Chapter Text
It wasn’t the first time Ilya had said something stupid in bed. It wasn’t even the tenth. But somehow this one managed to land right under Shane’s ribs and stay there like it belonged.
They were in a hotel room two nights before their teams faced off typical, predictable, familiar. The sheets were twisted. Ilya was sprawled across half the bed like he paid for it. Shane was trying to pretend he wasn’t already planning how quickly he needed to leave so no one saw them together.
Ilya scratched the back of his neck, stretching like a smug cat and speaking in that lazy half-English he used when he didn’t feel like thinking.
“Svetlana wants a ring one day,” he said casually. “Would be good for image if I marry. Advisors love it.”
Shane swallowed. Hard. He kept his expression neutral, because he’d practiced neutrality around Ilya for nearly a decade. But his heart did something awful, something that felt like it dropped through his stomach and hit the mattress.
Svetlana. The PR girlfriend. The model the Russian press adored. The woman everyone assumed he slept with. She was the public version of Ilya polished, standard, heterosexual, uncomplicated.
Shane forced a laugh. It wasn’t even a convincing one.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Great PR.”
Ilya didn’t notice the break in his voice. He never noticed the quiet cracks until years later, when they were big enough to cut him too. He kept talking, rolling onto his stomach, rambling about how Russian reporters were practically begging for a wedding. How it would shut up the gossip blogs that sometimes got too close to the truth.
Shane heard none of it. He heard only the thudding echo. I could marry someone else. Someone acceptable. Someone real. And Shane, who had been pretending for years that he didn’t want more than hotel room nights and secrecy and stolen hours, realized that wanting more had been a mistake. Because Ilya had already decided what his “real” life would look like. Shane wasn’t in it.
When Ilya finally texted him the next night
1408. Door will be open.
Shane stared at the message until the screen dimmed. He put his phone face down. Turned off all notifications. Tried to breathe around the ache that felt embarrassingly like heartbreak. He didn’t go. For the first time in eight years, he didn’t go.
Ilya waited. He pretended he wasn’t waiting, which was worse. He ordered room service he didn’t touch. Watched a bad action movie he didn’t remember. Turned on a hockey game and immediately turned it off again. Every fifteen minutes, he checked the peephole like Shane might magically appear in the hallway. Nothing.
By midnight, he was pacing, shirtless, irritated, muttering in Russian under his breath.
He texted again
Hollander??
You fall asleep like grandma?
I wait. Not forever. But long enough. Get here.
Delivered. Not read. Something sunk low in his gut. He called. Straight to voicemail. He called again. Same result. The panic didn’t come all at once. It never did with him. It arrived in stages. Confusion, Irritation, And then fear. Because Shane always came. Always answered. Always looked at him like he wanted this as badly as Ilya pretended he didn’t. If Shane wasn’t here, something was wrong. Something Ilya had caused.
He didn’t know what it was yet. He didn’t connect it back to the offhand comment about a PR marriage, because he’d meant nothing by it. Nothing real. Nothing important. But Shane had always heard Ilya’s careless words louder than Ilya realized. And now, for the first time, Shane was choosing distance. Ilya sat down on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, breathing too hard.
“What did I do?” he whispered to no one. “Shane, what did I do?”
————————————
Shane slept terribly.
Which was dramatic, he knew. But every time he closed his eyes, he heard Ilya’s voice again.
“Would be good for image if I marry.”
He hated how much it hurt. He hated how much he cared. He hated that he cared more than Ilya ever would.
Morning skate was safe ground, he told himself. The rink. Routine. Noise. He could be hockey player Shane, golden boy, everything under control Shane. Not the Shane who had spent the past eight years learning the shape of Ilya’s body in the dark. He arrived early, got dressed quickly, and intentionally lingered near teammates anywhere Ilya wasn’t.
Ilya noticed him immediately. Of course he did, always did. It was a curse that felt like a gift until it wasn’t.
Shane didn’t look at him. Not once. Not when their teams crossed paths. Not when the players lined up for warm-ups. Not when Ilya deliberately skated closer than necessary. Nothing. Not even a flicker. Ilya’s stomach twisted. He felt it physically, like the ice had cracked open beneath him. He jabbed his stick into the corner, muttering under his breath.
“What the hell, Hollander…”
Stop. He tried again drifted near the boards where Shane was stretching. Shane straightened instantly and walked away, joining two teammates and pretending to listen to something one of them said. He didn’t glance back. Not even the tiny, secret glance he always gave Ilya when no one was looking.
Ilya felt actual heat rising under his collar. Embarrassment. Anger. Fear. He skated ten pointless laps, forcing himself to keep moving because if he stopped, the panic would catch him.
Shane kept himself busy.
He skated harder than he needed to. He chatted with rookies. Anything to stay in motion. Anything to stay away. But avoidance wasn’t protection. It was just running.
And every time he felt Ilya’s gaze on him. which was often, because Ilya stared like the rink belonged to him. Shane’s chest tightened all over again.
You could marry someone else. You could pretend like I don’t matter. Maybe I never did. He hated how childish it felt. He hated how true it felt.
Ilya tried one more time.
Near the end of warmups, he waited by the gate, casual in a way that wasn’t casual at all. The teams funneled off the ice.
Shane approached. For a second, one terrifying, hopeful second. Ilya thought Shane would slow down, that he’d meet his eyes, that he’d do that thing where he brushed past him a little too close. Shane didn’t. He didn’t even hesitate. He walked around him. Not through him, not past him, around him, like Ilya was a hazard to avoid. That broke something.
Ilya grabbed his arm. Not roughly. Just enough.
“Shane,” he said quietly.
Shane froze. Slowly, painfully slowly, he pulled his arm free. Not yanked. Not startled. Just removed himself, gentle but firm.
“Ilya,” he said, without looking at him. “Not here.”
Those two words should not have hurt that much. But they did. They hurt like hell.
————————
Shane kept his head down, showered fast, and slipped out with teammates. He didn’t see Ilya follow him with his eyes. He didn’t see the frustration, the confusion, the fear starting to carve into Ilya’s expression.He didn’t hear the way Ilya’s breath caught. Really caught for the first time in years. He didn’t know that Ilya stood alone in the tunnel afterward, hands in his hair, whispering
“What did I do to you, Hollander? Tell me.”
He didn’t know that Ilya checked his phone twice. Then again. Then again. He didn’t know that every silence felt like a punishment Ilya didn’t understand.
—————————
Cornered
Shane almost made it. He thought he’d done a good job of slipping away. He left early, avoided the main hallway, kept his head down and stuck close to a cluster of teammates so he wouldn’t be caught alone. But Ilya was faster. He always had been.
Shane had just stepped out of the elevator on his floor when a large, familiar hand stopped the door from closing, forcing it open again. Shane’s heart dropped straight through him.
Ilya stepped in. Not aggressive. Not loud. Just there, filling the small space between them like gravity. The elevator doors slid shut behind him. Shane exhaled through his nose, steady, controlled, fake.
“Ilya,” he said, not meeting his eyes. “Don’t”
“Don’t what?” Ilya interrupted, voice low. “Don’t try to talk to you? Don’t ask why you are treating me like stranger?”
Shane swallowed. Ilya moved closer not touching him, but close enough that Shane could feel the warmth of him.
“You avoid me all morning,” Ilya said, slower this time, like he was translating his own feelings into words he wasn’t used to saying. “You run away after. You don’t come when I text.”
His jaw clenched. “You never not come.”
Shane forced himself to breathe. “We shouldn’t be talking here,” he said quietly.
“I don’t care.” Ilya wasn’t yelling, which somehow made it worse. “I don’t care who sees.”
Shane’s chest tightened. That wasn’t true. Ilya cared deeply who saw. Their entire arrangement for eight years had been built on secrecy, risk, and doors locked from the inside. Something in Ilya was cracking.
He stepped even closer, backing Shane gently into the corner of the elevator, not trapping him, just cutting off escape. His hands hovered at his sides, like he didn’t trust himself to touch.
“Tell me what I did,” Ilya said, almost pleading now. “Tell me why you look at me like I hurt you.”
Shane finally looked up. He wished he hadn’t. Ilya’s expression wasn’t angry, it was confused, worried, scared in a way Shane had only seen once or twice before. His brows drawn, his cheeks a little pink from frustration, eyes sharp and searching. Shane felt something crumble inside him.
“I don’t” he tried, voice cracking before he could stop it. “It’s not… I just need space.”
Ilya scoffed, shaking his head. “Space? We see each other maybe once a month. You want more space than that?”
He stepped forward again, closing the last inch between them, breath warm against Shane’s cheek.
“You don’t leave me waiting in hotel room,” he said, softer now. “Not you. Not ever.”
Shane’s throat tightened.“Please,” he whispered, and he hated how desperate it sounded. “Just let it go.”
Ilya froze. Something flickered across his face. Not anger, not yet, but something close to hurt.
“No,” he said. “I don’t let it go. Not this. Not you walking away from me like I am nothing.”
Shane’s breath hitched. “I didn’t say you were nothing.”
“But you act like it.”
Shane pressed a hand to the wall behind him, grounding himself. He couldn’t tell him here. Not in this elevator. Not with the doors about to open at any second. Not when his voice might shake.
Ilya’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Shane,” he said, pleading in a way he never did with anyone else. “Just tell me what I did.”
Shane’s eyes burned, and he blinked hard. “You didn’t do anything,” he lied.
Ilya leaned in, forehead nearly touching Shane’s. “Do not lie to me.”
Shane shook his head, backing up the last inch until he couldn’t move anymore. “Ilya, please”
“No. I won’t leave until you tell me.”
The elevator doors dinged. They opened onto Shane’s floor. But neither of them moved. People could walk by. Someone could see them. But Ilya didn’t step back. And Shane didn’t push him away. For a long moment, the world felt as still as the third period of a tied game, everything on the line, breath held, heart pounding.
Shane swallowed. “It’s complicated,” he whispered.
Ilya’s voice softened into something bruised. “Then let me understand it.”
Shane closed his eyes. He couldn’t say it. Not yet. But he wasn’t ready to walk away, either. So he whispered the smallest truth he could manage.
“Ilya… it hurt.”
Ilya went still. His breath caught. Shane stepped sideways out of the elevator. Not running, not anymore, just needing distance before he broke. Behind him, Ilya didn’t chase. But he did whisper, almost too soft to hear.
“Then tell me why, Hollander. Tell me so I can fix it.”
The doors slid shut between them.