by J. A. Rock
“Ilia...”
“Don’t,” Ilia said again. He wanted to be alone. Didn’t want Patrick’s soft touches to dissolve him into misery.
He went and sat on the kitchen floor until Nick got home.
CHAPTER TEN
I
Nick had been smarting for days over the dressing down Basayev had given him. Ilia should have guessed he wouldn’t ignore it.
Ilia had never thought much about the hierarchy of the teip. Mikhail was the boss. That was all Ilia needed to know. But Mikhail’s death hadn’t only left a hole in Ilia’s life. It had left one in the teip as well, one that Nick, with all his jagged edges, could never fill. The uncles, Doku and Basayev, did not like Nick. But they were older men. Their energy was spent. Basayev’s burst of vitriol had been uncharacteristic, Ilia gathered. The old men would not challenge Nick for control. But he still needed their support.
There must have been younger men vying for power. Men whose claims were not as strong as Nick’s, but who weren’t fucking crazy. Ilia only heard about one of them: Dasha.
It was night. A Tuesday, Ilia thought. Patrick was sleeping in the bedroom, or at least pretending to. Ilia wondered if he was standing there in the darkness, with the door cracked open, listening to Nick and Kysna.
“Dasha, Dasha, Dasha,” Kysna said, laughing. There was blood on his clothes; a fine spray of it like dirty water. He made the shape of a gun with his hand, and pressed his finger to his temple. “Bang!”
Ilia went cold all over.
“He will give you no more trouble,” Kysna said.
Ilia, lying on the couch with his head in Nick’s lap, closed his eyes.
Nick twisted his fingers in Ilia’s hair. “His wife?”
“Alive,” Kysna said.
“Good.” Nick shifted. “If you’d killed his daughter, Basayev would have been very unhappy, and I do not want Uncle Basayev to be unhappy.”
“We do not need his support.”
“No. But I do not think he will make things too difficult for us anymore.”
Ilia shuddered at the barely-suppressed laughter in Nick’s voice.
“What’s this?” Nick asked. He slapped Ilia’s cheek gently. “Open your eyes. This is business. This paid for your apartment and your fancy clothes and your restaurant meals, princess. Look it in the fucking eye.”
Ilia stared up at him.
“What? You think Mikhail didn’t do this? You think he was…he was clean?” Nick laughed. “Stupid boy.”
Nick would never let it go. Never stop reminding Ilia of what Mikhail had been.
Ilia thought again about the man—the rat—Nick had hung from the pull-up bar. The sound of the rat’s shoulders coming out of their sockets.
Ilia’s gaze flicked to Kysna.
Kysna pointed his fingers at Ilia’s face. “Bang.”
II
It only took the death of his son-in-law for Basayev to back down.
“It’s a party!” Nick laughed, tipping the bottle up.
The stream of vodka splashed over Ilia’s face. He closed his eyes and swallowed what he could. It burned, and he fought down the crazy urge to laugh.
Gonna kill you, you fucker. Gonna poison you with the flowers your brother bought me.
Then I’m gonna take the hammer and smash you in the fucking face to make sure you’re dead.
Nick reached down and pressed a wet kiss to Ilia’s cheek, lapping at the vodka. “You like it? It’s good stuff. Not cheap.”
“I like it.” Ilia licked his lips. “Why are we having a party, Nick?”
“Because soon I will be the borz, the wolf, the head of the teip. Basayev will not dare oppose me now, and Doku and the others will fall in line now.” He leaned back on the couch and dug his hand into his pocket.
Ilia stared up at him.
How had he ever thought this man could replace Mikhail? Nick was no replacement at all. Not for the teip, and not for Ilia. In those first days when Ilia’s universe had collapsed, he’d thought it didn’t matter. He’d thought he didn’t care, that he couldn’t care. But just because Mikhail was gone didn’t mean that everything he’d been, everything he’d loved, was gone. Mikhail had loved Ilia. Mikhail had been proud of Ilia’s love, and of his beauty. Ilia had been his treasure, never his whore.
“You don’t need Doku’s support,” he said.
Nick grinned. “Ah. Good boy!”
Not a compliment. Nick didn’t need Doku’s support, or anyone’s, because he was a crazy fuck who’d do whatever he wanted anyway, and to hell with the teip.
Ilia licked vodka from his lips, and Nick laughed.
Nick’s good mood spiked Ilia’s adrenaline, because it was—it really was gonna feel so fucking good to bring the bastard down. To watch the “wolf” choke and vomit and die.
Ilia shook the vodka from his hair, dizzy but oddly confident. He and Patrick would work together to make that happen. There was a way out of this. A way out that didn’t involve cowering or begging.
And shit, it wouldn’t work. It couldn’t. In Ilia’s most secret heart, the place where he held the memory of Mikhail, and the memory of the way he’d been worthy of Mikhail’s love, he knew it couldn’t work. But he couldn’t live like this.
Nick would kill them, but they’d poison him first.
Nick took another swig of vodka. “Where’s Patrick?”
“Sleeping,” Ilia said. He shifted his jaw forward and stretched his arms up. Showed Nick the way his muscles moved under his skin.
“Ah, Ilie.”
It wasn’t fair that he sounded so like Mikhail, but Ilia’s heart wasn’t going to break any more. He lifted his hands and put them on Nick’s knees. He arched his back, made his eyes wide. Smiled.
Nick reached around behind Ilia, tugging at the ribbons. “Ah, yes. You do not hide from me, Ilia. You are stronger than him.”
No.
That was Nick’s mistake. Patrick was a thousand times stronger than Ilia, a thousand times smarter. Patrick had a plan.
Ilia smiled again.
Nick wouldn’t even fucking see it coming.
III
Opera.
Ilia had never been to the opera in his life, but Mikhail had a box.
“People are looking,” he whispered when they climbed out of the limo.
Mikhail put at arm around him to guide him toward the wide steps. “Let them look.”
“What if I get bored?” Ilia teased as they waited for the lights to dim.
“Hmm.” Mikhail closed his program. “Shall I tell you a secret, Ilie?”
“Yes.” Ilia twined his fingers through Mikhail’s.
“I do not watch the stage,” Mikhail said. “I watch the audience. You will see powerful people here tonight. Politicians, judges, famous faces. What do they think of me, I wonder?” His eyes crinkled when he smiled. “They are jealous, I think, because look who I have at my side. My beautiful Ilie. You shine.”
“You make me,” Ilia whispered. His throat ached, as though he didn’t have the capacity to hold this swelling happiness within himself without tears. He’d never understood until that moment why people cried at weddings, or over new babies. He’d never understood tears of joy, or love so overwhelming that it came wrapped in fear: I have everything. I have more than I ever deserved. What if I can’t hold onto it?
Never until that moment.
The lights went down.
IV
Nick had a plan of Ilia’s parents’ house. He had a timetable showing when Ilia’s parents were home. When they ate, slept. Watched TV.
“What happens when it’s over?” Ilia asked him.
“You do not have to worry about that.”
“I am worried about that.”
“Do not disappoint me. And you will not have to worry.”
V
“It’s because you never had time, maybe,” Patrick said. “To really grieve.”
Ilia resisted the urge to snap at him. Patrick was saying he�
�d never really grieved? What had Ilia been doing every second since Mikhail had died? “I’ve grieved,” he said flatly.
“You’ve felt grief, yeah. But you haven’t, done, like, the process of grieving.”
“What, like anger and denial and acceptance and all that bullshit?”
“Sort of. I mean, you went right from one source of stress—Mikhail’s death—to another—Nick kidnapping you. So there hasn’t been any time to process that Mikhail’s gone.”
“I know he’s fucking gone.” Know it all the time. Worse than the piercing, the way it shifts when I move. Pulls on me. Hurts.
Patrick wouldn’t quit. “Of course you do, rationally. But, like, the mood swings, and the way you sometimes don’t want to go through with the plan, that’s because of the confusion from having to put aside—”
“I have mood swings because I’m a fucking prisoner. And of course I want to go through with the fucking plan.” Ilia grabbed a package of raw vegetables from the fridge and ripped it open. Started eating. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were shy. You never shut up, and you say the stupidest shit.” He focused on the bag of vegetables. StayFresh. What the fuck did that even mean? These vegetables weren’t going to stay fresh any longer than any other kind. He stared at the outline rendering of a farmhouse and field. He was sick to death of people trying to sell an idea of beauty and security that was as flat as this drawing.
“Well, you’re the only person I have to talk to,” Patrick said quietly. “And I’m trying to help.”
Ilia didn’t answer. Eventually he held out the bag. “Here you go. Stay fresh.”
Patrick looked at the vegetables. “Those are for dinner.”
Ilia rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He stuffed the bag back in the fridge, then walked to the living room. Sat on the floor and stared out the balcony doors. He heard Patrick come up behind him and stop a few feet away.
“Don’t you think I’m fucked up?” Ilia demanded. “For loving someone like that?”
“No.” Patrick sat beside him. “I don’t.”
“I did love him. And I wasn’t a whore. I never even thought about other guys, until…” His throat closed. Outside, the sun was shining.
“I know how to take a cock without crying.”
Ilia didn’t look at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t cry that first time because I was some scared, shy little virgin. I don’t cry because it hurts—not just because of that, anyway. I cry because I hate him.”
Ilia had thought Patrick was a virgin. Had fantasized that Patrick would have to be coaxed to open up. That he’d sweat and moan through the burn, and that Ilia would stroke his hair, tell him he was good. Beautiful.
“So, until when?” Patrick asked.
“Huh?” Ilia looked at him, snapping guiltily from the ghost of a fantasy.
“You never thought about other guys until when?”
Ilia hugged his knees. What was the harm in saying it? “I thought you were hot. I told Mikhail. Thought he’d be jealous, but he wasn’t.”
Feelings piled up too fast—shame and hope and desire, and the expectation that all of that would fold into the black hole of his loss. But nothing folded. He stayed feverish and wanting, crushed by his sadness, his guilt. In school, when he was young, he’d been asked which weighed more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead, and he’d said lead. But it was a trick, because the weights were equal, it just took more feathers to add up to a pound.
The loss of Mikhail wasn’t a single weight—wasn’t a solid mass. It was thousands of feathers, piled up. A moment here, a moment there. A time Ilia and Mikhail had been arguing, so Ilia hadn’t said goodbye to Mikhail when he’d left for work. A trip to Virginia for a scenic drive—like they were an old couple killing time on a Sunday; they’d stopped for milkshakes at a roadside stand. Every second he had spent loving Mikhail in a way that went deeper than I love you, but not knowing how to express it except by offering himself up for admiration. It was like he’d decided he was doing Mikhail a favor just by existing, and had never pushed himself to find a way to articulate his love, or to care for Mikhail in return.
And now he was suffering from that same lack of voice. He wished he could be honest with Patrick. Tell Patrick that it did help, when they talked. That it had helped when Patrick had touched him. That he wanted more of that touch. Wanted Patrick to tell him what you did with a grief this big, that breathed fire and never rested.
“I was going to let him make me something different,” Ilia said, voice shaking. “But you never—you haven’t changed. He scares you, but he doesn’t break you, and I think that’s really—you must be really good. Really strong, I guess.”
Patrick rounded his shoulders. “I’m not okay with losing myself, you know? It’s not—strength; I’d just be more scared of letting go of what I am.”
“I don’t know who I am.” Ilia wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I’ve never known. All the tattoos and the piercings and the jewelry and the fucking ‘self-expression’... I’ve never had a clue. I thought I knew, with Mikhail.” He paused. “But I guess knowing who you are when you’re with somebody isn’t the same as knowing who you’d be without them.”
Patrick wrapped his arms around his knees, mirroring Ilia’s pose. “I never buy any of that ‘I don’t know who I am’ bullshit. No offense. It’s just…everyone knows who they are. You don’t have a choice but to know it. All people mean is that they don’t have the words to explain it or whatever. And the second you do try to put into words—‘This is who I am’—there’s a billion filters in place, you know? You’re thinking about how to present yourself. About who you’d like to be.”
“I don’t know,” Ilia said. “Seems like there’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know about myself until recently.”
“You knew it. You just didn’t have any cause to try and articulate it.”
Ilia turned to Patrick. “I would tell you to shut up, but I don’t think you will.”
Patrick grinned.
Ilia looked back out the doors. “And I do like when you talk to me. I still think…”
Fuck it.
He turned, placing his hands on the floor, and leaned toward Patrick. A second’s hesitation, and then he was on his hands and knees, stretching so he could kiss Patrick on the cheek.
Patrick stayed facing forward, his brow furrowed like he was trying to identify the flavor of something strange he’d just eaten. Then he turned his head slowly, closed his eyes, and put his lips to Ilia’s.
Their first kiss was slow—Patrick’s lips warm, dry. The skin of his cheek soft where the tip of Ilia’s nose brushed it. Hesitation on both sides, but not enough to stop them. Then Patrick dropped his arms from around his knees. Leaned toward Ilia, and they continued more urgently.
Patrick slid until he was lying on the floor—a bitch showing its belly. Ilia tried to banish the thought as he stretched out on his stomach beside him. Patrick tilted his head toward him, and they kept kissing, until Ilia’s cock swelled and pressed against the carpet, until Patrick bent his knees, pushing his hips up and then lowering them, like he couldn’t get comfortable.
Ilia pulled up for a second. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
Patrick nodded and lifted his head, offering himself to Ilia again. Ilia kissed him as hard as he could, as though they could give something to each other through this—or take something away.
Usually they stayed dressed when Nick wasn’t home. That kind of modesty was a luxury they didn’t get often when Nick was around, and clothes allowed them some illusion of control. And as much as Ilia admired Patrick’s body, he was always grateful not to have to see the bruises on Patrick’s hips and thighs where Nick had grabbed him while he fucked him. The raw lines on Patrick’s shoulders from Nick’s nails.
Now Ilia hesitated with his fingers near the hem of Patrick’s shirt. Reached for his own instead. Pulled it off.
“Um…?” Patrick was panting.
“Please?” Ilia asked. “Just once. For us, not him?”
Patrick stared, flushed, eyes slightly unfocused, pupils huge. He sat up and removed his shirt. Slid his sweatpants down. He was hard under his briefs.
Ilia finished undressing. They lay side by side again and continued to kiss, getting closer this time, legs tangled, arms around each other. Patrick gave a little animal shiver when Ilia slid his hand down the back of his underwear, but lifted his hip so Ilia could slip his briefs down. Gave a hushed, broken exhale, like he was cold.
“He can’t have this,” Ilia whispered between kisses, giddy with the idea. “He thinks he can have everything. But he can’t have this. It’s ours.”
“I know,” Patrick whispered back, and ran his hand down Ilia’s body, between Ilia’s legs.
VI
When Nick came home, Ilia was on the floor watching TV, and Patrick was in the kitchen cutting vegetables with a butter knife. Actually, from the glimpses Ilia stole, Patrick was mostly losing patience and snapping the vegetables into pieces by hand. During the day, Nick turned off the gas line, so that Ilia and Patrick couldn’t heat water or metal to use as a weapon. The late fall temperatures had been dropping, and the apartment was chilly.
Nick slammed his things onto the counter. Ilia watched him over his shoulder.
Nick looked at Patrick, who kept his focus on the vegetables, then glanced around the apartment. He studied Ilia for a disturbingly long time.
“It fucking reeks of sex in here,” he announced finally.
Ilia tensed. How the fuck could he know?
Nick wouldn’t stop staring at him. “You think I don’t know what it smells like, when a bitch is freshly fucked?”
Ilia didn’t answer.
“So who does who, when it’s two bitches?” Nick asked, stepping around the counter. His voice was barely controlled. “I’m curious.”
Ilia turned back to the TV.
Nick couldn’t have this. The details belonged to Ilia and Patrick. Nick didn’t get to know what they’d done, how they’d touched each other. Didn’t get to know that Patrick was too torn up to be fucked. That he’d tried to top Ilia, but Ilia had gone soft, and so they’d used their hands—desperate, but taking their time. That they’d lain together for a while after without speaking.
