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He watches the rain.
It’s to be the worst storm of the season, they said. Bad system from the west. Torrential downpour expected.
Shane couldn’t possibly see how it could be worse than what they get back in Montreal, but it was indeed pretty fucking crazy. Not that it mattered for the awards. Storm or not, he would’ve lost MVP anyway. Would’ve let Rozanov follow him into the bathroom, kiss him senseless, and then beelined straight for the penthouse in exactly the same fashion he had earlier.
That there was rain beating against the windows made no difference.
Maybe he wouldn’t still be lying here though, staring out the window with Rozanov asleep beside him and dead to the world.
They didn’t usually do this—or, no, they’ve actually never done this. Falling asleep after sex. It was just…not them. They’d never spoken about “rules,” exactly, but Shane supposed this was one of them. But perhaps it was him and not Rozanov breaking protocol and the rule was not “don’t fall asleep after sex” but rather “don’t overstay your welcome because you are nothing.”
Rozanov hadn’t kissed him though, and they’d never not done that. There were precedents for everything.
“Pathetic,” Shane says, staying perfectly still in bed.
Before he can think more of it, he reaches out, fingers brushing against the wisps of hair that rest at Rozanov’s temple. They’re more tightly coiled than the curls that populate the rest of his head, some twisting into themselves while others bend defiantly to the world.
Lightning flashes, and with it, a crack of thunder loud enough to shake the penthouse. Shane flinches, but Rozanov doesn’t stir. He looks—gentle, almost. The noble bridge of his nose. His soft contradiction of a mouth. Shane tracks the even dip and rise of his breath—in, out, in out—before stealing the ends of his hair once more.
He’s dreamt about them, more than a few times. Touching them, petting them. Spreading them between the pads of his fingers until he can feel every single strand, every soft sliver of gold at his mercy. The dreams always start the same: Rozanov, caging him in from above, his cross pendant dangling mere inches away from Shane’s own chest. The rooms oscillate between random hotels, his own bedroom, and occasionally, a bed fitted with silk sheets that smells so strongly of Rozanov it could only belong to him. Sometimes he’s already inside him, the snap of his hips setting a brutal, punishing pace. His skin, damp with sweat and emanating so much heat that Shane could, in those moments, imagine what it would be to kiss the surface of the sun.
Shane’s hand drifts down to the curve of Rozanov’s collarbone then, smoothing his fingers over the bone. Even in sleep, his skin feels like hot coals. But there’s also the pulse of him, a severity that Shane’s sleeping mind cannot replicate. It’s different, in real life. Of course it is.
There are those other times, too, the ones where Rozanov is hovering over him, his gaze sharp and considering. They are both naked, always—his brain has never concocted Rozanov with clothes—but in those dreams Shane is seen. Rozanov has only looked at him like that once, that very first time in Shane’s apartment.
“I feel like I’m losing you,” he whispers into the darkness. It sounds stupid even as he says it. What is there to lose? Shane swallows, running his tongue along the edges of his teeth until his mouth waters. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
Rozanov’s breath remains steady, deep inhales followed by soft exhales. Shane slows his own breathing until they match. He remembers reading about how that was supposed to help you connect with someone, or whatever. That it’s Rozanov that he’s trying this with is not lost on him, nor is it that he had, in fact, read the entire article with Rozanov in mind.
“You’re always in my fucking head,” he continues, softer still. “It’s so unfair. What did you do, to earn that? Who gave you the right?”
His fingers curl, one by one, over the edge of Rozanov’s shoulder. The skin there is soft, unblemished. For all his aggression on the ice, Rozanov has always been less prone to bruising. Shane can’t recall a time when he saw any physical evidence of his board checks. He thumbs at the same places where he usually bruises on his own body, imagining what it would look like on Rozanov—blooms of purple and green, splotched across the expanse of his chest, jealously staking their claim.
How many have seen them? The brunette at the club a few days ago, certainly. Shane had tried to make out her face for the longest time, but the photo was too blurry—unusual for TMZ and their weekly rotation of Ilya Rozanov Spotted with Mystery Woman! That one didn’t even have a picture of them leaving together.
Usually, Shane never scrolled much farther than that.
“It must be so easy for you. Everyone clamoring for your attention. You step outside and there’s three women waiting to pounce.” Were there men, too? Carefully tucked away where no one would see? Hidden, like him?
He glances toward the window, toward the soft pitter-patter of rain. Every so often, it lulls before thrashing violently against the glass.
“I thought I could do it too, you know. Meet people. Sleep around.” Shane brushes the back of his knuckles back and forth over Rozanov’s collarbone. He doesn’t know why, but he feels more solid there. Real. Rozanov doesn’t move an inch. “And it was—fine. Not bad, even.” Most were nice enough. Willing to be discreet. They were hot, too, certainly, and Shane never left unsatisfied, but it was—it just wasn’t—
He blows out a breath, watches it feather over Rozanov’s hair. “I just…don’t think it’s for me. I wish it was different.” Maybe he could learn with time. Maybe he simply hadn’t tried hard enough yet. Even Rozanov, womanizer extraordinaire, must’ve started somewhere before working his way up to it. One every month. Then every other week. Weekly, eventually, and perhaps even several in that time. Exposure therapy, if you will.
But as Shane stares at the man beside him with the pale under-eyes and that absolutely infuriating mole on the side of his cheek, he cannot bring himself to imagine an Ilya Rozanov that has ever been conquered by casual sex.
Perhaps that’s why it’s Shane talking to himself in bed with his fuck buddy asleep beside him because he can’t bring himself to leave, and not Rozanov.
Still, as he flattens his palm over Rozanov’s chest, he knows that he will stay until Rozanov asks him to leave. And even then—even when he inevitably gets evicted from his life, temporary tenant he is—Shane will come back, crawling, running, kicking, screaming, however Rozanov wants him.
“You really just can’t let me have something for once, can you? First in the draft, first to win the fucking Cup, and of course you get MVP too ‘cause why the hell not.”
He exhales, deeply, somehow still in time with Rozanov.
“No, that’s—You did deserve it. The Cup, the award. You played…beautifully, this season. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.” Shane shakes his head, suppressing a snort. His gaze dips down to the cross that rests at the top of Rozanov’s sternum. “I’ve always been bad at that. Lying. My mom used to tell me that all the time, growing up. I thought she just said it to discourage me from doing it in the first place, but at camp I learned very quickly that she was just being honest.”
Thunder rolls again, and with it a surge of bravery that has Shane floating his fingers up to Rozanov’s cheek. His thumb, hovering over the skin, so close to a caress. Rozanov shifts toward him, just slightly, and if Shane was fucking delusional he’d see that as a sign of something, anything.
“Maybe it runs in the family. Maybe my mom can’t lie either, and that’s why she took it upon herself to tell me I was the same,” Shane whispers. “How responsible of her.”
He could lower his hand, touch Rozanov’s cheek, feel its warmth. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s held him that way—it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. But he’s—he’s stolen enough tonight, hasn’t he? Shane might not be a liar, but he’s been a thief in everything but name.
Selfish of him, to stay. Fucking ridiculous.
Shane shrinks away. Rozanov’s head completes the turn, the side of his face pressing into the pillow. If he’d been even a second quicker they would’ve collided.
“Fuck,” Shane says. And then he pulls the sheets off, sitting up on the edge of the bed.
At least they’re both staying in the same hotel this time. Just like—Los Angeles. No fucking point dwelling on it now. He can mope later. Not at the gym, though. How much easier his life would’ve been if he hadn’t gone that night, if they hadn’t sat on that disgusting floor and drank from that same stupid water bottle.
He looks one more time at Rozanov, his face serene. The set of his brow, the cut of his jaw. So beautiful it burns.
Shane stumbles to his feet.
“Hollander.”
Oh, fuck. “Rozanov.”
“You are still here.” There’s a slur to his words, his voice deep and throaty. It sounds, awfully, a lot like the Rozanov in his dreams.
Shane swallows the saliva pooling in his mouth. Ignores the ringing in his ears. “Yes.”
“But you are going?”
“Yes.”
The sheets ruffle behind him, and then heat encloses his wrist.
“Jesus, what the hell—“
“Don’t go,” Rozanov says, gaze half-lidded. He’s stretched out across the bed with part of his face smushed into the arm not hanging off Shane. “Just…stay, for a while. Yes?”
“Why?” Shane says, even as he lets himself be pulled back onto the bed. Rozanov takes his arm with him, shifting until he’s returned to his spot, Shane’s chest covering his.
It’s the closest they’ve been, since—well, since forever.
“No why,” Rozanov murmurs with his eyes closed. His breath fans across Shane’s neck. “Only sleep.”
And so Shane rests his head gingerly atop Rozanov’s shoulder, warmth searing into him at every surface where they touch. It’s unbearable. It’s divine.
“Much better,” Rozanov sighs. Like a brand, his other hand sets itself onto the side of Shane’s waist. His fingers press down, and then let up, and then press down again, kneading the flesh in some rhythm Shane can’t quite understand.
“What are you doing?”
Rozanov says something under his breath, his words unintelligible.
“Rozanov.”
“Ilya,” Rozanov says. With how close he is, Shane can feel every word reverberate through his body. “You always call me Ilya, when we’re here.”
“…We’ve never been here before.”
“Not this room, no.”
“So where then?” Ilya. He’s never said it before, he knows. Certainly not in real life, or to Rozanov’s face. There’s only one place, one conceivable instance in which he would—
“So many questions, Shane. Like real Hollander,” Rozanov mumbles, his eyes twitching beneath his eyelids. “Distracting.”
“Real Hollander,” Shane repeats, a little dumbly.
Rozanov grumbles. The hand that had so unceremoniously dragged Shane’s wrist slides up to the nape of his neck and settles there, holding him in place.
He could stay here, fall asleep here—all he’d have to do is close his eyes. It would be…so, so easy. But real Hollander?
Real implied there was a fake. Or at least another, one that was unafraid to say Ilya and revel in it.
Not that he was afraid. Just like there was nothing to lose.
Shane shifts his head slightly, allowing himself a fuller view of the man beneath him. His breath, still deep and steady.
“Do you see me often?”
Rozanov snores quietly, his grip tightening around Shane’s nape.
“…Ilya.”
“Mm?”
For once, Shane feels he could rival Ilya in heat with how the tips of his ears feel like they’re about to fall off. But he has to know.
“Are you here a lot?”
Ilya frowns, another noise bubbling up from the back of his throat.
“Hey—“
“Not enough,” Ilya says. The crease in his brow deepens, his face tightening with something painfully close to grief. “Always just…”
Shane’s mouth moves before he does. “Just what?”
But Ilya only sighs, the divot between his brows furrowing for a second more, and then it relaxes. Like it was never there at all.
“Ilya.” He doesn’t know how he’s ever going to stop saying it. “Ilya?”
Outside, the storm thunders once more, and Shane lifts his head to peer at the window.
“Shane,” Ilya groans, his hand heavy on the back of his neck. At his waist, Ilya’s grip is nearly hard enough to bruise. “No…don’t leave.”
“Okay,” he says, lowering his head back onto the space between Ilya’s chest and shoulder. He splays his hand out beside him, fingers covering where his cheek cannot. “Okay.”
Ilya relaxes, finally, and Shane breathes with him, sinking into the darkness.