I don’t have a full fledged fic in me, but if you do please take it and run
“Is this Shane?”
The first thing he notices is the blinding light pouring in from the windows across the bedroom. Clearly he forgot to pull the curtains shut when finally stumbled home at 2 a.m. 3 a.m.? Was the sun out yet?
He doesn’t know.
The second thing he notices is the incessant pinging of the text tone on his phone.
He glances at the time, 8:45 a.m.
Jesus.
What could his friends possibly be so worked up over so early in the morning?
He swats at his nightstand and fumbles for his phone. Fully prepared to throw their aptly named “bros n hoes” group chat on Do Not Disturb.
But it’s not the group chat at all actually.
Well, a few messages are. There’s one from Wyatt around 4 a.m. making sure everyone made it home safe.
Ilya’d loved the message even though he doesn’t remember seeing it.
There are a few others of Troy looking for his wallet and Sveta complaining about the shitty vodka the bar had available.
The rest though, are all from unknown numbers.
Dozens of them. All some iteration of the same thing.
“Hey! This is so and so from the bar!”
Or
“Hey handsome ;) remember me?”
Which, no he doesn’t.
Or
“Last night was fun. Drinks again soon?”
Even a few that just say, “Hey.”
And Jesus how many people had he given his number to? How many had Sveta?
Doesn’t matter.
He knows he talked to so many people last night but not one stands out in his memory after the last.
About an hour before they’d planned to leave and about fifteen minutes after he’d ordered what was supposed to be his last drink he’d all but run into a sweet boy with sweeter freckles and a pretty pink blush that dusted the tops of his cheeks.
Every person he’d met, maybe even seen, the rest of the night faded into obscurity.
Shane.
Sweetheart.
Ilya’s never really been one for love at first sight. Lust maybe. Definitely, if he’s honest.
But if he were physically capable of having cartoon hearts for eyes Ilya’s sure he would be putting Cupid to shame.
He and Shane had talked for hours. Long after all his friends had left but somehow not long enough.
The boy was a sweetheart. A little shy. A lot smart. Ridiculously funny but so, so dry. Ilya could tell he wasn’t aiming for funny, he just was.
He could’ve spent the rest of his days right there on that barstool watching pretty brown eyes roll at his bad jokes, and pretty cheeks pink at his good ones.
When Shane had started yawning Ilya had first teased him for it. But after learning of Shane’s strict sleep schedule and just how far gone it was in the name of talking to him, Ilya tugged him by the wrist out the front door. Told him his pretty face needed beauty sleep. He’d given Shane his number, his own phone in desperate need of a charger, and hoped he’d hear from him by the time he’d made it to his own apartment.
Scrolling through the influx of messages he’d awoken to, it appears he has not.
Ilya’s heart sinks the tiniest bit. The thing is, he is a man on a mission.
He weeds out all of the numbers that included names. Doesn’t even bother to respond.
He sifts through the ones that are overtly flirty, sexy, hinting at any kind of innuendo. His Shane would never.
With the remaining eight or nine numbers with generic enough texts, he sends the same text.
“Is this Shane?”
He finally gathers the strength to get out of bed and go get some food. The Russian perk of no hangover does not also equal not wanting to eat his body weight in grease after a night out.
As he settles into the kitchen, picking through the groceries left in his fridge, the responses begin to roll in.
“No, this is Brooke.”
And
“Who?”
And
“Damn. No, but call me if you don’t hear from him.”
And even one that said,
“Would my chances be better if i said yes?”
He rolls his eyes and slides his phone across the countertop.
By the time he’s finished his breakfast and settled himself on the couch for what will surely be a moderate to okay lazy day, he’s resigned himself to the fact that maybe Shane wasn’t feeling him the way he thought. Maybe he chickened out. Maybe, after one too many vodka shots, Ilya’d given him the wrong number.
He’d given the right one to approximately forty other people though it would seem so he doubts it’s that.
Whatever the reason, Ilya is perfectly content to go back to the bar night after night in hopes of running into him again.
He’s scrolling through today’s top movies when he gets one last message. It’s from the last number that he still hadn’t heard from.
A response to his question of “Is this Shane?”
A simple, “Yes.”
And Ilya’s heart threatens to beat clear out of his chest.
Ilya, some indeterminate time in the future, chasing after their toddler whose instinct is to do a runner the moment everyone starts standing too long, thus perfecting the Hollander Goodbye early: wow…genetic
I feel like I've seen several posts about how good Shane is at poker and I firmly subscribe to that belief but here's what I find interesting. Playing poker against Shane is when Ilya realises that Shane actually isn't a bad liar. He's just bad at hiding his desire from Ilya. Actually, when playing against him he has no fucking tells. None at all. And Ilya knows him. He knows his face. He knows how to read him. He recognises every minute shift of his features. He has every microexpression catalogued. And yet. Shane. keeps. winning. Ilya tries everything, every trick in the book. He tries to distract Shane, tries to catch him off guard, tries to intimidate him but with every attempt the only the only thing he manages is to rile Shane up and so he's sitting across the table from him and the only thing Ilya can read in his expression is that he is definitely hard and desperately trying to cover that fact up and he really is horrible at hiding it but Ilya still doesn't know if he's fucking lying about his cards.
I’m really not convinced Shane Hollander, bottom of all time, will chafe in the slightest to having his husband be his captain. what’s that? you get to relinquish responsibility to your dominant partner & continue playing the game you love with the love of your life? that really does something for you? oh I’m sure.
that being said it’s a complete toss up whether experiencing his first Ilya Rozanov pre-game hype-up speech will imbue him with the adrenaline and physical strength of a mother lifting a car off her child or make him so horny he blacks out a little and has to put his head between his knees before getting on the ice. jury’s still out.
I'm actually not done talking about Shane playing Never Have I Ever. On several occasions one of the Centaurs says something Shane's never heard of before, and when he asks what it is Ilya shakes his head and says, "just drink."
