Chapter Text
“That was another one of my firsts, asshole,” Shane mumbled into his neck, half-asleep.
“I still can’t believe it,” Ilya responded after a momentary delay. He was too focused on trying to memorize the pressure of Shane’s body next to his. “In Russia, everyone I knew could tell you bad story about getting into trouble.”
“Is…that normal in Russia?”
“Yes. Maybe. Not like how I did it…but discipline, yes.”
“Did your parents—”
“No,” Ilya exhaled sharply, bringing his hand up to Shane’s wet hair. The bath water sloshed around them pleasantly, still hot from Ilya half-draining the tub and refilling it with fresh water. “Just my father. Mama…she did not take to violence against others, even when I was naughty or not nice. She was so sweet even when I acted like little asshole.”
“Just my father,” Shane repeats softly. The accent mimicking is uncanny. It interests Ilya just as much as it freaks him out to hear his terrible accent come from Shane’s mouth.
“Yes,” Ilya replied. “He would beat me with his uniform belt. Sometimes it would be all over…sometimes he would make me brace on a wall. Or over his desk. It was so fucking humiliating.”
“Was he doing that shit to you before the draft? Like when we met?”
Shane is fully awake now. Awake and irate. All on Ilya’s behalf. Truly, Ilya must have been blessed with an angel on Earth.
“Ah, no, no, no,” he ran gentle fingers through wet jet-black locks. “I was maybe fifteen? When it stopped. I had snuck out with Svetlana…when I came back, he was waiting for me. But I was so fucking drunk…”
“Ilya?”
“I fought him that night. Fuck, I can’t remember well, but I did. After that, we were…what was it? Hands-free? Yes, my favorite. We were hands-free household.”
“Oh,” Shane mumbled.
“Yeah, oh,” Ilya mouthed. “So what about you? Time out? Writing lines? No video games?”
“Huh?” Shane asked before his brain seemed to fully come back online. “No, my parents they didn’t…do that stuff. I was way too sensitive, so we always just talked. I mean, they’ve yelled a couple of times…but not really at me? My grandparents were kind of awful, you know?”
“Tell me,” Ilya pressed a kiss to the peak of Shane’s forehead. “I remember your grandmother died when we were twenty.”
“Uh-huh,” Shane intoned. “My grandmother, her name was Fumi. She lived in the States during World War II…so she spent some of her life in those Japanese camps. It was hard for her afterwards, so she left Utah…came to Ottawa. But shit was basically the same here. Everyone who was Japanese was getting deported or moved all over. She met a man in Alberta, and then she had my mom and another girl.”
“You have aunt?”
“Technically,” Shane shrugged lightly. “She died at age four, so I guess…that’s why she was so hard on Mom. She yelled a lot. When Mom talks about it, she always gets upset. She gets…really quiet afterwards.”
“The nagging fucks you up more than being hit, I think.” God, Ilya wished he had a fucking cigarette.
“Yeah, well, my mom wasn’t really spanked or beaten much. Just a lot of verbal stuff. She went off to McGill and never went back to Obaa’s house, and that was the end of it.”
“You seemed sad…when she died. I wanted to ask, but—it was all fucked.”
“It’s okay. I was fucked up too. I didn’t know how to feel. She made my mom’s life a living hell, but she was also kinder in her older years, to me especially, maybe to apologize to Mom. She made me feel like…I was Japanese and not some flagless banana.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I don’t wanna talk about that.”
He knows Shane didn’t mean to say the last part. It had come out because he was too relaxed, too sleepy, maybe because he trusted Ilya not to dig if he closed up again.
“What about your other grandparents?” Ilya asked instead.
“Obaa’s husband got deported back to Japan, and she never went looking for him. Maybe he did something bad to her, I’m not sure. My other grandparents…weren’t great either. My grandfather was a drunk bastard, and my other grandmother didn’t like me much because of…”
Shane lifted his hand out of the water, gesturing at his face.
“They died when I was really young, but they fucked Dad up and never apologized for it…so maybe that’s why Mom and Dad worked so hard to be good people. Why they were so good to me. Even though I came out weird.”
Ilya hummed, stroking Shane’s hair in repetitive motions.
“Ilya?”
“Yes, moya lyubov?”
“They’ve never hit me, okay? I mean it. Not a single fucking time.”
Shane, good man that he is, kisses away the tear that leaks from Ilya’s treacherous eyes. “I’m glad to know,” he says slowly, fighting the unwanted sob building in his throat.
“I think if they did…I wouldn’t have enjoyed what we did. Or maybe my brain would be even more fucked up. Fuck. Now, I don’t know.”
“Is okay,” Ilya laughed wetly. “Your brain would still be beautiful even if it was covered with more scars than you have now.”
“Does it make you feel better?” Shane started. His lashes brushed the underside of Ilya’s jaw when he blinked rapidly. “Doing that to me, I mean. Like, did you feel like you had control?”
“Da,” Ilya tugs on the wet strands a bit. “You are so good. You always seem to know what I need even when I give you no clues.”
“…really?”
“Yes, really. Why do you say it like it’s shocking?”
“Sometimes I…I feel like I don’t have a clue in the fucking world, and I’m just going along and embarrassing myself at every turn.”
“Is that how you feel with me? Just going along?”
The water splashed as Shane tilted more towards Ilya. His brown eyes were open and imploring, trying to find the source of Ilya’s hurt like he could physically destroy it. “No, it’s not how I feel. With you it’s…I just want to be with you. I want everything. Sometimes I panic about you changing your mind—”
“Shane, I wouldn’t.”
“—and there’s only so much I can do to act like a normal person around you. And I know, okay, I fucking know that me being weird isn’t a turn-off for you. Maybe it’s what attracted you after the first time, but I still worry.”
“Did you like it? What we did, hm?” Ilya asked.
“…Yeah, I did. Why?”
“What did you like?” Shane groaned, turning his face away. “I’m being serious, Hollander, tell me what you liked.”
“You made me feel…safe, I guess. Like, making mistakes didn’t mean the world would blow up. You’d just beat my ass, and everything would go back to normal. You didn’t blame me either… sometimes, when I was a kid, I’d have these bad attacks.”
“Tell me,” Ilya whispered.
“My teachers used to hate it. They all thought I was being disruptive, but deep down, I always saw them as the cause of it. Everything was just too much, and when I tried to explain, no one cared about it. But it was always only my fault on the reports. So I liked…not being at the center of blame for once. You gave that to me. Thank you, Ilya.”
“You gave me a lot too…English is too hard.”
Shane shakes his head. “You don’t need to explain to me. I know we never talked about it, which is probably why you’re asking me so much?”
“I want to know you are okay.”
“I am,” Shane reassured. “Because I trust you so much. And I know you’ll take care of me. We fit, right? That’s all I need, Ilyusha.”
“Fuck,” Ilya said under his breath. “You’re calling me that when I take you to bed.”
“But my ass is so sore.”
“You are always saying this,” Ilya scoffed.
Shane, mildly affronted, jabbed him. “It’s different, you asshole. Internal sore and external sore are—”
“Oh my god, Hollander, you are so fucking boring,” Ilya complained before swallowing Shane’s twitching lips in a bruising kiss. “We won’t fuck tonight. I just want to take care of you.”
“Okay, sounds good,” Shane said softly, staring at Ilya’s face with a faintly dazed expression. “Can you keep kissing me?”
“I never want to stop.”