Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

M/M, F/F, F/M, Gen

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau

Additional Tags:

2012-2013 NHL Lockout, Angst and Humor, Fluff and Humor, Sexual Humor, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch Shane Hollander, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch Ilya Rozanov, Threesome - F/M/M, Sex Toys, BAMF Shane Hollander, BAMF Svetlana Vetrova, Morally Ambiguous Character, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Shane Hollander Is a Menace, Ilya Rozanov is a Little Shit, Shane Hollander Speaks Russian, Friendship, Situationships, 2012 Moscow guide, Unreliable Narrator, Roommates, Living Together, Friends with Benefits, Sexual Experimentation, Endgame Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Autistic Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Teaches Shane Hollander Russian, Shane/Ilya/Sveta happens, Social Media, Texting

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-18 Completed: 2026-09-03 Words: 76,048 Chapters: 17/17

The Tenant

Summary

Ilya suddenly cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, lifted his chin with a strange expression and began reciting poetry in Russian.

Shane's jaw dropped.

“...anyway, he cut his wrists, wrote this poem with his blood, and hanged himself. What?”

Shane closed his mouth, shook his head, and finally said,

“When I came here, I expected a lot of things. I don't know that you'd make me drink litres of vodka or something like that. But not poetry in a cemetery, I admit, I didn't see it coming.”

...

NHL 2012 Lockout. Hollander comes to Moscow to play in the KHL and learns two things: Moscow landlords don't particularly like renting to Asians, and Ilya Rozanov has a spare room.

Notes

Written & translated by Russian millennials. English is not our first language(tm), but at least we are not thirteen (ahem more like -ty something), pray the AO3 curse doesn't hit us.

• A translation of Квартирант by kurizakusturiza

Chapter 1: in which Shane thinks with the wrong head, and Ilya recites poetry in a cemetery

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

"Everything's fine," Ilya said. "This is Russia, who cares?"

Shane was having lunch with his parents in Vegas. Even though he had no chance of winning anything that year, he still had an awards ceremony to attend. The lockout-shortened season had been painfully brief and full of fuck-ups. He'd returned from Moscow six months ago, and now the careless "everything's fine" had decided to raise its head and bite Shane in the ass.

Mom checked her phone with a weird look on her face and said,

“What a fantastic Photoshop. I should probably draft a press release just in case.”

Shane set down his ginger ale and asked with mild concern, “Did something happen?”

Mom handed him her phone, and all the blood drained from Shane’s face.

Someone had posted a series of photos on Twitter with the caption

“@shanehollanderMTL @ilyarozanov81 care to explain?”

The first photo had been taken at Spartak cap Kovalsky's dacha. Evening, Shane and Ilya were sitting by the fire, looking off-camera and clearly gossiping like two rats. The second was a shot from the Spartak—Dynamo game, with Karlssen and Kuznetsov fighting in the front, and Shane and Ilya standing right behind them. Shane remembered the game—they had been discussing whose turn it was to make the evening groceries run. Ilya was grinning, keeping Shane in a half-hug. The third picture was from the Dynamo goalie's birthday party: Shane was sitting on the carpet in the lotus position, clearly a little tipsy, sipping beer. Ilya sprawled on the same carpet like a sultan's favorite concubine, smoking a hookah. His head was resting on Shane's thigh. The fourth photo, the final nail in Shane's coffin, showed them asleep in the metro, leaning against each other.

"Um..." Shane drawled thoughtfully.

His own phone started buzzing with messages on VK, each and every one of them asking the same question: "May I?"

A contact edited to Cyrillic—Shane now had many contacts in Cyrillic, so this one didn't stand out—also asked:

Shane took a deep breath and nervously typed out his reply.

Shane put his phone down and hopelessly looked into his mother’s eyes. His sweet mother, who had so sincerely hated Ilya Rozanov on his behalf, for years.

"Mom... this isn't Photoshop."

"What do you mean?" Mom's face faded.

Shane sighed and confessed, "When I played for Spartak during the lockout, I lived at Rozanov’s."

VK notification beeped again.

Ilya Muromets: Yes, you may.

It took Shane about fifteen minutes to explain the specifics of Moscow racism and spill Ilya Rozanov's kind albeit secret nature. And then Twiggy, Kuznetsov's sister, tweeted a link to a video succinctly titled "The Adventures of Shenya of Holland in Russia."

Shane bravely closed his eyes and hit "retweet."

***

When it became clear things were a bit not good and the season wouldn't start anytime soon, Shane considered staying in Montreal and just practicing a lot with the guys. A logical decision.

And then he got a message from his sex.

Shane didn't know what else to call Rozanov. They weren't really in a relationship. They sexted a lot and fucked as if there were no tomorrow when their schedules overlapped, which—alas!—wasn't often. Despite the danger, it was precisely alas. No matter how much Shane indulged the fans who eagerly jumped into his bed, it was always a fucking chore. He wasn't disgraced all over Montreal only because he was relatively wealthy, moderately famous and reasonably polite. With Rozanov, however, there were no mishaps.

Shane started typing that he'd stay in Montreal, then paused. Playing somewhere else to stay in shape? That was actually a reasonable plan too. He sent Rozanov a neutral “I don't know yet” and went to look up what was going on with hockey in Europe.

Fine, let’s look at this hypothetical scenario. He could go to Moscow for a couple of months, play for one of their teams and fuck with Rozanov on a regular basis. It sounded... tempting. And Shane, fully aware that he was thinking with the wrong head, went to check out the KHL.

One club is out. Shane understood perfectly well that his rivalry with Rozanov had been a so-called “power brand” effort from day one. American paparazzi wouldn't follow him to Moscow. He wasn't a rookie anymore, but he wasn't that important either; the NHL had plenty of interesting players, and Russia wasn't exactly a close and easy trip. Still, they'd write something, at least in general terms. Shane couldn't afford to play on the same team as Rozanov, even in the KHL.

***

While the transfer car crawled through every traffic jam in the world, Shane was flipping through a Russian-English phrasebook. His progress was around zero, though after Rozanov's comment that Cyrillic was essentially based on Greek, he could pick up the pace a little. Shane could now more or less read words syllable by syllable—very slowly, like a three-year-old—and type them into Google translate.

Rozanov had demanded his address—a rented apartment near Sokol metro station—then made a joke about the office of some “night watch” and said they'd go grab some lunch together. And then they’d head to the apartment and have lots of steamy sex. Shane wouldn't even have time to unpack. Shane had always been perfectly ready for the sex part, that was more or less what he had been expecting. But the comment about lunch killed him. Was that even possible?

Shane didn't want to think about it, but one thought glowed in his head in neon letters: this is a date.

When the car pulled into the courtyard at the right address, Rozanov turned out to be sitting on a bench by the entrance of the apartment building. He was wearing a large cozy-looking black hoodie, basking in the August sun like a big cat. And when Shane collected his luggage from the driver, Rozanov grinned at him—smugly and somehow also very cat-like. The girl from the club assigned to help Shane with check-in, relatively the same age as Shane and Ilya, maybe even younger, looking all green and nervous, said something to the driver. She adjusted the strap of her document bag on her shoulder, turned around and let out a startled little yelp when she spotted Rozanov.

“Well, hey,” Rozanov smirked as the car rolled out of the courtyard.

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” Shane shook his head adjusting the strap of his equipment bag.

Rozanov just smiled wider, said a brief hello in Russian to the girl—Yulia—and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his hoodie pocket.

“Go on, get check in. I'll smoke here.”

So, Shane would go throw his bags up, get the keys, settle up, and then they'd go on a date. Usually, of course, it worked the other way around. You meet someone, lots of dates first, and then sex. But somehow this had all come out completely backwards.

Checking her printouts Yulia typed the apartment number into the intercom and held the door open for Shane, as he was loaded down with luggage. There was no elevator in the building, so Shane mentally dialed back his annoyance about the second-floor apartment. Hauling gear upto somewhere near the roof would have been a real pain.

A date, a date, he'd throw his bags down and go on a date with Rozanov, he'd never been on a date with a guy before, he wasn't great at dates in general, what would they even do, Rozanov said they'd go for lunch, would he drag Shane straight to borscht and vodka or dial down the local colour, damn, he'd need to stock up on lube and condoms somewhere, where do you even get those in Moscow, a supermarket or a sex shop, and was it actually that chill here in terms of the hockey players and paparazzi, was it safe, and…

Shane didn't notice them reach the right door and snapped out of his thoughts, squaring his shoulders, just as Yulia rang the bell.

And then something weird happened.

A large bald man around fifty opened the door. He looked Shane over with an unreadable expression, said something clipped, and shut the door. Yulia drew a sharp breath. He couldn't tell for sure what kind of emotion was behind it. Panic? Indignation?

“I'm sorry, Mr. Hollander, it seems we have a problem,” Yulia looked up at him with a frightened expression and headed for the stairs.

Shane picked up his luggage in bewilderment and followed her.

Rozanov was still smoking on the bench, but the moment he saw Yulia and Shane coming back with the bags, his calm unhurried ease evaporated. And Yulia suddenly burst into tears.

“It was my first important task, and now this happens, what the fuck, sorry, I'll figure something out!” Yulia sniffled, crying and typing frantically on her phone.

Shane didn't know how to react and carefully asked, “What happened?”

"Same question,” Rozanov demanded, standing up and flicking his cigarette butt into the bin.

Yulia said something quickly in Russian and Rozanov let out a short laugh with the intonation of you will not like what’s gonna happen.

“Wait here,” he dropped in English.

Rozanov didn't bother with the intercom. He forced the magnetic lock open with one sharp yank and disappeared into the building.

Yulia was still crying and Shane awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. Thirty seconds later the door lock beeped letting Rozanov back out. He was shaking his right hand like he'd just hit someone hard.

“How much Spartak give for rent?” Rozanov inquired pleasantly.

Yulia told him, sniffling.

“Zayebis’,” Rozanov deadpanned. “I'll rent room for Hollander.”

Shane nearly sat down right where he was standing.

Quickly wiping her tears with her jacket sleeve Yulia asked something in Russian to clarify. Rozanov shrugged, answered in about two sentences and then Yulia turned back to Shane, switching to English.

“Would a room rather than a whole apartment work for you, but closer to the city center?”

”Uh…” Shane couldn't believe it was happening to him. “Is it not a problem that he plays for Dynamo?”

Yulia shrugged.

“What problem?” Rozanov echoed. “Or you planning smother me with pillow at night?”

“No, I'm not you,” Shane shot back.

“Then we have a deal,” Rozanov gave him a razor-sharp smile.

***

A Skype call was loading, but Shane wasn't looking at the laptop screen. He was looking at Rozanov in his home shorts, sticking Shane's schedule translated into English onto the fridge with some patterned magnets, right below his own. The kitchen was tiny. So Shane, wedged behind a small square IKEA table, was looking less at Rozanov overall and more at the dimples at the base of his spine.

“Eat your blinchik before it’s cold,” Rozanov said over his shoulder.

They'd picked up the chicken crêpes from what Rozanov had called "the Russian McDonald's". A fucking weird McDonald's in Shane's opinion, he didn't even feel like he was eating junk food. Their plans had gone completely out of the window. Instead of a date (?) and hot sex they'd spent the whole day with Yulia, dealing with bureaucracy. Luckily, Rozanov's floor neighbour was a lady with connections, who made a couple of calls that saved them from queues.

His parents finally answered.

“Hi, sweetheart!” said Mom.

“How was the flight?” Dad asked immediately.

”All good,” Shane smiled—it wasn’t forced per se, but it tugged his face muscles in a weird way.

He didn't want to talk about the disgusting situation with the landlords in Moscow, who, as he'd gathered, refused to rent property to Asian men. Or who exactly he was planning to live with until the lockout ended.

“I've already moved in, just in a different neighbourhood…” Shane stood up and leaned out the window with the laptop: at the end of the street one of the Stalin’s Seven Sisters gleamed like a lighthouse. “Seems pretty nice here”.

When he settled back at the table with his crêpe, Rozanov's hand flickered into frame. He set a cup of tea down in front of Shane.

“Very nice!” Shane corrected himself, giving Rozanov a thumbs up.

“Is that vodka?” Dad asked, clearly joking.

“It's tea,” Shane said with slight resignation. “I've got two more days to settle in, and Thursday morning they're already expecting me at the rink.”

“Who's there with you?” Mom asked in a warm tone. She knew how hard it was for Shane to make friends and practically popped champagne for every single one.

“The landlord,” Shane stated.

“Zdravstvuite,” greeted Rozanov from off-screen. Yes, Shane had that thing too, his voice changed slightly when he spoke French. Great cover, you asshole.

And… the thought had been haunting Shane all afternoon: what the hell, this jaw-breaking language is like Klingon, so why did you sound so melodic speaking it?

“Oh, and I was given the club mascot,” Shane remembered. He held up a plush pig to the camera, that had settled on the kitchen windowsill next to Rozanov's blue wolf in a jersey.

“But we’ve read that Spartak's mascot is a gladiator,” Dad blinked, puzzled.

Rozanov, naturally, snorted into his so called “blinchik”. Shane would have very much liked this menace to put some clothes on, at least for the duration of the Skype call with Shane’s parents.

“The pigs are too. Long story.”

“I sent you the ambassador posting schedule for social media, have you looked at it yet?” Mom switched to business.

“Briefly,” Shane nodded, working his way through the crêpe.

“Is there anyone to take photos of you? Maybe you should hire a photographer?”

Rozanov, still invisible to his parents, pointed at himself. Shane didn't have a lot of faith in his skills, but he could always find a professional later, so…

“I have a volunteer.”

***

They soaked in the bath, Rozanov fucked him thoroughly (twice), and then Shane slept through half of the next day because of jet lag, a long flight, and a nightmarish number of visits to various government institutions. When Shane dragged himself out of the bedroom around one in the afternoon, Rozanov gentlemanly fed him a late breakfast consisting of coffee and a simple spinach omelette. His way of making the (not so) morning coffee turned out to be “put an ibriq on a gas stove”.

“Are you Greek?” Shane joked, shifting his gaze from the tiny coffee cup to Rozanov's face.

“I’m Soviet,” Rozanov corrected, adding condensed milk to his own cup. “You didn’t see my grandfather's horrible geyser coffee pot yet. It feels like "Turkey but very cheap".

Breakfast gradually melted into lazy kissing; kissing moved into a quick hot handjob in the bathroom. And Shane, feeling considerably more alive and functional, asked, unhurriedly shaving off his stubble, “So where do people go out here on weekends?”

“Oh,” Rozanov sighed. “Hollander, I'm moscowitz. We don't go out here, we hop on the night train to Sankt Peterburg, drink our asses off two days there, come back on night train, and in the morning go to school. Or work. Dirty, stinky, hungover. Actually, good idea, I will check when is first Sapsan tomorrow.”

“...we're going to St. Petersburg?”

“For one day. Will be great. You know, theatres, museums, palaces, and on the other hand—drugs, booze and prostitutes. I don’t offer gay clubs, will not stay night”.

“...Okay?”

Rozanov cupped Shane’s hips in both hands and pressed his nose into the back of his neck—it gave Shane actual goosebumps.

“Relax, I know where to go out.”

Shane carefully set down the razor and asked the question that had been nagging at him for a while:

“Is this a date?”

“A bit late for dates,” Rozanov snorted and pointedly squeezed Shane's peck, because he was an insufferable little shit.

Shane rolled his eyes, smacked his hand away and kept shaving.

“Hollander, don't panic, you are guest of capital and already got bad impression. I’m trying to be hospitable.”

“Mm,” Shane hummed skeptically. But the panic started to melt away.

“Plus we're two big buff guys in sweatpants walking on cemetery. Nobody will think “date” as long as we don’t start make out.

“Right... wait, you said cemetery?!”

***

Rozanov had never been to the Armoury Chamber or Lenin's Mausoleum, which Shane had read about in his guidebook, and he'd last visited the Tretyakov Gallery on a school trip about ten years ago. But he knew where to cut corners, where to get the best deals, and he also knew some interesting facts about the city. Just. Not very standard ones.

For the first half hour at Vagankovo Cemetery Rozanov was showing Shane the graves of famous actors, athletes, and various Soviet cultural figures, pulling up videos about them as he went. Another hour was devoted to the graves of criminal bosses and this part of the tour came with comments like “Dad shot this guy in shootout in ninety-six,” “head of this gang was arrested by Dad, still in prison—remind me to tell you about Russian prisons,” and “this guy's widow kidnapped me from school, took me to ice cream café, and called my parents with threats, my favorite kidnapping.”

“Ilya, what the hell,” Shane said hoarsely at that last one, not immediately noticing that he'd used Rozanov's first name.

That was Yulia and Rozanov's neighbour Zinaida Vasilyevna's fault, Shane decided at once. He'd spent the entire previous day hearing nothing but "Ilya, Ilya, Ilya, Ilya."

Rozanov blinked in surprise at the use of his name, but then smiled as though nothing had happened. As though he'd never actually wanted Shane to call him only by his last name. Over the past two days Shane himself had been called either “Mister” or straight by his first name. He was already getting the impression that last-name address wasn't really a thing in Russia.

“That, Shane, were nineties, the mob era. I don't know even to what compare it to. Once on my way to school saw street currency trader get shot from car window, and then bandits took his cash. Gangs, screaming, shootouts, bodies! Endless fun.”

“No wonder you grew up so fucking crazy.”

“Thank you!”

The last fifteen minutes of the improvised tour Rozanov—now Ilya, apparently?—dragged him around a small patch and talked about the relatives and family friends of someone called Yesenin.

“And here he is,” Ilya announced at last.

“Pretty,” Shane commented with no real emotion behind it.

“Huh! Alcoholic, troublemaker, poems with swear words. Can’t guess from face, right?” Ilya suddenly cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, lifted his chin with a strange expression and began reciting poetry in Russian.

Shane's jaw dropped.

“...anyway, he cut his wrists, wrote this poem with his blood, and hanged himself. What?”

Shane closed his mouth, shook his head, and finally said,

“When I came here, I expected a lot of things. I don't know that you'd make me drink litres of vodka or something like that. But not poetry in a cemetery, I admit, I didn't see it coming.”

Maybe Shane was imagining it, but Ilya—already dragging him toward the cemetery exit by his sleeve—seemed to blush.

They stopped at a Georgian café. Shane really didn't like the word “chkmeruli” because he would never in his life be able to pronounce it, but the chicken was delicious; he'd have to come back for it. After that they boarded a river cruise boat; they stood at the railing, and Ilya pointed out various landmarks he knew, dropping sharp little comments or retelling historical anecdotes. And when they floated past Gorky Park, Ilya suddenly started reciting poetry again. The old ladies sitting nearby even applauded. Ilya gave them a showy bow, and only then winked at Shane.

“Not cemetery this time. Like it better?”

“I still don't understand any of it!”

“Yes, shame,” he sighed with exaggerated regret. “I'll look for English translations”.

Later that evening, in the dark, drinking tea on the balcony of the apartment where Shane was going to live for at least several more months, preferably, without losing his mind, Ilya dug up translations from the depths of Google. This time, it was Shane who blushed to the roots of his hair.

“Jesus. You know a lot of this stuff?”

“It's school literature program. Just wait maybe I'll get drunk and tell something cooler. “Shagané” is nice, but there's also “Lilichka” for example.”

“I don't want to know”.

When Ilya woke him at four-thirty the next morning, Shane was seriously considering murder.

“Grab your passport and let's go, will sleep in train”.

“I hate you!”

“Not for long”.

Shane more or less forced his eyes open fifteen minutes later when they reached what Ilya called “three railway stations square”. Drunk exhibit number one was leaning against the wall of Kazansky railway station to take a piss—not at the wall itself but toward the pavement, since he'd leaned against it with his back. Ilya snickered under his breath; Shane gave the man a wide berth. A little further along the road, drunk exhibit number two had attempted to cross the road over the top rather than through the underpass, got stuck climbing over a railing (about three feet high), and was yelling obscenities by the sound of it. At the entrance to the underpass, drunk exhibit number three was asking something of the rare passers-by, and Ilya, the kind soul, gave the man a cigarette.

“Imma sing!” exhibit number three declared.

“Make it Magomayev for the city guest,” Ilya smirked, nodding at Shane.

Later, on the Sapsan train, cradling a cup of black tea with lemon, fully awake at last, Shane summarized, "You made a homeless guy sing for a cigarette”.

“His offer, I just choose song!” Ilya protested. “Cigarettes are normal currency here. One time early morning I came back from Petersburg with my classmate, went from station straight to school. We stopped at McDonald's window, he orders, I smoke near him. And McDonald's guy pops out of window and says “Trade Happy Meal toy for two cigarettes.” Best deal in my life!”

The day that had begun with a singing homeless man, did not get any less strange. Ilya dragged him straight from the station for some shawarma, and on Liteiny Avenue Shane first nearly tripped over a sleeping drunk man, then they had to navigate around a drunken brawl, and by the shawarma stand there was a weird character bent backwards at the spine, watching the clouds, apparently. Ilya, paying for the shawarma, was quietly laughing, “Well, now you saw almost all standard city contingent, except prostitutes.”

They visited two mansions of some sort, where Ilya gossiped about Russian aristocracy with weird enthusiasm and explained which museums had stolen the local paintings during the Soviet era.

And then they got caught in the rain.

The rain felt like a vertical ocean. Ilya had an umbrella, but they soaked their sneakers through as if they'd gone swimming in them. So, they squelched their way to some suspicious courtyard market and bought themselves some counterfeit from a stall. Shane really hoped his mom—and the people at Reebok—would never find out what exactly he'd been wearing.

At sunset Ilya snuck him onto the roof of some building where no one could see them, and kissed him until the sun went down.

And that was definitely a date.

Shane didn't know how to name the feeling in his chest. He didn't know Ilya Rozanov well enough to talk about love—not even close. Maybe this was what freedom felt like.

Chapter End Notes

Ilya Muromets aka Ilya of Murom - an old Russian folk hero. Kovalchuk was named after him btw. Ilya's brother uses the name Alyosha (short for Alexei) Popovich on VK (also a folk hero). They have a running joke that Polina should give them brother #3, Dobrynya Nikitich, for a full hero set.
The "lighthouse" Shane can see down the street
"Night Watch" - a book by Sergei Lukyanenko and a movie dir. by Bekmambetov. Ilya is referencing the book canon.
Zayebis - Peachy fucking keen
Zdravstvuite - Hello (polite plural form)
"Magomayev for the city guest" - Muslim Magomayev, "The best city on Earth"
Ilya reads: "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye" and "Shagane" by Sergei Yesenin. The mentioned "Lilichka" is written by Vladimir Mayakovsky.
"The Russian McDonalds" - Teremok
Teams mentioned:
Spartak aka The Meat aka The People's Team. Mascots: Gladiator and three little pigs. Colour scheme: red and white.
Dynamo aka The (Bastard/Evil) Cops aka The Wolves. Mascot: the blue Wolf. Colour scheme: dark blue and white.
The landmarks in St Pete: The Yusupovs Palace (the Rasputin murder crime scene) & The Sheremetyevs Palace. The Hermitage and Pushkin museum did steal a lot of art from those.
The visuals for the chapter
The visuals and maps for the basic landmarks

Chapter 2: in which Shane is rotting with dread inside (a lot), because Ilya is the one thinking with the wrong head

Chapter Summary

"How to co-habitate a bedroom with your fuckbuddy, a manual" by Ilya Rozanov, full of bullshit

"How to be a pick-me when you are a boy, a manual" by Shane Hollander, who needs therapy

"Okay, what the fuck, a memoir" by Cliff Marlow

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

The video Twiggy had made on the fly opened with screenshots of Shane's ambassador posts from his social media. Every single one of them was followed by a photo of Ilya holding Shane's phone in increasingly creative poses—from contorting himself into a pretzel and squatting down to sprawling on the tiled floor by the Christmas tree in the opera house bar. Then came a collection of their messy idiocy (and fights) on the ice when Spartak played Dynamo.

And after that Pandemonium erupted.

There was Shane jumping across water supply pipes five meters above the ground somewhere in Biryulevo—Ilya had called it an “alpha wolf test.”

There was Kovalsky's dacha. Shane lights up a campfire with a single match. Cut. He's sitting with Ilya, gets spooked by something and drops the skewer with some shashlik. Kovalsky picks the shashlik up off the ground, thoughtfully brushes it off, and starts eating. “Punk’s not dead,” he says, while Shane’s grabbing his head in horror, and Ilya is howling with laughter.

There was a grim-faced Shane outside a police station. That was definitely shot by Ilya. Payback: Ilya is in a holding cell; Shane stands on the other side of the bars laughing at him.

There was Shane in nothing but sweatpants climbing over to the neighbouring balcony on the fifth floor and meekly knocking on Zinaida Vasilyevna's door. Ilya's father had a nasty habit of showing up unannounced, and he really didn't like Shane.

There was a series of party photos from Ilya's apartment, one of them featuring a Blåhaj hanging from the ceiling tied up shibari-style, subtitled “Rozanov and Hollander domination.”

There was a cut of several clips of Shane grabbing Ilya by a belt loop—casually, to stop him from getting in people's way or to pull him off the road.

There was Shane appearing on the Jumbotron after a scored goal; the DJ puts on Hands Up by Ottawan; the whole arena sings along—or rather just screams “baby, hands up.” Shane has no proof for who exactly gave the DJ an idea for his “signature song” that accompanied his home arena goals, but he's long suspected Kovalsky.

There was Shane taking a running leap into a mountain of plushie pigs at the home arena.

There were bars and beer, bars, bars, bars.

There were Ilya and Shane standing behind Twiggy when some guys were bothering her at a club. A bigger bearded guy punches Ilya in the eye, and Ilya doesn't get a chance to hit back because Shane launches himself at the beardie and locks him in a jiu-jitsu hold. A brawl breaks out.

There was a sullen Shane Slav squatting outside some club, the camera’s shaking, Ilya's voice from off-screen goes, “So why did they throw you out?”

“Public indecency,” Shane answers, irritated.

“So, how did your indecency go?” Ilya cackles.

Shane turns to Ksyusha, who is, just for the record, a lesbian, Twiggy's girl.

“You explain that.”

“I don't like to pee alone!” Ksyusha replies in Russian, subtitled.

“And why did you follow her to bathroom?”

Shane looks genuinely indignant.

“I thought she was feeling sick or needed help or something. And then she sat down on the toilet, I turned away, and that's when the bouncers started ramming the door! I didn't even have time to understand what was happening.”

There was Shane sitting behind the wheel; Ilya is standing in front of the hood talking to someone on the phone and pacing back and forth. Shane says, “you know what.” And hits the gas. Ilya bolts from the car, heels flashing. Shane laughs like a typical Disney villain.

There was Ilya dancing lezginka; Shane is down on one knee clapping.

There was a series of screenshots from Shane and Ilya's text chain, where Shane first writes in English and then in Russian (subtitled):

“we ran out of kvas”

“get some lobio, chkmeruli and kvas”

“Ilya, kvaaaaas”

“kvas kvas kvas kvas”

“who did you bring home while I was gone, where the fuck is my stack of kvas”

“grab a shawarma from Pokrovka pls. Oh, and kvas!”

“kvaaaaas, go buy some”

“KVAS I NEED KVAS NOW”

There might have been more messages, Shane thought, dissolving into hysterical giggles. Except some of them included variations of “we're out of condoms, you horny animal, and get the kvas too.”

As a grand finale, there was a whole bunch of photos of them sitting, standing, or sprawled out together; either staring in the same direction with completely identical emotions on their faces, or obviously gossiping.

The last frames: Shane and Ilya skipping down Tverskaya street hand in hand like pre-schoolers.

The soundtrack to all this mess was Horosho by Verka Serduchka, clearly picked by Ilya, because who else.

Shane checked his Twitter feed. Ilya had retweeted this disaster too. With the comment: “My best tenant! Sponsored by HC Spartak ;)"

“I don't even know what to say about this,” said Mom, staring in puzzlement at the darkened phone screen.

“Well, Yuna,” Dad sighed, smiling as he patted Shane's hand. “We're so happy you've made a new friend! And it seems like more than one?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Shane forced a smile. “But I'm still going to strangle Kovalsky.”

***

***

Before everyone put their jerseys on Shane only managed to remember the captain, Misha Kovalsky, because his last name was associated with that penguin from Madagascar. For the same reason he was "Kovalsky" and not "Mishanya," and the alternate captain was "Skipper." Kovalsky was loud and sociable, and he had a way with words—that's probably why they'd made him captain, Shane assumed. The very first thing Kovalsky asked was whether Shane understood any Russian at all. Shane could still only read like a child. But when Shane and Ilya had been coming back on the night train from St. Petersburg, they couldn't sleep because of some kids crying in the platzkart. Ilya had been truly upset that they'd ended up with upset kids and not drunken troublemakers (at least he and Shane could've been able to punch a drunk in the nose).

So, Ilya decided to teach him a bit of Russian and scribbled a few useful phrases on napkins.

“Klyushka,” Shane said confidently. “Shaiba. Probros. Yebash.”

At that point Kovalsky started giggling with delight.

“Change. I feel like I’m gonna die. Fuck off you sick motherfucker. We are the meat. Get it here. Forward. Stop. Fuck shit bitch damn.”

“And you already know more words than Karlssen, good boy!” Kovalsky said happily, like a proud father.

The practice went pretty well all things considered; the ice was mediocre, but Shane liked the “work from here until sunset” approach. Though he was perfectly aware that if he got a C and tried to pull something like that in Montreal, he'd be quietly and efficiently gutted. When Shane had showered, dressed, and dried off, Kovalsky grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him into a shady looking semi-basement office.

“Yul’chik, our boy needs a VK!”

Yulia startled and emerged from behind her computer.

“Oh, hello! How are you settling in?”

Shane thoroughly considered the matter.

He didn’t get enough sleep.

Ilya hadn't let him have even an hour of sweet slumber after the murky train journey. Instead of resting, like an adequate human being, Ilya fucked every last brain cell out of tired and sleepy Shane. They had some rye bread sandwiches right after. And then Ilya dumped a tablespoon of instant coffee into a bottle of Coca-Cola and insisted they share the whole disgusting potion (Shane nearly threw up, but he did wake up). Next they bolted out of the building, gear over their shoulders, almost bumping into Ilya's neighbour Zinaida Vasilyevna. She happened to be walking her yorkie Foontik. They loaded up into Ilya's old Crown that had been parked two courtyards over. Ilya had bought this rusty piece of work at the tender age of eighteen and saw no reason to replace it, since he spent maybe a month and a half in Moscow per year at most and got around by metro more often than not.

And Ilya drove Shane to the arena.

“Why did you mention metro when there's no metro nearby?”

“But Ilya wrote that he'd give you a ride, I made sure to check…” Yulia mumbled, her eyes wide.

“Ilya wrote, Ilya did,” Shane confirmed. “So where's the metro?”

“Dynamo station, it's about a kilometer and a half on foot,” Kovalsky "helpfully" informed him. “Yulia, VK. That's mostly where we chat, I’ll add you to the group.”

“What’s that?”

“Kind of Facebook, but with a better interface, pirated music and pirated films. Do you have a photo, or should we put a cat as your profile pic?”

Shane thought for a moment and set a picture of the plush pig.

***

“So how was it?” Ilya asked politely, steering the cart through an Auchan supermarket in the middle of nowhere.

“The coaches… seem alright. The team… haven't really remembered anyone yet. Kovalsky… loud,” Shane summarized, tossing familiar grains and beans into the cart—he'd already had three cheat days. “The nice lady who handles the lunches asked if I needed halal food. I tried to explain the basics of the macrobiotic diet. She listened to me for a while, didn't really understand, and concluded the food must be kosher. I decided not to bother.”

Ilya chuckled under the breath.

“What?” Shane deadpanned.

“Taking with how they christened you in VK, it's like a fucking flashmob to make you a classic Odessa gangster image. Shalom aleichem, Pan Shenya. Shenya of fucking Holland. Gop-stop, we came at you from around the corner…”

“Oh, shut up. Where's the ginger ale?”

Ilya shook his head and announced with a "buddy, I've got bad news for you" face, “No such thing here. Not just in Auchan—like, at all.”

“What do you mean, at all?” Shane protested. “What have you reeled me into, you sick fuck?”

Ilya looked at him thoughtfully for half a second and asked, “You want it sweet or dry?”

“Dry,” Shane murmured, considering whether he would be found innocent after strangling Ilya, if he shares the ginger ale situation.

“Kvas for okroshka,” Ilya nodded decisively.

“Sorry, what?”

***

By the time Cliff Marlow texted that all the paperwork had finally been approved and he'd be in Moscow as early as tomorrow, Shane had more or less figured out how he would live in the next few months.

Cooking: Ilya, because Shane completely forgot spices existed while in the middle of the cooking process. Dishes: Shane, for the sake of justice. Floors, bathroom, and surfaces: cleaning service once a week. Catching insects: Shane, because Ilya couldn't stand them. Taking out the trash: Ilya, because Shane couldn't stand that. Laundry: they take turns. Grocery runs: together, per current needs. The Crown sits peacefully in the neighbouring courtyard unless they need to go somewhere far. They take the metro to the arenas, only Shane has a longer walk because he is, in Ilya's words, a "loshara."

Also, they fuck at every opportunity. Quick, lazy, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, through boring films, through rhythmic playlists. Shane started to seriously suspect it’s not the matter of temperament. He started to get those eerie thoughts now and then, that things hadn't worked out with women for Shane, because they don't really attract him. He never thinks that getting on his knees for Ilya is a chore, he works out the knots in his back after a hard practice with pleasure, and well, he loves to ride Ilya’s dick, sue him. Sometimes, when Ilya reads some "fantasy trash" in bed (Ilya’s term, not Shane’s), Shane bites him on the ass just because. Because there's something worth biting. "You know you can always eat me out," Ilya smirks. And Shane thinks that yeah, probably, one of these days, he'll do exactly that.

“Marly’s flying in after all,” Ilya grinned wildly over breakfast, checking his messages. “Meat, you are cooked.”

“Good luck,” Shane rolled his eyes. He was pretty happy with his own team. “Tell me you didn't invite him to live at your place. I don't want to have sex with a gag in my mouth. Like, maybe I do, but not all the time.”

"Nah, they rented for him already," Ilya giggled. "And don't worry, Marlow's a chill guy, I'll ask him—he'll keep quiet about us. You know, that we are friends. But I wouldn't risk to tell him about our... horizontal relations.”

So they dragged themselves out to Sheremetyevo at three in the morning. Shane was driving, while Ilya had brought a cassette player, two shot glasses, and a bottle of some horrifying vodka called “Belochka”, which literally translated as “Little Squirrel”, but actually meant “delirium tremens”. Shane nearly wet himself when he saw it on the shelf one night—the squirrel's eyes and teeth glowed on the label, along with the slogan “I came for you.”

Catching sight of Marlow's massive figure at the end of the hallway, where passengers off the Madrid flight were coming out, Ilya hit “play,” lifted the player over his head, and started singing along. Or rather, yelling along.

“American boy, American joy!”

Shane stood next to Ilya, trying to look like none of this had anything to do with him, wondering if it was possible to die of cringe. Marlow started laughing from afar, and only when Ilya's ribs cracked in his bear hug, did he notice Shane.

“Hollander? Hi,” Marlow said, puzzled.

“My tenant and our sober driver tonight,” Ilya said, sparing Shane the need to come up with some awkward, unconvincing lie. “Drink up!”

“No, don't drink that, it's absolute garbage,” Shane advised, genuinely concerned.

“Trying to scare me off?” Marlow smirked.

“Not at all. I just saw the guys' faces when I told them what a nightmare lives in Roz's cupboard.”

Marlow let out a single “huh” and, ignoring the shot glass Ilya was holding out to him, cracked the bottle open and started drinking the god forsaken Belochka straight from the neck.

He finished it.

“Couldn’t you leave some,” Ilya commented, while Shane was calculating whether the two of them would need to drag a completely wasted Marlow up to the apartment at the Red Gate to sleep it off. “Well, since you started without me, let's hit club. Shane, keys.”

Marlow mercilessly mocked Ilya's old Crown at first sight. Like love at first sight, but roasting.

“Where'd you even find this piece of junk?”

“Don't insult her, my first car,” Ilya said, mock-offended. “Traffic and parking problems here, I usually just take metro. Why would I buy Audi for Moscow, just to watch she rust eleven months in year?”

Shane figured out pretty fast that Ilya had actually been slightly bothered by the “piece of junk” comment. When they pulled out onto the highway, this half-baked racer floored it so hard the hood lifted off the ground. Marlow, who'd barely squeezed into the back seat, cursed. Shane grabbed the Jesus handle and sincerely prayed to all the existing deities for someone to revoke Ilya's license sooner rather than later.

“Question,” Shane said when they parked in a back alley next to the Boulevard Ring. “Why is it called Chinatown? I haven’t seen a single Chinese person since I got here.”

“Kitai-Gorod is not from word for China,” Ilya said, locking the car. “Long story, but it’s like part of old city where city wall was. Come on.”

“More pressing question,” Marlow cut in. “Since we’re heading to a club. You guys got condoms? I am not exactly prepared for a night out.”

When Shane and Ilya reached into their pockets at the same time, Marlow started snickering.

“Ah, so you two are having a good time here, huh?”

Shane fought down a powerful urge to sink through the ground, along with an equally powerful urge to whine “can I just go home” so he could take Ilya’s Crown and drive off to get some sleep.

“Oh, there was gay club here. I had wonderful summer there two years ago,” Ilya mused ignoring Marlow’s coughing, as they passed some pub (already closed down). “Bunch of local tough guys started hanging around nearby, they catched club people on their way out and beat them up. One of my friends got punched in face here. He wanted blood and came to me. I found Greco-Roman wrestling club in Moscow suburbs. We with Sasha slipped them some dollars, and I spent every Friday and Saturday hanging out with them in that club. Whenever manager saw those assholes on security cameras, we go outside and beat them up. They forgot way here pretty quickly.”

“Oh, was that when you lost your first premolar?” Marlow asked shrewdly.

“First, didn’t lose! Just a little chipped,” Ilya said, offended. “And second, that wasn’t from fight. Just hard pistachio.”

“Whatever you say!”

God, Shane hated clubs so much. Way too loud, way too crowded, everyone and their sibling wants something from you. Ilya and Marlow immediately grabbed some brightly coloured shots, while Shane asked for kvas. There was no kvas, so he had to settle for black coffee.

Some girls wanted to know whether Shane was a member of EXO, to which Marlow argued that Shane looked more like a guy who'd eaten two boys from EXO. Shane corrected him—two Korean idols wouldn't even fit inside him, he only weighed two hundred pounds, so that was one and a half idols, max. Just basic math. For some reason, both the girls and Ilya and Marlow found this comment hilarious. Well, fine.

Then Ilya pulled out some cash, found a suitable bill, and headed over to the DJ.

“Oh, there's a show coming up,” Marlow said with a confidence of a person who has seen the said show half a dozen times, settling more comfortably into the couch and pulling out his phone.

“What show?” Shane frowned, and despite himself, started scanning the room for a stripper pole.

“Just watch.”

Ilya handed the money to the DJ, requested something, and started circling the dance floor like a shark. Shane watched, baffled, as girls' heads turned and they started to follow him, as if drawn by some dark magic. The DJ dropped a dubstep remix of Gentleman, and Ilya started dancing with his impromptu harem in tow. Shane felt like he'd seen something like this in a movie before… Oh, right— Michael, with Travolta. Though the song in that one had been different. He hoped that, unlike Travolta's character, Ilya wasn't planning on getting into any fights.

“Does he do this often?”

“Sometimes.”

Naturally, Ilya ended up bringing three girls back to their table. How could it be otherwise? Shane, with barely concealed exhaustion, bought them shots and tried to reason Rozanov.

“Firstly, they won't all fit in the Crown, someone will have to get in the trunk.”

“My luggage is in the trunk,” Marlow reminded him.

“Someone can sit on someone's lap,” Ilya smiled.

“Is that even legal?” Shane asked, doubtful.

“If police don't see it, it's legal,” Ilya said, unbothered. “And if they see it, still legal—just for a hundred dollars.”

Marlow, watching the horror dawning on Shane's face, was cackling like a hyena.

“Secondly!” Shane pressed harder, not even looking up as he paid for another round of shots. “You've got a two-room apartment. One bed! One couch!”

Ilya thoughtfully downed a shot and said decisively, "Orgy."

Shane buried his face in his hands. Marlow was still laughing, though he no longer seemed all that enthusiastic about Ilya's plan.

“Roz, I don't want to see your dick during the process. No offense. I just don't want to.”

“Fine, you get couch. Ladies…”

Shane had no idea what exactly Ilya was telling the girls, but he had a sneaking suspicion the dumb pop idol joke had been put back into circulation, and he stared sadly into his cold coffee.

“Maybe we don't have to do this? Maybe I'll just sleep in the car?”

“Look, if you're going to be lazy about getting girl to finish, I always can give helping hand.”

“Rozanov, you have no idea how much I hate you right now.”

“Here, take the keys, and stop crying. I make sure everyone like it, even you.”

Shane cursed the bastard out wholeheartedly in French, since plain “fuck” and its derivatives didn’t hold quite enough firepower. Unfortunately, it turned out to be counterproductive. The girls Ilya had his eye on suddenly became very interested in Shane indeed.

Marlow, meanwhile, quietly laughed at them, but spent most of his time chatting with the girl number three through the translator app on his phone.

As they walked toward Khitrovka, where the Crown was waiting for them (dawn was already starting to break), Ilya fell back a little and said quietly into Shane's ear, “If you really don't want to, you don't have to. I'll grab mattress, you can sleep in kitchen.”

“There's supposed to be a joke here that if I wanted to disappoint three people at once, I'd just go have lunch with relatives instead,” Shane said tiredly. “But I don't have relatives like that.”

Ilya nearly tripped, staring at Shane like he was the eighth wonder of the world. He thought something over quickly, and said just as quietly, “No problem. We tell girls you're hot but very shy virgin, and you need masterclass.”

“Ilya, damn it.”

“Seriously. You learn to eat girls out properly, and everything will be okay.”

On the one hand, Shane really didn't want to learn this. On the other hand… well, people around him expected him to sleep with fans anyway, and if this could help him embarrass himself a little less…

“Fine. Though I'd rather you just fucked me.”

Ilya broke into a pleased smile, looking at him from under his lashes.

“Oh, you lazy bastard. Don’t worry. Tomorrow Marly heads back to his place near Savyolovskaya, and we'll catch up.”

“Promise?”

When Marlow, having slept it off, asked about the orgy, Shane’s answer was brief: “it was complicated.” Naturally, Marlow asked why, and got the reasonable but completely dishonest answer: “logistics.” The honest answer would have been “a fucking dead giveaway,” because the shots had eventually gone to Ilya's head. And after Shane had been given his masterclass in “how to properly perform cunnilingus,” at some point Ilya had said, “Katyush, let me show you how to suck properly.” And so he gave masterclass number two.

Shane’s mother had always told him to keep an NDA close at hand, and now he could see why... On the bright side: the girls Ilya had picked up at the club had absolutely no idea about hockey.

Chapter End Notes

alpha wolf test - originally, "тест на пацана". Like initiation shit boys do to show they have the balls.
Blåhaj - IKEA shark
lezginka - a Caucasian folk dance, namely of Lezgin folk. NB: actual Caucasian, from the Caucases
kvas - bread soda drink
Horosho by Verka Serduchka
“Klyushka. Shaiba. Probros. Yebash.” - Stick, puck, icing, fucking go/fucking run/fucking do it/fucking fight.
We are the meat - Spartak fanclub motto
Fuck shit bitch damn - like how else do you translate suka blyad' xD
macrobiotic diet - ok so show canon, poor boy is the victim of malpractice
Shenya of Holland - "Шеня Голландец", it's "of Holland" and "Dutchman" at the same time. Sounds like a gang/prison nickname for a mob boss.
Gop-stop, we came at you from around the corner… - "Gop-stop" by Alexander Rozenbaum, one of the most iconic crime ballads
And yeah Jewish gangs in Odessa were a thing in the beginning of XX century, woops. Look up Mishka Yaponchik or Sonya Golden Hand if you are interested.
loshara - Russian slang word for "loser" (neutral word for loser is neudachnik)
Belochka actually exists. It's cheap, it's not good, but it's safe to drink, unlike, say, antifreeze
American boy, American joy! - American Boy by Kombinatziya
Ok Gentleman by PSY came out in 2013 spring, I know, I know, let's just stretch it a little, bear with me
Khitrovka - the only place in downtown where you actually could find a parking spot!
Katyush - Yekaterina (full first name, for something official or you use it ironically) -> Katya (generic diminutive) -> Katyusha (diminutive as fuck?) -> Katyush (diminutive as fuck + vocative case). Older vocative case looked like adding an "e", like bog->bozhe, knyaz'->knyazhe. With modern vocative case you drop the last vowel. Ilyusha->Ilyush, Lyosha->Lyosh, Sveta->Svet, Sanya->San', Shenya->Shen', Misha->Mish. I guess we kinda use it instead of "hey"?

Chapter 3: in which Shane discovers the charms of “the Slavic face” and Ilya is the one rotting with dread

Chapter Summary

Ilya's head is a curious place indeed. Chaos, bullshit, denial.

Meanwhile Shane: IS IT A COMPETITION
DON'T ANSWER EVERYTHING IS A COMPETITION

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

***

The fan in the living room rattled away, but it did little to relieve the heat. The next day, both Ilya and Shane had a day off. Neither of them had been invited to any parties yet, which meant they could actually make plans. While waiting for Shane to get back from practice, Ilya was considering his options. He could put on some soft jazz; he could make out with Shane in a bath full of bubbles. Hadn’t he really invested in that bathroom renovation and jacuzzi tub for nothing, right? They could watch a movie. And then they could have a really good fuck.

Maybe. Maybe they could even try out a couple of those toys he had picked up at a sex shop two days ago. Without thinking twice, Ilya started looking for English subtitles to Balabanov films.

Without a predictable routine Hollander was clearly wilting, if not outright anxious. Ilya figured that out pretty quickly. How the guy had managed to survive their “suitcases always packed and ready” lifestyle this long was a million-dollar question.

After a few rounds of trial and error, they'd found an optimal routine that worked for Shane, didn't bother Ilya, and let them coexist peacefully without stepping on each other's toes. In the mornings they went jogging, but used different routes. The city was still sweltering in the summer heat, and Ilya ran in shorts that Shane couldn't take his eyes off (flattering!). Running around the Garden Ring with a hard-on wasn't exactly a great time though. So Ilya ran toward Mira Avenue like usual. Shane ran toward the Kurskaya metro, then stretched out at Bauman Garden. After Shane would grab tea or a green smoothie from the tea spot near their block and meditate on the swings in the courtyard. While watching the fire station shift change.

The first time Ilya caught Shane doing that, he laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop. “Yeah right, Hollander, guys built like refrigerators! You've got a type, and that type is you!”

After their morning cardio, they combined business with pleasure in the shower. Then again, they often combined business with pleasure, as well as pleasure with pleasure.

Marly had even asked if Ilya was sick or something, since he'd stopped going out to bars to pick up girls so often; back in Boston they used to do that practically every other day. Well, what can I tell you, buddy... I've already got a hot guy with a gorgeous mouth and pretty freckles sleeping in my bed... is what Ilya could've said but obviously didn't.

They didn't repeat the “orgy fiesta” because the aftertaste the next morning was somehow a bit bitter. And kicking Shane to the couch for a one-night stand from a bar... Well, sorry, Ilya didn't want to kick him to the couch.

As for teaching Shane how to “dance” a girl, Ilya had taught him the proper basics, but... it ended up with a situation of getting a driver's license for nothing: “got the license, but I really hate driving.”

Ilya had honestly tried to get Shane to open up about whether he was even into girls at all, but Shane quickly shut the conversation down. No-no-no, comrade Major, I'm innocent! I’m just hard to please! Of course I love women! Somewhere, way deep down. Mariana Trench deep. Fine, then. Let him keep denying it. At least was he wasn't refusing to sleep with Ilya.

Of all the routines they had settled into together, breakfasts were Ilya's favourite.

Shane had gotten hooked on buckwheat with mushrooms and grumbled every single time Ilya offered him syrniki (suit yourself, more for me then). They would kiss by the stove, get carried away, and more often than not coffee would boil over. While Ilya cooked, Shane would put on his reading glasses (so hot!), grab his hell-burnt coffee, and head out to the balcony with his laptop to sort through email (mostly from his momager). Ilya kept glancing over at him, cracking jokes, and Shane would casually, with zero heat behind it, tell him to fuck off about every two minutes.

Before Shane, the balcony had looked like a little corner of Soviet post-apocalypse straight out of Tarkovsky’s Stalker. You could only smoke or drink tea there while sprawled on the moth-eaten, rain-ruined rug that covered up the junk underneath. But Mr. Real Estate had gone through Ilya's apartment in the very first week, then asked what all that wreckage on the balcony and the overhead storage was about. Upon hearing it was just leftover mess from the previous owners that Ilya hadn't gotten around to dealing with for like two years now; he took it over. Every last bit of trash ended up at the dumpster that very same weekend. By week two, the balcony already had a little cosy rug, a tiny table, two folding chairs, and some indestructible succulent. Ilya suspected the succulent was fake, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure. God, they'd gone to IKEA together. Somehow Ilya had gotten himself a common-law husband without even noticing.

Shane would head off to the metro fifteen minutes before Ilya, since his walk to the arena took longer. Ilya, who often smoked his death sticks on the balcony after Shane left, regularly watched him let a flock of webcam girls from the fourth floor into the building, exchange greetings with neighbours if he happened to run into any, and jog off toward the Red Gate Building with the gear over his shoulder. He'd even try out a proper “zdravstvuite” or “dobroye utro” to Zinaida Vasilyevna, who was usually out walking Foontik around that time. It came out adorable, with that French throat R accent of his. Such a sweet, polite Canadian boy. You'd never guess from looking at him that half his meager Russian vocabulary consisted of swear words (well, that was Ilya's fault).

A couple times a week Marlow would drop by for a cup of tea, but he didn't push his luck. Ilya had told him straight off that Shane was a bit of a homebird. The type to slip arsenic into Ilya's tea if he got hounded with endless hangouts. Guests and bars scheduled, bed by eleven, not a minute later.

Ilya also liked to regularly invite Shane out in the evenings to some little restaurants or for a walk through the prettier older parts of the city. The excuse was always the same: you need to walk your Rolex (or whatever other brand) out, I'll get some pictures of you. But Shane would still flush slightly pink and ask, deadpan, whether this was a date.

We live together, we wake up together, I make you breakfast and kiss you goodbye—what do you think? No, Hollander, if I put no candles on the table and I didn't drag some fancy flowers, it's not a date. Any pollen allergies on your side by the way?

At that point Ilya tried to remember the last time he'd actually been on a date. Like, picking up a lady with flowers and the whole deal, not just hooking up after a club. Nothing came to mind. “Living with someone you're sleeping with” didn't ring any bells either, except for the times Sveta crashed at his place for a couple of days. But that didn't count.

Of course, it was a mistake for Ilya to even think the words “common-law husband”. Every time the girls in his texts started hinting at some kind of relationship, Ilya would instantly start deflecting with jokes and shutting the topic down. Like, nah. And don't pry into my soul pretty please, it's terrifying, I don't want to deal with it. Which was understandable: he practically didn't have any healthy relationships around him. The best he had were Lyosha and Margo. And this unholy matrimony was not perfect either: Ilya had a suspicion that one day Lyosha was going to push his luck too far, and Margo would break his spine with a frying pan.

Ilya glanced up at the poster pinned to the door, featuring a scene from The Needle. Blame it on freckles and a slight fetish for Asians. Yeah.

The doorbell rang.

Ilya frowned, puzzled, and went out to the hallway. Shane wasn't due back for another ten or fifteen minutes, depending on whether he stopped to pick up kvas. (The memory of eight kinds of kvas from Auchan taste testing still made Ilya chuckle). Otherwise, Shane was as punctual as a Swiss watch. But the thing was, he had his own keys.

Standing outside the door, shifting from foot to foot, were the girls from the fourth floor, four of them.

“Good afternoon?” Ilya greeted them, raising one eyebrow pointedly.

“Hello,” said the tall brunette, the one with those graphic eyebrows that had been trendy lately, in a decisive tone. “Zinaida Vasilyevna sent us. We need your help.”

“Well, come in then,” Ilya said, puzzled, stepping aside.

When Ilya had first moved in, he'd fully understood that the older residents would try to skin him alive. Actually, parties or any extra noise didn’t really matter. If there was at least one senior citizen in the building with a touch of paranoia, Ilya’d simply be labeled a drug addict for the crime of existing and/or be reported to the local police officer every time he as much as sneezed. A twenty-year-old guy living alone made an excellent scapegoat and target for hatred. Naturally, Ilya, grasping the full scale of the tragedy, had knocked on his floor neighbour's door in his very first week with a cake and a bottle of Abrau sparkling wine. Basically, he'd fed the dragon to make sure she'd guard his castle.

He'd spent a year’s worth of luck on getting a neighbour that badass. Zinaida Vasilyevna had plenty of useful connections, knew everyone in the building, coordinated help whenever someone needed something, and occasionally threw her authority around. An excellent dragon, honestly, nobody had complained about Ilya even once so far.

Zinaida Vasilyevna herself was unfailingly friendly with Ilya, and only occasionally asked him to walk Foontik if her blood pressure was giving her headaches. Before Foontik, Ilya had walked a yorkie named Bucksik, and he had a suspicion the next yorkie would end up with some kind of money-themed name too. Roublik. Yuanchik. Deutsche-Marochka. Pesik?!

Ilya sat down in one of the free chairs in the kitchen; the brunette, who seemed to be in charge, took the other one.

“If the police are onto you, I can't help with that—just offer them a cut for protection,” Ilya said right away, so the girls wouldn't waste time beating around the bush.

“Thank god, that hasn't been an issue,” the brunette said, and the girls giggled nervously. “We've got a stalker situation. One of the girls' members— we don't actually know which one—tracked her down, came to Moscow, and now he's been waiting for us by the entrance every morning. Smiling in some weird way, that sort of thing.”

Ilya still wasn't entirely sure why exactly Zinaida Vasilyevna had pointed them his way. He didn't think she even knew what kind of business was operating on the fourth floor. She knew his father and brother were with the police, but...

“I can't push a report through for you either, we don't have a law against stalking.”

“Yeah, we get that! “Come back once you're murdered.” If it's not too much trouble, could you just scare him off and rough him up a little?”

The girls nodded in unison and started talking over each other.

“Otherwise he might bother us again, and fuck knows what we’re supposed to do!”

“Yeah, if he were some weakling maybe we could handle it ourselves, but this guy's a fucking refrigerator, we're scared.”

“We'll pay you!!!”

Ilya snorted into his fist. Right, pay him, sure. He seriously doubted this little webcam strip den made enough to hire him as a bouncer.

“Relax, I'd throw a punch just for the love of the art. You've never watched hockey, have you? Look up “best NHL fights 2011” on YouTube, two of them are featuring me. So what does this creepy guy look like?”

“Well—”

Shane poked his head into the kitchen with a clearly displeased look on his face. Ilya hadn't heard the door open over all the chatter.

Trying—and failing—to hide his grumbling, Shane said, “You know, Ilya, you could've given me a heads-up about guests.”

The girls turned around and shrieked in horror.

“Oh my god, it's him!!!”

“That's the refrigerator guy!”

“How did he get past us, Dashka, where's your pepper spray?!”

Ilya burst out laughing, pounding his fist on the table. Shane blinked, baffled.

“Put the pepper spray down, this is my colleague from Canada!”

The girls went quiet.

“...well, that's awkward,” muttered a cute short blonde.

After a fair bit of fumbling, they explained to Shane that he'd been mistaken for a stalker, which clearly stung him a little.

"What do you mean, 'smiling in some weird way'?" Shane protested. "Years I've spent torturing myself trying to train my face into a socially acceptable expression, and then I come to this country and get mistaken for either a serial killer, a Korean idol, or someone who urgently needs to be scammed out of money!"

"Then relax, Hollander," Ilya snickered. "Walk with brick face, will pass for local."

Shane relaxed his face and breathed out.

"There, good job! Typical citizen of..." Ilya, for the life of him, couldn't remember how to refer to the CIS in English, so he improvised: "...the post-Soviet space."

By the time Ilya shut the door behind the girls, Shane was already brooding over the about-to-boil kettle.

“Ilya. I do not understand. I was trying to be polite. Am I really that creepy?”

“No-no-no-no-no,” Ilya hurried to reassure him, getting out the cups and the teapot. “Didn’t want explain in front of them… Okay, so. You know what webcam is?”

“The device?” Shane handed him a bag of tea.

“No, like… We’ve got digital strip club on fourth floor. These girls work on American websites and strip on webcam for money. They’re very scared of being recognized in real life.” Ilya eyed the tea leaves—and had a feeling he’d overdone it this time. It was going to be an evil bitter brew.

“Is that legal?” Shane asked.

“Great question! It’s kinda… grey area. You can get charged for pimping… ah,” Ilya gave up and, as usual, reached for his phone’s translator to find English words for “criminal code” and “public censure.”

Shane’s mouth corners suddenly started twitching, the same way they did when he was about to land a good jab at someone, usually Ilya.

“Ilya, teach me how to say in Russian ‘stop smoking in the stairwell or I’ll rat you out.’”

***

“Whoa, you cleared out the mess!” Papa said, pleasantly but not without a hint of mockery, peering out onto the balcony.

“Yep,” said Ilya, setting cookies out on the table. “The overhead storage too.”

It was a small miracle that he could still speak in an even, calm voice. Only his leg was bouncing like a broken Energizer bunny.

Papa, who had dropped by unannounced in the morning, clearly wasn’t in any hurry. Shane was hiding in the bedroom closet. And Ilya had a hickey on his ribs and a plug in his ass, and he was supposed to somehow play the gracious host. He wanted to fucking die.

The day had started out so well.

Nobody had gone for a run. In fact, Ilya had woken up to someone (again!) biting him on the right buttock.

“I think,” Ilya said into the pillow, “you have not enough carbs in your diet.” He heard the sharp exhale that, for Shane, often passed as laughter. “Is it hint?” Ilya cracked one eye open and looked at the budding cannibal.

“Cute aggression,” said Shane. “Although I’m curious. Have you ever…?”

Ilya rolled onto his back, stretching. It was still too early for conversations like this. Or maybe it was exactly the right time, because he had no desire to overthink his wording.

“Fooled around mostly, never went all the way. Every time I take someone to bed, I want to have good time. And there’s problem. Take you, for example. You’re not really dying to fuck me. So why would I force you?”

“Fair enough,” Shane shrugged. “But there are guys who’d hop on top of you quite happily, no?”

“Sure, but again—I want to have good time. And guys who go ‘grr, I’ll be top, I’m alpha’ usually don’t have sex, they just jerk off using you like sex doll. Like partner don’t matter at all. So why try?”

Shane looked at him with an unreadable expression for about ten seconds, then said.

“If you want something done, do it yourself? Ilya, that’s called having delegation difficulties.”

Ilya giggled. Meanwhile, Shane’s typical competitive streak seemed to wake. He grabbed Ilya by the shoulder, flipped him onto his stomach, and pressed his face into the pillow.

“What was that about not having enough carbs?” he said, and slid lower.

Wow. Honestly, Ilya hadn't expected that outcome. He’d barely even woken up yet. Then Shane grabbed his ass, ran his tongue from his balls to his tailbone, and Ilya’s last coherent thought was oh, fuck.

The next forty minutes blurred into such a kaleidoscope of eroticism that Ilya envied himself.

“I’m going to keep rimming you just so I can hear you moan,” Shane asserted, while Ilya was still shaking. “Want to try the plug?”

Ilya did.

“Can I blow you right now? I really want to,” Ilya whined.

Shane allowed it and quietly howled on a single note while Ilya fucked him with his mouth.

“Can I?” Ilya would ask.

“You can,” Shane would say.

Ilya fucked him missionary-style, and they moaned in unison. Shane drummed his fingers against the plug with each thrust, and Ilya bit his neck, shoulders, and ears—stars danced in his vision, he could barely breathe.

“Give me twenty minutes,” Shane exhaled when they finally pulled apart, and Ilya contentedly nuzzled his shoulder, “and then I’ll fuck you.”

“We can put that vibrating thing in you,” Ilya offered.

“That’s a fucking genius idea.”

Shane kissed him on the nose, watched him with those dark eyes from beneath his lashes, and Ilya wanted to kiss every freckle on his face—he was so fucking beautif—

The doorbell.

Ilya’s expression darkened sharply and he growled while pulling on his boxers, “Who the hell is that so early, if it’s fucking Jehovah’s Witnesses again, I swear…”

He looked through the peephole and went cold. Standing in the stairwell was Colonel Rozanov himself. Ilya quietly shuffled backward so his footsteps wouldn’t be heard and bolted into the bedroom.

“Get dressed and get in the closet!” he hissed at Shane, yanking on sweatpants and a t-shirt. “It’s my father. Never told him you live here—he really fucking doesn’t like you!”

The colonel rang the doorbell a second time, more insistently.

To his credit, Shane dressed as fast as a firefighter (ones he loved watching in the mornings).

“Shit, the toys!”

They ripped the dirty sheet off the bed—with all the lube and everything else—tied it up in a ball, and Ilya sprinted to the bathroom to stuff it in the laundry basket.

Third ring. No latecomers getting in.

When Ilya glimpsed Shane from the bathroom doorway, he was making the bed with a comforter for it to look “neat,” so Ilya hissed at him and tapped his temple.

“The closet, suka, I said!”

Shane flipped him off but climbed in. Ilya brushed some invisible dust off his t-shirt and opened the door.

“Sorry, I wasn’t dressed,” said Ilya, already bracing himself for his father’s disapproval about his ‘laziness and overall sluggish pace.’ “Morning, Papa.”

He stepped back. And then wanted to kick himself.

Because in the panic of hiding Shane and covering his tracks, he’d completely forgotten to remove the plug.

…and now dear old Papa was clearly about to settle in for a cup (or many cups) of tea for God knew how many hours and lecture him about whatever the hell Ilya had fucked up this time.

“Is this real or artificial?” Papa said thoughtfully, turning a succulent plant over in his hands.

“No clue. Picked it up at IKEA,” Ilya shrugged, and while Papa wasn’t looking, grabbed Shane’s schedule off the fridge and started folding it into a paper fighter jet.

“Right, where was I… Finally you’re playing in a proper league, not with those fucking—”

Ilya made the standard agreeable noises to hurry the lecture along, and after perching the fighter jet on the shelf with his tea-and-coffee set, quickly typed Shane a message.

You: You okay there?

Jane: Fine. Playing Democracy.

Ilya locked his phone, put it face-down on the table, and poured Papa some tea. Time was moving so slowly…

“…and Aunt Larisa says we should help Seryozha, you remember…”

At that point Ilya stopped murmuring in agreement.

“Papa, Seryozha is out of his fucking mind. Seryozha has a brand-new G-Wagon from the dealership, Seryozha does vacations in the Seychelles. Meanwhile I’ve got two mortgages—one in Boston!—I lend money to Lyosha that he’ll naturally never pay back, and last summer while Seryozha was in the Maldives, I could only afford Yalta. I am broke, and until the Bears renew my contract, there won’t be any spare money. They’re not paying me well enough here for me to be running a charity.”

Seryozha must have seen his Boston Audi on Instagram, the prick. Ilya did have some money, of course, but Seryozha could go fuck himself.

Papa gave him a deeply disapproving look, inhaled, and opened his mouth.

Jesus fucking Christ. He should have just said “we’ll see” for fuck’s sake.

An hour and a half passed. Papa was finishing his second pot of tea, polishing off the last piece of Muraveynik cake left over from Marlow, and the lecture showed no signs of ending.

The phone pinged.

Jane: How much longer? I really need to pee.

Ilya hid the phone under the table so Papa couldn’t take it away and smash it for Ilya “getting distracted by his fucking gadgets”—he could—and typed out a message begging for help.

***

Polina Rozanova was enjoying brunch with her friends at Patriarch's Ponds when a message came in, all caps.

Ilya (son): POLYA HELP
Ilya (son): PAPA SHOWED UP AND HAS BEEN DRILLING INTO MY HEAD FOR TWO HOURS
Ilya (son): I HAVE A WOMAN IN MY CLOSET SHE’S GOING TO WET HERSELF SOON
Ilya (son): DO SOMETHING I’M BEGGING YOU
You: You’ll owe me

“Babes, I need a moment.”

Polina walked over to her Mini Cooper, took a knife out of the glove compartment, stabbed a tire, then pulled it out and put it back. The girls were waiting for her on the terrace with expressions of bewilderment worthy of a silent movie.

“Polya, have you lost your mind?”

“No-no, everything’s fine.” Polina dialed Colonel Rozanov’s number. “Hello, pookie? I’ve a little problem, I’ve got a flat tyre, I don’t know what to do. Can you come sort it out? Thank you, darling.”

***

“Shane, it’s fine, you can come out.”

Shane didn’t so much come out as fall out of the closet.

“Everything’s gone numb in there, argh.”

“You come out of closet wrong,” Ilya couldn’t help himself.

“What do you mean?” Shane grumbled, working out his back.

Ilya stepped into the closet, then flung the doors open, walked out with his head held high, and announced:

“I love sucking dick!”

Chapter End Notes

Balabanov films in question: Brother, Brother 2, Cargo 200 (because Ilya is secretly a sadist), Dead Man's Bluff
Comrade Major - imagine Ilya's mocking voice here. "Comrade" is still in use in the military and police. Civilians only use it ironically.
French throat R - not wrong per se (as it is a fricative too, like Russian rolling R) but considered a speech defect. It's how a lot of kids talk. And as it is associated with kids, it sounds "adorable".
The Needle - an iconic movie starring a Soviet rock icon Viktor Tsoy.
Foontik - diminutive for "pound" and also a reference to a Soviet cartoon. Bucksik, Roublik e.t.c. also currency diminutives. Pesik (lil Peso) also looks a lot like a Russian word for "doggo".
Democracy - a 2048 type of game with a hint of political mockery, pretty popular in 2011-2012 Russia
Patriarch's Ponds - the fanciest district to go out to these days. Also an attraction spot for Bulgakov fans.
The chapters 2&3 visuals

Chapter 4: of knives

Chapter Summary

Ilya: Imma do it the Russian millenial way.
Shane: You should see a therapist.
Sveta: I'll flirt and give threats in the same sentence, because I can.

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

Four days before Shane’s first game in the regular season, Svetlana Vetrova appeared on the Red Gate apartment doorstep.

It took Shane a while to understand what the fuck was happening. But honestly, nobody had told him anything. What the hell, Ilya, we are talking all the time, and you couldn’t mention something this big?

The morning had started with Ilya not getting up for their usual run. He was lying under the blanket in the fetal position, eyes squeezed shut, clearly unwilling to go anywhere.

“Shane,” he said quietly. “Can you make me coffee?”

It didn’t fit the routine, but Shane made him coffee anyway, and it didn’t even boil over. And when Shane set the mug on the nightstand, Ilya asked for something completely wild.

“Hit me in face. Um. Slap me.”

Shane did. Though he very much wanted to ask what the hell that was about. Ilya immediately let out a sharp breath, sat up in bed, and Shane froze in mild shock.

Ilya was crying.

This lasted only a few seconds. Ilya wiped at his eyes, shook his head, and reached for his coffee.

"...Ilya, you okay?"

"It happens. Forget it," Ilya waved him off. "Thanks for coffee. Go for your run. I pass today."

Shane turned toward the door because Ilya had said go for your run.

Then he stopped.

This was some weird, unsettling shit. Shane had gotten a little more used to it by now. Russia had a lot of weird, unsettling shit. Ilya had already shown him The Needle and a bunch of what he called "iconic stuff" from the nineties and early two-thousands, and the sheer level of gore and gloom in them was off the charts. Shane kept running the Russian songs that played at the Crown through Shazam (Ilya pirated them from some sketchy websites and burned them onto CDs). So he looked up the lyrics to practice the language, and every other song seemed to be about depression and suicide. Even when it was in a major key. That was unsettling too. Ilya himself often joked about having a "Plan B" if something—anything—went wrong, and Plan B was following Kurt Cobain's example. He laughed every time he said it. Shane mostly just laughed along because he had no idea what else to do.

"Nah, I'm skipping today too," Shane heard himself say, even though every instinct in his body was screaming, it's time to run, that’s what you always do, go, you'll make it to the station, then stretch, then meditate on the swings. "I'll go make myself another coffee."

His coffee boiled over because Shane was busy hiding Ilya's knives and medicine box up in the overhead storage.

At least he didn't get caught.

Ilya only emerged from the bedroom after finishing half his mug. He frowned at Shane, who was scrubbing the mess off the stovetop.

"Looks like not only me having shitty morning."

"You..." Shane cleared his throat awkwardly. "Why don't you sit down. Maybe I'll make breakfast?"

"Listen, Hollander." Ilya sighed. "You panicking for nothing. This happens. I know how to deal with it. I'm fine. I'll wake up properly in minute and do something."

Shane looked at him for a good thirty seconds.

At the dark circles under his eyes.

At his face expression, which was more bury me alive than his usual you’re going to die.

Then he shook his head with a nervous little laugh.

"Nah-uh."

"Sweet," Ilya complained. "But I don't want your salad mess."

Shane was making a deal with his conscience (it spoke with the voice of the trendy dietitian who composed his meal plans for the last two years).

He didn't have a choice.

"I can make pelmeni," he sighed.

Ilya was quiet for a moment before asking uncertainly,

"...with mayo?"

"Grab that disgusting thing out of the fridge yourself," Shane grumbled.

Then he took the coffee out of Ilya's hands, set it on the table, and wrapped him in a tight hug, pinning his arms against his sides so there was nowhere for him to escape.

Ilya buried his face in Shane's neck and let out a small, miserable whine.

"No, no, seriously, I'm okay," he insisted, wiping at his eyes again once Shane finally let go. "Just... slap me one more time."

"Oh for fuck’s sake!" Shane threw his hands up.

Then he slapped Ilya again.
Shane almost never watched Ilya make breakfast. His mornings were usually spent texting Mom, sorting through email, messaging his agent, checking the Montreal Voyageurs group chat, and scrolling through the Sausage Factory VK group. This way he wouldn't have to think about any of it for the rest of the day.

Ilya wasn't checking anything.

He didn't step out onto the balcony for a smoke.

Instead, he sat at the tiny kitchen table and watched Shane. Rumpled. Unshaven. Drowning inside a smoke-stained black hoodie. He somehow looked physically smaller than usual. His face wasn't giving much away (reading Ilya had never been Shane's strong suit) but he watched him with wide, unblinking eyes. Like he couldn't quite believe someone was actually trying to take care of him.

By the time Ilya had finished his mayonnaise-soaked nightmare and Shane was wrapping up his “salad mess” Shane's phone alarm chirped.

"The firefighters change shifts in fifteen minutes," Shane said. "Want to come sit on the swings with me?"

Ilya laughed.

But he came.

He even managed to shower first, while Shane stood staring at the overhead storage, wondering whether it was finally safe to take the knives and med box back down.

Around ten, when Ilya looked fully alive again, the doorbell rang.

"Svetlana," Ilya said as she kicked off her heels in the hallway. "Soviet goalie Sergei Vetrov’s daughter."

Without even looking, Svetlana tossed her gym bag into Ilya's hands.

"Just Sveta." Svetlana smiled crookedly. "Hi, handsome."

Her English was miles better than Ilya's. Neutral, with just a hint of a Northeastern American accent. She said something to Ilya in Russian, Ilya swore (Shane understood Russian swearing perfectly well by now). And went to grab his laptop, which he otherwise mostly used for pirating movies.

"Ilya's never shown you his street magic, has he?" Sveta winked at Shane. "Come on. I'll show you why he's saved in my phone as Snezhana the Astrologer."

The revelation came out of nowhere—then again, the whole morning had been bizarre—so Shane followed her without asking any questions. They settled onto opposite ends of the couch with Ilya between them as he opened website after website.

"Name. City?" Ilya demanded.

Those words Shane knew too.

Sveta gave him a full name, a city, and something that sounded like a birth date. Ilya nodded, entered the information into every tab he'd opened, then started digging through social media.

"When I need to check out some guy who’s trying to hit on me," Sveta explained to Shane, "I tell him I need his details because I'm consulting an astrologer. Or a tarot reader. Or granny Glafira the psychic. Whatever fits the mood." She grinned. "Then I send the info to Ilya. And he tells me absolutely everything about the guy. This one, for example..." She pointed at the screen. "is Federal Bailiff Service."

"Oh." Shane snorted. "Well, that explains your terrifying reputation for chirping people on the ice. Half the league thinks you're psychic. Turns out you're just a stalker."

"We-e-e-e-ll, Hollander." Ilya smirked. "You know real difference between us?"

"That you're an asshole, and you’ve got a fucking fake jaw on the left side?" Shane shot back with a grin.

Ilya was only twenty-one and already had a cup for his dentures. One of Shane's veteran teammates had once explained that getting permanent implants or veneers before retirement was a terrible idea. You never knew when you’d take another hit, and you could end up wrecking your gums into mincemeat. Apparently, Ilya had listened to the older guys too and invested in a really good removable instead. If you woke him up in the middle of the night and told him to smile, you'd get a perfect visual demonstration that most NHL players were right-handed.

"Imagine a chess game," Ilya said, completely ignoring the jab.

"...okay?"

"You play chess figures."

He tapped a finger against Shane's chest.

"And I play you. The person. People usually are pretty predictable. Not everybody have highest hockey IQ in the league, so some of us have to study opponent."

"I study people too!"

"And use strategy. In stressful situation player pass to someone he trust most." He paused. "Well. Except you."

Shane blinked.

"Last year. Your game against Toronto. Final minute of the third. I thought you pass Pike or Boisier. Instead you passed to San Sebastián, though you two not really get along."

He clicked through another social media profile.

"And you won."

His eyes stayed on the screen.

"Compare that to our game against Admirals. Hunter's good—don't fucking tell anyone. But once you start bugging him..."

"...He passes to Vaughn," Shane finished quietly.

He thought back to every game against the Admirals. The feeling in his chest was probably something like a biblical epiphany.

Holy shit.

That's why.

"I remember thinking, what the hell? That makes no sense..."

"Exactly." Ilya shrugged. "I knew he would do that. Hunter keep bitching that I’m some 'fucking psychic' because I always end up exactly where I can wreck their whole play."

He clicked the trackpad again.

"Secret is..."

Click.

"...people..."

A grin spread across his face.

"...are very fucking predictable."

"I'm surprised you never figured that out," Sveta said, studying Shane with the same unnervingly analytical look coaches always gave him. "You play with Kovalsky, don’t you? Ilya picked up half these ideas from him, back on the junior national team."

"What?" Shane stared at her. "No fucking way. Kovalsky doesn’t have nerd for that. 'Then we cycle down the left wing—and ooh, butterfly!'"

Ilya, still searching for something, giggled.

"No criminal record. No unpaid child support, either."

"Thank fuck," Sveta said, rolling her eyes.

"Again, don't tell Kovalsky I said this," Ilya went on. "He's good. The difference is, he usually manipulates his own team, not the other one. How you build lines? Based on skill sets. Guys cover each other's weaknesses. But you've got twenty fucking people in locker room. Of course there's going to be..." He snapped his fingers, searching for the word.

"Friction," Sveta supplied.

"Thanks. Kovalsky will argue with coaches until he's hoarse, but he'll still build his lines with guys who are buddies, at least. And he's right. Hockey's a team sport. Nobody give a shit about your personal stats if team's at the bottom of standings because something rotting inside."

"Nice," Shane said, folding his arms. "But I think—"

"Oh, of fucking course," Ilya muttered, rolling his eyes.

"—that if you let personal feelings affect the way you play, that's just unprofessional. We're not in a sandbox anymore. This is our job."

Ilya groaned, dropped his head against the back of the couch, and closed his eyes.

Sveta, meanwhile, broke into a huge grin.

"Now I finally get why he loves playing against you so much!"

"Shu-u-u-ut up," Ilya groaned.

"This half-baked puppet master spends weeks stalking your social media, watches every recent game, comes up with a perfect game plan, lays this elaborate trap on the ice..."

She pointed dramatically at Shane.

"...and then you skate right out of it with the grace of a ballet dancer because you simply don't give a fuck. Logic beats emotion every single time. Magnificent."

Shane knew at least half the league thought he was a little scary and called him a hockey robot behind his back.

Now he had the distinct feeling Sveta had just called him a robot too. But somehow turned it into a compliment.

Ilya shook his head, turned the laptop toward Sveta, and tapped the screen.

"Overdue personal loan. Girlfriend in Ufa. Girlfriend in Krasnodar. Girlfriend in Penza. Want to join the harem of a broke-ass loser?"

"Fucking dickhead!"

Sveta yanked out her phone and started furiously typing.

(Your Mars is in Taurus and the Emperor is reversed. We can’t be together. Goodbye.)

Ilya sighed, patted Shane's knee, and said,

"Alright. I'm heading out."

"...where to?"

Ilya looked fine now, but the unease still hadn't let go of Shane.

"Mom's birthday today." Ilya smiled softly as he pulled a bottle of sparkling wine out of the cupboard.

"...Oh."

Shane blinked.

Something still felt wrong.

Ilya called a cab. Sveta kissed his forehead goodbye. Then Ilya left.

Shane did end up going for his run.

Then he showered, checked all his group chats and email, puttered around the apartment for a while. Throughout all of it, Sveta stayed glued to Ilya's laptop, apparently placing sports bets.

"Okay." Shane finally couldn't help himself.

Sveta looked up from the screen, one eyebrow raised.

"Why was he acting so... strange? Does Ilya have a bad relationship with his mom? Why did he look like he was going to a funeral?"

"Bingo, handsome," Sveta deadpanned. "He went to the cemetery."

Shane forgot how to breathe.

"...What?"

"She killed herself when he was twelve. He found her." Sveta's voice stayed flat. "And no, he doesn't like talking about it."

The way she said doesn't like made it sound as though she actually meant he'd rather jump into an active volcano than talk about it.

Shane slowly lowered himself onto the rug across from her.

"Has he ever..." He swallowed. "I don't know. Seen a therapist?"

Sveta let out a humourless snort.

"Kidding? Colonel Rozanov thinks therapy is some new-age faggot bullshit for weaklings."

She paused.

"And then there was... another thing."

Her expression darkened.

"I've never told you this. I'm still fucking furious about it."

She closed the laptop and laced her fingers together, elbows resting on her knees. Like some Russian version of Tony Soprano about to deliver a lecture.

"Ilya's class had this cute little tradition. Every year before winter break, they'd write down a New Year's wish, seal it in envelopes, and their homeroom teacher would keep it until the following year. Then they'd open them and see whether their wishes had come true. The year after they buried Irina Sergeyevna, Ilya opened his. It was very sweet."

"I want to go to Yalta with Mom and see her play piano in a restaurant, drink cognac, and be happy."

"Of course he started crying. You know what his classmates did?"

Shane slowly shook his head.

"They laughed. Crying, that’s just not manly, you know."

"Fuck," Shane whispered.

He had the awful feeling he was about to start crying too.

"The next day," Sveta continued, "his stepmother, Polina, came to school and ripped every last one of those little shits and people in charge a new asshole. After that they practically tiptoed around Ilya until graduation. Too late, though. Ilyusha still has his head pretty fucked up."

Shane swallowed hard.

"You don't even know me. Why are you telling me this?"

Sveta smiled.

Slowly.

"Oh, no. I know you, Shane Hollander. And I know he likes you."

Shane went wildly red.

"And despite that whole hockey robot reputation of yours..." Sveta went on, "...you noticed something was wrong with him. You were worried enough to ask me."

"...this conversation never happened, right?"

"Right." Sveta nodded serenely. "You spill, I stab."

Shane glanced toward the hallway, where Ilya's knives were still hidden in the overhead storage.

Maybe...

Maybe it was still a little too soon to put them back.

***

Ilya came back sometime in the early evening. He seemed like he wasn't feeling bad anymore. Or it just wasn’t as bad as in the morning. Sveta had pirated the newest Fast & Furious, and the three of them piled onto the bed with the laptop. Shane, unable to hold it in, finally asked,

"So... is having separate beds just not a thing here?"

Ilya snorted so hard he sounded like a pig.

"It's a historical tradition!" Sveta shrugged.

At least this time, it seemed, nobody was planning an orgy. They fell asleep like that: Ilya in the middle, Shane on the right, Sveta on the left, all tangled together.

In the morning Ilya was cheerful and full of energy again. They went for a run, Ilya made coffee, Sveta put together breakfast.

"Following up on yesterday's talk. Shane, you never played chess?" Ilya suddenly asked.

"No," Shane frowned.

"Let me teach you! I don't play much now, but against you will be interesting."

"Yeah, sure," Shane shrugged, typing out a reply to an email for his mom.

Ten seconds later, Ilya, clearly holding back laughter, asked:

"Shane. What is this?"

Shane looked up. Ilya was standing on a stool, peering into the storage space above the hallway. Where all the knives and the home medicine kit were still stashed. Shane groaned and buried his face in his hands.

Chapter End Notes

The Red Gate apartment - "the Red Gate" in this case is not the building, but the area. Like Taganka. Or Tribeca.
medicine box - go-to pills like paracetamol, gut stuff, absorbent carbon, e.t.c., they tend to get kinda big
Sausage Factory - it doesn't sound dirty in Russian, istg, but who am I to erase a dirty joke when it's coming at me just like that. Сосиска/сарделька have clear dick connotations, but not колбаса xD

Chapter 5: where Shane gets bullied out of the closet, and Ilya once again pretends the criminal code is just a set of friendly suggestions

Chapter Summary

Ilya: Lie to the world all you want but not yourself (a lying liar who lies to himself about his feelings for Shaney-boy).
Shane: So you are not afraid of your abusive dad, who, I might add, has a gun. But somehow the geese are the problem.
Sveta: Why do I feel low-key like Donna Sheridan here. The first woman I liked and maybe the last, my ass.

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

When it came to award ceremonies and all those gala events, Shane couldn't stand the whole fashionably late bullshit. The invitation would say the event started at seven, but apparently you were supposed to show up later, and Mom used to make him time out and wait at least twenty minutes before heading out. Even then, he still ended up one of the first to arrive.

Where is the logic? Seriously, where?

He was halfway through his second glass of ginger ale when he heard a familiar voice from the ballroom entrance.

"Shenya!"

Shane set his glass onto a passing waiter's tray and turned around.

Ilya was sprinting straight at him.

Camera shutters started firing like machine guns.

The cat was out of the bag. Now everyone knew the rivalry ended the second they stepped off the ice.

Ilya launched himself into what was clearly meant to be a bone-crushing bear hug. But the reflexes drilled into Shane years ago by the jiu-jitsu coach kicked in before he could think. Using Ilya's momentum against him, Shane flipped him clean onto the floor.

"Well," Ilya wheezed, laughing as he pushed himself back up, dusting off his tuxedo, "that's hell of hello."

"Maybe don't try to scare people like that," Shane grumbled, brushing the dust off Ilya's back for him.

"Not happen again!"

Carter Vaughn materialized out of nowhere and slung an arm around each of their necks.

"What's up, dogs?"

"Do you want me to throw you too?" Shane asked, almost pleasantly.

"You don't have the strength for it," Vaughn shot back without missing a beat. "I've got a question!"

Shane immediately tensed. Ilya, meanwhile, looked completely relaxed.

"If you two can't even be civil on Twitter... how the hell you haven’t killed each other yet?"

The honest answer would've been: We usually make up with blowjobs.

So Shane wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Mutual blackmail," Ilya said simply.

"More than that video?"

"You think that's blackmail material? Naive" Ilya smirked. "It's simple, Vaunnie. He fights dirty. I shoot well. We rarely fight. We're both too fucking scared."

***

The dreams were tangled and exhausting.

First, Ilya was back at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery, drinking champagne with Lyosha. Only this time Mom was there too. Alive, dressed in a white silk dress, holding a coupe glass. Lyosha was going on about how it was a damn shame Mom had never been trashy, like Polina. Because otherwise she'd have caved their dear father's skull in for his drunken bullshit back in '98. Mom just smiled and shot back that the bigger question was whether Lyosha and Ilyusha would've ever read anything more complicated than a first-grade primer if she had.

(Papa was a real bastard, but Ilya had always been his favourite, so he suffered less. Lyosha took far more beatings as a kid and was convinced it was Papa who'd driven Mom to it. He'd hated him viciously ever since. Not that it had stopped him from a questionable career choice.)

Then Ilya was chasing Aunt Asya through the passageways at Domodedovskaya station. She was wearing heels, walking calmly, almost leisurely. But no matter how fast Ilya ran, he kept falling farther and farther behind. He only caught up when she was stepping into the subway car, right as the doors slid shut in his face. Aunt Asya smiled. Waved to him through the glass. The train disappeared into the tunnel. Ilya screamed at her not to go, screamed that they had to stop every train on the line.

Nobody looked at him. Nobody heard him. As though he was a ghost.

(Ilya hadn't even been in Moscow at the time. He found out about the bombing from the news. He never made it to the funeral. Papa said there was no reason for him to be there.)

"According to regulations, assembling AK-47 takes…"

Papa’s voice droned in his ear. Ilya kept trying to put it together, again and again, but the parts kept slipping out of his hands like they'd been greased.

(He could beat regulation time even blindfolded. Papa used to call it bare minimum, nothing worth praising.)

The gleam of an axe in the dim light of the stairwell. Wild eyes.

(No, no. Polya had made Papa quit drinking. He stayed sober for eight years, and even after he started again, it was never that bad. It will never happen again. Never.)

Mom was playing the dusty piano in their old apartment on Sireneviy Boulevard. There were pills on the top of the piano. Those pills. Ilya tried to grab them, but his fingers seemed to lose all solidity. Mom smiled.

"Mom, don't touch them, please don't take them!"

Ilya reached for her, but when he touched her shoulder, she crumbled into dust.

He woke with a start. Sveta's hair was tickling his nose. Shane was asleep on his other side, quiet as the dead; he drifted back toward the edge of the bed again because he got too warm, but his hand was still resting on Ilya's stomach.

"What’s up?" Sveta whispered, barely audible.

"Bad dreams. Go back to sleep."

Sveta sighed, pulled herself up higher so her lips were almost at Ilya's ear, and hummed the lullaby from A Lovers’ Romance.

He didn't dream of anything again until morning.

***

The night had worn him out, and Ilya wanted nothing more than to forget it. Enough. The season had started.

He looked to his left. Shane had wrapped himself in the blanket so tightly that only his forehead, a strand of hair, and the tip of his nose were visible. He looked ridiculously adorable, and Ilya didn't want to wake him.

Ilya looked to his right. Sveta was sprawled across her side of the bed like a broken starfish, her mouth slightly open, wrinkling her nose faintly every time her hair tickled her face on an inhale. Funny.

Ilya tapped her lightly on the tip of her nose.

Sveta gave a little snort and opened her eyes.

"What?" she whispered.

Ilya smirked and pulled her toward him by the waist.

"Do you want to?"

"Not yet," Sveta narrowed her eyes.

"But that's fixable, isn't it?"

"Of course."

Ilya's grin widened, and he slid down, pulling her underwear off.

Sveta had never been loud, but she didn't exactly try to keep quiet either, so it didn't take long before they woke Shane up.

"Am I interrupting you two?" Shane asked, sleepy but thoroughly indignant.

Ilya, settled between Sveta's legs, lifted his head and licked his lips. Sveta was giggling into her fist.

"Nah, all good," Ilya shrugged.

"Wanna join us, handsome?" Sveta winked.

Ilya watched Shane squeeze his eyes shut, mutter something to himself, clearly not having any desire to get roped in and deadpanned:

"Why would I? Looks like that spot's already taken."

Ilya looked at Sveta. Sveta looked at him. Ilya knew that expression: do whatever you want. Well…

"Grab that bullet vibrator for yourself and then stretch me," Ilya said finally, and went back to what he'd been doing.

Shane practically bolted upright.

"Seriously?!"

Ilya let out a confident "mm-hm" and gave a thumbs up. Sveta purred happily.

Five minutes later, Sveta was lying in what she called the "roast chicken" position, taking him, stroking his hair, clearly having the time of her life, while Shane moved inside him, chest damp with sweat pressed against his back, biting his shoulder. Ilya felt so fucking good he wanted to cry, but limited himself to muffling his moans into the pillow.

A little while later, it was Shane biting into that same pillow, whimpering pitifully with his eyes squeezed shut. He clenched so deliciously around Ilya as he pistoned into him, while Sveta rode him with an enthusiastic cowgirl "yee-haw!". Fucking asshole—Ilya nearly died for the second time that morning, but this time from laughing.

The three of them took a shower together (Ilya gave a mental pat to himself once again on investing into bathroom renovation). Shane seemed a little dazed, quieter than usual. While Ilya and Sveta bickered over whether coffee brewed in an ibriq deserved pepper and sugar, Shane wandered out onto the balcony with his laptop, grumbling under his breath that Ilya was an asshole and that Shane had missed his morning run again.

The weather was beginning to turn, though not badly enough to pack away the balcony furniture for the season. It was about sixteen degrees outside, overcast, but not raining yet. Shane set his laptop on the little table. Looked around thoughtfully, hands on his hips. And then suddenly bellowed cheerfully with his throat R accent, like Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam:

"Good morning, Moscow!"

"Oh, fuck you!" someone immediately shot back.

"Hello there, Shenya," Zinaida Vasilyevna called back from the neighbouring balcony.

"Salaam alaikum, brother!"

"The fuck are you yelling this early for, man?! You got a death wish?!"

Ilya and Sveta stared at Shane for so long, jaws dropped, that their coffee boiled over. Again.

"Shane," Ilya asked in a small voice. "Are you… are you okay?"

Shane considered the question seriously.

"Post-coital euphoria?" Sveta suggested.

"Yeah, that's probably it," Shane agreed, finally opening his email.

Once operation Coffee and Syrniki finally succeeded, and Shane's buckwheat was steaming away in a thermos (through trial and error, Ilya had learned that porridge and gas stoves were absolutely incompatible), Sveta looked closely at Ilya and said quietly in Russian,

"Since when do you bottom?"

"Since I met him," Ilya arched an eyebrow, glancing sideways at Shane.

Sveta was flying to the Urals the next day for the opening games. She planned to place a lot of bets this season, but the flood of NHL players arriving during the lockout had thrown all her calculations out the window, so she wanted to see Magnitka, Ak Bars, and Avangard in action for herself—that much Ilya had gathered.

Sergei Vladimirovich believed his little girl was faithfully attending university lectures. His little girl, meanwhile, had cheerfully told him, Daddy, can I have five grand for a handbag? Then she promptly put a thousand dollars on Spartak beating SKA by at least two goals in their opener, Dynamo Moscow defeating Amur, and Lokomotiv beating Torpedo. As far as she was concerned, lectures could wait.

Ilya loved hanging out with Sveta. She was one of the guys—the kind of friend you could spend hours talking hockey with, then have zero-strings sex afterward. She knew him well.

But he also knew Shane. Left without enough time alone, Shane's inner hermit would start withering away and poisoning everyone around him.

So.

Sveta was leaving just in time.

"Guys, I need to call Mom," Shane announced, appearing in the balcony doorway. "Scoot over."

Ilya gave up his stool and went back to finishing his syrniki, leaning against the counter.

Right off the bat, in the very first minute, Ilya got a compliment from Mrs. Hollander.

"Shane, I don't know where you found this volunteer, but the photos you sent over are just gorgeous. You've finally learned how to pose and work with your face!"

Well, all Ilya had really done was taking fifty shots in every location while saying things like, Shane, give me passion. Shane, you want to fuck me. Seduce me.

In Ilya's humble opinion, it only worked because, in his particular case, Shane genuinely did want to fuck the photographer.

"He just, uh, found the right approach," Shane mumbled.

"It's working great! Hugo Boss is really eager to have you at their January gala now. They're saying…"

"…that the gala's too white and it's starting to show?" Shane grunted, face turning obviously sour.

"You have a wonderful personal brand," Mrs. Hollander said firmly. "And whatever's helping you build it…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" Shane rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily.

Sveta snorted into her coffee before cutting in from off-screen.

"Wait. So brands use your race to make money and check a box for the public. Your mom saw that as an opportunity to make money, promote you, and use them right back. And that pisses you off."

"Basically, yeah," Shane rolled his eyes. "Sorry, Mom."

"Honey," Sveta giggled, "Am I getting this right? Ideally, you'd just play hockey. People would respect you solely because you're insanely good at it. You'd never have to do commercials. And TV hosts would stop saying inclusivity and start saying all people are brothers."

"Honestly, that sounds amazing," Shane grimaced.

"Yeah," Sveta grinned like a shark, and Ilya started giggling quietly too, because he could see exactly where she was going with this. "You're mad at capitalism, and you’d really rather live in the Soviet Union. Khruschev era, give or take. But Shane, that's a terrible idea, because you're…" Sveta crudely mimed a blowjob, poking her tongue into her cheek and moving her hand. "And that used to be illegal. And if they'd caught you doing that, then…"

"Good morning, GULAG!" Ilya sang out in Russian.

"Shane," Mrs. Hollander asked, sounding winded. "Did you join the Communist Party?!"

"What? Mom, no, you've got this all wrong!" Shane shot Sveta and Ilya a murderous look. "Go eat breakfast in the living room, you menaces!"

"Fine, fine. Here's your coffee, handsome," Sveta said. Before following Ilya out of the kitchen, she leaned into the webcam for a split second and kissed Shane on the cheek.

"…did you get yourself a girlfriend?" Mrs. Hollander asked, now breathless with barely concealed excitement.

"Come on, Mom!" Shane groaned miserably while Ilya, giggling, shut the kitchen door.

"Svetka, you are pure evil."

"Yeah, I know."

Shane appeared in the living room doorway twenty minutes later looking like a man who was about to murder someone.

"You two are absolute scums."

"You’re right," Ilya nodded.

"I was in such a good mood! For the first time in my life I actually enjoyed having sex with a woman!"

Ilya slowly turned his head and met Sveta's eyes. Sveta was clearly struggling not to laugh.

"And you enjoyed having sex with a woman because at the same time another guy was fucking you in the ass?" Sveta said pointedly, and Shane deflated.

"Um, well…"

"Honey," Sveta said gently. "Does it not occur to you that you might be… I don't even know how to put this delicately. Gay?"

"I can't be gay, I just can’t," Shane shook his head desperately.

Oh, panic. Not good. Ilya sighed, went over to Shane, put a hand on the back of his neck, and slowly guided him down onto the couch.

"I'm about to ask you a really annoying question," Sveta said, patting Shane's knee. "Why can't you? Come on. Tell us. Short sentences."

"I play hockey," Shane said quietly.

"No open gay players," Ilya agreed. "But doesn't mean there aren't any. Should be… what, fifty-ish just in NHL. Simple stats."

"Mom's always going on about my personal brand, how important it is. That people will look up to me," Shane clenched his hands between his knees.

"And you want give press list of people you sleep with? If so, I am first to tell you you lost your mind," Ilya said evenly. "Take me, for example. Yes, I'm bisexual, I sleep with men, I like it. But I’m probably never coming out. Because if I do, half my closest relatives would try to hang me. That doesn't mean I have to sit here pretending I'm straight. I'm me. Lying to yourself is worst thing you can do."

"You can at least pass!" Shane snapped, upset. "But if I… if I…"

"And you are who you are. And who you sleep with shouldn’t fuck anybody except your partners."

Shane, frowning in confusion, mouthed "shouldn’t fuck anybody"—it probably sounded strange to him in English.

"Let's look at it another way," Sveta said. "Say everyone found out you're gay. What exactly scares you about that? You're Canadian. Your country's pretty tolerant."

Shane looked at Sveta like she was an idiot.

"First of all, they'll call me a faggot. Every single game. Forever."

"That's only problem if you're ashamed of being one," Ilya shrugged. "Like. So what. What new information you just give me. Everyone already know I fuck men. What's the problem, dude. You acting like I fucked your dad. Not going to fuck you, sorry, I have standards."

"Second," Shane went on, "there's no guarantee I'd even get to keep playing if it came out. They could fire me. Trade me to the middle of nowhere. It's already bad enough that I'm known as that Asian hockey player. I want people to remember me as a damn good hockey player. Not that gay hockey player."

Sveta burst out laughing, and Ilya started kneading Shane's neck harder so he couldn't bolt.

"Are you serious right now? What is this, Canadian modesty, handsome?" Sveta managed between laughs. "Yeah, you're young now. But across the Atlantic they're already writing about you nonstop. You've got a pile of sponsors. If you and Ilya hadn't been drafted the same year, you'd have gone first overall too. A middling player might end up being remembered as the gay hockey player. You won't. You're headed for greatness. The Hall of Fame. You and Ilya became the league's top scorers before you even turned twenty. If you don't get the captain's C next season, I'll eat my tights. Players at your level don't get defined by scandals. When you listen to Queen, do you sit there thinking about who Freddie was sleeping with, or about how fucking brilliantly he sings?"

"Showbiz is different," Shane said, eyes squeezed shut, shaking his head side to side. "I don't even look gay! I don't listen to Lady Gaga! I don't paint my nails! I wear sweatpants!" He jabbed an accusing finger at Ilya's chest. "You look gayer than I do! I just like sucking dick!"

"You talk like there's passing grade for gayness and you didn't hit it," Ilya clicked his tongue. "I open you secret: there’s only one passing grade, and it's liking dicks."

Shane suddenly deflated, curling up into a ball, arms wrapped around his knees.

"I… I really am gay, huh?"

Ilya wrapped an arm around his shoulders and silently pressed his nose into his hair. Shane started crying quietly.

"Yes, sweetheart," Sveta sighed, scratching lightly at the back of Shane's head with her nails. "I think you are."

Ilya couldn't figure out what the problem was. Maybe Shane had been listening to everyone around him too much and had taken what they said far too seriously.

"Congratulations," Ilya murmured into Shane's ear once his sniffles had finally died down. "In your life will be a lot less terrible sex now."

An elbow immediately found his stomach.

"What?" Ilya protested. "It's true! Want to test your gaydar?"

Shane wiped his eyes and managed a faint smile.

"Well, maybe. Now I can admit that Scott Hunter is hot! And that not staring at him in the locker room during the All-Star games was really hard."

"Wait, I first called him hot!" Ilya objected.

"You call him a dinosaur."

"One doesn’t cancel other" Ilya paused, thinking. "Actually... good guess, Shane. I've got a feeling he's one of us, too."

"Ilyusha..." Sveta said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "Are you seriously trying to assemble an NHL orgy?"

That sounded like a fucking fantastic idea.

***

Ilya opened his eyes when he heard the swearing.

Someone had called Shane early in the morning. Shane mostly answered in grunts and monosyllables, and then suddenly perked up.

"Oh, you've got a cottage?"

Ilya instantly understood, Misha Kovalsky's punchable grin rising up before his eyes, and he barked:

"Is that Kovalsky? Hang it. Now."

"What?" Shane frowned. "Why?"

"He promise you cottage and barbecue?"

"Yeah…"

"Bullshit. It's not cottage, it's dacha, he needs slaves to dig up potatoes! I already fell for that shit. Hang up!"

Shane listened, frowning, to Misha rambling something on the other end, then handed the phone to Ilya.

"Ilyukh, come on, man," Misha chirped cheerfully through the speaker. "We did have shashlik last time, too!"

"Fuck you, Misha. Fuck you."

"And Grandpa didn't plant anything this year! I only have raspberry bushes out there now. Young Pioneer's honour!"

"You're too young to have been a Young Pioneer, asshole."

"No, seriously. Come with us. You can punch my lights out, if I’m lying! We'll do shashlik, hit the banya, and we'll be back in the city first thing tomorrow. You'll even make it to practice."

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut, exhaled loudly, and said:

"If you're lying again, you're dead."

"Deal, then! Meet up at Strogino by nine."

Click.

Well. Marly texted that he was in the middle of a marathon with some girl he'd picked up at a bar the night before. There wasn't much else to do, honestly.

And that's how Ilya ended up on the fold-down jump seat in the cargo bay of a Patriot SUV, which was making its way toward a dacha settlement out in the Istra district. Shane was stoically enduring yet another traffic violation in the form of Skipper's wife, Tanya, sitting on his lap. Tanya was a curvy, charismatic cutie pie with a degree from the Maurice Thorez Institute. She'd been translating all the jokes for Shane and Karlssen. But when Kovalsky and Skipper started singing "Samara-Town," she threw up her hands in defeat and just translated the folk verses literally, laughing until she hiccuped.

Ilya got a little carsick in the cargo bay and dozed off. Then the car started slowing down, and a round of quiet swearing kicked off.

Either the Patriot had broken down, which was entirely plausible (man proposes, the Ulyanovsk auto plant disposes), or…

"Told you this was a bad idea," Shane muttered, and Ilya realised they'd been pulled over by traffic cops.

Oh, great, actual flashing lights.

The Patrol and the Airtrek carrying the rest of Kovalsky's guests kept driving as if they had absolutely nothing to do with them.

The rats.

Though, honestly, Ilya couldn't blame them.

Misha grabbed his papers from the glove compartment and went off to face the music.

"I have a feeling," Skipper said darkly, in Russian, "that Kovalsky is about to talk himself into getting arrested."

"Fuck," Ilya breathed out, felt around in his pocket for the ID he'd swiped from Lyosha, grabbed the pack of beer sitting in front of him, and climbed out of the cargo bay.

***

"I'm so glad I invited you," Kovalsky said wholeheartedly once they'd piled out by the dacha and Ilya could finally stretch his legs.

"I'm still amazed they let us go for a case of beer," Tanya said.

"He had ID," Kovalsky replied.

Shane and Karlssen both turned to Ilya with identical silent questions written all over their faces. Motya, who had spent the entire drive wedged between them and looking like he was slowly suffocating, was positively glowing with excitement. The guys climbing out of the Patrol and the Airtrek looked curious too, but Kovalsky didn't let them stare for long, immediately sending everyone off on errands—for the grill, the charcoal, water, whatever needed carrying.

"Stole my brother's police ID last year and put my photo over his," Ilya shrugged. "Had feeling will be handy someday."

"You got incredibly lucky they didn't recognise you," Shane muttered, shaking his head in disapproval.

"More like I got lucky they don’t know Lyosha. This way I can just tell them I look very like my brother hockey-player. Almost twins!"

Meanwhile, Kovalsky unearthed a Vorovayki CD from the Patriot's door pocket, and Ilya cursed everything.

He teased Lyosha with Russian prison-ballad songs all the time, but he wasn't nearly as fond of being on the receiving end himself. Shane, hearing the unfamiliar track, fired up Shazam, googled the lyrics, and got upset.

"What the hell, I thought I'd gotten better at understanding Russian, and now I only recognise the prepositions and pronouns?!"

"It's okay," Tanya reassured him. "Half of us don't understand every word either. It's prison slang. Like, for example, mazurit'..."

"To run scams. To pickpocket. Here it’s like to threaten or something," Ilya translated.

Karlssen laughed.

"So English isn't actually your first foreign language, huh?"

"Something like that." Ilya grinned. "One time, guys from criminal gang—no names, they're legit now and play respectable businessmen—kidnapped me with Lyosha and kept us in basement for week. Picked up some words. I was... six, maybe."

"Ilya," Shane said grimly. "I've said this before. I'll say it again. Every single time I learn something new about your childhood, I get more and more concerned that you have never seen a therapist."

"Oh, come on." Ilya waved him off, unable to suppress a grin. He genuinely enjoyed horrifying people. "I didn’t even tell you any stories from when Papa drank really hard."

“And Papa have police gun?” Motya guessed.

"Yeah, but Mom quickly caught which way wind blows. Every time she hide gun in zip-bag, in the toilet tank. But one time he got drunk enough to see green devils and found axe instead. You guys ever saw The Shining? Scared you? For me that was just, like. A rough Friday night."

Now understanding a little better why Ilya had once made him hide in a closet for two hours, Shane asked quietly,

"Does he... still drink like that?"

"No, no. Polya—my stepmom—made him..." He glanced at Tanya. "How you say zakodirovat'sa in English?"

Tanya explained, and the non-Russian guests spent a moment trying to wrap their heads around the concept.

"So... uh..." Karlssen ventured. "Is that... common here?"

Ilya smirked and bellowed across the yard,

"Guys! Whose dads have done the aversion-therapy thing?"

A forest of hands shot into the air.

"Russia," Matthews, who was in his third season with Spartak, observed with profound solemnity.

***

Shenya of Holland:

You get kidnapped, you get chased around with an axe—you call it stand-up material. But then the geese show up...

[Video: A road in the dacha settlement outside Kovalsky's place. Ilya is sprinting it down, unleashing an endless stream of loud, astonishingly creative curses. A flock of geese is pursuing him with unmistakably hostile intent. Ilya vaults over a fence like a seasoned parkour runner and scrambles onto the roof of a shed.]

Ilya: (yells) "Misha, get these fucking things away from me!"

Behind the camera, Shane is laughing so hard the video starts shaking.

Mikhail Penguinsky:

If you died, you're a loser.

[Photo series: A bunch of red-faced hockey players, wrapped in towels after the banya, all of them in varying degrees of pathetic. Shane is sitting slumped against a rain barrel, his pose and expression a dead ringer for the "high fox" meme.]

Ilya Muromets:

Why is this so funny?

[Video: Spartak's goalie playing guitar, Kovalsky singing the song "Frayer." Behind him, Shane and Matthews doing some kind of lame "dad dancing". Sneaking glances at his phone for the lyrics, Shane lisps his way through the "pam-pa-ram" parts at exactly the right moments.]

Chapter End Notes

he wasn't in Moscow when the bombing happened - this
A Lovers’ Romance - technically, a Soviet musical.
it shouldn't fuck you - Brother 2 reference. "А тебя это ебать не должно" -> [gets Полковнику никто не пишет by Би-2 playing]
Young Pioneer's honor - like Scouts, but Soviet; the actual expression goes like "Young Pioneer's honest [word]". Was (is) still in use with millenials, because parents, older siblings, Soviet movies used it a lot.
There is a whole criminal language (mostly based on yiddish), and for some mob bosses speeches you actually need a translator.
Vorovaiki - Hop, musorok
aversion-therapy - two options: village psychic grandma hypnosis or an implant (means you die if you have a drop of alcohol).
If you died, you're a loser - a Russian proverb, "кто сдох, тот лох".
"Frayer" - another crime ballad, mostly known in a version by an iconic crime genre singer, Mikhail Krug.

Chapter 6: in which Shane is a glorious bastard, and Ilya gets kicked out of the closet

Chapter Summary

Shane: Death threats are my love language.
Ilya: Excuse me, I am pretty busy here being scared to death without your threats, okay?!
Kuzya: I so didn't need all that drama, I have enough from the spawn of Satan who calls me brother.

Chapter Notes

So some racist jab happens, but this time Shane's BAMF-ing through it himself, because punch some faces, baby.

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

"When are you flying home?" Shane asked, watching wistfully as Ilya poured champagne over his Maurice Richard Trophy.

They were back on the rooftop overlooking the neon sprawl of the Vegas Strip, just like back in 2011. This time, though, Shane wasn't worried about getting caught. He had no intention of kissing Ilya up here. He had a hotel room for that, and nobody would think twice about the two of them hanging out together anymore.

"Fifteenth," Ilya said with a shrug. "Paperwork, all that."

"What paperwork?"

"I finally paid mortgage on my Boston penthouse." Ilya broke into the gleeful cackle of a cartoon supervillain. "I'm free! Free!"

"Why you even got yourself into that mortgage in the first place, I will never understand," Shane clicked his tongue. “You could’ve bought one decent car instead of all your babies—I remember your Crown, I know you're capable of making sensible choices!—and gotten a more modest place in a normal neighbourhood, but no…"

"Oh, please." Ilya waved him off. "Better invest once than move later again and pay realtor on top. Also, my babies are only joy in my life! Well, except you." Ilya held the bottle out to him. "Drink."

Shane took a sip, looking Ilya in the eye, and passed the bottle back. Ilya drank too, smiling. Neither of them said the words "indirect kiss," but the joke hung in the air between them all the same.

"Now you can come to my home for... well, official housewarming party."

"Please, just no jaw-breaking theme this time," Shane winced, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"No, no." Ilya grinned. "Brigada and Sopranos. All for you. You can even wear sweatpants, fit the vibe. Just do your hair with gel."

Vegas showed no signs of settling down for the night. Music drifted up from below, mixed with shouting, laughter, and the constant hum of the Strip. Shane tuned all of it out. He wrapped himself instead in the wonderful rough-accented words.

All for you.

My joy.

"I could come to Moscow, if you want" Shane offered suddenly, surprising even himself. "Or we could meet..."

"Somewhere in Europe?" Ilya was looking at him, not with heat, but with warmth. "Barcelona. Something like that."

"Yeah."

Ilya glanced around, checking no one else was about to come up to the roof, took Shane's hand, and ran his thumb over his knuckles.

"I'll think about it. Go?"

***

***

Shane was eyeing the microphone with visible suspicion.

"I barely speak Russian."

"It's fine, they won't put you live on air! The best bits will be cut together after and posted subtitled, if anything," Skipper "reassured" him.

Hot mics were a relatively new gimmick, but they hadn't bothered Shane much before now. They'd never wired Shane up before, and he assumed his reputation as the polite, nice, incredibly boring guy had saved him. Otherwise, it would have been a disaster, because on the ice his speech wasn’t PG in the slightest, and that definitely couldn't go on air.

"Bad idea", said Maestro, the starting goalie, voicing Shane's thoughts as he tossed spicy chips into his mouth. Maestro lived up to crazy goalies’ reputation—he ate chips out of the bag with sushi chopsticks.

"We're who teaching Shenya Russian. No comment. Coaches. Even more bad." Maestro licked the spicy seasoning off his chopsticks. "And Ilyushen'ka Rozanov. Whose second mother language is fenya."

Kovalsky responded with something in Russian that sounded deeply bizarre.

Shane blinked.

"Sorry, did you just say 'bipolar anus'?"

Both the guys and the equipment crew doubled over laughing.

Yulia, who was in the middle of collecting everyone's phones, saint that she was, didn't laugh, and translated into sweet, friendly English:

"Misha meant to say that, to quote Kubrick, Ilya is a wonderful illustration of the duality of man."

"Fuck, I guess I am smart now," Kovalsky snorted. "I remember when this dude was like fourteen, he rapped Brodsky over 'Lose Yourself' beat. Sometimes I look at him, I start thinking Sergei Alexandrovich got a little bit reincarnated."

"Who's Brodsky?" Shane groaned. "And Sergei… whatever."

"Poets," Yulia explained. "It's not great not to know Brodsky, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. And Sergei Alexandrovich is Yesenin, a Silver Age poet…"

"Ah, the one who was a troublemaker, wrote poems full of swear words, slit his wrists and hanged himself?" Shane remembered. "Ilya showed me his grave. And read some of his poems. He said you guys have those in the school curriculum?"

"It's true."

Maestro fished out another chip with his chopsticks and shoved it in Motya’s mouth as he walked by. Gross, the chopsticks were covered in spit!

"But when they give us homework in school to learn by heart something from Mayakovsky, I did what any normal person would do. 'Eat your pineapple, chew foie gras, your final day comes, bourgeois!'"

"There you go," Kovalsky nodded. "And Ilyukha probably chose to learn something like 'Nate!' or 'Lilichka.'"

Something tickled at the back of Shane's mind. That sounded familiar somehow.

"What's that 'Lilichka' about?"

"How do I put this gently…" Skipper trailed off thoughtfully.

"Yul’chik, give our boy summary later," Kovalsky said, grinning with enthusiasm. "You have no idea, Shenya. There's some juicy gossip in there. You're gonna love it."

"Gossip's gossip, but 'Lilichka' really is about love," Maestro scolded Kovalsky, pointing his chopsticks at him.

Shane thought he’d better google "Lilichka" since Ilya had apparently threatened him with it once, and cast a grim glance at the microphone. Well, at least the main mic wasn't on him. Though Shane doubted they'd get anything usable out of Kovalsky besides an obnoxious falsetto cackle and a string of fantastic roasting.

It was time. The ice was waiting.

***

Shane sat happily on the bench, swinging his legs. Kovalsky said that SKA had absolutely crushed Spartak last season, and they’d clearly rolled out onto the ice far too relaxed. A big mistake, as their coach was now telling them, nearly smacking the back of their heads in the process. Despite the distance and the arena noise, Shane could hear the coach’s yelling perfectly, as if he was screaming right next to his ear.

Five minutes into the first period. The scoreboard read 4–0. Two of those four goals scored by Shane. The head coach patted him on the shoulder and told him he was a “super-good-boy.” What a wonderful evening.

Kovalsky stood at the edge of the bench, listening to the yelling with an utterly blissful expression on his face.

The fan zone was screaming and going absolutely wild.

The DJ seemed to have chosen a signature song for Shane. Both times Shane had buried the puck in SKA’s net, the announcer called out the stats and the whole arena roared “Hollander!”—Hands Up by Ottawan blasted from the speakers. Shane thought the choice was questionable, but he had a complicated relationship with music in general. Whenever any reporters asked him what he liked listening to most, Shane honestly answered, “Silence.” Well, with the occasional exception of various kinds of white noise and video game soundtracks. Though when he came to Moscow, he discovered that he was perfectly fine with music as long as he could understand barely a word. Just unobtrusive background noise. His brain simply doesn’t process the lyrics because it has no idea what that collection of sounds means.

Maestro skated up to the boards and stopped in front of the spot where the first line was sitting.

“Thanks, boys. They’re going to give me no peace now.”

“Don’t worry, Tisha. We’ll protect you,” Kovalsky drawled benevolently.

“You’d better.”

The ice was cleared, and Shane hopped over the boards. The faceoff was in their zone. SKA’s center was no longer looking at him with the curiosity he’d shown at the start of the game, but glaring through clenched teeth—after four goals and one hell of a dressing-down.

“You're a little big for a Chinese, aren’t you?”

Shane had no idea what the guy was expecting. Karlssen answered most Russian phrases with a consistent “What?”, and Shane was only slightly better. But he understood perfectly well that the jab was racist.

“Ебало завали,” Shane suggested.

And won the faceoff.

***

Shane stumbled into the Red Gate apartment exhausted, a little tipsy (Kovalsky had poured a liter and a half of some craft beer into him), but happier than a man had any right to be. And then he nearly tripped over Marlow’s sneakers. Which, actually, could have been put on the shoe rack. Eh, barbarian.

“Shane! Want a beer?” Ilya called from the living room.

“I already have beer in me,” Shane declined. “And it’s some evil beer. A liter and a half shouldn’t be hitting me this hard.”

Ilya and Marlow popped their heads into the hallway with cartoonish interest.

“What kind of beer was it?”

“Some craft thing. I am never taking anything from Kovalsky again…”

“I open you secret,” Ilya snorted. “That ‘craft beer’ was obviously mix of Barkhatnoe beer, cheap vodka, and kvas Blagodei.”

Shane loaded the washing machine. He’d probably load it even unconscious; his entire hockey gear stank horribly after the game, including socks and underwear. Then he stuck his head under the shower to freshen up a bit, and only after that he collapsed onto the couch in the living room, next to Ilya and Marlow.

There was a laptop on the coffee table. VK was open in the browser. Some video was loaded.

“Shane,” Ilya said in a silky voice, sounding exactly like a bastard who had just ruined someone’s life and was absolutely delighted about it. “Why you bully like that team from Russia’s culture capital?”

“What?” Shane frowned.

Ilya reached over to the laptop and hit the space bar. The video turned out to be a clip from the game they’d just played. The arena’s regular DJ was playing the “immortal classic” by Chaif.

“What a pain! What a pain! Argentina–Jamaica…”

“WHAT’S THE SCORE?!” the announcer bellowed into the microphone.

“FIVE–NIL!” the fans roared back.

“What a pain! What a pain!…”

The camera cut back and forth between the fans, the scoreboard… and Shane, Kovalsky, and Motya happily swaying to the music on the bench.

“Well, actually,” Shane raised one finger. “They scored on us too. In the third period. Once.”

“Wait, that’s not all yet,” Ilya grinned and opened the next video.

Shane sat up straighter. And rightly so. It was a compilation of hot-mic footage.

Of course, the recording started with Kovalsky’s disgusting cackle after the goal.

Then came a selection of short clips featuring Shane, where approximately eighty percent was bleeped-out profanity.

“Do I really swear that much?” Shane wondered. “No way. Can’t be. I barely even spoke English in there… Wait.” Suspicion dawned on his face. “‘Yebalo’ counts as f-bomb level swearing too?”

“Yes!” Ilya replied cheerfully.

“Shit. What about pizda and all the derivatives?”

“Yep, those too,” Ilya nodded, looking so delighted that Shane wanted to punch him in the face.

“You’re on fire, Hollander. You’re on fire,” Marlow giggled into his beer.

Meanwhile, on the video, Kovalsky was needling the players during the post-game handshake line:

“Well, you could’ve played a little better, yeah?”

Cut. Shane sits on the bench, banging his stick against the floor and yelling:

“Eto p’rob’ros!”

Another cut. SKA’s left winger stands with Kovalsky by the penalty boxes.

“Mikh, so he’s speaking with throat R’s?”

“Yep,” Kovalsky smirked.

“Should’ve warned us.”

Shane hit pause.

“What are they talking about?”

“Shit,” Ilya sighed. “I really hoped you never find this out…”

“Ilya,” Shane said ominously.

“When you speak Russian, you use French ‘r.’ And in Russia it’s like speech defect. Kids often talk like that. It’s very cute. And when you swear, it’s fucking hilarious.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Shane said sweetly, and hit the play again.

Cut. Shane was miming firing a bow after scoring a goal, then turned to someone and yelled:

“Hurt to take it from a chink, [censored]?!”

“I’m proud of you, and I fucking hate you, you fucking polyglot ass,” Ilya shook his head.

“Kovalsky taught me that one,” Shane shrugged. “I spent the entire intermission before the second period memorizing that line in front of him like a fucking parrot.”

Cut. Shane had finally gotten into a fight with SKA’s center after the whole “Chinese” and “fucktard” exchange and was sitting in the penalty box. Kovalsky skated past the box, pointed his stick at Shane like a rifle, and sang:

“Лоша-а-а-а-ра-а!”

Shane responded with a deadpan face and flipped him off.

The end.

"I came up with a drinking game," Marlow spoke up. "We put on Hollander's hot-mic game recording and drink every time he swears."

"Will be shitfaced by the end of first period. Brilliant idea, Marly."

Shane snorted and got up from the couch, swaying slightly.

"Fuck you guys. I'm going to bed."

"Drink!" Marlow said, clinking glasses with Ilya, who still couldn't stop giggling.

***

[ten hours later]

***

The “evil cops,” otherwise known as Dynamo Moscow, and Ilya in particular, were celebrating their first (easy) win of the season somewhere at a karaoke bar. Meanwhile, Shane was sitting in the kitchen, still wide awake even though it was well past midnight.

Because nice guy Kolya had decided to actually open his VK feed for the first time in a year, rather than just check his messages. His friends list included Kovalsky, Rozanov, and God only knew who else—people he’d known since the junior championships.

And nice guy Kolya quickly clocked the pattern.

Shane woke up to a friend request from “Nikolai Chekist,” followed by a barrage of questions. And for the past hour, Shane had been learning the most delightful details about his teammate’s youth. Apparently, at the tender age of fifteen, Kolya had been hanging out and drinking at the Rozanov brothers’ dacha. It was that glorious summer when they drank away their dad’s car. And then Shane tearfully begged Kolya not to blab in the Voyageurs’ chat about who Shane rented his room from.

The sound of an engine came from the deserted street below. Car doors slammed. Then Shane heard Ilya’s voice and stepped out onto the balcony.

Ilya and, if Shane correctly identified the light-red mane and thick beard, Dynamo’s captain, Lyonya Kuznetsov, were staggering away from the taxi. Kuznetsov was a little unsteady on his feet, but he was still carrying Ilya, who had one arm slung around his neck. Ilya’s legs were completely tangled up. He was also singing. His articulation was languid and bizarre.

“My love lives on the fifth floor, almost where the mo-o-on is…”

Shane deliberately cleared his throat as loudly as possible, and the two men looked up.

“Fifth floor. Drag this animal upstairs.”

“Thank God!” Kuznetsov exclaimed, fished Ilya’s keys out of his pocket, and hauled the surprise midnight Pavarotti toward the entrance.

By the time the elevator doors opened, Ilya’s eyes had gone completely glassy. Kuznetsov, meanwhile, was barely drunk: nowhere near unconscious, just jolly and exhausted.

With some proper teamwork, the animal was washed and wrapped in towels, and then Kuznetsov explained what happened, while feeding the thankfully obedient Ilya charcoal tabs.

“He fucking wanted Valpolicella. Сan’t mix drinks like that, you fancy idiot,” Kuznetsov grumbled. “Lucky we got taxi driver so fucking brave. This little shit puked near karaoke bar door, right in front of car, and guy still agreed drive us.”

“I thought he physically couldn't drink enough to get that wasted,” Shane shook his head typing a message to Kolya:

Then, remembering the local hospitality customs, Shane offered:

“Want some tea and cake?”

“Oh, man, you’re saint!” Kuznetsov immediately agreed.

There was always a cake in the fridge, “just in case.” There were usually three kinds of “cases”:

1. Zinaida Vasilyevna dropped by to discuss some tiny matter;

2. Marlow showed up with three cups from Coffeemania (if it was morning) or some booze (if it was evening);

3. An unexpected visit from one of the Rozanovs.

Shane had never crossed paths with Grigory Vilenovich again, thankfully. He had no desire to see eye to eye with a potentially dangerous man carrying a firearm.

Alexei had come by once, too. Shane wasn’t quite sure how to address him— Lyosha, Lyokha… Comrade Senior Lieutenant?! First, Alexei and Ilya discussed knockoff iPhone cases speculation, and then they moved on to some bloodshed.

Shane only realised they were talking about corpses because Ilya only ever turned on the dusty TV in the living room for two things: Criminal Russia and Leonid Kanevsky’s true crime show. So Shane had picked up a few things.

It was fucking fascinating: he didn’t know how to say “take out the trash” in Russian, but he knew the word for “dismember.”

A couple of days ago, Polina dropped by too.

“Ilyusha, you owe me, remember? I want this little thing for New Year.”

Shane didn’t understand what they were talking about. But he caught a glimpse of some jewelry piece picture with “Cartier” written on it on Polina’s phone screen as he passed by. He wasn't eavesdropping, he was just making tea. It just happened.

“What Cartier, Polya? I already told Dad I’m broke!” Ilya protested, and this part Shane understood perfectly well.

“You lied to Dad about being broke. Don’t bullshit me,” Polina said calmly. Apparently Shane wasn’t the only one who knew that Ilya pretty often felt stingy. “By the way, what’s the name of that poor thing you hid in the closet?”

Shane didn’t understand that sentence, but he saw Ilya tensed up.

“Uh… Zhenya.”

“Uh-huh.” Polina suddenly turned toward Shane, who was already heading to the living room with his tea, and held out her hand for a handshake. “Hi, Zhenya, I’m Polina. Nice to meet you.”

For some reason, Ilya screamed like a groundhog.

He refused to explain what exactly had happened or why his stepmother had called Shane “Zhenya.” But he went to GUM for the Cartier after all.

Unlike Ilya’s lovely relatives, Kuznetsov didn’t ask for anything and was simply happy to eat some cake. This time it was a horrifyingly sugary, greasy Kievskiy cake that Shane wouldn’t eat even if someone held a gun to his head.

“You know Ilyukha saved you as ‘wife’ in his phone, right?” Kuznetsov casually dropped on Shane.

“He fucking what?” Shane hissed ominously, looking at the warm, towel-wrapped Ilya with a very clear you’re dead expression.

“Well, makes sense,” Ilya slurred, completely unaware of how close he was to death. “I take your Instagram pictures. We went to IKEA together. Our chat is shopping list. First I thought I put “grazhdanskiy muzh”, but it sounded not nice, like one of us is asshole who don’t want marry.”

Shane hissed a string of incomprehensible curses under his breath, threw a crumpled T-shirt from the drying rack at Ilya, and glared at Kuznetsov.

“If this asshole doesn’t show up to practice one morning, just know he pushed me too far and I threw him off the balcony.”

“No surprise,” Kuznetsov snorted. “Can I have more?”

“Yeah, sure.”

While Shane cut Kuznetsov another piece of the greasy nightmare, Ilya finally managed to get his T-shirt on. Inside out, of course. And started poking into Shane’s side.

“Sh-aa-aane,” he drawled, his intonation turning oddly languid. “I know where to take your Hugo Boss and Rolex for next posts. Let’s go to Roman Viktyuk’s Theatre. I’ll take you beautiful pictures. Will be great.”

“Let’s discuss your ideas when you’re sober, okay?” Shane grumbled.

He put a slice of cake in front of Kuznetsov. Who for some reason was staring at Ilya with wide eyes. Shane didn't understand why. Like, was he surprised because he thought Ilya was way too hoodlum for theater?

“Um,” Kuznetsov cleared his throat. “Shane, how many you weigh?”

“About two hundred pounds. Why?”

Shane irritably slapped Ilya’s hand away—he had clearly been reaching over to touch him.

“Right.” Kuznetsov swallowed nervously. “And you don’t fight much, yes?”

“I’m a sniper. I can’t afford to waste time in the sinbin,” Shane shrugged, still not getting where this whole conversation was going. “I’ve had four fights in my entire career.”

Kuznetsov, now deep in thought, devoured his cake in two bites, then said:

“Okay. I sleep with him and make sure this dumbass don’t choke on his own vomit. You go on couch.”

Shane had no fucking idea what had just happened. But he couldn’t think of a good enough lie to make Kuznetsov take the couch instead, so he went to get spare bedding.

The next morning, Shane had had time to go for a run, meditate, and answer all his emails by the time the two “evil cops” rose from the dead.

Ilya spent a while being sick in the bathroom. Kuznetsov silently found a bottle of mineral water in the fridge. When Ilya finally showed up in the kitchen with a deathly blue face, Kuznetsov tossed the bottle at him and then handed Shane a thousand-rouble bill.

“Can you go get some ginger salad from that Chinese place on Novoryazanskaya? Only thing to help this walking deadman right now.”

***

Ilya didn’t remember shit about last night after he’d ordered Korol i Shut for the third time at the karaoke bar.

He felt like shit.

And for some fucking reason, he’d woken up with Kuzya. Nothing personal, Leonid, but you’re really not my type.

Ilya stuck to the mineral water.

Then Shane left, and Kuzya grabbed Ilya by the neck, as if he was about to shake him like a kitten.

“Listen to me, you little shit,” Kuzya growled quietly. “Pining after Hollander? Fine. But tricking him into moving in with you and sleeping in the same bed with you under the whole ‘bros’ bullshit when you actually want to fuck him? Have you completely lost your fucking mind?!”

Ilya felt too shitty to process any of this, but the fear was slowly and inevitably freezing him in place.

“So you slept with me because you thought I was gonna rape him while drunk?” Ilya squeaked.

“You have no fucking idea how wasted you were! I thought you were a decent guy, but this… Does he even know about you? If he doesn’t, give him a chance to find another apartment, you asshole.”

Ilya was breathing rapidly, staring into Kuznetsov’s icy grey eyes, and had absolutely no idea what to say. Coming out of the closet was only easy and pleasant when you knew for certain you weren’t going to get killed afterward.

A memory flashed through his mind: Kuznetsov’s little sister lived with a girlfriend. Their parents kicked her out, and Lyonya supported her until she found a job.

Take the risk?

He couldn’t feel his hands. Fuck. Fuck.

“Your problem is just the consent thing, or being gay too?” Ilya forced out.

“I asked you a simple question! Does he know?” Kuznetsov roared, shaking him by the neck.

Kuzya was over two meters tall and could bend horseshoes with his bare hands. Ilya was too scared to move.

“Yeah, he knows,” Ilya breathed. When the huge hand finally released his neck, he covered his face with trembling hands. “He came here to play because I suggested it.”

“Hmm.” Ilya looked at Kuznetsov, still shaking. Typical bearded Viking face had switched into neutral politeness. “So you two are, like… dating?”

“God, no,” Ilya replied immediately. “Not my thing at all. I know how to be friends. I know how to be friends and fuck. This is, like, the second option. Lyonya.” Ilya knew he sounded pathetic, but whatever. “Lyon’, please, please, don’t tell anyone.”

“Of course not. I’m not an idiot,” Kuznetsov shrugged. “I can imagine what your father would do to you if he found out. Just one thing. Maybe cut back on the booze, huh?”

“Huh?”

Kuznetsov clicked his tongue and shook his head, rolling his eyes.

“Dude. You were talking in Litvinova’s voice and asking him out to the Viktyuk’s Theatre. Right in front of me.”

“I asked him out where?!”

***

When Shane came back with Chinese food, Kuznetsov demanded his Moscow phone number and added him on VK. Shane exchanged contact info with him, glancing sideways at Ilya. He was acting strange. Slowly chewing his salad and staring at the wall, like he’d just returned from a war zone.

“So,” Kuznetsov said sternly. “Don’t let him get drunk. When we go out, drink and party, you come with us and watch him. When Rozanov speaking go fucked up, you get him out immediately.”

“Okaaaay?” Shane blinked in confusion.

“Good boy,” Kuznetsov smirked. Then he gave Shane a strange look, followed by an equally strange look at Ilya, and said, “You two are just like Sanya and Ksyusha, only backwards.”

“Who?” Shane asked, confused again.

But Kuznetsov had already turned around and left the apartment.

Ilya suddenly slid off his stool onto the floor with a pained groan.

“Never been this scared in my life!”

Shane bit back the comment even when the geese were chasing you? and asked instead:

“What happened here while I was gone?”

Ilya finally met his eyes and said clearly:

“Kuzya sent you to sleep on couch because he thought I may rape you while drunk.”

“What?!” Shane squeaked.

“And I had to confirm that between us everything is mutual consent.”

Shane hit the floor too. His thoughts started darting around like frightened little fish.

“Fuck. Fuck. We’re fucked. And he didn’t…?”

“His sister has girlfriend,” Ilya breathed. He reached over to the table, grabbed his salad, and kept eating. “And you heard him yourself. He literally told you watch me so I don’t accidentally out us while drunk.”

“How about you just stop drinking?” Shane offered reasonably.

Ilya did not appreciate the suggestion.

“Right now, obviously, I feel like shit, and I could agree with you. But tonight I’ll feel better and regret every promise I give.”

Shane leaned back against the fridge. So much for a good morning, and he still had to make it to practice.

“Hey, so what was that theater you were inviting me to yesterday?”

Ilya pressed his lips into a thin line and yowled like a cat.

Chapter End Notes

Brigada - imagine The Sopranos and Peaky Blinders blend, but in Mob Moscow
Ak Bars - Kazan HC, "snow leopards". SKA - St. Pete HC, "army boys". Dominated the regular season in 2012-2013.
Fenya - criminal language
bipolar anus - Kovalsky says "биполяр очка", a crude pun (bipolar (diminutive)/bipolar asshole), but Yulia is right, the word "bipolar" is commonly used to describe duality of people. "Очко" is one of the words for anus, but in thug slang. Strangely enough, it is also a general word for "point" and "blackjack".
"Nate" - actually "Please, listen!" in translations, but Kovalsky doesn't know it.
chink - originally just "Chinese", anything can be a slur with proper intonation. Dude did his homework about beefs between East Asians.
"Yebalo zavali" - "shut your fucking trap" is the closest one. Obscene Russian C2.
Shane's final comeback is мудоёб [mudoyob]. Maximum level of rude.
Barkhatnoye beer - dark beer, a bit on the sweet side, kinda close to kvas in terms of taste
Chaif, "Argentina-Jamaica"
That song is played with 5:0 score when the DJ is mean enough, it's classic
Handshakes line: a legit KHL regulation. Every game in the regular season has handshakes.
Eto probros - that was icing!
лошара [loshara] slang for "loser"
Buratino - classic sweet soda drink
Pizda - imagine if "cunt" was as rude as "fuck". "Cunt [came] for you"=you are fucked/you are fucking dead. But! pizdato=amazing.
churka - now THAT really is a slur (usually shot at the Caucasian folk though). This is the stuff to punch someone in the face for (which Ilya did in chapter 1).
Chekist - double-leveled reference. Chief Secretary Androvov was from KGB. And Cheka is OG KGB.
Secret, "My love lives on the fifth floor"
And here I'm gonna break the popular fanons, "moya lyubov" is a songspeak. Nobody says that ever. But it is frequent in song lyrics. So if you want to make Ilya say that, make sure he sings it. Like "Forgive me my love" (Zemfira) or something.
Vasilyevna/Vilenovich - you address elders with a patronymic. But if you are close-ish, you use uncle/auntie+first name diminutive
Kievskiy cake - meringue&buttercream, basically. You love it or you hate it.
grazhdanskiy muzh - common-law husband, assholes who don't want to propose started using this term to shut their girlfriends up about marriage. Thankfully these days women don't really fall for that shit anymore.
Roman Viktyuk’s Theatre - famous for drag-shows. Was popular among the Moscow queer scene.
Renata Litvinova - an actress with very distinctive voice and fancy manners
Korol i Shut - punk band, and I swear to God it was the most Russian millenial sentence I have ever written.
The real life Chaif bullying
Shane's & Ilya's teams uniforms, mascots + lore

Chapter 7: of happiness

Chapter Summary

Grigory Vilenovich: ding dong
Shane: THIS IS PARCOURS

Sveta: ding dong
Ilya: WE GOTTA PARCOURS TO ARGENTINA

Chapter Notes

fatphobic culture and malpractice leading to disorders in this chapter and the next are heavily implied
Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

The sweetest thing at Ilya’s mob party in his Boston penthouse was the surprise in the form of an unfinished chess game. It had been left exactly as they’d played it. They started the game back in March, but that night Ilya said “fuck it” and dragged Shane off to the bedroom. And now, while the guests sang and danced to songs from The Sopranos, Shane and Ilya were quietly finishing their game at the edge of the kitchen island, raising a toast for every captured piece. Though it wasn’t exactly fair since Shane was nursing a beer while Ilya was drinking sambuca.

In the middle of this unglamorous activity, the Bears’ PR lady caught them.

“How lovely, I’ve finally found you!” she said with a broad smile, adjusting her shiny black ponytail.

“Hello, Madison,” Ilya replied in a flat voice, without taking his eyes off the board. “I’d be happy to say I glad to see you. But I’ll go to hell if I lie that shameless.”

“Hi,” Shane said curtly.

“Don’t be rude,” Madison shot back. “Your narrative has suddenly changed, Montreal’s PR department is currently shitting itself, and a whole crowd of people have no idea what to do with you two. Let’s give them some content for a fun little article. I’ll snap a few pictures, five minutes of shame, and then we’ll part our ways.”

Ilya caught Shane’s eye, fell silent for two seconds, then shrugged.

“Fine. Go ahead.”

Shane castled. Ilya was playing aggressively as usual, but he was also losing more pieces. Madison turned on her voice recorder, and he mentally prepared himself for some kind of hell.

“You’ve lived together for over four months. How haven’t you killed each other?”

“First of all, I cook super good,” Ilya boasted.

“As painful as it is to admit, that’s true,” Shane sighed. “And I catch the insects he can’t stand.”

“We also had cleaning service. That kills half reasons to fight,” Ilya continued. “And I invited guests twice a week, three times max, so I wouldn’t annoy him.”

“And no magic.”

Madison was smiling as if she were having the time of her life.

“If even half the people approached household life the way you two do, we’d have fewer divorces. Next! Some fun fact about each other that few people know.”

Ilya thought for a moment, and Shane started drilling him with a dark look because this menace was obviously thinking about something indecent.

“Logistics!” Marlow shouted from the fridge, where he was looking for beer.

“Shut up!” Shane growled, turning violently red.

“God exists!” Marlow continued, laughing.

“Shut the fuck up, Marly, or I’ll stab you!” Ilya threatened.

Madison watched them carefully and made a wise decision not to ask.

“This heartless man,” Ilya finally said after Marlow left with his beer, “fell asleep watching Swan Lake.”

Shane was outraged and decided that instead of bringing up the “Snezhana the Astrologer” story, he’d go with…

“Well, you’re a crybaby.”

“Are you immortal?” Ilya asked sweetly.

Shane just grinned, pulled out his phone, found the right cartoon on YouTube, and turned the volume up. The moment Ilya heard the tune, he inhaled sharply and covered his eyes with one hand.

“You fucking bastard!”

Shane showed Madison the screen and shrugged.

“I don’t know why. It’s just a cute cartoon about ponies.”

“One day,” Ilya said ominously, “you push me too far. I’ll show you cartoon about penguins. And your soul will shatter into pieces in five minutes. If you have it.”

“Come up with something decent, asshole, and then I won’t embarrass you either,” Shane shot back, and considering the sweatpants, gilded chains, and slicked-back hair, he looked very much like a stereotypical Scorsese-movie character who’d shown up to collect money.

Ilya took his phone back, turned off the pony cartoon, and thought for another moment.

“Hmm. Usually you drive like grandma, but you’re the best extreme driver I’ve ever seen. Remember when MKAD turned into ice rink in December, and two idiots crashed right in front of us? Not sure I would manage get us out of that.”

“Thanks,” Shane said with a cheerful squint. “Well… For those who’ve only heard your broken English, this may come shocking…” Shane glanced at Madison. “If you hear Rozanov rapping in Russian, don’t be fooled: it’s probably Brodsky.”

“What a sudden coming-out…” Madison flipped through her notes. “Do you know each other’s top songs on Spotify or iTunes?”

“Skyrim soundtracks. Or soundtracks from some chill RPGs,” Ilya answered without hesitation.

“That’s true,” Shane agreed.

“And?” Madison prompted suggestively.

“He doesn’t have either iTunes or Spotify,” Shane said confidently, then whistled the tune from Pirates of the Caribbean.

“When did you realize you could be friends?” Madison immediately asked, clearly deciding to let the piracy question slide.

Ilya’s face lit up with a grin as he spotted an opportunity to jab and troll someone.

“CCM commercial, 2010. They told us look each other in eyes and pretend we hate each other, but we laughed like crazy and couldn’t stop. Miracle they managed to shoot it at all.”

“Rozanov, you are doing absolutely nothing to make my job easier,” Madison said, hanging her head.

Shane took pity on her and added:

“You can write it like this: we met in 2008, and even back then, every time he opened his mouth, I wanted to punch his teeth in. But then we got to know each other better. And since then, I threaten to kill him every single day.”

Madison photographed them at the chessboard: one yakuza version of Tony Soprano and one Sasha Beliy.

Unexpectedly, the comments under the article turned into a full-blown war among chess fans, who meticulously analyzed the game and argued over who actually won.

(It was Ilya, who had quietly pulled off a gambit that evening.)

***

“I’m never going to Kazan again,” Shane declared barging into the Red Gate apartment.

“Why, Golden Horde crushed you and you didn’t like it?” Ilya smirked without malice, taking his luggage. “Understand.”

“It was unpleasant,” Shane agreed. “But that’s life.” He put his shoes on the rack and shook the rainwater from his jacket onto the mat—it was raining cats and dogs and fucking elephants outside. “The guys dragged me to the market. Told me, ‘Go ask this lady for some plov.’ So I did. Then I did it again. And again. And again. Skipper had to drag me away from the stall by the hood. I sort of blacked out.” Shane measured Ilya with a dark look—the fucker was obviously trying not to laugh. “We went to the rink. I sat next to the Ak Bars bench. I heard chewing. Turned out Ak Bars’ backup goalie was hiding some chak-chak under the bench. He saw me looking at him. Offered to share. I knew you aren’t supposed to eat before a game! I never do that! I wanted to say no, but Karlssen was next to me, and he decided refusing would be rude, so he took some. We started eating the fucking chak-chak. We finished the whole thing. I almost threw up on the ice. I’m going to get fat there, Ilya! I’ll get so fat I won’t be able to play hockey anymore! I can’t go to Kazan! As if khinkali and chik-me-ru-li weren’t enough… I hate you. And this country! Fucking craft yorsh! Goddamn shawarma! Fucking Teremok! Tatarstan, may the gods curse it!”

“Let me guess,” Ilya said perceptively and very, very calmly. “You couldn’t fasten your jeans, huh?”

Shane turned around and pressed his forehead against the door.

He really couldn’t.

Ilya stepped closer, pressed his chest against Shane’s back, and slipped warm hands under his sweater.

“Don’t be upset,” Ilya drawled, biting his ear, and Shane shivered—on the road, he barely had time to even jerk off in the shower. “We’ll buy you new. You always been hot, yeah? But you have no idea how fucking awesome your ass looks right now.” Ilya pressed his hips against him, and Shane let out a quiet moan. “I’m hungry. I’m sick. I want you so fucking bad.”

“I need a shower…” Shane breathed, pushing his hips back.

“Great. Let’s go.” Ilya was practically purring as he stroked Shane through his sweatpants. “I’ll eat you out so good you can’t stand. Then I’ll sit you on my cock and tease you. Drive you crazy. And you won’t come until you forget your name. Sounds good?”

Shane liked the idea so much that he tore Ilya’s T-shirt before they even made it to the bathroom.

***

For some reason, whenever Marlow showed up in the morning with Coffeemania cups, he could never get the number of cups right. Ilya would say, “Marly, forget this dumb shit, I have turka.” “Marly, why the hell Coffeemania? You’re not Rockefeller.” But Marlow thought it was polite, so he kept contributing to the coffee shop at the Clean Ponds. Shane was starting to suspect he simply had something going on with one of the baristas.

One morning, Marlow texted:

I’ll be there in twenty, got cake?

There was cake—a crêpe-and-sour-cream cake (the only kind Shane ate, too). All the morning routines and chores were done, and Ilya, saying something like “twenty minutes is practically eternity,” pushed Shane against the wall, dropped to his knees, and took him into his mouth before Shane had fully gotten hard.

After the forced coming-out to himself, Shane was amazed at how fucking stupid he’d been. Of course he liked girls. Sure. He’d had enough blowjobs in his life to provide a respectable sample size for a scientific study, but there had never been anything spicy about them. Unless it was Ilya. Ilya, who took him deep, buried his nose into Shane’s pubes, and rolled his eyes with pleasure. Ilya, who let Shane pull him by the hair and come in his mouth. Ilya, who visibly enjoyed it, who moaned quietly, stroking himself in the same rhythm.

They finished in about three minutes, and Shane gentlemanly sacrificed his T-shirt so Ilya could wipe himself off.

Ilya cleaned himself up, made a three-pointer with the T-shirt into the laundry basket, and beamed, his eyes narrowing slightly. Not slyly, as it usually was, without ever-present mockery, just… happily.

Shane had his arms around Ilya’s waist, Ilya was holding Shane’s face in his hands, and they were kissing when Shane thought…

Shit.

He had never been this happy in his life.

Just as Shane was getting the cake out, the doorbell rang, and Ilya opened the door without checking, saying:

“Marly, you’re just in… Papa?!”

“Good morning to you too,” said Grigory Vilenovich from the doorway.

Shane quietly set the cake on the table. He couldn’t get to the closet. Hiding silently in the overhead storage? Impossible, he was not a fucking ninja. He grabbed his phone from the table and started backing away. Ilya’s hand appeared in the doorway, signaling: go back, hide.
Luckily, the balcony door was open: the heating was already on, though it wasn’t particularly cold outside yet, and it turned the apartment into a soft sauna. Shane slipped onto the balcony and looked around. Climb down to the fourth-floor balcony?! Jump onto the drainpipe and try to slide down?!

“Hey, Hollzy, what are you doing over there?” Marlow yelled from the traffic light.

Shane put a finger to his lips so Marlow wouldn’t give him away, turned around, and realized he didn’t actually have much choice. He did have to jump onto Zinaida Vasilyevna’s balcony. He sighed and climbed onto the railing.

Marlow, having made it to Ilya’s, quickly assessed the situation. Shane: pulled a District 13 move. Ilya: had once again been hiding both Shane’s schedule and his pig plushie. So Cliff told Grigory Vilenovich that he’d taken the third cup for himself because he drank a lot of coffee, but of course he would share with his teammate’s dad because he wasn’t selfish.

…This time, Marlow hadn’t brought enough cups.

Early in the morning the doorbell rang. Svetа returned from the Urals.

At first Shane thought it was Marlow, until he heard Ilya’s screams, unmistakably panicking:

“No! No! Again?! Oh God, fuck, no!”

Shane looked out into the hallway, concerned. Sveta stood there, looking grim. Ilya was clutching his head like he was trying to tear his hair out.

“What happened?” Shane frowned.

Sveta kicked off her loafers and tossed some kind of box into his hands.

“Uh. What is this?”

“A pregnancy test,” Sveta said grimly. “I haven’t done it yet. I’m scared.”

Shane dropped the box.

“You’re scared?! This is fucking terrifying! We’re not sixteen anymore!” Ilya turned toward Shane, growing paler by the second. “Sergei Vladimirovich will drive us to forest and make us dig our own graves!”

“B-but that can’t be! We used condoms!” Shane squeaked.

“Asshole pharmacists who puncture condoms. They exist,” Sveta said.

“I’m too young to die!” Ilya screamed at the ceiling. “Shane, we move to Argentina. Will never play hockey again—yes, it’s horrible, but what choice do we have?!”

Shane clung to the doorframe, reminding himself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

Meanwhile, Sveta smacked Ilya upside the head and reached her hand to Shane.

“Gimme.”

It took Shane three tries, his hands shaking, to pick the test up. He handed it to Sveta, and she disappeared into the bathroom. Ilya paced back and forth down the hallway and seemed to be praying.

“Stop pacing, I already feel so fucking sick!” Shane snapped. “This is a nightmare. We can’t have kids. I have no idea what to do with them. And you’re an idiot! And you drink, too!”

“That’s all bullshit! You have no idea what connections her father have. We’re fucked!”

Sveta threw open the door and barked:

“You two shut up!”

Shane shut his mouth and followed her into the kitchen. Ilya trailed after them. Sveta placed the test on top of its box on the table, then put her phone beside it with a countdown timer running. Ilya clasped his hands together and started praying quietly again.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

The doorbell rang.

“Da blyad’!” Ilya growled and went to open the door. “Marly, terrible timing!”

“Hey to you too,” Marlow said, looking confused. “Something wrong?”

Shane was biting his nails and really wanted to cry.

“Morning, Svetlana,” Marlow greeted her. “Didn’t know you were here. Want some coffee?”

“There’s a chance she can’t have coffee,” Shane answered automatically in a frightened falsetto, without taking his eyes off the phone countdown.

Ilya started pacing again, muttering under his breath.

“Wow!” Marlow spotted the pregnancy test. “Okay, wait.” He looked around at everyone, frowning in confusion. “I don’t get it. Who’s the daddy?”

Shane, Ilya, and Sveta all looked at him.

Silently.

Marlow, being the tactless asshole that he was, gave a cheerful snort.

“No way?”

The timer beeped, and they looked at the test again.

One line.

“Yes!” Shane jumped to his feet.

“God exists!!!” Ilya screamed at the ceiling.

Sveta squealed with happiness.

They hugged and started jumping around in a chamber parody of an Irish jig. Shane hit his head on the chandelier, almost knocking it down—he didn’t give a shit. Marlow stood in the kitchen doorway, quietly cracking up.

Still jumping, Ilya pulled out his phone and called someone.

“Kuz’, tell Semyonych I won’t be at practice today,” he shouted into the phone. “One line! ONE LINE! We’re going to a bar!”

Without waiting for an answer, Ilya hung up and turned off his phone.

“What bars are open at nine in the morning?” Shane shouted.

“I know one on Lubyanka, let’s fucking go!” Sveta yelled, and they all headed toward the hallway, still jumping around in their ridiculous little circle.

“Nah, well, you do you, Roz,” Marlow giggled. “I’m off to practice. I don’t want to piss off Romannikov.”

“Don’t care! Best! Day! Ever!”

***

Chapter End Notes

Are you immortal - classic gopnik line
Cute cartoon about pony
Penguins, proceed with caution
MKAD - Moscow Ring Road, also known as Hell on Earth
Plov - the food of gods
chak-chak - it's a good thing Karlssen accepted the treat, you don't refuse chak-chak in Kazan, that's ANARCHY
khinkali - big Georgian dumplings
yorsh - beer+vodka
turka/jezva - names for ibriq in Russia
Coffeemania - the most expensive coffee shop in Moscow
The Clean Ponds - NOT CLEAN IN THE SLIGHTEST
Dynamo coach: Yuri Semyonovich Romannikov, also known as "Semyonych".
Cop Shop - originally "мусарня", "the place of junks".
"Ilyukha, get the fuck out of town" - a meme reference "тiкай з городу, тобi пiзда" (incorrect Ukranian)
Ilya's ibriq, sort of

Chapter 8: where Shane is caught in a hurricane of bad luck, and Ilya plays the knight

Chapter Summary

Ksyusha: These bitches gay... Good for them, good for them
Shane: Drunk runner level 80
Ilya: Save your buddy, lose your license challenge accepted

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

Eight in the morning. Ilya’s penthouse was a complete disaster, but that was to be expected. The people who were too drunk to make it home were sleeping on every horizontal surface—someone was even dozing in the bathroom.

Shane barely drank the night before, and Ilya had already sobered up, so they went to the nearest diner, sleepy and hungry, to sit around quietly for a couple of hours. Shane’s flight was leaving around lunchtime.

Shoots, goddamn it.

“I’d even be up for your syrniki with sgushonka right now,” Shane sighed, picking the bacon out of his breakfast.

“No respect for American cuisine? Tsk-tsk,” Ilya smirked.

Shane rolled his eyes.

“Fat, fat, and a little more fat. And you have the audacity to call me boring.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.” Ilya gently nudged Shane’s sneaker with his own. “Next time you’re in Boston, no parties, no random people. You’ll stay at my place, and I make you breakfast.”

Shane nudged his sneaker back and raised one corner of his mouth ever so slightly.

Ilya wished for another lockout. Or maybe just to play in the same city—there were two teams in New York. Except players of their caliber didn’t get traded as a rule.

Take what life gives you: in three weeks, they’d meet in Spain, where nobody gave a shit about them. They’d wander the streets, drink sangria, look at Gaudi’s work, holding hands.

Closet, closet, closet. Ilya didn’t want to talk to journalists or publish anything about his sexuality. The whole world could go fuck itself, he didn’t care. His private life was his business and his only.

But…

He looked at the freckles, the slight flush on Shane’s cheekbones, those dark eyes, and thought:

Shame I can’t kiss you whenever I want.

Shane drained his cup in two gulps, signaled to the waitress for more coffee, and said:

“I’ll be right back.”

“Go, go,” Ilya chuckled.

The breakfasts at this diner were actually pretty decent, unless bacon made you sick, of course. Trademark American. When you’re hungry, it works nicely. Ilya wouldn’t have dragged Shane to a place like this, it was not his type, but the flight timing wasn’t great. The more decent places in this part of Boston opened closer to noon.

A bell jingled.

“Hands up! Open the register!”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

It felt almost like going back to childhood. Lyosha still bitched about threats to cut the fingers off and grumbled “why couldn’t Dad take bribes like a normal person?” every time he got drunk.

Ilya raised one hand and kept eating. A guy looking for easy money was even less interesting than his sandwich.

“Hands, I said!” The robber jabbed the barrel of his gun into Ilya’s shoulder, and Ilya raised his second hand. But once the fucker with the shotgun moved on, he went back to his sandwich.

The whole thing was vaguely reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, just with fewer guns.

The register was emptied, and the guy started collecting wallets from the customers. Ilya glanced up at the mirror and caught Shane’s eye, who had just come out of the bathroom.

Here came the cavalry.

Shane ducked down so he wouldn’t be visible over the counter and silently crept closer to Ilya. The robber kept collecting wallets. Three tables away from Ilya. Two… One…

To be a good hockey player, you need fucking incredible reaction time, and this guy didn’t have it.

Ilya grabbed the shotgun and pointed the barrel at the ceiling. A split second later, Shane slammed the robber to the floor and pressed a knee to his back.

“Stay still and don’t move,” he hissed.

The loot bag went flying somewhere toward the far wall of the dining room, and the customers burst into applause. Someone was calling the police.

Ilya put the shotgun on the table and was just about to joke about “boring diners” when the frightened waitress whispered, with a hint of awe:

“Are you gangsters?”

Ah.

Right.

They still looked like gangsters—gilded chains, hair slicked back with gel.

“No, we are Russians,” Shane deadpanned, perfectly finishing the Balabanov’s immortal classic reference.

Ilya burst out laughing.

They didn’t wait for the police; Shane had a flight to catch.

Once they were on the way to the airport, Ilya found Bi-2 in his pirated music collection.

“If you try to rename me into ‘Marilyn the Prostitute’ in your phone,” Shane threatened, although Ilya could see he was amused too, “I’ll strangle you.”

***

***

…

***

“What's up with your teeth?” Mom immediately asked, and Shane mentally cursed himself, involuntarily running his tongue over the chipped incisor.

Two days earlier, Ilya, scrolling on his phone first thing in the morning, had chuckled and casually asked whether Shane wanted to come along to a “strelka”.

“Like in Brigada?” Shane had blinked at him in bewilderment.

“Not exactly”, Ilya shrugged. “You remember Kuzya. He has a sister. She lives with girlfriend.”

“Like us?”

“Yeah, but they really date.”

The remark had stirred up an unpleasant, nagging feeling, but Shane quickly shoved it aside. Ilya was right. If they were dating, there wouldn’t have been any logistically challenging “orgies” or Sveta fiascos.

“Some asshole punched this girlfriend. Seems like they live in shitty neighbourhood. So we gonna find this dickhead and all his friends and beat shit out of them.”

Shane wouldn’t exactly have called the area around the three railway stations particularly nice and peaceful either. Once, while he was sitting on a swing in the morning, sipping his green smoothie, a group of guys in sweatpants had approached him with some vague claims. They lost most of their nerve, however, when Shane stood up and squared his shoulders—they looked pretty pathetic. Then Ilya loudly called out from the open window, asking what was going on, and the guys quickly ran away. Because Ilya leaned out of the window holding an airsoft rifle, which looked pretty legit. He occasionally used it to shoot at pigeons when they started taking over the courtyard and shitting everywhere.

“Alright, let’s go,” Shane agreed.

At Kuznetsov’s call, guys from Dynamo’s second and fourth lines showed up in Biryulyovo, along with Ilya and Shane; Marlow, who was curious to see how it would all end, and the cocky Czech Jacek from Spartak. Kovalsky wanted to come too, but when his girlfriend heard about his plans, she locked him inside the apartment without the keys. Also, practically half of HC Vityaz turned up.

Shane wasn’t surprised about the last group at all. Before coming to Moscow, he hadn’t followed the KHL. Even so, he had heard about their notorious game against Avangard that had been cancelled due to an absolutely ridiculous number of penalty minutes for mass brawls.

Alexandra Kuznetsova, nicknamed “Twiggy,” sported a pixie cut, dressed like a Disney fairy, and seemed to have absolutely no patience whatsoever. Given her height (she barely came up to her 6’5” brother’s belly button), it looked rather comical. Her girlfriend, Ksyusha, towered a full head above her and was so skinny she looked like she had just escaped a concentration camp. Both her arms were covered from shoulder to wrist in tropical flowers and birds.

Before Kuznetsov went with them to arrange a showdown with the rascals in an industrial zone, Shane suggested that the ladies might benefit from taking up karate, given their questionable choice of neighbourhood.

“Long and inefficient”, Ilya dismissed the idea. “Look at their build.”

Then, in a tone that implied this was painfully obvious, he suggested Twiggy buying a traumatic handgun.

After the brawl with the locals Shane discovered that he’d chipped one of his incisors, and he instantly regretted that Ilya hadn’t bought a traumatic handgun himself.

“Got into a fight”, Shane admitted.

After having a good laugh about Shane now having a “real hockey smile”, Ilya had already given him a dentist’s address. The chip was small; they could build it up.

“When?” Mom pressed. “You only got into a fight during the SKA game.”

“Got hit in the face at a club”, Shane bent the truth.

They did hit a bar after the fight. When Twiggy shoved some cash into his hand and asked him to get her and Ksyusha a Long Island each, Shane thought it was odd. Later, Twiggy gave money to a Vityaz guy with the same request. When it happened for the third time, Shane finally asked Ilya what the hell was going on.

“Won’t sell them, they’re not eighteen”, Ilya said casually.

Shane immediately had flashbacks to the States, where underage drinking could get you into serious trouble, but he quickly reminded himself that this wasn’t the U.S. If Kuzya didn’t even bat an eye at his sister drinking, everything was obviously fine.

Then Ksyusha, who was a little tipsy after three cocktails, said, “Come on,” and for some reason dragged Shane into the ladies washroom. It was a fiasco—he had landed on a blacklist at his second bar in one week. Once Ksyusha sobered up a bit, Shane asked her what the hell that was about. Ksyusha said she really hated going to pee alone, and Shane had “gay vibes.”

At first Shane forgot to breathe from sheer horror, but then, realizing that he actually had some blackmail material on Ksyusha—she had been a suspect in the Pussy Riot case—he calmed down and asked quietly, with clear suspicion:

“Do you really have such a good gaydar, or did Kuzya tell you something?”

“When someone makes a joke, you don’t laugh. You look at Ilya to see if he laughs.”

What a nightmare.

“Don’t worry. He does almost exactly same thing. Before giving a punchline, he looks at you.”

They were so fucked.

Ilya, though, thought the whole thing was hilarious and that they should become couple-friends. Like, go to the movies together in a foursome. Very convenient.

“I hope this didn’t make the news?” Mom asked worriedly. “Bar fights and your public image…”

“A girl I know got punched in the face”, Shane deflected with a half-truth once again. “I wasn’t the only one fighting. But there weren’t any reporters. I only see them at the games. Which, honestly, is a relief. And don’t worry, I scheduled a dentist appointment.”

A lightning flashed outside the window, thunder cracked, and car alarms started wailing. Shane grimaced: he really didn’t fancy walking from the subway to the arena in weather like this. Ilya didn’t share his gloomy mood: he was rustling around in the living room, humming The Fool and the Lightning by Korol i Shut.

“Oh, okay, fine. Then tell me how your road trip went.”

Shane thought about it. Ilya mentioned that when they went for a roadie to the West, Marlow got so spectacularly lost somewhere in Prague’s alleys that the coach called the police and told everyone to start calling morgues. So…

“Fine,” Shane sighed. “I’ve passively learned the anthem, which is funny because our alternate still sings Soviet version out of habit, and then that song the guys like sing on the plane. I feel bad for Andropov now. He plays for Metallurg, and when I saw the cityscape in Magnitogorsk, I could feel depression creeping up. Salavat play like bastards, although the guys are really friendly in person. And in Kazan they absolutely stomped us, that sucked. But the food there is amazing.”

Ilya peeked around the doorframe with a quiet chuckle and asked in Russian:

“Want plov today?”

Shane reflexively gave him the middle finger, but after thinking for two seconds, answered:

“I do.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to look into catering?” Mom asked anxiously.

“No, Mom,” Shane let out a chuckle. “That part’s fine.”

Even without counting the shawarma kiosks, Georgian cafés, and homemade cutlets, Ilya was quite the hedonist. When he got his rental money from Spartak last month, he compared their schedules, found free forty hours, and said, “Shenya, let’s fly to Kyiv for kartoplyaniki and good borsch.”

Catering? If the med team thought he was doing fine as fuck, by their own words (Shane asked), he so didn’t want to go back to those meals he had back at home. He started to suspect that his dietitian had been pushing some pop-idol/model meal plans.

And Shane rolled up his T-shirt sleeve to show Mom his bicep.

“Oh, good, I just noticed you were getting cheeks…”

Ilya peeked around the doorframe again, looking scandalized. Shane had a feeling he was going to be late for practice because, as soon as he finished this awkward conversation, Ilya would to fuck him hard.

…Shane really did almost miss the practice. Ilya offered to give him a ride in such a shitty weather. He had actually managed to park conveniently in his own courtyard the night before unlike somewhere in the neighbouring one, as it usually happened.

But when they went down, it turned out that one of the neighbours hadn’t liked the way Ilya had parked, and the poor Crown had all its valve stems unscrewed.

“Kuz', tell Semyonych I’m going to be late,” Ilya immediately called Kuznetsov while Shane grimly ordered a taxi. “No, no, no, don’t give him the —”

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and plaintively whined:

“But Padrino-o-o-o…”

Shane still hadn’t met the mysterious “Semyonych” Romannikov whom Marlow was terrified of, as he hadn’t shown his face in pre-season. According to the stories, Ilya would climb onto DJ booths in clubs during road trips and demand silence whenever the coach called him at 11 pm to remind him that they had a curfew and it was bedtime. In America, Shane knew, Ilya would answer coach LeClaire's calls standing right under the speakers, lying that he was in the hotel, though LeClaire could clearly hear dubstep blasting through the phone.

Given that, except for Kuznetsov, the Dynamo guys were more or less the same type as Rozanov—absolutely fucking batshit—the coaching dictatorship was probably good for them.

Things were a little different at Spartak. The guys were more or less sane, apart from the chaos gremlin Kovalsky, and the coaching staff, who were constantly philosophizing on the clock. Shane suspected the gentlemen spiked their tea with cognac first thing in the morning. The head coach, Viktor Andreyevich, was especially impressive. He loaded his tea with an insane amount of sugar while whistling something extremely obscene under his breath.

One of the guys would come up to the coach and ask about the advance payment, or just payment, which interested Shane too, but made him a little anxious around the boys at the same time. He knew Farah bargained for ages over his salary, and he was beginning to suspect they had given him the biggest paycheck in the KHL— Shane overheard something about the average salary being twelve hundred dollars a month. So naturally, he kept his mouth shut about how much he himself was making, just in case.

Viktor Andreyevich would listen to the question about the advance, smile benevolently, take a sip of his tea syrup, smacking his lips, and then say:

“If you want money, either get the fuck out of here or go suck someone’s dick. The advance will come when it comes.”

Shane was at a complete loss for local philosophy: apparently, sleeping with a man by mutual consent wasn’t manly, but if big money is on the line, then you are a fucking champ?

The whole “fuck off” thing was weird too. If you went to play in the NHL, you’d betrayed your country, you bastard, but if you had the chance to leave and you didn’t, you were an imbecile.

Once again, Kovalsky’s annoying laughter rang in his ear, along with that cursed line about the “bipolar anus.”

***

October was a fucking cursed month, Shane swore to himself as he looked around the police station.

First there was Sveta and the pregnancy test. On the one hand, it ended well, but on the other hand… “well” was a relative term: they were blacklisted from a pub in Kitay-Gorod area and now there was a photo report from a club on nightout that Shane was still afraid to look at.

Then there was the fight with some rascals in Biryulyovo, where Shane got a real “hockey” smile, followed by yet another club ban. This one for public indecency, even though nobody was having sex in that washroom.

And finally, there was the fucking magnificent conclusion to Misha Kovalsky’s birthday. The absolute pinnacle of his idiocy. It had been an even bigger fiasco than the stupid idea of playing in the KHL in the first place.

Why couldn’t he have stayed in Montreal. Why.

Everything started out casually. Misha ordered a ton of pizza. His girlfriend Olesya—Shane already had enormous respect for her in advance for “locking Misha in the apartment so he couldn’t go to the showdown”—made a bunch of salads. The guys brought an obscene amount of beer.

Ilya didn’t come with Shane. Kovalsky invited several guys from CSKA, and Ilya, troll that he was, valued his life.

“I’m not going without fire support. Last game I told number thirty-eight something about little man complex, and I threatened number seventeen that I marry his maman, put him under house arrest, and that he should get used calling me Daddy. I think they are still upset.”

Anyway, everything started out casually.

And then Kovalsky put a bottle of nastoyka in front of Shane.

Shane didn’t know what nastoyka was at the time. He thought it was some kind of local black currant drink, like lemonade, only concentrated. And they had a game against Dynamo the next day, the first of the season. Shane had no intention of getting wasted before playing against Ilya. He was supposed to show who was the boss.

Holy shit, Shane had thought at the time. Thanks, Misha, for giving me an alternative so I don’t drink too much Barkhatnoye by chance.

By the time Shane realized that nastoyka was in absolutely no way lemonade, it was too late: he had consumed the entire bottle by himself.

After that, his memories became hazy.

…He woke up still somewhat drunk, in an unfamiliar place. Jacek was snoring in an armchair across from him. Some bearded guy was asleep on the couch next to Shane—fortunately, fully dressed.

Shane staggered out onto the balcony.

The windows of the unfamiliar apartment—or a hotel?—overlooked a river. Except the view looked nothing like either Strogino, where Kovalsky lived, or ZIL area.

Shane pulled his phone from his pocket, miraculously still there after last night, took a beautiful sunrise view pic, and posted it on VK.

Shane went cold. He pulled up Google Maps. Then he checked 2GIS to make sure Google wasn’t lying. The maps confirmed that the river—far too big to be the Moskva—was the Volga. Somehow, Shane had ended up in a completely different city, much closer to fucking Lokomotiv arena than his own.

By evening, Skipper—having apparently won a brutal race against the sound barrier—had picked up poor Shane and Jacek, along with their gear. By the time they reached the rink, Shane was hit by the worst hangover of his entire life.

And he still had to play a game against Rozanov. Marlow. Dixie. Kuznetsov, who even on Shane’s best day could slam him into the boards hard enough to break his ribs.

What had he done in a past life to deserve this?

He must have been Hitler. Mom had probably been hiding war criminals from the Japanese imperial family among his relatives, and this was karma. His very much Canadian great-grandfather had probably dabbled in war crimes during World War II, too. All his ancestors had been war criminals, he himself had been Hitler in a past life, and now he was paying for it.

Jacek, the bastard, was somehow not suffering nearly as much.

Ilya noticed that something was wrong with him during the warm-up, when Nirvana was blasting and feeding Shane’s headache.

“Why you are so green?”

Dynamo’s white away jerseys reflected the arena lights and were blinding. Shane stared hatefully at the blue cursive D on Ilya’s chest.

“Kovalsky gave me some nastoyka yesterday. I didn’t know what it was. Thought it was lemonade. Drank the whole bottle. After that, everything’s a blur.”

Ilya covered his mouth with his glove, clearly hiding a laugh, and Shane grimly added:

“We’ll see how funny you find it when I throw up on you.”

He hugged the toilet right before going onto the ice and drank half a big bottle of Borjomi. Somehow, he got through his shifts and even won three faceoffs. He hugged the toilet again during the intermission and finished the bottle of Borjomi.

The strength-and-conditioning coach, who had already beaten Kovalsky with his shoes over this whole circus, joked:

“You didn’t knock yourself up, right?”

“No, but I tried,” Shane replied mournfully.

“You’d have very talented kids,” Maestro agreed, while the guys laughed and Shane was looking for some cash. Yulia had agreed to run to the nearest supermarket for more mineral water.

“Hell no,” Shane said honestly. “Imagine if I actually got pregnant. I’d have had an abortion two days ago.”

Kovalsky was wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, while Shane desperately wanted everyone to shut up—before he would cry too, with hangover tears.

Second period. Third. Overtime started. Shane wanted to cry, not chase a puck, and on top of that Ilya started pestering him again.

“Psst. Wanna fight?” Ilya whispered.

“What?”

“You look like dead. Play against you right now is bad sport. Let’s fight, sit in box, you recover a bit—and maybe they’ll finish without us.”

Sometimes a nastily gleaming white jersey is a fucking shining armour.

“Let’s do it.”

…

…this time, the shining armour turned out to be a chesterfield coat, underwear, and slippers.

Ilya said, “We’re out of condoms. Go buy some. I have game tonight, and before that want you minimum two more times.”

So Shane went, to the pharmacy across the street.

Outside the pharmacy (or rather, outside the tobacco shop next door) two police officers were snacking on belyashi. Shane said hello. They said hello back, but somehow suspiciously, and then asked for his ID.

Shane, of course, had no ID. He was just going out to buy condoms. So they told him, “You’re coming with us to the station, young man.”

At the police station, Shane spent five minutes trying, in very broken Russian, to explain that he played hockey and had all his documents, they were just at home. In response, they kept asking him about some prorab.

Then Ilya came flying into the station with Shane’s passport, yelled a lot, swore even more, apparently threatened someone, and shoved his phone in the desk officer’s face with Shane’s Wikipedia page open.

They let Shane go, and Ilya even snapped a photo of him in front of the police station. Of course. Such excellent blackmail.

“What a fucking stupid, unlucky month” Shane grumbled while Ilya lit a cigarette. “First the blacklists, then my tooth, then the nastoyka. I was just walking to the pharmacy, for fuck’s sake…”

Ilya snickered and wrapped his coat tighter around himself. He certainly looked rather striking— even if trashy.

“Young man,” someone suddenly called from the steps of the police station, and Shane instinctively straightened up. “Are you aware that when you made that U-turn, you crossed a double solid line?”

Ilya blinked dazedly, looked back at the parked Crown, and howled something extremely obscene at the sky.

Shane’s prayers from two months ago had come true: Ilya’s license was finally revoked.

Chapter End Notes

"Are you gangsters?" - "No, we are Russians," - a Brother 2 dialogue
Strelka - a gang brawl that usually starts with talks and threats
Vityaz vs Avangard massive fights that stopped the game - that actually happened Jan 9th 2010
Jacek is a Czech, Shane is not wrong, but he has a Polish name. The dude is from a small town on the Polish border, so yeah.
Pussy Riot case - some members remain anonymous.
The Fool and the Lightning. Perfect theme song for Jane and Thor imo
Kartoplyaniki - you could call it Ukranian hashbrowns I guess, they usually have fillings though. Like meat.
Sch in borsch is a palatalized sh, and since first chapter pov Shaney found out there is no t at the end
valve stems - typical Moscow parking wars
nightout - club photo reports dumpster
Nastoyka - berries+ethanol or vodka+time
prorab - construction site supervisor ((sigh) stereotypes in action: sporty jacket+beanie+Asian+fucked up Russian=illegal employment in construction). Moscow police treat (Central) Asians like the American police treat Latin Americans. With a difference. Moscow police will let you go right there in the street for a $100 (well these days maybe $300, inflation dammit) if you don't have registration. Bribery is like. A side hustle. Shaney just doesn't know the "mozhet dogovorimsa" cheat-code yet. But fuck the police he took ID with him since then.
"Young man" - because "sirs" are only in British historical dramas on tv. Addresses to dudes: boy, young man, man, uncle, grandpa, father, citizen (m), respected [man] (90s vibe), comrade+rank (if police or army). Addresses to women: [little] girl, girl, woman, auntie, mother, grandma, citizen (f), respected [woman] (again, 90s vibe), comrade+rank (if police or army). My lady/madame/mademoiselle used as a way to flirt or sort of compliment without complimenting. The best ones are done by homeless alcoholics, they will call you "gorgeous mademoiselle".

Chapter 9: where Shane falls in love and the bad luck moves on to Ilya

Chapter Summary

Shane & Ilya: get insider mpreg jokes
Ramazan: gives Dynamo & Spartak gay panic

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

“Do you idiots realize what you’ve done?” the beloved (not really) commissioner greeted Shane and Ilya warmly.

He wasn’t really beloved, among other things, because he had never held a hockey stick in his life.

“We took matters into our own hands when one of our mutual friends screwed up their privacy settings,” Shane replied, making no attempt to plaster a polite smile across his face.

“And we demonstrated good sportsmanship!” Ilya cheerfully added, only to wince when Shane kicked him painfully in the ankle. They had rehearsed this conversation for four hours once they finally got the call from Crowell.

Maybe they should have listened to Mom and brought a lawyer. Or Farah.

“Three years! Three years we spent building up this rivalry, so that the arenas were full, jerseys sold out, and the advertising spots taken. And you fucked away the entire strategy in one day! We could have ignored the photos where it all started. We could have released a statement saying it was Photoshop if the original tweet had gone viral. But no!”

Shane sighed and delivered his prepared argument.

“And then people would have started investigating whether it really was Photoshop. If we hadn’t satisfied the public’s curiosity, someone would have dug up the nightlife photos from the glorious city of Moscow pretty quickly. You don’t want those coming to light.”

Crowell’s eye twitched.

“And what exactly might have come to light?” he asked ominously, tapping his fingers against the desk.

“Nothing! I found guy, paid him, and most embarrassing stuff is cleaned up,” Ilya flashed another smile.

“Well, there was this one shot where someone got drunk and climbed onto the bar to dance. I was pulling him down by his belt. It looked… you can imagine,” Shane delivered another rehearsed line.

Because the belt thing was nothing. There were photos of Shane grabbing Ilya’s ass. Fortunately, everyone who had seen that photoset thought it was some kind of a joke. Still, better not to take any chances.

Crowell covered his face with his hands and muttered something like, “God, and now this”.

Ilya signaled Shane with his fingers—two-one—and they started talking over each other. Just like they’d rehearsed.

“Look, people love weird friendships even more than rivalries! Like capybaras and alligators!”

“Like that thing in books, enemies to lovers!”

“You dumbass, what lovers?”

“Friends, then! What the fuck’s difference?”

“And we’re like superheroes in comics who teamed up against the common enemy!”

“Enemy was Moscow landlords.”

“Or they can just write it’s Andropov’s fault!”

“Yeah, that he made us dig battle axe in Vegas year ago, and now Shane’s honorable member of Russian hockey mafia.”

“And before that he spent a whole year saying Rozanov was actually a nice guy, just likes trolling people.”

“So basically, it’s all Kolya’s fault.”

“And Kovalsky’s!”

“Still can’t believe that asshole actually invited you for shashlik while I had to dig potatoes at his dacha two years in row!”

“That’s because you’re a loshara.”

“Hey! Slysh’!”

Crowell slapped his palm against the desk, and Shane and Ilya fell silent.

“We will contact your agents about a new strategy. No interviews for now.”

“But the Bears already...” Shane started.

“I know!” Crowell barked, then visibly forced his expression into something friendlier. “I’ve already seen it. No interviews. Just ‘no comment.’ We might send you two on some reality show. Keep your phones on. I’m watching you.”

The smile slid off the commissioner’s face, and he barked again:

“Now get the hell out of here!”

Shane and Ilya bolted from the office. Once the door closed behind them, Shane gave a quiet little hop, throwing his fist into the air, while Ilya squeaked out a couple of lines from some Russian R&B song and did a short victory dance.

“What you think, to which show they can send us?” Ilya asked once they were riding the elevator down.

“I just hope it’s not Jeopardy! or something like that. That would be a lifelong embarrassment,” Shane said, shaking his head. “Maybe we should’ve confessed that we were the ones who stole Andropov at the Prague airport?”

“Nah. Let’s save that for if we get caught with dicks out.”

***

Shane woke up to a panicked shriek in the middle of the night. He sat bolt upright and rubbed his eyes. Ilya, breathing heavily, was staring at his phone. He suffered from bouts of insomnia, so sometimes he would lie awake at night reading or scrolling through social media.

“What happened?” Shane asked hoarsely.

Ilya turned his head, caught the sight of him, then exhaled in relief and tossed the phone onto the nightstand.

“Saw people discuss our game,” Ilya began, and Shane grimaced—it had been an absolute fucking disaster. “Why Hollander wasn’t himself. And then your goalie came in comments and joked that you just suffering from toxicoses. And then bunch of jabs about who is the daddy. And instead of thinking, ‘ha-ha, funny joke,’ I got Vietnam flashbacks about Sveta fuck-up.”

Shane oinked like his team's extra mascots.

“Ilya.”

“Shut up, I have trauma,” Ilya grumbled.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know!” Ilya groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I’m gonna become impotent soon with all this shit. Christ. Maybe I get vasectomy, or something. Fuck those adventures.”

“At least this time you didn’t start planning a move to Argentina,” Shane chuckled.

“In three seconds of stupid panic,” Ilya raised a finger, “I managed to think if I should look for abortion clinics or run to buy ring. That your mama would try to stab me if you miss season. And that you clearly plan to strangle me too. That the kid will be lucky with hockey skills but very unlucky with brains. That American schools are fucking nightmare. And, finally, Papa demanding to name his grandson after Lenin.”

Still chuckling, Shane patted Ilya on the shoulder.

“You could have stopped at the abortion clinic.”

“And you know what’s funny? I actually like kids. I just don’t want to die.”

Idiot. Shane giggled a bit more, got out of bed, made Ilya some chamomile tea, ruffled his curls, and crawled back under the covers, intending to fall asleep as quickly as possible.

Sleep, however, wouldn’t come.

“Fuck, we could’ve had a hockey Jesus,” Shane mused.

Sometimes, when Ilya was suffering from insomnia, tossing and turning half the night, drinking coke mixed with instant coffee in the morning—he called this nightmare “budilnik”—and twitching like a chihuahua, he started spouting delirious ideas.

When Shane said there was no amount of money that could make him go to any gay clubs in St. Petersburg with Ilya because he had nothing to do there—get high on acid and dance to techno, who are you taking me for?—Ilya had said, “Baby, I got an idea. I’ll save up money and open special gay club for you in Montreal. Call it something like Manotaur. Will be sports bar with bikers, darts, beer, Metallica, and shashlik.”

Shane had then suspiciously asked whether Ilya had stolen the idea from Police Academy.

Or, when Grigory Vilenovich called Ilya on a shitty morning like that with yet another round of criticism, Ilya hung up and said, “I have an idea. Family-friendly brothels. Take friendly, balding men over forty for staff. They’ll hug customers, tell them “I’m proud of you,” go to their weddings, explain what to do when at home power is tripped. And call it something like Daddies.”

…Apparently, Ilya wasn’t the only one who came up with delirious ideas from the lack of sleep.

Ilya nearly choked on his tea, but played along.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if our records got beaten by our own пиздюк in the future.”

“Maybe you take parental leave, then? With the lockout, the season is fucked anyway. You’d have time to recover,” Shane smirked.

Ilya set his tea aside and his eyes gleamed in the dim light as he leaned closer to Shane.

“So you’ll support me, then?” Ilya purred, brushing his fingertips along Shane’s neck. “Be my sugar daddy, yes?”

“Well, no. I’m an honest man. I’d have to marry you,” Shane breathed against his lips.

They were just kissing—they felt too lazy to fuck, honestly. Soon enough, Shane was finally drifting off and fell asleep, his nose buried in Ilya’s curls.

And in the morning, he couldn’t believe the bullshit he had said the night before, and he was nearly shaking. Let’s have a baby. I’d have to marry you. What the actual fuck.

Ilya seemed to understand it himself, because instead of the usual teasing he showered Shane with every morning while Shane tried to check his e-mails, he just quietly, nervously giggled over the ibriq.

***

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***

Senya really wanted to but kept forgetting to go to church and light a candle for the health of Hollander and Karlssen. The youth team had started getting taken to the main arena more often to watch practices featuring the NHL stars. Which was, of course, interesting, educational, and all that jazz.

But there was something else Senya was much more excited about.

There was a lovely girl named Yulia who worked at the main arena. Senya had seen her last year. It was the love at first sight. And when Sashka said something about a “gofer girl,” Senya punched him in the eye.

This year, Senya was definitely going to gather his courage to ask Yulia for her phone number. So what if she was already a university student and he was only just in the ninth grade? He was already taller than her, and he even had a beard starting to grow. A pretty pathetic one so far, but still. The guys thought he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell, but Senya cherished his hope.

When the practice was over and the guys went off to pester the older players with their questions, Senya tracked down Yulia and was just about to ask her...

There was a bruise on Yulia's cheekbone.

“Hi, Senya!” Yulia greeted him with a sweet smile.

“Hi... Um. Are you okay?” Senya asked carefully, nodding toward the bruise.

“Oh, the bruise is nothing,” Yulia waved it off. “The concussion was awful, though. I was walking around like Jack Sparrow at first. Vasya took one look at me and then started yelling at everyone. Now the boys actually put the towels where they belong instead of just throwing them all over the locker room. Before, Shane was the only tidy one, and now the whole team practically tiptoes. It’s so sweet.”

Senya had completely forgotten that he'd wanted to casually find out what movies Yulia liked. He kept the conversation going almost on autopilot, trying to figure out what had happened.

Yulia was being vague. If she'd fallen or walked into something, she'd say so, wouldn't she? Had someone beaten her up?! Maybe she had horrible parents? Or some bastard had been harassing her?!

Yulia's phone pinged. She glanced at the screen.

“Oh, damn! Sorry, Senya, I have to go. Bye-bye!”

She hurried off, and Senya stood there in a daze for two seconds before following her. He managed to see what she'd received.

Someone called Ilya Muromets had sent her a message on VK:

“Where’s the money, Lebowski?!”

So it was clear.

Yulia had been beaten up over debts.

***

“Thankies,” Ilya said, slipping the envelope with cash into his jacket pocket. “Who did this to you?”

The parking lot was swept by all the winds possible, but there were perks: the puddles had dried up. Moscow was still getting rained on pretty much every day, Ilya had lost his license, and he absolutely hated umbrellas, so his mood had been awful all week. He needed to have some fun. He needed to throw a party.

Ilya told Shane that once he got the rent money, they’d throw a party inspired by Hipsters, then pulled a yellow shirt and a pop-art-style tie out of the depths of his closet. Shane, looking at the references, said it was “gayer than he could endure” and he wasn’t wearing any of it.

Ilya said, “Okay, you just got new Hugo Boss at TSUM. Wear that. You can be a polite, pleasant NKVD officer. Can sit whole evening in armchair in the corner, drink tea and read Pravda—or whatever you decide to hide inside it.”

“My ex,” Yulia grumbled darkly. “Fucking drug dealer. Never again am I—”

“Like, an actual drug dealer?” Ilya raised an eyebrow.

“An actual drug dealer,” Yulia grimaced. “He’s always giving speeches on legalization and all that shit. Like, ‘It’s no big deal.’ And then he’s constantly getting so fucking high, I’m so done with it. I went over to get my things, and he just... did this. Slammed my head against the wall.”

“Yulia.” Ilya broke into a grin. “Yulia, narc on him. Rat him out.”

“So his buddies stab me in the street afterward?” Yulia snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

“One moment, sweetheart.” Ilya pulled out his phone and dialed his brother. “Lyosha, you got any contacts in the drug control squad who could need a little tip-off?”

***

Shane had already received a message from Ilya saying he was waiting in the parking lot. Someone wanted a party, so they were going to take an unplanned trip to Auchan for all kinds of chips and gummy worms.

Shane just couldn’t get used to driving the Crown. After driving SUVs back in Canada, he kept getting this phantom sensation that his butt was practically scraping along the road.

The guys who showered and got dressed faster (Shane included) were heading toward the exit. Maestro and Kovalsky were asking what time they were expected at the Red Gate apartment (Kovalsky—so he could make sure to be late).

Around the corner—judging by the noise, the youth team boys were still hanging around—someone barked something, followed by the thunderous elephant stomping. Kovalsky, strangely enough, frowned.

“What’s going on?” Shane asked, because everyone had suddenly tensed up.

“Someone’s put Yulia on a clock,” Kovalsky dropped. “Come on, let’s go.”

***

Ilya was just in the middle of leaking Yulia’s ex address to the right people when some bratty schoolkids in Spartak merch slammed into him, knocking his ass down onto the ground.

“Boys, boys, what are you doing? Stop!” Yulia shrieked over him.

He tried to shake the underage “hippos” off, but they were trying to strangle him with way too much passion.

***

“Yopta, that’s Rozanov,” Maestro drawled.

Shane didn’t bother trying to reason with the kids and ran straight into the fray.

A week later, the youth team’s coach asked his players, “What is this?” Under their track jackets, the boys were sporting white T-shirts that read: “Shane Hollander beat the shit out of me.”

Except for Semyon, whose shirt was red and said: “I punched Ilya Rozanov.”

When Marlow heard the story from Shane, he cackled like a chicken and immediately wanted to spill the beans to the Bears. But Ilya was prepared for that and spent the next half hour chasing Marlow around with his airsoft rifle.

Shane watched the chase unfazed and cynically commented that Ilya should have picked a knife.

***

"Oh", Ilya said that morning, sipping condensed milk with a light hint of coffee—they'd finished the morning run quickly. The weather was still nasty, so they’d run up and down the stairs in the building like two idiots. "Want to come to wedding with me on second December?" Ilya glanced at the schedule on the fridge. "You have home games."

"Sure," Shane shrugged. "Is there a gift registry?"

"Nope, no registry. Just bring many dollars."

"Okay." Shane sent a reply to Farah and closed his laptop; he’d been offered a spot in a commercial for some local sports goods chain. "Who’s getting married?"

"Ramazan. His parents found him bride."

"NO!" Shane shrieked, jumping to his feet. "NO! NO! PLEASE NO!"

If he could turn back time, Shane would have absolutely forbidden Ilya from throwing Hipsters movie party.

…Shane surveyed the guests from his armchair and thought: well, this was ironic. He was the one who was one hundred percent gay. And yet everyone else was dressed up like a bunch of peacocks. The 80s were back in action apparently.

Kuznetsov had brought a grill and a bag of charcoal and was cooking shashlik on the balcony. Zinaida Vasiliyevna asked what the hell this was supposed to be, but Ilya immediately promised her a skewer, and the conflict died before it had even started.

Kovalsky and Olesya ignored the theme entirely and showed up in neon bell-bottoms and rainbow Afro wigs—but hey, they looked parrot-like too. Besides, they were convinced the playlist would eventually veer into Boney M.

Twiggy came straight from her art classes, carrying a canvas frame under one arm. With Shane’s permission, she was painting his plushie pig in traditional Khokhloma patterns. Twiggy hadn’t asked for a Long Island this time: she had a tattoo gun with her, and a bunch of drunk men would make excellent test subjects.

Maestro and Ksusha were playing some song about yellow shoes on their guitars.

And Ilya was dancing with Marlow, God knows what. The sort of drunken, clingy, dirty dancing where you look at the couple and just know there is absolutely nothing going on between them because they’re both equally insane, like brothers from different mothers.

Shane knew the rest of the Dynamo guys by face and number, but absolutely could not remember their names. Neither he had any idea who their plus-ones were.

This was Dynamo’s goalie, number five. Extremely annoying. Always comes charging out of his crease, playing the puck with his stick like it’s his business. During a shootout, he’d rushed forward and flattened Motya while knocking the puck away from him. Shane found the fact that this wasn’t called a penalty insulting.

That was the defenseman, number twenty-nine. Extremely annoying at that. He stood in Deni’s way, bent like a vaulting buck; Deni naturally crashed into him, and did an involuntary somersault, and landed face-first on the ice. Skipper was on the ice at the time, and he really disliked the maneuver. While Deni was skating back to the bench, Skipper grabbed the defenseman by the jersey and dragged him around by the scruff like a misbehaving kitten.

And that quiet, annoying bearded guy, number ninety-eight, snatched a victory for Dynamo in the shootout. Show-off. He scored from behind his legs, after making the puck circle around his skates. Maestro had spent another half hour in the locker room afterward howling like an upset husky.

Shane had a strong suspicion that once everyone got a little drunker, Maestro would either become sworn brothers with someone or get into a fight ending in a bloody mess. Although, judging by Deni’s grim expression, he might be up for a fight too. With number twenty-nine.

Someone might have to pull them apart.

So Shane started by nursing tea, then someone poured him half a liter of Barkhatnoye beer, after which he subtly switched to kvas—it looked and tasted remarkably like dark beer, especially in the dim light.

Closer to midnight, Kuzya quietly told Shane:

“Make sure no more booze for Ilya.”

Shane was surprised. Ilya’s speech seemed perfectly fine.

“Yeah, but he started singing.” Kuzya added.

Half an hour earlier, they ran out of beer, so Ilya took Shane and Marlow by the elbows and headed toward the tiny beer shop down the street. They bought beer, but Ilya had no luck with buying cigarettes: he didn’t like the warnings on the packs. "I can live with throat cancer or premature birth, but I don’t like impotence, and gangrene is a deal-breaker too."

“What an idiot", Shane thought, watching the spectacle.

In the end, Ilya bummed a cigarette from some girls walking by. Lit it. Thought for a moment. And started singing something dramatic.

“Roz, what’s up with you, dude?” Marlow giggled.

“You don’t understand. It's classics. And I fouuund another giiiiirl…”

And for the last twenty minutes, Ilya had been tormenting Maestro and Ksusha with song requests. To be fair, he was a pretty good singer, and the crowd knew the songs—almost everyone sang along. But Shane preferred not to take any risks.

He walked over to Ilya, hooked a finger through one of his belt loops, pulled him along, and sat him down on the arm of his chair with a firm:

“You’ve had enough.”

Ilya pouted, then suddenly lit up.

“Ramazanchik, why don’t you sing something? I know you can!”

The annoying number ninety-eight lowered his eyes, glanced awkwardly at Maestro, and requested a song. Maestro clicked his tongue. Rolled his eyes. But he started playing something.

Ilya pulled out his phone and started recording. Twenty seconds later, Shane understood why.

Everyone who had come to Ilya’s Hipster party immediately fell in love with the annoying number ninety-eight, regardless of gender or sexuality. Shane didn’t understand a single word of the song. He just stared open-mouthed at that angelic bearded asshole like an idiot, unable to breathe.

For some reason, Ilya started covering Shane’s eyes with his palms. Probably Kuzya was right, probably Ilya really did need to go to bed.

“Ramazan, dude, why the hell do you even play hockey?” Marlow asked hoarsely when number ninety-eight finished singing to thunderous applause.

“Money,” the beautiful, magnificent, angelic Ramazan replied succinctly.

Somehow, a glass of beer ended up in Ramazan’s hand, Maestro put down his guitar and opened YouTube’s karaoke section, and everyone settled into the living room—mostly on the floor.

The Hipster party smoothly transformed into a solo concert.

Shane was only slightly comforted by the fact that he wasn’t the only one who had fallen in love with wonderful Ramazan. Everyone else had too.

Even Maestro.

…Shane had absolutely no chance of hitting on Ramazan. But it still hurt!

And Ilya kept laughing at him, bastard.

“Hollander, you hit your head, no?” Ilya asked, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Please no, hahaha…”

“Leave me alone,” Shane muttered, sliding farther down the wall.

The doorbell rang. After his previous fiasco, Ilya no longer tried to open the door without checking who was there first. He looked through the peephole, then let Marlow with drinks from Coffeemania in the apartment.

“Hey,” Marlow rumbled.

Shane waved at him without lifting his head.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Didn’t check Cop Shop today?” Ilya said cheerfully. “Ramazan gonna marry.”

“No!” Marlow groaned mournfully. “Why?!”

And he sat down on the floor against the wall beside Shane.

Ilya slapped a palm against his forehead with an audible smack.

“Jesus Christ, these epic imbeciles,” he muttered, scrolling through his contacts.

“What d’you want?” Kuznetsov grumbled on speaker.

“Wanna hear something funny?” Ilya asked cheerfully.

“No. I’m in mourning,” Kuznetsov replied.

“You too?!” Ilya stared at the phone in disbelief.

“You know what,” Marlow said thoughtfully. “Life’s too short. There’s a really funny barista at Coffeemania. I’m gonna ask her out to dinner tomorrow.”

***

“Why couldn’t you wait until I came on the road trip and then throw a party?” Kolya demanded the moment he walked in.

Shane had just played a game against Barys Astana, while Andropov had emerged victorious from a bloodbath against CSKA—the Magnitka first-line right winger was finally back from IR. They were due to play each other at Spartak’s home arena in two days, so Kolya slipped away from the hotel to come over and gossip.

“Hi, Kolya, I’m so happy to see you. Please do come in,” Shane replied sarcastically. “I don’t like parties, in case you forgot. This is all Rozanov.”

“Judging by all your beer pics in my feed, it's hard to tell,” Kolya said, shrugging off his jacket.

“It’s usually not beer, but kvas,” Shane corrected him.

Lately, it had been only kvas, because ever since Ilya had lost his license, Shane was the driver by default.

“So you're pregnant after all!” Kolya clutched his heart.

“No, no, no. We agreed Rozanov’s the one carrying the baby. I’ve still got a career to think about. Want some cake?”

Shane patiently waited for Kolya to finish laughing.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll have some.”

His laptop was coyly displaying a loaded video of Dynamo Moscow playing Ak Bars Kazan (Shane still remembered his own game in Kazan with a faintly bitter taste). The cake was decorated with tiny buttercream flowers. The tea was Earl Grey. Kolya wouldn’t shut up.

“Orgies with the sports minister’s daughter. Street fights. Blacklists. You got drunk and ended up in Rybinsk, played a game with a hangover, and now you joke about having kids with Rozanov. Who are you, impostor?”

“I even got a tattoo,” Shane said pokerfaced, lifting his T-shirt. On his back there was the text of Lilichka in Ilya's cursive, along with a lily drawn by Twiggy. She’d stopped by to touch up the bear Ilya got tattooed back when he was young and dumb as fuck. Well, tiny bit younger and dumber than now.

“Holy shit!”

“Fell for it?” Shane smirked. “It’s a marker. I just can’t get it to wash off.”

“Wait, can I take a picture and send it to the Voyageurs chat?” Kolya said, grinning even wider as he pulled out his phone.

Shane let Kolya take a couple of pictures, muted his phone notifications, and started the video.

***

Things were looking bad.

Semyonych knew it too.

“We need power play. And we need to take out one of their snipers.”

Shabayev, preferably. The guy was called a kleptomaniac for his virtuoso ability to steal the puck from opponents.

Kuzya agreed.

“Fucking Shabayev. Everyone’s already taken a turn chirping him, and he doesn't give a shit anyway.”

The Kitties were up 3–2. Ilya wanted to crush them, first on principle, and second, to give Shane a virtual middle finger.

“We need something crazy,” Semyonych said quietly. “Rozanov, go lick him.”

Ilya snorted.

“Well, I can do that…” He trailed off, looked at Kazan’s star player, and grimaced. “Nah. Can I lick someone else? Look at that beard. I’ll choke.”

“Excellent idea,” Kuzya, the traitor, agreed with Semyonych. “Part of the crew, part of the ship. Go lick him.”

***

“What the…” Shane muttered, watching Kazan’s number nine—one of the guys who annoyed the hell out of him—trying to strangle Ilya.

“You know,” Kolya mused, shamelessly finishing off another piece of cake, “that’s a fucking brilliant strategy. We should try it.”

“Yeah, I’m taking notes too,” Shane said, rewound the game and took a screenshot.

***

Chapter End Notes

Slysh’ - Listen [here you bitch]
victory dance - Choose your fighter
budilnik - alarm clock
пиздюк [pizdyuk] - lit. "cuntling", a brat
Yopta - damn
Hipsters aka Stilyagi
Khokhloma
yellow shoes - Bravo, "The Yellow Shoes"
knocking the puck away from him
score from behind the legs
And I fouuund another giiiiirl… - Nensi, "The Menthol Cigarettes' Smoke"
Ramazan sings this
Ak Bars aka the White Snow Leopards aka the Kitties aka the Greens, one of the strongest teams in the KHL, they haven't missed a single year in playoffs (along with SKA, Magnitka and Salavat). Mascot: snow leopard. Rich bitches all the way, owned and sponsored by an oil company.
ёб твою мать [yob tvoyu mat'] - lit. [I] fucked your mother, but is actually used like "god motherfucking dammit"

Chapter 10: where Shane lies a lot, and Ilya slowly starts to put two and two together

Chapter Summary

Ilya: Are you calling me a pro bono prostitute?
Shane: Ilya Rozanov? Who's that? Never heard.

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

"Okay, I need the lore,” JJ said emphatically, thumping his glass of lager on the table.

“Warhammer 40k lore?” Taylor the rookie asked, puzzled.

Shane, perfectly aware of where this conversation was heading, facepalmed.

The Voyageurs had picked a couple of decent rookies in the draft, and Shane had finally been given the captain’s C. Once the youngsters had settled in Montreal, the boys dragged them out to a bar. There was no way to dodge it. Besides, this wasn’t Moscow. There was no need to keep an eye on Ilya, who had no idea when to stop, so Shane could actually relax.

“Yeah, yeah, kiddo, Warhammer,” Patrice chirped. “Moscow Warhammer 2k12.”

“I’ve already told you everything in the chat,” Shane deadpanned. “I flew to Moscow. Went to check into my apartment. The landlord said he only rented to Slavs and slammed the door in my face. The girl from the club started crying. Rozanov went over, punched the landlord in the face, and said he’d rent a room to me.”

“Uh-huh,” JJ nodded, smiling deliberately. “So what was he even doing there?”

“Waiting for me to check in so he could drag me out drinking,” Shane lied.

“Cool, now rewind a little further,” Hayden joined the interrogation.

“I got a message over the summer: ‘What are you gonna do during the lockout in Montreal? Come play with us in the KHL. First beer’s on me.’”

“Even further back,” JJ nodded.

“The night after the draft. I was picked second overall,” Shane launched into his rehearsed speech—he’d rehearsed a lot of speeches after coming back from Moscow. “I was furious. Couldn’t sleep. Went down to the gym to run. That asshole was working out there. We got talking. One thing led to another—we exchanged numbers.”

“Wait a minute,” Hayden drawled. “So you don’t have a woman in Boston? All this time, you’ve just been hanging out boozing with Rozanov?”

“Yep. They turned us into a brand before I’d even met him. If Kovalsky hadn’t messed up, we’d still be playing up the league’s fake rivalry drama.”

“Well, I heard somewhere,” Mitty chimed in, “that Kolya was to blame for it all.”

Kolya, who had been playing the part of a very much drinking but also very much mute boy, shrugged, pretending he had no idea what they were talking about, had seen nothing, and knew nothing.

“Lies, bullshit, and slander. They did it all themselves. And besides, Ilyukha’s a good guy,” Kolya said with deliberately exaggerated innocence.

“Good guy? He’s a fucking psychic troll!” Gilles objected.

“Nah, he’s just a stalker,” Shane snorted into his beer.

When silence fell over the table, he raised an eyebrow.

“He’s a what?”

“Half the league is in his Google Alerts, and he stalks our social media,” Shane explained, throwing Ilya under the bus just like that. “You know, when some random ‘Russian Manicure’ salon suddenly follows you, or there is a hot chick Angela who keeps commenting that you’re a hot teddy bear, even though you’ve broken your nose three times and lost half your teeth…”

A third of the team frantically grabbed their phones. Shane was mildly disappointed, but not surprised.

“Are you saying,” Gilles rasped, his face going pale, “that I may have been talking to Ilya fucking Rozanov for a year and a half.” He was staring at the profile of some girl with long, bleached hair. “Margarita, how could you? I’ve told you things…”

“Well, maybe it’s not him…” Shane said uncertainly.

“I’ve been sending her money for coffee and manicures! Wait, PayPal requires ID to register… Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”

While the guys were frantically checking their followers, Shane slipped his phone under the table and opened VK.

“We need to ambush that bastard and break his legs!” Patrice snarled, and Shane looked up from his phone.

“Easy, Pat,” Shane drawled. “I’ve already taken care of everything.”

The table fell silent again.

“Are you texting the Bears as some hot chick Jessica?” JJ said incredulously. “No fucking way.”

“Nah.” Shane gave him a small smile. “When Roz was sleeping his hangover off, I got into his phone. When he comes over to hang out at my place, he tells his team a lot of bullshit too. The Bears think he has a girlfriend in Montreal. So back in April, I messaged Madden’s wife. ‘Hey, Sheila, here’s my girlfriend’s number, add her to the WAGs chat.’ Sent her my number. Then deleted the messages.”

Hayden looked at him with a mixture of admiration and horror.

“So you’re… a Boston wife?”

“Think bigger. Roz is the captain now. I’m the Queen of the Boston wives.”

***

ten hours later

***

"Have you licked anyone else? " Shane asked mockingly serious the moment he arrived back from Novosibirsk.

Ilya had another black eye, though not nearly as bad as the last one. Apparently, the Meat juniors knew how to throw a decent punch.

There was already a clickbait article on one of the sports news sites titled:

“KHL Administration Demands Players Stop Licking Timur Shabayev (Ak Bars)”

Which was bullshit. At least, Shane personally hadn't heard any such demand.

The part about licking Shabayev was true. Ilya had accidentally started a whole fucking trend, and the Kazan star winger had already been licked by Andropov, some guy from Avangard whose stick Кarlssen had accidentally broken, and a 6’6-foot defenseman from SKA.

Shane was watching the whole thing unfold with mild suspicion. He had a feeling that at some point the players were going to start licking him, too.

Idiots.

On the one hand, Shane wasn't about to get into a fight over it. On the other, he really ought to stock up on antiseptic. Who knew what else they'd been licking? Subway handrails on a dare, for example...

“Ha. Ha,” Ilya breathed out all gloomy and brooding, taking Shane's luggage from him. “Bolshoi released tickets for The Nutcracker. I ran straight to box office before all sold out. There were crowds, scalpers, Apocalypse. Got into fucking fight and still didn't get tickets.”

“Yeah?” Shane said dubiously as he pulled off his fur-lined boots. Autumn in Novosibirsk had been completely fucking insane: not a speck of snow, but minus twenty degrees. “And when did you even have the time for that? I thought you had endless orgies going on here. By the way, I hope you washed the bedding.”

While Shane was away on the roadie, Ilya ran around the clubs with his teammates. Around three or four in the morning local time, Shane would be woken up by VK notifications. Ilya would send him pictures of some girls under the terrible club lighting with the question “which one?”

At first Shane would randomly answer something like, “The one on the left.”

Ilya would ask why.

Shane would say that the girl on the right had a face of a person who would steal all the cash and gadgets from him after a hookup. Or before, if she had a stack of clonidine on her.

In Astana, Motya started complaining that Shane's notifications were keeping him awake. On road trips, Motya generally slipped out of the hotel and cheated on his wife with misguided passion, but he was afraid to mess around with Kazakh or Tatar girls. What if his latest hookup's father, grandfather or brothers hunt him down and gut him?

Shane apologized, turned off the sound on his phone, went to the bathroom, and texted Ilya from there:

Ask Marlow, you fucker. Asking a gay guy which girl is hotter is fucking insane.

Shane himself was only kind of attracted to Sveta, mainly because she knew hockey stats almost as good as Shane himself if not better, and because Ilya—and his dick—came as a package deal.

Also.

Lean, athletic built and little to no tits?

One of the guys, all things considered.

Ilya complained in return that he'd totally ask Marly. Except Marly rented some flashy but, in Ilya's opinion, hideously ugly SUV and was cruising his barista from Coffeemania around the ring roads most nights. On the wings of fucking love. He completely ghosted Ilya until morning.

Shane grunted something incoherent but extremely irritated. He was unbelievably tired as it were. Then he checked who else was online.

And typed in caps:

“ASK KSYUSHA SHE'D KNOW BETTER”

Ilya didn't bother him again for the rest of the roadie, but the general pattern of how exactly the evenings passed at the Red Gate apartment was clear.

Shane told himself he didn't like the situation because some random club girl might steal his Rolex in the morning.

(Liar)

“Are you mentally calling me pro bono prostitute right now?” Ilya asked perceptively.

“Well, there you go. You know what you are,” Shane didn't bother denying.

“I don't stop you from taking guys here when I'm away,” Ilya rolled his eyes. “That's how I deal with stress!”

Shane tensed at the word stress and involuntarily glanced at the closet where Ilya kept his home med kit.

“What kind of stress?”

Ilya grimaced, dropped Shane's luggage by the bathroom door, and waved him toward the kitchen.

When Rozanov wanted to, he could be punctual down to the second. Tea was already brewed, poured into cups, and the steam was curling in the air seductively.

“There was this big gala thing for Police Day,” Ilya said in a sour tone, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Papa and Polina were there, Lyosha and Margo. Huge party. Papa dragged me there by ear—as usual, to show me off. And you know, his version of ‘show me off’ is basically dumping shit on me to my face when someone comes up to tell him how great I play. And of fucking course, someone, suka, had to ask how long since Papa divorced from Mama.”

Ilya exhaled and gratefully nodded when Shane put a cup into his hands.

“First, fuck off, what the hell is it to you. Second, fuck off again. Polya is standing right there, trying keep face proper, Papa gives his favourite ‘she died in accident,’ Lyosha is looking around trying to decide who to slap. Person who asked or Papa, and he's leaning to Papa. Meanwhile I'm thinking, what the fuck am I even doing here?”

He took a sip.

“So we with Lyosha decided to shock guests some and get the fuck out as quickly as possible.”

From the few slip ups, Shane gathered that Lyosha absolutely fucking hated Grigory Vilenovich. Not even because colonel Rozanov had once beaten his children to a pulp when he was drunk. But because he'd hit Irina too. Depression was hard enough to fight without someone beating you on top of it. Basically, Lyosha believed he knew perfectly well who was responsible for Irina's death. And it definitely wasn't an “accident.”

Ilya took out his phone and played a video.

A huge hall. A lot of police uniforms and black ties.

Ilya and Lyosha were performing something cheerful but vaguely ominous, Lyosha playing the grand piano.

“Kill whoever you want?”

“From rock opera Crime and Punishment. Long story, but to a lot of respectable people at that party, it sounded a bit not good. Like nasty little hint. After that performance, we got the hell out of there.”

Shane paused the video and looked at Ilya. He stared long enough that Ilya began shifting uncomfortably.

“What?”

“I know it's a stupid question, and I already know the answer, but maybe you'll actually consider seeing a therapist?” Shane said gravely.

Sex and cakes weren't the worst ways to deal with stress. Theoretically, with Ilya's particular collection of mental demons, he could probably move on to drugs. But those were only helping with the symptoms, not the disease itself.

Shane said the last part out loud.

“In this country?” Ilya raised an eyebrow. “Therapist who not gonna tell me, ‘Why are you crying, are you girl?’”

“What the fuck?” Shane stared at him. “That's professional malpractice!”

“And also the greatest hits of my school psychologist,” Ilya said with a broad, mocking American smile, raising his teacup in a toast.

Shane wearily rested his cheek against his fist.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Fine. Orgies, then. Did you at least change the bedding?”

“I did. And I didn’t have orgies! I sent you pics so you feel, like, a little involved in my sex life. Sort of... mental threesome.”

Shane was not impressed by this logic, so he said in a slow and precise manner:

“I will only agree to a threesome with Sveta, and only if she, I don't know, gets an IUD. I don't want to end up digging my own grave in the woods here. Especially not in winter.”

***

Shane desperately wanted to forget the first game against Dynamo. Meanwhile the second one had been giving off a beer league vibe from the very beginning.

Kovalsky was squeakily singing along to “I love a dick that's big and thick”: the last time that song had come on in the locker room, he'd scored twice.

Deni Matthews was begging Viktor Andreyevich to put him on the fourth line. He really didn't want to go out on the ice against sweet siren Ramazan if he could help it.

Shane would've asked for the same thing in his place, but he didn't have to worry about it. His dream duo with Motya would be obviously sent out against Rozanov and Marlow.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Viktor Andreyevich asked sweetly.

“Nah, I get him,” Maestro sighed sadly.

“Yeah,” Shane sighed.

“Well, fuck, Tish, you're lucky. When you're covering the puck, you can, like, grab him by the leg,” Kovalsky suggested with a sigh. Then he shook himself and started muttering under his breath, “I have a girlfriend, I have a girlfriend...”

“Have you idiots collectively lost your minds?” Skipper looked around at them. “Number ninety-eight? A balding Dagestani with a shovel beard and a broken nose?”

Maestro wordlessly pulled out his phone, found the right video, and hit play.

The locker room fell silent. Kovalsky switched off the stereo.

“...this boy sings Magomayev better than Magomayev himself,” Viktor Andreyevich said thoughtfully. “Deni, switch with pizdyuk.”

“I don't like being called a brat, Viktor Andreyevich,” the seventeen-year-old right winger from the junior team complained miserably. He'd been playing for both teams for the past year and was deeply offended that the adult team never took him to bars.

“Shush.”

Skipper and Karlssen stared at the phone with identical expressions of bewilderment.

“Guys,” Karlssen finally said. “I get it now. I want to marry him.”

“Get in line,” Maestro grumbled, putting his phone away.

“Oh, you're all too late,” Shane said automatically. “Ramazan's getting married on the second of December.”

The entire team stared at Shane in utter horror.

“No! No! Why???”

...the guys rolled out onto the ice for warm-ups looking completely miserable.

“Well-well-well,” Ilya skated over to Shane. “You're fine today, but what's wrong with your guys? Like someone died.”

Shane awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

“I told them Ramazan's getting married. Right before we went out onto the ice.”

“Pfft. Saboteur. You sure my club not pay you extra, huh?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

At the faceoff, Shane unconsciously whistled the tune of that song about dicks that Kovalsky had been playing in the locker room—the damn thing was catchy. He was pretty good at whistling and doing bird impressions. Ilya recognized the tune, started laughing his ass off, and kept at it until Romannikov’s voice boomed across the ice.

“Розанов, ёб твою мать!”

Even the ref flinched.

***

"Hollander’s fucking nuts today," Igor grumbled during the intermission, rubbing his ribs.

Ilya was deliberately studying the tape on his stick, pretending none of this had anything to do with him.

Shane had been a challenging opponent from the very beginning: boring (read: deeply rational), with predictable strategy, but fucking brilliant at improvising. He could put the puck in the net coming out from behind the cage like a goddamn magician, just like that, and he was fast as hell, too. Asshole. Ilya knew he’d been taking up speed skating for a while back in school.

And then Ilya had fed the bastard’s muscle mass and dug his own grave. Shane Hollander weighing a hundred kilos was no longer a case of well, I rounded up. He still tore around the ice like a fucking comet, but now, when Shane slammed you into the boards, there was absolutely nothing fun about it.

Hollander wasn’t known as a fan of checking, because he didn’t see much point. But today, when he flattened Kuznetsov without a hitch, Ilya saw the realization dawn on Shane’s face: holy shit, I can actually do that now.

And hell broke loose.

As if the trio of Hollander, Filonenko, and fucking puppeteer Kovalsky weren’t enough of a nightmare. Ten minutes in, things got ugly in front of Dynamo’s net. Kovalsky took a shot straight at Shane. And Shane, the bastard, jumped, clearing the puck’s path into the net.

F-f-fuckers, Ilya thought.

The thought, despite the annoyance, carried a note of admiration.

So these assholes were doing tricks, strategy and checking.

Come on, Ilya. Think. How the fuck do you play against yourself?

***

"What's this, ice dancing?" Shane asked in an outraged falsetto when Dynamo tied it up in the second period.

"Well, you let yourself parody me, " Ilya smirked.

"Oh, fuck off," Shane shot back, though the dismissal came out somewhat muffled: he liked this game. That insistent inner voice, sounding suspiciously like Mom’s, wasn’t telling him that he had to play clean, keep everything under control, and set an example for the kids. Coach Theriault’s voice wasn’t grumbling at him to stay out of things that weren’t his business.

He was having fun.

He knew that tingling feeling in his chest.

Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

"You son of a—! " Shane heard Karlssen yell and turned around.

Karlssen, the daredevil, had dropped his gloves and squared off with Kuznetsov. Marlow immediately slung his arm around Kovalsky’s shoulder, while Ilya pulled Shane into a half-hug—everyone’s sorting out their “dance partners” for the fight. The fan club was screaming:

"KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!"

"We should go to supermarket today," Ilya mused. "Running out of coffee."

"Ok, go then."

"Also, someone sent me recipe for teftel’ki," Ilya continued, with unmistakable emphasis.

"Ilya," Shane grunted. "You know perfectly well, that I see hinting as a form of lying. If you want me to go to the supermarket, say “please.” I’ll go. It’s no trouble."

"Please go."

***

Shane was sitting in the Crown, in the courtyard across from Hotel Ukraina, warming himself and nervously scrolling through the newsfeed. A supermarket bag sat on the passenger seat prim and proper. It had ground coffee, a can of sweetened condensed milk, a bag of rice, and a brick-shaped loaf of bread inside. One corner of the bread had been bitten off.

They’d won in the shootout. Isachkov had tried to pull the same stunt he’d pulled on Motya last time, but Shane had been expecting it and flew right over him with the grace of a mountain goat. Naturally, he kept the puck. From there, putting it into the empty net was a piece of cake. Viktor Andreyevich told Shane once again that he was a “super-good-boy.”

The boys gave Shane a long hug and ruffled his hair; the balcony under the road fans’ section nearly collapsed. On the handshake line, Ilya said:

“Good game. You will pay for this.”

Shane immediately began to suspect that Ilya’s revenge was going to be exclusively sexual in nature and would consist of edging Shane for a very, very long time.

And then the problems began.

Problem number one: it turned out, there was press from the other side of the Pond at the arena. Apparently, someone had shown the management of a sports channel Shane and Ilya’s fight from the previous game. Ooooh, rivalry. Ugh.

“How difficult was it for you to get used to the KHL?”

Shane barely had time to remind himself that, with reporters from the States and Canada, a polite smile was still necessary, and raised the corners of his lips just enough not to seem rude.

“They pass a lot here. Remnants of Soviet hockey, so to speak. And there’s no dress code.” Shane glanced down at himself—he was wearing jeans and a sweater. “I was just asked not to go to the press in sweatpants, if possible. So that I don’t look like a gangster.”

The joke—which wasn’t really a joke—landed well.

“And how did the lockout and changing teams affect your rivalry with Rozanov?”

Shane did not want to talk about the fucking “rivalry.” The evening had been going so well. He’d only just started feeling like he could breathe. And now this shit again.

“Who’s that?” Shane asked.

A pause.

“Um. Ilya Rozanov, Dynamo, number eighteen.”

“Never heard of him. Next question, please.”

Judging by the snorting coming from behind Shane, Kovalsky was eavesdropping and thoroughly enjoying the show.

And then came the problem number two.

His phone chimed.

“Please, excuse me,” Shane smiled, and pressed the call button. Ilya picked up on the first ring. “Did you get your license back?”

The reporter stared at him as though he were the eighth wonder of the world. Maybe switching to Russian for the sake of secrecy hadn’t been the smartest move after all. Oh well.

“I’ve got Police colonel in my car. Nobody gonna check,” Ilya answered quietly in English, as if someone might be listening in on him too. “Pass keys with someone, please?”

“Here's ESPN,” Shane hissed, glancing at the logo on the microphone. “I can’t… Ah, one minute.”

He hung up and caught Kovalsky’s eye.

“Misha, come here.”

“Hey,” Kovalsky grinned toothily at the camera crew.

Shane pulled the car keys from his pocket and handed them to Kovalsky.

“Give this to Sergei Alexandrovich, please,” Shane asked.

“Who?” Kovalsky frowned.

“Yesenin,” Shane hissed, making a face.

Koalvsky, naturally, snickered.

“Haha. Yeah. Yesenin. Got it. Will do. Don’t worry.”

Shane sighed and turned back to the camera with a polite smile.

“So, what was the question?”

“You speak Russian so well! Do you have a tutor? Are you planning to stay in the KHL?”

“No, no, and no.” Shane didn’t even bother trying to sound diplomatic; Montreal management would have strung him up for saying I don’t know, haven’t thought about it, maybe. “I don’t have a tutor. I learn Russian on the go, in an atmosphere of complete chaos. I opened a grammar textbook once and realized I’d rather shoot myself.” He waited for the laughter to die down. “And as much as I like Spartak, the Voyageurs drafted me. That’s my team. I have obligations.”

The interview seemed to have ended without a complete disaster, but it had left Shane feeling on edge.

And now the problem number three: Ilya could get to Grigory Vilenovich’s apartment on Kutuzovsky Avenue just fine. But he still had to get the Crown back somehow. And he’d run out of cash in case he needed to bribe a traffic cop—he wasn’t sure the police ID he’d stolen from Lyosha would pass muster.

So far Shane had been refreshing English-language sports reports and Twitter for two hours to Butusov’s quiet wails coming from the stereo.

VK had already been flooded with copies of a video from the shootout, clearly filmed from the road fans’ balcony: the angle was shitty, but the voices were unmistakably red-and-white:

“Hollzy! Hollzy!" the fan club chanted in unison.

"SHENYA, GO!" one lone male bass voice broke through the chorus.

Yeah, the jump looked pretty damn impressive. He’d redeemed himself after last time.

Ding.

Shane sighed and opened his messages.

Three minutes later Ilya slid into the front passenger seat, taking the grocery bag to his lap, and exhaled:

"Let's go."

Butusov announced that Alain Delon spoke French, Ilya turned up the volume, a saxophone wailed from the speakers, and Shane carefully pulled out of the courtyard and turned onto Kutuzovsky Ave.

"He came to my game first time in god knows how many years, and I fucking lost," Ilya said grimly. "Fountain of shit opened, and it just wouldn’t stop. And Polya’s out of town, because of course she is. Why the fuck do I even try? Who needs this? You know how Lyosha talks to him? He fucking don’t. His phone is on table, he picks it up every five minutes, say “yes, yes,” and puts it back down. Dad say Lyosha is idiot, but no-o-o, Lyosha is not. Fucking bastard, sure, but he’s not idiot.”

Shane stopped at a red light and awkwardly tapped his fingers against the steering wheel.

"Want to stop at 24/7 for some ice cream?"

"And wine," Ilya added. "I want to wallow like hysterical queen".

"And put on The Fellowship of the Ring?"

Ilya was silent for about three seconds, and then blurted out with a touch of genuine passion:

"You know, you’re fucking best thing that’s ever happened to me in this life."

“Can I tell Marlow that?” Shane grinned.

“No.”

“What about Sveta?”

“Absolutely not.”

Ilya visibly relaxed, turned the music down, scrolled to the Aquarium album, and reached into the bag.

“...Shane,”

Shane glanced sideways. Ilya was holding a bitten-off “brick” bread with a weird expression on his face.

Instantly going red, Shane hurried to explain, “I don’t know what that was! I bought it, walked out of the store, and suddenly all I could think was: Bite it! Bite it!. So I did. I don’t know what came over me, I never do that!”

“Shenya,” Ilya said in a trembling voice, as if he could barely breathe, wearing a manic grin. “You did everything right. You’re one of us now.”

Chapter End Notes

stack of clonidine - it was a trend back in the 90s, clonidine girls, Shane was impressed by the little horror anecdotes
Crime and Punishment rock opera Ilya & Lyosha perform track 7
Kovalsky sings along to Sweet Dream by Leningrad & Yulia Kogan
For the proper vibe, this is Dynamo Moscow trademark song (originally an opening theme from a cop series)
Lyubé - We'll Do It, Detectives
Kill kill chant - yes, that's for real
Teftel'ki - meatballs, basically. Usually meat+rice blend, baked in the oven.
Hotel Ukraina - one of the Stalin's Seven Sisters, you've seen it in the show :)
no dress code - well, no dress code till 2025 :(
Now playing in the Crown:
Nautilus Pompilius, "Разлука", namely 14:04
And when Ilya comes, he switches to this:
Аквариум, "Кострома mon amour"

Chapter 11: where Shane thinks about curses and Ilya is dancing on his nerves

Chapter Summary

Shane: Should I call the police?
Ilya: The police did it to us, babe.
Sonya: Hewwo :3

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

Sponsors had been flooding Shane’s inbox for three weeks straight. Had he been acting like an ostrich all this time? Yes. He’d already spent six months after the lockout feeling like he was in prison. Personal brand, Shane. You have to set an example, Shane. You have to be polite, Shane. Why are you throwing punches, Shane? Where do you think you’re going, Shane? You have to be perfect, perfect, perfect. Immaculate. Laminated. An android with a hockey stick.

Now everyone who had even a passing interest in hockey had seen that Pinocchio was a real boy after all. But the party couldn’t last forever.

Dad was grilling burgers in the yard, while Mom sat him down at the table in the living room, opened her laptop, and hell broke loose.

Crisis management. Polite expressions of concern in emails from some of his sponsors. Why don’t you give the Voyageurs’ PR department the password to your Twitter account. Galas. Interviews where the answers had already been written without his input.

Shane listened and felt like he was suffocating.

He took a deep breath, like he was about to dive in a mountain lake, and, ignoring the fear locking up his back and said, trying to sound as firm as possible, "I’m not okay with this."

"Shane, your personal brand is falling apart."

"Because it needs to change!"

Shane had already had this conversation with Ilya, back in January, when he’d been staring at his plane tickets and didn’t want to go back to Canada. Except Ilya had understood him perfectly then. Mom, sitting across from him now with her laptop, didn’t.

"I’m not a role model, Mom. This perfect, polite person who never makes mistakes and does everything right down to the last letter—that isn’t me. And I don’t want to be him. This whole image is suffocating me. People pick out my clothes and accessories—fine, I’ve never cared about that. But within this image, I can’t have fun, I can’t choose my own friends. It even affects the way I play, and not for the better! Can you please decide for yourself whether I’m your son or your project?"

Shane squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to cry, and he didn’t want to raise his voice either. He didn’t understand people, and all his attempts to fit in had been guided by the principle of do this and this because that’s what people do. Why did they though? Who needed it? The press-friendly boy and the guy who'd be accepted in the locker room went together about as well as oil and water. Shane had tried, and tried, and failed at both.

And then Ilya had started asking him questions like what do you want? And there was no going back.

He didn't know what to expect after his outburst.

And then he felt Mom put her arms around his neck, bury her face against the top of his head, and let out a tiny, quiet wail.

"Mom. Mom, I’m sorry. Mom, please don’t cry," Shane forced out, sniffing.

Mom had always been good at hiding it. But, really, she also rarely understood that other people could want different things from what she wanted.

"You forgive me." Mom let him go and took his face in her hands; her eyes were shining, and his probably were too. "If there’s anything else bothering you, please tell me. I can have as many plans as I want, and you can have all the opportunities in the world. But none of it is worth making you unhappy."

Shane drew a sharp breath and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face against her chest as if he were a little boy again, trying to hide from everyone.

He didn’t actually have to remake himself to be loved.

He could stop being afraid. Couldn’t he?

Mom stroked his hair. He felt safe.

"Mom."

"What is it, baby?"

"I’m gay. I’m not going to Spain to meditate by the sea. I’m going on vacation with my boyfriend."

"Oh, darling…"

***

***

“What the hell did you tell them?” Shane asked suspiciously, staring at the screaming headline:

The Hollander–Rozanov Rivalry On Fire

“Well...” Ilya’s grin clearly meant some unhinged shit, so Shane hit play.

Typical opening banter... a couple of shots of Red Square... Game footage... Ilya’s fucking pirouette in front of the net in the second.... Shane was still furious that the bastard had actually pulled that off... The shootout jump... An interview with Shane—edited, with the question about Ilya moved to the very end.

Cut.

They caught Ilya outside the arena the next morning, right at the metro exit: gear over his shoulder, headphones around his neck, faint blue under his eyes from yesterday's Saperavi and lack of sleep. Because they’d pirated The Fellowship of the Ring in the director’s cut, and not staying up until the Boromir’s death would be disrespecting Boromir.

They showed Ilya the video with Shane saying “Rozanov? Who’s that?”

Ilya looked up at the reporter and announced:

“I have bad news for you. That’s not Hollander.”

“What do you mean, not Hollander?”

“I mean he’s really not. That’s Vityok, our tech guy. Gold hands! But huge drinking problem. No, no, don’t laugh! He’s very convincing. Once he told me he went to Far North, and huge icicle growed under his nose! Then it fell and killed a dog. Complete bullshit, but the way he tells it!”

Shane paused the video.

“That’s from Radio Day.”

“Yeah,” Ilya giggled. Ever since Shane had somehow been possessed by the local magic and bitten a corner of a “brick” bread right after the purchase, this menace had been speaking Russian to him non-stop, which was starting to get annoying. “But they don’t know that.”

"You're unbearable," Shane said, closing the laptop. "I hope they got enough material with other NHL guys so they don't have to come back here."

"Yeah, imagine if they caught how you carry me out karaoke on your shoulder," Ilya agreed. "Which was unnecessary, I could walk myself!"

Shane gave him a long, grim look, resting his head on his fist.

"Kuzya warned me that when you start requesting Korol i Shut, you’re already shitfaced. And, by the way, you absolutely did not want to leave."

Ding.

Strange. Eight in the evening, they were not expecting any guests. Ilya went to answer the door.

Just in case, Shane picked up the Khokhloma-painted plush pig from the windowsill: what if it was Grigory Vilenovich dropping by uninvited again, and Shane urgently needed to hide in the closet—

Ilya got into a habit of positioning his wolf on top of the pig as though there were inter-species doggy-style romance happening on their windowsill. Shane made a mental note to rearrange the display so the wolf would be going down on the pig instead.

Ilya, checking the peephole for who had come to see them, let out one confused "huh!" and opened the door.

"Shen', this is for you!"

***

***

One time, while playing chess (he was getting better at it), Shane wondered whether it’s possible to win at sex. He immediately voiced the thought aloud.

Ilya blinked for a long moment, then clarified:

“You mean, who last longer and not come? Then it’s definitely not you.”

Shane didn't like where Ilya was going with this.

"We're not exactly on equal footing when we fuck, are we?"

"So how you suggest we even the odds? Sixty-nine, say? Who can last longer there? Oh, right. Not you again."

It sounded like a challenge, so they abandoned the chess game and went to test who could last longer at sixty-nine, if they really put their minds to it. Ilya won and started giving Shane shit about it.

So Shane threatened:

“I’ll come up with something, that’ll make you beg for mercy.”

He did. And the timing was perfect: Ilya had already driven him insane with the sheer amount of colloquial Russian he threw at him. Practice was useful, but by evening Shane's brain was boiling. Out of spite, he'd even started speaking French to Ilya (mostly swearing at him with passion).

And then his order arrived.

"You. Order sex toys. By yourself. Jesus Christ," Ilya said, eyes wide as he watched Shane unpack the box.

"Ah, so you haven't forgotten English after all. Nice to know they haven't knocked all your brains out yet," Shane shot back. "I was bored in the hotel on Black Friday and got a little carried away."

"Is that crop?" Ilya hissed when Shane slapped his hand away from the scissors. "Thanks, I'll pass."

"Keep passing. It's not for you, it's for me."

"Clearly nobody beat you with belt as kid. And what's this?"

"Nipple clamps."

"Wow!"

"Not today," Shane said, finally pulling what he was looking for out of the box. "Remember our bet? Plugs, identical ones, six vibration settings. Whoever can keep a poker face longer wins."

"Moans count?" Ilya asked almost businesslike.

"They do."

So. Friday night. Bedroom. They were naked, sitting back on their heels, staring into each other's eyes. Vibration level four. Shane clenched his fists so hard his knuckles went white. Ilya was breathing like he'd come down with the worst case of strep throat imaginable.

"You do me, I do you?" Ilya suggested, reaching toward Shane's precum-slick cock.

"Yeah, but let's go level five first."

"Fuck," Ilya breathed, picking up the remote.

"Ready to give up?"

"Hell no, let's do it."

Shane knew what he was getting into when he'd talked Ilya into this experiment. When he wanted to, he could keep a perfectly blank expression and not make a sound even during an orgasm (he usually didn't want to, but he could). There was just one problem: he strongly suspected he'd come first, and that it would happen pretty damn soon.

Click.

Ilya let out a quiet squeak, collapsed forward, and buried his forehead against Shane's shoulder.

"You… you lost!" Shane choked out. He felt like laughing, but he couldn't.

"Y-e-eah-ah, suka, I know. God, come here," Ilya whined.

There was no point keeping the poker face anymore. Shane rolled Ilya onto his back, sprawled over him, and they started rubbing against each other like a couple of wildly overexcited teenagers, kissing feverishly.

"Sometimes… hu-uh…" Ilya whispered hotly against his lips. "I want to wake up with you eating me out… mm-mmh… ahh… and then fucking me really slow… ah—ha… until I start begging…"

Shane couldn't help giggling and bit him on the nose.

"You've done basically that to me… hu-uh, fuck… a couple of times..."

"It looked hot. I want too."

"I'm gonna come. Come with me."

"Y-e-eah…"

This time they didn’t get to lie around and reflect: they frantically searched the wrecked bed for the remotes to the plugs, swearing filthy, breathless curses at each other. When they finally switched off the vibration and collapsed onto the bed shoulder to shoulder, Shane asked thoughtfully:

"Should I try everything you do to me on you?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Shane saw Ilya turn his head toward him, but he kept staring at the ceiling.

"Only if you want to," Ilya said quietly. Shane knew that teasing, flirty tone. I want you to, but I'm not going to push. Ilya began tracing his fingertips over Shane's shoulder. "When you're in the right mood…" which usually happened whenever Shane lost (whether at hockey or pool) and got pissed off, "I feel good with you."

He got tired of pretending there was anything interesting on the ceiling and looked Ilya in the eyes.

"Seems like that mood only happens with you."

Ilya smiled, took his wrist, and pressed his lips to his palm.

"Because you're annoying," Shane finished the thought, and Ilya laughed. "New rules? Whoever can come more times in a night wins."

"Deal. Turn over. I want to eat you out."

Shane realized far too late that Ilya was a cheater: watching his cock disappear in Shane’s ass turned him on like crazy, and if he wasn't holding himself back through sheer willpower, he could come in about fifteen seconds. By midnight, Shane really, really wanted to strangle him.

"You asshole, are you actually going to fuck me properly tonight?" he growled when Ilya tossed yet another condom into the trash.

Ilya dramatically flopped onto the bed with a groan that was unmistakably amused, "Oh no, I'm already so tired! Tired of beating you at sex. What will you do?"

Shane pinched him hard on the shoulder and went looking through his order for the handcuffs and a cock ring.

The next morning, Ilya woke up in an unusually cheerful mood: he was dancing by the stove, singing along to some pop song, one of those where Shane could actually understand every word.

“Baby, my love, I miss you so much, sweetheart!”

While scrolling through chats and e-mails with his right hand, Shane filmed the whole thing with his phone in his left. It could have been excellent blackmail material, but he doubted Ilya would consider his performance embarrassing.

Ding.

Ilya paused the music.

“Don’t tell me Marly finally got tired of driving his barista around at night?” he asked, frowning in confusion.

“Fuck if I know, he’s your buddy. I’ll check.”

Shane got up from the table, went into the hallway, and looked through the peephole. There seemed to be no one in the hallway. Weird. Kids playing a prank? Though most of the people in the building were retirees…

He opened the door and blinked in confusion. There was a cute little blonde girl in a pink jacket in the doorstep. Two, maybe three years old. Next to her were a travel bag and a child car seat.

The girl looked stern.

"Um. Ilya. There’s… there’s a child here."

"What?" Ilya came into the hallway and peered over Shane’s shoulder.

The girl smiled.

"Hewwo.”

Ilya abruptly looked toward the elevator; the numbers above the doors read: 3… 2…

"Suka!"

Ilya jumped over the girl and bolted down the stairs. Shane had no idea what was happening. Had someone dumped a child on them? Should he call the police? He looked uncertainly at his phone screen and started punching in 112.

From the first floor came the squeak of the entrance door, followed by a crash and Ilya yelling:

"Lyosha, you fucking asshole!"

Then, from the street, faintly came Alexei Rozanov’s mocking laughter and the sound of an engine.

"See you in two weeks, loser!"

"I’ll fucking kill you!"

Half a minute later, the elevator doors opened, releasing Ilya, whose wonderful mood had vanished without a trace.

"Sonya," he addressed the girl grimly. "Come in."

The girl slipped past Shane and ran off to explore the apartment. With a heavy sigh, Ilya surveyed the things left on the doorstep.

"Should I call the police?" Shane asked, wiggling his phone.

"No. She’s my niece," Ilya replied darkly, picking up the bag and car seat.

Oh, God.

Shane looked at the child dashing around the apartment like a lightning bolt and went pale.

"Distract her. I’m going to hide the toys and condoms on the top shelf," he hissed.

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut.

"Oh, f-f-u-uck…"

While Sonya—who turned out to be wearing Barbie pajamas under her pink jacket—was distracted by syrniki and a cartoon playing on the laptop, Shane stuffed everything that wasn't meant for tiny hands into the medicine box. Ilya, phone pressed to his ear, was going through the bag of kid things. At the top he found a container with pirozhki.

"I have no words for you right now. Well, I do, but not ones for Sonya's ears. What kind of person would… Yeah, I know! Then why didn't you take her to her grandpa?" When Shane shoved the box into the overhead storage, Ilya gave him a thumbs-up. Whatever Lyosha had said, it made Ilya suddenly break into a sarcastic smile. "Ahhh, I see. So now we're not denying that Papa started to lose his marbles, huh? You… su... you dreary muskrat, Jesus Christ… Yeah, Margo, thanks for the pirozhki, but that's not how this works. Give the phone back!"

Ilya went out onto the balcony, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket—Parliament Aqua, a heart attack—and Shane awkwardly sat down beside Sonya, pulling his half-finished coffee closer.

"What's your name?" Sonya asked indistinctly.

Shane vaguely remembered how Motya had introduced him in front of his own kid and answered:

"Uncle Shenya."

"And I'm Sonya."

"Nice to meet you."

That was it. They were out of conversation topics.

Shane shook his head, marveling at what his life had become, and took a pirozhok from the container.

Holy shit.

Those were fucking incredible pirozhki.

By the time Ilya finished his call and came back from the balcony reeking tobacco, Shane was already on his third.

"So?" Shane asked.

Ilya put his phone down on the kitchen counter and spread his hands.

"You wanted kids with me, right? There you go. Trial version."

Shane glanced at the schedules hanging on the fridge.

"You have a flight next Tuesday."

"Yep."

Sonya, oblivious to their problems, watched her cartoons and washed down her syrniki with Shane's kvas from her spill-proof cup.

Shane and Ilya looked at her.

Then at each other.

All they were missing was a Western soundtrack in the background.

"So, rave party cancelled?"

"Nah. It's not like we're gonna smoke weed and shoot up. Sonya’s human too, even if tiny. Will whip her up some cocoa shots."

"Great, genius. You solved that. And what are you going to do during practice? We're leaving in an hour."

Ilya pulled out his phone and found the right contact.

"Hey, Svetik?"

***

***

Maestro was already waiting for Shane in the parking lot.

"Well? Where are they? Where are the pirozhki, the necessity of which the Bolsheviks have always spoken of?”

Unfortunately, Shane knew that quote perfectly well: for November 7, the guys had dressed him up as Lenin. They had even tracked down a fake beard and given him a collection of Lenin quotes and aphorisms, complete with stress marks, including this one about the socialist revolution.

It had turned out awkward, to say the least.

Shane started reading out the quotes. Everyone gathered in the lobby of Arena Omsk—including the coaching staff, the Omsk players, and the massage team—laughed themselves to tears. It started out harmless enough: something about movies, and learn, learn, and learn. But the quotes gradually descended into hell.

Any state is oppression! Capitalists are ready to sell us the rope we are going to hang them with!

And when the financial director walked past—the same man Skipper had been unsuccessfully hounding for the team’s overdue salaries for two months, while Kovalsky sang something about Kursky Station during every such conversation—Shane got to the quote:

The rich and the rogues are two sides of the same coin.

So, yeah... awkward.

"I'm not sharing."

"Why tease me, then? Shenya, don't be asshole."

His deeply ingrained reflex—never fuck with goalies—kicked in, and Shane pulled a rasstegai out of the bag.

"You'll tell everyone you ate all my pirozhki."

"Deal! Oh my God, fucking delicious…" Maestro groaned through a mouthful. "Ha-ha, listen, this pirozhok looks like a vagina!"

Shane frowned in confusion at the rasstegai and corrected him:

"Where have you seen ones like that? There's no labia. Unless they've been amputated…"

Maestro laughed so hard he nearly choked on the pirozhok.

What a fucking day.

Shane was starting to think that topping Rozanov—or even just bringing up the subject—was bad luck. First Grigory Vilenovich would drop unexpected, then the heating would get shut off, then Shane would be driven to tears and gay panic, then the Crown would need repairs, and now someone had dumped a child on them…

Sonya's bag contained all her documents, including a power of attorney for Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov. She even had a good daycare to go to on weekdays. But besides taking care of her basic needs, they still had to figure out how to entertain the kid. Adapt.

Sveta laughed for ages on the phone, but agreed to come to the rink and look after the little one while Ilya practiced.

When Ilya installed the baby seat and buckled Sonya in, she listened to Splin playing in the car for about five seconds before firmly declaring:

"Sad song. I want a happy one."

Shane exchanged a look with Ilya.

"Do you have any happy songs that aren't about horizontal tango or suicide?"

Oh, yes. He had a compilation CD. About prison and the criminal life. Senior Lieutenant Rozanov was going to be absolutely thrilled when he got back. And that was definitely not Shane's problem.

At least Maestro kept his "word of honour" and told everyone in the locker room that there were no more pirozhki. Maybe the day wouldn't completely go to shit after all.

"So, how are you doing with the kid? You're our lone-wolf, after all," Skipper asked casually as Shane was putting on his skates.

"How should I know? I've only been with her for two hours," Shane shrugged. "But I do have some questions about cartoons. Have you seen The Bremen Town Musicians?"

"Tsk, Shenya, everyone seen it!" Motya rolled his eyes.

"Great. So, did I understand this correctly? The king was against the princess dating the troubadour because the troubadour was actually his secret illegitimate son?"

The locker room went so quiet they could hear the kettle boiling in the coaches' room.

"You just ruined my entire childhood," Kovalsky said in a haunted voice.

"Ps-sst, what's this cartoon?" Karlssen whispered.

"Will send you link," Jacek whispered back.

Maestro cleared his throat and sang:

”Sunshine’s golden ray
Revealed incest to human eyes
The common folk can’t see the way
Princesses live from day to day.
The night will fade, the morning light will glow,
The lovers to the scaffold soon must go.
The Church condemned the love they came to know,
Yet still the rising sun will show.”

The guys laughed, though there was a slight note of hysteria to it, and as they were getting ready to head onto the ice, Motya put an arm around Shane’s shoulders and said:

"You’re on fire, Shenya. Now I really curious to hear your thoughts about cartoon The Blue Puppy."

***

Chapter End Notes

Saperavi - Georgian dry red
Radio Day - not the Woody Allen movie, but the Kvartet I movie (worry not, it's a comedy)
Wicked she-wolf, I despise you - an incorrect quote from The Little Golden Calf by Ilf & Petrov (worry not, it's also a comedy)
Baby, my love, I miss you so much - Руки вверх "Крошка моя"
November 7 - Day of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Lenin was by far the most famous Russian person to have the throat R lisp.
something about Kursky station:
Here at the Kursky Station
I stand so young and poor
Please, for the love of Jesus,
Toss a coin or two.
Rasstegai - a kind of pirozhok, usually with fish
The Bremen Town Musicians (2 episodes), the music is fire. Maestro "fixes" the words of Troubadour's ballad in ep 2. Musical.
The Blue Puppy, also a musial.

Chapter 12: where Shane is laughing and Ilya catches a series of dreads

Chapter Summary

Ilya: That's it, I'm going to church.
Shane: Me too.
Kovalsky: (light-hearted whistling)

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

"Donate these to a thrift store. You look like a cop in them," Margo said decisively, fanning herself with a folder. There was another murder file inside it.

"Really?" Ilya said doubtfully, examining the pointy-toed shoes. "I'll give them to Lyosha then. Ok, next." He pulled his favorite jeans out of the closet. "Calvin Klein. My ass looks fantastic in these. Good quality, expensive. But!" Ilya tossed the Calvins onto the bed and pulled out another pair. "If I get shitfaced on sangria and have to crawl back to the hotel on all fours, Gloria Jeans. Fifteen bucks. I won't feel bad about ruining them."

"Ilyush, it's thirty-five degrees in Barcelona. You'll wear jeans once, to the airport."

"Fair point."

On the one hand, Margo was absolutely right. But on the other, Ilya had to look good. He didn't want some flashy Spaniard stealing Shane away. He needed a better option.

Oh! Slutty tops!

Compromise found. Peachy fucking keen.

"By the way, tell Hollander thank you. A big thank you," Margo said, raising her beer bottle in a toast.

"What for?" Ilya asked, confused.

Tank tops into the suitcase, shorts into the suitcase, jeans into the box.

"I have absolutely no idea what he said to Lyosha, but he hasn't been gambling the stocks over six months now."

Ilya dropped a stack of underwear.

"Seriously?! I was wondering why he hadn't asked me for money…"

"I'm shocked too."

Ding!

Margo went to see who was at the door while Ilya gathered up his underwear. She came back with a box from a Georgian spot. A rough marker drawing of Yesenin holding a bottle of vodka adorned the box, along with a note: Greetings from Shagané.

"You sure this is for us, not the fourth floor?"

"Absolutely."

Ilya tried to suppress a smile as he unlocked his phone, with no luck.

"Margo, I need you to take a pic of me topless with a khachapuri!"

***

"What took you guys so long?" Marlow demanded instead of saying hello.

The first guests of the rave party were hanging out in the hallway next to the apartment door, drinking beer in the company of Zinaida Vasilyevna, who had lent them some glasses. Zinaida Vasilyevna herself, surprisingly, fit the party theme perfectly: the purple dye in her hair was fresh, her velour tracksuit was black with neon accents, and she had enormous black glasses perched on her nose. She claimed the newly replaced lights in the stairwell gave her headaches.

Shane burst out laughing at Marlow’s question.

Sveta was giggling too.

Traitors.

Ilya snorted in annoyance, put Sonya down on the floor, and dug around for his apartment keys.

First of all, Lyosha was a motherfucker. Secondly, Lyosha was a stupid, completely fucking nutjob motherfucker.

Ilya had dropped Sonya off with the morning daycare teacher and gone to practice. He came back in the evening with Shane (who was driving) and Sveta (who had tagged along). He went to pick up his niece.

The morning teacher was gone. Instead, there was a teacher who had never seen Ilya in her life, and whom Lyosha hadn't said a word that he and Margo were going on vacation because he forgot.

"Who are you here for?"

"Sonya Rozanova. I’m her uncle."

The teacher eyed him suspiciously and called for Sonya.

"Sonechka, is this your uncle?"

"No," Sonya said confidently, and Ilya stared at her in shock.

"What do you mean—“no”?"

"Do you know this man?" the teacher continued.

"No!"

"Listen, I don’t know what kind of show this is, I have a power of attorney. Let me go to the car and get it!"

"Oh, sure. I know how many gangsters her father and grandfather have put behind bars. You’re not going anywhere. Seryozha, seize him! I’m calling the police."

By the time they were escorting Ilya out of the daycare centre in handcuffs, Shane and Sveta hadn’t noticed a thing. Sveta cranked Somebody That I Used to Know all the way up, so the song could be heard through the closed windows, and they were singing along, loudly and off-key.

Meanwhile, Ilya was trying to discreetly relocate the police ID he’d stolen from Lyosha into his underwear.

The officers were even pleased that his “face looked familiar—probably this guy was wanted.”

It was only once they reached the station that Ilya managed to call Sveta and ask the impromptu car-karaoke enthusiasts to bring him his papers.

When Shane saw Ilya behind bars, he laughed so hard he couldn’t stop.

Well, obviously.

And then Sonya dropped the bomb:

"Hi, Uncle Senya!"

"Oh, so we know Shane, but not me? Little traitor."

"You’re not an uncle. You’re Ilya."

At that point it finally dawned on the teacher that perhaps she had been asking the wrong questions, and she clarified:

"Sonechka, who is this?"

"Ilya."

"And who is Ilya?"

"Daddy’s blother."

Sergeant Rogov, who was flipping through Ilya’s passport, sighed in disappointment. He’d really been hoping for a juicy arrest.

"Well, that’s awkward."

"I did offer to open my Wikipedia page," Ilya said grimly.

Because of this whole fucking circus, Ilya and Shane were late to their own rave party.

Everyone immediately started taking pics of the IKEA shark hanging from the living-room ceiling, tied up in shibari style. Earlier that day, while following a YouTube tutorial to make this macramé, Shane had hinted that maybe the two of them should try something like that too. Ilya vividly imagined the whole thing and immediately reached down Shane’s pants, not giving a damn that Sveta was sitting a meter away from Shane, busy with her bets. Well, what was there she hadn’t seen?

When Shane came (Ilya swallowed and tucked him in), he smacked Ilya over the head with the shark, because the shibari had somehow shifted in the process and he had to start over. And then Sveta chimed in, albeit jokingly:

"Ilya, you’re an awful host. You didn’t even offer to let me join. Shame on you!"

Shane stopped beating Ilya with the shark and looked at Sveta with an expression of utter embarrassment.

"Oh, I’m so sorry! Do you want me to eat you out? I’m not really into it, but I can!"

Ilya hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. The fact that Shane was completely serious only made it funnier.

"Chill, Mother Teresa. No need for such a sacrifice. I’m joking," Sveta reassured him, giggling.

"Oh. Okay," Shane shrugged and rewound the shibari video to the beginning.

"You know, he’s actually pretty good at it," Ilya said, wiping away tears. "Shane, remember those two girls from that club in Kitay-Gorod? I ran into them when I was clubbing with the guys. They were terribly upset you are away and wanted to repeat. We exchanged numbers."

Shane grimaced.

“Decline. I mean, it would be one thing if they did something with each other. But no. It’s like getting into bed, but for a chore instead of fun. I at the very least want to suck you off while it’s happening, and the logistics don’t work out."

"Mmm, logistics," Sveta smirked.

"Wanna have a quick fuck while Shane doing macramé?" Ilya suggested.

"Brave," Shane remarked.

"Nah, it’s fine. I’m on the pill now," Sveta replied thoughtfully, scrolling through her bets.

Ilya looked at Shane. Shane looked at Ilya and set the shark aside.

So, all things considered, keeping the party props intact required Herculean willpower, and the couch was now covered with a spare bedspread that clashed violently with the overall color scheme. Ilya had a joke about don’t sit on the couch or you’ll get pregnant dancing on the tip of his tongue, but he’d have to save it for next time. No sex jokes or anything related to it around certain little traitors.

The guests scattered, some heading into the living room, others into the kitchen for chips. While Sveta put on a dance playlist consisting mostly of Pitbull, and Shane mixed non-alcoholic shots for himself and Sonya, Ilya changed his niece into a Grazhdanskaya Oborona fan T-shirt and put half his collection of belts on her.

Sonya saw herself in the full-length mirror in the hallway, gave it a thought, and asked:

"Am I Satan?"

Ilya facepalmed, trying to figure out what kind of fucking… wise person had put it into a child’s head that wearing black had something to do with Satanism.

Ksyusha, who was just looking for somewhere to put her boots in the hallway, giggled.

"No, sweetie, you’re a punk. But you’re missing something." Ksyusha tossed her boots wherever and pulled a scarlet lipstick out of her bag. "Gimme that little face."

Ksyusha was one of those magicians who could do a full makeup with nothing but a single lipstick and a finger. Sonya hadn’t been all that far off: after Ksyusha was done with her, she really did look like a tiny spawn of hell.

Shane, carrying a collection of shot glasses on a cutting board from the kitchen, watched Sonya run into the living room to jump on the coffee table to the Black Eyed Peas with a heavy sigh full of genuine envy.

"How old is she, two? Three? And she already intuitively knows what you’re supposed to do at parties. I had to Google that shit back in the day!"

***

Twiggy Maitre: Theme of the day: prison-style tattoos, because these guys have gotten busted at least once. What kind of thugs am I mingling with.

[series of photos: Ilya, Shane, Ramazan and Kovalsky showing off prison tattoos drawn with markers. Ilya has Orthodox church domes on his chest (the bear acquired Stalin’s trademark moustache), Shane has "rings" on his fingers, Ramazan has a cat on his forearm, Kovalsky has a cross on his chest.]

Ilya Muromets: Hope it’s sunny in Egypt (that’s not Kahlúa, it’s cocoa)

[video: Ilya’s living room. Everyone gathered there is drumming their palms on the coffee table and shouting, “Shots, shots, shots!” Sonya dances with her back to the camera and knocks back shots of some light-brown liquid.]

Shenya of Holland: Question: how do you get a kid to bed when the kid wants to dance to Ball of Satan, and a bunch of idiots keep egging her on?

[video: A courtyard next to the fire station. Sonya, wearing a pink outdoor outfit and Ilya’s old dark sunglasses, dances on top of a playground slide in streetlight, doing something vaguely resembling tectonic. Guests from the rave party run around her. Ksyusha stands by the slide with her phone held up. The sound is distorted, but you can make out Ball of Satan playing.]

Svetlana Vetrova: He slings verses at hookers (sorry, strippers)

[video: Moscow looking beautiful under its evening lights during a snowfall. A woman’s voice from behind the camera: "Just don’t film us!" Sveta’s voice: "As if I give a shit about you, look how beautifully they lit up that high-rise!" Ilya and Marlow, smoking by the entrance to the building, come into frame.

"You know, I always thought you dressed like this because you’re European. But then I came here and realized you’re just a fucking fashionista," says Marlow.

"European, European…" Ilya grumbles.

He clears his throat, raises his chin, and begins reciting aggressively:

You are the millions; we are the countless throng,
Come fight us then—come prove you wrong!
Yes, Scythians are we! Yes, Asians indeed,
With slanting eyes, wild with greed.

Marlow looks at the camera in confusion. Someone off-camera applauds.]

***

Ilya was standing by the Crown in the parking lot, waiting for Shane and finishing his shawarma, Yulia’s treat for scaring off her ex-boyfriend’s mother. The madam of questionable morals (and upbringing choices) had pointed a finger blindly in the sky and accidentally guessed whose tip-off had gotten a case opened against her precious son. Ilya walked up to the arena with his gear and caught the tail end of a conversation that could very well have ended with someone's eye-scratched out.

“Have you no decency at all?!” the indeterminate-aged madame was screaming in Yulia’s face. “You’ve ruined my boy’s life!”

“Fascinating,” Yulia replied. “Because when I got out of the hospital, after Vadik nearly crushed my head against the wall, I went to church. I kissed an icon and confessed to Father Afanasy. And Father Afanasy said God would punish Vadik!”

“You little—!”

“Yulia Alexandrovna!” Ilya barked. “Are you having trouble?”

The madame turned around and cut off what was clearly going to be a rather unprintable tirade halfway through. Ilya walked over to them with an unpleasant smirk and said pointedly:

“You know, it’s not particularly wise to harass a girl when there are about twenty guys who’d stand up for her if push came to shove. Guys who make their living knocking people’s teeth out.”

“Why the hell are you sticking your nose into other people’s business for, you—!”

“Senior Lieutenant Rozanov. I’m so pleased to meet you,” Ilya introduced himself cheerfully, waving police ID under the madame’s nose—an ID he now, unfortunately, had an overly intimate acquaintance with. “You really shouldn’t have withdrawn your complaint, Yulia. You could’ve added another year to that beautician's sentence under Article 112. He’s going to be inside for a long time anyway; what’s another year?”

Yulia, hardly hiding a vindictive smile, watched her ex-boyfriend’s mother leave, and then asked Ilya if he wanted something to eat. Ilya was no fool to say no.

A slow stream of red-and-whites emerged from the staff entrance onto the parking lot. Shane came out after Karlssen and Matthews, with Motya hanging off him.

“Come on, Shenya, let’s go pick up couple women! You can’t leave me!”

“Take Jacek,” Shane grumbled back. “I can’t. I’m driving, and I’ve got a kid.”

“Well, so do I.”

“Nominally. You’re a deadbeat father. Jace-e-ek! Save me!”

“You traitor!” Motya sternly poked Shane in the forehead.

“You’re the traitor. You dragged me into that fucking ziggurat. I didn’t want to do their commercial. They even got an extra SIM card I didn’t want. Jace-eek!”

Kovalsky pulled Shane away from Motya’s grabbing hands by the collar, and Motya was steered toward the nearest bar by the so-called “Czech line,” dispatched by the captain.

“Thanks,” Shane said quietly, and finally noticed Ilya. “Hey! Been waiting long?”

“Not really.” Ilya shrugged and handed him the second shawarma. He looked suspiciously at Kovalsky. “Mish, do you need something?”

“I need to go to the garage!” Kovalsky grinned broadly.

Of course he did. Ilya didn’t even want to imagine how many times Kovalsky’s car, a nightmare of domestic automotive engineering, built by orcs for orcs, had broken down.

While Kovalsky was shoving his bag into the trunk, Ilya replaced the current CD with some Russian club music mixed with rap. Prison ballads had grown unbearable over the past few days—Sonya had been demanding endless repeats of Hop, Cop! and And To You, I’m Nobody. Shane was shivering slightly behind the wheel; he clearly needed a warmer jacket.

“What did Filonenko sign you up for?”

Motya was the red-and-whites’ resident heartthrob and appeared in commercials regularly; sometimes the model scouts even approached him on the street. An icon-painting-worthy face, enormous feline green eyes, an offensively handsome man. Ilya had irrationally disliked him for a long time. Svetka would say it was because he sensed a rival, but Ilya would never admit such a thing.

“MegaFon,” Shane grumbled.

Ah. That explained the ziggurat comment.

“Wasted half a day on that shit instead of hitting the gym. I suspect Motya drank away his salary and needs the money.”

“Not yet,” Kovalsky commented, settling in behind Shane. “He just wants to get on his wife’s nerves. You guys are going to be on TV like a hundred times a day.”

“Damn it,” Shane muttered and banged his forehead against the steering wheel. “I can’t even go to the Red Square area anymore, and now this!”

“Why is that? Listen, if you don’t eat shawarma, give it to me.”

“I’m not sharing, get off,” Shane huffed, taking a bite. “Rolex put up my ad in GUM.”

“You know what, Shen’, fuck you. Problem, my ass. I’ll tell our DJ to switch your song to Britney Spears,” Kovalsky grimaced and sang in a squeaky voice: “She’s lucky, she’s a star…”

“And I wondered why you refuse to go to skating rink on Red Square,” Ilya snorted.

To be honest, “let’s go to the ice rink in the evening, it’s beautiful there and there’s mulled wine at every turn” didn’t really fit into Shane’s usual routine of walking the sponsored stuff—except, maybe, for the Reebok sneakers. The city had finally been covered in snow, and Ilya’s inner aesthete woke up. He wanted to see how Shane’s eyes would sparkle in the street lights. How the tip of his nose would turn red. How snowflakes would melt on his black eyelashes.

“Show me the way,” Shane grumbled as he pulled out of the parking lot.

Naturally, Misha couldn’t take his SUV nightmare to a car service in a decent neighbourhood, and they got stuck in a traffic jam in Tushino—Ilya even got out of the car (while they were in the far left lane at that), walked to the coffee spot, got three Americanos, and strolled back. The car didn’t even get three meters forward.

“Listen, Misha,” Shane said thoughtfully. “So, when you said in the interview, ‘just keep your anus intact, honey,’ what did you mean? I currently have three theories.”

Ilya almost choked on his coffee.

“Three? Well, go ahead, share,” Kowalski said, clearly amused.

“Theory number one: it’s a saying about sexual assault. The main thing is to make sure you don’t get raped and acquire anal fissures as a result.” A Lada had the audacity cut in line in front of Crown, and Ilya reached for the steering wheel to honk at the scoundrels—Shane himself didn’t like to honk. “Theory number two: if you want to have anal sex, find yourself a better partner, not just “spit, shove, and pound.” And theory number three: it’s Russian prison folklore condemning passive homosexuality.”

Misha giggled into his coffee, and the player, as if deciding to add some surrealism, howled: “Call me your bunny, call me your kitten…”

Shane stared at the car stereo, then turned a stunned gaze to Ilya: up until then, it had been playing Kach, 5’Nizza, or Drago tracks on random. Ilya rolled his eyes and, after the line “call me little elephant,” turned the volume up.

“YOU BETTER CALL US FIVE WHORES!”

Kovalsky finished laughing, reached forward and turned the volume back down.

“To answer your question, it’s combination of first and third theories. But you can tell Motya about second one. Maybe his brain start work.”

“Oh, so Andropov didn’t bullshit me?”

“Why? What did Kolyan tell?” Ilya asked, interested.

Andropov was quite the hoarder of gossip: at first, he would keep quiet, smile politely, and people would tell him more and more, and then it would be too late. And then Kolya would leak all the rumours to some rat gossip chat. To be fair, he always knew exactly which chat to go to and what exactly could be leaked.

“He says, nobody wants to sleep with Motya twice.”

Ilya didn’t know how bad the things with Mr Pretty were, so he looked back at Kovalsky.

“There are rumours about it, but it is never problem with his face,” Kovalsky sighed.

“Meanwhile he is always crying so hard about Nastya when he gets drunk—and with so much drama at that,” Shane marveled. “I don’t understand him at all.”

“Honestly? You’re not the only one. Oh, bathroom! Be right back.”

“Hey!” Shane shouted after Misha, genuinely annoyed. “We’ve only just started moving!”

“Calm down. If anything, we can turn on hazard lights and open hood,” Ilya said, watching as Kovalsky jogged and hopped among the cars like a mountain goat.

“Asshole,” Shane shook his head. “I was hoping we’d still have time to have a proper fuck before we go to pick Sonya.”

“When we throw this bastard out at service center, I can blow you in traffic jam on MKAD,” Ilya joked. “Give bored truck drivers hot performance.”

Shane almost crashed into the cocky Lada: jokes often reached him two seconds too late, and depending on the joke, he could get obviously irritated about it. Ilya smirked cheerfully, not feeling the attack coming. Shane unbuckled his seatbelt, grabbed him by the neck, and tilted Ilya’s head toward his groin—Ilya almost spilled his coffee.

“Why wait? Do it now. Mm, yeah, baby, be a good boy for me.”

And while Shane rhythmically pressed the back of his head, Ilya was laughing like crazy, trying not to knock the cup over.

“Idiot,” Shane grumbled, returning his hand to the steering wheel.

Ilya buckled up again, wiping away the tears of laughter. He looked around, searching for Misha, and he met the gaze of a laughing woman in her forties with perfect hair and perfect makeup, sitting behind the wheel of a Lexus. The woman rolled down the window and handed Ilya a pack of tissues.

“Thank you,” Ilya said, taking the napkins through the window—he had no intention of commenting on the sudden performance.

“You know, sweetheart, if you can suck that well, I can give you a phone number of a richer man,” the lady grinned.

“I don’t do it for money,” Ilya replied in the same teasing tone. “Only for love.”

“Richer?” Shane asked Ilya.

Ilya translated, and Shane, leaning over the handbrake, addressed the lady in the Lexus:

“He doesn’t want it, give it to me.”

The lady laughed, but the exchange of pleasantries stopped there: her car moved forward.

“Oh, you cheater,” Ilya said, putting his hand to his chest. “I want divorce.”

“No, no, no, darling,” Shane drawled. “You don’t understand. I’m looking into the ways of getting our baby college funds. Stay at home, eat kimchi with sgushonka, and don’t you worry your pretty head about anything—the stress is bad for the baby.”

Ilya watched him, chuckling, looking at the ghost of a carefully suppressed smile on his face, at the sprinkle of his beautiful freckles and the sharp gaze, when he remembered…

“You know, Ilyukha,” a slightly tipsy Lyosha once told Ilya at his wedding with Margo. “Find yourself a bestie, someone as fucking batshit as you are, who also gives you constant hard-ons. Once you find her, put a ring on it.”

Lyosha himself proposed to Margo when only ten days after they met have passed. He met her on his first very day as a field detective, at a crime scene, right above a corpse that wasn’t exactly fresh. After a sleepless night, melancholic and tired, Lyosha himself was slowly munching on a shawarma, examining the kitchen of the Khrushchev era apartment where the body had been found. Meanwhile Margo, a similarly new office detective, was throwing up in the toilet. Lyosha teased her about it, and Margo got pretty annoyed and tiny bit vengeful. That season was rich in murders, and four days later, Margo made Lyosha go into the lake to retrieve another corpse. Of course, Lyosha got the body out, but he vomited in the bushes for ages afterwards. The very next day, he invited Margot to a cafe. Margo brought a bottle of cognac in her bag and offered to pour it into his tea. Lyosha realized that he had found the woman of his dreams. He invited Margo to continue the evening at the jazz club in Lenin Library area, and played Gershwin, Miller, Arsenal, and what not for her, for four hours. Ilya suspected that he had stolen the ring from the evidence storage.

Something tightened painfully in his chest.

Nonononono

He was saved from a flood of very frightening thoughts by Kovalsky, who made his way through the flow of cars amidst an indignant roar, holding the phone to his ear.

“…I have money, I have connections, I am a dangerous man, got it? Goodbye, Mom.” Kovalsky slammed the door. “Well? Let’s go!”

“What a beautiful relationship,” Ilya commented.

“God fucking damn it…” Kovalsky pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a long story.”

“Maybe you haven’t caught on, but we have plenty of time,” Shane remarked.

Kovalsky let out a long breath, puffed out his cheeks, and spilled the story—surprisingly succinctly.

“Dad died from overdose. Mom left with her new husband to Sochi. Grandma and Grandpa raised me. I registered almost all my money and property on Grandpa. He diagnosed with cancer. Mom realized she may get something. Now I need to re register everything ASAP.

Ilya had a vague, extremely unpleasant suspicion that explained a lot about Kovalsky.

“Mish,” Ilya said cautiously. “You didn’t go to States to play…why exactly?”

“If you ask me this question,” Kovalsky said, stretching his lips into a smile that didn’t contain a shred of amusement, “you already know answer. Who do you think would take care of my old folks? Mom?”

Shane frowned as he looked at Kovalsky’s face in the rearview mirror, as if he were seeing him for the first time.

“Brooklyn Scouts, 2006. I thought I was wrong, and there was some kind of Kovalenko or Kovalchuk there. Misha…”

“Nice to meet you,” Kovalsky smirked.

“Second overall draft pick, right after Scott Hunter, holy shit…” Shane shook his head, reorganizing his thoughts.

“Mmm, every time I see him at championships, I hear sound of his teeth grinding. There is no better entertainment on Earth than annoy Scott Hunter,” Kovalsky said dreamily.

“Oh, yes,” Ilya agreed wholeheartedly and touched coffee cups with him, as if toasting.

Later, when they dropped Kovalsky off at the service station and slowly drove toward Sonya’s kindergarten, Shane mused:

“So. Misha’s grandmother?..”

“She died three years ago,” Ilya supplied.

They were clearly thinking about the same thing. Shane glanced at Ilya and said with a slight touch of unease:

“So, when his grandfather dies, the Scouts might…”

“Yeah.”

Ilya met Shane’s gaze, and they groaned in unison.

“Oh please, no!”

“Listen, I’ll even go to church and light a candle for Kovalsky Grandpa’s health.”

“Will that help?!”

“I don’t know, but I’ll try!”

Shane looked at the golden church domes gleaming in the distance off to the starboard side.

“You know what, I wasn’t baptized or anything, but I think I’ll go with you too.”

Chapter End Notes

you look like a cop - Typical "oper cop" undercover
There is a division into "opers" (field detective, who does the catch) and "sledaks" (office detective, who collects the papers and proof). Lyosha is the former, Margo is the latter.
violet hair - believe it or not, it's legit rus grandmas fashion
Grazhdanskaya Oborona - Soviet punk band, Letov (the frontman and the lyrics author) had a lot of problems with the KGB, you could guess WHY
Maitre - untranslatable pun, Maitre/Meter [and a ballcap] (it's how you call a very short person in Russian)
Tats meanings:
Chirch domes: "I did time"
Cross: authority in prison
Cat: professional thief/did time for theft several times
Rings: meanings vary, you could cypher a whole criminal biography in them
Satan's Ball
He slings verses at hookers (sorry, strippers) - a reference to a Yesenin's poem
...All night long, till the break of day,
I sling my verses at whores,
And swill down raw booze with bandits
Till we're crawling across the floors.
Meanwhile Ilya reads Scythians by Alexander Blok (translated by Riannira)
Hop, Cop / Хоп, мусорок strikes again
Бутырка "А для вас я никто"
MegaFon's office actually moved to this ziggurat in 2017, but I couldn't resist
Just keep your anus intact, honey - originally a pun. Both "asshole" and "point" translate into Russian as "очко". How many points do you want to get this season? Well, I just want to keep my point intact. If you have ideas how to execute this, I am open to suggestions. [NB: do not use this word for anything but crude jokes, it's not hot, it has thug/prison slang connotations.]
Five Whores
Kach
Drago's typical stuff
5'Nizza "Натяни"
What a beautiful relationship - a direct quote from The Pokrovsky Gate

Chapter 13: where the lack of tact cures addictions

Chapter Summary

Ilya: I'm wearing Adidas
Sitting in a Slav squat
But I still gotta respect
The Russian ballet
Shane: Fuck Russian ballet. Literally :)

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

“I thought we’d be having an awesome sex vacation, but right now I just want to lie down and die,” Shane grumbled as he put his suitcase down in the hallway of the rented apartment in one of the older quarters of Barcelona. “There’s no air conditioning here! It’s barbaric!”

Ilya didn’t even bother to comment on the lack of air conditioning in Olde Europe. They were sweating like rats on crack. He really wanted to grope Shane, but at the same time, he really didn’t, because it was too hot. They should have gone to Norway, for God’s sake.

“Got idea.”

“I’m listening.”

“Let’s take shower and feel like humans.”

“Okay.”

“Then we close all curtains. We put fan next to bed—there should be one, I looked up. We sleep during day. We go for walks and have fun at night.”

“Ohhhhh, you’re a genius,” Shane moaned, his voice filled with lust, even if it was the lust for shower. “Let’s go.”

Through the window in the bathroom, they could clearly hear Tyler’s classic broadcasting from the outdoor speakers at the bar down the street. We’re making out more than we’re making love, Ilya heard from the window while standing under the barely warm stream of the shower, and he laughed into Shane’s lips.

“What?” Shane was smiling and blindly washing the foam off Ilya.

“He's right about something. When I flew here, I thought mostly about kissing you whenever I want.”

They eventually found not even one, but two fans and fell asleep naked, hooking their pinky fingers. They woke up closer to the evening, when the sun was setting, and it wasn't hot enough anymore to make the thought of sorting out their luggage seem unbearable.

When Shane opened his suitcase, Ilya snorted into his fist. The contents were three pairs of shorts, three sets of underwear, and three T shirts. The rest of the space was taken up by lube and condoms.

“And how did security look at you at airport?”

“With envy,” Shane raised an eyebrow.

Ilya, having tossed a roughly similar set of clothes onto the shelf, reached into the freezer, where he had put a bottle of gin earlier that day. He’d have a drink, then they’d go out for breakfast-dinner somewhere near the port, and after that, they’d probably hang out on the beach and swim in the sea naked. It was a great plan.

“Listen, Ilya,” Shane said thoughtfully.

Shane had a weirdly musing look on his face, but Ilya for the life of him couldn’t guess what the problem could be, so he just raised his eyebrows, taking another sip from his glass.

“Have you ever thought about getting aversion-therapy?”

The question struck him in the solar plexus with its deceptively mundane tone, and Ilya, without even giving it a second thought, spat the gin into the sink. The contents of the glass followed suit. And as a final touch, the rest of the bottle’s contents poured into the drain with a cheerful gurgle. Finally, he rinsed his mouth with tap water, getting rid of the last drops of alcohol.

Shane watched the scene unfolding before him with his jaw hanging open.

“I get now why Lyosha stopped his trading gambling hobby,” Ilya grumbled to himself.

“Wow,” Shane said, and his eyelids clearly forgot that they were supposed to blink.

“Maybe I didn’t chase anyone with axe, but compare me to my dad is dirty trick,” Ilya shook his head and tossed the empty bottle into the trash. “No more drinking.”

Shane involuntarily licked him with his gaze—they hadn’t bothered with clothes after all—and asked in a playfully modest tone:

“Do you want to go get something to eat, or should we have sex first?”

Ilya forgot about the gin that had been flushed down the drain pretty quickly.

***

A quiet November evening. Sonya, holding a wax crayon in her fist, was drawing masterpieces of abstractionism in her sketchbook. Sveta was sipping cold brut and watching KHL TV (Spartak vs. Slovan). And Ilya was forging a power of attorney for Sonya, naming Shane Hollander the person responsible for the kid, because he definitely wasn’t planning to take her to dad’s apartment on Tuesday.

“Do you happen to know why Filonenko isn’t playing today?” Sveta asked. “He mixed up all my cards.”

"Fluff me backwards if I know,” Ilya shrugged, practicing Margo's signature on the draft. “Shane complained that he drinks a lot, his wife left him. Maybe he got temporarily put in time-out for drinking?” He frowned. “Who's on Shane’s wing now?”

“Baturin, from the youth team.”

“Huh. Lucky rook.”

Ilya watched the last twenty seconds of the shift involving Kovalsky, Shane, and Baturin.

“Not bad,” he grumbled reluctantly.

Sometimes he would start fantasizing what it would be like to play with Shane on the same team. But he would quickly dismiss the idea, because it would either mean he’d have to play on the wing himself or go out onto the ice together only when they were on the power play. He was good on the wing, but he liked being the center more. So what’s the point? Apart from the fact that, in the long run, no NHL team could afford both of them financially. Only if they take a pay cut or all the other players would be mid. He’d already been mulling over the theory that Spartak could only afford Shane because someone did take the cut.

Ilya looked at Kovalsky suspiciously. Ye-e-eah, this dude could have done it. It was hard to believe that Shane himself (or rather, his agent) would agree to lesser payment than he was worth.

“Ilya, Ilya, let’s go to the zoo?” Sonya said.

In the abstract art in the album, Ilya could vaguely make out something resembling tigers.

“It’s winter, everyone’s asleep.”

Sonya pouted, and Ilya started thinking.

“We could build snow animals in the yard.”

“Good.”

“Go-o-o-al!” the TV screamed.

“Doesn’t look so good for Slovan,” Sveta sighed with obvious satisfaction and went to top up her sparkling wine.

Ilya heaved a heavy sigh and signed the power of attorney papers with Margo’s beautiful, sweeping signature. It was easy with Lyosha; he wrote like a chicken with broken paws, and his signature looked like the usual “Rozanov” written by a sixth grader. Now he only had to introduce Shane to the teachers and the security guards in person.

“Shall I pour you some?” Svetlana shouted from the kitchen.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Ilya agreed. “Sonya, do you want some cocoa?”

“I do. With marshmallows.”

Well, on the one hand, Ilya really loved children. On the other hand, looking after them full time was a real chore—simply because he couldn’t have more than a glass of beer, and he had to make a special effort to find some time for the simple act of having sex.

They watched the second period like drama divas: Sonya wanted to drink from a beautiful glass too, even if it was cocoa. Well, Ilya and Sveta watched, but Sonya mostly pretended.

Shane's shift came again, Spartak was leading and wasn't going to concede.

“Hey, what the!” Sveta put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from swearing.

Ilya agreed with her, and kept silence for the sake of Sonya’s ears too.

The huge Slovan defender rushed across half the rink, aiming for Shane, but he ended up crashing badly into Baturin, who had managed to push Shane out of the way. Baturin fell onto the ice.

Sveta put the glass aside and frowned, clasping her hands together.

“That’s bad. And he’ll only get two minutes penalty.”

Shane and Karlssen helped Baturin get up and slide to the bench—he couldn’t put any weight on his right leg. Must be a fracture, at least. Poor guy. Vasya Skipper got up from the bench, snapping something, but when Kovalsky raised his hand, he fell silent.

“He won’t,” Sveta said with obvious doubt.

“You know, I’m not so sure about it,” Ilya drawled.

Kovalsky started saying something quickly, pointing at the players in Slovan’s first line. The head coach, grimly folding his arms across his chest, remained silent but nodded. The medics were taking Baturin away.

“He fucking will,” Ilya said, not really believing it himself.

The red and white team took to the ice and, to the enthusiastic cheers of the home crowd, scored a power play goal within fifteen seconds. For a moment, Shane’s stunned face appeared on the screen—it was from his pass that the puck was delicately placed into the net.

Then the Slovan defender got out of the sin bin, and a mass brawl ensued.

***

***

***

***

The “panel’ka” in the Otradnoye district, where Senior Lieutenant Rozanov’s apartment was located, looked sad, but not as sad as the urban landscapes of Eastern Europe were often depicted in Hollywood. Shane really hated seeing the glazed balconies, which were piled with junk up to the ceiling. Ilya said something about some Plyushkin, and that these balconies could even have plaster busts of Stalin. When Shane asked what Plyushkin was, Ilya said it was a reference to a clickbait novel written by a Russian Stephen King from the nineteenth century. And that they could pay a visit to another cemetery to look at his grave.

“Sonya, are you ready to go home?” Shane asked, unbuckling the child from the seat.

“Ho-o-o-ome! Sonya yelled joyfully, waving the Spartak scarf.

Somehow, Shane managed to survive three days in the company of Ilya’s niece: their levels of Russian weren’t that different, no one tried to arrest him at the kindergarten, and Tanya looked after her during the match with the Horses. Tanya was a wonderful woman overall: she translated all the jokes and laughed contagiously; Shane was really sad that Tanya and Skipper missed all of Ilya’s wild parties. Yacek gossiped that they attended swing nights at that American diner instead, where Shane, Ilya, and Sveta had celebrated a negative pregnancy test at the crack of dawn. Sometimes Skipper’s child from his first marriage would go with them. Not for dancing though, but because that bar-and-diner served milkshakes by the bucket too.

Shane locked up Crown, put Sonya on his shoulders, somehow gathered all her things in his hands, and trudged toward the building, hoping he had remembered the address he’d gotten from “Alyosha Popovich” correctly.

At least he didn’t have to watch Foontik this time, he didn’t have eight hands, damn it.

“Uncle Senya,” Sonya asked as they squeezed into the elevator, “will we watch football with nice uncles?”

“Ask Dad,” Shane replied honestly, because he had no idea what the dates for the soccer season were.

When Ilya went on his roadie, Shane loaded Sonya into the car first thing in the evening and took her to his favorite Slavic tavern, where they served delicious schi and excellent Kiev cutlets. At the entrance, the waiter, noticing the Spartak scarf Shane had wrapped around Sonya, said they were lucky, and that Spartak guys were dining right there, in the far corner. Shane immediately narrowed his eyes in a suspicion that it could be Motya drinking again with the Czech line, and he honestly warned the waiter that he was from Spartak himself, and if it was Filonenko drinking there, Shane would punch him in the guts—he had already been banned from several games for drinking. The waiter immediately grew sad and begged Shane to take the fight outside.

With an unkind intention, Shane approached the table in question, but, to his surprise, he didn’t see a single familiar face.

“Spartak?” Shane asked the six men at the table, puzzled.

“Spartak, Spartak,” one of them replied.

“So why haven’t I ever seen you at the rink?”

“We’re football players, buddy,” another man laughed.

Shane was starting to get a bit irritated by the abundance of identical names among the various sports clubs in Russia.

“Ugh, sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I was told there were guys from Spartak here, and I thought it was my winger drinking again, the bastard. Hollander, nice to meet you.”

In the end, not only was Shane invited to join in, but they also gave Sonya a soccer (“Don’t call it soccer if you value your face, man!”) jersey covered in autographs — the T shirt was for an adult, so Sonya looked like a sports fan wizard in it.

Shane had no idea how Senior Lieutenant Rozanov would react to the Spartak merchandise, but that wasn’t his problem anymore.

…he’ll react with indignancy and burn it, probably, Shane concluded, judging by how Lyosha’s face contorted at the sight of Sonya’s Spartak scarf. Senior Lieutenant Rozanov must have been rooting for Dynamo out of principle. When Shane finally handed the kid over to her mother, Margo said “thank you very much” in a terrible accent, and Shane replied, “ochen’ vkusnyye byli pirozhki,” also in a terrible accent.

“Come in, tea’s ready,” Lyosha offered, playing a proper host. “We brought halva and baklava from Egypt, good souvenir for good nannies.”

Oh well, Shane had nothing to do anyway, unless he wanted to indulge in Motya’s self-destructive tendencies, and he really, really didn’t.

It turned out that Lyosha not only chattered non stop in Russian, discussing everything from murder and dismemberment cases to reselling cheap Chinese goods at the Russian markets. He was also more than willing to chat away in broken English. He started by telling a story about some guy from their hotel who jumped off a cliff right onto a shark, accidentally killed it, and made a barbecue out of it (Shane didn’t really believe it). Then he tried to convinced Shane that no, he and Ilya wouldn’t go bald like their dad, because baldness is passed down through the female line, like hemophilia (here Shane completely lost his train of thought—what hemophilia, is Ilya sick???—and Ilya, the bastard, actually took after their handsome great grandfather. After that, they started going through albums with photos from the beginning to the middle of the twentieth century, with Lyosha’s cheerful comments about who stabbed whom, who cheated on whom, who had legit shotgun duels, and other Slavic nightmares. Ilya’s great grandfather really turned out to be a handsome man by the standards of the last century: the same curls, the same sly squint in his eyes… and thick, rich moustache that curled upward at the edges.

“Our great grandmother drowned herself, he left her for a man,” Lyosha added cheerfully, and Shane almost choked on his tea. “But no one had time to rat on him, because war,” and on the next page, the handsome grandpa was already in a flight jacket, standing by an airplane, “He was shot down in 1944.”

“How about we change the subject?” Shane asked plaintively, and immediately stuffed his mouth with halva so as not to say anything else on the topic.

“Okay,” Lyosha agreed easily, closing the album, and suddenly leaned forward, looking Shane in the eyes. “Listen…”

“What?" Shane involuntarily pulled away.

"Lend me a hundred thousand.”

"Take a loan,” Shane hid his face behind a cup of tea.

"I can't. In 2007, I took loan, we drank it all with Ilya. I sold Papa’s old car to pay it off. Ilya ratted me out to Papa, Papa beat my ass and made me sign some nice papers. Now I can’t take out a loan without family member’s approval. Lend me a hundred thousand roubles.”

Shane moved even farther away.

“Borrow from Ilya!”

“I saw his mortgage payments and checks from Dynamo, he’s broke. Lend me a hundred thousand, for you it what, like pocket change, no?

“Why?” Shane wouldn’t give in. “Sports betting?”

“Do I look like idiot?” Lyosha protested. “I trade on stock exchange! I’m decent man!”

For the next twenty minutes (Margot went into the kitchen once and looked at Shane with a hint of pity), Lyosha kept pointing at some diagrams on his laptop and saying that it was “most easy money ever.” He didn’t take into account that Shane was a thoughtful, observant boy: at some point, he noticed the tab with the portfolio history, moved Lyosha away from the laptop, and looked at what he had been playing with.

Oh, no wonder Dad said that eighty percent of people who come to the stock exchange go bankrupt in the very first year.

“You Rozanovs having delegation issues—is it a family thing or something?” Shane grumbled, glancing back at Lyosha. “If you are shit at it yourself, hire a professional trader, for fuck’s sake. Look at your portfolio—you’ll take your wedding rings to a pawnshop soon…”

Lyosha looked at him, stunned, for about three seconds, and then said in a leveled, calm voice:

“Get out.”

Shane grabbed the box of halva from the table, drawling sarcastically:

“Thank you, Shenya, for looking after my child, even though you weren’t obliged to; you’ve really helped me out!”

“Thank you, Shenya,” Lyosha repeated obediently. “Get the fuck out of here.”

***

***

***

Some asshole finally uploaded the Slovan beatdown to YouTube. ESPN ran a two-minute segment in their “What’s Happening Across the Pond” section about the record number of penalty minutes over the past two seasons and the goalie fight, and Shane’s phone had been blowing up with notifications since early morning.

Mom. Deal with that later.

Dad. Probably approved—he’d practically lived in the sinbin back at McGill.

Coach. Shane wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he thought. In Montreal, they preferred to play “clean”—penalties were basically reserved for mouthing off at the refs.

The Voyageurs’ PR guy. Shane actually answered that one, saying their rookie had nearly had his career ended before it even began, that Shane hadn’t been the only one fighting, and that he’d also been calming down Viktor Andreyevich. Compared to everyone else, he’d been pretty sweet and well-behaved.

The team group chat… would not shut up.

Shane sighed, turned off all notifications except calls, and drove to the arena for the morning debrief.

The day started badly, and everything went downhill from there. The Starbucks on the Garden Ring was closed for renovations, and it was Shane’s turn to buy coffee for his line. He grumbled, got into the Crown, and kept driving. The Coffeemania by the MegaFon ziggurat was closed too.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

At last, on Tverskaya Yamskaya, he saw a Shokoladnitsa sign and turned to a back alley, where he just happened to notice a miraculously vacant parking spot, he didn’t want to test his luck. The queue for coffee stretched all the way to the door.

Shane pulled out his phone, texted Kovalsky that he’d gotten stuck in a traffic jam at the coffee shop, received a laughing text emoji in response, and was about to put the phone away when a message from JJ popped up—not about the fight, thank fuck, but about “what are we getting Pikey for his birthday.”

There was still quite a bit of waiting to do, so Shane agreed to a voice call on Skype.

JJ, baklava to Shane’s soul, didn’t say a word about the fight—just that they were taking Hayden to a pub that had a selection of non alcoholic beverages for Mrs. Pike.

“Oh, I got an idea! He’s a fan of lightsabers fencing. Maybe we could get him a medieval sword as a gift? Like, as an option.”

“Dude, I even happen to know a workshop in Moscow where I can order a Jon Snow’s sword,” Shane agreed, realizing that people were glancing at him—French was not a frequent language to hear in Moscow. “But I have no idea whether I’ll be able to send it by mail. And if not, whether I’ll be able to get it through three airports in a carry-on. I feel like the security might have questions.”

“No shit they will,” JJ supplied right away. “How did a bastard acquire Valyrian steel? DHL, maybe.”

“Well, that’s an option.”

The queue was moving at a lazy snail’s pace.

“What do you guys even do there for fun? You clearly don’t drink vodka,” JJ asked casually.

Shane exhaled, puffing out his cheeks.

“My local guide is kind of weird, so I went to a cemetery, visited prisons and examined imperial times sewers. Oh, and took a boat ride. People, like, go to theaters, but I only understand Russian at the level of a kindergarten class; only ballet would work for me, and it’s hard to get tickets for that these days. My buddy tried to go to the Bolshoi theater box office, got a black eye, and still couldn’t get any tickets.”

“A fight at the theater box office over ballet?” JJ laughed.

“You’re trying to ask me what the point is, even though I’ve never been to a theater in my life. How the fuck would I know? Maybe they serve cocaine during the intermission.” Finally, Shane’s turn came up, and he, carefully enunciating each word, ordered: “Good morning, please be so kind, one latte with mint syrup and five Americanos.”

“What?” JJ asked into the phone.

“Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you, I’m ordering coffee,” Shane said absently, opening his wallet.

A large hand suddenly landed on Shane’s arm, and a soft voice said right by his ear, “Make that six Americanos, Anastasia, I’ll pay.”

Shane, without even having to turn around, realized from the look on barista’s face that it was some kind of celebrity.

***

Ilya, taking off his winter boots, was already imagining how exactly, how many times, and in what positions he would finally fuck Shane. He didn’t even want to hit on any girls anymore: with Hollander, it was hot and fun, and there was no need to pretend to be someone he wasn’t, and well… Rawr, finally!

“Honey, I’m home!” he sang.

Shane came out of the kitchen, weirdly smirking.

“Guess what I got,” he said, handing Ilya two tickets.

Two tickets to the stalls at the Bolshoi Theatre, for The Nutcracker, on December 29th.

“Huh?! How?!” Ilya squeaked. “Did you sleep with Bolshoi director?”

“Well, not exactly,” Shane shrugged in mock modestly.

And then he told a wild story about having a meet-cute in a coffeeshop with a man who spoke French, how they chatted a little bit, how Shane gave him a ride to work "somewhere in the center," how he had already gone on a date with the guy, which quickly ended in bed, and how he was very much going to a second one.

And he showed Ilya a photo.

“Arturchik,” Ilya mimicked him in a mocking, albeit shocked falsetto. “Honey bunny sweetheart Artur. In The Nutcracker, which we will actually see now, he is motherfucking Nutcracker. Shenya, how the fuck?

“Envy doesn’t suit you, Ilya,” Shane chuckled. “Take your clothes off, the tea is getting cold.”

Envy? That wasn’t envy. Ilya undressed on autopilot, watching Shane walk away, and for the first time in his life, he experienced a disgusting, bitter feeling that twisted his insides. A feeling he had mistakenly believed he was incapable of.

It was wild, blinding jealousy.

Chapter End Notes

Sibir's Fatass Snowman
Metallurg's Timosha
Weird Yeti Krut - actually a pretty recent development, but if I wanted Voyageurs to shit on some mascot... Krut IS weird
Horses aka CSKA aka Moscow Army Boys, colour scheme: blue and red, mascot: Horse
Alyosha Popovich aka Alexei, son of a priest - Russian folk hero, along with Ilya Muromets
schi - a cousin of borsch
ochen’ vkusnyye byli pirozhki - the pirozhki were delicious
checks from Dynamo - Lyosha means receipts
kick dicks - Ilya translates Russian expression literally, it's actually a phrase for "do nothing"
Bets and slots, we spin and play - originally sung on the melody of "Что такое осень" ДДТ

Chapter 14: where Shane didn’t have a boyfriend for about 30 minutes

Chapter Summary

Shane: My ego is crushed
Ilya: PLEASE GO OUT WITH ME
Snahe: Oh :)

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

“Did you seriously fire your agent?” Shane chuckled, hiding a smile behind his glass.

“Let’s look at the difference.” Ilya made a dramatic, Hamlet like gesture with his hand toward Shane. “Rolex and Hugo Boss.” Another gesture, this time toward Ilya himself. “Sportmaster, Teremok, and that awful Tennessee vodka.”

They still mostly lived by night: the cold weather was only expected to arrive by the end of the week. Fortunately, food markets and various establishments worked late.

“First of all, it worked out great with Teremok. Free blinchiki! Second, didn’t you sign a contract with Adidas back in May?”

“I did, but Volodya did no work on it. They came after me on their own. He didn’t even read the contract! He sunbathed somewhere on Maldives at that time, but he still wanted his cut. Also, his days as my agent were numbered from moment I heard how much dear Ms. Jalali bargained for you from Spartak.”

“On paper, she secured it, but in reality, the bastards still owe me money,” Shane snorted. “Back in December, I already started asking the guys from CSKA and Avangard if their sponsors would be interested in buying us. Meanwhile Kovalsky recorded a video message for Abramovich and made me and Deni sing:
Next to the Kursky station
I stand so young and poor.
Please, for the love of Jesus
Toss a coin or two."

Ilya burst out laughing and almost choked on his non alcoholic beer.

“Why didn’t I see that?!”

“Because it’s all shame and disgrace,” Shane snapped.

A seagull with no shame but all the audacity in the world, circling over the market, suddenly dived down and snatched a potato piece right from Shane’s fork. Shane looked after it with disapproval.

“So!” he continued, covering the potatoes with his hand. “Farah texted me to find out whether your job offer is some kind of sick trolling.”

“My former agent is lazy piece of shit, tell her that,” Ilya rolled his eyes, also snatching potatoes from Shane just like that seagull. “And maybe remind her, that we lived together and I saw how you guys worked.”

While Shane was quickly writing a reply to Farah, Ilya checked his VK feed and froze with his glass at his mouth.

“Kovalsky is selling his grandpa’s dacha.”

It took Shane a second to get the subtext, and his mood got slightly sour. He raised his glass of beer.

“To Misha’s grandpa.”

“No clinking. And To Scott Hunter’s mental health, also no clinking.”

They drank. Shane quickly finished writing the letter and put his phone away.

"At least the paps will switch to the Metropolitan Division and get away from us," Shane said in a cheerful tone.

"That's not likely,” Ilya reasonably remarked. “After all, Crowell promised to send us to some reality show or something.”

"If it turns out to be anything like paintball, I will know you have bribed someone," Shane shook his finger.

“I can think of hundred less moronic ways to lose shit ton of money,” Ilya snorted. “Oh, just imagine how Misha will roast and torment Scott! Not only same division, but city… too…” Ilya blinked, slowing down. “Shenya. Shenya, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That we’ll never be that lucky?” Shane shrugged. “Unless we go crazy and head off to play in California.”

Ilya shook his head.

“No. Write to Misha if he wants to play for Montreal, not Scouts. I'll put together his matches at World Championships, he didn't kick dicks there. And that power play thing with Slovan.

"What's the point?" Shane grumbled. "Hunter will never agree to get traded from the Admirals. And while he's there, they won't have cap space for one of us.”

The insane manic smile on Ilya's face implied that Shane missed something.

“The chances are slim, but. Shen’. New Jersey.”

Shane grabbed the phone.

***

***

Ilya ran into Ksyusha with her guitar, as he usually did, in the underground passage from Teatralnaya to Okhotny Ryad metro station, although more often he saw a sax duo there (if he was heading home after ten at night) or a Santa Claus lookalike old man with an ancient guitar, who sang The sky will be blanketed with starry dust every morning. Ilya ostentatiously dropped five hundred roubles into the guitar case and, once “the heart had caught its breath for a moment and started beating again,” requested Zemfira’s Traffic.

“Then we’re off to a bar.”

“It’s on you,” Ksyusha shot back immediately. “Tell me, who the hell came up with these traffic jams…”

Shane had dashed off on a date to some place for sophisticated bourgeois somewhere on Petrovka, while Ilya was mentally kicking himself. Why? How the hell? He couldn’t even win Shane back. Fuck false modesty, Ilya was good—he knew how to charm people, and was attractive enough to assemble improvised harems in clubs without much effort. But there was no competing with Artur fucking Samsonyan. He might even have gone on a date with Artur himself if Artur had asked him. And Ilya, just to be clear, had never been on a date in his life.

Maybe that was the problem…

The day before, Ilya had had tea with Shane, listened to his adventures, pretended he had things to do, and gone to Otradnoye because he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to act around Shane now. Did Shane even want to sleep with him anymore? What do I do, comrade Major? It’s not my fault!

He spent exactly an hour and a half at Lyosha’s, and for the entire hour and a half had to listen to Margo laughing and Lyosha taking the piss: why the hell was their daughter now singing shit about prison tattoos and pretty autumn sights across the bars, the entire department was laughing their asses off at them.

After that Ilya crashed at Marly’s place on Savyolovskaya, with the scandalous idea of spending the night there. Idiot. Naturally, his call literally dragged Marly out of bed: barista Alinochka had arrived at his place for sex, sushi, and wine five minutes after Marly finished unpacking his bag. And for the next two hours, Ilya spent a great deal of painful pleasure arguing with Alinochka, who was wearing nothing but Marly’s enormous T-shirt, about whether there was any point in wasting your time on a humanities degree. Marly’s face grew increasingly anxious as he gentlemanly kept topping up Alinochka’s glass with some Auchan Cabernet from a carton.

Alinochka graduated from the philology department, but had never worked in her field for a single day—and besides, her actual degree specialization was extremely vague.

Ilya was making a show of being outraged because his maternal grandfather was once a professor at Alinochka’s department. Grandpa had taught stylistics, lexicology, and several other disciplines that were about as far from Ilya’s interests as humanly possible.

Marly watched their argument somewhat nervously and wanted to know what exactly they were fighting over.

“She want to burn down couple of libraries,” Ilya explained.

“He thinks I’m a heretic,” Alinochka said.

Then she asked with a smirk whether Ilya had actually finished school, or whether hockey scouts had simply kidnapped him before his final exams.

Ilya was offended at first, nostalgically remembering his first year at the Physical Education and Sport University. The head of his department had sworn up and down even before the first exam session that he would kick Ilya out for skipping classes—but if he brought home gold from the World Junior Championship in Canada…

Ilya said, “Okay.”

Ilya delivered.

They never threatened to expel him again—so far. Because he had also managed to bring home gold from the World Championship.

Then he remembered that the last time he’d brought cognac to the uni had been two months ago, and this term he already had his state exams coming up—surprise, surprise!

And he threw himself at Alinochka's feet.

“Alina! Write my term paper for me. Please. I’m begging you! I’ll pay!”

In the end, he did make it home—at two in the morning, with his wallet considerably lighter—and collapsed onto the sofa in the living room without even taking off his clothes.

He still hadn’t figured out how he was supposed to act around Shane.

In the morning, Ilya was completely wrecked from lack of sleep. And on top of that he woke up to a voice he had previously heard on TV only, on Dancing with the Stars, but now it was coming out of Shane's phone speaker while Shane was making himself breakfast in the kitchen:

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not going out for coffee at seven in the morning!”

Ilya didn’t understand anything after that, because the conversation switched to French. Ilya’s knowledge was limited to "Messieurs, je ne mange pas six jours" “dégage, vieille salope” (Shane’s sweet reply to the old lady from the second floor who called him a cross-eyed junkie), and “filou” (what Shane called Ilya whenever he was pissing him off—which, according to Shane, was something like “huyebes”).

When Shane hung up, Ilya cautiously crept into the kitchen and asked whether he should expect Shane for dinner.

Shane looked at the dark circles under his eyes, made him some coffee, said he was going on a date tonight and that Ilya shouldn’t wait up, then kissed him on the cheek goodbye and took off for the morning debrief.

So what the hell was that supposed to mean? And what was he supposed to do now?

As if sensing just how close Ilya was to an existential crisis, the girl taking their order at the bar decided to finish him off.

With Ksyusha’s help.

“Is the girl of age?”

Ilya was about to wonder since when did anyone care about Ksyusha’s passport when he was the one paying for the drinks. Besides, next to Ilya’s pack of Parliament cigarettes, Ksyusha had already put down her Kent Switch. Basically her substitute ID.

“He’s not trying to get me drunk, he has a boyfriend,” Ksyusha answered sweetly, and Ilya stopped breathing as if someone had just punched him in the solar plexus.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Ilya breathed, realizing his lips were trembling and that he looked like the greatest disgrace of his entire family. “You should see who he ran off on a date with.”

Ksyusha stared at him blankly for half a second, then ordered:

“Sweetheart, I’ll have a Long Island. Vodka for him.”

“What kind?” the girl asked immediately.

“Any kind,” Ilya said, shaking his head.

The girl proved to be perceptive and brought them a whole bottle.

Ilya hadn’t even poured his shot yet when Twiggy joined them, shaking snow off herself and muttering curses under her breath. Her standard pixie cut was purple this month, with yellow “feathers” framing her face. As usual, the look did absolutely nothing for her standard serious face. Ksyusha, despite dressing like the Prince of Darkness out for a walk, always looked like a little angel of innocence next to her.

“I hope you’re paying, I’m broke,” she began without preamble. “‘Shenya, don’t let them in, Shenya, they’re trying to take my apartment,’ fuck you. Do you have any idea what the lines at Tsaritsyno are like in the morning? You heartless bastard, who the hell even wants your shithole apartment? It needs about seven million in renovations… What?”

“Sanya,” Ilya sighed heavily and finally knocked back his shot. “Shut up.”

In a way, Kuzya had been right when he said that Ilya and Shane were the gay version of Twiggy and Ksyusha. Twiggy was responsible for cold, cynical logic and complete lack of tact; Ksyusha handled attentiveness and a love for partying. A very familiar dynamic.

Though Shane also got hit with panic attacks a lot, something Twiggy never suffered from at all. Shane thought it was because she was very brave. Ilya mentally added: and she was brave because she was an idiot.

“Shane dumped him,” Ksyusha whispered.

“Whaaat? Mademoiselle! May I ask your name? Asel? What a wonderful name for a wonderful girl—it suits you so well.” Ilya couldn’t help looking at Ksyusha when he heard the shameless flirting. But no. Nobody was offended. Nobody was jealous. “We need another Long Island!”

“Nobody dumped me. We weren’t even dating,” Ilya protested.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“Oh really?” Ksyusha raised an eyebrow. “They weren’t dating, sure. Did you take him out to the movies? To restaurants? Did Shane bring you coffee in bed?”

“If we were dating, I wouldn’t bring women home,” Ilya argued.

“Well, what can I say?” Twiggy shrugged. “You’re a whore.”

"You don't understand. I wanted to quit. When we were on the road, I wasn't hooking up with anyone anymore." Ilya rested his forehead on his fist, staring down at the table. He didn't want to know whether they were looking at him with pity or like he was an idiot. Which he was. "And from the very beginning, Shane would ask me every time I took him somewhere whether it was a date. And I thought, Fine. When I get back, I'll actually ask him out. Screw it, never have I ever, high time to try. But now it's over. While I was gone… he...in this fucking Shokoladnytsa…" Ilya knocked back another shot and lowered his voice to a whisper. "had a meet-cute with Samsonyan."

"Which Samsonyan?" Twiggy frowned.

"You know that many Samsonyans?" Ilya said sarcastically. "Especially ones who can casually get tickets to the Bolshoi for the end of December."

"No way?!" Ksyusha leaned forward, nearly knocking over her glass.

"You think they've already fucked?" Twiggy asked, her curiosity once again overpowering whatever sense of decency and tact she possessed—which wasn't much to begin with.

"I know they've already fucked," Ilya said sourly. "Because Shane himself proudly told me about it. And today, right after the gym, he went to see him. I don't want to go home. Ramazan's wedding is tomorrow, and I invited Shane as my plus-one ages ago. And now I don't even know how I'm supposed to look him in the eye. This is fucking awful. I can't even complain to Sveta about it; she'll mock me to death."

Ksyusha sympathetically stroked his arm. Asel, who was just setting a second Long Island down in front of Twiggy, was clearly considering whether to slip Ilya the number of some old lady who does cheap curses that give the victim diarrhea.

"You can still have an honest conversation with him and ask him to date you. He won't say no," Ksyusha said. Ever the optimist.

“Yes, he will," Ilya objected. "And he'd be right! I’ve waited too damn long. And, most importantly, why? I'm a fuckwit! There's something wrong with my head, seriously! Lyosha told me, find yourself a hot girlfriend who's just as fucked-up as you are and marry her immediately. And since August I've just been… oh, we're such great friends. And he's so sexy. But no, dating? Why-y-y? That would just ruin everything. Idiot!"

"Sounds like a toast," Ksyusha diagnosed.

Ilya poured himself another shot.

They were finishing off cold cuts, and Ksyusha was already getting her guitar out when his phone pinged. The contact “wife” was texting—the one he urgently needed to rename. Ilya, still stoically trying not to cry, first went to edit the contact, but, as he'd already established, he was an idiot, and so “wife” became the even more embarrassing “Shagané”.

Ilya put his phone down. A vague flicker of hope stirred in him, but he strangled the feeling. Some tiny thing hadn't worked out for Shane. And now Ilya would probably have to sympathize with him and give him some advice or something. What a nightmare. No. He wasn’t going to give him any advice. Let Ksyusha handle that. Ilya would keep quiet. And pretend everything was fine.

But what if Shane wanted to move out?!

And the “please promise you won’t laugh”—was that about how quickly he’d fallen into a relationship and agreed to move in together?!

“Ilyukh, what’s wrong?” Ksyusha patted him on the shoulder.

Ilya unlocked his phone and showed the texts.

“He’s going to move out, right?”

Ksyusha shot Twiggy a look, and Twiggy half-rose from her seat and smacked Ilya upside the head.

“What makes you think that?” Ksyusha said. “You’re worse than my mom when it comes to imagining bullshit, Jesus Christ…”

Shane showed up at the bar fifteen minutes later. He was wearing a conspicuously expensive gray sweater and Ilya’s fancier winter coat, which Ilya himself had thrown at him after he noticed Shane shivering in his Canadian winter jacket. Shane looked neat and put-together, like a corporate lawyer on vacation—if Moscow corporate lawyers were all Keanu Reeves-level handsome.

There was something gloomy in Shane’s otherwise relaxed face.

He really did need relationship advice?!

Oh God, no…

Asel had apparently picked up on Shane’s aura of doom and gloom, and politely asked whether he wanted another shot for vodka.

“I’m driving.” Shane had repeated that phrase so often that it now came out without an accent—except for his R’s. “Cocoa with marshmallows?”

Not kvas, not black coffee, but cocoa? With marshmallows?

Things must have gone not good indeed—for Artur, but very well for Ilya.

“Well? Tell me,” Ilya couldn’t stand it anymore. “What happened? What’s with face? Don’t tell me he is asshole?”

“Da blya…” Shane groaned, rubbing his face with both hands.

Ksyusha and Twiggy leaned forward.

“He’s really great,” Shane said mournfully. “Polite, charming, ridiculously charismatic, speaks French better than I do. But when he opens his mouth, all I can do is nod. Voltaire, Italian opera, Antonioni, Rembrandt. Where am I, and where’s Rembrandt?! I just sit there listening to him, and pretty quickly, right there, I start realizing that I’m STUPID. Why are you laughing? I am fucking dumb! Thick as a plank! It’s a spectacular feeling. I don’t want to experience it again.”

“Sorry!” Ilya covered his mouth with his hand, although his giggling was more nervous than anything else. “Sorry. And how it end?”

“I told him straight out that I couldn’t keep up with him intellectually,” Shane grumbled. “He laughed. Then he asked how old I was. Said he probably shouldn’t have started anything in the first place. He thought I was older. We parted as friends.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself, you just have different interests…” Ilya tried to comfort him, although inside he wanted nothing more than to jump out of sheer joy.

He deliberately ignored Twiggy, who was frantically gesturing for someone to bring a bottle of champagne to their table behind Shane’s back.

“Uh-huh.” Shane rolled his eyes. “Skates, dicks, a bit of cinema. Minus Italian neorealism or Soviet arthouse, obviously.”

When Shane got his mug of cocoa, he started stirring the marshmallows to soften them, then fishing them out with a spoon.

Like a ten-year-old. Adorable.

A hot girlfriend with the same kind of fucked-up brain? Oh no. Shane was so much worse.

And Ilya blurted out before he had time to think through what exactly he was offering:

“Want to go on date?”

As if on cue, the champagne cork shot into the ceiling.

Ksyusha was silently screaming and shaking Twiggy by the shoulder. Twiggy was grinning like a fucking demon.

“Did you find another cemetery?” Shane asked without a though, but a second later he froze and slowly looked up at Ilya.

“A date.”

“Ice rink at VDNKh opened.” Ilya would have liked to nervously bite his nails, but he couldn’t, because that would have looked way too uncool. “It’s beautiful there. We can skate for fun. I’ll buy you ice cream.”

Shane slowly spread his lips into a smile. Ilya knew that smile very well: it appeared on Shane’s face whenever he was winning.

“Ice cream?” Shane repeated, as though he couldn’t believe that was what Ilya had suggested.

“What else people usually do when they go on first date at, like, twelve years old? I put this off long enough. Gotta catch up.”

Maybe someday Shane would make fun of him for this and say something like…

“For our first date, Ilya dragged me to a cemetery."

“For our second, he made a homeless guy sing for cigarettes, took me on a trip to St. Petersburg, and fed me shawarma."

“And then, four months later, burning with jealousy, he decided that, well, now he could finally ask me out on a date, and everything else didn’t count."

Because although Shane was the one having anxiety attacks, the real cowardly ostrich there was Ilya.

“Yeah. Let’s do it.” Shane hooked his pinky around Ilya’s. Ilya desperately hoped he wasn't blushing. That would be so fucking stupid. They'd already done pretty much everything together! And here he was, giddy over the idea of going to a skating rink and getting ice cream.

"Girls, do you know a decent hair salon around here? Because I kinda...”

“NO!”

Shane jumped in his seat, nearly deafened by the unanimous three-voice "no."

“Once we settle up,” Twiggy insisted, “we’re going to Lyonya’s. He has my hairdressing kit. I’ll trim your mullet and show you how to use hair gel. You’ll look like Tsoy.”

“You mean like a person who ate two Tsoys?” Shane corrected her.

…when Kuzya, watching Ksyusha draw Shane legendary messy Soviet-style smoky eye, asked whether Ilya had a thing for Asians, Ilya merely replied that Shane had a thing for Caucasians, so stop judging, Leonid, will you?

***

“I have one question,” Shane said as they climbed out of the taxi in front of the civil registry office.

“Only one?” Ilya snickered, surveying cars parked three rows deep, miraculously, not yet towed. Possibly the "miracle" was a couple hundred dollars.

“Why couldn’t they get married in the off-season?”

A fair question. Ilya had wondered the same thing. Well, he had back when Ramazan first announced the date. Over the past two days, he’d been on an emotional roller coaster; he hadn’t had much room left for Ramazan.

“There are few theories,” Ilya began. Someone was clearly already inside, but the guys, including Kuzya and Marly, were waiting outside. The limo carrying the bride and groom presumably hadn’t arrived yet. They could hang around, gossip, and smoke. “Theory number one!”

Ilya lit a cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke away from Shane.

“Shotgun wedding. That’s why everything happening so fast. Nikitos and I went with that theory until Ramazan said he only ever saw his bride on photo.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Shane sighed, tipping his head back and letting the snowflakes land on his face. “Never thought I’d look at snowfall and think, finally, it’s getting warmer.”

Ilya briefly glanced at the groom’s group of friends—no one was paying any attention to them—and brushed the snowflakes off Shane’s nose. Nothing had really changed; he’d done that before. But it felt like everything had changed.

“Um. Theory number two. I guess someone—probably the bride’s family—have money problems, and they want to fix things quickly with wedding gifts. My father's sister pulled a similar trick once. They spent lots of money on her eldest grandson’s wedding and decided to make it back from younger one’s. Really wanted me to come, tried hard, but I told them they were crazy—what wedding? I'm in States, playoffs coming up. They still don’t talk to me.”

“Should I feel sorry for you or congratulate?” Shane smirked, waving at Marly from afar.

“Congratulate.” Ilya looked toward the turnoff to the highway. Still no limo. “Theory number three. They wanted to invite some very rich relative who said the only free window in his schedule is in early December, no way he can make it in summer.”

“Sweet. Is there anything else you people traditionally do besides collecting money?”

“Dancing. Games. Everyone shouts gor’ko!—so bride and groom have to kiss. About once every five minutes. But it’s Dagestani wedding, so got its own specifics.”

“Specifics that made you and Kuzya learn lezginka from YouTube?” Shane waved a hand in front of his nose to shoo away the cigarette smoke, and Ilya took a step back.

“Yep. But don’t worry. If it's come to it, you can just get down on one knee and start clapping. That works too… Ow, ow, ow!”

Ilya twisted free of Marly’s grip, rubbing his ear.

“What for?!”

“What did you sign my woman up for, asshole?” Marly asked with an exaggeratedly friendly smile. “She’s spent the last two evenings after work hunched over her laptop like Gollum, writing something and swearing.”

Ilya remembered again that he still hadn’t brought the cognac to the department.

But it didn’t scare him anymore.

***

"How the hell did you manage that?" Romannikov asked in a deceptively gentle voice, and Ilya winced involuntarily. Nothing good ever came from that tone.

"It’s personal," Ilya tried to weasel out of it.

He was lying on the massage table. The team masseur and physiotherapist had already chewed him out, his back still aching whenever he moved even slightly “wrong”. Right in front of his nose lay a paper with his sentence: no hockey for at least two weeks, physical therapy, and honestly, Ilyukha, you'd better walking with a cane. Kuzya was breathing like a mad bull in the corner. And Romannikov clearly intended to strangle him.

"What the fucking hell do you mean, personal, you brat? You’re missing the next five games!" Romannikov thundered, and everyone jumped, Kuzya included. "Five! Minimum! Tell me right fucking now what you’ve been up to?!"

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut. Swallowed. And confessed.

"It’s a sexual injury."

A pause.

"What?" Romannikov asked sweetly.

The day before, Ilya had finally taken Shane on a date and treated him to ice cream. Shane spent a long time laughing about why the hell the live-action sets from Day Watch had been kept secret from him. Then Ilya spent a long time laughing at the complicated look on Shane’s face as they ate ice cream by the rink. In winter. Outside. According to Shane, only psychos did that.

And when they got home, they’d spent a long time kissing on the doorstep, nearly falling over, joking about how scandalous it was to fuck on the first date…

And then Ilya had decided to show off.

"Tried to fuck a very athletic woman against a wall," Ilya answered in half-truth. "She was probably around a hundred kilos. During the process. Something. Got pinched. And… yeah."

"Are you a fuckwit?" Romanikov said tenderly, and Ilya squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the storm.

Kuzya had stopped breathing heavily in the corner. He’d turned around and was slowly banging his forehead against the wall.

***

_____________________

Blackout from Kovalsky's birthday

Jacek: The beer hall is around the corner.
Shane: Jacek, I want a shawarma.
Jacek: Awesome idea. But the shava-shops are already closed.
Shane: Shawarma shop on Pokrovka is open 24/7.
Jacek: You're a geniuuuuuus, let's fucking go.

40 minutes later
Shane: I love this shava so muuuuuuuch.
Jacek: We have bread, we need circuses. Oh! There are street musicians at TsUM in the evenings, let's go.
Shane: You're a geniuuuuus

30 minutes later
Shane and Jacek: ГРУППА КРОВИ НА РУКАВЕ МОЙ ПОРЯДКОВЫЙ НОМЕР НА РУКАВЕ
Passerby: Funny accent, they must be Polish or something... How do you guys know Tsoy?
Jacek: We're from Spartak, DJ plays "Gruppa Krovi" during every warm-up.
Shane: AND MAKSIM
Jacek: Yes, and Maksim. ЗНАЕШЬ ЛИ ТЫ
Shane: ВДОЛЬ НОЧНЫХ ДОРОГ
Passerby: My God, these Poles are fire.
Jacek: Give us two cigarettes, will you?
Shane: Jacek, I don't smoke.
Jacek: You're smoking today, don't be a pussy.
Shane: Okay, I smoke.

20 minutes later
Passerby: Young men, are you okay?
Shane and Jacek: (lying on the sidewalk, smoking, Shane coughing like a person with the last stage of tuberculosis) WE'RE FUCKING AWESOME.

10 minutes later
Shane: (still lying on the sidewalk, scrolling through landmarks on his phone) Ples
Jacek: No, Vladimir
Shane: No, then Kostroma, let's eat some cheese
Jacek: Oh, this is beautiful, where is that?
Shane: That's Rybinsk.
Jacek: Let's go!
Shane: Wait, I'll get some dollars, the bus station is closed, we'll catch a car.
Jacek: You're a geniuuuuuus

10 minutes later
Jacek: Guys, take us to Rybinsk, we have three hundred dollars.
Shane: And five liters of Hoegaarden.
Jacek: And five liters of Hoegaarden.

3.5 hours later
Shane: It's so beautifuuuuuul
Jacek: Oh, karaoke! Let's go
Shane: No, I read Cyrillic like a 3 year old
Jacek: Let's order Du hast
Shane: You're a geniuuuuuuuus

VK: Overheard community, Moscow Center
Anon: Dudes, who else saw those two awesome Poles at TsUM yesterday? I want to put together a video.
Comments: 23 videos
Ilya Muromets: …oh my god

Chapter End Notes

CSKA is sponsored by Rosneft, Avangard is sponsored by Gazprom
Kursky station song
No clicking - acceptable thing to say while toasting for the dead instead of "rest in peace"
kick dicks - in this case "didn't play 100% of his abilities"
Tsoy and Maksim - "Группа крови" Кино
and "Знаешь ли ты" Maksim are trademark for Spartak's arena (and football stadium too actually)
the heart had caught its breath for a moment and started beating again - Splin, "My Heart"
"Traffic" Zemfira:
You're gonna say we should get back together
I'll just look at you through my lashes all shy - HONEY YOU ARE NOT SUBTLE
Physical Education and Sport University - Ilya Kovalchuk's alma mater. Timeline: Ilya belongs to a generation that was hit with an educational reform (no 4th grade), so he got out of school in 2008. It's not that Ilya really wanted a higher education: university is a legit way to escape military draft. And yeah bribery with cognac used to be pretty typical.
Messieurs, je ne mange pas six jours - from The Twelve Chairs by Ilf & Petrov + a movie (worry not, it's a comedy)
dégage, vieille salope - get lost you old whore
filou - sly bastard
huyebes - basically chaos goblin, but it would be censored on TV
to the bored rus old ladies all young boys are junkies and all young girls are prostitutes
Passport: personal identification, issued at the age of 14, changed at the ages 20 and 45. Driving license can also be used for identification, but getting it is optional, and the minimal age is 18. The word ID is usually used for various work IDs-like police ID Ilya snatched from his brother.
Lines at Tsaritsyno - legendary in those times. The girls live in Birylyovo, and the only metro station close to this big ass district is Tsaritsyno. 30 minute long lines in the street.
Alexandra (official) -> Sasha (generic diminutive) -> Sanya (bro diminutive)
Ksenia (official) -> Ksyusha (generic diminutive) -> Ksyukha (bro diminutive)
Day Watch - dir. Timur Bekmambetov, sequel to Night Watch; the landmarks in the movie are mostly from VDNKh area

Chapter 15: the adorable

Chapter Summary

they are in love, your honour

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

***

“They think you’re such good caring captain,” Ilya chuckled, scrolling through his Twitter feed. “While you are a sly piece of work.”

“Huh?” Shane replied lazily.

The flight was in two days. Meanwhile, it finally got colder in Barcelona, significantly colder at night at that, so they dug out some blankets from the closet and collapsed onto the wicker couch on a terrace, having first begged the apartment owner, who lived three houses down the street, for two pitchers of her signature lemonade. Ilya was sitting by the armrest, comfortably stretching his legs, while Shane sprawled out on the remaining part of the couch, resting his head on Ilya’s lap.

“You may not beat Kovalsky with Scouts with your signature improv. But Kovalsky and Voyageurs, when you know them inside out…” Ilya stroked Shane’s temple with his fingers, and despite the teasing tone of the conversation, Shane felt like purring. “And you really want Stanley Cup.”

“Pot, kettle,” Shane yawned, getting more comfortable. “It was actually your idea to get Kovalsky to Montreal, not Boston. You’ve been studying us under a microscope, you bastard puppeteer.”

The phone binged. Mom texted:

"So it's Kovalsky after all?"

Shane rolled his eyes and slowly typed in:

"NO!"

Ilya, correctly interpreting his harsh typing, began to soothingly scratch the top of Shane's head.

"What is it?"

“Eh, Mom. I told my parents I had a boyfriend, but I didn’t tell them who exactly I was dating. And Mom started playing a guessing game. And her first guess was, you won’t believe it, Motya.”

“And who else, in Mrs. Hollander’s opinion, is worthy her only son’s hand?” Ilya chuckled.

“Jacek, Kovalsky, and Maestro. And now it’s Kovalsky again.” Shane put the phone away and turned onto his back. “It looks like a wish list at this rate.”

Shane didn’t know why he didn’t want to talk about this with his parents. Maybe he just wanted to keep what he and Ilya had… to himself. Or maybe the thing between them was still somehow too fragile to share. One puff of wind, and everything would fall apart, Shane thought. They probably could even be rat besties to each other if it all broke into pieces, but answering the damn questions afterward... Shane didn't want to think about it.

Besides, why lie to himself. He knew where these thoughts were coming from. It was his own fault. Eight months ago, Ilya…

“By the way, I almost forgot!” Ilya suddenly said. "Wait here, I have something for you."

Shane propped himself up on one elbow, looking after Ilya in bewilderment, and sat up, picking up the blanket. Magnets? A new plushie? He had no idea what Ilya could have brought with him from Moscow.

Ilya returned with a small notebook filled with bookmarks, colorful stickers, and uneven lined sheets peeking out. He sat down in the same place and handed the notebook to Shane with deliberate ease. So it must have been something special.

“This is for you.”

Shane opened the book halfway through. A colorful sticker read: “Eat well, dear boy! Come back to us, we’ll be waiting. —Uncle Vazgen.” On the page of the notebook, under the sticker, in Ilya’s handwriting (in clear printed letters, because Shane could never decipher his intricate cursive, whether in Russian or English), the recipe for shawarma from Pokrovka was written.

“What is this?” Shane squeaked, flipping through the pages.

“You complained about your boring catering food in Montreal, so I went to all your favorite cafes and got recipes for dishes you liked,” Ilya shrugged in an almost shy manner.

“What… is this… ‘Auntie Laysan’s plov’? The one from Kazan?”

“I got market address and shop’s description from Skipper, went to Kazan, and found that lady who sells plov,” Ilya admitted, scratching his cheek with two fingers.

“You went to Kazan to get the plov recipe for me.”

“Well...”

Shane shifted his gaze to Ilya and closed the notebook.

“I love you. I’m sorry, I’m a fool. I shouldn’t have made you wait for so long.”

He knew that look. Eight months ago, Ilya had looked exactly the same. It was as if a revelation had struck him.

“No, you’re not a fool,” Ilya shook his head and pushed Shane onto his back so he could hide, so he could nuzzle his nose into Shane’s hair right behind his ear. Shane stroked his back and tried not to forget how to breathe. “I wanted everything to be honest. I wanted you to be honest. Never say something you don’t feel, something you’re not sure of, not to me. I asked you to be quiet, remember? It’s good to get answer right away, but I’m glad you waited.”

They kissed, they caught each other’s lips and then pulled away, as if it were the first time they kissed. As if it were the thousandth time.

Later, when the horizon began to lighten, when Ilya was almost dozing off on his chest, Shane reached for his phone.

“No, don’t move,” he said, patting Ilya on the shoulder blade. “I want to take a picture.”

They had lots of photos, but not a single selfie. Maybe it was the time to start.

***

You: [a sleepy selfie with Ilya] Not. Kovalsky.

Mom: I feel so stupid right now

You: Believe me, it’s genetic

Mom: But Dad and I are really happy for you, sweetie!

Dad: When you said there’s no logic in macroeconomics and accounting, and that you don’t want to go to college, I was afraid you’d end your life in poverty. But it turns out you can still make wise financial decisions! Not just any man, but a rich man! Well done, son, I’m so proud of you.

You: God dammit Dad

***

Senya was hovering by the locker room entrance. He felt really sorry for Zhenya, really! But something inside him was viciously glad: he had just turned sixteen, and he’d already been pulled into the adult team—that was so cool! They’d even put him on the first line, with the captain and Shane Hollander, while Filonenko was temporarily banished to the “chill” line.

“Do you have any pre-game rituals?” Senya asked, forcing his voice to sound steady.

“Go get changed in peace,” said the alternate, Vasily Nikolayevich—oh fuck dammit, Skipper, Skipper, Skipper. Senya still couldn’t bring himself to address the team’s oldest and most renowned player informally. “By the way, if you don’t like Leningrad and Yulia Kogan, cover your ears.”

When Senya started changing, Hollander gave him an attentive, eerie look—one that always felt slightly frightening even during the training sessions—and asked Matthews about some kind of “hazing.”

It wasn’t Matthews who answered, but Vasily Nik… Skipper, Skipper, god fucking damn it.

“Shen’, don’t you have any pity for the rook? We still need to somehow beat Bogolyubsky, come on.”

"Save the pity for the weak,” Hollander said confidently and made a short gesture toward Senya with his hand.

In the direction of Senya’s T-shirt that said, "I punched Ilya Rozanov."

"Cap, what's going on?" Senya whispered.

Kovalsky let out his trademark falsetto giggle and put his arm around Senya’s shoulders.

“You see, Arseny, Shenya is wondering whether we need to fuck up the rookie. That means you. You know, the old tradition of dedovschina. But don’t get too offended about it, it’s personal. Ilyusha Rozanov is the mother of his child.

“What?” Senya managed to say. His brain short circuited.

“No, no, no,” Hollander commented in English, with a stone-like, bitchy face. “After taking care of Sonya, we realized it’s too early for us to become parents. Rozanov's back injury is bullshit, he took a sick leave because he's recovering from an abortion.”

While the guys were giggling (apparently, it was some kind of a running joke), Vasily Nikolayevich snapped his fingers and told Senya the most terrible news over the past year:

“By the way, I almost forgot. You're a brat, of course, but just in case. We have a gentlemen's agreement here: nobody hits on Yulia. Is that clear?

“No!” Senya howled. “No! Please, no!”

***

Shane’s mood for the game, despite the life improving for the better gradually, was rather gloomy.

First, they were playing against Lokomotiv, where Bogolyubsky and Blomkvist from the Tigers had gone to play during the lockout. Bogolyubsky had been a sensation even before Hunter was drafted, and over the years he’d been playing smarter and smarter, while Blomkvist had two Vezinas—unfortunately, well deserved ones. Pros: after Baturin ended up on the IR, Skipper dragged Motya to the aversion-therapy clinic and made him get an implant. As soon as Motya’s scar healed, Shane could count on playing without any surprises again. Although Motya, naturally, grumbled like an old man.

Second, Maestro and Jacek were watching a terrible video from Cop Shop group on repeat. Ilya forwarded the collection of videos from Ramazan’s wedding to Kovalsky, and Misha then sent them to Sausage Factory.

There was a video featuring Ramazan’s bride, who was throwing knives at a target. It earned a comment “looks like Ramazan will take his wife’s name.”

There was a video accidentally recorded by Ilya; it was one of those moments when Shane was suffering.

He had been politely saying “salam” to the guests, and then mostly keeping quiet. What a sweet, polite boy, the numerous relatives and friends of the newlyweds’ family decided.

Oh, so he came with dearest Ramazan’s colleagues? Is he a hockey player too? He must be loaded, then? Didn’t we see him in the MegaFon commercial? Baby, go dance with the boy, don’t leave him standing in the corner, looking bored. Shane awkwardly danced once, twice, and on the third invitation, feeling a bit tired, he automatically blurted out a phrase that had helped him out in Kazan and Ufa a couple of times: “Rähmät, min tälämim.” And realizing he’d fucked up royally, he added “sorry” in Russian. Then he sat down at the table, pretending he was very busy eating salad.

Ilya was filming Kuzya, who was giving a toast on behalf of the team, when one of Ramazan’s uncles sat down next to Shane and made a joke:

“You know, you have a very suitable job for a Tatar. You’re always on the move!”

Shane had the translator app open on his phone, and he googled the word “kochuyesh” in three seconds. After that, he let out an unhappy groan, mimicking Shurik in Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession—quoting movies and songs was still easier for him than constructing sentences on his own.

“I’m not Tatar, dammit!”

“Oh, a Bashkir then?” the uncle didn’t seem bothered.

“I’m from Canada!”

“Canadian passport, well done! Do you have a wife, children?”

“No?!”

“Listen,” the uncle perked up right away, “I’ve got a younger daughter who’s still unmarried—a real beauty!”

Shane understood some words, not all of them, but it was enough to start panicking, and at that moment, Ilya finally stopped laughing and ruined the uncle’s plans.

“Uncle, calm down, Shenya isn’t Muslim.”

The uncle’s further scandalized sigh about how could Shane’s father have allowed this, didn’t make it onto the video, but the guys decided that Shane’s pained groan was hilarious.

From the entire collection of shame Shane himself only liked the video shot by Isachkov. It was the one where Shane was standing on one knee and clapping as if he fully understood what he was doing, while Ilya was dancing a lezginka he’d learned from YouTube.

Alas, the guys were watching yet another episode of shame and disgrace, in Shane’s humble opinion. There were some contests, the main point of which mostly boiled down to raising money for the newlyweds. Ilya had warned Shane in advance that it would be better to take cash in smaller bills so that they wouldn’t go broke, and Shane calmly threw in twenty dollars here and a thousand roubles there during all those fundraising efforts. But there were also some contests with prizes.

Ilya said: “Guys, help me out, I want this gastrobox—it has salami, Roquefort, caviar, and can of foie gras.”

As if it wasn’t bad enough, the competition was a singing one, and Shane was absolutely sure they had no chance. Ramazan couldn’t possibly be the only person in the family with an angelic voice.

Ilya said: “Calm down, we’ll go for meme factor. Who remember that song from Notre-Dame de Paris?”

Shane only remembered the first verse from the French version, because Belle played at his favorite car service in Montreal instead of the dial tone. Marly remembered the lyrics relatively well, but in English. And Ilya had only heard the Russian version.

It’s fine, Ilya said. We’ll just take turns singing. And for final part—well, let’s have each of us sing two lines.

At first, Maestro and Jacek were laughing at the fact that Shane, with his appearance, had sang for Quasimodo. Shane already knew that in the Russian version, Quasimodo’s verse had something about “the eternal seal of ugliness”—Ilya was laughing about it in the video, and instead of one of the lines, Shane asked, “What the hell are you laughing at, asshole?” right into the microphone. The guys thought that moment was funny too.

For the Frollo part, Ilya put on a wild dramatic performance, even got down on his knees—he really wanted those salami and foie gras, apparently. The whole locker room laughed at that too. “Clad in a cassock,” this shameless manslut, how fucking ironic.

Marlow, with his height, build, and bass voice in the role of Phoebus, took their trio to the pinnacle of absurdity, and Maestro was seriously considering uploading this embarrassment on YouTube. Shane said he’d kill him if he tried.

The finale was great though. Ramazan and his dad suddenly came to aid. Because, as it turned out, Ramazan’s mom really loved that song. So, in the end, Ilya got his caviar and foie gras.

Shane really wished he could forget about all that shame, and he told the guys as much.

“Come on, Shenya, you sang well, so much passion. What you thought about?” Maestro reassured him out of the kindness of his heart.

“The Stanley Cup, obviously.”

Third, Shane messed up like nobody ever.

Ilya’s back was sore, he was in physiotherapy every other day, he walked with a cane, and obviously suffered from having nothing to do. Two days ago, Shane even went to get him his stinky cigarettes, which turned out to be quite a challenge: the warnings on Parliament in the nearby shops said “gangrene,” “impotence,” and “stroke.” Meanwhile Ilya wanted “premature birth” or “heart attack.” In the end, Shane got him a cigarette case at the tobacco shop and simply took the cigarettes out of three packs marked “gangrene” and put them into a plastic bag. The rest was Ilya’s problem, Shane’s done what he could.

So, Ilya was dying from boredom. And Shane asked Yulia to get him a place for the game. And only when Yulia told him before the morning skate that she had sent the ticket to Ilya—and that he would be sitting right next to the friend Shane had asked to save a seat for a week ago—did Shane realize he had made a terrible mistake. He had accidentally ensured that Ilya would be watching the game with Artur. God fucking dammit. How awkward. Shane could only hope they wouldn’t fight. No, really, that was unlikely; Artur was a very cultured, sophisticated man. Probably. Hockey gods, please help.

***

Realizing that if he was going to be recognized anywhere, it would definitely be at hockey, Ilya stole Shane’s spare jersey, a Spartak hat, a scarf, took the largest dark glasses from his personal collection, and just as he was leaving, with a nervous giggle, Ilya grabbed the Khohloma plushie pig from the windowsill.

Alyona, one of the girls from the fourth floor, was smoking by the entrance. Actually, Alyona was a nurse, but her pay wasn’t great in the slightest, so she did this strip side-hustle after working a 24 hour shift at the hospital to get by. Alyona, as it were, symbolized the duality of human nature: she was a medical professional, yet she smoked twice as often as the other girls in her part-time job “office.”

Ilya looked wistfully at the text from “Blue Bird”: he really hoped the driver’s pupils would be of normal size this time. He usually had no good luck with taxis.

“Oh my God,” Alyona said, seeing the cane. “What happened? Did you carry some refrigerators and strain your back?”

“Something like that,” Ilya laughed involuntarily, remembering that the girls had once called Shane a “refrigerator.”

Ding!

“Your driver is running late; the car will be in your location in five minutes.”

Ugh.

Ilya pulled out a cigarette case—thanks to Shane for the sudden air of drama—and lit up his own deathstick too.

“You know,” Ilya drawled, glancing briefly at the white Lada at the opposite side of the road, which he had been seeing from the window for the past four days, “you’d better disappear for a couple of weeks.”

“Why would we do that?” Alyona raised a sharply defined eyebrow. “The holidays are coming up, time to work like ever.”

“It’s because the cops are watching you,” Ilya said quietly, covering his mouth with his hand, a cigarette clenched between his fingers. “Don’t turn your head. Lada across the street, the guys eating belyashi. They’ve been watching this place for days.”

“Fuck,” Alyona hissed. “Thanks for the warning.”

“Good luck,” Ilya wished her as Alyona disappeared in the building.

As if in response to a conditionally kind deed, a Nexia of the right color appeared at the fork in Spartakovskaya Street. Probably it meant his lucky day, Ilya decided.

He realized that nope, no luck for him, no fucking way, forty minutes later. Firstly, the plastic seats did not do his back any good at all (Ilya, praising himself for his foresight, put the pig under his lower back). Secondly, the distance between the rows was designed for teenagers around the age of thirteen. Or seventy year old grandpas who suffered from hunger during the Great Patriotic War and therefore never grew up to their full potential. Thirdly, half an hour before the start, while Shane was stretching on the ice and doing ritual push ups to Gruppa Krovi, Ilya heard some weird whispering behind him—something along the lines of “look, some celebrity is coming.” He looked to the right, and oh, fuck his eyes, in his section, in his row, Artur Samsonyan was looking for his seat.

Well, Shenya, you’re something else.

Calm down, Ilya, calm down, just act naturally.

“Artur Karenovich, sixth or eighth?” Ilya heard his own voice and immediately wanted to give himself a kick.

Artur met his gaze and pushed back his black mane. He smiled, flashing his white teeth.

“Eighth.”

Ilya gestured toward the neighboring (yellow) plastic abomination and, while Artur made his way through the occupied seats, texted Shane.

You: I’M GONNA KILL YOU

“Ilya, Shane’s friend, nice to meet you,” Ilya introduced himself, smiling as awkwardly as Shane in the last year’s soda commercial, when Artur sat down next to him.

“The friend who got punched at our box office?” Artur made a correct assumption.

“Does he tell everyone this story now?” Ilya grumbled and took a red and white scarf off his neck. “Here, take this, I see you’re not ready.”

“Thank you.”

Artur was relaxed, smiling, with a sly spark in his eyes, while Ilya just wanted the ground to swallow him. “Karenovich,” for fuck’s sake. Shane’s mocking voice was echoing in his head, “Ilya, why the fuck are you addressing him in “voulez vous”, his dick has been in my mouth!”

“Where is our wonder boy?” Artur asked, examining the red jerseys.

“There, number forty two,” Ilya pointed.

”Thanks.” Artur draped one end of the red-white scarf over his shoulder with a flourish of a stereotypical theater director. ”This is my first time watching hockey, I don’t know anything about it.”

“Just like Shane doesn’t know anything about ballet,” Ilya sighed. “Let me tell you the basics...”

Ten minutes before the match started, Ilya got an answer to his threat.

Shagané: Sorry, I forgot!!! :(

***

When they put a microphone on Shane (AGAIN!), he honestly asked whether they hadn’t had enough last time. Viktor Andreyevich said that the hot mic recording from that match against SKA was one of the most popular of the season, so no, they hadn’t had enough, but, Shenya, please remember: zatknis’ is okay, but zavali yebalo is absolutely not.

And then he added that the word huyarit’ was also off limits. And you, Jacek, yes, you, better apply that rule to yourself too.

Shane was a bit sad that the socially acceptable zatknis’ sounded like Black Speech of Mordor. Zavali yebalo sounded so much better, it even sort of had something musical about it. Life’s so unfair.

He had already received an extremely displeased message from Ilya and realized that Artur had decided to embrace the given opportunity after all. What. A fucking. Pity. He had no idea what exactly Ilya would demand from him as an apology for this fuckup. Shane just wanted to have his boyfriend (since they had a real date, that meant boyfriend, right?) at the game so that ever the troublemaker Ilya wouldn’t set something on fire out of boredom, and then—hello. How. Awkward.

Forget, forget about Ilya and Artur, you need to think about Bogolyubsky, who just didn’t want to fucking retire, you need to think about how to get past Blomkvist, focus, Hollander, show them who’s the best!

The first five minutes ended with the Jumbotron showing proud zeros for both sides. Blomkvist kept the net like a fucking Cerberus; Shane was stealing the puck right from Bogolyubsky’s stick with intense focus. Once, Karlssen got thunderous applause for blocking the puck with his skate, as if they were playing soccer. (”FOOTBALL!” roared Spartak FC players in Shane’s ears in mock offence).

During the short break, Shane sat brooding on the bench, nervously tapping his stick on the floor. They had already played against Lokomotiv in Yaroslavl’, and lost 3–2 back then. Now Shane was ready to chew something off himself just to avoid losing to them a second time in a row. Fortunately, Kovalsky seemed to have outlined a plan and was already explaining something to the Czech line, acting as if he wasn’t laying out the strategy, but rather gossiping. Meanwhile, Viktor Andreyevich was wondering when Motya would start playing properly and whether his fresh scar from the implant was itchy, or maybe he should be put on the second line so that Skipper could haul him around by the scruff of the neck if the need arose? Motya moved his jaw from side to side looking as gloomy as a Gothic villain but said nothing. After all, Shane had warned him that drinking will do him no good. And Skipper had warned him that cheating, so much at that, will do him no good. It was Motya’s own fault.

The camera captured people with posters in the stands, and Shane felt a pulling sensation in his stomach—the same feeling he’d last experienced in the middle school, when he had to write a final essay, and he only remembered the names from the entire novel, but didn’t understand the conflict at all.

Yes. That's it. Sure. How could it be otherwise. The screen showed Artur and Ilya, with the caption “Artur Samsonyan.” Artur was wearing a Spartak scarf, and Ilya was sporting Shane’s spare jersey, a hat that hid his curls, and large dark glasses. Noticing that he was in the frame, Ilya suddenly smirked and pulled something out from behind his back…

“That’s my fucking pig!” Shane shouted, jumping to his feet. “Rozanov, you bastard, I’ve told you a hundred times not to touch my khryushka! You thief!”

Shane didn’t know this, but as soon as the fan club VK group posted the recording of his open mic—which everyone had been eagerly waiting for, apparently—the fans collectively marched to the toy stores to buy plushie pigs.

Meanwhile, Artur Samsonyan’s Wikipedia page had an edit:

“Artur is fond of hockey and supports Spartak Moscow.”

Artur decided not to comment on this in any way.

***

***

Shane was munching on his cutlets with a side of pickled cabbage and looking attentively and not particularly friendly at Grigory Vilenovich, who was sitting across from him. Ilya was drinking tea, resting against the cutting table. He pretended that everything was absolutely fine, and that nothing supernatural was happening in the kitchen of the Red Gate apartment, but it looked unconvincing.

Shane was returning from an evening debrief closer to dinner time. He entered the building with obvious caution. That same morning, when Shane returned from a walk, Foontik rushed into a corner by the elevator with quite the aggressive barking, and after fifteen seconds of scuffling, he returned with a dead rat in his mouth. It looked impressive: the rat was twice as big as Foontik. Shane immediately told Zinaida Vasilyevna what a heroic dog she had and asked if she could order rodent control. Zinaida Vasilyevna promised to push the issue to the right people.

There were no rats within sight, but there were men with tools hanging by the elevator.

“Not working?” Shane asked.

“We need two minutes,” one of the workers said.

Shane nodded and took the stairs instead.

When he passed the fourth floor, the elevator started moving. And when Shane was already turning the door handle, the elevator doors opened, releasing Grigory Vilenovich.

Awkward silence.

Shane almost panicked, because, according to Ilya, Grigory Vilenovich didn’t like him. And he might have a gun on him.

“How interesting,” Grigory Vilenovich said.

“Papa?” Ilya squeaked, peeking into the hallway.

Oh, to hell with it all, Shane thought with undeniable irritation. He didn’t have to respect a man who had driven his children to the point where they didn’t even want to talk to him.

“You know what? I have the right to be here!” Shane’s skill in Russian was lacking, but at that moment everything he had heard over the past few months came to the surface in a rush of anger. “I pay the rent! I looked after your granddaughter! I’m doing your son’s laundry! And you! You! You’re a bad father, fuck you!"

“Shen’,” Ilya said in a strangled voice, “I made some cutlets. Help yourself?”

Shane went off, still puffing with annoyance, but he didn’t forget to hang the coat neatly on the hanger and put the winter boots on the shoe rack, because, unlike Marlow, he wasn’t a barbarian. When he was already serving himself the cutlets, Grigory Vilenovich finally commented on his sudden performance.

“What a funny boy. Fearless.”

“He’s a Candidate Master of Sports in freestyle wrestling,” Ilya said.

“Hm. A Bashkir?”

“Dad, what the hell, that’s Shane Hollander.”

“I see. What’s he doing here?”

“He’s playing for Spartak?! I rented him a room.”

”Ah. Of course. So why are you making me wait for an invitation?”

Shane, mentally telling himself to clarify with Ilya later what "ka-em-es" and "volnaya bor’ba" meant (apparently, he was talking about jiu-jitsu?), looked out into the hallway and gave Grigory Vilenovich another stern look.

“You scold Ilya, I'll kick you out.”

And he sat down to eat his cutlets.

“Good boy,” Grigory Vilenovich said, strangely amused. “Brainless, mind.”

In the end, Grigory Vilenovich also joined in on the cutlets, while Ilya, supporting himself on the cane, pretended to drink tea, although in reality he was clearly making sure things wouldn’t come down to any kind of physical fight.

“Did you make it yourself?” Grigory Vilenovich asked politely, examining a piece of cutlet on his fork.

“Well, yeah,” Ilya shrugged. “Sorry, but getting married just for the sake of borsch is insane.”

“Slander, your mom, rest her soul, only made borsch for me for the first time in our sixteenth year of marriage,” Grigory Vilenovich wagged his finger at him.

“That wasn’t Mom’s attempt at borsch, that was me and Lyosha. Also, I’m not talking about Mom now, I meant Polina.”

Grigory Vilenovich chewed a piece of cutlet thoughtfully and glanced at Shane.

“He’ll never get married, will he?”

Shane shrugged. He, for one, hadn’t wanted Ilya to get married at all; they’d only just started dating, so get lost, Grigory Vilenovich, and take your plans with you.

“Back to the purpose of this late-ish visit… Ilya, what do you know about the brothel in the apartment thirty-four?”

"Oh, so the field cops have been watching the building on your tip-off? Bad news for you, we don't have any brothels here. The only stranger man I've seen in this part of the building is the manicure auntie Tatiana's criminally young lover.”

Shane hurriedly finished his dinner and rushed into the living room so that Ilya's father wouldn't see that he knew something for sure by the awkward look on his face.

When Grigory Vilenovich finally finished the interrogation regarding the “brothel” and left, Shane zipped up a sweater and went out to the balcony to join Ilya. After the conversation with his father, he was nervously smoking, as usual.

“No offense, but how does the colonel manage to pick up women of this level beauty, namely your mom and Polina?” Shane wondered quietly, watching as Grigory Vilenovich’s police issued vehicle turned onto Staraya Basmannaya street.

Ilya exhaled a single “ha” and gathered the snow from the railing into a snowball.

“It was all cynical calculation on both sides with Polina. They chatted up in court. She crashed into him at the turn from Leningradka. Polina married Moscow residence, Dad married free maid. Like, she’d cook borsch, wash socks, and look after two shitty brats. But Polya is sly woman. She paid lively grandma from house across the street to take care of our home chores. Washing dishes? When you have fresh manicure? Crazy much?”

Well, it explained Polina. Shane had already heard enough stories about people stooping to the lowest moral depths for the sake of Moscow residence. Half the building gossiped that Tatiana’s young beau was only visiting her for the sake of getting this much desired asset.

Ilya shivered, and Shane shook his head: of course, the idiot had rushed out onto the balcony in a T-shirt.

“Finish your smoke, you’ll freeze.”

Ilya cast a sly glance at him and gently tugged at the zipper of Shane’s sweater with Finnish patterns.

“You can warm me up.”

“You stink,” Shane grumbled, unzipping his sweater.

When Shane put his arms around him from behind, pulling the ends of the sweater over his shoulders, Ilya continued:

“The story with Mama started when Grandpa took up playing preference as hobby. First, he lost money he saved for car, then he started gambling his salary… Family started really lacking money. Back then, Mama’s jazz big band didn’t pay much. Grandma… didn’t work. And then Party introduced sober law, and Mama started bootleg side-hustle. She got caught. They met at police station.”

Shane nuzzled the back of Ilya's head.

“Guess Prohibition went hard on your dad”.

"Kinda,” Ilya said grumbled. “And Mama made awesome moonshine, they said, amazing stuff. Then Papa, on her tip, handed over that underground casino where grandpa lost family money to his colleagues. You know, solved her problems. Then started giving her flowers. Somehow got her fur coat from DDR. He laughed at her jokes.”

At the last sentence, Ilya grew visibly sad, as if he was longing for something that had long since vanished.

“I don’t know what went wrong.”

Shane gave him a quick kiss on the ear. He absolutely couldn’t support heart to heart conversations, so he just wrapped Ilya up tight, while he was smoking up his smelly nightmare.

“Do you want some tea and cake?”

“No need to ask!”

***

***

The back pain went away, the physiotherapist gave the permission, and the next day Ilya could finally return to playing, training, and living an adequate human life, at last!

Fucking tough two weeks they’d been.

Walking with a cane! Nightmare. Instead of energetic, varied, passionate sex it was gentle jerking off and very cautious blowjobs in a tragically small number of positions. Horror! At least Ilya’s sorted out his university debts. Maybe he won’t get expelled after all. Maybe he’ll even get a coaching degree. Neither Marly, nor Shane believed his explanation “Alina is writing my term paper,” by the way. If it weren’t for the sports university, the drafting officers would have knocked on his door back in the fall, come on, dudes.

The mood was bright, nothing hurt, and Shane had agreed to go on a double date with the devilish ladies, Twiggy and Ksyusha, to see the latest part of Twilight at the cinema (Ilya kept quiet about the fact that he had once binge read the entire series). Life was wonderful. So Ilya got the amazing lesbianism playlist going on his laptop and sat down to make some pirozhki. To treat his handsome, hot, sweet boyfriend.

When the key turned in the lock, Arbenina started singing You Gave Me Roses from the speakers, and Ilya, covered with flour like a donut covered with sugar, stepped out into the hallway to give Shane a welcome home kiss…

Shane, taking off his sneakers, handed him the largest bouquet of roses Ilya had ever seen in his life.

“Here, this is for you.”

Ilya awkwardly hugged the bouquet with both hands, trying to find some appropriate words. Sveta would have laughed at him for this awkward stupor.

“Ah… thank you?..” Ilya blinked, noticing that Shane’s sneakers were covered in some kind of dirt and his jeans were torn in some places, and he frowned. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, you’re gonna love this,” Shane said with a sly smirk, taking off his jacket—the weather had been around plus two degrees for the past two days. “Motya decided to make up with his wife after all. She promised to come to the arena today and give him some keys and papers. And Motya came to me. “Shenya, I’ve spent all my paycheck on drinking and whores, give me three hundred bucks pretty please, I need a gorgeous bouquet.” I lent him the money. Motya bought the bouquet and gave it to Nastya. Nastya told him to go to hell, gave him the package with the papers, and threw the bouquet into a pit at the construction site opposite the arena. Motya was upset and went to vent to Skipper—which was a big mistake—and I went to get the bouquet. It’s gorgeous, it was bought with my money, and besides, I haven’t given you any flowers yet. But here’s the thing: I jumped into the pit, and getting out turned out to be a problem. I had to call Kovalsky and Maestro, and they got me a tow rope.”

“Your torn jeans and Mongolian cheekbones…” Arbenina sang heard from the kitchen.

Ilya didn’t realize at that moment that he was standing there with his mouth open like an idiot.

“I love you.”

Shane raised his head, with a clear expression of shock on his face, and that’s when Ilya realized he had said it out loud. Fuck damn. Damn it all. Too soon, huh? Ah, whatever, he couldn’t keep it to himself.

And Ilya, lowering the bouquet with his left hand, pulled Shane to him by the neck with his right.

“Be quiet,” he breathed into Shane’s lips. “Be quiet, don’t say anything.”

They kissed; Shane held him tightly, stroking his palm between Ilya’s shoulder blades as if trying to calm him down, but he kept trying to say something.

“Ilya…”

“No, don’t say anything,” Ilya feverishly kissed his freckles. “Don’t say anything you’re not a hundred percent sure of—it will ruin everything, you understand? I'll wait. You... I love you. God. Holy shit. I’ve never told anyone that before. I love you.

Ilya didn’t know what kind of black magic it was, but the roses refused to wither until the very end of the lockout.

***

When Shane once texted him “I owe you,” Kolya didn’t think he would ever actually repay that ghostly debt.

When the lockout ended, the management took Kolya’s passport away, like he was some kind of trafficked prostitute; they started pushing a new contract on him and putting pressure on him to at least play out the rest of the season. So Kolya messaged Shane that he didn’t know how to get back to Canada because he had no fucking passport on him, damn it.

Ten minutes later, Shane asked whether Kolya was going to the upcoming away games in the west with his team.

Kolya texted he was.

And then he received an unexpected message:

“When you go through border control in Prague, don’t wait for your luggage; go straight to the parking lot with your passport, and I’ll pick you up. Just send me the time and flight number.”

Kolya didn’t believe until the very end that everything would work out. “Red convertible, exit C,” Shane texted.

Wow, red convertible, bourgeois much? Has he frozen to death in that flashy car yet? It’s not even May, come on.

When Kolya was already heading into the turnstile at the airport exit, the coach’s shout came from behind:

“ANDROPOV, WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?!”

Kolya jumped into the red convertible from a run, his heart pounding as he listened to the thunderous footsteps behind him. The car roared off, leaving both the coach and the rest of the Metallurg Magnitogorsk behind, along with their plans for Kolya’s ass.

The car’s radio blared Not Gonna Get Us, and Kolya, giggling nervously, finally saw who he’d jumped into the car with.

At the wheel there was the easily recognizable curly head of Ilya Rozanov. And Shane was sitting, turned around in the front passenger seat, giving Kolya a sly grin.

“Hello there.”

“You have no idea,” Kolya said, gasping for breath, “how glad I am to see you.”

“Not Gonna Get Us!” Rozanov sang along with the T.a.t.u girls.

“Not Gonna Get Us!” Shane agreed, bumping Kolya’s fist.

"Not Gonna Get Us!" Kolya threw his fists up, almost crushing the closing roof of the convertible.

Chapter End Notes

pryaniki - Russian gingerbread
KHL regulation: min age is 16
Vasya Skipper is 36, and poor Senya addresses him with a patronymic and in plural. Ilya does the same to Artur xD
Ahem, the inspiration for Artur Karenovich
Save the pity for the weak - originally Shane aces a Russian pun: 'жалко' is both 'pity' and a diminutive for 'sting'. "Don't you have pity for him?" - "Save pity (little sting) for the bees".
dedovschina - older members hazing the rooks (typical for prison and army)
Rähmät, min tälämim - tat. "thank you, I don't want"
kochevat' (kochuyesh) - nomad, but a verb
Shurik in Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession
Original dialogue is like
Ivan the Terrible: Tell me one more time, are you a demon or not?!
Shurik: [the mad scientist with a time machine] Ivan Vasilievich, I've told you a hundred times already. I'm not a demon, dammit!
pay wasn’t great in the slightest - Most doctors and teachers are NOT paid well in Russia.
zatknis' - shut up
zavali yebalo - shut your motherfucking trap
huyarit' - go/run/work hard/beat smb up (but not suitable for broadcast in the slightest)
khryushka - pig in slang diminutive. kinda like. oinkling?
Candidate Master of Sports - Soviet system grade still used in various types of sports
Moscow residence - one of the best financial assets you may acquire in Russia
nochnye snaipery "You Gave Me Roses"
if you feel a Geno Malkin reference, take a cookie ;)

Chapter 16: Epilogue

Chapter Summary

Ilya: Sells his real estate
Shane: Buys real estate
Senya: Hello there

Chapter Notes

Italics=they speak Russian
Detailed notes at the end :)

2017

Shane watched Ilya gently run his fingers over the walls, doorframes, and windowsills of the apartment at the Red Gate. Saying goodbye.

“What a fucking dump this place is,” Shane smirked. “The jacuzzi excluded.”

“We were happy here,” Ilya sighed, smiling back with a touch of sadness. “We were idiots.”

“We’re still idiots. Just slightly less so.”

During the season, Ilya rented the apartment out to the HSE students, and it was a miracle that over the past five years they hadn’t completely trashed it or burned the whole fucking place down. Maybe the students were a little afraid of Zinaida Vasilyevna, who had really gone downhill over the past year but was still keeping watch.

Shane glanced briefly toward the kitchen, and suddenly it seemed to him that the blue wolf in a jersey and the Khokhloma-painted pig were still sitting on the windowsill.

When Grigory Vilenovich died that spring, Ilya had gotten into a spectacular fight with his brother right at the wake. Shane had even had to separate them before it turned physical. When Colonel Rozanov’s dementia finally ate away at what was left of his mind, he failed to recognize his own wife one morning and gave her a bunch of bruises. Lyosha immediately found his stepmother another apartment, and Ilya hired a caregiver for his father. The caregiver quit a week later: “It's not nice to say this, but I’m already ready to strangle the man.”

Then Lyosha suggested putting their father in a specialized facility, under professional care, but Ilya rebelled, saying it was wrong, that they couldn’t do that. Lyosha said, “Fine. Take him to the States and look after him yourself.”

It was a dead end in every possible way, because Ilya was constantly on the road. Move Rozanov Senior to the States only to put him under professional care anyway, or hire caregivers there? So Ilya offered Lyosha money to temporarily quit his job and look after Grigory Vilenovich. Something Lyosha absolutely did not want to do: by that point, Grigory only recognized him every other time. Never mind the whole backstory of their wonderful family relationships.

And meanwhile Ilya was eating himself alive because his father had been an asshole, but apparently that made him a shitty son, too.

Shane already had a collection of numbers for various therapists, and he hoped that eventually Ilya would agree to call one of them.

Ilya gave up his share of the inheritance—a one-sixth stake in the apartment on Kutuzovsky Ave. And, deciding that there was nothing left for him in Russia, he started looking for a buyer for the Red Gate apartment. By the end of May, he had found one.

“Gonna miss it?” Shane asked.

“Miss Moscow?” Ilya surfaced from his thoughts. He looked away, as if it was difficult to talk about. “It’s like my relationship with my father. I love it, I hate it. Was not I good enough for this country, or was it not good enough for me? And all secrets, secrets, because if I’d tried to be myself openly, I would get my ass handed to me. Without achievements, you’re nothing. Silver is nothing.” He gave a hoarse laugh, wiping away his tears. “Of course, I’ll miss it.”

Shane hugged him, gently rocking him. Ilya sniffled and hugged him back tightly.

In truth, it had only been a matter of time before Ilya settled permanently on the other side of the Atlantic. Ever since the propaganda law was passed. Ever since Twiggy and Ksyusha had shown up at the rink during the Olympics wearing “be gay do crime” T-shirts. Ever since Ilya, who’d chipped in to help Kuznetsov pay a fine, had turned up at a Sochi coffee shop where Shane was being hassled by Vaughn and Hunter, asked, “What do you think about lavender marriages?”—and been rather impolitely told to fuck off by Hunter.

Ever since they’d gotten the fearless idiots out of the country, and Lyosha had privately told Ilya that it would probably be better if the girls didn’t return to Russia.

The girls got their green cards fairly quickly under the “political asylum”. And over the past couple of years Ilya had been actively hinting to Twiggy that maybe she should enlist in the U.S. Army in exchange for citizenship, so he wouldn’t have to wait as long himself. Twiggy wasn’t interested.

Shane watched the citizenship circus from the sidelines because, well, screw that—his Canadian passport was stronger. And because Dad barked, “Taxes!” Shane trusted his father when it came to finances.

“You know,” Ilya let him go and wiped his tears. “I’m really terrible guide. We never did rollerblading in Gorky Park.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Shane sighed in relief and kissed Ilya on the nose. “So is there anything else you want to take from this place?”

“Oh there is something,” Ilya said cheerfully, narrowing his eyes. “Just don’t hit me.”

He climbed up toward the overhead storage, and Shane, remembering what exactly might be stored up there, facepalmed.

“I can buy you a new one!”

“A new one is boring as hell!” Ilya lectured, pulling out the vinyl record player he’d dragged home from a dumpster back in 2012. “This one has history!”

“Which consists of you, drunk, on your way home from karaoke, spotted it in a dumpster, hauled it home, and then spent three days hunched over it with a soldering iron?”

“Sounds fucking awesome!”

“No!”

“Yes! Maybe your mom give us some her old records to go with it. I saw Michael Jackson’s Thriller in her collection.”

Mom really hated the Reddit posts and social-media comments about Shane’s marriage (and Ilya’s marriage, for that matter), and unlike Ilya, who currently just wanted a new passport, she kept hinting that maybe it was time for the two of them to come out of the closet.

“Everyone knows you met Ksenia and Alexandra when the girls were seventeen; it’s bad for your personal brand, some people are calling you pedophiles.”

“It's pretty obvious, Mom,” Shane would answer, “that you've never been in a hockey locker room. I’d rather let them call us pedophiles, honestly, whatever.”

“Sweetie, you’re probably exaggerating. Your friend Kovalsky is always singing that dick song. The whole Montreal knows it by heart by now.”

“Yes, he sings it because he’s a fucking psycho. It’s his lucky song. DROP IT, MOM, PLEASE.”

Besides, there hadn't actually been that much yelling about pedophiles: the age gap wasn't that big, and at some point Marlow had let slip exactly how they'd met. It probably sounded romantic, all things considered.

“Fine, for fuck’s sake, pack this piece of junk,” Shane grumbled, waving a hand.

“Love you too, zolotko,” Ilya beamed.

Rollerblading through Gorky Park at night was a stupid idea: Shane was convinced Ilya was going to wipe out straight into the Moskva River. Or push Shane down. And then Shane would crawl out with an extra set of arms and possibly tentacles.

But no. It was actually sweet.

Around four in the morning, they collapsed onto the grass, and Shane pulled out his phone. Neither of them wanted to watch the Cup finals because they’d been knocked out of the playoffs particularly painfully that year, and even Misha hadn’t gotten revenge on Hunter for them in the conference finals.

But they had to check the score.

The screen was lit up with a collection of notifications from the chat “2 assholes, 2 hysterical queens.”

Ksyukha: DID YOU SEE WHAT HUNTER DID?!

“What could that dinosaur have done?” Ilya frowned in confusion.

…

“He did WHAT?!”

2015

When Senya finally turned eighteen and got drafted into the NHL, he couldn’t believe his luck. When the New Jersey Imps picked him in the first round, he thought he was going to die of happiness right there on the spot.

And then he remembered who the Imps’ captain was.

He’d punched his team captain in the face. Holy shit.

He’d basically never had to deal with hazing in the KHL, because Spartak’s main veteran was Vasily Nikolayevich, who was, at heart, a big softie.

But now? Game over, lil kids.

Ilya Rozanov smiled at Senya during the official team introductions as if he were planning to kill him, dismember him, and eat him that very evening.

And then Senya was told that until he got settled, he’d be living at Rozanov’s duplex, which took another hour to get to.

“Jesus Christ, stop shaking like that,” Rozanov rolled his eyes as he drove both Senya and all his belongings and gear to his lair in a massive pickup truck. According to him, the pickup wasn’t actually his—it belonged to his wife, Sanya. He himself would never in his life have bought such a piece of shit.

“I’m not going to eat you. The house is huge. You can live in the basement—I’ve got my gym gear, a game console, and a pool table down there—or in the attic. There’s a winter garden with ficus trees and cats up there. We’ll basically only run into each other in the kitchen. Works for you?”

It worked for Senya.

After they fed him plov and dolma, Senya decided he’d landed in the best possible place. The cats were fat and awesome, apparently nobody had any claim on the game console, and a golden retriever named Anya (Rozanov explained that he’d promised a former classmate he’d name his firstborn after her) gazed devotedly into Senya’s eyes and begged for treats.

And only later that night, when he went upstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water, did he realize it had all been a trap.

His former center was making chamomile tea in there: a terrifying jiu-jitsu guy who, back in the day, had been very much in favour of trying some hazing on Senya. Shane Hollander of the Brooklyn Scouts.

“Are you here to kill me?” Senya swallowed.

“I live here, pridurok,” Shane replied in Russian, with his trademark R.

“Uh…”

“Since that idiot probably didn’t explain anything to you,” Shane continued calmly, “listen up. Canada Dry ginger ale—hands off, that's mine. Sweets in the top right cabinet— don’t take without asking first; that stuff gets mailed to us from Moscow. Socks, Adidas, Reebok—you can borrow whatever you want, no problem. It’s all sponsor freebies, and there’s shitloads of it all over the house. Just wash it if you take it. And if you want to jerk off in the shower”—at this point Senya turned bright red—“turn, suka, water off. The boiler isn’t fucking bottomless. This isn’t Moscow.”

“Well, yeah,” Senya said awkwardly, scratching his stubble. “Could’ve had worse landlords, I guess.”

Shane suddenly smiled, as if Senya had reminded him of something nice, and patted him on the shoulder.

“Welcome to the NHL, rookie.”

The end?

Chapter End Notes

Zolotko - lit. diminutive for "gold". To be used like, say, "sweetheart".
Game over, lil kids - originally "basta karapuziki", a reference to this cartoon "New Style Wolf and the Seven Young Goats"
pridurok - you could say it's a diminutive for idiot

Chapter 17: Extras

Chapter Summary

Hayden has opinions
Marly's coffee shop au
Colonel Rozanov's last case
Senya's love troubles and the big Spartak bet
e.t.c.

Chapter Notes

“You’re an idiot,” people often told Cliff. To be honest, everyone and their brother said it. But Cliff took it with a grain of salt—so what if he’d only ever read Shakespeare back at school through SparkNotes?

“Roz is filling my head with all sorts of bullshit,” Cliff said slowly as Alina brewed the fourth mug of tea, black as Snow White’s hair. “He says you’re, like, writing his term paper for him.”

“He paid me pretty well, so yeah, I am,” Alina suddenly confirmed.

“So he’s… in university.”

“Not exactly studying,” Alina waved a hand toward her laptop. “And I don’t really consider it a university. I suspect he enrolled to dodge the army. Although he could’ve just lived at some other place, not his registered address. People really do love making things complicated…”

And that was when Cliff suddenly realized that the idiot here wasn’t Roz. It was him.

“That’s not even what worries me right now. It’s that he’s got you, a freshwoman, working off his debts, when you already have a job on the side!”

Alina froze with the cup at her lips and gave Cliff a suspicious look.

“A freshwoman? Honey, I’m twenty-six. I graduated from university four years ago… Wait a second. How old are you?”

“Twenty?!”

Alina was silent for two seconds, then gestured toward his face.

“It’s...it’s all because of your stupid beard.”

Cliff was mildly offended.

“I thought you liked my beard.”

“Yeah, I do,” Alina confessed. “Unfortunately. I do like it.”

Cliff, for his part, was very fond of her thick black braid that reached all the way down to her waist.

***

They had a hard time finding the right entrance, but at least they got lucky with the weather. Shane really didn't want to go to the theater frozen to the bone, only to fall asleep once he warmed up.

He’d been a little annoyed with Ilya since yesterday. They’d talked about getting out of Moscow for New Year’s Eve. But instead of Yerevan, which was Shane’s choice (“Artur suggested it, huh?”), Ilya had bought tickets to Kazan. Supposedly, they also celebrated in style there, with killer fireworks.

But then Shane watched Ilya turn his head left and right, taking in the interiors, and his annoyance simply evaporated.

Shane couldn’t stay mad at this menace for long.

“Didn’t come here often, did you?” Shane guessed.

“Last time was like twelve years ago,” Ilya confirmed. “It’s expensive here! We usually went to Maly Academic Theater on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. Actually, we could go in January. They’ll do Swan Lake around tenth.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shane agreed.

Ilya, meanwhile, had gone with him to a Capra retrospective at Illuzion cinema, and if the movie didn’t have Clark Gable in it, he’d fall asleep and snore into Shane’s ear. Now it was Shane’s turn to suffer, because he still didn’t understand a damn thing about ballet.

“Oh my God,” Ilya suddenly whispered, grabbing Shane by the hand. “That’s Drozdov.”

Shane followed Ilya’s gaze and found some kindly smiling old man in a very expensive suit.

“Sorry, who?”

“Like, Russian Steve Irwin. I want to say hello,” Ilya said, his eyes lighting up. “You do not afraid snakes? He could totally have snake under jacket. Not for sure, but maybe.”

“You know what, go by yourself,” Shane managed. “I’m gonna go get some champagne.”

Ilya found him in the line pretty quickly. He looked sour with disappointment.

“What happened?”

“It wasn’t snake,” Ilya managed to say. “He has tarantul with him.”

Shane couldn’t help giggling.

***

Ilya ordered a gigantic set of nastoyka shots called “Call Your Ex” at a Scandinavian-style bar. He hoped that the witnesses—Shane and the two harpies—would forget how he had loudly protested in the movie theater, “That wasn’t in the book!”

Fine, Shane could be forgiven: he himself had watched all four previous Twilight movies, because he was an omnivore and had seen pretty much everything Hollywood had ever made, from Sandler comedies to City Lights. He was the one who told the giggling Twiggy and Ksyusha that Ilya had probably just run out of fantasy novels to read at some point.

Shane, practically bouncing with excitement, grabbed his half-liter of dark beer, rented an axe, and headed for the targets; Ilya, Ksyusha, and Twiggy settled nearby with tons of shots.

“Next time, let’s go play pool,” Ksyusha decided, watching Shane have fun.

Ilya imagined Shane constantly bending over the table and broke into an almost dreamy smile.
Twiggy pulled out her sketchbook and began sketching the unexpected axe-thrower that was Shane; Ilya and Ksyusha sang along to Matt Bellamy—the bartender put on Muse’s latest album.

“Hey, just out of curiosity,” Twiggy suddenly said, adding braids and a Viking beard to Shane. “Who was your first celebrity crush?”

“Tsoy, obviously,” Ilya rolled his eyes. “And… Alsou, probably.”

Twiggy said nothing. She just gave Ilya a pointed look, then looked at Shane, then back at Ilya.

"He's only similar now because of the mullet, that doesn't count," Ilya disclaimed.

"And besides, Viktor Robertovich is a national weak spot for us all," Ksyusha agreed. "Dad's always giving my sister grief about what she sees in those Korean boys from EXO, like he himself wouldn't have left Mom for Tsoy if he'd ever gotten the chance. Hey, Shane! Who was your first celebrity crush?"

"Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You," Shane said absently, taking aim.

"And you're the one who was going on about Caucasian guys," Twiggy shook her head. "Idiot."

"Hey!"

***

“Well, what can I say,” Colonel Rozanov summed up, examining the crime scene and the list of evidence. “You are fucked.”

“Thank you, Comrade Colonel, for your invaluable contribution,” Lyosha snarked. “Any decent comments? I know we’re fucked, thank you very much. This is the third case like this in the last six months.”

“Stop whining, will you?” Colonel snapped. “Bring the map and photos from the other sites.”

In Lyosha’s humble opinion, the situation went like this:

A certain group of people would stop a car on the side of the road on a sparsely populated stretch of the highway. Someone with the most innocent looking demeanor would open the hood or turn on the hazard lights and start hailing cars. And the first good natured person in a decent car who stopped to help would be shot on the spot.

So, the question “how” wasn’t even on the table. The much more interesting question was “why.”

Yes, the culprits collected everything valuable that was on the victim and took the cars. But you can’t make much money from such a hobby.

Hence, this gang was working “for the love of art.” A serial killers fun club.

Comrade Major has already rejected the proposals regarding patrols and camera installations because “the budget is not limitless,” and Lyosha found himself at an impasse. Otherwise, he would never have turned to his father for help.

“No budget has been allocated for the patrols, right?” Colonel Rozanov guessed, examining the photos and a map spread out for him on the hood of Patriot SUV through his reading glasses.

“Of course,” Lyosha grumbled. “The only thing that would really help here is to request the data from mobile operators. Whose phones were glowing in the areas of the raids in the right time frame, but who’s gonna let us…”

Colonel Rozanov looked at him so condescendingly that Lyosha wanted to punch him in the nose. Well, more than usual.

“For the first time in your entire career, you managed a good thought, and you still have no fucking idea what to do with it.” The colonel opened his ancient flip-phone and squeezed the eight.

As it were, Lyosha knew that Papa had his friend from the FSB's office on speed dial.

“Hello, Svetochka? Put me through to Vadim Rudolfovich, I've got a case just in his line of expertise.”

In some American cop series, a detective in Lyosha's place would definitely say something like "damn feds." But Lyosha wasn’t stupid, and he just thought: “Thank fucking God.”

Same evening, somewhere nearby the VTB Arena …

“…You’ll get to try real banya experience,” Isachkov told Shane. “Straight from steam into snow.”

“Well, okay,” Shane agreed. “So, what should I get you as a gift?”

“Wait, Nikitos,” Ilya frowned, putting the phone aside. “Remind me, where’s your dacha?”

“Danilovo, it’s along M4. It takes me about an hour to get there from Izmailovo. Well, if there are no traffic jams.”

Ilya gave a wry smile, as if hiding a toothache.

“That’s what I thought. I’ve got some bad news for you.” He picked up the phone and opened the chat with Lyosha, where dear brother would send all sorts of work related amazing stories. “It’s better not to go near M4 right now. Here, take a look.”

***

Sveta was smiling like that meme dude Harold. Hiding the pain. Shane wasn’t particularly good at showing compassion; he had disappeared somewhere half an hour ago, and Sveta hadn’t expected him to do anything like that. Ilya, meanwhile, was discreetly rolling his eyes, clearly thinking “sure, rich bitches cry too.”

Sergei Vladimirovich threw a party for his sweet little girl. Sveta said that she did not care much for the presents, she had already raised decent fund on the sport bets this season, she could even get herself Jimmy Choos in GUM for her own birthday, without the much easier "daddy I want some new shoes." Sveta only asked for one thing: if you're going to get some singers for the party, make it someone adequate, like Noize MC. Sadly, Dad misunderstood her and simply invited the most expensive performer: Stas Mikhailov.

"Don't cry," Ilya said softly, hiding his lips behind a glass.

“I’m not crying,” Sveta said stiffly.

“Well don’t.”

“Now everyone’s gonna say it’s a party for my fortieth birthday, damn it. Thanks, Dad.”

“Well, at least he tried,” Ilya said, spreading his hands. “My dad has only given me shooting range memberships for the past ten years.”

“Let’s find Shane and leave, I want to head to the karaoke,” Sveta grumbled.

“Great idea… By the way, where is he?”

Shane was found ten minutes later, coming out of the smoking room, wearing only a shirt and dress shoes, looking as if he’d been hit on the head.

“Ilya!” Shane called out plaintively. “I’m so sorry! I tried to win back my Rolex and lost your car!”

Sveta, immediately realizing what had happened, threw up her hands and, striding purposefully, headed to the smoking room:

“Mamita, what have you done?!”

“You decided to play cards with Señora Vetrova was good idea?” Ilya giggled. “I warned you that she’s math professor.”

“So?” Shane said, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other.

“She’s persona non grata in all casinos in Vegas and Monte Carlo. Don’t play cards with mathematicians. Grandpa lost all money that way.”

Sveta quickly took Shane’s suit, watch, and the Crown keys from her mom, and they quietly vanished from the party.

“Listen,” Shane said uncertainly as they stood in the traffic jam. “I just can’t wrap my head around the timeline. You have American citizenship by birth. But your dad used to be a Soviet hockey player, and your mom is Cuban. And you were born in ’91. Something doesn’t add up here.”

“Sveta had awesome bedtime stories,” Ilya laughed. “‘When I fled Castro’s dictatorship,’ ‘When I escaped from Switzerland right under KGB’s nose’…”

“Mom was having a romance with Dad while she was studying at Baumanka,” Sveta began to say, counting off on her fingers. “After graduating, she returned to Cuba and realized she was pregnant. Meanwhile, Grandpa Javier started whining, ‘But what will the neighbors say?!’—and Uncle Juan took Mom to Miami; he’s an old smuggler. Mom sent Dad a letter where she told him about everything. Then she got in touch with the local Caribbean community and got a job as an electrician. And when Dad received the letter, he realized he needed to do something, so he escaped right from the hotel in Zurich after the World Cup. The NHL scouts wanted him a lot, so he had help there. So, happy ending! And then the Soviet Union collapsed, later Dad got a career ending injury, and we moved to Moscow. Mom started working on her PhD thesis, and Dad worked as a coach before going into politics. He always took me to work with him. That’s how Ilya and I met.

“Hollywood could make hell of an action movie about your family,” Shane drawled.

“You should also tell him about the dog!” Ilya added. “They had such an awesome poodle…”

***

“Oh, well, you know,” Carter said quietly. “It’s dangerous for guys like that to be here. Your friend clearly has a spine made of steel. I support a guy this brave for sure.”

Shane happened to know that his figure skater buddy was as straight as a rail. But thanks, Vaughnnie.

“I have no idea how the current law is supposed to work,” Shane uttered, because Carter was clearly hinting at exactly that. “Like, what are they gonna do? Ban t.a.t.u.’s old music videos? Close Viktyuk’s theatre? Ban all the Hugh Jackman movies, because Jackman made out with Urgant on Russian federal TV? Ban Plushenko’s lollipop ad suck it like a champion? Fuck if I know.”

Carter almost choked on his coffee. Scott pretended to be very busy with his ice cream. Shane was starting to suspect that Ilya had been right about Scott.

“Anyway, we are in the North Caucasus—it’s never been safe to kiss boys here,” Shane finished his thought. “So even if you feel like it, please, resist the urge.”

A little hint, just in case Ilya was actually right, and Scott maybe wanted to find some adventures while he was away from the States and the NHL fanbase.

“Ah, yeah, you played here for six months,” Carter mused, clicking his tongue. “How was it for you, anyway? Was it some kind of black mold everywhere too?”

“Nah, it was mostly fine,” Shane shook his head. “Kovalsky explained this stuff once. The more money is poured into the project here, the worse the result will be, because a whole flock of seagulls immediately swoops in to use up the budget. Zenit Arena is the prime example of this principle, and they just can’t finish building it. The budget for the Olympics must have been massive, so the seagulls practically stealing the money must have been thriving. Also, there are usually several stages of outsourcing tasks to cheaper contractors. As a result, they end up with the “shit-and-sticks” method of construction. Skipper is still waiting for the arena in Sokolniki to be finished so that Spartak can stop huddling next to Dynamo like fucking hobos, but I think he’ll be retired sooner than the arena is completed.” Shane poked at the ice cream with his spoon thoughtfully. “On the other hand, maybe they just don’t have the money. Spartak literally still owes me two months’ worth of my salary.”

“Shit damn.” Carter looked at Shane as if he were a dangerous lunatic. “How did you even manage to survive here?”

“Ilya was always paying for me,” Shane chuckled. “The downsides of Moscow racism: on my very first day, I was called a slur and a dude refused to rent me an apartment. The upsides of Moscow racism: Rozanov felt so ashamed for this happening to me in his country that he decided to show me the wonders of hospitality.”

“Speak of the devil,” Scott said briefly, and the bell at the entrance jingled as Ilya walked in.

“My guys, exactly who I need!” Ilya declared, pulling a chair out from under the neighboring table.

Shane thought that Ilya might still spend a couple of days sitting in the hotel room, gorging on ice cream and watching Tokyo Drift on repeat: the loss was disappointing as fuck. First, Tarasenko, despite his knee injury, stayed in his position like a dog in the manger, even though, in theory, he could have gone on IR and let Isachkov play—the dude’s been on fire this season. Second… Shane didn’t want to imagine what Kuzya must have felt when he saw the police taking his sister away from the arena.

“Have they already released Ksyukha and Twiggy?” Shane asked briefly in Russian.

“Yeah. For half a mil,” Ilya said with a displeased raise of his eyebrow and switched to English. “Guys. Maybe one of you wants to become retail Schindler?”

“Excuse me, what?” Scott blinked in confusion, exchanging glances with Carter.

“I don’t think they’ve seen Schindler’s List,” Shane whispered quietly in his ear.

“Start over,” Scott raised his hand. “What do you want?”

“Alright,” Ilya said with feigned patience. “What do you think about concept of lavender marriage?”

***

Shane had changed a lot over the lockout.

Hayden wasn't sure how to feel about it.

"What's with your face?" the captain asked, once they'd all gathered at the pub after the first home game.

Shane blinked in surprise at first; it took him a moment to get what the question meant. Then he grimaced briefly.

"Ah, blya. Forgot." He pulled his usual polite smile back on like it was an uncomfortable suit. "Better?"

"A little," the captain said, raising his eyebrows. He couldn’t raise just one, like Coach Thériault did.

"Slavic resting bitch face," Andropov said philosophically, mouthful of potatoes, "very contagious thing. How many times did people try to scam you out of money in Moscow before you stopped smiling politely by default?"

Shane grimaced again, but differently this time, without taking the polite smile off his face.

“A couple of times. Girls next door also thought I was a stalker. There was a webcam-model studio one floor below my place. They went to my landlord and asked him to deal with me. He laughed his ass out.”

“Oh my God, what a goldmine!” Patrice threw up his hands. “Tell me you hooked up with one of them!”

“Hooked up? You’re missing the part where they tried to hire a guy to beat me up,” Shane replied sarcastically. This was the Shane he knew now—he had quite a sharp tongue, something few people knew about outside the locker room. “No. I was offended. Although I eventually had to make up with them. One of them was a nurse and used to put IVs in my winger when he went on a bender.”

Then Hayden noticed Shane had ditched his diet. He'd long suspected Shane's nutritionist was a lunatic: to hit his calorie targets on that insane macrobiotic diet, Shane had basically had to chew salad nonstop. Now, however, he was wolfing down some kind of lamb steaks and whining that he still couldn’t find decent chik-me-ruli in Montreal. The little restaurant Shane and Kolya had dragged the team to once had some khinkali and khachapuri, and they even had chik-me-ruli, but not the right one. "Auntie Tsitsino's was better." What's going on, man, you a foodie now?

Well, at least he’s put on some weight, and his checks became pretty much lethal. Hayden has finally stopped worrying that Shane will someday get his ass handed to him on the ice, despite his jiu-jitsu skills.

Weird, huh. But there was more. Hayden knew that Shane and JJ didn’t particularly like questions along the lines of “so, as a representative of a minority group…” and while JJ would simply ask the obvious follow up questions like “happy to be here, but does that actually make a difference in a game?”, Shane considered the whole topic of “inclusivity” in hockey to be nothing but hypocrisy sprinkled with glitter. Fair enough—their sport was very much white, and the jerks from Toronto, for example, called Shane and JJ “Rush Hour”. Which obviously lead to face punching.

Previously, Shane had just given media-friendly neutral answers.

Now he also gave media-friendly answers, but then he would start grumbling to Kolya that he would sign to play for Barys hockey club. And that if he heard such a question again, he would just call some Sultanbek on Skype and let him answer that.

Kolya would say, “Don’t you fucking dare, Barys has never made it past the first round of the playoffs.” And then he would smirk and add: “Go to Ak Bars. Unlike me, you didn’t lick Shabayev.”

After that, Shane would look eerily thoughtful and say, “Yeah, well, they don’t have the budget issues, do they, they have oil sponsors.”

After all these exchanges, cap would give them slaps on the back of the heads so they wouldn’t scare people, bratty trolls.

Then it got even weirder: after the first home game against Boston (A win! Take that, bastards!), when the captain was gathering people for poker at his place, Shane said, “Sorry, guys, I’m busy—I’m going for a walk at the cemetery.”

Gilles asked why (the phrasing was worthy of putting a twenty into a swear jar). And Kolya thoughtfully asked which famous people were buried there.

Well, yeah, there were some pretty awesome celebrities’ graves—Maurice Richard, at the very least? But, dude, seriously. What are you planning to do there, perform satanic rituals?

Then Shane somehow managed to find a map of the old sewers to explore instead of another team gathering, and JJ got into the pattern.

“Wait, this sounds familiar. You said you had some crazy guide in Moscow who took you to prisons, cemeteries, and sewers. He came to Montreal, and you decided to take revenge? Are you even aware that we have a Rembrandt hanging in the Museum of Fine Arts?

“Please don't start. Rembrandt, my ass,” Shane grimaced. “I don't know much about art and, to be honest, I don't want to.”

"Didn’t you go to see some ballet though?" Hayden suddenly remembered the theater photos on Shane's Instagram.

“Yeah. I was actually sitting in the front row at Swan Lake,” Shane confirmed with obvious gloom on his face. “I fell asleep there. I’d rather watch Cargo 200 again.”

“What’s Cargo 200?” Jacob immediately chimed in—he was a low-key movie geek, but he was also too lazy to look for new films to watch and used Shane as a walking encyclopedia.

“Don’t watch it ever!” Kolya shouted from the corner.

Kolya shouldn’t have said that: after his warning, all the Voyageurs watched that nightmare. When cap had calmed down a bit, he said it had been a unifying, traumatic team building.

Then there was this weird thing about Shane chirping Rozanov. He made some references that Hayden didn’t understand, but they apparently worked well?

He’d whistle some tune during the face off, to which Rozanov would audibly exhale something suspiciously similar to “suka.”

Or he’d say something like “all cops are bastards”, to which Rozanov would lazily threaten to kill him.

Kolya, when Hayden tried to get Shane to explain how he found the chirps that actually worked on the league’s worst troll, commented that Rozanov might hold a grudge about it and bring a huge plushie pig to the rink as revenge.

Much later, when it came to light that Shane had actually been friends with Rozanov and had even lived with him for several months, Hayden succinctly voiced his observations.

“You’ve changed.”

Shane looked at him with sad resignation, and Hayden involuntarily wanted to give himself a kick.

“Maybe you’re right. But is it really that bad?”

Hayden spent a few seconds choosing his words so as not to make everything even worse.

“You tell me.”

“I’ve spent my whole life afraid of doing something wrong,” Shane said, looking into the distance. “And out there, away from the rink, nobody cared about my public persona, at all. What I do off the ice. I got a taste of freedom. And when I came back, I couldn’t forget the feeling. Even with all that fucking racism—the cops seized me once, you know? Yes, they may call you names to your face. But at least you’ll be able to punch the offender. Hayd, I don’t want to smile politely at everyone just in case. You have no idea how nauseating that is to me. Personal fucking brand.

Hayden gave his shoulder a brief squeeze.

“If it’s that bad… Maybe you need to change it?”

Shane nodded sadly.

“Yes. Yes, I think I do.”

***

"Come on, Shane, seriously?" Hayden was very much upset when Shane announced he was going to play in New York. "We were supposed to become the dream team! You’re our star center…"

"Kolya is your star center," Shane replied unyielding. "What, you think I snatched him out of the Prague airport for nothing?"

"Wait, what?" the voices came from various corners of the gym at once.

"It’s true," Kolya shrugged. "They took my passport away and kept trying to shove a new contract under my nose. I had no idea how I was even going to get back to Canada. Hollzy texted me: ‘In Prague, go straight from passport control to the exit before they can grab your passport again. I’ll be waiting.’ And he drove me off into the sunset in a red convertible! It was fucking awesome!"

"And now you’ve got a star winger in Kovalsky," Shane nodded, satisfied. "By the way, fair warning! Misha really is good. He’s also a troll. And he makes a lot of dick jokes just to see people squirm. And yeah, about the coke—if you idiots think I didn’t know, I know. So, Misha isn’t as nice as I am. His dad died of an overdose. If he finds out someone here is snorting, he’ll beat the shit out of you."

***

When Roz and Hollzy came back from Sochi with wedding rings on their fingers and every hockey account on social media exploded, Cliff was a little offended. Those assholes weren’t the first ones to go to Russia alone and come back with a woman.

First, Cliff got so distracted staring at Alina behind the Coffeemania counter that he even forgot what he wanted to order.

Then Alina started calling him “Hey, handsome.”

Then Cliff stopped screwing around and asked the funny barista out to dinner.

He genuinely thought only college freshmen worked part-time in coffee shops! Idiot. He should have realized it wasn't the case from Alina’s ridiculously sophisticated jokes: The Epic of Gilgamesh, sliding into historical anecdotes, then Shakespeare, then sex jokes, then sex jokes specifically in Shakespeare’s plays—none of which Cliff remembered from his school literature curriculum. If someone had explained Hamlet’s dirty jokes to him like that in class, maybe he actually would have read it.

When Cliff wondered what someone with Alina’s education was doing working at a coffee shop, Alina told him she was basically the punchline of a joke.

Every philology student gets told: “You’ll end up working the register at Pyaterochka supermarket.”

Philology student: "No, I have a finely honed language command, my dear, so I’ll end up working the register at Azbuka Vkusa.”

Alina’s stories never ran out, she was gorgeous, and the sex was always great— served with sushi, cheap wine in a carton, and some mafia TV series. Cliff liked gangster shows; Alina liked watching people get murdered on screen—a side-effect of dealing with customers all day.

By Christmas, he realized that he was never going to find anyone better, and he didn’t want to look for anyone else anyway. So he said, “Beauty mine, come to Boston with me.”

Alina said…

Alina said no.

"But why?!"

Cliff refused to admit that he was whining.

"They won’t let me leave the country," Alina uttered with obvious doom and gloom.

Old stories Roz had told him about citizens barred from travel abroad suddenly surfaced in his mind, and Cliff panicked.

"…are you, like, with the FSB?!"

Alina snorted with laughter in surprise.

"What? No! I have a ton of debt. Some assholes stole my passport when I was like twenty and took a bunch of loans in my name. I only found out a couple of years later, when they stopped me at the Finnish border. I’ve been dragging this through court for years now."

Okay, so they hadn’t sent a government agent after him. That was good. And besides, Cliff was the one who hit on Alina first, right?

"How much do you owe?"

"Three million."

"Dollars?!"

"Thank God, no! Roubles."

How much was that, a hundred grand? Significant, but not fatal. Unlike Roz, Cliff didn’t jerk off over Audis or get himself buried under a mortgage.

"Listen, I can just pay off your debts."

Alina pressed a hand to her heart, almost crying, but eventually shook her head.

"No. I don’t want to give those assholes a single rouble. But if you paid for a really good lawyer…"

When Alina texted that spring that the lawyer had earned his paycheck alright and that Dobby was free, Cliff yelled, “Finally!” and ran to a Tiffany’s to buy a ring.

He married Alina that summer, during the off-season, at the exact same registry office where Ramazan had gotten married, in absolutely horrific heat. Roz, who was his best man, surprisingly didn’t chirp Cliff even once. He only complained that Cliff was a cheapskate for refusing to throw a reception.

Cliff replied that there was no way he could afford a five-hundred-person bash with motorcades, fireworks, and gunfire like he had witnessed at Ramazan’s wedding reception.

"Wisdom! From my brother Lyokha. Which you got intuitively," Roz said, raising his glass of sangria when they went to celebrate the occasion quietly at a bar on Myasnitskaya. "Find yourself bestie, just as fucking crazy as you are, who you’ll want to fuck all the time. And when you find someone like that—marry her immediately. Marley and Mrs. Marley, you did exactly that. Well done! Superstars! Proud of you."

***

"Well, hello, Arseny!" Misha Kovalsky grinned when he ambushed Senya outside the home locker room before the game. "What's up?"

"I’m Semyon," Senya corrected him wearily. Not for the first time.

"Irrelevant," Kovalsky waved it off. "Heard you’re staying with Ilyusha and Shenya. Their cats haven’t eaten you yet?"

"No," Senya said obediently. "They’re fed pretty well. Seems like multiple times in a row."

The cats—as it turned out, everyone simply called them “the cats,” nobody had bothered with names—were awesome. Plus the fatso orange one even came to sleep on Senya’s couch at night. A good cat for mental health. Some people get God's help, some get a cat. Senya was spectacularly unlucky in his love life.

First, they banned him from hitting on lovely Yulia back at Spartak. Senya moped and sulked for a while. Then Yulia said she was going to Korea for an internship and would never come back to Spartak for this "octopus" position. Senya was sad for a little longer and then let it go. There was nothing for him to do in Korea.

Then Dashka, his classmate, whom he'd only just started seeing, said they didn't really have chemistry, let's just be friends. Fine. Whatever. Bitch.

Third time’s the charm.

Once he got to America, Senya fell head over heels for Ksyusha Hollander at lightspeed. And now he was certain that Mr. Jiu-Jitsu was going to kill him when he found out. Captain Roz would just sigh, “Shen'ka, you fucking menace, our third line is going to fall apart again,” and then just go get rid of the body.

"Mish," Senya sighed, looking down at his former captain. "Do you have a recipe for falling out of love with a married woman?"

Kovalsky whistled.

"I smell gossip. Come on, let's go. Semyon."

Kovalsky picked out the most mafia-looking pizzeria in the area at a glance, dragged Senya straight there, and demanded they bring "the kid" gnocchi and a soda.

"Ksyusha, I guess? Kuznetsova is a spawn of Satan," Kovalsky guessed correctly.

Senya gloomily traced a finger over the tablecloth, carefully avoiding looking at Kovalsky.

"Obviously. She’s just… wow! Those tattoos, those blue eyes… beautiful voice… She even moonlights as a kid’s party entertainer between accounting classes. Kind, attentive. And you know what, Shane isn't even a good husband! Ksyusha literally sleeps in Sasha’s room because he snores?! Meanwhile, he spends nights hanging out in Roz’s wing playing video games—and I heard something last week…" Senya exhaled, remembering that horrible evening. "Apparently he has a mistress?! And Sasha knows about it? And she doesn’t even tell Ksyusha anything?"

"Okay, one thing at a time. What exactly did you hear?" Kovalsky held up his hands as though trying to calm down a spooked horse. "Hollzy, actually, considers a whole lot of things in this life to be a subcategory of sociopathic lying—cheating included."

Senya tried to remember exactly, although he would have been more than happy to forget that evening forever.

"That some Sveta is coming over. That they need to restock on condoms. And, fuck, I can’t believe this! He asked Sasha to recommend a good strap-on?! Like… It’s not only that I know that the girl I like has a husband who's cheating on her with some Sveta the dominatrix, I also haven't been able to look the captain in the eye for days. I did not want to know that this little demon is apparently railing him at night?! Often enough to be a strap-on expert?!"

Kovalsky stared at Senya for a few moments with an unreadable expression.

Then he suddenly burst out laughing.

"You… you literally ran face-first into the right answer and just kept running!"

Senya’s gnocchi arrived just then, and he started stuffing them into his mouth while glaring at the laughing Misha.

"Here," Kovalsky finally said, once he’d stopped laughing. "A few facts you don’t know. Fact one: Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrovа and Shane Hollander were blacklisted by a Belgian pub in Bolshoy Cherkassky Alley in the fall of 2012 after celebrating a negative pregnancy test in style. Fact two: Ksenia Viktorovna Zarechnaya, born in 1995, was a suspect in the Pussy Riot case. Fact three: Alexandra Rodionovna Kuznetsova, born in 1995, was detained several times for participating in rallies, including the Bolotnaya Square protest. Fact four: both these ladies were arrested when they showed up at the Russia–Latvia game at the Olympics wearing “be gay do crime” T-shirts and resisted police officers."

"Wait," Senya pleaded for mercy. "What does that have to do with strap-ons and… hold on."

"You live in a lavender duplex, kid," Kovalsky smirked. "By the way, thanks. You just won me an old Spartak bet! I always suspected, but had no proof. Now the guys owe Tisha and me a whole lot of money…"

Chapter End Notes

Technically Alina has a point xD
The army draft comes twice a year
Twice a year, they will not find me here
I'm eating pancakes
Oh-oh-oh
I live at grandma’s
(To the melody of You're in the Army Now)

Swan Lake around tenth - and that's where Ilya took Shane's pictures: holiday decorations in Russia are on aprox. Dec 1-Jan 20
Illuzion cinema - one of the older theatres, located in Kotelnicheskaya. They usually show old&classic or Cannes movies.
Muse's latest album - it was The 2nd Law
Baumanka - kinda like Russian MIT I guess
Pyaterochka - cheap-ish supermarket
Azbuka Vkusa - rich&gourmet supermarket
bitch - Senya actually calls his classmate "she-goat", it's much softer