Chapter Text
Shane had texted him was that as bad as it looked?
Ilya only read it hours later. At Shane’s behest, ever paranoid, Ilya had disabled message previews on his lock screen. When the notification had first appeared he’d guessed – based on a rich precedent – that Shane was somewhere turned on and lonely. He’d have tapped through if there was any chance that meant Shane had said something hot, because even if Ilya wouldn’t have been able to get into it he’d have enjoyed a little jolt to the system, but when Shane wanted to initiate sexting he sent shit like hey, how are you? There was no time for the charade while awaiting an x-ray, so Ilya had swiped it off his screen.
He’d been sitting in the waiting room of a private hospital between an assistant coach and a team medic, pathetically aware that he’d gotten hurt at a home game and most other players would have family with them. Svetlana was visiting Moscow; he would hear from her in a couple hours, when her day began. He would not hear from his brother or his father, and his father had a good excuse for failing to follow Ilya’s life, now. His father could no longer be blamed. Earlier his teammates had filled the group chat with concern, which had been nice, especially considering they’d won even with his late game exit and it was their last night in Boston for a while so by all rights they should have been celebrating. He’d told them so and they’d presumably taken it as permission, because the most recent text – after an hour’s silence – was a rookie saying, wait where are you guys this place is huge lol.
It didn’t occur to Ilya that the timing of Shane’s text could be anything other than a coincidence, that Shane might have seen him on some screen somewhere, going down midway through the third, and that if he had he might want to check in. That didn’t enter the realm of possibility until the next morning, when he was in his kitchen making coffee and saw another notification from Shane. Ilya smiled at the thought of him being horny that morning after being horny last night, left waiting by Ilya. Then he opened the thread and saw was that as bad as it looked? The follow up, thirteen hours later and seconds ago, read, can you just tell me please.
Ilya didn’t know what to make of it, except that it presumably meant the team hadn’t released an official update yet. In the absence of any stronger instinct, Ilya said something annoying.
Lily: I don’t know how bad it looked.
Jane: It looked awful.
Lily: Not awful. Two weeks recovery.
Jane: MCL?
Lily: Yes, just grade one.
Jane: That’s still tough, I’m sorry.
Ilya blinked at the screen. He didn’t want to indulge in self-pity and couldn’t imagine Shane wanted him to either. Maybe Shane’s golden boy politeness extended even to this, well wishes for the asshole he had semi-regular sex with. Ilya thumbs up reacted and put his phone back on the counter.
Shane was right, it was tough. Well, okay. It was a minor injury, not likely to lead to any cumulative damage, and fans would breathe sighs of relief once the news went public, just as Ilya’s coach had when they’d heard it first hand from the doctor. Maybe Shane was the only other person who would handle this as poorly as Ilya intended to.
Ilya had been lucky with injuries thus far in his career and the ones he had suffered he’d found ways to play through. It was part of his legend, part of what made him (to Boston fans, at least) the chosen one. He’d never missed more than two consecutive games before. He certainly had never had to use fucking crutches before, and he kept forgetting them or accidentally bashing them into things or having to stand still to do things he could usually do while walking. He wouldn’t have to use crutches if he had some kind of regular job, because it really was a minor injury. But he was an athlete and his knee was his career and a partial ligament tear meant he had to start acting like he was on the verge of death. He knew two weeks shouldn’t feel so long but it was as far into his future as he ever looked. It might as well be forever, he’d said to Svetlana when they’d spoken last night (his night, her morning, what used to be his morning too), and she’d only sort of made fun of him for being dramatic. She’d known what he meant.
He didn’t have much time to linger on his injury that morning, and only fifteen minutes after the weirdly unnerving exchange with Shane, his teammates showed up at his door. Like, all of them. Ilya had been part of injury visitation committees before and usually they adopted a staggered approach, two or three players dropping by at a time, but the team was departing on a five day west coast road trip later that afternoon so they had to get it in all at once. They would miss him too much otherwise.
He didn’t feel under any pressure to be a good host considering he was hurt. In fact he was expecting them to bring him food. The main piece of housekeeping he undertook to get the place ready was moving his MVP trophy from the home gym to his coffee table, then lighting a circle of Svetlana’s candles around it for good measure. When his team filtered into the living room it got the laughs he’d been looking for.
“You’re such an asshole,” Marlow said.
“Bro,” said Stevens. “Why do you even have all these candles?”
Ilya shrugged. Svetlana didn’t like him to talk about her to his teammates and he couldn’t really blame her. She knew hockey players too well.
“You’re such a kid,” someone else said. “Why do you think?”
Ilya frowned at the implication. “I do not light candles to get women to fuck me,” he said. “I light candles to show off my trophies.” Candles for sex was ridiculous, try-hard, like something from a trashy book. The kind of thing, maybe, he thought, that Shane would like.
The other piece of housekeeping he’d managed before their arrival was pulling in chairs from the yard – which probably he shouldn’t have, because it had meant leaving aside his crutches – but there still weren’t enough and some of the guys ended up sitting on the floor. They were telling him stories from their night out last night, the rookies and sophomores trying to impress him in a way he was torn between finding funny and distressing. The trophy thing had obviously been a joke but the way they kept glancing at it made him regret it. He didn’t so much mind awing people; it was just a little disruptive when it happened within his own team. He knew it wouldn’t take long for the shine to wear off him, at least. They hadn’t seen him completely wasted yet. That was usually enough.
God, he wanted so bad to get wasted. The alcohol would eat away the panic that kept clawing at his edges, but he couldn’t so much as sip a beer with the meds he was on. This was so, so fucked. He stood, a little angrily, to go get a glass of orange juice. Ilya liked orange juice, which was why it was in his fridge, but it felt like a humiliation ritual right now.
“What are you doing?” Marlow asked, hawk-eyed.
Ilya shrugged impatiently. “Getting fucking juice.”
Marlow laughed. “Bro, sit down.” He didn’t wait for Ilya’s response before he hopped up to go to the kitchen himself. On his way he said, “Gotta get you a nurse or something.”
Having Cliff around at a time like this was hard. On the ice and in the locker room Cliff respected him and trusted him, deferred to him when it counted. In a personal context, however, it was clear Cliff saw him as a sweet young idiot. It didn’t change much on an average day but whenever Ilya was going through a tough time Cliff always wanted to be there for him, and it could be a lot to take.
He decided not to protest it now, not in front of everyone, and sat back down. He turned to Jackson: “Your wife is nurse, right?”
Jackson shook his head. “I’ll break your other leg, Rozanov.”
“My leg is not broken, fuck you,” he said. “Barely hurts.”
It was hard for him to imagine Shane in an environment like this, but it was inescapable in professional sports. Shane’s teammates seemed to like him so he mustn’t have been as terrible at it as Ilya would have guessed, either. Maybe he only rolled his eyes so much around Ilya. Maybe he didn’t mind so much laughing at other people’s jokes.
As soon as he was alone in his house again, Ilya felt at a loss. He would be starting PT but not for another couple days and other than that his schedule was wide fucking open, like outer space or Antarctica. He was supposed to rest. He didn’t know how he could rest when he felt this antsy. He found himself reaching for his cigarettes and stilled the movement. He’d already had two today. Whatever Shane Hollander thought, Ilya made a genuine effort to limit his smoking. Pre-injury the last time he’d had a cigarette had been Boston’s last loss. He feared that if he didn’t find something to do during his recovery he’d slip into a pack a day, which, along with all the other reasons it was a bad idea, would make him think of his father.
Never mind the next two weeks, the next eight hours stretched endlessly in front of him. He had no idea how to occupy his time. His house was basically empty, which sounded sad but was really a good thing, evidence he’d built himself the life he wanted – where he always had something to do, outside and with other people. Ilya had been restless for as long as he could remember, never able to sit still. He’d gotten in trouble for it as a kid at the dinner table and he got in trouble for it as a full grown man on the team bus. He’d gotten in trouble for it when the doctors had been trying to take the x-ray, his leg jumping without his permission.
He ran through his options for keeping busy. He’d never really gotten into social media. The official Ilya Rozanov accounts were full of sponsored content in perfect English. He liked to pretend they didn’t exist. He had video games, but that was for when people were over, and he couldn’t have people over. With Svetlana and his team away, the Boston friends that remained were people he enjoyed but did not trust and would not want seeing him like this. It had been hard enough tolerating Marlow getting him a drink from the kitchen, and he knew Marlow genuinely cared about him.
The same logic applied to hook ups. He could have sex, the injury didn’t preclude it. If he was on a bed someone could blow him or ride him or sit on his face. On a normal day Ilya liked any of those ideas, but he didn’t like them as an accommodation, as his only option, like the other person was taking care of him. Anyway, he couldn’t go out to find someone new and the only people he could call up were people he’d already slept with and still found interesting, and he didn’t want them to see him like this.
He’d be willing to fuck Hollander, though, he thought. Shane was an athlete too; he’d get it, wouldn’t make a big deal of it. They’d had lesser versions of injured sex before, bruised stretches of flesh they’d had to avoid. One time Shane had had a split lip and cut tongue and couldn’t kiss him or blow him, and it had ended up being pretty hot in its own way. How difficult Shane had found it.
Ilya’s gaze went back to the stack of video games beneath the TV. He didn’t see the point in competing against a computer rather than real human beings, but maybe he would get one of those headsets and curse out American boys who called him a faggot. That could be fun, except the idea of him purchasing special equipment just to get through these two weeks felt weirdly tragic, like defeat. He’d have to take some time to warm himself up to the idea.
Shane Hollander could probably handle being in a house on his own for a while. He probably did jigsaw puzzles and still life watercolors. Ilya would pay half a million dollars to be able to go go-karting, something he didn’t even like that much.
After forty minutes of lying on the couch, knee iced and elevated and no other idea for what to do, he gave in and turned on the television. There wasn’t any game on worth watching, just overpaid talking heads debating all time greats, which maybe Ilya would watch at some point if he decided intense annoyance was preferable to boredom. He found himself among the incredibly rarely used non-sports channels, a group of women talking about a book about a marital affair, a game show where people tried to guess words based on only some of the letters. Ilya wasn’t in a good place to start feeling bad about his English again, an insecurity he’d mostly overcome since his rookie season. American day time TV was the most hellish part of the country, possibly. He switched to streaming services, went to Russian releases but felt sad about not recognizing any of the names, only recognizing a few of the actors, like he was losing touch with back home. Watching the shows would be the way to remedy that but instead he turned his TV off again.
He could have tried to nap if he hadn’t had two cups of coffee already that day. God, he was very, very bad at this. It wasn’t just the boredom he hated, it was how pathetic and useless it made him feel. He sounded fucking whiny, even if only in his own head. Ilya did not like to linger, did not like to worry, did not like to indulge in self-pity. Sitting around all day would only bring misery. The fact that doctors had told him he had to sit around all day did not change that.
When he first started feeling hungry he almost cried with happiness – finally, something he wanted he could actually have. He had a strong suspicion that food would be his primary source of pleasure during this stretch and hoped to God the painkillers didn’t suppress his appetite the way the doctor had said they might.
His teammates had brought over food, just as Ilya had demanded in the group chat. As he waited for the generously donated Thai curry to heat in the microwave, he lifted both feet off the ground, putting all his weight on the crutches and swinging his body between them. It was the first cool thing the crutches had done. He wondered how much swing he could get. He should be careful. If he got too ambitious he might slip and crack his head open on the tiles. The microwave dinged.
The food was good but only took him ten minutes to eat. Jesus Christ. After washing up he retreated in defeat to his room. He lay on his bed staring at the ceiling and remembered his mother lying on her bed staring at the ceiling.
And then he got up. Salvation had arrived: it was 6pm and Montreal were at Washington. It was as exciting as the hunger but would last much longer. Often he watched games on mute because the commentary annoyed him, but this was a new kind of loneliness and the volume stayed up.
As always when Montreal played it was hard to focus on anything other than Shane. But Washington were good this year and he could do with paying attention to their defense, which was really good. Good enough to get the puck off Shane in the first possession of the game, which made Ilya smile and pull out his phone. You went too quick by 42 that is not the way to beat them.
He was immediately in a much better mood. This was a very fun game; he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Two minutes later he texted Shane you missed Leslie behind you he would have had better angle.
There weren’t actually all that many mistakes to pick Shane up on, so he took a few digs at his teammates as well. That was a lot easier and a lot less fun. It didn’t take him too long to realize Shane would be annoyed by compliments, too, so he started sending shit like, nice pass! And good job getting by Ross! And, great shot, too bad, any other night it goes in!
Montreal won and Ilya didn’t feel any particular way about it. It had been good competition. He could linger for Shane’s post game interview or he could switch over to one of the western conference games that had just started. He did the latter, Colorado and Seattle, but wasn’t as engaged. He kept looking at his phone, waiting for Shane to respond.
Jane: this is really saying something: I have never wanted to block your number more.
Lily: you would do that to fan? I am enjoying the game!
Jane: living vicariously through me while you’re hurt I guess.
Ilya looked up vicarious and then laughed. That was mean! Shane was rarely that mean, all his insults generic like he never had any cruel thoughts of his own, or at least none he was willing to voice.
Lily: what if that hurt my feelings?
Jane: sorry. It was harsh. But I didn’t fucking miss Leslie he was going too slow he can’t speed up the way you were thinking.
Lily: you are helping me game plan against your team?
Jane: No!! God you piss me off so bad.
Ilya smiled. It occurred to him that this might develop into something sexual. For that to happen, he knew, the responsibility was on him. In Shane’s approach to sexting, after inquiring as to how Ilya was doing, he would make unrelentingly banal conversation until Ilya brought up dick. One afternoon last off-season Ilya had wanted to see how long Shane would pretend he wasn’t looking for what he was looking for; he’d gotten twenty minutes into the most boring conversation of his life before his asking what Shane had had for lunch finally prompted Shane to text back, you have to be fucking with me.
Lily: I am getting you flustered?
The typing bubble appeared, disappeared, reappeared. That always did something to Ilya, some weird response developed over the years of exposure to Shane’s hesitancy. He’d never seen it but he could still picture it, Shane frowning and focused, deciding what he was allowed to want.
Jane: not now.
Lily: I can get you flustered later?
Jane: I’m on my way to the hotel.
Lily: text me when you get there safe xx
Shane didn’t respond and Ilya glanced between his phone and the game on the screen. Fuck it. He turned the TV off and grabbed his crutches, dragged himself to his bedroom, got settled against the headboard. Didn’t have to wait long.
Jane: Are you ready?
Lily: I already started.
It wasn’t really true. He’d lubed up his hand and was holding his dick, but he hadn’t really done anything. He just knew it would rile Shane up.
Jane: asshole.
Lily: Not same without you. Want you to spit on my dick.
He had texted with people who were too shy for anything this explicit – actually shy, not shy-until-they-weren’t like Shane. The style he adopted with them, all soft and suggestive, could be more challenging English wise but was still pretty fun. He wondered how Shane would respond if instead of spitting on dicks Ilya talked about running his hands over Shane’s body. He thought it would frustrate Shane; he thought Shane needed the shock.
Jane: Jesus.
Jane: my mouth is so wet.
Ilya cursed under his breath, started moving his hand. He hadn’t known Shane had clocked how much he liked that. His impulse was to send something back about kissing Shane, but that—he meant it in a horny way, but it wouldn’t read as horny.
Lily: fuck I miss your mouth.
Jane: it misses you
Ilya couldn’t help but smile. That didn’t really read as horny either, more sweet. Like Shane had realized the same thing, he followed up.
Jane: your dick
Ilya laughed and impulsively tapped call. Shane rejected it on the first ring. Ilya’s eyebrows rose.
Jane: I can’t. I’m sharing a room with Hayden.
Ilya’s first instinct was to respond ‘cute’. Then he frowned, his hand slowing.
Lily: are you in bathroom?
Jane: no the bed.
Lily: and he is there?
Jane: in his bed. Yes.
Lily: so you are going to jerk off all quiet under covers?
Jane: Oh my God. No.
Lily: You are texting me like this and you will not jerk off? Not nice.
Jane: Well, I mean. You can jerk off.
Ilya rarely had to take a beat the way he did right then. He couldn’t believe Shane would be going along with this just for Ilya’s sake. Maybe he was pity sexting the injured guy, which should bother Ilya, but it was making him burn up too much to care. Shane saying all this stuff he found so hard to say, not touching himself, not trying to come, just wanting to get Ilya off. God, he was so good. Unbelievably good.
Lily: Are you turned on do you wish you could touch
Jane: God yes I’m so hard
Lily: Wet?
Jane: Yes
Jane: Trying so hard not to move
Lily: You can move a little.
Lily: Just put your hand on your dick and press down for a second.
Jane: Fuck you. You need to finish soon I can’t take this much longer.
Ilya tried to imagine how that would sound in Shane’s voice.
Lily: I’m in no hurry. If you want me to come do something.
Jane: I don’t know
Jane: What do you want me to do
Jane: I’ll call you tomorrow I’ll do whatever you want
Jane: Show you whatever
Jane: Please come please
He had to know exactly what he was doing, Ilya thought, and then he came. He didn’t alert Shane to the fact, but his silence was probably a give away. The phone resting on his thigh, Ilya laughed when he saw Shane send a smiley face. Ilya moved to get up so he could clean himself, then glanced down at his hand and stomach.
Lily: You would get very mad if I sent picture?
Jane: Yes. Please do not.
Ilya wondered how hard that had been for Shane to type out. Shane always wanted to see Ilya’s mess after, would turn around from whatever position he’d been in, wouldn’t let Ilya move him back for a few moments. Had to look his fill.
Well, his loss. Ilya got up and cleaned himself off, then picked up his phone again.
Lily: thank you
Jane: Don’t thank me for sexting you. Jesus.
Lily: but you did not come
Lily: very kind and generous of you
Jane: shut up. Good night.
It was easier to sleep that night than it had been after getting home from the hospital the night before, which Ilya could have guessed. It was one of the scientific benefits of getting off.
The next day was hell, too. He’d gone to bed pretty early so he woke up pretty early, and this time his team weren’t there to take up the morning. He had a nice breakfast and skipped coffee and stubbornly refused to return to the couch or the bed, not before he found something to do. He managed an hour long improvised upper body work out with his knee still elevated. It probably wasn’t all that effective, but at least it involved moving. He watched old game tape until it got too depressing. He didn’t text Shane except—
Lily: you were serious about call tonight
Jane: yes
Lily: good
Then he went to his rarely consulted, largely decorative, still somehow not all that empty book shelf. And finally found something in his house that was, maybe, interesting.
On the middle shelf, in the space between the last book and the wall, there was a deck of cards held together with a rubber band, larger than a standard pack. When he pulled the band off and flipped them over to see their faces, he didn’t recognize the suits. It was medieval, mythological looking drawings of people, all of them with titles. He had no idea what it was or how it had gotten into his house. He took them to the kitchen table, sat down, shuffled through them.
The illustration style reminded him of a book of fairy tales his mom would read to him. There’d been a story about a dragon Ilya had gotten very attached to. He flicked through the cards to see if any of their pictures had a dragon and felt stupidly disappointed when they didn’t. He sent a photo of the deck to Svetlana along with the message, stop leaving shit at my house.
Svetlana: not mine
Svetlana: ILYA, have you been SEEING other GIRLS?
He snorted, considered calling her, decided against it.
Ilya: they’re a girl thing? do you know what they are?
Svetlana: “a girl thing” I’ll kill you. They’re tarot cards. I bet the hippie you were obsessed with left them there.
Ilya: ????
Ilya: obsessed?
Svetlana: You saw her three consecutive times right? Ilya rozanov obsession
Ilya thought briefly of Shane. He wouldn’t say seeing someone three times counted as obsession. He did think Svetlana was probably right as to the origin of the cards, though, because he could remember now, that girl mentioning tarot. She sold readings online, she’d said, but he hadn’t really known what it meant. He wondered if she’d brought them the last time she came over thinking she’d show him how they worked. He remembered how quickly he’d started taking her clothes off when she arrived, and how he’d had to leave early the next morning. Felt some way about it. Felt some way about the fact that she had apparently never wanted to reach out to him to get them back.
Ilya: Do you want them?
Svetlana: give them back to her omg. It looks like a nice set!
Will do, he sent, because Svetlana always got mad when he told lies she could see through and he was desperate for attention. He smiled when she called.
Svetlana stayed on for a lot longer than she normally would and he knew it was out of concern for him, but his restlessness overpowered his pride and he allowed it. He felt more like a human being when they eventually hung up.
It occurred to him he’d feel comfortable having sex with Svetlana too, while hurt like this, that he’d trust her with it the way he’d trust Shane. Of course she wasn’t in Boston either so it didn’t matter, but it was weird it hadn’t crossed his mind before. She was the most beautiful woman he knew.
He wondered if he used to say person.
Ilya hadn’t had a cigarette since yesterday morning and it was getting hard to resist. Usually if he wanted one two days in a row he’d smoke one two days in a row but he didn’t trust himself right now, didn’t trust his control. Everything felt magnified, consequential. He took the box of matches that kept triggering the desire from beside the unused fireplace and sat down at the kitchen table, placing them before him. He lit one, let it burn until it was near his fingers, then blew it out. He liked the smell of blown out matches, and maybe it would work as a crude proxy for smoking. And the heat right by his fingers felt nice too, and the sound when he struck them. So he did it thirty more times.
He stared at the little pile of charred sticks and for some reason didn’t want to throw them out. He took a picture of it on his phone. Did this count as a hobby? He wished he’d timed himself, but he didn’t think it had taken more than five minutes. He had never been so aware of five-minute intervals before, most of his life busy enough to happen at least on the scale of hours.
He received a check in text from his coach making sure he was following doctor’s orders, and Ilya couldn’t even blame him, because he wasn’t. He sullenly grabbed some ice from the freezer and moved himself to the couch. He started back on the Colorado Seattle game from last night and in the middle of it got a text from Shane.
Jane: is it okay if it happens pretty late?
It was sort of devastating, but was also a mere drop in the ocean of Ilya’s current discontent.
Lily: Okay. When?
Jane: like one.
Jane: I’ll call you.
Jane: I’m getting home later than I thought I would.
Ilya gave it a thumbs up. He wondered where Shane was that he’d only get home at one in the morning. God, Ilya wanted to be somewhere he’d only get home from at one in the morning. He hadn't known Shane knew such places existed.
The game ended, and then the next game ended, and there was still over an hour until the call with Shane. Ilya couldn’t stay on his couch a second longer. Outside was pitch black, huge, and after staring out the window for a moment he pulled a blanket around his shoulders, turned off the indoor lights, and went into his yard. He let his eyes adjust, saw hazy dark gray trees and clouds. He felt a little better. He was still doing nothing, but he wasn’t so cooped up. Okay, then, that was some kind of plan. He turned the patio lanterns on and grabbed the cushions off the couch, dragged them outside and pushed them against the wall. He made himself a little nest and reigned there as king, switching his gaze between where the stars would be if it wasn’t for all the light pollution and his phone, the whole time hoping Shane might get home earlier than he’d thought.
Shane texted him at one on the dot, which was honestly pretty suspicious and made Ilya wonder if he’d been kept waiting. You can call now, the text read, which made Ilya smile. Shane had twice said he’d call Ilya. Ilya was happy to take over. He rested his wrist on his good knee, propped up, and requested a video call. Shane picked up near immediately, and Ilya’s breath caught.
Which was very, very stupid. It had been a long time since he’d seen Shane in person, yes, but this wasn’t in person, and Ilya had seen him bigger and in higher resolution on his TV screen many times since then. This was, however, the first time in a long time that he was looking at Shane Hollander with Shane Hollander looking back.
He was up against the headboard of his bed in his place in Montreal – nondescript, but Ilya still recognized it. And he absolutely had left Ilya waiting; his hair was flat with moisture, freshly showered. He was topless. He looked like the room was warm.
Shane said, “Are you outside?”
Ilya looked around him like he was only just noticing. “Yes,” he said.
“Okay,” Shane said slowly. “Can you go inside?”
Ilya frowned. He was really comfortable, and a little more settled than he had been all day. “Why?”
“Because,” Shane said, and then lowered his voice. “We’re about to have phone sex.”
Ilya turned his head to the side, to show Shane the earphones he had in. “You do not have to be quiet,” he said. The sound quality was better than from his phone speaker, but if it gave Shane some peace of mind for him to use the earphones that was all the more reason.
“The point still stands,” Shane said. “We’re about to have phone sex, and you’re outside.”
“Not in public park,” Ilya said, a little exasperated. “Not at Fenway. In my house.”
“Outside your house,” Shane corrected. “Someone could hear you, or see you.”
Ilya frowned. “Yes,” he said slowly. “If I have stalker secretly watching me, they could hear or see me. But then I think I have bigger problem. I could go inside but maybe they bugged my house too. Hollander. We have done crazier things, I think.”
Shane still looked a little conflicted. “Did you come outside specifically for this? Like, to fuck with me, because you knew how I’d react?”
“No,” Ilya said. “I have been here for a while.”
“Oh,” Shane said, looking at Ilya like he was looking for something in particular. Ilya didn’t know what.
Regardless, Ilya had something to confront Shane about too. “Where is your phone?”
Shane frowned. “What do you mean? I’m using it.”
“How?” Ilya asked. “Is not in your hands.”
Ilya could only see the top of his arms but the camera was higher and further away than made sense. It was a really great view, would probably let Ilya see Shane’s face and dick at the same time when it came to it, but he couldn’t not address it.
“Oh,” Shane said. “Well, I have one of those stands. It’s—they’re really common.”
Ilya smiled. They were pretty common. Svetlana had one for selfies. Still, Shane’s defensiveness was very interesting. “I did not know you had this,” he said.
“Yeah, well,” Shane said.
“When did you get it?”
Shane’s jaw clenched. “This afternoon.”
“You got it for this?” Ilya knew he shouldn’t smile as wide as he was, knew it was pissing Shane off, but he couldn’t help it. He looked away, tried to pull himself together.
“It’s not a big deal,” Shane said. “On camera phone sex is really hard.”
That sobered Ilya. They’d never done it before. “Oh, you have a lot of it?” he asked, dry.
“No,” Shane said. “But I was doing—research. Not research. I was trying to work out how to do it.”
“Not so hard,” Ilya said. “Dick in one hand, phone in the other.”
“Yeah, but—” Shane was flushed, his mouth twitching like he might start crying. Ilya knew it wasn’t really that, but he couldn’t help seeing it as though it was.
He took pity. “But the view is not so good,” he said. Shane had said he'd show Ilya whatever Ilya wanted. “I would not be able to see you so well. See everything I want to see.”
“Right,” Shane said. “I just wanted—I just thought it made sense.”
Ilya flicked his eyes over what Shane thought made sense. It was a pretty slutty camera placement. God, Shane had no idea how hot he was. He took to sex so naturally, the way he showed himself off, the way he needed, the way he savored, but then he’d also act like some prudish virgin who couldn’t conceive of having phone sex in the yard. It was like he had a split personality, like he had no memory of the things he said and did with Ilya. He also, Ilya suspected, had no real frame of reference. He didn’t have enough experience with other people to know how exceptional he was, how rare it was to find someone who gave themselves over like that. Ilya could tell him. At least, in theory he could tell him. In practice not so much. It would come out gushing, not a simple observation of fact.
“If you are happy I am happy,” Ilya said, and looked upward for a moment. “Is a beautiful night.”
“I really want to be there,” Shane said, and Ilya slipped his hand into his briefs. He wasn’t sure if Shane could tell, because Ilya’s phone only showed him from his shoulders. And his being outside was a little unfair, Ilya conceded, because Shane was all lit up while Ilya was in low, orange light.
“I’m hurt,” Ilya reminded him, not knowing exactly why. It risked ruining the vibe; they should play in a world where he was in peak form. “Would not be so sexy.”
Shane shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about how we’d fuck while you were hurt.”
That was – a lot. Ilya’s dick jolted, and something in his chest did too. Smoker lung, presumably. He managed to keep his voice steady. “You want to ride me?”
“Yes.”
Ilya smiled slowly. “But that’s not what you think about.”
“No,” Shane said, with the slightest smile, barriers broken down enough he didn’t mind so much being teased.
“So?” Ilya prompted.
“Well—” Shane shuffled in place, bringing more of himself into view. His stomach. “You’d kind of be where I am, on your bed. Up against the headboard. Maybe a bit higher up, but not by much. And you’d be in the middle of the bed, with your legs spread. Not like, crazy wide, but.”
Ilya couldn’t help smiling. Shane had no interest in trying to be hot, he was focused on accurately describing what he was picturing, making sure Ilya could picture it too. If Ilya didn’t intervene Shane would probably start specifying pillow positions.
“And where are you?”
“Between your legs,” Shane said, and it seemed like a relief, like he relaxed as he said it, like he’d needed to share it with Ilya. His hand glided over his abs, then lower. He’d gone through all that effort with the phone stand and Ilya still couldn’t see his dick, but because Shane had permanently rewired him Ilya found that hot too, imagining Shane not having the guts to angle the phone quite so far down. “I’ve got my back to your chest. And you’re – touching me.”
Ilya paused. “Jerking you off?”
“Yeah.”
“You have been thinking of this?”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “Just since last night, when it was obvious you were still up for things.”
Ilya smiled. “I am still up for things,” he said, and watched the way Shane’s eyelids flickered. “I don’t know, though. Your fantasy is pretty wild. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“Shut up,” Shane said, but he was smiling.
“I would be hard,” Ilya said, deciding to be done with the preamble. “Against your back. Did you think of how that feels?” For a moment Ilya felt hot with embarrassment, self-consciousness. It was a very new feeling or maybe very old, a relic of adolescence. It was just such a tame fantasy. Shane really, really wanted a hand job. Indulging it made it seem like that was all Ilya wanted too, and God, maybe it was.
“Yes,” Shane said, and he was obviously done with preamble too, because he reached out and tilted his phone down a little, so Ilya could finally see him gripping himself. “I love it, it’s so warm.”
Ilya held in his laugh, not wanting to make Shane feel self-conscious right now. He just wouldn’t have thought warmth was the defining characteristic. “Where is my other hand, the one not jerking you off?”
Shane swallowed. “Everywhere,” he said. “My stomach, my throat, my…” He cut himself off with a noise in the back of his throat.
“Your chest?”
Shane nodded.
“Thighs?”
Shane nodded again, kept nodding.
“I do that when I’m very, very, turned on,” Ilya said. “Cannot choose what I want.”
Shane made a plaintive noise. His hand was speeding up, going quicker than Ilya would if it really was him touching Shane.
“You make noise when I touch low on your stomach,” Ilya said. “One of my favorites. How loud would you be?”
Shane shook his head. “Not that loud.”
Ilya smiled. “But there’s nowhere for you to put your mouth. You can’t hide.”
“Loud, then,” Shane said, and he mightn’t even know what the words meant, the way he was looking, so focused on his pleasure, in another world. While Ilya had gone to bed sated last night Shane had been left wanting. Had apparently concocted a whole new sexual fantasy. Ilya still had his hand wrapped around himself but it was barely moving. He was wrapped up in Shane, only concerned with getting him off. Even on a screen it was an insane thing to watch unfold. He couldn’t believe he ever got to witness this in person, got to touch it.
“Love when you get loud,” Ilya said, deciding to stop making Shane answer questions. He didn’t want Shane focused on anything other than touching himself. He pledged a life debt to Shane’s phone stand when Shane’s free hand went up to his nipples, rubbing over them, before dropping down between his legs, below the hand working his dick. Even with all the production value, Ilya couldn’t see what it was doing. “You don’t let yourself most times, I know how well I’m doing when I can hear you. Once, when I was right up by your mouth, you were so loud it made my fucking ears ring. Like stadium.”
“Fuck,” Shane said, pained and bitten off, not loud the way Ilya was thinking about him getting, but that was okay. It wasn’t likely to happen like this, without Ilya actually there with him. “Fuck, God, fuck.”
Ilya’s words became less deliberate, less coherent, as he watched Shane, just soft sounds of praise. And then Shane came, on his hand and stomach and thighs, hunching over himself and then sinking back into the pillows behind him, pink and heaving and shiny with sweat and maybe that pointless fucking shower he’d taken, to keep Ilya waiting. Ilya’s hand started moving again, and he thought he’d get off without Shane noticing just from looking at Shane like this, fucked out and happy but not quite as disassembled as when Ilya was really there. But then Shane was flinching into a feeble sort of awareness, eyes widened and clean hand reaching to grab his phone, take it off that stand and pull it closer to him.
“Are you coming?” he asked, urgent. “Are you—?”
Ilya nodded, his jaw tense and suddenly open, letting out the groan he’d been holding in, and moments later, looking at Shane looking at him, he came in his hand.
“Show me,” Shane said, not giving Ilya any time to recover. “Show me, please.”
Ilya held back a curse and lifted his hand up, spreading his fingers in front of the camera. Shane made a snuffly, breathy sound, quiet but still carried over the phone, and Ilya recreated it better in his head, knowing exactly what it sounded like close up. He caught his own breath and said, “Are you sure you didn’t want picture last night?”
Shane shook his head but smiled, relaxing back again against the headboard. Ilya stared at him, suddenly awkward. It was easy for either of them to end a text conversation, especially when he was being an asshole. And it was easy to leave the other’s apartment or hotel room, because there was always something they had to get back to. Ilya had nothing to get back to and he didn’t want to be an asshole. It occurred to him to be grateful Shane hadn’t postponed this, was willing to still go ahead with it despite the late hour. Unlike Ilya, Shane would have things to do tomorrow. He’d passed up on sleep for this, probably.
“You have alarm set for morning?” Ilya asked.
“Yeah,” Shane said, soft and warm. “You?”
“No,” Ilya said, falling into matching Shane’s tone. “No more alarms for me for a while.”
“Right,” Shane said. “But you’re right, I should get going.”
“Not what I said,” Ilya said.
Shane smiled without looking all that happy. “You asked about my alarm,” he said. “It’s okay. You’re right, anyway, I should get some sleep.”
“Okay,” Ilya said, wondering if that had been why he’d asked. “Good night.”
It was really a good thing that their call had been so late, because it meant Ilya slept in later too, ate some of the morning away. It was his last day actually stuck in the house, in that he’d start leaving for PT appointments tomorrow. That was enough to lift some of the weight off his chest, but once he finished his breakfast he was still hit with dread at all the empty hours before him. Also, his knee hurt like hell for the first time since he came down from the initial hit, the pain killers no longer quite cutting it. He hoped it was from sleeping weird; he hoped it wasn’t from being outside last night, because he already knew that was going to become a habit.
He still hated getting on the couch, but he couldn’t deny the physical relief he felt when he found the exact right position to hold his knee at. He set himself up with a bottle of water, his pain killers, a bag of chips, his phone, his laptop, and the tarot cards, determined to have a bearable morning.
But he was still thinking about last night. He and Shane had had phone sex four times before, never with video. They’d gotten off together over text more than that, but it still wasn’t a regular occurrence. He doubted there was any one month where they’d done it even twice – until now. Doing something like that two nights in a row was hard to just forget about once it was over. He had an excuse, he was essentially housebound, but he didn’t know why Shane was making himself available to Ilya like this. And Ilya couldn’t get past the heavy feeling in his chest from Shane thinking he was ending the call, which was stupid, because it wasn’t like they were going to stay on whispering sweet nothings until they fell asleep. Shane, with his morning alarm, had even more reason than Ilya to end it quick. The ways the injury and isolation and inactivity were messing Ilya up were clearly affecting how he handled his thing with Shane, too. He should probably take a break from him, even if just for a couple of days, and the break should include not thinking about him.
Ilya picked up the tarot cards and scanned through them again. The one called the Empress was a blond woman in a long flowing patterned dress outside in a meadow, lounging back in what was probably a throne, considering she was the Empress, but looked more like a chaise longue covered in pillows. Either she had flowers in her hair or a crown, he couldn’t really tell. He liked her a lot, anyway, the way he’d liked things when he was a kid.
He knew enough about tarot to know the cards all had different meanings, so he set the deck back on the coffee table and looked it up on his laptop. Empress: femininity and motherhood. Fuck. That was pretty on the nose. He clicked quickly into the next suggested article. It was about the Fool, which felt like safer territory.
He was surprised that the images being used on the first website he’d found were the same as the specific deck he had. He’d assumed this was one among countless designs, but apparently it was an old classic. That made sense, he supposed, because the book it reminded him of had been old too. He started reading the high level meanings of the cards and found it a little unsettling the way they made him think of things. People. He took a brief break to chug half his bottle of water, but when he was returning it to the table, eyes back on his screen, he knocked the tarot deck onto the floor.
He stared stoically at the space between the couch and the coffee table where it had fallen, making no move to clean the cards up. They looked kind of nice, all the colors and images sprawled out like that. Maybe he’d leave them there forever. He fished his phone out of his sweatpants pocket and took a photo. Then he opened his chat with Shane and sent it to him.
And then he froze.
He stared at what he’d done, dumbfounded. Ilya really only texted Shane when he wanted to get off, and when he wanted to get off, unlike Shane, he wasn’t coy about it. He didn’t think that was what had just happened; didn’t think he’d been thinking about sex. He hadn’t been thinking anything.
Shane’s quick reply cut through the panic. Did you throw a tantrum?
Ilya smiled, his heart still trying to crack his ribs, and sunk back into the couch.
Lily: no I threw big party everything’s fucked up now. Have to get cleaners in
Jane: You lie about the stupidest shit.
Jane: Why do you even have those? Lol
Lily: a girl left them here
Shane thumbs up reacted. Ilya imagined a world where Shane was at all careless with his stuff, with his wired earphones or his deodorant or his watch, where any of those could’ve ended up under Ilya’s pillow, on his bathroom counter. He wouldn’t return them. Shane would get so mad. Ilya smiled at the thought. Maybe he would steal something from Shane’s little back pack next time they met up.
Lily: you know what they are?
Jane: yeah. I think they’re ridiculous. So are the people who use them.
Mean, like the vicarious comment. Their owner hadn’t been ridiculous.
Lily: Hold on I will read your future.
He fished through the heap of cards to pick out the three that looked the scariest: the Hanged Man, the Ten of Swords, and Death, which wasn’t actually all that gruesome but was usefully captioned DEATH. He heaved himself into sitting upright, wincing as his knee protested the sudden movement, lined the cards up on the coffee table, and sent Shane a photo.
Lily: you think this is bad?
Jane: there’s no way.
Jane: you picked those out deliberately.
A video call request came through and, despite his shock, Ilya answered quick. He knew it would catch Shane off guard. Shane liked to have time to prepare.
“These dead men turn you on?” Ilya asked. “This is too weird for me.”
“Nothing’s too weird for you,” Shane said. He was sitting in a room Ilya didn’t recognize wearing a thin white t-shirt Ilya really, really did. Ilya himself was shirtless, which was a piece of luck. “And I’m not calling for phone sex.”
“No?”
“No. I was thinking you could read my future, but you have to do it on camera so I know you’re not fucking with me.”
Ilya opened his mouth, intending to remind Shane he had seconds ago called the cards ridiculous, and then decided against it. Shane was too easily spooked and Ilya wanted to go ahead with the suggestion. He thought it sounded fun. He would think anything sounded fun right now. The fact that he knew basically nothing about tarot was irrelevant. “Okay,” he said. “Just let me prepare.”
“Contact the spirits?” Shane asked.
“That is not how tarot works,” Ilya said.
“I didn’t know you were so passionate about it,” Shane said, sounding amused. Ilya tried to send him a reproving look as he leaned his phone against the water bottle on the coffee table. He bent down to gather the cards in his hands, dumping them face down in front of the phone, in front of Shane. He put a cushion by the water bottle and lifted his hurt leg up to rest on it.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll pick out ten, you pick three from the ones I pick. It will reveal your future.”
“Sounds great,” Shane said. Ilya didn’t so much like his sarcasm. It wasn’t like Ilya believed, but he was willing to take it seriously for the sake of passing time.
“You will hurt my feelings if you keep this up,” he said.
“Sorry, sorry,” Shane said. “I do want to see.”
Ilya, without meaning to, remembered showing Shane his come last night. He clenched his jaw and picked ten cards from the top of the pile, fanned them out in his hand and held them up to the phone. “Pick,” he said.
“Second fifth eighth,” Shane said, quick, like he thought it was a test.
Ilya frowned. “From which side?”
“Uh…”
Ilya realized it was a hard thing to communicate over video. He shrugged up one of his shoulders. “This side?”
Shane laughed. “Yeah, sure, that side.”
“You have to choose yourself,” Ilya said. “Not just go along with what I say. Have to be your cards, your future.”
“Okay, fine, the other side,” Shane said, looking slightly bemused, which didn’t really surprise Ilya. He wasn’t sure why he was taking it this seriously. Unless he had just straightforwardly lost his mind.
Ilya returned the rejects to the main pile and flipped the first of Shane’s selected cards up: Death. He laughed as he showed it to Shane.
“Fuck you,” Shane said. “I should’ve gotten you to shuffle them first.”
“You think I placed it there special?” Ilya asked. “No, Hollander. You are just cursed.”
“Okay, but it hardly actually means I’m going to die,” Shane said. “It’s gotta be a metaphor.”
“Yes,” Ilya said. “Spiritual death, death of happiness, death of career.”
“Hey,” Shane said, a little whiny. “If I have to take this seriously you do too.”
“Okay, okay,” Ilya said, and pulled his laptop onto his lap. “Let me consult the spirits.”
Shane laughed and Ilya hoped the smile it pulled out of him wasn’t all that visible. Shane had a great angle of Ilya’s torso, hopefully not so much his face.
Shane was right, Death was metaphorical, but it took Ilya a couple moments to figure out how to express it. He’d been reading about the cards in Russian and having to translate always threw him off a little, as though when he was reading Russian he temporarily forgot English. “It means big change. Transformation. End of something, start of something.”
“Oh,” Shane said.
“Maybe you are thinking of getting new towels,” Ilya said.
“Shut up,” Shane said. “But I mean, I don’t feel like there’s been a big change in my life in a while. Since… So it would be nice.”
“Since what?” Ilya asked, looking up at the screen, genuinely curious.
“Well,” Shane said. “Since you. I mean, since you and I started hooking up.”
“Oh,” Ilya said, and took a breath. “Okay, next card.”
He flipped it over and grimaced. It was the Hierophant, the only one whose name he didn’t think he could pronounce. He held the card up to the phone. “I don’t know this word,” he said.
Shane squinted. “Shit, neither do I,” he said. “Hierophant.”
He said it hesitantly. “This is how you say it?” Ilya asked.
“Sure,” Shane said.
Ilya smiled as he looked up its meaning. If he could pretend to know how to read tarot, Shane could pretend to know how to say that word.
“Well, this card is all about tradition,” Ilya said. “Maybe somebody from an institution will play big role in your life, or maybe someone who is very conservative will. Or maybe you are very conservative. Or maybe you need to get religious. I do not know what this means for you. What do you think?”
Shane shook his head, smiling slightly. “You’re the one reading the cards,” he said. “You’re supposed to tell me.”
Ilya cocked his head. Shane had said he hadn’t called for sex, but he was letting Ilya take the lead in a very familiar way. “Well,” he said. “Coaches are our priests, probably. So… You will become coach after you retire.”
He didn’t think tarot was supposed to generate such specific predictions, but it was what came to mind.
“That’s actually nice,” Shane said, smiling in that way he had like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to. “I’m not sure I’d be good, but I have thought about it.”
“Don't fish for compliments,” Ilya said, and then flipped the final card and held it up. “Wheel of Fortune.”
“Ha, like the show,” Shane said.
“Dumb show,” Ilya said, as he set to looking the card up.
“I can’t believe you have a strong opinion on Wheel of Fortune,” Shane said.
“Okay,” Ilya said. “This is the card of destiny.”
Shane laughed.
“It fucking is,” Ilya said, frowning.
“Okay, okay, sorry,” Shane said, still smiling. Ilya tried not to get distracted.
Shit. It turned out he’d been distracted the whole time, reading too fast, because it was only with the Wheel of Fortune that he registered the cards had multiple meanings. “Oh,” he said. “I have been doing this wrong.”
“No, really?” Shane asked, with sarcasm that almost impressed Ilya.
“Every card, I think, has two meanings,” Ilya said. “Depending if it came out… upward or downward. The upward Wheel of Fortune means destiny, big changes, fate coming in. Something big happening to you you can’t control, but good thing, I think. Your fortune changing.”
“Okay,” Shane said, quiet.
“And then downward,” Ilya said. “Basically the opposite. You are stuck, you cannot get out of your way of doing things, you are trying to control everything.”
“Jesus,” Shane said. “Okay, so which was mine? Was it upward or downward?”
Ilya should shrug and say he didn’t know, because he honestly didn’t know and because it would annoy Shane, which he had a strong track record of enjoying. Instead, inexplicably, he found himself looking right at Shane, who was looking right back, and saying, “Upward.”
Shane smiled. Oh, Ilya was definitely losing his mind.