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It started slow, like most forms of addiction tend to.
Shane stood under the fluorescent lighting at the corner store, staring at the rows and rows of nicotine products behind the counter. The cashier looked bored as he tapped his jagged nails against the counter-top, waiting for Shane to make his selection.
Color rose to his cheeks, embarrassed at his lack of knowledge. He wet his lips and then pointed at the only pack he recognized. Marlboros, like he had always seen Ilya smoking. They would be the closest thing to kissing him, something he missed terribly, an ache settling permanently in his chest.
He left the store, clutching the carton to his chest, a fresh, new lighter stuffed in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t going to smoke them. No, he was just pathetic and desperate enough to light one, if only to remind himself of the way that Ilya smelled.
His resolution not to smoke didn’t last very long.
Shane rolled the unlit cigarette in his fingers, staring at the wall in front of them while Rose redressed. Another failed attempt at sex, unable to stay hard long enough to finish anything.
“You smoke?” She asked, curiosity in her voice.
“No.” Shane said, even as he lit the cigarette, bringing it to his lips. He was used to the acrid taste now, having held one in his mouth for so long, and kissed a man who tasted like nicotine for even longer.
“Mm, okay, but it kind of looks like you are to me.” Rose shrugged as she tugged her jeans on, buttoning them with a glance over her shoulder. “You okay?”
Shane blinked, looking up at her with a smile he carefully pasted on his face, taking his first drag off the cig. “Course. Just stressed. Y’know how it is.” She didn’t, not really, and never would. She would never know the pain of being unable to accept herself, accept that the one person she wanted to be with, would be someone that she could never have.
She looked unconvinced as she sat on the bed next to his still-naked form, setting her hand on his bare thigh. He flinched, looked away from her as she slowly withdrew the touch, concern twisting her features. “How long have you been smoking?”
His knee-jerk response would have been to respond to her question with one of his own--
‘How long have we been dating?’
That was cruel though, and not a response he could laugh away.
“Three months. Give or take.”
Rose nodded slowly, tracing his form with her eyes. The way he held himself, stiff and uncomfortable. The way that he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes, focusing on any point in the room besides her. “You should stop, Shane. Not good for you.” A memory flashed in his mind, where he had told Ilya that smoking was bad for him. He worked to keep his breathing steady at the unwelcome thought of the Russian man. “Can’t imagine the team isn’t giving you hell.”
A sharp look in her direction, unmasked anger flooding his gaze before being locked away, his eyes once again dull and lifeless. “They don’t know, so no, they aren’t giving me hell.” He took another long drag off of it, blowing the smoke in the direction away from her. “Don’t tell anyone, please.” He said, his voice softer, his anger receding. “They’d bitch if they knew and it’s been hard enough hiding the smell. I’ve gone through more cologne than I ever thought I’d need.” He sounded whiny, miserable, his true feelings starting to break down the walls he had so carefully constructed.
Another nod as Rose checked her phone, frowning as she realized the time. “Just, um, think about it okay? Why’d you even start?”
The question flustered him, bringing thoughts to the surface that he wished would just stay buried. “Stress. Thought it would help.”
“Does it?”
The corners of his lips pulled down as he searched for a spot to put the cigarette out on. Fuckin’ ill-equipped hotel rooms. He settled for dropping it in the half-full bottle of water on the nightstand next to him.
Does it? Does it? Does it?
It would never help the unsteady thump of his heart, or the way that he longed for a man who only wanted his body, and it would never help him move on, not when the smell relaxed him and the taste reminded him and the feeling of his lips wrapped around something grounded him.
“A little bit, I guess. I do love a good ritual.” His voice was flat, monotonous enough that it left no room for further questioning.
“Right.. Well, I have to go. Love you,” She whispered, kissing the side of his face, leaving behind traces of her sticky, fruit-scented lipgloss.
He sat there, alone in the hotel bed for the better part of an hour before he finally mustered up the courage to leave the safety of the room.
Fuck.
2.
Six months down the drain. Six months of hands that shook when he went too long without a lighter in his hand. Six months of anxiety that swelled dangerously when a pack of cigarettes didn’t weigh heavy in his pockets. Six months of sideways glances from Hayden, ones that finally came to a head at the Pike’s dinner table.
The clink of forks against porcelain made Shane feel twitchy, like the sound was reverberating inside of his skull. His jacket had been hung by the front door, his cigarettes and lighter safely tucked in one of the pockets. He felt naked without them in reach. His stomach rolled, nausea rising as he speared a piece of broccoli with his fork, bringing it to his lips. He chewed it slowly, mechanically, and managed to swallow just as Hayden cleared his throat, sharing one of those looks that all married couples seemed to have perfected.
“What?” He asked, his eyes wide, reminiscent of a caged animal’s.
“Buddy..” Hayden looked to Jackie again, for help, but she only looked down at her plate, busying herself with her own food. “We’ve noticed,” He started, going to great lengths to speak carefully. “That you’ve been.. Not really taking care of yourself.”
Shane blinked, pointedly looking at the quarter of his food that was missing off the plate. Hayden sighed, taking a gulp of his beer before setting the bottle back down with more force than necessary.
“Do you think we don’t notice? When you get all fidgety and nervous, then duck out of practice to smoke like a fuckin’ chimney? Sorry babe, I know, swear jar.” Hayden’s voice thinned as his patience withered at Shane’s clear avoidance. He was tired of seeing their coach tiptoe around it, and their teammates tiptoe around their Captain clearly needing-- Something.
Shane blew out a breath, his cheeks puffing out as he pushed his plate forward, his appetite long gone. “Plenty of people smoke.”
“Oh yeah? Like who?”
One person came to mind immediately but Shane somehow doubted that mentioning Ilya would ease the palpable tension in the room. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to think of someone.
“Tom Cruise?”
“Tom fucking Cruise, no, godammit, not now Jackie.” Hayden’s words were flat despite the spark in his eyes, a spark that looked a lot like rage to Shane.
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I smoke, who gives a f--” Jackie slapped her hands on the table, the noise loud enough to cut Shane off. “Who cares.”
“I care, Shane. Jackie cares. Rose cares. I’m sure your parents would too, if they knew. Coach would care. The team’s doc would care. Why don’t you?”
“Because it helps me. It makes the world slow down. Like I exist in it, instead of just.. Floating by.” It was a confession, one that tasted like ash on his tongue. His leg bounced under the table until he couldn’t take it anymore. He pushed away from the table, his chair scraping the floor, loud enough to make Hayden jump.
“Hey, Shane, wait,” Hayden said, standing up as well, reaching out for his friend.
Shane brushed past him, avoided his outstretched hand, and grabbed his jacket, his eyes downcast as he fumbled to put it on. “Thanks for dinner, Jackie, sorry to leave you with dishes to do, I just, I can’t stay here, not right now.” His words were rushed, apologetic even as he headed out their front door, shutting it as quietly as could manage.
He lit the cigarette before he even started his car.
3.
Theriault cleared his throat, an uncomfortable, pinched look on his face as he stared at the man before him. “Shane, if I may speak freely..”
Shane’s head dropped in a nod, his eyes just beginning to unfocus. He was tired and cranky, and they were coming off a loss that had wound him up too tightly for anything other than crawling into bed to matter. “Sure.” He said, short-tempered and sharp-tongued.
“As Captain, you’re meant to lead the team. In their wins, in their losses. Whatever.. This..” He gestured with his hand, waving it up and down as if Shane could somehow fill in the blanks. He couldn’t, not when his mind was fuzzy and blank with want, color leeching from the world, his vision as dull grey as his thoughts. “Whatever is going on, it can’t continue.” He sighed, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “If it continues, we’ll have to have this talk again, and we’ll have to consider whether or not to take the ‘c’.”
Shane looked up at that, eyes narrowed and full of hurt that he hated showing. “What?” He asked, his voice reedy and shot from nerves. “You-- You wouldn’t really, right? I’ve.. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for is.. Is for this.”
Theriault suddenly looked his age, fine lines at the corner of his mouth and crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes. He sighed, wearily, and placed both of his hands flat on top of his desk. “I don’t want to, Shane, but for fuck’s sake. Get it together. Whatever is going on in your personal life, leave it outside the rink. The other guys are depending on you to lead, not crash and burn because of, because of what?”
Shane froze, the weight of his worsening addiction settling foul and hot and desperate in the wide pit of his stomach. Instead of admitting that, the secret that he held not-so close to his chest anymore, he blurted the first excuse, the first not-quite lie that came to mind. “Relationship stuff.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them, his shoulders slumping forward.
“Thought that Rose Landry stuff was over with.”
Shane cringed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, doing his best to hide the way that his fingers shook, nicotine cravings setting in despite having smoked two that morning. “Not her. Someone else. Really, um, she’s just some girl. It’s long distance and..” his eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Difficult.”
Theriault nodded, sympathy showing on his weathered face for the first time that day. “It’s tough, finding a good woman when you’re dragged all over the fuckin’ world.” He tapped his hand on the desk again, the sound dismissive in nature. “Keep your chin up. You’ll find the right girl for you. Or,” he laughed, as if the whole thing was some big joke and not one of the worst times in Shane’s life, “You’ll get one pregnant and then you’ll be stuck with each other either way.”
Shane forced a laugh, his lips thin as he stood, letting his coach walk him to the door. When he was an acceptable distance down the hall, he quickened his pace, rolling and flipping the lighter in his pocket. He hated what he had done to himself, but fuck if it didn’t feel good.
4.
Canada’s Shane Hollander, a one time slip or a bad habit in the making?
ESPN
Ilya stared at the article’s title, frowning at it as if it had done something to personally offend him. He glanced up from his phone screen, made sure no one was watching, and then looked back down, bringing his necklace up to his mouth to chew the cross that hung from it.
There was a picture of Shane, leaned against a brick wall, a cigarette stuck between his pretty, full pink lips. Ilya rubbed his eyes, holding his phone closer to his face as if that would change what he was seeing. His Shane-- No, not his. The Shane he thought he knew would never have smoked. He could hear his boring voice in his head, giving him a boring lecture about how smoking is bad for you, Ilya, you’re going to get cancer, Ilya. As if Ilya cared about doing things that were bad for him.
He scrolled, sitting up straighter as he saw more photos, different angles that confirmed that yes, this was the Shane he knew. His long, straight nose, his cheeks pink from the cold, freckled in the way that Ilya had become obsessed with.
He gnawed on the cross until his jaw ached, and when it did, he spit the charm out, running his thumb over it instead. He exited the page out and then made another search, and another, and another until his browser history was filled with Shane Hollander, like it had been all those years ago.
Shane hollander smoking
Shane hollader hollander article
Montreal voyageurs
When his eyes became blurry from reading pages full of English and his heart had disappeared somewhere in the cavity of his chest, he turned his phone off, shoving it into his pocket. His fingers brushed his own crumpled cigarette carton and he suddenly felt like the world’s biggest asshole for not reaching out to Shane sooner after his breakup went public.
But we aren’t friends, Ilya reasoned with himself. We are nothing.
5.
Shane’s head thumped against his parent’s dining room table. His mother was disappointed. His father was disappointed.
Yuna had instructed him to change clothes the minute he had stepped through their front door, a garbage bag outstretched, like his clothing was a biohazard or something. It sat, tied on the front porch, but still, it wasn’t good enough for them.
“You should shower before we have this conversation. You smell like smoke.”
“Yeah, well, I smoke. I guess I’m going to smell like it.” His voice was muffled against the table, his head jerking up when Yuna nudged him under the table. Her eyes were narrowed but the sheen of tears softened her expression, making something inside of him break at the sight.
“What’s going on, Shane?” Yuna reached out for his hand, clasping his fingers in her own. “Talk to us, sweetie. You know you can tell us anything. This just.. This just isn’t like you.”
“What isn’t like me?” Shane let his mom take his hand, let it soothe the terrified, lost part of himself. He didn’t want to know the answer to his question but he needed to know the answer, needed it like he needed to remind himself to breathe through the pain of existence.
“Smoking, missing easy goals, wandering around like a, like a..” Yuna paused, trying to think of the most accurate comparison she could.
“A zombie?” David offered, setting his newspaper down in front of himself.
“Thanks, dad.” Shane sighed, mortified to find that his eyes were filled with tears. “I’m just having trouble, okay?”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?” Yuna this time, her eyes widening as she leaned closer, her grip tightening.
“Just hung up on something.”
“Hung up on what?”
His throat tightened, the grief he had carried threatening to spill past his clenched teeth. He looked at his mom first, then his dad, and then back to the table, the first of many tears spilling onto his cheek. “Him,” He whispered, voice cracking despite the low volume he spoke at. “Always him. Always been him, and I’ve,” A choked, shuddering breath, then a watery smile. “I’ve chased the way he smells and--” He cut himself off before he said tastes, because that somehow felt wrong to add, despite this being a confession of the worst kind. “I’ve chased everything about him, and he smokes, and it’s like everything is grey and empty without it now.”
“Him?” David asked, glancing at Yuna, who was frozen, rooted in place as a million different tangible thoughts flashed across her face. She had always been an open book, so unlike their son.
“Him,” Shane said, voice soft, hardly louder than the hum of their refrigerator.
“And who is this ‘him’?” When Shane looked at his mom, understanding passed between them, sharp and honest and open. Her lips formed an ‘o’ as she removed her hand from Shane, using it to nervously comb through her hair.
David cleared his throat. “Well, since I’m not a mind reader…”
Shane’s laugh was hoarse, but it was something other than the sadness that had consumed him for the better part of a year. “Ilya.”
“Ilya, like Ilya Rozanov? The guy we hate?”
And this time, the laugh was more of a sob.
“I don’t hate him, I don’t know what, what I feel for him, but it’s not that.”
As Shane gasped, and sobbed, and cried away the better part of the evening, his parents sat, steady and gentle and held him until he calmed, shouldering his pain in the only way they knew how-- By listening, and loving him no matter what.
+1.
Shane leaned against the brick wall of the building, stamping the butt of his cigarette out onto the ground, immediately shaking another out of the pack. They had won, running the Bears into the ground in a 3-1 game.
Victory had never tasted so sour.
The dark circles under his eyes had become a permanent fixture, visions of blond curls and hazel eyes filling his mind every time he tried to sleep.
The clear of a throat made him jump, knocking the back of his head against the wall. The discomfort was jarring, but helped to ground him in the presence of none other than Ilya, who was staring at him with a funny, tender look in his eyes.
“Not sure you are allowed to smoke here.”
Shane made a show of looking around before raising his eyebrows, raising his new cigarette to his mouth. “Who’s going to stop me? You?”
Ilya took another step closer, shivering at a particularly rough gust of wind. “Hopefully, yes. Is actually my goal, since I made none on ice.”
The ghost of a smile passed over Shane’s face, a victory in Ilya’s opinion.
“Why?”
“Ah.. Smoking is bad for you?”
Shane shook his head, the light leaving his eyes once again. Ilya leaned against the wall next to him, close enough that he could shift his foot closer, tap the toes of their shoes together like they had so many times before. The gesture, as simple as it was, felt like it was theirs. Had been, at least.
“I try again.” Ilya hummed, then turned his pockets inside out, nodding at them to get Shane’s attention.
“You can have one of mine, if you want?”
Ilya growled something under his breath, the words too sharp and guttural to be English, before pressing his palm to his forehead, frustration growing by the minute. “I do not want yours. I do not do this anymore. Smoke. Every time I try, I have this boring voice in my head. It tells me, Rozanov, is bad for you, this smoking. It tells me Ilya, I will be so angry if you die from these cancers that America cannot cure.”
The cigarette in Shane’s hand, half-smoked and still lit hit the ground, the heel of Shane’s tennis shoe coming down to crush it. “You don’t smoke anymore?”
“No. Have not, in some months. Is nasty habit, one I replace with the gum, which is,” Ilya’s mouth twisted to the side, shuddering at the thought of the foul taste of nicotine gum. “Is bad, you will probably need until cravings go away. But it helps. Am almost done with it, I think. Keeps mouth busy, which is perk.”
“Fuck off,” Shane muttered, though there was no venom or real anger behind it.
“Hey,” Ilya nudged Shane’s foot again, guilt cresting in a wave that threatened to drown him. “I am sorry, okay? Made mistake, using name. Did not know you were so scared to hear it in my accent.” His attempt at levity fell so flat that he immediately regretted it, wishing he could take the words back.
Shane’s eyes were dark, almost what Ilya would call haunted, and then--
A sniffle, and Shane was throwing himself against Ilya’s chest, his dark hair tickling Ilya’s nose.
“Hollander, we are in public,” Ilya started to step back, disentangle himself from Shane’s surprisingly firm grip, only relaxing at the furious shake of Shane’s head.
“Don’t care, Ilya, I missed you, fuck, I missed you so much. Let people talk. Let them say what they want. I don’t care anymore, I can’t, I can’t live my life without you again.”
“Hey, is okay. Is okay, Shane. We do not have to.. Spend life apart.” Ilya swallowed heavily, his throat bobbing with the motion as he moved to hold Shane at arms length, studying his tear-streaked face.
Shane’s eyes, shiny and wet, full of emotions that Ilya couldn’t put names to, searched his, and when he was satisfied with what he found, he picked the discarded cigarette butts off the ground and walked to the nearby trashcan. Shane dropped them into the trash, his lighter following, and then the pack itself.
He gripped the edge of the trash to study himself, grimacing at the feel of cold metal against his hands.
“Is good first step. Will be hard, but.. You are strong, Shane. Can survive anything.”
Shane didn’t feel strong. He felt weak, weak enough that his legs wobbled and his vision blurred, and then Ilya’s hand was on his back, comforting and warm.
And when Shane had calmed down enough to talk, they did for close to an hour, the fear of being found outweighed by the joy of each other’s company.
And when they kissed, Shane realized that Ilya had been telling the truth-- He didn’t taste like cigarettes at all. He tasted like home.