strange cosmic gardener

It takes awhile for happenstance to strike again, and even then it's only glimpses for awhile. Then at ten, they move and Shane has his own bathroom with a big mirror. Sometimes when he's getting ready for school in the morning, brushing his teeth, the other boy is there instead, but he's dressed like he's going to bed. By now, Shane has heard about soulmates, he wonders if the other boy has too. So Shane mouths 'hi'. The other boy frowns and mouths back something else entirely. When Shane shakes his head, the boy wrinkles his nose. It takes a few tries before Shane painstakingly writes a message out backwards and show it to the mirror 'My name is Shane. I speak English. You?'

The other boy stares at the words, frowns and then runs off. Shane waits and even though he winds up almost missing the bus it's worth it because the other boy holds up a sign with weird lettering, but he's patient enough to hold it until Shane can take a picture with his Polaroid. It takes weeks of looking in the library (Shane doesn't ask his teachers much of anything usually and anyway, he doesn't ever know what to do with himself during library time, so it gives him a project). He determines the other boy is using Cyrillic. This explains less than he'd like. The school library doesn't have any books about Cyrillic. Defeated, he finally caves and tells his parents "I see a boy in the mirror, he uses this alphabet, can I get a book?" His mother hugs him very hard. Soulmates, he learns, are rare and precious. He also learns that maybe his parents were worried about him in ways that don't entirely make sense, but okay. Fine. Glad we squared that away. Can I have a dictionary now?

If it had been two years later, he might not have asked. He would have been too afraid of what it might mean to have a male soulmate. Lucky they moved. Lucky that they brush their teeth and the same time.

Shaky-handed characters and pantomime get them to 'Ilya' and 'Shane'. A lucky glimpse in a locker room bathroom gets them to 'hockey'. They start to use clocks to make sure they don't miss each other. When Ilya misses one of their schedule times, Shane can barely think about anything else all day. He knows they won't have a chance again until tomorrow, but when he goes to pee before dinner, he finds Ilya in the mirror, his eyes red-rimmed. For the first time, Ilya seems way too far away. Shane put his hand to the mirror and when Ilya put his hand up too and it's shaking, Shane wants desperately to be closer. That's how his mom finds him on top of the vanity which is not doing well with the weight of a preadolescent hockey player with his whole torso pressed to the glass. She doesn't make him get down. Maybe because he's crying too without any idea what they're both sobbing about. He won't for years.

It goes and goes. Shane interrupts Ilya getting ready to go out, finds him styling his hair. Shane mimics him with a smile and Ilya wrinkles his nose at him. Ilya watches Shane floss in bafflement, but takes up the habit too, seemingly so he can make fun of the faces Shane makes. When they happen to catch each other in hockey gear, they use their fingers to signal goals and assists. Shane keeps track in a little book that holds a lot of things. No one else can see Ilya, anymore than any one can see Shane on Ilya's side, but they learn to be careful in public restrooms, coming up with a clear subtle signal for 'not home' since they can't see the others location. They watch each other grow up. They learn how to write in each other's languages and backwards at that.

And finally, finally, comes the sentence that makes Shane's heart skip a beat. In Ilya's pretty handwriting (good even in his second language and backwards which makes Shane unbearably jealous and proud):

I will see you soon.

They meet at four sitting on their mother's beds across the world from each other. They meet at twelve, sharing a pain that doesn't need words to be clear. They meet at fourteen, Shane fresh out of the shower and Ilya shirtless, things wakening in Shane that he thought he would never understand. They meet at sixteen, hands pressed to the place on Shane's mirror that is always marred with fingerprints.

They meet at seventeen. Shane sees him across the parking lot and tries to stay cool, walking instead of running. He watches Ilya try to light his cigarette and gets there before flame touches it.

"You're not kissing me for the first time tasting like cigarette smoke, asshole."

"This is not romantic," Ilya protested. "This is not first time I hear your voice."

"I love you," Shane said irritably, "do not light that thing or I'll throw up."

Ilya's breath caught. "You do not know me. You do not love me yet."

"I do," Shane said stubbornly. Then he stuck out his hand, "I'm Shane Hollander."

With a smirk, Ilya took his hand. "Ilya Rozanov."

Shane didn't let his hand go. He held firm and Ilya didn't try to pull away.

"There, now we know each other. I love you. Kiss me."

"Shane. I have to go back. It is no good there if we..."

"I know. Mom read me a bunch of articles," Shane said with a shrug. "But there's no one else out here. Kiss here. Everything else later. Okay?"

"Okay," Ilya said.

They kissed in that terrible parking lot and Shane never wanted it to end. He pulled away with a soft sigh.

"Wow."

"Wow," Ilya repeated teasingly. "You will say this when we beat you too."

"Not happening," Shane laughed. He was still holding Ilya's hand, a circuit completed.

When Shane got back in the car, his mother asks, "How did it go?"

Shane has a number in his pocket and a promise for a mirror meeting tonight once Ilya's roommate goes to sleep that makes his ears burn.

"He's kind of an asshole," Shane said, delighted.

"Okay," his mother laughed. "I can't wait to meet him."

And it's not that it's easy. Ilya goes to Boston and Shane goes to Montreal. They will have years before they see each other more in person than through reflections. But when Ilya gets ready for game 7 of the Cup, he does it with Shane smoldering with lusty jealousy from twelve inches away. And when it's Shane's turn, Ilya wears his jersey alone in the privacy of his house so Shane can see it before he heads off to victory.

Even years later, when they're married and more often before a mirror together than trying to communicate through them, sometimes they do it anyway. If Shane is washing his hands, ready to go back out to a photoshoot, he'll look up to find Ilya flirting with him or holding up Anya to make her wave at him.

There is always a handprint on their mirrors.