Chapter Text
Shane was not an impatient man by nature. The years of professional athleticism had drilled into him the importance of endurance, persistence, and self-control. All the long days at the rink, the early mornings at the gym, and the never ending travel had cemented grit and determination deep in Shane’s bones, leaving very little room for anything else.
Nothing got to him. Nothing swayed him. No one was able to force him into concessions without his express permission.
Well… almost no one.
That had been the most surprising thing about Shane’s… thing with Ilya. While Shane was naturally talented at self-restraint, something about Ilya pulled at the seams of his composure, burrowing into his brain to wake the most lecherous, animal parts of himself that just wanted. Wanted Ilya close to him, wanted him to stay the night, stay on the phone, stay until the last possible second and then some more after that. Shane wanted him in ways that he was not allowed to think about, let alone express to anyone.
He was better than this. He was Shane motherfucking Hollander, for god’s sake. He had proved to himself, again and again, that he could achieve anything he set his god damn mind to. If there was a wall, he pushed through it. No single barrier existed without a solution, and Shane has spent years teaching himself how to find them.
Except for now.
Because now, he was stuck in his parent’s house in Ottawa, sitting out for the playoffs, nursing a broken collar bone and a concussion. A concussion, which had, disobediently, and without prior warning, invited Ilya to Shane’s cottage for the summer.
To be completely fair, it was not like Shane hadn’t thought about it. The fantasy had come to him many times over the last few months following Tampa, whenever he was too tired to police his thoughts from drifting away into something he knew could hurt him if he inspected it too closely. His contact with Ilya had grown warmer, more frequent, into the shape that could almost be mistaken for something.
And so Shane’s brain has supplied visions of what that something could look like in the light of day, basking in the glow of the Ottawa summer on a private deck in Shane’s favourite place on earth. How Ilya could fit so easily into Shane’s summer, how his presence would blend into the warm days and cool nights at the cottage, the two of them wrapped up together with all the time in the world and the privacy to finally do something about it.
But no. Shane’s drugged up, concussed brain had decided that instead of waiting for the right time, the best idea had simply been to blurt it out all in one go, lying in a hospital bed in Montreal General, high as a kite and rambling to a man who looked like he’d seen a ghost on the ice the previous day, and that the vision of it hadn’t stopped haunting him since. Instead of waiting for the right time, when Ilya was not so scared, not so flighty, or so likely to balk at the reality of what was unfolding between them, he had overridden weeks of careful planning with an impulsive, reckless decision that had detonated a land mine within his carefully curated plans.
Fuck he was stupid.
He had said as much to Rose, who laughed wildly back at him through the phone. It turns out, when you get bored enough living under your parents roof, with no training, no season, and no schedule to keep you occupied, you might end up spilling more secrets to your best friend than you intend to.
Not that Shane had told Rose everything about Ilya. She didn’t even know that it was him, thank god. She only knew that the man who Shane had referenced in that confession all those months ago in quiet of the restaurant was an ongoing feature in the melodrama that was Shane’s life, and that this particular character had visited him at the hospital and had subsequently been ambushed with a very concussed invite to Shane’s cottage for the summer.
And she knew he had not said yes.
And the worst part was that Ilya hadn’t said no, either. He had said maybe, like someone who cared enough to spare Shane’s feelings, but not enough to commit to a clean break. If he’d said no, maybe Shane wouldn’t be talking about it with Rose for the hundredth time, hoping that this dissection of the event would lead to some new, miraculous conclusion that he was coming after all.
He hadn’t heard from Ilya since the hospital. Shane figured that Ilya had been busy with playoffs, which was a very realistic, if highly convenient excuse. But now that Boston had been knocked out a week ago, the damp cling of dread was starting to make itself known in the creases of Shane’s mind, sinking its claws into every moment he didn’t hear back from Ilya. Like every moment of silence was a confirmation that Ilya didn’t feel the same way that -
“Earth to Shane, are you still there?”
Rose's voice cut through the fog of his thoughts like a lighthouse, shocking him back into his body in his parent’s back yard.
“Sorry, I was just thinking”
“I know, you tend to do that quite a bit”
That got a huffed laugh out of Shane.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
Rose sighed on the other end of the phone, exasperated but in a familiar, affectionate kind of way.
“You know, if you really want to know what he’s thinking, there is something you can do…”
Shane doubted he would like where this was going.
“Which is…?”
“Talk to him, Shane. Have an actual conversation, where you say the words you mean to say and tell him how you feel. Not even that, just ask him if he’s coming. You’re going to worry yourself into knots over something that could be fixed with a phone call.”
“Rose, I can’t just-”
“You absolutely can”, Rose interjected indignantly. “And you should. I love you Shane, but sometimes you can be very…” Rose was silent for a moment, searching for the right word to describe whichever of Shane’s many personality traits made him the most difficult at this moment in time.
“Dense… you can be very dense.”
Shane laughed out loud for a moment. He had been called many things over his lifetime, but dense was not one of them. He said as much, which earned a reciprocal burst of laughter from Rose.
“You obviously care about him.”
Shane opened his mouth to argue, about what exactly he didn’t know, but Rose cut him off before he could start.
“Don’t argue with me about that Shane, you know it’s true.”
Shane was silent for a moment, which Rose took as permission to keep going.
“And from the fact that he visited you in hospital alone, he cares about you too. I know you haven’t told me exactly how long this has been going on, but I’m starting to suspect that it might have been quite a while…”
Shane didn’t know what to say expect to stay silent.
“And based on your lack of denial, I’d say I’d be correct. It’s been going on this long, Shane. He wouldn’t still be in the picture if he didn’t care about you, especially after everything you said happened over the last few months”
Shane hummed in agreement
“You’re welcome by the way.”
“For what?”
“For calling you out on your bullshit after our disastrous attempt at a relationship and getting you back to where you belong!”
Shane gasped, feigning offence, which earned him a delighted giggle from Rose.
“And where is it that I belong, exactly?”
“With whoever this mystery man is, of course”
Shane sighed, blowing air between his teeth like the action would solve anything in this uniquely stupid situation.
“Rose…”
“Just promise me you’ll think about it, okay? Promise me you’ll think about actually talking to him”
Shane didn’t have the heart to argue with her any longer.
“Okay, maybe I’ll think about it.”
Rose snorted on the other end of the phone.
“Maybe, Shane? You’re really going to say maybe right now!”
“I said I’d think about it!”
“Okay, okay!”
They both stayed there for a moment, laughing quietly at Shane’s particularly stupid choice in words before Rose broke the silence.
“I love you, but I have to get back to set. They’re wanting to retake the fight scene again and I have to be ready to put on my best ‘frightened love interest’ act. It’s a whole process, you wouldn’t understand.”
So Shane let Rose go with another promise to try and be a mature adult, and have a mature, adult conversation with his “mystery man” about what he was going to do with that ill-timed confession that Shane wanted him closer than he’d ever been allowed to want before.
Maybe, Shane thought, he would be able to call Ilya. Maybe he would be able to have a normal, boring conversation, where nothing went wrong and he got the answer he desperately needed. Even if it was a no, then he could at least stop worrying about the “maybe” that still haunted his concussed dreams.
Looking back, Shane had been entirely too optimistic.