stupid?” Shane says hoarsely. “…What about Russia?”

Ilya smiles. “I have nothing in Russia,” he finally admits. 

All Ilya can hear is the beating of Shane’s rabbit heart—his harsh breathing as panic excises his inherent kindness. Beautiful, kind Shane whose panic is a weapon he always points at himself. Beautiful, kind Shane who always impales himself on doubt. (When doubt comes in, rot festers. When doubt comes in, Ilya—)

“You are having panic attack, zaychik moy,” Ilya says. There is no urgency to his tone. If only this conversation had started off as a video call…Shane’s wet eyes always does something to Ilya’s heart (and his cock). It must be love the way Shane controls Ilya’s body.

iv. my past now seems like a dream

“No animal,” Mama says, “can be as cruel as a man.” Her voice wavers as she stares down at Ilya. Compulsively, her hand strokes his hair until his scalp feels tender. Ilya does not flinch at the drag of her nails against his skin.

“I’m not cruel,” Ilya says quietly.

Alexei laughs, nestled in Mama’s side. It is not a cruel laugh, but even then Alexei had known Ilya for what he is and had still loved him for it.

Mama smooths out Ilya’s frown with gentle fingers.

v. I am even astonished at myself 

And Ilya says carefully, “What would you do if you cannot play?” He casts a shadow over Shane’s reclined form on the sofa.

Glasses frame Shane’s eyes when he peers upward. Eventually, Shane says, “Like, if I got injured?”

Ilya does not answer. 

“If I got injured,” Shane says, “I’d rest and recover to get back into optimal condition.”

Wryly, Ilya mouths “optimal”. It is the same word in Russian, but the way Shane strings his sentences—

Shane laughs. Beautiful Shane with his glasses and freckles laughs. Ilya cannot bear to ask further. He already knows the answer. Shane without hockey is not Shane. 

But the thing is—

Ilya without Shane is not Ilya.

(Last night, they had watched a YouTube video entitled “Top 10 Hockey FREAK Accidents”. Shane had started chewing anxiously on the strings of his hoodie when the infamous incident of the hockey player with a sliced throat had started being recounted. 

(“What a way to die,” Ilya had murmured. 

(“At least it was hockey that killed him,” Shane had said. 

(Ilya had grown still and he had thought—Shane would let hockey kill him and he would be happy about it. All for the love of the game, he had already almost let the Metros kill him.)

vi. a man of so much experience of life 

A church bell tolls and Ilya says, “Papa took me to the dacha.” He stares down at the kitchen tiles, freshly bleached. 

Alexei scowls. “How was it?” he says. “Were there women?” Papa never took Alexei to the dacha—he had only made the mistake of asking once. He had only ever taken Mama there when her episodes were too troublesome for him to bear. He would always claim that fresh air would do her good. He would disappear with her for a day or two and then leave her behind at the dacha. 

(When Ilyusha had been a baby, he would always cry and cry when Mama would leave.)

Ilya looks up with his sea-dark eyes. “Lyosha,” he says, “how can there be women if no one can leave?”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Alexei spits out. 

No answer—only the sight of Ilya examining his fingernails under the harsh light of the kitchen. 

vii. who can still be moved by his feelings as strongly as a young lad 

“You don’t think it’s bad luck? Wearing your jersey?” Shane says. His fingers twist in the hem of the jersey—familiar in its texture but unfamiliar in its size. Ilya had always edged him out in width even if their heights are close. 

Ilya smiles. “I have already used all my luck to keep you,” he answers.

Shane averts his gaze, but Ilya observes the slight upturn of his mouth. Who else but Ilya could give Shane what he needs? Physically, emotionally, mentally—there can only be Ilya for Shane.

viii. a new lease of life 

“What if,” Ilya says, peering upwards, “every day is like this?”

The fingers in Ilya’s hair continue stroking. “Like what?” Shane questions. 

“Like the cottage,” Ilya says. 

Shane’s fingers pause. “It would be nice,” he says. 

“Just nice?”

“Well, what about hockey?”

“…Think quick—me or Stanley Cup in lake. Which you save?”

Shane laughs. “You know how to swim,” he says slyly. 

Ilya smiles, but his eyes remain unlined. 

ix. fate has rewarded me generously for my loss 

Sometimes, Ilya rewatches that video Shane sent him of a rabbit and a snake years ago. When Shane sent it, the video only had 400 views. Shane does not send nudes or videos of himself. He sends video links that Ilya calls boring even as he watches them.

(Rabbits are prey animals. They need large spaces with areas of retreat to feel secure. But they also need a stimulating environment and the company of other rabbits.)

Shane squirms as Ilya kisses up his neck, Ilya’s body pinning him down. With laughter in his voice, Shane says, “You can’t keep on doing this!”

“Mm, what?” Ilya says into the sensitive crook of Shane’s neck.

“Trying to distract me!” Shane answers.

“Why I need to distract?” Ilya says as he punctuates his words with a bite to the neck.

The daze in Shane’s eyes is Ilya’s reward, but it only lasts for a moment. Shane starts tugging gently at Ilya’s curls and Ilya pauses, his mouth left pressed to skin. A shiver works its way down Shane’s spine.

“I really have to go,” Shane says breathlessly. “I’m supposed to meet Hayden now!”

“Pike is married man. He can understand,” Ilya dismisses. “Wife needs to be with husband, da?”

A flush travels from Shane’s chest to his neck and then to his face. “Fuck you!” Shane says. “We’re not even married yet…”

“I am trying,” Ilya says.

Shane bites at his lower lip, already swollen. His tongue darts out to wet his lips and Ilya rests a thumb on Shane’s lower lip until his mouth finally drops open.

x. my love then was just as pure and unblemished as it is now 

“When I saw you first,” Ilya says carefully, “I knew.”

“So did I,” Shane says.

xi. I will earn it and convince you of my own love in time

Ilya Rozanov checks Shane Hollander into the boards. It is a legal check. The only problem is that Shane Hollander has just returned from a knee injury.

The human body is unpredictable.

What bad luck—Shane Hollander shatters his right knee.

Shane does not blame Ilya.

Ilya thinks about collared doves in Russia. They sound nothing like the Canadian loon with its high lonesome wail. Three high notes and then silence.

xii. my soul mate!

“Poor fucking bastard,” Alexei says to the cracked screen of his cell phone. He rereads the headline on his screen: ILYA ROZANOV & SHANE HOLLANDER MARRIED. Scrolling down slowly unveils the smiling figures of his brother and his husband. Ilya’s right hand frames Hollander’s waist, fingertips indenting fabric and skin. Ilya had never been good at letting go. 

He would do terrible things to keep a person.

When Ilya had first learned about death, he had turned to their mother and had said, “Mama, can Papa die?” His hair had yet to darken from an ice blond, and his eyes had been a chilling blue. 

(Framed by translucent eyelashes, Ilya’s eyes had looked like the sea they had once visited in the last good vacation they would ever have. Alexei had buried Ilya, giggling and shrieking, in the sand. He had then watched waves kiss the shore and creep closer to Ilya until Mama had made Alexei dig Ilya out.)

“Can Papa die?” Ilya had repeated.

Mama had flinched, but all she had said was: “Don’t say that, Ilyusha.” There had been no horror in her eyes, but only her perpetual sadness lining them. And Alexei, boy that he had been, had had a sudden premonition of the future. Ilya might have been Mama’s favorite, but even then, Alexei had spent more time with his brother than anyone else had. Something had always been wrong with Ilya.

After a moment, Alexei had said, “If Papa dies, then where can we live?” Unspoken had been the word “stupid”, which the Ilyusha of then had already started complaining about to Mama. 

Ilya had nodded solemnly, round cheeks wobbling. The lesson he had learned had been not to say such things aloud, rather than not thinking of them in the first place. Another lesson had been thinking through impulse. Ilya’s first instinct to situations had never been a way to live in society, but Mama had loved him enough to teach him with a patience that had seemed endless. 

Mama, which monster do you love best?

xiii. I’m already captive.

In a cottage lined with countless glass windows, the full moon sheds light on the entwined figures of two men. A man weeps as another man kisses his knee with the reverence of a worshipper at an altar. The divine is defiled beneath the lewd connection of their mortal bodies.

“Ilya, Ilya, Ilya,” a freckled man chants in benediction and malediction.

“Zaychik moy,” a man says. The golden cross at his neck swings like a pendulum and this is how the moon disappears. Every swing of the cross, every thrust of a body until clouds shroud the moon.

In the dark, there is only Ilya and Shane.

In the light, there will only be Ilya and Shane.