Work Text:
How many innocent questions make a happy couple?
The sun is setting at the cottage, coloring the lake with shades of orange and purple. The stars are beginning to shine on the dark blue, velvety sky. Loons are wailing and, as the night falls, the fireflies flicker at the edge of the woods, like tiny lanterns.
If the world were to end right now, Shane and Ilya would be the happiest, most relaxed people of the apocalypse.
They are enjoying the last bits of a warm, tranquil summer. The end of the hockey season means they get to be away from chaos, be around nature, and love each other as much as they possibly can.
The cottage is their sanctuary. Each year they manage to keep their secret relationship untouched by the spotlights is like a blessing. And they have the cottage to thank for much of it.
A sacred temple.
And like any other temple, they have a strict daily routine to follow step by step.
Wake up, have breakfast, skinny dipping, luscious unhurried sex wherever they feel like doing it, have lunch, take a nap, play videogames, drink Coke and ginger ale by the lake, go down on each other on the couch, have dinner, sleep.
Repeat until falling (more) in love.
Shane and Ilya are sprawled on the sunloungers, on the deck by the lake. They’ve had a couple of beers and sucked each other off, so they’re both feeling lightheaded and a little tipsy.
Ilya has his green swimming shorts on and a hula shirt, the same one he wore at that bar in Tampa on the All-Star game in 2017. The shirt is unbuttoned and hangs open over his tanned torso. Shane wears black shorts and his favorite blue shirt, also unbuttoned.
Their eyes are closed, but their feet are touching.
“I see you’re finally wearing that shirt again,” Shane says, with a hint of mockery.
“I wanted to know if I could still… what do you say… pull it off? Someone thought I was pulling it off once,” Ilya gets back at him, making a scene of holding the collar of the shirt.
Shane turns to him and smirks. “Well, in my defense, I would say anything to make you like me again at that time. Including lying about that ugly ass shirt.”
Ilya stands up, quickly cradling and tickling Shane.
“Ilya—stop—”
Ilya leans down until his mouth is hovering above Shane’s, his grin slow and wicked, his tongue poking out between his teeth.
“Keep talking about my shirt,” he says, running his fingers along Shane’s waist and armpits, “and I’ll make you suck my dick while I’m wearing it.”
Shane is breathlessly laughing, coughing and squirming like a worm under him.
“Okay—OKAY!”
Ilya stops for a second to have the pleasure of hearing Shane giving in.
“I admit,” Shane coughs, “you look good in it.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Their lips are almost touching. Shane grabs the collar of the hideous shirt and pulls Ilya down, until his mouth is close to his ear.
“You look so fucking hot in anything,” his voice warm and teasing, “I’d suck your dick even if you were wearing ten of these.”
Ilya goes very still, a smug smile spreading across his face.
“Good,” he says while standing up, “because I have exactly nine more in my closet.”
Shane kisses him, slow and sloppy, and Ilya hums in satisfaction, totally melted by the soft feel of Shane’s kiss under his lips. His hands run smoothly on Shane’s stomach and chest, until they pull apart with a satisfied smile.
Ilya lays on the sunlounger again, looking very pleased with himself. They stay very quiet for a few minutes, feet intertwining again, the lake shimmering under the last beams of sunlight.
Shane turns his head toward him.
“Ilya?”
“Yes?”
Shane props himself up on his two elbows, with an oddly serious face.
“Would you still love me if I turned into a worm?”
Ilya’s eyes widen in surprise and he sits on his sunlounger to face Shane.
“What are you talking about?”
Shane presses his lips together and looks around, as if searching for the right words to explain how important this question is to him.
“Let’s say… One day you wake up, and I’m not myself. I’m a worm,” he points to the grass beneath them. “Would you keep loving me?”
Ilya wonders if this is one of those crazy ‘test-your-boyfriend’ kind of questions that Cliff Marlow talked to him about a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, Marlow’s new girlfriend wanted to know if he would still care for her if she was a snail. Or a chair. Or something equally nonsensical.
“There’s no winning with those questions, man,” Marlow had said. “First, I said yes, of course I’d still love her, and she got offended because comparing her to a snail was insulting. Then I said no, and suddenly I was a shallow prick who only dates her because she’s hot.”
Ilya remembers that very well. So, he just stares back at Shane.
“Did you understand the question?,” he asks sharply.
Ilya rolls his eyes. “Of course I did. I don’t understand why you ask this.”
“Okay, don’t answer then,” he stands up, grabs his towel and the plastic bag full of empty beer cans, and starts walking back to the house.
“Shane, moya lyubov…,” Ilya goes after him, trying to catch him by the arm.
But Shane pulls away and looks deep into his eyes.
“Don’t moya lyubov me when you don’t want to answer a simple question,” he steps firmly onto the stone staircase. “Just answer yes or no.”
Ilya inhales deeply. He can see where this is going and he doesn’t want to have his amazing evening spoiled by a worm-related disagreement.
But it turns out it already has been.
As they enter the house, Shane throws the cans in the big trash bin with more force and noise than necessary. The dramatic soundtrack for a man whose expectations have been thoroughly crushed and has decided to react to it like an absolute child.
For several minutes, Ilya just stands in the middle of the living room watching Shane stomp around the house, aggressively doing invisible chores, like an elephant throwing a tantrum. When Shane finally stops, he seems ready to discuss worms again.
“Why don’t you take me seriously?,” he says, slowly approaching Ilya.
His voice is soft now, stripped of the previous drama. He doesn’t sound angry. If anything, he sounds quietly hurt. Suddenly, Ilya understands it wasn’t a trap.
Shane really wants to know.
Ilya takes both of Shane’s hands and kisses his fingertips.
“I take you seriously,” he murmurs, “but I wasn’t… ready for that pass. I don’t know what to say.”
Shane stares into his eyes, smirking defiantly. “There’s no way you, Ilya Rozanov, are not ready for a pass.
Ilya wraps his arms around Shane’s waist and pulls him closer.
“I’m not answering in these conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“You are looking too beautiful right now, Hollander. I can’t think straight.”
Shane cups his face and kisses him gently, which makes Ilya immediately lean into him. Ilya pulls him closer and tilts his head to deepen the kiss. Shane is purring inside his mouth and that sound alone is enough to make Ilya push him towards the sofa.
Within minutes, clothes are scattered across the floor, laughter and moaning are filling the living room. And the windows fog with the kind of sweaty intimacy that makes people entirely forget arguments about worms.
Hours after, they are heavily sleeping, tangled under the same cover. It was just another day of boring adventures at the cottage.
When Ilya wakes up the next day, he finds the bed empty on the other side.
“Shane must be making breakfast”, he thinks.
He yawns and stretches, as he opens up the curtains. It’s a beautiful day outside; the sun hits the lake, painting everything around in gold. He reaches for his shorts and robe and leaves the bedroom.
The living room is empty and so is the kitchen.
“Shane?,” he says.
No answer.
He goes down the corridor that leads to the gym and mini hockey rink. Shane loves his morning exercises.
But Shane is nowhere around.
“Shane?,” he calls, as if the house might answer.
He goes outside. There’s a warm breeze blowing, the sun feels great against his skin. He walks around the pool, the spa. Nothing. Only the noise of squirrels climbing trees and ducks diving in the lake.
“Maybe the boathouse.”
But why Shane would go to the boathouse so early in the morning is yet a mystery to be solved. Supposing he’s there, of course.
“He has to be there.”
He’s not there.
The boat house is as empty as the other rooms and now Ilya is starting to get a little worried. He runs toward the house again and grabs his phone on the bedroom nightstand and sends him a text.
Feeling dehydrated after all the searching, he goes to the kitchen for some cold water from the tap. He fills a glass with fresh water and drinks it with one big gulp. He’s about to fill it again when he notices it.
A glass jar containing a single worm inside.
“Oh my god, Shane, is this your idea of fun?”
On top of the kitchen island, the glass jar stands. Ilya has never seen that jar before. Where did it come from? He puts his glass aside and approaches the jar carefully, as if it might explode at any moment. He takes it with both of his hands.
Inside, the worm is squirming. There are a few specks of dirt, but nothing else. It tries to climb the glass, moves a couple of centimeters, then slips back down to the bottom of the jar again. Ilya taps the glass and the worm freezes for a second.
“Hello! Privet!,” he says to the worm, feeling foolish, “this is ridiculous.”
He lays the jar back on the counter and goes to the bedroom to check on his messages.
Shane hasn’t texted.
With his phone in his pocket, he heads to the kitchen again. He purposefully ignores the jar as he passes by it. As he opens the fridge to find something to eat, he hears the hollow tapping sound of the worm repeatedly trying to climb the glass, slipping and falling back down over and over again.
It’s impossible to ignore it. He approaches the jar again and looks inside.
The worm is actually cute. It’s small and soft-looking, curling and stretching in sleepy motions. It slightly glistens as it keeps failing at climbing the jar.
His stomach lets out a loud growl. He is hungry.
“But maybe the worm is hungry too.”
Ilya laughs nervously in the kitchen.
“Look at you, you silly idiot, worried about a fucking worm.”
As soon as he thinks this, guilt floods his heart, thinking about the argument he had with Shane yesterday. Perhaps, he could think about the worm’s well-being for one second without feeling like a clown. All he needs to do is keep this information away from Cliff Marlow and the boys.
“What do worms fucking eat?”
He takes his phone.
Google: what worms eat
“Fruit, vegetables, funghi,” he reads from the website and looks at the worm. “You and Shane could really be diet buddies.”
Shane. Still no message from him. He sends in another one.
The fruit bowl has bananas, grapes, apples and apricots. He peels a banana and finely chops it, along with grapes and tiny pieces of apple. He opens the jar and carefully drops the fruits inside, making sure not to cover the worm with them.
He closes the lid and waits.
“Where’s the mouth on this thing?”
Leaning on the kitchen island, he opens his browser to search for something again.
Google: body of worm pictures
Within a second, many images of worm anatomy pop up on his screen. He spends some minutes looking through them, comparing each drawing to the body of the real worm in front of him. The prominent ring around its body is in a shade of pale pink and Ilya could swear the worm has tiny spots covering part of its body.
Ilya picks up the jar. The worm is struggling even more than before. With the fruit, the container is now smaller and there isn’t enough space for it to move around properly. He watches it for a while and notices it doesn’t seem to be eating anything. He scratches his head and wonders if giving it the fruit might have been a bad idea.
“What is your deal, buddy?”
That’s when he sees the small specks of dirt and remembers where worms usually live. He laughs at himself again for not thinking about it earlier.
As he steps out of the house, the sun is higher than it was before, and he realizes he’s actually been involved in this worm-sitting for longer than he cared to admit. And that Shane hasn’t texted or tried to communicate for the same period of time.
Out in the garden, Ilya looks for a spot where he could grab some of the earth without destroying the cottage’s neatly manicured landscaping. He finds it beneath the juniper bush, scrapes a bit out with his hands, puts it inside a glass, and brings it back inside.
“So now what? How do I make aquarium for worm?”
Ilya is sure that if any of his teammates were to look through his recent searches, he’d be the joke of the season. Of many seasons yet to come.
Google: aquarium for worm
Among the results, words like ‘enclosure’, ‘dechlorinated water’, and ‘substrate’ make no sense to him.
Google: I want aquarium for worm in jar
The recipe he finds is simple:
Glass container
Earth
Plants / Organic matter
Water
Worms
You must cover the glass with dark construction paper.
Worms are highly sensitive to light.
Ilya has no construction paper, so he goes to the closet and grabs a pair of black socks to ensure its new house is dark enough to its taste.
“Now all he needs are some plants. Be right back, buddy.”
Back in the garden, he kneels by the same juniper bush, and cuts some of the lower branches. Feeling satisfied with the amount of leaves and with how he left the landscape aesthetic, he goes back into the house again.
“Okay, now, moy chervichok, get ready for your new house.”
The worm is much calmer. Apparently, trying to climb the glass for so much time has brought it to exhaustion. For the next fifteen minutes, Ilya gently places each chunk of dirt inside the jar, along with the leaves and the fruit that were already there.
He covers the jar with the socks, sprinkles some water in it, and hopes for the best.
His wormy DIY moments have made him totally forget about Shane. He cleans everything in less than five minutes and places the jar on a dark corner in the kitchen. When he sits on the sofa, he feels exhausted.
“I’ve played games I didn’t feel this drained, what the fuck?”
When he unlocks his phone, there are no new messages from Shane. So he decides to call him.
“The number you have reached is not available.
Please try again later.”
“Where the hell is he?”
He stays on the sofa for a while, staring at the ceiling. But the house is too quiet. Normally, Shane would be here somewhere. Humming, mumbling, laughing from a joke while staring at his cellphone, complaining about nothing, sending Ilya kisses and ‘I love you’s’ from across the kitchen island.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
He meticulously scans every corner of the house in search of hints of Shane’s whereabouts.
His shoes are by the door. His keys are in the bowl.
“Did he leave without shoes, barefeet?”
The car is still in the garage.
“Someone kidnapped him,” he jokes.
But maybe it isn’t a joke. His heart starts racing faster and his breathing falters.
“He was not kidnapped. Don’t even think about it.”
He stops and breathes. And shoves away any thought of that sort. Like this is just another playoff overtime he has to face. He’s gone through dozens of those and survived. Not only survived; he won the fucking game. He could do this too. He would manage to stay calm and wait for Shane to come back like a good boyfriend.
He’s Ilya fucking Rozanov.
“The worm! I haven’t checked it in a while. More like Ilya fucked up Rozanov.”
The jar is in the same place where he left it before, of course. The only thing out of its place is, well, everything else. Here’s Ilya taking care of a worm because he feels guilty and his boyfriend thinks this is a funny prank. Ilya knows a prank when he sees one — him being responsible for many of them in Boston. And it’ll be hard to admit it to Shane’s face but this is a really good one.
Shane is probably watching him with a hidden camera somewhere and laughing his ass off.
He opens the lid and peeks through the hole.
The worm is not moving. It’s curled up in a bun, against the glass wall of the jar, very still.
A rush of panic starts flowing in his veins. It’s not possible that he couldn’t take care of a single worm. He would enter the story as the first man who had a pet worm and killed it within two hours.
“No,” he says immediately. “No, don’t do that, buddy.”
He taps the jar once. Twice. Nothing.
“Are you dead? Are you fucking dead?,” he’s practically screaming at the jar.
Ilya removes the socks from around the glass to have a better view. It’s the same way as he built it. But, seemingly so, the worm needed more from Ilya. And he wasn’t able to provide it.
Trembling with desperation and with a single stubborn tear clinging to the corner of his eye, he grabs his phone and types as best as he can
Google: worm is npt movibg is it dead
Google: Do you mean: worm is not moving is it dead
“Yes, that is exactly what fucking I mean,” he shouts at the screen, hitting the button as if the cellphone is the source of all his problems.
The results suggest several tests to find out if a worm is dead or not. Ilya tries the first.
If the worm is dry or smells bad, it is dead.
From where he’s standing, the worm looks moist and smelling of earth; perhaps that is the first good sign.
If the worm is curled or rolled up, it may be just dehydrated or too cold.
“Buddy, are you dehydrated?”
He sprinkles some more water on the earth and a little on top of him. Nothing happens.
“Are you cold?,” he asks the worm, while taking the jar outside.
The sun is almost up now, which means it is practically midday. It is warm and cozy and it is the perfect weather for a swim, if he didn’t have to “wormsit” and wait for Shane to finally acknowledge his existence.
Ilya lays on the sunlounger, placing the jar next to him on the floor. His phone is still silent, the screen is still dark.
He takes the jar again in his hands, the worm still quiet. He keeps trying to find the logic in all this. The question, the worm, Shane. Is there even one?
There isn’t, of course.
Except when you put all your efforts on improving something and it doesn’t respond the way you think it’s supposed to. Try to perfect something that never required it in the first place.
Same as the worm.
Which never asked for any of the fruit, the water, the shadows. It definitely never asked to be locked in a jar and dragged around by a crazy Russian hockey player. Maybe he should’ve opened the lid and set it free in the garden from the very beginning. But he was too attached to let it go now.
Just like it is with Shane.
He tried, or lied, for many years to get rid of Shane. Ghosting him for six months after the 2014 Olympics. Swallowing dry his relationship with Rose Landry. The thoughts of breaking up with him before each of their encounters, which never became a reality. Ilya was way too attached, more than he was willing to admit.
Whether it’s because of the language barrier or because he’s never felt like this for anyone in his life, sometimes his perception falters. And much like the worm, Ilya has been trying to guess Shane’s needs.
Yesterday was one of those moments.
He dodged Shane’s question because he wanted to avoid resentments. Instead, he ended up dodging an opportunity to declare himself to Shane once again.
And, irony of ironies, prank or not prank, he’s been trapped all day with this worm and, weirdly, he’s growing very fond of it.
“You’re kind of like him,” he murmurs to the jar.
He stops.
“No, no” he shakes his head, “I’m not naming you Shane.”
Perhaps the worm doesn’t need his utmost trials to be happy. He stares at the worm, very seriously.
“You’re not a problem to be solved, are you, Shane? I only need to stop trying to solve you and start to respond to you, I think.”
He blinks at it, because the worm gives its tiny body a little shake and slowly starts squirming again, digging another hole to hide.
“Fuck, yeah,” he throws punches in the air. “Moy chervichok, I knew you could do it.”
With his legs crossed on the sunlounger, Ilya places the jar in between them and tries to call Shane once more. Phone still off, no messages.
The situation calls for a drastic solution. On his phone, he finds Svetlana’s number and calls her.
“Ilyusha, to what do I owe the pleasure of having a phone" call from you mid-summer?”
“Sveta, I’m in trouble”
“Do I detect a discordant note in love’s tender refrain?”
“I’m not going to pretend I understand what that means. It’s serious.”
“Oh, sweet lord. What is it then?"
“Shane is gone.”
“Gone how?”
“I woke up this morning and he disappeared. He doesn’t answer the phone.”
“Have you called his mom, the police?"
“No, not yet. He left me with… something.”
"Like a gift? Or his fucking will? Just spit it out!”
“He left me a worm.”
Svetlana goes completely silent on the other side of the line. After long seconds, she’s able to speak again.
“A worm, as in an invertebrate?”
“Yes, Sveta.”
“I thought you had stopped using drugs for good, honey."
“Sveta, I’m not on anything. See, we had this huge fucking fight yesterday, about… He asked me if I would love him if he was a worm.”
“Ilya, for crying out loud. Please, tell me you said yes.”
“Well…”
“And he left you with a worm as punishment for being so ridiculously hopeless?”
“I don’t know! I just woke up and there was a jar with a worm inside, Shane was gone, and now I’m sitting outside holding a worm I have just named Shane, which I promised I would not do.”
“Ilya, honey, listen to yourself. Listen to what you’re telling me. As soon as the words hit your ears, you’ll realize how nonsense this is.”
“It’s not that simple, Sveta.”
“It is that simple, yes. Shane didn’t trap you with a worm. You’re trapping yourself with it.”
“What?... Why?”
“I have to go now, but text me as soon as Shane comes back. Ya tebya lyublyu.”
“Thanks, Sveta. Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu.”
When he hangs up, three thoughts invade his mind, like a puck shot between the goalie’s legs; impossible to stop.
Sveta was right.
Shane, the worm, is okay.
But Shane, the boyfriend, is still missing.
Ilya stares at the jar for a long moment, the sunlight reflecting against the glass, now stripped from the black socks. The worm disappeared beneath the earth again, hidden somewhere between the damp leaves and the pieces of fruit he had spent the entire morning preparing like a lunatic.
“You’re causing me permanent psychological damage,” he speaks directly to the jar.
Obviously, the jar doesn’t answer.
There’s only the sound of the wind, shaking the trees, and making the water ripple softly against the docks.
He grabs his phone for the hundredth time today and calls Shane once more. Voicemail. And again. Ilya presses his phone harder against his ear. Nothing.
“This is not funny anymore,” he mutters to the jar.
His chest tightens and there’s a knot forming in his throat. He lowers his eyes back to the jar and sees the worm poking what it seems to be its head out.
Ilya stares at it with unrestrained care.
“There you are. Hi.”
The worm squirms and twists until its tiny body is all on the surface, pressing against the glass. Ilya lifts the jar to see it better.
He knows this is ridiculous. He knows worms don’t respond to affection and that Shane Hollander didn’t magically shrink himself into an annelid overnight. But Ilya feels exhausted, and the edges between reality and borderline delirium are mixing, turning everything blurry and strange beneath the afternoon sun.
And the worm keeps reacting to the sound of his voice.
“You made everything very difficult,” he says.
The worm squirms a little to the left. Ilya huffs to the sight of it.
“You ask impossible questions, disappear for half a day, leave me emotionally devastated, and still, I’m taking care of you. Because I can’t be angry at you!”
The worm climbs weakly over a slightly bigger piece of dirt and “falls” back down.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Be careful.”
He shifts on the sunlounger, holding the jar closer against his chest. The glass is warm from the sunlight now. He opens the jar and leans over it, until his mouth is close to the opening.
“I should’ve answered your question properly,” he whispers.
Ilya traces the worm through the glass with his finger. His chest tightens, he closes his eyes and softly speaks against the wind.
“I would love you as anything, idiot.”
Worm. Human. Chair. Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore.
The worm moves slowly through the dirt, Ilya presses his lips together and that tear falls, having nothing to cling to anymore.
“You know that, don’t you?”
His phone remains silent. Panic starts crawling back again, little by little. What if Shane really left? What if it stopped being a prank hours ago?
What if something actually happened?
Ilya stands up too quickly. The jar slips against his palms.
“Oh—”
The jar hits the sharp edge of a rock and shatters across the lawn.
And Ilya’s heart shatters too.
“No, no, no—”
Earth spills all over the grass and the broken pieces of the glass glitter with the sunlight. Ilya kneels instinctively, not minding the glass around him, and when he looks closely, his world falls apart.
The worm — his worm, Shane — disappears instantly into the dirt and grass, mixing with dozens of other earthworms.
Too many of them.
“No.”
His hands shake violently and he can barely push the dirt away to search for his worm.
“No, no, no, no! Shane!,” he shouts in desperation, digging through the earth, the glass, the worms and the last crumbs of his own sanity.
As the worms squirm away from the crazy giant hands, he picks one, with extra care. He analyses it, as best as his teary eyes allow him.
“You don’t… Your ring is brown, not pink! You’re not Shane.”
He drops it and catches a second one.
“Where are your freckles? You don’t have freckles!”
He drops it again and a single thought of absolute terror runs in his mind.
“I can’t tell which one you are!,” he screams in desperation, picking worms and dropping them non-stop.
A stream of tears spill down his face, as he grabs a final worm and desperately decides this one is his Shane. The slimy creature twists softly around the palm of his hand and, for a second, he feels at ease. And then…
“What if I picked the wrong one?,” he whispers to the worm in his hand, sliding it back to the grass.
He sits on the floor, defeated, knackered. He had lost his worm, and probably his Shane as well. The phone never rang. Shane never called or replied to any of his messages. Both versions of the same thing were lost at the same time.
Mumbling to the floor, he runs his fingers through the mess he’d made, trying to figure out what could have gone different.
“Shane,” he sobs, “I know I wasn’t the best person for you, and I’m sorry… But fuck! You could at least have left me some note, goodbye note, or—”
“I did leave you a note, Ilya.”
A voice he knows by heart comes from behind. Ilya turns quickly, as if magic words were cast by a merciful wizard.
Shane is standing on the grass, holding some plastic bags, staring at his boyfriend cry over shattered glass and spilled dirt, with wide eyes of curiosity and slight apprehension.
Ilya blinks, pushing the tears away and his voice falters.
“Shane— oh my god.”
His knees are weak, but still he manages to stand up. He stumbles to his feet and practically throws himself against Shane’s chest.
Ilya crashes into him so hard, the grocery bag drops to the ground, breaking whatever is inside. He wraps his arms tightly around his waist and buries his face in Shane’s neck, breathing him in.
Shane stands still, visibly confused with all the commotion.
When Ilya finally pulls apart, he cradles Shane’s face with both of his hands and Shane can finally take a good look at him.
“What the hell happened?”
“I thought you were gone,” Ilya mumbles, his voice still shaking. “You were gone and not picking up your phone. And there was the worm. I spent the whole day taking care of it, I named it after you, Shane.”
Shane can only blink and wait for him to vent about the disastrous events of his day.
“I named the worm after you, Shane,” he repeats, his senses slowly coming back to him. “But then, I was sitting here and I panicked and when I stood up, I dropped the jar and there were too many worms… I thought I lost you, Shane. I thought you left me or died!”
Shane lets out a solidarity laugh. He takes Ilya by the hand and they both sit at the sunlounger, facing each other. He holds Ilya’s hands at all times, tracing circles around his knuckles, as his breath steadies.
“Well, I’m not dead and I’m certainly not leaving you.”
He takes another look around the messy garden, figuring out what could’ve caused all this, and then his eyes settle on Ilya.
“My dad stopped by early,” Shane explains. “He’s going fishing with his friends tomorrow and he needs some worms. He only had one so he left the jar here for us, to help him find more.”
Ilya listens, putting together the pieces of a very disturbing puzzle.
“I asked him to give me a ride to the market, we needed eggs,” he points at the bag on the floor. “Which I think we may need again.”
Ilya laughs for the first time in god knows how long.
“I left you a note under the bowl of keys, I thought you might see it.”
“I saw the bowl, but not the note,” Ilya shakes his head.
“I was supposed to be back hours ago,” he says. “But then, my dad stopped by at the fishing shop. You know how he is when he’s around fishing equipment… At some point, my phone died and my dad’s phone ran out of batteries.”
“If you turn on your phone now, there’s a million messages and missed calls. Just ignore them,” Ilya huffs.
“Anyways,” Shane keeps explaining, “when we came back, the road was blocked because of an accident. We had to stop somewhere to have lunch and wait.”
“I’m just glad you’re finally here. And relieved,” Ilya hugs him again, resting his head on Shane’s shoulder.
“But seriously, Ilya, what happened?”
Shane looks down and sees several worms still squirming and digging holes on the earth.
Ilya opens his mouth to speak. And closes it. And opens it again. And closes. Any word about his eventful day sounds nothing but ridiculous right now.
“Let’s just say I built a very deep connection with worm.”
Shane laughs hard, incapable of holding it back.
“I’m sorry, my love, it seems really weird that you built—,” and he stops speaking all of a sudden.
“What?”
“Ilya,” he puts a hand over his mouth, covering a sassy grin. “Did you actually fall in love with the worm?,” and he laughs again.
Ilya gets flushed red, crosses his arms, refusing to answer.
“That is insane.”
“You asked insane question, for starters.”
“What? I never asked—”
But Ilya interrupts him.
“I built you… it. I built it a house. With dirt. And fruit. And my black socks for shade. I googled worm anatomy, Shane. Worm anatomy.”
“Oh my god, Ilya,” Shane leans in and kisses Ilya’s cheeks, forehead, chin, lips.
Ilya retreats and looks at Shane, very seriously.
Every mishap he went through with the worm, the conversation with Sveta, all the absurdly deep reflections he had today… All of it has led to this moment, so he could look Shane in the eyes and tell him he finally has the answer to yesterday’s question.
He runs his dirty hands over Shane’s hair, savoring the moment.
“I love you, Shane,” Ilya whispers, serious now. “Even if you were a worm. Even if you disappear without telling me. Even if you make me lose my mind every single day. I would love you as anything.”
Shane lowers his voice. “Ilya…”
“I will keep loving you,” Ilya continues. “No matter how much you change. I’ll listen to you and try to respond to you instead of trying to solve you.”
Shane can’t stop the tears from coming. He kisses Ilya and smiles inside his mouth.
“Maybe you should pet-sit more often.”
“This is the single most humiliating moment of my life,” he admits.
“No,” Shane says immediately. “This is the best answer you could’ve given me.”
They stare at each other for a while. Shane reaches up and brushes the dirt on Ilya's cheeks with his thumb.
“You really thought I was the worm.”
“I thought you could’ve been the worm,” Ilya corrects him.
“I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” Ilya says, without hesitation.
Then, Shane glances down at the grass, the escaping worms around their feet. Ilya is looking at them as well.
“You know,” he says carefully, “we still need to collect those for my father…”
Ilya stares at him, in absolute horror.
“Absolutely not. I mourned enough worms for an entire lifetime.”