Chapter Text
Present
A loud “what the fuck” leaves Shane’s mouth as soon as he sees the message pop up on his screen. His brain seems to short-circuit, his outburst hanging in the air while he now sits there silently, processing what has just happened. Because surely, this has to be some kind of mistake, a cruel joke maybe. There’s just no way this is real, absolutely no fucking way.
Rose’s head shot up at his outburst and she’s now watching him quietly from the opposite side of the couch. The script for her next play she’d been reading through now lowered, the papers seemingly forgotten in her hands. ‘What’s going on?’ she asks.
Shane can’t help glaring at her, even though his anger isn’t directed at her at all, he just doesn’t seem to be able to get his face under control right now, hot bursts of anger coursing through his veins. ‘Ilya,’ he says, ‘that’s what’s going on.’
As soon as the name leaves his mouth, Rose puts her papers down somewhere on the table without really watching – Shane cringes as they almost land on a plate with some leftover dinner – and gives him his undivided attention. Shane can’t even blame her for being so interested in this. She won’t tell her anything about the new play yet, except that it’s apparently going to be very dramatic, but Shane thinks it probably hasn’t got anything on him and Ilya. This is real life drama, happening right in front of her, no play can beat that.
‘What did he do?’ Rose asks. ‘Did he message you?’ She lowers her gaze to his phone, still glued to his hand, and shuffles closer to him, trying to get a look at his screen.
And Shane, well, he just isn’t sure how to put it. His mind is still reeling from the message he received minutes ago. This is actually insane, right? Because apparently Ilya has not just unblocked him, which is crazy enough in itself, but he has also texted him. And that isn’t even it. The text on his screen doesn’t just say “hey” or even “sorry”. Those might have been appropriate giving the circumstances. But no, instead Ilya sent him an invitation for his twenty-first birthday party that he’s throwing. A party that Shane is apparently invited to. He can’t really take his eyes off of his phone, the message staring right back at him.
Meanwhile Rose has reached him on the couch, leaning against his shoulder, trying to get a better look at the screen. Her touch seems to take him out of his mind for a bit, and he tilts the screen towards her, letting her read the words herself. Because, really, Shane doesn’t think he could get the words out right now.
‘No,’ Rose says, her eyes darting between him and the screen. ‘No fucking way.’
And that pretty much sums up everything going through Shane’s brain right now. No way this is real. No way this is happening. No way. God, this can’t be happening, right? It has to be a joke. A sick, twisted joke, but a joke nonetheless.
He doesn’t realise he’s full-on panicking, but apparently he is, because Rose plucks his phone from his hands and says: ‘Woah, Shane, calm down.’ Though her voice seems to come from far away. She’s still next to him, he can feel her pressed against his side, but it gets hard to focus on that. His vision is blurring at the edges, his breathing fast and wild and wrong.
‘It’s okay,’ Rose says, her voice soft. ‘I’m here, Shane. I need you to breathe with me, okay? Do you think you can do that?’ She still sounds incredibly far away, but she starts breathing very loudly herself, giving him a rhythm he can follow. The first few times he tries, his body doesn’t seem his, doesn’t want to work the way he wants it to. He feels like he’s choking. His body is trembling against Rose’s. Waves of dizziness crash over him, the room spinning around him. There’s no air, there’s just not enough air.
He keeps focusing on Rose’s breathing and after a while he manages to slow down his own breathing a bit. ‘Yes, good, like that,’ Rose says immediately. ‘Everything’s alright, Shane, you can do this.’
It sounds like a lie, because, really, nothing is alright, but Rose’s calm voice soothes his nerves anyway. Slowly, he comes back to himself. He becomes aware of her hand rubbing soothing circles on his back and he lets himself sink into her side a bit more.
When he looks into her eyes, he sees the genuine worry in them. On moments like this, he wishes he had listened to her advice all those years ago. When everything happened, Rose had told him to just block Ilya, to give himself closure. But Shane had never wanted to. Sure, it was a reasonable thing to do, everyone else probably would have done it. But something had stopped him from going through with it. Back then, it felt like cutting a lifeline in half. Which was crazy, because Ilya had already done that anyway, but still. Despite everything, Shane had wanted Ilya to be able to reach him if he ever wanted to, needed to. Foolishly, he had spent the first few days, weeks, months waiting for a text to come, for Ilya to call him.
Of course, he never did. Until now, that is.
Shane couldn’t have known back then that the text would come years later, in the form of a birthday invitation. No hey, no warning, just Ilya’s name popping up on his screen. No personal message, no apology, no explanation, nothing. Just that overly cheery message that he has probably sent to all his friends. Just a date, an address.
It feels like Ilya has carelessly dropped a bomb at him. As if it isn’t a big deal, as if years haven’t gone by. As if everything is right, as if they are still friends.
‘Do you think he meant to send that to me?’ he asks Rose, the words spilling out of him without him really meaning to. It seems to be the question that haunts him the most. A part of him believes it has to be an accident, a mistake. Yet, he finds another part of himself hoping, wanting, needing it to be real.
‘Oh, Shane,’ Rose says, softly pulling him into an embrace, slow enough so he can pull away if he wants. And even though Rose doesn’t say much else, just holds him through it all, he realises she must know everything that is going on in his mind right now. Shane has never been good at reading other people and has always been quite closed off himself, but Rose has always been able to read him well. Sometimes he thinks she knows him better than he knows himself. She must know every though running through his head right now, must know every feeling in his traitorous little heart.
But worst of all, she must know that there is no good answer, so she just holds him instead.
Past
Shane and Ilya have just finished playing a game of hockey on Shane’s PlayStation in which Ilya has absolutely destroyed him. Usually they’re pretty evenly matched, so Shane expects him to gloat, to jump up, to throw the loss in his face, but instead Ilya sits quietly on the couch, his eyes staring straight ahead. It seems like his mind has drifted far away from here.
Even though Shane isn’t really good at reading people, it’s obvious to him that there’s something going on with Ilya right now. And if even he can tell, it must be something serious.
He just isn’t sure how to do this. They’re friends, have been for a very long time now, but they’re not really people who talk about their feelings. It’s not that Shane doesn’t want to, it just seems easier this way, it’s the way they’ve always been.
Shane and Ilya met at the local hockey rink when they were just nine years old. He had been good at hockey, just not so good at dealing with the other kids. It wasn’t that the kids hated him or anything, they just didn’t really fit well together, and he rather focused on the hockey anyway. Ilya was a different story though. The little boy had just moved from Russia and didn’t really speak their language, which made it hard for him to fit in with the other kids, but somehow easier for Shane to connect with him, especially since he played some great hockey too. It took them a while to go from doing drills together to talking off the ice, but once they did, they quickly became friends.
When Ilya did learn the language better, Shane had expected him to spend more time with the other kids, who had then realised how fun and charming Ilya could be now the language barrier was gone, but he had always stuck by his side. He still does now, eight years later.
They just don’t really talk. It’s not that they really avoid it, it’s just that neither of them is really good at the talking stuff. They got to know each other through hockey, through school, through hanging out together. They do talk, obviously, but they talk about mundane stuff, simple stuff. Whenever things get hard, they’re better at distracting each other, at giving each other space. It has worked fine for them so far.
Right now, Ilya doesn’t look like he can be distracted though, he looks ready to burst.
Shane briefly wonders if this is something that has been going on for a while, if there have been signs that he has missed. What if something has been going on with his best friend and he just failed to notice?
While he is starting to spiral, Ilya just sits there, staring at nothing, his controller still loosely in his hands, forgotten. He figures it’s now or never, better to try and to fail, than to do nothing at all.
‘Hey,’ he says softly. It takes some time before Ilya glances his way, as if he isn’t really there with him. It makes him nervous. ‘What’s going on?’ It feels like overstepping, like too much. Logically, he knows this is something people do, that it is okay to ask, normal even, that is exactly what friends are for. Still, his heart beats faster.
Ilya takes his eyes off of him and stares at the TV screen instead, where the game was still showing a silly graphic saying Ilya won. He watches him open and close his mouth several times, before he manages to form a sentence. ‘There is… something, I guess. I, ah, want to tell you something. Just don’t really know how.’ Ilya shrugs, his eyes never leaving the screen.
Shane isn’t sure how to react, doesn’t know if he should move closer for support or give him his space. He isn’t sure about what to say or do and really, he’s just gonna fuck this up, isn’t he? Before he can fully spiral, he settles on a simple: ‘You can tell me anything, it’s okay.’
Ilya sits still on the couch, like a statue, frozen in place. The only thing moving is his chest.
He wonders if he has messed it up already. Maybe he should’ve moved closer. Maybe he should’ve said something different, been more supportive, he doesn’t know.
Then, suddenly, Ilya turns around towards him and blurts out: ‘I think I’m bi.’
Shane freezes, which is obviously not the right reaction, he knows this, but he just can’t quite comprehend what Ilya is saying. He isn’t sure what he was expecting Ilya to say, but it sure as hell wasn’t this.
But maybe Ilya doesn’t notice, or maybe letting out that first statement has opened something in him, because he keeps talking. ‘Actually, no, I do not think. I know. Have known for a while now. I can’t really tell people, blyat, my family can’t know, like ever, but you’re my best friend, yes? I just needed to tell someone. And well, you seemed safe and I just thought, I guess I just wanted you to know.’
Only then does Shane realise that Ilya is panicking, his eyes big, his hands moving around wildly. He’s used to panicking, it’s just that usually he’s the one doing it. He isn’t sure about what to do know the roles are reversed, well not really, if he’s honest, because he is on the verge of panicking as well. Ilya is supposed to be the relaxed one, damn it. Always the calm to his overthinking.
Ilya freaking out only makes him freak out more. He doesn’t know how to be the calm one, doesn’t know how to respond when his mind is racing a million miles an hour, thousands of thoughts floating through his head. But he hasn’t said a word and that is probably making Ilya panic more.
‘Rozanov,’ he manages to croak out, interrupting Ilya’s nervous rambling. ‘I don’t care. Wait, no, that came out wrong, fuck. I mean, you’re my best friend. If you like girls or boys or both won’t change that. You’re always gonna be my best friend, okay?’ It seems it is his turn to ramble now, because once he has opened his mouth, he can’t seem to stop talking. He is scared he’s saying all the wrong things, that nothing will ever be enough. His mind is screaming at him to do something, to comfort Ilya, he just isn’t sure how.
He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his own nerves. ‘What I mean is, I care about you. A lot. And I don’t think anything can ever change that.’ That at least sounds sort of right? God, this is terrible.
But Ilya doesn’t really seem to be panicking anymore, his movements less frantic, his eyes not so big anymore. He’s just looking at him now, silently listening. While Shane doesn’t particularly like eye contact, he makes sure to look Ilya directly in his eyes when he says: ‘I’m so proud of you, Ilya. Thank you for trusting me with this.’
There’s more floating through his brain. He wants to tell Ilya how brave he is, wants to hug him. But his mind is still going a million miles an hour and he thinks that maybe he’ll explode soon.
A little smile forms on Ilya’s face, one he isn’t used to seeing. Ilya is usually all smirk, all big laughs, all teeth. This one is more fragile, more real maybe.
For a moment his mind stops and without thinking, he closes the space between them to wrap Ilya in his arms. It’s another first for them and he lets out a surprised sound, but then wraps his arms around Shane as well.
It takes exactly two seconds before he starts overthinking again, feeling weird about it, but maybe it is all worth it. Maybe he can bear being a bit uncomfortable if it means comforting Ilya. Maybe that is what friendship is truly about.