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Hayden Pike loooooves a hotel room. Boston is usually annoying, though, because Shane keeps insisting on sharing that same tiny room – some hockey superstition thing, no way Hayden is messing with that – so it's a treat that le capitaine goes off early to fuck his 'buddy' Lily.
Once Shane is out the door, Hayden takes his friend's advice to go fuck himself. After, he goes for a little post-nut jog, and as Shane is still gone when Hayden gets back in, he goes another round in the shower.
After that, he plops himself down on his bed and turns on the TV. Buffalo is about to play San Francisco – oh, and in the lead-up, there's a preview of the game Hayden and the boys will be playing against the Raiders tomorrow. Fun.
Hayden is kinda hoping for a hat trick before Shane returns, so he sticks his hands down his shorts, to lightly play with his dick even though it's not ready to get hard again quite yet.
"So, Shane-y boy, how long are you gonna be out with Boston Lily?" he mumbles to himself –
– just as the tv says "...for the rival captains, Montreal's Shane Hollander and Boston's Ilya Rozanov."
Boston Lily. Boston's Ilya…
No way.
Waking to a buzzing phone in the arms of Ilya Rozanov is disorienting as all hell. Since when do they sleep together? And who is fucking calling him? Shane fumbles for his phone. Hayden? What the –?
Hayden, despite Shane's best efforts, knows that Shane is off getting laid, and he's much more likely to text than to call, so this must be important. Fuck.
"I have to take this," Shane tells a bleary-eyed Rozanov.
Rozanov nods, brows furrowing. Then he opens his mouth, but hesitates, as if unsure if Shane has opened the call yet. Shane hadn't, but he does so now, before Rozanov can speak.
"Hey, Hayd!" Shane says, a little too loudly, so Rozanov will know to be on his best fucking behaviour. Shane glances back towards the bed as he leaves the bedroom, and the way that Rozanov's eyebrows shoot up says 'message received'.
It doesn't feel right to go into some room that Rozanov hasn't shown him, so Shane makes for the stairs.
"Hey, buddy…" Hayden says through the phone. "Um. Weird-ass question, but – please tell me you're not fucking Ilya Rozanov right now."
Shane almost stumbles on the staircase, then freezes. He feels incredibly exposed, halfway down the stairs to the open concept ground floor, wearing only his boxers.
When Shane's voice returns to him, he's already been silent for too long to be able to salvage this nightmare of a situation. He really should have worked on his lying. Instead of trying now, though, he just says –
"Not… right this second, no."
Hayden gives a startled laugh, tinny through the phone. "Jesus fuck. Fuck, fuck, fucketi fuckfuck."
Dingdingding, time to text Jacki – and at a new record time!
When Ilya can't hear Hollander talking anymore, but he also doesn't return to the bedroom, Ilya gets up himself. As quietly as he can, he puts on his sweatpants and collects Hollander's clothes – neatly folded on an armchair by the bedroom fireplace, of course. Ilya had planned to get Hollander into some of his own clothes today, for the dual reasons of comfy and sexy, but this is probably not the time to push.
With Hollander's clothes under one arm and his own slippers in his other hand, Ilya pads down the stairs barefoot, just in case Hollander is in fact still on his phone.
He's not, though. He's curled up on the couch, almost fully naked, staring unseeing out the window, hugging his legs and swaying slightly, looking like a lost kid. He doesn't even look up at Ilya's approach.
Oh, Shane.
"I brought your clothes," Ilya says, once he's made his way fully down the stairs.
Hollander looks up at him, then, with tears in his eyes and a blank face. Freaking out but staying calm. Ilya knows the feeling.
"Thank you," Hollander says, reaching out for his clothes.
Part of Ilya wants to reach back, pull Hollander up from the couch and into his arms, but it's probably best not to disturb that delicate emotional equilibrium right now. And besides, they don't do that sort of thing. Ilya was hoping that maybe they would, today, but this doesn't seem like the right moment.
Hollander dresses with his back to Ilya, which Ilya forces himself not to laugh at. When he's done, he turns back towards Ilya and says –
"So, uh. I told Hayden Pike your address. Sorry." His voice is flat, business-like.
So much for 'Who cares what you told Hayden?'...
"Okay." Ilya doesn't have anything else to say to that. If Pike has found them out, they need to talk to him, and they won't find a more private place than this for that conversation, so.
No, wait – Ilya does have something more to say to that. He takes a step towards Hollander and grabs his ass through his jeans.
"So, Pike will be here in about a half hour – it means we have enough time for another round…" he says, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Not funny," Hollander replies, but just like Ilya hoped for, there's something of a smile there around his mouth. His mouth, so close to Ilya's…
Ilya takes a step back again, to not get carried away. They really should be taking the opportunity to fuck again, just in case it's the last time – but he gets that Hollander maybe isn't in the mood.
"I'll make us something to eat, okay?" he says instead.
Ilya Rozanov's house stinks of tuna but looks real nice. When Shane steps aside to let him in through the ridiculously huge door, Hayden sees floor-to-ceiling glass panelling running all along a huge open space, to somewhere further inside, where it sounds like the game is on.
"Wow," Hayden says, before he can stop himself, because this is a house.
"I know, right? This place is amazing."
"Spend a lot of time here, do you?"
Shane fucking blushes at that, ducking his head. In his own head, Hayden hears his wife calling Shane cute. Is that what Rozanov likes? Cute? He doesn't seem the type, but what the fuck does Hayden know? Not a whole fucking lot, apparently.
"No, I, uh," Shane stutters out. "This is actually the first time Rozanov has invited me out here. There's usually not enough… time…"
Fair enough. The Metros usually get to Boston the day of the game, and just going back and forth from the hotel would shave an hour off of Shane's and Rozanov's time together. Ugh. Their time together. Weird.
Also: 'Rozanov'? – was that for Hayden's benefit, or what? Hayden can't imagine calling anyone he's fucking by her last name. But then again he can't imagine fucking another hockey player either, even a girl one. If he was the one fucking Rozanov – no, ew. Fuck, Hayden is skating on thin ice, here. He'll lose all moral high ground if he accidentally says something homophobic.
As Shane leads the way into the building, Hayden sniffs exaggeratedly and says, "Good to know you're not skimping on your disgusting diet while fraternising with the fucking enemy."
And then there he is, casually leaning against a kitchen island. The fucking enemy that Shane is fraternising with. Ilya Rozanov. He's wearing stupid fashion sweatpants and a fucking Boston Raiders t-shirt that he must have put on just to be an asshole, because surely he was wearing less before Hayden interrupted – whatever this is. Booty call? Date?
Hayden holds out his hand for Rozanov to shake – which he does, if reluctantly.
"Nice to finally meet the friend that our Shane always hangs out with when we're in Boston," Hayden says, with his most winning smile.
"No, no. The honour is mine. I have been looking forward to meeting 'Shane's'" – Rozanov drags the name out with raised eyebrows – "mother."
Hayden drops Rozanov's hand like he's been burned. What a fucking dick.
"Fuck you. You should thank your happy stars I'm not Yuna Hollander. She'll have your head on a spike when she finds out about this." Hayden nods towards Shane. "And yours too, y'know."
Shane groans and hides his face in his arms on the kitchen island.
Rozanov, on the other hand, squares up to Hayden. "Is that a threat, Pike?"
"Hayd would never," Shane says, lifting his head slightly to shoot Hayden – Hayden, as if it isn't Rozanov who's being an ass right now! – a steely captain's look.
Hayden sees Rozanov intercept that look, and be absolutely delighted by it – for a split second, then Rozanov's face goes blankly threatening again.
"Yeah, unlike some of us, I'm not a narc," Hayden says, trying to inject some levity into a situation that feels like it's already going sideways.
Rozanov does not seem to appreciate the effort.
"Okay. Good. You're not a narc. I believe you," he says. Then he leans closer to Hayden – who suddenly remembers what it feels like to be slammed into the boards by all that bulk – and his voice changes to something like a hiss. "But can you hold a secret like your life depends on it? Because maybe mine does."
Jesus, is that how bad it is? In that moment, hockey falls away completely for Hayden. He has never really followed the news about Russia, but now he thinks he remembers hearing of strange poisonings and people falling out of windows.
"Your secret is safe with me, okay?" he says. "Trust me, I wouldn't want this to get out anyways – but yes, I get that it would be worse for you, and I respect that."
Which makes the fact that you're doing this even more insane, he doesn't add.
That makes Rozanov settle a smidge, but what's really needed to help diffuse the tension in the room – is the timer going off for whatever nightmare Rozanov is cooking.
"Tuna melts are done!" Rozanov announces with a smile, like he hadn't just been all up in Hayden's business with the eyes of an escaped murderer. "Sorry, I only had ingredients for two."
He doesn't sound the least bit sorry.
Hollander wanted them all to sit down, so Ilya moved this party to the couches by the fire, and now here they are. Hollander is mechanically eating his food, while Pike sips on the ginger ale that was the only thing Ilya chose to offer him. Ilya himself eats more slowly, savouring his disgusting Hollander-sandwhich. Everybody is silent. It's like every family dinner those horrible first few years after Ilya's mother died. He won't be the first to speak.
Hollander should be taking the lead here, really. He had insisted on being the one to get the door when Pike arrived – which had made Ilya feel some type of way, like this was their shared home or something – and he had given Pike that 'get in line' look that helped Ilya imagine what he must be like in the locker room. But now it's like he has shut down, somehow. He just stares at his can of ginger ale as he chews – no, wait. He has noticed Ilya looking, so he looks up himself, and gives Ilya a tight little smile that makes Ilya close his fists until they hurt.
Better look at Pike, instead. Hayden Pike off the ice is so boyishly handsome that it's almost camp – those eyelashes. He's exactly the kind of guy that Ilya's brother would dismiss as a kukolka – a little doll. The way he constantly tilts his head back a little, like he's trying to look taller, does not help. Ilya doesn't understand it – Pike isn't even that short. Is it because he plays wing?
"So…" Pike says at last, demonstratively turned towards Hollander. "Whose genius idea was it to call him" – he indicates Ilya with a sideways nod – "'Lily'?"
"Mine," Ilya says.
Pike doesn't acknowledge him.
"And what's your name in his phone?" he asks, still addressing Hollander.
"Jane," Ilya says.
Pike rolls his eyes.
"Cool," he says. And now he actually glances at Ilya to add, "Your idea too?"
"Mmm. That is how you figured it out? Because of 'Lily'?"
Pike nods. "Uh-huh. So change that. Both of you. Now."
Ilya and Hollander look at each other, then take out their phones. Ilya wonders if Hollander is as reluctant to let go of 'Lily' as he himself is to lose 'Jane'.
"If I had been a girl, my parents would have called me Caroline," Hollander offers.
An image of a female Hollander flashes through Ilya's mind. Long hair, full lips, freckles – no makeup. What a pleasure, to be told this in the middle of this farce.
"Caroline Hollander," he says slowly, testing out the name. It tastes good on his tongue. Maybe he won't miss 'Jane' as much as he thought? "Is she still hockey player, do you think?"
The question makes Pike swirl around and finally look straight at Ilya. Glare, really.
"Oh my god!" he exclaims. "Stop flirting!"
Okay, touché. Ilya is flirting, and maybe he shouldn't be. But something about Hollander, about today, about how little they get to see of each other, means that now that Ilya has him here, in his home, he's gonna flirt with him, Hayden Pike be damned.
"You can call me 'Irina'," he says to Hollander, fully ignoring what Pike just said. Ilya doesn't know what his name would have been if he was a girl, so this is the closest thing he has to offer – though he doesn't intend for Hollander to ever know exactly what he gave him, there.
"Um, no," Pike says, refusing to be ignored. "Nothing Russian. I can't believe you two have gotten away with this for – wait, when did you start texting Lily?"
"Rose?" Hollander suggests. Ilya is endlessly delighted that he seems to be ignoring Pike too.
"Like 'Roz'?" Pike rolls his eyes again. "That's cute, and also no. You both fucking suck. Call him Jennifer, like that ex of yours."
"Jessica."
Ilya's ears perk up again. Jessica? Who's that? He never hears about Hollander with girls.
"Who is Jessica?" he asks, amused.
Hollander just shakes his head, smiling.
"Stop trying to change the subject!" Pike yells.
Nonono. The subject is well and fully changed. Ilya needs to know about Jessica.
"She is your ex? When were you together?" he asks.
Pike glares at him again.
"Years and years ago," Hollander says with an exasperated sigh – and a pointed look that Ilya decides to read as 'before you'.
Whoa. That's… more reassuring than it should be. Ilya sure has never thought twice about hooking up with other people throughout the years, and he has no doubt that Hollander knows that he gets around. Does it make him jealous? A delicious thought – delicious enough for Ilya to catch himself smiling.
Hayden does not like Rozanov's smirk. He looks half ready to – no, nope, Hayden is not thinking about what Shane and Rozanov might get up to when Hayden isn't here to keep them in line. He needs to take back control of this conversation.
"So, how do you end up fucking your arch-rival?" he asks, conversationally.
Shane just groans at the question, so it falls to Rozanov to answer.
"When you are the top two draft picks," he says, in a voice like explaining something to a toddler who's also very stupid, "you do not get to choose which team you play for."
"Don't be an asshole," Shane replies, obviously hiding a smirk of his own in his hands. Everything is terrible –
– and it does not get better when Rozanov winks at Shane. This is the worst.
"Yeah, but you weren't fucking before the draf– Jesus, were you?"
"Not before, no," Shane says, muddled into his hands.
That's some suspicious fucking wording.
"Did – did you fuck at the draft?" Hayden forces himself to ask.
Shane moves his hands so they cover his entire face, not just his mouth.
"No," Rozanov says. "Because Hollander chickened out and ran away."
"Jesus Christ," Shane says, ripping his hands away from his face so he can glare at Rozanov. "I didn't – uh, okay, maybe I did chicken out…"
"So when did you actually start… doing this?" Hayden breaks in, to save himself from a play-by-play of Rozanov trying to get in Shane's pants at the draft.
For this question, Rozanov leans back on the couch, gesturing for Shane to answer. And Shane does, but Hayden gets the sense that it's mostly for damage control, in case Rozanov decides to start speaking after all.
"Do you remember the 2010 MLH ads?" Shane asks, turning to Hayden.
"Maybe?" Hayden replies. He has a vague impression of a poster where Shane and Rozanov stared hatefully at each other. Because they hated each other. Except apparently they didn't.
"Rozanov, uh, arranged for us to shoot together, for it. And then… things happened."
"Mmm. Things happened," Rozanov repeats, with raised eyebrows. He sounds like he wants to eat Shane.
Derailing an ad campaign to hit on someone is undeniably a boss move. You have to respect it – but it seems poor Shane had no chance, with such an aggressive pursuit.
“So, what, he just kept at it until you gave in?” Hayden asks, just to clarify.
The look Shane gives him is withering.
"No."
"Fuck you, Pike," adds Rozanov, with enough real vitriol in his voice for Hayden to realise that until now, he's been playing nice.
Whoa. That was the wrong thing to say, apparently. Oopsie.
"Hey, nothing wrong keeping at it until someone gives in. That's what I did with Jacki, and I haven't had any complaints!" Hayden says, hoping that's enough of an apology for whatever was bad about his question.
"Well, that's just not what happened here," Shane says, his voice softening a little.
"I think Hollander was attracted to me before I was attracted to him," Rozanov adds. He, for his part, is back to sounding amused.
"Not helpful, Rozanov."
"What am I supposed to be helping with, Hollander? Lying?"
They're flirting again, and Hayden does not want to hear about Shane being attracted to Rozanov – or vice versa. Like, yes, Hayden understands that if they're fucking, there's probably attraction there, but he does not want to hear about it.
"Why did you pretend to hate each other?" he asks, to rerail the conversation. Again.
Both Shane and Rozanov look at him like he's stupid. Which, okay.
"Did I, even?" Shane asks, then, quietly.
The question sounds rhetorical, but it makes Hayden try to remember any proof he has of Shane hating his Russian rival. Rozanov was always just fucking saying shit, but in Montreal they were proud of their captain's subtle, classy clapbacks, like "I'll listen when he catches up to me" when Hollander had led Rozanov in the scoring race and Rozanov had been an ass about it in an interview, or "I can only congratulate the Boston defense, who won the game for them" on a night when Rozanov had scored four goals – but the defense had, also, played really well. If that wasn't hatred, Hayden doesn't know what it – oh, shit, was that flirting too? Ew.
"And I'm not sure Rozanov did either," Shane says, when no one else speaks. "Like, don't get me wrong, he is a fucking asshole, but –"
"But Hollander likes that," Rozanov cuts him off, with a wink at Hayden.
"Ew! Or, I mean, not gay ew, but… ew."
The look Rozanov gives him at that clearly says 'Dig yourself deeper, dickhead,' so Hayden shuts up.
"– but," Shane continues, "he hasn't really said anything worse about me than he has about any other player he's asked about, has he? He's just asked about me more often, because of the rivalry narrative. Which we didn't choose, obviously."
Hayden hasn't been keeping close track of Rozanov's media appearances, but the guy has a reputation for sly, funny insults that make people love him, or love to hate him – and no, not just against Shane.
"So you, what, chirp each other as foreplay?" Ew, why did he say that?
"Pretty much," Rozanov says. "Good that you're catching up."
Suddenly, Shane is smiling brightly. Hayden knows that smile. It means that whatever comes out of his mouth next is gonna be wild, at least by Shane Hollander standards.
"I don't even know why you're complaining about this, Hayd," he says. "I hear I play better after getting laid."
"I did say that, didn't I? Are you aware that you're screwing Boston over with this, Rozanov?"
Rozanov makes a face at Hayden, lifting his hands in a shrug without the actual shrugging. "Maybe I also play better after I get laid."
For some reason, that's what pushes Hayden over the edge.
"Oh, yeah, then everything's fine, here!" he yells hysterically, his voice going high as he throws his arms up in the air. "Just a little rivals-with-benefits situationship, and the benefit is that you're helping each other play better hockey! No one could have any objections to that!"
"Calm down, Pike," Rozanov says, and shoots Shane a 'back me up, here' glance.
But Shane just looks between the two of them like a lost kid –
– and that's when Rozanov's phone starts buzzing.
"I have to take this," Rozanov says, after checking the caller ID.
He gets up and walks further into the building.
"Zdravstvuy, papa."
"Do you think it's Cliff Marleau, calling to say 'Please tell me your not fucking Shane Hollander right now'?" Hayden jokes, once Rozanov is out of immediate hearing.
Shane doesn't have it in him to laugh at that right now.
"It's his dad," he says.
Hayden's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh, so he's taught you Russian, too?"
Shane rolls his eyes. "Come on, Hayd, how many guesses do you need to figure out what 'papa' means?"
"Okay, fair. …so you don't speak Russian, then?"
"I don't. What the fuck, Hayd?"
This day is too fucking much. Good thing their game isn't until tomorrow, or Shane would be a mess on the ice.
"Sorry," Hayden says. "It's just… the whole time that I've known you, you've been fucking Ilya Rozanov?"
"Yup."
"I can't believe it."
"Yeah, you've made that pretty clear."
Shane is getting antsy. Rozanov sounded troubled on the phone, and with the open-plan layout of the house Shane can still hear his voice somewhere far off, speaking quickly in Russian. Shane hopes it isn't something too serious. Rozanov definitely doesn't need anything else stressing him out today.
Hayden recalls Shane to the present by asking, "What was wrong with that thing I said, by the way?"
"What?" Shane could think back, but he just doesn't have the energy. If Hayden has a question, he has to ask it plainly.
"The thing about him wearing you down."
"That's not how you said it."
"Right, so what was wrong with how I said it?"
Shane takes a deep breath. Explaining homophobia to his best friend is, perhaps, the last thing he wants to be doing right now – though there are many contenders that all seem uncomfortably likely to force themselves on him, with how this day is going.
"It sounded like you thought he – turned me," he says, then forces himself to clarify, "Like, turned me gay."
"Well, did he?"
Jesus Christ.
"Hayd…" Shane says, lying back against the backrest, staring up at the cluster of round lamps hanging over the couch. There are five of them, in different sizes, designed to look kind of like the branches of a tree, maybe.
"What?" Hayden says.
"That's not a real thing. Could some guy turn you gay?"
"Uh…"
Shane finds that he does not want to hear whatever his friend's reply to that question is going to be, so he gets up and says, "I need to go to the bathroom."
Hayden doesn't look like he believes him, but Shane doesn't fucking care, doesn't even care enough to hide the fact that he's obviously just following wherever Rozanov went – which turns out to be a private gym, where Rozanov sits on a weight bench, staring at his phone in his hand. The call seems to be over.
"Everything okay?" Shane asks, inadvertently startling him.
"No," Rozanov says, without clarifying. But as he looks up at Shane, he takes a deep breath, and visibly forces himself to relax, shoulders sinking down.
"Come here," he says, gesturing with one of his hands to reinforce the command.
Shane walks up to the bench, then into Rozanov's arms as they open for him. Rozanov, still sitting, pulls him close, buries his face into Shane's t-shirt. At first, Shane feels himself freeze up – this is not something they do – but then he forces himself to relax. He does need a hug right now, Jesus Christ.
"What a fucking day, huh?" Shane says, sliding his fingers deep into Rozanov's curls.
Rozanov's soft laugh into Shane's abs tells him that he recognises and appreciates the callback. It makes something creak and come loose in Shane's chest, like the ice on the Ottawa River breaking up as it melts in the spring.
"Yeah, totally," Rozanov mumbles, completing the exchange. It's so weird to hear him say 'yeah' instead of 'yes'.
Then, they just hold each other in silence, for longer than they should probably be staying away from Hayden. Shane can't make himself care.
"She's a ringette player," Shane says, at last, when the thought strikes him.
"Hmm?"
"Caroline Hollander."
"Ah."
Rozanov doesn't let him go, but he pulls away enough to lift his eyes to Shane's face, his chin resting against Shane's stomach. He looks very young like this.
"I loved it as a kid, when we got to try it at school," Shane explains.
Rozanov nods thoughtfully, which kind of tickles. "You would. Yes. I can see it. Your approach to hockey would translate well. You would even be better than me at that sport."
"Fuck you," Shane says, fondly. "There's no ringette in Russia, anyway. Would you have played hockey if you were a girl?
"No," Rozanov says curtly, pulling away to swipe at his nose with the back of his hand. Then he draws breath as if intending to say something more, but –
"I can hear you flirting!" Hayden's voice interrupts him.
"Ugh," Rozanov says.
Shane gets an impulse to defend his friend, but then again, yeah, ugh. Ugh.
"We should go back," he says instead.
"Yes."
Shane takes a step back to let Rozanov get up, but before he can turn away from him, Rozanov, now standing, pulls him back in and kisses him. It's a kiss without heat, but with a lot of tenderness, like they were something other than – well, than rivals-with-benefits, to use Hayden's term.
"I asked my father, by the way," Rozanov says quietly, after breaking the kiss. "Not what I would be called if I was a girl, exactly, but if I had sister. He said she would be Yesfir. That is Esther in English, I looked it up."
"Wait, I actually do need to use the bathroom," Hollander says on their way back. So it turns out that the price for Ilya's moment alone with Hollander is that he now has to spend time alone with Pike. Great.
Ilya flings himself down on the sofa, as far away from Pike as he can, but Pike obnoxiously decides to immediately lean in as close as he can.
"Does he know?" he asks, in a low voice. "That you're in love with him?"
Hayden Pike has said a lot of horrible things today, but this is the worst.
"I am not in love with him," Ilya replies, half-hearted. Denying it out loud sounds much stupider than when he does it in his own head. Ilya is not sure he is, indeed, in love with Hollander – they barely even fucking know each other, which is what he was hoping to remedy today – but there are definitely… feelings.
Pike's responding eyeroll is frankly impressive, and Ilya catches himself crossing his arms the way Hollander always does when he gets defensive.
"You're not fucking subtle, dude," Pike says. "But. I don't know how well you know Shane, but I know he can be a little slow on the uptake when it's not about hockey. So I ask again. Does he know?"
It's not a secret to Ilya that Hollander sometimes needs things spelled out for him. He knows him that well, at least. But he hates that Pike knows Hollander better, that he gets to spend days, trips, training sessions and games with him.
"I don't know what Hollander thinks he knows," Ilya says, keeping his voice neutral. "It is not something we talk about. We get together, we fuck. That's it." He puts a little extra stress on 'fuck' in the hopes of watching Pike squirm. It doesn't work.
"Right, yes, you just fuck. You wouldn't, say, buy him ginger ale or cook for him or watch a game together." Or kiss him tenderly after a scary phone call with your father…
Ilya sighs. "Okay, today was different, maybe. I was going to –"
Ilya had so many plans for today. They'd talk, like Hollander is always on about them needing to do. They'd figure out where they stand with each other.
"Tell him?" Pike supplies.
Ilya just shakes his head.
"Maybe don't?" Pike says, sounding so chipper that Ilya at first doesn't take in the meaning of the words.
Maybe don't.
"Like, you understand that this needs to stop, right?" Pike adds.
"If that is what Hollander wants, sure," Ilya says with a shrug, hiding his anger.
Pike's eyes narrow. "What happened to your life depending on this not getting out?"
Well, that hasn't stopped Ilya yet.
"You think we have never tried to stop before, Pike?"
"So try harder."
Ilya sits up, leans over towards Pike the way he's leaning towards Ilya, looks him in the eye.
"That is rich, coming from Mr. 'I'm getting a vasectomy'," he says, slowly and nastily. See? I know Hollander better than you think. He talks to me about you.
"Fuck off, Rozanov." Pike has genuine violence in his eyes. Ilya has seen him throw a punch before.
Yeah, come at me.
"Hey, hey," Hollander breaks in, just returned from the bathroom. "Calm down."
The tension lasts an extra second or two, then Ilya and Pike each lean back onto the couch, away from each other.
"We were just agreeing that the two of you need to stop this," Pike says, cheery again. Fucking psychopath.
"Yeah?" Hollander asks, seeking Ilya's gaze, unsure about the situation. Ilya doesn't let their eyes fully meet.
"Yeah," Pike says, when it becomes clear that Ilya isn't going to say anything. "Like, this is a pretty shit situation, man."
"We know," Hollander says, and Ilya's heart does something embarrassing over that 'we'.
"So why not just… not?"
"You don't think we've tried that, Hayd?"
Ilya can't help but turn to Pike with raised eyebrows over the fact that Hollander gave almost exactly the same answer as he himself had. Pike ignores him.
"So try again?" he tells Hollander.
Hollander seeks Ilya's eyes again, and Ilya keeps his face blank. Maybe don't. If Hollander wants to quit this, Ilya should let him. Ilya can find some girl who makes his heart do embarrassing things, probably – and Hollander can, too. Or, if he's gay-gay, he can find something less tangled and twisted than this. Maybe one day he could even come out.
"I guess," Hollander says, at last. He sounds defeated – and not in the fun way, where Ilya gets to gloat.
Hayden refuses to go unless Shane comes with him. He's not leaving these two to themselves. They have agreed to stop this – he thinks – but after seeing them together, Hayden doesn't trust them one bit to hold themselves to that, unless they stay the fuck apart from now on. That shouldn't be too hard, though, right? They're busy fucking athletes. The All-Star game is a problem, but that's still months away. They'll cross that bridge when they get there. Hayden will have had a lot of time to reason with Shane by then, to make him see that this can't go on. Maybe he can convince Shane to bring him and Jacki along for the game, so Hayden can keep an eye on him in Florida? That could be fun.
"Okay. Bye, then, Hollander," Rozanov says, awkward. Pike didn't know he had it in him to be awkward.
"Yeah. Bye," Shane says, looking at his shoes.
Then they just kind of… drift towards each other, until they're sharing a stilted, back-slapping, just-buddies type hug that doesn't suit them at all, because they just can't stay away from each other, holy shit.
"All right, let's get going," Hayden says, clapping his hands, like he does when he needs to get Ruby and Emma in line.
"Goodbye, Pike. It was not nice meeting you," Rozanov says over Shane's shoulder.
"Likewise!" Hayden singsongs, pulling Shane by the arm through Rozanov's stupid front door.
With Hollander and Pike gone, Ilya goes for a run in the woods behind his house. It's not what his coaches want him to be doing today, but he needs the release, needs the endorphins. And he could be doing much stupider things, like smoking – or getting blackout drunk.
Ilya lets himself get lost in the thump-thump-thump rhythm of his feet, until it's interrupted by a buzzing in his pocket. Is it? Hollander could be back at the hotel by now, might have managed to sneak away from Pike for long enough to… Ilya stops, takes out his phone. Yes, it is. And here come the endorphins.
Ilya has a new text from Caroline, his first ever – though the backlog of the conversation is somehow very long.
C: Thank you for the tuna melts, Esther. See you tomorrow!
Innocuous enough. But not nothing. Very much not nothing.
Ilya smiles, shaking his head, and starts running again.
It's on, Pike.