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The door clicks closed behind him, a muffled, tiny metallic sound that would be swallowed by the city noises if the door, and the house it is attached to, weren’t down a quiet, private road. They are, though — Rozanov’s place is in such a private part of Boston it might as well be in the middle of the woods — so Shane hears it. He flinches as if he’d slammed the door shut.
He stands there, hit by a wave of nausea so strong he thinks for a minute he’s actually going to throw up on Rozanov’s shrubbery, but he swallows it down, over and over, until he has it under control. He needs to get away from this house, from the person he’s left inside it, from all the silent promises it holds.
Shane shivers and zips up his jacket. It’s still light out, though the sun is low in the sky and the air is starting to get chilly. Or maybe it’s just him, feeling frozen to the bone after he’s torn himself away from the warmth of Rozanov’s arms.
The house is eerily quiet behind him, a looming presence Shane tries and fails to ignore. He needs to get away. He takes an unsteady step down the driveway, then another, and soon he’s turning onto the main road, head low, eyes fixed on his feet.
He feels so very visible, a naked emperor, but people don’t really pay him any mind. He looks unassuming, probably, just some guy going somewhere, choosing to walk instead of taking the car on such a nice day. He keeps going, no clear direction apart from away, mind a static buzz of grief and confusion. He walks past modern houses set a fair distance apart, past increasingly crowded areas, into downtown Boston. He barely notices the residential area giving way to boutiques and cafès, the way the number of pedestrians grows exponentially at every intersection. Shane just walks on, head low and eyes burning but dry, until a car horn startles him.
He has no idea where he is. It’s still light outside, so he can’t have been walking for too long, maybe half an hour or so, but his knowledge of Boston is limited to its arena, the hotel they usually stay in, and, as of today, Rozanov’s house. There’s a Dunkin’ to his right, a park on the other side of the road. On instinct, Shane beelines for the latter.
He sits on a bench near a tiny pond and takes his phone out, vague notions of calling an uber or at least orienting himself bouncing around in his head, but doesn’t unlock it. Shane just stares into the distance, hands lying in his lap, fingers loose around his mobile. His head feels cushioned, sound muffled and sight wavering as if he were underwater. There’s very little coherent thought in his mind.
He lets the staticky feeling envelop him until two dogs come hurtling down the path, chasing each other, tongues lolling and tails wagging happily. On autopilot, Shane holds the phone up, snaps a photo, and pulls up his thread with Rozanov before stopping dead, fingers hovering over the conversation.
Oh God. Tears well up in his eyes and Shane squeezes them shut, gulps them down as much as he can. He notices the owner of the dogs coming his way and angles his body away on the bench, head pushed so low that his chin digs into his chest a little. The idea of someone seeing him like this is unbearable.
He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again. The picture is still on his screen, not yet sent but ready to be, and Shane is hit with the sudden realization that he might never get to share a silly conversation with Ilya again. He pushes down a pained groan, then his brain catches up with him and screeches to a halt.
Ilya? Since when is Rozanov Ilya in my head? He doesn’t think of him like that. He doesn't let himself, normally, the surname a layer of safety between him and anything too tender, too meaningful between them. Earlier, in the heat of things, the name had slipped out a little like a question, a surprised, tentative echo of Ilya's overwhelmed honesty. Shane didn't think it would stick, he believed he was stronger than that, but evidently it was all the permission his brain needed to take such undignified liberties, to tear the plaster away and let the festering, bruising injury of desire and affection show. His head was probably tired of being buried under the sand. Well, there it is — Shane’s weakness, his shameful want, glaring and undeniable in the privacy of his own mind.
Oh, god. What have I done?
Shane forces his breath into an even rhythm, keeps his eyes squeezed shut and bites into his cheek, the pain grounding him enough to let him regain control of himself. His mind, suddenly much more lucid, offers him a snapshot of Ilya’s face as he watched him run away. Shane tastes bile in the back of his throat.
Fucking coward. Generational talent at chickening out the moment things get serious. Greatest dickhead that bolts at the mere whiff of feelings.
Because of course that’s what it was, what this whole afternoon has been about. Ilya testing the water, trying to show him they could maybe enjoy each other’s company beyond fucking.
Shane hates himself like he’s never hated anyone. He knows why he reacted the way he did, he’s self-aware enough to recognize that Ilya spooked him with so many changes in their routine. But still. It had been so nice, and Shane had decided to throw it all in Ilya’s face.
He unlocks his phone again, pulls up the photo of the dogs. One is a cocker spaniel with golden, wavy fur, the other is a silky black mutt, or a breed he doesn’t recognize. Before he caught himself, his brain had already made the connection, had seen them play and thought that’s me and Ilya. He’d been about to tell him that, bantering about something silly or sweet or sexy like they’ve been doing for months now, barely even noticing how things were shifting between them. He scrolls through old messages, memes and random photos of animals and the odd, carefully cropped nude, and wonders how he could have been so blind to the fact, how much denial he must have been in not to notice he was — even in his head, he needs to brace before he finishes the thought — falling for Ilya.
And Ilya was falling right alongside him, evidently.
Fuck.
A wave of sorrow crashes over him, but behind it there’s anger, too, irrational as it may be. They had a good thing going, why did they have to go and ruin it? What was Ilya thinking, asking him to stay, treating him like something precious? Why get a taste of something they both knew they couldn’t have?
Why can’t we? The thought comes unbidden, rebellious, dismissive of his well-worn list of reasons. It feels so flimsy, so irrelevant at that moment. Hockey, Russia, his parents, their sponsors. Shane has been crawling into a smaller and smaller version of himself to meet their expectations, and look what that got him. A life that fits him all wrong, and a lover left on his couch with cum still drying on his stomach, begging him not to go the only way he knew how: backtracking on his promise of intimacy.
Have I ended things between us? The thought stands out in stark relief, quieting every other concern. It dwarfs the anger with the magnitude of the grief it carries. Is this how we part ways? With me running out of his house without so much as a goodbye?
His face twists in a pained expression, guilt returning with a vengeance. He feels as if he caught a limb in the door on his way out, rent his body asunder in his hasty exit.
Fuck, he thinks, desperate but clear-headed. I need to fix this.
It turns out Shane walked maybe for twenty minutes, mostly in a straight line. He considers calling a car but it would take less to just walk back, so he does. He tries to use the time to gear up for what he expects to be a fucking uncomfortable conversation. Ilya’s expression as he watched him leave is branded into his head — the disappointment, the defeated slant of his mouth, the vulnerability of his body as he sat slouched on the sofa with the signs of their pleasure still on his skin. He must be furious. He might not even want to talk to him.
Or maybe — maybe Ilya’s already shrugged it off, maybe he’s decided Shane isn’t worth his time and effort anymore. Maybe he’s cleaning up right now, washing Shane off his body, getting ready to go out and find a woman who can actually handle being offered a drink and snack after a fuck. Shane feels the tuna melt churn in his stomach and hastens his steps.
It takes him less than fifteen minutes to get back to the house. All in all, he’s been gone for a little over an hour, though it might as well have been an era, the way he feels like he’s been hit with a world-altering revelation.
He doesn’t want to lose Ilya. He reacted like a fucking idiot earlier but he really, desperately doesn’t want to lose Ilya. No. What he wants, irrationally, recklessly, is to have all of him, no matter how impossible it feels. He wants him more than he wants anything else. And, well — he’s done denying himself. He’s gonna fight for him.
Shane squares his shoulders, braces for anger, and rings the bell.
The house still looms over him, sleek and imposing and apparently devoid of life. He waits and waits. Nothing moves behind the door. He rings the bell again, knocks for good measure. He wonders if Ilya’s left, or if he’s ignoring him on purpose. He must know it’s Shane; the bell has a camera. Still, nobody answers.
“Fuck,” Shane breathes out. He looks around, tries to get a sense of his surroundings. Nothing gives him any hints, but somehow he has the feeling that Ilya's still home. He gets his finger on the doorbell and holds it down. Faintly, he can hear it buzz inside. Great soundproofing, his brain supplies ridiculously, anything to avoid facing the torment of being left waiting outside.
The door opens suddenly, making Shane jump back.
“What?” Ilya snaps before recoiling visibly. Shane gapes. Ilya is bare-chested, grey sweatpants hanging on to his hips for dear life and going dark where water is still dripping from Ilya’s chest. His curls are flattened to his head, wet from a shower Shane has evidently interrupted. His eyes are very noticeably red-rimmed.
“Oh.” Shane stares and stares, the signs so clear even he cannot miss that Ilya’s been crying. “Oh god, I’m so sorry,” he blurts out, words tumbling on top of each other in his haste to get them out. Instinctively, he reaches for him with one hand and Ilya flinches visibly before he stiffens his posture and expression, staring into the distance over Shane’s shoulder. Shane swallows a wounded noise, raising both hands slightly in a soothing gesture and taking a step back.
“What do you want, Hollander? You forgot something? Your dignity, maybe?”
Shane — supposes he deserves it. It doesn’t hurt any less.
“No. I mean, I haven’t forgotten anything. It’s just —” he falters, swallows against the lump in his throat. He lets his arms drop to his sides, shoulder slumping. “I really am sorry. Can I come in, please?”
For a long, panicked moment, Shane thinks Ilya will actually say no. His expression is stony, jaw clenched and eyes hard as his throat works visibly.
“Please,” Shane repeats, quietly, hoarsely, and doesn’t even flinch at the desperation in his voice.
Ilya seems to soften slightly at that, actually looking at him for a moment before sighing and jerking his head toward the inside of the house, moving aside.
Shane steps into the house for the second time that day, terror and excitement double what he felt the first time.
Ilya nods curtly at the couch. “Sit. I need to dry off.”
Ilya disappears toward his bedroom without another word and Shane takes a couple of steps toward the sofa. His eyes fall on the cans of coke and ginger ale still on the coffee table, the dish with the crust of his tuna melt. The idea of sitting there again suddenly makes him nauseous. He detours to the kitchen instead, perching on a stool, drumming his fingers on the counter. The house feels judgemental, if that’s even a thing. It’s probably just Shane projecting, but he gets the impression he’s wearing his every failure on his sleeve, and this safe place of Ilya’s is looking — and finding him lacking. He sighs, raking his fingers through his hair, head hanging between his shoulders.
He’s so unprepared for this conversation. He’s made Ilya cry, he’s pretty sure. Maybe in frustration, maybe something worse. Shane feels like the lowliest creature on earth, no matter that he, too, has been pushing down tears for the past hour.
Enough, he thinks to himself sternly when he hears Ilya’s familiar footsteps coming. Enough commiserating. And enough running.
Ilya steps into his line of vision, then rounds the kitchen island and leans against the other counter, facing Shane. He’s put on a shirt, and his hair is fluffier than Shane has ever seen it. His expression is unreadable as he takes Shane in, the silence stretching uncomfortably between them.
“What are you doing here?” Ilya asks eventually, eyes boring into Shane’s.
Shane swallows. “You asked me to stay.”
Ilya snorts, and it is an ugly sound. “And still it didn't stop you from leaving, Hollander.”
“I know.” He nods for good measure. “I am really sorry about it. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“Mm, yes.”
The silence returns, hostile and tense. Shane swallows another apology, tries to come up with a way to move the conversation forward, fails. He cannot hold eye contact, gaze darting all over the room.
Ilya sighs, chest heaving with the force of it, and he rolls his eyes at Shane. “You freaked out, yes?”
Shane hums in assent. The counter is marbled and his eyes trace one of the veins.
“Over nothing.”
Shane snaps his head up. “Fuck off. It wasn’t over nothing and you know it.”
Ilya moves his arms in a wide, irritated gesture. “It was. You fucking run away because I say your name when you make me come. So what? It means nothing, Hollander.”
He’s jumbling the tenses, Shane notices distantly. It’s not happened since their earliest encounters.
“Don’t say that,” Shane mutters.
“Say what?”
“That it means nothing.” He takes a centering breath, lets it out evenly as he forces his eyes to meet Ilya’s. “We both know it’s a lie, so fucking drop the act, Ilya.”
Ilya inhales sharply and averts his gaze, arms crossed stubbornly — no, defensively — over his chest. “You don’t want it to mean something, so it means nothing.”
“That’s not true. I —” Shane huffs in irritation. “It’s not that I don’t want it to mean something. I do, okay? I do.” He sighs, the fight going out of him. “But what the hell do you want me to say? That we can —”
“ — use first names after almost a decade of knowing each other?” Ilya interrupts, mockingly. “Unthinkable, I know. Who does that?”
“Stop it. It’s not just the first names, it’s everything else that’s come with them, okay? It’s you asking me to stay and making me food and having fucking ginger ale in your fucking fridge just because you somehow know that’s the only thing I drink. Is that nothing to you? You do that for all the girls you fuck?”
Ilya stays silent, jaw working, head turned toward the big windows. He rubs his nose in a tic that Shane knows means he's uncomfortable.
“I don’t want it to be nothing,” Shane admits quietly. “It means something to me that you invited me into your home and asked me to stay. I — I want that. I’ve wanted that for a long time.”
Ilya turns toward him, an eyebrow raised in clear skepticism. “Have you? It sure didn’t look like it.”
Shane swallows hard. “Yeah. I have. I —”
It costs him something to continue the sentence, but he grits his teeth and pushes it out. “I sometimes dream about this. About us together in one of our homes. Doing stupid domestic things together like cuddling on the couch with a fucking game on. Pathetic, I know,” he commiserates, eyes raised to the ceiling. “But I cannot help it. And then today, you made the fantasy come true and it was — a lot. Too much, maybe. Too close to what I want. With you. All the time.” He lowers his eyes and meets Ilya’s. “ I do want it,” he repeats, plainly. “I just don’t know how we can have it.”
Ilya stares at him for a long beat. “It isn’t so difficult, you know. It’s what we’ve been doing all this time. Only maybe we treat each other like a person instead of just a body to fuck. Maybe we stay after. Maybe we have breakfast together sometimes. Maybe you don’t run away if I call you Shane.”
Shane flinches and opens his mouth. Ilya raises his hand to silence him. “You are sorry, I know. I heard. Okay. I get it.” He sighs, shakes his head a little. “It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just — nicer. Is always nice when we are together, yes?”
He says it with confidence, but Shane hears the question for what it is: a request for reassurance.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “It’s nice.”
Ilya sighs again, then pushes away from the counter. Shane swivels on the stool toward him, knees spreading instinctively to make space for him. Ilya steps right into it, one hand landing on Shane’s waist, the other holding his chin. “Don’t run again like that, Shane,” he tells him seriously. “Please. If it gets too much you tell me. I back off. I promise, okay?”
Shane nods minutely, movement limited by Ilya’s hold on him. “I won’t run again. I promise, too.”
They look at each other for a long beat, eyes moving over each other’s face, searching, making sure they’re on the same page. Then Ilya nods, and draws him into a soft kiss.
Shane feels like crying again. They kiss for a long time, arms wrapped around each other, noses bumping. When they separate, eventually, they only move far enough to breathe. They rest their foreheads together, and Shane feels safe enough to be brave. In the damp, warm air they are sharing, he whispers, “I wish we could have everything.”
He feels Ilya swallow, his arms tightening around Shane. “Me, too. But we can have this for now, yes? Tonight and tomorrow morning. Just us.”
Shane nods, rubbing their noses together. “I won’t be able to stop wanting more.”
“Good.”
Shane huffs a small laugh. “Is it? Sounds like a terrible thing to me.”
“Eh. Is both, I think. But we are good at playing with terrible and good things at the same time. We can handle this, too.”
And Shane just nods again, holding on to Ilya with his arms and legs, and lets himself believe he’ll be able to stand having Ilya and not having him at all.