Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike

Additional Tags:

Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Soft, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hayden Pike Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Soft Ilya Rozanov, Soft Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Fluff and Humor, Hayden And Ilya Being Enemies, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Caretaking, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Non-Graphic Smut, Phone Sex, Implied/Referenced Suicide, (Ilya's Mother), Angst, Fluff and Angst, Injury Recovery, Hurt Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Domestic Ilya Rozanov, Narratively Significant Tupperware

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-20 Completed: 2026-03-27 Words: 24,930 Chapters: 2/2

tend(er)

Summary

Shane should be here right now, should be in Ilya’s house. Ilya should be teasing him about being picky while going through delivery options for food on his phone. Shane should be discovering that Ilya has ginger ale in the fridge and the protein bars Shane mentioned liking in an interview in his pantry. He should be making out with Shane on the couch, sneaking a hand into his pants, teasing him about whether they can beat the deliveryman and arrive before he does. Shane was supposed to spend the night tonight, the Montreal team not set to leave until tomorrow afternoon because of potential bad weather in the morning. Shane should be fed and showered and ready to curl up in bed with Ilya tonight.
But Shane is in a hospital.

And Ilya is here.

He pulls up Jane in his phone again. He presses call.

“Hey, you’ve reached Shane Hollander-”

Ilya closes his eyes and lets Shane’s voice roll over him.

(canon divergence in which shane getting injured happens during a game in boston) (...which means shane then gets to go home with ilya to recover)

Notes

soooo this was originally going to be just a one chapter and done, but then these fools would NOT shut up

Chapter 1

It must be obviously bad even from the stands if the entire stadium has gone this quiet, is Ilya’s first, stupid thought, when the hit has landed and Shane is a pile of jersey and skates and limbs on the ice. 

Then he realizes that the ringing in his ears might just be exclusive to the poor fucker looking at the very heart in his chest laid out in front of him, down and horribly, cruelly still. 

“Get up,” he says, reflexively, the words barely passing through suddenly-numb lips. It’s a mean thing to ask, he knows, and he doesn’t even know if he’s saying it in English or if he’s just saying something to Shane in a language he can’t even understand. 

Either way, he needs him to fucking listen. 

He doesn’t. 

Ilya is fast, has always been fast, and so he’s already in motion before everyone else has even realized what’s happened. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever stopped more gently in his entire life, though, coming to a stop and immediately falling to a knee. It probably hurts, maybe, the way he just drops, even with the padding. He’ll bruise, maybe. 

In the moment, though, anything that isn’t Shane simply isn’t registering for him. 

The sound of raised voices and fists flying jolts him into an aborted gesture of curling over the still body on the ice. He’s seen far too many fights roll over downed players like freight trains, wounded players accidentally hurt even more as collateral damage as part of the effort of getting justice on their behalf. 

They won’t be getting anywhere close to this downed player, though, not as long as Ilya isn’t unconscious on the ice right beside him. 

Thankfully the slightest glance towards the noise reveals that it’s just Pike and Marlow going at it, and the two seem pretty set on having it out right where they’re standing, Pike swinging wildly and shouting words that Ilya simply can’t parse, not right now. 

In a distant, almost hysterical way, Ilya feels a vague sense of nausea at the idea that he and Pike are on the same side for once, that he’s actually, God help him, thankful that Pike is handling what hurt Shane so that Ilya can sit here next to him in the aftermath. 

“Sh-Hollander,” he says, catching himself only with effort. No response. “Hollander,” he says, harsher. Snap at me, he thinks, desperate. Get mad at me for it. I don’t talk to you like that anymore. Tell me off for it now. 

Open your eyes and look at me so my heart can start beating again. 

This slack-limbed sprawl isn’t for other people to see is a whirling, wild thought that comes to him as one of his hands reaches out to touch Shane’s wrist as carefully as he would touch a butterfly. Captain Hollander is rarely still, not on the ice, not even on the bench, but he’s contained, in control of himself, posture upright and formidable for people who don’t know him well enough to know that he’s a beautiful, ridiculous man who once confessed to Ilya that he used to practice how to stand in front of the mirror to make sure he was doing it right. It’s one of the things Ilya knows about him that other people don’t get, one of the little pieces he’s greedily hoarded in a little treasure trove inside his chest, taking them out and turning them over on hard days to remind himself that these precious things are his, his to know, to hold, to seek more of. All he wants, all he ever wants these days, is Shane Hollander, and he keeps the pieces of him he’s collected safe accordingly. Other people don’t get those things, don’t get Shane, don’t get the man who took Ilya’s heart before he even knew it happened. 

Don’t get to see Shane sprawled loose-limbed and unmoving in front of them. 

He wants to lean over him, wants to cover Shane’s body with his own, wants to shield him from the cameras he knows are all around them, the eyes that are all around him. He’ll be embarrassed, Ilya thinks, a single clear thought in the pounding that’s still occupying most of his hearing. He won’t want anyone to see him like this.

He practiced in mirrors, Ilya thinks, to make sure he would look perfect. 

He doesn’t look perfect right now. 

Stupidly, that’s the thought that pops the bubble of his inaction, giving him enough motion back to turn, glancing around wildly until he makes eye contact with the first medic he spots, waving them over with enough power that he feels the burn of it in his shoulder. He might shout something–his throat stings the way it does when he yells–but he can’t know, can’t think-

-can’t do anything so long as Shane is silent and still in front of him. 

“Is he-is he okay?” He asks when the medic reaches them, forcing himself up and away to make sure he won’t get in the way. As much as his fingers tingle with the need to touch, to comfort, he has that much strength in him, to make himself step back for now, to let people who know what they’re doing do whatever they need to make Shane stop doing this. 

The medic doesn’t speak, instead just resting a soft hand on Shane’s helmet and bending over to speak to him quietly. 

Good, Ilya thinks, stupidly, mind still whirling but whirling around a single thing: Shane. He’ll need it quiet. He always likes quiet after games, likes Ilya speaking right into his ear, low and soft, until his frayed nerves from bright lights and cameras and shouting have smoothed over. 

More medics rushing over with equipment that looks terrifying in the context of needing to be used on Shane shatters what little calm he just managed to claw together. 

From the corner of his eye, he sees Marlow shove Pike back hard enough to make them move a little closer, and Ilya shifts his stick to his other hand, ready to knock them both off their feet before he lets their chaos near Shane, but Pike recovers and launches himself at Marlow again, ignoring the ref trying to pull him away. Ilya looks away again. They aren’t his concern, not right now, not so long as they don’t drag their chaos close to Shane. 

Shane who still isn’t fucking moving. 

“Is he okay?” He demands again, louder now, in case they can’t fucking hear him over his own heart pounding so loud. It must be audible to other people by now. It has to be. 

“Back to your bench,” a ref tells him, and Ilya thinks if his body was even slightly less terror-slack, he might actually have been prompted into hitting him for it. 

As if there’s any fucking place for Ilya to be than right fucking here. 

The ref comes even closer to earning a right hook when a small, hurt noise from Shane has Ilya moving forward reflexively, summoned like a magnet to the sound of Shane’s distress, and the ref gets in the way, an arm to Ilya’s chest. The ref doesn’t understand, doesn’t know why Ilya needs to get closer. He knows Shane’s noises, all of them, has a whole catalogue of them filed away in his head. He knows what they mean, what they’re asking of him, knows when Shane is asking for more, knows when Shane needs less, knows when his pleasure is edging into discomfort and requires Ilya to help him back into feeling good. Shane isn’t always good with words, but that’s fine, because Ilya knows him just as well through his noises. 

And this noise means that Shane is hurt. 

Which means that it’s Ilya’s job to fix it. 

“-know,” the soft-voiced medic is saying now, Ilya’s hearing clearing up at least some, likely because his body has realized that deafening him is preventing him from hearing what Shane needs of him, something that is unacceptable. “I know, honey, I know it hurts-” 

The words are gasoline poured on fire for Ilya. He wants to snap at them to fix it, to stop the hurting, to make Shane better and not hurting and back on his feet and ready for Ilya to tease now and ply with icepacks later the way he’s done before in their time together. They’ve both teased each other over the years about getting old, about getting slow, chirping each other during their hookups over bruises and wincing when moving too suddenly after especially rough games, but they’ve always been gentle things beneath the veneer of mocking, jokes followed by the offer of Tylenol and ice packs and Tiger Balm. They’ve both done their fair amount of secretive exploring in hotels that aren’t theirs, seeking out ice machines and then mocking the other ruthlessly for being delicate and fragile even while carefully wrapping ice in towels and putting it over what hurts. He’d been shocked the first time Shane had done it, hadn’t expected him to return after sneaking out when they were done, certainly hadn’t expected him to risk someone seeing his face just so he could get Ilya some ice for his ribs. He’d been touched in a way he had refused to think about too long, that first time, and he’d been pleased in a way he had also refused to think about too long when he’d returned the favor two hookups later, icing Shane’s knee and even giving him a blowjob as he held the cold bundle in place just to show that he could one-up Hollander’s caretaking, too. 

Right now, though, Ilya is increasingly filled with the unacceptable knowledge that this is a hurt beyond his abilities to fix the way he has before. 

“Is he okay?” He demands again, as they wrap Shane’s neck in a brace, something that makes Ilya’s heart start pounding impossibly faster. He shouldn’t need that. Shane doesn’t get hurt in ways that could damage him enough to need a neck brace. It’s not allowed. Even if Ilya has never told him it directly, he should know that, should be as eager to be good for him as he always is. 

Shouldn’t be strapped into a neck brace, shouldn’t be on the ice and not getting up under his own power, shouldn’t be making another hurt sound that feels like glass being shoved beneath Ilya’s skin as the medics carefully roll him onto a carrying board. Shouldn’t be, shouldn’t be, shouldn’t be.

“Fucking tell me!” 

“Back to your bench, Rozanov! Don’t make me tell you again!” 

Then tell me he’s okay, he thinks, meaning to say it, but they’re lifting Shane now and taking him away and even under the panic, he knows that he can’t follow, isn’t allowed to follow, is stuck in a world in which they can carry his heart away from him on a stretcher-

-and he can’t do a goddamn thing but drift back across the ice where he’s been pushed. 

*

“-really positive so far, and they’ll let us know if they see anything concerning,” Hayden continues into the phone, finishing the last bullet point he scribbled down on his forearm when the doctor was going over things about Shane’s condition after he got here. 

Really, of all of the times for Shane’s parents to be on a cruise and seemingly unreachable, it would be the one time their son got laid the fuck out on the ice. As Hayden is learning now, being Shane’s emergency contact really felt like more of an honor before he actually had to do emergency contact-y things. 

Still. He’s got a job to do. 

“He really does seem okay, though,” he finishes. He debates making a joke to try and break the tension, trying to decide if hearing a joke about one of his own kids after an accident would make him feel better or if he’d be mad at someone trying to make light of his child being injured badly enough to need a hospital. He decides to risk it. “Him having such a hard head really paid off, huh?” 

He regrets it as soon as he’s said it, wincing. 

“I’ll let you guys know when there are any updates, and seriously, don’t worry. I already talked to staff, and they’re giving me a couple of days to stay here until he’s released and we can go back to Montreal. He won’t be alone, I promise.” 

He ends the call–glad for Shane’s groggy compliance in giving him the code to his phone after he got here–and tries to decide if anyone else needs any updates about Shane getting his bell rung by fucking Boston-

Boston Lily. 

He’s never spoken to the woman before, but there isn’t anyone else currently conscious to tell her, and it feels wrong, knowing she exists and not reaching out under these circumstances. 

He pulls up Shane’s call log and huffs an amused breath at how many times her name shows up. 

As well as how long those calls tend to be. 

“Hour and a half, buddy?” He mutters under his breath, pulling up Lily’s contact info. “I don’t even think we talk for that long at a time.” 

He considers just texting Lily. With how long she’s been seeing Shane, there’s very little chance that she wouldn’t have been watching the game and thus be fully aware of what just happened. She might already be making her way to the hospital, leaving work early or shoving her way out of the stadium. The only thing she really needs is someone to tell her what room Shane is in and that he’s okay and when he’s allowed visitors. 

But then he thinks about Jackie getting the news that he got laid out cold on the ice, how scared she would be, and he knows he would want someone to actually talk to her, not just send her hours and a room number. He doesn’t know this woman, but he knows she makes Shane smile like a goof at his phone, knows she sends Shane back looking dopey and happy and relaxed in his body in a way even Hayden only sometimes manages. He doesn’t know if they have a label for what they are, doesn’t know if they have plans about the future that go beyond the next time they’ll see each other, but he knows that she’s important to Shane. 

Which means she’s important to Hayden, too. 

“Alright,” he says out loud, mostly to get his own still-frazzled nerves in order. “Nice to meet you, Lily,” he says to himself, pulling up her contact information. “Wish it was literally under any other fucking circumstances.” He presses Call, only getting two rings to collect himself before it’s answered, an immediacy that makes him feel a little warm and fuzzy inside at how clearly loved his best friend is-

“Shane?” Comes a horribly, horribly familiar voice. “Are you alright? Are you still at hospital?” 

-Hayden’s warm and fuzzies die an immediate and horrifically gruesome fate, spiraling to the ground and going up in a mushroom cloud of What the fuck is happening?

“Shane?” Rozanov’s voice comes again, an impossibility that is making Hayden wonder if Marlow did indeed land a hit to his head that he didn’t feel under the surge of adrenaline. There’s an edge to the Russian’s voice that Hayden has never, in years of listening to his obnoxious ass interviews and chirps, heard before. He sounds…he sounds…

He sounds scared. 

“Hollander,” Rozanov says again, and okay, alright. At least the frustration is at least a little more familiar territory, enough to let his brain come online again enough to actually respond. 

“Jesus fuck.” 

Well. That wasn’t what he meant to say. 

“Who is this?” Rozanov’s voice is cold now, angry, aggressive, and thank God, frankly. He can deal with Ilya Rozanov being an asshole. 

He cannot deal with Ilya Rozanov being whatever the fuck he was when he first answered the phone. 

“Why the fuck do you have Shane’s girlfriend’s phone?” He demands. It makes no sense, but neither does the other option here, which is that Ilya motherfucking goddamn Rozanov is Shane’s-

No. Far more likely that he’s a thief. 

The line goes dead. 

The rudeness of it jolts him into redialing before he’s even consciously decided to. He may not know what the fuck is going on right now, but like hell will he let Ilya fucking Rozanov decide when this weird ass conversation is over. His call is declined, as is the one after that and the one after that and the one after that as well. 

After rejected call nine, he opens the text thread, pissed enough now to be past the initial shock. 

Answer the phone. 

The message is read immediately. 

…then not responded to. 

Okay. Play ball. Hayden might not be able to keep up with Rozanov on ice, but there is no way in hell he’s going to let him out passive aggressive him via phone tag. 

Answer the fucking phone or I’m sending this whole text chain to TMZ. 

The read notification has barely registered when the phone is ringing. 

Hayden smiles for the first time since he watched his best friend go down on the ice and not get back up. 

And then he hits decline. 

Yeah, that’s how that feels, he thinks with satisfaction, declining calls two and three as well before finally picking up on call four. 

“Hello?” He asks innocently. 

“I am going to fucking kill you,” Rozanov snarls, and yes, yes. Thank God. Okay. Hayden can feel the world settling back to how it should be. 

“Why do you have Lily’s phone?” He demands, because that’s an easier question than facing the idea that Ilya Rozanov has been texting and sexting and meeting up with Hayden’s best friend for years. That’s literally impossible. So. 

Grand theft cellphone it is. 

“If you send anything on this phone-” Rozanov growls into the line, and Hayden rolls his eyes, wishing to God he had his wife here with him to make faces at each other with. 

And to figure this whole fever dream of a situation out with. 

“I don’t give a fuck about you,” Hayden says, interrupting. “But I would never do that to Shane.” 

There’s silence on the other side of the line. 

“Is he-” Rozanov cuts himself off and then doesn’t continue. 

Obnoxiously, Hayden remembers how scared he sounded when he first picked up, and he barely resists the urge to groan when he knows he’s about to wreck the power he has over the rudest motherfucker in the NHL. 

“Doctors confirmed a broken collarbone, some really bad bruising on his ribs, and a concussion, but they’re about to do an MRI, too, just to make sure everything looks good besides that.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying this, really, doesn’t know why Ilya fucking Rozanov is getting the same answer Hayden’s wife and Shane’s parents’ voicemails got, but he continues anyway. “He was really confused in the ambulance, apparently. They kept telling him coach would call his parents and tell them what happened, but he kept telling them-” 

Oh. 

Oh. 

The doctor had asked if there was someone else in Shane’s family who needed a call when Hayden first got here. We tried letting him know his coach and his dad would be informed, but he keeps insisting we tell someone he’s okay because he’ll worry. Is there someone not listed in his emergency file we should contact? 

Jesus Christ Hayden wishes his wife was here right now. 

“Telling them what?” Rozanov demands, and beneath the irritation, his voice isn’t quite as steady as it should be. 

“I’ll call you back,” he says, very abruptly at the end of what he can process at one time when he’s getting new information on all fucking sides. 

“What?” Rozanov says, sound furious and disbelieving at the same time. “Pike, I swear if you-” 

Hayden hits end call.

And then rests his back against the wall to slide down to the floor, head between his knees while he waits for the world to start making some sense again. 

When the phone keeps buzzing with call after call and text after text, he puts it on silent and then lays it facedown on the floor. 

*

As it turns out, there are circumstances even worse than not having a way to contact Shane when he’s in the hospital: his only way to contact Shane in the hospital being Hayden fucking Pike. 

Really, after the shit he just pulled, Pike will be lucky if it isn’t him getting carried off the ice on a stretcher next time, grimacing in pain, strapped to-

Ilya leans forward against the counter of his kitchen island, forcing his lungs to expand all the way, palms sliding on cool granite in a way he wishes he found soothing. He squeezes his eyes shut, but that just makes it even easier to remember Shane sprawled out over the ice, and that does nothing for helping the tightness in his chest at his own fucking helplessness. He opens his eyes and sees that the screen of his phone–not cracked because he managed to resist the urge to toss it across the fucking room in a gesture of self-restraint he feels he should be proud of–is still dark, and that just makes him angrier. 

“Blyat,” he hisses, shoving himself off the counter-

-and then not knowing where else he’s supposed to go. 

A good captain would probably be checking on Cliff right now. It wasn’t intentional, Ilya knows that. Hockey is a rough game, and Cliff, like all of Boston’s team, plays it rougher than most. He’d meant the hit, yes, but he hadn’t meant the aftermath, hadn’t meant to potentially be the person who ended another player’s career, hadn’t meant to potentially be the cause of someone’s dea-

Ilya flinches from the thought, refusing to let it go any further. 

Shane is alive. He will remain alive. These two things have to be true because Ilya doesn’t know how the fuck he’s supposed to figure out existing in a world in which they aren’t. 

He calls Shane’s phone again, getting sent right to voice mail because Pike apparently doesn’t care about leaving behind a widow and orphans when Ilya gets his fucking hands on him for this. 

“Hey,” comes Shane’s voice in the answering message for the voice mail, and it’s pathetic, how even the sound of him formal and polite and impersonal is nice to hear, soothing in a way that Ilya can’t let himself think about, “you’ve reached Shane Hollander. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave your name and num-” 

Ilya closes his eyes as he listens to the message, resting his back against the wall and sliding to the floor. 

“Bet you made script for this,” he says softly, before the beep can condemn him by recording him being pathetic. “Probably recorded ten versions before you were happy. Probably sent it to your mother to get her opinion. Perfect Hollander has to have perfect voice message.” 

He hangs up at the beep. 

In all of their years of knowing each other, this isn’t something he’s considered before: the weight of being secret, the weight of no one else knowing that he should be contacted about Shane Hollander’s wellbeing, the weight of having no right to walk into that hospital and find out for himself. He’s stuck scrolling through gossip sites and sports news feeds, refreshing and refreshing and refreshing like an extremely targeted doom scroll focusing only on a single topic. Neither of them has ever been injured enough to not be able to text the other. There have been moments he’s seen highlight reels in which Shane’s taken a hit that made him send out a text couched in a chirp to make sure he was alright, and because Shane can’t lie for shit, he’s gotten the same messages in return, the concern clear even under the teasing. 

But if Shane can’t text him back on his own, if Shane is hurt too badly to remember that he has someone waiting on him to be okay, if Shane dies in that hospital because something went wrong in his body, his head, and the last thing Ilya ever said to him was a joke about fucking him, as if that’s still all they are, as if Shane hasn’t selfishly claimed what seems like every other thought he has, as if Ilya hasn’t had an embarrassing number of dreams about sharing a house with him, a bed, waking up slow and lazy and domestic because they have time they never have in real life, if the only person Ilya has ever loved the way he loves Shane leaves the world without ever even hearing it-

Ilya forces himself to stop. 

He breathes slow, deliberate. Shane has an app on his phone for meditative breathing. Ilya’s teased him about it before when he saw it still open after Ilya entered his room, chirping him about being worked up enough in anticipation of a good fuck to need something to tell him how to breathe right. Shane had told him to fuck off, ears going pink, but Ilya had stopped him before he closed out of the app, telling him he wanted to see if he could keep following the instructions after Ilya had gotten his mouth on him. 

He hadn’t. 

“Now I’m going to try to do deep breathing and get turned on,” Shane had complained immediately after coming, arm still over his eyes. Ilya had laughed, kissing his way up his thigh and then onto his hip. 

“Will be good meditation,” he’d said, nipping Shane’s skin to be annoying and getting a light kick to the side for it. “Good challenge for you: do one thing without being horny freak.” 

“Fuck off,” Shane had said, but he’d been grinning. “You’re the one who did it. You’re such an asshole.” 

Ilya had then spent the next hour they had together proving that he was actually very, very nice. 

Rolling his eyes at himself for being soft and embarrassing even while he does it, Ilya opens up the app store and searches for “cat breathing calm,” his best guess for what combination of words will get him to the thing Shane uses, remembering the little cat in a box that expanded and retracted slowly. Scrolling through what is apparently a thousand different breathing guide apps without seeing the one he was looking at just pisses him off further, and he slaps his phone down against his thigh, pressing his head back against the wall. 

Shane should be here right now, should be in Ilya’s house. Ilya should be teasing him about being picky while going through delivery options for food on his phone. Shane should be discovering that Ilya has ginger ale in the fridge and the protein bars Shane mentioned liking in an interview in his pantry. He should be making out with Shane on the couch, sneaking a hand into his pants, teasing him about whether they can beat the deliveryman and arrive before he does. Shane was supposed to spend the night tonight, the Montreal team not set to leave until tomorrow afternoon because of potential bad weather in the morning. Shane should be fed and showered and ready to curl up in bed with Ilya tonight. 

But Shane is in a hospital. 

And Ilya is here. 

He pulls up Jane in his phone again. He presses call. 

“Hey, you’ve reached Shane Hollander-” 

Ilya closes his eyes and lets Shane’s voice roll over him. 

*

Shane is blinking at the ceiling in a vaguely grumpy way when Hayden taps at the door and pokes his head through. 

“Hey, buddy,” he says softly, and the words get him Shane’s owlish attention, Shane smiling in an open, happy-to-see-you way Hayden has never seen directed at anyone before. He smiles slightly in response, unable to help it, Shane clearly in the goddamn stratosphere right now. He crosses the room to stand closer, Shane’s eyes tracking him on a slight delay. “They’ve got you on the good stuff, huh?” 

“Mm,” Shane says, lifting a hand to scrub at his face clumsily, his other restrained in a sling. “They keep waking me up.” The tone of the complaint is the same as when Hayden’s kids want him to do something like make the trampoline park be not closed, and it fills him with such a surge of protectiveness that what he originally came in here to work out gets even harder to find an entry point into. 

“How you feeling?” He asks, buying himself more time and also genuinely wanting the answer. 

“High,” Shane reports, and Hayden snorts. 

“Yeah,” he says dryly, “because you’ve got plenty of experience with that, huh?” 

As if it wasn’t Hayden who told him that what he was smelling when they were out one night years ago was weed, Shane looking scandalized in a way that had made a tipsy Hayden have to put him in a headlock to ruffle his hair affectionately. 

“Nuh uh,” Shane says, frowning. “M’not-m’not high other times.” 

“I know, buddy,” Hayden soothes. “You’re a responsible guy who never exceeds 2.3 drinks or whatever the current medical recommendation is for alcohol consumption during the two times a year you drink at all.” 

“Yeah,” Shane agrees, sounding appeased. “‘S what CCSA always says: hashtag drink less live more.” 

Jesus fucking Christ, Hayden thinks with fondness bordering on disbelief, there is no fucking way that this man–this man-Hayden’s best friend, who quotes health organization slogans including the fucking hashtags while out of his mind on painkillers, could possibly be anything to Ilya Rozanov other than the living embodiment of what happens when you aren’t a jackass to other people all the time over everything. 

Unfortunately for Hayden’s conclusion, however, he feels Shane’s phone buzz in his pocket again, reminding him that Ilya Rozanov is not currently providing evidence to support that conclusion. 

Ilya Rozanov is currently being obnoxious and insistent and-and-

-and boyfriend-y. 

As soon as it comes to him, the thought makes him feel vaguely nauseous. 

“Can I ask you something?” He starts carefully. “Or are you still orbiting the earth with the miracles of modern medicine?” 

The way Shane frowns at him says that was way too many non-literal words at once, and he starts over. 

“I grabbed your phone when I grabbed your stuff,” he says, slowly, waiting until Shane’s brain has visibly caught up before he continues. “And I promise, man, I wasn’t snooping around, but I-well. Fuck.” 

“Swear jar,” Shane tells him solemnly. 

Hayden wonders if it’s his sins against the swear jar that created the cosmic karma debt that has dropped him into this situation in the first place. 

Fuck it. Better to just rip the bandaid off. 

“Rozanov has been calling me on your-” He starts, but Shane’s face lights up in a way that makes the words stop short. He knows that look. 

He’s just only seen it directed towards a cellphone screen before. 

“Ilya?” Shane asks hopefully, glancing around like Hayden has stashed a Russian asshole around here somewhere to pop out like a party trick. 

Maybe it was Hayden who went down on the ice and this is all a very weird coma dream. This all feels like the result of brain trauma, after all. 

“Is he okay?” Shane persists, eyes big and earnest as they turn to him, so trusting that Hayden knows he would probably commit several types of crime in the name of deserving that faith. “He sounded scared.” 

Hayden, who has never heard Rozanov sound anything but obnoxious, almost wants to ask how Shane can tell. 

“He’s okay,” Hayden says, which is maybe a lie, honestly. Of the things he’s sounded like on the phone so far, okay has not been among them, but Shane certainly doesn’t need to be worrying about that when he’s the one in a hospital bed. 

(Really, he shouldn’t be in a place to worry about Rozanov at all, but Hayden doesn’t know how to phrase “I don’t care that you’re apparently gay, I love you anyway, and I will personally help you set up a Grinder or whatever gay guys use to find other gay guys to date because apparently the only one you’ve found so far on your own is Ilya Rozanov–who is also apparently gay, maybe?–and while I don’t care who you love, I know without a shadow of a doubt that you can do better than Ilya fucking Rozanov, Jesus Christ, Shane” in a way that’s supportive.)

(God, he needs Jackie here.) 

“Is he…” Shane trails off, and Hayden can fucking see him trying to be coy. “Is he gonna come here?” He sees Shane suddenly remember that he probably shouldn’t be asking that question. “‘Cause he’s-he’s a captain. It’s good manners.” It’s very obviously the first excuse he could come up with, and it’s painful, how pleased Shane is with himself after he says it, like he’s done anything but make Hayden want to take him by the shoulders and tell him that Ilya Rozanov is not worthy of someone like him. 

“He’s coming, buddy,” Hayden says instead of any of that. It’s true after all. Ilya Rozanov will now sure as fuck be getting his sorry ass here to see Shane. 

Even if Hayden has to kick his ass to make it happen. 

*

“You are fucking-”

Hayden rolls his eyes at Rozanov’s answering growl when he finally calls him back, not bothering to wait for him to finish what sounds like the wind up to a threat. 

“Okay, well, for reasons probably related to head trauma, he wants to see you.” Hayden exhales an exhausted breath of a laugh, rubbing at his gritty-feeling eyes with one hand. “So now we gotta figure out how to make that happen.” He drops his hand, leaning back against the wall and feeling about ten years older than when he woke up this morning. “I have a visitor band so I can stay with him. Maybe you come here, I hand it over, and you can go and see him? I mean, they might check ID or something, but no one has so far. This floor is pretty quiet, at least as far as hospitals go. They might recognize your face because you’re based here, but hockey isn’t nearly as big here in Boston as it is in Montreal, I don’t think, so they might not even recognize you, honestly.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Or you can go fuck yourself, and I'll show him how to set up a Tinder account so he can find a boyfriend that isn't a fucking asshole who won't even come see him in the fucking hospital.” Really, he thinks he's a patient man, but Jesus fuck. Rozanov could at least fucking try to contribute.

“Is not so simple,” Rozanov snaps. “He and I…” He makes a frustrated noise. “I do not have reason to be there. Maybe as another captain checking in, but he and I-the rivalry-” A loud breath that sounds a lot like a drag off of a cigarette.

“You shouldn't smoke,” Hayden says before he can catch himself. “Shane hates the way cigarettes smell.” It's true, after all. He even holds his breath whenever they walk by smokers in public, something Hayden has always found endearing as a habit. 

“Maybe he likes when I do it,” Rozanov snarks back, and as much as Hayden would like to continue down this totally fascinating argument, he has higher priorities in this moment. 

“Are you gonna come up here?” He demands. “Or should I go ahead and take some pics from Shane’s good side for the dating profile I’m going to be making for him because his taste in men is shit?” 

Silence. 

“Cool,” he says shortly. “I’m thinking six foot and taller for preferences, right? That’s probably something he’d-” 

“I will come,” Rozanov says. “Text me floor and room number.” 

“I’ll text you the floor,” Hayden corrects. “I’ll meet you by the elevator.” 

He hangs up before Rozanov gets the chance to argue. 

(Really, he wishes the man always had such a convenient off button.)

*

Despite thinking he might actually chicken out, Rozanov does indeed show up to the hospital, hoodie on and face partially hidden under a baseball hat. 

Hayden jerks his head to get him to follow and leads him to a small waiting area with a convenient door, carefully kept empty by the cleaning cart Hayden had “borrowed” to put in front of the door. 

After all, probably best not to have an audience for what he needs to say here. 

“What is-” Rozanov starts, but Hayden doesn’t have time for what he knows is going to be either an argument or just generally jackass-ery. 

He has bigger fish to fry. 

“What are you doing with Shane?” He asks plainly, mildly proud of himself when it’s obvious he’s thrown Rozanov for a moment with the question. 

Until the default asshole expression drops right back into place, Rozanov smirking slightly. 

“I do many things with Shane,” he says. “He especially likes when I-” 

“Cut the shit,” Hayden says, refusing to be flustered. 

(Or at least trying to not to look as flustered as the idea of Shane having sex with Ilya Rozanov makes him feel.) 

“He’s not-” He tries to think of the right word for what Shane isn’t. Casual? He’s not, well…at least Hayden doesn’t think he is. He can’t make the picture fit, Shane Hollander who eats the same protein bar and has since his rookie season, Shane Hollander who bought two hundred rolls of his favorite tape when the rumor came out that it might be discontinued, Shane Hollander who always fills his water bottle exactly to the same line, doing anything without some kind of commitment to it. He also can’t picture his best friend being the wham bam thank you ma’am–wham bam thank you…man?–type. He knows Shane might get teased for being a robot, but Hayden has seen him with his kids before, has had Shane on the phone for an hour and a half with him when Jackie had a hard time post-partum and Hayden just needed a listening ear before he crumbled under trying to be a good dad and a good partner at the same time. Shane’s so in his head so often that he misses things sometimes, but he knows Shane cares. 

(Hell, when Ruby had broken her arm climbing out of bed and trying to get a cookie from the jar on top of the fridge at 1 in the morning on a Wednesday, it had been Shane who came over to stay at the house while he and Jackie took her to the emergency room so they wouldn’t have to wake the other kids.) 

He also just can’t picture Shane being comfortable enough with someone to have casual sex with. It had taken him a full year of aggressive friend-ing at him before Shane started letting his actual personality peek through, and that was with the advantage of Jackie on his side for the effort. 

Shane just casually hooking up with someone just for sex? No, he just can’t see it. 

But unfortunately, that makes Ilya fucking Rozanov make even less goddamn sense. 

“He’s not?” Rozanov prompts, and it’s only the edge that he can see on the other man that keeps him from saying fuck it and changing his mind about helping him get anywhere close to Shane. 

“He’s not like you,” Hayden says, because it’s the closest he can get to all of the things he doesn’t quite have words for, and it’s also true. “He doesn’t just hook up with people all the time. If you’re not serious about him-” 

“That is not your concern,” Rozanov says flatly. “What he and I-” 

“Yes the fuck it is my concern,” Hayden says. 

“Why?” Rozanov challenges. “You are, what? In love with him? You are jealous he is sleeping with me and not you? Does your wife know?” 

“Watch your fucking mouth about my wife,” Hayden says, and he thinks it’s truly impressive that he doesn’t throw a punch about it. 

“I would never chirp your wife,” Rozanov says. “She is already married to you. She has enough going wrong in her life.” 

“I don’t have to help you,” Hayden says, and it’s satisfying, the little tic he sees in Rozanov’s jaw at the reminder. Feeling confused and wound up and a little mean, he can’t help but press his advantage. “I could walk out of here right now and go sit with Shane as long as I want, and you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near him.” 

He sees Rozanov clench and unclench one of his hands in a fist, and he wonders with probably an abnormal amount of anticipation if he actually is going to get to throw punches with the man today. 

It would certainly probably make him feel better to have an outlet for the “What the fuck?” of today. 

“I am sorry,” Rozanov says, and the words sound like they’re being dragged from between his teeth, “for the insult to your wife.” 

Even with the apology, Hayden still considers just turning around and walking away. Let Rozanov sit here and simmer in the consequences of being an asshole for no fucking reason. It would probably do him some good, give him a fucking reality check about minding his fucking manners, especially when people are doing favors they don’t have to on his behalf. 

But then he thinks of what Shane’s sad, disappointed, puppy-eyed, drugged-up expression would be if he didn’t get to see Rozanov, and he forces himself to let the temptation pass. 

“Don’t lead him on,” Hayden says, still needing to press the point. “If you don’t mean it, whatever this…thing is, you guys have, don’t lead him on about it. He’s not a toy for you to get rid of when you get bored.” 

Rozanov considers him for a moment. 

“No wonder he talks about you like you’re his mother waiting to ground him,” he says finally. “You fret like grandmother asking when she will finally get grandchildren.” 

“This isn’t a joke,” Hayden says. “I don’t know what the fuck goes on between you two, and I don’t want to, either, but I know that he was barely conscious in an ambulance with a concussion and broken bones, and he was still worried about you, asshole.” 

Rozanov’s jaw clenches again, and Hayden sees the motion when he swallows, hard. 

“He doesn’t always have the words for it, but when he loves someone, he loves them all the way. He’s in a hospital bed drugged into the stratosphere, and he still asked me if I knew if you were okay because you sounded worried, and he was worried about it. If you’re just playing a game with him because you want to fuck with his head, you’re going to hurt him. Badly. So don’t fucking do it, okay? He doesn’t deserve that.” 

Rozanov doesn’t respond, and after a moment, Hayden sighs. 

“Whatever, asshole,” he says, carefully working the visitor bracelet on his wrist loose. “Just don’t be a dick to him or I’ll have to go find some scalpels or something.” 

“Wow,” Rozanov says dryly, accepting the wrist band and working it over his hand, “I am so scared.” 

Just one shove down a stairwell, Hayden thinks when he peeks out into the hallway to make sure the coast is clear before gesturing for Rozanov to follow. Surely just one shove down a stairwell wouldn’t do too much damage, not enough to be prosecutable, at least. 

Maybe it would even knock some fucking manners loose. 

*

“Ilya!” Shane all but cheers as soon as he catches sight of him in the doorway, and it’s not fair, Ilya thinks, the way his clear delight feels like a punch to the gut. 

I could have lost you today, he thinks. I could have never seen this smile.

Apparently whatever that thought makes happen on his face is upsetting, because Shane’s face scrunches. 

“Hey,” he calls, and when Ilya doesn’t respond immediately, still trying to get hold of himself, Shane extends the arm not bound in a sling, making grabbing motions at the air. “Hey!” He calls, louder. 

“Okay, okay,” Ilya says, obeying (as if there was any chance he wouldn’t have). He wouldn’t trust Pike’s judgement on a good day, and he’s painfully aware that this little visitor bracelet ruse of theirs won’t hold up to even the most surface-level investigation. 

And yet here he is anyway. 

“Hi,” Shane says, releasing a deep breath and relaxing back, face sunny and pleased again. “Better,” he judges, giving Ilya’s hand a squeeze. He lolls his head back to look at him. “You look sad. Stop.” 

The unexpected order knocks a laugh out of him, a rush of air expelled with the same force that a fist to the stomach could have achieved. 

“Hey,” Shane says, frowning. “No sad face. I’m okay. No more sad.”

“No more sad,” Ilya agrees, forcing himself to offer a small smile before he looks down at Shane’s hand in both of his, too cool. Ilya tucks the fingers into his right palm, gently chafing the rest with his left. When he’s sure he’s gotten hold of himself again, he looks up. “You scared me.” 

“I scared me, too,” Shane says solemnly. “That was…so not cool, dude.” 

“So not cool, dude,” he mocks, but his voice is gentle, and Shane doesn’t seem to pick up on the fact that he’s being teased, instead nodding with satisfaction, like Ilya has caught onto something. 

He’s so beautiful, even now, even with bruising starting to obstruct his beautiful freckles. It isn’t right, someone still being this beautiful in a hospital gown.

I love you, he thinks, the thought helpless, involuntary. I love you so much it fucking terrifies me. 

“I’m mad we don’t get to spend the night together,” Shane says, eyes managing to focus only with what seems like effort. “I was really looking forward to it.” 

“So was I,” Ilya says, rubbing his thumb gently along Shane’s knuckles, slow and soothing. “You will go back to Montreal tomorrow?” 

“No,” Shane says, sounding dissatisfied but resigned. “Can’t travel yet. I think Hayden said we’re getting a hotel here for a couple of days or something, but…” He exhales a breath and tries to wave his hand vaguely, forgetting that it’s currently in Ilya’s custody. 

“You are staying in Boston?” Ilya repeats, an idea–a maybe-terrible idea but also a very-enticing idea–spinning to life in his mind in an instant. 

*

“No,” Hayden says flatly. 

“Hayd-” Shane starts, but Hayden gives him a look usually reserved for his kids. 

“No,” he says firmly. “You’re on drugs. You’re incapable of making good decisions right now.” From the way Shane is willingly and happily holding Rozanov’s hand, he’d also argue he’s incapable of making good decisions in general, but that seems a little too mean to direct at an invalid right now. 

Even an invalid with absolutely awful taste in men. 

“Hey!” Shane protests. 

Hayden doesn’t look back at him, keeping his eyes on Rozanov. 

Rozanov returns his gaze coolly, like he isn’t currently being kept captive by a drugged-up Shane who grabbed his hand the second he was in range after Ilya poked his head into the hall to get Hayden back into the room. 

“You think I’m gonna send him off with you when he’s hurt and drugged up? No.” 

“I want to go with him-” Shane starts, sounding disgruntled, and Hayden doesn’t look away from the staring contest he’s found himself in with Rozanov. 

“No, people who are on narcotics don’t get opinions right now,” he says firmly. 

“I have house here in Boston,” Rozanov says. “He can-” 

“It’s a nice house!” Contributes the weak link in this battle of wills, ignored now by both him and Rozanov. 

“-stay with me. He was going to stay the night anyway be-” 

“I want to stay, Hayden,” Shane contributes. “With Ilya. At Ilya’s house.” He gives Hayden a firm nod that he seems to regret as soon as he’s done it, wobbling slightly as his concussion makes itself known at the sudden motion. Before Hayden can cross the room and push Rozanov out of the way to check on him, though, Rozanov has a hand behind Shane’s neck, holding his head stable gently. 

“You didn’t learn first time you did that?” He asks, sounding amused and softer than Hayden had thought him capable of being. 

“I was agreeing with you,” Shane protests, finally managing to get one eye open to glare up at Rozanov with all of the ferocity of a half-drowned kitten in an ASPCA commercial. 

“More like interrupting,” Rozanov corrects. “Let me speak with Pike on my own, yes?” He brushes Shane’s hair back gently and then seems to remember that there’s a witness right now, expression going cold once more as he turns to face Hayden again. 

“He needs place to stay. I have place to stay. Simple.” 

“Not simple,” Hayden disagrees. “I don’t know what the fuck you two get up to in whatever this is-” 

“We-” Shane starts, but Rozanov places a gentle hand over his mouth. 

“Stop before you tell Pike something you don’t want him to know,” he says, glancing at Shane before he looks back to Hayden. 

Shane mumbles something but doesn’t seem to be fighting the hold. 

“He wants to stay with me,” Rozanov says calmly. 

“And what do you want?” Hayden challenges. “You think I’m just going to leave him with you when he’s like this?” 

From the way Rozanov’s expression hardens, he hears what’s being left unsaid. 

“I would never,” he says, the words nearly a growl. 

The gravitas of the moment is slightly mitigated by Shane attempting to contribute his own thoughts to the conversation, brows furrowing with frustration when Ilya uses the hold he still has on his other hand to keep him from pushing the one over his mouth away. 

“Maybe you wouldn’t,” Hayden allows, “but I don’t know that. I’m not going to just leave him with you when he’s like this and just trust that you’re apparently secretly a good guy he can count on.” 

“I’m not-ow!” Ilya says, yanking his hand away from Shane’s mouth and looking at the side of it, where Shane apparently bit him based on the reaction. 

Hayden is more than a little proud of him, honestly. 

Shane gives Ilya a smug look and then looks back to Hayden. 

“I like Ilya’s house. I like Ilya. I want to go with him.” He moves to nod again, but Ilya catches his head, stopping him with his fingers against his forehead before he releases him. 

“You heard him, Pike,” Ilya says after releasing him, disgustingly satisfied. 

Hayden almost wants to tell Shane to bite him again. 

*

Though Ilya thinks Shane will regret saying it later, it’s his contribution to the argument about how Ilya never fucks him if he doesn’t say he wants to that ends up making Pike give up the fight, Shane catching onto the central issue late in the conversation but certainly coming in swinging after he did. 

“You really want me to stay with you?” 

Ilya turns from watching Pike on the phone through the window in the door to look at Shane, who looks half-asleep now that the room’s gotten quiet. Glancing back to make sure Pike is still occupied, Ilya nods, reaching up to brush his fingers gently across Shane’s cheek, Shane smiling and leaning into the contact. 

“Yes,” he says. 

“Why?” Shane asks. 

Ilya hesitates before he answers. The honest truth is that the memory of Shane unresponsive on the ice is still haunting him and he needs Shane in front of him, alive and on his way to recovery, to hopefully make it fade. 

But that feels a little heavy for someone who isn’t currently capable of following a conversation for more than a couple of minutes at a time. 

(And a little too heavy, period.)

“Because now I will be able to hold a big favor against you forever,” he teases, leaning in and kissing Shane’s head. 

Shane leans into the contact like a cat, making a content humming noise low in his throat. 

Naturally, this is the moment Pike chooses to interrupt them. 

“Okay,” he says, and Ilya doesn’t miss the look of distaste on his face when he gathers that affection happened in his absence, “I have lied to your mom–which was fucking terrifying, by the way, don’t ever ask me to do that again–and after promising her my next three children and also maybe my kidney, she and your dad are going to finish their vacation on the condition that I text them each day and let them know you’re still alive. And also maybe you now have to live with them again and also be wrapped in bubble wrap forever? I’ve gotta be honest, man, I started getting a little desperate towards the end.” 

The way Shane blinks says that was far too many words happening at once, and Ilya resists the urge to smile only with effort. 

“But he can stay here?” Ilya confirms. 

“Yes,” Hayden says, looking only at Shane. “As far as they know, you and me are being roomies in a hotel here for a couple of days until having to get on a flight won’t suck so much.” 

“So I get to stay?” Shane asks, and Ilya is amused by the way it makes Pike soften slightly in response. 

“Yeah, buddy,” he says. “You get to stay.” 

Shane’s answering smile is so warm that Ilya almost thanks Pike for making it happen. 

Almost. 

*

Hayden waits with Shane at a side entrance to the hospital the next afternoon after his release, trying desperately to convince himself that he’s doing the right thing and isn’t leaving his injured best friend with the biggest asshole in the NHL as his sole caretaker. 

“I’m serious,” he says, not for the first time. “You need me, call me. I’ll come right back and kick Rozanov’s ass. You can consider it my Christmas gift this year.” 

“Thanks, Hayd,” Shane says, eyes closed as he leans against the column behind the bench they’re on. The lower dose of painkillers was necessary for his discharge, and he’s been moving more carefully as a result. 

“I mean it,” Hayden persists, trying to make him smile but also trying to make sure that below the humor, he knows Hayden means it. “Say the word. Or don’t even say the word. Send me an emoji, even, and I’ll-” 

“Okay,” Shane says, smiling faintly, though it fades after a moment. He opens his eyes and starts to open his mouth, but he stops. Hayden lifts his brows for him to continue. Shane looks away, worrying at a loose thread in his sweatpants. “Um, I’m-I didn’t mean for it to happen. Like this. You finding out. I’m sorry.” 

Hayden was wondering when they’d be having this conversation. 

He deliberately relaxes his posture, gently bumping Shane with his shoulder. 

“Hell of a way to do it,” he says. “Points for style.” 

Shane doesn’t smile, just glances at Hayden briefly and then away, like he’s afraid of what he’ll see if he looks too long. 

It hurts to see. 

“Hey,” he says, waiting until Shane glances at him again. “I know your brain isn’t fully working all the way right now, but I need you to pay attention to this, okay? It’s important.” 

Shane doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t look away. 

“I don’t care,” Hayden says slowly, firmly, pausing to let it sink in. “I mean it. Gay, straight, bi, poly-poly-something, right? That’s a thing? Doesn’t matter. Any of it. I don’t care, Shane. You’re my best friend, man. That’s way more important than anything else you are.” 

Shane’s eyes get a little glossy, but his voice is steady when he speaks. 

“I don’t think being poly is in the acronym,” he says, and Hayden laughs, which makes the last bit of tension leave his shoulders. 

“I’m serious, buddy. I’m sorry you didn’t get to tell me on your own, but it doesn’t matter to me. You’re still you.” He hesitates but decides to go for the joke. “I just know you have shit taste in men now.” 

He hates it–hates it–the way Shane reflexively looks around, like there’s someone waiting to ambush them, to take advantage of a little joke to hurt him with it. 

It hurts more that Hayden knows there are people who would. 

“I won’t tell,” he says, resting a hand on Shane’s shoulder–the one not in a sling–and squeezing gently. “It stays between you and me, alright?” 

“Not even Jackie?” Shane asks, and Hayden resists the urge to wince at the idea of keeping it from her. He will, of course, if that’s what Shane needs of him, but it’s not like he’s looking forward to it. 

“Not even Jackie,” he agrees. 

“Really?” Shane asks, and Hayden thinks if he were a different man, he might be offended at the lack of faith. 

“It’s your choice, Shane,” he says, squeezing his shoulder again. “You get to decide to tell her or not. It’s your call.” 

Shane looks away when his eyes go a little more glassy, and Hayden grants him the semblance of privacy, looking at his phone and scrolling through without really seeing anything. By the time Shane speaks again, he’s about seven months deep in Jackie’s Instagram, unliking posts just to like them again. 

“Thanks,” Shane says, voice a little rough. He clears his throat. “You can tell her. If you want. I know you hate lying to her.” 

“You’re sure?” He asks, looking at Shane intently. 

Shane starts to shrug and then reconsiders when it hurts, wincing instead. 

“I don’t…” Shane starts. “I don’t want to be a secret you have to keep.” 

“You aren’t,” Hayden says. “For the tenth time in this conversation alone: you’re my best friend, man. Whatever I need to help you carry, I’ll do it, alright? That’s how this whole thing works.” 

“Including lying to my mom?” Shane jokes, clearly a little desperate to steer the conversation away from feelings territory. 

Hayden allows it. 

“I mean the truth is ‘Hey, Yuna, your son is going to go stay with his very public rival–you remember him, right? the biggest asshole in the NHL–because apparently they’re dating now.” He gives Shane a doubtful look. “I think she’d be calling in a concussion protocol on me.” 

“He’s a good guy,” Shane says, and Hayden makes a doubtful noise. “He is! I know he comes across bad in the press, and I know he talks a lot of shit with people, but he’s…” Shane trails off, trying to find a word. 

Hayden is unsure that there is one. 

“I like being with him,” Shane says, softer, shyer, not looking at him again. 

You better deserve this, motherfucker, Hayden thinks in Ilya Rozanov’s general direction. 

“Well,” Hayden says, “still. If you change your mind, just send me a knife emoji or something, and I’ll be on my way. I’m sure Jackie will give me an alibi.” 

*

In total honesty, Shane is a little unclear about the series of events yesterday that actually made this happen. He has bits and pieces and has been filled in a bit from talking to Hayden today, but the stuff he was on yesterday was heavy, and beyond little fragments of memory, he’s not completely sure how he’s ended up here: in the passenger seat of one of Ilya Rozanov’s obnoxious cars, privacy secured by dark window film he’s pretty sure cannot be legal. 

“Is only illegal if someone pulls me over for it,” Ilya says with a shrug when he mentions it. 

This is not reassuring, but Shane lets the matter drop. 

“You sure this is okay?” He asks, not for the first time. 

Ilya gives him an amused side glance. 

“Is a little late if it isn’t,” he observes. “We are almost there.” 

“Asshole,” Shane says. “I’m just saying. You don’t have to-” 

“I know,” Ilya says, resting a hand on Shane’s thigh and squeezing gently. “I want to. Stop worrying about it.” 

Shane will be continuing to worry about it, but he resolves to be more quiet about it. 

“You have had lunch?” Ilya checks. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Hayden got me something from the cafeteria.” 

“Good,” Ilya says. 

They lapse into quiet, and Shane tries to decide if it’s comfortable or not. 

Before he’s decided, they arrive, and Ilya pulls into the driveway, opening the garage with a clicker. He makes his way around the car before Shane has even finished working up the willpower to attempt standing up, and he lets Ilya help him up, steadying him when the world doesn’t settle under his feet immediately. 

Ilya leaves him on the couch before going back out to the car to grab his bags, and Shane tries to take the few seconds he has to get himself together. Right. This is…normal. He’s a guy who’s been fucking another guy for years and now he’s hurt and the guy he’s been fucking who has recently admitted to also having some shared feelings is going to take care of him. This is normal and not weird and probably something a lot of people have done. 

(Even in his head, he can’t buy it.)

“You got a new coffee table,” he observes when Ilya has returned, dropping his bags at the door in a pile. 

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “The guys broke the other one when they were over here a few weeks ago.” 

“Broke it doing what?” Shane asks, and something in his tone makes Ilya smile slightly before he shrugs. 

“Being guys,” Ilya says, like that’s an answer. Shane, who is also a guy but has never broken a coffee table about it, decides not to ask further questions. Ilya gives him a considering look. “Is not time for dinner yet, but soon. You want to take a nap?” 

Shane considers the question, imagining how nice it would feel to curl up in Ilya’s comfortable bed and knock out for a while…

But then thinking about how he still feels like he has a tangible layer of Hospital Gross on him. 

“I’d rather take a shower first, if you don’t mind,” he says. He’s not sure why Ilya would mind, honestly, but trying to navigate this uncomfortably new situation has him on his best manners. 

“I don’t,” Ilya says, and though he sounds amused, he doesn’t tease Shane about it. “C’mon,” he says, crossing the room and extending a hand. “I will help.” 

“I don't need help to shower,” Shane says, and even under the softening haze of the painkillers lingering in his system, he can feel himself flush. 

“Yes,” Ilya says dryly, propping a knee up against the armrest idly and crossing his arms over his chest as he gives Shane an up and down. “Because the way you cannot even stay upright while sitting down is definitely sign of well-being that fills me with confidence.” 

Shane attempts to prove him wrong by sitting up straighter and is then rewarded by a wave of dizziness as the world spins around him sickeningly. He shuts his eyes and swallows against the way his stomach lurches with it, flinching slightly when warm hands land on his waist and knee, the motion prolonging the experience. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, and the condescension in his voice is softened with the concern that’s in it, too. “You are ready for a marathon, clearly.” 

“Shut up,” Shane mutters, breathing slowly and carefully until his stomach settles and the world along with it. When he’s mostly certain he isn’t going to puke in front of Ilya and thus have to fake his death and enter the witness protection program, he opens his eyes, Ilya giving him a faint smile when he does, kneeling in front of him. 

“Hello,” Ilya says, thumb rubbing gently at the side of Shane’s knee. “Now do you want help? Or do you want to try that again and see if you lose consciousness this time? Could be exciting, seeing what the news says when Shane Hollander gets driven away from my house in an ambulance.” 

“You’re an asshole,” Shane says, though he accepts it when Ilya helps him stand up, an arm sliding around his back and lifting gently, holding steady even when Shane’s world doesn’t. “God, this is the fucking worst.” He complains, pretending that their progress to Ilya’s room isn’t most accurately described as a shuffle. 

“Could be worse,” Ilya says, thankfully remaining steady on the stairs as Shane doesn’t and even more thankfully not saying anything about it. 

“How?” Shane asks, question delayed until they’ve reached the top. 

“Don’t know,” Ilya says, shrugging with the shoulder not currently keeping Shane upright. “But it could be, probably.” 

Shane considers and then dismisses laughing, his head wheeling enough even without anything beyond just being in motion. 

“Thank God,” he says with genuine relief when they reach the room, Ilya depositing him to rest against the counter in the en suite, one hand hovering near Shane’s side even as he reaches to turn the shower on, as if he’s afraid Shane will take a header to the floor at any moment. 

(Given how much the world still feels unstable beneath his feet, Shane supposes he can’t be too insulted.)

“Arms up,” Ilya demands with an annoyingly amused look that makes Shane want to kick him. 

(Or kiss him.)

(Or both.)

“I can get my own shirt off,” he says decisively after slipping his arm free of its sling, setting about proving it only to halt when his arms are halfway up, pain shooting through his shoulder and collarbone sharp enough to steal his breath for a moment. 

Immediately, there are warm hands gently lowering his arms partway, those same hands gathering the edge of his t-shirt and tugging it free on his uninjured side before carefully guiding his other arm through gently, one hand holding his bicep steady while the other guides the fabric over it to avoid moving his shoulder at all. When his head is free as well, he can see Ilya lift his eyebrows even as Shane refuses to make actual eye contact with him. 

“Would you like to be stubborn about your pants, too?” He asks, tilting his head slightly. “Or can I just help you not break yourself further?” 

“Fuck you,” Shane says. 

Still, when Ilya takes over getting them over his feet after Shane shimmies them down as far as he can without bending over, he allows it. Ilya tosses the clothes into the laundry basket in the corner of the bathroom as he stands, and it’s stupid, feeling feelings about the domestic sight of his laundry mixed in with Ilya’s. 

For the sake of his already brutally battered pride, Shane lets himself chalk it up to painkillers as Ilya efficiently strips out of his own clothes. 

“Tilt your head back,” Ilya says when they’re both in the shower, Shane taking hold of a bar he usually has a deathgrip on for far more fun reasons. 

“Why?” He asks, trying to salvage at least some amount of dignity. 

“Well,” Ilya says, tipping his chin back gently without even waiting for an answer, “if you want soap in your eyes, is your choice, but I don’t think you would like it very much.” 

“Asshole,” Shane says, closing his eyes to let his head be guided under the stream of water and pretending it isn’t actually very useful to have Ilya keeping him steady when moving his head makes the world start wobbling again. The world has settled again when Ilya shifts him out of the spray and there’s the smell of shampoo before there are careful fingers in his hair, scrubbing gently along his scalp. And that’s…

Wow. 

Shane makes a small noise without meaning to. 

“Too hard?” Ilya asks, voice soft enough that it's almost lost under the sound of the shower. 

Distantly, Shane registers that he's heard that question before in a very different context than Ilya working shampoo through his hair, but with the way it feels like his bones are slowly melting, he can't work out how to use it to steer them back there to break the moment. Instead he just makes another noise that he hopes reads as no.

“Feels good?” Ilya asks, and there's something in his voice that feels as warm as the water hitting them.

“Mmm,” Shane agrees, eyes still closed, swaying until he's pressed against Ilya, warm and solid.

“This is not very helpful position for this process,” Ilya says, but it sounds teasing, not like a reprimand, and his fingers don't cease their gentle motions against his scalp.

*

Ilya would be a liar if he tried to say there wasn’t anything arousing about Shane lax and trusting against him in a hot shower, seemingly melting by the moment as Ilya washes his hair for him, but it’s not an arousal that demands immediate attention. It’s a softer thing, gentler, satisfying and enjoyable but not something that needs to be acted on. 

“I have conditioner,” he tells Shane as he gently guides him back under the spray of water to rinse the shampoo out, “but is for curls.” 

“S’fine,” Shane says, eyes still closed, and it takes all of Ilya’s willpower not to kiss him, the urge tempered only by the ugly, purple-black bruising on Shane’s shoulder and side, stark reminders to keep things chaste at least until even breathing doesn’t make Shane wince anymore. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, “but do not complain later if you don’t like it.” 

The only response he gets is a yawn, Shane tipping his head back into his hand easily when he sinks his fingers through his hair again. So much for doing it all himself, he thinks, amused. 

It’s strangely comfortable, this intimacy without expectation for more. He and Shane have showered together before, but it’s always been a prelude or a second round for sex, more about an excuse to press soap-slick hands to sensitive skin than it is about actually getting clean. They’ve both spent time on their knees in front of the other with a shower pouring down over both of them, and he’s had Shane braced against a wall many times, making all of his pretty little noises loud enough to be heard over the water when Ilya really gets him going. With the way he can see Shane starting to get semi-hard, he can tell he isn’t the only one thinking of some good memories, but there’s no urgency to act on it, not with Shane injured and still on painkillers. 

“Is that the same bodywash as mine?” Shane asks out of nowhere, almost startling Ilya with the break in the content quiet between them. 

“Is it?” Ilya asks, like the answer isn’t yes because he is secretly pathetic and bought it for that exact reason, so he could smell Hollander each time he took a shower and while he fell asleep each night. 

(He knows even in this quiet moment of contentment that that will be something he takes to the grave with him.) 

Shane bats him off to wash his own face–having to grab Ilya’s arm when his protest almost sends him toppling over–and then Ilya helps him back out of the shower, generously not commenting on how much of Shane’s weight he’s taking to keep him on his feet, clearly lulled almost to sleep by the hot water. 

“Stop it,” he protests when Shane yawning makes him yawn in response, and Shane snorts, doing it again because he is a terrible person with no respect for boundaries. “You’re terrible,” Ilya informs him. 

Still, because he is kind and generous, he still kisses him. 

Let it never be said that Ilya Rozanov is heartless. 

*

Shane wakes feeling warm, frowning faintly at the smell of unfamiliar detergent around him but comfortable enough to let it pass for the moment. 

“You are awake?” Comes the low rumble of a voice behind him, and with how close they’re pressed together, he feels as much as hears Ilya’s voice. 

“Mmm,” he says in response, not fully convinced that he’s committed to being awake. When shifting slightly sends a bright flare of pain through his shoulder, he wishes he’d stayed asleep. 

He makes a noise of protest when Ilya pulls away from behind him, keeping one hand on his hip to keep him still but taking his warmth with him. When even the hand leaves him, he whines louder, knowing it’s childish but unable to help it, in pain and now left to get cold. 

“Such noise,” Ilya says, touching the back of his head briefly in affection. “I’m coming back. Just wait.” 

Having found a position that has made the pain fade some, Shane decides to listen, eyes closed as he tracks the sound of Ilya moving through the house. 

“You walk really fucking loud,” he observes when Ilya’s entered the room again. 

“Bold to insult person holding your drugs,” Ilya says dryly. Shane opens his eyes at the sound of pills rattling in a bottle. Ilya tilts his head in question. “Would you like to make a more polite comment?” 

“Elephants walk quieter,” he says, giving Ilya a challenging look. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, lifting his brows. “Then I will take my elephant feet and walk away, and you can lay here like sad, broken old man with bad bones.” 

“And then I’ll never suck your dick again,” Shane challenges, insulted when Ilya snorts, clearly unconcerned. 

Still, he puts the pill bottle down on the side table and carefully helps Shane sit up. 

“We both know that is empty threat,” Ilya says, amused. 

Shane chooses not to answer. 

*

“I still can’t believe you’ve never watched these movies before,” Shane says after they’ve had dinner and settled on the couch, and Ilya catches himself before he shrugs, which is fortunate for the injured hockey player currently using him as a body pillow, laying on his good side and pinned between Ilya and the back of the couch in a way that Ilya thinks he would find claustrophobic but Shane seems to enjoy, his head on Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya has managed to sneak his fingers below the edge of Shane’s–borrowed–t-shirt, and if his focus has been more on the pleasant feel of warm, soft skin under his fingertips than on spaceships and aliens and laser swords, Shane is both too entranced by the movie and too unfocused by pain medication to notice. 

“I was busy becoming best hockey player in the world,” Ilya teases. “No time for wars happening in space.” 

“Damn,” Shane says, tipping his head enough to look at him. “No Star Wars and you didn’t even become the best hockey player? Rough.” 

“I will dump you onto floor,” Ilya threatens with a growl, pressing his fingers into Shane’s hip in warning. 

Shane makes an amused noise and looks back to the television, snuggling back down in a way that feels distinctly like gloating. 

“You are a horrible brat,” he observes, resting his cheek against the top of Shane’s head. “I should throw you into the yard and let you sit in the rain like sad homeless dog in those shelter commercials.” 

Shane yawns. 

Ilya grumbles under his breath in Russian but allows the disrespect, settling again into the soft bubble of a warm body against his, trusting and slack. 

He’ll punish Shane for being a smartass later, he decides, carefully wrapping his arms around him. 

*

Shane is something that really shouldn’t classify as awake by the time Ilya levers him off of the sofa and guides him up to his room, Shane taking what’s probably an embarrassing amount of time to remember to lift his feet up high enough to manage the stairs. Even after they make it up to the room, it’s only Ilya’s control of the movement that keeps him from flopping facedown onto the bed, instead helping him sit down gently and then taking what’s basically all of his weight to settle him on his good side, even tucking two pillows behind his back so he won’t roll in his sleep. 

“Comfortable?” Ilya’s voice asks quietly, and Shane manages to make some vague noise of agreement, receiving a kiss to his temple for it. “This is okay?” Ilya asks when he’s settled down on the other side and pulled the covers up over them both, carefully tucking down the edge so it won’t press against Shane’s face. “It is not hurting you?” 

Shane wonders distantly what would happen if he said yes. Would Ilya get up and sleep in another room in his own house and let Shane have his bed all to himself? 

In the end, though, he’s simply too tired to find out. 

“It’s good,” he manages, pretty sure the words come out clearly enough to be understood. Even if they haven’t, he decides, that’s not his problem. He opens his eyes and then gets a hand around Ilya’s arm, tugging him closer. “C’mere.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Ilya says, but he heeds when he’s moved, settling down carefully until Shane is the filling of a sandwich bookended by pillows and Ilya. 

Sighing contently, he’s not sure he’s ever been more comfortable in his life. 

“Stay,” he instructs Ilya, in case he had ideas about leaving after Shane falls asleep. 

“I am here,” Ilya says softly, and Shane feels a gentle hand stroking over his hair. 

He’s asleep between one breath and the next. 

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Y'ALL, I'M SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS TO READ THIS

also peep the rating upgrade! these two decided to do phone sex, and i couldn't stop them.

Three days into the arrangement, Ilya is getting dangerously used to Shane Hollander in his house, dangerously used to the comfortable routine of waking up, making breakfast for him and Shane, kissing him goodbye, spending the day counting down the hours until he gets to return home with the knowledge that someone is waiting on him, arriving home to find Shane curled up somewhere asleep looking warm and soft, making them dinner, and then snuggling up together on the couch until it’s time for bed, when he gets to hold Shane all night and then wake up to do it all over again. Shane Hollander, in his house, in his clothes, in his bed, in his care, his his his, in every way it’s currently possible for him to be. Even with the knowledge that it’s temporary threatening to try and take the joy out of it whenever he thinks about it too long, it’s addicting, the domesticity of it, the playing pretend at a life together. Even if he can’t have it forever, he gets to have it right now. 

Unfortunately for his peace in the locker room, his newfound contentment doesn’t go unnoticed. 

“Hot date again?” Cliff teases him in the locker room that afternoon after practice, lighter after their game the previous day and thus done earlier than usual. 

“With your mother? Yes.” Ilya says back absently, eyes only on his phone. Shane isn’t supposed to be looking at his phone too long, but Ilya had texted him to ask what he wanted for dinner so he can stop by the grocery store to pick things up on the way home. It’s stupid, how excited he is about the idea, about the simple joy of picking something up that someone else wants to eat, the thrill of being able to return home with something Shane will want, to be able to please him like this. 

It’s possible Ilya is more than slightly pathetic. 

Then Shane responds with Oh fuck yeah to the recipe he’d sent him earlier, and Ilya suddenly doesn’t care very much about being pathetic or not. 

Not when he’s so fucking happy. 

“Goddamn,” St-Simon says, wolf whistling teasingly as he pops Ilya on the shoulder with a towel as he passes by. “Must be a hell of a woman to have you looking like that, Rozy.” 

“Shut your stupid face,” Ilya snaps back, but his heart isn’t in it, too busy with how happy he is at his impending errand. 

At how soon he’ll be returning to Shane, groceries in hand, able to keep pretending this is a life they get to live together for just a little longer. 

“Rozy’s got a hot date!” Carmichael announces to the locker room at large. 

Ilya ignores the chorus of “WHOO”s it earns, knowing that his “hot date” is going to the grocery store and then going home to make dinner, give Shane a fresh ice pack, make sure he ate the lunch Ilya left him, and then curl up on the couch together to watch what is probably going to be another show about people buying houses because he stupidly told Shane he could have control over the remote as the injured person and Shane immediately went mad with power and began forcing him to watch house shows because he is the most boring and predictable person in the world. 

Ilya is so excited to get home to him that it’s almost embarrassing even only in his own head. 

“Is true,” he announces to the locker room at large. “I am going home to get fucked, and you are are only going to have to go fuck yourselves. Is very sad.” 

The heckling he gets in response is music to his ears. 

*

Shane knows that he should be grateful about how much Hayden is doing for him, really. He’s been on the frontlines of lying to his parents, after all, playing middle man to keep them still on their vacation and not flying back to catch Shane in his lie. He also knows that Hayden’s concerns are just out of concern and care for him. It’s not like he can blame him, really. Shane has had years to know Ilya off the ice. Hayden had maybe a few hours, and even those hadn’t been ideal. He understands why Hayden is still doubtful of Ilya and his intentions. 

He’s just also a little annoyed by it. 

“I’m just saying, buddy,” Hayden is saying now, during a check-in call so he can keep the story straight with Shane’s parents by passing on their messages, a lack of cell service meaning they’re stuck texting and Shane’s concussion offering a good excuse to keep his responses short and even then mostly answered back through Hayden. “There’s a lot of good guys out there in the world. Why Rozanov?” 

“Because I lo-” Shane catches himself just in time. The words are true–for longer than he’s been actually willing to accept them being true–but even in the emptiness of Ilya’s house, they’re too big to say out loud, even to his best friend. “I like being with him,” he corrects. “A lot, Hayd.” 

“Why?” Hayden asks, sounding truly perplexed. “I only had to talk to him for like, an hour, and he was still an asshole the whole time. There’s a lot of guys out there, Shane. You really want this one?” 

“He’s not an asshole,” Shane says, but there’s no bite behind it, not as much as he’d like there to be. How could there be? He’s gone along with it for so long when other people have said it because what else was he supposed to do? “Seriously, Hayden, when it’s just us…” How to even put into words the way being with Ilya feels like being able to breathe all the way? How to express how much like himself he feels when he’s with Ilya? How good it feels to let go of controlling everything with the faith that Ilya will keep him safe until he’s ready to pick it all up again after? How he stops second-guessing everything he does and instead just does it? How Ilya feels like a soft place to land after a hard day? 

He’s not even normally good at putting his feelings into words. That certainly isn’t changing for something this big. 

But still…fuck it. 

“I love him,” he says, not following up on the words for a moment, just letting the weight of them sit in the space between him and Hayden. “And I don’t-things are-stuff is complicated. For us. But I love him, Hayden. I love who I am with him. I love who is with me. I love being with him. I love how he makes me laugh and he always listens to me and how he always bugs me to drink water after-” He catches himself just in time for the sake of being able to look Hayden in the eye in the future. “It’s good, when it’s the two of us. It always has been. I love when I get to be with him. I just-I love him.” 

Hayden is quiet for a long, long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is soft. 

“Well fuck, buddy,” he says simply. Shane hears him take a breath and let it out. “Alright, I’ll try to lay off.” 

“Thank you,” Shane says sincerely. 

“But if he doesn’t act right and you change your mind, let me know, okay? Killing him is still always on the table.” 

Shane laughs. 

“I’ll keep it in mind.” 

*

Ilya arrives home to a quiet house, the lights not even turned on. He doesn’t bother turning them on himself, instead navigating his way through the dimness until he makes it to the kitchen and sets down the groceries, putting away the perishable things and then going to see where Shane is before bothering with the rest, finding him on the couch, dead to the world and using one of Ilya’s zip-up hoodies like a blanket, the edge of an icepack wrapped in a towel over his ribs peeking out. 

Safe with no one awake to witness him, Ilya grants himself the delicious luxury of just watching him sleep for a little while, curled up on his couch like he’s always belonged there, like there’s nowhere else he ever would be but here in Ilya’s house with him. 

When he’s had his fill, he carefully slips the now-lukewarm icepack from under the hoodie, tugging the edge back into place when he does so, and returns to the kitchen to make dinner. When the sound of one of his barstools being dragged back alerts him to the presence of company when the smell of sauteed onions and roasting chicken has started filling the house, he doesn’t even look back before he moves to the freezer, taking out one of the frozen ice packs there and wrapping it in a kitchen towel before turning and offering it to Shane, who takes it with a yawn and a sleepy smile. 

Ilya returns to cooking feeling like he finally understands what people mean when they talk about knowing they were born to do something. 

*

One thing that Shane has learned in his days of being in Ilya’s care is that the man sticks to medication schedules as diligently as an ICU nurse. For his own part, Shane is full of delicious food and sleepy and comfortable and wearing clothes that smell like Ilya while using Ilya as a pillow and would be perfectly happy to not get up and change any of those things, but Ilya has other plans. Despite Shane’s whining late that evening, Ilya still gently shrugs him off and rises to get his medication when the alarm on Ilya’s phone goes off. 

“Where’d you get your nurse skills, anyway?” Shane asks, accepting the pills he’s handed when Ilya returns and rolling his eyes when Ilya waits to hand him the glass of water until he’s tossed them in his mouth and has his hand fully free again. It’s meant to be a joke, something to break the tension, something to pop the bubble of something that feels good enough to be dangerous. 

Instead there’s an unexpected pause, just briefly, and then Ilya doesn’t look directly at him, instead adjusting a pillow behind his bad shoulder carefully to prop him up better. 

“My father,” he says quietly, and even as someone who isn’t always the best at reading people, Shane can hear in his tone that this is an offering, something with the potential to be very painful, something Ilya is trusting him to hold gently. “Is what I did every summer, going back to Russia. He was…not good, the last few years. Nurses upset him, strangers in the house. He would get…scared, I think is best word. It was better when it was me. He couldn’t always remember, but…” He trails off, eyes going just a little too glossy to be played off as anything other than tearing up. He clears his throat and moves to pull away, clearly a little embarrassed, but Shane stops him, wrapping his hand around Ilya’s wrist before he can move it out of range. It’s loose, the hold. Ilya could pull out of it if he wanted to. 

He doesn’t. 

Shane sees the motion when he swallows, hard, and he wishes with all of his heart that his stupid shoulder wasn’t fucked so he could wrap Ilya up in his arms the way he did in Florida, wishes he could carve out a little place for Ilya to curl up in, to cry if he needs it or just breathe with the knowledge that someone else will hold the space for him to do so, someone else will hold him up, someone else will be strong to let him take a break. As it is, trying to hold him like that now is just likely to have Shane going pale enough from pain to make Ilya worry, so instead he pulls, gently, tugging Ilya to settle next to him on the couch. He goes easily, sitting down carefully, clearly a little confused but heeding what Shane wants from him the way he always does. Shane adjusts in response, moving enough to free up the space in the corner of the sofa, pressing close when he’s got Ilya tucked into it, the closest equivalent he can manage right now to wrapping Ilya up in a hug the way he did in Florida. He uses the aid of the pillows still behind him to prop himself up a little higher, guiding Ilya’s head down to his good shoulder and resting his cheek against the top of his head, fingers moving to stroke lightly along the nape of his neck, rubbing gently at the muscles there. 

“I’m sor-” Ilya starts, and Shane shushes him before he even finishes the words, Ilya’s curls tickling him when he shakes his head, eyes closing tight, filled with uncharacteristic hate suddenly, for whoever taught Ilya that he had to do this, had to apologize for hurting, had to apologize for needing someone to hold him close until the hurting stopped or at least let up enough to let him get his breath back. 

More than hate, though, what Shane feels is love, and he tries with all of his might to will it into Ilya with every single touch. 

*

Ilya isn’t sure there’s a guideline on playing nurse for your fuckbuddy-turned-something-they’re-both-too-hesitant-to-put-labels-on-yet, but he’s pretty sure he’s currently doing it very badly. 

But he’s also pretty sure that pressing his face into the safe darkness of the crook of Shane Hollander’s neck feels good enough that he’s willing to ignore that for now. 

He’s angry with himself in a distant, embarrassed kind of way. His father’s health was in the decline for years, after all. It’s not as if his death was that unexpected, not really. It shouldn’t hurt like this, the grief that’s been living in his chest like a wild animal trapped in the cage of his ribs, on the prowl for a way out any chance it gets no matter how hard he’s tried to make the bars strong enough to hold it back. 

It’s not even–he admits only in his head and even then still with a wave of guilt so powerful that it feels almost like nausea–that he misses his father as a person. It’s bad of him, probably. He knows that everything his father did was his own form of love. He always expected more of Ilya, always raised the bar as soon as Ilya could feel his fingertips brushing it in order to make him leap even higher to try and reach it again. He’s Ilya Rozanov, infamous professional hockey player, because he was first Ilya Rozanov, son desperate to impress his father, to prove that he was worth it, worth the belief that he could be more even if his father never thought he actually would be. It’s complicated, the pain and anger all twisted up together in his chest, knotted together the way his mother’s necklaces would get when his father got angry and started throwing things around, scooping up fistfuls of mama’s jewelry to send it flying across the room while shouting about her ingratitude for so many pretty things that she couldn’t even be happy about. 

They’re some of his earliest memories, the aftermath of those moments, his own small hands carefully picking apart tangled chains and retrieving earrings from behind furniture, cramming his tiny arm behind a radiator and ignoring the burn of it because he’d seen one of mama’s favorite rings roll under it and the brief pain of heat against his skin was well worth the way she would be relieved to have it back, would stroke his hair back with gentle hands and press a kiss to his nose and tell him how clever he was, how she didn’t know what she would do without him. 

He wonders, in his worst, weakest moments, if she ever considered what he was supposed to do without her. 

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until there’s fabric against his face, Shane awkwardly trying to pull up the edge of the t-shirt he’s in to wipe Ilya’s face but not able to do it without trying to twist to an angle that has to be hell on his ribs and shoulder. Ilya takes his hand in his own and pushes it down before the grabbing the edge of his own shirt and scrubbing over his face rougher than he knows he should, skin stinging at the friction, mortified at his weakness but also too drained to do more than sit in the aftermath of it, of grief that should have already left him coming back to say hello like a door to door salesman who can’t take a hint. 

“Sorr-” He starts, but then Shane’s hand is at his mouth, fingers resting there gently. 

“Stop,” he says, calm and final, not harsh but clearly a command he wants heeded. 

Ilya obeys. 

*

They sit in quiet for longer than Shane can track, but it’s not an awkward thing. 

It’s possible his perception of that is aided by the painkillers as they kick in, though. 

“What song is that?” 

He jumps slightly, startled at Ilya’s voice after so much silence, lulled into a half-doze by his own rhythmic strokes of his hand over the warm solidity of Ilya’s side, up and down in firm, meditative motions. Ilya is halfway on his lap now after tipping over in slow degrees until Shane had decided to speed up the process and push him down the rest of the way. His head is on the same pillow that Shane’s injured arm is resting on, but his torso is over Shane’s thighs, heavy, soothing, his legs stretching out over the couch, feet tucked behind a pillow in a gesture so endearing that Shane can’t look at it for too long or the drugs are going to make him do something extremely embarrassing like tell Ilya how cute it is.  

Even with this precaution, it’s still feeling like a close thing every single time Shane thinks about it. 

“What’s the name of it,” Ilya says, “that song?” 

It’s only the repetition that reminds Shane he was asked a question, and he tries to get his syrup-thick thoughts to move fast enough to both process it and come up with an answer. 

And it’s only in the course of that that he realizes he was humming.

If he were just slightly less under the influence of painkillers, he thinks he would probably be embarrassed. As it is, he’s just honest. 

“I don’t know the name,” he says, and it’s true. “My grandma used to sing it to me when I was little.” He doesn’t know why it came to him now, not when he hasn’t heard it in years, only that he remembers hearing it and feeling safe, loved, secure in the knowledge that someone would take care of him. 

It’s what he wants Ilya to feel now, even if he thinks he would burst into flames from mortification if he tried to say that out loud, the fact that Ilya has literally been inside him before be damned. 

“There are words?” Ilya asks, and even drugged, Shane understands the request under the question. 

“Yeah,” he says, “and if I sing them, you’ll be kicking me out of your house for making your ears bleed.” 

Ilya laughs, the noise a little congested-sounding, but it goes to his head the way it always does even more than the drugs do, the power of making Ilya laugh. 

“Finally,” Ilya says, sounding so fond that it registers with the same pleasure as when he cradles the back of Shane’s neck when they’re in missionary but he’s hitched Shane’s hips up for a better angle and pulled him off of the pillow in the process, a consideration for his comfort, making sure he doesn’t strain anything in the process of getting fucked to within an inch of his life, a tiny little gesture that still haunts Shane’s sexual preferences to the point that he’s grabbed the back of his own neck before while masturbating, just to play pretend in a way that usually gets him to his climax humiliatingly quickly. “Something you aren’t perfect at.” 

“‘There’s a lot of stuff m’not perfect at,” Shane says, realizing that the words aren’t coming out quite as clearly as he meant them to but too sleepy and also too deep in the land of the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals to care enough to try and speak more clearly. 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, carefully shifting enough to turn, holding Shane’s bad arm in place to avoid jostling him and then releasing it when he’s settled, looking at Shane with a glint in his eyes that usually ends with them kissing. 

(...among other things.) 

“Perfect Shane Hollander has things he is not perfect at? Wow. Is news to me.” 

“I suck at making popcorn,” he says honestly, the thing currently top of mind for him because he’d burned a bag the night before he left for Boston on this trip, leaving his house still smelling of it in the morning in a way that had pissed him off at himself and at microwave popcorn in general. “There’s always too many fucking kernels left or it’s fucking burnt.” 

“Poor baby,” Ilya coos in a way that Shane would normally shove him for. In the moment, though, aided by painkillers, it just feels like vindication. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Poor me. Who the fuck can’t make popcorn?” He still can’t live down the one and only time he’d tried making it while at Hayden’s house with the team to watch a game, burning the bag so badly while trying to multitask and clean up empty cans to make Jackie’s life easier later that he’d set off the smoke alarm and driven everyone outside until the house had aired out some. Him so much as getting close to the microwave during gatherings now always prompts melodramatic cries for mercy. 

Ilya snorts. 

“Is a stupid snack,” Ilya says, teasingly conciliatory. “Tastes like nothing on its own. Useless food. Is just a way to eat butter, really, and not even a good one.” Shane wrinkles his nose slightly, unable to help it, and Ilya rolls his eyes. “I am being your ally in war against popcorn, Hollander. Do not make faces and ruin it.” 

Shane decides to take the alliance and mimes zipping his lips. 

Ilya rolls his eyes but also gently nudges him to lay down beside him again. 

*

Ilya gets Shane to bed–guiding him like he’s one of those robot vacuums bumbling their way around clumsily–and then returns downstairs to make sure the house is locked up for the night, feeling happy and content. 

Naturally, this is of course when his family has to fuck it all up. 

It’s not his brother, this time, which is a small fucking blessing, but it’s a tag team of a cousin and another cousin who’s always insisted on being called his aunt, voices angry and accusing, demanding answers for the sudden stop in the flow of money he’s always directed their way. Silence doesn’t save him, but neither does arguing, and he bites back the way he wants to scream, wants to howl, wants to demand why they can’t just rip their hooks free of him and set him loose. He knows why, after all. 

He’s too valuable as an ATM. 

It’s the only true value he’s ever had to them, he knows, a value that can be calculated in American dollars exchanged into Russian rubles. Their anger comes from fear, and he knows that. They’ve gotten lazy living on his largesse, so sure that he would always be there, palms open, giving and giving and giving, so sure that he would never actually be bold enough to stop, so sure that his desperation would keep him there forever, trying desperately to buy the love of a family who has always charged too high a price for even being tolerated. 

“-your mother would be ashamed to see the way you have turned your back on your family, you miserable, selfish-” 

It’s not unexpected, the accusation, the weaponization of his mother as a whip to drive him back in line. She’s always been such a good way to make Ilya heel, invoking his beautiful, kind, giving mother and expecting that his love for her will stretch wide enough for the people who only claimed her as family after her death, when she suddenly had a use to them. 

It’s the same conditional acceptance they’d offered to her son, after all. 

His greatest shame is that he doesn’t even hang up first. He lets them rant and rave and scream and yell, and he sits and he takes it and he takes it and he takes it. It’s the only thing they ever give him back, pain, and he’s well-used to collecting it by now. The silence of the room after the end of the call is an almost physical thing, pressing down down down, and Ilya almost wants to curl up under the weight of it, let it crush him into nothing, let it finally-

“Are you okay?” 

The question, as softly as it’s asked, makes Ilya nearly jump out of his skin, pressing a hand over his suddenly-racing heart as he turns to look at Shane, leaning heavily against the doorway. 

“You are not supposed to be up,” he answers instead of responding to the question he was asked. He clears his throat, hoping the roughness of his voice can be chalked up to the dry air Shane was going on about last night while telling him how he needed a humidifier in his room. 

Shane frowns at him like he can’t make the words make sense, and Christ above, it’s not fair, how beautiful he is even while looking like a disgruntled kitten, disoriented and tired. It must be illegal, surely. The way it makes Ilya’s chest feel in response has to be punishable in court. Someone must have begun making a law about it. Shane Hollander cannot be allowed to do things like this and keep getting away with it. 

Why would they? whispers a greedy, possessive little voice in his head. Who else besides you has ever gotten to see him like this?

The thought is dangerously intoxicating. 

He lifts his eyebrows in tired amusement when Shane makes his wobbly way over to him, and he extends a hand to help him land gently. To his surprise, Shane stays close, tilting to the side to rest against him with a sigh, head on his shoulder. Shane rests his hand against Ilya’s thigh, palm up in an obvious offer. 

Ilya takes it, twining their fingers together and squeezing gently. 

“You are supposed to be in bed,” he says again, softly, as if afraid of popping the soft bubble that seems to have surrounded them. 

“So are you,” Shane says, the last word stretching around a yawn. “I woke up and you weren’t there.” 

There’s an edge of complaint to the statement, riding the edge of pouting, that resonates in Ilya’s chest with a surge of warmth, the “I missed you” beneath the words indirect but still present. He shifts himself carefully to settle Shane more comfortably, slipping his arm behind him and reaching up, trailing his fingers gently through the hair at the nape of his neck. There’s a moment when the memory of what happened the last time they sat like this together scratches at him, threatening to ruin the peace, and he tries to make himself push it away. They haven’t talked about it, not really, not even at All Stars. They’d talked around it, certainly, but under the weight of everything else, it hadn’t seemed wise to bring up old hurts during tentative beginnings. It’s the past now, that day, he tells himself firmly. It’s not fair for him to still think about it, not when Shane’s forgiven him for-

“You had a phonecall then, too,” Shane says quietly, and Ilya is oddly pleased that at least he wasn’t wandering through mildly painful memories alone. “I…heard you yelling. You seemed upset.” 

This is how Shane approaches conversations about emotions, Ilya has learned by now. He assumes little but offers what he can to try and level the playing field, stating what he’s gathered and offering the chance to be corrected. Ilya doesn’t have to answer. If he stays quiet, Shane will, too. He’ll let it drop. Whether from the phone call poking at painful things or the safe dimness around them or his still-raw heart from earlier or Shane’s warm weight against him, though, Ilya finds that he doesn’t want to let it drop. 

“My family…” He starts slowly. “They are…not good, I think. Sometimes. A lot of times, maybe.” 

“Not good how?” Shane asks quietly, stroking his thumb over the side of Ilya’s hand softly. 

“I’ve told you before,” Ilya teases softly, playfully tugging a strand of Shane’s hair. “You cannot remember?” 

“Was it in Russian?” Shane asks after a moment of thinking likely made longer by painkillers. “When you called me?” 

“Yes,” Ilya says. “And you have still not become totally fluent with perfect accent and ability to teach class on it if you want. Is like you don’t care at all.” 

“I do care,” Shane protests, and he pushes himself upright, looking insulted until he catches Ilya’s expression and gives him a look, carefully lowering himself back down again. “I know a little,” Shane says. 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, amused. “Like what?” 

“Da, ser,” Shane says, and Ilya freezes. Shane sounds smug. “Sil'neye, pozhaluysta. Those were the important things you wanted me to learn, weren’t they?” 

“You are menace,” Ilya growls playfully. 

“Just doing what I was told to,” Shane says, tilting his head enough to look up at Ilya through his lashes. “You usually like when I do that.” 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, raising his brows. “So being on drugs makes you decide to suddenly flirt?” 

Shane grins, but it fades slightly after a moment. He pulls his hand free of Ilya’s gently, and he’s so surprised by it that he doesn’t react until Shane has reached up to trace a gentle–if slightly clumsy–back of one finger over what must be the evidence of a tear that escaped without Ilya’s notice. He turns his face away immediately, embarrassed to have done something like that for the second time in one night, but Shane pulls his face back. 

“Don’t do that,” he says, but there’s no heat to it, no anger. “Don’t hide when you’re sad. If you’re sad, I want to help.” 

“Is no way to help this,” Ilya says, attempting to soften the words with a gentle hand squeezing Shane’s knee. “Is just the way my family is.” 

Shane looks dissatisfied with this answer, but Ilya doesn’t have a better one to offer. 

“Well fuck them,” Shane says, and Ilya exhales a laugh, slightly startled. Shane, though, seems serious, shoving himself upright. Ilya reaches out to steady him when he sways slightly, but Shane manages to sit up until he’s on his knees, legs folded beneath him. He looks at Ilya seriously, the same focused intensity in his eyes that Ilya sees only in the heat of hockey games usually. “I mean it. You’re-” He sees Shane hesitate, but he also sees the moment he decides to keep talking anyway. “You’re so…good, Ilya.” 

Ilya’s breath catches. 

“If your family can’t see that, then they’re fucking stupid,” Shane says, only seeming to realize that he might have offended Ilya after he’s already said it. “Or not stupid, maybe, I don’t know, but if the way they talk to you makes you fucking cry, then yeah, maybe they are fucking stupid.” Shane’s eyes are burning in their intensity, and Ilya is entranced by the sight of it. 

“You don’t know that,” Ilya says, his voice unsteady. “Maybe I am entirely different person back in Russia. Maybe I am lazy and cruel and cheap. You don’t know.” 

Shane rolls his eyes. Ilya wants to laugh. Or cry again, maybe. 

Or both. 

“You always wave at babies and kneel down when you sign stuff for kids so they can talk to you and not have to look up and at the All Stars mixer, you gave that random girl your jacket to put over her lap when her skirt was too short after she sat down,” Shane says, with the same cadence he might use when reporting the weather or the existence of gravity, like these are all irrefutable pieces of evidence, inarguable supporting points to his conclusion. “A bad person wouldn’t-” Shane stops himself suddenly, seeming a little embarrassed, but even if he avoids eye contact when he continues, he still does it. “A bad person wouldn’t have asked me fifty thousand times if I was okay the first time we had sex.” 

“I’m not sure how I fuck is very important to how I treat my family,” Ilya manages, and he smiles faintly when it makes Shane pull a face, looking at him again. Shane’s free hand moves slowly, resting against Ilya’s cheek. 

“You are not a bad person, Ilya,” Shane says, with the same confidence he talks about hockey with, like this is just another fact he’s studied. “If your family tells you you are, then they’re fucking wrong, okay? They just are.” 

It’s crazy, Ilya thinks, that he keeps thinking he’s found the maximum amount of love he can feel for Shane only for him to swing back again another time with something unexpected and find a way to top himself yet again. 

It’s very Hollander of him. 

Ilya thinks he might die if he doesn’t kiss him about it. 

Shane goes easily, but Ilya is careful, sitting up straighter so Shane won't have to lean too far and strain his ribs trying to keep himself upright. He keeps a hand at Shane’s head to lean against, keeping him steady, and he kisses him gently, something sweet and soft and thankful. When they finally part, it’s only to press their foreheads together, trading breaths in the scant air between them. 

*

Shane wakes the next morning at the now-familiar sound of Ilya’s alarm, silenced immediately for what he knows is his benefit, and then feels the now-also-familiar warmth of a hand at his head, stroking gently over his hair and then cupping his face as Ilya whispers, “Shh, go back to sleep.” 

He smiles without bothering to open his eyes. 

Then he hears the ringtone of his phone. 

Already half-asleep again, he whines through his nose in complaint, and he hears Ilya huff a laugh before he leans over him, a light hand at his side for balance as he reaches over him to turn his phone off, too. Shane relaxes before he’s even done it, already anticipating shifting over to steal Ilya’s lingering warmth on the sheets and sleep in some more before undertaking another busy day of doing absolutely nothing, but then he feels Ilya pause, the phone still ringing. He squints one eye open, glancing up to find Ilya holding his phone and looking torn. He makes a questioning noise. 

“Is your mother,” Ilya says. 

Oh. 

His kneejerk reaction is to tell Ilya to decline the call and maybe also throw his phone out of a window. It feels like too much, the idea of speaking to his mother when he’s curled up in Ilya’s bed, both of them sleep-soft and rumpled, existing in an intimacy that seems so much more intense than sex. He knows she’s been checking in with Hayden with the excuse that Shane isn’t supposed to be looking at his phone right now. She would probably just contact him if Shane doesn't answer now, and Hayden would lie for him. 

But lying in an active way to his mom like that feels…bad. 

“You want to talk?” Ilya asks, and Shane nods. Ilya nods back and then presses answer before quickly putting the phone to Shane’s ear, leaving him with a soft squeeze to his hip to get ready for the day, offering what privacy he can to let Shane talk to his mom without having to get out of bed. 

Shane loves him so much he feels almost dizzy with it. 

“Hi, mom,” he says, eyes tracking Ilya’s progress through the room. He likes this, likes collecting little pieces of Ilya that other people don’t have. He likes knowing what order Ilya stretches in when he gets out of bed. He likes knowing that Ilya always runs a hand through his hair and then shakes his curls out like a dog shaking out water. He likes knowing that Ilya picks his outfit out while brushing his teeth, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth briefly while he sorts through clothes to pull out what he wants. 

He also likes knowing the way Ilya shimmies into jeans, but that’s a less safe thing to observe while talking to his mother, so he resolves to look away before they can get to that point in the routine. 

“Hi, baby,” his mom says, voice obviously kept soft for his benefit. “How are you?” 

“I’m good,” he answers, and it’s not even just a polite, meaningless response. He is good. He’s so fucking good. Even with a concussion and a fucked shoulder and sore ribs, he thinks he still might be more good than he ever has been before. 

It’s sad, he thinks, the sensation hitting him all at once, that he can’t tell her that. 

“Hi ‘good,’” he hears his dad’s voice say, and he’s already smiling before he even finishes the stupid pun he knows is coming. “I’m dad.” 

“You’re so lame,” Shane says, and now he smiles. 

“No,” his dad says again, and Shane can hear a smile in his voice, too. “I just told you. I’m dad.” 

Shane laughs, careful of jostling his ribs, and when he glances up, he sees Ilya watching him, expression soft. When he sees Shane see him, he looks slightly flustered at getting caught, and he turns away, disappearing into his closet fully. 

It makes Shane want to kiss him. 

“How’s your head?” Mom asks. 

“It’s okay,” he answers honestly. “Still getting some headaches, but it’s not as bad as it was.” 

“You’re staying off your phone?” She asks. “And resting?” 

It’s an effort not to roll his eyes even as the fussing makes him feel loved. 

“Yes and yes,” he answers honestly, and it’s true. Ilya’s been playing secretary for him for any texts–antagonizing Hayden in the process at every chance he gets with a viciousness that Shane still doesn’t fully understand–or checking his email, and Ilya’s been very diligent at keeping him mostly horizontal. 

Even if not for the usual, more fun, reasons. 

“How’s your shoulder?” Dad asks. “Hayden said you broke your collarbone?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s okay. It wasn’t a bad break, and I’m wearing a sling, so all good there.” 

“How’s your pain management?” Mom asks. “Is it enough? Do you need me to call and get them to-” 

“Mom,” he says, but his exasperation is fond. “I’m good, seriously. They’ve got me on the good stuff.” 

“And Hayden is making sure you’re taking it on time?” Mom presses. “You know it’s better to take it before you feel the pain.” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, and it makes his chest feel tight, lying by omission like this. He has taken his medication diligently, pills offered on the exact schedule labeled on the bottle. Ilya’s made sure of it, paying more attention to it than Shane has, offering pills and water the minute they’re due. 

It seems wrong that he isn’t the one who gets the credit for it, a problem Shane doesn’t know how to solve. 

He curls himself up in the covers just a bit more, chasing the grounding scent of Ilya in the fabric. 

*

Ilya gets dressed for the day to the background noise of Shane talking to his parents. It’s strange, being the secret in the room during such a domestic-sounding moment, but it’s strangely satisfying in a way, too, getting to hear what Shane sounds like when he talks to his family. 

It feels like one more little secret Ilya gets to have about him, another for his scant collection. 

“-back to Montreal in a couple of days,” he hears Shane say, which takes some of the shine off of the moment, the reminder that this little bubble of together has to pop sooner rather than later. That’s what this is, after all, a bubble, fragile, nothing that was ever meant to last. They’re unlikely to get this amount of time together again in the future, not unless one of them miraculously gets injured in the other’s city again, and even for the joy of having Shane like this, he can’t quite hope for that. 

He gets dressed feeling a little less optimistic than when he woke up. 

*

Shane spends another luxurious day being lazy in Ilya’s house, now feeling well enough to be a little nosy, poking around his cabinets out of curiosity and then texting him in short bursts to avoid hurting his head to harass him about the fact that the organization of his kitchen makes no sense. He eats the lunch Ilya left for him–unnecessary, which Shane’s told him, but Ilya has seemed strangely pleased when he reminds Shane to eat it before he leaves each day, so he’s largely just let him do it without further comment–while staring at the mess of his spice cabinet, and he drinks a ginger ale while looking through his pantry with equal parts horror and fascination at the complete lack of any discernible organizational system. Ilya finally ends up calling him a couple of hours after lunchtime, sparing him from more squinting at his phone screen, when Shane is sitting criss-cross on the floor to investigate the cabinets built into the kitchen island, phone on speaker and resting on his thigh so he can continue digging through the chaos within. 

“This does not seem like resting,” Ilya says when Shane answers, not bothering with a hello. 

“I’m sitting down. That counts as resting,” Shane says, wincing only slightly when he reaches in to pull some tupperware forward, a mess of mismatched lids and bowls clattering out when he does. “You don’t even store your tupperware matched up? What the fuck, dude?” 

“Is all there,” Ilya says, sounding amused. “I will find it when I need it.” 

“Doubt it,” Shane scoffs. “How do you even know if you have matching pieces if you just throw them in like this?” 

“Have you taken your medicine?” Ilya asks. “This does not sound like a concern for person on correct amount of painkillers.” 

“Doctor said I could start weaning off of them if I was feeling better,” Shane says absently, reaching in again in search of a bowl large enough to fit the biggest lid he’s pulled out so far, figuring it will probably be the easiest to find as a place to start. “You also really shouldn’t be using plastic, you know. It leeches stuff into your food. It’s really bad for you. Glass is better.” 

“Is this actual scientific fact,” Ilya asks, and Shane smiles in response to the one he can hear in Ilya’s voice, “or is this just Sh-Jane opinion?” 

As if he’s said a trigger word in his fumbled recovery of the name, Shane hears voices in the background start chiming in. 

“Is that Jane?” One says, faint enough on Shane’s end but obviously yelled on Ilya’s. Another voice–Marlow, Shane thinks, though the voice is a little unclear with its distance from Ilya’s phone–continues before Ilya has a chance to answer. “Oh thank fucking God, she’s talking to you again. Guys, we’re safe! Call off the prayer circle! Roz-” 

“You are all fucking idiots!” Ilya says. “And this is not-hey!” There’s the sound of a scuffle, and Shane winces and holds the phone farther away from him at the noise, Ilya speaking in angry, muffled Russian before there’s a clatter like a phone hitting the ground. 

“Hello Jane,” comes the voice of someone Shane thinks is Ryan Carmichael. 

Shane, a little stunned, remains silent, not that it seems to bother the person on the other end of the line, who continues speaking, Ilya’s angry voice serving as background noise that Shane can barely make out, muffled behind what sounds like multiple men yelling, the others sounding much happier than Ilya with what’s happening. 

“Listen, I know he’s probably a pain in the ass–stop yelling, Rozy, I’m talking to your girl, you’re being really fucking rude right now, man–but please, please don’t ever break up with him again, okay? The man is a fucking nightmare without you.” 

“Nightmare!” Chimes in another voice, there and gone again too fast for Shane to take a guess at who it is. 

“Seriously, I thought he was gonna kill us all,” Carmichael continues cheerfully. “We were even holding prayer meetings that you’d take him back. Man’s a wreck without you, seriously, even worse than usual. He-oh, sure, here you go.” 

“Jane, you have to stay with him, okay?” Comes the voice of what Shane is pretty sure is the team’s rookie. “I’m too young to die.” 

“He’s too young to die!” Repeats Carmichael’s voice in the background. “He’s only eighteen! He’s a baby! You want a baby’s death on your conscience, Jane?” 

“They’re telling the truth,” comes what Shane thinks is Victor St-Simon’s voice. “Listen, for the good of us all, you have to stay with him forever, okay? Or at least until he retires and can’t kill us all because he is horny and lonely and in his feelings about it. Make him give you our numbers and then just text us if he gets on your nerves, alright? We’ll beat him up and send you some flowers with his credit card or something. You just have to promise to never leave us alone with single Rozy agai-ow, fuck!” 

“You…are all…fucking idiots,” Ilya’s voice says, sounding winded and furious. “Bag skates…for rest…of fucking month,” he declares, and Shane can pick up a chorus of despairing groans and a “But I have so much to live for!” from what he thinks is the rookie in response. “Back inside now or is for rest of the year!” 

(Shane doesn’t know if he’s proud of the part of him that immediately perks up with interest at the sound of Ilya angry and commanding like this, but he does file it away for future reference.)

“You are still there?” Ilya asks, speaking into the phone once more. 

“Yeah,” Shane agrees mildly. “The fuck was that about? Were you calling me from your locker room?” He’s a little annoyed about the risk, honestly, but he is the one who provoked Ilya into calling him in the first place, so it’s probably a shared mistake. 

“No,” Ilya says, sounding annoyed. “I am outside where I smoke usually, and they came looking and then took the phone and tackled me to the ground.” He makes an annoyed noise. “Fucking idiots,” this he seems to be saying more to himself than anyone else. 

“So,” Shane says, feeling a little wriggle of pleasure in his stomach now that the phone is safely back in Ilya’s hands and he can actually process the onslaught of information he just received, “sounds like you were a dick to your team for a while.” 

“Shut up,” Ilya snaps. “Is not true. They are all dramatic and stupid. And also dead, soon, when I am done with them.” 

“I don’t know,” Shane says, and he’s grinning now, leaning back against the kitchen island, tupperware still on his lap. “Sounds like you really did a number on them, Rozanov. Did something happen?” 

“This is not cute,” Ilya says flatly. 

“I don’t know,” Shane says, grin only getting bigger. “I think you might think it’s really cute. Enough to be a dick to your team when I’m not around.” 

“They are all liars. Is all lies they have told you.” 

“Is it?” Shane asks, pausing only briefly when he finally sees a matching set of bowl and lid and reunites them. “One bowl down, thirty thousand to go,” he tells Ilya, setting it aside and starting on finding the next as he continues speaking. “Because it sounds like you were kind of mean to them for some reason.” 

“This reason is that they are idiots,” Ilya sniffs. 

“You sure?” Shane asks. “Seems like they think Jane had something to do with it.” He could be mad about them knowing about Jane at all, but it’s not as if Shane hasn’t caught plenty of chirping about Boston Lily from his own team, so he doesn’t really have a lot of high ground to speak from. 

“Is different Jane,” Ilya says, but his tone is obviously teasing. “Very beautiful. Victoria Secret model.” 

“Bullshit,” Shane says, rolling his eyes fondly. 

“Is true!” Ilya insists. 

“Describe her,” Shane challenges. 

“Why?” Ilya asks. “You want to get her number? You don’t even like women.” 

“Maybe I’d like Mystery Jane,” Shane says, frisbeeing a cracked lid across the kitchen towards the trashcan to throw out later. “Describe her to me.” 

“She has dark hair,” Ilya says. “Very soft, always smells good.” 

“You should ask her what conditioner she uses if you like it so much.” 

“Oh, I know what it is,” Ilya says. “I have showered at her house many times. I have fucked her in the shower even more.” 

“Okay, so hair, check,” Shane says, refusing to rise to the bait. “What else?” 

“Hmm,” Ilya says thoughtfully. “She has nice chest. Very…what is word? Squeezable.” 

Thinking of how often Ilya’s used his chest like a stress toy, Shane makes an amused noise. 

“Good ass, too,” Ilya continues. “Very fun to slap. Has a very good bounce. Two dimples perfect for my thumbs. Good cushion, too, when I am fucking her from behind. Very nice to slam into.” 

“‘Slam’?” Shane repeats, smiling. “Jesus, how hard are you fucking this poor woman?” 

“Oh, trust me,” Ilya says, and Shane gets a little shiver at the tone of his voice. “She likes it. Is always asking for it harder.”

Shane shifts a little where he’s sitting, tupperware becoming a little less important than Ilya’s voice on the phone talking about how hard he fucks, the fact that due to the accident they haven’t fucked since Florida becoming very apparent in his consciousness. 

(...among other places.)

“Makes such beautiful noises for me, too,” Ilya says, and now his words are a purr. “Especially when she’s so good for me and touches herself while I’m fucking her.” 

Shane makes a small noise, pressing his hand to the front of his–Ilya’s–sweatpants. 

“Sometimes she doesn’t even need to touch herself, though,” Ilya says. “She’s such a good girl for me sometimes she comes on just my dick.” In a very, very, very, very, very, very, very distant part of his mind, Shane registers that this probably isn’t something Ilya should be saying somewhere that is technically his workplace. 

It’s a part of his mind that’s very easy to ignore, though, the way such things usually are when Ilya and sex with Ilya are involved. 

“Such beautiful eyes, too,” Ilya continues, voice low. Shane closes his eyes, imagining Ilya here, talking right into his ear. “Big and brown, like a deer. So pretty when she cries because she feels so good.” 

“Fuck,” Shane breathes, rocking into his hand. 

“Her eyes always go so big when I fuck her,” Ilya continues. “Like she is surprised I fit, every single time.” 

Shane, who is surprised every single time but didn’t know that Ilya could read that on his face, is mildly mortified. 

Mostly, though, he’s just horny. 

“I always do, though,” Ilya says. “I make sure. Finger her the way she likes until she can take me, stretched out just for me, ready to take me like good girl she is. Sometimes I make her come on my fingers and still fuck her after. I really like her pretty noises then. Sometimes she tells me she cannot come again, but this is not true. She always does because she is good girl who comes when I tell her to.” 

“Jesus Christ, Ilya,” Shane pants, unsure if the phone will even pick it up, slipping his hand beneath the waistband of his sweatpants and groaning when he gets a hand around himself. 

“I wonder if she’s touching herself for me,” Ilya continues, and his tone says he already knows the answer. 

“Take a wild fucking guess, asshole,” Shane says, taking his hand out just to spit into his palm, knowing the sound probably carries and not caring. When he touches himself again, it’s still not quite as slick as he’d prefer, even with the pre-come he’s starting to leak, but in the moment, after weeks of wanting and not having, it doesn’t really matter. 

“If I was there,” Ilya says, and his voice is even lower now, the way it is when he speaks into Shane’s ear when Shane’s been driven past speech, past true thought, past anything that isn’t Ilya, “I would be touching her.” 

“O-oh?” Shane asks. “How?” 

“With my mouth, first,” Ilya says, voice still sinful. “Her mouth is good, yes, but mine is better.” 

“Fuck-fuck you,” Shane pants, imagining it now, Ilya between his legs, curly head bobbing with single-minded focus, big, strong hands pinning him to the bed so he can’t escape. 

“Mm, no,” Ilya says thoughtfully. “I think you mean ‘fuck me.’ Is what you want, yes?” 

“Yes,” Shane says, voice breathy. “Fuck, Ilya.” 

“You are close?” Ilya asks, sounding pleased. 

“Talk,” Shane says, the words nearly a plea. “Please.” 

“About what?” Ilya asks, far too innocently. 

“Please,” Shane repeats. 

“Hm,” Ilya says. “Always so sweet when you’re close. So good. I would let you come if I was there, just because you are so sweet for me. Take you in my mouth, swallow you all the way down. Maybe I would slide my fingers into you, too, fill you up the way you need. You like that, yes? Like being stretched on something thick, like feeling me inside of-” 

Shane groans when his release hits him, ribs and shoulder complaining when his hips thrust up a bit, chasing the sensation, jarring his upper body with the motion. Ilya is still speaking, but it takes a moment for Shane to process words again. He wipes his hand off on the thigh of his sweatpants and then picks up his phone from where it fell to the floor. 

“Does Other Jane know you take breaks at work to have phonesex with this Jane?” He asks, still a little breathless. 

Ilya laughs, and Shane smiles, blissed out and pleased. 

“No,” Ilya says, sounding amused. “This is special treat just for my most special Jane.” 

Stupid and meaningless as it is, obviously a joke, Shane can’t help the little flush of pleasure he feels at that. 

“Hm, well, you can have a special treat of your own when you get home,” Shane says. 

“No,” Ilya says, voice not harsh but firm. Shane blinks in surprise. “Not until you are not on drugs anymore.” 

“I’m on drugs now,” Shane points out. 

“Hm, yes,” Ilya says. “But is different, I think, when you are choosing to touch yourself or not and I am just talking. Different than sex with a person.”

“I can still-” 

“Just enjoy the orgasm and stop worrying about it,” Ilya says, sounding fond. “You feel good?” 

“Yeah,” Shane answers, feeling absurdly shy at the question. 

“Good,” Ilya says. “Then I am happy.” 

Shane grins in a way that he knows has to look embarrassing, face feeling warm like he’s blushing, and he’s glad there are no witnesses beyond the tupperware shrapnel all around him. 

“Now leave my kitchen alone and go take nap,” Ilya orders. 

“Oh, sorry,” Shane says, “seems like you’re breaking up suddenly, can’t hear you anymore, bye.” 

He hits end call before Ilya has a chance to answer. 

And then he turns back to his tupperware mountain, considering. 

*

When Ilya gets home, he half-expects to find every cabinet in the house open and all of his worldly belongings laying about in various piles as Shane decides for him what he should keep and what he should get rid of. He’s not opposed, necessarily, but he hadn’t anticipated what a Hollander on less drugs and with nothing else to do would get up to in his absence, and the idea of Shane’s focus on the ice applied to other things is mildly terrifying to contemplate. Instead, though, the house is quiet, and though there’s a box Shane managed to find who knows where stacked high with what seems to be all of his tupperware–matched perfectly, Ilya is amused to note, despite the fact that it’s clearly in a place to tell him to get rid of it–the rest of the house seems relatively unchanged. 

“Hello?” He calls softly, not getting a response. 

On a guess, he makes his way to the living room, and sure enough, Shane is asleep on the couch, a real estate show still on the television. He’s curled up on his good side under a blanket Ilya is pretty sure he didn’t previously own as of eight hours ago, looking soft and content and cozy. 

Ilya feels the insane urge to preserve him in glass the way he’s seen butterflies on walls, to scoop him up and put him in a frame, keep him exactly this beautiful and safe forever. 

Instead, he makes his way to the kitchen, debating internally about whether to bother making dinner or if he could convince Shane to bend his diet enough for delivery again. Curious about what the organization of his kitchen might look like now, he opens the cabinet where his tupperware previously was, interested in seeing what lives there now per the organizational preferences of Shane Hollander. It’s still tupperware, though, he sees, when the cabinet door swings open. 

Tidy rows of new, glass tupperware arranged with orderly precision a soldier would approve of. 

Ilya looks at them for a long, long time, and then gently shuts the cabinet door again. 

He decides to make dinner. 

After all, he has new containers to try out for the leftovers. 

*

Shane settles down that night for bed in a way that’s increasingly feeling routine, arranging himself comfortably while waiting for Ilya to finish up in the bathroom. With a heavier dose of painkillers for sleeping, he feels loose and floaty, but there’s also a contentment in him that he knows has less to do with the drugs in his bloodstream and more to do with the bed he’s in, familiar and comfortable now after several days in it. He’s full from dinner–pasta, which he’d eaten without even thinking about his diet, too content curled up against Ilya on the couch while watching House Hunters International after Ilya woke him up to hand him a plate and then joined him–and ridiculously pleased by the knowledge that the rest of the food is tucked away in the fridge in tupperware he bought and washed in the dishwasher and then put away, a little fingerprint of himself in Ilya’s life, just like the throw blanket now on the back of Ilya’s sofa, purchased in a Target order along with the tupperware because it has apparently never occurred to Ilya to want to get cozy on his couch before despite how much he seems to like walking around shirtless. 

Shane watches him approach now, shirtless, feeling fuzzy and warm and, and…

And happy, in a way he’s not sure he ever has been before. 

“What is this smile for?” Ilya asks, smiling in return, as he walks to the other side of the bed and slides in next to him before reaching to turn off the bedside lamp, leaving them in mostly-darkness. 

“Nothing,” Shane lies, holding still as Ilya presses close to his back carefully and slides an arm under his neck next to the pillow, still feeling a delicious little thrill at the warm body next to him, knowing that he gets to sleep here, that Ilya’s body will be warm beside him all night, that when he wakes, he’ll still be there, pressed close, their body heat mixed together and shared under the covers. 

“Liar,” Ilya accuses fondly, pressing a soft kiss to Shane’s shoulder now that he’s settled. “You think so loud I can hear it.” 

“I like this,” Shane confesses, tucking his chin slightly, a little shy even though Ilya can’t see him. “I like sleeping next to you.” 

“I do, too,” Ilya says softly, sounding a little shy at the admission himself. He inhales like he’s going to speak, but then he doesn’t. 

“What?” Shane prompts after a moment, squeezing the hand of the arm Ilya has under his head gently. 

“I will be sad,” Ilya says, “when it is over.” Shane feels his hand squeeze gently at his hip. “It has been nice, having you here. With me.” 

Shane leans back a bit, soaking in more of the warmth Ilya always seems to radiate like a space heater. 

“Would you want to do this more? If we could?” Shane asks, circling back around to a thought he’s had since All Stars but been too shy to bring up before. 

The safe darkness of Ilya’s bedroom, with them curled together warm and calm and content, seems like the best possible chance he’s going to get to bring it up. 

“Our schedules do not exactly allow long stretches of time together,” Ilya says, half dry, half slightly…wistful? “You should always sleep in my bed from now on when you’re in Boston,” this is said teasingly, punctuated with a kiss to his neck, “but is not like we have that many nights we can share.” 

“What if we did?” Shane ventures. 

“Are we just playing with questions now?” Ilya asks wryly. “My turn. What if there was clone of you and you could both suck my di-” 

“I have a cottage,” Shane says, interrupting, getting his final little burst of courage from being annoyed at the joke when he’s trying to be sincere. “I go there in the summer.” 

Ilya is quiet now behind him, but it’s a listening kind of quiet. 

“It’s really nice,” Shane says, like he needs to pitch it like a timeshare. “It’s right on the lake–I have my own dock–and there’s so much great natural light, and I hired this really awesome interior designer-” 

“Hollander,” Ilya says, sounding amused. “You are sounding like HGTV channel right now. Is there a point to this, or can I plan to fall asleep to talking about paint samples?” 

“Asshole,” Shane says, before refocusing on what he was building up to. “I love it there. It’s more my home than anywhere else, really. It-” He hesitates, just a moment, knowing that what he’s about to say isn’t the kind of thing that can be taken back. 

“It?” Ilya prompts when his silence stalls just a beat too long. 

Carefully, Shane nudges Ilya back just enough that he can lay flat on his back and look at him, his eyes adjusted enough to the darkness of the room now that he can see. Eye contact with Ilya has always been easier than it is with other people, and this feels like the kind of thing he should be looking at him for. 

“It doesn’t have to be,” he says, reaching to hold Ilya’s free hand in his own and resting them over his stomach, still using the bicep of his other arm as a pillow, “but if you want, it could be like a home for you, too. If you want.” 

Ilya’s face goes completely blank. 

“Or not,” Shane scrambles, trying to course correct because he has yet again apparently chosen the wrong train of thought when deciding what to do in an interaction. “It can be whatever you want it to be! But I know Russia is hard for you, and I can’t fix that, but I have a cottage you can stay at with me instead of having to go back there this summer, and I can give you that, at least. I want to. I want-” So much. He wants so much that he doesn’t even know where to start. “I want you to have a place that doesn’t hurt,” he says, trying desperately to read Ilya’s expression in the scant light to figure out how badly he’s fucking up right now. “I think my cottage could be that place. With me. If you want.” 

Ilya still remains a wall of stoicism. 

“Okay, I really need you to, like, blink or something at least,” Shane says. “Because I’m going to be honest, it’s really hard to know if I’m fucking up when-” 

He doesn’t get to finish that thought. 

Ilya cupping his face and pulling him into a kiss that steals the breath right from his lungs ensures that. 

*

It’s only accidentally leaning on Shane’s injured shoulder and feeling him flinch in pain that gives Ilya the strength to pull back from kissing Shane like he has salvation on his lips. 

Even then, he doesn’t manage to go far. 

“Is that a yes?” Shane asks, sounding a little breathless. 

Ilya laughs, dropping his head to press it against Shane’s affectionately before he lifts it again, searching his expression. 

“You want that?” He asks. “Me coming to your cottage with you?” 

“Yes,” Shane says, squeezing his hand. “It’s my favorite place. I want to share it with you.” 

Who made you? Ilya thinks, not for the first time. It seems impossible that Shane Hollander could have just happened, that this person could have just been born and grown up and then happened to cross paths with him through a thousand little decisions that could have sent them both into completely different directions, different lives. 

Even ones where they might have never met at all, something that fills Ilya with a horrible kind of fear. 

“Don’t go back to Russia if you’re not happy there,” Shane says, and his voice is earnest but careful, cautious like he’s trying to figure out where to put his feet on rocky terrain. “I know it’s where you’re from, but if your family makes you miserable there, then fuck them. Come stay with me, instead. Come have fun at my cottage with me. I can-” He stops himself, but Ilya waits him out. Whatever he stopped himself from saying wants to come out, Ilya can see it. He knows it from how many times this has happened when Shane’s wanted something new in bed. 

Sure enough, it’s only a few scant moments of Ilya remaining quiet and patient and there before Shane finds the nerve to continue. 

“I can be your family,” Shane offers, and despite the slight waver of nerves in his voice, his hesitance, apparently, about how Ilya will take this, there’s so much earnestness there, too, that Ilya’s eyes burn, his breath catching in his chest. Shane’s hand reaches up, resting on his cheek gently. “If you want.” 

In one motion, Ilya tucks his head down to rest beside Shane’s on the same pillow, present enough to avoid pressing on his bad shoulder again but painfully close to shaking apart and desperately in need of grounding himself against Shane’s steadiness. He’s crying, he knows, pathetic and weak. 

Shane doesn’t comment, just presses his head back against him, his only response to Ilya’s pain the immediate offer of affection, of comfort. 

“I want,” Ilya manages, voice cracking. “I-” Words catch in his throat, and English is beyond him in this moment, which is a relief with the words that have to come out, knowing that he’ll burst if he doesn’t say them. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he says, the words so mangled that he’s not sure Shane would understand them even if he did speak Russian. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he repeats, unable to help it. 

Shane doesn’t ask him to translate, just sits with him, waiting until the storm passes. 

*

“Got everything?” Ilya asks him two days later, and Shane looks up from where he was double-checking that his passport was in its usual place in his bag, his things collected by the front door while he waits for his taxi to the airport. 

“I think so,” he says, glancing down at the suitcase at his feet and shrugging the bag on his good shoulder into a slightly more secure position. He smiles a little before he looks up, keeping his voice deliberately casual. “Even if I don’t, you could just bring it with you this summer.” 

Ilya’s smile in response to this is so beautiful that he wishes he had his phone out to take a picture of it. He resolves instead to just try to make him do it again as often as possible. 

“Mm, no,” Ilya teases, gently pulling him closer with a hand at his waist. “I will keep anything I find, I think, and then auction it off. Lots of very weird people who want Hollander collectibles.” 

Shane grins, tilting his face in a request for a kiss that’s granted without hesitation. He presses forward for another for the pure thrill of knowing that it’ll be given. When he finally pulls back, it’s only under the force of knowing that his car will be here soon and he probably shouldn’t walk out with kiss-swollen lips and disheveled hair. 

No matter how much he might want to. 

“Thanks for letting me stay here,” he says. “And for taking care of me. Seriously, it was really nice of you.” 

“I am always very nice,” Ilya says playfully. “You know this by now.” 

Shane rolls his eyes, but he smiles when he does. He blinks when Ilya brushes his hair back, stroking the backs of his fingers over his cheek gently before lowering his hand again.

“Always,” he says, voice serious now. “This-” He falters, just for a moment. “This is what families do, yes?” 

Shane nods, smiling, and leans in for another kiss, pressing his forehead to Ilya’s when he pulls back slightly. 

“Yes,” he agrees. 

They stand together, swaying gently, until Shane’s phone vibrates with the alert that his driver has arrived. With regret, he collects one last chaste kiss and then makes himself step back. 

“I’ll see you soon,” he says. 

“See you soon,” Ilya repeats, stepping around his suitcase to open the door for him. 

With one last look over his shoulder, Shane takes his leave, still smiling.

Summer can’t come soon enough. 

Chapter End Notes

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