Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Grigori Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Nightmares, Torture, Restraints, Drowning, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending

Language:

English

Series:

Part 15 of [challenge] Heated Rivalry Febuwhump 2026

Collections:

febuwhump 2026

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-15 Words: 1,379 Chapters: 1/1

always found wanting

Summary

Ilya is drowning in darkness.

Notes

Day 15: Test Subject

I waffled a lot what to do with this and almost wrote a continuation to bodyguard, but in the end whumping Ilya won out 😊

Ilya is drowning in darkness.

It’s oppressive, all-consuming and suffocating, sitting heavily on his chest. It brings to mind his mother’s eyes, the sadness that was pulling her under, now made physical in the dark blanketing him.

His mouth opens, and he swears he can feel it pour in, take residence deep inside him, and he can’t breathe, can’t seem to drag in air; his lungs full of the darkness with no room for oxygen.

He’ll die here, he realises suddenly; will die here in the dark with no one knowing, suffocated on nothingness. Laughter is clawing at his ribs, but it can’t get out because it can’t compete with the darkness, can’t compete with the sheer pressure it puts on him. What a way to go. Here lies Ilya Rozanov, died from nothing in the dark.

Instinct has him reaching for the cross on his chest – except he can’t move. His hands don’t budge, and it takes him embarrassingly long to clue in that that is because he’s tied down, hands and feet chained – shackled? – to whatever he’s lying on. His chest is bare, he’s pretty sure, and he thinks he’s naked overall, though he can’t feel it. Can’t feel anything beyond the restraints.

Can it be called naked if he’s blanketed in darkness?

Breathe, he tells himself, except that is impossible. Stay calm. That is easier, in that there is nothing for him to do. Nothing to rage against. Nothing to see. Nothing to do. He can only lie there and feel the darkness encroach on his every last wrinkle, every cell and bit of tissue.

He can’t feel his mother’s cross, but that is probably his imagination. It’s there – it’s always there, so it has to be there now, too – and he just can’t feel it because he’s used to it. It has to be there. God; it can’t not be there.

Ilya is still grappling with the reality that he doesn’t know if his mother’s chain is still ther when there’s a snick to his left, and then the room is absolutely flooded with light.

He wheezes, darkness pouring from his mouth as it flees in the harsh, unforgiving glare of the overhead lights. Fresh air rushes in, sweet and amazing, and he can’t get enough – literally cannot get enough, because he’s not only chained down at his wrists and ankles but his chest, too; wound tight with unyielding bands of steel.

Or so he thinks, because his head refuses to budge either, so he can’t exactly see. All he knows is that there is air moving through his mouth and nose and into his chest, but his ribs can’t move. But he can breathe. He can breathe. He can breathe.

There are steps, and he wants to turn his head and can’t, but it’s not actually necessary. He knows those steps, just like he knows that there’s iron bands around his torso; just like he knows that his mother’s necklace and cross have to be here.

He knows, and cannot help but wish he didn’t.

“And here you are.” Grigori Rozanov stops just at the edge of Ilya’s vision.

Ilya wheezes, the only sound he can make, but now it’s a blessing; he’d be whining otherwise, and if there’s one thing his father does not have patience for, it’s weakness. And Ilya is weak; he knows he’s weak, can feel it in his bones and the way his lungs just cave under the metal bands, can feel it in the way the darkness lingers. If he were stronger, it would already be burned away. If he were stronger, he would already be burned away.

But he is weak, and so he is still here.

“You are a marvel.”

Ilya closes his eyes because he can’t close his ears, but he can still see his father in his periphery even so. Too weak to stop seeing, it seems. Ilya should probably have known that.

“My very own son, so weak… Maybe I should not be surprised. After all, you have always come after your mother.” Grigori laughs. The sound carries no amusement but a thousand shards, embedding themselves in Ilya until he can feel the blood welling up. It coalesces into droplets, almost tickling when they grow big enough to run down Ilya’s sides.

“So it’s not impossible, but I still don’t understand why your brother came out normal, and you’re… you. But I guess that is why we are here now. You and me, and all the time in the world to figure out how you came out so wrong.”

Ilya knows all of this. He’s heard it before; from his father, his brother, his father’s brother: odd, they said. weak, they frowned. pathetic. Like a girl, his father used to sneer. You gotta make a proper boy out of him, his uncle used to say. Only the fact that Ilya spent most of his teenage year billeted with other families spared him hat, he’s pretty sure.

“That’s right,” Grigori says, “Even other, normal families couldn’t fix you. And now it’s time to find out why.” There’s a knife in his hand, long and serrated and dangerous, and he’s smiling, fully devoid of happiness.

A flinch builds up inside Ilya, a flinch to get him away; but it has nowhere to go, nowhere to escape to. He wheezes again. Tries to roll away, even though he knows it’s futile. Except this time, his bonds give way without warning, and he lurches to side, right to the edge, and shit, shit shit shit –

He lurches upright, heart hammering in his chest. The blankets pool around his lap, clammy with sweat, and his chest is heaving under the gasping breaths he’s pulling in. Air. Oxygen. Instinctively, Ilay pats down his ribs, but it’s only skin over bone, the only metal his mother’s cross on his sternum. His hand closes around it, as he tries to narrow his world down to the bit of metal with its familiar weight and shape, warm from his body.

“Ilya?” Shane’s sleepy voice asks next to him.

Ilya exhales and keeps the sound in his mind, another anchor to reality. To the here and now. A reminder that the vision of his father was just a dream; a nightmare that cannot come true. His father is dead, and the part of him who could have done this, strung all of this together, has been gone for years even before that.

“Go back to sleep,” Ilya says roughly. “I am fine.” He is. Shane’s bedroom here in the cottage is the farthest thing from the terrifying dreamscape, and Ilya’s nervours system only needs a moment to catch up. He will be fine.

Shane makes a soft, sleepy sound and rolls over. “Nightmare?” he asks, pressing a kiss to Ilya’s side.

Something unclenches inside Ilya he hadn’t even been aware of had been tight. Or maybe he’d just grown used to it.

“I am fine.”

“I’m taking this as a yes.” Shane levers himself up, draping himself over Ilya’s gross, sweaty back. For once, Shane doesn’t even comment on it. “You don’t have to weather them alone.”

Ilya closes his eyes and lets his head tip forward. He shouldn’t be bothering Shane with this. Shouldn’t be waking him up and keeping him from sleep, should just man up and be normal and not have nightmares at twenty-six years old that leave him drenched in sweat and with his heart racing.

“Do you want to take a shower?”

Shame creeps into Ilya’s gut. Of course Shane has noticed.

“I should.”

Shane hmphs. “I think the hot water will do you good. C’mon.”

And even though it’s the middle of the night and Ilya must have woken him from deep sleep, he climbs out of the bed and holds out his hand.

“C’mon. Don’t you want to ravish me in the shower?”

“There will not be much ravishing,” Ilya cautions him, but he’s smiling as he lets Shane pull him from the bed.

Maybe, the hot water will also wash away his shame over being such a burden. Or maybe Shane, wet and enticing, will make him forget.

And even though it’s more than a little pathetic, that is exactly what ends up happening.