Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike

Additional Tags:

Humor, Fluff and Humor, Light Angst, (very light), Post-Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Drunk Shane Hollander, Autistic Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, now if they could just REALIZE THAT, Shane Hollander Has Allergies, Drunk Shane Loves Fish Markets, my latest tag project lmao, Cute Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov is Obsessed With Shane Hollander, Drunken Shenanigans, Fish, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike Friendship, Fluff

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-10-01 Words: 10,736 Chapters: 1/1

go fish

Summary

“Shane,” he says, dread filling his stomach, “is this Boston Lily’s house?”

“Maybe,” Shane says, dropping down another cooler with a loud bang. “But shhhhh,” he says, putting a finger to his lips, “you can’t tell, okay?”

“Shane,” Hayden says, a little desperately. “Shane, we have to go.”

“No,” Shane says, drunk and stubborn and pushing the doorbell about fifty thousand times in quick succession until Hayden pulls his arm away.

“Shane,” Hayden says, nearly a plea, “listen, I know she broke your heart, but dropping off two hundred pounds of tuna isn’t-”

Before he can finish telling Shane that a drive-by tuna fishing isn’t a cure for a broken heart, the door opens. When it does, though, it’s not some buxom Boston beauty in a silky negligee.

It’s Ilya fucking Rozanov.

Hayden’s one consolation in this mindfuck is that at least Rozanov looks equally surprised at finding himself in this situation.

(while drowning his sorrows post tuna meltdown, shane ends up in possession of approximately two hundred pounds of raw tuna) (naturally, there's only one person he wants to gift with such a bounty)

Notes

anyone who has been wondering where the fuck drunk shane going to fish markets started on tumblr: hi 👋

inspiring post for this fic

As quirks go, Hayden has never considered Shane’s drunken proclivities especially harmful. 

Even if standing in the middle of a brightly-lit fish market at 4 in the fucking morning never exactly feels normal. 

“That snapper is fucking trash,” Shane says way too loudly, giving the offending fish an absolutely scathing glance as they pass by, and Hayden snorts, giving the seller a “what can you do?” half-shrug. 

After all, they’re only here at all because Shane needed some cheering up after whatever his fall out with Boston Lily was about. The feelings of a random Boston fishmonger aren’t really in Hayden’s priority list right now. 

“You tell ‘em, buddy,” Hayden says supportively, letting Shane lead them through the bustle of people who look way too fucking awake to be up and about at this hour when not coming from a bar like them. 

“Their eyes are cloudy as shit,” Shane continues, like this is a personal offense to him. “Who the fuck sells fish like that?” 

“I’m sure he feels ashamed of himself,” Hayden says, patting him on the shoulder as Shane continues to give everything a once-over with an intensity he otherwise only shows on the ice. Then again, Hayden considers, amusing himself with the thought, there’s plenty of ice around them now. Maybe something about frozen water just really gets Shane’s brain buzzing. 

There are worse character flaws to have. 

As far as he knows, Shane has never been to this particular fish market before, but he moves with the force and confidence of a regular, and Hayden largely just trails in his wake and tries not to get left behind. They’re on their own on this fishtrip, the rest of the team tapping out for fear of having to be part of figuring out what they’re going to do with what is almost definitely going to be an ungodly amount of fish. On the wildly rare times Shane has gotten drunk enough to do this before, they’ve been back in Montreal, celebrating a cup win or a bachelor party and with access to multiple fridges and freezers for Shane’s winnings. The first time Shane had done this, Hayden had thought it was a joke. The second time, he’d thought it was a bit. Now he knows that there’s just something about sipping enough Tequila Sunrises that makes Shane feel the siren call of auction-based seafood acquisition. 

Including when they’re in Boston and due on a plane within 24 hours, unfortunately. 

“Those are some pretty big ones,” Hayden observes hopefully, nodding to a group on ice that looks pretty big but not “Oh fuck, JJ is going to have to find a second restaurant willing to take on some random fish” big. 

“Flounder,” Shane scoffs, tone absolutely blistering with whatever beef he happens to have with this particular fish. 

Hayden chooses not to ask further questions. 

*

Because he’s Shane fucking Hollander, he naturally has to go for the best prize on offer. 

Unfortunately, this means that Hayden now has four hundred pounds of tuna to somehow get rid of at ass o’clock in the morning in Boston, Massachusetts. 

(Well, two hundred pounds of tuna after JJ’s friend came through and took the rest off their hands.) 

(It’s still a metric fuckton of fish to have custody of before the sun is even fucking up.) 

For his part, Shane seems characteristically unconcerned now, swaying slightly with contentment and humming low enough that Hayden almost can’t even hear him, placidly watching still-dark Boston roll by from the window of an Uber that has been paid a handsome amount of extra dollar bills to consent to several styrofoam coolers of raw tuna being carried along for the ride, cut up into pieces so they at least don’t have to figure out what to do with a whole tuna fish. Again. 

(Hayden has hopes their driver will take part of tonight’s haul from them as an extra thank you.) 

(He’ll just bring that up after they’ve gotten back to the hotel.) 

“You feeling better?” Hayden asks Shane, who hums a little louder in what sounds like agreement but doesn’t look away from the window, still rocking a little side to side, just a gentle little repetitive motion he only does when drunk or tired and only in private. Far from finding it strange, Hayden always feels strangely honored to be allowed to witness such a private quirk. He feels such a swell of affection that it almost drowns out the faint annoyance that making Shane hopefully feel better about his breakup with Boston Lily has resulted in him now being responsible for more fish than one man should ever be steward of at one time when in a foreign country. 

Almost. 

He hasn’t asked for details about what went so horrifically wrong with the woman, but Shane had arrived back to their hotel room looking pale and hunted animal-esque and then immediately retreated to the en suite to puke his guts up, so Hayden gathers it was something pretty fucking awful. Shane’s mood certainly hadn’t improved at the game earlier today, especially not with Rozanov being an absolute bastard and slamming him around even worse than usual, like he sensed that Shane was hurting and decided to slap some salt in the wound. 

Really, Hayden’s only regret from the game is that body checking him back after his fifth targeting of Shane had only knocked the bastard on his ass briefly, the motherfucker popping right back up like a very obnoxious whack a mole. Not even worth the time in the sin bin, more’s the fucking pity. 

He reaches out to give Shane a gentle pat on the shoulder out of brotherly camaraderie and then closes his eyes, settling his head back for a moment to rest his eyes. 

And to figure out what the fuck he’s going to do with the rest of this fish they’re stuck with. 

*

“We’re here.” 

Hayden blinks his eyes open, a little disoriented. He didn’t fall asleep, he’s pretty sure, but they shouldn’t have already been back at the hotel. 

He’s proven right when he realizes they’re in front of a large house. 

“Uh,” he starts, leaning forward, a little chagrined at the fact that he’s about to have to be a bit of an asshole here potentially. Shane had called the Uber while he was shaking hands with JJ’s friend in thanks for taking part of their haul, and it would appear that his drunken focus at fish buying does not extend to putting addresses in Uber. “Listen, I’m really sorry about this, but-” 

Shane opens his door and gets out, already opening the back before Hayden has processed him moving. 

“Um, hang-hang on,” Hayden says to their driver, unbuckling and following Shane out, hissing at the cold after the warmth of the car, tucking his jacket around himself a little tighter. He leans in to speak to the driver again. “Sorry, man. Just a second.” He rounds the car to find Shane already diligently unloading coolers from the trunk, looking focused and determined. “Shane, we’re not at the hotel.” 

“I know,” Shane says, picking up two coolers in one go and marching—wobbily—up to the front door of the house they stopped at. 

“Shane,” he hisses, following after him, abruptly worried they’re about to explore the new horizons of a trespassing charge on a night out, “Shane, bud, we need to go.” 

“No, I need to give him this,” Shane says, dropping his coolers and almost toppling over them in the process until Hayden grabs him, pulling him back upright. Shane marches back off towards the Uber, and Hayden looks between him and the coolers with a mild kind of despair, wondering which one he should grab first. 

And also really hoping they’re not about to get acquainted with America’s second amendment after leaving mystery coolers on someone’s porch. 

“Shane,” he says again when he returns, trying to pull him to a stop and wishing now that he’d been a little more proactive in keeping the guys from pushing cocktails on him. As funny as it is to watch Shane drink a Blue Long Island, he can’t say he’s having fun being part of the aftermath. A horrible possibility occurs to him. “Shane,” he says, dread filling his stomach, “is this Boston Lily’s house?” 

“Maybe,” Shane says, dropping down another cooler with a bang. “But shhhhh,” he says, putting a finger to his lips, “you can’t tell, okay?” 

“Shane,” Hayden says, a little desperately. “Shane, we have to go.” 

“No,” Shane says, drunk and stubborn and pushing the doorbell about fifty thousand times in quick succession until Hayden pulls his arm away.

“Shane,” Hayden says, nearly a plea, “listen, I know she broke your heart, but dropping off two hundred pounds of tuna isn’t-”

Before he can finish telling Shane that a drive-by tuna fishing isn’t a cure for a broken heart, the door opens. When it does, though, it’s not some buxom Boston beauty in a silky negligee. 

It’s Ilya fucking Rozanov. 

Hayden’s one consolation in this mindfuck is that at least Rozanov looks equally surprised at finding himself in this situation. 

“Uh,” he says, before something occurs to him, filling him with a flash of rage in an instant. “Oh my God,” he says, wrathful in an instant, “you’re fucking Lily?” 

For a moment, Rozanov looks satisfyingly stunned and maybe even a little afraid, but before Hayden can continue laying into him for fucking Shane’s girl, Shane himself decides to contribute. 

“I brought you fish,” he says solemnly, and Hayden glances back at movement to find their Uber driver bringing the last two coolers up, clearly done with his part in tonight. 

“Uh,” Rozanov says, looking a little bit like he’s not sure that he’s not the one wasted in this situation, “why?” 

“You gave me tuna,” slurs Fish Fiend Supreme from his place at Hayden’s side, seemingly upright primarily thanks to the grip he has on Hayden’s jacket, interrupting himself with a hiccup before he continues, “so I got-I got you tuna.” 

If the logic of this declaration makes more sense to Rozanov than to Hayden, it doesn’t show on his face. 

“Have a good night,” their Uber driver says, with the complete lack of concern that develops as a consequence of being an Uber driver in a massive city. 

“Uh, wait, please,” Hayden says, but before he can follow the man and stop him, Shane is picking up a cooler and starting to push his way into Rozanov’s house. “Shane, dude, we need to go.” He grabs Shane by the back of his jacket, giving Rozanov a glare. “If you want to tell Lily she’s got a little gift here, go ahead.” He gives Rozanov an up and down. “Don’t know that she’ll appreciate it, though. Her taste is clearly shit.” 

“What the fuck are you saying to me, Pike?” Rozanov asks, back in peak arrogance. 

“This is Lily’s house, isn’t it?” Hayden asks, wishing his attempt at returning the other man’s sneer wasn’t getting ruined by Shane trying to tug his way free. “What, you fuck his girl and then stay the night for a victory lap?” 

“This is my house,” Rozanov says flatly. “I am the only one here.” 

Well…now Hayden doesn’t really know where the fuck to go from here. 

*

Ilya has been in stranger situations than having Shane Hollander and Hayden Pike on his doorstep at 4:30 in the morning with what is apparently coolers full of tuna for some fucking reason. 

None of those situations are coming to mind at present, however. 

“Well,” Pike says, “congrats, I guess. You’re the lucky winner of a fuckton of Doordash.” 

“Can I come inside?” Hollander asks, and Ilya glances over to him. With their audience of Pike, he manages to bite back a cutting question about why he’s so eager to get back in after being so eager to get out the day before. He runs some quick mental math on whether he can just shut the door and leave these two unwanted visitors and their haul of raw fish on his doorstep. 

Unfortunately, the realities of a Massachusetts winter take that option off the table if he doesn’t want to end up with two frozen Montreal lawn ornaments come morning. 

Resentful and already more tired than when he opened the door, he steps back, regretting that he was ever 17 and charmed by pretty brown eyes and some freckles. 

*

Hollander’s second entrance into Ilya’s home begins with him almost knocking himself and Ilya over while trying to take his shoes off. 

It doesn’t really do much for Ilya’s patience in general. 

“Jesus Christ,” he says, hauling Hollander back upright and bracing him against the wall. He sees Hollander blink, owlish, and then sees a memory coalesce behind his glassy eyes as he apparently replays another time he’s been pressed against a wall, sees his mouth curve into a smile, feels his hand start to-

Ilya steps back. 

“Buddy, I think you’d better leave the shoes on,” Pike says, reminding Ilya rather abruptly that there’s an audience for this extremely strange situation. “I think Rozanov would rather deal with a little slush and not you braining yourself on his hardwood.” 

Ilya is torn between annoyance at the presumption of deciding what he will and won’t mind in his own home and the impulse to meet Shane’s eyes and make a joke about the accidental innuendo. 

This night truly just keeps getting stranger. 

“So, uh,” Pike says, “where do you want…” He trails off, gesturing a little awkwardly to the stack of coolers behind him. 

Ilya wonders what both of his visitors would do if he just turned around and went to bed. 

*

“The fuck are you doing here, Hollander?” Ilya hisses under his breath, when Pike has gone back for cooler three, Hollander parked on Ilya’s barstool because that’s the safest place for him to be at present. Ilya is trying very hard to look at him without looking at him, wary of the danger of Shane Hollander flushed and drunk and even more shiny-eyed and earnest than he is by default, gently rotating left and right as he partially turns the seat of the barstool to either side. Ilya is angry at him, still. Angry and confused and hurt. 

And not looking at him directly right now is imperative to maintaining all of those incredibly justified things. 

“I left,” Hollander says, sounding kicked-puppy mournful about it. 

“You did,” Ilya agrees, and he sees the sharpness hit his very drunk houseguest, making him look even more like a sad kitten in the ASPCA commercials that have claimed more money from Ilya than he would like to admit to. 

“I’m sorry,” Hollander says. “That was shitty, I think.” 

Really, fuck him, Ilya thinks, a little resentful. The puppy eyes were bad enough; the immediate apology is just piling on. 

“So is bringing a fucking aquarium to my-” 

“Buddy, you really gotta get some other vices,” Pike says, wandering in with his cooler. “Let’s get you into gambling or something. Jesus.” 

“I hate gambling,” Hollander says, with a faint crinkle of his nose. “I always lose.” 

There’s a joke Ilya could make here, one that he would in private or in front of a camera. As it is, he just snags Hollander’s empty glass and fills it with water again. Hollander blinks like he’s surprised by it when it reappears in front of him. It makes Ilya want to kiss him. 

He pushes past Pike to retrieve another cooler of fish instead. 

*

“I got it,” Hollander insists, despite the fact that he doesn’t seem to have so much as a basic sense of balance at present. 

“It’s not your fridge, buddy,” Pike says. “Probably better to just let Rozanov organize this little gift of yours how he wants.” 

Eyeing the deeply unfortunate raw fish Tetris he’s being forced to play, Ilya really wishes this wasn’t something he was currently fucking doing. 

“I can help,” Hollander insists, achieving getting in the way and not much else. On impulse, Ilya reaches around him and then dangles a ginger ale in front of his face, making him go nearly cross-eyed. 

“Drink your drink and sit down,” he says, nudging him back. 

“You’re also a ginger ale person?” Pike asks, and it’s only long practice that lets Ilya maintain his pokerface, knowing they’re toeing around territory they shouldn’t be. 

“Was leftover from a party, I think,” he lies, shoving over the fruit salad he’d made in anticipation of sharing breakfast with Hollander and stacking raw fish in its place. There’s a metaphor there, he thinks, if he really thought about it, maybe. 

But it’s also four in the fucking morning, so his brain isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders at present. 

“Well, now you’ve got enough fish for another one,” Pike observes dryly. 

Ilya resents that he’s distantly amused by the comment.

“This is weird fucking Montreal thing?” He asks tartly, stuffing more fish into his fridge and wondering where the fuck he’s gone wrong in his life to be in this situation now. 

Probably in a parking lot in Regina, Saskatchewan, he thinks wryly, as Shane nearly sends himself to the floor in the process of reclaiming his barstool. 

“No,” Pike says, sounding fond. “Just a weird fucking Shane Hollander thing.” 

Ilya wishes to God that he didn’t feel the faintest little wriggle of something about this, about another little detail about Hollander for his paltry stash. As Hollander-isms go, it’s up there in terms of bizarreness. 

Unfortunately, that just makes it endearing. 

“It’s not weird,” Hollander says, sounding sulky. 

“It’s pretty weird, buddy,” Pike says fondly, ruffling Hollander’s hair, mostly just to get on his nerves based on how pleased he looks when Hollander scowls and bats his hand away. 

Ilya’s fingers tingle with how much he wishes he could touch him that casually. Based on their recent history, though, that’s not a privilege Ilya has.

The thought makes him shove his next package of fish in a little harder than he needs to, strictly speaking. 

“So…do you two…know each other?” Pike asks the room at large. “Because I was under the impression that you two fucking hate each other.” 

It usually rolls off of Ilya, comments like that. It’s always felt like being in on an inside joke, hearing people say things like that while knowing that it certainly doesn’t feel like hate when they’re in a room alone together. 

Then again, hate would have been an easier thing to feel than stupid and rejected and covered in cum on his couch, so what the fuck does he know.

“Or…did Lily sleep with you, too?” He ventures. When Ilya glances back, he’s frowning like he’s doing complex mathematics in his head. “Oh shit, did you guys find out she was two-timing you with each other?” 

“He’s Li-” Hollander starts, and that means Ilya has to speak very fucking fast to cut him off. 

“Yes,” he says, because he doesn’t have time to come up with a better lie. “We found out today. Yesterday. Whenever.” 

Hollander blinks at him, frowning like he’s trying to work out if he’s forgotten something, and Ilya steps over to the counter, opening his ginger ale for him and pressing it into his hand. 

Better to have his mouth drinking than talking right now, after all. 

“Shit,” Pike says, sounding almost sympathetic. He turns to Hollander. “Fuck, buddy. No wonder you looked so fucking wrecked when you got back.” 

This is a fascinating thing to hear. 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, because he’s never met a bad idea he didn’t like the look of. “You were upset, too, Hollander?” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes massive. “I shouldn’t have-” 

“Is her fault,” Ilya says, cutting him off, because Hollander finishing that sentence isn’t more important than not outing them both to Pike. 

Something that Hollander apparently isn’t taking into consideration at present. 

“Hey, buddy,” Pike says, conciliatory, “it’s not your fault. That’s on her.” 

Ilya presses his lips together and returns to shoving fish in his fridge. 

*

Because no part of this night is going to be normal or easy, Hollander decides he doesn’t want to go when the Uber arrives. 

“I said I would stay,” he says, stubborn and apparently partially boneless based on the struggle Pike is having getting him up off of the barstool. Ilya could help, especially with his extensive experience in hauling Shane Hollander around. 

He instead stays where he is. 

“Shane, we need to go,” Pike says, edging towards exasperated. “We did your fish market thing. Now it’s time for getting the fuck to bed.” 

“I said I would stay, Hayd,” Hollander says, one hand holding onto the counter like he’s ready to brace himself. 

“When?” Pike demands. “I highly doubt Rozanov is going to hold you to it.” He glances towards Ilya for back-up on this. 

“He can stay if he wants to,” Ilya says instead, before he’s decided it’s what he’s going to say. 

He thinks he’s seen Pike look less surprised after getting bodychecked on the ice. 

“Is late and he is wasted,” he says, with a deliberately casual shrug. “Your flight tomorrow is late, yes?” 

“Yeah,” Pike says, searching his expression like he’s looking for a trick. “Delayed until afternoon because of snow.” 

Ilya shrugs again. 

“Then he can stay. I can send him back when he’s not drunk tomorrow.” 

“I’m not drunk,” Hollander pipes up. 

He and Pike both elect to ignore his contribution to the conversation. 

“I’m not drunk,” he repeats, now sounding a little resentful. 

Ilya wants to kiss him. 

He focuses back on Pike to kill the urge. 

“We have bonded over cheating Lillies,” he offers. “We are best friends now.” 

Pike looks deeply dubious of this, but he also looks stricken when he gets a notification on his phone, likely that his Uber has arrived. 

“You really want to stay?” He asks Hollander. 

“Yes,” Hollander says, turning and giving Ilya a small, sweet little smile that’s damningly soft when they’ve got a witness. 

“Will save you from him being grouchy and hungover tomorrow,” Ilya says. 

Pike snorts. 

“Tragically, this asshole,” Pike jostles Hollander with clear affection, “somehow never gets hungover.” 

“Nope,” Hollander says, popping the p and looking unbelievably smug about it. 

“You’re such a dick,” Pike says warmly, and it flares something ugly to life in Ilya’s chest, the ease with which this affection is both offered and received. He wonders, because he likes pressing on bruises, exactly what made his affection so fucking repulsive. Pike looks back to him, and Ilya schools his expression back to deliberately neutral. “You’re sure you don’t mind? This is…kind of really fucking weird, I know.” 

Ilya gives the now-empty coolers a glance. 

“Is fine,” he says, like he didn’t spend two fucking weeks thinking through Hollander staying the night with him, like he didn’t scroll back through Montreal players on Instagram to pinpoint if there was a particular brand of ginger ale Hollander tended to favor, like he didn’t spend an embarrassing amount of time going through his own clothes to find the softest ones to offer. 

Like he didn’t think it was going well until it really fucking wasn’t. 

“You’re sure?” Pike presses. 

Jesus, he thinks. No wonder Hollander talks like he’s his fucking mother. 

“You want to try wrestling him into Uber or…?” 

*

He sees Pike off with promises that he’ll make sure Hollander doesn’t die overnight or sneak off to buy more fish—and given recent events, he really can’t tell if this is a joke or not in a way that’s a little concerning—and then rests his forehead against the closed door. 

Right before he turns around and finds Hollander right behind him. 

“Gospodi,” he gasps, pressing a hand over his heart. “Don’t do that.” 

“Sorry,” Hollander says. 

Ilya almost wants to tell him to put those fucking eyes away. Really, it shouldn’t be fucking possible for them to still have so much power so soon after Hollander fucked him over. 

And then brought an insane quantity of raw fish to his fucking house. 

“Your mother said listen to your babysitter,” Ilya says dryly. “So: time for bed.” 

“Alone?” Hollander says, with what’s clearly alcohol-fueled flirtatiousness. 

It makes Ilya’s chest ache, a little bit, desire coming so close after rejection. If you want me, he thinks, a little despairing, why the fuck did you leave me? 

He stops Hollander with a hand to his chest when he leans in for a clumsy attempt at a kiss. Hollander blinks at him, looking a little surprised and a little hurt, like he wasn’t the one who did the hurting here first. 

“You’re wasted,” Ilya says bluntly. “Time for bed.” 

“I’m not wasted,” Hollander says, frowning. 

Ilya considers tipping him over as a lesson on how wrong he is. 

Instead he nudges him forward, guiding him like a pinball to the guest room. 

And trying very hard not to think about how much he wishes it was towards his room, instead. 

*

“Wow,” he observes from his place on the floor in the hallway approximately twenty minutes later, as the door to the guest bath opens, revealing a damp Hollander wreathed with steam. “You didn’t drown. Good job.” 

“Told you so,” Hollander says, unbelievably smug for someone who needed help getting his socks off approximately eighteen minutes ago. 

Because he is a good and gracious host, Ilya doesn’t mention this as he picks himself up off the floor. 

“Less bragging,” he advises, “more going to bed already.” 

Really, he thinks, herding Hollander along to the guest bed, where he already has the sheets pulled down, this night feels like it’s lasted approximately ten fucking years. 

“No,” he says, as Hollander attempts to pull him down with him. “No, no. No, Hollander.” He peels his arms from around his neck. 

Hollander whines at him in protest, flopping backwards. It makes Ilya want to fuck him hard enough to give him something to whine about. It makes Ilya want to kiss him on the nose. 

Time to make his escape while he fucking can. 

“I’m not tired,” Hollander informs him. 

Ilya doesn’t comment, tugging the covers up over him. He returns his hands to his sides afterwards, curling them up against the way he wants to do something insane, like smooth Hollander’s damp hair back. He starts to step away, but Hollander grabs his hand, reflexes apparently still lightning quick even wasted. Ilya pauses, because he apparently doesn’t have it in him to deny Shane Hollander what he wants. 

Not even when Shane Hollander has so recently denied him what he wants. 

“Do you like your fish?” 

Of the questions Ilya expected to be asked, this was…not one of them. 

“You like tuna?” 

He sounds almost anxious about it, in a way that gives Ilya the urge to do something insane like be tender again. 

“Yes,” he says, gently slipping his hand free. “I like tuna. Good choice.” 

The smile Hollander gives him feels like drinking sunshine. 

Ilya makes himself turn away. 

*

Despite the shit Shane always gets for never getting hungover, he never actually escapes a heavy night completely unscathed, usually a little prone to vertigo and some heightened anxiety for a day or so after. 

Which means waking up to find himself in a bed he does not recognize is more than a little extra horrifying. 

He jerks upright with alarm only to almost take a header off the bed when a wave of dizziness hits him as soon as he’s done it, making him clench his fingers in the—very soft, a distant part of him notices—sheets, holding on and breathing until it passes. On his second attempt at orienting himself, he takes things a little slower, dragging his legs up until he can get them over the side of the bed, kicking over a grocery-bag-lined wastebasket by accident when he does. It topples to its side thankfully empty, but its presence does suggest that he was a level of wasted that he’s a little embarrassed at someone else witnessing, no matter who his mystery host is. 

So much for his initial decision of only having a couple of beers to humor the guys. 

The bottle of water on the sidetable is more welcome than the wastebasket, and he cracks it open and downs almost half of it in three good chugs, his mouth feeling dry as sand even though he’s been informed before that drunk Shane is even more diligent about drinking water than sober Shane. He takes a more reasonable sip after catching his breath, looking around for context clues to figure out where the fuck he is. When he squints in the dimness of the room, he can see that his wallet and phone are on the dresser across the room, his phone even plugged in with a charger he doesn’t recognize, so he gathers he hasn’t been robbed at least. He feels a small moment of fear when he realizes he’s in clothes he doesn’t recognize, but after a quick check, he’s still in his own underwear, and he doesn’t feel like anything bad has happened to him. 

The room is generically tasteful, as he finds out when he leans over to turn on the little lamp beside the bed (and almost flops onto the floor in the process before he catches himself). It’s not his taste, but it’s not awful, either, shades of blue and some gold and navy abstract art on the walls. There’s a bottle of Advil beside the bed, and it’s oddly touching, even without the need for it. He wonders which of his teammates left it for him. His best guess, after all, is that one of them must have called in a favor with a friend in Boston to find a place to stash him if they couldn’t get his drunken self back to the hotel. It’s mortifying, obviously, but waking up in a stranger’s guestroom is still better than waking up to TMZ headlines about him sleeping on a random park bench. 

…probably. 

He finishes off his bottle of water before his previous diligence about hydration becomes a fairly urgent problem, and he leaves the empty bottle in the wastebasket before making his shaky way to the door, poking his head out into the dim hallway. He feels the urge to call out so he won’t spook anyone, but with the curtains drawn over the windows, he takes a guess that his hosts might still be asleep. 

His first guess about which door is to a bathroom ends up being right, and the pile of his clothes on the floor and a half-damp towel hanging up crookedly tells him it’s not the first time he managed to make his way here. He feels his face heat, but it’s not like there’s anything he can do about it now. His clothes at least don’t seem like he threw up on them or anything, so he chalks it up to his habit of always being showered and clean no matter how drunk he is, something Hayden has fondly teased him about before. Evidence would suggest that the toothbrush resting neatly in opened packaging beside the sink is probably one he either helped himself to or was given, but he’s not willing to take the risk of being wrong about it, instead using his finger to scrub some toothpaste around his mouth and calling it good enough. 

At least until he can manage to make it back to the hotel and what is definitely his toothbrush. 

He feels a horrible little lurch of fear at the idea that he could have been so drunk that he slept through his team leaving Boston, but a wobbly rush back to his phone tells him it’s 10:27 AM. It’s later than he ever usually sleeps, but there’s still plenty of time before they’ll be leaving at 5 PM. 

He cringes at a picture of himself from the night before in their team’s groupchat, gaze laser-focused on a massive tuna resting on a mountain of ice in what’s very clearly a fish market, captioned “Halibut Hollzy strikes again.” 

He rolls his eyes and then feels a little dizzy afterwards, just desperately hoping that someone stopped him from actually buying it. 

Beyond a text from Hayden at 5:47 AM that says Made it back to the hotel. Let me know you’re alive tomorrow, alright? he doesn’t have any other clues to where the fuck he is. Given how heavily Hayden sleeps after a night out, he doubts he’ll get a response from him for a couple more hours at least, and the idea of just blindly reaching out to other teammates with a “Hey guys, where the fuck am I?” text seems more embarrassing than just sucking it up and greeting his hosts to both thank them and apologize profusely. 

*

His certainty about this course of action lasts up until he makes it downstairs and finds himself looking at a very, very horribly familiar kitchen. 

He’s so busy freezing like a spooked deer that he doesn’t even notice anyone else in the room. 

Not until a “good morning” makes him flinch so hard he almost knocks himself over. 

From his place at the end of the table at the edge of the room, Rozanov lifts his eyebrows. 

Seeing him certainly doesn’t do much for the “oh my God I feel like I’m about to get hit by a car” feeling thrumming in Shane’s chest. 

“What?” Rozanov asks dryly, pushing himself up and carrying a coffee cup with him. “Being hungover makes you mute?” 

“No,” he says, a reflexive need to argue briefly unsticking his words. No other words follow the no, though. What do you even say to someone after getting freaked out about them playing with something that feels very non-casual, jerking them and yourself off, and then bolting from their house with what they called even in the moment as a very bad lie? Especially when you’ve then found yourself somehow mysteriously back in their house in what was absolutely a very, very drunken state?

Sorry seems a little insufficient under the current circumstances. 

“You are nauseous?” Rozanov asks, moving to his coffee machine and pressing some buttons after putting his mug under the dispenser, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. He’s wearing a shirt today, Shane notes with something that feels vaguely like hysteria; he tries to decide if that’s a good or a bad sign. 

“No,” he says, because that’s apparently as much as he can manage. He jumps slightly when the coffee machine makes a hissing noise before coffee starts burbling out into the mug, and Rozanov’s lips twitch with something that looks like a reluctant kind of amusement. 

“So if I make food, you will not puke in my kitchen and ruin breakfast for both of us?” 

Shane feels his ears going hot at the very idea, wondering if that question is coming out of recent experience. 

“Did I puke before?” He asks, thinking he might just spare them both and just go walk into traffic if the answer is yes. 

“No,” Rozanov says dryly, pushing off of the wall. “That would have been a normal drunk person thing to do.” 

He flicks open his fridge pointedly. 

Shane looks at stack after stack after stack of what looks damningly like packaged fresh fish. 

Maybe he should revisit his walking into traffic plan after all. 

*

He is told to go sit in the living room while Rozanov cooks, and he obeys partially out of habit of doing what Rozanov says and partially out of the need to not sit in the awkward little bubble of watching Rozanov maneuver through a metric fuckton of fish to pull out things to make breakfast with. 

“If I sit next to you,” Rozanov says when he joins him, handing over a plate, “you are going to suck my cock and then run? I should, what is the phrase Marly said…leave room for Jesus?” 

“Fuck off,” Shane huffs, not quite meeting his eye. “It’s your house, dude. Sit wherever you want.” 

Despite the words, he does feel a little wriggle of both relief and anxiety when Rozanov chooses to sit close enough to touch if Shane reached out. 

He doesn’t. 

“Thank you,” he says, remembering his manners with his fork halfway to his mouth. He’s not a huge scrambled eggs fan, but he’s also not in a position to be making demands of someone else’s cooking at present, and in light of everything that’s happened within the past 48 hours, he thinks he’s probably lucky Rozanov didn’t call the fucking cops on him for showing up at his house at fuck o’clock in the morning with an unreasonable amount of raw fish meat. Speaking of…”Um, do you…like fish?” 

Of the many things he could address right now, it’s not remotely the most important, and he barely resists the urge to cringe at himself the second it’s out, diligently cutting off a piece of hashbrown patty so he can avoid looking at Rozanov, who snorts. 

“Not enough to have my entire refrigerator full of it,” he says dryly. 

Shane can feel the heat of his face going red. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells the sliced pear on his plate. It makes him feel absurdly emotional, the little detail of Rozanov slicing up a pear for him, even stacking the pieces neatly on his plate. God, he is never drinking again. 

“For what part?” Rozanov asks around a mouthful of food. “Breaking into my house at 4 in the fucking morning-” 

Shane gives him a horrified look at the idea, mortified that he was breaking and entering with raw fish in tow-

“I am joking,” Rozanov says, apparently reading his alarm. “You very politely rang my doorbell about twenty fucking times and then waited very patiently to try and shove your way inside the second I answered.” 

This does not feel…much better. 

Jesus. He wonders if he should just offer Rozanov the chance to hit him with one of his fancy cars or something. It would make them both feel better, probably. 

“This is what you do when you are drunk?” Rozanov asks. “Buy enough fish to feed entire League and then drop it off to random houses?” 

It should be impossible for Shane’s face to feel any hotter, and fucking yet. 

“It, uh,” God, he wishes Hayden had just shoved him out to sea or something, “I like bidding at fish auctions.” 

Rozanov pauses for a moment, mid-bite, and then he shakes his head. 

“You are a very weird person, Hollander,” he says.

A very stupid part of Shane wants to think it sounds almost fond. 

“Yeah, well,” Shane tells his slices of pear. He doesn’t finish that thought. He’s not sure he knows how. 

*

Shane is offered coffee after they’ve eaten, and more out of a hesitance to refuse than out of real desire, he accepts, carrying his plate back to the kitchen and stacking his and Rozanov’s in the dishwasher while Rozanov presses buttons on his coffee machine. It feels strangely domestic, cleaning up from a shared breakfast while Rozanov makes them coffee, and Shane would be a liar if he said it didn’t make him feel the urge to bolt again. 

Doing it for a second time in a row, though, feels rude in a way Shane can’t quite commit to, especially after Rozanov hosted him for the night and fed him again. The intimacy of sharing this kitchen together kind of makes him feel like he’s going to break out in hives, but even amidst the current discomfort of the situation, he knows making a run for it would be a completely dick move. 

Besides, he should probably at least try to solve the fish surplus he’s created in Rozanov’s refrigerator. 

“Do you know what I bought?” He asks, when Rozanov opens it to dig around for coffee creamer, lifting it to Shane in a question that he shakes his head in response to. 

“Tuna, apparently,” Rozanov says, offering a carton of hemp milk that Shane nods for, more than a little surprised. It’s his preferred milk substitute, but he’s never actually met someone who just…has it on hand before. A ridiculous part of him wonders if Rozanov got it just for him, and he shoves the thought away immediately. It’s possible Rozanov has seen it in his fridge before when getting water or a Gatorade after sex over the years, but it’s presumptuous to assume that Rozanov would then buy a carton for his own fridge on the extremely unlikely chance that Shane would have a need for some. “You like your milk steamed or no?” 

“Cold is fine,” Shane says, even if steamed is his preference. 

“I am already doing mine,” Rozanov says, glancing back at him while reaching for a cabinet beside his coffee machine. “Last call: you want it hot?” 

“If you don’t mind,” Shane says, feeling a little meek at this continued hospitality when he’s been a shit houseguest so far. 

“If I minded, I would not have offered,” Rozanov says, opening the cabinet and pulling out a little milk frothing pitcher. 

Shane wonders if he’s imagining that there’s supposed to be another meaning under those words or not. 

“You cannot have milk or you just do not like it?” Rozanov asks over the mild screech of the milk frother. “I should wash this out before yours?” 

“No,” Shane says, shaking his head. He hesitates, wondering how much information he should offer. “I’m only allergic to cherries and hazelnuts. I just don’t like milk.” 

Rozanov stops the milk frother, giving Shane a judgmental look. 

“You are allergic to things and did not think to say this?” He demands. “When I was feeding you food?” 

“It’s not like you were feeding me either of them,” Shane says, both annoyed and embarrassed at the scolding. “I’m also allergic to bees and bird dander. Is that important information to you, too?” 

Rozanov gives him a look and dumps his milk into his own coffee before pouring hemp milk into the pitcher for Shane’s. 

“You should tell people things like that,” Rozanov tells him when he hands it over. 

“Because we spend so much time talking?” Shane snarks before thinking about if he should. “If you wanted to fuck next to a beehive or in a chicken coop, I would have brought it up.” 

(…probably.)

“I fed you food,” Rozanov says, leaning back against the counter and wrapping his hands around his mug, “and you didn’t tell me there are things you can’t eat.” 

It’s a fair point, which Shane is mildly resentful of. He’d thought of doing it, of course, but only his bee allergy is epinephrine-worthy, and getting into medical information with his hookup had felt like too much for what they’re supposed to be. It had just been easier to…not. 

Which had worked just fine up until Rozanov decided to further full send doing things that felt like too much for what they’re supposed to be. 

“That is fucking stupid, Hollander,” Rozanov continues, and now Shane is mad. “You ca-” 

“Well if you’d given me a fucking heads up about exactly what you wanted to do, I could have planned on telling you. You just pulled it out of fucking nowhere, asshole. I didn’t have time to think about it.” 

It’s out before he’s had a chance to consider whether he wants to say it. 

Still, he doesn’t take it back. 

“We’ve never stayed over or eaten together,” he continues, because at this point he might as fucking well. “How the fuck was I supposed to know what to do?” 

Rozanov looks gratifyingly surprised by the accusation. Shane takes a sip of his coffee. 

He can’t decide if it tasting perfect is annoying or not. 

“You did not want to stay?” Rozanov asks in a tone Shane can’t read, shutting down and making his expression blank in a way that’s immensely fucking frustrating. 

Shane feels the start of a headache that he doubts has anything to do with having had too much to drink the night before. 

“I didn’t-that’s-” He exhales, frustrated with himself and Rozanov in roughly equal measure. “You kind of went 0 to sleepover with no fucking warning, dude.” 

“You did not want to?” Rozanov repeats. 

“I don’t know,” Shane says, because he still hasn’t even decided in his own head if he did. It had been nice, pieces of it, but he’d also felt like his grandparents’ cat after they moved houses when Shane was young, disoriented and wary of finding itself in a completely new location with no warning, twitchy and ready to spook at the slightest provocation in the face of trying to process so much novel input so suddenly. 

Really, he has a newfound empathy with Mr. Mango after this experience. 

The idea of taking a page out of Mr. Mango’s book and peeing in Rozanov’s shoes about it does provide enough internal levity to let him calm a little, consciously making his shoulders drop when he registers how stiff they’ve gone. He rubs his fingers across the smooth ceramic of his coffee mug, trying to figure out how to say any of that without sounding crazy. 

Or needy, which would be even worse. 

“What?” Rozanov asks, but his tone goes a little less demanding in response to Shane calming himself. “You have never slept over at someone’s house before?” 

“Not after, like…” He trails off and makes a hand gesture that he hopes reads as “fucking someone.” Rozanov’s considering look is unpleasant, he decides at once, and it makes him defensive. “What? Just a normal Tuesday for you?” They’ve never spoken about it, the details of their individual sex lives, but he’d gathered by now that Rozanov has probably guessed something close to the truth, which is that Shane’s experience outside of what they do together is fairly limited. Rozanov might like trouble, but the idea of trouble makes Shane feel nauseous, so with someone on standby to scratch the itch with every few months and his dildo in between, well…

It just hasn’t seemed worth the risk. 

(He also hasn’t wanted someone else the way he wants Rozanov, but that’s not a thought he permits himself to think.) 

“So you ran over nothing because I did not send you an invitation beforehand?” Rozanov asks, because he’s an asshole. “I should have asked you to RSVP?” 

“Fuck you,” Shane says, setting his coffee mug down hard enough that some of it sloshes over the edge and splatters onto the counter, which means his urge to leave is ruined by the need to clean up the mess. 

He snatches the dishcloth off of the edge of the sink and soaks it up, annoyed. 

“I don’t like surprises,” he tells the counter, and it’s true. He’d ruined his own seventh birthday party as a kid when his parents had tried to make it a surprise and he’d responded by freezing at the wall of noise rushing at him after opening the front door, screamed, and then made a run for it and refused to come down from the tree he’d climbed until his mom and dad had promised they would make everyone go home. 

His parents had always given him a heads up of at least two months after that. 

“Is a surprise that I want you to spend the night?” Rozanov asks, and Shane pauses at the use of “want” in the question, unsure what to do with it. 

“We don’t…do that,” Shane says, glancing up at him. 

“We didn’t fuck, either,” Rozanov observes, “and then we did.” 

That’s…not a terrible point, Shane considers. 

“Do you have a laundry basket?” He asks instead of addressing it, holding up the dishcloth. 

He doesn’t understand why it makes Rozanov smile, but it feels nice anyway, receiving a look like that. 

“Here,” Rozanov says, holding a hand out. “I’ll put it in.” 

Shane pretends he doesn’t feel the tingle of it when their fingers brush. 

*

He’s studying the packages of fish in the fridge with something approaching despair when Rozanov returns. Shane doesn’t bother turning around. 

“Maybe you could have, like, a sushi party or something?” 

“What?” Rozanov asks, sounding amused. “You have poisoned it? This is secretly a plan to cheat?” 

“I don’t need to cheat to beat your ass,” Shane shoots back, and it’s easier, this dynamic, this playful version of the rivalry their careers have been built on. He wonders, sometimes, what board room decided that that was the angle they were going to pursue, what group of people in suits saw two teenagers and decided they had to hate each other, what calculations were run to decide how profitable pitting them against each other would be. He can’t deny it was effective, not with the numbers speaking for themselves over the years, but he wonders, sometimes, what it would look like now if their rivalry had been allowed to stay on the ice. 

It makes him wonder what they might have been able to be off of the ice. 

“So you always drag Pike along to buy an entire ocean of fish,” Rozanov asks, shifting packages around with something approaching tired resignation, “or he was just a loser of a bet? Is his normal state, yes? Losing at things?” 

“Hayden is a good friend,” Shane defends, and it’s true. 

He’s not sure who else would have dragged his ass to and from a fish market after a night out, after all. 

“Hm,” Rozanov hums, sounding dubious, “a better friend would have kept fifty tons of fish from being in my fridge right now, I think.” 

“It could have been worse,” Shane says, accepting packages of fish as he’s handed them so Rozanov can move the others around. “After our second cup win, I think JJ ended up with something like seventy-five pounds of shrimp alone.” 

Rozanov laughs, and Shane can’t help but grin back. 

“Fuck you,” he says, still accepting another package when it’s handed to him. 

“I should be flattered, then?” Rozanov asks, jerking his head to indicate that Shane should follow him, leading him over to a counter and then pulling out a box of Ziplock bags, handing Shane a fistful in a clear indication that he should help. “Tuna is more expensive than shrimp, yes? This is because you like me more?” 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Shane says dryly, because the honest answer is that sometimes he worries that he likes Ilya Rozanov more than he likes most people. 

Which is not something he can afford to be true. 

*

“I could make fun of you for having a garage freezer, you know,” Shane observes as he passes packages over. “It’s very…suburban dad of you.” 

“Well now you are just being mean,” Rozanov says, stacking packages in. 

Shane is not going to say the thought that comes to him. He’s not. He’s never going to live it down if he does. He doesn’t need to-

“You really should label those with what they are and the date you’re freezing them.” 

Damn it. 

Rozanov gives him a look. 

“Don’t worry. I do not think I will be forgetting this for a very long time.” 

Shane feels his face go a little warm. 

He hands the rest of the tuna over without comment. 

*

“So you want a warning for things?” Rozanov asks after Shane has gone to retrieve another round of tuna for the freezer. 

“What?” Shane asks, looking up at him instead of being mildly judgemental of the way he is not laying the packages flat enough for them to be reliably stackable later. 

“You do not like surprises,” Rozanov says, shoving a giant pack of soft pretzels out of the way to squeeze more tuna in. “So you want a warning?” 

“What are you planning on warning me about?” Shane asks, a little wary. 

“What do you want me to warn you about?” Rozanov returns. “Because apparently sandwiches and first names are terrifying to you, so I could use some guidelines, I think.” 

“Fuck you,” Shane says, tempted to give him a repeat for being an asshole. “That’s not…” Except that it is, a little bit, but also it’s not but maybe it is a little bit but-

Shane wonders if he could revisit the bottle of Advil he neglected this morning. 

“That’s not?” Rozanov prompts. 

“Since fucking when do we do that shit?” Shane says, deciding on the path of least resistance here. “We see each other, we fuck, we peace out, we do it all again in a few weeks. That’s what we’ve been doing for literal years, dude, and then you suddenly start pulling out new shit out of nowhere and acting like it’s not totally fucking new.” That’s part of what was bothering him, he realizes only in this moment, the way Rozanov just acted like of course they would be doing all of this, like curling up together to sleep and eating together and cuddling on the couch and calling each other by their first names is what they’ve always done together. 

Like he’s not the motherfucker who has a habit of shutting Shane the fuck down if he so much as asks what he’s planning on buying his parents for Christmas as a little post-fuck smalltalk. 

(He’s still mad about that one especially.) (He’d wanted to maybe borrow his idea for his own mom and dad and instead got Rozanov snapping at him to mind his own business and then leaving without even showering first.) 

(He’s not going to pick a fight about it, especially not now, but it’s not like he’s forgotten about it.) 

“You call Pike ‘Hayd,’” Rozanov says, and Shane frowns, thrown. 

“What?” 

“Pike,” Rozanov repeats, like that’s the part he was confused about. “You call him ‘Hayd.’ Not even his full name.” 

“Well, yeah,” Shane says, wondering where Rozanov is planning on going with this. He starts to say ‘because we’re friends,’ but that seems a little mean with the way it would imply he and Rozanov aren’t friends. They’re not, not really, but they’re also not not friends. 

Maybe. 

Shane’s kind of getting a headache trying to run the numbers on it. 

“So what?” He asks. “You want to call each other by our first names now?” 

“Depends,” Rozanov says, closing the freezer. “Are you going to run away and then come back with another two hundred pounds of fish, Shane?” 

“No, Ilya,” Shane says, accepting the dare. 

Silence stretches between them for a moment. 

“Wow,” Roz-Ilya says, lifting his eyebrows. “You are still here. Progress.” 

Shane rolls his eyes and returns to the house, generously not locking the door behind himself. 

(...no matter how great the temptation.) 

*

Thanks to the fact that Shane does not have his keycard, Hayden clearly still hasn’t woken up, and he’d rather not have to have a “Sorry I got drunk and maybe left it somewhere in a fish market” conversation with the front desk of the hotel, Shane ends up staying at Ilya’s house. It’s…not as awkward as he might have expected it to be. 

Ilya lets him use his washer and dryer so he’ll have clean clothes to wear when he leaves, and something about the reassurance of that settles him, a bit. Despite the way it ended before, having one round of this under his belt makes this second attempt sit a little easier, like it’s worn in a little better, softened enough to sit on him easier. Ilya puts on a game, Shane settles down on the couch with him, and they pass the time casting judgement on their colleagues. 

It’s more fun than Shane’s had in recent memory. 

*

They make tuna for lunch. 

Looking at how many packages are still in the fridge, Shane thinks Ilya is probably going to be eating a lot of tuna for lunch in the near future. 

He focuses very hard on his salad responsibilities to avoid focusing on this fact. 

*

“-fucking octopus in her purse, and then-” Shane interrupts himself with a grin, distracted by Ilya laughing. “It’s true!” He insists. 

“I know,” Ilya says. “You are saying it, so I know it’s true. It’s just fucking ridiculous.” He leans back in his chair. He gives Shane a look that’s softer than he knows what to do with, but instead of retreating from it, Shane just…sits in it. Feeling a little daring, he stretches his leg out, tapping his socked foot against Ilya’s gently. 

Ilya taps back. 

*

They end up fucking because the two of them in close proximity for any amount of time always ends in fucking, but it feels different this time, somehow. It’s only the fifth time they’ve ever fucked in sunlight, but he doesn’t think it’s even about that, really. It feels like something beyond just the novelty of being able to see every inch of Ilya above him. 

It feels like he’s maybe going to lose his mind with the whisper of his own name in his ear. 

“Shane,” Ilya breathes, grinding into him slow and dangerously perfect. 

“Ilya,” he breathes back. 

Ilya slips his hand into his. 

Shane squeezes it back. 

*

“So,” Ilya says in the aftermath, when they’re curled up together, still naked, covered only by a topsheet, warm enough in their shared body heat, “no surprises.” 

Shane makes a questioning noise, rousing from a doze he didn’t know he was falling into. 

“We use each other’s names. Agreed?” 

Shane smiles slightly, stretching and then flopping back again, feeling loose and languid in a way he only does after sex with Ilya. 

“What, you want a contract about it?” 

“I would like you to not freak out and leave because you are a strange person who loves drunken fish shopping and hates surprises,” Ilya says. Shane moves enough to kick him lightly. 

“You don’t have to make it a whole thing,” Shane complains. “Just don’t pull shit out of nowhere on me, okay?”

“Hm,” Ilya says. “You usually like my surprises.” He lifts his eyebrows suggestively. Shane kicks him again. 

“Just save your ‘surprises’ for bed and give me a heads up outside of it.” 

“What?” Ilya asks. “You seemed to really like being surprised and fucked over your kitchen count-” 

Shane hits him across the face with a pillow. 

*

They manage one more round of shower sex before Hayden finally returns to the world of the living enough to answer him on his phone, and based on how hungover he sounds even via text, Shane makes a mental note to grab him a coffee and a sandwich from the little cafe near the hotel. It’s the least he can do when he gathers he really put Hayden through a fairly wild night. His plan, though, is currently facing a small hiccup. 

Mainly that it involves leaving Ilya’s house, which is proving a little more difficult than anticipated with how many kisses he’s been offered so far, each of them distracting him from his need to leave and deliver caffeine and calories to his best friend. 

“We should make plans now for the next time you play in Boston?” Ilya asks after Shane finally pulls away long enough to put his shoes on. 

“We could,” Shane says, feeling a little shy about it despite how pleased he is at the idea of already having a plan before even leaving today. 

“Well, we are going to have tuna for dinner the next time you stay,” Ilya says dryly, and Shane grins, letting himself be pressed back against the wall. “And also for breakfast, and also the time after that and the time after that and until we are dead of old age, probably, and I think there will still be more left.” 

“Something to look forward to,” Shane teases.

“Mm,” Ilya says.

When he leans in to kiss him, Shane kisses back. It's a long few moments until they part, and even then, Ilya doesn't retreat farther than resting his forehead against Shane's.

“I am going to die of mercuride poisoning now, probably,” Ilya says conversationally, still not pulling away.

Shane snorts, pulling back only enough to gently tap their foreheads together again playfully.

“Mercury,” he corrects. “And you'll be fine. Don't be a baby.” 

He flinches and then feels a pleasant little flicker of arousal when the comment gets him a light slap on the ass.

“I am going to tell the world Shane Hollander is trying to kill me with fish,” he threatens. “See if Rolex gives you pretty watches after that.” 

“Maybe I'm just making sure you're well-fed,” Shane offers, resting his head back against the wall. “You have to eat something other than McDonald's and Coke.”

“Hm,” Ilya says. “I eat many things.”

“Such as?” 

“You, pretty often,” Ilya says, and Shane groans at the smug grin that says he walked right into what Ilya wanted. 

Still, for the sake of Ilya smiling at him like that…maybe he doesn't mind it too much.

“You’re such an asshole,” Shane says with a smile, obeying the nose at his jaw and tipping his head to the side to let Ilya kiss his neck. He closes his eyes, gliding a hand up Ilya’s arm until he can sink his fingers through soft curls. “I have to go,” he reminds them both. 

“And who is stopping you?” Ilya says, mouth against his throat, and Shane can hear his smile. 

He tugs at the curls in his hand and gets a gratifying little hitched breath out of it before he feels the teasing threat of teeth against his neck in revenge. He tugs Ilya’s head up, and he allows it, his expression so warm when it’s visible that Shane feels a reflexive urge to shove his head back down to escape it. He doesn’t. It’s new, looks like that outside of a bed, and a little unnerving still, but not…

Not bad. 

“Four weeks,” Ilya says, voice quiet. 

Shane lets his hand trail down, cupping along his jaw. 

“Four weeks,” he agrees. He hesitates, just briefly, before he decides to commit. “You can stay overnight with me then. If you want.” It feels a little bit like offering his throat up to a blade, this admission, handing Ilya something he could hurt him with if he feels like it. “You don’t have to, but if you want-” 

“I want,” Ilya says, saving him from himself, and Shane can’t help but smile. Ilya smiles back. “Do I also have to come with two hundred pounds of something or-” 

“Okay,” Shane says with a grin, shoving him away. His phone buzzes in his pocket to tell him his Uber has arrived, but before he can reach for the door, Ilya is reaching for him, pulling him close and pressing his mouth to his. Shane relaxes into it despite their very immediate time limit. Sometimes he thinks it’s like recharging a battery, these little stretches of time, like he doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until Ilya makes enough space for him to exhale in. He sinks into it as easily as he always does, even knowing that his Uber driver probably isn’t going to be particularly understanding of being kept waiting so Shane can get enough tongue in his mouth to last him four weeks. 

Finally, he pulls back, his passenger rating saved by the necessity of breathing. 

“Four weeks,” he says again, a little breathless. 

“Four weeks,” Ilya repeats back, brushing their mouths together in more of a touch than a kiss. 

“Think you’ll be through all of your tuna by then?” Shane asks, and he feels the rush of air over his face when Ilya huffs a laugh. 

“Get out of my house,” he says fondly, shoving Shane back by one shoulder. 

Feeling a little daring, Shane leans in for one more kiss before pulling back. 

“See you next time,” he says, hand on the door. 

“Next time,” Ilya agrees, crossing his arms across his chest loosely and leaning a shoulder against the wall. 

Shane is still smiling when he leaves.