Work Text:
Ilya grunted as he lifted his suitcase onto his bed, ripping it open to start unpacking. He had the room to himself at the moment, so he was free to keep Svetlana on loud speaker. He'd lucked out getting a room with just one other roommate, God knew if he had to put up with two obnoxious Canadian fucks, he’d kill them both in their sleep.
“Ilya are you listening?” Svetlana groaned on the other end of the line; her voice was raspy because she had insisted on being there when Ilya was moving in- even though he told her she didn’t have to be.
He groaned back a similar sound to let her know he was, and pulled his slides out of his carry-on luggage, dropping them on the floor and stepping out of his shoes. He tapped his phone screen to keep it from powering off, “Yes, Svet, I’m listening to you,” he took his jacket off and tossed it to the side, “Son of a bitch, do you know if I brought my tablet?”
She snorted into her pillow, “How am I supposed to know? I reminded you like twenty times to put it in your bag but you never listen to me.”
“I do listen to you,” he rolled his eyes, “I just had a lot on my- never mind it’s here.”
“I am too tired for this,” Svetlana whined, a frustrated sound deep in her throat.
“No one asked you to do this.”
She scoffed her disagreement, “If I'm not there to move you in, who will help you?”
“Mm,” he hummed sarcastically, “You are so caring,”
“I really am,” he frowned when she yawned again, watching her adjust herself in her bed. “who’s the best in the world?”
“Svetlana Sergeevna Vetrova,” Ilya agreed without complaint, smiling when she trilled a happy sound. He was eager to get her off the phone so she could get some sleep. “Now, go to bed.”
“I want to stay until you’re done unpacking, at least,”
Ilya shook his head and fiddled in his backpack for a cigarette. He’d lost his pack going through the stop and search so all he had were week old strays at the bottom of his bag, “you should sleep now, you have class in a few hours,” he paused and sighed, trying a different angle. “Please? I will feel better if you do.”
She muttered something under her breath about him worrying too much and rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
“Thank you,” He placed his cigarette between his lips and paused, turning at the sound of his bedroom door opening. His roommate, maybe.
“Oh shit,” the voice at the door squeaked when he looked up at Ilya. “I didn’t think you were going to be in so early, I'm sorry for entering without knocking.”
Not his roommate, then. Ilya parted his lips a bit, blinking slowly when he got a good look at him. Whoever this guy was, he was very pretty. Ilya liked pretty. “Is okay,” he shut his mouth and shrugged, turning back to his bags. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and attempted to light his cigarette. “You need something from here?”
“I-“ he paused and frowned, then he took a hesitant step forward. “Um- you can’t really smoke in the dorm rooms.” Ilya raised an eyebrow at him and he blushed, “Not because I don’t want you to smoke, just- the smoke detector will go off and you could get in trouble. I don’t really mind if you smoke,”
Ilya dropped the hand with the lighter to his side and shrugged, “okay,”
“Okay? Great.”
He tossed his lighter behind himself after a moment but left the cigarette between his teeth. The pretty boy parted his lips and Ilya quirked an eyebrow at him, “do you need something?”
You, the perverted voice in Ilya’s head hoped he’d say. The goosebumps on his skin let him know just how attracted he was to him. He was never a fan of rambling but this he didn’t mind. Plus, he’d never seen freckles on a man before. He raised an eyebrow when he didn’t get an immediate answer.
“I don’t need anything, no,” the stranger said instead, taking a step closer. He was so painfully awkward, Ilya almost felt bad for him, “I'm your floor’s RA. I always make a small gift basket for the students on my floor when they move in.” he swallowed and handed him the monstrosity of items in a mini woven basket, “It’s just stationaries and candy but residents seem to like them so I never stopped making them.”
Ilya turned to him, taking the mini basket with a quiet nod. He moved to place it down and cursed a quiet, “fucking hell,” when it almost slipped. He looked up at the stranger after a moment; the man’s head cocked to the side with a curious look. Ilya swallowed, “sorry,” he said, even though he was sure he hadn’t understood his cursing, “thank you,”
“You’re welcome,” freckled cheeks lifted in a warm smile and Ilya gnawed on the inside of his cheek. “Was that Russian?”
To anyone else, that would warrant immediate sarcasm from Ilya, but this one was cute, so he’d bite. “Is Russian, yes.”
“I knew you were an exchange student but I didn’t know where from,” he rolled around on the balls of his feet, looking about the room. “Russia is… cool,”
Ilya guessed cool was a word you could use, at least if you were being literal. He shrugged and lifted his eyebrows, “thank you.” He blinked at him and watched him fidget on the spot. He clearly wasn’t eager to leave just yet, but he couldn’t find any justification to stay. Ilya sighed and thought of an out for him, “what is RA?”
The excited sound he made let Ilya know he was glad the conversation was ‘moving itself’ along. “It’s a Resident Advisor,” he explained, rosy flush on his cheeks as he perked up. Ilya considered that maybe he just liked talking. “I’m the student leader for those living in the dorms -well only this floor actually- and I'm something like a counsellor. I plan events, give advice and write you up if you do anything bad.” He paused, “not that I do a lot of writing up, though. I'm pretty chill and everyone is like chill with me too. As long as you don’t do anything really bad, then I’d have to do something.”
He took a deep breath and Ilya nodded. “Okay.” He said, because he hadn’t understood half of that and he didn’t want him to try again. He eyed him up and down, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat when he swallowed. Something about this one was different made Ilya want to entertain meaningless conversation.
“So, if you have any questions,” his RA started with a nervous laugh, probably feeling the heat of Ilya's intense glare on his skin. The blonde blinked and he swallowed; maybe he was just that awkward. “About Canada… or school, or anything, at all. That’s kinda what I'm here for.”
“Questions?”
“Yeah, questions,”
“About anything?”
His shortly cropped hair brushed his forehead when he nodded. It looked soft, Ilya wanted to touch it. “Anything at all, shoot.”
Anything meant anything. Ilya stepped forward, “Do you like men?” the room seemed to still as his RA burned a deep red and Ilya worried for a moment that he shouldn’t have said that. He had come to Canada because the internet said it was more liberal, but anything was possible. He prepared to put his guards back up.
“What?”
The door suddenly opened with a squeak and they both turned around, a tall man stepping in with an immediately apologetic look. He grimaced and looked between them, “shit, sorry, am I interrupting something? I can come back,”
Ilya’s RA shook his head and forced on a smile, “no you’re not interrupting anything, Cliff,” he tried, “I was just welcoming your new roommate to the dorms. This is...”
Ilya cued in, because Mr. RA didn’t know, and stepped forward to extend a hand, “Ilya Rozanov. I'm in business school, third year.”
“Cliff Marleau. It’s my second year,” he grinned and gave Ilya’s hand a little squeeze, “sick accent, man,”
Nothing Ilya hadn’t heard before, though he didn’t share the sentiment. He nodded regardless, “Thank you,”
They stepped away from each other, Ilya frowning when he realized his other conversation partner was halfway out the door. He scurried out with an, “I'll leave you guys to catch up,” and shut the door behind him.
Ilya turned back to his roommate, “You know him?”
“Yeah, he’d our RA,”
Jesus. “I- I know he is RA.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, “I mean, who is he?” he huffed when Marleau still looked confused, “Name. What is his name?”
“Oh…” Marleau laughed, “oh, that’s Shane Hollander. He’s in your year, I think, I don’t know.” he shrugged, “The guy’s a bit of a square but he’s good people. He let me bring my girlfriend in one time.”
Ilya laughed, “That’s what qualifies good people?”
“Yeah?” he shrugged, “I don’t know. What I do know is he can be cool. You’ll need his help, man. Trust me”
Ilya tried to fight the smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I trust you,”
Shane didn’t tell his friends until two weeks later, evidently a bit too embarrassed about a resident randomly asking him if he was gay. He grit his teeth at them, looking around the study table they were perched on to make sure no one was eavesdropping, “Then he asked me if I liked men!” Shane nodded in agreement when his friends echoed incredulous laughs, “I know, ”
Rose rolled her right hand to gesture him to continue, pushing her way past Hayden and JJ to get closer. “And then what? you just left?”
He glared at her, “What did you want me to do? answer him?”
“The sexy, mysterious Russian exchange student on your floor? Yes!” she gave him a disappointed look, “why would you not answer him? are you crazy?”
“Right, I should have just said ‘yes’ so he can then punch me in the face and spit on me,”
“Shane!” she gasped, “he was not going to punch you in the face and spit on you for being gay,”
“You never know,”
“I do know and I know you're being paranoid,”
“I'm being safe,”
Rose and JJ looked to him for intervention, “Hayden,”
“Look, I'm not gay,” Hayden started with a groan, putting his phone down. “But even I don’t think that’s what that was.”
Shane pouted at him when he didn’t take his side, “but Hayd, I'm telling you, ”
“Maybe he was genuinely asking,”
JJ nodded, “I mean how else would he know? It’s not like you… look gay.”
“Oh, fuck you, JJ!” he spat, because he knew that was a dig at his clothes. JJ stuck his tongue out and Shane pulled at the strings of his hoodie, pouting. “There isn’t a ‘gay’ look,”
Rose rolled her eyes at them and sighed, “we’re just saying there’s no way he’d know. That’s probably why he asked,” She paused, “What? Were you checking him out?”
“I wasn’t checking him out,” an instant denial was an admission of guilt. Shane watched his friends exchange glances. “I looked at him like I look at everyone, I swear,”
Hayden shook his head, “He was checking him out,”
“Shane, this is even more concrete evidence,” she placed a hand on his shoulder, “I vote; he was flirting with you,”
Shane blushed a deep tomato red, “He wasn’t flirting with me,” his friends let out a tandem groan and JJ stood up to pack his things. He followed him up with his eyes before looking back at where Hayden and Rose were still seated- and unimpressed. “We spoke for maybe 10 minutes, guys. I wasn’t checking him out and he wasn’t flirting with me.”
Hayden sighed, “He straight up asked if you liked men,”
“Russia is like, crazy levels of homophobic.”
Rose collapsed against the table and groaned, “There are gay people in homophobic countries, Shane,”
“I just don’t trust him,”
“Because you’re embarrassed by his extremely accurate gaydar.”
“Don’t you have class to attend, JJ?”
Sure, maybe, Ilya Rozanov wasn’t trying to hate crime him, but he had definitely been messing with him. It was the only thing that made sense, whether his friends agreed or not. A stranger staring at you with the straightest face he could manage -after the most boring conversation ever- and then asking if you liked men was odd, and it bothered Shane. Because so what if he liked men. Was that a bad thing?
He took a deep breath and huffed, looking at his textbook with burning ears. Maybe he was a bit paranoid, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He’d only been gay for a year, if he was hyper-aware about anything pertaining to his sexuality, it wasn’t his fault.
“I'm gone, bye Shane, bye guys,” .
Shane pretended to be too immersed in his book to say anything, because he didn’t trust his mouth to speak. He waved JJ goodbye instead and tried not to think about Ilya Rozanov’s attractive accent while he practiced his amino acids.
When Shane got back to his dorm that night, he tried -and failed- to think about something else. It annoyed him because he had far too little time to spend worrying about what a resident said to him two weeks ago. Plus, he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Ilya since their first run in.
He closed his eyes and tried to get some rest, already dreading his 7 am alarm. He’d have to avoid Rose to escape explaining himself. Yeah, I stayed up till 2am wondering why the Russian exchange student called me gay.
Shane had almost completely drifted to sleep when he heard a gentle rap of knuckles against his door. A resident needing help at this time of the night? Absolutely not. Most of them knew that Shane was out for the count by 10:30 but some days he’d push it to 11 just to make sure everyone was good. Whoever was knocking would have to forgive him, he really needed to go to bed.
He cozied into his blankets when the knocking receded, quiet sigh of relief blowing out his nose as he turned over. He would take time out of his day, tomorrow, to seek them out and find out what they needed help with if they just let him sleep.
The door rattled with the force of their next knock, and Shane groaned into his pillow. He reminded himself, as he dragged his body out of bed, that this was his job. The university paid him to do this and let him live here for free and eat free food.
He threw on a tight smile before ripping the door open, interrupting the next barrage of knocks. “Hi! How can I help… you?”
A blush spread on his face in a matter of seconds and he took in the sight in front of him. Ilya Rozanov was in front of his room door, soaking wet and clad in nothing but a towel. And he was ripped as fuck. Shane forced his eyes to the ground when Ilya grinned wide, ears burning hot.
“My room door is locked,”
Shane tried a glance up at him and frowned, “where’s your key?” he asked, wanting to smack himself the moment it came out of his mouth. If he was here, Shane, the key was clearly not with him.
“Locked inside my room.” Ilya answered regardless, curt and simple.
“Cliff isn’t in?”
“I don’t know,” Ilya shrugged, glancing down at the phone in his hand. Shane frowned at him and he continued, “he is sleeping, probably,”
Shane sighed and held back a groan. He wanted to go back to bed and Ilya's room was all the way on the other end of the floor, conveniently right next to the communal bathroom. Which was probably why he didn’t think he needed to grab his key. Shane felt guilty for thinking he was bothering him. This was probably more annoying for Ilya than it was for him.
“Okay, give me a second,” he turned back into his room to grab his bundle of keys, “Alright, let’s go,”
Ilya nodded but didn’t reply, allowing him space to step out of his room before they walked together. Shane considered trying a new conversation and thought against it. If he wasn’t in the mood to talk then Ilya definitely wasn’t. If his face was anything to go by at least, Shane wasn’t good with that sort of thing.
The taller stopped suddenly and Shane bumped into his shoulder, snapping out of his little daze and looking at the room door. He frowned when the faint smell of cigarettes itched at his nose, glaring at Ilya’s bare shoulder. He leaned in and tried an inconspicuous sniff, hoping no one passed by and saw him sniffing a half-naked Ilya Rozanov. “Have you been smoking?”
Ilya looked up from his phone and blinked at him, dull and uninterested. Like he was stupid. “No. I just showered,”
“I know but I-“ Shane sighed and shook his head, “whatever, sorry, I'm tired.”
He stepped forward and pushed his master key into the lock, turning it a few times before the door came open. Inside, Cliff Marleau sat at their mini dining arrangement, eating a bowl of cereal. At 2am. “damn, did you lock yourself out? you coulda just knocked,”
Shane turned to Ilya, deep pout pinching his eyebrows together. Ilya gnawed at the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing. “I thought you said he was asleep,”
“I thought he was,”
“Did you try knocking?”
“I did,”
Cliff made a sound around his spoon of cereal, “I didn’t hear a knock,”
Ilya couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped past his lips, “I knocked.”
Shane’s upper lip lifted in a growl and he took three deep breaths to calm himself. “Next time, try knocking very loudly before coming to me,”
Ilya bit back a smile when he closed the door behind himself, Shane’s frustrated scowl still fresh in his mind. His blushed cheeks from earlier had confirmed exactly what it was he needed to know, Shane was just as cute when he was sleepy and tired. And he appreciated a nice, sculpted chest.
He bent down to pick up the loose flyer leaf at the foot of the door; footprint on it letting him know Marleau hadn’t noticed to pick it up.
It read ‘chai and dye’ in the gaudiest lettering Ilya had ever seen, stock pictures badly cropped and edited together. Ilya wondered for a second if dye had been misspelled and the designer intended to take his life with the awful mess of colours on this. The event was set for next week Friday. He shook it in front of himself for Marleau to see, “what’s this?”
The man looked up from his phone with a startle and blinked, “what? oh, that?”
“Yes, this,” Ilya agreed, pointing at it. He had to be patient with Marleau, “this is?”
“It’s one of Shane’s events.” Marleau said, and that had Ilya’s immediate attention. “The RA’s have to have one a week. Community bonding and whatnot.”
Ilya hummed and flipped it over in his palm, raising his eyebrows at Marleau in question. “Are you going?”
“Absolutely not, dude, are you crazy? Look at that flyer,”
Ilya snorted and folded it in half, adjusting the bunch of his towel at his waist. He was, in fact, very crazy.
Ilya sat through his lecture with an impatience like never before, foot tapping on the ground as he waited for his professor to dismiss them. Shane’s event ended at 4:30 and his class ended at 3:30. He could make it if his professor shut the fuck up right now.
“If there are no other questions for me,” his professor babbled, eyes dusting over the lecture hall, “I’ll end the lecture there for today,” and Ilya was up and out of his seat in a flash.
He strolled out of the hall leisurely, nodding at slightly familiar faces as he made his way back to the dorm. He checked in and beelined for the common room. It wasn’t a place Ilya visited often but it wasn’t bad. It was calm and cozy with a nice view; clearly Shane liked it for events.
The door groaned when he opened it, all of seven people -including Shane- looking up from their poorly dyed shirts and plastic cups of tea. Shane blinked at him and Ilya smiled, “sorry I am late,” he joked, “my professor wouldn’t let us leave,”
“It’s okay,” Shane murmured, standing straight and blushing lightly. “I didn’t know you were coming; you didn’t RSVP,”
Ilya made a sound in his throat, “I did not know I had to,” he looked around the empty room with a smile, “is there any space for me?”
Shane let out a shaky exhale and pointed at the chair farthest from him, which made Ilya chuckle, “You can have a seat there,”
“Thank you,” Ilya smiled, watching the way Shane rolled on the balls of his feet nervously. He clearly had not been expecting him and didn’t handle unpredictable situations too well. Ilya wanted to pull him closer and plant a kiss on his freckled cheeks, just to see how flushed he would get. Instead, he grabbed a random white shirt from the pile beside him and sat down at his assigned seat.
He listened to Shane ramble on about proper tie-dyeing techniques for all of twenty minutes before pulling out his laptop and earphones. He was cute, but not cute enough for Ilya to pretend to care.
He started on menial school work. Nothing was due at the moment but he’d get ahead if he could. The douche-y business professors he had weren’t typically too keen on repeating themselves anyways.
Ilya scanned through notes and PowerPoints with passive interest, only looking up when he felt a shadow loom beside him. He pulled out an earphone and smiled at Shane’s frown, “hello,”
“Hi, Ilya,” Shane tried, his attempt at being cheery falling flat. “how’s your day been?”
Ilya looked around the room in a glance, in the time he’d opened his laptop to study, two people had left. “Is okay,” he replied with a sly smile, “yours?”
“Mine is going good,” Shane hummed, “I-“ he sucked a breath in through his nose, freckled cheeks bunching up slightly. “well-“
Ilya gave him a hand, “is there problem?”
“There’s no problem,” Shane sighed, “it’s just… you have your laptop out,”
“Yes. I am studying,”
“Yes, you are,” he agreed with an awkward trill, “but this isn’t a study event,” Ilya held back a chuckle. “The study rooms are for, studying. But the common room is for fun!”
“Fun?”
“Yes, fun,” Shane answered, tone almost snarky. Ilya's eyes followed the student behind Shane who got up to leave without a word. Three left. “This is a participatory event.” He informed, “and I hate to be- like- strict or whatever, but you’d have to either dye something or drink chai.”
This time, Ilya really couldn’t help the laugh that slipped past his lips, he was sure Shane would like it if he died at this very moment. He shrugged and made to put his earphone back in his ear, “I don’t drink tea.”
Shane’s palm covered his fist and Ilya looked from their joined hands to his red, flustered face. He was too cute, Ilya really wanted to kiss him. “Okay, then how about dying the shirt you picked? We have odour free dye and rubber bands, it’s really fun.”
“Bye Shane, we’re leaving,” two girls sang as they pushed their way out the door, tie-dyed shirts in plastic bags. “It was fun, thanks for the chai.”
“you're welcome, guys! I hope I’ll see you guys at the next- and they're gone,” Shane sighed and turned back to Ilya. Ilya looked at the one other person in the room besides them. “So?”
“So, what?”
“Do you want to dye a shirt?”
“I want to study,”
“I understand that but-“
A creak sounded behind them and Ilya barked out a loud laugh. “Um-“ Shane’s last participant squeaked as he looked at his back. Little blonde kid, freshman probably. “I think I'm going to go too, Shane, I have to do laundry.”
The RA whipped around to see him, “oh, already, Luca?” he asked, tone soft and gentle. “I thought you didn’t want to be in your room right now,”
The boy, Luca, shrugged and blushed, “he just texted me to let me know he was going to be out,”
“Oh, okay,” Shane nodded, “next Saturday I have something going on and I’d love to see you there,”
Luca stole a glance at Ilya and and swallowed, “I’ll try,”
“Well, you are just two rooms away from the common room,” Shane laughed, drily, “if you wanted, I could give your door a knock before I- okay, bye.”
Ilya watched him scurry out like a mouse and averted his attention back to Shane, tapping the table with his pointer finger. He thought it was safe to say there were no RSVPs for next Saturday. “Well, it seems like your event is over,”
Shane swallowed and pursed his lips, releasing a tired sigh after a moment, “yeah,” he agreed, checking his watch. “Yeah, I think I should start packing up.”
Ilya nodded and got up to stuff his laptop -and free t-shirt- into his bag. He loomed over him when he stood tall and Shane stepped back with an audible gulp. He blinked at Ilya and the blonde smiled a slick look, “I will also see you next Saturday,”
Shane’s smile fell and the cogs in his head turned, “oh, no, you don’t have to-“ he started, but Ilya was already out the door before he could finish.
It was a bit embarrassing for Ilya to admit that he had actually looked forward to Saturday. When he told Svetlana about it, and subsequently about Shane, all she had said was “stop bullying that poor guy and leave him alone,”
Ilya didn’t get it. He wasn’t bullying Shane; he couldn’t bully him. He liked him far too much to do that. He was only teasing, because Shane was so fucking cute when he was frustrated and it did something to Ilya’s stomach. Besides, Ilya couldn’t leave Shane alone, Shane was the one who decided to haunt his every waking thought.
“You going somewhere, man?” Marleau asked as he slipped into his worn adidas sneakers. He was on facetime with his girlfriend and she was showing him how to make an omelette.
Ilya looked him up and down, “common room,”
Marleau made a sound in his throat, tongue sticking out the side of his face as he rolled his egg with precision. “But Shane’s having an event there today.”
Just the sound of his name had Ilya’s stomach twisting in knots. He was elated by protentional thoughts of seeing Shane. This is what the boring Canadian was doing to him, so he’d have to put up with a little teasing in retaliation. Ilya smiled at Marleau and nodded, looking away. “Yeah, I know,”
When Shane opened the common room doors, twenty-five minutes ago, he had hoped and prayed for it to be anybody else in this dormitory but Ilya Rozanov. “This is boring,” Ilya groaned, the ‘g’ rumbling deep in his throat. Shane took a deep breath and willed himself not to turn around. His prayers had evidently gone unanswered.
He swallowed down any possible rebuttals and fixed his attention on the balloons he was dumping in a bowl. If he turned and gave Ilya any attention, that would be admitting defeat. “When does this start? When is everybody supposed to be here?”
That he couldn’t ignore. “It started already,” Shane grit through clenched teeth as he fiddled with the long stacks of plastic cups. “it’s why I opened the door, and how you were able to get in,” even though I should have slammed it in your face, he finished in his head.
“So, nobody showed up?”
Shane felt his eye twitch, “well you’re here, Ilya, so not nobody,”
“Am I really here if I am bored out of my mind?”
Deep breaths, Shane.
He turned to Ilya with a faux smile, “how about you try doing something, then, if you’re so bored?” he gestured at the table he’d just finished arranging. “There’s so much to do to keep yourself busy. Pick anything.”
Ilya hummed, eyes surveying the table with a strange glint. He pointed at something with a lazy hand, “what’s that?”
The table creaked slightly when Shane turned to look, plastic cups swaying in place. He perked up when he realized what he was pointing at, “oh, those are for homemade stress balls.” The blonde nodded and he took that as his opening to continue, clearing his throat to sound more nonchalant. “I thought it was dumb at first, but I made one and couldn’t stop using it. They're really fun”
“You liked it,”
“I did. A lot.”
Ilya hummed, “Is easy to make?”
“Really easy to make, yeah,” Shane picked up a balloon with a smile, “do you want to make one?”
“No,”
Shane was going to kill him. He was going to bludgeon Ilya Rozanov to death with the sack of flour behind him.
Ilya picked under his nails and yawned, smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “Do people usually come for these?”
“Can you please leave?”
“I don’t think is right for you to chase me,” he smiled wide, “besides, I don’t really want to leave,”
“What do you want to do then?” Shane asked and oh, he knew it was a trap before he was done asking.
Ilya snorted, “you want me to answer that?”
“Please don’t,”
“Okay.”
They stared at each other for a moment, Shane’s flustered face to Ilya's smug one. Shane wanted to reach out and wipe the look off his face. He looked at his watch, “I think, uh- I think I'll end it early for today. Clearly no one is showing up.”
“Am I no one?”
“Fuck,” Shane cussed under his breath, Québecois French rolling off his tongue smoothly. Ilya knew how to get under his skin and he was letting him win. He rolled his eyes and frowned at the man who was practically glowing with interest.
“Is curse word?”
“What?” Shane was exhausted.
“What you said just now,” Ilya smiled, trying the word himself. It was just one word, tabarnak, but it sounded funny with Ilya's heavy Russian accent. Shane, strangely enough, liked it. “Is curse word in French?”
Shane sighed and nodded, “yes, it is a French curse word,”
Ilya’s lips crumpled in an understanding look and he nodded at Shane, “I have not heard you curse before,” he sniggered, “I did not know you spoke French,”
“I'm sure there’s lots you don’t know about me,”
“Yes,” Ilya agreed, licking the inner corners of his mouth. He smiled again, wide and treacherous and Shane couldn’t help but roll his eyes, “but is okay, you are very good at answering questions.”
Shane figured it was about time he asked him a question. He wanted to ask something that’d put him on the spot and make him scurry around in his head for an answer, but he couldn’t think of anything, so he settled for, “why did you leave Russia?”
Ilya flinched slightly and Shane frowned. It wasn’t much but he punched his mental fist in the air for making Ilya freeze, even for a moment. Ilya looked between his eyes before slipping back into his usual calm and cool. He shrugged, “Russia is very cold,”
Shane laughed, incredulous, “you left Russia because it was cold?” and it didn’t make any more sense to him when he said it out loud, because Ottawa was, on average, colder than Moscow.
“Yes,” Ilya confirmed. He paused and sniffed, looking around the common room with disinterest. Shane could tell he didn’t want to be in this conversation, “In more ways than one,”
“Huh,”
He folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head at Shane, staring at him like there was something he wanted him to understand. He tried again, “It is home, but it is very cold to me,” he swallowed, “and many others,”
“And Ottawa is warmer?” he whispered, suddenly sombre.
Ilya nodded and smiled, something genuine that made his eyes crease at the sides. He felt more human in this singular moment than in the weeks he’d lived here. “Much warmer, yes. I prefer it,”
Oh. “Oh,” Shane didn’t get much but he kind of got this. Rose’s, there are gay people in homophobic countries, Shane, echoed in his head and he this understood clearly.
“Yes, oh. But, it is home,” they stewed in their silence for a while before Ilya pushed himself off the table and stretched. “If event is cancelled, I should go back to my room.” and Shane didn’t have a reason to ask him to stay besides the sudden longing in his chest.
“Yeah, okay,” he mumbled, “I’ll start packing up.”
“You need any help?”
“No, I’ve got it,”
“Okay, then I'm going.” With a forlorn look on his face, Shane watched Ilya gather the little he came with and leave the common room. The blonde didn’t look even a bit perturbed by their conversation but Shane couldn’t help but feel for him. Ilya, up until now, had been nothing but a handsome nuisance in his life. But he was human before anything, and humans felt.
The swing doors closed behind him and Shane pulled out his phone to text Rose. Just because he’s not a homophobe, doesn’t mean he’s not been messing with me.
Rose’s text back was almost instant, so he is interested in you.
Not at all what I just said.
Shane woke up on Thursday feeling like he didn’t want to get out of bed. He wouldn’t have, honestly, if he didn’t have an event today. An event that no one was going to come to, the voice in the back of his head bit.
He groaned and hauled himself to his feet, heading down to the bathrooms to clean up for the day. He wouldn’t feel as bad about his attendance if his friends could be there, but Hayden and Rose lived off campus and JJ had his own RA events to plan. Events everyone on his floor (and in his building) seemed to want to go to. Shane’s residents seemed to like him, but clearly not enough to be in a room with him for an hour and a half, tie-dying a shirt.
He sighed and tried to think of something else as he moved his box of supplies to the common room; like how Ilya had metaphorically come out to him a week ago. Hayden said he wasn’t sure that was it was but Rose agreed with Shane instantly. Rose did, also, want them to get together so he took her opinion with a grain of salt.
Shane had seen Ilya everywhere after that. In the library, at the bookstore, smoking in between classes. One time, he’d bumped into him at the showers and had to run out from how hard he was blushing.
It was his mind playing tricks on him now. If thought Ilya liked men, then every interaction they had could be second guessed. Even things as little as him passing Shane a plate while they were in line for omelettes. Shane hadn’t ever experienced a man showing interest in him, so, he was paranoid.
Rose said he was paranoid about everything, though.
He checked his watch and sighed, thirty minutes in and still no sign of anyone. Not even Ilya, his brain supplied, like he couldn’t see that for himself. Shane sighed another wistful sound; he’d start packing up.
The door creaked once he was done piling rulers and origami paper back into his box, “Is it too late to join?” Ilya asked as he pushed the door open. His hair was a bit of a mess and his breathing was only a bit ragged. It would be presumptuous for Shane to think he rushed here to see him, so he didn’t entertain the thought.
Shane blinked at him and shook his head, “no, I guess there’s still time, technically,” he swallowed and gestured around them. “no one is here yet,”
“Yes. I can tell,” Ilya stalked closer and picked up a stack of coloured paper, flipping through it with half-hearted interest, “who is paying for these events?”
Shane snatched them back with a frown, “fuck off, my budget was pre-approved,” he dropped them back in the box and shook his head. He didn’t want to have to deal with Ilya making fun of him today. He wasn’t in a good mood, “who am I kidding, you don’t care about this. Go away, Ilya, today’s event is cancelled,”
Ilya stared at him, smirk dropping at the corners, “cancelled? Why?”
“What do you mean why? There’s no one here,”
“Is there usually?” he asked, blinking.
Ouch. “Right, okay,”
“I am here,” Ilya tried when Shane rolled his eyes, “is not enough?”
Shane scoffed, “yeah and I'm sure you're just so eager to participate today, Ilya,”
“I'm serious. I want to play with paper and eat convenience store chips,” he picked another stack of paper up and Shane didn’t fight him, “I was waiting all day,”
“No, you weren’t,”
“Yes, I was,” he picked up a flyer to read it, “it was all I could think of in my lecture. I was waiting for- this is how you spell origami in English?”
“Yeah,”
“It makes sense,” he put the flyer down and nodded, “I was waiting all day to cut and fold paper, I swear.”
Shane snorted and shook his head, “there’s no cutting involved, just folding.” He blushed when Ilya made a face, “it’s called something completely different when you cut it.”
“You know much about it,” a statement, not a question.
“I mean, kinda,” he sighed, “my grandpa used to show us how to do some all the time, so…” he trailed off and Ilya made a sound.
“Is from where you’re from?”
Shane nodded, “partially,” he said, “my dad is Canadian and my mum is Japanese. My grandparents moved here when she was like 8.”
“Have you been?”
“To Japan?”
“Mhmm,”
“Yeah, like twice,” He looked down at where Ilya was continuously flipping through the papers with his thumb, putting his hand over it to get him to stop when he’d had enough. He mumbled, “you’re going to fray the edges if you do that.”
Ilya looked from Shane’s face to where their hands were joined, glancing up at him with a curious look that had his freckled cheeks pinking. He smiled, “okay,” he lifted his free hand in surrender, “will you show me how to do it?”
“You actually want to learn?”
“I am here, no?”
They locked eyes and Shane hummed, unsure if this was another attempt at Ilya’s teasing. He nodded after a moment, turning to pick up tutorial sheets. “These ones are pretty easy; you can do as many of these as you want.”
Ilya shook his head but took the paper, “is not easy one I want,” he smiled, “show me your favourite.”
“My favourite?”
“Yeah,” Ilya confirmed, strolling over to a seat and sliding into it. He pulled the chair nearest to him close and patted it for Shane to have a seat. “I prefer private lesson,” he informed, “Is your favourite hard to learn?”
“I mean, it’s just a paper crane,” he shrugged, “it’s not hard at all, it’s just- why?”
“Because I want to know why you picked this,” Shane stared at him and Ilya seemed to blank. He looked like he was sounding the sentence again in his head. Shane thought it sounded like he wanted to get to know him. But he didn’t want to get ahead of himself.
“Because it’s fun,” Shane confessed after a moment, pulling out two pieces of paper. He dropped one in front of Ilya and tapped the table for him to watch him. “And soothing, I like it.”
“You like it.” Ilya echoed, immediately folding his paper the way he saw Shane do.
“Yeah,” he blinked, “I like lots of things, is that strange?”
“No,” Ilya’s head fell forward when he snorted, eyeing Shane’s nimble fingers. “You answer everything,” he smiled, “you always have an answer,”
“Well, you always have a question, so?”
“Yes, and you answered all my questions except first one,”
“What first one?”
Ilya fixed him with a smirk and nudged his shoulder, “You don’t remember?”
Shane stared at him long and hard, cheeks tinting when he recalled. He placed his completed crane on the table for Ilya to see. “Oh... that one,”
“Yes, that one,” Ilya laughed, looking from Shane’s piece to his. It looked like he had missed a step. Or five. “So? do you like men?”
“You’re doing that wrong,” Shane mumbled, ears burning under Ilya’s intense gaze as he avoided the question.
“You won’t tell me?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Ilya presented his busted-up crane for Shane to fix, not taking his hands off it. “I think you know.”
“That’s a terrible way to flirt,” Shane mumbled, hands gently over Ilya’s as he helped him fold. Ilya let him move his fingers, but he wasn’t looking at the paper anymore.
“Wasn’t flirting then, just curious,”
“And now?”
Shane’s breath hitched in his throat when he got closer. Ilya chuckled, “now is flirting,”
“With me?”
“There’s no one else here, Shane,”
“I know I was just making sure,” he blinked, “I haven’t had… that, happen often so I couldn’t really tell,”
“It is obvious,”
“Don’t be a jerk,” he blushed down to his neck, pulling his hands away when he had completed Ilya’s crane. He made to move and Ilya reached for his wrist, “I'm already embarrassed enough,”
“I will make it easy.” Ilya grabbed Shane’s chin to lift his face up, bringing them eye-to-eye. “Are you interested in me like I am interested in you?”
Shane didn’t see how that made anything easy, “How are you interested in me?”
Ilya kissed his teeth, “interested like, I want to kiss you. And do other things to you… if you want,”
Shane tried to look away but Ilya held his face straight, strong fingers pressing into his jaw. He wanted to get out of this desperately. He didn’t want to make a fool out of himself.
Ilya gave his chin a nudge when he didn’t answer, “hmm?”
“I am curious about you, yeah,”
“Curious enough to let me kiss you?”
“Here?” he could feel his heart pounding in his chest; he might throw up. “I don’t think we should,”
“Why? There is no one coming?” Ilya shrugged, “no one will see anything,”
“Rude,” Shane huffed, punching his shoulder lightly and making to look down. He swallowed when Ilya laughed deep in his chest.
“But true, no?” Ilya lifted his head up again, “Can I kiss you? Hmm?”
Shane nodded, because he didn’t trust himself to say anything, and Ilya's lips were on his own in a moment. His lips were softer than he had pictured and when Shane pulled back, he held him in place with his hand. Shane shivered.
“Open,” Ilya mumbled, pressing his tongue in to lick into his mouth. Shane blushed a bright red but did as he was told, melting at the strange feeling of Ilya’s tongue rolling around his own. His heart felt like it could burst out of his chest at any given moment. He’d never kissed a man before, little less one as handsome as Ilya. He felt like he would open his eyes and a studio of people would be watching him and laughing.
“Hey, Shane have you seen- woah,” They pulled apart like caught thieves when someone burst in through the doors, Shane immediately hiding his face in Ilya's shoulder with a squeak. Ilya growled a frustrated sound and Marleau gawked at them, “what the fuck?”
“Marleau,” Ilya sounded murderous,
“Dude,” he gaped, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“Get the fuck out, Marleau, Jesus Christ!”
“Damn, okay, fuck you”
He grumbled under his breath as he turned out the door, and Shane pinched Ilya’s side lightly. He laughed into the soft cotton of his shirt when Ilya hissed, “Come on, don’t be mean to Cliff, he’s a great guy.”
“He’s an idiot,” Ilya cursed, Russian expletives slipping past his lips at a mile a minute. “Fuck, I should have locked door,”
Shane snickered because he was too embarrassed to do anything else. This barely felt real. “why’re you getting mad?” he mumbled, “I told you not to kiss me here and you did it anyway,” Shane sighed into his shirt and lifted his head, “if anything, I'm the aggrieved party here,”
Ilya glared down at him with a huff, “I don’t know what that means,”
“What?”
“I don’t know what that word means,” he lifted an accusatory brow, “is why you said it, right? I suspect you are secretly huge asshole.”
Shane giggled and shook his head, shoulders shaking. “No, I wasn’t thinking, I swear,” he sobered up slightly and looked at Ilya, “Aggrieved means-“
Ilya leaned in to catch his lips in a kiss before he could continue, faint smile on his lips. “It wasn’t a question.”