Chapter Text
Shane had been refreshing his email all morning. The captains were supposed to be getting a message this morning about the impending roster changes to even out the teams since the last elimination. He could be losing as much a third of the team, it could be any of them, but he secretly hoped that Comeau would be reassigned. He’d been a bit of a problem, but it only seemed to be getting worse, especially since the mid-camp rankings were posted. Comeau was happy when the Loons were winning, but he was definitely a sore loser, and got into arguments with some of the trainers, especially Wiebe, Omori, and Tara Moore, who was the technology lead.
He’d taken it very poorly when Anita had shown him up in the safety and rescue training exercise, and had been fucking with her in decreasingly subtle ways. Shane had also been targeted because of his friendship with Anita, or because there were disagreements on choices he made as captain. It was largely some insubordination and complaining, but recently the mocking comments had been escalating. Comeau held him responsible for Drapeau being eliminated. In the days leading up to Family Day, both Rozanov and Svetlana had given him some cryptic warnings about Comeau, as well as Kent and Barrett, but they weren’t on his team and generally weren’t his problem.
Dima had been trying to intercede, and Shane really appreciated the backup. They’d had quiet meetings about Comeau more than once this last month, and had even sought out Theriault for advice, but the coach had defended Comeau and dismissed them. ‘A better man would take charge and not allow insubordination.’ He was on his third Comeau contingency plan at this point. Swiping down on his tablet, he refreshed his email again. Please let it be Comeau. Nothing.
During lunch time, there was a sudden shift in the noise of the room, centered around Liu’s table, which had been expected to lose four or five people.
“Is it the email?” Dima asked.
Shane pulled out his tablet and checked for the thousandth time. Hayden leaned over to peer at his screen. There it was. “It’s Annika, Arkady, Katie, and Martina,” Shane read out loud to the team. Katie had already finished her food and left, but the other three were sitting at the table, looking unhappy at the news.
“Annika, Martina, no!” Anita cried out. She had been sitting next to Annika and jumped up to hug her around the neck.
“Fucking bullshit!” Comeau swore as he stood fast enough to shift the table. “I wanted off this stupid gay ass team.”
“What is wrong with you, connard?” J.J., who had been sitting next to Comeau, turned and demanded.
Anita straightened up and leveled him with a deadly look. “This ‘gay ass team’ is currently second overall, and maybe we’d be first without you.”
“You thought you would go to the team with your friends,” Dima observed. Everyone else seemed shocked into silence, just like Shane was.
“Maybe you can go in my place,” Annika suggested.
“Fuck you,” Comeau spat. Shane saw Dima tense up, eyes on something happening behind him. He turned to look—Kent and Barrett were walking over.
“Is there a problem here, ladies?” Kent drawled out.
“This does not concern you, Kent.” Dima said, as he stood up. Shane looked around the room—a lot of people had turned to watch what was happening. At his table. On his team. This was his failure as a captain. He got to his feet too.
“Everyone stop it!” Shane raised his voice. He wasn’t a loud or commanding leader. His style was to manage his team with strategy, earning their trust, and doing their best work together—no rousing speeches or yelling at anyone. Rozanov and Hunter were both naturals at the charisma to stand up in front of a group and rally them together, but what Shane had was not flashy; he made his case with steady, undeniable competence instead.
“Comeau, if you want off my team so badly,” Shane continued, “then you can talk to me or Dima about it, but you’re not going to make a scene and insult everyone else. I’ll be happy to go to leadership and request your transfer myself.”
Kent laughed. “Are you gonna get your mommy to write you a note? ‘Gil was mean to my son who has never known the touch of a woman! Please excuse him from having to be in charge of real men.’” He mimed crying, rotating his fists in front of his eyes, while Comeau and Barrett laughed along with a few others.
J.J., used his height to glower down at Comeau, who backed off a step. Mitty looked poised to move. Shane was not a fighter; he wasn’t sure what he would do if this became a physical altercation, but he stood up anyway. Scanning around, he saw that a number of folks were also on their feet and had started moving toward the commotion that was bending the spacetime of the room. Scott Hunter and Carter Vaughan had closed in, and Wyatt Hayes, who was from Kent’s own team had joined them. Marlow had his arms folded and was scowling at Kent, while Svetlana had her head bent, hand covering her mouth while she whispered into Connors’ ear. Theriault was standing against the far wall, arms crossed, letting it play out, but Rozanov was nowhere to be found. He felt everyone’s eyes on him.
Shane took a deep breath to steady himself, he had to be a leader here, demonstrate he could do the job. Assholes like Kent liked to put others down, so he could try playing that game. “Maybe you should be less worried about my team and more about your own performance. You’re in seventh, right?” Only the Badgers had worse scores overall in the team rankings.
“Maybe I don’t want to win if it means I have to be an uptight cocksucker like you,” Kent sneered, and a few gasps and murmurs echoed in the room. Shane wasn’t sure what his face was doing as Kent continued, “I know how to party and have fun and get fucking laid. You should try it sometime.” A few more people from Kent’s team had collected behind him now, and they laughed along, one guy saying ‘you tell him, man!’
The room’s reactions blurred into a single roaring noise in his ears. Time dilated and moved oddly while Shane’s thoughts spun. No, there’s no way he knows. He was looking around for room for Rozanov again, and oh god, that was even worse. Kent was accusing him of his biggest secret in front of everyone, but Kent didn’t know. It had to be just another one of his constant homophobic remarks, but Shane needed to not show him how close he’d hit.
“You know that’s contradictory, right?” Wyatt Hayes was speaking. “You can’t accuse someone of having a perfectly enjoyable, consensual sexual experience, and say they don’t get laid.” That got some scattered laughter.
“Shut up, Kent!” came a shout. Shane couldn’t place its owner. The room was starting to dissolve into a bunch of smaller conversations and jeers. He took a deep breath—he wasn’t sure when he had stopped breathing normally.
“Come on man, let’s just go.” Barrett said, tapping Kent’s shoulder. Another ripple moved through the crowd off to Shane’s right.
“What seems to be the commotion here?” Wiebe asked, as he strode out of the crowd. He was trailed by Murdock, LeClaire and Bennett. The four coaches flanked the group, on alert.
“I think,” Carter spoke up, “there’s strong feelings about team reassignments, and there were some comments that don’t belong here and will not be made again.” A mumble of assent from the group punctuated the pointed statement.
“Is that accurate, Kent?” Murdock asked.
“Yeah whatever, man. I don’t need this shit.” Kent turned and pushed his way back through his team. Murdock trailed behind him.
“Is everyone good?” Wiebe asked, his voice carried out to be heard across the room, and was met with nods and agreement. “Team reassignments were done by the selection committee, taking into account fairness and a good cross-functional distribution of skills on each team,” Wiebe continued. “Any concerns about the reassignments should be addressed with staff. I will be in my office until 7pm tonight if anyone would like to discuss matters professionally.”
The room became a flurry of motion and scooting chairs as the candidates moved back to their seats. He watched the coaches move through the situation. Theriault had walked after Kent and Murdock. He saw Bennett with Hunter and Vaughan—they were all friends from NASA prior to camp—their heads were bent together, talking.
LeClaire had moved over to Comeau. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?” he said, indicating the opposite door from where Kent had left.
Wiebe moved over to Shane’s side. In a quiet voice, he asked, “You alright?”
Shane nodded.
“You know where my office is if you need anything?”
“Yes coach,” Shane replied. Wiebe regarded him for a few heavy seconds before nodding and stepping away.
As Wiebe exited the room, he nodded to spotted Rozanov, who was standing by the door, arms folded, with furrowed brows over eyes that intently tracked the room. Shane wondered when he had gotten here, how much he’d heard. He definitely shouldn’t be watching Rozanov right now, with ‘cocksucker’ still echoing in his mind. Anita, J.J. and Dima had closed in around him, so he forced his attention back to his team. Hayden was still seated and staring at him with wide eyes.
Shane cleared his throat. “Well, at least no one overreacted.” His team chuckled, and the tension dimmed.
Annika came over and chucked him on the shoulder. “When do the new teams take effect?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he answered. Picking his tablet up off the table, he looked at the email again. “Arkady and Martina, sorry, you’re both headed to Kent’s team. Annika, you’re going to the Badgers, with Boodram. They’re uh—they’re at least a very nice team. Katie will be going to the Jaguars, with Silva. I guess we did have a lot of tech folks on the team,” he observed.
“I’ll let Katie know,” Atsuko volunteered. “We have our next class together.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry. It was an honor being your captain so far.” Shane nodded to Annika. “Izvini,” he said to Arkady and Martina who were both from Roscosmos. Sorry.
“Da. Do svidaniya, captain,” Arkady said, inclining his head. Goodbye.
“None of that, no one is dead, we will still see you,” Dima protested, waving his hands, as if he was clearing the air of smoke.
Their last session of the day, another team activity in the simulator, had a somber mood.
“I know this was always the plan, with a competitive program and eliminations,” Anita spoke into the quiet. “But it’s still hard! We’ve all become friends, and then we won’t be in the same place.”
“Aw, ma choute, we will stay in touch no matter, yes,” J.J. crooned. “You will be on moon, and remember to call your old friend J.J.”
“Jesus Christ, there are too many emotions on this fucking team,” Comeau muttered. He and Hayden were working on yet another trajectory calculation, and Hayden gave Shane a look that said ‘kill me.’
“Anger is an emotion too, cabrón.” Anita muttered under her breath. Shane bit his lip to stop himself from laughing, but it didn’t seem that Comeau had heard.
The following weeks proceeded in the same way—Comeau usually starting some kind of grumbling snipe at the team as a whole, or mostly Shane and Anita. Shane would try to ignore it, Dima would reprimand, J.J. would try to joke and distract, Anita would snipe back. Hayden rolled his eyes and huffed a lot, and while Mitty and Atsuko were quieter, even they would grow tired enough of it to make the odd comment. Mitty preferred ‘paskanmarjat.’ When Shane asked him what that meant, he’d simply said ‘he speaks rubbish.’ and wouldn’t expand.
But it stayed at little barbs among the team, and everyone else seemed to pull together even closer, leaving Comeau slightly on the outside. It wasn’t perfect; Shane wanted better of his abilities as a team leader, but he wasn’t sure what else could be done.
****
Shane felt consciousness slide around him gently, warm and comfortable. The stillness held its breath in the way that meant it must still be the middle of the night. He shifted a little, luxuriating in the soupy, drowsy feeling, ready to fall back into slumber. That was when he became aware of movement. Of not being alone in his bed. Startling, his eyes shot open—he wasn’t even in his own bed. The room was arranged like a mirror of his own, giving him a moment of vertigo. A heavy arm across his chest curled, tightening its hold.
Oh fuck, he thought, memories of the night flooding back. He looked at the arm’s owner, and the head of messy curls rendered as a dim halo, backlit by a small leak of light around the edges of the curtains.
It had been a long, exhausting day of classes and drills, after months of long exhausting days. They were in the final stages of training for their deployments to remote research stations at Antarctica, and Shane had felt the deep, bone-tiredness building. He had been dragging his way back to his room after his last evening class when Rozanov had texted him. It would have been wiser to decline, to go to his own room and right to sleep. But he hadn’t. He still hadn’t learned how to turn down any chance to have sex with Rozanov, no matter how much he tried to rationalize himself out of it. He was grudgingly coming to the conclusion that as long as hooking up with Rozanov was an option, he was going to fold like a chair and do it.
Not that it wasn’t stupid, or risky, or that Shane didn’t sometimes feel tendrils of guilt wrapping around him about it after—it was just that it was so fucking good, and he was weak, and nothing else had ever compared. He worked so hard, why not have this one secret vice while he could? This thing they were doing had an expiration date on it, one way or another. Rozanov would get bored, or Shane would finally come to his senses, or they’d inevitably end up on their own separate crews. If nothing else, the close confines of the lunar base would not allow it, the risks stacking up to an impassible wall.
So of course he had gone to Rozanov’s room. The echo of the door closing was still ringing as Shane had mildly protested that he didn’t have time for sex tonight, that he needed to sleep. But as soon as Rozanov’s hands were on his ribs, hot breath on his neck, electricity in his skin, he’d forgotten anything else. Weak, he was always so weak, unable to do the right thing, to stay away.
His stomach twisted a little bit at the memory, that familiar self-doubt, wondering what it meant about him that he had such raw need, wanted this so much that he’d been reduced to begging another man to fuck him. Regularly. Begging his best, worst decision, his biggest rival, to fuck him, harder. Rozanov never needed any convincing, only permission, so Shane had laid on his back while Rozanov had prepped him, entered him, and fucked him, the gold cross he always wore swinging with the movement, occasionally bumping Shane on the chin.
Between the exhaustion and the orgasm, Shane had felt his eyes grow heavy before Rozanov even pulled out of him—had just laid there basking in the afterglow while getting cleaned up, Rozanov taking care of everything while Shane faded. That was the last thing he remembered before waking up a minute ago. He had one finger on his chin, gentle taps reflecting memory. Fuck.
In the roughly six months of them hooking up regularly, this wasn’t what they did. They had never stayed after sex. They’d chat for a bit, settling back into their bodies, but after a while, it would come to an end. It was usually Shane going to Rozanov’s room, and once the buzz faded and Shane needed a social script again, he felt adrift. There was no frame of reference for what they were doing. He’d make his excuses and leave. Always him giving in, and him running away, and him twisted up about this, when Rozanov was always so steady, so aloof, so unaffected. And that made it so much worse.
He didn’t know what to do now. He was still naked, having fallen asleep in the messed up sheets. And Rozanov had what? Left him there? Laid down on the same bed? Fallen asleep next to him? He needed to get up, get out of here, he needed to go back to his own room.
Trying for stealth, he shifted under Rozanov’s arm, a slow slide out of the bed, careful. He’d put his clothes back on and slip out. This didn’t mean anything. The arm clutched him tighter again, resisting his moment. Shane flinched, and Rozanov woke. His face was soft, mouth slightly open, eyes fluttering to life, a few muttered words, probably in Russian. Shane couldn’t make any of it out.
The arm disappeared from Shane. Sudden, cool air replaced it. Rozanov rubbed one closed fist against his eye, looking vulnerable and young in a way Shane had never seen before. “Hollander?” he asked, half asleep and confused.
“Sorry.” It was all Shane could think to say. He scrambled from the bed and started looking for his clothes.
Rozanov groaned as he rubbed at his face, “Sorry for what?” mumbled between his hands.
“Falling asleep? Being here?” What was Shane sorry for? “I’ll just… go. I’m sorry.”
“Hollander. Is fine. We are tired. We sleep.”
“Yeah, yeah ok. But I should go back to my room.”
“Nnh… what time is it?”
Shane looked at the alarm clock. “2:17.”
Rozanov opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, shook his head. The softness had already slipped back behind the wall, but the eyes had held out the longest.
Shane stood still for a second longer. What was he expecting to happen? That he would stay? They didn’t do that. They weren’t… anything. Was he going to risk sneaking out of Rozanov’s room during the flurry of morning activity? Absolutely not.
Shane broke the spell. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Today.” This is what he did—folded first, looked away first, got twisted up most—he turned to resume his escape.
“Don’t forget your bag,” Rozanov added. He sounded far away, wooden.
“Thanks,” Shane said, and slipped through the door after checking the peep hole.
****
A knock sounded on Ilya’s door, interrupting his extremely riveting review of possible failure modes in the architectural design of the interface between the environmental controls priority API and the central control service. He rubbed eyes, trying to clear rows and rows of spreadsheet from his vision. It was nearly time for dinner, anyway.
“Da, kto eto, who is it?” he called. His knees felt stiff from sitting at his desk for so long.
“Eto ya, Ilyushka, otkroy dver’,” Svetlana’s voice called out.
Ilya pulled open the door, to Sveta in a flight suit. “You should text first before coming over,” he complained at her, lovingly.
“Oh, what might I find here if I surprise you?” she teased back.
He rolled his eyes. “You know damn well, do not be a brat.”
She made a show of peering into his open bathroom door and around the room. “Oh, are you hiding him?”
“He is not here, he is usually not here.” Unfortunately, Ilya thought, surprising himself a little.
“Do you see my flight suit?”
“Yes, yes, very unusual for you to be wearing it around when you do not have to.”
She watched him like a predator. “Bozhe moya, you really don’t even look anymore. Do you notice anything about it?”
“It is hard to look at you when you come in here buzzing like a gnat at my last nerve.” They always needled each other, with love. Ilya narrowed his eyes and actually paid attention. “It fits you. Properly.”
“Da, asshole. They called me in this afternoon to pick it up.” She waved her arms and twirled around for emphasis. “It is not so damn bulky. It is much lighter. I just wanted to thank you for pushing the leadership to change it.”
“Ne za chto, dusha moya. Postoyanno,” he said sincerely.
“Ya tebya lyublyu, Ilyushka. I will leave you be now, I know better than to ask if you are going out tonight.” She grinned, knowingly.
“Sveta, tell me you are not jealous…” he joked.
She threw her head back and barked a laugh. “Oh, don’t be bitchy. You seem happy. It looks good on you, all the more reason to tease.” She kissed him on one cheek in farewell and slipped back out of his door.
Ilya scowled after her. No, he wasn’t going to go out tonight, because he already knew he was going to text Hollander instead. He should be trying to keep some barriers up. When he had woken up in the middle of the night with Hollander still in his bed, he’d almost asked him to just stay until morning. He was past fucked and way past danger, and he still couldn’t turn away. There were a million reasons to stop, but only one reason to keep this thing with Hollander going: he wanted it anyway.
Ilya
I want to decrement your giant box.
He set his phone down and stared into his spreadsheet. The reply came quickly.
Jane
Decrement? That’s a new word.
Ilya
Learned in tech class yesterday
After dinner? 7pm
Maybe have time to decrement twice 😛
Twice would get to eighteen left in the box. They had been making a valiant effort, but they would leave for Antarctica in a couple weeks, where it would be much harder to hook up. At least he and Hollander were going to the same base, the American one. The remaining candidates were being split between three of the Antarctic research stations. Thank fuck he wasn’t going to be in a Russian-operated station with Hollander.
Jane
Do you sweet talk everyone like this?
Ilya
Just the boring ones
He watched the bubble pop up and disappear only once before the next message came through.
Jane
How about 8, after the Raiders game?
Ilya
I can’t believe you would choose hockey over me
Jane
They’re in the playoffs. Don’t you talk to Svetlana?
Ilya
You are both so mean to me 😭
Jane
You like it.
Unfortunately, he did.
****
Shane and Svetlana were in their usual spot, watching her team in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They were in the semi-finals now, and true to her earlier predictions, the Metros had not made it past round one. He didn’t even need to be here, neither of his teams were in the playoffs anymore, but she was fun to watch games with, and her delight in her team was infectious. He was just here to spectate. Under no circumstances was he going to be rooting for the Boston fucking Raiders, however.
He spent most of the first period texting with Rozanov, and she kept lofting her eyebrows at him whenever he’d focus on his phone over the game.
“You are texting him,” she said during a commercial break.
“What? Who?” Shane asked, locking his phone and setting it down quickly, hoping she saw reasonable confusion over bad lying.
She laughed. “You know.”
“I don’t actually.” He did.
“Ilyushka. Ilya. You text him.”
“No,” Shane denied.
“Shane Hollander.” It was a reprimand and a question.
“So? People text,” he said.
She gave him one of her ‘I see through your shit’ stares. “Mm-hmm.”
The questions were getting close, but she wasn’t outright asking anything. She suspected them, she had to. But her and Rozanov both deflected and wouldn’t say things directly when stuff got personal. He struggled to understand what people really meant when they spoke in so many layers and oblique unrelated observations. Hayden seemed oblivious to Shane’s activities, but Svetlana was incredibly smart and observant, as well as Rozanov’s best friend. He thought about just asking her, but that was terrifying. What if he was imaging things?
He tried to keep his focus on the game. There had been a few more people wandering in and out to watch now that it was the playoffs, but this game was during dinner, and it was only the two of them. The Raiders were up 3-1 in the second period, and Svetlana was flying high.
“You know, my father is a very powerful man back in Russia,” she said during a break in play while a fight broke out on the ice.
He waited for her to continue.
“Powerful friends. Favors can be done.” She examined a fingernail.
“Okay?” he said. “That’s ominous.”
“Mm,” was her only response. And then she said nothing else.
By the time the third period was almost done, it was 4-3 for the Raiders. Svetlana had stood up to pace anxiously in front of the television, and her shouted critique and commentary had gotten louder and more vulgar. It was amusing to watch. When a commercial came on, she dropped back down on the couch so dramatically the whole thing shifted.
She stared him down and said, “I’m very serious about the things that are important to me.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “I don’t think anyone makes it this far in Camp without being very serious about it.”
She studied him. Instead of being dramatically or mockingly arched, her brow was knit in serious contemplation, studying him. “Things. Goals. People,” the tone serious.
“Right.”
“I don’t let anything get in the way. I will do anything to protect what’s important to me.” She was being very intense. There was something more here, being unspoken. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Sure, of course,” he agreed. “I mean, I don’t know that I would break any laws or anything, but I work hard, and I’d do whatever I can for what’s important. Right?” He felt anxiety curling under his ribs, like he was failing a test.
“And you have people who are important to you? You’d fight for them? To protect them?”
“Of course.” He didn’t have many, but he had his people, and he’d absolutely do anything for them. Maybe Svetlana wasn’t one of those people yet, but he did consider her a friend.
She studied him for a moment longer, even though the game was back on. He found it difficult to not keep looking away from the intensity of her attention. Finally, she said “Good,” and turned back to the game.
The Raiders finished the with a score of 5-3, and Svetlana celebrated like she had played in the game herself. She enveloped him in an exuberant hug, then quickly let go.
“Okay, was fun, you have places to be! Shoo shoo!” she announced.
She was being really fucking weird today, but he was more interested in getting upstairs to Rozanov than puzzling it out.
****
“Does it ever scare you?” Hollander asked out of nowhere, breaking the comfortable post-fuck quiet. “What if someone ever found out about, you know.” He waved his hand back and forth between where the two of them were stretched out on the bed.
Ilya shrugged. “I try not to think about it much.” He didn’t really want to talk about this, or think about it, if he could avoid it. That much of his answer was true, but not from any great nonchalance on his part. He tried not to think about it because when he did, it did scare him, quite a bit. He worried he would lose his job, get beaten by his family, or that he would die in a Russian prison. Deep down, he truly felt that if anyone had a problem with who he chose to fuck, that was their own problem. They were idiots. But there were too many people that could make their problem his problem. Especially in Russia. And stupidest of all, he feared that anyone finding out would send Hollander skittering away from him. It was fun and he didn’t want it to stop. At times it felt like they were teetering on the edge of Hollander’s personal risk-benefit analysis, and this was the kind of conversation that could tip the ledger over into him having to chase Hollander again, and he’d prefer to not take the hit to his ego. Because he would fucking do it.
“I feel like no one would ever look at me the same way,” Hollander admitted. His brows were low, not in the bitchy or angry way of his. This was something different.
“Maybe,” Ilya conceded, vaguely. “So we do not let anyone find out.”
“But what about you? Russia, I mean. Aren’t there… laws?” Hollander asked. The brows were now wrinkled with concern.
“Yes, Russia is Russia.”
“What would do they do if—”
“I do not want to find out. I have lived my whole life with Russia, and I’m tired of thinking about Russia.” Ilya paused, and then decided to continue. “Russia is not kind. It is what it is. Maybe I get to me first. Maybe I go out with bang, on space rocket, or punch guard in Siberian prison. I die alone in snow. Classic Russian tragedy. We all will die somewhere.”
“That’s really dark. You really think that way?” Hollander looked concerned, which he did not want to face.
“I am Russian, so yes. We learn to be sad in, how you say, kindergarten.”
“Don’t you worry about the psych evaluations? The selection committee—”
“Why would I tell selection committee?” Boring rule follower.
“Because they asked?” Hollander said, like he was explaining something obvious, and unsure why Ilya didn’t get it.
Ilya laughed. “Why would I tell them truth? Is a joke. They try to figure out who is crazy? We are all crazy, Hollander. We all have to be broken in head to be in the program. So intense, for years. No time for anything else. No family, no home. Study, study, study. Everyone wants so hard to be best. Everyone of us is here because we can not be normal. If we were not broken when we start, then program will break us. They weed out people who crack big, have breakdown. Get rid of ones who admit to little cracks, ones who are not crazy enough to want this more than anything. Eliminate everyone who admits to pressure. They design impossible system, so we all lie to survive. No one can be perfect enough. So we play game. They are left with those who tell prettiest lies.” He knows he is ranting. He knows he has let the grammar slip away from him, that Marlow would pretend to cry about all the dead articles Ilya butchered in his mind before they could ever become words.
Hollander just stared at him, his mouth slightly open. Maybe this was all too much for Mr. Perfect Canadian. He probably thought he was sane and unbroken. But he wouldn’t end up in Ilya’s bed so often if there wasn’t something wrong. Or maybe he will be broken by being around Ilya. Hard to tell. He let the silence sit. He had talked too much already.
Eventually, Hollander took a deep breath. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said, flat, and slowly.
“Maybe you should not think this way. You are very bad liar. You believe in the system. You should tell them truth.”
Hollander’s head whipped to face him, big brown eyes wide in shock.
“No—they do not need to know who you fuck. Just regular truth.”
“No one can know,” Hollander said, eyebrows back down in angry mode.
“I will not tell anyone.” Sveta already knows. Ilya thought. But he technically had never told her, and she would not tell anyone, and she liked watching hockey with Hollander. She’d yell at Ilya if he ruined it for her. And Hollander was right, anyone knowing was stupid. There wasn’t anything to know. This wasn’t the kind of thing that he got to keep.
“Good,” Hollander agreed.
Ilya was done talking. He didn’t want Hollander to leave—just wanted him to let the heaviness drain away. They sat, quietly, but before long the silence had to be filled.
“Are you excited for Antarctica?” he asked. And it worked. Hollander regaled him with facts about the base, about the travel, how icebreaker ships worked, about the exciting learning opportunities. Ilya mostly just listened. It should have been a boring conversation, and he almost said as much, but that might break the moment. He just wanted to let Hollander talk to him as long as he would stay here and do it, naked in Ilya’s bed. In this space it was just the two of them, and so he listened, letting Hollander’s voice settle into his bones, and fill in all his cracks.