Chapter Text
A hotel outside of Toronto where the air tastes cold and too clean. The lights in the corridors are blinding; the lights in the lobby flare sickening and white. It's like they've built it to say: Please Don't Try to Hide Here.
When Ilya opens his door for Shane he’s immediately shoved backwards into the room. The door would slam if it was allowed, and he’s surprised they haven’t been designed to announce all comings and goings, considering how hollowed out the rest of the building is. Not a single shadow.
He’s done what he can with the room: turned off the overheads and left one lamp in the corner burning, to give them something deniable.
'Why would you say that?' Shane is already grating words against Ilya’s teeth, his forehead pressed too hard so their noses are ghosting against each other, on purpose Ilya imagines, since Shane saw him downed by a fist crunching into the bridge earlier, saw the blood staining his teeth when he smiled.
The pain flares hot and immediate, and Ilya tastes metal when he swallows. The carpet is a horrible pattern of blue on darker blue triangles, meant to hide stains. If he bleeds again, it won’t show.
'Say what, Hollander?' Ilya does not move away, even as he flinches at the raw pain of his new injury. He can feel Shane hesitate, his body vibrating with something, fury probably, maybe something else that Ilya can catch if he soothes him now.
'You’re such an asshole. You’re out of your mind.' But Shane’s voice is a whisper, lips pursing and seeking as Ilya makes himself immovable and waits.
Shane has so many fingers. Sometimes it feels like he’s trying to pull him apart, plucking at his shirt buttons, his pants, his hair, his lips, threats of fingernails flinting off his molars. Sometimes it’s like he’s trying to climb inside of his throat and pull something out, or slide in and never leave.
Ilya keeps his mouth shut. His jaw aches. His body wants, stupidly, to be a place Shane can't escape. He won't get it, not tonight, and not like this. He will try to extract what he really wants later, alone, sitting with the silence and worrying at the noises and words the way some people worry a prayer, until it's raw and familiar: Please please please. Yes, I will, I will, I’m sorry, I promise. I swear to God.
He will try to remember which apologies come faster the second time. He can never quite recall whether I swear to God shifts before or after the rhythm does. He only knows there’s a moment where the sound turns obedient, where Shane’s voice changes shape, and Ilya can still feel it in his hands even when he isn’t touching him.
‘You are always trying to make it harder, Hollander, when you know I do what you want.’
‘I don’t want you to do what I want.’
‘I know.’
Shane tries to keep these wants a secret probably, Ilya thinks, because it’s better for him that way. Better, cleaner. Like this hotel. That’s why Shane keeps his eyes closed, because he doesn’t want to see himself asking.
He should fuck him in front of a mirror. The thought is wild; an absurdity. But he should thread his fingers through Shane’s hair and yank his head back to make him stare into his own big, wet eyes, always sparkling with furious tears.
This is how you ask, see? It doesn’t matter what you say because you are always asking.
The HVAC kicks on and hums into the room, breaking whatever spell he’s trying to cast. Shane steps back abruptly and Ilya finds himself trying to smell his skin for another moment, a mix of tea tree oil and salt from tears he’s perhaps imagined. Something faintly metallic that Ilya can’t place until he remembers he’s breathing in his own blood.
Shane opens the space like a wound. Ilya’s body leans after him before his brain catches up, a reflex, like proximity is proof. He wants to lean closer, just a fraction, but Shane is already bracing with his fists clenched at his sides, like leaving is an option he’s keeping in his pocket.
Shane is too practiced in slipping away. Shane should not be so close to the exit, but the calculation of how this went wrong would take too long, and a panic he won’t admit to is a sour coil low in his chest.
His hand starts forward and he stills it against the pulse in his thigh. He can feel his fingers wanting to grab, to mark. For once, his mouth is faster.
'Oh, so you are going to leave now, Hollander? You are going to let me stay here, alone and bloodied?'
'I’m not…' The words choke in Shane’s throat as he stumbles out of his shoes, kicks them furiously into a corner of the room. 'I’m not leaving,' he scrambles to pull his hoodie off and traps himself.
like a stupid bird
His fingers tug at his torso and rake red lines onto his already flushed skin. The marks rise fast and Ilya’s attention catches on them like a hook. Proof of life. Shane is always breathless, now Shane is furious, now Shane is trying to yank his t-shirt down to cover himself and stepping forward with a demand on his tongue so ready to be quieted. The way his whole body gets so pink, the way he looks like anyone could make him bleed. Like he would beg anyone to make him bleed.
'I would not leave you like this Hollander, even if you did it to yourself,' Ilya says instead, quirking his lips like it’s a joke and waving his hand vaguely at the swollen tracks on Shane’s sides - a hilarious joke they might laugh at later. Shane is astounded, Shane is miserable, so on and so forth and on and on, maybe forever. Ilya can’t stop tracking this miserable loop, grasping at whatever looks like a gap carved in the sheer face of him. ‘Are you astounded, are you miserable?’ A question with an answer that he won’t ask for.
‘But why did you say it at all?’ The words punch the life out of Shane as he whispers them. He looks terrified for a brief moment, like he’s fucked up, like he wants to take it back.
'I don’t know,' Ilya answers immediately. It’s an honesty and a mistake. 'I don’t know why, Hollander.'
I just like to know you.
What a twisted truth that would be, to speak into this room. Ilya can’t bear the thought of it on his tongue. It feels like handing Shane a knife by the handle.
'So you were just fucking around?' Ilya feels an invisible hand crawling up his neck to grip his pulse, to tell him he’s a goddamn fool, a jester acting out for attention. His shoulders hurt from holding them too close; his fingers jerk reflexively at that accusation, forming meaningless fists.
You like it. You like it you like it you like it.
Ilya wants to make it true in this moment. He knows Shane likes it, doesn't he? But to speak that might spook him. He steps forward instead, slow, grabs Shane’s chin and sets his thumb near the crook of his mouth, still open in quiet indignation. His other hand presses at the red marks on Shane’s torso as he pulls the shirt down to cover them and forces his face up, makes him look. Shane stares at Ilya’s mouth like he can still hear the room from earlier, then drags his gaze to the swelling at Ilya’s nose.
'You’re going to pretend you didn’t want to get hit.' Shane says this as fact. Ilya blinks and shrugs, rolling his shoulders like he’s never had a problem in his life, mostly to relieve the sick tension sitting near his neck. It makes the color rise in Shane's cheeks, two furious points of pink near his temples. Always so indignant.
'Don’t stand there and do that.' Shane’s throat moves on a hard swallow. The lamp throws thin light over his face and it makes the wet in his eyes look like glass. The room is too bright for glass. Too bright for anything tender. Too bright for them. Ilya’s teeth grind too hard, maybe he cracks one. He hopes so. Ilya hates this - he hates that he can’t decide whether to soothe or wrap his fingers around Shane's neck to shut him up, hates that his hands remember a dozen solutions and none of them are safe.
'I didn’t even say your name, Hollander. It had nothing to do with you.' Shane laughs once, sharp and quiet.
'Liar.' Ilya feels the old urge rise, the familiar solution: hands, mouth, pressure, the simple physics of shutting someone up. He reaches for Shane anyway, searching for the sharp corners of him like a habit, because at least a lifetime of rubbing against them might finally sand them down to something softer. Shane catches his wrist. Not hard but worse, like a rule, like a command. The hold shouldn’t be enough to stop him, but his pulse jumps under Shane’s thumb like it’s trying to confess and he hates the part of his body that betrays him first. He could wrench free but he doesn’t, just rubs blood into the back of his teeth with his tongue, too sharp to trust.
'If you touch me,' Shane spits, voice low and so, so sad, 'you’ll have to explain yourself to me.' Ilya lets him keep his wrist like it’s a mistake he's making on purpose, if Shane wants to see what happens when he holds something dangerous.
'Explain myself,' Ilya repeats, softly, back at him. He tastes the word like a dare. 'Is that what you want?' Shane’s grip tightens by a fraction. His eyes don’t move.
'Yes.' Something in Ilya’s chest shifts, small and ugly, like a latch failing. Ilya’s mouth twitches. Not a smile. The pain in his nose pulses in time with the HVAC, a dull insistence. He can feel where the skin split earlier when he takes a breath, feel the sting of dried blood tugging.
'You don’t want words, you liked it.' Ilya says, smooth now and careful. 'You want me on my knees so you can hate yourself.' A flash passes over Shane’s face, quick as a blink. Something wounded and furious.
'I didn’t like it,' Shane's lie is almost gentle, like he is soothing himself.
'Liar.' Ilya says back, too fast, because he cannot countenance it. Heat climbs his throat and he hates that it sounds like want. Shane’s hand still holds his wrist. A tether. His thumb presses into the inside of Ilya’s pulse like he’s counting it.
Ilya leans in, close enough that Shane’s breath hits the cut place on his lip and stings. Close enough that it would be easy to turn this into something else.
'If I touch you,' Ilya says, low, 'you’ll stop talking. You’ll be grateful, you’ll say ‘sorry sorry sorry’ but then you’ll look at me like I did something to you.' Shane’s eyes spark with defiance but his throat works like whatever he wants to say will kill him.
“So don’t,” He finally chokes out, voice a harsh rasp, 'Don’t touch me.' Ilya’s gaze drops to Shane’s hand on his wrist with a raised eyebrow. His fingers flex red and white against it, but he doesn’t let go.
Ilya lets out a short breath through his nose and pays for it with a hot stab of pain. It makes his vision sharpen. It makes the room feel smaller. He feels caged, like he should kill the jailer or lock them up together instead.
'You heard what I said,' Ilya keeps his voice flat. He keeps it clean. 'And you are still here.' Shane’s jaw tightens and Ilya imagines slapping the tension out of it, gently at first maybe.
'Because you’re bleeding!'
'Oh?' Ilya’s laugh is quiet, mean. 'So this is charity.'
'It’s not charity!' Shane’s voice breaks on the edge of something he won’t name. He swallows it back down. 'It’s… I don’t know.'
Ilya’s chest tightens. He doesn’t let it show because he will not.
'You do know,' He chooses this instead, stepping just close enough to force Shane to tip his chin up to keep looking at him. 'You always know.' He can never ask if that's true.
Shane’s eyes shine. His lashes stick again at the corners. Ilya feels them like a bruise.
'Say it,' Shane says, pleading and angry, a demand he can barely hold anymore. 'Say you didn’t mean for them to-'
'No.' The word snaps out of Ilya before he can file down the edges. It’s too sharp, too final. It lands in the room like a slammed door in a hotel built not to slam. He feels it hit Shane and, for a second, feels nothing else. Then the crack in his ribs flares, hot and immediate. 'I said what I meant,' he says, colder now. 'If you want to be angry?'
Shane’s face goes white for a second, then pink again, flushed with fury and hurt. Ilya’s tongue touches the back of his teeth. Blood again. He could say something that would end this. He could say the wrong truth:
I just like to know you.
He doesn’t. He lifts his captured wrist slightly, just enough to make Shane either tighten his grip or let go. He watches which one Shane chooses. Shane tightens. Ilya’s eyes soften by accident but he kills that immediately, like snuffing a match between his fingers. He lets the impulse unspool anyway, privately: every way he could soothe this, kiss it flat, press his mouth to the place the words landed. He files it away. Ilya keeps his kindness for himself, for later, when it will cost them more.
'Don’t pretend you’re innocent,' he murmurs. 'You wanted me punished. You just didn’t want to watch.' Shane flinches like the words have hands.
Ilya knows what it looks like, the two of them like this: Shane’s hand on him, Ilya’s blood, the lamp pretending privacy. Evidence. A story anyone could tell if they caught a glimpse through the wrong crack in the door. He wants to shove Shane somewhere the light can’t reach.
There isn’t ever anywhere to go.
'You don’t know what I wanted,' Shane whispers, and it comes out a mumble. Ilya’s eyes drop to Shane’s mouth. He doesn’t touch it, he makes Shane notice he isn’t touching it.
“Mm, I always know what you want.' This desperate lie curls its fingers around his heart and tugs, massaging a hot flicker of shame into his bones. Shane’s thumb shifts against the inside of Ilya’s wrist. Not quite a squeeze. Not quite anything Shane would admit to. Ilya presses in until he's made their hands the only space between them. 'Say it,' he murmurs. Shane’s jaw tightens again, he is going to feel it later and Ilya won't even get the credit.
'Say what.' Ilya doesn’t blink. I always know what you want. You wanted that.
'What you heard.' Shane’s mouth opens at that, then closes, his tongue flicking nervously at the sweat on his lip. Ilya waits, still and unhelpful, demanding an answer he doesn't need but if that's the game they're playing.
Shane’s grip shifts, a fraction looser, then tight again like he’s arguing with himself. 'You wanted them to see,' he says finally, voice sick with it. 'You wanted them to think you could be…'
He stops himself. Ilya’s mouth twitches. Not a smile.
'Could be what?' Shane’s eyes flash up, furious, wet. He looks away like it burns. Ilya leans his head down, close enough that the words can feel like touch. 'Don’t do that,' he whispers soft and precise. 'Look at me.' Shane’s breath shakes once but he looks back, eyes bright and fierce with tears as one slips down his burning cheek. Ilya lifts his captured wrist slightly, not to pull free but maybe to remind Shane whose body is attached to the hand he’s holding.
'Finish it, Hollander. Tell me what I was meant to do.' Shane’s grip loosens. Not enough to call it anything. Just the smallest shift, pressure moving on bone, the heat of his thumb sliding off the hard throb in Ilya’s wrist as if he’s remembered, abruptly, that he’s holding it. He drops it, untethering them, and shifts his gaze away to fix it somewhere low, somewhere safe, the carpet, the edge of the bed, the blank space between them, anywhere but Ilya’s face. His lashes are wet at the corners. He blinks and pretends it’s nothing. He reaches for the tissue box without looking and fumbles it, the cardboard rasping against the table, loud in the bright-clean room. He yanks out a handful too fast. The paper tears with a thin, ugly sound that hurts Ilya's skin.
The first touch is careful, so careful it makes Ilya swallow reflexively, as if his body doesn’t trust gentleness in a room like this, as if it expects the next thing to be a hit, a shove, a leaving, and instead it’s paper dragged across split skin, caught for a second at the corner of his mouth before it slides. He tastes iron and then less of it, and the less of it feels wrong in a way he can’t name without ruining it. He holds still because moving would give too much away, because he can feel his mouth wanting to follow Shane’s hand, stupid as hunger, because the instinct to lean into any absence is immediate and humiliating.
Shane swipes at his nose again, and again, each pass against his upper lip a little firmer, as if he’s trying to reshape Ilya into something safer to stand next to, as if he can erase what was said by erasing what it left behind. His breath hitches once, sharp and involuntary, and he swallows like he’s trying to get rid of the sound.
Ilya watches the way Shane keeps his focus narrow, the way his gaze refuses to climb. The way his fingers do what his eyes won’t even as they shine with tears that won’t spill. Shane presses once more, thumb and tissue together, and for a moment there’s skin under the paper, the blunt warmth of it, the outline of a touch that almost counts, almost registers as something other than cleanup. Then Shane jerks back too fast. The tissue crumples in his fist. White paper, pink at the edge.
'Don’t,' Shane doesn’t choose where to land the word. He is giving himself a command and obeying. Ilya lets the silence sit where Shane’s hand was. He lets Shane keep his eyes down. He lets him pretend this is only blood, only necessity. His pulse keeps going anyway, hard and stupid, under the place Shane touched. He reaches for him then, almost desperate if he were honest but when has he ever been honest? He places a hot hand against Shane’s chest and feels his heart hammering. ‘You want me to say I am sorry?' Shane nods miserably, desperately, and Ilya’s throat contracts on a stifled word that he puts down like a dog. He looks away, because to see it might kill him. All the things he breaks, cannot stop taking apart, cannot stop demanding to know how they work. He exhales, slow, shuddering, as if he’s drawn every tremor from Shane into himself.
The wet heat of Shane’s chest under his hand presses against him, uneven, alive. Every shallow breath Shane drags in hammers against something taut and raw inside of him. He traces the line of Shane’s collarbone with a thumb, noting the reactions he will not name but can remember. A flicker of fear, a hitch of breath, a shoulder that twitches just enough. He wants to say these are things only I can give you but doesn’t believe the words himself.
He opens his mouth, closes it against the thick and worthless weight of his tongue. He looks down instead, like a coward. The carpet is meant to hide stains. Blue triangles on darker blue triangles, the kind of pattern that says: go ahead. Spill it. No one will know.
Ilya thinks about what it was built to forgive. What it was built to swallow without consequence. He wants to bleed somewhere honest. He wants to ruin the carpet anyway.
He waits too long.
The door is made not to slam. Even violence has to be polite here. Ilya imagines putting his shoulder through it, just to hear it break the rule, just to make the building admit it can’t control what happens inside it.
He wants a sound loud enough to count as a shadow.