Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Hayden Pike, Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Coming Out, Reaction, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, POV Shane Hollander, Autistic Shane Hollander, Internalized Homophobia, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Protective Hayden Pike, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike Friendship, Angst, Angst and Feels, Episode: s01e04 Rose (Heated Rivalry)

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of My Moon

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-02 Words: 858 Chapters: 1/1

Love You in the Dark

Summary

Shane Hollander returns from his rendezvous with Rozanov wearing a gutted expression and a shirt that isn’t his.

OR: Hayden Pike finds out the truth. Sort of.

A/N: Title from the Adele song.

Notes

Shane Hollander returns from his rendezvous with Rozanov wearing a gutted expression and a shirt that isn’t his.

He knocks once on the door before entering. His entire body is oddly numb.

“Hey, weirdo,” says Hayden from his bed. The light of the television bathes his face in blue. “Why did you knock?”

“You said you might be—you know.” Shane’s voice is monotone.

Hayden scoffs. “I was kidding. Jesus.”

Shane steps fully into the room and lets the door fall shut behind him.

Hayden glances up. Whatever he sees in Shane’s expression makes him sit up straight. “Shane, buddy, are you okay?”

Shane approaches the bed. His hands are shaking. He realises belatedly that he’s freaking the fuck out. That this thing with Rozanov has made him freak the fuck out.

“I—I can’t.”

Hayden throws his legs over the side of the bed and stands. He reaches for Shane, who instinctively finds himself shying away. “Hey,” Hayden says, with the energy of someone coralling a spooked animal. “Hey, it’s okay.”

Shane feels defeated. Small. “It’s not.”

Hayden’s expression wobbles. “Did you break up with Lily?”

Shane flinches—he can’t help it. “Sort of. Worse.”

“There’s very little I can imagine you doing wrong.”

You. Like he’s some paragon of righteousness. Like he’s perfect Shane Hollander, polite and kind and not fucking Ilya Rozanov. Shane’s legs finally give way. He collapses onto the bed, his hands limp and numb in his lap. “You’ll hate me,” he says.

“I could never.”

Hayden’s staunch defence only makes Shane feel worse. “No—no. You would—if you knew.”

Hayden drops down beside him. His face is open; his eyes are kind. His arm comes around Shane. “Hey, buddy,” he says gently, in a voice Shane imagines he uses with his children. “None of that. Surely it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Shane just looks at him. How can’t Hayden see it? How can’t he know, just by looking at him, the wrongness of him? This malignant thing at his core? “Can’t be fixed,” Shane mutters. “It’s wrong. It’s all wrong.”

Hayden’s brow creases. “Wrong?”

Shane tells himself to watch his words, to temper himself. But the worry has gone. In its place is this: a slow unravelling; the very essence of himself coming unwound. “Inside of me,” he says. “There’s something wrong inside of me.” His free hand—the one not trapped by Hayden’s bracing arm—has drifted to his chest. As though he can pull out his malformed, miswired heart and pass it to him, make him see.

Hayden pulls back a little. Something has changed in his face. He’s realised this is no normal breakup. “I think I know you pretty well, Shane. Maybe better than most people. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”

“You don’t know,” Shane says. He’s staring ahead, at a crack in the paintwork. “You don’t know.”

“Then tell me.”

It’s nothing, he tries to say. What comes out instead is, “I’m gay. And I’m fucking Ilya Rozanov.”

Silence. Hayden pulls back. Looks at his face, as though looking for the lie, the punchline. “You’re—”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Hayden’s arm retracts, and Shane feels its loss for the rejection it is.

“He’s—I’m—” 

In love with him. But he’s not, is he? He hardly knows him. Shane thinks of the phone conversation he overheard Rozanov have with his brother, and the questions he won’t answer.

He thinks of the cans of ginger ale stocked in his fridge.

Shane, he had said. In the heat of the moment, yes, but also—intimate. Like they were something, like Shane meant something. And Shane had realised in that moment that he had to run, had to protect himself. If this goes any further, this twisted, fucked up thing between them, he won’t survive it. He knows himself. He knows he won’t.

And he can’t have this anyway. He can’t be anymore different than he already is. Socially slow Shane Hollander. Asian Shane Hollander.

“You’re horrified,” says Shane quietly.

“No!” Hayden splutters. “No, I—the gay part, fine, whatever. I don’t care. But Rozanov?”

He’s special, Shane thinks. We’re special.

But they’re not, are they? Because Ilya has all of his women, and Shane is an oddity, a curiosity, and even if he’s not, he has to be.

Shane has to like women, too. And he does. They’re great. They’re just not Ilya, and he has to try harder and—

“It doesn’t matter,” Shane says. “It’s done. I ended it.”

“You…did?” Unbelievably, Hayden doesn’t sound entirely happy.

“It’s not…forget I said anything. It was nothing.”

Nothing. Tuna melts and sofa cuddles and a hundred texts and get on your knees.

“I…” Hayden seems uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

“Go to sleep, Hayden.” Shane’s voice is cold, cutting. Go to sleep, forget about it, don’t look at me, don’t make me talk about it.

“Shane—”

But Shane has turned around, toward the bathroom, where he will strip off Ilya’s shirt and scrub his smell away.

“Go to sleep,” he says again.

He steps into the bathroom, looks into his own bloodshot eyes, and sobs.