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Shane Hollander liked rules. Rules meant structure, control in a world where there was usually so little. He lived by the little if-then statements he built in his head to make the world make sense. They served him well, taught him how to navigate this mysterious rulebook of life that everyone but him somehow understood.
If he skated well, people didn’t mind that he didn’t quite fit in, that he was the only Asian kid who couldn’t carry a conversation to save his life. If he was talking with someone, he needed to ask questions now and again. If hockey came up, he needed to make sure he didn’t go on for more than two minutes, because that would be too much. If his schedule was packed enough, with commercial shoots and interviews and practice, it meant he wasn’t being a bad public figure, that he wasn’t squandering the potential and resources his parents and coaches and teachers had spent on him.
There was comfort in routine. His left skate always went on before his right. He still wore the same nightshirt he’d had since he was nineteen, this raggedy blue thing that now hung off him like a crop-top, but it was soft and light and he couldn’t bear to throw it out. Two eggs and a vegetable smoothie for breakfast. Chicken and broccoli for lunch, salmon and green beans for dinner. Only a beer after a special event, at most five ginger ales a month.
Ilya Rozanov did not live by rules. No, he was a wrecking ball of every rule Shane ever had. He was a force of nature, a hurricane of chaos and spontaneity and love, constantly, constantly, bleeding over the seams.
“I got cheesecake,” he announced as he launched himself onto the couch beside Shane one quiet Sunday afternoon.
Shane gave his husband a quick peck on the cheek. His eyes stayed on his iPad, where he was watching a power play from their most recent match. “I’m okay, thank you.”
He could hear rather than see Ilya roll his eyes. “You never want dessert.”
“Yes,” Shane hummed, rewinding the footage by five seconds to reanalyze Luca’s pass. “Because I eat like a pro athlete, not a five-year-old.”
“So boring, Hollander,” Ilya blew a raspberry. “You know having a cheesecake now and again won’t kill you?”
Shane spared the slice a quick glance. It glistened in the plastic container, heavy and creamy and fat, a thick, dark coating of chocolate spread around the top.
He swallowed the bile at the back of his throat. Ilya wasn’t wrong. Cheesecake wouldn’t kill him. It felt like it would, though.
Years and years ago, Shane used to love cheesecake. His grandma would put a slice down the size of his face, and he’d gobble it all up, until his belly was round and full and heavy. If he had it now and again, he’d have it more. He’d have it so much he might just eat it all the time. And if he did, he’d gain weight. It’d affect his performance. It would make him undisciplined and lazy and slow.
He couldn’t do that. It was better, easier, to go without.
Shane had spent his whole life pretending. Trying to prove that he was better, different from who he really was. This bad, ugly little thing that he had to hide from everyone else. He learned this first as a teenager, when his heart would beat double-speed when he saw his goalie strip in the changing room, knowing he wasn’t supposed to look, that he wasn’t supposed to think that way. Perfected this as he smiled and nodded at sponsors at endless galas and ceremonies, even when it was so loud and overwhelming all he wanted was to peel his skin off and scream and scream.
Because if he was good enough, it meant he could keep the good things in his life. He didn’t understand why they were there, and that made him all the more afraid of losing them. His parents and Ilya and Hayden, and he had no idea what he had ever done to deserve them, so he had to do everything to earn their love. His whole life a quest for forgiveness, repentance, where he’d grovel with his hands and knees, breaking skin and bone to earn their tolerance and care.
It probably made him a bad person too, to be jealous of Ilya, the way he never acted like he had something to prove.
Ilya was laid out beside him, all lazy and soft from a morning fuck, tugging at the back of Shane’s shorts as Shane shrugged on his running shirt.
“Come on, Shane,” he drawled, all syrupy and low in a way that made Shane’s legs go soft, the promise of a round two, and three, and four after that. “It is an off day. You can skip a run. Come back to bed.”
And it was tempting, oh god, it took Shane everything he took to keep his back turned. But it wasn’t an option. Ilya didn’t understand. Shane needed his morning run in order to really feel the digging emptiness in his stomach, in order to have breakfast, and then lunch after. If he didn’t get his run in, he’d be all anxious and antsy every time he had to eat, like he was having something he hadn’t earned yet.
“Ilya,” and there was nothing he could do to stop the smile that split his face at the sight of Ilya’s puppy-dog pout, because his husband was a brat and a menace and he knew it. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Ilya pressed a soft kiss to the side of Shane’s hip. “Golden boy Shane Hollander,” he hummed, “Never a day off.”
Golden boy. The two words repeated in Shane’s head like a broken tape as he made his way up the hill behind their house. Gold-plated, more like. He wondered what Ilya would think if he saw the gold chip.
It was a stupid loss. A silly miss at the literal last minute of the third session, and Shane could still see the way the Bears center swooped in before anyone had a chance to react, slamming the puck all the way into the back of the net.
It was such a depressing loss, the team couldn’t even be bothered to get drinks to commiserate. Instead, everyone simply scattered to their separate corners of Boston, tails tucked between their legs. Ilya, however, wanted a bite before they went back to their hotel.
So here Shane was, in the corner of some shitty dive bar, nursing a ginger ale and trying very hard not to mope.
Ilya slid into the seat beside him, pressing their legs together, a familiar, grounding warmth. “I got a burger and fries,” he said, pushing the basket of fries in Shane’s direction.
The waffle fries were a perfect, crisp golden brown, glistening with grease and specks of salt. Shane tucked his hands under his thighs. “I’m not really hungry.”
Ilya’s eyes felt hot against the side of his face. “You don’t eat, whenever we lose a game.”
Shane hated the way his ears heated with embarrassment. He hated the way his little secret dislodged from his heart, falling like a plink on the sticky linoleum in front of them.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said carefully.
Ilya hummed. “When we win, and we go celebrate after, you get a ginger ale. We go home, then you treat yourself to some almonds before you go to bed. Some peanuts from the hotel snack bar, if we are at an away game. The next morning, you have an extra banana with your smoothie. But when we lose, you don’t have a post-game snack, at home or at the bar. You don’t have breakfast. You don’t let yourself eat until midday.”
It felt so raw, so exposing, knowing that Ilya had been watching all this time, cataloging his every move. “You’ve been paying attention, huh?” Shane asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
There was a careful look in Ilya’s eyes that made Shane squirm. Like he was trying to approach a small animal he didn’t want to spook.
“Eating disorders,” he said, “Are common for men too. If you want, Galina might have suggestions of good therapists that can help.”
“I don’t have a problem, Ilya,” Shane said, looking at the shot glasses behind the bar, the landscape painting hovering above the head of the bartender, anywhere but at Ilya. He had so many problems, he didn’t need one more. And he didn’t have a problem with food. “I eat. It’s not like I starve myself. It’s fine.”
“Shane,” Ilya’s voice was so soft it made him squirm.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he said, ignoring the guilty twist in his gut at Ilya’s hurt expression. Because he didn’t. He didn’t have a problem, he didn’t.
But of course, Ilya just wouldn’t let it drop.
They’d just gotten back from a long day of practice, and Ilya had made a beeline to the chocolate shelf for a Kit-Kat once he got home. He’d crunch across all four bars instead of going one by one, because he was a heathen and a bastard, and it drove Shane insane.
And then he got this look. Uhoh, went a little voice in the back of Shane’s head.
“You know, I have chocolate, and I’m a good pro athlete,” Ilya said.
“It’s not the same,” Shane replied, busying himself with putting his gear away properly.
“Okay, explain it to me,” Ilya said.
Shane waved in Ilya’s direction. “You can do anything, eat anything, and you’d still look ripped.”
Ilya blinked at him, looking both confused and a little pissed off. “And you? How do you think you look?”
Well. “It takes more effort for me than for you.”
It was true. He’d been on enough commercial shoot sets to know how much his body strayed from the ideal physique. How his pelvic bones weren’t pronounced enough to form the deep V he so deeply wanted. How wide his ribcage was, and how it made him look like he had a bit of a belly, no matter how much weight he tried to put off.
He preferred when his photoshoots happened during the off-season. It meant he could really dehydrate himself properly, to really make his ab muscles pop. It was harder to do that when he knew he’d have a game in hours.
“Bullshit,” Ilya grumbled, slinging an arm around Shane’s shoulders to pull him in for a hug. “You are beautiful, you know that? And a chocolate bar,” he said, waving the half-eaten chocolate in front of Shane, “This little guy isn't going to give you a billion pounds, you know. But even if it does, even if you somehow gain a billion pounds, you will still be the hottest man in the world.”
It was sweet. Ilya was always so, so sweet. Shane dipped his head, pressing a slow kiss along Ilya’s neck. “I think you might be a bit biased here,” he said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Ilya said, running a hand through Shane’s hair, his voice cut off with a moan as Shane went lower, then lower still.
When it came down to it, Shane loved Ilya. Shane knew Ilya. And that meant he knew how to change the topic when he needed to.
Because if it really, really came down to it, the fact was this. Shane didn’t really feel like he deserved Ilya most of the time. Sweet, kind Ilya. Hockey’s biggest playboy, who had somehow, somehow settled for him. The least Shane could do was to make sure there wasn’t too much jiggle on him.
It all happened so fast. A dirty swipe at his knee, him falling to the ice with a resounding crack. An ACL tear, him out for the rest of the season. The number on the scale going up, up, and up.
He did all upper body workouts he could, but he wasn’t cleared for swimming yet, and definitely not skating or running. Without cardio, no workout just ever felt like enough.
Beside him, Ilya simmered with worry over Shane’s half-finished dinners.
“If you don’t eat, you don’t give your muscles the fuel it needs to recover. You will wither away, and I will become the best player in the league,” Ilya’s voice was light but there was a little furrow in his brow. Shane hated knowing that he was the one who put it there.
“I’m okay,” Shane said, nudging Ilya’s foot with his own. “Really. I don’t have hours of practice to fuel for anymore, so of course my appetite’s smaller.”
It was, it really was. Without his usual workout schedule, he almost never got the same growling pain he’d feel after his morning runs. He could go without food almost the whole day, and even then, it’d just be this vague sense of emptiness, nothing more. It made him uneasy. Like he was having too much, more than what he deserved.
The doctor’s office stank of antiseptic and something bitter. Beside him, Ilya’s face was twisted into an angry scowl.
“I told you this would happen,” he said, a hard edge to his voice.
He did. He had warned Shane to take it slow when he went on his run this morning. And Shane tried, he really did, to be accommodating of his stupid, frail body. And yet. His knee was swollen to twice its usual size. His doctor was going to have a fit.
“I know,” he mumbled. “Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks.”
Ilya snorted. “Come on, Shane. Best case, you’re off for another two months at least.”
Two months. Two months of no cardio again. Two months of the number on the scale going up, up, up. There was something tight in his chest, slowly ballooning.
Beside him, Ilya was tapping on his phone. “I’m letting Wiebe know,” he said. “He’ll have to fix the starting lineup for the season, if we want to make the playoffs.”
The playoffs. Shane knew the team had been suffering without him. That Ilya hadn’t been playing as well without him. They needed their center to make the playoffs, was what Ilya was saying, and unless some miracle were to happen, they weren’t going to have him. They were going to lose, for his first season on the team, and it was all going to be his fault.
It was getting harder and harder to breathe properly. His palms felt damp, the room too small.
Ilya had every right to be mad at him, as both his husband and his captain. He was careful, and stupid, and now Ilya had to miss practice to drive him here, and to sit by him, and to listen to the doctor give them whatever horrible news it was.
His fingernails were digging into his palms but he couldn’t feel them. He couldn’t feel anything, there was buzzing in his ears, and the room was too loud, way too loud, as he bent his head, tucking them between his knees.
“Fuck,” he gasped, his lungs constricting for air. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Shane,” Ilya’s voice cut through the fog like a knife. His hands were warm against Shane’s knees, warm, grounding. “Breathe.”
In, out. In, out. They had done this dance many times, Ilya bringing Shane back to the ground.
When Shane looked up, Ilya was knelt in front of him, his bright green eyes brimming with concern. Shane hated knowing that he was the one who put it there. “I’m sorry, I should have known better. I’m so useless, so stupid. I didn’t mean to fuck it up for the team.”
“Shane,” Ilya’s hand was too warm, too soft against Shane’s cheek. “I don’t care about the stupid team, I care about you.”
Ilya, his dear Ilya, always so sweet, so patient. Shane hated the way his eyes stung.
Ilya sounded so lost as he continued, “I don’t know what to do, Shane. Please. You keep pushing me away, and you won’t let me help.”
Help, with what? The waves of self hatred he could do nothing about half the time? The more Ilya loved him, the less Shane felt like he deserved it.
“I’m sorry,” Shane mumbled, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”
Of course the only thing they’d have for Troy’s birthday would be pizza and beer. Shane stared at the food table, utterly bereft. Did no one even think of grabbing a caesar salad?
“Come on mate,” Bood declared, giving Shane a heavy pat on the back, “You’re still in recovery, there’s no need to worry about an athlete’s regimen for a bit. Let loose a little!”
Ilya was on the other side of the table, grabbing a slice. Shane could feel his husband’s eyes burning the side of his face.
He squirmed out of Booz’s hold. “I’m okay,” he said, stepping away from the table.
He had breakfast way too early, his stomach was already growling. But he didn’t need lunch, really, not most days. Maybe he could slip out somewhere for dinner before they went out. He should have asked what they’d have here. Should have been prepared with a couple of protein bars. He could go out and buy some, he supposed, but the closest convenience store probably wouldn’t have the right brands. There were so many with all kinds of weird hidden sugars out there.
He was hidden in a nook of the kitchen when Ilya materialized beside him, one plate of pizza stacked above another.
“Don’t be stupid,” his husband grumbled as he slid Shane a plate. “You have to eat something.”
Shane stared at the pizza on the counter. He couldn’t even imagine the sheer amount of calories the cheese and pepperoni up top carried. Let alone the carbs below. The saturated fats. He could feel it already, slick and cheesy, sliding down his throat, lacing its way into his system. It was getting hard to breathe.
Ilya’s hands were warm against his forearm. “Shane, hey. Shane.”
Laughter escaped Shane’s throat, high and frenetic. He couldn’t believe it. He was at a party, and he was freaking out over fucking pizza.
It wouldn’t be the first time, really. As a kid, he used to cry whenever he was served food that touched each other. His parents had to buy a special bowl to keep them apart. Years of therapy helped him get over it, and he’d gotten so much better at it over the years, he could even let his mashed potatoes touch his steak at a gala, even if he didn’t like it. Because those were things that bothered him. Stuff that no normal person would even think about.
And it was always like that, wasn’t it? He was always like that. A stupid, fucking mess. Getting all twisted up over a stupid, silly slice of pizza that everyone else had no problem with, that his whole team was happily guzzling down around him. Shane Hollander, three-time Stanley Cup Champion, defeated by pizza.
Above all, he hated Ilya seeing him like this. So weak, so stupid.
“Moya lubya,” Ilya said, brushing his thumb along Shane’s arm.
It was too much. Ilya, being nice, being patient. It was too much.
“Get off me,” Shane gasped, wrenching his arm away and running back out into the main room.
Ilya spent the rest of the day stepping on eggshells around him. It only made Shane feel worse. Because maybe, just maybe Ilya was right. Shane needed help.
Shane found him putting dishes away in their kitchen. For a few silent moments, he simply stood there and watched. The soft curve of Ilya’s back as he bent to collect the plates, the gentle tune he was humming under his breath. His golden ringlets, all soft and mussed from a long day. The way he opened one drawer, put the yellow bowl on top of the blue one, then hesitated, restacked them, because he knew Shane liked them that way.
Shane could not begin to put into words how much he loved this man in front of him.
“Ilya,” he said instead.
Ilya looked up, his smile gentle, patient as always. “Shane.”
Shane took a deep breath in, then out. “I am so sorry about today.”
“It is okay,” Ilya said, without hesitation, without doubt. “Are you alright?”
Shane took a moment to really think about his response. “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I don’t think I have been alright in a long time.”
“No, no, you have not.”
The laugh that slipped out of Shane’s lips felt hollow and humorless. “This is so stupid. Of all things, for me to get so messed up about food.”
Ilya frowned, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “Getting out of bed is hard for me sometimes. It is something that is so easy, even a toddler can do it. Do you judge me for it?”
“No, of course not.”
“See?” Ilya said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Galina always says, it is one small thing but it always means so much more. It is hard for me to get out of bed, not just because I have to stand up and get out of bed, but because it involves doing all these things that exhaust me, because I do not think I deserve any of the good in my life. For you, it is food, but it is so much more, I am sure. So what is the bigger thing that makes this hard?”
What was the bigger thing he was afraid of? It wasn’t just about pizza, Shane knew this, it never was. Really, it was because eating it made him feel bad, undeserving. Because gaining weight made him feel like a worse athlete, and a worse husband. And really, all of this was just grounded in the belief, this unshakable certainty, that he was bad. That he hated himself with such conviction it scared himself sometimes.
And maybe it wasn’t about food. It never really was. No. It was the idea that if he could keep himself under perfect control, if he could keep himself at a certain weight, eat a certain way, it could be one point in his favor. One of many ways he could make himself just a little easier to love.
But none of this was Ilya’s to undo.
“You said Galina knew some eating disorder therapists,” he said to Ilya. “Do you think you could ask her for some recommendations?”
Ilya’s eyes were bright like stars as he closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Shane. “Of course.”
“This is so fucking stupid,” Shane grumbled.
He was standing outside a chocolate store, because that was his assignment from the latest session with his therapist. He should try and eat some. And if not, he should try and buy some. And if not, he should stand and look at some.
“Not stupid,” Ilya offered, smacking an obnoxious kiss on Shane’s cheek. “Very brave.”
But it was. It was so fucking stupid, because Shane had been standing out here for too long now like an absolute idiot. He couldn’t go in. He could barely stand looking at the chocolate in the display case without feeling nauseous and horrible and bad, and it was so pathetic it made his eyes burn.
He could imagine the headlines if there was some gossip rag nearby: Ottawa Centaurs Shane Hollander found crying outside a chocolate store.
“Okay,” he said, taking a step back. He needed to go, before the tight feeling in his gut got worse. “That’s it, I’d like to go, please.”
Ilya nodded, giving Shane’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Okay.”
Ilya’s kisses were feather soft along Shane’s navel. “You are beautiful, you know that?” he murmured against Shane’s chest.
Shane laughed, running a hand through Ilya’s blonde halo. “You don’t have to say that, you know.”
“You are,” Ilya insisted. “And even if you aren’t, even if you were the ugliest man in the world, I’d love you. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you cut me fruit when I’m depressed, and you let me warm my toes between your legs when I’m cold. Because you steal the puck from me in all these silly ways, and because you put your left skate on before your right. I love you, Shane Hollander, because you like boring little puzzles and you ask stupid questions. And your body, well, your spanking cute butt is a plus, but no matter how you look, that doesn’t change a thing.”
Shane pressed a kiss to Ilya’s forehead, ignoring the sting in his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he chuckled, his voice wet, as Ilya pulled himself up to press their lips together.
The scale was the first thing to be binned. It felt weird, to not have the reassurance of stepping on it every morning. No way to seek penance for his wrongs, to feel the ripple of relief when the number showed up right. Then went the pants that were half a size too small for him, that he got when he was eighteen. He used to wear it whenever he felt like he had been slacking off, so the pinch against his waist would remind him of how much of a fuckup he was.
He learned to stop counting the number of peanuts he would eat, on the rare occasion he indulged. The first time was horrible. It was after a good game and he’d gone through half a bag on his own, until Bood took notice. “You hungry, Hollander?” he asked, and Shane had flushed and stopped, and Ilya had shot Bood a look that could kill.
The second time was better than the first. The third, better still. The more he snacked, the less uncontrollable it felt. The easier it became to trust himself, to know when to stop.
“I got cheesecake,” Ilya said one night, coming back from a grocery run. And Shane got two spoonfuls, no more and no less because yes he was craving cheesecake that night, and yes he could let himself have some while feeling only a little bit bad. Beside him, Ilya's face lit up like the sun.
“Hollander, you are thinking very loud,” Ilya said.
They were lying in bed, Shane’s head tucked in the crook of Ilya’s neck as he drew lazy patterns on Ilya’s chest.
Shane hummed. It was something he had been mulling over for a while now, turning over and over in his mind like a well-worn pebble. “Has it never bothered you?” he asked, finally. “The spotlight, the meal plans, everyone’s physiques, everything.”
“Da, well, most things don’t bother me.”
Shane snorted. It was refreshing, how unflappable Ilya was. Annoying too, sometimes.
“My body but a skin sack,” Ilya continued. “It brings me from one experience to another, that is all it does. Some people will find me hot, some people don’t. Either way, I will find my people, and I will have sex and fun.”
“Sex and fun,” Shane echoed, “Is that all you think about?”
“It’s the important things in life, no?”
Ilya’s fingers ghosted against Shane’s side. An offer. A promise. Shane flipped himself over, mouthing a lazy trail down his husband’s neck. He, too, could go for some sex and fun.
It all started with a pair of fucking socks. Ilya had left it next to the laundry basket, instead of in it. Or maybe it was when Ilya snapped at Luca during practice. Or maybe it had all begun the day they met, laced in the DNA of who they were. Like hedgehogs huddled too close, they were bound to hurt.
“Stop being a fucking asshole, Ilya” followed by “Get off my dick, Hollander”, became “You get to be angry but you know sometimes your angry hurts, right?” and “I can be angry without being angry at you, it’s not all about you, stop making me handle both my shit and yours at the same time.” The slamming of the bedroom door, Shane in bed, Ilya on the couch.
Shane knew that he was sensitive. He couldn’t stand it when people were upset around him, it left him so on edge, like he was in danger. And it was self-absorbed to feel that way. Because that was who he was. Self-obsessed and taking too much space and bad, bad, bad.
He didn’t bother with dinner that night, breakfast or lunch the day after. For the first time in a long time, he could feel that telltale ache, hollow in his stomach. The punishment he deserved, comfort in the familiar pain. Exactly what he deserved.
His bedroom door swung open. Ilya stepped in with a tray in hand. The smell of roasted chicken and asparagus wafted through the air. A safe meal for Shane, that he could handle even on his worst days.
Ilya’s face was unreadable. “You skipped lunch.”
Of course Ilya had noticed. Because Ilya looked out for him. Because Ilya always had to take care of him. Even if Shane was the one to pick a fight, even if he was in the wrong. Even then, Ilya was the one who’d step up and take care of him. Who kept having to take care of him.
Something was stuck in his throat. It got heavier, and heavier still. Shane curled in on himself, holding onto that something hard, until he was choking back sobs.
Ilya's hands were soft in his hair. Shane could feel it. Barely, just barely.
The winter morning was hazy, heavy with mist. The two of them were piled in the same lawn chair, Shane’s head tucked under Ilya’s chin.
“What happens if I never get better?” Shane asked, his voice too loud in the morning cold.
“Galina tells me that one bad day doesn’t define me,” Ilya said. “One meal does not define you. You have made it so far, haven’t you?”
“I guess so,” Shane replied, leaning back against his husband, watching the sun’s soft rays peek out from behind the clouds.