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Again.
Shane fails to land the last of the fouettés. His balance goes off kilter as he stumbles, feet landing less than graciously; echoing with a series of thuds on the floor. He lets out a frustrated groan as he lifts his arms once more, making sure that his arms and elbows are raised at the correct angle.
He walks over to where he’s placed his phone on the black folding chair that’s leaning against the mirror. Shane purses his lips tightly, brow furrowed in concentration as he swipes his finger back to the specific segment of Tchaikovsky’s pas de deux coda that he so desperately wants to perfect and land.
He draws in a long, sharp exhale as he meets the gaze of his reflection in the mirror in front of him. Shane begins the series of fouettés once more — he’s counted every single beat, memorized the rhythm enough to know when exactly he must start.
This time, though, his left foot does not land where he’s wanted it to land, and that mistake produces a most disastrous result. A most humiliating mistake for a dancer of his caliber.
He spins out of his line, and he falls.
And the moment he feels the terrible twisting motion in the side of his foot, is exactly when he knows he’s utterly fucked.
“Fuck, fucking hell,” Shane winces. He’s completely on the ground now, clutching his left foot close as he examines it. He can’t afford an injury now. Not when they’re about to dive straight into actual rehearsals.
Again.
He can hear the echo of his childhood teacher’s voice, cold and stern. She would not have stood for such an error. Shane tries to push himself to rise, but the strain is almost too excruciating.
The pain also fulfills its task of occupying him sufficiently, because he doesn’t even catch the sound of the door to the studio creaking open.
“Hollander—" a reverbing, stern voice cuts over the music, still frenetically and continuously going on in the background.
Shane is still occupied with examining his ankle, but the moment he senses another person in his space, his gaze shoots upward.
“Rozanov,” he lets out a cynical, dry laugh. “Have you come to gloat over my misery?”
Contrary to what Shane had imagined, however, Ilya Rozanov does not wear his usual gloating smirk, which seemed to be what he defaulted to whenever he was within proximity of Shane.
“Are you hurt?” Ilya’s voice lowers into a murmur, laced with something that, to Shane, sounds an awful lot like concern. Part of him, however, doubts that Ilya would be capable of such a feeling.
“No,” Shane manages through gritted teeth, though he still has a hand wrapped around his ankle.
“Let me see,” Ilya’s voice takes on a more severe, sharper tone of warning.
Shane has always had an obstinate edge to his personality, and it rears its head especially when Ilya was around. Ilya had arrived six weeks ago, and together with Shane they would be the leads in an acclaimed modern work Ember and Ice, a tribute to Tchaikovsky’s most renowned works — marketed as a fusion of Swan Lake and the Nutcracker.
Shane retracts his hand, but the motion of pulling back his foot sends another wave of pain up his leg.
“Fuck,” he curses under his breath. There was no way he could hide this from Ilya, as much as he wanted to. Ilya was supposed to be his rival in all aspects. They were only a year apart, and Ilya had broken records as one of the Bolshoi’s youngest ever to make principal.
And he’d played Prince Siegfried twice, to Shane’s chagrin. Every time they had a morning class or practice together, each time Shane watched Ilya glide across the studio floor with pristine, almost perfect movements, to Shane it’d served as a harsh reminder that he hadn’t been working hard enough. That he had yet to truly prove himself worthy of being on the world stage, doing the very thing he’d devoted himself to since he was but a child.
“You’re hurt,” Ilya remarks simply, and his voice is soft, so very soft.
“So? This happens to us all the fucking time. I’ll just—”
“I saw you go down, Hollander,” Ilya spits. “That was no simple fall. You need ice. Now.”
Shane knows it’s not the first time Ilya has seen him. Watched him, even. They’ve spent sufficient hours in rehearsals, surrounded by nothing but walls covered in mirrors. It would be a far more difficult task to actively avoid meeting each other’s gazes.
Shane glares at Ilya, eyes narrowed in warning. “I said I’m fine, Rozanov.”
“If that—” he jabs his thumb in the direction of Shane’s injured ankle, “is not dealt with, there will be no way you can do rehearsal in a week. Ember and Ice will not be a thing. Say goodbye to lead role.”
“Fuck off,” Shane snaps. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
“Well,” Ilya says as he rises to his feet with a firm shrug, “I’m offering it to you. Because your stubbornness will cost the production, and will cost both of us. Wait here and don’t move that ankle.”
As Ilya pushes the door open, disappearing in search of an ice pack, Shane feels his cheeks redden. There was something about Ilya’s tone, the sureness, the authority of it all—that he wasn’t so sure how to feel about.
Shane glances up at his reflection in the mirror, looking at the sight of himself rendered unable to move, stuck to the floor. He stares at his injured foot, before he slips off his ballet shoe, pushing it to the side. Sure enough, the flesh was beginning to swell, his skin reddening from the strain.
Shane is still carefully massaging the swollen area when the door opens once more. He expects someone else, maybe Hayden, or perhaps one of their instructors, even.
But it’s just Ilya, and he’s been true to his word, a single ice pack held tightly in one hand. He makes his way toward Shane, nothing but pure focus in his eyes. He bends down to kneel beside Shane, before gently pressing the ice pack to the swollen area of his foot.
Shane winces as the cold fabric brushes against his skin. Ilya mutters something in Russian, the word sounding far gentler than anything else Shane has heard Ilya say in his mother tongue.
“Relax,” Ilya says, adjusting the ice pack to press to another part of the swell. “It will get better.”
Shane snorts, not saying anything else.
“Move up a little bit,” Ilya instructs, and Shane shifts his sitting position on the ground so that his knees are now closer to his chest. But in that process, he is now closer in proximity to Ilya’s face.
Shane watches Ilya handle the ice pack with laser focus, not at all different from his usual demeanor when they had class and practices together with the rest of the company.
Ilya glances upward after a while. “Better?” he asks.
Why is he so gentle? Shane wonders, and Ilya is now leaning in closer, and closer, until —
Soft. How very soft everything feels.
Shane feels only softness on his mouth, eyelids fluttering shut as Ilya leans in, pressing his lips against Shane’s. It’s gentle at first, tentative. As though neither of them have done this with anyone else. But soon, the chasteness of it all begins to fade away, Ilya’s kisses growing hungrier and more desperate, like a man discovering an oasis after weeks of thirst.
Lost in the feeling, Shane pushes back against him, making a low noise in his throat as Ilya continues to take, and take. Before long, Shane feels himself angling himself backward, with Ilya leaning over him, hands wandering from where he had his fingers curled in Shane’s hair, gliding down to wander, to traverse, to feel the curve of Shane’s muscles, taut from years of discipline and dancing.
“Fuck, Hollander,” Ilya gasps against Shane’s lips. “You’re so—”
Their bodies, now flush against each other, move at first in an uneven rhythm, until Ilya starts to grind his hips against Shane’s. Shane groans into Ilya’s mouth, Ilya continuing to roll his hips mercilessly.
“S-shit, Rozanov, I— oh, fuck—”
Ilya bends his neck, lips and teeth grazing against the bare skin of Shane’s neck, lightly nipping at the spot just above his clavicle. Shane tilts his head to the side, his breathing growing unsteady.
“D-do you want—” Ilya murmurs, face pressed to his neck.
“Yes—please, more—” Shane’s voice comes out sounding strangled.
It all feels so much, but it does not feel enough.
Shane loses himself in the want, as Ilya moves against him. He feels a tautness in the pit of his belly, a pleasant tremor spreading through his body.
Close, so close—
But in that moment Shane recalls something, and as though someone has doused his entire body with ice cold water, Shane jolts up, shoving Ilya backward.
Ilya, barely managing to recapture his balance, stares back at him. Fuck, he looks a mess, but a vision all at once. Shane doesn’t even know if he wants to commit the image to memory, or douse it forever in flames.
Fuck, he thinks, beginning to catastrophize. What have I—we just done?
“Shane,” Ilya whispers, and fuck, Rozanov — Ilya’s called him by his name.
Shane slightly parts his lips, and he knows he must look utterly wrecked too. Ilya’s handiwork.
“I—we—we can’t—” he stutters, shaking his head. He can feel the droplets of sweat dripping down the sides of his head.
“Shane,” Ilya whispers, and it both sounds like a plea and an order, the way Ilya speaks his name.
“Tell me you don’t want this, and I will leave this room,” Ilya shifts close, clutching both of Shane’s hands.
Shane stares around the room, looking at everywhere else, a wave of anxiety coursing around him.
“I—I don’t know—” Shane stutters, and Ilya’s frantic gaze softens immediately, as he gently brushes his fingers over Shane’s knuckles.
“It’s alright. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“I didn’t dislike it,” Shane cuts in quickly, despite the lump in his throat.
Ilya leans in again to kiss him, this time far gentler and restrained than before. “Find me tonight. In my room.” Ilya pulls back, before pressing a kiss to Shane’s cheek, just over his freckles. “Come find me. I’ll wait for you.”
Fuck, what have I gotten myself into, Shane thinks, but his words escape him first.
“Okay,” Shane breathes out. He doesn’t know what will come of this, what will become of the both of them.
But when Ilya leans in to kiss him again, the noise in Shane’s mind fades into soft murmurs, time coming to a still.
He’ll take the leap into the abyss.