Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander/Rose Landry (kind of), Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, Shane Hollander & David Hollander

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Hayden Pike, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Panic Attacks, Internalized Homophobia, social media aspects, hockey is sex, Emotional Infidelity, Angst, Autistic Shane Hollander, Masturbation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, ilya may have shane beat in the yearning olympics but shane clears in every other category, shane hollander takes a trip to the torment nexus, Outing, Sex Tape Leaks, Immigration difficulty, Anal Sex, Dom/sub dynamics (sort of), Marriage of Convenience, but also love !!

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-26 Updated: 2026-09-15 Words: 31,461 Chapters: 7/?

good bruises

Summary

Tampa doesn’t happen, and Shane and Rose get engaged. Two months later, the Hollander-Rozanov sex tape hits Twitter.

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

i put ilya through the wringer in "ghost of you" so i figured it was shane's turn!!! yayyy

some things:
- i don't know anything about hockey. if you spy something glaringly incorrect that can be corrected w/o distrupting the story, pls don't hesitate to lmk! or canadian/russian stuff in general. or just. anything, really. i'm a one-woman team and the one woman is unfortunately me and she isn't very bright
- for the record: no i do not think shane and ilya would make a sex tape, they're both too pragmatic for that. but, um. they do in my world!!
- the timeline of this show completely eludes me. i know what year things happen, but do not ask me for more than that. as a result, this is likely all fucked up, but please bear with me. it doesn't really matter.
- i've seen the show and read the books, & i'm taking elements from both for this. so, i'm using voyageurs and not metros, and raiders instead of bears. andrei is alexei. show svetlana and not book svetlana. ect ect.
- obligatory fuck AI. generative AI is a fascist tool. we should kill it with a big sword. my italics and em-dashes are MINE.

enjoy!

Shane grunted, pain exploding across his hip and upper leg. Pressure bore down on him from the weight of Rozanov’s entire body pressing him into the boards. A split second later, Ilya was gone, and Shane was flying after him, chasing the puck. One, two, smash into his side, push him out of the way, don’t look at his face, pivot on your heel, take the shot—

The arena exploded. Shane’s gaze flitted to the stands. His number was everywhere. Winning felt good, but not as good as it used to. He was an addict. He’d need an Olympic medal to get him that high. Or another cup. Which he was closer to now, but still. It wasn’t final until it was real. He pumped his fist in the air a few times, stick clattering to the ice as he came to a stop. Hayden was touching one shoulder, JJ patting the other. Against his will, his eyes drifted to the right, where Rozanov and the Raiders were commiserating. 

The mood in the locker room was electric. The Voyageurs hadn’t even changed out of their gear before the alcohol made an appearance. Shane tried to smile as wide as he could without it looking like a grimace. When he was younger, posing for a photo, smiling wide, his mother had said off-handedly that he looked like he was ‘baring his teeth.’ So Shane paid more attention to his expressions. 

“Fuckin’ hell, man, that was awesome,” Hayden said, clapping him on the back again, trying to catch his eye. “You’ll probably be in the 2016 supercut.” 

“Hah, yeah, thank you,” Shane managed. His phone felt like it weighed a hundred pounds where it sat in his pocket. Without an actual moment of realization, Shane had become dimly aware that he was waiting for a text from ‘Lily.’

There was dried blood under his nose, dribbles of it staining the white fleur-de-lis printed on the right breast of his black underlayer. It probably looked particularly brutal under the harsh light from the camera he was speaking into. Speaking next to, really, because he didn’t like to look into the lens. 

“How does it feel to be one game closer to another playoffs?” he was asked in Québec French. 

“Good,” Shane replied, because what else was he supposed to say? “But they aren't ours yet, so…we’ll need to play well next week.”

“You always play well.” 

Shane let out an aborted huff. “Thank you.” 

***

Shane kept his eyes on the flickering tealight in the middle of the restaurant table. He probably should have been looking at Rose, who was sitting across from him with her hands folded and her lips carefully lipsticked, but he couldn't. Because he if looked up at her, he’d see the fucking ring, and his stomach would flip again, and then he wouldn’t be able to finish his calorie-conscious grilled fish and light pasta.

It wasn’t even really that he regretted proposing. Rose had been happy. He had been happy. He was happy. He was engaged, and he was at the height of his career, and he absolutely was not thinking about Ilya Rozanov. 

He wasn’t. He hadn’t thought about Ilya in months, thank you very much. 

He hadn’t even seen the paparazzi pictures from last month, where Ilya, pupils blown and cheeks flushed, had been photographed leaving a bar in Boston with a woman on his arm the internet had promptly identified as the daughter of Sergei Vetrov. He hadn’t seen those pictures, and he hadn’t felt his throat get itchy and his chest get tight afterwards, and he certainly hadn’t been spurred to propose in the first place by the fact that Ilya had apparently moved on. 

And Ilya Rozanov being photographed with women in Boston wasn’t anything unusual. But this woman seemed to be everywhere. And the look on his face…the look on hers…

He tried to focus on tangible things. The ache in his legs. The smell of the food. The pitch of Rose’s voice. She hadn’t been able to attend his game in person, but apparently she’d managed to catch most of it on her phone while she sat in the makeup chair, being de-blued. 

“So I’m flying out on Thursday,” Rose was saying when Shane was yanked back down to Earth by the scrape of her fork on the plate. “Fucking Romania. Isn’t that crazy? I like destination shoots; I’d probably never have visited Bucharest otherwise, and it looks pretty awesome from what I’ve seen from the pamplets…”

Shane nodded and took a bite of his food to postpone the inevitability that he’d have to reply soon. “Bucharest,” he echoed. “Yeah. Cool. How long will you be there?”

“Thirteen days,” Rose said around her carbonara. “Don’t miss me too much. Oh, could you make an appointment with the planner-somebody?” 

Shane nodded again. “Yeah. You’ll, uh—”

“Be back on the eighteenth,” Rose finished. “So schedule it for sometime in January. Wow, we should come back here sometime, this carbonara—” 

The night continued that way. Rose making Shane laugh softly, the pair of them exchanging scheduling information over their food like they were business partners and not literally engaged. Thankfully, though, nobody took any pictures of them—none that Shane noticed, anyway—and the food was good. 

It was only when he got home that Shane realized that his phone was gone. 

He patted his back pockets. Nothing. Side pockets. Empty. He checked Rose’s purse. Both of his jacket pockets. The thin interior one. 

Nothing specific could be gathered from the conversations with ‘Lily,’ could it? No, not really. They were careful not to include anything incriminating or identifying, and deleted messages where they slipped up. Nudes were pretty much forbidden—if they were sent, for some reason, they were removed—any pictures, really, were off the table. All that an outsider with access to the threads would be able to gather was that Shane was interested in men, and while he wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the idea of all of North America knowing he took it up the ass, that was a thousand times preferable to all of North America knowing he took Ilya Rozanov up the ass. 

So. Silver linings. 

Somehow, he managed to avoid panicking. His face didn’t seem to agree with his interior, though, because when Rose approached him, freshly wrapped in pajamas and looking warm and soft and like something he should have wanted, she looked concerned. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “My phone is gone,” Shane said flatly. 

“It’s probably still at the restaurant,” Rose said, her voice casual and light. “I’ll call them.” 

It was not, in fact, still at the restaurant. It was, impossibly, already somewhere in Québec City. So he remotely locked the phone and hoped that he was fast enough. Shane felt a little bit like he was outside of himself. This happened a lot right after he managed to swerve around a panic attack. Like his body had to recalibrate itself now that he was no longer on the verge of breaking down. 

They were fighting, and Shane could hardly remember why. Maybe he’d said something flippant. They almost never fought. When they did, it was in moments like these, when Shane was kind of hollow. It didn’t do much to make him feel better, but hey, it wasn’t like he could just ask for a rain check because ‘I’m sorry, I just feel like I’m made of paper right now. Can we fight later?’

“I don’t think you understand how miserable you are!” Rose snapped, throwing her hands up in the air. “And I don’t mean that in an ‘I know you better than you know yourself’ way, just in an—an, I don’t know—I can see you from the outside, Shane! I can see your face and hear you speak and see the way you operate! I know how fucking sad you are, babe. Please talk to me.” 

Shane was quiet. He scrubbed his hands over his face, applying unnecessary pressure over his skin, like maybe he could tear it off. Maybe he could tear it off and show Rose some more essential iteration of him, and he wouldn’t have to explain. Shane hated words. They were always imprecise. Always just left of what he really meant. And, of course, the other person was bound to misinterpret them to some degree, which only further obscured his point. It was impossible, he thought, to be truthful in any meaningful capacity, even once you strip away the exterior of a person. “I’m not miserable,” he said. “I’m fine.” 

Rose looked like she was going to scream at him. Then, suddenly, she deflated, and all the fight bled out of her. “You’re such a shit liar,” she said, shoulders slumping as she leaned backwards, tipping her head to connect with the wall, her skull making a dull thunk against the surface. “I’m not trying to trick you. Or find you out, or whatever it is. I know men can’t talk about their fucking feelings for the life of them but I’m trying to help.” 

“I don’t need help,” Shane said. Privately, he corrected it to ‘I can’t be helped,’ but he didn’t think Rose would take very well to that sentiment. Plus, he'd be forced to elaborate. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried not to breathe too fast. 

“Fine. You don’t need help,” Rose acquiesced. “But what is going on? I won’t try to send you to therapy or whatever. I won’t, I swear it. But something is wrong, and I do care about you, and I hate seeing you so—so miserable.” She didn’t look at him. That made the words slightly easier to stomach, since Shane didn’t need to split his attention between looking fine and constructing a bulletproof reason why he was fine. 

“Nothing,” was all he came up with. “Nothing’s going on. I’m just…like this.” He hoped it didn't sound too tragic. That’s not how he meant it, anyway. Because really, he wasn’t miserable. He wasn’t. Sure, maybe he missed Rozanov. Maybe he was mad at hockey for being the one thing in the world he loved the most, and also the thing keeping him from the second thing on that list. 

Fuck. Scratch that. He shouldn’t have thought that. It went: hockey, Rose, his parents, Hayden…Ilya was somewhere near the bottom. Definitely not second. 

Maybe he was guilty for being unable to love Rose the way she deserved, despite the fact that really, he should. Because there was zero reason not to. But he couldn’t seem to differentiate between butterflies and a stone resting in the bottom of his stomach. 

Rose turned to look at him then, and her eyes were brimming with so much pity Shane had to look at the floor. “That’s awful,” she said. She pulls away from the wall and takes a step toward him, reaching out to skim over his arms with her fingertips. “That’s so awful, Shane. Do you know how awful that is?” 

Shane turned his head to stare at the wall. If he kept looking at her, he’d cry. He hadn’t cried in a long time. Distantly, he wondered if it might feel nice. But he didn’t want to cry in Rose’s arms. And how awful was that—to be resentful of your own beautiful, funny, movie-star fiancée? To superimpose the image of your rival over her body? Not that he was doing that. Shane felt like shit again. He was awful; Rose is right. He was a terrible person. Something was wrong with him. 

She pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around his waist, splaying a palm between his shoulder blades. Her head rested on his chest. She was very small, and Shane couldn’t handle her quite the way he was inclined to; wasn’t quite sure what to do with her without snapping her in half. He settled for looping his arms around his waist. “I’m okay,” he tried to reassure her. “I’m totally fine. Just…a weird couple of weeks. I’ll be fine.” 

Rose began to sway them both gently side-to-side, bodies rocking together. She was pretty, Shane thought, in the same way garden statues are pretty. In an abstract, vaguely intangible way. He’d felt this way about every single woman he’s ever seen. They were…nice to look at, he supposed. Not bad. But nothing special, not really. Nothing he’d kill or go to war for. 

In highschool, Shane dated a mathlete named Jessica for three months. She’d been nice. She’d helped him pass precalculus. She’d sucked his dick, and he’d halfheartedly eaten her out. During the whole process, all he’d been able to think was this is what guys are so crazy about? and afterwards he felt like an asshole because she had been very transparent with her dissatisfaction with his performance. They broke up before Shane went to the International Prospect Cup final. He’d liked her. Really, he had. 

Rose kissed him and Shane belatedly reciprocated. He moved one hand to her back. Again, she wasn’t a bad kisser, per se—she was on the better end of the spectrum Shane had experienced, anyway—but it felt entirely performative. It was just something the two of them were doing, nothing more than a position. It didn’t breach Shane’s interiority. 

They were sitting on the foot of the bed and Rose had her top off. Shane wasn’t quite sure when that happened. She had just been angry at him. Now, though, she was looking up at him from where she knelt on the carpet like he was worth a lot fucking more than he actually was. And he knew that was bullshit, because the only thing Shane was really good for was winning games and ending interviews early. Sex with Rose felt like an interview sometimes. How is this? Good, thank you. And this? No, maybe over here. Is that nice? Yes, sure, I guess so. 

Shane felt bad again. 

Rose rested her head against the inside of his thigh and undid his fly. If Shane were a normal human man with a normal functioning brain, the action would probably get him at least a little bit worked up; the pressure of her fingertips on the zipper causing some nice-ish friction on his groin; but…nothing. 

Shane’s hands found her hair and he stroked through it gently, trying to muster up a convincing façade of tender desire. Her face was sharpened by the harsh, warm lamplight, her features losing their roundness as Rose began to exist only in extremes. It wasn’t her fault. Shane knew that.

Rose was beautiful and funny and deeply kind in a way he hadn’t quite known a person could be. But she wasn’t…him. And the sight of her on her knees didn’t cause any fluttering in his gut at all. And the glint of the engagement ring—oh God, the engagement ring—on her finger as she wrapped a hand around his dick made his chest tighten painfully. 

She murmured something Shane couldn’t hear over the ringing in his own ears and let her free hand slide up to his hip, where dark bruises bloomed under his skin. With an absentminded squeeze from Rose, Shane was thrust backwards in time, and suddenly he was on the ice, moving with the puck and he was flying and—Rozanov was slamming him into the boards, wedging his knee between Shane’s legs and spitting something in Russian with more bite than he’d heard before, and fuck, Ilya really did hate him now, now he’d fucked it all up, because why did he have to propose to Rose, why did he have to do that, why—

Rose took him into her mouth and for a moment, Shane’s mind quieted. She wasn’t awful at sucking his dick, but Shane was awful at keeping Rose as herself, at keeping his brain from replacing her mouth with somebody else’s. He let out a breathy groan at the thought, which seemed to spur her on, and she took him in deeper. 

He still wasn’t fully hard. He must have impossibly high standards, Shane thought. Rose Landry was on her knees, hollowing out her cheeks and rubbing circles on his hip, and he still couldn't get hard.

Shane let his eyes flutter closed and he tightened his grip ever so slightly on her hair, slacking his jaw and tilting his head up, free hand moving to the bruises on his hip. Without really thinking, he pressed down hard, fingers digging into the tender flesh. A sound that’s half groan and half pained grunt escaped him, because all of a sudden, he’s back on the ice, and it’s Ilya’s body pressed up against his, and the scent of sweat and shitty cologne and athlete is overwhelming his senses and he’s praying that the hit will leave him bruised—and now he was hard. 

The sex was halfhearted, and Shane didn’t feel even an ounce of what he would have had he been the one laying flat on the mattress. The crescendo was entirely different. 

After he and Ilya slept together for the first time, after they went further than blowjobs, Shane had googled ‘prostate vs penile orgasm’ and learned a lot about his own anatomy. If he were a different man, he might have been able to ask Rose to touch him that way. But he couldn’t risk…what couldn’t he risk? Anything. He couldn’t risk anything. He couldn’t risk falling into stereotype, couldn’t risk Rose connecting any dots, couldn’t risk her seeing him in a fractured light. 

They fell asleep together, and Shane thought that it was a lot nicer than the sex had been. 

He woke up before his alarm, needing to pee. For a few minutes, he debated the merits of staying in bed and trying to ignore the feeling and getting up and just going to the fucking bathroom. Instead of actually settling on one option, he got embarrassed at himself, and stood. 

Shane rubbed his eyes and trudged into the bathroom. It wasn’t even that early—not for him, anyway—but he was bone-tired. Everything exhausted him recently.

Instead of being met with a mercifully empty room, though, he was met with Rose’s solemn face. Her teeth worried at her bottom lip. “I think I might be pregnant,” she said the moment Shane walked into the room. 

Shane just stared at her. How had she crept out of bed without him noticing? Maybe he really was a deep sleeper. There was no way she’d actually said what he’d heard. “Sorry?” he breathed, swallowing hard. “Come again?” 

“I think I might be pregnant,” Rose repeated with slightly more conviction, grimacing at the words. The cool light in the bathroom settled on the panes of her face, making her skin look dull and sick. “Shit. Shit. That’s so fucking bad. Oh my god.” 

Shane blinked. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” 

“I was busy trying to keep you from floating into outer space,” Rose snapped at him. “I don’t think you would have been exactly amenable to the concept.”

He felt a flash of inexplicable anger. At who, he wasn’t sure. Probably himself. It was likely that Rose had been dropping hints all night that she needed to talk about something, and Shane had been too wrapped up in his stupid phone getting stolen that he hadn't even noticed.

He felt like his thoughts were simultaneously stalled, stagnant and muddy, and zipping past at speeds high enough to make them indistinguishable. The word echoed in his head. Pregnant. A baby. Fuck. Fuck. They didn’t even have that much sex. And they— “We’re always safe, though,” Shane said dumbly, reaching out to grab the edge of the countertop, hoping Rose wouldn’t catch his instability. “I mean. We always use a condom. And you’re, um, on the pill.” 

“That stuff isn’t a hundred percent effective,” Rose said, raising her hands in the air. Rose always got big when she was upset, like she was trying to scare off whatever it was that dared incite such a feeling inside her. Shane got small. “And it’s not like I am…I just—I think I might be.”

“Why?” Shane asked. “Are you…feeling sick?” It hit him, then, just how little he knew about pregnancy. Jacki wasn’t exactly shy about sharing her experience, but since pretty much everything he heard was filtered through Hayden, Shane suspected he didn’t get the most accurate information. It wasn’t like his mom told him very much, either. There weren’t very many women in his life at all. Yikes. 

“It’s a lot of stuff, Shane!” Rose snapped. “I feel like shit, and I’ve gained a little weight, and I’m late. Like, late late.”

Shane closed his eyes and tried to slow down his heart before reopening them. “Do you—do we have any tests?” 

Rose shook her head. She sighed and dragged a hand over her face. “No. Sorry for…snapping. I’m kind of scared.” 

Shane jammed the heels of his palms into his eyes before blowing out a sharp breath and pulling Rose into his arms. Selfishly, he wished he were the one being squished against someone’s chest. Wished strong hands rubbed down his back. “It’s gonna be fine. I’ll…I’ll go get a test. Take a shower. Just…we don’t need to freak out yet,” he said, despite very much wanting to freak out. 

Rose nodded into his shirt. “‘kay,” she said. She wiped her eyes. “Okay. Thank you.” She looked up at him, chin poking between his pecs. A small smile pulled at her lips. 

Ten minutes later, the shower sounded from the bathroom and Shane stood in the darkened hallway, shoes and coat on, keys in hand, completely still. His limbs were heavy, his chest tight and stomach twisting. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a father. Really, Shane didn’t mind whether or not he had children. The raising them part, he thought he’d probably enjoy. But his biology certainly didn’t give him the same kind of push it gave someone like Hayden, and the idea of having a baby incited more fear than it did excitement. And how horrible was that? To be afraid of having a baby with his fiancée? His beautiful, amazing, fiancée? To be—and he was hesitant to even identify this feeling—disgusted?  

Pregnancy scared him. That had to be it. It was a kind of body horror, anyway. 

He swallowed hard and left the building in a daze. 

The street outside was dark, illuminated in pillars by sodium lights that lined the sidewalks. It wasn’t as empty as he might have hoped, but he supposed that was what he got for living in the second most populous Canadian city. Groups of straggling bargoers littered the area, but they didn’t pay him too much attention. That was something, at least. 

There was a small corner store with a blinking OPEN sign, and Shane hoped that they had a pharmacy aisle and he wouldn’t have to ask the counter attendant for a test. He ducked inside, trying to focus solely on the task and not why he was performing it. He gave a small nod to the cashier and ran his eyes up and down the narrow aisles. Thank god. 

He stood in front of the boxes for almost two minutes. There were so many different kinds. Digital, analog, early detection (why weren’t they all like that?), cheap, expensive. In the end, he held four in the crook of his arm and hoped at least one of them was the right type. 

The cashier nodded when he stepped up, looked down at the counter, and then looked back up. “Shane Hollander?” he asked, somewhat incredulously. 

Shane grimaced and nodded. “Yeah.” He set the tests between them and watched as the man’s eyebrows knit together. 

The cashier looked back up at Shane. “Hm,” came from between pursed lips. “This’ll be forty-two eighty.” 

Shane held out his credit card. “Could you do me a favor and not put this on Twitter? My, uh.” He paused. “My fiancée and I, we…” he trailed off.  Shane tried his best to avoid the media in general. His Instagram was remotely managed, ad campaigns posted and then promptly forgotten about. That didn’t mean, though, that he was completely oblivious to the nature of the internet. This guy knew who he was. There was a totally-not-small chance that the moment Shane left, this interaction would be summed up in a few sentences and trending within a few hours. 

Pragmatically, Shane didn’t want to deal with that, and selfishly, he didn’t want Ilya to see. 

The lump in his throat grew at the thought of it. Shane hadn’t seen him off the ice in months. Hadn’t received a single text. 

The cashier nodded, head bobbing like it weighed a pound or two more than it actually did. “Sure, man. You’re, uh…taking care of it, I see.” 

“What?”

The man just stared at him, then blinked and shook his head. “Whatever. Have a good night, Shane Hollander.” 

Shane half-smiled, certain it looked strained. He took the tests and left the store, trying not to vomit all over the counter. 

Shane stood in front of the door to his apartment, just breathing. It was impossible not to think about Ilya in hallways like this one. Liminal and endless.

Rarely could he so clearly see the fork in the road. One line, or two. One future, or another. Because, ultimately, the decision of whether or not Shane would actually be a father, whether or not this baby would come to fruition, so to speak, was in Rose’s hands. And Shane didn’t know what she would want. 

He cleared his throat and entered the apartment, the keyfob receiver on the front door beeping twice. 

Rose was in the bathroom. She’d showered, and her hair was up. If Shane were normal, he’d probably feel something about the fact that his fiancée was naked beneath her bathrobe, but he didn’t. He felt inclined to suggest that she put on some pajamas. 

When Shane entered the room, Rose sat up straighter and flashed him a tight smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Where did you go?” 

“Little dépanneur a few blocks away,” Shane said, setting the paper bag with the tests on the countertop beside the sink, trying to keep his hands from visibly shaking. “Are you okay?”

Rose nodded and took a few steps closer. She hugged him for a moment and then rummaged in the back before withdrawing two handfuls of white cardboard boxes. “Why did you get so many?” she asked with a small laugh. It was good that she was laughing.

Shane shrugged helplessly. “There were lots of, uh, different kinds. I didn’t know which was right.” 

She smiled at him, though it was wobbly, and called him cute, but Shane barely heard it over the roaring in his ears. 

He held her hand while she sat on the toilet and watched as she lined the tests up on the counter by the sink. His eyebrows twitched with the effort of not saying anything about how that was unsanitary. 

He couldn’t breathe. 

Rose had disappeared into their bedroom to change into pajamas, and Shane was left alone in the cold bathroom with the four pieces of plastic that would, no matter what they said, fundamentally change the rest of his life. 

If the tests were negative, he would still be forced to contend with the thoughts they’d driven up. And, well, if they were positive, he would be at Rose’s mercy. Of course, he couldn’t say anything like that. There would be a baby, or there wouldn’t be. It sounded so fucking simple. 

He slid off the edge of the bathtub and onto the floor. The tiles were cold and hard and for a second he could pretend that he’d just taken a bad hit—that’s why he was laying on the ice, that’s why he couldn’t breathe, that’s why his chest hurt. 

His forehead pressed into the cool porcelain of the toilet, chest heaving as he closed his eyes. He drew his knees to his chest, then extended them again. 

Footsteps echoed in the near distance and Rose’s fingertips flitted over his shoulders, like she was unsure of whether or not it was okay to touch him. 

“It’s fine,” she murmured. “It’s fine, it’s probably negative.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be freaking out like this, I’m—” He gagged. 

She pinched the nape of his neck between her knuckles, kneading. That helped a little bit. “It’d be a sixth French,” she said quietly. “And a quarter Japanese.”

Shane gagged again. Why did she have to talk about this imaginary—and that’s all it was for now: imaginary—baby like it was going to inherit their looks. Like it would look like an actual mixture of him and Rose and not just some intangible baby blur? “Yeah,” he choked out. 

Shane tried to be proud of his heritage, he did, and it wasn’t like he was ashamed or anything, but none of it felt like it belonged to him. It felt, as bad as it made him feel to say, like an obstacle more than anything. Something for people to hate him for, but nothing to identify with. He couldn’t speak Japanese, aside from a handful of words. He and his family didn’t celebrate Golden Week, or Oban, or anything. 

He hadn’t really felt like he was missing anything until junior hockey, when he was 13, and he met Sun Jun Hie, who had been much more Chinese than Shane had ever felt Japanese. Jun Hie got the brunt of the teasing from their teammates. But after practice, Shane heard he and his family speak Chinese as they loaded into the car, and felt a little guilty for never having wanted that. 

But it didn’t matter. He was Canadian, and he liked being Canadian. Maybe his stomach hurt when he sat on the living room floor while his mom Skyped his grandparents to tell them all about his success in a language that was easy for them, his fingers twisting in the thick fibers of the shag carpet, and wished he could join the conversation in any meaningful way. Maybe he made an effort to improve his chopstick dexterity. Maybe he tried to be nicer to Jun Hie, even if Jun Hie didn’t want to hear it. He was 13, and he did try. Even if it felt like he was pretending. Was it possible to appropriate a culture that was half-yours? 

He could vividly—and this was saying something, because most of what stuck with Shane from his childhood were exceptional plays—remember clinging to his dad on the foot of his parents’ bed and trying through tears to explain that he really was trying. And he was sorry and his stomach hurt. David, who had been bleary-eyed and sleep-rumpled and probably exhausted, and just patted Shane on the back, stroked his hair, and whispered in a voice that was quiet enough not to wake Yuna that Shane didn’t have to be anything he wasn’t and nobody was angry with him and your mom and I love you so much, bud. 

Shane had been hyperaware of the fact that he was too old to be held like that, but he’d wrapped his arms around his father’s neck and his legs around his waist and notched his face into David’s shoulder and let himself be carried back to bed. They hadn’t talked about it in the morning, but David had ruffled his hair when he appeared in the kitchen and sat with him in the breakfast nook while Yuna grumbled about being forced to pack Shane’s lunch, even though it was usually David’s job. 

He wanted his father. His mother, too. But they served him in different ways. Yuna could pull him together, but David would hold him while he cried. 

He wasn’t ready to be a dad. Not even if he could push the creeping sense of dread that he would be inexorably tied to Rose for the rest of his life out of his mind.

“Would it really be so bad?” Rose asked, rubbing down his back with a steady hand. “I think you’d be a good dad.” 

“I thought you didn’t want it,” Shane said. His voice was hoarse. He felt rung-dry. When he’d left, Rose had been on the verge of tears. Now, all of sudden, she was talking about their baby like it might actually be a real possibility. That it might be born. And be tiny and squishy and grow into a whole person that would depend on him and—

“I don’t know. I don’t know. What do you want?” She was keeping her voice low and soft on purpose. It made Shane feel like a child. Maybe she would be a good mom. He felt sick again. 

He couldn’t tell her outright that there was no possible universe in which a child entering his life in the next decade was a good thing. He had his career. Hayden managed fatherhood and hockey in tandem, but Hayden was different in a lot of ways. Rose in the past few months had been more than he could usually fit in around hockey. A pregnant Rose would be too much. A postpartum Rose and a fucking baby would be impossible. God, he was terrible, wasn't he? Thinking about family the same way he did brand deals. Rose didn’t deserve that. 

All of a sudden, he missed Ilya so badly tears rose in the back of his throat. 

“I don’t know,” Shane lied. He knew exactly what he wanted. And, with horrifying clarity, he realized that what he wanted didn’t include Rose at all. “It’s…up to you.”

“It’s probably not smart to have a baby right now,” Rose said haltingly, like she was afraid he might be angry. “But that doesn’t mean never.” 

All of the air in Shane’s lungs left in a single woosh. He sucked in a deep breath, and felt so immensely better that he wanted to jump up and run. “Okay,” he said. He squeezed her thigh. “Yeah. That’s…good.” 

Rose looked relieved, her expression breaking into a tight smile. She sniffled. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay,” Shane said. He sat up a little. God, he could fly. Even if she was pregnant, there’d be no baby. He didn’t want to contend with the specifics of that, didn’t want to make himself sick with the thought that if she was pregnant, he was already a father, whether he wanted to be or not, that there was something alive because of him, something that he’d be—

He didn’t want to think about it. He wasn’t anti-abortion or anything—really, he couldn’t be, because he knew that if he could get pregnant, he’d probably kill himself before actually having a baby, and he wasn’t a hypocrite—but something still twisted in his stomach when he thought about scooping a tiny, tiny body into sterile air and making sure it never got bigger. That was all. But he could handle it. What he couldn’t handle was a baby. So. 

Rose crumpled into his arms, and wished for the second time that he could have been the one burying himself in her neck. 

The timer on her phone buzzed and they both pulled themselves together long enough to stand and look at the row of tests on the countertop.  

They were all negative. 

***

“Fly safe, alright?” Shane murmured, hugging Rose a little tighter. Even if he didn’t love her right, like she deserved, he did love her. And he couldn’t stomach the thought of anything happening while she was in fucking Bucharest. He didn’t have a lot of experience with Romania, but there was a transfer on the Admirals from the Steaua Rangers who had called Shane a faggot in 2013, so he wasn’t inclined to like the country. 

He stayed in the gate until the plane took off, and then drove home in silence. 

The apartment felt empty without her, but Shane found that he didn’t exactly mind, which probably made him horrible. It was just that he was used to empty rooms. Half of his life was spent in hotels. Rose had made him feel a little crowded. 

There was one more practice before the first playoffs game, against San Francisco. Shane didn’t want to sound like an asshole, but there was pretty much zero chance that they’d leave the ice losers, so he wasn’t overly worried about it. 

He stood under the spray of the shower for three minutes before moving to wash his hair. He felt clogged. A sob broke from his chest. “Fuck, fuck fuck,” he choked, half-hyperventilating. And over what? Nothing had happened last week. Nothing had happened last week. His face crumpled and his legs shook a little bit. He wanted. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted. He was imploding. They’d find his body when he didn’t show up for practice and call Rose and tell her “I’m so sorry, ma’am, your fiancé was a sick fuck who wanted more than he deserved even though he had everything most people dream of and he died when he couldn’t get it. He was selfish, but it’s okay because he’s gone now and you can find somebody who isn’t so broken he can’t love the most famous woman in North America.” 

They’d perform a biopsy and find Ilya in his guts. 

He didn’t realize he was touching himself until his dick slapped against his stomach. He was knuckle-deep in his asshole, trying in vain to elicit the same feelings he could. It wasn’t right, but it was enough, because he came all over his chest, choking out “Fuck, Roz—” 

At least he’d left the anov off the end of it. At least he could pretend he’d been moaning his fiancée’s name and not the man he’d been trying and failing to forget for the last six months. 

He washed his own hair and ignored the tingling at his scalp; the ghost of Ilya’s blunt fingertips carding through his hair that first night in fucking 2013. Three years since Ilya had first torn Shane open and unspooled every dark corner of his sphere of desire. And Shane still couldn’t wash off his touch.

The bruises on his hip were purpling, turning green around the edges.. They stood out against the white of his towel.

***

His chest was heaving, lungs burning through freezing air when Shane sat down on the bench. He didn’t move for a moment—just gripped the edge of the wooden slab with whitening knuckles—before jolting forward to unlace his skates. Locker room chatter swirled, tendrils of conversation brushing over him, urging him to join, but Shane was, ultimately, untempted. He wanted to get out of his sweaty gear and disappear to the showers before everyone else caught up and followed him. Being an athlete since preschool, apparently, didn’t mean that his discomfort at the prospect of getting naked with his teammates was mitigated. 

Shane found himself feeling afraid to undress in the locker room, recently. Which was patently ridiculous, for a couple of reasons. He should be used to it, after so many years. He should be comfortable around these people. But every time he pulled his shirt over his head, in the split second where the world was dark and he was on display to the room but obscured to himself, he felt a pang of terror through his chest. Like his body would somehow betray him, like the memory of Rozanov’s touch would become a tangible, visible thing, and everyone would know.  

The bruises were just that, he supposed. Everybody knew who’d given them to him. And even though he got bruises after they fucked, too, these ones were okay, because they were violence without love, without tenderness. And it was the emotions behind the other ones that made them so revolting to everybody else. He could be covered in splotches of blue and black but as long as they didn’t bear even the smallest connection to the prospect of gentleness—and that’s what the other bruises he got were, anyway. The sex was rough and hard and fast but really it was so fucking tender—they were fine. 

Thankfully, the Voyageurs didn’t give him too much shit about the aversion. They were plenty content to keep the ass-slapping amongst themselves. 

Shane was rounding the corner to the wet room when everybody went quiet. Even J.J. was silent, and suddenly Shane’s breathing was the loudest thing in the room. He turned back around, to find the eyes of every single Voyageur trained either on him or Comeau’s cellphone. “What?” he asked, and the word seemed to reverberate through the team. “You guys look like somebody died.” A high-pitched, whiny sound came from the phone, and Shane scrunched his nose up. “That sounds like porn.” 

Hayden snapped his head up, eyes dragging away from where they’d been drilling into the phone screen. Then he was moving, pushing Shane into the wet room, hands on his biceps. “Fuck,” he breathed, yanking the heavy door shut behind them. In the other room, Shane heard an explosion of laughter.

“Hayden, what—” Shane began, searching the other man’s face for any kind of information. 

Hayden took a step back from Shane and buried his face in his hands, sliding down the tiled wall to sit on the floor, knees falling apart. 

Shane stood awkwardly in front of him. He felt sick and he didn’t know why. “What’s, uh…”

“Rozanov,” Hayden prompted, letting his hands fall back to his sides. “You’re fucking Rozanov?”

Shane, for the first time in his life, felt the world as it spun on its axis, hurdling through space at an unfathomable speed. The room tilted a little bit, and then he was sitting heavily on the floor too. Dull laughter in the other room pierced through his skull. “What?” he repeated. “No, I’m—no, we’re not,” he denied hollowly. Hayden’s face was blurry but Shane thought it might have been getting closer. 

“Shane, man, breathe,” came Hayden’s voice. He sounded like he was underwater. Unfortunately, though, his next words were clear: “There’s a video.” 

Hayden’s arms were on his shoulders, and even though Shane was grateful for the grounding weight, he tried to shrug them off. “Fuck, Hayd, quit…no there’s not. I’m not—Ilya and I, we—it’s not—” he said. He wasn’t sure if he was shouting them or if they came out as shaky whispers. He shook his head, lolling back and forth against the tile wall. 

“Shane, dude, I—fuck!” Hayden cut himself off, shouting over his shoulder at nobody in particular. Then he collected himself and tried again, his voice a little softer this time, “I’m not—I’m not mad at you. It’s fine. I’m not mad. Breathe, dude, you’re scaring me.” 

Shane didn’t think he could. Finally, he managed to shrug Hayden’s hands off and draw his knees up to his chest, which he promptly stuck his head between. The blood rushing in his ears was deafening. Hayden was probably still talking, but Shane didn’t want to, nor could, hear it. 

A video. The worst part was that he knew exactly what video it was. Hell, he was the fucking star. Rozanov had joked that they ought to make him an IMDB page. And—and it was in the hands of the Voyageurs? The whole fucking world, probably, Shane amended. Everybody. It wasn’t for them. It wasn’t for anybody but the two lead actors, who hadn’t been acting at all. What was going to happen? Would he be suspended? Everybody—everybody would know. If Ilya was suspended, that threatened his Visa. What if he were deported? And imprisoned for promoting homosexuality—something Russia’s government considered an extremist movement. What would happen to him? Were they protected by their contracts? No—the morality clause. They would be far too much trouble to keep around. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He didn’t want Hayden there, patting him on the back, probably disgusted. Of course he was. Shane was disgusting. The video, when viewed through anybody else's eyes, was disgusting. And now it was everywhere. Shane could hardly conflate this with reality. It felt fake. Like some horrible nightmare. Distantly, and then all at once, he wanted Ilya. 

“My phone,” he managed from between his knees. “C’you get my phone.” It came out flat, lacking a curious upturn. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to vomit into the inset drain on the floor. 

Hayden didn’t say anything, but Shane felt a whoosh of air over his forehead and heard the door open. On the other side, the rest of the Voyageurs were still talking; laughing; dissecting the fucking sex tape like post-game footage. ‘Who would have thought the king of MHL was a fucking invert?’ he heard Drapeau say through laughter. ‘Oh, God, Rozanov—’ Smithson added, mimicking the sounds Shane had been making in the video. ‘He probably gets fucked every time we lose. Must be why he’s been slacking lately. Hollander wants more Raiders cock!’

Shane’s stomach twisted. 

“I’m getting Shane’s stuff,” he heard Hayden announce. There was a new, fresh kind of bite in his voice that Shane didn’t think he’d ever heard before. “And I want every fucking one of you to delete that video from your phones. It’s illegally distributed.”

“Illegally distributed, yes, but not illegal to look at, no?” 

“It doesn’t even matter if it’s fucking legal, dickwad!” Hayden shouted. “Where the fuck is Theriault?” 

“Probably managing this shitstorm from his office,” J.J. offered. 

The arguing continued. Shane stared at the grout between the tiles under him. When he was younger, he used to stare at the tiles inlaid into the bathroom floor of his childhood home. They were black and white hexagons, arranged in little clumps that vaguely resembled flowers. Sometimes, whilst in the bath, with his arms folded on the edge of the tub and his little soapy cheek resting on them, he’d stare at them, trying to turn the flowers into other things. Bees. Bigger, white flowers. Fish. 

Sometimes, he’d take a wet finger and run it over the grout, strategically darkening it in certain places to make his alternate patterns come to life. 

He still couldn’t breathe. He wanted Ilya. He wanted his mom, his dad. His anybody. Somebody stable. The trouble with being so reliable, Shane came to realize sometime during high school, was that you didn’t exactly attract people who could support you back. 

He grabbed his own hip, fingers finding the bruises again. One, two, three. The pain was grounding. Something tangible to manage. It was a plus that pressing on them conjured up images of Ilya. A shaky breath escaped him. He felt like his ribs were made of paper, his lungs constrained by nothing, left to their own devices, expanding and shrinking wildly, the amount of air he was getting inconsistent and jittery. 

Hayden was in front of him again, and the door had shut, blocking out the locker room conversation. “Hey, dude. I got your phone. Your bag.”

Shane lifted his head. His vision was overexposed, Hayden’s face too white, his features smudged. There was the press of something cool and metal in his palm, which his fingers quickly closed around. He sniffed and sat up, wiping at his eyes with the heels of his hands. They came away wet, and Shane realized he was crying. He was still crying. With shaky fingers, he tried to open his phone. There was a tsunami of notifications. Mom, Rose, Mom, Farah, Rose, Rose, Rose, Dad, Farah, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily—

He tapped one of the Lily ones—a missed call. It rang for approximately four seconds, just enough time for Hayden to get out “Who is—?” before Ilya picked up. 

“Hollander—Shane,” he started. Ilya’s voice was wet, too, but it sounded thicker, like the tears hadn’t been allowed to fall. “Are you okay? Where? Are you okay? You saw?”

They hadn’t spoken in so long. The sound of Ilya’s voice made Shane want to curl into himself and get naked. Made him want to bear his neck. He wanted Ilya to be there so badly. He would be steady. And big enough to make Shane feel like less of a giant and more of a man.

Shane nodded into his knees. “I didn’t, um, s-see it, but yeah. I saw,” he mumbles. “M’in…locker room. Hayden’s…Hayden’s here.” 

“Hey,” Hayden said tightly. 

“Are you okay?” Ilya asked again. 

“He’s having a panic attack. I can’t calm him down,” Hayden explained. 

Shane’s insides twisted tighter and tighter. I’m sorry, he thought. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. 

“Okay. Okay, Shane, can you breathe please? In please, then out. I will do it with you, okay?” Ilya tried. A shuddering breath came over the phone. “Is okay. See?”

Shane tried to mimic him, but the air caught in his throat and came out as a sob. “It’s not okay,” he choked. “Ilya.”

Ilya said something in Russian, pained-sounding and incomprehensible. “Hey, hey, Shane, is okay. Hayden is there, yes? Pike, say something nice to him. Touch shoulders.”

Hayden obliged, muttering something Shane didn’t care to decipher. 

This time, when Hayden’s hands skimmed over Shane’s shoulders, Shane tried to let himself appreciate the gesture. He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes again, digging his blunt fingernails into the palms of his hands. It was okay. Hayden was there. And Ilya, on the phone. And nobody was dead or dying. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, a little more steadily. “F-fuck, I didn’t mean to freak out.” 

Hayden gave him a pat on the back, keeping his other hand planted beside Shane’s neck. “Can’t blame you,” he said. “But you’re good now? Or…better?” 

“Yes, better,” Shane managed. “Ilya…”

“I’m safe,” he said. “I’m home, in Boston.” 

Shane felt such an immense wave of love crash over him that for a moment he worried he’d suffocate on it. He hadn’t even needed to get the question out for Ilya to know both what he meant and what to say.

“Hayden, you get him home too, okay? Voyageurs were bad about it?”

Hayden nodded. He looked dazed. Probably still reconciling the fact that the person on the phone was Ilya Rozanov with everything else he knew to be true about his best friend. “I mean, they weren’t great. I’ll—I’ll get him home, yeah. Fuck, man, it’s crazy that it’s you.” He pushed his hair out of his face with his free hand  and sighed. “I need to call Jacki.” 

As his breathing steadied, Shane’s embarrassment deepened. He’d panicked. In front of Hayden. In front of everyone, really, because even though the Voyageurs hadn’t seen him with his head between his knees, Hayden’s ire had definitely been enough to let them all know what was happening. He felt his cheeks flush. And, worse, the implications of  the entire world having seen him in such a compromising position were beginning to catch up with him. Half of it, of course, was the fact that he was in that he was in that he was in that position with Ilya, but the other half was the fact that he was in it at all, and now, probably, everyone he knew had seen him flushed and reduced to tiny, throaty noises and practically drunk and, and—and God, his parents had seen it. 

“I want to go home,” Shane said, voice a little shaky. He didn’t want to be looked at. He didn’t know how he was going to make a public appearance ever again. He kept looking at the ground. “Ilya, I wanna…”

“Is probably not good to be seen together,” Ilya said, placatingly, though Shane could hear the sadness in his voice. “Would probably make this worse.” 

Shane’s arms felt incredibly empty. His body wanted to lean forward, wanted to flop somewhere soft. For a moment, Shane thought that if he just wished hard enough, Ilya would be there to catch him when he slumped forward. “Will you call me, then? In…h-half—” His voice broke. “Thirty minutes. I need…”

***

Ilya sat in his living room and stared at the clock. Shane picked up when he called, looking wrung dry.

His face wasn’t on screen, but Ilya could see the shiny tears threading down his muscular torso in shiny twin rivulets, catching on his collarbone before sliding down his pecs and disappearing into the darkness at the bottom of the frame. The top of his head took up most of the frame, head hanging low between his forearms where they were crossed over the toilet bowl. Shane heaved, and Ilya felt something shoot through his chest. 

They hadn’t spoken in so long. Not since Boston. But somehow, the end of that day felt erased. Like maybe it was only the good part that stuck with him. It didn’t matter, anyway. Even if Shane hated him, Ilya needed to catch the next flight to Montreal. He was terrified. He needed to apply for asylum. Needed to call so many different people. Svetlana. His agent. His fucking coach. But it was eclipsed by the sight of Shane like that. 

Nothing mattered more.

Chapter End Notes

- this is all mapped out! expect semi-regular updates (it is finals season, lol) i'm anticipating 3-4 chapters, but that's subject to shrink or inflate. next chap is gonna open w/ a flashback of them filming the vid [beams and jumps up and down]
thank you for reading!! comments + kudos are greatly appreciated! lmk what you think!
love ya! talk to be on tumblr @spiralboundd

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

the video + ilya interlude

Chapter Notes

“Take it like man, da? Big, strong king of NHL can take my cock, can’t he?” Ilya murmured, stroking his palm up the expanse of Shane’s thigh. His lips skimmed over Shane’s shoulder, leaving the barest trail of saliva over Shane’s heated skin. 

Shane’s fingers dug into Ilya’s sides, his blunt fingernails leaving behind flat crescent moon shapes. His eyes were squeezed shut, his body trembling slightly. He was already overstimulated, and Ilya’s small, lazy thrusts sent disproportionate shocks of pleasure through his body. He felt like he was teetering on the edge of a panic attack—like everything was wrong, wrong, wrong; he needed more. “Roz—” he gasped out. 

“Is okay,” Ilya replied, lowering his voice even further. “You are very strong, I am sure you can take it. You are okay?”

Shane swallowed hard and nodded, despite the great amount of effort the constrained motion took. “Y-yeah. M’...m’okay…”

Ilya kissed him, nipping his lower lip, tugging it down with his teeth. “Tell them,” he quipped. “Tell the audience why you take me so well. Show them how good you are.” 

The audience. Shane had almost forgotten. His eyes flicked to where Ilya’s cellphone was propped up on the dresser, camera facing outwards. There was no audience, obviously, aside from maybe future-them, but that didn’t stop Ilya from referring incessantly to their imaginary spectators. Even so, the thought agitated Shane’s body further, and his cock bobbed up, smearing against his abs. “Rozanov…”

“Ah, maybe you are not so shy after all,” Ilya said, wrapping his fist around Shane’s dick, squeezing once. “Fun to play with, yes? Useless, just for me to grab.”

Shane gritted his teeth. He was fucked-out and foggy from their escapades some thirty minutes earlier. He wanted to whine at Ilya and plead with him not to tease; beg him to fuck Shane into the mattress. 

He hadn’t driven to Rozanov’s house expecting to be filmed. Actually, he’d been hoping for some very tender, quiet, easy sex. He had been debating for several months the merits of asking Ilya to put his cock in Shane soft, so he could feel it fill out inside of him, and even just the thought made him so horny he could hardly see, but when he actually arrived, and saw Rozanov standing there, he had the unfortunate realization that Ilya simply couldn’t stay soft if Shane was in front of him and shirtless. So. That dream had died. But it was quickly replaced by another one. 

“Fuckfuckfuck—Il—Rozanov, please,” Shane gasped. Every nerve in his body was alight. He was burning up. He was going to melt from the inside out if Ilya didn’t fuck him right fucking now—

Ilya was too busy sucking on his nipples and playing absentmindedly with his cock to catch Shane’s desperation, apparently. 

His chest felt tight. He stared down at Ilya through half-lidded eyes, trying to gulp down every detail of the other man’s face, from his slightly crooked nose to the dimpling of skin around his eyes. He pulsed around Rozanov, and his whole body got a shock when he accidentally hit that magic spot. “Please,” he choked. 

“Such pretty words,” Ilya murmured, thumbing at the head of Shane’s dick. “I want more.” 

“I don’t wanna…c’you not t-tease me right now, I’m…f-fuck,” Shane grasped Rozanov’s shoulders, hiding his face in the curve of the other man’s neck. “Please,” he managed again. 

Ilya pressed a kiss to the shell of his ear, releasing his cock and moving his hands to Shane’s back, knuckles punching into the tense muscles there, jumping over the ridge of his spine. His body went a little bit limper, and Shane could have sworn something drained out of him. “Yes, yes, okay. No teasing, if you do not want. Camera is still okay?” 

Shane nodded, still trembling. “I don’t give a fuck if it’s—on the jumbotron, jus’ need you to fuck me.” His throat was thick and his legs wrapped around Rozanov’s waist, arms looping around his neck as he hid his face. “Hurts.” 

And it did. He was on fire. Every single inch of his body was aching with pure, white-hot desire. His abs were smeared with his own precum, his thighs shaking and chest tight. He was going to hyperventilate if Ilya didn’t do what he did best and completely dismantle him.

So when the man beneath him thrust upwards, Shane could have sobbed with relief. The tense rope snapped, and the shorter half twisted up again in the few seconds before Ilya thrust again. Snap. Twist. Repeat, repeat. 

Ilya was petting the back of his head, and Shane was crying, little ‘ah-ah-ah’s punched out of him by Rozanov’s hips. Tears dripped down his cheeks, between their bodies, and onto Shane’s dick, which just made him cry harder. 

“It’s okay?” Ilya kept asking. “It’s okay?” 

Shane nodded, and then cried harder, because he was fucking up the video. Surely, this wouldn’t be hot upon a rewatch. Ilya would probably delete the footage. He was all snotty and pink and his moans came out thick and pained. “God,” he choked out when he got close. “M’gonna come.”

Ilya panted and rocked his hips faster. “Yes. Yes, pretty.” And Shane didn’t take the lack of elaboration personally, because that was about as much as Shane was capable of at the minute, and English was his first language. 

Shane kept crying after they both came. The sobs ceased to hiccups, but the tears kept coming. Ilya cleaned them both up and then tugged Shane onto his chest, letting Shane throw a leg over his waist and clinging to him. It was too intimate for what they were, but maybe it didn’t matter. They were playing it up for the camera, weren’t they? Shane was an excellent actor. 

But the way Ilya’s fingers stroked through his air felt sincere. And the look on his face when Shane had to leave had to be. 

Shane got a copy of the video in the ‘Lily’ thread a few days later, which he saved to a locked folder and didn’t look at again. He couldn’t bear to see himself that way. He didn’t want to see Rozanov’s expression, either. He was sick of realizing after the fact that the people he was with just put up with him. 

***

Ilya got the news from Marleau both times. The first time, he’d been launched head-first into a week of nonstop drinking. Usually, he preferred pills to alcohol, in part because they made him feel powerful—his mother had succumbed to their allure, but he wouldn’t, he was stronger, he wouldn’t be her, he would shake a handful into his open palm but only swallow one—but alcohol carried a unique numbness that he couldn’t accomplish on benzos alone. It also made him feel like shit afterwards. And Ilya deserved to feel like shit. 

Shane was with Rose. Ilya knew there was no universe in which he wasn’t miserable with her. Their years in each other’s orbit had assured Ilya picked up far more about Shane than he probably should have—all those hours watching game footage, reacting to him on the ice, making him whine and cry when they were alone. So he knew that Rose couldn’t make him happy. What this also meant, though, was that Shane preferred his life with Rose to whatever he had felt with Ilya during their short times together. Or in their time apart. Maybe it was those giant swaths of silence that had squandered his chance, Ilya thought. 

And it only took Shane a fucking year to propose. He’d heard that from Marleau as well. NYC PAPARAZZI PICS SPARK ENGAGEMENT RUMORS FOR CANADA’S IT COUPLE. 

Something nasty had risen in his gut. He wanted to scream and hit something and collapse on the floor and sob. They hadn’t spoken in two years. There hadn’t been so much as a sideways glance on the ice, and now there were pictures of Rose fucking Landry parading Hollander around NYC with a rock on her finger. It felt personal. 

He wanted it so badly he could have died. 

That headline had marked the beginning of another hell week for Ilya. Alexei started calling again, despite what they’d ‘agreed’ in Moscow at their father’s funeral. Apparently, Alexei had gotten into some trouble with the men who he bought coke from, and they were threatening Marusya, his daughter. She was fourteen-ish, and the only good part of Russia, as far as Ilya was concerned. He didn’t know whether or not she was actually in danger, or if Lyosha was just desperate enough to lie about that. Either way, Ilya couldn’t risk letting her get irreparably caught up in Alexei’s bullshit, so he sent the money. 

Half of him hated his brother. The other half was still weak with the memories of their shared childhood, of the echo of Lyosha’s face in the doorway back in 2003, when they’d stood in silence for twenty minutes and watched for the rise and fall of breaths they both knew wouldn’t come. Eventually, Ilya had hit the floor, sobbing into his bony knees and praying—he didn’t believe in God, but his mother did, and this was about her—and Alexei had been the one to move her body, wash the sheets, make the bed. That day was one of only a handful where Ilya could remember feeling something like gratitude for his brother. Something like love. But he had been young, and Alexei had berated him for their time together for the weakness Ilya displayed back then. Berated him for other things, too. Even when he was begging for money, Lyosha couldn’t let Ilya believe he harbored anything but disgust for him.

So things were worse. He missed Shane badly. There was so much grief boiling inside him. His mother, his father, his life in Russia, the family he had but didn’t want, the family he wanted and didn’t have, and now fucking Shane Hollander. It felt like a momentous loss. 

Then September rolled around, and he had to deal with the anniversary of his mother’s death on top of everything else. It felt like his life was split into quadrants. Before his mother’s death; after his mother’s death. Before Shane, and, now; after Shane. 

He thought of those first years often. Back when they were baby-faced and rabid to prove themselves. Ilya remembered feeling extraordinarily young. Part of it had to do with the fact that his English when he was first drafted left a lot to be desired, and people didn’t usually slow down for him, so he missed a lot. His brain was constantly on overdrive. If there hadn’t been that obstacle, he probably wouldn’t have embodied the persona he did. He was sharp and harsh because sub ten word chirps had been easiest for him, before he remembered articles, before he kept his tenses straight. 

Maybe if he’d been more proficient, the Hollander-Rozanov rivalry wouldn’t have blossomed the way it did. Ilya was born eight months after the fall of the USSR. In 2009, the Soviet Union still scared people in North America. It represented what people were afraid of. Communism, nuclear warfare. Chernobyl had scared Ilya badly when he was younger. Pripyat was empty, and everybody was dead, and the world was hanging in the balance for a few months. Even then, it’d been one wrong move away from becoming a global disaster. It terrified him. A power so big, it rotted you from the inside out. It turned your blood to poison. 

Ilya already felt radioactive. 

He always thought of his mother in the fall. Maybe not as much as he used to, when he was thirteen and uninterested in anything that didn’t make him forget, so he’d roam the streets during the schoolday, enjoying the relative emptiness, and kick up rotting leaf matter. All he had wanted was for his misery to be localized somewhere. If his agony had to do with Moscow and not the inner workings of his own brain, it would be possible to outrun with transatlantic flights and timezone changes. 

But he still thought of her. His thoughts about her were simplistic and immature, a product of the simple fact that the last time he’d seen her, his voice hadn’t even dropped. They felt ginormous. Sometimes he tried to speak to her, tried to tell her that he was in America, and her husband was dead and her older son was a fucking asshole. Tried to tell her about Shane. But whenever he broached the subject, acidic jealousy rose in his throat to the point where he could taste it, and he didn’t want his mother to know Shane through that lens. 

She probably wouldn’t approve, anyway. Irina had been a devout, Orthodox Catholic. Grigori had hated the way she’d dragged Ilya and Lyosha to church as much as she could. So Ilya fucking both men and women would probably devalue him in her eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought. 

But how could he keep Shane out of his mouth? Ever since fucking Saskatchewan, Shane Hollander had taken up a much larger sliver of Ilya’s mind than he had any right to. And even just thinking about it brought up the same feeling Ilya had in 2010, watching Shane break into laughter over and over again. Oh. Hello. It’s you.

***

“Jesus Christ, Roz. Team oughta put you on suicide watch,”  Marleau quipped behind Ilya as he winked at the bartender and another three shots of absinthe materialized in his hand. 

“I can handle it,” Ilya slurred, grinning. “This is nothing. Baby drink.” 

“Maybe, but you’ve had fuckin’ nine of them.” Marleau looked a little more worried, his eyebrows pulling together as he stared down at Ilya. Even through his hazy gaze, Ilya could tell he was teetering on the edge of being in trouble. 

Ilya just waved his hand and pulled Marleau away from the bar. He flashed his teeth and stumbled. “Take one, I will share.” 

Marleau was still for a moment before he too grinned and took a shot. “Yeah, okay. Crazy,” he muttered, downing it. “Least now you’ll only drink eleven.” 

Ilya frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. The bar was fucking loud. His ears rang. God. How fucking long had it been. “Wanna get laid,” he grumbled. “Marly, pick most beautiful girl here for me.”

“You’re fucking wasted, man,” Marleau said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea—”

“Bah! When have you ever fucking…fucking been like this…no fun…” 

“Roz.”

“Marly,” Ilya imitated. 

“You’re going to regret it in the morning.”

He would, too, but he didn’t want to hear that. He’d regret everything in the morning. He’d regret being born, playing hockey, meeting—

So what did it matter if he regretted sleeping with one more woman? He wanted to regret it. Because regret, at least, would make him feel anything other than fucking longing. God, it seemed like all Ilya did was miss and miss and mourn. 

“Yes, whatever,” he said with a wave of his hand. His limbs felt vaguely disconnected from his brain. 

Eventually, Marleau gave up, and Ilya was left to his own devices. The rest of the team was already back at the hotel, and it was late enough to be a genuine disturbance to the quality of his play tomorrow. 

He found a woman and staggered after her up to her hotel room. She was pretty. He squeezed her ass. He blinked, and they were on her bed. He was on his knees, chin resting on the edge of the mattress, head wedged between her legs. She had all her clothes on, though, and she was just petting his hair. 

“You’re really drunk,” the woman giggled. “I didn’t realize you were so drunk.” 

“Yes, I am, ahh…what you say. Whatever. I will be very good to you,” Ilya said—pleaded. Please, please, please let me fuck you, let me feel like the person I’m supposed to be. He stroked up her thigh. 

She shook her head slowly, still giggling. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes glossy. “Sorry. M’not..that kind of girl.” She yanked on his hair a little, and his eyes closed, throat letting out a little hum. He saw why Hollander liked this so much.

So Ilya walked six blocks in complete darkness to the Marriott the Raiders were staying in. He considered laying down in the street falling asleep. He would have done it, too, if he didn’t feel so bad about making somebody else be the one that killed him. They might not classify it as a suicide. Just some drunkard roadkill. 

“Woah, Roz—” Marleau caught him when he fell through the door. “Fuck, I didn’t think I’d see you again tonight.” 

Ilya rested his head on Marleau’s shoulder. He kissed up his neck, to his jaw; his lips. “Marly, please. Fuck.” 

Marleau didn’t seem fazed. He hauled Ilya—still attached to his chest, tonguing the stubble darkening his jaw—up and to the bathroom, dumping him unceremoniously in the tub. “Get your clothes off.”

“Ooh, sexy,” Ilya murmured. His eyes were falling closed. “I do not feel good.” 

“I know, dude. Get your clothes off.” 

Marleau looked pretty. Ilya wanted to kiss him again. Maybe if he took his clothes off, Marleau might let him. With clumsy arms, Ilya began undressing, tugging his shirt over his head, ruffling his hair. His face was wet—tears? Spit? He didn’t know—and the fabric caught on the planes of his cheekbones briefly before coming free. His chest was heaving and the porcelain under his ass was beginning to hurt. 

“Fucking hell, you’re useless,” Marleau grumbled, but it carried a kind of haggard affection rather than bite, and crouched, grabbing Ilya by the hips and yanking him forward before undoing his fly. Yay, Ilya thought. The shirt worked. 

Ilya was naked, and Marleau wasn’t, which wasn’t usually how these things went. Ilya was too tired to protest. The tub was filling around him, and he hoped, vaguely, that the water might cover his face. Maybe Marleau would touch his dick. He wanted to kiss him.

Fuck, he wanted Shane. 

He tilted his head back, skull knocking against tile. “Going to vomit,” he said. His stomach turned. 

“You want me here?”

Ilya nodded, eyes half-lidded. “Will you kiss me before I smell bad?”

“You already smell bad.” 

“Marly…”

“Ilya. You’re fucking hammered. And I’m not gay.”

“Is not gay…it is me…”

Ilya managed to keep from vomiting until his hair was washed and he was kneeling in front of the toilet, head hanging into the bowl. Everything came up all at once—the anniversary of his mother’s suicide, Alexei calling again, Shane and Rose’s fucking engagement, the absinthe.

Marleau got him dressed and into bed. Ilya stopped wanting the kiss, but he wouldn’t have protested if Marleau changed his mind.

He felt dizzy. His head spun and he kept thinking he was on the ice, pressing Shane up against the boards—the only way he could get so close now—as he fell asleep.

Chapter End Notes

other chapters will be longer! this is just a little interlude.

thank you for reading! this chapter was fun to write. i'm better at ilya's POV, i think. (almost) everything going forward will be back to shane, though !!

comments & kudos are greatly appreciated. lmk what you think!

talk to me on tumblr @spiralboundd

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

hi everyone sorry for the break, i was busy taking exams and writing a hollanovike threesome

now we back in shane hell though so put on your seatbelts and get ready to engage your limbic systems

Hayden drove him home, and as soon as Shane had changed out of his sweaty gear and into lounge clothes, he was making his way to the bathroom, phone clutched in his hand. Ilya was going to call him in…two and a half minutes. So Shane had that long to decide how they were going to be. Was he going to be distant? Apologetic? Would he pretend to be okay, or would he throw the mask off and sob at him? Secretly, he very much wanted to do the final option. Hot tears had been building in his chest for over an hour. He’d declined three calls from his mother. 

He felt fucking sick. He’d managed not to vomit in Hayden’s car, but he didn’t know how long he could keep up that resolve.

He collapsed in front of the toilet, closing his eyes and resting his forehead on the cool porcelain. If he could put the unsanitaryness of what he was going out of his mind, it felt nice. The phone buzzed in his hand, and he accepted the call with trembling fingers, setting it up in the small area between the seat and the lid. Ilya’s face appeared on screen.

“Hi, Shane,” he said tightly, irises bouncing back and forth like he was reading him. “You are okay?”

The sound of his voice was enough to send Shane over the edge. A sob broke free and his chest jerked. He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. Dimly, he noted the use of his first name again. So the first few instances hadn’t been slip-ups, then. “No,” he said. “I—are you?”

“I am worried about being extradited," Ilya admitted. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Russia is…complicated. It isn’t illegal to be gay, to sleep with men, but…I am very famous, and this could be—promoting, yes? And that is illegal.” 

Shane nodded. His eyes began to well up with tears again. “What would happen to you?” he asked, sniffling. 

“Jail, probably. And I would be hurt, maybe killed there. People will feel like I have brought them shame. When I was born, all of these things were…fuck, I don’t know word. Categorized as mental illness. The church says it is a sign of apocalypse, and pretty much everybody is religious.” 

Love, Shane caught, but didn’t say anything. Ilya probably hadn't meant it that way. “What are you going to do?” he asked, covering his face. He hiccupped. 

“Talk to my agent—Anna—about applying for asylum in Canada. I don’t…America is fun, but…” He trailed off.

Shane nodded again. He sniffed and folded his arms over the toilet seat, resting his forehead on his forearms and trying to breathe deeply. It wasn’t enough that the video had leaked. It was the fact that he’d been…well, a certain way in it. It was the fact that Ilya’s visa was threatened. The fact that his life was in danger. Distant danger, maybe, across an ocean, but still. Pressing. “How…How long will that take? Is it difficult?”

Ilya coughed out a laugh. It was hoarse, and his voice was kind of broken. Shane had never heard him sound like that before. “Yes, it’s difficult. They probably will not let me in. They do not let in people fleeing war, sometimes.” 

Shane was silent. The room was spinning again. He didn’t look up at Ilya’s face, just stared down into the bowl of the toilet. “What are you going to do?”

“Try,” was all Ilya said. 

Silence filled the room, creeping over Shane’s hunched form like black tendrils. He still couldn’t breathe. “W-what are we going to do?” he asked. His whole body felt wound tight, fraying at the edges and ready to snap.

Ilya was quiet. 

Shane could imagine him swiping under his eyes with his forearm, blinking hard and setting his jaw. It wasn’t fair to be asking him so much, really. He didn’t need all that extra pressure. But Shane couldn’t help himself. He needed a strong hand. Somebody to decide how the rest of his life was going to go. He was used to it. 

“We do not really have a choice. We cannot…deny. Maybe if it was a different kind of sex but…I don’t think anybody would believe us if we said we are not anything, if they saw the video.” 

Shane knew he was right. He hadn’t even watched the video since scrubbing through it briefly with Ilya once in Anaheim before getting so embarrassed he had to leave, but just remembering that night, remembering how he’d crumpled and begged and cried, he knew it was futile to lie. “They’re going to think we threw games,” he said hollowly. 

Ilya laughed again. It was wet and a little bit tight but it knocked something loose in Shane's chest. “This is what you think of?” he asked incredulously. “Thrown games?”

“It’s…what I’d think…” Shane justified. “I’m just really trying not to think about my parents,” he admitted after another moment. His parents, who had sacrificed everything for him, who were so entrenched in his career that this would affect their professional lives as much as their personal ones. His mother, who would have to draft a statement regarding the sex tape in which her son got fucked until he cried. 

The silence crept in again. It was interspersed with Shane’s ragged breathing and the rustle of Ilya moving around on the other end, but it was silence nonetheless. 

“I wish you were here,” Shane blurted out, and immediately regretted it. It was bad enough that they were embroiled in this—bad enough that he was thinking about his parents and not Rose—and now he was pulling that into it. But, again, it was the truth. He wanted Ilya and his strong body and his attentiveness. He always seemed to get Shane in a way that eluded everybody else in his life.

His heartbeat thundered in his chest for the twenty seconds before Ilya’s response. “Da, yes. Me too.”

Shane sagged. His knees were already on the tile, but he slid forward, and they nudged the pedestal of the toilet. He was so glad he was home. In any other bathroom, he’d feel disgusting for the position he was in, but this was his house, and he knew just how neurotically clean it was. Riding the high of that acknowledgement, more words fell from his lips. “Come to Montréal.” 

Ilya was quiet for a long time. Then, staticky: “Not a good idea, Shane.” 

Shane felt his heart plummet, a heavy stone weighing him down. A boulder. “Our…our teams need to be able to talk. You need to apply for asylum. And I—I need you with me,” he admitted, half-surprised by the candor even as it passed his lips. Did Ilya feel how enormous this was? 

How enormous they were?

“Would make it worse if I was photographed in Montréal,” Ilya argued, and Shane knew he was right. But he couldn’t give up this notion, not now that it’d embedded itself into his psyche, furious and needy.

He took a shuddering breath and thumbed at his eyes, sitting up and repositioning the phone. “That’s already a risk. You need to be here to apply. This just—please, Ilya.” 

“I have to talk to my coach in person,” Ilya said weakly.

“Then come afterwards.” 

If the circumstances were different, there might have been a degree of embarrassment to the ferocity with which Shane begged him. But he felt stripped raw, and without his armor to contain his emotion, he was free to spew irrational pleadings. And, by extension, free to hurt when they were denied. 

But then Ilya was saying “yes, okay,” and he felt incandescent with relief. 

“Really?” he breathed, worrying at the interior of his cheek with his molars. 

“Yes, Shane. You just…I will not stay with you. Rose.” 

Shane had to pretend that the words didn’t break his heart a little bit. He wanted Ilya with him, in his house, only a few doors away. He wanted a repeat of that day in Ilya’s Boston house. The second half of Ilya’s sentence hit a few moments later, and all of a sudden all he could think about was Rose. “I—Fuck. Fuck. I’ve gotta…”

“Are you okay to be alone? You can call me again,” Rozanov said, and Shane hated how easily the other man could see through him.

“Yeah. I’m…fuck. She’s…in Bucharest. It’s, like, 9PM for her,” Shane managed. Maybe, by some grace of God, she hadn’t heard, and he’d be able to wrest power away from the video itself and get a handle on the story.

“Then you will need to call soon.” 

But he couldn’t. He wasn’t strong enough. He was exhausted and tearstained and heartsick. Terrified. “I—Oh my god, Ilya. Ilya,” he gasped, Rozanov’s name coming out like some kind of comforting mantra that really only drove a stake deeper between what they’d been before and what they’d been now. 

“She will not be bad, Shane. You are very brave,” Ilya said softly.

“You’ve never been engaged,” Shane said, somewhat rudely, shaking his head and swallowing hard. He closed his eyes, angry that he’d even voiced the possibility, and then sick at the thought of how sad it made him.

“No.”

“I’m already so bad at it. This is just…the fucking sex tape that broke the camel’s back.” 

Ilya laughed quietly. “Are you afraid she will leave you? Is this…” 

Not what you want? Shane completed for him.

“I don’t want her to think I cheated.”

“Shane. You need to call.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Okay. Yes. I’m gonna…call her. What if she hasn’t seen it yet and then I’m the one breaking the news to her?” 

“Then she will hear it from you and you will control the…story.”

Shane swallowed around the lump in his throat and nodded resolutely.  “Yeah. Maybe it’s…better.”

“Goodbye, Shane. I will…send you…flight, whatever.” 

“Okay. Goodbye, Ro—Ilya.”

The call dropped. 

Panic rushed to fill the space Ilya left behind. He didn’t have time to parse through the conversation they’d just had. Didn’t have time to meditate on the fact that their first names came easily and without any thought. Was that all it took? Did they need the worst case scenario to be honest with each other? Fuck. Internally, he realized just how fucked it was that he’d abandoned the pretense that he didn’t need Ilya. He’d said it outright. I need you here with me. 

He was going to vomit. His stomach clenched as he navigated to Rose’s contact on his phone and hit ‘call.’ He didn’t read through the texts she’d sent. There was a small chance that he’d be the one bringing the information to her, and he wanted to hold on to it. 

The ringing echoed throughout the bathroom, bouncing off the tiles, tinny and too electronic for the conversation he was about to have. 

“Shane,” came through the phone almost immediately. So she’d heard. 

“Rose,” he said, swallowing hard. He needed to keep his breakfast down. Rose was mildly emetophobic, which was a good fianceé for remembering. He hung his head and closed his eyes. She needed to be one to speak first, because at the moment, he didn’t know how to broach the subject. ‘Hey, so, you know how there’s a video of me sobbing and pleading my longtime on-ice enemy to fuck me? You know how he holds me while I cry so hard I can’t breathe? Well, I just wanted to let you know that I didn’t cheat on you.’

“Are you okay?” Rose said. The words came out of her in a rush. “My phone’s been blowing up for hours. I texted you! Shit, I’ve been kind of losing my mind, babe.”

Shane’s brain latched on to that word. Babe. So she didn’t hate him. “I’m…managing,” he said. He flexed his jaw. His stomach roiled. 

“Please don’t lie to me, Shane.”

“I’m not.” 

“You know that I’m not fucking stupid, right? I’m not—Jesus Christ, Shane, talk to me! This is a big fucking deal! I don’t mean to yell, but I—God, I don’t know what to do if you won’t talk to me right now!” 

“I’m…this is fucking…it’s a nightmare, Rose.”

“I can imagine.” 

“But I didn’t—me and him, we…it didn’t overlap with you. I stopped seeing him when we got together,” he said, because it did feel important. He was an awful fiancé for a number of reasons, but cheating wasn’t one of them. 

Rose huffed, her voice thin. “Yeah, I figured. You’re not that kind of guy.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you gay?” she asked suddenly, without prelude. Which he felt was a little bit unfair, considering how easily that had sent his stomach into a tailspin. 

She couldn’t ask that, how was it fair to ask that, she couldn’t ask him that—Yes. “I don’t know,” he said, because if he couldn’t deny it internally, then maybe he could find a way to grasp some semblance of control regarding his image. 

There was being gay, which was about men. And there was…whatever Shane was, which had more to do with Rozanov than the fact that Rozanov had a cock. God, he was sick, wasn’t he? Getting off on the thought of his rival fucking him? Twisting his fucking…his fucking perversion into something that bore any resemblance at all to love? 

He remembered seeing Scott Hunter kiss his boyfriend on the ice last season. Skate laps, Stanley Cup held high, and then beckon to the stands. He must have been so scared, being the first. Shane didn’t think he could do that. 

“Can you please be honest with me?” she asked. 

Shane knocked his head backwards. “I am being honest. I don’t—fuck, I can’t talk about this right now,” he said, voice still strained. He could save his self-discovery for a more opportune time. This wasn’t really about him, Shane, it was about Shane Hollander, the image that the leak had sullied. The brands that were undoubtedly emailing his mother to rescind their deals weren’t interested in this, so he couldn’t be.

“Okay. Okay, sweetheart. I can’t be back until fucking December. Call me, okay? We can talk later,” Rose said. Shane thought that she sounded exhausted. Like a kindergarten teacher at the end of a long day, putting on a big smile for her students. It made Shane feel impossibly young. 

“Okay,” Shane echoed. “I need to call my parents.” 

“Do you think they’ll be bad about it?” Rose asked, an uncertain upturn tinging the latter half of her sentence. 

Shane swallowed. The bathroom floor was beginning to feel too cold. That was a good sign, maybe. It meant he was escaping his own head. “Not about the, uh, fact that it’s with a man,” he said, then grimaced, because really, he had no idea. “The problem is that it’s Rozanov. And that I let it leak.” 

“You didn’t let it leak,” Rose corrected. “It leaked. It's not your fault, yeah? But…”

The phone vibrated and Shane pulled it away from his ear. MOM flashed across the screen, and in a breath. “Fuck,” he said. “My mom is calling. I’m gonna…I’ll talk to you later.” He felt dizzy, head spinning. 

“Good luck,” Rose said sincerely, and Shane’s stomach formed more knots. 

He didn’t deserve her. Instead of saying anything, expositing nonsense gratitude, he hung up. MOM flashed across his screen again. He took a breath, knocked his forehead against the front of the toilet bowl, and pressed ACCEPT, squishing the cellphone between his shoulder and ear. “Hi mom,” he said, trying to keep the painful hoarseness that threatened to fry through his voice at bay. 

“Sweetheart—David, I got him!—Oh my god, are you alright?” 

Shane did not fucking want to think about his parents seeing that video. They had, though, he knew that. His mom, at least. She was half his manager, half his mother, and as his manager, she’d need to know exactly what was threatening his image. So she’d seen it. Maybe through her fingers, but she’d seen it. 

Fuck.

“M’okay,” he managed, despite not being okay at all. Selfishly, he wished it were his father on the other end. He couldn’t really cry in front of Yuna—at least not for long, because she’d make him pull himself together so they could draft a statement or fucking something—and he really, really needed to cry. Probably once people stopped trying to call him, he’d draw all the blinds in his apartment, take all his clothes off, and full-body sob. He’d earned that. “M’okay, I’m home.” 

“That’s good,” Yuna said with a sigh. “That’s good, Shane.” 

In the ensuing silence, Shane felt his mouth wobble. He couldn’t lead this conversation. She couldn’t possibly be wanting him to lead this conversation. He was made of dust and his tears were turning him into concrete. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. 

“I’m so sorry,” came through the phone. “This shouldn’t have happened.” 

“Are you going to ask me about him?” Shane croaked, digging into his eye sockets with the heel of his free hand. His skin came away wet. 

“I—”

“He’s not bad,” Shane said, because suddenly, he needed to get ahead of what he was sure she was thinking. He couldn’t bear the thought of his mother disparaging Ilya any more, not when he’d been the one to tug Shane back down to earth in the locker room, stepping back into the carefully guiding role he’d held before Shane had fucked everything up and gotten engaged. “And he didn’t leak it—it was my fault.” 

Shane could practically hear the look on his mother’s face. Tense eyebrows and a looseness around the mouth he’d seen a thousand times over. “How can you be sure of that, sweetheart?” Yuna asked. “You’re certainly—more vulnerable in that video than he is.” 

“It’s worse for him,” Shane said, trying not to think about what she meant when she said vulnerable. “He’s still a Russian citizen and this t-threatens—” his voice broke and he swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. It sucks for me but it’s so much worse for him. 

“Right, right,” his mother said softly. “You’re right, Shane, I’m sorry. I didn’t consider that.” Her words were placating, and they did bring him some sense of peace, but really they just felt empty. How much of the population that was exposed to this situation would assume Ilya leaked it? Did they think it was some kind of power play? A way to secure his spot atop the scoreboards? It was worse for him. It was worse for him. And, considering how fucking awful Shane felt, how scared he was, he could barely even conceive of how he would navigate the leak if he also had to contend with anti-homosexual law in his home country. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane said. The tears bubbled in his chest. He’d burst into tears and his whole body would fracture with the force of his sobs. He'd end up splattered all over the room. So he bit them back. “Fuck. Mom. I’m so sorry. I tried—I tried not to…but I couldn’t—couldn’t help it, and then I tried to keep it secret a—and I couldn’t do that either. I’m sorry.”

“Sweetheart,” Yuna murmured. “Shane—Let me say something callous. We can talk about that aspect of things once we’ve got a handle on the situation, okay? Do you need to take five?”

Take five. Jesus fucking Christ. “Can I talk to dad?” Shane asked, chest shuddering. 

He heard his mom exhale on the other end, somewhat exasperated, before the phone was passed to his father, who spoke a little more gently. “Hey, bud.”

Shane squeezed his eyes shut. The last few hours had been an utterly exhausting rollercoaster of emotion, terribly, awful lows, and hopeful highs. Ilya was going to be in Montréal. He hadn’t told Rose. Rose knew he was gay. Everybody knew he was gay. His mom had seen his fucking sex tape. There’d been no time to catch up with any of it. He was lagging behind immensely, caught up in the whirlwind of disaster that was, apparently, his life now. “Hey,” he croaked. 

“Your mom is just trying to say that we’ll be here to talk once we’ve got control of this,” David said. “How are you feeling?” 

Shane shook his head, even though he knew his dad couldn’t see him. “M’okay,” he said. There was no reason to break down completely and make his parents think that this was best handled without his input, because lord knows the kind of statement ‘he’d’ release then. 

“Have you talked to Rose?” David asked, and Shane heard his mother let out another huff in the background. 

“Yeah,” he said. Then his mind latched onto another issue, and he shoved out: “And I didn’t cheat. It was before.” 

“We thought so,” David said. “It’s good that you talked to her. Have you spoken to anyone else?” 

“I—” Shane started. Oh, fuck it. His secret had been thrown out into open air. It didn’t matter anymore. “I called Il—Rozanov.”

He heard his father swallow. He was probably still adjusting to the idea. Hell, he couldn’t expect his parents to readily accept that he felt something for Rozanov, not when he himself had taken upwards of five years to fully come to terms with it. “That’s good,” he said. “How’s, ehm, how is he handling this?” 

“He has a plan,” Shane said. He didn’t want to divulge the exact details, didn’t want to make this look worse for himself. Worse for Ilya. 

His father began saying something, but the phone seemed to exchange hands, and then it was Yuna’s voice on the other side. “I’ll speak to Farah, alright? We’ll be in contact. Please take care of yourself.”

“We love you,” David added, muffled as it was. 

Shane tried to shake the dizziness from his head as he said, “Okay. I…call me,” before hanging up. 

Thank fuck. He was alone for the first time since the video leaked. Free to…free to what? Wallow in self-pity? Single-handedly craft the perfect PR plan to effectively erase today? Most horrifyingly, though, the first thought that came to his mind in the silence after the call dropped was holy fuck, Ilya’s going to be in Montréal. 

He pulled himself off the floor of the bathroom and into the shower, where he scrubbed his entire body down and tried not to think about anything at all. After that, he wandered into his bedroom and pulled on a pair of clean boxers and socks before taking refuge in the center of his bed. His stomach churned, and when he closed his eyes, all he could see was frames of the video, overexposed and jittering. 

He wasn’t exactly his own anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time, really. Being an Olympic athlete does that. He belonged to people who loved the Voyageurs and people who hated the Voyageurs alike. But that had been Shane Hollander, a commodity, a fucking hockey prodigy. This, the man in that video, was just Shane. And now he was inextricable from public perception. He’d need a new name. 

***

He woke up angry. Beneath Shane’s simmering despair was red-hot fury.

They’d kept it secret for the better half of a decade, and the universe couldn’t even give them the grace of coming out on their own terms? Not that Shane was going to do that anytime soon. Which he should have had the right to. And why? Because he’s been fucking stupid enough to keep the video on his phone? To think, for even a second, that he might be able to hold some tangible evidence of what he and Ilya were to each other?

His phone was off, and he didn’t bother getting his laptop out to check his email. Instead, he took another shower and swiftly changed back into his boxers and socks. He ate a frozen burrito and ran ten kilometers on his treadmill. None of it was enough. Racing into the skyline, legs burning, mind either numb and blank or smarting and full-to-bursting, Shane felt like a martyr. Which was unfair to actual martyrs, but he felt that was nonetheless. This was crucifixion. He was strung up in front of North America, bleeding. Immediately after having the thought, he got so embarrassed at his own self-pity that his blush outweighed the flush from his exertion. 

There were some paparazzi at the base of his building. Usually, they left him alone, but now, apparently, he was a story. It wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t a captain and in the hockey capital of the world. Anywhere else, he was a D-lister at best. In Montréal, he may as well have been fucking Justin Bieber. 

He pulled the emergency stop on the treadmill and stood in the center of his living room heaving for a few minutes before managing to gulp down some water and falling against the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the main wall. His head knocked against the glass. He probably looked fucking stupid, dripping sweat and red-faced, clad in nothing but white boxers and ribbed crew socks. 

He felt like he was going to throw up again. 

Against his better judgement, Shane turned his phone back on. More texts from his mom and Farah. None from Ilya. 

Even as he clicked Twitter, he knew it was a mistake. First of all, the app had to re-download, having been idle for so long. The last time he’d opened Twitter had been before the All-Stars in Tampa, nearly two years ago. It had been kind of boring. Shane didn’t really get social media. 

Now, though, unfortunately, it seemed like everybody on the platform was talking about him. There was a hashtag. And every other fucking post was accompanied by the first frame of that video—his face, scrunched up and red, lips parted and shiny, tears on his cheeks—with a play button over it. Seeing so many duplicates of the same fucking frame, as well as knowing what followed, felt surreal. 

He didn’t read any posts, just closed the app. Didn’t delete it, though. 

FARAH JALALI: Hey, Shane. Yuna and I drew up a statement. Please take a look at it when possible. 

HAYDEN: i love you dude take care of yourself
HAYDEN: Jackie says the same

ROSE: Think im gonna stay w Jess after I get back
ROSE: For a few nights, anyway

MARCUS CHICAGO 2014: Saw what happened. So sorry dude

UNKNOWN: killyour self 

UNKNOWN: fucking faggot stay out of mlh locker rooms

UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN

So his number had leaked overnight, too. He hadn’t received any of the innumerable calls and text messages while asleep because his phone had been switched off. But now they all seemed to be pouring in. 

He turned his phone off again. 

Shane was strong, wasn’t he? He could weather something like this, right? Maybe his whole fucking life was imploding, whatever. He couldn’t muster the strength to mourn losing Rose, and maybe that made him horrible, but he’d contend with that later. 

He felt sick. His legs burned. Fuck, he was hyperventilating again. 

Frantic tremors overtook his body as the sweat-sticky skin on his back clung to the cool glass windows. His head fell backward and suddenly he couldn’t breathe anymore. His blunt fingernails bit into the stretched skin of his knees and the sharp pain seemed to emanate both from his legs and his chest. When his hands moved to cover his face, they brought with them a thin, warm dampness that was so startling he opened his eyes and was met with his sight of carmine red coating his fingers. 

God, because of-fucking-course. Fear brings pain, brings blood, brings fear. He felt like the warm, dark cave he’d been living in had suddenly been bathed in the light of the sun, and he was left squirming, unused to being so exposed. Even in his own home, the feeling lingered. 

The more he tried to push the growing desire in the square of his stomach away, the more the desire grew. Beneath that was guilt, guilt for ruining what he’d had with Rose, guilt for starting it to begin with, but it was eclipsed completely by the primary ache blooming in his core. Horribly, he just fucking wanted Ilya.

***

Hayden knew that Shane didn’t really drink. On more than one occasion Shane had been, if Hayden was being honest, kind of a buzzkill at bars or team celebrations as he’d explain stiltedly that he just didn’t like the way it made him feel like he wasn’t in complete control of himself. This, as irritating as it sometimes was, made a lot of sense to Hayden. Shane liked to keep himself sharp, so he didn’t drink. So what?

Well, his apartment smelled like beer, for one. Hayden pushed through the door, tiptoeing down the hallway in his trainers. Shane hadn’t been answering the phone since last night. Of course, this made sense, and wouldn’t have been a reason to worry if Shane was anybody but himself. Hell, he’d texted the team to remind them about an admin meeting while at his grandfather’s funeral. 

So the total lack of communication was especially worrying. 

“Ah—Holy fuck, dude,” Hayden said when he rounded the corner before he could stop himself. Not helpful!

Shane was sitting on his couch, calves streaked with blood, wearing nothing but socks and underwear, clutching the neck of a brown beer bottle in one hand. The sun that came in from the windows behind him haloed his hair and made him look like some kind of unfortunate martyr. So he’d been right to be worried. 

“Hayd,” Shane said, turning his head up without shifting his gaze from a fixed point on the wall. “Hey.”

“Jesus Christ, man, what happened?” Hayden took a few steps forward, holding out one hand as if trying not to frighten a spooked animal. 

Shane just stared ahead. He nodded slowly, head bobbing on his neck. “All good,” he said. 

“Well that’s a fucking lie,” Hayden huffed, moving to crouch in front of Shane. His eyes flicked down to the dried blood on his friend’s legs. His stomach twisted. “What happened?”

“I was freaking out,” Shane said. “I’m okay now.” 

Hayden swallowed and tried not to read into that too much. “You look like shit, dude.” 

“I know,” Shane said in place of his usual “Gee, thanks,” so Hayden knew he was especially out of it. 

“Let me clean you up, man,” Hayden said, straightening up and giving Shane’s knee an experimental squeeze before clearing his throat and moving away from him. Once he was out of sight, he sped up considerably and began searching for a washcloth. He found it in a kitchen drawer, wet it in the sink, and hurried back into the living area. 

Shane didn’t say anything as Hayden wiped away the streaks of congealed blood on his legs. When Hayden stood, though, and left the wrung-out washcloth in the hamper and returned, Shane looped his arms around Hayden’s waist and, to his horror, started shaking.

“I’m so f-fucking scared,” Shane admitted, his voice fractured and grip tight.

Hayden, momentarily frozen, broke out of his stupor and let his hands rest on Shane’s head. Sure, he might have been happier if his best friend wasn’t apparently fucking the biggest asshole in the NHL, but he wasn’t a homophobe or anything. And he did love Shane. “It’s gonna be okay, dude,” he said, despite it feeling sort of insincere. He had no idea whether or not things were going to be okay for Shane. He would have had a much better chance at being able to recover from this if he hadn’t been a) in the more vulnerable position and b) in that position with Ilya Rozanov. 

Hayden had no idea. He was lucky, he supposed. If a video of he and Jackie fucking had leaked, obviously he’d be fucking pissed, but it wouldn’t have posed any threat at all to his career. To his safety. 

He pet Shane’s hair more purposefully. “It’s gonna be okay, dude,” he repeated, and felt Shane’s body convulse with the force of the sobs he was holding in.

***

Rival Hockey Captains Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Outed in Recent Leak by Marshall Cool for The Guardian

So…#Hollanov is real. What now? by Kacey Porter for Buzzfeed

Breaking down the leak: possible thrown games, Russia’s homosexuality laws, and the legality of sex tapes by Daria McBridden for The NHL Think Tank

10 Hottest Moments In Recent NHL Sex Tape Leak by Lali Killian for WomenLiberated

***

r/NHL

I don’t know how to feel after the leak

posted by u/voyagoats 

I’ve been a huge fan of Hollander since the beginning of his career (I literally watched him get drafted live) and after seeing all of this…I don’t know if I can support him any more. He must have been throwing games for Rozanov, right? I don’t care that he’s gay, just worried about how it’s going to affect the playoffs. And how it has in the past! I’m doubting almost a decade of scores. 

Anybody else feel this way?

u/puckitupbaby
You’re so transparently homophobic it’s crazy you can’t see it yourself 

> u/voyagoats OP
    I’m fine with gays i’m just worried he’s going to give the cup to BOS :/

u/werealldead
You articulated my thoughts perfectly. I don’t know how to trust the scoring race anymore. 

u/josephghelel
I can’t imagine how the rest of the Voyageurs must be feeling. Probably scared since there was a
faggot in their locker room for 7 years. Hopefully he didn’t do anything. 

u/kelwel9
i don’t think you’re an actual fan of his if you’re doubting the integrity of his scores…there’s no way
hollander would intentionally throw anything. he fucking breathes hockey.

u/iceprincess75
They should rescind his contract. This is unacceptable behavior. 

> u/voyagoats OP
It’s a MASSIVE conflict of interest. I don’t think there’s any way he’s staying w/ MTL next year. 

r/IlyaRozanov

Leak discussion - Their relationship is deeper than people are suggesting

posted by u/squirmistimo33

Obviously I’m not here to be a pervert, but as a massive fan of Rozanov, I was super interested to see him in a scenario where his image wasn’t perfectly (intentionally, rather) curated, so of course I watched the video a few times. Not here to fight about that. 

But in all of the articles I’ve read, the authors describe the dynamic between Hollander and Rozanov as kind of hatesex-y and really intrinsically tied to their on-ice personas. Is this because they use each other’s last names predominantly in the video? Because otherwise, I truly, truly can’t see this. They’re so tender with each other. There’s some gentle ribbing, but the minute Hollander asks him not to, Rozanov stops. And, I mean, the fucking Russian?? I don’t know how many of you speak Russian, but I do, and here are some things he says (audibly, there’s some other phrases I can’t quite distinguish) that I think pretty explicitly disprove the whole ‘rivals fucking out their rivalry’ perspective that so many outlets seem to have chosen

«Блядь, ты такая идеальная » = “Fuck, you’re so perfect.”
I mean, this one speaks for itself.

1. « Ты всегда нужен мне » = “I always need you.”
   While I guess this could be interpreted to mean that Rozanov ‘always needs’ Hollander as opposition/competition to him to uplift & solidify his own image, the tone of voice he uses coupled with the fucking HAIR STROKING is pretty indisputable evidence that he means it in a different way
2. After they slip into using each other’s first names, there’s an instance around 5:01 when Rozanov says “Shan—” but with a lilt at the end that makes me believe he was going to use a different ending than ‘e’!!! Russian diminutives are incredibly common (it’s really strange to call a friend by their government name) and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was going to say something like “Shenka/Shanya/Shanushka” ect.
3. « никто не мог бы быть лучше… » = “No one could be better…” Again, this could be interpreted to be be in reference to Shane’s standing in the NHL, but come on. No one could be better. 

To all journalists preparing to write an article about the leak, please look over my manifesto and reconsider your position. If I'm being honest I'm really excited for them to release statements so we get more info....

Sincerely, squirmistimo33

u/ilyarozaaanov
Me when i’m genuinely fucking delusional

u/llammamama
I don’t think we should talk about the leak over here due to Russia’s homosexuality policies. Us
discussing it could be seen as evidence of the efficacy of his ‘promoting’ it !! 

u/travthemav
Who cares. They’re both fags

Chapter End Notes

thx for reading

did yall catch the shane seeking comfort from hayden / ilya seeking comfort from marleau parallel. i love to demonstrate ilya's loneliness yess!!!

NOBODY MENTION THE REMNANTS OF THE METROS IN THE SOCMED INTERLUDE OK DON'T EVEN NOTICE THEM

comments + kudos are greatly appreciated - i love feedback!! tell me what you thought

talk to me on tumblr @spiralboundd or in da comments

don't worry folks we're getting the gang back together in chapter 4

Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

the real chapter 4

Chapter Notes

hahahahaha. if you saw phantom chapter 4 no you didn't. this is the real chapter 4 !!

and sorry it's taken so long, i've been swamped with finals and moving. next chapter will be in prose & full-length

warning for homophobic language, allusions to racist stereotypes, and twitter

enjoy!!

Montréal Voyageurs ✓ @MTLVoyageurs
Our team is aware of the recent data breach of one of our players. Our captain, Shane Hollander will not be playing this Saturday. Please refrain from harassment while our team works on formulating a statement. #GoVoyageurs!

Ilya Rozanov Updates @goBOS
NEW: Ilya Rozanov will not join the rest of the Raiders through the playoffs due to a recent leak.

deuxmoi ✓ @deuxmoiworld
X-Squad star Rose Landry's fiancé stars in x-rated video along with hockey rival Ilya Rozanov in recent leak

mai @mrslandry
??????????????? what.
#hollanderrozanovleak

> the real toni colette @cmbymenthusiast
replying to @mrslandry
i’m struggling to even like understand that this is real
>> mai @mrslandry
replying to @cmbymenthusiast
i feel like i live in a parallel dimension

lebron’s left shoe @travisw
I don’t really go here but linking the video is insane??? these guys should sue or something #hollanderrozanovleak

[Quoted: deuxmoi ✓ @deuxmoiworld
X-Squad star Rose Landry's fiancé stars in x-rated video along with hockey rival Ilya Rozanov in recent leak ]

> i love my shitty hockey team @cens_orship
replying to @travisw
it's deuxmoi what did you expect

> Carly @motherpucker
replying to @travisw
‘these guys’ and it’s the two most famous hockey players in the world

>> akl @metroamer
replying to @motherpucker
and they’re fucking!!!!!!!!

Sports Talk Daily @stdpod
Join Mike and Olly today live @ 9 while they discuss the video that broke the hockey world! twitch.tv/sportstalkdaily

Tilly Khaili @tkhalii
This is like if Ben Affleck and Matt Damon– oh wait. #hollanderrozanovleak

> leo! @spikspok
replying to @tkhalii
I feel like this is objectively crazier. Affleck and Damon weren’t CAREER LONG rivals pitted
against each other by the media & the league at every opportunity since they were teenagers…..

akl @metroamer
not to hornypost on main but….
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85422621

>WE’VE NEVER BEEN MORE BACK @shaneholeander
replying to @metroamer
boy tf you mean not to hornypost on main. thats your whole account

>> akl @metroamer
replying to @shaneholeander
LEAVE ME ALONEEEEE HOLEANDER

maria @bayb33
I don't understand why you guys aren’t devastated for them. This is so horrible. I’m not a Rozanov fan but I can’t imagine how scared he is. Hollander too. Jesus Christ.

Shane Hollander Updates @hollanderevents
holy shit.

Iona Kepler-Laren @thathockeymom
While I understand that media coverage is inevitable, that footage needs to be more thoroughly censored. My kids were in the room. #hollanderrozanovleak #espn

kellllllie @prissychrissy
tbh hollander being a slut doesn’t surprise me that much

> Kyle @raidersfuckemup
replying to @prissychrissy
Yeah I mean they do tend to bend over for it 😂

chris don’t talk to me @bayb33
ilya rozanov fangirls be like ‘behemoth’ ‘comically large bulge’ and it’s NINE inches girl be so serious

[Quoted: marcie @ilyasrealwife
idk why we’re acting like that behemoth is news. baby have you *seen* my husband’s comically
large bulge ]

> Warren @pollyspockets
replying to @bayb33
holy fuck where are you from.

> akl @metroamer
replying to @bayb33
Yo what’s your IP???? 👀👀👀 lol. 👀👀seriousl

> eat my poussay @gigihadidenjoyer
replying to @bayb33
why did THIS one breach containment

Shane Hollander ✓ @shanehollanderhockeyplayer
[Image: Two days ago, an explicit video of myself and Boston Raiders Captain Ilya Rozanov engaged in sexual intercourse was leaked and published to Twitter after my cell phone was stolen. The extent of the relationship between Ilya Rozanov and myself was not something either of us wished to publicize, and that has not changed.

My ex-fiancée, Rose Landry, was unaware of the nature of Mr. Rozanov’s and my involvement. Ilya Rozanov and I did not engage in any off-ice contact, sexual or otherwise, during the duration of my relationship and subsequent engagement to Rose, which has recently been amicably dissolved.

Mr. Rozanov and I were never in a formal relationship. My performance on-ice has never been affected by our dynamic. Zero games have been thrown. To suggest otherwise is to attack the foundation of my career. I understand that there will inevitably be questions regarding the extent of our off-ice contact, and both Mr. Rozanov and I ask that you refrain from harassing him or myself for answers if or until they are made public.

Thank you for your love and support during this period.]

Ilya Rozanov ✓ @irozanov81
The explicit video of Montréal Voyageurs Captain Shane Hollander and myself that leaked on Wednesday the 12th of April was not intended to be public and does not reflect my personal beliefs regarding homosexual behavior. As a Christian, I invariably hold close the sanctity of intercourse and my relations to Mr. Hollander did not align with my values. I have never let my connection to Mr. Hollander affect the way I play for the Raiders.

Thank you.

elsa @spideywoman
his ass did NOT write that

> charles XXXavier @charlii919
replying to @spideywoman
"invariably hold close the sanctity of intercourse" sure bud

x-squad girl ✓ @roselandry

1. Yes, I still love him
2. Yes, we’re still friends
3. No, I did not know about the relationship
4. Yes, I suspected that he might be gay
5. Yes, our engagement has been dissolved
6. Leave Shane alone - no, you’re not supporting me by harassing him, you’re hurting both of us.

maria @sabrosos
is the difference between their statements making anybody else so fucking sad #hollanderrozanovleak

> smythe @canithanna
replying to @sabrosos
i don’t usually call things heartbreaking but this is pretty quintessential

>> Lexi says @lexiluthor
replying to @sabrosos @canithanna
Why do you feel bad for them they didn’t have to film anything 😂😂

>>> smythe @canithanna
replying to @lexiluthor
are you homophobic or just a fucking cunt

Дарья @dasha0999
I am Russian; Розанов определенно попал в переплет. Would not be surprised if he is not in Boston for long.

> Екатерина @ekaterinazdes
replying to @dasha0999
Надеюсь, дело не дойдет до суда. Очень трудно доказать отсутствие чего-либо. Думаю, сама по себе утечка видео уже делает его виновным.

>> Дарья @dasha0999
replying to @ekaterinazdes
Будем надеяться, что у него сильная команда юристов или что им удастся найти какую-нибудь лазейку.

Heidi @mtlprincess
is why we fucking lost in 2014

> laurie @10986t957
replying to @mtlprincess
probably fucked that pass up on purpose. stats are bogus now.

Killa Kent @guardianssendithome
The NHL is a fucking joke. Why do they even let freaks like Hollander play?

Tyrannosaurus “Oedipus” Rex @ussenterpriser
not to be that person, but is anybody else noticing how differently hollander and rozanov are being spoken about in the media (and on twt)…….hmm i WONDER WHY.

> Kyle @raidersfuckemup
replying to @ussenterpriser
So we can’t talk about it now? 🙄

> maria @bayb33
replying to @ussenterpriser
Yeah. Hollander is a ‘slut’ and a ‘freak’ but people ‘hope Rozanov doesn’t get extricated'. Cos it’d be a shame to lose Rozanov, but a blessing to ‘be rid’ of Hollander even though they’re both the fucking best players in the league, period. I’m so sick of this

i fucking told you!!!! @OGhollanovtruther
OH MY GOD!!!

[Quoted: Ilya Rozanov Updates @goBOS
NEW: Rozanov spotted in Montreal by anonymous fan]

Chapter End Notes

thanks for reading! and again sorry about the chapter 4 incident

comments & kudos are very appreciated - i love feedback!

talk to me on tumblr @spiralboundd or in da comments

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

hi!! im SO sorry for the crazy late chapter, i got hit by the ao3 author curse and was sick for weeks, then got a job(yay!!), and also this chapter was sort of (very) daunting to write. this community has also been kind of stressing me out lately. why is everybody so horrible all of a sudden. not you guys. i love you guys

i have never tried to apply for asylum in canada, so i can't promise that this is accurate. i did do some research, but again, i will probably fuck up because i am a one-woman team and that woman happens to be me and she is not very bright. some creative liberties were taken on purpose (don't crucify me!) - the discrepancies are noted at the end, since they're spoilers

Over the course of the last fifteen hours, Shane had, officially, and for all intents and purposes, pulled himself the fuck together. Hayden’s presence, however brief, had offered some needed perspective. He was being fucking stupid. He could handle this. 

He’d given Hayden his phone and told him to tell Shane if Rozanov texted, an inconceivable act to the Shane of two days ago. But it was the only thing he could think to do in the liminal period where he was alone in his apartment and left to grapple with everything on his own. If he had his phone, he’d compulsively Google himself every-half hour. And he had the clarity to know how bad that’d be. 

So he’d gotten all of the panic out of his system, and all that remained was numbness. After there’d been some kind of security issue in the lobby, Shane threw some of his shit in a duffel bag from the back of his closet and left. He couldn’t stay. 

In all honesty, there were less paparazzi than he’d expected. That didn’t mean there weren’t a frankly absurd number of black-clad photographers squatting around the base of his building. He felt bad for the other residents. The moment they saw him, they all seemed to come alive. Their clamoring was drowned out by the rushing blood in his own ears, and for a moment, shouldering past them, keeping his head down so they couldn’t catch the red around his eyes, he almost forgot that he’d resolved to survive this unscathed. 

There was only one place he could go. And, thankfully, it wasn’t too far. Still, he held the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles went white. He felt stretched taut and there was a strange sort of blurriness in the periphery of his vision. Like he wasn’t quite real. Maybe he’d already died and was just hallucinating a reality where he hadn’t to cope in his final moments. 

Jesus Christ, he needed to get a grip. 

As Shane pulled into the empty parking lot, little vignettes of other hours spent at the condo flashed across his mind. The night he’d bought the building and sat in the middle of the empty living room in the apartment he’d chosen with a pit in his stomach, wishing that he didn’t feel the need to hide. Wishing, too, that he didn’t have anything to hide. That he didn’t want Rozanov. Then, the first night with him. And the many that followed.

Because his condo wasn’t in the center of the inner city, it was significantly quieter, and he didn’t feel like he was in a fishbowl, surrounded by bloodthirsty paparazzi. Once he was inside, he felt better. 

Shane had left his phone with Hayden, so he checked his messages on the laptop he’d brought. He liked his laptop more than his phone. It made him feel more in control, somehow. Like the world was at his fingertips instead of in his hands.

LILY: will be in montreal by tonight
LILY: Spoke to management. Stupid fuckers

By tonight. The words manifested in the form of a shaky breath and a coil of something hot and sticky in his stomach. He was caught between desire and the renunciation of that desire; the quiet and almost unconscious rejection of his wants. Ilya needed to be in Montréal—Shane couldn’t want him there. Shane needed to talk to him, to touch him—Shane wasn’t allowed to want that kind of comfort from anyone other than Rose. 

He knew that Farah and his mom had put out a brief statement after a second phone call the prior morning. They’d read it to him, but he hadn’t been listening as closely as he needed to. He got the gist, though. He knew, too, that Rose had released something that officialized the dissolution of their engagement, something he’d probably understood subconsciously since the news broke. They couldn’t keep up the façade. Rose didn’t deserve that, even if Shane did. If he’d been stupid enough to think that he could survive that way, then he deserved living through it. 

He hid his face in his hands. The crescent-shaped puncture wounds under his sweatpants stung. 

***

“I need to apply for asylum,” Ilya told one of the gate agents as he stepped into the terminal in the Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. “I don’t know where to go.” 

Her eyebrows flitted up, and Ilya could tell that she recognized him. There was a certain shimmer people got, one he was exceedingly used to. For a silent, strange moment, he was afraid. In the Boston Logan Airport, just a few hours ago, he’d been sitting at his gate, leg bouncing up and down, trying not to mythologize Shane too much, when something had hit the back of his head. It was a coin, and the forty-something man who had thrown it had fucking asked for it back, and Ilya had obliged silently, even though he’d wanted to beat the man’s face in. His head still hurt. 

“You’ll go through customs, and then the Ministry of Immigration will help you out, hon,” the woman said. 

He nodded, turning to move with the flow of people still de-boarding the plane. He hadn’t flown commercial in a long time. 

The muscles in his neck and shoulders were wound tight, tension pulling at him from every angle. It felt like every single person in the stupid airport was staring at him. In a non-hockey city—or even a hockey city where it was less fundamental to the local identity—he probably wouldn’t have been so nervous. When his reputation in Montréal was added, things only felt worse; more dire. Despite knowing that Canada, in general, anyway, had a different attitude towards gay people than Russia did, Ilya was still braced for somebody to appear around the corner and scream at him.

Maybe he’d make it through the airport without an incident. He was dressed in a hoodie that he’d pulled over his ears and nondescript gray sweatpants, so it was possible that he wouldn’t be recognized. He didn’t think he had the will to deal with an upset fan. Or a supportive one, at that. 

He’d only brought a backpack, so it was easy to flit between people as they were all ushered toward customs. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about Shane, who hadn’t answered a text in over thirty-two hours. Over the phone, he’d barely been able to breathe. Was he okay now? More settled? Had he spoken to his parents? 

For Ilya, being outed like this was a more federal issue; a matter of whether or not he was going to be forced back into Russia and what was or was not going to happen to him there. The public knowing that he had sex with men was secondary to that. For Shane, though, Ilya knew, the main problem was that people knew that he was gay. Ilya had mostly been able to shove his feelings into the back of his mind in favor of focusing on the logistics of the situation. Shane wouldn’t be able to do that. 

With buzzing ears, he moved through customs. This, he was used to. It was a little bit more difficult since some of the CBSA officers spoke in Québécois-accented English, but that was a small obstacle. Nobody recognized him. Or, if they did, nobody said anything. 

Jesus fuck, he wanted a cigarette. Or Svetlana. Or Shane. Or his mother. 

A man wearing a navy vest with too many pockets brought him down a short hallway, explaining the process with words Ilya couldn’t even guess the meaning of. The illusion of fluency rippled. He could understand things, he could joke, he could memorize roots and suffixes, but he’d always be met with a word he didn’t know. 

He gave them his passport and fingerprints. He stood in front of a white wall and didn’t flinch when they took photographs of every angle of his face. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but draw the comparisons to prison intake. If they denied him, and he was sent back to Russia, then at least he’d have this practice. 

After they could identify him from his iris patterns, he was led into another room by a woman in an identical navy vest. His backpack fit between his knees beneath the table in the center of it, so he didn’t take up too much space. 

The room was small, carpeted and with high ceilings so disproportionate to the size of the room that they indicated some measure of afterthought to the construction of this wing. The woman sat at a table across from him and began typing on the mechanical keyboard in the center of it. She gestured for him to sit without glancing away from the computer screen. After a few moments, she turned, folding her hands on the table and leaning forward a little bit. 

“Alright,” she said, glancing at the computer screen and then back to Ilya. “Ilya Rozanov. We need some background information, okay? Are you good to start?” 

Ilya cleared his throat and nodded. He was thankful that she didn’t have an accent, which was objectively hypocritical, but he’d never interviewed a foreign asylum claimant, so he didn’t care. “Yes.”

“Alright,” she repeated. “Can I have your full name and date of birth?” 

Ilya thought, isn’t that on my passport, but didn’t vocalize it. “Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov,” he said, trying not to grimace at the patronymic. “June fifteenth, nineteen-ninety-one.” 

She nodded as he spoke, typing. “Great. Nationality and ethnic group.”

“I’m from Russia,” he said. “Moscow. We are very…whatever that is. I don’t know.” 

“Are you religious, Ilya?” 

“I—Christian, but…not very much. My mother—nevermind. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. What languages do you speak? For our purposes, this means fluency or near-fluency.” 

“Russian and English.”

“Alright. Thank you, Ilya. We’re going to move on to your claim—why you’re seeking asylum, okay?”

“Mm.”

“Have you or your family ever been harmed, mistreated or threatened by any person or group?”

“No. My problem is…recent.” 

“Alright, Ilya. Please tell me more about that. If you returned to your country, do you believe you would be harmed, mistreated or threatened by any person or group?”

Ilya nodded. “Yes, ah…recently, I had sex tape leak. I am kind of high-profile—I play professional hockey—and this video, it was me and another man. Another hockey player. Homosexuality is considered a radical movement in Russia, so it is illegal to promote it. Because I am famous, I…they will probably consider this video promotion, and I will probably go to jail, and be hurt there. It’s not illegal to be gay, there are gay bars and things, but, ah…it’s complicated. Because of me. And him too.”

“Okay, I see. Did you ask any authorities such as the police, or any other organization, in your country to protect or assist you?”

“The problem is the police,” Ilya said. He was beginning to get frustrated. Ansty was more accurate. He wished he could do the interview in Russian. He wished Shane were with him.

“I see. Did you move to another part of your country to seek safety?”

“I was not in Russia when the video leaked. I am worried about being extradited or deported because I have been in conversation with NHL admin and is possible that I will not play any more of this season, so my Visa is fuc—complicated. Everything is complicated,” he said, picking at the knee of his sweatpants. 

“I see, I see. Okay, Ilya, we’re almost done. Please provide any other details that you think are important for your claim for refugee protection.”

“My family is all police officers; my father works in government. He has dementia. I am being…they take money from me. I, fuck, what else. I have mostly been living in Boston, for my work. Hockey. Because of that, I have been mostly safe in America, but the league is very…old-fashioned, and it is worse because it is me and another player, so my work Visa is threatened, so I—what’s the fucking word. They send me back to Russia. I’m sorry, I am stressed—my English goes.” Which was true. Here, again, was the issue of fluency. Whenever he wasn’t applying one-hundred percent to language—like, for instance, if sixty percent of himself was currently dedicated to internally freaking the fuck out because his entire life was ripped to pieces thirty-six hours ago—it just slipped away. It was unfair. Ilya’s jaw went tight.

“Can you explain to me how you think that this video might qualify as ‘promotion of homosexuality’ in the eyes of the Russian government?”

“I am very famous in Russia. Very famous in America, too, and Canada, but especially in Russia. Everything I do, they watch. Kids look up to me, might try to copy, emulate. They will see this as…betrayal. Even if it is not necessarily promotion, they will find a way to punish me. I know this.” 

“Hm. Okay. Just a few more housekeeping questions, and I’ll pass this form along.” 

“Okay.”

“Please list the countries where you are at risk of serious harm.”

“Russia. I don’t know, fucking North Korea,” he said with a wave of his hand. His eyes burned a little bit, and he couldn’t pinpoint when the sensation began. 

She gave him a serious look, but Ilya could see the corner of her mouth twitch. “Russia,” she repeated pointedly. “Please list the countries where you have been a citizen.” 

“Russia.” 

“Please list your relatives, in the following order: spouse or spouses, your children, including children born outside of marriage and adopted children, your parents, and your brothers and sisters, including half-brothers and half-sisters.” 

“I have no spouse or children. My father’s name is Grigori Yemelyanovich Rozanov. Do I need to list my mother? She is dead.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Her inclusion is preferred, just so that we can get a full legal picture of your situation.”

“Her name was Irina Petrovna Rozanova. But her maiden name was Sokolova. My stepmother—do you need her, as well?—her name is Polina Matveyevna Rozanova. My brother’s name is Alexei Grigorievich Rozanov. I do not have any sisters. Or, ah—my sister-in-law is Tatyana…I don’t know her middle….Tatyana Rozanova.”

Ilya gave her more information, including “where he could be reached in Canada,” and it made his heart race to list Shane’s address, even though it was the only place he could think of. 

“Alright, Ilya. Thank you. We’ll pass this form along, and in a few days your claim will either be approved or denied, and from there, we’ll potentially set a date for your hearing with the IRB, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Ilya left the room in a daze. They still had his passport, which he wouldn’t get back until they decided whether or not his life and livelihood was in enough danger, news which he’d receive in an e-mail within the next forty-eight hours. Hours, at least, that he’d spend with Shane. 

God, Shane! He was going to see Shane. 

He rented a car, something low-profile, not like what he’d usually pick, and drove to Shane’s apartment. 

There were less reporters than he’d expected, just a lone pair crouched against the wall beside the big glass doors that led to the lobby, one smoking and the other fucking around with their camera. Maybe Shane’s address hadn’t leaked like Ilya’s had. 

Still, something felt wrong. 

LILY: I am coming up

As he pushed through the doors, one of the paparazzi must have seen his face, because she jumped up, grabbing her camera and hitting the other on his shoulder, making him drop the cigarette. 

Ilya just held up his hand and gave her the sternest ‘do-not-fuck-with-me’ look he could manage. Then again—there were probably already countless pictures of him arriving in Montreal. And what other reason than being with Shane could he possibly have for being in the city to begin with? It didn’t matter whether or not they photographed him entering the building, he just didn’t want to be talked to. 

Thank God Shane’s building didn’t have an apartment concierge, because Ilya didn’t know if he’d be able to hold a conversation. Instead, he slipped into the elevator, blanked on the floor number for a second before letting muscle memory guide him to 10, and exhaled slowly as the compartment began to rise. He was only a few hundred feet away from Shane. They’d be together again soon, and Boston wouldn’t matter—none of it would, because, miraculously, Shane had forgiven him; wanted him nearby. Was that what disaster did?

Standing in front of Shane’s door, tense in his shoulders and rocking on his feet, Ilya, bewilderingly, saw flashes of the other man, lying on a sidewalk somewhere, bloodied and bruised. Shane, curled on his bed, stiff from crying and too scared to move.

He hadn’t answered the door in the six minutes since Ilya had knocked and sent a ‘here’ text. 

Maybe Ilya had somehow, somehow misunderstood. Maybe ‘come to Montreal’ meant ‘do not under any circumstances come to Montreal,’ in the same way that none of Shane’s ‘asshole’s were sincere. Maybe Shane was icing him out. Maybe somebody else had impersonated him in order to lure him somewhere. 

Ilya didn’t think he’d ever been this anxious in his life, not since Monday. The leak seemed to have dislodged something in his brain, given his worries the ability to manifest in tornado form instead of his usual thick, heavy sheets of rain. He supposed it was due to the fact that one of his worst nightmares had, in fact, manifested into reality.

Shane was probably just asleep. Terribly, though, he’s reminded of the waiting he’d done outside his mother’s door, and the horror he found once he pushed it open. 

He didn’t have a key. If things were different, he might have. That tiny sliver of possibility tugged at him. In another world, he might not have had to fly internationally. Hell, there might not have been a leak. And if there was, people might not have cared. But he couldn’t allow himself to be swept up in that. The future—if such a thing could still be depended on—was a fine enough time to lose his shit at the unfairness of this all.

He knocked again. No answer. Shane was not there. 

So where the fuck was he? Ilya let himself fall forward, forehead bumping against the door. His backpack wasn’t heavy, but it was starting to feel like an impossible weight, and he needed desperately to put it down, to settle somewhere. He couldn’t be this anymore, this wandering, empty husk. All that gave him direction—love, drugs, and hockey; the metrics by which he lived his life—were beginning to dilapidate and fail. 

Where was Shane? 

Ilya could feel his mind whirring. There were, in reality, very limited options. Shane was: in his apartment, and ignoring Ilya, for some incomprehensible reason, or with his parents, in their Ottawa house, and hadn’t told Ilya, or…Well, there it fucking was. The condo. 

A long breath escaped him, and his body sagged. Thinking about it now, it was obvious. Shane, flighty and no doubt sick with anger and sadness, would seek seclusion over luxury. And the condo was nice, anyway. 

Then came the question of whether or not he’d want Ilya to come to him, but that question was easy to answer. 

***

The sight of Ilya standing at the bottom of the stairs sent a wave of relief crashing over Shane. Granted, the relief was mixed with a second, more overwhelming wave of fear, but because the relief came first, it drowned out some of the residual terror making his hands shake. 

“Ilya,” Shane said, his voice coming out quiet enough to make him doubt that Ilya had even heard it. His grip on the handrail tightened. He sank down, sitting on the top step. “You’re here.” 

Ilya looked up, blinking once before he made his way up the stairs. “You didn’t tell me you would not be in your apartment,” he said, looking between the stairs and Shane, his face half in shadow from the fluorescent lights of the narrow stairway. “I thought something bad happened.” 

“I’m sorry,” Shane breathed. Ilya was close now, just a few feet away. The last time they’d been so close, Shane had run. “I haven’t…I’ve been trying not to look at my…computer. I’m glad you’re here.” The last part came out in a single breath, like it had escaped his body more than he’d said it. 

Ilya’s expression did something funny, something Shane couldn’t quite read. His heart flipped in his chest as Ilya dumped his backpack on the step between them. They just stared at each other for a few moments, and the tension in the air was a physical thing, pulsing with everything they still hadn’t said. Shane could feel his face distorting as he fought the growing desire to hide in Ilya’s chest.  

“Come inside,” he said quietly, making a small motion with his hand, barely raising it from his side. He turned, slipping back into the condo. He should have been looking at his computer, keeping an eye on communications from Ilya, he shouldn’t have let him think that something was wrong. 

Ilya followed, and soon they were standing in the kitchen, Ilya’s backpack at his feet. “My statement…It’s not how I feel. Is just…damage control.”

“I haven’t seen it,” Shane said with a tiny, halfhearted shrug. Now that Ilya was standing in front of him, he could almost forget the circumstances he was under. It was something about him that drowned everything else out, some kind of magnetism. He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes darting to the floor, and then back to Ilya, where they lingered. “How did things go with immigration?” 

“I did my interview. The woman seemed kind of…skeptical? I guess maybe they don’t get a lot of professional athletes fleeing conviction for a gay sex tape with another professional athlete. Nobody recognized me. Or they didn’t say anything,” he said, but there was something behind his eyes that made Shane think otherwise. 

It was quiet. Shane could feel his face twitching with how relieved he was to be near Ilya again, like his  excitement was at war with his muscles.

Without consciously deciding to, Shane moved across the chasm between them, grabbing Ilya’s face and pressing their mouths together. He could have cried at how much better it made him feel. And how fucked up was that? 

Ilya reciprocated, one of his large arms looping around Shane's waist, the other rising so that he could cup Shane’s cheek. His tongue poked at the seam of Shane’s lips and Shane parted them without any fight, desperately needing whatever Ilya would give him. Whatever he deserved, after what he’d fucking done: abandoned Ilya in Boston; leaked—however unintentionally—a video that was going to upend their lives completely. 

They pulled apart after a moment, foreheads pressed together, just breathing into each other’s mouths. Shane’s hands slid from Ilya’s jaw to his chest, resting there, feeling the rise and fall of the other man’s breath. It was at once a reassurance and a condemnation. Yes, Ilya was here. But he was here, and that meant that all of this was real. But Shane had already contended with that. And he was okay now, he was. 

“You smell like the airport,” Shane said quietly, inhaling as deeply as he could. Beneath the dusty scent of airport carpet was pure Ilya, which he hadn’t had in months, and had been, apparently, feeling very deprived of. He rested his cheek on Ilya’s shoulder, hiding in his neck. 

Ilya nosed into Shane’s hair, breath feathering over the other man’s scalp. “And you smell like…mmm, nothing. Very nice.”

“I use unscented shampoo,” Shane said. His hands drifted up to the back of Ilya’s neck, and his fingers brushed through the dirty golden curls that framed the nape of his neck like appliques. “You should shower,” he added regretfully, because he didn’t want to spend a second apart from Ilya now that he’d got him in his arms. 

Ilya hummed. “If you come.” 

And even if Shane wanted to contest the offer, he didn’t have an argument.

Water sluiced over his naked body, catching at the dip of his clavicle before cascading downwards. Ilya looked like a statue in a garden, drenched in rain and sturdier than whoever pitied it. He didn’t say anything, just caught Shane’s eyes with a dark intensity, keeping one hand on Shane’s lower stomach and reaching around him with the other to grab the shampoo. 

The back of Shane’s throat burned. He was going to cry again, probably. His fingers wrapped around Ilya’s wrist, moving the other man’s hand away from his stomach until it hung by his side. Ilya’s skin was warm, and he seemed more alive than Shane had felt for the past few days. He changed his grasp, instead lacing his fingers through Ilya’s. 

Ilya pumped some shampoo into his palm and dragged his hand through Shane’s hair, moving in small, gentle circles over his scalp until a white lather formed. 

Jesus fucking christ. The burn in his throat drifted upwards until it settled at the back of his eyes. What were they going to do? What possible path forward was there? And when had he started including Ilya in the unit of himself? When had they become a them? He squeezed Ilya’s hand, fighting the urge to tip forward and fall asleep under the warm water, safe with Ilya, who still cared about him, who still came, even after Boston. He might have been crying, but he couldn’t tell, not under the shower. 

Ilya adjusted Shane, moving him more directly under the showerhead, gently extricating his hand from Shane’s grip and dragging both hands up Shane’s back, digging his knuckles into the tightness that seemed to purvey his entire body before finding Shane’s head again, brushing through his hair with his fingers, working the water into it and washing away the shampoo lather. 

Shane closed his eyes, a shaky breath escaping him. The sensation of Ilya’s hands in his hair made him feel impossibly young, just a little boy with his chin rested on his tiny arms, hair stuck straight up, babbling endlessly while his mother sat in the tub behind him, cleaning his back. 

When he was just entering adulthood, thrown into maturity by peers that didn’t feel like peers and an environment that demanded he operate at a caliber he wasn’t used to, Shane had been obsessed with endings. With lasts. When was the last time he’d be held by his mother? When was the last time he would imagine himself as a cosmonaut, free-flying and alone in space? 

This felt like a last that had been changed into a last for now, a period that had, at the last second, been amended into a comma. The last person to do this for him had been Yuna. Now it was Ilya, and he did it without being prompted, and without Shane doing anything to deserve it. 

Shane was definitely crying now. If Ilya had anything to say about it, he kept quiet. 

After his hair was shampooed and conditioned and his tears had subsided slightly, Shane turned to Ilya and Ilya turned his back to the other man. 

Ilya’s eyes stayed on the wall behind Shane. It seemed that now that it was Shane’s hands in Ilya’s hair and not the other way around, he couldn’t keep up his façade of stability. His irises did the thing Shane often noticed, where they almost seemed to vibrate, and Shane couldn’t tell where his focus was. 

His hair was soft, the gentle curls only slightly tangled, and it didn’t take long for his hair to be clean, too. 

They got out of the shower and toweled off. Shane’s skin was kind of irritated from the water that had been hotter than he was used to, but he didn’t say anything. He kept close to Ilya, almost pressed into his side, close enough to be attuned to his heartbeat. 

He blinked, and they were in bed. 

Shane’s hair was damp on the pillowcase, and Ilya was above him, touching his hips and collarbone. They were still naked, and Ilya’s soft cock smeared over Shane’s thigh a little bit as the other man adjusted his position. Shane’s skin was still overhot from the shower and he felt a little drunk, and if Ilya didn’t kiss him soon he was going to say something stupid—even stupider than all the shit he’d spouted already. 

Thankfully, Ilya had always been impossibly attuned to Shane’s inner workings, and before he had to make a signal, Ilya’s tongue was in his mouth again. Ilya’s hand drifted downward, fingertips skimming over Shane’s abs and stomach, until it found the base of his cock. At the sensation, Shane’s hips canted upward, and an almost amused huff escaped Ilya. “So eager. You have missed me, hm? Did you get this hard with her?”

Shane grabbed Ilya’s shoulders and shook his head, eyes closing. It had been difficult to stay hard with Rose, at least when he could see her face, which was fucking horrible, but he couldn’t help it. The highest highs of what he’d experienced with her didn’t even come close to what Ilya could accomplish with a few strokes and a wet, well-timed kiss. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

It didn’t take long to work both of them up. Ilya moved down to hide his face between Shane’s thighs, and Shane’s back arched higher with every flick of Ilya’s tongue. 

“Ah, god…f-fuck, Ro—Ilya.” Ilya’s name came out in a sigh, Shane’s fingers buried in his curls. 

“Shh,” Ilya murmured against Shane’s skin, sending a string of vibration through his body. “Shh…”

Shane pulled him up, legs looping around Ilya’s waist, and hid in his neck. “Fuck me,” he whispered, rolling his hips upward, seeking the friction created by the drag of his dick trapped between their bodies. 

Ilya’s lips were everywhere, open-mouthed kisses leaving saliva behind as Ilya practically smothered Shane. He shifted, and one hand moved downwards, and Shane felt the head of Ilya’s cock position. 

When Ilya pushed in, Shane keened, pulling the other man even closer. 

“Shh,” Ilya repeated between messy kisses. “You can take it.”

They moved in perfect synergy. Sex, from the beginning of their relationship, had been some of the only moments where they existed outside the confines of themselves. Shane wasn’t quite Shane, but a second thing, something that floated outside of his body and didn’t shy away from the reality of his own desire. 

His eyes slid open, vision hazy as he tried to orient himself, moving a good four inches back and forth as Ilya thrust into him. The opposite wall was glass, and it was beginning to dusk outside. Somebody, if they knew who was inside, could ostensibly get a very clear video of what they were doing. Oh well. Shane couldn’t care about that any more. 

It was snowing. Not hard, just light, icy flurries. 

Ilya was panting in his ear. Heat coiled between them like snakes of desire, wrapping around every part of Shane’s body and constricting, drawing tighter and tighter and tighter.

“Are you—?” Ilya gasped. 

Shane’s back arched and his eyes closed again as he nodded, fingernails dragging up the skin of Ilya’s back. “F-fuck…” was all he could manage. 

They came at the same time—or close to it—and Shane’s mind turned mushy. He was warm, and with Ilya, which was all that mattered in that moment. While Ilya disappeared for close to forty-five seconds, returning quickly with a warm washcloth, Shane held his breath. 

Ilya left again, saying something Shane didn’t quite catch. 

He touched his own neck, where he was certain there’d be evidence of the night’s activity the following morning. 

And the bruises on his neck were a microcosm of everything Ilya did to him, weren’t they? Kissed him hard enough to draw blood to visibility, where it would linger for days on end. Ilya brought some deep, fundamental aspect of Shane to the surface, a facet of himself that Shane was finding increasingly difficult to shove downwards; compact into something manageable. One he was certain other people were beginning to notice.

“You are with me?” Ilya said quietly, climbing onto the bed again and pressing closer. The feeling of the  hard line of his body in contrast with the soft bedding was akin to seeing land after having been lost at sea.

“Mhm,” Shane murmured, shifting on the bed. He still felt slightly floaty in the wake of his orgasm, and also terrible, because just a few days ago he’d been engaged to somebody else. He’d probably have to shed some of that guilt. But shedding guilt had never been his strong suit. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

For a moment, Ilya said nothing. Then, accompanied by a brush of his hand over Shane’s shoulder, he asked, “For what?”

“I should have been more careful,” Shane elaborated, letting his eyes close. “It’s my fault that it leaked.”

“No, no, no,” Ilya murmured, pulling on Shane’s shoulder, encouraging him to turn over. When he did, and Ilya’s face came into view—still flushed, sweat beaded on his upper lip, but concerned; eyebrows furrowed, irises darting back and forth—Shane felt some of the tension melt out of his body. “There is nobody to blame but the person who leaked it. And…Part of me is glad that it leaked this way. Nobody’s questioning whether or not it’s, ah, real. Between us, I mean. That makes things simpler.” 

A scoff escaped Shane, sharp and completely exhausted. “What fucking part of this is simple, Ilya?” he said. His knees came up until his chest pressed against them. “I was engaged on Monday.” 

Ilya just nodded slowly, like he’d been anticipating his fracture. He probably had been. Ilya had some kind of sixth-sense when it came to Shane, which was both comforting and unsettling. Was he uniquely adept at reading him, or had Shane been putting off signals he wasn’t aware of to everyone, and Ilya was just the only one who bothered picking them up? “Yes, I saw on Twitter. You and Rose…?”

“Yeah, we…I don’t know if there’s really a world where she ended up being my…wife, you know? Maybe that’s optimistic. But I don’t know if I would have been able to go through with marrying her, even if I felt like I deserved it, because she didn’t. Are you angry with me? For…it was my fault.”

“No, Shane. No. Video only exists because I asked. We made mistake, mistake came out. Is nobody’s fault.”

The word mistake flipped over in Shane’s stomach, and even though he knew that mistake wasn’t what Ilya meant, the word weighed the same. 

“But—I fucked everything up. You might not be able to go home again.” Shane needed to do something, needed to grasp this situation by the neck. He might have to change the meaning of the word. ‘Home’ didn’t have to be Moscow. “I could marry you. To…expedite citizenship. If you’re denied, I mean.” It came out before he could even weigh it on his tongue correctly, before he could consider every facet of what he was offering. 

“No, no, no, Shane—I—Svetlana will do it if I ask—” Ilya said, brushing Shane’s cheek with his thumb, two familiar lines appearing between his eyebrows. 

Shane didn’t even have the words to express how upset that sentiment made him. The idea of Ilya being inextricably tied to somebody else, to Svetlana, of all people. It made his stomach twist in the same way it had that night in the bathroom with Rose. “Ilya. Please. Svetlana doesn’t have Canadian citizenship, does she? I thought you wanted Canadian citizenship. We—” His voice broke. Tears were welling in his eyes again, and he choked them back, wiping furiously with the heel of his hand. “We’ll figure something else out.”

“Hollander,” Ilya said, like he was begging Shane not to feel as much as he did, like maybe he was pleading with himself to do the same. The thumb on Shane’s cheek drifted down to his lips, swiping over the bottom one, his other fingers stroking the soft hair behind Shane’s ear. 

“We’ll figure something else out,” Shane repeated, voice quiet. He tried to sound sure of himself, tried to infuse his sentence with as much resolve as possible. The bed creaked as he repositioned himself, legs straightening out, and pushed closer to the other man, hooking his chin over Ilya’s shoulder and wrapping his arm around his shoulders.  

Ilya was still for a moment, before curling into Shane, grasping at his back. His eyelashes brush Shane’s neck. Their hearts were pressed together and they synced, along with their breaths, in the ensuing silence. It was a few long seconds before Shane felt wetness, and even more before Ilya took a thick, shuddering lungful of air.  

“Okay,” he murmured. “Something else.” 

***

In all their time together, Shane had only seen sunsets with Ilya; never a sunrise. Now, though, the sky was lit up orange and pink, warmth reflecting off the thin sheet of ice that covered the city and into Shane’s condo. 

Neither of them had been able to sleep for more than five or so hours. Ilya was sitting on the couch, looking out the windows. The view wasn’t great, but over the trees, a section of glimmering Montréal skyline could be seen. His profile looked fucking gorgeous in the light. It was so weird to have him so close. To have him without a clock ticking in the background.

Shane stood in the middle of the kitchen, elbows propped on the edge of the counter, forehead resting on one palm, phone held to his ear with his other hand. 

“So you’re safe?” Rose asked. 

Shane exhaled, eyes flicking over to Ilya and then back to the floorboards between his feet. “Yeah. Somehow I don’t think this address was included in the leak. The quiet has been good.”

“How did things go with your parents?” 

“Fine. They weren’t…bad about it. My mom was just being my mom,” he said, swallowing the thousand tiny injuries that threatened to make themselves known. Rose didn’t need any of that. “And apparently my statement was good, so I can’t really complain. Yours too.”

It was quiet, save for some muffled rustling on Rose’s end. Ilya looked over his shoulder and made eye contact with Shane, who, for the life of him, could not read the expression on Ilya’s face. He mouthed ‘what?’ and stood up straighter. 

“Shane?” Rose asked. Her voice was soft, lilting, tentative. Shane had no idea what to do with her when her voice was like this. It was terrifying. She was too vulnerable, and Shane could barely handle his own vulnerability. 

“Mm?” he hummed, still frowning over at Ilya. 

‘You look pretty,’ Ilya mouthed.

Shane’s cheeks flushed. It was such a silly, frivolous thing to say. Delicate, too, and almost anachronistic, coming from Ilya’s mouth. Pretty was a word that only ever really escaped him when he was at least a few inches inside Shane. It coming now, soundless from the man on the couch, while Shane waited on the phone, brows furrowed, for his ex-fiancée’s voice, felt like a crossing of the invisible precipice that had divided them since fucking 2008. ‘Whatever,’ he mouthed back. 

“I just wanted to say that I know I was fucking weird to you on Monday but there’s, like…no hard feelings, between us. I’m sorry about how I was, I think I was just, like…processing? I think I already kind of knew you were gay. Just the…confirmation, you know? And, I mean, that video was kind of…intense, I guess. We’re obviously not going to get married anymore but I love you and I don’t intend on losing you.” She finished with a huff, breathless. 

Shane was quiet. None of this was news, exactly. But hearing her say in explicit detail that there were no hard feelings and she didn’t intend on losing him felt a little bit like being exorcized. He hadn’t had time to really grapple with the Rose of it all, but it had been pressing at the back of his mind, making every single second slightly harder than it had to be, making guilt bubble in his chest whenever he let himself need Ilya.     

“Thank you,” he said. “Fuck. I love you too. I’m so sorry.”

“I really need to get to set soon. But call me. Or text me. Or don’t. Whatever you need. I’m here, babe, okay?”

“Okay.”

The phone call ended, and Shane sank down until he was squatting on the floor, forehead pressed into the cabinetry. 

“Ah, fuck,” came Ilya’s voice from the living room. When Shane popped back up to look over the half wall and cabinets, Ilya met his gaze again, but didn’t say anything else. His eyebrows were tense, a wobble just barely visible on his lip. 

“What?” Shane asked, moving over quickly. 

Ilya held up his phone, the screen displaying an email, the first line of which read: Mr. Rozanov, unfortunately, your claim to asylum was found ineligible by…

Ineligible. His breathing quickened. This was the clearest path; the only one where both of them came out of it either the same or better. Safer. Well, considering. Whatever Ilya had to do now was undoubtedly worse for him. What if he was extradited—or deported?

Shane sat down heavily on the couch beside Ilya, their thighs touching. 

Ilya’s head fell to his shoulder, his curls soft against Shane’s neck. He nosed at the collar of Shane’s shirt, and the air went sour. Shane wasn’t good at reading people, but even he could tell that Ilya was about to cry. He moved his hand to stroke Ilya’s bicep. 

“Fuck, sorry,” Ilya whispered. “Sorry. I thought—”

“It’s okay,” Shane said, despite it being incredibly fucking far from okay.

Ilya turned his head up, meeting Shane’s eyes. Ilya’s were hazy, glossed over with fear and disappointment. He didn’t look like any version of himself Shane had ever known. His lips parted, but he didn’t say anything. Despite the silence, Shane could hear the question that flitted across Ilya’s face ring and echo inside his own head. 

“Are you sure?” Shane asked, heart pounding. It was a formality. “We’re going to lose everything,” came after, more quietly.

Ilya looked utterly fucking terrified, but his lips turned up into a small smile, probably for Shane’s sake, and he leaned in the tiniest bit, the early morning sun coming in through the windows behind him and lighting his brownish hair up gold, haloing that face Shane could have recognized in complete darkness. “That was a risk we took from the beginning, no?”

Chapter End Notes

tysm for reading!! comments and kudos are very appreciated - i love feedback!! i am however shy about replying, so just know that they make me smile enormously even if i don't reply (but i do and will try to!)

immigration discrepancies: ilya wouldn't be allowed to enter canada at all after being denied asylum, which would happen *in* the airport, from what i understand. he would *probably* also have been approved, for the record. also: from here on out, we're going to operate in an amazing fantasy world where you can gain citizenship via marriage within a few weeks, not the real life timeline of one-year-to-many-years

in light of recent events, i think it's apt to reiterate: fuck ai, i don't and will never use ai: generative ai is a gross and fascist tool.

i have gotta write more oneshots and stop torturing myself with chaptered fics. this chapter unfortunately really feels like a mess to me & i hope it doesn't read that way....

love ya!! talk to me on tumblr @spiralboundd or in the comments :)

Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

a wedding, kind of

Chapter Notes

hey,,.,,,,how yall doin.....

recap, since it's been forever:

shane and rose were engaged, but there were cracks. shane's phone was stolen and a video of him and ilya having sex was leaked. shane freaked out. ilya came to montreal and applied for aslyum. he went to shane's secret sex condo and they exchanged some feelings. his asylum claim was rejected and shane offered to marry him for citizenship. ilya agreed. also, i don't know if this was ever mentioned explicitly, (yikes if not sorry) but they've both been benched for the season.

Moments during which Shane Hollander had been absolutely certain that nothing in his life would ever be the same again: 

1. December, Ottawa, three years old and clumsily slinging the puck across the ice on a frozen-over lake, hearing his mother cheer from a snowy bank.
2. Draft day.
3. 10:00 PM, four hours after the CCM commercial wrapped.
4. 2015, holding the Stanley Cup above his head, circling the ice.
5. The locker room, three days ago.
6. Earlier this morning, Ilya’s head on his shoulder, curls brushing Shane’s neck. 

It was easy, looking back, to identify these turning points, these openings of the proverbial door. Twice, it’d been Ilya who grabbed the doorknob, held Shane’s hand gently, and led him inside; onward. 

Before, and while stepping through, Shane was often overcome with a massive sense of foreboding. Maybe it was fear, or just anticipation aged wrong, but on the precipice of change, all he could think of were the things he was losing, his obsession with lasts bleeding into every single one of his firsts. 

Once settled into life on the other side of the door, however, Shane found it impossible to consider a thread where he hadn’t opened it. These doors were impossible to close, and impossible to ignore once opened. Ilya being either beside him as light shone in around the edges or silhouetted on the other side tied them together in some intrinsic way; growing up parallelly ever since they’d met. 

So he was calm, now that the door was open, now that they had a plan.

***

When he was slightly younger, and casual hookups were an every-night situation and not a whenever-he-was-in-a-strange-city-drunk-and-particularly-lonely situation, Ilya worried passively about the possibility of fathering a child with a woman he didn’t know very well. That, of course, didn’t happen, but Ilya thought that some of the feelings he’d imagined in that scenario were making themselves known in this one. A single act ballooning into something larger than had been anticipated, something permanent and public and—well, he didn’t want to think too deeply about this, at least not for several years—possibly a gateway into a brighter future; one where he was a better person and better partner. 

The metaphor didn’t quite work, but Ilya was a hockey player, after all, and currently in the middle of one of the worst weeks of his life. If it came to mind, he thought, it had to bear some truth. 

Shane was standing in the kitchen, pushing his hair out of his face even though it hadn’t touched his forehead in almost twenty minutes, bending down to type on his laptop, furrowing his eyebrows, and then standing up to do a small circle past the stovetop. From where Ilya sat in the living room, knees pulled up to his chest, Shane’s legs weren’t visible, and he seemed to be floating around the room. Ilya would love to float.

“Well,” Shane said after ten more minutes of typing, reading, pacing. “We have to do it as soon as possible.” 

Ilya still couldn’t really believe that Shane was going to do this at all. Marry him. Ilya wasn’t the kind of person somebody married. He was a fling. A fantasy. A bad, bad decision. He’d been a bad decision for Shane since they’d met, since before either of them were under such scrutiny. A categorical mistake. Instead of feeling sick, he felt completely hollow. Shane’s words bobbed on the surface of Ilya’s comprehension, understandable, but too muffled to really penetrate the part of him that might react.

“Okay,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to talk Shane out of it. Shane had a single-mindedness that overtook him in the face of challenge. “What do we…” he began. He rested his chin on his knees. Swallowed hard. “What do we do?” A certain youth seemed to eclipse his bravado in moments like these, and he wanted to be ordered around. Half of his life was spent self-governened, wandering the streets of strange American cities in the middle of the night, sleeping with people he wouldn't remember because they wanted an anecdote. The other half was dictated by his career, requiring tremendous discipline, precise, predetermined decisions. He was often very lost, either intentionally or by way of having no agency. 

And he wasn’t going to cry. 

“We find an officiant, notary, somebody like that, sign some stuff. They’ll publish a notice. Then we...get married,” Shane said, with an upwards lilt to his words that made Ilya think he was intentionally trying to sound more excited than he was. Or, rather, trying to perform the excitement he did feel, but didn’t naturally express. That quirk of his was why, Ilya thought, Shane came across as sarcastic to people who didn’t know him so well.  

“So much Googling to learn that? Weren’t you going to get married?” Ilya joked, trying to be himself again. 

Shane paused, the corner of his mouth drooping. “We didn’t have a date. And I knew all of that, I was searching specifically for marriages for the purpose of earning citizenship for one party. It’s the same pretty much, just more paperwork.” 

“Oh.”

Ilya thought of his mother. Born in Kyiv, she moved to Moscow in 1984 to attend university, immediately fell into financial ruin under Gorbachev, and married Ilya’s father, a high-level policeman twice her age, in order to continue studying. A year later, Alexei was born, and she dropped out. Five years after that, Ukraine gained independence in the August of 1991, a month and a half after Ilya’s birth. 

She hadn’t had a choice, really. Neither did Ilya. They’d always been so alike. Sometimes he wondered whether or not seeing herself in him had been a part of what drove her over the edge. Ilya, however, was forced into a beautiful situation by a horrible one. He was going to marry Shane fucking Hollander. In any other universe, every cell in his body would be alight. 

But in this one, marrying Shane would knock over the first domino in an infinite series that would eventually topple everything in his life to the ground. 

He’d known, probably for years, that he loved Shane, even if not in those words.

The term came crashing through him, and he felt his mouth contort into the ugly smear it became when he cried. His mama would hate this; hate him for being so devastated by something so good. He prayed that she’d be able to forgive him for this. For everything. 

Suddenly, Shane was touching him, soft hands over his face, the weight of a cheek on his shoulder, of arms around him, but Ilya didn’t really feel it. He was crying again, in earnest.

“Hey, hey,” Shane was saying, shushing, placating. Ilya wanted to push him off, to scream, to say, you can’t possibly want this. You can’t possibly be doing something like this for me. I’m not worth it. I’m not worth you. Maybe he could hurt Shane badly enough to make him reconsider, to make him see the real Ilya, the one he was hiding from everybody. The terrible, hedonistic, mean person he could be—was. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya said, and it came out a little gasping. “I am just thinking about it now and I cannot—you should not—you do not have to do this for me, Shane. I cannot ask that.”

Shane’s eyebrows jumped around a little bit. Whenever he wasn’t trying to be as inexpressive as possible, his face displayed more than he was probably aware of. “I offered. It’s maybe not…maybe not what I thought was going to happen, but—you need my help. And—” 

“What if they do not let us play again? I could handle that, but you—” Ilya had never known a Shane who didn’t have hockey. He couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t reconstruct Shane without that integral pillar.

“Ilya,” Shane said, frowning now. He grabbed one of Ilya’s hands and gave his fingers a squeeze.

Part of Ilya was infuriated by Shane’s calmness. It’d only been a few hours since they’d agreed to do this and already Ilya felt it devolving into a nightmare that Shane, somehow, couldn’t see. How was he oblivious to just how bad it’d be? They’d lose more than everything. “And are you so level-headed? You were freaking out yesterday—”

“Ilya.” 

Ilya turned his head to the side in with the childish urge to hide his tears. “It’s not fair, to ask. You deserve the chance to—to recover from all of this, find somebody who isn’t me, is not fair to—to—” His voice, ever-wetter and shaking a little bit, broke.

“Ilya,” Shane implored, gently guiding Ilya’s head to look at him. Shane was smiling a little bit, expression swimming. 

Ilya swallowed and let himself take in the sight. “What?” he asked, voice low.

Shane’s chin did a weird little quiver and his grip on Ilya’s fingers tightened. When he spoke, however, his voice bore no signs of wavering. “It’s not like I wouldn’t want this,”  he said with a resolute nod.

It was such a stupid, impossible sentiment. Ilya must have misheard. He felt his throat constrict again as he asked: “You’re sure?” 

Shane nodded, and when Ilya tipped his head forward to rest his head on Shane’s shoulder, his hand came up to stroke through Ilya’s hair. 

***

Once, when Shane was nineteen-ish and only beginning to get truly hairy the way most of his teammates already were, he’d shaved his entire body. He’d only meant to go in and clean up around his pubic area, maybe get rid of the hair on his thighs that made him feel kind of dirty, but he’d just kept going. Laying in between hotel sheets that night, he’d realized how weird it made him feel, this facsimile of the boy he used to be. Defenseless, almost. Young. Like a girl, if he thought about it too much. So he didn’t think about it too much. Or, tried not to. 

The thoughts crept in anyway.

Throughout his life, Shane had thought passively about what it might be like to have a vagina. Mostly little things. Sitting down to pee, worrying about cameltoe. He’d miss his cock, he really would—they’d been together a long time. But just the concept of being able to hide his arousal, for his desires not to be broadcast to everyone by his body, was enough for Shane to think he would bittersweetly part with his dick, if given the chance. 

He’d learned, by then, that there was something in him that people could pick out and examine upon meeting him that Shane was entirely ignorant to. Whatever this thing was, it made them weird and terse, made them tease him for things that any other person could have gotten away with. And, not knowing what this thing could be, he was completely unable to hide it. Similarly, the handful or so of sexual experiences with girls he’d had at that point taught him just how betraying his stupid dick could be. It didn’t get hard when he needed it to, but flagged upwards in the worst situations. Namely, with Rozanov.

So. He could say goodbye to his cock, if it meant being a little bit more in control of what people knew about him.

On the other hand, he didn’t know whether or not he had the skills to communicate those things without help from his anatomy. 

Until Ilya came along, all of Shane’s sexual endeavors had been painfully stilted, an endless barrage of ‘Do you like this? Do you want this? Can I do this?’ And while he understood those girls and their inclination for direction—he himself had the same proclivity, he’d discover once in a hotel gym after the draft, and again the summer before his rookie year—he couldn’t help but wish they would just understand. A glance up and down, and then proceed. Maybe that was because reading people was occasionally a skill Shane lacked, and thus required the other party in the bedroom to lug some of the communicative weight he couldn’t, but he felt instead that it was a deeper desire: to be known.  

So many people died and were allowed to decompose alone in their apartments for huge swaths of time before being found in Japan that there was a word for the phenomenon. Ever since he was a child, even before he’d learned the term, Shane had, in the back of his mind, somehow expected that to be how his life would end. Kodokushi. Lonely death. It wasn’t that he thought he was unloveable, or anything, but he had yet to find a single person who could forgive his peculiarities, the quirks his dad called ‘just his Shane-ness.’

Shane couldn’t even put his finger on what exactly made him so different. He was occasionally inexpressive. He kept to himself. He cared about things more than other people might. So fucking what? Was that why the only person in the world to see past the media-constructed veil of mechanical obsession, of emptiness, had been fucking Ilya Rozanov?

Whatever the reason, Shane felt irrevocably connected to Ilya. He’d...god, do anything, probably. Offering to marry him was an easy decision, even if the weight of it bore down on him more greatly with every passing minute. Shane didn’t mind being tied to Ilya, not in a vacuum, anyway. It was when everything else poured in, the opinions of the people and institutions Shane couldn’t extricate himself from, that the idea morphed into anything other than pure fantasy. They were already a unit, weren’t they? Rival and rival. Would a little recontextualization really be such a huge leap?

Yes, it would. Of course it would. 

Even if logically, practically, nothing would change for the public or for the league. Shane and Ilya would still show up to the same events, still destroy each other on the ice, still talk about each other when prompted by sports journalists. Their attitude towards each other would be different; some of the tension might drain from Ilya’s forehead, Shane might spare more than just a sentence. And that’d just blow people’s minds, wouldn’t it?

On the personal scale, however, the change would be massive. Shane wasn’t under any illusion that they’d suddenly begin living as husbands, but he didn’t think that a little more domesticity was out of the question. With Ilya then a Canadian citizen, they might even live together. They’d need to tell people. Shane’s parents. Yuna would freak out, but Shane thought that she’d probably, eventually, come around, if the phone call was any indication. 

He wasn’t sure how forgivable this would be to his teammates. Maybe Hayden would stick around. Maybe J.J. But he’d probably be traded, wouldn’t he? Where? Buffalo? They sucked.

An affair was one thing, a masochistic fling that could be justified in all manner of roundabout I was just fucking the closest thing I could get to the personification of hockey, I was just taking out my anger on hims—well. If that video didn’t depict the exact opposite—but marriage was another beast entirely. It implied all manner of things Shane wasn’t necessarily ready to confront, and in any other situation, that alone would have been enough to make him reconsider. But this was protecting Ilya more than it was fulfilling their own desires, wasn’t it? Shane needed to just stare at his feet and get through this, hold Ilya’s hand, maybe kiss him a little bit, and then, once things had settled, he could vomit up all his feelings and contend with them. 

The worst part about all of this was how badly he wanted it. How frequently in his mind he revisited a scenario where they were three, five, ten years older, and they were doing this because they wanted to. He’d settle for this, though. 

Before Ilya had come to Montreál, Shane had been semi-certain that this was the end of his life. Whether metaphorical or literal, he didn’t know. All he knew was that this was  the definitive watershed moment: nothing would ever be the same again. Now, though, with the both of them together again, with Ilya on the closed toilet seat while Shane stared into the mirror over the sink, it felt more like a fork in the road. 

“Should I brush my hair, or something?” he asked, worrying at the hangnail on his left hand. His reflection stared back at him, looking every bit like a man wading through the worst thing he’d ever been faced with. There were dark circles under his eyes and the skin on his lips was chewed up. There was a dark hickey on the side of his neck left behind from last night’s exploits.

“Do you want to?” Ilya asked. He was looking up at Shane with so much sincerity that it almost hurt, and Shane had to shy away.

“Maybe I should slick it back?” he thought aloud.

“You don’t have to do anything to your hair,” said Ilya. 

“But we’re getting married.” In his mind, Shane saw images of a woman in white and a man in a suit, standing opposite her. They were both very clean and blandish; white.

There was a pause, and then Ilya said: “It’s not a, a wedding, though.” 

Shane swallowed. The sentence hurt a little bit, for reasons he didn’t have time to examine. They were supposed to be at the courthouse in two hours. Hayden and Jackie were meeting them, to be their witnesses, a circumstance Ilya had protested but ultimately relented to. They didn’t have any other options. Shane’s parents were too far away. “We should look nice, shouldn’t we?” was what he settled on. 

“Slick it back, then.” 

Shane turned back to him, gripping the edge of the sink basin. “Are you going to do anything to your hair?”

Ilya smiled and shrugged. He looked so playfully handsome, a little rugged, like he could chop wood, or something. “Probably not, unless you want me to look like a broccoli in our wedding photos.”

Their ‘wedding photos’ would likely be a series of selfies and a picture taken on Hayden’s iPhone 5. That also made Shane’s stomach twist. 

They were approaching another door.  

“If I slick my hair back, I’ll look like I care more than you,” he said.

Ilya frowned and rocked forward a few inches. “...You are worried the courthouse people will think you are desperate, or…?”

“Well I’m only going to get married once,” Shane said a little stonily.

“You think so?” Ilya teased. 

Shane felt a geyser of anger go off inside him, and he gripped the basin harder, barely gritting out: “Unless you’re planning on filing for divorce as soon as the window opens.”

Ilya was quiet. He stood, pressed up against Shane’s side, slipping his big hand beneath Shane’s button-down and petting his stomach. “I’m not.”

Cold shame flooded in, replacing the anger. “I just wish….we had more time,” Shane said, and then he’d broken through the dam, and everything else came pouring out. “To talk more and just—know what’s going to happen. Like, are we going to share a bedroom? Are you going to live with me, or will we buy someplace together? How open are we going to be about this? Are you going to be my—my husband, or will we still just be….fuckbuddies, I guess that’s the word, but married? Are you still going to sleep with other people? What if we can’t play next season? And I’m kind of, like, excited, but I feel awful about that because we shouldn’t have to do this.” He took a wavering breath and turned to Ilya, sure he looked absolutely pitiful. This was what nearing a door did to Shane. Reduced him to raw, fraying nerves. 

“Shane. Breathe,” Ilya whispered, kissing beside his eye. “Do you want to…make a list, or something?” he asked.

Shane melted into the touch, trying to let the nervousness bleed out of him. The prospect of a list sounded great, thank you very much. Even if Ilya was teasing—Shane was never all the way sure—maybe he could be persuaded into drafting one for real. “Yes, actually.”

Ilya just about beamed, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “Okay.”

***

SH-IR Marriage Outline 

• No other people
• Private, but the public can know 
• Ilya will move in fully (timeline?) 
• Same bed but guest room open just in case
• Statement to be drafted by Farah and edited (two days)
• LOTS OF SEX  Intimacy as normal   
• If hockey isn’t
• Effort to be good

***

Rival Hockey Captains Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Benched Following Steamy Sex Tape Scandal

XXX-Squad Star! Rose Landry’s Fiance Stuns in Home Video!

What Will This Teach Us? How the #HollanderRozanovLeak Will Inform NHL Policies Going Forward

Hockey is for the Girls and Gays This Year, Apparently

Rozanov spotted in Montreal as NHL scrambles

5 spicy enemies-to-lovers books to accompany your fifth rewatch of that video

Who to fill the skates left behind by Hollander, Rozanov?

***

LEGO! @kinestecthsi
Okay but shane is stronger than me because i probbb would have killed myself

i fucking told you!!!! @OGhollanovtruther
Smoking a blunt and dedicating it to shane and ilya

> naomi @thisismyusername
replying to @OGhollanovtruther
Every time i take my xanax i say this one goes out to you shane hollander 
>> my hydroflask be like @quinepol
replying to @thisismyusername
And every time I mix benzos and alcohol the ghost of ilya rozanov visits me in the ER while i get my stomach pumped
>> beenee @bbney9
replying to @quinepol
He’s not dead??

kylie<3 @kyleykillerrr
So 2016 cup is out of the question then....?

> whit @inboxfull
replying to @kyleykillerrr
I mean, they’re benched for the rest of the season, and I’d be surprised if either of them continue
playing in the fall, & especially not for the same teams. It’s hard to care, though. I hope they’re safe.

Breakaway ✓ @BreakawayHockeyTalk
Exclusive! A Skeptic’s Analysis of the Hollander/Rozanov Situation by Lainey Martin on Breakaway 

Sade’s biggest fan @angelby
I mighth bee really drunkn buyt i think I ust saw shame hollande r anf rozacnvov walk out of a ctourthouse 

coining voyraidergate rn @crystalmethkween
Am I hallucinating

[Image: two men walk side-by-side. It’s dark, and their faces are obscured, but they have
similar builds. They’re talking to each other. One is holding a folder, the other is wringing his
hands.] 

KKslayyyter @BRANDNEWPAYLE$$E$
Is it weird that i kind of feel like i’m gonna cry

> lolliloopsie @CRYZgloo
replying to @BRANDNEWBIRKIN$
yeah for sure girl but also me too
> starrr @cabin123
replying to @BRANDNEWBIRKIN$
probs its ok to be parasocial in extenuating circumstances like these

akl @metroamer

Oh my fucking gGod . 

[ coining voyraidergate rn @crystalmethkween

Am I hallucinating

Image: two men walk side-by-side. It’s dark, and their faces are obscured, but they have
similar builds. They’re talking to each other. One is holding a folder, the other is wringing his
hands.] 

> mari @iluvthesharks
replying to @metroamer
They look so stressedddd... My babies
>> beenee @bbney9
replying to @iluvthesharks
Gurl theyre 30 and going through the worst week of their lives lay off with that

Sade’s biggest fan @angelby
I drank some water and im here to say that haydne pike was there too

> diet pepsi girll @lanadelreybabydoll
replying to @angelby
Tell us more!!!!!!! Were they happy??
> skunky @uzbekistan09090
replying to @angelby
did you get a glance into that folder . does it say that they’re now officially the hollander-rozanovs
because they love each other so much and they want to bear the other’s name on their gravestones
>> Sade’s biggest fan @angelby
replying to @uzbekistan09090
OK please calm down

ilya rozanov’s bra @user08854875683746 
Yall know this isnt like a normal wedding right theyre doing this to keep ilya from danger???? Wtf are you guys doing talking about hyphenation???

> Georgia @gorg.george
replying to  @user08854875683746
Thank U for saying this! People blowing everything out of proportion again... they probably 
aren't even in love...
>> ilya rozanov’s bra @user08854875683746
replying to @gorg.george 
Ok so I wouldn’t go that far we all saw the video 

***

Ilya was crying before he and Shane even got back to the condo. Not the big, heaving sobs of last night, but silent tears that didn’t even distort his face, just rolled down his cheeks and soaked into the collar of his shirt. He looked a bit like a garden statue left out in a rainstorm, Shane thought, all stoic and dripping wet. 

They didn’t speak until they were changed into pajamas and in bed. Shane had kind of anticipated some mind-blowing, oh-my-god-we’re-married-we-just-did-that-holy-fuck sex, but he was bone-tired, and from the look on Ilya’s face, the other man felt the same.

“Now that we’re husbands,” Ilya said as a wryish smile crossed his face, wiping his nose, warped by the sadness in his eyes. “I will try to be more vulnerable with you.” The word came out in four distinct syllables, Ilya’s accent exacerbated by the tears in his throat. Vul-ner-a-ble. 

“Okay,” Shane said. He was too far away from Ilya. He should have been on top of him. Inside him, maybe. Crouching in his chest cavity. He inched closer, feeling Ilya’s stomach press against his. 

Ilya took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring a little, curling closer, too. “I kind of can’t believe it. Any of this.”

“Me neither,” Shane said. It was a little empty, but he got the feeling that he was a passenger in this conversation, and that interrupting Ilya’s thoughts too much would result in Ilya losing his courage keeping them to himself. 

“But, uh.” Ilya was suddenly teary. 

Shane reached over and thumbed the tear away. It was just an excuse to touch his face. “Mm?”

“We didn’t do vows. But I have some stuff I want to say,” Ilya said. He closed his eyes and threw an arm over Shane. 

Shane swallowed hard, blinked. “Okay.” 

“I did not want to have to marry you, but I am kind of glad we did. And I am glad—well, not glad, because it is horrible that it was you, kind of worst person—but I am glad that out of everyone for this to happen to me with, it was you. And I think that…” Ilya looked at him, those stupid big eyes gleaming, his philtrum quivering. “That I love you. Probably a lot more than I should. Than it makes sense to.” 

The phrase rang in his ears for a moment, pinging around inside his head. I love you. I love you. I love you. Ilya loved him. Shane was going to burst into tears, or maybe throw up. Was throwing up from joy normal? 

Ilya had always been a little esoteric, hard to pin down and even harder to get a clear read on. For most of their relationship, Shane had felt like a dog following him around, desperate for whatever affection fell from Ilya’s pockets. But Ilya loved him. Loved him.

It was difficult for Shane to bring the words in his chest to his mouth. “I love you too,” he said. He wanted to say more, but he couldn’t. Instead, he hid his face in Ilya’s neck and tried to stop himself from shaking. 

Ilya was mumbling something that Shane couldn’t understand, and all he could think was that it was his husband’s voice, his husband who loved him. Loved him. It was such an impossibly nice phrase. Shane wished they’d done vows, wished he’d come up with something more articulate.

They were on the other side of the door.

***

Alexei: Dad is dead. Don’t bother coming back.
Alexei: We need 20k.
Alexei: I can’t fucking believe you.

Chapter End Notes

is it anticlimactic to never show the actual ceremony? i'm unsure. i think it's okay.

thank u for reading! comments + kudos are very appreciated. be nice to me after my very very long hiatus.

i know this kind of sucks and it's lowkey just shane being sad and then ilya going noo baby don't be sad and then ilya being sad and shane going noo baby don't be sad over and over and over

usually i’d be all over them consummating, but i feel like it’s a little cuter if the consummation is ‘i love you’s

but i think we're wrapping things up! i'm anticipating only a couple more chapters, which will (hopefully) come in a timely manner. sorry again about that

love ya!! talk to me on tumblr @spiralboundd or in the comments :)

some more notes on accuracy

in real life there’s a 20 day period beginning once the notification is published before an actual wedding ceremony can happen. i cut that out for my own personal pacing reasons because that would have been a nightmare. sorry if you're from quebec and a real stickler about marriage processes

also: the ukrainian spelling of irina is iryna, but i liked that paragraph too much to abandon it completely. i’m really bad at killing my darlings, if you haven't been able to tell by reading this whole stupid thing

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

we ignoring twitter character limits with this one folks

Shane Hollander Updates @shupdates

Via Hollander’s Instagram: 

“1st, I would like to thank all of you for your support and willingness to give me privacy over the past few days. 2nd, I would like to clarify something I said two days ago: while Ilya Rozanov and I were never in an official relationship, we cared – and still care – deeply about each other. This leads us to the 3rd thing. There has been much discussion about the danger Rozanov might have faced had he been extradited and returned to Russia. Well, he is now a Canadian citizen. So there’s no need to worry about that (but I will probably need some reminding.) Thank you.”

He included an image of himself and Rozanov.

***

Ilya Rozanov Updates @ilyaevents

Via Ilya’s Instagram: 

“Ok don’t worry anymore I am a Canadian now”

The attached image was of a night sky. 

Chapter End Notes

drop a comment on ur way out baby
i know this was a nothingburger chapter but i still wanna chat