Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types, Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Suicidal Thoughts, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Attempt at Humor, Roadtrip, Romance, Post-Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Romantic Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Pets, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Happy Ending, Depression

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-17 Updated: 2026-10-01 Words: 11,570 Chapters: 2/?

Miles to go before I sleep

Summary

On February 17, Ilya goes through with his plan to break up with Shane.

On April 18, the MLH announces an expansion team in Arizona.

On June 21, the Phoenix Coyotes draft both Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, who were left unprotected by their teams.

On Monday, Ilya decides he doesn't want to live anymore.

On Thursday, Shane asks if he wants to drive to Phoenix with him.

Huh.

—

This is a love story.

Notes

Context: 2017 — Shane doesn't get hit by Marleau, and Ilya breaks up with Shane as planned.

STOP. LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME HERE
!!Content Warning!!: This chapter in particular will feature a scene in which a character almost goes through with a suicide attempt. It really is not as bad as you would think, since the character is processing this with a lot of blank emotions and humor, but it is still what happens

To repeat. TW: Explicit discussion of suicide.

As a note on this fic overall: This is mostly going to be fluff. I know it's kind of hard to believe based on the premise, but it's true. Ilya and Shane will both be working on their separate issues, so it might end up a little character study-y, and I'm sure there will be many emotional parts, but it will mostly just be them traveling together.

This fic is my love letter to long car rides and, to some extent, the American West.

Fundamentally, this is a road trip fic.

So hop in and buckle up if you so choose. And I hope you enjoy the ride <3

Chapter 1: Montreal to Boston (306 miles)

Chapter Notes

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost

* * * * *

Ilya had decided to end things.

Shane could remember the moment that Ilya had stood across from him and told him he didn’t want to see him anymore. It had been after Ilya had returned from Russia after burying his father, but before Shane had truly realized that Ilya had come back with the intention of burying everything between them as well.

Shane often felt like his memories of Ilya all blurred together, obscured by the dim lights of the hotel rooms they occurred in and a haze of pleasure, so it was almost funny how well he could picture every detail of that night—the one where Ilya came to his apartment after the game, using the code Shane had given him mere hours earlier. He knew what Ilya had been wearing—a dark blue sweatshirt and black sweatpants that hid the body that Ilya was usually so fond of displaying. He could remember that Ilya had forgotten to put on cologne after the game, so the lingering musk he left behind was all his own. Shane could see Ilya’s curls, still wet from the locker room shower, letting one drop of water fall onto his cheek. In the moment, Shane had pretended it was a tear so that he could imagine they were both crying. That they were both falling apart.

But what Shane remembered most was the stony expression Ilya did not let fall, as if he had walked out the door to Shane’s apartment long before his body actually did. Shane had heard all the words Ilya threw at him, each one landing harshly against his chest and making it harder to breathe. Words like “I do not think we should see each other again” and “It was fun while it lasted.”

He thought of this version of Ilya as he headed south on I-89 through Vermont. The version that hadn’t even really been there when he had broken Shane’s heart. 

On the seat next to him, a black cat sat, calmly looking out the passenger window with an austere expression. Shane glanced over at the cat, rolling his eyes as she leaned closer to the window. It was just trees and more trees. And more trees. On roads like this, it was really hard to take all of the environmentalists seriously when they talked about forest conservation. Shane kind of wanted to pull over and chop down a tree himself, just to prove that he could. Just to make even a small impression on the vast woods around him. As Puck turned away from the window back to her own paw, which she licked vigorously, Shane thought she probably agreed with him.

He had bought her from a shelter a week ago when he had been feeling a bit spontaneous. It was quite out of character for him, or at least that was what his mom said. And Dad. And Hayden. And probably also what his neighbors thought when they saw him trying to wrangle her back inside his apartment after her third escape attempt, cussing her out as he went. 

But what did they know? He wasn’t even sure he knew what normal behavior looked like anymore, at least for him. His whole life had changed in a matter of minutes with a few phone calls, a signature, and an infographic made on Canva. Shane wondered if Canva truly understood how many careers it had fundamentally altered with what seemed like only three different templates. 

Shane Hollander. Phoenix Coyote. No longer a Montreal Metro. In the theme “green and red modern geometric.”

And now he was in a car in the US, headed West like all of those frontiersmen and cowboys in the movies. Who knows. Maybe there would be some gold at the end of the journey. He wasn’t sure exactly what there was to look forward to in Phoenix except the inescapable heat, a city that didn’t care about hockey, and a prospective teammate who he wasn’t sure cared a lot about him. Or maybe he cared too much. It still wasn’t quite clear to Shane.

He thought about Ilya standing in front of him in his Montreal apartment, telling him it was over. He thought about the sweatshirt that looked an awful lot like Shane’s but in a slightly different shade—a little bluer. He thought about the color-coordinated spreadsheets he and his mom had made for moving and all of the to-do lists that would be a lot more urgent by the time he actually reached Arizona. 

He thought about being spontaneous.

He reached forward, tapping the phone propped up on his dashboard attachment, which was currently displaying directions, exiting the current route and typing in an address he had embarrassingly memorized years ago just in case he ever got lost.

He was surprised when the directions didn’t change. He must have put in the wrong address in the first place. He had just gone to his most recently searched route and clicked what he assumed was the one he and his mom had mapped out the night before, thoughtfully planning each stop and the most efficient path. He had forgotten that, even later that same night and with distinctly less thought, he had stared at a different route, one that would take him about five hours to drive.

And so he pushed onward, Puck yawning beside him. Shane reached over to pet her, but Puck glared at him, so Shane shifted directions, setting his hand on the center console and trying not to think too hard about the road ahead.

* * * * *

Ilya had decided to end things.

It wasn’t a dramatic decision. It was just one of those things. He had spent the last few months rotting in his bed between games, barely able to go to practice (and eventually not going to practice at all), and he realized he might as well rot in the ground instead. He kept imagining his body atrophying, withering away and leaking into the crevices of his mattress until it was hard to tell one from the other. Although, as he rolled over, his legs tangling in his blue bedsheets, his similarly blue hoodie over his head, he thought it might already be hard to tell.

There was just nothing there anymore. No one lying in his bed and no one wearing his clothes. His feet didn’t fill his shoes, and his voice could barely fill one room, let alone his whole house, let alone his life. It wasn’t a sad thing. It was mostly logistical. Perhaps even an environmental good. He was using enough carbon as it was and not thoughtfully, like others were. They would probably award him some kind of prize for what he was about to do. Posthumously, of course.

At the end of the day, it was simple. He just didn’t want to live anymore. He was tired of being tired. Tired of feeling like, at some point, everything had all gone wrong and not even really being able to identify when that point was. Maybe it was when he closed the door to Shane’s apartment, leaving behind a crying man, a made bed, and his heart, which he imagined was tucked into the blankets of that same bed. Maybe it was before that, when he had decided to play for the NHL instead of staying by his father’s bedside in Russia. Maybe it was when he went to hockey practice instead of curling up in his mom’s bed, holding both her hands so she couldn’t reach for anything but him.

Maybe his whole life was just a collection of beds. It wasn’t all that surprising he found it so hard to leave the one he was currently in.

He knew how he would do it. With a lifetime of hockey under his belt, he had no shortage of pills. For a moment, as he pulled out one of the bottles to examine it, he almost regretted that he was going to die the same way as his mother. He had tried to Google other methods that would be similarly painless, but it kept showing him the suicide hotline instead, which didn’t even go away when he added “no suicide number” to the end of the search. 

Besides, it would almost be a waste not to use the abundance of pills he had at his fingertips. How fortunate that he didn’t have to find some other messier, more unpleasant method. He had always been quite lucky, at the end of the day. It was like that one girl had said at that club years ago. “Famous people always get everything.” And Ilya had four sports cars, a multi-million dollar house, and enough opioids to kill three people instead of just one. So yeah. He had everything.

He had decided to kill himself on Monday, which was pretty common as far as Mondays went for most people. It was now Tuesday. The thing that no one tells you about suicide is that it’s a lot harder than you would think. It takes a bit more time and planning than you might expect. 

As it was finally the off-season, Ilya had been able to spend the last few weeks not doing anything at all, moving only to occasionally grab the ordered takeout from the front door. But with the renewed energy of knowing he wouldn’t have to be around much longer, Ilya began to scratch off item after item on his last to-do list. He threw away the takeout boxes. He vacuumed the carpets and dusted the baseboards. He took out the trash because he wasn’t quite sure how long it would take them to discover his body, and he didn’t want whatever poor soul did find him to have to deal with maggots in two places instead of just one.

He called a realtor and asked her to help him put his house on the market. He called his lawyer and made sure his will was up to date and would give most of his stuff to Svetlana and his niece. He added a line that bequeathed his trophies and medals to Shane because he wanted to remind Shane of all the times he had beaten him in hockey, as well as death. Shane would probably hate that. That was why he also told his lawyer to add a line giving Shane his mother’s cross necklace. And his vibrator. 

Maybe it was cruel to even mention Shane at all, but he selfishly wanted his death to mean something to Shane, if only contractually. If only because it meant that Shane would have to listen to some stuffy lawyer with “seasonal” allergies that somehow lasted year-round read his name off a piece of paper. He wondered if Shane would attend his funeral. He imagined he probably would, if only because it would be bad press not to. Yuna Hollander would never allow for bad press like that. 

Ilya wondered whether Shane would cry for him as he had in that apartment in Montreal. Maybe he would even say a prayer for Ilya, clutching the gifted cross Ilya had seen his mother hold many times, whispering to an unlistening God. Ilya would listen to Shane if he spoke to him, even though Ilya doubted that Shane would. He probably wouldn’t even wear the necklace. Shane had never believed in God. Ilya really hadn’t either until his mother had left him, and then he had decided that God was real but that he was just a bastard who punished his children by making them too similar to their parents. 

When he wrote Svetlana her note, he wrote Shane one as well. He hadn’t even meant to. It was just that every time he tried to write Svetlana’s, he found himself talking too much about stolen kisses, weak backhands, and lost hockey games. So eventually he wrote Shane’s name at the top of the letter and called it a day.

The TV was on in the background as he cleaned and wrote and then cleaned again. Vaguely, he heard them discuss his own trade to the recently created Phoenix Coyotes, and he paused to admire the images of Shane and him that they put up side by side. He thought they looked good together, although the picture probably would have been better if they had been smiling. They should have used one of the outtakes Ilya knew must exist from the CCM commercial. They could have done a whole rivals-turned-teammates segment, using that exact image as proof of their previously unknown ability to be friends. 

Ilya shook his head and turned away from the TV. What a missed opportunity.

On Wednesday, Ilya called a moving company and hired them to pack all of his stuff into boxes. They asked if he wanted to schedule a time to transport the boxes to a new location, but he didn’t think even the well-rated Boston Boy’s Moving Company could move his designer clothes and kitchenware to where he was going. So he said no and bid them farewell.

As he got ready to go to bed that night, he stared at the boxes around him, trying not to trip over any of them. Maybe he should have thought about putting them in storage, but he didn’t want to die completely alone. Instead, he stacked three boxes and shifted them into the corner of his bedroom, then pulled out a black Sharpie he had stolen from one of the Boston Boys and drew a little face on the top box. He couldn’t help but give the box a scattering of freckles and a haircut that was too short. He even drew on a collared shirt that he imagined the box’s mother had bought him to look mature but not unfun.

He got into bed, glancing between the boxes in the corner and the pills on the bathroom sink that he could see through the doorway. He rolled over, facing the other side of the bed, and decided he would kill himself in the morning, which he thought was kind of chic and unexpected. Maybe that way he could see the sunrise and get McDonald's before he went. 

He didn’t actually fall asleep. He hadn’t slept in days. Maybe, subconsciously, his body was trying to steal more minutes, more hours of living, attempting to counteract the permanent tiredness that had seemed to settle over his body around February. Or maybe it was January…four years ago. He wasn’t sure.

All in all, he was looking forward to sleeping forever. He wondered if he would dream. He hoped if he did, it would be of him playing hockey on a lake somewhere, his mother watching him from the sideline and a boy with badly cut black hair skating behind him.

By the time the morning came, a familiar state of exhaustion tied him to the bed. He sighed and watched as the minutes moved impossibly fast on his phone. He should probably get up and go about killing himself. No time like the present. 

But his phone buzzed, and he thought he might as well look at one last Instagram post. The Instagram post was from a model he followed (and had possibly fucked one time), and he liked it. He frowned at the little red heart on the screen, realizing he didn’t want this to be his last liked Instagram post. She wasn’t even wearing particularly good lingerie in this photo. So he kept scrolling and liked the first thing he saw from a news-adjacent website, but then wasn’t sure if people would interpret his death as some kind of political statement. 

After only a couple of hours, Ilya finally settled on liking an appropriately cute video of a golden retriever, then buried his phone beneath the pillow next to him, stood up, and stretched a bit. He sighed as he looked at the sun outside, now shining from the top of the sky rather than the edge. At least he had vaguely gotten to see the sunrise from the shadows it cast on the white walls of his room.

He decided he still had time to kill himself. Mid-afternoon deaths were very chic too, after all. 

He grabbed the bottle of pills and a bottle of vodka and made his way into his living room, sitting on his couch, the leather sticking slightly uncomfortably to his legs, which were only covered by a thin pair of grey boxers.

He sighed, then made sure his letters were arranged properly on the coffee table. His heart was racing in some last-ditch effort to remind him that it was still here and that it wasn’t on the same side as his brain, but then again, it rarely was.

He leaned back into the couch, uncapping the bottle and letting the pills fall slowly into his hand, his fingers collecting some of the white dust from them. 

For a brief moment, he thought about the fact that he had forgotten to get McDonald’s.

It was at that exact moment that the doorbell rang.

Ilya startled, and the pills fell from his hand onto the floor below him. Ilya swore and twisted sharply toward the door, as if squinting down the hallway would somehow reveal the intruder. He blinked at the empty space, not moving. He wondered if he just sat there really still, if whoever was at the door would go away. Had he ordered something? Svetlana was still in Russia; he had made sure of that. Maybe somehow, his McDonald's had spontaneously appeared on the doorstep.

He sighed, bending over to scoop the pills back into the bottle and setting them on the coffee table. He should probably go check. If it somehow was McDonald’s, he would appreciate it as a last supper of sorts. Who was he to deny manna from heaven right before he sent himself straight to hell?

Without thinking too much about it, he walked to the front door, only realizing as he reached it that he was wearing only his underwear. He shrugged and opened the door. The delivery guy had probably seen worse.

“What the fuck do you—” he began, then froze.

In front of him was a very nervous Shane Hollander. 

Ilya’s jaw dropped as he looked at the Canadian, who similarly did not seem to be able to produce words as his eyes scanned Ilya’s mostly naked body, which made Ilya want to cover up even though he figured Shane had also seen worse.

“Shane,” he breathed. “What the—”

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” Shane asked, frowning at him.

Ilya glanced down at himself. Why the fuck wasn’t he wearing clothes? “I, uh. I am trying something new.”

Shane raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure this counts as a new look. I feel like I’ve seen this one before.”

“Ah, well…” Ilya fidgeted with the door handle, turning it back and forth. “You got the sneak peek.”

Shane scoffed. “Lucky me.”

The two of them just stood there, staring at each other. Shane looked to his right and reached out toward the doorbell as if he was going to ring it again.

“Shane,” Ilya said, and Shane turned to look at him again, anxiety flooding his face. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh! Well…I just thought…” Shane began, looking up at the sky as if he could find inspiration there. Ilya looked up there too, just in case Shane found it. It was pretty cloudy out.

“You thought…” Ilya prompted. 

“We’re teammates now,” Shane blurted out.

Ilya blinked at him. “Yes, in Phoenix. This is Boston. Or did you forget?”

“No, I didn’t fucking forget. I just…” Shane sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his sweatshirt lifting up slightly so Ilya could see a line of stomach. Not that he was looking. “I’m driving to Phoenix.”

Ilya frowned and tried to picture a map of the US. Was Boston on the way to Phoenix? It might be; Ilya really wasn’t sure. “Okay—”

“Do you want to come with me?”

Ilya felt like his brain went completely blank. Not that he’d been having a lot of thoughts before, so there really was an impressive lack of noise in there now. “Come with you where?”

“To Phoenix,” Shane said, nodding firmly as if he finally understood what he was asking. Ilya wasn’t sure he did.

“To Phoenix,” Ilya repeated.

“Yes. In my car.”

“You want me to get in your car and go to Phoenix.”

“Well, I just figure you have to go there anyway, and I probably should have a driving companion.” He gestured vaguely. “Safety and all that.”

“Safety.”

“Yes. It just makes logistical sense.”

Ilya scoffed and moved closer to Shane, squinting at Shane’s eyes to see if the pupils looked too big, indicating some form of drug use. “Shane,” he said, stepping even closer. 

Shane took a sharp breath. “Yeah?” he said, his voice wavering slightly.

“Is everything okay?”

Shane frowned and backed away slightly, which was disappointing because Ilya did think that his pupils might have gotten a bit bigger for a second as he approached. “Why would everything not be okay?”

“Because you have shown up at my door after we have not seen each other in months—”

“It hasn’t been months; it’s been a few weeks at most—”

“Months,” Ilya repeated. “To ask me to get in a car with you and drive to Arizona. You did not even text to ask.”

Shane scoffed and folded his arms. “Would you have responded?”

Ilya shrugged. “No, probably not.”

“Okay, so that’s why I didn’t text.”

Ilya rolled his eyes and ducked his head to look around the corner of his house. Sure enough, a boxy black car sat in his driveway, packed with a few boxes and a suitcase, maybe two. He looked back at Shane, who looked more stubborn now. 

“Why are you driving and not flying?”

Shane’s composure cracked, and he winced before shooting the car an almost imperceptible glare. “I, uh…I can’t fly with a cat.”

Ilya gave him a baffled look. “Why would you be flying with a cat?”

“Because I bought a cat.”

For the first time in weeks (maybe months), Ilya felt his mouth widen into a genuine grin. It was a somewhat unfamiliar feeling, and his skin crackled with the movement, as if it were breaking some kind of cast. “You. Shane Hollander—”

“I know.”

“—bought a cat.”

“Yes.”

“You are not fucking with me?”

“No.”

“Where is the cat?”

Shane gestured to the side with his thumb. “In the car.”

Ilya immediately darted off the front step, moving towards the passenger side of the car with Shane yelling something behind him. He flung open the door and was immediately met with a very annoyed, very pretty black cat. He gasped and stared, unmoving, as the animal finally met his eyes.

He felt Shane join him at his side, looking at the cat as well. “I can explain—”

“Oh my God, Shane.”

“It’s really not that big of a—”

“Look at her!” Ilya cried, reaching forward to pick her up but quickly withdrawing his hands as the cat hissed at him. He gave the cat a dirty look, which the cat happily returned.

“Yeah, she doesn’t really like people touching her,” Shane commented as Ilya turned to him with a questioning look. Shane just shrugged. “She’s kind of the worst cat ever. Fucking menace,” he said, directing the last comment at the cat, who seemed to scoff and turn away, which Ilya thought was quite expressive for an animal.

Ilya turned to Shane with a grin that still kind of hurt. “Shane.”

“Yeah?”

“The cat looks exactly like you.”

“What!” Shane said, offended. “No, she does not! I’m nothing like her.” The cat and Shane took a second to glare at each other, and Ilya giggled.

“Shane, you gave birth to that cat.”

“How the fuck would I have birthed a cat?”

“Do not ask me. I do not know everything about the miracle of life.”

“I didn’t birth the cat, Ilya.”

“But you are identical!” Ilya exclaimed, and he couldn’t help but reach out to pet Shane on the head. Shane smacked the hand away before he could actually touch his hair, and Ilya gave him a pointed look. 

Shane rolled his eyes, then glanced around at the neighboring houses, mostly hidden by long driveways and hedges. “You probably shouldn’t be outside naked.”

Ilya glanced down at himself. He had forgotten he wasn’t dressed. “I am not naked. I have boxers,” he said, snapping the waistband to make a point.

He watched as Shane’s eyes darted down to the underwear and then back up at Ilya, looking slightly pink. “They’re not hiding much,” he muttered.

“Ah, so you are looking.”

Shane swatted him, and Ilya sobered up quickly at the touch. He realized it was the first time Shane had touched him outside of a game since Ilya had left him all alone in that Montreal apartment. Actually, it might have been the only time anyone had touched him in weeks, and it felt painful, like someone had nailed his feet to the ground, trying to get him to stay. He almost felt like crying, which was…unexpected, to say the least. He hadn’t felt like crying in weeks either.

“So are you coming?” Shane said, interrupting his stupor. “I figured we could spend a couple of days in Boston while you get ready to leave.” 

Ilya watched Shane turn, as if to head back into the house, and yelled, grabbing Shane’s arm to stop him. Shane pivoted back, his eyes wide as he looked between Ilya and the hand holding him.

“Eh, no,” Ilya said quickly, his mind presenting him, with startling clarity, the image of a coffee table that still held a bottle of vodka, pills, and two notes in crisp, white envelopes that Shane absolutely could not be allowed to see. “I am ready now.”

He hurried into the still-open passenger door, shoving the cat aside. She meowed quite aggressively as he did so, and he glared at her. Didn’t she understand this was a matter of life or death?

He closed the door behind him and flung the seatbelt over himself. The cat had managed to make her home on the center console, and Ilya folded his hands in his lap, waiting.

He heard a tap on the window next to him and glanced over, where Shane stared at him, mouth open in disbelief. Ilya looked at him expectantly, his eyebrows raised. 

Shane opened the door slowly, bewildered. “Um…don’t you think you need, like…clothes?” Shane asked.

“No, I will buy on the way. No time like the present, Hollander,” Ilya responded, giving him what he hoped was his best smile. Shane looked a little more put off by it, if anything.

“I…I really think we can just like…pack.”

“All of my stuff is in boxes,” Ilya remarked.

“Oh!” Shane said, brightening. “So you were already getting ready to move?”

Ilya nodded furiously. “Yes. I am all ready to move. So we can go,” Ilya said, gesturing toward the empty driver’s seat.

Shane laughed before reaching in to unbuckle Ilya’s seatbelt. “Ilya, come on. We can’t drive now. It will be like two in the morning when we hit Buffalo.”

Ilya gave him a disgusted look. Was Shane trying to drag him to hell himself? “Buffalo? Why the fuck are we going to Buffalo?”

Shane shrugged. “It’s a good halfway point.”

“Halfway to what?”

“Chicago.”

“Shane.”

“Yeah?”

“This is a long fucking road trip,” Ilya said, and he couldn’t help but imagine one of those pill containers with a spot for each day of the week. He pictured moving the pills on the coffee table from one space to the next with each long stretch of drive before them. He very quickly replayed the conversation he had just had with Shane, who was here in Boston for some ungodly reason. What the fuck had he agreed to? A cross-country road trip with his ex…something? To avoid Shane seeing an embarrassing bottle of pills and an even more embarrassing brand of vodka. (It was the cheaper one he kept around to give to the Raiders when they got too drunk to appreciate the taste of his nice stuff.) 

“Yeah, it is, but,” Shane gestured to the cat again. “Puck doesn’t like flying.”

Ilya glanced at the cat briefly before fully processing Shane’s words. Very slowly, he turned back to Shane, his head moving at truly incremental levels. “What did you just call the cat?”

Shane’s entire face went bright red. “Puck,” he said softly.

“Puck,” Ilya repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Why did you name your cat Puck?” Ilya said carefully, as if Shane wouldn’t understand the words if he spoke even a little faster.

Shane squinted at the cat that had begun to lick her arm and groom her head. “Because she’s black,” he muttered.

“Because she’s black.”

“Yes.”

“Like a hockey puck.”

“Yes.”

Ilya burst out laughing, startling both Shane and the cat. He wiped tears away from his eyes. “That is so fucking stupid, Shane,” he said, barely able to get the words out.

“It’s not stupid,” Shane grumbled.

“Shane, it’s—”

“It’s also because sometimes I feel like hitting her.”

Ilya stopped laughing abruptly and gasped in mock hurt. He turned and picked up Puck despite her protests, and held her close to his chest. “Shane. We do not hit cats.”

“Well, she hits me, so,” he said under his breath, and Ilya laughed again, trying to pet the squirming cat. After not too much of a fight, she gave up and went limp in his arms, burrowing her head into the crook of his elbow. He smiled softly at her and gave her head a little scratch. She was actually quite cute.

“Fucking asshole,” Shane said under his breath, and Ilya really couldn’t tell if Shane was talking to him or the cat. He stepped back from the door, giving Ilya space to get out of the car, cat still in his arms. “Come on. We can spend one day here and then drive tomorrow.”

Ilya stiffened, and Puck growled in discomfort. He really didn’t want to go. He really, really didn’t want to. But as he watched Shane make his way back towards his house, shuffling awkwardly on the feet that otherwise moved gracefully on the ice, he thought that this might be the exact kind of last day he had selfishly wanted, even if he had been content to just scroll Instagram and drink a lot of vodka.

So he would tell Shane tomorrow that he didn’t want to go. Shane would understand. Ilya had broken Shane’s heart, and Shane would remember that by morning, leaving Ilya behind before he realized that Ilya had been planning on leaving him too.

But until then, they could have one day together, pretending like they didn’t kind of hate each other for never staying as long as they should. They could have today.

Besides. Thursday was a stupid day to die. Fridays were much better.

Chapter End Notes

Click here for Ivy's long-ass author's notes

(I've decided to compress my author's notes because...well...they're quite long and quite rambly...)

Okay, so I couldn't stay away for long (long sigh). I know we're all so so very shocked by this fact.

Welcome to Ivy's new passion project! I am so determined to try to make this one as good as possible haha. This is the one! This is THE fic! This is for all the marbles! (Until I finish it, and then I will probably also hate this fic like I do all of my other fics when they are done.)

Because I'm so determined to try to make this fic as well put together as possible, chapter posting waiting times are going to be longer than before (And because I fear my sanity will not survive the previous posting schedule)

I am sorry it's not a relationship reveal 😔. I actually outlined an entirely different long fic and started writing it, but I had a hard time switching tonally to that fic post House in Nebraska. So I'm also using this fic as a transition fic because this one's a lot more romantic in a way that's easier to write post writing House in Nebraska. Especially because this feels like the road trip that I didn't get to write in that fic. So I'm doing this fic first.

Also. Just as a btw. I fear I've started to develop a brand for myself. The brand is "family-friendly, clean, non-smut author." And I was HORRIFIED, to say the least, when I found this out. My Mormon pioneer ancestors did not die for this. When I started planning my next fic, I was determined to make it pure porn, just to stick it to the man.

But. then I opened my big mouth again and mentioned my fic writing adventures to a coworker. And he told me he thought he could find my account. And I laughed in his face and told him he was welcome to try

It took him fifteen minutes with exactly three pieces of info. Funnily enough, the most damning one was that I hadn't written smut. I hadn't expected him to filter out the explicit fics. I didn't know he knew how to do that...

So unfortunately, I would rather be labeled a staunch puritan than have my coworker read my attempt at pornography. No porn today, folks.

Whatever. It's fine. They're burning all the witches, even if you aren't one, really. I could be impure!! I have so many impure thoughts! The Mormons tried to keep me down, but they couldn't! I'm so scandalous! Heathen! Slut! Whore! These are all words I would use to describe me.

Feel free to call me any of these words in the comments. It would really make my day to just get one comment that said, "Ivy, girl, you're such a slut. Promising me a fluffy happy time and then writing a suicidal ideation fic?? How whorish and slutty of you."

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fic! My beta reader has convinced me it is more fun if I don't tell you all the background literary devices or themes, so I will restrain myself from revealing them.

I hope you enjoyed reading!! If any of you are curious, the playlist for this fic is as follows

Ilya's song: Knockin' on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan

Shane's song: Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

Hollanov songs:
- Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones
- Second Chances by Gregory Alan Isakov
- That's How Strong My Love Is by Otis Redding

 

Edit: wait I forgot to talk about the expansion. The timing and details of it are very roughly based around the Vegas Golden Knights' creation, but...I really didn't want Shane and Ilya to play for Vegas 😒. Even though, thematically, it would have been exciting for them given all of their Vegas history.

So let's all pretend like the Phoenix Coyotes were created in 2017...and that they, you know, continued to exist. Let's pretend Shane and Ilya won't have to move to Salt Lake City, as is "canon" for the Coyotes. RIP a really cool team uniform

Chapter 2: Weston to Downtown Boston (16 miles)

Chapter Notes

When we last left our heroes, Shane had shown up at Ilya's house right as Ilya was about to swallow perhaps too many pills. He asked Ilya to drive to Phoenix with him, where they'd both recently been drafted. Ilya agreed, but really only to keep Shane from discovering the too many pills and perhaps also because he had been charmed by Shane's recently acquired cat named Puck...

-

Important info: Basically, there are some references to the American Revolution (because Boston). I don't explain much of it, but know that knowledge of these events is relatively unimportant. You don't really need to know who Benjamin Franklin or Samuel Adams are at the end of the day, but they're mentioned briefly.

For more context for a very specific scene in this chapter, I've linked a TikTok video in the endnotes that I think is helpful

Ilya was able to convince Shane that the moving company had accidentally packed up all his clothes. Which wasn’t a lie. He'd just never truly intended to keep the clothes out in the first place since he wasn’t going to need them for long. But all in all, it was quite easy to shepherd Shane into his bedroom and instruct him to start opening boxes. Shane had always been so good at following directions.

While he did that, Ilya almost sprinted into the living room, grabbed the incriminating evidence, and shoved it under the couch for later. As he carefully placed the items exactly beneath the center of the couch so that they couldn’t be seen from the side, his hand brushed against a pen that he had never remembered owning and a single quarter that he wasn’t sure how he came to possess, given he usually shoved any spare change he got in whatever tip jar was closest to him. He'd just never thought it was worth the energy to care about all the little things. He supposed that the little, meaningless things in life were never gone, just hidden under couches next to bottles of vodka and pills that you were trying to hide from people who you were pretty sure still cared about you even though they shouldn’t.

Before moving to join Shane, Ilya detoured to the closet in the front hall, opening a few boxes until he found a suitably sized duffel bag that held only a few mysterious crumbs at the bottom.

When he entered the bedroom, he found Shane standing in front of the stack of boxes in the corner, staring. He turned to Ilya, frowning, and pointed at them. “Is…is that supposed to be me?” he asked.

Ilya winced, slowly turning to look at the boxes as well. The boxes stared at him with a knowing, judgmental look. He turned back to Shane, who was staring at him with the same judgment but none of the same knowledge. His eyes bounced between the two figures. What the fuck were they both looking at? Slowly, he shook his head. “No, it looks nothing like you. Not everything is about you.”

Shane stepped forward and ran his thumb along the box’s cheeks. “It has my freckles.”

Ilya moved toward the boxes himself, took the top one off, beheading the not-Shane figure, and ripped the tape off. Ah. There were his shirts. That was fortunate. 

“It is nothing, Hollander. Just some guy that watches me sleep,” he said casually. He couldn’t help but add a quick, “Pervert.”

“I am not a pervert,” Shane mumbled, taking the second box off and opening it as well.

“I did not say you were.” Ilya grabbed a couple of shirts at random and shoved them into the duffel bag. Shane looked at the crumpled shirts with disappointment, then pulled out a couple of pairs of pants from a different box and threw them in too. Ilya shrugged at him and grabbed some clothes to change into, not caring much about what they were or if they went together. Although judging from the expression Shane gave him, he assumed they didn't.

Shane had brought Puck inside with him, because they certainly couldn’t leave her in the car in this heat, and she was now wandering around, sniffing at some of the boxes and climbing into others. Ilya frowned as she buried herself in one containing Ilya’s underwear, purring happily. Like father, like daughter.

They didn’t say much to each other while they worked. Shane occasionally commented on how well some boxes were packed, scoffing at the ones that weren’t. He asked how much Ilya had gotten for the house, and Ilya made up a number because, truthfully, he had no idea. He was pretty sure he had signed some stuff, but he had been more focused on buying a coffin than getting above-market price for the house. (He hadn’t wanted Svetlana to have to buy too many things for the funeral, and apparently you got a special deal if you were buying the coffin pre-death. He was very frugal in this way.) 

Ilya didn’t say much to Shane. He wasn’t sure what would have come out if he did. Maybe one second he would mention the conditions of the road or the weather ahead, and the next he would be talking about his fears of going to hell, but only because he assumed his mother would be in heaven. Though it would be worse if it was the other way, and he was in heaven while she was in hell. At that point, they would both be in hell, just in different flavors. 

Obviously he couldn’t say any of that to Shane, so he chose to say nothing at all.

He knew that Shane wanted him to ask, the way he always seemed to know when Shane wanted to do or say something. While he was good at not telegraphing his moves on the ice, off the ice, it was as if Shane’s entire body wanted to tell him something before his mouth did. Ilya didn’t even think Shane was fully aware of the way he would tense up or how his jaw would drop preemptively, trying to put all the right words together until it could finally express what it wanted.

So Ilya knew. Ilya knew Shane wanted him to ask about why he was here. About Montreal. About the impossible situation that had them both playing for the Coyotes in fucking Phoenix, Arizona. But Ilya also knew that Shane didn’t want to tell him. So Ilya didn’t ask.

In the end, it took them a relatively short amount of time to collect a respectable amount of clothes for Ilya. Most of the time was spent just finding the right boxes to carelessly grab a handful from to add to the bag. Ilya had no idea what he had just packed for himself, but it didn’t really matter. It was just a gesture, after all. Just something to do. 

Ilya found a couple of toiletries and threw them in too, then set the duffel bag on the bed. They stared at it for a moment. Puck meowed awkwardly from her box, still upset that they had removed most of the underwear.

“So…do you need anything else?” Shane asked hesitantly.

Ilya shrugged, glancing around him. He reached across the bed, grabbed a pillow, and tossed it toward the bag, but it tipped off the side and onto the floor. Picking it back up felt like the hardest thing Ilya had ever done, so he decided to just leave it, no matter how long Shane stared at it, waiting for him to try again. He wasn’t intending to sleep anyway.

Ignoring the pillow, Ilya moved over and zipped up the bag. “Now it is ready.”

Shane nodded, looking at the rest of Ilya’s possessions. “Is someone coming to move these for you?”

“Yes. Everything is ready to go.”

“Ah…okay.”

Shane moved back to the boxes they had opened, closed them up, and pressed the tape on again. Then, almost absentmindedly, Shane replaced the not-Shane boxes so the figure was once again looking at them from the corner. He turned back, walked to the bed, and sat on the edge, his eyes shifting around awkwardly. Ilya joined him, the bed folding inward so they were pressed a little closer together than either of them had planned.

They both just sat there, swinging their feet uncomfortably, as if they weren’t both tall enough to relax their legs and rest flat on the ground. Ilya was suddenly struck by how many hours of the day were left, hours he hadn’t intended to experience. What was he supposed to do with Shane Hollander for eight hours?

He was still counting time when Shane cleared his throat and glanced over at him. “So…uh…I’ve never really been to Boston. I mean—” he added when Ilya gave him an incredulous look, “I mean, outside of a hockey game.”

Ilya nodded a bit, staring at one of the strings on Shane’s hoodie, obviously chewed down to almost nothing, the plastic cracked and splayed. “Ah,” he said after a moment.

As if sensing Ilya staring at it, Shane absentmindedly reached for the string and tucked it between his teeth. Ilya couldn’t help but lean over and loop a finger through it, pulling it out of his mouth. He got a practiced glare in return, as if it had been sent to a certain Canadian mother many times as well, but he didn’t put the string back in his mouth, just vaguely staring off into space. So Ilya stared off into space too, even though he couldn’t really turn his mind off, not with Shane only a few inches away from him. Shane pressed his lips together, letting air out as if he were whistling, but it was clear he had no idea how to actually whistle.

“So,” Shane said, obviously unable to stand the silence any longer. “I thought maybe we could go out and see some of Boston?”

Ilya turned to look at him, blinking slowly. “You...you would like to go see Boston…with me?”

“Well, who else am I going to see it with?”

“You want to go out in public…with me?”

“Well, yeah,” Shane said, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, we’re teammates now, so it makes sense that we might be together. And we’re not sleeping together anymore, so it’s not like there’s anything actually suspicious,” he added, muttering a bit at the end.

“Maybe,” Ilya said, before brushing a piece of invisible lint from his pants. Shane said nothing else, so neither did he. Ilya realized this might be the longest the two of them had been on a bed while wearing clothes.

He rubbed at his nose harshly, suddenly feeling incredibly itchy, possibly from the clothes he no longer felt like he should be wearing that didn’t match. With every passing second, he saw another flash of the objects that now seemed to crowd his usually hollow house. Boxes. Bed. Shane. Bed. Couch. Coffee table. Pills. Vodka. Shane. Letters. Shane. Boxes.

He stood up sharply, startling the man next to him, who let out a small, alarmed noise, and Puck, who jumped onto the floor as if ready to go wherever they went. Begrudgingly, of course.

“Okay, so we go.”

Shane looked up at him, his eyes wide. “Really?” he said quietly.

Ilya nodded. “Yes. Come on, Hollander. Boston is waiting. They will not know what hit them.”

* * * * *

Everything was normal. Sitting in the passenger seat of Ilya Rozanov’s car, navigating a parking garage, was very normal. Asking your ex-hookup to come to Phoenix was even more normal. Shane was well-known for his outrageous normality. Everything was fine. Everything was going to plan.

This wasn’t his life falling apart, Shane thought as Ilya swore loudly, gesturing angrily at a car that had decided to swerve out of its parking spot, forcing Ilya to slam on the brakes. Although he did feel as if he was on the verge of a panic attack with the way his anxiety had been following him around from one gas station to the next, sitting in the backseat of the car. Shane glanced at the rearview mirror and could almost see it lifting a hand to wave its little fingers at him. He swallowed hard and stared out the window as Ilya pulled into an empty parking spot.

They got out of the car and walked toward the exit, both using the width of the lot to stand a little too far apart. Every footstep echoed off the concrete, giving Shane an inexplicable urge to scream as loud as he could so his voice would echo too.

But he didn’t scream. Because that wasn’t a normal thing to do. Instead, he turned to Ilya and asked him if he still had the parking ticket the machine had given him.

“Yes, Shane. I have the ticket,” Ilya responded with a sigh. Well, that was good. Or maybe it was bad. If he hadn’t had the ticket, Shane might have gotten to scream at him.

The two of them said nothing else as they made their way out of the garage, walking down the street. They had decided to leave Puck behind in Ilya’s house. Ilya had seemed a little averse to the idea, but they didn’t really have a better option. It wasn’t like Shane could put her on a leash and drag her along. (He would know. He had tried.)

Ilya wandered slightly in front of Shane, so Shane had a bit more freedom to stare at Ilya, admiring his shoulders and hair…and probably his ass. Not that Shane thought they were going to get back together. Ilya had made it very clear the last time that he wasn’t interested in continuing whatever they had had, even if Shane was probably maybe still a little bit in love with him. Maybe.

So he tried hard not to stare at the bags under Ilya’s eyes, worrying about how much sleep he was getting. Or at the leanness in Ilya’s figure that hadn’t been there before, wondering if Ilya had been eating enough. Or at the slight shiver Ilya let out as they turned the corner, wishing he had brought his jacket so that he could give it to him. He tried not to feel fucking stupid for not bringing the jacket just in case, even though it was almost 30 degrees outside and Shane was sweating.

But the ass was fair game. Shane was still a gay man, and staring at another man’s ass didn’t mean he was in love with him. It just meant that he wasn’t blind. It was a pretty great ass.

They walked a few more blocks before Shane finally asked, “Where are we going?”

Ilya just shrugged and kept walking, so Shane did too. He didn’t actually need a destination, but it would have been nice to have some sort of plan. He liked plans. He liked knowing where he was supposed to be going.

They walked past a church, and Ilya said, “This is a church.” Shane pulled out his phone and snapped a quick picture for his parents. Ilya rolled his eyes at him but kept walking.

“This is a cemetery.” Shane took a picture of the cemetery.

“This is a famous house.” Shane took a picture of that too.

Shane wasn’t sure where he had assumed Ilya would take him. Perhaps a club Shane would have hated, or a restaurant he wouldn’t have wanted to eat at because the food didn’t match his diet. 

He was a bit worried that he was missing out on the true Boston experience. When was the next time he was going to get to just wander around Boston? He thought about the websites he hadn’t looked at that would have given him an itemized list of all the sites he should be seeing, ranked from one to ten. Were there museums he was missing out on? Were there tour guides he should be listening to? Was he going to get to the end of his life and think back to this one day that he had in Boston and all the missed opportunities, all the roads untaken?

As he thought this, they reached a bridge, and Ilya started to walk slower and slower. Shane frowned, wondering if he needed to rest. His scattered commentary on the buildings around them was growing even scarcer, which Shane hadn’t thought possible. 

God, was this normal? Was Ilya being normal? He’d like to say that it was normal, but there was something that felt distinctly unnormal about it, and it wasn’t just the odd boxes that seemed to fill every crevice and corner of Ilya’s apartment or the clothes that had been packed instead of set to the side for later use. And it wasn’t that Ilya had opened the door completely naked. Well…almost. 

Ilya just seemed to be missing something other than proper clothes and a suitcase to put them in. He didn’t have that normal spark he did on the ice or when they had had sex. But maybe those were just rare moments rather than the norm. Maybe this was special. Or maybe it was just proof Shane had never really known Ilya at all.

Anyway, they should probably stop for a second. Ilya didn’t look like he wanted to go much further. Glancing around for a distraction, Shane’s eyes fell on an old-looking boat in the harbor, and he gestured at it.

“What’s that?”

Ilya looked where Shane was pointing and shrugged. “A boat.”

“Yeah, but why does it look like that? Why is it here?”

Ilya shrugged again, then looked around and nodded toward a sign that read ‘Boston Tea Party Museum.’

“Oh,” Shane said, shuffling his feet. A museum could be nice. “Should we go in?”

Ilya gave him a look of disbelief, but Shane marched toward the ticket office, where he met a man in an odd, costume-y-looking outfit. Shane grimaced. He might have made a mistake. But he was already here, and the man was now looking at him expectantly, so there was no turning back. He felt Ilya approach him from behind.

 “Erm,” Shane said, holding up two fingers. “Two tickets for the, uh, museum.”

The man nodded and took Shane’s credit card when Shane handed it to him. “You’re in luck,” he said. “We have a couple of open spots for the session in five minutes.”

Shane blinked at him, holding the tickets close to his chest and glancing at Ilya, who squinted at the man's large, pointed hat. “The…session?”

“Yessir. Just head right through that door, and they’ll get started soon,” he said, gesturing to his left.

“Oh, okay. Thanks.” Shane grabbed Ilya’s arm, guiding him in the direction the man had pointed. He went through the large wooden doorway and was both relieved and baffled to find rows of benches already filled with people. At least they could sit down for a while.

Since most of the seats were taken, Shane had no choice but to move Ilya and himself toward the front row. 

“You doing okay, Ilya?” Shane whispered. Ilya just nodded. Shane placed an arm on the back of the bench behind him, not touching him. Just resting against the wood.

A man dressed like the man at the ticket stand approached them with a frantic, eager energy that Shane immediately disliked.

“Good sir, would you mind doing me a favor?” the man asked with a weird accent. He was holding out a card to Shane. Oh God, he was a fan, wasn’t he?

“Sure,” Shane said, grabbing the card and patting his pockets to see if he had a pen.

“Excellent! Well, Mr. Thomas Porter—”

“Oh, I’m not—”

“When we say the line on the card—this one right here.” He pointed at the card, which Shane now realized contained actual sentences. “If you could read out the line before, that would be splendid,” he finished with a wide smile.

“Oh, no. I can’t—” Shane stuttered, cutting off abruptly when Ilya slapped his knee, grabbing onto it.

“Yes, he will do this. He will be great! He is a big actor, very famous,” Ilya said, now grinning animatedly. He was almost bouncing out of his chair in excitement. If Shane hadn’t watched him the entire time, he would have assumed that Ilya had managed to snort a line of coke between when they entered the museum and now.

“Ilya,” Shane hissed.

“Mr. Thomas Porter,” Ilya replied, his eyes bright.

“Excellent! We will see you boys at the meeting,” the man said, bouncing off towards a podium at the front of the room.

“What fucking meeting?” Shane muttered before being cut off by the man who was now speaking loudly to the group.

“Hear ye, hear ye! My name is Samuel Adams, and I welcome you all to this here town hall,” the man, who was apparently Samuel Adams, cried, receiving a round of applause from the audience.

“What the fuck—” Shane muttered before Ilya shushed him and leaned forward.

Shane rolled his eyes, but he stayed silent as the man explained all the unspeakable things the British had done to the Boston people, demanding taxation without representation (which apparently was a call-and-response that everyone in the room except Shane and Ilya knew. There must have been some kind of pre-meeting class that they had missed.) The man’s voice filled the room in a way that made Shane want to crawl under the bench and die, and he had more energy than Shane thought possible for someone wearing four layers of itchy clothing in July. 

Finally, the man cried, “But no one has been more outspoken than Mr. Thomas Porter. So what do you have to say on this issue?” 

He gestured at Shane, his face expectant, and Shane lifted his card, his hands shaking. Ilya gave him a supporting pat on the thigh, but Shane could also hear little bursts of giggles escaping the man, so he didn’t feel very supported.

“Oh, uh,” he squinted at the writing. “Parliament’s not only taxed our, uh, paper and ink.” Shane paused to clear his throat, trying to summon every ounce of his media training. “They even tax our cards and dice.”

Ilya yelled in outrage with the rest of the group, slamming his hand down on the bench. Shane glared at him, and Ilya only laughed in response.

“You did so well, Shane!” Ilya whispered in his ear.

“Shut up.”

“I love the part when you said it completely flat.”

“I’m throwing you in the ocean with the tea.”

They did, in fact, get a chance to throw tea in the ocean, just like the petulant Bostonians of old, after the actors hurried them outside onto the boat Ilya and Shane had seen earlier. It wasn’t real tea. Just boxes tied to a rope that they had to haul back up after they were done. The whole thing was quite stupid and humiliating, and to be honest, Shane was shocked by the lack of children in the group. Who knew a bunch of adults would willingly spend their money to yell “Huzzah” and throw fake tea in the ocean.

Although he had to adjust his assessment when he watched Ilya grab the fake box of tea and fling it into the water with gusto, screaming, “Fuck the British!”

They led them into a room with odd holographic videos that lasted a bit too long, and Shane found himself leaning up against the wall with Ilya beside him. From there, they moved into a little theater and played an even longer movie with poorly filmed battle sequences and dramatic orchestral music.

Americans were weird. 

Shane could tell the excitement from the reenactment was slowly leaking out of Ilya, and his shoulders quickly returned to their sloped position, his feet dragging along the carpet. Shane figured it had probably been a long day for him. It had been a long week for both of them, really.

“Do you want to go home?” he said, bending over next to Ilya’s ear as they walked into the gift shop at the conclusion of the experience. Ilya's head bobbed in what looked like a nod as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

As they moved to leave, a teenage boy approached nervously and stopped in front of them.

“You…you’re Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov,” he said, a bit awestruck.

Ah. Here was the fan Shane had been expecting earlier. Shane glanced at Ilya, who was just staring blankly at the boy. “Er,” he said, “Yeah, that’s us.”

“Whoa,” the boy breathed. “I can’t believe you’re both here! I’m not even from Boston!”

Shane shrugged. “Yeah. Me neither.”

The boy laughed a bit too loudly, drawing a couple of eyes their way, and Shane winced. “Could I get a picture with you guys?” the boy said eagerly, grabbing his phone from his pocket so quickly it nearly flew out of his hand and into the shelf of Benjamin Franklin bobbleheads next to them.

Shane held back a sigh. “Sure.”

“Oh my God, thanks!” the boy cried, then stepped forward and positioned himself in front of them, holding out the camera to take a selfie. Shane and Ilya glanced at each other before leaning in and giving the camera stilted smiles. Shane shivered when a hand wrapped around his lower back, pulling him in a little tighter. He looked over at Ilya, but he was still facing the phone.

“Thank you so much!” the boy said, pulling away and turning around to look at them with a sympathetic expression. “I can’t believe you two are going to be on the same team. Fucking sucks what they did to you.”

Shane felt the blood drain from his face, and he now noticed the little Metros sticker on the back of the boy’s phone. He tried to steady his breathing, forcing a nonchalant smile. “Well, that’s hockey for you. These things happen.”

“Yeah, but like…you are the Metros. I don’t know what they’ll be without you.”

Shane grimaced, and out of the corner of his eye, he noted that Ilya had shifted to watch him. “They’ll be just fine. I’m sure they’ll get you another cup,” Shane added, nodding towards the boy’s sticker.

“I guess,” the boy muttered, and the three of them stood there, dissatisfaction lingering over them. The boy thanked them again before hurrying off to find his parents. Shane bet the photo would be online by the end of the day, and he was sure the press would love it, spinning more stupid stories about the rivals-turned-teammates-turned-best-friends-for-life (#bromance #hollanov). He also thought briefly of his old teammates and what they would think when they saw the photo and if they would notice Ilya’s hand on his back. J.J. would probably have teased him, calling him a traitor for consorting with the enemy. Laine might have asked Shane to get him a magnet from the gift shop for his wife’s collection.

He wouldn’t know what they said, though. The normally vibrant group chat had been silent for days. Shane assumed it was because they had already created a new one without him, so now he could only fill in the blanks.

But, Shane thought as he ushered Ilya back down the Boston streets they had navigated earlier, neither of them touching each other and his phone lying silent in his pocket, nothing about all of this felt very normal after all.

The walk back to the car felt longer than the first time, probably because all they had to entertain them were the same sights and the same buildings. There were no new pictures to take, unless he wanted a camera full of photos that would have been identical if not for the slightly pink, dusky light resting lightly on everything. 

The light was kind of pretty though, now that he really looked at it. So he took the same set of photos anyway. And if some of them contained a bit more of Ilya than the red brick buildings, well, he tried not to think about it too much.

Outside the parking lot, there was a man playing guitar, slouched against the curb, strumming something unidentifiable. Shane wasn’t even sure he was actually playing, given how loudly the backing track blared from the small speaker next to him. Nevertheless, Ilya stopped abruptly and stared at the man, forcing Shane to stop and stare as well.

Shane shifted back and forth, waiting for Ilya to move, but he stayed the entire song, clapping politely when the track ended. Ilya pulled out his wallet, fumbling through a couple of bills before pulling out all of them and handing them to the man, who took them without much acknowledgment, simply preparing for the next track.

Shane gawked as Ilya walked away. He was pretty sure Ilya had just handed over 300 dollars to a man who wasn’t even actually playing guitar. 

As he moved to follow Ilya, he heard an out-of-tune note sound from beside him, and Shane realized he had been playing after all. So Shane opened his wallet and handed him some cash, without bothering to check how much he was giving.

* * * * *

They ended up on Ilya’s couch, a couple of takeaway containers between them. Ilya had packed up his TV, so Shane set his iPad on the coffee table in front of them. As the movie played, Shane could tell Ilya wasn’t really looking at it, and he kept glancing around them, at the coffee table, at the floor, and at his food, poking at it with his fork. Shane frowned and took another bite of his chicken, focusing back on the random movie he had thrown on. It wasn’t particularly good; it was just noise, but it was noise he had downloaded for a flight, which meant he didn’t even have to ask Ilya for his WiFi password. Somehow, that seemed like too much. And Shane wasn’t sure the router was packed up either.

They let the movie play, neither of them saying anything. The silence stressed Shane out, but he stayed quiet anyway and maintained the healthy distance between them as they poked at their respective meals. Shane couldn’t blame Ilya for not bothering to make conversation. Shane had always been quite awkward, so Ilya probably didn’t want to bother.

Ilya’s phone buzzed a few times, but he made no move to pick it up, obviously not worried about whoever was trying to get ahold of him. Ilya must have strong feelings about phones and talking during movies. Shane could understand that even if he didn’t think it counted during stupid action movies that you were going to zone out during anyway.

The movie ended, and Ilya stood up, collected their containers, and walked into the kitchen to throw them away while Shane tucked the iPad back into his backpack. When Ilya came back, Shane gestured at the couch he was still sitting on. “I can just sleep here, if that’s okay.”

Ilya blinked at him for a moment, then frowned. “Don’t be stupid, Hollander,” he grumbled, so Shane followed him into the bedroom instead. They continued not saying anything to each other as they got ready for bed. Shane pulled out a pair of plaid pajama pants and a grey shirt from the carry-on he had brought in earlier, and he could have sworn Ilya smiled at him when he put them on.

They stood around, neither of them moving to climb into the bed after brushing their teeth at separate sinks in the adjoining bathroom, both waiting for the other to make the first move. 

“I, uh,” Ilya said, running a hand through his hair, “I am going to go check on Puck in the kitchen. Want to make sure she has enough food and water.”

“Oh,” Shane said, startled. “I can go do that.”

“No, you can stay. I will do it.”

With that, Ilya hurried out of the room, almost jogging to get away. Shane sighed and started to sway around the room. He could tell that a competition was at play. It was called ‘the first one to get into the bed that they had had sex in loses.’ 

He ended up in front of Ilya’s duffel bag, which was still lying open on the floor. He glanced toward the door that Ilya had left through. He figured it would take Ilya a minute to get back.

By the time Ilya got back, Shane had repacked Ilya’s bag and folded the clothes properly this time. Ilya glanced at the bag for a moment, then wordlessly got into bed. Ha. Ilya had lost.

“Puck is okay,” Ilya said as Shane joined him. Shane could see Ilya’s feet shuffling under the covers, pressing together, and unconsciously did the same.

“Good,” he said, nodding.

Ilya slid further under the covers and turned away. “Okay, goodnight,” he said, flicking off the nightstand lamp.

Shane copied the position, turning to face the opposite wall. He turned off the lamp next to him as well. “Goodnight.”

The two of them lay there in the dark, neither of them flipping over, even though Shane’s back was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable. He wouldn’t turn around even if he kind of wanted to crawl across the large bed and hold Ilya tight in his arms. Even if doing so reminded him of the last time they had held each other, just briefly, when Ilya had arrived at Shane’s Montreal apartment for the last time. When Shane had thrown himself at Ilya before realizing Ilya’s muscles were too tense, and he wasn’t really hugging him back. The apartment that had now been sold to someone named Tim.

“Hey, Ilya,” Shane whispered, thinking about Tim. About his apartment.

Ilya sighed. “Shane.”

“Should we talk about it?”

Ilya paused for a moment. “It?”

“Montreal…or Phoenix,” Shane said, though he wasn’t sure whether he meant the teams or something else. 

He heard Ilya shift behind him. For a while, he didn’t say anything. Finally, Shane heard him whisper, “We have a long drive to talk.”

Shane nodded even though Ilya couldn’t see him. They did have a long road ahead of them. They could talk then. Maybe tomorrow Shane would figure out how to be more normal and talking with Ilya would be as easy as the hockey had always been between them. And the sex. Not that they were going to have sex again. Shane closed his eyes, not thinking about sex. Not thinking about Montreal. Or Phoenix. Or the silent group chat. But mostly not about the sex. 

As hard as he tried to sleep, he stayed awake, which was becoming more and more normal for him. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to stretch his back, and listened to Ilya’s breathing, which was a little too fast for someone who was supposed to be asleep too.

At some point, he heard Puck patter into the room, and his eyebrows rose in surprise as she climbed onto the bed. She had never done that before. He waited to feel her small body press against him, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw her crawl on top of Ilya, curling up next to the back of his head, her face pressed into his curls.

Shane should probably grab her and move her out of the way so that she didn’t annoy Ilya.

He thought about turning over. He didn’t.

* * * * *

Ilya wasn’t at all surprised when he woke up in an empty bed, his arms stretched out toward the other side. The only indicator that yesterday hadn’t been some weird fantasy his dying brain had made up was the indent in the pillow beside him and a scattering of black cat hair. Or maybe it had just been a really lucid dream. It had been nice. One last moment of good living before peaceful sleep.

He rubbed his eyes harshly and slowly sat up, taking a moment to breathe. He almost went right back down with how heavy his body felt but decided to just slouch a little further into himself instead. He had things to do today, after all.

He stood up and made eye contact with the not-Shane boxes, giving him a little wave. It wasn’t surprising that Shane had left without him. He had been sullen and irritable and a frankly awful Boston tour guide. He hoped Shane came back to Boston sometime and saw an actual museum or two instead of whatever Godforsaken place they had ended up at yesterday. (Though he couldn’t help but smile as his mind replayed the vision of Shane mumbling a half-hearted “huzzah” with the rest of the group.)

He hadn’t been good company for anyone in ages; they had all told him so. He had watched his teammates go from concerned to frustrated to resigned, as if they had figured out that there was nothing they could do to change him. He was sure his phone was filled with dried-up text chains and repeated messages from the Boston coaches asking where he was and whether he was going to actually show up to practice. With the bonus of voicemails screaming about “what the fuck was actually wrong with him.” Not that he had ever played the voicemails or read the texts. He just knew.

Everyone who spent significant time with Ilya eventually saw him for what he really was. He was always destined to let them down. It was better to just get on the road and drive away from Ilya, not thinking about what was being left behind.

Ilya walked into his living room, confirming Shane’s absence, before bending over and grabbing the bottle of pills from beneath the couch. 

Ilya wondered briefly if Shane would blame himself for leaving. Ilya frowned, glancing at the pills in his hand. He didn’t want that.

He reached down again and pulled out the letter for Shane he had hidden as well, determined to add a line saying as much, when he heard the front door open. Ilya swore and shoved the items into his pockets, moving toward the noise.

He was met, for the second time in two days, with the image of Shane Hollander. But this time, he was holding a paper bag. Shane held it up toward him.

“Are you ready to go? I got you some McDonald’s for the road.”

Ilya stood there frozen, looking between Shane and the brown bag, the yellow “M” shining back at him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling a bottle of pills in one and a letter with Shane’s name on it in the other.

“Okay.”

Chapter End Notes

Chapter context:
Link to TikTok
Same link, but through my Twitter

Hi friends!

See, I told you the chapters were going to take longer to come out. I told you and I warned you and the trend will for sure continue. I am a busy gal who only becomes available to write when I actively procrastinate on important things. Or lose sleep. Although, to be honest, that's in question regardless of whether I write.

I am super excited for the rest of our little road trip out west. I was also excited to see Rachel Reid talking about the potential of Shane and Ilya in a car together in Unrivaled (in that they're bad at driving together). Our thinking is so alike in this way. I hope you all enjoyed the little teeny snippet of Boston.

I...I don't...I don't have anything else to say
hmm....
hmmmmmm...

This is so uncommon and rare for me

Maybe we should just sit in the silence for a little bit.

 

 

 

 

That was nice.
I liked doing nothing with you

See you next time!