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Shane was about to walk out the door. Before realizing that that was not what he actually wanted. He was done being played with. He wanted answers. So he turned around.
Ilya was still on the couch. He’d fixed his sweats, settled back into the cushions and had the television remote in his hand like he was about to change the channel. Like nothing had happened, like the past two hours had just been another Tuesday and Shane Hollander standing in his living room with his heart trying to exit from his ribs was a completely ordinary situation.
He looked up when he realized Shane was back.
Something passed over his face. Gone before Shane could name it.
“Forget something?” Ilya asked.
Shane stayed silent with Ilya looking at him like he was a fool. Maybe he was Shane thought.
He realized he had nothing prepared. That wasn’t how he worked. He was a plan guy, a write-the-practice-schedule-three-weeks-in-advance guy, he liked structure. And standing in the middle of Ilya Rosanov’s Boston penthouse with his heart in his throat, was not a structured situation.
So he said the first thing that came out.
“What do you want from me?”
Ilya blinked. Slowly. Like the question was so unreasonable it required processing time. He sets the remote down on the cushion beside him.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard you.” Ilya said carefully. “I just don’t understand the question.”
“Yes, you do.”
Ilya looked at him for a moment. Then he leaned back further, crossing his arms and the careful neutrality of his face did something Shane hated.
“Hollander- ”
“Don’t- please don’t do that thing where you act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t make me feel insane. I’m not insane.”
Ilya said nothing you. He watched Shane with that flat, unreadable expression that made Shane want to put his fist through something. But Shane wasn’t going to fall apart.
He crossed his arms.
“You called me Shane.”
A beat.
“I call you Shane sometimes,” Ilya said.
“No you don’t. You never do. Not like-” Shane stopped. Exhaled. Tried again. “You called me Shane, and then you kissed me like it meant something, but two months ago it was this is nothing Hollander.” He watched Ilya’s jaw tighten, almost imperceptibly. “Which one is it?”
“It is nothing,” Ilya said immediately with pretended no hesitation.
And it landed like he’d meant it too.
Shane nodded slowly. He was aware of something happening behind his eyes -a pressure he absolutely was not going to let become anything- so he kept his arms crossed, and kept his feet planted too.
“Right,” he said. “So at the gym it was nothing. That commercial was nothing. The All-stars was nothing. My place- the stairs were nothing. The Olympics-“
“Stop.”
“-were nothing. Eight years, and it’s just all nothing.”
“Yes,” Ilya said, sharply. Then, quieter: “That is what it is.”
“Then why the ginger ale?”
Ilya stared at him.
“You bought ginger ale,” Shane said. His voice came out less steady than he wanted, and he hated that. “You knew I liked ginger ale. I never told you that. You just- you noticed, and you bought it, and you made me dinner, and you-“ He stopped. His jaw worked. “You held me on the couch like I was something you wanted to keep. And then you said my name and I said yours and I guess I’m sorry I wanted to leave at first, but you can’t blame me for that. I just- I never know where I stand with you?” He laughed, and it came out completely wrong- too sharp, too close to something. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep showing up and letting you-”
He stopped.
Ilya had looked away.
That was somehow worse than anything else. Ilya not looking at him. Ilya staring at the back screen of the television, jaw set, a muscle jumping in his cheek, looking like a man who was having a very difficult time being spoken to and had chosen to be somewhere else entirely.
“Ilya.” Shane said.
Nothing. The muscle in his jaw jumped again.
And that was it. That was the thing that did it- not Vegas, not the Olympics, not eight years of being picked up and sit down like something convenient, not even tonight, not even Shane, his name said in a voice that had no business doing what I did to him- it was this. Ilya Rosanov sitting three feet away, and not looking at him. Shane understood then, suddenly and completely, that this was not going to get better on its own. That there was no version of this where Ilya just turned to him and said the thing that will make all of this makes sense.
Shane’s eyes burned.
He was furious.
But he was not going to cry. He was not. He was angry - justifiably,- and the heat behind his eyes right now was an anger thing, a pure frustration thing, the same thing that happened in the third period when they were down two goals and the refs were blind and everything was falling apart, and there was nothing he could do about any of it. It has nothing to do with Ilya Rosanov specifically.
He breathed through it.
“You know what’s the worst part is the worst part is?” Shane said. His voice was controlled. He was proud of that. “The worst part isn’t that you don’t feel anything. I could live with that. I’ve been living with that. “The worst part is that sometimes I’m almost certain that you do. And then you do something like tonight- the tuna-melt, with the ginger ale, you hold me on your couch, you say my name and I think, okay. Maybe. But then you look through me like I’m nobody, and I can’t-“
He pressed his lips together.
Ilya had turned back to look at him. Shane almost wished she hadn’t. The expression on his face was not the blank composure Shane had expected. It wasn’t the smirk. It wasn’t the fake confusion from before. It was something Shane didn’t have a name for- something that sat behind his eyes and made him look almost-
“You should go,” Ilya said quietly.
“What the-”. A pause. “ No.” Shane said louder than he intended. “I mean, I know I should. Fuck. You think I don’t? Of course I know. But I also know that I can’t. I- I’ve been trying to go. I’ve been trying to go for so long. And it’s like you never let me, and I keep- I keep not going because you-“ He stopped. His hands went on the back of his neck and he closed his eyes a few seconds to ease the burning. “Every time I’m about to actually walk out the door you do something that makes it impossible, and then I’m standing here, and I don’t-”.
He made a sound he wasn’t proud of. He was almost out of breath. He didn’t know if he was having a panic attack or no but it was becoming harder to breath. But he couldn’t. He can’t have a panic attack now, he wasn’t done yet.
He thought about all the things he wanted to say. He had a lot of them apparently- he’d been collecting them without realizing it, eight year of unsaid things stacked somewhere behind his collarbone. He had to keep going.
“I don’t know what you want. Fuck. I don’t know what I want either but I know that I don’t- I don’t know what any of this is and I’m so tired Ilya. I’m so tired of not knowing.”
Silence.
“I told you we are not anything.” Ilya said. “We cannot be.”
Shane stayed silent.
“You play for Montreal.”
“I know that.”
“And I play for”
“I know that too.”
“I go back to Russia every summer. There are people who- ”
He stopped. Something moved through his face. Something Shane couldn’t fully read, and Shane stayed quiet, because this was the most Ilya had ever almost-said, and he was not going to be the one who break it.
Ilya exhaled. He pushed himself up off the couch and stood, and for a second Shane was certain he was going to walk away- into the kitchen, in the bedroom, anywhere with a door between them- but he didn’t. He just stood there. He shoved his hand through his curls. And then he looked at Shane and quieter than anything he said:
“It is not nothing.”
Shane’s chest did something the couldn’t quit name.
“No?” he asked. Carefully. Like the question could break something.
Ilya looked at him for a long time.
“No.” he finally said “I don’t know what it is but it is something.”
And it was the most honest thing Shane had ever heard from him.
“Maybe we can try and figure that out?”
“Yes. Ok.”
“Ok.” Shane reciprocated with a fond smile on his face.
Ilya couldn’t help but smile too, before reaching to him and give him the gentleness kiss he was capable of, trying to express all the things he was still too scared to say out loud.