Chapter Text
When Shane bought his secret sex building, he intended to rent the apartments out. Really, he did.
Then several years went by with only the one apartment—his—being finished.
He’s busy, okay? It’s not like he feels good about hoarding empty places when there’s a homelessness problem, but he only has two weeks off in a year. He likes to spend them doing other things that aren’t just more work.
Like other things in his life, he could ask his Mom to help him get things set up. Being half-retired, she’s got the time and energy to do it… but she doesn’t know anything about the place, and he wants to keep it that way for as long as possible.
It’s on Shane, then. Every once in a while, he thinks about it, calling up one of his real estate contacts and asking what needs to be done. He just never has the time—he’s either on a plane, or working out, or hanging out with the Pikes, or taking every chance he can find to be with Rozanov. So nothing ever happens…
…until the summer of 2017.
Having Ilya with him in the cottage is a revelation. Shane feels different, once Ilya has gone. Simultaneously looser, happier, and more morose than he’s ever been. He got a taste of domesticity and he doesn’t want to lose it.
They call all the time after Ilya goes. Neither of them can bear to be without the other for long, glued together by all of the clinginess and emotions leftover from their confessions and time spent in each other’s presence.
It’s Ilya who brings it up. He’s in his kitchen, making himself some kind of soup that Shane is already searching for recipes of—it’s called rassolnik. Leaning with one hip against the counter, he asks, “What about your sex dungeon?”
“I don’t have a sex dungeon,” Shane says, both grossed out and intrigued by the idea. He’s also distracted by the website he’s looking at, which has about 15 ads for hot single Russians in your area. The only hot, no-longer-single Russian he wants is currently a flight away, so it’s not very amusing.
“The apartment, moy lyubov,” Ilya replies, fondness sheathed in annoyance. He slurps loudly, laughing when Shane makes a face at him over their video call. “What will you do with the apartment?”
“Sell it, maybe.”
He doesn’t love the idea, not when there are so many memories of that place. They can’t keep the hotel rooms, can’t keep a hold on anything that happened there.
But he can keep the apartment. The first place they had sex. The first place they could relax together for real. It means something to him.
Looking at his boyfriend on the phone screen, a content look on his face, Shane isn't sure he wants to say all of that out loud yet. It's a little intense, and he hasn't learned yet where that line is.
“Ilya,” he says, loving the taste on his tongue no matter how many times he's said it now. He’ll never get tired of saying Ilya’s name. “Is there really kidneys in that?”
“Yes. Is good.” And when Shane looks incredulous, he says, “It is! I will make you some next time. You’ll see.”
Their conversation moves on from there, but Shane doesn’t forget about it so easily. He still hasn’t decided if he’s going to sell it, because it’s kind of weird to have three properties, two in the same city, right? Sentimentality is nice, but it embarrasses him too, thinking maybe Ilya wouldn’t care as much as he does about it.
He does a lot of research. About Montreal and the prices of apartments, how there’s housing crises all over the world, and how landlords are the scum of the earth. He reads the horror stories, reads what other landlords have to say and finds them all slimy and useless.
If Shane had renters, he thinks, he would never be like that. He would be a good one.
Ilya listens to all of this with a proud look in his eyes that makes Shane feel oddly shy.
“You take Mr. Landlord to heart,” he teases. Already in bed, he looks so soft and sweet and too far away.
“Yeah, I-I guess. I’ve just been hoarding these apartments for years and I guess I feel like I need to make up for it, or something.”
Ilya tells him he doesn’t and he’s thinking too much. But Ilya also blinks at him, sleepy, and says, “You would be good landlord. Olympic medal winner landlord. Very sexy landlord.”
It makes Shane’s cheeks go hot. How does this guy still make him blush after seven years?
“Shut up,” he grumbles, hiding his pleased smile in the neckline of Ilya’s hoodie.
Talking with his boyfriend helps him decide much quicker than he would have on his own. He’s on a reduced schedule right now, since no one knew for sure when he’d be healed enough to get back to training. He has another week and a half before he’s got to go back to Montreal.
It’s not a lot of time before he has to get back into it, but—it’s enough to call an agent he knows and get the ball rolling.
Months later, Shane’s little building is all ready to welcome renters.
Downstairs, there’s two bigger apartments, both with two bedrooms. Upstairs, he’s worked it so there’s four, smaller and only one bedroom.
He debates furnishing them, but ultimately decides against it. It’s extra work, and would raise the prices, which he doesn’t want.
The rent is reasonable, he thinks. He doesn’t really need to make money, he’s got plenty, but once Mom finds out—which is its own ordeal—she insists on it. She says it like this: he’s got years left of hockey, but after his injury, it’s important to have money coming from several directions. Just in case.
Basically: he doesn't need the money now, but when his body inevitably gives out on him, he'll be glad to have this stream of revenue.
So the rent is exactly what the bills are, plus a little extra, just enough to make Mom happy.
The real estate agent he’s been working with says he’ll attract ‘the wrong sort of people’ that way, and then has no answer when Shane asks what exactly that’s supposed to mean.
He finds someone else to work with, and lets them handle everything. Shane knows a lot about real estate, but he’s only got experience as the buyer, not the seller, and anyway he’s got a lot going on with the season starting.
He tells the agent to keep him updated, and then finishes getting undressed for practice.
(And if, during renovations, he has the builders add a bit of extra soundproofing around his and Ilya’s apartment… well, it’s just in case. They probably won’t stay there again, not with any regularity, but… yeah. Just in case.)
The first tenant to officially move in is a little old lady named Lyudmila Kuznetsova.
Shane meets her over the phone, standing in his hotel room somewhere in North Carolina. He’s not sure what to say, exactly—she’s gone over the contracts and everything with his agent. She’s paid the down payment, she’s going to move in in a few days, when he’s in New York.
They make a little bit of small talk, but he’s so awkward and he also kind of wants to get it over with. There’s only so much time in a day to call Ilya, and this is cutting into that.
It doesn’t help that Lyudmila is a quiet woman. Throughout the call, she mostly hums and doesn’t say much, which makes him nervous and ramble even more.
“If you need anything, you can always contact me,” he says at last, because he refuses to be a landlord who is unavailable. “My work hours are weird, so I might not get back to you right away, but seriously. Contact me whenever.”
She says, “Thank you, Mr. Hollander,” and that’s that.
When they finally meet in person, he’s coming off a roadie and is longing for his bed. But he needs to be present, he reminds himself. So he drops his things off at his actual apartment, and drives over. The afternoon sun makes him feel warmed and reminds him of Ilya, who’s in California right now kicking San Jose’s ass.
Smiling, he calls ahead, not wanting to surprise her.
“Mrs. Kuznetsova?” He taps on the steering wheel, watching traffic inch along. “I just got back into the city, I thought I’d stop by so we could meet. Are you home?”
She hums at him. “Yes, Mr. Hollander.”
“Okay, well… I’ll be there pretty soon. Just for a quick visit,” he clarifies. He just wants to make sure she’s settling in okay, that everything is in working order. Then he’ll go back home and watch the highlights of Ilya’s game. Maybe jerk off to it before he falls asleep. But that's not something he needs to think about while on the phone with his elderly new tenant.
“Yes, see you soon,” she tells him in her accented voice, garbled with age.
That makes him think of Ilya too. His boyfriend’s accent has slipped the longer he’s been in Boston, but sometimes it thickens like Lyudmila’s is, when he’s upset or they’re lost in the haze of sex. Will he sound like this when he’s old? Shane can't wait to find out.
So, yeah, Shane’s in a good mood when he pulls up.
He feels weird walking into the building knowing there’s someone else here. It’s always just been him and Ilya, silence surrounding them, cocooning them.
It was safety, but now that’s impossible. The building isn't just theirs anymore.
Preoccupied with these thoughts, he stops short when he climbs the stairs and finds that a lot of her stuff is in the hallway. Like, a lot.
There are several stacks of boxes and scattered furniture, though he’s a lot more concerned about the bedframe and mattress leaning up against the wall than anything else.
When he knocks on her door, she takes a little too long to open up.
Lyudmila Kuznetsova is a short woman with a shock of bright red hair all right on top of her head, and wrinkled, spotted skin. She’s dressed no differently from any other old lady, though part of him maybe expected her to be rocking an old babushka get up. In one hand, she has a cane which is covered in images of flames.
She meets his eyes right away, before he’s ready, then glances around at her stuff with a look on her face that he feels rather than knows is resignation.
“Mr. Hollander?” she says, her voice even more garbled in person.
He tries to smile at her, though he’s confused and a little annoyed by the mess around them. “Uh, yeah, that’s me. You’re Mrs. Kuznetsova?”
The look she gives him clearly says he’s asking a silly question. Instead of answering, she sighs, “I am sorry for all this,” and gestures to everything. “I cannot get it inside on my own.”
“On your own?” Shane echoes. “What happened to the moving service?”
Because he got one, as soon as he found out that his first tenant was a little old lady whose husband has just recently passed. Shane doesn’t know her story, exactly, but he knows her family thought she was getting overwhelmed taking care of a big house by herself. A little apartment in a nice neighborhood for not too high of rent was like a steal, or at least, that’s what the agent said Lyudmila’s son said.
Shane also looked into getting the ancient elevator redone, which he realizes he definitely needs to expedite.
But this clearly needs to be dealt with first.
He found a moving company close enough to the building, with good ratings and prices. Speaking to the manager, he’d made sure that they would help her get her stuff upstairs.
Into her apartment is what he meant. He didn't think he'd had to clarify that.
Lyudmila shrugs ruefully. “It is upstairs, no?”
Shane looks at her bed again, standing upright and getting dusty out here in the hallway.
“Where are you sleeping?” His words are a little choked.
“They put couch in,” she says, and steps back shakily to show him that yes, they were kind enough to put her loveseat into her otherwise extremely bare living room.
“Hmm. Okay. Um. Give me a second,” he says, and walks away, already pissed off before he’s even dialed the company’s number.
Shane chews them out so badly that later, once he’s complained to his parents, Mom literally has to wipe a tear away and tell him how proud she is of him. Ridiculous.
Not to mention Ilya, who laughs at him and says, “Protective. I like this side of you,” giving him a sexy look that derails their whole conversation.
In the moment, though, he demands the men come back. Yes, right now. They left a poor woman to have to sleep on her fucking couch for days, and for what, because they were too fucking stupid to realize they needed to put her bed into her actual apartment?
Shane is trembling with rage when he hangs up. Lyudmila has pulled a chair out into the hallway to watch him pace and cuss them out, which he feels bad about once he turns around and realizes she heard all of that.
He tries to say, “Sorry—”
But she shakes her head. “Do you want pelmeni?”
“What?” It’s not the scolding he expected, or even a condemnation of how badly he’s doing already at being her landlord.
“Food. Russian food. You want?”
Shane blinks at her. He’s not sure what to do with little old ladies, since both of his grandmothers died when he was young. But he feels so guilty about all of this, that he can’t possibly turn her down. “Um. Sure.”
She stands and starts to drag the chair back inside, but this is at least something Shane can offer.
“No, let me.”
“I won’t say no to handsome young man carrying things for me,” she says casually, and leads him into the apartment.
Flushed, he spends the next several hours there.
Lyudmila opens up some, standing in her kitchen. She tells him that her pelmeni is the best, that he will agree just like everyone in her family does. It’s only leftovers, but she says she’ll make him some fresh once things have settled down.
He’s never had it before, but after the first bite, he finds he does agree—it’s delicious.
Then she asks if the apartment upstairs is his.
“Yes,” he says, keeping his eyes averted.
She stirs her own bowl and gives him an assessing look.
Going in for the kill, she asks if anyone else lives here, because it’s been quiet and no one cared that her things were left around.
“It’s just you, right now,” he says.
She hums. “Get more people soon,” she tells him. “I do not like being alone all night,” and winks, and laughs when he splutters.
Still, her words put an idea into his head. She doesn’t need protection, and they’ve only just met, but he feels weird leaving her here by herself. Chewing on a dumpling, he considers his options, but doesn’t come to a conclusion before they’re interrupted.
When the movers arrive, at first irritated and then starstruck to see Shane, she doesn’t offer them any of her pelmeni. Waving her cane imperiously, she tells them where she wants her things put down, and makes them move her bed several times before it’s right. They grumble, but they fucking do it.
Shane tries to help a few times, just to speed things up, but she glares at him until he stops.
“Sit down,” she orders, and waves a gnarled hand toward the few rickety chairs she has. “Have more pelmeni.”
There’s no room for argument. Shane sits and has more pelmeni.
After the movers have gone and Shane has already started mentally writing a review recommending no one use this particular company ever again, he stands awkwardly in her living room. It all looks much better, much more put together. He doesn’t feel so bad leaving her here now, knowing she’ll actually be able to sleep in her bed.
“I’d better go,” he says.
She’s in the kitchen, doing the dishes she absolutely refused to let him even touch, and turns around at his words.
“It was great to meet you, Mrs. Kuznetsova. I’m so sorry about all of this mess, I promise it won’t happen again.”
A smirk steals over her face. “You told them off well,” she praises, though it makes him flush again.
That night, he goes upstairs and stays in the sex apartment. It just feels wrong to leave her by herself after all the excitement of the day. He has some clothes and toiletries, and a phone charger so he can make the review and calls and a list of things he needs to work on in the morning. It's no trouble really.
After that, Lyudmila sometimes calls him.
The first time, Shane thinks something is wrong, and actually fully walks away from his and J.J.’s conversation so he can focus on her. But there’s nothing wrong at all—she just has leftovers, “Too much for me,” she says, and wants to know if he wants any.
Shane’s still in Montreal, so he accepts, because he still feels fucking guilty and can’t say no to her.
When he’s there, she tells him her TV won’t turn on and she can’t figure out why. He’s got no skills with technology beyond the average millennial, but he offers to take a look after they’re done eating.
Though he fears it'll be a complicated issue, and is already mentally hiring a techier person than him to come figure it out, he quickly finds that it's not. It's actually really simple.
“It’s not plugged in, Mrs. Kuznetsova,” he says, suppressing a laugh.
She sees his face, and for some reason, smacks him. “Shut up and fix,” she orders him. And then, once it’s up and running, tells him, “Turn on hockey.”
“You want to watch hockey?”
“Yes. Are you surprised? Why?”
“A little,” he says, navigating to the right channel. “You don’t seem like a hockey fan.”
She hits him again, just a smack to the shoulder that hardly hurts. It reminds him of Grandma Hollander, who exists in his memories as a laughing woman who couldn't help but slap the arms or legs of whoever was around her when she really got going. Shane had chalked it up to that side of his family being hockey people, since his Obaa-chan wasn't like that at all.
“I knew many hockey players when I was young,” she says, and regales him with a whole story about the kinds of insane things young soviet men got up to in the rink. She doesn’t say what she was doing there, but there’s a gleam in her eye that tells him not to ask.
Later, upstairs again, Shane calls Ilya and tells him about all of it. He rubs his shoulder, hoping Ilya will notice and say something.
“I like this neighbor,” he says, already tucked up into bed. “She has crush on you, I think.”
“She’s, like, eighty.”
“Okay? And you are beautiful. Of course she sees this and likes you.”
“Ilya,” he complains, grinning.
His crazy boyfriend blows a kiss, which Shane pretends to catch with his mouth in an exaggerated bite. For a moment, they just stare at each other, eyes warm and longing. Every day, Shane wishes Ilya was with him, and every day, he counts down to the next time they’ll see each other.
He rubs his shoulder again, not because it hurts but because touching himself like this, rubbing his palm over his body, reminds him of the way Ilya touches him. Like he owns him. Like no one else has ever touched him.
Ilya notices. “Your shoulder is hurting?”
“Oh, yeah. She hit me a few times.”
He explains then, hoping to soothe Ilya’s concerned look, only to have to stop because Ilya is laughing too much.
“What? Why is that funny?”
Ilya yawns, jaw cracking. He looks beautiful in the low light, a smug look on his face. “She likes you, kotenok. See? I am always right.”