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The tunnel was colder than the streets next to it.
The funeral had ended hours ago. Ilya’s relatives had dispersed with practiced efficiency, carrying flowers, condolences, and, somehow, expectations that already circled back to him.
Money. Always money.
His phone was warm in his hand.
Shane answered before the first ring had fully finished.
"...Hey."
"Hi."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It never really was with Shane. It simply existed, giving both of them permission not to perform.
"You sound tired." Shane said softly.
"I am tired."
"You survived?"
A humorless laugh escaped Ilya.
"I suppose."
Another silence.
Shane had learned over the years that when Ilya stopped filling the air with jokes and loud confidence, something was deeply wrong. Normally every conversation involved teasing, but tonight there was only breathing.
"I don't know what to say." Ilya admitted quietly.
"You don't have to."
"I know."
The tunnel stretched ahead of him like a forgotten artery beneath Moscow. His voice echoed back to him in fragments.
"I just..." He stopped again.
Words refused to organize themselves.
How could he explain the strange emptiness of burying a father he'd never truly loved? How his brother had managed to ask about inheritance before the cemetery dirt had settled? How every familiar face had looked at him as if they were calculating exchange rates?
Shane waited.
Never pushing. Never interrupting.
Then Shane spoke carefully.
"Can I make a suggestion?"
"Hm?"
"Tell me everything."
"I am trying."
"No." Shane smiled faintly; Ilya could hear it. "Everything. But in Russian."
Ilya frowned.
"What?"
"You said before that English feels... filtered."
"It is."
"So stop filtering."
"You don't understand Russian."
"I know."
"Then what's point?"
"The point isn't me understanding every word."
The answer came gently, almost shyly.
"The point is maybe... you stop translating your feelings before they leave your mouth."
Ilya leaned his forehead against the cold concrete wall.
That...
That was unexpectedly wise.
"...You are sneaky, Hollander."
"I try."
A long breath escaped him. Then Russian came pouring out before he could stop it.
"Они никогда не любили меня. Только то, что я мог им дать."
The words echoed around him.
"They never loved me. Only what I could give them."
He didn't translate. He simply kept going.
Years compressed into sentences.
How Alexei had always looked at him with resentment, even as children.
How every phone call eventually became a request.
How his father's illness hadn't erased decades of fear.
How he'd stood beside the grave and felt guilty because grief refused to arrive in the proper shape.
His voice cracked only once when he spoke about his mother.
"Мама была единственным человеком, который видел меня."
Mom was the only person who ever really saw me.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"I found her," he whispered in Russian. "I was twelve."
His breathing became uneven.
"And after that..."
The tunnel answered him with silence.
Shane couldn't understand the sentences, but he understood the pauses.
The places where breathing became difficult.
The places where Ilya almost stopped talking but forced himself onward anyway.
Minutes passed. Maybe fifteen. Maybe thirty.
Eventually the torrent slowed.
"There is one person here I still love," Ilya said in Russian. "Svetlana."
A sad smile tugged at his mouth.
"My best friend."
He laughed quietly through his nose.
"She still treats me like idiot from neighbourhood."
He wiped at his eyes, then switched back into English.
"I love her."
A beat.
"But not like I love you."
His voice was almost embarrassingly small.
"All I want is you."
Another breath.
"It's always you."
Nothing answered. Not immediately.
The tunnel seemed to inhale with him.
"Oh." Shane whispered.
Not shocked. Just... overwhelmed.
Ilya immediately regretted it.
Too much. Too honest. Too late to take back.
"I'm sorry."
"No."
"I shouldn't have…"
"No."
The word came firmer this time.
"I don't... I don't know exactly what you said before that."
"I know."
"But I think I understood enough."
Ilya laughed weakly.
"You caught ending."
"I caught your voice."
Another silence settled between them. Then Shane cleared his throat.
"Can we..."
He hesitated.
"Can we do the same thing?"
"What?"
"You talked in your language."
"...Yes?"
"I want to talk in my second language."
Ilya blinked.
"French?"
"Yeah."
"You rarely speak French."
"I know."
Ilya's chest tightened.
"Okay."
Shane didn't begin immediately.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded different. Softer.
The rhythm changed, smoother than his careful English, the vowels flowing into one another.
"Je ne sais jamais comment parler aux gens."
I never know how to talk to people.
"J'ai toujours l'impression d'être en retard dans toutes les conversations."
I'm always late to every conversation.
"Tout le monde comprend des choses que je dois apprendre par cœur."
Everyone understands things that I have to learn by heart.
Ilya caught almost nothing. Only scattered words.
"Toujours."
Always.
"Personne."
No one.
"Toi."
You.
Shane kept going. His voice shook.
"Quand tu ris de moi..."
When you laugh at me...
He stopped. Started again.
"Je sais que tu ne te moques pas de moi."
I know you're not making fun of me.
"Tu me regardes comme si j'étais normal."
You look at me as though I'm normal.
His breathing became audible.
"Et ça me fait peur."
And that terrifies me.
Ilya closed his eyes. He couldn't understand.
Not really.
But somehow... somehow he could.
Shane laughed once, embarrassed.
"Je suis tombé amoureux de toi bien avant d'avoir le courage de me dire que j'étais gay."
I fell in love with you long before I had the courage to tell myself I was gay.
His voice cracked.
"Je pensais que si je ne mettais jamais de mots dessus... peut-être que ça disparaîtrait."
I thought that if I never put words to it... maybe it would disappear.
A shaky inhale.
"Mais ça n'a jamais disparu."
But it never disappeared.
Silence.
Then, quietly…
"Je t'aime."
The words floated through thousands of kilometers of telephone lines.
Ilya knew exactly three French phrases.
Bonjour.
Merci.
Je t'aime.
His breath caught.
"...Shane?"
"I don't know if you understood any of that."
"...Not much."
"I figured."
"But..." He smiled despite the tears gathering again. "I understood last sentence."
A tiny, nervous laugh came through the speaker.
"You did?"
"I think everyone knows that one."
"Oh."
They both laughed.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't carefree.
But it loosened something that had been clenched inside both of them for years.
"I wish I understood everything." Ilya admitted.
"So do I."
"I wish you understood mine."
"I don't."
"I know."
"But..."
Shane searched for the words.
"I think I understood how it felt."
Ilya looked down the endless tunnel.
All evening he'd felt like a foreigner in the city where he'd been born.
Now the person who understood him best was over seven thousand kilometers away, speaking a language he barely recognized.
It should have felt absurd. Instead it felt strangely perfect.
They had spent years pretending.
Pretending they were casual.
Pretending hookups didn't become habits.
Pretending habits didn't become longing.
Tonight they had confessed everything without either of them fully understanding the vocabulary.
Maybe that was the point.
The words themselves had never been the hardest part.
Trust had.
"I don't feel so alone anymore." Ilya said quietly.
"Me neither."
"I still have terrible family."
"You do."
"You still overthink everything."
"I do."
"You are still boring."
Shane laughed.
"I probably am."
"But..."
Ilya smiled, resting his head against the concrete once more.
"...you are my boring."
A pause.
Then Shane answered with a warmth that wrapped itself around the distance between Boston, Montreal, and Moscow.
"And you're my loud Russian."
Neither of them translated the rest. Neither of them needed to.
For the first time in years, they had allowed themselves to speak from the places inside them that existed before English, before hockey, before fear.
Even if neither had understood every word, both had finally heard exactly what they needed.