Chapter Text
It was the summer and Shane Hollander and Ilya rosanov were at Yuna and David’s cabin for dinner.
Yuna had made spaghetti for them and Shane was sticking to the side salad due to, if you ask Ilya, his stupid performance diet.
They sat down as David had finished serving everything up and passed Shane a ginger ale. This made Ilya smile at his stupidly amazing boyfriend’s random habits.
“ so Ilya, are you happy that that it’s summer?” Asked Yuna starting the conversation.
Ilya swallowed the giant spoonful of pasta. Ever since the first time Ilya met Shane’s folks and fell more in love with their pasta than Shane, Yuna and David made it a habit to make big batches of pasta whenever they where around and have it for dinner then give him the leftovers to take home.
“ mm yes definitely. I think the cottage is my favourite place.” He replies his accent heavy.
Shane smiles next to him, as it is also his favourite place, but less because of the location more because of the person who is there with him.
They continue the dinner conversation laughing and bantering around until the conversation took a turn.
“ oh Shane dear, do you remember Alex? From year 1?”
Shane’s face darkened as did Yuna and David’s while Yuna continues.
“ I saw in the news, he assaulted someone else. A woman this time. She was able to take him to court and now he’s in jail for ten years without bail.”
“ fuck finally! Though I do wish is was longer than ten for all the shit he’s done.”
Ilya sat there trying to make sense of the English and hoping he misunderstood what Yuna said. Praying.
“ wait. Assaulted someone else? Did he attack you?” Ilya asks, avoiding the meaning he really fucking hoped it wasn’t.
Shane looked away briefly.
“Wait Shane, have you not told Ilya?” Asks his dad.
“ um no not yet, it was just never really brought up yknow.” He says looking down.
Ilya worst fears are confirmed.
“ ok Shane I get the feeling you don’t want to talk about this right now and that is totally fine, but I just want to know. Does attacked mean like beaten up or… something else?” Ilya asks his heart pounding.
Shane doesn’t answer so Yuna does for him.
“ unfortunately it means something else.”
Ilya swore under his breath.
After a couple minutes of awkward silence and Shane deep breathing he tugged on Ilya shirt.
“ can we go home? I promise we’ll talk about it later just…”
Ilya felt so deeply horrible for his boyfriend as he nodded. “ yes yes of course, and you don’t ever have to tell me about it if you don’t want ok?”
David and Yuna smiled sadly at how sweeter boy their son had chosen.
“thank you for the delicious pasta, I’m sorry it got so awkward.” Says Ilya while helping Shane pack up.
“ no no it’s totally ok Ilya.” Says David as Yuna pulls him in for a hug. She whispers in his ear. “ this is going to be a hard conversation but I wouldn’t want it to be with anyone else.”
Ilya feels his eyes get watery.
He and Shane walk to the car.
“ Shane hun who do you want to drive?”
Shane ponders on this. Normally Shane drives due to his anxiety but right not he couldn’t realistically deal with it.
“ um you please.”
Ilya nods and helps Shane in to the passenger seat fully aware that Shane could do it himself.
They spend the short drive home in silence before heading inside to the cottage. Shane collapses on the coach worn out.
“ do you want a cup of tea?” Asks Ilya softly clear that the other man was overwhelmed.
Shane nods yes.
Ilya makes the tea for him and brings it over and they snuggle on the coach while Ilya turns on his favourite tv show.
After abiut an hour of this Shane appears to have regained his energy.
“ Ilya?”
He turns to look at his boyfriend.
“ I think I’m ready to talk about it now.”
Ilya turns the tv all the way down. “ are you sure? You don’t have to if your not comfortable…”
Shane smiles at how throughful Ilya is.
“ yeah I’m sure, I shouldn’t have waited this long to tell you. Do you want me to start from the start?”
“ yeah if that’s something you comfortable with” he replies.
Shane takes a deep breath.
“ so I was in year one, abiut five years old and my usual teacher hurts her leg so she takes a term off. We got this long term substitute who was
absolutely useless. There was this disruptive boy names Alex and I was a quiet well behaved kid so he sat Alex next to me.
It started out just really annoying behaviour like stealing my book, ripping it up, then it started being slapping my butt.
It began to escalate pretty fast after that…
He um squeezed my chest snd try to put his hands down my pant.
the worst thing he did was stick his fingers up my uh butt.
I told my parents cause thank god that they taught me what the proper anatomy was and that it’s bad For people to touch there, so they reported it to
the school. School did nothing useful. They actually put me and another kid he did all of it to ina room alone to ‘ work it out.’
My parents Brough a lawyer in and everything but in the end they did nothing, so I moved schools.
And he couldn’t be charged because he was u der the criminal age. “
Ilya listens quietly without interrupting.
“ fuck Shane come here.”
He wraps his boyfriend up in a hug.
Shane smiles into his shoulder.
“ thank you, um I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”
“ Ilya pulls Shane’s face away from his with a serious look.
“ no. Don’t you ever apologise for not talking to me about something that upsetting, I’m just glad you feel safe enough to talk to me about it now.”
Tears roll down Shane’s face as he smiles.
“ fuck I love you Ilya.”
“ I love you too. So so much. If it’s ok can I ask some questions?”
Shane nods.
“ have I ever done anything to make you feel uncomfortable?”
Shane’s mouth drops in shock.
“ Ilya no! Of course not. You have always asked if it’s ok and checked on me. Don’t ever worry I promise you haven’t.”
Ilya smiles sadly.
“ um is this part of the reason you have history with self harm?”
Shane nods smally.
“ yeah I guess it fucked me up a little back then. It’s kind of also the reason I um have the ‘ performance diet’…”
Ilya puts the pieces together in his head.
“ oh Shane my baby. I’m sorry. Is it like about control do you think?”
Shane nods. “ yeah. It’s like I couldn’t control what happened to me but I can control what happens to my body and how it looks. I know it’s fucked up snd I want to get better.”
“ that’s good, that’s really good and I’ll help you in whatever ways I can. Do you think you’ll wanna start seeing a therapist?”
“ um yeah I think that would be helpful.”
They snuggle on the couch and fall asleep nestled up together.
THE END
kudos and comments are appreciated