salt stains on my shirt sleeves

Svetlana took these pictures on Shane and Ilya's wedding day on her polaroid camera while Ilya was getting ready. She thinks she can almost see the glimpses of her Ilyushka, the carefree, naughty but a very kind boy she had become friends with in primary school. He is absolutely glowing, all the years of heartbreak and trauma finally begining to take a backseat in his life. It makes her cry a bit.

Shane receives these polaroids in a small envelope from her after their wedding ceremony.

He chuckles through his tears when he flips one of them to find a handwritten message.

“Fragile item, handle with care. (no, im not talking about the polaroids.)

~ Svetlana”

Shane gets them laminated immediately. One, he files carefully along their original marriage certificate, and the other one with Sveta's message written on it takes residence in his wallet permanently.

Ilya doesn't find out about this for a very long time.

One random day when he goes to retrieve a receipt from Shane's wallet that shane himself had asked for, he opens the wallet to find his own face, smiling big at him.

Seeing that Ilya hasn't returned with the receipt for so long, Shane goes looking for him. He steps into their bedroom and finds Ilya sitting on their bed with his wallet open in one hand and— a polaroid in the other. He is sniffing into his elbow, stray tears rolling down his chin and onto his neck. Shane wordlessly walks upto his husband and engulfs him into a big hug. With Ilya's face on his belly, he feels the tears soaking through his shirt. Neither of them speak anything, they just stay there swaying together in comfortable silence.

FRANCO MASINI como LUKA COLUCCI