Chapter Text
Shane can only stare at Ilya.
This has to be a dream. That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Scott Hunter’s apartment. Scott Hunter’s… person… out buying them poke bowls. And Ilya Rozanov standing right in front of him, acting like Shane matters.
It isn’t real. Shane knows that. He’s convenient. He’s safe. He’s someone Ilya fucks because it’s easy and contained and Shane doesn’t ask for anything in return. Whatever Shane feels has never mattered.
Shit.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe Shane has always wanted more and pretended he didn’t because pretending was the only way to keep Ilya close. Because wanting less made this easier.. Easier to hold. Easier to leave.
Ilya hasn’t looked away. Not once, even when he takes off his expensive jacket and lays it on the back of the couch. His hazel eyes pin Shane in place, unblinking, and they look sharp enough to peel him open.
It’s unbearable.
“Okay,” Shane says finally, exhaustion flattening his voice. “So what. Forget anything else. I’m nothing to you. But what if you’re right? What now?”
“You break up with her.”
The panic is instant and violent.
Eva doesn’t let go easily. Shane can already see it- tears and apologies whispered into his neck, and shaking hands. The way she’ll collapse in on herself and somehow make him the villain for wanting out. He’d have to do it in person. He’d have to see her. He-
“Hollander.”
Shane’s chest locks up. There’s no air. The apartment feels suddenly too small, like all the oxygen has been sucked out of it. His hands start to tremble. Is he shaking? He might be shaking.
“Hollander.”
That’s his name, but it sounds wrong, distorted, like it’s coming from underwater. The edges of the room blur. Someone is talking, but the words won’t land in his brain. He can’t tell if he’s standing or falling or alone.
Hands grab him- they’re warm and callused- and Shane flinches so hard he nearly stumbles over his own feet. He barely registers being guided, steered really, until the back of his knees hit the couch and he folds forward.
Those same hands press at the back of his neck, firmly but not cruelly, guiding his head down until it’s between his knees.
Eva. He has to break up with Eva. He knows that. He knows it. But he can’t. She’ll spiral. She’ll hurt herself. She’ll call TMZ before she lets him walk away.
“Fuck,” Shane breathes.
This is bad. Worse than a crowded party. Worse than flashing cameras. It’s like being crushed from the inside out, like something crawling under his skin. Ants- hundreds of them- each tiny leg scraping along his nerves.
He needs them out.
His nails dig into his forearms, scratching hard enough that pale lines bloom pink, then red.
“Hollander.”
The hands return, closing around his wrists, pulling them away before he can gouge himself any deeper. They’re steady.
Shane’s breath stutters as the world tilts, and all he can think- absurdly, helplessly- is that he’d take butterflies over ants any day.
Ilya crouches in front of him.
It’s an undignified position for someone like Rozanov- suit creasing, expensive shoes planted on Scott’s rug- but he does it anyway. He gets low enough that Shane doesn’t have to lift his head to see him.
“Look at me,” Ilya orders.
Shane can’t. His vision is still tunneling, his pulse too loud in his ears.
“That is fine,” Ilya says, like he’s granting permission. “Then listen.”
Ilya’s hands stay on Shane’s wrists, firm but not quite restraining. It's enough pressure that Shane can feel them in his panicked haze.
“Breathe,” Ilya says. “In through nose. Out through mouth. Slow. Like you are lining up for faceoff.”
Shane huffs out something that might be a laugh if he wasn’t on the verge of coming apart.
“Do not be clever,” Ilya warns mildly. “Breathe.”
Shane drags in a breath. It catches halfway, sharp and ugly, but it’s air. He lets it out in a shaky rush. Then again. And again.
Ilya nods, like Shane’s passed some invisible test.
“There,” he says. “You are still here.”
The ants recede a little. Not gone.
Ilya loosens his grip, sliding his hands from Shane’s wrists to his forearms, thumbs pressing into muscle. The lines on Shane’s arms are bleeding just a little. They’re already scabbing over.
“You do not get to decide you are nothing,” Ilya says. His voice is low, almost dangerous in a different way now. “Not to me.”
Shane swallows. His throat hurts.
“You don’t- ” he starts, then stops. Tries again. “You don’t get to decide anything about me.”
Ilya’s mouth twitches. Almost a smirk. Almost.
“I do not decide,” he says. “It just is.”
There it is. The thing Shane’s been trying not to hear.
“You care,” Shane says, flat. Like he’s testing a bad bruise.
“Yes,” Ilya replies immediately. There’s no hesitation with how quickly he says it. “Unfortunately.”
Shane lets out a broken sound that might be a laugh or might be a sob. He tips forward again, elbows braced on his knees, face in his hands now that the shaking has slowed.
“She didn’t mean to,” Shane says, because it’s the lie he knows best. “She just- she gets emotional. It won’t happen again.”
Ilya goes very still.
“No,” he scolds. “That is not how that works.”
Shane peeks at him through his fingers.
“She threw glass at your face,” Ilya continues, calm. “You are explaining it to me like you broke a lamp.”
Shane flinches.
“My mother said the same things,” Ilya adds, softer. “Every time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Shane has an awful thought in his head.
“Did… did your dad kill her?”
Ilya stops rubbing his thumbs, just for a moment. It happens so quick, Shane must have imagine it.
“It was an accident.” he says after a moment. “She 'accidentally' took a bottle of pills.”
God, that’s somehow worse. She was probably miserable. She was probably feeling exactly how Shane was feeling right now. Helpless.
Shane hates that feeling.
For as wealthy as he is, as good as a player as he is, Shane rarely has the chance to make choices. He doesn’t get to decide who his roommate is on away games. He doesn’t get to decide what brands of clothes or shoes he wears, because they need to represent whatever brand his mom made a deal with. He doesn’t get to decide when to play hockey or when to go to practice or what drills the team would do.
He can’t even fucking decide his diet. It has to be a certain way. It has to or something terrible will happen.
The thought sits in his chest, heavy and sour.
Maybe that’s why this hurts so much- because it isn’t just Eva, or the glass, or the panic spiraling through his veins. It’s the realization that his whole life has been lived inside lanes someone else painted for him, and he’s been praised for never stepping out of them.
Shane laughs weakly. “I don’t really get to choose much,” he admits. The words feel dangerous, like saying them out loud might make them true in a way he can’t undo. “Everyone thinks I do, because- ” He gestures vaguely at himself. “But I don’t.”
Ilya watches him with that unnerving focus, like Shane is the only thing in the room worth tracking.
“You choose to play hockey,” Ilya points out.
Shane shakes his head. “I play hockey because I always have. Because I’m good at it. Because if I stop, I don’t know who the hell I am.”
Ilya gets a very, very serious look on his face. It’s one that Shane has never seen before, not even when they were playing.
“Shane,” he says. “Tell me the truth. Do you want to stop playing hockey?”
God. Did he?
“No.” he mutters quietly after a second. “I don’t. I want to play hockey for as long as I can.”
“Forever?” Ilya asks lightly. Shane’s heart has stopped racing now, and he realizes just how close the two of them are. “Even when you are an old man?”
Shane looks at Ilya. And for a moment he lets himself be selfish. He lets himself see forever with the man in front of him. It’s stupid, because Ilya would never want Shane. Not in the soul-crushing, aching way Shane wants him.
“I’ll skate with a walker.”
“Hmm. With little tennis balls on them?”
Ilya is looking at Shane’s mouth. The last time they were this close...
Shane closes the distance between the first. Kissing Ilya is like breathing after holding your breath under water.
The other man doesn’t falter. Ilya’s hand comes up, decisive and warm, sliding into the back of Shane’s hair.
“Hollander,” Ilya murmurs into the kiss, smug even now, even here, like he’s been waiting for this and is mildly offended it took so long.
The kiss deepens immediately.. Ilya kisses like he does everything else- confident and a little rough, like he expects Shane to keep up. His thumb presses under Shane’s jaw, tilting his head just so, like he’s correcting bad form.
Shane makes a quiet, broken sound without meaning to. He can feel Ilya’s smirk as it curves against Shane’s mouth.
Ilya’s mouth softens, just a fraction, like he’s letting Shane feel the difference on purpose. Like he wants him to know this isn’t just heat or habit or convenience.
Shane’s hands fist in Ilya’s shirt, knuckles aching. He doesn’t care. He kisses back like he’s been starved, like he’s been waiting years for permission he never realized he didn’t need.
His nose twinges painfully, sending a burst of sparks through his face. The pain jolts him into awareness and he yanks himself back from Ilya, breathing hard.
Then his nose twinges painfully, a sharp burst of sparks across his face. The pain snaps him back into himself.
Shane jerks away, breathing hard.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
He has a girlfriend. He has a girlfriend and he was seconds away from swallowing Ilya’s tongue.
“Why did you do that?” Shane demands, horrified by how wrecked he sounds.
“Me?” Ilya says, brows lifting, amusement flickering across his face like he’s genuinely impressed. “Interesting.”
“You- ” Shane gestures vaguely between them, his hands shaking now. “You kissed me.”
Ilya tilts his head. “You closed the distance, Hollander.”
“That doesn’t- ” Shane scrubs a hand over his face, immediately regretting it when his nose protests again. “You know I have a girlfriend.”
Ilya’s smile sharpens. “Yes. The one who throws glass.”
“That doesn’t make this okay!”
“No,” Ilya snaps, all amusement gone now. Shane can tell irritation is settling in its place. “What makes it not okay is you pretending you are a helpless object I acted upon.”
Shane recoils like he’s been slapped. “I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.” Ilya steps back, putting space between them now, his posture rigid. “You kissed me like you were drowning and now you want to blame me for pulling you out of the water.”
“That’s not fair,” Shane says, voice cracking despite himself. “I’m…confused.”
“Ah.” Ilya’s laugh is short and humorless. “Yes. You are always confused when you want something you are afraid to take.”
Shane’s chest tightens. “You don’t get to say that.”
“I get to say whatever I want,” Ilya shoots back. “You invited me here with your inability to tell me to leave.”
“That’s not- I didn’t invite you!”
Ilya’s eyes flash. “Then why did you kiss me?”
Shane opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.
That’s answer enough.
Ilya exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding through the edges now. “This,” he says, gesturing between them, “is exactly why I should not have come.”
“Then why did you?” Shane asks, almost pleading.
Ilya looks at him for a long moment. Something unreadable crosses his face. It’s something raw and old.
“Because I am stupid,” he says quietly. “And because you were hurt.”
“I have a girlfriend,” Shane blurts.
“You said.” Ilya’s voice goes flat. “Leave her.”
Now it’s Shane’s turn to rake a hand through his hair. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is.” Ilya’s gaze flicks to the coffee table. “Where is your phone? I will text her for you.”
He spots it, but Shane is faster, snatching it up before Ilya can move.
“I’m not breaking up with her,” Shane insists, panic rising. “She’s my girlfriend and I- ”
“What?” Ilya cuts in sharply. “You love her?”
Shane opens his mouth to try and say something in reply, anything, but nothing comes out. He can’t find the words.
Ilya scoffs. “Unbelievable. She hurts you!”
“A lot of people hurt me.” Shane says quietly, glancing up at him.
Ilya waves a hand uselessly, like he’s trying to come up with the right words to say but he can’t find them. He’s just as mute as Shane is when it comes to these things.
Eventually he decides on something, but it’s in Russian and he only manages to mutter it under his breath. Shane imagines that he’s calling him a stupid fool in about fifty different ways. Ilya purses his lips, something like anger flaring through him when he huffs out a breath. He grabs his jacket from the back of the couch. “Figure out what you want, Hollander. And then do something about it.”
“Ilya- ”
“No.” He’s already at the door. He pauses, hand on the knob, without turning around. “I will not be a bystander to you being destroyed.”
The door opens.
“I deserve better than that,” he adds. “And so do you.”
Then he leaves, the door clicking shut behind him.
All Shane can do is stare at the place where Ilya Rozanov had just been.