Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Rose Landry, Harris Drover, Troy Barrett, Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Mentions of Ilya Rozanov/OFC, Retired Hockey Player Shane Hollander, Career Ending Injuries, Autistic Shane Hollander, The Cottage & The Lake as Characters, Anya the dog - Freeform, Artist Ilya Rozanov, But Remix Artist, Depressed Ilya Rozanov, Two adults trying their hardest and finding their way, mentions of death and dying, Summer Love fic

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-31 Completed: 2026-08-09 Words: 29,626 Chapters: 11/11

I feel different now than I did before

Summary

The other cottage on the lake - the one of the other side, tucked into the treeline of a cove - existed here before Shane Hollander bought all the land around it and built his own cottage.

The previous owner was one of his favorite people. He truly doesn't expect that to happen again - just as long as they're cordial.

It's just that...really, who could have guessed "the artist" his realtor told him wanted to put down roots is someone that Shane can't stay away from.

Notes

Wow, okay SO.

I said to you all that I was going to write the next thing on my plan, but I lied and I really just want to write a summer fic. This is my summer fic!

The fic title is from Cinderella by model/actriz which I have my motivations for but you will find those out later when we get there. Yes? Yes.
The prologue title is from Sweet Chamomile by Ruth B because I think it's really good for Shane's headspace at the beginning on this fic. I will likely use it for chapter one too.

Probably sticking to my previous update schedule of once a week on Sunday.

Obligatory fuck AI forever and ever. I don't edit with it, I don't feed it my thoughts. Please do not feed it my thoughts either.

Also, I think probably I should put a big disclaimer on my work that I am somehow highly degreed and poorly educated. My typos are many and flavorful. I read this shit back one single time to make sure I finished all my sentences and didn't type the same word twice because I sometimes do that on bad brain fog days. My fic manager has many degrees in English and somehow even she cannot convince me to let her handle my shit. I know people are well meaning when they offer to beta my stuff or fix typos but once I hit "post chapter" on something, whatever is there is between your god and the ao3 servers. I SAY THAT WITH LOVE. I just truly wish to not stare my own thoughts and mistakes in the face for longer than absolutely necessary.

okay, let's hold hands and go forth into summer love.

Chapter 1: prologue - I've been in the dark

Alina’s tea is not really passable as tea, but Shane drinks it anyway - bundled up in one of her softest blankets because it’s chilly on the porch this early in the morning, but he stays and he drinks the tea and he listens to the stories she shares about the universities she visited in between then and now. 

Shane finally feels like he’s at home, one week into being moved fully into the cottage and it finally settles in. He and Alina can have tea once a week and just…exist. There is no more hockey to go back to. Alina will be the one to fly away - off to some writer’s retreat, off to some far away place where people who understand poetry will listen to her and be in awe - give her the respect she deserves. 

Probably she always felt the same way when he would close up for the season. She never did care who he was or what he did, as long as he didn’t mind her foraging for tea ingredients, she left him well enough alone. That’s what she told the realtor she’d do when Shane had wanted to reach out before he bought the property. She had said that exactly.

As long as I can forage for my tea, he can buy the whole damn continent. Except of course, she pinned him down immediately and invited him over and now they’re friends in a way that Shane doesn’t really have friends and he’s learned things from her that he will never truly be able to repay her for - about himself and the world and about what it means to be quiet with someone here.

Shane sips at his tea and hums along as she talks about the writer’s retreat in Edmonton and the stacks of poems she came away with and he revels in the non-questions. She doesn’t ask him about his knee or his recovery or what his final payout was. She doesn’t ask him if it aches when it’s cold or if he will ever go into coaching or if he’s heard from the team. There is no discussion of his frankly nightmare inducing appearance at the end of season awards last year when he was still trying to not outright tell people he was never coming back.

Alina doesn’t care. 

She cares about him - she cares that he’s eating real food. She cares that he did try and read that book she gave him with the water tower on the cover and she cares that he comes over for tea and stays for oatmeal with nuts and frozen wild (foraged) berries. She cares about Shane and never Shane Hollander. 

“Is your lovely Rose coming by this year?” Alina asks, hand outstretched over the table towards him. 

Alina knows about him. She always has - before Shane even knew. She knew and she was quietly there for him until Rose came over for a few weeks and he brought her over for a visit and Alina said very firmly, “You are a lovely girl, Rose, but not for our Shane, you understand.”

Shane had only ever wished for the earth to swallow him up twice before that, but Rose had laughed and now Rose and Alina send each other postcards from wherever they are in the world and Shane looks at them tacked to fridges when he is in both of their houses and loves that they both have Alina. 

“You would know better than I would,” Shane admits, feeling slightly guilty for ignoring her calls the last two weeks. She wanted to be there for him as he was making the final preparations to leave his life in Montreal behind, but he didn’t want that. He had more than enough people being there for him since the injury and it was something he needed to do on his own. 

Alina raises one skinny eyebrow at him. Her face is unimpressed. “I expect you both over for dinner as soon as she arrives. Beginning of July, I think.”

It’s so easy and so simple and it’s exactly the kind of thing Shane has been craving since he went down on the ice for the last time of his career. “Sorry I missed you both last summer,” Shane says. “I was -”

“Don’t need to apologize to me,” Alina waves him off. “As long as you make an effort with this one.” She taps on the cover of a book. She’s always trying to push him, give him more to read, more to consider. To think about things from a different perspective. 

Shane nods and reaches for the book, smiling with Alina’s rough hand on his cheek. 

They have their oatmeal - made richer with milk and real butter that Alina churns herself. There’s a period of silence where Shane attempts to slog through the forward of the new book Alina has given him and Alina scribbles away at loose leaf pages she freewrites on when she’s away and they exist in the quiet together.

Shane sits on the porch and he eventually helps with the dishes and then he’s sent on his way, excited to see her again in a week. Excited to bring Rose back with bottles of wine that he might indulge in now that he’s retired and maybe he will finally allow her to run wild and set up a projector and they can invite Alina over and watch one of her old films. 

Rose would love that. Alina would love that. 

It feels good to be back - right. He had missed her last summer when he was stuck in Montreal, rehabbing and getting fourth and fifth opinions and trying desperately to work out the rest of his contract with the Metros without them thinking he wanted to leave. 

33 is not old in hockey these days. And sometimes at night when he’s got his compression sleeve on his leg and he’s relaxed down and he’s not aching, he wonders if he didn’t push hard enough, if he didn’t want it bad enough, but then he steps wrong or it goes out from under him and he remembers that he would never ever trust his body again and he knows it was right.

34 is barrelling towards him fast and it’s probably best he didn’t push it. He still has mobility. He still has function. Who knows what could have happened in a season or two if he didn’t stop. He never thought he’d be the guy who didn’t push and go for the experimental surgery and force it until failure, but the memory of his mother’s shaky voice as she told him she would find anyone to sign off on him if that’s what he wanted paired with the way he will maybe forever and ever hear the hurt, crumpled up noise she made that morning in the hospital when he opened his eyes and she had to tell him what happened made the decision for him.

He can’t do that to her. 

He can’t do that to his dad who sobbed in the bathroom the first night Shane was home because everything hurt and nothing was working and Shane can’t…Shane can’t. 

It’s what he’s thinking as he pulls his car back onto the new concrete pad he poured for the carport. Even if it’s hideous, his contractor managed to mostly hide it in the woods. It’s better to play it safe than him slipping in the winter now that he’s here full time - or mostly full-time. He has an apartment in Montreal even though he sold his condo. And he bought an apartment in Ottawa because it made sense to not always stay with his parents when he needed to go into the city, but he’s mostly here now and it’s good, he’s good. 

Maybe he’ll call Rose and see if she could come out sooner. He shouldn’t have pushed her away and Alina would love to see her. He decides that’s what he’ll do as soon as he is done rearranging his new office furniture. 

Rose agrees to come in for Shane’s birthday. She insists he invite the Pikes - the Metro’s season over. She has already invited Alina and his parents. She hints at wanting to invite Miles, but Shane went there. It didn’t work. He would like to leave it well in the past. 

She orders a projector and a cake he’s sure David will be sent to fetch and Shane looks forward to his birthday for the first time in three years. 

Which is why it’s so devastating when Alina doesn’t make it - that they end up at a wake instead. 

Chapter 2: navigating on my own

Chapter Summary

Shane turns 35 and meets his new neighbor.

Chapter Notes

Well, actually I decided to go chaos mode on this one and I will update when I'm done. sorry to everyone who likes order. That won't be found here.

Chapter title from Sweet Chamomile by Ruth B

The snow melts properly for the first time this year and the construction crew arrives the next day. 

Shane has been anticipating it. The sale went through only a few weeks ago after Rose and Shane had talked it over at length if Shane was going to buy the property or not, but Janine had called and said that there was an interested party who was quietly asking around. An artist that wanted to put down roots in Canada. 

She probably should not be telling Shane details about her clients even if they are all some sort of celebrity but maybe that’s why she told him. Shane has met plenty of artists since catapulting to hockey fame and they rarely care about who he is. Besides, Rose had pushed him towards it, reminding him that even if this artist isn’t around all the time, it would be good for someone to be close to him.

He can read between the lines. Rose worries all the time that Shane is alone in the woods too much. She worries and Shane understands and so the sale goes through and Shane goes over to meet the ex-husband that Alina always spoke so fondly about and takes a box of things that he had labeled Shane and Shane had waited until he got home to cry and then he waited for the new owner. 

The new owner arrived in the form of a construction crew and more noise than he would like to deal with as the sun emerges from its winter cover, but it’s over quickly and somehow that settles Shane. Surely if the new owner gutted the whole thing, they would not be done in a few short weeks?

Maybe there will be some Alina left behind. 

Shane assumes it’s happening now and that he’ll miss the new owner moving in - the artist. He goes to Montreal for a doctor’s appointment that he has never bothered to move to Ottawa because the drive really isn’t that bad and it always gives him an excuse to sleep in Jackie and Hayden’s guest room for a few days and see the kids.

Except he gets back and he gets bold and drives all the way down the little dead end road and there is no car, no lights, nothing to indicate that anyway is there. 

He folds it into his routine. He stretches the hiking route he takes when the weather is good and nothing is slick and he goes all the way around to the cove where The New Artist’s house is and he maybe watches it for signs of life. 

When he hears the signs of a car on the road, he perks up and waits. It’s never them and Shane is thinking perhaps this is not the primary residence. Perhaps this new owner has no intentions of actually using this house which is probably fine, except Shane had been…hoping maybe…

Which is foolish. He moved out here for peace - he moved out here to really work it out how he might - how it might not sting so badly. 

And when he works to name that feeling or emotion or whatever the fuck the therapist his mom made him see for a year after his injury as some kind of (he only suspects this) gentle suicide watch because at some point she joined in with the hoards of journalists and hockey players and analysts that thought of Shane as Only Having Hockey and Nothing Else, he fails rather quickly because he has never been good at dealing with hope. It’s probably his most fatal flaw. 

He’s very good at what’s in front of him. Concrete things. He thinks it’s why hockey was the thing he clung to as a child when it became increasingly clear he was not on the same level as the kids around him - socially. Hockey changed, sure. Plays and players and ice and coaches and leagues were all different, but Shane could achieve the same goal over and over. 

Be the best, follow the rules, score, assist, skate fast, go go go. 

It’s why he was so utterly bad at his injury. Probably. The new therapist that he sees via Zoom three times a month is much better and doesn’t really push Shane to name his emotions much or talk about the injury. Instead they talk about Shane’s future. They talk about Shane’s relationships. They talk about the autism that Shane got diagnosed with after the injury and made Shane feel like he had lost more than hockey somehow. 

Shane thinks maybe the feeling discussions are coming - a sneak attack of some kind, but for now it’s good enough and he tries hard and it makes Yuna worry less.

He goes to LA for a week. Rose can’t come out for his 35th birthday and insists that this is how they should celebrate even if it’s a week too soon.

She buys him this outrageously gorgeous green shirt that he has no reason to wear and they eat sushi at that place in a strip mall that doesn’t allow phones and Shane remembers how unsettling LA is when they end up at some house party up in those hills where the houses hang off the damn side and everyone has too much money and they’re all crying about some band that is breaking up but playing one last show tomorrow night. 

They get invited. Over and over. Rose makes excuses and hides behind the diva she can be and Shane loves her because it sounds like hell. Concerts in general. 

They leave when there’s a rumor that a few of said band members are coming and they ride silently back to Rose’s apartment that is reasonably not hanging off the side of a hill and they hold hands over the middle seat. 

Rose told him once that she was his platonic soulmate, which sounds made up to Shane, but when they have weeks like this, it doesn’t feel so made up. When she holds his hand and runs her thumb over his knuckles, it doesn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin and it’s nice to be touched by someone he trusts and loves. 

Probably pathetic too a little bit. 

It’s a worry that his parents have for him, he knows. They had barely contained their glee when he told them he was coming to see Rose - not because they think something between the two of them will happen. They haven’t asked about that in ages even if they don’t know that Shane is gay. 

They just worry about him being alone and not getting hugs or whatever because his mom always hugs him twice before they leave. She started doing it when he got drafted. One for now and one for later, she would say. 

He realized much later - years later - that she was doing it because she knew that he wasn’t hugging people. 

It was harder back then. Hookups were more draining than they were worth. He realized later it was the female piece of that equation. It got moderately better when he slept with his first man. 

He still didn’t do much casual sex. Shane knows now that his hangups and weirdness and all of that is something he can’t help and now that he’s more settled in his sexuality, it’s easier to not be so insecure about the things he needs from someone in his bed, but it’s still probably not enough to not meet the minimum human contact required for -

Jackie read this article about healing once. Hayden had snapped his ankle in their third season. One of those freak things that will probably never happen again, but it did happen to Hayden and Jackie had managed somehow to handle Hayden and the twins and had been full of grace and love and found supplements and exercises and studies about how best to help his recovery 

She read this article about contact and how it helped speed along the healing process and maybe it was all bullshit, but when Shane was hurt and he was crumbling inside, Jackie would show up and she would hold his hand and touch his arm and sit so close to him. 

It still happens now. Because he’s still healing, technically. Will be healing for the rest of his life and so probably he should have more touching in his life, but. Well, sometimes that’s not how life goes. 

“Shaney,” Rose says, her voice sleepy and low. “I think it’s going to be a good year for us.”

Shane smiles at her. He hopes it will be. For the both of them. 

Yuna and David bring over a cake that Shane actually likes. It’s tart lemon sponge with some sort of whipped cream that doesn’t dissolve and it’s delicious and almost a bit bitter and he asks for them to leave him a slice of it and does not miss the way Yuna’s eyes get a little misty. 

He spends three hours after they leave on the couch dutifully replying to text messages and Instagram DM’s and liking twitter posts and feeling a little overwhelmed that this many people are reaching out to him, but then again there is already talk about some kind of lifetime achievement award next year and hall of fame and and and - 

It’s why he sleeps in the next morning. It’s why he’s not sitting on his porch at dawn having his morning tea. It’s why he’s there when he hears the truck, loud and large and he knows immediately that the artist has finally arrived. 

He cannot stop hearing Alina’s voice in his head as he skulks around his house for the rest of the day. 

He should take a little basket over and introduce himself, but he only has a dusty bottle of wine that Rose brought a few visits ago and he thinks was probably pretty cheap based on the way Rose described it and it’s not like Shane thinks that this person will be his new Alina. Alina is irreplaceable. Alina was - is - Shane has struggled with the loss of her since he heard the ambulance come wailing down their little road. 

The memory of it - of standing at his kitchen sink, hearing it get closer and closer as something quiet in his chest got louder and louder. I will never be the same. 

It was what happened to him in the hospital. It’s what happened to him the first time a man licked over his collarbone in a questionable sports bar bathroom in West Hollywood. Shane can pinpoint each major deviation in his life by that feeling in his chest.

He does not have that feeling now and he doesn’t want it, he just wants to…be a good neighbor.

Which is how he finds himself driving over to the farmer’s market for those big fat cookies with the chip crumbs and the chocolate that Rose loves and Shane refuses. 

Maybe a bad move. They’re not vegan or gluten free or low fat, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe this artist does not mind any of those things. 

Shane buys a dozen and a bottle of the blackberry wine and one of those soy candles that smell like chamomile because maybe if there’s anything left of Alina in that house, she will recognize it and be at peace. 

It’s a respectable housewarming gift and Shane gives himself no time to back out of it - he drives his car right over there, stopping before he actually pulls into the driveway and very carefully shuffles his way down the steep stairs that deposit him onto the front door. 

He hears a dog before he’s even managed to knock on the door and then he sees a dog before he sees the artist. Mostly because the dog jumps onto Shane and begins to do their very best to knock him over. 

“Sorry, sorry,” The (presumed) artist says, bending down and scooping the dog up into his arms and that’s when Shane is hit by a long series of regrets all at once. 

It starts with buying this property and ends with wearing these fuckass shorts that Rose is always begging him to throw away. Because The Artist is…the artist is far more beautiful than anything Shane could have cooked up in his horny dreams. 

Tall and broad and there’s a mole on his cheek that Rose would declare herself jealous of and a jaw that Shane will probably think about feeling in between his teeth later.

“She has been living in the bus for months, she is too excited by all of this space.” His voice is deep and lush. “She does not know how to act.” The artist bends down and kind of shunts her back into the house and shuts the door behind him, leaning against it and then he very blatantly drags his eyes over Shane’s body and fuck these shorts, my god. Shane is stupid. 

Shane wants to say literally anything. Rose would make a joke about also not knowing how to act with a lot of space after being cooped up on a set, but Shane is not Rose and he lives in nothing but space so that would be weird. 

He could ask how he’s settling in, but if he’s been doing that Van Life thing, he probably doesn’t have much to settle. So, that seems strange. 

There’s an introduction. Shane should introduce himself. It’s not his first day on earth. His hand.

He ends up shoving the basket of things between their bodies and saying, “Shane Hollander” and then promptly wishing to be scraped from this earth. “I live -” and then he waves towards his house. Because he needs to be scraped from this earth. 

“Ilya,” the artist says, taking the basket from Shane’s hand, shifting it around so he can shake Shane’s hand. He says his name softly, it fits together so beautifully. Shane realizes he’s been saying that little figure skater’s name wrong this whole time. Ilya. Ilya. One seamless syllable.

He’s beautiful. 

It’s insane and Shane is no stranger to beautiful people and he’s no stranger to desire, but it’s shocking to him how…it flares up in his throat and consumes him. 

Shane knows desire. He lived with desire in one form or another forever. It made him the best, it sent him into questionable bars in Mexico and West Hollywood and Tampa Bay and he knows what it’s like to lust. He hooked up with a guy last year when he flew to see Rose while she was filming in Italy and it was fine and the guy was hot and he held Shane down and it was good. 

But maybe not good enough if Shane is immediately thinking about Ilya’s name and his hands and the way he’s grinning at Shane like he’s one word away from snapping those white teeth at Shane to see if he would flinch.

This has never happened to him before or maybe it did and Shane didn’t notice when he was repressing himself or he was repressing in front of other people or he was too tired from 82 games and travel and then recovery. 

Maybe Shane missed the opportunity for something like this to swallow him whole and he for sure should miss this because this guy lives on the same road as Shane and Shane has always tried to keep his failed attempts at something contained so they don’t contaminate his whole life, but Ilya is still shaking his hand and he says, “Hello, Shane, it is good to meet my neighbor.”

His accent is faint, but it’s there and he’s got a tattoo of a ribbon winding around his arm and ending tied around his wrist in a bow, full of cyrilic writing and Shane is the one that lets go of his hand first - coming back to his senses. 

“I just wanted to stop by,” Shane says, already backing away. “You know where to find me if you need anything.” He can feel his smile is weird and fake and he watches Ilya’s eyebrows come together in confusion as Shane shuffles backwards up the first step. 

He forces himself not to turn around, not when he hears gentle, lilting Russian and a playful happy yip from the dog. Not when he gets to the top of the stairs. Not at all.

Because Shane had a moment of heat stroke or temporary insanity or something because he was kind of rude and weird and it will be fine because Ilya - the artist - likely won’t live here full time. 

Shane only made an ass out of himself in front of a literal god and that’s fine because Shane is more than his misplaced desire. 

He very carefully does not tell Rose when she calls that night.

Chapter End Notes

Okay so the official book club for this fic will be for the Prologue:
Book with water tank on the cover: Joan Didion - Miami
Book he gets during their scene: Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury (Which did not have a traditional forward when published, but the copy I own has one!) ((Alina is trying to speak to himmmmmmm))

No books this chapter, but books next chapter!

The cookies that Shane picks up are what I would call trash cookies and unfortunately Ilya Rozanov would love them. I have this chocolate chip cookie recipe that has maple syrup in it and I swap out half the chocolate chips for peanut butter chips and then I add in some crushed up wavy potato chips (they have to be the wavy kind) OR if no wavy chips you can use some crunched up hard pretzels. I prefer the chips and then I like to press the top of the unbaked cookie into some baking sugar and when they're fresh out of oven, they get a healthy sprinkle of your favorite finishing salt. They are insane and so over indulgent. The perfect sweet/salty snack. Shane would HATE them. What do you mean there's maple syrup in the cookie and then you put more sugar in them and then you put more sugar on top.

Anyway, I'm headed out of town, so probably a week between chapters, but I'm a lying liar who lies.

You can come talk to me on Tumblr as long as you don't bully me :)))) WolfieMcWolferson

Chapter 3: and I notice you are elegant

Chapter Summary

Shane has two (2) unexpected visitors.

Chapter Notes

Chapter title from Cinderella by Model/Actriz.

I promise, I have most of the next chapter written and it is quite a bit longer. I just am doing set up for where we are and what will happen in this fic.

From here on out, it's all uh, insanity. :) :) :) :)

Shane nearly proposed to Rose Landry. 

It’s something that will live and die between himself and the jewelry store associate that helped him in downtown Vancouver. 

He knew that things were rapidly cooling off between them because of Shane, but the thing was - is - that even when it was bad, even when Shane was crawling the fucking walls to get out of kissing Rose at a houseparty in front of her X Squad cast, he still wanted her around. When it was just the two of them, it was fucking magic. 

Miles had helpfully informed him three months later when she finally agreed to let Rose cover for them to meet up after a game that what Shane was experiencing was something he called queening out. Shane doesn’t really like that term, and really that’s probably why he has so much fucking problems dating, but for two whole days after Rose patted him on the chest at the hotel entrance and told him they’d talk when he got back to Montreal, Shane convinced himself he was going to lose her forever and the only way to keep her was to propose.

He had picked out a ring. It was probably really fucking great for someone to get if being proposed too. Shane still has no real understanding of how much jewelry costs because he’s not bought much of it - his mom prefers practical items like huge leather bags and trench coats and snow tires - but he imagines that if he had bought that ring, eventually some hack journalist that worked for TMZ would have found that store associate and would have printed a quote about how only a man that deep in love would buy a diamond that big. 

Shane had held it in his hand and looked down at the ring and even though it was pretty, he didn’t feel anything. Dread. 

And he had spent years at that point listening to Hayden wax poetic about buying Jackie’s ring even though Shane was there with him and Hayden was far too hungover to really have any show of outward emotions about the ring. But, the point was - Shane felt nothing that could even be twisted around into happiness and he realized that probably meant that proposing to Rose to keep her was probably the wrong thing to do. 

Shane thinks this more than anything else he put himself through while contorting himself and his desires into approved heterosexuality shows just how far Shane is willing to take something to not think about it.

He can twist and grind and force something into a palatable nothing by sheer force of ignorance and he’s good at doing it. 

Which is what he tries very very hard to do with Ilya. His new neighbor. 

It’s just that.

Well.

This is not supposed to be happening.

He doesn’t know what he expected, but not this and Shane is working hard to ignore that spark of something that he absolutely knows, but refuses to name because if he doesn’t name it, it’s not happening. 

He spent all day on the long list of things he’s been putting off to get ready for the summer and it made his leg ache enough that he took one of his muscle relaxers and slept through the night and his first alarm as a result. 

He’s determined to not think about it again today, but also not overdo it, so what he does is make himself a cup of tea and one of those cold porridge bowls that made him go viral on TikTok last year when Montreal was still pushing him out on socials because they were convinced he wouldn’t really retire and he goes to sit in his hammock and make his yearly try with the first book Alina ever gave him.

He’s read it all the way through. Probably more than once, but he somehow never fully grasped it the way Alina wanted him to and so he keeps trying. He always keeps trying. 

And that’s when he is confronted with the knowledge that he absolutely cannot press this down because one single syllable from Ilya when Shane is not expecting it and it feels like someone grabs the base of his spine and yanks. 

“Oh,” Ilya says and Shane’s book goes flying on account of the yanking and he slops some tea onto his chin and his shirt and then kind of goes tumbling out of the hammock in a way that ensures Shane will replay this moment for the rest of his life. 

Miraculously, Shane does some kind of flip because he lands on his ass - which is still great, thank you - and the only real injury is to his dignity. Even his book is dry and his mug is unharmed. 

“Fuck,” Ilya rushes forward, but Shane’s vision is obscured by the dog who is eager to help Shane clean himself of the tea, but also just to check on him based on the way she’s sniffing him. “Anya, sorry,” 

Shane is once again forced to watch Ilya scoop his dog - Anya - up and hold her tightly against his chest. He’s in a tshirt with the arms cut off and now Shane is being treated to an even more muscled tattooed surface of skin. It’s ridiculous. 

“Are you…okay?” Ilya hesitates over the last word and Shane realizes he’s not said a single word. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Shane shakes his head, plucking up his book and also the handle of his mug and Ilya shuffles back so that Shane can stand. Ilya is still close though so Shane reaches out to pet at Anya’s head because he has no idea what to do with his hands and also it seems easier to look at her if he’s petting her and that will save him from having to look at Ilya’s little wrinkle between his eyes that deepens with Shane’s answer. 

“You are…hurt?” Ilya asks.

Shane takes a breath and before saying no, of course I’m not hurt, he sighs. “I think probably just my pride.”

Ilya rewards him with a laugh, throaty and deep. Anya wiggles more violently in response. “Yes, you went ass over tea kettle.”

It makes Shane flush further. “I did, didn’t I?” And then he looks up at Ilya’s face and finds some odd softness there that feels too intimate and makes Shane take a startled step back. 

“We were out for our morning walk,” Ilya says, “I spoiled her on the road and now she always always wants to go on very long walk after breakfast.” His face is doing something serious, but his voice is still so fond. “Anya, be good girl, yes? No licking.” 

Anya leaps down from his arms and does as she’s told. She puts her nose down and immediately starts to make a circle around Ilya’s feet. 

“The trees are very thick here,” Ilya gestures to the mouth of the trail between his cottage and Ilya’s. It is an immediate bend. If you do not know that Shane’s cottage is here, you would be startled by it - one turn and then open space. “I think maybe I am not as good with distance? I thought we were not close enough to be here yet. I did not mean to -” and then he does a little flipping motion with his hand.

“Alina was free to wander,” Shane says. “I told my -” He’s stumbling over the explanation because Ilya is…staring at him. Intense and wild and Shane feels ass over tea kettle. “You are free to use the property however you want. The trails, the plant life, the lake. I um…I live here full time, but I'm quiet and -”

Ilya reaches over and touches Shane’s hand. A brush. Nothing more than that. “Anya and I,” Ilya says, “we have not had quiet in a couple of years, we would maybe like some quiet.”

Shane has no idea how to interpret that because his brain has stopped processing anything beyond the burning on his hand. 

How did he not notice Ilya’s eyes how did he not notice the scar on his eyebrow how did he not notice the peek of a tattoo on his neck. 

He’s wanting on him to speak. 

“Well, we have plenty of that,” Shane says. 

We have plenty of that?

Shane will have to run away and change his identity if he cannot even converse with his neighbor. 

He decides to put both his hands to use before he does something ridiculous so he shuffles the mug over to one hand and the movement draws Ilya’s gaze. “You are reading -”

“Alina,” Shane cuts him off because this is truly his first interaction on earth and he has never spoken to a single person in his life. “Alina gave it to me, I have uh -”

“No no,” Ilya shakes his head and Shane tries very hard to be fine about the way his bangs kind of sway. “I think it is great. Bell hooks. It is the classic, right? For good reason.”

Artists. “Yes, uh.” Shane is completely out of his element. “I have to be honest, I am not very good at um -” he kind of shakes the book. 

“I am not very good at it either,” Ilya says and Shane thinks he’s definitely lying for Shane’s benefit. He winks. Ilya winks. It makes him feel so wobbly. Like the first time he got back on skates after his injury. 

“I have to make some more tea,” Shane says, “if you wanted to -” he gestures back to his cottage, but Ilya’s gaze is now locked on the patch of chamomile that Anya is sniffing and something inside of him has gone startlingly still. 

There’s a long moment where it appears that Ilya is completely unreachable before he makes a kind of clicking noise with his tongue and Anya immediately bounds for him. “I am sorry, Shane, but I think today I will take Anya home, yes? Some other time.”

It’s far too similar to the way Shane retreated - quick and almost stumbling over himself. He starts to speak calmly to Anya in another language. But, the difference is that when Ilya and Anya get to the treeline, Ilya turns back to wave at Shane - none of the warmth has bled back into his eyes, but he waves anyway. 

Shane tries to work it out the whole time he is making himself another cup of tea. That far off look that Ilya had on his face. 

He never can.

Shane opens his back door the next morning, tea in hand and finds the basket he took to Ilya’s on his table. There’s a bottle of probable vodka in it and a beat up yellow book resting against it. 

Shane picks it up, depositing his tea carefully next to the basket and opens it up to the page where a card is peeking out of the spine. 

It’s a carefully written phone number in scratchy penmanship and the words Ilya Rozanov - dinner at my cottage tomorrow night? Text me.

The word cottage is underlined.

Shane is…unsure about everything. He’s not great at reading people normally, but there’s something here. 

It feels a bit like the night he met Rose. Even though he ran away and then Ilya kind of fled too - something about him feels good. Shane tries to imagine what Rose would say. She would tell him to go. She would take his phone and text him herself.

Shane leaves the book and the vodka and the tea and goes back inside for his phone. 

What time is dinner? He texts.

And then adds And what can I bring?

The response is immediate. Nothing. See you at 7, Shane.

Shane shocked, but happy. In a way that he doesn’t yet understand.

Chapter End Notes

I have an outline, but I'm going to be honest with you, I've already deviated.

The other night I was messaging Sol absolutely batshit things about what suffering I can give them and she saved you all from this taking a hard pivot lol I feel better now and no longer have plans to get Shane Hollander shot. Everyone say "thank you sol" in the comments. I'm American. I can still get a gun.

The chocolate chip cookie recipe is officially up on my Tumblr @wolfiemcwolferson and you're only allowed to come get it if you are nice

Chapter two book club:
Shane is reading Bell Hooks - All About Love when Ilya wanders up on him - it is theeeeee love book to me. Real and true.
The book that Ilya leaves Shane is a book of translated poetry: Cat Town - Sakutaro Hagiwara, Translated by Hiroaki Sato. I first read Sakutaro on Tumblr of all places when reading about banned literature. Every time I read translated work I become irate that I only speak one language and then I try and am immediately bad at a language and am full of shame and loathing so deep that I quit. Anyway, reading translated Sakutaro Hagiwara was the first time I wished I could brave Japanese.

Chapter 4: and I notice you are gentle

Chapter Summary

Dinner at Ilya's

Chapter Notes

Chapter title from Cinderella by Model/Actriz

Hello hello, Sorry to leave you guys hanging for a little bit, but here's this chapter.

Anyway, if you're here from any sort of social media, wow thank you, welcome. I only use Tumblr, but I have seen some Instagram reels with recs for my long Ilya centric fic and I hope if you found me from there, you stick around for my other works.

I gave this whole chapter truly like...one pass.

Shane does not tell Rose about dinner which means he can’t FaceTime her and ask her what to wear, so he settles for that ridiculous shirt she bought him and a good pair of shorts - not one of the horrible pair that he resolves to throw away. 

He thinks he looks…nice. Hot, probably. The shirt has the best kind of tag (nonexistent) and the sleeves stayed rolled up (even though the material is so soft) and the shorts hug his thighs and maybe Ilya is in a committed relationship or is vaguely into men in the way that sometimes happens where flirting is fine, but anything more is not. 

He risks it. If it’s nothing more than a nice outfit and some dinner and maybe a vague friendship that will be enough. 

He drives even though he could walk because it looks like rain a little bit and Shane won’t risk slipping. His knee and ankle feel stable, but he’s learned to not push it too hard. Driving means he convinces himself to stand at his front door until exactly 6:57 because he doesn’t want to be early but anything more than 5 minutes late is probably too late. 

He’s got one bottle of wine he will not drink and a six pack of his favorite organic ginger ale and he does not let himself spiral about not bringing the hockey book he pulled out of his office that was about soviet era hockey because it felt…like too much. If Ilya doesn’t know who he is, he feels like hockey might be a topic he doesn’t know how to navigate yet, so he leaves it on the entry way table to be re-evaluated after he understands what this is meant to be. 

He can figure that out and then think about the book. 

There’s no time for him to spiral about it because Ilya is waiting on his front porch when Shane starts in on the stairs down the hill, but Ilya makes a kind of clicking noise and says, “I heard your car. Come and park down here. Those terrify me.” He points aggressively towards the empty parking space under the tree and at the stairs. 

Ilya is right. The stairs are not great. They needed replacing two years ago and that has only doubled at this point, so Shane waves at him and turns. He’s better at not pushing. He’s better at following the limits he’s set for himself. 

Ilya is still on the porch, but this time he’s leaning against the post closest to the driveway and it’s ridiculous how beautiful he is. 

He’s got on jeans with holes in the knees, but they look real. Kind of like the jeans his dad wears every year when he gets the garage unpacked from the winter. Worn through and broken down by one body until they have creases and worn patches and places that only one person could make. The tank top is obscene and Shane wonders briefly if Ilya wore it because he knows what his shoulders look like and he’s trying to…show off. It’s why Shane wore these shorts. And this shirt. He knows he looks good and maybe…

“Hi,” Ilya’s face is scrunched up by the force of his smile and then he tries very hard to sound displeased. “I told you not to bring anything.”

Shane does his best to shrug with the bottle of wine in the crook of his arm and the ginger ale in the other hand. He wants to say I am used to having to bring my own drinks because he did because it was easier than asking everyone for ginger ale during the season and because Yuna would have some sort of cardiac event if she found out Shane was showing up at people’s houses without wine.

He’s saved from that because Ilya steps off the porch and onto one of the little rock steps and reaches for the ginger ale and Shane lets him take it. Ilya holds it up in front of his face. “Is this your favorite?”

Shane blinks and manages to choke out a little “yes,” and Ilya nods at him, still smiling, still looking at him soft and kind. 

“I locked Anya in the bathroom,” Ilya says, turning around and waving at Shane to follow up. “Harris -” and then he pauses as he yanks the door open, “his family alllll have dogs -” he’s smiling so widely and not explaining who Harris is at all. “He told me maybe because she is not so used to meeting just one new person at a time in her own space, we can try this. I put her in the bathroom and let her smell that someone is here and then she will be calmer and not jump all over you.”

It’s strange. Shane normally would mind. He’s not big on dog hair or being licked because dog’s mouths are surely full of disgusting things he really doesn’t want to think about, but there’s something endearing about Anya and her owner. Shane maybe would not be thinking that way if he had a truly satisfying sexual experience with someone else in the last six months, but he hasn’t, so he doesn't mind Ilya’s hyperactive dog. 

Thinking about Anya saves him from looking at the house too closely until Ilya is setting the ginger ale down inside the fridge and saying, “I will get her, hold on.”

And then Shane is standing in the open kitchen/dining room/living room area and staring at the empty walls. 

He assumed it would be covered in artwork, but Ilya did just really move in and maybe he has some storage unit somewhere he’s waiting on things from, but then Shane has to stop thinking about it because Anya comes scrambling around the corner, but does stop abruptly right at the edge of the kitchen and sits down and waits. 

“Good girl, Anya,” Ilya says, looming over her - his legs on either side of her body, petting at her head, his hair hanging down in his face. “Okay, this is the solution, yes?” Ilya tilts his face up at Shane and is still smiling. “I did not want to make the house hot with the oven, so I made cold dinner, I hope that is okay?”

Shane kind of shrugs one shoulder again because he feels on the backfoot again and disarmed by Ilya’s beauty and he just doesn’t know. 

Ilya doesn’t seem to mind because he scoops Anya up and walks her towards Shane and says, “I also have emergency pasta if you do not want salad.”

Shane doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he reaches up and pets at Anya’s head, looking at the little bow clipped to her fur over her ear. That makes his stomach flip over. It’s so silly and sweet and it must mean she trusts Ilya a great deal to let him do that and leave it there. “Salad is perfect,” he says, his voice a little tight. 

Ilya makes a kind of huffing noise and Shane glances up at him to try and work out what it means, and freezes. Ilya is looking at him in a way that Shane cannot misinterpret. It feels like he can’t breathe. It suddenly feels like he can’t breathe and he doesn’t know what to do because they’ve really exchanged so few words, but Shane feels it all over - the pull. It’s insane and crazy and Shane doesn’t know what to do with this feeling because he’s never been the one to tip something over into something else. 

But, that’s crazy because Shane doesn’t know this man at all. Not really. 

He watches Ilya’s tongue dart out and swipe across his lower lip. Shane stares at it wondering what it would be like to taste it. 

And then Ilya leans back and takes a shuddering breath - like he’s decided that no, he can’t do this either. “I have a question,” Ilya says, his voice bright still. 

Shane nods, tries to work out words that make sense, but all he’s really thinking about is Ilya’s shoulder and the bow on Anya’s fur and the salad that Ilya made them apparently. 

Ilya starts to walk backwards and only stops to let Anya down at the edge of the hallway. “What is this little room?” He pats on the door that’s behind him and Shane kind of laughs, but mostly it sounds strangled. 

He’s never actually been in that room, but Ilya is opening the door - the one that opens up into the hallway, not into the room because every inch of space was precious. 

It’s smaller than Shane even realized - not really big enough for the two of them, but he follows Ilya right inside and stands across from him with his thumbs tucked into his pockets. “Alina -” he tries not to wince. “She had the room built for her writing desk.” He gestures towards the back wall. “When she needed to edit, she said she couldn’t be anywhere else but a very small space, so she had a desk there and would shut the door.”

Ilya is nodding. “The photo online made it seem larger. I do not know what I will do with it.”

It solidifies for Shane that Ilya did not see this place before buying it and that worries him for a moment because it’s a different life out here and Shane wants him to like it, which is kind of insane. He can admit to himself. 

He’s pulled away from that thought by Ilya reaching out and taking hold of Shane’s shoulders and holding him out all the way. Shane’s back is against the wall and Ilya’s back is against the wall. It’s that small. Ilya is smiling at him and it does something unbelievably lovely to his face. “I could store…I do not know. I could build a shelf and store something.”

Shane wrinkles his nose up. There’s a little storage shed and a basement on the property already. “You could build an Anya room.” Which is silly, but Ilya’s touch is kind of scrambling his brain. “A bed and you could put a half door in and this could be the place you use to introduce her to new people? And her own space for her toys?”

Ilya releases him just to clap his hands and he looks so childlike with delight. “Yes, Shane, this is an excellent idea! She will love it and I will love to have a place for all her squeaky toys.”

Shane knows his eyes are all squinted up, but Ilya really is…something. He’s -

“Okay, but this is not a room for me,” Ilya laughs and reaches again for Shane, but this time grips his bicep and leads him out. “I do not maybe like very small spaces. I had a bad experience in a coffin for a show and now I am kind of -” and then he shivers in an exaggerated way. 

He must be one of those performance artists. 

Rose made him watch a documentary about a female performance artist once. It was kind of lost on Shane like, the whole meaning of it, but he did get a little emotional about the part where she was sitting at a table and her ex came to sit down with her. It felt like…a little bit like what it was like to sit with Rose sometimes. 

A romantic connection doomed to fail, but still full of immense love and respect and support. Shane knows it’s different, but it’s really the closest thing he could pull from and it had meant something to him. 

Ilya must do that stuff. Coffins and running through little rooms that have no end because they’re spinning constantly and painting things with an audience. He certainly is beautiful enough. People would pay to watch him do literally anything. 

“We should eat,” Ilya says, releasing Shane so he can pull the fridge open. “I made everything kind of separate so we can assemble what we like best.” And then he’s pulling lots and lots of covered bowls from his fridge and placing them on the counter. “Can you grab the wide bowls?” He nods towards the cabinet and Shane goes. 

There are only two deep shallow bowls, but they look handmade. They’re kind of wonky and a blue green color that maybe look like Ilya’s eyes.

“Sveta is trying her hand at new hobbies in retirement,” Ilya laughs. “I will buy better ones when I figure out -” he waves a hand around the mostly empty space. “I am trying to figure out what I even like anymore.”

It’s said a little more raw. Like maybe he didn’t mean to say it. It’s also deeply relatable. Shane didn’t know either when he finished with hockey. 

“Retirement does that to you,” Shane smiles with his lips pressed together and Ilya hums but doesn’t push and that more than anything else that’s happened tonight makes Shane wonder what the inside of Ilya’s mouth might taste like. 

He sets the wobbly bowls down next to Ilya and watches Ilya start to pry the tops off things. Little uniformly cut peppers and onions and chickpeas that look to be marinated in something and a bowl of dressing that Ilya must have made and Shane blinks at the food, the bowls, and then Ilya in that order. 

Obviously Shane’s diet has changed since retirement. He eats gluten pasta and real cheese and red meat when he goes to BBQ’s with people because there’s no reason not to do those things, but this is comfort to him. This meal and he never said anything and it feels weird and something Rose would call serendipitous and Shane is always always having to wade through his emotions after going home and figure out how he really feels about something because of delayed processing, but that strange tingle underneath his skin that he gets when he’s overwhelmed and needing a moment to process isn’t there at all. 

This feels like he is existing in a moment - something that doesn’t really happen to him, but it’s -

“Here,” Ilya says, placing a ginger ale down in front of Shane. “I will maybe have one glass of wine, if you want?”

Shane considers it for a moment, but then shakes his head. “No, this is good. Thank you.”

Ilya stares at the wine glass and then says, “You know what -” but it’s mostly to himself because he turns back towards the fridge and pulls it open and then pulls a ginger ale for himself out and cracks the top immediately. The fridge is still open - the light falling over his shoulder in a deeply concerning way and Shane is forced to watch Ilya’s throat work as he takes a long drink before he promptly chokes. 

Shane starts to laugh as ginger ale dribbles down Ilya’s chin. 

“This is not soda,” Ilya insists. “This is carbonated ginger.”

Shane likes all ginger ale, but this brand really is mostly carbonated ginger. It’s barely sweet and too strong, but it’s good and overpowering and grounding. He cracks the top of his can open and takes a slurping sip. It’s kind of gross, but Ilya laughs and sighs, taking another sip. “I should have warned you,” Shane concedes, but Ilya waves at him as he sets the can down and starts to dig in a cutlery drawer that seems to just be…loose silverware and a few serving spoons and Shane cannot help the shocked noise that falls from his throat. 

Ilya whips around to look at him wide eyed and that’s when Shane realizes he sounded wounded and maybe he is a little bit. “Ilya,” he says, his voice grave. “You do not own a silverware divider?”

Ilya’s laughter is the kind of noise that could power whole cities. “Fuck, Shane. I thought you were dying or something.” He’s clutching at his own chest as Shane kind of shoves him out of the way to inspect the drawer. It’s really an overfamiliar gesture, but Ilya is laughing and trying to jostle him back. 

“I just told you I am starting over, do not judge me.”

Shane allows himself to be crowded back towards the food, but only because Ilya is looking at him with joy on his face and also like he wants to eat him whole and Shane finds it hard to breathe with one of Ilya’s hands on his hip. 

“I have a whole list of things to buy,” he says. “You can actually help and tell me where I can buy things?” He lets go of Shane and moves towards the bowls, unstacking them and starting to load the bottom of both with lettuce that he’s obviously cut up into little slivers and then holding up each individual bowl of ingredients to ask if Shane would like some as he builds their dinner bowls and Shane recounts all the places in a 40 mile radius that have anything. Groceries and bakeries and the farmer’s market and the little hardware store that has catalogues of things that you can order from like the 90’s. 

The long answer, of course, is that Ilya might be better off shopping online because Amazon does deliver out here even if it is definitely not two day shipping, or driving into Ottawa and doing a big bulk buy. 

Shane admits he does that once a month. He goes in and buys things he can’t get out here at the local store. He’s telling Ilya about the little fish market that is probably not legal, but beloved in the next town over as follows Ilya to the couch and curls up and takes his bowl of dinner from him, insisting that Ilya will come over and have some of the flaky white fish that Shane always keeps in his freezer because it’s really his favorite and then Ilya will trust him and then he stops himself. 

“I don’t mean -” he shakes his head and pushes a slice of onion around with the tines of his fork. “I don’t want to interrupt your art time, I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask about that, I’m not being rude on purpose, it’s just…”

He has no idea how to talk about this or why he’s even talking about it because they’re having a lovely time and -

Ilya’s bowl makes a clanking sound against the wooden stool he’s using as a coffee table and Shane looks at him to find him looking at Shane openly - non-judgementally. “We can talk about anything else,” Ilya says, and probably he knows, but he is giving Shane an out and so Shane nods and Ilya slides closer to him on the couch and pulls his phone out of a pocket unlocks it with a long password, immediately opening his texting app and a thread with someone called “Baby Tramp” with the profile picture of Sidney Crosby which solidifies for Shane that Ilya knows who he is and is letting it go and then Shane is looking at photos of a little baby smushed between two men. 

“This is my goddaughter,” Ilya says. He’s letting them talk about anything else. Shane watches as Ilya starts swiping through photos and videos of a tiny little baby in outfits that seem to oscillate between frilly and goth like? Shane has many questions. “Her name is Willa.” And then there is one of her and Ilya. Ilya is beaming at the camera, tears running down his face as Willa is apparently screaming in displeasure based on how red she is and her open mouth. “She does not know it yet, but I will be her favorite uncle. I will take her to alllll places and spoil her rotten. Do you like kids?”

Shane doesn’t really know how to answer that.

He does like babies. He thinks when they’re small and squishy, they’re wonderful. He really loved holding Hayden and Jackie’s kids when they were tiny and small and precious. 

And then he lost them when they started walking. He always talked to them wrong or said the wrong thing or didn’t play right which was ridiculous because there is a right way to play, but he apparently doesn’t understand.

When they got to be about eight, he got them back. He felt like he could talk to them in a real way. He felt like he could talk to them as himself and they understood him. 

“I do,” he says because that’s easiest. “My best friend has four and I’m their -”

“Four?” Ilya huffs and laughs. “That is many children.”

Shane nods because it is a lot and he feels like maybe it’s too many children sometimes, but he also was kind of lonely growing up sometimes and he says so and then Ilya talks about how he wishes he had two brothers instead of just the one because maybe one would have been decent and Shane doesn’t want to press on that because Ilya gets tense and quiet so Shane says that people can’t just have three kids because then one is always left out and somehow he starts to argue passionately for four children.

At some point, Ilya plops his bowl back into his lap and argues back between mouthfuls of salad about three being the perfect number of children and Shane is laughing too hard for whatever this is and Shane realizes that this is flirting. A weird form of it sure, but Shane points his fork threateningly at Ilya and Ilya gnashes his teeth like a dog might and Shane feels faint with it - the knowledge that this is easy and flirty and if he wanted to he could probably slide into Ilya’s lap and kiss him and Ilya would let him.

And something must be too visible on his face because Ilya goes quiet, but not in that scary uncomfortable way where someone is waiting for Shane to figure out what is happening without using words. Ilya goes quiet because he’s watching Shane carefully, like he’s waiting for Shane to work out exactly what he’s thinking for himself. 

It feels good and weird and Shane is thinking about asking Ilya if he wants to kiss him, but he’s not quite bold enough so when he decides that he definitely wants Ilya to kiss him, he resolves to ask him at the end of the night and in the meantime he can - 

“I read a little bit about the poet.”

Ilya brightens. “Yes, I hm, I read a lot of poetry. All styles. I do not know if you have any interest, but if you do, I could find something you like.”

Shane shrugs one shoulder. He’s not disinterested in poetry, it just sometimes seems…it’s not straightforward ever and it makes him feel dumb. He thinks maybe if he said that, Ilya wouldn’t laugh at him the way that sometimes Rose’s Hollywood friends would when Shane admits to not understanding something arty and full of symbolism. 

Ilya knocks their knees together, one eyebrow raised. 

“Hockey players are not known for their appreciation of poetry,” Shane admits because he thinks probably Ilya already knows and also because it will help Shane feel less…pressure to respond in some thoughtful way. 

Ilya humphs and then sets his bowl back on the little stool and stands up, waving at Anya so she won’t follow him and disappears down the hall. 

There’s a library down the hall. In the original plans it was two bedrooms with a bathroom in the middle, but Alina had them open the space and build shelves all around the walls from floor to ceiling. It still wasn’t enough bookcases for her. She had books stacked in little piles in every corner of the house and famously inside the island in the kitchen. 

Shane is suddenly not really interested in the dredges of lettuce so he places his own bowl neatly next to Ilya’s on the stool and tries to keep himself from sitting on his hands because Ilya comes right back with a little book in his hand, laying it on the counter as he passes. “You can take that one.”

He throws himself back onto the couch with a little more space between them so he can pull one leg up and mostly face Shane. 

“You might like that one,” he nods. “Also, I think hockey players can enjoy anything.”

It hurts to breathe but not because the reminder of not being a hockey player aches. It’s like…Ilya saying that so casually - like the thing Shane used to say to himself when his anxiety was at its highest - when he was tearing himself to pieces to try and fit into boxes he could never cram himself in. 

He said it enough, but he thinks he’s just now believing it. 

Ilya’s mouth twists around like he’s tasting something in his mouth and his brows come together and he looks serious for a moment before he says, “I hope I did not make it…” he waves a hand. “I did not know it was you next door when I bought this.” He waves the same hand, but wider. 

“You do know who I am then.” Shane tries to keep his face neutral, but his voice kind of cracks. 

Ilya nods his head just a bit, but then he stops and he shakes his head instead. “I know Shane Hollander. Calvin Klein ads and GQ covers. But, no. Not that you are even prettier in person -”

Shane feels lightheaded.

“And that you are a tiny bit awkward,” Ilya winks and Shane feels squirmy inside his skin because he can’t really make that out. What Ilya means, but he doesn’t have to because Ilya drops his knee and hauls himself across the couch cushion until he’s pressed his chest into Shane’s shoulder. 

His eyes are tracking all over Shane’s face, one hand comes up to cup the back of Shane’s neck. 

Yes, he does want to kiss Shane. 

“Even prettier than the GQ cover,” Ilya says and then he does kiss Shane and Shane is immediately sinking into it like no first kiss has ever allowed. 

He doesn’t have to think or question, Ilya cups his neck and his face and he leads him where he wants him and sets a slow, beautiful pace and Shane is only present inside this kiss, inside the press of Ilya’s tongue on his mouth. 

It’s maybe the best kiss of Shane’s life and that is probably embarrassing and not something to admit to someone who kisses like this, but -

“Shane,” Ilya is beaming at him, stroking one thumb across Shane’s cheekbone. 

Shane doesn’t really trust his words right now, so he hums and blinks and nods all at the same time. A very normal, human gesture. Completely natural. 

Ilya’s eye crinkles deepen. “Do you want to help me put away dinner and then maybe I could kiss you some more and if you don’t have objections about sex on the first date, I could suck you off?”

Shane finds himself blinking and humming and nodding again because words are suddenly beyond him completely. Because all of that is insane. Ilya wants to - 

“Alright,” Ilya kind of…giggles. Which is ridiculous from someone that looks like that, but Shane finds himself making the same noise which is even crazier. 

“Only if,” Shane finds his voice, but it sounds weak so he tries again. “Only if I’m not taking too much of your time?”

Ilya looks at him so fondly it makes Shane want to dissolve into particles so small they can be carried away by the wind. “I think I’ll find the time for you.”

Shane is saved from having to come up with some kind of reasonable reaction to that because Ilya pats his thigh and then gathers their bowls and heads for the sink with them. 

Fuck him, he should not have an ass that good when he has everything else. 

Of course, he’s not thinking that at all when Ilya is sprawled on top of him on the couch 20 minutes later, Shane’s hands gripping his ass as Ilya ruts against him like a fucking teenage boy, lips attached to the hinge of Shane’s jaw while Shane makes tiny blissed out horribly embarrassing noises of pleasure and feeling like his body has ceased to exist outside of this tiny press of time.

He’s not really thinking about anything at all. Not then and not when Ilya helps him clean up in the tiny bathroom in the hall and not when Ilya insists that Shane wear some of his sweatpants and leave his clothes here for Ilya to wash. He’s not really thinking about anything at all until Ilya is kissing him on the mouth firmly and tucking the book he picked for him into Shane's hands and telling him that he’ll see him soon. 

And even then he’s only thinking about all the times he was told the same thing by a guy only to never see them again. He knows somehow that it’s different with Ilya. And not just because they’re neighbors. 

It’s the way Ilya’s eyes track over Shane’s face, the way his hands linger, the way he presses one last kiss not to Shane’s lips, but to the tip of his nose. 

Shane doesn’t really understand it, but he knows that his life has shifted. Tonight. The whole thing shifted a little to the left and maybe for the first time ever, he welcomes the shift.

Chapter End Notes

Book club time!

Ilya gives Shane A Further Range by Robert Frost. This is a little selfish of me because Robert Frost was my grandfather's favorite poet and was maybe the first bit of poetry I ever read. Ilya is thinking about the themes of nature will appeal to Shane and that it's not love based because he's (obviously) immediately tracked that Shane is gay and a little bit uncomfortable existing in the world already and making him think about romance is not the way to his heart.

Chapter 5: okay, I'll share this

Chapter Summary

An accident, a birthday, and and unplanned visit.

Chapter Notes

Chapter title once again from Model/Actriz's Cinderella.

We are slowly creeping towards something more here and I hope you enjoy it!

Shane got a QR code on a little business card when he was diagnosed with Autism and he had spent many hours reeling about it until he actually scanned it and maybe the thing that made him exhale in relief was the one little bullet point that read might struggle with texture of certain foods. 

There was always a long list of foods that he could not eat at all - not because of calories or restriction, but because of the way it felt in his mouth. It was something he learned very early that was not something he could really say to someone and have people understand, so he kept it to himself. And one thing he always struggled with was microwaved food. He endured it as an athlete who relied on meal prep and a private chef to bulk cook him meals during the season, but something horrible happened to food in the microwave. 

The first thing he did when he accepted that he would not be returning to hockey in a player capacity was fire his private chef. Instead she put together a large and comprehensive cookbook of things that he could eat cold. 

His favorite was the thai peanut noodle bowl that he has perfected in the last year. He can admit to himself now that he missed peanut butter and a little bit of peanut butter is not going to kill him. 

He spent yesterday afternoon preparing enough thai peanut noodle stuff to not have to cook himself lunch all week and that’s his plan, until, of course, Ilya Rozanov is standing in his backyard, waving at him through the glass wall with a very polite Anya sitting in between his legs. 

Ilya had sent him a text last night, asking about the storm and if they could expect to still have power and then maybe Shane had panicked a little and given him a lecture in return about getting the generator serviced when Shane found out that Ilya didn’t know how to use it and Ilya had promised to call the handyman that Shane gave him the number for and then told him that they should see each other this week, but had disappeared while Shane rolled around on his yoga mat and tried to figure out what he was going to suggest they do.

But now he’s here and he’s smiling at Shane as Shane slides the backdoor open. “Hi,” he greets them and then because Ilya’s smile widens and his eyes disappear, Shane loses track of what he’s meant to be doing and he says “hi” again.

Ilya holds up a little water skin with no water and says, “Anya bit a hole in her water bottle, would it be okay if -”

“Yes,” Shane nods and then gestures them both to come inside. It’s not too hot today, but Anya has thick long fur. “It’s not a bother at all.” 

Anya bolts past Shane and immediately starts to sniff the rug in the living room like she might uncover a crumb of the muffin that Yuna dropped last week. Ilya is slower. Shane would use the word saunters which sounds insane inside his head. No one saunters, but Ilya does as he walks towards Shane leaning against the sliding glass door and then he plants one hand on Shane’s waist and says, “hi” and leans in and kisses his cheek and Shane feels like he might faint. 

He’s going to have to call Rose later. He needs to talk this out with someone that isn’t himself. 

Shane - because every time Ilya touches him his brain turns off - says “hi”. Again. And instead of laughing at him, Ilya huffs out a little breath that mostly comes out of his nose and he kisses Shane on the cheek again before stepping back and dropping his hand. 

He doesn’t say anything, he just kind of…drags his eyes all the way down Shane’s body. Shane realizes he’s in a tank top and a pair of shorts that were bought at his thinnest and he is suddenly very conscious of his body. 

“I should get Anya -” Shane points at the kitchen and then very briskly walks back into his kitchen to find an acceptable water bowl for Anya. 

He’s vaguely aware of Ilya inside the house because the door slides shut and he can hear him murmuring to Anya in Russian and well, Shane has been kind of swirling around about how he didn’t ask the other night - let himself get distracted by the kissing. 

“Ilya,” he says, pulling one of his glass bowls down and turning to fill it from the tap. Ilya is blinking at him in a way that Shane would describe as unimpressed cat. “You are uh -” he leans down and places the bowl of water on the ground next to the sink. “You are Russian?”

Ilya’s face slides into something Shane would describe as amused cat immediately. “Yes,” he nods and then nudges Anya with his knee up the little steps towards the water bowl. “I moved to London at 13 and then New York at 18 and now I am here, that is why my accent is -” he does a little shake of his hand. 

Shane nods and then doesn’t know what to ask to follow that up so he says, “are you allergic to peanuts?”

“No,” Ilya shakes his head, still looking very amused. “I am mildly allergic to melons, but that is all.”

“Melons,” Shane repeats, trying to remember everything he knows about melons and resolves to google it later when he comes up blank. “Do you want to stay for lunch?” he kind of half gestures towards the food that’s still spread out on the counter. “No melons.”

Ilya’s tongue darts out and he looks at the food and then at Anya who is looking far too comfortable on the kitchen floor and then back to Shane. “I am not imposing?”

“No,” Shane shakes his head. “No, I mean…if you have plans, but we did say we would see…”

Ilya’s response is to pull the kitchen stool from underneath the counter and plop down, grinning. “We did,” he nods. “Next meal though, we will plan.”

“Okay,” Shane nods and then pulls another bowl from his cabinet, biting down on a smile. “Tell me what you want on this?”

Ilya’s smile softens and he leans both elbows on the counter, resting his chin on one hand. “Tell me what I should have, Shane.”

It’s so much somehow, he is so much but Shane nods and starts to explain what he eats on his bowl, diligently adding what Ilya nods towards, all of his nerves and unease slipping away with each gentle tease from Ilya. 

They eat side by side - Ilya asks Shane about his cottage and about building it and the windows and the book on Shane’s dining room table and let’s Shane kind of talk around it. Shane asks Ilya about his allergy and if Ilya called about the generator and how Anya bit through her water skin. 

It’s the kind of easy conversation that people have when they like each other, but careful and particular because they are still learning each other.

Ilya rinses out his bowl and he refills Shane’s water and then he kisses Shane firmly on the mouth. “I have a call,” he says, “with my lawyer. We have to get back.”

“Oh,” Shane nods, trying to stand up and offer Ilya…something. 

“No,” Ilya laughs, putting one big hot hand on Shane’s shoulder and forcing him to sit back down. “What are you doing on Thursday night? Maybe you can invite me to dinner?”

Shane’s breath hitches.

“I am an easy date,” Ilya promises and then leans down again and probably means to give Shane another firm kiss, but Shane’s brain comes back online and he manages to grab onto Ilya’s shirt and kiss him.

Ilya makes a delighted noise and wraps both his arms around Shane’s body and does end up pulling him up to standing so they can kiss properly. 

“I do have a meeting,” Ilya laughs, lips somehow still connected to Shane’s, but then he kind of presses further into Shane’s body and makes a noise that makes Shane consider dropping to his knees. “You are making that very -” he laughs and brushes a piece of Shane’s hair away from his face.

It’s incredibly obvious that Ilya means it. Shane doesn’t have to second guess if Ilya wants to stay and kiss him some more because he makes that so very clear with the way he’s looking at him and touching him. 

Sure, Ilya knows who Shane is, but it’s never crossed his mind that this is some sort of…celebrity thing. Ilya hadn’t even teased him earlier when Shane had stumbled over the explanation about the Rolex sponsorship paying for the dock on the lake. 

Ilya wants him and enjoys kissing him and wants to see him again.

“I can drive you.”

Ilya stops kissing him, glances at the clock on the wall and then laughs and nods and Shane does go to his knees. 

Ilya kisses him from the passenger's seat and then waves at him from the front porch. Shane drives home and sits in his car while he orders a car mat for dog hair, a set of water and dog food bowls, a bag of treats that are organic and grain-free, and then looks up what foods are considered melons. 

And then he climbs out of his car and calls Rose and instead of answering her enthusiastic Shaaaaaane baby! How are you? with something she’s expecting, he says, “Rose, the new neighbor is the hottest man that I’ve ever seen and I already know what he sounds like when he comes.”

The FaceTime request comes through before he can even worry that he’s told her too much. “Tell me everything,” she demands.

 Shane sighs and says, “can I call you back from my laptop? It’s a long story.”

“Oh my god,” Rose shouts and then ends the FaceTime call and Shane hurries because she is one of the most impatient people he’s ever known and also the only person who can help him with this.

With the knowledge that he…really likes Ilya. 

Shane decides to grill burgers because that is something they can do together, mostly and it will get them outside and maybe if Ilya wants to stay after dinner, Shane could start a fire and they could sit around it and talk to each other. 

It’s why he put the firepit in. Sure, it was nice with his parents, but there are things in his house that he added thinking of sharing them with someone else. The fire pit. The double closet. The two sinks in the bathroom. The tub. 

There had been no one - he had still been holding out hope that he might meet a nice girl someday and fall in love with her, but maybe that isn’t entirely true, because when he had the option to put in a makeup vanity, he had them add a towel warmer instead. 

But, the fire pit had been a dream of someone. A bottle of wine and sharing the couch and enjoying the quiet summer night. 

He drives into town to buy the ground beef with the higher fat content and the good buns from the bakery and he calls his mom because she sends him one of those text messages fishing for a phone call and he tries to ignore the way it swirls around in his stomach when she says that she’s worried he’s lonely because he can’t tell her about Ilya his neighbor in a way that won’t be…weird.

It’s something he was never good at doing - telling people half truths. So he just doesn’t tell them anything at all. His therapist told him it was like a form of self preservation because of hockey and that it’s okay if it takes him a long time to undo it. It took him a long time to build the framework of his life. 

Ilya texts at 4 PM. Anya?

Shane sends him a thumbs up emoji and then winces and follows up with a photo of the matching water and food bowls he ordered for her. Ilya hearts the photo, but doesn’t respond.

Ilya arrives promptly at 6 PM with a bottle of sweaty white wine in the crook of his elbow and a six pack of Shane’s favorite ginger ale on his fingers and a very polite Anya once again tucked between his legs.

“Hello, Anya,” Shane greets her and then winces when he realizes it maybe sounds…wrong. Like he doesn’t want Ilya here without Anya. 

Ilya is not at all phased. He laughs and then doesn’t seem to wait for an invitation. He kind of forcibly shuffles Shane back into the house and hands him the ginger ale with a kiss to his cheek, toeing off his shoes. “I am the birthday boy and -”

“What!” Shane shrieks and then winces again and says softer, “it’s your birthday?”

“Well,” Ilya scrunches up his nose, looks momentarily apologetic before smiling too brightly. “Yes, technically it is my birthday.”

Shane glares at him and brushes past him on the way to the kitchen, leaving a laughing Ilya behind him. He drops the ginger ale onto the counter and starts to rifle around in his freezer. There has to be something in here that they can eat for birthday dessert. 

“Shane,” Ilya tries, tugging on his shirt sleeve, but Shane bats at him. “What are you doing?”

“You didn’t tell me,” Shane kind of whines. “I don’t have anything for you.”

Ilya successfully pulls him around and Shane hates how…soft Ilya’s face is. It confuses him. 

“I thought we would have burgers and talk and I don’t know!” Shane is exasperated and feels a little like he’s on the backfoot and he hates that. He should have known. He could have prepared. “How old are you?”

Ilya smiles at him like a wolf. It’s the only way that Shane can describe this particular smile. “35,” he nods and then reaches down to pat at Anya’s head. She must have completed her sniffing rounds. 

“I’m older than you,” Shane tells him. “By a month.”

Something about Ilya’s smile tells Shane that maybe he knows that. “I do not need anything. My friends sent gifts. I am having everyone visit in a few weeks. Before this plan, it was just going to be Anya and a movie.”

Shane perks up. “How good at managing the grill are you?”

Ilya blinks. “Probably not great.”

“I can supervise,” Shane assures him and then nudges the freezer shut. “I can get you started and then I’m going to set up the projector.”

Ilya sweeps him into a really really good kiss and Shane feels kind of weak about it. He convinces himself that it’s not this good. That it can’t be this good, but then Ilya kisses him again and it’s -

“That is a very good birthday idea,” Ilya nods and grins and runs his hand down Shane’s side. “I cannot promise I will not get distracted watching you -” he wiggles his fingers. “Setting something up.”

Shane frowns because it maybe feels like Ilya could be making fun of him, but he looks too sincere. He looks too happy to watch Shane do something extremely mundane like…set up a projector outside so they can watch a movie after they eat grilled burgers. 

“Shane,” Ilya laughs, “I tried to put my TV on the wall and it fell off. I am impressed by house things.”

“I can help you put things on the wall, do you have a stud finder -” and then he puts one hand on Ilya’s chest and shoves him backwards, “no, don’t.”

But Ilya is laughing and trying to grip onto Shane and trying not to trip over Anya and Shane finds himself helplessly charmed by the whole thing. “Shaaaaane,” Ilya laughs, “you made it so easy.”

Shane knows his mouth has gone all wobbly and he has to accept the kiss that Ilya leans in for because he’s in danger of giving in and laughing too. He hates to keep comparing this whole thing to Rose but he truly doesn’t have anything else comparable. 

All of his attempts at relationships had not felt…easy. Men who wanted to fuck him and liked that Shane was easy for it. Men who took him out a few times and didn’t really laugh at his jokes or make him feel completely comfortable. 

Rose had been immediate and warm and easy and that’s what it’s like with Ilya. It’s just very fortunate that Shane also very much would like Ilya to fuck him. That’s probably the missing piece in his relationship with Rose. 

Well, Shane is sure that is the missing piece, but - it’s kind of insane for him to be feeling this for a man he’s maybe just having casual sex with. 

“Come show me the grill,” Ilya insists, “I will do my duty very seriously and will not watch you put up the projector at all.”

Shane thinks he’s lying, so he says so.

“You’re kind of an asshole, aren’t you?” Ilya says, weirdly breathless and then he must see the terror on Shane’s face because he touches his chin, his cheekbone, one piece of his hair. “No, no,” he says too quickly, “I like it.”

Shane dutifully ignores that and starts to pull things from the fridge, only stopping to offer Anya a bit of peanut butter cream cookie thing he bought at the grocery store that is made specifically for dogs. Ilya looks at him like he wants to unhinge his jaw and swallow him whole. Shane thinks he would probably let him.

Objectively, that’s insane. 

He finds he doesn’t care at all. 

Shane is…tucked into Ilya’s side. Tight and snug. There is no fire, but there is an Anya draped across his lap keeping him very warm. He’s pleasantly full and feeling like if he closed his eyes for a moment, he would fall asleep, but Ilya keeps asking him quiet questions about the movie. Maybe he can sense how close Shane is to drifting off. 

The movie is…arty. It’s like those films that Rose makes him watch that make him feel kind of stupid because nothing really happens, but she always ends up crying and talking about the human existence and the interconnectedness of the world.

He hopes Ilya isn’t going to want to discuss the…theme or setting or something because he won’t be able to answer. All he really has is…it makes him feel peaceful. 

There’s a group of friends all living in one apartment and even though some bad things have happened to them, they all really love each other. Shane can see how much they all love each other. He can tell that even though they have family issues and money issues and relationship issues, they are deeply supportive of each other. 

And one of them is probably like him - neurodivergent and trying very hard.

It makes him feel peaceful - like maybe if Shane had a different life - like maybe if he left hockey after he broke his leg at 15 and gone to university for real, he could have found a group of people who accepted the food thing and the queer thing and that sometimes he couldn’t have certain blankets in hotels because he could feel all the fibers all the time all over his body. 

Shane cannot see Ilya’s face, but he sounds happy and Shane lets his body get heavier. 

“What do you think of the music?” Ilya asks him, probably close to the end of the movie. The characters are sitting around a table playing a card game. Shane wonders if Ilya would like to play a card game with him. 

The music is…fine. Shane doesn’t really pay attention to something like that. “It’s nice,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Ilya’s huff of laughter makes his hair swirl around. “It’s not been…distracting.” Shane tries again and thinks that’s probably enough when Ilya kisses the crown of his head. 

“Thank you for this,” he whispers, barely audible over the music that is swelling now. It has to be the last scene. “This was a good birthday.”

Shane thinks it over for all of two seconds. “It does not have to be the end,” he tries to shrug. “I do have things here for Anya.”

“Shane Hollander,” Ilya pushes him up to spin him around. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

It’s teasing and light and the best part is, Ilya doesn’t give him time to respond, just reels him in with one hand on his chest and kisses him thoroughly.

“It’s working,” he murmurs and Shane doesn’t bother to put anything away or turn anything off as he hauls them both up and starts to lead Ilya into the house. Ilya’s eyes sparkling in the moonlight. 

Shane is not a virgin. He’s had really good sex with other people. He knows what he likes, what he tolerates. He knows his body well.

But, like every single thing with Ilya, he feels brand new. 

No one has ever made him feel like this as they pinned him to the bed and let their hands wander down his body, rucking up his clothes, kissing the hinge of his jaw and his chin and his collarbone. 

No one has ever made his insistence at folding his linen shirt so it doesn’t get the crumpled up wrinkles from being bunched up feel like something charming and not an unwanted disruption.

No one has ever made Shane feel like he’s discovering his body and what he likes for the first time all over again simply by pressing words like good and beautiful and perfect into his skin.

Ilya is gentle and patient and he asks Shane one hundred times if he’s okay and feeling good and he’s reduced Shane to whining and nodding and saying “please, more” and nothing else. 

He assumed it would be good, but he didn’t know it would be like this. He didn’t know it would make him feel…so present in his body - not thinking about his leg or the way his abs have softened. None of that matters underneath Ilya. 

“You will show me your fancy shower?” Ilya asks, still panting and grinning and looking young and free and gorgeous and like he might be tempted to kiss Shane again. “I know you have one.”

Shane scrunches up his face. “Only because it’s your birthday.”

“Liar,” Ilya insists and does kiss him again, dragging him out of bed and into the shower, laughing all the way. 

Shane doesn’t have a lot of experience with this, but he thinks it’s probably not supposed to be this…easy.

Ilya scrubs his fingers through Shane’s hair, uses his lovely voice to hum whatever song was playing at the end of the movie. He tells Shane about his first birthday memory as a boy - his brother giving him a toy car that he had stolen from Ilya the summer before, his momma playing him a birthday song on their piano, his father taking him on a drive to look at the lights at night outside of the city.

He makes a pleased noise about the towel warmer, he lets Shane shove him into a pair of clean sweats and socks and then he helps him with dinner, with packing away the projector, with giving Anya a treat and helping Shane order a little bag of Anya’s preferred dog food and a little plastic food safe so it doesn’t get stale. 

Ilya acquiesces and let’s Shane cut up a little burger patty and dump some sweet potato and frozen fish skin into her dog bowl and fails to hide how big his smile is when Shane drags the dog bed out of the empty side of the closet and sets it up in the corner of the bedroom.

It maybe shouldn't feel so simple to make space for someone in his life, but when he digs through his linen closet and finds a blue toothbrush in the packaging and holds it out to Ilya, all he says is, “my favorite color” and then allows Shane to smear moisturizer on his face and Shane wants to keep him. Badly.

It’s just so easy. And hopefully that means it’s mutual. 

Shane has been possessed by Rose Landry. It’s the only explanation for the pie in his passenger seat and the boldness of showing up at Ilya’s unannounced. 

It’s not like Ilya hasn’t shown up unannounced at his cottage, but that was probably on accident. Not like this. Shane had to go into town to pick up a new key to his PO Box that he keeps for the still occasional fanmail letter and that somehow leads him to the bakery next door and then he is sitting in Ilya’s driveway with a fresh strawberry rhubarb pie in his possession. 

And also a dog cookie.

The dog cookie seemed important. 

Now it just kind of feels like…too much. 

Except then Ilya is standing on his porch, looking vaguely rumpled and happily confused and Shane has to get out of the car. 

Ilya likes him. He said as much a week ago when he left Shane’s house after staying the night for his birthday, but he’s not seen Ilya since then - a random text message at all hours of the day, inconsistent, but still light and easy. 

“I think you are saving me from disappearing into my studio for good,” Ilya looks genuinely so happy to see Shane like he always does that Shane doesn’t even mind the scratchy half grown beard Ilya is sporting. “What did you bring me?”

Shane shifts the pie to the other side of his body so Ilya can kiss his cheek, kiss his nose, kiss his mouth. “A pie,” he answers, allowing Ilya to lead him by the waist into the house. 

There’s a guitar on the kitchen counter and a mug in the sink and an Anya with her paws and head visible over the half door that Ilya must have had installed. 

There’s not really anything else of notice in the cottage. Shane assumed Ilya would have added more or maybe that -

“What kind of pie did you bring me?”

Shane slides the pie box onto the counter and then shakes the little brown bag at Ilya, ignoring his question. “Anya treat?”

“You spoil us, Shane.” Ilya laughs, but kind of gestures towards Anya and then immediately pushes Shane out of the way so he can get to the pie. “What time is it? I think I forgot to eat today.”

Anya so very politely takes the cookie from him with her teeth and then disappears back into her little room that Ilya has absolutely already transformed - it’s full of toys and an elevated bed and one of those food safes, but much bigger than the one Shane ordered. 

“I guess your art is uh -” Shane shrugs when he turns around to see Ilya looking at him with his nose scrunched up. “It’s going well?” He laughs and then Ilya laughs. “Sorry, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Rose took me to this party once and this writer talked to me for a really long time about how moving disrupted his creative flow, but I guess that wouldn’t be a thing for you since you were moving around so much before this.”

“What else did this writer say?” Ilya asks, propping one hip to the counter and looking kind of like he’s teasing Shane, but in the way that makes Shane feel kind of hot and squirmy. 

Well, the writer had definitely been hitting on Shane, but Shane hadn’t really caught on to that until he got back to Rose’s house and was in the shower, lamenting that he had decided to not sleep with Miles any more no matter what. 

Ilya is giggling a little bit, clearly seeing it all over Shane’s face, but he lets it go. “I bought plates,” he says. “Pie now or later?”

“I didn’t know if you…”

“Stay,” Ilya insists and then the rain that has been threatening to start all day does and Ilya grins wide and bright. “Pie later,” he says and then he latches onto Shane’s hand and starts to drag him towards the door that leads onto the deck, laughing loudly and shucking his shirt over his head. 

Shane has about three more steps to decide how he’s going to react to this and he decides that maybe standing in the rain with Ilya for just a moment wouldn’t be so bad.

He’s never done this. That’s what he’s thinking when Ilya slingshots him around the deck and reels him back in to kiss him. 

Shane has never purposefully gone out into the rain just to stand in it - just to be kissed in it. Ilya is humming something and it sounds vaguely familiar in the way that all music manages to sound to Shane and maybe it’s the rain and maybe it’s that Shane’s delayed processing catches up to him because he pulls back and says, “you’re not an artist.”

Ilya does that wobbly sweet smile. “I’m a musician.” One of his curls is plastered to his forehead, perfectly curled on his skin. There’s a drop of water in one of his eyelashes. Shane is going to get cold and then his knee will hurt, but he wants to be standing here anyway. “I scored the movie we watched on my birthday.”

Shane feels like an idiot, but he knows Ilya will be good about it. “You asked me if I liked the music and I told you it wasn’t distracting.”

“It’s a very important part of scoring a movie,” Ilya assures him and then he spins him around, careful to keep hold of Shane and careful to not twist him around. “So, in a way it was a compliment.”

Shane groans, but doesn’t really mean it. 

Ilya kisses him again and then moves them to the little awning. They don’t fit, but they try and Ilya wraps his arms around Shane’s waist and hooks his chin over his shoulder and Shane feels like one of Rose’s romcom’s. This is one of those moments Shane never really understood, but now that he’s in it…

It’s that same strange quiet in his head. 

The lake is not visible, but the trees and the rain and the way Ilya is holding him so tightly…

“Tell me Shane,” Ilya whispers into his neck, “have you ever been in love?”

That is not at all what he thought Ilya would ask him. It’s not that Ilya doesn’t ask him serious things, but this is…intimate. Especially because the answer is “no, I have never been in love.”

Ilya sways them back and forth, back and forth. “It is why I bought this place,” Ilya says, and then quickly clarifies by saying, “I thought I was in love, but I was not.”

That doesn’t really explain anything, but if that’s what he can give him…Shane can accept it. 

“I had been working very hard, going all over the worod with my friends, and all of them - except for Lana - they are all together and very much in love and I think I want what they have, so I meet a girl and think I can maybe make myself love her, but no.”

Shane swallows. “Do you like girls or -”

“Yes,” Ilya laughs, squeezing Shane to him. “I like girls very much, and I could probably be in love with the right one, but I realized my career was changing and I am supposed to go home to this girl in Toronto and then realize I was only doing it because I did not want to be the only one that was not…” he trails off, but he doesn’t have to finish that thought at all. 

Shane is so very aware of what it feels like to be left behind. “I do not like girls,” Shane tells him. “I tried hard, Rose helped me -” he takes a deep breath. “I know what it is like to feel that way.”

Ilya hums. “I am working on Canadian citizenship,” he says. “It has been slow because of the travel, but I am here now and I am learning what I do want in a partner.”

The wording feels kind of odd - Shane wants to dig into it, but there’s a zip of pain up his thigh and he involuntarily reaches for it.

“Should we -” Ilya is already acting like he’s going to move them, but Shane stops him, plants his feet and makes himself heavy. 

“You know about my injury,” he says. “It will always be here and I will always have to manage it.”

Ilya kisses his neck. “We could get in a warm bath. I had them install the dog door and also bring me a very very large tub.”

Shane twists in Ilya’s grasp to kiss him. “If you let me shave your fuzz.”

“Deal,” Ilya laughs in his face, and Shane has to let all the weird feelings go. 

Ilya has a little dot of blood only held back by toilet paper on his cheek and a little dot of strawberry filling in the corner of his mouth and Shane wants to kiss them both - lick them both away.

“Do you have dinner plans, Shane?” Ilya asks, pointing his fork at Shane across the kitchen counter. “You will stay for dinner and also stay tonight.”

Shane doesn’t have plans and it’s still raining fiercely and he missed Ilya and also he likes him too much to hold back. “Okay,” he nods once. 

“I have a green toothbrush for you.” Ilya raises an eyebrow. “And I bought some of that snot moisturizer for you.”

“It’s not snot,” Shane sniffs and then pokes at the pie crust. 

“Snot,” Ilya insists and then drops his fork on the plate. “You have pie on your lip, no don’t -” he waves Shane’s hand away, starting to amble around the counter. “Let me lick it off, I missed you while I was in the black hole of my studio.”

Shane thinks it’s kind of gross, but he also gets to lick the strawberry out of the corner of Ilya’s mouth so they’re equally gross and that feels like a good omen or something.

Chapter End Notes

Chapter book club:

Book mentioned on the table - To be revealed at a later date

Chapter 6: just know I've cleared the way

Chapter Summary

Rose has news for Shane

Chapter Notes

Two schedule updates:
I will be away this weekend, being cooked to death in the sun in the name of sports.
&
My mother comes to town on Wednesday and l o l - she either wrecks my shit or I write 30K in two weeks. There is no in between.

So, depending on how sick I get from being overheated and how insane my mother makes me, I could finish this bitch in two weeks OR it could take me another month.
Who knows? Definitely not me!

Yuna arrives with a thick stack of contracts Shane needs to review and David with a cooler of food. 

Shane had taken over most of his own admin stuff when he retired, but Yuna still handles sponsors - which is less about his face on things these days. Shane is seen at Tim Horton’s regularly. He attends hockey games and gets photographed in his Reebok’s. He wears a Rolex in a staged Instagram post about attending a gala for a charity for children with disabilities playing sports. It’s not at all the kind of money they paid him before, but those early sponsors meant something to Yuna and so he let them continue. 

He hates to say it, but it kind of keeps her distracted enough that she doesn’t turn her full attention on his lack of partner.

Because something he had not considered about hockey was that he was going to retire at the same time as his parents did and that would mean that things like children were maybe not expected but wouldn’t be unwelcome. 

Tonight, thankfully, Yuna is distracted with Rolex and David is busy making a corn salad he had at a restaurant last week and Shane can avoid questions about dating and Rose and if Rose knows anyone he might be interested in. 

He cannot avoid hockey though. Yuna is all spun up about trade season, talking fast and passionately about new signings and new rumors and who might manage with draft pick trading to make off the best and Shane participates because it’s easy and he does keep up with it - not just because hockey was his life for so long, but because he maybe has been flipping through those books more and more and thinking about what the next part of his life might look like. 

Shane eats the corn salad and asks David to email the recipe to him because he thinks Ilya would really like it. There’s a sour cream dressing and Shane has learned that Ilya will eat anything if Shane uses the words sour cream. 

“You are still headed to Montreal in the morning?” Yuna asks halfway through picking at the scoop of ice cream that David slid in front of her. “I should have remembered to bring those ballet shoes for the girls. Tell Jackie I’ll put them in the mail.”

Shane nods. Hayden and Jackie can afford to buy their own ballet shoes, but Yuna had found some sporting store sale and couldn’t stop herself from buying them out of the ballet slippers that the girls need for class. Apparently they wear out quickly. 

It kind of swirls around in his chest. Because Yuna loves Hayden’s kids. She has always said she takes godparent parent duty seriously, but sometimes Shane thinks maybe she thinks it’s the closest she’ll get to real grandchildren. 

Shane wonders if Ilya wants kids, decides that he cannot think about that at all because no and then has to try really hard to stay strong because Ilya texts him and Shane had been waiting on him to text. He’s got his phone balancing on his thigh, face up just under the table, but it’s still visible. 

The lock screen says it’s a photo and Shane kind of forgets that he’s sitting at the table with his parents because he immediately picks it up and swipes his screen open. 

It’s a photo of Anya, sitting on the floor with a dog biscuit balanced on her nose. It’s funny. She’s going crosseyed trying to see the treat on the end of her nose. It makes Shane smile. 

If you wanted to have breakfast here with us before you go to Montreal…

Or a midnight snack.

Or both.

Shane stares at the photo and then the triple text. He wants to go, is the thing. He was lamenting the time apart already. Before Shane’s parents arrived, Ilya had been texting him about some movie he wants Shane to watch and about taking another bath. 

The bath had to be a euphemism because the last bath they took together ended in a shower to wash the cum off their bodies. 

You want me to come stay the night with you?

Shane realizes far too late that both of his parents are staring at him and he’s grinning down at his phone.

“Is that Rose, honey?” Yuna asks, but her voice is tight the way it is when she’s not saying what she really wants to say. 

Shane is not good at lying. “No.” 

Yes Shane I want you to stay the night

Come over when your parents leave

Shane locks his phone and places it face down on his thigh, trying and probably failing to do something neutral with his face. 

Yuna is staring at him with her problem solving face on, but before she can start in on him, David points at Shane’s tiny bowl and says, “are you done? Come help me with the dishes?”

He’s thankful for the distraction and that the only thing he wants to talk about when they are standing together to wash dishes is if Shane has taken any photos of ducklings this year. 

He makes a valiant effort to not look at his phone, but he thinks it doesn’t work very well because he keeps glancing at it on the counter. He notices his mother doing the same. 

“We should get out of your hair,” David pats him. “I know you like your sleep before the drive.”

Shane hugs them both, promises to tell Jackie to watch the mail, and then waits exactly 10 seconds after their tail lights disappear before he is throwing his toiletry bag and an extra change of clothes into his bag so he can get to Ilya’s for the night. 

Anya shows off her new trick and then Ilya drags Shane to bed. 

He does feed him a midnight snack of cheese and pickles and then they giggle their way into sleep, Ilya absolutely making up a story about a bear he saw today and how Anya fought him off. 

Breakfast is a blurry eyed affair. Ilya scrambles them eggs in butter and some sort of Russian cheese and Shane eats his whole pile before he accepts a kiss and a bag of trail mix that Ilya made himself and he sets off for Montreal, feeling lighter and better than he did the last time he made this trip. 

Shane is really in Montreal for Rose. And also to make his contractual appearance inside a Tim Horton’s. The first day is just Shane watching the kids show him increasingly mundane things and having a long family dinner where he and Arthur eat exactly the same thing and ignore everyone else’s heckling about their unglazed salmon.

He takes Hayden to Tim Horton’s in the morning and they have very casual coffee and sign autographs and Hayden posts about it on his Instagram and tags Shane.

JJ comes over for lunch and they grill chicken thighs and long strips of squash and JJ talks about the captaincy and doesn’t even sound apologetic so Shane thinks he’s probably over Shane retiring.

It’s nice. Shane does miss them.

Ilya texts him constantly. He tells Shane about the ducklings. About Anya catching a rabbit. About the rain. About the banana bread recipe he tried and kind of exploded his oven. He tells Shane about the movie he’s in talks to score for and how his friend’s baby is running a fever. 

Shane knows they see it and want to ask, but years of Shane refusing to discuss anyone with them means they don’t ask. 

JJ hugs him rough and tells him he looks happy.

Hayden says nothing - leaves it to Jackie. He’s packing his bag up ready to go to Rose’s hotel and stay the night with her on her one free night and order room service and let her grill him about Ilya.

Jackie slips into the guest room and hands him the picture Arthur drew of him as a knight with a knee brace. It’s very…sweet. She doesn’t immediately let it go though, holding on, he’s forced to look at her. “You know whoever they are…we’d love to meet them.”

Shane wants to squirm. “Maybe,” he says, and when her face falls, he adds very quickly, “It is really new.”

“Okay, well.” Jackie laughs. “I guess not everyone is lucky enough to meet the best friend the night you meet your future spouse.” She softens, seemingly understanding that Shane isn’t saying no, he’s just saying not right now. Which is the truth. He doesn’t want it to be a no forever. He’s retired. That was always the goal post for coming out, it’s just that…none of this was the plan either so…

“You will be the first to know,” he promises her and then accepts the hug she gives him. 

Hayden just taps him on the shoulder and says, “see you next time.”

Shane said goodbye to the kids already before Jackie bustled them off to camp for the day, so he drives off and doesn’t at all feel like he’s losing something. Which is still a new feeling. Montreal is not his home anymore and that doesn’t sting.

Of course, he’s handing his keys to the valet at the hotel when he realizes that Jackie had pointedly not used a feminine pronoun one single time.

Rose always takes the pressure off. 

Shane listens to every single tiny drama from the set she’s on currently and about the notes she got back from an audition tape and then they order dinner and sit on the floor and eat while Rose tells him about the guy Miles is dating.

“I know the two of you were never anything more than friends, but god it’s unfair you couldn’t be in love. He picks the worst boyfriends.”

Shane kind of hums in response because this is where she wants him to pipe up and share about Ilya, but he maybe needs another few minutes, so she gives it to him. 

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Rose is already clicking around on the laptop she slid across the table. “There’s one that -” 

But she scrolls past the movie he watched with Ilya and he points at it. “Ilya scored that.”

It comes out of him without thought. He just says it and Rose completely freezes. “Shane Hollander, show me a photo of him right now.”

Shane huffs, but digs in his pocket, swiping away the email from his mom and going into his gallery. He took a photo of Ilya and Anya the night of his parent dinner - Ilya with Anya over his shoulder while making a ridiculous face, insisting he was a pirate. Shane turns the phone around to show Rose and is rewarded by that with a scream.

“Are you telling me that you are fucking Ilya Rozanov! Shane Hollander, tell me right now that your new neighbor is not Ilya fucking Rozanov!”

He guesses it makes sense that Rose knows someone who scores movies. He thinks there are awards for that, so maybe Ilya is like, a really big award winner. 

“Oh my fucking god,” Rose is still kind of screaming, but Shane doesn’t think she knows she’s doing it because she’s not looking at him, just at the phone she’s still clutching in her hands. 

“Have you guys…worked together?” Shane thinks maybe it’s odd Ilya didn’t bring it up, but maybe wanted Shane to make his own decisions about him. 

Rose makes a kind of strangled huff, shoves his phone back into his hands and opens up YouTube and says very firmly, “Look.”

Within seconds a video starts to play and…that is Ilya in a pair of leather pants and he is…dancing. Dancing and singing and Shane realizes very quickly that he has come to many wrong conclusions. YouTube Ilya is now sitting in a bathtub in his leather pants and he’s staring at the camera and - “Oh my god, he’s a rockstar?”

Rose makes that same strangled noise and clicks on another video. 

This one is live, shaky and the sound is blown out, but there is Ilya and he is having some kind of stare off with someone playing a guitar. The guy is down on his knees, staring up at Ilya. Ilya has the guy's head tipped back, one fist in his hair. Which is…insane because Ilya has done that with him and also the guy turns his face to grin at the crowd and Shane recognizes him from the baby photos - this is the father of Ilya’s godchild. 

Shane is an idiot. 

“Do you remember that party we left? In LA, the band that was -”

It’s Shane’s turn to sound strangled. “Oh my god, it was them?”

Rose is laughing in his face, her mouth wide and her laugh high and bright, but then she immediately sobers and takes Shane’s hand and Shane never holds back from Rose and he’s suddenly terrified that what he has on the lake - the quiet place with geese and rabbits and a patch of chamomile…that will never be enough for someone like that. It will never be enough for the lead singer of a band on hiatus.

Which makes sense. A baby and people starting lives, but that isn’t forever. 

“They’re on hiatus…” Shane pulls at his eyelashes. “That means that he won’t always -”

“Baby, One Direction are still technically on hiatus, I think, you don’t need to -”

“Who?” Shane can’t help it even when Rose groans and flops backwards onto the ground. 

“I literally took you to Niall Horan’s wedding, I cannot believe you, you talked to him for ten minutes about the lack of European sports access on television in North America.”

Shane remembers him. “He was in a band?”

Rose lifts her head to glare at him. “You are my least favorite gay ex boyfriend.”

“Take it back,” Shane kicks at her and pouts and then immediately laughs when she sticks her tongue out at him. 

“The point is,” Rose bites off each word, “he could be on hiatus forever. He could fall in love with the ducks and the fish and stay with you forever. He could decide to score movies forever. He could convince you to split time between Montreal and the cottage. Don’t write the ending before the beginning.”

Shane wants to say something about how she’s getting ahead of the whole thing, but Rose sits back up and grabs one of his cheeks in his hand. “I cannot believe you fucked one of the biggest rockstars and I didn’t know about it immediately. I am coming to meet him as soon as I can get away from this horrible movie.” And then she says, “good for you honestly. Please record him finding out that you really had no idea who he was.”

“He told me he scored movies!” Shane bats at her. “How was I supposed to -”

“Oh my god, I play you his shit all the time when we’re getting ready for events. Shut up, I’m going to make you watch their debut music video. You will burn with jealousy, but please remember that he’s been fucking you and also texting you relentlessly. He wants you to come home so he can -”

Shane tries his best to cover her mouth, but she moves her head and keeps going.

“He wants to show you his freak and have you -”

Shane hits her with a pillow and laughs when she shrieks. 

They watch the debut music video. It does make him jealous. He doesn’t say anything to Ilya though. He will see him in two days and he will bring it up then.

Insane though - that the same guy who is kissing a different girl in each frame of video is texting Shane, telling him that he wants Shane to send him a photo so he can kiss him goodnight from afar. 

Weird. Weird, but also Shane sends the photo so he really can't pretend to care.

Chapter End Notes

Once again, I am the funniest bitch to ever live.

We know this, but anyway, reveal 0.5 happened.
As a long time Model/Actriz fan, that photobooth strip of Connor Storrie at their LA show rocked my shit on a molecular level. I did not shut up about it for days and it still swirls around in my head over and over again and I thought - oh I gotta write Rockstar Ilya, but I'm old now and we'll get more of Ilya's backstory next chapter (when Shane and Ilya talk), but I wanted Rockstar Ilya to have a chance to slow down.

Anyway, if you have not yet listened to Cinderella by Model/Actriz (which is once again the chapter title), I am on my knees begging. It is one of my favorite songs. I love love love this band, but this song is one of those that I can remember exactly what I was doing the first time I heard it.
It's a beautiful little song and it makes me think of Shane Hollander.
My original plan for this song was to attach it to this kind of winding dream fic where Shane had a fairy godmother (Scott Hunter) who would visit him in his dreams at significant moments of his and Ilya's relationship to show him that he and Ilya are soulmates in every universe by giving him a little glimpse that he would promptly forget upon waking. That line "you make me want to be ready" is sooooo Shane Hollander with Ilya, but the fic fell apart when I realized I was trying to write 5 meet-cutes in a row and maybe no one wants to read that. I still might write some of them - they were very cute.

Book club back next chapter for real for real, but if you want to be part of my IRL book club, I'm currently reading Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo which is a queer US Southern Gothic horror that I am finding a lot of delight in.

I hope you enjoyed that my notes for this chapter were almost as long as this chapter. I will never change.

Chapter 7: you make me want to be ready

Chapter Summary

Shane goes home to the cottage

Chapter Notes

Hellloooo I live. My mother is still visiting and I had a minor procedure done which is what took my ability to write for a few days, but now I'm feeling okay and I'm backkkkkk.
This took a turn again. I am never in control.

There's a tiny moment of internalized homophobia and internalized ableism, but it's Shane Hollander Dealing with The Horrors, and it passes. He doesn't really mean it. He's thinking about how other people would feel about all of him - not really how he feels about himself.

Anyway, now feels like a good time to remind you guys that my shit is all locked down because I don't want AI scraping my writing and I don't use that shit in my writing ever. My brain is sacred and so is yours. Use it. No one can take it from you.

Shane does not show up in the shirt Rose managed to rustle up overnight with Ilya’s face on it. Even though he can admit it would probably be funny. Ultimately, he doesn’t know if Ilya wants to talk about it. Did he let Shane stumble upon his real identity because it was awkward to bring up and talk about or because he didn’t want to talk about it.

He doesn’t have to wait to find out though. Ilya opens the door holding a cup of coffee and grinning at Shane and gestures him inside and Shane isn’t even in the door before he says, “you don’t just score movies.”

Ilya laughs and then backs Shane up into the doorway to kiss him, cup of coffee held far out to his side because he’s laughing into the kiss. “No, Shane.” It’s too fond and sweet and Shane feels wobbly after so many days not in Ilya’s presence. It almost knocks him over - one of Ilya’s hands on his side, working its way up up up. “I do not just score movies,” he laughs again. “Or maybe I do, I do not know yet.”

Shane knows he’s making a little scrunched up face, but Ilya just keeps rubbing his side and looking at him fondly. It makes Shane feel weak and insane. 

“Did you have fun in Montreal? Was it your hockey friends or Rose who told you?”

“Rose,” Shane tells him. “She threatened to come with me to meet you.”

Ilya uses the hand on his side to guide him into the house fully, kicking the door shut behind them. “I hear we almost met at a party anyway.”

Shane inhales sharply. “We did apparently.”

“Harris would call this serendipitous." And then he does a kind of complicated thing with his mouth and leans against the opposite entryway wall, his cup of coffee to his chest, watching Shane carefully. “I was going to tell  you when you got back. My band, they are coming to visit next week. Harris is a very big hockey fan, I have maybe not been honest with him about my neighbor in hopes that seeing you in person will make him do something embarrassing.”

Shane can feel his face slipping into that careful neutral place of uncomfortableness. 

“Shane,” Ilya says gently, knocking one socked foot against Shane’s. “I just mean that one time I met Madonna and I cried and Harris brings it up every time he sees me and maybe you will make him cry too and we will be even.”

It doesn’t feel like he’s being used as a pawn, it feels like an inside joke he’s in on. “Okay, but now I am sad that you did not see Rose when she found out who you are.”

Ilya does a little wiggle and it honestly should not be…attractive. He kind of looks like Anya when you have a dog treat in your hand. “Did she scream?”

“And then she showed me all of your music videos,” Shane says.

There’s a long moment where Ilya is studying him hard - his eyes are roaming all over Shane’s face. “Come with me,” he gestures for Shane to join him. “Do you want coffee?”

Shane shakes his head and follows along with Ilya’s hand until he’s leading him down the steps to the basement. Shane never came down here when it was Alina’s place, so he has nothing to compare it to, but he is sure that this is all Ilya’s doing. Shane knows the recording studios he was in doing short voiceover work probably cannot compare to a full music studio, and this is certainly that.

Well one wall is a huge TV. Shane thinks that’s probably for the movie scoring. 

There’s a deep blue couch that spans the opposite wall. It’s huge and probably custom and one half of it is buried under stuff. Pans and rattle things and beads and something that looks like one of those bop toy things that Hayden’s kids like. 

There is also an upright piano that is old and chipped on one corner. Ilya crosses the room to it and runs his hand across the top and Shane suddenly wants to understand this. He wants to understand all of Ilya and his music. Especially the music. Especially something that Shane doesn’t really understand completely. Maybe Ilya can help him understand it.

“I played hockey until I was ten,” Ilya says and Shane snaps his eyes to Ilya’s face. Maybe he said it out loud. His desire to know Ilya. To understand this.

“Did you…like it?” Shane asks, unsure suddenly how to ask questions about something that is so close to him. 

Ilya sits down on the bench, still facing Shane and kind of nods to the stool that is close to him. Shane sits down and waits. Ilya is smiling at him. That is easy. That is always easy.

“I did,” Ilya says. “I was good at it.” He leans over, one long arm to put his coffee cup on the ground so he can lean forward, his elbows on his knees and then he laughs. “Shane,” he sits back, gesturing for Shane to come closer. There are wheels on Shane’s stool and he scoots close enough for Ilya to snag his ankle and yank him close, manhandle him until he’s close and is rubbing Shane’s arms and thighs and sighing. 

“I am sorry,” Shane starts to say because Ilya is obviously working through something. 

“No, no,” Ilya tells him immediately. “I was good at hockey, but I think my mother, uh.” Ilya digs his fingertips into Shane’s thighs like it can steady him. “My mother saw that my father had taken my brother from her by using hockey and she did not want that to happen to me.”

Shane is trying to read between the lines. “They are divorced?”

Ilya’s smile is sad. “No, they were not divorced.”

The past tense is very clear. 

“My mother is very young for my father and my father was not good to her and I think she was worried I would grow up and play hockey and become like my father.” Ilya shakes his head. “She had a good friend from before she marries my father.” Ilya is speaking slowly, picking words carefully. “He is famous pianist in Moscow, so he comes to my father’s house and gives me lessons and tells my father that I can be best musician of my generation, but I have to give up hockey. To practice. To be the best.”

Ilya’s accent - which is normally mild - has thickened. His language has changed. This is…emotion. He’s giving Shane something he maybe doesn’t talk about much and Shane wants to crawl into his lap. “Were you? The best musician of your generation?”

Ilya laughs, all of his teeth on display. “Not at all, I was probably better than most, but not the best.”

“But -” Shane starts, but Ilya leans into him further. 

“I was good at composition, but the classics could not hold my attention. I would never have been great, but then my mother…” Ilya pulls back, looks at Shane with sharp eyes. “My mother - she was so funny and she got me away. She found a way to get me away from my father.”

Shane realizes all at once that she died. Probably when Ilya was young. She is gone and Ilya has -

“This tattoo -” Ilya presses his hand down. Shane knows he means the swirling Cyrllic words on his arm. “It is a piece of the note she left for me. Do not look behind you, my son. You are meant for greatness. You are meant to be happy. You are meant to love and be loved for who you are in your soul. You concentrate all the brightness and meaning of life inside of you.”

She killed herself. Ilya doesn’t need to say it. She is dead and she left Ilya behind with a note and a way to escape someone she could not survive and Ilya took that chance. 

“My mother’s friend makes sure that my father cannot say no to school away from Moscow and then I get a job in New York to play music, but Sveta and I meet Troy and Fabian and we get our record deal right away.”

Shane wants to hug him so he does. He hugs him hard. Ilya is shaking. “And now you’re here,” he whispers into Ilya’s wild curls. They’re soft and fluffy and Ilya smells like black tea and outside and he’s tucking himself closer into Shane with each breath. 

Don’t write the end before the beginning, he reminds himself. Ilya wants him to meet his band. He has just shared something very hard and heavy with Shane. He is clinging to Shane so fiercely. 

“And now I am here,” he sighs. 

And then Anya comes barrelling down the stairs and knocks Ilya’s cup of coffee over onto the floor and they have to scramble to clean it up and also Shane has to greet her properly and the only other thing that is said or acknowledged is Ilya tipping Shane’s chin up with one finger after they make it to the kitchen and kissing him gently. “I am here now,” he repeats and Shane - god - Shane wants that to be enough. 

Shane loves the sun, of course. He would relish the All Star games in the sunny places, would pack sunglasses and swim trunks and melt into the madness of the weekend on the beach. He actually looked forward to the destination weddings of teammates. He loved playing in LA with the much more famous people around and the sun beaming down on them. 

But, there is something about the rain in the summer that makes him feel like it’s easier to exist inside his own skin. 

Sometimes he cracks the door to the deck and he lets the heavy air come inside and it wraps around him and it feels like he is one whole person. 

Today, it’s raining and Ilya is stretched out on one side of his ridiculously long couch, Anya curled up on the rug in front of the open door because of the warmth of the air and the sound of the rain and Ilya has an acoustic guitar kind of laid across his body and he’s plucking out something that sounds familiar in the way that all music sounds familiar and Shane feels like he could maybe live here forever.

It’s different from being present in his body the way he normally is. This is truly Shane floating in this existence. He is here and he is maybe there too and everything is perfect.

There’s a book open on his chest - a copy of Pride & Prejudice that Rose gifted him years ago that he is making a valiant effort to read after she asked him specifically about it while they were in Montreal - and he’s eaten a full breakfast that Ilya cooked for him in this kitchen and Shane wants for nothing and no one. 

A summer rain and a man who probably likes him and Ilya hums under his breath and sings a few words - nonsense and then a very clear you make me want to be ready and Shane is still floating, but the idea of that takes root in this moment, in his heart. 

You make me want to be ready.

“Ilya,” he says, eyes still closed, almost out of his body. 

Ilya’s response is a hum, but he doesn’t stop picking out notes softly, he doesn’t move.

“I like you.”

“Yes,” Ilya speaks and Shane can hear the grin in his voice. “I like you, but is there a reason we are saying that now? Are you going to follow that up with please leave you have been here for two days?”

Shane kicks one foot out, but it connects with nothing. Ilya is too far away. Ilya huffs like he’s been kicked anyway. He needs to understand. Ilya deserves to understand what is wrong with Shane - what is wrong with his head and his brain. “You might have noticed I can be weird.”

Ilya kind of laughs, but then he stops strumming and humming and Shane hears him sit up on the couch, that hollow thunk his guitar makes when he sets it down somewhere. “Yes, and I spent my teenage years in an all boys classical music school and then a tour bus. I am not the most normal.”

“No,” Shane huffs, kicking out again at nothing before laying an arm over his eyes, unable to look at Ilya. “I mean, I know it seems ridiculous that I’m not out to my parents or most of my friends and I…I know there’s no reason anymore -”

Ilya wraps one hand around his bare ankle and squeezes. It’s grounding and simple and exactly what Shane needs. 

“I couldn’t deal with it for awhile,” he sighs. “Being gay. I was…I had all this pressure to be perfect and I was a role model and then I accepted it and decided that I would keep it a secret until I met someone it was worth it for. It’s maybe easier to accept when I have someone next to me?” Shane is floating somewhere above his body. Ilya squeezes his ankle again. “Or maybe I was too scared, but I decided to keep it to myself and then I was injured and everything was about me getting back, and then it was all about retirement and leaving the league and making statements -”

He takes a deep breath, but Ilya interrupts him. “Yes, everyone wants a piece of you when you are retiring. It is worse than the best parts of your career.”

“And then I got diagnosed with autism,” Shane says too quickly. “So, I just wanted to give my parents a break from having to deal with all the things wrong with me.”

“Shane,” Ilya says, sharp and fierce. “You do not mean this.”

Shane’s throat feels thick. It’s hard to swallow and it’s hard to speak. “I know…I know there is nothing wrong with me, but it felt like maybe I had enough revelations for everyone. If it was just that I didn’t want to go back to hockey, it might be -”

“You did not want to go back?” Ilya sounds confused.

Shane scrubs at his face, presses his fingertips into his eyes until he sees stars. “I probably could have gone back, but not as…me.” He removes his fingers and doesn’t immediately get his sight back, so he stares at the ceiling and waits. “I would have been the fourth line trick pony they brought out when they needed to get the crowd up, but I would never have been me ever again.”

He can see the ceiling so he risks glancing at Ilya and only finds kindness. 

“If I cannot be me, I don’t want to play.”

“Yes,” Ilya nods. “I think that is not so bad.”

Shane tries to swallow. “And the other thing makes it hard,” he shrugs the best he can. “I think probably it made a lot of my childhood make sense for my parents, but also it is a bit like…I am just even more, you know? I am asking someone to deal with the hockey stuff and the anxiety stuff and the closet and also now understand that I can't have leftovers because the texture is wrong and also I need 24 hours to deal with a change of plans because my brain is different.”

Ilya lets go of his ankle, but only so he can basically crawl over the top of him and lean in to kiss him. Soft and slow and thorough.

“I do not think that is asking anyone too much, Shane.” He says it so simply. There is nothing extra to be done. Shane is not too much. 

Shane feels like he might die - like he could die here. “I like you and you make me want to be ready.”

Ilya’s answer is to kiss him again and ask if Shane wants him to cook salmon or chicken for lunch. Or maybe they could make sandwiches. Ilya bought some of that bread that Shane likes at the bakery. Ilya will even let him scoop out the inside of the bread and he won’t judge him for it as long as he lets Ilya eat the scraps of bread.

Shane wonders what it might be like to introduce Ilya to his parents - if David or Yuna would be charmed by him first. Or maybe it would be Anya that would win them over.

Ilya kisses his forehead and says, “You should nap until lunch is done, yes? I will wake you. I know you love the sound of the rain.”

Yes, Shane decides. Ilya makes him want to be ready.

Chapter End Notes

The song Ilya is playing on his guitar is indeed Cinderella by Model/Actriz but in MY ROCKSTAR HOLLANOV AU, Ilya has not yet written this song. In fact, he is actively writing it right now. It's going to go in a movie and when he's interviewed about it in three years on a podcast, he's going to smile and say, "I didn't even write it for this movie. I wrote it first about my partner, with no intention of releasing it, but then I got this script and..." (This is not a spoiler. I'm writing a HEA fanfic. The HEA is coming.) Anyway, I am once again begging you to listen to this song.

Chapter book club!

The tattoo that Ilya has includes a bastardized quote from Anna Karenina - I have opinions about ole Leo, but really cannot escape Anna K as being beautiful and weird and everywhere.

Shane is reading P&P because Rose read one of his painfully boring hockey books when they were trying to date, but they broke up and she had delusions of turning Shane into a Gay Best Friend and tried to get him to Engage with Pop Culture and tried to start by drawing him in with the various hunks that have played and will play Mr. Darcy and realized she was not going to be successful. Shane keeps trying though. For her.

Chapter 8: just know I won't leave as I came

Chapter Summary

Ilya does something kind and then there's a visitor

Chapter Notes

I lived bitches.

I had the ability to write, but I did not have one single second of silence while my mother was in town so I wrote and did a lot of sitting in silence and also watching shit that I could never watch in the house with her if I wanted to not start a fight, but I'm here now.

We are rapidly reaching the end of this fic and that's okay because it's meant to be consumed during the summer months (my southern winter darlings, I am so sorry, come back in December when you have sun and warmth) and maybe revisited when it's sunny and warm again.

Ilya leaves to go pick up more dog food for Anya and comes home with a massive box that Shane has to get the dolly out of the shed to carry into the house and he tries very hard to ignore the way Ilya looks on with something like fond amusement. 

“This is not dog food,” Shane says once he’s pulled the box into his living room at Ilya’s direction. 

“That is in the car,” Ilya nods. “I bought you a sound system.”

Shane tries and fails to hide his surprise, but he suddenly feels far less guilty about the shipment of brick and rock that he is having delivered to Ilya’s next week so he can build him a firepit at his cottage - something he tried to do multiple times over the years for Alina. “You bought you a sound system.”

“Okay, yes,” Ilya is laughing and reaching for him. “But now we can have the full immersive experience when you help me -” Shane tries to pinch him, but Ilya has his legs mostly pinned between the box and his body. “I like to spend time here with you.”

Ilya is looking at him with those wide, honest eyes. There’s always a little bit of tease underneath everything he says, but Shane is starting to understand when Ilya really means it and when he’s using it as a defense mechanism so that Shane can’t see how close it is to the truth. 

Shane wants to build Ilya a firepit because Ilya likes the firepit and even if they only ever use it when Shane is over, he will have one and they can use it there together. Ilya wants Shane to have a sound system in his living room so that when Ilya wants to play him an album, he doesn’t have to stop and say you can really hear the bass line here if you had a real speaker and Shane wants the sound system in his house.

“I will go and get the dog food.” And Ilya beams at him. “Unless you need help?”

Ilya gives him a flat look and yeah, okay. Ilya can manage to do speakers, so Shane takes himself out to the car to get Anya’s bag of dog food and the special broth they pour on top because it’s summer and she gets hot everyday when they take her out. Shane ordered some silicone molds and he’s going to freeze some into doggy popsicles for her to see if she likes them. Maybe he can do that while Ilya unboxes the speakers and sets it up to his exact specifications. 

What happens though is that Shane comes in the house and dumps Anya’s food into his little food prison box and then takes the broth into the kitchen to get the molds out and stops short because Ilya is holding a speaker that blends in perfectly with his decor and he keeps walking though the kitchen and into the living room so he can kiss him because he is so thoughtful and horrible. 

“You hate it, don’t you?” Ilya shakes the little speaker, “I can exchange for a lighter brown? I was worried the shade would not be right online.”

Shane shakes his head hard. “Thank you, it is perfect.” And then he kind of holds up the broth. “I am going to make those popsicles for Anya.”

Ilya’s smile is blinding. “Okay, Shane. I will put this together and then play you an album, okay?”

“Okay,” Shane says, backing up and going back to doing what he needs to do. Which is hard while Ilya is rolling around his living room connecting wires and calibrating things and being…competent and great. 

He leaves him to it and tries to read a book on the couch. If he reads the same paragraph over and over…well…

Ilya is laying in the middle of Shane’s living room with his eyes closed and his arms spread wide and his ankles crossed and nodding his head to a beat that Shane cannot really follow with the song that’s playing. It’s some guitar thing that isn’t like anything Ilya has played for him yet, but he should probably stop being shocked that Ilya has new music to show him seeing as that’s his whole job.

“What is this?” Shane nudges his foot against Ilya’s thigh and then squeaks when Ilya wraps his stupid arms around Shane’s legs and it’s only a lifetime of hockey and Ilya’s own strength that means they don’t nearly kill each other, but it does mean that Shane knees Ilya in the stomach and Anya gets involved when he wheezes and it’s a pile of the three of them rolling around a bit on the floor like Hayden’s kids while the music continues to play. 

It’s silly and sweet and Shane is laughing because Ilya keeps insisting he’s fine even though he sounds all breathy and weird until he manages to pin Shane down against his side and even though Shane’s shoulder is aching a bit, Ilya starts to tell a winding story about this band and the memoir he read about Dean Wareham and how it changed his life and Shane listens to him and begins to understand him better and more importantly, he begins to understand what his band means to him. And what it means that he wants Shane to meet them. 

“They are the only family I have left,” Ilya says, his chin against Shane’s forehead. He says it in that off-handed casual way he says things when he’s trying not to draw too much attention to it and Shane wants to say, no you have me. And he wants that to be true. He wants that to be desperately true. 

That swirly anxious feeling inside of him that he knows so well evaporates between one breath and the next and the only thing he can think is that he wants Ilya to introduce him to his band as his…partner. Boyfriend. 

He doesn’t want to be the neighbor that he’s developed a friendship with. 

He wants to be ready - he is ready. He wants to maybe not put it on Instagram or to introduce Ilya as his partner on the red carpet of the awards, but he wants Ilya to know his parents and he wants Hayden and JJ to come for a long weekend and while they’re cuddled up with their wives, Shane wants to hold Ilya’s hand in his while they sit around the fire. 

Shane wants that and he wants to tell Ilya that, but Ilya has gone back to detailing a passage from this book about a flight gone awry and a missed show and Shane doesn’t want to interrupt him because he adores when Ilya does this because he doesn’t mind when Shane goes on and on about something hockey related.

He’s waiting for his opening to say something - about maybe Shane coming out to his band and letting them draw their own conclusions about their relationship if Ilya doesn’t want to outright say that the two of them are…seeing each other.

But then Anya gives one short little bark and Shane sits straight up to look at her because she never does that and then he makes direct eye contact with his mother. Who is standing in his kitchen. Holding a casserole dish. 

His father is standing directly behind her holding a bottle of wine and looking probably much less startled than Shane would like him to look considering Shane just had his hand quite low on Ilya’s hip.

Ilya has released his hold on Shane’s waist and Shane kind of wants it back because he feels braver when Ilya is touching him always, but he probably needs to - well, he probably doesn’t need to tell them that Ilya is not just his neighbor because Shane isn’t a cuddler normally and -

“Shane,” his mom says, his name all strangled and breathless and he feels like maybe he could die. Like maybe he isn’t ready for his parents to reject him, because - 

“Hello,” David says, sliding around Yuna and setting his bottle of wine down on the counter. “I’m David, Shane’s dad. We probably should have called.”

Shane and Ilya are scrambling up off the floor. Well, Ilya is scrambling and doing that annoying thing where he helps Shane up on account of his knee or whatever insufferably kind thing he does and Shane watches Yuna track that immediately. She sees all and she’s waiting for Shane to snap at him - to brush him off, and when Shane doesn’t - when Shane reaches for him instead…Shane knows nothing needs to be said. Not really. She sees it and she knows. But, Shane needs to say it for himself. 

For Ilya.

“This is Ilya,” he says, squeezing Ilya’s hand, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye to make sure he’s okay. Ilya squeezes back. “He bought Alina’s place.” And he could have stopped there, sure, but that isn’t enough for what Ilya is and it’s not enough for his parents who he wants to know him. “We’re seeing each other.”

“Oh,” Yuna says, and then immediately starts to ask, “and is this new -?” but she can’t decide how to finish that sentence so it dies in her throat.

Is this new? This thing with Ilya? Has Shane been hiding a relationship from them for years? One that bought a cottage out on a lake in the middle of nowhere to have plausible deniability? 

Is this new? Are boys brand new? Did Ilya come here and charm Shane and make him have all these realizations about himself? Did Yuna not know because Shane didn’t know?

And Shane doesn’t really know how to answer that question - realizes he doesn’t know how to answer any of these questions because he had not thought anything past these words. This is Ilya, we’re seeing each other.

“I only met Shane when I came here,” Ilya answers her. “But, is uh…” Shane can see his hand wave through the air. “Serendipitious.”

David repeats it. “Serendipitious.” Shane can hear the awe in his voice. “Well, we brought dinner. Ilya, do you eat pork? If not, I’m sure we can find something -”

“I do,” Ilya shakes out of Shane’s grip and heads directly for David and Yuna, very gently extracting the casserole dish from Yuna’s hands while Yuna blinks silently at him. “Shane and I were just talking about what we would do for dinner. We have not been to the store in too long. It is scary in here, but I think we have enough for a salad?”

Shane waits for his mom to protest or for David to be uncomfortable with how at ease Ilya has made himself in the kitchen or for the earth to open underneath their feet, but the only thing that happens is David pulls a tomato from the fridge and hands it to Ilya and Yuna wraps Shane in a crushing hug - rocking him back and forth, back and forth. 

“I wanted to tell you, mom, I -”

Yuna shushes him quietly and then cups his face in her hands. “I want to know all about him.”

What she’s really saying is I want to know all about you.

Shane wants that too. 

Anya is sitting on Shane’s couch - which she’s technically not meant to be doing, but her head is in Yuna’s lap and she has one hand petting over Anya’s neck and one hand wrapped around a glass of wine, listening to Ilya tell her about the years he spent in Europe and the freedom he had in that. 

Shane cannot even really be concerned about the story he’s telling his parents about sneaking into another country for a whole weekend to go clubbing because Ilya has both of his hands clamped around one of Shane’s and David is laughing and Yuna keeps interrupting to ask him really? in a high pitched voice and it’s unbelievable that just six hours ago his parents did not know about Ilya. 

Based on their reactions, he’s not going to delude himself that they didn’t at least suspect that he might be gay. 

But, this - the way David and Ilya had made a salad with the bits of vegetables in the fridge while Yuna poured them all wine and asked gentle leading questions about how long Ilya had been living at Alina’s and what he does and - 

Ilya had entertained it all. He had answered her questions and been gentle and honest and funny and by the end of dinner, David and Yuna were fully in love with him. He can see it. It feels like some sort of ridiculous dream. 

It makes him feel wobbly and his throat is tight and he has to look away and blink hard. 

The conversation doesn’t stop, but Ilya leans in and presses a soft kiss to his temple. “Okay?”

Shane squeezes his hands and nods, willing the tears out of his eyes before he can reenter the conversation, but when he turns his head he finds his dad looking at his and Ilya’s clasped hands with a fondness that Shane has only seen on his face when he’s looking at Yuna. 

Shane is so happy. He is so unbelievably happy and he hates that he didn’t tell them so long ago. Or well. Maybe not. Because he’s sitting with Ilya and he doesn’t think he’d trade that. 

Chapter End Notes

I know this chapter was shorter, but the next chapter is the band visit and that is going to be longer and it felt important that this chapter be ONLY the parents.

the only book I want to shout out for book club is one of my favorite music memoirs of all time.
My roots are in bandom and I will always and forever be a band bitch.
I had a phase where I did nothing but read band memoirs and Dean Wareham's "black postcards" is one of my favorite's of all time.
Luna is a 90's band you've never heard of and while they're worth a listen, the integration into HR here is that he is one of the founding members of Galaxie 500 which is a Boston indie band that took up a lot of space in the Boston and NY indie scenes, but have had a massive impact on indie music. (Neutral Milk Hotel wrote the song "Naomi" about Naomi of Galaxie 500, there's a Galaxie 500 song in the 2012 movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, etc)
Anyway, the book is about his time with Galaxie 500 and of course, it's controversial with the band's other members, but it is a great and engaging memoir.

Chapter 9: I won't leave as I came

Chapter Summary

Shane meets the band.

Chapter Notes

Helllooooooo.
This little summer fic has been a nice little writing break for me because it's been quick and breezy even if I've made y'all wait for updates. I WILL be going back to writing in my series after this. Cross my heart.

Shane ends up standing kind of awkwardly in the kitchen while Ilya goes to fetch Troy and Harris and baby Willa from the driveway. 

Ilya says it's because he wants to watch the shock on Harris’ face, but Shane realizes that when Ilya comes around the corner holding a tiny baby in his gigantic arms, it’s because he’s plotting Shane’s death. 

Luckily, Shane doesn’t have enough time to think about that at all because Anya comes barreling back around the corner with a new bit of rope in her mouth followed closely by Harris who promptly drops a backpack that makes a concerningly loud thump against the floor and screams. 

It’s the kind of unadulterated shock that you can’t fake and Shane knows that Ilya will be holding this over Harris’ head forever. 

“Babe?” A strangled voice comes from the front door, a slam, and quick feet. “Are you -” the man Shane knows is Troy says. Reaching first for Harris, eyes raking over him and then the baby still in Ilya’s massive hands and then finally over to Shane. “Oh, fuck.”

“You are swearing in front of my perfect goddaughter,” Ilya tuts, now rocking the tiny baby in his arms exaggeratedly and smiling at Shane and then Harris and back at Shane. “Shane, come and meet Willa. When she is a little bit older, she will come and spend summers here and I will spoil her so badly and you will teach her all about hockey, yes?”

Harris and Troy both make the same startled noise and Shane wonders if it’s the only possible reaction to finding out that their friend that they saw not all that long ago is talking to a man they never met about how he will be in their daughter’s life, or if it’s one of those couple things like Hayden and Jackie when they respond to their kids in the exact same way sometimes. 

A startled what when Ruby drags a frog into the house or an exclaimed no when Arthur tries to climb onto something too tall or the little noise of frustration when they’re making dinner together and one of the kids stomps and demands mac and cheese instead. 

But, Ilya is holding Willa out - careful and steady - his one huge hand underneath her head, his tattoos stark against the pale skin and her stark white onesie and bright green socks. She’s kind of limp and wrinkly still the way little babies are before they start to be able to hold themselves up and start to get rounder. 

She’s pink and clean and Ilya is gazing at her in a way Shane has never seen him look at anything and Shane is struck by how beautiful Ilya is and how he very much wants this future summer where the Pike children join Willa on the lake and they grill hot dogs and Shane sets up the projector and they watch some old movie that Ilya knows all the words to and Shane can take them to get fitted for a new pair of skates.

This life had presented itself to him when his parents walked in on them and the sky didn’t fall and it’s unfolding end over end in the kitchen of Ilya’s house while Ilya gazes at a fresh tiny baby and coos at her and her parents stare at them and it’s only been weeks, but Shane wants that life - this life. 

He feels a bit like that man in that silly Christmas movie Rose makes him watch every year. He’s been given a sliver of a life that could be everything he could ever want even if it’s different to what he thought he wanted when he first started playing. 

Shane has a chance here to have his parents love his partner and to have friends that love him and trust him with their kids and it’s absolutely mad and maybe completely out of character, but -

“Your boyfriend is Shane Hollander?” Harris wheezes and Shane forces his gaze away from Ilya and back to Harris - who is still gaping at him. “When you said you had someone for us to meet -”

“You can probably just call me Shane,” Shane says, feeling a bit guilty when he realizes just how bitchy it sounds, but Ilya pulls Willa to his chest so he can laugh and that seems to crack everyone out of their shock.

The front door opens and a lovely voice floats down the hallway. “Hello, my lovelies, where is the baby, someone produce the baby right away.”

Shane knows this is Fabian, but then Ryan Price comes around the corner and he and Shane stare at each other for a long long moment. 

“Oh, Ryan!” Ilya booms. “It’s a trend. You leave the band, you get a retired hockey player boyfriend.”

Ryan was always nervous and even though Shane never played on the same team as him, he heard plenty of stories from other guys who had played with him. He had retired and faded away into an occasional boogeyman story for rookies. Ryan Price woulda taken your head clean off for that one, boy. 

And now he’s looking all the bit of every nervous variation of him that Shane has ever heard whispered about. 

“Darling,” Fabian says, laying a gentle, but possessive hand on Ryan’s bicep. “Is there a problem?”

Shane takes Fabian in really for the first time. He was an early band member. He had come and gone after the first album when he wanted to make softer more experimental music, but he had stayed a beloved friend and he had been touring until last week - the reason this get together had taken a bit to happen. They had wanted Fabian here. 

And Shane can see why he maybe didn’t fit into the band. Ilya with his sprawling tattoos and his hard edge look. Troy and his devastating beauty that looks almost harsh and dismissive when he dressed it up right. Svetlana with her steely gaze and her quick mouth. 

Fabian is…soft. And the way Ilya tells it, the best musician he knows. But, he’s also ready to throw himself at Shane if he needs to. Shane can see the defense on his face. 

Probably with good reason. He knows how people talked about Ryan both before and after he left the league.

“Fabian,” Ryan says, voice rumbly and weirdly soft. “Hollander and I are good.”

Fabian still doesn’t look super convinced, but he tilts his face up to look at Ryan and Shane finds it hard to breathe. That level of devotion and love is so easy to read and -

The front door again and then rapid fire Russian, followed by an English, “and why are we all gathered like a herd of very dumb moose?” Shane looks past Fabian directly into Svetlana’s very sharp eyes. They are feline. “A herd of very dumb moose for Shane Hollander, apparently. I will kill you.” She points one fingernail at Ilya - who cackles high and bright - and then whips it over to Shane. “Take the baby and come sit with me. Ilya played a very dirty trick and now I want to hear all about you.”

Ilya is still snickering to himself, but he immediately hands Shane the baby - which he takes on some kind of athletic based instinct - and then he allows himself to be pulled by the sleeve into the living room while Ilya and Harris and Troy hiss at each other in the kitchen and Ryan and Fabian have some sort of elaborate conversation with their eyebrows and Shane feels out of his body. 

“You are the one making our Ilya so happy,” Svetlana grins at him, reaching one hand to settle against Willa’s back, rubbing her so gently. Anya comes and sits next to Shane, head on one knee. 

This is the shovel talk. Rose would give it to Ilya probably. She would threaten his life. She would tell Ilya she would put him in the lake or down a mountain or fly him to some foreign country and leave him there. 

Shane thinks that’s just the price to pay with friends, probably. 

But, Svetlana moves her hand from Willa and onto Shane’s arm. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Now, Ryan come in here please and tell me a story about Shane Hollander. I am at a disadvantage and I need to tease him a little bit.”

Ryan hulks over Fabian who kind of…lounges in a chair. Elegantly. “We never played together,” Ryan shrugs. “Golden boy and all, the rumors were you didn’t date because it got in the way of hockey, but now I think it was because…”

“I’m gay,” Shane nods. 

“Yes,” Ryan kind of huffs out a laugh. “That.”

Harris comes in and points at his baby. “Okay, now that the shock has worn off, hello, sorry to make a horrible impression, do you want me to take her back? And also, tell me Ilya did not have a hidden camera for that.”

“Oh,” Shane kind of adjusts Willa and she makes a soft noise. “I don’t mind. My best friend has four kids and I kind of miss them this small.”

Harris’ face goes all soft and mushy and red. “We’ll do a baby timer then, but about the camera.”

“There is no camera!” Ilya shouts from the kitchen.

“Oh like I’d believe anything out of you after you told me that you were dating a podiatrist.” 

Which apparently sets Svetlana off because she says something harsh in Russian that has Ilya and Troy laughing and even though this maybe would be a bit overwhelming normally - to be in a place with new loud people - Ilya rounds the group, a platter of fruit that he and Shane had cut up together earlier in one hand and ginger ale in the other. He sets the platter of fruit on the coffee table and the ginger ale in front of Shane and then slides in tight next to him, one arm around him. 

It doesn’t feel all that overwhelming at all. Not with Ilya snug beside him and a baby on his chest and future he can so clearly see. 

Shane stays the first night out of necessity. He gets a little too tired and doesn’t dare take off walking through the woods in the dark, but he kisses Ilya firmly on the mouth after breakfast and promises everyone that they will see him again and maybe, yes, he could come to Toronto to visit, but he wants everyone to have time to truly catch up with Ilya and he also has some errands to do.

Ilya pouts a little bit about Shane leaving, but Shane says he’ll see him tomorrow when everyone heads out and takes off towards his own cottage. 

He takes the long winding path just to clear his mind, but also a little bit to steel himself for what he’s about to do.

It had settled over him the afternoon before, but had solidified when Ilya tucked his face into Shane’s neck in Ilya’s bed and said, “thank you for giving me all of this.”

He hadn’t elaborated and Shane had been too much of a coward to ask him because Shane knew that it is not Shane at all that is giving Ilya anything.

Ilya has given Shane…courage. Bravery. He’s allowed him to come out to his parents and given him maybe a better relationship with them. He has given Shane space to meet people and be who he is completely. And maybe Shane would have gotten here eventually.

Maybe in five years, he would have gone to a Pike kid’s graduation and hit it off with one of the dad’s and gone on a date with him and had a glass closet relationship. Maybe Shane would have swayed under Rose’s insistence that he try dating again and he would have met someone that his parents loved and invited to Christmas.

But, today Shane has all of this and Ilya too and he wants Ilya in everything. He wants Ilya to be in every corner of his life because he is tired of having little walled off areas for everything all the time.

He makes himself some of Alina’s chamomile tea - the last of the last tin is dangerously low, but he feels like she should be present for this. 

The first call goes to voicemail and Shane checks the time. It’s camp drop off time so Shane picks up the worn copy of the strength and conditioning book he’s been studying and he starts to reread a section at random just to have something to do with himself while he waits. 

He doesn’t need to study. Not really. Not…well, he doesn’t know if he wants to go back to the league, but even if he picks up his skates for timbits hockey, he wants to have the same certification as everyone else. 

He’s just thinking about it. After Ilya…he’s not sure. Only that he didn’t even want to consider it, and then Ilya was here in his life and his house and Shane was thinking to himself about tiny hockey players and making hockey better at the core of it. 

And selfishly, if he taught a young team, it would be much less pressure and much less travel and he could maybe plan to stay in one place. 

He had offers, of course. Texas had offered him an eye watering amount of money, but Shane respects himself too much for that. 

It’s just a thought. A thought that maybe has increased in frequency and -

“Hayd,” Shane greets him, answering when the phone starts to vibrate against his chest. “I was just calling to ask if you and Jacks and the kids could make it up for a weekend sometime soon. There’s someone I want you to meet, but first you have to be really cool about something.”

There’s absolute silence on the other end of the call for so long that Shane pulls the phone away from his ear to make sure it’s still connected. 

“Hayd?”

Hayden clears his throat and sounds a little frazzled. “Yeah, man. You know we’re there. I’ll talk to Jackie about it and she’ll text you, but I gotta tell you…whatever you’re about to tell me, it’s probably - I uh.” He mumbles fuck to himself. “It’s a guy, right?”

Shane should maybe be offended or maybe not. Maybe he should cry or ask Hayden how long he’s known or something, but all he can do is exhale. Slow and steady. “Yeah, it’s a guy and I guess we should probably invite JJ too.”

Hayden laughs and the world keeps fucking spinning.

Chapter End Notes

Book club for this chapter is nonexistent, but Shane does read a book I mention in a previous chapter. He's been flirting with the idea of becoming a hockey coach and purposefully not looking at it because if he doesn't look at it, it's not real.
There will be book club next chapter and in the epilogue <3

Chapter 10: I can see us laying face to face

Chapter Summary

Ilya is waiting for Shane

Chapter Notes

This is the last chapter - epilogue up next

Thank you for reading my silly little summer fic. I hope you feel warm and sunshiney

Shane is halfway through making his morning cup of tea when he sees the book. 

It’s open on his dining room table, split open down the middle with a bookmark sticking out of the top of the page. 

Ilya is here. Somewhere. 

Now that Shane knows, he can see little bits of him everywhere. Anya’s leash is hanging up on the hook next to the front door that Shane brought up from downstairs because none of the Pike children need a diaper bag any longer and Anya needed a hook for her leash. 

There’s a can of sugar free energy drink in the recycling bin.

The throw blanket that Ilya likes best is moved to the other side of the couch. 

Shane missed him coming in somehow and wonders where he is.

When Arthur was born, Jackie became extremely preoccupied with the belief that he would accidentally get a small toy meant for his sisters and choke on it. Hayden had spoken with the team doctor about it and then purchased some plastic suction thing from a medical supply store that was meant to rescue a child that was choking. 

Jackie hadn’t trusted Hayden that it would work and so he made Shane help him demonstrate and Shane had been so desperate to see Jackie relax that he laid on the floor and let Hayden suck all the oxygen out of his lungs with that plastic rescue thingy and he had coughed and gasped and writhed so hard on the floor that Jackie made Hayden buy two more and Shane considers it to be the worst breathlessness he’s ever experienced. 

That’s what reading the poem that Ilya has left out for him feels like. All the air has been sucked out of his lungs by force and he’s left trying to suck air into his body to stop the screaming in his lungs. 

And while he’s still trying to breathe again - his hand pressed to his sternum there to rub it away - he catches sight of Ilya - sat in the rain just next to the chamomile patch and Shane is moving even if he still can’t breathe. 

“Ilya!” he shouts, moving across the deck, getting soaked immediately. Ilya does not make any indication that he’s heard Shane and Shane considers turning around and going in search of an umbrella or his rain coat, but then he sees Anya laying on the ground next to Ilya and Shane’s heart squeezes in his chest. 

He must be okay. He has to be okay.

“Ilya!” he tries again, but he’s falling to his knees next to him, touching his shoulder, his face, pushing Ilya’s hair back from his forehead where it’s plastered down with rain. 

Ilya’s skin is cold to the touch and Shane wants to shake him, but Ilya turns his head to look at him and his face looks…haunted and he’s been crying. Or perhaps is crying and Shane instead crawls into his lap and hugs his body to his own chest. 

Ilya is actively crying. Shaking and making sad little choked off noises, but he immediately wraps his arms around Shane’s body and clings to him. 

“What’s wrong?” Shane asks, and then because he isn’t sure Ilya can even answer him, he says his name again. Maybe a bid for him to come back to him. “Ilya.”

Ilya squeezes him and squeezes him and squeezes him and Shane still hasn’t caught his breath from the poem, so he wiggles free and holds Ilya’s face in his hands. 

“Ilya.”

“Shane,” Ilya places his own hands over Shane’s and presses them harder into his face. “I am sorry.”

Shane is busy rapidly flipping through exactly what kind of professional they’re going to need to handle this. He had a whole team at one point, and half of them are still on some sort of retainer, he could -

“I did not mean to scare you,” Ilya’s voice is ragged and thin. “I could hardly sleep and I just wanted to be here with you.”

“You can always be near me,” Shane says too quickly, his voice sharp.

Ilya makes another devastated noise and squeezes him tighter again. “It is my mama’s birthday and I wanted to sit with her in the chamomile and -”

Shane is going to put this in his calendar immediately. And also plant more chamomile in the spring. “You can always sit here,” Shane assures him, “you can always sit here, you are always welcome here. I want you here all the time.”

Ilya’s face does something very complicated and devastating and Shane continues on.

“I want you here all the time. I called Hayden, you know? I told him to bring JJ. I want you to meet them. I want you to meet my friends and be here all the time.”

“Oh,” Ilya’s face crumples. “I very much want to be here all the time, Shane.”

Shane doesn’t kiss him because Ilya is crying and they’re freezing and maybe they should go inside and shower and warm up and Shane can use the last of Alina’s chamomile tea and he can put Ilya’s head in his lap and allow Anya to drape herself over Ilya’s chest and Ilya can tell him stories about his mother and he can think about that line. 

Almost children, we lay asleep in love listening to the rain.

Ilya must be able to read his mind. “I want to stay here all the time and be the only man Shane Hollander ever falls in love with.”

Shane does kiss him then, disgusting and cold and wet. What else can he do?

“Let’s go inside and get warm,” Shane tries to jostle him gently and Anya takes her chance and tries to wedge her way in between them and that is what makes Ilya nod. 

“I am sorry,” he breathes. “I am sorry for making you worry.”

“No,” Shane shakes his head. “No, never for that, just come on, let’s get warm.” That’s still Shane’s biggest priority. There’s other stuff in there, but that’s for later. First he has to get Ilya off the ground and Anya dry and the two of them tucked in close with tea.

Ilya allows Shane to help haul him up and then they both realize they’ll need to strip down on the deck and make a dash for the bathroom with Anya in Ilya’s arms so they can get in the shower and get warm and dry. 

Shane doesn’t know if Ilya’s band is still here or if they need to go and see them this morning, but Ilya came to seek him out for comfort and that means more than Shane can ever explain. 

They shower in shifts. Ilya dries Anya with the little blow dryer Shane bought for her and Shane showers, and then Ilya showers while Shane dries the floor with towels and finishes drying Anya’s hair. 

It’s so domestic and sweet and despite Shane wanting to push it all away until later, he is suddenly thinking about what Ilya said to him. How he wants to be the only person Shane Hollander falls in love with. 

Shane knows it’s fast. He knows that it’s likely very foolish for him to not think about this more, but he played one hockey game at 4 years old and told his parents he was going to play hockey for the rest of his life, and when he was 13, he had one beer at Griffin’s house and decided he wasn’t going to drink until he was older and legal and didn’t. He was drafted a Metro and decided he would stay a Metro until he retired even though it would have probably been better for him to go elsewhere at certain points, but he didn’t leave. He stayed.

Shane has always always always been the kind of person who arrives at a decision and stays with it. No matter what. 

So, he’s crawling around on the floor, drying up after Anya and he looks up at Ilya who is drying himself off and he knows with certainty that Ilya doesn’t have to stick around for Shane to fall in love with him. Shane is already there. 

He doesn’t say it. Not yet. He wants Ilya to…have today. He wants to swaddle him up and make him feel loved. He wants to give him space to remember his mom and tell Shane about the rest of his band’s visit and for Shane to tell him about Hayden and Jackie and the kids and JJ and -

“Shane?” Ilya breaks him out of his spiral. “You are okay?”

Shane has to take a deep breath and blink. “Do you want to make the last of Alina’s chamomile? I think she would like that. To celebrate your mom today.”

Ilya’s eyes are shiny again. “Yes, Shane. I would like that very much.”

“Maybe I will learn to dry the plants to make it,” Shane shrugs, “She taught Rose.”

“Chamomile was my mama’s favorite, she always grew a little bit every year.” Ilya is rubbing the towel through his hair aggressively. “I think she would like that I am here with you, with her favorite flower and tea.”

Shane thinks about his face - that day he stumbled upon Shane’s cottage and the look he had given the little chamomile patch. The way he had watched it and blinked and then kind of…fled. 

He must have…He must have been thinking of her and Shane is so sure. This is what love is. That thing his parents wanted for him so badly. The thing Hayden has with Jackie. He gets it suddenly - why his teammates would meet a girl and six months later be married to her. Shane will speedrun this if he allows himself. 

Ilya is beaming at him and Anya. And Shane is so in love. He is going to keep this man forever. 

Chapter End Notes

The full poem that Shane reads is Untitled by Franz White:

This was the first time I knelt
and with my lips, frightened, kissed
the lit inwardly pink petaled lips.

It was like touching a bird's exposed heart
with your tongue.

Summer dawn flowing into the room parting the
curtains—the lamps dimming—breeze
rendered visible. Lightning,
and then soft applause
from the leaves . . .

Almost children, we lay asleep in love listening to the
rain.

We didn't ask to be born.

 

In this AU, I think Ilya would really love Franz Wright's poetry. A lot of it is available to find online and I think Ilya has this poem copied into a book where he's written out some of his favorite poems.

Chapter 11: epilogue - I feel different now than I did before

Chapter Summary

One Year Later

Chapter Notes

Hello, please remember that I adore you.

Shane has fourteen boxes of books stacked in this room and he has no idea where to start. He should have found something important and significant to do at the rink while Ilya was at his big important movie meeting and then Shane would not be alone in this hell of trying to make a dent in consolidating the books they deemed important enough to pack and bring from their separate houses. 

They would be forced to integrate together and Shane wouldn’t be too overwhelmed to even begin. 

The last year of their lives has mostly been spent in Shane’s cottage - only occasionally returning to Ilya’s for Ilya to work or to fetch something that they wanted to read. But, now they’re here - in Toronto - in the first official house with both of their names on the title, integrating their things for the first time.

Ilya had wanted to do it themselves. Something about how it’s only proper that when you officially move in together for the first time as an adult, you have to do the moving yourself. Shane thinks it’s silly. They spent too long overseeing the renovations to Ilya’s place to turn it into a proper studio for labels to rent out for their talent and it left them with too little time to actually move before they need to be at their new jobs in person.

Shane wanted to be here before, of course. He knows that coaches do plenty of work over the summer, but he is also finding out that university teams run a bit differently and worse, that there is less expectation on the women’s team to perform than he thought there would be. 

Ilya is already plotting a celebration for their championship. Shane wants him to not curse the team. But, maybe Ilya has a point. Shane will make this happen because he made the Metro’s champions too and he has something to prove here - a drive he hasn’t felt since his first cup run if he’s honest with himself.

The front door opens and closes and Shane is surprised because Ilya has not been gone all that long, but he hears a dog’s nails on the wood floor and a high pitched baby laugh and sees Anya only seconds before Harris appears with Willa in his arms. 

Shane is going to miss being so close to his parents and living at the cottage full time and his doctors in Montreal, but maybe Rose was right. Moving to the cottage full-time was like giving up on life. Besides, Toronto is likely not forever. Shane only has one year on his contract with the university and he’s engaged to a multi-millionaire and is a multi-millionaire himself and they can go wherever they like whenever they like. 

And, of course, they get to spend a year soaking up every moment with Willa that they can. And maybe talk about having one of their own. Probably. After the wedding. 

Willa claps her hands and reaches for Shane and Shane scoops her up easily, thanking Harris for walking Anya for them. 

“Oh, I’ve also come to save you from yourself,” Harris pats him on the arm. “Lets go unpack the kitchen while you hold Willa.”

Shane is thankful that Toronto means this - Ilya’s family. 

The afternoon passes like that. Willa in Shane’s arms, Harris unpacking boxes at random and shoving things in places they’ll never stay until they hear the front door again and Troy and Ilya tumble in from the rain, laughing together and arguing about the score of the movie they’ve taken on together - some coming of age thing that Ilya keeps saying is brilliant.

They’re excited so Harris and Shane are excited for them. 

“We ordered Chinese!” Troy announces, beelining for Harris as Ilya wraps himself around Shane’s back, running one long finger down Willa’s cheek. 

It makes Shane’s stomach flip flop. Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s temple. “Hello, fiance,” he whispers, “I missed you today.”

Shane loves him. “Hello, fiance. Did you have a great day?”

“Everyday is a great day with you, baby.” Ilya croons and Shane would elbow him if he wasn’t holding a sleeping Willa. 

“Great,” he says, “because I didn’t unpack a single book.”

Ilya’s booming laugh is the thing that startles Willa awake. “Oh, sweet girl,” Ilya whispers, taking her gently and rocking her back and forth. “Oh, love,” he pats her. “Uncle Ilya is so sorry for being a loud oaf.”

Harris laughs and Shane just thinks about a world in which Ilya says papa instead. 

Let it be said that Shane Hollander does nothing by halves. Especially not loving Ilya Rozanov.

Chapter End Notes

Book club is different this go round!

Here are some fun things I read and enjoyed while I was writing this fic!

The Compact by Miriam Benisse

Map Contact by Regolith

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (One of my "I will read anything you write" authors)

Into the Woods by WhyYesIndeed