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Ilya's fingers thrummed against the metal impatiently. "No," he said. "We need to negotiate about this."
"Our prices are fixed, dude," the kid with the stone-eyed expression said. At the word dude he'd pointed a finger at Ilya. "It's 3.99$."
It was actually 4.99$, not that Ilya would do Jake's job for him. "Okay listen. I am willing to pay you 3.99$ but I want something for it."
"You get the superglue."
"No," Ilya waved a hand. "Democracy."
When all he got in return was a blank stare, he elaborated, "Let's exchange ideas. Make demands, okay?" He decided to lead by example. "So I want… higher pensions."
"Dude, you're not even that old. If you want senior discount I need to see your ID."
Ilya rolled his eyes at such blatant incompetence. "Of course I am not senior. I am Ilya Rozanov not Scott Hunter."
The kid just blinked on like nothing had happened. "Okay, dude."
"I am being generous. Helping the elderly. Even the hopeless. Even cases like Hunter."
Nothing. (Hello that was funny?!). This audience sucked.
"Democracy," Ilya added. Willing his counterpart to understand.
"Sir, can't you just pay?"
"No," Ilya decided. "No 'Sir'. We will now both make demands while totally ignoring each other."
Someone behind him cleared their throat. "Is, um, is everything okay?" An elderly lady asked.
"Yes, we are having lively discussion on democracy," Ilya explained to her. "What is your demand?"
"Free cat food," she said without blinking. "That stuff's kinda delicious. Oh, and I want the right to paint my garden fence pink!"
Ilya nodded, impressed by her game. This lady was a real pro firing two unrelated demands right after another.
"Is important cause," he said. Then eyed the item in her hands. "But you got wrong color. Is white."
"My neighbors are against my rights! Can you imagine they get to pick what I paint my own wood?"
"No," Ilya decided. "Is not right. You get pink color. Give me your address we will come paint for you."
"Aren't you Ilya Rozanov?"
"Yes," Ilya said relieved that someone in this store had good taste. "Hey, could I use your senior discount? Scott Hunter is not here to help."
She laughed (finally an audience worth Ilya's jokes!) and handed him the color as she walked back into the store to get her pink.
Ilya handed the tin to the kid, Jake, who scanned it. "Now the total is 18.99$."
"I'm not buying that." Ilya ran a hand down his face. "Look can you just say 'I demand' and then give me something, can be anything, and we can be done here. Okay?"
"I demand you pay 4.99$." Damn it. Now he got the price right. If only Hollander was here to witness that. He'd love it because Hollander hated things like paying the wrong price. He'd probably drive back 30 minutes in his boring car just to pay the 10 cents a cashier missed.
"Look, I am only here because your slogan is something about fixing all customer's problem."
Jake shrugged. "I usually sleep in politic class, Mrs. Marleau has such a soothing voice. She should totally do a sleep podcast, man I miss her when I go to bed."
Ilya winced. "Do not repeat that in public again," he adviced graciously. Then tried again, "Is there nothing you young kids want? Politically?"
"Nah, dude, I just want to smoke weed and for my parents to buy me a car but they refuse so I'm here."
Drugs and drive. Great combination, Ilya thought. But good parenting.
"Oh, and I want like Tim to scrub the school toilets for a year. Like he made me by telling on me smoking in there. I only did that half the year but I have to clean for one year? System's fucked, man." Jake shook his head, outraged at the great injustices of this world. "Oh and that Lisa breaks up with him."
Ilya sighed. "Anything more general?"
"Make cars for teens a universal right?"
A horrible idea but finally getting somewhere so Ilya encouraged with a gentle nod. "What kind of cars?" he asked, fearing the worst.
"I don't know man, I really want one of those PT Cruisers, you know?"
Ilya did know. He knew the be appalled by that. "That is stupid looking car. Have you seen its face? Is ugly. You want everyone to drive ugly car?"
The kid laughed. "Sure, dude. Would be fun."
Thank God this conversation was purely theoretical. Jake's choices had Ilya hope he'd not accidentally installed an interest in politics in the kid. Because from what Ilya could tell he'd make horrible legislation. He shuddered at the thought of his sexy cars taken away and replaced by a PT fucking Cruiser. They looked like something straight out of a kid cartoon. They looked like the doodles of his niece (only that hers looked better).
"Oh and a ban on black ice? I slipped the other day and almost broke my tailbone, dude."
It probably wasn't going to get better than this, so Ilya acknowledged the idea with a resigned sigh. "I demand a different cashier."
"Hey, that's not general, dude."
"I also demand freedom of speech be conditioned on IQ tests."
Jake gave that a thumbs up. So Ilya paid, exchanged numbers with Betty and promised the Bears would personally come over to paint her fence (shirtless) and to invite all her neighbors to watch. Suck it, old fuckers. With that he had finally made it out of the hardware store.
"Democracy, baby," he mumbled.
Ilya Rozanov knew Shane Hollander. That was both true (Ilya knew the most intimate little intel like his left knee being tickley and the right one being horny — and tickley) and not true (Ilya couldn't even name more than ten general facts about Hollander, three of which he owed to his deduction skills). Shane Hollander that meant drinking Ginger Ale, driving offensively boring car and folding clothes before sex.
But that low humming a sleepy Ho— Shane (these first names were still not rolling off his brain) just buzzed up in his arms? Ilya knew exactly what that meant. And he was prepared.
Reaching across Shane, Ilya pulled him closer. He was going to play this fairly. Shane would get a chance—a choice. This didn't have push the extremes. All Shane had to do in order to prevent that was settle against Ilya's chest and be fucking content. It wasn't hard. Why was Shane making it so hard?
Shane giggled, then stiffened, clearly mortified being betrayed like that by his own vocal chords. Ilya would tease him later, after he'd come to the wise and hopefully unassisted decision to stay. Shane Hollander was a smart man. He could—
"Rozanov," Shane started. He was a dumb man. "I should really—" A very very dumb man.
Time and time again Ilya was left with his own nose. And he was growing tired of it. And then one sleepless night he might have figured out a game plan for their relationsh—their—this… um. Whatever. Didn't matter. The best plans were schemed without knowing the end goal. He just wanted… this ominous thing that he totally would not name. The internet said labels were for dummies anyways. And Ilya wasn't one. As he squeezed his own leg he considered if maybe, just maybe, in this case he should've read the labels on this tiny tube of superglue in his pocket. But what was the worst that could happen?
"YOU WHAT?!" Shane Hollander screaming at him. That was what could happen. That was hardly the worst albeit a bit unpleasant.
Just a few passing moments ago, Ilya had feigned his indignant awakening to Shane unfairly trying to sneak away. With a coy smile Shane had mumbled his fucked up excuse that neither of them bought, "Sorry. It's just you're so hot." And Ilya had smirked at him because he was indeed hot. Cue Hollander stumbling over his own words, tripping, trying to save himself with some comment about body temperature. Which he hadn't even graced that with an answer just widened his shit-eating grin that Ilya knew Holl—Shane hated.
"It's almost like we're sticking together," Shane had mumbled on, voice tinged with this awkward undertone. The one Ilya loved and loathed. So adorable, yet so dangerous. It meant Shane was working himself up to an anxiety attack. At least the realization that they were glued together just a split second later had saved him from that misery. Now he seemed more angry, less panicked. The first good deed of superglue.
Now before anyone could get all 'but Ilya what the fuck' at him, in Ilya's defense… (okay justified, but! BUTT!) Well, it wasn't fucking fair the emotional distraught Shane had been about to inflict on him. Ilya knew the man. Shane would've was turned around, maybe rubbed his eyes adorably, smiling deceivingly at Ilya and then suggesting something that was the equivalent of stabbing a knife into his chest and turning. Humming meant that Shane Hollander was about to leave Ilya Rozanov.
Technically "only until the next time" but every time he left Ilya suddenly was a hostage to this crippling anxiety that there might never be another one. And with their schedules it might as well be one eternity. Certainly enough to feel like a lifetime. Certainly enough to feel like forever. So Ilya was decidedly not dramatic about it (simply reacting with adequate distraught).
And it had be said that he had truly employed all other tricks under God's bright sun. He'd made food. He'd put on hockey. He'd lent Shane clothes. And his fridge was better stocked in ginger ale than coke. Ilya even tried driving a boring car to get into the Shane Hollander mindset to figure out what the fuck this guy wanted. He had tried. And now it was desperate times that forced his hand in employing some rather unconventional methods.
"FUCK ROZANOV!" It hit him in that moment that had he gotten unlucky he might've just superglued his dick to Shane's ass (what sounded perfectly sexy in theory likely wasn't).
"Hollander, shh. Calm down. You are going to de-skin our thighs." (And de-drum Ilya's ears). He gave Shane a lazy smile. "Is just glue."
Shane took a deep breath before mumbling his reply past hands tightly pressed to his face, "Why do you have glue in your pocket?"
"Because I wanted to glue myself to you obviously," he finished it off with a well-rehearsed eyeroll. Just annoyed enough to come off as genuinely innocent.
For some reason Shane had trouble with anything involving Ilya besides letting Ilya chirp at him or letting Ilya fuck him. The two exceptions.
"Please don't say the packaging mentioned something about 'super'," Shane mumbled, a slight undertone of hope creeping into his voice. Asking to be diminished.
"Shane," Ilya said and enjoyed the first name privilege superglue had given him. "Is not a big deal. Don't freak out."
What followed were many many different approaches to freaking out. All equally unsuccessful in remedying the situation. But (and he wasn't too proud of it) for Ilya it just meant many many opportunities to be the one to talk Shane down from it, out of it, into him… just serving the good cause, really. And to hold Shane in his arms. "Breathe with me, Hollander. There you go. This is good."
Ilya could not say that the advice leading him here had been bad. Not at all. "We are one person now, okay? And I say all is okay. We are fine."
It was clear that Shane did not know what to make of Ilya when he wasn't joking or sucking at a patch of his flushed skin. And how would he, jumping out of bed the moment the orgasm had passed? All Shane needed was getting used to Ilya. Slowly. Like you introduce vegetable into a child's diet (just the opposite). Ilya introduced fun and good taste into Shane's who went all stiff and quiet (and not in the hot and bothered kind of way) under Ilya's hands the moment he'd worked up the courage to mutter a compliment in English.
"Why do you get to decide that?" Shane protested.
Sometimes, maybe, admittedly, it might come down to cultural miscommunications. Like when Ilya had told Shane he was looking like a cucumber and Shane had eyed him as though he feared Ilya might bite his head off.
"Is because I am older."
Other times when Ilya had gone for compliments that would not scare a boring Canadian man (his Google search history had been enriched that morning) Shane still reacted pretty much the same. Even once tried fake sleeping to cheat himself out of a reply (he was still a horrible liar)!
"But you aren't."
"I am taller."
"One fingertip?"
"Okay okay," Ilya held up both hands in mock surrender and conceded, "We are democracy."
"Thank you."
"I hold 51%."
"What?" Shane turned, eyes glinting.
"Is my superglue. We have entered alliance. A coalition."
Shane huffed and Ilya thought he could hear him mumble something about how they had just been in coalition. Ilya smirked. "Well I am in coalition with superglue, so we have majority."
Shane rolled his eyes at him. "Yeah, because you bought the superglue! How democratic."
"We have entered fair negotiations." (What else had Ilya tormented Jake for?)
"Fuck you. Fair negotiations my ass," Shane said and tried to throw his pillow in Ilya's face but failed because of the weird contortion this asked of him. Apparently yoga had its limits.
Ilya grinned wider. Shane's little fuck yous were admissions, instructions (that Ilya made sure to remember at least once a day) and utterly adorable. "Mentioning your ass in political debate is very unprofessional of you, Mr. Hollander." Ilya lowered his voice and his mouth to Shane's neck. And Shane (predictably) shuddered.
"I'm up against an opponent who buys votes," he panted, nails digging into Ilya's leg, just below the patch that attached them together.
Fuck it, it wouldn't be easy but Ilya had to try. "I'm up against opponent with a perfect ass. Congress isn't fair."
"What political system are we in? Because I thought we were somewhere in Europe—"
"Hollander," Ilya had managed to free himself from his unzipped pants. "Your allotted speaking time is up."
Ilya had changed out some of the words for Russian ones, his thinking otherwise occupied. But Shane seemed to have understood either way.
His antidote hadn't worked, the emergency room was apparently not "private enough" (Shane had been adamant about that), but thankfully Ilya was never short on solutions.
The hardware store employee tried to duck back into an aisle at the sight of him. Apparently he remembered Ilya from last time. Well good. If one person already assumed that Ilya Rozanov was unhinged it was this teen in his ass-out diaper-style pants. The fit hindered the kid's steps as he tried to stumble to the safety of another unassuming customer. He wore another one of those depressingly unfunny "funny-quote" t-shirts. Today's one said "This is my villain origin story". Last time it had been, "Yes I work here. No I don't know where anything is."
"So where's your friend that works here?"
Ilya had never called the kid his friend. Hollander had made that up. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. Perhaps it was the inkling that Ilya didn't have a special connection to a hardware store employee, actually.
"Hey!" He called, drawing exactly the kind of attention Shane wanted them to avoid. But who the hell did Shane fear could overhear them in the aisle between toilets and toilet seats?
Ilya hadn't been aware of the options. See through with fishies? Suede leopard and furry pink? Yeah, people totally bought these to have freaky sex on them. Which was exactly why nobody would ever set a foot in this aisle if someone else was there. Was like wildlife and Ilya had just staked their claim by scaring away all the little freaks. He could basically hear them lumber into the bushwood aisle. This was a one by one kinky experience. (Unless the kink was to be seen buying sex toilets of course. Ilya just assumed they couldn't be that unlucky.)
"Today's your lucky day," Ilya snipped his fingers at the teenager. "Last time we had insightful discussion on democracy, this time we'll have fun detour in medical emergencies."
Both Shane and Jake twitched, almost in unison. "Damn your English improved," Shane mumbled to no one in particular.
"I demand period days off for all genders!" The teenager croaked, both hands raised in surrender.
Ilya nodded appreciatively. "Very good," he affirmed. "And I demand antidote to superglue."
Shane sighed. "I would demand answers but I fear I don't want to hear them."
Ilya patted his arm. But he didn't try to correct Shane (mostly because that seemed about right). "We are helping raise next generation, Shane. Is education."
When nothing happened Ilya gestured impatiently at Jake. "Let's go, today is not time for words is time for action. But get on your period later we start with antidote."
An hour later they had cut their pants into micro skirts, were all buttered up and waiting for the milk fats to do their magic thing. They were also well stuffed with brownies thanks to Jake getting hungry during his trip to the nearby grocery store. (Well he and Jake were stuffed, Shane was otherwise fed up).
For the thousand and one time Shane checked if there'd been progress.
"Dude, it's like you're holy watching that shit," Jake said.
Ilya and Shane exchanged a glance. "What is that, Ho—"
Shane cupped a hand over Ilya's mouth, as though not using their last names would make them anonymous. Jake obviously didn't care and didn't know. "I don't know what that is."
"Is English language, is your language!" Ilya protested.
"It's this puritan thing, dude. They would like make sure their neighbor loved God enough. But not too much, not in a freaky way, you know? To make sure your neighbor loved God exactly the right amount. The way you want him to."
"What's that got to do with me?"
Ilya and Jake just gave him a look. Shane had obsessively checked on any progress from before the butter had even gone onto their skins. He was surveilling it like it might get in alliance with the superglue and colonize a communist dictatorship onto his precious upper thigh.
"Good analogy," Ilya praised.
Jake beamed. "Thanks, dude. I'm like big time into that religious shit. Like a normal person I mean. Like I don't believe that shit but I believe that the whole story there is pretty lit. Like people are rad crazy am I right?"
Ilya nodded. Jake sounded a bit like their new recruits so he was not unfamiliar with all the vocabulary.
Jake gestured towards his neck. "Not to insult you, bro. That's a sick necklace."
"Thank you, it was my mother's."
Shane's head shot up, eyes daring to leave their legs without supervision for a moment. Dear, Ilya hoped they wouldn't take the opportunity and run away.
"I do believe in God. And her. Not much else though."
Jake nodded. "God is dope, man."
Shane was still staring at him. Ilya started to suspect that the fact he'd spoken of his mother like she had passed (which she had) had not gone over his head. Unlike Jake. Or Jake was just trying to keep the atmosphere light. Either way Ilya focused his gaze towards him and the safety of his dumb words.
Jake's phone pinged. "Ah nice. My bro's gonna be here with your clothes any minute."
Jake idly typed away on an answer, dangling his feet from the wooden table he sat on in their storage hide out. Ilya desperately wanted him to continue the conversation. Shane's eyes were burning into him from the side.
"Psst," Shane made.
Ilya tried to ignore it. That was childish, okay, but he could not cry in the storage room of a hardware store. Not next to the Nipple Pipes. That was against human rights.
"Not here," Ilya whispered back. Well aware that Hollander saying those two words in a shower had lead them all the way here. From Shane's perspective that might be just catastrophic. A weird non-committal situationship with (come on) obvious emotional involvement (at least on Ilya's side).
Shane fucking squeezed his leg. When Ilya dared to look he was greeted by a shy smile. Like Shane was unsure what he was doing but he'd wanted to try. And that really did him in. He was so ready to just say fuck it and cry into Shane Hollander's shoulder. Even if Hollander's shoulder was next to a Nipple Pipe. It wasn't really a human rights violation if Ilya violated himself right? (No, it still sounded wrong).
Ilya was about to decide and then… and then!
And then Jake's friend with the pant delivery dropped dead. Walked through the door, dead.
Apparently shocking Shane enough to forget about their little superglue problem all together. He jumped from his seat and took Ilya's skin with him. Ilya bit his lips—but holy fucking hell!
"Is he okay?" Shane asked wholly unaware that he'd just won their skin-off (by ripping Ilya's skin off). Shane's skin had just won the equivalent of epidermal arm wrestling and Shane missed it! His skin probably called that move 'The Ripper'. 'The Skinner'? 'The Organ Smuggler'? (Because he'd robbed Ilya's organ. Okay, part of it. A small patch. But still! Organ thievery was never a small offense).
Ilya inspected the damage. "I will be fine, thank you," he answered sarcastically.
Shane turned to him, expression appalled, probably ready to reprimand Ilya. Then it clicked. And Jake's dead friend was forgotten.
"He's not dead," Jake reported. Okay, Jake's not dead friend (or undead) friend was forgotten.
"The butter worked!" Shane mumbled, then paled. "Why do I still have… is that human skin?!"
But Shane (very rudely) didn't wait for an answer. He joined Jake's friend on the floor before Ilya could react.
Luca got three stitches at the ER. And a lollipop (they thought he was 14 and Ilya couldn't blame them). And orders to take it slow for a week. Thanks to his signed pants, signed bloodied shirt and a signed band-aid (that he'd talked out of the doctor as a souvenir) the young hockey player was only upset about this for about a minute. And to keep him that happy and content Ilya promised him something new about every minute. Tickets to their games, signed jerseys, an invite to the Boston Raidor's "Betty's neighbors can suck it" fence-painting pink party next Friday. And to come backstage (back ice?). And his soul… It was Ilya's first time paying hush favors to a 17 year old superfan (so this was still his experimental phase).
Thankfully Luca could go all but five seconds of looking at Ilya directly before the odd breathing and the hysterical laughter resumed. "Do they not know who you are?" He asked Ilya.
"Oh, they do," Ilya shrugged. "Hi Nancy," he said to a nurse who was passing by them.
"Ilya? You didn't play tonight," she eyed Luca critically. "Who let you supervise their child?"
"He's wearing my pants!" Luca exclaimed in a mix of shocked disbelief and over boarding pride.
"He's a generous donor," Ilya tried to shrug it off by giving Nancy his most charming smile.
"Well get him an organ donor card then," Nancy remarked dryly. Then she was propelled further into the hospital by her pager and they were left to waiting for Luca's prescription.
Ilya could not think of anything else to promise the kid. And he'd have to leave something to promise to Jake. In his worst daymares Ilya saw the kid drive off in one of his sexy cars. Getting one of his dumb shirt quotes as a varnish. Something like "Screw you" on the orange Porsche. And maybe a complimentary "Keep Calm and Bolt On" on the pink Ferrari.
"Does it still hurt?" Luca asked worriedly, gesturing to Ilya's thigh.
Ilya whipped away at the single tear dropping from the right corner of his eye. "It will never stop hurting," he declared. "Never."
By the time they made it outside it had gone dark. They climbed back into the Toyota Corolla that belonged to Jake's parents but had been taken by Luca to deliver the pants.
"I suppose I will not ask why you were glued to Shane Hollander?" Luca asked after they'd fixed their seat belts.
Ilya let out a long sigh, then landed on, "I suppose you are right, you won't."
"Tell...," Ilya could hear the nervous squeak in Luca's voice, "tell Hollander he can keep the pants."
"We don't talk," Ilya lied (and lied not. He wasn't so sure Hollander would ever talk to him again. Apart from suing him in court? No, too much attention. Too bad, Ilya would rather Shane sued him in court. That sounded sexy, especially if they fucked after. Certainly more than never speaking again).
At least Shane had been fine. His head had landed cushioned on Luca's stomach (Luca's stomach was fine, no internal bleeding though the kid had been a bit confused why Ilya had been so adamant at the hospital they check for inner bleeding) and the butter had eventually gotten the fabric and Ilya's skin off of Shane's. Confusingly Shane had even apologized to Ilya about it. And Ilya hadn't interfered to correct that this was all his mistake.
"Listen… this is like, is just… was just… it would be better if no one knows we are… not sticky. Me and Hollander, I mean." Ilya cleared his throat. "Is best if no one knows we ever were sticky."
He couldn't think of a better definition to give Luca about what had happened.
Luca nodded slowly. His face was changing colors rapidly. Ilya wasn't sure where to focus his attention, which colors to take more seriously. Traffic lights or Luca's face? Finally it burst out of the kid, "I am your biggest fan."
Ilya nodded. "Thank you. I hear that often."
"No," Luca said. "I mean I am literally the number one Hollanov fan on twitter!"
Ilya could feel his soul leave his body and chain itself to his new master. A 17 year old twitter shipper! This had all looked way more fun on Hannah Montana. Never again would be take romantic advice from an American TV show in the late night repetition on Disney Channel.
Perhaps the most absurd consequence still remained that Ilya could see a new parallel universe had plopped up. Somewhere, just one wormhole away a young Ilya Rozanov had his big breakthrough hit with 'superglued to you'. At least Ilya wasn't living in the dumbest timeline.