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Shane knows better.
He does.
He knows that, realistically, his worth must come from more than just hockey.
If nothing else, he knows that he owes it to the people who claim to love him—his mom, his dad, Hayden, Ilya, though he can still hardly fathom it some days—to believe this love stems from more than just the number of goals he’s scored or cups he’s won.
It has to help that he’s scored a lot, though, his brain offers. He’s won a lot. At the end of the day, he’s good at hockey; he has to be.
Because when he isn’t, what good is he?
It’s a thought that was planted in the mind of a young Shane by some unnamed malevolent force, a force set out to affirm the darkest parts of himself. A force there to convince him of what the logical side of his brain knew must be untrue—at least that’s what he’s told himself to survive for so many years.
At four years old, Shane was conscious enough to know that the ice was where he belonged. It was where he felt most comfortable, and very quickly became the place that he knew most intimately. Strategies, statistics, plays, tricks—if it had to do with hockey, Shane Hollander decided he was going to know it and know it well.
“This one’s gonna go far,” coach after coach would say to his mom as she sat through every practice, every game. The comments fed him in a way the junk food he’s deprived himself of for years, in the name of this game he loves, never could. If he has hockey, he has value.
“Hey, what happened out there, bud? That game didn’t seem like you.”
At ten years old, Shane was proud to say that negative feedback was not something he was familiar with, by far the best player in his junior league. But all it took was one upset stomach and a bad night’s sleep to change that for him.
“Sorry, mom, I just don’t fee-,” It wasn’t as if he could let on that he was sick. Yuna Hollander was a tough cookie, sure, but if her baby was sick, it was certain he would be tucked in bed with crackers and ginger ale, not on the ice—where he belongs. “I don’t know what happened, I’ll be better next time.”
…Do you still like me?
If he hadn’t felt sick before, this thought was enough to kick the bile rising in his throat into full gear. Now unable to hide the stomach acid seeping into his mom’s Reeboks, he had admitted, face flushed with shame, “I don’t feel good.”
And it was all fine. As Shane presumed, Yuna had him tucked in bed, tending to his every unvoiced need for the next few days. And as Shane also presumed, his mind could longingly wander only to that chilly rink and that sleek black puck the entire time he healed. These thoughts interrupted, occasionally, by that vomit-inducing line his brain had thrown at him earlier.
Do you still like me?
He voiced this thought to his mother—because who was he kidding, his mother was the one whose feelings about his hockey mattered the most—only once in his life.
At thirteen years old, Shane had become more accustomed to the way losses felt like pinpricks under his sweaty skin. Rare as they may have been, each one stuck in his brain like a personal offense he had committed against himself and those who believed in him.
“It’s still that backhand you need to work on. I can see you getting better in practice, games have been a different story, though. You’ll get there.”
Nodding along like he always did, his battle with himself always remaining as internal as he could manage it, Shane fought the cursed thought as long as he could. This time around, though, he must have focused his energy so hard it slipped through the cracks and onto his tongue.
“Do you still like me?”
Yuna had looked down at her son as he scuffed his sneakers along the pavement of the rink parking lot. Still shorter than her at the time, still noticeably her baby. Quirking up the expressive eyebrows she shared with Shane, she let out a careful laugh.
“Hm, I don’t know. Dad, should we keep him?”
Glancing up at his dad as he unlocked the trunk for Shane to toss his stick and now musty bag in, Shane clocked the subtle amusement on his face at the question.
“Well, I think he’s still got some good hockey left in him, so we’ll give him some time.”
It was a joke. It was funny. Shane had spent an ample amount of time throughout his young life consciously grasping when things were meant to be funny. When he should laugh. When he should remember to not take things so seriously that his face burned and his neck prickled with sweaty frustration. This was one of those moments where he should laugh along.
It’s just that Shane hadn’t been joking.
Well, do you???
That settled it, though. If his parents weren’t going to give him a straight answer to the question that haunted his dreams, he would keep this silly nightmare to himself. It wouldn’t be the first time, and he might as well desensitize himself to the pain early.
Years come and go without Shane asking the question aloud. Sure, it’s meant constantly finding ways to answer it for himself, battling his own brain for dominance, his body often paying the price with a bite of his nail or a smack of the head to keep the thought at bay. But bottom line, it remains behind iron bars inside of himself where Shane prefers, and has learned from experience, that those weird things about himself should stay.
And then came Ilya.
Ilya, the man who is unable to contain a smile when Shane folds his clothes in the middle of tearing them off one another, the man who always finds some way to ease his wandering mind even when it’s outside the realm of understanding, the man who knows exactly how Shane likes to be treated, to be talked to, to be fucked, and to be loved. Weird things and all.
By all means, these things should be enough of an answer to Shane’s question, and he knows it. And yet,
Do you still like me? You love me, yes, weird things and all, but do you like me when I’m bad at the one thing in life that comes naturally to me?
Somehow, Shane’s lingering question overstays its welcome even more when Ilya enters the picture. He likes Ilya so much. Loves him. Ilya feels the same; he gives Shane no reason to doubt it, in fact. It seems to be the very reason why the possibility of a no becomes even more unbearable.
A no from his parents would break him. A no from Ilya would kill Shane, he thinks.
Better not to tempt fate.
***
It had been a particularly rough game for Montreal against Ottawa. Was Shane distracted? He couldn’t deny that facing off with the man who was now officially his boyfriend for the first time gave him an adrenaline rush he found difficult to channel into a focused game of hockey. That couldn’t be it, though. Even a rough game for Shane, particularly against a team as weak as Ottawa—Ilya would understand—was an arguably impressive game for the average player.
That logic had never mattered to Shane, though. Montreal won, yes, but he played a bad game. He hates that it physically weighs him down, even as he walks up to the door of the man he loves after too many long weeks apart.
The door swings wide open before Shane can plant two feet on the mat that reads WELCOME, a housewarming gift, courtesy of one Yuna Hollander.
Ilya reaches forward immediately, gripping Shane’s wrist to tug him all the way inside, hockey bag be damned in the process. For a moment, as his dry mouth crashes into the soft lips of his boyfriend—his boyfriend, it still gives him pause—all the buzzing in his head goes silent.
“You’re here,” Ilya murmurs against his cheek, both finally pausing for breath. His hands find their way under the hem of Shane’s hoodie, somehow warming his entire body with just that sliver of touch. Some days, Shane thinks he could believe magic is real, and Ilya has it in his hands.
“I’m here,” Shane confirms this by nuzzling his face in the familiar scent of Ilya’s neck, planting his own hands in the soft curls he loves so much and misses daily. Shane misses Ilya even when he’s standing right in front of him, attached to him. He likes him so much.
Do you still like me?
The warmth of his body left there by Ilya’s hands dulls a bit as his brain crashes down from the adrenaline of their reunion.
Maybe if he keeps kissing him.
Peppering kisses from his spot in Ilya’s neck, Shane traces his way back to Ilya’s mouth where he meets his lips in just the deepened kiss he had been searching for. Opening his mouth to silence his thoughts with Ilya’s tongue, a favored distraction over the years.
Following an unabashed moan, Ilya takes his mouth back just an inch. Too far, Shane thinks.
“So what, no smart mouth at the expense of my beloved little team, huh? No big strong Montreal player come to make fun of his loving boyfriend’s loss?” Ilya pecks him once more past his teasing smile. “Does love change you this much?”
Any other day, Shane thinks, he would keep up the ongoing bit of their rivalry, silly as it may have become now that they’ve confirmed they would, in fact, die without one another. Regardless of relationship status, chirping Ilya on and off the ice was still one of his favorite ways to show love, and vice versa, he’s sure.
If tonight was any other day, though, Shane’s neck wouldn’t feel prickly. His thoughts wouldn’t be forcibly shoving bile too far into his throat for his liking. Ilya’s kiss would be enough.
“No hockey tonight, okay?” Shane forces out the words, praying they stick, no questions asked. He leans forward, hands moving down, past Ilya’s neck, past his chest, and toward greater things. Maybe this could be enough.
Ilya leans his head back further as Shane chases his mouth. Too far.
“No hockey? Are you sure this is my Shane?” Ilya takes Shane’s face between his big hands, squishing his cheeks in the process. He manually moves his head, searching. “What have you done with him?”
“Fuck you,” Shane responds, face weakly attempting to wriggle out of Ilya’s grasp, unable to fight the smallest of smiles at Ilya’s antics. Even in his current state, he can acknowledge he really did miss them. “I just- I missed you. It wasn’t that big of a win, anyway.”
“Was enough,” Ilya declares, hands loosening on his face but unrelenting, seemingly still searching after that last statement. “What is the matter?”
Shane’s stomach drops slightly, as it always does when he feels transparent standing before Ilya. Ilya and his all-knowing, Shane-centered, X-ray vision eyes. “What?”
“Something is wrong. You’re tense,” His hands move down to Shane’s shoulders giving them a couple squeezes in quick succession. “No hockey talk, and your face is…wrong.”
“My face is wrong?” Shane scoffs, hand reaching up to his face, as if he could physically check what Ilya meant. “God, I really did miss you too, Ilya.”
He drops his hands, successfully wriggling from Ilya’s grasp this time, and walking toward his hockey bag instead.
“No, nothing is wrong with your face, perfect face, you know this. I just mean you look like you do when something is bothering you. Like you’ll be sick. You have limited time here, we can’t spend it cleaning up Shane vomit.”
He smirks from his same spot a few feet away, unknowing of how close to the truth he’s treading, as Shane does his best to not bend over too far to pick up his bag, lest his stomach lurch even more at the odd angle.
“Well, I feel fine,” Shane lies past the lump in his throat. A lump shaped in the form of a question kept quiet for too many years.
Do you still like me? Even if I don’t feel fine? Even when I don’t play fine?
“Okay,” Ilya acquiesces, still looking Shane up and down, and not in the way he was hoping for their first night reunited. “Let me take that upstairs, you sit.” He reaches for the bag now nestled in Shane’s tight grip.
“No, I got it. I need the bathroom, anyway.” Avoiding Ilya’s lingering gaze, he makes a break for the upstairs bathroom in as subtle a motion as he can. The urge growing stronger by the second to claw at his skin and bang his thoughts back into the furthest corner of his brain where they belong.
Dropping his bag on the carpeted floor of Ilya’s bedroom along the way, Shane finally finds himself in the solace of the master bathroom.
He doesn’t understand why it’s hitting him like this now, tonight, in this moment when he should be teasing Ilya about the game as they strip their clothes and barely make it to the couch before devouring each other. But Shane has never had the privilege of understanding why his body functions the way it does, why his brain can’t just be normal.
“Shane,” A knock. “You are sure you’re okay?” Ilya’s voice carries through the double doors as Shane continues to rest his head against the cold tile of the counter, crouched down near the floor.
“Yes, Ilya, I’m fine,” He tries not to snap. Snapping won’t help his case, but none of this is helping his case. Shane has never been good at hiding that something is wrong, but with this— this question, this compulsion that plagues his insides, it’s his longest fought battle of hiding, even beyond being gay. He’s been winning it for so long. “I’m fine.”
He can hold it. He can.
He would splash water on his face to forego the nausea, but Ilya would notice and then everything would go bad. He swallows hard, instead, smacking his head once, twice, a few times before snapping out of it enough to exit the bathroom.
“Listening to me pee?” Shane jokes, meeting Ilya’s eyes right outside the door with renewed confidence, forced as it may be.
“I didn’t hear you pee, actually, that’s why I was checking on you.” Ilya responds, hands in his pockets, eyes following Shane’s path.
“Must have missed the show, I guess, sorry,” Shane responds, looking up at Ilya from his new spot on the end of the bed. He reaches out a grabby hand. “Come.”
Ilya gives into a small grin, unable to deny such a request.
This should be enough, Shane thinks, catching a satisfying breath of air as Ilya crawls on top of him, shifting him back onto the bed. How could he think of anything else but this? Except.
That fucking question won’t stop clawing at his throat, and it’s choking him, it’s choking him where Ilya should be the only thing choking him, and he can’t breathe.
Shane shoves at Ilya’s chest, separating their kiss-drunk lips.
“Do you-” Shane stops himself, by some miracle, he stops the sentient thing possessing his body, forcing him to ask questions he does not want the answers to.
Ilya’s eyebrows knit together, hand lightly grazing Shane’s cheek as his suspicions that something is off are confirmed in the abrupt, aborted words laid before him.
“Sorry, nevermind.” Shane shakes his head, hand gripping Ilya’s bicep to leverage himself up toward those lips again. Something has to work to silence him, anything.
Ilya leans back, avoiding him. No.
“Shane, sweetheart, something is bothering you. Tell me,” He insists, leaning down on his elbow so that his body covers Shane’s even more. That’s nice, Shane thinks, for a moment. Or it would be nice if he could breathe.
Desperately attempting, and failing, to inhale, he decides then. It has to come out or he’ll die.
“Do you…still like me?”
The prickles. The sweat on his neck. The flush of his cheeks.
Silence. He can’t look.
“I mean,” Shane scrambles, fighting the breathlessness. “Even when I play…bad.”
A glance up at Ilya’s face, inches from his own, confirms that he has once again showcased his ability to silence, even confuse, a room. Eyebrows still knitted together, the ghost of a smile is threatening to spread across Ilya’s face, and for once, Shane gets the joke. It’s ridiculous, he knows. But he doesn’t think it’s funny.
“Sorry,” Shane breaks the silence, shaking his head again because if he doesn’t shake it, he’ll hit it, and everything will go bad.
“Hey,” Ilya isn’t quite frowning, but he’s not quite smiling either. It’s clear that he’s reading the situation in real time, and Shane can’t blame him. “You are serious?”
Shane has to get out, he’s too close to this humiliation. Too trapped. He squirms his way out from under Ilya’s warm body. “I- no, forget it. I don’t know why-”
“Shane, hey. Hey, hey,” Ilya catches Shane’s wrist just as he starts to swing his legs to escape the bed completely. His other hand reaches up to Shane’s cheek—he can probably feel the heat of his humiliation radiating into his palm. Shane’s gaze is guided toward Ilya’s at an awkward angle, seated half off the bed and still planning his escape.
“If you weren’t so upset, I would never imagine you could be serious,” Ilya speaks softly, a quality to his voice no outsider would believe Rozanov capable of. “Do I like you?”
Shane shuts his eyes, fighting off the tears. The tears that never fall, but gather nonetheless. Tears always gathering but forbidden to fall. Just there to glisten and sting his eyes until he’s forced to sneakily scrub them dry before anyone looks too close.
He should say something, he should insist harder that he didn’t mean it. But he’s scared of what will come out if he tries to open his mouth again.
“This may surprise you,” Ilya speaks instead. “But I am not with you for your hockey skills, Shane.”
This should make Shane feel better. That’s what he’s always questioned, right? His worth beyond hockey? It should be simple. Yet, his stomach continues to drop.
“That,” Shane’s voice cracks. Fuck. “That’s part of it, though, right?”
Right??? Tell me I’m good.
Pathetic.
Ilya’s eyebrows soften a bit, his face contorting to more of a frown. “Of course, Shane. You are beautiful hockey player, I- you know I think this about you, yes?”
Shane shifts his hips reluctantly to a more comfortable position on the bed. He knows by the grip still on his wrist and the thumb nudging his gaze back toward Ilya’s that he’s not going anywhere.
“Yeah, I know.” Shane declares. Of course he knows that. Most days. “It’s- I’m just not usually. Bad.” He bites hard at his lip, his nerves desperately craving a distraction.
“Woah, hey, Shane, you were not bad tonight. Not only did your team win, but you are…the best player in the league.” Shane willingly glances up at that. “I know, but you are sad so I will be honest, just this once.” He grins, removing his hand from Shane’s wrist to rub along his spine. “You are never bad.”
Shane’s eyes flicker all around the room, trying to hide his disbelief.
“And even if you were,” The hand on his face squeezes a bit, unrelentingly guiding Shane’s gaze back to him, again and again. “Yes, Shane Hollander, I still like you.” He scoots closer. “I love you.”
Ilya whispers those three words into Shane’s ear so he can’t miss it.
Shane exhales, and it’s satisfying. It feels good. His body feels quiet.
He turns his head himself this time, eyes meeting Ilya’s own as a tear escapes. Ilya lifts a hand to wipe it away before Shane can think to scrub at it. “Are you sure?”
Ilya tilts his head down, eyes darkening like he’s communicating directly to the thing inside of Shane forcing him to question this. Try me, Ilya’s eyes threaten. But he softens quickly, focus back on the teary-eyed Shane in front of him.
“I am very sure, moya lyubov.” Shane’s lips quirk at the Russian. It still gives him butterflies when the language meets his ears with such a softness. Ilya leans in, just close enough for Shane to meet him the rest of the way, their foreheads meeting first.
“I promise to like you for a very long time, Shane,” Ilya declares, nearly speaking into his mouth. “Even when Ottawa finally gets our shit together and we send Montreal home crying to their mothers, and that includes you, I will still like you and want to hold you and comfort you and kiss you and-”
Shane rolls his eyes and takes him up on that last offer, their lips finally crashing together and sustaining the quiet that was finally taking hold in Shane’s head.
Deep down, he knows the question will return. Shane has never been under the impression his brain will give him a break. But Ilya, his beautiful Ilya, gave him an answer. And he’s kissing him softly, and he doesn’t just love him.
He likes him. In this moment, it’s enough.