Work Text:
Shane was just considering if it would really be in terribly bad form to read a book at a party when he saw Hunter approaching through the press of the crowd, clearly on a mission, his eyes scanning the room until they lit on Shane.
He glanced around, calculating. There wasn’t enough time to make an escape, the furniture Hunter’s new husband had decorated the place with was too spindly to hide behind, and it would be unfathomably rude to set off a teleportation spell in the middle of a crowd, especially as it would rip through Hunter’s carefully constructed wards.
Trapped then. At least the man following behind Hunter was handsome. But then all of the men Hunter introduced Shane to were; that was not the fault Shane usually found with them. This gentleman was uncommonly so; he was tall, perhaps even taller than Shane, his jawline strong, his hair a curling dark gold, fashioned into a stylish pompadour, his eyes bright, blue and green in the witch lights that illuminated the room. The man gave Shane an appreciative look as he approached and Shane thought that perhaps that even if he was as dull as all the others, Shane might still consent to a dalliance.
“Hollander!” Hunter exclaimed, jovially. He had been unpardonably chipper since his engagement to Kip Grady. “I see you eying the books over there. I’m afraid they won’t be to your taste; Kit picked them out. They’re all beautiful, but there isn’t a whiff of magic about the lot.”
The man beside Hunter looked at Shane curiously and then cleared his throat.
“Ah, yes,” Hunter said. “Lord Rozanov, this is Mr. Shane Hollander.”
A prince? Shane wondered. That seemed like a high reach even if he hailed from one of those countries that were swimming with princes.
“Hollander, let me introduce Lord Ilya Grigorovich Rozanov.”
Ilya Rozanov?
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Rozanov said, with only a hint of an accent.
“You’re Ilya Rozanov?” Shane blurted out. “You published that treatise on compounding bonding variables in location arrays.”
Rozanov nodded.
“You blasted knob-jockey!” Shane exclaimed. “I was about to publish the same! You filched the idea from me!”
Hunter gasped and then stared daggers at Shane, but Rozanov seemed merely amused at the insult.
“I was inspired by your paper on a similar topic,” Rozanov demurred. “But I had no notion you intended on publishing. Had I known I would have suggested we present the paper together.”
“Inspired by!” Shane repeated, incredulous. “And yet you didn’t think to send a letter inquiring if I might be working on a longer piece? Perhaps that is a respectable way to carry on in Russia, but in Canada we are not so scurrilous.”
“Now, now, Hollander,” Hunter said. “Lord Rozanov surely meant nothing malicious by his actions. Indeed, he was telling me that he was particularly interested in meeting you.”
“Yes,” Rozanov agreed. “It was one of my incentives for coming to Ottawa. I was gratified by an invitation to attend the Royal Society partially because I knew you were associated with that august body.”
Shane was, indeed, a member of the Royal Society, though he eschewed the social obligations of that membership as much as possible.
“I had not heard of your invitation,” Shane said.
“Mr. Hollander does not often attend the society meetings,” Hunter told Rozanov. “He is much engrossed in his research.”
“Ah,” Rozanov said. “Perhaps I could attend you in your laboratory at a date convenient for you? I shall be in town through the spring.”
Shane eyed him. Even he knew it would be rude to ask if Rozanov intended to steal his current work, but he could not help be defensive of it, especially as Rozanov had taken his ideas before.
“Or you could see what I am investigating?” Rozanov added. “I have been given a very fine workroom in the headquarters of the society and would be pleased to show you my current research.”
This was an offer Shane could not turn down, no matter how much he might still resent Rozanov for publishing ahead of him. He had read every article and chapter of Rozanov’s which he had been able to find and which had been published or translated in English, French, or Latin, and had often wished to speak with the man himself and not merely to chastise him for his audacity. He bit his tongue to keep from suggesting they retire there immediately, instead nodding and murmuring that it would be amenable.
Rozanov smiled at that, a wide grin that dimpled his cheeks and made Shane swallow in unwelcome desire. Hunter, who knew Shane better than Shane liked, let his eyes flit between the two of them and then raised an eyebrow at Shane. Shane did not dignify this with his attention, instead inquiring of Rozanov, “What is that you’re currently working on?” and allowing himself to be swept into a discussion on the effects of thermal variations on common spell mechanics and the utility of altering spells to better match the casting environment.
Hunter engaged with the conversation for a few minutes and then excused himself. Shane hardly noticed him leave.
.
Rozanov was everything an interlocutor could wish for; he was not shy about putting forward his opinion, but not unwilling to consider alternate hypotheses. His explanations were detailed but not enough so to make them tedious, and Shane quickly found a compatibility in understanding he had never previously experienced. Indeed, even in those he held in high respect, such as Hunter, he had never found such a perfect intellectual match. Rozanov comprehended Shane so well it was as if they could peer into each other’s minds.
It seemed as if no time had passed before Rozanov was remarking that it appeared as if they party was waining. This was an understatement; when Shane pulled himself away from Rozanov enough to observe the room, he found that they were the only guest left. Hunter and his husband spoke to each other quietly on the other side of the room and Shane caught sight of a maid peering in as if wondering when she might be allowed to get to her job.
“Oh,” Shane exclaimed. Hunter looked up. “Do pardon our rudeness,” Shane continued. “I lost track of the time.”
Hunter’s husband looked smug while Hunter said, “Think nothing of it, old chap. I am delighted you get on so well. Lord Rozanov, perhaps you can lure Hollander back to society meetings.”
“More likely, I think, he will lure me to his workroom,” Lord Rozanov returned, looking sideways at Shane, who blushed.
The younger Mr. Hunter bit his lip as if keeping himself from speaking, but he accompanied Hunter as he escorted them to the door, Shane and Rozanov making all the polite apologies and farewells and thank yous and such before finally reaching the street.
The hour was late, indeed; the street was quiet.
“What is your direction?” he asked Rozanov. “My apartments are but a short walk away.”
Rozanov named a hotel that was a bit farther, and so it seemed only natural that Shane invite Rozanov over to view some of his experiments, all of his earlier paranoid forgotten.
“Unless,” he said, hesitating. “It is very late— if you have meetings or the like on the morrow, you might wish to retire.”
“I do not wish to retire,” Rozanov assured him in a low voice and Shane wished Rozanov’s features were not hidden by the dimness of the evening, that he might better read his face.
Shane thought they might return to their earlier conversation, but instead Rozanov asked about his living situation. It was indeed odd that an unmarried son not live in the same quarters as his parents when they resided in the same city.
So Shane explained that it had been an accident that he had moved apart from his parents. He had rented the rooms as work rooms, as he had found the atmosphere of the Royal Society stifling. “People coming to visit at all hours,” he explained. “Wishing to borrow this ingredient or argue that theory. It was impossible to think in such an environment. And Crowell— the presiding member of the society, you know— dislikes any hypothesis that contradicts his own, extremely limited understanding, was always making pointed remarks and insinuating that they might need the rooms for researchers ‘whose goals better aligned with those of the Royal Society’, so I thought it better to remove myself.”
Rozanov stopped abruptly and Shane turned to look at him, surprised.
“You are the preeminent magical theorist in Canada,” Rozanov exclaimed, gesturing widely. “The best known internationally, certainly. It is your discoveries which have put Ottawa on the map as a center for magical thinking. And the Royal Society does not appreciate your contributions?”
Shane felt himself growing hot. He had said too much, he realized. It did not do to criticize Roger Crowell to a virtual stranger.
“I’m sure I exaggerate,” he prevaricated.
Rozanov’s head turned toward Shane and Shane was sure he was giving him a hard look, though he could not make out his eyes, but he then dropped the topic, instead inquiring about Shane’s family and childhood. Shane said a few words about his family; his father’s position in the treasury department, his mother’s as a professor of Eastern Magic at the University of Ottawa, a childhood spent between Ottawa his family’s small rural estate.
In return, Rozanov spoke a little of his own; he had an older brother, who would inherit the family lands and title, his mother had first noticed and nurtured his magic, though it had not been considered exactly proper for Russian nobility.
Rozanov’s mother had had some small training in magic and had taught him until her early death, at which point his father had begrudgingly found a tutor for him. Rozanov then attended school and university for magical studies and became a prominent figure in the Moscow Society for Magic. (Rozanov did not say he had become a prominent figure, of course— that was something Shane had already known. If Shane was the preeminent magical theorist in Canada, Rozanov was the same in Russia.)
Shane found he had questions enough about the particulars of magical education in Moscow to occupy the remainder of the walk, then they were quiet as they made their way to Shane’s apartments, so as not to disturb the other tenants.
“Oh,” Shane murmured, as they reached his door. “I never did complete my story.” He unlocked the door and the wards with a murmured spell and ushered Rozanov inside. “I rented the rooms as a work space and so often I would work into the early morning and lie down on the couch for a brief nap.” He lit the witch lights with a flick of his fingers, then gestured to the couch, which was obviously too small for his frame.
Rozanov made a face.
“Yes, my neck and back began to complain,” Shane agreed. “So I acquired a small bed, then began to keep clothes and at some point my mother remarked that she had not seen me in a sennight and I realized I was basically living here. My mother came to visit and she could not abide the conditions— the small bed and the lack of any proper cooking— and so she arranged with the landlady to also rent the apartment to the right, knock a door between and set those up as proper quarters, that I might work here, then easily head to bed when I grow weary.”
He opened the door to the living space. It was small, of course, but sufficient for Shane’s needs, as he did not like to entertain, and his meals were provided by the landlady at his mother’s design.
Rozanov came to stand by him, looking through the door, close enough that Shane could feel his heat, close enough that when he turned to look at Shane, their lips were only a few inches apart.
“Did you bring me here to show me your workspace or your bed?” Rozanov murmured, eyes dropping down to Shane’s lips.
Shane pushed forward, and sealed their lips together.
.
Later, sated, Shane traced lines on Rozanov’s skin, connecting his moles, and Rozanov stroked his hand through Shane’s hair, and the sky lightened beyond the windows.
“Are you still angry with me for the treatise?” Rozanov asked, teasing. “I could make it up to you?”
“Again?” Shane asked, turning so he could grin up at him.
.
Their first book was published a year later, a thick volume on reducing magical energetics costs by taking advantage of the interaction effects in multi-phasic arrays that was seven-tenths mathematics and lauded as a game changer in the field of array design by the few people who could understand the book’s substance.
They married the same month, an affair that was significantly larger than Shane desired and yet still not as grand as Ilya’s family would have demanded, had they deigned to attend. It was held in the main lecture hall of the Royal Society (with Crowell’s unhappy permission). Shane was vaguely aware that the wedding was widely attended, what with Ilya being the darling of Ottawa society and Shane’s parents being widely liked, but Shane had eyes for no one but his new husband.