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Shane Hollander finds him smoking outside an ice skating rink in Regina, Saskatchewan. But he knows that he is there, even before he sees him, because the bond that tethers the two of together stirs in his chest, where it is tangled around his ribs like a fish hook, and Shane is powerless to do anything put follow it to where it ends.
Where it ends is a boy who is his age, tall and broad and clearly growing into the muscle that hockey has packed onto him, even if the layers of clothes that he has bundled on to protect him against the cold go to some lengths to hide the entirety of his stature. There’s a woollen knit hat sat atop his head, tamping down unruly golden curls. A chiselled face, a cupid’s bow mouth, two stormy hazel eyes, a slightly crooked nose, as if it has been broken before and not entirely set correctly.
Shane watches as the boy brings a cigarette to his lips, the end smoking cherry red now that he has pressed the lighter to the butt, zealously guarded from the cold wind in the curve of his palm. He frowns, wrinkling his nose, and thinks, some things never change.
But, really, the boy could be anyone. The feeling in Shane’s chest is not an exact science - he never knows exactly where it will lead him. Shane knows his name - Ilya Rozanov - but Rozanov could be just that - just Ilya.
It’s the mole on Rozanov’s cheek that seals the deal - just above the corner of his mouth, where it has been each and every time that they have found each other, where Shane has pressed his lips and brushed his fingers over and muttered his worshipful prayers against. Though their faces have changed and their names had never been the same, though they speak in different tongues and walk in different times, the mark on his cheek - now Ilya’s cheek - has always remained that same. Shane sees it, and knows that means that he has found him.
“Ilya Rozanov?” he calls, as he approaches.
Ilya looks up. Removes the cigarette from his mouth, the smoking curling from his mouth into the air between them. He is smirking. “Da,” he says. Monosyllabic. He does not elaborate. It is the first thing that Ilya has said to him in one hundred fucking years and it is the first thing that Ilya has ever said to him in this life. Shane wants to throttle him - almost as much as he wants to kiss him.
Because this is what happens: every once and a while, Shane is born. He has parents and a family. Sometimes, like in this life, he gets to keep them for a while, gets to pretend that they are the first and only family that he has ever had, and loves them as if this is true. Shane grows up. He gets tall - or at least taller. He goes to school, sometimes, or learns as he goes. He meets people - so many people that their faces have all blurred into one, though the feelings remain. He does not remember any of their names, because they are lost in the transition from one life to the next; he would go mad, if not.
Here is also what happens: in every life Shane is born into, somewhere in the world is Ilya. They grow up in tandem always existing a few days-weeks-months within each other. Never more than a year. Shane spends a lifetime feeling him across the tether suspended between them, knowing that he is there, somewhere, and knowing that Ilya will also feel him. They don’t always meet. Sometimes, Shane spends a lifetime looking for Ilya only to feel the tether wilt and curl away into hibernation, ready for the next go around, before he can find him. Sometimes, it is Shane who goes first.
He cannot remember the first time that he met Ilya. Ilya has always been there - he exists, mostly, as an extension of Shane, and Shane loves him with an all-consuming desperation that transcends time. He misses Ilya, when he does not find him.
But here is Ilya now, in front of him, and the relief of seeing him settles into Shane between one breath and the next. Here you are, he wants to say, and fold himself into Ilya until they become one person sharing one brain-heart-soul. He never wants to be separated from Ilya again, but he knows that isn’t how it works.
“You kept me waiting last time,” Ilya informs Shane, words crisp. The emotion behind the words is not as crisp - they bleed, the wound of them still raw. Shane had been the first to go last time. They had not found each other.
Shane tips his head back, leaning against the wall of the rink, and laughs. “Found you now,” he points out.
Ily softens. He reaches out for Shane’s hand, and their joined grasp hangs between them. “You did,” said Ilya. “Find me. Thank you.”
Shane does not say anything - he does not have to. The tether between them begins to sing.