Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

Unreliable Narrator, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Character Study, what inherently goes hand in hand with growing up in a household with an insane man

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-21 Words: 5,886 Chapters: 1/1

one of your eyes is always half-shut (something happened when you were a kid)

Summary

Shane Hollander is not a small fucking guy; he is all muscle, with big, calloused hockey-player hands and eyes nearly pretty enough to disguise the violence hidden in breadth of his shoulders.

Alexei is impressed.

Not a bad get, for someone fished out of a pool of hockey men who look like thumbs, their noses like squashed tomatoes and ears like boat sails. If it could not be beautiful, nosy bitch Svetlana, if it has to be a man, if it has to be a hockey player, then rich as God Shane Hollander isn’t the worst Ilyusha could have pulled.

 

-
or Alexei is in deep shit. He can’t get to Ilya, so he tries the next best thing.

Notes

i have always had a special love for digging into one-dimensional, loathsome characters written to put our beloved characters through the wringer. something about alexei in that funeral episode, in the way he looked at ilya, coupled with ilya saying he knows why alexei hates him - it brought this out of me.

to be clear, i love ilya. he is our only glimpse into his childhood, and i think there is interesting places to go when the only voice we have from the past belongs to the youngest, and (implied to be) favourite child. i hope that this fic shows that love, rather than dismisses it.

Alexei Rosanov has been sitting down for ten minutes, waiting for Shane Hollander to show up. 

It has been long enough to make the icy hatred in his chest strengthen, long enough for his nails to carve new cuts into his palms, long enough for him to consider tying himself to one of the bollards in front of the stadium that belongs to the stupid Centaurs team until someone important is forced to talk to him. 

He’s still not sure how he let Shane Hollander force him to agree to meeting, diverting him from his one-track path to Ilyusha. Not even his own shame had been enough, but some stupid hockey player with a near perfect win record this season had convinced him to slow, to turn the wheel, to let the engine idle, and now he’s stuck here, in the freezing fucking cold, feeling his anger build by the second.

When Shane Hollander finally appears, late and dressed head to toe in designer clothing that would take a well trained eye to realise how expensive it all is, Alexei does his level best not to leap over the table and tackle him to the floor for wasting so much of his time. 

“What, you walk here?” He spits, getting a sneer for his trouble.

“You’re lucky I even showed up,” Shane Hollander volleys back, folding himself into the chair opposite Alexei. His dark brows are drawn together in a hard line over his forehead. “What do you want?” His voice is already accusing, eyes sharp and unforgiving. 

Trying to recoup some semblance of high ground, Alexei looks him up and down.

Since the news about Ilyusha’s relationship had come out, Alexei has been picturing Shane Hollander as small, the same way he pictures anyone Ilyusha’s age as small; pictures them standing with trembling hands next to his forever nine year old, teary-eyed, knock-kneed baby brother. 

Shane Hollander is not a small fucking guy; he is all muscle, with big, calloused hockey-player hands and eyes nearly pretty enough to disguise the violence hidden in breadth of his shoulders. 

Alexei is impressed. 

Not a bad get, for someone fished out of a pool of hockey men who look like thumbs, their noses like squashed tomatoes and ears like boat sails. If it could not be beautiful, nosy bitch Svetlana, if it has to be a man, if it has to be a hockey player, then rich as God Shane Hollander isn’t the worst Ilyusha could have pulled.

“You are pretty,” He tells Shane Hollander, absentminded. Some of the fury is leaving him, now that he has one of them in front of him. “My brother has good taste.” 

Shane Hollander’s already frozen expression drops ten degrees. 

Absurdly, it reminds Alexei of walking home on ice-covered roads, of refusing to hold Ilyusha’s hand until the little swot had skidded and nearly brained himself on the concrete. Reminds him of grabbing Ilyusha’s skinny arm in a panic, hauling him close and swearing, dragging him along, pretending like he couldn’t feel the slip and slide of the pavement under his boots, matching the lurch of his gut. 

“Whatever you’re trying to do, I’m not interested. You have,” Shane Hollander makes a show of checking the Rolex on his wrist. Alexei’s well-oiled addict brain helpfully translates just how much coke he could sniff if he pawned it off. Tempting. “Nine minutes and fifteen seconds before I leave and we never speak again.” 

“Okay.” Alexei shrugs. If Shane Hollander doesn’t want a compliment, he won’t give him one. Given or not, it will not change the facts. “I want to see my brother.” 

They have already discussed as much over text, but, predictably, Shane Hollander’s expression crashes through the floor like it is some big fucking surprise. Alexei wonders how his soft-hearted brother wins any arguments against a will as strong as this one. 

“No.” 

Something in Alexei begs to be let out, begs to be permitted to reach out and grab Shane Hollander by his collar and shake him until Ilyusha comes careening around the corner to rescue him. 

Ilyusha has always loved gentle things. 

He used to cradle the baby rabbits that plagued Babushka’s garden every spring, used to look up at Alexei with the toothy, unburdened grin he only wore when Papa was in Moscow at work and Mama was asleep inside, when the world was just them and the songs Babushka hummed as she pulled up vegetables for dinner. Used to pull Alexei down into the soft spring grasses next to him and press a squirming bunny against Alexei’s cheek. 

Softly, Lyosha, He would say seriously in his baby voice, He is small, you might hurt him if you are rough.

The spring before the end of all things, the last time Alexei saw Babushka, they had all been soaked to the bone with dread. When Mama told them to start packing for their return to Moscow, Ilyusha had thrown himself down on Babushka’s kitchen floor, convulsing and wailing. 

He, like Mama, like Alexei, did not want to go back to their cold house that had no Babushka to make it livable, back to Papa and his fists, his temper. Mama had cried too, harder and harder the longer Ilyusha raged. When he was finally unable to hear Mama whimper anymore, Alexei had got a hold of the front of Ilyusha’s shirt, had pulled him close, and, careful as anything, threatened to snap the neck of Ilyusha’s most favourite bunny if he didn’t get himself up and ready to go. 

The threat worked a million times better than Mama’s pleading, which made it easy not to care that it made all three of them look at him like he was a rabid dog, liable to bite the next person who looked at him wrong. 

Ilyusha loves gentle things; he will do anything to keep them soft and whole. 

Instead of grabbing Shane Hollander to try and force Ilyusha into existence, he leans back in his chair, trapping the urge in his chest. 

Later, maybe, if he proves to be the rock in Alexei’s rushing river.

“I do not want to ask him for money.” He needs money desperately, more so now than ever before. Daria has already fled with their Irina to England, and when Alexei returns home empty-handed he will be worse than dead. “I want,” He sniffs, rolling his shoulder. He does not want to show Shane Hollander any part of who he really is, doesn’t want to beg him for anything. “I need his help.” 

It gets him another derisive scoff. “So money.” Shane Hollander deadpans. 

Alexei might hate him, a little. 

“No, stupid Canadian man,” He bites back, vicious and cruel, relishing in the way Shane Hollander flinches away from him. This is a man unused to being on the receiving end of a casual backhand, this is a man with an uncalloused, unpunished heart. “When I say no money, I mean no fucking money. My brother, he said no more money from him, and I have listened, yes? No more calling, no more asking. I am not so stupid to cross the ocean and think him seeing me will change his mind.” 

For all his bluster, he sees Shane Hollander consider the logic of his words, head tipped to one side. 

The familiar chill that accompanies going too long between hits sweeps over Alexei’s spine. He huddles further into his last good coat. 

Moron fucking idiot Canadian man, refusing to meet him anywhere but a fucking open air garden cafe in the middle of winter. 

He is Russian, yes, but Alexei has not been good in the cold for a very long time, not since he was eleven. 

It had been bruisingly cold, just like today, and even though the snow wasn’t falling, it was threatening to, making the air so cold it hurt to be breathed in. Ilyusha, cooped up in the house for days and bored to tears, had begged and begged Mama to go swimming. 

Mama, sick and weak, should have said no. If Papa was home, he would have sent Ilyusha to his room for suggesting such a stupid thing. 

Alexei waited for her to say no, waited to be told to take Ilyusha away from her sickbed, to entertain him with books or toy cars or shapes in the frost on the windows.

More absent with every second, Mama told Alexei to take Ilyusha down to the lake, told Alexei to protect him from the freezing cold and watch him closely in the water that loved to swallow people whole. 

The whole walk, Alexei told Ilyusha that he would drown, told him of the ghoul that lived in the lake’s depths, its arms always outstretched, eager to pull silly children into its maw. Stubborn, Ilyusha told Alexei that he had a secret that would keep him safe no matter how icy the water. 

The only other person stupid enough to be on the lake in the snow was their elderly neighbour with his fishing pole, who had carved a fresh hole in the ice bigger than was needed, a hole perfect for jumping into the lake. 

Bundled up to the neck, Alexei watched Ilyusha slip into the water, clutching his stupid brother’s clothes to his chest tightly. Ilyusha’s delicate skin burned bright red in seconds. 

See, Lyosha! Ilyusha had yelled up to Alexei, panting from the cold, I am a superhero! 

A minute of Ilyusha splashing and muttering to himself passed before Alexei could take his eyes off him, could turn to their neighbour - looking more mean-faced by the second - and remark on the thickness of the ice. 

It was just enough time for the cold to catch up to Ilyusha, just enough time for him to go under. 

Still in his coat and gloves and heavy snow boots, Alexei had dived into the hole and scrambled around until his frozen fingers found purchase around Ilyusha’s shoulder. It took every bit of strength he had to pull and yank until they were both back on the ice, each coughing out lungfuls of water so cold it scrambled the brain. 

Lyosha, Ilyusha had spluttered, looking bewildered and pale, Lyosha, your coat!

The neighbour, even more mean-faced now that his day of fishing was well and truly dashed, had reluctantly helped Alexei carry Ilyusha back home, back to sick, newly fawning, regretful Mama, back to the fire. 

He had watched as Mama ran her hands over Ilyusha’s trembling shoulders, his sodden hair, his blue lips, his shaking hands. 

You were supposed to watch him, Mama moaned, rocking Ilyusha backwards, forwards, eyes flashing where they pinned Alexei against the door. You tried to kill your brother!

True enough, Alexei’s expensive coat had been ruined by filthy lake water.

That night, Papa beat him so terribly that Alexei’s left wrist, attached to the hand that finally found the meat of Ilyusha’s shoulder and tugged him back to the surface, never worked the same way again. With every blow, his ears rang with the sound of Ilyusha’s desperate gasps for air, with the sound of his piping voice coming from where his head rested in Mama’s lap; No, Mama, Lyosha saved me! 

“What do you want from him, then, if not money.”

This idiot, he is like a dog with a fucking bone. 

Shane Hollander doesn’t know and will never understand that Alexei needs Ilyusha’s help the way a horse with a broken leg needs a bullet in the head, the way Mama needed a handful of pills, the way Papa needed to lose his mind and memory. 

Sad - yes; painful - yes; everyone wishes it was different - yes; but it is the only option. 

“My family,” He says through gritted teeth. “We have troubles. Unfixable,” He snaps the last word out, forcing Shane Hollander’s mouth to close before he can crow some stupid Canadian version of I told you so, like Ilyusha had crowed when Alexei’s team had lost his first and last game in semi-professional youth hockey. “I am not asking for money. He doesn’t have enough to fix it anyway. But he can help my wife, my Irina,” He watches Shane Hollander flinch at the name, and feels a kind of white hot wrath course through him at the sight. 

Like Shane fucking Hollander knows enough to flinch, like he was there to watch her fade and fade and fade into nothing, like he was there to hear Ilyusha’s scream, like he was there to be the only one to feel no surprise at all. 

“Not you?” 

“No,” He shakes his head, grin vicious, “No, I don’t need, from him.” He tilts his head so that he and Shane Hollander are at the same angle, distorted mirror images of one another. This is the person who Ilyusha loves more than his country, more than anything in the world. This is the person who loves Ilyusha enough to nearly claim first prize in it. “Helps, yes? Woman, child. Is easier to feel something for them.” 

“Yeah,” Shane Hollander whips the word out, like a puck leaving his stick, “It’s easier to feel sorry for the victim of a situation than the perpetrator.” 

Alexei laughs. In some ways, Shane Hollander has more in common with him than Ilyusha, whose heart is as tender as freshly flayed open skin. 

“Yes, Mr Black and White, it is.” He is proud of the way it makes Shane Hollander go slightly red with outrage in the cheeks. 

All at once, Alexei is certain that if they had grown up together, if Shane Hollander had been trapped in their house as a child, he could have warped him, could have broken him into something like the monster Alexei is. Shane Hollander would not have left their childhood as whole as Ilyusha, with his humanity and compassion intact; he would have become a version of what Alexei is now. 

It makes him feel a twisted sense of relief - yes, Ilyusha came out of the meat grinder a person, but the number one hockey player in the world would have stooped to Alexei’s level. It has to mean something.

“I’ll talk to Ilya about it,” Shane Hollander moves to stand up, expression closed off, “And then I’ll -”

With the speed of a man used to shooting out a hand to catch an incoming blow, Alexei grabs the end of Shane Hollander’s coat, stopping him in his tracks. 

The kid’s eyes go so dark with rage it almost frightens him.

He lets go as quickly as he reached out, lifting his hands above his shoulders in surrender. “Sorry,” His voice is as soft as he lets it get. 

Ilyusha used to ask him to read the storybooks in that soft voice, when Mama was passed out on the couch and no one else was around to put them to bed. 

Irina asks the same way, curls her hand around his elbow, rests her head on his shoulder, drifts off as he reads about magical worlds and happy endings. It is easier to read to her, to kiss her on the forehead, to pull the covers up under her chin. 

Hurts less. 

“I only,” He scrubs a hand over his face. He needs a hit, badly. “I leave, tonight. I cannot wait long for reply, for you to arrange meeting. This is last chance.” 

Shane Hollander’s expression does not falter. 

He looks like Papa when Ilya did not score in important hockey match, like Papa when Alexei dropped a glass, like Papa when Mama went quiet for too long, like Papa when any of them - all of them - gave him the excuse he wanted so badly.

Then again - no. 

Shane Hollander doesn’t have the joy that was in Papa, the uncontrolled glimmer of happiness that shivered over him when he watched the three of them cower. Shane Hollander just seems to love Ilyusha enough for violence to become an easy option. 

Alexei has not let his spine curve since he was fifteen, so he does not shrink under Shane Hollander’s steely gaze now. He finds that he truly doesn’t mind if Ilyusha’s Shane Hollander hits him. Accepts it. Welcomes it, even.

“Why’d you wait so long to ask?” Shane Hollander’s voice is deadpan. He is not leaving, not yet, but he does not sit down. 

Alexei has little interest in giving a blow by blow of his tour around New York and Boston, begging on his hands and knees at the feet of the most powerful of Russian expats he was granted access to. Has even less interest in describing the way they all but told him to throw himself into the arms of destiny, to take his wife and spawn with him, to take heart and have courage enough to be the end of his bloodline.

It was such an illustrious name. One of them had sneered, a woman who was an expert in making it known that she would be a Duchess, if the monarchy had mattered at all in the last century. Gone to entirely to rot.

He lets a shoulder lift. “Last time I saw little brother, he had me against wall, told me he would put me through it. He tell me, no more calling, no more asking. So I try find solution alone. Now,” He spreads his hands, encompassing everything he is - a coke hungry drug addict, a neglectful husband, a failed father, a disappointing son, a terrible brother, a dead man walking - and finds himself agreeing with the disgust in Shane Hollander’s expression. “I am out of options. I think my brother will not hold me against my wife, against his -” 

Alexei doesn’t know the word for niece in English. 

When Ilyusha was four, he didn’t speak to Alexei for hours after their Mama’s sister joked about Alexei having children with a daughter of her neighbour. It took four of Alexei’s sweets and an extra long story at bedtime for Ilyusha to finally confess that he didn’t want anyone else to take Alexei away from him. Alexei had still been young enough that disguising the pleasure Ilyusha’s affection sparked didn’t occur to him. 

They will be yours too, He told his little brother, And you will love them so much, so hard, that you will forget you ever loved me more.

“He will not hold me against my Irina.” He suddenly feels desperate to convince Shane Hollander of this fact, of the love he knows Ilyusha will give to the one unblemished thing he has in the world. “He left her money, for future. He will love her, he will not let harm happen to her.” 

Shane Hollander, who loves Ilyusha enough to be eying the first place trophy in it, does not need to be talked into believing that nothing Alexei can do will sway Ilyusha from doing everything for his niece. He nods, once, and lowers himself back into his seat. 

“Ilya, he’s not,” Shane Hollander looks furious at himself for the words even as they leave his mouth, “He’s not in Ottawa right now. You can’t see him today.” 

His eyes slide shut. 

Of all the outcomes he had imagined for this meeting, it is by far the one Alexei has been most afraid of. 

“Ah,” He says, deadpan. His heart has been pulverised, chewed up and spat out and stomped on. “Okay.”

When Ilyusha turned thirteen, Papa finally accepted that he was a genuine hockey prodigy, that the career in government that Papa was shoving Alexei into head-first couldn’t come for a boy so singularly talented. Ilyusha was kitted out with the best gear, the best skates, and Papa’s dangerous hands had retreated as more of Moscow’s elite took note of him, piling hopes for the sport on his skinny little shoulders.

They make such a fuss if he so much as walks funny, Papa had scoffed, cutting up the last of his meat. He is hockey player, he is used to strong discipline. But, no, we are trying to portray new Russia, friendly Russia, so you cannot hit your child when he errs. Soft.

Alexei, his nose so badly broken he couldn’t breathe out of it, his right eye swollen shut, had felt such a surge of pure hatred that when it receded he was shocked he hadn’t spontaneously combusted.

When Ilyusha was thirteen, Alexei reached his threshold for nice talk about Mama. Of course Ilyusha would praise her kindness, her singing voice, her kisses, her soft arms. Of course Ilyusha would call her sad but wonderful. Ilyusha was Mama’s favourite, undisputed, the same way Ilyusha was Papa’s favourite. He got the best of her, avoiding her sharp nails and hissed words and wild eyes, missing the threats, the way she bemoaned life as a burden she was shackled to, the way she let herself circle the drain. 

Mama, Alexei had coaxed into the dark, oppressive stillness of Mama’s bedroom, hands wrapped around Ilyusha’s elbows, anchoring them both to real life. It is his bed time.

Mama, hollow-eyed and clutching sleeping Ilyusha to her chest like a dragon baring its teeth over a mountain of treasure, curled her lip at him. Devil child, She accused, He belongs to me. He stays with me, now, forever. He is mine, my baby.

Alexei shook his head, trying not to cry. He needs to go to school tomorrow, He whispered, He has a spelling test, and a hockey game. 

He tugged again, and this time Mama let him pull Ilyusha away, let him haul Ilyusha onto his back, let him get halfway to the door, halfway to freedom. 

You should never have been born, Mama cursed him, voice high and reedy, If I only had him, I would be different, I would be able to live. I had the Devil’s child so I have to die, die of shame before he destroys me.

When Ilyusha was thirteen, Alexei got into drugs through a friend of a friend. Pretty pills, crushed power and the sharp tang of vodka quickly became his whole world, swallowing everything else. It helped with the nightmares, helped dull the memory of Ilyusha’s wail, the bite of his fingers as he clung onto Mama, the kick of his feet as Alexei dragged him away, the vacant stare of Mama’s eyes, the sting of Papa’s ring against his face. 

It was easy not to care about Ilyusha’s fear of Papa when every breath he drew in tasted like artificial happiness. 

When Ilyusha was thirteen, Alexei had decided - in the hurricane of Papa, of a world without Mama, of a life without a future - to pulverise, to chew up and spit out Ilyusha’s heart, to destroy his baby brother for daring to look up at Alexei, at his ruined face, his crooked nose and half-shut eye, and still smile.

He made sure that he was late to pick Ilyusha up from hockey practise until Ilyusha told Papa that he would walk home with a friend instead, or carpool in the winter. He made sure to miss Ilyusha’s games until he stopped being invited. He refused to go and see Babushka, then made sure that when she died the following spring that he took his grief out on Ilyusha.

Let Ilyusha hate him, let Ilyusha assume hatred in return - for Alexei’s failure in the sport (like he ever gave a fuck about fucking hockey), for having a future outside of the endless, black-hole crush of their home, for whatever Ilyusha believed could ever drive an older brother to hate. 

He can still feel the bash of Ilyusha’s hockey stick against his shin the first time Alexei lost his mind and shook his baby brother down for money, so high he couldn’t conceptualise anything but the ice pick in the centre of his chest. 

It was a quick lesson in what drugs will steal. 

When he’s down, when both feet are on the earth, when he can feel Papa’s fingers around his throat, Mama’s voice in his ear, Ilyusha’s soft cheek against his shoulder, he can hardly breathe around his cruelty. 

When he is up, he presses cruelty on anything, anyone that will take it.

“Sorry,” He hears Shane Hollander say awkwardly, “I should have told you up front.”

Alexei shakes his head, waves a hand. Can’t open his eyes, not yet. “Is fine.”

He can still hear Ilyusha, yelling down the phone at him for leaving Papa alone. 

Alexei listened to it all, listened to Ilyusha imagine how lonely Papa was, how frightened, in a room where he knew no one, least of all himself; inventing a creature to feel sorry for. Perhaps, if Ilyusha had been there, in Russia, he might have found it in himself to be more forgiving of Alexei. 

It is not easy, after all, trying to spoon soup into the mouth of a man who used to clip you across yours for looking at him the wrong way. Harder still, when you look down to make sure you aren’t spilling anything and the blow comes anyway, a kind of ingrained muscle memory that wasn’t eaten away by the disease gorging itself on everything else.

Papa only ever asked for Ilyusha anyway, or Mama. His watery blue eyes looked straight through Alexei, begging him to call his son, to call his wife. The only time he focused and saw Alexei was when the venom resurfaced, channeled through his fists. 

Alexei had been an adult too long to endure being beaten by Papa. 

He calls me, he doesn’t know where you are, Ilyusha steamed, far away in hockey-land, playing for so much money it would make Alexei’s tax-dodging friends blush. This is why I pay you, to take care of him!

Always, Alexei felt like asking how much money it would take for Ilyusha to be hit again, how much he would accept to sit and listen to Papa wail for Mama, calling her every name under the sun and threatening to snap her neck, how much would sway him to relearn how to flinch, how to avoid looking into the accusing eyes, how to duck and weave combat-strong fists.

I am here, He was always blustering, dragging in another heavy breath of smoke, eyes fixed on the white powder piled up on the table in front of him, courtesy of Ilyusha’s hockey gold. No meds for Papa that week, but Rosanovs were good at bearing pain; it was the first lesson Papa had taught them. He has dementia, he does not remember, but I am always here with him.

He can still feel the curl of Ilyusha’s fists in the cashmere sweater he wore to the funeral, years after he let himself reduce Ilyusha to what he could do for Alexei. 

“What do you -” Shane Hollander’s voice is hesitant for the first time. He is a good man, Shane Hollander, Alexei knows that. Good enough to sit down with the brother of his husband, the brother who has caused nothing but pain, good enough to acquiesce, even though all logic should tell him that Alexei is an expert snake oil salesman, not to be trusted as far as he can be thrown. “D’you have a plan?”

Alexei nods sharply, opens his eyes when he can trust the tears to stay away. “They will apply for asylum here,” He digs through his coat until his fingers close around the rolled up folder. He pushes it across the table at Shane Hollander, who picks it up but doesn’t open it. “Or citizenship, if you think is faster, safer. My brother, he will give money to help them live, for my Irina to go school. Help my wife get job.” 

Shane Hollander is all business now, none of the passionate rage present in him at all. “Applying for asylum has to come with genuine threat,” He explains like Alexei is an idiot, “I don’t think -”

With a sharp gesture, Alexei draws him back to the folder. “Proof.” 

Obliging, Shane Hollander opens the folder and spreads the evidence of a life poorly lived over the cafe table. Most of it is in Russian, but key words in English - I kill you, You die, and She will pay - alongside the images, are enough to make him frown. 

Alexei can’t look at any of it, at the photo of Irina with her eyes cut out, the text chain describing the ways Daria will be eviscerated, the letter that tells him that there is nowhere he can run to where they will not find him. There was more; baby photos of Ilyusha lifted from newspapers, of Mama’s corpse, of Papa’s funeral, but he hasn’t held onto those ones. 

Lets Shane Hollander, a big, strong guy who was probably kissed on the head every time he scored a goal, who looks like he wouldn’t know what to do with hatred if it was flung his way, sift through the documents that prove Alexei is a waste of the air he’s drawing in.

“What about you?” He asks finally, graciously pretending like the evidence doesn’t confirm what they both know about Alexei.  

Very nice man, is Shane Hollander. 

“I go home,” Alexei says shortly, “Is not about me, is about wife and my Irina.” He leans forward, until he can make sure that Shane Hollander is paying attention to him. “Whatever gets them safe, yes? Don’t care how you do it.” 

Shane Hollander nods solemnly. “Yes,” He agrees. Alexei is almost surprised to hear none of his love for Ilyusha in his tone, just the selfless promise of a good man. 

He leans back in the chair again, almost bowled over by the strength of his exhaustion. Shane Hollander is nothing like him after all. He would not have been able to change him into a monster, no more than he had been able to change Ilyusha into one. 

It was just wishful thinking. 

For half of a half of a second, he considers telling Shane Hollander one of the many memories he has of his baby brother, his Ilyusha. Of the baby bunnies that loved his gentle hands, of the soup he insisted on making Babushka when she got sick the first time, of the curl of his hands in Alexei’s shirt as they kept vigil by Mama’s bed, of his shrill, pre-puberty voice working through Papa’s favourite hymn, of that stupid comic book series he was so obsessed with he actually cried when Alexei pooled his pocket money for three weeks to buy him the next installment. 

He considers saying that whilst he’s going willingly to his grave - has accepted the full stop at the end of who he is with grace enough not to bring further shame to the family name - the journey will be infinitely lighter if Shane Hollander could bring Ilyusha here, could make him say Lyosha once more. Considers saying that pushing Ilyusha away had nothing to do with his baby brother and everything to do with the weight of Alexei’s jealousy, building each time Mama gave Ilyusha her best and had nothing left over for him. Considers admitting that he felt like taking a lamp and braining Papa every time he called out - Ilya, Irina, Ilya, Irina; never ever Alexei, not even once. 

Considers how to tell Shane Hollander without telling him that he’s the one who loves Ilyusha the most in the world, more than Mama who left him, more than Papa who only saw Ilyusha as an extension of himself, more even than Shane Hollander who looks like he will happily carve his heart out of his chest if it means Ilyusha can breathe easier. 

“Is hard thing,” He says finally, “To be -” 

Halfway through the sentence, he realises the futility of it and cuts himself off. 

He cannot tell Shane Hollander the truth, the same way he could not love Ilyusha the right way. Alexei is a product of his environment, has been cut and trimmed away into a shape that vaguely resembles a human, but he is more animal than anything else. 

Confessing now, in a boring Canadian open air cafe, surrounded by the smell of winter flowers and fresh icy air, will show Shane Hollander what he is only just admitting to himself; that he has failed, in every way it is possible for a human being to fail.  

He knows Shane Hollander already knows, but admitting to it is another thing entirely.

“You,” He clears his throat and finds words that won’t give way as he speaks them. “My brother. He is weak. Scared.” Predictably, Shane Hollander’s open expression shutters. Alexei is an expert in shutting what should be open, in shattering what is gentle. He presses on. “Ilyusha, he cries too much. His heart is too soft. You will need to look after him.” 

Impossibly, improbably, Shane Hollander’s face does something complicated. “Oh,” He breathes, too tender, and that is Alexei’s last fucking straw. 

He lurches to his feet, out of his chair so fast he knocks it over. “Yes, you will do this for me. I will go, now.”

“Wait!” The desperation in Shane Hollander’s voice stops him. “Ilya, he’ll be back tomorrow at noon.” 

Ah, then again. This Shane Hollander, he might be an expert in breaking hearts without realising, a dangerous power. Perhaps his Ilyusha is not so safe in his hands. 

Alexei gives him what he hopes is a closed off look. “Too late.” He says, shrugging like it doesn’t mean anything, like Shane Hollander hasn’t reached inside him and snapped something in two. “Flight is in four hours.” 

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Shane Hollander insists. 

He will too, Alexei can see it in his face. 

“No,” Alexei rejects, trying not to be unkind as he does. 

If he does not leave today, right now, if he sticks around to see Ilyusha, then he will lose his mettle. He will beg for money, he will beg for another chance, will stuff everything he should say in his chest and keep withholding his love. He will not get clean, he will not become a better husband, father, brother, person. The dime bag in his jean pocket will be up his nose as soon as he can get out of Shane Hollander’s eyesight, flight or no flight. 

If he knew how to change, Alexei would have done it already. 

“No,” He repeats firmly, “But thank you. All I ask is you take care of them.” 

Shane Hollander, big fucking hockey player, looks up at Alexei like he’s seeing him for the first time. It is nearly enough to make Alexei storm back over and fist his collar, yank him close, growl that if he ever breaks his Ilyusha’s heart he’ll rip his throat out with his teeth, then spit that he feels more thankful to him than anyone else in the universe. 

“Congratulations,” He croaks instead. He still doesn’t cry. He won’t ever, ever cry. “On first place.” 

Because Shane Hollander is a stupid, hockey-brained man, he blinks owlishly. “Oh, yeah, thanks. I mean, it was a team effort.”

It makes Alexei laugh. “No,” He shakes his head, “It was all you.” 

For the first time in many years, it does not hurt so much to turn and walk away.