Chapter Text
Spring 2009
Shane is in Boston for a prospective student weekend. Specifically, one for international students, even if coming from Canada doesn't make him feel particularly international. There's a scholarship waiting for him here, just like there is at most of the schools he applied to.
MIT has always been an option. Of course it has. The name carries prestige and would fit easily into Shane's overall plan. It wouldn't be a bad choice. This weekend is supposed to convince him it would be the best choice.
His mom finally leaves to speak with a few faculty members. Shane is happy for the chance to walk through campus alone. He had carefully read through the map multiple times: before they had departed, again on the plane, and in their hotel room a few more times. He has no intention of getting lost or, worse, looking lost.
It's bright out. He has forgotten his sunglasses in the hotel. He considers going back for them, but decides against it.
While he's walking he notices someone he recognizes from the opening session that weekend. A boy, a bit taller than Shane, with lips pursed, curly light brown hair, so light it's nearly blond, and a general air of nonchalance. He isn't planning on walking in that direction, but suddenly Shane finds himself moving toward the side of the building the other prospective student is standing against.
The other boy's hazel eyes lock on Shane, and he thinks he sees the corner of his mouth twitch like he might smile.
As Shane gets closer he sees that the other boy is struggling to get his lighter to catch long enough to light his cigarette.
"Hi," Shane says, because that's what you say when you approach someone.
"Hello," he responds. The voice is not what Shane had expected. Deep and accented. Russian, Shane thinks. Or Eastern European at least.
Shane's eyes catch on a sign on the wall behind the other boy.
"I'm not sure you're supposed to smoke here," Shane says, gesturing towards the no-smoking sign.
"What?"
Shane points directly at the sign. "You can't smoke here." He decides reducing the number of words is likely to help.
The other boy looks at the sign, and then back at Shane. Then continues to fiddle with his lighter until finally igniting the cigarette. The end burns bright as he pulls in a breath.
"I'm Shane," he says, extending his hand. "Shane Hollander."
"Okay," he says, and pinches the cigarette between his lips and shakes Shane's hand.
Shane stares at him expectantly. This is usually the part where the other person says their name. Maybe it's different wherever he's from.
"So, Hollander," he says, latching onto Shane's last name. It sounds nice in his accented speech. "You will go to MIT?"
Shane is momentarily thrown by the other boy going off script. He was supposed to tell Shane his name. Not that it mattered. He will probably never see this guy again, even if he does end up choosing MIT. He's not likely doing physics. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who would do physics.
Shane just shrugs. It's the most honest answer he can give right now. He's still undecided. MIT is a great school, but he's already concerned about just leaving home next year. He thinks leaving Canada entirely will make it worse.
Shane leans against the wall next to the other boy, mostly because it gives him a chance to look away and process the confusing interaction.
"What's your name?" Shane blurts out, still not looking over at him. Subtlety has never been one of his strengths.
"Ilya Rozanov," he says, like it's a title. Or maybe that's just how Shane hears it.
Shane likes the way it sounds. He repeats it to himself in his head, hoping he's catching the right stresses in the right places.
Shane's pretty sure he's Russian. But Shane also isn't a linguist.
Ilya—Rozanov, if they're doing last names—takes another drag on his cigarette. Shane finds himself staring at Rozanov's hands, at the cigarette balanced between his fingers.
"Smoking's bad for you," he says, and immediately wants to take it back.
"Okay." A smile and another drag.
They stand there next to each other. Neither says anything. Shane's not sure where the conversation is meant to go from here.
Just as Shane is opening his mouth to ask something ridiculous, like whether Russian cigarettes have different warning labels, Rozanov speaks again.
"Well, Hollander," he says, a smirk on his face. "You will study, what? Science?"
Was it that obvious?
"Yeah," Shane nods. He peeks at him from the corner of his eye and tries not to actively show how much he hates the smell of smoke. Or the panic building in him from standing next to someone while they are actively ignoring a posted sign.
Shane does not believe he's succeeding at either. He can feel his lip curling with disgust.
"Physics," Shane elaborates when nothing else breaks the silence.
Shane could swear there's a small twitch in Ilya's lips, even wrapped around the cigarette.
Ilya looks at him expectantly. "You ask me now, yes?"
"Okay, Rozanov," Shane says, silently praying he's pronounced it correctly. "What are you studying? Business?"
There's something about the sly look on his face and the intensity of his stare that makes Shane think of boardrooms and closed-door meetings.
"No," he says, shaking his head. He shifts so he's leaning with his shoulder against the building and looking directly at Shane.
Shane blushes for some reason.
"Science," he says. "Physics."
Oh. Shane finds that, perhaps, more interesting than he should.
He glances over at Ilya—Rozanov, since he seems to prefer last names. He can't make sense of the feeling he gets from that look.
"Uh," Shane starts, brilliantly. He clears his throat. "I should go. My mom's waiting for me."
He wants to set himself on fire immediately. He can feel his cheeks start to heat.
Rozanov looks like he may be older than Shane, though Shane knew his soft features made him appear younger than eighteen. And Shane had just told him he needed to go find his mom. Fuck.
He stupidly offers Rozanov his hand again. Rozanov smirks and accepts it. They shake quickly, though Shane swears that Rozanov's hand lingers longer than is strictly necessary.
"See you in fall, Hollander."
"Yeah, maybe."
—
Shane continues to notice Rozanov throughout the weekend. He can't seem to keep his attention from drifting back to him. He thinks he catches Rozanov looking at him a few times, which Shane finds odd.
They wind up in a lot of the same tour groups, likely because they've both indicated an interest in physics. It takes Shane nearly a full day of shared tours to notice something he should have noted immediately.
Rozanov appears to be alone. Nearly all of the other prospective students have a parent with them, which makes sense. They're high school graduates, barely eighteen. Rozanov, Shane realizes, is the exception. No parental figure checks in with him throughout the day.
He arrives in the morning alone and spends the day alone.
Well, mostly alone.
Shane doesn't engage Rozanov in conversation again. A few of the others do, mostly girls who seem to find their way to the brooding boy without much difficulty. He supplies each of them with some version of the smirk Shane had received.
The questions Rozanov asks during the tours are blunt. Straight to the point in a way Shane can respect and appreciate. Still, he notes the reactions from some of the faculty and admissions staff. They don't seem to appreciate that his questions often sound less like questions than corrections.
Rozanov does not seem to care how anyone reacts. He enters each room fully at ease. He doesn't seem to question himself. He just…does what he wants.
It confounds Shane.
Later in the day, they sit in on a physics lecture. Shane seats himself toward the front. His mom has left to answer emails back at the hotel, but promised to be back after the session. He brought a notebook. He knows there won't be a test, but he likes to keep track of what he learns.
Shane notices Rozanov immediately, which is mildly irritating because he hadn't intended to. He's sitting toward the back, one arm slung over the empty chair beside him, looking as though he has wandered in by accident and just can't be bothered to leave.
The professor is working through a simplified example, stripping away variables until the system behaves cleanly enough to demonstrate the point. Not everyone here plans to study physics. The simplification keeps it accessible. Shane writes it down anyway. Mostly out of habit.
Shane asks a clarifying question at one point. Only mildly disappointed by the non-answer the professor gives him, too vague to be meaningful. He writes it down anyway.
A few minutes after his own question, he hears movement behind him and knows, somehow, whose hand has gone up.
"You say model breaks down at extreme conditions, do you mean math fails, or we stop having observations that can test it?"
Shane looks up before he means to.
The professor has the same thoughtful look on his face that he had when Shane asked his own question.
Shane does not want to be impressed by the question, which is unfortunate, because he is. It implies that Rozanov has been following the discussion more closely than Shane expected.
—
Ilya is ready to go home. Not because he misses his home in any real way, but because he's tired of trying to parse every conversation slowly. He's tired of translating as many words as quickly as he can, and cringing every time he tries to fit his mouth around the unfamiliar sounds. He feels like a moron every time he gets lost in the details of what someone says. He has found himself increasingly just nodding or smirking to cover the places where his English fails him.
He plans to spend the summer practicing.
He hadn't really wanted to come to this silly weekend. He already knew he'd be attending MIT in the fall. They had offered the most comprehensive scholarship, leaving him with only the costs no brochure bothers to mention. On top of that, they offered to fly him out for this weekend.
They want a preview of their investment. To see the supposed Russian prodigy in person and judge whether they have made a terrible mistake.
Initially, he jumped at the chance to get away from home, but now he is tired, grumpy, and frustrated that he keeps unconsciously seeking out the same pair of deep brown eyes.
The group has been herded into a grassy area. It's the final "get to know you" moment of the weekend. And Ilya, once again, finds himself looking across the crowd for the distinctive looking boy. Jet-black hair and those dark brown eyes that seem to see a little more than Ilya is comfortable with. His tan skin is distractingly clear, soft looking. A smattering of dark freckles decorates his nose and cheekbones, and Ilya can't seem to stop looking at them.
He takes after the woman who's always hovering near him. His mother, Ilya thinks. They also have a matching intensity that keeps Ilya at a safe distance throughout the weekend.
Hollander's English is so clear that Ilya is surprised to find out he belonged at the international student weekend. He had conveniently forgotten about the existence of Canada.
Earlier, during a physics lecture, Hollander had sat near the front with his little notepad and very serious face while a professor explained some simplified model of cosmic expansion. Ilya had only been partly listening, some of the terms were easier to translate than others. He'd mostly spent his time trying to stay awake and picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt.
At least until, from the corner of his eye, he saw Hollander's hand shoot up. Then Hollander asked, in his frustratingly clear voice, "Is that assuming perfect homogeneity, or only close enough on large scales?"
The professor smiled the way adults do when they are both pleased and frustrated by a student who is already standing where the explanation was supposed to end.
Ilya had smiled in spite of himself.
Hollander was keen-eyed. That much was clear from the tours. He noted things quickly, and Ilya could already see the scientist Hollander clearly intended to become.
Ilya had been sure to ask his own question too.
He had hoped to talk to Hollander once more this weekend. Hollander's mother, however, never seemed to leave his side for very long during the tours. And even when she did, Ilya almost always found her still watching Hollander from a distance. Always needing to check in on him.
Something twists in his chest seeing the woman be so blatant in the way she loves her son. Ilya decides not to examine that feeling too much.
He's been doing that a lot this weekend where that family is concerned.
His flight back to Moscow is in a few hours. This trip won't even be long enough for him to acclimate to the time zone. He has spent each of his four days here tired. By the time his body starts to understand Boston, he will already be on a plane back to Moscow.
He's sitting away from the crowds of other prospective students, many already grouping together based on some social understanding he doesn't care about. He isn't interested in bumbling his way through any more conversations half-strangled by translation.
Hollander's standing near the edge of the groups, as he often has all weekend. Ilya watches closely as Hollander's mother says something to him before turning to walk in the other direction. She leaves Hollander alone at the edge of the grass with his hands tucked stiffly at his sides. He doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands.
Ilya's feet are moving before he can look too closely at his actions. Hollander is looking around, taking careful inventory of the space. Ilya can tell the second Hollander sees him approaching.
Hollander's eyes widen slightly. His hands clench at his sides. And, best of all, a light flush begins to spread across his cheeks.
Ilya can't help but smirk at the way Hollander's body telegraphs everything he feels. The word adorable flashes in his mind briefly before he can muzzle it.
"You like it here?" Ilya asks Hollander once he's close enough.
"Uh, yeah," Hollander answers. Ilya watches him closely. "It's nice."
Ilya watches with barely concealed amusement as Hollander's flush deepens.
"Da, nice," Ilya agrees.
"Where are you from?" Hollander asks. Each question sounds like he is carefully reading from a script.
"Russia," Ilya answers. "You are, what? Boring? You seem boring."
Ilya likes the huff this elicits.
"You're an asshole," Hollander says, only barely managing to look properly pissed off.
It's the first thing he's said all weekend that doesn't sound like it was taken from a guidebook labeled "Ways to Talk at University."
Oh.
"Ah," Ilya says, his smile broadening. "You are not boring then?"
Hollander's flush manages to reach his ears. His mouth opens and closes twice, but no sound comes out.
"Hollander?" Ilya raises an eyebrow, enjoying the way Hollander's mouth has pulled into a tight line. "This is not strong evidence against boring."
"Canada," Hollander finally answers. His cheeks are still flushed.
Ilya smiles. He was right. "Canadians are not nice?"
Hollander opens his mouth like he wants to respond and Ilya is pleased to note that he looks like he's abandoned any rehearsed script.
"Shane!" A voice, feminine and severe, cuts through the pause between them. "You ready?"
Hollander's face remains flushed, but his expression changes almost imperceptibly. The tightness in his mouth loosens, his eyebrows ease, and his eyes lose their heat when he looks somewhere past Ilya's shoulder. He lifts his hand to wave at his mother.
"Well, I should—" Shane starts.
"Goodbye, Hollander," Ilya says with a smile, offering him his hand.
"Bye, Rozanov," Hollander says, shaking Ilya's hand. His eyebrows furrow slightly when he looks back at Ilya, but quickly smooth back into the careful mask of indifference he has worn for most of the weekend.
Interesting.
"See you in fall."
Ilya holds his hand a beat too long and lets his fingers trail along Hollander's palm. Enjoys the way Hollander's breath catches for half a second.
Hollander nods at him once more before walking past him. Ilya turns to watch him leave and catches Hollander's mother staring at him.
He turns away, patting his pockets for the cigarettes he carefully brought from home. This ridiculous country says he's too young to buy anything fun legally.
He thinks back to the smile. The freckles.
Perhaps moving to Boston will have more positives than he expected.