Chapter Text
Snow was drifting over Boston. Ilya and Shane hadn’t seen each other in a month and a half. The last time—the first time since the cottage—had been a hotel, not an overnight. It was desperate, dirty in a way Ilya hadn’t been proud of, needy. He had felt the need to prove that this was still happening, like he had wanted to crack into Shane’s ribs and live in there.
Now, Ilya hadn’t slept in three days. He knew he was crankier than he should be. He was staring at himself hard in the bathroom mirror. He didn’t want to feel like this, to be like this.
Ilya had been having nightmares. Last night he had dreamed he was fucking Shane (normally his favorite kind of dream), thrusting with all he had and buried to the hilt, gone and desperate. It was perfect, felt perfect, he was so close and dream Shane was… bored. Like he had the angle wrong. Like he wasn’t sexy, wasn’t anything. Like this sex was a favor to Ilya. Like Shane’s mind was wandering off to a grocery list, a hockey play.
Even his subconscious must think the best of Shane, because in his dream he wasn’t even an asshole about it. Dream Shane had held Ilya by the arms, he said he could still come, asked if maybe they could try again later. Ilya could feel panic rising in his chest, powerless to Shane not wanting him. What if Shane was bored, it would all be over if he couldn’t do anything to make him feel good—
Ilya had woken up hard and miserable, running his palms flat down his face. It didn’t take a genius to analyze that dream. Ilya knew what he was afraid of.
In their perfect summer in the cottage, he hadn’t felt scared at all. It creeped in the months after, when they were apart. Ilya tried, he held tight to the memory of telling Shane he loved him, how perfectly sure he was in that moment that they both felt the enormity of this… thing. I met his parents, he reminded himself. He invited me, the foundation opens next month, he cried when I left in Ohio, I held him, he— Ilya was worrying a hole in his long sleeve like he had worn out all these memories. He’d had so many weeks to fill, promising himself this was real, was happening.
Over time, his thoughts got corrupted, his brain got meaner.
When he thought, he said he loved me too, it became, yeah well, not at first.
He introduced me to his parents, came out for me, became, well, he didn’t have much choice.
He wants me, he thinks about me, he’s planning for us, became, for now.
We’ve only ever been in love with each other, became, aren’t there any nice guys in Montreal?
He loves me. He tells me all the time, became, Sure. While he thinks you’re strong, thinks you’re the best. What happens when someone beats you? What happens when you’re not the sexiest in the room? He knows he’s gay now. He can just go get a gay man. A nice one. One who knew how to be a boyfriend.
Which Ilya didn’t, by the way. They had called him a ‘ladies’ man’ in Shane’s family’s kitchen, but truthfully no one had ever asked to grab hold of him for much longer than a night anyway. He supposed he probably didn’t give off the right vibe, at least not for the last however many years where he was desperately seeking Shane.
It was stupid, all this worry was stupid. Ilya knew it was stupid. It all melted away when he got to see Shane, got to touch him. Even in that last stupid hotel room in fucking Ohio of all places, all his doubts dripped off him like shower water. It was so much harder to tell himself a lie about how Shane was leaving, or he should be leaving, or maybe Ilya should be leaving to protect Shane, or whatever nonsense his brain was spinning when their hands were touching, when Shane was kissing him all over his face. When they were together.
But they couldn’t be, not like they wanted, not yet. And Ilya’s mind was so good at thinking of reasons he was unlovable. He’d had years of practice. Growing up taught him that if something good happened that just meant the bad thing was coming. Shane hadn’t seen how lazy he was, hadn’t seen him lay in bed for three days. Hadn’t watched him down 8 tequila shots to avoid a conversation. Shane had seen how Ilya handled conflict (silence, yelling, saying something shitty, crying) and he couldn’t imagine that Shane wanted to sign up for a whole life of that. Ilya wouldn’t want to.
How much more would it hurt if Shane left now, with Ilya already out of his Boston contract, already moving, when he had nothing? Risky, stupid his brain supplied, foolish.
The texting situation wasn’t helping things.
Ilya had been holding back, before Florida, before Boston, back when they were just… whatever they were. He had texted Shane as little as possible. Utility only. No phone calls. Once that dam was broken… he wanted to Snapchat Shane pictures of his breakfast, tell him every dumb joke someone said in the locker room. Make him send selfies three times a day. Ask him what socks he was wearing. He wanted every tiny dumb piece of information he could get about Shane, wanted to collect them all like a little magpie.
But Shane hadn’t changed, really. They left the cottage and Shane did text him more, did text him ‘I love you’ (which never failed to make Ilya’s heart jump out of his chest and into his throat, like he was going to cry. Every time. Humiliating. Thrilling. Stupid.) But it wasn’t enough. Ilya had tried at first, and Shane did reply. Shane was just so busy, it was like a tiny rejection whenever it took hours. Ilya hated seeing his side of messages pile up, no reply. So he stopped. And he waited. He counted. He started every other conversation, no more, no less.
And, ok, yes, probably that was stupid. Probably, because every time he heard Shane’s voice on the other side of a phone call, a voice note, sending him an emoji, it was like dreary Boston and snow melted away, it was summer again, and he was messing up Shane’s nice couch at the cottage and eating too many burgers. Like a portal. If he wanted to call his boyfriend more, if that would help, he should just call more. But he couldn’t.
And now Shane was coming here to Ilya’s house for an entire weekend. And Ilya was thrilled, had been counting down the days, euphoric. But it was also the first time since… well. He frowned looking at the spot on the couch where he had sat for hours, stunned, dirty, shirtless.
Ilya had been prepping his house for days. Well, weeks, if you counted the parts where he was just thinking about it. He’d cleaned out a nightstand for Shane. He’d bought weird gross macrobiotic food. He didn’t need to buy ginger ale, he still had some from the last time, the disaster time. He winced at the memory, so he got new ones anyway. Did ginger ale go bad? Really just for something to do, some way to think of Shane, make him feel close even though he was far away. A reason to think of him in the grocery aisle.
Shane hadn’t texted Ilya for three days until this morning. Ilya had read the text maybe 100 times.
Jane: I land at 2. I’ll check into the hotel and then I’ll come there? No need to pick me up.
Jane: I can’t believe how terrible all the Rolex stuff was. They made me damp again. I brought you one, though.
Ilya had rolled it around in his mind. He didn’t know Shane had booked a hotel room. Was he not staying here?
Was he really going to make Ilya ask him to stay after last time?
And he didn’t want Ilya to pick him up. So, like, an escape plan? This wouldn’t be a breakup, right? Shane wouldn’t fly back to Boston to break up with him the same way he had—
Ilya pinched his nose. He was losing it. Shane was coming. He got to see Shane. For a full weekend, curtesy of something something Yuna Hollander had covered for. He wasn’t going to ruin this over nothing, over a text he didn’t understand.
Lily: I am excited to see you
There, he thought, at least he was trying. He didn’t say what he would have said at 18, which was nothing, or what he would have said at 22, which was a passive aggressive ‘cool.’ He said the truth, the vulnerable truth. That’s what you’re supposed to do, if you are a boyfriend. Ilya thought, at least.
Shane didn’t reply, just hearted the message.
Ilya leaned over his kitchen island and groaned.