Work Text:
"I'm sorry, dear, Ilya's too tied up to come to the phone right now."
Shane might have been concerned by the implications of such a statement, if he couldn't hear a background hum of voices, and a very distinct laugh from Ilya-- one Shane heard not nearly often enough, one of delighted surprise. Ilya's voice is quickly audible speaking, too: "No! Sarh, you cannot tell him that, I used to be an enormous-- very badly behaved, and he will think I have gotten into trouble."
Shane blinks. Okay, then. The several voices he can here now either laughing or squealing in surprise all sound like women, but for some reason, none of them are... offended? Horrified?
"I can hold you up to his ear but he really doesn't have his hands free right now," the person who answered the phone, Sarah, says. She has a brisk, mother-y sort of voice, the one that says this person is very kind but deals with a lot of nonsense and has somehow accomplished more in any given day than you do in a week simply because they must for the world to keep turning and what can they do for you?
"That's, um, fine, I was just wondering when he's going to be home? He didn't answer my texts so I thought..."
"Oh, have we kept him too long? I'm sorry, we can free him up for you in a moment, he was just telling us how little time you two get together even over the phone with your busy lives."
"He... told you about us?"
"Oh, you can't blame him for that, dear, we took him hostage and tortured him for information. We have lots of needles here."
"Needles?"
"All shapes and sizes!"
"Maybe you should give Ilya the phone?"
"Sure thing! Here you go." There's some shuffling, and suddenly Ilya's voice, loud but slightly muffled, like when he's got the phone squished up against his ear to keep his hands free for cooking (or other things).
"Jane! Hello. I am surrounded by beautiful women, but we all have all our clothes on. In fact they have put extra clothes on me, which is not usually what happens to me around beautiful women."
"Yeah, so, I saw this thing on YouTube where if you call 911 and you can't talk freely you pretend you're ordering a pizza, do you need me to like... call in a rescue?"
"You put me in very difficult position, Jane. Normally I would be very glad to make you eat pizza with me, but no, you shouldn't worry. I was seduced by very nice smelling baked goods, and then I was ambushed and made to work for my escape, and then they tied me to a chair."
"That is only technically what happened," a voice that is probably Sarah again says, laughing.
Honestly, as shameless as Ilya is, the bright happiness in his voice and the tone of mischief is all Shane needs to know that whatever's going on is simply the most fun Ilya's had since... probably since the last time he and Shane and Shane's parents were all able to eat together. Ilya's been having trouble bonding with the Ottawa team, and Shane worries that it's his fault, for taking up so much of Ilya's free time and for being this big thing he can't share with them.
"But I shouldn't come get you, because you're right where you want to be?"
"Ah, Zhannochka, if you could come get me I would pretend to be very scared indeed of Natashenka and her very sharp needles, but no, I am okay." There is a bright laugh in the background, a child's laugh, and Shane aches warmly with the knowledge with whatever Ilya's fallen into, it means he's gotten to play with kids again. "I didn't know how late it was, I'm sorry I missed our call."
"That's fine, Ilya, as long as you're okay. I am really curious where you are that's full of needles and has you tied up, though. Are you... acting as a test subject in a tattoo parlor?"
"Mmm, no, good idea though. Would be even better if you were." There's a slightly dark, hungry edge to Ilya's voice, but he's keeping it light, presumably due to the audience on his end. "No, I am helping Natashenka's grandmama turn her into a unicorn. Apparently her horn was not sparkly enough, so we are adding extra stardust."
"That explains absolutely nothing, but sounds very cute."
"The cutest, Zhannochka. I would go home now for our call, only I think the stardust will get ruined if I do not hold it up."
"I can bully Danya into letting me borrow one of the swifts, Ilyusha, you should go be with that nice boy of yours if he is waiting for you."
"But how will I know whether the unicorn horn's magic was truly summoned if I go now?" Ilya says, presumably to Natashenka's grandmama. The voice had sounded very grandmama-ish.
"I do know what a cell phone is, Ilyusha. I will send you photos. Or you come back next week, when we three meet again."
"There are five of you."
"Natalia only counts as half."
This inspires delighted protests from Natalia, to which Ilya replies, "I am practically furniture, so I can be half as well."
"We're here most Tuesday afternoons and on Friday evenings, though mostly the Friday is a younger crowd, nine-to-fivers who can't make the afternoons," says a voice Shane thinks is the original Sarah.
"I am too old and creaky for such younger crowds. I will stay with the lovely Sonya who understands what it is to have knees that sound like popcorn."
From the old-lady-like cackle, Sonya is the name of Natalia's grandmama.
"You'd be welcome any time, and you might even graduate from turning hand-cranks to learning to make something yourself!" Says Sarah's voice.
"My big, clumsy hands should be grateful you need cranks turned, I do not think they would be any good at this fine art. I will leave the magic wand needles to unicorn princess ninja Natalia."
"Ilya, your hands are not clumsy," Shane says, loathe to interrupt whatever regular assignation is currently being arranged. "And... you have a game next Tuesday," he adds, even more reluctantly.
"Ah, yes," Ilya says. "I am sorry," he says, not into the phone, "my sweet Zhannochka is telling me that I have work commitment next Tuesday."
"And Maria has a doctor's appointment," Sarah says, supremely unbothered. "The Tuesday after that, then."
"You should know, Ilyusha, once you taste a witch's pastries, you will always be lured back!" Grandmama Sonya says. "Here, lovely, you can put that here, your poor arms must be tired."
There is a shuffling, the general non-words of something being tended to, and Ilya's voice loses the muffled quality of being pinned to his shoulder with his face. "Ah, I am released for now, Jane, but the magic thread will surely draw me back one day, there is no escaping."
"You're going to have to tell me what on earth you got roped into," Shane says, enormously fond.
"'Roped into' is the right word! I will tell you when I am home, I am not far, only went for little walk after practice. Ah-- Danya, here, I almost walked out wearing it."
"Oh! Thank you," a new voice, neither motherly nor childish nor old, says. "That's perfect, if it fits you it'll definitely fit him."
"I would not be so sure, my friend Svetlana says that my head is the most swelled of anyone in the city, so..."
A cheerful laugh recedes into the background, and it sounds like a door is closed. There's street noise, now.
"It sounds like you've made some friends?" Shane says, tentative. Since realizing how much distance Ilya was keeping from the team for their shared sake he's tried to make himself be much more relaxed about what Ilya chooses to do for his own sanity, but Ilya's been saying "Jane, Zhannochka" the whole call and he definitely heard a Russian grandmother referred to him as Ilya's 'nice boy' at some point there.
"I really did just come here for pastries," Ilya says, ruefully. "It smelled like what the old lady next door made when we visited my mama's hometown. Sonya makes them and receives all her payment in yarn."
"Yarn?"
"Yes, I have been made to work like Rumplestiltskin at the spinning wheel in a knitting shop."
***
Later, once Ilya has gone home, heated up a pre-portioned dinner, and talked about Shane's game, Shane asks again about the knitting shop while Ilya begins to clean up and consider going to bed. "You said Sonya makes pastries?"
"Yes, with jam," Ilya says. He does not think they will fuck tonight. It is a strange thing, to spend time with Shane not getting off, even on the phone; a precious thing, but part of him still screams it is a waste, that every opportunity he must take everything he can, and also that if he is not giving Shane pleasure his beloved will surely lose interest. But this, this is good. Being quiet sometimes, having the video call on his ipad while he makes his dinner, Shane complaining about a West Coast roadtrip disrupting his sleep schedule. All the precious parts of Shane's life that happen between the fucking, Ilya wants them as well, even if it feels terribly greedy to get to have them.
"What kind of jam?"
"Berry, some kind? I don't know, it is not raspberry or strawberry."
"So you smelled jam and wandered into a yarn shop?"
"I was thinking I would get coffee as well, and then the next thing I know, I am being used as industrial equipment."
"What?" Shane's startled laugh makes Ilya grin.
"There is this thing, it is one big wheel and a small peg on a motor that spins, it is how they turn yarn from big loops into small balls that a kitten can chase around the floor. And the motor for the peg was fucked."
"Did you just... spin it manually?" Shane sounds vaguely disbelieving.
"No, there is a wooden one with a handle, this is what people use when they do not have enough yarn to buy fancy motorized peg."
"You're saying peg this many times on purpose," Shane accuses.
Ilya absolutely is. Ilya has extracted every possible detail of Shane's brief liaison with Rose, and that particular tidbid never ceases to give him smug joy. "I have no idea what you are talking about," he lies. "It is a peg, it spins at an angle, like the tilt of a planet."
"You've been getting astronomy facts from my Dad. And how long did you crank their peg for them?"
"Now you're doing it on purpose!" Ilya laughs. It's a freer laugh than he's felt in a while. He's smiling, just remembering the warmth of the shop.
"What did they need you for, if people usually do it themselves?" Shane asks.
"Well, usually it is not a problem, if it is one ball of yarn at a time. But this is a shop, yes? And many people do not have the wheel and the peg, not even without a motor, so the shop says 'we will do this for you.' Only today, I am standing there, and they are holding several big loops of yarn-- only twisted up small, you only unwrap it into a loop when it is going on the wheel. Otherwise they say it gets very tangled."
"I see," Shane says. "So, what, they said 'you there! You can't leave until you turn this crank a thousand times'?"
"No, certainly not, Sarah came to me and said 'you can have as many cookies as you can eat for free if you'll just stand here and turn this while I help this customer.'"
Shane and Ilya are both laughing, at the delightful absurdity of being offered free pastries for manual labor as a millionaire hockey player. And yet being another party in the moneyless bargains being thrown around that little community feels like a sweet and precious thing, now, in hindsight.
"And you agreed to that?"
"Honestly, it may be that Sonya's cookies truly are magic, because I did not think to say no." Truly, Ilya had been so bemused by the warm if brusque touch of Sarah's hand on his arm, drawing him inexorably towards the peculiar wooden device clamped to the counter, that it had simply never occurred to him to try to leave. "What could I have done, flung down my cash on the counter and walked away? Dragon was still making my coffee."
"Dragon?"
"They are the barista. It is a little cafe inside the yarn shop, with sandwiches, and Sonya's cookies, and coffee. Sarah tells me it is mostly because she wants a constant supply of coffee and treats and she might as well share them with the customers."
"And the barista's name is Dragon?"
"They have blue hair, and their gloves have little dragon scales on them. They made the gloves themself. Themselves?"
"Honestly, I have no clue which one, but that sounds really cool." Ilya has Shane on his ipad propped up beside his bed, and as he wanders around getting undressed, he considers pretending to be offended that Shane has not commented on him undressing for bed. But then he notices that Shane is in bed, reading, with his little glasses on, and Ilya is not visible in frame. Ilya considers teasing him into taking off his cozy sleep clothes and leaving the glasses on, but there's something almost scandalous in its own right about Shane being on his screen, glasses and clothes and book that he's ignoring, just for Ilya. "I'm having a hard time picturing it, though. What did they make the scales out of?"
"Out of yarn! Everything there they make out of yarn, I think. There is a little lizard in a tank-- no, not a lizard, it is something else, because the tank is full of water."
"A salamander?"
"No, it's a weird word like that, but not that word. The lizard is pink, not pink like barbie, but pink like Amber Pike's little blanket. This fat pink lizard is very sensitive to sunlight, so they have woven little yarn curtains all around his tank so his pink skin does not get sunburned."
"Oh my god."
"And the unicorn outfit that Sonya is making for little Natalia, it is made out of yarn too, including the horn."
"Yeah, what was that about? You said they tied you to a chair!" Ilya wanders back into frame and flops onto his bed, wondering if Shane will notice he hasn't stopped talking long enough to brush his teeth. He didn't want to stop sharing his bizarre little slice of magic with Shane. Very mundane magic, compared to what Natalia described.
"Ah, yes, so, the horn for this sweater, it is made of starlight and magic, yes? So Sonya made it out of silver yarn. Only Natashenka said if it is not sparkly it is just gray, and only dying unicorns have gray horns."
"Oh no!"
"Yes! So apparently if you have done the yarn wrong, you must turn into a frog."
"Huh?"
"Yes, you go 'ribbit, ribbit' and tear the yarn apart until it is all gone, and then you use it again. Only they are like you with carbs, and call this 'hazardous spaghetti,' because the evil yarn will tangle itself if you let it be."
"I don't know if I should believe literally any of this. Hazardous spaghetti?"
"It is true! Natashenka told me."
"Oh, well, if Natashenka said so." Natalia had said many things with absolute confidence, and occasionally others from the group would explain a correction to Ilya while Natalia was off peering at the lizard creature or very seriously comparing yarns which she would sometimes bring over and ask Ilya for an opinion on. But just as often, they were explaining that as strange as it sounded, Natalia was right that if you made a mistake knitting and had to 'rip it' out, this was called 'frogging.'
"So somebody must hold the evil yarn in place until it is used again. And sometimes they use the peg and wheel to turn it back into a ball, but because this is the middle of the yarn, that will not work. So instead they need something that will hold the yarn just far apart that it cannot get tangled while it gets used up again, and that is the wheel, usually. But they need the wheel for the customers."
"So you became the wheel?"
"Exactly. They wrap the evil yarn around my hands, and then there is sparkly fluff yarn that Natalia picked out to add the magic to the sad gray yarn, and then Sonya knits the gray and the magic together, from my hands and from the magic ball."
"Sounds like you did good work today."
"I did. And while I am stuck, Danya wanders over and puts a hat on my head that she has made for her papa, to see if it fits."
"Oh! Your 'extra clothes.'"
"It was not nearly as sexy as your underwear photoshoots. I felt like mannequin, like they will be surprised if I move or talk. But they asked me about moving to Ottawa, what I liked. I said I am here to be close to my very beautiful Jane, how the schedules are very difficult when my Jane is so successful and demanded that she is very busy."
"Ilya..."
"Do not be sad, beloved, it was good just to speak of it. But then I could not speak, because Natashenka was very worried I would get tired holding all the sad evil yarn, and I cannot move my hands while I am holding it, so she tried to feed me cookies. And then there was jam on my face and Sonya spat on a handkerchief and wiped it off like I am little boy who made a mess."
"Ew!"
Ilya can't help but chuckle at the absolutely revolted face Shane makes on the screen. By now, Shane-- determined to get his east coast sleep schedule back on track and absolutely exhausted by the road trip too short to actually adjust to the timezones-- has his phone propped up on the little phone stand his Mom had gotten him for his bedside table. "No, Shanya, that is just what grandmamas do. Sonya is Ukranian, has lived here for a long time. Before her daughter-- that is Natalia's mother-- was born."
"She sounds nice," Shane says. His voice is all soft and warm, like being in bed together when Ilya gets to go to sleep holding him. Ilya misses him.
Ilya misses him.
"She is very nice." Ilya hesitates, hating to break the moment. But his Shanya is very sharp and does not forget--
"She called me your 'nice boy,'" Shane says.
"Yes," Ilya says, softly. This subject is still very tender.
"And you said 'Jane'? And also 'him'?" Shane says. He's being oh so careful not to sound accusatory, even as Ilya's heart aches with remembered pain.
"I did. I told them my Jane would like all the counting for the yarn, but that she has no sense of fashion to know what to make. They started telling me all about very modern things very modern girls make, and eventually I could not bear it, and had to admit that you have no sense of style to wear pretty lace sweaters or flower hats. They did not recognize me, but even if they did, I wanted to tell them my Jane does not wear flowers at all, because he is a boy."
"If you thought it was okay, that's fine, but... did you have to?" Shane asks.
"No," Ilya says, frankly. "I didn't have to. But I wanted to very badly. And I thought they would be okay."
"Then that's-- that's okay." They had spoken about it, after the barbecue. That Ilya had so few people he could talk about Shane with, that he didn't want to talk to most of the team about it yet.
"Danya-- that is Danielle, only Sonya said Danya, and it suits her-- was saying that her wife is a very butch lesbian who never wears colors, and Dragon was saying their partner has no sense of style so he gets the sweaters that they accidentally make too big and it does not count for some curse that is on sweaters."
"There's a curse on sweaters?" Shane says, murmuring more than speaking. He's beginning to fall asleep, weariness from the travel overcoming the effect of the earlier timezone. If he hadn't been so tired, he would have nagged Ilya about going to sleep two hours ago.
"Apparently I must never, ever make you a sweater. This is good to know, because obviously, I had almost finished one."
"What happens if you make me a sweater? Do I turn into a frog?"
"Worse! You break up with me."
"Over a sweater?"
"Dragon thinks it is because no man can appreciate how much work goes into making a sweater, not a real curse, but Danya says she will not risk it and that is why she only makes her wife scarves and hats."
"Plus the sweaters would be boring. No color."
Ilya's a little warm inside, that even this close to sleep Shane remembers what he'd said about Danya's wife's style.
"I think maybe Dragon is right. Sonya ripped out the gray yarn in just a few minutes, so I thought surely I can sit still long enough to re-knit this unicorn horn, but it takes much longer to make something than to unmake it. And the horn is not very big, because Natashenka is not very big."
Shane hums, and Ilya almost thinks that might be it before he's well and truly asleep. There's some quiet, Ilya entirely unwilling to even consider hanging up the phone while he can hear Shane's deep, even breaths, and then Shane says, "what's a ninja unicorn?"
Ilya laughs. He won't pretend not to know exactly what Shane means. "Natashenka says the unicorn she is dressing up as is a princess and a ninja. I do not know why a princess would need to be a ninja, too, but she says it is to fight evil magic."
"Is that what the magic wand needles are for?" Shane's sleepy voice is like sweet syrup in Ilya's heart, slow and golden.
"No, those are for her learning to knit. Her grandmama watches her on Tuesdays, and so for Sonya to join the knitting circle, Natashenka must have something to do too."
"How big's she?"
"Little-- younger than Jade and Ruby, bigger than the other two."
"She's learning to knit?"
"Yes. The needles she has are big, like chopsticks, and they are pointy but not sharp."
"No good for torture."
"Well, maybe. If you had to make something and tear it apart again and again, I think that would be torture."
"You'd probably be great at it. First try, no accent."
"Shanya, there is no accent in knitting," Ilya says, terribly fond. "I think maybe you should go to sleep."
"You would! You should go. Back. Let them teach you." Shane's got that stubborn, petulant tone he gets sometimes when he's not getting his way because he's too tired to realize he's being absolutely ridiculous. Usually Ilya hears it when he is chivying Shane into clean sheets or boxers before sleep because he knows his boyfriend will be absolutely disgusted if he wakes up filthy.
"Maybe. I gave Sonya my phone number, if she does send me unicorn photos, I will know they're not just being polite."
"They didn't sound polite."
"I should defend their honor, but no, they are very nice, but I think they all decided that polite is not so useful at some point. So much for polite Canadians!"
"Mmm."
Ilya stops talking, laying the phone down on his pillow by his face. This will hardly be the first time he and Shane fell asleep with the phone connected.
"Ilya?"
"Yes, Shanya?"
"'M glad you had fun."
"Thank you, sweetheart. It was fun."
"It's ok. That you said." Ah, so Shane's sleepy brain is trying to finish doing all its thinking before it sleeps.
"Thank you, Shanya."
"I wanna see the unicorn princess ninja."
"Princess ninja unicorn."
"Mmm. Sounds badass."
"I will ask Sonya if I can send you the photo. I don't think she will say no." Ilya realizes he has forgotten to add 'if she sends it,' but really, Sonya is far to old to be making polite promises she doesn't plan to keep. She had liked Ilya. They all had. Even before he had said his beloved Jane had brilliant hands but did not think much of color and clothes, which had horrified Natalia, he had gotten the impression that none of them were the least bit impressed by him, nor would if they recognized him-- for all he knew, some of them may have-- and any warmth they graced him with was entirely because they wanted to.
They wanted to welcome him in. They liked that he was cheerful about helping, even when Sarah got caught up with three customers in a row, and Maria showed Ilya how to set up the next twist of yarn to wind onto the peg so he just kept on going. They liked that he praised Sonya's cookies to the heavens, and he had not even meant to, but the moment he mentioned his mama's hometown when explaining how the cookies lured him in, Sonya had decided he must be a long-lost grandson, even though he's old enough to be Natalia's father. Grandmamas, as he had told Shane, are like that, and there is no use arguing with that.
"I'd like that," Shane says. Soft, slurring into sleep.
Ilya's almost asleep himself when Shane suddenly says, "wait-- I can't believe you told all your new friends I have no style!"
By the time Ilya has teased him about outsourcing his style choices to his mother, Rose, and paid professionals, Shane has also remembered that Ilya still needs to brush his teeth.
Ilya still sleeps better than he has in weeks.