Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Harris Drover, Gen (Game Changers), Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Kyle Swift, Hayden Pike

Additional Tags:

Crack Treated Seriously, Animal Death, but for comedy..., Social Media, Charity gone wrong, Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers)

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-10-25 Words: 10,103 Chapters: 1/1

#HORSEKILLER

Summary

Charity is a major component of the core values that make up the Ottawa Centaurs franchise. After a few rookies learn about the dire situations faced by sick and elderly horses without owners, the team decides to publicly support the work being done at a local horse rescue and sanctuary.

The only problem is that every horse Ilya Rozanov takes a photograph with dies days later. People notice.

Notes

Hello I need everyone to get really cool with comedy about animal death real quick. This fic is inspired by a conversation I had with user Underthewolfstars about the Pittsburgh Penguins killing a real actual penguin.

If you are still here after reading that: welcome to my stupidest fic yet

This is set in spring 2020 (pre Troy or Shane joining the Centaurs). Like GCU canon, there is no Covid-19. Images aren't loading? Fear not! Each image (except the Twitter profile pictures because they aren't important) has alt text!

Also uhmmmm I don't know shit about horses

Harris Drover nervously drums his fingers, a frantic tap-tap-tap rhythm, against his already worn-out wooden desk. It’s a bad habit he has developed since joining the staff of the Ottawa Centaurs. Soon, when the wood (or rather, the plastic veneer over cardboard that most Ikea furniture seems to be built from) begins to divot in the shape of his fingers, he will need to change the position of his hands when he does his little tap-tap-taps. He drums a fraction harder as Ilya unceremoniously plops himself into the chair across from him, and then stops the drumming entirely. 

Ilya knows that Harris probably tried his best to hide it, but the man winces as the sound Ilya's ass makes as it connects with the chair reverberates through the quiet room. The wince quickly morphs into something different as Harris knits his eyebrows close together in that ridiculous, visible display of sympathy Canadians just love to do in every situation that even remotely calls for an ounce of pity– Harris has made that face before alerting the team that one of Dillon’s interviews had amassed more downvotes than upvotes on YouTube, and he has also made that face while attempting to explain to Chouinard that Snapchat alerts people when a screenshot is taken. 

A small part of Ilya hopes Harris’s look of pity is solely due to the way Ilya looks right now. To be frank, Ilya looks like shit. The bags under his eyes are puffy and faintly purple under his sallow skin, his curls are uncharacteristically greasy, and he is even breaking out a little on his chin from constantly scrubbing his hands across his face. He has a look about him right now that would make Cliff Marlow say "yeesh, brother, did you get hit by a car on your way here, or did you have an orgy all weekend?" in a slightly disgusted-yet-impressed tone if Ilya rolled into the Boston locker room in this state. Alas, he's in Ottawa now, and the Centaurs are too polite to say anything. In fact, he's fairly certain that when he does finally make his way towards the rest of the team today, he'll get nothing but a sympathetic offer of some creatine or some sips of Young's disgusting little canned energy drinks he picks up Shoppers on his way to the rink every morning.

When Ilya entered the practice rink facility this morning, the receptionist, a laconic woman named Angela, told him to make a stop by Harris’s office first. She even flapped a post-it note with “SEND ROZANOV TO HARRIS PLS THANKS” scrawled on it just to prove she wasn’t lying. To make everything slightly worse, she then forcefully stuck the post-it note directly onto Ilya’s sternum before dismissing him, her task having been completed.

The post-it note detached from his t-shirt halfway down the hallway, and Ilya had to debate with himself the pros and cons of bending down to pick up the ridiculous thing. He ultimately crumpled it into a small ball and pocketed it. He plans to throw it as hard as he can at the first teammate who pisses him off today. 

A large part of Ilya already knows why he is here: Harris pulled him into the office and is now staring at him with knit brows and a slight downturn of the lips not due to his appearance, but because of the reason behind Ilya’s awful appearance. Under normal circumstances, Ilya would be wracking his brain to figure out what specifically he has done on social media the past few days to necessitate an intervention, especially once so early on in the day and without his agent present. These, however, are not normal circumstances. Ilya already knows what this is going to be about. It's the reason why he couldn't fucking sleep last night, after all. The thing he can’t quite tell yet is if this meeting is being done for his benefit or to ambush him when he's already down. 

"So, Buttercup," Harris begins, frowning a little.

Yep. There it is. Fuck. 

"No," Ilya groans. "Do not tell me that Buttercup--"

"Buttercup passed last night," Harris says plainly. Ilya sinks his face into his hands before flopping his entire upper body against Harris's desk, making the entire structure wobble under his weight. The groan he lets out, high-pitched and anguished, sounds a little closer to an incredibly upset horse's neigh than the groan of a full-grown man. The fact that Harris just watches as this happens, hands folded and held neatly on the desk, without commenting on the irony of it (given the context) is a massive show of restraint.

"Jennifer told me Buttercup passed away peacefully in his sleep," Harris continues, probably trying to lighten the blow. 

"This is, what, number ten?"

"Nine," Harris corrects. "Maurice is still alive…technically. " Maurice will likely be compassionately euthanized by the end of the week, based on the email Rochelle sent to Harris and CC'd Ilya in last night. It's only a matter of time. Maurice’s days on this godforsaken earth are numbered.

Ilya lifts his chin slightly to look at Harris. "Technically," he repeats wryly, trying to go for a smile and immediately failing, before groaning and collapsing against the desk a second time. 

Ilya is cursed. There is no doubt about it.

In mid-November, The Ottawa Centaurs got together and decided to expand their collective charitable action out of the goodness of their hearts. Philanthropy is deeply important to them and has always been a major facet of the core values of the Ottawa Centaurs organization. 

Officially speaking, this is the story they've been going with.

The unofficial, yet more accurate origin story is that Luca Haas and Matthew Holmberg watched a documentary on horse rescues while high, texted the entire team about the immediate need these horses face (written in increasingly distressed messages), and proceeded to sob themselves to sleep. The next morning, Holmberg complained loudly (ostensibly to Young, but the whole team could hear it due to the sheer volume of his voice as it bounced around the practice rink) that his Tiktok algorithm was fucked beyond belief, which made his morning shit extremely difficult to enjoy. You can't relax your bowels properly when all you can think about are sad, sick horses, he had explained. He is constipated and he can’t stop thinking about frail little ponies. 

Harris, somehow, because he lives in the rink’s walls or has the entire team secretly bugged for content (at least, this is what Ilya is assuming), caught wind of the situation quickly. Within a day the entire Centaurs communications team had several connections to horse rescues and a plan for months-worth of sickly horse-related social media content. 

The plan was a solid, hook-line-and-sinker, absolutely foolproof win-win. The horses would get money from the Centaurs and a whole lot of attention, which would then result in even more money from Centaurs fans. The Centaurs, in turn, would get brownie points for using their platform for good (and Holmberg would be able to poop in peace once again). The team heartily agreed to the plan and began to collectively pool money together to donate on a regular basis to an Ontario-based horse rescue and sanctuary. Given that the Centaurs are, in a way, horses with a few extra mythological bells and whistles involved, it seemed only right that the team financially support their animal brethren.

The chosen sanctuary’s program provides lifetime care for horses who are unlikely to be adopted due to health issues or old age. Monetary donations made to the sanctuary go towards the care of these horses. For social media purposes and to promote the organization, Harris and Gen decided that the team should regularly visit the horses, take a few photos, and attach said photos to little blurbs about each photographed horse for social media. Each post is a careful tightrope walk balancing positivity with a story heart-wrenching enough to make people really want to donate. Ladybug was once one of eight horses owned by an elderly couple. When they passed, their granddaughter tried her best to care for the orphaned horses, but just could not find the budget to manage Ladybug’s complex medical needs. Thanks to the work being done by volunteers, horses like Ladybug can live out happy, healthy lives..and even meet a few MLH superstars in the process! 

It was great until Ilya’s existence made the plan fall apart at the seams. The problem, in a nutshell, is that Ilya apparently has some sort of an anti-horse curse on him. It’s not that the horses dislike him, in fact, they actually seem quite calm and pleased with his presence. Ilya even got permission to climb on Fabricio, a massive Belgian draft horse, and had the time of his life learning how to ride the magnificent elder horse. No, the issue is that Ilya Rozanov apparently radiates an energy frequency that directly steals the lifeforce out of horses.

Every horse Ilya Rozanov takes a photograph with dies days later. Fabricio’s magnificence came to a shocking, sudden end merely five days after Ilya rode him. Ilya met Buttercup two days ago.

One horse dying is a shocking story. Two horses dying is a strange coincidence. Three horses dying is a potential pattern. Four horses is a confirmed pattern. Five horses is a curse.

Nine (soon to be ten) horses is mass murder.

The whole thing is starting to weigh on him.

Two days after the death of Buttercup, as Ilya jogs through a local park while wearing earbuds playing music at a low volume, he hears a sharp yet unclear voice yelling. Stupidly, he turns his music off completely. One must be hyperaware while jogging out in public, even if said one is 6’3” and beats people up for a living.

He kind of wishes he didn’t bother this time around, because the yelling voice belongs to a lone teenager, holding his iPhone aloft and pointed in Ilya’s direction while repeatedly yelling HORSE KILLER! HORSE KILLER! HORSE KILLER! 

The teenager doesn’t even seem to be saying it with vitriol– he seems legitimately delighted to have caught the subject of online discourse out in the wild, and is happily taking his chance to make his own mark in the current online landscape. There’s a wide smile, stretched across his face between a smattering of star-shaped stickers, that appears almost predatory mixed with raw delight. Ilya isn’t really used to being on the receiving end of this particular kind of look; he is usually the one gleefully stalking his targets…at least within the confines of an ice rink. Sure, there is still some ice here scattered in small patches still stubbornly clinging to life amidst the rapidly-warming spring weather, and a bit of frost decorated the grass blade tips, but still– out here in the dirt and muddied pavement, Ilya is out of his preferred element. 

Ilya turns the volume back up on his phone, just a little beyond safe listening levels according to the warning that pops up, hoping desperately that Miyagi and Andy Panda can drown out the sound of his shame being loudly proclaimed to all currently inhabiting the park. And, okay, there aren’t even many here to bear witness to this moment, given that the park’s current inhabitants appear to only be a gaggle of Canadian geese and a single elderly woman throwing fistfulls of oats at the horrible little creatures. Neither the woman nor the small army of geese seem to give a singular shit about Ilya’s plight. 

Ilya wonders which platform the teenager will upload his video on, and what audience will find it. He hopes it’s a close friends Instagram story but knows that he probably won’t be so lucky. 

Farah has not been helpful at all. Stay off of Twitter, Reddit, what have you. Just don't even bother, she texted him when he asked what the fuck he should do to fix this mess. 

It's too late. People are sending me fucking screenshots of Tweets, he shot back. If I turn off my phone I think they'll print them out and mail them to me.

She then, just thirty minutes later, sent him a lengthy email outlining his media plan for the foreseeable future in regards to all horse-related media inquiries.

Ilya is to avoid making any social media posts addressing the horse murder allegations. This means apologizing, defending himself, or interacting with anything that feels even vaguely related to the horses. Farah also made it clear that Ilya is to avoid reposting anything from the sanctuary on his personal Instagram account for now, which is fine because Ilya barely ever posts there, and he especially does not bother reposting team-related things. The last thing he added to his photo grid was a blurry picture of Shane's quinoa bowl from when they saw each other during All Stars. 

Ilya is also to deflect any and all questions posed by media and fans in person related to horses. The only things he should say are high-level bits and pieces about the importance of supporting organizations like the horse sanctuary, and suggest that people donate and support. Besides that, he needs to keep his lips zipped. 

It's going to be hard because it's the only fucking thing anyone wants to talk to him about nowadays. Fuck, just the other day, a fan in the fucking Tim Horton's asked him to sign her horse notebook. He didn't even realize what situation he had gotten himself into until he was scribbling the "anov" section of his name and finally noticed the huge fucking horse on the cover. 

It will blow over as long as you do not feed the beast, she texts him. As he begins to type out a reply, Bood sends him a gif of a horse fucking exploding.

Maurice's death announcement, brought to the world’s attention a mere five days after news of Buttercup’s passing, brings the death toll to ten. 

Harris alerts the team on the bus while they are headed towards Toronto (it was a group decision to favour bus travel to Toronto when possible, rather than chartering a whole plane for a 4-hour drive– mostly, the decision was made because half of the team is absolutely desperate to visit The Big Apple in Cramahe. Harris, officially, requested to join the team on their bus journey to take some nice photos of the excited rookies posing with the various apple paraphernalia and playing a round of mini golf together, and if he charges a few apple pastries to the team’s card…well, who will stop him?), standing at the front of the bus and staring down the team like a pastor delivering a sermon at a funeral. 

"This is fucking terrible," Ilya’s voice pipes up from his second row seat, announcing his opinion to no one in particular.

There is a low mumble of agreement throughout the bus, punctuated by a wet, snot-filled sniffle from LaPointe. 

"Maybe you should stop taking pictures with the horses, Roz," Boodram says, leaning over to place his hand on Ilya's shoulder sympathetically. 

“The good news,” Harris interrupts sheepishly. “Is that our socials have never been more active?”

“Because of horse death,” Holmberg moans. LaPointe sniffles again, this time loud enough to sound like he is ripping several sheets of paper with his hands. Coach Wiebe tosses a small, pocket-sized packet of tissues towards LaPointe, which is swiftly intercepted by Hayes whipping his hand out and blocking the packet with his palm. The tissues fall pathetically to the floor with a soft, barely-there sound. 

Hayes apologizes (“goalie brain, sorry,”) as he picks the thing up. 

“We're pulling really great numbers right now,” Harris continues, ignoring Homberg and the whole tissue interaction. “The clickthrough rate on the horse sanctuary donation page is phenomenal. You're all making a real difference.” 

"By killing the horses," LaPointe adds, voice still thick with mucus as Hayes finally passes him the tissue packet. 

“I’m not killing the horses,” Ilya snaps. “They’re just…these are weak horses. We know this.”

“Okay, all of the horses Ilya takes a picture with dying…is not great, but…come on, let’s look on the bright side,” Harris continues. “The sanctuary told me that they were able to get Cinderella the medicine she needs, and she’s doing really well right now…all thanks to the team!”

“That’s my girl,” Hayes announces proudly. Cinderella is his favourite horse. He’s taken four photos with her and now she is on the mend. Ilya wonders what that must feel like. 

“Don’t let Roz go near her,” Chouinard says seriously. 

“Actually,” Harris pipes up again. “They’ve asked that, uh,” Harris’s eyes briefly flick towards Ilya, full of pity, like he is contemplating whether or not to deliver the next statement at all. Whatever deliberation Harris goes through comes to a quick conclusion, and he avoids looking at Ilya as he announces “They asked that we avoid taking pictures of Ilya and Cinderella together. Uhm. Just in case.”

The sound the team makes within the walls of the bus is like an explosion. Ilya sinks in his seat, groaning, his groan drowned out by the cacophony surrounding him. 

"You're trending," Harris announces, rotating his laptop so Ilya can see the screen. Ilya briefly flirts with the idea of simply closing his eyes so he doesn't have to look at it, then forces himself to look anyway because he's a full grown adult who can handle the truth. 

There it is, plain for him to see: his full name is trending at #1, followed by #HORSEKILLER, then “Cens,” then “Rozanov,” “Jimin” (definitely unrelated, but Ilya doesn’t know what it means), “Centaurs”, and “horse.” 

So yeah: he is definitely trending. 

"Everywhere?" Ilya asks. 

"No, just Canada," Harris responds. "Well, you're trending in the States too, but you're ranking at #15 there. And, uh, there are some memes in Russian and Tagalog, but I don't know what they say."

"Okay," Ilya nods. "This is okay, yes? Not as bad as it could be?" Just Canada is fine. Barely anyone lives in Canada, and it’s not like the entire country gives a shit about him. Maybe about half of the population watches hockey, and that’s a very generous estimate. Within that half of the population, maybe only a half or even a quarter actually bother following hockey drama on social media. Ilya can handle five or ten million polite, boring Canadians talking about him. In the grand scheme of the world population, it’s tiny. Minuscule. Inconsequential! 

Harris grimaces. "Sure, I mean..." Harris falters for a moment. "It's, uh, breaking hockey world containment, which isn't stellar."

Ilya quirks an eyebrow, urging Harris to continue the thought. 

"The story is getting picked up by people who know nothing about hockey," Harris explains. "Pop Base posted."

Well, shit. If Pop Base posted…

"This will be my legacy forever," Ilya says mournfully, closing his eyes in defeat. 

Gen, who was apparently standing in the doorway and listening in without either man noticing, snorts. The noise startles both Ilya and Harris. 

“Maybe Horsekiller will go away if you come up with an even bigger scandal to, like, overshadow it?” Gen suggests. 

Ilya is no stranger to controversy–in fact, he seems to stir them up frequently and for no reason at all. Little throwaway, half-hearted comments, winks at a camera, tiny hand gestures he doesn’t even do consciously, even the way he blinks have all been sources of online discourse throughout his career. A curled lip in the general direction of hockey twitter’s little pookie of the week here, a misinterpreted comment about Salt Lake City’s weather there…anything and everything is fair game. A Boston fan once told him she was blocked by her entire friend group because she defended his decision to listen to Russian rap artists, and he was rendered speechless by the admission. He didn’t even know how anyone knew anything about his music taste; it wasn’t until a week later that Eric from the Bears social media team told him that the Bears posted a post-game interview with Hammersmith in which the music from the Bears locker room was slightly audible, and Ilya happened to have control over the music that day. 

Ilya doesn’t even have to consciously try to start some form of controversy, is what he is trying to get at here. If he wanted to start a controversy, he would simply need to actively try to start one. He wonders what he could do that could overshadow his current predicament– maybe he could post some racy photos on Instagram. Maybe he could fake an incredibly embarrassing groin injury. Maybe he could go on a massive follow and unfollow spree on Instagram and get the MLH follow tracker to post an update every five minutes. He imagines he could stir up some intense controversy if the MLH tracker reports him following and unfollowing some political figures repeatedly throughout a single day. Maybe he could just make some ridiculous tweets about Scott Hunter. Maybe–

Ilya blinks for a few moments in stunned silence. He realizes he has a trump card up his sleeve he could use at any time. “I could do that.” 

“No,” Harris says resolutely. “Absolutely not.” 

“No, this is serious,” Ilya says. This could work. Why won't Harris hear him out? “I could…listen, this is going to sound crazy, but–”

“No,” Harris interrupts. “Whatever you are about to say: No. Absolutely not. Do not even consider it.” 

Ilya is considering it. 

“I am bisexual,” he explains carefully. “I could…maybe…” He looks up, making eye contact with the two other people in the room, and trails off automatically. Harris and Gen are blinking in Ilya’s direction like they’ve seen a ghost. Harris even has his jaw dropped slightly open, just enough to catch sight of some of his bottom teeth. In the sudden silence of the room, Gen softly closes the door, leaves her place in the doorway, and takes a seat next to Ilya. 

And, oh no: it kind of feels like it’s about to evolve into an interrogation of some kind. Ilya starts to sweat a little. Fuck, maybe he should have thought this through a little bit more. It was a stupid fucking idea. What was he thinking?

Harris breaks the silence. “Well, first of all, thank you for telling us. That was brave of you,” he says carefully. “But, in my professional opinion, and I can’t believe I am saying this,” Harris continues. “If I am understanding correctly, and please, please correct me if I am wrong– I do not recommend publicly coming out as bisexual just to distract people from horse deaths.”

“It would be effective,” Ilya tries to reason, despite the fact that he can feel his face turning bright red as Harris and Gen watch him carefully. “Everyone would be too busy talking about how I like men to think about horses.” 

Harris just frowns, but Gen snorts a small laugh. 

“No, you’d just create crazy new discourse the world hasn’t seen yet,” Gen says. “Can you imagine it? There’d be people on Facebook talking about how the LGBT community sacrifices animals to demons. Dudes who listen to nothing but Alex Jones would be making YouTube videos about how drinking horse blood turned you gay. Oh my god.” Gen leans back in her chair and closes her eyes as she imagines the fallout.

“I don’t see how that would happen,” Ilya says quietly while looking at Harris for backup. 

Harris, much to Ilya’s utter horror, does not immediately back him up. “No…” Harris shakes his head sadly. “Gen is right. We wouldn’t be able to control it at all. There’s a chance people would forget about the horse killer thing, but there’s also a chance they’d just…” Harris scrunches his face in disdain. “Start calling you the bisexual horse killer?”

“Diversity win!” Gen cheers, pumping her fists above her head. “This horse murderer is an equal opportunity lover.”

“Not equal-opportunity. I am very devoted to my boyfriend,” Ilya snaps. “Don’t give people the wrong idea.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Gen, who still has her arms above her head, opens her palms in surrender while still chuckling lightly. 

Harris flashes Gen a terse look before turning his entire body to face Ilya. “Ilya, I am so happy, and honestly…a little surprised? to hear that you have a boyfriend. Bring him by sometime. I’d love to meet him,” he says, serious and excruciatingly earnest. God, he is so fucking Canadian that it actually hurts. “And I don’t want to prevent you from coming out on your own terms if that’s what you want to do. If– whenever, anytime– you decide to come out publicly, maybe give us a heads up so we can make some statements of support. Seriously.”

Ilya nods. “Thank you–”

“But now is probably not a good time,” Harris plows on. “With, uh, everything…”

Ilya sighs and slumps deeper into his chair. 

“I do not want to come out right now,” Ilya admits. “My boyfriend and I have a plan– a long-term plan. Neither of us are out,” Ilya tries very, very hard not to feel any type of way about the fact that Shane has come out to his team, regardless of the fact that said coming out didn’t necessarily go well. A stupid, spur of the moment choice, Ilya thinks– in fact, the only person who seemed more surprised by Shane’s coming out than Ilya was Shane himself. It wasn’t the end of the world, thankfully, but it definitely wasn’t in their long-term plan. It was a deviation that signalled to both of them that coming out prematurely could have some negative effects– evidence: the way the Voyageurs coaching team seems to treat Shane worse and worse as the months wear on. Shane says it’s fine, but Ilya sees the way it’s wearing on him.

Plus, Shane’s teammates are fucking weird. Shane tells him that Ilya’s simply been on overly-friendly teams his entire life, and that Shane’s team is the normal one, but…yeah, that’s not right at all. Ilya has been on all sorts of teams. None of them have ever operated in the baffling way the Voyageurs do. A huge chunk of the team treats Shane like he’s some kind of space alien they’ve been tasked with tolerating. Again, Shane says this is normal, but…

Whatever. The plan is in place not just for the security of their careers, but their safety.

Sure, Ilya’s safety concerns have mostly cleared up. He has already submitted his application for Permanent Residence in Canada through the Express Entry program, and if that is approved, he just has to wait a bit more time before he can try to convert that Permanent Residency into actual citizenship. If the Express Entry thing fails, he and Shane could get married. He wouldn’t get citizenship that way, but Shane could sponsor his Permanent Residency through spousal sponsorship, and then he’d be back in that waiting game before he could apply to get citizenship…in short, he has options. 

It would just be really good if he could keep his job in the MLH. His work permit kind of depends on having a job, and Ilya has never held a job that didn’t start with hockey and end with player. And, fuck, Shane really needs to keep his job. Hockey is everything to him. Ilya isn’t sure if Shane has put any thought into what his life will look like once he hangs up his Voyageurs jersey for good– Commentator? Coach? Fuck, maybe high up in the inner echelons of the Voyageurs franchise as a manager or in the hockey operations department, or even for the MLH in general? All future roads Ilya imagines for his boyfriend involve him being deeply embedded into the cogs of the MLH machine until the day he breathes in his final breath. 

Losing his current job in the MLH would kind of fuck that up. Sure, Shane wouldn’t immediately lose his job if something were to happen today; He has a full no movement clause in his contract, and the Voyageurs would be fucking stupid to do something as ridiculous as benching him. The problem is Shane’s future contract, the one he will sign come July 2021 when his current Voyageurs contract expires and he becomes an unrestricted free agent, and whether or not Shane will even be willing or able to sign a new contract once he’s been terrorized publicly for a full year. 

Ilya has a lot to lose too, but…he doesn’t know. He hasn’t put much thought into it recently. The stakes have always seemed a little higher for Shane. He thinks he could probably weather something so majorly impacting his career better than Shane could. His team would probably be less fucking weird than the Voyageurs, at least. 

Maybe. He’s getting a little nauseous thinking about it. 

Gen snorts. “Killing a bunch of horses wasn’t in the long-term plan?” 

“No,” Ilya says, grimacing. “It was not.”

Ilya knows the situation has become dire when, during a face-off against Scott Hunter, Hunter has the audacity to neigh directly in his face. The action leaves Ilya stupidly staring at his opponent with his jaw hanging open, which then gives Hunter ample time to maneuver his creaking, old joints into stealing the puck. Ilya Rozanov is defeated by a goddamn barnyard animal sound. What is he, a literal infant transfixed by a hunk of plastic that makes a mooing sound when you slam a tiny fist against a cow-shaped button? 

Later that evening, when Ilya walks into the Kingfisher with the intention of having stern words with Kip Grady over the necessity of putting his senile husband in a nursing home, Ilya is stopped dead in his tracks by a goddamn chalkboard. 

“You like it?” Kyle says, leaning over the bar counter and gesturing towards the offending sign. 

“Ilya Rozanov specials…” Ilya reads out loud. “Horse’s neck…Horsefeather…White Horse…Caballito Cerrero?” Ilya continues in disbelief. There’s even a horse silhouette painstakingly drawn in the corner of the chalkboard. “Kyle, what are these?”

“Drinks, obviously,” Kyle responds, rolling his eyes. “Which one can I get started for you?”

Fuck this fucking bar and Scott Hunter too. 

Even in his own barn, he is betrayed. During a home game against Buffalo, Ilya goes to step off the ice for the second intermission. Before he can make his way down the tunnel, he is physically stopped by a staff member who quickly shoos the actual, honest-to-god Centaurs mascot away from Ilya. The mascot, getting the message immediately, turns around on its heel (or Hoof, whatever you want to call the frankensteined lump of fabric covering a rubber-soled shoe) and absolutely books it far away from Ilya as the crowd's roar reaches deafening levels. Ilya is only allowed to finally make his way down the tunnel once the mascot is safely out of his presence. The staff member finally lifts his arms like a roller coaster ride safety bars being lifted, and Ilya awkwardly wobbles down the tunnel in numb shock.

For fuck’s sake, the mascot isn’t even a real horse. It’s a human man (Neil, Ilya’s brain reminds him though the fog of exhaustion and betrayal. Neil has been stuffing his body into the mascot costume for about five years now. Ilya has signed a jersey for his daughter and forced Shane to sign a few hockey trading cards for her, because she’s actually more of a Voyageurs fan than a Centaurs fan. Neil keeps a steady supply of Larabars in a variety of flavours in his backpack and frequently shares them with the team before games. That Neil is running away from him right now. Even now, Ilya can vaguely taste the small bit of sticky, cherry pie flavoured protein bar stuck in one of his molars.) crammed inside of a frightening, vaguely-cartoonified half-horse-half-man creature suit. 

Video of the moment immediately goes viral within the confines of hockey fan social media. Fans particularly enjoy the clip that made sure to show Ilya’s shocked, betrayed face as he watches the mascot’s hurried retreat. 

If Neil falls ill in the next few days, Ilya will never live it down. It doesn't need to be said, and yet Hayes lets Ilya know anyways as he gives him a friendly pat on the back. 

"Can't you let me take a photo with a healthy horse? One who doesn't have a hoof in the grave already?" Ilya begs as he bursts through the door of Harris's office, rudely interrupting Harris’s meeting with Gen. 

A few days ago, Luca Haas, in a moment of either pity or insanity, took a photo of Ilya next to Ice Champion, an elderly horse who once experienced mild success in the racing circuit. Harris even watched the whole thing happen and told the two players that maybe, maybe, another horse photo could save the whole situation. Haas then posted the innocent photo to his Instagram story with a simple donation link, which Harris then shared onto the Centaurs’ official Instagram story with the addition of a singular running horse gif to accompany it. 

Ice Champion died this morning. The sanctuary hasn’t even posted about the death yet– Jennifer, one of the volunteer staff members, personally called Ilya to carefully deliver the news herself, softly and gravely like a parent trying to explain to a preschooler that his mommy and daddy are going to live in separate houses from now on. 

"It's not enough for you to kill off the weak ones, now you need to move on to killing perfectly healthy horses? You monster," Gen mocks.

“This is not a laughing matter,” Ilya says. This really isn't. Ice Champion is fucking dead. 

“We have never had this many social media interactions,” Harris says kindly. “And the sanctuary has never had so many donations in its entire existence–”

“Gen, you are taking these photos,” Ilya interrupts. “Maybe…maybe you are the one killing the horses?” It’s a low blow, he knows, but he is getting desperate. 

“No,” Harris shakes his head sadly. “The only common denominator is you, sorry.” Next to him, Gen nods in agreement while taking a sip of her iced americano.

“But–”

“Haas took your photo with Ice Champion,” Harris interrupts. “Not Gen.”

“You know?” Ilya asks, devastated. He thought Jennifer was planning to keep Ice Champion’s death under wraps, ensuring that enough time had passed between the photo being posted and the death announcement so the connection between the two was not so immediately obvious. She promised! Everyday, Ilya Rozanov is betrayed. 

“Yeah,” Harris nods sadly. “Griffin just told me.”

Fucking Griffin. 

“Yikes, killing Ice Champion of all horses is a little too on the nose, isn’t it?” Gen asks. 

"On the snout," Harris corrects, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards as he grits out his stupid fucking pun.

"Both of you need to shut the fuck up," Ilya whines.

[Author's note: if you are viewing this fic with the author's skin on, the following text conversation scrolls! Do not pass by without scrolling!]

Ilya gets his head caught in his t-shirt, plunging his vision into darkness as he struggles. Somewhere in that timeframe, as Ilya battles soft cotton, Harris Drover meanders into the locker room. Ilya manages to poke his head out of the neck hole and regain sight of the room only to find Harris staring somberly in his direction.

No. 

"I am here to bring you all some terrible news," Harris announces, addressing the room at large but staring mostly in Ilya’s direction. 

"I have not taken photos with any more horses!" Ilya whines as he tugs his shirt to cover his torso. "I am not responsible for this death."

It’s true! Ilya hasn’t taken photos with any more horses! No one from the rescue has reached out to him to warn him about any sickly or recently deceased horses. He can’t even predict which innocent, unadoptable horse has decided to leave this mortal coil this time around– Princess Di? Spotsy? Louise? Jimmy Hoffa? Pumpernickel? Fuck, not Pumpernickel…LaPointe will be devastated. He's been talking about buying a house with enough room for a backyard stable just so he can adopt Pumpernickel.

“You’re good, don’t worry,” Harris says quickly. “The horses are fine!” 

A breath the room collectively held whooshes out. The entire room visibly relaxes, including Ilya.

“But, uhm…” Harris continues, eyebrows pinching together. “The…Montreal Voyageurs social media team is, uh, joining in on the…” Harris seems to be at a slight loss for words. “Shane Hollander and Hayden Pike just posted photos with horses,” he explains after a moment of quiet deliberation.

Shane Hollander…and Hayden Pike…horses…no. No.

Every fucking day he is betrayed!

"No," Ilya laments. "This cannot-"

Harris nods gravely.

There’s a few moments of tense, slightly shocked silence in the locker room before the team dissolves into laughter. 

Ilya is not fucking laughing. This is no laughing matter at all! Hayden fucking Pike, of all people…this actually might be the worst thing that has ever happened to him, and there are many terrible things that have happened to him throughout his life. He could write a fucking memoir titled “Bad Things Happen to Me: the Ilya Rozanov Story” and need to split it up into multiple hefty volumes. That’s how many bad things have happened to him throughout his short life. He’s certain he could use a single volume of his fictional future memoir of unfortunate events as a weapon.

He is going to clobber Hayden Pike to death with his New York Times Bestseller.

“Oh, brother,” Hayes gets out between gulping laughs. “I cannot believe Hollander just bodied you like that.” 

"Fucking hell, let me see," Ilya grumbles, making grabby hands towards Harris's phone.

"I know better than to allow you to touch the device signed into the team's official social media accounts," Harris quips, visibly gripping the phone harder. 

Rather than fight Harris over control of the phone, Ilya goes digging for his own cellphone. Unfortunately, he struggles to locate it in the depths of his bag. Fuck, he needs to get out of the habit of tossing his phone into its endless void and simply keep it out in the open like everyone else on the team does. Of course, there is an obvious reason he doesn’t ever do that; He never knows when his beautiful and lovely “Jane” will send something a little too identifying, or if he'll receive a text from David or Yuna (who Ilya has in his phone as "Dad" and "Mom," which would be hard to explain to a room of men who are aware that Ilya's father is dead), or worse: when one of the Pikes will text him. He could traipse his way through some kind of excuse for being caught texting Jackie Pike, maybe by making a joke about having a deep appreciation for married women, or something else equally nasty. He cannot, however, fathom a good excuse for being caught casually conversing with Hayden effing Pike beyond, maybe, organizing something for the Irina Foundation. Or, maybe planning to beat him to death with his massive manuscript. 

It's not that he texts the Pikes all that often. Sometimes one of the twins wants to send their Uncle Ilya a photo of a drawing they did that day or a lengthy audio message describing schoolyard drama.

Boodram, who usually leaves his phone sitting out in the open, has a much easier job grabbing his device and pulling up the offending Montreal Voyageurs Instagram post. By the time Ilya finally touches his own phone, Bood is already grinning at his own screen.

"Oh my god," Bood laughs, looking like he can barely believe what he is seeing with his own two eyes. "Hollander’s hitting the 'you know I had to do it to em' pose. This is some real nasty work." 

“Brutal,” Dillon agrees from across the room, looking down at his own phone. 

Haas, Young, and Holmberg crush around Bood’s phone to take a look for themselves. After a moment of taking it all in, Holmberg looks up towards Ilya with nothing but pure, undiluted pity in his eyes. 

"I think," Holmberg announces with a tone awash with sadness. "Hollander might have just won the rivalry." Haas nods his head in morose agreement. 

You would think the rookies just announced a horse’s death. 

Young begins to read the Instagram Post's caption out loud. "Thank you to…” he stumbles over a few garbled syllables, presumably in French. A few guys on the team attempt to correct him, but not a single person can agree on the correct pronunciation. “…Rescue for the hard work you do. I had the amazing opportunity to meet Chardonnay, who was born in 2009…the same year I was drafted by the Voyageurs!... Here's to many more years for both of us. To donate to, uhhhm…the Rescue..." Young reads, trailing off into a mumble as he reads out the rest of the caption, absolutely butchering the French translation that immediately follows the English caption. When he finishes, he looks up at Ilya with a frown. "The way I see it, the only thing that could possibly make this situation better for you is if Hollander's horse dies."

"Are you wishing death upon this innocent horse?" Hayes exclaims.

"This is a new low," Bood agrees, except he directs it towards Ilya instead of Young. 

"What?" Ilya snaps. "I did not say I want the horse to die. Young said that."

"You have the horse-killing power, not Young," Boodram says. "I don't want you getting any ideas."

"Whatever," Ilya snaps. 

Finally, Ilya unlocks his own phone and taps out a quick text to his lovely, wonderful, beloved, absolute fucking asshole of a boyfriend: I have never felt so betrayed in my life

:), comes Shane’s reply not even a full 30 seconds later. 

After a few grueling weeks of this mess, the horse sanctuary puts an official ban on taking photos of Ilya with any of their horses, not just specific ones like Cinderella. No hard feelings, they tried to explain. We just don’t want to stir the pot any more. 

Ilya suspects they’re trying to avoid testing fate. It’s okay, because Ilya has been refusing to take photos with horses for a while now. He doesn’t want to test fate either. The request still stings a little.

It works…fine, as far as drama deterrents go. There are no new photos of Ilya with horses, which means no new horse deaths get immediately attributed to him. It’s no longer the only thing people want to talk to Ilya about. Sometimes (and only sometimes) people want to talk to him about Ottawa’s power play.

Of course, there is still the inevitable comment or two (or twenty) about Ilya's impressive horse-ending career: a chirp here and there from an angered player on the ice, a heckle from a fan in the stands wearing a bootleg jersey and a ketchup smear across their chin, or a tweet featuring a horse video with the caption "don't let Ilya Rozanov see this." 

There was a clip from ESPN a few weeks ago that focused on Ilya sitting on the bench while the refs deliberated over an offside play. As the camera focused on Ilya violently chewing his mouthguard, a small graphic appeared on the screen displaying Ilya’s horse fatality statistics. It only lasted for about 10 seconds, but its impact lasted far longer. 

Cliff Marlow texted him a screenshot of it alongside come back to boston traitor we have plenty of horses for you 🤣🤣🤣 

This is all fine because at the very least Ilya no longer feels directly responsible for any horse deaths. There are still horses dying at the sanctuary, of course. It's the circle of life. Horses are born, they eat, they sleep, they shit, they run, and they die. It's just that Ilya isn't taking any more photos with horses mere hours before their death, so his role, however coincidental, has been removed from the horse circle of life entirely. 

Mercifully, hockey fans as a whole mostly lose interest in Ilya’s horse-related misfortunes deep into the playoffs season. The reasons for this are numerous.

To start, the Ottawa Centaurs did not make the playoffs this year, which means Ilya is no longer being plastered across television sets and illegal streaming websites with any sort of frequency. Only those who purposefully follow the Centaurs, or Ilya as an individual player, still have Ilya in their mental orbit. Ilya no longer has to listen to opposing players make snide horse references between shifts, nor does he have to live with the talking heads of various sports networks trying to explain the whole horse situation to the chronically offline amongst the hockey-watching crowd. He especially doesn't have to deal with torrential downpours of plastic, brightly-painted horse figurines being pelted at him during away games. 

Those little plastic shits are hard and sharp as hell. Centaurs staff began collecting them and donating them to local children's hospitals, until some dumbass on Reddit caught wind of it and turned it into something it really wasn't. Who the fuck imbues Fluttershy with evil murder energy before donating them to sickly children, and why the fuck would they accuse Ilya of such a thing? He doesn't even know what a Fluttershy is. 

Nowadays, for the chronically online, there is new fodder for them to feed on: one of the Voyageurs (who still are in the playoffs, and likely will take the whole damn thing with the way Shane and their coach have been pushing them this season), Andropov, recently had his driver’s license taken away due to being caught drunk driving on five separate occasions. That is four too many, according to some. Discourse naturally shifts away from Ilya’s alleged equine-destorying powers and instead latches on to the young guy ripping through the various one-way streets of Montreal while absolutely smashed off of cheap fortified wine. 

The discussion will reach a fever pitch if the Voyageurs do manage to clinch the cup this year and a known drunk driver gets his name etched into the sacred cup forever. All things considered, it’s not the worst thing someone immortalized on the cup has done. Some of these guys have committed heinous crimes. 

Ilya watched Carmichael piss in it back in 2014. Hammersmith gave it a quick rinse with a hose before using it to drink his Sam Adams. Nothing about that situation was a heinous crime, but Ilya thinks it’s relevant to the conversation nonetheless. 

While the argument-inclined focus on the drunk driving debate, those who prefer tweeting out silly little quips instead focus on the fact that Andropov now has to be driven around town by his teammates. There is a blurry photograph of him in the passenger seat of JJ Boiziau’s Range Rover that’s really making the rounds right now. 

Shane says it's safer than letting the taxi and Uber drivers of Montreal have unfettered access to a player so close to the finals. There is concern within the Voyageurs organization that Andropov might be kidnapped if he steps foot in a stranger’s car or the STM in the next few weeks. 

He also says that the Voyageurs social media team contemplated, but ultimately decided against, having Andropov ride to the rink on horseback for a day. 

Spitfire, a horse Luca Haas once hand-fed, brushed, and took several posed photographs with, passes away in late July. Ilya spends that day with the sinking feeling that somehow, someone out there would convince the poor guy that maybe Ilya had managed to find a way to pass the curse onto him. 

Also, no one makes any fucking memes of Luca Haas being a horse killer, which pisses Ilya right off.

(Okay, to say that no one makes any memes is a lie. There are a few memes and little quips in Instagram comments sections. They don't gain much traction at all beyond a handful of likes and one particularly pathetic frowny-face emoji in the Centaurs group chat from Haas. It just kind of feels like no one even bothered with the memes because of how little impact they actually had. Ilya is pretty sure he has seen more memes blaming him for Spitfire's death than Luca Haas. Fuck!)

The horse sanctuary continues to operate as usual, bolstered slightly by the Centaurs’ consistent donations and fundraising attempts. While still they aren’t sure about Ilya taking photos with the horses, they have no problem letting him hang out with them. 

Ilya’s new favourite, a Tennessee Walking Horse named Jake, loves to eat directly out of Ilya’s palm. The moist tickle of the horse’s mouth moving against Ilya’s palm is oddly soothing, and Ilya finds himself just barely suppressing a delighted giggle when the sanctuary starts allowing him to brush Jake’s mane. 

The best part is that Jake returns Ilya’s affection. Jake is infamous within the horse sanctuary for being wary of all human interaction. When a handful of Ottawa Centaurs arrived for their semi-regular visit, the staff warned them that the new horse, Jake, would likely be far too nervous to let anyone even near him. To everyone’s shock and surprise, Jake actually had no problem letting Ilya (and only Ilya!) approach him. After several visits, Ilya is still the only member of the team Jake even allows to stay in his presence. It gives Ilya a sick kind of pleasure knowing that there is at least one horse in this goddamn sanctuary that appreciates him. 

In late September, the sanctuary decides to take a bit of a gamble and photograph Ilya and Jake together. Jake is recovering from equine influenza, and Harris makes the suggestion that posting about it could bring Jake the attention (and money!) needed to continue supporting that recovery. The sanctuary and Centaurs make a post on Instagram about Jake’s health journey, highlighting the strong connection he and Ilya have formed over the weeks. Ilya watches Harris hit “post” with baited breath, awaiting disaster. 

It’s fine. There are obviously some comments about Jake imminent demise, and Ilya sees the photo shared with ridiculous captions around social media for a few days afterwards. The number of posts, however, is far less than he saw weeks ago. No one in his life really bothers to make any comments about it beyond a quick, supportive text from Shane, which he heart reacts to, and a few eyeball emojis from Svetlana, which he ignores. The team chat is suspiciously quiet. Perhaps someone told them to drop it, or perhaps they're all too busy enjoying their post-season break to be concerned about Ilya's horse debacle.

The simple fact that the post's popularity does not explode signals the end of Ilya's horse killer nightmare, and best of all: Jake recovers. Finally, Ilya being photographed with a horse does not immediately result in its demise. 

Ilya is free. He is the horse killer no longer. 

A little less than a year later, Jake passes away peacefully the very same day a Hayden Pike fanmail video is shared on Twitter by some asshole named Brad, and Ilya's life blows up once again. 

News of Jake’s death ends up buried amongst the resulting chaos, barely acknowledged by anyone who had previously posted nonstop about Ilya’s horse-killing habits a mere year prior. Ilya was right all along: him being bisexual and in love with Shane Hollander was enough of a bombshell to overshadow any horse-related discourse. 

When Ilya brings this up, Harris just shakes his head in disapproval.