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One summer day, Ilya woke up, hungover and exhausted. The giant floor fan was still running, pleasant background noise as Ilya attempted to root himself back into consciousness. The clear, cheery whistles of the American robins interspersed with the alarm-scold of the blue tits made the ache in his temples worse. Shane had taught him differences between types of birdsong; their second summer Ilya had befriended a friendly little grey sparrow with a bad leg. He hoped it was doing well wherever it was. He cried when tending to it. Shane had been very patient with his abundance of emotions that month.
Shane was in the living room, bent over some grey planter boxes that had just come in from an order he placed three days ago. He had a drill in hand as he examined the base, running his fingers carefully over the plastic for where he needed to install the holes.
He was tired and he couldn't be of use. Did not want to be. These sorts of things were his husband's interest. Boring things. Mundane things. Small things. Shane was quietly efficient and got it all done. Ilya had wanted beautiful flowers to care for: peonies and geraniums and carnations and ranunculus. He said it once and tired of his own idea the minute the suggestion left his mouth. Lost steam and his mind went somewhere else. His husband paid attention. He always did.
Shane looked up. The tips of his mouth quirked up ever so slight.
“Breakfast is in the kitchen.”
“I know, Papa,” Ilya said, in Russian. “I saw.”
He ambled off, bleary-eyed and still half-asleep. The smack of his Adidas slides on their hardwood floors filled the silence. Not a bad silence. The type that could stretch for hours: sticky with sleep, grilled meat and vegetables, endless sex with the pursuit of orgasms of all qualities, and the breakdown of order.
Shane watched him go. He set the drill down. He wasn't startled. A few times now this year, when Ilya was tired and clearly out of it, he'd called Shane Papa without thinking.
He did wonder when would be a good time to bring it up. But more than anything, it didn't faze him. He kind of liked it, and that was the thing. Selfishly, he did not want Ilya to stop. Curiously, he wondered if he could push the boundaries of it. The bubble did not need to be popped, did it?