Archive of Our Own

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Shane is now wishing he had replaced his lucky wallet one of the times his mom teasingly nagged him about it, saying that he made too much money to still be carrying around the old wallet his dad had handed down when he was 12 and first had enough allowance money to need a place to keep it. He’d always maintained, though, that the wallet had the good luck in it that got his dad a hockey scholarship and later got Shane his NHL career, and his mom had always affectionately rolled her eyes and let it drop. Really, he’s just attached to the familiarity of it, soft leather worn shiny under his dad’s hands before it even got into his. He knows every edge of it, every butter-soft angle, knows the exact place all of his cards go in the leather slots molded by time and use to hold them. It’s easy to get his cards and money out, no fighting with friction in a checkout line when he might already be on edge from crowds and noise and fluorescent lighting. 

When he drops it now and all of his cards scatter like shrapnel across his parents’ living room floor, though, he has some regrets about how perfectly worn his wallet is. 

And when his old fake ID spins out to land right at his mom’s feet, he wonders if the wallet has now swung around to being actively unlucky. 

Watching his mom’s eyes narrow and then widen as she realizes what she’s looking at, though, any thought in his head beyond “oh fuck” spins out quickly. 

“Mom, I can-” 

“Shane David Hollander, this better not be what I think it is.” 

It occurs to him to protest that he’s a grown ass man and doesn’t need to explain himself. 

The way his stomach goes tight and wriggly at the look in his mom’s eyes, however, means he knows it’s a lie even in his own head. 

“A fake ID?” She demands. “Why do you have this?” 

The truth–that he needed it for the few times he met up with Rozanov a couple of times before he reached the 21 year old age minimum some hotels require to book a room–is not a fucking option, but the most obvious excuse of “so I could drink in America when we crossed the border” is something that his mom would never buy, and he can only imagine how much deeper the hole he’s in would get at the attempt at a blatant lie. He wonders, in the brief snatches of time his brain clears of static enough to let him wonder things, if he could maybe sell it as a brief rebellious streak, an attempt to fit in with the other guys on the team. He could say he never used it, could say he just bought one because the other guys were and he wanted to fit in, but would that be pathetic? Would she be disappointed in him for giving into peer pressure? Would that be better than thinking that he had a brief party stage? 

It would certainly be better than “No, mom, I have a fake ID because I wasn’t old enough to book a room at some hotels to fuck a guy in, but I really, really wanted to fuck that guy, enough to break the law, even, which is maybe insane and also keeps me up at night sometimes wondering if that’s normal and knowing it’s not but hoping maybe it could be and if I’ll ever be normal if-

“Shane, buddy.” 

It’s his dad’s voice filtering to him through the panic in his head that lets him focus in enough to realize his eyes are closed. He flinches slightly when a hand rests lightly on his back, and the movement also lets him know he’s on his knees now, curled down small and tight in a way he hasn’t since he was a kid, back when he would sometimes reach a point at which his body went “nope” and made him coil up until the world felt manageable again. His parents used to teasingly say it was just his Turtle Time, a loving attempt at excusing something he knows normal kids never did, a thin veneer of inside joke to make his oddness settle better. 

Right now he just wishes he had an actual shell to hide inside until the world feels a little steadier. 

“I’m sorry, honey,” his mom says from the other side, and he feels her hand on his back as well, lighter, smaller. She hesitates along with his dad, waiting for him to shrug them off the way he sometimes did when he was a kid, when touching was too much. 

Right now, he’s just a little too focused on desperately trying to manifest the earth swallowing him whole. 

*

When he’s calmed down, he feels stupid the way he usually does after a moment like this, shaky, still, but now embarrassed at freaking the fuck out at one little question about something he did years ago in the first place. 

Then again, it was the reason behind it that he was freaking out about the most. 

“It’s-” His mom says, clearly trying to gather herself to say something she doesn’t believe. She clears her throat, sits a little straighter in the armchair diagonal to the couch he’s now sitting on with his dad. “It’s fine, honey. We all do…silly things when we’re young.” 

He doubts his president-of-every-club-she-ever-joined mom ever did anything remotely approaching “silly,” but he can understand the kindness behind the offer. Absurdly, it makes his eyes sting, his mom trying to do this for him, excuse something he knows she doesn’t want to, just to try and make him feel better. She loves him so fucking much. They both do. 

“Yeah, bud, you should have seen your mom’s party stage,” his dad puts in, and Shane can’t help but laugh when his mom protests. 

“I did not have a ‘party stage,’ David.’” His dad leans forward enough to make eye contact with him and winks, and Shane manages the slightest twitch of his lips that feels like it almost might be a smile. “And Shane, honey, we’re-well, I’m, just surprised, and maybe a little worried. You know I have no problems with you drinking, ever, but are you?” 

“What?” Shane asks, head popping up to look at her, confused. 

“You never drink around us, sweetheart, but are you drinking other times? It’s okay if you are. I’d just be a little worried if it was, you know, secret, especially if it’s been happening since you were a teenager. That’s not necessarily the best practice, and maybe you aren’t, and it’s just around other people, but if you’re struggling, honey, or if you-” 

“Mom,” Shane groans, pressing his face into his hands, “I’m not an alcoholic, what the fuck?” He freezes as soon as the swear is out, but his parents apparently decide to let it pass. 

“I think what your mom means, buddy, is that it’s just kind of a surprise, you doing something like having a fake ID, and you know it does run in the family on my side. We’re not accusing you of anything, Shane. We’re just trying to make sure you’re okay.” 

“I’m okay,” Shane says, voice muffled by the way his face is still squished into his hands. “I’m fine. I’m good.” 

“You’re sure?” His mom presses. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re-if you’re struggling or something, honey. We want to help if you-” 

“It was for hotels, mom, oh my God.” 

“...oh,” his mom says, and he can practically hear the whir of her brain trying to integrate and dissect the new information, out before he’d really decided to share it because the other option was apparently his parents trying to stage an intervention for an alcohol problem he doesn’t fucking have. Fuck his wallet, honestly. 

(Fuck his life in general right now while he’s at it.)

“Some hotels don’t let you book a room until you’re 21,” he says, because at this point he might as well drive the point home before his mom starts sending him AA pamphlets. 

“Your team wasn’t booking hotel rooms for you?” His mom asks, and now she sounds mad in a way that means someone is going to be getting a phone call that’s going to ruin their whole year if he doesn’t reel her back in. “Shane, why didn’t you tell me when it was happening? Is it still happening? That is not accep-” 

“The hotel rooms were for me, mom,” he says, and he can feel his whole face burning. “It wasn’t hockey stuff. I needed the hotel rooms for…for other stuff.” 

“For…vacation?” His mom ventures, and Shane wonders exactly what they would do if he just left. His dad would probably let him do it, but he has a bad feeling that his mom would either follow him immediately or use the time to come up with her own justifications. 

“For-” God, he really would just like to die right now. His ears have to be cherry red based on how hot they feel, and he doesn’t think his face is faring much better. “For meeting up with someone, okay? I needed a hotel room to meet up with someone sometimes.” 

The room is painfully quiet for a moment. 

“...oh,” his mom says. “Oh, honey, you were seeing someone? You never said anything.” 

“It’s-it’s complicated.” He catches the present tense too fucking late to do anything about it, and he barely resists the urge to either groan or slip forward to start beating his head against the coffee table. 

Fuck his fucking life. 

“You’re still…seeing this person?” His mom asks, and the amount of control he can hear her exerting is almost painful. “Who is-” 

“Yuna,” his dad cuts in, voice quiet, “maybe give him a second, yeah?” 

Yeah, Shane agrees in his head. Give him a second. 

Maybe give him a decade while they’re at it. 

*

To her credit, his mom manages to last through almost all of dinner being made, Shane taking shelter as his dad’s kitchen assistant and his mom perched at the bar with a glass of wine while looking like she’s trying very hard not to vibrate out of her own skin with questions. He gets about three bites of food he doesn’t even really taste before the bubble of her restraint pops. 

“You know we’d love whoever you love, right, Shane?” She asks, and as nice as the words are, he just really wishes they could eat in silence and maybe never speak about this ever again. 

Knowing his mom, though, he’s fully aware that this is a pipe dream. 

“And we’re not pushing you into anything you don’t want to say, buddy,” his dad adds in, which is really only true for him, but Shane doesn’t mention it. “But if you’re seeing someone, no matter who they are, we’d like to get to know them, too.” 

Shane isn’t the best at social interactions all the time, but he’s fairly certain the lack of pronoun or gender right now is pretty intentional. He could just…lie, he considers. He could throw out a girl’s name, maybe one of the women Jackie and Hayden have tried to set him up with. He could even pull up their Instagram, tell his parents they’re just keeping it under wraps so the media won’t lose their minds. They might even buy it. They know he hates attention for anything that isn’t his hockey performance. 

But the idea of lying directly to them instead of by omission makes him feel a little sick. 

And if they’re already non-subtly trying to set the stage for him to confess to not dating a girl…

“It’s just complicated,” he says, poking at vegetables on his plate idly. “We’re not-we’re just kind of…private. Stuff’s complicated, so we’re just keeping things between us for now.” 

“Since you were teenagers?” His mom asks, and he glances up at how tight her voice sounds. To his horror, her eyes look shiny, and before he can anything to try and make that stop, she’s pulling her napkin off of her lap and getting up. “Excuse me.” 

He watches her go, his stomach clenched into a knot. 

“Just give her a second,” his dad says, and Shane glances to him. His dad gives him a small, gentle smile. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Now it’s Shane who can feel his eyes burning. 

“I didn’t mean…” He trails off. 

“I know, buddy,” his dad says. “It’s just…a lot, learning your kid has been seeing someone for so long and hasn’t mentioned them before.” 

“It wasn’t…about you guys,” Shane mumbles, looking back down to his plate. “I didn’t tell anyone. It’s just…private.” 

“And if you want to keep it private, Shane, that’s your call, buddy. But if you’re worried about what we would think, you don’t have to be.” 

Shane’s food gets a little blurry in front of him as he keeps his attention on it and only it. 

“I won’t make any assumptions here, but if you’re worried about how we would react to them being…surprising, maybe, you don’t have to. We love you, Shane. You’re our son. You will always be our son. No matter what you do, no matter who you end up with, you are ours, buddy. Nothing will ever, ever change that.” 

“Okay,” Shane manages, throat tight like someone has a hand wrapped around it. “I’m gonna…” He trails off, and when he glances at him, his dad just nods, still smiling. 

“I’d check the backyard,” he advises, resting a hand on Shane’s shoulder briefly and squeezing. “There’s a new bench out there she likes.” 

Shane nods and stands, folding his napkin neatly and leaving it by his plate. 

*

He does indeed find his mom on the bench in the backyard. 

He hesitates just a moment before going to sit next to her. For a moment, they don’t say anything, and then she reaches out, taking his hand in her own, resting her other over the back of his. 

“I’m sorry you didn’t think you could tell us,” she says. Shane swallows, hard. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t,” he says. “It’s just…” 

“Complicated,” his mom fills in. “Complicated how?” 

“Complicated like…it would make playing hockey harder.” It’s a wildly vague response, and he knows it, but he thinks he’s been through enough today without having to explain the Ilya Rozanov of it all. 

“I mean, I understand that, Shane, but we’d still like to meet your partner-” 

“Partner?” Shane repeats, head snapping to her so fast he feels a twinge in his neck. It occurs to him only in this moment that he and his parents might not exactly be operating on the same understanding of the situation here, but he also has no fucking idea how to look his mom in the face and explain that he does not have a partner. He has what is probably most accurately described as a fuck buddy. 

He thinks he’d probably just swing it back around to the alcoholism guess before he’d even try. 

“That’s the word people use, isn’t it?” His mom asks. “Or do you two use something else? I’m not-” 

“That’s…fine, mom,” he says, and for the sake of this conversation ending, it is. He and Rozanov aren’t partners or anything else beyond two people who enjoy fucking each other’s brains out when their schedules align, but if “partners” keeps him from having to explain that, he’ll take it. 

He’ll take just about anything to make this afternoon end, frankly. 

“Are they…” His mom clearly searches for the right words. “Older?” 

“What?” He asks, thrown. “No, we’re the same age.” Really, he’s a little bit older than Rozanov, just by a few months, but that doesn’t seem relevant at this particular moment. 

“Okay,” his mom says, and she seems relieved. “Are they married?” 

Shane is honestly a little insulted that his mom thinks he would sleep with a married person, and she apparently reads that on his face, squeezing his hand. 

“We’re the same age, and no, not married, and also nothing else you might guess,” this, he knows for absolute fucking certain, “so you can just…not. It’s like I said, mom, it’s just complicated.” 

“But you still don’t want to bring them home,” his mom says, and the way he can tell she’s trying not to make it obvious that she’s hurt just makes him feel worse. 

“It’s…” 

“Complicated,” his mom fills in, and after only a moment, she pulls him into a hug. He leans into it, resting his head on her shoulder. “Then I won’t push, okay? But I need to know you know I love you so, so much, Shane. More than anything. Even if it’s complicated, I want to meet your person. And maybe that can’t be right now, and I’ll accept that, but honey, you and whoever you’re with will always be welcome with us, okay?” 

Shane squeezes her a little tighter, absurdly touched when this entire thing is so stupid and complicated. 

“Okay.” 

*

A little surprisingly, his mom does stick to her word. He can tell it practically kills her not playing twenty questions until she can figure it out for herself, but she doesn’t ask personal questions, and she doesn’t push him about when he’ll finally let them meet his “partner,” the word he’s let them continue to use because he doesn’t know what other one he could possibly apply to the situation without having to fake his own death afterwards so he never has to face his parents again. 

Even though they don’t ask for details, they do start bringing his “partner” up now and then, and it feels…strangely good, being asked about this person who doesn’t actually exist, at least not in the way his parents think they do. It feels like he unlocked a level in adulthood or something, checked off an important task on the to-do list of being a grownup. It feels a little ridiculous, all of them playing this careful game of things unsaid, but it feels like being cared about, too, when his mom encourages him to take home leftovers since his “partner” had to “miss” dinner with the rest of them, when his dad asks him to let his “partner” know they say hi, when his parents try to gently nudge him about how holidays are coming up and if they should set an extra place or not. His dad even sent him back with extra cookies when he made his usual batches for Christmas, a whole little sampler because he didn’t know which one Shane’s “partner” liked. 

(The thumbprint cookies, it had turned out, after Shane had said something vague about a WAG cookie circle and invited Rozanov to help himself. His lips had tasted like raspberry jam when they kissed afterwards, and Shane had felt a strange little swell of guilt that Rozanov hadn’t even known he’d just eaten cookies meant especially for him.) 

*

Shane makes it halfway out the door when he clocks back into his body enough to realize something very, very important beyond the fact that he’s only wearing one sock in his shoes: if he commits to running away right now, if he finishes blowing up this bridge, there is a very real possibility that he is going to have to explain that he’s no longer seeing his “partner” to his mother. 

The thought feels colder even than the chilled metal of the doorknob in his hand. 

He hesitates, paralyzed on the threshold, halfway in, halfway out, unable to commit to moving, unable to solve his way around the problem in front of him. In a very distant part of his mind, he registers that he’s letting all of the warm air out, that he should close the door against the cold. 

The only problem is that he suddenly doesn’t know which side of it he wants to be on when he does so. 

His mom asks about his mystery “partner” too much to think he’ll get away with lying for very long if he runs away now, if he cuts Rozanov loose the way he knows he will be if he commits to leaving. Even if he doesn’t ever give details, she still likes asking if they’re doing well, if they and Shane have gotten to see each other recently, likes to ask Shane to pass along hellos from her and his dad. He never does so, of course, but he thinks she likes it, this little telephone game of trying to have some kind of bond to the person they think he’s dating. It makes him feel a little sick, the idea of having to disappoint her and say there is no “partner” anymore. 

Then again, that might be more about the way he feels a little sick in general right now, shaky and unsteady, something that becomes increasingly clear the longer he’s still, like the panic has carved him out and left him hollow in its wake. 

He wants, more than anything, to hit rewind and wake up curled up against Rozanov again, to have a reset on this entire afternoon. He wants a do-over, wants to find the place where this all got fucked up and heavy. It felt strange from the start, a sudden change from what they’ve always done, a departure from his plan for the day, but it had been kind of nice, too, seeing Rozanov in this setting, soft in a way he usually only is in the stretch of time between them climaxing and one of them getting up to shower, smile a little gentler, eyes a little warmer, voice a little softer, hand often stroking Shane in a way that seemingly had nothing to do with lust on the other side of them fucking. He’d fallen asleep to that today, to Rozanov’s hand tracing its familiar path from hip to knee, pressing along the muscle of his thigh slow and meditative, the motion addicting in its steady, grounding pressure. He’d felt the urge to drift off to it before and always resisted, and it had been nice, this time, to let go, to relax into it, to close his eyes and let the world shrink to nothing but Rozanov’s warm palm on his skin. 

The cold air on his face now is a striking and deeply unpleasant contrast. 

It’s the concrete discomfort of the sensation that finally jolts him into motion, and on impulse, he steps back, shutting the door between him and the cold. He feels the immediate urge to open it again when it occurs to him that Rozanov is on this side of the door, and he’s almost in motion to commit to his fleeing from before, though he stills after barely a twitch, imagining what his mom’s face would look like if he had to face her and say his “partner” was no longer in the picture. She would have questions, he knows, would want to workshop it with him, would want to weasel out every single last detail to dissect it the same way she does fine print for his sponsorship contracts. It would be meant well, he knows, would just be about trying to help, to understand everything so the lessons from it could be neatly sorted away, but even the idea of it makes him feel itchy. 

Compared to having to dissect his non-relationship with his mother, standing face-to-face with the guy he just left covered in cum actually seems like the easier option. 

*

Shane’s easy option feels less easy the longer he ends up waiting on the bed for Rozanov to be done in the shower. 

He’s not even sure he should be here, sitting on Rozanov’s bed, criss cross applesauce because that somehow felt like the least stupid out of the seven different positions he had time to cycle through and try because Rozanov must be doing a deep conditioning treatment or something. He had thought about knocking on the door, but interrupting the shower Shane had prompted the need for in the first place had felt rude, and sitting downstairs to wait had felt like asking for trouble in the form of Rozanov not coming back down and Shane ending up feeling like a home intruder late into the night. Weighed against his other options, taking a seat on the bed to wait had felt like the best available one, but his confidence in the choice has been dropping with every minute he’s spent sitting in it. 

Either tragically or luckily, though, he finally hears the shower turn off right as he’s about to bail and retreat downstairs until he can reassess his options, leaving him frozen on the bed-

-and leaving Rozanov frozen as well when he opens the door and finds him there. 

“Hi,” Shane says, barely resisting the urge to pull a face at his own awkwardness when it’s out. 

“Hi,” Rozanov repeats flatly. “You returned for sock?” He asks, lifting his eyebrows and glancing to Shane’s missing one, which apparently somehow ended up all the way in the corner of the room. 

Shane doesn’t get up to retrieve it. 

“I…” He starts, but he doesn’t actually know what words are supposed to come after that. He wishes now that he’d spent less time figuring out how to sit on the bed and more time figuring out what the fuck he’s supposed to say to his hook-up he just jerked off and bailed on. 

(In a place in his mind that feels mildly hysterical, he wonders if Hallmark has a card for this sort of thing.)

“What do you want, Hollander,” Rozanov says, wandering over to his dresser in a way that would probably look casual if Shane didn’t know his body so well, if he hadn’t spent years watching and kissing and touching and learning, if he couldn’t now see the tension in his shoulders, the way he’s carrying himself like he’s bracing for a blow. 

A blow, Shane thinks with a sick little swell of guilt, that he thinks he might have already aimed at him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, which feels like it’s probably the easiest way into a conversation he already suspects is going to severely suck. He wonders if he could just offer to let Rozanov punch him and ask if he’ll let them call it even. He feels a way he doesn’t know what to call when he knows, immediately and certainly, that Rozanov would never do it, that as much as they might rough each other up on the ice and in bed, he can’t ever picture a situation in which Rozanov would ever raise a hand to hurt him on purpose.

Somehow, it makes some of the tension leave his body, the whole thing in front of him feeling less terrifying. He fucked up, yes. He wrecked whatever thing they had going here today, and he tried to run. Rozanov’s upset and probably mad at him, still, but he’s still Rozanov, still the man who always asks “okay?” if he catches the faintest hint that Shane’s uncomfortable, still the man who brings him water and wipes him down with a warm cloth when Shane’s been too well-fucked to manage it himself, still the man who knows how to tease Shane out of his own head like no one else he’s ever known before, still the man who just “happened” to get into a fight with someone the very next game after Shane had mentioned in passing that he’d called him a slur at the face-off in their own game. They hadn’t ever talked about that last thing. Shane still doesn’t even know how he feels about it. He hadn’t told Rozanov about it on purpose, even. He’d just shown up to their planned meeting acting off despite his best efforts, unable to shake it even though it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that kind of shit, and Rozanov had coaxed and teased and pestered until Shane had finally given in, feeling better in the aftermath. 

And feeling even better when he watched Rozanov knock the fucker on his ass the next time they faced each other two weeks later. 

There’s a way back from this, he thinks suddenly. There has to be. It has to count for something, their years together. Even if it’s just been sex, it’s not like they’ve been absent as people in the process of having it. There’s a comfort between them that only exists between people who have known each other like they have, between two people who have basically grown up together, started out on the same path as teenagers and ridden every high and low that’s come since. No one else in the world understands their situation like the other does. 

(Sometimes, Shane thinks maybe no one else understands him like Rozanov does, either, but that’s a thought that only lives in the safety of when Rozanov is making him near-blind with want in bed and he can’t truly be blamed for where his mind goes in the snatches of moments he gets to focus.)

“What do you want, Hollander?” Rozanov repeats again, dressed now in a new pair of sweats. 

Shane tries not to read into the fact that he has a shirt on now, tries not to make any guesses about what it means that Rozanov wants an extra layer between them. He wonders, in a vague kind of way, if taking his own shirt off might help things, even the score between them. After the faintest moment of consideration, though, he dismisses the idea. 

He doesn’t think even a well-intentioned striptease would be helpful at this particular moment. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says, another echo, and the way Rozanov rolls his eyes at him means he makes himself continue even before he’s pre-planned the words in his head. “I shouldn’t have done that. That was…shitty. I think.” 

“You think?” Rozanov repeats wryly, tilting his head in a mocking kind of question and leaning back against his dresser, fingers curling around the edge. Shane notes that his knuckles are white with the force he’s using. 

It makes him feel oddly protective of him. 

“I’m not…” Shane licks his lips as a stall, shifting his weight slightly. No matter how many times Rozanov has seen him strung out and fuck-drunk, naked and begging for more, this somehow feels even more intimate, offering a weakness, a character flaw, baring his throat and trusting that Rozanov won’t aim his teeth for it. 

He exhales, bringing his legs up and resting his arms on his knees. It’s not a full Turtle Time special, but it makes him feel a little steadier. 

“I’m not good when things change suddenly and I don’t expect it,” he says, feeling more naked now than he ever has before, which with Rozanov is really saying something. “I…” He trails off. He doesn’t even fully know why hearing his first name was the final nail in the coffin, but he knows this whole day has been one novelty after another, a departure from routine, which Shane has never done well with. Even if he hasn’t had the time to break it down for himself yet, he has his suspicions. Rozanov decided to ad lib. Shane rode the wave until the new outweighed the comfortable and set him running. There are more things tied up in it, he knows, but that’s the core of it, the easiest thing he can offer up right now. 

“And what changed so much it made you suddenly remember meeting you are apparently forgetting again?” Rozanov asks, tone biting, and even if Shane knows he deserves the edge, it doesn’t stop it from stinging, especially when he already feels so raw, still. 

“Don’t do that,” Shane complains, forgetting for a moment that he’s trying to make amends here in the face of Rozanov pulling a Rozanov and being an asshole. 

“Do what?” Rozanov challenges. 

“Act like everything was the way it always was with us today,” Shane says, pulling his legs in just a little tighter. “You know it wasn’t.” 

“And what was it?” Rozanov asks, and if it weren’t for the way Shane sees his hold on his dresser go tighter, he might buy the way he’s trying to act casual. 

Somehow, it makes him feel better, that tiny little show of being affected, that tiny little sign that he isn’t in the “what the fuck is happening” of it all by himself. 

“Why did you ask me to spend the night?” He asks, cutting right to the heart of things, addressing the first piece of things that went wrong, like it’ll help him solve the rest if he can work out that part first. 

“Why did you say yes and then run?” Rozanov shoots back, looking like he regrets asking it as soon as it’s out. 

“Can we not do this?” Shane asks, reminding himself that it’s either this painful ass conversation now or an even worse conversation with his mom later. 

“Do what?” Rozanov asks, because Shane suspects he loves being annoying more than almost anything else in the world.

“I said I’m sorry,” Shane says, and then something maybe a little daring takes hold of him, offering a thing he thinks he might be able to offer as proof of his apology. “I am sorry, Ilya.” 

He doesn’t miss the way Rozanov’s breath catches, just for a moment. Shane wishes he was better at reading faces than he is. 

He also wishes that Rozanov wasn’t so good at making his face so wildly fucking unreadable. Motherfucker. 

“Well?” Rozanov says. 

“Well what?” Shane asks, thrown. 

Rozanov tilts his head to the door. 

“Door is that way. You have said my name. I think this is the part where you run for no reason, yes?” 

Ironically, the taunt actually makes Shane settle, sliding his legs out in front of him. He’s always loved a challenge, after all. 

Especially from Ilya Rozanov. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, leaning back against the headboard and hoping he comes across as determined as he’s trying to seem. “You asked me to stay. I’m staying.” 

“What if I ask you to leave?” Rozanov asks. 

Shane’s chest goes a little tight at the thought, at how it would feel to have Rozanov throw him out, but he’s fairly certain this is a bluff. 

“Are you?” He asks. “I thought you weren’t done with me.” It’s a bratty thing to say, maybe, but it does gain him the quickest little flicker of a smile, there and gone again. It’s something Rozanov has always enjoyed, when Shane pushes back. 

In one graceful movement, Rozanov is in motion, pushing off of the dresser and stalking towards the bed, crawling onto the end and crowding Shane down to the mattress. He goes without a fight, wriggling down and settling under the familiar, comfortable weight of Rozanov above him. He reaches a hand up, pulling Rozanov’s face to his. The kiss is slow, gentle, an apology offered once again. Rozanov resists the limitation at first, slipping his tongue against Shane’s in a move that usually winds him right up, but he keeps it gentle now, forcing Rozanov to slow with him. When he finally needs air, he pulls his mouth back but doesn’t let Rozanov go far, holding him in place. His eyes are still shut, and he wonders if Rozanov’s are, too. He doesn’t open his to check. 

“I want to stay,” he says, the words breathed against Rozanov’s lips. 

He feels the movement when Rozanov takes a breath, chest expanding against his own. 

“Okay.” 

*

“Do you want us to use first names?” Shane asks in the aftermath of another round of fucking, this one as gentle as their kiss was before, bodies moving together with barely any space between. He’s sprawled over Rozanov now, head on his shoulder, and the familiar comfort of it is perhaps making him bolder than he would usually be. 

The fingertips stroking gently along his spine certainly don’t hurt, either. 

“Depends,” Rozanov says, hand moving up to card through the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“On?” Shane prompts, barely resisting the urge to lean into how good the gesture feels. 

“If I call you Shane, will you get up and run again?” 

It still feels like a little zip right through him, hearing his name in Rozanov’s mouth, but he expected it this time. 

“Nah,” he says, deliberately relaxing more to make a point. “I’m pretty comfortable right here.” 

Rozanov’s hand stills in his hair for just the faintest moment, and then he feels the pressure of a kiss pressed to his head. He leans into it in a way that usually makes Rozanov teasingly compare him to a cat. He relaxes into the comfort of it for a long while, half-toying with the idea of another nap, but he knows if he gives in now then he’ll regret it when he’s up all night later. He gives himself to the count of ten to laze in it, and then he makes himself give it up. 

“Hey, Ilya?” He asks, tilting his chin up slightly to look at him. It feels strange in his mouth, still, the word, but not in a bad way. 

Just in a new way. 

“Yes?” Roz-Ilya asks. His face is soft in a way Shane isn’t sure he means for it to be, and he tries not to let onto that fact, afraid he’ll ruin it if Ilya knows he’s doing it. 

“I’m hungry.” 

Ilya’s mouth curves in a faint, crooked smile. 

“For what?” 

Shane smiles back. 

*

“Okay?” Ilya asks that night when they’re back on the couch and he tugs Shane in to lay against his shoulder again, their stomachs full of pasta that Shane managed to negotiate four vegetables into before Ilya put his foot down and started threatening more butter if he didn’t stop “punishing poor pasta by turning it into food for rabbits.” The argument was silly, and the mock wrestling match over custody of the butter even more so. 

It’s one of the best nights Shane can remember having in recent memory. 

“Okay,” Shane repeats, settling into it. 

“Should I get lube, or can you resist my dick this time?” Ilya asks, and it’s a relief, already being at a place to joke about it. 

He responds by pinching Ilya’s side hard enough to make him flinch. 

“What?” Ilya asks, not sounding remotely serious. 

“Asshole,” Shane grumbles. 

Even to his own ears, it sounds fond. 

*

Unexpectedly, settling down to sleep that night feels oddly…awkward. Fucking again would risk leaving him sore in a way that would go beyond enjoyable and into potentially messing with his performance in the game the next afternoon, so they suck each other off and call it a day, but getting into bed and settling down with the intention of sleeping and not fucking is new territory, and Shane realizes with a small jolt of surprise that this is actually the first time he has shared a bed with someone for the night since he was a kid, back when he sometimes got pushed into sharing a bed with a cousin during a family reunion trip until he finally hit a growth spurt and could get out of it. Ilya’s bed, though, is massive, so there’s plenty of room for both of them. 

It’s just that Shane doesn’t know exactly how he’s supposed to occupy his portion. 

When people on television and in movies share beds, they usually end up sleeping curled together somehow, but he’s not sure if that’s a Hollywood invention or something he’s actually supposed to initiate. It always feels nice, settling against Ilya, but he’s not sure if that’s supposed to be just for afterglow or not. He could just go for it, but since he’s committed to not running away again, trying to cuddle up to Ilya only to get told to give him space feels like it would be near-lethal levels of mortifying, so he isn’t quite brave enough to try. He imagines Ilya has had plenty of sleepovers with his hook-ups over the years, so he’d like to follow his lead here, but Ilya seems strangely self-conscious suddenly, shifting in a way that says he isn’t comfortable. 

Shane wonders if that’s his fault. Is he too warm? He had a girl he was dating once always insist on putting her hands in his hoodie pocket with his because he was warmer, supposedly, but he doesn’t know if Ilya might find him too warm, especially when it comes to sharing a bed for the night. Shane’s always preferred sleeping in a cold room so he can layer a couple of blankets on top, but he doesn’t know what Ilya’s preference is. 

He doesn’t, he realizes now, know a lot of things about Ilya. 

“You are trying to fall off of bed tonight or what?” Ilya asks, and Shane jolts out of his own head, looking in Ilya’s direction even though he can’t see him well in the darkness of the room. 

(One thing they have in common is apparently a shared preference for blackout curtains at night, which is nice.)

“What?” He asks, thrown, knowing this is supposed to be a hint about something but not sure what. He’s not on the edge of the bed, after all. He’s definitely only on one side, but he’d thought the shares of bed between them were pretty even in the stock he took before Ilya turned the bedside lights off. 

“So far away,” Ilya says, and it sounds like a complaint. “You don’t like to touch when you sleep?” 

The honest answer is that he doesn’t know. He hasn’t had the desire or opportunity to find out if he likes sharing a bed with someone or not, so he certainly doesn’t know if he would like touching someone while sleeping in a bed with them. 

“Do you?” He asks. 

“Do you?” Ilya parrots back, doing a bad imitation of him, and Shane rolls his eyes at the mocking. 

“It’s your bed,” he points out. “I’m just trying to be a good guest.” 

“You would be better guest if you weren’t twenty miles away.” 

“Asshole,” Shane grumbles, but the taunt has him wriggling closer just to make a point, hesitating only a moment before he settles down in his favorite position from after they have sex, on his side, head on Ilya’s shoulder, an arm over his chest, and one of Shane’s legs over both of his, knee crooked so his foot settles pressed against Ilya’s calf, a comforting input of pressure. 

“You are like octopus,” Ilya says, sounding amused, curling the arm of the shoulder Shane is resting on to rest it around his back, hand settling at his waist. 

“Too much?” Shane asks, starting to pull back, worried he’s overshot it and-

“I did not say that,” Ilya says, hand squeezing like he’s holding Shane in place. “So jumpy. You act like you have never shared bed with someone before.” 

Shane thinks there’s a question under the observation, but he’d rather not guess and give an answer Ilya wasn’t actually looking for. 

“I mean you of all people know that’s not true,” he says. “I’ve shared plenty with you.” 

“Hm,” Ilya says, and Shane wants to ask him what it means, what conclusion he just apparently drew. “You do not let your girls stay the night? How mean, Hollander.” 

Shane feels his face heat. 

“Do you pay for Uber at least when you kick them out? Maybe send them Paypal to buy themselves breakfast the next day? Or just–what is phrase?–wham, bam, goodbye ma’am?” 

“Are we actually going to get to sleep tonight, or do you just want to be an asshole all night?” Shane says. 

“I am just curious,” Ilya says, sounding fake-innocent. 

“I told you,” Shane says. “It’s private.” 

“Right,” Ilya says. “‘Private.’”

“It’s not a thing,” Shane says, feeling defensive. “I don’t…see a lot of people. I don’t have time.” 

“I would not think this would be problem,” Ilya says, sounding amused. “You do not take very long to-” 

“Shut up,” Shane says, digging his fingers into Ilya’s side and making him twitch. 

“Should I feel special?” Ilya asks. “That you always make time for me when you are so very busy?” 

Shane feels ridiculously shy under the question because the real answer is that he’d do whatever he had to to make time for Ilya, to steal these little stretches of time together, to enjoy these brief little breaks when it finally feels like he can breathe all the way, when he can let go and trust someone else to take care of him in the meantime. 

“You have a good mouth,” he says, and he hears Ilya huff, amused, very obviously remembering what Shane’s repeating. Feeling a little bold in the combination of a dark room and a familiar, warm body next to him, he decides to ask a question that might or might not hurt his feelings. “Should I feel special? Or do all of your other fuck buddies get to spend the night, too?” 

“Hm,” Ilya says. “I do not usually bring people back.” 

Well that’s…surprising. 

“Why?” He asks, genuinely curious. He would have thought Ilya Rozanov’s house was basically a revolving door. He feels the motion when Ilya shrugs, lifting his head with the gesture momentarily. 

“Not everyone knows when it’s time to leave,” he says. “Easier to go to their place so I can leave when I want.” 

Unable to help it, Shane smiles, slightly, absurdly pleased that Ilya actively didn’t want him to leave. 

“So I am special,” he says, knowing he sounds smug. “I even got fed. I’d probably have your fans on Twitter ready to kill me with jealousy if they knew.” 

“Hm, don’t get big head about it. You are just nice to be around. Not annoying, like some people.” 

For Shane, who knows that there are plenty of people who don’t find him “nice” to be around, it’s high praise indeed, and it makes him feel a little generous in return. 

“You’re nice to be around, too,” he says, feeling a little shy about it. 

“Well, I could tell your fans on Twitter you said that, but they wouldn’t believe me,” Ilya says, and Shane can hear the smile in his voice. He feels Ilya shift, slightly, and draw a breath like he’s going to say something only to hesitate a moment before he actually commits to it. 

It’s a fascinating little moment of doubt from someone who’s usually the cockiest motherfucker Shane has ever known. 

“Would you want to do this more? Sometimes, maybe?” Ilya asks, and Shane tilts his head up to look at him, squinting a bit in the dark and only able to make out the vague outline of Ilya’s head, enough to know that he’s staring resolutely up at the ceiling. 

‘’This’ as in staying the night with each other or ‘this’ as in talking more?” 

“They are connected, I think,” Ilya says. “But either.” 

“Do you?” Shane asks, unwilling to give an answer that might get him made fun of until Ilya makes his thoughts a little plainer. 

“I asked you to stay the night and then let you stay after you tried to run for no reason,” Ilya says dryly. “Take a guess, Hollander.” 

“I already said sorry for that,” Shane says, pulling a face even if Ilya can’t see it. “You don’t get to hold it over me forever.” 

“You literally came on my stomach and then tried to run out the door,” Ilya says dryly. “Even though I am always polite and make sure you are clean, and I even always kiss you because you did not like when I didn’t. I get another year of complaining, at least, in exchange for you being rude and bad at sex etiquette.” 

“Three months,” Shane counters. 

“Six,” Ilya returns. 

“Deal.” 

When Ilya fumbles for his hand in order to shake it, Shane laughs, and the little moment of silliness makes him relax enough to be honest. He settles a little firmer against him, leaning into it when he feels Ilya press a kiss to his head. 

“Yes,” he says, “I would like to do this more.” My parents already think I am, he thinks wryly. “I-I like being around you. More than most other people.” 

“This is understandable,” Ilya says. “I am very likeable person.” 

“About 97% of the NHL would disagree with that,” Shane says dryly. 

“And 3%?” 

“Repeated head trauma.” 

Ilya laughs, and Shane grins, pressing his cheek against the warm skin of his shoulder, delighted to be found funny. 

“I like being around you more than most other people, too,” Ilya says. “Even though you are very mean to me always.” 

“It keeps you humble,” Shane says. “It’s good for you.” 

“And losing to me is good for you,” Ilya says. 

“Maybe you should try to make it happen more often, then,” Shane teases. “Doesn’t seem like you’re really-” 

He laughs when Ilya growls and shoves him away, and conversation devolves into a deeply stupid wrestling match for a long moment. If fucking were on the table, Shane would let him win, but with no potential orgasm as a reward, he doesn’t bother, leaving them fairly evenly matched. By the time they both decide without words to call it a draw, they’re both breathing heavily, as if they have just done more than act like stupid kids. Ilya reaches up to pull his hair like an asshole, but the arm he puts around his shoulders is gentle, guiding Shane to lay down against him again, half on top of him this time. 

Shane thinks this might be the happiest he’s felt in a long, long time. 

Shane feels sleep calling to him quickly, lulled by Ilya’s warmth against him and the muted thump of his heart near his ear. He yawns and wiggles a bit until he’s more comfortable, forehead pressed against Ilya’s jaw. He’s half-asleep, melting under the slow movement of Ilya’s fingers over his back, when Ilya speaks, voice quiet. 

“I’m glad you came back,” he says. It sounds like a confession. Shane pulls back enough to give himself the space to turn Ilya’s head towards him, taking blind aim and winding up with his mouth mostly over Ilya’s. 

“I’m glad I came back, too,” he says, honesty for honesty, settling back down and feeling Ilya tug the covers up over them a little more securely. 

He falls asleep to the sound of Ilya’s heartbeat. 

It might be the best he’s ever slept. 

*

Rose Landry is beautiful and funny and everything Shane would be looking for in a girlfriend.

…if he had any interest in having one at all, that is. 

“Oh, wow,” he says when he comes up for air from a conversation that felt like it lasted five minutes but was apparently four hours. “It’s already past midnight.” 

“Really?” Rose asks, seeming more amused than anything. “Doesn’t feel like it. Must be down to good company.” She winks, and Shane likes it, being in on a joke with her, likes the easy way conversation flows between them. “You know, I’m here for a while, and I feel like I might get run out of the country if I don’t learn my way around a hockey rink. Can I get your number? Maybe get some private tutoring?” 

He catches the implication after only a second, and he stalls out. He knows objectively that he’d be stupid not to take her on a date. Any other guy in his position wouldn’t even hesitate. She’s beautiful, famous, funny, all of the things that someone is supposed to want in a girlfriend. She’s someone he could proudly take home to his parents. 

If there wasn’t the complicating factor of his parents already waiting on someone else to be brought home. 

“Um,” he says, fidgeting with his beer just for something to do. “I mean, I’d love to show you around Montreal if you want. When you have time.” 

“But…?” Rose prompts. “I’m hearing a but in there, I think.” 

He smiles, a little relieved that she doesn’t seem upset about it, just amused. 

“But I’m not, uh, I’m not looking for…” He trails off, not sure if he wishes he had drunk more or less tonight. He can feel the faintest little buzz from the beer, but he doesn’t know if just a bit more would make his brain work better, or if the tiny bit of intoxication he did achieve is making him even worse at this than he would be otherwise. 

“Hey,” Rose says, leaning forward and resting a hand over his wrist, squeezing lightly. “It’s all good. I’d like to get to see you again, but it doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want it to be. I’d like to at least try out being friends, maybe, if you do.” She makes a wry, self-deprecating face. “Unless this is your very gentle and sweet way of saying I talked your ear off all night and you’re counting down the minutes until you can make an escape.” 

“No!” He says at once, and Rose smiles, wide and genuine, open with her feelings in a way that makes her blessedly easy to read. “No, that’s not it. I just didn’t want to, you know, lead you on or anything.” 

“You’re sweet,” Rose says with another squeeze of his wrist before she sits back. A little flicker of something playful crosses her expression, and she shifts her posture, sprawling wide. When she speaks, her voice is deeper, clearly an impression. “It’s all good, bro. We’ll just be bros.” She tilts her chin up in a nod Shane has absolutely seen more than one guy do before, and it makes him laugh, which makes her laugh, too. 

When she extends her hand for his phone, he offers it easily. 

*

Naturally, going anywhere with Rose Landry means paparazzi, and it’s not long before he sees his own face splashed across social media constantly. If it weren’t annoying, he’d almost find it funny how much people especially lose their minds the night he gets photographed giving Rose his jacket when they’re walking from a restaurant to a bar to meet up with some of her friends, as if it isn’t just logical that the petite actress in a thin sweater could use the extra warmth more than a giant hockey player wearing a thick hoodie. 

Still, it’s enough to get him a call from his mom, which he maybe should have been expecting. 

“We’re just friends,” he says. “Seriously. It’s just nice for her to have someone to hang out with who knows the city.” 

“It’s okay if you’re…experimenting,” his mom starts hesitantly, “you know, at your age-” 

“Mom,” Shane says, eyes squeezed shut, “I am begging you to not finish that sentence.” 

“I’m just saying-” 

“Don’t. Please don’t.” 

“Okay, okay,” his mom says in a rare surrender. “I’m just saying, honey. It’s okay to not know.” 

“I…” He starts, unsure if he wants to actually say it or not. He’s never actually said it out loud before, he realizes, and once he thinks that, it feels like he issued himself a dare. 

(A dare that feels significantly easier to do over the phone when he won’t have to see his mom’s face when he says it.)

“I’m gay,” he says, automatically freezing when it’s out, like the entire NHL is about to bust his door down SWAT-style and send him to…gay prison, maybe? 

The insanity dissolves about as quickly as it started, thankfully. 

“Just gay,” he says, feeling almost a little drunk on his own daring, honestly. “I don’t-I don’t like girls. At all.” He makes a face at how that sounds. “I mean, like, as people, yeah, of course-” 

He comes to a stop when he hears his mom laugh, feeling vaguely insulted at her doing it during him coming out to her officially. She must somehow sense it with her Mom Instinct she’s always chalked things up to, because she manages to get herself under control again. 

“I’m sorry, honey,” she says, still sounding amused. “But you’ve apparently been in a relationship with a boy since you were too young to rent your own hotel rooms. I kind of assumed by now.” 

The phrasing hits him in a way the idea hasn’t before. 

It’s true, after all. He wouldn’t call it a relationship, of course, but he’s been something with Ilya since they were teenagers, something that has seemed to be on the verge of changing recently, which is terrifying, but also…

But also maybe exciting, too. 

“I’m gay,” he says again, feeling a little high on the power of it, of finally saying it out loud and not having the world immediately collapse around him. Absurdly, he feels his eyes sting, and he’s newly grateful for the lack of an audience. 

“I love you,” his mom says, her voice sounding tight. “So, so much, honey. All of you. Forever.” 

His eyes sting more, and he squeezes them shut, too late to keep a couple of tears from escaping. 

“And not to be pushy,” his mom says, “but should I be hopeful that this means I might actually get to finally meet your partner?” 

“Mom,” he complains, voice sounding only a little choked, and he scrubs an arm over his eyes. 

“Shane,” his mom says right back. “I have been so good. You have to give me credit for being so good. It’s been over a year since I found out you have a partner I’ve never even met, and I haven’t even installed secret cameras at your house.” 

Shane laughs, relieved at the easier turn in conversation. 

“I don’t know if you get credit for that,” he says, dabbing at his face with the collar of his t-shirt. “I think that’s just, like, basic not doing stuff that could get you arrested.” 

“Okay. Mr. Fake ID,” his mom teases. “Maybe you get the rule breaking from me.” 

“Nah,” Shane says with a grin. “Definitely dad. He totally stole pansies from Mrs. Morello’s yard for your mother’s day breakfast when I was thirteen.” 

“Damn,” his mom says, “I always knew he was a bad influence on you.” 

“Too late now,” Shane says. “Now I’m used to a life of crime. I’m trying to get into the maple syrup black market next.” 

“There’s good money in it,” his mom says, sounding amused. “Mind giving me a reference when you’re in?” 

“Why, so you can run it within three years tops?” Shane asks, leaning back, feeling a little in disbelief that they can be doing this, teasing each other after he said something he’s been afraid to even acknowledge in his head for so long, like nothing has changed between them. 

“I’m not that old yet,” his mom scoffs. “Two years, tops.” There’s a brief pause. “And maybe by then, I’ll get to meet your super secret partner, too. We’ll be in a maple syrup gang together. There are no secrets in a maple syrup gang, Shane.” 

Shane laughs, and he feels lighter than he has in maybe years. He wonders if it always could have been this easy, if he’s tortured himself for no reason. 

Ilya would probably be delighted to hear it. Shane knows he’d get chirped for years about it. 

What a nice thought, he thinks, settling in to listen to his mom talk about her grand plans for expanding their blackmarket maple syrup business, getting to think about his time with Ilya in years and not in snatched hours stolen here and there. 

*

It could be years, he thinks the next day, unable to let the thought go once he’s had it. It would have to be in years, obviously, and probably not until they’re both retired, but when hockey’s out of the way, when everything else is out of the way…

It could just be them, Ilya and Shane. 

What a thought. 

*

“Does your girlfriend know you’re fucking someone else tonight?” 

Shane frowns at Ilya’s opening line of their night together, stepping back to let him in anyway. He’d figured Ilya must be in a weird mood–has been in a weird mood, honestly, based on how stilted and sparse his texts have become recently–because he’d given Shane an inscrutable expression when he’d asked him at center ice if they were still on for tonight before nodding, just once, still staring at Shane like he was waiting for…something. 

The question certainly isn’t what Shane was expecting, though. 

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says, fingers twitching for want of reaching out to Ilya but Ilya’s body language clearly saying touch would not be welcome right now. 

Shane’s stomach suddenly feels tight, remembering what he said about his girl in Boston. Is this a hint? Is Shane supposed to read between the lines and understand that Ilya has a girlfriend now? Was the look on the ice because Shane missed something on social media somewhere? He peruses Ilya’s accounts more than he would ever admit in the scarce amount of time he allows himself on social media, but he hadn’t seen any-

“So Rose Landry is what?” Ilya asks, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back, his posture casual but his body tense. “Just a fuck buddy?” 

“Hey,” Shane says, frowning. “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s really nice.” 

“‘Nice,’” Ilya repeats, tone acerbic. “High praise.” He smiles slightly, but it’s a mean thing, and Shane frowns, hurt that Ilya would direct an expression like that to him, especially when he doesn’t even know why he’s so mad right now. 

(It’s not the first time he hasn’t understood what he’s done wrong with someone, but it hurts worse, somehow, with Ilya.)

“Is she coming here tonight, too?” Ilya asks, all Rozanov now, biting in a way Shane’s only experienced him on the ice, and even then only directed at other people. “Is that the plan? I could be convinced. I didn’t expect it, though, you looking for a threes-” 

“Stop it,” Shane says, angry now amidst the hurt. “Why the fuck are you acting like this? What happened?” 

“Acting like what?” Ilya asks, dismissive. 

Shane makes a frustrated noise. 

“I thought…” He trails off, shifting his weight, desperately trying to read Ilya’s face to figure out what the fuck is going on here. He doesn’t know what he did. He doesn’t know what’s gone wrong here. The last time he’d seen Ilya in person was kissing him at the door in Boston, both of them grinning into it and already making teasing plans for next time at Shane’s house. 

How the fuck did they go from that to this? 

“Is it…your family?” He asks on a guess, remembering the phone call back in Boston, when Ilya was so upset. “Did something happen?” 

“What?” Ilya asks, frowning, like Shane is the one acting weird. “What does that-” 

“You’re mad at me, and I don’t know why,” Shane says, deciding on a course of “fuck it” and just asking directly, unwilling to waste more of their night playing guessing games. “Did I do something?” 

“That’s…” Ilya exhales, seeming frustrated. 

Shane can relate. 

Deciding to be bold, he steps forward the same way he would towards an angry cat–or Ruby when she’s been told no more dessert–and carefully rests his arms on Ilya’s shoulders, leaning his weight forward some, hoping to be grounding and reassuring. He likes it when Ilya lays on top of him, after all, or holds him tightly, likes the pressure of it. He’s hoping that maybe returning the gesture like this will be soothing to him, too, enough to figure out what the fuck is going on here. When Ilya doesn’t shove him away, he leans forward, kissing him once, chaste and quick, trying to replicate the way Ilya kisses him when he’s cutting a spiral short.

“Talk to me,” he says. “I know you’re upset right now, but I don’t know why. I’d like…I’d like to help, if I can. Even if it’s just listening.” 

“I don’t think Rose Landry would appreciate you kissing someone else,” Ilya says, voice flat, but he doesn’t pull away. 

“Wait,” he says, tilting his head slightly in confusion. “Do you…do you think Rose and I are dating?” 

“Are you not?” Ilya asks, and now there’s something almost…desperate, in his expression. “You are not dating Rose Landry?” 

“No,” Shane says, shaking his head. “I’m not-we’re not-” He bites his cheek briefly, trying to figure out how much he wants to say, how much he’s willing to give right now when Ilya is being so confusing. “She’s really nice, but we’re just friends.” He rolls his eyes. “Even though TMZ apparently thinks we-” 

Shane doesn’t get to finish that thought. 

Not when Ilya starts kissing him like his life depends on it, shuffling him back up towards the stairs so quickly Shane almost falls, saved only by Ilya’s hands on him, hauling him right back up. 

*

“Jesus,” Shane exhales later, when he’s finally gotten his breath back. He’s noodle-limp against Ilya, bare skin to bare skin, sprawled together in the middle of his bed that looks like a warzone. The sheets are unpleasantly damp and suspiciously sticky in a couple of places, but Ilya’s determination to try and kill him with sex was at least matched by a diligence in cleaning him up afterwards, hands gentle as they moved his limbs and stroked a warm, wet washcloth over him. He’d attempted to protest for the sake of his pride, but Ilya had just gently shushed him, following the path of the washcloth with his lips, gentle and sweet as Shane had still intermittently shivered, nerves overworked and oversensitive. When he’d been cleaned to Ilya’s apparently high standards, he’d been gathered up close, wrapped in a blanket and laid against Ilya’s chest. He’d dozed in the comfort of it for a long while, catching his breath and letting Ilya’s strong hand against his back slowly bring him back enough to be capable of speech. 

“Hm,” Ilya says, sounding amused. “You have words again?” 

“Maybe,” he says, half-yawning and stretching slightly. He tilts his face up, making Ilya look down at him. He tips his chin up in a silent little request, and Ilya smiles, granting him the kiss he was asking for, slow and sweet like he wasn’t the person just manhandling Shane around like a sex doll and making him almost blind with pleasure, whispering rough, insistent Russian against his skin, interspersed with snatches of English like “so good for me,” “so pretty,” and “come on, Shane, give it to me, come on, come for me, let me see you,” which frankly made Shane feel like he was going to die, it made him come so hard. 

Now, the memory of it makes him feel a little shy, but in the safe warmth of his semi-dark bedroom beside Ilya, it’s bearable. 

The post-orgasm of it all also makes him feel just bold enough to ask a clarifying question he thinks he should probably get out in the open. 

“Were you mad about me dating Rose?” He asks, keeping his tone carefully neutral. 

Beneath him, Ilya abruptly goes much less relaxed, hand freezing on his back. Shane tries to chase his lips with his own, but Ilya pulls his face away, moving his hand from Shane’s back to press his head back down. Shane makes a grumpy noise in protest, but he’s still too boneless to put up much of a fight. 

“Were you?” He persists. 

“Enough questions,” Ilya says. “You should-” 

“No,” Shane says, and now he gathers his strength enough to sit up, bracing himself on Ilya’s chest. “If it wasn’t that, what was it? I don’t like you being mad at me out of nowhere.” 

“I was not-” 

“Don’t lie,” Shane says, annoyed. 

Ilya rolls his eyes. 

“Come on,” he says, nudging him. “Talk to me.” 

“Is nothing to talk about,” Ilya says dismissively, and now it’s Shane’s turn to roll his eyes. 

“No?” He asks. “So you storming in and asking about a girlfriend I don’t have and acting like a dick to me about it is just…what? Supposed to be normal now?” 

“You are being dramatic, Hollander, is not-” 

Shane nudges his knee against Ilya’s side in reprimand. 

“Talk to me,” he says. “I want-” 

His stomach picks this exact, mortifying moment to growl loudly, and Shane feels his face heat. Ilya, though, just smiles slightly, like it’s broken the tension for him, and he reaches up, smoothing Shane’s hair back. 

“Up,” he says. “Food.” 

“Not until-” He starts, but Ilya just sits up, nudging him back. 

“Food first. Asking me annoying questions later, yes?” 

“Asshole,” Shane grumbles, but when Ilya holds them out, he accepts his sweatpants. 

(He does feel slightly better when he tosses Ilya a pair from his dresser and hits him right in the face.)

*

They watch a movie while they eat, but Shane barely pays attention, too busy tumbling thoughts around in his head. 

Ilya thought he was dating Rose Landry. This apparently made Ilya tense and angry. Ilya has never acted like this before, even after Shane lied and said he was seeing girls in Boston. Ilya is also apparently a fucking hypocrite, getting mad at Shane for supposedly seeing a girl when Ilya is known for his many, many girls. Ilya seemed relieved when Shane confirmed he wasn’t seeing Rose, enough to fuck him almost into another dimension. Conclusion? 

…Shane doesn’t know, not without asking, at least, something that Ilya didn’t seem so eager for him to do before. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Ilya says, and Shane’s gaze snaps over to him. Ilya smiles, faintly. “You are very loud thinker.” 

“Why did you get mad about me dating someone?” He asks. 

Ilya looks abruptly regretful about starting the conversation, and Shane moves to swing his legs up and rest them over Ilya’s lap, pinning him in place. Ilya gives him an unimpressed look but doesn’t shove him away. 

“You date people all the time,” he points out. 

“Is not-” Ilya cuts himself off, glancing back to the television. “Date who you want. I do not care.” 

“Seemed like you cared,” Shane says dryly. “Kind of a lot, actually.” 

Ilya scoffs, which is deeply annoying. 

“You’re the one who asked me about girls,” Shane points out. 

“Hollander, I do not-” 

“So I’m just Hollander again?” He asks, irritated now. “I don’t get to be Shane anymore because you’re mystery pissed at me?” 

“I am not-” 

“Yes,” Shane interrupts. “You are. And I don’t get why. I-” He cuts himself off, exhaling a frustrated breath. He flops back, legs still on Ilya’s lap, and looks at the ceiling. “I was really excited to see you, asshole. And then you came in here mad at me about something, and you won’t even tell me why.” 

Ilya is quiet for a long moment, and then Shane feels his hand rest on his leg lightly. 

“I wasn’t sure if we were still going to meet,” he says, voice soft. 

Shane tilts his head enough to look at him. 

“Because you thought I was dating Rose?” He asks. 

“It is-” Ilya cuts himself off, looking down at Shane’s legs again, thumb tracing gentle circles against his shin. “Yes,” he says. 

Stupid as it is, Shane feels a little thrill through him, a little buzz of pleasure at the idea that Ilya Rozanov, playboy extraordinaire, might be jealous of him dating someone else. It could just be us, he thinks again, the thought as thrilling as it is dangerous. Thrilling enough to tempt him into something he has to do before he talks himself out of it, wondering what Ilya might do about it. 

“I’m gay,” he says, and he’s proud of how steady his voice comes out. Ilya glances at him from the corner of his eye, not turning his head, like he doesn’t want Shane to be able to read his expression. “I don’t want Rose Landry.” 

“What do you want?” Ilya asks, and there’s almost a dare in it, challenging Shane to answer, seeing if he’s brave enough to do it. 

“Depends,” he says. “What do you want?” 

“For you to answer my question instead of being chicken about it. I asked first.” 

“You’re the one who was a dick to me for no reason. I think you owe me answering first.” 

“I still have five months left on you running away,” Ilya says, and now there’s a faint smile on his lips. “You still owe me.” 

“You don’t get to hold that over me forever,” Shane complains, wrinkling his nose. 

“No,” Ilya says. “But is like I said. I still have five more months of reminding you of when you were asshole and ran away for no reason.” He shifts slightly, turning to face Shane. “So. Answer the fucking question, Shane.” 

He could lie, he knows. Or just not tell the whole truth. He could say he wants Ilya to take him back upstairs and fuck him. He could get on his knees and make Ilya unable to think about anything for a little bit. He could make a joke. He could just refuse to answer. 

“I like you,” he says. “I want to keep seeing you.” 

“You don’t like me,” Ilya scoffs, and Shane rolls his eyes, uninterested in playing a game of fishing for compliments. 

“Yeah, I do, asshole,” he says. “Trust me, I’m surprised, too.” 

That makes Ilya roll his eyes, and Shane smiles, faintly, pleased. 

“Nothing can happen,” Ilya says, and it almost sounds like an apology. “You know this, yes?” 

“Right now, yeah, I know,” Shane says, having already played this game in his head. “But-” 

“No, Shane,” Ilya interrupts, “it-” He stops, swallows, jaw clenching for a moment. “Nothing can happen between us.” 

“Look, I know the league wouldn’t-” 

“Not the league,” Ilya says, and now there’s an edge to his voice. He tries to push Shane’s legs away, but he holds firm, and Ilya gives up with a frustrated huff of air. “You know what laws there are in Russia? About this? People like us?” When Ilya looks at him, Shane nods, once, remembering what Vaughn said back in Sochi. “I wouldn’t be able to go home. Ever. And my father-” His voice breaks off, and he clears his throat, like it’s tight suddenly. “My father is sick. I have to be able to go home. To take care of him in summer.” 

“Would you want to?” Shane asks, his own chest feeling tight at how final this all sounds, like Ilya’s already made up his mind and can’t be moved. 

“We can’t.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” Shane hesitates, but at this point, what’s a little more? He reaches down to put his plate on the floor and then moves to straddle Ilya’s lap. “I’m not asking you to decide anything right now. But if we could be something, would you want to be?” 

“What does it matter?” Ilya presses, looking away. Shane takes hold of his chin and turns it back. Ilya doesn’t resist. “We can’t-” 

“That’s not my question,” Shane says. “If the league and Russia and whatever else wasn’t a problem, would you want to be something? Together?” 

Ilya looks at him for a long moment, and then pulls him into a kiss. When they part, Shane leaves his forehead against Ilya’s, eyes closed. 

“Yes,” Ilya says quietly. “I would want that.” 

Shane smiles. 

*

“We don’t have to decide anything for sure,” Shane says that night, in the safety of his dark bedroom, both of them curled up together. “We just keep doing what we’ve always done, and maybe we just…stop pretending it’s just sex.” He’s edging towards dangerous territory, he knows, but he can’t quite help it. 

“Is bad idea,” Ilya says, but his voice is soft, as are the fingers he cards through Shane’s hair. 

“It’s always been a bad idea,” Shane says, mildly amused at the role reversal. “What, you’re the scared one now?” 

“Since when are you so brave?” Ilya asks. “What happened to ‘Ilya, stop, someone’s going to hear-’” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Shane says, punching him lightly. “Your teammates were literally in the fucking hallway and-” 

“What, just because you are too loud and-” 

“-not wanting Cliff fucking Marleau to hear-” 

“-weren’t a screamer when you-” 

Shane sits up and grabs a pillow with a grin, smacking Ilya with it until it’s wrenched from his hold. He laughs when the blows are returned, scrambling blindly for another weapon. The fight is silly and stupid, and Shane grins so hard his face hurts. The fun comes to an end when a misjudged steadying hand finds air and sends him toppling over the edge of the mattress, managing to grab Ilya’s arm enough to save himself from taking a header to the floor but still ending up hitting his knee so hard he freezes for a second, taking stock of himself. 

“You are okay?” Ilya asks, reaching for the bedside lamp and fumbling for the pull, finally managing it and then sliding down to the floor as well, reaching for Shane’s leg and nudging his own hands out of the way. Shane winces when he extends it, but he’s been a participant in a contact sport for long enough that he can tell it’s nothing too serious. Ilya gives him a hand up back to the bed and then steps away. “I’ll get ice.” 

“You don’t need to do that,” he says, but Ilya is already at the door. “Seriously, it’s not-” 

“No,” Ilya says over his shoulder. “No excuses for when you lose tomorrow.” 

Shane rolls his eyes but settles back, adjusting the covers to be straight again. It’s an oddly compelling thought, Ilya moving around his house alone, going through his things, like he belongs here, like he always has. When he returns with an ice pack and a dishtowel, Shane is smiling slightly, and Ilya returns it when he notices. 

“What?” He asks, wrapping the ice pack up and then laying it on Shane’s knee. “You are into pain now?” 

“Asshole,” Shane says, elbowing him when Ilya settles back down beside him, turning the light off again. “No, I’m just-I’m glad you’re here.” 

He feels Ilya pause, and then a gentle arm is slipping under his head, tugging him in close. 

“I am glad I am here, too,” Ilya says, voice quiet. 

Shane closes his eyes, lulled by a warm hand on his arm and a cold ice pack on his knee. 

*

“So how would it work?” 

Shane makes a soft, inquiring noise at the question, not even fully registering the words for a moment. Playing on the same team as Ilya is just as much fun as he’d thought it would be, but the combination of a team practice today to get a feel for their chemistry, the balmy Florida heat, and an enthusiastic round of fucking Ilya in his hotel room has him lax and languid. 

“Us,” Ilya clarifies, not helping Shane focus when he keeps up his slow, soothing circles against Shane’s hip, still inside him but apparently not in a rush to pull out. “How would it work?” 

“However-” Shane yawns, snuggling back a bit to press against Ilya more firmly. “However we want, I guess.” 

“Oh, you suddenly do not like details and plans?” Ilya asks wryly. “You? Shane Hollander?” 

“I don’t have a plan,” Shane says, making a noise of protest when Ilya pulls out but going easily when a hand at his hip nudges him to turn over. Ilya pulls away just long enough to dispose of the condom in the waste basket and then returns, settling down again and resting an arm over Shane’s side. 

Shane reaches up and rests a hand on the side of Ilya’s face, thumb stroking softly over his cheekbone. 

“Do you have a plan?” He asks, and his hand moves with the motion when Ilya shakes his head. 

“It can’t happen,” he interrupts Shane when he opens his mouth to protest. “I told you, I wouldn’t be able to go home.” 

“What would they do?” 

“I would rather not find out,” Ilya says flatly. 

“What if you just…didn’t go back?” Shane offers hesitantly. “It doesn’t seem like you-” 

“I have to,” Ilya grits out, his jaw going tense under Shane’s palm. “My father is sick, I have to-” He cuts himself off, eyes shutting, tight. 

“Sick like…cancer?” Shane says on a guess, trying to help, trying to say the hard words so Ilya won’t have to. 

“Dementia,” Ilya says, swallowing hard. “He-blyat.” He starts to pull away, but Shane tugs him forward, tucking his face against his neck, tugging him close to rest against his chest, arms squeezing him tightly. “I’m sorr-” 

“Sh,” Shane soothes, stroking his hand over Ilya’s back, slow and steady. “It’s okay.” 

He feels tears against his neck. 

He says nothing. 

He just holds Ilya tighter. 

*

The first thing Shane does when Ilya walks through his door in Montreal is pull him into a hug, the thing he’s wanted to do since their first phone call while Ilya was in Moscow, hurting and too far away for Shane to do anything about it. He hears the thump when Ilya’s bag hits the floor, narrowly avoiding his foot, Ilya’s arms wrapping around him tightly. He can’t stay tonight–after his grievance leave, brief as it was, Ilya needs to make morning practice even if it’s optional–but they have this, a stretch of a couple of hours.

“Hi,” Ilya says against his neck, face still tucked there, his breath moving over Shane’s skin in a way that kind of gives him goosebumps. Shane smiles, slightly, still holding tight. 

“Hi.” 

“Why do you smell like perfume?” Ilya asks, still not moving away. 

“Rose was over here earlier,” he says. “She hugged me goodbye.” 

Ilya makes a wordless grumbling noise, clearly displeased, and Shane huffs a half-laugh. 

“She wanted to get dinner tonight, and I told her no,” he says. “Don’t be a dick about it or I’ll text her and say I changed my mind.” 

“And then who would suck your dick?” Ilya challenges, nipping at his throat before pulling back. 

“We don’t have to-” He starts, but Ilya makes an impatient noise and backs him up against the wall, sinking to his knees and reaching for Shane’s fly. 

Shane stills his hand, his other going to his jaw, holding it gently. 

“Seriously,” he says, “I know you’ve been through a lot recently, you don’t have to do anythin-” 

“And if I want to?” Ilya challenges, lifting his eyebrows. When Shane still hesitates, holding him in place, Ilya’s expression softens, and he leans forward, lifting up Shane’s shirt enough to press a kiss to the skin of his hip, nuzzling at the joint afterwards. “I don’t want to talk,” he says quietly.  “Okay?” 

“Okay,” Shane says, just as softly, and Ilya glances up, a hint of mischief in his eyes. 

“Now can I suck your cock, or are you going to keep being difficult about it?” 

Shane grins and lets him get to it. He planned to bring up the cottage, to offer Ilya somewhere else to be this summer if he wants it, but it can wait.

After all, he thinks, breath catching, Ilya’s a little busy with something else right now. 

*

“You know you’re not supposed to be looking at your phone.” 

Shane pulls a face at his mom’s voice in the doorway. 

“You know I’m a fully grown adult,” he calls back, resting it against his chest and glancing back at her. 

“A fully grown adult with a concussion,” his mom says with a look. 

If he didn’t think it would give him a headache, he’d roll his eyes. 

“Whoever it is can wait until you’re not playing around with brain damage,” she says. 

“I wasn’t even looking at it that long,” he complains. 

“Who is it you’ve been texting with all day, anyway?” She asks. When he takes just a moment too long to respond, she smiles, slightly. “Ah. Tell him me and your dad say hi?” 

Shane makes a vague noise in response, courageously not picking his phone up again the instant it buzzes, no matter how much he wants to. 

“You know…” His mom starts, and her tone says this is something she’s playing as casual even though it isn’t. “He could come by and see you. If he wants.” 

It’s something Shane wants to a degree that’s almost embarrassing, frankly, Ilya with him, bringing him Tylenol and water, complaining about what Shane wants to watch but letting him have the TV remote anyway. He doesn’t have all of the details he needs to fill in the full picture, but he can make some guesses about Ilya as a nurse based on Ilya as a sex partner. It’s a compelling thought, the idea of curling up in bed, letting himself be coddled in a way that feels less like being a kid and more like being, well…

A partner. 

“I don’t think he can, not right now. His schedule is kind of busy,” Shane says, pretending he doesn’t see the little flicker of disappointment in his mom’s face. 

(And pretending he doesn’t feel a little himself, too.) 

“Well,” his mom says, “if that changes, let him know he’s always welcome, alright?” 

Shane gets the feeling that it’s meant to be a reminder for him, too. He smiles, nodding. 

“I will.” 

Eventually, at least. 

*

“Do they know?” Ilya asks, and Shane glances to him, chewing and swallowing before answering. Nervous about Ilya being here at his cottage with him, he hadn’t actually managed to eat anything before, something that’s making it very hard not to inhale his food in a way that probably isn’t very attractive. 

“About you being here?” Shane asks, reaching over to steal a pickle from Ilya’s plate and grinning when it gets him a dirty look but nothing more. He only did it because it seemed like a thing a couple would do, but he enjoys it enough to go for a second attempt, only for Ilya to see him coming this time. 

“Do it again, and I break your hand, Hollander,” Ilya says, all bark and no bite even with his firm grip on Shane’s hand. “You had chance for more pickles inside. You didn’t take it. Sit in your bad choices and learn for next time.” Custody of his remaining pickle spears assured, he circles back to his original question. “Do your parents know about you?” 

“What about me?” He asks, genuinely thrown. 

“About you being gay?” 

“Yeah,” he says. He’s only officially come out to his mom, but he’d told her it was fine to tell his dad, too, and given the fact that his dad now uses pronouns when he asks about Shane’s mystery partner, he gathers the message was passed along. 

“And they were…good about it?” Ilya asks, and Shane smiles slightly at the care with which it’s asked, Ilya clearly trying to tread carefully around something that might be painful. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, feeling almost shy about it. “They were.” 

“Good,” Ilya says, reaching out and stroking his cheek softly. “I am glad.” 

The softness of the moment serves as the perfect opening to steal another pickle. 

*

“Your parents know about you, but you still did not tell them you were bringing someone with you up here,” Ilya says, breaking the little bubble of peace they managed after his terrible plan of marrying Svetlana.

Apparently, he’s allergic to Shane not being annoyed at him. 

“Does it bother you?” He asks. Ilya shrugs. 

“Your parents do not care if you are with a man, and yet you still told them you are on ‘silent retreat,’” Ilya observes in a painfully neutral tone. 

“Well, yeah,” Shane says, feeling slightly embarrassed now that he's been told it's a bad cover story. “In case it went bad or something.” He nudges Ilya’s feet with his own, toes pressing together, trying to break the tension. “Which it hasn’t, right?” 

Ilya smiles faintly, returning the pressure and escalating to wiggling Shane’s left foot with his right. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “You refused to let me fuck you on your dock today. Very bad manners for a host.” 

Shane rolls his eyes, but he smiles when he does it. He sets his phone down and crawls forward, Ilya anticipating him and tucking himself closer against the back of the sofa, making space as Shane settles next to him, head on his shoulder. 

“Poor baby,” Shane teases. “You only got one blowjob out there, too.” 

“Yes,” Ilya says, seeming satisfied by the pity, fake as it is. “And after I woke you up so nicely this morning.” He playfully nuzzles at Shane’s face, and Shane smiles, angling his chin to turn it into a kiss. He can’t stop smiling even as their lips press together, but he can feel the shape of Ilya’s answering smile, so he gathers he doesn’t mind too much. It’s a long moment before they part, and when they do, Shane just settles down again, head slotting perfectly against Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya’s arm is around his back, hand resting on his hip, and Shane closes his eyes for a moment, enjoying the steady circle of Ilya’s thumb against the skin poking up above his shorts there. 

He could do this forever, he thinks, content, lie here curled up against Ilya in this secret, private little bubble of just them. Even in his little fantasy he amends that they’d have to emerge for hockey, of course, but outside of that? It could be just the two of them, happy and content and together, just like-

Like partners. 

“My parents probably know you’re here with me.” 

“Hm?” The tone of Ilya’s voice says Shane wasn’t the only one wandering in his head. 

“Well, they probably know someone’s here with me,” he amends. 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, sounding amused now. “You are throwing wild parties up here all the time?” 

Even the thought of a party happening inside his cottage makes Shane feel a little sick, but he thinks saying that will get him made fun of. 

“They know I’ve been…seeing someone,” he says, edging carefully around the words. He knows what it feels like, the two of them, what it’s felt like for a while now, but they haven’t actually had a conversation about it. 

“You told them you’re dating someone?” Ilya says, and the insult of him sounding surprised puts a dent in the thrill of him using the verb dating. 

“I mean, not on purpose,” Shane says, shifting back a bit until he can look at Ilya, who tilts his face towards him. “They found my old fake ID-” 

Ilya grins with an amount of delight that makes it almost blinding. 

“You have a fake ID?” He asks, sitting up enough to lean over Shane. “You?” 

“Yeah?” Shane asks, bemused. 

“For what?” Ilya demands, still smiling like Shane has told him the greatest news of his life. 

Shane, though, just tilts his head in confusion. 

“For renting hotel rooms?” He asks, thrown. 

Now it’s Ilya’s turn to look confused. 

“I mean I only needed it a couple of times until I was 21, but-wait, is that why you let me pick the hotels? So I had to get the fake ID?” Now he’s a little annoyed again, frankly. 

“I let you pick the hotels because you like controlling things and I thought it would make you feel better to pick them,” Ilya says. “You had to get fake ID for them?” He sounds almost apologetic, which makes Shane feel slightly appeased. 

“What, you never had to rent a hotel room before you were 21?” Shane asks, sure that can’t be accurate. 

Ilya, though, just shrugs. 

“I usually went back to other person’s place, and on the road, coordinator took care of it. There was no need, usually.” 

“Lucky you,” Shane says dryly. “I thought I was going to get arrested for sure.” 

“Such a rule breaker,” Ilya teases, leaning down and nudging Shane’s jaw up with his nose to kiss along his throat. “Is like I told you, you like being bad.” 

Shane grumbles but doesn’t move, Ilya’s mouth on his throat too good a sensation to lose by shoving him away, even if he’s being annoying. 

“Fake ID,” Ilya says, still sounding delighted. “Shane Hollander with a fake ID. I should tell news.” 

“It’s your fault,” Shane complains. 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, scraping his teeth against sensitive skin in a way that would have Shane getting hard even without the hand that glides down to his thigh, pressing against the muscles there like a cat kneading. 

“Yes,” Shane says, “I only got it so I could see you.” 

Ilya pauses. 

“Oh?” He asks again, and this time the question is softer. He doesn’t lift his head, but Shane moves a hand to sink his fingers through his curls, stroking through them affectionately. 

“I’d do it again,” he confesses, voice quiet. “Even if it kind of made me want to puke because I was so nervous.” 

Ilya huffs a laugh and then sits up. 

“Show me,” he demands. Shane tilts his head in question. “I want to see your illegal fake ID. I need proof.” 

Shane makes a face but gets up, Ilya whining when he does like he’s not the one who asked him to do it in the first place. He pulls it out of the drawer of the table he keeps his wallet and keys on–the place he started keeping it after it fell out at his parents’ place, unwilling to risk it happening again–returning to the couch and folding his legs under him to lean against Ilya as he hands it over. 

“I should confiscate this,” Ilya teases. “Contraband in your pretty rule-following hands?” He tsks. “What would your mother say?”

Shane starts to say a rejoinder on autopilot, stops to consider it-

-and then decides to say it anyway. 

“You could ask her yourself.”

Ilya’s gaze darts over to him, and Shane shrugs, ignoring the part of him that yells about how this could go bad in favor of the way he thinks this could go good. He shifts himself up, straddling Ilya’s lap. 

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he says, moving his hands up until he can cup Ilya’s face between them. God, he thinks he could look at this beautiful, familiar face for a thousand years and never get sick of it. “But we’re-you’re important to me, Ilya.” He strokes a thumb along his jaw. “And I don’t know what the future looks like, but-” He hesitates for just the briefest second, buying himself time by leaning down to kiss Ilya, foreheads pressed together. When he speaks, he keeps his eyes closed. “But I know I want you in it. Whatever happens, whatever we have to do to make it happen. I want a future that has you in it. Always.” 

He feels the motion of the shudder when Ilya’s inhale catches, and then Ilya is a blur of motion, kisses pressed to his shoulder, his neck, his jaw, words whispered in Russian pressed into his skin. When Ilya pulls back just a bit, Shane sways forward, feeling almost dizzy under the onslaught of so much affection. He cups Shane’s cheek with his hand when he speaks. 

“I love you.” 

Well that has Shane sober again quickly. 

“Holy shit.” 

“I-I mean-” Ilya starts, clearly about to backpedal, and Shane speaks before he gets the chance. 

“I love you, too.” 

Ilya’s face crumples, and he hides it against Shane’s throat. 

“Fuck, Hollander.” 

“Fuck,” Shane agrees, cradling him close, squeezing him so tight it has to almost be painful. “I love you so fucking much.” 

They stay together on the couch for a long, long time. 

*

“You are sure about this?” 

The question is a fair one given the fact that they’ve now been sitting in his parents’ driveway for–he glances at the clock on the dashboard–thirteen minutes. 

“Yep,” he says. 

A warm, gentle hand closes over his, fingers gently pulling at his until he’s forced to release his white-knuckle grip on the wheel. Ilya pulls his hand towards him, kissing the back of it and then resting it against his leg, held in both of his. 

“We don’t have to,” Ilya says, voice soft. “Is your choice, Shane. You can text them, say I was sick or something and we can’t make it.” 

Ironically, it’s the offer of letting him bail that makes Shane’s stomach unclench, the complete sincerity he can hear in the offer. Ilya will let him do it, take the fall as the person who stopped this planned dinner from happening. He’ll let Shane throw the car in reverse and take them right back to the cottage, where they can curl back up in their bubble. Ilya will let himself stay a secret, just because it would be easier on Shane. 

His chest is so full of love for him that he almost can’t breathe around it. 

“Okay,” Shane says, releasing his breath in one rush of air and then nodding to himself. “Let’s go.” 

“Shane-” Ilya starts, but Shane leans over the console and kisses him, just once, a quick press of lips. 

“I want them to meet you,” he says. “I want them to meet the person I love.” 

Ilya’s expression is so soft, so warm, that Shane almost says fuck it to this dinner for reasons that are less about nerves and more about how badly Shane needs to find a deserted service road and fuck Ilya until he can’t see straight. When Ilya unbuckles his seatbelt, though–and Shane is newly filled with a surge of fondness when he realizes he stayed buckled to make sure Shane wouldn’t feel pressured–Shane follows, rounding the car and extending his hand to Ilya. 

Ilya takes it without hesitation. 

“Alright,” he says, collecting one more kiss for good luck. “Let’s go.” 

They walk to the door hand in hand.