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Ilya woke, alone, as he did most mornings since being at the cottage. He knew not to panic now, he quickly learned that Shane was just a much earlier riser than he was. He knew Shane was either in the gym doing his morning yoga routine, in the kitchen making one of his revolting macrobiotic smoothies, or possibly down in the den, on his laptop coordinating with his mother some of his sponsor obligations he'd be returning to soon. Soon.
He reached over to Shane's side of the bed, the crisp white sheets were already cold. He’d been up for a while then. The light shining, glaring into the windows was unforgiving, mid-morning and too bright. Ilya squinted, then frowned, realizing he was already wasting his last day at the cottage. His last day with Shane.
He threw the blankets off of himself and sat up, swinging his legs to the side of the bed and planting his feet on the floor. He rubbed his face with one hand as he grabbed his phone off of the nightstand and unlocked the screen with the other. The only notifications were an email reminder from Air Canada to check in for his flight booked for the next morning, and the automatic daily news update he usually just swiped away. Today, he paused before clearing the screen.
Breaking News: Aurora Visible Tonight in Southern Quebec
Ilya’s eyes went wide as he clicked the link and scanned the article– something about a coronal mass ejection and a solar storm, just missed earth, hit a couple of satellites and the International Space Station. Nothing to cause disruptions to air travel, but enough to cause “once in a lifetime northern lights”. Too many science words in English to translate, but he knew what the northern lights were.
He was immediately brought back to a dark, snowy, winter night in Moscow, when he was much younger, his mother loading him and his brother into the family car. She bundled them in their hats and winter coats, boots quietly slipped on at the front door. His father was nowhere to be seen– possibly asleep, or working late.
“Илюша, Алёша, у меня для вас сюрприз” Ilyusha, Alyosha, I have a surprise for you.
“Shane!” Ilya stood and reached for the boxer briefs and black sweats discarded on the floor from the night before with one hand, still holding his phone, still scanning the article. Struggling to dress with one hand while reading his screen, he resigned to tossing it onto the bed while he hastily threw the pants on.
“Shane, I have to show you this!” He walked into the kitchen with no sign of Shane. The blender clearly had not yet been used, no lingering smell of coffee. “Shane!” He called again, walking down toward the gym. He reached the entrance to the gym, and he was met with silence and darkness, the lights off.
Ilya gave a little frustrated sigh, not knowing where his boyfriend went. Boyfriend. He brought up Jane’s contact on his phone, making a mental note to change the name, and hit call. It only rang for a moment when Shane answered, “Hey, I’m…uh– I’m outside by the water.”
“Okay. Can I join you?” Ilya glanced out the windows and saw Shane’s silhouette against the bright morning sun, sitting on the large rock out near the shore.
“Yeah, come on out,” he replied, and Ilya watched as Shane turned his head around looking for him by the house.
He hung up, and opened the door.
The morning sun had already taken the worst of the dawn chill from the air, with just a faint breeze rustling the leaves of the trees surrounding the property. The whistles and honks of birds in the distance shuffled though the air across the lake, every lick of the lake on the rocks in the shallows bringing another birdsong up from the wilderness surrounding the cottage. He slowly walked to Shane out by the lake, noticing his slumped posture as he sat on the rock. He didn't turn to look at Ilya as he reached the shore.
Still wearing only the black sweats and holding only his phone, he reached Shane and climbed up on the rock next him.
“Hey,” Ilya quietly said, leaning over to try to look at Shane's face, but Shane just turned his face away and let out a sniffle.
Ilya leaned further, setting the phone on the rock next to him to use one hand to rub Shane's back over his soft blue hoodie and the other to gently grasp Shane's chin and pull his face toward his own. “Shane, look at me,” he quietly commanded.
Shane lifted his eyes to meet Ilya's, red and puffy with both fresh and dried tear marks spilling down his face.
“What is this, huh? What’s going on?”
Shane just looked into Ilya's eyes for a moment longer, yet another fresh tear slowly cascading down his cheek. “I, uh– It’s our last day here.”
Ilya let go of his chin, but continued to rub slow circles on his back.
“Yes.”
Shane looked away again, out toward the water. “I don’t want you to go.”
“No. I know.”
“This has been the best summer of my life,” Shane sniffled again.
“Mine too.”
“Why does this have to be so hard.?
“If it were easy, it would not be so special, no?”
Shane looked back over at Ilya, “I guess not. It’s not fair, though. I have you here now. We have to spend so much time apart this year.”
Ilya smirked, “I can quit hockey. I can become WAG, I can travel to all of your away games.”
Shane's shoulders gave a single, small shake of a laugh.
“Yeah, I bet you'd like that. Organize all of the parties, go get brunch with the other WAGS, wear my jersey–”
“Ah, no. No way.”
“That's like, the one obligation a WAG actually has.”
“Then I guess I play hockey. One day when you are old, you will retire first and become a WAG. I am much better player, I will play years longer than you.”
Shane gave Ilya a halt-hearted nudge with his shoulder. “I'm only 6 weeks older, asshole.”
“I am number one draft pick.”
“That was ten years ago!”
“Is still true.”
Ilya stopped rubbing Shane's back, and instead snaked his arm around Shane’s shoulder, pulling him in closer and wrapping him up in both arms. Shane easily leaned into Ilya’s bare torso and allowed himself to be held, hands still in his hoodie pocket and just sighed a long exhale.
“We’ll be ok, right?” Shane asked, voice hardly above a whisper. “With the time apart, and the distance?”
“It never stopped us before,” Ilya said, pressing his face into Shane's hair and kissing the top of his head. “We spent many years apart.”
“I know. It was different though. You had–”
“I have you now, Shane. That is all I need.” Ilya craned his neck forward to look at Shane’s face. “Shane. You are all I need. Everything else was before, and does not matter. I love you.”
Shane just sat silent for a few long moments, eyes still fixed on the waves calmly lapping up on the shore and looked up to meet Ilya's gaze again. “I love you, too. Ya tebya lyublyu.”
Ilya’s heart swelled at the butchered pronunciation, at Shane's first attempt at Russian. He couldn't speak, choking back the lump in his throat, but leaned in to kiss the top of Shane’s head again.
“My parents were hoping to come visit one more time before you leave tomorrow, is it ok if they stop by today?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You know, I think they might like you more than they like me.”
“Probably. I am very likeable.”
“You’re an asshole,” Shane laughed. “But yes.”
They sat on the rock, watching the water for a while longer, when Ilya remembered the article. He grabbed his phone off of the rock behind them and unlocked it again.
“Shane, look. I wanted to show you this,” and he handed over the phone.
Shane took it and began scrolling. “Holy shit, Ilya. This is awful. There are still two up there? It says they might not survive this!”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s a Canadian astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut stuck on the ISS!”
“Ah, not that part.”
“What do you mean ‘not that part’?” Shane asked, now fully craned around to look Ilya in the face, “People are dying!”
“Look, the northern lights, aurora!” Ilya pointed excitedly at the title of the article on the screen. “We will be able to see them tonight, here.”
“That’s what you took from this article? You know what, nevermind. Yes, we would be able to see the northern lights here.”
“Have you seen them before? Here?”
“Oh yeah, several times. You have to be up really late though, it’s summer so the sun sets late. The sky is light for a lot longer than the rest of the year.”
Ilya just stared incredulously at Shane. “This is not exciting for you?”
“I’m honestly more worried about the people dying on the ISS, but yeah, I guess the northern lights are exciting.”
“We will watch tonight,” Ilya stated, not a bit of question to his tone.
“Ilya, we have to be up early tomorrow for your flight, we can’t be up that late.”
Ilya paused, long enough for Shane to know he was serious, “Shane, please,” and his eyes danced between Shane's eyes, silently begging him to not have to elaborate further.
Shane let out a large sigh, “You know what, sure,” he said flatly.
Ilya noticed the less than enthusiastic tone in his voice, but he still smirked. “We can stay busy until it is dark enough.”
Yuna and David stopped by the cottage about two hours later, just as Ilya was pulling his shirt on, fresh from the shower, and Shane had just finished changing the sheets. They didn’t stay for long, David saying, “Come on, Yuna. Let’s let the kids have their last day,” as he ushered her out of the house while she called out, “Make sure you eat something before you board, and don’t forget to text us when you land!”
They stood outside the front door together, waving, and as the sound of Yuna’ and David’s tires crunching on the gravel driveway faded away, Ilya told Shane, “We need to get ready to see northern lights.”
“What? It’s only two o'clock, Ilya.”
“We have to figure out how to get onto the roof. Where is a ladder?”
Shane’s jaw dropped and he looked over at his boyfriend incredulously, “Ilya, what–no. We are not climbing onto the roof.”
“Why not? Is best view. ‘Once in a lifetime,’ it says. We cannot miss it.”
“We can watch from the lawn, or the lakeshore, We will not be climbing onto my roof.”
“Hollander, you are so boring.”
Shane rolled his eyes, Honest to god, rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”
“Why can't we?”
“We’ll damage the tiles”
“We will be careful.”
“When are you ever careful?”
“I am careful with you.”
Shane's face softened.
“The roof isn’t meant to be climbed on. It’s not like… a hotel roof you can go out on, with a door… It’s just tiles and it's steep. It’s probably slippery, I don’t even know where would be the safest place to–”
“Shane, look, ” Ilya pointed to the top of the windows. “Is not steep. Is flat. My dick is less flat than your roof.”
“That doesn’t even make– “ Shane glanced over at the cottage, and sighed. “I just don't want anything to happen to you. Us. If we fell–”
“Shane, we will not fall. Russians are very steady. I will hold you so tight, no way to fall.”
Shane smirked and shook his head just a tiny bit, “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
Ilya closed the distance between them, reaching out for Shane’s hips and pulled him in closer, wrapping his arms tightly around him, as if to prove just how tightly he would hold Shane on the roof. Their bodies were now flush against each other and he tucked his head into Shane’s hair and breathed in, smelling the clean shampoo scent, then let out a quiet breath just behind his ear, “Tell me, Hollander. Where is a ladder?”
Shane shuddered, and gave a sharp inhale as he let himself melt into Ilya’s arms for a moment. Then, he remembered that he was not supposed to be giving in to this and wiggled out of Ilya’s grasp and gave him a half-hearted shove. “You’re an asshole, Rozanov.”
Ilya smiled, knowing he won, and watched Shane walk away toward the side of the cottage, to a small storage shed hidden between the main building and some trees.
He followed a few paces behind and watched Shane disappear in the shed and reemerge a few moments later with a ladder, folded in half.
“This should be tall enough. I don’t know why I have this. I never planned to get on the roof, but I guess it's better to be prepared. Not that I thought ‘urgent northern lights’ was ever going to be a reason to climb up there,” he huffed as he set the ladder down on the grass near the back wall of the cottage.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur, far too quickly for them both, as they silently dreaded the next morning when they knew they would have to say goodbye again.
Dinner was eaten, dishes were done, and they sat together on the couch just quietly scrolling their phones.
“Shane, it’s getting dark out,” Ilya looked up from his phone to the window outside. “We should go up on the roof before it gets too dark, yes?”
Shane looked up and out as well, then back over at Ilya, “Are you sure you want to go up on the roof? We really can see it just as easily from the lawn.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Shane let out a long sigh, defeated, and stood. “Ok, let's go do this. Bundle up, it's supposed to be pretty chilly tonight. Here, I'll grab some blankets,” he said, reaching over for the green blanket draped over the arm of the couch.
Ilya disappeared into the bedroom to change into something warmer. He walked back out, turning off all of the indoor and outdoor lights to the cottage. Shane had already gone outside to set the ladder up against the roof, near the fire pit.
“I keep debating whether to set it up over here on this side, where there's concrete. It’ll be more steady, but much more likely to do some damage if we fall here. Over there, if we fall, at least it's on the grass.”
Ilya watched Shane with amusement for several minutes, as he walked the ladder back and forth from the grass to the concrete. Back and forth.
Finally he settled on the concrete side, leaned the ladder up against the edge of the roof, and gave it a good shake. “Ok, This seems pretty sturdy. I wish we had someone to hold the ladder as we climb but this will be ok. You hold the ladder for me as I climb up and then I’ll reach over and hold the top when you climb up.”
“Hollander. Is just a ladder. Have you never climbed a ladder?”
“Yes, of course I have. You do realize that one fall from this could mean our careers are over, right?”
“That is how we decide who is WAG first, hmm?”
“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Shane said, no actual malice to be found in his voice.
Shane climbed up first, the green blanket from the couch thrown around his shoulders. Ilya held the ladder firm to the ground. Despite the chirping about it all day, he actually knew that he would not be able to forgive himself should anything at all happen to Shane tonight.
Once Shane made it to the roof, Ilya followed– a heavy grey blanket from the linen closet thrown over one shoulder. Shane laid on his stomach and leaned over the edge of the roof, doing his best to hold the top of the ladder as Ilya climbed. Unnecessary, but Ilya assumed it was easing Shane’s panic a microscopic amount.
Shane reached down for Ilya's hand and held it as he clambered the rest of the way over the edge of the roof.
The sun had disappeared below the horizon on the lake about 15 minutes earlier, and the darkness of the moonless night was beginning to truly settle in around them as they quietly arranged the blankets on the roof tiles, under and around where they would be sitting overlooking the lake.
A loon called out from across the water, slow and mournful, as if to mark this occasion of Shane and Ilya’s last moments together before everything changed.
“What do you think they’re doing up there right now?” Shane asked as they finally came to settle next to each other, cuddled together under the grey blanket, sitting side by side as close as humanly possible. The stars became visible, one by one, dotting the sky with pinpricks of light.
“Fucking, probably.”
“Ilya!”
“What?”
“They’re probably terrified. Would you be fucking?”
“With you, yes,” Ilya replied, not a speck of humor on his face.
“Touché.”
“I don’t speak French, Shane.”
“It’s not– I mean, it is, but it’s like, also used in English as an English word.”
Ilya just raised an eyebrow at him, and then a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I know. I'm kidding, I know what touché means.” His smirk turned upward a tick more. “I want to talk about the Russian you used earlier.”
Ilya couldn’t see the blush in the dark, but he knew Shane enough to know that his cheeks were absolutely burning.
“I didn’t pronounce it right. But I do want to learn, for you. It seems like an important phrase to start with. Sorry it’s not yes, sir or fuck me please or whatever the hell the useful phrases were that you wanted to teach me.”
“It was perfect, Shane. You’re perfect.”
“It wasn’t per–” Shane’s sentence was interrupted by Ilya gripping his chin and kissing him, deep and hard. He released his chin, and rested his forehead against Shane’s, eyes closed, noses touching.
“Perfect,” Ilya whispered.
They sat there like that for a good while, and finally, Ilya turned his head back toward the sky.
“Shane, look!” Ilya’s eyes squinted toward the horizon, becoming darker by the minute, and noticed a faint, green glow in the sky. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, I think so. Sometimes it stays really dim like that and sometimes it really gets bright and moves a lot.”
“I hope it does more.”
“Have you ever seen the northern lights before?”
“Hmm. Once, when I was very young. My mother woke me and my brother up, put us in the car while my father was not there.”
Илюша, Алёша, у меня для вас сюрприз
“So you could go see them?”
“Yes. She drove us outside the city, away from lights, I think. I don’t know how she knew that we would be able to see them that night. My mother loved space, she used to tell us old stories about Gagarin and Laika.”
“Laika, the first dog in space.” Shane said, not quite a question.
“Yes. My mother was born after, but she learned in school. She learned that Laika went to space to help Soviets study how to get humans up there. She learned that she died while still in orbit, no pain, peaceful. She would tell us the story at bedtime, about Laika the dog, a hero. Sent to learn about space and then she got to play in the stars forever. She would tell me the last thing she saw on earth was the humans who placed her in the box, and they kissed her nose and told her Bon voyage. She would always do the same to me and Alexei when we were young. Bon voyage and a kiss on the nose at bedtime.”
Shane’s hand found Ilya’s under the blanket and squeezed gently.
“A couple of months before my mother died, a scientist told the truth. Laika did not die with no pain. She died almost right away while overheating, alone and scared and hurting in a box in space, and the Soviets lied for a long time. I remember my mother reading article. She was so sad, it made her so sad this story she loved for so long was a lie.”
Ilya paused for several long moments, not looking away from the sky.
“She had been sad so many times before, and always came back. This time she didn’t. At her funeral, I told her the same. Bon voyage and gave her a kiss goodbye.”
The sky was pitch black now, other than the billions of stars glittering across the sky. Suddenly, the nocturnal animals ceased their sounds, and with a deafeningly quiet static sound, the horizon erupted in a bright green flash streaking across the lake. The aurora listed over the water, the ribbon of light seemed to be waving in the breeze. It seemed close enough to touch. Ilya wanted to reach his hand out and drag it through the band of light just to see what it would feel like against his skin.
Shane squeezed his hand again, just watching Ilya watch the sky. A tear escaped the corner of Ilya’s eye, and Shane watched it trail down his cheekbone, down his chin, dripping, down, down until it clung to the line of his jaw and fell, reflecting the brilliant verdant lights shimmering in the sky above.
“She loved dogs. She always wanted a dog, my father would not let her. I like to think she is in the stars now, playing with Laika.”
Shane leaned his head onto Ilya’s shoulder, bringing their joined hands to his mouth and gently placed a kiss to where they connected.
Ilya just nodded, tears now free-flowing, still not looking away from the dancing sky.
“I wanted to be on the roof. It feels closer to her.”
The next morning, they woke before dawn to the sound of Shane’s blaring alarm. Neither spoke, they just held each other in the dark until they absolutely could not spare another moment without Ilya being in danger of missing his flight.
Shane sat up first, groggily grabbing his phone off of the nightstand.
His eyes went wide after a few moments. “Oh shit, Ilya. I think you might have been right.”
“I am always right, Hollander,” he grumbled into the pillow.
“Look, they were able to save those astronauts on the ISS. They got photos when they made it in to rescue them,” and he shoved the phone toward Ilya.
He took the phone, and smiled. On the screen were two men, not much older than Shane and Ilya. They were facing each other, holding each other’s shoulders, smiling and staring into each other’s eyes. Not just a I’m glad I didn’t die in space kind of smile, but a I’m glad you’re here with me smile.
“They look like us. In love and not able to hide it,” he said as he passed the phone back.
Shane looked at the photo on the screen for a few more seconds, and said, “We will be ok. I know we will, now.”
Ilya, still laying on the pillow, reached for Shane’s hand. He interlaced their fingers and said, “Of course we will, Любимый.”