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It's all wet outside.
Hot and sticky-fucking-wet, humidity at 110% percent, everywhere. The afternoon's explosive rainstorm is still lingering through the night; the intermittent breeze makes it at least a little bearable. Jackson swipes sweat off the back of his neck and reaches into his front pocket, pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Reaches— reaches into his other front pocket, then his two back pockets. Fuck.
Half the city's spilling through the streets, bathed in the neon glow of Montreal's nightlife. It's a gorgeous cacophany of noise, people, everything. Sparkles and spirited laughter. Chaos and crisp silhouettes. Jackson pushes his sunglasses further up his hairline, fingers itching. Someone's got to have a lighter.
Two people shuffle out of the very same nightclub that Jackson himself just stepped out of. A man and— literally the most beautiful woman that Jackson's ever seen: perfect dark curls, somehow, even in this ridiculous weather; bright, bright eyes; perfect mouth, lipsticked deep red. They lean against the wall and her boyfriend pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Her face is lit in a shock of orange for a brilliant moment as he lights her cigarette for her. By the time Jackson sidles up to them, they're already neck-deep in a lightning-fast conversation about— something. What is that, Russian?
"Excuse me," Jackson tries in English, because while he may be an off-brand Mr. Worldwide, he knows approximately three words of Russian courtesy of a hookup last year, and none of them would be of any help right now. He holds up his cigarette. "Can I borrow a light?"
"Sure," the woman says in accented English, and hands it over. Up close, her eyes look brighter. Her hair looks darker. But Jackson's no homewrecker, so he looks away, minds his own business—
"This your boyfriend?"
He's a bit more drunk than he thought, he's slowly realizing. Maybe he shouldn't have done that last shot with Kole. His words drop into the air a little too eagerly, a little too stupidly. For a moment, that's all he is: eager and stupid. But then he remembers that he knows his angles, and he knows his smiles, and he quickly finds out that this gorgeous, stunning woman also knows her smiles, and that it sends lightning up his spine. "Just a friend," she says. Her voice is quieter now, a secretive stage whisper. "I don't have a boyfriend. Not yet, anyway."
"Not yet, huh?" Jackson says. He takes a drag and then looks out into the damp night as he exhales out smoke. "So I have a chance?"
She laughs, tucking a curl behind her ear. Her not-boyfriend, just-friend throws a glance their way. Where her features are all full curves and gorgeous roundness, his are severe, cold strength. His eyebrows seem perpetually arched. His mouth is heavy, flat. He doesn't bother with— anything. Doesn't bother pretending like he's not listening while Jackson and this woman (Svetlana, she says finally) keep flirting for the few fun minutes of their crossed paths as their cigarettes burn away into the night. Doesn't bother heading back inside to give them privacy. He's perfectly content with kicking a foot back against the concrete wall and taking long, deep pulls. His black tee shirt stretches over his chest as he inhales.
His black tee shirt stretches over his chest— okay, so, it's really not Jackson's fucking fault that his eyes are wandering. It's not his fault that both Svetlana and this stubborn weirdo are the two hottest people in the entire goddamn universe. This guy—
"What's your name, by the way?"
Weirdo looks over, eyes ice-blue. "Ilya."
That's the other thing. He keeps looking over at Jackson. He just keeps fucking looking, and nothing else. Between the alcohol and Svetlana's laughter, Jackson's a little too buzzed to fully understand what Ilya's eyes on him mean. All he knows is that his eyes are on him, cold and blue and dark. Cold and somehow— just as lightning-hot as Svetlana.
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Jackson steps through a wall of noise when he re-enters the club. Blue haze everywhere, bodies everywhere, thumping bass everywhere. Surprise me, Jackson had said when Svetlana asked what drink he wanted, and she and Ilya are back at the bar. Kole, meanwhile, is completely gone, red in the face, grin lopsided, hair plastered to his skin. He's swaying his body vaguely to the music, pausing only when Jackson shoves a glass of water into his face and commands him to drink. He stumbles to a dead stop and chugs it, wiping across his mouth with the back of his hand. "Thanks, babe," he slurs, and Jackson waves him off, leaves him in the care of the rest of his friends as he treks back to the bar to find Svetlana.
Except Svetlana's not there, and neither is Ilya. Jackson scans the length of the bar, then tries to scan the dancing throng of people, but no such luck. What captures his attention in their stead is another man, maybe Jackson's age or a little older, calmly sitting at the bar and nursing a beer. Svetlana was a white-hot magnet; Ilya was an ice-cold block of steel; and this man is a Bambi-eyed dream, even behind those half rim glasses, complete with a fairy-esque dotting of freckles across his cheeks. He's got an almost boyish look about him, thanks to that dated fucking haircut. It's like he finally perfected a side-swept, no-nonsense quiff one morning in 2018 and stuck with it ever since. Purely functional. He probably gets trims every three weeks on the dot. He probably tried a low taper fade once and despised how cold his ears were even though it made his cheekbones look sharp enough to cut glass.
"Shane," he says when Jackson asks him his name, except he looks confused as all hell that Jackson seems interested in him at all. Like he's not sure what to do when Jackson tries Smize #3 (not too flirty, just a whiff of open curiosity).
"You come here often?" Jackson asks. Oldest trick in the book, but playing it safe and predictable seems like the best option in the face of Shane's mild apprehension. Jackson points at a stranger's intriguingly NCT-green martini and asks the bartender for one of his own, and when he turns back to Shane, he finds that his face is twisted into a smile. Bingo.
"I'm actually just visiting," Shane says. "I live in Ottawa."
Jackson pulls up a mental map of Canada. He's been to Toronto a few times while touring, which isn't too far from here, right?
"It's, like, an hour by plane," Shane says matter-of-factly. "Far-ish."
Shane seemingly has no interest in asking what Jackson meant by touring. Jackson has enough sense not to brag about his decade-long career as a K-Pop idol to a stranger. So far this is the driest conversation Jackson's ever had in a club.
So— Shane seemingly has no interest in asking Jackson about his life, but he's also not making up any excuses to get up and leave. He's still sipping his beer. He's tapping his fingers idly against the gleaming surface of the bar. He's readjusting his glasses. He's not really looking at Jackson, but he's also not not looking at Jackson. It's like he's waiting for something, and Jackson wants to find out what.
"I heard," Jackson starts, because Shane definitely won't, "Rose Landry was here last night."
Shane doesn't seem surprised. He nods. "Yeah, she told me about this place."
Jackson blinks. What? "What?"
Rose Landry— Katniss Everdeen Rose Landry? Mystique Rose Landry? Silver Linings Playbook Rose Landry?— knows porcelain-doll-faced Shane? Knows him well enough to text him not only about being in Montreal, but to recommend clubs to him? Who the fuck is this guy?
"We, uh," Shane scratches the side of his mouth, "dated. Years ago."
"Oh," Jackson says. Realization starts to sink in. "Before she became famous. So you were, what, high school sweethearts? Damn. Can you tell her that I loved her in The Hunger Games?"
A small smile creeps onto Shane's face. "Sure."
Seriously, Driest Conversation Ever. Jackson is fucking itching to know more, but he can't just ask how did a guy like you bag Rose goddamn Landry?, can he? Can he? But he knows the answer, anyway. One look at this guy's face and he understands why girls, guys, and anyone else in between would be into him. Hell, Jackson is into him. He may be terrible at holding up his side of the conversation, but he's putting in enough effort. And when Jackson finally gets his violently green drink, Shane's mouth drops open in shock.
"Holy shit. What is that?"
"Let's find out," Jackson says with a grin, and takes a large swig. It burns like hell against the back of his throat. Somewhere in the background, the garish flute opening of NCT 127's Sticker starts to play, then the gritty bass. Jackson isn't quite sure if it's diagetic or not, and he doesn't want to check.
By the time the bridge rolls up to the party, Jackson has learned that Shane doesn't like dancing, and he doesn't like fruity cocktails. He probably likes men, seeing as he's tolerating Jackson's flirtations. More specifically, Smize #7, which he perfected during his days of MC-ing on Inkigayo. Shane's got a cute smize of his own, though his seems much less practiced and much more endearing. A little dorky, a little crooked. He gets cuter the more Jackson talks to him. But he's still— waiting. That's the best way he can figure out how to describe Shane's whole deal. He isn't quite letting himself relax, but it doesn't seem to be out of nerves or anything. So what the hell is it?
It's only when a group of women start up a dance circle that's just about on fire with the amount of energy between all of them that realization cracks itself open across Jackson's scalp. Shane regards them with the same type of distant amusement that he does with Jackson. Amusement, that's what this is. That's what this has been, this entire time. Like Jackson's just a frivolous pastime to him while he waits for something else, something better to come along and whisk him off his feet.
"Let me get you another beer," Jackson says determinedly.
"Okay," Shane agrees, and he's utterly unbearable in his lightheartedness.
Now Jackson— gets momentarily distracted by the perfect pink flush staining Shane's cheeks— is not one to run away from a challenge. He hops off the barstool to let Shane know that has to run to the bathroom real quick, and places a light hand on Shane's. But then everything suddenly flips. The situation. His head. He'll need to ask the bartender for some water when he comes back. Shane startles at this touch, so, so fucking sharply that for a second Jackson seriously wonders if he's been horrendously misreading the situation this whole time. "Uh," Jackson says, and carefully pulls his hand away from this spooked deer of a man. He wonders if he should apologize. "I gotta piss. I'll be back."
Something by the Black Eyed Peas is booming through the club as Jackson makes his way to the bathroom. Will.i.am's muffled voice reverberates through the tiny, tiled space as Jackson finishes up his business and washes his hands. He's drying them off when a familiar face pulls up to the sink next to him. He does a double take. They lock eyes in the mirror, Jackson and Ilya. Ilya and Jackson.
"You flirt with everyone?" is Ilya's opening line, which is utterly fucking terrible. Zero intrigue, all desperation. His eyes are sharp for reasons that Jackson can't fathom, cutting through all the grime on the mirror. "First Svetlana, now—" He catches himself before he finishes his sentence, and it only takes Jackson a couple more drunk seconds to catch on. Holy fuck. Shane?
"Shane?" Jackson asks, and Ilya's eyes go sharper. Yes, Shane, though this is even more confusing. If Ilya was so peeved at Jackson flirting with the guy he seemingly has the hots for, couldn't he have intervened at literally any point before Shane asked for a sip of his martini? Shane made sure to bring his mouth to an untouched part of the glass, anyway, so there's really no reason Ilya needs to be so— so—
It's not anger, Jackson slowly realizes. It's not a smile, either. An eerie sense of deja vu creeps up Jackson's spine and sinks its teeth into the tender skin at his nape. The look on Ilya's face reminds Jackson, terrifyingly, of the amusement on Shane's. Distant and forever faraway. Belittling, purposeful or otherwise. Ilya's is definitely purposeful, definitely cruel. A tinge— smug?
"Chill out, man." Jackson puts his hands up in surrender. "He's not some fucking Olympic athlete. He's just some guy at this club. Just like you and me. I'm allowed to talk to him."
"He is an Olympic athlete," Ilya says. He breaks Jackson's gaze in the mirror and turns his head to face him properly. The blue of Ilya's eyes sends another cold jolt through him. Just like earlier, in the outdoor summer heat. Here, in this stifling, sickening bathroom, Ilya is unbearable. Then his words finally sink in.
"He's what?"
"As am I," Ilya continues smoothly. He disregards Jackson's outburst completely, the fucking asshole.
"You were at the Olympics?" Jackson asks. The entire bathroom disappears, quiets to the fiery beat of Jackson's heart in his throat. His gaze dips from Ilya's eyes to his smug mouth (a precarious, paralyzing decision) to his broad chest (again) to his thick, sturdy arms (so fucking terrible). He definitely hits the gym. Or maybe he really was at the Olympics. "When?"
"2014," Ilya says. "Sochi."
It's on the tip of his tongue. Jackson, himself, was a strong contender for China's fencing team at the London 2012 Games. He probably would've gone, too, if he hadn't already had his heart set on JYP. But it's difficult to explain to a stranger that he dropped his Asian Junior Fencing Championship gold medal off at his parents' doorstep and turned down two university scholarships in order to get on a plane to Seoul to spend three years willingly getting wrenched into the shape of a K-Pop idol. So, whatever. Ilya was at the 2014 Winter Games. Jackson was almost at the 2012 Olympic Games. Almost, but earlier. 1-0.
Ilya, of course, is not privy to the mental battle Jackson is having with himself, and has taken Jackson's silence as some sort of victory. He's smiling now, but only with his mouth. His eyes are as Arctic as ever.
"Where's Svetlana, anyway?" Jackson sputters. "I haven't seen her since— since—" He should really shut up. Get out of this bathroom and ask Shane if he wants to make out, or something. "I haven't seen her."
"I don't fucking know," Ilya says darkly. "But if you haven't seen her, then maybe you should take a hint, no?"
Jesus fucking Christ. 1-1.
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The first thing Jackson wonders upon seeing Shane again is if he has fanfiction written about him, too. Or rather, the first thing Jackson wonders upon seeing the empty space that Shane previously occupied is if he has fanfiction written about him. Because Shane's not there anymore, and a frustrated, panicked scan of the nearby vicinity tells Jackson that he's up and left. Two for two, or three for three if Jackson decides he wants to count Ilya, which he absolutely fucking does not.
The second thing Jackson wonders is who the hell Shane is. He's some kind of professional athlete. A winter sports athlete. Curling? That's pretty Canadian, right? Shane definitely had the arms for it, now that Jackson's thinking about. Strong and solid. And now that Jackson's really thinking about it, is that how he and Ilya met? Team Canada vs. Team Russia in the Curling Championships in Sochi? On the ice there was nothing but cold, hard professionalism. But maybe they kept running into each other in the Olympic Village, and maybe they both lamented over the terrible cardboard beds, and maybe Shane took Ilya's hand one night while they watched Britain lose disastrously to USA, and maybe—
Now that Jackson knows that the two of them know each other, it's a wonder that he didn't notice earlier. They both looked at Jackson like he was a fleeting, fluttering little thing. Not taking him seriously. But whereas with Shane it was intriguing, an endless hallway of doors each with an endless set of questions behind it, with Ilya it was plain infuriating. Scalding sand underneath his skin. Every single word cocky and confident. Being a dick purely for the love of the game. Unfortunately for Jackson, his body derives a sick kind of pleasure out of being the subject of Ilya's brand of assholery, even though his mind knows better. It's like an unwilling Pavlovian response to a challenge, and Ilya's the biggest challenge here. A threat to Jackson's— everything.
It's then that he finally spots Svetlana again on the far side of the dance floor. She's with a group of her girlfriends in a wash of pink and purple lights. Her dress slides across her silk skin as she dances. Jackson starts to walk towards her, but Ilya's mocking words flash against the inside of his eyelids: then maybe you should take a hint, no?
No, Jackson decides after a couple of irritating seconds. He's met enough people throughout his different lifetimes that he knows what a hint looks like, and this isn't one. And just as expected, Svetlana's eyes go wide when he taps her on the arm. "Baby, hi!" she croons. She wraps an arm around his waist and smiles loosely up at him. "Where have you been?"
Jackson could ask her that same question, but he doesn't. He presses a gentlemanly kiss to her shoulder. "Looking for you."
Her group quickly envelops him. He takes Svetlana's hand and pulls her close. The synth blares along to the bass rattling through his bones. Svetlana slides her hands up his chest as they dance together. Jackson lets himself get lost in her, forgetting everything about Ilya and Shane, or trying. Because it's impossible to forget about either Ilya or Shane, impossible to forget how they turned Jackson into a jester and a fool with nothing but their eyes.
One of Svetlana's friends shows up with shots, and everyone accepts them with overflowing excitement. Svetlana tugs on Jackson's elbow and links arms with him, or tries as best as possible with how drunk she is. It takes them two and a half attempts before Jackson finally crouches down to her height and they take their shots together; it burns all the way down.
"Hey, so, about Ilya," Jackson asks as autotuned vocals hum through the air. Svetlana blinks up at him with her pretty eyes, and it gives Jackson pause. He doesn't want to kill the vibe with all his questions, even though all his questions are killing him, and, really, he's already brought a hatchet to the vibe by mentioning Ilya, so he might as well go all the way. "What's his…" Jackson chooses his next word carefully. "Problem?"
Svetlana laughs out loud at this in a way that tells Jackson that this isn't the first time she's heard this type of question. "Ilya has fun with other people's anger," she says, and rubs his shoulder like he's just told her he'd gotten scammed out of half his net worth because he tried to buy a 14 karat gold Labubu off some sketchy dropshipping site. The hot press of embarrassment is probably equivalent. "Don't take it personally."
"He's having a little too much fun," Jackson grumbles petulantly. Svetlana coos at him and gives him a kiss on the cheek, which is equal parts flattering and degrading. He's starting to understand why the two of them are friends. And if they're friends, then it's possible that Ilya's talked to her about Shane, so he keeps pushing. "And what about Shane?"
Svetlana's eyes glitter. "What about Shane?"
It's a non-answer, but it's enough. There's nothing to say, because there's too much to say. There's too much written in the margins about Shane and Ilya to even begin to explain. What about Shane?, Svetlana asks, and Jackson knows that it's up to him alone to find out. And maybe fuck around, while he's at it.
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It's as the lights turn red that Jackson spots Shane again. Britney Spears transitions gloriously into ATEEZ. Musical sirens, a heavy drum beat. The crowd hollers. Jackson's heart does something similar against his ribcage. Shane's not too far away, moving languidly to the beat, head bobbing. Jackson takes a step towards him, then another. A cold sort of fear is lancing through him, because he's slowly realizing that where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there's Shane, there's Ilya.
Jackson's an arm's length away now. Shane still hasn't noticed him. And then it's like it happens in slow motion: Jackson reaches out, his hand inches away from Shane's shoulder. But before skin touches skin, a pale hand snakes around Shane's elbow and, with a swift, practiced movement, pulls him away.
It's Ilya, because of course it is. Daggers in his eyes, a heavy set to his mouth. Ilya takes up all the space around Shane like it's already promised to him. He takes Shane into his arms like he's already promised to him, and maybe he is, judging by the way Shane leans into him easily, brushes his nose, then his mouth against the column of Ilya's throat. Can't you see I'm a warning sign, the vocals in the background burst out, which would be comically on the nose if Jackson wasn't currently trying to wrestle the blustering firestorm that's burned down the hollow where his lungs should be. That's got to be a warning sign for— something. An imminent burst of childish jealousy, probably.
And as Jackson stands here, in the middle of the dance floor, with red lights panning across the space and behind his eyes, he realizes that he's interrupting. Ilya thumbs at Shane's cheekbone and playfully taps his glasses. Shane wraps his hands around Ilya's waist to pull him closer. Jackson is just standing here, watching them. Waiting for something to happen even though he knows nothing will. He's interrupting, and maybe he's been interrupting all night. He was interrupting Shane, because what he'd been waiting for, Jackson finally fucking realizes, was Ilya. What Ilya had been waiting for was Shane. All Jackson was was a wildcard thrown into their perfectly manufactured game. A knot that kept the thread from unspooling as planned.
Shane and Ilya press their mouths together. Jackson is violently torn between finding the whole thing incredibly hot and finding it absolutely terrible. A distant sort of heartbreak. Like falling into a sidequest by accident and discovering that the key that was sitting in the second page of your inventory for nineteen hours of gameplay actually slots into a lock that you would've never discovered if you hadn't interacted with an NPC on a whim. And then it turns out that the NPC wasn't even an NPC, but a final boss that wipes out your health bar with a simple flick of the wrist. Shane kisses Ilya and it's like Jackson never even existed. The fleeting fantasy of this night is dead in the fucking ground, because nothing matters to neither Ilya nor Shane except each other.
A different beat kicks in. A dark voice skips to life. One that Jackson recognizes, vaguely, at first, then with a pinch of shock. Is that Diljit Dosanjh? Is that— Jackson's fucking song with Diljit Dosanjh? His head spins as his own voice starts to echo around him. If the situation was different, if he was dancing with someone who would even bother to look at him, then maybe he'd be flattered. This DJ has great taste, he'd say to the hottie in front of him, and he wouldn't even have to yell to be heard over the music because this DJ has adjusted the EQ so that the frequency doesn't drown out every single sound in the nearby galaxy. Seriously, she's amazing. But instead he's stuck in a sea of blood-red, and the only two men that managed to stoke a fire under Jackson's feet tonight have abandoned him for each other, and Jackson's Ilya-and-Shane-induced out-of-body experience is only exacerbated by the single from his third solo album playing back at him.
His own disembodied voice pulses through the speakers: I thought this was a party.
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"They're fucking married?"
Svetlana startles explosively at Jackson's question, which is entirely fair. Jackson has just shown up out of nowhere like a jumpscare. She's sobered up a bit over the last hour, but that doesn't help her confusion at all. "What?"
"Shane," Jackson says urgently. "And Ilya. They're married?"
"Oh, yeah," Svetlana says easily. She gestures to the empty barstool next to her. Jackson miserably takes a seat. "Did they tell you?"
No, they fucking did not. They just made out in front of Jackson, well aware that they were making out in front of Jackson, and all Jackson could do was watch. And then he walked away, found Kole shimmying terribly to Nelly Furtado, and drained the last of his beer.
Jackson feels like he's sixteen years old and experiencing his first heartbreak all over again, which feels disastrously disproportionate to the situation. Two married men— no, sorry, two married professional hockey players decided one night to put on their little outfits and their little hair mousse in their shared bathroom with golden sconce lights and gleaming white tile and a giant fucking mirror over their Jack-and-Jill (Jack-and-Jack?) sinks so that they could take separate Ubers to a stupidly high-end club in Montreal, where they settled into separate corners and bumped their heads to the music for long enough that the alcohol thrumming through their veins led them to each other? Is that what fucking happened? And then Jackson jumped into their roleplay like a hurricane and— ruined everything? Or worse, made the entire ordeal more salacious? Yes, he was a jester, and yes, he was a fool, but the realization that Ilya and Shane were already soldered together the entire time sends another level of betrayal shattering through him.
"Does Shane even fucking wear glasses?" Jackson asks desperately.
Svetlana thinks. "Those blue light ones, sometimes."
Jackson's heart cracks open and spills onto the grimy floor. Completely unsalvageable. "Those aren't even real! It's just good marketing to make people feel less bad for being addicted to TikTok!" He puts his head in his hands. "Actually, I bet Shane doesn't even use TikTok," he grumbles into his palms, and yeah, he's going to wake up tomorrow with the worst hangover-slash-heartbreak of his life. "He probably reads The New Yorker, or something, like the perfect fucking specimen that he is."
"I think he actually might."
Jackson is going to book the first flight back to Hong Kong tomorrow. "Anything else you wanna tell me before I go drown myself in the bathroom sink?"
She leans in and kisses him gently on the mouth. Okay, that's not bad. "How about I buy you a drink?"
Jackson considers this terrible night. Considers Shane, then Ilya, and Shane-and-Ilya. Considers the possibility that they're heading home in a shared Uber right now, and that they're still keeping the act up, seatbuckled unbearably far away from each other because Shane's probably a stickler for shit like that. Then they'll get home, step through the door, and a leave a trail of dirty laundry up to their bedroom. They've got MLH money, so it'll be a ridiculously long trail through their ridiculously giant house. Through the foyer, the absurdly large landing on their staircase, past the guest bathroom. And finally, they'll fall into their king size bed and worship each other's bodies until they're both beautifully aching all over. Gross.
But, really, that's all conjecture, and— the lights are turning orange, and the way they halo Svetlana's head makes her look like an actual angel. She's smiling at him with her eyes and her teeth and holding his hand, and maybe, just maybe, there's still time to turn this night back around. Shoot for the moon, right?
He smiles back at her. "Surprise me."
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