Chapter Text
Ilya had asked, the first time they’d ever done anything, if it was his first time with a man. Shane had nodded, swallowed the first time ever that he’d almost uttered, because being around Ilya Rozanov made him want to agree with everything he said, made him want to be truthful, made him want.
So he shoved all that down. Deep into his stomach that gurgles often, so Shane can pretend it’s only that and not the sound of him choking himself out to keep quiet.
He nodded, just nodded, and from then on, Shane Hollander was rarely truthful.
—
Shane doesn’t like bringing it up. The whole topic makes him feel insecure and then subsequently ashamed for caring so much in the first place.
But it’s somehow easier at the cottage. Where it’s so quiet that he can finally hear himself think, can finally hear Ilya breathe. Where the air is cleaner and they never, ever lie to one another.
Shane stretches, taps his foot on Ilya’s leg from where he’s laying the opposite way from him on the couch. Ilya kicks out, gently tapping back. Shane smiles.
Ilya’s scrolling on his phone with one hand and bracing his phone with the other. The muscles in his hand shift every once in a while, his veins accentuated in places. There are faded bruises across his knuckles. Shane can see the little scar on his pinky that he said he got while “wrestling” his brother as a child.
Ilya has nice hands. Shane likes how big they are, likes the way they look, likes the way they feel.
Shane’s held hands with a few people before: his parents, a girl in middle school, the two girlfriends he’s had. Ilya.
He’d never liked hand-holding. Even briefly.
Not when he was a child and his parents wanted him to hold onto them so they knew he was safe, not when he has to shake someone's hand for the sake of courtesy, and not with his girlfriends.
Especially with his girlfriends.
He hates the sweat buildup it causes, often having to let go to wipe his hands on his pants; hates when the rough parts of his skin brush against the soft parts of theirs, because the feeling against his callouses made him want to scratch; hates when their arms sway out of sync ‘cause he’s so much taller than them; hates that his hands were always so much bigger than the other person’s. Sometimes it felt like holding the hand of a child, which was never a comforting thought. The basic act of it also just made him feel weird. Bad inside. Itchy and uncomfortable.
It’s better with Ilya. Like everything is.
He can handle it with Ilya. More often during sex, since he isn’t actively registering how sweaty their hands are, because everything’s sweaty, and his mind is usually elsewhere. But even outside of sex, Ilya can grab his hand and Shane won’t want to retreat immediately unless he’s having a truly terrible day. It doesn’t make him shiver on contact; it doesn’t make him want to lurch away. He can only do it for short bursts of time, but Ilya doesn’t seem to mind too much when he has to pull away.
His girlfriends minded.
Jessica, when the sweat made his hands slippery and he had to let go to clench his hands one, two, three, four times, always, so he didn’t shake them. Rose, when the paparazzi chased them to their car and he could finally slide his hand away when they were behind tinted windows, because his coarse, big hand pressed to her damp, small one was already too much, and with the camera flash, Shane was on the verge of vomiting.
Shane slides down on the couch a little to stuff his socked toes under Ilya’s calves. His feet are always cold.
Ilya lets him. Doesn’t say anything, barely twitches.
He just moves one of his hands, running it once through his curls in that effortlessly captivating way of his.
Shane’s dated three people in his life, and only one of them he was attracted to.
He knows that Ilya’s never really dated. Nobody besides him, or a few flings, maybe. Shane’s not sure, but he can see it anyway: Ilya holding hands with some random girl as they try to escape the photographers, heading to an Uber outside of a club; Ilya grabbing a man’s hand in a dark bar, bringing it up to his lips to kiss before using their hands to pull him into the bathroom.
He wonders how many there were.
He thinks it over sometimes. The differences between the lives they lived before they got together.
Shane has been with a few other people besides Ilya. Four, to be exact. Two women and two men. His short, sparse relationships with women were a mess, and their sex lives even worse - likely not enjoyable for anyone involved -, and he never got far with the men. Could never push himself farther than mouths or hands, brushed their hands off when they made a pass at his ass.
He’s kissed seven people besides Ilya: the two women he dated, one of the men he’d sort of hooked up with, two girls in high school that he doesn’t really remember the names of, and two women he’d gone on dates with that staunchly refused to let him leave unless he kissed them goodnight.
He has no idea how many people Ilya’s kissed. No clue how many people he’s slept with. He’s never wanted to ask. Not necessarily because he doesn’t want to know, but because he’s not completely sure he can deal with the answer.
Shane likes to push his limits, but maybe not that one.
He also doubts Ilya knows the exact number. Or a ballpark, even.
And truthfully, Shane would consider himself quite secure in his relationship.
For the most part.
Every once in a while, it feels like who he is isn’t enough. Feels like he should be giving more, should be doing more, should be more.
And he feels guilty sometimes. For being too scared to come out, more scared than Ilya is. For allowing Ilya to give up his life in Boston for Shane when he won’t leave Montreal. For the fact that Ilya says I love you more than he does; Shane thinks it so often but always overthinks saying it, debating and tumbling it around in his head until he doesn’t say it at all, even though he knows, knows now, that Ilya loves him back.
For not being able to hold Ilya’s hand. Rarely in private and never in public.
He knows that Ilya likes holding his hand. Or maybe likes holding hands in general. He plays with his fingers, likes to clutch on and press down when they have sex, holds tight when Shane’s the one to initiate.
He likes it, too. Likes the way Ilya likes it, likes the way it settles him briefly before his hair starts to rise like a frightened cat. Likes the subtle difference in shade he sees when they’re pressed together, before he has to pull back.
Shane can’t give him enough. He just can’t.
He can give him a little. Small increments of what he wants until he feels like there’s bugs trailing up his spine.
And he knows that Ilya’s not mad at him for it. Shane’s shoulders always hunch when he tugs his hand from Ilya’s grip, and Ilya just kisses the side of his head like everything’s alright. Like every other person on the planet wouldn’t pay exorbitant amounts of money to hold Ilya Rozanov’s hand, and he got stuck with the one person who struggled. Like he hadn’t held tons of people’s hands before with little to no trouble before Shane came along.
Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe it doesn’t matter to him, because he never wanted to hold onto those people anyway.
Except, maybe he did. With just one.
“Have you ever held hands with Svetlana?”
Ilya glances up from his phone, eyes peeking over the top, his face scrunched in confusion. “What?”
“Have you ever held hands with Svetlana?” Shane repeats, slightly more insistent now.
Ilya raises an eyebrow at him from over his phone. “Uh, yes?”
Shane wants to ask for specifics. When, where, why, how often. If they used to date. Ilya said they’d only ever been casual, but what if they dated a long time ago? Like in secondary school? When they were so young that Ilya doesn’t even really think to count it.
Did they exchange candy rings as children? Promising to stay together forever? Did they have a marriage pact? Was she his first kiss? His first handjob? His first everything?
How casual can you be when sex is a common pastime between you? Fuck knows nothing was casual when it was them, and Svetlana and Ilya got to spend way more time together than they ever did.
“Oh, okay,” he says, trying to seem relaxed, like the answer didn’t mean anything. And then, “How long? Were you sleeping together?”
Ilya blinks at him for a second, and Shane can’t read what his face is telling him. He’s gotten better at sorting through the expressions that flit across his face, but Ilya’s always been able to hide what he’s feeling, to put up a front. Sometimes it’s difficult for Shane to see past. “Like when did we start?”
“Yeah.”
He shakes his head, shrugging. “I do not know. Eh, sixteen, maybe?”
“Right,” Shane says, before he can even take in the sentence. He’d figured out quite young that you should respond to someone fast, because the long process of comprehending what someone just said, figuring out how to react, and then deciding what to say generally makes people uncomfortable. Shane would just stare silently until he could grasp their point. People didn’t like it. “Right, okay,” he says.
And then he settles back against his pillow, looks up at the ceiling, and thinks.
They’d started sleeping together when they were sixteen.
The first time Shane and Ilya had hooked up, they were both just barely nineteen - Ilya having turned nineteen just days before, though Shane wasn’t aware of that at the time.
There was about a three-year gap between when Ilya and Svetlana had started having sex and when Ilya and Shane had started having sex. And Shane knows Ilya had stopped sleeping with other people around All Stars, maybe? Though they’d never explicitly talked about it, so that may be off. But if he’s correct, that was only about six months before they got together, and it hasn’t been too long since then.
Shane has been sleeping with Ilya on and off for about eight years - if he can even count the period they didn’t hook up for two years. And eight years can be considered a fairly long time, right? Longer than the entirety of his career. Longer than he’s been on his diet. Longer than he’s known Hayden.
But even still, the duration of time Svetlana and Ilya had been sleeping together was probably around two years longer than Shane’s been sleeping with Ilya.
He knows, logically, that two years aren’t that big of a deal, aren’t that big of a difference. That it isn’t that important. But it feels big. It feels important.
She’s probably blown him more times than he can count, hugged him more times than Shane dared, fucked him more times than they could fit into the few hours they got together whenever they could swing it.
Kissed him more than Shane’s ever gotten the chance to.
She’s slept with Ilya and slept beside Ilya for longer than Shane’s gotten to. More often than they’ve allowed themselves to.
He feels like he has to catch up. Feels left behind even when he knows him and Ilya hadn’t even known each other when they were sixteen, and that, if Shane’s being honest with himself, he probably wouldn’t have had the courage to do anything with Ilya at that age.
(Though courageous isn’t exactly what Shane would call his nineteen-year-old self. Stupid is probably a better description. Irresponsible, for sure.)
None of it feels fair.
Shane crosses his arms over his chest so he can’t fiddle with them, can’t tap, and hopes, hopes it doesn’t seem defensive. “So when did you stop?”
He looks down again, back at Ilya, and Ilya’s already looking at him, phone face down on his chest like he’s been watching him for a while.
The only reason Shane doesn’t squirm is because he’s gotten used to Ilya’s oddly intense stare over the years.
“Before you asked me about the cottage,” he says, and Shane pushes down the little noise of irritation that tries to climb from his throat. ‘Before you asked me about the cottage’ could mean anything. A day, a week, a month, six months, a year. Shane hates non-definitive answers.
Shane nods like that answer makes perfect sense to him, humming understandingly like he’s not pushing and turning Ilya’s response about in his mind, trying every angle to see if it will finally slot into place so he can see the big picture.
He doesn’t understand the timeline.
Why wouldn’t he say before All Stars? Had they slept together after that?
Shane wouldn’t say that they were together after All Stars, but they weren’t not together. Right? They were something. More of a something than they’d ever been before. They were calling more than Shane calls his parents (and he makes sure to do that at least three times a week because otherwise his mother will blow up his phone). They were videochatting and playing around without it always leading to sex, and Ilya knew, knew that Shane liked him. Because Shane told him.
They’d finally, finally said each other's names, and Shane didn’t fuck it up this time. He did okay, and Ilya said it every time they hung up, goodbye Shane. Or goodnight, Shane. Or sometimes just Shane, teasing and flirtatious and murmuring in his ear.
He’d refused to say it for years. After Vegas. Had never actually said it to Ilya’s face before the night everything blew up.
But then all the sudden he could say it again. Could whisper it into the open air at night, listen to the way it curls when it comes out of his mouth. Hear the way his tone shifts when he said it.
Shane’s voice sounds best when Ilya’s name is coming out of it.
Shane stiffens, inhaling as he realizes his free hand is tapping at the couch cushions.
He stills his hand, flattens it down.
He’s too scared to ask. Too scared to try to decipher the exact date.
But he wants to know.
Was it before or after Ilya’s father died that they stopped sleeping together? Did he go to her for comfort? Because Shane couldn’t understand him the way she could? Because he was so far away? Because he wasn’t the type of soft and sweet that Ilya needed then? Because he never knew what to say?
Did they hold hands at the funeral?
Shane wants to be upset about that, wants to be upset that she was the one who comforted Ilya when he wasn’t there, but he can’t. Not completely. Because what if he was there? What if he was there and Svetlana still had to be the one to hold Ilya through the ceremony? Because Shane can’t hold someone's hand without it making him itch; because Shane has never, ever known how to comfort another person; because they were in fucking Russia, so Ilya would be too scared to touch him and Shane would be too much of a fucking coward to do anything about it; because everyone there would be expecting her to hold his hand anyway.
Shane would have just watched, pretending he looked upset for the reason you’re supposed to be upset at a funeral.
Did he get off the phone with Shane, right after they had sex over video call, right after making Shane beg for his cock, right after Shane did anything he possibly could to make him feel better when he was thousands of miles away, and then go and fuck Svetlana?
He wouldn’t.
Shane had to believe he wouldn’t.
“Was she the last person you slept with? I mean, before me,” he asks, even though he’s not sure which answer he’d prefer and whether either one would make him feel better in the slightest.
“Mm, no. Don’t think so,” Ilya says, matter-of-fact, and Shane worries a little over Ilya’s uncertainty. “Why?”
“Just - no reason,” he says, looking away from Ilya’s searching gaze, picking his phone back up and opening it like he’s actually doing something. He stares, watching his thumb move like he’s swiping through his feed. He hasn’t clicked on an app yet. “Curiosity.”
There’s a long pause where Ilya doesn’t move at all, so Shane glances up at him.
Ilya’s staring at him, face blank.
“What? What is it?”
“Curiosity?”
“What? Yeah. I’m just curious.”
Ilya doesn’t respond, nor does he look away from Shane, and Shane tilts his head back to his phone after a moment, finally tapping Twitter so he doesn’t have to feel like he’s being deceptive.
The staring’s making him a little nervous and he’s pretty sure his cheeks are red. Shane sighs, resisting the urge to rub at his face with his hands to get the color to go away.
He can still feel Ilya’s eyes, but he never pushes him to say anything else, and for that, Shane is grateful.
He’s not sure he could vocalize what he’s feeling right now.
Ilya never pushes until he’s sure Shane needs it.
He wishes they had put a movie on instead of deciding to spend time on their phones. Just so he could stare off into the distance to think and it wouldn’t look weird, wouldn’t give him away. But they didn’t, so Shane continues to scroll like he’s comprehending what he’s seeing.
At least he made sure his phone was actually on this time; he’s had people realize he was avoiding them by pretending to use his phone when they noticed that there was no light or color illuminating his face. He does not want a repeat of that. He’s embarrassed enough as it is.
Shane sighs, exiting out of Twitter and heading to Instagram.
He never checked social media, and he’d made it a point to never check Ilya’s - back when they weren’t really anything. Back at the start, when they’d barely exchanged numbers. But he’d still done it. Not often. Just twice, maybe three times since the beginning of whatever thing they had before they were an actual thing.
He didn’t know who she was for the longest time. The girl with hair curlier than Ilya’s, who seemed to always be with him in the constant stream of clubs and bars and parties he ended up at.
Ilya was so affectionate with her. Casually hugged her and adjusted her clothing and kissed her cheek in photos and videos. Ones he’d posted or been tagged in.
And then there were the few more risque photos of the two of them that Shane saw before he’d forced himself to close the app, go down to the gym, and run until he was dizzy enough to finally sleep.
Photos of them kissing on the lips. Photos of them cuddling close, with Ilya having kiss marks on his neck that seemed to be remarkably similar to the tint of her lipstick.
After that, he saw them everywhere. The photos were plastered all over the parts of the media that Ilya Rozanov was present in. Which means Shane saw them frequently. And Svetlana is hardly the only woman that Ilya’s been photographed with, but she’s by far the most consistent.
It hurts - even now, when all the hurts have lessened a little, because he can press himself into Ilya’s chest and stay there, warm and safe, for longer than three seconds now that one of them won’t panic and flee the scene.
It hurts that they got to go out and enjoy themselves together, not being bothered by the thought of accidentally causing a scandal by morning.
There’s probably hundreds of photos of Ilya and Svetlana, in various, increasingly sexual scenarios that Shane doesn’t want to imagine.
And there will never be any consequences for it.
No one will care.
No one will care that they were seen together. The world won’t end, it won’t affect their lives, their days will go on unimpeded.
Shane and Ilya have no photos together. Not the way Ilya and Svetlana do. Ones that show their relationship, ones that show them growing older together, ones that they can keep in their wallet to glance at every day. They delete them every time they send one - which is rare.
Svetlana will get to pull up her camera roll in ten years and show everyone: “Look! This is us! At twelve, sixteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty. We had our first kiss under that tree right there, isn’t that fun? This is our favorite restaurant that we go to every year, a little tradition, because she’d be able to say things like that. They probably had traditions. Had routines.
Shane will have nothing in his camera roll. Nothing to prove to the people around them that, yes, look, we’ve known each other for this long. We’ve been in love for this long. It’s been basically forever, I can hardly believe it. His smile’s still the same.
Nothing to prove it to himself.
He won’t get to see the way they’ve grown up beside each other. Maybe not together, but side by side. Parallel to one another.
There were no traditions. They didn’t have routines; they had hotel rooms.
And it still hurts, somewhat, that he can still remember what it was like to realize that Ilya didn’t want to kiss him. He hadn’t wanted to kiss Shane, hadn’t wanted to hold him or play or shove him around with a smile lighthearted enough that Shane knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. That he can still remember what it was like to feel that Ilya didn’t want him. To lie still in bed three days after they saw one another, pretending that he wasn’t wallowing, and get an Instagram notification - Ilya Rozanov, doing body shots off his friend's bare stomach in the strobe lighting of a club.
All Shane could think about for days was that image: Ilya’s tongue against Svetlana, licking salt off her flat stomach.
And it made him feel naked. Nude and mortified lying there, knowing that Ilya so quickly pressed his tongue to another person after it had touched Shane, not taking days, weeks, at a time to sit with the feeling of him against his tongue like Shane did whenever they parted.
Shane, in the back of his mind, feels a slight ache at the fact that he’s being a hypocrite.
It should be trivial, it should be insignificant, it shouldn’t be something that Shane spends time thinking about. It shouldn’t matter.
He’s slept with other people, too. Shared his body with other people, too.
But, not really. Not completely. Not fully. Not fulfillingly.
Not even really because he wanted to.
There was Jessica and Rose, which he doesn’t like to think about. Which didn’t matter. Which didn’t even really work. There was the two guys, who he didn’t remember the names of, who he met with in places so dark he could barely see them, who he only approached to see if it could be the same with another man. One that wasn’t Ilya.
It couldn’t.
He likes to think it’s romantic sometimes, the fact that Ilya was his first. Not his first kiss - since that was taken by a girl during an unfortunate game of spin-the-bottle when he was seventeen, just months before him and Ilya met, at the only party he ever went to during his school years -, but his first everything else. His first anything that mattered.
Ilya didn’t get to be his first date or his first time holding hands or his first kiss on the cheek, but he was the first of any of those that Shane cares about. Shane hopes it’s the same for him.
Because Shane knows, in almost excessive detail, that he is not Ilya’s first. Not in most things.
He knows this from tabloids, from social media posts, from gossip, from interviews, from rumors. Straight from Ilya’s mouth.
Shane wasn’t his first anything. Everything that you can think of that has to do with sex or romance, Shane’s done it with Ilya, and Ilya’s done it with other people.
Shane’s been on a handful of dates in his life. With women that he watched his every move around, making sure that he didn’t speak or move or go about things weirdly. He’d managed to enjoy himself a few times. On nights that his dates didn’t expect sex he had to awkwardly wriggle out of, and on nights he let himself drink enough to curb his incessant anxiousness.
Shane doesn’t doubt that Ilya’s been on many dates, even with the express purpose of it ending in meaningless sex. Hundreds of dinners with people he wouldn’t be able to pick out of a lineup, whereas Shane never went out to dinner unless he’d properly vetted the menu and had been heckled enough to give in to an outing. But even then, he hated when people watched him eat.
He never let the guys set him up, no matter how pushy they got about it, insisting that Shane should sleep with a hot chick to stay on his A game and maybe she’ll fuck you into loosening the hell up, huh, Hollzy? Fuck that stick right out of your asshole.
They always said he needed it. To chill out.
Except dates always stressed him out more than they calmed him, making him worry about where he could go that they wouldn’t be seen, about how he could walk someone to their door without them trying to invite him inside, about how to act like a normal fucking person for two hours with someone that he had to be wary around.
He did it once, maybe twice a year. To see if anything changed. To see if he’d finally figured his shit out.
It never worked.
Shane liked to pretend that it was all because of hockey. Anytime anyone asked about his love life, asked when his next date would be, or told him he needed to get laid, he’d mention hockey. How it takes up all his time, how it’s all he cares about, how hockey’s the only thing he’s ever wanted to be married to.
When he was younger, before he ever shook Ilya’s hand, that may have been true. But it hadn’t been true in years.
And he’d tried. He’d tried to make it true.
Tried to want other people, tried not to want anyone at all, because maybe that would be easier.
He’d tried.
Getting so agitated trying to do good or to feel good that he ends up not achieving either one. Being so stressed that he could barely perform, even with the men. Folding his clothes beforehand, not because he always folds his clothes when he takes them off, not because he’s sticking to his routine, but so he can have those few extra seconds to himself to prepare - acting like he couldn’t see the way they found that odd, raising an eyebrow where Ilya would smile.
Everything was different with Ilya. They weren’t able to go out to eat, but Ilya didn’t push about his diet beyond some teasing that Shane took a second to register as playful, not cruel. Ilya learned his diet, learned how and when and what he ate, and then decided to learn new recipes from there. Sometimes he pushed a little, trying to get Shane to try something new, trying to get him to add something extra to his meal, but he always acquiesced when Shane declined.
He never watched him eat. Not the way others did.
When they walk up to the door of Ilya’s home, Shane doesn’t feel dread. He doesn’t get a curdling in his stomach, doesn’t get the mild nausea that he’d associated with walking someone to their door after a date. Didn’t get that sick, scared feeling in his chest that he got when his girlfriends invited him in as he stepped into the foyer of Ilya’s house.
Shane had never experienced anything like sex with Ilya.
He’d always been good at making sure Shane was comfortable. He always checked in more than necessary, always laughed at Shane’s dumb jokes that he makes when he doesn’t know what else to say, always kept the touch of his hands firm and bracing for Shane to fall into. He never went too far, always backing off when he noticed Shane was uncomfortable - and apparently Shane is a better actor than he thought, because no other partner had been able to detect Shane’s discomfort. Or, if they did, they had no inclination to stop.
Not even Rose.
Ilya picked up on things much quicker than most people gave him credit for, and Shane’s body language is apparently one of those things.
It may just be sex: something that most everybody experiences, something that Ilya’s done with hundreds of people, something that’s objectively mundane, honestly.
But it felt special. When it was him and Ilya, it felt special.
And it’s stupid, but sometimes he wishes they’d only experienced it with each other.
Shane sighs to himself just as Ilya sits up, pulling his legs up from where they were pressed against Shane, and now his feet are cold, no longer tucked under Ilya’s calves. He makes a questioning noise at Ilya when he stands. Ilya smiles at him.
“Bathroom,” he says, bending down and pressing a big kiss to Shane’s forehead, so hard it shoves him back a little.
“‘Kay,” Shane laughs, watching Ilya walk away until he turns a corner.
Shane looks over at the other end of the couch, where there’s an Ilya-shaped imprint in the couch cushion. He kind of wants to scoot down, curl up in the warm spot left behind from Ilya’s body heat.
He’d feel bad if he took Ilya’s spot, though.
Shane doesn’t move. He sighs, relaxing further back now that Ilya’s not in the room and he doesn’t have to feel quite as guilty for his train of thought. He lets his hand fall to the couch, no longer mindlessly scrolling.
Shane can basically measure his life by Ilya. Before meeting Ilya, after meeting Ilya, sleeping with Ilya for the first time, and everything after.
The International Prospect Cup - Meeting Ilya.
Getting drafted - Actually meeting Ilya.
His first commercial - His first hook-up with Ilya.
His first time - Ilya.
His first time presenting an award - Ilya ghosting him, Ilya not wanting to kiss him.
Winning his first cup - texting Ilya, because Shane knew he was watching, the way Shane always watched him. Shane wanted his congratulations before anyone else.
Every single All-Stars meetup, because Ilya was the only thing he was ever actually looking forward to.
Everything has always been Ilya.
Shane sees him in everything he does. He used to hate it. Back before. But now it’s almost fun, seeing what things in his life remind him of Ilya. What mannerisms he sees in people, what foods he passes by in the store, what phrases he hears in passing.
It’s all Ilya.
Ilya.
Ilya.
Ilya.
IlyaIlyaIlyaIlyaIlya.
It’s been like that since the beginning.
It might be a little unhealthy, how Ilya’s name floats through his head whenever he accomplishes something, whenever he struggles, whenever he sleeps, but Ilya makes him feel alive.
Shane’s never lived the way others do. Making decisions just because he wants to, doing things on the fly, doing things for his own enjoyment.
Except for Ilya.
Ilya is just for him. Every decision he makes regarding Ilya is a decision he makes because he wants to live. Because he wants what he wants. Wants something that’s not for the public, not for people’s expectations, not for his mom's hopes or his coach's dreams. Not for the sake of being a good role model, or a respectable man, or one of the “good ones”.
But Ilya’s not really for him.
He’d like to be able to say that even if Svetlana could communicate with him better, knew him longer, remembered him younger, Shane had had him longer. His reactions, his touch, his want.
But that’s not true. Shane can’t say that.
It eats at him. He can feel it in his stomach, making him feel gross and ill; hollow and bare.
Shane sighs, grabbing his phone and turning it back on. It opens to Instagram and he exits out, switching apps and tapping on the little notepad icon on his phone. Opens a new note to begin typing out a brief plan to slightly increase his calorie intake, just to see if it helps.
It probably won’t, but Shane likes to cover all bases.
Ilya wouldn’t measure his life by Shane, he would measure it by Svetlana.
Because no one besides his parents has stayed by Shane’s side as long as Ilya, but that’s not the same in reverse.
Ilya has been his constant, his longest-standing presence, the point that he watches to stay stable as he spins round and round and round in this world, trying not to get too dizzy, trying not to fall.
Shane isn’t Ilya’s constant.
—
Shane tries that night. Like some sort of exposure therapy.
They go to bed earlier than usual, what with Ilya’s penchant for staying up late and Shane’s ever-working mind.
They were both exhausted. Not for any real reason. Maybe the undisturbed atmosphere of the cottage makes them lethargic, because for once they don’t have anything to do besides each other. They don’t have somewhere to be in the morning, they don’t have a plane to catch, they don’t have to rush away from one another.
He tries, late at night. While Ilya sleeps beside him.
Ilya’s hand is warm and dry when Shane tangles their fingers together. It’s a weird feeling, to not have Ilya squeeze back when Shane tightens his grip, but it’s easier in a way.
Shane can control the length of time, the position of their hands, the placement of their fingers.
He wishes Ilya’s thumb would run over his knuckles, wishes he could feel his strength, wishes Ilya didn’t sleep like the dead.
But the stillness helps him get used to it.
It takes about six minutes for him to start feeling it, tingling over the back of his neck.
He holds out for two minutes more.
When he lets go, Shane clenches one, two, three, four times.