Chapter Text
Shane’s plant is dead.
He touches gently at the leaves where they have withered and curled in on each other. Shane knows exactly whose fault it is that his plant is dead. He had been home for the summer, staying at his parents cottage. It had been good to get some space so that he could clear his head and swim in the lake. Now that he is returning as a sophomore, with his place on the Boston Terrier’s earnt, his schedule is due to get even more intense. If Shane is to get what he wants, to secure a professional contract before his final year, then he needs to stay focused.
Shane has had everything carefully planned out since he could remember. He wanted to go to Boston. He wanted to play hockey here. He wanted to secure a contract that would start once he finished his studies. It is a series of neat steps to which Shane is very attached. He and his mom, Yuna, had revisited the steps over the summer. His freshman year had gone to plan, he had done well in his classes and even better on the ice. His coach was impressed. His teachers were impressed.
Shane places his bag down on his bedroom floor. His room is one of the larger ones in the house, because he had won it fair and square at the end of the previous year. Of course, he knows someone that would protest that Shane had cheated. The same person that had killed his plant.
Shane likes to keep his room neat. It is easier to concentrate and rest if his room is tidy. He has a double bed, upon which is the bed set that Yuna and David had bought for him, a rug, and a desk for him to work at. On his walls he has his schedule for the year and some photographs - mostly of his mom and dad, and a few of him and Rose and Hayden. From his bag, he pulls out a team photo that Yuna had printed and framed for him and he sets it on his desk. At least, he places it there for a moment before he sits back down on his bed and realises that if it’s on his desk, the whole team is looking at his bed. Shane puts it on his chest of drawers instead. They can stare at the door rather than Shane in bed. He doesn’t pause to think about why he doesn’t want the team photo looking at him when he gets undressed for bed. If he is honest, it is not the whole team that he cares about, just one pair of eyes that Shane doesn’t want on him.
Shane gives the plant some water anyway, even though he is sure that it is a lost cause, and unpacks his bag. His mom sent him back with some baked bread that Shane won’t eat, and a new supplement that she read was good for brain function. Once he is done setting his room back in order, Shane showers and changes into some sweatpants and a short sleeved t-shirt. He has a few days before classes and practice starts again, but Shane wants to get back to his usual routine. Tonight he’ll prepare meals and start studying, tomorrow he’ll get up early for a run and go to the gym. He has no doubt that Ilya and Dean will be planning a welcome back party, so Shane also needs to prepare to get no sleep in a day or two. It’ll be the last time, for a while, that Shane drinks before practice starts back up. He doesn’t drink when they have practice or a game. A self imposed rule that the others do not seem to have.
The kitchen is surprisingly clean when he gets down there. Shane knows that Dean and Cliff are already home too. In fact, Shane had organised his own return purposefully for when they would be back. Shane puts in his airpods, the house is quiet so he assumes that the others are out. They are most likely at the gym. With his glass containers lined up on the counter, Shane begins to prep his lunches for the week. He works methodically. Carb, protein, vegetable - rice, chicken, green beans. In alternate containers he adds a spicy soy sauce. Of course, all of his careful planning to take care of his health is ruined in an instant when he turns to take the first two containers to the fridge and finds Ilya Rozanov in front of him, almost resulting in an instant cardiac arrest.
Shane drops the containers on the floor, knocking their contents against the lid of the pot in a way that he hates, but at least they do not spill. Ilya doesn’t flinch from where he is leant against the kitchen island. He doesn’t have a shirt on, just a pair of black adidas track pants.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Shane pulls his airpods out and shoves them in his pocket before he picks up his containers off the floor. “What the hell, Rozanov? You scared me.”
“I live here.” Ilya points out. He folds his arms over his chest.
“I thought you guys were out.” Shane puts his food in the fridge and turns back toward him.
“Cliff and Dean went for run… I took a nap.” Ilya is looking at him. Shane blames the stutter in his pulse on the shock.
“Right.” Shane says. He folds his own arms. Ilya’s eyes flick, almost imperceptibly, to Shane’s arms. Shane looks down just in case he flicked some soy sauce on himself, but he hasn’t.
“Good summer, Hollander?” Ilya asks him. He takes a step over to the counter and looks over the neat row of Shane’s prepared food. “You look like you caught the sun.”
“Yes, I was just at my parent’s place. It was relaxing.” Shane picks up the rest of the containers and carries them to the fridge.
“You were relaxing? My god, what does that look like?” Ilya watches him. “What is your routine for relaxing? Is scheduled?”
Shane is standing looking at the fridge as he makes room for his lunches. “Mom and I do yoga in the morning, then reading, then an outdoor activity of some kind-" Shanes turns around and realises, by the amused curl in the corner of his lips, that Ilya is mocking him. “Shut up. Yeah, I relaxed. You let my plant die.”
“What plant?”
“I text you about it, I asked you to water it since you stayed here over the summer.” Shane closes the fridge.
Ilya shrugs. “I get a lot of texts, Hollander. I must’ve missed it.”
“Busy summer then?” Shane says. Then he regrets it. He wonders if he sounds catty. He doesn’t mean to sound catty. He doesn’t want Ilya to think that he cares if he had a busy summer. Fuck. Before The Incident, Shane probably wouldn’t have cared if he had a busy summer.
Ilya looks down for a moment and sniffs. “Yeah, I guess.” He looks back up at Shane. “You want new plant? For your fancy big room?”
“I won that room, fair and square.”
“You cheated.” Ilya is smiling again. Probably because Shane is flushing with irritation.
“I did not cheat. Dean and Hayden said that I won.” Shane steps toward Ilya.
Ilya blows air between his teeth. “They did not see the cheating. No hard feelings, Hollander, I will keep your secret.”
Shane feels his heart thud a little harder in his ears. He did not cheat to get the room. Therefore, Ilya can only be referring to The Incident when he says that he will keep Shane’s secret. They had sworn that they would not talk about The Incident. Shane had made sure that he hadn’t even thought about it whilst at his parent’s cottage. He had been too busy with yoga, reading, an outdoor activity, and Hollander family dinner, to even think about it once. Clearly Ilya hadn’t been thinking about it, or Shane either, because if he had thought about Shane, maybe he would have remembered to water his fucking plant.
“I did not cheat.” Is all Shane can settle on, again. Ilya’s eyes seem to search his face for a moment.
He holds up his hands. “Its just between you and me, Hollander.” Ilya says. “Party on Friday, welcome back thing. Dean and I have been brainstorming themes.”
Shane is glad for the change of topic and he leans against the counter, crossing one ankle over the other. “You know, if you and D ever fancy a change of career, I really think that you could both get into wedding planning.”
“Don’t you want to hear our ideas?”
Shane groans. He doesn’t mind the party, but he is not a huge fan of having to dress up. Especially because Ilya and Dean are famous for their ridiculous themes. Last year's end of year party was ‘come as someone you’ve had a sex dream about.’ Ilya had dressed up as Hayden’s mom and he and Hayden had a fight on the front lawn.
“It’s going to be Twilight themed.” Ilya announces with a grin. “So you’ll have to choose if you’re Team Edward or Team Jacob.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Vampire or werewolf, Hollander.” Ilya waggles his eyebrows briefly.
Shane thinks it would probably be easier to get hold of some plastic fangs than a werewolf costume.
“Blood sucker or… puppy.” Ilya carries on.
“I’ve got it, Rozanov.” Shane holds up a hand.
“We will drink, we will play games, it’ll be fun.” Ilya leans a palm against the island instead of his hip. The vein in his arm pops out as he puts his weight on that arm. Shane studies a strange stain on the wall opposite to them instead. Probably from when Cliff tried to make chilli and the slow cooker exploded.
“Can’t wait.” Shane goes over to the tap and pours himself a glass of water. Ilya takes a step over to him again.
“Of course, maybe we shouldn’t drink too much and play games.” Ilya’s voice has dropped, only a fraction. The glass in Shane’s hand wobbles. He turns. They are stood far too close together.
“Why?” Shane brushes it off with a laugh. “In case you and Hayden roll about on the grass again?”
“Hollander.” Ilya says. Shane lets his name hang in the air between them. There is probably only a second pause before Ilya starts talking again, but it feels longer. Shane can swear that for a moment, he can hear a slow ticking in his head, and the feeling of Ilya’s breath on his face. Ilya steps back. “Yeah, in case I have to beat up Pike again.”
Shane downs the glass of water. “Coach will kill you both if you do that again.”
“He started it.” Ilya says. He runs a hand through his hair. Shane notices that his curls have gotten a little longer over the summer. The sun has brought out a lighter blonde in them and they are hanging slightly over his ears before he drags them back with his fingers. “Sorry I killed plant.”
“It’s okay, I understand maybe you didn’t want to go into my room. See what you lost and all that…” Shane smiles then. Something lights up in Ilya’s face. Shane thinks that this is the reaction that he has been waiting for.
The door opens before Ilya can speak again. Rose comes in and before Shane has a chance to react she has crossed the space between them and thrown herself into his arms.
“Shane!” Rose squeals into his ear. Shane had met Rose in the first week that he had joined the hockey team. She was a Theatre major and a puck bunny. They kissed during a game of spin the bottle and then again at Rose’s birthday party. Shane hadn’t tried to take it any further, nor had he tried to kiss her again, and instead their relationship had become a friendship that Shane had been incredibly grateful for in his first year.
“Hey, Rose.” Shane hugs her back tightly and laughs. “You’re acting like I didn’t see you a few days ago.”
“It was nearly a week ago.” Rose leans back just enough to pinch his cheeks and Shane bats her hands away from his face.
Rose stays by his side and looks over at Ilya. “Hey, Rozanov. Good summer?”
Shane looks at Ilya then. His arms are folded again now. He has always been weird around Rose. Shane can’t think of a single reason why Ilya wouldn’t like her. Other than, he supposes, she is one of the few girls on campus that isn’t actively trying to fuck him. Maybe she had rejected him and Shane didn’t know.
“Yes. I looked after Hollander’s plant all summer, I didn’t leave the house for a second.” Ilya says. He goes over to open the fridge and Shane hears of the hiss of a can of coke opening.
Rose looks at Shane with a raise of her eyebrows. “So your plant is dead?”
“Yes.” Shane says. “We’re having a party on Friday. Twilight themed, apparently. You’ll come right?”
Rose nods. “Of course. Team Edward or Jacob?”
“Why does this seem to be some kind of huge American debate that I am not aware of?” Shane throws his hands up in the air. “I’m coming as a vampire.”
“Edward then.” Rose hangs off of him with a grin. “I will be your Bella.”
The fridge door slams shut but Shane doesn’t look back at Ilya because he and Rose are walking back toward his room.
Rose stays and studies with him until late. Whenever they are together, there is always a small part of Shane that wishes that she could just be his girlfriend. It would certainly make his life simpler. She is beautiful, funny, and cares about him - plus, his mom and dad love her, not just anyone gets invited to the cottage for a week in summer. Since they became good friends, she has never asked why they never kissed again, or why Shane didn’t try anything else with her - it has become a quiet unspoken thing between them. Shane does not spend too much time thinking about why she isn’t his girlfriend, he tells himself that it's because he values her too much as a friend, and he is too focused on his classes and hockey to have a girlfriend right now.
Shane gets up early the next morning and goes for a run. By the time he is back and hitting the gym, Dean, Cliff, and Ilya are there too.
“Hollander.” Dean puts a sweaty arm around his shoulders. “You’re back.” He squeezes at Shane’s shoulder muscle lightly and lets out a whistle. “And you’re even bigger than last year, Jesus… What did you do all summer? Lift boulders? Move mountains?”
“Hollander has very intense summer schedule with his mom.” Ilya says from the weight rack. He is not facing them but Shane can see him in the mirror. At least, he can see the way that the black vest Ilya is wearing is sticking to him already.
Shane shoves Dean off of him, though it is mostly playful. “We have a big year ahead of us.”
“Such dedication.” Dean tries to ruffle Shane’s hair but Shane manages to dip out of his reach on his way to the weights. Dean is a Junior now, and their new captain. Shane likes him, despite the fact that he parties all the time and there seems to be a never-ending stream of girls coming out of his room at all hours of the night and the early morning. It is usually just as Shane is getting up to go on his run that one of them is making her way out of his room. On three occasions Shane has been forced to have the worst small talk of his life - usually to answer the question of whether he thinks that Dean will call them. The real answer is almost always no.
“Thank god one of us is dedicated.” Shane grins as he stands next to Ilya. In the mirror, he sees Ilya roll his eyes. Ilya is curling two fifteens and so Shane picks up two twenties to curl them beside him. Shane is halfway through a set of fifteen reps when Ilya is switching out to two twenty-fives. Shane watches Ilya’s brows draw together in the mirror. His teeth are grit and his face and neck are flushing as he curls them next to Shane.
Shane decides to power through to twenty reps instead and he notes that Ilya matches him. The vein running up Ilya’s arm is more pronounced than ever and if Shane looked closer, which he absolutely is not, he would see the sweat beading along Ilya’s bicep and along his forearm.
“Pull up challenge then boys?” Cliff smacks his hands together from behind them and Shane is knocked out of the stupor that watching Ilya in the mirror had put him in. His arms are holding his weights lamely by his side. He puts them back down on the wrack.
Dean is already at the bar and Ilya joins their side to watch him pull eleven clean reps. The whistling starts when Cliff reaches ten but he doesn’t complete his eleventh.
“Fuck.” Cliff swears and puts his hands on his hips. “The bar is way more slippery than last time.”
Dean snorts and wiggles his eyebrows at Ilya and Shane. “Go on then. Eleven to beat.”
“I’ll go.” Ilya says and then he is brushing past Shane to get to the bar. Shane wants to accuse him of cheating this time because of the way Ilya causes his pulse to jump. Now his stamina will be impacted.
They all watch Ilya pull ten cleanly. Shane tries not to hold his breath. When Ilya pulls up for the eleventh, his vest top has ridden up, sticking to the sweat of his abs. Which Shane isn’t looking at either.
“Asshole.” Dean says when Ilya smirks at him to pull a clean twelfth rep before dropping his feet back down to the mat.
“Your turn, Hollander.” Ilya rolls his shoulders.
Shane takes a deep breath before he jumps to grip the bar. He tries not to focus on counting and instead focuses on getting his chin cleanly over.
Ilya is counting out loud, “Eight, nine…”
Dean and Cliff begin to whistle when Shane gets to ten. The muscles in his arms have begun to scream and Shane realises, with horror, that he isn’t going to get to eleven. He slams his teeth together and grunts as he tries to pull himself to the bar one more time. It doesn’t happen. It’s Ilya’s fault, because Shane wouldn't have gone for the twenties if Ilya hadn’t had the fifteens. He hits back down on the mat with a huff.
“You assholes made it all sweaty.” Shane says. Ilya is grinning so widely that Shane thinks his face might split in half with sheer joy.
Cliff claps. “You win, Rozanov.”
“We all have to have an extra shot of Rozanov’s choosing tomorrow night, as losers.” Dean says as he wipes his face with a towel.
Ilya is still just grinning at Shane. Shane glares at him and lifts his t-shirt up to wipe over his own face lightly. When he lowers it back down, Ilya isn’t grinning anymore.
“I look ridiculous.” Shane says as he looks in the mirror. Apparently the vampires in Twilight aren’t regular vampires. They sparkle. That is what Rose insisted to him anyway as she dabbed a clear shimmer over Shane’s cheeks, brow, and down the column of his throat. He has on suit trousers and a white shirt at least, because the vampires are also highschoolers and Rose had laughed when he produced a black cape.
“You’re kidding right? You look fucking hot.” Rose says from beside him. She is wearing a short blue prom dress and a medical walking boot. “Now they don’t technically have fangs but put these on anyway…”
Shane clicks one little fang on and then a second one. Whenever he moves, his skin glimmers and sparkles just subtly. He supposes in the low light of the party, he shouldn’t look too absurd.
Rose slips her arm into his and takes a few pictures of them in the mirror. “We look so good!”
Shane isn’t sure if good is the right word, but Rose seems happy and is already uploading the pictures to instagram. Shane can already hear music downstairs and he leaves Rose on the phone, giving directions to one of her friends who is joining them.
He opens the door to his bedroom and finds Ilya coming out of his room at the same time. He is wearing some jeans and a white, doctor’s coat that’s open to reveal his bare chest. The curls on his head have been slightly smoothed out and styled up into a small quiff. Ilya pauses when he sees Shane. His eyebrow raises and he lets out a small whistle.
“Look at you, Hollander. You are a vision.” Ilya says. Shane watches his eyes linger on the highlighter on his throat. He definitely thinks that Shane looks ridiculous.
“Shut up, it’s your stupid theme. What are you supposed to be?”
“I am the sexy dad Vampire.” Ilya says.
“Carlisle!” Deans yells from downstairs and Ilya clicks his fingers.
“Yes that one.” Ilya leans against the banister lightly. “I need some of your shimmer, I can use it to bring out my abs maybe.” He looks down at himself and flexes. Shane counts to ten in his head.
“Did he really spend the whole movie walking around as a doctor with no shirt on?” Shane says, and against all his better judgement there is a small smile spreading onto his lips.
Ilya smiles back at him. “Uh, yeah, in version I watched he did.”
“Gross.” Shane laughs and shakes his head. He can still hear Rose on the phone in his room.
Ilya takes a step toward him. The music downstairs is loud and the front door is open. From the sound of footsteps and people’s voices, it is already filling up downstairs. Shane wonders if Ilya can see his pulse picking up in his neck where he has closed some of the space between them.
“Maybe I don’t need shimmer, hm?” Ilya says. Shane hears every word despite the fact that Ilya has dropped his voice slightly. “Because we both know that you don’t need excuse to look at my abs.”
“Shut up.” Shane breathes out, his head whipping round to look behind him but they are still alone upstairs in the hallway. “We said that we weren’t going to talk about that-”
“Relax Hollander, I am not bringing up that night.” Ilya is enjoying himself, Shane can tell by the sparkle that is in his eyes as he looks at him. “I’m talking about yesterday when I beat you at pull up game.”
“You can’t say you’re not bringing up… that night, because that is literally bringing it up.” Shane’s palms are starting to feel sweaty. Still, he can’t bring himself to step backward. He almost hopes that someone will come upstairs and force them to break apart.
“You want to talk about it?” Ilya asks.
“No.”
There is a beat of silence between them. Ilya shrugs and turns back to his room. “Oh, I got you something.”
Shane feels like he has whiplash. Ilya has stepped out of his space and Shane nears stumbles forward a step, as if Ilya’s presence had been the last thing that was stopping his knees from buckling. He really needs to get a grip. Ilya returns from his room holding a small potted plant and hands it to Shane.
“To replace the one I apparently killed.” Ilya says. “I don’t know if it's the same one but it’s green, so…”
The plant hangs aloft in the air in Ilya’s hand for a few moments before Shane takes it. “Uh… thanks.” He says.
Ilya’s lips part like he is going to say something else but Dean is calling him from downstairs.
“Rozanov, get down here and help me glue some fur to Pike’s chest.”
Cliff’s laugh booms out from the kitchen and Shane hears a giggle too. Ilya moves past Shane and heads down stairs. “Pike went Team Jacob? Figures…” He says. His voice has gone back to normal and his footsteps recede downstairs until they are swallowed by the shouts and laughs of the others. Did Ilya just happen to see the plant or did he go out specifically to buy it? Shane isn’t sure he should care whether it was a pre-planned I’m sorry plant or not. He does, though. He thinks of Ilya deliberating over which one to get.
Shane finds himself standing in the hallway alone, holding a potted plant, overthinking, and dressed as Edward Cullen.