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Leaving the hotel room was always the hardest part of this thing-- at first because it was painfully awkward, but now because there was something wrong about it. By this point, Ilya knew Shane’s body better than his own, knew the reactions that a single touch would bring, knew exactly the way he moved when he wanted something. It was odd to be so deeply aligned with someone and then suddenly pull away and pretend to be strangers again. Getting out of Shane’s bed was a chore, walking away was painful. Playing against him tomorrow, pretending that he didn’t know anything about the little bruise on Shane’s collarbone or the way he sounded when he was blissed out was going to be torture.
But that was a problem for tomorrow, and tonight he had an entirely new version of Shane: asleep. Ilya couldn’t recall ever having seen Shane actually sleep. A few times he’d been close, exhausted from a game or from practice or from a particularly pent-up hook up, but he’d never actually seen Shane really asleep. There had been a few times that were close, where he’d close his eyes and breathe really slowly, and Ilya would freeze and watch, rapt, waiting to see if he was really gone. But then Shane would hum or open one eye expectantly, or maybe shift on the bed and Ilya would let out a long breath and make some stupid chirp about wearing Shane out.
This time, though-- Shane was really, truly asleep, and deep in it, judging by the way he doesn’t twitch even when Ilya experimentally shakes his shoulder. He’s laid up against the pillows, still naked except for his socks, with one arm strewn over his chest and the other folded halfway over his head.
Ilya stands beside the bed and stares, unsure what to do. He should probably just leave. It’s only ten, but he has a game against Montreal tomorrow, and he needs all the rest he can get. As much as their rivalry is played up by the press, Montreal does really give Boston a run for their money, and Ilya is going to need his rest for tomorrow.
(Plus, the Metros aren’t flying out until the morning after the game-- if he’s convincing enough, maybe he’ll find himself back in this hotel room tomorrow night, too, and he’d like his energy for that, especially if he has a win to gloat over.)
Still, he doesn’t make a move towards the door, instead lingering by the side of the mattress and eying Shane’s sleeping face. He’s peaceful, mouth slightly open. Ilya wonder if he drools. If things weren’t the way that they are, he thinks with a pang, he could take a picture to tease Shane with. But he can’t risk having a picture, and he doesn’t think Shane would appreciate knowing that Ilya has pictures of him sleeping.
He’d like one, though, just to show that he and Shane are something, and not a figment of Ilya’s imagination. He might be the only player outside of the Metros-- outside of Hayden Pike, really, he’d guess-- that has seen Shane Hollander so defenseless. It makes him feel a little vindictive, and a little sad. He has his rival, vulnerable and snoring softly, defenseless in front of him, and all he can think is that he wants to take a picture, not for revenge but just to have.
His eyes fall to Shane’s stomach. There’s dried come there, speckled over his abs. Ilya grins. That’s some sort of evidence, at least.
But Shane hates being dirty. He likes having come on him for all of 0.2 seconds before he’s wrinkling his nose and worrying about the bedsheets and the poor hotel maids who have to clean up. Usually Ilya tries to wipe him down with a wet washcloth from the bathroom, and usually Shane gets irritated by the doting and takes the cloth from him to do it himself.
It would be rude, then, to leave Shane like that. Especially if Ilya knows how much he hates that feeling, and will be grumpy about it in the morning. Especially if Ilya would like, for once, to be allowed to take care of Shane just a little bit, just this once, just while he’s allowed to because Shane can’t stop him.
He pads into the bathroom as quietly as he can, running the sink on low while watching Shane over his shoulder. He doesn’t move, chest rising and falling slowly as Ilya wrings out the towel. It’s warm and just slightly damp when he runs it over Shane’s stomach, eyes trained on his face to see if he reacts at all. Aside from a slight scrunch of his nose, freckles bunching, he doesn’t do much of anything at all. It’s fascinating.
For all that people might say Hollander is stoic or calm or emotionless, Ilya knows that’s not true. He’s spent the past few years studying Shane’s expressions, both on the ice and off it, both in bed and out of it. He knows that Shane feels things deeply, even if he doesn’t always put it into words. The lack of reaction is new in an exciting, quiet way. One dark eyebrow twitches when Ilya rubs at the soft skin below his belly button. His lips part further when Ilya swipes come off the underside of his tit. When Ilya runs his fingertips, light as anything, over his side, just below his ribs where Ilya knows he’s ticklish even if he won’t admit it, the muscle jumps slightly under the touch but Shane doesn’t give any other indication that he even feels it.
It’s nice to be able to take care of Shane just a little bit. Shane is a capable player and an even more capable man, and he hardly needs to be coddled and tucked into bed. But Ilya is a man who’s spent his life taking care of the people he loves, and he’s been deprived. Ilya would like to do something for Shane, aside from fuck his brains out bi-monthly. And he does enjoy doing just that, knows it’s some sort of care, that Shane gets a break from being in charge and that is something, but it’s still not enough for Ilya, selfish as he is. He runs the cloth over his skin softly, almost reverently, careful of fading bruises from being slammed into the boards, the tender skins here his gear digs in.
But then he’s done, and there’s no other reason to linger. Ilya puts the towel in the bathroom and returns, standing once again at the side of the bed. Shane remains unmoving, breathing softly in the quiet of the room. It’s tidy, of course it is, because Shane Hollander is not a man who makes a mess. His clothes are folded on top of the cuck chair in the corner. His suitcase is lined up neatly against the far wall. The extra bedding he hates-- Ilya knows this by now--is folded on the bench at the foot of the bed.
Ilya frowns. The sheets surrounding Shane are still slightly damp, and Shane hates that. Countless times, Ilya has watched him fold the sheets after they are done, carefully setting aside the soiled topsheet before pulling the duvet over himself. He might be sad if he wakes up in the soiled sheet. Ilya can picture it, can picture the way he scrunches his nose in distaste and pulls his lips flat and tight. He might be mad at Ilya for leaving him that way, and then maybe he wouldn’t want to talk to Ilya after their game tomorrow, and Ilya really wants to fuck him again while they’re in the same city, and that’s it-- it’s probably better to just remove the topsheet, he tells himself.
The only problem is that Shane is currently halfway on top of the topsheet. Ilya grabs the free end of it and tries to pull it out from under him, quick and carefully, and then slowly and with force, but Shane is two hundred pounds of muscle and dead weight, and there’s a bit of a ripping sound coming from the sheet that makes Ilya stop that quickly.
He takes a deep breath and carefully slides one hand under Shane’s back. The skin is soft and still slightly damp with sweat. When he tries to pry the man up, Shane makes a soft, disgruntled noise, and Ilya stills, eyes going to Shane’s face. Again, his nose twitches and his lips smack, but he does nothing else, so Ilya lets out a relieved breath and tries to think of another way to do this.
He can’t find another solution, though, so he attempts to lift Shane again, as slowly and delicately as he can. It’s hard, because Shane is not a small or delicate man. The sheet slides out from beneath him slowly as Ilya leverages him up, watching his face carefully for any show of distress.
This is stupid, he admonishes himself, gritting his teeth as if this were a life-or-death matter and not trying not to wake up a boy he fucks and pretends he doesn’t even like. He feels like he’s in the middle of an active warzone, even though he can’t really think of any negative consequence of waking Shane up aside from, what? Shane being a little irritated at him? Shane’s always a little irritated at him, and it’s super hot, so there’s really no reason for his heartbeat to be loud in his ears like he’s in mortal danger.
He manages to get the sheet out from under Shane without waking the bear, feeling silly. The sheet isn’t even that dirty, he realizes, frowning at it. He could have just left it. Still, he folds it carefully, just the way he’s seen Shane do it a hundred times, corners held together tightly between thumb and forefinger.
When he was little, Ilya used to do laundry with his mother on Saturday mornings. She would set out all of the bedding to be folded and he would stand next to her, listening to her sing and watching her fold the clean clothes, face calm and voice sweet in a way they never were when his father was around. Her work always came out perfect, much the way things looked when Shane folded them, corners crisp and lines neat. Irina always made things perfect because that was what his father demanded, but he suspects Shane just likes things to be tidy.
The only sound is Shane’s breathing, soft and steady, and the hushed rustle of the sheets as he carefully folds them, thinking of his mother’s clear voice. He finds himself humming under his breath, just quiet enough to barely be heard over the sound of the sheets. It’s not the same song she had sung him, it’s something far newer, a little too edgy for her tastes, but he feels like a little kid all the same.
He sets the sheet on the bench, careful to keep it separate from the rest of the bedding as Shane would do, then looks up at Shane. Now really is the part when he should leave, should get out of here and pretend this is something casual, maybe go to a bar and let himself get hit on by pretty girls he won’t take home, not tonight, not when he has a game in the morning, not when they don’t have freckles and expressive nose twitches and a weak backhand-- but instead he rounds the bed and carefully takes Shane’s wrist in his grip. It’s warm. He doesn’t react still when Ilya pulls his arm down from over his head and sets it on his stomach beside his other, thumb rubbing the underside idly.
There. Now he should go. (But Shane always takes his socks off after they fuck, so Ilya pauses to pull them off and fold them together before setting them on top of Shane’s other clothes.)
Really, he has to be back at his apartment so he can sleep in his own bed before the game. (Except that now Shane’s toes might be cold, and what if he gets frostbite? He would kill Ilya if he got frostbite, and then Ilya wouldn’t get to fuck him. So he unfolds the duvet and sets it carefully over Shane, tucking the top over his shoulders carefully.)
(And Shane’s face is right there as he slides the end of the duvet under his chin, so Ilya has to kiss the tip of his nose just to see if his face scrunches in sleep the way it does when he’s awake and Ilya tries that, almost offended that Ilya would do something so sweet while they’re doing something so scandalous. He’s disappointed that Shane doesn’t react, but it’s still satisfying to know the answer.)
(And-- well. Sex can be dehydrating. So it’s only the bare minimum, really, to fill the glass in the bathroom with water and set it beside the bed. Because it’s Ilya’s fault Shane’s dehydrated, really, and he has to take responsibility for something..)
And really, now, he has no excuse not to leave, but he lingers at the door anyway, taking his sweet time pulling his trainers on. Maybe he should have drawn a dick on his forehead or something. Or put the dirty rag in his bed. Or stolen his underwear (that might be a good idea, actually, now that he thinks of it…) or hidden his socks. Anything to make this seem like less of a crime scene than it is: Ilya taking care of Shane just because… because what? Because he can?
He looks down at his feet, at where his shoes are already tied. And beside them, toes pressed to the baseboard, perfectly straight, are Shane’s Reeboks, gently worn. He always leaves the laces tied, because he likes them a very specific way, a very specific tightness that can only be obtained, he explained exasperatedly to Ilya once, as he was leaving Ilya’s apartment and Ilya was trying to think of an excuse to ask him not to, that can only be achieved by putting them on and off a certain way. Ilya had nodded, not getting it but getting, at least, that it was important to Shane.
So he leans down and unties them, then carefully ties the laces of the two shoes together.
There. That will soften the blow. That will prove that yes, Ilya Rozanov is still an asshole, and then maybe Shane won’t be freaked out when he wakes up to find himself tucked into bed with a glass of water and perfectly folded sheets.
Ilya snickers, thinking of Shane mindlessly pulling his shoes on, expecting them to be just the way he left them, and then tripping over himself when he goes to take a step. Yes. That will do it. He’ll be pissed, maybe even pissed enough to text Ilya and tell him off.
Pleased with himself, Ilya glances back at the bed again, then frowns. Shane’s turned onto his side, which is definitely not the way Ilya left him not a minute ago. His back is to Ilya, but his shoulders are rising and falling at that same slow, soft rhythm, so Ilya doesn’t let himself panic. He just purses his lips and turns to the door again, because even if Shane isn’t awake now, he could be at any moment, and Ilya’s really spent an incriminating amount of time here already.
He flees like a criminal, feeling like an idiot, careful to close the door as quietly as possible behind himself. The hallway is empty, and the wait for the elevator feels like a lifetime while Ilya stands there, dumbly, one eye on Shane’s door, like he’s going to jump out any minute now.
He doesn’t, though, and Ilya makes it home and into his own empty bed without incident.