Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

Angst, Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts, Episode: s01e04 Rose (Heated Rivalry), Abandonment, Abandonment Issues, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Ginger Ale - Freeform

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-15 Words: 1,562 Chapters: 1/1

Devastation

Summary

'But I made him a sandwich,' he thought plaintively. He’d been trying to…care for Shane. Show him that there was more to Ilya than what he’d seen so far. His mother had always cooked for him when he was upset as a little boy, and ever since, food had represented warmth and home and comfort to Ilya. And Shane had eaten the tuna melt, fucked him, and then just…walked out on him.

OR Let's dig into Ilya's pain after Shane walks out on him post tuna-melts

Notes

Big ol' spoilers for Ep 4, "Rose." This is a one-shot...I think. Maybe. We'll see?

“Hollander…”

Ilya stared after Shane as he practically ran out of Ilya’s house. He knew his jaw was still hanging open from his pleas for Shane to stay, but he didn’t – couldn’t – care. He was too…something. Taken aback? Hurt? Something, at any rate.

The front door slammed and he looked down at himself, at his belly still stained with their combined cum. It felt like it was burning him, but maybe that was just the difference between Shane’s warm weight on top of him and the sudden coldness that was running through him now.

To his horror, Ilya felt something like a sob rise up in his throat. He slapped his clean hand over his mouth to stifle it. What the fuck? Ok, fine, Shane was gone. Might never come back. So what? This was just a hookup. He had tons of hookups. Why was he upset about this one?

But I made him a sandwich, he thought plaintively. It was a statement that would sound like utter nonsense if he were to try to explain it to anyone else, but to Ilya, that was a big deal. He didn’t feed his hookups. Hell, he didn’t usually see his hookups more than once, even, with the exception of friends like Svetlana. But he didn’t cook for Svetlana. She’d look at him like he was crazy if he tried, not that he’d ever had the urge to.

He’d been trying to…care for Shane. Show him that there was more to Ilya than what he’d seen so far. His mother had always cooked for him when he was upset as a little boy, and ever since, food had represented warmth and home and comfort to Ilya. And Shane had eaten the tuna melt, fucked him, and then just…walked out on him.

A shiver wracked Ilya where he sat. He felt…fuzzy-headed. Like everything was wrong. He looked down at the coffee table and tried to focus on where their cleaned plates and their half-drunk cans of soda sat. He should clean up the mess. Ilya didn’t like to leave dirty dishes out, and especially with this meal having involved fish, things could get bad if they were left to molder.

And yet he continued to sit. He couldn’t quite get his muscles to cooperate with the moving agenda. It wasn’t the usual post-orgasm lethargy, either. That had been gone the moment Ilya moved in for a kiss and instead of giving it, Shane had scrambled up with that look on his face.

Ilya wasn’t sure how long he sat there on the couch, staring at dirty dishes. Long enough that the sun sank below the horizon and he found himself sitting in the gloom of an unlit room. Long enough that some of the cold he'd been feeling dissipated, replaced by an odd numbness in his limbs. He wasn’t warm, he wasn’t cold; he just…wasn’t anything.

Ilya felt like he wasn’t there at all. Like the essence of what he was had disappeared out the door along with Shane when what had been a beautiful moment of connection had been shattered.

Ilya had been…he’d been trying. Trying to be something other than what he’d always been, trying to become something with the man who had crept into his heart.

Was his heart still beating? He lifted a hand to his chest to check and was surprised to find himself still mostly naked, now-cooled cum crusted to his skin. There was symbolism in there somewhere, he was sure. Something about cooled ardor and dried-up affection.

Hell, he was lapsing into bad poetry. With a herculean effort, Ilya heaved himself to his feet and righted his pants before they could fall down to his ankles. He forced himself to lean down and pick up the plates, then carried them into the kitchen. He got as far as the kitchen island before the shivers started again and he was forced to put them down before he dropped them.

Ilya braced his hands on the counter and stared down at his feet, waiting for his head to stop swimming. What was wrong with him?

Well, other than the fact that he was apparently not worth anything more than a quick frot to the man he cared way too much for. And wasn’t that more than enough?

He groaned. Enough of this…self-pity. He had a game tomorrow. He needed to get hold of himself. He picked the plates up again and got them into the dishwasher, then went back for the soda cans.

He was leaning down to pick them up when he caught sight of his phone sitting on the coffee table as well. Don’t do it, he told himself. And yet as if he was being controlled by an outside entity, he saw his hand reach out and pick the phone up. He saw his thumb hit his passcode, then open his texts. Go to his thread with ‘Jane’. Start typing.

Lily: Please come back

Backspace. No. He couldn’t send that.

Lily: I need you

Nope. Definitely not. Backspace.

Lily: What the fuck, Hollander?

Ok, well, that one was extremely tempting, but no. Backspace.

Oh, what was he doing?

Finally, he tried for something pragmatic and hopefully chill:

Lily: Good luck in your game tomorrow.

He even put a period at the end of the sentence to indicate how chill and serious he was. And then he forced himself to put down the phone rather than stare at it and wait for a response. He shook himself out the way he would before a game, took a deep breath, and picked up the soda cans.

The ginger ale sloshed in its can as he snatched it up, and he scowled down at it as if this was all its fault. Stupid fucking soda. He’d bought it especially for Shane, knowing how much he loved the stuff. Fat lot of good that had done him.

Before he could stop himself, he’d upended the can into his mouth and swallowed. He grimaced. Yeah, he still didn’t like ginger ale. But something had felt wrong about just emptying Shane’s can down the kitchen sink.

Resisting the urge to crush the can in his hand, he carried both cans back into the kitchen, glad that at least he wasn’t shivering and dizzy this time. His toe caught on something and he stumbled but caught himself on the corner of the counter with, luckily, the hand holding the empty can. Grumbling to himself, Ilya put both cans down on the island and looked down to see what had tripped him.

Shane’s jeans.

He stared down at them for a long moment, trying to compute what he was seeing with what had happened this afternoon. If Shane’s pants were on his kitchen floor now, long after Shane had left him…

He picked them up and folded them the way Shane would have, revealing a white t-shirt underneath the jeans, so he folded that too. He set the clothing bundle on the kitchen counter and stared at it. Shane had been wearing Ilya’s clothes after their nap, he realized. His black t-shirt; his black joggers.

Shane had left wearing his clothes. Somewhere out in the world, Shane Hollander was walking around in Ilya’s clothes – assuming he hadn’t changed out of them as fast as he could. The memory of how Shane had looked, swimming in his clothes, brought the tiniest of smiles to Ilya’s face, but it was short-lived, because these left-behind clothes…were all that was left to Ilya of him.

Fuck.

He’d just…set them aside. For the next time Shane came over. If that ever happened again. Radi boga, please let it happen again.

Sighing, he picked up the stack of clothing and headed for his bedroom. He’d put it in his closet until…well, until.

Ilya hadn’t considered the view his bedroom would present. The bed was still mussed from their nap, the duvet pulled back on both sides, chaotically on Ilya’s side and neatly folded back on Shane’s. 

Suddenly lacking the strength to make it to his closet, Ilya set the clothes down on the end of the bed and just stared at the blankets, remembering how soft and warm Shane had been as they woke up together. How he’d smiled sleepily at Ilya and accepted his offer of food.

Growling out his hurt, Ilya kicked the bedframe before he could think better of it, smashing his big toe against the metal. “Fuck!” he shouted, collapsing onto the bed in pain. He landed with his head halfway up the bed and a scent snuck into his nose where it was pressed against the sheets.

Before he could stop himself, he’d turned his head to get more of that scent. It was the scent of Shane’s bodywash and his sweat. Ilya would know that scent anywhere. Didn’t think he’d ever forget it, no matter how long before he smelled Shane next.

If he ever did.

Goddammit. Ilya pushed himself up the bed, grabbed Shane’s pillow, and buried his face in it. And no, those were not his tears dampening the fabric. Definitely not.

He fell asleep like that, clutching the last piece he had of Shane to his chest. 

Shane never responded to his text message.

Ilya dreamed of his mother’s death that night.