Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Hayden Pike

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista Shane Hollander, Power Dynamics, Language Barrier, Cultural Miscommunication, Dramatic Irony, Anxious Shane Hollander, Bottom Shane Hollander, Top Ilya Rozanov, Sexual Tension, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, I say this is going to be a slow burn, but I don't know if I have any self control, Gratuitous use of em-dashes is my only personality trait at this point, The writer can't speak Russian but she can use Google with the best of them, No Beta, Autistic Shane Hollander, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Consent King Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander Has a Praise Kink, but like, mildly, Mysterious background Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander can't read a room or a book, Soft Ilya Rozanov, Protective Ilya Rozanov, POV Shane Hollander, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, (probably should've added that one a LOT sooner)

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Private Meetings and Open Doors

Collections:

Read, 🏒hollanov🥅, The Best of the Best According to Tabitha (HR), Heather rivalary Fics, the peanut butter to my jelly

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-22 Completed: 2026-02-18 Words: 71,777 Chapters: 10/10

Private Meetings

Summary

Shane Hollander works at a coffee shop, plays hockey, keeps his head down, and doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t need the answers to.

So when a new regular starts showing up—quiet, watchful, Russian-accented, and conducting invitation-only meetings in the back—Shane notices. When that same man takes an unsettling interest in Shane’s closing shifts, his routines, and his safety, Shane does what feels sensible: he adjusts his behavior and keeps his mouth shut.

Ilya Rozanov orders an Americano. He reads, but only in Russian. He worries when people work late alone.

They are operating with very different definitions of danger.

If he didn’t ask questions, he couldn’t be lied to.

The rules were simple.

1. Do not ask questions you don’t need the answer to.
2. Do not share personal information freely.
3. Do not be alone with Ilya Rozanov.
4. Do not give him a reason to think you’re afraid.

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

“Extra hot hazelnut latte for Michelle!”

Shane snapped the lid onto the to-go cup and pushed it towards the waiting customer, grinning broadly when she smiled after her first satisfied sip. He’d originally taken the job at Annotations prior to his first year at school to save up some money for the school year, but to his surprise he’d enjoyed it so much that even once his classes and hockey started back up he’d found it hard to let go. 

But there was something almost meditative about pulling the shots of espresso, watching the milk froth, and learning different styles of latte art. 

Maybe it wasn’t the sort of side gig that someone would usually expect a member of the University’s hockey team to have, but he enjoyed it. Plus, he was enough of a pragmatist to know that hockey wasn’t forever and all it would take was one bad hit for his career to end. He was good, but he wasn’t NHL good. 

The late morning rush passed in a blur of rote memory and mostly satisfied customers. He and Rose were usually the only ones working in the mornings, and the two of them could work like a finely tuned machine when things got chaotic. Sure, maybe their relationship had failed (spectacularly), and kissing her had felt something like kissing his aunt (perfunctory and a little bit gross). He also couldn’t stay hard although he really thought she was beautiful. However, they understood each other’s rhythms and were great at sharing space. 

Around eleven, once the morning classes had all begun and students were more likely to visit a full service cafe over the coffee shops with pastries and the office monkeys were all busy writing Shakespeare on typewriters or whatever happened in the highrises off campus, the two of them could finally rest. 

“Do you have any plans this weekend?” Rose asked as she dragged a rag over the already clean counter, trying to look busy in case the owners checked the cameras for once. 

Shane, going through the now familiar motions of cleaning the espresso machine and moving the spent grounds to the compost bin under the counter, shook his head. “I might try to see if I can get some ice time this weekend if there’s nothing booked, but I think that’s about it. I have a paper I need to get done before next Friday.”

“Well, some of the theater majors are thinking of throwing an improv party. Assigned roles at the door, and you have to stay in character all night. Could be fun?”

Shane stared at her blankly, hand freezing on the handle of the espresso machine. 

“Does that... sound anything like my kind of fun?”

Rose laughed and tossed the rag at him. He tried to dodge—failed—and stared down at the smear of something red that had missed his apron to spread across the chest of his white shirt. Jam, maybe. Rinse with cold water, soak in water and vinegar, use oxygen bleach if that doesn’t do it. No hot water until the stain is removed.

“You could at least try, Shane. Plus, I know for a fact that there’s going to be several attractive men there who would love the thought of being swept off their feet by a big, burly hockey player. Much to consider... and I’d like you to actually consider it for once.”

Shane sighed, more at the stain on his brand-new shirt than at what she was saying. “It just doesn’t really sound like my scene, Rose. Plus, I haven’t really been compatible with most of your friends that you’ve tried to set me up with. I’d rather be single than just be with someone who doesn’t fit.‌”

Rose faked a gasp and started shifting things around in the almost empty pastry case to make it look more purposeful. Shane tried not to twitch at the sight of the almond tarts picking up the powdered sugar from the lemon bars. 

“My friends are all funny and smart. Creative, very handsome. Not once have I tried to set you up with someone who isn’t looking for someone like you. All I have to hear, day in and day out, is ’oh, I wish there were bigger men around, oh, I wish there was someone who could just pick me up and toss me around like I weighed nothing.’ Shane, you’re literally exactly what they’re looking for!”

Yeah, that’s the problem, isn’t it, Rose? I’m exactly what they’re looking for... but I’m looking for the same thing.

It wasn’t often that Shane felt small. He knew he was muscular. Sufficiently tall and broad-chested with considerable muscle, he was a hockey player who recognized his shirts would often feel tight across his pecs and biceps. He was used to using his size and strength to menace, to intimidate, to fling other men around as if they were weightless. 

Which is exactly why small and delicate wasn’t what he was looking for in a partner.

Before he could even think about how to answer her without revealing something that bordered on a little too personal, even for Rose, she cursed, slipping her phone from her pocket as it rang. 

“No phones on the floor, Landry,” he said with a grin. 

“No, I know! It’s in work mode, which means the only people who can get through to me right now are the owners of this place and the directors of the programs I’m in. I’ve gotta take this—can you cover me?” she asked, whipping her apron over her head and scurrying out of the back door before he could respond. He glanced around, noting that several customers had left while they’d been talking without bussing their tables first, but it was otherwise quiet. 

“Sure thing,” he called out weakly, aware that she was completely focused on the news from her director and probably could not hear him, even as she shut the door. He maneuvered around the counter, collecting empty cups and plates from the recently vacated tables before returning with his wet rag and broom to make sure that the place remained as neat as it could be before shift change. 

As much as he enjoyed the morning rush, the frantic in-the-moment movement of getting people in and out and on with their mornings, he enjoyed the quiet parts of the job more. The quiet conversations happening in different corners of the shop, the people with their books, their knitting, their journaling. The world needed more third spaces, and he loved the opportunity to witness people taking a moment to just exist within these walls. 

The chime above the door rang as it swung open, a cool gust of air blowing in with it. It wasn’t too far into the semester, but already the temperatures were dropping. Before long, the days would enter the weird push and pull of winter. While fewer people wanted to go out and walk around just for a cup of coffee or tea, the people who found themselves outside would inevitably find themselves pulled in with the promise of something warm and rich to thaw the cold outside. 

“Hi there, welcome in!” he said as he washed his hands in the sink before touching the screen of the POS. “Menu is on the wall, specials are on the chalkboard beside the register. I’ll be right with you!” 

Twenty seconds later, hands washed and dried, he spun to face the register. “What can I—oh.” 

The man at the register was tall, certainly taller than Shane was, and broad across his shoulders and chest. The man’s thick black turtleneck pulled tight across his chest, with a gold crucifix hanging from his neck. A charcoal coat, likely wool, hung open and made him look even wider, even taller. Shane’s eyes were meeting the man somewhere around his collarbones, and he reluctantly dragged them up to his face, startled to see that this might just be the most attractive man who had ever lived. 

Jesus wept. Michelangelo wept. Shane felt himself twitch in a way that implied he might start weeping any moment. 

His face was sharp and irritatingly precise, seemingly created by someone tasked with making the perfect man. As if even his bone structure had thoughts about efficiency. With high, clean cheekbones and a broad, firm jaw, his face seemed unyielding, yet a slight lift at his mouth’s corner softened it. His eyes were bright, dark eyebrows lifted in something that may have been amusement. 

“Oh?” 

“Uh, sorry,” Shane said reflexively, wiping his suddenly damp hands on the sides of his apron. “Long day, I think. What can I get for you?”

“What sort of tea do you serve?” 

Russian. He’d heard that accent enough on the ice to pick it up immediately.

“Oh, uh... we have Lemon Berry, Rosemary Rhubarb, Secret Garden, Liquid Sunshine…”

The man’s face twisted slightly. “Ah... no. I do not think I want that. Black coffee only, I think.” 

Shane nodded, hurriedly unlocking the screen on the register. “Sure, yeah. Do you want a drip, or an Americano?” 

The man stared blankly at him for a moment, as if musing over the words. 

“Drip is what’s brewed in the coffee pots. An Americano is espresso and hot water.” 

“So you have to make this Americano, drip already made?” he asked, still staring at Shane with an intensity that made his stomach swoop. 

“Yep!” he said, with a sort of crazed enthusiasm he knew he’d be embarrassed about once he thought about it. 

“I will do Americano, then.” 

Shane typed the order into the machine, trying to ignore how his hands were shaking and the fact that this guy was definitely still staring at him.

“That’ll be $2.75. For here or to go?” 

The man pulled a plain but very soft-looking leather wallet from the inside pocket of the coat. Shane passively noticed that the wallet didn’t fold cleanly in half. The amount of cash the man had inside when he opened the wallet shocked Shane. There were multiple forms of currency inside, and he watched him sort through euros, American dollars, and some other forms of banknotes with lettering and coloring that he didn’t immediately recognize. 

The man handed him a $20 note, his hands brushing Shane’s as he slipped it into his palm. “For here, I think.” 

Shane quickly made change, trying to quash the blush that he could feel rising on his cheeks and ears and ignore the slight electric charge he could’ve sworn he felt at the touch. 

“Okay, uh, $17.25 is your change. Can I get a name?” 

The man looked at him, his smile slightly widening as he shook the loonie, toonie, and quarter in his palm. “You would like my name?” 

“For the order!” Shane stammered out. “You know, so when it’s ready, I can…”

“Was joke,” he interrupted, still smiling at Shane. “I have been gone too long, no longer funny in Canadian. My name is Ilya.” 

Desperate to put some space between them before his stupid face could betray him any further, Shane immediately set to work grinding the beans and tamping them into the portafilter. He tried to let the meditative motions of something he was all too familiar with distract him, but he could swear that he could still feel the man’s gaze from where he waited at the register for the drink. He let out a deep breath as he locked the filter, waiting for the pull while he tried to get himself under control. It had been a long time, not since he was still in high school and deeper in the closet than he was now, that he had felt this unsettled and unmoored by someone handsome.

Finally running out of things to do to keep himself looking busy, once the hot water and the espresso were co-mingling in the cup, he was out of reasons not to turn. He’d expected the man to have walked away, but found him still standing where he’d left him. 

“One Americano for Ilya,” he said quietly, carefully sliding the cup and its saucer across the counter. 

“Ilya,” the man repeated. “Two syllable, not three. Ee-lya.” 

“Ilya,” Shane repeated softly, the pronunciation feeling decidedly unfamiliar in his mouth. 

“Closer. Will have to return for you to practice.” 

Ilya picked up his coffee and pivoted as if to go find a seat before he turned back and looked at Shane again. Purposefully, he dropped his change, all $17.25 of it, into the tip jar on the counter. 

“Thank you for drink,” Ilya said, before striding to the end of a long table against the back wall—noticeably, where he could still see the register—and sat down with his coffee. 

Fucking hell.

*** 

By the time Rose came back from her phone call, four more men had joined Ilya at his table, although only two of them had bothered to order something to drink before joining him. The others, after Ilya had said something quiet but forceful, had come up sheepishly to order something before returning. 

“Who is that?” Rose whispered, looking at the table in the corner. “Tall, dark, and certainly handsome. And it looks like he can’t take his eyes off ‌you.”

“He’s... no one. Just a customer, I guess. Russian, I think. He tipped well though,” Shane replied, trying desperately to seem like his eyes could do anything besides drift to the table that was gaining occupants every few minutes. 

“You don’t dispute that he’s looking at you?” 

Shane felt himself blush again and looked towards Rose, catching Ilya just past Rose’s shoulder slightly lifting the corner of his mouth again as their eyes met for a moment. 

“Uh, no. He’s definitely looked over here once or twice.” 

“Once or twice?” Rose hissed, smacking ineffectively at Shane’s shoulder. “Shane Hollander, the man can’t stop staring at you. And you’re blushing! But who could blame him? You know you’re a dish. And I think I’m seeing why it never worked out with any of my theater friends.”

They both glanced over, probably failing to be surreptitious as Ilya glanced at his watch—something shiny and bright that caught the sunlight shining through the window in a way that hinted at luxury. Ilya nodded once, and all the other people at the table stopped the individual conversations they’d been having and reached into their bags, pulling out notebooks and pens or computers. Ilya spoke, something quiet but firm, and clearly not English or French. 

Watching him like this, it was as if a mask had slid into place. Gone was the smiling, slightly flirtatious Ilya who had ordered at the counter, or even the highly observant Ilya who seemed to track Shane’s every movement behind the counter. Instead, the corners of his mouth tightened and his eyebrows drew down on his brow as he leaned forward in his chair, hands steepled before him, to address the men sitting before him. 

He’d heard their voices when they’d come up to order. A few were Canadian, another couple were Russian, but a few had accents he could place as foreign even if he couldn’t identify exactly where they might call home. Ilya said something in Russian, forceful and low, that sounded like an order, gesturing with one hand to the man sitting to his left. The man colored slightly and tried to explain something in Russian before Ilya cut him off, said something else indecipherable, and the man started again. 

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Rose whispered to Shane, trying to look busy with something besides snooping on the table in the corner. 

“I don’t know... business? Nice coat, nice suit... he tipped change on a $20 and that watch must cost a fortune.” 

“Business? In this cafe? In Russian?” 

Shane nodded, trying to look as confident as he could. “Sure. I’m sure it’s something like that.” 

The chime over the door rang, and eyes moved to the door. 

“Mister Rozanov—” 

“Преподаватель Розанов,” Ilya interrupted firmly.

“Преподаватель. Да, yes. I’m sorry,” the man gasped, still breathless from the speed he’d entered, and tossed himself into the seat furthest from Ilya at the table. Ilya stared at the newcomer for a long moment, and Shane felt a bead of sweat form somewhere near his temple.

“Не будьте невежливыми. Закажите кофе.” Again, Ilya spoke firmly and decisively. The man nodded, pushing himself back up from the table and scurrying over toward the counter where Shane and Rose were still trying to look busy.

“Shit, sorry,” the man said with a clear American accent. “It’s my first time being invited to join Rozanov at the table and I didn’t realize they’d moved the meeting from the old spot. Whatever’s fastest, please.”

Shane nodded and turned, pouring the guy a drip coffee while those words swirled in his head. He slid the cup towards the guy while Rose rang him up, and Shane clearly saw some of the coffee slosh out of the cup as the guy tried to pick it up with shaking hands. Shane pulled the rag from his apron pocket and began wiping it up before he froze when Ilya’s—Rozanov’s?—voice rang out again.

“Обслуживание было плохим? Дайте им чаевые, иначе нам понадобится другое место для встречи.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the guy mumbled, frantically digging through his pockets before dropping a loonie in the tip jar. “Thank you for the coffee.”

The rest of Shane’s shift passed in a haze. He normally didn’t work full days at the coffee shop, but a call at 2:00 told him that his relief—the owner’s daughter—wasn’t coming in and ’oh please if he didn’t mind could he possibly stay?’ 

He knew he could use the money, and the shop wasn’t ‌all that busy between three o’clock and nine, but the thought of working a full fifteen hours wasn’t one he relished. He knew he’d pay for it the next morning since he still had to be up to open the shop at six o’clock, but after things started slowing down in the evening, he knew he’d be able to get started on his side work early. 

Rose had stayed as late as she could, but sometime around five o’clock she’d gotten a call from one of her co-stars in the play they were putting on soon, and she’d run off to go run lines somewhere. 

“Just... be safe, yeah?” she’d asked, casting a glance towards the still packed table in the corner as she pulled her apron off and grabbed her purse. 

Over the next few hours, perhaps due to whatever had happened with the last person to join the table, one by one, as cups emptied, the men from the table returned to the counter to order more drinks. Most of them were espresso drinks or black coffees, simple and unadorned. While Shane was glad to have something to do, he couldn’t help but notice the perfunctory nature of order, tip, drink, repeat from the table in the corner. 

Eventually, one by one, the table emptied. Shane had noticed with passive interest as they’d gone around the table, each one reporting on something while Ilya listened. When each person finished, he jotted down a few notes on the pad in front of him before gesturing to the next person in the line. Once they’d all finished, Ilya had spoken, still in the firmly confident Russian, and they’d all listened attentively as they jotted down notes on his words. 

But then they were gone. Whatever they’d been discussing had ended, and Shane’s shift was drawing to a close. He stood up from where he’d been crouched before the reach-in, cataloguing the milks for the next morning, and startled to see Ilya standing in front of the counter again. 

“Oh, can I get you anything else?”

He stared back at Shane for a long moment, the easy and casual look from before still gone and the mask that he’d donned with the others still in place. 

“No. Should not be such a late night for me tonight. What time do you close?” 

Shane glanced at his watch and realized that it was closer to closing time than he’d thought. “We’re only open for another twenty minutes or so.” 

Ilya glanced around the room, empty now save for the two of them. 

“No one here to close shop with you? Does not seem very safe.”

Shane shook his head, grabbing a new, clean bucket from under the sink and prepping the bleach water to disinfect the tables. “No, I’ll be alright. Besides, I’m a hockey player. Someone comes in here trying to start something, and I’ll just toss them out.” 

Ilya looked at him carefully, eyes lingering on the stained white shirt pulled across his chest. 

“Hockey player? Explains muscles, I suppose. Still, it is not safe. You have seen news, yes? There have been incidents like this. People notice routine, places like this attract attention. It is easy to wait for someone alone at night.”

A slight chill ran down Shane’s spine despite the heat of the water going into the bucket as it ran down his fingers. 

He knew this, of course. He was aware of recent smash and grab incidents and late-night stick-ups at convenience stores and bodegas. He realized closing by himself probably wasn’t the best approach, and that consistently closing at the same time each night was not a smart strategy. 

But hearing it—hearing it in that voice, the slightly dispassionate Russian tone. It didn’t sound quite the same as it had felt in his head before. It no longer felt like a vague or abstract threat, and instead it forced him to flick his eyes towards the plate-glass windows up front, peering out into the darkness as if he could actually see anything outside.

“It’s probably fine... right? It’s a pretty quiet street.” 

Ilya sighed, glancing down at his watch. “So are many dangerous ones. I will stay.”

Shane froze, water overfilling the bucket and pouring into the sink. Did he‌… know something? 

He did not want the answer to that question if the answer was yes. 

“Oh, it’s fine, you don’t need to—” 

“I will stay.” 

And... he did. While Shane wiped off and disinfected the tables, swept up the crumbs and mopped the floors clean , Ilya stayed. As he moved around, Ilya flipped through his notebook from earlier, rereading his notes and adding marginalia to the sides in a different-colored pen. He quickly glanced at it but immediately knew he wouldn’t be able to make out anything on it. Cyrillic. 

When Shane finally lifted the apron over his head, Ilya glanced up at him and slid the notebook into his shoulder bag. 

“Ready to leave now?”

Shane nodded, and Ilya moved toward the front door. 

“Oh, it’s already locked,” Shane called out to him, digging in his pocket for his car keys. “I  go out the back door at night. I park around the back.”

Ilya nodded and followed Shane toward the back door. “Good. Is safer.”

They walked out the back door together, Shane quickly and quietly locking it behind him. While part of him knew that all of this—allowing Ilya to stay, letting him know that the back door was the late-night exit, coming out here along with him, with only the light of a single sconce on the wall to light the area—was probably a very dumb idea, there was a part of him that had to admit he was glad to have another set of eyes on him. Even if it was a complete stranger, it was nice to know that someone actually seemed to care.

“Well, this is me,” he said, hooking a thumb towards the used Subaru parked near the door. He felt almost embarrassed when he saw the way ‌Ilya looked at his car. This was clearly someone with money, used to nicer things if his clothing and jewelry were to be believed. The beat-up old Forester that his mom had given him when she no longer needed to tote him, his teammates, and their gear to practice must have looked absurd to the other man. 

“Subaru. Very reliable. Very safe. Boring, maybe, but good.” 

Boring. The way the word sounded in Ilya’s accent took some of the sting out of it, but it still felt odd. 

“Well, you know. Student and all.” 

“Yes, I do know."

Shane unlocked the door and opened it, about to get in, when a large, long-fingered hand caught him by the elbow. 

“You know I am Ilya. What is your name?” 

Shane went to answer, but hesitated. All the day’s events flashed before his eyes. The expensive watch, the hefty tip, the command over everyone else at the table... the certainty that there was danger in the world around them. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he asked as he slipped inside and locked the doors behind him, quickly starting the car and pulling out without another glance through the window. But just before he turned onto the street and away from the shop, he couldn’t help but glance into the rearview mirror. 

A glance that showed Ilya, standing under that bare bulb swinging near the back door, lighting a cigarette as he laughed.

*** 

As he locked the deadbolt to his apartment, Shane felt himself let out a long and low exhale. Hayden tried to say something to him from the couch, but he waved him off and hurried down the hallway into his room, needing to be alone. 

As he peeled his work shirt off, pinning a clothespin onto the stain from Rose’s rag so he’d remember to treat it before dumping it into the washing machine later, he realized exactly how wound up he was. 

His shoulders felt tight, but no amount of rolling them made them drop to where they should fall. His jaw clenched hard, and he could feel the slight ache in his molars that made him remember the absolute fortune his mom had spent on dental work after he’d taken a stick to the face in high school. His heart was beating hard in his chest, but not quickly. 

As he flopped down onto his bed, trying to force himself to relax, he thought about what he did know.

Ilya. Ilya Rozanov. A mysterious, tall, painfully handsome Russian man had come into his back of the wall cafe. He’d carried a buttery-soft leather wallet full of multiple forms of currency; his watch ‌looked expensive enough to pay for several months’ worth of Shane’s rent.

Every man at the table had hung onto his every word, listening intently as Ilya lectured them about something. And while it may have been that he’d grown up post-Cold War and knew all too well how easy it was to villainize Russians in pop culture, he thought he’d detected something genuinely commanding in his tone. He’d certainly noticed something subservient and awestruck in the actions of the other men who’d joined him. 

The other men. Some Russian, some Canadian, some nondescriptly European... even that American who had shown up later than the rest and had been told—forced?—to add to the tip jar. 

But more strongly, Shane could recall that last conversation. People notice routine. Places like this attract attention. It is easy to wait for someone alone at night. Even dangerous streets can be quiet.

Shane knew when he was panicking. It had happened often enough in his lifetime that he was well familiar with it. What did his mom always tell him? Be calm, be rational, be logical. Don’t get swept up in the ’what ifs’. 

As he lay there, Shane forced his heartbeat to calm, calling on the same meditative practices he used during games to focus his attention and steady his hand. 

He’s not assuming the worst. He’s just... acknowledging risk. This guy could be some hotshot with an MBA who had skyrocketed to the c-suite of some company that had a lot of emigres on staff. But it was entirely possible that he wasn’t. 

Shane decided at that moment that he didn’t need details to stay safe. He didn’t need to ask questions that could call attention to him, could indicate some sort of interest that could pose danger. But more importantly? 

If he didn’t ask, he couldn’t be lied to. 

With that thought, the stillness finally settled over him. 

Ask him no questions, he’ll tell you no lies, Hollander. 

He lay there in the dark, hungry but knowing that it wouldn’t help him get up and try to fix something to eat. Besides, Hayden was still awake if the sounds from the TV were anything to go by, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to unpack any of that with someone else right now. 

He tried to focus on his breathing, his meditative techniques. 

Picture your thoughts as leaves on the surface of a stream. Let them drift by… Acknowledge them as they pass, but do not engage. Do not flip them over to investigate; do not interact with them for deeper meaning. Acknowledge, then let them go. Do not allow your thoughts to ripple the surface of your mind.

He forced the breath in through his nose, holding it in his chest until it burned, then slowly let it out through pursed lips. 

Leaves on the surface. Let them go. 

I will stay.

It had been certain. Calm. Quiet. Dangerous or not, Ilya had not been careless with him. 

Leaves. On. The. Surface. 

I will stay.

Leaves. On. The. Surface.

Realizing that it was futile, Shane slipped his phone from his pocket and opened his notes app. Lists always helped. Being able to quantify and qualify his thoughts gave him a level of control that helped. 

1. Do not ask questions you don’t need the answer to. 
2. Do not share personal information freely. 
3. Do not be alone with Ilya Rozanov. 

He paused for a moment, a fourth rule in his head that almost scared him to type out. He sat there for a long moment, the possibility of a fourth rule circling in his head before he closed the app and double-checked that his alarm was on—the alarm that would give him enough time to go for a quick run before opening the shop in the morning. 

Locking his phone, Shane rolled over, exhaustion hitting him like a brick. He was sure that he’d regret his lack of proper hygiene in the morning, but at that moment the day seemed to catch up.

1. Do not give him a reason to think you’re afraid.

Chapter End Notes

Please don't ask me what I'm doing by posting this when I'm in WIP-hell. I started a new chapter of Bang, Bang (Shoot, Shoot) last week, but this story his me like a freight train on my way to work this morning. Maybe if I put pen to paper on this, I'll be capable of thinking about something besides these two men.

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Part of him had halfway expected Ilya to be standing in front of the coffee shop the next morning when he unlocked the front door, still in his clothes from the night before. 

He wasn’t, of course. Because that would be crazy. 

Ilya was standing out front, smoking a cigarette, in a different set of clothes. This turtleneck was cream, and the coat was black instead of gray. But otherwise? He might as well have been. 

“Uh… good morning?” Shane said, holding the door open so that Ilya could enter. 

“Good morning,” Ilya echoed, following him into the cafe as Rose rushed in behind them. 

“Sorry I’m late, car wouldn’t—oh! You’re back!”

Ilya looked at her, and then back at Shane. “Yes, my drink was perfect. I had very long night last night and need another before I can do my work.”

“I’ll get started on that and Shane can ring you up. What are you having?” Rose asked, tossing her bag somewhere under the counter and tying on her apron. 

“An American, yes?”

“An Americano,” Shane said, moving to the register and punching in the order. “For here again?”

“Yes, Shane. For here.”

Shit. He hadn’t even noticed, but… yep. Within fifteen seconds of her showing up, Rose had tossed rule two out of the window. Of course she didn’t know about his suspicions or the rules, but Shane didn’t like that they were already being broken a handful of hours after he’d created them. And from the self-satisfied look on Ilya’s face, he was well aware of how much of a boon her open mouth had been for him.

“Uh, $2.75,” Shane said, feeling like today was turning out already to be a bizarre echo of the day before. The coffee shop was supposed to be his safe space, a place to enter a sort of Zen state that he typically only found on the ice. Already, he could feel himself searching for a mental catalogue of things to do, things to fix—but the shop had only been open for a full minute, and it was still clean from his closing shift the night before. 

Again, Ilya dropped his $17.25 worth of change into the tip cup and stood patiently, waiting for his drink. “You open, you close. Are you owner?”

Despite himself, Shane couldn’t help but laugh. “No, I don’t own this place. It might be nice to have my own shop some day, but I just work here.”

“No ‘just’. You seem very good at your job.”

Shane nodded, idly tapping a finger anxiously on the counter as he waited for Rose to finish pulling the shot of espresso. “Yeah, good enough, I guess. I like routine. I like order. Everything here has a recipe, and everything here has a place. I know what’s expected of me, yeah?”

Ilya nodded as if Shane had said something far wiser than whatever nonsense he knew had spilled from his mouth, and took the cup from Rose. 

“Thank you,” he said, turning to go find a seat somewhere. Instead of the long table he’d chosen the day before, he moved towards one of the leather armchairs in the corner. Shane noted Ilya sat so his back was to the wall, and he had clear sight lines in all directions of the shop. 

A few more early morning regulars filtered in, and Shane got to work ringing them up while Rose started on their drinks. As he turned away from the pastry case, cream cheese danish in hand for Heather, he realized Ilya was back at the register, cup in hand. 

“Is something wrong with your drink?”

“Да, yes. Does not taste the same as yesterday. Hate to bother, but could you please remake?”

Part of Shane wanted to tell him to piss off, that there was some innate variability in ordering a drink in a coffee shop. But then he remembered the almost forty dollars that Ilya had now dropped into the tip cup in a twenty-four hour span and took the cup from him.

“Of course, yeah. Totally. Hey, Rose! Can you—”

One of those large, long-fingered hands shot out again, catching him gently by the wrist. He almost sloshed the coffee down the front of himself, but as if expecting his jerky movement, Ilya’s hand loosened and dropped. 

“Apologies, sorry. Perhaps… you could? You did very good. I see her, I watch you… you care more, I think.”

Rose bounced up, quirking an eyebrow at the two of them and clearly noticing the pink that had risen ‌on Shane’s cheeks again. 

“Could you, uh, watch the register for a second? I’m gonna make a fresh drink for him.”

Rose smirked, giving Shane a look loaded with something ‌he couldn’t quite decipher. He’d never been all that great at reading faces. “Sure thing. It’s not exactly a secret that you’re better at the ratios than I am.”

Shane remade the drink, highly aware of the fact that Ilya stood just on the other side of the espresso machine, observing him. He didn’t know if Ilya knew his way around an espresso machine—doubted it, given that he didn’t know what an Americano was—which meant that he wasn’t really watching Shane work, he was just watching Shane. 

Luckily, he could make an Americano in his sleep at this point (he had, actually, when early opens, late closes, and game days had all run a little too close together), because every single fiber of his being highly attuned itself to the man across from him, no matter how much he might try to pretend otherwise. 

He carefully walked the drink to the counter and moved to place it on the counter, but Ilya intercepted him again, pulling it from his hands before he could set it down. Ilya took a sniff of the cup and turned to walk ‌back to his seat. 

“Wait, don’t you—aren’t you going to see if it’s better?”

Ilya looked at him carefully, glancing down at his cup with something a hair's breadth away from disinterest. “Is perfect. I already know.”

***

Ilya quickly became a regular. More or less. Every day, or close to it, he came in and ordered an Americano, but only if Shane was working the machine. The few times Shane came on shift later in the day—because of either an early class or practice—Rose would always whisper that he had ordered just a hot water and a pastry and had pulled a tea bag from his pocket instead of ordering an espresso drink. 

Some days, he took a seat at the long table and the various young men joined him, speaking in low Russian while Ilya—Rozanov, he noticed they all called him then—offered them some sort of guidance or advice and they all furiously took notes. Other days, he came in alone, thick packets of paper spread across a table or in his lap. 

He’d caught flashes of what Ilya was doing—by accident, he told himself—while he meandered around the shop, bussing tables and cleaning up spills. Whether Ilya was circling headlines in newspapers and writing notes in the margins, flipping through a paperback, or typing on his laptop, it was always Russian. 

He tried not to watch, tried to follow his own rules as much as he could. But he’d be lying if there wasn’t something almost magnetic about Ilya that pulled his eyes toward him whenever Shane had downtime at the counter. 

He was picking up on minor differences in his appearance, how he looked on days that he met with the table full of men versus the way he looked when he came in and sat alone. His hair was curly, soft-looking, and on the days that he held those meetings, he wore it tamed, slicked back on the sides in a carefully controlled style. But on the days that Ilya came in alone, his hair was freer, the curls falling wildly around his face. Shane would be lying if he said he didn’t sometimes fantasize about sweeping them from his forehead when one lock would dangle dangerously close to his eyes.

But Shane was trying to follow the rules, and the rules didn’t allow him to do things like sweep curls off of that man’s forehead, or take a seat on his wide thighs. 

The rules didn’t stop him from thinking about it, though. 

And sometimes, he’d chance a glance up towards Ilya and find him looking back as if he were thinking about it, too. 

***

Shane could normally avoid working on classwork while on shift, but the team had scheduled extra ice time two weeks in a row, and with the owner’s daughter still conveniently sick every time she was supposed to come in to relieve him, he’d found himself unable to make time after work to get things done. 

A lull in customers allowed him to pull out his Econ textbook and start trying to work through some of the practice problems, but good god, did he hate Econ. No matter how hard he tried, there was something about these numbers that just didn’t settle into his brain. 

He could do instant calculations of how much force he needed to get a puck exactly where he wanted it, but something about trying to figure out market manipulation would never click properly for him. 

“You look at your book as if it owes you money,” Ilya said, leaning against the counter as he placed his empty mug into the bus bin. 

“Yeah,” he replied, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I had to take one final math elective and for some reason I chose Economics. It just doesn’t click for me—money math doesn’t make any sense besides what I need to manage my own finances.”

Ilya nodded, crossing his arms. “It is hard. My father tried to teach me, but it did not work for me either. Now I have men to do that for me.”

Shane nodded, trying not to show a reaction to that statement. Part of him was surprised at Ilya’s readiness to offer such information, but it was clear Ilya didn't worry about sharing.

“Преподаватель Розанов!” someone called, breaking the moment. Although it was one of the non-mask days, a day where Ilya wore a crewneck instead of his turtleneck and his curls were loose, one of the young men that Ilya frequently met with at the long table rushed in, waving him down. “Do you have a moment? I’d like to speak with you privately.”

Ilya glanced down at Shane, and at the look he quickly returned to his workbook, trying not to look like he was eavesdropping. 

“Да, although I would prefer that you stick to scheduled meeting time. I am not always on the watch. Come, we sit here and talk.”

Ilya strode away, leading the man over to the table where he’d left his book. Shane watched from the corner of his eye, desperately trying to stick to the rules. He watched as the man pulled two things from the backpack he wore—a battered paperback and a sheaf of papers. He couldn’t hear them talking, but could clearly hear that the conversation was entirely in Russian, although he was pretty sure that it was the late-coming American from that first meeting. Now and then, the kid flipped to a page in the book, pointed at something, and then circled a few phrases in the stack of papers. Shane watched as Ilya would nod, cross something out, and add to what was written there before flipping through the book and pointing at something new. 

A cipher? Were they using a book as some sort of code to hide messages?

Finally, after almost an hour, the man stood and left, giving Ilya what almost looked like a bow before Ilya scoffed and pulled him in for a handshake. This clearly threw the other man, and Shane watched as he vigorously pumped Ilya’s hand like it was the first time he’d ever taken someone else’s hand in his. 

Ilya stood, cracking his neck as he did so, and Shane felt his mouth dry out as Ilya returned to the counter. His jeans were a hair tighter than was exactly fashionable in Canada, and Shane could help but track how thick his thighs were as he strode across the floor. How his sweater pulled across his chest. How his hair fell back into the chaotic mass of curls as he pushed it back. 

Okay, maybe he said he wouldn’t try to get close to the guy, but nothing stopped him from looking. 

Ilya returned to his spot at the counter, crossing his arms as he leaned against it again. Ilya sighed, deep and low in his throat. “Every week, I tell them, some of my time must be my own. Wait until meetings, do not interrupt free time. I have so precious little of it.”

Shane nodded, refusing to acknowledge what else must take up his waking hours. “Everything all right?” he asked reflexively when he saw the look of sheer frustration on Ilya’s face. 

Ilya nodded, sighing again. “Crime, punishment. Find the Russian, he is expert in such things. Heavy is head that wears crown.”

Shane nodded again, feeling as if he wasn’t capable of much else. Deflect. Deflect. 

“Can I get you anything else?”

Ilya looked at him, something indecipherable in his eyes. Shane stared back, caught in his gaze. He felt as if Ilya was cataloging his expression, his stance, as his eyes darted from Shane’s to his posture, and back to his book. 

“No. I just want to talk to someone who does not expect me to clean up their messes for them, I think.”

Shane nodded—again, like an idiot—and closed his textbook, pushing it to the side. Ilya curled a single eyebrow, shifting his weight against the counter. 

“You need to study, yes? I am being selfish. Petulant. I do not need to distract you today.”

Shane sighed, knowing even as he said it he was going to regret the words. 

“No, I think I’m fine just talking to you today.”

Ilya smiled, a crooked, almost wounded thing—as if he’d hoped Shane’s answer would be something similar but hadn’t dared to expect it. 

“Tell me then, Shane, what makes you tick?”

Rule three was already on thin ice, unless he counted the women in their knitting circle as keeping him from being alone. Freely answering the question would have the rest of rule two tossed out as well. But most importantly, that rule he hadn’t dared type out—that fourth rule—echoed in his ears. He’d have to give him something. He’d seen Ilya regularly for weeks now. It would be odd to refuse to offer ‌something. He’d always known snippets about the lives of the people who worked at his local haunts. To refuse to share anything would be more suspicious than not. 

“Hockey, mostly. I don’t do much else outside of school and working here.”

“Hmm,” Ilya hummed, looking him over. “You do look very athletic. Must take up a lot of your time. Is that where you get scars?”

Shane startled, looking at Ilya with confusion. “Scars?”

Ilya reached over the counter and tapped his index finger against the knuckles of Shane’s right hand, where a web of fine, white scars criss-crossed his knuckles from fights on the ice over the years. 

“Oh, yeah. I guess so. I try not to start ‌fights, but sometimes I don’t have much of a choice. I’m not just going to take a hit.”

Ilya chuckled, drawing his finger back and using it to tap against his own knuckles. Shane’s eyes dropped to Ilya’s other hand, noticing for the first time that both of Ilya’s hands carried a similar webbing of knuckle-splitters. Some were clearly old—years old, based on the color of them—but some were still red, likely only a few weeks old. 

“It is very hard not to get scars when men play games, yes?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

Ilya cleared his throat, looking up into Shane’s eyes again. “I am glad you do not take hit lying down. Your face is too pretty to bloody.”

Shane gasped, and Ilya smiled—that same soft, half-drawn smile. 

“Do you close tonight?”

“No, I don’t. I should get relieved in an hour or two.”

Ilya nodded, finally standing up fully. “Then I will go. Good luck with Econ, Shane. I will see you later.”

“Uh, yeah… I’ll see you later.”

Shane tried not to watch him leave and began furiously wiping up some invisible spill on the counter to avoid letting his eyes track Ilya’s movement from the shop. 

What the fuck?

He thought he was… pretty? Ilya Rozanov thought he was pretty?

First of all, pot meet kettle. Shane had been called many things in his life, but pretty wasn’t something anyone had ever called him before, at least not to his face. He tried not to think about the way it made his stomach swoop, the way that it settled heavily somewhere within his chest. 

Holy shit. Was Ilya Rozanov… flirting?

***

“Shane, man, I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Shane toed his shoes off next to the door and carefully aligned them on the wooden rack, dropping his keys into the bowl. 

“Hey, Hayden, I know. It’s been crazy. I feel like all I do is sleep, skate, work, repeat. What’s new?”

Hayden popped up from where he’d been lying prone on the couch, muting the game that had been blaring just a touch too loudly. 

“Nothing, really. I just miss getting to see you, dude. Jackie and I were thinking of going out tonight for a few drinks—no, don’t, I see your face. Not a club or anything, just something quiet. Flannigan’s, probably. You want to join us?”

Shane tried to fix his face and thought about what he wanted to say back. More than anything, he wanted to take a long, hot shower, eat the chicken that he knew was in the fridge, and go to bed early for once. But he’d be lying if he said that part of him hadn’t missed Hayden. 

It’s funny how you can live with someone and still never make time to co-exist. 

Shane sighed, realizing exactly what the only answer was. “You know what? Sure. As long as you don’t pressure me into drinking more than I want to.”

Hayden nodded excitedly, already grinning as he reached for his phone. “Dude, I can’t wait. Jackie’s been saying how much she misses hanging out with you, too. Why don’t you call Rose up? I’m sure that would help you feel less like a third wheel if you’re worried about it.”

Shane shrugged his jacket off, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it straight from the tap. He understood that drinking, particularly after work and skating, required him to first focus on getting and staying hydrated. 

As he drank his water, he slid his phone from his pocket, trying not to cringe at the number of messages from his mother that he could see clogging up his notifications. He wasn’t back home anymore—she should know that he was doing okay on his own with no need for him to check in multiple times a day. 

He opened his conversation with Rose by swiping and felt surprised to find that she had already sent him a message. 

Rose: u have plans tonite?

Rose: hello?

Rose: i know you can hear me hollander

As he started typing a message in reply, the three ‘Rose is typing’ dots appeared before he could say anything back. 

Rose: I KNEW IT

Rose: STOP IGNORING ME

Shane: I’m not ignoring you. 

Shane: Sorry, it’s been a long day.

Shane: Hayden and Jackie want to go out. 

Rose reacted to his last message with an exclamation point and immediately started her reply. Part of him wanted to laugh at her, but knew that he was lucky to have a friend who actually meant it when he’d said, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, and had requested to ‘just be friends’ anyway. 

Rose: 🎉🍸💃

Shane immediately thumbed-down the message, hurrying into the bathroom to shower as quickly as he could while they waited for Jackie to head over. 

“You’ve got fifteen!” Hayden called as Shane clicked the lock on the bathroom door behind him. 

Shane: More like: 🍻🍽️🍕

He stripped quickly, knowing that the longer he spent texting her right now, the less time he’d have in the shower. His showers always had a sort of ritualistic order to them, and even on a time-crunch he didn’t want to skip a vital step, especially if he was going to be crammed into a booth with his friends. 

As he scrubbed at his face, hot water cascading down his back, he tried not to flinch at the feeling of the soap stinging the split in his lip. He’d jumped in to help break up a fight between some rookies on the team over which one of them was being unfairly given more ice time and had caught a punch meant for someone else on the backswing. 

While he worried the split with his tongue, Ilya’s words from the other day flitted through his head. 

Your face is too pretty to bloody.

He certainly wasn’t feeling pretty in the moment as he stood there in the cramped student housing issue shower, a bone-deep exhaustion settling in. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Hayden that he felt like all he did was sleep, skate, and work.

The coach pushed them to their limits, his lessons became more demanding, he took on more double shifts at work than he normally would during the school year, and he felt like he was on the verge of making a mistake. 

He knew his exhaustion was showing, too. Professors were looking at him with something approaching concern, Hayden had just told him he was a ghost haunting his own home, Coach was pulling him in later and later in games and going easy on him at practice. 

Not to mention Ilya. He’d noticed from day one how Ilya seemed to catalogue every piece of his face every time they spoke, and earlier that week Ilya had traced a thumb under his own eye and asked Shane if he was resting. 

Timer blaring on his phone, Shane turned off the water and stepped out, hurriedly toweling himself off. 

Rose: i’ll get you on the dancefloor someday istg

Rose: maybe i didn’t do it for u but boy i know u have ✨ r h y t h m✨

Rose: where am i meeting u

Shane quickly typed his response, tossing his phone onto the counter as he rushed through his post-shower skincare, trying to will away his blush at the memory of him and Rose trying to make it—them—work. She’d clearly been into him, he found her pretty enough, but yeah. That was it, wasn’t it? 

He’d found her pretty, and not much more desirable than that. 

The walk to Flannigan’s was quick, even with Jackie’s much shorter legs slowing them down. He’d always enjoyed being around Jackie and Hayden together, and even though Hayden had worried about Shane feeling like a third wheel around them, he never did. 

Jackie was warm and funny, and from day one that they’d met, she’d gone out of her way to be his friend too. It’s important to me to love the people that Hayden loves, she’d told him. 

He reached the door before they did, and he stood to the side, holding it open so they could walk through together, hand in hand, like something picture-perfect that made his heart clench. 

A few feet past the door, the bright red cherry of an inhaled cigarette lit up, and his eyes flickered to the movement as a shadow pulled away from the door. It was one of the men who often joined Ilya on the long-table days—one of the ones that he knew was also Russian. 

He rubbed the cigarette out on the brickwork of the building, tucking the butt into his pocket and entering behind Jackie. 

“Shane, yes? Thank you.”

Shane. This guy knew his name. Had Ilya told him his name? Had Ilya sent him here?

Shane shook off the thought as he walked in behind them, noting that Jackie and Hayden were moving to a booth in the corner and the Russian was heading towards the bar.

No. He hadn’t seen Ilya for a couple of days, and it’s not like they talked outside of the shop. Ilya hadn’t known he was going to be here, and couldn’t have known that he’d made these plans. Someone did not bug his apartment or his phone. The only person who could have known he was headed this way was someone who had tailed him from his apartment. However, this guy already stood outside when they walked up, and he hadn’t approached them from behind. Right?

Shane pushed the thought from his mind and tried to re-center himself, joining Hayden and Jackie in the booth. 

“If you promise not to fall asleep in it, I’ll order us a pizza?” Jackie asked with a laugh while Hayden flicked through the drink menu. 

“I’ll do my best, Jack, but I’m like bone-tired.”

Hayden nodded gravely, tossing the menu aside. “He’s been out of it, I’m telling you. Like a zombie. He comes in, shovels down a plate of chicken and broccoli, and then collapses into bed.”

Jackie reached over and clasped his hand, pulling his attention away from his menu. “Shane, that’s not really sustainable. Is there anything that you can cut back on?”

The options ran through his head. Sure, he could probably get away with cutting a class or two—but that wouldn’t help him until the next semester started, and he started his schedule over. Dropping a class now would pull down his GPA, and if his GPA fell too much, he’d get cut from the team.

And sure, he could probably do with missing more of the optional skates, but hockey had always been a source of security for him—something that made sense and helped him find focus when everything else got a bit too loud and hectic. 

And yes, he could probably quit his job. But all things considered, he liked his job. And while he knew his parents had more than enough resources and would certainly not mind helping him out more, there was something about the independence that he felt from knowing that the money in his pocket was his. It didn’t come with any invisible strings tying him back to his parents—he didn’t have to feel guilty about spending the money on things that they might not find to be as worthwhile as he did. 

“Why do we look so glum?” Rose asked, falling down into the booth beside Shane and jostling him with her shoulder as she struggled to wrestle off her jacket. 

“That probably would’ve been easier if you did it before you sat down. Damn, stay still,” he told her as he grabbed the arms of the jacket, holding her in place so she could fight her way free. 

“I asked Shane if he could cut back on some of his responsibilities. Look at the guy—he’s miserable.”

Rose nodded, finally tossing the jacket deeper into the booth and settling her comfortable weight against Shane’s side. 

“You’re telling me. The only time he looks halfway alive lately is when Ilya comes by the shop,” she said, practically singing Ilya’s name. 

In the sort of eerie, coordinated movement that only established couples are capable of, Hayden and Jackie both leaned forward and crooked a brow at almost the same moment. 

“Ilya?”

Unison. Eerie. 

“Oh my god, yes,” Rose laughed, pouring herself a glass of water from the carafe. Shane had to almost physically hold himself back from reaching for his napkin to clean it up. 

“He’s this tall, handsome drink of a man who’s been coming into the shop almost every day lately. He refuses to drink anything besides tea that he brings for himself unless Shane is working, he’s always sitting there staring at him with these big wet eyes and his mouth agape whenever Shane isn’t looking, and he always comes up with the dumbest reasons to come up to the counter to talk to him.”

Shane could feel himself redden and immediately tried to diffuse the situation. “No, no, it’s not like that. He’s just a new regular. I helped him the first time he was there, so he feels like he knows me better. That’s all.”

“Sure thing, Shane,” Rose laughed again. “Whatever you tell yourself. Shane, please give new coffee. Shane, please tell about beautiful hockey game. Shane, please sit on my—”

“Ugh, stop!” He covered her mouth with his hand, trying not to visibly cringe as she immediately licked his palm. “First of all, that accent was terrible. Second, his English is nowhere near that bad. Also, it’s just not like that. He’s nice! He’s just… being nice.”

Jackie and Hayden exchanged a look, and it was Hayden who spoke first. “I mean, dude, that sounds literally exactly like how I picked Jackie up. I definitely did not need to be spending $40 a week on frozen yogurt for any reason besides trying to chat her up.”

“Trust me, guys,” Rose continued, “the guy is not just being nice. When I’m there, he isn’t rude, but he definitely doesn’t go out of his way to make conversation with me. I don’t even know if he knows my name. And he’s certainly never tipped me almost $20 for a single cup of coffee.”

Jackie shrugged and looked at him intently. “I don’t know, Shane. That sounds a lot like he might be trying to chat you up. Like the coffee you make is good, but it’s not so good that someone needs it all day, every day. And you know that you’re handsome. Is it actually so unbelievable that he could be interested in you?”

All ‌the facts that he had flashed through his mind. Yeah, Ilya was handsome. Like insanely so. The sort of beauty that he’d thought only existed to be captured in 400-year-old oil paintings. And he did tip Shane a lot, but based on the status of his wallet every time he opened it, Ilya had the money to burn. It probably wasn’t all that much different from Shane dropping $3 on each Uber ride. 

“Guys, it’s fine. It’s normal. He hasn't done anything outrageous or made any moves on me. He comes in, orders his coffee, reads his books, and stays to make sure that I close up safely. It’s not like he’s chatting me up all shift.”

“What?”

And now, even with Rose, the obnoxious synchronization continues. 

“Shane!” Rose cried, turning him in the booth to face her. “You never told me that! He stays ‘til close?”

Shane nodded, not sure why they were all so freaked out about it. “Well sure. He said on the first night that sometimes people take advantage of closing time to do smash and grabs. He just didn’t like the thought of me closing alone and leaving after dark.”

“God save me from oblivious gay men,” Rose cried, flagging down the server who still hadn’t come to take their orders. 

“Shane…”

“Dude!” Hayden cried. “I don’t know if you guys do things differently than we do, but there is literally no universe in which my chivalry extends that far to someone I’m not interested in. Dude, you’re fucking cut and you play contact sports. I’d love to see someone come at you to get you to turn over the contents of the register. You’d probably have them hogtied with your apron strings before they even remembered to call for mercy. There is no way that this guy is ‘just being nice’.”

Shane shook his head, trying to see whatever it was that they thought they saw. Like sure, the dude flirted with him now and then, and he had made a habit lately of going out of his way to talk to Shane. But he definitely would have noticed if it was like… a thing. 

“I’m giving up on the server,” he said, desperate to extricate himself from the conversation. “Tell me what you guys want and I’ll grab our drinks.”

When he returned, it’s clear that they recognized his escape attempt for what it was, and thankfully they all let the issue drop. Dinner is pleasant enough, and for once no one pushes him to be more adventurous than his ginger ale. 

But despite everything—Rose’s pushiness, their investigation into Ilya—he’s glad that he actually came out. When he leaves Jackie, Hayden, and Rose behind so they can go to another bar, he finds that he’s not lying when he agrees to join them again the next week. 

The wind is cold as he walks back home alone, even through his coat. It’s a few years old now, and he knows that it’s probably a little too small now that he’s filled out a bit more—no longer covering him properly at his wrists or the back of his neck. 

Save for a few groups of people clustered outside of bars as he walks, there’s few other people out. It’s quiet, it’s cold, but he’s not lonely. 

He tosses Rose’s words around in his head as he walks, thinking about them. Could there actually be any merit to what the three of them think? More to Ilya’s apparent interest in him than just curiosity in the guy he sees multiple times a week?

Sure, taking it on the surface and looking at it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t interact with Ilya, he could easily understand why Hayden, Jackie, and even Rose would make the assumptions that they did. More than anything Ilya could or could have not done, Shane would be lying if he said that he didn’t know his friends were worried about him, about how long he’d been single, about whether he was doing things just for the hell of it. 

But was Ilya Rozanov the sort of thing you did ‘just for the hell of it’?

He didn’t give a name to the suspicions that he had, the minor details that were adding up into something that sat uncomfortably in his stomach. Maybe it was too easy to read something dark into the behavior of a classically stoic Slav, even if he had the face of a Byronic hero. But there was something deeper undercutting Ilya that didn’t seem to quite mesh with Rose’s theory of him as just an infatuated regular who came to make cow eyes at the barista—regardless of how pretty Ilya might find him. 

By the time he reached home, his thoughts had cooled slightly. The tension had solidified, becoming something firmer and less pressing. More stabilizing. The rules existed. They might need some tweaking, but he should keep trying to follow them. 

He slipped his phone from his pocket, locking both the knob and the deadbolt after seeing Hayden’s message that he’d be staying with Jackie. 

As he made his way through his skincare routine, he ran through the rules in his head. 

1. Do not ask questions you don’t need the answer to. 

2. Do not share personal information freely. 

3. Do not be alone with Ilya Rozanov. 

4. Do not give him a reason to think you’re afraid.

1. Do not ask questions unless you’re prepared for the answers.

2. Do not give him anything he doesn’t already know.

3. Do not be alone with him without a reason.

4. Do not let him see your fear. 

Shane turned out the light in his room, sliding under the covers, and closed his eyes—attempting to will the day away. Before he succumbed to the pull of sleep, one final thought crossed his mind. 

5. Do not involve other people unless necessary. 

Chapter End Notes

Please send help.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

This chapter contains mostly off-screen violence resulting in a head injury, including brief descriptions of bleeding, injury, and wound care.

Almost every time Shane had taken a bad hit on the ice, he’d seen it coming. He’d had time to adjust, to pivot, to canter his body in a way to absorb some of the blow. Sometimes, he’d even slipped out of the way entirely, removing himself from the fray only to re-enter it at an angle which gave him more control. 

That’s probably why the elbow to the temple caught him so off guard. 

He wasn’t on the ice. It wasn’t a fight over a puck, or a slightly too personal chirp about someone’s mother or girlfriend. This was a cold knock to his temple that absolutely rang his bell, and the worst part was that he hadn’t even seen it coming. 

Immediately, he crumpled. He wasn’t out, not entirely, but a wave of nausea immediately welled up within him, and he felt his vision swim as he landed on the slightly sticky floor at Flannigan’s. 

Dimly, he was aware of men fighting beside him, the bartender screaming something. A knee, or an elbow, or a chair, or a something caught him in the jaw and he immediately tasted blood. Reflexively he ran his tongue across his teeth, satisfied that they were all still there. 

One second he’d been upright, leaning against the bar and tapping a coaster against the warm wood while he watched Hayden’s beer sweat and waited for the bartender to finish shaking more drinks for Jackie and Rose. The next, he was on the gritty, sticky floor, desperately trying to crawl out of the fray.

“Fuck, Shane!”

Hayden’s arms wrapped around him from behind, hooking him under the armpits, and he relaxed into it, letting Hayden drag him clear of the mess. 

“Dude, are you okay? That was absolutely wild! Hold on, let me get you outside for some air. Hold on a second.”

Dimly, he could hear Rose pleading with the bartender for a towel full of ice, and he allowed Hayden to pull him past the rest of the patrons and out of the front door, where Hayden pushed him down to sit on the curb out front.

“What happened?” Shane tried to ask, lip already swelling from the second hit and turning the words to mush in his mouth. 

“No fucking clue, bud. Some dudes just started throwing hands at each other. Did you hear what started it?”

Shane tried to shake his head and immediately hissed at how his vision swam. Hayden sighed and pulled out his phone, shining the flashlight directly into Shane’s face. 

“Do you think you need to go to the hospital? You might have a concussion, man.”

Shane had to fight back the urge to shake his head again, but it was as if even the thought of it made the nausea rise again. He tried to focus on the feeling of the cold concrete under him, grounding him, and counted back from ten before he answered.

“Shane?”

“No—no. I think I’m okay? I just want to sit here for a second, wait for Rose with the ice. I’ve had a concussion before... This is just a hard hit. I think.”

Jackie pulled the ice from Rose as she hurried up and cradled it against his temple. “If you’ve had a concussion before, isn’t that more reason to go in now?”

The consequences flashed in his head. Hospital meant calling family, which meant his mom and dad heading down, which meant his mom fretting and worrying and a headache of a different sort altogether. 

He loved them, but he just… couldn’t. Not yet. 

“Can I just wait here for a bit? Ask me again in like thirty minutes and I’ll tell you if I need to go.”

He could tell that none of them liked that answer, but they all mumbled an agreement that satisfied him enough that he let his eyes close, pulling the ice from Jackie and readjusting it slightly onto the bump that was doubtless forming.

The door flew open behind them with a clatter, and the two men who had started the fight flew out as the bartender yanked it shut behind them.

“Holy shit, Shane, aren’t those—” 

Before Rose could finish her question, the door was flung open again and Shane looked up just in time to see a familiar figure step out—that American. The one who sometimes joined Ilya at the long table. 

Actually, now that he was looking and his vision wasn’t swimming quite as menacingly, he realized that all three of them were men who had joined Ilya at the table in the past. One of them was the same Russian from the week before, the one who had recognized Shane outside the bar and called him by his name. He couldn’t assign any specifics to the third, but he was positive that he recognized him as well. 

“Are you fucking idiots?” The American yelled, whipping out his phone. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened in there? I’m going to have to call fucking Преподаватель Розанов on this one, man. Shit!”

“Stop,” one of the other men said, lighting a cigarette and throwing a dark look at the other man. It was the first time Shane had heard him say much of anything, and while he recognized the man spoke English with an accent, it definitely wasn’t one that he could easily place. Not Russian, at any rate. “We don’t need to do this here.”

“They could press charges for destruction of property! This is exactly what you were told not to do! And what the hell happened to the guy who—”

The American stopped his yelling long enough to cast his eyes along the curb. The moment they landed on Shane, a flash of recognition crossed his face and he immediately paled. 

“Shit. Shit! Вы, блядь, идиоты!” The words sounded thick and clumsy in the American’s accent, but the Russian guy Shane recognized twitched at them, regardless. 

“Hey, it’s fine,” Shane called out weakly, trying to sound as confident as he could despite the swollen lip and his slightly fuzzy vision. 

The American shuffled over, crouching down next to Shane. “You’re Shane, right? From the coffee shop?”

Shane nodded slowly, noticing with satisfaction that it didn’t make his head swim quite as ferociously this time. “Yeah, I am. You’re that American.”

The guy laughed, slightly manic. “Yeah, I am that, I guess. It doesn’t matter if it was an accident, man. That’s not how this works. Can I see?”

Shane lowered the ice pack from the side of his face, and the American hissed sympathetically. 

“Fucking yikes, dude,” he said, gesturing for Shane to recover it with the ice. “Great job, morons. Now we have a victim. And blood. Fan-fucking-tastic.”

He stood, fishing his phone out of his pocket, hands shaking slightly. “This is why I don’t sign up for the babysitting gigs. Always some bullshit with these guys. And now I have to call Rozanov to clean up their fucking messes.”

Shane startled, recognizing the name more clearly when he said it without the accent.

“No, you don’t need to call him. Really, I’m okay.”

The American looked down at him in shock, eyes blown wide. “Uh, yeah, I absolutely do. This can’t go any further than right here. This can’t escalate—”

“Escalate?” Shane asked weakly, anxiety finally breaking through the ache in his head to settle deep within him. 

“—if this turns into a report, if anyone asks questions—”

The third guy—not the Russian, not the American, the… whatever the hell he was—stubbed out the cigarette that he’d burned down in just a couple of minutes. “We should just leave.”

“I told you not to drink so much!” the American cried, still swiping frantically at the screen of his phone. “I fucking told you.”

Shane pawed lightly at the guy’s calves, trying to get his attention back down onto him. He didn’t know why—he was still a bit fuzzy—but he knew that he really didn’t want Rozanov—Ilya—to know about this. It was an accident. He was fine. Really.

“I’m not hurt that bad,” Shane croaked out, trying to break through to the American through his panic. 

“That’s not the fucking point,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair again. Finally, the American found whatever he was looking for on his phone and lifted it to his face. “I have to fucking call him. He’ll have my head if I try to keep this a secret.”

Shane shook his head again, highly disappointed to see that the swimming was, in fact, back. 

“You don’t have to—”

The American scoffed, stepping slightly out of Shane’s reach but keeping all of them within sight. 

“Yeah, I really do.”

There was a long beat, and for a moment Shane held out hope that Ilya wouldn’t answer, that they would all be able to go home, that he could come up with some explanation to placate his friends who were all staring at him confused and with mouths slightly agape. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” the American said quietly, voice now more controlled than before. “Sorry, I know it’s late. We have a situation… there was an incident, someone got caught in the middle.”

Shane could hear a faint buzzing through the phone—why did Americans always keep their phones so loud that someone could almost hear the other side of the conversation even when it wasn’t on speaker? The American cast a glance down at Shane, and he saw a tic jump in his jaw before he swallowed hard. 

“No, not one of us. That’s the problem.”

More silence from the American. More buzzing through the line—louder, angrier this time. 

“... Yes. We’re at Flannigan’s.” The American’s eyes clenched tightly, and he let out a sharp breath of air. “Okay. Okay. Understood. Just—please. You need to get down here immediately.”

With a final glance at Shane, the American strode over to the other two, clearly continuing his earlier rant at them in hushed tones. 

“You know those guys?” Hayden asked, breaking the quiet that had settled in his absence.

“Uh yeah. They’re, um...”

“They’re friends of Ilya’s,” Rose said, interrupting him. “They meet him once or twice a week at the shop for coffee, have little hushed meetings in Russian, and then Ilya goes back to staring at Shane for the rest of his shift while looking all dark and stormy in the corner.”

Shane sighed, pulling the now mostly melted ice away from his face and wringing out the wet towel before slinging it around his neck. It was cold enough outside, but the cold damp against the back of his neck helped bring some ‌clarity back to his head. 

“Just… don’t talk about it, okay? Not here?”

Rose scoffed, lightly patting the back of his head before apologizing when he flinched. 

“Sorry, sorry. I mean, you can feel embarrassed about it if you wish, but anyone can tell that the guy is attracted to you. Seriously,” she said, turning to face Hayden and Jackie more fully. “You two should come by sometime for a drink or pastry and see. It’s insane that he can’t figure this one out on his own.”

Shane tuned them out, focusing on the feeling in his head. Now that some of the adrenaline was wearing off, he noticed that yeah, his head still really fucking hurt. Maybe Hayden was right, and a trip to the hospital just to get it checked out wasn’t a bad idea. He vaguely remembered something a doctor had told his mom after his last serious hit in hockey—that these sorts of head injuries could have a compounding effect and repeated injury to similar areas could make a minor concussion something more serious. 

He tried to remember which side his last hit had been on, but couldn’t recall specifics. On the left, he was pretty sure. But was that his left or the looker’s left from the doctor’s perspective?

He let his mind wander for a bit, things going quiet for him now that the ringing had mostly stopped and his friends were talking about something other than Ilya. He felt like he could fall asleep, but he knew that was probably something he should avoid, so he focused on mentally drawing all the lines and circles on a rink, sketching out their dimensions in his mind.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the slam of a car door nearby made him open his eyes.

Ten or fifteen feet away, illuminated by the next closest street light, Ilya stopped. Shane watched as his eyes bounced between him and his friends on the sidewalk to the huddle of men against the wall of the bar and back. He could see Ilya’s fist—who actually wore black leather gloves outside of movies, anyway?—clench and unclench by his side. 

Ignoring the men, Ilya strode across the pavement to Shane, long legs eating up the distance. As he crouched beside Shane on the ground, Shane found himself unable to look away as he watched Ilya catalogue him.

His temple felt swollen. He noticed it pulling at his eyelids with each blink. He’d seen the wet towel when he’d pulled it from his face—and everyone knows what they say about head wounds—so he was sure that at the very least there was some amount of blood smeared across his cheek, possibly into his hairline. The cut was probably fairly small, even if the carnage wasn’t. 

Ilya clicked his tongue against his teeth, tsking softly as he gently used the fingers of his right hand to turn Shane’s face towards the light. Whatever he saw made him hiss quietly, and he traced the pad of his thumb across Shane’s lower lip. The resulting sting reminded him he’d taken a second hit, and he suddenly became aware again of the taste of blood in his mouth. 

Shane could see the exact moment that everything fell into place for Ilya. His eyes hardened, and it was like Shane had a front-row seat to the mask falling over his face in real time as he shifted from Ilya into ‘Rozanov’. 

Ilya stood, his hand gently running across the hair at the back of Shane’s head as he did. Before Shane could even decide whether or not he was going to lean into the touch, Ilya was already in motion again, striding off toward the little trio of men who had quieted upon his arrival.

“That’s him?” Hayden whispered before being hushed by Jackie and Rose, who were both clearly trying to eavesdrop on what happened next.

Ilya stood ramrod straight in front of the three, and as if it were a rehearsed action, they all lined up against the wall to face him directly. This wasn’t a friendly huddle. This looked like a firing squad. 

Ilya didn’t speak loudly, but in the silence they could still hear him perfectly well from where the four of them lined up on the curb.

“I will say this to you in English, so that you all understand me, yes?”

Ilya stared at the three of them and waited. Slowly, cautiously, they all nodded back to him. 

“You were told not to let this happen.” Again, he paused. “I am responsible for you. That means your work, your conduct, and what follows you when you create messes like this. You do not decide what is ‘nothing’. That decision is already made—by people who don’t know you, don’t care about you, and will give you no second chance.”

Ilya paused again, taking a deep breath. The tremor of anxiety rose again in Shane’s chest. Rose—bless her—completely misunderstood why he had trembled and pulled the damp cloth away from his neck and replaced it with her hand. It was warm, steadying and calmed him only slightly. 

“Do you understand what this looks like?”

The Russian nodded, a quick, rabbity movement that made Ilya scoff. 

“No,” Ilya told him flatly, cutting off the movement. “You don’t.”

The silence dragged on for a beat longer before Ilya pointed back towards Shane with one hand where he still sat, probably still bleeding slightly, on the curb. “Look. This turns mistake into record. And record follows you.”

His voice was still flat, but even. Even from where Shane sat, only able to see Ilya’s back, it was clear he was forcing down a quiet rage and trying to will himself to stay calm, but Shane had spent enough time with him in the past weeks that he could determine—even from his position—that his shoulders were tighter than usual and his muscles in his arms and back were clenched as if he wanted to hit the men in front of him.

“I am the first call because I am the first line between you and consequence you do not want.”

That landed on the men harder than a punch could have, and all three of them flinched. Shit, he wasn’t even talking to Shane, and he almost flinched himself from his position on the ground. 

“I cannot protect you from attention you bring on yourself. And I will not clean this up twice.”

Ilya leaned in toward the three of them, and Shane could clearly read it in their body language that if their backs hadn’t literally been up against a brick wall, they likely would have moved back and away from him. 

Softer, quieter, but no less firmly, “We will talk about this later. In my office. Not cafe, my office. All of it.”

He straightened, pulling back from them but not yet releasing them from the grip of his frustration. “Until then, you will not speak about this. You will not make it worse. If you want to stay here, you are to do exactly what it is that you are told.”

Ilya turned from them, not waiting for any sort of answer or acknowledgment. Shane noted passively that the American pushed the other two forward, and together they hurried off into the dark—whatever petty squabble that had started the entire thing forgotten as they hurried away from Flannigan’s. Away from Ilya. 

Ilya sighed, long and low, rolling his shoulders and shaking out some of the tension as he returned to them. 

“Does your head hurt more now, or about the same?” he asked, sitting down heavily on the sidewalk next to Shane. He could feel the heat from Ilya’s body even through his clothes, and he shivered again as he suddenly became aware of how cold the concrete was below him and the feeling of the wind against his damp collar from where he’d rested the towel. 

“About the same,” he answered. “I’m okay, I promise.”

Ilya didn’t argue with him, but caught his eyes, looking into them intently. “Nausea?”

Shane took a deep breath, attempting to genuinely assess his condition. He didn’t want to lie, but he really, really didn’t want to go to the hospital. He didn’t want his parents knowing, he didn’t want them to worry, and he really didn’t want to have to come up with an explanation that would require any more of an explanation than ‘bar fight’. 

“A little, I guess. It’s fine.”

“No, Shane,” Rose said. “It’s not fine. You need to get checked out, and you know it.”

Hayden looked at him seriously, obviously not liking the direction that Shane’s thoughts were going. “At least a scan, man. Just in case.”

Without conscious effort, his eyes flicked to Ilya. He nodded at him once. Not agreeing, perhaps. But definitely not disagreeing. 

“They might be right. You should probably be seen.”

Shane shook his head and sighed. “Guys, I really don’t want to go to the hospital. Seriously. If I go in, I’ll have to report it to Coach, and I won’t be able to play normally for weeks. Even if it’s nothing, it turns into a whole protocol thing. Concussion spotters, forms, follow-ups. It snowballs. I feel fine. I’m talking. I know where we are. And if I go in, my mom’s going to find out. Somehow she always does. She’ll panic. She’ll call. She’ll want updates every ten minutes, and I just— I can’t manage that right now. If this turns into a hospital thing, it stops being about my head and turns into me managing her.”

Shane could feel himself already spiraling a bit, and tried to pull it back. His pounding heartbeat brought back the throbbing in his temple, and his little rant had re-opened the split in his lip. 

“I, I— I just…”

Ilya reached over and gently rested two fingers of his hand against Shane’s thigh. A slight, casual movement—small enough that his friends likely may not have even noticed. But even despite how light the touch was, it helped pull him back in, grounding him.

“Just?” Ilya asked quietly, tapping his fingers softly against his thigh.

“I just need it to stay quiet.”

Another long moment passed where no one spoke. He knew his friends were still anxious, and he could see Hayden scraping his shoe across the pavement as he always did when he’d been standing still for longer than a few minutes. Ilya still looked at him intently, his expression impossible to decipher.

“Okay.”

Just over Ilya’s shoulder, Shane saw all three of his friends look from Shane to Ilya. 

“Then you shouldn’t be alone.”

Rose and Jackie exchanged a silent look loaded with something that he might have been able to read if the night hadn’t been quite so chaotic.

“Oh, I won’t be alone. Hayden and I share a place,” he said, gesturing at Hayden—grateful that at least two out of the five of them seemed to agree that he didn’t need to go to the hospital. Ilya from across the ice with the assist—thank god.

“I won’t be,” Shane said, nodding his head quickly. “I live with Hayden, he can look out for me if something happens.”

Hayden sighed, and Shane immediately felt his hopes dashed. “I was going to crash at Jackie’s. We’re supposed to leave in the morning so I can meet her parents, remember?”

“You can come with us?” Jackie asked, clearly still feeling protective of him but obviously not excited at the idea of Shane crashing the trip. “My parents have a guest room and a pull-out couch, so we can probably make room for you…”

“No, please. No,” Shane shook his head, the tears of frustration welling up before he could even help it. “I really don’t want to make this a whole thing if I don’t have to, and I really don’t want to inconvenience your family.”

Ilya cleared his throat. It was soft, quiet, but effective at capturing everyone’s attention and pumping the brakes on Shane’s newly relit fuse of anxiety. 

“I… live close,” he mumbled. “You can stay there tonight in guest room. I can keep eyes on you, wake you to check for problem.”

Rose shot a measured look at Shane before turning back towards Ilya. “You’re… okay with that?”

“I am. I would not have offered if it was not okay,” Ilya looked down at Shane, his gaze heavy and intent as he looked at him firmly. “I know signs of bad brain injury. If you get worse, I will take you in to hospital. If you don’t, you rest. I will wake you. I will check you.”

“I don’t want to be a problem,” Shane whispered. 

Going with Ilya was the least terrible option, but he wasn’t sure if that made it a good one. It meant not being alone, which everyone else seemed to be comfortable with, and not dealing with a hospital, which felt like a win. But it also meant putting himself in someone else’s space when he was already off balance and bloody and absolutely not at his best. 

He hated the idea of being an inconvenience. The thought of taking up room he didn’t have a right to. Of needing anything at all. And there was the other part of it—the part he didn’t want to look at too closely—that whispered about what it meant to go home with someone who had just shown how much control he had over an unpleasant situation.

Ilya had handled everything quickly, efficiently, as if he was used to things going wrong and cleaning them up afterward. That should have been reassuring. Instead, it made Shane feel small in a way he wasn’t used to, aware that he’d stepped into something he didn’t fully understand and was choosing, deliberately, not to understand it. But he was tired, and his head hurt, and going with Ilya meant things would stay quiet. Quiet counted for a lot right now.

Ilya looked at him for a long moment—not in the way people did when they were deciding what to say, but like he was checking something—counting, maybe, or making sure of a fact he already believed. His gaze didn’t linger on the blood or the swelling, didn’t skim away in discomfort. It stayed steady, level, and unflinching in a way that felt deliberate rather than indulgent. 

There was no impatience in it, no calculation. Just attention, full and unguarded, as if Shane was the only thing worth focusing on. When Ilya finally spoke, it was with the quiet certainty of someone correcting an assumption that had never made sense to him in the first place.

“You aren’t.”

Shane sat there for a moment, dumb. What was there to even say to that? Ilya smiled at him, wide and tight, and stood. 

“Talk to your friends about it. I will give you a moment.”

Ilya stood, brushing dirt from the seat of his pants before reaching a hand down towards Shane. “Can you stand?”

Shane nodded and took Ilya’s hand in his. He knew Ilya was strong—he could easily see how tight most of his sweaters pulled across his chest—but the ease with which he pulled him up to standing startled enough that he over-corrected and crashed into Ilya’s chest. He could feel the heat of him through both of their clothes and could immediately tell that his face was bright red.

“Careful, please,” Ilya said as he released his hand and took a few steps away. “I will be with my car. Give you time to talk. Decide what you want to do.”

Shane watched him leave for a moment before turning around to face his friends. Before, he’d thought that Ilya looked like a single executioner facing three condemned men. Now he felt as if he stood in front of three armed soldiers of his own.

“So that’s Ilya,” Rose said with a laugh.

Hayden shook his head, and Jackie rolled her eyes. “Dude, you are so fucked,” Hayden said, running a hand through his hair.

Shane sighed and shifted his weight from side to side, suddenly feeling colder now that he was standing up by himself. “I know, okay? I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Do we ever?” Jackie asked, reaching out to pull him into a hug. “You have a choice to make.”

“This is better than you being alone, as far as those things go. I’d stay if I could, but with the drive tomorrow I really can’t stay up all night trying to make sure that you’re okay.” He knew Hayden was telling the truth, and didn’t want him losing sleep before a long drive.

Rose frowned at him and checked her phone, gnawing at her bottom lip with her teeth. “We have rehearsal at eight. I wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to come out tonight with you guys in the first place—I don’t know that I can afford to not sleep well tonight either. But if you’d rather crash at mine instead of Ilya’s, I can definitely make it work.”

Shane knew he didn’t have a lot of options, especially given that his biggest goal was to take care of this quickly—quietly—without having to involve his parents, his coach, or the police. He knew his friends were willing to step in and help, but he also fully recognized that they all had things going on in their own lives, and he didn’t want to pull any of them further into this. 

There was a lot that he knew he didn’t know about Ilya. He knew that there was plenty he would never ask. But he also knew that the concern and care that Ilya was showing him wouldn’t serve a purpose if they were entirely manufactured. He didn’t know the extent of how dangerous Ilya could be, but he would be lying if he said that at that moment he felt Ilya was a danger to him. 

“I’m good to go to Ilya’s, I think. He said he has a guest room, and he said he knows about the signs to look out for. I’ll stay in touch with you guys, and I’ll head home as soon as I’m feeling better. Promise.”

“You’ll text us?” Rose asked, reaching for his hand. “Keep us updated?”

***

The pain in Shane’s head had settled into a dull throb by the time that Ilya was flipping through a ring of ten or more keys, looking for the correct one. 

“Sorry, is too many keys to keep straight,” Ilya said sheepishly, finally finding the correct one. 

Shane had been surprised when they’d pulled up out front. It was a warm-looking home on a quiet stretch of street. The sort of deliberately mild neighborhood that showed careful family planning. Shane was sure that if the sun were up, he’d be able to count basketball hoops in driveways and children’s toys in yards. 

The neighbors' homes were close enough to seem companionable without crowding, lawns appeared perfectly trim. Porch lights were on up and down the street, and a few windows were still lit from within, glowing softly behind drawn curtains. 

Ilya’s home fit seamlessly among them—a modest two-story with warm brickwork and pale siding. Even before Ilya got the door open, Shane could see small signs of controlled maintenance. Small hedges, meticulously pruned back with care, grew alongside the carefully trimmed grass along the walkways. There was no gate, no fence, nothing that suggested that privacy was ‌something he was demanding. 

In the circle of the warm porch light, Shane could hear the soft tapping of a nearby wind chime, the sound carrying easily in the night's stillness. Even from outside, Shane could tell this was a home presenting an image of late-night dinners over wine and early mornings of pancakes and coffee. The perfect place for a child to leave a bike tipped over in the yard and forget to bring it into the garage before sunset. 

The aggressive normalcy of it made Shane hesitate. An inexplicable weight settled heavily in his chest as he took it all in. Whatever he knew about Ilya didn’t quite fit here, yet that somehow didn’t make him feel any safer in this quiet shred of suburbia. 

Ilya eased the door open, gesturing for Shane to enter before him. He locked the door behind them—knob and deadbolt loud in the quiet—and quickly armed the alarm behind them. 

System armed. Stay. Good night. 

“Wait here just one moment,” Ilya said, going deeper into the home. Shane looked after him, scuffing his foot against the hardwood floor and wondering whether he should take off his shoes. Ilya had left his own shoes on, but it felt oddly, absurdly wrong to Shane to leave them on. 

One by one, Shane watched as Ilya clicked on lamps in the hall and living room, circles of soft yellow light illuminating more of the home. 

“Okay, come. Come. I did not want to turn on big light. You are probably too sensitive for that, yes?”

Shane walked obediently down the hallway, struck by how inviting the home seemed. It looked almost as if it had been perfectly staged. Somehow both inviting and impersonal. There were no personal or sentimental items hung on walls or perched on tables—just genetically appealing wall art, lush if boring blankets bunched up on the end of the couch. 

The only actual sign of personality was the wide sprawl of books on the coffee table, titles all in Russian. 

“Sit, please,” Ilya said, moving around him to tidy the space—folding blankets, stacking the books, grabbing cold, half-empty cups of tea. 

Shane perched on the edge of the couch, hyperaware of the shoes on his feet and his puffer still on his shoulders. He felt unsettled, a bit insecure. As Ilya moved around this space—this warm-looking home in a quiet suburban neighborhood—he felt like a child watching a ‘real adult’ take charge. 

Ilya returned, clutching a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol, a white first aid kit cradled against his side by the crook of his arm. 

“Did you eat before you got hit?” Ilya asked, placing the water and Tylenol down in front of him.

“No, we didn’t. I was ordering our last round and then we were going to go grab something somewhere else.” 

Ilya nodded, sitting closely beside Shane on the couch as he pulled a warm, wet rag from around his wrist. Ilya pressed the rag to Shane’s temple, gently wiping away the blood that he was sure was there. He could feel a slight sting, knowing that the skin had definitely broken, but Ilya’s movements didn’t cause the sort of pain that worried him he’d need stitches or anything. 

“How bad is it?” Shane asked, taking a moment to look at Ilya. For once, Ilya was so engrossed in his task that he focused intently on Shane’s wound without staring into Shane’s eyes with the unerring focus that he usually did. 

“Is not too bad at all, at least on the outside. Only two centimeter, maybe three. Swollen, though.” Ilya moved the rag from Shane’s temple, no longer dabbing at the injury but swiping the cloth softly through the hair at his temples. “Looks worse than it is, I think. Your eye will be black by the morning.”

Ilya began gently smoothing some sort of ointment on his temple, placing a bandage on the area so softly that despite the sensitivity in his head, Shane could barely feel the pressure. 

Shane sighed, hands clenching tight in the fabric of his pants. Ilya reached down, gently placing his palm over Shane’s hand, smoothing his fingers apart. “Don’t worry. You are still very pretty.”

Ilya stood, collecting the wet cloth and shattering the moment. “You need to eat, yes? I will make tuna melts.”

Chapter End Notes

Meant to get this out yesterday, so it ends here so I can keep the posting regular. I fear that if I quit cruising along I'll lose my momentum here.

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

God save me from beautiful, stupid men.

When Shane woke, it was in confusion. The room he was in was bright—brighter than his north-facing windows could ever get his bedroom. He was also immediately aware that he wasn’t in his cheap bed, but based on the specific texture underneath him he was on a plush couch with a warm flannel blanket wrapped around him. 

He sat up quickly when the memory of the night before hit him, suddenly remembering exactly where he was and why. 

“Ah! Sleeping Beauty back with the rest of us.”

Shane glanced over, only slightly surprised to see Ilya sprawled out lazily in an armchair. He was wearing a pair of soft, thin gray sweatpants and a white tank top. Shane had to physically hold himself back from letting his eyes drop along the length of his legs—or anything else—in the sweats, but did passively allow himself to notice Ilya’s thick bare arms and the shadows of the muscles of his chest and abs through the thin undershirt. 

“How is your head?” Ilya asked, sticking a bookmark into the book he’d been reading and tossing it toward the coffee table. 

“It’s not feeling too bad,” Shane answered honestly. Shane honestly felt surprisingly good that morning, considering how terrible he had felt the night before. It still hurt, yes, but it was a gentle ache instead of a persistent throb that made him wonder ‌whether he’d made a mistake by forgoing the trip to the hospital. 

“I tried to get you to the guest room. Couch is not too comfortable for full night of deep sleep. But once you fell asleep you were out like light. I was almost worried each time that I woke you, but you seemed okay.”

The thought of Ilya watching over him, trying to make sure that he was safe, made his stomach swoop again in a way that he could already tell brought a flush to his cheeks. “Yeah, uh… I’ve been told that I’m a pretty deep sleeper.”

Ilya smiled at him, shooting him a look that made him feel a bit weak. “I see. I should have asked for references as to how you act when in bed.”

“Oh, god—that’s not what I meant!” Shane cried, cheeks burning. “Like my mom, friends, and stuff. I don’t have references.”

Ilya stood, walking over towards him and slightly invading his space. “Is okay. It was joke. My English is not so good when I talk to you, I think.”

Shane flinched back at both his words and his close proximity. This close, he could make out the series of dark moles dotting Ilya’s arms and chest, could smell his cologne warm and heavy, and could make out the details of the gold cross that dangled from a fine chain between his pecs. 

“I, um…” Shane cleared his throat, suddenly feeling as if he couldn’t speak. “I think your English sounds good. I understand you.”

Ilya laughed, tracing a finger along the swelling on Shane’s face. 

“English is better when I am not so… distracted.”

Shane couldn’t help but look away, and Ilya chuckled warmly, giving him that same soft, crooked smile he’d gotten used to at the coffee shop. When Shane finally got the courage to look back at him, Ilya lightly tapped his finger under Shane’s chin, giving him a wink. 

“Do you eat eggs?”

Much like the night before, the abrupt subject change startled Shane slightly. He couldn’t quite figure out what exactly his game could be. Shane was… boring. Ilya had called it himself that first night they'd met while looking at his practical car parked beside the back door of the cafe. Shane went to school, he poured coffee, he played hockey, and he only sometimes went out with his friends. He wasn’t the sort of person who had anything to offer ‌a man as handsome and magnetic as Ilya. 

“Uh, yeah. I eat eggs.”

Ilya nodded, stepping back ‌from Shane, taking with him the warmth of his body and the smell of his cologne. “The bathroom is down that hall. I will cook breakfast if you would like shower.”

Shane took a deep breath, suddenly realizing that his heart was racing, and he felt warm. 

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. But I have nothing to wear, so maybe I should just call an Uber and head home. I’ll stop taking advantage of your hospitality now that we know I’m in the clear.”

Ilya looked at him for a long moment, head cocked slightly to the side. “Hmm… no. Could still be dangerous. I will find clothes for you. It would be very inconvenient for me if you went home to die from head injury.”

If there was one thing that could always spur Shane into action, it was the fear—the anxiety—of being an inconvenience. 

“You’re right—it’s just that you’ve already done so much to take care of me and clean up the situation. I don’t want to put you out any more.”

Ilya laughed, putting one large, warm hand on Shane’s back to lead him up the stairs and presumably to find something for him to wear. 

“Is another joke. You are not inconvenience. I do not feel… put out, as you say. Come—we will find small, Shane-sized clothes.”

Shane bristled at the implication that he was small. Sure, everyone couldn’t be a giant slab of Slav, but he wasn’t small. He was six feet tall—more or less—and he knew he was more muscular than most. He turned, looking at Ilya. Before he could say anything, he realized Ilya was still smiling. 

“Another joke,” they both said. 

Despite himself, Shane laughed too. 

***

While Shane waited for Ilya’s shower to heat up, he stripped down and carefully folded his dirty clothes after turning them inside out to rinse the blood from his shirt and the thighs of his jeans. From the back, not the front, push the stain out, not deeper. When you get home, hydrogen peroxide on the shirt, scrub the jeans with a bar of Fels-Naptha. Do not put them in the dryer until it’s gone.

The first glance in the mirror made him hiss. The swelling on his face had spread overnight, pulling his features outward and making his own face reflected in the mirror look unfamiliar. As he pulled back the bandage on his temple, he could see that the cut there had closed into a thin, dark line, but still angry around the edges. A faint shine from the liberal smear of ointment Ilya had rubbed on his face still glimmered under the lights of the bathroom. 

Beneath it, his skin had gone mottled—yellow around the edges with a bruised purple already settling in closer to his eye. He’d have a fully blown black eye by noon, but there was nothing he could do for it now. Fortunately, the eye itself didn’t look injured, only tired. The white faintly tinged pink, and his lid pulled down heavier than on the other side. 

His hair was flattened down on the side of the injury from their attempts to clean the blood from it, and the hair on his uninjured side stood up in hectic spikes from his sleep on the couch. The total effect made him look younger than he felt in that moment—slept on, not put together, baffled by his own reflection. His skin had an odd pallor that reminded him of long trips to away games and nights spent cramming—the look that came from being upright, not from being alright. 

But he doesn’t look as broken as he’d felt for a few long minutes the night before. He didn’t look ruined. Just… just marked. 

And maybe that’s the part that stuck out to him the most. That whatever happened to him last night has left evidence written clearly across his face. Impossible to explain or just smooth away. He didn’t pass for perfectly fine in the mirror, but he looked better than he expected he would. 

He stepped under the hot water, sighing at the feelings of the water drumming against his shoulders and washing away the night before while the sound filled his ears in a way that felt like it could drown out his thoughts. 

It didn’t. 

It just gives them somewhere to echo. 

Shane pressed his forehead against the cool tiled wall, the chill easing some of the headache that his morning dose of Tylenol hadn’t been able to touch yet. He started cataloguing the sensations he could feel the way he always does when things felt like they’re sliding out of his control: the heat, the pressure, the slight pull at the corner at his eye that warns him he still needs to be careful. 

He’s fine. He’s always fine. He just needs to keep things… orderly. Neat. 

But the previous night didn’t feel contained. It sprawled, messy and persistent in his head, threading itself through every other thought that crossed his mind. Ilya’s hands, so careful and steady. The way he’d said Shane’s name like it mattered—like it was something worth taking the time to pronounce correctly despite his accent. The comfort of his home, the sandwich, the quiet of their conversation before he’d fallen asleep to the soft sound of the television that Ilya had told him he could listen to but not watch. 

None of it fit cleanly into the box Shane had constructed in his head, and that made his chest feel tight in a way that had nothing to do with the thick choke of steam in the air. 

He tried to fall back on his rules, because the purpose of them is to help. The water ran over his face as he exhaled slowly and deliberately. But the trouble with the rules is that they only work when he follows them before breaking something irreparable. And he could feel it then—a hairline crack running through him, through the rules, through his resolve. A crack that widened every single time that Ilya Rozanov looked at him like he was worth all‌ the trouble. 

He swallowed hard, straightening, and reached for the bottle of body wash on the ledge. He tells himself that it doesn’t mean anything. That whatever this is, it’s just the proximity, the adrenaline. It’s gratitude tangled up with a completely objective attraction to a very good-looking man who happened to be there when he was in a moment of need. 

But the lie doesn’t settle within him the way that it usually does when he returns home late from a closing shift at the shop. Instead, it slides off him like the water of the shower—thin and useless. In its wake, it leaves behind the truth that he’d walked into that house with Ilya knowing that it might not be a good idea. But he’d done it anyway. Not because he thought he might deserve whatever happened to him. 

He’d done it because, for once, he wasn’t afraid of not being in control of making sure that it all worked out okay in the end. 

***

When Shane re-entered the living room, he couldn’t help but feel out of place. In the bright light of day, he felt more exposed—especially now that he actually knew what his face looked like. 

He took advantage of the brightness to look around Ilya’s home again. 

Sunlight poured through tall, uncovered windows. The lack of curtains fully illuminated the room, and in the light of day, nothing hid from him in the shadows. He could faintly smell coffee on the air coming from the kitchen, the smell and sound of bacon frying in a pan. Underneath it, there’s the smell of something else—something almost sterile. The home seems intensely… clean. There was nothing out of place, save for the books on the coffee table. 

Shane again noted that there were very few personal details that he could see. The books, definitely. A mug sat next to the chair Ilya had been in when he woke, and he could see a series of moisture rings in the wood that showed the spot was its usual home. 

Shane followed the smells into the kitchen, finding Ilya in a room that was small but efficient.

From the doorway, Shane watched Ilya move through the kitchen with a precise familiarity. There was no hurry in Ilya’s actions, no movement unnecessary. He moved with the quiet competence of someone who knows exactly what’s cooking, how long it still needs, and where his next step is waiting. Ilya stood cracking eggs one-handed against the rim of a bowl, setting the shells neatly to the side. The kettle clicked off beside him, and without looking, Ilya just reached and poured, steam rising as he filled his teacup. 

Shane noticed, as if in slow motion, how the sunlight hit Ilya’s shoulders, the pattern of moles across his shoulders, illuminating the fine hairs at the back of his neck. It’s all so domestic that it makes Shane feel like he’s doing something wrong—intruding on something private. Like the version of Ilya he can see isn’t meant to be observed. 

Reflexively, Shane cleared his throat against a knot that had settled itself somewhere in his chest. It’s sharper, louder than he meant in the quiet. 

Ilya turns toward the sound, freezing with one egg a hair's breadth from the rim of the bowl as he stared at Shane. But the look he gives isn’t startled or surprised. It’s something else—assessing, almost—but it lasts just a beat longer than Shane expects. Long enough that he starts to feel self-conscious again. Acutely aware of the way the borrowed clothes hang on him, soft and faintly warm. Aware of how he had to roll the sleeves back because they’re just a tad too long. 

It lasts long enough that he can feel his skin prickle under Ilya’s attention. 

“You look good,” Ilya said, voice easy, like it’s a simple observation. “In my clothes.”

Heat rushed up Shane’s neck. “Oh. Uh—yeah. Guess that’s another joke,” he replied quickly, reaching for the comfort from earlier that means he’s not misreading Ilya’s intentions. 

Ilya doesn’t correct him. He just turns back to the bowl, hand pausing for a fraction of a second before he resumes cracking the eggs, and the silence that follows is heavier than if he’d laughed it off. It sits there between them, unacknowledged and unmistakable, while he keeps cooking as if nothing has changed at all.

“I do not have coffee machine, but I have tea. It is black tea—Russian.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Shane said, entering the kitchen more fully and feeling a bit unsettled despite his best attempts to find clarity. 

Ilya pointed toward a barstool at the island, handing Shane the cup of tea that he’d just poured for himself. 

“It needs time to steep, still,” he said, pulling another mug from the cabinet and fixing himself another cup. 

“I do work in a coffee shop, Ilya. I know what tea is.”

Ilya chuckled, smiling at him as he turned back toward the bowl. “Is not Sunbeam Elixir. This is tea.”

“Oh, shut up,” Shane said, laughing. “No one comes in and orders tea in a coffee shop.”

“Probably because your tea is very bad.”

Watching Ilya move around his kitchen, joking with him in the broad daylight in a space so far removed from the artificial coziness of the coffee shop, Shane couldn’t help but feel… comfortable. He was still highly aware of his body, his face. He felt a bit out of sorts every time his laughs made him close his eyes too firmly or when his mouth didn’t form around his words quite as easily as usual. But he was comfortable. 

But after breakfast, after a few more cups of the oddly smoky tea, Shane knew he didn’t have any reason to stay any longer. His headache was mostly gone, he didn’t feel confused or dazed—because of his wounds, at least—and he knew that his reasons for staying were dwindling. 

But when Ilya’s phone buzzed on the table for the fourth time, him sighing once again before declining the call, Shane knew it was time to head out. 

“I should probably go,” Shane said,  already shifting his weight in his chair. “I’m feeling a lot better, and I don’t want to—”

He stops, frowning. “I don’t want to take up your whole day. It sounds like you have some things you probably need to get done today.”

Ilya sighed, but nodded. “Unfortunate, yes. I cannot spend all day on couch having pleasant conversation with Canadian barista.”

“I’ll just, uh… go put my clothes back on and then I’ll call my Uber.”

Ilya stared at Shane, dragging his eyes up and down the way ‌his own clothes hung on Shane’s body. “No. You do not like mess, yes? I will get you bag for your clothes. Keep them.”

For Shane, mess isn’t a failing and neatness isn’t a virtue—but disorder registers in his body before it ever reaches his thoughts. He notices it the same way some people notice a noise just a little too high-pitched. It’s not enough to stop everything, but enough to keep tugging at the edge of his attention. 

A pile of clothes on the floor, crumbs on the surface of a pastry case, a room full of chairs that weren’t pushed in before their occupants left. It all creates a low, constant pressure, like having to hold a muscle half-tensed without realizing you’re doing it. He can function through it. He often does. But it costs him something: a layer of patience or focus he doesn’t get back until the space is set right again.

He doesn’t need perfection, doesn’t care about aesthetics in the way people assume when they see how carefully he keeps his workspace or home. He just needs… predictability. A place where he can reach without looking and know what his hand will close around. A room that asks nothing of him when he’s already tired.

He learned over time other people read this differently. That they think he’s particular, or rigid, or trying to control things that don’t matter. Shane knows he approaches it differently, the same way he approaches conversations, routines, expectations—methodically, with a kind of quiet triage about what will make the day easier to get through. He doesn’t have language for it beyond that. He just knows that when things are orderly, his head is quieter, and when they aren’t, it’s harder to breathe around the noise.

This felt different. It felt like Ilya had clocked his patterns and chose not to press on it. Shane felt himself brace for commentary that never came, for when Ilya would joke or pry or misinterpret it as fussiness or control. 

And that, maybe, was the most unsettling part. Not that Ilya had noticed him—his particularities—but that he seemed to see him accurately and still moved to make space for him, anyway. Shane was used to managing himself around other people, smoothing his edges so they didn’t catch. Realizing that Ilya had noticed the edges and adjusted the world a half-inch to the left instead made something in him go quiet.

“Shane?”

He cleared his throat, trying not to seem as if he was as affected by Ilya’s attention as he was. 

“Yeah, that’s fine. I can—I’ll wash them and return them to you when they’re clean.”

Ilya shrugged, arms flexing as he crossed them over his chest. “I do not care what you do with them. Keep them, donate them, throw them in river. It matters not.”

Shane tried not to think about the fact that none of those options included ‘return them.’

***

Shane: Are you still at rehearsal?

Rose: omg!!! 

Rose: youngfrankenstein_itsalive.gif

Rose: hows your noggin??

Shane: I feel okay, actually. I just got home.

Shane: Are you busy?

Rose: nope! just grabbed lunch and i’ll be home in like 3 minutes

Rose: i want you to tell me everything

Shane: Yeah. I’ll call you in a second when you’re back home. 

While he watched the clock, he stared at his lock screen like it would give him instructions if he waited long enough. 

He knows Rose will ask questions. Rose always asks questions. He could already hear her voice—the way she’ll pretend to be casual about it but then immediately clock every time he hesitates or stumbles over an answer. He could tell her the facts, of course. The ride to Ilya’s, the couch, the borrowed clothes, the plate of breakfast. They’re not lies. 

They’re just… incomplete. 

He ran his thumb along the edge of the screen, grounding himself with the slight bite of a chip in the metal near the power button. There was so much that he wanted to tell her, but there wasn’t much that he actually wanted to say.

What could he possibly tell her about how careful Ilya had been? How quiet the house felt? The way it had felt so easy to exist there, like the space had opened up and made room for him without him needing to justify his existence first? Definitely not the look in Ilya’s eyes that morning when he’d woken on the couch to see him sprawled on the armchair, steady and unreadable.

He exhaled, deep and slow. Okay. He’d tell her he’d spent the night—even though she already knew that. He’d tell her that Ilya had made him breakfast and given him clean clothes. It was practical. Responsible. Under no circumstances was it a big deal. 

He scrolled through his contacts list to Rose, trying not to notice the addition of a new name in the contact list directly below hers. 

Rozanov. 

“Okay, spill!” Rose said, answering immediately. “How’s your head? Forget your head—how’s your beautiful face?”

Don’t worry. You are still very pretty. The sound of Ilya’s voice filters through his head before he can think about it.

“I’m, uh… I’m alright,” he said, clearing his throat. “My eye is blacking up and my lip is still a little swollen, but it could be worse. My head doesn’t hurt too badly anymore, either.”

He could hear Rose hum down the line, and he started picking at a loose thread along the hemline of his borrowed shirt, pressing the phone against his ear. 

“Well, that’s good to hear. A bit surprised that you let yourself get whisked off to your favorite regular’s house, though.”

“It was the most practical option.”

Rose laughed into the phone, and he could practically hear her eyes rolling. “You say that like you were choosing between brands of detergent. He offered you his guest room.”

“He was calm. He knew what to do. Everyone else was stressing me out, talking about hospitals and brain damage. It was freaking me out and he… wasn’t freaked.”

“That, Shane Hollander, is because he likes you.”

Even though he knew she couldn’t see him, Shane started shaking his head immediately. “Of course he likes me. I do a better job than you do making his coffee, and he and I can usually carry on a pretty solid conversation for a little while at least.”

“No, you beautiful idiot. He likes you.”

Shane had had a few moments of uncertainty when he was with Ilya, where he’d wondered himself. Moments where he recognized Ilya was looking a little too intently, or a little too long. Those moments where Ilya seemed to flirt with him, showing him a version of himself that seemed far happier—freer—than anything he saw when he was sitting in the coffee shop with his regular group of men. 

But that didn’t mean that Ilya liked him. It could just mean that Ilya was interested. And Shane didn’t really do casual interest. He’d rather do nothing at all than just be someone’s idea of a good time. Besides—Ilya was European. Weren’t they known for being a little more free with attention and affection than American and Canadian men? Oh god, was that a stereotype? Was he being xenophobic?

“I don’t think it’s that.”

“Shane—”

“No. I think he’s just protective. He’s always looking out for me, like at closing time and stuff.”

There’s a long pause on the line. Rose’s silence doesn’t feel skeptical, but patient.

“He just keeps saying things about keeping me safe. About me being careful. You know.”

“Shane, you had a head injury. Of course he wanted you to be safe! And if we’re being honest, we were all a bit drunk last night. I don’t know that any of us would’ve been able to give you the attention you needed.”

Shane sighed down the line, wishing that he had something to do with his hands to use some of his nervous energy. He wasn’t sure why this was so hard to talk about with Rose. She was his best friend—he’d had much harder conversations with her in the past. 

“I know,” he said, once his heart rate had slowed slightly. “I’m just saying—it felt like he’s used to looking out for things. Managing stressful situations, you know?”

“Or, hear me out,” she said, laughing. “He’s an adult with basic first-aid instincts and didn’t want to leave you to die in your sleep with your drunk friends.”

“Or he didn’t want attention on him,” Shane replied before he could stop himself.

Fuck.

Rose’s silence was sharper this time. 

“What does that mean?”

Shane swallowed thickly, annoyed with himself for speaking too soon. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I said that. I just… he’s very private. He lives somewhere quiet. Doesn’t draw attention to himself. Keeps things… under control.”

“Shane. That’s called being an introvert. You of all people should be able to relate to that. What are you even talking about right now?”

“I don’t know,” Shane says quickly. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying it didn’t feel personal. He probably would’ve done the same thing for you.”

“He gave you his clothes.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“He made you breakfast.”

“He would’ve done that for anyone.

Rose laughed that it was honest-to-god the funniest thing she’d ever heard. He tried not to be annoyed with her, because he knew he sounded a bit too defensive and he knew that she had been confident since literally day one that he had an interest in Shane.

“He absolutely would not have,” Rose sighed, softer now. “You think he was being  careful because that’s who he is. I think he was being careful because it was you.”

Shane rubbed his thumb along his swollen lip, remembering how Ilya had tended to his wounds the night before. “I don’t want to read into something that’s just… him being decent.”

When Rose finally answered him, her voice was so gentle that it made something in his chest ache. “You’re allowed to want someone to be interested in you, Shane. That doesn’t make you reckless.”

Is that what he wanted? Did he want Ilya’s interest? He’d be a liar if he told even himself that he didn’t sometimes shoot anxious glances toward the door to see if the chime at the door was Ilya. He often felt swooping little butterflies in his stomach when Ilya turned his full attention on him, and sometimes he’d find his cheeks absolutely aching at how wide he was smiling at memories of things that he had said to him. 

For fuck’s sake, every time he closed his eyes at night he could hear Ilya’s voice calling him pretty as he was falling asleep.

“I’m not saying I want—”

Rose interrupted him this time, and he could clearly hear the impatience in her voice. “You’re saying that you don’t think you’re worth wanting. Which is not the same thing.”

Silence stretches. Shane didn’t argue, and he was sure that his silence was telling her far more than an answer would have.

“Babe, look. If I thought this guy was sketchy, I would’ve said something last night. I didn’t. He looked at you like he was trying very hard not to overstep.”

“Or like he knows how to keep things quiet.”

Rose huffed a laugh, but there’s an edge of fond exasperation to it that makes him smile despite himself.

“Shane Hollander, you are exhausting.”

“I’m being cautious!”

“You’re being afraid. Different thing.”

When she speaks again, her voice is soft and fond, and despite how hard the conversation has been, he feels his heart clench a little at how grateful he is for her.

“Just… don’t convince yourself that someone being kind to you automatically means there’s a catch. Sometimes it really is just… interest.”

Shane exhaled slowly and hoped beyond hope that he actually meant it when he replied, “I’ll try.”

“Good. Ice your face. Text me if you feel weird. And for the love of god, don’t disappear into your own head about this.”

Shane laughed despite himself, knowing that trying not to get into his head was like telling him to watch a puck slide past him on the ice without moving toward it. “No promises.”

“Shane.”

“…Okay,” he says, quiet but sincere.

After they’d hung up, he stared at the dark screen of his phone, looking at his own reflection as unease curled in his chest. 

Not because Rose might be wrong, but because a part of him is afraid she might be right.

***

For once, he had a rare few days off from the shop, and because of a long weekend, he hadn’t been expected on the ice. He’d been glad to have the time off—to just think—and by the time he was going back to work the bruising on his face had lightened to a point that he no longer felt like everyone’s eyes were on him every time they looked his way. 

“Oh, good,” he heard as he unlocked and opened the door of the shop. Ilya rubbed a cigarette out on the sole of his shoe before dropping it into the ashtray outside. “You did not die since Saturday.”

Shane let the door fall closed behind them as Ilya entered, and they walked back toward the counter together.

“You really shouldn’t smoke, you know. It’s bad for you.”

Ilya laughed, leaning against the counter. “Yes, you feel fine.”

It was a Wednesday, and Shane knew by now what that would mean. Ilya would sit by himself for a few hours, doing something on his laptop or poring over the foreign language newspapers. Then, late in the morning, he would be joined by the steady stream of men who would spend several hours with him before going on their way. 

That morning, as the hours passed while Ilya waited for the men to join him, Shane found himself looking at Ilya more frequently than usual. Whether it was whatever cracks that had opened up on Friday night and Saturday morning, or whether it was the words that Rose had fed down the phone line, he felt himself feeling more comfortable allowing himself to look. 

Which is probably why he noticed Ilya was looking back. Not every single time that Shane looked toward him, but close enough to it, he would meet Ilya’s bright hazel eyes and he would shoot Shane one of those wide, bright smiles before looking back toward his newspapers. 

Maybe it was irresponsible, maybe it was reckless, but for the first time he allowed himself to admit to himself that he wanted Rose to be right. He wanted Ilya to want him. He wanted to feel the weight of Ilya’s attention, and he wanted the looks, the flirtation, the smiles to all mean something. 

“Hey, uh, Shane?”

He looked away from Ilya and met the eyes of the American—god, he really needed to ask that guy what his name was. 

“Yeah, man. What’s up?”

Beside him stood the other two from Friday night—the Russian and the… other guy. 

“We are sorry,” the Russian said. “We had stupid fight in bar we should not have. We hit you and made you hurt. We should not have done this and we are sorry for what we have done.”

“I am happy you went down fast,” the Other Guy said. “You are big guy, yes? You could have hit back very hard if you did not fall.”

Shane laughed, a bit baffled. “Uh, yeah. No  big deal. I’m alright. Not the first time I’ve taken a hit.”

Past them, Shane could see Ilya stand and move toward them. “Good. He has forgiven you. I will tell you after progress reports if I do. Order your drink and tip Shane well for his troubles, yes?”

Shane took a deep breath, fixing their drinks after they had placed their orders. He couldn’t say he was positive, but he was sure that he had spoken in English for his benefit. That he wanted Shane to hear him and understand. Unlike the other times ‌Ilya had flexed his control in front of Shane, it didn’t fill him with anxiety. This time, his protectiveness filled him with something approaching warmth.

Knowing that the conversation at the long table in the back was going to switch to Russian, Shane pulled out his Econ book and started trying to re-read the previous week’s chapter. It wasn’t unusual for Econ to not hold his attention, but he did his best to make the explanation make sense. 

… Nominal rigidity refers to the tendency of nominal variables—most commonly wages and prices—to adjust slowly in response to changes in economic conditions, even when real variables would warrant a faster adjustment ... This rigidity may arise from a variety of institutional and behavioral factors, including long-term contracts, menu costs, coordination problems, and norms of fairness… As a result, nominal rigidity plays a central role in modern macroeconomic theory, particularly in explaining short-run non-neutrality of money and the transmission mechanism of monetary policy.

He could feel his attention waning almost immediately as he tried to read, which is likely why his attention was so easily caught when he realized that—for the first time since they’d started coming—the men at Ilya’s table were speaking in English. 

“If he has a conscience, he will suffer for his mistake. That will be punishment as well as prison.”

Shane’s hand stilled, no longer anxiously tapping his pen against the edge of the dense textbook.

Okay. Sure. Prison. Normal word. Normal thing to talk about. Except for the fact that the way it lands—casual, like a given—made his stomach tighten. 

For a few moments, he thought he’d almost hallucinated the whole thing. The conversation continued on in Russian, Ilya more talkative than usual. He let the sounds of the language—not half as angry as people tried to paint it—lull him back into focus as he tried to absorb anything about variable fluctuations. 

“But you are a great sinner, that's true. And your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”

Jesus. Shane swallowed thickly, focusing on keeping his head down as the English once again caught his attention. Whoever spoke said it softly, without an ounce of force behind the phrase. The kind of tone that lands harder because it’s quiet. He risked a glance over, just enough to clock posture: no raised hands, no aggression. Controlled. Always controlled over at that table.

“You’re a gentleman. You shouldn’t have gone murdering people with a hatchet—that’s no occupation for a gentleman.”

Shane nearly snorts before he can stop himself. Murdering people with a hatchet. Right. Definitely a joke. Definitely a hallucination. Has to be. Except no one’s laughing. One man tilted his head, listening like this matters, like it’s advice. Shane’s pulse picked up anyway, irrational and insistent. He told himself he’s catastrophizing. He’s good at that, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he re-entered another spiral.

Ten minutes passed. His shoulders finally started to unclench. He could almost feel himself finally settling back into a semblance of normalcy when he heard them again.

“It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of.”

That one settled wrong somewhere in his mammalian hindbrain. Too abstract. Too calm. Like fear is something you study after you’ve already learned how to use it. Shane furiously underlines something in his textbook—not sure if it even means anything that will be useful upon further review—his jaw tight.

“A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.”

That one hits close to home, sharp enough that Shane startled. He glanced up again, just for a fraction of a second. Ilya is listening, eyes on the speaker, unreadable. They flicked to Shane for just the briefest of moments before returning to the speaker. Not denying it. Not agreeing either. Just… weighing.

He went back to his work, movements precise, deliberately normal as he tried to fill his notebook with something useful. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s all metaphor and theory and words on a page. But his shoulders stayed tight, and when Ilya finally looked over and met his eye, Shane looked away first—already cataloging what he thinks he knows, and telling himself, not for the first time that day, that knowing the risk doesn’t mean he won’t take it.

Abandoning his textbook, he grabbed a towel, moving toward the other side of the coffee shop to have something to do with his hands and to be slightly further out of earshot of whatever was happening at the table. He spends a long ten minutes wiping, but eventually he has to admit to himself that he has nothing left to do and he needs to return to the counter. 

As he rounds the edge, he’s almost startled by the sound of Ilya’s voice—in English, for the very first time since he ever started meeting up with the others at that table. 

“What do you think? Do you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That is man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can't even make mistakes on our own account!”

His words echoed the same message he’d heard him give the three men at the bar on Friday night. The same messaging about mistakes and errors and their consequences.

Ilya’s voice dropped lower as he continued, and Shane moved further down the counter as he busied himself—unable to keep himself from eavesdropping further.

“Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I will kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life can be cramped.”

For the first time, he realized Ilya had been telling the truth on Saturday morning. In that moment, talking to the other men at the table, Shane realized that while his accent was still ever-present, his English was better, stronger, more confident. 

What was it that Ilya had called him? A distraction? Did he want to be a distraction for Ilya?

“There have been examples,” Ilya continued. “And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people’s ideas, it is what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?"

As he finished, the other men all sat back in their chairs as if they were puppets whose strings had been cut. Something shifted at the table, and a deep silence fell across the long table. Shane continued wiping at a stain that he couldn’t see as, one by one, the men began filtering out of the shop. 

Ilya remained at the table alone for a few long minutes, staring down at the table. Shane took the moment to watch him, somehow knowing that Ilya would not be seeking his eyes for a while.

From behind the counter, watching Ilya feels like watching the opposition during a game—without staring, without letting his body react before his head catches up. His large hands folded around his mug as if he were anchoring himself there. He wasn’t reading. His newspaper from earlier lay folded on the table, red pen resting on top with its cap still on. Every so often his gaze lifts, skims the room, settles on nothing in particular—but for once, not on Shane. 

There was something different about him like this, unobserved. His shoulders sloped just a fraction, the tension easing out of them the longer he sat in that silence. Shane noticed the small things against his will, but noted them anyway. The way Ilya’s jaw tightened and released, the brief exhale through his nose like he was bracing himself for a decision he’s already made. The thought lands and sticks, unsettling and warm at the same time.

Finally, Ilya stood. The room didn’t change, not really, but Shane felt it anyway—the way he felt when a line of play opened up and he knew the next move was coming whether he was ready for it or not. 

Ilya walked toward the counter without hurry, threading past tables with ‌practiced ease, eyes up and on Shane. Focused. He stopped only an arm’s length away, close enough that Shane could see the faint crease between his brows, the careful set of his mouth. They were separated only by the width of the counter, and Shane couldn’t tell if he felt as if it was too close or much, much too far away. 

For a heartbeat, Ilya didn’t speak. He just looked at Shane, expression open and steady, as if he were making sure he had Shane’s attention before he needed to ask for it.

“Shane.” 

Ilya said his name as if it were something heavy and weighted. Shane just looked back, muscles tense and his mind fuzzy with something that for once didn’t resemble panic. “Yeah?”

Ilya placed his hands on the edge of the counter, not leaning in towards Shane, not closing the distance between them. But a steady, deliberate movement. Grounding. It was the sort of thing he did himself when they talked.

“I do not want to make assumptions. But I would like to see you. Outside of here. When we are not using your injury as excuse.”

Shane blinked, afraid that he was somehow misunderstanding. “Like—”

“Like coffee,” Ilya said calmly. “Or dinner. Something that is clearly about my… interest. You have caught my interest.”

The word landed heavier than Shane expected. He swallowed, suddenly feeling overwhelmed for more reasons than he could count.

“You don’t have to— I mean, I know things are probably… complicated for you.”

Ilya’s brow furrowed slightly. “Complicated how?”

Shane hesitated. This is where Ilya usually backs out. Kept it light. He didn’t.

“I just figured you’d rather keep things… private.”

For a moment, Ilya only looked at him. Then he nodded once, slow.

“I find right now I prefer clarity.” He said it simply, as if it settled the matter. “If you are not interested, that is fine. But if you are—I would like to ask you properly.”

Shane could hear the hum of the refrigerators, buzzing quietly in the silence that opened before them. He was suddenly aware of his hands, of his heartbeat, of how easy it would be to say no and go back to rules that still mostly work.

He didn’t.

“Okay.”

Just that. Small. Honest.

Something in Ilya’s expression shifted—relief, maybe—gone almost as soon as it appeared.

“Okay,” Ilya repeated, sounding breathless, almost surprised. “Good.”

They stood there for a beat longer than necessary, neither of them moving.

“I will text you,” Ilya said. Not a question. “Or find you here. I need time to… plan.”

Shane nodded, feeling like a bobblehead as he could feel a different sort of noise rise within him, vastly different from the usual din in his head. “Yeah. Okay.”

Ilya stepped back then, giving him space again, already turning away as if that settled things.

“Okay,” Ilya parroted again, a wide smile on his face. He brought one hand up to cover his own mouth, as if surprised he could display so much unbridled emotion. 

Shane watched him go, pulse still loud in his ears. The fridge hummed. The shop breathed around them. And Shane, caught between caution and want, felt the balance tip.

Okay.

Chapter End Notes

Please know that some of your comments have me genuinely cracking up over here. Like it's been days and I'm still thinking about some of them. You all are my favorites.

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

This one is for my #1 hypeman, Erica. 

"Okay" Count: 38

Rozanov: Shane?

Rozanov: This is Ilya.

Rozanov: Ilya Rozanov

Rozanov: From coffee shop?

Shane almost has to bite back a laugh. Ilya had been the one to type his number into Shane’s phone the week before when he’d kept an eye on him after the fight. He knew Shane had his number because Ilya was the one who had insisted that he take it in case something happened when Shane was home alone waiting for Hayden to get back from his trip to meet Jackie’s parents. 

Rozanov: I hope I did not make things awkward before you left.

Shane read the message twice, no longer laughing.

Shane: No. Just… unexpected.

Rozanov: Unexpected is fair. 

Rozanov: I worried. 

Rozanov: I know it is not correct to ask such things when someone is at work.

On paper, Shane knew it probably wasn’t correct. He’d overheard Hayden talking to their friends enough to know that it was definitely a no-go to ask someone out when they were on shift. And sure, there was a pretty clear power imbalance between the college student eking out a living by picking up extra shifts at the coffee shop and the man who could drop an almost $20 tip on a single cup of coffee. 

Shane: I wanted to say yes. 

Shane: I just didn’t have time to process it in the moment.

He watched the three dots appear and then disappear at the bottom of his phone. The moment he started to question whether or not he’d somehow misspoken, his phone chimed again with an answer.

Rozanov: You did not seem uncertain.

Well, thank god for that. Apparently he’d had a once in a lifetime moment of off-ice confidence that had somehow tricked Ilya into thinking that he wasn’t a complete idiot who was used to being asked out while at work.

Shane: I was trying not to be.

Rozanov: Uncertain is different thing from uninterested.

Shane: Yeah. 

Shane: It is.

***

When his phone buzzed, he was crammed into the tiny desk in an Econ lecture. He didn’t usually pull his phone out while class was in session—and most of his friends knew that. Which meant that there’s only one person—unless it’s his mom—who would be texting him. Plus—he was already pretty sure that he could get a C in the class. As long as he knew enough about supply chains to avoid getting cut from the team, that would have to be good enough.

Rozanov: How is head today?

Shane: Still attached. Mild headache if I stare at the TV for too long. 

Shane: No nausea. I promise.

Rozanov: Good. 

Rozanov: Thank you for telling me.

Something about that message made his stomach twist. It reminded him of when Ilya had said that he was worried about Shane going home to die. The comment had been a joke, but it had ‌still brought up that feeling of anxiety that he was somehow both too much and not enough. Just something to be managed, not someone to make space for. 

Shane: You don’t have to check in like this.

Rozanov: I know.

Rozanov is typing… 

Shane stared at the three dots like they would tell him something about Ilya’s response before it came. He knew, objectively, that this was what normal concern looked like. A check-in. Follow-up. Responsibility. But it still made something in him tighten, the old reflex of bracing for mothering and concern. He didn’t enjoy feeling monitored, even gently. Didn’t like the sense that he’d become a variable someone else was accounting for. If this was how Ilya handled people he felt responsible for, then it made sense, Shane told himself. Efficient and careful. Making sure nothing spilled over into places it shouldn’t. 

He shifted in his seat, knee bouncing once before he stilled it, and waited for the reply he was already half-convinced would come with terms attached.

Rozanov: But I would like to.

Shane stares at the screen longer than he should.

Shane: Okay.

***

“…and that’s a tough one to give up this late in the period. You can see the frustration on the bench—defensive coverage just breaks down for half a second, and at this level, that’s all it takes.”

“The pace hasn’t slowed at all, even with the clock winding down. Both teams are still finishing their checks, still battling along the boards.”

“You’re absolutely right, Mike. And watch the center here—good anticipation, good positioning, but he’s just a step behind the play. You wonder if fatigue is starting to set in after such a long shift.”

“Still, plenty of time left if they can clean things up. They’ve been generating chances—they just need to convert.”

The TV was blaring just a bit too loud, but hockey was the one time he found he didn’t care. 

“This is an absolute bloodbath, good god,” Hayden said, finishing his beer and standing to get another. 

“Christ, I know. At this rate, I’m going to have to root for the Admirals.”

Hayden scoffed, calling out to him from the kitchen. “Yeah, that’ll be the day, dude. When’s the next time they play Montreal?”

Shane picked up his phone to check the Admirals’ schedule, surprised to see a text waiting for him. He knew he sometimes fell deep into a hockey game, but he’d lost count of the number of times that week that he’d compulsively woken up the screen to check for a new message, and he hadn’t even felt it vibrate. 

Rozanov: I was thinking Friday. If that works for you.

Shane: It should. I get off at six.

Rozanov: You will be tired after work.

Shane: I’m usually tired. But I want to do it.

Rozanov: Then I will not keep you long.

Shane: You don’t have to plan around me.

Rozanov: I want to.

“What’s got you smiling at your phone like that, Hollzy?”

Shane startled—he hadn’t heard Hayden re-entering the living room. 

“Nothing! No one! It’s just… the commentator said something funny, that’s all.”

“Sure. The commentator for the ad-breaks, you mean?”

Shane felt himself blush and knew that he hadn’t been able to keep the look off ‌his face when Hayden laughed. 

“Dude, you’re so down bad. Is it that guy from the shop? Elias?”

“Ilya,” Shane corrected. “And… yeah, it is. We’re, uh—he asked me to go out with him on Friday.”

“Ooooooooo!” Hayden crooned like a kid on the playground. “Shane and Ilya sitting in a tree. K-I-”

“Knock it off, Hayden,” Shane laughed, shoving him further toward the arm of the couch. It still caught him off guard sometimes. Being gay wasn’t a secret—not with his friends—but it also wasn’t something they usually lingered on. He could still remember the awkward, stilted conversation when he’d come out to Hayden, all braced for questions or discomfort, and how easily Hayden had shrugged and said it didn’t matter. 

Shane loved this small, accidental family he’d built here, but it still felt strange to hear his friends mention his sexuality so casually, like it was no more remarkable than the weather. He’d spent years being hyper-aware of it, careful not to draw attention, and the fact that they treated it like an unremarkable fact somehow made it stand out even more—not heavier, exactly, just harder to ignore.

Shane: Okay.

Rozanov: Then we keep it simple. There is a bookstore near to campus. Quiet. Then dinner.

Shane: That sounds fine.

Rozanov: Fine?

“Wait,” Hayden said, lurching for the remote and turning the TV down a few notches. “Friday? So we’re not going to Flannigan’s?”

Shane scoffed, gesturing at the much lightened bruise that still surrounded his eye. “No. I have no desire to go back to Flannigan’s anytime soon.”

Hayden pulled a face, nodding. “Yeah, okay. Good point. We can do something on Saturday if you want, though. It’s been nice to actually spend time with you, bud. It’s been good to actually see you more often.”

Shane: I mean—good. It sounds good.

Shane: Manageable.

Rozanov: Manageable is high praise from you.

Shane: I meant that in a good way.

Rozanov: I assumed you did.

“So you guys are going out Friday. Okay. So, are you… together?”

“No, we’re not,” Shane said. “But he said that he’s interested.”

“Interested? What the hell does that mean?” Hayden asked. “I’m interested in naval engineering and World War II. Doesn’t mean I want to spend my Friday night thinking about either of them.”

Shane decided not to bring up the almost three hour long video essay Hayden had been watching on YouTube about the sinking of the Scharnhorst on the big TV when he’d come home. 

“I don’t know. I didn’t like… ask. If it was a date, I mean. But he said he was interested. That he wanted to see me when I wasn’t at work.”

Hayden stared at him for a second, like he was lining pieces up on a board Shane couldn’t see.

“Shane,” he said finally, slower now, “if a guy asks you to see him when you’re not at work, suggests a specific day, and makes plans for dinner, that is what most people would call a date.”

Shane shrugged, eyes flicking back to his phone even though he knew there were no new messages. “I just don’t want to assume.”

“You assume everything else,” Hayden said, not unkindly. “You’re constantly assessing situations and making plans for every possible contingency. Why is this the one thing you’re suddenly being conservative about?”

“That’s not—” Shane stopped, exhaled. “It’s different.”

“How.”

Shane hesitated. He didn’t have the words for it that wouldn’t sound stupid out loud. “He’s… very put-together,” he said instead. “Careful. He doesn’t really… do things casually. I don’t think so, at least.”

Hayden snorted. “Neither do you. You alphabetize your spices.”

“They’re labeled,” Shane said automatically. “It makes sense.”

“Exactly. And yet somehow you still managed to get a hot date.”

Shane made a face. “Barely.”

Hayden shifted on the couch, stretching his legs out and nudging Shane’s knee with his foot. “Look, man. I’m not saying you have to plan your wedding or whatever. I’m just saying—he likes you. You can let that be true without it meaning something else.”

Shane didn’t answer right away. The commentators on the TV were shouting now, the crowd noise swelling as a rush developed up the ice.

“I just don’t want to misread it,” he whispered. “Or make it… complicated.”

Hayden glanced at him, expression softer than before. “You’re already overthinking it. That ship sailed, like, three texts ago.”

Shane huffed a small laugh despite himself.

Hayden grinned. “You nervous?”

Shane considered lying. “Yeah.”

“That’s normal,” Hayden said. “Good, even. Means you care.”

Shane leaned back into the couch, eyes on the TV, phone warm in his hand. Care felt like a dangerous word. He let it sit there anyway, unresolved, as his screen buzzed again a second later.

Rozanov: You are allowed to like things, Shane.

Shane: I know. I’m just being careful.

Rozanov: I am being careful too.

That shouldn’t be comforting. It was.

***

Shane: Can I ask something kind of stupid?

Rozanov: Yes.

Shane: Is this… actually a date?

Rozanov: Yes.

Shane: Okay.

Rozanov: If that makes you uncomfortable, we can adjust.

Shane: No. I just wanted to be clear.

Rozanov: So did I.

***

Rozanov:  How is work today?

Shane: Busy. 

Shane: Someone ordered a drink with five modifiers and then complained it tasted like coffee.

Rozanov: That is a crime.

Shane: You sound very certain.

Rozanov: I am.

Shane: Thank you.

Rozanov: I take coffee seriously.

Shane: I’ve noticed.

Rozanov: I know what I want.

***

Shane: Just so you know, I’m not great at… first dates.

Rozanov: That is not a flaw.

Shane: I’m very literal.

Rozanov: I have noticed.

Shane: I don’t always know what people expect.

Rozanov: Then I will tell you.

Shane: That helps.

Rozanov: Good.

***

When Shane woke up on Friday morning, he woke to peace. Quiet. Calm. 

Until it hit him like a freight train that he had a date with Ilya fucking Rozanov. 

His talks with Hayden and Rose had helped, certainly. He didn’t feel quite as unsettled at the prospect as he had when he’d first noticed Ilya’s attention on him, but it was still almost mind-boggling that someone that handsome, that charismatic wanted to take him out. 

The memory of the wide, surprised smile that had crossed Ilya’s face for just a moment before he’d hidden it behind his hand crossed his mind. 

He’d made Ilya smile like that. Him. 

He moved through the day in a haze. He was sure he had eaten breakfast, but he had no memory of the way the food had tasted in his mouth. Econ passed with even less clarity than usual. He was pretty sure that he’d screwed up several pots of coffee when he’d set the big tanks brewing, but based on the levels in the hopper, he was 98% sure that he’d brewed two pots of decaf instead of one of each. 

Rozanov: I am looking forward to seeing you tonight.

Shane typed me too, deleted it, then typed it again.

Shane: Yeah. Me too.

By the time his shift ended, the haze had settled into something sharper, a low, persistent buzz under his skin. Every sound felt just a little too loud, every decision just a little too deliberate. He had double-checked that the reach-in fridge was stocked, then checked it again—aware of Rose watching him with an expression that said she wasn’t going to comment unless he gave her a reason to. He wiped down the counter slower than necessary, lining the cups up so their logos faced the same direction, buying himself a few more seconds of normal before he had to leave.

Outside, the air was cold enough to bite, grounding him in a way nothing else had all day. Shane pulled his jacket tighter and stood there for a moment, breathing it in, reminding himself that this was just a date. 

Books. Dinner. Manageable. 

He recited the words like a drill, like something he could memorize enough that it would stop being frightening. He told himself that he’d faced worse things than this—hostile crowds, bad hits, long shifts both on and off the ice with no margin for error. This was not dangerous. This was controlled exposure therapy. He could handle that.

Still, his mind kept circling back to Ilya’s expression when he’d said yes, the flicker of something unguarded before it had been smoothed away by his palm. He wasn’t used to being chosen so deliberately. It made him feel off balance, like he’d stepped onto pond ice that looked solid but hadn’t been tested yet.

He went home, showered again even though he didn’t need to, and stood in front of his closet longer than was strictly necessary. He rejected half his shirts on principle—too tight, too new, too much—and eventually settled on something plain and familiar. Clean. Neutral. 

If Ilya had liked him well enough in his coffee shop clothes, he probably didn’t need to give himself an aneurysm picking out a shirt.

By the time he grabbed his keys, his heart had settled into a steady, insistent rhythm. Not panic. Not excitement. Something in between. He locked the door behind him and paused, hand still on the knob, letting himself acknowledge the truth of it: he was nervous, yes—but he was also going. And for now, that felt like enough.

***

Shane would be the very first person to admit that he didn’t really read. 

Well, he did. He was a college student—not reading wasn’t really an option if he didn’t want to fail. He did own books that weren’t required reading for his classes. He owned several dozen biographies of great players (only his respect for the man’s hockey-related legacy had kept him from throwing Gretzky’s away) or about the history of the game. He had several books on improving sports performance and various meditation techniques. There was even a self-help book or two on his shelves (who didn’t own a copy of Atomic Habits at this point?).

But no. He wasn’t exactly excited about the date starting at the bookstore. He wasn’t dreading it either—it just sat there in his mind as a neutral fact, a place that existed in the abstract alongside errands and waiting rooms and anywhere else he went because there was a reason to, not because he’d chosen it. 

He could already picture himself drifting along the aisles, hands in his pockets, reading spines without really absorbing them, trying not to look like someone who didn’t quite belong. He didn’t expect that to change just because it was a date.

He told himself it was practical: quiet, public, and easy to leave if things got awkward. Manageable. But beneath that, there was a steadier truth humming along—that he would have gone anywhere Ilya suggested, even somewhere he didn’t especially like, because what mattered wasn’t the place. It was the fact that Ilya had chosen it, and had chosen him to go there with him. 

And that’s exactly why a solid amount of his anxiety disappeared and morphed into something approaching excitement when he arrived to see Ilya pacing on the sidewalk outside.

He could pinpoint the moment that Ilya noticed him. He didn’t straighten, exactly. He usually carried himself well and used his height to his advantage, but something in his posture changed. The square line of his shoulders changed just slightly. 

As Shane approached, he half expected Ilya to lean in somehow—crowd him and force his way into his physical space. It had happened more times than he could count. Rose would tell some cute little friend of hers that he was single, and the moment they occupied the same space, the other man would move in closely as if it were the only way to get Shane’s attention, crowding him without him even realizing it.

Instead, Ilya didn’t move a single inch, waiting for Shane to approach with his hands in his pockets. He gave him room, gave him time—and in doing so, made it unmistakably clear that Shane had his full attention.

“Shane,” Ilya said softly, a small smile on his face. “How do you feel?”

Without even meaning to, Shane sighed. He was tired of thinking about his head, about the bar fight. For a brief moment, a flicker of worry passed through his mind that he was only there because Ilya still felt bad for what had happened at Flannigan’s—for the loss of control over his men that had led to Shane getting his shit absolutely rocked. 

“Hey,” Ilya said softly, calling his attention up. “No. I mean… about this. Being here. With me.”

Oh. 

Oh.

“I feel good.”

“Okay,” Ilya said contentedly.

Shane followed Ilya into the bookstore, trying not to reveal that he wasn’t particularly caught by anything within. He’d seen Ilya with a book in hand enough times to know that Ilya did read—at least when he wasn’t doing… whatever it was that he did for work. 

Ilya had given him a quiet directive—to find a book that felt like it encompassed him—and they’d separated as they wound their way through the narrow aisles. They still stood closely enough together—same aisle, but different shelves. While Shane passively allowed his eyes to skim the spines of the books in front of him, he allowed himself a moment to just watch. 

Watching Ilya move through the aisles was something completely different. In the coffee shop, with his men, in his kitchen, Ilya had been highly aware of everything around him. There, he had moved as if he could paint a perfect image of the space surrounding him with his eyes closed—like nothing had been too small a detail to escape his notice. 

Here, he watched Ilya trace his fingertips along the shelves, along the spines as he walked. And yeah, okay, maybe he thought about what those fingers would feel like on his skin. Just for a moment. He watched as Ilya picked up books only to flip through them and gently place them back in the spaces they’d left behind. He moved carefully, with familiarity, and while Shane couldn’t detect any sort of pattern to when Ilya would open one, he knew that there was something within the other man that told him which books were worth opening and which ones were worth leaving behind on the shelves. 

As time passed and Ilya honed in on a section of the bookstore where almost everything seemed to catch his attention, Shane felt himself begin to panic slightly. How on earth would he find a book that encompassed him? What did that even mean? It’s not like there was a bevy of books about young, anxious hockey players with menial jobs. 

Shane’s eyes drifted back to the bookshelves, and he dimly noted Ilya turn the corner, moving to the next aisle. Once he was gone, Shane moved to the shelf Ilya had just abandoned, easing out the same book and turning it over in his hands, waiting for something to happen. Interest, curiosity—anything that would justify or explain the quiet gravity with which Ilya had been handling it only moments before, the cover still warm from his palms. 

Instead, there was just a familiar blankness, just words lining up in front of him without revealing a way in. He re-read the back cover, slower this time, like it was a problem that could be solved with better attention. 

He was good at learning systems, routines, patterns with clear outcomes. Novels didn’t always provide that—usually demanding that he sat in uncertainty, following someone else’s thoughts with no idea of where they would lead. He already had enough of a struggle managing his own internal world—why would he want a front-row seat to someone else’s?

He felt the same anxiety that there was something fundamental he was missing that made sense to everyone else, a skill that everyone had learned while he wasn’t looking. He remembered the feeling from high school English classes, literature reviews on symbolism that he couldn’t follow. 

He didn’t want this to be another place he came up short, another game he’d lose because he couldn’t understand the rules. He set the book back on the shelf carefully, making sure that the spine was even and aligned with the others around it, and told himself that it didn’t matter. He wasn’t here for the books. He was here for Ilya. But still, the unease followed him like a high-pitched whine as he stepped back. 

Ilya returned to his side, a small, beaten paperback in his hand. For a moment, the spiral stopped, and his attention focused on Ilya. 

“You have not yet found anything?”

“I, uh—no. I’m not much of a reader.”

For a moment, Ilya’s face falls before he’s able to school it into something more neutral, and Shane kept talking, compelled to explain. “I mean—I can read. I’m not like… illiterate or anything. I just… don’t really read a lot of fiction. It doesn’t click for me.”

There’s a beat of silence for a moment before Ilya nodded as if it made sense to him. “I am sorry. I could have asked more questions. We do not need to stay here.”

Before he even finished talking, Shane shook his head frantically. “No—I’m fine being here. I know you read a lot when you’re not working. If it’s important to you to be here, then I’m fine sharing this with you. It’s been… nice… watching you in here. You seem different. Good different. Like… freer?”

Ilya gave him one of those soft, easy smiles that made his heart clench just a little. 

“That means a lot. I appreciate your sacrifice. It is fine that you dislike to read.”

“Oh, well, I read some things. I just don’t really fall into books how other people say they do. But I have some non-fiction stuff I like.”

Ilya looked at him appraisingly. “Then why do you not go to non-fiction section? I asked you about book that is you, not book that is what you think people want you to be.”

At that, Shane felt some of the anxiety bleed away. As he allowed himself to drift toward the sports history section, he felt himself settle. 

He startled when the hand landed on his shoulder. He was crouched down in front of a low shelf—apparently had been for a while based on the ache he suddenly felt in his knees—with a biography of Hobey Baker splayed across his thighs. 

“You have found something, then?”

“Oh, yeah. Hobey Baker. He was like the first properly famous American hockey player.”

Ilya nodded at him patiently, reaching a hand out to help him stand. “Yes, I am familiar. Makes sense, that you would find this. Maybe best hockey player of all time, maybe gay man. Very Shane.”

Shane tried not to blush—probably failed—and let the feeling of Ilya’s quiet acceptance wash over him. It wasn’t often that people knew about some of his idiosyncrasies before they knew much else about him and still chose to stick around. Hayden was grandfathered in as his roommate from when he was just an overwhelmed frosh trying to figure things out. Rose had decided that he made the perfect best friend when it turned out that he made a terrible straight man.

But Ilya saw it, noticed it. Commented on it in his kitchen and in their messages back and forth over the last week. 

Ilya chose it. 

***

The restaurant is one that Shane had never noticed before. It’s on a street not too far from his apartment—he knows that he’s walked past the facade countless times, yet he’d never even realized that there was a restaurant tucked back in the building. 

It was small, warm, Eastern European—the sort of place that didn’t show up in Top Ten Most Highly Rated Eateries in Your Neighborhood lists on Yelp or on carousels of over-hyped and under-delivering restaurants on social media. Instead, Shane could tell from the moment that they walked in that it was the sort of place that was kept alive by its regular customers. The sort of place that had likely inhabited those brick walls for decades before Shane’s parents were even born, and would likely be there for decades after he himself was dead. 

When they’d entered, a small older woman perched on a high stool near the door had immediately smiled at Ilya, immediately launching into a dialogue with him in Russian. He’d smiled at her, bussing her cheeks with kisses as she reached out to grab him by the arms. 

Shane couldn’t help but smile as Ilya immediately warmed up as he spoke to her in a Russian that sounded far softer and gentler than he’d ever heard Ilya sound when speaking in his native language. As he helped her down from her stool, she squeezed him tight around the middle. Ilya smiled at Shane over the top of her head, saying something to her that Shane had no hope of understanding as Ilya kept his eyes locked onto his. 

She led them over to a quiet, small table in the back and left them there—without menus.

“Oh, is this place prix fixe?” Shane asked.

“Prix… fixe?” Ilya asked, the French clearly unfamiliar in his mouth. 

“Yeah, you know… Menu is completely set for you, you pay a flat rate? Or you just eat whatever the chef is cooking that night?”

Ilya nodded, clearly understanding the idea. “Ah… no. I am regular, here. They know what I want and what to bring for us. Is okay?”

The realization that he doesn’t have to pore over a menu, doesn’t have to decipher what the ingredients in an unfamiliar combination will create fills him with a feeling of relief that is so deep he almost doesn’t know how to process it. 

That was the thing missing with all of those theater kids Rose was always trying to connect him with. They took one look at him—at his height, his muscles, his skill on the ice—and expected that he would want to have control over everything. And he did like to have control. That didn’t mean he always wanted to be in charge. 

“That’s more than okay. I actually, uh—I really appreciate it. I trust your decision-making.”

Ilya grinned at him, wide and wolfish. “As long as you are certain.”

Despite the ease he’d felt when they were sprawled at Ilya’s dining room table the morning after he’d recuperated on his couch, Shane felt a small sliver of his earlier anxiety return a bit. The table was small enough that their knees and feet bumped when they shifted. They sat close enough that Shane could count the moles that dotted his neck and face. 

But it didn’t take long before he felt looser, more relaxed. Ilya’s expression was warmer, more unguarded, and he felt like he had the weight of every ounce of Ilya’s attention. He’d expected that sort of focus on him to feel overwhelming, stifling. 

It didn’t. 

As Ilya asked him about hockey, his classes, his childhood, Shane felt himself loosen up and find it easier to focus on Ilya than on the noise that usually filled his head. 

When their food arrived—golubtsi, chicken shila plavi, mushroom kharcho—he felt himself relax further and the last of the tension fade from his shoulders. Ilya explained to him the origins of the different dishes, the way the USSR had smudged the edges between Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus. The way that this restaurant was the closest he’d been to feeling at home since getting on the plane in Moscow.

“How often are you here?” Shane asked after the third or fourth employee had made a point of stopping by to chat with Ilya and greet Shane. 

Ilya nodded in acknowledgment of the question, swallowing the bite in his mouth. 

“At least once a week, I think. More, when I first moved here. It is… hard. Leaving everything. But there was nothing left for me in Russia. Some things are easier when you are not where everyone knows you. Places where people… mind their business.”

Shane nodded like that made sense, like it was just another reasonable explanation to file away—but something in his chest tightened, regardless. Nothing left for me in Russia. He replayed it, quiet and deliberate, the way Ilya had said it without emphasis, without drama. Shane had heard enough post-game interviews to know when someone was editing themselves down to the safest version of the truth.

Leaving everything. Starting over. Choosing somewhere people minded their business. It sounded less like nostalgia and more like relief, and that set off a low, familiar hum of unease under his ribs. He understood the appeal of being known only for what you chose to show. He’d built half his life around that idea. The difference, he thought uneasily, was that when Shane disappeared into a room, it was usually to keep himself safe. When Ilya did it, it felt like strategy.

But the more time they spent together, the more he saw this soft, kind side of Ilya, the less Shane felt like he cared. He knew that this was possibly a mistake, but there was something about being in Ilya’s orbit that he didn’t necessarily feel like fighting it anymore.

He hadn’t been surprised when Ilya had insisted on paying for their dinner. He wasn’t surprised either when Ilya had insisted on walking home with him. What did surprise him were the words out of Ilya’s mouth after Shane told him that they’d arrived at his apartment. 

“I want you to know that I had very good time tonight. With you.”

Shane felt himself blush again, and he could tell from the small smile on Ilya’s face that he’d noticed it. 

“What—are you surprised?”

Shane nodded, sighing. “I just feel like I’m not as good at this as you are.”

Ilya cocked his head, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat. “Not good at what part?”

Shane took a moment to try to think about how to explain, how to put into words the thoughts that he was feeling. “You’re just so… confident. It seems like this comes so easily to you.”

Ilya looked at him carefully, taking a step forward—slightly intruding on Shane’s space. “It is not easy to be confident. But it is easy to be around you. You are… refreshing. I do not feel as if I have to try as much with you, Shane. It is easier to just be. You do not need to be someone with me that you are not. Do you understand that?”

Shane nodded, eyes sliding off‌ Ilya’s face.

“Hey. No. Look at me.”

Involuntarily, his eyes rose to meet Ilya’s, and the fierceness in his gaze was like a kick in the teeth. 

“I am here with you because I want to be,” Ilya said quietly. “I am interested in knowing you better. I want to keep spending more time with you, if you are willing. That is all.”

Slowly, Ilya stepped closer again, pulling his hands from his pocket and gently tipping Shane’s chin upward to encourage him to hold the eye contact. 

“You are not too much to me.”

Ilya releases him and steps backward, exiting his personal space. For the first time in a long time, Shane finds that he actually misses having someone stand that close to him. 

“Will you tell me if I am?”

Ilya smiled at him and tucked his hands back into his pockets. 

“I will. Do you work tomorrow?”

Shane nodded, glancing down at the time on his phone. “Yeah. I open, unfortunately.”

“Then I will see you tomorrow. Night night, Shane.”

As Shane trudged up the stairs, feeling a bit dazed, he moved slowly and deliberately, telling himself that this was the part where he followed through. Where he stopped hedging and let himself want something without immediately cataloguing all the ways it could go wrong. He could do that. He could commit to seeing where this went, even if he didn’t yet understand all the rules. 

He’d thought for a moment that Ilya might have been about to kiss him when he’d grabbed his face and he realized that he was a bit disappointed that he hadn’t.

At the top of the stairs, he paused without quite meaning to. The landing was dim, lit only by the spill of light from the hallway and the tall window at the end. He crossed to it on instinct, resting his hand against the cool glass as he looked down at the street below.

Ilya was still there.

He stood just beyond the pool of light from the streetlamp, coat buttoned, head bent slightly as he tapped something out on his phone. He wasn’t pacing. He wasn’t hovering. Just… waiting, in that contained way of his, like he hadn’t quite finished a thought yet. The sight of him sent a low, unfamiliar pull through Shane’s chest. Ilya could have left. He should have left. The fact that he hadn’t made something in Shane tighten and stretch all at once.

His phone buzzed in his hand.

Shane looked down at the screen, already knowing who it would be.

Rozanov: I wanted to kiss you. I thought you should know.

The words sat there—not flowery or over the top. No pressure. No expectation. Just truth, offered and then released.

Something in Shane snapped into place.

He didn’t analyze it. Didn’t inventory the risks or negotiate with himself the way he usually did. The decision landed fully formed, like muscle memory taking over after too much thinking. He turned on his heel, took the stairs two at a time, and pushed through the front door into the cold night air.

Ilya looked up just in time to see him coming.

Shane didn’t slow down. He crossed the distance between them in only a handful of strides, caught Ilya’s sleeve with one hand like he was afraid he might vanish, and kissed him—quick and a little clumsy, all intent and absolutely no polish. 

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t planned. But it was deliberate in a way that left no room for his earlier doubts.

When he pulled back, heart hammering, Shane exhaled a breath that felt like he’d been holding it for weeks.

“Yeah,” he said, quietly. “I wanted that, too.”

Ilya was absolutely motionless, staring at him in shock. For half a second, he wondered if he’d misjudged it—if he’d crossed a line by coming back downstairs.

He didn’t get the chance to apologize.

Ilya made a low, surprised sound—not a word, just a sharp exhale—and then his hand came up, firm at the back of Shane’s neck. Not pushing, not trapping. Anchoring. He stepped in, closing the space Shane had just created, and kissed him again—deeper this time, surer.

It was different immediately. Slower, but heavier. Ilya kissed him like he meant it, like he’d already decided and was done pretending otherwise. Shane’s hands fisted reflexively in the front of Ilya’s coat, a quiet, helpless noise caught in his chest as the world narrowed to the pressure of mouth against mouth and the undeniable fact of being wanted back. He knew he wasn’t a small man, but under that lamp post—crushed against Ilya’s chest—he felt like someone half his size.

When Ilya finally eased away, their foreheads stayed close, breath mingling in the cold air. His thumb brushed once, almost absentmindedly, along Shane’s jaw—a grounding touch, careful even now.

“I did not think you would run,” Ilya said softly.

Shane huffed a breathless laugh, pulse still racing. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Me neither.”

And standing there under the streetlight, with the night wide open around them, Shane knew—whatever this was, whatever it became—he’d already crossed the line in the sand he’d thought he’d drawn.

Chapter End Notes

I am a queer Hobey Baker truther. 

I'm absolutely living for your comments right now guys, truly. I've had an absolute disaster of a week and getting notifications from you all has been keeping me going.

EDIT 1/30/26--So according to my version history, apparently somehow the VERY last thing I did at 4am before importing this to AO3 was accept the spellcheck suggestion to change all instances of Rozanov to Rosanov. Thanks everyone who caught it because my brain was deep fried by the time this went online!

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

Barley proofread.

“Slow burn” tag is really doing a lot of heavy lifting. If you’re looking for less porn and more plot, you can probably just go ahead and skip this chapter, tbh. Things, uh… got away from me here. It wasn't supposed to be this long or this *gestures vaguely* but alas. Here we are.

“Watch number 24 here, that’s senior Shane Hollander. Just watch Hollander cruise through the neutral zone! He might not be the fastest of the skaters on the ice, but he can certainly read a play two steps ahead. Look at him go—already adjusting his play before the puck has even changed hands.”

“He’s always got excellent center play. He’s been a great addition to the team and I can certainly say he’ll be missed next winter. You can tell that Hollander doesn’t just react to the game, he thinks it.”

“—And that attention to detail is exactly why the team trusts him. He’s given us three good years of steady and controlled shifts on this ice. This sort of consistency is hard to teach at this level.”

They had had little time to do much of anything together one on one, but Ilya’s trips to the coffee shop hadn’t stopped or slowed in the meantime. Instead of sitting by himself in one of the leather armchairs, Ilya had taken up the habit of perching himself on one of the high stools pulled up at the counter, where he had more of an opportunity to stare at Shane while he worked. 

The memory of that kiss outside of his apartment—and all the subsequent ones they’d shared at the end of the night when Ilya would walk him to his car at closing time—ran through his head like the world’s most fucked up highlight reel every time he’d look up from the milk steamer to see Ilya watching him through lidded eyes, crooked white teeth biting down on his lower lip. 

And every time, like some sort of idiot, he’d blush and start stammering over his words until Ilya would finally crack a smile at him—which always triggered one of his own. 

And that’s not to mention the fact that he now texted Ilya more frequently than Hayden, Rose, and his mom. 

Combined. 

He tried to keep his eyes off the clock as he crossed the ice but couldn’t help but keep watching as the minutes in the third period ticked down. Ilya hadn’t been able to make it to the game, but he’d told Shane to return to his house afterward. 

Shane had complained after the first game of the season about the bizarre dichotomy of being full of adrenaline and unable to sleep while being bone-deep exhausted and sore. Ilya had immediately offered his house up, saying that he would help take care of Shane and help him come down from the high of the game without the loud chaos of the bars that the team tried to go to. 

He told himself that the fact that the duffle bag in his locker had a pair of sweats and a toothbrush in it was because he didn’t want to just sit around in jeans after the game. It definitely—certainly—had nothing to do with a desire to just exist in Ilya’s space for as long as he would be welcome.

Finally, the buzzer rang out, and the game was over. They hadn’t won, but he had scored a hat trick regardless. As he trudged with the rest of the team down the tunnel and into the locker room, he tried to keep the smile off his face as he realized exactly how excited he was to get to spend the evening with Ilya. 

“You look pretty happy considering we lost,” Hayden said, shucking off pieces of his gear. “Are you coming out with us tonight?”

Shane shook his head, unable to stop smiling despite Hayden calling attention to his expression. “I, uh… I don’t think so. I’m going to Ilya’s.”

J.J. slapped him on the shoulder, grinning widely. “Got a hot date, Hollander?”

“No, no—he just said he wanted to help me unwind after the game.”

Hayden and J.J. shared a look over his shoulder that he didn’t even try to figure out. 

“You’re not still doing the denial thing, are you?” Hayden asked, sitting down beside him to work on his shin guards. 

“No, not denial. But it’s not a date. We’re just going to hang out together. We’ve both been so busy lately that we haven’t been able to see each other outside of the shop.”

“Oh, you’re just going to hang out?” J.J. laughed. “You’re going over to your boyfriend’s house to just chill?”

Shane sighed, tugging his shirt over his head. “He’s not my boyfriend. We haven’t… we haven’t talked about it, like that. We just…”

“Just?”

“Talk. Like, all the time.”

“And?”

“And kiss.”

“All the time?”

“God, I wish.”

***

The Uber ride to Ilya’s felt longer than it actually was.

Shane rested his head back against the seat and tried to let the noise from the engine drown out the highlight reel in his head—the game, the noise, the adrenaline that hadn’t fully burned out of his system yet.

Underneath it, though, was something different. Anticipation, maybe. It was the feeling he usually had right before a face-off in the third period of a tied game—when everything narrowed down to nothing but timing and trust in his hands.

Except this wasn’t something he’d spent over 15 years training his body to do. There was no playbook for showing up at a guy’s house with an overnight bag he was still pretending wasn’t an overnight bag. He liked the thought of being at Ilya’s. He craved the way the conversations didn’t always feel like a test he hadn’t studied for.

He watched his reflection in the window and wondered, not for the first time, if he was being naive—if this was the part where sane people slowed down. But every time he tried to pull back, he ran into the same wall. Ilya had never rushed him. He never pushed. Never asked for more than he had already wanted to give. That counted for something. Maybe more than something. Several somethings. Maybe.

By the time the car turned onto Ilya’s street, his nerves had settled into something more manageable. He wasn’t calm exactly, but he wasn’t spiraling either. Just… aware. Present.

The moment the car door slammed shut behind him, Ilya’s porch light clicked on and the door opened. Shane hustled up the walkway to the door and was all too eager to collapse into Ilya’s outstretched arms. 

Ilya barely let the door click shut before his hand came up to Shane’s jaw, thumb warm and steady where it rested just below his ear. He pressed a lingering kiss to Shane’s mouth, unhurried but certain, like he’d decided on it the moment he’d opened the door to let him in.

When Ilya pulled back, he didn’t move far, his gaze still fixed on him in that assessing, thoughtful way of his that Shane was growing more and more familiar with. “How was your game?” He asked, voice low. 

“We didn’t win, but I got lucky. Hat trick.”

Ilya hummed and pressed another kiss to his jaw. When Ilya spoke again, Shane could feel it buzz across his skin and could feel the rasp of his stubble across his own smooth cheek.

“You see ice differently from others. That is not luck.” Shane felt the praise land within him, easing the sting of having lost the game. Ilya stroked his thumb across the freckles on his cheek almost absentmindedly, and he had to hold himself back from leaning into the sensation.

“Come,” Ilya said, thumbing the deadbolt and knob locks and punching in the alarm.

System armed. Stay. Good night.

“You will get comfortable on couch. I will make you meal. You will have mandatory decompression time.”

***

After eating, Shane stretched out long on the couch, moaning slightly at the tug in his muscles and the stretch of his full stomach. He could hear Ilya moving around in the kitchen, doing the dishes and cleaning up. He’d offered to help, but Ilya had just pressed a kiss to his lips and gently shoved him down to rest. 

He nestled himself down, reaching his arm out to snag a hoodie of Ilya’s that was draped over the arm of the leather chair that Ilya usually sat in. The hoodie swallowed him a little when he tugged it over his head, and he had to actually push the sleeves up at his wrists. 

Shane noticed the difference immediately—the extra space at the shoulders, the way the fabric hung instead of stretching. He was used to feeling big in most rooms, used to his shirts pulling tight across his back and chest. The realization that he was wrapped up in Ilya’s clothes again filled him with warmth before he could overthink it. Pulling that small bit of intimacy over his own shoulders made him blush.

“Mmmm,” Ilya hummed, walking up behind him and circling around the couch. “You look very cozy in my sweater, Котик.”

“Kotik?” Shane asked, sitting up to make room for Ilya on the couch. 

“Mmm, yes. You look so cute, like kitten,” Ilya explained with a smile as he laid down on the couch and reached out to pull Shane back down against him. He rested his head on Ilya’s chest and settled against him, soothed by the warmth of Ilya’s body beneath him. 

“I like the sound of your voice,” Shane murmured, playing with the drawstrings on the sweatshirt Ilya was wearing. 

“Do you?” Ilya asked with a laugh, blinking down at him. Shane could feel his voice as much as he could hear it, and he was almost sure that he could feel his own heartbeat slowing to match the steady rhythm of Ilya’s heart under his ear. “You enjoy it now,” he said with amusement. “You should hear it when I am tired or irritated. It is much less pleasant then.” 

Regardless, Ilya’s eyes softened just a shade, like he was more pleased than he meant to admit.

“I’m sure. But you’re always so… you’re really soft with me,” Shane whispered, almost embarrassed to confess how much he was affected by the other man. 

Ilya reached down, tugging Shane’s hand free from the drawstrings of the sweatshirt and pressing a kiss to his fingers. “You deserve someone to be soft and patient with you. Is not a hardship, to be kind to you.”

“You don’t… I—I—” Shane took a deep breath, hesitating as he tried to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. It was why he hadn’t worked with Rose’s friends, why so many of his previous hookups had been nothing more than fooling around in darkened rooms. 

“I know. And I do like it,” he whispered. “I just… I don’t always need you to handle me like I’m going to break.”

Ilya’s gaze sharpened a fraction as he stared down at Shane, attentive rather than defensive. “You think I treat you as fragile?”

“No—no, not fragile.” Shane huffed a small breath, searching for the right words. “I just mean… I know you’re bigger than me. Stronger. I like that you are. I like feeling—” He cut himself off, flushing, then forced himself to finish. “—smaller, with you. Not in a bad way. Just… I don’t want to be babied.”

Ilya was quiet for a beat, absorbing that. His hand slipped around to rest solidly on Shane’s back, pulling him just a bit closer. “You want me to be stronger?”

Shane nodded against his chest. “Yeah. I don’t want you to like—hurt me or anything. But I don’t need you to hold back just because you can.” He added, softer, “It makes me feel… safe, actually. Like you’re in control.”

A low, thoughtful hum rumbled in Ilya’s chest under his ear. “Mm. That is good to know,” he said. His thumb traced along Shane’s shoulder, firm but still careful. “When I am gentle, it is because I choose to be. It is not because I think you are weak. There is a difference.”

Shane’s shoulders loosened at that, a tension he hadn’t realized he was carrying easing out of him. “Okay,” he murmured. “That’s—yeah. That’s what I meant.”

Ilya shifted so he could look at Shane more clearly—his expression turning thoughtful rather than teasing. “Then tell me,” he said, voice low and even. “What does that look like for you?”

Shane swallowed, suddenly aware of how close they were. “I don’t know. You check in with me a lot—and I like that, I really do. I like that you decide things for me but leave the door open for me to pull back if it’s too much. If you, like, want to pull me closer, you can. If you want to hold me tight, that’s okay.” He glanced away, then added, more quietly, “I’ll say something if it’s not.”

Ilya studied his face as he thought over his response. “So you want to think less. Less worry. You want me to be in driver’s seat?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, relieved that he’d understood. “I spend a lot of time managing myself. It’s nice when I don’t have to control other people, too.”

A faint smile tugged at Ilya’s mouth at Shane’s words. His hand at Shane’s back shifted a little firmer again—a hot, heavy weight he could feel through the sweatshirt. “I think you are less used to being clear about this.”

“That’s because nobody’s ever really asked,” Shane admitted. “They just look at me and think I want to be in charge just from the size of me.”

Ilya’s thumb traced a slow line along Shane’s shoulder—deliberate, checking. “Then we learn,” he said simply. “I can act, but I will still ask. I need to trust that you will always say if it is too much. If I am too much. I can push, but I do not enjoy force. Not here, like this.”

Shane nodded, rubbing his cheek against the fabric of Ilya’s sweatshirt, feeling grounded in the moment by the texture against his skin and the smell of Ilya beneath it, despite his anxiety. 

“I promise.”

“Good,” Ilya said, tucking his fingers under Shane’s chin and tipping his face upwards. “I will hold you to that.”

With that, Ilya surged forward and captured Shane’s lips in a kiss containing more heat than any they had ever shared. It was like Ilya had been waiting for permission to unlock some part of him he’d been keeping hidden from Shane, and now that he had that permission he wasn’t interested in finding restraint again. 

“You drive me absolutely crazy,” Ilya mumbled against his lips, tightening both his grip on Shane’s face and across his back to pull him closer. 

“I—yeah?"

Ilya broke away, just far enough to make room for his deep breaths as he rested his forehead against Shane’s. “You have no idea,” he said, voice rougher and less restrained. “No idea how much I think about touching you.”

Ilya leaned back in to press their lips back together, deeper, like he intended to prove the truth of his words to Shane through action. Shane’s fingers curled instinctively into the fabric of Ilya’s shirt.

The honesty in the kiss and in Ilya’s voice made Shane’s stomach flip as Ilya turned the kiss into something else—something slower but no less intense. Everything narrowed down to the warmth of Ilya’s body, their shared breath, and the tingling in his skin. 

“Have you been with a man before?” Ilya asked, drawing the hand on Shane’s upper back down to rest on his lower back instead, pulling him closer. 

“I’m with one right now, aren’t I?” Shane replied breathlessly, suddenly insecure about his lack of confidence compared to Ilya’s. 

Ilya chuckled, nipping at Shane’s jaw with sharp teeth. “Do not be smart-ass. You know what I mean.”

“I’ve kissed men. Friends of Rose’s mostly. But I’ve never…”

“Never…?”

“Yeah.”

Ilya looked at him with feigned impatience. “No, not yeah. You’ve never what. Tell me.”

Shane felt his already pink cheeks flush further. He ducked his head, trying to tuck his face into Ilya’s neck—but before he could, Ilya caught his face again and forced eye contact. 

“Do not tell me you are shy now. You were just so brave for me, Котик.”

Shane took a deep breath, forcing down his embarrassment. He had just told Ilya that he trusted him to be pushy. “I’ve never had sex. Not with a man. Not all that successfully with a woman, either.”

Ilya smiled at him, rewarding his honesty with a kiss. “See? Not so hard. Then I will practice some restraint, for now.”

Ilya snaked one hand down, lightly tapping him on the ass. “Up with you. Go take a hot shower—wash off your aches. Then I want to curl up with my little котик and… relax.”

***

When Shane walked out of the bathroom, limbs and muscles loose from the heat of the water, he immediately noticed that all the lamps Ilya had turned on earlier were out—a single beam of light coming from a room further down the hallway.

As he made his way down the hallway towards what could only be Ilya’s bedroom, he tried to quiet the anxiety in his head. He was excited—about what this could mean, what might happen, about Ilya—but he would’ve been lying if he didn’t acknowledge that a not insignificant part of himself was nervous.

He pushed the door to Ilya’s room open wider, and was greeted by a sight that made him swallow reflexively. Ilya was splayed out on the bed, and Shane allowed himself a moment to just… observe.

One of his long arms was folded under his head, the other holding his phone to his ear as he turned his head to watch Shane enter. He looked so confident, so relaxed as he gazed at Shane. All long lines, broad shoulders, taking up more space on the king-sized mattress than he had any right to.

“Yes, I understand. But you know about the deadline. No more time to waffle. Get it done.”

There was a pause, and he watched Ilya track his movement across the floor as he continued his call, his voice low and measured.

“We can discuss this tomorrow. I am not alone, and I do not want to waste time on this tonight. It is already disaster—but problems do not solve themselves. You solve this yourself. I will not do it for you. Do not call me until you have an idea to discuss. I will not be doing your work for you.”

As Shane neared, he allowed himself another moment to glance around the room, trying to distract himself from the picture that Ilya made lying there before he opened his mouth and said something embarrassing. The room wasn’t much more personal than the rest of the home, save for another stack of books on the bedside table with titles in Cyrillic.

Ilya sighed and hung up, tossing the phone onto the bedside table as his face smoothed the moment he looked at him. Shane tipped his head, slightly worried that the tone had shifted.

“Everything okay?”

Ilya sighed and gave a dismissive shake of his head. “Mmm. Yes. Someone who does not plan ahead.” He stared at Shane, light low and warm from the glow of the lamp. “It is not important. It is nothing to worry about.”

Shane nodded, remembering his resolution not to press. 

“We do not need to do anything else,” Ilya said, shifting slightly on the bed to free up more space in case Shane didn’t want to lie directly against him. “We can just… we can talk, if you want. I would be happy with that.”

Shane swallowed thickly, coming to stand right against the side of the bed, his knees brushing against the slightly rumpled duvet. “I know. But I—I want to. I’m just…”

“Nervous,” Ilya said, not unkindly, but not questioning either.

“Yeah.”

Ilya sat up, kneeling on the bed. Between the height of the bed and his own height, even kneeling he was still slightly taller than Shane was. But he reached out, cupping Shane’s jaw with both of his warm hands and tracing his thumbs along Shane’s cheekbones—across his freckles.

“If you trust me to make choices, I will trust you to tell me if something is not good. Yes?”

“Yeah. Yes.” Shane leaned into Ilya’s hands without thinking about it, and immediately blushed when he realized how much it felt like surrender. Ilya must’ve had the same thought, because he could actually see Ilya’s gaze darken at the gesture.

“Good,” Ilya said—and then he was kissing him again, slowly and thoroughly, like he had all the time in the world to learn the shape of Shane’s mouth under his and the taste of him on his tongue.

Shane let out a noise that was alarmingly close to a whimper, and his hands flew to Ilya’s shoulders as he clenched the fabric of his sweatshirt in his hands as the kiss deepened. Ilya moaned, dropping one hand from Shane’s face to slide around to the small of his back, pulling him closer until their bodies were flush.

Yet again, the heat of Ilya’s body against his made something in Shane’s chest unwind, and it was like he could feel the exact moment when he stopped worrying and his brain just quieted.

When Ilya finally pulled away, he didn’t go far. Pressing their foreheads together and panting into Shane’s still open mouth, his eyes searched Shane’s with his usual intensity. “I will undress you now.”

Clear, but direct—not quite a question—Shane’s stomach flipped. “Please,” he gasped out.

Ilya’s hands moved to the hem of the stolen sweatshirt that Shane had put back on after his shower. When Shane didn’t protest, he pulled the shirt up and over his head in one smooth motion, humming lightly when he realized Shane hadn’t put the tee from his overnight bag on underneath it.

For a long moment, Ilya just stared at him. Shane watched his gaze travel across his chest, his shoulders, the definition of his abs.

“You are beautiful,” Ilya said quietly as heat flooded Shane’s cheeks.

“I’m n—”

“You are,” Ilya interrupted, tracing his fingers along Shane’s collarbones down to his sternum. He carefully mapped the planes of Shane’s chest with deliberate attention, and Shane shivered from the feeling of Ilya’s fingers on his skin. “I have thought about touching you like this since first time I saw you.”

Shane’s breath hitched at the words—and at the feeling of Ilya’s fingers brushing over one nipple, then the other. Ilya’s head cocked as he watched Shane’s reaction. When Shane shivered again, Ilya made a small, satisfied sound and repeated the action with his thumbs as he splayed his palms across Shane’s ribs.

“You are very responsive,” he said with a voice rough with something. “I like this about you.”

“Ilya,” Shane breathed out, not even sure what it was that he was asking for.

“I know,” Ilya purred, slipping his hands down further to the waistband of Shane’s sweatpants. Shane said nothing, almost afraid to use words to voice what he was feeling, but canted his hips slightly toward Ilya, encouragingly. Ilya shoved the sweats down his hips, and Shane stepped out of them, standing before him in nothing but his boxers.

He had never felt both so exposed and so safe as he did in that moment under Ilya’s heated gaze.

“Come. Up,” Ilya said, scooting back on the bed. It wasn’t quite a command, but it was close. Exactly the sort of direction Shane had told him he wanted—that he needed.

Shane sat down on the edge of the bed, then scooted over until he was lying against the pillows. The duvet was soft and thick under his bare skin, and he watched as Ilya yanked his own shirt over his head in a smooth motion, mussing his curls as he did.

Shane had seen hints of Ilya’s body before. He’d seen Ilya’s thick arms and a hint of his chest that morning after his injury. He’d noticed the way his shirts pulled across his chest and shoulders. He’d even grown used to the cluster of hair at the base of Ilya’s throat, encircled by the chain of the gold cross that hung between his pecs.

But seeing him like this—all of his golden skin and defined muscle, the full breadth of his shoulders, the definition in his torso—was something else entirely.

“You are staring,” Ilya said, a smile on his lips as he looked down at Shane.

“You’re—” Shane gestured vaguely, helplessly at him. “I mean, Christ, look at you.”

Ilya’s smile widened, turning crooked and pleased as he crawled up the bed to settle beside Shane. “I could say same thing, you know.”

He swept in to kiss Shane again, slower this time. One of his hands cupped the back of Shane’s head and twisted in his hair while the other rested on his chest—thumb brushing back and forth across his sternum.

Ilya’s mouth left his and began trailing kisses across his jaw, down his neck. Shane made an involuntary sound deep in the back of his throat that would’ve embarrassed him if Ilya hadn’t let out a hum in response that vibrated against his throat.

Slowly, deliberately, Ilya began making his way further down Shane’s body. His collarbone, his chest, testing with tongue and teeth and cataloguing which actions made Shane’s breath catch or his back arch toward him. Down his sides, his ribs, the slight give of his stomach.

“You are perfect,” Ilya said between kisses near his navel. “So perfect for me.”

Shane let his hands drop into Ilya’s hair, relishing in the feeling of his curls between his fingers. He let out another tortured noise, completely unable to form actual words around the feeling of Ilya’s mouth—and attention—on him.

Ilya came to rest below his navel, placing his chin against the edge of Shane’s boxers as he looked up at Shane.

“Yes?” Ilya asked, lightly snapping the elastic against Shane’s hips.

“Please,” he begged, hips arching slightly at the sting.

Ilya hooked his fingers into the elastic and tugged them down. Shane lifted his hips to help, and then… it was done. He was completely, entirely naked in Ilya Rozanov’s bed. He resisted the urge to cover himself, keeping it together only because of the undisguised want on Ilya’s face.

“Pretty here, too,” Ilya said, wrapping one of his slightly calloused hands around Shane’s cock. He was already hard—had been for a while—and he couldn’t help but jerk his hips up into Ilya’s grip.

“Sensitive,” Ilya noted with a trace of satisfaction in his voice, stroking firmly and slowly. “What feels good? Tell me.”

“That—that feels good,” Shane managed between gasped breaths.

“Mmmm,” Ilya hummed out with a pleased and slightly wicked smile. “We are only starting.”

Ilya lowered his head, curls tickling lightly against Shane’s hipbone, and Shane’s brain short-circuited as Ilya began pressing kisses along his hipbone, his inner thigh—everywhere except where Shane was becoming desperate for him.

“Ilya,” he breathed out, more pleading than he’d meant.

“Patience. I want to learn you first.”

And he did. Ilya moved slowly, taking his time, cataloguing the reactions he could coax out of Shane and this new part of his body. It was like he was filing every gasp, every moan away into some sort of mental index. His mouth and hands were everywhere, and Shane felt like he was being broken down into his base elements.

By the time Ilya’s mouth finally—finally—hovered above Shane’s cock, he was literally shaking with need and anticipation.

“God, Ilya—please—”

Ilya obliged, ducking forward to take him into his mouth, and Shane’s entire world narrowed to only the wet heat and careful suction of Ilya’s mouth. His hands fisted in the duvet hard enough that he heard his knuckles pop before he slid them back into Ilya’s hair in an attempt to ground himself.

Ilya worked his mouth over him with the same attention he’d shown every other inch of Shane’s body—taking him deep enough to fill his head with white noise before pulling back, finding a rhythm that had Shane making nosies he’d never made—or even heard—before. One of Ilya’s hands wrapped around his base, stroking in time with his mouth, while the other came to press firmly against Shane’s hip, holding him steady against the bed and preventing him from arching up.

“Ilya,” Shane gasped, smacking lightly against his shoulder as the sensation became almost more than he could bear. “I’m—I’m going to—ungh, fuck—”

Shane tried to warn him, tried giving him enough time to pull away. But Ilya just hummed around him and didn’t slow down—and that was it.

Shane came with a gasp that might have been Ilya’s name, pleasure crashing over him in waves that left him shaking beneath Ilya’s hands. Ilya’s mouth continued moving over him through it, gentling his moments only when oversensitivity changed the timbre of Shane’s gasps.

Ilya crawled slowly back up Shane’s body, letting his chest brush up the length of Shane’s body as he rose, before settling beside him and pulling him in closely.

Shane was still trying to catch his breath, heart absolutely pounding in his ribs, his body feeling loose and sated in a way he’d never quite experienced at any other point in his life.

“You okay?” Ilya asked softly, pressing a kiss to Shane’s temple.

“Christ, yes, I’m okay,” Shane said, the word not feeling even remotely adequate to explain how he was feeling. “That was—holy shit.”

Ilya chuckled, low and pleased. “Good. This is good.”

Shane’s hand moved tentatively to the front of Ilya’s own underwear, where he could feel the hard line of him against his hip.

“Later,” Ilya said, catching his hand in his and bringing in to his mouth to dust a kiss to Shane’s knuckles. “I told you, tonight was for you. I know you are tired.”

Shane knew he ought to protest and insist on reciprocating, but the truth was he was exhausted from the game even before he’d come upstairs, and he felt more drowsy and content than he could recall ever having felt.

So instead, he just nodded and let Ilya arrange them more comfortably on the bed, pulling the duvet up and over both of them.

“Thank you,” Shane mumbled against Ilya’s throat, already half-asleep.

“No need for thanking,” Ilya murmured, his accent thick with satisfaction.

Shane wanted to say more, wanted to find words for how he was feeling, but the weight of sleep was pulling at him. So instead, he just pressed himself closer to Ilya’s warmth and let himself drift—safe and sated—and for once, not overthinking things.

***

Shane woke up slowly, pulled from sleep by warmth and the unfamiliar weight of an arm heavily draped across his waist. For just a moment, he was disoriented—this wasn’t his bed, his sheets were white, not blue—but then the memory of the previous night slammed into him and he felt his face heat even as a smile tugged at his lips.

Ilya’s bedroom. Ilya’s bed. Ilya’s arm around him, Ilya’s chest against his back, Ilya’s breath warm and damp against the back of his neck.

Ilya.

He could tell from the light filtering through the curtains that it was early, but later than he usually slept in. Not unreasonably early, especially given that he’d trained himself to wake ungodly early for practice or opening shifts at the coffee shop.

He turned carefully in Ilya’s arms, wanting to see his face but not wanting to wake him. In sleep, Ilya looked younger—the sharp lines of his face softer. His curls were wild against the pillow, and he looked unguarded and peaceful in the morning light.

Shane let his gaze travel lower, taking in the bare span of Ilya’s chest, the muscles in his arms and shoulders, the trail of dark hair on his stomach disappearing under the duvet. Ilya’s hands flexed slightly against his back as he shifted, and Shane’s mouth went dry as he remembered exactly how those hands had felt on him the night before, how Ilya’s mouth had—

He shifted slightly, suddenly very aware of his morning arousal, and Ilya stirred against him. Ilya’s eyes opened slowly, but immediately focused on Shane with the same careful attention that was always present in his gaze.

“Morning,” Shane said quietly, suddenly feeling very shy despite everything they’d shared the night before.

“Доброе утро,” Ilya murmured in a voice rough with sleep that did absolutely nothing to help Shane’s situation. He cleared his throat, and then, more clearly, “Good morning, Котик. You sleep well?”

“Yeah. Really well, actually.” Shane bit his lip, trying to work up his courage. “Ilya, I… last night, you said ‘later’. For you. Is—is now later?”

Ilya’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but his hand tightened on Shane’s hip. “You do not have to—“

“I know I don’t have to,” Shane interrupted, bringing a hand up to push Ilya’s hair back from his face. “I know. But… I want to. You made me feel so good, and I want—I want to do that for you. I just… I’ve never done this before. So you—I might not be very good.”

“Shane.”

Ilya lifted his hand to cup Shane’s face and tip his chin up to force eye contact. “Anything you want to give me, I will take. There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Only you and me, yes?”

Shane nodded, some of his tension easing. “Okay. Yes. But I—you need to tell me. When something feels good or doesn’t.”

Ilya’s smile went soft and pleased, and it made Shane’s stomach clench. “I will. Promise.”

“Okay,” Shane said again, and this time he leaned in to close the distance between them, slow and deliberate. He allowed himself only a moment of insecurity, suddenly worried that maybe he should’ve gotten up, should’ve showered again, should’ve brushed his teeth—

But then Ilya responded, one hand sliding into Shane’s hair while the other pulled him closer. The kiss quickly deepened, turning heated, and Shane could feel Ilya’s cock hard against his hip through the thin fabric of his boxers.

Shane broke the kiss to trail his mouth along Ilya’s jaw, relishing in the feeling of stubble rough against his lips. He could feel Ilya’s pulse jumping under his lips as he moved down Ilya’s neck, and when Ilya made a soft, satisfied sound, it went straight to Shane’s groin.

“You can—you can tell me to stop,” Shane whispered into Ilya’s collarbone as his hands explored the planes of Ilya’s chest, mapping his dense muscles and the flat, dusky pink of his nipples. When his thumb brushed over one, Ilya made a soft sound and arched into his touch.

“Do not fucking stop,” Ilya said, his voice already rougher. “Keep going. Please.”

Encouraged, Shane ducked his head to replace his thumb with his mouth, the way Ilya had done to him. Ilya’s hand tightened in his hair—just shy of pulling—and the approving hum he let out gave Shane the confidence to continue.

Mimicking Ilya’s earlier path down, Shane worked his way down Ilya’s chest, his ribs, the defined lines of his abs. Ilya’s skin was warm under his mouth, and he could feel every shift in Ilya’s breathing and the slight tremor in his muscles.

When he reached the waistband of Ilya’s boxer briefs, he paused to look up. Ilya had propped himself up with one arm under his head, and stared down at him with dark, heated eyes.

“Yes?” Shane asked, snapping the elastic and mirroring both the words and actions of Ilya from the night before.

“Да. Yes. Please. Fuck.”

Shane hooked his fingers into the elastic and pulled them down. Ilya lifted his hips to help, and in only a moment Ilya was completely bare before his eyes.

Holy shit.

Shane’s brain seemed to short-circuit as he took in the sight before him. Ilya was—there was no other word for it, and if there was, Shane had never learned it—massive. Probably close to nine inches, and thick enough that he would likely need to squeeze to close his hand around it fully. He’d noticed that Ilya was a big guy everywhere else, but he hadn’t quite expected this, even though he’d now felt him pressed against his hip multiple times.

His mouth went dry even as he felt himself salivate—a competing response that left him frozen and staring down at him. There was something intimidating about it—not terrifying, but in a way that made him all too aware of his own inexperience and wonder about how he was going to fit that in his mouth, let alone anywhere else.

“You are staring again,” Ilya said, voice strained but edged with amusement.

“Sorry, I just—” Shane swallowed. “You know exactly why I’m staring.”

“Is this problem?” Ilya asked carefully. Shane could hear the concern in his voice, and could immediately tell that he’d slightly cooled Ilya’s arousal. “You do not need to. You would not be first person to say it is too much.”

Shane bit back a feeling of irritation both at the thought of someone telling Ilya that he was too much and at the thought of there being a someone in the first place. “I’m not a chicken. And you’re not too much. I want to make you feel good, I’m just not sure I know how.”

Ilya’s expression softened, and he rubbed the back of Shane’s neck with his thumb. “You start slow. Use your hand first, if you want. Both of them, maybe. Get comfortable. We are in no rush.”

Shane nodded and wrapped his hands around Ilya’s cock, testing the weight and feel of it in his hands. Ilya’s hips canted slightly at the contact, and Shane felt a little tremor of satisfaction at having pulled a reaction out of him.

“Like this?” Shane asked, stroking him experimentally. Sure, it wasn’t really all that different from what he was working with—technically speaking—but there was just so much more of Ilya.

“Да, yes. Fuck, Shane. Just like that,” Ilya breathed as he pushed his head back into the pillow. “Tighter—you can grip tighter. Will not break.”

Shane adjusted his grip and was rewarded for it with a low groan from Ilya. He stroked again, eyes locked on Ilya’s face for cues as he watched his jaw clench and noted the way his eyes squeezed shut when he brushed his thumb over the head.

“Good. You are so good, котик. You can use your mouth when you are ready—or just keep doing this. Whatever you want. Fuck.”

And god, did Shane want to use his mouth. Despite his nerves, his inexperience, he wanted to know what Ilya tasted like and wanted to hear what other sounds he could draw out of him.

So he leaned down and sucked just the head of Ilya’s cock into his mouth—tentative and testing. The noise that Ilya made in return was ragged and desperate, and his hand tightened in Shane’s hair. “Fuck—Shane—“

Encouraged, Shane opened his mouth and sank down just a fraction, getting used to the weight of him on his tongue and the stretch of his jaw. He hollowed his cheeks, the way Rose had told him he should, and Ilya’s hips jerked involuntarily into his mouth again before he forced them back down.

“Sorry—sorry, I did not mean—“ Ilya’s voice sounded absolutely wrecked and his accent rougher.

Shane pulled back just enough to speak, lips still close enough to brush the head of his cock when he did. “It’s okay. I didn’t mind.”

He took Ilya in again, deeper this time, trying to remember everything he’d ever read in online listicles or heard Rose’s friends chittering about during house parties. His hand wrapped around what couldn’t fit in his mouth—which was plenty—and he moved, finding a rhythm that felt manageable even if it was a little clumsy.

Ilya’s hand tightened in his hair again, just this side of too tight, and Shane could feel him trembling with the effort of holding still. “Your mouth. It is so—so good, so fucking good—“

The praise sent warmth rushing through his chest—he’d unpack it later, when he was back in his own apartment—and gave him the confidence to try to take him even deeper. He gagged slightly when the head hit the back of his throat, immediately pulling back, coughing.

Ilya’s hand flew immediately to his jaw, gently stroking. “Easy, easy. You do not need to—is already so much, you are doing so well.”

Shane shook his head, catching his breath. “I’m okay. I just—fuck, I want to make you come.”

“You will,” Ilya reassured him, thumb moving to lightly rub at his lips. “Just keep doing exactly what you were doing. Use your hand if you need. And—oh….”

He cut off with a drawn-out moan as Shane took him into his mouth again, able to follow a clear set of instructions. “Yes, fuck, just like that—“

Shane eventually settled into a rhythm that seemed to work, his hand moving in time with his mouth. He experimented with his tongue, swirling it around the head, pressing against the underside—still making mental notes on what pulled the greatest reactions out of Ilya.

“Shane, I am close,” Ilya warned. “If you do not want, you need it—“

But that’s the thing. Shane did want. And he usually had a thing about textures, but he also had a thing about messes, and in that moment, the desire that won was the one to try to give Ilya the same sort of pleasure that he’d received. He wanted absolutely nothing more than to absolutely take Ilya apart.

He doubled his efforts, and Ilya’s hand settled heavily against the base of his neck.

“Shit—Shane—I—“

Ilya came with a guttural moan, his entire body going taut. Shane did his best to swallow, even though it proved more difficult than he’d expected. He could feel some of it escaping the corner of his mouth, but he kept his mouth on Ilya through all of it—the same as Ilya had done for him—until Ilya began gently pulling him up with trembling hands.

Shane let him, moving up to lie beside him, and swiped at the corner of his mouth with his thumb—suddenly uncertain. As he looked down at his thumb, despite the smear of proof on his skin, he couldn’t help but ask, “Was that—was it okay?”

Ilya captured Shane’s hand in his, lightly sucking his finger clean before pulling Shane forward into a kiss. “Not okay, no. You were perfect. So perfect.”

He felt himself flush with pleasure at the praise, and he couldn’t help but tuck his face against the warm, slightly sweaty dampness of Ilya’s neck. He suddenly became aware again of how hard he was, and he lightly shifted—trying to find relief or a more comfortable position.

Ilya’s hand slid between them, wrapping around Shane’s cock as he began to move with sure, confident strokes.

“You don’t have to—“

“I want to,” Ilya said firmly. His gift felt heavenly, the rhythm quick and firm—not at all as exploratory as the night before. It was like he’d spent the night studying everything that Shane liked, and now he was proving exactly what he’d learned.

It took embarrassingly little time before Shane was thrusting up into Ilya’s fist, coming with a gasp and spilling over Ilya’s knuckles.

They lay there together for a long moment, heartbeats slowing as they caught their breath—sticky and satisfied. Shane felt a little debauched, and the thought made him feel a little giddy. Finally, Ilya pressed a kiss to Shane’s temple and carefully extracted himself from the bed.

“Stay there. I will get something to clean up.”

Ilya returned a moment later with a warm washcloth, cleaning Shane off first before himself with a gentle efficiency before he tossed it toward what Shane hoped was a hamper. Task done, he climbed back into the bed and tucked Shane against his chest.

“That was your first time doing that,” Ilya said quietly, dragging his fingers in absent circles on Shane’s back.

“Yeah. I told you that last night.”

“You were very brave.”

Shane huffed out a laugh against Ilya’s chest. “I don’t know about brave. Nervous, definitely.”

“Brave,” Ilya insisted. “You were incredible.”

Shane blushed and turned his head further into Ilya’s skin, suddenly a little embarrassed. “I liked it. Making you feel good. Seeing you… lose control, a little.”

“Only a little?” Ilya teased, lightly goosing his side.

“Okay, a lot, maybe. You were—“ Shane broke off, suddenly worried that he was saying too much.

“I was what?”

“Really hot,” Shane admitted. “Like—the sounds you make, the way you held onto me. I like knowing I did that.”

Ilya hummed and tightened his arms around Shane, pulling him so close that he didn’t think someone could’ve slipped a sheet of paper between their bodies. “You did. And you will do it again—many times, if you want. We can practice all you like. I can… what is saying? Take one from the team?”

Shane laughed, surging up to press a kiss to Ilya’s mouth. “A real sacrifice, I’m sure. Sounds like a good deal to me.”

They lay there in companionable silence for a while, Shane’s hand over Ilya’s heart, tapping out the beat of it with his index finger. The morning light continued to grow brighter, and he knew that at some point they would need to get up, start the day. Face the real world again.

But wrapped in Ilya’s arms—nestled in the warm cocoon of blankets, satisfaction, and feelings he wasn’t ready to name—he was perfectly content to stay exactly where he was.

“Thank you,” Ilya said eventually. “For staying. For trusting me with this. With you.”

Shane tipped his head down, pressing a kiss over Ilya’s heart. “Thanks for being patient and for making me feel safe enough to try.”

Ilya’s hand came up to rest on the back of Shane’s head, holding him close against his chest. “Always. For as long as you want me, I will try to be safe for you.”

And—lying there in Ilya’s arms—Shane believed him completely.

Chapter End Notes

Sorry for the delay, I got in my own head about my writing style and panicked a bit. Everyone say “thank you, Erica” for convincing me that I was being an idiot.

 

Thank you, Erica.

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

Hayden: Flannigan’s tonight? 

Rose: pls!!!

Jackie: Of course!

Shane: I have plans with Ilya, so probably not. 

Rose: omg bring him

Rose: pls pls pls bring him

Jackie: We’d love to meet him!!

Hayden: When you’re coherent enough to actually introduce us that is…

Shane: I can ask, but I don’t know if that’s really his scene.

Rose: if he’s gonna date you he has to meet us

Shane: Technically, he has met you already. 

Jackie: If you think he even noticed that we were there when you were sitting on the ground with a black eye and looking all sad, then you’re an idiot. 

Shane: Not the first time I’ve been called that. 

Hayden: Who do I need to beat up??

Shane: Yourself. 

Shane: I’ll ask him. 

Shane hovered his thumb over Ilya’s contact in his phone. He usually preferred text—it was easier to return to the conversation and see if he had missed anything—but this felt like something bigger, like something that could go sideways if he didn’t have an opportunity to actually talk to Ilya. 

It took him a full thirty seconds before he felt brave enough to hit call. 

Ilya picked up on the second ring, like he’d been waiting by his phone. “Hello, Котик.”

“Hey,” Shane said, scrubbing his hand over the back of his neck and feeling how warm the skin there was at the sound of the pet name in Ilya’s voice. “You busy?”

“Too busy to talk to you? No. What is on your mind?”

“So, uh… Rose and Hayden and Jackie—that’s Hayden’s girlfriend—are talking about going out to Flannigan’s tonight. Remember, the place where you met us after… yeah. Um, nothing big, just drinks.” He paused, already second-guessing himself and hating that he couldn’t seem to find the words to actually say what he wanted to. “You don’t have to come. I mean—it’s loud there, usually, and it’s kind of sticky, and the food’s not great. But it’s where we usually go on Friday nights.”

For a long moment, Ilya said nothing, and Shane felt compelled to keep talking like it would somehow make things better. “I just—they keep hearing about you, you know? Not that I like talk about you, but they know we’re… yeah. And you know Rose, from the shop. And I thought maybe you might want to meet them. If that’s weird, ignore me. Not ‘ignore me’—don’t ignore me, just—fuck, you know what I mean.”

Shane exhaled hard through his nose, wishing that he had sent this through text. “I wanted to ask. That’s all.”

Ilya hummed softly down the line, clearly trying to sift through the absolute word vomit Shane had just dumped on him. “I could be wrong—English is my second language and you talk very fast when nervous—but I do not think you asked a question.”

Shane huffed, annoyed but knowing that Ilya was technically correct. “Do you want to come out with us tonight? I can tell them no, and we can still get together just the two of us like we planned.”

“You would like me to meet them,” Ilya said, not quite a question. 

“Well, yeah. I mean—only if you want to,” Shane added quickly. “They’re important to me. Hayden’s my roommate, and he’s sort of protective. I think he wants to make sure you’re actually real. Rose already sort of knows you and thinks you’re… I don’t know. Mysterious? In a fun way, maybe.”

“I am fairly sure I am real,” Ilya said dryly. “I do not know about mysterious.”

Shane smiled despite himself, anxiety starting to ebb as Ilya participated more in the conversation. “Flannigan’s can get a little rowdy, sometimes. You remember what happened to me last time.” He tried to sound casual, but he knew he was probably failing. “If it’s not really the sort of place you’d like to be seen in, or—if it’s complicated for you, I totally get it.”

Ilya didn’t answer immediately. His pause wasn’t long, but it was just long enough for Shane’s brain to start picking up momentum again. “I am not worried about Flannigan’s. It is a bar, not a battlefield, yes?”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Shane muttered. 

“I know,” Ilya said. His voice was softer, and Shane could almost picture the fond look on his face that he usually wore when Shane started to panic over something. “You are wondering if is safe for me to be seen there. With you.”

Shane picked at a loose thread on his sleeve, trying to find a way to acknowledge the thing without naming the thing. “I just… don’t want to drag you out into a place that might put you in a weird sport. With… people. Or might call too much attention.”

“Ah!” Ilya said. “Because you are student?”

“That’s part of it, sure. I just… you have a lot of responsibilities, right? I don’t want to make things any harder for you.”

“You make things plenty hard, Shane,” Ilya said with a laugh before his voice turned more serious. “If I did not wish to be seen with you, I would not be seen with you anywhere. You are not exactly secret I keep.”

Something in Shane’s chest loosened and tightened at the same time, and he knew that a slightly dopey smile was on his face. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Ilya said firmly. “We will go. You can protect me from sticky floors.”

That made him actually laugh out loud. “They’re stickier when you’re laying on them.”

“Do not remind me,” Ilya groaned. “He is still trying to get into my good graces after that. But we will go, yes.”

Even as he agreed with Ilya, a tiny voice in the back of his head noticed that Ilya had entirely sidestepped whether his presence would draw any attention. He told himself he was probably reading too much into it—most people didn’t track individual threads of a conversation the same way that he did.  

***

They’d made fun of him for it, but Hayden and Jackie had been willing to walk over twenty minutes early to get settled at a booth before Ilya arrived. It was embarrassing how nervous he was about them meeting. 

It wasn’t even technically like it would be their first meeting, either. He’d met Jackie and Hayden the night of the fight, and he saw Rose probably every other time that he visited the coffee shop. But this time he wasn’t meeting them as customer and employee, or victim and white knight. He was just meeting them as… as Ilya. 

Every time the door opened, despite the fact that he still had plenty of time before Ilya could be considered late, Shane’s eyes were pulled involuntarily to check and see if it was him—which might have been less obvious if he didn’t keep doing it mid-conversation and making people repeat themselves. 

He told himself it was only natural, keeping an eye out for the person joining the group. After all, it would be easier for him to see Ilya and wave him over to their booth than it would be for Ilya to scan the crowded bar to find them. 

He worried distantly about how the night might play out—if someone asked the wrong question, or said the wrong thing, or commented on something that Shane was steadfastly refusing to acknowledge himself. Shit, maybe he’d walk in, take one look at the noise and the chaos and Shane’s best friends and decide that he didn’t want any part of it. 

Which was ridiculous. Probably. But still, he found himself running through scenarios in his head and rehearsing explanations that he prayed he wouldn’t need to draw on. 

And then… there he was. Looking as calm and composed as ever, if not slightly overdressed for a place like this. He was handsome and confident in a way that stood out from the sticky floor and neon beer sign. 

Ilya looked like he’d wandered into the wrong place on purpose. 

His eyes quickly met Shane’s as if he’d already known exactly where he was sitting. Shane lifted his hand in a half-wave as his stomach did a little flip. 

“Looks like your guy is here,” Rose muttered under her breath, already grinning. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Shane whispered back, but he was already smiling when he stood up to meet him. 

His long legs ate up the floor as he approached, and Shane watched his eyes bounce from point to point across the room as he neared. 

“Ilya,” he said when he reached them—suddenly aware of how loud the bar was, how… exposed… this felt compared to the cafe or the places Ilya usually took him to. “You found it okay?”

“Yes,” Ilya said easily, lightly brushing a hand down Shane’s arm. “I remembered how to find it. I have been here before, if you remember. It is exactly as you said. Sticky.”

“Ilya!” Rose chimed, scooting further down the booth to make room for Shane to slide over and open up more space for him. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Hello, Rose,” he said, leaning past Shane to smile in her direction. Jesus, even when he wasn’t aiming that smile at him, it still sent butterflies through him. He could tell that Ilya noticed the response it had on him when he shot him a wink as he sat back against the booth, softly tapping two fingers on Shane’s thigh as he did. 

“I am Ilya,” he said, looking toward Jackie and Hayden. “If you told me your names outside the last time we were here, I cannot recall. Sorry.”

“No, that’s my bad,” Shane said. “That’s Hayden—he’s been my roommate since freshman year—and his girlfriend Jackie. These three are probably my best friends.”

“Probably?” Hayden and Rose cried simultaneously. 

“We’re his only friends,” Jackie chirped, grinning. 

“Fine, okay. And yeah, this is… Ilya.”

“I’d ask how you met,” Rose started, still laughing, “but I’m pretty sure I was there for that.”

Shane scoffed, leaning further into Ilya’s body heat. “I’m pretty sure you were out back on your phone, actually. You were there like twenty minutes later.”

“So,” she continued, ignoring Shane. “What do you do for a living when you’re not watching Shane make coffee?”

Shane froze, but before he could interrupt, Ilya shrugged almost lazily. He took a sip of Shane’s ginger ale, completely unhurried. “It is… hard to describe. Not very exciting, either. I explain rules, I translate the system. I keep people from getting in water that is—what is the saying?—too deep over their heads? Yes? And I read.”

“Are you… an advisor?” Hayden asked, tilting his head in confusion. 

“Ah, no. I am the first person to come to when something goes wrong. I try to solve problems early.”

“Oh?” Jackie asked. “What kind of problems?”

Shane could practically hear the blood rushing through his veins and tried very hard to keep a poker face. Why, oh why, did his friends choose now to be curious about other people?

“Cultural… misunderstandings. Boring paperwork. Visas. Discipline before police are needed—like the night outside, yes?”

“You’re the guy who saves everyone’s asses, then?”

Ilya huffed a quiet laugh. “Sometimes.”

“Does anyone else need another drink?” Shane asked, suddenly feeling a bit panicked. Hayden looked pointedly at the still mostly full glasses in front of him, Jackie, and Rose, but Shane’s ginger ale was mostly empty and Ilya hadn’t gotten a drink from the bar before his friends had started in on him. 

“You are going to bar? I will come with you,” Ilya said, sliding gracefully out of the bar and waiting for Shane to climb out after him. 

As they stood at the bar, waiting for the bartender’s attention, Shane tried to think of the words to say. 

“You don’t… you don’t need to answer their questions.”

Ilya crooked an eyebrow at him, leaning against the bar. “Questions are harmless, so far. Easy to answer.”

Shane nodded. “Sure, but if you would rather not te—”

Before he could finish, someone bumped into him from behind, a stream of beer sloshing dangerously close to Shane’s shoulder. It was clumsy, not aggressive, but Ilya acted immediately. One of his hands landed on the small of Shane’s back, pivoting him a half-step to the side as he placed his own body subtly between Shane and the stranger. 

The guy muttered a half-hearted apology. 

“Is no problem,” Ilya said calmly, but his voice was low and firm enough that the guy straightened up a bit and moved along quickly. 

It was over in a heartbeat. It was barely anything. 

But Shane felt the imprint of Ilya’s hand guiding him out of the way like a brand through his shirt. 

Back at the table, Hayden warmed to Ilya faster than Shane had expected. Naturally, it started with hockey—which in hindsight was probably inevitable. 

“Do you follow the league at all?” Hayden asked, cocking his head toward the game playing on one of the many TVs above the bar. “Or are you a captive audience while Shane regurgitates stats and plays?”

“Oh, I follow,” Ilya said easily, taking a drink of his vodka. His fingers grazed Shane’s wrist as he set his glass back down, and the passing touch lingered just a moment too long for it to be accidental. “Not so close as Shane. But hockey is hockey, yes? Easy to watch.”

Hayden perked up excitedly. “You play?”

Ilya tilted his head in consideration, humming. “I used to skate a lot, when I was young.”

No further elaboration seemed to be coming, and Hayden had the grace not to ask. 

Instead, realizing that he was talking to someone who could understand, Hayden launched into a rant about Tampa’s defensive structures this season. Ilya kept up just fine—not like Shane would have, rattling off stats—but like someone who understood the game.

Shane found himself watching Ilya instead of the screen. 

Every so often, as he gestured with his glass or shifted in the booth, his knee would bump Shane’s under the table. His thumb brushed Shane’s wrist when he handed him a napkin when their pizza arrived before Shane could ask for one. Once, when Shane laughed too hard at Hayden’s imitation of Dallas Kent on the ice and he nearly knocked his glass of ginger ale over, Ilya’s hand was already there, steadying the glass before resting his arm across Shane’s back like it belonged there. 

They were small touches, small bits of his attention. But they were intentional, nonetheless. 

And Rose… noticed. Of course she did. Every time Ilya’s skin met his, she caught Shane’s eye from the end of the booth and lifted one eyebrow at him as if to say I see you.

Shane always broke her eye contact first. 

Later, once the conversation drifted away from hockey and the drinks had loosened their tongues, Hayden—already well on his way to drunk—made a throwaway comment. It was the sort of nothing that Shane had heard his entire life, and he was used to just ignoring it. 

“It’s fine—Shane just doesn’t get sarcasm half the time. You’ve really gotta spell things out for him or it just flies over his head.”

He said it lightly, like it was a given that he didn’t need to think twice about it. Shane shrugged automatically, ready to brush it off immediately. Like he always did. 

Ilya… didn’t. 

“He understands perfectly well,” he said. He wasn’t sharp in how he said it, wasn’t pointed or aggressive. But goddamn, did he sound certain. His eyes flicked from Hayden to Shane and back, before they landed on Shane again. “He takes the people he trusts seriously. Is not a flaw, assuming friends mean what they say to you.”

Hayden was silent for a beat before he nodded and changed the subject a little clumsily. 

Rose kicked him under the table, but he didn’t look at her. 

Finally, their waitress returned—the one who usually ended up with them in her section on Friday nights. 

“I know how you four usually split the check, but tonight we’ve got a new face,” she said, smiling at Shane. “You and your boyfriend want this together or separately?”

Shane blinked at her, like her words were in French—well, not French, he could speak that, too. Mandarin, maybe. 

“Oh, we’re—he’s—”

“Is fine together,” Ilya said smoothly, already reaching for his wallet. 

Shane just stared at him, and Ilya shot him one of those stupid fucking winks that always made him melt a little. 

“Boyfriend?” Rose whispered—or, tried to whisper, but she was several cocktails too deep and Ilya could hear her easily. 

“I mean, probably. I think so, yes?”

Shane could tell that his cheeks were already red, and probably his ears too. Ilya chuckled and reached out, capturing his chin and pressing a quick, soft kiss to his lips. 

“Yeah…” Shane said. “Probably.”

By the time they’d paid and everyone was finishing the last of the drinks in their glasses, the bar had grown louder with the late-night crowd and the conversations around them had started overlapping into just noise. Ilya leaned in closer to him, his voice buzzing against the skin near Shane’s ear. 

“You are quieter, now.”

Shane rubbed his thumb against the ring of condensation his glass had left on the table, not wanting to cut the night short if other people were still having fun. He knew Rose had been hoping that they could go out dancing somewhere. 

“I’m… just tired. I’m okay.”

It was only half a lie. 

Ilya’s fingers tapped against Shane’s knee, like he was testing the waters and trying to capture Shane’s attention from the table top. “We do not have to stay.”

Shane hesitated, glancing around the table. At Hayden, arguing about a missed call on the screen, at Jackie staring fondly at her boyfriend, at Rose pretending she wasn’t watching him and Ilya out of the corner of her eye. 

“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t mind getting out of here,” he admitted quickly. 

Ilya’s mouth curved into that open, crooked smile, like he’d been anticipating that answer. 

“Then we go.”

It felt easier than having to make the request himself. 

As they stood to leave, Rose was the only one who noticed, and she gave him a tiny nod. He couldn’t tell if it was in approval or reassurance. 

What he did know was that when Ilya’s hand found the small of his back and guided him out of the now crowded bar and through to the door, he may have leaned in closer to the warmth of Ilya’s side. 

And if he noticed how Ilya seemed to naturally navigate the spaces between the crowded bodies, how people seemed to shift aside to make room for him without a word, how nothing about Ilya ever seemed uncertain… well. 

That was probably just confidence. 

Probably. 

***

Rose had picked the place—it wasn’t the sort of place that he would ever seek on his own even if he was generally a brunch sort of guy. It was all mismatched cups and a chalkboard menu that changed weekly, so he couldn’t even figure out what he wanted to order ahead of time. 

Shane had shown up five minutes late trying to make it from Ilya’s and still had managed to beat her there, which said more about Rose’s relationship with mornings than it did about her ability to be on time. 

He was stirring Splenda into a cup of coffee when she slid into the booth across from him, dark sunglasses still on. 

“You look suspiciously awake for someone who seemed ‘so tired’ last night. Early night?”

“Not particularly,” Shane said, trying not to blush. “How late were you out?”

She flagged down a server for coffee, setting her chin in her hand and leaning across the table to look at him over the rim of her glasses. “I think you know we will not be discussing my night.”

Shane signed, sinking into the booth in surrender. 

“Okay. So?”

She smiled, stealing a sip from Shane’s coffee when she clocked how far away the server still was with her own. “I like him.”

It wasn’t how he’d expected her to start, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved. “That was… fast.”

“I make quick character judgments,” she said with a shrug. “It’s how I landed you. It’s a gift. He watches you a lot. Like, actually watches you. Not in a creepy way, but like he’s always trying to make sure that you’re good.”

Shane looked down at his mug, stirring it even though he knew the Splenda was already dissolved. “Yeah. He does that.”

“And he doesn’t talk over you. Like ever. Do you have any idea how rare that is with guys who look like that?”

He laughed, not wanting her to know that he knew exactly what she meant. 

“Guys who look like what?”

“Don’t play dumb, Hollander,” she said. “He’s all tall, intense, mysterious accent. They usually like the sound of their own voices. Remember that German director I had last semester? Exactly like that guy.”

Rose’s coffee arrived, and she took a sip before leveling him with a softer look. “You’re into him.”

It wasn’t a question. 

Shane dragged his thumb down the handle of his mug, wishing that every one of his thoughts wasn’t always telegraphed on his face. “Yeah. I really am.”

It was the first time he’d really said it out loud, and it made it feel bigger. Realer. A little terrifying, but also a little less, somehow. 

“He makes things… quieter, for me,” he started, trying to find the right phrasing. “Not like boring quiet. Just—my brain doesn’t feel like it’s sprinting all the time with him. I don’t have to guess what he means. He just… tells me. And he does a lot for me.”

When Shane pictured himself in a relationship before, he’d always imagined it as him trying to find ways to force his routine and structure to accommodate an additional person. He hadn’t ever imagined someone else carefully carving space into their own life to make room for him—picking up on what he needed and finding ways to accommodate without Shane needing to take the time to explain why he needed things to happen in just a certain way in order to make sense. 

Ilya had almost immediately proven that he saw what Shane needed and made it easier for him without him needing to ask. He didn’t jump around and vaguely hint at his intentions, instead directly telling him I’m not upset with you, or I like being with you.

Shane didn’t realize how much of his time he spent second-guessing people’s intentions or worrying over his schedule until Ilya took the weight onto himself and allowed Shane to just be instead of forcing him to think about everything. 

Whenever Shane hesitated or found himself at a loss for words, Ilya just waited for him. Instead of flicking on all the big lights out of habit, Ilya always opened curtains or turned on lamps. When he noticed that Shane tended to eat many of the same foods or got anxious about change, Ilya made sure to prep dinners that Shane had expressly told him that he liked and always let him know about any change—no matter how minor—to the plan that they’d tried to make. 

He wasn’t dumb. He was pretty sure that Ilya knew what it was, but there was something so refreshing about someone making room and making space for him without him first needing to offer an explanation or an excuse or a clinical diagnosis  for why he was the way he was.

“That sounds like a good thing,” Rose said, her expression warming at the shift in his tone. 

“It is,” he nodded, then hesitated. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

Shane shrugged one shoulder, feigning at nonchalance, but finally feeling like someone else knew enough about the situation to hear some of it. “I don’t know how to put it. It’s like there’s… gaps.”

He grimaced, not knowing how to continue, and Rose kicked a foot out to rest against his under the booth. He took a deep breath and tried to continue. “Not red flags, exactly. But blank spaces in who he is. Like I don’t always know what he’s doing or who he’s dealing with or—where he learned to act like this. It’s not the way most people are, you know?”

“Like what?”

“He’s just so… calm. All the time. Like nothing seems to really rattle him,” he said, looking up at her. “And he’s private. Not like I think he’s hiding stuff, but like he’s not really used to sharing with someone. It’s like he really compartmentalizes things.”

Rose stirred her coffee slowly, clearly weighing his words. “Some people are just like that, Shane. Especially if they’ve had to uproot themselves and start over ‌in another country. How long has he been here?”

Shane shrugged, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jacket to avoid fidgeting. “I don’t know. And that’s what I mean. Like there’s so much I feel like I still don’t know about him. But I like the things I do know, I think.”

Rose hummed, tapping his foot again. “That’s only natural. It’s still early days—there’s plenty of time to get to know each other. Besides, apparently the waitress is the only way you now know he’s your boyfriend.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “And I’m not trying to make it into something it's not or to ignore that I really, really do like him. I just don’t like feeling like I can’t see the big picture. It’s like walking into a movie halfway through.”

“Do you think he has a secret family?”

Shane started, looking up at her in panic. “What? No! When would he even have time? I feel like he’s either at the coffee shop or I’m at his house.”

“Has he ever lied to you?”

Shane thought about it for a moment before shrugging. “Not that I know of, at least.”

“Does he treat you well?”

“He… yeah.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth despite himself, the way it did whenever he thought about Ilya calling him pretty, or rubbing his back, or smiling at him over the top of the espresso machine. “He really does.”

Rose leaned back in her seat, looking at him appraisingly. “Then maybe the missing pieces are just pieces he hasn’t handed you yet, not things he’s actively hiding from you. I’m sure there’s plenty you haven’t shared with him yet.”

Shane let that sit for a moment thinking about her words. She was making a good point, she really was—he just wasn’t sure it was enough to completely quiet the itch in the back of his mind. And if he was right about that… he definitely didn’t want to bring it up in a crowded bistro. 

“I just don’t want to be an idiot,” he settled on. “Or get in too deep without knowing what I’m stepping into.”

Rose reached across the table, capturing his hand in hers and squeezing it lightly. “You’re not an idiot. You’re trying to be cautious. There’s a difference. But, for what it’s worth? He was staring at you like you were the most interesting person in that bar.”

Heat crept up the back of his neck, and he couldn’t help but deflect. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m really not.”

He ducked his head, but he knew he was still smiling. Maybe his concern hadn’t disappeared entirely. It had just… made room for something else to slide in alongside it. 

Hope, maybe?

But that somehow felt a little more dangerous than doubt had. 

***

By the time he stepped out of the cafe, the world felt sharper than it had when he’d entered. He stood on the sidewalk for a long moment, letting the cool air hit his face as he tried to sort through the mess in his head. Rose’s words played on loop, mixing with his own doubts, until he couldn’t tell the difference. 

He liked Ilya. 

That wasn’t the complicated part. 

What was complicated was how easily Ilya had slipped into Shane’s life and made room for himself when Shane usually kept himself held so tightly that there wasn’t room for anyone else. And now it felt all too natural to pick up his own phone to text Ilya first, to look for him any time the door chimed at the cafe, or to measure his week based on the next day that he knew he’d see Ilya. 

It was new, and new could be dangerous, because new meant the rules didn’t matter anymore. 

As he stood outside, trying to still his reeling thoughts, he jumped when his phone buzzed and chimed in his pocket. He pulled it out, already somehow knowing that it would be Ilya—which felt like its own sort of admission. 

It was.

Ilya: You make it through brunch alive?

Shane let out a breath through his nose, just forceful enough to almost qualify as a laugh. 

Shane: Barely. Rose interrogated me?

The typing bubble appeared instantly, as if Ilya was sitting and watching his phone for a response. 

Ilya: And did you survive the interrogation?

Ilya: While I want you alive, I can offer her tips for more effective questioning. 

Ilya: Russians have long history of interrogation science. 

Shane stared at that longer than he really intended to. His thumb hovered over his screen while all the words he could say sat right at the back of his teeth. 

He could say yes. 

He could say it was fine.

He could go home and sit on the couch and watch a naval history video with Hayden while the restless buzz stayed in his chest and the unanswered questions sat in his head. 

Or—

Shane: Can I come back over?

Just as he was about to double-text with a never mind, Ilya’s answer chimed through.

Ilya: Of course. 

Ilya: You do not have to ask like it is favor. 

He started walking back to his car before he could talk himself out of it—before he could start drawing up inventories of the reasons to be cautious. The drive to Ilya’s, even from this part of town, had already etched itself into his muscle memory, but he watched the road with a hawkish intensity to keep himself focused. 

He told himself that he just needed a little bit of quiet. 

That Ilya’s house was calm. 

That Ilya was a respite for his brain. 

Maybe he didn’t know everything about Ilya—not yet—and maybe there were still big, blank spaces in the story. But he did know he was tired of standing at the precipice of something that he wanted. 

***

“You are thinking loudly,” Ilya said, running a hand down Shane’s back where he lay plastered against Ilya’s chest. Shane huffed a quiet laugh and tipped his head up to look at Ilya. 

“Didn’t realize I was making noise.”

“You did not make noise,” Ilya said, tilting his head to meet Shane’s eyes. “But your face did.”

“How long have you lived here?” he blurted out without taking a moment to think about how he wanted to start the conversation.

“Maybe two years, I think. Better location than old apartment.”

“No, I mean… in Canada.”

Ilya’s hand stilled on his back and he tensed slightly underneath Shane before he relaxed with what seemed to be considerable effort and resumed the slow motion down Shane’s spine. 

“A few years.”

Shane tried not to roll his eyes.

“A few like three or like ten?”

Ilya hummed, bringing his hand up to Shane’s hair instead. “Closer to ten than three. But not ten, yet.”

“Do you ever miss it? Russia?”

This time, Ilya did freeze, and he didn’t relax as quickly. 

“Some things,” he said quietly. “Not everything deserves to be missed. Not everyone.”

Shane knew it wasn’t really an answer—neither of them had been—and his brain still scratched at the gaps. He just wanted an answer, a timeline, the full story, some additional context to help him understand. 

“You don’t really talk about it,” he tried again, more gently this time. “About before. Or about now, really. I just want to know you.”

Ilya looked down at him more fully, and while his expression still seemed calm, his eyes suddenly seemed far older than he was. “Before is… complicated. And English is not good language for complicated things. There are parts of my life that feel very far away. Safer there.”

Safer there.

Shane’s mind snagged on the phrasing. Safer far away, safer not talked about. He felt like he was scrabbling to grab onto the string tied to a balloon that was floating just out of his grasp.

“Safer for who?” he asked before he could stop himself. 

Ilya sighed, wrapping his arms around Shane and pulling him closer like the full weight of his body wasn’t already pressed against him. 

“For everyone.”

He knew he could probably push. He knew Ilya would probably let him. He knew he could demand clarification, press about who everyone even was. Why the distance made things safer.

But instead he found himself looking at the expression on Ilya’s face, the changed look in his eyes like he was looking through Shane without really seeing him. Noticed the faint line that had appeared between his brows. 

Grief, maybe. Or guilt. Or maybe just history. 

Maybe everything that hid in the shadows wasn’t sharp, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to stick his hand into the darkness to find out. 

“I don’t need to know everything,” he said, surprising even himself as he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “I just… want to know you.”

Something in Ilya’s expression softened, and his grip on Shane eased slightly. “Knowing who I am now is easier. Knowing who I was is not so simple.”

Ilya’s hand came up, almost absentmindedly, and he brushed his knuckles along the side of Shane’s neck. 

“You think too much,” Ilya murmured.

“I know.”

“Come here,” Ilya said, his voice low but certain. It didn’t feel like a command, but an invitation—and despite himself, Shane didn’t even consider refusing. He leaned up toward Ilya and easily surrendered when Ilya captured his lips in a kiss, steady and warm. 

It wasn’t rushed and certainly wasn’t searching. But it was deliberate—slow enough that Shane could feel Ilya’s intention in trying to turn the volume on his brain down. And sure, maybe it was a distraction tactic, and Shane was a lot of things, but he was, underneath it all, just a man. 

As Ilya kept pulling him ‌closer, dropping kiss after kiss on his lips, Shane felt his brain go delightfully blank when Ilya’s tongue traced open the seam of his lips—and he’d opened for him without a second thought. 

Ilya kissed him the same way he did everything else—deliberately. With a focus that made Shane feel like he was the only thing Ilya had time to pay attention to. One of his hands stayed heavy on the back of Shane’s neck, and his other brushed his jaw with a rhythm he could feel down to his toes. 

When Ilya pulled back, Shane tilted up to chase after him without thinking, earning a chuckle that Shane could feel vibrate through his chest where they were still pressed together. 

“You are very distracting when you want to be,” Ilya murmured, looking down with eyes that were dark and warm. 

Shane felt himself flush, and before he could point out that no, actually, I think you were the one trying to distract me, Ilya was kissing him again—slower, but no less intense. The hand at his neck slid down his shoulder, tugging him up and closer until Shane was more firmly upright in his lap, straddling one of his thighs. 

The position change shifted something within him—made him so hyperaware of how his body was responding despite the thoughts that had just filled his brain. He could feel himself hardening, the friction of his jeans suddenly both too much and not enough. He shifted, trying to ease the pressure, and the movement made Ilya break the kiss with a harsh intake of breath. 

“Shane,” Ilya groaned out, accent thick. One hand slid from his back to settle on his hip, pressing them together with a firm pressure that made Shane’s breath catch and a soft moan fall from his mouth. “You are very—what is word—responsive.”

“Shut up,” Shane moaned, but he knew there was absolutely no heat in it. He couldn’t manage heat when it felt like every one of his nerves was on fire. 

Ilya shot him that little crooked grin and leaned forward to nip at the skin of his throat. “I think you do not want me to shut up. I think you like when I tell you things.”

He wasn’t wrong. Shane had never been good with ambiguity, and here Ilya was making something in Shane’s chest loosen even as all other parts of him were tightening with want. 

“Yeah,” Shane admitted quietly. “I really fucking do.”

“Good,” Ilya said, using the hand on Shane’s hip to press. The friction made Shane gasp, rolling his hips forward involuntarily. “Because I think I am going to tell you exactly what I want to do with you. If is okay?”

Shane nodded dumbly, suddenly feeling incapable of speech. His hands fell forward to land on Ilya’s shoulders, and he grasped at him like he were a lifeline. 

“I want…” Ilya said, low and deliberate as he guided Shane’s hips to move in another slow roll, “to make you feel good. I want to hear sounds you make when you stop thinking.”

His hands slid lower, cupping Shane’s ass and pulling him harder against his thigh. “I want to watch you come apart.”

“Fuck,” Shane breathed, his hips now moving of their own accord, chasing the friction. He could feel the long, hard line of Ilya beneath him, and it made him dizzy with want.

“Is too much?” Ilya asked almost mockingly even as his hand encouraged Shane’s movements. “Tell me, if is too much. I can… stop?”

“Fuck,” Shane bit out, trying to hold back a moan. “No, not—not too much. Good—really good. Fuck.”

Ilya made a satisfied little noise deep in his chest. “Then come here properly.”

He shifted them with surprising ease, guiding Shane until he was fully in his lap but straddling his hips. The new position pressed them together completely, the hard line of Ilya’s cock pressed against his own, separated only by at least four too many layers of fabric. Shane couldn’t help the moan that fell from his mouth when Ilya rolled his hips, creating a friction almost too much to bear. His head dropped forward onto Ilya’s shoulder, and he could hear himself panting into Ilya’s skin. 

“That’s it,” Ilya murmured, one hand still helping to guide his hips while the other cradled the back of his head. “Just feel it. Take what you need. Don’t think.”

The permission to stop thinking was exactly what Shane needed. He allowed himself to rock against Ilya, finding a rhythm that had them both breathing harder into each other. 

“Ilya…” Shane gasped out, not even sure what it was that he was actually asking for. 

“I know, котик. I know,” Ilya breathed. Luckily, Ilya seemed to understand him, and his hand slid forward to pluck at the button of his jeans. “Can I—?”

“Yes,” Shane cried before Ilya could finish the question. “Yes, fuck, please.”

Ilya quickly popped the button and tugged down the zipper, one hand sliding into the front of his jeans to palm him through his underwear even as the other slipped into the seat of his pants to push them lower on his hips. The touch, even through the thin fabric, made Shane’s body jerk. 

“Jesus Christ,” Shane choked out. 

“Is good?” Ilya asked even though his satisfied smile suggested he knew damn well what he was doing to him. 

“Yeah,” Shane managed. “Great. More—I need—”

Ilya understood him again . He shifted them, lifting Shane slightly as if his weight were nothing to work his jeans further down his hips. Shane tried to help clumsily, but he overbalanced in his eagerness and would have toppled from the couch if not for Ilya’s steadying hands. Once Shane’s jeans were down, Ilya started working on his own fly, fighting against the buttons holding his jeans closed. 

When Ilya freed himself, Shane again found himself staring down at him. He’d felt him before—had touched him, tasted him—but seeing him like this, thick and flushed and already wet at the tip, made Shane’s mouth go dry. 

“Come back here,” Ilya said roughly, guiding Shane back to his lap. This time, when they pressed together, it was skin on skin with only the thin barrier of Shane’s underwear between them. 

The sensation punched the air out of Shane’s lungs. He could feel everything—the heat of his skin, the dampness of his skin, the way Ilya’s breath hitched when Shane ground down against him. 

Without waiting, Shane tugged his own underwear down, surging forward to feel his skin on his. He felt like he’d combust if he didn’t touch him properly. 

“Jesus, Shane,” Ilya breathed, one hand wrapping around both of them. Shane noted dimly that his long fingers were only just able to circle them both, and even then it was only due to the tightness of his grasp.

“You are wet. So wet, like—” Ilya groaned something in Russian that he couldn’t understand, but something about his tone made him moan in response regardless. “Like girl. So wet for me.”

He felt like he should be embarrassed by how much he was leaking, his precum slicking the way as Ilya stroked them together, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Ilya’s hand felt too good, and the slide was easy only because of how wet he was. 

“Is okay?” Ilya asked again, even as he kept stroking them together. “Not too much?”

“Not too much,” Shane gasped even though yes, it was so, so much. “So good, fuck. You feel—so good.”

Ilya made a pleased little sound, adjusting his grip slightly. His other hand came up to Shane’s face, and he dragged his fingers over Shane’s lower lip. 

“Open.”

Shane obeyed without thought, and Ilya slipped two long fingers across his tongue, pressing down. Shane sucked on his fingers, tongue sliding across Ilya’s knuckles, and he could feel Ilya’s cock twitch against his own where they were pressed together. When Ilya slid his fingers from Shane’s mouth, they were slick with his spit and a thin thread connected the fingers to his mouth. 

When Ilya’s hand dropped back down between them, he used Shane’s spit to slick the way further. The glide became smoother, and the wet sounds of Ilya’s hands working them together sounded obscene in the quiet of the living room. 

“You are so responsive,” he murmured again. “So sensitive. I barely touch you and you make such pretty sounds for me. So, so pretty.”

Shane hadn’t even realized he was making sounds until Ilya called them out—little gasps and moans that he couldn’t hold in. But he couldn’t really find it in himself to care enough to feel embarrassed, not when Ilya’s voice was rough with want. 

“More,” Shane managed to say, rocking his hips up into Ilya’s strokes. “I need—fuck, I’m close. I’m—”

“I know, Ilya soothed, his damp hand coming up to press into the base of Shane’s neck. “I can feel it. You’re shaking, котик. So close already.”

“Sorry,” Shane gasped out automatically, unsure ‌why he was apologizing.

“No,” Ilya said firmly. “No sorry. Want to see you come for me. Want to feel it.”

As if he had been waiting for permission, Shane’s rhythm stuttered and his whole body went tight as his orgasm hit him. He came with a choked-off noise, spilling across Ilya’s hand, over both of their bellies, his hand still rocking through it. 

“That’s it,” Ilya murmured, his hand still working over them as he pushed himself closer. “So perfect, so good to me.”

Shane could feel his brain going offline, his body still trembling, but he could also feel Ilya getting closer. The way his breathing had turned ragged, and the tension in his arms and shoulders. 

He wanted to help, wanted to make Ilya feel as good as he’d just felt, but he couldn’t force his limbs to cooperate with his brain yet. 

But Ilya didn’t seem to need his help. His hand moved faster, the other still cradling the back of Shane’s neck, and then was coming too with a low Russian curse on his lips as he spilled between them. 

For a moment, they stayed just like that—firmly pressed together, chests heaving, sticky with cum and spit and sweat. Shane fell forward to bury his face in Ilya’s neck, and he could feel Ilya’s pulse thudding beneath his lips. 

“Okay?” Ilya asked thickly. 

“Yeah,” Shane finally managed. “I’m really okay.”

“You are more than okay. Perfect, maybe.”

Shane felt his face heat again, but he didn’t allow himself to pull away. For once, he let himself just sit in the moment, let himself enjoy the warmth of Ilya’s body and the quiet affection in his touch. 

He could think about what this meant later. For now… he was okay with feeling this. 

Chapter End Notes

There wasn’t going to be sex here, but then I figured if I’m going to hell, I might as well go in a Lincoln. More realistically, I realized that this is chapter 7 out of 10, and I need to get moving and grooving if I’m going to stay on track with chapter count and my beat sheet and them beating schmeat.

 

Also, Erica has been kept abreast of your gratitude. I am a jealous ruler, so I am no longer requesting accolades for her at this time. If her head gets any bigger she’ll realize she can find a better friend than me, and then I’ll NEVER finish this due to heartbreak and loneliness.

 

Also also, I'm about to start a week of mental health leave from work on Monday, and I'm going to try to see if I can get this bad boy finished before February ends.

 

Hypothetically, if I were to write an Ilya-centered version of this story once we’re done here, is anyone interested in it?

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

When Shane woke in a daze, the early afternoon light had given way to the amber glow of the sunset. He usually hated a mid-afternoon nap and the havoc it wreaked on his schedule, but he could tell from the slight soreness in his muscles as he stretched out on the couch that he had needed the rest. 

Following the sounds and smells coming from the kitchen, he pulled his shirt on and walked through the house. Ilya was still shirtless and wearing only a pair of joggers slung low on his hips, bent over a cutting board and working on carefully dicing an onion. 

“Smells good. What are you making?”

Ilya smiled up at him, and the fond look on his face made Shane’s heart squeeze. 

“Hello, sleeping head. Pasta. No half-cooked tomatoes—I know you do not like the exploding tomato.”

Shane wasn’t even sure that he had ever even told Ilya that he didn’t like tomatoes, and yet… he’d noticed. Just like he seemed to notice everything else about him.

“That sounds great. Do you need any help?”

Ilya set the knife down, walking around the island to approach him. He tugged Shane in by the hips and planted a soft, gentle kiss on his lips before lightly pushing him away. 

“Hmm. No. Sit—I can cook.”

Shane perched on one of the stools at the island, watching Ilya move around the kitchen with a confident ease. He tracked how his shoulders shifted, muscles tensing and flexing as he reached for a pan without looking. 

There was something that almost felt unfair about how Ilya managed to look so handsome doing something as menial as sauteeing an onion, and Shane couldn’t help but catalogue all the small details about him—the faint scar near one of his shoulder blades, the strength in his bare forearms, and the efficiency in all of his movements as he flitted around the kitchen. 

It made a small, not entirely welcome thought creep into his head—that maybe someone like Ilya would fit better with someone who was sharper, or smoother, or easier than he was. 

Someone who didn’t sit and overthink anytime silence fell, or didn’t need to manually turn down the volume of the world to feel steady. He was still stuck on that thought when Ilya glanced up and caught him staring—breaking into a soft, knowing smile that reached his eyes. 

“You are so soft and pretty when you are sleepy, Котик.”

Shane blushed, like he always did when Ilya called him pretty. 

“Shut up, no I’m not!”

“Not sleepy now, maybe. You were snoring like lawnmower on couch. Soft? Mmmm, yes—I think so. Pretty? I know so.”

Shane scoffed, leaning back on his stool. “I do not snore, Ilya.”

Ilya smiled, leaning across the counter toward him. “I was awake, you were not. Honk shoo, honk shoo, mi mi mi.”

Shane rolled his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. “You can’t prove anything.”

Ilya smiled, reaching for his phone. “You want me recording video while you sleep? Take video of cute little Котик with soft little mouth open?”

“Jesus Christ,” Shane said. “Stop talking about my mouth!”

Ilya chuckled, tossing his phone onto the counter and cocked his head questioningly. “What, I cannot talk? I think about your mouth. Several times a day, in fact. But I cannot talk about mouth?"

Shane threw his hands up to cover his increasingly red face, and Ilya walked around the counter, tugging his hands down and cupping his face. 

“I like this mouth, Котик,” he whispered, leaning in to press a kiss against Shane’s lips. “Is my favorite mouth to think about, I think.”

Shane swallowed thickly, hyperaware of the warmth of Ilya’s hands on his face. Before he could try to think of a safer way to ask, the question had already slipping out of his mouth.

“So… how many other mouths were in the running?” he tried for casual and teasing, but he could hear in his voice that he had landed somewhere closer to tentative. 

Ilya’s expression shifted into something akin to confusion. “In the running?” he repeated, clearly trying to parse the phrasing. Then he let out a small, understanding hum. “Ah. I see.”

Ilya pulled back slightly, just far enough to look at Shane properly. 

“I am bisexual, Shane. I think is word, yes? I like men. I like women. And I have not been… I have not been a monk, no? What is word—not celibate?”

His honesty was simple and matter-of-fact. He knew Ilya was at least a few years older than he was, and he looked like that. Of course he wasn’t celibate. But something about hearing it aloud still made him feel pretty fucking terrible. 

“Right, yeah. That—that makes sense,” he said, trying not to let his voice betray his thoughts. “Would it be easier, then? If you were with a woman?”

Ilya’s brow furrowed slightly—not in irritation, but something that looked more like confusion. He seemed to genuinely consider what Shane was asking before he answered. “Easier for who?”

“I don’t know,” Shane admitted. “Just… in general, I guess? Less complicated. Less explaining. Less—” he broke off, waving one hand vaguely between the two of them and at the world in general and everything. 

Ilya was quiet for only a moment before he was shaking his head firmly. 

“Maybe would be easier if I was back in Russia. It is what they expect there—what they require. But they require many things I can not do,” he gazed down softly at Shane, lifting one hand to push Shane’s hair back from his face before he pressed their foreheads together. “I did not come here for easy. I came here to live life I want, yes?”

He slid hand from Shane’s face to rest against his chest, palm warm and steady. 

“Shane. Right now, I am where I want to be. Yes?”

The tension in Shane’s shoulders loosened slightly, and Ilya leaned back, pressing a firm kiss to his temple. “You think too much, possibly.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, slightly out of breath. “I know.”

Shane took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of Ilya’s skin. 

“Oh, uhm… I’m gay, by the way.”

Ilya laughed, wrapping his arms around Shane’s shoulders in a firm hug before stepping back to stir the food on the stovetop. 

“Oh? I could not have guessed.”

“Oh, fuck off, Ilya!”

While Ilya continued working on their dinner, Shane stayed perched on the stool, just watching. Only a few minutes had passed before Ilya’s phone rang from where he’d left it on the counter, and since it was face up, Shane could read the caller's name. 

Mikhail (Discipline)

“Who is it?” Ilya asked, making no effort to move from the stove. 

“Oh, uh… Mikhail?” he said, trying not to note the addition of the word discipline to the contact instead of a surname. 

Ilya shrugged, not turning away from his pan or asking for the phone. 

“Is okay. He can leave voicemail if he has something to say that is worth hearing.”

“Alright,” Shane said, clicking the power button and sending the call to voicemail. 

“How hungry are you?” Ilya asked, holding up two differently sized bowls—one deep and narrow, the other shallow but wide. 

“Oh… could I…”

“Small portion in bigger bowl, yes?”

Shane nodded, not even sure how Ilya had known what he was going to ask for. “Yeah, that sounds great. Only one slice of bread, please. It smells great, but I’m on a—”

Before he could finish, the phone started ringing again, screen lighting up. 

Dima (Compliance)

Ilya cursed, setting the bowls down and reaching for the phone. “Can you dish? I might be a moment, but I will try to come back to eat with you. Do not wait for me.”

Shane nodded, reaching for the bowls and scooping out portions of the pasta as Ilya walked off into the living room, talking in low, annoyed tones in Russian to whoever was on the other end of the line. 

He ate his pasta alone when Ilya still hadn’t returned twenty minutes later. 

***

When Ilya returned almost an hour after taking the call—no longer shirtless—Shane was watching a video on his phone, volume only just loud enough to cover the sound of Ilya’s conversation in the living room—not that he had been able to understand a word of it anyway. 

He re-entered the room slowly—not angry, but looking like he carried a weight on his shoulders that ran contrary to his joking ease when they’d been together in the kitchen. 

“Thank you for not waiting. I did not mean to be gone so long,” he said, putting his bowl of pasta in the microwave and humming when he saw Shane had cleaned the kitchen in his absence. “And thank you, for the dishes.”

Shane nodded, waving away the gratitude. “It’s okay. It gave me something to do so you could have your privacy.”

Ilya stood at the microwave, shoulders still a bit tense as he played with the necklace at his throat, before sighing and pulling his dinner from the microwave and falling into the chair next to Shane. He kicked out a leg to rest across Shane’s thigh, and Shane turned off his phone, dropping his hand to stroke along Ilya’s shin. 

“Do they always call you this late on a Saturday? Or… is Saturday when you work?”

Ilya looked at him while he chewed, still looking slightly annoyed. “I prefer they do not call on weekends. But sometimes they need. I do not like calls at dinner. Emergencies only.”

Shane nodded, focusing on the feeling of Ilya’s leg hair under his hand as he tried to make sense of that. “Was that an emergency?”

Ilya shrugged, leaning back a bit in his chair. “It was to them. I do not think it was enough of a problem to call me from you. But… we do not always get what we want, no?”

“I just…” Shane hesitated, drawing soft circles on Ilya’s leg and trying to come up with something to say that didn’t sound stupid. “I missed you. And I wanted to eat with you.”

Ilya nudged Shane with his socked foot, making him look up to meet Ilya’s eyes. “I want to eat with you as well. I did not answer phone because I wanted, yes? I answer because I had to. In ideal world, I have no responsibility and I can give you all the attention I want.”

Shane nodded, taking the opportunity to press just a little. “Don’t you have like… a second-in-command or something?”

Ilya shook his head, stealing a sip of Shane’s open ginger ale. “No. I am intermediary, myself. Advisor, in a way. But I do not have someone else to pass it off to. I handle it, or it goes up chain.”

Ilya leaned forward, setting the can back on the table and invading Shane’s personal space. “I mean it. Котик—look at me. I do not want to spend evening on phone with stupid people with stupid problem. I do not want to think about them.”

Ilya was close—close enough that he could see the crease back between his eyebrows, could smell his cologne, and could still see the lingering tension in his shoulders. He put a hand on Ilya’s knee, pulling Ilya’s leg into his chest. 

“I know. I just… sometimes it feels like there’s something pulling you away. I like it when it’s just you and me.”

The tension bled out of Ilya’s body, and he folded forward over his bent leg, resting his forehead on Shane’s shoulder. “It is my favorite thing, also. Quiet. You. No one needing anything.” 

Shane exhaled slowly, bringing his hand up to thread into Ilya’s soft hair. He started gently carding his fingers through the curls, making Ilya sigh into his shoulder. 

“You always take care of everyone,” Shane murmured. “Can I be selfish and have you for a night?”

Ilya pulled his head up just enough to look at him. His eyes were sharp with surprise for just a moment before it morphed into something else—something darker and deeper. 

Ilya sat up, sliding his foot off ‌Shane’s thigh and hooking it under his chair to scoot him closer. Once Shane’s chair was closer to his own, he reached out to grab at his hips, tugging him until he was sitting sideways in Ilya’s lap.

“You are not selfish,” Ilya said firmly, voice rough. “You are… priority.”

Shane’s fingers curled into the fabric of Ilya’s shirt before he knew he was moving. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, could feel it in his wrists. 

“Ilya,” he said. Ilya’s name was softer than he’d meant it to be and sounded more like a question than a name. 

Ilya answered by closing the distance between them, pressing their mouths together. Shane’s fingers tightened in Ilya’s shirt as the kiss deepened, and Ilya’s hand came up to cradle his jaw just firmly enough to ground him. When they separated, Shane was breathing hard—heart hammering against his ribs. 

“Ilya,” he said again, voice almost a whine. Not quite a question, almost an answer. 

Ilya dragged his thumb along Shane’s cheekbone, his eyes searching for something. “Tell me what you want, Котик.”

Shane swallowed, aware of the heat of Ilya’s body. His thighs beneath him, his hand warm against his face, the other resting on his hip. He knew what he wanted. He’d known it for weeks now—maybe part of him had wanted it a little longer. 

But saying it out loud felt like skating out onto pond ice that hadn’t been tested yet. 

“I want—” his voice cracked, and he paused, clearing his throat. “I—can we go to your bedroom?”

The hand on his hip tightened just a fraction. 

“Yes. But I need you to be very sure. Not because you think I demand this, or because you try to make me happy, or—”

“I’m sure,” Shane interrupted, surprising himself with how certain he sounded. “I think about you, too. I want this. You.”

Ilya studied him for a long moment, and Shane ignored the impulse to look away. Instead, he forced himself to meet Ilya’s gaze, to let Ilya see whatever it was that he was looking for. 

Finally, Ilya nodded, gently pushing Shane up to stand first and pulling him by the hand through the house to his bedroom. 

Ilya turned to face him as they entered, still holding his hand. “We stop whenever you want. Just say the word. You understand? Do not do anything you do not want.”

“I know.”

“And you will tell me if something does not feel good, yes? I need you to use words, Shane. I need it. Not just—” he gestured vaguely at Shane’s face, looking a bit overwhelmed. “--make face and hope I guess correct. Yes?”

Despite his nerves—a different sort, this time—Shane barked out a little laugh. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Good,” Ilya said, tugging him closer to press a kiss to his forehead, then his temple, then the corner of his mouth. “I think about this also. Very much. More than I probably should. Definitely more than is appropriate for coffee shop.”

Shane felt the now familiar heat rise in his cheeks again at the rough rasp of his voice. “Oh, yeah?”

“Mmm,” Ilya hummed, sliding his hands under Shane’s shirt, his palms warm against Shane’s stomach. “You have no idea. So distracting, when you reach for things on high shelf. Or when you bite lip doing little art on latte. Or when you pout when you think too hard.”

“I don’t—” he started to protest, but Ilya was surging forward to kiss him again, swallowing the rest of the sentence before he could get it out. 

“You do,” he mumbled against Shane’s lips. “You are very pretty when you think no one watches.”

Shane’s breath caught in his throat as Ilya pulled his hands up his ribs, pulling the shirt off with them. He lifted his arms automatically, allowing Ilya to pull it up over his head. The cold air made him break out in goosebumps—or maybe it was the hungry, appreciative way that Ilya was  staring at him.

“Your turn,” Shane said, tugging at Ilya’s shirt. His hands were steadier than he figured they would be. Ilya smiled at him and acquiesced. Once they were both shirtless, Ilya kissed him again, walking him slowly backward toward the bed. Ilya gently pushed him to sit on the edge, but Ilya remained standing between his knees. 

“I am going to ask questions,” Ilya said, framing Shane’s face with his hands. “You are going to answer honestly, yes?”

“Yeah,” Shane breathed out. 

“You have never done this before?” 

Shane’s stomach swooped—he knew what this had to mean. They’d gotten each other off several times now, hands, hips, mouths… there was only one this that he could think of that was left. 

“Not… not like this. Not—” he cleared his throat. “Not penetrative. I told you that.”

Ilya nodded, his expression unchanged. No judgment, no surprise, just listening, receiving, and processing the information. 

“I’ve done… uh… hand stuff? With one of Rose’s friends. But it was—it wasn’t good. He didn’t really care if I was into it, and I spent most of my time in my head about it. Nothing like what I’ve done with you.”

“Then he was an idiot,” Ilya said flatly, something that might have been jealousy flicking across his face. “And he did not deserve you.”

Shane felt something warm light in his chest. “Yeah, well. I hadn’t exactly been eager to try again after that.”

“You are eager now?”

Shane looked up at him, the careful way ‌Ilya was holding himself still between his legs. Giving him time to change his mind, or say no, or to deescalate and choose something with lower stakes. Which… maybe that was exactly why he wasn’t going to. 

“Yeah,” he breathed. “I am.”

“Good. Then I will have to make sure is good for you, yes? But I cannot read your mind, even if I wish I could sometimes.”

“Okay.”

“Shane?” Ilya waited until Shane fully met his eyes. “I want you very much. I am very attracted to you—more than I should be, maybe. This is not—I do not do this because I feel pity for you or I think you need to be treated like glass doll. You are strong, yes? Very capable. But this is first time doing this, and I need it to be good for you. I need you to remember this as something good.”

Humiliatingly, Shane’s throat felt tight, as if he might cry. So instead of trying to talk, he reached up to wrap his arms around Ilya’s neck, tugging him down into a kiss that he hoped conveyed all the thoughts he couldn’t trust himself to say. 

Ilya pushed him back to lie on the bed and pulled off his pants before he started on his own. As he lay there naked on Ilya’s sheets, he tried not to feel self-conscious from the weight of Ilya’s gaze on him. He was used to being looked at—on the ice, in locker rooms—but the intimacy of this moment was something else entirely. 

“Beautiful,” Ilya murmured, settling beside him on the bed. “You are so beautiful, Shane.”

Before Shane could protest or deflect, Ilya was kissing him again—warm hands roaming over his chest and down his sides. Every touch was deliberate and exploratory. Shane let himself sink into the sensation, let himself settle and just feel. Ilya’s hands on his body, the slide of skin against skin, the heat rapidly building between them. 

When Ilya’s large, calloused hand finally wrapped around him, he gasped ‌into his mouth, hips jerking involuntarily in Ilya’s grasp. 

“Good?” Ilya asked, pulling away just enough to watch Shane’s face as he continued to stroke. 

“Really good,” Shane gasped.

“Tell me when you want more.”

Shane nodded, then remembered Ilya’s earlier instructions. Words. He needed to remember how to talk long enough to use his words. 

“I want more. I— I want you.”

Ilya made a sound in his throat halfway between a groan and a growl. “Yes. Okay. One moment.”

Ilya pulled away, rolling over to dig through a nightstand. Shane took the opportunity to catch his breath and center himself. For once, his heart was racing with something that didn’t even remotely resemble anxiety. 

There was a lot he didn’t know about Ilya. Didn’t really know what his “meetings” were about, what words like discipline or compliance meant in context. Didn’t know what it was that he’d left behind in Russia or what it was that he was trying to build here. 

But he knew how Ilya looked at him. Knew how he’d tended so carefully to Shane’s injuries after the scrum at the bar, the patience with which he answered questions or gave him space to figure out what he wanted without pressure. 

He knew that for the first time in possibly ever, he felt seen. That when they talked, Ilya actually listened, really listened, to what he said and what he didn’t. 

He knew Ilya had chosen him, just as deliberately as he was choosing Ilya. 

“Where did you go?” Ilya asked, settling to kneel between Shane’s spread legs as he gently pushed them further apart. 

“Nowhere bad,” he said, refocusing on Ilya’s face with ‌slight concern. “Just… thinking.”

“About?” 

“About how much I want this. You. Even though there’s a lot I don’t know.”

Ilya’s expression shifted into something he couldn’t quite decipher. “Shane—”

“No. I’m not asking you to tell me everything,” he interrupted. “I’m just saying… I’m choosing this. I’m choosing you. I’m here.”

For a moment, Ilya looked almost stunned, leaning in to press their foreheads together. “You are too good for me, I think. But I am much too selfish to walk away.”

“Then don’t.”

“I couldn’t,” Ilya promised as he kissed him again. 

The preparation was slow, careful, and just as patient as Shane would have expected. Ilya started with just one slick finger, circling and pressing gently while the other stroked soothingly up and down the length of Shane’s thigh. 

“Relax for me,” Ilya murmured, pressing a kiss against Shane’s knee and then another to his lip. “Let me in, yes?”

Shane exhaled slowly, consciously relaxing muscles he hadn’t realized he’d tensed. The initial intrusion felt strange—not painful, just decidedly unfamiliar—but as Ilya worked his finger deeper and crooked it slightly, Shane felt his breath catch for an entirely different reason. 

“Good?” Ilya asked, watching his face. 

“Yeah, good. Please—keep going.”

And Ilya did, establishing a slow, grinding rhythm with his hand—in and out, just a bit deeper each time, until Shane felt himself shifting into it each time. When Ilya withdrew completely to drizzle more lube onto his hand, Shane almost whined at the loss. 

“Patience, Котик,” Ilya said with a hint of amusement. “We are not rushing this. You wanted my attention, you will get it.”

The second finger was more of a stretch, and Shane couldn’t help but hiss slightly when Ilya pressed them both in together. Ilya immediately stilled while Shane focused on his breathing and the feeling of Ilya’s free hand rubbing little circles on his hip. Gradually, the discomfort faded, and Ilya began moving again. When he did, fingers scissoring him open, Shane couldn’t help but let out a low moan. 

“There you go,” Ilya praised, voice heated. “So good for me. You are taking so well.”

By the time Ilya added a third finger, Shane was actively rocking into the touch, chasing the sensation. Ilya’s searching fingers brushed against something inside him that made him gasp and jerk against him. 

“Fuck!”

Ilya smiled something wicked and leaned forward to suck Shane’s cock into his mouth as he pressed against the spot again—more deliberately—and Shane’s vision whited out for a moment. 

“Feels fucking incredible,” Shane managed when he caught Ilya’s glance upward, one brow cocked. “Fuck,” he moaned out as he fisted one hand in the sheets and shoved the other into Ilya’s hair. 

Ilya continued working him open like that—three fingers moved in a steady, precise rhythm, occasionally crooking to nail the spot inside him while he slowly sucked him down—until Shane was a writhing, half-delirious, sweaty mess on the sheets. Just when Shane felt like he might come from that alone, Ilya slowly withdrew his fingers and sat up with a last long, lingering pull of his cock. 

Shane watched through heavy, half-lidded eyes as Ilya grabbed a condom from where he’d dropped it on the bed, tearing it open with his teeth. The sight of Ilya rolling it down his length—thick and hard and flushed with arousal—sent another rush of anticipation through him. 

Ilya grabbed the lube, slicking himself generously, before positioning himself between Shane’s spread thighs. 

“Tell me if you need me to stop,” he said, lining himself up. Shane crooked one leg over Ilya’s foot, bending the other to sit flat on the bed. Ilya’s hand came to wrap around his ankle, holding him steady. 

“I will—but right now I really need you to start.”

He was feeling so wrung out already—boneless and warm and ready—but he felt like he might combust if Ilya didn’t get inside ‌him immediately. 

“Look at me,” Ilya said thickly. “I need to see you.”

Shane forced his eyes open, meeting Ilya’s gaze as he pressed in slowly. When the head breached him and the stretch was immediately more intense than the fingers had been, Shane’s breath stuttered and he dug his fingers into Ilya’s shoulders. 

“Breathe, Котик,” Ilya said, holding himself perfectly still even though Shane could see the tension in his jaw. “I have you.”

Shane breathed. Adjusted. Ilya pressed in another inch and paused again. And repeated. The burn faded into something else entirely—an intense fullness, heat. The slide felt endless, like Ilya was impossibly deep, and by the time their hips were flush against him, Shane felt split open in the best way possible. 

“Okay,” he groaned out. “I’m okay. You can move.”

Ilya pulled back slowly, almost all ‌the way out, before sliding back in with the same careful degree of control. He set a measured pace, each thrust slow and deep. His eyes never left Shane’s face, and he could only imagine what he looked like to Ilya. After a few strokes, he adjusted his angle slightly, rolling his hips, and—

“Oh, fuck!” 

Shane’s back bowed as Ilya’s cock dragged directly over his prostate, and his ears started ringing.

“There it is,” Ilya said with satisfaction clear in his voice as he did it again, brushing over the same spot again. “Yes?”

Shane wasn’t even capable of speech, but fortunately Ilya didn’t push him when he let out a high keening noise instead of actually speaking back. 

Ilya shifted Shane’s leg higher on his hip, changing the angle more, and thrust with more purpose. Each thrust was harder now, more deliberate and carefully aimed. His hands slid down to Shane’s chest, thumbing over his nipples before continuing down to his hips, using them as leverage to pull Shane further onto him with each movement. 

“So good,” Ilya murmured, eyes roaming across Shane’s body. “So perfect. You know how good you look like this? How long I have wanted to see you like this?”

Words were completely out of Shane’s control, and he was sure he babbled something, but it seemed good enough for Ilya as he continued moving, hitting that spot within him over and over. Shane’s hands moved restlessly across Ilya’s back, through his hair, over his shoulders as he tried to anchor himself against the sensation. He could feel every ridge and vein of Ilya’s cock—could feel his own muscles fluttering and clenching around him. 

“Shane,” Ilya gasped out. “Touch yourself. I want to feel you come around me.”

Without even thinking, Shane obeyed, wrapping his hand around himself. The first stroke sent sparks up his spine, and it truly didn’t take long. He was already so close, already wound so tightly. Only a few strokes and he was gone, crying out incoherently as he painted his stomach and chest, clenching down on Ilya. 

The sensation—or maybe the sight—must have been what Ilya needed because his own hips stuttered before slamming forward one last time as he buried himself deep and pressed his face into Shane’s neck as he emptied himself into the condom. 

For a long moment, they stayed like that. Tangled together, breathing hard, with their hearts racing. Ilya’s weight was heavy on him, but he didn’t mind it. He wrapped his arms around Ilya’s sweaty back, holding him close as their heartbeats gradually slowed. 

Eventually, Ilya lifted his head, pressing a kiss to Shane’s temple, then his cheek, then his mouth—softly and tenderly. 

“I need to pull out,” Ilya said quietly. “Might be uncomfortable, yes?”

He was right. As Ilya carefully withdrew, Shane winced at the slow drag and the sudden feeling of emptiness. He tied off the condom and tossed it toward a wastebasket before disappearing into what must’ve been his bathroom. 

When he returned, he had a warm, damp cloth that he used to clean Shane with the same careful attention he’d always shown him. Gentle swipes across his stomach, his chest—then more carefully between his legs. But despite how gentle he was trying to be, Shane hissed at the feeling, regardless. 

“Sorry,” Ilya murmured. “Almost done.”

Once he was finished and they were both clean, Ilya tossed the cloth away and pulled Shane against his chest, moving them so Shane’s head rested over his heart. He moved one hand through Shane’s damp hair in long, soothing strokes. 

“How do you feel?” Ilya asked quietly. 

Physically, he felt sore, but pretty good—a deep ache that might make tomorrow morning interesting, but nothing hurt. Emotionally, he felt… settled. More secure. Like something uncertain was finally settling. 

“Good,” he said. “Great. That was—thank you.”

Ilya chuckled, pressing a kiss against the side of his head. “You do not need to thank me for sex, Котик.”

“I know. But still.” Shane pressed a kiss to Ilya’s chest, right over his heart. 

They lay there in silence in the soft dark of Ilya’s room. It surprised him a bit, how steady he felt. He knew—it was an objective fact—that he didn’t know everything about Ilya, and even earlier that night it had itched at him. It had been a loud cry earlier, demanding to be solved or categorized. 

But wrapped in the warmth of Ilya’s sheets, with the faint scent of skin and sweat in the air, he felt as though the uncertainty was finally manageable. Like… maybe he didn’t need to understand everything for this to be real. 

The steady thumping of Ilya’s heart under his cheek was soothing, and it helped anchor him in his body instead of his head.

The questions about Ilya’s work, the strange calls, the meetings—they all drifted at the edges of his awareness instead of clawing for attention. 

He turned his head slightly, watching the solid line of Ilya’s profile beside him. Ilya felt more solid than the questions that had been in the back of his mind. And maybe that counted for something. 

His gaze snagged on the crucifix at Ilya’s throat where Ilya rolled it absently between his fingers sometimes, like a habit. Shane had noticed that before. After the phone calls, after tense moments. 

A tic, maybe. Or a tell. 

Or guilt. 

No—not guilt. That wasn’t fair. Just… weight. Responsibility. The sort of things that men like Ilya carried that he didn’t. 

Men who protected those close to them by not sharing too much. 

The thought warmed him a little—how much Ilya wanted him safe. Even from that very first night, insisting on staying until closing to keep Shane safe. 

Shane traced a lazy pattern against Ilya’s arm before he figured out what to say. 

“You don’t need to keep parts of your world away from me to keep me safe.”

It wasn’t until the silence stretched a beat too long that he realized it might not have landed the way he meant it to. Ilya’s heart skipped—the rhythm actually stuttering under his ear before steadying out again. His hand, no longer slowly carding through his hair, lay heavy and frozen against the back of his head.

It felt brave to say it. Mature, maybe. Like he was meeting Ilya halfway.

He looked up at Ilya and was surprised to see the furrow ‌between his eyebrows again. 

“To keep you… safe?” Ilya repeated quietly. 

“I know you deal with things you can’t really tell me about,” Shane said, feeling a little shy but earnest and brave from what they’d just shared. “The calls, the people, the… whatever it is that you have to handle. I’m not scared of it. Not anymore.” 

Ilya’s hands reflexively curled for a brief moment before they relaxed again as the silence dragged for a moment, just heavy enough that Shane could start to feel it pressing on his chest.

“I just—you don’t have to protect me from that stuff. I like you, Ilya. All of you.”

The silence stretched long enough this time to feel deliberate. 

“Shane,” he said, voice having lost its usual teasing warmth and his eyes having cooled to something distant. “What is it you think I do?”

Shane’s stomach dipped, but he pushed himself to continue. “I mean—you said it yourself. Discipline. Compliance. People call you when things go wrong. You solve the problems, you keep people from getting in too deep, you handle it before the police do. You’re part of a chain of command, for god’s sake. I’m not stupid, Ilya. I can put things together.”

The words sounded almost reasonable to him when he said them aloud. Thoughtful, even. Yet Ilya’s eyes slid away from him, and for a long moment he said nothing at all. 

The silence this time was heavier. 

When Ilya spoke again, his voice was softer—but something about that softness made his words cut harder. “You believed I was criminal,” he said. Not a question. Not really an accusation either. Just a statement, like pointing out that the sky was blue. “And you still came to my bed?”

There was no anger in Ilya’s voice—that’s what made Shane’s stomach drop. Anger he could argue with, but this was something else. 

Something… resigned. 

Shane’s mouth opened, then closed. “I didn’t—I mean, I don’t—I don’t care about that. I care about you.”

Ilya looked at him then in a way he never had before—it wasn’t fond, wasn’t amused. Not warm. He just looked… tired. Hurt. 

“You trusted me with your body, but not with a question."

The words landed on Shane awfully and dull. He pushed himself up on one elbow, shifting off ‌Ilya’s chest to lie beside him so he could see him more clearly. He reached for him instinctively, but Ilya was already pulling the sheet up—not roughly, just deliberately. A boundary drawn where there hadn’t been one before.

“Ilya, I was trying to be understanding—”

“You were trying to decide who I am without asking who I am,” Ilya corrected. No heat, not loud. 

That was worse, somehow. 

Ilya sat up, back to Shane, crucifix turning between his fingers again. This time, Shane understood the gesture differently. Not guilt. Not secrecy. 

Self soothing. 

“You should have asked me,” he said, hurt clear in his voice. 

“I tried—”

“No,” he interrupted again. “You asked me questions about part of my life I move here to try to forget. You did not ever try to ask me this.”

Shane felt nauseous, panic immediately welling back within him. He reached a hand out to touch Ilya, but the moment his fingertips grazed Ilya’s skin, he flinched away and Shane immediately pulled back. The room felt colder, despite the warmth lingering on the mattress. 

Finally, Ilya turned his head just far enough that Shane could see his face, even though he could tell that Ilya’s gaze was fixed unseeingly on something past him. 

“You—I think you should go home tonight.”

As he gathered his clothes and dressed, Ilya didn’t move. The rustle of the fabric sounded incredibly loud in the silence of the bedroom, his chest felt tight—full of words he should have said and questions he should have asked instead. 

At the door, he hesitated—hand hovering over the doorknob, half-hoping that Ilya would come out from the bedroom to stop him, even though he knew he didn’t deserve it. 

When nothing came, he slipped out and closed the door carefully behind him, carrying the weight of the silence all the way to his car. 

Chapter End Notes

Oh, Shane…

 

So this is actually the chapter that popped into my head, almost fully formed, when I was driving to work a couple of weeks ago that started this whole thing—which means short upload time because it was already partially written.

 

If you don’t feel great reading this, I didn’t feel great writing it—but the prior 7 chapters were all engineered to get us to right here. Only two left after this! Chapter nine is already in progress, I just didn't want to sit on this anymore.

 

And if you are interested in Ilya’s perspective, the first chapter of that will post simultaneously with the last chapter of this story.  

Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

Happy Valentine's Day, I guess. I could've made you sit with Chapter Eight for DAAAAYS but I respect you all far too much for that.

The minute he’d gotten home, he had immediately fished his phone from his pocket. He knew he couldn’t just leave it like that—couldn’t leave Ilya thinking that he didn’t know exactly how dumb he’d been. 

But he’d known Ilya wouldn’t want to talk to him. He’d kicked him out, in fact. This wasn’t the sort of anger that would go away after a five-minute walk around the block and a stiff drink. He knew he’d be lucky if Ilya ever even spoke to him again. If there was anything that Shane hated, it was people misunderstanding him and his routines—and he’d gone and misunderstood every aspect of Ilya after he had shown him a deeper understanding than Shane had ever experienced before. 

He dropped on the couch, wincing when the weight of his body crashing onto the cushions reminded him of exactly what he had done that night before blowing up his relationship. Had it even been a relationship? Could he call it that when apparently he had taken every opportunity to misunderstand and misread Ilya?

He had no idea how long he sat on the couch. Long enough that his breathing had gone ragged and then evened out a few times. Long enough that his phone had gone completely dead from him keeping the screen on and the text chain with Ilya open as he tried to think of something to say. 

His chest felt wrong—too tight, like he couldn’t find the correct rhythm to take in a full lungful of air. Every time that fucking conversation replayed in his head, it rearranged itself into something worse. They were different words, but the same meaning. The same look on Ilya’s face. 

The same hurt. 

And he’d done that. He’d been the one to put it there. 

When the front door of the apartment banged open, he only barely heard it even though he could feel the vibration across the floor from it hitting the wall. Hayden and Jackie tumbled in, laughing about something as they entered before they fell completely silent. 

“Shane? Dude—what the hell happened? Are you okay?”

He looked up at that, finally coming back to his body. He was so, so tired, and he could feel the tension in his muscles not only from his activities earlier in the night but from how tightly he’d been coiled into himself on the couch. His cheeks weren’t wet anymore, but his eyes felt swollen and burned, so at some point he must have been crying. 

Jackie kicked off her shoes and dropped her bag to the floor with a clatter, Hayden only a foot behind her as they rushed over to him. 

“Hey—hey. Is everything okay? Are your parents alright? What’s going on?”

His eyes darted from her to Hayden, and he opened his mouth to try to answer, but he‌ immediately started crying again. 

“Shane? Buddy, you’re scaring me. Breathe. What’s up?”

Jackie perched on the arm of the couch beside him, reaching over to stroke her hand down his back as he took a few deep, shuddering breaths, trying to get himself under control. Hayden crouched down in front of him, resting his hands on Shane’s shaking knees. 

Shane tried to inhale, but it hitched in his chest halfway ‌through. 

“I fucked up,” he said hoarsely.

Jackie’s eyes scanned him like she were checking for injuries, confusion still clear on her face. “Did you get hurt? Shane, what’s going on?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head too hard. “I just—I said something stupid. To Ilya.”

Hayden and Jackie exchanged a look. 

“Okay…” Jackie said carefully. “Stupid how? We saw you two last night—I can’t imagine what could’ve possibly happened between now and then that would have you this upset.”

Shane laughed weakly, the sound dry and ironic. “Like… nuclear-level stupid.”

“Come on,” Jackie said, hand still rubbing soothingly over his back. “Talk to us. Hayden, can you get him some water?”

Hayden trotted off into the kitchen to grab a glass while Jackie focused on rubbing circles down his spine. When Hayden returned, Shane drank the water quickly. Jackie pulled the glass from his hand, pressing the cold cup against the back of his neck. 

He sat there for a long few minutes, taking deep breaths and trying to get himself under control. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes like he could erase the last few hours and tried again. 

“I thought he was—” he cut himself off, jaw clenching. Trying to say it out loud—finally—made him realize exactly how stupid he had been. 

Hayden frowned, tapping his fingers on Shane’s leg. “Thought he was what?”

Shane swallowed thickly, knowing that he needed to tell them but feeling so very humiliated to actually say it.

“Involved in something. Something bad. Like… crime-adjacent.”

There were a few moments of silence while Jackie and Hayden processed that. 

“Crime-adjacent?”

“I just didn’t decide that,” Shane said quickly, defensive and miserable. “I just—there were signs? The way people act around him. Weird phone calls. Always having these big group meetings in Russian. Not ever telling me about any of his friends. And he just uses words sometimes that felt like they had a double meaning. It sound—” 

He broke off, shaking his head at himself. “It sounded like something else.”

Hayden stared at him blankly. “You thought your boyfriend was in the mafia?”

The word landed like a puck to the face, making Shane flinch. 

“I didn’t say mafia.”

“You didn’t have to,” Hayden said. 

The apartment went quiet again. Hayden and Jackie stared at him with something akin to pity, but their silence didn’t seem judgmental, just stunned. 

“Did he ever say anything to you that explicitly supported that?” Jackie asked, breaking the silence. 

“No.”

“Did you ask him?”

Shane’s silence was the only answer he needed to give. 

“Oh, Shane,” Hayden said tiredly, dragging a hand down his face. 

“I wasn’t scared of him,” Shane said, voice wobbling as he fought back the urge to start crying again. “That’s the worst part, I think. I wasn’t—I really wasn’t. I just thought… that was his life, and he was trying to keep it separate. And I told him he didn’t have to keep all the parts of his world away from me anymore. He could let me in.”

Jackie’s eyes softened with understanding, and she squeezed his hand where he’d clenched it in the fabric of his pants. “And he realized what you thought.”

Shane nodded, his throat tight. “He said… he said I trusted him with my body but not enough to ask him real questions. And then told me to go home.”

Hayden winced. “Yeah. That’s… fuck. That’s rough, man.”

Jackie stiffened against him, and he realized she’d caught what he said. “You guys…”

“Yeah.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“For the first time?”

Shane couldn’t answer this time, just stared at the carpet numbly—but she must’ve understood his silence for the confession that it definitely was.

“Shit, Shane. Oh my god—I’m so sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. 

They sat there in silence, Shane just crying into Jackie’s shoulder while she continued to rub circles on his back and Hayden fidgeted on the floor in front of them.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when the door opened again and Rose—breathless and concerned, jacket only half-zipped—hurried into their apartment. Hayden must have texted her when he’d been in the kitchen.

“Okay, what happened?” she asked as she crossed the floor in three strides. 

Shane couldn’t bring himself to speak, so Hayden took it upon himself to get her up to speed. 

“Shane thought Ilya was, like, mob-adjacent.”

Rose stared blankly at Hayden before turning to look at Shane. “Is he serious?”

Shane couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes. “I just… I filled in the blanks wrong.”

“Oh my god,” she whispered, coming up to sit on the couch on his other side. “That’s what you meant at brunch. Shane. That’s… what the fuck?”

Shane groaned, pulling his knees up to his chest and hugging his legs. 

“I know, okay? I know,” he snapped. 

Rose exhaled slowly, leaning back into the couch. “I know you tend to spiral when you get overwhelmed, but like… you made up a whole story about him. And you never even tried asking him if any of it was true?”

Shane swallowed hard, knowing to the very core of himself that he was the one in the wrong. “I slept with him thinking that he was someone dangerous. And he slept with me thinking… thinking that I fucking trusted him.”

Nobody had an answer to that, and the weight of it landed heavily between them all. 

Shane stared at the floor in front of him, voice small when he finally spoke. “I think I broke something that I can’t fix.”

He sat in silence with his friends for the rest of the night. Well, he was silent—when he wasn’t crying, at least. They quietly filled the room with small sounds, just enough to keep him anchored. Hayden threw up one of his videos about a shipwreck—he tried not to view the sinking of the Morro Castle as a metaphor for what he’d just done—Rose and Jackie talked softly, just loud enough to fill his ears with a quiet hum. 

After a few hours, Hayden came from the kitchen, bringing Shane a salad and urging him to eat. 

He stared down at the bowl and tried not to cry. He was touched that Hayden was trying to help, but it was all wrong. 

The lettuce was already wilted, it was already tossed, and a thick layer of bleu cheese coated everything. Overripe tomatoes were leaking into the mess of it, and the croutons were quickly growing soggy. 

Ilya would’ve known better.

He picked through it, looking for a few bites he could stomach.

Being loved wasn’t always the same thing as being understood.

***

Shane: I’m an idiot. 

Shane: You were right. I didn’t ask enough of the right sort of questions and I

Shane: I was wrong and 

Shane: I can’t even go to work without thi

Shane: I miss you

No matter how hard he tried to come up with something good enough to say, the words eluded him. He knew—no, he guessed. Famously, he shouldn’t trust everything he ‘knew’—that Ilya wouldn’t answer if he tried calling. And he didn’t want to try to force Ilya to talk to him if he wasn’t interested. But no matter how many times he tried starting a message, he’d just delete them all because none of them were enough. 

I’m sorry felt inadequate to address the weight of what he’d done. 

I didn’t mean it like that sounded like a lie.

Can we talk felt selfish, especially since he was the one who had caused all of this damage. 

Shane: I should have asked you instead of assuming

Delete. 

That sounded like he were still trying to explain instead of actually apologizing. 

He knew how this worked for a hockey play, a class schedule. If A leads to B, and B leads to C, it was easy to see where the problem was. It wasn’t as simple with people. 

Especially not when it wasn’t people, it was Ilya. The same someone who had looked at him with so much quiet and hurt and closed off in a way that Shane could hardly stomach remembering. 

It was frustrating, realizing exactly how profoundly he’d misunderstood. He was used to being able to make analytical but correct assumptions, and it showed during his shifts on ice. He could anticipate angles, predict movements, and see how things could develop before a puck even reached him. 

But here, with Ilya, he’d ignored the whole ice and focused on only one player, convinced that he could read the outcome. He hadn’t misread just one single moment—he’d committed to the wrong play and had forced himself to see it through regardless of how many changes were happening around him that required reassessment. 

Shane: I trust you.

He stared at the words until they started to feel dishonest. If he’d trusted Ilya in the first place—if he hadn’t made up some absolutely batshit story and ran with it—they wouldn’t be here now. He could’ve said, hey, this doesn’t make sense. He could’ve said, hey, explain like I’m five—what do you do for work?

Instead, he’d chosen to build a whole narrative out of scraps and treat Ilya like the villain in a shitty movie. Enter: handsome man in dark clothes. Very mysterious. Thick Russian accent, lit cigarette. Man delivers line ominously in Russian directly into camera, pulling a Kalashnikov from within the folds of his coat. Exit left. 

He was a fucking idiot. He’d been a fucking xenophobe.

He’d neatly slotted him into a shallow husk of a stereotype and had been entirely comfortable doing so. 

Delete.

Shane: I’m sorry I made up my mind without letting you talk to me.

Delete. 

***

Ilya forgoing his solo visits wasn’t exactly a surprise. Shane barely wanted to see his own face in the mirror most mornings now. It wasn’t exactly a stretch to assume that Ilya felt the same way about seeing him. 

He had only just reached the point where he had been able to stop looking up at the door with a quiet, stupid hope every time that the bell chimed when a voice cut through his routine. 

“Shane, right?”

He glanced up, startled, and recognized the American kid who used to come in with Ilya. 

“Yeah,” he said automatically. “Hey. What can I get started for you?”

“Oh—uh… Nothing, actually,” the guy shifted on his feet, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Do you know where Rozanov’s Table is?”

Shane blinked dumbly. He could practically hear the capital letters in his speech. 

“Rozanov’s… table?”

The student frowned as if Shane was missing something big—and if there was anything that the last week had taught him, it was that he probably was. 

“Yeah… our study group? I thought you were close with Rozanov. Some of the guys used to joke about you two like—” he cut himself off, wincing. “Sorry. Forget that.”

Study group.

The words rearranged themselves in Shane’s head. 

Study. Group. 

Fucking of course it had been. 

“Oh,” Shane said, voice thin even to his own ears. “Right. Yeah. The study group. No—I don’t know where they’re at. Il—Rozanov and I don’t really… talk much. Anymore.”

The student—he must be a student—sighed and checked his phone. “Damn. It was hard enough convincing him that I was serious about joining. If Scott hadn’t told me they were meeting here this semester instead of the old place, I never would’ve made it. I’ve been struggling in RusLit since forever, and he’s the only one who’s been able to break it down and make it click for me.”

He glanced around the cafe, clearly already resigned to leaving. “If you see him—or any of the regular guys—can you ask where they moved to?”

Shane opened his mouth to reply, but with another chime of the bell, he was already gone, hurrying out as if he were late for something important. 

Shane just stood there, rag in hand, and the coffee pot bubbling away behind him, as another piece slid into place with startling clarity. 

Rozanov’s Table. 

Jesus Christ.

Shane didn’t move right away. His brain felt as if it had snagged on something it couldn’t pull free from. He replayed the words the same way that he reviewed the angles from missed calls on the ice. 

Rozanov’s Table. 

It wasn’t a fucking codename. It wasn’t a cover. It wasn’t a front. 

It was a fucking study group. 

He thought about the notebooks they sometimes carried. The way they spoke mostly in Russian, only rarely slipping into English before Ilya had corrected them and urged them back into Russian.

And Shane had filed it away as… what? Machinations?

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. 

Rose was right. He’d wanted to find a pattern so badly that he’d invented one. Every “sign” he’d picked up on had an ordinary, normal, reasonable, boring meaning. 

God. 

He’d managed to turn—what, a literature nerd?—into a fucking mobster because it seemed to fit his narrative better. 

Because it made more sense to him. 

By the time his shift ended, his thoughts were loud enough that he didn’t notice the silence. He barely remembered clocking out, barely remembered walking to his car. He worked through the evidence in reverse, no longer finding a deeper meaning in any of it. 

Shane just… hadn’t listened to the parts that didn’t match the fiction he’d created in his head. 

He sat in the driver’s seat of his car—engine still off. 

There was a simple way to confirm it. An easy way. The normal-person way. A way he should’ve used weeks ago instead of playing detective in his head. 

His phone felt heavy in his pocket. 

Slipping it free, he stared at the search bar for a long moment, thumb hovering over the screen before he did something long overdue and began to type.

After curating the search with better identifiers, the results loaded in less than a second, and his stomach somehow dropped even lower. 

Student Spotlight: Ilya Rozanov

Doctoral Candidate, Slavic Literature

Ilya Rozanov is a PhD candidate in Slavic Literature. His research explores grief, memory, and how literature helps people make sense of loss. He is especially interested in how stories preserve personal and cultural memories across generations, and how literature can offer solace during times of change. 

Born and raised in Moscow, Russia, Ilya came to Canada as an international student and completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees here before continuing directly into his doctoral studies. His own experience navigating a new country and our academic system inspired him to take on a second role as International Student Liaison with our Office of Global Education. In that position, he helps international students from Eastern Europe adjust to university life, understand academic expectations, and manage the practical aspects of studying abroad. 

Outside of his research and work as a student peer advisor, Ilya enjoys revisiting the works that first made him fall in love with literature. Although poetry—especially the works of Aleksandr Pushkin—will always hold a special place for him, he says that Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment should be required reading for anyone interested in Russian classics.

Shane sat motionless in the driver’s seat, keys dangling uselessly in the ignition as he stared through the windshield at the brick wall of the coffeeshop, as if it might offer him instructions if he looked long enough. 

He could suddenly remember with startling clarity that moment outside of Flannigan’s when he’d sat on the cold pavement and Ilya had lectured the other men—the students—after they had caught Shane in the middle of some petty scrum. 

I am responsible for you. 

This turns mistake into record, and record follows you. 

I am the first call because I am the first line between you and consequence you do not want. 

If you want to stay here, you are to do exactly what it is you are told. 

Ilya hadn’t been threatening them like he’d originally assumed. He’d been… protecting them. Warning them about what their behavior could mean for a group of non-citizen students with provisional visas. 

He put his phone down and sat, dragging his thumb over the leather of the steering wheel as he thought about the version of Ilya that he could have known—all the parts of him that he had deprived himself of the opportunity to meet. 

If stories were how Ilya made sense of his losses, then maybe the least he could do was try to learn this part of Ilya that he’d missed. 

Finally, he turned the keys in the ignition, turning his car away from the direction of his house and toward the bookstore where Ilya had taken him for that first date. He only had twenty minutes before it closed, but he’d make it be enough time. 

And he did. 

When he walked out, only two minutes before closing, he had two paperback books in his hand.

***

He started with the Pushkin. Poetry in and of itself was intimidating, but it felt significantly less intimidating than the 500 page mass market paperback with tiny, cramped text. 

The paperback sat heavier in his hand than it had any right to, but he sat down with it—armed with a pencil and a soft yellow highlighter. He told himself that the poems would be easier, shorter. Wouldn’t demand the same intense focus that he’d need to get through Dostoyevsky. 

That had been the theory, anyway. 

In practice, he found himself reading and re-reading the same stanzas over and over as he searched for the meaning. The translation seemed good enough, but poetry was still unfamiliar to him and felt both simple and out of reach for him. 

He couldn’t help but wonder what was lost in the translation—from Russian to English, between the brain of the literarily inclined and someone like him. 

He wondered what someone like Ilya would be able to innately grasp that was such a struggle for him to see. 

He found himself falling into the same rhythms he’d been taught in high school: identify theme, extract meaning, file neatly. 

But he knew it wasn’t how Ilya read. It couldn’t be. He remembered Ilya in the bookstore, softly tracing his fingers along the spines of books and smiling at descriptions on the backs of novels. 

So he stopped trying to decode, and to just… read. The words could land where they wanted. 

Many of the words slid past him. Not unpleasantly—he could easily see why someone would like this—but without stirring him. A few seemed pretty in an abstract way, the same way that greeting cards were universally pleasant. A few would tug faintly at something in his chest, but not firmly enough to stay. 

Then he turned the page and found

I Loved You. 

The title alone was enough to revive the knot in his throat. 

It was short—only eight lines—and he read it quickly, defensively. 

Then again, slower. 

And again. 

I loved you: in my heart, perhaps,

Love may not be extinguished yet;

But I will weary you no more, 

Nor cause you sadness or regret. 

I loved you not in words, or hope, 

But shyly, and in jealous torture;

My love was tender, it was true, 

As may God grant you from another. 

His throat felt tight. 

He thought about the way Ilya had looked at him across the kitchen counter. The way Ilya had constantly accommodated him and seen him and cared for him. The way he’d pointed out how twisted Shane’s declaration of trust had been—the way the hurt had settled into Ilya’s voice like a lead weight. 

My love was tender, it was true, 

As may God grant you from another. 

He wanted Ilya happy, with him or without him. He wanted Ilya happy even if he couldn’t ever be a part of that again. 

It sounded like Ilya. It sounded like the kind of person ‌Shane wanted to be, even if so far he’d spectacularly failed at it. 

His fingers moved before he could overthink it. He reached for his phone, snagging it from the bedside table, and he began searching, double-checking the words even though he knew he couldn’t understand a single one. He copied and pasted carefully, making sure he didn’t miss a single line or character. 

His heart pounded hard in his chest as he opened back up the text thread he hadn’t successfully sent a message in for weeks. 

He didn’t add commentary. No apology. No explanation. Just the poem. 

He hit send before he could lose his nerve. The message flew away with a distinctive whoosh, a solid block of Cyrillic he didn’t understand, but that he prayed meant what the internet said it meant. 

He quickly locked the screen, silencing the ringer, and set it face down in the sheets. He forced himself to keep reading instead of monitoring, and he was able to give it a valiant effort for a few minutes before curiosity pulled him back and forced him to unlock the screen again. 

Shane:  Я вас любил: любовь ещё, быть может,

В душе моей угасла не совсем;

Но пусть она вас больше не тревожит;

Я не хочу печалить вас ничем.

Я вас любил безмолвно, безнадежно,

То робостью, то ревностью томим;

Я вас любил так искренно, так нежно,

Как дай вам Бог любимой быть другим.

Read ☑️ 7:38 pm

He checked the time—it was only 7:39. His eyes stayed glued to the screen for a moment, waiting for a typing bubble, for anything. Confusion, annoyance, a question mark, a refusal.

Nothing came. 

The thread remained quiet. 

He set the phone facedown on his chest and stared up at his ceiling with the words echoing in his head. 

Maybe it was enough that Ilya had read it. Maybe he could understand what Shane meant without needing to respond. 

He picked the book back up and continued reading. 

***

He took to carrying the book with him. Reading and rereading it in between customers, while waiting for classes to start, while waiting in his car for campus services to unlock the rink before weekend ice time. 

The mists of night enfold the Georgian hills; 

Aragva sounds below. 

I feel serene and sad, light-hearted sadness, 

A sadness full of you, 

Of you, and only you … My melancholy 

Nothing can shake or move; 

My heart begins to burn and love again – 

Because it cannot not love.

He found the website he’d bookmarked—the one with the poems in both English and Russian. He double-checked that it was the right poem, and then sent off the Russian version. Just like the first time, no answer came through. 

Read ☑️ 11:21 am

***

He hadn’t meant to bring Crime and Punishment home with him when he’d packed for the long weekend back home. It had just somehow ended up in his bag, wedged between a hoodie and his laptop, as if it was supposed to be there. 

By Saturday afternoon, it was spread open across the ‌dining room table where he sat with his highlighter and pencil—the spine already broken from how stubbornly he was working through it. 

The house smelled of ginger and soy—something simmering away on the stove. His parents’ place always smelled like something cooking, even when no one was in the kitchen. It was comfortable for him in a way that his apartment with Hayden never quite was. It was comfortable in the same way that Ilya’s had been. 

David looked up from his crossword first, eyebrows slightly lifting when he recognized the book Shane had propped against one bent knee. 

“Crime and Punishment? I never really took you for a classics guy, kid.”

Shane hummed noncommittally, unwilling to break his focus before he reached the end of the page. The sentences felt dense in a way that had him frequently stopping to reread two or three times before they settled for him. 

The novel didn’t read like the poetry had, or like a playbook or stats sheet did. It sprawled as he tried to make sense of it. 

“For class?” His dad tried again. 

“... Not exactly,” Shane murmured, trying not to lose his place. 

The sound of his voice was enough to pull his mom’s attention from where she was slicing fruit at the island. 

“Why are you reading something like that if it’s not assigned?” she asked. “You told me you had papers. And practice. And games. The semester’s almost over—you can read Tolstoy when it’s over.”

“Dostoyevsky,” Shane corrected automatically, sliding his bookmark into the pages and finally looking up. 

He knew that tone. It meant she was already building a schedule for him in her head, optimizing his life for efficiency—safe and future-proof. 

“I just… wanted to read it. It’s good so far—not taking as long as I would’ve thought, either.”

“You just wanted to read it?” Yuna frowned. “Since when do you just want to read Dostoyevsky?”

He hesitated, just long enough for both of them to notice. 

“There’s… this guy,” he said finally. “He’s Russian. I wanted to understand him a little better.”

That softened David immediately, who gave him a soft, fond smile. His mom, predictably, did not soften. 

“And you think reading that will help? Just because he’s Russian doesn’t mean he likes that. Why don’t you just ask him what he likes?”

Shane bit back a laugh that he knew would’ve been too sharp—too ironic—for his parents. It was a fair question, honestly. And one he probably should’ve asked himself far, far sooner. 

“He said he thinks it should be required reading,” Shane replied. “For anyone who wants to understand Russian classics.”

That was one thing he could say about Ilya with certainty now. Not a guess. Not invented. A real thing that Ilya had really said. His mom set her knife down with a clunk. 

“Well, do you want to understand Russian classics, or do you want to understand him?”

“He’s working on his PhD. He studies Slavic literature.”

“I think that’s very good of you, Shane,” his dad said, looking at him evaluating. 

His mom clicked her tongue, still unconvinced but outnumbered. 

“Just make sure you don’t neglect your real responsibilities, focusing on someone else’s interests. Understanding someone is more than just copying what they like.”

She didn’t mean to be unkind, just practical. 

“I think it’s nice that you’re curious about something new. Must be a hell of a guy if he’s got you reading something like this,” his dad said, folding his newspaper and standing from the table. “I hope he’d do the same for you.”

Shane nodded, mumbling something back. But his attention was already back on the page. Raskolnikov spiraled in a way that felt… uncomfortably familiar. Too many thoughts, too much certainty in the wrong directions, and a slow, roiling realization that he had been arguing with himself the entire time. 

Later, sprawled on his bed, he flipped through the passages he’d highlighted. He opened his text thread with Ilya and stared at it for a long time. 

Then, one by one, he sent them. 

Shane: There are some people who interest us immediately, at first glance, before a word is exchanged. 

Send. 

Shane: What about his conscience, though? If he has one, let him suffer. If he realizes his mistake. That’s his punishment, on top of hard labor. 

Send.

Shane: To act cleverly, though, cleverness alone isn’t enough. All this shows you the man he is. I don’t think he has valued you much. I tell you this only for your own benefit. Because I sincerely wish you well.”

Send.

Shane: It’s true, you’re a terrible sinner. Mostly because you’ve mortified yourself and sold yourself in vain. There’s a horror for you, a real horror. You live in this muck that you hate, and all the time you know yourself—all you have to do is open your eyes—you know you won’t help anybody this way, you won’t save anybody from anything! Tell me, then, finally, how can you abide such shame and degradation inside you up against their opposite—such holy feelings? 

He hesitated for a moment on that one, thumb hovering. He worried whether Ilya might misinterpret the pronouns, thinking Shane was accusing him of bearing the responsibility for what had happened. 

He sent it anyway. 

He didn’t know how to find the Russian words for these. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to locate the correct passages even if he found a Russian e-book to copy and paste from. English was what he had. Maybe the passages hit even harder in Russian, offering even deeper clarity or meaning. Maybe Ilya did, too. 

The messages delivered. 

No typing bubble. 

No read receipt. 

But sent. 

***

He’d been back for days, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what his dad had said about curiosity and what his mom had said about how copying someone didn’t lead to understanding them. 

Those two thoughts felt cohesive in his head, neither one canceling the other out. He wasn’t reading to impress Ilya—he hadn’t heard a single word from him for almost a month. He wasn’t reading to prove that he could fit into Ilya’s world—even though Crime and Punishment had been enjoyable enough he knew he wouldn’t be rereading it, and he likely could not hold his own in a discussion with the members of Rozanov’s Table, even if they were kind enough to try it in English. 

He was reading because this was a piece of Ilya, and if it was the only part of him that Shane could make sense of and hold onto, he wasn’t ready to let go of it. 

When the afternoon lull began, he pulled the paperback of poems from his back pocket, the pages falling open to the place where he’d broken the spine. The one that made his throat feel tight, but no longer with regret. 

It comes to me again, that moment:

You passed before my eyes, 

A fleeting vision of pure beauty, 

A spirit from the skies. 

 

In times of hopelessness, of sadness, 

The busy world’s great noise,

Long did I dream of those dear features

And hear that gentle voice. 

 

The years went by. Their storms dispersed

The dreams of former days, 

And I forgot your gentle voice, 

Forgot your heavenly face. 

 

I lived in dark incarceration, 

My days quite empty of 

Divinity and inspiration, 

And tears, and life, and love. 

 

But now my soul awakes from slumber:

Once more before my eyes

A fleeting vision of pure beauty, 

A spirit from the skies. 

 

And suddenly my heart beats faster, 

For once again I have

Divinity and inspiration, 

And life, and tears, and love. 

He read it three times in English before he searched for that now familiar website with the original Russian. He expected nothing to come of it, but just as with all the others, he wanted to give Ilya something real. If not for the read receipts confirming that Ilya was reading the messages, he would’ve assumed he’d been blocked. He no longer checked compulsively for a response, returning to the thread feeling disappointment over the silence. 

Their text thread had long since turned into a love letter, an apology, a memoir written in words originally penned by men who were long dead.

This time, the message was read before he could even exit out of the thread. There was a flash—brief, but it was there—of the typing bubbles. They disappeared again almost as fast as they’d appeared, and he would’ve thought it was a hallucination or a fluke if they hadn’t reappeared only a moment later. 

No message came, and eventually the typing bubble disappeared and the animation stopped.

He couldn’t even bring himself to feel disappointed. That typing bubble, even as briefly as it had appeared, was the first sign of acknowledgement he’d seen from Ilya save for the read receipts. 

He resumed his work day, cleaning the espresso machine, checking stock levels, and sweeping the floor before he turned to the sink to wash his hands. He stood at the sink, scrubbing the soap under his nails, around his knuckles. 

The chime of the front door rang out and he focused on making sure he finished counting to at least thirty before he could shut the water off. 

“I’ll be right with you!” he called out, reaching for the paper towels. Hands washed and dried, he spun around to face the front counter. 

“What can I—oh!”

“One Americano. Please. For here.”

Chapter End Notes

I owe my relationship with my husband to a very nosy professor who taught us in a class on Sex, Love, and Death in German Poetry. I firmly believe that poetry and literature reflect the best aspects of human nature—even if this fandom has me in a chokehold and that means that I haven’t read anything yet this year besides fic. There’s no way I’m on track to finish HRCYED 2.0 now.

—

 

Quoted poems by Aleksandr Pushkin from the Penguin Classics edition, translation by Antony Wood (because that’s the copy I could find—purchased for the sole purpose of writing this chapter).

Quoted fragments of Crime and Punishment (in chapter nine) are from the Signet Classics edition, translation by Sidney Monas (because that’s the copy I have on my bookshelf).

Quoted fragments of Crime and Punishment in chapter four were pulled from the quotes provided on Goodreads, editions and translators unknown, to more effectively mimic a variety of student translations.

Pushkin, Alexander. Selected Poetry. Transl. by Antony Wood, Penguin Books, 2020.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. by Sidney Monas, Signet Classics, 2006.

 

I use “Dostoyevsky” because it’s the spelling on my copy of Crime and Punishment, but I am aware of the many different ways it can be transliterated into English. If there are any native Russian speakers with strong feelings, chime off and I can change it.

—

ONLY ONE MORE CHAPTER LEFT, Y’ALL.

Chapter 10

Chapter Notes

Double-length final chapter because I just couldn’t help myself (and it turns out that taking a full week off of work leaves me much more time to hunch over my keyboard like a wretched little goblin). I could’ve probably split this out over several chapters or just left it open and kept it going, but I don’t want this to end up in WIP-hell because I don’t know when/where to end it and I was too excited to share this with you to drag it out over several days. We got 1.5 chapters worth of hurt, so here’s a 13,500 words of comfort. That’s how much I love you.

This much writing out of me is craaaaazy, so eat up.

(That means the total word count on this makes it roughly as long as Catcher in the Rye, and I wrote it in like 4 weeks. Really making me rethink the whole “I could never write a whole book” thing)

Ilya had stayed for only as long as it took him to drink his coffee. Unlike the last few times Ilya had come, he didn’t take a seat at the counter but returned to the large armchair where he’d sat the morning prior to their first date. 

After he ordered, they didn’t speak again—none of the playful banter Shane had been used to exchanging while he worked on Ilya’s orders. Ilya just silently took the coffee once Shane had made it and then retreated to the chair. He wasn’t as warm, but he wasn’t gone.

He was there.

Shane felt a little sick to his stomach with anxiety, unsure of what exactly it meant. Ilya hadn’t told him off, wasn’t serving him a restraining order to get him to stop texting, had said nothing besides a quiet thank you before he turned to go sit down. 

But with him sitting in that chair, maybe twenty feet away, Shane could suddenly remember why exactly it was that Ilya had chosen that chair in particular all those weeks ago when he’d first started coming in—it was the only chair that had a clear line of sight all the way down behind the counter. The only seat where Shane would have no way of ducking or hiding behind the espresso machine and avoiding his gaze. But this time, Shane felt so grateful to be in the same room as Ilya again that it didn’t even cross his mind that avoidance was an option. 

He’d done enough of that to last a lifetime. 

And so Ilya had sat there with one leg crossed lazily over his knee and an incredibly battered paperback in his hand. The title may have been in Russian, but he immediately recognized the curly hair and the long, unkempt facial hair of the man on the cover. 

Ilya sat there, reading Pushkin and watching him. 

He’d been there about forty minutes, usually around the time that he would typically order another cup of coffee, when he knocked back the rest of his drink, slipping the paperback into the pocket of his coat, and approaching the counter. 

He stood at the counter for a long moment, just watching Shane. 

“Do you close tonight?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, frustrated with his boss’s daughter for calling out for what wasn’t the first time and probably wouldn’t be the last. “Unfortunately.”

Ilya stood there, watching him appraisingly. 

“I want to talk to you, but… not here. And I have things I need to do today, so I cannot stay until close. What is your schedule tomorrow?”

“Oh, um… I have work in the morning, then I have some studying I was planning to do—but nothing in the afternoon that I can’t move around.”

Ilya hummed, glancing down at his phone quickly. “There’s another coffee shop—a few doors down from the bookstore. Can you meet at three?”

Shane ran through his schedule, nodding quickly. “Yeah—yeah, that’s fine. Perfect. I have nothing going on at three o'clock . And if Jessica isn’t here to take her shift, I swear I’ll just lock the doors and turn out the fucking lights.”

Ilya’s expression flickered, something almost like amusement crossing his face, before he stepped back  from the counter. “Okay. Yes. Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow.”

“See you later, Shane.”

“Bye, Ilya.”

Ilya froze, turning back toward the counter. “No. I will see you later.”

Shane stared back at Ilya, a bit confused. “Yeah. Tomorrow. Goodbye?”

Ilya shook his head, still looking at him intently. “No—is not goodbye. I will see you later.”

“Oh,” Shane said, the weight of Ilya’s words hitting him. “Okay, yeah. I’ll see you later.”

Ilya looked at him for a long moment, expression still unreadable, before he turned and left—pausing at the door for just a brief moment before leaving. 

Okay. Later, then.

***

Shane: So I did something potentially very stupid. 

Shane: But it worked out okay, maybe. 

Shane: So maybe very smart, actually?

Rose: ????????

Jackie: Sir?

Hayden: I’m almost afraid to ask what you would consider to be ‘very stupid’ at this point 

Hayden: The bar is in hell but apparently you’re flexible enough to limbo

Shane: Thanks man. I really appreciate it.

Shane: Okay, so you remember how I really made a mess of things with Ilya?

Hayden: Is the stupid thing you asking us that question?

Shane: No.

Shane: So I found a profile on Ilya on the university website. 

Shane: He’s working on a Ph.D in Russian Literature.

Shane: And the article said that he really likes the poetry of Pushkin and the book Crime and Punishment.

Rose: now u know how to google?

Jackie: Let him cook

Shane: Shut up. 

Shane: I bought them. And I read them. 

Rose: i thought you were jared, 19

Rose: since when do u know how to read

Shane: Oh my god.

Shane: Do you want me to finish or not?

Rose: 😇

Jackie: Yes please

Hayden: Still waiting for very stupid

Shane: I read them. 

Shane: And I’ve been sending him things as I’ve been reading. Like quotes.

Shane: Things that remind me of him. Or of me. Or just about the whole situation. 

Shane: And he’s been leaving me on read. Which is pretty fair, all things considered. 

Hayden: Since when?

Shane: Maybe three or four weeks?

Shane: Long enough that I’ve read Crime and Punishment, at least.

Hayden: Yeah, that is pretty stupid. Who reads a million pages this late in the semester

Jackie: And he’s just… left you on read the whole time?

Rose: !!!!!!!

Rose: that means he didnt block you

Rose: so at least theres that

Shane: Yeah.

Shane: I just wanted him to know that I was still interested in understanding him. That I wanted to know more about him.

Shane: I said a lot of stupid things last time I saw him, but I meant it when I said that I wanted to know more.

Jackie: Okay. Maybe not stupid actually

Shane: Probably not, actually.

Shane: Maybe actually very smart.

Shane: Because he came back today. To the coffee shop.

Rose: WHAT

Rose: i call out sick ONE TIME

Jackie: What did he say??

Shane: Rose, you call out sick one time per week.

Shane: Not much. But he wants to meet me tomorrow at three to talk. 

Hayden: Hayden emphasized the message ‘Not much. But he…’

Jackie: !!

Rose: !!!!!!!!!

Shane: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***

The coffee shop Ilya had chosen was smaller than Annotations was—narrow with warm yellow light, and filled with the low hum of overlapping conversation instead of a rowdy student population. Shane arrived early but still felt like he was late—which was why he was surprised to see Ilya already waiting for him. 

He looked just as composed as ever—dark coat, thick sweater, that same familiar calm. But there was an almost-cold distance to his expression that hadn’t been there before he’d gone and ruined things. 

He nodded and waved to Ilya before ordering—something quick and simple—before finding his place next to him. 

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Shane sat, folding and unfolding the paper sleeve that was meant to be on his to-go cup, while Ilya watched the street outside—muscles in his jaw tense and flexing as he collected his own thoughts. 

It was Ilya who spoke first. 

“My feelings were hurt,” he said plainly. 

He didn’t sound angry and probably wasn’t intending to be dramatic, but the factual nature of it tugged at Shane’s heartstrings regardless. 

“I figured,” Shane whispered. 

Ilya nodded firmly once. “You are not cruel. I know this. So I tried to understand—tried to figure how you came to that… conclusion.” His mouth twitched faintly but humorlessly. “Mafia. Bratva. Dangerous man with secret connections.”

Shane couldn’t hold back the wince at his words. 

“Ilya—”

But Ilya continued speaking, eyes still trained on the window and his voice steady even as his fingers tightened around his own cup. 

“Do you know how many people have looked at me differently since war began?” he asked. “Professors. Strangers. Other students. Suddenly, my accent means something else. My language means something else. Russian means danger and violence and shameful."

He finally looked at Shane then. 

“I thought you saw me as something else. Just Ilya. Not headline.”

Shane’s throat tightened, and he wanted to cry. It hadn’t even occurred to him—he hadn’t even considered the sort of things that Ilya might face just due to where he had been born. 

Exactly like the frustration he felt when other people didn’t understand that being half Japanese didn’t always override his being Canadian.

“You don’t have to explain that,” he blurted. “You don’t owe me that.”

Ilya held his gaze. “Apparently I do.”

There was no bite to his words at all, but Shane felt chastised regardless. 

“I wondered what I did to make you feel unsafe. How vague I was. What I avoided. When English failed. I replayed conversations trying to find when I planted idea in your head.”

Shane immediately shook his head, wanting to reach across the table to grab Ilya’s hand in his own but fearing the rejection that he knew he deserved. 

“No. No. I need you to hear me—that was my fault. Not yours.”

Ilya stiffened, but just sat in silence, waiting for Shane to continue. 

“I filled in the blanks because I was anxious and overwhelmed. And honestly, I was a bit intimidated by how put together you seem,” he admitted. “I feel like such a disaster sometimes, and you seem to be able to just exist in a way that is completely foreign to me. I thought I saw a pattern and decided that it meant something instead of just asking you about it.”

Shane paused, taking a moment to sip his drink, trying to gather himself before exhaling shakily. 

“That meant that when it was time to ask you real questions, I just… didn’t. I thought I already knew. I know now that I didn’t really know as much as I thought I did.”

Ilya stared back at him. Something small had changed in his expression, and it gave Shane the courage to continue, even though he still felt like he couldn’t quite meet Ilya’s eyes. 

“I pushed for answers to things you weren’t ready to talk to me about, and that was wrong,” he added. “But the things you were open about? I ignored those when they didn’t fit with the story I had in my head.”

He forced himself to look up at Ilya—forced himself to be brave and stop hiding his face. “That wasn’t on you. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. That’s me being bad at living with uncertainty. And I’m working on that, I promise.”

For a long moment, Ilya didn’t speak. He just continued to look at him, and Shane was so grateful to even be sitting here with him for this moment that he couldn’t bring himself to be upset about that. 

“The quotes you sent. Why?”

Shane blinked, surprised. Whatever he’d expected Ilya to say next, it wasn’t that. 

“I was trying to… understand you, I guess. Or trying to understand how you think. Literature is your language, right? I figured if I learned the things you love, I might be able to understand you better.”

Shane’s thumb was moving on its own, rubbing a rhythm out on the now soft piece of cardboard that had once been a coffee sleeve. He was glad the table was wood and not glass, because there would have been no hiding how one of his knees was bouncing against his will.

“Some of them just reminded me of you,” he continued. “Some of them reminded me of how badly I messed things up. I just—I wanted you to know I was trying.”

Ilya glanced away. Some of the tension had drained out of his shoulders, but he didn’t seem entirely comfortable yet. Shane couldn’t blame him. 

Shane hesitated for a brief moment, then asked, “Why was the last one different? You never responded to any of them.”

Ilya shifted, reaching for the coat that was slung over the back of his chair and pulled a paperback from the pocket. Shane immediately recognized it as the book he’d had at the coffee shop the day before—the Russian book with an illustration of Pushkin on the cover. 

He could tell from both the art and the degree of wear that it was an old book, and one that he clearly returned to frequently. The cover was creased, the spine soft and broken from years of use. 

Ilya set it carefully on the table and opened it. He didn’t need to flip through the pages to find what he was looking for—the break in the pages lined up perfectly with the passage he wanted to show. 

Shane couldn’t read it—of course he couldn’t—but he did recognize the shape of the letters. It was the last poem that he’d sent, the one that had brought Ilya in. 

Ilya’s thumb rested lightly on the margins, and he traced something written there in pencil.  

“This book was my mother’s,” he said, gazing down at what must have been her notes in the margin. “I took it from her bedside the day I found her body.”

Shane’s breath caught, and he swallowed hard. He hadn’t even known—hadn’t ever really asked Ilya about his family. 

“I have always thought of her when I read this,” Ilya continued softly. “About her memory. How someone can change your life simply by existing in it.”

Ilya looked away from the book and back to Shane, his eyes softer now. 

“When you sent it, it had… second meaning. No longer only about my mother.”

Something shifted then in the air between them.  

“I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t,” Ilya said gently.

He sighed, closing the book and putting it back into his pocket. 

“I almost replied to every message you sent,” Ilya admitted. “Many times.”

Shane looked up at him, startled.

“I would think and think. I would type, then delete. Type again, delete again.” A gentle, self-conscious smile tugged at his mouth, and he let out something that could almost count as a laugh. “Part of me was afraid. Part of me was curious—wondered what you would send next."

Shane huffed a disbelieving breath. “So you were just—what?—watching me spiral in real time?”

“Yes,” Ilya said simply. “But I was also watching you try.”

Ilya leaned back in his chair, fiddling with his coffee cup in his hands while he thought. 

“You tried harder than you had to. Most people would not.”

When Shane replied, his voice was small. “I’m still trying. I will still try. If you’ll let me.”

Ilya leaned across the table toward him, crossing his hands on the table in front of him. “I need you to make me a promise.”

Shane copied his body language, leaning forward. “Of course. Anything.”

“Do not make up story about me again,” Ilya said, not looking away from his eyes. “If you do not understand me—if you have questions—ask.”

Shane nodded quickly. “Yeah—of course. But just… if something is too much, or you’re not ready to answer yet, can you just… tell me that? Instead of deflecting?”

Ilya nodded slowly, sitting back. “I am more used to deflecting, I think. But I will try.”

“Yeah,” Shane said quickly. “I will, too.”

***

He wasn’t expecting everything to go back to normal right away—and it didn’t. Ilya had started coming back in again, but only a couple of times a week instead of nearly every day—and he didn’t stay until the end of Shane’s shifts each day. 

Rozanov’s Table wasn’t meeting at the coffee shop anymore either.

But what that meant is that every time he came in, his attention wasn’t split in fifteen different directions. Instead, he sat at the counter with his books and his laptop—working on his dissertation. 

He’d chat with Shane whenever Shane’s own workload calmed down in between surges, but it wasn’t quite the same. They’d still make eye contact here and there, but it wasn’t as constant. Not as heated. Not even half as flirtatious as it used to be. But oddly, it didn’t feel like the space between them was getting bigger, it felt like something was settling in a new way.

He knew things wouldn’t just click back into place like they had been before with a snap of his fingers, but he didn’t even know if he and Ilya were together or not. A few weeks ago he would’ve been certain that the answer was or not, but for now they seemed to exist in a weird grey space in between. 

It was on one of those days—two weeks after Ilya’s return—when the afternoon lull had just begun, when the bell over the door chimed and a customer entered. He greeted Rose first—by name, probably one of her theater friends—before his attention landed on Shane and stayed there. 

“Oh, Shane—this is my friend, Miles. He’s in my Costuming class,” Rose said.

Miles smiled at Shane as if he had practiced it in front of the mirror. Which… in fairness… he probably had. 

“You’re the famous Shane, then?”

Shane blinked. “Famous?”

“Rose talks about you,” he said easily. “She says you’re her favorite of her gay ex-boyfriends. Top-tier coffee slinger. Hockey superstar. Academic weapon.”

Shane snorted, trying to bite back a laugh. “Academic weapon is generous.”

Miles leaned an elbow on the counter, leaning toward him. 

“You’re in my Econ class, right? Macro?”

Shane groaned, thinking about how that class was proof that he wasn’t an academic weapon. “Yeah, unfortunately. I’m barely holding onto a C in it though.”

Miles laughed, a high-pitched and odd sound. He made a point of dragging his eyes up and down Shane’s body. 

“You don’t look like a C student.”

He noticed Ilya glance up for a moment from his laptop, giving Miles a look that Shane couldn’t quite decipher.

“No, trust me. I am. Supply curves are my mortal enemy.”

Miles tilted his head at him, looking appraisingly. “Then maybe we should study together.”

Shane thought about the offer for a moment. He knew he wasn’t dumb, but he also knew that Econ was absolutely beating his ass. Who was he to turn down an opportunity to work on his grades?

“Yeah, actually. That would be amazing. I take pretty good notes, I’m just absolutely terrible at the tests.”

Miles took his receipt and grabbed a pen from his pocket, writing ‌his phone number on the back of it. 

“For studying,” he said with a wink, grabbing his cup from Rose. “Text me later, Shane.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shane said, already moving away from the register to start the next item on his to-do list. 

After he’d restocked the to-go cups, he looked up, surprised to see Ilya watching him intently. Shane smiled at him automatically. 

Ilya returned it, but a little slow. 

Rose drifted over to his side, smirking. “You know he was flirting with you, right?” 

Shane startled, looking at her in a panic. “What? Who?”

“Miles!” she laughed.

“He said he wanted to study. Econ is insane this semester—he’s probably having a hard time too.”

Rose laughed again, rolling her eyes. “He’s getting a minor in Business Administration. Trust me when I say he doesn’t need your help in Econ, Shane.”

“He said he wanted to study!”

“Oh my god, you’re hopeless,” she said, walking back to help the customer who’d just entered. 

A few minutes later, he was rinsing out an empty pitcher when Ilya approached the counter, empty cup in hand. He hadn’t even noticed him get up. 

“Want a refill?” Shane asked, smiling at Ilya automatically.

“No, thank you,” Ilya said, turning the cup slowly in his hands and not quite meeting Shane’s eyes. “I only wanted to return this.”

“Oh,” Shane said, taking it from his hands and putting it in the rack to run through the dishwasher. “Thanks.”

A beat passed, and Ilya lingered at the counter. 

“You are very popular today,” he said, his voice sounding casual. 

“What? Oh—you mean Miles? He’s a friend of Rose’s, I think. He said he needed help in Econ.”

Ilya hummed quietly before looking up at him fully. “You should make sure that’s all he wants.”

Shane frowned at him, confused. “What else would he want my help with?”

“You may have given him the wrong impression, then.”

“What impression could I possibly have given him?” 

“That you could be interested in him, maybe. That he might have a chance with you. Unless he does…?” Ilya asked, trailing off.

“Why would I be interested in him?” he asked, genuinely baffled. Then, without thinking, he added, “I have a—”

He stopped. The words caught up to his brain just a half-second too late. 

They hadn’t talked about this. Not yet. 

Ilya’s gaze sharpened on him, clearly understanding what he had been about to say. “You have a what.”

Shane’s face warmed, and he ducked his head—suddenly fascinated by a stain in the countertop. 

“A boyfriend,” he mumbled. “I think.”

Ilya was quiet for just long enough for Shane to chance looking up at him. There was something softer in his expression now, and Shane realized Ilya had been nervous.

“Yes,” he said simply. “You do.”

The certainty in Ilya’s voice warmed Shane’s chest, even if it made his ears and the back of his neck absolutely burn. 

“Oh,” Shane said, suddenly smiling at nothing. “Okay. Good.”

Ilya’s mouth curled up slightly at the corner. 

“Good,” he echoed. 

For a moment neither of them moved. It felt like they were closer than they had been since they’d started talking again, even though the counter still stood between them. 

“He flirted with you because you are easy to flirt with,” Ilya said, breaking the silence. 

“I am not!” he said, almost reflexively. 

Ilya lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “Is very easy. I would know.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Shane said, genuinely confused. 

“It does,” Ilya reassured him, sliding back into his seat across the bar. “You just do not see it.”

Shane leaned against the counter to talk to him more easily, suspicious. 

“Okay, fine. Explain.”

Ilya gazed at him for a long moment, his expression turning considering.

“The way you smile at people makes them feel like they could be important,” he said quietly. “Is… very disarming.”

Shane felt his nose scrunch in surprise. “That’s called being polite, Ilya.”

“Mmmm… no. You remember little details. Makes people feel noticed—even if you do not always find correct answer. You are very kind even when you are tired.” 

Shane shifted his weight uncomfortably, slightly chastised by the reminder of his bad assumptions—and suddenly very aware of  his hands, his face, and the space he was occupying. 

“And,” Ilya added, dropping his voice in both volume and pitch. “You are very pretty and do not act like you know it.”

Shane nearly dropped the towel he still had knotted in his hands. “Okay, that’s—no. That’s just not—”

Ilya’s expression softened, and he smiled at Shane. “People are drawn to warmth. You are very sincere—people like that. Some people mistake that for invitation.”

Shane stared at him in silence, not sure whether he should feel flattered or mortified. 

“For what it is worth,” Ilya said, voice going quiet. “I was worried I was doing the same thing.”

Shane blinked at him in confusion. “Doing what?”

Ilya rubbed his thumb along the edge of his open laptop, not quite meeting Shane’s eyes. “Getting wrong impression. When I first started coming here.”

Shane stared at him blankly. 

“You were friendly with everyone,” Ilya continued. “You smile at the customers, remember orders, ask about their days. You touch hands when you give them change. I did not know if I was special, or if you were just being… you.”

“You were special,” Shane said quietly. “Are special.”

“I did not know that then. So I went slow—too slow, maybe. Gave you too much time to think, apparently. But I thought—if he steps back, I stop. If he does not answer texts, I will understand. If he looks uncomfortable, I will apologize.”

He finally glanced up, meeting Shane’s eyes with more confidence. “I was prepared to be wrong about you. You kept leaning closer, you kept saying yes. So I hoped.”

Shane felt the back of his neck heat again, but it wasn’t embarrassment this time. 

“I wasn’t just being nice,” he said defensively. “Ilya, I like you. Maybe too much.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, leaning back in his chair with a small, almost relieved smile. “I know that now.  You like me enough to break rule about reading fiction, at least.”

With that, the tension of the moment broke. He threw the receipt with Mile’s scrawled phone number away. 

***

Ilya: You have a game tonight, yes?

Shane: Yeah. 6pm

Ilya: Okay.

Shane stared at his phone, watching the typing bubbles appear and disappear. For a brief, absolutely insane moment, he wondered whether he could somehow get out of playing in the game.

Ilya: I got a ticket

Ilya: Do you want to come over after the game?

Ilya: You can say no

Ilya: But I would like to talk with you 

His heart pounded as he reread the messages. He hadn’t been to Ilya’s since the night that he’d opened his mouth wide enough to shove his entire foot into it. 

Shane: I’d really like that.  Yes. 

Ilya: Okay.

***

He’d thought he was used to feeling eyes on him when he was playing. After all, he was just another fish in the “boy aquarium”, as Rose liked to call it. It wasn’t even all that unusual for his parents to come up for a game or for Rose to come watch. 

It felt different knowing that it was Ilya’s eyes that were on him. 

He kept his focus locked on the ice where it belonged instead of wondering where in the stands Ilya was sitting. 

He tried to spend the game playing like he usually did. He moved with his typical control, he focused on the smart passes instead of taking unnecessary gambles. And yet, every time his shift ended and he found himself sitting on the bench, his eyes were pulled toward the stands, looking for Ilya. 

He’d been half expecting not to be able to find him until he did—and in that moment he felt like he almost couldn’t believe that he hadn’t found him sooner. The sight of him in the stands, just watching him, made another blush rise on his cheeks despite the chill of the rink. 

By the end of the third period, they were up by two. The game was no longer quite as controlled and had turned a bit scrappy as the other team fought to come back—more battles along the boards, shorter tempers, a few hits that teetered on the edge of what U Sports deemed acceptable. Shane could feel the tension of the night teetering on a knife’s edge.

Usually, he would have played it safe. He was Shane Hollander—he was known for playing it safe but playing it well. 

But when the puck ended up around the back of the net and landed cleanly on his blade, the thought flickered into his head before he could even track it.

He’s watching.

The defenseman had squared up, eyes tracking him for a pass. The goalie hugged the post, keeping an eye on Hayden—the most realistic option for a player who would shoot if he did pass. The smart thing for him to do would be to cycle the puck, let the team burn down the clock, and keep possession moving while they were up. 

Instead, he did something he’d never done before outside of practice.

He pulled the puck onto his blade and let his stick lift. It was muscle memory from years of playing keepie uppie, sheer fucking audacity, and a tiny streak of showing off that he normally wouldn’t indulge in. The puck rode the tape as he circled the net. His hands were steady, his balance perfect. 

For a moment, it felt as if the crowd held its breath alongside him. 

Then he moved, wrapped it around, and tucked the puck top shelf. 

Michigan. 

The net snapped—he could hear the goalie let out an absolutely foul curse—and the goal horn blared. 

For a heartbeat, he just slid across the ice, carried only by his momentum, surprised it had actually worked.

Then his teammates were on him—shouting, grabbing his helmet, clapping him on his shoulders. The noise of the crowd swelled into something loud and frantic, and he could feel his face burning, the adrenaline hot in his veins. He let himself grin as he skated to the bench. 

He chanced a glance back into the stands. Ilya wasn’t jumping around, cheering with insanity alongside the people around him. 

He was smiling. Wide and bright and unrestrained in a way that Shane had only seen a handful of times. 

It almost felt better than the goal. 

***

“You are insane,” Ilya said, pushing off from the side of his car where he’d been waiting for Shane. “Did not think you would be showboat.”

Shane grinned, cheeks turning red. “I feel like I blacked out for a second out there. That’s definitely not the sort of thing I would typically do. That was kind of crazy, right?”

Ilya smiled, pulling him in for a quick hug. 

“It was very attractive. Very brave. I liked it,” he said, pressing a kiss to Shane’s temple. 

A hug and a kiss on the temple were nothing—especially considering what they’d already done before. But after the absence, after the weeks of not having Ilya in his life at all, they felt like everything. 

The ride to Ilya’s house was short, and Shane was glad not to be the one driving. He’d always hated having to drive after games, and it was nice to just lean back in the passenger’s seat and talk about the game with Ilya. He’d known—from the conversation Ilya had shared with Hayden at Flannigan’s—that Ilya knew hockey well. It was still nice to have someone who could talk over the plays and the game with who saw it the same way that he did. 

When they got to Ilya’s, he was barely out of the car before Ilya was around back, pulling his gear from the trunk. 

“I can get that,” Shane said, reaching forward to try to pull a duffel bag from Ilya’s hands. 

“I know you can. Go get the door instead,” Ilya said, tossing him the keys to the house. 

Shane trudged up the front steps, exhaustion finally settling in now that the adrenaline from the game was ebbing. As he flipped through the keyring, looking for the house key, he recognized a series of keys on the ring all stamped with the University's insignia. 

The signs had always been there.

By the time he found the key that fit the lock, Ilya was behind him with his bags in hand. 

“I should get second keyring, yes? Every night is fight to open door.”

Shane nodded, pushing the door open and holding it for Ilya to enter before him. The moment Ilya had crossed the threshold, he dropped the bags, spinning to grab Shane and pull him in close. They stood there for a long moment in the dark foyer, just holding each other.

“I missed you, Солнышко,” Ilya whispered into his hair.

Shane felt almost like he were drunk, standing there in Ilya’s arms. There had been a while where he’d wondered whether he would ever get to have this again and he suddenly found himself completely incapable of imagining what it would have been like to spend the rest of his life without getting to be held by him like this again. 

“What’s that one mean?” he whispered, tucking his face against the side of Ilya’s neck. 

He could feel Ilya take a deep breath, his chest rising and falling against his. 

“Sol-nysh-ko. Sunshine,” Ilya said, squeezing Shane just a bit tighter as he carefully sounded the word out for him. “You are like second sun. I have had many years without much light. Then—poof. Here is a slow, Canadian hockey player with a weak backhand.”

“Slow? A weak backhand?” Shane asked with a laugh, pulling back so he could see Ilya’s face. 

“Yes, very weak. And so boring, and you drive such a terrible car.”

“It’s a normal car,” Shane said, almost defensively until he saw the amusement in Ilya’s face. “And you’ve been to one of my games.  What do you know about my backhand?”

Ilya’s face shifted, and Shane was absolutely astonished to see a blush on his face. 

“Ilya? Are you blushing? Oh my god—what? Tell me!”

“No—” Ilya said, burying his face back into Shane’s hair. “Never in my life have I blushed—Russians do not do this.”

“Tell me,” Shane said, stroking a hand up and down his back. 

“Tonight was not first game I saw. I have been at this school as long as I have been in Canada. I go to many home games when I have time. I knew who you were very first time I saw you in coffee shop.”

Shane stilled for a moment, shocked. Then he laughed, remembering how hard he’d tried for the first couple of days to not even let Ilya know his name—and it turns out Ilya had known who he was long before Shane had even known that Ilya existed. 

“You never said.”

“Was embarrassing,” Ilya said simply. “Did not want to feel like puck bunny. Hello, Mister Star Center. Please make me cup of coffee I hate so I can stare at your freckles.”

“That’s how I know you’re full of shit,” Shane said, lightly pushing at Ilya’s chest. “You get coffee every single time you come in. You do not think my coffee is terrible.”

Ilya resisted the shove, tightening his arms around Shane. “I am not full of shit. Shane, I do not like coffee. Not how it is made in this country. I like you, and I will drink as many stupid Americanos as I need to if it gives me excuse to talk to you.”

Shane stared at him, absolutely gobsmacked. Out of everything he might have expected Ilya would say when he’d just said he wanted to talk, it wasn’t this. 

“Come,” Ilya said, pulling away from him after one final squeeze. “I know you want a shower. I will make you snack. Then we still have more we need to say, I think.”

Thirty minutes later he was curled up on Ilya’s couch, hair still damp, nestled deep into a borrowed hoodie with a plate of sliced fruit in his lap and his feet kicked up over Ilya’s legs. 

“I want to apologize,” Ilya said, breaking the silence. Shane looked up at him—startled—and dropped an apple slice back onto the plate. 

“You don’t—”

“I do,” he interrupted. “Like I said—I have not had much light in my life for a long time. I am used to being evasive—is very hard to open up sometimes. That probably made it harder for you to ask. I thought you knew things you apparently did not.”

Shane shook his head, almost frantically. 

“No. Definitely not. I was being an absolute idiot—everyone agrees with me on that. Rose even pointed out that it wasn’t fair of me to expect to know everything about you yet. It was—it is still early. It’s not like we spent years getting to know each other before we started doing this.”

Ilya sighed, stroking his ankle. “I want to be honest with you. I want to tell you the things I don’t tell anyone. But it is very hard, Shane. I am not used to having someone who wants to hear me.”

Shane set his plate of fruit down on the coffee table, surging forward to snag Ilya’s hand in his. “Whatever you want to tell me, I want to listen to. I promise.”

Ilya gave him a soft smile, squeezing Shane’s hand back and dropping his other to hold Shane’s ankle where it rested in his lap. 

“I… did not have very good life, back in Russia. My mama died when I was twelve. My father was not… not a good one. He only wanted me for what I could do. Play hockey, Ilya. Get famous, Ilya. Be rich and give us money, Ilya.”

Shane startled slightly, surprised. That’s why Ilya knew so much about hockey. He’d been a player himself. 

“I didn’t know you had played,” Shane said softly, another piece of Ilya sliding into place for him.

Ilya looked at him, surprised. “Yes, you did. I told you.”

Shane stared at him blankly. “Ilya, I live and breathe hockey. I would remember if you had told me that you played, too.”

Ilya flipped Shane’s hand over so it was palm down, placing his own beside it. They had matching scars on their knuckles—scars that he’d gotten from intramural games and off-season scrimmages where the U Sports rules against fighting didn’t apply. 

It is very hard not to get scars when men play games, yes?

“Oh. I thought you meant—oh my god, I’m an idiot.”

Ilya tsked, kissing Shane’s hand and dropping in back in his lap. “No, not an idiot. Very creative imagination, though. Too bad you do not like books—you could have been wonderful writer.”

Ilya sat there for a moment, collecting his thoughts again. “I used to skate with mama. She was figure skater. After she died, ice meant only hockey. I was enforcer. A very good one—I was very angry and glad to have a reason to be violent. Alas, one too many concussions and I was off of team and no longer very useful. Free to do what I wanted, so I came here.”

“Do you miss it?"

Ilya hummed, waffling his hand in the air in a so-so sort of motion. 

“Yes, but also no. I miss skating and I miss the ice. I miss my mama. I could not say that I miss being hockey player. On very rare occasions that I do, there is always pick up game to find.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Ilya said, stroking the skin of his ankle. 

“There were so many little things that I misunderstood. I saw the profile of you on the school’s website—but what do you actually do? Like the compliance, the discipline thing?”

Ilya nodded, fishing his phone out of his pocket. 

“I help the international students. Is very hard, moving here and trying to fit in. So many boring Canadian rules—is very different from life back home. Students do not always know how to navigate. It is very dangerous for some of them.”

Ilya turned his phone, showing a contact. 

Mikhail (Discipline)

“Mikhail is one who hit you during fight at bar. He is hothead, yes? University is already aware of him. Three strikes and he is out, so they say. One more bad choice, and he might be going back home. I am trying to help him, trying to teach him. But he is hard to teach.”

Ilya sighed, dropping his phone to squeeze Shane’s ankle again. 

“When I moved here, I was mostly alone. I chose this school for Svetlana. Friend of mine—from Moscow. She was already here when I came. She helped me a bit—but I was still so angry. Reckless. I could have easily been sent home if I did not have her help. Was not—is not—safe for me there anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Shane asked, shifting to lean into Ilya’s side at the look on his face. He’d apparently made the right choice, as Ilya reached out to pull him in close and tuck Shane’s face into his neck. 

“My father thought mama made me too soft. Too like girl. You know I do not… only like women. There were rumors. About me. About my coach’s son—Sasha. I have been back, but only for research and never to Moscow. I cannot see my family again. I am dead to my father, my brother. They are police, and they could make it very dangerous for me.”

“I’m sorry,” Shane whispered, wrapping his arm around Ilya’s waist. 

“Do not be sorry. It is better for me, here. More accepting, good school. Pretty hockey players with freckles.”

They sat there for a long time, not really talking. Just… existing in the same space again. 

“Can I ask you something that might be a little bit invasive?”

Ilya chuckled, carding a hand through Shane’s hair. 

“That is the point of this, I think,” he said quietly. “Ask. If it is too much, I will tell you.”

Shane nodded, breathing in the scent of Ilya’s skin. 

“So you’re a student.”

Ilya nodded at him, fingers still moving in his hair. 

“Okay. How… this is a really nice place, Ilya. Like—leagues better than my apartment. And you used to drop disproportionately high tips when you came into the shop. And you dress like a fucking model or something. Where the hell are you getting your money from?”

Ilya laughed, the sound loud and boisterous around them. 

“Okay, okay—I think I understand now how you landed on crazy theory. Is true—does not seem to make sense.”

Ilya took a moment, trying to get himself under control while Shane huffed self-consciously into his shoulder. 

“This house is owned by colleague at university, yes? Was short term rental, before current regulations. Fully furnished and cheap enough. Was her mother’s house, but her mother is now dead. She has asset and passive income, I have house. Cheap deal. I did not have much when I came here, and I lived on campus for all of undergraduate degree. Boring Airbnb furniture is fine.”

Ilya paused for a moment, clearly searching for the words he was looking for. “Money is… hard for me. I was raised to give all I had to family. Was hard, at first. Moving here, having money that was mine. I struggled for a long time. I started doing work in community—translation. There are many who came here after fall of USSR who still do not speak English or French. I still do it sometimes, when I have time. Now, I am much more fortunate. Fully funded PhD. Tuition waiver, stipend. I TA for many of the Russian classes. I work as… liaison. For the international students. Small stipend, but helps.”

Shane hummed, weighing that. 

“Okay, I guess that makes sense. I’m sorry—again.”

“No,” Ilya said, kissing the top of his head. “You are right—it does appear bizarre. I am very different man now than I was when I first came here. For years, my life has been… quiet. I was not dating, stopped going to clubs. Travelled only when necessary for research. Stricter with budget. I became smarter with money because I did not want to ever have to go back to Moscow with hat in hand. I want to stay here, when I am done with school. Money will help.”

Shane nodded and they sat in silence for a while. Shane’s mind whirled, thinking of all the ways that he’d somehow managed to get Ilya so wrong while still getting him right. He’d known Ilya was responsible, caring. Had seen how much he cared and how much he carried every time that they interacted—he just hadn’t been able to fully grasp what it meant. 

“You’ve had to be really self-sufficient,” he finally said, softly. “Like… you had to learn early not to rely on someone else.”

He could feel Ilya’s shoulder move underneath his head in a small shrug. 

“I felt alone for many years. Is much easier, now.”

Shane swallowed hard, both at the thought of Ilya having felt so alone for so long and from what he knew he needed to say. 

“I think I’m the opposite.”

Ilya shifted underneath him, pivoting Shane to put Shane’s head in his lap so he could look down at him more clearly

“How do you mean?”

Shane sighed, scrubbing his hands down his face. Ilya dropped one of his hands down to rest on his chest, lightly rubbing. 

Shane was quiet for a long moment, trying to figure out how to respond. 

“I feel like I… I think I rely on people too much in my head before I actually rely on them in real life. If I can predict what people are going to do, how they’ll behave—I feel steadier. And when I can’t, I try to anticipate what they might do.” He huffed a small, humorless laugh. “You already know how well that works out for me.”

Ilya stroked his hand down his chest, trying to soothe him, and Shane started curling his fingers in the fabric of the borrowed hoodie, trying to ground himself. 

“It’s hard for me. My brain is just—it’s too much, sometimes. For me, for other people. I know I can be exhausting. My mom used to make a lot of decisions for me when I still lived at home. Rose and Hayden now—I look to them for a lot. If something doesn’t fit into a neat box, it’s easier for me when someone else can take control. I like rules, I like patterns. People don’t always follow them, and that makes it hard for me sometimes.”

Ilya hummed but didn’t say anything. 

“I’m trying to get better about not knowing. But it’s… overwhelming. I’m used to guessing.”

He felt embarrassed by the confession, like he’d shown too much of the parts of himself that he usually tried to keep hidden. But Ilya had been vulnerable with him, and he owed Ilya the same. 

“I don’t want to guess at you,” he said quietly. “I want to actually know you.”

Ilya hunched down, pressing a light kiss to his lips—the first one since they’d reconnected. 

“Shane. I like taking care of things for the people who matter to me. I like being… needed. Not how my family needed me—not for money, for reputation. But for comfort, for… stability? You are not too much to me. You are exactly what I need. I need to be needed, and I want to be wanted. But I need and want you, too. We are in this together, yes?”

He couldn’t help it—he immediately started to cry. Ilya said something in Russian that he couldn’t understand, immediately reaching for him to pull him closer. And they lay there together on the couch for several more hours—the silence no longer felt so much like distance or like it meant they were leaving things unsaid. 

***

The end of the semester was a blur. Ilya was busy, all of his time spent with either his official responsibilities with his students or with the group from Rozanov’s Table. Hayden, Jackie, and Rose were all in the weeds just like he was, and he felt like he’d done absolutely nothing but sleep, skate, work, and repeat.

He was glad when he got close enough to the end of the semester for there to be a break in games and practices and he took the majority of December off of work to help himself find the time to study. It felt like no matter how many practice problems he ran through, how many books he cracked open, how many hours he spent in the library—he never felt prepared for finals season. 

By the time his last exam ended, he felt like his brain had been scooped out with a dull spoon. For the first time in weeks, there was nothing immediately demanding his attention. No practice. No shift. No chapters to finish. Just that rush of weightlessness from being done.

The moment he powered his phone back on exiting the testing hall, it was already buzzing. 

Ilya: Are you alive?

Ilya: Or did economics kill you?

Shane huffed a laugh, grateful to finally feel like he had a minute to talk to Ilya after weeks of chaos. 

Shane: Still alive for now.

Shane: But if I disappear, tell my loved ones I didn’t have the supply to meet demand.

The typing bubbles appeared almost immediately. He’d sent Ilya his testing schedule, and he wasn’t all that surprised that he had been seemingly waiting for him to get out of the test. 

Ilya: Then you deserve food

Ilya: I am making shchi. It is a cabbage soup. You can come be useless in my kitchen.

Shane didn’t even hesitate before turning his car in the direction of Ilya’s house instead of his apartment. 

***

Ilya looked exactly as tired as Shane felt. His sweater was rumpled, his hair disheveled, and there was a wide swath of papers strewn over the dining room table. He still smiled when Shane walked in, soft and immediate, and his posture immediately eased as he stood to gather Shane into his arms. 

They moved around each other more easily now. He was more comfortable invading Ilya’s space, leaning against the counter while he cooked instead of perching himself across the island. They talked about his test and Ilya’s massive stack of grading, hips occasionally bumping as Ilya passed him to reach for pots or bowls. It felt domestic in a way he hadn’t realized he was craving. It sometimes still blew him away—how natural it felt existing in someone else’s space like this without feeling the need to perform. 

It wasn’t until they were halfway through with their dinner that Shane finally gathered the courage to ask him, “So… what are you doing for Christmas?”

Ilya glanced up, slightly puzzled. “For Christmas?”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “You know—the whole reason we get a break?”

Ilya shrugged, setting down his spoon. “Christmas is not the same in Russia. Russian Orthodox uses different calendar, yes? Christmas is in January, so New Year’s is bigger holiday. I do not do much for Canadian Christmas. Probably… I work on my dissertation. Business as usual, as they say.”

“Are you Orthodox?” Shane asked, gesturing at the crucifix around Ilya’s neck. 

“Ah,” he said. “No. It was my mother’s. I do not know what I believe in, but I do not go to church any longer.”

Something uncomfortable tugged at Shane’s heart at the thought of Ilya being alone in the city for Christmas, even if it wasn’t a holiday that meant much to him. 

He thought about the cottage—about his mom’s slightly-too-thorough grocery lists, his dad’s insistence on a family puzzle, the way that the lake sometimes froze completely blue and solid by late December. Two weeks there together, every year, predictable and familiar and comfortable. 

He thought about the feeling of leaving for all of that and not seeing Ilya for two weeks. 

It sat heavy and wrong in his stomach. 

He realized suddenly that he didn’t want to spend two weeks with Ilya just… absent. Not when things between them were finally feeling steady instead of fragile. 

He spun his spoon between his fingers, pretending to think about it longer than he really needed to. 

“What is on your mind?”

“Will you… come to my cottage with me?” he asked in a rush, trying and failing to sound casual. “We do Christmas at my family’s cottage. It’s nothing huge—just my parents, too much food. My mom trying to get us all into matching pajamas at some point, probably. Dad might buy a new puzzle or two.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched slightly, his face not betraying his thoughts. “Sounds terrifying.”

“She can be,” Shane agreed before glancing up at him, heart beating fast. “You could come with us—if you wanted to. You don’t have to, but… I thought it might be nice.”

He felt a little ‌exposed, somewhat embarrassed to make it clear how much he wanted this. But then he remembered Ilya’s words—how much he wanted to know that he was wanted or needed.

“I just… I’d rather not go two weeks without seeing you. It’s up to you, but I’d like you to come. If you want to.”

Ilya smiled at him then, his face expressive and carefree. “Tell your father I like puzzles. Have him find one with a challenge, yes?”

***

“Sorry, sweetie—the roads are just impassable coming out of town. We might make it out later in the week, but I don’t think we’re getting in for a few days. Maybe if they can get a plow out, but I don’t think your dad’s car can handle the roads like this, and your grandmother still has mine.”

“Yeah, Mom—don’t worry about it,” Shane said, digging through the pile of newspapers next to the fireplace. “Do whatever you need to do—just be safe about it. Ilya and I made it out here alright, but it was dicey coming from our direction. Don’t risk the pass until the plows have come through.”

“Oh, you made it? Do you have food, groceries, everything you need?” she asked through the phone, tone immediately turning concerned. 

“Yeah, yeah—we’ll be fine. We stopped at the store on the way up for snacks and sodas and things, and Ilya picked up some groceries because he wanted to cook some Russian food for you. We’ve got enough to last a few days, and it looks like there’s still some of the food from Thanksgiving in the freezer. We’ll probably be good for three or four days, and we can go back down the hill if we need to.”

Where the fuck were the matches?

“Okay, sweetheart. Let me know if you need to go back down. I’ll send you some money if I need to if you have to go to the store.”

“Alright, Mom, thanks,” he said, turning away from the fireplace at the tap of Ilya’s fingers on his shoulder, matchbox in hand. “Call me when the roads are clear and it looks like you’re on your way up. Love you.”

“Let me know if you need anything. We both love you. Be safe, sweetheart.”

Shane sighed, ending the call and tossing his phone onto the couch as he took the matches from Ilya and lit the fire. He’d already turned the heat on, but it would take a while to get the house all the way up to temperature and there was nothing quite like a roaring fire in the dead of winter. 

“The roads are pretty snowed out,” he said, striking the match and setting it to the crinkled-up newspaper. “My parents are going to be delayed by a few days. So… looks like it’s just us.”

“Oh no,” Ilya said, wrapping his arms around Shane from behind and pressing a kiss to the side of his neck. “Stuck in a cabin with pretty man. And his parents can’t be here for days? Devastating.”

The fire crackled to life slowly behind them, flames moving from the newspaper to the carefully placed logs. As the room filled with the warm smell of wood smoke, he spun in Ilya’s arms, taking a moment to just… look at him. It all still felt a bit surreal—that he was here, that he had Ilya, that things had worked out okay after all. 

“How do you want to pass the time?”

Ilya hummed softly, leaning forward to press his lips against Shane’s. 

“I am sure we can think of a way.”

“Well,” Shane said, stepping back and hooking his thumbs into the pocket of his hoodie. “Since we’re officially snowed in, I guess I should give you the grand tour.”

“Grand?” Ilya asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Very grand,” Shane insisted. “The extremely prestigious Hollander Family Cottage. It’s a trademarked name, you know.”

“Oh yes,” Ilya said, moving to stand just behind him. “Very official. Okay, show me.”

He started with the living room, since they were already there. He pointed out the dent on the wall where he and a cousin had played indoor mini-sticks despite their parents urging them to move it outside and away from the drywall. The tiny kitchen where Mom usually overcooked breakfast until Dad stepped in to make sure she didn’t burn a second batch of bacon. 

Ilya listened to it all with quiet attention, asking small questions, dragging his fingers over the edge of a framed picture of Shane—smiling at stories that probably weren’t half as interesting as he acted like they were. 

By the time Shane pushed open the door to the bedroom at the end of the hallway, his voice had turned soft, slightly apprehensive. 

“This one’s mine whenever we come up,” he said. “Or… ours, I guess. I guess I should be glad I convinced Mom to replace the twin-sized bed a couple of years ago.”

The room was simple—twenty-year-old quilt, warm flannel sheets, a window looking out over the snow-buried lake. 

Ilya stepped inside after him, eyes moving around the room as he took it all in. 

“You spent many winters here,” he said, lightly touching the quilt that his grandmother had made years ago. 

“Every year since I was a kid.”

“It suits you,” he said. “Quiet, warm. Hidden away next to the ice.”

Shane laughed softly, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Are you calling me hidden?”

“Sometimes,” Ilya said gently, sitting beside him. 

The quiet that followed wasn’t awkward or heavy. It was soft, warm—they’d already said all the heavy things, and Shane felt lighter than he had in a long time. 

He couldn’t say who moved first. Couldn’t say that it mattered, either. 

They leaned in together, the kiss softer than it had been the last time they were in a bed together. They weren’t hesitant—there was no fear from secret, unspoken suspicions. Nothing but the familiar press of Ilya’s body against his and the taste of Ilya thick on his tongue. 

Shane curled his hand into the front of Ilya’s sweater, tugging him forward, gently but insistently. 

“Come here,” he mumbled against Ilya’s mouth. Ilya moved with him easily, shifting their weights so that when they fell back, Shane found himself flat on top of the quilt with Ilya braced above him. Mattress dipped under their combined weight—Ilya’s body solid and heavy against him in a way that made Shane’s pulse jump pleasantly. 

“This okay?” Ilya asked. His voice was lower than it had been that first night, as if he were already certain of the answer—offering Shane the space to refuse, but clearly not expecting him to. 

“Yeah,” he said, breathless but sure. “I am so much more than okay.”

He slid his hands under the hem of Ilya’s sweater, his slightly chilled palms skating across soft, warm skin. Ilya sucked in a breath when his fingers splayed over his back, thumbs digging into the muscles along his spine. 

“I missed this,” Shane whispered, tipping his head back to make more room for where Ilya was tracing his mouth along his jaw. “Missed you.”

“I know,” Ilya said, voice thick where he spoke into his skin. “I missed you so much, solnyshko.”

They undressed each other without the clumsiness of that first time—not frantic or awkward, just with a steady, shared purpose. The sweater and hoodie went first, then the drag of the soft cotton of their t-shirts over their heads. Shane took his time with Ilya’s belt, knuckles brushing the planes of Ilya’s stomach as he worked the buckle open. 

Ilya just stared down at him with a quiet focus, but there was nothing distant in his expression any more. Just affection. Pride, maybe. 

“You are staring,” Ilya said fondly.

“Well, yeah,” Shane said, cheeks warm. “Have you seen you?”

Ilya huffed out a small, delighted laugh which broke off as Shane succeeded with his belt and slipped his hand into the waistband of Ilya’s jeans. 

They shed the rest of their clothes quickly until there was no space left between them at all—just the brush of skin on skin and the pressure of Ilya’s thigh between Shane’s as he tried to pull him closer. 

Ilya kissed him again, one big hand cradling the back of Shane’s head like he was something precious to him. Shane let himself sink into the pressure, let it quiet the last bit of noise left in his head. 

“Tell me you came prepared, please,” Shane gasped into his mouth. 

Ilya smiled into his mouth, chuckling. “You think I would come here with you for two weeks and not bring what we need?”

Ilya reached for the discarded jeans on the floor, pulling both a condom and a packet of lube from the pocket. The bed creaked as he settled himself down between Shane’s legs, lifting one of his knees before pressing a kiss to the inside of one and then the other. Shane’s breath hitched as Ilya’s shoulders settled between them, holding his legs open. 

“Okay?” Ilya asked, hands sliding up and his thumbs rubbing slow circles into the backs of Shane’s knees. 

Shane nodded before stopping himself and forcing the words out. “Yes. Please.”

“Mmmm. Good. Okay,” Ilya said, sounding satisfied. 

The first touch of his fingers, slick and cool from the lube, felt more familiar now but the bigger context made it new—the broad light of day instead of a bedroom lit only by lamplight, the hiss of the wind blowing snow against the window. Ilya didn’t narrate all of his steps now—didn’t really need to—and pressed in with one finger, then two, not waiting for verbal confirmation but for the way that Shane’s breath would stutter before evening out, or the way that his hips would shift to accommodate him. 

Ilya worked him open with a patience that felt like devotion. By the time he finally withdrew his fingers, Shane let out a small, quiet noise of protest that made Ilya grin down at him. 

“Impatient,” he said mockingly. 

“Yeah,” Shane shot back at him, gesturing vaguely with one hand at his hard cock lying against his stomach. “You’ve ruined me. Congratulations.”

Ilya’s smile turned softer then, and he pressed a kiss to the side of Shane’s face as he pulled up to look at him face to face. He rolled the condom on, slicking himself, and then he was there, the blunt heat of him nocked against Shane’s entrance. 

“Legs around me.”

Shane obeyed, looping his legs around Ilya’s hips and resting his heels against the small of his back. The strength in his legs brought them closer together—chest to chest—and Ilya lifted a hand to trace the side of his face, thumb brushing over Shane’s freckled cheekbone. 

Ilya pushed in, slow and deliberate. The stretch burned slightly, probably always would, but it was edged with anticipation rather than anxiety. One of Shane’s hands fisted in the quilt while the other anchored itself at the back of Ilya’s neck as his eyes dropped closed. 

He could feel every inch of the slide as Ilya sank deeper into him, the tremor of Ilya’s arms bracketed around his sides as he waited for Shane to adjust. When the pressure crossed over from nearly too much into something very much not enough, he exhaled, eyes fluttering open. 

“I’m good,” he breathed. “You can move. For the love of god, please move.”

That first thrust was careful, almost testing. The second, much more sure. And then Ilya found that angle—of course he did—and dragged himself across his prostate with unerring precision. 

Shane’s head tipped back, the movement pushing a soft, almost broken sound out of him. “Oh—there, fuck—”

“I know,” Ilya said, repeating the movement. “There.”

His pace stayed unhurried, steady and firm, but there was nothing about it that Shane would have called tentative. Each stroke of Ilya’s hips was deliberate and deep and he refused to break eye contact as he catalogued every slight change in speed or angle and the soft stutter in his breath. 

The ‌raw affection in Ilya’s gaze almost hurt with how tender it was, and he felt like he was a heartbeat away from bursting into tears. 

“You feel so good,” he gasped out, fingers digging into Ilya’s shoulders. “God, Ilya—fuck, fuck—”

“You do not know what you do to me,” Ilya murmured, his voice low and wrecked. 

“I have a pretty good idea right now, actually,” Shane laughed, almost completely breathless. 

Ilya huffed against his mouth, the closest he could get to a kiss or a laugh without breaking his rhythm. “Mouthy,” he said, something like pride in his voice. “I like you like this.”

Shane arched into him, chasing the drag of Ilya’s cock inside of him and trying to meet each thrust as best as he could. The pressure, the way he could feel himself clenching around Ilya—all the sensations were blurring together into something that threatened to overwhelm him. 

“Touch yourself,” Ilya gasped out, arms shaking. “I need you to come—please. I will not last much longer and I need—”

Shane’s hand dropped down and he almost whited out from the feeling of his fist wrapping around his length. He hadn’t realized just how close he was until he stroked, head pushing back into the pillow and his other hand clenching around Ilya’s shoulder tightly. 

“I’m—I can’t—I won’t—”

“Good,” Ilya gasped. “Please, solnyshko—god, I want to feel it—”

The words, the tone, the look on Ilya’s face—it was too much. Shane came hard, his entire body seizing around Ilya as he spilled over his knuckles and his own stomach. 

He was distantly aware of his mouth moving—swearing, maybe saying Ilya’s name, maybe just making some incoherent noise that wasn’t words at all. The only thing he was aware of was the way his body clenched down around Ilya with every pulse of his orgasm. 

Ilya moaned, hips stuttering against him. “Fuck—Shane—”

Shane tugged him down by the back of his neck, pressing their foreheads together until he could feel every exhale of Ilya’s breath against his mouth. “It’s okay,” he whispered, words almost slurred. “I’ve got you—come on.”

Ilya groaned, low and deep in his throat, hips thrusting once, twice more, before he buried himself as deeply as he could possibly go, face pressing into the side of Shane’s throat. The weight of his body, a low stream of Russian against the side of his neck, ‌all washed over him.

For a few minutes, they stayed there like that, Ilya lying heavily on top of him as he carded his fingers through Ilya’s damp curls, feeling the tremors slowly ease from his body. Eventually, Ilya drew ‌a steadying breath and pushed himself up on still shaking arms. “I need to—”

“Yeah,” Shane said, already missing the weight of his body even as he‌ let his arms drop to the side. “Go ahead.”

The withdrawal was a different sort of ache that made him wince but it faded quickly. Ilya tied off the condom, padding off to the bathroom down the hall. He lay there, staring up at the familiar ceiling, listening to the sound of the tap running down and the muffled clink of something on porcelain. 

When Ilya returned, he had a washcloth in his hand. 

“Up,” he said. 

Shane huffed a tired laugh, all of his limbs feeling loose and leaden. “Bossy.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, completely unbothered as he approached. “You knew this when you invited me.”

He cleaned Shane up with careful efficiency, but there was something different about it—not embarrassing in the slightest, but intimate and caring. When he finished, he set the washcloth down onto the floor and climbed back onto the bed, tugging the blanket up from the foot of the bed to cover them both. 

Shane immediately shifted to Ilya’s side, tucking himself against his chest. Ilya wrapped an arm around him, fingers splaying out over his ribcage. For a while, they lay there, the only sounds were their breathing and the faint crackling of the fire down the hall. The snow outside had slowed, and the light filtering through the window was soft but bright. 

“It feels like cheating,” Shane said eventually, voice muffled from where his face was still buried against Ilya’s skin. 

Ilya tilted his head to press a kiss into Shane’s hair. “What does?”

“Getting this,” he said. “You. The cabin. All of this. It feels like something I shouldn’t be allowed to have.”

Ilya’s hand tightened on his back. “You think that you do not deserve this?”

Shane hesitated but allowed himself to answer honestly. “I think that I’m still getting used to the idea that I can actually want things. Big things. People. You.”

Ilya shifted, nudging Shane onto his side so he could roll off of his back to look him in the eyes. One hand lifted to cradle Shane’s jaw, thumb coming up to rest on his cheekbone. 

“Good,” he said simply. 

Shane blinked at him, almost feeling confused. “Good?”

“Yes.” Ilya’s gaze was so gentle that it choked him up a bit. “Wanting things means you plan to stay. Means you are planning for future. I like this for you. For us.”

Shane swallowed hard. The words he was searching for felt big in his throat—too big for the room, too big for him. But they had been sitting there for a while now, pressed hard against the back of his teeth. 

“Ilya?”

“Yes, solnyshko?”

“I—” he cleared his throat, trying again. “Remember how you said I should ask instead of making up stories in my head?”

“Yes…” Ilya said slowly. 

“I’ve been doing that again,” Shane said. “Making up stories. Except this time they’re all like… stupidly hopeful. Like seeing you here again next year. Grading at the dining table while I make you coffee that you apparently hate. Complaining about Canadian winters while trying to convince me that Russians don’t get cold.”

Ilya let out a small, soft huff of laughter, but his eyes were a bit wet at the corners as he stared at Shane. “These are not stupid stories.”

“They feel like it,” Shane said. “But I can’t seem to stop thinking about them.”

He took a breath—in through his nose, out through his mouth, just like he did before a faceoff. Steady. Intentional. 

“I love you,” he said. The words landed between them, heavy and sure, and Ilya jerked slightly as if they’d hit him with actual force. “That’s what the stories are all about. Every single one of them.”

Ilya went very, very still. For a moment—one terrifying moment—Shane wished he could take them back. Worried that he’d broken something again, pushed too hard. Then Ilya exhaled all at once, as if it was a breath that he’d been holding for longer than just a moment. 

“Say it again,” he commanded, voice rough. 

Shane’s heart was still hammering in his chest, but this time he didn’t hesitate. “I love you. Ilya Rozanov, I am in love with you. Like—in a way that feels really inconvenient if I have to start classes back up in just a couple of weeks, honestly.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile—not all the way. His eyes were too bright, flickering across Shane’s face as if he was trying to memorize the moment. 

“Bozhe moy,” he murmured. “You are going to kill me before I finish my dissertation, I think.”

“Sorry?” Shane offered, even though he wasn’t—not even a little bit. 

“Do not be sorry,” Ilya breathed, leaning over to kiss him, slowly and reverently. When he pulled back, his cheeks were wet and his own breath shook. “I love you too. Ya tebya lyublyu.”

Shane’s vision went blurry for a second, and he realized he was tearing up too. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, decisively. “I tried very hard not to, you know. Was very inconvenient for my grand plans. You were very stubborn. Too kind. Kept trying. Kept sending me poetry you do not understand.”

“I understood it,” Shane protested weakly, feeling a bit dazed. 

“Learn Russian, read them again. Then you will know how much you have wrecked me.”

Shane laughed, the sound coming out wet and slightly broken. “You love me.”

“Da.” This time, Ilya did smile—his mouth wide and his expression soft and almost helpless. “I love you. I love your stupid car and your weak backhand and the way you think too much and the way you try so hard anyway. I love that you want rules and you still choose me, even though I did not fit in neat little box.”

“You fit in a box,” Shane said reflexively. “Student mentor. Hockey enthusiast. Secret softie. Ridiculously handsome Russian exile with too many sweaters.”

“You are not helping argument,” Ilya said, pressing a fond kiss against his mouth. 

Shane reached up, tracing the soft line of Ilya’s mouth with his thumb. “You are the only thing I have ever wanted this much that didn’t feel like it was going to break me.”

Ilya’s expression wobbled slightly, and he ducked his head forward to press his forehead against Shane’s. 

“I cannot promise I will never hurt your feelings. I am stubborn. I am not always gentle with myself. Some days I… will not know how to talk. I will get lost in my own head. But I can promise you I will not run. I will answer when you ask. I will listen when you speak. And I—I will love you as long as you let me."

Shane would’ve answered if he could, but his throat closed against any words he might have been able to get out. Instead, he dragged Ilya over into another kiss—slow and grateful and a bit messy as he tried to communicate the things that he couldn’t say. 

When they finally broke apart, Shane rolled onto his back, pulling Ilya against his chest and banding his own arms around Ilya’s back. 

“Okay,” he said, pressing his face into Ilya’s hair. 

“Okay?” Ilya echoed, amusement clear in his voice. 

“I’ll let you love me,” he said. “For as long as I want. Just—heads up, that might be for a long time.”

“Good,” Ilya said, sounding faintly smug. “I have long-term plan. Very well thought out, you would be proud at how well planned.”

“Yeah?” Shane asked, eyes suddenly feeling heavy as the weight of everything suddenly hit him. 

“Yes,” Ilya said. “First plan: sleep. Second plan: wake up and do this again. Third plan: make myself so essential to your life that your mother yells at you if you ever try to break up with me.”

Shane huffed a small laugh that turned into a yawn as he tugged the blanket up over Ilya’s shoulders. “Too late,” he mumbled. “She’s very, very intrigued by the person who got me reading Crime and Punishment without even asking me to. She’ll love you, I’m sure."

“Of course she will,” Ilya said, sounding unbearably smug as he rubbed his hand down Shane’s side. “I am very charming.”

“Mmm,” Shane said, the sound half an affirmation and half of a sigh. Sleep tugged at him, heavy and irresistible. “Love you.”

“Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu, solnyshko.”

***

Shane woke before Ilya did, the sun still up and the heat finally having permeated the full space of the cottage. For a moment, he just lay there, listening to the quiet sound of Ilya’s slow breathing beside him, the wind in the trees, and the faint hum of the heater. 

The lake called to him, just like it always had. 

He slipped out of the bed, careful not to disturb Ilya’s sleep. He tugged back on his jeans and his hoodie, stepping into the living room to find his shoes and his coat, checking the size of Ilya’s boots as he went before he walked carefully to the water—auger and tape measure in hand. The cold bit at his cheeks immediately, the soft wind sharp and clean as it knocked snow from the boughs of the trees surrounding the shore. 

He stepped carefully, chipping a small test hole near the edge, then another—further out where the snow had drifted thinner. Solid. More than solid. 

He moved out further, boring a hole into the ice and measuring the thickness, satisfied to confirm what he’d guessed based on the color of the ice alone. Sturdy, stable, more than enough. He grinned to himself, a small thrill running down his back. 

The shed door creaked when he eased it open. Inside, it smelled of metal and cold wood. He found his own skates easily and dug through the stack of extras aligned on the shelf until he found a pair that he was pretty sure belonged to his uncle—they looked just close enough to Ilya’s size to work. 

His hand brushed the two hockey nets near the door on his way out, rattling the sticks leaning against the wall. 

He paused—for just a moment—before moving past them. 

That’s not what this was. 

When he re-entered the bedroom, Ilya was awake—his curls tousled, wrapped in the quilt and blinking up at him like he was still halfway asleep. 

“I guess I can call off search party,” Ilya said, his voice rough with sleep. 

Shane held up the skates like they were an offering. Maybe they were. 

“Field trip.”

It took a few minutes for Ilya to wake up fully and for them to bundle up—coats, scarves, Ilya grumbling about the cold. But when they reached the edge of the lake together, the world was wide and white and quiet around them as Ilya went still. 

Shane watched his face instead of the horizon. The way his eyes took it in, the way his shoulders slowly relaxed. 

“It’s safe,” he said gently. “I checked.”

Ilya nodded once. Trusted him. And stepped out onto the ice. 

They started slowly, the blades scratching soft lines into the frozen surface. Ilya was steadier than Shane had expected—careful, but moving with a confidence that revealed his experience on the ice. 

They didn’t race and he didn’t wish for a stick, a puck, or a goal. They skated lazy loops and crooked figure eights, often close enough that the sleeves of their coats brushed as they moved. 

At one point, Ilya reached out to snag one gloved hand in his and kept gliding. 

Shane let himself get tugged along, content. 

The sun crept along the horizon, the snow turning gold along the peaks of the mountains on the other side of the lake. Their breath fogged the air between them when they laughed. 

No audience, no pressure, no guesswork. 

Just the sound of their blades on the ice and the quiet certainty of knowing he had someone beside him. 

For the first time in a long while, Shane wasn’t trying to read ahead or fill in the blanks or brace for an impact when he didn’t know for sure which direction it was coming from. 

He just skated. 

And Ilya skated with him. 

Chapter End Notes

“Why are you actually spelling things out in Russian this time instead of typing out the Cyrillic??” Because Shane is actually listening to the words this time, not just tuning out what he can’t understand, that’s why.

***

I have been absolutely blown away by your response to this. I have been writing fanfiction since I started with Twilight in 2008. Never—in almost twenty years of writing and posting—have I ever experienced love for one of my stories like this. Because of you, this is my magnum opus and I’m so grateful to you all for giving me the motivation and momentum to keep it going (and Erica, but whatever—she already knows).

I have read every single comment and you have all given me so many ideas for this story, for Ilya’s perspective, and for things that I want to do in other works.

I have a few WIPs in the Harry Potter fandom that I haven’t been inspired to work on (for the very obvious reasons) and when real life got in the way, writing fell by the wayside. This fandom and the amazing writers and the support you’ve all shown in this community have helped me find joy in my writing in a way that I haven’t felt in years. I really can’t even begin to tell you all how much your kudos and comments have meant to me over the last month. I’m actually getting emotional right now as I’m typing this note because of how much you’ve done for me mentally during a phase of my life when I’ve been struggling a bit.

Thanks for joining me on this ride—it’s been so much fun and I’ve loved doing this with you.

Chapter one of Ilya’s POV is now live for those of you who are interested in his version of events.

Works inspired by this one

Cover Design for Private Meetings by hermacology by AraliaSunSong

[Restricted Work] by blueheart_V