Chapter Text
Ilya has picked up all sorts of unfortunate habits over the years. Not smoking occasionally, as Shane would have you believe. No, he thinks by far his most frustrating habit is ruining something good for himself. He feels this with painful acuteness as he lies in a Florida hotel room with Shane over facetime.
“Yeah, I’m staying. I’ll be right here till you fall asleep,” Shane assures him, his voice filled with warmth as it flows through the speakers of Ilya’s phone.
“Okay,” Ilya relents. His voice rounds as it leaves his mouth, soft and slightly slurred.
What he wants to say next drifts up from the very depths of him, something he is completely and blissfully unaware of until it struggles to the surface and floats through the waters of his mind.
Night night, Papa.
Holy fuck.
Holy fuck.
Ilya still has the wherewithal not to say it aloud. He does not miss a beat as he continues.
“Night night, Shane.”
If he had demonstrated a moment’s hesitation, Shane does not seem to notice. Whatever god that is out there is merciful, occasionally.
“Night night, baby,” Shane returns, “Sleep well.”
Ilya feels something inside himself go mushy at the words, at the tenderness woven through them. It should be alarming — it still is a little bit alarming, sometimes. Despite this, Ilya gazes at the affection on Shane’s face one last time and then lets his eyes flutter shut. It takes him a few minutes to shake off the aftershocks of what had reared its head inside of him, but once he does, he is able to fall into a light sleep.
Ilya tries very hard to stuff the brief thought into a metaphorical box inside his mind, bearing down on the lid with all his might. He is not going to ruin a good thing, he tells himself.
Still, Ilya feels the beginnings of a knot forming inside his chest when he wakes up the following morning, blinking through the glare of the sun.
—
Shane and Ilya often have playful arguments about who is the real asshole between them. Though they kid, at moments like these, Ilya cannot help but think that it must be him.
It had seemed like a fun idea when he was feeling small, the edges of his world softened, narrowing his desires down to immediates.
“Maybe we could do some other stuff, too,” Shane had suggested, tentative. “We’ll have two days this time. Like…do some drawing, maybe?”
Now, Shane is standing in the entryway of Ilya’s Ottawa apartment with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder and his expression is filled with dejection, despite his obvious attempts to hide it. The afternoon sun warms his skin, bringing his exhaustion from their game into sharp relief. His shoulders slump slightly, and Ilya cannot tell if this is a result of Ilya’s rejection or if it is just fatigue that has been mounting since the post-game interviews.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya says, standing with his arms folded across his chest. Just folded, he tells himself. He is not trying to hug himself. “I am just…not in the mood today,” he says, like he is not lying straight through his teeth. The words sit heavily inside his gut, churning like acid.
Shane nods, almost looking sheepish. He brings his arm up behind him, rubbing absently at the back of his neck. “Right. I guess…I guess it’s not something you can really control, right?” he says, his tone pitching upward slightly in question.
“No, it’s not,” Ilya agrees.
Less of a lie this time, but still a lie. The fogginess that Ilya descends into sometimes when he is feeling overwhelmed is not something entirely within his control, but he can certainly lean into it, and he can pull himself back from the brink of it if he absolutely must. Throughout his life, he has always tried to pull himself out of it. He had never felt the urge to lean into it until Shane had come to his apartment, that night after his stupid loss against Detroit. He has some measure of control over it, but when his own frustration with himself bites particularly hard, it is soothing to think that he does not have any control over it. It is a tide that he cannot command, it is not his fault that he finds himself burrowing beneath blankets and grasping for comfort like a child.
Just like his father always said, Ilya thinks bitterly. Always shifting the blame onto others, onto anything but himself.
Shane is still hovering, eyeing Ilya like a particularly difficult crossword puzzle in the morning paper. Like the ones that Shane’s dad — David — does sometimes.
“I mean, you don’t have to be feeling small for us to colour, right?” Shane says. “They got those, uh. They got those adult colouring books now, those mindfulness things or whatever.”
“Mm, mindfulness,” Ilya echoes sarcastically, eyebrows raising. “I am surprised you do not have ten of them.”
“Shut up,” Shane huffs, and Ilya suddenly feels like he is taking a fresh gasp of air, like he is able to breathe clearly again.
Familiar, comfortable territory. Right now, Ilya would be happy if the only thing Shane could respond with for the foreseeable future was “shut up, Ilya.”
Ilya grabs at the familiarity, quickly, before it can ebb away again.
“We could be boring and colour as adults, or we could be fun and fuck like adults,” Ilya says, his voice lowering slightly as he approaches Shane.
Shane swallows, his eyes losing some of their focus as he processes this. Ilya feels another stab of guilt. Shane had clearly been preparing for this, and he does not like when plans change at the last moment. He needs some time to adjust when they do.
“Shane?” Ilya questions, as he reaches out to cup Shane’s jaw, swiping his thumb along Shane’s cheek.
The focus returns to Shane’s eyes, suddenly sharpened with their usual intelligence. A slight furrow appears between Shane’s brows, and Ilya wants to smooth it away, along with all of the questions that might accompany it. Fuck. He does not think he can handle questions right now. Especially the way Shane asks them when he is speaking about this, like he is cradling Ilya with each careful question.
“You would tell me if you were actually feeling…y’know, small, wouldn’t you?” Shane questions. “You know you don’t have to hide it from me. I mean — you’ve told me before…” Shane starts to trail off, almost as though he’s talking to himself, thinking carefully.
That knot that has taken up residence inside of Ilya tightens. Lying to Shane feels acidic, corrosive to his insides. Ilya does not know how he managed it for all those years. His throat burns, closing around the words that he wants to say.
For a moment, everything inside Ilya’s head gets deafeningly loud.
He cannot do this every time he sees Shane, can he? Cannot turn to mush in his palms, cannot force Shane to care for him like he is not a twenty-eight year old man who should be capable of caring for himself. It was okay when there were weeks between Ilya feeling small, but he had gotten that way over facetime with Shane just four days ago. That would be more than once in a week, even if Shane had made the offer for today. And Shane has needs, too — Ilya knows he is not the only one between them with a bottomless desire for sex.
Night night, Papa.
The thought cuts through the tangle of Ilya’s thoughts with fast, ruthless efficiency, quieting everything for a moment.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Ilya slams the lid closed, imagines throwing his entire body weight on top of it. The physicality of the image, even if it is just a thought, is a temporary balm to his corroded insides.
“Ilya,” Shane prompts suddenly, snapping Ilya’s focus outward again. “You would, right? You…you’d feel comfortable telling me?”
“Yes,” Ilya agrees, pouring every ounce of false sincerity he can into the word. “Yes, I would.”
Shane’s eyes flicker searchingly across Ilya’s face, honeyed from the sunlight that hits them. Ilya forces himself to relax, tries to ward away the tension that wants to gather in his shoulders, in his neck.
“Sorry, I…maybe I phrased that wrong,” Shane says suddenly, “it’d be fine if you didn’t feel comfortable, I just…I’d wanna know that too. I mean, I know this is still, um. New, I guess. Not just the small thing, but us being together, right?”
The self-consciousness that bleeds in at the edges of Shane’s voice makes that acid churn inside Ilya with a vengeance, borderline sickening. Now he is making Shane doubt himself, when he already worries so much. After Shane had been so caring towards him, had not blinked an eye when Ilya was acting…well, by most accounts it would be strangely, but not by Shane’s account. He had made that much clear.
“Shane,” Ilya says gently, brushing Shane’s hair back behind his ear. “I am comfortable with you.”
That is not a lie. It has not been a lie for quite some time.
Something in Shane seems to relax at that, because he nods. “I’m comfortable with you, too,” he says, quietly.
They linger there for a moment, Ilya’s thumb tracing the freckles on Shane’s cheek. Ilya’s stomach still clenches with an ache he cannot get rid of, but it is soothed slightly by Shane’s presence, the feeling of Shane’s skin beneath his palm.
“So no drawing?” Shane says, after a long moment. That tinge of sadness from earlier returns, pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Ilya fights back against the sudden flash of frustration that bursts up inside him, like a petulant child lashing out because they cannot get the toy they want from the store.
He shakes his head. “Maybe another time,” he says, noncommitally.
Shane nods in return. “Alright,” he relents. Respecting Ilya’s desires, so painstakingly, as always. Fuck. Sometimes, Ilya has this irrational wish that Shane would push further, would not respect Ilya’s choices so much.
“Let’s have some dinner, then, huh? I’m pretty beat from the game,” Shane says.
Ilya nods, perhaps a bit too gratefully. Yes, he thinks. They will eat something, and then Ilya will be in the mood to fuck, and he can finally get rid of this knot that has been tightening inside his chest. If he does not muster up the desire, then Shane will certainly notice, and he will insist that they do not have sex, and will instead probably ask Ilya questions that will land far too heavily inside of him.
Ilya has already prepared and cut up the ingredients for one of Shane’s meal prep meals in the kitchen. They fall into an easy rhythm as Shane prepares the meal, with Ilya plastered along his back and occasionally helping to taste test.
After Ilya does the dishes, they end up on the couch with a random sports channel playing on the TV. Cuddling turns into touching turns into Shane straddling Ilya’s lap, gasping into Ilya’s mouth. His little sounds coalesce inside Ilya, urging on the molten desire that pools within him, temporarily crowding out the bitter acid.
Not for the first time and certainly not for the last time, Shane Hollander’s hotness saves Ilya.
Still, the knot is there inside Ilya’s chest when he wakes up the following morning.
—
Montreal versus Toronto is one of the last games in the regular season. Ilya watches the game from Shane’s apartment, the familiar scent of Shane’s cologne and his favoured laundry detergent surrounding him. Ilya has the curtains shut against the glare of the afternoon sun, angled now so that it is pressing directly against the window.
Despite what the press would have you believe, Ilya does not hold grudges against other players. Every single player on the opposing team, especially if they are known to be a fighter, is fair game for Ilya’s chirping. Grudges indicate personal feelings, which Ilya tries hard to keep off the ice, lest they cloud his head.
Still, there is a very specific mixture of frustration and shame that tangles together inside Ilya’s stomach when he sees Oscar Anderson on the screen, one that runs counter to all logic.
It was a dirty play, so what? Ilya tells himself.
Ilya does not like to board other players due to the risks involved, but he is not some saint when it comes to dirty maneuvering, especially during the playoffs. Perhaps it is not the actual play, but the place that Ilya’s mind had slid to afterwards, the way Shane had seen right through him minutes into their phone call.
Ilya has this vision of Anderson being able to see him afterwards, hugging a Shane Hollander teddy bear to his chest as Shane carefully tends to the bruising on his shoulder.
“Sorry, baby, sorry,” Shane saying, as he tugs Ilya’s hoodie off. And then— “Oh, buddy…” as he sees the bruising on Ilya’s shoulder.
Something squirms inside Ilya at the thought, writhing up to the surface and colouring his cheeks a traitorous pink. He tries to cast away the nausea-inducing thought of Anderson bearing witness to that, and once again, it is Shane's voice he hears inside his head.
It’s just you and me, remember? Just us. No one else here.
Ilya sucks in a deep breath that rattles through his lungs. He tries hard to cast that thought away, too. That is a part of himself he has been trying very hard to suppress as of late, to avoid all of the other things that would spring up alongside it. It seems the more he suppresses it, however, the more it tries to struggle to the surface.
Ilya’s focus is drawn outward again by a laughing remark from one of the commentators.
“Hollander’s got some edge tonight,” he says.
Ilya’s gaze snaps towards the game.
Shane is not usually an “edge” player. He is disciplined. Structured. Clean. He has dropped his gloves once in his career to square up to Scott Hunter, and they had made up swiftly afterwards.
Ilya’s gaze tracks Shane as he slices across the field towards Anderson, who currently has the puck. Shane checks him hard. It is perfectly legal, shoulder to shoulder, but there is intent in it. Shane chirps something that the microphones do not pick up, but it makes surprise flicker across Anderson’s face, which quickly gives way to a flare of anger.
Ilya’s heart stutters. He shifts towards the edge of the couch, shoulders tensing. There is a chaotic tangle of emotions clenching inside him, and he does not want to parse out the threads just yet.
Anderson chirps something back to Shane, struggling hard to keep the puck. The cameras catch the way Shane’s mouth curves. Not into a smile, but into something tight and sharp. In a flash of motion, Shane checks him again, and Ilya hears the distinct clack of sticks clashing as Shane wrestles the puck from Anderson and smashes it towards Pike. Pike immediately races down the field, towards the offensive zone, and Shane follows close behind.
Shane gets the assist for the goal that Pike scores. Montreal is leading 2-0.
The next shift, Shane skates Anderson hard into the corner again. Legal, but punishing. More importantly than that, it is a pattern now. Shane is definitely playing hard against Anderson, on purpose.
Ilya’s pulse climbs as the realisation starts to mount.
This is for me, he thinks, a touch deliriously.
No one else knows it. Not the commentators calling it “playoff intensity come early”, not Shane’s teammates slapping his helmet when he returns to the bench, not the fans chanting Shane’s name. The display is deafeningly public but the meaning is private. Quiet.
Ilya knows it is irrational. It runs counter to a belief that he and Shane share, one that weaves itself into both of their speeches to their respective teams — keep personal shit away from the ice. This is not keeping personal shit away from the ice. But Ilya cannot bring himself to care. He may be imagining it, but there is something protective layered in Shane’s intensity that warms him, far more than it should.
Toronto starts to gain some steam in the second period, catching up to Montreal in points. It swiftly turns around again midway through when Montreal scores twice consecutively, with Shane burying one of them. Shane seems to be everywhere, forechecking and scrambling along the boards and gaining that focused intensity anytime he is in Anderson’s orbit.
It all boils over towards the end of the second period, when Shane and Anderson collide at the blue line. Quick chirps descend into jawing, and suddenly, Anderson is dropping his gloves, which makes something inside Ilya’s chest freeze. Shane is built, of course, but he is not usually a fighter, and Anderson has a height advantage.
Still, against the backdrop of the chaotic frenzy that breaks out in the stands, Shane does not hesitate for a second, decisively dropping his gloves onto the ice. The refs hold their arms out, stopping nearby linemen from jumping in to try and break things up.
Ilya abandons the couch in favour of dropping down onto the rug in front of the TV, gazing up at the screen unblinkingly.
Anderson gets the first swing in, which Shane does not have the momentum to dodge. It lands somewhere around his jaw, tipping his helmet backwards slightly.
Ilya winces, fists clenching in his lap.
Papa, something traitorous inside of him whispers. Ilya violently shakes the thought away.
Shane moves quickly after that, fisting his hand into Anderson’s jersey and janking him forward, connecting two clean hits to Anderson’s jaw. Anderson grasps at Shane’s jersey in turn, and they both struggle for a moment, trying to angle for more hits. Shane shoves at Anderson’s chest as Anderson tries to push his hand up beneath Shane’s helmet. Pike skates over to the action, and he looks just about ready to join in, but the refs use the split-second separation between Shane and Anderson to swoop in and start to pull them apart. The linemen come in, too, assisting in breaking them up. Both Shane and Anderson struggle against their respective holds, shouting loudly enough across the ice that the microphones pick it up.
“Go fuck yourself, asshole!” Shane is yelling, his face glowing with exertion. “Was that your big moment? Huh? Couldn’t get the puck within three feet of the goal so you need to throw a fucking punch to feel better about yourself?!”
Jesus Christ, Shane, Ilya thinks, raising a hand to his mouth. Ilya cannot help the smile that is starting to pull at his lips. The TV feels so much closer now, and his focus is narrowed to it. Everything else on the periphery blurs, feels further away. Bigger. His spine starts to soften, and then his shoulders follow, curving inwards slightly.
Ilya watches as Shane is ushered into the penalty box, his jaw clenched as he sits down inside, elbows braced on his knees. Concern clenches inside of Ilya as his gaze finds the bruise blooming along Shane’s jaw, coloured a bright red. The distance between him and Shane suddenly feels cavernous, a gaping hole that will swallow him whole.
Papa.
The word prickles at Ilya’s mind again, inescapable. When he shoves it down, it just resurfaces again, achingly gentle.
Shame spikes inside of Ilya soon after, swift retribution. He does not know where this has come from, why it bothers him now like a sticky fly in summer heat. He does not want to attach this word to Shane, and all of the associations that come with it. Shane is nothing like his father was. The thought brings a wave of bitterness with it, tinged with guilt. Should he regard his father’s memory this way, after taking such painstaking efforts to organise care for him, to plan his funeral in accordance with every tradition necessary? Should he feel so much bitterness, even now, when his father had really been just a sick old man in his final years? Should he heap all of this onto Shane, with the title that he used to refer to his father? What has Shane done to deserve that?
Papa, papa, papa. The word drags inside of him throughout the third period, relentlessly sticky. It makes discomfort roil inside of Ilya, makes him want to turn himself inside out to try and escape it. It makes him feel vulnerable, not in the warm way that Shane usually makes him feel, but in a terrible way that makes him feel flayed open. Weak. Like how his father used to make him feel.
But then, the camera pans to Shane’s ear-splitting grin as the game comes to an end, and the word feels right, just for a moment. It feels safe.
Montreal wins, 6-3.
Shane is usually poised and controlled during interviews with the press, but today he is loose and confident, grinning each time one of his teammates comes over to interrupt the questions, whooping and slapping Shane’s helmet.
“Let’s go, Captain!” Dagenais shouts, knocking his shoulder into Shane’s as he walks past.
Shane huffs, smiling. “Alright, buddy,” he returns easily.
The way Shane throws that word around with his teammates is casual, used like punctuation. When he says it to Ilya, it is careful. Warm. Ilya’s stomach flips at the thought. The fluttery feeling is soon overtaken by acidity again, when Ilya thinks about what his brain has been stubbornly trying to call Shane over the last few weeks. It feels wrong, for him to think this way and for Shane not to know about it, caring for Ilya obliviously. That is why Ilya has pushed back at being small with Shane so much. Shane has been tolerant so far, but he must draw a line somewhere — playing pretend as some sort of father figure has to be it. He knows that Shane’s questions must be mounting by now, he knows that Shane has most definitely noticed. He knows that he will have to explain himself eventually. He just does not know what he will say. The thought provokes a restless pit of anxiety inside of him.
Ilya chews at the inside of his lip, thinking about Shane bear tucked away inside his bedside drawer. He had left him behind this time, because it had felt like too much. Ilya feels an irrational prickle of tears at the thought that Shane bear is lying by himself in a dark drawer almost two hundred kilometres away. His throat seizes, and it takes a titanic swell of effort not to let out the sob that suddenly wants to climb up his throat. Ilya has not taken Shane bear out of that dark drawer for weeks now, all because he cannot stop himself from ruining a good thing.
It is not even Shane bear’s fault, he thinks miserably.
Ilya’s phone buzzes with a notification, then, wrenching him away from his thoughts.
Jane: Hey. Just gonna shower then I’ll head home, shouldn’t be too long.
Jane: Not sure if you saw it or not, but the medic checked my jaw out, no worries. Just a bruise.
Then, after a few more moments.
Jane: I missed you
Ilya wants to cry again. He bites his trembling lip, almost hard enough to bleed.
I missed you too, he types back shakily, double-checking the message for typos before sending it off.
It will be around forty-five minutes before Shane comes home. Ilya has to pull himself together by then. He takes a deep breath and hauls himself up from the floor. He heads for the kitchen first, grabbing an ice pack and some painkillers. He makes up a plate of cut-up fruit, vegetables and nuts, hands trembling slightly as he handles the knife. It takes him longer than it normally would, despite his best efforts.
Ilya brings everything into the living room once he is done, setting it down on the coffee table. He drops down onto the couch, fingers tapping restlessly against his thighs.
You are big, he tells himself. You are a fucking adult. Get your shit together and take care of your boyfriend.
It feels like an eternity, but it is probably more like ten minutes before Shane opens the front door. Ilya hears the door close, then the dull thud of Shane dumping his bag down onto the ground. He listens as Shane leans against the wall and takes his shoes off.
Ilya gets up from the couch and walks with measured steps towards the hallway. Shane meets him by the entrance to the living room, sporting a tired smile. The bruise on his jaw has already darkened into a deeper, angrier shade of red, but he looks otherwise uninjured.
“Hey,” Shane greets.
Ilya keeps a careful distance. “So, what happened to ‘leave personal feelings off the ice’, hm?”
Familiar. Safe.
Shane has the audacity to look sheepish. “Okay. Maybe I got a little carried away,” he says.
“Mm. Maybe,” Ilya agrees, voice low as he steps forth, “but it was hot.”
Shane’s sheepish expression melts away at that, his eyes tracking Ilya as he approaches. “Was it?” he asks, softer now.
“It was.” Ilya reaches up to cup Shane’s uninjured jaw. He tilts Shane’s head, carefully examining the bruise. “What was everybody thinking, I wonder? Why is Shane Hollander so angry at this random player?”
Shane huffs slightly, but he is pliant beneath the motions of Ilya’s hand, allowing himself to be examined. His jaw is soft under Ilya’s palm. “Turns out a lot of people think he’s an asshole, and they thought he had it coming. Including his teammates.”
“I see. So I am standing in front of a hero, then,” Ilya deadpans. He angles Shane’s head back down to face him.
Shane’s face reddens slightly. “Shut up,” he mutters, but it lacks heat. “I wasn’t trying to be a hero.”
“Oh, I know so,” Ilya says, smiling.
Shane gazes at him for a long moment, expression tightening slightly. He hesitates. “I was angry about what he did to you,” he admits, painstakingly honest.
Even though a part of Ilya knew this, he still cannot help but feel a flicker of surprise. “You hid it well that night,” he remarks.
“You were small,” Shane says, as though that is all the explanation needed.
Ilya’s gaze flutters away at that. It hits too close right now, too close to the part of him that wants to turn mushy. He draws his hand away from Shane’s face, dropping it down to his side. Shane does not look away, however, eyeing Ilya with an uncomfortable amount of perceptiveness.
“My baby,” Shane murmurs, and suddenly, Ilya is suffocating on every emotion he has tried to suppress over the past hour.
“Don’t,” Ilya says, too sharply. Sharper than he means. “Don’t say that right now.”
“Okay,” Shane says steadily. Always so fucking steady. “I’m sorry.” He reaches out and places a hand on Ilya’s waist, drawing him in. Ilya’s gaze is still on the floor.
“Hey,” Shane says quietly, “can you look at me for a second?”
And God help him, but Ilya does just that. His eyes meet Shane’s, and he feels that urge again to turn himself inside out.
“Have I done something wrong, with…with the small thing?” Shane asks genuinely.
Ilya shakes his head, borderline frantically. “No. Never,” he says.
Shane nods. Ilya can practically see the wheels turning inside his head, and it scares him.
“It just…it feels like I have. I don’t know,” Shane says, haltingly.
“You haven’t,” Ilya insists, swallowing hard against the tight knot that is threatening to form inside his throat. Although it’s not a lie, it still has that acidic feeling eating away at his insides.
“Ilya,” Shane says, voice softening into that familiar warm timbre. His hand on Ilya’s waist squeezes gently.
“Don’t, Shane,” Ilya squeezes out. This time, he does intend for it to be sharp, but it just sounds desperate instead.
God, Ilya thinks to himself, feeling utterly pathetic. If his father could see him now. Ilya does not even want to imagine the things that he would say.
Shane pauses for a long moment, brows furrowing slightly. Ilya can see the conflict clouding his expression, torn between pressing further and drawing away. Ilya holds his breath without meaning to.
“Okay,” Shane relents finally. “C’mere. I think I need a hug to make me feel better after that game,” he says, drawing his hand away from Ilya’s side and holding his arms out.
“But you won,” Ilya mumbles.
Shane smiles. “I mean, yeah. But I have battle scars. See?” he says, turning his head slightly to show off his bruise, as though Ilya had not just seen it.
Ilya lets out a soft laugh at that. Not a giggle. A soft laugh. He walks forward into the circle of Shane’s arms and winds his arms around Shane’s back, pressing his cheek against Shane’s chest. He feels Shane press a kiss to his head, and something inside Ilya loosens, just for a moment.
They spend the evening in the living room, both picking from the plate that Ilya had prepared, with Shane occasionally holding the ice pack to his jaw. Ilya pulls away from the mushy feeling inside of him with all of his strength. They cuddle on the couch, but they do not fuck. Shane stops Ilya from getting handsy, and though Ilya throws up a token protest, he would never pressure Shane to do anything he does not want to do. Shane knows this.
They both know what Shane suspects — that Ilya is feeling small — but it goes blissfully unspoken.
The knot inside of Ilya’s chest grows tighter.
—
It had to come to a breaking point eventually. Ilya knows this, even if he does not want to face it.
You can never just face the truth, his father’s voice says inside his head. Always finding someone else to blame.
His father’s voice is especially loud now, in this stupid echoey marble bathroom with stupid bright lights and a stupid amount of stalls. Ilya braces himself over one of many sinks, and the space feels massive around him, like it will swallow him whole.
It had been an irritating day from the start. Ilya had slept through his alarm, and had then proceeded to lie in bed, a sense of impending doom brewing inside of him. He does not normally dread press conferences so much, but this one is just with Shane, and Ilya cannot help the frustration that churns inside of him at all of the things that they have to hide. It is fine when they play on the ice, but it comes into sharp, ugly relief when they have to face the press. There is nowhere to hide when you have ten cameras flashing at you and a whole swarm of reporters firing off tedious question after tedious question.
Ilya grits his teeth, his knuckles turning white with his grip on the sink basin. They are only on lunch break — they are not even finished yet. Ilya does not think he can keep this up much longer.
The bathroom door swings open, then, and Ilya feels a wild stab of panic, jolting upright and letting go of the sink basin as though burned.
Shane walks inside, which should have Ilya’s shoulders lowering with relief, but it does not. He sees the storm of questions in Shane’s eyes as they flicker over Ilya’s form. Questions that Ilya will not be able to answer, without telling Shane about how his mind has warped all of this, has warped Shane’s care and love for Ilya. Shane approaches with careful steps, tugging at the sleeve of his suit jacket. He leans up against the sink basin beside Ilya’s. Ilya feels the knot inside his chest pressing at his ribcage, a steadily growing tension ready to burst.
“Are you okay?” Shane asks, cutting through the silence.
“Fine,” Ilya returns, instinctively. It feels acidic on his tongue.
Shane examines him for a long moment, then lets out a small sigh. He folds his arms over his chest, expression drawn tight.
“Are we gonna talk about it?” he asks, clearly trying to keep his tone controlled.
“Talk about what?” Ilya returns, perhaps a bit too sharply.
“You know what,” Shane says, frustration bleeding into his voice. “You’ve been acting off for weeks now, and I can’t get a thing out of you.”
The shame corroding Ilya’s insides shifts into something ugly for a split second, something angry and explosive.
“Fucking hell, Hollander. Maybe because everything is fine and you are overthinking it like always,” Ilya says, voice raising slightly. “Fuck.”
Hurt flashes across Shane’s features, there one moment and gone the next. Ilya immediately wants to claw the words back down his throat, stuff them away somewhere where they can never see the light of day again. But he cannot.
Shane’s expression hardens, then, careful neutrality settling over his features.
“Ilya,” he says firmly.
It sounds like a parent scolding a child, his voice entirely devoid of its usual warmth. Ilya suddenly finds himself aching for the warmth to return with a desperation that scares him. He feels starved, crazed. Tears start to prick at his eyes that he tries furiously to blink away.
Shane must see something slip through the cracks of Ilya’s expression, because his face softens, just slightly.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—“ Shane trails off, shaking his head.
You should not be the one apologising, a voice screams inside Ilya’s head. I should be the one apologising.
The next words from Ilya’s mouth are not an apology, however.
“Just fucking go, Hollander,” he mutters, making a dismissive gesture towards the bathroom door.
Shane’s lips curve slightly, not into a smile but into something sharp, riddled with disbelief.
“Fine. Fuck,” he says, shaking his head.
And just like always, Shane respects Ilya’s request, in spite of its rudeness. He turns around and walks out of the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind him with a decisive thud.
Ilya is left alone with silence pressing in on him from all corners, squeezing him until he feels like he’s suffocating in it. Ilya tries to take a deep breath to clear his head, but all that does is open a path through his throat for the sobs that are trapped inside his chest. Suddenly, the tears prickling at his eyes spill over, and his hands fly up to cover his face as sobs wrack through his body.
Ilya retreats, because of course he does. He stumbles to the bathroom stall furthest away from the door, his vision swimming with tears as he chokes on his own miserable sobs. Nobody to blame but himself. His father would be happy.
Ilya’s world blurs at the edges as he collapses down onto the lid of the toilet, bracing his elbows on his knees. His body is shaking like it is trying to purge a sickness, feverish shudders running through him as he heaves with sobs. He has never felt so utterly pathetic in his life.
And yet, selfishly, Ilya still grasps for some form of comfort, still wishes he has Shane bear with him. Ilya imagines the feeling of the bear’s soft fur beneath his fingertips and thinks about him being locked away in his bedside drawer. It only makes him cry harder, his chest burning with the lack of oxygen.
You have gotten too used to receiving comfort when you are upset, his father’s voice scolds inside his head. This American softness has corrupted you.
Somewhere in Ilya’s daze, he finds himself reaching for his phone anyway. Weak. He scrolls back and forth through his contacts, hovering near Shane’s name. No. He cannot call Shane right now. Ilya keeps scrolling mindlessly, trying hard to see through the harsh bathroom lights and the tears clouding his vision. He wipes at the snot on his nose with the sleeve of his suit jacket. Ilya stops scrolling when he comes to Svetlana’s contact. He hesitates, before quickly tapping it.
The call rings once, then twice. Ilya considers hanging up, tells himself that he should hang up. He does not deserve comfort right now. But then the call connects and Svetlana’s soft voice is coming through the speakers, and it soothes away those thoughts, just for a moment.
“Christ, do you know what time it is here, Ilya?” she asks in Russian. Ilya tries to stifle the next sob that wants to burst from his chest, but it seems that he is unsuccessful, because Svetlana’s tone instantly softens.
“Ilya? What’s wrong?” she asks.
The question just makes Ilya cry harder. How can he possibly explain what is wrong to Svetlana, if he cannot even explain it to himself? Where does he even begin to unravel the tangle of thoughts inside his head?
“Svetlana,” Ilya shudders out, wiping roughly at his eyes.
“What’s wrong, hm? I thought you were supposed to be doing a press conference today?” Svetlana asks.
“I am,” Ilya sniffles out, “I am in the bathroom.” He hesitates. “I messed up.”
“I am sure it is not so bad,” Svetlana soothes, “did they ask something? During the press conference?”
“No. Not that. With…with Jane,” Ilya mumbles. His bottom lip trembles. “Told him to go away.” The words sound childish even in his own ears.
“Oh,” Svetlana says, pausing. “Why did you tell him to go away?” she asks gently.
Ilya thinks for a long moment, brows furrowing. His thoughts feel loose, disjointed. Hard to piece together. “I was scared,” he sniffles, his breath shuddering. It is the only word he can put to it.
“Scared? But you are so brave,” Svetlana tells him.
Ilya shakes his head, even though Svetlana cannot see him. “I am not,” he says miserably. The brief look of hurt on Shane’s face is burned into his retinas, playing on repeat inside his mind.
“You are,” Svetlana insists. “Remember when we found that lake by your house, and I was scared to step onto the ice? You said, ‘don’t worry, I will catch you.’” Svetlana laughs softly. “You could not have caught me, but I still went onto the ice after you.”
Ilya frowns, his sobs easing slightly as he recalls the memory. “I could have caught you,” he says.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Svetlana soothes. “You are very strong, hm?”
Ilya does not feel very strong right now. In fact, he feels the opposite of strong. Still, he nods.
“I would be strong, to save you,” he says, sincerely. He would do anything to save Svetlana.
Svetlana hums on the other end of the line, the sound brimming with fondness. “Yes, because you are a very sweet boy. And I am sure that Jane knows this too, yes?”
Ilya shakes his head frantically, wiping a hand over his tear-streaked face. “I was not nice to him,” he says.
“That’s okay. Sometimes sweet boys are not very nice. Sometimes I am not very nice, but I am still sweet, aren’t I?”
Ilya smiles slightly despite himself, nodding. “Yes,” he agrees.
“I am sure that whatever you said, you can apologise for it, sweetheart,” Svetlana tells him.
Ilya takes a long moment to let the words sink in, settling to the very depths of him. He can apologise. He can apologise. Svetlana says so, and Svetlana is very trustworthy. One of the most trustworthy people Ilya knows. The acid churning inside his stomach slowly starts to drain away.
“Okay,” Ilya agrees, voice small. He wipes at the remaining tears on his cheeks, sniffling again. His face feels sticky. It is not very nice.
“Good. Now no more tears, okay? You are breaking my heart, I do not need that at midnight,” Svetlana tells him, which prompts a thick, snot-filled giggle from Ilya. He wipes his nose with the sleeve of his suit jacket again.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.
“It’s okay,” Svetlana assures, a smile woven through the words. “It is good practice, hm? For what you will tell Jane?” There is a pause, and Ilya hears the sound of nails tapping against a screen. Then, Svetlana speaks again. “Oh. It looks like Hollander’s management team has cancelled the rest of the press conference. Family Emergency, it says.”
“Oh,” Ilya gasps wetly. Guilt squeezes inside his chest. He knows that is definitely his fault. Shane had tried to check in on him, and Ilya had just ended up making more work for him.
“This means you can go and talk to Jane, yes?” Svetlana says.
Ilya considers this for a moment. “Mhm,” he agrees. He wipes at his eyes one last time, then starts to shrug off his suit jacket.
“Splash some water on your face, yes? Then find a pair of sunglasses on the way out. Did you drive there?” Svetlana asks.
Ilya has to think about this for a second. “Yes,” he says.
“Okay. Will you be okay to drive right now? You could take a taxi, or maybe give yourself some time in your car before you go.”
Ilya thinks about this too. “I will take some time, maybe. Then drive.”
“Okay, that sounds like a good idea. If you need anything else, you will call me, yes? I mean it.”
“I will call you,” Ilya promises. “I love you,” he tells her.
“I love you too,” Svetlana says.
“I will go to my car now,” Ilya says. “So I will say bye.”
“Okay. Drive safely, yes?”
“Yes, I will. Bye, Svetlana,” Ilya says, voice small.
“Bye, Ilya.”
Ilya hangs up the call, plunging the bathroom into silence again. It does not feel so suffocating now, not with the determination that fills him.
Ilya has to get to Pap— to Shane’s house. Shane. Shane, Shane, Shane. Not Papa. He has to get to Shane’s house. And then he will apologise, and then everything will be okay.
Ilya nods to himself and opens the bathroom stall door.