Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Troy Barrett

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends to Lovers, POV Ilya Rozanov, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Shane Hollander is Ilya Rozanov's Bi Awakening, Jealous Ilya Rozanov, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Pining, but they don’t know that, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Unreliable Narrator

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-11 Completed: 2026-07-19 Words: 52,369 Chapters: 7/7

m2m

Summary

Ilya has two problems.

The first is that his best friend is freshly single and needs to get laid. The second is that Ilya is having some...weird feelings about it.

These are completely platonic and heterosexual concerns for his friend, of course.

(or a college au featuring shane and ilya as best friends, and shane as ilya's bisexual awakening)

Notes

title and chapters from m2m by cody jon

Chapter 1: what we do is totally platonic

Chapter Notes

i was reading 'as the romans do' by kooksie and realized that shane as ilya's bi awakening is severely underrepresented and we must do something about it.

so here we areeee! bon appetit!

There was a warm, wet heat around Ilya’s cock. Then a slender hand braced against his hip under the sheets, and he thought, wow, yes, okay, and—

"Wait," he said, and the mouth came off him with an annoyed little pop. "Sorry— hold on— I need to—" He fumbled for the charging cable he'd half-plugged in, jammed it into the phone, held the power button.

The screen lit up and his messages loaded.

Shane: Hey. Matt and I broke up.

Shane: You're probably asleep still but I wanted to tell you.

Shane: Don't worry about it. We can talk whenever.

He sat up completely then. The girl—he was pretty sure her name was Megan, or maybe Morgan—came out from under the sheets, made a sound of protest, and fell back against the pillow. Damn, she really was sexy. Her tits were perfect. Ilya had great taste in women. He only mildly regretted what he was about to do next.

"I have to go," Ilya said, already off the bed, pulling on sweatpants he found balled on the floor. "Sorry. Something came up with my roommate.”

"Something came up," she repeated flatly. Her eyes shut and she covered herself with the blanket.

"Yeah." He was pulling on a pair of sweatpants he found balled up on the floor. "Is friend emergency. I am sorry, you were great, last night was very hot— "

“Just save it.”

“Please get more sleep,” Ilya offered.

Ilya grabbed his phone and took the stairs two at a time.

***

The kitchen of Arkell House smelled like waffles.

Shane was at the stove in a white tank top and the same grey sweats as Ilya—Shane had bought them first, and Ilya liked them so much when he borrowed them that he had to buy his own. He held a spatula, doing the thing he always did on Sunday mornings: making breakfast for them and their frat brothers.

Except today he was making waffles.

Ilya crossed the kitchen in three steps, grabbed Shane by the shoulders, and shook him.

“Shane Hollander is making dessert for breakfast? He finally lost his mind?”

"Fuck off," Shane complained, trying to shove Ilya off with an elbow. Ilya didn't let that happen. He clung harder, wrapping both arms around Shane until he couldn't mix the batter anymore and was forced to acknowledge him. Ilya placed his chin on Shane's broad shoulder.

"You are fucking evil dude," Ilya said, but he was grinning. “I have been checking my phone since last night and you could not text me until six in the morning. Left me waiting.”

Shane's body tensed under his hands, then relaxed. "I didn't want to wake you up."

“Bro, you know I’m here for you. Anytime.” Ilya dragged this last word, singing it loudly into Shane’s ear.

“Get off me then, so I can finish these waffles before the other guys wake up.”

Ilya noogied him—a full, ungraceful scrub of his knuckles against Shane's head that Shane ducked away from. Shane continued to mix his batter while Ilya took up residence to his left, leaning his back against their kitchen countertops. "I have been out of my mind. What happened? Walk me through it."

Shane shrugged. "It just didn't work."

"Is not answer, Shane. That is nothing burger." Ilya had learned that one from Shane's dad. He was pretty proud of himself for using it in context. "Come on. Start from beginning."

Shane went quiet and his smile faded. He whisked more aggressively.

Ilya ripped a piece of paper towel and wiped up some batter that had splashed over the side of the bowl, knowing it would irritate Shane. Shane gave him a thankful smile.

"Give me something, Hollander. I am your best friend, some may say your only—" The smile was back. "—and out of nowhere you tell me you are going to break up with your boyfriend of four months and do it that same day. I say okay, I am here if you want to talk, but this is just a formality because I expect you to explain yourself. So speak, Shane Hollander, or I am going to start asking questions."

Shane poured the first ladle of batter into the iron. “Do you want chocolate chips, blueberries, or both?”

Ilya fake gagged. “Obviously just chocolate chips. And I know you are being avoidant, but I think we should unpack this.”

“Wow. Avoidant. Unpack. Did you learn those in therapy?” 

Shane was secretly super funny and a little bit of a bitch. Ilya wondered if they broke up because Shane’s ugly, old boyfriend couldn’t handle that. 

Ilya tilted his head, studying him. Shane didn't look that put out by the breakup. The only indication that anything was different was the fact that Shane was making something sweet for them to eat, and there didn't even seem to be anything disgusting in it—no buckwheat, no barley.

"Was it fight? Did he cry? Did you cry?"

“I didn’t cry.”

"You are not answering the other parts."

Shane added the chocolate chips into the waffle iron and closed it with a click. He wiped his hand on a dish towel and still didn't look at Ilya. "It wasn't a fight. It was more like... a conversation. That we should have had four months ago."

"About what?"

A beat. "You know what."

Ilya did have his ideas. Shane had told him once, months ago, high on edibles (Shane refused to smoke anything) on the carpet of Ilya's room after a party, that things with Matt weren't working in bed. He'd said it quietly, like he was confessing something shameful, and then he'd never brought it up again and Ilya hadn't pushed because Shane had that look—the one that Ilya always succumbed to, where his eyes were huge, brown, and teary.

Ilya suspected it was because he was straight, and Shane felt like he couldn’t talk to his straight friend about gay sex. But Ilya was an ally, and he was open minded! He would talk to Shane about that, if that was the reason behind his break up. 

“It was the sex?”

Shane's jaw tightened as he flipped the iron over. “Yeah.”

"Okay."

"I wanted things he couldn't—" Shane pulled the waffle iron open, inspected it. "I need... He tried, but it wasn'—" He stopped. “Why the fuck am I telling you this?” He groaned. “This is so humiliating.”

“What is humiliating about it? I tell you about the sex I have all the time. Sure, is with women, but—”

"Ilya, you'll burn yourself! Use a fork, for fuck's sake—why would you use your fingers—"

Ilya had grown tired of waiting for Shane to rescue the waffle. He was pretty sure it was about to burn. Shane threw him a fork from the top drawer so he could retrieve the delicious-smelling waffle from the machine and save it from Shane's questionable supervision.

"Eat that on a plate," Shane said. "You're going to get crumbs everywhere."

"I am on sweeping duty today."

"On a plate, Ilya."

"You are so boring," Ilya sighed. He crowded past Shane to grab one. Hell, since he had a plate now, he grabbed some maple syrup from the fridge, an old bottle of whipped cream the house had bought for jello shots, and honey from the counter. Maybe Shane did have good ideas every once in a while.

Shane opened the iron to start another waffle, but Ilya set down all his stuff on the kitchen island and unplugged the machine.

"Hey!"

"Come sit and share this waffle with me."

"It's gonna be too sweet," Shane complained.

“I’ll make Shane safe version. Let’s talk.”

Shane stared at the unplugged waffle iron like Ilya had committed a small crime against him, but obediently got a plate and sat down anyway, pulling out the stool across from Ilya at the kitchen island. Their knees bumped under the counter. 

Ilya cut the waffle cleanly down the middle, then picked through Shane's half, plucking out every chocolate chip he could find and depositing them onto his own plate. He grabbed blueberries from the bowl sitting between them, arranged them in a smiley face, and drizzled honey over his creation. He pushed the plate to his best friend, taking in the fond little smile that earned him, then drowned his own half in maple syrup and added an obscene amount of whipped cream. "There. Is perfect. Now. Tell me more about sex with your ex-boyfriend."

Shane made a face like Ilya had asked him to eat something off the floor. "Bro. That’s gross."

"You are so mature about this. What was the sex problem, that you couldn’t talk about it?"

"I'm not going to sit here and give you a play-by-play of my sex life, dude."

"I am not asking for play-by-play. I am asking for... general picture. So I can understand." Ilya took a massive bite of waffle and talked through it, which he knew Shane hated. "Was it bad? Was it boring? Was he selfish?"

Shane picked a honey covered blueberry off his plate. "He wasn't selfish. He tried. He just..." He stopped. "It's embarrassing."

"You keep saying that. What is embarrassing about it? Again, I tell you about sex I have all the time."

"That's different."

"How is different?"

"Because you're—" Shane gestured vaguely at all of Ilya. "You. And I'm—" He gestured vaguely at himself. "A guy who wants to get thrown around a little. It's not the same thing."

Ilya blinked. Chewed. Swallowed. "Why the fuck not?"

"Because guys aren't supposed to want that." Shane’s entire face was tomato red.

"Who says?"

"I don't know. People. Culture." Shane said flatly. "Guys, and athletes especially, are supposed to be— I don't know. Strong. In control. Or whatever. And I'm not— I don't want to be. In bed, I mean. And Matt couldn't do it, and he made it weird. I felt like a freak for asking, and he felt like shit for not being able to, and it just— See? Humiliating."

Ilya set his fork down, and waited for Shane to look back up with him. "Shane. Having sex with someone is very vulnerable. Is like— the most vulnerable thing you can do with another person. And if you do it with someone you trust, and someone who is..." He frowned, searching for the word.

"Compatible," Shane supplied quietly.

"Compatible. Yes. Then they will not think you are freak. They will think whatever you want is very sexy. Because it is you wanting it. That is the whole point."

Shane looked at him. Something moved behind his eyes—not quite belief, but something adjacent to it. Like he was turning the idea over.

"Do you really think that? As like, a straight man?”

“Yes, I really do.”

Shane held his gaze for a second longer, then his watch beeped, and he looked down at his waffle and actually took a bite. After swallowing, he said, “You always know what to say, Ilya. I’m glad I met you.”

To acknowledge that statement, Ilya lightly tapped his bare feet against Shane’s socked ones.

***

Two years ago, it was an October morning just like this one when Ilya first met Shane properly.

He'd seen him around first during pledge season and then later at their chapter’s social events. They both were born and raised outside of America, both studied kinesiology, and both played hockey. Ilya had wanted to be friends there and then, actually.

But Shane had a Big named Scott Hunter, and Scott Hunter was—there was no polite way to put it—a fucking weirdo. He was way overprotective of Shane; every time Ilya tried to approach Shane at a social or after a meeting, Hunter was there, hand on Shane's shoulder, steering him somewhere else with a polite smile. Ilya eventually stopped trying and stuck with Cliff Marlow, who had been assigned as his Big and was, blessedly, normal. Cool, even. He didn't really care about his role as Big, and the two of them just hung out and partied for most of Ilya's first year.

Cliff already lived in Arkell House. When Scott graduated that spring, Cliff advocated for Ilya to get a spot, and some of their pledge class moved in alongside him—Shane, Troy, Hayden, and JJ. Ilya roomed with Troy that first year in the house and eventually graduated to his own room now that he was a junior. Shane had a similar trajectory, landing with Hayden as a roommate before getting his own space.

The first few weeks in the house, Ilya and Shane existed in the same orbit without ever colliding. They'd nod at each other in the hallway. Say hey in passing. Sit at the same table at dinner without directly interacting, because there were always six other brothers between them filling the space.

It was October. Ilya didn’t make a habit of waking up early in the morning, but he hadn't been sleeping well. Troy looked at him warily every time he entered the room and it made Ilya feel like he was imposing on his own space. It made him restless.

He'd been out there for maybe ten minutes with a cigarette he wasn't supposed to have—house rules, no smoking on the property, JJ in his new role as House Manager had been very clear about this during move-in—when the window below him slid open and Shane Hollander climbed out onto the fire escape in a hoodie and his plaid pyjama pants, saw Ilya, and stopped.

"You're smoking," Shane said.

"Yes. Want one?” Ilya offered, holding out the pack.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke here.” It sounded like a question.

“Okay.”

Ilya took stock of the boy standing in front of him. He had heard so much about Shane Hollander at this point. He was their Academic Chair, and he was organized, disciplined, professional in every aspect of his life. He had excellent grades. He did excellent charity. He was one of the best centers on the school hockey team, already drafted to the Metros and playing at the college level for a few years "for development." The school had written feature pieces on Shane Hollander and sung his praises. 

Right now though, Shane’s hair was sleep-messed. His cheeks were rosy from the cold and his freckles were prominent across the bridge of his nose. He looked younger, soft and unguarded.

The wind shifted and the last of the smoke blew directly into Shane's face. He coughed, waved a hand in front of him, and still didn't go back inside. Ilya cringed and put out the rest of his cigarette.

"What are you doing out here?" Ilya asked.

Shane shrugged one shoulder, leaning against the railing. "Wanted some fresh air. The smell inside our room was kind of—" He gestured vaguely at the air between them and scrunched up his nose. “I thought it was from inside the house.”

Ilya put the whole pack back in his pocket. "I am done. Is gone. You are safe from smell."

"I didn't say—"

"Sit down." Ilya patted the spot next to him on the cold metal grating. "Since you are here."

Shane looked at the spot like it might be a trap. Then, he sat, but at the edge, leaving a full foot of distance between them, and pulled his knees up slightly. His hands went to fiddle with the string on his hoodie, and they both stared at the back wall of the building across the alley for a minute.

"I have not seen much of you," Ilya commented.

“I’ve been pretty busy with school and stuff, so…”

“I mean, all last year, and this year too.”

"I thought you were avoiding me."

That surprised Ilya enough that he turned to look at him. "What? No. I have been trying to talk to you. You and Hunter were the ones avoiding me."

Shane's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? Every event, I try to say hi to you and suddenly you and Hunter are in other room.”

Something shifted in Shane's expression. He looked wary now. "Yeah. He was like that."

"Is he okay? Like, is that a normal Big-Little thing? Marley was chill."

"No. It wasn't—" Shane stopped. Crossed his arms tighter. "It's fine. He was just looking out for me."

“Okay…” That didn’t really answer any of his questions. “What do you mean, looking out for you?”

"People told me to be careful around you."

Ilya blinked. "What?"

"A few of the older guys. They said since you're from Russia, you might be..." Shane’s jaw did a small, stiff movement.

“Might be what?” Ilya pressed.

Shane exhaled slowly through his nose. Then, all at once: "I'm gay. They said you might have a problem with that." He then went very still, like he was bracing himself, not looking at Ilya at all.

Ilya had suspected, but it’s not like he really cared. If he was gay, bisexual, straight, so what? It didn’t affect Ilya. "Okay," Ilya said.

Shane met his eyes. "Okay?"

"Yes. Okay."

"That's it?"

"What the fuck do you want me to say? Is not a problem. I don't give a fuck. Whoever told you that can go fuck themselves."

Shane's mouth twitched. "Hayden told me you swear almost as much as I do."

"Perfect Shane Hollander can say bad words?"

"Fuck you, asshole. How's that?"

Ilya let himself fall flat on his back against the fire escape grating, one arm flung out, the other draped over his eyes. "You've killed me, Hollander. I am dead."

"Alright, pack it up, drama queen. Get up, it’s probably so dirty." Shane stood, brushing off his own pyjama pants like whatever grime was covering Ilya was now on him. "I'm going inside. It's freezing out here."

"Who is drama queen now? I thought Canadians do not get cold."

Shane was already climbing back through the window, one leg in, one leg still out. "Don't even start with that. I hear those jokes all the time."

"Try being from Russia." Ilya sat up, grinning. "People won't just assume you are good in cold, they will also assume you are homophobic!"

He said it lightly, easily, a throwaway line to keep the mood where it was. But when he swung his legs through the window and dropped into Shane and Hayden's bedroom, Shane was standing with his back to him, hands in his pockets, and the easy air between them had gone stiff.

"I'm really sorry," Shane said, not turning around. "That I just listened to them. I should have just spoken to you directly."

Ilya stood there, one hand still on the windowsill. The shift was so sudden it almost gave him whiplash. "Is okay. I understand why."

Shane turned around. His face was open and earnest, and Ilya felt so moved all of a sudden. When was the last time someone had done him wrong and apologized? Who in his life had the humility to admit they were wrong? "It was shitty. You were just trying to be friendly and I made assumptions about the type of person you were." He pulled at his hoodie string. "I’m sorry.”

"Is done now," Ilya conceded. Then, because the room had gotten too heavy and that wasn't where he wanted this to go: "Your side is very organized. Freak."

Shane blinked at the subject change. Looked around his own room like he was seeing it for the first time. "It's just clean."

Ilya didn't wait for an invitation. He started moving through Shane’s side of the room, slow and curious, pulling Shane's life apart one piece at a time. The desk looked like it was from one of those dorm photoshoots, like someone had intentionally staged every item. His laptop was centered, his textbooks perfectly aligned. He had a pen holder with blues, blacks, and reds, each one facing the same direction with the caps on. In the corner, there was a small framed photo of Shane holding some academic award and an older couple who had to be his parents—they were smiling at him so proudly. Ilya felt a pang of longing and moved on in his investigations.

The bookshelf was arranged by subject, then by color within each subject. The bed was covered and pillows and had the fluffiest but somehow most crease-less duvet Ilya had ever seen. It looked endlessly comfortable. 

Instead of saying that, Ilya said, “You have too many pillows. Where do you sleep?"

"Good thing you’re not sleeping here, am I right?"

"Obviously. I have my own room. With normal amount of pillows."

He moved to the wall above the dresser, where a row of hockey trophies caught the rising light from the sun outside. There were a lot of them. More than a lot. Ilya counted seven without trying, and there were smaller medals pinned beneath them in a neat line.

"Wow, there are so many.”

Shane had followed him across the room, hovering near his shoulder. "The teams I played on were good."

"You are good."

"Thanks." Shane tucked a piece of hair behind his ear. The tips of his ears had gone pink. "Do you play?"

"Yes. In Russia I played." He didn't mention his father. Didn't mention the fight they had about his future—and whether Ilya would rather go to school in America with no hockey, or never go to college or play in the KHL. Then, just to be a little shit: "I was very good. Better than you, probably."

Shane scoffed—actually scoffed, a sharp little sound through his throat. "Sure, man. I'd like to see you try."

"You would not be able to keep up."

"I'm the best center on this team." Wow. So Ilya was getting a peek of the real Shane right now. 

"Best center on college team. In Russia, I was playing against men. Real men."

"You're like nineteen."

"Eighteen, when I stopped. And yes, eighteen-year-old Russian men are still more intimidating than American college boys."

"You're ridiculous—” Shane's watch beeped. He stopped mid-sentence, looked down at his wrist, and his eyes went wide in a way that was completely disproportionate to the situation. "Oh, shit."

"What?"

"I gotta go to the kitchen." He was already moving toward the door.

"What? Why? Is six in the morning."

"I have this app — it tells me when to eat to maximize—" He paused, caught Ilya's expression, and squared his shoulders like he was daring him to comment. "To maximize my gains."

Ilya stared at him. "You have an app that tells you when to eat."

"Yes."

"And you are going to the kitchen right now because it told you to."

"...Yes."

Something warm moved through Ilya's chest. He was so tickled by the robot that was Shane Hollander. A neat, labeled, pillow-hoarding, app-following robot, and for some reason Ilya found this completely endearing instead of annoying. Ilya couldn’t believe he had been missing out on this for a year.

"Do you want breakfast?" Shane asked, hand on the doorframe.

"Sure."

Shane nodded and disappeared down the hallway. Ilya followed.

In the kitchen, Shane cracked four eggs into the bowl with one hand and started beating them.

"Can I help?" Ilya asked, leaning against the counter.

Shane glanced at him, then at the fridge. "You can cut the peppers. If you want."

Ilya washed his hands and found a cutting board. He hadn’t cooked in a long time, but he supposed he did miss it. Ilya used to cook a lot with his mom. He was halfway through the first pepper when Shane said, without preamble: "I can only really make eggs."

"What do you eat for dinner?"

Shane shrugged one shoulder, tilting the pan and spreading the oil in it. "Chicken breast and rice."

"So all that pasty chicken in fridge is yours? Every night?"

"...Most nights." Shane poured his egg mixture into the pan.

Ilya stared at him—at this ridiculous, talented, unnervingly organized person who had a wall of hockey trophies and a picture perfect desk and ate chicken and rice every single night—and felt something big and slightly stupid take root in his chest.

"Okay," Ilya said, turning back to the peppers. "Since you made me breakfast today, I will make you dinner."

Shane looked up from the pan. "You don't have to do that."

"I know I don't have to. I want to. Consider it thank you for not calling JJ on me about the cigarette."

“Just this once. Don’t fucking smoke there again. It’s right next to my bedroom.”

“Yes, I will vape next time.”

Shane groaned. “Fucking gross dude, you’re just delivering cancer right to your lungs.”

“Your eggs are burning.”

“Oh shit!”

***

Megan-or-Morgan appeared at the entrance of the kitchen—her dress back on, shoes in hand, hair fixed. She looked at Ilya, then at Shane, then at Ilya again.

"I'm leaving," she said, clearly annoyed. Ilya supposed it did look like his “emergency” was eating waffles with his bro.

Ilya glanced at Shane first—he wasn’t sure why, it was just his instinct. Shane's eyes flicked to the girl and then away, and Ilya couldn't read what was behind it. Too quickly, his face was neutral, back to its usual guarded line around strangers.

"Hey." Ilya pushed off the stool, crossed to her, warm and easy, kissed her cheek. "Thank you for last night. I am sorry I had to rush out this morning.”

Megan-or-Morgan seemed to soften at that. “That’s okay. Next time?”

“Sure,” Ilya agreed, already knowing there would likely never be a next time. He smiled—the one that usually worked on everyone. “Have a good day, gorgeous.”

"Bye handsome."

She left. Ilya turned back to the island and sat down across from Shane, who was looking at the doorway with that same contemplative expression from earlier.

“Shane?”

“Hm?”

"You good?" Ilya asked.

"Yeah." A beat. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Good." Ilya stole a piece of Shane's waffle, because he was finished his own and Shane’s was right there. “So, how do you feel?”

Shane looked at him like he said something funny. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you just went through break up but you do not look very…broken up about it.”

“I guess I am, a little. It's just, it'd been going wrong for long enough that I'd already done most of the grieving, you know? By the time I actually said it, it felt more like..."

“Relief?” Ilya guessed.

“Yeah. It’s more of just mourning the potential that could have been, and the companionship. In retrospect, now that it’s over, I don’t think I had the strongest feelings to begin with. Is that terrible?”

"No. I feel the same.”

Shane laughed at that. “I know that already. What was your problem with him anyway?”

“I did not have a problem with him.”

“Come on, dude. You’ve been smiling like a maniac all morning.”

“He made you weird," Ilya defended himself. If Shane had looked sad, he would not be smiling like a maniac. But Shane looked fine, and Ilya was just happy to have his best friend back.

"I'm always weird." 

Shane was, admittedly, a little weird. He liked things a certain way, and sometimes he had trouble reading between the lines, and he could be very single minded at times. But all of those things made him Shane and endeared him to everyone in the Arkell House, and every time Ilya witnessed him trying to change for Matt, he wanted to throttle his ex-boyfriend.

"You are not that kind of weird. You're the fun weird. And the best kind of boring. He made you the other kind of both." Ilya reached over and wiggled Shane’s forearm. “You should always be with people who like you exactly as you are.”

“Like you?”

“Yes. Like all of us.”

Ilya stole another piece of waffle, and Shane said, quiet, "I've been thinking about something."

"You can do this?"

"Shut up." Shane traced his fork around the rim of his plate slowly. "What if I just... hooked up with someone. Like, casually. To prove to myself that it can still be good and that I'm not a freak for wanting what I want."

Ilya leaned back on his stool. He didn't answer right away. Let Shane sit in it for a second so he'd know Ilya wasn't rushing to judge him.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes, okay. I think this is good idea, actually."

Shane blinked. "You don't think that's fucked up? Using someone like that?"

"You are not using anyone. You are having casual sex. If you both agree and are honest, is no problem." Ilya waved his fork. "People do this every day. I do this every day."

Shane's knee had stopped bouncing. "Yeah. Okay. Maybe."

"That is the spirit." Ilya studied him. "Would you feel ready for that?"

"Actually, I guess I would. I know it seems quick, but I made this decision in my head so long ago that it kind of feels like it's been over between us for a while."

Ilya mulled that over. It made sense. Four months of something not working was a long time to sit in the gap between what you needed and what you were getting. Of course Shane had already done the math. He probably did it the same week he'd confessed to Ilya on the carpet, high out of his mind and miserable about it.

***

There were heavy, lumbering, footsteps on the stairs, and they came in groups. Every brother in Arkell House set their alarm for eight on Sunday mornings because their chapter meeting was at nine, and not a single one of them could be trusted to wake up on the first alarm, so they'd developed this pack mentality where the first one up dragged the rest out by whatever means necessary.

Cliff and Troy came down first, eyes barely open, their hands braced on the railing like the stairs might betray them. Ilya slung an arm around both of their necks the second he was within reach and pulled them toward the coffee pot.

"Good morning, Clifford. Good morning, Barrett. You both look like death!" He said gleefully.

"Feel like it too," Troy mumbled.

"That is what happens when you do seven shots of tequila."

"It was six."

"Nope.”

Cliff ignored both of them, grunted and reached for the coffee pot. Ilya hip-checked him out of the way gently, grabbed two mugs poured for both of them, sliding them across the counter.

After taking a sip, Cliff was finally able to pull himself together to ask, "Roz, how are you so awake right now? I swear I heard you and Morgan going until like four last night.”

Oh, so that was her name.

“Ah. Sorry we did not invite you, if this is what you are saying.” The truth was, Ilya drank more than and slept less than both of these guys last night. But early mornings with Shane were restorative in a way that sleep was not, and Ilya would keep waking up early if it meant he got these quiet moments with his best friend before the chaos of the house descended upon them.

“You know it’s not what I’m saying,” Cliff groaned.

A few more guys filtered down—a couple of seniors who nodded at him on their way to the coffee pot. The kitchen was filling up the way it always did on Sunday mornings, noise layering on top of noise. Eventually, Hayden and JJ also made it downstairs.

When they reached the kitchen, Hayden immediately reached for Shane’s shoulders, which were hunched over the various waffle irons he had running now, and squeezed them. “Mornin’ buddy. Did you end up doing it?” He asked quietly.

“Yeah, I did. It was fine.”

Hayden nodded and that was that. Ilya rolled his eyes. If Svetlana had seen this interaction, she would have said something along the lines of “men.”

Ilya came up next to Shane, shoulder-to-shoulder, half-watching him pour batter and half-watching the room, when Shane announced it. Quietly, without preamble, to the brothers at the island more than to anyone in particular: "Matt and I broke up. I’m fine, so you don’t need to ask me about it."

“Oh shit, for real?” Cliff said. And then everyone was scrambling to offer their concern and well wishes for Shane.

Something twisted in Ilya's chest. He'd been the first to know. Sure, Hayden had known Shane was going to do it, but he didn’t even know if it had happened. Shane had texted him at six in the morning, not any of them. Ilya had been the one on the stool across from him, picking chocolate chips out of his waffle, getting the long, real version instead.

He liked that. He liked being the one Shane came to.

And then immediately felt weird about liking it—because Shane was his best friend and had just broken up with his boyfriend, and Ilya shouldn't be sitting here feeling territorial about who got the text first like it was a competition.

While Shane fielded their questions—which he'd already told them not to ask, my God, their brothers were stupid sometimes—Ilya gently moved him out of the way, handed him a coffee, and took over the waffle making. Shane stepped back without protest, which told Ilya everything he needed to know about how overwhelmed he was. Normally Shane would've fought him for it on principle.

Instead he drifted over to the island and sat down with his coffee.

Ilya grabbed the batter bowl and immediately added more chocolate chips.

“So Shane, what's the plan for tonight?” Cliff asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, right?”

Ilya cringed inwardly. Ten minutes ago, Shane had sat here and said out loud that he wanted to hook up with someone, and Ilya had watched him mean it. But knowing Shane—wanting something and being able to walk toward it were two very different things. Shane was the kind of person who could decide something was a good idea and then spend the next three weeks planning and practicing. He was a scared cat who needed things handed to him on the right plate at the right angle, and Cliff had just bulldozed in here like a wrecking ball.

"It's a Sunday," Shane said, before anyone else could answer.

"Yeah," Cliff said.

"Chapter meeting is at nine. We have class tomorrow."

"And?"

"And nothing. It's a Sunday."

"You sound like a grandpa," Troy said, not looking up from his phone.

Hayden, who had gone upstairs to change in the span of this conversation and looked much more functional, put his hand on Shane’s shoulder again. "We should go out. It's been forever since we all went anywhere with Shane." This was a better approach, Ilya thought reluctantly. Hayden really did know Shane well, too.

"It has not been forever. I went to that barbecue last week.”

"A brotherhood event doesn't count. I mean out. Like, actually out."

"It's Sunday," Shane repeated, weaker this time.

"Live a little, Hollander." That was JJ, who had been quiet up until now, still hunched over his coffee. "You just broke up with your boyfriend. The rules are different."

"What rules?"

Ilya could sense his resolve crumbling and it was his time to step in. "The rules. You get free pass to do stupid shit for like two weeks after a breakup. Everyone knows this." 

"That's not a real thing."

"It is absolutely a real thing," Cliff said. "I did it after Jessica."

"You cried at a bar." Shane frowned.

"Exactly. And nobody judged me. Well. Some people judged me. But I got laid after, so who won?"

Shane pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not going to a bar on a Sunday and crying. Guys, I’m not even that sad."

"Nobody said anything about crying," Hayden said, sending a silent signal to everyone to follow his lead. "We said go out. Have a drink. Maybe meet someone. It doesn't have to be a whole thing. We can even head back early."

Shane was quiet. He was looking at his coffee, turning the mug slightly in his hands — a small, repetitive motion, like he was processing.

"I don't know," Shane said. Which, coming from Shane, was not a no.

"Come on," Ilya said from the stove, flipping a waffle. “We're going to take you out. Tonight. Maybe, we’ll find you someone who can actually—" He caught himself before he said someone who can actually fuck you the way you need. Shane didn't talk about that stuff casually, and Ilya wasn't going to break his trust. "Someone who actually fits," he finished instead. "And I will be there to help you. If we find that someone. There is no pressure."

Shane smiled at this. "At least you can’t accidentally steal my date while wingmanning.”

The kitchen erupted. Even Shane chuckled a little at his own delivery, after seeing their reaction.

"Happened one time," Ilya said, though it didn’t.

"It was three times," Cliff said.

“But they were accidents, I promise. It won’t happen tonight. This I can also promise. All the sexy men are all yours.” He wiggled his eyebrows in Shane’s direction for emphasis.

"Okay," Shane said. "Fine. But if I'm tired tomorrow, I'm blaming all of you."

"Yes!" JJ punched the air, then immediately grabbed his head like the movement had been a mistake.

"One drink," Shane added, holding up a finger.

"Sure," Ilya said, and knew, and suspected Shane knew, that it would not be one drink.

Chapter 2: i acquire a peculiar thought

They went to a gay bar called Push that Shane had been to once before and Ilya never had. It was on the second floor of a building downtown, above a closed tattoo shop, and you had to know it was there—the sign was fucking tiny.

Cliff had wolf whistled when Shane came downstairs. Even Hayden, who had seen Shane in various states of undress in their shared room for over a year, had said, "Damn, dude," with a sincerity that bordered on uncomfortable.

Ilya was pretty confident in this mission. Objectively, Ilya could admit his best friend was a good looking dude, built like the hockey player he was. Shane was wearing a tight white tank top that became a bit thinner across the broad expanse of his back and emphasized his massive biceps (one time he and Shane compared, Ilya was bigger, but only by a little bit). Instead of the athleisure Ilya usually saw him wear at home, he wore jeans that hugged the trim cut of his waist and the thick muscle of his thighs.

On his head, backwards, was Ilya's hat.

He'd put it on Shane in the kitchen before they left, because Shane had been standing in front of the hallway mirror fussing with his hair for the better part of five minutes, running his fingers through it until it was standing in fifteen different directions, and Ilya had snatched the hat off the hook by the door, walked up behind him, and pulled it down over his head backwards without asking.

"Stop," Ilya had said.

"I'm just—"

"You are done. It looks good. Leave it alone."

Shane had reached up to adjust the brim and Ilya had batted his hand away. Shane's ears had gone pink and he'd left it alone after that.

Now, at the bar, Shane looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. He kept readjusting the hat.

"You are doing great," Ilya told him, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "Already people are looking."

“That’s because they’re all gay and we just walked in with a ton of dudes.”

The brothers came with them initially—Cliff, Troy, Hayden, JJ—but the bar was small and clearly not built for big groups to cluster, and within thirty minutes, the others had naturally scattered. Cliff found a group of girls near the back. Troy and JJ started talking to someone at the pool table. Hayden, who had the social instincts of a golden retriever, simply drifted toward whichever conversation looked most interesting and inserted himself.

That left Ilya and Shane at their own little booth, where Ilya had ordered Shane a Moscow Mule, and a glass of vodka for himself,

"So," Ilya said, leaning back against the bar. "I do not think we have talked about this before. What is your type? So I know what we are looking for."

Shane's cheeks flushed red. "I don't really have a type."

"Everyone has a type."

"I really don't—"

“Okay, so your type is Matt? Short? More boring than you—”

“No!” Shane exclaimed. He took a long sip of his drink. His eyes drifted to the side, unfocused. "I don't know. Bigger than me, I guess."

"Bigger than you is tall order. You are not small."

"I know. That's kind of the point." Shane turned the glass in his hands. "Curly hair. I like curly hair."

"Okay. Curly hair, big. What else?"

"Funny." A small, almost involuntary smile. "Like, I like when people are self-assured enough to just say whatever. Even when they’re not trying to be funny, they’re still entertaining.”

Ilya scanned the room, half-listening. There was a guy by the pool table with curly hair—too short, though, and not big enough. Another one near the back with broad shoulders but straight hair. He was cataloging options, cross-referencing Shane's criteria with the available inventory, and not really registering the words as they came out of Shane's mouth.

“And um. A bit…of a dick," Shane continued, quieter now. "But, like... serious when it matters. Someone who—" He stopped.

Ilya's eyes were still on the room. "Someone who what?"

"Nothing."

"Come on."

"I was going to say someone who will take care of me when we’re…you know. And after. But that sounds…"

"That sounds nice. Is nice. You want someone who is an asshole to everyone but soft for you. Is very romantic." Ilya grinned. “You deserve that and I am sure we will find it.”

Shane met his eyes and his gaze dropped to the table top.

Ilya was looking at a guy near the jukebox who had curly hair and was at least six-two. "Okay. I see options. But also—" He turned back to Shane. "Half the guys in this room have looked at you since we walked in. You do not need me."

Shane glanced around like he didn't believe him, but sure enough, the guy at the high-top by the window was looking again—dark hair, nice jaw, built well. Another one at the end of the bar had been stealing glances for the last five minutes. Ilya pointed them out one by one.

"See? Tall guy by the window. Bar guy with the watch. Jukebox guy with the curls. Those are just the ones I caught. Pick one."

Shane stared at the room, his knee bouncing under the table. "Jukebox guy, I guess."

"Good choice. Go." Ilya slid out of the booth and rounded the table to get behind Shane, hands on his shoulders, ready to physically drag him to the floor if that's what it took.

"Wait, no!" Shane twisted in his seat, grabbing Ilya's wrist before he could be launched. "What do I say?"

Ilya looked down at his own wrist, then back at Shane's face. "I don't know. Hello? Is a start?"

"That's weird. Just 'hello'?"

"Say 'hey, I'm Shane.' Then see what happens. Is not complicated."

"Then what?"

"And then you figure it out! You cannot plan a whole conversation before it happens." Ilya pried Shane's fingers off his wrist and made a shooing motion with both hands. "That is not how talking works."

"You make it sound so easy."

"Because is easy. You are hot. He is interested. Go." He made the shooing motion again, more insistent.

Shane didn't move. Instead, he tilted his head, a small, dangerous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth—the one that meant he was about to be a little shit. "So you think I'm hot?"

"Fuck off, Shane." Ilya gave his shoulder a shove and stepped back.

Shane finally got up and approached the guy. Ilya sat back down in the booth and watched.

Shane said something—Ilya couldn't hear them, they were too far away. The guy smiled, said something back. Good. This was good. Shane was standing with his arms crossed, which was a little rigid, but the guy didn't seem put off. They were talking. Or rather, the guy was talking, and Shane was nodding, and then—

Shane laughed at something, but it was the wrong kind of laugh—his whole body didn’t move with it, his eyes didn’t crinkle; Shane was uncomfortable and trying to cover it. The guy leaned in, said something else with a smile. Shane said something back that made the guy's expression flicker—not badly, just confused—and then Shane was excusing himself, touching the guy's arm briefly in a way that was clearly a goodbye, and walking back.

He sat down on the stool next to Ilya and downed the rest of his drink.

"What the fuck happened, dude?" Ilya asked.

"Nothing."

“It has only been two minutes.”

"I don't know." Shane rubbed the back of his neck. "I ran out of things to say. He asked what I was into and I said hockey and he asked about the team and then I didn't know how to turn that into—" He made a vague, frustrated gesture. "Into anything. Into flirting, or whatever. I just kept answering questions like it was a fucking interview— hey, stop laughing at me, asshole."

Ilya covered his smile with his hand. “Are you secretly a virgin? You cannot possibly be this bad. How do you usually pull?”

“I’ve never done this before.”

Ilya was still smiling. He couldn't help it. "Done what?"

"Approached someone. In person. At a bar."

"How did you meet Matt?"

A long pause. "…The app."

"Of course the app. How did you meet the guy before Matt?"

"Also the app."

"Shane!"

"Okay! Yes. I've never done this. I've never walked up to a stranger and tried to flirt with them in person. I've always used apps. You see someone's face, you read their bio, you know if they're interested before you even say anything. It's—it's structured. There's a process. This is just chaos." He tilted his head, acknowledging the bar, at the noise, at the people. "Everyone's just talking and touching and looking at each other and I don't know the rules."

Ilya stared at him. "You've never once approached someone in person?"

"Ilya, I came out when I was nineteen. I've been with like three people. All from apps." Shane's jaw tightened. "I know it's sad. You don't have to say it."

"Is not sad."

"I can see it on your face."

"I am not thinking it is sad. I'm thinking you need more drinks and to try again. Who next?”

Shane’s eyes danced around the crowded bar. “Maybe the guy with the watch? It looks fancy.”

“Okay. Stay here, I’ll get drinks for us."

He went to the bar. The line was shorter this time, and he was third in line when a girl appeared next to him—tall, brunette, wearing a top that left very little to the imagination. She leaned into his space.

"Is this spot taken?" She asked, gesturing at the bar stool in front of Ilya.

"It is now," Ilya said, easy, turning on the smile as she sat down and looked at him expectantly. He leaned one arm on the bar and gave her his attention. "What is your name?"

"Kayla."

"Kayla,” He said, rolling the sounds of it around his mouth. “I am Ilya. You have very nice eyes."

"Thanks." She bit her lip. "You have a very nice everything."

Ilya laughed—low, easy, close to her ear. "You are very direct. I like that."

Ilya loved this feeling. It was…rewarding, to him, to make people feel seen and wanted. He could feel the rhythm of it, the push and pull, the way to angle his body and drop his voice and make eye contact in a way that made people understand his desire. 

Kayla put her manicured fingers on Ilya’s shoulder and began to pull closer when—

Ilya glanced over his shoulder. Shane was still at their table, alone, turning his empty glass in his hands. He wasn't looking at Ilya. He was looking at the table surface, and there was something about the slight hunch in his shoulders that made Ilya think of a dog left in a car.

"Sorry," Ilya told Kayla, and turned back to her with a regretful smile. "I have to go. My friend needs me."

"Your friend?" She looked toward Shane, then back at Ilya, and something flickered across her face—amusement, maybe, or recognition—but Ilya was already walking away.

He carried their back to the table and set the two vodka cranberries (ugh, gross) down in front of Shane.

"You turned her down," Shane commented mildly.

"I have a very important job to do. Drink. Both are for you.”

Shane ignored him, and looked at the bar again, seemingly searching for Kayla. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Like…make her want you? flirt with her?”

“She was flirting with me.” Ilya felt the need to defend himself.

"No, like, you’re just good at this stuff. I can't just walk up to someone and—" Shane gestured helplessly. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my hands. I don't know how close to stand. I don’t know how to do this, especially the first little bit.”

Ilya was quiet for a moment. Then he slid off his bench.

"Okay," he said. "Then I will show you."

"Show me what?"

"How to do it. Come here. Stand up."

Shane looked at him like he was crazy, but he slid off the bench, swaying slightly. Ilya's hand shot out to steady him and then he didn't let go. He kept his hand on Shane's arm, just above the elbow, and moved them both a step away from the booth so they were standing in the thin space between the tables and the wall.

"What are you doing?" Shane asked.

"Showing you. I am going to do it to you, and you watch. Then you do it to the guy."

Shane's eyebrows went up. "You're going to flirt with me."

"Yes. I am going to demonstrate.”

"Isn't that kind of gay?"

Ilya looked at him. "So?"

Shane blinked. "So… people might…"

"Maybe people see two guys talking at a bar and think we are flirting. Okay. So what?"

"I don't know. We have mutuals here. They might think you’re, you know…"

"Shane." Ilya tilted his head, a little smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "I don't care if people see me that way. I am secure. Who gives a fuck if some stranger thinks I’m gay?

Shane stared at him. Ilya was usually good at reading Shane, but this was a new expression for him. His mouth was slightly open, and there was something in his expression that Ilya couldn't name—surprise, maybe, or something under it, something that flickered and disappeared before Ilya could catch it. 

"Okay," Shane said quietly. "Okay. Show me."

"Good." Ilya didn't let go of his arm. He stepped in—closer than friend-distance, pretending to be something else—and he felt Shane's arm tense under his hand.

He didn't step back.

Instead, he looked at Shane. The kind he'd given countless girls across countless bars and clubs. He let his eyes wander over Shane’s face, the straight bridge of his nose, his lips, his freckles.

Shane's breath caught. Ilya heard it—a small, sharp inhale—and felt it, too, because Shane's chest was close enough now that the shift was visible. Shane looked to the ground.

"First thing," Ilya said, and his voice came out lower than he'd intended, "is eye contact. Look at me, Shane." Shane’s gaze slowly met his. His eyes were brown and wide and very, very close. "See?"

"Mhm," Shane murmured.

"Good." Ilya's hand was still on his arm. He slid it up—slowly, casually—until his fingers were resting on the side of Shane's neck, just below his jaw. He could feel Shane's pulse under his fingertips. "Second thing. You find a reason to touch them. Doesn't have to be complicated. Could be this." His thumb traced a small line along Shane's jaw, barely any pressure at all. "Or this." His fingers curled slightly, settling into the space behind Shane's ear. "Something that feels natural. Make it so that they forget you were never not touching."

Shane was breathing shallowly. His eyes were huge. His lips were slightly parted. He was looking at Ilya like Ilya had just done something to him, and his face was—

His face was really something. That was the thought that went through Ilya's head, unbidden and stupid, and he shoved it aside. 

"Third thing," Ilya said, "you say something true, and specific to them.” He leaned in another inch and saw Shane’s throat bob as he swallowed.

"What would you tell me?" Shane whispered, shutting his eyes and relaxing into Ilya’s hand.

Ilya’s eyes dropped to the freckles. They were scattered across the bridge of Shane's nose and up onto his cheekbones, lighter in some places, darker in others, like someone had flicked a paintbrush at him. Ilya had seen them every day for two years. He'd never thought about them before.

“Your freckles are stunning,” Ilya offered.

Shane opened his eyes and huffed an incredulous laugh, moving away from Ilya’s hand.  The air between them rushed in, cold and abrupt. “Come the fuck on, dude.”

“Yes. Am I not using that word right?” Ilya was suddenly embarrassed. He was teaching Shane to pull, but was using the wrong words. Fuck this stupid language.

Shane’s eyes studied him. “No, that’s right. I just have no idea why you’d say that. I hate them.”

“No, Hollander, they suit you well.” He cleared his throat and backed away a bit further.

“Okay, well, thanks.”

“You are welcome. Then you introduce yourself. Then you’re done.”

“Alright…”

"Your turn," Ilya said.

Shane stared at him. His hand came up and pressed against his own jaw, in the exact spot Ilya's fingers had been, like he was checking to see if the impression was still there. 

"Okay.” Shane didn't move for a long moment. He just stood there, scanning Ilya’s body. 

Then he stepped forward.

"Hey," Shane said.

He did it the way Ilya had told him to. Eye contact, steady and unbroken—those brown eyes fixed on Ilya's with a focus that didn't waver. It was the first time all night Shane had actually done the thing, and he was doing it to Ilya, and the contrast between this Shane and the Shane in the booth was so distinct it almost didn't seem like the same person.

“Good. I like your eye contact. Now you touch me," Ilya said, and his voice came out rougher than he meant it to. "Easy. Find something—"

Shane’s hand came up and touched Ilya's elbow. Ilya was used to Shane wrestling him, shoving him, squeezing him. He had never felt a touch so feather-light from the other man. Shane's fingers wrapped around the inside of his arm just above the joint and stayed there. Ilya stared at the point where they were connected.

Ilya could smell him—clean laundry and something sweeter, the remnants of the cocktails he'd been drinking, and under all of it skin and warmth and Shane. Shane's chest was almost touching his. He could feel the heat of it through his shirt without them actually making contact.

Something was wrong with Ilya's body. His heartbeat was too loud.

The song changed. Something slower, heavier, with a bass line that throbbed through the floor and up through the soles of Ilya's shoes.

Shane looked at Ilya’s chain. Then he looked up at Ilya. 

The fingers of Shane’s free hand found the gold around Ilya's neck—the cross, the one his mother had given him—and he traced it slowly, from where it lay against Ilya's collarbone down to where it rested against his sternum. His fingertips grazed Ilya's skin, and it felt like a million little shocks.

"I like your chain," Shane said. His voice was soft. It didn't match the size of him—the breadth of his shoulders in that tank top, the muscle in his arms, the fact that he could bench press Ilya if he wanted to. 

“Thank you,” Ilya choked out. 

What the actual fuck was happening to him?

Shane's eyes lifted to his. They were enormous. Brown and deep and half-lidded, and looking into them felt like standing at the edge of a very high place.

"Okay," Shane said. Quietly. "Tell me what to do next?”

It all slammed into Ilya's gut. A warm, low pull that he recognized—the same pull he felt when a girl looked up at him from her knees, when someone turned their face up and waited for direction, when he got to decide what happened next. He liked deciding.

He had never felt that pull in relation to a man before.

He felt it now. Full-force, electric, lighting up every nerve ending he had, and his body responded before his brain could stop it—a rush of heat, a tightening in his stomach, his hands curling at his sides with the effort of not reaching out.

Say something, idiot! 

"Right," Ilya said, and he stepped back so fast he almost tripped over his own foot. The chain slipped through Shane's fingers and the warmth of it burnt like a brand. "Right. That's—you're doing really well. You're ready. Um. Good job."

Shane blinked. The intensity flickered—just for a second—and then he was blinking more, looking around like he was surfacing from underwater. His hand hovered in the air where the chain had been, and then dropped to his side. His cheeks were flushed.

“I didn’t even introduce myself yet.”

“You do this every day. No need to practice that. You are ready for real thing." Ilya's voice was too loud. He could hear himself doing it. "Go talk to him. Do what you just did. You are going to be great."

Shane stared at him for a long moment. Something unreadable moved behind his eyes—confusion, maybe, or something hurt, or something that wanted to say wait, don't send me away—and then it was gone, smoothed over, and Shane nodded and left.

Ilya dropped back into his chair and gripped the edge of the table and told himself that the heat crawling up his neck was from the drinks he’d had.

It was a misfire. That was all. His body had gotten confused. He'd been in a situation that mimicked the dynamics he liked in bed—the control, the direction, someone looking up at him waiting for instructions—and his brain had just… associated it with the person who was there. It wasn't about Shane. It was about the dynamic.

***

Kayla's apartment was small and warm. The door was barely shut behind them before Ilya had her backed against the wall, one hand on her jaw, tilting her face up to his. He kissed her hard—controlling the angle, the pace, the depth.

"Bedroom," he said against her mouth.

She pointed down the hall. He walked her there, his hand on the small of her back, and when they got to the bed he pulled her top off and kissed her collarbones and her jaw, while his hands worked on the rest of her clothes. He took his time. He wasn't an animal. He knew what he was doing, and he did it well—his mouth on her, his fingers inside her, slow and deliberate until her thighs were shaking and she came against his hand with a sharp, breathy sound.

Good. That was good. This is what he liked—someone shaking beneath him because of what he was doing to them.

He stood, kicked off his jeans, rolled a condom on, and pulled her to the edge of the bed. He entered her slowly, one hand on her hip, and set a rhythm that was hard and deep. She was warm and wet and responsive, her hips rising to meet his, her fingers in his hair, and the cross chain swung gently between them with each thrust.

Don't think about the chain. Don't think about the chain.

He shifted his angle, found the spot that made her gasp, and stayed there. She tightened around him and he felt her build and break, her back arching, a long moan escaping her, and he kept moving through it—steady, controlled—because he was good at this, he was good at this, he was— he felt—

A muffled, flat feeling where the pleasure should be sharp.

He pulled out, flipped her onto her stomach, and pulled her hips back onto him. She pushed into him eagerly, and he gripped her waist and fucked her deep and slow and it was fine, it was good, it was the same thing that always worked, except his body was one step behind itself, like watching a video of his own life from the outside.

"Choke me," she said, half-muffled into the pillow.

His hand slid up her side, over her ribs, and wrapped around her throat from behind. Not tight—just enough to feel her pulse jump against his fingers.

Shane's voice. Low and soft. FUCK!

He tightened his grip. She shuddered and made a sound that should have sent him over the edge. It didn't. He fucked her through it and she came again, hard, her whole body clenching around him, and he felt it and it still wasn't enough.

He let go of her throat. Flipped her onto her back. Pushed her legs apart and drove into her, bracing both hands on the mattress. She was loose and satisfied beneath him, still making soft sounds, her nails dragging lazily down his sides.

"You can go harder," she breathed. "Come on—"

He gave her harder. His arms were shaking. Sweat dripped from his jaw. The cross chain swung and bounced against his chest with every thrust and he could feel it, cool metal on hot skin, right where—

She reached up. Her hand flattened against his sternum, right over the cross and pressed down.

Shane's fingers on the chain. Tracing it the length of it along Ilya’s chest. I like your chain. The way his eyes went half-lidded. "Tell me what to do”—

Ilya came so hard and so suddenly that he made a sound he'd never made before. His whole body locked up, arms giving out, and he collapsed onto her, hips jerking through a climax that ripped through him like something violent. He buried his face in her neck and rode it out, and when it was over he lay there shaking, and the only thing in his head was Shane's finger on his chest and the horror of it was so immediate and so total that he thought he might actually be sick on top of her.

She laughed, breathless. "Holy shit, hotshot. You came a lot."

The guilt crashed over him like cold water—sudden, total, drowning. He let go of Kayla, yanked his boxers up, fumbled with his jeans. His hand was shaking. His whole body was shaking.

"What—where are you going?"

“Um. Home. Class tomorrow, sorry.”

He tugged on the rest of his clothes, stumbled out of her house, and sat down on the edge of the curb and pressed both hands over his face and just breathed. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The way he used to before a game.

It didn't help.

You just came thinking about Shane. You just came thinking about your best friend. You just—

He pressed harder against his eyes until he saw stars.

No. This wasn't right.

It was a one-off. A glitch. His wires got crossed because the situation was charged and he'd had a few drinks and he was horny and his body was just—doing what bodies do sometimes. It didn't mean anything. It wouldn't happen again. By tomorrow morning he wouldn't even remember it.

***

He showered when he got back to Arkell House. He stood under the water until it went cold, then turned it back to hot and stayed until it went cold again. He toweled off, got into bed, laid there staring at the ceiling, then got up and showered a third time. The fourth time he just stood under the water with his forehead against the tile and breathed until his lungs burned and his skin went pruney.

He did not sleep.

Monday was a blur. He went to his morning class and took notes he didn't remember taking. He went to the gym and lifted without really focusing, misloading the bar twice, and the guy working the front desk asked if he was okay and he said yes, fine and left after twenty minutes. He ate a protein bar for lunch instead of stopping by the house for food because being at the house meant Shane, and if Shane looked at him the way Shane always looked at him—with those open, attentive, caring eyes—Ilya was going to throw up out of guilt.

He avoided the house entirely until after ten, when he slipped in through the side door and went straight to his room. He lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and tried to make sense of what had happened to his mind and why he was not yet free of this feeling.

It was not his depression. He knew that. Shane encouraged him to speak to someone last year after his dad died, and it helped him distinguish between his feelings better.

Depression was a fog. This was a laser. Depression made him want to sleep and he knew this would keep him up at night.

But if it wasn't depression, then what the fuck was it?

He didn't have an answer. He turned the question over in his hands like a jagged piece of glass and couldn't fit it into any shape he recognized. He was straight. He'd always been straight. He liked women—their bodies, their softness, the way they felt and sounded and moved. He'd never looked at a man and felt what he felt when he looked at a woman. He'd never wanted to kiss a man or touch a man or be touched by a man.

And yet.

He pressed his face into the pillow and groaned into it.

Tuesday was worse. Ilya ate breakfast at a café off campus. He studied in the library between classes. He went to the gym at a different time than usual so he wouldn't run into Shane.

It didn't work. Of course it didn't work. They shared a kinesiology lecture on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and when Ilya walked into the hall, Shane was already in his usual seat—third row, left side—and he looked up when Ilya came in, and his face did something complicated. Hurt, maybe. Confusion.

Ilya sat two rows behind him and left the moment the lecture ended, weaving through the crowd toward the exit before Shane could catch up.

He thought he'd made it. He was halfway across the quad, head down, walking fast, when a hand closed around his arm.

"Ilya."

He stopped. Shane was behind him, slightly out of breath, his backpack still on. He must have ran to catch up. His hand was on Ilya's arm—the same spot he'd touched in the bar—and Ilya had to fight the urge to pull away.

"Hey."

"Dude, are you avoiding me?"

"No."

"You sat two rows behind me."

"I wanted to try new seat."

"Ilya." Shane's jaw tightened. He didn't let go of Ilya's arm. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Nothing."

"You've been weird since Sunday. You left the bar without telling me. You didn't come home that night. You've been ghosting me for two days. I asked Cliff if you were mad at me and he looked at me like I was crazy. I asked Hayden and he said you've been acting like you're on another planet." His voice was steady but his grip on Ilya's arm had tightened. "Did I do something?"

"No." The word came out too fast. "No, you didn't do anything."

"Then what—"

Just to torture himself. That was the only explanation for what came out of his mouth next. He needed to hear it. He needed to feel worse.

"How did things go with that guy? At the bar."

Shane blinked. The shift in topic threw him. His hand loosened on Ilya's arm. "What?"

"Watch guy. Did you get his number?"

"I didn't go home with him."

"Why not? He was into you. I saw him looking."

"Because you left." Shane said it simply. "You shoved me toward him and then you were gone, and you looked, I don't know, not good. So I talked to the guy for like two minutes and then I left. I went home to check on you, but you weren't there. I waited up until two." His brow furrowed. "Where did you even go?"

The rock in Ilya's stomach turned into a boulder. Shane had left a guy who was interested in him—the whole reason they'd gone to the bar—because he'd been worried about Ilya.

"I went home with a girl," Ilya said. "From the bar."

Shane's face didn't change, exactly, but something behind his eyes went flat. "Oh. Okay."

"I didn't plan it. It just, happened."

"It's fine, dude. You don't have to—"

"Is that why you didn't go home that guy? Because of me?"

Shane looked at him like that was a stupid question. "Yes. You left really abruptly and you wouldn't answer my texts. I was worried. What's going on with you?"

Ilya opened his mouth. The truth was right there, sitting in his stomach something with teeth. I thought about you when I was inside her. I came because she touched me where you touched me. I don't know why. I don't know what's wrong with me and I need to figure it out before I talk to you about it.

He couldn't say it. He physically could not make his mouth form the words.

So he stood there on the quad with his jaw clenched and said nothing, and Shane looked at him for a long, careful moment, and then his expression shifted from frustrated to something more understanding, the way it always got when he thought Ilya was hurting.

"Oh. Is it your depression?" Shane asked quietly.

The word hung in the air between them. Ilya could take it. He could grab it and use it and let Shane go soft always did when he thought Ilya was struggling, and then Ilya wouldn't have to explain anything, and Shane would be gentle with him, and Ilya could just… not deal with whatever this was for one more day.

He knew it wasn't his depression. But he didn't know what else to call it, and Shane was standing there with those eyes and that worried mouth and Ilya was so tired and so confused and so scared of the thing he couldn't name that he took the out anyway.

"Yes," he agreed. "It's that."

The tension in Shane's shoulders released. His whole face softened and Ilya felt something crack in his chest.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" Shane said. "You know you can tell me. You don't have to disappear."

"I know. I just—sometimes it hits and I don't want to talk about it. You know how it is."

"Yeah." Shane stepped closer. "Yeah, I know. Are you—have you been taking your meds?"

"Yes."

"And therapy?"

"Is fine. I went last Monday." Ilya forced a smile. "Is just one of those weeks."

Shane searched Ilya's face with an attentiveness that made Ilya want to crawl out of his skin—and then he nodded. "Okay. Come on. Let's go home."

They walked back to Arkell House together. Shane didn't push, didn't ask more questions. He just walked beside Ilya with his hands in his pockets, and every few steps their shoulders would bump and Ilya would feel it like a static shock.

The house was quiet when they got back—most of the brothers were out or in their rooms—and Shane steered Ilya straight to the kitchen and pushed him onto one of the stools at the island.

"Sit."

"I am."

"Good. Stay there."

Shane moved around the kitchen with the quiet efficiency that was characteristic of him—opening the freezer, pulling out a bag, preheating the oven. Ilya sat on the stool with his elbows on the counter and his head in his hands and tried not to think about how much he didn't deserve this.

While the food cooked, Shane came up behind him and put his hands on Ilya's shoulders.

Ilya flinched. He couldn't help it.

Shane misunderstood and lifted his hands away. "Sorry, I know my hands are cold. You looked tense. Is it okay if I give you a massage? I know that can help you sometimes."

Ilya didn't fucking deserve this. But Shane looked so ready and so wanting to help, that all he could say was: "Is okay. Thank you Shane."

Shane's hands came back down on his shoulders and he started moving them. Slow, firm pressure across the tops of Ilya's shoulders, his thumbs working into the muscle on either side of his spine.

In theory, Shane gave terrible massages. He had the hands for it—broad palms, strong fingers, grip like a vise—but absolutely no technique. He just dug in and squeezed, finding knots by accident and pressing on them like he was trying to flatten them out. It shouldn't have felt good, and nobody in Arkell House liked Shane's messages (even though Ilya would never tell Shane tat).

But today, Ilya was glad he agreed to this, because it felt normal.

It felt like the uncomplicated satisfaction of someone working out a knot—the same way it felt when he'd gotten a professional massage after a bad week at the gym. There was no heat low in his stomach. No rush. Just pressure and relief.

Ilya kept his eyes closed and waited for the other thing to happen. For his body to do what it had done at the bar.

It didn't.

He exhaled. Something unclenched in his chest and he relaxed.

See? he thought. It wasn't Shane. It was the situation.

Same hands, touching him even more than they had on Sunday. Same person. Different context, but no arousal. If there were actually something there, it would have felt the same as the bar. But it didn't. The dynamic, the darkness, the alcohol, the fact that he hadn't jerked off that night—that was all it was. A perfect storm of circumstances that made his brain glitch for thirty seconds.

And with Kayla—his mind was just confused, so it fixated on what had happened. Like a song he couldn't get out of his head—it didn't mean he liked the song, it just meant it was stuck and it was inevitable that his mind would return to it. His body had been so close to the edge and so frustrated that his brain had latched onto the last intense stimulus it could find, and it happened to be the chain thing. It was an association, not an attraction.

He'd feel guilty about it for a while, probably. He'd feel weird. That made sense—he'd thought about his best friend while he was inside someone else, and that was a fucked up thing to do even if it didn't mean anything. He'd carry that. But feeling guilty wasn't the same as being something he wasn't.

"You're so tight," Shane muttered, thumbs pressing into the muscles along Ilya's spine.

"Just stress."

"Must be a lot of stress."

"You have no idea."

The kitchen was quiet around them and the only other sound was the soft, rhythmic movement of Shane's hands. Ilya let himself float in it.

After awhile, Shane stopped. Ilya heard him cross to the oven, open it, and the rich smell of something crispy and terrible for him filled the kitchen.

A few minutes later, Shane set a plate of dino nuggets and a cold can of Diet Coke in front of him on the island. "Eat."

Ilya perked up. Ilya had finally proven that Sunday was a blip. His shoulders felt looser than they had in days. Shane was looking at him with his tender eyes and making him food and he wasn't mad at Ilya.

He ate a dino nugget. It was shaped like a triceratops and Shane smiled as he bit the head off. "Thank you," Ilya murmured.

"You don't have to thank me. Just talk to me next time. You know I'm always here for you."

"Okay."

Shane reached over and squeezed the back of Ilya's neck, just once, and let go. 

Ilya ate his dino nuggets and drank his Diet Coke. Nobody had ever taken care of him like this.

Ilya felt guilty about lying to Shane about his mental health, but this night with him lessened his guilt overall. Because thanks to Shane's somewhat mediocre massage, Ilya had figured it out. Whatever intense feelings his body had produced for Shane at the bar on Sunday was just a one time thing, and Ilya wouldn't put himself in a situation where he would feel that way again. And, while Ilya was at it, he resolved to never lie to Shane either. Shane was too good, too pure, worried about him too much—no, he deserved the truth, always, and he deserved for Ilya to never think about him that way again.

Chapter 3: the idea has got me hyperventilating

Chapter Notes

omg wow! it's my first time writing on ao3 (i was a wattpad warrior 10+ years ago) and i love seeing kudos and comments come in!!! thank you so much for reading and for your lovely notes<3

i am so sorry for the chaos that is going to unfold in the second half of this chapter. the denial is real yall and it’s gotta come to a head somehow. also it’s lowk sad like irina rozanova is indeed haunting the narrative. oh ilya. you will get your happy ending, i promise.

Things got better after that. At least until January.

***

The first week after the bar was still strange, because Ilya's body seemed to second guess the logic he had used to talk himself out of his feelings. But Shane believed him about the depression, and that belief acted like a buffer that let Ilya be a bit quieter and weirder than normal. By the following week, things between them had settled back into their usual rhythm, and Ilya stopped waking up in the middle of the night with his heart hammering.

Late October, Shane got swallowed whole by the hockey season and midterms. He had papers due, a practical exam, and constant back-to-back games that left him looking hollowed out by the time Ilya made him his Sunday dinners. He turned down every offer to go out with the other guys, which Ilya only ribbed him a little bit for.

It's not like Ilya wasn't busy either. He'd landed a job as a student field therapist for the men's volleyball team. It was good experience for his PT school application next year, it paid, and it gave him something to do that wasn't sitting in his room overthinking. The head trainer, a no-nonsense woman named Donna who had been at the school for fifteen years, had taken a liking to him almost immediately.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, after their shared lecture, they went to the gym together, then back to the house to study.

Ilya wasn't ruminating about what happened anymore. But he was still curious—in a clinical, detached way, of course—about what had actually happened to his body that night. He already knew it was a one-off. He just wanted more evidence to absolutely prove it. So without telling Shane, and without making it weird, he started paying a bit more attention.

Every time he touched Shane, he catalogued it.

At the gym, Shane was doing pull-ups. This wasn't an exercise he typically did for hockey, and he was only attempting them because Ilya bet him he could do more. Shane's form was…not great. Ilya came up behind him and pressed his palm flat against the middle of Shane's back, right between the shoulder blades.

"Here," Ilya said. "Pull your chest to the bar, not your chin. Feel where my hand is."

Shane adjusted. Ilya felt his back engage under his palm—the lat spreading, the muscles moving smoothly beneath him. Shane pulled himself up cleanly, chin clearing the bar without the arch.

"Better?"

"Yeah. Way better. Thanks man."

Ilya took his hand away. He waited and watched Shane complete ten more reps, grunting a little by the last one.

Nothing. Just the normal satisfaction of knowing something useful and a flicker of appreciation that he had a friend who actually listened to his cues. And, also, a bit of man-to-man admiration—Shane was strong as fuck. He was a bit smaller than Ilya because he trained more functionally and lost weight during the hockey season, but when it came to overall athleticism, Shane's numbers were far better than his. That was worth respecting.

He checked the box in his head. Things were normal.

Back at the house, they studied in Shane's room. Always Shane's room—the library was busy during midterms, and Shane had strong opinions about optimal study environments that he expressed at length.

For one, Shane was religious about his sleep hygiene. His bed was only for sleeping. No phone, no eating, and definitely no studying.

"The brain needs to associate the bed with rest," he'd said, the first time they studied together. "Not with mental activity. That's what the desk is for."

"You are high maintenance," Ilya had responded, and then he dove face first into the pile of pillows he had become quite fond of.

Despite the lecture, he never actually kicked Ilya off the bed, and this was Ilya's favourite study spot in the house. Ilya had his own system now: two of the regular pillows behind his back, one under his laptop, and the two decorative throw pillows kicked to the floor because they were too firm. Shane would see them there and sigh, but he'd stopped commenting.

Today they were studying for their practical exam on knee assessments. Shane sat on the edge of the bed—a rare violation of his own rule, but you couldn't practice a knee exam from a desk chair—and Ilya lay flat on his back with his legs extended, one knee slightly bent.

"Okay," Shane said, positioning himself. "I'm going to stabilize your femur and pull the tibia forward to check for ACL laxity. Tell me if this hurts."

Shane's hands wrapped around Ilya's knee, one on the thigh, one below the kneecap, grip firm and controlled. He shifted his fingers to reposition, and they brushed the soft spot just below the joint.

Ilya's leg jerked.

"Fuck, sorry! Did that hurt?"

"No, bro, that tickled."

"Okay…let me try again." Shane hit the same spot again. Ilya's leg buckled sideways and he was laughing—full and helpless, because Shane's brow was furrowed in total concentration and his fingers kept finding the exact same place that made his entire body quiver instead of doing the fucking test.

"Dude— stop—"

"I'm doing it right! Fuck you." Shane pressed harder to compensate and Ilya convulsed on the bed, knocking yet another pillow to the floor. There were actually tears streaming down his face.

Eventually they were both laughing too hard, and Shane had to let him go.

"I'm going to fail this practical," Shane moaned.

"You are not going to fail. You just cannot tickle your patient. Give me one minute and you can try again."

Ilya lay there grinning at the ceiling, waiting for the other thing to happen. The pull. The heat.

Nothing. Just the fading ache in his stomach from laughing with Shane and the quiet buzz of happiness he got from spending time with his best friend.

***

In November, most of the guys in their house went home for American Thanksgiving (including JJ, who had met an American girl at Push), and that left Shane, Hayden, and Troy—the Canadians—and Ilya.

"I want to do something," Shane said on Friday evening. He was standing in the kitchen with his arms crossed, looking at the paper calendar attached to their fridge. Ilya had bought it. It had a new dog for every month and was made for middle school girls.

"Like what?" Hayden asked.

Shane glanced at Ilya for a second, and then back at Hayden. "Like make Thanksgiving dinner?"

Ilya laughed so hard he almost fell off the stool. It came from somewhere deep—a full-body thing that made Hayden shove at him and Troy startle from texting his now boyfriend, Harris.

"What?" Shane said.

"Hollander. There is a reason I make dinner and you make breakfast."

"I was kind of hoping we'd do it together," Shane said earnestly. "I know Canadian Thanksgiving already passed, but you guys are family to me, and it would be nice to celebrate together. Also, Ilya, you've never had a proper Thanksgiving dinner, right?"

Fuck. Fuck his amazing friend and his thoughtfulness.

No, Ilya had never had Thanksgiving dinner.

Shane always drove back the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving, and last year he'd brought back leftovers just for Ilya. But Ilya had never gone with him. The Hollanders celebrated with their entire extended family in Ottawa—it wasn't a plus-one situation. Then, for the past two years, the Hollanders had gone on vacation for the break they got around American Thanksgiving, so Ilya had just hung out with whoever was left in the house, ordered pizza, and drank.

This year, there was no Hollander American Thanksgiving vacation.

Shane had already bought all the ingredients. As soon as they agreed, Shane started lining them up on the kitchen island, including a turkey that had been thawing in their basement fridge since Wednesday. Shane was planning to do this regardless, to make this weekend special for all of them, and Ilya couldn't help but feel so charmed by this. 

"Ilya, I feel like you'd be good on the turkey, because—" Shane started, scanning the paper copies of the recipes he had printed.

Ilya's eyes went to the turkey. He'd seen his mom do chicken a hundred times as a kid, standing on the step stool in their kitchen. Ilyushenka, she'd say, when you're older, I will teach you. Poultry is very delicate. And then he'd become older, and she made the complex dishes less and less, until she wasn't there to show him at all.

His fingers found the cross at his chest.

"Never mind, I'll take turkey," Shane said easily, already turning toward the oven. "You take mashed potatoes?"

"Okay," Ilya agreed.

Hayden got stuffing. Troy got sauces and sides.

They all cooked side by side, which meant Ilya was shoulder-to-shoulder with Shane for most of it, given they were the same height.

Their arms brushed when they both reached for the same cabinet, and Ilya noted each point of contact, the way he had been since October. The data kept coming back the same, and he was getting more and more reassured that everything he had known about himself was correct.

Shane had to watch Ilya add things to the mashed potatoes that were not on any recipe—a clove of garlic he crushed with the flat of his knife, a splash of something from a bottle he wouldn't let Shane read, a handful of chives he had found in the fridge.

"Bro, what was that?" Shane asked anxiously, peering into the pot.

"Secret." Ilya continued to incorporate his mixture.

"But the recipe—"

"Taste."

Ilya scooped a spoonful and held it up to Shane's mouth. Shane's fingers wrapped around Ilya's wrist to steady the spoon. His lips parted. He leaned in and closed them around the spoon, slow, his tongue pressed against the back of it as he pulled the potatoes off, and his eyes stayed on Ilya's the entire time.

Oh God. Ilya averted his gaze quickly. He had just unfucked his brain, he was not about to spiral about this dynamic between them again.

"See?" Ilya asked, making sure his gaze was still on the stove. Good thing he looked away. He felt nothing.

"It's…actually good."

"Amazing, even. Now stop being boring."

Hayden appeared behind Ilya, making him jump. "Give me some."

"Fuck off," Ilya complained. "I will be out of potatoes before we serve dinner."

"Gimme."

Ilya fed him a spoonful like he had just done for Shane.

Hayden chewed, swallowed, and said, "It needs more salt," which was a lie—it was perfect—and Ilya said, "You suck," and shoved him away, and Hayden shoved back, and then the two of them wrestled half-heartedly against the counter while Troy stepped around them to check on his cranberry sauce.

Admittedly, Ilya hadn't liked Hayden their first year living together. He thought he was aloof, boring, and took up too much of Shane's time. But last year, Shane had gotten injured and Ilya and Hayden had taken turns checking in on him and bringing him food and schoolwork, and Ilya learned to love him a little more (even though he would never tell him that).

The warmth he felt wrestling Hayden by the counter was the same warmth he felt watching Troy mix sauces while texting Harris, the same warmth he felt when Shane was being Shane.

Just the pure, innocent joy of being surrounded by good men.

"Ilya," Shane called from the other side of the kitchen. "Can you help me with this?"

Ilya walked over. Shane was facing the counter, reaching for some herbs.

"Can you grab that bag out of the cavity? I think it's the giblets."

Ilya looked inside the turkey. The bag was sitting there, wet and soft, nestled against the ribcage. It was fucking disgusting. He didn't want to put his hand in there. But Shane had asked him automatically, and Ilya didn't want to tell him no, so he just stood there, peering into the cavity like the bag might fall out by itself.

Troy appeared beside him. Didn't say anything. Just reached past him into the cavity, pulled out the bag, and began washing his hands.

Shane turned around. "You get it?"

Ilya looked at Troy, who was already back at his station, not looking up.

Ilya didn't know why he didn't give Troy credit. He pointed at the bag in the tray Shane had set out, and said, "Yes."

"You're the best," Shane said, returning to the turkey.

Ilya preened, and then felt immensely guilty about it—like he was lying to Shane, again. He wasn't sure why he wanted to monopolize Shane's praise so badly that he'd let Troy's quiet gesture go unacknowledged.

"Um, it was Troy, actually. Barrett did it."

"Okay," Shane said, completely unaware of Ilya's inner turmoil. "Thanks to whoever."

By eight, everything was done, and Shane’s watch notified him it was an “optimal” time to eat. They set the table with actual placemats, the good plates and silverware nobody ever used, and a candle Troy found in a junk drawer.

The turkey was a nice colour and it was pretty flavourful—it could have used a bit more butter, in Ilya's opinion, but Shane refused to deviate from the recipe. The stuffing was chunky but edible. The mashed potatoes were smooth because Ilya had commandeered the hand mixer over Shane's protests. The sauces and vegetables were perfect.

After, they cleared the table. Hayden found a deck of cards and suggested bullshit, which was the only card game all four of them kind of knew. It devolved almost immediately, with Shane and Ilya yelling at each other, until Troy suggested a movie instead.

Hayden fell asleep twenty minutes in, a throw pillow clutched to his chest. Troy was half-asleep too, his head nodding forward and snapping back up every few minutes.

That left Ilya and Shane on opposite ends of the couch, the sleeping bodies between them.

They talked about nothing and laughed about everything—hockey players Shane thought were cute, whether Troy was going to fail his psych midterm, the weird smell coming from JJ's room that they'd never identified.

At some point, Shane's head tipped sideways against the back of the couch and he was looking at the ceiling, and Ilya was looking at him—the way the light from the TV played across his face, blue then white then blue again, catching the line of his jaw and the softer shape of his mouth and the freckles that had faded since summer but were still there if you looked. His hair was a mess from where he'd run his hands through it during the card game, and the collar of his t-shirt was stretched out on one side.

"This was good," Shane said, without looking over. "We should do this more."

"Order pizza, you mean."

"I'm going to kill you." Shane closed his eyes.

"Is joke, Shane. Yes. We should do this more. I am thankful we did this."

"I'm thankful for you too." Shane smiled at the ceiling. Ilya smiled at Shane.

In the middle of the couch, Troy's eyes opened—not fully, just enough to peek out of the corner of his eyes, and Ilya could see his irises moving between the two of them. There was a small, cold prickle on the back of his neck: did he see that?

But then Troy's breathing evened out, and Ilya looked at Hayden, asleep with the pillow, and then at Troy, asleep with his chin on his chest, and he thought: so what if he did? I'd look at either of them like that right now. It's Thanksgiving and we're all here and it's been a good day.

***

In December, Ilya went to Shane's family cottage.

It was in a small town in Quebec called Lanaudière—a seven hour from where they went to college. The street where the Hollanders' wooden house resided was reached by winding through increasingly dense forest until they emerged into a world that was almost entirely white. Ilya had never seen anything like it. Russia was cold, but this was different. The snow here seemed softer, like the earth had been wrapped in something quiet and clean. The trees were so still they looked painted. The lake was frozen solid, a vast white plane ringed by pines that bent under the weight of snow.

He loved Canada. The landscape made him feel small in a way that was comforting instead of threatening. Russia didn't feel like home anymore—it was where both his parents were buried and where every street had a memory he didn't want. Canada had only good memories.

The first time Shane had invited him, Ilya had been suspicious. An orphan at twenty, with no family to go home to for the holidays—it was obvious why someone would extend an invitation like that.

But he'd gone because Shane had insisted. Yuna had hugged him at the door, and David had asked him about his major with genuine interest, and by the end of the weekend Ilya had thought to himself—with tears in his eyes—it wasn't pity at all. They genuinely liked him.

It was a strange thing, being welcomed so wholly into someone else's family, because there was no obligation for them to do that. Even in Ilya's blood family, where there was obligation, there was no welcome, warmth or mirth.

The cottage was big—it had four bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room with a massive fireplace—and it sat at the edge of the frozen lake all by itself. The first morning, Ilya woke up at six-thirty and padded out to the kitchen in his socks to watch the sun rise through the window. David was already up, sitting at the table with a mug of coffee and a thousand-piece puzzle spread out in front of him.

It was a winter scene, all blues and whites and tiny, intricate branches.

"You're up early," David said.

"I like view in the morning. You are up early too."

"Shane still asleep?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Good. You boys need it."

Ilya sat down across from him. David poured him a coffee without asking and Ilya started sorting through the edge pieces.

They worked in silence for a while. It was the comfortable kind. His father's house had always been full of tension—silence there meant something was wrong, someone was angry, a storm was coming. Here, silence meant reflection, gratitude, comfort, relaxation.

"You're always good at this," David said, watching Ilya fit three pieces together along the border.

"My mother liked puzzles."

David didn't say I'm sorry or that must be hard or any of the things people usually said. He just nodded and handed Ilya a piece he'd been looking for.

Shane stumbled out at eight, which was late for him. His hair was a disaster and he was wearing one of Ilya's hoodies—a black one he'd borrowed during a movie night in November and never given back. It drooped slightly on his shoulders and the sleeves were an inch too long.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," David teased.

Shane just grumbled and sat down next to Ilya at the puzzle table, their legs touching, and Shane stole his coffee. He picked up a piece, turned it over and put it down. Shane was good at a lot of things, but was useless at puzzles.

"This one goes here," Shane said, pressing a piece into a spot where it clearly did not go.

"Shane. That is a tree piece. You are putting it in the lake."

"It could be a reflection," Shane insisted.

Ilya looked at David. David was smiling into his coffee.

On Christmas Eve, they did gifts. Ilya had gotten Shane one of those smart rings—the kind you could wear while working out without the sweatiness of a watch band, which Shane had complained about when they were on a run in October. Ilya also made sure the ring was compatible with Shane's food timer app.

Shane opened the box and stared at it.

"Oh my God! What the fuck? How did you know I wanted this?"

"You told me."

"You remembered that?"

"Of course."

“Thank you, Ilya.”

Shane's cheeks were red. He inspected the ring closely and immediately pulled out his phone to start setting it up.

Then it was Ilya's turn. Yuna had made him a scarf. Per their tradition, David gave Ilya a puzzle that he and Shane could bring back to Arkell House. This one featured a bunch of cows, for some reason.

Then Shane went upstairs and came back with a box. It was fucking massive.

Inside was an ice cream maker.

Ilya stared at it. He blinked a few times, eyes fixed on the box, because if he looked at Shane right now he was going to do something embarrassing like cry and there were parents present.

"I know how much you like dessert after dinner," Shane said, a little too casually. "You're always angling for a sweet treat, and now we can make you your own. And if you use the right ingredients, I can also join you in eating it."

"Oh," Ilya said, still not looking up. This was so fucking thoughtful. "So this is gift for you."

"No— what? Fuck off. You can make whatever you want in it!"

Ilya blinked at the ice cream maker one more time. Then he looked at Shane—just briefly—and pulled him in quickly, one arm around his shoulders, a short, hard hug. It felt weird, for some reason, to do more than that in front of Shane's parents.

"Thank you," he said, muffled against the crook of Shane's neck.

Shane cleared his throat. "You're welcome."

Ilya had gotten the Hollanders a Russian nesting doll set—the biggest one wore a hockey jersey—and Yuna laughed and immediately started opening all the smaller dolls, and David examined the craftsmanship with quiet appreciation.

On Christmas Day, after breakfast, they went out to the lake, shoveled the snow off, and set up two nets. Ilya borrowed skates and a stick from Shane.

The ice stretched out in every direction, the sky was blue, and the air was sharp and clean. The only sound was the scrape of their skates.

Ilya didn't skate as often as he wanted to. When he first started college, after fighting with his dad, he felt resentful every time he got on the ice for fun. It felt like he was wasting away his talents. But therapy helped him find ways to return to it that were healthier, to appreciate hockey for what it had given him and not what it had taken away. Shane played a big part in that, taking Ilya out skating at their school arena or local rinks whenever they had time.

So Ilya started off a little clumsy, but his body remembered eventually.

They raced. Shane won the first one and Ilya called it a fluke, so they raced again and Shane won that one too and Ilya said he wasn't trying, so they raced a third time and Ilya finally beat him by half a stride. He was pretty sure Shane had caught a bumpy piece of ice, but whatever.

"You are too slow, Hollander."

"You are such a sore loser," Shane snorted.

Ilya took the opportunity to skate a wide arc around him, build up speed, and come in low. He hit Shane shoulder-first and they both went down—a tangle of limbs and skates and snow, sliding across the ice in a heap. Shane made a sound that was half-yelp, half-laugh, and they spun and slid.

Ilya ended up on top. Straddling Shane's hips, one hand on the ice beside Shane's head, the other pressed against Shane's chest. Shane was flat on his back, hat knocked off, hair splayed in the snow, face pink from cold and exertion, grinning up at Ilya with that wide, unguarded smile he only wore when it was just the two of them.

"You," Shane said, breathless, "are a fucking psychopath."

"You said I was slow. I had to defend my honour."

"By checking me? We're not fucking playing hockey!"

"Is just friendly tackle."

Shane shoved at Ilya's chest. Ilya didn't move. Shane shoved again, lighter, his hands lingering, and they were both breathing hard from exertion and the steam from their breath rose between them.

And then something hit Ilya—not the feeling from the bar, nothing like that, of course—just this enormous wave of feeling. Of gratitude so sharp it almost hurt. Of looking at Shane beneath him, snow in his hair, laughing at nothing, and thinking: this person exists. This person is in my life. How did I get so lucky?

It was like someone had made a person specifically designed to be Ilya's best friend. The same sense of humor, the same competitive streak, the same weird mix of seriousness and silliness. They fit together like a lock and key. Ilya had never had a friendship like this—not in Russia, not anywhere—and some days he couldn't believe it was real, couldn't believe that a random fire escape in their frat house and wrong assumption about homophobia had led to this exact moment on a frozen lake in Quebec.

He was so happy it made his chest ache.

"Do you think in another life we play hockey with each other?" Ilya asked.

"Yes." Shane said, still smiling. "Now get off me, dude, you're heavy."

Ilya pushed off and offered his hand. Shane took it and Ilya hauled him to his feet.

They played a one-on-one match until the wind became too much to bear.

Later, back at the cottage, while Yuna started dinner and David stoked the fire, Ilya and Shane sat on the porch in their winter gear, looking out at the lake. The sun was going down behind the trees, turning the sky pink and orange.

"Are you excited to come back here?" Ilya asked. "After school?"

"Back to Canada?"

"Yes." A little puff of air came out as he answered.

Shane tugged on his gloves. "Yeah, I'm excited to around. Of course this is where I'll be if I sign my pro contract, but if it goes wrong, I think I'd choose to do my masters in Canada too."

"You'd be good at it. Either."

"You think?"

"Shane. You are the most disciplined person I have ever met. You would be good at anything."

Shane was quiet for a second. "You should come too. If you wanted."

"To Canada?"

"Yeah. You like it here, right?"

Ilya looked at the lake. The snow was starting to glow orange too.

"I do," he said. "Is nice thought."

The truth is, even though Ilya was planning out what he needed to apply to PT school next year, and he did plan to apply to Canadian schools, he didn't like to think about the future. He was so blissfully happy most days now; the thought of his routine and people being ripped from him made him want to curl up and sleep forever.

That night, they watched a Christmas movie on the couch. Ilya didn't pay much attention to it because he was full and tired in the best way, and he just wanted to look at the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree. Yuna and David had gone to bed early. And at some point, Shane shifted sideways and his head landed on Ilya's shoulder and he fell asleep.

Ilya sat very still. Shane's weight was warm and solid against him, his breathing slow and even, his hair tickling Ilya's chin.

He thought about trust.

In his family, trust was something you earned. It was never given. His father didn't trust him to be successful—every choice Ilya made was met with skepticism, like Ilya was a gamble that hadn't paid off yet. His brother didn't trust him to take care of their dad after he got sick, and with that came fewer and fewer updates until he just faded away. And his mom—Ilya loved his mom, he loved her so much she would always live in his chest like a second heartbeat—but she hadn't trusted that he would be worth staying for. He'd been twelve, and she'd looked at him, and whatever she'd seen hadn't been enough.

He understood it, now, as an adult. His mom had been sick. His dad had seen other Russians struggle and fail and didn't want his son to be the same. His brother had been trying to protect everyone. But understanding it didn't change what it felt like to grow up in a house where trust was a ledger and Ilya was always in the red.

And then there was this. Shane's head on his shoulder, dead asleep, not even thinking about it. Shane's parents in the next room, who had welcomed Ilya with open arms and always responded "How exciting!" to whatever updates Ilya shared.

The Hollanders trusted him. Once Shane had decided Ilya was safe, that was it. There was no probation period, no further testing.

It was such a simple thing. And Ilya had never had it before.

Ilya was so glad he didn't let whatever he felt in October ruin their friendship.

He tilted his head carefully and rested his cheek against the top of Shane's head. His eyes closed.

He fell asleep like that, and didn't wake up until Yuna gently shook them both at two and told them to go to bed.

***

The party that changed it all was on New Year's Eve.

Shane and Ilya had returned to Arkell House straight from the cottage, because New Year's was huge at their college. It was huge for Ilya too, since January first was much more important to Russians than December twenty fifth.

There was a house party at one of the hockey team's off-campus houses—this was a slightly different crowd than the Greek life group, and Shane knew all of them. He and Shane had planned to go together, but Shane shyly admitted he kind of wanted to find someone tonight since the house would be emptier and he would feel more comfortable bringing someone.

So, whatever.

Ilya had clapped him on the back and said in that case, he would try to do the same, which made Shane turn a brilliant shade of scarlet. They both agreed to update each other if they were leaving with someone else so neither of them were left waiting.

After an hour, Ilya lost sight of him. Ilya had been playing beer pong with Cliff and realized that Shane had wandered off somewhere. Ilya kept playing, switching onto JJ's team, but after thirty minutes of no texts, he got worried and went off looking for him.

He found Shane in the hallway off the kitchen.

Shane was pressed against the wall, and a guy Ilya didn't recognize was kissing him.

Not just kissing. The guy had one hand braced against the wall beside Shane's head and the other hand was on Shane's waist, fingers spread wide, thumb pressed into the soft space below Shane's ribs. His body was flush against Shane's—hips to hips, chest to chest—and he was kissing him slowly, deeply, the kind of kissing that wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

And Shane—Shane was kissing him back. Ilya had never seen his best friend like this before, clearly desperate and wanting. His hands were fisted in the front of the guy's shirt, knuckles white, pulling him closer. His head was tilted back against the wall, throat exposed, and he was opening his mouth to the kiss in a way that was almost greedy, like he couldn't get enough of it. His hips had shifted forward, pressing into the guy's, a small, rolling motion that he probably didn't know he was making.

The guy pulled back just enough to breathe, and Shane chased his mouth. The guy smiled against his teeth and said something Ilya couldn't hear, and then he kissed him again, harder this time, and his hand slid from Shane's waist to his lower back, fingers splaying wide, pressing Shane's hips flush against his own.

Shane made a sound.

It was quiet—muffled by the other man's mouth, barely audible over the music—but Ilya heard it. A low, broken noise from the back of Shane's throat, the kind of sound you made when someone was doing something to you that you didn't want to stop. His hands twisted tighter in the guy's shirt. His back arched slightly off the wall. His throat moved when he swallowed.

Ilya's mouth went dry.

He should have kept walking. He should have turned around and gone back to the beer pong table and pretended he hadn't seen anything. That's what a good friend would do—give him privacy, let him have his moment, not stand in the middle of a hallway staring like a creep. Even the strangers around him were giving them the courtesy, grabbing whatever they needed from the kitchen and leaving quickly.

He didn't keep going.

He stood there, just past the kitchen doorway, partially hidden by the fridge door that was hanging open, and he watched some more.

The guy was exactly Shane's type, Ilya realized. Curly hair, big, the confident way he held himself. And he was using all of it against Shane, who was melting.

The guy's mouth moved to Shane's jaw and he licked a long, slow drag of his tongue along the edge, and Shane's whole body shuddered. The grip on the guy's shirt had shifted—one hand still fisted in the fabric, the other flat against the guy's chest, fingers spread over his heartbeat—and his chest was heaving, rising and falling fast, like he couldn't catch his breath.

The guy said something else, low, right against Shane's ear, and Shane nodded—quick, jerky—and the guy's hand slid down, over the back of Shane's hip, fingers hooking into the waistband of his jeans, and Shane made another sound, higher this time, almost a whine, and his head fell back against the wall again and Ilya could see his pulse hammering in his neck—

Ilya was hard.

He realized it all at once. The blood rushing south, the tightness in his jeans, the heat spreading through his groin, heavy and insistent.

His body was responding to what he was watching—responding strongly—and his brain was incapable of forming a single thought. Nothing but the image of Shane's throat and the sound he'd made and the desperate grip of his hands.

Stop looking. Stop looking. Stop looking.

The guy's teeth was on Shane's neck now. Shane's hips rolled again and Ilya's own hips shifted in response, a tiny, involuntary jerk that he couldn't control, and the friction of his jeans against his cock sent a bolt of something sharp and electric up his spine.

Holy fuck. What the fuck are you doing—

He couldn't move. His legs wouldn't work. His body was locked in place, every nerve ending firing, and his eyes were fixed on Shane's face and Ilya's heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat, in his temples, in his cock, everywhere, and the anger came out of nowhere—

We came here together. You were supposed to tell me. This is my holiday.

The anger was simple and Ilya grabbed onto it like a lifeline because it was the only thing in his head that wasn't thinking of Shane in this horrible, sensual way.

He turned around and practically sprinted out of the house, bile rising to his throat.

He shoved past the people by the fridge, ignored Cliff calling his name from the living room, and pushed through the front door into the cold January air. His jeans were uncomfortably tight. He was so hard it hurt, and every step he took rubbed the fabric against his cock in a way that made his vision blur at the edges.

He pulled out his phone and typed with his thumb.

Ilya: found smeone oging to her place dont wait up

He shoved the phone back in his pocket and walked.

Campus was dead. Everyone was at parties or somewhere that wasn't the sidewalk Ilya was stomping down like a man possessed. His breath came out in sharp white clouds. His heart was still slamming against his ribs. The image of the two men kept flashing behind his eyes and every time it did, his cock throbbed and he had to stop walking and press the heel of his hand to his groin and just breathe.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.

He got back to Arkell House in fifteen minutes. It was empty. He went straight to his room, closed the door, locked it, and stood in the dark with his back against the wood and his chest heaving.

Okay. He had to think.

He was hard. He'd gotten hard watching two men making out. That didn't mean anything. People got turned on by all kinds of things—it didn't mean they wanted to do them. It was a visual stimulation thing. A voyeur thing. Some people got off on watching, and maybe he was one of them, and maybe it had nothing to do with the fact that it was two guys.

That made sense.

Except.

The bar didn't fit. At the bar, he hadn't been watching anything. He'd been in it. That was Shane's hand on his neck. Shane's fingers on his chain. Shane looking up at him. That wasn't voyeurism. That was his body responding to a specific context, things being done to him and doing things to someone else.

But what did the bar and the party have in common?

It definitely couldn't be Shane. That would be irreparable, unforgivable, dark, horrible.

What if it was guys?

The thought surfaced like something from deep water, cold and monsterous, and Ilya tried to shove it back down.

No. He was straight. He was Russian, for God's sake. He had slept with probably hundreds of girls at this point. He'd played hockey around men, he lived with men, and he never thought of them in that way.

Well, he supposed, he never allowed himself to think of them in that way.

Because now that he was thinking about it, he was standing in his dark room with his cock straining against his jeans because he'd watched his best friend get kissed against a wall.

He needed to fucking know. He needed to understand, consequences be damned.

An experiment. Controlled conditions and variables.

If I watch it and nothing happens, it's not about men. If something happens, I need to figure out what that means.

He sat down on his bed. Opened his phone. He opened an incognito window, searched for something he had never searched for before, and clicked on the first video that popped up—two guys, one blonde and the other brunette.

The first thirty seconds were nothing. He watched it the way he'd watch any video, a lecture even.

"This is such a bad idea," the brunette was saying.

The blonde one backed him against the wall with a hand on his jaw and said, "What is?" Then, he kissed him—not roughly, but with a slow, deliberate pressure that made the brunette’s breath hitch. 

As they got undressed, Ilya’s eyes roamed their bodies. They were both built—really built, broad shoulders and thick arms and narrow waists, the kind of bodies Ilya was used to seeing every day but never looked at like this. The blonde one's ass was incredible, round and solid, the muscles in his back shifting as he pressed closer, and the brunette's thighs were thick and spread slightly, one knee between the other's legs. Looking at their bodies made Ilya fucking buzz—

And the other guy whimpered. Actually whimpered, and Ilya's stomach dropped.

It hit like a wave. His dick went from half to fully hard in the space of a breath, and he was undoing his own jeans before he could think about it, wrapping his hand around himself, and the relief was so intense it almost hurt.

He didn't take his eyes off the screen. The brunette guy felt up the blonde’s chest and tried to kiss him again, but he was denied. "Look at you. So desperate. You'd let me do anything right now, wouldn't you?"

The other guy nodded, mouth open, eyes half-lidded.

"Use your words."

"Please—" His voice cracked, begging. "Please—"

"Please what? Tell me what you need."

"I need— I need you—"

"Need me to what?" The bigger guy smiled, thumb tracing along his jaw.

"Fuck me. Please."

Ilya's hand was moving now. He jerked himself, fast and tight, his hips lifting off the bed. It was good—better than it had any right to be, better than it had ever felt watching porn—and his brain was screaming at him to stop and his body was screaming at him not to and his body was winning.

The blonde guy's hand slid down the other's chest, slow, teasing, and the brunette's whole body shuddered, and he made another broken sound and then he was on his knees. 

The camera panned down, revealing the blonde's cock. It was huge—thick and heavy, uncut, the head glistening just past the foreskin, and Ilya's mouth watered. Usually when Ilya watched porn, he looked at the girl. He'd never looked at a dick like that before, never even thought about what it would be like to have one in his mouth, but right now, staring at the screen, his tongue pressed against the back of his teeth like it was trying to get out.

Ilya's hand sped up and his thighs were shaking and the pressure was building at the base of his spine, climbing, climbing—

From somewhere outside, the distant sound of people counting down.

Ten—

His hand moved faster.

Nine—

The brunette was sucking the blonde's cock in earnest. It fit almost completely into his throat and it looked like it felt so fucking good. The blonde guy braced a hand against the wall and threw his head back in pleasure. Ilya imagined himself in his position.

Ilya thought of Shane's mouth, Shane's throat—

No.

Eight—

His back arched off the bed.

Seven—

Six—

Five—

Close. So close. Every muscle tensed.

Four—

Three—

Two—

One—

Fireworks. Outside, somewhere, actual fireworks, and Ilya came so hard his vision whited out. His whole body locked up, back bowing off the mattress, a sound tearing out of his throat that he didn't recognize—raw and broken and loud in the empty room—and it just kept going, rope after rope of milky cum all over his fist and black shirt.

He lay there for a long time afterward, hand still wrapped around himself, chest heaving, phone still open beside him. The video was still playing, the two men still exchanging blow jobs. It had been a couple of minutes of the porno, maybe less.

Outside, people were cheering. A car horn honked. Someone set off more fireworks.

Happy New Year.

He was trembling.

Ilya stared at the ceiling, which had become blurry through the tears forming in his eyes. He felt fucking awful, and more confused than ever.

His phone buzzed. His lock screen still read 12:00 AM.

Shane: Happy New Year, Ilya! Hope you're having a good night;)

Ilya stared at the message, the tears finally spilling over now. As if it could make up for the horrible thing he had just done, he responded immediately, not wanting to leave Shane hanging.

Ilya: happy new year shane

Ilya: you too

Slowly, with careful precision, he cleaned himself up. Closed his phone. Pulled his jeans back up. Sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

Ilya put the phone face-down on his nightstand.

For the first time since October, Ilya did not sleep at all.

He heard Shane come in at some point—footsteps on the stairs, a pause outside Ilya's door, nothing for a long moment, then the soft click of his own door closing. Mercifully, there were no other footsteps with him.

He lay there and thought about the video, and about Shane's hands on his chain, and about the way Shane had looked up at him from the ice with snow in his hair, and about the sound Shane made when someone made him feel good. He thought about how he was going to get up tomorrow morning and sit across from his best friend at the kitchen island and eat whatever Shane made him and pretend that nothing had changed.

Ilya didn't know what he was. He didn't know what to call it. His world had cracked open and he was falling through it and there was nothing to grab onto.

He thought then of Christmas with the Hollanders, and how they had all trusted him so easily. Would they trust him now, if they knew the awful, depraved things he thought about when he was having sex with other people or masturbating by himself? What would they think, if they knew that Ilya thought of their precious Shane’s face, his voice, his body while he pleasured himself and came all over his fist?

Maybe Ilya’s family was right with how they treated him. Maybe there was something dark in him that could not be trusted, and those that had grown up closest to him could see it. 

The only thing he knew—the only thing he was absolutely certain of—was that he could not tell Shane.

Not yet. Maybe not ever. Because suddenly, everything—everything—had changed.

He turned onto his side and pressed his face into the pillow until the sun rose.

Chapter End Notes

so that was crazy.

Chapter 4: the entire party thinks we're dating

Chapter Notes

for dinner: misery for all! everyone cheered!

So. Something major had shifted in the way Ilya perceived other men.

The first week of the new semester, Ilya sat in his nutrition lecture and realized he was looking at a guy's hands.

Not just looking. Looking. The guy sat two rows ahead and one seat to the left, and he was right-handed, so every time he wrote something down his forearm flexed in a way that pulled the tendons taut, and Ilya had been watching this happen for what felt like ten minutes before he caught himself and wrenched his eyes to the projector.

He didn't know the guy's name. There was nothing remarkable about him except that his hands were in Ilya's line of vision, and they were vascular and strong, and Ilya's eyes had decided, without consulting his brain, that he should stare at them and wonder what they would feel like against his own.

It happened again in the gym later that week. A guy on the hockey team—Ilya had never spoken to him before—was doing overhead presses, and the way his shoulders worked, the way the muscle bunched and stretched, made Ilya's stomach do something it had no business doing in a public gym. Ilya had to leave mid-set and stand in the locker room with his hands braced on the sink, horrified by his intrusive thoughts.

He was masturbating more. A lot more. Twice a day sometimes, which he hadn't even done as a teenager, and every time he finished he told himself that was the last one and then two hours later he'd be thinking about something—a hand on a jaw, a throat exposed, a low voice—and his hand would be down his pants.

He watched different kinds of porn—straight, lesbian, solo—and yes, those worked, they always had, but the gay stuff hit differently. It hit the way nothing else did, and when he came to it, the orgasm was longer and deeper and left him emptier, and he hated it, and he kept doing it because it also felt too good to stop.

But the worst part—the part that was driving him the most insane—was that Shane stood out from all of these men. It had suddenly become a special kind of torture to be living with him, and the noticing and guilt tormented him endlessly.

It wasn't that Ilya was suddenly seeing things about him that he hadn't before. There were small things, things that had always been there, getting processed by his brain, and apparently filed in a drawer labeled DO NOT OPEN so efficiently that he'd never even known such a drawer existed.

Now the drawer was open and everything was falling out.

Shane stretching after a run, arms over his head, shirt riding up to expose the line of his hip and the soft, tan skin below his navel. Ilya had seen this a hundred times. Now he saw it and had to look away.

Shane coming out of the bathroom in a towel after a post-workout shower, hair wet, chest still flushed from the heat, and Ilya's eyes tracked a drop of water that slid from his neck to his belly button, and Shane said "What?" and Ilya said "I am showering now" and left the room so fast he tripped.

The thoughts were so potent and horrible, they arose even in situations that objectively had nothing stimulating about them. One night, Shane sat on the couch in Ilya's hoodie, scrolling on his phone. The light of his phone made his freckles look quite obvious across his cheeks. The glasses he wore to read were sitting on the bridge of his nose. His knees were drawn up, fully covered by his pyjama pants, and Ilya had stood in the doorway and thought you look so good and then what the fuck was that. Then he went to his room, pressed his forehead against the wall, and jerked off about it.

It was like…his brain had been running a filter his whole life, and the filter had broken, and now he was seeing everything at once. It was too much.

He'd even lied to his therapist about it. Sat in her office and talked in circles about "sudden, distressing intrusive thoughts" without ever saying who or what they were about, and Galina had listened and said, "It sounds like you've been repressing certain feelings for a long time."

But he still felt the same about Shane. That was the confusing part. The gratitude, the warmth, the he's my person feeling—that was all still there, untouched, exactly as it had been.

There was just more now.

The innocent affection he carried for Shane was marred with something else—thoughts that belonged in the back of a club, in a stranger's bed, in a bar bathroom. Ilya fucked around, he knew that. He was easy and casual, and that was fine for random women at parties, but Shane wasn't just some random girl. Shane was Shane—good and steady and the best person Ilya knew—and the idea of dragging him into the same filthy corner of his brain where he kept all that stuff made Ilya feel sick with himself.

***

The club was called Sizzle, and it was where their house went when they wanted to dance instead of drink and talk. Ilya had been a couple times—with Cliff—and remembered it being crowded, loud, and dark.

It was exactly the kind of place where you could lose yourself, which is exactly what Ilya needed after the few weeks he'd had inside his mind.

Shane didn't want to come.

"It's Friday," he said, from his desk, where he was doing something on his laptop. "We have a game tomorrow."

"Just a couple of hours," Ilya had begged, leaning on his door frame. He had been assigned by Arkell House to drag Shane out.

Shane looked at him with the expression that meant I don't believe you. "Fine."

They went with a group—Cliff, Troy, Hayden, JJ, plus a few of their other brothers—and the club was exactly as Ilya remembered. Strobing lights turned everyone into silhouettes. A dance floor packed so tightly that moving through it was like swimming.

Ilya got his first drink and downed it fast fast. Then his second. By the fourth—the one he'd promised Shane he'd sip—he was feeling good. Soooooo good. The noise and the dark and the alcohol turned the volume down on the spiral in his head, and for the first time in a long time, he felt free from his crippling thoughts.

He realized he had probably been like a dark, stormy cloud in their house recently, even if no one had commented on it, and he had to rectify the situation.

He found Cliff on the dance floor and grabbed him by both shoulders, spinning him around. "Marley! I love you so much, you know that?" He had to yell to get his point across.

Cliff, who was two drinks in and grinning, laughed and shoved him off. "Get off me, Roz."

"No, no, no—" Ilya pulled him back in, wrapped both arms around him from behind, and rested his chin on Cliff's shoulder while Cliff tried to dance. "You took care of me freshman year. You were so good to me. You are like—like a real big brother to me. Not like my actual one who does not call."

"Man, I forgot what a sappy drunk you are. I'm leaving—"

"You cannot leave! I am hugging you!" Ilya tightened his grip and swayed side to side with Cliff, who gave up trying to escape and just let it happen, rolling his eyes at Hayden nearby. "I am going to hug you until you feel the love. Feel it, Clifford."

"I feel it, buddy. It's sweaty. Let go."

Ilya let go, but only to grab Hayden next, who saw him coming and tried to put a hand up. "Don't you dare—"

Too late. Ilya engulfed him in a full bear hug, lifted him slightly off the ground—Hayden was strong but Ilya was bigger—and set him back down. "Hayden. You are even more boring than Shane but I tolerate you anyway."

"I'm not boring."

"You are, but you are also good guy." He kissed Hayden on the top of his head. Ugh. Big mistake. He was sweaty as fuck. "You are also very smelly."

Hayden wiped his head with a disgusted face and went to find Troy, presumably to commiserate. Whatever.

A song came on that Ilya knew—one of those songs that had been everywhere two summers ago, the kind of track that was impossible not to move to. He started dancing. He had started clubbing in Russia when he was sixteen, so he was a pretty rhythmic and enthusiastic dancer.

He caught Shane at the edge of the dance floor, leaning against a pillar with his drink, doing the thing he always did at clubs: standing slightly outside the action, watching with his little smile, nodding his head to the music like he was auditing the club.

The strobe lights caught him every few seconds—the sharp line of his jaw, the way his white T-shirt stretched across his shoulders, the messy hair falling over his forehead that he kept pushing back with his thumb. He always looked good, but here, in the dark, with the purple breaking over him in fragments, he looked like something out of a movie.

Ilya danced over to him.

"Come dance," Ilya shouted over the bass.

Shane shook his head, but he was smiling bigger now. "I can't dance."

"Yes you can. Is just moving your body." Ilya added some hand motions to his dance to spice it up.

"I don't know this song."

"Does not matter! I will sing for you," Ilya said.

Was he slurring? It sounded like maybe he was. That sentence took a long time to say.

Ilya got right in Shane's space—close enough that they were almost touching—and started dancing at him. Not with him, because Shane wasn't really giving him anything back, but just in his general direction. He sang the words into Shane's face, off-key and too loud.

It was probably embarrassing but Ilya was too drunk to care and Shane was still smiling, and then he was laughing a little.

He did the thing—the head bob, the move that every North American guy seemed to know by instinct—and Ilya grinned and kept going, singing the chorus at the top of his lungs, dancing in a circle around Shane, taking up every inch of space around him.

Shane just watched him. His eyes tracking Ilya's movement through the strobe light—catching him, losing him, catching him again. He just let Ilya orbit him, and the look on his face was—

Ilya didn't have a word for it. But it made something warm explode in his chest, and he thought: I love this guy so much.

He danced through that song and the next one and the one after that, and at some point he stopped caring about the music and was just moving because it felt good, because it burned off the dark energy that had been coiled in his chest for two weeks.

"I need water," Ilya said finally, breathless, and Shane nodded and Ilya peeled away from the dance floor toward the bar.

He got another drink instead. He wasn't sure why. He was already past the point of caring, but the night felt like something he wanted to keep stretching out, keep filling with something that wasn't the thing in his head—because the monster was finally silenced, and Ilya wanted to keep it that way.

He drank half of it standing at the bar, and then he turned to look back at Shane.

Shane was still by the pillar, but he wasn't alone anymore.

A guy had approached him—tall, wavy hair, good jaw. He was standing in front of Shane, talking to him, and Shane was listening with his head slightly tilted.

Ilya watched.

The guy said something. Shane responded. Then they both glanced in Ilya's direction—quick, almost simultaneous—and the guy looked back at Shane and said something else.

Shane shook his head. Aggressively. Like the suggestion had offended him.

The guy held up his hands, said something placating, and then—after a beat—they were exchanging numbers. The guy held out his phone, Shane typed something in, handed it back.

Ilya's stomach dropped.

It wasn't jealousy. He knew what jealousy felt like, and this couldn't be it. This was something worse—something that started in his stomach and spread upward like cold water filling him from the inside, and his mouth was filling with spit and the lights were too bright and he was going to—

He was going to puke.

He abandoned the drink. Pushed through the crowd, and the guy was still talking when Ilya reached them and touched Shane's arm.

"Can we go home?" Ilya slurred.

Shane's expression shifted immediately—the easy tilt of his head gone, the weight of his full attention now on Ilya. "What? Why? What happened?"

"Feel sick. Can we go?"

The guy looked Ilya up and down, then turned back to Shane with a slow, regretful smile. "Guess that's my cue. Hope I get to see you again."

Shane nodded, but his eyes were still on Ilya. "Yeah. Me too."

Shane's hand was already on Ilya's back, guiding him through the crowd toward the exit. Ilya stumbled on the top step, and Shane caught him—both hands on his arms, steadying him—and Ilya just kind of... stayed there, leaning into him, letting Shane take his weight.

Ilya wanted to cry with relief. For the first time in awhile, Ilya didn't have his horrible thoughts as clutched onto Shane's body. He didn't want to jerk off about it. He just felt comfortable and calm.

The cold air hit them as they walked, and with every step Ilya felt the sick feeling recede, replaced by something lighter. His feet weren't quite doing what he told them to, so he let Shane steer, which meant he drifted sideways every few steps and got pulled back by the arm around his waist.

"You're so warm, Hollander," Ilya said, slinging his arm around Shane's neck. Shane grunted and adjusted his grip. "Sophomore year, my and Troy's room was so cold. We should have put you in there."

"Jesus Christ. You're so drunk."

"Little bit." He held up his thumb and finger, almost touching. "Is fine. I am happy drunk. Not sad. Happy." He squeezed Shane's shoulders, lost his balance, and had to grab Shane's jacket to stay upright. "So happy. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because you are my best friend. Did you know that?"

"I had a feeling."

"Is true. I have had many friends in life. In Russia, I had—" He paused, counting on his fingers. He'd had two. "—many friends. But none of them were you. You are best one. The very best."

"Ilya…"

"I am so glad I met you on that fire escape. Now I only vape, because of you. Do you remember fire escape?"

"Of course I do."

"You thought I was homophobic."

Shane was quiet for a second. "I was an idiot."

"Yes. But a cute idiot." Ilya patted his cheek. "My cute idiot."

Shane heaved a sigh and stared straight ahead. "You need to drink water when we get home."

"I do not need water." He slid from Shane's side to behind him, arms around his neck, feet barely keeping pace, his weight dragging them both. "I want to play Chel."

Shane didn't say anything for a moment. His hand came up and gripped Ilya's forearm where it hung over his shoulder, steadying him. "Okay, we can play when you feel better."

"And another thing. I love your family. Your mom is so nice. Your dad makes good puzzles. I feel like—" He stopped. Swallowed. The alcohol made the words come out before he could catch them. "I feel like they are my family too. Sometimes. A little bit. Is that weird?"

"No," Shane said, and his voice was soft. "That's not weird."

"Good. Because I do not have a family. But then I met you and them and the guys and it is—is a lot. In a good way. In the best way. I do not ever want to mess that up."

They were almost back to Arkell House. The street was quiet and the cold was sharp and Ilya's face was numb and he didn't care because Shane was warm and solid under him and everything felt simple in a way it hadn't felt in weeks.

"Also," Ilya said, as they climbed the porch steps, nearly missing the last one, "I love you."

"I know. You said that."

"No, like—" He pulled himself more upright so he could see Shane's face, which took more effort than it should have. "—a lot. I said to everyone tonight, but you are most important person to me."

Shane stopped on the porch. Ilya swayed into him and caught himself on his shoulder.

Under the porch light, Shane's expression was—

Ugh. Ilya was so drunk. He had no idea what Shane's face was doing right now.

"Let's go inside," Shane said quietly.

Inside, Ilya beelined for the kitchen and hoisted himself onto the counter. Shane got them both glasses of water without being asked and set one in front of Ilya.

Ilya drank half of it. Then he looked at Shane, who was leaning against the opposite counter with his own glass, not drinking.

"So," Ilya said, suddenly remembering. "What happened with that guy?"

"What?"

"At the club. The tall one. You shook your head at him and then you gave him your number."

"I didn't shake my head at him." Shane's jaw did a small, stiff movement. "He asked if you were my boyfriend. I shook my head at that."

The kitchen was very quiet.

"He thought we were together?" Ilya asked.

"Yeah."

"And you said no."

"Obviously."

"Obviously," Ilya repeated. He nodded slowly, processing this with his drunk, foggy brain. "Okay. But then you gave him your number. So that is good, right? He was hot. Your type? You should text him."

Shane didn't answer. He was looking down at his glass.

"You are quiet," Ilya observed. "Are you upset?"

"No."

"Is it because he thought we were together? Because that is stupid. People think things all the time. Once a girl thought me and Marley were real brothers and we look nothing alike."

Shane's mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile. "It's not the same thing."

"Okay, but is still just misunderstanding. You fix it and you got his number. So what is problem?"

Shane set his glass down on the counter. He opened his mouth. Closed it. His throat moved when he swallowed, and his eyes were fixed on some point on the kitchen island, and Ilya tried to read his face, but it was impossible tonight.

"I don't think I'm going to text him," Shane said.

"Why?" Ilya felt like he was missing something, but couldn't figure out what.

"I just—" Shane's eyes were bright in the light, and there was a flush climbing up his neck that Ilya assumed was from the one drink Shane had had all night. "I don't want to."

"Shane." Ilya leaned forward on the counter, concerned now, the drunken fuzz shifting into something more focused. "What is going on?"

"Nothi—"

"Okay, even if you don't like him, there will be other guys. I have seen the way guys look at you. You are like—objectively—one of the best-looking people I know, and I am not just saying that because I am drunk—"

"Ilya." Shane's voice cracked.

Ilya stopped talking.

Shane was standing very still. His hands were flat on the counter on either side of him, like he was holding himself up. His face was doing something complicated—his brow pulling together, his mouth pressing into a line, his chin trembling in a way that was almost imperceptible.

And then his eyes filled with tears. Fuck, what was happening right now?

All at once, like someone had turned a tap behind them, and they spilled over before Shane could do anything about it—two quick trails down his cheeks that he immediately tried to wipe away with the back of his hand, turning his face to the side like he could hide it.

"Whoa—" Ilya slid off the counter. "Hey—"

"I'm fine," Shane said, and his voice was wrecked. He scrubbed at his face again, but more tears came, and his breathing had gone ragged, and he was still turned away like he couldn't bear to let Ilya see. "Sorry. I don't know why…I'm fine—"

"Shane." Ilya crossed the kitchen in two steps and pulled him into a hug.

Shane's body was rigid against him for a second—like he was fighting it—and then something broke, and he went soft all at once, his forehead dropping to Ilya's shoulder, his hands coming up to grip the back of Ilya's jacket.

Shane was crying. Not quietly—these were ugly, hitching sobs that shook his whole frame, muffled against Ilya's shoulder, and his fingers were twisted so tight in the fabric of Ilya's jacket that Ilya could feel his knuckles pressing into his spine.

"Oh, Shane," Ilya murmured, holding him. One hand on the back of his neck. The other between his shoulder blades, rubbing a gentle circle. "Okay. Is okay. I understand why you are upset."

Shane went still against him.

"I ruined it," Ilya said, and the words came out soft and sad and full of genuine guilt, his drunk brain finally assembling the pieces into something that made sense. "You were talking to him. He was interested. And I made you leave before you could close the deal, even though I said I would wingman—"

"Don't." Shane's voice was muffled and raw.

"I'm sorry. I am asshole. You should text him tomorrow and explain. Tell him your drunk friend was stupid and you had to go. He'll understand. He seemed nice. And you deserve—" Ilya's voice wobbled. "You deserve to find someone, Shane. And I keep—I keep messing it up for you."

Shane's fingers tightened in his jacket. His sobs had gone quiet, but his body was still shaking, and he hadn't pulled back, and his face was still pressed into Ilya's shoulder.

And then, slowly, Shane pulled away.

His face was a mess. Eyes red and swollen, cheeks wet, nose running. He wiped his face with his sleeve, then again with the heel of his hand, and he didn't look at Ilya. He stood there with his head down, taking long, deliberate breaths, like he was trying to physically put himself back together. His chest rose and fell unevenly, and his hands were shaking a little.

Ilya didn't know what to do. He stood there, arms useless at his sides, watching Shane's throat move as he swallowed again and again, like he was forcing something back down.

The kitchen was so quiet Ilya could hear the hum of the refrigerator.

Shane finally looked at him with those wet, raw eyes—open in a way that made Ilya's chest hurt—and for a second his mouth parted like he was going to say something monumental. Then, he wiped his face one more time, sleeve damp now, and when he was done, his face was carefully blank.

"Are you feeling better?" Shane said.

"I should be asking you that."

"Are you?" Shane insisted.

"Yes, I feel better…"

Shane pulled in a long, shaking breath and straightened his spine. "Okay. That's good. I'm sorry," he sniffled. He cleared his throat, and his voice came out steadier. "I'm, um, really tired. I think maybe I drank too much, too. I'm going to bed."

"What—"

"Goodnight, Ilya."

He turned and walked out of the kitchen. His footsteps on the stairs were slow and uneven, and then the soft click of his door closing.

Ilya stood in the kitchen for a long time after that, the ghost of Shane's weight still pressed against him.

He felt like absolute shit. He'd done it again—just like at Push, he'd made it about himself. Shane had been right there, finally putting himself out there, and Ilya had yanked him away because he was a terrible friend who demanded too much of Shane's attention.

Tomorrow, he thought, swaying slightly on his feet, the alcohol pulling him toward sleep. Tomorrow I'll fix it. I'll tell him to text the guy. I'll be better.

***

He didn't fix it the next morning, because he woke up hungover and Shane was already gone—to the gym, or the grocery store, or somewhere that wasn't anywhere Ilya was.

He tried again that afternoon. Caught Shane coming out of his bedroom for his pre-game snack and said, "Hey. I really am sorry. You should text that guy."

Shane paused at the door. He didn't look at Ilya. "I already told you. I'm not going to."

"I just don't understand—"

"Ilya." The word was flat. Final. "Fuck. I said drop it."

He walked past Ilya and into the kitchen, and Ilya stood in the hallway by himself like an idiot.

***

Ilya wanted Shane to talk to him. Shane was the one who asked questions, who angled and prodded and sat Ilya down and said talk to me in that careful, earnest way of his. He noticed when Ilya was off and didn't let it go until Ilya gave him something. That was Shane—the kind of person who made you feel like you mattered by refusing to let you hide.

Over the years, Ilya had softened and shared so much of himself with Shane, more than he'd ever shared with anyone. Inside him was an animal that was wary and distrustful, and Shane had found a way to gentle it. Ilya didn't have the same talent when it came to Shane, and it fucking sucked.

They still went to the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They studied together on weeknights. Shane made breakfast on Sundays—a healthy version for himself and a slightly less healthy version for Ilya. They sat next to each other at dinner and at chapter meetings and on the couch when the guys were watching something.

Nothing changed on the outside.

But something had changed, and Ilya could see it in the small cracks. Shane's smile didn't reach his eyes anymore. The shape was right, but whatever powered it had been switched off. He laughed at Ilya's jokes at the right moments, but he sounded disingenuous. 

Ilya couldn't figure it out. Was he really that upset about the guy at the club? Shane had dated Matt for four months and been fine the day they broke up. All this over some random dude he talked to for five minutes? Had they really formed a connection that quickly?

But then why wouldn't Shane just text him? Why did he say he didn't want to?

The questions circled and never landed.

And the worst part was that the harder Ilya tried, the worse it got.

He made Shane a burrito bowl on Sunday with a little toothpick flag congratulating him on semester MVP, and Shane looked at it and smiled—a real one, small but there—and said "thanks, dude," and for a second things felt normal. Then he sat down and the smile faded and the quiet came back, and Ilya stood at the stove watching him and felt like he'd done something wrong, though he couldn't say what.

Ilya started being extra. Extra affectionate, extra attentive, extra present—throwing his arm around Shane more, lingering in whatever room Shane was in, smiling at him more. He hoped that if he just kept showing up, eventually the wall would crack.

But nothing worked.

The more Ilya touched him, the more Shane seemed to shrink inside himself—not pulling away, never pulling away, but going somewhere else, like it cost him to engage fully.

One evening Ilya came downstairs and found Shane at the kitchen island, laptop open, a glass of water beside him that he wasn't drinking. He was just sitting there, staring at the screen, and he looked so still and so tired that Ilya's chest ached.

He grabbed a ginger ale from the fridge and came up behind Shane and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, chin dropping to the top of Shane's head. "Hello."

Shane went rigid. Not a flinch—a full-body stillness. His hands came up to rest on Ilya's forearms, not pushing, just holding. Like he was steadying himself. His thumbs pressed into Ilya's skin, and Ilya could feel the warmth of them through his sleeves, and he hated himself for noticing that. Even when Shane was pulling away from him, he couldn't seem to help himself.

"Hi," Shane said softly.

Ilya let go. Placed the ginger ale on the counter. Slid onto the stool next to him, and pressed their legs together.

"What are you working on?"

"Nothing. Just readings."

Ilya glanced at the screen. Journal article. Scrollbar at the top.

"Looks like you are working hard."

"Fuck off," Shane responded, but it was half-hearted, and it was the most Shane-ish thing he'd said in weeks, and Ilya's heart seized on it like a lifeline.

"I brought you a drink," he said.

"Yeah. Thanks."

When he looked back at Shane, Shane was already looking at him. His eyes were so deeply unhappy and fixed on Ilya's face with an intensity that made Ilya's breath catch.

"Should I not have…?"

Shane blinked. Pulled the laptop back. The expression shuttered. "No, it's—it's fine. Thank you for the drink. I'm just tired, I think. Sorry."

"You want to take break?"

"I'm good."

Shane went back to reading. His knee was still pressed against Ilya's. He didn't move it. But his body had gone rigid in a way it never would have a month ago. And he never opened the ginger ale.

Shane was gone, and in his place was this polite, quiet version who smiled with his mouth and not his eyes.

***

Ilya missed him desperately. That was the thing that was killing him—Shane was right there, warm and solid and close enough to touch, and Ilya missed him like he'd moved to another country. He missed the real Shane, the one who argued about everything and shoved him around and swore like a sailor and fell asleep on his shoulder without thinking about it. 

In the worst moments, late at night, the missing got very tangled up with the other thing. He'd lie in bed and think about Shane's hands on his forearms in the kitchen, the warmth of them, and the missing would curdle into something else, something shameful and hungry, and he'd press his face into the pillow and think what is wrong with you. He was losing his best friend and part of his brain was still out here dwelling on the things his body kept wanting.

He wondered, sometimes, if Shane knew. If somehow, in some moment Ilya hadn't controlled, his face had given it away. Maybe Shane had seen the way Ilya looked at him and found it disgusting. Maybe he thought that Ilya was taking advantage or being predatory, every time he touched Shane. Maybe that was why he was pulling away—not because of the club, not because of some guy, but because his best friend had been looking at him like that and Shane couldn't stand it.

The thought made Ilya sick. It also made a horrible kind of sense.

***

It was a Tuesday night. They were on the couch watching a game—just the two of them, which used to be Ilya's favourite thing and now felt like sitting next to a stranger who happened to look like his best friend.

Shane had his legs stretched out on the coffee table, and at some point during the second period, he shifted, and his face contorted into a horrible wince that he tried to school into a neutral expression.

"You okay?" Ilya asked.

"Yeah. Legs are just tight."

"From practice?"

"Mhm."

A few minutes later, Shane shifted again. This time he didn't hide it—his jaw clenched and his hand went to his quad, pressing into the muscle, and he let out a hiss through his teeth.

"I can work on them."

Shane's hand stopped moving. "What?"

"Your legs. I can massage them. I do this for my athletes all the time."

"No."

"I do it for volleyball team, Shane. Is not weird. You are making face every thirty seconds."

"I'm fine."

"You are not fine. Just let me. Five minutes."

Shane was looking at him like he'd lost his mind. His face had gone red—not a blush, something more distressed—and his hands were gripping his own thighs like he was holding himself in place.

"Ilya. No."

"Why not? I've done your shoulder before—"

"That was different."

"How was that different?"

"It just was." Shane's voice had gone tight and strange. "I don't want a massage. Please."

"Okay," Ilya said quietly. Embarrassingly, he felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

They went back to watching the game. The silence between them was so loud it felt like a third person sitting on the couch. Ilya could feel Shane beside him, could feel the warmth of him six inches away, and it felt like a mile.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shane's hand drift back to his quad, pressing into the muscle again, slow and absent, like he was trying to soothe something that wouldn't soothe. He was in pain and he'd rather sit in it than let Ilya touch him.

***

It was Hayden who said something, a couple weeks later.

The house was heading out to watch one of Shane's games, and Hayden fell into step beside Ilya in the driveway, hands in his jacket pockets, and said bluntly: "What happened with Shane?"

Ilya's stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"

"I mean he's been off. I've known him for three years and something's different. He's..." Hayden paused, searching for the word. "Checked out. Like he's going through the motions."

Ilya's first instinct was to say school or hockey season or any of the easy deflections. But Hayden was the only other person that knew Shane remotely close to the way Ilya did, and Ilya was so tired of carrying this alone.

"There was a guy," Ilya said. "At Sizzle, a few weeks ago. He was talking to Shane and I think it was going somewhere, but I was drunk and felt sick and made Shane leave with me. He didn't get to close the deal. And then later that night he was upset about it and now he won't talk to me."

Hayden was quiet for a second. Then: "Huh."

"Huh?"

"I'm surprised Shane would be mad about that."

That wasn't what Ilya had expected him to say. "Oh yeah?"

"I mean—" Hayden pulled his keys out of his pocket and turned them over in his hand, thinking. "Shane doesn't get mad about stuff like that. He's not the type to hold a grudge over a missed connection. If you accidentally cockblocked him, he'd be annoyed for like a day and then get over it. That's just who he is."

"I am also surprised," Ilya confessed.

"So why is he acting like this?"

"I don't know."

They stood there in the cold parking lot, Ilya's breath coming out in white clouds.

"I cannot get through to him," Ilya admitted. "I've tried. He just—" He made a gesture that was supposed to convey a closed door but probably just looked like he was swatting a fly.

Hayden looked at him for a long moment.

"Will you look out for him?" Ilya asked. "Just—keep an eye on him. If he talks to you about it, or if he gets worse?"

"Yeah," Hayden said. "Of course."

"Thanks."

Hayden nodded, unlocked his car, and got in, Ilya following suit.

"Roz."

"What?"

"Are you sure that's the whole story?"

The question landed like a pebble in still water, sending out ripples Ilya couldn't stop.

"I think so."

Hayden held his gaze for one more second, then pulled out of the driveway.

***

Ilya was turning over the night at the club like a rock. It was his favourite way of torturing himself nowadays when he couldn't sleep, which was every night.

He had figured out that Shane probably wasn't mad about the guy. Shane had made the first move with his other hookups, so it wasn't like he was scared to. And Shane had said he didn't want to text him, which meant the guy wasn't the point.

Ilya also guessed that Shane probably had no idea about the things Ilya had been thinking, because Shane never seemed to notice when people wanted him until they told him explicitly. Plus, Ilya was affectionate with everyone, so there was still some plausible deniability that he was just being Ilya and not thinking awful things about his best friend every time they were in the same room.

So what could it be?

He replayed the scene in his head the way he had every night for weeks. But tonight, for some reason, his brain snagged on a different detail.

The head shake.

He asked if you were my boyfriend. I shook my head at that.

Shane had said obviously when Ilya repeated it back. Obviously, we're not together. Obviously, that's ridiculous. Obviously.

But the shake hadn't been obvious. It hadn't been casual or amused or any of the things that would make sense if the suggestion was simply laughable. It had been aggressive. Violent.

Like the idea of being with Ilya was something that required physical rejection, something disgusting and unfathomable.

The thought landed in Ilya's stomach like a stone.

He rolled onto his side and pressed his face into the pillow and tried to make the thought go away, but it was too late. It was in him now, and it was spreading, and the more he thought about it the more sense it made.

Of course Shane was disgusted. Why wouldn't he be?

Ilya was a campus slut. Everyone knew it. He'd slept with God knows how many girls since freshman year, and people talked, because people always talked. He wasn't the best student—he was smart enough to know that, at least—and he had no family, no money, no last name that meant anything. He was a Russian orphan with student loans and a reputation for being easy and loud and too much, and Shane was Shane—MVP of their hockey team, future NHL player, Dean's list, the Hollanders' golden child.

Who would want to be seen as Ilya's partner? Who would want a potential suitor at a club looking at Ilya hanging all over them and thinking oh, that's his person? It was embarrassing. It made Shane look bad by association. It probably made it harder for him to meet actual good people—people who had something to offer, who were on his level—because they'd see Ilya and assume Shane was like that too.

And Ilya had done it to him. Walked right up and acted like a boyfriend in front of everyone, because he was drunk and clingy. Of course Shane had shaken his head like that. Of course he'd needed to shut it down hard and fast.

The crying made sense now. It wasn't about missing the guy. It was about the humiliation of being seen that way—linked to someone like Ilya—and then having to sit through a drunken walk home where Ilya was exactly what Shane expected of him. He probably realized that Ilya had been slowly dragging down his reputation for the past couple of years.

The distance made sense. All of it. Shane was trying to quietly put space between them so his reputation wouldn't keep getting tarnished by Ilya's inability to act like a normal person. And of course Shane couldn't talk to him about it. What was he supposed to say? It would crush Ilya. And Shane would never do that, because Shane was good, and good people didn't say things like that even when they were true.

The thing was, Shane didn't even know the half of it.

God. That was so much worse.

If Ilya's behaviour alone was enough to make Shane cry in a kitchen at two in the morning, what would he do if he knew about the thoughts? The things Ilya thought about when he was alone in his room, his hand around himself, Shane's name stuck in his throat? The way Ilya had looked at him on the couch, in the kitchen, at the gym, everywhere, always, like a starving animal?

Shane was pulling away from just the tip of the iceberg. He had no idea how deep it went, and if he did, Ilya feared he would despise him forever.

The tears came before Ilya could stop them, a slow, silent leak that soaked into the pillow and made the fabric cold against his face. He pressed his forehead harder into it and let himself cry because there was no one to see and because he was so fucking tired of holding it in.

He thought about the last few weeks.

He'd done this. He'd taken the best person he'd ever met and made his life harder. There was no version of this where Ilya was the good guy. He was exactly what his father always said he was.

He cried until the pillow was wet and his throat ached and his eyes were swollen, and then he lay there in the dark, empty and hollowed out, and thought: this is what you deserve. This is who you are.

***

This discovery birthed a new problem. Or, Ilya supposed, unearthed an old one.

Things had laid mostly dormant for awhile now, and Ilya had been so focused on Shane—on losing Shane, on understanding Shane, on hating himself for what he'd done to Shane—that he hadn't let himself look at it directly.

But he was starting to feel like maybe all of these problems were related to each other, and he didn't have the energy to keep deflecting.

The thing was this: He didn't care.

When Shane had told him that the guy at the club thought they were boyfriends, Ilya's reaction hadn't been discomfort. It hadn't been what the fuck or hell no—none of the things a straight man should instinctively feel when another man was implied to be his partner, even if they weren't homophobic.

It had been nothing. His drunk brain had moved on to the next thing like it wasn't even worth considering.

He should have felt something. Confusion, at the very least. Defensiveness, maybe. Even Shane had reacted that way, and it wasn't unbelievable at all that Shane would date a man.

That wasn't even close to the only thing.

There was the bar—Shane's hand on his neck, Shane's fingers on his chain, Shane looking up at him and saying tell me what to do—and Ilya's body responding like it had never responded to anything in his life.

There was the party—watching two men make out against a wall—and getting hard from it.

There was the porn. The hands in the lecture hall. The weight room. The way he looked at guys now, without being able to stop.

And then there was Shane. Always Shane. The thing underneath all of it, the thread that connected every moment, every shameful thought in the dark.

All of it, together, kind of pointed in a direction Ilya had been denying since October.

It was all really fucking gay. Well, not really gay. Ilya still thought about women in the same way he always did. So what did that make him?

He couldn't keep pretending he wasn't...whatever he might be.

The deflecting, the denying, the frantic burial of every thought—it had a shelf life, and he'd just hit the bottom of it. He was going to have to figure out what the hell was going on inside his head.

Chapter End Notes

my lovely unreliable narrator. looks like there are many conversations that need to be had soon...

Chapter 5: maybe we should face it

Chapter Notes

ugh finally an ounce of communication!!! these two pmo so bad but we're on the up todayyyyy!

They always went to the coffee shop on Main because it was close to the house, and because the baristas were clearly crushing on them or one of their housemates—how else to explain the free drinks that turned up every so often?

Troy was already in their usual booth by the window, laptop open, when Ilya got there. He didn't look up when Ilya approached.

Ilya set his bag down across from him, went to the counter, and came back with a large caramel macchiato and a chocolate chip cookie the size of his face. Troy glanced at the cookie and then at Ilya.

"Holy fuck."

"Is good."

"No wonder Hollander basically makes you grass for breakfast if this is what you eat without him."

Ilya winced at hearing Shane's name, and prayed Troy didn't notice. It would make what he wanted to talk about extremely awkward. "Is still coffee."

"That's a milkshake with espresso in it. Dude, no way you're gonna eat all that and then write a paper on metabolism."

"In my program, we learn about something called autonomy. Maybe you have never heard of this before, but it is when we respect other people's decisions about their bodies."

"Fuck off."

Troy said it without any real energy, and it reminded Ilya so much of Shane. Fucking fuck his brain.

Ilya opened his laptop. He had a nutrition paper due Wednesday that he'd barely started, and Troy was working on something for his economics class—spreadsheets, probably, Ilya didn't really understand what Troy's major actually involved.

They worked in silence for a while, but it had a different quality than usual. Ilya typed two sentences. Deleted them. Typed half of another one. His leg was bouncing under the table.

"You're not working," Troy said without looking up.

"I am trying."

"Dude, you've been on the same paragraph for fifteen minutes. I can see your screen reflecting in the window."

Ilya closed his laptop. Troy noticed that too, his fingers pausing on his keyboard, but he didn't say anything. He just kept working, which was one of the things Ilya appreciated about him—Troy never pushed until it was time to push.

Ilya ate half his cookie. Drank some of his macchiato. The sugar hit his system and made his hands feel slightly less steady.

"You're gay," Ilya pointed out, stupidly.

"Yes…"

"I want to ask you something," he said.

"Okay..."

"It is about—If a friend came to you and said he was maybe having thoughts about men…"

Troy's thumb paused on his trackpad. He looked at Ilya. Just looked at him, for a beat, then closed his laptop completely. "Oh," he said.

"What do you mean, 'oh'?"

"Nothing, keep going. What do you want to know?"

Ilya blinked. He'd been braced for something—teasing, a smartass comment, anything. But Troy just leaned back, giving Ilya his attention without making it weird.

"How did you know?" Ilya asked. "For the friend. How would someone know?"

Troy shrugged one shoulder. "I mean, there's no like... moment. You just keep noticing stuff and ignoring it until you can't."

"What kind of stuff?"

"I don't know, man. Looking when you shouldn't. Thinking about someone and catching yourself. Getting that feeling and then being like, nah, and then it keeps happening anyway."

Ilya inspected his coffee. The caramel was starting to separate. He watched it swirl, thick and slow.

"Is it possible that this friend likes women usually?" he asked, his voice quieter now. "And still had these thoughts? And what if he was older?"

"Yeah, actually. That's pretty common."

"So he might not be— I mean, the friend might not be…"

"Gay?"

Ilya nodded.

"Nah, probably not then." Troy picked at the edge of his muffin wrapper. The paper made a small, stuttering sound. "There's other words for that."

Ilya's chest did something strange. "Other words."

"Yeah."

They sat there. The sun beamed through the window, warming Ilya's back, but he felt cold inside.

"Is it normal for the friend to hate himself?" Ilya asked. The question came out smaller than he meant it to.

Troy's hand paused. He looked at Ilya, and something wistful entered his face.

"Maybe," he said. "For a bit."

"For how long?"

"I don't know. A while." Troy looked out the window. "That part sucks. The hating yourself part. Because you can't get away from it, you know? It's not a choice. And it's not like someone is talking shit and you can just walk away. It's you doing it to yourself."

Ilya pressed his thumbnail into his palm. "How do you stop?"

"Eventually you just accept it, man. For some people it just gets too exhausting, and you start letting yourself feel whatever without being a dick about it. Maybe you meet someone, and they make it worth feeling everything you feel. It takes time."

"What if the friend was not ready to—to say anything. To anyone. What if he just needed to talk about it like this. Hypothetically."

"Then that's fine."

Ilya nodded. He clasped his hands together to stop them from shaking. Clearly, he and Troy understood each other about who this hypothetical "friend" was.

"Can you not tell Shane?"

Troy looked at him. Held his gaze for a long moment. "Yeah, dude. Of course."

Ilya nodded again. He ate the rest of his cookie in silence, and it tasted like nothing, and Troy opened his laptop and went back to his spreadsheets, and neither of them acknowledged that anything had happened. They worked for another hour and a half after that. Ilya finished his paper and made Troy proofread two paragraphs.

"Did you even read this?" Troy said, squinting at Ilya's screen.

"Of course I read it."

"You spelled 'metabolism' wrong three different ways."

"I am ESL, you know. Don't be xenophobic."

"Right, so you know 'xenophobic' and not 'metabolism.' "

"Is hard for me."

Troy rolled his eyes and fixed it himself. They argued about whether a semicolon was appropriate in the second sentence, and Ilya lost, and it was the most normal he'd felt in weeks.

***

They spoke in Russian. Ilya had set that rule during the intro session, telling Galina gently but firmly that he needed to speak in his first language—his unfiltered thoughts—before English could complicate them.

Galina's office was on the second floor of a converted Victorian house on a quiet street near campus. It smelled like lavender and old books, and the afternoon light came through lace curtains in pale gold slats that fell across the hardwood floor.

Ilya had been staring at the painting behind her head—a bland, circular thing in muted blues, all soft edges and no focal point—trying to figure out how to start for the last four minutes. His jacket was bunched in his lap. His knee was bouncing.

"I want to go back to something," he said.

"Go ahead." Galina had her pen in her hand but wasn't writing yet. She sat in her worn green armchair with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, watching him neutrally the way she always did.

"The intrusive thoughts. I mentioned them last time."

"You did." She tilted her head slightly. "You called them sudden and distressing."

"Yes." He shifted on the couch, the leather creaking under him. "I think I want to talk about them more."

"Okay." She set her notepad on the arm of her chair. "What's changed?"

"Nothing has changed. That is the problem. They are not going away. And I have been—" He stopped. Dragged a hand down his face. "I have been lying to you. Not about having them. About what they are."

Galina waited. Outside, a car passed and the light shifted across the floor.

Ilya exhaled through his nose. "They are about men," he said. "The thoughts."

Galina's expression didn't change. "About men in general, or a specific man?"

Ilya's jaw tightened. "Both. I see a guy in my lecture and I think about his hands. But then I go home and I think about—" He paused. "It does not matter what I think. The point is I think it, and it is…"

He looked for the word.

"Dirty," he said finally. "They feel dirty."

"Dirty to you, or dirty in general?"

"To me. They feel like something I should not be having. Like something is wrong with me for having them."

Galina was quiet for a moment. Her pen tapped once, softly, against the armrest. "Ilya, you've been having these thoughts for how long now?"

"Since October. Maybe before. I do not know."

"And in that time, have you acted on any of them?"

"No." The word came out fast, almost defensive.

"Okay. To summarize, these are thoughts you're having, internally, that you haven't shared with anyone, haven't acted on, and that are causing you significant distress."

"Yes."

"And the distress comes from the content of the thoughts, or from the fact that you're having them at all?"

Ilya frowned. "What is the difference?"

"There can be a meaningful difference. If the thoughts themselves bother you—if you find them disgusting, disturbing, or wrong—that's one thing. If it's the fact that they exist at all, regardless of what they're about, that's another."

Ilya rubbed his palms on his thighs. The denim was warm under his hands. "Both. I think. I am not—I am not homophobic. I know this. Some of my closest friends are gay. But there is this voice in the back of my head that says something is wrong with me.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I think it is because I am not like them."

"Tell me more about that. How are you different?"

Ilya contemplated this. "Well, I like women in a way that they don't. It makes me feel greedy, or promiscuous maybe, for wanting so much. Also, I am an adult. They have told me that they knew from when they were young, but I had no idea this could be a possibility until recently."

"Can I ask you something?" Galina said.

"Okay."

"You said you wouldn't mind that your friends have these thoughts about men. What if they had them about you specifically?"

The question landed weirdly. Ilya blinked. "What?"

"If your gay friend told you he'd had sexual thoughts about you. Would that bother you?"

Ilya opened his mouth.

He thought about it. And the answer was no. It wouldn't bother him. It would be fine. He'd probably make a joke about it and move on. If Troy said something, or if Shane—no. He wasn't going to think about Shane in this context. But the point stood. If someone he cared about had these thoughts about him, he'd be fine. He wouldn't think they were wrong or dirty.

"So that's a no," Galina said, reading his face.

"That is a no."

"But when you have them, they're dirty."

"I know how it sounds."

"It sounds like there's a different standard for you than for everyone else in your life."

Ilya said nothing. A bird landed on the windowsill outside, pecked once at something, and flew away.

Galina let the silence sit. Then: "Can I ask about something else?"

"Okay."

"You mentioned before that you're sexually active. That you have casual sex fairly regularly."

"Yes."

"How do you feel about that? Not what you tell other people—how do you actually feel about it?"

Ilya's knee started bouncing again. "It is fine. I like it. Sex is good."

"You like it."

"Yes. I am not lying about that. Women are—" He gestured vaguely, his hand half-open in the air. "I am attracted to women. I enjoy being with them. That is not the problem."

"Okay. So the sex itself isn't the issue."

"No."

"When did you start having sex?"

"I was fourteen."

Galina's pen moved again. "That's quite young."

"In Russia, it was not unusual. Not where I was."

"No, I understand. But fourteen is still very young to be engaging in something that adults often struggle to navigate emotionally. Did it feel like a choice at the time?"

"I wanted it," Ilya said, and he meant it. "I was curious. It was my choice."

"And since then? Has it always been casual?"

"Yes. Always. That is how I like it."

Galina tilted her head. "You like it."

"Yes."

"But you also said these thoughts—the ones about men—feel wrong. Contaminating. And you've been having them for months, and they're not going away, and they're making you feel like something is wrong with you."

"Yes."

"I want you to hear the contrast in what you're telling me, Ilya." She leaned forward slightly, and the light caught the silver chain around her neck. "You have no problem with sex. You have no problem with desire—your own or anyone else's—until it's directed at men. And then suddenly it's dirty. It's contaminated. It's something you have to hide and hate yourself for."

Ilya stared at the abstract painting. The muted blues. For a second the whole room seemed to tilt.

"What if," Galina said, "the problem isn't the attraction? What if the problem is that you've decided, at some point, that this specific kind of wanting is the only kind you're not allowed to have?"

Ilya's throat tightened.

"It would explain why you can be perfectly fine with your friend having these thoughts. Fine with yourself having them about women. But the moment it's you and a man, it becomes shameful. Not because the desire is actually different, but because you've decided that it is."

Ilya said nothing. His palms were sweating against his jeans. He could feel his pulse in his wrists.

"Can I ask you something else?"

He nodded, not trusting his voice.

"If you could take the shame away—the guilt, the feeling of being dirty—and just look at the thoughts themselves. What do you notice?"

Ilya's mouth opened. Closed. He could feel something pressing against the inside of his ribs, something that had been lodged there for months.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "I have never let myself look at them without the shame. I do not know what is underneath it."

Galina was quiet for a long moment. "That might be worth finding out," she said. "We're out of time today," she added softly, sitting back in her chair. "But I want you to think about something before next time."

"Okay."

"I want you to try to separate the thought from the shame. To have a thought—a desire—and just let it exist without picking it apart. Can you try that?"

"I can try."

***

Ilya didn't go inside when he got home from Galina's.

He sat on the porch steps with a bottle of vodka he'd pulled from the back of the kitchen cabinet—the cheap one nobody touched, which is how he knew this situation was really dire.

He held his phone in his other hand, and he opened his browser and typed: am i bisexual quiz.

The first result was “17 Signs You Might Be Bisexual.” He clicked it, even though he knew it would be a pointless exercise. 

1. Have you ever felt attracted to someone of the same gender?

Yes. He took a drink.

2. Have you ever fantasized about someone of the same gender?

Yes. He took a drink.

3. Do you feel like your attraction to different genders is different in quality or intensity?

He stared at the question. The vodka was warm in his chest and his phone screen was bright in the dark and he could hear the sounds from inside the house—someone playing something in the living room, the microwave beeping—but it all felt far away.

He clicked yes. Took a drink.

4. Have you ever felt confused about your sexuality?

Yes. Drink.

5. Do you find yourself drawn to people regardless of their gender?

Yes. Drink.

By question eight his eyes were getting unfocused. Have you ever felt like you had to hide your attraction to someone? Yes. Drink. Have you ever dismissed an attraction because it didn't fit the label you'd given yourself? Yes. Drink. Have you ever felt like you were "faking" your attraction to one gender because you also felt attracted to another? Yes. Drink.

He lost count somewhere around eleven. The bottle was getting light. The quiz kept asking questions and he kept answering yes and every yes was another pull from the bottle until the vodka was warm and smooth and nothing mattered and he got to the end and the screen said:

Results: You're Probably Bisexual! 🌈

He closed the quiz. Opened another one. This one was more clinical. Do you experience sexual attraction to more than one gender? Yes. Drink—except the bottle was empty now and he tilted it back and got nothing but air.

He set it down next to him on the step. He pulled a cigarette from the pack he'd bought at the gas station on the way home and lit it.

He hadn't smoked since late sophomore year. The first drag made his head spin.

He heard a car pull into the driveway before he saw it. Headlights swept across the front of the house and then cut out, and a door closed, and then footsteps on the gravel. Ilya didn't move, even though he wasn't supposed to smoke anywhere near the house, not just the fire escape Shane had scolded him about. Moving felt like a lot of effort right now.

Shane came around the side of the house with his gear bag over one shoulder. His hair was damp, darkened from his post-practice shower, falling over his forehead in that way it did when it didn't have product in it. He had on a grey hoodie and team sweats, and he looked soft in a way that made Ilya's chest hurt.

He stopped when he saw Ilya. For a second something pained and complicated flickered across his face, and then his eyes dropped to the cigarette, then the empty bottle, and the conflict morphed into something more worried.

"Are you smoking?"

"No," Ilya said sarcastically.

"Why are you smoking?"

"Well," Ilya said, taking a drag and exhaling it toward the sky. "I used to have this best friend who cared when I smoked. He would nag me and take cigarette out of my mouth and give me whole lecture. But I do not think he likes me anymore, so."

Shane looked at him like he'd just been punched, shocked and sad. His mouth opened slightly and then closed and his hand tightened on the strap of his gear bag and he just stood there, frozen, staring at Ilya.

"Ilya," he said. "That's not—that's not it at all."

"Okay."

"Can I sit?"

Ilya shrugged. Shane set his gear bag down against the railing and sat on the steps, leaving a foot of distance between them.

"Are you okay?" Shane asked.

Ilya looked at him with his eyebrows raised. "Are you kidding? Are you okay?"

Shane balked. "What?"

Ilya just stared at him. He didn't need to explain—he knew Shane knew. Shane had to know what he'd been doing.

Shane looked down at his hands and pink crawled up his neck. "I know." He hesitated. "We'll talk about it. I'm sorry. But right now, I'm worried about you. Will you tell me what's going on?"

Ilya was so fucking annoyed. You are what is going on, he wanted to scream. You are the fucking reason I feel like this.

Well, not the whole reason, but definitely a big part of it. So Ilya should have pushed. He should have said no, you do not get to decide when we talk about things, or any of the things a person with self-respect would say. But Shane was sitting on the step next to him, close, closer than he'd been in weeks, and he was looking at Ilya and he was here, and Ilya was so hungry for it—for any version of Shane that would stay—that he just folded.

"Fine," he muttered, looking away. "Whatever."

"What's going on?" Shane asked.

Ilya's jaw tightened. The cigarette had burned down to the filter. He dropped it on the step and crushed it under his shoe.

"I do not know how to say it," he said quietly.

Shane didn't say anything. Just waited.

"There is something I have been thinking about recently—" He stopped. His hand came up to his forehead, pressing hard. "And I cannot stop."

"That's okay."

"It has been in my mind for months." And then he went silent.

Shane shifted on the step, turning slightly toward him. "Whatever it is, I'm here for you. You don't have to get it out all at once."

Ilya's heart was hammering. His palms were sweating. He could feel it building—the words pressing up from somewhere deep, and he was terrified, because fuck, was he really about to do this? Right now? On the porch, with vodka on his breath and cigarette ash on his jeans?

But then he looked at Shane—really looked—and Shane's face was open and patient and so fucking kind, and Ilya thought: if anyone in the world is not going to judge me, it's him.

"I am so scared," he admitted.

A single tear spilled over, hot and sudden, tracking down his cheek before he could stop it. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, furious at himself, but another one followed, and then Shane's hand was there—cool fingers against his cheek, thumb brushing the tear away with a gentleness that made Ilya's heart physically ache.

The porch light was behind Shane, casting a soft glow around the edges of him, and in it Ilya could see every freckle scattered across his nose and cheeks—those stupid freckles that Ilya had spent way too much time looking at over the years, that he'd never let himself think about too closely until recently. Shane's eyes were steady and fixed on Ilya's face like nothing else in the world existed, and he was so beautiful it made Ilya crack open.

"Yes, it's scary," Shane said quietly. "But you're brave."

Ilya leaned into his palm. He shook his head slightly, a disbelieving sound escaping him.

"You are," Shane said. His thumb moved slowly across Ilya's cheekbone. "You're brave."

Ilya closed his eyes. Shane's hand was warm against his skin and the words were settling into him somehow, and he took a shaky breath and opened his eyes again.

"I think I am bisexual," he said.

His voice cracked on the word. It came out small and broken and barely audible, but he said it.

Shane's breath caught and his lips parted in surprise.

"Yeah?" Shane said.

"Yes. I think so, probably." He had said it for the first time, just now, and it sounded right. Fuck.

Shane let out a breath, slow and shaky. And then he turned toward Ilya on the step—one arm going around Ilya's shoulders, the other hand still holding his face—and Ilya turned into him, pressing his face into Shane's neck, his hands fisting in the front of Shane's hoodie.

Shane was warm. Solid and real, and he smelled like cedarwood body wash and the lingering ice, and Ilya buried his face deeper into the crook of his neck and inhaled it. Shane's arm was tight around him, the way it always was when they hugged. The weight of it was enormous. Weeks of distance and silence and aching, all of it pressed into this single point where their bodies met on the porch steps.

"Okay," Shane said, and his voice was rough, but there was something in it—something warm and loose that Ilya could feel vibrating through Shane's chest against his cheek. It sounded like a smile. "Okay. Thank you for telling me."

Ilya's hands gripped the hoodie so tight the joints in his fingers ached.

"You're okay," Shane murmured against the top of his head, and he was definitely smiling now—Ilya could hear it in the shape of the words. "You're gonna be okay."

***

They stayed like that for a while. Long enough that Ilya's tears stopped and his face dried tacky in the cold.

"Come inside?" Shane suggested.

Ilya let Shane pull him up, and they went through the front door into the warm quiet of the house. The living room was empty. The kitchen light was off. Everyone was sleeping or getting ready for bed.

Ilya headed for the hallway bathroom, but the door was closed and he could hear the shower running. He stood there for a second in the hallway, his hand dropping from the doorknob. Shane appeared beside him.

"Somebody in there?" Shane said.

Ilya nodded. He was still there, not moving, like his body didn't know where to go next. His eyes drifted toward his own door, then back to the bathroom, and he rubbed the back of his neck and shifted his weight. It felt precarious to be alone right now. He'd had such difficult conversations all day, and his mind was buzzing, and being left with his own thoughts felt like too fucking much.

Sometimes it felt like Shane could read his mind. He glanced down the hall, then back at Ilya, and something hesitant passed his face.

"You could use mine," Shane offered.

"Okay."

Shane pushed open his bedroom door and went to his dresser. Pulled out a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and set them on the bed. He nodded his head towards the bathroom, the one Ilya had used a few times when the one he shared with three other guys was busy.

It felt different this time.

The ensuite was small—just a toilet, a sink, and a shower with a plain white curtain on it. He showered with the water too hot and his forehead pressed against the tile, trying to wash the smoke off his skin. When he came out, he pulled on his own boxers underneath, then Shane's sweats and the T-shirt, which clung tightly to his shoulders and back.

Shane was sitting on the edge of the bed in a similar outfit, reading a book. The small lamp on the dresser was on, casting the room in low warm light. He looked up when Ilya came out.

"Feel okay?"

Ilya didn't say anything.

Shane set his book on the nightstand. Ilya was still standing by the bathroom door, not moving toward the hallway, not moving toward the bed. His hand drifted to the back of his neck again.

Shane looked at him gently. "Would you like to stay here tonight?"

They'd shared a bed before—in second year a few times, when they'd been sexiled from their own rooms, or when the heating broke and they'd shoved into the same twin bed for warmth. But it had always been practical, and convenient. Never intentional like this.

"Okay," Ilya said.

Shane moved to the other side of the bed. Ilya climbed in, and the sheets were cool and clean and they smelled like Shane, and something about that smell made his eyes water again.

They lay on their backs for a moment, the lamp still on, a careful foot of space between them. Ilya stared at the ceiling.

Then Shane shifted onto his side, facing him. "Do you want a hug?"

Ilya nodded. Shane pulled him in—Ilya's forehead against his collarbone, one hand curling in the front of Shane's shirt. Shane's hand came up to the back of Ilya's head, fingers sliding into his curls.

Ilya could feel Shane's heartbeat against his cheek, slow and steady.

They lay there for a while. The lamp was still on. Ilya's breathing evened out, but he wasn't asleep yet.

"How did you realize?" Shane murmured.

Ilya's hand moved before he could stop it. It flew to his chest, to the chain around his neck, and his fingers closed around it.

He looked up at Shane. In the low lamplight he could see him clearly—the freckles, the shape of his mouth, the way his eyes were fixed on Ilya's face.

Shane's eyebrows lifted. Surprise—genuine, like he hadn't expected that. And then, slow, the corner of his mouth curved up. Smug.

"Oh," Shane said softly.

His thumb traced a slow circle against the back of Ilya's head, and he didn't say anything else. Ilya pressed his face back into Shane's chest, held onto the chain, and closed his eyes.

***

The kinesiology department's banquet was held at the art museum downtown, the main hall transformed for the night—round tables draped in white beneath ceilings that seemed to go on forever, a string quartet tucked into the corner playing something slow and unhurried, and the museum's permanent collection still glowing on the walls of the adjoining galleries.

Ilya knew he looked good. Shane had told him so when they'd gotten out of the rideshare, quietly, like the words had slipped out.

"You look nice," Shane had said, his eyes flicking down Ilya's body and then away.

"Thank you. You look—" Ilya had gestured at Shane's suit, the brown one that fit him like it had been made for him, the white shirt open at the collar in a way that exposed the smooth expanse of his chest. "Yes."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Mm."

It was. Shane looked devastating, and Ilya had spent the first twenty minutes of the banquet trying not to stare at the way the collar of his shirt opened to reveal his throat, the way it moved when he swallowed, the way his forearms looked when he rolled up his sleeves—all that golden skin and sparse hair and the clean line of bone beneath.

Things had been better. Not perfect—Shane still hadn't told him what was actually going on, just offered some vague apology about handling things badly—but he was present again.

He stopped flinching when Ilya touched him. Breakfast together had come back, and the shoulder touches, and the way Shane would sit next to him on the couch instead of across the room, like the physics had quietly righted themselves.

It felt like before, mostly. Except now Ilya was conscious of every point of contact between them. When he was still half-convinced he could ignore what he was, there were moments when Ilya would touch Shane and feel nothing beyond warmth and fondness. But now that the denial had cracked, every touch left him wanting—desperate, hungry for Shane in a way that had no good name.

The most ordinary contact drove him out of his mind, worse than it ever had before, and it truly felt some days like his self-control was hanging on a single thread.

He had acted on neither of these things. Things still felt too fragile, too uncertain—like the truce between them could shatter if he pushed the wrong direction.

***

They were at their table—they were sitting with a few of the other kinesiology students that Ilya vaguely knew—when a guy Ilya didn't recognize approached. He was holding two drinks.

"Shane Hollander?" the guy said, and something about the way he said it—easy, familiar—made Ilya's hackles rise.

Shane looked up. "Yeah?"

"I'm Derek. We met at the tournament in November? You probably don't remember."

"I remember," Shane said, and his voice was polite but monotonous.

Derek held out one of the drinks. "I figured I'd say hi. You had a great season."

"Thanks." Shane took the drink and smiled the closed-mouth smile he did with people he didn't know well.

"How are you?" Derek asked.

Ilya didn't hear Shane's answer, because he was too busy appraising Derek. He was good-looking, objectively. The kind of guy who would look good on Shane's arm at something like this. His eyes kept dropping to Shane's mouth, and he wasn't trying to hide it.

Ilya's mind went back to that night at the club—that guy leaning in to ask Shane if he and Ilya were together. The memory, and Shane's subsequent reaction, still burned. Ilya figured the smartest move here was to put some distance between himself and Shane before anyone else got the same idea.

Ilya stood, picked up his water glass, and said something to Shane's friend Rose about getting a refill. Nobody questioned it. He walked away from the table calm and easy, like he was just getting water, and he didn't look back.

He didn't go to the bar. He went to one of the adjoining galleries and stood in front of a painting he didn't look at, his hands in his pockets, his jaw tight, the muted sound of the banquet settling behind him like snow.

He stood there for a few minutes, just waiting, guessing when the conversation between Shane and Derek would be over and stewing in his own jealousy and self-hatred. 

"Ilya?"

He turned. Shane was standing at the entrance to the gallery, looking at him with a confused expression. In his hand, he held a glass of water, different from the one Derek had handed him.

"Hello," Ilya said stiffly. "I was looking at art."

Shane smiled at this. "Oh yeah? What's this one about?"

They both turned to look at the canvas. It was some geometric thing, with lots of colourful triangles in yellows, blues, reds, and browns.

"Shapes," Ilya responded.

Shane handed him the glass. "I noticed you didn't actually go to the bar."

"He seemed nice," Ilya said, to the painting.

"He was fine."

"He was flirting with you."

Shane didn't answer right away. When Ilya glanced over, Shane was looking at him with an expression he couldn't read.

"Are we seriously going to do this again?" Shane asked.

"Do what?"

"I don't fucking understand you," Shane groaned. "Why do you keep telling me that these random men are flirting with me? And why did you tell Rose you were going to get water and stand here for ten minutes?"

"I didn't want to be in your way."

"How would you be in my way?" Shane exclaimed.

"Like, that guy at the club. I don't want them to think we are together. I know being associated with me messes up your chances. I know you are really not happy about that."

Shane stared at him. And then something changed in his face—the frustration melting into something else, something that looked almost like disbelief, like Ilya had just said something so wrong it had left him winded.

"Is that— is that what you think the last few weeks were about? You thinking you were messing up my chances?"

"Yes," Ilya said frankly.

"No. No, it wasn't—" Shane glanced around the gallery. Empty. Just the two of them and the muted sound of the banquet from the other room, the quartet playing something that might have been Debussy. His jaw set. "We're not doing this here."

He grabbed Ilya's arm and pulled him out of the gallery, down a hallway, and through the door of the nearest bathroom. It was empty—marble floors, dim lighting, two sinks recessed into a long mirror that made the space look twice as big as it was. Shane let go of his arm and turned to face him, standing between Ilya and the door like he was afraid Ilya might bolt.

"Okay," Shane said, tugging at the lapels on his suit. "So we're talking about this now."

Ilya set down his drink on the counter. "I was trying not to."

Shane was standing close. Too close. Ilya could feel the heat coming off him, and it was making it hard to think. "That's not what happened," Shane said. "I wasn't pulling away because of you. I was pulling away because of me."

"What does that mean?"

"It means—" Shane stopped. His hand came up to his forehead, pressing hard, and he turned away, gripping the edge of the sink with both hands. His knuckles went white. When he looked up and met Ilya's eyes through the mirror, his eyes were raw, stripped of every defense. "I'm sorry. If the things I did made you think that. I'm sorry. That was never what I wanted."

"Then what did you want?"

The question hung between them, heavy and still. Shane's chest was rising and falling fast.

"What were you thinking, Shane?"

Shane didn't answer right away. His eyes were fragile and frustrated and something else underneath, something hungry and barely leashed.

"Tell me," Ilya said. His voice came out lower than he meant it to.

Shane turned to him, and his gaze dropped. Down Ilya's face. Past his eyes. Past his nose. Slowly, deliberately, down to his mouth.

And stopped.

His gaze settled on Ilya's lips and stayed there, weighted, and his breath went shallow and his throat moved in a slow swallow—like he was starving and the thing he wanted was right in front of him.

Ilya's breath caught.

The room felt suddenly very small. Ilya could feel his own heartbeat in his throat, in his wrists, in his fingertips.

"Oh," he said out loud.

It hit him—all at once, everything snapping into focus. It wasn't Shane being ashamed of Ilya. It wasn't Shane noticing his thoughts and being disgusted. It wasn't about the guy at the club or any of the things Ilya had spent weeks agonizing over.

It was because Shane wanted him. Shane wanted him, believed he would never get him, believed it enough to the point of distancing himself.

"Oh," Shane repeated as confirmation.

The thought echoed through his head, clear and undeniable. Shane was standing right in front of him, looking at his mouth like that, and Ilya wanted it too—wanted it so badly it felt like he had never wanted anything before in his entire life. The realization was enormous and yet the most euphoric thing he'd ever felt.

Ilya remembered what Galina had told him at their last session, to try and let the desire exist without shame.

This was the first time he gave himself permission to do that, and it felt so fucking right, and so fucking good. He wanted to put his mouth on Shane's mouth. He wanted to feel the stubble under his palm. He wanted to know what deep sounds Shane would make. He desired it so badly his heart ached with it, and instead of pushing the feeling away or burying it or twisting it into something acceptable, he let it sit unguarded. This is what it could be.

Shane was still looking at him. He hadn't closed the distance, but he hadn't pulled away either. He was just—stuck there, like the sight of Ilya's lips had locked him in place.

The quartet was playing something else now—something in a minor key, strings swelling and falling—and beneath it Shane's breathing, which was not steady, not at all.

Ilya leaned in. Just a fraction. An inch, maybe. Enough to test.

Shane licked his lips.

His eyes flicked up—Ilya felt the gaze like a touch, dragging from his mouth to his eyes and back down—and something in his expression went raw and pleading.

Ilya leaned in another inch. He was close enough now that he could feel the warmth of Shane's breath on his lips, could smell him. His heart was slamming against his ribs so hard he was sure Shane could hear it too.

Still, Shane didn't pull away. His mouth was right there, parted slightly, and he was letting Ilya come to him, and Ilya understood with a sudden clarity that Shane was leaving the choice to him.

Ilya brought his hand up slowly and cupped the side of Shane's face. His thumb brushed the edge of Shane's jaw, and the stubble there was coarse and dark and real under his palm, nothing like the smooth skin he was used to, and the difference hit him deeply.

Shane's eyes fluttered shut. Just for a second. And when they opened again they were wet at the edges, and his chin tipped up a fraction—barely perceptible—like his body was begging for it even if his pride wouldn't.

Ilya dragged his thumb across Shane's lower lip. Slowly. Just a brush, just the pad of it, feeling the fullness of it. Shane's breath caught and his lips parted, just slightly, and Ilya did it again, slower this time, pressing a little more, and Shane's mouth opened wider.

Ilya's thumb slipped inside.

Shane's tongue was hot and wet against the pad of his thumb, and the sensation was so sudden and so intimate that Ilya's stomach dropped like he'd missed a step on stairs. Shane's lips closed around his thumb instinctively and his tongue pressed flat against it, and he sucked, just once, a soft, slow pull, and Ilya felt it everywhere. Felt it in his cock, which was straining against his pants in the space of a single heartbeat, a rush of blood so violent it made him dizzy.

Shane was looking at Ilya like he was waiting to be told to stop, like he would do anything Ilya asked him to do right now, and Ilya's thumb was in his mouth and he was so fucking hard it hurt and he had never in his life felt this much power over another person.

He pulled his thumb out—slowly, watching Shane's lips drag over it—and Shane's mouth stayed open for a second after, wet and red and empty, like he didn't know how to close it.

Okay, Ilya thought. Okay. Fuck. He couldn't hold back anymore.

He closed the distance between them.

The first thing he registered was the firmness. He'd kissed women his whole life, and there was always a softness to it—a suppleness—that he'd taken for granted. Shane's mouth wasn't like that. It was firmer, the lips even more full, and Shane's upper lip and chin scraped faintly against Ilya's skin in a way that sent a sharp, startling jolt all the way down his spine.

He pulled back immediately to gauge Shane's reaction, because holy shit. He was kissing his best friend.

Shane made a sound. It was quiet, barely there, something between a breath and a wounded noise, and his hand came up and clutched the front of Ilya's jacket like he was afraid Ilya was about to leave.

Ilya wasn't going to leave. Now that he knew this feeling, he didn't ever want to leave.

He tilted his head and came back in, and this time he didn't stop at the press of lips. His hand slid from Shane's jaw to the back of his neck, fingers curving around the warm skin there, and he licked across the seam of Shane's mouth—slow, deliberate, a question—and Shane opened for him instantly.

The first stroke of his tongue inside Shane's mouth wiped out every thought in Ilya's head.

It was wet and hot and Shane tasted like ginger ale from dinner, and Ilya licked deeper, chasing the taste. Shane moaned, and the sound was rougher than any sound Ilya had ever heard from a woman—deeper, rawer—and it vibrated through Ilya's chest like a bass note, and Ilya echoed it without thinking, his own groan rising to meet Shane's, the two of them making sounds together that Ilya had never heard in his life.

Ilya walked him backward and Shane went without resistance, his hands still in Ilya's jacket like it was the only thing keeping him upright. Shane's back hit the counter with a dull thud, and his water glass wobbled and Ilya didn't look at it, didn't care, because now Shane was pinned against the marble and Ilya was pressed into the space between his legs, and the feeling of it—all of it—drew another groan from deep in Ilya's throat.

Shane was big. Ilya knew this, because he saw Shane at the gym and at games and walking around their house. But knowing it and feeling it were different things entirely. The broad expanse of Shane's chest against his was nothing like the soft press of a woman's body—there were no curves here, no places where the flesh bowed. Just solid, unyielding muscle beneath the thin dress shirt, the hard plates of his pecs, the ridge of his abdominals. Ilya's hands slid over Shane's shoulders—so wide—and he said "fuck" into Shane's mouth, because the sheer size of him was overwhelming in the best possible way.

And lower—lower, Shane's thighs were bracketing Ilya's hips, thick and hard with muscle, and Shane was hard, the unmistakable press of his cock against Ilya's stomach through the fabric of his dress pants. Ilya could feel the exact, huge shape of it, and his own cock throbbed in response so violently his vision went white at the edges and his hips jerked forward without his permission.

He liked it. God, he liked it so much it scared him. Shane's body felt like something he could hold onto, something that could hold him back, something solid and real and unbreakable beneath his hands. He'd never thought about what it would feel like to have someone this big yielding to him, and now that he knew, he didn't think he could ever go back.

Ilya's hand tightened on the back of Shane's neck. He tilted Shane's head back—just slightly, just enough to change the angle, to deepen the kiss further—and Shane let him. Let his head fall back, let his throat be exposed, let Ilya take whatever he wanted, and the trust in that, the surrender—

He kissed Shane slow and deep and thorough, his tongue stroking in and out, learning the shape of him, the texture, and most importantly, what Shane liked best.

Shane's hands were exploring Ilya's body now, wandering down his biceps, chest, and stomach, but he wasn't directing anything. He wasn't pushing or pulling or taking control. He was just feeling, his hips making small, helpless movements against Ilya's stomach like he couldn't stop himself.

Ilya's hand found Shane's hip and gripped it, and his fingers barely wrapped around the breadth of it, the hard muscle and bone beneath the fabric, nothing like the narrow hips he was used to holding. He pulled Shane's lower half closer to him and rolled his thigh up between Shane's legs in a slow movement, and Shane made a sound that was obscene and Ilya's breath left him too, because he could now feel the length of Shane's cock drag against his thigh.

Shane's head fell back, breaking the kiss, exposing the long line of his throat.

Ilya looked at it. The tendons straining. The flushed skin. The pulse hammering just beneath the surface.

He leaned in and put his mouth on Shane's throat—not kissing, just pressing his lips there, feeling the heartbeat against them—and Shane's whole body shuddered, the counter rattling behind him, and Ilya grunted softly against his skin.

"Fuck," Shane whispered. His hands came up to Ilya's shoulders, like he needed something to anchor him. The grip was bruising, and Ilya could feel the strength in those hands, the power in the arms that were wrapping around him now, and it only made him press closer, made him want to feel more of it, all that strength surrendered to him. He buried his face in Shane's neck and breathed him in. "Ilya—"

"Mm." Ilya dragged his mouth up, over the tendon, to the soft skin below Shane's ear. He bit down gently—just his lips, just pressure—Shane whimpered quietly.

"We should stop now," Shane whispered, and it seemed like a monumental effort for him to say that.

Ilya's mouth was still pressed to the soft skin of Shane's neck. He could taste the salt of Shane's sweat, and every cell in his body was screaming at him to ignore the words and keep going.

But he knew Shane was right.

He pulled back slowly and the loss of contact was physical, a wrenching sensation in his chest like something being torn away.

Shane opened his eyes. They were wet. Not crying—just wet, glassy, overwhelmed—and he looked at Ilya like he'd just asked him to do something impossible. His lips were still swollen and red, and there was a shiny, slightly red spot on his neck where Ilya had just put his mouth. Ilya could see his own reflection in the mirror behind Shane—his own mouth used and flushed, his own eyes dark and hungry—and the sight of the two of them like this, wrecked and half-undone in a bathroom, made Ilya's throat close up.

"I know," he murmured. "You are right."

And then the guilt hit him—sharp and sudden. Because this was Shane. And Ilya had just shoved him against a bathroom counter. Knowing that he was wanted back made him stupid, made him wish for impossible things. It had felt so good, he just kept taking, but what if he'd just ruined the most important friendship he'd ever had because he couldn't control himself—

"Fuck, I am sorry."

The words came out raw and ragged. His hands began to tremble and he shoved them into his pockets to hide it, and he was looking at the floor because he couldn't look at Shane's face.

"I have been so selfish tonight—"

"Ilya, stop."

And then Shane's hand was on him again. His long, dexterous fingers slid gently into the hair at the side of his head, thumb brushing over his temple, and the touch was so soft and so unexpected that Ilya's eyes finally lifted.

Shane was smiling. Not the polite, closed-mouth smile he gave strangers, and not the small quiet one he saved for Ilya in their kitchen early in the morning. This was something else—wide and helpless and almost incredulous, like he'd just been told something too good to believe. It was the kind of smile that seemed to escape against his will, pulling at the corners of his mouth even as he tried to fight it down.

"Don't be sorry," Shane said, almost laughing. His fingers moved in Ilya's hair, slow and absent, like he wasn't even aware he was doing it. "God, don't be sorry. It was good. It was really fucking good."

Ilya stared at him. "Really?"

"Yes, really." Shane's smile widened, and his other hand came up to cup Ilya's jaw, palm warm against his cheek, thumb resting just below his eye. He was looking at Ilya like he was something precious, something worth being gentle with, and Ilya didn't understand how Shane could be this tender with him. "I've thought about kissing you so many times that I—yeah. Really."

The relief hit Ilya so hard it nearly buckled his knees. But it only lasted a second, because Shane's smile was already shifting. The giddiness fading, the corners of his mouth softening into something quieter.

"But..." Shane said, and the smile turned sad—still there, but thin now, fragile at the edges. His thumb swept across Ilya's cheekbone, slow and careful, like he was memorizing the shape of it.

"But what?"

"You're my best friend."

Ilya's chest ached. "You are mine too."

"And if we're gonna do this," Shane continued, his voice dropping, steadying, like he was holding himself together through sheer will, "it wouldn't be casual for me."

"Me nei—" Ilya jumped to say. 

"Ilya." Shane cut him off, gentle but firm, and his hand slid from Ilya's jaw to the side of his neck. His other hand was still in Ilya's hair, fingertips grazing his scalp in slow, soothing passes. "You came out to me really recently."

Ilya's mouth closed.

"I know what I want," Shane said quietly. His thumb traced the line of Ilya's jaw, down to his chin, and then back up. "I've known for a long time. But you're still figuring things out, and I think—" He paused. His fingers curled slightly against the back of Ilya's head. "I think we should take some time. Think about it. And when you're really sure how you feel, you can talk to me, okay?"

"How much time?" Ilya heard himself ask, and he hated how small his voice sounded.

"However long you need."

But I already know what I feel! Ilya wanted to scream. But the truth was he wasn't sure.

For one, Ilya had never had feelings for anyone before. He was fairly certain that's what this was—the realization had arrived with an almost embarrassing obviousness once he'd let himself accept the sexual attraction alongside everything else—but recognizing a feeling and knowing what to do with it were different. Friendship plus attraction pointed to a relationship. He'd never done that. He wasn't sure he was built for it.

Then, for months, everything he felt for Shane had been split down the middle—his affection on one side, his desire on the other. He'd spent so long convinced that wanting Shane in this physical way was something rotten, and he didn't know how to make it stop. He couldn't build something real with those two haves still warring with each other.

And underneath all of it, quieter and harder to look at: Ilya wasn't sure he was good for Shane. Feeling that Shane wanting him helped. It did. But it didn't dissolve the persistent, stubborn conviction that Shane should want someone else instead.

Shane had also told him, in the past, about a couple of men who had wanted him in secret, who had touched him in the dark and then pretended it never happened, who had used him as an experiment to figure themselves out and then moved on to the lives they actually wanted.

He said it was one of the most painful things he had ever experienced.

And now, standing in this bathroom with Shane's hands on him—one on his neck, one in his hair, both impossibly gentle—he understood what Shane was doing.

Shane was protecting himself. And he was giving Ilya the chance to be sure.

Ilya nodded.

"Okay," he said. His voice was rough.

Shane exhaled. Something in his shoulders loosened, like he'd been bracing for a fight and hadn't gotten one. His hands stilled for a moment, and then he pulled Ilya forward and pressed his forehead to his, and they stood there—foreheads touching again, Shane's fingers still tangled in his hair.

"Okay," Shane echoed softly. "I really am sorry I made you think you weren't wanted. I wanted. So much, it felt impossible."

They stayed like that for a few seconds. Then Shane pulled back, and his hands moved—practical now, tender but purposeful. He reached up and smoothed Ilya's hair where it had been messed up, his fingers combing through it gently, tucking a strand back into place. Then he adjusted Ilya's collar, folding it back down where it had gotten pushed up, and smoothed his hands down the front of Ilya's jacket, straightening the fabric, his touch lingering for just a moment over Ilya's chest before dropping away.

Ilya watched him do it—watched the careful, domestic intimacy of Shane putting him back together—and felt so hopeful for the first time in awhile.

"Ready to go back?" Shane asked quietly.

"Yes," Ilya said.

Shane turned toward the door and Ilya followed him out.

***

The painting was in the second gallery, tucked into a corner between two enormous abstract canvases that demanded attention in a way this one didn't. It was smaller. Quieter. Two shapes—a yellow one and a blue one—set against a light background, angled toward each other like two people sitting side by side, the space between them narrow but not quite closed. To Ilya, it looked like two people in a car.

Ilya had been standing in front of it for a few minutes when Shane appeared beside him. 

The formal was winding down. People were drifting toward the exits, saying their goodbyes, collecting coats. The string quartet had packed up. The museum had gone quiet and dark again again, the way museums do late at night, the silence settling over everything.

Ilya hadn't moved from the painting.

Beside him, Shane was still. "This reminds me of us," Shane mused.

Ilya's chest tightened. He didn't ask why. He didn't need to. He looked at the yellow shape leaning toward the blue one, and he thought about breakfasts and couch cushions, and he thought about a bathroom counter and a thumb in a mouth and the sound Shane made when Ilya bit down on his neck.

Shane's hand moved beside him. His pinky extended and brushed against Ilya's.

Ilya hooked his pinky around Shane's.

Shane's finger curled back, holding on, and neither of them looked at each other. They stood there in the quiet gallery, side by side, their pinkies intertwined between them, and looked at the painting of the two shapes leaning toward each other in the light.

Chapter End Notes

thank goodness.

Chapter 6: i'm seeing the light

Chapter Notes

so originally we were gonna end the story with this chapter but this chapter is pretty serious and the thousands of words of porn i was writing didn't really fit in with this LOL so we are extending to 7 chapters oopsieeee.

in my end notes i'll try and explain what my thought process was! this was probably the hardest chapter to write in the whole story so i’m sorry for any mistakes:')

Shane's pinky was on the back of Ilya's neck.

Just resting there, a small point of warmth against his skin, while their brothers argued about hockey in the living room and Shane nodded along. Every time someone said something stupid, the pinky pressed slightly harder—a tiny, unconscious pressure, like Shane was squeezing a stress ball.

The argument had started because JJ put on a highlight reel and Celestino did something obscene with a puck, and the room had opinions.

"Best rookie the league has ever seen," JJ said, nodding at the screen.

"Volkov was always better, in my opinion," Shane said.

"It’s only halfway through the season," JJ said.

"Volkov was already doing better at this time," Cliff retorted.

The argument bounced around—JJ against Cliff, Hayden jumping in, Troy trying to mediate and getting talked over. Shane sat through it with his arm behind Ilya, nodding occasionally, offering a polite "maybe" here and a "fair point" there. Polite. When JJ misremembered a stat, Shane just let it go. When Cliff got loud, Shane smoothed it down. He never raised his voice. He moved through disagreements like water around rocks—accommodating, easy, never making waves.

"Celestino is already better than Volkov," Ilya said, not because he particularly cared but because the pinky was distracting him and he needed something to say.

Shane's pinky stopped.

"No. Already better? Are you kidding me?" Shane said. And his voice came out sharper, louder, like someone had flipped a switch. "No, he's not. Volkov has three Art Rosses. You can’t just—based on what?”

"Based on the fact that he is nineteen and already this good."

"Rookies have good seasons all the time. It doesn't mean—"

"Matsko had a good rookie season and then what? Done in three years. You know why? Because what he had was not sustainable. What Celestino has is sustainable. You can see it in how he plays. He is not relying on one thing."

"Neither is Volkov."

"He is relying on his shot. Is incredible. But Is just one thing."

"It's not one thing. He's a complete player—"

"A complete player who scores most goals from the same spot. That is one thing, Hollander."

"It's not one thing if nobody can stop it!"

"That is my point. Nobody can stop it now. But people figure things out. What they do not figure out is a kid who thinks faster than everyone."

"That's not—you can't just say someone thinks faster. You don't know that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not—" Shane threw his hands up. His knee had pressed against Ilya's thigh at some point and he hadn't moved it back. His volume had climbed and shed all of its polite casing. "That's just how you feel about it. You watched him play and you decided he's smart. That's not a real metric. Statistically, Volkov was better as a rookie and will be the better player by every measure."

"You just do not like it because I am right."

"You're not right."

"Look. Volkov is very good. But when I see Celestino, I see someone who does not need to think about where to go because he already knows. It's not the same as Volkov, who knows where to go because he has done it ten thousand times. One of those things gets better with age. The other does not."

"Oh my God." Shane stared at him. His cheeks were flushed. He was breathing slightly harder than the conversation warranted, his knee was digging into Ilya's thigh, and he was looking at Ilya like he wanted to keep sparring forever.

Five minutes ago he'd been letting Cliff yell about something definitely wrong without batting an eye. Now he was red in the face about Ilya's opinion. The difference was so obvious it was almost funny.

Shane shook his head. "Fine," he said, quieter. "Fine. We'll see."

"Okay."

"We'll see in three years."

"Okay."

Ilya looked at him and then at the rest of the room, where the guys had moved on to something else. Nobody had paid any attention to the fact that Shane had just gotten loud—because Shane always got loud with Ilya, so they probably hadn't even registered it as unusual.

Nobody except Hayden. Who was looking at his phone but definitely not reading it. His eyes flicked up once—Shane's flushed face, the knee pressed into Ilya's thigh, the way Shane's arm had migrated fully onto Ilya's shoulders—and one eyebrow went up slowly.

Ilya looked at him, feeling a warmth creep through his entire body. Hayden looked back. Neither of them said anything.

Hayden looked at his phone again.

"You are hot when you yell," Ilya murmured, low enough that only Shane could hear.

Shane's head turned. The flush, which had been fading, came back with a vengeance.

"What? You can't just say that," he whispered.

"Nobody is listening."

Their eyes met. Shane's fingers were still moving on Ilya's neck, and Ilya thought: I really need to figure my shit out.

***

Someone had set a lawn chair on fire.

Not on purpose—Ilya assumed—but the chair was in the fire pit now, melting in a way that was irreparable. The guy standing next to it was filming with his phone. A girl Ilya had never seen before was sitting on the roof of the shed, legs dangling, solo cup in hand, watching the whole thing like a bird. It was two in the afternoon.

This was what happened when you let Cliff plan things.

Ilya was standing near the hedge with JJ's disgusting jungle juice, watching their lawn fill up with drunk college students.

And across the yard, Shane was trapped.

He was wearing jeans that fit him in a way that should have been illegal and a leather jacket over a white T-shirt. His hair was styled but slowly comping apart—thick and slightly wild, volume at the top and falling strands framing his forehead. He had sunglasses pushed up on top of his head, and the afternoon sun was catching the brown in his hair and the bronze of his skin, and Ilya was trying very hard not to stare.

He was failing.

Two guys had cornered him near the keg. Young, eager, seemingly vibrating with excitement from recognizing The Shane Hollander. One of them was wearing a backwards hat and the other a hoodie from a school that wasn't theirs. They weren't being weird—they were just enthusiastic, talking fast, and Shane was nodding, smiling the polite smile, his body angled slightly away in a way that Ilya recognized as his I want to leave but I'm being polite posture.

"He's been stuck for fifteen minutes," Troy said, appearing beside Ilya with his own drink.

"I know."

"Backwards hat has been asking him questions the entire time.”

"Shane is too polite to say anything."

"Shane is too polite to say anything to anyone." Troy took a sip. "Except you."

Ilya didn't respond to that.

He watched as backwards hat pulled out his phone and said something, and Shane nodded, and then the guy slung an arm around Shane's shoulder and held the phone up. And Shane—Ilya had to bite the inside of his cheek—Shane smiled for the photo like he was having his mugshot taken. His arms hung straight at his sides. His shoulders were up around his ears. His smile was so tight and so clearly forced that it looked like it physically hurt him.

The other guy took one too. Then they shook Shane's hand vigorously and finally, finally let him go.

Shane appeared at Ilya's elbow thirty seconds later, sliding in between him and Troy with practiced ease.

"Save me," he said under his breath.

"Who are they?" Troy asked.

"I have no idea. They showed up with Cliff's friend." Shane was close—shoulder pressed against Ilya's arm, the leather jacket creaking softly when he moved. "Can we go somewhere else?"

Ilya slung his arm around Shane's shoulders and steered him away from the keg. Troy followed.

They ended up on the side of the house, away from the noise, where the fence blocked the worst of the music and there was a patch of shade under a big oak tree. The grass was cooler here, slightly damp. Ilya dropped his arm from Shane's shoulders, but they stayed close, leaning against the fence side by side. Someone had drawn a dick on the pole.

"You didn’t like those guys?" Troy asked, grinning.

Shane shrugged. "They're fine."

"They seemed very excited to talk to you."

"Yeah."

"That must be annoying."

"It's whatever."

Troy's eyes flicked between them, and something knowing crossed his face, but he just said, "I'm going to go find Harris.”

He left. And the moment he was out of earshot, Shane let out a long breath and dropped his head back against the fence.

"Oh my God."

Ilya waited. He knew what was coming.

"The one in the hat—he just had so many questions. 'What's it like being captain? What's it like being drafted? When are you signing? Have you met any NHL players? What's the scouting combine like? Do you think you'll make the roster right away?' Like, one after another. I'd answer one and he'd already be starting the next."

"Those are reasonable questions. How will you be NHL superstar and do media?" Ilya mused.

"I won’t be a superstar,” Shane laughed. “And yeah, they are reasonable questions. Individually. All at once in a row with no break…”

"What did the other one say?"

"He just kept saying 'that's sick, man' every time I answered something. 'I got drafted in the second round.' 'That's sick, man.' 'I haven't signed yet.' 'That's sick, man.' 'I play center.' 'That's sick, man.'"

Ilya was grinning now. “That’s sick, man.”

"Stop," Shane said. And again: “Stop.”

"I didn't say anything."

"You're smiling."

Ilya began laughing. "Your arms were like this—" Ilya held his own arms stiffly at his sides, straight down, and did a dead-eyed grin.

"Fuck off! I know. I could feel it. I was standing there thinking 'relax my shoulders' and the more I thought about it the stiffer I got.”

"Is okay. They were just happy to meet you. I am sure they don’t mind.”

"Yeah. They meant well. They were sweet. They were just—" Shane waved his hand. "A lot. All at once. And I can't say that without being a dick, so I just stand there and smile.”

"You do look good in the photo though.”

"You’re such an asshole."

"I am just saying. You seem very serious and dedicated to hockey.”

Shane shoved his shoulder, and Ilya shoved back, and they were standing in the shade next to a chalk dick on a fence, pushing each other like kids.

And something warmed in Ilya's chest—specific pride, the kind he'd never felt about another person. Because Shane was very hard to know. He moved through the world with this easy, polished surface that made everyone think they had him figured out, and most people never looked deeper because the surface was so convincing. But underneath it was this—funny, full of opinions and wit he wouldn't say out loud to anyone else. And Ilya had put in the effort. Now, he was the only person standing on this side of Shane, and that felt like something he'd earned.

"Hey," Ilya said, pulling out his phone. "I want photo of famous Shane Hollander too."

Shane snorted. "Don't."

"Why? Those guys got one. I want one."

"You see me every day."

"And? Come here." Ilya held up the phone, camera open. "Smile like you mean it.”

Shane rolled his eyes, but he leaned in. Ilya shifted closer—not just angling the phone but letting his cheek press against Shane's temple, close enough that Shane's hair tickled his skin and he could smell the sunscreen and the warmth of him.

"You're in my face," Shane murmured.

“I have a big head. Need to be close so we will both fit.”

Shane's eyes flicked to Ilya's—close, very close. Then he looked at the camera and smiled. The real one, the one that crinkled his eyes and showed his teeth.

***

The thing living with all-boys house was that the floor was barely ever cleaned. On this particular Thursday morning, Ilya found a clean square of tile approximately the size of a dinner plate located directly in front of the fridge, and stood on top of it in his boxers and T-shirt, drinking milk out of the carton.

He had run out of cereal and all the glasses were dirty, so he supposed this would have to do for breakfast.

But like he could sense it, as soon as Ilya’s lips touched the carton, Shane appeared in front of him like a ghost. He was absolutely silent on his socked feet, and stopped in the doorway and his eyes went to the carton, then to Ilya's mouth.

"No."

Ilya a slow sip, slow, watching Shane over the rim.

"Ilya. Stop that."

"Mm."

"Put that in a glass."

"Why?"

"Because other people drink that milk."

"I live here. I am people."

Shane crossed the kitchen. He was trying to look stern, but Ilya could see the smile he was fighting.

"Give me the carton."

"No."

"Ilya—"

Ilya backed up, holding the carton behind him, and Shane reached for it, and Ilya dodged, grinning, and Shane grabbed his wrist and Ilya twisted away, and then they were circling each other in the kitchen like two idiots, and Ilya was laughing, and Shane was half-laughing half-annoyed, and then Ilya took another sip just to be difficult and Shane lunged at him.

Both his hands went for the carton, and Ilya turned to run but his sock slipped on the tile and his feet went out from under him and Shane's momentum carried them both down. Ilya hit the floor hard on his back and the carton went with him, tipping as he fell, and then Shane was on top of him.

He had one knee between Ilya's legs, one hand braced beside Ilya's head, the other still reaching for the carton, which was pouring cold milk directly onto Ilya's chest and chin, soaking through the T-shirt immediately, pooling on the tile underneath them.

Shane stared at the carton, then at Ilya, then at the milk spreading across the floor, and his expression flew through several—outrage and disbelief and the beginning of a smile all at once—and then he cracked.

He laughed. Ilya felt the vibration of it through his own chest where Shane had landed on him, and the absurdity of it had Ilya cracking at the exact same moment, and then they were both gone in a fit of deep, helpless laughter.

Shane's arms gave out and dropped him onto Ilya's chest, his forehead hitting Ilya's shoulder, both of them shaking so hard the milk rippled on the tile, and the weight of Shane was pressing Ilya into the cold wet puddle and it was uncomfortable and Ilya couldn't breathe but he couldn't stop either, because Shane was laughing directly into his neck and it was tickling him.

"You—your—" Shane tried, lifting his head, and Ilya wiped his eye with a milk-soaked hand and they made eye contact—Shane's face red, Ilya's face literally white with milk—and they both lost it again, worse this time, Shane laughing so hard no sound came out, his eyes squeezed shut, tears running down his cheeks.

"Stop—" Ilya wheezed.

"You're covered in milk—"

"Because of YOU—"

Ilya's hand landed on the back of Shane's head—just reaching for something to hold onto—and Shane's laughter stuttered for a second because his hair was now damp with milk, but then he resumed his fit of giggles. 

Shane pushed himself up slightly, and looked down at Ilya, and Ilya looked up at him, red-faced and wet and ruined, and they both lost it uncontrollably a third time, just shaking. The milk had reached the baseboards and was creeping toward the fridge, but neither of them could move.

It went on for what felt like hours. Long enough for the laughter to turn painful, for Ilya's stomach to ache and his eyes to water and his chest to burn, and for the milk to go warm.

The last few laughs came out as small, exhausted huffs, and Shane dropped his forehead against Ilya's collarbone for a moment.

Shane lifted his head. Slowly. And he was looking down at Ilya, and his face was very close, and his eyes were dark, and his mouth was slightly open. The laughing was gone and what was left was something else entirely.

Ilya's shirt was soaked through. White cotton clinging to his chest, basically transparent, cold milk pooling in the hollow of his collarbone. Shane's eyes dropped—just a flicker—and Ilya felt it like a burn.

"Your shirt is—" Shane's voice was rough.

"I know."

Shane's hand was still braced beside Ilya's head.

"You're shivering."

"Because there is cold milk on me, Shane."

Shane shifted against the tile, stabilizing himself, and his hips moved—and Ilya felt it. The weight of him, the warmth of him through the cold wet clothes, and he gasped. He had tried so hard to be respectful of Shane's space while he took the time to think, but this took him right back to the bathroom. All the things Ilya wanted to do to him. Still desperately wanted.

Shane's eyes flicked to his face, pupils enormous. He shifted his weight onto Ilya's thigh to sit up straighter, and his other hand moved from the tile to Ilya's jaw—just his fingertips, barely there, tracing the line of it.

Ilya wanted to moan so fucking bad over just the gentlest of touches. Who the fuck was he becoming?

"What the fuck?"

They both froze.

Cliff was standing in the kitchen doorway, holding an empty glass—fucking Cliff, of course he had the last clean cup—staring at them.

"Uh," Cliff said.

Shane scrambled off Ilya so abruptly he slipped in the milk and caught himself on the counter, and Ilya sat up so fast his head spun, and they were both on their feet now, not touching, three feet apart, and the cold air rushed into the space between them.

"lya was drinking out of the carton and I was—" Shane said.

"He slipped," Ilya said.

"I can see that," Cliff said slowly. He was looking at them with an expression that was carefully neutral. His eyes moved from Ilya's see-through shirt to Shane's rounded, shocked eyes.

"Cool," Cliff said. "Cool. I'm just gonna—" He lifted his empty glass and backed out of the doorway.

Shane chuckled a bit as they watched him retreat. Then, he grabbed a wad of paper towels and dropped to his knees and started wiping. He was shaking his head, replaying something in his mind that was clearly still funny to him.

Ilya didn't say anything. He was on his knees too, wiping in silence, his jaw tight, his movements mechanical. The paper towel came away white and wet and he grabbed another one.

"His fucking face," Shane said, scrubbing at the floor. "Holy fuck, he must of been so confused."

Ilya wiped. Didn't look up.

"And the thing is—" Shane paused, clearly amused. "The thing is, if you had just cleaned one of the cups—"

"Shane."

"—like a normal person—"

"Shane."

Shane glanced up. Ilya was staring at the floor, wiping the same spot he'd already wiped three times. 

"What?" Shane said.

"Nothing." Ilya forced himself to smile.

That was the thing, wasn't it. Shane wasn't ashamed when he showed his cards—when he let Ilya see that he wanted him, shirt soaked through, their bodies close. He was more surprised by Cliff's sudden appearance than anything.

But Ilya felt unmoored. It wasn't about being caught in a compromising position with Shane. Not at all. It was the shame of being almost caught wanting something he felt he shouldn't want. 

It was different from the casual touches they shared around their housemates. Those felt safe. But these thoughts—the sexual ones—crossed some invisible boundary, and every time they surfaced with someone else around, Ilya wanted to curl in on himself.

Shane was unfortunately right when he suspected that Ilya wasn't fully ready. He wanted to be, so fucking badly, but that would be impossible if this was how he felt every time someone else was in the room.

***

Ilya had been talking for ten minutes straight, which was unusual for him. Normally Galina had to pull things out of him—careful questions, the patient waiting that he sometimes resented. But today he'd walked in, sat down, and started talking before she'd even picked up her pen.

He told her about the banquet and the bathroom kiss with as few graphic details as possible, but he said enough that she understood what had happened.

"I did what you said," he told her. "I let myself feel it without the shame. And it was—" He stopped. His hand came up to his face, pressing against his mouth. "It was one of the best things I have ever felt in my life. In my life, Galina. And I do not say things like that."

Galina hadn't written anything down yet. "Okay," she said. "Tell me more about 'the best thing you've ever felt.' What made it that way?"

Ilya dropped his hand. "For the first time, there was no voice telling me it was wrong. I wanted him, and I just—let myself want him and act on it. And it was not dirty. It was not contaminated. It was just—" He paused, considering what would be appropriate. "It was just good, for both of us. Pure, almost. Like my body was doing what it was meant to be doing."

"That sounds significant."

"It was. But—"

There was always a but. Galina waited.

“I was thinking it would be better after that moment. But sometimes I get these little moments where I feel bad. And the other day, we were…someone saw me wanting him like this, and I felt that voice come back very strongly.”

“I think it is important to understand and identify how exactly you feel. If you were to assign an emotion to the voice, what would it be?”

Ilya already knew. “I feel ashamed.”

“And what do you do to stop feeling this way?”

“I don’t know. Nothing works. I know that it is not wrong to feel the things I do…to be bisexual, I guess, but my mind still thinks that way anyways. Since it is an issue with my mind, I try to argue with it, to reflect more.” 

"I want to tell you something about shame," she said. "And I want you to listen to it not as advice, but as information. Can you do that?"

"Okay."

"Shame doesn't go away because you have one good experience. It doesn't go away because you understand intellectually that something is not wrong. Shame is not a cognitive process—it's a learned emotional response. It gets wired into you over years, and you can't reason your way out of it."

Ilya's jaw tightened. "So what is the point of understanding it, then? If I cannot think my way out of it?"

"The point is that understanding it is what allows you to act your way out of it. Slowly. Over time."

Ilya frowned. "I do not understand."

"Right now, you're treating the shame like a lock on a door. You believe that if you can find the right thought—the right experience—the lock will open and the shame will come out and it'll be gone. And when that doesn't happen, you feel like you've failed. Like the experience in the bathroom didn't count as progress because the shame came back."

“Okay,” Ilya said, still not seeing where this was going.

"I see addressing shame as a habit. Not a habit of thinking, but a habit of responding. Something happens—Shane touches you, you have a thought about a man, so on—and your body's automatic response is shame or denial. It's been the automatic response for months. Maybe longer.”

"Okay," Ilya said slowly. "So what do I do?"

"You don't try to stop it. That's the first thing. You stop trying to make the shame not be there."

Ilya hoped his face wasn’t contorted into a horrific shape right now. "You want me to just—let it be there?"

"I want you to stop fighting it, yes. Because right now, you're in a war with yourself. The shame shows up, and you attack it—you try to argue with it, or you try to suppress it, or you feel guilty for having it, which just creates more shame. It's a loop."

Ilya's mouth twisted. "That is accurate, actually."

"So here's what I'm proposing instead. The shame shows up. You notice it. You say to yourself: there's the shame again. And then—you don't try to fix it. You don't argue with it. You just let it be there, and you do the thing anyway."

"Do the thing anyway," Ilya repeated.

"Yes. Maybe Shane touches you—”

“Or I touch Shane,” Ilya interjected, because he was immature and couldn’t help himself.

Galina hummed. “Yes, or maybe that. The shame says: this is wrong, this is not for you. And instead of spiraling, you say: I hear you. And I'm going to lean into his touch anyway. This is called a behavioural experiment. You act in spite of the shame, not because it's gone, but because you've decided it doesn't get to make your decisions."

Ilya was quiet for a long time. His thumbnail was pressing into his index finger, a small, grounding pain. "That sounds exhausting.”

"It is, at first. But it gets easier. Not because the shame goes away—though it may lessen over time—but because you get better at not engaging with it.”

"What if I stay and it really is wrong?" he asked quietly. "What if the voice is right and I am just—forcing something that should not be?"

Galina didn't answer right away. Ilya realized he was probably quite a difficult client for her.

"Ilya," she said, "you have a long telling me, in detail, about the distress this causes you. You've also told me about the night on the porch when you came out to Shane, and the bathroom at the banquet, and the night in his room. You've described what it feels like to want someone and believe you shouldn't, and also what it's like to want someone and be wanted back. And in all of that time—not once—have you described the desire itself as something that hurts you. Only the shame around it."

Ilya said nothing.

"The desire doesn't hurt you. The shame about the desire hurts you. The desire, when you let yourself feel it without shame, you called the best experience of your life. So I want you to ask yourself: what are you actually afraid of? That the desire is wrong? Or that you don't deserve something that feels that good?"

Ilya's eyes stung. He blinked rapidly, looking at the floor, his throat tight.

"Both," he said. His voice was small.

"Okay. Both. That's honest." Galina paused. "Now I want you to consider something. In our past sessions, we talked about how you feel like the good things in your life are not truly yours. That's not just about Shane. That's not just about sexuality. That's a deeper belief about who you are and what you're allowed to have. And I think, what's happening in addition to the regular difficulties of discovering your sexuality, is that this belief is being challenged in a way it's never been challenged before, because what you feel for Shane is bigger and more important than anything you've ever let yourself want. And the belief is fighting back, because if you let yourself have this—really have it, fully, without guilt—then the belief has to admit it was wrong. And beliefs like that don't go quietly."

Ilya's hands were trembling in his lap. He pressed them flat against his thighs to still them.

"So what do I do?" he asked, and this time the question wasn't defensive or impatient. It was genuine. He was asking because he didn't know.

"Like I said, you keep doing what you want," Galina said.

"That sounds very simple."

"It is simple. It's not easy. Those are different things."

Ilya almost smiled. "You say that a lot."

"Because it keeps being true."
 
Ilya leaned back against the couch. The leather creaked. The sun had moved in front of a cloud, and the gold slats were back on the hardwood floor.

"What does Shane think of all this?" Galina asked.

"He thinks I am brave," Ilya said quietly. "He said it the night I came out to him. That I was brave."

"What do you think about that?"

"I am terrified all the time. I just do things while I am terrified."

Galina smiled. It was small and brief, but it was real, and it transformed her face into something warmer.

"Ilya," she said, "that's what brave means."

***

They were at a restaurant five minutes from the arena, in a corner booth with red vinyl seats and a sticky table top. Yuna had picked it—some place she insisted had good reviews, though Ilya suspected it was just the only place within walking distance.

It was the first day of the Frozen Four, and Shane was clearly anxious about it. 

Ilya could tell because he was doing the thing where he got very still and very quiet, which was the opposite of what most people did when they were nervous. He was sitting next to Ilya in the booth, unblinking, his hands clutched tightly around the faux-leather menu.

"What will you eat?" Ilya asked, low enough that only Shane could hear.

"I'm not hungry."

"You should eat."

"I'll eat after."

"You always say that and then you do not."

Shane's jaw twitched. Ilya slid his hand under the table and rested it on Shane's thigh, just above the knee, warm through the fabric of his jeans. He felt Shane's muscle tense and then, slowly, start to soften.

"Thank you," Shane murmured, not looking up from the menu.

"I think I will get grain bowl. Looks delicious,” Ilya hedged. 

Shane exhaled through his nose. A reluctant sound that was almost a laugh. His leg was still tense under Ilya's hand, but he didn't move away, and after a few seconds Ilya felt the last of the stiffness leave.

"You're so annoying. You’re not going to eat any of it and just shove that right in my direction," Shane said quietly.

Ilya smiled and shrugged.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're not worried at all."

"Shane, I am not worried. You have been saying all week that team is in a good place. Lines are clicking, that the power play is working, morale is high. Is the best you can do in tournament with stupid single elimination format."

"I say that because it's true. Doesn't mean I'm not nervous."

"What is making you nervous?"

"It's not just nerves," Shane said quietly. "I'm sad."

Ilya waited.

"This is…probably my last shot at the Frozen Four. And it's here, in our city, in front of people who've watched me play since I was eighteen." He turned the menu over in his hands. "If I don't win this, I don't get another chance. After I sign…everything will feel real, not like this."

"This what?"

"This." Shane set down the menu and gestured. "The team. The guys. Playing in front of people who actually know my name. It's all ending, and I feel like I have to make it mean something. Like if I don't win, then none of it counted."

Shane's jaw was tight, and his eyes were fixed on the table.

"Is not true," Ilya said.

"Which part?"

"All of it. The counting part. You think winning is what makes it real, but is already real, Shane. Every morning you go to practice, every game you played and road trip you took, every guy who knows your favourite food and when you are stressed, that is all real. Winning does not make those things more real. They already are."

Shane's throat moved.

Ilya continued. "You have been the best player on this team and you deserve to win together. Winning this weekend would be great, but not winning it does not erase everything you have done."

Shane held his gaze for a moment. Then he looked down at Ilya's hand on his thigh, and his mouth did a small, helpless thing—the almost-smile—and he shook his head.

"Okay," Shane said softly.

"Okay."

David's eyes were on them. Ilya could feel it—a glance, brief and assessing. Ilya felt the shame stir—that familiar, patient thing, the voice that said he sees it, he knows, you should move your hand, and he thought about Galina.

I hear you. And I'm going to lean in anyway.

He kept his hand there. It was a bit awkward at first, like he was being purposely defiant, but David didn’t seem to care.

David looked away. The waiter came back with bread. Yuna started asking Shane about his pre-game routine, and Ilya's hand stayed on Shane's thigh through the whole conversation, warm and steady, and Shane's voice got easier as the minutes passed. By the time the check came, he was almost back to normal.

***

The arena was louder than Ilya had ever heard. It was exciting to watch their school hockey team play on NHL ice, because Ilya knew this was the ice Shane was destined to be on in the not-so-distant future. And Ilya felt like he belonged here, sitting with Shane’s lovely parents in his team colours, supporting him.

Shane was the first one on the ice for warm-ups.

Ilya had seen this a hundred times. The stretching, the easy laps, the shots on net that got progressively more serious as the minutes ticked down. Shane was a true professional, skating like he was mapping the ice and testing the surface.

Shane always looked different when he was playing hockey, focused in a way that compressed everything else about him into a single point.

"He’s looking good tonight," Yuna said, reading Ilya's face.

"Yes," Ilya agreed, although he was pretty sure they were talking about different things.

The other team came out. The national anthem played. The crowd noise swelled and then hushed and then swelled again as the officials skated to center ice.

The puck dropped.

Shane won the faceoff. And then he was skating hard, his body low, and Ilya watched him go and thought: that is the most beautiful person I have ever seen.

It wasn't just the way he looked, though that helped. It was the assertiveness and confidence of him—the way his body did exactly what his mind told it to, the way he moved through other players like they were barely there, the way he communicated without speaking, small taps and gestures that shifted the whole flow of the game. Every person on that ice was oriented around him whether they knew it or not.

Shane made a breakout play in the second period, intercepting a clumsy pass and speeding down the ice to bury it in the top corner, and the arena erupted. Yuna grabbed Ilya's arm so hard he thought she might break it, and David stood up and clapped, and Ilya clapped too, his eyes on Shane, who was already skating away from the net with his stick casually raised in celebration, like opening scoring in the Frozen Four wasn’t a big deal.

Then Shane looked up, directly at Ilya. Like he'd known exactly where Ilya was sitting the whole time. And he smiled, a real one, all crinkly and bright, with a little wave of his glove that was almost dorky, and then he was gone, skating back into the play, and Ilya's chest cracked open like an egg.

He smiled back. Couldn't help it. A small, private thing that was only for Shane, even though Shane wasn't looking anymore.

"He's different with you."

Ilya turned. David was watching him, not the ice. His expression was open, easy, like he was stating a simple fact.

"What do you mean?" Ilya asked.

“Shane has been anxious since he was a child, but he’s lighter with you. You must really ground him. He’s more…relaxed, happier, more himself.”

The arena noise swelled around them—a penalty call, the crowd groaning—but Ilya barely heard it. He was stuck on the word lighter. On the idea that he made Shane lighter.

"You're good for him," David said simply. "I'm glad he met you."

Ilya's throat was tight.

He thought about his own father. His dad had never said anything like that about him. His father's approval had been conditional and narrow—grades, trophies, measurable things. And even then, it had been sparse. A nod. A grunt. The occasional "okay."

And here was David—Shane's father, who had no reason to lie and all the reason to be honest about this—sitting in a cold arena at the Frozen Four and saying, plain as anything: you're good for him.

Ilya looked at the ice. Shane was breaking up a two-on-one, his stick in the right lane, his body angled perfectly. The other team's forward dumped the puck into the corner which killed the play, and Shane skated back to the bench with his head down, already thinking about the next shift.

Ilya thought about the last two weeks. About the living room and the way Shane had gone from polite to passionate the second Ilya disagreed with him. About the darty and the sharp, funny version of Shane that only Ilya got to see. About the kitchen floor and the milk and the laughter that had come out of both of them. About lunch today—Shane's thigh under his hand, the tension leaving inch by inch.

He was good for Shane, he thought with relief. He'd spent so long believing there was no way that he could measure up to Shane, but it wasn’t about accomplishment, was it? It was about compatibility. And the evidence was sitting right next to him, reassuring him, saying I'm glad he met you.

***

During the first intermission, the arena was buzzing. David had gone to find a friend he’d spotted in the concourse, and Ilya and Yuna were alone in their row, watching the zamboni circle the ice.

Down by the glass, a cluster of women had gathered—girlfriends of the players, all in team jerseys with their guys' numbers on the back. They were chatting, taking photos, laughing at something on someone's phone. A couple of them had signs.

Yuna watched them for a moment, then turned to Ilya.

"Are you seeing anyone?" she asked.

Ilya blinked. "What?"

"A special someone?"

Ilya's first instinct was to say no. He wasn't with Shane, although as the days went on it became clearer and clearer that it was an inevitability. But they hadn't talked about it.

"No," Ilya said, perhaps a bit mournfully.

Yuna nodded. "Alright."

The zamboni made another pass. The ice gleamed under the lights, fresh and smooth. Ilya watched it and thought about the question and the way Yuna had asked it—casually, like it was just small talk. But nothing Yuna said was ever just small talk. The woman noticed everything.

"Can I ask you something?" Ilya said. 

"Sure."

"How did you know? With David. That he was the one."

Yuna seemed to think about this. She leaned back in his seat and crossed one ankle over the other knee and looked at the ice, her face soft in a way that made Ilya feel like he was seeing something private.

“Three things,” Yuna said. “He was my best friend. He made my mind go quiet. And of course, it helped that he’s so handsome.”

Ilya's chest did something.

“I’d known David since we were fifteen. We'd been through everything together—school, family stuff, the whole thing. And when I looked at him, I saw the person I wanted to tell everything to.”

The zamboni door opened. The machine rumbled off the ice.

"The quiet part is harder to explain." Yune gazed off into the distance. Ilya quietly remarked that she looked like Shane when she did this, always looking away when he was thinking hard. "I worry a lot, I plan everything out and second guess my actions. But when David talked to me or held me, I felt like all of that could just…stop. He wasn’t a distraction, I just didn’t feel the need to do that as much, because I was enough.”

Ilya's hand had found the chain around his neck without him deciding to move it. His fingers closed around it.

"And handsome," Yuna said, with a small wink. "That one's simple. He was just—the most handsome man I'd ever seen. Still is."

Ilya looked at the ice. Fresh and clean and empty, waiting for the second period.

He thought about Shane, and how perfectly those three things seemed to fit their relationship. He and Shane wanted to tell each other everything, they both brought each other calm, and they both definitely found each other more than attractive.

He'd spent months splitting himself in two. The part that wanted Shane, in a physical sense, and the part that cared for him, kept in separate rooms like they'd start a fire if they touched.

But sitting here, with Yuna's words still in his ears, the wanting and the loving weren't two different things. They were the same fucking thing. The same feeling, just looked at from different angles. He wanted to touch Shane because he loved him. He loved Shane because he wanted to be near him. He wanted to make him laugh and know what he was thinking, and he wanted to hold his hand and kiss his mouth and wake up with his body on his. 

He'd convinced himself the love was something pure and holy, something that needed to be protected from his desire. But there was nothing to protect. It was all the same thing. It had always been the same thing.

He was in love with Shane. Completely.

Oh.

"Thank you," Ilya said. His voice sounded garbled. He wasn’t sure if it was from this transformative moment, or the fact that he suddenly missed his mom so much. He knew if she was around, he would be asking her the same questions, and hoped that she saw this from heaven and felt reassured that Ilya had people looking out for him. 

Yuna studied him for a long moment. Her eyes were warm and knowing, and she didn't say anything, but Ilya got the distinct feeling that she understood far more than he'd said out loud.

The buzzer sounded, indicating the start of the second period.

David appeared at the end of the aisle and slid back into his seat. "You guys good?"

"Great," Yuna said, patting Ilya's knee once before turning to the ice.

Shane came out of the tunnel. Number twenty four. Ilya found him immediately—there was something about Shane that just called out to him, like his energy was tuned to the right frequency. He thought to himself: Soon. I’m going to tell him soon.

Now he had the words, and all he had to do was say them out loud. He was done waiting.

Chapter End Notes

it was very important to me that ilya puts in the work that he needs before getting into anything serious with shane. that doesn't mean that he needs to be perfect (neither of them are!), but he needs to be aware of what is hard for him, and have strategies to cope, and to have confidence/faith that they are good for each other. that's why this chapter is very dialogue heavy and i am sorry because that's how someone like ilya is going to learn this stuff:')

the core issues i felt like i had to address in this chapter were:
- ilya feeling like he's not good enough for shane - which he is, and in reality is the BEST possible person, because he is who shane trusts the most, is comforted by, enjoys spending time with, and is challenged/balanced by
- ilya feeling like he wouldn't be a good partner - ^ i think this just goes to show how good he would be, he just needs to actually see it and feel validated by others
- ilya's internalized homophobia - i struggled with this bc i feel like the point i’m trying to make is ilya is okay with some things but there is an invisible boundary where feelings/actions cross into a more sexual territory that induces his terror. but only i as the author know this and not ilya so it's hard to get him to narrate it properly, bc from his perspective sometimes he feels shame and sometimes he doesn't. but i tried to make him consistent, i really did. another note is the technique suggested by galina is an evidence-based strategy in cbt that i did simplify for the sake of plot. just know this would not be resolved within the span of this story and this is for ilya to have tools and be reasonably able to have a happy relationship. this healing happens for life i fear

i feel like maybe i went about this in a non-linear way or i feel like it's not super obvious but i wanted to get it out and maybe i'll come back and edit another time<333

Chapter 7: now i want your tongue down my throat

Chapter Notes

please enjoy this very smutty chapter - you deserve it after all that angst holy moly

"We won the fucking Frozen Four."

JJ said it like he still couldn't believe it, standing in their living room with his arms around Shane's shoulders while half the hockey team chanted Holl-an-der! Holl-an-der!

Shane was laughing—this loose, bright, disbelieving laugh that Ilya had been hearing all night that made his heart flip. Shane's hair was still damp from the shower, and he was wearing a plain green crewneck that should have been boring but somehow wasn't, because everything Shane wore looked like it had been designed specifically to torture and distract Ilya to no end.

More people kept showing up, friends of the team, the women's hockey team, a guy with a DJ controller, the girlfriends.

Shane at the center of whatever was happening.

Ilya had been trying to get him alone for two hours, and he could tell Shane wanted it too.

Ilya was working on what Galina said about shame, and he understood what she meant now. It was going to be uncomfortable for awhile, but if he did whatever despite the feelings, he would be able to built better habits around shame, and to feel fine about the things he desired. It might eventually feel good and right, even, to be doing these things with Shane in public.

So he was trying small things. A hand on Shane’s back while he was getting a drink. Standing close enough that their shoulders brushed while they talked to someone. Catching Shane’s eye across the room and holding it for a beat too long, a small, private smile shared between them that made Ilya's stomach flip. 

As the night went on, Shane seemed to catch on, equally touching Ilya on the arm, leaning in close to whisper and talk, and shooting him longing glances that eventually turned into these pleading looks that said get me out of this conversation.

Ilya was going to lose his mind.

He'd spent the whole night playing it cool. Being normal. But underneath it, there was a clock ticking, and every hour that passed felt like another hour he was wasting, because he'd told himself soon, and soon was starting to feel like a lie.

He needed to talk to Shane privately. Tonight.

But he was the captain, the star, the guy who'd just won the Frozen Four in their city, and everyone wanted a piece of him, even if Shane didn’t necessarily want that attention. Ilya couldn't exactly pull him aside in the middle of his own party and say what he needed to say.

Unless he created the opportunity.

Ilya waited until Shane was mid-conversation with a group of forwards, extracted himself from a debate about whether the post-game handshake with the other captain had been too aggressive, and slipped toward the back hallway and out the back door.

Then, he pulled down the ladder of the fire escape and began climbing. The room that used to be Shane’s and Hayden’s belonged to some sophomores now, and this was an odd way of getting up there, but Ilya had a vision.

Ilya pulled a cigarette from the pack he had bought the night he came out to Shane (and hadn’t otherwise touched). He put it between his lips, unlit, and leaned against the railing to take a picture.

He sent it to Shane and texted: come here.

The response came in less than thirty seconds.

Shane: Are you smoking?

Shane: What's wrong?

Ilya smiled and texted back.

Ilya: nothing just come

The back door slammed open.

Shane came through it like a man on a mission, his eyes scanning the backyard until they found the lowered ladder, and he was climbing up towards Ilya rapidly, a furious glint in his eyes.

"You're smoking," Shane accused.

“I am not.”

"Are you kidding me right now? I can literally see the cancer stick dangling from your fucking mouth."

"I am not kidding you. Look." Ilya took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it up. "No fire. See?"

Shane stared at it. The muscle in his jaw jumped. He looked so angry—righteously angry, the kind of mad that came from actually caring—that Ilya had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to keep from laughing.

"Why did you text me that picture?”

"I needed you to come quickly."

"You could have just said so.”

"Where is the fun in that?"

Shane stared at him. His breath was coming out in small white clouds. The music from inside was muffled but present—something fast and electronic.

"Give me that," Shane said, reaching for the cigarette.

Ilya pulled it back, just out of range. "No. Is my cigarette."

"You don't even smoke anymore."

"Is a prop."

"A prop?"

"Yes. For this situation."

Shane's eyebrow twitched. "…Okay."

"Come here," Ilya said, and opened his arms.

Shane stepped forward, and Ilya reached for him. Ilya took his hand, and pulled him the rest of the way in. And then his hands went to Shane's waist while Shane’s found his shoulders—and then they were standing together on the fire escape with the cold air around them and the music drifting up from inside. Ilya could feel Shane's heartbeat against his chest, fast and strong.

"What are we doing?" Shane whispered.

"Dancing."

A beat of silence. Then Shane huffed out a short and disbelieving laugh.

"You're out of your mind."

"Yes.”

From inside the house, the music had shifted into something slow and sexy with lots of reverb and a warm voice. The bass still pulsed faintly through the metal under their feet, but it was softer now.

He started moving. Small, slow steps, side to side, and he took Shane with him, and Shane let himself be moved.

Shane was wearing a private little smile, his eyes half-lidded as they swayed in an aimless circle. The metal crunched softly beneath them. The cold bit at their exposed skin but neither of them pulled away.

"Congratulations," Ilya said. “I loved watching you play this weekend.”

Shane stared at him. His hands were on Ilya's shoulders, his thumbs pressing into the muscles there, and Ilya could see the want on his face. It was the same look from the bathroom at the banquet, the same look from the kitchen floor, and this time Ilya wasn't going to pull away from it.

"Thank you, Ilya,” he murmured.

"The game winning goal," Ilya said. "The wrap-around."

Shane's smile went sharp and a little cocky. "Yeah?"

"I have watched it six times."

"You have not!"

"Maybe even more Shane, I’m serious. You are amazing."

Shane buried his face in Ilya's neck, and Ilya felt the laugh there, warm and muffled against his skin. “You make me feel crazy,” he admitted into the crook.

Ilya hummed in agreement. Now was a good time. 

"I have been thinking about something," Ilya said, his voice shaking. “The thing you told me to think about.”

Shane froze. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes. I have been trying to figure out how to tell you this forever," Ilya said. "And I kept not saying it because I was scared. But a certain hockey player with beautiful freckles—” he paused, because she deserved the credit, “—and my therapist, both told me I am brave. So I am just going to say it."

One of Shane's hands had slid from Ilya's shoulders to the back of his neck, fingers sliding into the hair at his nape. The feeling of it made Ilya's eyes close, overwhelmed by the sheer comfort. There was no one else who could ever come close.

Shane’s other hand wandered from Ilya’s shoulder and came to rest on his chest. His fingers found the golden crucifix and he touched it the way he always touched Ilya. Gently. 

Ilya thought about the bar.

That night months ago, when Ilya began questioning everything he knew about himself and almost destroyed the most important relationship in his life in the process. 

But now Shane was holding the crucifix so kindly between his fingers, and his eyes were on Ilya's face, and he was waiting for Ilya to say something that would change their friendship forever, but potentially birth something even unimaginably better.

“I love you,” Ilya said.

But since he said it pretty often, Shane just smiled and responded in that easy way of his, still holding on to the cross and swaying side to side: “I love you too.”

Ilya laughed. Of course, Shane of all people would misinterpret his literal love confession as just a declaration of affection between friends. Because he was a coward, Ilya said again it in Russian first: “Я в тебя влюблен”

Shane's fingers tightened on the crucifix and he smiled like he understood.

"I am in love with you," Ilya murmured. "I am in love with you, and I want everything with you. I would be good to you. I would show you off. I would take care of you, if you will have me.”

For a moment Shane didn't say anything. He just looked at Ilya with those surprised eyes—wide and dark and wet—and then he said, “Holy shit...I love you too. I’m in love with you too.” When he said it, it was steady and confident, like he’d said it a thousand times in his own head. “I want you so badly, in every single way, it kills me.”

“Fuck,” Ilya said.

And then they were kissing again, for the first time in weeks.

It was different this time. Before, it had been full of unknowns—desperate and furtive. But now they were on the same page, and the word mutual was ringing in Ilya's head like a bell, and every touch felt like it had been given the permission to reach its full potential.

Shane kissed like he was starving. His mouth was hot and insistent, and the moment Ilya's tongue touched his, Shane groaned and shoved both hands up the back of Ilya's shirt. His palms were warm and broad against Ilya's bare skin, fingers splaying over his spine, dragging up and down like he couldn't get enough of the contact.

Ilya took over. He held Shane’s jaw and licked into his mouth slow and deep—fucking into i with a steady rhythm.

He pulled back just enough to look at Shane. His lips were red, his eyes glassy, his chest heaving, just from the kissing. Ilya cupped his jaw and brushed his thumb over his lovely freckled cheekbone.

"You are so—" Ilya started, his voice gone rough.

He didn't—couldn’t—finish. Instead he pulled Shane forward by the hip with one hand, pressing them together—his hard dick against Shane's, both still trapped in denim, the friction immediate and blinding.

"Is okay?" Ilya murmured.

Shane's answer was to grab Ilya's hips and grind into him.

Ilya groaned against his mouth and rolled his hips forward, meeting him halfway. The sensation through their jeans was maddening—not enough, too much, nowhere close to what either of them actually needed but impossible to stop chasing. Shane's nails were dragging up Ilya’s spine now, and Ilya dropped his mouth back onto Shane’s.

Shane's hips stuttered.

"God—" Shane moaned. Ilya hadn't even done anything yet and he was already loud, his voice bouncing off the brick and metal of the fire escape.

“Marks are okay?”

Shane nodded frantically and Ilya turned his attention to his neck.

Ilya sucked a spot just below his jaw—gentle at first, then harder, pulling the skin between his teeth until he felt Shane's whole body shudder.

"Shit—"

He moved lower. Found the junction of Shane's neck and shoulder and bit down, then sucked, hard and dirty, and Shane's head fell back against the railing with a clank.

"Oh my God, oh my fuck—"

Ilya smiled against his skin. He fucking loved how responsive Shane was.

He could feel Shane's pulse hammering under his mouth, could feel the vibration of every sound Shane made traveling through his lips. He ground their hips together in the same rhythm he was using on Shane's neck—slow, deliberate, relentless—and Shane was falling apart, his grip on Ilya's back spasming, his hips moving erratically.

"Ah, Ilya, Ilya—"

People were beginning to leave the party now, and he could hear the distant sounds of people walking away from their house and laughing.

Ilya pulled off his neck with a wet sound and brought his mouth to Shane's ear.

"Be quiet," he murmured. "Can you do that for me?"

Shane's eyes were squeezed shut, his lips bitten raw. "Yeah, I can—"

"Good. You look so good like this. My Shane."

Shane made a little sound at the back of his throat.

Ilya went back to his neck. This time he kissed—open-mouthed and slow, pressing his lips to the couple of bruises he'd made—and Shane's mouth fell open but nothing came out. His nails were digging into Ilya's back so hard now in a way that would definitely needs marks—

Ilya placed his lips over the bruise and licked a long, hot stripe over it.

"FUCK—oh, oh, Ilya, please—"

It was loud. So fucking loud and fucking hot. Shane's voice cracked on the Ilya and rang out into the cold night air, and Ilya's last thread of restraint snapped like a rubber band.

His hand dropped between them. He'd never touched another man's dick before, and some part of his brain wanted to be careful about it—to do it right—so he didn't grab. He pressed the heel of his palm against Shane first, slow and deliberate, feeling the shape of him through denim, the heat of him. Then he curled his fingers around it, gentle but sure, and squeezed.

Shane's whole body seized, a strangled noise ripping out of his throat.

"Wait—" Shane's hand caught Ilya's wrist. "Wait, wait—inside, we need to go inside—"

"Shane—"

"I'm serious, Ilya, someone could—fuck—" Ilya stroked his thumb over the head through the fabric and Shane's eyes rolled back. "Inside. Now. Before I let you fuck me on this fire escape."

Ilya's brain short-circuited.

"Okay," he said, voice wrecked. "Okay. Inside. Need you so bad."

Shane laughed—breathless and disbelieving—and grabbed Ilya's hand, and then they were stumbling toward the fire escape ladder.  Ilya went first, climbing backwards down the ladder with shaking hands, and halfway down he looked up and saw Shane grinning down at him, hair a mess, neck absolutely destroyed, shirt half-untucked, and Ilya laughed so hard he almost missed a rung.

"Careful," Shane hissed, but he was laughing too.

They hit the back door and Shane grabbed his hand, and then they were moving through the party. It had thinned out considerably. Ilya was still laughing—giddy and half-delirious—and Shane was giggling too, glancing back at him with bright eyes.

Ilya didn't care that their fingers were laced together, swinging between them like teenagers, because he was over giving a fuck. He was about to, for the first time in his life, fall into bed with someone who he loved and who loved him back. He had never felt so light or happy. He saw someone look—he didn't know who, didn't care to look—and he squeezed Shane's hand tighter and Shane squeezed back.

They hit the stairs and took them two at a time. Shane fumbled with his bedroom door, shoved it open, pulled Ilya inside, and slammed it shut behind them.

The lock clicked.

Ilya slammed Shane back against the door and kissed him.

It was filthy from the first second—tongues and teeth and hands everywhere. Shane's fingers were already tugging at the zipper of Ilya's jacket, yanking it down his shoulders, and Ilya let him shrug it off before reaching for the hem of Shane's green crewneck. He pulled it over Shane's head and tossed it aside, then Shane was grabbing at his shirt, and Ilya was grabbing at Shane's, and then they were both bare from the waist up and Shane broke the kiss to look at him.

"God, look at you," Shane murmured.

Shane's hands were on him instantly. Sweeping over his obliques, his abs, fingers pressing into the grooves of muscle like he couldn't believe they were real. His thumbs traced Ilya's hip bones just above the waistband of his jeans and Ilya’s dick throbbed.

"I want to see you too," Ilya said, and stepped back enough to look at him.

Shane's body was—fuck. Broad shoulders, lean and cut, the defined muscles of his chest tapering to a narrow waist. His skin was scattered with those freckles Ilya loved, dusted across his shoulders and collarbones.

"Fuck,” Ilya groaned. “All these years I have been so stupid.”

Shane laughed and reached for Ilya’s belt, undoing it, shoving his jeans down. He toed off his own jeans at the same time, and they were both standing there in their boxers when Shane suddenly bent down and picked up Ilya's jeans off the floor.

Ilya blinked. "What are you doing?"

"Folding them."

"Shane. We are about to have sex."

"I know." Shane folded them neatly along the crease, set them on the desk chair, then picked up his own jeans and did the same. Then the jackets. Then the shirts. Each one smoothed out and stacked.

Ilya watched him, something huge and warm expanding in his chest.

"You are folding our clothes right now."

"I don’t want them to crease."

"I fucking love you.”

Shane glanced back at him, a shy smile tugging at his mouth. "Shut up."

“Shane, you are already talking to your boyfriend like this? Is only day one.”

Shane’s mouth fell open, like something was surprising. “Boyfriend?”

“I mean…yes…unless you do not want.” Suddenly Ilya felt awkward, did he make a wrong assumption about what this was?

Shane's ears went red and he shook his head aggressively. “No. I want, very much. So much. Please.”

“Okay,” Ilya laughed. 

Shane turned back to the neatly stacked pile on the chair, adjusted the sleeve of Ilya's jacket so it lay flat, and then turned back to Ilya with darkened eyes like a switch had flipped.

"Okay. Now I'm ready."

"Insane," Ilya murmured, and pulled him in by the hips.

Shane's grey boxers were tented obscenely, the head of his dick pressing wet against the fabric. Ilya could see the wet spot.

"Can I?"

Shane nodded, jaw tight.

Ilya pulled them down slowly. Shane's dick sprang free and Ilya just looked at it. Long, uncut, and flushed and curved slightly to the left, the head slick with precum, and it was beautiful because it was Shane’s

"Fuck," Ilya breathed.

"Stop staring—"

Ilya wrapped his hand around it and Shane's voice broke.

He'd never done this before. Never felt another man's dick in his hand. It was different from his own—thicker at the base, the skin impossibly soft over the hardness underneath. He stroked up slowly, experimentally, and his thumb caught the bead of precum at the tip. He spread it over the head, slick and warm, and Shane made a sound that covered Ilya’s entire body in goosebumps.

"Oh—yeah, just like that—"

Ilya watched his own hand move. The way precum kept pooling at the tip and he kept spreading it, using it to make everything wet and smooth. He twisted his wrist on the upstroke and Shane's hips jerked forward.

"Ilya, if you keep doing that I'm gonna—stop, stop, come here—"

Shane grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him up, and then Shane's hands were on Ilya's waistband, shoving his boxers down with shaking hands. Ilya kicked them off and then Shane was sinking to the floor, looking at Ilya’s straining and angry dick.

"Jesus," Shane whispered.

"What?"

"You're—you're huge."

Ilya tilted his head. "Is that a problem?"

"No." Shane looked up at him with dark eyes and parted lips, his ruined neck on full display. "No, it is definitely not a problem."

Shane leaned in and licked a long, slow stripe up the underside of it, from base to tip, and Ilya's vision went white at the edges.

"Fuck—"

Shane took him into his mouth.

He was—God, he was talented. His mouth was hot and wet and he took Ilya deep on the first try, no hesitation, his tongue doing something clever on the underside that made Ilya's thighs shake. Ilya was big and Shane's mouth was stretched around him, lips slick and swollen, but he didn't pull back. 

Girls had gone down on him, and it had felt good—of course it had—but this was something else entirely. Shane knew what he was working with. He knew the angles, the pressure, the spots that might make someone feel so fucking good, because he had the same equipment.

Ilya's hands found Shane's hair. He didn't push—just held on, fingers tangled in the strands, his thumb brushing Shane's temple. "Good," he murmured. "You're so good, Shane. So fucking hot."

Shane moaned around him.

The vibration nearly ended Ilya right there. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth and tightened his grip on Shane's hair, and Shane moaned again—louder—like he was the one getting something out of this. His right hand had dropped between his own legs, jerking himself slowly while he sucked Ilya off, and the sounds he was making were obscene. Wet, muffled, desperate. He loved this. Ilya could tell—he loved having his mouth full, loved the weight of Ilya's dick on his tongue, loved the sounds Ilya was making above him.

"You like that?" Ilya said, his voice rough. "Like having my dick in your mouth?"

Shane hummed yes around him and Ilya's hips twitched forward.

"Shane—Shane, you need to stop, I'm going to come—"

Shane didn't stop. He sucked harder, took him deeper, and his hand moved faster on his own dick, and Ilya had to physically pull him off by the hair.

"Fuck—" Ilya panted, staring down at him. Shane's lips were swollen and slick, his eyes glassy, his hand still working himself. "You are—how are you so good at that?"

Shane wiped his mouth and grinned, raw and proud. "I like giving head."

“I think I might be the most stupid man alive. Holy fuck. I have been missing out.”

Shane laughed at this. “Are you gonna fuck me?”

"Yes—fuck—get on the bed."

Shane moved fast. He pulled open the nightstand drawer, grabbed a condom and a bottle of lube, and set them on the comforter before climbing onto the bed. He settled on his stomach, propped up on his elbows, and looked back at Ilya over his shoulder.

Shane's ass was incredible. Round and firm, the muscles defined from years of skating and training, two little dimples sitting at the base of his spine. And the stretch marks—faint silver lines across the globes of his ass, the kind that came from real work, from a body pushed and grown and changed.

Ilya knelt on the bed behind him, running a hand up the back of Shane's thigh, over the curve of his ass, up his spine. Shane shivered under him, his back arching slightly.

Ilya had done this before—with women. He knew the logic. Prepare the body, start slow, be patient. He slicked his fingers with lube, kissed the skin right above Shane's hole, and pressed the first one in slowly.

Shane's breath hitched, and Ilya paused, letting him adjust, watching the way Shane's hands fisted in the comforter.

"Keep going," Shane said.

Ilya pushed deeper. He'd expected resistance—the women he'd been with had always needed a lot of time—but Shane's body opened up around his finger like it had been waiting for it. Easy. Almost greedy.

Fuck, Ilya thought. I am so fucked.

"Fuck," Shane breathed, echoing his thoughts.

"Good?"

"Yeah—yeah, keep going—"

Ilya added a second finger and Shane moaned into the pillow, loud and unguarded, his hips pressing back onto Ilya's hand. Ilya curled his fingers slightly and Shane's entire body jerked.

"Oh—right there, right there—"

Ilya did it again and Shane's arms gave out. He dropped onto his forearms, his face buried in the pillow, and Ilya watched him—the way his back arched, the way his thighs were trembling—and realized he was grinding against the bed. Slow, desperate little movements, humping the mattress while Ilya's fingers worked inside him. It was fascinating to see how good this could feel for a man, and Ilya momently felt curious about wanting to try himself. He was definitely going to talk to Shane about that later.

"Shane."

"Mm."

"Turn over."

Shane lifted his head. "What?"

Ilya withdrew his fingers, put his hands on Shane’s waist, and guided him onto his back. Ilya settled between his thighs and pushed his fingers back in, and Shane's mouth fell open.

"Yes—"

"I want to try something. You can tell me if you do not like?"

Shane nodded.

Ilya leaned down and took Shane's dick into his mouth.

He'd never done this. He'd thought about it—God, he'd thought about it—but thinking about it and actually having the weight of a dick on his tongue were two very different things. Shane tasted like skin and salt and something faintly bitter, and the head was smooth and soft against Ilya's lips. He took as much as he could, which wasn't much of it, and used his left hand hand to cover what his mouth couldn't reach.

Shane whimpered a sound that made Ilya dizzy.

"Oh, your mouth—"

Ilya pulled off, licked a stripe up the underside, and took him back down, working his tongue against the ridge while his fingers twisted inside him. He didn't know if he was doing it right—he was probably messy, probably too much teeth, probably not taking enough—but Shane didn't seem to care. His hands were in Ilya's hair, his hips were twitching up, and the sounds coming out of him were absolutely guttural.

"You're so good," Shane panted. "Fuck—"

Then Shane's hands slid from Ilya's hair to the back of his head and pressed down, holding him there, and he started grinding—hips rolling in a slow, deliberate rhythm, fucking up into Ilya's mouth while pushing back onto his fingers at the same time. Taking what he wanted. Using Ilya's mouth and his hand together like he couldn't decide which felt better and didn't want to give up either.

Ilya let him. He relaxed his throat as much as he could and took it, his fingers curling deeper on each backward grind, and the sounds Shane was making above him were making his dick leak onto the mattress.

Ilya pulled off for a moment, gasping, and worked a third finger in alongside the other two. Shane gasped, his thighs clamping around Ilya's hand, and Ilya stilled.

"Okay?"

"Yeah—yeah, just—give me a second—"

Ilya waited. Pressed a kiss to Shane's knee.

“Okay.”

Ilya took him back into his mouth and slowly started to move all three fingers, scissoring them gently, stretching him open. Shane's hands found his head again, holding him down, and he leaned into Ilya’s assault of stimulation with these desperate, needy little rolls.

"Fuck—okay, okay, I'm ready, I'm so ready, want your dick so bad, please fuck me," he babbled.

Ilya pulled off with a wet pop, his jaw aching, and slowly withdrew his fingers. He was so fucking proud of his work. It was really something special to know Shane in his day-to-day life, and to be able to reduce him to this person who no longer worried and was singularly focused on getting what he wanted.

Ilya rolled the condom on with shaking hands. His dick was aching and leaking uncontrollably at t his point, and when he looked at Shane—flushed and wrecked and spread out on his back, chest heaving, eyes half-lidded—Ilya thought I am going to last approximately ten seconds.

He reached down and grabbed Shane's hips, and tugged.

Shane let out a surprised sound as Ilya flipped him onto his stomach, pulling him up onto his knees so his ass was in the air. Ilya took a moment just to look at him and felt a wave of want so intense it made his vision blur.

"You are so fucking hot," Ilya said. “Still okay?”

“Yes, fuck. Please.”

Ilya lined himself up and pressed the head against Shane's entrance. Shane's breath caught.

"Tell me if it is too much."

"Ilya, I swear to God—"

He pushed in.

The heat was immediate and overwhelming. Tight and slick and alive in a way Ilya's brain could barely process. It was nothing like being with a woman—different angle, different amount of resistance, different everything—and the novelty of it nearly ended him right there. He bottomed out and had to stop, squeezing his eyes shut, his fingers digging into Shane's hips hard enough to leave marks.

"Fuck," Ilya gasped. "Give me a second."

Shane laughed, breathless. "Yeah? How does it feel?"

"Incredible. I might die."

"You're shaking."

"I know."

Ilya pulled out slowly and sank back in, and Shane moaned into the pillow and Ilya's hips jerked forward involuntarily. The visual alone was killing him. Shane's arched back, the shift of muscle under skin, the way his body swallowed Ilya's dick, the way his ass jiggled with each thrust. Ilya had never been this attracted to anyone in his life. Every part of Shane was something he wanted to look at, touch, memorize.

He set a slow rhythm. Each thrust deep and controlled, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back to the hilt. Shane was already squirming underneath him, pushing back, trying to make it faster, and Ilya pressed a firm hand to the small of his back.

“Wait, fuck.”

Shane whined. “Why?”

"I’m going to come way too fast.” His voice came out rougher than he meant. "We waited long time. I want to stretch it out and take care of you.”

Shane went still. His hands clenched in the comforter, and Ilya could see the muscles in his back working as he forced himself to listen.

"Good," Ilya murmured. "So good for me."

He started moving again. Same pace and he could feel every inch of himself inside Shane, could feel the way Shane's body gripped him and released him, and it was so much, so new, that he had to actively fight not to shoot.

"You feel amazing," Ilya moaned. "I did not know it could feel like this."

"Like what?"

"I do not have the words."

He picked up the pace slightly. Still controlled, still measured, but faster now, each thrust punctuated by the slap of skin. Shane's moans were getting louder, more desperate, Ilya leaned down and pressed his chest to Shane's back, wrapping one arm around his chest.

"I love you," Ilya said against his ear. "I love you so much. I am so happy right now."

Shane's hand came up and gripped Ilya's forearm, fingers digging in.

"I love you too," Shane said, voice cracking. "I love you, I love you—"

Ilya straightened up. He fucked into him harder—faster now, the control starting to slip, his own orgasm building fast and urgent at the base of his spine. He could feel Shane getting close too—the trembling thighs, the broken sounds, the way his body was clenching.

"I want to see you," Ilya said.

"What?"

Ilya pulled out and flipped Shane onto his back so fast it was almost comical. His face was flushed, his eyes wet, his dick flushed and leaking against his stomach. Ilya crawled over him and sank back in, and they both groaned.

Shane's legs wrapped around his waist. Ilya braced himself on his forearms, hovering over Shane, and started to move. Shane pulled him down and kissed him—deep and dirty, tongues sliding together, and Ilya fucked him in the same rhythm.

They made out like that for what felt like hours. Every thrust punctuated by a kiss, every kiss punctuated by a thrust, and Ilya could really feel it now—

"I am fucking—ah—fu—close," Ilya murmured against his mouth.

"Me too—"

Ilya pulled back from the kiss. "Look at me," he said.

Shane's eyes found his. So open it made Ilya's chest ache.

"I want to see you come," Ilya said. "Can you do that for me?"

Shane nodded, his breath was coming in short gasps now, and Ilya drove into him harder—faster—hitting the same spot over and over until Shane's whole body went rigid. His back bowed off the bed and he came with a broken moan, dick untouched, spurting hard and copious amounts of white ropes across his own stomach and chest, and the sight of it—the sheer amount, the way Shane's face crumpled with pleasure—pulled Ilya right over the edge.

He buried himself deep and came with a groan that felt ripped out of his lungs. It was the most intense orgasm of his life—his whole body locked up, his vision whiting out, and he came so much he could feel it filling the condom, pulse after pulse, his hips stuttering through it while Shane's hands roamed his back and his hair.

Ilya collapsed onto him.

For a long time, neither of them moved. Ilya's face was pressed into Shane's neck, his softening dick still inside him, and he could feel Shane's heartbeat slowly returning to normal under his lips.

"Holy shit," Shane said hoarsely.

Ilya laughed weakly against his skin. "Yeah."

"That was..."

"Yeah."

Shane's hand came up and rested on the back of Ilya's head, fingers threading through his hair.

"Will you stay?"

"I am not going anywhere."

Eventually, Ilya pulled out gently, tied off the condom, and dropped it in the bin by the side of the bed. Shane made a small sound of protest at the loss, and Ilya shushed him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

"Come."

He pulled Shane into him, maneuvering them both until Shane's head was on Ilya's chest and their legs were tangled together. Ilya's hand found its way to Shane's hair, fingers carding through it slowly, and he felt Shane's whole body go soft against him.

Not just relaxed. Plaint. Like every wire in him had been unplugged.

Ilya had never seen Shane like this. In all the months he'd known him—even between exams, on winter or summer break, after a hockey season—Shane had always carried something tense in his shoulders. But now he was melted into Ilya's side, his breathing slow and even, his fingers tracing absent patterns on Ilya's ribs.

"You are so relaxed," Ilya murmured.

"Mm. You did this to me."

"I like being the reason."

Shane's fingers stilled. Then resumed their tracing, slower now, like he was savouring the permission to be soft.

“I love you. Will you teach me to say it in Russian?”

Ilya smiled into the ceiling. He couldn’t believe this could be his life. “Ya—” he started.

“Ya—”

“Tebya—”

“Tibia—” 

Ilya laughed at this. “Lyublyu—”

“Looblue. Ya—Tibia—Looblue?”

Ilya was laughing wholeheartedly now. “Good thing you are cute, because you are not very smart.”

“Hey!” Shane protested, but it was weak. He was still very much loose-limbed in Ilya’s arms.

They lay there in the dark. The party was long over—the music had stopped at some point, and the house was quiet except for the occasional creak of old pipes. Ilya kept stroking Shane's hair, and Shane kept tracing his ribs, and the warm heaviness of satisfaction settled over Ilya like a blanket.

"I might fall asleep," Ilya admitted.

"Sleep," Shane whispered.

So he did.

***

When Ilya woke, the room was ablaze with early golden morning light, because Shane believed in waking up naturally and his windows had sheer curtains. He was warm—so warm—and there was a weight on his chest that felt like the best thing in the world.

He blinked his eyes open and found Shane looking down at him.

"Hi," Shane said.

Just hi. Small and sweet and a little shy, like he hadn't just been staring at Ilya while he slept like a creep, like his neck wasn’t covered in marks.

"Hi," Ilya said back. "How long have you been awake?"

"A few minutes."

"And you were... watching me?"

"You look handsome when you sleep."

Ilya smiled. He liked the idea that he and Shane had always held these little attractions to one another, and now that they had finally been honest, they were spilling out. He felt like he knew Shane so well already, but now he got to discover a whole new side of him.

"We should talk about the brothers," Shane murmured.

Ilya's hand found the small of Shane's back. "Okay."

"Like—everyone saw us run through the party holding hands."

"I know."

Shane propped his chin on Ilya's chest. "Are you okay with that?"

Ilya was quiet for a moment. He thought of all the shame and guilt, tears and sleepless nights. He thought of all the work he had been doing privately, the conversations he had with Troy, Galina, Shane’s parents, all the times he did the hard thing acknowledging how he was feeling and challenging himself. 

"I have been working on this," Ilya said slowly. He spent awhile explaining his thought process, from the moment he recognized he might be bisexual, to how he became sure, to all the work and thinking he did. "I am not saying it is gone. But I am saying I have done the work, and I am not going to hide you. I am not going to hide this."

Shane's eyes were wet.

"I am so proud of you," he whispered.

"You do not have to be proud of me for something you have done already."

"I’m proud of you for that exact reason. I know how hard it is, because I struggled too. I think you did all the right things, the things I wish I would have done when I was first figuring out what I liked. You're so brave.”

Ilya cupped the back of his neck and pulled him up for a kiss. Slow and tender and full of everything he didn't have words for.

"Okay," Ilya said when they broke apart. "Let's go tell them."

Shane grinned. "Yeah?"

“Yes.’’

***

They brushed their teeth side by side, elbows bumping, neither of them willing to let go of the other. Shane found two clean T-shirts and tossed one at Ilya's head. It made Ilya laugh because they were the exact same shirt, and of course Shane would own multiples of the same shirt, and it's good that he does because now they were boyfriends and they could match.

Shane's hand found Ilya's as they reached the top of the stairs.

"You ready?" Shane asked.

"Yes."

They walked down together.

The house was quiet. It was their usual Sunday morning routine, Shane and Ilya up first, and everyone coming down for breakfast a bit later.

"What should I make today?" Shane asked.

"We are going to make waffles."

Shane raised an eyebrow. "We?"

“Yes. We are lovers now, so we need to do it together.”

“Ugh, gross, Ilya. Don’t use that word around our friends or my parents. Maybe just don’t use that word ever again.”

Ilya rolled his eyes. Westerners and their stupid semantics.

"Come on," Ilya said, tugging Shane toward the kitchen.

“Why waffles?” Shane asked. “Are you craving them?”

“I had waffles on the day of my bisexual awakening. It feels right.”

Shane's hand drifted up to Ilya's chest, fingers finding the crucifix. He leaned in close, his lips brushing Ilya's ear.

"Should we recreate it?"

Ilya folded immediately.

He turned Shane around and kissed him, pushing him back against the kitchen counter, one hand sliding up under his shirt and the other gripping his ass through his pyjamas. Shane laughed into his mouth and kissed him back, fingers tangling in Ilya's hair, and it was good—so good—but then Shane pulled away.

"Waffles," Shane said.

"No—" he protested.

"We're making waffles."

"I would rather make out with you."

"We can do both. But the waffles first or the guys will come down and there will be nothing."

Ilya groaned.

Shane started pulling out ingredients while Ilya stood there and admired him. Then Shane started measuring and mixing, and Ilya stepped up behind him and wrapped his arms around Shane's waist and rested his chin on his shoulder.

"Ilya."

"What?"

"I can't whisk if you're attached to me like this."

"I am not moving."

Shane tried to whisk anyway, his movements awkward and restricted, Ilya's full weight draped against his back like a koala. He cracked eggs one-handed, which was impressive, and somehow managed to stir the batter with Ilya swaying them gently side to side.

"You are the least helpful cooking partner in the world," Shane said.

"You are the sexiest cooking partner in the world."

"God, you're insufferable. But I do love you.”

“Mm. I love you too.”

Shane didn't push Ilya off, and Ilya suspected he enjoyed both the attention and the challenge. He just kept going—folding in toppings, heating the waffle iron, pouring the first batch—while Ilya clung to him and occasionally pressed kisses to his shoulder and the side of his neck.

They heard a door open upstairs, then footsteps.

"Someone's awake," Shane said, pouring another batch.

Hayden and JJ appeared in the kitchen doorway, squinting at the light, both of their hair absolute disasters. They stopped. Looked at Shane at the waffle iron with Ilya draped over his back like a backpack. Looked at Shane's neck.

And there it was. That flicker. The old instinct—let go, step back, explain yourself. He felt it rise up, and for half a second his arms tightened around Shane with something that wasn't just affection.

But then he looked at Shane—Shane, who wasn't flinching, who wasn't pulling away or laughing it off or making it smaller, who was standing there in his matching shirt looking unbothered, like the idea of hiding this had never even occurred to him—and it helped so much.

"Oh my God," JJ said.

"Good morning," Ilya said cheerfully.

More footsteps. Cliff and Troy appeared, then other brothers, drawn by the sound of voices and the smell of waffles. They all stopped in the doorway like they'd hit a wall, and Ilya could see the moment each of them put it together—the hand-holding at the party, the hickies, the matching shirts, Ilya refusing to let go of Shane even now.

"Are those—" Cliff started.

"Waffles," Ilya and Shane said at the same time.

But nobody moved. They were all staring.

Shane set down the whisk and turned in Ilya's arms—because of course Ilya still hadn't let go—and placed his hands on Ilya's forearms. Like they'd been doing it for years.

"We're boyfriends," Shane announced.

Another beat of silence.

Then Troy said "finally, finally" in a tone that suggested they'd all been waiting for this for months, and Hayden started laughing, and Cliff came over and clapped Ilya on the shoulder, and then they were all talking at once—questions and teasing and "I KNEW it"—and Ilya just stood there with his arms still wrapped around Shane and thought this is it.

This was the thing he'd been afraid of. This exact moment. And it was nothing but warm light and waffles and the sound of people he loved being happy for him.

And the shame—still there, somewhere, a small and shrinking thing—felt very far away.

Shane looked up at him.

"You okay?" he murmured.

Ilya looked at him—this ridiculous, beautiful man who called him out for smoking, held his mother’s crucifix at a bar, and waited for him to be brave.

"Yeah," Ilya said. "I am really okay."

Shane smiled, bright and real, and turned back to the waffle iron.

"Now can you let go so I can flip this?"

"No. I wasted so much time. I will never let you go again."

Chapter End Notes

we are done after this chapter!!! wow!!!! thank you SO much for reading and for your kudos and lovely comments. they really have made this so fun, and it makes my day to see those notifications:)

i haven't written in a long time and this was a really good exercise—i've missed writing a lot. i have so many ideas and i look forward to writing more!

this story is not edited so i may return to make some changes, let me know if you spot anything for me to update<333

with love,
pookiewookie111