Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shane Hollander was, technically, studying.

In practice, he had spent the last ten minutes staring at the same paragraph of Cognitive Behavioral Theory, rereading the same explanation about cognitive distortions until the words completely lost their meaning.

The cursor blinked in the corner of the screen, constant, irritating, like it was judging every life decision that had led him there.

Catastrophizing.
Mind reading.
All-or-nothing thinking.

He knew how to define all of them, he could give clinical examples, he could even recognize - with almost offensive clarity - that he was actively engaging in at least two of them at that exact moment.

Because, in his head, if he didn’t understand that today, he was going to fail tomorrow’s exam.

And if he failed, that would obviously trigger a perfectly logical chain of catastrophic events that would end with him failing at absolutely everything in life.

Totally rational, very scientific, peer-reviewed, probably.

Shane let out a short sigh, dragging his hands over his face, and turned his head toward his phone next to the laptop.

The screen lit up automatically.

Hayden
you alive or dead?

A small breath of laughter slipped out through his nose. He typed quickly, one-handed.

alive.
barely.
going to get coffee and I’ll be bacc 
you can start the call

The reply came almost immediately.

Hayden
ok.
if you don’t come back in 5 minutes
I’m assuming you dropped out

tempting

Shane dropped the phone on the desk, pushed his chair back, and stood up, running a hand through his hair in a half-hearted attempt at looking functional.

He was wearing the bare minimum required to exist inside his own apartment: glasses, socks, boxers, and one of Ilya’s oversized training shirts, hanging off his shoulders in a way that was too loose, too comfortable.

He couldn’t even remember when he’d started using it as sleepwear.

Probably sometime after Ilya had said he looked downright edible in it.

He looked back at the screen and immediately regretted it.

Right, coffee.

He left the room on autopilot, crossing the hallway toward the kitchen.

Shane opened the cabinet without thinking, grabbed a random mug - probably clean, he chose to believe - and set it under the coffee maker with the ease of someone who had done that a thousand times.

He pressed the button and waited.

Nothing happened.

Shane stared at the machine for a second, like he might have missed something obvious, then pressed it again, harder this time, as if that would somehow convince it to cooperate.

It didn’t.

He watched it for another beat, half-expecting it to sputter back to life out of sheer stubbornness.

It didn’t.

He considered, for one full second, dropping out of college.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered, already irritated.

He turned it off, turned it back on, and tried again.

The machine remained completely silent.

Shane let out a breath through his nose, slow and sharp.

He grabbed his phone from the counter and typed quickly.

coffee machine died

Hayden
so did your GPA

shut up

Shane rolled his eyes and headed out of the kitchen, turning into the hallway. He’d seen Ilya in the office not too long ago; he was probably still there.

If anyone was going to fix this - or at least take the blame for it - it was him.

“Ilya,” he grumbled, pushing the door open with his foot, not even really looking. “The coffee maker broke again and I feel like this is your fault. I have a test tomorrow, I can’t do this without caffeine.”

No response.

“Ilya?”

It was only when he looked up that something felt… off.

Shane noticed three things, almost all at once:

Ilya wasn’t moving, just sitting there too still, staring straight at him;

The small green light next to the webcam was on;

And the chat on the screen was flying.

It took a full second for it to click.

Shane looked down at himself and then back at him.

“Fuck! Are you-”

Ilya’s gaze dropped before he could stop it, quick but unmistakable, tracking down Shane’s bare legs, the hem of the shirt, the way it sat on his body like it belonged there.

And when his eyes snapped back up, something in his expression had tightened - sharp, controlled, not just shock.

“Don’t,” he said, low, like it was both a warning and a reflex, too late to matter.

Then he closed his eyes.
That was enough.

Shane turned immediately, not thinking, a hand dragging over his face as he was already stepping out of frame.

“No,” he said, already moving too fast. “No, no, no.”

Behind him, Ilya moved, fast and precise, reaching for the laptop like he could physically block the view, like that would be enough to undo the last few seconds.

Shane didn’t stay long enough to see if it worked.

He crossed the doorway in two steps and disappeared from the room like moving fast enough might undo what had just happened.

And in less than ten seconds, it wasn’t just their problem anymore.