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The hospital is not an unusual place to find Shane. He sits like he often does on a plastic waiting room chair, hands clasped and patient, watching as the plant on the receptionist’s table slowly begins to droop in his presence.
He’s alone, seats around him empty even as the waiting room begins to fill up. Humans - whilst unable to see him, are still able to sense something off when he’s nearby. Something that deters them from coming close so that they crowd into seats beside one another and leave his row empty.
Nobody wants to sit next to Death.
Not ever. And especially not in a hospital where his presence is only for one job.
Shane glances to his left as Ilya takes the seat next to him, body folding up onto tiny blue plastic.
“Oh, so this one makes it too?” he asks as even Ilya’s smile makes the room’s wilting plant rise.
“Hello Death,” Ilya whispers, fingers intertwining with Shane’s own and lifting them up so that he can kiss warmth into them.
It's the only thing that can. Life pushed so readily into Shane’s body through lips against his skin that even Death warms at the attention.
Nonetheless, Shane snorts at the action, eyes back on the plant as the vibrant green he had stolen returns. His own pinkened cheeks, he does not mention.
“You’re taking up too much space, maybe someone wanted to sit next to me,” he says, only to make Ilya chuckle because the sound alone is enough to heal small ailments and cure the fatigue that Shane’s long wait in the room had induced.
A brain aneurysm has brought him here. And apparently, the few hours of human medical intervention Shane had sat through had been enough to pop Life into Boston Medical Center's waiting room.
“Shane Hollander.” There’s endless smugness in his tone. “I have beat you this time.”
“Yeah.” He doesn't mind in the slightest. “Yeah, you have.”
This is the part Ilya loves; besting him, clawing back heartbeat after heartbeat and willing breath back into lungs that had seemingly taken their last.
Speaking of lungs, there's a smell that brings Shane’s attention back to Ilya. Life has a cigarette between his lips and smoke billowing into the air with every slow exhale.
Shane gawks. “Those are terrible for you.”
“You will murder me?”
“Maybe.” Shane glances around as if to catch any curious looks, but even Ilya’s smoke is only privy to their eyes. “And in a hospital too,” he mutters to himself.
“It is a good place. Many doctors here if you try.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“If I die, will I become like you?”
“Like what?”
“Boring.”
“I hate it when you dress boring like that.”
“I think it’s appropriate,” Shane says as he finishes attaching the cufflink to his shirt. Humans are particular about dress when Death is visiting, and though they can’t see him, Shane — now in a plain black suit and tie — does try to accommodate. Especially when the loss of life is as abundant as it is today.
He looks up as Ilya comes to stand beside him on the roadside.
“I know,” Ilya replies and Shane’s eyes flutter shut as Life brushes a stray hair off his cheek, warmth lighting up along the graze of his thumb. “And you look beautiful.”
“You just hate the occasion,” Shane provides for him as his eyes open.
Ilya’s sad smile is enough of a response.
“You’re here too. Why?”
Ilya nods past the wreckage, to where a backlog of hundreds of vehicles begins. “She will not make it to hospital on time. Baby will be born in ugly car. You would like it.” His voice falls to a serious whisper. “It is a Jeep.”
“They’re practical. Safe. You should like them.”
“Hm.” Ilya looks away at the pileup of cars, chews his lip as first responders dash past and throws a hand out to brush over a stunned teenager’s shoulder to ease her bumps and bruises. “Would they have lived in Jeeps?”
Shane sighs. “I don’t know.”
No.
A blind spot had swerved a Honda into an occupied lane, and the 18-wheeler had had nowhere to go. Now there are fires and torn metal and enough casualties that they bring a headache behind Shane’s eyes. It’s overstimulating, but they require his attention. No matter how much comfort bleeds from Ilya’s presence, he has to let it go.
“I should go. Some are already…” Shane shrugs and steps into the road.
“Bye, Shane.”
And when Shane turns Ilya is already gone, having vanished and reappeared hundreds of feet away, leaning against the hood of a car with frantic soon-to-be father pacing beside him.
The sight that greets Shane when he mirrors Life's actions, only brings more weariness to his eyes.
Ilya doesn’t always notice Shane’s presence and that’s hardly his fault. Life likes to live in the moment and Shane knows he’s unaware when Death appears at the street corner.
He doesn’t sense Shane outside the house.
Not even when Shane is hovering in the doorway of the room.
Shane kind of likes it.
Watching Ilya be so indistinguishable from humans that it’s only when one phases through him that the illusion breaks. He’s there with them in their joy, kneeling beside the litter of newborn puppies, eyes big and smiling so wide that Shane hates even having to be here.
He hates when Ilya finally turns towards him, face twisting.
“No…” Ilya sighs, “no, I breathed life into seven, you do not take one.”
"I'm sorry," Shane whispers.
The pup has a day. Her body temperature is low and she’ll struggle to latch in the coming hours. For now she’s among the others, huffing and squeaking and being bathed by her mother’s tongue. Before long her mother will notice what Shane already knows.
Shane is…early. He knows this. But it had been Ilya’s energy that had drawn him in close. They don’t get a lot of time; short snippets of conversation held between tragedies and celebrations, life and death meeting in passing but time never stalling long enough for them. A millenia of a game neither signed up to play.
Shane makes to move closer. Ilya’s curls are unruly at the back and Shane wants to run his fingers through them before they must depart again.
Perhaps —.
“God, you are so boring, Hollander.”
Shane freezes. What otherwise would have been a playful jab is now a knife between the ribs. Ilya has turned away, face sour.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks.
“It means! It means you take everything too serious.”
“Fuck you, Rozanov. You always try to twist the rules you’re not allowed to change.”
“You did not need to come. But always you do. Canada or Russia or it does not matter which fucking country, always you come.” He flings his arm, gesturing to the puppies. There is one in the litter that smells like death. “It’s a puppy! Why stop at one?!”
“That’s not fair. That’s not —. You think I enjoy this?” Shane coughs out a pained laugh. Then blinks, and blinks again when he feels how wet his eyes have become. “That’s fucking rich, Rozanov. As if you haven’t caused just as much suffering.”
There’s nothing left to read in Ilya’s expression. His face has long gone blank, jaw tight. Withdrawn, as he sometimes goes when left to just his own thoughts. Or when he brings life forward and disappears a second later, knowing what he has willed to exist is fated only for pain.
Now it’s because of Shane. His words. His presence.
“I don't know what you want me to do.”
“I don’t want to see you, Hollander.”
“No one else can!” He can’t stop blinking now, has to turn to face a wall to thumb under his eyes to catch a stray tear. “So fucking go then, Rozanov.”
Ilya is standing now, fists clenched.
“You’ve done your job. Now let me do mine.”
Shane squeezes his way out of a room packed with four generations of living family; people with wet eyes and smiles falling too short. Sorrow at Death’s arrival and departure, yes, but with an understanding in all but the young babe, that it had been time.
Ninety-four is a commendable age.
And Shane had smiled, holding a hand in his own that had worked and loved and given. He is…not always as stoic in his role, and sometimes finality is peaceful and welcoming.
She had certainly thought so.
Afterwards, it’s not his duties that pull Shane to the maternity ward, but he wanders the corridors nonetheless, never pausing too long near an occupied room. His presence is unwanted when it can sap the energy right out of the living and newborns are fragile things.
Still, Shane pauses at a vending machine, pondering for a few seconds before phasing his hand through the glass to grab a bag of Miss Vickie’s.
“Do you think four is enough?”
Shane turns, holding up the bag of chips. “No? I only got one.”
“Babies,” Ilya says. He takes the bag from Shane’s hand, pops it open and helps himself. A slow, considered chew later, Ilya turns the bag to face him and then blinks back at Shane. “All Dressed? What is All Dressed flavor?”
“It’s really popular in Canada.”
“These poor women. Do not give birth in Canadian hospital.” Ilya pulls a face as if he’s balancing a scale in his mind. “Mm, maybe for citizenship is okay.”
It has been three years, but Ilya’s face nor his expression show the passing of all those days. Still, Shane prods carefully. “I thought you were still angry at me.”
“It is a problem, yes.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You take my hard work away but you have cute freckles, what am I to do?”
“Rozanov…”
“Shane.”
Bag in one hand, with the other Ilya pushes at Shane’s chest, pushing and pushing, eyebrows tilting up in enjoyment until Death moves to Life’s whims. It’s hard to stay angry when they’re all that they have.
Shane’s back meets the hospital wall.
His chip bag is abandoned on the floor.
And Ilya crowds in close.
“You came to see me.”
“No.”
“Mm…no?” Ilya presses a soft kiss on the side of his mouth. “You come to be evil baby ki—.”
“What? No!”
“Ah! So you came to see me.” Ilya nods and Shane finds his eyes creasing with how hard he’s smiling.
Against his lips, Shane says, “Shouldn’t you be with the newborn?” And yet his arms are looping around Ilya’s shoulders, hands burying into curls he adores.
“But the dad is so annoying. He plays silly sport on ice.” Ilya kisses him again. “Maybe you should take him.”
“Ilya.”
“It is their fourth, she will be fine.”
“Without…the husband? Or without you?”
Amused, Ilya only kisses his cheek this time, and Shane relents. Turns into the next kiss and allows his eyes to slip shut.
Kissing Life, kissing Ilya, is new every single time. There are often decades — centuries even — between them, and as much as Shane tries to remember the shape and feel of Ilya’s lips, tries to trace his own with his fingers to remind him of their touch, it is never the same.
This is Ilya.
“Mm.”
Shane pushes against him, lets their noses drag together and chins bump, and lets his bottom lip get sucked on.
With Ilya against him, Shane has no need to worry about his own existence. He can be greedy with it. Stay in the moment and sink into Ilya’s kisses. Ilya pulses out good, saturating the halls with it and giving Shane enough to bathe in.
There’s tongue; there always is with Ilya. Wet and hot and good and capturing Shane again and again in every kiss.
He feels unsteady, warm exploding everywhere Ilya kisses and touches and leaving splatters of it behind that make Shane chase for more when it starts to fade.
Ilya groans against him, uncaring of the stillness that comes with Death’s touch. Hand on Shane’s jaw, he kisses him over and over.
“I…should – I should…go.” It’s uttered between lips touching and teeth that tug on Shane’s lip at the mere suggestion of those words.
“No,” Ilya whispers. Begs. “Don't be boring.”
And Shane listens.
There is a terrible storm blowing. It whips fresh snow into the air, ruffling Shane’s hair and making him furrow his brow at the carcass before him.
It’s a giant of the ocean. Belly up in the sea and soon to attract a lot of attention both above and below water once the freezing bite of the wind clears. Shane will have left long before then. But for now he stands on a sheet of nearby drifting ice, appearing comically out of place in a t-shirt and sweatpants.
“Is it going to…?” Ilya blows a raspberry and imitates an explosion with his hands.
“No. Not yet,” Shane replies. Then whips around. “Why are you here?”
“Oh. Is this your ice sheet? What is address?” He digs the sole of his slipper into the frost.
“Ilya.”
“What?” Ilya stares until frost freezes his eyelashes and he waves a hand to get the particles passing through his body. “Okay, there is shrimp fucking below us.”
“Shrimp lay eggs.”
“Oh my God, Hollander.” He bumps his shoulder into Shane’s. “You are so boring you miss joke,” Ilya says and then dodges Death’s glower.
They settle into a silence. Long by Life’s calculations and short by Shane’s. It seems he’s barely allowed his body to relax before Ilya pipes up.
“So. We just look at it?”
“Yes, we just look at it. I like to – why were you here again?”
“I told you. Shrimp.”
“It's a seal pup isn't it?”
‘Oh. Wow. Hollander. Just because yours is big and mine is small…”
Shane rolls his eyes.
“Does not make it less impressive.”
He has half a mind to push Ilya into the water: wonders how much warmth even Ilya’s abilities can spread in an arctic sea.
But then Ilya is by his ear, nose pressing into the side of Shane's head and warm lips tickling his earlobe as speaks.
“But you have not seen it so…” He can feel the curve of Ilya's smile. He's being entirely ridiculous, and yet Shane is the smitten fool for letting him get his words out.
“It is unfair comparison.”
Shane ducks his head to laugh, and feels Ilya’s own against his hair.
“You’re such a voyeur, I hope you know that,” Shane calls out to him and watches Ilya’s face pop up, mud smeared on his cheek and grass in his hair.
“It is not weird.” Ilya insists even as he’s going face down into the soil again. “It is pretty, like you.”
Shane has to chuckle as Life kneels before him, ass up and face as far into a rabbit’s burrow as he can squeeze it so he can watch life be born.
“If humans could see you now you’d never get another holiday again.”
“I would not mind giving you one of my holidays,” comes the muffled reply followed by Ilya reemerging before he squints at Shane. “Mm. Maybe half day.”
“Half…” Shane repeats, endeared.
“Yes. And on weekday.”
Shane watches him dust off his hands and then gesture to the burrow.
“You’re not here for these,” Ilya says and it’s not a question.
“No.”
Ilya considers him and Shane doesn’t know which part of him to look at under the scrutiny. Eyes or lips or nose or chin. He’s not warm enough to flush but he feels flustered regardless as Ilya stands and wanders over.
Instinctively, Shane reaches out to thumb away the dirt on his cheek. And immediately feels his cheeks darken, turning red under his freckles.
“Shut up,” he whispers as Ilya’s grin only grows and grows.
Only Life can make Death blush.
“Would you…like to sit with me?”
“Oh. You know we can’t do that.” Ilya’s already lowering himself to the greenery. “You are so sticky for rules.”
“Stickler. And I’m not! I just…” Shane sits too.
Below him, the foliage begins to wilt and die, spreading in a circle around him, leaves now dry under his hands. Until Ilya pulls him flush into his chest and props his chin against Shane’s head.
That’s when the life cycle starts anew. Brown grass fading and green shoots rising and forming, flowers opening, only to wither and fall seconds later. A balanced push and pull, except when Ilya cheats and flicks a dying petal into blooming outside of its established cycle.
Shane feels Ilya kiss the top of his head.
“Do you ever think about us?"
“About how fun I am and how boring you are? Yes, all the time.”
“All the time? Really?”
“Yes.” Ilya kisses his hair again. “No,” he then mutters where his lips touch. “It’s not true. Not all the time.”
A hand on Shane’s jaw has him turning to face Ilya, who suddenly looks so lost. “I think all the time, how much I love you. And I am happy I am stuck in this curse with you. And I am sad…”
“Ilya…”
“That you are stuck in this curse with me.”
Shane lunges at him, forcing their lips together. “No.” He says between kisses and tastes tears when they fall. From whose eyes, he cannot tell. “No. No. Fuck, Rozanov.” He cups Ilya’s face with his hands. It’s twisted up, pinched and struggling and Shane wills it away with his words and his hands and wishes he could erase it like he can everything else. “I love you, so fucking much it hurts.”
He pulls Ilya back against his lips. There is no life in his breath but he pushes his feelings through, kisses until they’re both breathing heavy against one another and the tears are drying onto their cheeks.
Dead leaves fall from above and get trapped in Ilya’s curls.
“But this?” Shane nods at the leaves. “This doesn’t hurt.”
And when Ilya reaches to pluck the leaves free, they turn green again.