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Chapter Text

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Are you going to tell me none of the stars are really there?                                      I don’t believe that. - Anne Carson 

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One of many things Shane thought the night he met Ilya Rozanov was that meeting him felt like serendipity. 

Everyone knew that Rozanov was That Douchebag™ with a cocky attitude that famously played hockey in the city. Not just in any ordinary way. In the best way anyone had ever seen. Quite the opposite of Shane, the art major and part-time sports fanatic who loved wearing turtlenecks to art galleries, drinking his favourite drinks in bathtubs and watching hockey games on weekends with his best girlfriend. 

Ilya was that guy that no one has ever seen awake in an 8 a.m. class that always smelled like an ashtray and some generic brand of allspice, men’s deodorant or hair gel. He's that guy you don't want crashing your party. His main accessories are typically a flask of Russian vodka in his back pocket and the same cigarette as yesterday behind his ear. He can be found usually rolling through the neighbourhood on wheels in his faded denim jeans rolled up at the ankles, embroidered tops under a designer jacket, boots, gold chain & scarves in a sort of Slavic edge.

All of these types in this city seem to trade these same style tips in whatever meeting ground they ensconced themselves in. You're sure they could use a new stylist but still commend them for their uniform agreement to look the part. 

They all network in skateparks throughout the city where they coexist in happy chaos and thick clouds of smoke. The first thing you notice about this guy is the near permanent smoulder in his pale, cat eyes that kind of scares you. You're sure he practised this look by scowling into space in his free time. But the way they also sparkled and glowed in softer lighting seemed natural, turning their spicy glint into something sweet on rare occasions. And on even more rare occasions, seeping low and hollow like the soul of a lonely old ghost. 

You fantasise about him being a softy at heart, maybe spending his day doing things like strumming a guitar or writing letters he’ll never send to lovers of the past. You think he might be putting up some kind of front at first because he maybe got his heart broken in his younger days. Until you meet other people that know him and realise you're completely wrong as he’s been like this for years and is now usually watching movies and doing recreational drugs when he’s not playing hockey, drinking like a fish and going home with a different victim every other night. 

Despite your distaste with his patronising smirk or wink he awarded you with when he compliments your hair or teases you about your taste in fashion, you have an invariably large crush on Douchebag™, even if you know you shouldn't. 

He is the dreamiest guy in your building, indubitably. And you hate the son of a bitch for making you fall in love before you're even 20 years old. Sublime wit and zany accent are too cute not to capture your whole heart after a week or two. Or after the first words you hear out of his cigarette dangling lips. 

“You” being Shane Hollander. 

They didn’t meet in their room like literally everyone else on their floor did. The first few weeks of the semester, Shane’s roommate wasn’t in his room at all. Just all of his belongings. As if he’d unpacked an hour before Shane moved in and then immediately camped out elsewhere for two weeks straight. 

The lease said there were supposed to be two of them, but the room behaved like a mouth missing a tooth - space where someone should be, air shaped like a person who didn’t really exist. Like an imaginary friend. Shane tried getting to know his roommate by seeing what his side of the room looked like but… no luck. It was as personal as a doctor’s office. That side of the room was clinically quiet. A bed made with hospital corners. A desk wiped to sterility.

No photos. No dust. Not even a scent. But something gave one thing away: hockey equipment. Skates, an NYU hockey uniform and helmet on his bed.

All Shane knew was that his roommate liked hockey. And parties. His calendar had every party happening that month in all of Brooklyn.

That’s how Shane planned to meet him. He’d go to one of the parties on his calendar. Why not? 

Keg party - Crown Heights. Sounded perfect to Shane.

It all started with that damn keg, 1 year ago. 

It was in a crowded kitchen. Mellow tunes, lots of humidity infused into the air along with the liquor on everyone’s breath but Shane’s. It managed to take his slightly nervous gait into a wobbly squirm around their mingling bodies as if he was getting tipsy just off the atmosphere. He didn’t want to get super drunk. Maybe grab a ginger ale and see where the night takes him next. But college students here seemed to have an obsession with cheap beer so his options were limited. 

He needed to adapt to the culture thoroughly, so he needed to stop being bourgeois and enjoy the shitty beer in the keg just like all the other broke uni students. Even if Shane wasn't at all broke courtesy of his parents sending him weekly allowances from Canada still. Shane might've been into fine art and maybe fine wine if he had to drink anything, but this was time to experience something new. The joys of a Frat party. 

The wannabe bodyguard supplying the alcohol didn’t seem to like the look of Shane very much. 

“Yo… you new here?” The burly jug head in a letterman jacket that was minding the keg questioned Shane when he went to get a beer. 

He’d managed to get singled out of a huddled crowd of about 30 other people waiting their turn to get their drink refilled as well. When his eyes landed on Shane, there was suddenly a problem. 

Shane could already tell what type he was handling in less than 3 seconds. He had a knack for reading people and situations very quickly. Had to, with who he was. Keg-head’s eyes were icily boring into Shane and telling him not to even ask to get his cup filled. He looked Shane up and down with an upturned nose like he smelled garbage nearby. 

Shane didn’t understand how he always managed to get singled out of crowds like he was different from everyone else. He didn’t know anyone at the party. His outfit wasn't that outstanding, just jeans and a black hoodie (except for his shoes, limited edition men’s Christian Louboutins). But, the keg-head didn't look like the fashion-forward type so it probably went over his head. 

So how did this guy know? Another question Shane had the majority of his life. How did everyone always know? 

“I don’t know you.” He continued flatly, staring him down when Shane didn’t answer. 

“First year?” 

Shane nodded yes. 

“Who do you know?”

He suddenly couldn’t remember what his roommate’s name was. Ian? Or Ivan..? Fuck.

Keg-head didn't look convinced he knew anyone here at all, which Shane technically didn’t. He apparently wasn’t pouring Shane a drink until he gave some form of identification or proof that he was supposed to be here. As if the 100 other people buzzing around the house had all been individually verified to be on his list of worthy guests. 

The very idea of taking out his wallet to show his I.D. to someone probably only 2 or 3 years older than him felt insanely stupid. Shane would rather tell him to go fuck himself. 

Shane valued his mortal life a little too much to even dare. 

"Freshmen at NYU, yes. I just moved here two weeks ago. I swear I'm not in high school." Shane tried to joke and keg-head squinted as if he couldn't hear Shane. 

His voice was a little monotone and soft but fuck, come on already!

"Say that again?" 

“What the hell is taking so long?” A guy behind Shane groaned. 

"Yeah, can we get a move on before it's all gone? This is the only keg here. We've only been waiting since last year," 

“Don't get hysterical," Keg-head tells them to their annoyance. 

"We’re just trying to work something out here.” 

He went on to fill their cups then, overlooking Shane’s as obvious as possible again, right in his face.

“What year are you again?” 

Shane knew exactly why this jerk was treating him like this in front of everyone. He really didn't care how old Shane was or what year he was in. He'd just filled some dorks cup that looked all of 15 years old.

It was the same reason some people had a distaste for Shane in high school. Even in low lighting, he could see through Shane like a plastic container. 

Shane’s flame wasn't especially bright nor was his ensemble ever doused with rainbows and glitter and given that he played sports in his youth, he was hyper-aware of his mannerisms, how he walked and talked.... everything. So, he still didn't know what always gave him away. 

It must’ve been a scent he carried that only straight assholes could sense near them. The token homo sent here for them to treat as inferior. 

Shane always ignored the giant sign over certain areas that loudly stated “No Homo”. It was usually hanging over parties like these, locker rooms, high school washrooms, and blood donation centres. Only he ignored that sign because, if he spent his life obeying the arbitrary rules of where he wasn’t allowed to go, he’d never leave his room. 

“I’m in Mac hall, right up the street.” Shane told him. 

His soft-spoken voice was flushed out over the loud bass thumping against the walls so he tried to speak up.

Mcdonald’s Hall was two short blocks away from here but, everyone only knew it as Mac. It was a fairly decent housing development that mostly only first-year NYU students lived in because it was only one subway stop away from the Financial District and the most affordable place a student could find in this posh neighbourhood. And no self-respecting person would live in a building full of college students. They wouldn't get any sleep. Euphonious wails of stressed misery float up and down every corridor. 

He figured, maybe if he said where he lived, he’d let him slide after proving that he actually was a student and not some kid trying to score some booze. 

“Are you American?” A light-skinned mixed looking girl with beautiful green eyes and curly red hair asked beside him, her springy curls corkscrewed all down her back and wild eyes asked after overhearing him speak.

“They tend not to like foreigners. Even though this is fucking New York City.”

She had an accent and a nice smile. Shane could tell she was bordering on being plastered. He gathered that she was a bit of a rocker with her leather bralette and tight mini skirt over thigh-high, shiny black boots. Her eyes were unfocused and neon purple eyeliner a touch smudged around them. 

One of her friends, a pretty pale girl in a denim jacket with dark hair, was facing the counter, leaning on the side of her, waiting their turn with Shane. She looked a little familiar but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her face before.

Within 5 seconds, he decides he likes them. 

Shane smiled and shook his head no, letting a few people go ahead of him as they began to talk. 

“International student?” the brunette beamed wide. Her mouth moved animatedly. 

"Cause same!" 

"Québec?" Shane guessed and she laughed. 

"Toronto." 

"Damn, I was close." 

"No, it was good!" She laughed. 

“Oh my God, I LOVE Canadian accents. You guys are fuckin' adorable.” The rocker’s accent was something vaguely European. 

“Excitable Svetlana thinks everything is adorable.” The Canadian girl told him.

Shane would learn she was called Rose. She rolled her eyes at her drunk friend and Shane laughed as he introduced himself to Svetlana, an American-born girl from Moscow, here as a student at NYU, and Rose from Toronto, Canada. Originally born in Michigan.

"Well, we have a lot in common because I adore everything too!" He told them flamboyantly, making them laugh. 

Alright, he admits sometimes his flame was brighter than usual around girls. Shane knows who the fuck he is and he can't own that all the time. But he felt so comfortable around these girls, he didn't think they'd care. 

They quickly got into an in-depth conversation about where they lived and what their majors were although Shane successfully avoids having to explain why he chose to live (or escape to) all the way across the border rather than home as the girls told their stories. They’d soon be inviting him out to less chaotic parties with them in their neighbourhood where there was no line for a single keg, fine wine and best of all, where Shane wouldn’t be pushed around by assholes like the ones here. 

Just as they were making plans to maybe take Shane around sometime soon, like seeing their loft in Tribeca (they actually lived next to models and actors!), the frat boy spoke over them. 

He interrupts as he rolls his eyes at him after Shane forgets he was standing there. 

"Do you even know what frat this is?” 

He swayed his head with his arms crossed, exasperated like Shane was the one making this entire exchange more complicated than it needed to be. All he wanted was a goddamn drink. 

He didn’t know or care what frat this was. He was ready to ditch the beer entirely for something stronger as this night was clearly going to need it. 

“Here, you can just have hers.” Rose shot the asshole a dirty look as she gave Shane the cup she had just filled since Svetlana had enough for the night but the jock snatched it back out of her hand.

“He doesn’t get shit until he answers the question.” 

It was a question that was going to get Shane thrown out of here. He then dumps the drink into a sink nearby, ignoring their complaining. He was so hostile, Shane wanted to ask what the hell his problem was only if he didn’t already know the answer. 

The shitty beer was not worth it. 

“You know, I actually think I’ve got this all mixed up.” Shane politely says with his lips held in, pressing his hands together after. 

He’d decided that excusing himself was better than causing a scene. He put his hands in his back pockets as a gesture of surrender and began to back away, telling the girls it was nice meeting them but he needed to be on his way now. 

“I must’ve gotten to the wrong place.” He turns away. 

“I’ll say.” 

He runs right into a few more jug-heads that’d appeared through the slosh of bodies in the kitchen to flank their douchey friend who went back to filling others cups without question, now two guys in front of Shane and one behind him. 

Shane didn’t look at them in the face for long. Eye contact could be seen as threatening and high school prepped him for what to do in this situation. 

He concludes in all of 5 seconds: get the hell out of here.

“Where did you think this was? Hogwarts?” 

None of the girls giggled at his lame attempt at making fun of Shane (maybe he thinks he’s British?). But Shane did, snorting down at his shoes with his eyes closed. His eyes were watering now as he arranged his face back into nothing and cleared his throat awkwardly. It was a nervous habit, tearing up like this. He tears up when he's in shock, when he's sad, when he's mad. Just a laugh as he shook his head, almost crying at the utter corniness of their entire repartee. 

They were just walking stereotypes. Probably not even half as buff if they were talking to someone their own size. 

“Something funny?” The original keg-head addressed him again when Shane looked back up, wiping off his eyes. 

“No, no!” Shane assured him quickly with his hands up, eyes already darting around again for an escape route. 

There was an empty pocket of space on his right, perfect for a trail that went straight into a foyer where the front door would be. 

“I was -- I’m just gonna go--” 

“You didn’t answer his question.” His friend behind Shane pointed out, now keeping Shane right where he’s standing. 

“For crying out loud, Randy. Leave him alone.” Rose scoffed and Randy waved her off and told her to shut up. 

“I just asked him a simple question.” He tells them. 

“What’s the name of this house?” Randy repeats now, slower. 

A clear line was drawn. Shane wasn’t allowed to excuse himself. He might have walked in the door without permission but he wasn’t going out of it the same way. Before he can accept his fate and get unceremoniously escorted out by the ankles, his saviour finally arrives. 

“Alpha Epsilon Pi.” 

His voice came before his face. 

Shane looked to his left to find him striding up with his hands in his pocket, swagger in his gait like this was his house. 

“Stands for 1 asshole, 5 dicks and the mathematical equation to make all 16 of you fit into each other.” 

Wow, Shane mouthed to himself.

“Now, since I answered correctly, is everyone just standing around in a drunken stupor or do I need a stick of dynamite to get someone’s attention for a fucking drink?” 

His hand on Shane’s shoulder bunches up his hoodie and pulls him out of his way, out of the centre of this. It should’ve felt like a rude shove from someone with no manners but, the way his hand lingered on Shane’s side for longer than what was expected felt protective. 

Instinctively, Shane melts under his touch like a safety blanket. He gently nudges Shane to the side then so he's standing over with the girls in safety. A nudge for Shane to stand in between Svetlana and Rose where he wouldn't be caught in a crossfire if a fight broke out. The look in his eyes gave that vibe - like he was lethal and ready for it if that was about to go down right now.

He was like an airlift and Shane was the refugee. A feel-good reassurance washed over him at once. Like it looked Shane in the eye with all the honesty in the world and told him he had nothing to worry about. 

His spot in the middle is replaced with a cigarette scented, less burly douche. 

He was lean and athletic looking, only slightly bigger than Shane but his attitude seemed to make him the biggest in the room. His hair had light coloured, loose curls falling forward over his head, wearing an embroidered shirt and annoyance on his face when he steps up to the keg man. 

His eyes were intensely blue - almost hazel - standing out on his perfect face, touched with face bones that put even the best supermodels out there to shame. Intense eyes framed with well kept eyebrows, pale lashes that could bat against a hurricane and natural wing to his lids. Inside Shane's head, he can hear himself screaming at the top of his lungs as he stares at him. 

Y O U ' R E    S O   G O R G E O U S 

He holds up Shane’s empty cup he’s retrieved from the counter, dangling it in front of Randy’s face. 

“You gonna pour me a drink or were you just there to pose?” 

“Excuse you?” Randy pulls back in confusion, totally thrown as he’s still processing the name of his frat being smeared in the mouth of this asshole, giving him a look the asked who the fuck are you? 

Shane wanted to know that too. Who was he and could he please touch him like that again. 

It was the kind of nudge that felt just the right amount of casually supportive, something Shane wasn't at all used too. Even though he hadn't directly acknowledged Shane. Like he didn't really see him standing there, something Shane was very used to. 

The cigarette in his mouth was lit, a trail of smoke emanating from him although Shane thinks he might've been smoking already even without the cigarette. The way his soft hands flicked it with such experience read that he’s been holding it in his mouth for a few years. His face was young but his energy wasn’t. Like he was older in spirit. 

He was so unafraid. It made Shane feel unafraid of Jughead too and not ready to leave this party if only to have a little more time to admire his lips. They were an underrated facial feature. 

He'd never seen someone take on the embodiment of having an angel face so on the mark, it actually hurts to ponder about. Or like a Greek hero that was carved from marble.

“Who the hell do you think you are that you can just cut the line and make demands?” 

“Fucking Christ,” Rose looked at Randy in astonishment. 

“Ilya Rozanov.” He gave a short smile with raised brows. “But some call me Fucking Christ.” He winks at Rose when he says that, which makes her laugh. 

Shane caught his mouth with a hand on Rose's shoulder as he snorted the loudest. He'd feel embarrassed about it later. Ilya's name made quite a few people audibly gasp, somehow heard over the loud music whispering to each other that it was really him , making Shane wonder if he was some kind of local celebrity. 

That name… had Shane read it somewhere recently? Maybe… 

Ilya's smirk disappeared, back into annoyedness. 

“Now, since you don't mind making me ask a 10th and final time. Will you fill this cup or do I have to do it for you?” 

He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and puts it out on the counter like it's an ashtray then behind his left ear, his brows raised as he waits for an answer. Or possibly, a challenge or opinion about the disrespect he just issued. 

It was a simple gesture that spoke as loud as it would've if he'd actually yelled his threat. It made most of the room that’s murmuring around them goad with laughter and oohs that he doesn't even acknowledge.

Ilya seriously did not give a single fuck. 

At first, Shane thinks that this boy is insane, embarrassing someone twice his size like this. But, he quickly realises that size was an illusion as keg heads' confidence shrinks him. 

He’s not insane. He’s got an… aura, truly. His gaze alone that he hasn't broken once could surely stop a semi-truck. Even the dramatic way his lashes fanned when he blinked didn't soften his eyes. He clearly wasn’t someone who fucked around or got intimidated by much of anything. That glimmer in his eye looked like he was up for anything and whoever wanted to challenge him on that better think real hard before they try. 

Ilya didn’t need a stick of dynamite to get anyone’s attention. He is the stick of dynamite. All eyes were already on him, waiting eagerly for him to explode, even some people getting ready to yell WORLDSTAR with the cellphones out. And his eyes are set on Randy. The eyes of a torpedo getting ready to fire at its target. 

Randy laughs with a little less fire behind his tone now after Ilya's said his name. He seems to recognise him now, like he's just realised how the hell he's talking to. There’s a nervous clearing of his throat attached to his glance around the gawking crowd. He looks to his friend behind Ilya for the much-needed support he doesn't get as his frat "brother" has just blended into the crowd of onlookers. The other one beside him shrugs, unsure of what they’re supposed to do now. 

“You better do what he says.” Rose snorts with her hand on her hip and Ilya agrees, nodding towards her. 

"Smart girl. You better listen to my friend or no one's getting a drink." 

It hasn't taken Shane any time at all to put together that Ilya is someone important here, even though his strong accent gave foreigner, too. His English was actually very proficient but the accent wasn’t at all subtle. Russian, probably. It kind of tickled Shane hearing him talk.

The preponderance of him was more than just his voice, this attitude more than just self-important confidence. He walked with presence, spoke with it and Shane imagined he probably fucked with it too. 

“Look,” Randy sounds almost apologetic now like he's the one inconveniencing Ilya, lowering his voice below the music as he leans towards him.

“There are rules here we can’t break. The keg’s already getting dry.” 

Shane and the rest of their stilled crowd looked over at Ilya again, who is merciless as he seems to be on a real mission to make this guy eat his words when he steps up to the keg and moves it in a wide circle, sloshing around its contents. 

He even pops the lid open and looks inside. The keg-heads do not dare check any boundaries. 

“I guess you think ocean is dry too?” Ilya comments with a nod before he stops moving it.

“Whatever your made-up “rules” are, all of this bullshit aside." He says seriously with his hands up. 

"Why’re you showing your asses? This isn’t pissing contest.” Ilya jammed a thumb in Shane's direction as well as the girls. Translation basically asking them why they were fucking with a bunch of girls (and co.) and consequently fucking with Ilya which Shane found noble of him. 

Most people see guys messing with girls, or even bullying someone in general and just stood there and watched. No one tries to stop them. 

Ilya wasn't like most people. He was a gem in a sea of ball-less sheep and Shane appreciated gems like him. He wished he knew him in high school. He gets the feeling Ilya would've defended him if he was around. 

Randy’s friend finally speaks.

“We can’t give drinks to freshmen.” He admits honestly, which kind of shocks Shane that Ilya is also a freshman and he’s already making seniors nearly piss themselves. 

“You're below 20, you’re not supposed to be here, we could be evicted. No freshmen.” Randy tells him.

He looks directly at Shane now. 

“And no fags .” 

Svetlana holds Shane's hand now. Shane just looks at Ilya, like he’s just expecting him to react to everything at this point. His eyes look a little darker now. 

"Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Ilya murmured, shaking his head as he took a drink out of one of the girl’s nearby hands, taking a sip with a grimace. 

"Also what I thought.” He spits it back into the cup in disgust and tosses it into the sink. 

“As my dear mother always said, if you're going to throw a party, you should serve with hospitality. But since you're disrespectful enough to serve people goat’s piss, I’ll just do myself a favour before I or anyone else ingests this shit.” 

In one smooth movement, he unexpectedly proceeds to knock over the keg so all the beer spills out onto the ground. 

"Ilya!" Svetlana hisses sharply at him while everything else gasps, even the music. 

Randy almost tries to react to stop it from spilling out but Ilya's boot clamps down on top of it, keeping it in place as he leans down on his knee, just daring Randy to remove it now. 

Someone in the crowd lets out a wild wail as if to emphasise the sheer craziness in Shane's head when they all back away to save their shoes. Some laugh. Some clap. Some shift uncomfortably. Svetlana glares at him like she’s about to scold her little brother who's lost his mind and Shane… fuck, he’s in lov-- infatuated. 

Shane is in-fatuated. As if he needed to know that Ilya had balls he'd really love to get acquainted with. Confidence really was attractive. He didn't just wear it well. He owned the rights to it. 

Randy or any other guy that lives here witnessing this doesn’t even try to pick it up anymore or go off on him. Seeing that no one else is going to do it, Ilya removes his foot and picks up the keg himself, continuing to shake out its contents to the floor at Randy's feet, staring at Randy the whole time with a blank expression as Randy gapes back at the entire ordeal until all 200 bucks of their cheap beer is pooled on his Timbs and the ground. Iyla seems to get bored with the action now, dropping the thing in the pool so the rest spills out on its own and reaching into his back pocket for a silver flask he swiftly opens to take a swig from, nodding towards Randy as he licks his lips. 

“Keg’s dry now.” He tells him with a belch as he reaches for Svetlana’s hand and turns away with her drunkenly trailing behind with her hand on his shoulder. He looks back at Randy with a hard expression. His eyes are almost scary to look into directly. 

"Fuck with them again and it's on your skull." 

Shane shivers at the vibration in his voice. 

Ilya Rozanov struck him as the type to stay true to his word. Someone in the foyer is already talking about leaving this shitty party for the one next door that had a keg that wasn’t dry. 

“You guys get some real booze or a problem, let me know.” He says as he walks away. 

And as simple as that, he’s gone with a girl. And Shane’s breath. Shane watched him go back from whence he came, drinking from his flask because who is he kidding. Ilya didn’t stop whatever he was doing because he wanted a drink. Now Randy and his idiot posse are shamed into leaving to clean up the mess. Or possibly to keep their faces down from the humiliation of being visited by hurricane Rozanov. 

Rose rolled her eyes away from Randy as she stepped over the mess with Shane in hand. 

"Am I the only one that got a rush from that whole thing?" Shane asks and Rose nods. 

“I mean, talk about saving our asses!”

"Yeah and now no one gets a drink. Don't try to make him sound like some hero, okay?" Rose makes clear that she does not condone that kind of behaviour. 

They're looking in the same direction as they watched Ilya off in the crowd talking to a taller guy with a tan and dark brown hair. Ilya's arm around Svetlana's waist as she talks to them. 

"So... do you guys know each othe--" Shane doesn't get a chance to finish the question. 

"Oh my God," Rose whispers after looking at the taller boy he's with, "Do you know who that is?!" 

Shane shakes his head slowly as he watches Ilya laugh with his hot older friend. 

He told Rose he was thinking of leaving. Rose tells him not to let those guys ruin his night. She said he had like 2 million followers of instagram, Ilya's company. His name was Scott Hunter (he graduated about 5 years ago). He played for a major New York hockey team, the Admirals now. As she told Shane about more stories, a handsome black guy with flawless skin quickly comes over to them, shock on his face. 

"Do you see who Lana is talking too?!?" He hisses at them, grabbing their shoulders. 

"That's Scott Hunter!" 

"I know..." Rose arched her eyebrows, sipping on her drink slowly with a shake of her head as she watched them, eyes trailing down Scott's body. 

"Still looking like a fully poached snack." Her friend says. 

Ah. A fellow gay. All of them looked him up and down thoroughly, including Shane. 

"That should be illegal." Rose says. 

"It is illegal." Shane agreed cause Scott was hot as fuck too. In a cute, Abercrombie & Fitch model on the weekends kind of way. He kind of had a thing for older guys in the past… which was problematic but he really doesn’t care. 

He doesn't even blush when they look over and exchange knowingly smiles with him. They don't make any comments about Shane checking out boys with them. It felt pretty natural, which was surprising because Shane doesn't think he'd ever had friends he could be this comfortable with. 

Rose’s friend glances up at Shane with a sweet smile. 

"I’m Miles. And you are…?" 

Rose introduces Shane to Miles and promptly gets back into thirsting over Svetlana’s new friend. Only Shane is looking at Rozanov. He can't take his eyes off him. 

The others all seem to be only interested in Scott, not at all mentioning Ilya again. Except once, when Rose says, 

"We need to make sure Svetlana does not bring him back to the apartment." 

Shane instantly knows which one she's talking about. His hand is pretty low on Svetlana's backside, both her hands pushed up on Ilya's chest as she laughs at whatever he's saying. He had a smirk on his face as he leaned down to her ear, eyes towards the ceiling a little as Shane watched how his mouth moved. He could see his accent from here. 

"God, he's cute," Shane mumbled. 

"Looks can be deceptive." Rose rolled her eyes. 

Miles nods in agreement that they need to make sure Svetlana stays away from him after they leave this party and Shane asks them why. He thought girls were supposed to be in love with the noble bad boys. 

"They’ve known each other for years. But Rozanov's a black hole," Rose tells him. 

"Is he her ex?" Shane asked Rose and she snorted hard along with Miles, shaking her head. 

"What? I'm curious." Shane laughed. 

"God, no. That would've been even more tragic." She pets Shane's arm briefly.

"They grew up together," Miles tells him while sipping his drink. Ilya lived one house away from Svetlana all their life back in Russia before college. 

"Like siblings. He’s just not good for her. He sleeps with everyone." 

"He's pretty protective of her, though. She never had a boyfriend in school cause everyone knew he'd bite their head off if they broke her heart."

"So you're all friends, then." 

He tried not to sound entirely interested in Ilya even though this barrage of questioning sounded entirely interested. He was obviously defending his own people. But Shane wanted to at least go up and thank him. Even if he was a little scared too. 

Ilya just had an aura of spiked danger. Even from across the room, Shane felt his energy siphoning the room in a way a famous person’s would. He had a pull to it. To him. It made him afraid of what that might do to him. 

Not afraid of what Ilya would do. But what it would make Shane do. 

He wanted to feel his touch on his body again, that soft thing he also carried inside him that you couldn't see on the outside unless you touched him. Maybe he'd just walk by and bump into him. The entire idea was dismissed when he realised how ridiculous he was being. 

A thank you was good enough. 

Rose got back into her concentrated look as she watched Ilya again. He seemed to pull a profound awakeness out of her. 

"No. We're not friends. We just know each other. He doesn't have any friends." 

At the moment, Shane didn't understand what exactly that meant. Maybe he never would. It didn't sound like anything good. If the fiasco in the kitchen was a typical night for Ilya, any indication to Shane about him was just a bad-boy fantasy sprung to life. 

Sure, your parents warn you about it. Tell you you're supposed to stay away from the bad boy. But all the damsels in the movies just had a wild romance with them. 

Shane can feel eyes staring their way. He doesn't look at Ilya again. Not until the feeling goes away as he listens to Rose talk about her plan to grab Scott Hunter’s attention. It doesn't go away. 

Shane can't resist looking up anymore. When he does, Ilya's turned in his direction. But, he's probably looking at Rose. Or Miles. Or a smudge of the wall behind Shane's head. Or anyone else standing near-by that isn't Shane. 

His eyes are too far away to tell where he's looking and staring at them for too long gives Shane chills. So he stops watching him now, focusing on his new buddies again, ignoring the heat blooming on his face. 

Miles takes his own initiative. 

"I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna get Lana to introduce me to his buddy." 

The guy walks towards them now, leaving Shane and Rose behind. They stay in place as they chat. It's mostly Rose talking about hockey as Shane is leaning against the wall and watching Ilya from a distance, pondering this stranger. He seemed not to notice it. Or maybe he does. 

He looks up from Svetlana once and makes eye contact with Shane. There’s no one else but Rose nearby. He is sure Ilya stares for a beat longer than what can be classed as a glance before he looks back at Svetlana again, listening to whatever she's saying in his ear. 

Shane caught the look in his eye. He's not sure what it was but he catches it again... when Ilya's eyes flick back up to Shane's again. He squints a little this time, probably wondering why this weirdo is staring at him. Shane figured he'd be used to it being that gorgeous. They watch each other openly now and Shane can't make an excuse that Ilya isn't looking at him. 

Ilya takes another drink from his flask, never taking his gaze away as he licks over his front teeth with an attractive smirk that Shane finds slightly patronising. Like he knows something Shane doesn't and he's teasing it. It's alluring, making Shane want to go and ask him what it is he knows. 

Finally, Ilya turns away, now focusing on Miles approaching them. He gives him a closed mouth smile, nodding and raising his flask towards him.

Ilya's mouth falls open again, mute words pouring out that Shane's certain he can hear fragments of. Svetlana turns to them, looking towards Rose and Shane as she waves her hand for them to come too. 

Rose looks over at Shane with a smile, nudging for him out of his daze.

"What are we standing here for?" 

"Because we're scared." 

Rose struck him as a little more shyer than she let on. They were just enabling each other here. Rose laughs, biting her lip for a moment as she stares at the party before she shrugs. "Oh fuck it, let's go!" She says with elated determination. 

She takes Shane's hand. 

Shane is forced to get his back off the wall then as he joins her through the crowded floor, his legs moving towards Ilya's gravitational pull before he even knows he told them to. 

He can feel his pulse thumping in his ears, even over the music as they approach. He keeps his eyes on Ilya's mouth the entire time if only to be focused on something that isn't his nerves. At his lips and how they move. Until they actually reach them and his voice becomes clear and the moment finally arrives. 

The moment Shane, at long last, meets his roommate. 

✯✯✯ 

Modelizer [noun] - A person who is obsessed and associates with models and actors only. 

✯✯✯ 

There wasn’t a lot of thought Shane gave to people who dated models. Sure, he knew these people existed but, who actually paid them any attention when they were always standing next to models? 

Thinking about the guys who dated models was like thinking about your nose. 

You know it’s there, but it just so happens to always be sitting in your blind spot. How often do you really notice that your nose is there until it points itself out?

That’s how Shane felt about modelizers. And also, himself. Shane considered himself to be more of a nose than a face. Not invisible just… in everyone’s blind spot. 

No, he wasn’t ugly. But he wasn’t particularly impressed with himself either. He had a pretty strict, 30-step skincare regimen. Dark features (eyes and hair) - good genes from his Japanese mother’s side, freckles from his Canadian father’s side. The same haircut he’s had since middle school. Nothing he ever sees represented on billboards or magazines.

As he flips through Ilya’s magazines and takes in the onrush of plump butts and racy lingerie, he’s quickly reminded that he lives with a modelizer. A rare kind that actually wasn’t a nose. 

Ilya was a face. A damn beautiful, Archangelic one. See, models weren’t noses. They were faces. The first thing you notice about anything was its face, like the cover of a magazine. The face of a clock. A person. A book. A mountain. It’s just the main event. Supermodels didn’t have to be pointed out. They were the point, these ethereal beings that were rumoured to live on Earth with beauty a subject to make mortals tremble in their presence. The very idea of people that beautiful being human seemed unimaginable at times. The notion that ordinary people dated them was impossible. But if Greek Gods could date humans then Shane supposed that models could too. 

Actors dated models. Singers and athletes dated models. Leonardo Dicaprio and Hugh Hefner dated models. 

Ilya Rozanov fucked models.

Shane never thought of them until he moved to New York and unknowingly joined a whole pack of them. Sure, they were still above average on the “exceptionally good looking human” scale, but that would only make you stand out in a place like, say rural Ohio. In New York City, they were a dime a dozen. Another thing about this city that differed from the rest of the world: supermodels became mortals. 

It wasn’t just the glitz, glamour and photoshop that made it seem like they didn’t exist in real life. Any pretty girl could wear a designer skirt and expensive perfume. And any guy could fuck that girl. But there was a difference between fucking the girl in the skirt and fucking the girl in the ad for the skirt. 

The trick was that one was in print. Always some distant, untouchable place they lived on a better plane of existence than you. New York City was that better plane of existence. 

In an ordinary city, they were extraordinary beings that only lived on billboards advertising expensive bags. Or posing in magazines for perfume. Or on TV, strutting their stuff across a catwalk in designer clothes. But here, the runway was the streets of Manhattan, Alexander Wang and Chanel seen on every street corner. September’s cover of Vogue is having coffee on 205th Houston Street. Half of the perfume ads from Macy’s holiday catalogue are shopping in Soho. Victoria's Secret’s new lingerie angel just got her wings and did her signature walk of shame in Brooklyn last weekend. 

You didn’t have to tune into E! News to catch a runway model here. They ran wild on the streets straight out of the fantasy their magazines confined them in. Chances are, if you’re outside breathing air on the island of Manhattan, a model is doing the same thing 10 feet away from you. 

Sending a supermodel to a place like Ohio would be like throwing food out to the starving. But a model in New York City was the very nose on your face. So if Shane couldn’t even point one out of the sea of flesh surrounding him here, there was no way

he would’ve seen the moment coming when he met a couple of modelizers as he was drooling over Ilya for a half hour at a crowded frat party in Brooklyn last year. 

How do you know when you’re in the presence of one? One obvious clue: they were usually surrounded by models. 

If you didn’t pick up the first clue, you’d surely pick up the second one even faster: unless you are stunningly gorgeous, you suddenly become the most invisible person on the face of Earth. Shane picked up both a little too late. 

He already had a thing against walking up to attractive boys and shoving his presence in their face. But when Rose dragged him up to Ilya and Scott, who were already surrounded by beauty, Shane was forced to break his own rules. 

They were all talking about leaving this party and going to the one around the block together, Ilya arguing with Svetlana about not being the one that’s gonna be babysitting her this time as she’s shit-faced, because he wanted to get shit-faced too. 

Their discussion was put on hold when two wallflowers plucked themselves from the corner of their grove and arrived at their small party in the middle of the room.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Scott asked.

His arm was slung over Svetlana’s shoulders now. Ilya looked up from the girls. At the same time, Shane looked away, to the side at Rose to avoid Ilya’s gaze that’s pointing in his direction again. 

“Another IMG girl?” Ilya asked as his eyes locked on Rose.

“Two, actually.” Rose laughed, gesturing to Shane as she prodded his arm. “Rose Landry and Shane Hollander.” 

Shane coughed softly into his fist without comment when his mind scattered into confusion. He missed the look of recognition that flashed across Ilya’s face when he heard Shane’s name. He’d smirked, bringing his flask up to his lips as he looked Shane up and down once. Instead of noticing any of that, Shane looked at Rose with dismay, then she added. 

“You could sign with IMG!” 

Svetlana nodded in agreement before her eyes went wild like she had just been struck with an ingenious idea. 

“You should talk to my agent, you definitely have a model look. Those freckles are gorgeous.”

Ilya grabbed Svetlana’s wrist with a grimace when she hooked an arm around his neck to keep herself from falling when someone walking by bumps her too hard. 

He pushed her waist back with his other hand so she wouldn’t make them both trip. It seemed like he didn’t have a choice in taking on the role of being the babysitter.

“You signed with IMG this year, right?” Ilya asked Rose over Svetlana’s head now as his chin hooked over her hair after she’d laid on his chest to laugh at something Scott said. 

He seemed determined to talk through Svetlana’s curls, patting her hair out of his face each time her laughter slapped him in the cheek. Shane found it kind of odd how undistracted he was with letting a drunk Svetlana spill her body all over him like dead weight as she and Miles carried on a separate conversation comparing Shane to a French model from Paris they were friends with. 

“You have to come to our place, he lives right next door. You’d love him.” 

He bet he would love to meet a famously handsome male model. Shane would’ve loved it if they had just offered to let him ride his bike around the corner. You know who has a loft in Tribeca? Fucking Beyonce. Adriana Lima. Christy Turlington. Taylor Swift. 

Any notable anybody who was anybody had a place tucked away in that neighbourhood and it was Shane’s dream spot he’d kill to have someone close escrow for him in. As Shane listened to them talk, it was then he realised a pattern. 

How could they afford to live in an apartment on the handsome cobblestoned streets of the most desirable neighbourhood next to Soho? He looked at them again and reevaluated a detail he somehow missed that now clicked into place.

They were models. 

Svetlana had just walked her first runway with Rose here during NYFW while this was Mile’s 3rd year with IMG. Miles and Rose went to NYU for acting and also had some small roles on the side. Nothing major. A few short films and commercials that Shane might’ve seen in passing.

Shane’s pulse pounded harder as more intimidation struck. 

He found his eyes following the movement of Ilya’s hands, strangely calming to his racing heart. One was moving up and down Svetlana’s arm comfortingly at his shoulder while the other held her back as they swayed back and forth. 

He was so gentle. It was like they were dancing to the song together even though they were both in the middle of two totally separate conversations.

Shane looked down at Rose’s hand interlocked with his own still. They were sort of doing the same thing, only they were strangers. As he took in the moment, it all became kind of beautiful in his head. How simple human interaction could be, even without words. He felt a gap in the conversation coming, so he prepared himself to finally have a chance to say thank you to Rozanov as soon as they made eye contact again. The moment never seemed to arrive. Did he see Shane standing there at all? Shane sure couldn’t tell anymore. 

He couldn’t tell if Ilya saw him next to Rose or not. It was strange to stand right in someone’s face and still not be able to distinguish who they were looking at. Right then as Shane thought that, Ilya was about to open his mouth again as if they’d both been struck with the same idea. To either address Rose or Shane, he didn’t know. But before he can get a word out, Svetlana says,

“Thought you didn’t want to babysit.” 

He looks down like he forgot she was there. 

“Oh,” He frowned a little as he lost his train of whatever thought he’d been on, then looked back up again. 

“Well, you’re pretty when you’re drunk. Don’t mind having pretty around.” His brows quirked with a charming wink. 

It made Svetlana laugh hard enough that Rose let go of Shane’s hand to steady her. The loss of her hand seemed to give way to Shane losing the illusion of having a real place in being with this group anymore. 

He couldn’t tell that he was being ignored before but now, it became obvious. It was like someone had turned up the volume of his silence and the fact that he hadn’t been able to break it yet. He hadn’t said a word since leaving the wall. 

"Weren’t you at the Versace show?" Ilya smirked at Rose as his lip curled halfway up when he thumbed at his upper lip, like he was too cool to smile. Rose nodded yes again. 

Shane observed that Ilya definitely had a thing for models. He didn’t look like the type of person that attended fashion shows for fashion. It didn’t usually take Shane this long to figure people out and it was becoming like a game each time something Ilya said revealed a new trait about him. 

Shane zoned out of Ilya and Rose’s conversation after a few seconds. Have you ever been stuck in the middle of a discussion you were not even remotely engaged in with people you didn’t even know? Try 2. 

Shane was stuck in limbo. Being this close to Ilya made him realise that it didn’t matter if he was across the room or standing right under his nose. Shane had been standing next to a Versace model. He’d notice his nose before he noticed Shane. 

A punch in the gut knocks another winded thought into him as he looks around. He was the furthest thing from anyone here’s mind and in no position to change it. Because he was not a model. He was standing in a blind spot, unable to move. 

Ilya and Rose were suddenly hitting it off with Shane frozen next to her like a fly on the wall. Miles and Svetlana were all swarmed around Scott Hunter and had since moved on from booking Shane’s go-see.

Models and the boys who dated them. Where did Shane fit into a cesspool like this? As the invisible man. It was the worst moment he’d had since he got here, feeling like a charity shop in a room full of fucking Versace. 

Inadequate. Boring. Not worth anyone's time. He'd never felt more out of place. Not even in high school. At least then, he managed to get some kind of attention. 

Not coming as a shock, he already knew this wasn’t his kind of crowd upon entry. He didn’t know where his crowd was, probably hidden away in some secluded cave off in some mountain no one had discovered yet. It made him think about Plato's Cave. 

While he had his reality check, he concluded that he’d missed several cues that it was time to call it a day about an hour ago. 

After a few minutes of awkwardly glancing at shoes shuffling below him and scrolling up and down old text messages, he had slowly begun to phase out of this group after finally thawing out, looking for the door. 

It was still daylight out. He was thinking he could maybe still catch that opera he’d bought tickets for after reading about it in The Observer that morning.

He got to the other side of their circle, still thinking he was cloaked in invisibility, when he caught wind of the perfect ticket out. 

Scott was about to duck out too and Svetlana was telling Rose that they needed to leave before it got dark enough for the freaks to board the transit. So Shane, being the well-meaning but unrealistic philanthropist he is, made them a generous offer. 

An offer that somehow managed to grab every single person’s attention that was standing in his vicinity. Including Ilya. Not that Shane didn’t already have Ilya's attention anyway. 

“Do you need a ride?” Shane asked them, jiggling his car keys as he didn’t think his voice was loud enough to be heard over the music. 

“I’m turning in too.” 

He wasn’t doing anything special tonight. He really just wanted to take them up on seeing their place. 

“You have a car?” 

He nodded. 

“What?” Scott appeared again and looked at Shane like he’d just heard him say he had an uzi strapped on him.

“You have a car ?” 

“Yes.” Shane laughed at their disbelief. 

Apparently, no one here even knew how to drive. Shane went from invisible to the main event. 

“What kind is it?” 

“Did you get it here or drive from Canada?” 

“Can you take me too?” 

“Can I see your license?” 

It seemed like the best way to get attention in New York was to be a cab driver. Freeride? Now that was throwing food to the starving. 

While Shane answered every question he heard over the music, Jeep, Canada. Sure? And no, one question pushed everyone else behind him in line. 

“Who the hell drives a car to New York all the way from Canada?” Ilya asked this. 

Shane looked up and noticed he was already turned towards him. 

It wasn’t really the question that made him sound like a douche. It was the way he said it. Shane’s brows came together as he looked at him.

“Um… I did?” 

Svetlana and Rose both started laughing at the stunned look on Ilya’s face when Shane got smart with him, like he didn’t expect that. Shane didn’t mean for that to sound as snarky as it did but he really liked the look on Ilya’s face. 

Shane shook his head at them, smiling 

“What?” 

“We’re not going home.” Rose told him. 

“We’re just going around the corner.” 

“You should come!” 

“So he can start another fight with a frat boy?” Ilya rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he denied their request as if he was the boss here. 

“Yeah, no.” 

“Pretty sure you started a fight with a frat boy.” 

Instead of agreeing with her and telling Ilya that he in no way started a confrontation that he took it upon himself to finish, he takes the opportunity to say what he wanted to say the first time now that he has his attention. 

“I wanted to thank you for that. Earlier.” 

“What?”

The glare in Ilya’s eye seemed to be a trick of the light as he leaned forward and they melted into a warmth under the shadow of his hair. He looked like he wasn’t expecting Shane to say that either. 

Since he’d leaned a little closer, Shane figured he couldn’t hear him. 

“I said-” 

“No, I heard you. Your voice is just really soft.” 

It’s not like it was a compliment. It was all about tone and his tone was somehow unexpected. 

They were both just throwing each other off with their unexpectedness, like they kept colliding at the wrong places instead of meeting in the middle. 

Shane’s mouth closed, unsure of how to respond for a moment. 

“Sorry. I guess I mumble a lot.” 

“You're not mumbling.” Ilya laughed a little. 

“Your voice is humbling .” 

Now there was a genuine compliment Shane didn’t know how to take. 

“... thanks.” 

“Where're you from?” Scott asked, sipping his drink. 

“Ottawa.” 

“Boring.” Ilya smiled and Shane laughed. 

“If you call the capital of Canada boring, sure.”

“Is boring, Captain Canada.” 

Ilya’s hand went back to Svetlana again so she wasn’t lost with being ignored, then he addressed Shane again. 

“And this is a party. Not a support group, by the way.” 

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” 

“It means Ilya doesn't like thank you's.” Svetlana told him. 

“No, I don't.” Ilya agreed. 

“Why don’t you like thank you’s?” Shane couldn’t help his smile, even though he’d just been called boring twice now. He couldn’t quite seem to piss him off the way he suddenly wanted to. They’d both just ended up smiling at some non-existent joke they shared.

“What the fuck is a thank you?” Ilya asked rhetorically as he continued the discussion, looking towards the others and opening it up to the general frat party zeitgeist now. 

They only shrugged, all of everyone around equally intrigued with this conversation. Shane wasn’t used to being the main event but he hardly noticed all of them outside of Ilya and his friends. 

“An expression of gratitude and appreciation?” Shane offered, crossing his arms with curious amusement. 

“But what's that kind of expression of gratitude do for me and you? Does a thank you buy you dinner and drink? Does it give you a blowjob? No. Those are the only “thank you's” worth receiving.” He toasts with Scott and they both take a drink. 

Noted . Shane thought, now that he knows a better way to say ‘thanks’ that he’s really good at. 

Thank You [noun: person, place or thing] - a thing that's expressed through a blowjob and dinner. Maybe a drink too 

“You want a real drink, don't go to frat boys.” Ilya addressed Shane again, giving him advice in lieu of a ‘you’re welcome’ in the same vein that only Ilya could. 

“They only serve girls cause they want to roofie them. Someone like me shows up here, and they don’t.” 

Svetlana rolled her eyes and told him to shut up with his fake nobility. 

“You only come here so you can show your ass.” 

“Where do you suggest I go for real booze then?” Shane gets back into the topic at hand as he brings Ilya’s attention back to himself before the others take off with it. He was only just noticing his proximity to Ilya then. They were very close.

It wasn’t a very big house so the intimacy was unavoidable. One more step and they’d be on each other’s toes. But the way Ilya leaned in to hear his voice better suddenly made him realise how close he was to kissing him. 

He wondered if that was a worthy thank you to Ilya. This boy was impossible to read between the lines of. 

“Me.” Ilya cheesed. “That’s where, kid. I'll be your new best friend tonight.” 

He waves his flask by his stretched cheek and Shane laughs again. 

Then Ilya took a step back and put his hand behind Svetlana’s back so she’d move up, closer to them. A high hand, not a low one this time. 

“Open up.” 

Svetlana lifted her chin to receive the shot and Shane got on the tip of his toes when he was pushed from behind as a guy walked by wanting a shot as well. Ilya glared at him, telling him to back the hell up, back behind Shane after he watched him get pushed back. 

"You want a drink, get behind him." 

It was like he’d opened a can of worms now as a swarm of people lined behind Shane and started asking for shots. 

It broke his concentration of Ilya as he was brought back to reality. There was still a frat party around him and the models were still here. Only now, the spotlight was on Ilya and Shane as everyone in the circle, which had tripled since the car debacle, were taking shots of Vodka admonished by Ilya via his bottomless silver flask. 

Maybe that really was his black hole. 

Ilya went clockwise - models first and laughing with Shane each time someone made a sour face as the crowd began chanting, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots. 

Maybe he was mental but Shane was actually starting to have a good time. It was a party, that’s what you’re supposed to do. But that was wrong. 

It wasn’t really a party without Ilya’s engagement. 

When Ilya got to Svetlana again, she lifted her chin accordingly. He pulled it back at the last second with a laugh to skip over her, throwing it to Shane behind her so she couldn’t catch it as they briefly played Keep Away. 

Eventually, by the third time Ilya caught it over her head, she hit him in his chest and rolled her eyes with a pout when he wouldn’t let her take another shot. Then he got to Shane. 

Shane, who hadn’t had a single drink tonight yet, felt intoxicated as shit. 

For this, he shook his head no to decline. He felt drunk already. Plus, he hadn’t had vodka since he lost his virginity. The sentiment felt a bit too raw still. 

“Why not?” Svetlana pouted. “You have to take one for me.” 

“Maybe next time.” Shane laughed, until he looked at Ilya’s face. 

He wasn’t frowning or smiling like he’d been all night. He couldn’t explain the look on his face but it made him regret rejecting him. 

“But there may not be next time.” He said finally.

“Sorry?” Shane cleared his throat. 

Ilya’s tone erupted chills all over him. Like he was talking about this as a significant phenomenon and not just a drink. Maybe it was. 

“We may never get this chance again.” Ilya elaborated. 

Shane would’ve laughed if he didn’t look so, completely serious. 

Ilya and his sexy intensity - a seemingly inseparable duo. It was either all there and all gone. In this moment every drop of it was out of him, soaking into Shane like liquor and intoxicating him even more. 

His hands had begun to fidget, lost on what to do with themselves but squirm nervously beneath the heat between them. 

“What chance?” 

“This moment.” Ilya gestured to himself. 

The girls. 

Scott and Miles. 

And Shane. 

New York chanting around them had disappeared. He was right. This moment was beautiful. He’d just left Shane a little speechless that he felt it too. 

“We may never get the chance to return to this moment again.”

“Those English words really just roll off your tongue, don’t they?”

“I watch a lot of American movies. Not my words. But good words.”

Shane smiled really wide when he finally recognised it. He had just quoted a monologue from a series they were studying in his 8 a.m. English class that Shane adored. 

Appropriately titled New York, I Love You. 

It was like he’d just professed something to Shane that he’d be cruel to reject. 

“You don't want to have drink with me, don't have a drink with me.” Ilya shrugged 

“My mother always told me, ‘Не откладывайте на потом то, что происходит прямо сейчас.” 

He said something in another language - probably Russian - then translated

“Don't put off something to later that's happening right now. This moment is now .” 

They stood there in the moment passing each other this look now. Not for very long. Ilya broke out this winning smile that knew he’d already convinced Shane as he was now stepping closer and opening his mouth with his head tilted back. 

It was an obscene pose but, maybe that was sorta the point. 

The crowd had suddenly returned. And they were deafeningly loud as Ilya poured his shot down Shane’s throat. 

“Good boy.” He smiled so wide, Shane felt blinded. 

His joyous excitement and happiness now felt erotic and adrenalised. Letting someone spill alcohol down into his body, he’d never felt anything more intimate than this. Vodka takes him to sex. Or it did once upon a time. He wondered if each time he drank the clear pool now, would it always lead back to him and this moment.

Anytime anyone asks him how old he was when he had his first drink, Shane Hollander would say he was 18. And he’d say he had his first drink with Ilya Rosanov. 

The burn in his throat was hot and raw just as he imagined Ilya would give it to him. 

He couldn’t be satisfied enough from those hot fluids shooting down his throat like an express train with zero stops and it seemed that Ilya couldn’t get enough of giving it to him either as he held the back of Shane’s head so he wouldn’t fall out. 

It was way more than a single shot but it never stopped coming. And coming. A coming . And Ilya’s face as he watched Shane take it was terribly hot , his mouth in a gaping smile with his bottom lip curled over his teeth . 

Ilya was on the tip of his toes the more Shane pulled back. They were enjoying this way too much but the crowd gassed them up each time they thought it would stop. 

When his stomach became syrup, Shane’s hand grabbed the neck of it over Ilya’s hand and pulled off, spilling a bit on his lips and dripping down his neck as he choked, coughing while Ilya rubbed his neck to soothe the burn but, that only made it intensify. 

Ilya told the rest of the people waiting that it was the last of it - which was a lie - as Shane wiped his mouth, laughing the entire time, which made Ilya laugh almost uncontrollably too. 

5 minutes later, they were sitting on a bench against a wall after Ilya had got Shane a coke to chase it with so he wouldn’t pass out. 

“Maybe you'll like Tammy's better.” Ilya’s leg bumped Shane’s as he drank and let out a cool breath. 

He looked at Ilya and they both burst into tears laughing again. 

He couldn’t believe he’d just done that. 

“Who's Tammy?” Shane asked.

“Cafe around the corner.” 

“Not gonna lie… I prefer Ginger Ale if you’re gonna treat me.” 

“Okay, I’ll file that away.” Ilya started laughing again when Shane did before he shrugged. 

“That was just my mea culpa for enjoying nearly killing you so I won’t burn in hell. I’ll accept my fate if you don’t want to.” 

Had he just… offered to take Shane for coffee? 

“I think she’s closed anyways.” He laughed a little nervously. 

His leg wouldn’t stop bouncing and it would’ve made Shane nervous if his head wasn’t dissolving into swirling liquid. He was too buzzed to notice much of any of the details he usually did sober. 

Mea culpa. The phrase left Ilya’s lips like sweet honey, the same colour of his eyes as he smiled at Shane in this lower lighting. 

“So you don't like apologies either then.”

Ilya laughed with his head back, then he looked at Shane again, shaking his head. “As much as I like 8 a.m. class.” 

Shane only shook his head, snickering as he sipped his coke. 

“I think I'll take the vodka.” He decided. 

“Seriously?” 

It was looking to be a night of pure laughter. 

Just after, Rose and Svetlana rolled up to them, along with Miles and Scott. 

“Are you ready to go?” 

“Not really.” Ilya said to the girls, honestly. 

“Because you like it here so much.” Svetlana crossed her arms. 

“No. But, I think I like Shane Hollander.” 

There was that moment again. It wasn’t what he said that made Shane feel warm again. It was always how Ilya said things. Like he meant it.

How he said his name did things to him that made him feel more drunk. He didn’t know what exactly this moment was called. Serendipity or something. But he knew they’d only said his name once and somehow, Ilya knowing it already felt profoundly significant. 

“So does that mean I can come with you?” 

“You could always come with us Shane.” 

He wasn't gonna get over how much he loved how his name looked in Ilya's mouth. He thought he liked Ilya too but that was never a question. 

Just as they were fixing to leave this place in their small party of now 6, something catches Shane's attention behind them. Something dangerous. 

He didn't know what it was that alerted him of danger this time. Call it what you want, a premonition or a gut feeling. He just felt it all over him. 

Maybe it was a change in the air or the shift in the crowd. Or maybe a butterfly was flapping its wings in India, who the hell knows. But he knew that whatever was approaching wasn't coming for him. 

It was coming for Ilya. 

In front of him, he felt Ilya go stiff right after. And he really means he felt it, like they were connected in some freaky way. If only to confirm this, Ilya happened to look back at Shane at the exact same time with unease, like he's about to ask Shane if everything's okay. 

It's not.

See not everyone liked Ilya, and he knew that. Not to say they wanted to see him dead but, let's just say if 99% of everyone Ilya knew saw him getting jumped in a dark alley or drowning in the Hudson river, the only thing they'd save is their energy. 

So there they were, Shane and his new drinking buddies moving towards the front door to hop across the street to another party. Shane had been holding his stomach with a disturbed expression while everyone else was chatting and still having a reasonably good time... when out of nowhere, a pack of 16 linebacker-looking keg heads appeared in the doorway they're headed for. All wearing the same letterman jackets. 

Alpha beta phi, looking around with their equally beastly eyes. A lone wolf might be scary but he's usually more bark than bite. But this lone wolf went and got his entire pack, Randy at the front of the line as he looked through the crowd with his brothers. 

Shane instantly knows who they're looking for and his stomach drops like a slope on a rollercoaster. Shane reacts before he even knows he's doing it. 

He thinks he’s reaching forward to snatch Ilya back with him, but the movement is too much for his stomach as everything moves by in a blur of motion. 

2 things Shane realised that he had absolutely no control of. 

1, he was way drunker than he originally thought. He was a light-weight drinker and Ilya had the good stuff. 

2... he was gonna vomit. All over the floor and everyone's shoes on the floor. As if there weren’t already 16 horrid adverts for steroids ready to kill Ilya, now a few dozen others were about to be ready to kill Shane too. 

The solution to this problem? Well, it wasn’t run. That for sure wasn't happening with the state he was in. But that was kind of what they ended up doing anyway. 

Two drunk idiots, an entire frat house and a closet door. What could go wrong?

✯✯✯ 

If you asked Shane where the city was, he wouldn’t point to a place on the map. He’d tell you to look into his room. You’d find a living, breathing person with a body he loved to explore. And he’d tell you his name was Ilya Rozanov. 

Not a New Yorker by birth, but this city was definitely Ilya’s. 

Just like Ilya, Shane enjoyed exploring every part of New York. The City always has this part of him he's never explored before. Always some new restaurant popping up or street he never thought to go down. The most maddening thing about him was that for anyone who didn’t already know the self-proclaimed centre of the universe, The City was easy to get lost in like the bottomless pit he was once you reached a certain point. 

So now, Shane was expanding his horizons and giving himself a cheat code to the game: entering Ilya’s side of the room. A.K.A. East New York - the parts of The City you are supposed to stay away from (unless you want your body stuffed into a dumpster).

That’s what Ilya told Shane. 

“Mess with my shit and you are gonna be scattered all over Brooklyn. Vy ponimayete?” He said the last part in Russian. You understand? 

Shane promised him he understood. He never said he wasn’t going to. 

So now, here he is. Breaking all of Ilya’s rules at once. Touching almost everything in his drawer, testing his threat and blasting his Avante Garde music that Ilya loved to tease him about (which was just smooth jazz today). 

He’d be safer playing with fire. 

If Ilya walks in right now, there will be no hope for Shane’s survival from Ilya boot going so far East up his ass he’ll be speaking Russian too. 

The Ilya’s side of the room was just as effortlessly well kept as Ilya himself. He absolutely hated anything dirty, unless it was a girl talking it. 

Naturally, Shane was extremely neat as well. Both sides of the room were totally clean 100% of the time. If a single bed sheet is out of place, even a stranger would notice because it’s so clean in here that messy things stood out like a sore thumb. But no one paid greater attention to detail than Shane did. He was diligent with everything he came across, keeping track of every crack he put in each wall and memorising where to put everything he took out back in place exactly as he found it. 

He flips Ilya’s silver lighter open and lights the cigarette dangling his mouth as he smokes leisurely even though smoking is banned in this building, propping his knee up nonchalantly as he's tossing magazines around and ignoring the nude models that witness his trespassing as he blows smoke in their faces. He sure did have a lot of dirty magazines. 

School, money and his love life definitely weren’t a part of Ilya that needed investigating so that’s not what Shane is looking for here.

As far as money went, unlike most 19-year-olds. Ilya has had pretty decent savings that he mostly blew through on tuition. He also was the kind of person that sleeps through class and still somehow aces every exam. Shane doesn’t know how he did it. He told Ilya he was half convinced he either cheated or gave his professors that extra charm dangling in his jeans (Men were not immune to it either). 

That only made Ilya laugh, never revealing his secret. Shane was more interested in his history. Family. Friends. Life events. That kind of thing.

He figured, if he couldn’t get a clear and sober reading of Ilya in person, maybe he could in print. Like finding a bio stapled over his belongings. 

Turns out, Ilya’s stuff was just as unclear as him. If anything, going through the forbidden side of The City has only got Shane more lost than before. 

This place was just like any other of Ilya’s black holes. 

Shane finally finds something as clear and straightforward as possible: A half-empty bottle of something called “Everclear” deeper in the drawer next to a half-empty of Valium. He freezes for a few seconds like he’s staring at a nuclear weapon before he puts out his cigarette in the ashtray on the end table next to Ilya’s bed. 

Carefully, he turns the bottle of Vodka over to read the label.

“190 proof! Holy Christ ...” 

96% alcohol 

He swallows air like he’s dehydrated, feeling his mouth drying up just reading the label. He makes a mental note to add sage into his bowls of potpourri to burn in here later and maybe every day for the rest of the year because this bottle of poison was surely retrieved from the depths of hell. Even though it was against their dorms policy to have flammable stuff in their rooms. This seemed like it should've been on that list of things too. 

He’s never seen either of these before and it's turned his curiosity into concern. This could knock someone out permanently if they weren’t careful. 

On top of it, using alcohol to wash down anxiety medication made an even worse potion of death that would kill you faster than the two could individually. No wonder Ilya is always wired like electric in fucking copper when he’s sober. He’s assuming Ilya has this for anxiety or possibly depression? But he didn’t even know he had either. 

Until now, Shane didn’t think anything could possibly make Ilya nervous, let alone anxious or depressed. He knew Ilya might’ve had a problem but he didn’t know it was bad enough to go through this kind of medication. He seems to be trying to put out a fire with lighter fluid. 

Everyone told Shane to get out of this room. That he’d live to regret being around Ilya this much. That he’d get sucked into the mess of him. But if anything, Ilya has gone out of his way to make Shane comfortable here by hiding stuff like this. 

Everyone thinks there are empty bottles lying around in his room all the time but, Ilya’s not a messy person in general (they could not have lived together if one of them were messy). At the very worst, it smells bad in here because there’s loads of ashtrays and cigarette smoke in their room a lot of the time. But, Shane drowns out the smell with copious amounts of fall scented potpourri in bowls he sits on every surface this time of the year, burning safely like incense of the autumn spirit. 

He carefully moves the bottle to the side, holding the neck like it contains hazardous waste that’ll make him grow a second head if he lets it touch his skin. He doesn’t know how he feels about such a large dosage of valium being half empty. He hopes Ilya doesn’t take this with vodka. And he’s praying it’s not an addiction. 

It’s like he’s finding Ilya’s skeletons he’s stowed away under his bed. Shane forgot why he even went in here in the first place. He’s just being plain nosy now after falling down the rabbit hole, wondering what else he’ll find just for the sake of finding it. 

Ilya’s even got Shane in here. 

One of his older Taylor Swift albums is jammed into the pages of an issue one of Tommy Hilfiger's weekly magazines that he pulls her out of, holding his lip in with a grumpy frown as he tosses it back over to his side. 

Shane hasn’t seen this since the first month he moved here. He imagined Ilya listening to this in secret and feeling like someone else, like how Shane did. 

“American music makes me feel like I belong to the whole world instead of Russia.”

That’s what he told Shane one night on a fire escape from the outside of a party that was playing his favourite song as they were staring at the Brooklyn bridge. The stars were infinite and immortal and they laughed about becoming one of them. 

They could faintly hear partying in the background of their conversation that they were totally disconnected from. Just the two of them alone together with a beautiful night sky. 

It reminded Shane of something from an Indie movie. When the main character bumps into someone in the hall or on a balcony while avoiding the party downstairs and falling in love. That was before he knew Ilya was his elusive roommate. He just always remembered Ilya saying that to him that night, even though they were both off their asses and probably shouldn’t have been up there. Shane liked his kind of quiet confession. 

It was also sadder and more humbled than he expected someone like Ilya to be. Everyone else may call him a black hole but Shane felt the same way about Ilya that Ilya felt about himself. 

Ilya didn’t belong to Russia. He was his own city. An entire country. He was the whole world. The sky itself. He never slept and he was never where you expected him to be, a city that belonged to the whole world. And that is the extent Ilya’s closet has gone. 

Anything personal about Ilya’s likes or past was left out of the picture. Not even a favourite album of his own. Sure, he knows Ilya better than probably anyone. But knowing he’s a closeted Swiftie isn’t enough. 

Ilya’s side of the room was so impersonal. Just a hockey poster, ashes he shared with Shane, and a bunch of school work. There was no soul to any of this. Like the person who owned this side of the room wasn’t there and Shane doesn’t just mean physically. 

Even when Ilya was in the room sometimes, like his eyes, it felt hollow. The person inside would leave the room to take a walk and maybe get lost somewhere. 

The hollowness gave off this apocalyptic vibe inside Ilya. As if he came from a place where everyone in the world died and he was the only thing that managed to escape the same fate but, just barely. A place vacant inside he didn’t keep a story from or sentimental trinket or picture of. 

Shane didn’t know much about his life in Russia. No siblings or friends aside from Svetlana or reminders of his family or a home of any kind to indicate who or where he was before here. This has only made Shane wonder why, more.

There were so many questions about Ilya he always had in his head. They used to be simple. Who are you? Where are you? Are you even alive ? 

Now, they were the same questions. Complicated questions. 

Who are you? Where are you? Are you even alive? 

When it came down to it, Shane just couldn’t ask upfront. The only time they had those kinds of intimate conversations is when they were drunk, which conveniently would be the time neither of them would remember it very well. 

Getting Ilya drunk on purpose to trap him into an honest conversation wasn’t a thing he ever considered doing like his friends suggest. There was something really sick and borderline abusive about the idea of getting Ilya drunk for his own benefit. Like feeding a junkie morphine so they go along with whatever you want without them knowing. 

Shane’s not manipulative. He’s just the world’s best detective living with the world’s one and only living ghost. 

He doesn’t know how to ask Ilya the stupid “what are we?” question without it sounding dumb. Russians probably don't ask that question and if they do, it's never the answer you want to hear. 

The main reason Shane’s been obsessing over this lately was because they hooked-up way more often than before. It’s become like a routine. While Ilya would never say it, their trysts mostly just felt lumped in as another one of his frill indulgences. Like it’s become another bad habit of his. 

It didn’t seem like a pleasure to Ilya. Just a thing he needed, like eating every day or sleeping. It was the same with getting drunk. Partying and drinking wasn’t something Ilya enjoyed any more than brushing his teeth - just a thing he did. His consumption of them both like an empty vacuum was another addiction he depended on as an alternate form of sustenance - his version of breakfast, lunch, dinner and sleep. 

Vodka in his Starbucks. In a milkshake. A peripheral IV line hooked up to his veins if it were possible. He doesn’t “go to sleep”. He passes out in a liquor-induced haze or parties until he drops. 

Everything was a cocktail. Even Shane. He couldn’t survive without them and Shane thinks he’s sorry for that. Whether the addiction was the substance abuse or Shane… they were interchangeable sometimes. Too many bad habits to be sorry for. 

He feels like he’s surrounded by clues staring him right in the face that he just can’t seem to put together in the correct sequence to make the bigger picture of Ilya that he’s missing. He's supposed to be studying from the books sitting at his feet for his exam tomorrow morning but, design could really wait right now while Ilya was still gone, doing whatever. 

He leans his head back on Ilya’s bed that he woke up in this morning with no good recount of last night in its entirety. 

He had a foggy memory of having a few too many glasses of wine downstairs in the lounge, then stumbling up to the room and going to sleep next to Ilya until he woke up alone. 

He never slept in his own bed that much, even if Ilya was out somewhere overnight. His bed was comfier and he didn’t mind Shane sleeping in it. He slept here so much, it smelled like both of them, a strange mixture their bodies concocted to make their own personalised cocktail. 

Outside the window, the Brooklyn bridge stares at him. 

The roadway is filled with traffic zipping in both directions going between Long Island and the city as a thousand strangers drive up the bridge. Then a thousand more replace them, every second of every day. Another few hundred who don’t drive probably just got off the train somewhere on the other side. He wonders if Ilya is one of them out there, hitting on some girl downtown. 

They can see this from their bedroom because their neighbourhood faces the very bottom of downtown Manhattan, the heart of the city with its iconic skyline right across the East River. It’s even more beautiful at night. At twilight, the sky turns the skyscrapers poking out of the ground into a metallic orange that fades into dark silhouettes. Then, the lights start to turn on like a fleet of stars descended on them. Shane probably had the best view of the city in all of Brooklyn, right here in his bedroom. 

While the room fills with cool jazz, Shane fills with memories. 

His mind sweeps back to the first time he noticed that a whole other world was right across from his room. The river's distance closes in on him, setting him free to swim through the warm memories in his head. 

The first time he saw the city on the other side of that bridge with Ilya, he felt its presence with every one of his senses, not just his eyes. It didn’t feel like an inanimate space people temporarily occupied but something that had a soft soul that silently held entire worlds inside of it. Like Ilya himself - a whole city. A whole world.

He was drunk but he remembers that part of the night pretty vividly. There was a blue moon witnessing their night from where it sat in the dark sky, breathing and beating with them. Ilya stood at the very edge of the balcony with his eyes closed like Batman overlooking Gotham. Shane was sure that if he took another step, he would’ve grown wings and flew above every street with his shadow overcast the leaden skyline. But that was the vodka thinking. 

It was the night Shane fell in love (with the city, that is). 

He can remember hearing his heart racing and falling in love with his pulse, like he could hear the whole world’s body and breath next to him, enjoying the feeling of being alive together. 

“New York… I love you.” He snorts to himself, uttering the words as he closed his eyes.

The first time they ever got smashed together. That one night, last September. Shane didn’t really think of the night he officially met New York as the night they almost died like his friends did. 

More like the night they realised something even more beautiful than the skyline: that they kept each other alive. 

✯✯✯ 

365 days ago 

The way Shane stumbled into Ilya, you would’ve thought he was blind. Seeing the end of your life flash by your eyes might do that to you. 

He was reaching through the air with enthusiastic blindness like he was trying to reunite with the love of his life that was returning home from the war that was sure to be on the other side of his hands. Ilya turned around at just the right moment in time and caught Shane in surprise, returning Shane’s frantic energy as his arms caged around Shane’s body. 

“Whoa there,” Ilya’s winded grunt as he stumbled when he caught Shane while Shane got buried into his neck, gasping from the shock of suddenly being all over him. Without a single hesitation he held Shane still so he wouldn’t fall, so oblivious to what was coming behind him that Shane forgot about it too as his senses were overloading. 

Ilya’s heart beating against his chest and the warm security exuding from his body made him completely forget everything that was happening around them. The girls asked Shane if he was alright, their concerned faces surrounding them. Ilya swatted them off like flies so they could have space, not letting anyone else touch Shane like he was the only one that could carefully handle this fragile jewel. 

“Just leave him be, he said can’t feel his legs--” 

Did Shane say that? He couldn’t remember saying that. 

“And who’s fault is that, jackass?” Svetlana snapped back, tugging Rose away with a scowl. 

They were followed by Miles, who patted Shane’s back supportively as he went by with Scott. 

And so Shane and Ilya were now alone. 

They had finally met in the middle of a little empty pool on the dance floor as everyone made room. If Ilya wasn’t there, he was sure he would’ve knocked his teeth on the ground. But Ilya’s arms were so strong, they felt like steel around Shane as he held his back while Shane’s went around Ilya’s neck. 

The familiar smell of the ancient spice and cigarette smoke in his hair made him feel way older than Shane. It added even more to this rugged edge with Shane’s chin hooked over Ilya’s shoulder to get a nose-full of soft, curly hair that’s tuft fluffed each time he let out a breath. 

It was all so contradictory. How soft he felt as opposed to how hard he looked, that depth to him Shane was already becoming addicted to touching. 

“Forget how to walk?” Ilya asked in his ear with a hint of a tease.

Shane hadn’t forgotten how to walk. Someone had killed all the nerves in his legs and sent wild pricks to shoot up and down with each movement. He wanted to get them amputated. 

“You’re lucky you smell like Chanel.” 

Shane snorted into his shoulder with his eyes squeezed closed. He loved Chanel. He had about 5 different bottles. 

“Bleu de Chanel.” He mumbled. 

“Expensive.” Ilya didn’t seem surprised. Then he said, “Now do you remember how to walk?” He enunciated carefully. 

“I dunno.” 

After seeing those big guys enter the room knowing they were on the hunt for them, Shane was trying to remember how to fly . But the room was spinning slightly, so his mind was preoccupied. He didn’t know what the fuck was really in that flask but, it had to be illegal. 

He simply drank too much, too fast and his body was not happy about it. He hated that it took a minute to kick in because when it did, it kicked into his guts with the toe of a demon’s boot. He honest to God could not feel his legs anymore. They must’ve walked off without him. So Ilya held him until they came back. 

Pressed against each other like this, even their hearts were hugging. Ilya’s was nice and steady while Shane’s thumped away to the beat of a fast-paced song. 

It was similar to how Ilya held Svetlana when she stumbled into him. Totally fine with it and not at all annoyed.

He could see why she clung to him the way she did. Ilya was so sturdy, muscular and warm, Shane’s body felt stunned into a pause that went against psychics. Like feeling his even heartbeat was calming him down. He even forgot that he was on the verge of puking everywhere. 

Shane could’ve stood up on his own by now but he didn’t want to. There was again an illusion that there was nothing to rush for or worry about because he could trust that someone had him. Only this time, it wasn’t an illusion. Ilya really did have his back in his hands and Shane wanted to keep it there. 

He briefly wondered what it was like to be a human magnet for clumsy people, and what would happen if Ilya walked by a pub on the Lower East Side. Would an army of drunks suddenly stumble out and kill him in an avalanche of bodies? 

“I don’t think I’m a magnet. It’s stronger than that.” 

Ilya’s answer to his question let him know that he’d said it out loud. And also that Ilya was very self-aware of the gravitational pull he had on people. 

“I’m more like… vortex.” 

“A vortex?” His chin turned a little on Ilya’s shoulder to look at the side of his head. 

“Yeah, like… how do you say? Um… tornado! Everything gets sucked in. Drunk bodies, animals. Lost dogs follow me around. Police… bird shit,” Ilya smiled when Shane laughed. 

“My superpower includes chaos and havoc so, I think it just follows me around to match my energy. Although, I don’t think it’s powerful enough to move any army of drunk people, otherwise I chose the wrong profession.” 

Shane wanted to tell him he was really funny and ask if his profession was stand-up comedy but his stomach made an unholy sound.

He was afraid that if he opened his mouth again, the only thing that would come out this time was the wine and sushi he ate for dinner 2 hours ago. He couldn’t stand how heavy and hot his tongue suddenly felt in his mouth. He wanted to spit it out, if only it weren’t attached to the floor of his throat and everything in his stomach. His whole body was stuck on a landmine, one move the wrong way and he’d blow to bits. Even worse: he had let this beautiful asshole poison him and now, he was dying. 

He made up his mind that Ilya was the kind of guy that would take someone under with him if he was drowning in his own river of debauchery. And no one told Shane, the poor sucker that went and reached a hand out to a drowning man, to stop before Ilya killed him too. 

Actually, that was a lie. They did warn Shane. He just had to touch him. 

“I’m such an idiot,” Shane mumbled into his shoulder, almost crying as he thought he was never gonna learn. 

Ilya shook his head, his hands moving reassurance into Shane’s lower back. “No, you’re not. You’re alright.” 

He was so patient. The way he held Shane made him almost think he’d forgive him. 

He was telling Shane he was okay and to take it easy, this wonderful poem of lies in Shane’s ear. He asked Shane if he wanted to go sit down again but he didn’t know how to answer. He wanted Ilya to let him go so he wouldn’t get sick on him but never let go at the same time. His arms felt like the safest place in the room. But not even Ilya’s touch was stopping his body from ejecting everything he dunked into it. 

He felt the sick rise again, this time at speeds too fast to stop. The momentum was wild. Too wild to hold in a second time. 

He couldn’t hold it any longer-- 

“Hollander, wait, ” Ilya pulled back and begged him not to throw up on him as he physically covered Shane’s mouth with his hand (as if that would stop his projectile from turning into a sprinkler). 

His head turned to look to the side, presumably to look for a place where Shane could do this that wasn’t at the centre of the room. He was quick-witted enough to move them closer to a table against a wall a few feet away without taking a hand off Shane’s back, both of their legs tangling and untangling as they moved across the floor that felt like it was made of ice. 

They probably looked like they were waltzing together. 

Everyone in their pathway had enough brains to move out of the way which would’ve been great if only it weren’t drawing more attention. But Ilya was moving them away from the direction of the frat residents so Shane thought they’d survive the night without getting caught here. 

He fucking thought. 

There was a long intermission for Shane to get sick. 

While Ilya helped Shane find something to vomit on that wasn’t his outfit, his hand or the floor, Shane clumsily reached for whatever it was Ilya pushed in front of him. It all exploded out the second Ilya let go when the smell of dirt and pesticide scented flowers filled his nose. Petunias in September? The horrid decor of this house only made him vomit more into the ugly vase.

First time he receives flowers from a cute boy and he pukes on them. Shane mentally gave himself a congratulatory pat on the back for surpassing his record for “most-embarrassing-thing-he’s-ever-done-in-front-of-a-crush” as he bent over the table with Ilya behind, holding his back for him. 

This obscene spectacle went on for about 10 to 15 seconds. 

It felt like he’d just uprooted his ribcage through his throat when he got it out. He felt better but he was still ready to demand Ilya take him to the hospital for the internal damage and pay the bill for his dry cleaning. 

“Damn,” Ilya grimaced, holding Shane up as he patted his lower back. “I am so-”

“No that wasn’t your fault, I’m sorry,” 

It was Ilya’s fault for practically choking Shane and forcing it down his throat. Even though he really liked that at the moment, all of it coming back up was horrible. But he just didn’t want Ilya to feel sorry for him. Whatever internal threats Shane had to sue him were diminished the second they met eyes, Ilya’s a little obstructed from his hair falling in them. Ilya’s mouth was curled up into an apologetic frown and there was too much genuine worry, like he was expecting Shane to pass out on the spot. 

Shane couldn’t contain his embarrassment. Everyone saw that but he couldn’t look up at the stares. He was going to wipe off his mouth with his sleeve and disappear forever, absolutely kicking himself for going against his gut and leaving the gallery early to come here instead of staying in his room today. Ilya grabbed his wrist before he could, shaking his head snatching a tissue from the table to give him before pulling Shane along with him.

“Kitchen,” He said, “don’t wipe anything on yourself.”

While Shane was led away back towards the kitchen, he began to wonder why the hell Ilya was bothering when all the models were going the other way. He hated pity. The longer this went on, the worse he knew he’d feel about it all tomorrow and hope he never saw Ilya or anyone here again. He couldn’t wait until he got home where he could be embarrassed alone with his non-existent roommate. 

“Is everyone this nice in Russia?” Shane asked. “I thought you were all rude assholes.” 

“Yes. We are. One big, rude family.” Ilya nodded. “Much better than boring Canadians.”

“We’re polite.”

“Boring.”

Shane laughed despite himself.

“And anyways,” Ilya moved on instead of debating who’s got a dumber culture.

“I just shoved 6 fluid ounces of poison down your throat and I feel bad for making you feel like shit so why don’t you let me relieve my crippling guilt, yes?”

To Shane’s ears, that screamed any excuse to keep his hands on something he liked tonight. Ilya reached in his back pocket and maneuvered around his flask for a pack of gum he had stashed away behind a box of cigarettes. It was one of those jeans with triple pockets, perfect for holding everything in the universe. It was also an unintentional moment of Shane checking out his… back pocket. 

Amazing asset. Very nice.

He offered Shane a stick of gum between his fingers with an apologetic smile that Shane accepted. He wanted to tell Ilya if he kept smiling at him like that, he wasn’t ever going to get rid of him. 

Instead he said,

“Someone who doesn’t like apologies and thank you’s can feel guilt for his own indulgences?”

His lungs took a nice, cool breath as he asked for another stick of gum. The flavour was called rain. A tingling spearmint and universal elixir to nausea.

“Not to…. fellate myself but-”

‘I will gladly do that for you.’ Shane made sure not to say that one out loud as he looked at the crushed cigarettes and plastic red cups littering the ground.

“-my certification for inebriated debauchery allows me a poetic license on self-indulgence.” He told Shane.

“Those English words really work for you, huh?”

“College student, remember?” He reminded Shane. 

“For 2 weeks.” 

“I’ve been here studying all summer. Also, lots of American movies.”

“Impressive.”

“Any comments, questions or concerns, my people could be in contact with your people anytime after we get your… information.”

Shane laughed as Ilya cautioned the preamble to his personal constitution in a way he seemed to have prepared to recite from. He stopped walking to actually make Shane write out his “information” on a gum wrapper which Shane figured meant his address and number, using Ilya’s back as a drawing board and a blue ballpoint ink pen retrieved from Ilya’s pocket. 

Ilya looked over his shoulder with his lips sucked into a smile as he watched Shane write on his back. Shane was definitely keeping up with the banter all the way. He was good at flirting with just about anyone and not a single detail slipped by him. 

Ilya just casually asked for Shane’s phone number. This guy was pretty damn slick.

He handed him back his gum wrapper and held in a grin as Ilya pulled it back and looked at it like it had suddenly turned into an apple. He blinked at Shane.

“Is this real?” He asked slowly. Shane nodded.

“19.” He said. “Your number is 19.”

“Yeah.” Shane nodded again with a giddy smile. “Chanel number 19. If you want me to forgive you, I like gifts.”

It was the hardest he’d made Ilya laugh yet, a magical sound.

“I see, your people are hard to contact.” Ilya nodded with a smirk as he brushed his hair back off his head with a smooth movement of his hand, which ended up around Shane’s shoulder right after. Shane looked down at his hand with a smile when Ilya pulled him a little closer.

So slick. 

His hair looked really nice out of his eyes. It made him look really young with his wide eyes, soft and dewy like a doe with a dozen points of spots and bright lights scattered through them. It was like looking into the eyes of another universe.

Jesus be damned if he wasn’t the most beautiful thing Shane had ever laid eyes on. He was the perfect mix of mesmerizingly sexy.

“You wanna gift then you’ve got it. You’re leaving here with more than a headache tonight. Consider it a souvenir from me.”

Did that mean Ilya was walking him home? That sounded like a great idea. 

Shane still to this day does not know what the fuck was wrong with him at the moment and what lead him to say what he said next. Maybe he was getting too comfortable or maybe some of the alcohol had killed a few of his brain cells but, he looked at Ilya and said,

“That’s a nice way to admit that you’re also an enabling alcoholic.”

It wasn’t really the implication that made him regret saying it but the actual word he used. He didn’t know why he made such an insensitive comment. It just came out before he could stop it. 

He was thinking about what the girls were saying about staying away from Ilya and not going home with him so his thoughts sort of jumped out of his head and spoke for themselves again. Whether or not he was in the right headspace in saying such a foot in the mouth thing, nothing could excuse him from the look Ilya gave him in response to that remark.

Ilya looked at Shane, thrown with a caged animal sort of look on his face.

For a split second, Shane almost thought Ilya was about to let him fall on the ground and leave him there. It was like Shane saw all the charm actually leave his body.

Instead, Ilya’s grip actually got a little more secure, squeezing Shane’s shoulder as he began to walk again.

He was looking ahead with a frown. 

“I just wanna make sure you’re alive tomorrow, Hollander.” 

There was no hint of a joke behind his tone. Shane looked at how hollow his eyes were from this angle, like they changed depending on the lighting. They looked so glossy, you could probably see your own reflection. Although, he got a feeling inside that it wasn’t the lighting at all but the person inside that shined out. He could see his mood through his eyes and where they pointed him to and when it caged him up inside.

Right now, he was pointing far away. Like he wasn’t here in this room but far off in some distant dystopia. Shane reached into his own pocket and gave Ilya a card with his number and address for real this time since he actually had a legitimately sweet reason for wanting it, not really caring anymore if Ilya was flirting with him or just being a decent human being for wanting to walk Shane home. He pocketed it with a tight smile.

He’d enjoy getting a call from him tomorrow and telling him he survived. And maybe skipping the opera he bought tickets for and going to Tammy’s instead as he suspected it might’ve been Ilya’s favourite place to get coffee. He had a tape of La Traviata he could watch at home. 

He wasn’t thinking about any of this romantically at this point, even if Ilya did have an impressive jawline and lips that looked perfect for being treated like a seat. He was thinking he actually wanted to be friends with him. 

His arms around Ilya’s waist tightened as he was safely guided along through the crowd of people again, enjoying being taken care of and bossed around. Ilya told Shane how to suppress the urge to gag by squeezing his thumb into his left fist if the gum wasn’t stopping him from feeling like throwing up again. 

“At least then, you can buy yourself 4 or 5 seconds to find a safe place to do it instead of exploding on the spot.” 

Shane already knew how to suppress his gag reflex. But Ilya’s knowledge about it too got him wondering why on Earth would he know that kind of “tip” Shane had only learned in the boys locker rooms. He looked at Ilya with studious concentration while watching him, studying his body language and reevaluating his overall vibe again. 

It was like a blind person trying to read braille by staring at it. 

‘Is he…?’

No… he couldn’t be. This guy fucked models. There was no way.

… right?

The only vibe Shane was getting from him was that he looked way more familiar from behind.

Svetlana’s voice started calling Ilya’s name behind them from some distant recess on the other side of the room they’d long since left behind, breaking Shane’s curious thoughts as they looked back in their direction. Her head was popping out of the crowd from her hopping up and down.

Ilya gave her a half hearted wave of his hand to go ahead without them so he would catch up later. 

She called him on his cell phone a few seconds later to tell him they were heading to the tenth floor because they heard the DJ from Scott’s band was up there.

“Scott has a band?” Shane whispered and Ilya nodded, taking his mouth away from the phone.

“No. More like he’s the leader of a shitty hedge fund all his money is draining into. I promise you, I’ve subjected you to enough torture tonight-”

“HEY, FUCK YOU!” Scott’s voice jumped across the room. 

They looked at each other and began laughing again.

“Sorry, sorry, you’re great. At hockey.” 

Ilya agreed they’d be there right behind them. Listening to them talk on the phone to each other almost made Shane laugh. Even a normal conversation sounded like an argument.

While Ilya talked to Svetlana from 20 feet across the room, Rose smiled when she saw that his arm was still around Shane even though it didn’t need to be. Even Scott broke out into giggles after she says something to them that makes everyone look back at Shane at the same time after Ilya says into the receiver that Shane needed air. 

He didn’t know why but it made him blush.

Ilya rolled his eyes, telling them fuck you and goodbye and that he’d see them later, hanging up. 

He started telling Shane that he didn’t like girls walking around alone in the street when it started getting dark but they were in a decent group now and Scott was tall enough to be intimidating so if they decided to leave the building, they’d be okay without them. He was a real gent under all that bravado. Shane didn’t think he deserved all the bad reviews.

He zoned out as he was listening to him, the same nagging question never leaving his thoughts. Usually when talking to a guy, this question could be deciphered within 5 minutes, 10 tops. They were carrying on an hour here and Shane was still debating on heterosexual, bisexual or humanitarian?

Whatever he was, if Ilya needed to relieve his “guilt” or whatever with Shane tonight, he had no reason to stop him. And then, they get to the threshold of the kitchen where Shane saw a flash of 3 letterman jackets. 

He was startled by the reminder of danger lurking here, like he’d just looked down and noticed they smeared with blood and swimming in shark infested waters. It wasn’t just a sick feeling that he had to vomit like before. He knew what would happen if they were seen and Shane hated fights. 

The crowd was the safest place they could be. He practically body slammed into Ilya to take him out of sight. Ilya was not expecting to be met with all of Shane so suddenly but it was all he could do to not be caught entering the frat boy swamp ahead. He could hear their squeaky boots from the wooden floors that were still trashed with beer, ambling their way now which either meant they were caught or they were about to be caught.

“What are you-”

“Randy’s friends are out there!”

“Randy?!?” Ilya cried with a loud guffaw as he stopped him.

“That’s what you’re so scared of?”

Shane unfortunately wasn’t as fearless as Ilya. He had 16 things to fear in Brooklyn tonight. Shane asked him what he feared, if not the fragility of his life. 

Ilya looked Shane in the eye, totally serious again.

“Death… and my mother’s cuisine. They go hand in hand.”

Shane turned Ilya around and held his shoulders from behind to point him in the direction where he could see the small fleet approaching them now that their cover was fully blown and Ilya’s eyes rolled.

“Fantastic,” he groaned. “Now he grows balls.”

Sometimes, over-confidence gets people killed. Drunk over-confidence was even worse.

In this shitty situation, Shane would have just tossed himself out the damn window. There was nothing stopping him from making a run for it, screaming after seeing no other way out. But the windows were nowhere nearby and he wasn’t going anywhere without Ilya in tow because this dude seriously didn’t know when to bail on his own. And he wasn’t about to let Ilya get the living fuck beaten out of both of them either.

Fortunately enough, adrenaline was a hell of a lot stronger than vodka. This was something Shane was the best at. Run for your life.

“Ay,” 

They already see Shane backing away, tugging on Ilya .

“AY! YOU!”

And now, everyone’s running.

Shane took off, pulling Ilya along with him until Ilya turned and shoved his way to the front and through the crowd to lead the way. He promised Shane he would get him home in one piece. If they were making it out alive, they were stomping out. 

“‘Cuse me… EXCUSE me, move the FUCK out of the way please!” 

“There’s another door that way!” Shane pointed to the side but Ilya shook his head no.

“I can’t leave my skateboard here!”

He kept looking back to make sure Shane was there when he let go to break into a full-on sprint. Shane was suddenly a highly-functioning drunk too. These boys were ducking and diving like olympians through the hurdles of people, never pausing once. They tripped 3 skinny hipster boys but they didn’t have time to stop for apologies as they hopped over. He couldn’t feel his legs again but that didn’t stop him.

They took the long way around the room just to shake the guys behind them until they lost them in the crowd. But it was all in vain. They ended up at the threshold of the kitchen again to get Ilya’s skateboard that was leaning against the wall. 

Shane remembered too late that he’d counted 3 more guys over here not too long ago and going this way was a bad call. And of course, they had to show up right then.

Randy’s friends popped up and Ilya stopped in his tracks and put his hands up like he was being arrested. He pulled out this charmed smile while Shane plastered into the back of him, holding Ilya’s shoulders in terror and getting ready to throw up all over again.

“AYE!” Ilya greeted them with such genuine delight, they paused for a second like he’d stunned them with a hat trick.

“Funny seeing you here?”

“We LIVE here! I told you if you show up in this neighbourhood again and you’re good as DEAD.”

“First of all, I just moved over here 2 weeks ago and that officially makes us NEIGHBOURS.” Ilya said back. 

“That’s just bad manners. This party was Night of the Living Dead before I arrived.”

That was true. He could say he was single handedly responsible for the amount of uncoordinated dancing and intoxication happening around them. Shane got a signal from a hand behind Ilya’s back when he felt fingers tapping his belly to get his attention. 

Ilya was pointing 4 o’clock to their left. 

Sure enough, there was a closed window with a balcony on the other side and a fire escape attached to it. The space leading to it was perfectly empty, free to speed through without injuring anyone. 

Shane let go of Ilya and backed away slowly while Ilya was distracting this section of the frat house surrounding him now, allowing Shane to slip out without being noticed. For once, he was grateful for his perpetual blind-spot syndrome working in his favour as everyone’s attention was sucked into the vortex that was Ilya. He got to the window and opened it to let the freezing cold September ice slap him sober but he stopped when he heard, “You fucked my girlfriend!”, behind him. 

He looked back at Ilya and a frat boy was in his face. But Ilya was, of course, completely calm. Maybe even amused.

“Does she have a name? I did a lot last weekend.”

Shane covered his mouth and laughed listening to Ilya stalling as he was explaining the situation.

Shane looked down and noticed his foot had moved his skateboard underneath and that he was gradually and inconspicuously rolling forwards. Ilya was goading the biggest guy into (trying to) punch him on purpose. One step forward and he was taking out every guy behind him.

“Go back home. Try to grow a 9 inch cock and maybe she’ll like licking yours too, yeah?”

That was when he swung at Ilya. 

As expected, Ilya pulled his head back out of dodge, right out of the flying fists range that missed. And then he did something unexpected. As he pulled back, he lifted up his leg and stomped on his board so it flew up. 

The only thing that got a hit was Ilya’s skateboard in the frat boy’s face. His aim was perfect. It went between them, right smack into the bridge of his nose between his eyes. It stunned him as he stumbled back into the other two guys. 

When someone else from behind grabbed his back, Ilya shoved him off his shoulders and kicked his board behind him when it came back down so the guy would slip on it and fall back against everyone else in a domino effect that even caught a few innocent bystanders and reached all the way to the long table against the wall as at least a dozen more people got knocked over. 

Ilya was possibly the only person in the world that didn’t need to fight to take out half of the house. It was like everyone in the frat fighting to defend their honour brought loaded guns to a demolition site.

Ilya’s foot caught his board from behind like he had eyes in the back of his head, hopping over the threshold as it flipped under his feet, while everyone else was distracted by the trainwreck on their right.

The flower vase full of vomit had fallen off the table and crashed on the ground, spilling out a nasty concoction of stomach curdled-infused dirt in front of the other guys who were running over this way. 

They all slipped on its contents and we’ll just say that their outfits were no longer wearable. 

Shane felt a little disgusted and a tiny bit thrilled that he micro-managed to save the day here. He got Ilya out of sight and they sort of took down the entire frat house together. It was a beautiful team. 

When Shane looked back over to find Ilya again, he was gone. It all happened so fast, if you blinked once you would’ve missed the whole thing.

All that was left from Ilya was a trail of chaos in his wake, as he promised there to be. The remaining 5 frat guys who weren’t covered in puke or nursing a bleeding nose noticed he was gone at the same time Shane did and they all split up, pissed as ever.

Shane should’ve climbed through the window and made it to the ground by now and gone home. Ilya had his number and Shane had a memorable first ever frat party experience. But it felt wrong to end the day without seeing Ilya again or knowing for sure if he got out too.

He abandoned the window and went back to the kitchen to find Ilya and make sure he was okay. He wasn’t anywhere in sight in the kitchen nor in the foyer at all. Just frat guys ducking around like they’d find him stowed away in the cabinets. 

Ilya hadn’t let him in on this part of the plan. That is assuming they had a plan.

“Hollander? Where are yo-- HEY!” 

Shane whipped around towards Ilya’s angry voice behind him. He was outside, through the kitchen’s window and leaning in from the balcony glaring at Shane like he was the idiot who didn’t listen to instruction.

“What the fuck are you still doing in there?!”

To be fair Shane wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be after going outside. But it clearly wasn’t to go back into the kitchen after everything it took to get out of here.

Ilya got a smile on his face, telling Shane he wasn’t really mad at all.

“You with me or you wanna hang with them?”

It wasn’t a question that needed to be answered. He hurried over to the window and Ilya helped pull him up, one hand down Shane’s back while the other held his hand. Shane looked back at the guys in the kitchen again, who were now alerted to Ilya escaping and he panicked. Even if they didn’t give him a second glance, seeing them go after Ilya terrified him even more.

They were on the 5th or 6th floor of this building. If he got into a fight on that fire escape or even tripped the wrong way, any one of them could easily fall to their deaths or at the very least, fall on broken legs. As the nearest guy raced towards them, Shane thought fast to kick the keg behind at him with his dangling leg. It was lying on the ground and in perfect line to throw him off. It wasn’t even that much force but it still swept right under his feet and sent him to the ground and Ilya jumped, startled with a wide grin as he dropped his cigarette from his mouth.

“Oh my God,” 

He seemed shocked by Shane’s act of violence as he pulled him all the way out of the window, Shane laughing into him.

“Not so boring afterall, huh?” Ilya laughed after locking the window, giving the guys inside the middle finger. 

If only he’d seen Shane’s expulsion when he got out of the hell hole known as high school. He wouldn’t shit himself.

As Shane collected himself, he thought that maybe he’d tell Ilya the story of how he purposely got sent to boarding school one day. But as easy as it was to talk to him, he highly doubted they’d ever get personal enough to start sharing horror stories about ex’s.

With the adrenaline peaking so much, he didn’t even flinch at seeing how far away from the ground they were or how dodgy the firescape holding them over it was. Ilya moved Shane to the side so he could take a few steps back to kick at the lock until it broke. 

Shane was too winded to even reply yet after all that running as he leaned on the railing now that his legs were giving out again, wiping sweat off his head and spitting over the edge to the ground. Slippery ice sickles sliced under his fingers when he grabbed it for leverage, melting under his hot hands.

The drop was lethal. One slip and they were scattered omelettes. Ilya grabbed Shane to stop him from climbing down.

“It’s rusted down there. I can’t have you dying on me.” He told him, handing him his flask. Shane took another drink as he squeezed his eyes close.

It went down much smoother than the first time and the burn felt good in the cold. Smooth enough for him to take another two drinks. It was starting to taste like water, only instead of giving him rejuvenation, it kept him warm. Ilya took it from his mouth as he told him to slow down, patting his stomach with the back of his hand.

Shane laughed as Ilya pushed for him to go the other way.

“Come on, Canada. Move it!” He yelled as shaking Shane’s shoulders so he’d climb up instead.

It seemed to go against logic but Shane trusted him enough to think he wasn’t leading them into more doom by going up instead of down. He didn’t know how many levels they were climbing but, it feel pretty fucking high. He didn’t dare look down to check. It might’ve been cold but the air was dry and windless. The kind of atmosphere that makes people do drunk, thirsty things.

They got off the first ladder and Ilya went to lead the way to the next one as he passed Shane who followed behind.

The way the apartments in this building worked was similar to the one Shane lived in down the street. Every fire escape leads to an apartment. Every apartment leads to a shared hallway at the core of the building like a skeleton connecting each floor, wooden staircase to wooden staircase. 

It didn’t matter which one they used to get out. As long as it wasn’t any that belonged to anyone in Alpha Beta Phi. 

Shane only hoped no one was in the hall so they could sneak out without having to run another marathon. He didn’t think he’d survive attempting to run down stairs in this state. A straight line already took 100% focus.

A big white cloud blew away from Ilya, into the air above his head. From behind, Shane couldn’t tell if it was smoke or his breath from the cold. 

It was a while before anyone said anything and Shane had lost count of how many levels they’d gone. 

He just wanted to hear his voice again.

“Is anarchy and chaos really your profession?” Shane’s voice was finally loud enough for him to hear himself out here.

He saw the cigarette dangling from Ilya’s mouth from his profile when he looked to the side.

“You could say it’s my night job.”

Shane thought about that, looking for a title. 

“Trouble maker in Brooklyn.”

“I like anarchist in New York. Sounds more sophisticated.”

“What’s your day job?”

They were getting closer to the racing sounds of interstate 278, the BQ expressway that ran through northern Brooklyn. The sound of it was too loud to hear Ilya’s answer as he shivered, holding his arms as tight as possible to retain some heat.

“Are you cold?”

“No, I’m fine.” Shane responded quickly when Ilya looked back at him, trying to stay focused on the sound of the expressway.

The adrenaline had finally run out, allowing his head to clear.

He started asking himself what the hell had he just gotten himself into. It was like he’d just looked at everything from the outside and seen for himself what happened. How close he came to getting hurt. He’d just been all over this complete stranger, letting Ilya drag him around without knowing where they were going and trusting him to no end. Even looking ahead now and seeing the edge of the building. It was like he was following Ilya towards the edge of Earth.

It was too dangerous. 

Maybe it was normal to get nervous around a guy like him but, it was finally unrelated to any bias those girls filled Shane’s head with. He was now simply wondering for himself why he was attracted to boys that scared him and why he put himself in positions to be hurt because of it.

This space between them needed to stay in place now. Even if Shane had to freeze in it.

“You’re cold.” Ilya snorted, slowing down so they were walking side by side.

Ilya was sure to stay on the frightening side were the edge of the building hung off while Shane stayed safely inside near the brick wall. It was like he knew Shane was afraid. He kept a reasonable distance and his hands stayed in his pockets instead of on Shane now. But the heat his body emitted made Shane gravitate closer against his better wishes, making their shoulders bump every other step of the way.

He could hear his heart beating in his ears like a drum as he held in his lips and stared at all the windows they went by. 

A few they passed were full of dancing bodies in neon lit rooms, music bouncing around against the rails and vibrating the metal under their feet ticklishly. It was a good distraction from his nervous thoughts he concentrated on keeping in his head.

As they passed by window after window, some of the dancers were swirling around on the floors like totem spinner tops and Shane stopped to gape at them in awe.

“Wow!” He gasped. 

“Breakdancers.” Ilya said from his side.

Ilya walked ahead and turned back so he was facing Shane and looking through the windows too while walking backwards.

“You know, when they dance on the floor during the break of a song--”

“Yeah, I know what a breakdancer is.” Shane snorted with his eyes closed.

“How many American movies have you watched?” 

“A lot.” Ilya shrugged.

While Shane laughed a little, Ilya told him to look out for a girl dancing to heavy metal because that window will be their pit stop. Svetlana and Scott’s band, Shane figured.

They searched through windows.

The sky wasn’t completely black yet. It was a cool, peacock blue faded into indigo. The kind that was fading on their side, getting darker and darker the closer they got to the edge.

“I said I play hockey at NYU, by the way.”

Shane blinked over at him again. 

“Huh?” 

“That's my day job.” He explained more. “Film is just a hobby. Hockey is probably first.”

He told Shane he started it when he was a kid. That hockey was basically his whole life. After he discovered he loved skating and fighting and being a general menace to all of society, he was addicted to it. 

Okay, so he was insane.

“So you're really good.”

Ilya squinted a little.

“Was that a question and statement?”

“Both.” 

“Didn’t sound like there was a question mark.”

“Smartass.” Shane tried not to smile, thinking of the way he handled the frat boys. 

“You're good.” 

Shane told him that he played hockey as a kid too, and sometimes still watches it when he has the time to.

“You know Hollander, I've been waiting to hear you speak since the beginning of the semester.”

Chills stopped Shane.

He stood there, staring at Ilya in front of him unblinking. Ilya stopped too, this huge smirk on his face with his lip bitten in.

It was all so familiar again. He searched all over every part of his beautiful face and found nothing he’d seen before today, unable to pinpoint where they’ve met or how the fuck had he forgot a face like that if they had.

"...what do you mea…?" 

He couldn't even finish the word that his brain was grasping at.

“I sit right behind you. You’re like, the quietest person ever."

And then, it hit Shane harder than Ilya’s skateboard in that frat boy’s face. Where he’d seen Ilya before. Why he knew how to quote that movie. Maybe they didn’t know each other but… they did.

His eyes grew wide at the flash of the kid behind him that sleeps through every last lecture in his 8am English Lit and Film studies class. Someone who’s face he’d never actually seen. Just the sluggish way he hung over his desk.

"I remember you! Ilya Rozanov, you DICK!" Shane blurted as he leaped forward and pushed him while Ilya laughed.

“You’re ‘hung-over douchebag’?!?”

It came out like that was Shane’s nickname for him. He wasn’t at all offended by his title.

The cigarette fell out of Ilya’s mouth and down through the grate below them as he was stumbling back drunkenly, dropping his skateboard behind him as he did so. Shane reached out and caught his hands before he tripped over it.

"I TOTALLY SIT RIGHT NEXT TO YOU!"

“I TOTALLY KNOW!” Ilya yelled back at him, mocking his enthusiasm as Shane pushed him again in frustration, not caring if he actually fell this time. 

“Technically, you sit in front of me. And ignore me.”

“I ignore YOU?” Shane was beside himself.

“Yes! I can stand right in your face and you wouldn’t even recognise me-”

“You’re never awake! At least I’m conscious.”

Ilya rolled his eyes with a laugh to the side as Shane continued to yell at him.

“Why did you act like you didn’t know me?”

"I mean… I don’t. Not really.” Ilya shrugged honestly. 

“I wasn't sure if it was really you. The fact that you wouldn’t talk to me gave it away. I thought you were either ignoring me on purpose or you didn’t recognise me. I was hoping you’d say something first but,” He trailed off.

Shane held his head with his eyes closed as he paced back and forth. So Ilya was waiting for him to say hi that entire time!

He felt like screaming or punching him for no reason at all.

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Because I just figured out that you’re fucking AFRAID OF ME!” Ilya yelled at him through his wide grin. 

“Jesus, you sound like my mother! And anyway, I wasn’t expecting you to sound like that. It kinda threw me off.”

Shane’s cheeks were burning hard as he covered his smiling face.

"Canadian or soft?"

"Humble."

“‘M not afraid of you, asshole.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Alright he was. But he was warming up to him now.

“I know I’ve got a resting bitch face but, I promise you I’m very nice if you give me a chance.”

‘Obviously.’ Shane thought. 

It was all too rich for words. 

"Small world." 

"Small city." Ilya nodded in agreement as they began walking again. 

“I recently even saw the same rat outside of my gym everyday for a week.”

Shane laughed loudly into his hands, shaking his head at him. 

“You’re so silly.”

He couldn’t stop smiling and staring at Ilya now as he watched him talk. 

He never in a million years would’ve thought he’d be partying with “passed out guy” in the after hours of his day. And he most definitely wouldn’t have thought he’d turn out to be this funny and cool to hang out with and not just some loser who smelled like an ashtray and probably had drugs and crushed beer cans lying around in his room. 

Most importantly, he wasn’t prepared to see his face. 

They were both exceeding their own private expectations they held to each other.

Shane was supposed to stay away from boys like this. Brutally beautiful and cut like a knife. But now he knew he was going to be doing the opposite because he wasn’t ever letting Ilya sleep through class ever again without saying hi.

“So, what brings you to the 9th level of hell?” He moved on as he prompted Shane to talk now, turning backwards again to watch him as he walked. 

He gestured to a random window.

“I’ve never seen you anywhere over here before. Keg party doesn’t really seem like your speed.”

“No, it’s not.” Shane laughed softly, looking down at his shoes as he shrugged.

Ilya waited for him to go on.

“I…” He hesitated to say the truth of why he came. But, he couldn’t think of a good lie. 

“I always hear parties happening, through the walls of my place,” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Mac. 

It sounds just like this in his building. Bass thumping distantly from somewhere too cool for him to be welcome at. He almost laughed at that pathetic thought.

“I always tell myself I should go out and meet people cause I don’t really know anyone here my own age but pretentious art students I don’t fit in with. It’s kind of dumb being alone in a city like this. But, I never do because... well, I wouldn’t know anyone. And no one really likes a wallflower. I guess I sort of talk myself out of being social. It’s so easy to just sit comfortably at home, drinking your own drinks and listening to your own music.” He chuckles to himself. 

Ilya tilted his head, listening intently as he put his hands in his pockets. His attention was completely focused on Shane and it almost made him uncomfortable how his eyes never left his. 

“What’s your drink? Ginger Ale?”

“Asshole.” Shane laughed. “Wine. What’s yours? Rubbing alcohol?”

“Now who is asshole…” Ilya smiled, then answered. “Vodka, probably. The Russian kind. So yes.”

Being paid attention to was weird for Shane. Direct eye contact, too personal. Kind of like when someone touches you when you least expect it and you’re caught off guard or startled just because someone is suddenly there, feeling you. Their privacy from the rest of the world suddenly startled him, being felt by Ilya up here on a roof. 

Sure, Shane was the only other person here with Ilya. So that automatically made him the only other point of focus. But when you’re used to being ignored, alone or falling in the background of everything, suddenly being pushed to the centre stage threw him off from just hearing his own undistracted voice. There was no frat party surrounding them. No mannequin shaped models hanging around or in the way distractingly and no loud noise aside from the distant echo of city life, traffic and a few parties happening somewhere they weren’t.

Shane’s voice was loud and clear and someone wanted to hear what he had to say. Ilya’s brows rose, the gesture telling Shane to go on after he’d paused like he forgot his lines.

“I guess I was just tired of hanging out alone.” He admitted. 

It was totally honest. Being in his empty room constantly since his roommate had died was starting to get depressing. Not really dead. But the ghost of him was always there so it felt that way. 

He made sure he didn’t say any of that last part out loud. 

Ilya was now frowning a little while Shane rushed to continue so his introverted-nature wouldn’t sound completely depressing.

“I saw this notice about a mixer with 80 kegs. It seemed like it’d be a good time.” He shook his head at Ilya.

“So did I.”

“We ought to sue for false advertisement.”

“Got a good lawyer?” 

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t. I’ll probably have a notice in my mail tomorrow for my own lawsuit.”

Shane snorted down again, shaking his head at Ilya.

“You know, you’ve got yourself in a little loop there. The desire to leave your room to meet people but not leaving your room just because you don’t know anyone.” He said, addressing what Shane told him.

“Yeah, I’m a self-contradiction.” Shane agreed.

“But that’s normal.” Ilya shrugged. “Even if you know someone at a party or wherever, you could still feel alone. Your proximity to people doesn’t make that much of a difference.” 

“Yeah?” 

That sounded really profound coming from him, like he’d just read something out of a book. But that was just him being a little judgemental of the accent.

Ilya gave a small nod as he looked over the edge thoughtfully.

“We’re in a city of strangers.” He shrugged again. “In Russia, people pass each other in the street and don’t even glance at each other. It’s the same here. One night stands you never meet again. Meet at parties through friends of friends, share personal information and never see them again. Ignore each other in class….”

Shane snorted as that one sounded a bit accusatory. 

He still wasn’t over Ilya thinking he was the one being ignored. Ilya snorted to himself at a private thought as he shook his head.

“Just a bunch of strangers on the same island.”

He could probably recite the alphabet and make it sound intensely profound. Shane watched him staring out over the edge, wondering if someone like Ilya ever felt lonely.

Ilya turned forward to kick his board ahead of them and put his hand in his pocket to reach for his lighter again, trying to rekindle a new cigarette since the last one had fallen out of his mouth after Shane’s brief freak out.

‘Smokers.’ Shane thought. ‘What a disgusting habit.’

He hadn’t smoked in over 3 years. But he remembered always wanting to look cool which turned into always needing to do something with his hands even when he wasn’t trying to look cool. 

Ilya held his cigarette as sparks flicked sporadically behind his cupped hand. Shane held up his hand on the other side to help him out until it finally lit and he nodded a thanks, blowing out smoke quickly before taking a long drag.

“This place is so different from where I grew up, though. The grocery store is Korean. The super of the apartment I currently live in is Italian. The doorman of that place is German. The deli man is Israeli. The laundry guy on 78th is Chinese. The best bartender around here is Irish. The best diner next to him, Greeks. The watchsellers are Senegalese. The newsstand guy around the block is Indian. My last cab driver was Pakistani. The falafel guy is Egyptian. My girlfriend is American and the guy who I’ve never heard speak in my 8am film class is from Canada. It’s like I moved in with the whole world.” 

A trail of smoke drifted from his nose twisting around like a lost soul just escaped his body. Only one word really stuck in Shane’s mind.

Girlfriend. Shit.

“Can I have a smoke?” Shane asked, distracting himself from his internal irritation.

He suddenly needed a cigarette. Probably wouldn’t do any good mixing with what’s in his stomach but, he didn’t really give a shit right now.

Ilya gave him a strange look as he handed him the last one from his pack.

“You okay…?”

Was he okay?

As reached for cancer and lied as he told Ilya he was fine, he noticed how clenched his jaw had become. The more he drank, the more it relaxed.

“Do your Canadian parents know you smoke and drink?” Ilya continued to give him his annoying side-eye, probably because of how Shane had begun sucking down the flask like a thirsty fish.

That made Shane chuckle as he wiped his mouth and let Ilya give him a light, Shane rolling his eyes afterwards. 

“You think I'm a goody too shoes?” He started laughing then, that uncontrollable bubbling that didn’t know how to react to panic or nerves.

“This is college. Everyone is drinking.”

He was feeling way looser around the edges than before so the nerves were dying off. Like if he shook hard enough, the shape of him would collapse into a poof of smoke. He kind of wanted to do that right now. Dissolve until he couldn’t feel the edges anymore. 

He stumbled a little and Ilya caught him upright but he pushed him off this time, keeping himself steady with his hand along the brick wall.

Ilya frowned a little when Shane pushed himself along unsteadily. 

He couldn’t look him in the face anymore. So he stared at the sky, it’s void looking like something he could jump into right now.

‘Girlfriend. He has a girlfriend. Wonderful.’

So what the fuck? Were they not exchanging numbers not too long ago or was that just Ilya being Ilya? Things seemed to be going a lot better when he was drinking, so he kept swallowing despite the feeling in his legs going in and out.

“’m not as innocent as you think-” He hiccuped.

“Don't lie.” Ilya said. “This is the most scandalous thing you've done in your life and I'm the coolest guy you've ever met. Admit it.” 

This was most certainly not the most scandalous thing Shane had ever done. 

Shane laughed louder than he needed to as they rounded another sharp corner after passing by a hundred windows neither of them looked into. 

“You think you know me?”

“I think I do, yes.”

“You don’t.”

Ilya didn’t rebuttal with words. His smirk did. It was starting to piss Shane off. Everything about Ilya was starting to piss him off now.

He felt like proving him wrong.

He leaned forward a little like he was adjusting his arm while looking at Ilya with his lips held in, then moved his hands behind his back without Ilya noticing as he stopped walking. 

Ilya looked back at Shane with raised brows.

“What?”

“Pretty nice watch, huh?” 

He nodded down to his wrist and Ilya stopped, looking down at Shane’s arm with a blank face. He must not have noticed how close they were standing. 

He took a few steps back and held his chin to think real hard about what he was looking at, his cigarette dangling between his two fingers as he stared for a few seconds.

“Is that my watch on your wrist?” He asked slowly.

“That's your watch on my wrist.” Shane nodded.

“How… the fuck… did you do that?!?” 

“Everytime I bump into you, I steal something.”

Ilya laughed as Shane unclipped his watch and tossed it for him to catch against his chest.

He lost his last cigarette of the night. His pack was empty now. 

Shane could tell from the unsure look on his face that he was trying to figure out if Shane was bluffing or not. He didn’t give Shane the satisfaction of checking to see if his wallet was still in his right front pocket.

Shane told him that was his super power. 

“So what, you’re some kind of ninja thief?”

“No. I’m just really good at doing things without getting caught.”

“Like ninja thief.”

Shane laughed.

“More like partially invisible.”

He told him that the rest of the world was so unobservant that he could probably slip into a bank vault without anyone noticing.

“Then why are you an art major?” 

He had no clue how Ilya knew that.

“I heard you talking to the girls in the kitchen.”

Shane nodded in understanding, flushing a little.

“Why not put your powers to use and be a secret agent or a spy?”

He loved how completely serious Ilya asked this. As if they really were villains discussing their superpowers on a fire escape, trading stories about what they did with their secret identities.

“Well for one, I don’t like being in danger.” 

“I sure can’t tell.”

Shane ignored his smirk as he went on with a grin.

“Two, I really, genuinely love everything about art and design. I mean, I’m not an artist myself but I like looking for the little details in paintings, hanging them up and decorating a room with it. You can make a living doing that, you know.”

“Is that why you came to New York?”

It seemed like he was trying to figure Shane out. Shane just answered question after question. He told Ilya he was here originally because he got an internship with this French-born artist that owned 2 galleries. One in Canada, one in New York - his new base. Enrolling in NYU was an after thought.

Even though he was kind of an unpaid assistant at the moment, he loved every second of it.

“Art agent in the making.” Ilya was reassessing Shane now. 

“Alright. I may have misjudged you, pick-pocket.”

“You may have.” Shane nodded, blowing out smoke and letting Ilya take a drag too.

“So the question becomes: what aren’t you good at?” He said with a mystical voice.

They started walking again, sharing their cigarette. At this point, they weren’t really going anywhere. It was possible they’d rounded the building more than once. This floor was attached to the roof so the balcony circled the top of the whole building.

Shane thought about that for a few seconds. 

“Making friends… being alone… and… lying.”

All 3 honest answers.

“Your turn.”

Ilya took the same amount of time that Shane did.

“Keeping friends… staying alone… and telling the truth.”

Shane laughed and bumped his side with rolled eyes.

“You can’t just re-write my answers!”

“Alright, alright.” Ilya smiled as he squinted up at the sky.

“... there’s nothing. I’m pretty much perfect.”

He already knew Ilya was going to say that. There wasn’t a more perfect thing he could’ve said but that he was perfect.

“Okay, ll Divino.”

“You think I’m the devil?”

“No!” Shane laughed into his hands.

“I said Il DiVINO. The guy I work for, that’s his stage name. It means ‘The Divine One’.”

“Well that's cocky.” 

“That's what everyone called Michelangelo.” 

“Why?” Ilya’s eyes flitted over Shane’s lips and nose with eye contact that sent chills down his spine.

It occurred to him again how close they kept getting. There was so much space around them but it seemed like they could only gravitate towards the warmest thing. Ilya noticed Shane noticing and he backed up a little as he blinked to the side.

“Sorry, I’m asking a million questions.” He laughed nervously. “I don't know shit about art.” 

“No, it's okay. Umm…” Shane closed his eyes as he swallowed, trying to focus on what he was saying.

“They called him that because he was talented at just about everything he did. He mastered marble, sculpting, painting - you name it. You've probably seen the statue of David and the Sistine Chapel, yeah?”

Ilya nodded, ever intense with his eyes zeroed in on Shane, like he was soaking in ever word. 

Shane was starting to like being the point of focus, like there was a spotlight pointed at him. Even if his cheeks were on fire. 

“Right. Well, he did that all by himself. And anyways the guy I work for, Divino, he's no Michelangelo but he’s really skilled at silhouette and design. And I love his paintings. He does a lot of contemporary pop art, like Andy Warhol mixed with renaissance. There’s this whole trend everyone’s been doing lately called “anachronistic”, when you take something old and put a modern twist on it. Like a Mona Lisa holding an iphone. But his style is intergalactic. Like chariots in stars and space… I dunno, it's kind of weird. But every single one I see, I just want to step into it and fly around. He'd probably paint something just like this.” Shane gestured to the full moon in front of them, growing brighter over the river. 

He felt like he was talking entirely too much or boring Ilya. He’d been looking forward again for a while now with his lips pursed.

“Sounds like an interesting guy.” He finally said.

Shane wondered if it was obvious he had a little crush on his mentor. He looked over at him.

“I… got an extra ticket to his exhibition if you wanna see it next week. I think you'd like it.” 

“Is it for someone else?”

Shane didn’t understand what he meant.

“Someone else...?”

“The ticket. Do you, like, have a…” He trailed off.

Shane’s eyes opened wide then, realising what he was asking.

"Oh! No no,” He shook his head quickly. “Not at all.” 

He couldn’t bring out the words I’m single. Uttering that phrase sometimes lands you in a horrible relationship, like hexing yourself. 

“Okay.” Ilya smiled. “Then why do you have an extra ticket to something like that?”

As he ran the conversation back in his head, it hit Shane that it unintentionally came out as if he'd just asked Ilya out on a date that he hadn't said yes or no to. He was too mellow to panic hard about this so he just laughed with his hands in his pockets like Ilya's.

All he could do was tell the truth right now.

“I always buy multiple tickets, just in case I invite someone. There's so much to do. Why wouldn't you want to share the experience with someone? Make memories."

"I agree."

It felt like they'd been talking up there for hours and hours. And it was so easy. Just like talking to someone he’d known for years. The sun should've been coming up. But, he noticed Ilya's watch was broken and Shane's phone was dead. Even then, he had no desire to look at the time.

"How is it still night?" Shane snorted as they leaned his arms over the end of the railing like Ilya. 

"I swear there was a full moon at the beginning of the month already. I feel like we’ve been up here forever and it’s still dark.”

"Didn't you know?" Ilya took a drink from his flask as he stared at the blank canvas of the sky. 

"It's a blue moon tonight. Time slowed down."

“I don’t think that’s how time works, Rozanov.”

“That’s how it works at night, Hollander.”

“More like in dreams.”  

Ilya nodded slowly as they both watched the moon's freckled face in the dark.

“Yeah…. like in a dream.” 

It was like he’d agreed with Shane about where they really were.

Maybe that's why he felt like they were up here for hours. It was so familiar, it reminded him of walking with someone through a dream in a comfortable, homely atmosphere. Just as comfortable as he felt when he was alone

It felt like they’d done this a million times before, some kind of inextricable link they could feel being near each other.

He wondered if that’s why he brought him up here.

As if on cue they heard Dreams by Fleetwood Mac beating from the party behind them. 

“I love this song.” Ilya murmured.

He wondered if Ilya brought other people he met at parties up to rooftops to look at the moon with and share stories and say they’ll hang out again just to say it, only to never see them ever again once they went their separate ways. Shane didn’t want this to end like that. Even if he hands Shane’s number. It didn’t feel substantial.

He had an urge to go home with him. 

He kept staring at Ilya’s Adam's apple bobbing with each sip and his lips around it, the way they sucked in and smoothed his tongue between them to lick around slowly for moisture as he traced the stubble sprinkled down his neck with his middle knuckle. 

His movements were so sensual, like it was happening in slow motion. 

All Shane could think was how thirsty he was and how he’d die to do that to him. Taste his lips to quench this dryness in his mouth. Kiss him until the moon disappears. Fall into him and let their moonlit skin do all the talking.

But then he thought about Ilya’s girlfriend. How someone else got to be with him all the time and touch him whenever she wanted, wherever she wanted. See his whole body. Make his heart race and make him moan and cum.

A tinge of jealousy tightened in his throat as he looked away from all those ridiculous impulses he knew he’d never in a million years act on, feeling just as blue as the moon for his cowardice to touch an unreachable boy. 

Ilya’s seemingly forward glance darted over to Shane beside him from the side of his eye inconspicuously before looking ahead again. 

He was biting in a smile and trying not to laugh as he swallowed, wondering if Shane was going to do it. 

“Why is it called a blue moon?” Shane squinted. “It doesn’t look blue at all.”

Ilya finally let out a burst of laughter that Shane didn’t understand. 

“What?”

Ilya shook his head with that smirk on his face again.

“It doesn’t mean it’s actually blue.” 

“What’s it mean?”

“Depends on how you look at that.” Ilya tilted his head from side to side. 

“In songs and films, it means lost love and melancholy. Look hard enough and you’ll see the perfect picture of loneliness in it. In actuality, it’s the second full moon in the span of one month. Very rare. But I always remember it the first way.” 

Film students.

Shane looked at him again with a snort.

“Are you really that smart that you’re one of those people who hoards random facts you’ve got on hand at all times?”

“No…” Ilya tilted his head again.

“My girlfriend left me on a full moon.” 

It stunned Shane. 

He’d said it so casually in the middle of the conversation. The way he went on almost made Shane think he hadn’t said it at all. But he knew he did. Especially with what Ilya said next.

“I remember because it was September, this time last year.” He went on. 

“Saw it on the 1st. Then I saw it again 29 days later after she left. I always seem to lose people in September.” 

The city across the river was glowing bright, twinkling lights something to gawk at in awe. But all Shane paid any attention to anymore was Ilya and his profound awareness of the moon.

“Lose someone on a blue moon, call it a lunar heartbreak.”

Shane had to hold in his triumphant scream of,

His girlfriend left him! FUCK YES!

That might’ve come off a bit insensitive. 

“What do you call it when you find someone on a blue moon?”

Ilya looked back at him, his face right next to his and his eyes focused right on Shane’s mouth when he asked.

“Rare.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

This moment passed between them, staring at each other in silence.

Kiss him. Kiss him!

They were right there, leaning into each other. He could feel all the nerves coiling up inside him as Ilya closed his eyes. But the nerves took over. 

Don't say anything awkward. Don't say anything awkward. Don't say- 

“Why’d she leave you?”

Jesus Christ, what the fuck Shane! 

He hadn't known he was holding his breath until after he'd got the question out. 

Ilya stilled as his eyes flicked back up to Shane’s with the caged look of being thrown off again. He blinked once to the side for a moment then looked away, his brows knit together a little. 

Dreams faded away and the moment was lost. 

Shane was squeezing his eyes hard and hitting his palm to his forehead behind Ilya's head. 

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Ilya bumped into Shane as he thought about it seriously, concentration weaved into his eyes as he stared at the sky. 

“She wanted to model and there was nothing left for her to do in Russia. I kind of got the same idea the next year. I guess she was never really my girlfriend to begin with. That’s just what everyone thought. I liked her a lot, but she has her own life now. More like… my best friend. Sometimes we fuck but, it’s nothing more than that. I’ve never wanted more than that from anyone.”

His final answer seemed heavy. Shane frowned a little as he looked at him. 

Before, Shane felt so nervous to be close to him and uncomfortable with the attention they gave each other. Studying paintings for hours on end taught Shane that if you pay too much attention to something, you might start seeing stuff you don’t like. 

All that stuff didn’t matter anymore. He was enjoying sharing intimate details between each other just like how he’d started enjoying what should’ve been a terrible party. He suddenly wanted to know everything about Ilya and tell him just as much in return. His filter had completely dissolved.

He suddenly wanted to tell Ilya everything about himself. Almost everything. 

“You're not wrong. I've never met a boy like you. No one’s probably ever met anyone like you.”

He had no idea why he said it. It was so uncensored, even Ilya seemed mildly taken aback by the random compliment. 

“Thank you?” He said with uncertainty, unsure if that was a good or bad thing just the same as Shane was.

“My parents don’t care.” Shane nodded towards the flask he was still drinking from. He turned into chatty Cathy, unable to shut up like Ilya’s side effects of getting drunk were now Shane’s. 

“They don’t care about the right things. They let me smoke and drink on vacations in foreign countries all the time.”

He told Ilya he’d started smoking after a holiday in the Côte d'Azur the summer he turned 14 and that he hadn’t seen his parents for 4 years afterwards because they sent him to boarding school 2 months later.

“It was supposed to teach me independence and confidence but all I learned how to do there was-”

He abruptly cut himself off before he could say, All I learned how to do was suck dick.

“Was what?” Ilya squinted.

“How to be boring.”

Ilya squinted even more.

“Ah. So it’s something someone taught you.” He looked ahead again.

“Did you think it was genetic?”

“Probably.” Ilya shrugged, and Shane laughed.

“Never been to France or boarding school.”

“Everyone smokes there. Even the children.”

Ilya laughed at that.

“Europeans are really crazy about that.”

“I noticed.” 

A thought occurred to Shane. 

“Your watch is broken, by the way.” 

Ilya glanced down at his watch dangling over the rail and nodded like he already knew that.

“I know. I got it this way.” 

Shane hiccuped and stumbled over a pocket of air when he started walking again. 

He didn’t push Ilya’s arm off when he caught him from behind, pulling the back of Shane’s shirt before he got too far ahead so he’d stay next to Ilya and not fall over the edge of the building. He let Ilya keep his arm around his waist this time since he didn’t know how to walk. Ilya took his flask from Shane’s hand that was dangling at his shoulder and slid it back into his pocket then slipped his hand over Shane’s.

“What’s with the broken watch?” Shane squinted at it over his wrist. 

“It’s a nice watch, why don’t you fix it?” 

“I don't wear this on my wrist to use it. I’ve had it since I was 12. My mother gave it to me the night before she died. Also on a blue moon.” 

Silence fell over Shane for about 5 seconds before he started asking unfiltered questions again.

“Why'd she give you a broken watch?”

“I don’t think she knew it was broken when she gave it to me. I never got the chance to tell her it was. But it’s ironic now. Time's the only thing we didn’t have enough of. She told me not to waste it. It always reminds me of her.”

Ilya let go of Shane’s wrist so he could rub the back of his neck like he was embarrassed by the fact that he’d said that. 

“I’m sorry.” Shane couldn’t imagine life without his mother. He didn’t see her that often, but he doesn’t think it’s the same as knowing he’d never see her or hear her voice again.

“It’s okay.”

“That's really special. I wish I had a broken clock. Maybe I’d stop wasting time too.”

“What are you wasting time doing?”

“Falling for the wrong guys.”

He meant to say people but the word slipped. In any other circumstance Shane would’ve been mortified that he’d just outed himself, but neither of them were in a headspace to care. The conversation continued, completely casual like what Shane said didn’t matter at all.

“What kind of guys?”

“Older than me. Not like Lolita older. But older.”

They’d just watched that film in class last week. 

“That has to be psychological.”

“Probably. But I can make an exception.”

He looked at Shane with inflamed cheeks and Shane didn’t understand why his throat wouldn’t stop burning since it wasn’t full of vodka right now. It was all swirling in his stomach and around his head.

Everything was blurring together, all the lines drawn out to make the world around them swirling around like they were inside a Van Gogh painting. Behind the full moon in the sky, a million stars lay in front of them and a large body of water stretching out under it.

“It’s so beautiful.” He mumbled into Ilya’s side.

He hadn’t even realised they’d stopped walking for awhile now. He could’ve easily been floating. 

They were leaning against a window pane, half sitting and half standing. His hands were both around Ilya’s waist again, tucked under his arm and something sweet was drumming against Shane’s body. It felt like a heartbeat, the kind of beat that was full of music. They were both so drunk. Fuck.

Ilya leaned off him to stand up so Shane’s arms fell, going over to the part of the rail that was opened and illuminated with moonlight. He looked like he was standing at an altar, waiting to go up the latter that connected Earth to heaven.

“You hear that?”

Shane listened but all he heard was the traffic racing around 10 stories below them and the overlapping chatter from the party that was happening behind the window he sat in.

“Hear what?” 

Ilya closed his eyes and it was like he’d vanished to the sound, taken somewhere else as he listened to the air with his chin jutted outward. 

“I love this song.”

Shane closed his eyes as well and listened again. This time he heard a piano and drums. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from by how it was fading in and out like a radio signal from the sky.

Shane opened his eyes again and they bulged. Ilya had a completely entranced look on his face as he stepped towards the edge like he didn’t even see it. 

Shane’s life flashed in his eyes again.

“Ilya!”

He sprung to his feet and grabbed him, horrified by the way it looked like he was about to walk right off.

He got a glimpse at the drop that he instantly regretted looking. His stomach twisted horribly from how high up in the air they were. 10 stories suddenly felt like a thousand, nothing separating them from life and death by their own will.

“You are having panic attack.” Ilya petted his stomach. “It’s okay.”

What Shane really wanted to tell Ilya before was that he wanted to stop falling for boys like him. The kind that came with warnings that he needed to stay away from. Falling for someone like him was like falling in front of a pistol, aimed at his head. He was dangerously close to an edge.

"I need you to stop being afraid of me."

Shane just nodded, his whole body in flames and his heart racing as Ilya now had Shane's back plastered to the wall between his legs. His gaze was so sincere, looking between Shane's eyes like he was searching for something. Maybe something he lost, or a sign that Shane didn't see someone he should be afraid of. Or maybe he was just admiring Shane's dark eyes.

His hand at Shane's waist touched the side of his hip where the skin was vulnerably peaking out under his hoodie, his thumb brushing gently against his bare skin and leaving his print there. The other traced his fingers lightly over his freckles.

He didn't know what to focus on anymore. The words coming out of Ilya’s beautiful mouth or the way he looked at Shane or his hand on his body-

"Shane can I-"

"Okay."

He didn't even let him finish before their lips were swirling, and Shane's body soared. Their lips were fast, then slow, then fast again and Shane exploded into a million different points of light inside as he returned it with all the passion he'd said he wouldn't, gripping Ilya's shoulders the more he leaned into Shane, catching Ilya's lips each time he was dipping them down to catch every taste of Shane’s.

It’s like they were now floating together in space, just like the moon. He wasn't afraid to orbit anymore. Stars and moonlight and chariots in space didn't have to surround him. All he had was Ilya and there wasn't anything else he wanted to be wrapped in.

They were leaning against a window pane and his hands were both sliding down and holding Ilya’s muscular arms, holding there until Ilya's hand held his chin gently, turning his head sideways to kiss around Shane's neck as his head tilted to the right before coming back to his lips. Shane moaned, he couldn’t help it. Kissing Ilya was divine. His tongue smoothed over Shane's with relaxed ease, like it was the most comfortable thing in the universe.

“You have really delicious lips.” Shane mumbled into between their mouths, kissing him again. Tasting his unique flavour.

“You taste like a cigarette.” Ilya pulled back with a smile as he looked him over tenderly and wiped the gloss off his chin while taking a few steps back, pulling Shane with him.

“I could kill you right now, you know."

Shane hummed against his lips and kept his eyes closed as he listened to the traffic racing around below them.

“Go ahead.” He opened his eyes again.

Ilya thought about it for a moment.

"Nah... I think I'll do it tomorrow."

He really liked being promised tomorrow. 

Behind them through a window into a party, Rose squinted out at the fire escape from across the room.

"Hey guys... I've got a question." She said, absently tapping Scott’s shoulder.

"Go on."

"So... is Rozanov like... bi or something?"

"What?!?" Scott snorted loudly from where he was leaning down, on the phone recording Svetlana dancing with Miles.

"Bilingual? Of course!" She answered happily.

"No," Rose rolled her eyes. "Bisexual."

Rose pointed towards the window, total confusion all over her face.

"Then who's Shane with outside?"

Everyone's gaze followed until they landed on the couple making out on the fire escape. 

"Oh my- oh my GOD!" Svetlana almost screamed when she saw, sprinting over to the window, pushing everyone out of the way with Miles in her hand, Scott and Rose behind them, all equally in shock.

They were suddenly crowding over each other in the window, fighting to get a better view of watching Shane looking at the Brooklyn bridge, wrapped up in Ilya's arms with his head against his chest.

They were drinking and kissing in between sips, laughing into exposed throats outlined by the moon. There was no mistaking the amount of attention paid to each other's tongues. An orthodontist would be blushing. And Ilya's hands were making their way down Shane's thighs until he actually picked him up so he'd sit on it in front of him with his back safely to the pole side between his legs as he stood over the rail.

Rozanov pointed at something in the distance and said something that made Shane laugh into his neck as he kissed him more.

Rozanov looked at him with this warm smile, like he was watching the sun set, his arms rested comfortably over Shane's thighs as they continued talking with Shane moving his fingers through the nape of his curls.

The way they looked at each other... it didn't even look like Rozy.

"Who is Shane?" Scott asked from being squished underneath Rose.

"The cute twink we met downstairs!" She hissed.

“I thought you guys knew him.”

“He came out of nowhere!”

"Then what in the HELL is going on out there?!"

Svetlana shook her head slowly with her mouth hung open.

"I have... no idea."

They were all suddenly whispering, like if they talked too loud they'd scare them away even though they didn't have eyes for anyone but each other or any idea they were being watched. Scott took out his phone and took a picture.

No one else saw it. No one else saw the whole world shifting but the 4 of them.

Scott got some pretty amazing Kodak moments while everyone else were arguing about it, saying he was just drunk and being a dick and just using Shane for the night until they jumped when a knock on the window startled them. Rozanov was leaning down into the window, pointing at the top and mouthing for them to unlock it with Shane in his other hand behind him, looking back at the bridge and avoiding everyone's gaze.

Svetlana unlocked the window slowly and they all backed out of the way for them to come inside, watching them all into each other's throats still as they moved through the room and into the first door they came across.

The girls were mostly screaming, Scott and Miles were watching the footage back while behind that door, two planets were colliding.

“Where are you?” Shane whispered lightly as he closed the door behind him.

It was dark here. His eyes would need a moment to adjust. A hand flapped onto his face out of nowhere, almost smacking him in the cheek until he realised it was Ilya prodded his face blindly to find him. His thumbs smoothed over his neck up to both his cheeks, holding Shane’s face.

“Right here.” His voice was closer than Shane expected for some reason.

He could suddenly feel his body and his breath, heightened awareness in the dark of every sign that there was another live person here with him. Sensing where he was now felt like he was in touch with his soul. The way his heart pounded. His breath even. The way his hands were nice on Shane’s skin. He kissed Shane in the dark once he finally found his lips. The gasps and flutters of breath grew the more heated it got.

He was much more shy to kiss than Shane expected him to be, less forward than he’d been outside. Shane was leading the movement with Ilya's back pressed into the wall. But his hands weren't shy in the least. They were all over Shane. Clumsily and shamelessly begging him to stay as close as possible and as less layers of clothes he’d let him go. 

"Can I tell you a secret?" Ilya whispered into his neck through kisses, pulling at Shane’s collar to access the untouched skin. 

“This is your first time with a guy?” Shane guessed and Ilya snorted.

“No.” He said simply. “My coach’s son, back in Russia.”

That surprised Shane a lot.

“So you like danger too.”

“Evidently.”

Shane tried to utter something back but it came out in a whine as Ilya's lips nibbled on his ear, down Shane’s neck to his collarbone. Those lips were driving Shane mad.  

Ilya's hand groped his chest and came down his stomach, then over his growing bulge. Shane gasped, now grabbing for the buttons on Ilya’s jeans and freeing his cock. Even in the dark, he was massive.

“Fuck,” Ilya hissed when Shane started stroking him. He managed to get his own dick out too, holding them both in his hand and stroking them together.

Ilya rutted up in his hand, pumping his cock against Shane’s, grunting at the dry friction. Their mouths were missing each other now as they kissed sloppily. He prodded around Shane's hips and traced with his thumb around the line below the rim of his pants until he was groping Shane’s ass, pulling him in harder as he thrust against him. Shane’s head fell back with an agonising groan as Ilya’s fingers teased around his hole, until he gasped when his middle finger slipped inside of him.

Yes, more of that.

Shane told him how he liked it and Ilya listened, pushing more fingers in deeper until he was fully fingering Shane while Shane continued to pull them both closer and closer to climax. 

“You like that?” Ilya whispered, and Shane nodded against him, his forehead now touching Ilya’s.

He reached his prostate and Shane couldn’t hold it anymore. He came soon after and his knees buckled under the pressure. He didn't even realise he was on his knees until Ilya's jeans were all the way down and his dick was near his mouth. He pressed his lips over his hips, kissing along there until he reached Ilya’s cock and took him in his mouth, smoothing down along the vein on his cock. It felt nice against the tip of his tongue, every smooth part of his shaft and every ridge he found himself memorising. Even nicer when it throbbed against the inside of his cheek, pulsing at the same rate with his heart in Shane’s mouth. He easily sucks it deeper into his throat, repeating the motion with both his hands twisting up and down where his mouth hadn’t reached yet.

This was always a really relaxing sport, to be honest. Shane was completely at peace when he had a dick on his tongue. In his head, when his lips sucked around the very tip as he was moving his tongue in circles, he counted how many inches until he was deepthroating him and cupping the underneath sack and massaging more music out of Ilya.

He seemed to really like the moans Shane made before so, he didn’t stop that either. Something suddenly came over Ilya. He didn’t know what the hell happened but it was like he’d become a man possessed after Shane pressed an activation code for Ilya to reach his next level form: The one that’s about to cum. It turned into a bit of an olympic sport Shane was not at all ready for. At first, Shane was in complete control, and he always loved that about giving head. It didn’t matter who it was. Huge jock, authority figure, he was always the one in control. Maybe that’s why he loved doing it so much. It was the only feeling of power he had. But, that was suddenly revoked as Ilya was the one running this rodeo now.

Ilya cursed like a sailor, punched his fist into the wall next to him and thrust like the rapture was coming to get him. 

With no warning at all, his hand grabbed the back of Shane’s head, bunching up his hair and pulling his face in as he filled his mouth with his entire dick. It was so sudden and so much, within inches down his throat Shane had to suppress gagging so hard that he almost lost his life. 

Ilya was really not at all concerned about the lack of oxygen he was letting Shane have. All he could do was hold on and pray that his years of practice prepared him for this.

Getting face fucked wasn't of the most romantic activities in the world. But this wasn't a romance. Not a tryst. Not lovers. No sweet words. There was no romance in the race to cum in Shane's mouth.

Shane had Ilya's entire dick thrust in and out of his throat while he held the back of Shane's head to give him enough leverage to hold his face there hostage. He came finally and Shane couldn't have been more relieved. 

After Ilya came down, he dropped down to Shane’s level, falling with his back against the wall and breathing hard. 

“Amazing mouth you have.” He breathed.

His eyes focused after Shane kissed him again. Their eyes had adjusted to the dark so they could actually see each other very clearly. 

It was like Shane watched him return to his body for the first time, now somehow completely sobered up as he gave Shane a look like he forgot who was sitting there in between his legs. As if he'd just woke up from surgery with no memory of how he got here, Ilya looked around the closet they were in together. Shane could see the gears inside his head turning around to draw that he'd just made a huge mistake. 

"You don't have to..." Shane started to tell him he didn't have to get Shane off, even though they both knew Shane came already. He was more than satisfied with getting him off. 

It's beyond awkward when Shane stands up and wipes his mouth while Ilya pulls up his jeans and the rest of their clothes, the clank of metal jiggling around from his belt as he zipped himself up while Shane stood there and watched.

He thinks he understood what this was. It was an entire step below a one night stand. He had no other reason to still be standing there so he went to exit but Ilya grabbed his arm with a frantic gasp. 

"Wait," he squeaks and Shane instantly comes back over to him, holding his arms so he won't fall over. They agreed not to go out the way they came in, using the door that led into another, quieter room.

"Can you... walk with me back to my apartment?" He finally says.

He was so shocked that he didn’t immediately tell him to buzz off, Shane just nodded quickly, holding Ilya's arm up to his shoulder. 

"Yeah, sure -"

"I live like-" Ilya hiccupped mid -sentence. 

"One block away from here, I don't wanna-" hiccup, "fall into a sewer or -"

"-no no, it's fine-" 

“-get hit by a bus or some shit. No one would come looking for me.”

Shane had been nodding the whole time, like he'd lost control of his neck. He didn't care if Ilya lived on Liberty Island. He wasn't walking home alone like this. Even if Shane's equally shit-faced in multiple ways, at least he could walk. All of Ilya’s strength left with his climax,

"Of course I'll walk you home."

Ilya looked him in the face again with a crooked smile. He looked so sad, Shane could see tears in his eyes like he was nearing to cry, making his eyelashes lump together. 

"Thanks."    

He toppled forward as he said that and Shane caught him with a dragged out grunt. It was like catching a crate of bricks. Dragging Ilya was going to be an exercise. He got Ilya’s arm over his shoulder and out of the closet easily. But the steps weren’t gonna go the same way. 

He couldn't remember how they got to the hallway or why they took the stairs. 

A lot of this was jumping through black holes, like he’d blink and they were in a new location he couldn’t remember how they’d got to. The whole party was a blank space entirely.

"Thought you didn't like thank you's?" Shane tried to keep him talking so he wouldn’t pass out, even though if he did, talking wasn’t going to stop them from falling. 

"I like giving them. You kept me alive for another day, Shane Hollander. The least I could do is thank you for it."

If you asked Shane to repeat this conversation or half of anything after they got to the rooftop, he’d look at you and ask the same question. He never remembered what they said or did when they were drunk. He only remembered his dick throbbing in his mouth and sliding in and out of his throat like his shot down Shane’s neck carried amnesia. 

All he truly remembered from this night was that they never shut up. His head was spinning again as they walked down the street and it was an awful feeling. He hadn’t been this fucked up in his life and he felt like crawling out of his body and drying up in a sewer. But he said he’d walk Ilya home and it’d be pretty rude to die first. Shane asked Ilya if he had a roommate or anything so he'd know beforehand if they were about to wake someone at 3 in the morning. 

“I can’t even remember.” 

“So you live alone?”

Ilya shook his head. He couldn’t remember anything at all. Shane decided they were probably going the wrong way as they were heading to the subway station so, he decided to just let Ilya sleep in his room as he turned them around and made his way to Macdonald’s hall.

He doubted his roommate was there. He doubted the guy even existed. His roommate probably got hit by a bus. He tells Ilya this.

“I think about him way too much.” Shane sighed. “I actually thought he might be at that party.”

“Roommates are good. I wouldn’t mind having one.” Ilya thought out loud. “I don’t like being alone. I dream about dying alone. Pray about dying alone. I… I don’t want to be alone.”

He suddenly felt like crying as he listened to Ilya’s drunken rambling. He felt the same way. All alone. Even when he’s in a crowded party. Even if he hooked up with someone that never looked at him twice ever again. 

But that wasn’t true. No one here was alone. They were all in the same space together. They just chose not to see who was right in front of them, at least, that was what Shane learned today.

“Why do you think you’re alone? You’re not-”

“No one wants to be around a drunk, Shane. We lose everyone.” He shook his head.

“Mother always told me I only got one life to live. And to make sure someone witnesses it. Gave me a broken watch. Then I found her dead right there on the sofa.” 

Shane was shocked at what he told him. It made him want to cry even more.

He said the night his mother died, she sat there with Ilya one night, telling him stories about her younger days like she always did and Ilya watched her drink herself to death. He said she had a feeling she knew it was going to happen and that she wanted someone to witness it. So she chose her youngest son. Ilya didn’t tell anyone for hours. He didn't even cry. Just sat there, alone with a corpse, drinking from the very flask that killed her.

It was so sick. More than sick. It was horrifying. It had to have been the most disturbing thing Shane had ever heard someone do to their kid. To make them witness their end, especially at such an impressionable age. 

He stayed silent while Ilya rambled, revealing information that was way too personal. Stuff Shane didn’t even want to know. 

“I guess she figured what's the point in dying if you're doing it alone?” He reasoned but Shane didn’t think that was right.

It was one thing if it were natural. Or an accident. He made it sound like she was teaching him some life lesson about being alone in life. Maybe dying alone was the way it should’ve been. He can’t imagine a night like that didn’t affect Ilya horribly. 

“I do everything alone, Shane. She’d be so disappointed in me.”

He kept saying that over and over.

“What about your friends?” Shane tried to change the subject, feeling paranoid now that this was the kind of person Ilya looked up to. 

Paranoid that Ilya felt like his death was something someone needed to witness as he thought about them on that dangerous rooftop, drinking from that flask like it wasn’t actually full of poison. 

He didn’t know what he was contemplating up there or how often he went alone. It felt like he needed to keep Ilya in his sight now and his flask away from his mouth. 

“Don’t have any friends.” Ilya shrugged. 

“They say I drink too much.” 

“Because they care about you-”

“I know I drink too much.” Ilya cut him off. 

“I’m trying to stop drinking so much.”

Shane looked over at him and saw tears falling down Ilya's face, which crumbled.

“God knows I'm fucking trying,” Ilya's head dropped as he started crying and laughing at the same time, his eyelashes stuck with tears like he’d just watched a tragedy all over again. 

Shane hated watching him do it because he looked like the saddest boy in the world. A little body that carried a soul too heavy for him to handle. Not someone flew across rooftops like a fearless boy wonder. A hopeless one who jumped off it to end it all.

“Hey,” Shane took his shoulder and held him still. “You’re not alone. I’m here too.”

He needed this all to calm down, for Ilya to hold still with him the same way Ilya held him before they ran. Ilya took care of him when he needed it but no one was doing the same thing for Ilya. He needed someone here. Not to watch him end his life. Just to hold still with him. 

“You're not alone, okay? You’re doing a great job. Cause I'm glad I met you. That's something isn’t it?”

“You don't even know me.”

“I want to.”

“You shouldn’t.” 

“Why?”

He didn’t even have an answer why. He just laughed.

“I don't know.” He finally said. “No one ever tells me why.”

Shane got him to stop crying, sitting on the curb with him in front of his apartment.

“Well, this moment is our chance now. Okay? Isn’t that what you told me?” 

Their hands were held together, gentle and steady and shoulder to shoulder.  

“I'm living the same time as you so this is right now, yeah? Otherwise, this never would've happened to me.”

“What wouldn’t?”

“Blowing you.”

Ilya hiccuped on his laugh through his tears and Shane was glad he got him to laugh as he was shaking his head at the ground before he looked up at Shane with eyes that looked a little less hollow and miserable as Shane wiped his cheek. As they sat on the curb, Ilya told him he didn't know what was wrong with him but he hated how orgasms always made him start crying afterwards like a freak. Shane realised Ilya was describing after sex. 

It was actually called post-coital dysphoria, otherwise known as “the after sex blues”. 

The only reason he knew about it was because he felt it too which is why he never slept with people until he got to know them. Which meant he never slept with people. Even though getting off with each other involves physical closeness and intimacy, the haze afterwards is still dysphoric, angsty and intensely lonely despite that closeness. He can feel it all over Ilya right now. 

There is no science to why it happens to some people. To Ilya, the influx of dysphoria slammed into him after he came. Shane had never met another guy who felt it. Especially not someone who got this torn up after a blowjob. 

Shane told him it was okay, and that they didn't have to do it again. 

“But you do it so well.”

“I know, babe,” Shane laughed now. “We can still kiss?”

Ilya didn’t answer with words. He took Shane’s hand over his neck and leaned into Shane again with their heads against each other. 

“Kiss me in your room.” He said against his cheek.

They really didn’t have to say anything more because that sounded like a perfect idea.

Shane picked Ilya up on his back with a grunting effort that made Ilya laugh as he piggy backed along the way. Climbing up the familiar brownstone stairs of Mac and stumbled along the wooden walls, instinctively going to the 3rd floor.

He dropped Ilya down and the lips were instantly attached again as he backed Shane inside, falling onto the wrong side of his own empty room, into a bed much more comfortable than his own.

Ilya kicked off his jeans while Shane pulled out of his own, laughing at how cute his butt looked as he wiggled out of them before he was toppling forward in between Shane’s legs, kissing bewteen his thighs. Ilya went up his stomach, to his neck, settling himself over Shane comfortably.

It was ridiculous how comfortable they both were. Shane didn’t even bat an eye at seeing he was in his roommate's bed, doing things you really shouldn’t do on other people’s property.

The angled light from their window made Ilya’s skin look like it was inked blue. There was a constellation of moles on his body. 

“Wow,” Shane’s hand brushed over his chest admiringly.

“What?”

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,”

Ilya shook his head with a snort as he kissed Shane, pulling his legs up on either side of his waist.

“You’re one to talk.”

“What?” Shane pushed him off with a wide grin but Ilya shook his head.

“You think I’m gorgeous?”

Ilya rolled his eyes. He tiptoed his fingers down Ilya’s navel, which he didn’t seem to mind.

“Every time I see you in class, my heart starts doing this weird shit and I kind of like it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He was really loving the sound of this song. His hand slid down Ilya’s pants and he did that thing with his jaw that flexed his cheekbones, when it clenches up and the vein at his neck pulses in sync with the throb in Shane’s hand as he closed his eyes with a sweet little hum at the back of his throat.

“What else do I make you do?” He coaxes slowly out of him. Ilya shakes his head no but his body is pulling Shane in.

“Come on… say something sweet again.” Shane kissed the side of his jaw with a smile, going to his ear.

“... make me wanna suck your dick some more-”

Ilya jerked forward from a particularly excited flick of Shane’s wrist so his forehead was against his, allowing Shane to kiss him lightly through his grin.

Shane pushes him on his back comfortably, moving down his body when he removes his hand as he kisses over the fabric of Ilya's underwear, looking up at him as he slowly pulls them down to wrap his hand around his hard-on. 

“Keep talking. Okay?” 

Ilya nodded quickly. 

He presses his lips into the tip like he’s kissing Ilya’s lips, upstroking him slowly with his fingertips massaging that vein like how he knows he likes it. 

“Shit Shane,” his voice breaks with a gasp.

“What do you want me to say--” He wavers, unsure of what to say now that he's put on the spot with Shane deepthroating him like a goddamn expert. Shane laughs a bit, continuing to massage him as he pulls up again with a smack.

“How was your day?”

Ilya leans back towards the ceiling, breathing deeply.

“Well,” he starts as Shane goes back down on him.

Ilya's licks over his puffy lips and tells Shane about his day, starting with seeing Shane in class this morning and wondering why he hated Ilya so much, holding back the urge to just finish right there all over him as he watches pre-cum smeared across Shane's mouth and cheek when he kisses down his length, purposefully making his face dirty.

“Wow,” His hips moved up as his eyes fluttered like they were twitching, trying to focus on speech and not swear.

“Don’t fuck me in my mouth this time please?” Shane made sure and Ilya apologised.

“‘M sorry… you make all these s-sounds when I’m inside.. y-you… it’s d-driving me crazy,” He winds his fingers in Shane’s hair and Shane hums.

“Like that.” 

Shane snorts, his head nodding back as he slides in and out of his throat easily, pushing his tongue underneath his dick so the tip drags across the smooth roof of his mouth. It tickles but it feels nice, heavy on his tongue when he pulls back and sucks at the tip again, swallowing everything as he massages his balls and makes him moan above him. 

Ilya’s fist punches through the wall next to them with a bang as his head is thrown back, grabbing the back of Shane’s head and yanking him off. He almost whines when Ilya pulls out so he won't cum in his mouth.

Shane opens his eyes and smiles sideways as Ilya's chest heaves, looking at Shane with profound yearning. He knows Ilya's holding back his urge to cum so he opens his mouth, letting his tongue hang out, meaning it's okay for Ilya to aim there but Ilya only suppresses the urge to cum on his face even more. It’s almost painful not to but he doesn't want to do it like this. 

He reaches down and pulls Shane up to him, wiping his cheek off with his thumb, which Shane licks off, sucking on his finger. Ilya rolls his eyes, shaking his head as he kisses him. Shane smiles into the kiss, letting Ilya pull him back up as he sits on his dick, only separated by the one layer of his underwear now and he slides down his length. 

He’s felt enough of it rubbing against the crease of his ass. He wants it inside.

“I want you to cum.” Shane whispers. Ilya kisses him tenderly, nodding against him again. 

“Will you?”

Ilya nods again.

“Inside me?” Shane adds.

He was so restrained before but now, he hadn’t wanted to fuck someone harder in his life and he hadn’t realised how horny he actually was until now. Ilya makes Shane settle down, grinding against him like he’s humping a play toy as he pulls him back and shakes his head no.

“You’re drunk and I don’t wanna ruin this….” 

“So are you… ”

Ilya shakes his head.

“If I fuck you tonight, I can almost guarantee you we’ll never see each other again.”

“You… wanna see me again?” The prospect of this was actually way better than the idea of sex with him.

Ilya told Shane he wanted to see that gallery with him, only to see if that Divino prick really was worth as much as Shane was sucking him off for.

They talked for hours again so the night never truly ended. Not until Shane was completely drained of energy now that his horn dog was calm and his head was banging hard.

Against Ilya’s chest, they both watched Ilya’s other love through the window. 

“I had a really… amazing time with you… today.” Shane mumbled on Ilya’s chest, eyes cranking closed at the break of daylight outside.

“Yeah… me too.” Ilya murmured back, squeezing his shoulder as he felt him slowly melting into sleep like an ice cube washing away into drops of water.

“You’re pretty amazing.”

At 6:30am, Shane was out cold. The good kind that’s gonna be waking up with a headache ripping his skull in half as he was hogging most of Ilya’s chest and all of his covers.  

At 7, The City still lay awake and something had hit him. Really hard. 

He’d been watching out his window, contemplating life and doing mathematical calculations as he stared at the little card on his desk that Shane had given him with his home address on it.

Ilya’s address. This was his room.

“Oh… fuck,”

He looked down at Shane on top of him and the feeling in his arm was all gone

He hissed quietly again in Russian. 

Instead of struggling further or kicking Shane off, he just collapsed. The night was over, and there was nothing anyone could do about anything but just lie there and wait for the day to really start.

There were over 50,000 students that went to NYU, which made up less than 1 percent of the entire city. That made the odds of running into the guy he had an infatuation with in class at a party nearly impossible to have ever happened. Until he actually spoke to him.

He didn’t just almost fuck his alluring classmate at the wrong time last night. 

It was his roommate. 

It seemed like neither of them were making it to class today. Sleep now, hangovers later and the most awkward living situation to ever grace the runaway of Brooklyn Heights.

“Fuck me.”

[i fell in love with you one night in september.]