Their post-game dinner was awkward, but not insufferable. Shane said very little, but Ilya was loud enough for both of them. He blatantly refused to answer anyone's questions about their relationship and egged Hayden on until he threw a spoon into the living room, and then had to apologize to Yuna. Shane felt the exhaustion from earlier weighing on him, and he was grateful that no one pressed them for immediate answers about his and Ilya's relationship, or mentioned how they disappeared as soon as the dishes were done, headed for Shane's bedroom.
Shane pulled him inside and locked the door. He shoved all his stupid pillows onto the floor and threw himself onto the bed, lying on his back, head craned in Ilya's direction, one hand held out in invitation.
Ilya crawled on top of him, the heavy weight of his muscular body a comfort. "What do you need?"
"Take me out of my head," Shane said, already panting as Ilya pressed him onto his sheets.
"This, I can do."
Later, after Ilya had cleaned them both up and Shane had changed the sheets, they crawled back into bed together even though it was still far too early for either of them to fall asleep. One of them should have checked in on Svetlana or Shane's parents, but Shane decided he could be selfish. Just this once.
"I can't believe you left Russia," he murmured.
"I only would have been there another three or four days," Ilya said. "But fuck it—I can send my brother paperwork for apartment through a lawyer, I don't fucking want to be there for that, anyway. I didn't want to be there anymore at all. I wanted to be here."
He said it so sincerely, and it was so unusual for them—so different from how they would have communicated just a month or two ago—that Shane felt his heart flutter. He pressed a kiss to Ilya's shoulder. "Thank you," he murmured. "Even if you didn't want to be in Moscow anymore, thank you. For coming here."
"Yes," Ilya said. "Always. I—I didn't want you to be alone."
Shane let out a shaky breath. He almost wished that they could just fuck again instead of talking, but that had never really worked out well for them in the past. A part of him was scared about saying anything now, admitting anything vulnerable, when he knew so keenly how it could be used against him. But he knew that wasn't true with Ilya. It had never been true with him. What happened to Shane had nothing to do with him. "I don't want to be alone anymore, either."
"Anymore?"
Shane shrugged.
"What happened?" Ilya asked quietly. "Yesterday night… how did you find out?"
Shane hummed. "I had just finished my workout," he says, recounting the story without intonation. "I got an email from my management team that mentioned 'rumors.' I checked Twitter, saw the video. Then I sat down and just totally blanked for like two hours until Hayden and Jackie showed up. You called a little after that, and then my parents, and Miittie and Boiziau came over as well. I wasn't… responding to anyone, for a while. I guess they all freaked out."
"No shit," Ilya said. "They see something like that and hear nothing from you? I would be very worried, yes."
Shane winced. "My parents definitely were," he said. "Hayden and Jackie were worried enough that they drove downtown in the middle of the night. Yeah." He stroked his fingers down Ilya's chest. "Almost makes me glad that you were asleep. I don't even think I would have picked up your calls."
"I am not glad," Ilya said firmly. "I would have rather been on the phone with you. And I think you would have answered if I called."
"Yeah," Shane agreed, "probably."
"You really…" Ilya trailed off. "You just… you did not call anyone?"
"No," Shane admitted. His hand flexed on Ilya. He held onto the instinct to be brave, to be honest. "I had some kind of… meltdown. Completely dissociated. It didn't feellike two hours. It felt like… time wasn't real. I was just staring at my phone, watching all the messages come in, replaying the conversation over and over in my head. I wasn't doing anything. I was just sitting there."
"I should have been there," Ilya said, voice strained. "Here. I wish I was."
Shane touched him gently, trying to soothe. "It was better when Hayden and Jackie got here," he said. "And when you called. And when everyone showed up. I even called Rose, just to talk about it, you know?"
Ilya sat up slightly, leaning on his elbows so he could peer down at Shane with an incredulous look. "You talk to her? Why?"
"She was upset—probably almost as upset as I was-"
"Who cares?" Ilya said sharply. "Fuck her. She ambushes you in public, makes you confess something you are not ready to say, then calls you blubbering when her mistake gets out and ruins—and makes your life very hard?" he corrected very quickly.
Shane found Ilya's arm in the sheets. He rubbed his thumb in circles on the small bone on the side of his wrist, feeling the solidity and density of Ilya's body, the warmth of his skin. "She didn't ambush me."
He snorted meanly but did not pull away. "Looked like it."
"I thought you said you hadn't seen the video."
Ilya paused. "I saw the beginning."
Shane let it go. If Ilya had lied, it was because he knew Shane wouldn't have wanted him to watch the video. And he was right. If Ilya was offering him the opportunity to live in blissful ignorance for a little longer, Shane would accept that. "It wasn't an ambush," he repeated. "She was… being honest. Being vulnerable, and asking me to be vulnerable."
"She did not seem so vulnerable," Ilya insisted.
"She was. She could have broken up with me over text or something. She knew…" He sighed. "She knew I needed to have that conversation."
"But look what has happened-"
"I know," Shane said sharply. He breathed out. He brought Ilya's hand to his mouth and kissed his palm, unfolding his fingers to cup his cheek. "Trust me, I know. We should have talked in private, obviously. But… I needed to have that conversation. Ilya, if she hadn't—if she hadn't made me… confront my feelings, I probably never would have talked to you in Tampa. I wouldn't—I couldn't have made myself admit anything. I would have kept denying me—denying you—everything. I didn't want to be…." He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing that he could go the day without crying. Ilya's thumb stroked his cheek, fingers spanning the width of Shane's face, warm and cocooning. "I needed someone to tell me that it was okay, and hold my hand. I really needed that. I needed her. Or… I would have been—stuck, like that, forever."
"Not forever," Ilya whispered. "I like to think I would have dragged you out, eventually. Could never resist you, Shane."
"Me neither," Shane whispered. "And, for what it's worth… I'm glad we didn't have to wait another eight, nine years. I'm still glad, despite… this."
"Okay," Ilya murmured. He kissed his cheek, fingers framing his face. "Okay."
"So don't be mean to Rose, alright?"
"Oh, I already didn't like her before this," he said, and Shane laughed. "What? She is plastered all over magazines, wearing your name at games, of course, I hate her. She will understand, I think."
"I didn't tell her about you," Shane said urgently. "No one knows about you. Well, my parents and Hayden, now, but…"
"I know." He pulled his hand away and kissed Shane's mouth, and Shane arched into the gentle press of his lips. "Is okay. I know you would not say anything. Since you are brave enough to play like tonight while outed, I can be out to Hayden Pike. Is okay."
"I'm not brave."
"Yes," Ilya said, leaving it at that.
"Thank you for being here," Shane said, knowing it was for a limited time, and feeling so grateful anyway.
"Nowhere else to be," Ilya said, like it was so simple.
+++
Shane always woke up before Ilya. Ilya seemed to operate perfectly in accordance with the sun wherever he was, and therefore acted as though he was entirely immune to jet lag, so when Shane got out of bed at 8:00 am, even though it was mid-afternoon in Moscow, Ilya was still fast asleep.
He tiptoed down the stairs in his socks and found Svetlana and Yuna sharing coffee at the island.
"I didn't get a chance to say last night," Svetlana said, "but I am a huge fan, Shane Hollander."
"Thanks," he said, blushing, and accepted the mug his mother passed him.
She raised an eyebrow, and he was sure his blush deepened.
"Ilya Rozanov," she said.
Shane nodded. "Yup."
"Lily and Jane," Svetlana cooed.
Yuna sighed. "Does he make you happy?" she asked, a little helplessly.
Shane wrapped both his hands around the mug, feeling the warmth of the hot drink seep into his fingers. There had been times when the answer to that question, unequivocally, would have been 'no.' Times when his relationship with Ilya, and even Ilya himself, had made Shane perpetually miserable—times when Ilya had been an asshole, had been dismissive and cruel, or when Shane had been naive and oblivious to Ilya's pain, and times when the weight of their secrets and Shane's shame felt so heavy that he thought he was being buried alive by it. Thought it might kill him.
But last night, when he heard Ilya's voice, his first instinct was to run. Toward him.
And the night of the leak, when he had seen Lily flash across his screen, it had been like the first breath of air in hours.
"Yes," he said, and that was enough.
"Right." Yuna nodded quickly. "And you've never thrown a game for him, right? Or him for you? Because that would be just as bad, you know that, right?"
Shane glared at her.