Chapter Text
Shane didn’t realize he wasn’t wearing his shirt it until he was back at the hotel. Actually, he didn’t realize he wasn’t wearing his shirt until he was packing for the rink. It took everything in Shane not to rip it off while Hayden was packing beside him. He’d been so overwhelmed when he returned to the room he could barely string more than two words together. It was the furthest from aware of his body that he’d been in a while, possibly years. But that was what Ilya did to him. He let him unwind. He let him loose control.
The shirt still smelled like him. That was maybe the worst part. Or the best part. That was still up in the air. It was a part, definitely. Ilya smelled nice. He smelled like sweat and salt mixed with bergamot and sandalwood. His natural smell wasn’t bad, it was frustratingly sexy, actually, but he also cleaned up nice. Shane had a theory that Ilya was spending a lot more on body wash, lotion and cologne than he’d ever admit to. He was sure that Ilya hadn’t noticed that Shane had noticed. Shane had been waiting, actually, for Ilya to make another comment about his shoes or his clothes or his boringness to bring up the hefty price Ilya was likely dropping on travel sized top-shelf toiletries, but he hadn’t found the right moment.
Shane cradled the shirt in his hands like it was his grandmother’s pearls. Like it was priceless. Like it was something from a different time. Like it was the last of something.
But it wasn’t supposed to be anything.
Shane had been swearing to himself that that was a release was all they were. It was all it could be. They were like a valve for each other. Tempering the pressure. Shane slept better after. Ilya seemed sharper after. They both played better after, that was just a fact. It was a way have semi-regular sex and still have the lives they both fought tooth and nail for. That’s what this was.
Or at least, that was what Shane said to himself. That was the lie he clung to when he found himself wondering what Ilya was doing during the summer. When he grew disappointed if the camera panned away from him during a game. When a wave of jealousy washed over him if a teammate mentioned that the Raiders were spotted at a club. They didn’t need to mention Ilya for Shane to know he was there, and that he was with someone. The mere concept of it churned his stomach.
Those weren’t thoughts you were supposed to have about… about whatever it was that they were.
And Shane had nearly convinced himself that it was true. And then Shane was in his house. He was on his couch. He was eating his food. And Ilya was saying his name. And Shane was saying his. Not Hollander. Not Rozanoff. Not Holly or Roz.
Shane and Ilya.
And Shane and Ilya and the years of texting and hotel rooms and apartments and secrets that had piled up all came crashing down.
Because Shane and Ilya couldn’t be Shane and Ilya. They couldn’t be Shane and Ilya and be captains. They couldn’t be anything and be anything. They were both so close, too close. Shane was achieving everything he’d ever set out to achieve. Ilya, he knew, felt the same. It was the two of them at the top. They’d climbed here together, and they were going to stay up there together. That didn’t include this. It couldn’t.
And Shane knew that. Hockey would be first, always. But leaving Ilya’s house felt like leaving a piece of his heart on the floor. It was a pit in his stomach and a shake in his hands. And for the first time in a long time, hockey was out of reach.
Hayden had to remind him, more than once, that it was nearly time to go. That had never happened before, not once. Shane didn’t have the strength to explain why packing for the rink, a thing he could do in his sleep, was taking him fifteen extra minutes. He didn’t have the strength to explain it to himself. All he knew was that he’d ended it, he’d done the thing he kept telling himself to do, and it felt awful. It felt worse than he could’ve ever imagined.
All he knew was that he really, really liked the way Ilya’s accent changed his name. How he swallowed the ’s’ and lengthened the ‘a.’ All he knew was that he wanted to say Ilya’s again. That he wanted to look up the proper Russian pronunciation and practice so that he could say it the way his parents had intended.
But none of that could happen. None of it would.
Shane should’ve left the t-shirt. It could be chalked up to an innocent mistake, something that happened all the time to players. When you traveled as much as they did, you were bound to leave something behind.
But Shane didn’t toss it. He folded it and placed it neatly at the bottom of his bag.
Because really, if he really thought about it, it was just a shirt. Just like how Shane and Ilya were just… whatever they used to do.