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The sex is good. Of course the sex is good—it’s always good with Shane. Especially when Shane lets himself submit. And tonight he had submitted totally—beautifully. All it took was Ilya pressing his hand to Shane’s throat and that glazed, blank look was already coming over him. Like he had ceased to be a person and just become a doll for Ilya to play with. Ilya said move, and Shane moved. Ilya said stop, and Shane stopped. It was a glorious flood of total control.
“You fucking whore,” Ilya had said, pressing his weight into Shane’s back so hard he almost choked the breath out of him. “You’re such a slut, it’s pathetic how bad you want my cock. It’s disgusting. You’re lucky I touch you, you’re lucky I let you have what you need. Tell me. Tell me that you’re lucky.”
“I’m so lucky,” Shane had slurred against the pillow. The pillowcase already wet, drenched in his drool. “‘m so fucking lucky, Ilya, please—“
“Shut up,” Ilya had snapped. “Good whores don’t beg.”
Shane had come not long after that—not quite untouched, but just with the lightest stroke of Ilya’s thumb over his cockhead, moaning like his whole world was tearing apart—and Ilya had followed him, lightheaded with pleasure. For several long moments, they had laid together, catching their breaths, and then Ilya gently pulled out so he could go get a wet, warm washcloth to clean Shane off.
“Good boy,” he had murmured, dragging the cloth slowly along the delicate insides of Shane’s thighs. “You are always so good for me, Shane.”
It wasn’t too long after that, though, that Shane, sitting up against the headboard and sipping water, grabbed his phone from the bedside table and realized he had five missed calls from Hayden. Five minutes after that, he was dressed and searching the kitchen for his car keys.
“I can come with you,” Ilya says, for the fourth time in a row. Jackie's dad is in the hospital with heart problems; Hayden needs someone to come watch the kids so he can go be with her. Of course Shane, emergency babysitter extraordinaire, is the first person that Hayden called.
But Shane, yanking out barstools like they might be hiding his keys from him deliberately, doesn’t even look at him. “It’s fine, you have a game tomorrow, it’d be a nightmare to drive in from Montreal.”
“I can do it anyway,” Ilya says. “It’s not good, when you leave after sex like this.”
“I know, I know, but Hayden needs me,” Shane says. “Aha!” He’s found his keys, hiding under the lip of the fruit bowl.
And he’s—not wrong, but it feels wrong, in some fundamental way that Ilya can’t express. He’s working on trying to find the English words when Shane ducks in and presses a kiss to Ilya’s lips. “Don’t worry,” he says, petting one hand along the nape of Ilya’s neck. “I’m fine. I promise. And if I start to not be fine, I’ll call you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Ilya echoes. Shane grants him one more kiss—so quick that Ilya barely feels it—and then he steps back, grabbing his jacket, heading out the door.
“I’ll text you,” Shane calls over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.
Ilya stands in the kitchen, listening to the sound of Shane’s car as he pulls out of the driveway. Only once he’s sure that Shane is really gone does he turn around and head back upstairs, to the bed where he’d expected to sleep with Shane, to the wet spot Shane had left on the sheets. The thick smell of sex still hangs in the air. It makes Ilya feel strange in a way that he can’t describe. It’s almost freezing out, but Ilya cracks the window anyway to try and air the room out. Then he lays down on his dirty bed and tries to go to sleep.
—
Two hours later, Ilya realizes that things are bad, actually.
He’s lying on the bed, on top of the sheets, exactly where he laid down hours ago. He hasn’t moved, even though the air in the room is now clean and fresh and freezing fucking cold. He can’t seem to make himself get up and close the window. He can’t seem to make himself do anything. Dimly, he realizes he should probably drink some water and eat something, but the thought of anything, even the Russian takeout in the fridge that he’d planned to feed Shane for dinner, turns his stomach. He kind of just wants to lay here until Shane comes back, even if that’s days or weeks from now.
Shane wouldn’t like that, though. Shane would see Ilya, his skin tacky with sweat, a bit of dried come still flaking on his stomach, and he’d be disgusted. Ilya should get up and clean himself for Shane, he thinks, and that thought is enough, finally, to mobilize him.
He gets in the shower before the water warms up, because he can’t be fucked to wait. The cold water feels nice, for a moment, like it shocks him back into his body, but soon enough it turns into something hot and cloying that makes Ilya’s chest hurt.
He’s a piece of shit, is the thing. Ilya hasn’t always seen it before—hasn’t always been clear-headed about this—but he sees it now. He understands. The things he had said to Shane—and he’d excused them as something just said in the heat of the moment, that it had turned Shane on, that it was role-play.
But Shane had been so eager to leave. So adamant that Ilya had not come with him. He’d acted like it was just an issue of practicality, but was it, really? Or was that just an excuse to get away from Ilya?
A horrible thought occurs to Ilya, then: What if Hayden hadn’t had an emergency at all?
Maybe Shane had texted him and asked him for an excuse to leave. Ilya had heard stories, from Svetlana, about girls who made code words with their friends that they would text if they were on a bad date or in a place that felt unsafe. The friend would call them and make up some emergency so they could leave. Shane hardly needed an excuse to leave Ilya's—Ilya wouldn't keep Shane here against his will, no matter what happened between them—but did Shane know that, really?
Now Ilya tries to think. Had he seen the messages from Hayden before Shane had picked up his phone? He doesn’t think so. What if—what if Shane waited until Ilya wasn’t looked and then texted Hayden?
Maybe Shane asked Hayden to come up with a story to get him out of there; maybe Shane was on the phone with Hayden now, as he drove to Montreal, telling him what a horrible person Ilya was, what horrible things he had said to Shane, how Ilya was every bit as bad as Hayden had ever suspected. Maybe Shane was right now admitting that he should have trusted Hayden, should have listened to him, about the nice guys in Montreal.
Oh, god. Shane had hated it, hadn’t it? Suddenly, Ilya can’t remember if he checked in with Shane, during the sex, or if he had told him, afterwards, that it was good. Had Shane said he enjoyed it? When he was getting his breath back, his usual that was really hot, the same blushing phrase every time. Had he skipped that, today? Had he even said he loved Ilya, when he left? Ilya doesn’t think so. And why would he, when Ilya had been so cruel to him, so unappreciative—
Ilya gets out of the shower and sits down on the tile. It’s cold and grounding in a way his soft bed can’t be. Without thinking about it too much, Ilya lays down. He’s still wet all over and the water is pooling under him but it’s nice. It’s nice.
It reminds him of home. As a child, he spent many nights on the bathroom floor, when he was a sick with a fever or a flu and his mother wanted to keep an eye on him. She’d bring in a blanket and a pillow and sit next to him, petting his hair, periodically dampening his neck and wrists with a cold washcloth. She sang to him sometimes, but only in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper, because sounds in the bathroom tended to echo, and then his father would hear.
His father. So many years Ilya had spent telling himself he would never be like him, and now here he was. The man’s perfect shadow.
He’s not sure how, but eventually, he must fall asleep. When he wakes up, there’s a crick in his neck, his mouth is dry, and the bathroom is still dark. He’s cold all over but he must have dried off while he slept. It’s still well before sunrise, but as soon as he’s awake there’s thoughts in his head again, weight twisted itself around the fragile lobes of his lungs, and he knows he won’t get back to sleep.
He forces himself to his feet. Maybe, he thinks, as he looks at himself in the mirror, the pale skin and sudden bags under his eyes, he really is sick. Maybe this is a fever coming for him, and all he needs is to take a few ibuprofen.
Fuck. And he’s supposed to play a game in a few hours.
He doesn’t like to call out sick. He’s played games with raging fevers. He’s played games with bruised ribs, sprained wrists, a probable concussion.
He gets out his phone before he can think better of it and texts Coach Wiebe: I will be out today. Sick, cannot play.
Within a minute, Wiebe is calling him. Ilya had hoped to avoid this, but he can’t ignore his coach’s calls; he picks up the phone. “What’s wrong?” Wiebe demands immediately. “Is it a flu?”
“Ah, yes,” Ilya says. “Yes, maybe, I think so. Fever and, um, stomach.”
Wiebe sighs. “Shit, kid. Okay, I’ll send over the team doctor, and you—“
“Uh, no,” Ilya interrupts. “No, am going to sleep for few hours. Tomorrow?”
“Tonight,” Wiebe says. “But rest is a good idea. Get better soon, yeah?”
It’s an easier conversation than Ilya probably would have had with the coaches in Boston, but then Wiebe is just like that.
“Thank you,” Ilya says, which is another thing he doesn’t like to say. He hangs up before Wiebe can respond.
He should—he should—he can’t think of what he should do. He’s cold enough that he probably needs to get back in the shower, but the thought of the hot water makes him cringe. Maybe hot tea would help? Something warm to eat? But the thought turns his stomach, and anyway, does he really deserve something nice? Something pleasant, when he’s been such a monumental piece of shit to the love of his life?
He finds his discarded sweatpants on the floor of the bedroom and puts them on. He looks at the bed, the mussed-up, dirty bed, which surely still smells of Shane. He walks right by it.
He goes downstairs. He sprawls on the couch. He turns on the TV, more automatic than anything. There’s some stupid show on about American hicks who spend their lives driving around the cornfields of Iowa looking for rusted junk in farmer’s barns that they can sell to rich actors at a stupid profit. The volume is too loud but Ilya can’t be fucked to change it.
He settles in. On the TV, people move around, chatting. Things happen, and Ilya doesn’t track a single one of them. Piece of shit, piece of shit, piece of shit, goes the mantra in his head.
The day passes.
—
He must drift off at some point, because when he wakes up he has to pee desperately and Shane is standing in the doorway. “Jesus Christ,” Ilya spits, lurching up.
“Sorry,” Shane says, frowning at him. “I didn’t mean to—aren’t you supposed to be at a game?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Montreal?” Ilya counters. His heart is doing something strange and serpentine in his chest, and he can’t figure out what Shane is doing here. After last night, after everything, why would Shane come back? To exact an apology? To end things officially?
Shane’s frown deepens. “I was worried about you. I saw the Centaurs put out a note you weren’t playing today, and you weren’t answering your phone.”
Ilya has no idea where his phone even is. Upstairs in the bedroom, probably, although Ilya thinks he had turned it off last night anyway, so it’s not like he would have seen the messages.
“Where are the Pike kids?”
“J.J.’s with them,” Shane says. “His new girlfriend is a preschool teacher. Seriously, what’s wrong? You don’t look good.”
“Thanks,” Ilya says dryly, pushing himself up from the couch. He resists the urge to brush close to Shane as he passes him in the doorway. Shane trails after him down the hall, until Ilya says, “I am going to piss, do you need to supervise?”
So Shane lets Ilya go to the bathroom by himself. Ilya takes his time washing his hands, examining himself in the mirror. Mussed hair, a ragged look on his face like he’s spent the last day throwing up instead of sleeping peacefully; maybe he can pass himself off as sick? Not that it really matters. Shane just wants to know because he always wants to know what’s going on with Ilya’s hockey; Ilya will tell him he get to the point, ask for what he came for, and it’s hardly like Shane can demand details when he’s breaking up with Ilya.
When he comes back out, Shane’s in the kitchen scooping loose-leaf tea into a teapot. “You look like you could use a hot drink,” Shane says. “Go back to the couch, have you eaten anything recently?”
Ilya swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “Not hungry,” he says, and disappears to the living room before he can do something stupid like start crying.
He bundles himself up under two blankets, because it feels like a bit of a shield and because he still is really fucking cold. It’s May; how is it so fucking cold in here? Maybe Ilya needs to call a contractor, get his heating system looked at.
Shane comes in a few minutes later, holding two mugs. He passes one to Ilya. The heat is nice, but it feels like taking advantage, so Ilya sets it down on the coffee table by his feet. There’s a furrow between Shane’s brows that deepens at he sets down his own cup.
“What’s wrong?” Shane asks.
“Is nothing,” Ilya says. “Stomach bug. Stupid.”
“You seemed fine last night,” Shane says, doubtfully. “And that’s not what I meant.”
Ilya looks away.
“Hey. Hey, don’t do that.” A sound of shuffling, and then suddenly Shane is right there, pressed up against Ilya on the couch. His hand on Ilya’s thigh, the other on the nape of Ilya’s neck. Ilya breathes slowly and steadily and tries very hard not to cry. “Come on, talk to me.”
“Is nothing,” Ilya says again, but it sounds wet even to his own ears. He brushes Shane’s hand away from his thigh, and Shane leans back. “Is nothing, Hollander, don’t worry about it.”
“It doesn’t seem like nothing,” Shane says, but he doesn’t chase Ilya again.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” Ilya says.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Shane says. “Because you seem pretty upset about it. And I think I should worry about the things that upset my boyfriend.”
Ilya shakes his head. “Please,” he says. It’s not enough, just turning away from Shane; he can still see him, out of the corner of his eye, his big sincere eyes, the way his eyebrows are turned down at the concerns, the utter sincerity.
“You’re crying,” Shane says. “Do you really expect me to drop it?”
“I expect you to listen to what I’m telling you,” Ilya snaps.
Immediately, he’s struck with a wave of guilt so overpowering he almost starts crying again. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, takes a deep breath.
“Please,” Shane says, softly. “I just want you to talk to me, baby.”
Ilya sniffles. “Why?”
There’s a moment of silence. “Why?” Shane echoes.
“Why do you want me to talk to you?” Ilya says. “Why do you want to make me feel better? I am being a piece of shit.”
“Hey,” Shane says, immediately stern. “Don’t talk about my boyfriend like that.”
God, Shane is perfect. Shane is a perfect, flawless man, and somehow he’s ended up with Ilya. How the fuck did he end up with Ilya? What stroke of bad luck did he encounter that landed him here?
The same stroke of bad luck that hit Irina, Ilya thinks.
“Is true,” Ilya says. “I am—mean, and loud, and impatient, and I ask too much of you, I am too hard on you, I don’t love you right—I am my father.”
What the fuck is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to make this right? Maybe if it was one thing. But can Ilya change his whole personality? Can he change who he is, at the core of his being, when it’s something he’s inherited, something he’s practiced for decades, something he’s become? It’s etched too deep into him, he thinks. Writing in the stone—there’s no way for him to buff it out. It’s stuck.
“Ilya,” Shane says. “Can you look at me when I say this?”
And, well. That does feel like the least Ilya can do.
It makes Ilya’s heart hurt, when he turns and sees the tears in Shane’s eyes. The way his hair is ruffled, like he’s been running stressed hands through it. But there’s a resolute set to his mouth, a determination.
“You're not mean,” Shane says. “You’re the kindest person I know. You’re not—well, okay, yes, you are loud, but when someone needs quiet, you give it to them. You're so patient, with me, and with the rookies. And you treat me so well, always. I never thought I would—have something, like this. Like you. And—look at me, because this last one is important, okay?”
Ilya tilts up his chin, forces himself to meet Shane’s eyes. Shane, who hates eye contact, who’s looking at him dead-on now.
“You’re nothing like your father.”
Ilya presses his lips together, shaking his head as if it’ll clear his tears. “You didn’t know my father.”
Shane doesn’t hesitate. “I know this.”
Ilya bites his lip so hard he can taste blood. “I—I don’t—I don’t understand how you can say all this to me. After everything.”
Shane, bless him, looks baffled. “After what? I don’t understand.”
“Last night,” Ilya says.
Shane shakes his head. “Yeah, last night. We had a really good dinner, and then you fucked me so good I think my brain melted, and—yeah, I had to leave, but it was just because of Hayden.”
“Was it?”
Shane blinks. “Was it what?”
“Was it because of Hayden?” Ilya says. “Because—I said horrible things to you. I was very cruel. And then you have to go, all of the sudden, middle of the night. And—you should know, if you wanted to leave, you could have left. I would never have tried to stop you, or gotten angry, or—“
“Stop,” Shane interrupts, voice firm, and Ilya’s mouth snaps shut. “Jesus, Ilya, of course I know that. You ask me for consent like, every three minutes while we’re having sex. And—yes, last night was—intense. But I was fine. It was just role-play. I know that. I always know that.”
Ilya works his jaw. “I think maybe…I did not. Know that. Last night.”
Shane’s expression breaks. “Oh. Ilya—can—are you going to run away if I touch you?"
Ilya shakes his head, and a moment later, Shane has his arms around Ilya and is squeezing so tight it’s almost suffocating. It’s pressure all over Ilya’s ribcage, and it finally makes the tight feeling in his chest ease just the slightest bit.
“I’m sorry,” Shane says. “I didn’t—I should have thought about it, before I left. I should have told Hayden to call J.J. instead.”
“Is fine,” Ilya says, but even as he says it he realizes he’s crying again. “I just—I don’t know what is wrong with me. Just felt bad yesterday night, after you left. Thought maybe you were—mad at me.”
Shane digs his chin into Ilya’s shoulder. “I’m not mad at you,” he says, so firmly and immediately that it’s impossible not to believe him. “I love you. The sex last night was really, really fucking good. It’s always good. It was really hot."
Ilya closes his eyes.
“You're so good,” Shane continues, painfully earnest. Ilya’s earnest boy. Ilya loves this about him, like he loves everything about Shane. Even the things he hates. “I don’t understand it, sometimes. How you came from something so shitty and became like this.”
Ilya sniffles. “I missed you.”
Shane kisses Ilya’s collarbone. “I missed you, too.”
They sit there for a very long time, long enough that Ilya starts to almost drift off in Shane’s arms. With every moment that passes he feels better, like Shane is injecting calm into him through skin-to-skin contact. Eventually, Shane says, “You need to eat something."
Ilya swallows. “I’m fine,” he says.
“You haven’t had anything since last night, right?” Shane says, and he’s right, so Ilya doesn’t respond. “You need calories, and you need to rehydrate.”
“I’m not hungry,” Ilya says, honestly.
“Not even for McDonald’s?”
So Shane DoorDashes McDonald’s—goggling at the truly remarkable delivery fee, the way it doubles the cost of the order; “It’s daylight robbery,” he complains, and then has to explain that idiom to Ilya, who has heard it before, of course, but likes to make Shane explain these things anyway—and they eat it in the living room, watching the Cens game. The boys are doing their best, but without Ilya, the whole thing is kind of collapsing. Bood had a good goal early in the first, but Cincinnati has taken two goals since then.
“You really need a new goalie,” Shane says, watching on the slow-motion replay as Robertson tries and fails to complete what should be a basic lunge, letting the puck in through the two-hole. His thigh is pressed up against Ilya's, their shoulders brushing together. “I heard Hayes might be up for trade next season.”
“No insider trading,” Ilya sing-songs. He thought he wasn’t hungry, but the moment he got food in his mouth, he was suddenly ravenous. Luckily, Shane knows him and ordered three Big Macs. Ilya had expected Shane to make himself something in Ilya’s kitchen, but he had gotten himself two Filet-of-Fishes, no mayo, which he’s mostly managed to get down. It makes something in Ilya’s chest feel very full and satisfied, to look over and see Shane licking grease from his dinner off one thumb.
“I love you,” Ilya says. Shane blinks over at him, eyes wide. “I love you,” Ilya says again, because he can.
Shane kisses him. He tastes like cheap fish. When he pulls back, his nose is wrinkled. “I fucking hate Big Mac Sauce,” he complains. “I’m not kissing you again until you brush your teeth.”
It’s so normal that Ilya almost wants to cry. How had he thought he had lost this? He would rather die. He would rather jump off a fucking bridge.
"Not hot?" he says instead.
Shane smiles. "Well," he says. "I didn't say that."