Work Text:
For Shane, everything is always so…loud.
The outside world, with its hustle and bustle and traffic. With its steady hum of chatter, and the buzz of electricity, and the constant, unshakable requirement to always be on. Always be ready, performing for an audience even when he’s not on the ice - even when he wants to be just Shane, instead of Shane Hollander.
But the inside of his mind is loud, too. It’s chaos. It’s replaying old conversations and trying to figure out if he said or did something wrong, trying to plan ahead, trying to make sense of the stupid riddles people so often talk in. It’s worries, and fears, and old memories haunting him like fucking ghosts. It’s so much, so loud, all of the goddamn time, and there’s never any rest from it.
It’s why he shies away from physical touch. Why, as a kid, he would have to force himself to hug his parents, and why - even as an adult - he has to stop himself from flinching whenever a teammate claps him on the back, or crashes into him for a celly, or a fan wraps their arm around him for a picture. It’s just too much. Sensory overload to the max.
But when Ilya touches him…when Ilya touches him it all just goes quiet.
He’d noticed it for the first time all the way back in that dingy hotel gym in Los Angeles.
Shane had been breathless and panting, and Ilya was too, but there was also that vague, amorphous wall of sound you get from being in a large, busy building. Even in the middle of the night, there were so many sounds; the whir of the overhead fluorescent lights, dulled chatter from somewhere outside the room, the constant shifting and settling of the building.
And inside his head was just a cacophony of jumbled up noise. About the draft, and coming second, and if he seemed too weird when he shook Theriault’s hand. About what relocating to Montreal would look like, and the way his sweat felt on the back of his neck, and not being good enough at the one thing he cared about - the one thing that kind of dulled the noise a little bit.
It was so much, and so loud, and Shane’s blood felt fuzzy and he was too aware of the shape of his teeth in his mouth. And then - then Ilya passed him the water bottle, and their hands touched, and suddenly there was silence.
He had a pretty boy’s eyes locked on him, a touch that didn’t make his skin crawl, and total, blissful silence. For the first time maybe ever.
He likes to think he was half-hooked on Ilya from that moment onwards, but he knows it’s a lie. Shane was obsessed with Ilya Rozanov from the second he saw him skate in Saskatchewan at the WJHC. Since the moment he followed him out into the cold and shook his hand, and even though it didn’t all go quiet that time, everything did kind of go soft around the edges. Like the world was less abrasive in his presence.
Like maybe Ilya was someone he’d be able to catch his breath around.
One of Shane’s old high school buddies got married a couple of months ago. They don’t keep in touch the way they used to, but every now and then he’ll post on Instagram and Shane will like it, or vice versa. His jaw almost dropped when he realised the woman he married was the same girl he was dating all the way back in high school - couldn’t believe that kind of thing was even possible.
But then Shane thinks back to the seventeen year old kid he used to be, who shook the hand of a boy with a beautiful smile in a cold Regina alleyway, and he thinks oh.
Ilya is his high school sweetheart.
The first boy he ever wanted, the only person he ever wanted, really. The first person who made the world feel manageable - who pushed all the outside noise away, and dulled all the inside noise, and left only a stillness that settled Shane’s bones.
And even now - through so many years of growth and change - Ilya is still that person for him. The only one who can soothe Shane’s racing mind and keep the too-fast world from touching him.
“This…this is my fucking nightmare,” Shane pants. “This is my actual fucking nightmare, Ilya.”
He has jolted awake in a cold sweat too many times to count, after dreaming about this exact moment.
The panic is swelling inside of him like a balloon that’s about to burst, infecting his bloodstream with something poisonous. Something flammable. Something that might burn down the foundations of everything he’s trying to create, before he even gets a chance to build on them. Before this even gets a chance to be something real.
Shane can’t catch his breath.
His heart is pounding, and his mind is screaming at him, and it feels like his entire world is about to implode. His dad - his fucking dad saw him, saw them, and now everything is about to change. His dad knows, and his mom will too, soon, and Shane…he isn’t ready for this. He isn’t ready for his parents to start seeing him differently. He isn’t ready to let other people in on this thing that still feels so brand new, even after years of protecting it. Hiding it.
But then, through the noise and the chaos and the fear, Ilya.
His hands reach out to hold Shane’s waist, his fingers splaying out across Shane’s bare skin like they were designed just for this, just to hold him. And suddenly it all goes quiet. The fear, the panic, the dread - it’s all still there, but it’s more like a slow burning in his chest rather than an inferno.
“Okay, okay,” Ilya says softly. “Then maybe it’s time to wake up, yes?”
“Fuck,” Shane huffs under his breath.
And then he reaches for Ilya: his anchor, his safe harbour during the storm. He places his hands on Ilya’s shoulders then steps in to him, collapsing against Ilya’s chest as he wraps his arms around Shane’s waist and holds him like he never wants to let him go.
He can feel the steady thrum of Ilya’s heart beating against his chest, a complete juxtaposition to the way Shane’s own is thundering against his ribs like it’s trying to break free.
“Fuck, I’m scared,” Shane confesses.
Ilya rubs a hand up and down his back as he says, “Yes, is scary. But you’re brave.”
“Shut up,” Shane says, whiny and a little bit petulant.
“You are. You’re brave.”
“I feel like I’m gonna die,” Shane says.
But the truth is he feels better already, even after only a few moments in Ilya’s arms. His heart rate has slowed down, and the stream of worst-case scenarios that his mind has been playing on a loop since the moment he saw his dad through the window has ceased. His brain is still, quiet, just like it always is when Ilya is touching him.
He pulls back, his hands still resting on Ilya’s shoulders but not quite ready to look him in the eyes yet. Ilya doesn’t force it; he never has.
“So much for easing them into it.”
“Maybe…maybe he didn’t even notice. Hm?” Ilya offers, a joke to try and ease the tension.
Shane fixes him with a flat, disbelieving stare, but Ilya just smiles at him. Shane cracks, a small smile making its way to his lips for a split second, before reality creeps back in.
He looks at the windows for a moment, at all the beauty, and the peace, and the freedom that this cottage has offered them. The sanctuary it has provided. And then he looks back to Ilya, and thinks of all the beauty, and peace, and freedom that he has given to Shane. The sanctuary he is when the world becomes too much.
“Okay. I’m gonna get changed, I’m gonna drive over, uh, and then…and then fuck, what am I gonna say?”
He groans, squeezing his eyes closed and tilting forwards, knowing Ilya will be there to catch him. Their foreheads bump together, and Shane feels a little bit like a cat begging for head rubs.
“Do you - do you want me to come with you?”
Shane takes a breath. “Would you?”
Ilya frowns, almost like he can’t believe Shane even has to ask. “Of course,” he insists, as certain and steady as he always is.
“Okay. Okay.”
He rests their foreheads together again, and Ilya’s hands rub over his back and shoulders, and then Shane is sinking into him for another hug.
He’s a mess. A complete and utter disaster, really. And yet Ilya just holds him, his arms winding around Shane like a shield that could protect him from anything - from rejection, or anger, or fear, or harm. Ilya holds him like he’d set the world on fire just to keep Shane warm. He holds him like he’s worth it, despite everything.
Shane has never once had to change himself for Ilya.
He’s so much - too much, sometimes - and he knows the way his brain works is hard for other people to handle. He learned a long time ago to be polite, to hold himself back for the sake of others, to prioritise their comfort over his own peace. He learned how to play the role they all wanted to see him in - learned how to wear the mask.
But not with Ilya.
Shane has never had to tone himself down for Ilya, never had to make himself smaller or quieter or more palatable. He has never had to shrink so that he is easier for Ilya to hold.
Ilya loves him awkward, and difficult, and neurotic. He loves him when he has to fold his clothes before sex, and when he stresses over the smallest of things, and when he makes too many burgers because if that’s what the recipe is for, why would he change it? Ilya loves him enough that he bought an entirely new set of cutlery once he realised Shane didn’t like eating with his old ones. Ilya loves him even though it can be hard, because - somehow - he’s decided Shane is worth it. He’s decided there’s nothing Shane can do to scare him off.
And it’s that - the steady, unwavering comfort and support and love - that has Shane sinking to his knees.
Shane has always been safe down here.
Even before he and Ilya were this, Ilya always took care of him. He could get out of his head, float away from his body, and not have to think for a little while. And even though this isn’t that - it’s not about sex or control or power - with his face pressed against Ilya’s thigh, and Ilya’s hand brushing his hair, Shane can finally breathe. The noise all goes quiet. It’s like he doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to worry, because he knows Ilya will take care of everything. He knows Ilya will keep him safe.
And this…this somehow feels like falling in love with Ilya all over again.
He’d spent so much time lying to himself, denying his feelings, convincing himself that whatever they were didn’t mean anything, that he sort of missed it the first time - the falling. By the time he’d accepted it he was already in too deep to ever climb out, but he’d missed all those small moments on the way down. Shane had been falling with his eyes closed.
But he doesn’t miss this: the way Ilya remains immovable, steadfast, carding his fingers through Shane’s hair as Shane all but falls apart at his feet.
Yes, Shane loves him. An embarrassing, overwhelming, impossible amount.
“Is okay, Shane,” Ilya says, gentle but insistent. “Will all be okay.”
“You can’t know that,” Shane argues, his words muffled because he’s still pressing his face against Ilya’s thigh.
“I won’t let anything bad happen, kótik.”
And the thing is…Shane believes him.
He lets out a shuddering breath as Ilya’s hands work their way down from his hair, to his neck, to his shoulders, massaging away some of the tension that has Shane all but paralysed. He slips his fingers beneath the hem of Ilya’s swim shorts, pushes them up just the tiniest bit so he can press a kiss to Ilya’s skin.
It’s a strange, strange thought to occur, especially now, but suddenly Shane can’t stop thinking about how it was the first time they’ve ever kissed in front of someone else.
Another person now knows that they exist.
It isn’t some pretend thing that’s happening in a life separate from his own anymore - isn’t so far removed from the real world that it almost feels like a dream. It’s not a hypothetical. It’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, that the life he lives and the life he wants has finally collided.
“Ilya?” Shane whispers.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart. Sweetheart. He called me sweetheart.
“Can you tell me again? That it’ll be okay?”
For a moment there’s just silence, but then Ilya is shifting back from Shane ever so slightly, and he’s sinking to his knees.
Instead of resting his head against Ilya’s thigh, Shane is now nose to nose with Ilya, their foreheads pressing together as Ilya looks Shane directly in the eyes. He’s the only person Shane doesn’t feel the need to look away from, like eye contact isn’t so intimidating with someone who knows you inside and out and who still loves you anyway.
Ilya’s gentle hands come to rest on either side of Shane’s face and he hums quietly at the touch, turning his head just enough to kiss Ilya’s palm.
“Shane, moya lyubov. Everything will be okay. Your parents will be good, everything will be good.”
“And us?” Shane asks, almost desperately. “Will we be good?”
Ilya brushes the tip of his nose against Shane’s, one, two, three times. “We will be so much better than just good,” he promises.
Ilya has a way of saying things that just make them seem true. Like a fact of the universe. Something that can’t be disproven. It’s his surety, his absolutely unshakable confidence, that has Shane sucking in a deep breath and nodding his head.
It feels a little bit like he’s preparing for battle, but - with Ilya at his side - he likes his odds.
“You love me?” Shane asks, even though he knows the answer.
Ilya smiles, bright and wide, before leaning in to kiss Shane. It’s soft, and slow, and filled with years of love and tenderness and affection. It’s the kind of kiss Shane can feel right down to his bones, to his fucking soul, to the place where Ilya lives inside his heart.
“I love you,” Ilya whispers. A promise, a vow.
“I love you, too.”
More than anything. More than hockey. More than he ever thought was possible.
So he can do this. He can face his parents, he can explain, he can make them understand. And with the way Ilya is looking at him right now, with so much open, honest adoration written plainly across his face, it would be impossible for them not see it. Impossible for them not to get just how much they belong together.
Their future is a sure thing; maybe it has been since the very moment that they met. And that future together starts now. It starts today.
Ilya is every single one of Shane’s tomorrows.