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Shane knows that Ilya spends a lot of time with his parents, at their house (at their kitchen table and on their couch, and sometimes, in his childhood bedroom). He spends less time there. It makes sense; Ilya plays for Ottawa, and Montreal is two hours away, if he drives fast. He doesn’t go home as often as he should. He doesn’t go home as much as Ilya does.
Ilya makes things easy for his parents. He eats whatever they cook for dinner without complaint, he helps Yuna and David around the house when they need an extra pair of hands.
So when David asks Shane to get the set of nice, crystal wine glasses down for dinner, Shane is lost. He opens the cabinet closest to the pantry- that’s where he would keep them, if this were his house. But it’s not his house.
The nice glasses are not in the cabinet next to the pantry. Shane can’t remember where they are, can’t remember where they used to be (he doesn’t drink, not enough to know where his parents keep their fucking crystal wine glasses). He’s standing there, feeling like a fucking idiot. He’s frozen in place, he can feel his fingers growing sweaty on the stylish stainless-steel cabinet handles.
“Shane, here.” Ilya is behind him, across the island from him, with another cabinet open, the one next to their double oven. There are the wine glasses. There are their nice, crystal wine glasses that Shane has gotten to drink out of once. Maybe twice. He squeezes the handle and counts to three, lets go of it. Too hard. It slams closed.
Yuna jumps a little bit, and Ilya has the grace to look sorry, but not sorry enough to stop himself from saying, “This is why I am the favorite son” to Shane, right then, standing there next to the pantry like a fucking idiot. Like someone who doesn’t know his way around in his own home. It doesn’t feel like a joke.
He imagines, for a second too long, slamming Ilya against the boards during their next game. Shane would win, of course, he would. Ottawa never won any of their games. It would still feel good.
“I’m- I’m going. Excuse me.” Shane says. Ilya is handing the wine glasses to his parents, and David is smiling at him.
“Shane-” Yuna tries. Shane ignores her, resolutely. “Is he okay?”
“He is always-” He hears Ilya say as he walks out their back door. Shane has never wanted to smoke before, he’s never considered it. But he imagines leaning against the tree that was much, much smaller when he was still a kid and lighting up a cigarette, taking a drag just to see the surprise on their faces when they come out to find him.
If they come out to find him.
It feels more and more unlikely with every passing second.
It’s cold out. Shane feels stupid. He feels like he did when he was a kid, when he would fail a test and consider running away rather than telling his parents, who would be gentle in their disappointment, but who would be disappointed nonetheless. He’s torn between wishing a sinkhole would open up and take him and between feeling a blinding, nauseating (sickening) something. He doesn’t want to put a name to how he feels.
He scrubs a hand over his face. He feels. Well. He knows how he feels. And it makes him feel even stupider. He sinks to the ground. The wooden boards of their back deck are cold on his thighs. He’s starting to feel his ass go numb when the back door cracks. Light floods the backyard, and he knows it's Ilya before he turns around.
“Shane. Dinner is ready.” Ilya says, his voice is soft.
Shane doesn’t want to eat dinner. He wants to go home. He doesn’t want to see Ilya, so he doesn’t turn around.
“Thanks.” Shane doesn’t stand up. Ilya waits there, to the count of five. Shane hears him heave a sigh before he closes the door. It’s soft, just like his voice was, just like he has been to Shane when he doesn’t deserve it.
He stands up. There are pins and needles in his feet from the cold. He sniffles and rubs his nose on the back of his hand. There’s a clear line of snot on the back of his hand, running from his wrist to the first knuckle of his middle finger. It’s disgusting. He doesn’t care because he feels so, so shitty.
Shane tilts his head up to the sky and takes a deep breath. He can feel the snot drying on the back of his hand. There are tears gathered in the corner of his eyes that he isn’t going to let fall. He won’t. He is so stupid.
There’s a part of him, the same childish part of him that wanted to run away from his parents (the same parents that love him so much, unconditionally, that have opened their home to his boyfriend, who deserves so much), that wants to cry at how unfair it all is.
He wants to know where the nice, crystal wine glasses are in his parents’ kitchen.
He doesn’t want to be outside, in the cold, in the dark, while Ilya tells his parents he’s fine.
He wants, he wants everything.
He wants chicken parmesan for dinner; he wants to be fun to eat with at restaurants.
He wants to be fucking happy for his beautiful boyfriend, his boyfriend who loves him. Who he loves.
He doesn’t feel happy for Ilya right now.
He feels something ugly, gnawing, clawing at him from the inside. It’s tearing him to shreds, it’s eating him alive. He’s so jealous of Ilya, knowing where the wine glasses are in his house. In his house. In his childhood home, the one that he pays for for his parents, with the money that he worked his ass off for.
He wants to be the favorite son.
He wants it so badly that he feels sick with it.
Shane has been the favorite son for twenty-nine years. Ilya, he’s sure, has never been the favorite son. Maybe when Irina was alive, maybe when he had his mother to adore him, to support him and encourage him, to cheer him on. But he’s never basked in the glow of people who love him, not like Shane has. When Ilya disappointed his parents (his real parents, not Shane’s), he had something to be afraid of, something real, real danger, real fear of losing, of not being good enough. Ilya was raised starving.
Shane should be willing to share. He should want to.
He’s had enough of this, love, support, acceptance. Pride. He has. He shouldn’t need any more of it. It should all be Ilya’s.
He wipes his nose on the back of his hand again. It’s crusty, but his cheeks are wet with tears, and he’s too busy being horrified with himself for crying to be disgusted.
Shane has never been deprived of anything. He’s always had enough. He still has enough, if he really thinks about it.
He’s won three Stanley Cups. He’s the captain of the Montreal Voyagers, he’s made his mom proud. He has friends (he has Hayden, he has Rose, and JJ).
He just has to work so fucking hard. So hard to prove that he deserves the life he has, his car, his cottage by the lake, his parents’ trust.
He loves hockey, he’s good at it, but he’s good at it because he has to work so fucking hard.
He knows, he’s confident that Ilya doesn’t work as hard as him. He doesn’t have to lie to himself when he says his breakfast is good. He doesn’t have to force himself to leave the house; he doesn’t have to worry about being someone fun when he goes out with the Centaurs. He doesn’t.
Everything still comes easily to Ilya, or at least, easier than it comes to Shane. Fucking, wanting, laughing, drinking, eating. Making friends. Making himself at home.
Losing comes easily to Ilya, too. It has to, otherwise Shane doesn’t know how he fucking stands it. Shane hates losing, but he thinks he hates this more.
Yuna and David give him their love, freely.
They love him because Shane loves him. They wouldn’t love him if it weren’t for Shane. This thought makes Shane feel better, just for a second, before it makes him feel so much worse.
He’s so jealous of him that he can feel it in his hands and in his stomach. He can feel it in every part of his body, acutely. It hurts.
Nothing is easy for Shane Hollander. There is nothing easy about being Shane Hollander. Eating, making friends, winning, losing, being gay, being proud of who he is, being Yuna and David Hollander’s son. It’s all hard. It’s all unimaginably hard, and it’s not fair.
“Shane?” The door is open again, and he can feel the heat from the kitchen radiating out. “Are you coming? Your dinner is getting cold.” It’s a salad. No dressing. No cheese, no anything. He isn’t hungry, but he’s going to eat it. Because he won’t win if he doesn’t. Because he can’t be the best if he doesn’t.
“I’m coming. Sorry.” He wipes his the back of his hand on his jeans. His voice is thick with tears. “I love you.” He says, to prove to himself that he still means it.
“I love you, too.” Ilya doesn’t ask him why he’s crying on his parents' deck. Shane suspects that he doesn’t need to.
He wishes that Ilya had pretended he couldn’t find the nice wine glasses either.