Work Text:
February 2016
Boston
Ilya has just finished his shower and thrown on lounge clothes when he hears a knock at the door of his apartment. He fights back a giddy smile, instead schooling his face into a mask of unbothered coolness. He quickly crosses the sitting area to the entryway before opening the door.
Shane stands in the hall outside, also dressed cozily, wearing gray sweatpants and a simple black hoodie.
Ilya steps back to let him inside and waits just long enough for Shane to toe off his sneakers before grabbing his cute face and pulling it to Ilya’s own, pressing his mouth to Shane’s in a searing, eager kiss.
Shane huffs a startled breath through his nose, which Ilya feels against his own face, but kisses back readily, tongue stroking against Ilya’s.
Ilya’s hands drop to the hem of Shane’s hoodie, and Shane pulls back from their kiss to allow Ilya to pull it up and over his head, ruffling his short hair. He rids Shane of his t-shirt next, and when Shane tugs insistently at Ilya’s, removes his own as well. The clothes are all discarded to the floor, which Ilya knows Shane will gripe about later but seems wholly content to ignore at the moment.
Ilya grips Shane’s bare waist with both hands and begins leading them toward the couch, grinning into the kiss as they move.
They don’t make it to the couch.
Apropos of absolutely fucking nothing, Ilya is forcefully propelled backwards away from the embrace and falls to the hardwood floor, landing hard on his ass. The unexpected shockwave is accompanied by a comparatively tame poof! sound and a cloud of scentless smoke, which Ilya notices when he looks up in dazed shock from his place on the ground.
Ilya looks to where Shane’s face should have been, and when he finds the space completely empty of any Shane Hollanders, looks down to see if the other man has also been knocked onto his ass.
On the floor, Ilya does not see Shane. Instead, he finds Shane’s sweatpants in a puddle on the hardwood.
Did Shane just explode? Ilya thinks hysterically. Thankfully, this thought is not given any time to ruminate, as movement catches Ilya’s eye.
Shane’s sweatpants are squirming on the ground, which is frankly just very unsettling. Ilya quickly scoots backwards on his butt to get away from the apparently sentient pants. There is some sort of wriggling mass in them, and Ilya watches with bated breath as the lump moves frantically down one of the legholes.
A furry head with pointed ears pops out.
A cat, Ilya registers in his bewilderment. A cat? In my apartment?
The cat’s dark brown eyes—darker than Ilya thinks he has ever seen on a cat before—are as wide and confused as Ilya’s own surely are, and they stare at each other in silence for a moment.
The cat, from what Ilya can tell from its half-exposed, half-still-in-the-pants position, has long, mostly black fur with a white patch on its fluffy chest. An abundance of long white whiskers adorn its cheeks and brows. The cat draws in panicked breaths as it looks up at Ilya.
And—wait a minute. Ilya knows those eyes. They are the very same shade as the ones he has stared into time and time again, both on the ice and in the bedroom. And living room. And shower. And the kitchen that one time…
But Ilya is getting off track.
Those eyes are as familiar to him as his own, even with newly slitted pupils. And the fur? Ilya has no doubt it’s an exact match to the straight black locks that normally sit atop Shane’s head. Well—normally only on Shane’s head. And, well, a few other places too, but that was a thought for when Shane wasn’t a cat.
A curse, Ilya realizes. Someone—a Boston fan, if he had to guess—has either cursed Shane or paid someone else to do it, likely as revenge for Montreal’s win over the Raiders tonight.
Ilya briefly wonders if Montreal’s entire team has been cursed or just Shane. Probably just Shane, Ilya decides. Shane was the captain—a damn good one, Ilya could admit in the privacy of his own mind—and he had scored a hat trick tonight, scoring three of the Metros’ total of four goals.
Ilya was not overly familiar with petty curses like this one. Few people have the ability and fewer still know how to cast them. Those who did charge ludicrously high prices to cast them on another’s behalf. Meaning, either a witch or some rich fuck with nothing better to spend their money on has decided to turn Shane into a cat.
Why a cat? Ilya can’t help but wonder. He vaguely recalls Boston’s former captain getting cursed to spill his every thought once during Ilya’s rookie season. Which had been admittedly amusing seeing as it hadn’t happened to Ilya himself. It was a brand of nastiness that Ilya could privately appreciate. But this? What’s the point of turning someone into a cat?
Ilya clears his throat.
“…Hollander?” Ilya asks. He had hesitated before speaking. Despite knowing in his heart that this was in fact Shane Hollander in cat form, there was something about talking to an animal and anticipating a response that made one feel slightly absurd. Like maybe Ilya was wrong, and Shane was watching him talk to a cat from somewhere nearby.
The cat opens its mouth and lets out a distressed mrowww? sound. The noise seems to shock the cat further, as it jolts in place and swings its head to peer around the room.
“Hollander,” Ilya says, more firmly. The cat—Shane, Ilya reminds himself—whips his gaze to Ilya’s in response to his name. “Okay. Uh. Don’t panic,” Ilya continues.
This is an extremely stupid thing to say, which Ilya realizes immediately after saying it, as he watches Shane visibly panic. His eyes dart around rapidly, and his little cat mouth falls open as he breathes heavily. Ilya vaguely thinks he’s never seen a cat pant before.
“Okay, okay,” Ilya hurries to say and scrambles up onto his knees. He slowly reaches his hands out to Shane. “First, let's get you out of your pants.”
Shane watches him warily, which Ilya assumes is a combination of Shane’s alarm and because Ilya is fucking massive in comparison to the cat-sized Shane, but ultimately nods his furry head in acceptance. Which is also a strange action to see a cat perform, but Ilya pushes forward.
Ilya leans closer and cups his hands beneath Shane’s armpits and gently pulls him out of the leghole of the sweatpants. A sock tumbles out after him onto the hardwood, the matching one assumedly still tangled up inside the pants.
Shane lets out a baffled little brrrp? when Ilya uses his hold on Shane to lift him up into his arms, cradling Shane against his chest. Shane looks up at him.
Fuck. He’s so fucking cute, Ilya thinks, distressed. He can see now that Shane also has little white socks on all four of his paws. Fitting.
“Hollander,” Ilya starts, then backtracks. “Shane,” he corrects.
Shane looks somehow even more concerned at the use of his first name, clearly believing that Ilya is about to deliver terrible news. And, well, it’s admittedly not the best news, Ilya knows that. But Ilya also knows that a curse like this one shouldn’t last very long—a couple of days at the most.
“You are fine, okay? You are safe. This will pass soon,” Ilya tries his best to reassure him. It doesn’t work very well; Shane is practically vibrating with anxiety in Ilya’s arms. Ilya figures it’s probably best to just get it over with, like ripping off a bandage. “You are a cat,” Ilya says bluntly.
Shane freezes, eyes darting between Ilya’s own, searching for a lie or maybe indication that he’s joking. Apparently finding neither, Shane quickly looks down at what used to be his hands but now are fuzzy little white paws resting sweetly on Ilya’s forearm. He tries to flip his paw over, but cat arms don’t really bend like that, so he ends up curling his wrist and turning it inward so that he can see squishy paw pads on the bottom of his paw. He stares blankly at them for too long.
Ilya gently jostles his small body, bringing Shane’s attention back up to Ilya.
“…If it helps, you are very cute,” Ilya tries.
Thankfully, this snaps Shane out of his shocked stupor. Shane levels him with a fierce glare, and Ilya is delighted to note that Shane’s typical angry kitten face translates perfectly to his cat form.
“Ah,” Ilya grins, “your mad face is the same.”
Shane actually hisses at him, which startles them both. Then, Ilya starts laughing hard, both at the action and at Shane’s resulting shocked face, causing Shane to bounce in his arms with the force of his guffaws. Ilya guesses that along with the change to his physical appearance, the curse has also gifted Shane some feline behaviors.
“You hissed at me!” Ilya laughs, amusement dripping from the words, to which Shane audibly growls in response, which is also very cute. Ilya has changed his mind; this is the best curse.
Ilya carries Shane upstairs, then through Ilya’s bedroom and into the en suite. He flicks on the light and puts Shane in front of the large mirror above the sink, setting him carefully on the countertop.
Shane stares into the mirror, eyes wide with horror and pupils narrowed into slits. His ears pin back flat against his head and his spine arches slightly in an upside down U-shape. He studies himself for a moment, then turns his body to the side to see the rest of his feline form. His puffed-out tail flicks in agitation, and Shane’s eyes zero in on the apparently involuntary movement. Then, more deliberately, he slowly waves his tail back and forth, briefly forgetting his distress and looking more curious than anything else.
Ilya only notices the small, fond smile on his own face when he glances up at himself in the mirror from where he stands behind Shane, arms crossed and posture relaxed against the doorway. He forces himself to form a more neutral expression.
“It’s weird having a tail?” Ilya asks.
Shane looks up at him at the sound of his voice, and when the words register, his reflection gives Ilya a very effective deadpan expression as if to say well, obviously. Ilya didn't know cats’ faces could do that.
Ilya watches as Shane looks back at himself in the mirror and does a little spin, neck twisting around to keep studying himself.
All at once, the reality of the situation seems to catch up to Shane, and his breathing quickens, tiny chest rising and falling rapidly. His pupils, which had expanded to a normal size during his self-inspection, narrow once again. He’s freaking out.
Ilya steps forward. “Hey, it's okay–you’re okay,” he rushes to reassure him.
Shane doesn’t seem to hear him, so Ilya puts his hand gently on Shane’s back, petting him from his shoulders to the base of his tail. He feels Shane tense in response, but when Ilya tries again, repeating the hopefully soothing motion, Shane huffs out a breath and relaxes some, even pushing up into Ilya’s hand, seeking comfort.
“Listen to me,” Ilya instructs, to which Shane looks up helplessly at him. “This spell will not last long. Maybe a day or two,” Ilya says firmly, leaving no room for doubt or what ifs.
Ilya can anticipate the response he would receive if Shane currently possessed human vocal chords. But our flight leaves in the morning, or maybe I have a game in Columbus tomorrow night.
So, when Shane opens his mouth and promptly starts meowing insistently in protest, Ilya interrupts.
“Yes, yes, I know. You are a very busy man. But you will have to stay here until this wears off,” Ilya says. When Shane starts his yowling protests once more, and really, he has to know that isn’t very effective, Ilya cuts in with, “Hollander. You can’t just show up as a cat and hope your team figures out who you are. So unless you want me to explain what happened, you need to stay here.”
They both know that would be a terrible idea. Not only would Ilya be met with open hostility from the Metros, but if Shane’s teammates even allowed him to explain the situation in the first place, Ilya would also need to have an excuse as to why he and Shane were alone together at all.
Shane clearly knows Ilya is right, as evidenced by the fact that he does not begin trying to argue via meows again. Still, Shane looks deeply unhappy.
Ilya is helpless to the picture he makes, defeated and downtrodden, and so he scoops Shane up off the counter and back into the cradle of Ilya’s arms. Shane lets out a startled little chirp but lets himself be moved. Shane settles into place and looks up curiously at Ilya. It takes every ounce of Ilya’s willpower not to lean down and kiss his little nose.
“I will text Theriault on your phone in the morning and tell him you are sick. The flu or something. And you can’t make it to Columbus but will meet them in… New York, yes?” If Shane is surprised by Ilya’s knowledge of his game schedule, he doesn’t show it. He only nods, resigned.
Ilya carries Shane back down to the living room. Now that their plans for the night have been effectively thwarted, Ilya grasps for something to do in their absence. How would he spend their time if he had Shane all to himself for possibly one or two entire days and sex was off the table? Cook for him, maybe. Hold him while they watch TV on the couch and play video games with him. They’d end the day by cuddling in bed and falling asleep next to each other for once. If Ilya ever allowed himself to hope for something like that, which he doesn’t.
Ilya sets Shane down on the couch before walking over his discarded clothes, which had been left in a crumpled pile in the aftermath of Shane’s unexpected transformation. He picks up each article of clothing, folding them carefully under Shane’s watchful eye and stacks them neatly on the arm of the couch.
When he picks up Shane’s sweatpants, he feels the weight of a phone in one of the pockets, so he grabs it and sets it down on the coffee table. He adds the pants to the pile, and then all that is left are Shane’s white socks—his actual, fabric socks, not his new furry ones—which Ilya bundles together and sets on top of the stack of clothing.
“Good?” Ilya checks, knowing how seriously Shane takes neatness.
Shane just nods tiredly. His mouth cracks open in a massive yawn, and his face practically splits in half with it.
Ilya sits down on the cushion beside Shane, then leans forward to grab the TV remote from the coffee table. He begins flipping through the channels, searching for a hockey game to put on. Shane needs a distraction, and there is nothing that captures his attention more than hockey.
Shane sits with his tail curled politely underneath his bottom, watching Ilya, and when Ilya makes a noise of success, he turns his attention to the TV screen. Shane's pupils dilate and he settles down to watch the game, tucking his arms beneath his body. Ilya thinks he has seen this position be called a loaf online.
As Shane’s eyes track the puck across the ice on-screen, he lets out rapid little chirping sounds, making a sort of ekekekek noise and is seemingly unaware of his doing so. Ilya wants to take him in his arms and squeeze. Or maybe gnaw on him a little.
Shane pauses his intense staring to let out a forlorn yowl, and Ilya looks questioningly at the TV in time to watch them replay a goal scored by the Toronto Maple Leafs. Shane lets out a little huff before settling back in, ears flicking forward, alert.
Ilya can’t resist. He reaches over slowly and strokes his hand down Shane’s back, and like in the bathroom, Shane pushes up into Ilya’s touch, his butt lifting into the air some when Ilya reaches the base of his tail. Unlike in the bathroom, however, Shane starts purring as Ilya continues to pet him. Ilya coos at him.
“You’re purring,” Ilya says gleefully.
Only, when Ilya points this out, Shane gives him a nasty side-eye and stubbornly stops the noise. Either Shane hadn’t realized he had been purring, or he was just hoping Ilya wouldn’t mention it. Shane doesn’t move away from Ilya’s pets, though.
“No, don’t stop!” Ilya whines dramatically. He moves his hand up to scratch at the top of Shane’s head and behind his ears, intent on hearing the sound again.
Shane sits very still, staring forward and determinedly not pressing back up into Ilya’s hand. As Ilya continues his ministrations, however, Shane cannot hold out for long, and a purr builds once again in his throat, stuttering as Shane tries unsuccessfully to cut it off.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Ilya says softly, and Shane finally gives up, his purr growing louder and vibrating his entire body. Ilya cannot help the way he smiles softly at him, though Shane is thankfully still pointedly not looking at him.
They sit like that for a while, Ilya petting a purring Shane, who returns his attention to the TV but watches lazily now. Shane is visibly fighting against letting his eyes shut, and every so often, his head droops, listing to the side before he jolts back upright. He’s falling asleep sitting up. The sight is hopelessly adorable, and Ilya grits his teeth against the urge to bite his sweet little face.
“Hollander, just go to sleep if you are so tired,” Ilya tells him.
Shane shakes his head and meows at him, managing to make the noise sound very much like no. Shane Hollander does not take naps, Ilya knows, always doing something productive instead. But Shane Hollander is currently a cat, so what can he really be doing that’s productive? Ilya tries to rationalize with him.
“You are a cat,” Ilya says. When Shane only glares at him, he goes on. “Yes, you are a human, but you are in a cat body, and cat bodies need more sleep than human ones.”
Shane looks away in response, and Ilya can’t tell what he’s thinking. Ilya reaches over, scooping Shane up and resettling him in his lap so they are facing one another. Shane grumbles as he is moved but doesn’t try to leave Ilya’s lap. He looks up at Ilya grumpily.
“Will you sleep if I sleep too?” Ilya asks. He glances at the clock. It’s just after 7:00 PM. He can afford to take a cat nap—pun intended—and still be able to fall asleep when it’s time for bed.
Shane appears to mull it over for a moment before reluctantly nodding, his desire for sleep winning out.
Ilya repositions them so they are lying horizontally on the couch. Shane stands on his abdomen until Ilya is settled, claws absently kneading at the flesh of Ilya’s stomach, then moves up onto Ilya’s chest. He spins in a circle and curls up into a little ball there, tucking his head and covering his face with a single paw.
Ilya reaches up to pull a throw blanket down from the back of the couch and tosses it over the both of them. Ilya pulls the end of the blanket up to his chest, tucking it around Shane so that only his head is poking out.
Shane is purring again, and Ilya feels his body relaxing into the couch cushions from the vibrations radiating into his chest. His mind slows down, and his eyelids feel heavy.
What is it about a purring cat that hits like a tranquilizer dart?
Shane’s purring quiets until it completely trails off as he drifts off into sleep. He must be exhausted from the whole being turned into a cat ordeal and the resulting panic. His breathing is steady and deep, and Ilya can hear little snores coming from beneath his paw.
His warm weight is like a soothing balm to Ilya’s mind, and he finds himself falling into sleep just as quickly as Shane had.
Ilya is awoken by the feeling of movement. He watches through barely-slitted eyes as Shane stands up on all fours on Ilya’s chest, then arches his back upwards in a dramatic curve as he stretches. He hops down from the couch and arches downward this time, stretching his front legs out in front of him, then raising up again and stretching his back legs out behind him.
Apparently sufficiently stretched, Shane walks away, and Ilya can feel his eyelids pulling back down against his will. Shane can handle himself fine in Ilya’s house, Ilya thinks drowsily.
Ilya is just drifting back off when he is startled back to full awareness by a loud, piercing yowl. His heart races as he clambers to his feet. Panicked thoughts fly through his mind at the speed of light and all at once. Is Shane hurt? Is he changing back? Is he dying?
Another cry pierces the air, and Ilya hurriedly follows the sound down the hallway to see… Shane sitting calmly outside the hall bathroom?
Ilya stares at him. He looks to be in no distress, simply gazing back at him.
“What?” Ilya says, a little dumbly and still half-asleep. “What’s wrong?”
Shane meows again, much quieter this time, a cute little sound compared to the victim of murder screams he had previously been emitting. He stands, tail waving serenely in the air and turns away to enter the dark bathroom.
At a loss, Ilya follows him in. He flicks on the lightswitch.
Shane sits on the floor beside the toilet, then daintily lifts one of his front paws to tap at the closed toilet seat, looking expectantly at Ilya all the while.
Suddenly, all of Ilya’s worries dissipate. “Seriously? You were screaming because you wanted me to lift the toilet seat?” Ilya huffs. “You sounded like you were dying.”
Shane just blinks at him, then lifts his paw to tap at the toilet seat again.
“Yes, yes, okay, I get it,” Ilya says, exasperated. He steps further into the bathroom and lifts the toilet seat up. “There,” he gestures to the toilet.
Shane meows twice at him, in the exact same cadence as a human saying thank you. And then he looks expectantly at Ilya, again.
“What now?” Ilya asks.
Shane’s eyes move away from Ilya’s to look pointedly at the hall beyond the doorway. Ilya glances over his shoulder before realizing Shane just wants him to leave now.
Ilya rolls his eyes with a dramatic huff, but still steps out into the hallway, leaving the bathroom door cracked and leaning against the wall beside it.
From his position, he can hear liquid trickling into the toilet bowl, and he snorts at the visual his brain provides him. A moment later, he hears the toilet flush, then the sound of the sink running.
Is he washing his paws?
Sure enough, when Ilya peeks through the crack in the door, Shane is standing on the counter beside the sink, balancing on his back feet and running his soapy front paws underneath the tap. Once the suds are rinsed away, he uses one paw to shut the water off before kneading both paws into the hand towel hanging beside the sink.
Ilya smiles, laughing quietly to himself. When he sees Shane jump down from the counter, he presses his back to the wall once more, lest Shane know he was spying. Ilya looks down at the floor and watches as one of Shane’s paws pokes out from beneath the crack below the door, pulling it back open.
When Shane walks out of the bathroom, he lets out a surprised chirp at seeing Ilya still standing there.
“Wanted to be able to hear if you fell in,” Ilya explains. It’s a lie, mostly. It was a legitimate concern, but he also just likes being around Shane, in any form. If the two of them lived in a perfect world, Ilya thinks he’d never leave Shane’s side. Because he’s an asshole, Ilya continues, “At least I won’t have to buy you a litter box.”
Shane attacks his leg, wrapping his little arms around Ilya’s calf and biting.
Ilya yelps. “Ah! Okay, okay! It was a joke—I was joking!” Ilya says hurriedly, trying to pull his leg away from Shane’s attack.
Shane sits back, tail flicking across the floor behind him and looking supremely satisfied with himself.
Ilya rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, you are so funny,” he grumbles. He turns and begins walking back down the hallway with Shane following alongside him. “Are you hungry?” Ilya asks, “I think I have some salmon in the freezer.”
Shane thinks for a moment, but then shakes his head.
They’re passing through the living room on their way to the kitchen, and Ilya grabs his phone from the coffee table to check the time. It’s a little after eight, meaning he and Shane had napped for only an hour.
“Okay, well I’m making dinner for me,” Ilya says. When he reaches the kitchen, he turns to Shane once more, who has hopped up onto the island to watch him. “You are sure you don’t want food?”
Shane huffs at him and shakes his head again, and Ilya shrugs.
“Okay,” he relents.
Twenty minutes later, Ilya sits down on his couch with a plate of food in hand. His protein is baked salmon. While Ilya wouldn’t normally cook himself salmon—he doesn’t dislike it, but he wouldn’t particularly choose it over anything else—he has a sneaking suspicion that Shane will regret declining the offer of food. He made three filets instead of the two he would normally have, just in case.
Sure enough, Shane peeks around the corner of the couch, staring at the food in Ilya’s lap, and then slowly begins to climb up onto the couch beside him, like if he’s sneaky enough, Ilya won’t notice him.
Yeah, right, Ilya thinks. He always notices Shane.
Shane sits beside him. His pupils are blown wide as he watches Ilya fork a piece of salmon and bring it to his mouth.
Ilya lowers the fork from his mouth, chewing, then uses the edge of the utensil to cut off a little piece for Shane. He then uses the fork to nudge the bite toward the side of the plate closest to Shane. He glances at Shane from the corner of his eye while casually continuing eating.
Shane tentatively reaches a paw out, seemingly to tap the piece of meat, before abruptly retracting it. Instead, Shane leans his face in toward the plate, then quickly snatches the salmon into his mouth and chews it. Ilya can hear little growls coming from Shane’s mouth as he chews. Once he swallows the food, he looks up at Ilya with pleading eyes.
Ilya can only fight a smile and cut off another piece of salmon for him. He would like to see anyone try to resist that look.
When Ilya has eaten two salmon filets and Shane has eaten his one cut into little cat-sized bites, Ilya stands to go put his plate in the dishwasher.
Upon returning to the living room, he sees Shane grooming himself, licking his paw and then rubbing it over his face to clean it, his eyes closed. They shoot open, however, at the sound of the laugh Ilya cannot contain.
When he sees Ilya standing there and not bothering to hide his amusement, Shane stills his motions abruptly. He had been in the process of licking his paw again, and so his paw hangs frozen in the air halfway to mouth with his little pink tongue sticking out for a moment before he quickly pulls it back into his mouth.
“No, no, do not stop on my account,” Ilya says, smirking. His grin only grows at the glare Shane sends him in response, and Ilya walks around the couch to plop down beside him. “Do you want to watch a movie?” Ilya asks. “I would say we could play video games, but you don’t have thumbs, so.”
“Mrow,” Shane says reasonably.
“What?” Ilya asks.
“Mrow,” Shane repeats himself, more insistently this time.
Ilya stares at him. “Yes, you want to watch a movie?” Ilya guesses.
Shane shakes his head.
“You want to play video games?” Ilya asks doubtfully.
Shane shakes his head again, then reaches out a paw to tap-tap at Ilya’s thigh.
“…You want me to play video games?” Ilya asks slowly.
Satisfied, Shane lets out a little chirp and sits back with a nod.
“You want to watch me play video games?” Ilya double-checks.
Shane chirps again, then lays down on his side, facing the TV.
So, they spend the rest of their evening lounging on the couch. Shane attentively watches Ilya play the latest MLH game release for about an hour before Ilya eventually gets bored and switches over to Netflix. He flips through the recommended movies for a while before settling on some mindless action film that neither of them are very invested in.
When the movie ends, it’s nearing eleven o’clock, and Shane is once again fighting the pull of sleep.
Ilya yawns, tired too. “Come,” he says, “Time for bed.” He gets up, stretching his back before looking down at where Shane rests on the couch.
Shane blinks sleepily at the staircase leading up to Ilya’s bedroom. He stands on the cushion, then pads the short distance to where Ilya still stands at the edge of the couch. He balances on his back feet and stretches his little arms up to set his front paws on Ilya’s torso.
Ilya smiles affectionately at him when he realizes Shane is asking to be picked up and carried upstairs. Ilya supposes walking to bed would be much more exhausting if you had cat-sized legs. So, he scoops Shane up and cradles him to his chest as he turns off the TV and the downstairs lights before walking upstairs and into his bedroom.
He sets Shane down on his bed and walks into the en suite to brush his teeth. Only, when he is finished and places his toothbrush back into the holder, Shane jumps up onto the counter and stares at him.
“What?” Ilya asks him. “Do you need the toilet again? I will leave the lid up for you.” Ilya does exactly that, lifting the toilet lid up and then moving to leave the bathroom, but stops in his tracks when Shane yowls at him. He turns around, raising his eyebrows in question. “What is it?”
Shane reaches out a paw to touch the toothbrush holder, then looks back at Ilya expectantly. He meows.
Ilya huffs a disbelieving laugh, and he lifts a hand to rub at his forehead.
“Hollander,” Ilya says, “You will survive one night without brushing your teeth.” He thinks he honestly should have expected this, what with the paw-washing. “Can we just go to bed?”
Shane lets out another one of those demanding yowls, glaring at Ilya all the while.
Ilya already knows he will not win this one. If Shane Hollander asks him to do something, the truth is that Ilya will almost certainly fold like a wet paper towel. Still, he had to make some sort of objection, just on principle.
Ilya sighs. “Fine,” he says, exasperated, then reaches into a drawer beneath the sink and digs out a spare toothbrush still in the package. He opens it and wets the bristles under the tap. “But it will have to be with water only. I don’t think you can spit the toothpaste like this.”
Shane grumbles but must realize Ilya is correct because he nods his head in acquiescence. It’s better than nothing.
“Open,” Ilya says, lifting the toothbrush.
Shane opens his mouth obediently and shows Ilya his tiny, adorable little teeth.
Ilya could weep.
He very carefully and very gently runs the bristles over Shane’s teeth, starting in the front and working his way to the back on either side. Once he’s finished, he rinses the brush.
“Okay?” Ilya checks, and Shane nods and licks the back of Ilya’s hand as a thank you.
Ilya smiles, putting the toothbrush in the holder next to his own, then lifts Shane into his arms once more and carries him to the bed. He adjusts Shane so that Ilya can hold him with one arm and uses his other hand to pull back the blankets.
Ilya slides beneath the covers with Shane on his chest. Once the both of them are settled, Ilya reaches over to turn off his bedside lamp, plunging the room into a quiet darkness.
Already, Ilya can feel his eyelids getting heavy and his body relaxing into the mattress, lulled by the warmth of Shane on his chest. Ilya lifts a hand to pet along Shane’s back, and this prompts Shane to begin purring, which was Ilya’s plan. Ilya smiles contentedly.
“Goodnight, Shane,” he says sleepily and drifts off to sleep soon after.
Ilya wakes up in the middle of night to the sound of a toilet flushing nearby. A second later, he hears the sink running, and then all is silent.
Then, all of a sudden, his feet beneath the blankets are attacked by an unseen force—one that wraps tiny arms around Ilya’s ankles. Ilya jolts in place, shooting upright in the bed to see Shane The Cat biting his toes through the covers and bringing his back paws up to bunny kick at Ilya’s foot.
“The fuck?” Ilya slurs, mostly asleep still.
Shane jumps to his feet on the bed, then sprints away, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
Ilya stares after him in pure bewilderment. He can hear the sound of Shane darting throughout his apartment, the sound of his footsteps surprisingly audible when he picks up speed. The sound of something crashing echoes from the living room. Ilya just sighs in exhausted acceptance of the situation and flops back down against his pillow, shutting his eyes.
He listens as he drifts, half asleep, to the sound of Shane continuing to run around the apartment.
Then, suddenly, it is quiet. Too quiet.
Ilya cracks open his eyes, and his entire body jerks as he chokes on a scream of pure, unadulterated terror. A strangled sound escapes his throat instead. Shane’s little face is inches from Ilya’s own, pupils wide as saucers and one paw outstretched half-way toward Ilya’s face.
“Lisus Khristos!” Ilya gasps.
Shane startles violently, jumping in place and then off the bed, quick as lightning. Ilya hears him barrel down the hallway toward the living room. Ilya lays there as his heart rate gradually slows from life-threatening territory.
The sounds of Shane running around continue for around ten minutes after that before Ilya feels the mattress shift as Shane hops up on the far side of the bed. Ilya watches him warily, but Shane only yawns wide, stretches his legs—front then back—and curls up on the pillow next to Ilya’s. His breath evens out into sleep in seconds, and Ilya follows him shortly after.
The next morning, Ilya wakes to the sun shining through his bedroom windows. He rubs at his bleary eyes before he abruptly recalls the events of the previous day and whips his head around to search for Shane. He finds him immediately.
Shane is still curled up on the pillow beside Ilya’s own but is now staring unblinkingly back at Ilya.
“Have you been watching me sleep?” Ilya asks groggily.
Shane offers no response other than to stand, stretch, and stomp his way over to sit on Ilya’s chest.
“How long have you been awake?” Ilya asks.
Shane just gives him a dry look and lifts a paw to push briefly against Ilya’s forehead. The message is effective. Ilya can practically hear him say, How do you expect me to answer that, you asshole?
“Hmm. Three hours?” Ilya guesses.
Shane shakes his head.
“Two?”
Another headshake.
“One hour?” Ilya asks, and Shane chirps at him. Ilya glances at his alarm clock, which displays the time as being ten o’clock in bold red font. “You woke up at nine?”
Shane chirps again, nodding.
“Are you hungry?” Ilya asks.
Shane nods again and jumps down to the floor. He walks to the bedroom door before turning to look back at Ilya expectantly.
Ilya huffs a laugh but gets up to follow him down to the kitchen.
Ilya makes them both bacon and scrambled eggs, Shane’s without any salt or pepper. He breaks two strips of bacon into small pieces and puts them on Shane’s plate next to the eggs. He picks up the two plates and carries them into the living room, so they can eat on the couch again. Shane’s plate is set on the cushion, and Ilya holds his own in his lap.
Shane had apparently been very hungry. He settles in and quickly gobbles down his food until his entire plate is clean. Once the food is gone, Shane licks the plate a few times before seeming to realize what he’s doing and stops. Ilya graciously does not tease him for this.
“We need to text your coaches. Tell them you can’t play in Columbus.” Ilya says between bites of bacon. He sucks the grease from his thumb.
Shane sighs, but there is ultimately nothing that can be done at present, so he nods defeatedly.
Once Ilya has gotten up and put their plates in the dishwasher, he sits back down and picks up Shane’s phone from the coffee table. He has several unread messages, mostly from Yuna Hollander and Hayden Pike.
“Passcode,” Ilya says, and tilts the phone screen toward Shane so that he can clumsily type in the four-digit code with his paw pads. He gets it right after two failed attempts. Ilya tries his best to ignore that his passcode is 1208. It could be random or a coincidence. The fact that Ilya and Shane had first met in December of 2008 doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
Ilya types out a message to the Metros’ team management. He’s especially careful with grammar and punctuation, as scrolling through the previous messages reveals, Shane is very particular about this. Once written, he holds it out for Shane to read. It’s pretty generic–Came down with something, too sick to play tonight, will meet up with the team in New York–and Shane nods his approval. Ilya types out a similar message to Shane’s mother. Having sent both messages, Ilya sets Shane’s phone back on the coffee table.
“So,” Ilya starts, “you want to watch another movie?” They pass the rest of the morning and afternoon doing exactly that. Ilya digs out the Star Wars complete set on DVD that a veteran player on the Raiders had gifted Ilya during his rookie season with the Raiders. It was a sort of “Welcome to America!” gift, which Ilya accepted with a smile and did not mention that Star Wars does, in fact, exist in Russia. Still, Ilya had never seen them himself and watched them all with Svetlana one weekend. But that had been years ago, and so Ilya is content to rewatch them with Shane now.
They take a break after the first film to eat a lunch of baked chicken, which Ilya shreds into small bits for Shane, and then another break after the third to nap when Ilya notices Shane’s head drooping. Ultimately, it’s an exceptionally lazy day, but what else are they supposed to do? Besides, Ilya enjoys the novelty of being in Shane’s company for such an extended amount of time, even if he is cat-shaped.
It’s just after six in the afternoon when Ilya decides to take a shower.
“You will be okay?” Ilya checks, and Shane gives him such an annoyed glare that Ilya immediately relents, holding up his hands in surrender and turning toward the staircase. Ilya leaves the bathroom door cracked just in case, though.
He’s in the shower and running a soapy cloth over his chest when he hears a heavy thud. Worried, Ilya pauses and calls out “Shane?” He hears no response–no meow, no yowl of distress, nothing.
Then, just as he decides to get out and investigate, he hears unsteady footsteps on the stairs, then in the bedroom. Before he can think that the footsteps sound a bit too loud to belong to a domestic cat, the bathroom door crashes open and a very human and very naked Shane Hollander stumbles into the steamy bathroom.
Ilya stares in shock as Shane leans heavily on the sink for support. Shane looks up at Ilya, who is standing still under the running water.
“Um,” Shane starts, and his voice cracks from disuse. He clears his throat but doesn’t attempt to speak again yet. Instead, he pulls open the shower door with shaking hands and falls into Ilya, who quickly wraps him up in his arms. “That sucked,” Shane mumbles into Ilya’s shoulder, “My bones hurt.”
Ilya gives into the urge to rub Shane’s back comfortingly before beginning to massage the muscles there for a few moments. He moves his hands to knead the back of Shane’s neck and then the muscles in his arms. Shane has practically melted against him, and Ilya decides that Shane will feel a little better if he is clean.
“Here,” Ilya murmurs, gently urging Shane’s head back and into the stream of warm water. He squirts some shampoo into the palm of his hand and begins working it into Shane’s hair, scratching at his scalp with his fingernails.
Shane moans at the feeling, eyes closed in bliss.
Ilya continues indulgently massaging Shane’s head for a longer time than a standard hair-washing warrants, then eases him under the water again to rinse. He coats Shane’s hair in his conditioner and then lets it sit, picking up the washcloth and lathering it in his body wash. He carefully washes Shane’s body, running the cloth over every inch of soft skin in tender caresses. It’s more affection than either of them would probably allow on a typical day, but the past 24 hours have been anything but typical. Besides, Shane is not stopping him and is instead leaning into Ilya’s touch, so Ilya allows himself this.
Once Ilya has finished cleaning Shane’s body, he tilts Shane’s head back to rinse out the conditioner beneath the water. Ilya quickly finishes washing his own body, and then leads Shane out onto the bathmat and wraps him in a large, fluffy towel. Ilya dries the both of them off and guides Shane into the bedroom.
“You want to sleep?” Ilya asks, watching as Shane plops down to sit on the edge of the bed. The transformation had tired Shane out the first time, and looking at him now, Ilya can see the shadows darkening his undereyes.
But Shane just shakes his head and scoots back on the bed until his head rests on the pillow. He spreads his legs, displaying himself for Ilya to see, and slowly, enticingly trails a hand down his abdomen and then down even further.
Ilya can feel his heartrate picking up as he watches, and his stomach swoops when Shane says, “We got interrupted yesterday.” Shane bites his lip as his hand works steadily between his legs and his breathing comes faster. He looks at Ilya with his dark, imploring doe eyes, and whines. “I need you,” he begs.
And really, how can Ilya resist that?
Later, when the sun has set, and they both lay in Ilya’s bed, catching their breath and sweat cooling on their bodies, Ilya closes his eyes briefly in exhaustion. As always, sex with Shane had been athletic and euphoric, and Ilya felt simultaneously drained of everything he had and burning with the desire for more. Being with Shane was a singular experience comparable to none, and Ilya could never get enough.
“Rozanov…” Shane says warily, and his tone makes Ilya crack his eyes open again to see Shane staring hard at the water glass on the bedside table.
“What?” Ilya asks, propping himself up onto his elbows.
“I really want to knock that cup over,” Shane says grimly.