Work Text:
For fourteen days, Shane had texted Rozanov about Barry Lyndon, about a hotel room desk covered in playbook pages and a view of a random hallway. About nothing. About everything.
He had not, in those fourteen days, once asked about the next session, and Rozanov had not once asked. Shane told himself this meant nothing. He’s just been very busy. He'd been telling himself a lot of things lately.
He didn't know why. That was the part he couldn't explain. The road trip gave him cover for a while: New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Toronto, four cities and four ceilings and four mornings of picking up his phone and putting it back down without typing the thing he was supposedly there to type.
I'd like to book another session. Six words. He knew how to say them. He just kept not saying them, and saying other things instead, and Rozanov kept responding, and somehow fourteen days passed.
Shane came home to his clean condo and his full freezer and the four walls that had never felt smaller, and he sat on his couch in his coat for eleven minutes because he couldn't figure out why he'd bothered coming back.
His phone was in his hand.
The chat with Rozanov sat at the top of his recents. The last message was a photo, a golden dog on someone's front steps, a family blurred in the background, sent a few days ago with no caption, like Rozanov had just wanted him to have it. Shane had looked at it for a long time on a hotel bed in Toronto and typed He found a good home. That made me really happy! and sent it before he could think about it, and then immediately wanted to throw his phone into the wall.
Rozanov had replied: Me too. Sleep well, Hollander.
That had been five days ago.
His phone was in his hand.
I just got back from the road trip, Shane started typing, then deleted it.
Hey, are you working this Friday, he typed, then deleted that too.
After seven attempts, he finally typed: I just got back.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then, wincing at himself, he hit send.
**
**
Ilya was at the laundromat when his phone buzzed.
He had his back to the row of dryers, one hand holding a book and another hand holding the last of a cold piroshki from a paper bag, watching his work clothes rotate in machine number seven. The piroshki was good, he'd bought three from the Georgian place on his block, a small concession to the fact that grocery shopping on an empty stomach always cost him more than he planned. The bag had grease through it in three places. He ate the rest anyway, licked his fingers, and picked up his phone.
Two messages.
One from Andrei. One from S.H.
He opened Andrei's first, because that was discipline. Andrei needed money for new shoes, work shoes, he clarified, like that was different and could Ilya send by Friday?
Blyat. Ilya stared at the message for a moment, thought about the lawyer payment, thought about the rent, thought about the twenty dollar bill Marianne had pressed into his hand last week. He typed back: yes, I'll send it tomorrow. Closed it.
Opened the other one.
I just got back.
Ilya let out a slow breath through his nose. Outside, sleet tapped the laundromat window. Machine seven kept spinning. A woman at the far end of the row was folding a fitted sheet with the resigned focus of someone who had accepted that no one could do this correctly and had made peace with it.
He should not be pleased that S.H. had texted him. Shane Hollander is a client. Clients texted for bookings, or they texted photos of hotel rooms and random city skyline they thought Ilya would want to see, or they texted he found a good home, that made me really happy! from a hotel room at midnight, which was, totally fine. Which was normal. Right? That was also technically a client behavior. Ilya had been telling himself this for five days and he was getting quite good at it.
The fact that he had glanced at his phone seventeen times to check for a new message today was a detail he intended to take to his grave.
He typed back.
**
**
Shane read it twice. Then a third time.
He was still in his coat, still on the couch. The condo had gone dark around him while he wasn't paying attention. Toronto was not kind to you. Not you could play better or tough loss or any of the things coaches and journalists had said. Just that Rozanov had watched the Toronto game and knew.
He typed.
**
**
Ilya read the last message twice. I don't really know why I'm telling you that.
He knew why.
Machine seven beeped. He stood, transferred everything to a dryer, fed in another two dollars. Sat back down. The laundromat smelled like detergent and damp and the vague suggestion of someone else's fabric softener, and it was warm in the way only laundromats and bakeries were warm, deeply, uselessly warm.
He typed back.
**
**
Shane looked at the first message for a long time.
Because you are tired and you are home and you need to tell someone. And then How are you feeling, Hollander?
He doesn’t hate that question. His throat did something complicated. He pulled his coat off finally and dropped it on the cushion next to him. His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
**
**
Shane laughed. Actually laughed, short and involuntary, the kind that surprised him out of his own chest without asking permission first. He pressed his fist to his mouth, but it was already out.
He typed back.
**
**
Shane thought about not answering. Thought about redirecting toward something safer never mind, it's not important. But instead, he put his feet up on the coffee table, and start typing.
**
**
Shane stared at that last message for a long moment.
And where was your brain.
He knew the actual answer. The back-to-backs catching up to him, four cities in two weeks, a team that hadn't quite found its footing yet this season, coach on his case, sponsors already sniffing around wins and losses like they could smell the difference. He was tired. He was so tired he'd been skating on autopilot since New York and his body had finally started sending the bill.
And he missed being home. And he missed someone. That was the answer.
Yet he’s not sure why he typed: Somewhere it wasn't supposed to be.
Sent it. His pulse kicked up waiting.
**
**
There it was. That tone. The patient, certain, like Rozanov had already seen the answer and was just waiting for Shane to catch up to it. Shane could feel it through the screen.
His thumbs moved.
**
**
Shane blinked. Looked up from his phone at his dark kitchen.
**
**
Shane smiled and he got up. He went to the kitchen, pulled a container from the freezer. Miso salmon, brown rice, pre-portioned, identical to the twenty beside it, and put it in the microwave. He stood watching it rotate.
His phone buzzed again.
**
**
The microwave beeped. Shane read that last sentence and then read it again, because his brain had done something immediately and involuntarily with anything and what would it be that had nothing to do with food, and he needed a moment.
He put his phone face down on the counter.
Picked it back up.
Not that, he told himself. He means food. He put the container back on the counter and started typing.
**
**
A beat. Longer than the others.
**
**
Shane leaned against the counter, smiling at his phone. The salmon container sat forgotten beside him.
**
**
Shane's face went warm.
**
**
Shane stared at the message.
On Photography. He'd mentioned it once, barely even mentioned it, more like confessed it, two weeks ago in the dark of his condo after the first private session when Rozanov asked him some question about what he did with his free time when he’s not watching film. Shane had said, I bought a Sontag book because of the Kubrick thing, I’ve been meaning to read it.
Rozanov had remembered.
Shane put his phone down on the counter. Picked it back up.
**
**
Another beat.
**
**
Shane read it. Read it again. Set his phone face down on the counter and stood there in his dark kitchen, breathing slowly, telling himself that the qualifier at the end it is my job was the important part. The part he was supposed to hear.
He picked the phone back up.
**
**
Shane stared at the screen for a long moment. The salmon container was still on the counter. He'd completely forgotten about it.
He sat down on the kitchen floor. He wasn't sure why. It seemed like the right thing to do, back against the cabinets, feet flat on the cold tile, phone in both hands. The city stretched bright and indifferent through the windows above him.
I wanted to hear from you.
He typed back before he could think about it too hard.
**
**
Shane laughed again. Twice in one night, some kind of record.
**
**
Shane looked down at himself. Cold tile, back against the cabinets. He hadn't even noticed.
**
**
You didn't have to. Shane pressed the back of his head against the cabinet door and looked up at the ceiling. His pulse was doing something inconvenient again.
**
**
Shane closed his eyes. The refrigerator hummed. Outside, a siren passed and faded. He was very aware of his own heartbeat.
He typed.
**
**
Shane's face was hot. He was alone in his kitchen in the dark and his face was hot and he was too tired to talk himself out of it, from what he’s about to say, which was maybe the point of being this tired, and his thumbs moved before he decided.
**
**
Shane exhaled. Stared at the ceiling. Typed.
**
**
A pause. Longer than the others. Shane counted his own heartbeats.
**
**
Shane made a sound that he was grateful no one was there to hear. His whole body had gone warm, the specific, unbearable warmth of being seen doing exactly the thing he was trying not to do.
**
**
Shane sat very still on his kitchen floor.
His brain had, at some point in the last thirty seconds, short circuited and ceased to function in any meaningful way. He was operating purely on nerve endings and the specific, devastating memory of Rozanov's voice in his ear, you were perfect, Hollander and the way his whole body had gone liquid and loose and finally, finally quiet.
He swallowed.
**
**
Shane got up off the floor. His legs were steady, which felt like a minor miracle. He retrieved the salmon from the counter, found a fork, ate it standing up. It was cold and tasted like nothing but he ate all of it, mechanically, while his brain slowly came back online.
The city was quiet outside. The clock on the microwave read 10:47.
He picked up his phone.
**
**
A small silence. Comfortable, somehow. Shane rinsed his fork and stood in the dark kitchen with the city behind him and his phone warm in his hand and something loosened in his chest that had been tight for fourteen days.
**
**
Ilya looked at the message for a long moment. The laundromat was empty now, the fitted sheet woman long gone, the machines quiet, the fluorescent lights doing their usual indifferent work. His laundry sat folded in the bag at his feet. The book he brought was ignored. He should have left forty minutes ago.
He hadn't.
Are you free Friday.
He thought about his schedule, he should check it before confirming. He thought about the lawyer payment and the rent and Andrei's shoes. He thought about all the very reasonable and practical things he should think about.
He typed back in four seconds.
**
**
Shane stayed on the kitchen floor for another few minutes after the conversation went quiet. The city still out there, all that light and noise and life, and him in here with his chest doing that soft, useless thing it had been doing all night.
See you Friday.
He went to bed. He lay on his back looking up at the ceiling fan making its slow rotations, and thought about a man in a laundromat who remembered everything he said, and felt his mouth curve in the dark before he could stop it.
He fell asleep faster than he had in fourteen days.
**
Across the city, Ilya finally stood, shouldered his laundry bag, and pushed out into the cold.
The sleet had stopped. The streets were wet and gleaming under the streetlights, and his building rose ahead of him with its broken elevator and its dramatic radiator and its six hundred square feet of his own life. He climbed the three flights without hurrying. Changed out of his clothes. Lay down on top of the covers still half dressed because he was too warm to get under them, the warmth of the laundromat still in his skin.
He looked at the ceiling.
I wanted to hear from you, he had typed, and sent it, and not taken it back.
He thought about Shane on the kitchen floor in an expensive condo. He thought about the sound he'd made that first night, when Ilya had pressed his thumbs into the knots of his shoulders, the sound of something giving way that had been braced for too long.
He thought about Friday.
He thought: this is going to be a problem and found, lying in the dark of his small apartment, that he could not locate the part of himself that minded.
The city hummed outside his window. The radiator knocked its arrhythmic lullaby.
Ilya closed his eyes.
And smiled.