Chapter Text
The call comes through at 2:07 a.m.
Shane looks up from the book he’s reading on the sofa. He doesn’t need to check the caller ID to know who it is.
He’s already pulling on his jacket and heading for the car before he says the first word.
“If you’re in jail, I’m leaving you there.”
There’s a second of silence before Ilya answers, sounding genuinely offended. Mostly drunk.
“If you do that, they’ll deport me.”
“Mm.” Shane says opening the car door. “Then I finally get a vacation.”
“Then you won’t have a job,” Ilya teases.
“I’ll manage.” Shane puts the phone on speaker and backs out onto the street. “I have access to your bank account. I think I’ll survive.”
“Ah yes, but you will miss me.” Shane can practically hear the grin through the phone.
“Like your car service, I’m guessing? Since you’re calling me for a ride again.”
“Is not my fault they can’t find me.”
“It is when you change venues and don’t tell anyone.”
Somewhere behind Ilya there’s music, traffic, people shouting over each other. Shane rubs tiredly at one eye.
“Okay. Where are you?”
“The club.”
“Right. Of course. Famously there is only one of those in Los Angeles.”
“The one with the stupid fire feature thing.”
“Wow. Super helpful.”
Ilya laughs softly to himself. “You’re being very negative, Shane.”
“You’re drunk outside a nightclub at two in the morning calling me like a lost child.”
Shane changes lanes, already narrowing the possibilities down automatically.
“Next time I’m putting a tracker on you and calling it a day.”
“We need to get you a boyfriend. You are so obsessed with me.”
“Sure. Just trying to stop the studio from murdering me if you disappear again.”
“Lies, Shane. I know the truth.”
“Okay, here’s a thought,” Shane says patiently, because Ilya clearly intends to contribute nothing useful to this conversation. “Why don’t you ask someone the name of the club?”
Silence.
“Or,” Shane continues, “and this is a crazy idea, you could go outside and read the sign.”
“How do I do that again?”
Shane closes his eyes briefly. Ilya is genuinely impossible.
“I’m hanging up now and you can walk home.”
“Ok, ok, sorry.” There’s muffled movement as Ilya fumbles with the phone. “You are so boring, Hollander.”
Shane hears street noise more clearly now, voices asking for selfies, traffic moving past.
Then, “Studio 81.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in ten.Try not to do anything career ending before I get there?”
“Mm. No promises.”
—
By the time Shane pulls up outside the club, Ilya is standing on the corner taking selfies with a man dressed as Spider-Man.
Or more accurately, Spider-Man is taking selfies with him in increasingly strange and compromising poses.
Shane lowers the passenger window.
“You have until the light turns green to get in the car.”
Ilya points accusingly toward Spider-Man. “You are ruining his night, Shane. I cannot leave him like this.”
Spider-Man shrugs, “Honestly, this is incredible for me. My followers are gonna lose their minds.”
“See?” Ilya says triumphantly.
The traffic light changes. “Clock’s ticking,” Shane says.
Ilya pouts dramatically. “Sorry, Spidey. I will get grounded.”
The second he slides into the passenger seat, the energy shifts.
Outside had been noise and performance.
Inside, he finally sags back into himself.
The windows are dark enough that the city immediately starts feeling distant. Shane reaches automatically for the water bottle waiting in the cupholder beside him.
Painkillers sit beside it along with a protein bar shoved near the center console. Ilya takes the water without looking and drinks half of it in one go before dropping back into the seat. Some of the tension visibly leaves his shoulders and they drive in silence for a while.
By the time they turn onto the gravel drive leading toward the house, Ilya’s half asleep.
“You’re lucky you don’t have a shoot tomorrow,” Shane says as the gate slides open. “You look like shit.”
“Wow. So charming.”
Ilya settles deeper into the seat, eyes still closed.
“I am on vacation. No movies for three weeks. I can have fun.”
“Yes, I can see by the glitter all over the car just how much fun you had.”
Ilya opens one eye.
“Okay. Next time I will shower and get naked before you pick me up. Happy?”
“Nobody needs to see that.”
“I know you fall asleep dreaming about me, Hollander.”
“Sure.”
The house sits back from the road behind trees and security gates.
Large. Modern. Expensive enough that it almost feels impersonal at first glance.
Most of it runs through Shane one way or another now.
Deliveries. Maintenance. Staff schedules. The kind of things Ilya barely notices unless they stop working.
Ilya is still talking when he walks inside first. Shane barely follows the conversation anymore. Ilya rarely makes sense after midnight.
His shoes get abandoned near the entrance almost immediately.
Shane locks the door behind them and resets the security system while Ilya wanders toward the kitchen.
Having Shane here stopped feeling unusual a long time ago. He just fits.
Ilya opens the fridge and stares into it without really looking.There’s almost no actual food. Just expensive ingredients and things he has no idea what to do with.
“You need groceries,” Ilya says absently.
Shane plugs Ilya’s dead phone into the charger.
“No,” he says flatly. “You need groceries.”
“Same thing.”
“Delivery tomorrow,” Shane says in reply.
“Ah.” Ilya watches him for a second as Shane cleans things up in the kitchen. “You’re not a housekeeper, Shane. Leave it.”
“I’m not your driver either, but somehow we keep ending up here.”
Ilya presses a hand dramatically to his chest. “You would have random Uber drivers come here? They could be dangerous.”
“No Uber driver would take you. Your reputation precedes you."
“Lies.”
“Right. Everything nice is true and the rest is lies.”
“You insult me in my own house now?”
As he talks, Ilya gradually starts shedding clothes across the downstairs.
Jacket over a chair.
Watch onto the counter.
Shirt abandoned somewhere near the hallway.
Shane follows behind him upstairs gathering the trail automatically. By the time Ilya reaches the bedroom doorway he’s down to boxer briefs and exhaustion.
Ilya disappears deeper into the bedroom while still talking intermittently from somewhere down the hall.
At some point he says casually, “Guest room’s free if you’re staying.”
The offer barely registers. Because this is normal.
Sometimes Shane stays after late nights.
Sometimes he leaves.
Neither of them thinks much about it anymore.
“Yeah, maybe,” Shane answers distractedly from the guest bathroom while checking what needs adding to the next house order.
Within minutes the conversation fades completely and the house goes quiet.
Shane heads back downstairs. Sets the coffee machine for the morning. Checks the time.
Three a.m.
He should probably go home.
Instead he finds the spare glasses he keeps here, opens his laptop at the kitchen island and starts working through Montréal production emails.
The clock keeps getting later around him.
He doesn’t go home.
—
A few weeks later, Shane is halfway through reviewing onboarding documents for the Montréal production when his phone buzzes against the desk.
Ilya: Need hotel tonight
That’s it.
No greeting. No explanation. There doesn’t need to be one.
At some point this had quietly become an established system between them. Ilya never brought hookups back to the house.
Hotels were easier. Controlled. Temporary.
Nobody learned where he lived. Nobody stayed long enough to matter.
Shane calls the concierge desk at one of the usual hotels before texting back.
Shane: Done. Regent. Usual arrangement. Need a ride?
Ilya: Yes that is what hotel is for 🙂
Shane drops his forehead briefly onto the desk. “For fuck’s sake.”
Another text appears.
Ilya: Joke. No. He’ll drive.
Shane: Okay. See you tomorrow.
—
The next morning, Shane is already inside the suite before either of the other occupants are properly awake.
For a few quiet minutes, the atmosphere feels almost misleadingly domestic.
Soft light spills through the half-drawn curtains. Traffic hums faintly somewhere below the windows.
The kitchen island has already disappeared beneath work. Call sheets. Travel itineraries. Production paperwork. Shane’s reading glasses sitting crooked on top of a folder beside a reheated coffee he’s forgotten about twice already.
Around it, the suite still carries traces of the night before.
Discarded clothes near the bedroom doorway. Room service trays pushed toward the wall. Someone’s shoes abandoned beside the couch.
Shane is halfway through answering an email when movement finally comes from the bedroom.
Alex emerges looking only partially awake, jeans half-buttoned and expression still unfocused with sleep.
He makes it three steps into the suite before noticing Shane seated at the kitchen island.
Then stops completely.
“Oh fuck. Sorry.”
Shane glances up briefly. “Morning.”
Alex visibly recalculates the situation in real time. “I didn’t realise he had a boyfriend.”
Shane barely pauses typing. “In his dreams.”
Some of the tension eases out of Alex’s shoulders after that. Though not completely. Because Shane still feels very obviously like somebody who belongs there.
“Do you want coffee?” Shane asks absently.
Alex stares at him. “Sure.”
Then after a second, “Are you always here?”
“Unfortunately.”
That finally gets a laugh out of him. A few minutes later, while checking rideshare timings downstairs, Shane says casually, “Your Uber’s about three minutes away, Alex.”
Alex blinks.“I never told you my name.”
“You tagged half of Los Angeles on Instagram last night.”
“…Right.”
Shane finally looks up long enough to add: “It’s my job to know what he’s doing.”
Alex hesitates near the counter. “So does he always stay in hotels?”
Shane pauses briefly. “Pretty much.”
“He never takes people home?”
“No.”
Alex laughs lightly. “That’s kind of bleak.”
From the bedroom, Ilya’s voice drifts sleepily across the suite. “Efficient.”
Alex grins. “Sure.”
Ilya looks barely conscious.
He also looks very pleased with himself.
Ilya squints against the light and walks straight toward Shane. Not Alex. Toward Shane.
He steals Shane’s coffee without asking, takes one sip and immediately makes a face.
“Why is this cold and disgusting?”
Shane takes the mug back automatically while already reaching for the espresso machine. “Because some of us have been awake for hours.”
“Terrible way to live.”
The choreography between them is completely unconscious now. No hesitation. No politeness. No awareness of each other’s space.
They move around one another with the ease of people who’ve spent years sharing schedules, routines and space.
Shane hands him fresh coffee without looking. Across the kitchen, Alex watches the exchange with increasing confusion.
From the outside it looks absurdly intimate.
Eventually Ilya notices him still standing there.
“Oh. You’re still here.”
Alex looks offended. “Wow.”
“Sorry.”
Shane snorts quietly into his coffee. Ilya points at him immediately.
“I’ll fire you.”
“I’d love see you try.”
Ilya walks Alex toward the door, presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “Thanks. Was fun.”
Polite. Warm. A dismissal all the same.
A few minutes later, once the rideshare pulls away downstairs, Ilya drops heavily onto the sofa.
“He was hot.”
“Yeah,” Shane says absently.
“You’d probably like him.” Ilya offers.
“I’m good. I don’t need handouts.”
“You sure?” Ilya asks lazily. “I never see you with anyone.”
The question is casual. Not prying. What Shane does with his private life genuinely isn’t Ilya’s business.... That doesn’t stop him thinking about it sometimes.
“Because unlike some people,” Shane says, “I understand the concept of privacy.”
Ilya tips his head dramatically back against the sofa cushions.
"What are you looking at?"
"Flights for Montreal."
“Ugh why can't that movie be cancelled.... Canada is so boring”
Without looking up from the laptop, Shane said with a smile, "Ouch...but I'm sorry for you, Canada and your contract still exist.”
Ilya groaned dramatically from somewhere beneath a sofa cushion. Shane smiled faintly to himself and went back to answering emails.
---
Alex probably wouldn’t be around much longer. Not because anything had gone wrong. That was just how these things usually worked with Ilya.
People appeared briefly, then gradually disappeared again.
A few weeks, maybe a couple of months at most.
Long enough for Shane to remember names. Not long enough to become part of Ilya’s real life.
The second time Shane met Alex, he realised it probably wasn’t just another hookup.
Not serious exactly.
But recurring enough that Ilya actually remembered things about him. Coffee order. The fact he hated olives. Some story about a terrible roommate Shane had apparently now heard twice.
Enough repetition to notice.
Enough that Shane found himself mildly surprised when Alex was still around three weeks later.
Then one evening Shane arrived at the hotel suite with revised schedules for an upcoming event and immediately realised he’d interrupted something.
Not sex.
Just aftermath.
Alex sat barefoot on the edge of the bed scrolling through his phone while Ilya buttoned his shirt near the windows.
Comfortable. Domestic, almost.
The kind of scene Shane had literally never walked into before.
“You know,” Alex had said casually while pulling his shoes back on, “next time maybe I could just come to your place instead of another hotel?”
And Shane saw it happen instantly, nothing outwardly dramatic.
Ilya still smiled. Still kissed him goodbye twenty minutes later.
But something subtle had closed behind his eyes.
The next time Shane heard Alex’s name was nearly a month later when one of the publicists casually asked whether he needed adding to a guest list.
“No,” Ilya had said without looking up from his phone. “That ended.”
And that was it.
Exactly what it looked like. Commitment issues. Famous playboy actor behaviour. Another temporary thing reaching its natural conclusion.
One of many.