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Controlling this aspect of his secret fucked up little coping mechanism around Ilya has been key to the success of their relationship. Everything is still shiny and new, fragile and breakable, if Shane were to even tip slightly it would ruin it all.
The hum of the refrigerator and the skyline of Boston keeps him company. It's sometimes torture being here at Ilya's place, cabinets and crisper drawers and mini-fridges filled with anything Shane can stuff his face with.
Ilya was asleep, eyes twitching behind lids and breathing heavy in a deep rest. It gave Shane the opportunity to slip out and investigate the kitchen.
He feels huge, he feels empty.
There's a box of bagels on the counter and thats where Shane starts. He doesn't get butter or cream cheese, only shoves the Everything-seasoned bread into his mouth and lets the thought quiet.
Is his location services still on? He knows he turned it off and has checked it every hour since Hayden texted him. Shane turned them off for his Mom awhile ago, but he had fucked himself by not thinking about Hayden.
So, at 7pm, after driving the entire day from Montreal to Boston, he received a text from Hayden asking Why the heck are u in Boston right now hahaha. Lily?? and Shane promptly lost it, just a little bit.
Ilya soothed him, fucked all the neuroses out of him, cuddled and held him, kissed his cheeks and called him boring. Shane didn't reply to Hayden and turned off his location. It didn't matter, it doesn't matter—
He coughs up some of his bagel, the bread making his throat dry and still unsatisfied. The fridge opens and it's an oasis, he grabs a cup of expensive yogurt. The kind of yogurt that you can't squeeze the cup and it all comes out, rather it's in a tiny glass, so Shane uses his fingers to scoop it into his mouth instead.
The taste of the yogurt itself isn't sickly sweet, but the berries mixed within are. There's probably 100 pounds of sugar that were thawed with the berries. After going through the rest of the cups of it that's in there, seven of them to be exact, Shane still isn't sated.
He sees the glowing blue of Hayden's text, he feels his Mom's disappointment, he can already taste the bile and mess of food erupting itself out of his body at the end of this.
Ilya loves chips, there's hordes of them in every corner of his kitchen. Cool Ranch Doritos are his favorite, they taste like perfect poison to Shane. There's already a half-eaten bag and he tears through that in just a few minutes. Barely a taste of them after they slip through his lips. He opens another bag, this time the normal nacho cheese flavor.
Nacho cheese tastes like after practice snacks at Jacob's house. Jacob had an older brother, didn't even play hockey at all, and Shane liked to watch him suck the cheese dust off of his fingers.
Shane doesn't bother with that now, just keeps eating until his stomach is sick and tears are pressing at his eyes. When he goes to wipe the not quite yet falling teardrop, cheese dust smears over his cheek. He slumps onto the cold tile, which feels like an oasis against his bare thighs.
Hayden doesn't know that Boston Lily is Ilya, even though he probably should. No one on the Metros knows he's gay, even though there's been rumors of it since Shane stepped onto the ice. Even before the NHL, there were barbs and chirps and slurs and assumptions.
Shane's head feels loud, his stomach so heavy with sugar and carbs and poison he could possibly die right here in Boston. The eating is supposed to quiet this, stop the rumination, but it's not working. Shane pulls out his phone and double, triple, quadruple checks that all of his location sharing services is off. It is, just like the last time he checked.
He washes it all down with a Kool-Aid pouch. Grape flavor, possibly the worst possible flavor, but it's Ilya's favorite.
There's a half-bathroom by the kitchen, away from Ilya's bedroom. He shuts himself in it, turns on the sink even though Ilya won't hear him. Looking at the toilet, Shane blanches. This isn't what he does. He doesn't do this—act like a teenage girl on a Much TV show—not anymore, at least.
Not now that Ilya loves him, and Shane can love him back. But Hayden knows he's in Boston when he has no fucking reason to be. And his Mom knows he's gay, and his Dad knows he's gay, and he's fucking a man, and will his hockey suffer? Will this man he has become be different than the man who wins Cups?
Shane turns off the sink. Still sits on the floor, feeling disgustingly sick with himself and the food. There's the sound of Ilya retreating down the hall, the sound of bags crinkling and a trash can shutting. It doesn't take long until there's a knock on the door.
"Shane?" he calls, and there's nothing Shane can reply with that will make this situation normal.
The door handle jiggles. Ilya speaks again, more urgency this time, "Shane, hello? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he croaks. The lie tastes bitter, and he wishes it tasted like Doritos.
"Okay, you seem maybe not okay, though."
Moments pass in silence, the handle jiggling every few moments as if Ilya is expecting for him to have gotten off his sorry ass to unlock it.
"Do you want to unlock door?"
"No."
"Okay. Er—why not?"
Shane smiles at that, though a pang shoots through his chest. "I don't want you to see me like this."
"Well, I do," Ilya replies easily. "I'd like to see you. In any way ever."
With a groan, Shane shuffles forward so he can unlock the door. Ilya opens it so quickly, it almost feels like an illusion with how fast he's seated in front of Shane.
"Are you sick?"
"I was going to be."
Shane looks at the floor, and Ilya looks at Shane, and there's still sticky crumbly cheese and yogurt residue on his fingers when Ilya grasps it.
"Do they not feed you in Montreal?" Ilya jokes, Shane gives him the comfort of a small huff back.
"I don't feed myself in Montreal." His eyes go wide with the shock that he really said that, that he let himself say something like that. "I mean, I do. Just… it's regimented, controlled."
"So," Ilya says slowly, cogs clearly turning in his head. "You eat more when in Boston?"
"No," he answers honestly. "I think I eat more when I'm with you. But, I don't know, with Hayden, I'm just… scared."
"He does not know anything. He is smart as pile of rocks, my sweetheart."
When Shane doesn't reply, Ilya stands up to turn on the sink. He throws a questioning glance Ilya's way but lets himself be hauled up. Shane loves when Ilya does things for him, no conversation required.
Ilya puts Shane's hands under the water, spurts some soap onto them and suds it up with his own hands. The action makes Shane want to cry, or maybe the tears that were already there begin to finally fall.
"Don't get sick," Ilya says softly. "I mean, it is okay to have some extra food in there. I'll help you not feel so sick, okay?"
"Okay," Shane agrees even though he's a little confused at what Ilya is trying to convey.
"Hands all clean."
Shane nods while Ilya smiles and gathers a washrag to dampen. He brings it up to Shane's mouth and washes it over his skin so tenderly it's as if Shane is a baby who just spit up. After a few moments, the wash rag comes away stained orange.
"Face all clean. Do you want to brush teeth?"
Shane nods again. Tucked into a cabinet, Ilya grabs a fresh toothbrush and a newly open tube of toothpaste. It's pathetic, but Shane slumps against the counter as Ilya brushes his teeth and scrapes his tongue.
"Spit," Ilya instructs. Shane does so. He brings up a small cup of water to his mouth and says, "rinse."
Shane feels slightly better having all the remnants of food out of his mouth, but the feeling in his gut remains. Ilya lays him down on the bed and rubs his tummy like he knows exactly what Shane needs. Ilya whispers Russian he has yet to learn into Shane's ear, calls him a kitten who drank too much milk, that he loves him, that Hayden is an idiot, that everything is okay. There isn't much else for Shane to do than believe him.