Archive of Our Own

Ilya’s never shied away from the physical component of hockey. He’s earned his reputation for borderline-dirty hits and fights fair and square. There’s no point in playing a contact sport if you don’t love the rush of the contact part of it, after all. He’s certainly never hesitated from it when Hollander’s on the ice against him, and from the grins the hits have gotten him over the years, the near-feral little thrill of shoving each other around in pursuit of the puck, he gathers Hollander has never had complaints. 

Though he very much might today. 

It’s not that Ilya wants to hurt him, not really, not even now. He’s angry, yes, and he’s hurt and he’s confused and he’s embarrassed, but that doesn’t translate to actually wanting to do any damage to Shane Hollander that an ice pack and some Tylenol won’t have fixed right up. It’s almost like a form of foreplay for them at this point, taking stock of the other’s bruises, pressing gently to test the waters of how rough the sex can get, making sure that the pleasure will always outweigh the pain. One of Ilya’s favorite memories is actually one time when lube had dissolved the adhesive of the KT tape on Hollander’s shoulder and he’d needed assistance applying more after. It had involved showering together for reasons beyond just sex–something that Ilya enjoys more than he’s ever been willing to admit, even in his own head–and then nudging Hollander over to the bed while Ilya dug out the package of tape rolls from Hollander’s endearingly-comprehensive first aid kit. They’d bickered over what color to use for long enough that it had been stupid even in the moment of the disagreement, Hollander insisting on blue because it’s what he’d already had and Ilya insisting that green would look pretty on him instead, primarily just to needle him. They’d compromised with red to make them both equally not getting their way, and Ilya had taken great delight in pretending to ignore Hollander bossing him around on how to put the tape on, a rare reversal of their usual dynamic. It had been silly and stupid and something bordering on couple-y in a way that would have had Ilya bolting if he’d thought about that last part long enough. It had felt good, smoothing the tape down, letting Hollander try out a range of motion to test out the placement, knowing that something Ilya had done would go with Hollander after the evening was over, a little piece of him riding along like a souvenir. 

Looking at Hollander now, Ilya thinks it’s going to take more than KT tape to fix him this time. 

Yesterday is a distant memory the instant he sees Hollander go flying, and it’s forgotten entirely when he bounces off of the side of the rink and goes down like a ragdoll, like a puppet with his strings cut, like a bird colliding with a window. 

Like something broken that can’t be fixed. 

Ilya’s on his knees next to him before he even registers thinking about doing it. He’s either dropped a glove on purpose or chosen to take one off, and he can’t remember which one and it doesn’t matter because Hollander is in front of him, down on the ice, face slack in a way it’s only supposed to be when Ilya’s fucked him out of his own body, a way it’s only supposed to be when Ilya can bring him back down, slowly and gently. 

Nothing about this is remotely fucking gentle. 

“Shane?” He asks, because it’s the first thing that comes out. The way his chest feels tight with panic isn’t something he would feel for someone he only calls by their last name. It’s something he would feel for someone he’s known long enough for them to be a piece of who he is by now. It’s not Hollander in front of him right now. It’s Shane. 

And Shane isn’t fucking moving. 

Ilya bows low over him and reaches out before he can think about how maybe he shouldn’t, fingertips resting lightly on his back, barely any pressure at all. His instinct is to shake him, to jostle him gently the way he does on the rare occasion he’s nodded off after sex and Ilya has watched the clock to steal as many minutes as possible before he has to let him go again. Even amidst the mind-numbing panic of the moment, though, he knows that’s not a good idea. He’s played hockey too long to make that mistake. 

He’s played hockey too long to not know how bad this could be.

We can’t have left it like that, is the stupid, terror-sparked thought that comes to him, like he isn’t a fully grown adult, like he doesn’t know that sometimes you don’t get a goodbye and sometimes things just end ugly and broken and painful. The last thing his mother had said to him was, Ilyushka, please don’t be so loud. Mama doesn’t feel good today. before he went to school, when he was excited about the new book they were reading in his literature class and he hadn’t been minding his volume, rattling along while making breakfast because his mother hadn’t felt up to it. That was his last interaction with his mother. That’s it. The only thing he got to take with him into the darkness of her loss, the knowledge that their last interaction hadn’t even been a good one. 

It turns out prior experience doesn’t make the possibility sit any less painfully now. 

“Sh-Hollander,” he corrects, because even if he doesn’t know why, he knows that the name made him panic before. He doesn’t want him to panic now. Even amidst Ilya’s own panic, he doesn’t want to set Hollander off. “Hollander, open your eyes, yes?” 

For once, he doesn’t obey an instruction. 

“Hollander,” he says, harder now in a way he usually isn’t when it comes to the man in front of him. Hollander doesn’t mind chirping and teasing and even being wound up enough to get a little physical, but when it comes down to it, he likes softer handling, likes praise and guidance and being told he’s good. The way he glows under it, lights up like sunlight, has almost been enough to make Ilya come with his pants still on an embarrassing number of times. He’s never told Hollander that, afraid of being teased with it later. 

Right now, he’d happily hand over every embarrassing thing he’s ever done if it would make Hollander open his eyes, sit up, laugh at him. 

“Holl-” he stops at the faintest fluttering of lashes, leaning over more. “Hollander?” 

Hollander shifts and lets out a strangled noise of pain that has Ilya turning at once to gesture for the medics, who had begun gathering up their bags but pick up the pace at the confirmation of a player down and not getting back up on his own. 

Or maybe at whatever they read on Ilya’s face. 

Ilya knows Hollander’s sounds by now, has a whole mental catalogue of which ones mean what and how to coax out his favorites. Hollander’s never been very talkative in bed, not really, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t communicative in his own way. Ilya’s enjoyed it, even, like a fun puzzle to solve each time he hears a new one he hasn’t worked out yet. This noise, though, isn’t a fun one. 

And it’s new in a way that’s terrifying. 

“Hey,” he protests, when he’s pulled back by his shoulder, away from Hollander, but the appearance of a collar thing silences his protests as he manages to push himself to his feet to get a better look at what’s happening, some stupid, primal part of him demanding he watch and make sure they do it correctly, like he knows what correctly would even look like here. There’s a medic now leaning over and talking to Hollander, and Ilya bites back the way he wants to tell them what to say, how to talk to him, wants to tell them they have to be clear because Hollander does best when there are guardrails up on his answers. 

Even below the roar of the crowd, the velcro of the collar being undone sounds like one of the loudest things Ilya’s ever heard, terrifying in the necessity of it, like something’s broken inside of Hollander that needs support to keep together. 

“Is he okay?” He demands, like he has any right to the answer or even the question itself. They’re not anything to each other, as Hollander made clear yesterday. That question isn’t for whatever Ilya is to him to ask. 

But he also needs the fucking answer. 

“Is he okay?” He asks again, harder this time, because while he can appreciate the focus being paid to Hollander, he needs someone to give him just enough to let him know that he’s catastrophizing, that everything will be okay, that they see this all the time, that Hollander will be back on the ice within days, probably a little embarrassed at being the center of so much attention but otherwise perfectly fine to continue being a menace to play against. No one tells him any of that, though. 

No one tells him anything at all. 

“Hey,” he says, not pushing forward, not risking interrupting their work, but shifting to the side enough to try and look at someone to force them to look at him. “Fucking tell me.” 

“Back to your bench, Rozanov,” says a ref, who pushes past him and then kneels, talking to medics in a low voice that Ilya can’t hear. 

Maybe because of how loud Ilya’s own heartbeat sounds in his ears. 

Don’t do this, Ilya thinks at Hollander. Well, he hopes it’s a thought and not something he’s saying out loud. Don’t fucking do this to me. I’m supposed to be pissed at you. I’m not supposed to have to face mourn-

He snaps that thought away the same way he does a puck into a net. 

He demands more answers. He’s ignored. He’s shuffled back and back and back, returning each time like a very stupid dog until he’s finally bodily shoved away by a ref, gliding backwards without any participation from him at all until he bounces lightly off of the wall. 

It’s a much gentler collision than Hollander got. 

They wrap Hollander up on a gurney. They carry him away. 

Ilya still doesn’t get an answer for any of his questions. 

*

Ilya autopilots his way through some bullshit “we’ll get ‘em next time” speech for his team after a loss that’s forgotten as soon as it fucking happened. Montreal got back onto the ice angry. Ilya got back onto the ice numb. 

It wasn’t a combination that worked out very well for him or his team. 

He thinks he manages some kind of talk with Marleau, who looks guilty in a way a very mean part of Ilya wants to make worse. It’s not his fault, Ilya tells himself sternly. That’s the nature of the game. Sometimes hits end badly. Marleau was just playing the game. He didn’t try to hurt Hollander enough for it to end in a gurney and an ambulance ride and a crack in Ilya’s world on purpose. 

Still, it’s a relief when he finally gets to turn away from him and head to the parking lot to go home. 

*

Ilya pretends that night like he gets a few snatched minutes of sleep because that feels better than having to face the fact that his night passes in frustrated refreshes of Twitter and sports news sites before smacking his phone facedown against the mattress in irritation. The bed feels too big in a way it rarely does. As much as he enjoys sex, he’s never particularly cared for sharing a bed for the night, never really liked the idea of being that vulnerable with someone, always preferring to fuck, maybe luxuriate in a little shared afterglow, and then call it a night. 

…until he experienced Hollander asleep in his bed with him, slack and trusting and warm, immediately addictive in how good it felt-

-and over almost as soon as Ilya got to experience it in the first fucking place. 

He flips onto his back at the thought, made even more irritated at the way his covers try to tie around him, disheveled from the way he’s tossed and turned all night, unable to get comfortable. Last night, in a truly embarrassing show of weakness, he’d woken up to find himself curled around the pillow Hollander had used the day before, face pressed to the fabric to chase the faint hint of his scent still lingering. 

In a gesture that had just made him feel even more stupid, he’d immediately sent the pillow flying across the room.  

*

The worst part, Ilya thinks as night starts creeping its way towards morning, the smudgy gray of dawn an indictment of his own foolishness, is that he knows he shouldn’t even expect an update. He and Hollander previously existed in a category of nebulous something, but he doesn’t even know where they land with that anymore. They’ve sent messages before after particularly brutal hits, injuries bad enough that they could have ostensibly been passed along a grapevine and not witnessed in real time while watching the other person’s game, but even those were always carefully coated in enough chirping to make them land easier, teasing speculation on the other trying to get out of their next game or little snipes about someone getting slow in his old age, the latter usually devolving into shared joking at Scott Hunter’s expense. For want of anything else to do, Ilya scrolls back and back and back until he gets to their last round, after a Vegas wing had hit Ilya hard enough to knock him into two other players and take them all down, straining his knee in the process and taking him out of the rest of the game. 

I heard you got taken out by the Vegas rookie. If you’re looking to retire, there are easier ways to do it, you know. 

Less humiliating ones, too. You got taken out by a baby? 

wishful thinking. i will be back to embarrassing you on the ice in no time. 

You sure about that? Apparently it was a pretty nasty fall. Something about your knee? 

just a strained ligament. you are in new york soon for a pretty boy magazine cover, yes? should i take the train to see you so you can kiss it better? 😘

No, but you can take the train to kiss my ass. 

😱

and i was told canadians are so polite. you should be careful. they will take your passport away if you keep being so mean to people. 

I can be nice. Watch: what’s your treatment plan? I can ask Hunter for recommendations for what to do about old man knees.

he will be too busy drinking prune smoothies to answer 

We play him in a couple of weeks. I can see what walker he uses when he gets off the ice. Then you guys can be twins. 

Ilya finds himself smiling at it even now, this stupid little exchange. It’s always felt like getting another piece of Hollander that other people don’t, the version of him that isn’t so perfectly polished for consumption. He’s sharp and he’s funny and he’s sarcastic, three things that almost never make an appearance in front of a camera to threaten his golden boy reputation. Ilya’s seen little hints of it before, caught a certain light in Hollander’s eyes when he thinks something mean and decides not to say it, and it’s felt like an inside joke, almost, knowing that Hollander had something less polite to say than, “They’re certainly impressive” or “At the end of the day, it’s about giving the fans a good performance” or “No, I haven’t heard that.” Ilya’s wanted to text him before, to ask what he thought and didn’t say, but that would have meant admitting to watching his interviews in the first place, to wanting something he wasn’t allowed to have. 

To something Hollander doesn’t want him to have to judge from how even saying his first name was enough to send him running for the door. 

At the thought, Ilya exits out of his messages and tosses his phone to the other end of the mattress, throwing an arm over his eyes and trying to will himself into going to sleep. 

It doesn’t work. 

*

He lasts approximately twenty minutes before he shoves himself up to grab his phone again, opening Hockey Report and refreshing and refreshing and refreshing. 

*

Despite his own stupid, half-formed wishes, Ilya is surprised when his phone vibrates and lets him know he has a text from Jane. A very foolish part of his heart flutters a bit, desperately trying to read into this as a sign that all isn’t lost, that there’s a way back to what they were. 

The text, though, isn’t exactly illuminating or particularly reassuring. 

Or coherent. 

Hegy is me. Wantt see please? Place? 

He stares at it for a long, long time, wondering exactly what the fuck he’s supposed to do with this. 

Embarrassingly, he’s so busy trying to figure it out that he jumps slightly when his phone vibrates again, a second message coming through. 

Hey, this is Hayden Pike. I promise I’m not reading back through these messages, but Shane isn’t supposed to have his phone right now, and he really wants you to come see him. 

Correction: I’m being told to tell you he really REALLY wants you to come see him, please. 

With cherries on top, which I think you should remember him saying so you can make fun of him later. 

I know you guys are pretty hush hush about things, so if you want some time with just the two of you, his room number is 1453, I’m going back to the hotel to pack his stuff up at 1, and I can text you when I’m going to head back. I’ll add you to my phone. 

His phone vibrates again, a text coming in from an unsaved number. 

This is Hayden. 

Bubbles to indicate typing appear and disappear, appear again, disappear for longer, and then appear again. 

Ilya, who is fairly certain he’s having a very, very strange dream, just stares at the screen. 

There’s part of him that thinks he should just ignore all of this. Hollander made it very clear approximately 24 hours ago that he wanted absolutely nothing from Ilya beyond some quick, casual fucking. The idea of anything more was enough to send him fleeing from Ilya’s house like it was on fire, leaving him sitting in the aftermath feeling stupid and young and hurt. 

(…and sticky.)

Another text finally comes in as Pike manages to rub his two functional brain cells together enough to be coherent. 

I promise I’m not trying to be nosy or anything, so you don’t have to tell me about it, but he really does want to see you. He was really, really upset when he came back to the hotel and wouldn’t tell me what you guys fought about, but you were literally his first thought as soon as he was conscious again. He about fell out of bed trying to get his phone so he could text you, and he even ignored doctor’s orders to do it after he was told no screens. You probably know him enough to know not obeying the rules is a pretty big thing for Mr. Goody Two Shoes here. Like I said, I don’t know what happened between you guys, but either he’s sorry or maybe you should reconsider something you said. He really, really cares about you. 

The last sentence hits him in the stomach harder than Pike’s ever managed in person, which might be impressive if Ilya had the capacity of feeling anything other than deep, throbbing aching at the words. They’re not true, after all. The fact that Pike’s saying them already means they should be taken with a grain of salt, but he even said he didn’t get details. Maybe Shane wanted his phone to text someone else, maybe he does have girls like he said, maybe he-

Another text comes through. 

It’s a picture of Shane, badly lit because the window shades must be closed against the light for the sake of the headache there’s no way he doesn’t have. Even in the low lighting, he looks hurt, bruising across his cheekbone and temple, his arm secured tightly in a bright white sling. He looks tragic and hurt and deceptively delicate when Ilya knows damn well he’s just as strong as he is. 

He looks so beautiful that Ilya almost can’t look at him. 

You’re really going to tell this cute face no? 

He scoffs at his screen. Hollander would want him to say no. He’d want his perfectly cute face to never have to see Ilya’s again. He made it abundantly clear before, and whatever Pike is interpreting here is wildly misguided. Even as the captain of the player who hurt him, there isn’t really any propriety lost if Ilya doesn’t go to see him. It would be good manners normally, but his and Shane’s rivalry is well-known enough that no one would be surprised if he didn’t. People would probably be suspicious if he did. Nothing good can come from doing this, from willingly throwing salt in his own fucking woun-

I will be there at 1. 

He is so, so fucking stupid. 

*

The last time Ilya was face to face with Hollander in private, he had avoided looking at him at all and stammered out a blatant lie before fleeing so quickly he hadn’t even remembered to put his own pants back on, taking off while still wearing Ilya’s. Ilya had heard the front door slam and felt certainty settle in his stomach like he’d drunk ice water too fast, the knowledge that something was over now. 

Now he’s face to face with Hollander in a hospital bed, and he’s smiling at him like he’s brought the sun with him into the room, drawling out a sweet, happy “hiiiii” like there’s no one on earth he wanted to see more, like Ilya’s made his whole day just by appearing in front of him. 

He’s not sure which one makes him ache more. 

“Hi,” Ilya repeats back, much less saccharine. “Are you…okay?” 

“I’m okay,” Hollander says, imitating his accent with a pleased little smile. 

Despite himself, Ilya softens slightly. It’s something Hollander’s done before, sometimes out loud to tease and sometimes under his breath, like he can’t help it. At first, Ilya had felt self-conscious about it, surprised and a little hurt that Hollander would mock him, but with time, he’s come to the conclusion that Hollander just likes the sound of certain things, likes to feel them in his mouth. 

Along with other things, Ilya thinks, a flicker of amused desire flitting through him even now, helpless against it when it comes to Shane Hollander. 

“You…wanted to see me?” He asks, barely resisting a wince at how awkwardly it comes out. “After yesterday-” He stops, swallows. 

Hollander makes a face–one of Ilya’s favorite faces, in fact–that says he’s a little embarrassed about what he’s about to say. Ilya feels his chest go a little tighter, wondering if Hollander has had time to reconsider, if he’d even planned to reach out after the game, apologize for spooking and running, ask to come ba-

“Did something…happen yesterday?” Hollander asks. 

Ilya stares at him. 

“I mean, I was supposed to come to your house, I remember that,” Hollander says slowly, thoughtfully, rubbing his eye with a clumsy hand. “I did, right?” He looks back at Ilya, badly hiding a yawn he draws through his nose. 

“I-” Ilya, for perhaps the first time in his life, is truly speechless. Is this some kind of game? Even as he thinks it, he dismisses it. Hollander might be full of surprises, but he’s not one for cruelty or deception. He never has been. It’s one of the things Ilya’s always liked about him, his earnestness, his honesty. 

Which means whatever he’s doing right now makes even less sense. 

“I don’t remember past Wednesday,” Hollander says, and he almost sounds…apologetic? “Concussion,” he says, making a face. 

“You don’t remember yesterday?” Ilya asks, and Hollander starts to shake his head before grimacing, reaching to hold onto the handrail like the motion made him dizzy. Before he’s even decided to, Ilya’s halfway across the room to him, his own hand extended to touch, to soothe. He holds back, remembering the last time he tried to reach out to Hollander-

-and then thinking about the fact that Hollander apparently doesn’t remember the last time he tried to reach out to Hollander. 

A stupid little flicker of something reckless and more than slightly immoral goes through him. 

He reaches out and rests a hand lightly on Hollander’s. 

Hollander doesn’t pull away. 

Instead, he smiles slightly when he opens his eyes, thumb moving lightly to rest over the side of Ilya’s finger. Feeling slightly out of his mind, Ilya dares curl his finger slightly, turning the touch into something a little more affectionate. 

Still, Hollander doesn’t pull away. 

“The doctor said not to worry,” Hollander says. “Apparently it should come back eventually.” 

Knowing it probably makes him a very, very bad person, Ilya can’t help his reflexive thought of, I hope it doesn’t. 

He should fess up. He should tell Hollander right now that yesterday went poorly, that something he did startled him into running. He should be honest. He should say he doesn’t deserve the sweet look on his face right now, that Hollander wouldn’t be making those pretty eyes at him if he knew what Ilya did yesterday. 

…except that Ilya doesn’t even know what he did yesterday. 

“I’m sorry you were hurt,” Ilya says, and because he’s equal parts stupid and reckless, he reaches out, strokes the backs of his fingers gently across the bruising on Hollander’s cheekbone. 

The way Hollander leans into it makes Ilya’s heart do something that feels painful. 

“It’s okay,” Hollander says, still pressing into Ilya’s hand like a cat. He opens his eyes, looking up though his lashes, and Ilya’s heart does something painful again. “Part of the game, right? Everyone gets their bell rung eventually.” 

Ilya wants to kiss the smile off his mouth. 

“I am sorry I can’t remember yesterday, though,” Hollander says, smile going playful in a way that makes Ilya’s lips twitch in response. He’s loose and rosy-cheeked in a way that says he’s on a hefty dose of painkillers currently, and the way he’s looking at Ilya says it’s provided him with a dose of courage enough to feel flirtatious, too, in a way Ilya’s never actually seen outside of a dark bedroom before. “I remember you making some pretty big promises. Did you actually live up to them?”

Ilya swallows against the knot in his throat. 

He should say it. He should just lay out what happened yesterday. He should say that something he did was wrong, that something scared Hollander off, that he overstepped somewhere without realizing it and ruined years of them together. Maybe if he lays it out, if he plays it through minute by minute, Hollander can walk him through it. Maybe with the benefit of distance, he’ll be able to just tell Ilya what he did wrong. 

Except for the fact that Shane doesn't remember what he did wrong. 

“Do you ever leave disappointed?” Ilya asks, and the joke tastes bitter in his mouth given the fact that Hollander can’t pick up on the irony in it. 

“I don’t know. I can’t remember yesterday,” Hollander says, tilting his head with a playful kind of arrogance that makes Ilya want to press his mouth to the stretch of throat it exposes. 

But also showing off some bruising along his jaw that makes Ilya want to wrap him in soft blankets and feed him soup and do all sorts of ridiculous things he has no right to. 

Not that it stops him from wanting it. 

“Maybe you told Marleau to take me out on purpose so I wouldn’t remember yesterday,” Hollander teases, and despite the way he knows it’s a joke, it jabs right at something painful, the same part of Ilya he felt threatening to break on the ice yesterday when Hollander was sprawled out on it, unmoving. 

“I would never do that,” Ilya says, and there’s not even a hint of joking in his tone. 

Hollander’s expression softens, and he lifts his hand to press it over Ilya’s on his cheek, closing his eyes and leaning into it. 

“I know,” Hollander says, voice soft. He peeks one eye open. “You like losing fair and square.” He grins, delighted with himself at the chirp. 

Ilya wants to kiss him more than he’s ever wanted almost anything in his life. 

He resists. 

“What’s wrong?” Hollander asks, not releasing him. He frowns, and Ilya can practically see the cogs turning in his head. “Did something happen yesterday?” He lets Ilya’s hand lower but doesn’t release it. “Oh, fuck, did I do something?” 

“No,” Ilya says at once, stroking his thumb along his hand soothingly without even needing to think about it. “No, you didn’t.” 

“You look upset,” Hollander presses. “If I-” 

Ilya can hear him getting upset with the increase of the beeping on the machine beside the bed, and that spurs him into action that doesn’t require thought. It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. There’s here and now and an upset Shane Hollander in front of him. 

“Sh,” he says, reaching up and smoothing Hollander’s hair back. “You’re fine. We’re fine.” This may or may not be true, but for the purposes of an already-injured Hollander not winding himself up more when he’s hurt, Ilya is willing to play with the edge of full disclosure. He decides on a truth he can share. “You just scared me.” 

Hollander still looks slightly doubtful, but his shoulders relax slightly, going looser when Ilya takes hold of his hand again, thumb stroking across his knuckles. He focuses only on their hands when he speaks. 

“You are not supposed to do that, Hollander.” 

“I mean it wasn’t on purpose,” Hollander says, and now there’s a note of complaint in his voice. “It wasn’t a lot better on this side of things.” 

Ilya looks up at him, and he can’t resist the way he reaches out to smooth the little furrow between Hollander’s brows with his fingertips. He smiles when it makes Hollander go nearly cross-eyed trying to see it before he blinks, focusing on Ilya again. 

“I’m sorry I scared you-” 

“No,” Ilya says, dismissing his own joke in an instant. “It’s okay.” 

Shane smiles, leaning back against his pillows and looking content for a moment before he exhales heavily. 

“If it makes you feel better,” he says, “I’m paying for it now.” 

“Hm?” 

“The hospital won’t release me unless someone can stay with me, and everyone on the team has to leave today to make the next game in Denver.” He slumps down further in bed, starting to do what can only be called a pout. “Which means I’m stuck here for at least 72 hours.” 

“Your parents aren’t coming?” Ilya asks, genuinely surprised. 

“They’re on a cruise right now,” Shane says with a shrug that he clearly immediately regrets, wincing and closing his eyes tightly. Helpless to do anything else, Ilya squeezes his hand gently to let Hollander know he can do the same back if he needs. He does, and the conversation pauses for a moment until Hollander gets his breath back. He gives Ilya a slightly chagrined look.

“Cruise?” Ilya prompts, choosing not to scold him for being stupid when he already paid the price. 

“Yeah, they’re at sea until Tuesday, so the only way they’d be getting back before then is if they took a fucking helicopter or something.” 

“And your mother wasn’t already lining one up?” Ilya asks, lifting his eyebrows. 

Shane’s ears go a little pink. 

“I talked her out of it.” He sighs again, resting his head back and closing his eyes. “Which is good, but it means I’m stuck here until they finally free me.” 

Mama used to read him stories sometimes, peasant girls marrying princes, animals becoming humans, great heroes resisting temptation and gaining a grand reward for their strength.

Right now Ilya is facing the temptation of a doe-eyed, opioid-sweet Hollander and not feeling very heroic at all.

“You could stay with me,” he hears himself saying, like a voice coming to him from the end of a very, very long hallway.

From the way Hollander blinks at him owlishly, lifting his head, it seems like he might be hearing it from just as far. 

“Stay with you?” Hollander repeats, and stupid, stupid masochist that he is, Ilya fools himself into thinking he sees a flicker of want in Hollander’s expression, a softer, more innocent cousin to the desire he's used to.

Still, it's not a stranger, familiar enough to tempt him into his own damnation for want of more, for every trace of Hollander he can get.

For Shane Hollander, Ilya has always been a glutton.

“Only if you want,” he says, an attempt at kindness, at giving Hollander a way out, an easy way to decline. 

“Do…do you want?” Hollander asks, all concussed and drugged earnestness.

The question makes Ilya's breath catch in his chest.

He wants. Holy God, he fucking wants. He wants like a starving man wants bread, like a drowning man wants land, like a dying man wants a miracle. He wants and he wants and he wants, and he takes whatever scraps he manages to collect, hoarding them greedily: what positions Hollander likes in bed, where he likes being touched and where he doesn't (the list of the former endearingly larger than the latter), the way he laughs and what makes him laugh the most, how much ice he likes in his water, what brand tape he prefers for his stick, what cologne makes him press his face to Ilya's skin and inhale like he's trying to suck a piece of Ilya into himself. He wants so much.

But he knows better than to think he'll ever get.

Still…

“It is a big house, Hollander,” he says, forcing his tone light. “I think I can find room for you.” 

“I don’t want to put you out,” Hollander says, but Ilya can see the temptation of it. He’s no fan of hospitals, either, and he can’t imagine ever willingly spending more time than he has to in one. 

“Would I offer if I didn’t mean it?” Ilya asks. Would I have already offered it to you if I didn’t mean it? he thinks and very much does not say. He squeezes Hollander’s hand, still in his. “Is up to you. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. But if you want out of here,” he gestures around them in a vague way meant to encompass the building as a whole, “come stay with me. I don’t care.” I want it more than anything. I already wanted it. I want it now and I wanted it then and I think I might be cursed to want it forever because even after yesterday, all I can think about is a second chance at this, at having you with me, at being somewhere safe for you to heal, at getting to see you being okay because then maybe I won’t dream about you splayed out on the ice like-

“Okay,” Hollander says. 

“Okay?” He repeats, needing to hear it just one more time. 

Hollander smiles. 

“Okay.” 

*

Ilya begins regretting the offer approximately the moment he steps out of the hospital room. 

This does not stop him from preparing to honor it approximately the moment he steps into his house. 

Hollander’s abandoned pants go all the way at the bottom of his laundry basket as if their presence will be the key to him remembering why he left the first time, the pillows on the couch get fluffed until they look ridiculous, flattened out, fluffed again, and then left as they are because Ilya loses patience with them and himself, the ginger ale in the fridge gets meticulously lined up again after he previously shoved them all the way to the back, and he spends far, far too long circling his own home as if he’s touring it, trying to find what might stick out unpleasantly, what Hollander might want different. It’s what he did in preparation for the first round of him coming over. 

Ilya wonders if it makes him optimistic or stupid to think doing it again might yield different results. 

(The thought doesn’t stop him from moving his plant around about five different times.) 

(Again.) 

*

Ilya feels ridiculously nervous when he guides Hollander inside his house the next afternoon, feeling a potent mix of fondness and resignation when he immediately loses Hollander’s attention to the architecture once again after a repeat of Hollander once again asking if he needs to take his shoes off, because apparently this entire ill-advised idea is set to be one long session of deja vu. 

“You’re good,” he says once again, adjusting Hollander’s bag on his shoulder where he’d carried it in from the car for him, one hand at his back for stability. It’s the only differences so far from their first round of his, carrying his things and getting to touch him from the start. 

(Ilya is trying very hard not to decide if it feels good or not. It doesn’t matter, after all. This echo of their previous attempt at this has an expiration date, after all.)

In his preparations, Ilya realizes when he’s gotten Hollander upstairs, he failed to consider one fairly important element. 

Where exactly Hollander would be sleeping. 

His realization of this happens approximately the second they’ve managed to get upstairs as a two-person operation with how unsteady Hollander still is on his feet, and he pauses at the door to his room, where he’d guided them both automatically. It’s what he’d planned on before, after all, their first night of staying together. In a very petty, competitive part of himself, he’d even been pleased at the idea that his bed would be the site of another first between the two of them. Hollander got to claim their first time having sex for the sake of his own comfort, and Ilya would get to claim their first time spending the night together for the sake of his own foolish want. Now, though, he isn’t sure if Hollander wants to give him that first or not. 

He also knows that Hollander can’t even be sure if he wants to give him that first or not. 

Ilya suddenly wishes he’d spent the previous hours leading up to doing this focusing less on rearranging his already-arranged fridge and making sure all of the counters were clear and more on the actual logistics of sharing a space with someone who previously didn’t want to share space but now needs to share space but also doesn’t remember that he previously didn’t want to share space. 

It’s not promising for the sake of the rest of their time together that thinking about it too long is already giving him a headache. 

“This is my room,” he tells Hollander, and at least now he gets a break in repeating himself from their first attempt at this. He’d hauled Hollander up the stairs then, too, but carrying him right to his bed had eliminated the need of explaining. “There are two guest rooms, too. Do you-where do you want to stay?” It costs him more than he would like to admit, giving Hollander the option to sleep away from him, to be a house guest and nothing more. 

But even if he’s already playing around with his own sense of morality, he’d like to be ethical where he can. 

“Do you have a preference?” Hollander asks, leaning into him a little heavier in a way that says gravity might make a choice before he can. 

“No,” Ilya lies, like he hadn’t spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about how it would feel to fall asleep and wake up next to the man beside him. “Is up to you. The guest rooms haven’t been used in a while,” not since a few weeks ago when a rookie got wasted at a barbeque he hosted here and needed to stay overnight, “but the sheets should still be clean.” He thinks about whether Hollander might have a time limit on what he considers fresh sheets. It sounds like something he would have opinions about. “I can also wash them if you want. Or there are more in a closet somewhere, I’m sure.” 

“I mean,” Hollander says, badly hiding a yawn. “You are supposed to be making sure I don’t go into a coma or something, aren’t you?” The smile he has on is sweet and teasing (and probably primarily fueled by the same thing making him sway ever so slightly on his feet), but Ilya still hesitates. Really, he knows the logical thing probably is sharing a bed. Hollander’s injured, after all, and part of the agreement for him leaving the hospital was that someone would be able to keep an eye on him. 

…but he’s not sure if the soundness of his own reasoning in his head is coming from logic or selfish want. 

Would Hollander want to share a bed with him if his memories from 48 hours earlier hadn’t gotten knocked right out of his head? Hollander then hadn’t wanted to even share the same house as him, not then, but was that a decision he’d meant to make permanent? Or had he just needed to cool down? If the accident hadn’t happened, would he have texted Ilya, asked to come by, maybe even brought his bag this time to-

“I can sleep in the guest room,” Hollander says, and Ilya focuses back in from his internal rambling to find Hollander looking a little anxious now, like he’s afraid he’s the one who crossed a line here. “Seriously, I know I’m already inconveniencing you, you don’t have to-” 

“Is not an inconvenience,” Ilya corrects without even having to think about it. It’s true, after all. There are many adjectives he could apply to Hollander, but he would never use inconvenient. “I don’t mind if you don’t.” 

It’s meant to toss the ball back to him, to let Hollander know he can decide, that Ilya will respect what makes him comfortable either way. 

“I mean, if you’re sure…” Hollander trails off, eyes clearly trying to search his face for answers, like he isn’t already facing an uphill battle for focus to start with. 

The clear attempt at bolstering all of his brain power for this one task makes Ilya soften, and he steps closer, resting a hand on his back again and nudging him through the door and towards the en suite. 

“You want to wash hospital off, yes?” He asks on a guess he’s pretty confident in. 

“Fuck yes,” Hollander says with clear relief. 

If Ilya were currently capable of it, he might smile at being correct. 

*

Ilya didn’t actually expect to participate in Hollander’s shower. 

But Hollander leaning over to take his socks off and almost taking a header to the floor in the process has made him a little unwilling to take him at his word that he’ll be “fucking fine, Rozanov, God.” 

So. A shared shower far tamer than it usually is. 

He’d expected it to be awkward, maybe, for them both to need to ignore certain biological functions that have been trained by this point to respond at the sight of the other naked, but while there’s a tension between them, an awareness of what could be happening right now, it’s something easily kept at a simmer, present but not important. The temptation of a wet, soapy Hollander is notable, of course, but the dark, painful-looking bruising has tempered it into something easier to set aside, Hollander deposited onto the bench usually used for much more fun reasons than keeping him from falling over. 

“I’m not sure this is how nurses usually help their patients,” Hollander observes, when Ilya has handed over the handheld detachment for him, Hollander tipping his head back to wet his hair before directing the stream over the rest of him before handing it back. 

“Are we playing nurse?” Ilya teases before he even thinks about it, moving to hang the showerhead back up and then handing Hollander the shampoo instead of making him reach for it, taking his own turn under the stream of water in the meantime. 

“You’re the one who-” Hollander’s responding jab is cut off when he reaches up for his head, clearly jarring something in the process. Ilya hesitates, just a moment, wondering if offering to help would be crossing a line, but under the current circumstances, this seems like a lesser offense. 

“Here,” he says, stepping forward and holding his hand out for the shampoo. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Hollander says, like he isn’t fully aware of this. 

He just flexes his fingers once, a silent request that’s heeded, Hollander handing it back over. 

It’s not the first time he’s done something like this, he thinks as he pours some shampoo into his palm and then sets the bottle aside. He and Hollander are no strangers to shower sex–sometimes the safest option in hotels with especially thin walls–and the excuse of “helping” the other wash off is a pretty well-used form of foreplay between them. He’s even genuinely helped Hollander rinse off before, usually when they’ve experimented with something like seeing how many times Ilya can make him come in a night and left Hollander shaky on his legs after in a way that makes Ilya feel both satisfied and protective. They haven’t talked about it, of course, that handful of times they’ve shared a shower for nothing beyond washing off the evidence of a good night, Hollander pliant and afterglow-affectionate, leaning against him and submitting easily to Ilya working a washcloth over his skin. 

Somehow this feels even more intimate. 

“Too hard?” He asks, pausing when Hollander, eyes closed, makes a small noise. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head slightly without dislodging Ilya’s hands in his hair. “It feels good.” 

It’s a dangerous admission to hear, compelling in a way that makes Ilya reflexively want to chase more, and he starts running verb conjugations in his head to try and keep his cock under control, his libido sparking to life at the combination of Shane Hollander and “feels good”. He’s made it to rinsing Hollander’s hair out and mentally reciting present perfect simple with the verbs his teacher used to make him work through over and over when Hollander’s eyes open, glancing down briefly to register how Ilya’s anatomy has managed to still respond despite the attempted leash of English grammar. He smiles, faintly, looking back up to Ilya. 

“Want a hand while I’m already down here?” He says as Ilya works conditioner through his hair, and despite the clear joke, he can still hear that there’s a genuine offer within the question. 

“No,” he says, and he’s not sure if he’s amused or insulted when he registers a little flicker of surprise in Hollander’s eyes. It is the first time he’s ever turned him down, but he’d like to think Hollander doesn’t think that badly of him. 

(The fact that Hollander is only here at all because he doesn’t remember that he doesn’t want to be doesn’t exactly make him feel moral, but he shuttles that thought far away from himself.) 

“Ask me when you’ve been out of a hospital bed for longer than three hours,” he says, an attempt at softening the rejection. He won’t fuck Hollander under the influence–or at all, not until he can actually remember if he wants that or not–but he knows from their years together that he’s sensitive about doing something wrong without knowing it, shy about his inexperience, as if Ilya doesn’t get what’s probably a fucked-up amount of thrill from being his teacher, from helping Hollander learn what he likes, what makes him feel good, what he wants to beg for more of. 

When Hollander’s eyes flick back down, he’s painfully aware that his line of thought is not helping in keeping this shower PG. 

“You sure?” Hollander asks. “I don’t mind.” 

Ilya smiles, faintly, unable to help it, knowing better than most how very little Hollander minds handling a hard cock. 

“I’m sure,” he says, tipping Hollander’s chin up so he can rinse the conditioner out, Hollander closing his eyes immediately. It’s an intoxicating sight, Hollander in front of him, so trusting, so willing to let Ilya nudge him around, and it makes him even more cautious with the showerhead, careful not to let any water run down his face. “You are on drugs right now. Your yes is compromised.” 

“Like I’d ever tell you no,” Hollander says, so quietly that Ilya almost doesn’t hear it. 

So quietly that he’s not sure if he was meant to. 

You did, Ilya thinks but doesn’t say, because there’s no point in saying it when Hollander doesn’t remember. You said no when you left, when you changed your mind about staying when I don’t even know why. 

When even just saying your first name was enough to make you run from me. 

“You okay?” 

Ilya blinks, knocking away the turn of his thoughts, to see Hollander watching him, chin still resting on his fingertips trustingly, sweetly, not pulling away even though he could, instead waiting for Ilya to release him. His lashes are wet, and it somehow just makes his eyes more entrancing, dark and hypnotizing in the limited light of the half-lit bathroom. 

“Fine,” he says, clearing his throat as he releases Hollander and hangs the showerhead back up, rushing through washing his own hair after handing Hollander a washcloth with body wash on it. 

Better to keep their hands to themselves as much as possible, after all. 

*

He blessedly gets a brief break when he deposits Hollander in bed to nap, laying down next to him impulsively to scroll on his phone until he’s sure he’s out. 

(And pretending very hard that he doesn’t spend more time looking at the man next to him than he does Instagram). 

*

Ilya manages to sense Hollander waking from his nap just in time to make his escape from the room so he can pretend he wasn’t just laying next to him while sleeping like a person who is more than slightly fucking creepy, waiting in the hallway long enough to hear the sounds of Hollander rousing, the shift of sheets and the same low, grumbly noises he’d made after his brief nap here before. The fact that he can recognize that sound now and know what it means sits in his chest absurdly heavily, and it makes him delay just the slightest bit longer to get his shit together before he pokes his head through the door. 

“You are awake?” He asks unnecessarily, pushing the door open more. 

“Mmmrph,” Hollander responds eloquently, rubbing his cheek against the pillow like he’s trying very hard to go back to sleep. 

Unfortunately, Ilya knows his medication schedule from the prescription bag he was sent home with, and it’s time for another dose, which means it’s time for food. Thankfully Ilya hadn’t gotten totally insane when he was clearing out his fridge before, and he still has what he’d planned to make for dinner. Every element of the tuna melts he’d prepared ahead of time to make sure it all looked smooth and effortless didn’t fare nearly so well. He hadn’t even been able to look at any of it afterwards, dumping it in the trash impulsively and all but tossing the containers into the dishwasher to run it even near-empty. It was wasteful. He knows it. 

But he also was fairly certain that if he had to keep looking at them in his fridge like the punchline to a joke, he might have done something even worse about it. 

So: pasta without any confusing memories attached. 

(A very pessimistic part of his brain offers a “yet” at the end of the sentence, and he resolutely ignores it as he carefully gets Hollander to his feet.) 

(And if he enjoys it more than he should, the way he takes almost all of Hollander’s weight on the way downstairs, the way Hollander lets him help him get settled on the couch with pillows propping him up, the way Hollander takes a bottle of water and his pills and then a plate of food after Ilya makes it with no argument at all, the way it all feels like a slightly-dented cousin of the domesticity he’d wanted before, well.) 

(It’s not like anyone else has to know.) 

*

“I really appreciate you doing this,” Hollander says that night, after dinner has been cleared up–and Hollander has been returned to the couch twice when he tried to make his wobbly but stubborn way into the kitchen to insist on trying to help –and teeth have been brushed and they’ve both settled into Ilya’s bed for the night, Hollander propped up with a couple of pillows stolen from a guest room behind his back to make sure he won’t roll in his sleep, safely pinned between pillows and Ilya for his own protection. 

“Is pasta, Hollander,” Ilya dismisses, reaching to pull the covers up over them after making sure both of their phones were plugged in to charge. “Not a big deal.” 

“Not dinner, asshole,” Hollander says, but he’s smiling slightly when he says it. “Letting me stay. I know you weren’t expecting company.” 

I was, actually, Ilya thinks, and the thought stings more than he would like it to. I wanted company. I wanted your company. 

“Still not a big deal,” he says, with a deliberately casual shrug. “You needed a place, I have a place. Easy.” 

Not remotely easy emotionally, but the logistics are fairly straightforward. Hollander needs something. Ilya has it. Which means it’s Hollander’s to have if he wants it. 

(So long as he continues to not remember how much he didn’t want it before.)

“Well,” Hollander says now, badly hiding a yawn as his eyes clearly grow heavier. “Still, thanks.” 

“You’re welcome,” Ilya says softly. 

He falls asleep to the novel but comforting sound of Hollander’s slow, steady breathing. 

*

Ilya is learning that there are things that feel more intimate than having sex with someone.

Things like knowing how Shane Hollander likes his eggs.

He can't decide if it's a good feeling or if carrying around information that has an expiration date of whenever Hollander remembers that he wants nothing to do with Ilya or his eggs makes him feel sick. It doesn't really matter in the end. He's still here, right now.

And Hollander likes them scrambled.

“-seriously fine,” Hollander is insisting from his assigned seat at the counter, his obedience enforced by the fact that he's currently too unsteady on his feet to get up if he doesn't have to. “I can just eat-” 

“Watching you take a bite and try not to gag is not exactly appetizing,” Ilya says dryly. “You shouldn't say ‘however is fine’ if this is not true, Hollander.” He's not annoyed, not really, more endeared than anything after watching Hollander try to put on a brave face to soldier through a runny yolk like a man facing down an execution, but he'd taken pity after the third painfully deliberate swallow, sweeping his plate away and bullying him into confessing that he prefers scrambled. 

The silence behind him feels guilty, and despite himself, he smiles faintly, taking the pan off the heat, moving Hollander's remaining toast and fruit to a new yolk-less plate and adding the scrambled eggs, and claiming the two remaining eggs from Hollander's share to add to his own plate, returning with both and setting Hollander's in front of him.

“Better?” He asks, poking a now-half-congealed soft yolk on his own plate with the corner of his toast, sopping it up before taking a bite.

“You didn't have to do that,” Hollander says quietly, looking at his plate.

“I know,” Ilya says. “Now eat, or my work will be for nothing, and then I will be mad at you.” He points at Hollander sternly with his toast to emphasize his point, getting a small smile in return before Hollander picks up his fork and starts eating, visibly enjoying it much more.

Ilya files away the information, tucking “likes his eggs scrambled” in between “hates rosemary soap” and “likes to be edged a maximum of four times before he starts feeling frustrated and stops having fun.” There's not a point to it. Ilya won't need this information much longer.

(He still notices how Hollander carefully notches the tops of his strawberries off before eating them, filing it away too because Ilya apparently has a fondness for collecting things to break his own heart with.)

(Which probably explains Hollander being here at all.)

“Do you like cooking?”

So caught up in his own head, it takes him a moment to process being asked a question.

“Sometimes,” he says, “when there is time. Do you?”

At this point, why not collect more sharp things to stab at him later, after all? He might as well.

“Not during the season, really. I usually use a service.” 

“Probably for the best,” Ilya agrees. “Otherwise you would probably just make egg white omelettes and sadness.” 

“Asshole,” Hollander says, no real heat behind it. “I can cook.” 

“I believe you,” he agrees, amiable in a way that has Hollander obviously waiting for a punchline. “There are those tiny ovens for small children to bake in, yes? You can borrow one from Pike’s twenty thousand children, maybe?” 

“You’re such a dick,” Hollander says, but he smiles, pausing just briefly to take a bite of his eggs. “I cook with my dad a lot. Or, well, I used to. Not so much since I moved out. Obviously.” 

Ilya, because he is a gracious host, doesn’t tease him about fumbling over himself trying to correct his own facts, instead just scooping up more yolk with his toast. 

“My mom cooks some, too–she’s taught me how to make some Japanese food–but my dad’s the one who cooks most of the time. He makes really good chicken parmesan. Really good chicken katsu, too.” He must read the question Ilya sends in the tilt of his head, unfamiliar with the word. “Oh, that’s like, chicken cutlets fried and then served over rice with a sauce and usually some shredded cabbage.” Hollander’s smile goes a little softer, more introspective. “My mom usually says he’s coming for her thing when he makes it.” 

Ilya smiles in response, pleased to have this little piece of Hollander, this little glimpse at his family. 

His smile drops a bit when it settles on him that he doesn’t have anything equivalent to offer, nothing as sweet and domestic and uncomplicated as bickering about who gets to make chicken and in what way. Still, he would feel strange offering nothing in exchange. 

“My mother used to make Pozharsky cutlets. They are chicken, sometimes, but ground up and then breaded and fried. They are like-what is word?” He pulls his phone out and types it in. “Croquettes?” He sounds out, glancing up at Hollander to check his pronunciation and getting a nod. “I liked her pelmeni more, though. They are like dumplings.” 

“I guess everyone everywhere likes fried chicken and stuff wrapped in dough,” Hollander says. Ilya makes a noise of agreement. “It must be hard, being so far from your family.” It’s not the first time Hollander’s nudged at the subject. 

Ilya sidesteps it the way he usually does, unwilling to offer up his own messy family dynamics to someone he’s always been careful to only give the best of himself to. 

“Not so much anymore,” he says. 

He doesn’t mention that what he feels about his family most days is far more complicated than “missing.” 

There’s no reason to ruin a perfectly good breakfast, after all. 

*

He looks up how to make chicken katsu on an impulse that afternoon, when Hollander has nodded off against him on the couch, ordering things on Instacart and slipping out from under him to put them away when they arrive. He vacillates for a stupid amount of time about whether to actually commit to it, but by the time Hollander rouses, he’s already got things laid out. 

It’s unexpectedly fun, cooking with an audience that heckles him and also backseat drives when he deviates from the exact steps and measurements laid out in the recipe. He teases Hollander for his grimace of concern when the oil starts popping at him, and Hollander says his only worry is about him burning the house down or not. His house survives, obviously, and when reaching for ice for Hollander to pour his ginger ale over after he sips at it slowly enough that it starts to go tepid, he pauses briefly when he catches sight of the pelmeni in his freezer. It’s from a restaurant in the city, ordered as a bulk batch for the days he is homesick. It’s not his mother’s recipe, not a perfect replica, but the taste offsets the ache on the days he really misses her, when he needs some touchstone to keep him grounded. 

Now, though, he contemplates pulling the bag out for reasons other than melancholy. 

He doesn’t comment when he does, throwing a pot on the stove to boil and cooking them up quickly, serving up plates of chicken katsu over rice with cabbage alongside pelmeni with sour cream. It tastes like part of home with part of someone else’s home. 

It tastes like one of the best meals he’s had in a long time. 

*

Because it’s his life’s purpose to be annoying, being on a roadie doesn’t stop Pike from pestering him. 

Hey, how’s our boy doing?

Despite himself, Ilya is amused by the question, by the idea of shared ownership of Shane with Hayden fucking Pike. 

The funny drains right out of it when he remembers exactly how much Shane would hate the idea of Ilya having any claim to him at all. 

He is fine. 

He pauses, considers, reconsiders, considers once again, reconsiders once again, and then gets annoyed at himself and just sends the next message. 

And he is not our boy. 

Yeah yeah yeah, he’s all yours, Miss Boston. I know. 

I’ve seen him blushing at his phone enough over the years to know. 

Ilya should let it drop there. He knows he should. Pike already knows nothing ever, and it’s not like he would know anything about this. The fact that all he knows about Lily From Boston is that her name is Lily and she lives in Boston says clearly that Hollander isn’t exactly bubbling over with affection around his best friend about his casual fuck. He’s probably just seen Hollander reading his sexts over the years and getting flustered because even years into this, he always blushes so pretty when Ilya is winding him up before his brain switches tracks into horny enough to turn that fluster into hunger. Pike doesn’t know anything. Hollander would be mad about him saying anything at all. Ilya should let it drop there. 

Oh? 

Okay, don’t start digging for compliments. It’s not a good look. 

(Ilya wonders what he would say if he admitted that he’s not digging for compliments so much as he’s digging for some tiny little sign that Hollander cares about him at all.) (Even in his own head, he’s so disgusted with himself at the pointless neediness that he almost gags.) 

Beside him on the bed, Hollander sleeps on in his nap, relaxed and warm and beautiful. 

Ilya reaches out to touch because he’s weak and pathetic and can’t help it, brushing strands of hair back and then ghosting his fingertips over his cheekbone, along his jaw, across his temple, down the slope of his nose. 

The latter makes him twitch it like a bunny, and Ilya is filled with something that almost feels like aggression at the sight. 

Another text coming through is a much-needed distraction. 

I promise I’m not being pushy and you should tell him that if he finds out and yells at me for asking, but did you guys work things out? 

I just want to know he’s okay and not looking like he’s about to walk in front of a bus if I don’t watch him close enough. 

Ilya is reflexively irritated by the casual joke in a way he knows he shouldn’t be, but as someone who’s started to have nightmares of arriving to hookups only to find Hollander’s dead body in the past couple of years, it’s not particularly funny. 

Especially not when those nightmares have gotten a new edge in the past few days with the brand new information of what Hollander actually looks like sprawled out on the ground, terrifying still and limp and-

Hollander shifts and then lets out a hurt noise when it puts too much pressure on his injured side. 

Immediately, Ilya drops his phone to the mattress and leans over, carefully sliding a hand under Hollander’s back and coaxing him to turn slightly. He makes another hurt noise but doesn’t wake, and Ilya shushes him softly. 

“Is okay.” He says, voice barely audible, more about needing to say something than actually being heard. “I’ve got you. Just turn a bit, yes? Is not so good, trying to sleep on broken bones.” 

Whether it’s on purpose or not, Hollander obeys him, turning towards him. Ilya nudges until he’s fully on his good side and then holds him there while reaching for one of the pillows, tucking it behind his back until it’s secure, holding him on his side. When Ilya lets him go, he leans back a bit and lets out a soft, relieved-sounding breath, lips curving in a small smile when his dreams apparently take a better turn without pain filtering in. 

Ilya tells himself firmly that it makes him feel nothing at all as he looks back to his phone when it vibrates again. 

Just please give him another chance, okay? Whatever happened, you have to know him by now. He’s a really good guy, and if he’s anything like he is as a friend, he’s also a really good boyfriend. 

The word nearly makes Ilya do something stupid like launch his phone across the room. 

And trust me, I’ve been married long enough to know (Ilya rolls his eyes) that fights happen, but that doesn’t mean you just call it on everything. You guys have got a lot of years behind you. Please don’t just throw it away because things got a little hard right now. 

Ilya wonders if he’d be getting this same (unwanted) advice if Pike knew the details of it. If he knew that Shane was the one who wanted to end it. 

He’s not quite bold enough to find out. 

You are very nosy. 

He turns his phone off. 

*

Despite his best attempts to avoid it, Ilya finds himself treading over the same path that went terribly the first time yet again the next evening, when he was out late with the team because he couldn’t confess to an injured Shane Hollander in his house waiting for him, meaning that Hollander overslept the alarm Ilya had set for him to take his medicine to stay ahead of the pain. Ilya had gotten home just in time to find Hollander pale and wincing while trying to push himself up in bed, and despite Hollander’s attempts at telling him he wasn’t to blame when he was the one who slept too long, Ilya’s feeling more than a little guilty about it. 

Which means when they’re on the couch together and Hollander starts slowly listing to the side in slow increments, he’s already on high alert. 

And desperate enough to make amends for his failure as temporary caretaker to risk fucking up the exact same way a second time when he carefully guides Hollander to lean against him, hopefully taking pressure off of his ribs while waiting for his painkillers to kick in. Hollander is tense at first, but Ilya adjusts in slow, careful, measured motions until he’s holding up most of his weight, leaning back against the corner of the couch with one leg behind Hollander so he can stretch out in front of him, curled up against his chest and supported by an arm along his uninjured side, head on his shoulder. 

“Okay?” He asks. 

Hollander, eyes closed now in something that looks more like progress to relaxation than pain, just hums an affirming noise, breathing slowly like he’s afraid of risking a too-deep inhale. Ilya settles his chin lightly against his head and looks back to the television, some kind of program about very opinionated people buying very specific real estate. He already teased Hollander for picking it out because he had no choice but to make fun of him for being so predictable, but with the warm weight of Hollander in his arms, curled up with him on his sofa together in what feels hazardously like a cuddle, Ilya feels a dangerous amount of contentment. 

Enough that he doesn’t notice at first that he’s also decided to risk a second repetition until a commercial kicks him out of the plight of Kim and Oscar from San Bernardino with five children and seven on the way looking for a house that’s simultaneously a townhouse that has a pool but also a strip mall inside. 

Really, Ilya’s main takeaway from this program is that there are people even more delusional than him, which is its own sort of comfort. 

Not that it makes him feel less stupid when he realizes he’s been playing with Hollander’s hair again. 

He’s not even sure when he started doing it, really, just that the draw of soft hair that smells of his shampoo was too powerful to exist. It’s stayed chaste this time probably because Hollander is too injured to find it seductive the way he apparently did before, but Ilya still makes himself stop before he ruins getting to hold Hollander at all by wanting more than he should when he already knows how this ended the first time. 

When he stops, though, Hollander stirs slightly, lashes fluttering but eyes not committing to opening. 

“Feels nice,” Hollander murmurs around a yawn, sounding half-asleep. 

“Hm?” Ilya hums as he starts back again, because he’s a glutton for punishment. 

“You playing with my hair,” Hollander elaborates. “It feels good.” 

He can tell it’s true by the way Hollander is going boneless against him like he’s melting. 

The same way he did right before something went wrong enough for him to flee. 

The thought makes him pause, and from this angle, he can see Hollander’s lashes flutter as he surfaces again, brows furrowing slightly. Reflexively, Ilya begins moving his fingers through his hair again, slow, soothing motions, gentle tugs, swirling patterns to slide the hair around his fingers, working out what Hollander likes the most, what makes him go the softest against him. He’s amused to note that it all seems equally effective, Hollander sinking further and further like warm jam, badly hiding a yawn and shifting slightly, nuzzling his cheek against Ilya’s shoulder the tiniest bit. It’s how he settles down to sleep, rubbing his cheek against whatever he’s laying on. That’s something Ilya knows about him now. Whether it’s warm skin or cool linen, it doesn’t seem to matter, it’s just a little quirk to settle down when he’s sleepy, a telltale sign that he’s relaxed. 

Then what happened last time? Ilya can’t help but think, Hollander a warm, trusting, contented weight against him. If you like this, if it makes you comfortable, if it makes you happy, why did you run from me?

He only realizes his fingers have stopped moving again when Hollander whines through his nose, quietly, in complaint. He resumes, Hollander’s to command. 

As ever. 

A question comes to Ilya, then, something he knows he shouldn’t ask. It’s not fair, and he knows it’s not fair, taking advantage of Hollander drugged and relaxed to dig for questions and maybe get answers more extensive than single syllables. It’s not right. Hollander is trusting him in being here at all. Even if it is casual between them, nothing more serious than sex, this is a hand extended with faith behind it. Ilya shouldn’t risk it. He shouldn’t-

“You do this often?” He asks, not stopping the soft motions of his fingers. 

“Hm?” Hollander asks, a soft, barely-aware noise. He doesn’t even bother to open his eyes. Ilya should let him sleep, should let him sink under and rest. 

“With other people?” Ilya asks, trailing along to Hollander’s ear, tracing the shell of it gently. 

“Mm-mm,” Hollander says, shaking his head the smallest bit. 

“Really?” Ilya asks, keeping his voice soft despite the way his heart’s begun beating faster. “Why? It seems like you like it.” The fact that the idea of other people witnessing Hollander this soft and trusting makes an irrational little flicker of jealousy spark to life in his chest isn’t something he needs to pursue. 

“Mm,” Hollander says, words slow and quiet. He’s clearly closer to asleep than not. “‘Cause it’s you.” 

“Oh?” Ilya says. “Lucky me.” 

The fact that he’s the only one in the room who understands the irony of the statement deflates his brief little flicker of something that felt almost like hope. 

“It’s always different with you,” Hollander sighs, the words more air than true noise. 

Ilya lets it go then, lets the questions stop. He doesn’t know if he can afford what lies at the center of that knot if he picks at the thread too much. He wants it too much, wants it to be real, wants it to be Hollander and not the drugs and concussion talking. How can he reconcile the Hollander who ran after a little tenderness with the Hollander sitting here now, soaking it up like a cat in a sunbeam? 

He sits there for a long, long time, well past when Hollander is out cold, still running his fingers through his hair. 

*

When he’s stretched delaying getting up to bed as long as he can, he turns the television off and gently nudges at Hollander, who whines in protest before finally rousing enough to be coaxable into standing, Ilya taking almost all of his weight as they make their way upstairs, Ilya grateful for years of experience in hauling Hollander around in how it gives him a knowledge of how he moves, how he sways slightly to the right when he’s not thinking about it, how he’s best guided with a hand at his hip, steering him the direction Ilya needs him to go. Brushing their teeth as a duo hasn’t gotten less funny with repetition, Ilya putting toothpaste on Hollander’s toothbrush before handing it over and tending to his own, the warm little domestic bubble of it taking on an even more addictive edge with the way he’s also essentially holding Hollander up right now, nudging at his wrist twice to rouse him enough to finish the task when he starts to fade out right on his feet. He keeps Hollander from braining himself on the faucet by scooping up a handful of water to bring it to his mouth for him, and it makes his heart feel something very, very stupid, the way Hollander huffs a noise of protest through his nose but doesn’t fight him about it. It feels like trust, like something very precious being offered to him, like something Hollander probably doesn’t let other people have. 

Like something Ilya knows he wouldn’t have now if Hollander remembered how much he doesn’t want him to have it. 

*

“Why did you let me come here?” 

Ilya inhales a breath as he stirs back awake, blinking as he tries to orient himself after being so close to falling asleep. 

“What?” He asks, before he’s even finished working through the question in his head. 

Barely visible in the dark, Hollander’s eyes are half-lidded, lashes clearly heavy but something bothering him enough to still have him awake. Ilya reaches out before he thinks about it, resting a hand on the side of his face. Hollander leans into it. 

Ilya feels a little wriggle in his stomach at taking something he shouldn’t. 

He still doesn't move his hand. 

“You didn’t have to let me come here,” Hollander says. “Why did you?” 

“You would have preferred staying in hospital?” Ilya asks instead of answering. 

Primarily because doesn't know what the answer is, if he’s being honest. 

“No,” Hollander says, like he’s worried Ilya is going to send him packing. Ilya smiles, faintly, and Hollander must see it even in the dimness of the room because he relaxes again. “You’re such an asshole.” 

“An asshole letting you stay here free of charge,” Ilya teases, because teasing is easier than answering. 

“Send me your PayPal and I’ll pay you back,” Hollander shoots back. 

Ilya snorts. 

“And explain why you owe your rival money?” Ilya asks, feigning surprise. 

“I’ll say it was to buy yourself something nice after we crushed you in the last game.” 

Ilya blinks. 

“You remember?” He asks, and his voice doesn’t come out nearly as even as he wanted it to. Is Hollander leading up to leaving again? Is he about to ask Ilya to help him back up so he can leave? Is he-

“No, I asked Hayden,” Hollander says, sounding smug. 

Ilya smiles, unable to help it. 

“Before or after you asked about brain damage?” It’s so typically him that Ilya wants to kiss him about it, Shane Hollander establishing how his team did even in a hospital bed. 

“Before,” Hollander admits, sounding a little sheepish. Ilya laughs, and he feels the motion of it in the muscles beneath his palm when Hollander smiles in response. “What? Like you would do any different.” 

“Hm,” Ilya says, amused. He shifts his hand slightly, rubbing his thumb gently along the soft skin over his cheekbone. 

They sit in quiet for a moment, Ilya keeping up the slow, steady strokes of his thumb, and he half-thinks Hollander’s fallen asleep when he speaks again, voice even softer. 

“You didn’t have to let me stay here,” Hollander says. 

“I..” He starts and then stops, not sure how to say that he’d wanted him to stay even before it had been medically necessary, how to say that he wants Hollander more than he knows what to do with, how to say that sometimes he feels like he only really lives in the brief snatches of time they spend together, floating between and counting down the hours until they can be spent with Hollander once more. “You needed a place to stay,” he says, moving his hand to stroke over soft hair, fully willing to use his new knowledge to put Hollander to bed if it’ll get him out of this conversation he can’t have. 

“You still could have just let me be stuck in the hospital,” Hollander says. “You don’t get anything out of this.” 

“Hm,” Ilya says, rubbing a strand of hair between thumb and forefinger. “Is nice, not having a cold bed. This is something.” 

Hollander kicks his shin lightly. 

“Do you,” Hollander shifts slightly, “have people over a lot? To stay like this?” 

Ilya’s kneejerk response is to deflect, to tease, to nudge Hollander back over the line into something casual instead of something Ilya increasingly can’t imagine not having. 

Into something Ilya finds himself only wanting more of. 

“No,” Ilya says, deciding that he owes Hollander some honesty when he’s already riding the line of deceiving him. 

“No?” Hollander repeats, and Ilya smiles faintly at the surprise he hears in his voice. 

“You don’t believe me?” Ilya asks, scratching his fingers lightly over Hollander’s scalp and feeling an absurd amount of thrill at the way Hollander leans into it, just slightly. 

“I mean, you hook up with people all the time, don’t you?” 

“Hm,” Ilya says with a shrug, using the motion to subtly edge closer to Hollander because he can’t help himself. “I see many people, yes, but no, I don’t let many stay.” It’s a daring amount of honesty, and it takes effort not to try and take it back immediately. 

“So why me?” Hollander asks. 

Ilya’s previous response of “because you have a good mouth” doesn’t currently seem like a good idea, not when it might make Hollander think he’s angling towards something he’s not. It had seemed like a necessary measure before, a little protection against giving Hollander something to hurt him with if he felt like it. 

Not that it had stopped him from hurting anyway. 

“Is…nice,” Ilya says, feeling nervous in a way that’s a little ridiculous, “having you around.” 

Hollander pulls back slightly, and for a second, Ilya’s heart lurches with him, afraid this is the moment he finally experiences a repeat of before, that he’s in for a second round of watching Hollander flee, wobblier this time but no less decisive-

But no, he pulls back a bit, yes, but in what seems almost like shyness, chin tucking slightly and shoulders drawing in, but not running. 

It makes Ilya bolder in a way he knows is very, very stupid. 

“We have known each other a long time,” he says. “We are…friends, maybe.” 

“Friends who fuck each other?” Hollander asks, sounding amused. 

“The best kind,” Ilya says, glad to steer back to lighter territory. “At least when they fuck like you do.” 

Hollander snorts. 

“Should I be flattered?” 

“Yes,” Ilya says, playing at sincere. “Is like you said, I fuck many people. I have an expert opinion about this.” 

He knows he’s made a mistake somewhere as soon as it’s out, Hollander pulling away again, not to flee, but to regain a bit of space. He barely shifts an inch, but Ilya still feels it as a chill between them. He grits his teeth against the question behind them, wondering where he went wrong, where he fumbled yet again even when he’s trying so hard not to. Is it the reminder that there are other people he could be fucking right now? Or is it that Hollander doesn’t want him to-

Ilya shuts the dangerous thought down immediately. 

“Don’t worry about it, yes?” He asks, reaching out blindly to try and fix things, unsure what he even broke. “You need a place to stay, and I have one, okay? Is not a big deal.” 

Hollander still doesn’t return, doesn’t shift closer, and Ilya feels a mix of frustrated and desperate, afraid he’ll wake up only to find Hollander gone in the night, scared off again when Ilya doesn’t even know what he did to spook him. 

“Even though no one else gets to stay at Chez Rozanov?” Hollander asks, and it feels like an olive branch. 

Ilya clutches it like a drowning man to a raft, mouth moving faster than his brain. 

“You’re different,” Ilya says. He cuts the words off there. 

And yet they still earn him Hollander creeping slightly closer again. 

“Different?” Hollander asks, and Ilya can’t tell what his tone is, can’t read what he wants as an answer. 

“You are good at sharing a bed,” Ilya says, trying to thread a very fragile needle. “No kicking. Good job.” 

“Asshole,” Hollander says, but it sounds lighter now, and he shifts forward-

-meaning it’s Ilya’s turn to pull back, avoiding a kiss from him for the first time since their first so many years ago. 

Hollander blinks, and Ilya doesn’t miss the little flicker of hurt in his expression even in the low light. Ilya wants to kiss him, desperately, but he’s painfully aware that it’s a kiss only being offered because Hollander doesn’t know he already decided he didn’t want things like this anymore. 

No matter how much Ilya wants them. 

“Not when you’re still on drugs,” Ilya says, stroking over his cheek in apology. Not when you don’t remember that you don’t want me anymore. 

“So…PayPal then?” 

The joke surprises him into a laugh, and he sees Hollander smile in return, pleased with himself. 

“Now enough questions,” Ilya says, settling back. “Some of us have practice in the morning.” 

“You’re such an asshole,” Hollander says, but he’s smiling when he says it.

There’s a pause as he apparently considers something, and then he shifts enough to free his good hand to press at Ilya’s bicep, tugging him closer. 

Ilya goes, settling close, shifting enough to rest his head higher on the pillow than Hollander’s, curling an arm gently against his back, Hollander’s face pressed to his throat. 

“Okay?” He asks quietly. 

“Okay,” Hollander agrees. 

Ilya falls asleep to the feel of Hollander’s heartbeat beneath his palm. 

*

In what has to be a sign that this is truly determined to be the repeating echo of their first attempt, Ilya once again gets a call from his father the next afternoon, freaking out and left alone in the house. 

Because apparently Alexei’s salary as caretaker is purely fucking decorative. 

He manages to calm his father, leave about seven voice messages telling his brother to do what the fuck he’s paid for, and then takes a moment to calm down before he rejoins Hollander where he left him in the living room. Amidst the irritation of knowing his father isn’t being cared for the way he’s supposed to be is that having to get up to answer the phone call has popped what was a very comfortable little bubble of him and Hollander on the couch, curled up together after a dinner of leftovers. Ilya had gotten teased about being eager to leave after practice today when he declined going out, but Hollander had seen him off with a sleepy and smiley “Have a good day” while still in bed, and he’d been eager to get back to him, foolish as he knows it is. Hollander had greeted him from his now-usual place on the couch in the living room, another of his real estate shows on the TV, looking comfortable and casual and perfectly in place in the setting of Ilya’s home. It’s temporary–he knows it’s temporary–but he’s relaxed into enjoying it since it started, and he’d been playing a game with himself of seeing if playing with his hair could beat Hollander’s interest in his television show by making him fall asleep, and he’d been seeing some real progress towards winning when his phone had started ringing, ruining his success. 

And his evening along with it. 

Hollander shifted to take over the spot he’d been in before in his absence, curled up in the corner of the sofa, and the evidence of him chasing his warmth does start to soothe his nerves. He holds out a hand to keep Hollander where he is when he starts to shift to make space for him again, Hollander looking too comfortable to risk moving. 

Besides, Ilya thinks with a little thrill as he sits down next to him, he’ll get to hold him again soon enough when they go to bed for the night. 

“Everything okay?” Hollander asks, apparently starting his own game, this one involving Ilya’s personal life competing with his television program for his attention. 

It’s much less fun than trying to lull him to sleep from Ilya’s perspective. 

“Fine,” he says, a reflex. Something ill-advised whispers to him, though, nudged along by dim lights and a rumpled Hollander next to him like they’re anything more than medically-necessitated host and guest, and he finds himself opening his mouth to offer more before he’s even decided to do it. “My father.” 

“Everything okay at home?” Hollander asks. “You sounded upset.” He looks like he regrets saying it as soon as it’s out, but he doesn’t take it back. 

Perhaps sometimes socially inept, yes, but never let it be said that Shane Hollander is a coward. 

“My father gets…confused, sometimes,” he says, eyes only on the television, unsure if he wants Hollander to never ask him anything ever again or if he wants to pursue the dangerous little trickle of relief he feels at saying it out loud, of having someone hear his problems who isn’t his brother, who doesn’t give a fuck, or Svetlana, who hates his father for love of him and doesn’t understand why Ilya still cares enough to be upset about him. 

(It doesn’t help that Ilya sometimes asks himself the same thing and still doesn’t have an answer.) 

“Confused?” Hollander asks. 

Ilya draws a breath that takes more effort to keep even than he would like. 

“Dementia,” he tells the television in front of him that he’s not remotely actually focusing on. “He gets confused, sometimes, and then he panics. My brother is supposed to be taking care of him, but-” He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise, unwilling to get into his shit with Alexei, already feeling tired at the idea of even trying to explain. 

“Aren’t there, like, nurses for that kind of thing?” Hollander offers, expression focused and tone careful, like he’s trying to help but is afraid of hurting by accident. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, giving him a small, tired smile of apology when it comes out sharper than he meant for it to. His problems aren’t Hollander’s fault. 

(…well, not most of them, anyway.)

“But my father doesn’t like strangers in the house,” and gets violent about it when he’s afraid, something that Ilya does not say, “so is more trouble than it’s worth. I would take care of him if I was there, but…” He gestures vaguely in a way meant to encompass the ‘I’m in Boston’ of it all. 

“Is that why you go back to Russia each summer?” Hollander asks, and Ilya glances to him at his tone, like he’s managed to put a piece into place that he’d been thinking about for a while. 

“Partially,” Ilya admits. He hopes Hollander doesn’t ask about why else he returns to a place he’s started to hate more than he loves. He doesn’t know that he has an answer. 

“Well,” Hollander says thoughtfully, “for what it’s worth, you are pretty good at the taking care of people thing.” 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, forcing his tone light, like the words don’t punch a hole right into his chest that feels both good and overwhelming at the same time, like Hollander has any real experience at all in him taking care of people. 

“I mean, I think so,” Hollander says. “I think you’re doing a pretty good job right now. 5 stars, would recommend to a friend if they probably didn’t have something to punch you about from you being an asshole during a game.” 

Ilya snorts, unable to resist. 

“This is supposed to be a compliment?” He asks. “You should practice more.” 

“You’ve never had a problem with my compliments before,” Hollander says, sounding a little smug. “You usually really like what I have to say in bed.” 

“Like what?” Ilya asks, calling his bluff, knowing that all of Hollander’s pretty words belong strictly to the stretches of time in which they’re fucking. 

Sure enough, Hollander’s face goes just a little pink, and Ilya sits back, smiling faintly. He takes pity and picks up the remote, flipping mindlessly until he gets to a game. They watch in comfortable silence for a bit, Hollander even allowing Ilya to take ownership of his feet to rest them on his lap, letting him lay back. When he speaks, it takes Ilya a moment to register it happening, lost in the easy satisfaction of rubbing at tense muscles until they go loose. 

“Hey.” 

Hollander waits until he’s looking at him. 

“I’m sorry about your family. It sounds really hard. If you-” Hollander gives him half a shrug, like he’s doubting what he’s saying even as he says it. “If you ever want to…talk, or something, I think I’m a pretty good listener. I don’t know if it actually helps or not, but if you need someone to just listen sometimes, you’ve got me. If you want.” 

It’s only when his lungs start hurting that Ilya realizes he stopped breathing, and he makes his exhale and inhale smooth, refuses to let them go unsteady the way they want to with his throat as tight as it is. His eyes sting in a way that’s frankly ridiculous, and the potential embarrassment of that lessens the potential embarrassment of what he does instead, shifting carefully to squeeze himself between Hollander and the back of the couch, laying alongside him until his head is on the pillow by his chest. His legs are still over his own, and he rests a hand over Hollander’s thigh when he goes to move them on an incorrect guess at what he wants. 

“Thanks,” he says softly. 

“Welcome,” Hollander says, just as quietly. 

Ilya can’t actually see the television from this angle, not more than the topmost corner, but it doesn’t matter. Like this, his world is reduced to the warmth of Hollander radiating to him, the smell of his lotion and deodorant mingled with Ilya’s detergent and soap, the world made smaller and easier to manage by being eclipsed by this little bubble of familiar and comforting. If Hollander minds or finds his behavior strange, he doesn’t mention it. After a few minutes, his arm drops from the back of the sofa to rest along his side, and Ilya’s lips quirk slightly at becoming an armrest. He opens his mouth to reel Hollander back when fingertips slip beneath his waistband, but they stay where they are at his hip, intimate, yes, but not teasing. They sit there for a long, long while, his hip bone in the curve of Hollander’s palm, Hollander’s fingertips resting lightly against sensitive skin but not pushing for more. 

Just there, quiet and steady. 

*

It’s been oddly…nice, staying with Rozanov. 

Shane could definitely do without the broken bones and concussion, but the painkillers associated with both of those things have certainly helped mitigate the discomfort of novelty enough for it to land as pleasant. 

Aided by the fact that it also feels almost suspiciously easy, sharing space with Rozanov, sharing a bed with Rozanov, sitting at Rozanov’s counter while he cooks and curling up together on the couch in the evening while waiting for Shane’s nighttime dose of meds to kick in before going to bed. For Shane, who’s lived alone since he moved out of his parents’ place, it’s new, certainly, getting used to sharing space with someone, but sharing space with Rozanov feels…comfortable, almost. 

Or at least it would if he wasn’t acting so strange. 

At first, he chalked it up to him being injured and under the influence of opiates, Rozanov being gentler with him than he’s used to. From how diligent he always is in checking in when they’re fucking, he knows Rozanov is big on consent–including using asking for a yes over and over as a way to edge Shane until he’s about ready to cry because Rozanov is also an asshole–so him declining any sex isn’t that surprising, really. It’s maybe something he should have worried about when he accepted the invitation to stay with him, but the idea of Rozanov doing anything he wouldn’t like or agree to hadn’t even dawned on him until he was already here, curled up in borrowed clothes in Rozanov’s bed, and the way Rozanov still asked if it was okay after he’d laid down for the night next to him had crushed any thought that he would take advantage of the situation before any had even started. Shane’s known from the start that he’s always safe in a bed–or, well, while doing bed-adjacent activities in non-bed places–with Ilya Rozanov, knows inherently that Rozanov will respect a no by the way he always checks for a yes, knows that Rozanov watches him in a way that isn’t just sexual in nature when they’re together, always careful, always mindful, always ready to pull back or adjust or reach for more lube at the first sign that something feels less than mind-shatteringly great. It’s part of what makes sex with him so addictive, the fact that Shane can turn his brain off and just trust him, take his hands off the mental steering wheel he’s always white knuckling with the full confidence that Rozanov will take over, that all he’ll get by surrendering is a break from having to be in control. Rozanov has never done anything that’s ever remotely made Shane feel unsafe. 

But the way he’s acting right now is making him feel confused. 

It’s in the little things, really, the way Rozanov doesn’t look when he’s changing clothes–even when helping–or the way any help in the shower is purely professional, not a single finger wandering suggestively. It’s not that Shane wants him to try and initiate anything, not when just about anything would probably hurt like a motherfucker right now, but it’s incredibly odd there isn’t even a hint of flirtation in the way he’s acting, some implicit promise of “later” that acknowledges he’s interested even if he’s declining right now. 

Instead, Shane gets the vibe that even kissing him on the cheek might end up getting him a lecture. 

Or one of them evicted to a guest room. 

One unexpected hazard of a secret fuckbuddy, he’s learning, is that he doesn’t have anyone he can run anything past, no one who can hear him out and let him know if he’s overreacting or not, no one who can serve as a neutral third party to let him know how far off base he is or not. 

Especially when the only person who even kind of knows anything is still making blind swings. 

“-not really a talker, huh?” Hayden asks, in what is their first phone call since the hospital. “I guess it’s kind of funny, though, if you ended up being the talker.” 

“Yeah,” Shane answers non-committally. “She’s…shy.” He half-expects to be struck down by lightning at the blatancy of the lie. Even hidden inside a larger lie, describing Ilya Rozanov as “shy” feels like it should earn divine retribution for the sheer audacity. 

It’s not lightning, but what Hayden says next does feel equally surprising. 

“I’m glad you guys have worked things out, buddy.” 

That makes Shane pause in his line of thought about how soon he’s allowed to end a welfare check meant for him, frowning. 

“What?” 

“Yeah, you called me to tell me you’d be staying at Lily’s house for the night, but then you showed up like three hours later looking like the fucking world imploded. I think you guys had a fight or something.” 

Shane’s ears are ringing, and he sits down on the couch heavily from where he’d been coming back from refilling his water bottle in the kitchen, not even fully registering the muted flare of pain it sends through him. 

“We had a fight?” His question is toneless. 

“I mean, that’s my guess.” Hayden sounds less cheerful now. “Did you guys not…talk about it?” 

“I-we,” Shane’s chest is tight, pieces clicking into place. 

Rozanov’s distance, his hesitance, the way he hasn’t seemed to settle into Shane being here. 

It’s because he doesn’t want Shane here. 

And Shane just doesn’t fucking remember. 

“-ane? Shane!” 

“I’m here,” he says, voice rough in a way that does nothing for Hayden’s concerned tone. 

“Hey, buddy, take a breath, alright? I’m sorry, I thought you guys must have talked it out or something. When I asked Lily how things were, she-” 

“You talked to Il-Lily?” Shane demands, burgeoning panic attack giving way for an instant to a new thing to panic over. “What? When?” 

“Over text,” Hayden says. “You kept trying to get your phone when you first woke up in the hospital, remember?” 

Only vaguely, honestly, the entire thing hazy in his memory. 

“I tried telling you you weren’t supposed to look at your phone yet, but you were real insistent, buddy. I figured you probably wanted to talk to Boston Lily–I mean, she comes to see the games, doesn’t she? I kind of assumed, so I said I’d text for you, and then I got her number so I wouldn’t be going through your phone.” 

How kind, Shane thinks distantly. 

And how fucking terrible. 

“You’ve been texting hi-her?” Shane says, grimacing at his second near slip-up, wishing suddenly that he’d been a little less obedient in taking the pills Ilya had left out on a napkin with “TAKE THEM OR ELSE” with a time and an arrow on a sticky note on the counter before he left for the day. 

“I mean, off and on,” Hayden says, sounding apologetic. “I’m sorry, buddy, I thought she would have mentioned it. You’re not supposed to be on your phone, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” 

Of the many, many fucking things he is right now, okay is not remotely one of them. 

Rozanov doesn’t want him here. He hasn’t wanted him here the entire time. He’s probably already dreading Shane being here when he gets back today. 

Well, Shane can fix that last one, at least. 

“I have to go,” he says, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. 

“Shane? Hey, buddy, don’t-” 

Shane hangs up, squeezing his phone hard and shutting his eyes, giving himself thirty seconds to feel stupid. 

And then getting up to fix his mistake. 

*

“What are you doing.” 

It doesn’t sound like a question, not with the way Rozanov delivers it, but it must be. Shane doesn’t immediately respond, stuffing socks into his bag without even bothering to roll them up, wishing he’d been able to just get this whole thing over with before Rozanov got back. 

It’s what he’d been trying to do. 

“You shouldn’t have let me come here if you didn’t want me here,” Shane says, gritting his teeth against the way his eyes are stinging, the sensation just adding to his humiliation. God, he’s so fucking stupid. Rozanov has probably wanted him out of his hair from the start. He probably only offered to be nice, because it’s what people are supposed to do in that situation, but not with the expectation of someone taking them up on it. It’s like asking “How are you?”, a social exchange that isn’t actually supposed to be answered. 

And because Shane is a fucking idiot, he didn’t know enough to realize it. 

“You didn’t-” 

“Stop.” 

The word is accompanied by a warm hand closing over his wrist, and he stares it and only it as he swallows, hard, begging his vision to stop being so blurry, begging his ears to stop feeling so hot. 

Begging the earth to just swallow him whole and put him out of his fucking misery. 

Jesus, he is so fucking stupid. 

“Please, just-stop, please.” 

His eyes flick up to Rozanov’s face at the tone, which sounds…desperate? 

That doesn’t make sense, not when Shane is finally taking the hint and leaving. It’s what Rozanov must have wanted this whole time. 

So why does he look so…scared? 

Shane obeys the order to stop primarily because he’s too confused to keep packing. Rozanov doesn’t release him, instead stepping closer, crowding Shane back from the bed, getting in between him and his bag. Confused as fuck, Shane lets himself be crowded, Rozanov’s other hand moving to his waist, like he’s…like he’s…

Holding him in place? 

“Talk to me,” Rozanov says, half-jostling him before he remembers Shane’s injuries and stops, glancing down at his shoulder like he can see if he did any damage before he looks back to Shane’s face. “What happened? What’s wrong?” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, miserable and embarrassed and angry at himself and maybe Rozanov, too, for not just telling him to fuck off and get lost. 

For letting Shane start to get comfortable in something that isn’t his to enjoy. 

“Sorry?” Rozanov repeats, eyes searching. He presses a palm to Shane’s cheek, thumb tipping his chin back up when he tries to look away. “What are-stop, please,” he says, side-stepping to get in the way when Shane tries to get back to his bag. “Talk to me. What happened?” 

“You shouldn’t have even come to the fucking hospital if you didn’t want to see me.” 

Rozanov’s head jerks back like Shane slapped him. 

(A very, very mean part of Shane is pleased by it. Good. Let him feel stupid, too. They can both be idiots here.) 

“What are you talking about?” Rozanov asks, making a frustrated noise when Shane stops obeying the thumb at his chin and resolutely keeps his gaze down. Ridiculously, Rozanov crouches slightly, forcing himself into Shane’s line of sight and ignoring Shane’s frustrated noise when he doesn’t let him turn his head away. “Shane-” 

The shock of hearing his name is immediately surpassed by Rozanov squeezing his eyes shut like he’s pained, dropping his head forward slightly before looking back up. 

“Hollander,” he corrects, and the word has the cadence of an apology. He’s searching Shane’s face again, like he’s looking for something. 

Shane can’t remotely imagine what the fuck he’s trying to find, too confused to even know what might be on his face right now to read. 

“Let’s go downstairs, yes?” Rozanov asks slowly, like someone trying to coax a wild animal out of their house. 

The tone flares Shane’s humiliation even higher. Is this why he’s even here? Rozanov didn’t think he could take the truth? 

…or is it justified? Was Shane angry and volatile and pathetic during the fight? Did he make Rozanov think he needed to treat him this carefully? 

Shane’s head hurts in a way that doesn’t seem related to his concussion for the first time since the accident. 

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he says, miserable and embarrassed, not even knowing where he’s going to flee to to lick his wounds but knowing he needs to figure it the fuck out. 

Now, preferably, before he gives Rozanov another reason to look at him with those placating eyes. 

“What are you talking about?” Rozanov presses, still holding tight when Shane makes another half-hearted attempt to get loose. “What is happening? Why are you packing? What-what did I do?” 

The last question throws him, and he frowns. 

“What do you mean what did you do?” Well, besides make an offer he didn’t mean, but Shane doesn’t think he’s talking about that. 

“Did I…” Rozanov’s brows furrow with what looks like deep thought. 

Or maybe pain. 

“Did I scare you? Or something?” 

Shane’s starting to wonder if Rozanov picked up a concussion of his own at practice today. 

“Why would you scare me?” He asks. 

Even without knowing what their fight was about, he can’t picture anything Rozanov would ever do to scare him. It’s not in his nature. It never has been. Even when the sex has been wild and rough, Shane’s never been afraid. Even the couple of times they’ve played around with gags, Rozanov has been diligent to the point of making Shane roll his eyes in making sure he knows how to make it stop (tap or kick him three times, whichever is easiest in the moment) the second he wants it to. Rozanov is an asshole, yeah, but he’s a good person, always has been. He’s never pushed on anything Shane wasn’t ready for, never kept going if Shane needed a break or a moment to think, never done anything that would make Shane think for even a second about if he was safe or not. 

Which means Shane has no fucking idea why he would think Shane would be afraid of him now. 

“What did we fight about?” He asks, figuring it’s the easiest way forward. 

Now it’s Rozanov’s turn to look confused. 

“Fight? What do you mean fight?” 

“I talked to Hayden,” Shane says. “He said I called him to let him know I was going to stay the night at your–well, he thought Boston Lily’s–place,” and really, a fight this big happening the first fucking time Shane attempted to stay the night is vaguely humiliating, “but I got back to the hotel a few hours later looking really upset.” 

Rozanov’s face does something Shane doesn’t know how to interpret. 

“You were upset?” He asks. 

“I don’t know,” Shane says, sharper than he means to but also at the end of his fucking rope here. “You tell me. You’re the only one who remembers what we fought about.” 

“It-” Rozanov lets out a frustrated breath. 

Shane knows the fucking feeling. 

“Look, we will talk, okay?” Rozanov says. “But just…don’t run away, yes? Stay, please. Talk to me. Let me fix it.” 

“Fix what?” Shane demands. “If you didn’t want me here, you shou-” 

“I do want you here,” Rozanov says, the hand at Shane’s waist squeezing lightly. “I do. I-we didn’t fight. That’s not what happened. Just go downstairs with me, and we will talk, okay? Just don’t-don’t leave like this. Please.” 

Shane draws a breath, eyes flicking back to the bag on the bed, trying to decide if he’s being appeased or not, if Rozanov is just suddenly polite enough to lie to him after getting caught in a different lie. 

If it’s more embarrassing to leave or to stay. 

“Please,” Rozanov says. “Please don’t leave.” 

Shane lets out his breath. 

“Okay.” 

*

In the nearly-incapacitating relief of succeeding in getting Hollander away from his bag, Ilya doesn’t actually think about what the fuck he’s going to actually say. 

Not until they’re both settled on his couch and Hollander is looking at him with clear expectation. 

Fuck. 

*

Shane’s fairly certain that just through sheer probability, he has to have found himself in more bizarre circumstances that sitting across from Ilya Rozanov as he explains how a past him apparently agreed to stay, had something go wrong, and then fled without a backward glance–apparently taking Rozanov’s pants with him in his rush, which does make him feel a little bad even if he doesn’t remember doing it–and bolted right back to his hotel room, apparently confusing both Rozanov and Hayden in one move. 

(If past him feels anything like present him, he thinks past him must have also been pretty fucking confused, but he can’t confirm or deny that at present.)

“But what happened?” He asks after Rozanov has laid it out for him, still confused. Yeah, it sounds like more than they usually do, but he can’t imagine jerking them both off and then just-just leaving. 

Not when he already feels like he doesn’t get as much time with Rozanov as he wants. He always leaves soon after they fuck, usually taking note of how long Rozanov takes when it’s his turn to be the one to leave and matching it when it’s his turn next time, but there’s been more than one time he’s toyed with the idea of just…not. Of staying until he was actually ready to leave. Of maybe letting the afterglow stretch until it’s something softer than just catching their breath after a fuck. 

He’s never been bold enough to do it, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t wanted it. 

“I don’t know,” Rozanov says, and now there’s a note of frustration in his voice. “Things were going really good, and then I pulled you to lay against me on the couch, and you just…started kissing down my stomach and then got on my lap and-” He makes a gesture that Shane can make a pretty good guess about the meaning of. “You weren’t talking or anything, and then,” Rozanov pauses, just briefly, wets his lips and looks down at the thigh of his jeans, rubbing his fingertips over the denim idly, “we both came, and I said your name, and you said mine, and then you just-” His brows furrow with a frown, like he’s still trying to make sense of it. “You got-scared, or something. I don’t know. You said you had forgotten meeting and then you just…ran.” 

“Why?” Shane asks, genuinely confused. 

The look Rozanov gives him is cutting, and Shane feels his face go a little warm. 

“I don’t know,” Rozanov says significantly. He exhales heavily and leans back, scrubbing a hand over his face. “And neither do you, right now.” He drops his hand to the couch beside him. “Blyat.” 

“Merde,” Shane echoes in a guess about the word based on the tone. 

Rozanov snorts, looking faintly amused despite himself before it fades, his face going serious once more. He shifts slightly, pulling in, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“What do you want to do now?” 

Shane tilts his head slightly, confused. 

“I mean, it’s not time for dinner, but I’m not really tired, so-” 

Rozanov laughs, but there’s no real humor in it. 

“I mean, where do you want to go?” Rozanov asks. 

“You’re kicking me out?” Shane asks, more than slightly thrown. If Rozanov-

“You didn’t want to be here before, back when you remembered. So,” Rozanov pauses, just for the faintest moment, like he’s considering something before he continues, “where do you want to go, Shane?” There’s an air of significance in the final word, an expectation of a repeat performance. He realizes in the moment that when Rozanov says he said his name, he wasn’t talking about using Hollander. It’s a surprise, certainly, and new enough that it makes a little residual fluster flare to life in his stomach, but the way Rozanov is looking at him right now says that using it now is a challenge. 

And Shane has never shied away from a challenge from Ilya Rozanov. 

“Where should I go,” he says, sitting back and adopting as solid a posture as he can with one arm still in a sling, “Ilya?” The word fits strangely in his mouth from lack of practice, but despite the newness, it’s not awful. 

He doesn’t break eye contact with Roz-Ilya. It’s like a face-off, he thinks, and the steadier territory of the thought centers him slightly. He still doesn’t fully know what the fuck is going on here, or what spooked past him so badly to flee, but if Ilya hasn’t kicked him out, if Ilya doesn’t want him gone…

Well, maybe present him gets to make his own choices. 

“You don’t have to stay,” Ilya says, and there’s no challenge to it now. It’s an offer, a way out if he wants it. It’s a kindness. 

Yet one more in the many he’s been offered since he came here. 

“Do you want me to stay?” He asks, because it seems like the most important thing to establish. If Ilya wants him gone, then he’ll go, get a hotel room or buy a plane ticket. As much as he’s settled into this, as oddly comfortable as it’s become despite the strangeness of Ilya’s behavior, he won’t force himself on Ilya if he doesn’t want him here. If he does, though, well…

Maybe present Shane is just a little braver than past Shane. 

“You didn’t want to stay before,” Ilya says. 

“This isn’t before,” he says. “This is now.” 

“Yes,” Ilya says dryly, “I know how time works. But you were-” 

Shane decides to do something that is either very brave or very reckless. Maybe both. 

(...maybe also helped along a bit by the drugs in his bloodstream right now.) 

He rises to his feet carefully–the last thing he needs right now is to stumble–and then sits down next to Ilya, who watches him like this might be a trick. He moves slowly, ready to be stopped, but Ilya’s only response to him slowly leaning against him is to shift in response, letting him curl up against him, cheek against his shoulder. 

“I want to stay now,” he says softly. He tilts his head up slightly to look at Ilya. “Okay?” 

Ilya looks at him in a way he isn’t used to seeing outside of a bed, lifting a hand to stroke his fingers against his cheek. When he speaks, his voice is soft. 

“Okay.” 

*

It’s weird, going to Shane’s place after a game when they didn’t play against each other, Shane apparently bowing out from attending with the excuse of illness that Ilya suspects has more to do with not wanting to watch his team play when he can’t join them. Montreal is already shit when they’ve got their single good player on the ice, and his absence hasn't improved things. The victory went to Boston 4-1, and even the one single goal was down to Pike, who Ilya can admit is probably the next-best player on the first string when Shane’s not there. 

(He’s still awful, of course, as Ilya will say to his face without hesitation, but it’s something, maybe.)

(Not enough to let them win, but something.) 

Another strange thing: having the code to Shane’s front door, letting himself in instead of texting and waiting. 

He sets his bag down at the door and hangs up his coat feeling something dangerously like happy. 

“Ilya?” He hears Shane call from the kitchen, and he smiles. This is one thing that’s felt less strange in the weeks since it first happened, them both using each other’s first names, texting more often, even calling a few times. It’s new, and it was a little strange at first, but it’s also really, really fucking nice. 

Ilya is almost afraid to try and put a word to what it might almost be for fear of jinxing it. 

“It’s me,” he calls back, as if it would be anyone else. He turns the corner, leaning against it with his shoulder, and finds Shane in the kitchen, a sling hanging uselessly around his neck given the fact that he’s currently using both hands. Ilya gives him a look that gets him an eye roll in response. 

“You try making dinner with one hand, asshole. Leave me alone.” 

“No,” Ilya says, pushing off of the wall and crossing the kitchen to pull Shane into a slow, sweet kiss-

-and to work his arm right back into the sling where it’s supposed to be. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Shane says against his mouth before going in for another kiss. “The team’s doctor said I could start going short periods without it.” 

“And you have,” Ilya says, pulling away from his mouth just to trail along his cheek and back to his ear, the better to scold him. “Now put it back. I will get bored if you ruin your career and can’t try to beat me anymore.” 

“Try?” Shane asks, pulling back and lifting his eyebrows. “You want to compare numbers?” 

“Do you?” Ilya asks, amused, kissing his temple before releasing him to be nosy about what he’s cooking. “Some of us have still been playing this season.” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, bumping him lightly before turning back to the stove, “just throw salt right in the wound. That’s fine.” 

“Hm,” Ilya says, losing interest in what would appear to be a salad in favor of continuing to bother Shane instead, pressing close against his back and nuzzling against his neck just to be distracting, “sorry. Should I make it up to you?” 

The way he feels a little shiver go through Shane as he nudges his hand inside his t-shirt to press against his stomach is a definitive yes. 

Still. Dinner first. 

He pulls away and ignores the faint whine Shane makes in protest before he gets hold of himself once more. 

“Stop distracting me,” he orders. 

“I am not doing anything,” Ilya says innocently, getting a cutting look that he returns with a grin. “What are you making anyway? Should I be afraid?” 

Interestingly, Shane looks almost nervous before he looks away. Ilya is equally intrigued and a little uneasy about what on earth he could have been cooking that would spark such a look. 

When he glances in the pot he’s in front of, though, he thinks he can maybe make a guess. 

Pelmeni. 

“You said you like them, yeah?” Shane asks, clearly trying to sound very confident in his choice even though he’s very obviously doubting it now. 

Probably not helped by the way Ilya just stares at him for a moment. 

“We can also just order-oh fu-” 

Whatever stupid thing he was going to say is lost to how fiercely Ilya kisses him, backing him up against the counter. 

*

“Did you make these?” Ilya asks when they’re on the couch later with their plates. 

“Mm-mm,” Shane says, shaking his head and swallowing before answering. “I didn’t know if you remembered your mom’s recipe or not, and I didn’t have her number to call and ask,” Ilya’s heart clenches a bit, but he doesn’t correct him, not yet, wanting her to be alive for a little bit even if only in someone else’s head, “so I just ordered it from a place here that has good reviews. I figured if it was close and you liked them, I could ask them for the recipe and then go from there.” 

It’s so painfully Shane Hollander that Ilya wants to kiss him senseless again, saved only by not wanting dinner to get cold. 

(He still files it away in his head to thank him properly for later.) 

“So,” Shane says, taking another bite of his and holding his hand in front of his mouth before he speaks in an endearing show of good manners, “are they good?” 

“Delicious,” Ilya says. 

For the smile it gets him from Shane, he thinks he would have said it even if they were the worst thing he had ever tasted. 

*

He takes great delight in using Shane’s injured arm against him in bed later, insisting on him laying back while he does the work, leaving him panting and trembling before Ilya’s even gotten inside of him. Ilya’s only slightly better, really, but the rhythm is slow enough that he doesn’t think it’s obvious. They didn’t fuck the entire time they last saw each other, not when Shane was still on medication heavier than Tylenol, and he hadn’t had interest in anyone after that, foolish as he knows it probably is. It hadn’t been deliberate, really, but he’d known already that he’d be comparing anyone else he took home to Shane, someone they couldn't measure up to. 

(Also, more embarrassingly, it would have severely cut into his “texting back and forth with Shane before bed” time, something he hadn’t been willing to sacrifice.) 

In the aftermath, Ilya gathers Shane up close to lay against him, head on his shoulder despite the way they’re both covered in sweat. Shane had made him put down a Sex Towel–something that had gotten him slapped with said towel when he’d said it out loud–so the mess is relatively contained, but he knows he’s on a limited time frame before the last of the horny leaves Shane’s brain and makes his current state unacceptable, and he’d like to soak it up while he can. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, cuddled together after sex. Shane had brought something up years ago about endorphins after sex, something about skin contact being good for immune systems or hemoglobin or something. It had sounded like an excuse at the time, but Ilya had let it pass. 

Primarily because he hadn’t been able to come up with a better excuse for wanting the same exact thing. 

Though he’ll never admit to anyone, Ilya thinks sometimes that he enjoys these moments at least as much as he does the sex itself, these quiet stretches of time curled close with Shane. He’s no stranger to one night stands, but he doesn’t tend to linger afterwards, unwilling to blur the lines and give someone false hope when he’s not looking for anything serious. 

Increasingly, he’s been playing with the idea of what it means that he’s always been so eager to blur those same lines with Shane. 

“Are you going back to Russia this summer?” 

He blinks at the question, a little surprised. Shane will make happy little content noises sometimes when they’re like this, especially when Ilya rubs a hand over his skin, but he doesn’t usually talk. 

Apparently tonight is going to be a night of multiple firsts. 

“Probably,” he says, because it feels better than saying there’s no world in which he wouldn’t. 

No matter how little he wants to. 

“For the whole summer?” Shane asks, and Ilya smiles faintly, brushing sweat-sticky hair back from his face. 

“How about you just ask the question you’re trying to lead up to and save us both the time?” He suggests. 

“Asshole,” Shane grumbles, but he doesn’t pull away even as he shifts slightly so he can look at Ilya better. “I have a cottage,” he says. “It’s super private. I own the land all around it, so I don’t really have any neighbors, and other properties adjoin the lake, obviously, but with the way the shore is, you can’t really see them even with the windows, which I had the architect-” 

“Shane,” he interrupts, amused. “You are the only Mr. Real Estate here. I am not interested in sales pitch for Canadian waterfront property.” 

(The fact that he’s watched a certain special involving Canadian waterfront property enough times that he knows every single line is not important.) 

“No, listen,” Shane says, as if that isn’t exactly what he’s been doing, “I’m saying you could come stay there. With me. This summer. If you want.” 

“You want me to come stay with you?” Ilya asks, as if there’s any way he’s misunderstood. 

“If you want to,” Shane says, like the very offer isn’t immediately something Ilya wants more than almost anything. “I know Russia is…hard, for you. I think.” He pauses, waiting for confirmation, and Ilya tilts his head slightly in a non-answer that Shane accepts. “But my cottage is really nice, and it’s super private. I know you’ll have to go back to Russia for a while, but if you want some time that’s for you, you could come stay with me, relax, have some fun.” 

“And you want that?” Ilya asks. 

“Yes,” Shane says, sounding almost shy about it. “A lot. And I know things are complicated for us, and I don’t know what we are-” 

“What would you say we are?” Ilya asks, because that’s easier than trying to process the invitation right now, access to what is by all accounts Shane’s most private, personal place. 

A place he wants to share with Ilya. 

“What would you say we are?” Shane counters, and despite himself, Ilya huffs a laugh. 

“I asked first.” 

“You’re the one who asked me to stay first.” 

Ilya frowns, thrown. 

“You are the one who texted me to ask-” 

“Not here,” Shane interrupts. “Back in Boston, last time.” He makes a face. “Well, the first time last time.” 

“You remember now?” Ilya asks, feeling his heart start beating a little harder, wondering if he’ll be the one expected to leave now, trying to fit that with the invitation he just got, wondering if this is some strange test to see if-

“For a couple of weeks now, yeah,” Shane says, settling his leg over Ilya a little firmer like he’s proving a point. “It came back in pieces, but I think I remember most of it now.” 

There is only one question Ilya could possibly ask right now, and he sees from Shane’s face that he knows it. He sighs, shifting to lay on his back. 

He doesn’t take his head off of Ilya’s shoulder. 

“You kind of went zero to a thousand, you know,” he says, sounding fond. “We were supposed to just be casual fuckbuddies, and then you were suddenly asking me to stay and giving me your clothes to borrow and making me food and cuddling me on the couch and acting like-like a boyfriend.” 

The last word is almost a whisper, like Shane tried to bail on it but was too deep in to succeed, and Ilya keeps his face blank at the quick look he gets, checking his reaction. 

“You don’t want that?” Ilya asks, deciding he can stand to be a little brave if Shane is going to do it first. 

“What if I do?” Shane asks. 

“Then I would understand even less why you lied to my face about a made-up meeting and then ran,” Ilya answers honestly. 

“It-” Shane lets out a breath like he’s frustrated at his own inability to put his thoughts into words. 

Ilya waits him out. 

“Is this casual to you?” Shane finally asks. “Us?” 

Ilya is painfully aware of the ledge he’s standing on right now, of the consequences lying on both sides of the potential leap. 

But he still knows which way he wants to jump. 

“No,” he answers, feeling his pulse increase at his own daring. “I don’t think so.” 

He braces himself for this to set Shane off again, morbidly interested to see if he’ll try to flee from his own home this time. 

Instead he lifts himself to an elbow and leans down to kiss Ilya so gently that he almost doesn’t know what to do with it. When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far. 

“I don’t think it’s casual for me, either.” 

This time it’s Ilya who pulls him into a kiss. 

He doesn’t let him go for a long, long while. 

*

“So what does this mean?” Ilya asks when Shane is already halfway asleep, lulled by good sex and Ilya’s warm, solid presence next to him. 

“What does what mean?” He asks around a yawn, not bothering to pull away. 

“This,” Ilya says, not ceasing his gentle strokes along Shane’s spine in a way that’s really pretty counterproductive if his goal is to keep Shane awake. “Us.” 

“I don’t know yet,” he says honestly. “I know things are complicated, but I think maybe it’s worth figuring out.” He lifts his head enough to look at him. “Don’t you think so?” At this point, he doesn’t actually know what the fuck he’s going to do if he says no, but he can’t not ask it. In his memories of Boston, the thing that most stood out to him is how much he wanted exactly what he was scared of, how much he felt like he had to pull back because he so badly wanted to lean in. 

But if Ilya’s going to lean in, maybe he can, too. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, moving his hand from Shane’s back to rest it against his face. Shane closes his eyes, leaning into it in a way that usually gets him called what he now knows is a word meaning kitten in Russian. 

(It’s as annoying as it is unfortunately a turn-on.) 

“Then maybe we just say there’s something between us that isn’t casual, and we figure out what that is together.” 

Ilya smiles in a way that makes Shane want to wrap him in warm blankets and give him hot chocolate at the same time it makes him want to ride him until they’re both close to passing out. 

“So logical,” Ilya teases. “Captain Hollander.” 

The use of the title sends a pleasant little new sensation through him that he files away to pursue at a future time. He makes himself stay focused. 

“I like you,” he says, and Ilya’s face somehow manages to go even softer, which is pretty impressive. 

“I like you, too,” Ilya says, tugging him in for a quick kiss before letting him go and pressing him back down. “Now sleep. Some of us have to be back on the road to keep trying to win the cup tomorrow.” 

“You are such an asshole!” Shane cries, pushing himself up. 

Ilya grins, clearly unapologetic. 

For his crimes, Shane decides that this is actually the time to pursue the use of “Captain” in bed. 

After all, he thinks smugly as he feels Ilya’s hand start going right where he wants it, it’s not like he’s going to face the consequences of a night used for sex instead of sleeping. 

Maybe there’s some benefits to being injured, after all. 

(It’s the last coherent thought he has for quite some time.)