On Va Voir

My sycamore tree began life in the gravel at the edge of a parking lot. If trees can feel pain, that is a painful, unlucky death. I carefully dug it up and put it in a pot I made out of a disposable cup.

Hello small one. This world may be cruel, but I will not be.

I decided to take care of it, not expecting it to survive, and when my sycamore tree unfurled one tiny leaf and then another, it chiseled a tiny foothold in my terrified brain, the kind of brain that doesn't remember a world before the atomic bomb and before 9/11.

I googled the lifespans of trees. My neurons had to stretch and expand to accommodate what I learned: My sycamore tree may live five hundred years. It's hard to think something so big. In twenty years, my baby sycamore tree will be three stories tall, and the home of many creatures. In five years, my sycamore tree will be taller than I am. In one year, it will be summer.

There's this concept called sense of foreshortened future where people who have lived through trauma can't conceptualize a future for themselves because deep down they don't expect to survive, When I look forward, all I see is fire and death, melting ice and burning sky. We were raised Evangelical. All we see is Judgment Day, except there is no heaven.

But now there is a tiny gap in the wall, a crack in the door of my cell

and on the other side, I see a tree

There is, in the future, a great old sycamore tree, full of clean winds and the stir of a thousand wings. A hundred years from now. Fifty years from now. There will be forests in that world. There will be a world.

It takes courage, but we have to imagine it.

Most tree species can live in excess of three or four hundred years. I think I'm learning something. I think there are ancient voices saying hello small one, touch the dirt and the leaves, for now you are part of something that cannot die

in 2030 I will be thirty years old and the world will not have ended and there will still be hummingbirds, and we will have photos of the stars more beautiful than we can now imagine.

I planted an Eastern Redcedar; they may live nine hundred years. There will be nine hundred years. The people in that time will remember us. Maybe we will meet the aliens (hi aliens!).

I will blow out the candles on many birthday cakes in a world where there are wolves in dark forests far from home. I am learning to imagine the future. I learned recently that elk were reintroduced to the Appalachian Mountains after over a hundred years of extirpation, and that they are expanding their range.

That tiny crack I can see through now opens a tiny bit more:

Maybe elk will pass through my hometown, maybe there will be a forest where the pasture is on the high hill that I can see from my home

say it, say it, say it: ten years, thirty years, a hundred years from now

Ask part 2 important followup I do feel that the rush would come after ilya “one million check-ins” rozanov made sure shane was okay and emotional-release crying not pain-overwhelm-bad crying and Then something would snap in his brain about making thee shane hollander cry on his cock

Ok sugar. YES see I have 2 ideas about it all of like when it happened. Like if the first time Shane cried was during the situationship hook up phase then yes yes yes completely I love your vision. Like maybe it’s been one of those times they’ve gone a few rounds, and Shane is all shivery and sensitive and Ilya is fucking him on his stomach, Shane pressed flat to the bed and he’s so fucking deep shane feels like the only part of him that exists is where Ilya splits him open, where he touches him.

The world has narrowed down to that. The metros had won the match and the win had felt fucking good, it always did, but the usual congratulations from his team, all the people that orbited around him, but somehow it has left Shane with his buzzing ache. He only wanted to know what one person thought about it in the end- he’d be rushing back to his apartment to see Ilya and he wanted to feel him, feel the loss in Ilya how it made him rougher- but he wants to hear the few words he’d give Shane about it. If he thought it was deserved or not. Shane had felt oddly alone on his drive home from the game that night, unsure why.

And now, now Rozanov is melting him into the bed, talking him apart and he’s not even in his body, he’s not in the ache of his thighs or legs from his shifts, from the hits, he is not Shane Hollander in his body he is pleasure. He is saturated in bliss, he is where he takes Ilya and nothing else. He doesn’t want to be anything else. Shane’s heart is rabbiting, he’s squirming and Ilya’s hands grip his hips and pull him back into his punishing thrusts and mutters out “so fucking good” and behind Shane’s eyes start burning. He squeezes them shut.

He’s being so stupid. Why the fuck does he feel like he’s going to cry. Shane turns his face further into the bed, swallows hard hard and bites his lips and he’s close and he wants to cum and he wants to cry he wants to cry. Ilya’s hand smooths down Shane’s back, finds the back of his neck and grips, grips, thumb rubbing at the short hair there.

“So fucking good for my cock huh Hollander? Good for me” Ilya growls fucks his hips harder, deeper and his thick cock presses in to Shane’s prostate over and over, nails the sensitive part of him that makes his whole body ache his whole body die come back to life gives him that divine ache that exists nowhere else in the world and it’s fucking good and he needs this feeling forever he doesn’t ever want to loose this feeling this pleasure, this is where he exists and the feeling fizzes so suddenly, that between one blink in the next Shane has wetness on his cheeks.

He whines, upset at the loss of control, turns his face into the bed as Ilya fucksfucksfucks him into it, the sound of it loud in the room, the wet click of the lube, the shift of the sheets. Shane rubs his face into it try to wipe the tears away and he’s shaking, pushes the soft skin below his thumb and above his wrist between his lips and chews on it, the tears keep coming, the pleasure keeps coming, heavy big fucking waves in up and over him, through his whole body, from his toes to his cock and the base of his spine.

So fucking good Shane thinks

For me Shane thinks

Good for me good for me good for me Shane thinks

And his lashes are clumping together and his hands are shaky, he tries to focus, pushes his hips back and up into Ilya, but his body aches and he can’t hold it, then tries to push onto his knees, wobbles and slides forward back into the bed.

Ilya’s hands are on his ass, then glide down to his sides, one big hand rubs by his ribs, big warm circles.

“Let me do it hollander” Ilya grumbles and Shane says nothing, biting at his own skin of his hand, and his eyes wet the sheets under him. Ilya stops his thrusts and Shane whines, whines, a heartbroken sound, he can’t help it- why the fuck did he stop it’s good it’s so fucking good.

“Sh sh” Ilya replies and then he’s laying over Shane and Shane is tucking his face to the opposite side, kicks his leg in a silent hurry up, he needs it he needs it back it was so good he was being so good why did Ilya stop. Shane starts to push his hips back back back, up, chasing a thrust, chasing Ilya’s cock. He needs. He fucking needs this. He needs this. He stutters a breath and tears are hot down his cheeks and he slides his hand out of his mouth to pull in a deeper breath.

“Hey” Ilya is there then, his face hovering over Shane’s shoulder and his hand is gripping Shane’s face and tugging till he can see him, wet cheeked and heavy eyed, fuzzy.

Ilya is big frown and serious and “bad?” He asks in that short direct way when he wants an answer now.

“No no” Shane babbles, shakes his head. Terrified at the concept of Ilya pulling out its just- it’s nothing - he’s just so close and he just- he needs. He was being good.

“Good, good, Rozanov it’s. Just fuck me- I just it’s nothing just fuck me come on” Shane forces out, in fear of being empty.

And then, once Ilya has looked at him for a blink longer, his thumb tracing the line of a hot tear with a dark look in his eyes, where it lands by Shane’s lips.

“Okie” Ilya says, grips Shane’s face and holds it there in video and goes back to deep rolling hard thrusts, the type that make Shane’s breath punch out in gasping half sounds and oh fuck. Thank you. Shane thinks and lets his eyes roll back into his head, eyes shut and lets go, let’s go because Ilya is gripping him.

“Good?” He hears Ilya ask and Shane nods, nods, good he’s being good, this is good, he’s good for Ilya, this is so fucking good. And he shivers and tears are dripping off his nose and chin.

“Fuck Hollander, like cock so much it makes you cry huh? So pretty, needy boy” Ilya cooes over him and Shane is falling apart he’s cutting off into galaxys, he’s a heartbeat and nothing else. He’s whatever Ilya does to him. Shane is nodding, still, trying to tell Ilya he’s. Yes it’s good he’s I like it so much yes I’m needy.

Rozanov is laid over him, heavy weight on him and Shane’s going to cum- he’s going to cum against the sheets and then Ilya is licking over his cheeks, the salt tracks is Shane’s tears and Shane just implodes. Comes so hard it pulls all of his body into and out of it. Leaves him shaking, an ache on the bed and then Rozanov is licking licking licking into his mouth and Shane wonders if he did die, at some point during that. If he’ll come back, if he’ll stop crying.

Ilya stays inside him too long, spends time he doesn’t have kissing Shane into the sheets, carries him to the shower with the tease of telling Shane is “lazy hockey boy making his hookup do the all the work” he rinses Shane off and places him in the bed, smacks a kiss to his cheek and ruffles his hair and then has to rush to get back in his clothes- he needs to go, he should have already left.

Shane chugs a sports drink, thrown at him by Ilya from his own fridge just before he’d left, it had hit his shoulder hard actually- the fucker.

I ALSO WILL PASS OUT I FEAR

spreading the good word of @ilyapasta

im evangelizing this on every platform i have access to right now: last night i started (and finished this morning) "type help", a browser based mystery game inspired by obra dinn. you must recover the investigative files regarding 12 dead bodies found in a home.

heated rivalry twitter (63/?) peloton ad part 2 - lily