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“Hey buddy, we’re back with your pa –”
Hayden stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway of Shane’s hospital room as he saw Ilya Rozanov hunched over Shane’s bed, saying something to him that he couldn’t hear. Rozanov straightened up immediately as he noticed Hayden, standing up so quickly that he would’ve been worried a little for the integrity of his back had it been anyone other than Rozanov.
JJ bumped into Hayden as he stopped in the doorway, frozen by the sight of their arch nemesis.
“Whoa, Pike,” JJ exclaimed. “Why are you just standing in the door –”
JJ froze in place too, able to see Rozanov and Shane over Hayden’s head. The three of them stood there, frozen in place and staring back at one another for an eternity, all of them unsure of how to proceed. Rozanov looked, for the first time Hayden had seen, entirely unsure of what to do, how to get himself out of this situation. Naturally, Shane, who was hopped up on painkillers and not in his right mind, broke the silence.
“Oh, hiiii Hayden, hiiii JJ!” he said dreamily. Somehow it seemed that he’d just noticed the two of them were there.
“Hi, Shane. Your…parents are here,” Hayden replied, confused.
“Oh, good! I love Mom and Dad, they’re the best.”
Rozanov seemed to stiffen even further at the mention of Yuna and David, if that were even possible. Hayden supposed that made sense; even though Rozanov was an asshole on and off the ice to every player he could get his hands on, he’d never said anything bad about someone’s family, not that he could remember. Maybe he had some respect, after all, and didn’t think he could not be an asshole for long enough to avoid offending Shane’s parents.
“I…I should go,” Rozanov said. He looked more panicked than Hayden had ever seen him.
“Not before you tell us what the fuck you were doing in here with Hollander,” JJ spat back.
“JJ, why are you standing in the hallway?” came Yuna’s voice from somewhere behind Hayden.
The color drained from Rozanov’s face even further as he heard Yuna’s voice, undoubtedly making the correct assumption that it was Shane’s mother. He and JJ could’ve stepped aside to let him out, but JJ had a good point; what was he doing in here with Shane before they arrived?
So that’s how Hayden found himself in Shane’s hospital room with Rozanov, JJ, and Shane’s parents, Yuna and David. Shane seemed to have managed to fall asleep despite all of the commotion, his eyes shut like he hadn’t a care in the world, like he didn’t have a concussion and broken collarbone and his archrival wasn’t currently in the room with him. Hayden was thankful for whatever painkillers they had him on to allow him to sleep so soundly.
Rozanov was glancing between the four of them, the doorway, and the single window in the room, his body language guarded. Maybe he was trying to figure out if he could jump out the window and survive a fall from the fourth floor, since they were actively blocking his only other exit out of the room.
“So, you are going to tell us, yes?” JJ said through gritted teeth. “What you were doing with Hollander.”
“I was…checking in on him,” Rozanov replied. “Marlow feels really bad, he did not mean to hurt Shane. I don’t want him to worry either. At least I can tell him that I saw Shane is okay.”
Objectively, everything that Rozanov just said made sense. It was common for Captains to visit players in the hospital when they’re injured by one of their teammates, and he’d visited alone so as not to cause a scene. With a hit like that, it made sense that Marlow would be worried about Shane, and that Rozanov would need to speak with Shane to make sure that everything was okay.
But somehow, none of this sounded convincing to Hayden. Maybe it was the pallor of his skin, the way he’d looked like he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Hayden hadn’t known Rozanov to be a bad liar, and yet it sounded like he was lying through his teeth as he explained why he was here. So what the hell reason could he possibly be hiding that was causing him to be so sheepish? It was so uncharacteristic of him that Hayden was getting a little weirded out.
“So that’s why you were practically whispering in his ear, earlier?” JJ pointed out, his tone sharp.
“What?” Yuna asked, obviously surprised.
“Yeah, when I first walked in, Rozanov was…hunched over Shane,” Hayden explained. “It looked like he was saying something, but I couldn’t hear.”
Rozanov bit his lip, a nervous tic that looked weirdly wrong on him. He could talk reporters’ ears off, full of charisma and wit, coming up with quips on the fly that Hayden couldn’t think of in a million years, all in his second language without blinking an eye. And yet here, standing in front of two of Shane’s teammates and his parents, he looked lost for words.
Hayden felt a dark thought form in the back of his mind. Had Rozanov done something so bad, so outlandish, that even he was nervous to admit it? Shane didn’t look any worse for wear, not that he looked great exactly with the bruising across his face and his arm in a sling, but…maybe Rozanov had somehow taken advantage of his drugged up state?
“I did not want to disturb Hollander,” Rozanov explained. “Loud noises, making him have to speak loudly. Would not be good to…for him to listen to loud sounds.”
This was getting weirder and weirder. Rozanov’s English seemed to be getting…worse? His accent was coming through more strongly than earlier and his speech was even more stilted than it usually was. And he seemed to have forgotten a word in the middle of that sentence, pivoting to an explanation that didn’t quite make sense.
“Bullshit,” JJ spat out. “You really think we would believe that? Are you always this bad at lying off the ice, Rozanov?”
“JJ, please,” Yuna implored. “I…don’t like this either, but you can’t cause a scene.”
JJ took a step towards Rozanov, unfortunately seemingly intent on causing a scene despite Yuna’s wishes.
“You will tell us,” JJ said, getting right in Rozanov’s face, “or I will make you glad that you’re already in the hospital.”
Hayden braced himself for this situation to get out of hand, for Rozanov to fly off the handle and call JJ’s bluff right in this cramped hospital room. He should probably help, get in between them so that things wouldn’t get any worse, but he was still frozen looking at Rozanov's face flit through a number of expressions he’d never seen from the man.
Rozanov allowed himself to be backed into the wall next to the head of Shane’s bed, his eyes focused on JJ but lacking any of the heat that Hayden expected from being challenged so blatantly. He kept looking back at Shane.
“I can’t,” Rozanov said, his voice small. “Shane would not like it. And I do not want to upset him.”
“Don’t you fucking blame Shane for this, asshole!” JJ growled.
“JJ, please,” Hayden finally managed.
JJ whipped his head around to look at Hayden. “You are taking his side?! You believe this fucker’s excuses?”
“No, JJ. I just don’t want you to cause a fight while Shane is in the hospital. In Shane’s room in the hospital.” Even though Hayden got the feeling that Rozanov wasn’t interested in fighting, either.
“Let’s all just settle down, okay?” David said. “Shane is safe and…Mr. Rozanov here probably needs to get going, right?”
“Yes, Mr. Rozanov probably has somewhere to be,” Yuna added, obviously trying to get Rozanov out of this room and away from her son.
JJ let out a huff of air in frustration but moved to the side, gesturing for Rozanov to pass. Rozanov stole another glance at Shane before pushing off the wall and walking towards the door, Hayden and Shane’s parents making way for the large Russian. He stopped for a second midway as if he had something to say, then shook his head slightly and continued walking.
“Thank you,” Rozanov said, turning back towards them in the doorway. “For…letting me make sure he was okay. I…Marlow will be glad to know.”
“We…appreciate the sportsmanship, Rozanov,” Yuna said stiffly.
Rozanov nodded curtly then turned to leave. Huh. Was that a sniffle?
“Rozanov?” floated Shane’s voice from the bed.
Hayden turned to look at Shane, who must’ve been woken up by the near-altercation. He still looked woozy, but his eyes were definitely open, scanning the room for something.
“Yes, Mr. Rozanov was just leaving,” Yuna said, a bit forcefully, as if telling Rozanov to get out.
“Why?” Shane asked, his head slightly cocked.
Yuna’s mouth opened and closed a few times, obviously stricken by Shane’s question. “Um. He just wanted to make sure that you weren’t hurt too badly, sweetie. Captain’s duties, right?”
“Oh.”
Yuna and Hayden simultaneously sucked in a breath as they saw Shane’s eyes start to get glassy, tears beading up like they did when he was trying not to cry. What the hell? What in the world had Rozanov done to him to make him react like that, to make him cry? Hayden had never seen Shane cry before, not when he’d won awards nor when he’d lost them. He knew he was high on painkillers, but even still…
“Oh sweetie, what’s wrong?” Yuna cooed, rushing to his side. “Are you in pain? Should we get a nurse or doctor?”
“Ilya doesn’t want to stay?” Shane asked, completely ignoring Yuna’s question.
What. Ilya? Since when was Shane on a first-name basis with Rozanov, much less willing to use it in front of him and JJ? Hayden exchanged a look with JJ, who seemed to be thinking the same thing, sporting a bewildered expression that was probably very similar to whatever Hayden was doing with his own face.
“Um. I don’t –” Yuna starts.
Shane’s eyes flicked over to the doorway, where apparently Rozanov was still standing, looking upon this scene with something between horror and barely-concealed panic. He was standing so stiffly again that Hayden was a little worried something might be wrong with him. A little bit, anyway. It was still Rozanov, after all.
“Oh! Ilyaaaaa,” Shane drawled, reaching out with his good hand and making grabby hands like he was a toddler.
“Hollander. You are not - you are not in right mind, now,” Rozanov said. “Please, just.”
Ilya gestured vaguely, like he didn’t even know what he wanted Shane to do. Just, not whatever the hell was going on right now, apparently. Which was something Hayden could agree with Rozanov on; things were getting weirder and weirder.
Shane pouted, which looked sickeningly childlike with the way his eyes still glistened with unshed tears.
“Why are you calling me Hollander?” Shane asked, like it was a great affront to him for Rozanov to call him that. “I like it when you call me Shane.”
Hayden couldn’t help but gape at Shane. He was calling Rozanov by his first name, and Rozanov had at some point in the past called him by his first name, too? And he liked it? What the hell was that supposed to mean? JJ was looking across the room at Rozanov like he was trying to blow him up with his mind, which, fair.
“Holla –” Rozanov stopped himself, as if sensing that Shane might not respond to him if he referred to him by his last name. “Shane. You…you should rest. Your best friends and parents are here, I do not need to be here.”
Hayden didn’t like how easily Shane’s name came out of Rozanov’s mouth. Even if it was just one syllable, and a very simple one at that, somehow it just seemed wrong to him that Rozanov could so easily say ‘Shane’ without having to add ‘Hollander’ after it, like he might during a press conference.
“But I want you here,” Shane whined. “Please?”
The way Shane said that last word was so sickly sweet that Hayden briefly thought he’d blacked out and hallucinated it. He might’ve even believed that to be that case if it weren’t for Rozanov, who took a deep breath before walking back into the room and placing himself next to Shane’s bed, opposite from where JJ was still standing.
He didn’t reach out for Shane, standing there awkwardly with his arms stiffly at his sides. But Shane used his good arm to whack Rozanov until he relented, gingerly extending one of his hands. Shane grabbed it without hesitation and brought it to his chest.
“Yes. Better,” he said, almost a whisper. A deeply satisfied look spread across his face, his eyes closed. It unsettled something inside Hayden that Rozanov knew what Shane wanted without having to be told directly.
“Would someone please tell me what in the world is going on,” Yuna abruptly said, her exasperation finally winning over her confusion.
“All of my favorite people are here!” Shane replied brightly. “Well, except Rose. But she’s shooting something allll the way in LA right now.”
That statement alone made far too many questions run through Hayden’s head at once, so he decided to latch onto the one that he was sure had an easier answer.
“Shit, Rose,” Hayden breathed. “Has anyone told her how Shane’s doing?”
“No. Shane never gave us her contact info,” Yuna replied, a slight edge to her voice.
“She’s a famous movie star! I can’t just give her info out to anyone, Mom,” Shane said, justifying his decision. Even though he wasn’t quite in his right mind, Hayden wouldn’t have been surprised if that was actually the reason why he hadn’t given his parents her contact.
“But you want her to know how you are doing, don’t you?” JJ asked. “I mean, you two are…dating?”
“Nope,” Shane replied simply, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis.
“You’re not…dating,” David said flatly, evidently news to him, too.
Shane shook his head, before immediately wincing at the pain the motion caused him. Hayden couldn’t help but notice that he still hadn’t let go of Rozanov’s hand. It didn’t even look like Rozanov was reciprocating the grasp; Shane was just holding onto his hand like a safety blanket. When Hayden looked up from at him he looked like he was dissociating, his stare unfocused into the floor next to him. He caught Hayden’s eye, his face dropping into a mild scowl, but it was still far from what he was used to seeing on the ice.
“You dumped Rose Landry!?” JJ asked, eyes wide. “After the trouble I went through to get you to that party, Capitaine!”
“She dumped me, JJ,” Shane clarified, sounding oddly nonplussed about it. “Because we aren’t com-pa-ti-ble.”
Shane angled his head slightly towards Rozanov as he sounded out each syllable of the word, then beamed at him. Hayden wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Shane smile like that. He felt the pit in his stomach grow deeper as he realized he was witnessing some kind of inside joke between the two of them, something that added onto this increasing suggestion of familiarity that nobody had known about until now.
“You weren’t. Compatible?” Yuna asked flatly. “But you and Rose…you get along so well with one another. Or, at least, I thought so.”
“Don’t the two of you still talk all the time?” David added.
“Yes! She’s so nice,” Shane said happily. “But we just…we just don’t really, um. It’s just that I…”
Shane scrunched his face as he tried to find the right words. Hayden couldn’t possibly imagine what the problem could be if Shane liked Rose so much.
“Shane, maybe you should not…” Rozanov cautioned, speaking for the first time in a while.
Shane looked at him with a confused expression, before the meaning of his warning dawned on him. “Oh, right. They don’t know that!”
Everyone exchanged looks with one another, except for Rozanov, who was actively avoiding looking anyone in the eye. Because now they had just found out that Shane seemed to share a secret with Rozanov that nobody else knew, not even his parents. And there was only so much that could happen on the ice that Hayden or JJ could possibly miss. What the hell is going on here?
“We don’t know what, exactly?” Yuna asked.
“Rose is a round hole and I’m a square ho–” Shane replied, before Rozanov quickly covered his mouth with his free hand, nearly slapping him.
“Shane. No, don’t - that is gross,” Rozanov chided.
Shane rolled his eyes and Rozanov removed his hand, which turned out to be a mistake on his part.
“But Ilyaaaa, I can’t just tell them that I’m gay!”
Rozanov sucked in a sharp breath and moved his free hand to scrub over his own face, his fingers digging into his cheeks, then closed his eyes before letting out a huff of air. Hayden just blinked lamely at the scene, Rozanov exasperated as Shane looked at him with something that he was now thinking was a little more than just friendly affection. He glanced up at JJ, who looked like he was still processing; Hayden was worried his brain might be actively rejecting the information. To his right, Yuna and David had eerily similar expressions of shock on their faces. So, nobody knew.
Nobody except for Ilya fucking Rozanov, apparently.
It took a second of looking at Rozanov’s reaction for Shane to realize what he’d just done, admitted out into the open.
“Oh, oops!” he said, unperturbed. He turned back to the rest of the room. “But you can’t tell anyone, okay? It’s a secret. Shhhh.”
Hayden wanted to call the nurse and see if they could put Shane on something stronger that would just knock him out. Because if Shane didn’t look like he was at all worried about exposing this apparent ‘secret’ that almost nobody knew, there was no telling what else he might say in his current state. And how Hayden (and possibly JJ, if his expression ever shifted back to something other than confusion) were going to have to break the news to him once he was sober that he’d done so. Then probably console him once he freaked out about it.
“Shane, you’re…gay?” Yuna asked, clearly shocked but trying her best not to show it. To be fair, Shane probably wouldn’t notice the shakiness in her voice at the moment.
“Yeah! But don’t tell anyone, okay?” Shane affirmed.
“And…Mr. Rozanov here, already knew that?” David asked, his line of thought perfectly in step with his wife’s.
“Of course, because we’re, um,”
“Shane,” Rozanov said through gritted teeth.
“Lovers! We’re lovers.”
“Oh!” Was all Yuna could say.
It felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room, Hayden and everyone else having just been sucker punched with a one-two combo. Hayden wanted to lie down. He wanted to call Jackie. He wanted to punch a wall. He wanted to jump out the window like Rozanov seemed to be considering earlier. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do something that would make all of this go away like a dream or convince him that it was actually real and was happening.
“But you hate him,” Yuna said, almost unconsciously.
“I get that, I do,” Shane conceded. “But actually, I kind of love him.” Shane’s voice got dreamy as he said the word ‘love’, which seemed like confirmation on its own.
“Only kind of?” Rozanov said gently, which was an entirely different kind of confirmation that Hayden wasn’t expecting or ready for.
Shane pouted once again. “You can’t be mean to me Ilya, I’m injured.”
“You know I am asshole.”
Hayden couldn’t help but feel like he heard an unspoken ‘and you like it’ behind Rozanov’s words. He didn’t like this, seeing Shane and Rozanov so friendly with one another, regardless of the apparent admission that they were in love with each other, or something. He suddenly found himself getting angry, his mind jumping to far too many conclusions to let them all stay put.
“What’s your angle, Rozanov?” Hayden spat out, before he could think.
The tenderness in Rozanov’s face dropped off so quickly as he turned to face him that it looked like he’d put a mask on.
“Angle? What is angle, Pike?” Rozanov shot back, his tone implying that he knew exactly what Hayden was getting at, but he wanted to hear it in plain language.
“What’re you trying to get out of him, out of Shane?”
Rozanov’s lips curved up into a wry smile that Hayden recognized, finally something he’d seen before. “I don’t think you want to know what I get out of Shane, Pike.”
If it weren’t bad enough that Rozanov was saying something like that in front of Shane’s parents, Shane let out a giggle! Hayden knew that his best friend wasn’t in his right mind, but he felt like he was going crazy. He took a step forward towards Rozanov, trying to ignore the part of his brain that had told JJ to knock it off only a few minutes ago.
“Hayden, son, please don’t,” said David. “I know this is…a lot to take in, but let’s not do that here, right?” He shot a look over at JJ, who looked similarly restless.
“I mean, it’s hard to blame him, isn’t it?” Yuna said.
“Yuna, what…?”
“I just mean, Rozanov’s so…he’s so…” she stammered, looking back and forth. “Do you really think he’s a good influence on our son? I mean, the partying, the shit-talking, all the women - oh, shit, the women, David!”
“Ilya likes both,” Shane said simply.
“Which means that he could leave you for a woman any time, Hollander!” JJ said.
Hayden thought JJ’s assessment was pretty extreme, but he couldn’t say that he blamed him, or disagreed with him. What was stopping Rozanov from just leaving Shane for a woman, a partner that wouldn’t require the difficulty of both of them coming out? There was only one answer that Hayden could think of, and it seemed so outlandish that he scrapped it from his mind almost immediately.
“I have to agree, buddy,” Hayden said. “I’m sure…Rozanov, has treated you well enough until now, but do you actually think that he’s what’s best, in the long run?”
“I’m sure there are other nice men in Montreal,” Yuna said, trying to sound comforting.
“I could help with that,” JJ added. “I meet many gay men when I go out, so I could introduce you to some.”
David looked conflicted. Maybe he agreed with what everyone was saying but didn’t want to dogpile on Rozanov, or perhaps, not on Shane. It’s not like his choice of man really reflected all that badly on him, but it couldn’t feel good to have your two best friends and mother telling you to break up with him. Hayden felt a little guilty, like he maybe should’ve held his tongue like David was doing.
Rozanov, for his part, looked conflicted, too. He looked almost resigned, actually, like he’d been thinking the same thing. Given his track record so far today, he probably didn’t want to go against Yuna’s wishes, regardless.
Right on cue, Shane began to sniffle, his eyes glistening with tears once again. Before long, he let out a soft sob, tears beginning to run down his cheeks. Hayden cursed himself internally for jumping on Shane’s back like that when he was in such a vulnerable state.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry,” Yuna said, rubbing a hand over Shane’s cheek. “We shouldn’t have done that, not when you’re in the hospital.”
“Even though it’s true,” JJ muttered.
“Why do you hate him?” Shane managed, through sobs.
Yuna looked taken aback, but she knew she couldn’t leave that question alone. “Well, he’s…Rozanov. Your rival, infamous asshole, well-known womanizer…” She looked at Rozanov, as if remembering that he was still there. “Oh, sorry. Um, no offense.”
Rozanov’s face was unreadable, but his jaw was clenched tightly.
“But Mom, you don’t know him,” Shane whined.
“And you…do?”
“Of course I do, I love him.”
The room was silent for a second as everyone processed that Shane had told them he loved Rozanov for the second time, this time even more unabashedly than the first. Rozanov still hadn’t said those words, Hayden noticed, and he was getting increasingly worried that Shane was being led on.
“Why don’t you tell us then, son?” David said. “Tell us about…Ilya.”
Hayden looked at David, who was looking at Shane with softness and understanding. He still hadn’t really looked at Rozanov, whose hand Shane had still not let go of, but he seemed to be willing to give the man a chance. It made sense, really; Yuna was the one who was overly invested in hockey for Shane’s sake. David kept up, of course, and was more than intelligent and attentive enough to chip in his own thoughts, but for the most part he just seemed to be happy to support whatever Shane and Yuna wanted. If anyone was going to approach this from an objective angle, unfettered by the Rozanov that they all knew from the ice, it was going to be him.
Shane settled into the bed, seeming to sink a little bit deeper as he took a breath and tried to think of what to say, still addled by the drugs he was on. But as he looked back at Rozanov, his face morphed into something painfully sweet and tender. The words that came out were slow and still a little slurred, but intentional.
“Ilya is…he’s so kind,” Shane began. “He’s always so good to me. Even from our first time together, when I was…scared. He’s never made me feel like I had to pretend, like I had to be someone that I’m not. He knows how to make me feel like I’m Shane, not Hollander.”
Hayden felt a pang of guilt at that last statement. Was he implying that Rozanov was the only person who made him feel that way? He looked over at Yuna, who looked contemplative, stricken. Tears began to well up in Shane’s eyes once again, but this time they weren’t sad. Shane had such a goofy expression on his face, but he was looking right at Rozanov like he was the only thing that mattered in the world.
“He…he made us tuna melts. And he had ginger ale for me. But then I ran away. And I know he was mad at me for it but, he still loves me.”
Rozanov’s breathing had gotten a little unsteady, and when Hayden looked over, he was surprised to see a similar look of fondness on his face, his eyes wet with tears.
“And he gives so much to everyone. He loves his family so much, even though they’re so hard on him. Then when his dad died, and he was alone in Russia, he trusted me. He called me first, because he wanted to talk to me, and I was so happy that he did.”
Hayden realized that he was there when that happened. That night, when Shane’s phone had rang and he’d run out of the room with even less of an excuse than he normally did. Hayden had just assumed that it was Boston Lily calling -
“Holy shit,” Hayden said. “He’s Lily, isn’t he?”
“No fucking way…” JJ whispered.
Shane nodded, barely. “Yeah. He’s my Lily.”
“Wait, Lily? Who’s Lily?” Yuna asked.
“I put fake names in our phones,” Rozanov said, giving Hayden a jolt of surprise with how quiet he’d been. “When we first started talking. So that maybe we wouldn’t be caught.”
“But then that means…Shane, it’s been years?” Hayden asked.
“Years?” David asked, now looking much more concerned than before.
“Yeah…I don’t even remember when I first noticed him texting a ‘Lily’, but it has to have been at least since…2014? 2013?”
Yuna and David looked at each other, surprise written all over their faces. Yuna’s eyebrows had seemed to rise farther and farther up her face throughout this whole conversation-slash-confession, and now if they went any farther they might slip off her face entirely.
“No, before that. The first time was the CCM shoot,” Shane corrected matter-of-factly, as if it weren’t an absolutely massive revelation.
Yuna’s head whipped right back to Shane. “But that’s - that’s before your rookie season.” She looked up at Rozanov, perhaps hoping that he would tell her that Shane’s wrong, that he’s gotten this timeline mixed up in his drug-induced haze.
“He is right,” Rozanov said. “But we did not exchange numbers until a few months later.”
Hayden watched the gears in Yuna’s head turn at that statement, like the hockey encyclopedia she was, trying to put together the timeline.
“Oh, wow. The All-Star Game?” Yuna offered. Rozanov nodded. “You…you waited that long?”
“Yes. Even before I knew that I loved him, I couldn’t stay away forever.”
Ah. There it was, what Hayden had been waiting and…hoping for? Dreading? He still wasn’t sure. But maybe Rozanov loving Shane back would at least be less bad than Shane being hopelessly in love with someone who didn’t love him back.
“So you do, you love him?” Yuna asked, glancing at David for support.
Rozanov looked back down at Shane, who seemed to be flagging a bit now that he wasn’t the one who was expected to fill the conversation with his confession. His eyes were lidded, unsteadily focused on Rozanov. Rozanov’s face became nearly unrecognizable right before their eyes, the sharp edges of his public persona falling away to reveal the soft core underneath. He looked brighter, younger, maybe even peaceful.
“Of course,” he said. He bent over, planting a soft kiss on Shane’s forehead. “I love you, Shane. I hope you will still feel the same after all of this.”
Shane’s eyes flew back open, and he tried to reach his good arm over Rozanov’s shoulder, finally letting go of his hand. He moved to lean on his bad shoulder, which Rozanov immediately noticed, gently pushing him back down onto the bed and meeting Shane’s lips with his own in a way that didn’t require Shane to get up. Suddenly Hayden felt like he was intruding, even though the kiss was hardly sexual. It just felt far too intimate, like their world had shrunk around them to nothing but the bed Shane was lying on.
“You said you loved me,” Shane said breathily.
“Is not the first time, sweetheart,” Ilya replied. He stiffened for a second as the pet name slipped out, then seemed to relax once nobody objected.
“What? You’ve never said that before.”
Rozanov looked a little sheepish, a rare blush creeping into his cheeks. “I did, in Russian. When I called you from Moscow. I was too afraid to say it in English then, but now,” he glanced up at the audience watching this exchange, “I was more afraid of losing you.”
“That’s not fair,” Shane whined, absolutely shattering the tender moment they were having. “You don’t get to say that you said it first. I didn’t understand it the first time!”
“You really have to be competitive about everything, Hollander?”
Shane smacked the back of Rozanov’s head with his good arm. “Don’t call me Hollander, Rozanov.”
JJ walked over to Hayden as the two of them continued to lovingly bicker, slinging his arm around Hayden’s back.
“We will really have to work on not hating Rozanov, won’t we?” he said.
“I think we can still hate Rozanov,” Hayden replied. “But not Ilya.”
Hayden looked over to Yuna and David, who were arm in arm as they looked upon Shane and Roz - Ilya bickering. It looked like they’d come to the same conclusion that he and JJ just had.
Even if he couldn’t wrap his mind around Shane loving Ilya and Ilya loving him back, it was clear that there was something there. In the span of about 15 seconds they’d managed to forget that anyone other than the two of them were in the room again, with Ilya now ribbing Shane about his diet. Hayden had done the same in the past, but Shane never reacted like this, drugs notwithstanding. He looked…happy, carefree. When earlier, before Ilya had arrived, Shane had still had a tightness to him, hyper-aware of himself as much as he could be through the painkillers. But now, as he let loose a laugh loud enough that it must’ve hurt his own head, Ilya had unwound all that tension and cast it away in mere moments.
Yeah, they were definitely going to have to figure out how to not hate Ilya Rozanov.