Chapter Text
JULY 2016
Shane had been staring at the mugshot at the top of the news article for the better part of half an hour now. Ilya Rozanov. A bouncer who had been fired after he had assaulted a patron of the bar. No specifics were given, and there had been very little coverage of the trial that had gotten the Russian seven to ten years behind bars. All he knew was there was a switchblade involved and now Ilya Rozanov was looking for penpals on WriteAPrisoner.com.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea, writing an email to the convict. He had drafted and re-drafted and re-re-drafted the email a dozen times. Usually he would have Rose look over his emails to make sure they sounded good before sending them off, but there was no way in hell he was going to be telling Rose about this little, possibly, manic episode. Shane was lonely. Dating was hard (not that he was planning on dating an inmate!). Conversations on the apps never went anywhere and even if they did Shane chickened out at the first mention of meeting up in person.
Ilya Rozanov was perfect because meeting up wasn't an option.
It wasn't like he even expected an email in return. The convict was hot, definitely one of the hottest guys on the site, and he was sure that he must be getting dozens of emails a day. Sure, if he didn't get a response it might hurt his pride a bit, but he would get over it, just like he did with every other rejection in his life.
Before he could second guess the letter any more he sent it (after figuring out the truly heinous website that was JPay.com. Who knew you had to pay to send an inmate an email?
07/02/2016:
Shane didn't even care that Ilya Rozanov never wrote back to him. It was a mistake made during a possible nervous breakdown where he had been lonely and desperate enough to write to a criminal! If Rose ever found out he would never hear the end of it. "Hey Shane, remember that time you paid real Canadian dollars to send an email to a convict in Boston?"
Maybe it was a good thing Ilya never responded, even if it had wounded his pride a little. He sometimes, despite himself, found himself thinking about who Ilya was corresponding with. Probably some hot, mentally unstable bombshells who actually lived in the United States and would go and visit him. Maybe he was writing to people in Russia who actually spoke his language and could better empathize with his situation. He couldn't imagine it was very easy to be a foreign national in an American prison, though he did wonder whether or not Rozanov would rather be where he was now or in a Russian prison. If the man ever emailed him back maybe he would ask him one day.
But he hadn't and it was fine and he would move on with his life and maybe redownload Hinge or Bumble and meet someone nice who didn't have a criminal record.
At the one month mark Shane had given up on hearing from Ilya Rozanov. Who even cared? Well, apparently he did, because when he got an email that there was a message in his JPay inbox he couldn't have checked it quicker.
08/07/2016:
Unfortunately, Shane was very endeared by the letter he had received in response. Originally he had worried that his questions would be off putting, and maybe that's why Ilya had never responded. He knew he could ask a lot, but he just wanted to know things, he had never been able to describe it. "A thirst for knowledge" his mother always said, even if sometimes that thirst for knowledge made him nosey.
But Ilya had responded and he liked the Boston Raiders and piroshki and Wiz Khalifa (whoever the hell that was).
The idea of sending a picture of himself to a convict (no matter how hot he was) definitely sounded like a bad idea. The whole thing was a bad idea, and when Rose eventually found out (which she would) she was going to kick his ass. If photos were included... Well she might actually kill him then. Besides, JPay was confusing enough, he could barely figure out how to pay for stamps the first time. The website looked like and operated like it had been made in the 90s and then never updated again. Figuring out how to send a photo would come after talking to Rozanov for a bit more, just to make sure the guy wasn't a total nut job.
08/09/2016:
08/12/2016:
Ilya was a flirt, that much was certain. He wondered if what he had said about having only a few penpals was true. He couldn't imagine a man who looked like Ilya and wrote like Ilya was only able to hold down a few penpals. The rational part of his brain told him to take everything the convict was saying with a grain of salt. The romantic part of his brain was telling him that he was special.
Since sending his initial Shane had learned quite a bit about the American prison system and none of it was good. It had never been something he had considered much before. Why would he? His only American friend was Rose and she had never been to prison. He'd always assumed all those American prison shows were just exaggerated for television, but it turns out they weren't. Sometimes it was even worse. The more he researched the more it was clear the US focused on punishment over rehabilitation.
Solitary confinement was a perfect example of that.
Nothing about this budding relationship was smart of him. Making an account on JPay wasn't smart. Loading money to buy stamps wasn't smart. Sending money to Ilya Rozanov's commissary along with photos of himself might have been the stupidest fucking thing he's ever done.
08/14/2016:
08/17/2016:
Shane was self aware enough to recognize when he was starting to get in too deep. The problem was he didn't have enough self control to stop. Which was weird. Self control had never been a problem for Shane. His entire diet in high school had been built on a foundation of self discipline. He hadn't wanted to eat like that, but his nutritionist had recommended it in order for him to be at the top of his game.
All that self control was out the window now. He was finding himself checking his JPay every day for a message from Ilya, and sometimes he would go ahead and send a bit more money to his books. Shane had a well paying job, it wasn't hurting his wallet. Ilya was the one stuck in prison, and if honey buns could make his day a bit better, than it made his day a bit better too.
The compliments made him smile. No one spoke to him like Ilya had. Shane's relationships had never gone very far. He had a handful of first dates with even fewer going past that. It's not like men were really chomping at the bit to take him out. It didn't help he was still mostly in the closet at the ripe age of 25. At this point Rose was the only one of his friends who knew, and that had been on accident after she had looked over his shoulder at a Hinge conversation with another guy.
So yeah, Ilya's overenthusiastic compliments made him feel good. What was the harm in that?
08/22/2016:
08/30/2016:
Shane had ruined everything. Once again his stupid "thirst for knowledge" had fucked up another potential relationship, platonic or otherwise. They had barely been talking for a month, things were just getting flirty, and Shane had to go and ask the poor guy to explain why he was in prison! Shane already knew, he had read the arrest reports and whatever trial notes he could. But those only gave so much context and he had a feeling there was just something missing, especially when Ilya, like most people on trial, hadn't taken the stand.
Shane wanted to know why and maybe that was his mistake. Maybe this was supposed to be a relationship where he didn't get to know why. Maybe this was a relationship where they went back and forth with pleasantries and compliments until Ilya got bored and moved on to the next pen-pal. Maybe Shane was nothing more than a bank account and now that Ilya had gotten money it was time to move on to the next sucker before Shane could get smart.
Whatever it was it sucked.
Rejection was a something he faced often. Whether it be in his personal or professional life. Usually when that happened he would take a moment to feel his emotions and then move on, just like his mom had taught him. This rejection, despite doing his best to push it away, was lingering, like a twisting pit in his stomach. If he wasn't good enough for an inmate in prison then who would he be good enough for?
09/05/2016:
09/09/2016:
So maybe he had overreacted just a little bit. He felt like such an idiot for making Ilya's silence about him. Ilya was always happy to answer all of his questions, he shouldn't have jumped to the conclusion that Ilya was ghosting him. The reality was much worse.
And now Ilya wanted to call him on the phone.
For whatever reason Shane had been so swept up in the fun and fantasy of his secret pen-pal that he hadn't even considered a phone call. He was sure that Ilya was sick of talking to the inmates around him. A fresh voice might do him some good, especially after being in the hole again.
But a phone call was real. Very real. Ilya Rozanov would no longer be a name in his phone but a voice in his head and he wasn't sure if he was ready for that. Rose would tell him to be brave... Rose would also call him an idiot for getting this attached to an inmate after seeing a singular photo of him but here he was, giving his phone number and his last name so an inmate in Boston, Massachusetts could put him on his approved telephone list.
So he might be a bit crazy.
09/11/2016:
09/13/2016: