Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Hurt/Comfort, Racism, Homophobia, Autistic Shane Hollander

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of a strange door

Stats:

Published: 2026-06-11 Words: 8,373 Chapters: 1/1

all that i lacked so long and loved so well

Summary

Because it's good news, right? That no one has told him that Ilya is— There probably would have been headlines. Or a press release. A photo of him in his jersey, smiling, two dates only twenty-eight years apart, a few lines about his career, and no listed survivors. Supportive tweets from a bunch of people in the league. Shane's team would put out a press release about the foundation and probably get a flood of donations. There would be something, if he were—

But there's nothing. There's just this void. Nothing, nothing, no sign of him. It's like Ilya has disappeared off the face of the earth.

***

Shane's point of view on the events of lonely i came, and i depart alone

Notes

This is a companion piece to my fic lonely i came, and i depart alone , in which the catastrophe in The Long Game is not a plane emergency landing, but Ilya's suicide attempt.

Content Notes

Aspects of a suicide attempt (mention of method used and the contents of notes left behind)
Both interpersonal and structural homophobia, including repeated use of slurs and physical violence
Both interpersonal and structural racism
Involuntary psychiatric hospitalization

The world around Shane goes white and silent. The noise and crowding and stench of the locker room after a good game are gone. Never existed. There’s nothing but the weight of his phone in his hand and the words on his screen.

You are the best thing in my life. I love you. Always. Maybe from the first time I saw you. I am thinking only about you right now. A million memories. Thank you for those. Whatever happens, I am with you. Safe in your heart. I believe it.

He reads them. Then he looks at them there, on his phone, in black and white.

Some amount of time later, Shane’s alone. Still in the locker room. In his gear. Staring at his phone. None of his teammates have said anything while he stood there, for what he figures out by looking at the clock is almost forty minutes. Of course they didn’t. They got changed and left.

Left Shane with the words. The impossible words. He can’t make sense of it. He can’t understand. This can’t be happening.

He might have stood there for the rest of his life if his phone hadn’t started ringing. It’s an unknown number, Boston area code. It could be one of Ilya’s old teammates, or his coach. Maybe Ilya had left Shane’s number so that someone would call and tell him—

He can’t think it.

He scrambles to answer the phone. Fingers so clumsy with panic that he almost misses it.

The voice on the other side is a woman’s. The familiar way her slight Russian accent rounds the vowels makes him want to sob. “Jane.”

“Svetlana?” He guesses.

“Yes. He sent you—“

“Yes.” Shane’s throat is thick. His tongue isn’t working. He doesn’t know how to speak. Like his body has forgotten it is his. “Do you know—“

“I know he won against Tampa this afternoon and sent me this message two hours later. That he loves me and does not deserve me. Now he is not answering his phone. I called and called and called. Then I spent an hour tracking down your number. This is all I know.”

Shane hadn’t even tried to call him. He had just frozen. Fuck, he’s useless.

“We need plan. Does anyone on his team know about the two of you?”

“No.” Shane closes his eyes. He’s never hated himself more. Not when he had whispered Ilya’s name into his mouth for the first time and then run away. Not when he’d been on top of Rose and realized he would never be able to be what he wanted to be. Not even when he and Ilya had gotten into that screaming fight the day after Christmas. “He wanted to. But I told him no.”

They’d fought about it. Shane had told him it was too risky. Ilya had not had one person to confide in, one person to share the weight of their secret with (except apparently Svetlana, and thank God for that, and Shane is ashamed all over again that Ilya had felt he had to hide from him that she knew). If Shane had let them come out, would he have—

“Jane. Listen to me. We will panic later, okay? If there is nothing to do, you will have your whole life for panicking. But we don’t know for sure that he is dead.”

Dead. Dead. Dead. That word sinks into him. Presses him flat. Crushes him. He can’t help but imagine it. Ilya. Dead. He would never look at Shane with those stunning soft adoring eyes ever again. His eyes would never open again. He would never breathe Shane’s name like a prayer. He would not breathe at all.

“Who do you know, on Centaurs? Or who do you know that knows someone?”

He thinks. Guys on that team don’t tend to move around a lot. In part because if you’re bad enough to play for the Centaurs you’re probably not good enough to get a lot of other offers, in part because it’s supposed to be a really good team to play on so they tend to want to stay.

His brain isn’t really working. He closes his eyes. Visualizes the rosters. Moves names around in his mind like he's solving a puzzle. It's almost soothing, to have this to focus on. “Um. Um. Chouinard. He's on defense. He was traded from Pittsburgh. Miller, one of our second-liners did a season there. They might know each other."

“Find the number and send it to me,” Svetlana says. “I will call. Say I am Ilyusha's girlfriend. Better if it is a woman and not Shane Hollander calling, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“And is there someone you can call? To help you?”

Hayden is out for this game with a twisted ankle, or he would have noticed Shane panicking as soon as the text came in. He could call his parents—they’re two hours away in Ottawa, and he knows they'd come—but if he called them he’d have to say something, and he doesn’t think he can physically do that. He doesn't have anyone else.

“I’m okay.” That’s a blatant lie. “I can hold it together.” That’s a little better. He can hold it together because he has to hold it together. “I’m gonna. Um. Get my gear off, and take a car back to my place, and start packing. You’ll call me back as soon as—“

“Yes. Of course. In the meantime I have asked a friend who works in the hotel business to find out where they were staying, if he can. I checked the news. No report yet.”

“Should we book flights?”

“I think you should. I am in Russia. It will take me fourteen hours to get there at least, and in the meantime I will not be reachable. I think it is better if I stay here, where I can make calls, talk to people. But you should go.”

That feels right. He wants to be in the city where Ilya is. Wants to be close to him. Even if… even if he never finds him.

He moves in a haze, but he moves. He’s used to drilling his body until it can run on autopilot. Texts JJ to ask their teammate to get Chouinard's number, please. Miller wouldn't answer a call from Shane, obviously. Turn the ringer on his phone all the way up. Gear off. No shower, what if Svetlana called back and he didn’t hear. Get in the car that’s waiting for him. Home. Suitcase. No plane ticket yet. He doesn’t know if he’s going to Tampa or Boston or where. Pack. Underwear, joggers, t-shirts, the old Bears sweatshirt of Ilya’s that he keeps carefully hidden at the back of his closet for the very worst nights, the nights when he misses him so badly he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to survive it. When he wears it, it feels like Ilya is holding him. Almost.

 

 

---

 

 

They had left the cottage torn between the heavy grief of goodbye and the buoyant hope of a happy future. They’d never had that before. Never been able to even dream of it. Even in the privacy of his own mind, Shane had tried not to let himself imagine that he would ever be more than Ilya's dirty little secret.

After they had sex for the first time, the six months of silence, then Sochi, then Vegas, Shane had convinced himself Ilya would never care about him. Not the way he cared about Ilya. He'd been essentially resigned to a lifetime of what they already had. Their arrangement worked, right? All the fantastic sex, no strings attached. He'd convinced himself it was enough, because if there was one thing Shane Hollander could do, it was convince himself that he was okay. Right up until he couldn't anymore, and had to face the fact that he would spend the rest of his life longing for the last man he could ever have.

And now they were in love. They were making promises to each other that weren't just I'll see you after the game, that stretched on for years, for the rest of their lives.

But they couldn't be together, not yet, not really. They would have months that they didn't see each other at all. When they did, it would be the same routine they had known for all of those years. Meeting up only for a few hours at a time. Sneaking in and out so they wouldn't be seen.

How hard, to have known the light and have to go back to the darkness. In some ways, maybe it would have been better to keep the little they had, instead of trying to figure out how to have more. How to have each other for real, when the world was against them.

But they'd made a plan, and it would work. A plan that meant they could both keep everything. Or as much of both their work and their love as they could get. A plan that would mean they had enough. That Shane could keep the one thing that made him who he was, and still have the one thing he had ever really wanted.

 

---

 

Late winter in Florida always feels unreal. Heat and swampy air and the bright sun on the concrete sprawl. An artificial world.

He can hardly figure out how to breathe that hot, thick air now.

A black car takes Shane and his bags to a hotel. He sits in the room. The air conditioning blasts. He tries not to let himself think of the last time he and Ilya were both in Tampa at the same time.

When Ilya finally let Shane see him cry for his mother, for his father, for himself. When he finally let Shane wrap him in his arms and hold him the way he deserves to be held.

Will Shane ever get to hold him again? Comfort him again?

How many times has Ilya needed Shane to hold him like that, and Shane has been too far away, or not noticed, or worried about getting caught more than he worried about how much the man he loved needed him?

JJ hasn't answered Shane's message yet. And it's hours later, Shane had to wait all night for the six AM flight to Tampa, pacing holes in his floor, calling the Tampa arena (no answer), the Centaurs office (no answer), Svetlana (who didn't know anything new) reloading the news over and over again, looking up how long it would take to drive to Tampa.

Now he's here and he's no closer to Ilya. No closer to even knowing if Ilya is alive.

There must be someone else to call. He thinks. Who else would Ilya have written to, before—

Shane's parents, maybe, but they would have called him right away. They didn't hear anything.

Maybe some of his friends back in Boston? He was close with Cliff Marlow. Shane scrolls back on his phone, back and back years. Marlow had called to apologize for breaking his collarbone with that check.

Shane doesn't even stop to wonder if he should make the call, or if it's coming too close to revealing their secret. He just calls. To his relief, there is an answer.

"Hollander? What do you want?"

"Have you heard from Il—from Rozanov?"

There's a silence on the other end of the line. Then, "Uh, no."

"Was he close to any of the guys on his new team, do you know? Anyone whose number you might have?"

"What's going on, man?"

Shane makes himself take a breath in, and out. "I got a text from him that made me worry. And he's not with his team now. I'm just trying to check in, make sure he's okay." It's enough of the truth that he hopes it will be convincing.

Luckily Cliff Marlow is not a suspicious man. Or a smart one. That's something to be grateful for. "Right, you guys are friends now, the foundation and everything. No, I haven't heard from Rozy in, fuck, probably six months? I texted the last couple of times he was in Boston but he didn't even want to go out with us. Sort of gave up. Is he okay?"

"I don't know," Shane says. "Uh. I guess, if you do hear from him, would you let me know, please?"

"Sure thing."

Shane ends the call. He does not spend even a moment wondering if he has just outed both himself and Ilya to Marlow, soon to be followed by the rest of the league and thus the world. Who cares. It's not like there's any future worth thinking about if Ilya is—

He just has to keep looking. He can't worry about what happens after he finds Ilya. Just the obstacle in front of him, the latest brick wall that he's hit. And that he has to figure out a way around, because of course there's a way around it. There's always a way.

Even though it's been hours since Ilya's message, and Shane is no closer to finding him.

---

 

In October of that first year, Shane came out to his team. This was the third step of the plan he had made for how he and Ilya would, eventually, be able to be publicly together.

Step one: parents (which had gone off-script but ultimately recovered). Step two: friends (Hayden hated the idea of Shane with Ilya, but had been supportive about what he called "the gay thing." Not too bad. Rose had been delighted for them both, even though she didn't know Ilya). Step three: telling his team that he was gay, but not about Ilya. Step four: coming out publicly. Step five: after that had died down and he'd had time to win at least one more cup and prove that he was still Shane Hollander even if he liked men, announce his relationship with Ilya.

He wanted that. He wanted everyone to know about Ilya. He wanted their names to be said together in one breath, like Are YunaandDavid coming to the game today or I'm going to JackieandHayden's for dinner. He wanted to stand beside Ilya on the ice, at a podium, in front of reporters' mics, at a team dinner, and have everyone see how much they belonged together.

He knew it wouldn't be easy to get there, but that's why there was a plan.

The plan collapsed pretty quickly after he told the Metros that he was gay. He'd written such a good speech, too, and delivered it pretty perfectly. It was all about how he didn't expect this to affect anyone's game, but Hunter coming out had made him realize something about himself, and it was important to him to be honest with his team, because he trusted them.

Quick, succinct, assuming best intentions. He'd spent a long time workshopping it with his mom to get it just right.

No one said anything afterwards. They'd all stared at him for a long, long moment, like he was a stranger, and then turned and started getting ready for the game. Hayden had given a performative, "Proud of you, man," but no one else had even looked at him. Not JJ, not the rookies he'd mentored, not the guys who'd been on the team since Shane was a rookie and had played with him for a decade at this point.

It was okay, Shane tried to tell himself. Or anyway, it could have been a lot worse.

 

---

 

JJ calls, because he always calls, never texts. "Sorry, Captain, big night, tu sais? I slept in."

"JJ. Hi."

"I don't need to ask Miller, I have Couinard's number. We trained together as kids. I don't think he is gay, though."

It takes Shane a long second to process that. Right. JJ, always trying to fix him up. He should probably be touched by it, that one of his teammates is accepting enough that he wants to help Shane find someone, but right now it infuriates him. As if he could think of anyone else in the world right now. As if there will ever be another man for him when— "It's not about that. It's… " He should have come up with an excuse while he was waiting for the plane, on the five hour flight, at some point.

"Bizarre comme toujours," JJ says, mostly to himself, but he gives Shane Couinard's number, so that's all that matters. "See you at practice in an hour?"

"Ah, no. I won't be there." Shane swallows. Fuck, he'd forgotten about hockey. How had he forgotten about hockey? "It's a family emergency. Shit, I didn't even call Coach, I—"

"Shane. Capitaine. Are you okay?" JJ asks.

"Yeah. It's not about that, it's…" He looks for the right word. "It's personal."

"Okay. Well, call if I can help, ouais?"

"Ouais."

He hangs up. Texts Svetlana Couinard's number, so she can call pretending to be Ilya's secret girlfriend. Fuck.

Then he calls his coach. He doesn't even have a lie to tell. He says what he hopes is the truth.

"I'm taking emergency leave," he says. "A family member is in the hospital."

When he first came out, Shane did anything he could to avoid ever missing a practice, let alone a game. He skated on twisted ankles and played through bruised ribs, he ignored every illness, he just kept pushing. He told himself that if he was there, reminding them every day that he was the best, they wouldn't be able to push him aside. They wouldn't throw him out.

Now he can't worry about that. He can't care. He won't think of anything but finding Ilya until he does. Whether Ilya is…

He doesn't even really hear his coach's response. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters except finding the man he loves.

 

---

 

It wasn't hazing, exactly. They weren't kids. It wasn't like the stupid pranks that got pulled on him back in juniors, the ones he managed to pretend he was a good sport about, because that was how it worked. And if it seemed like maybe the shoves Shane took were a little harder, and the pranks a little nastier, and if he knew for a fact that nobody else was getting called the specific sorts of names that Shane got called, getting mocked in an accent they don't even have, getting told to go back to a place he'd never even been, well, that was just how it was, and he knew that if he wanted to play he had to take it and even dish a little of it out himself.

It wasn't like that with the Metros. They weren't hostile at all. They didn't call him slurs, or try to hurt him physically, or mess with his stuff. They just… stopped talking to him. They just started acting like he didn't exist.

Completely.

All of them, except Hayden and JJ.

No other member of his team spoke to him again, in fact. Except on the ice, if they needed something. The locker room was silent. Even when he gave them an instruction as captain, it was like he hadn't spoken at all.

If he tried to go into the locker room while anyone was changing, or shower after a game, everyone would start covering themselves with their hands, performatively. They'd laugh. If he tried to speak to him, they'd literally turn their backs.

Shane just got into the habit of getting there early enough to change into his gear before anyone else arrived and, after practice or matches, waiting in the hallway until everyone else was done changing. When someone asked what he was doing there, he said he was trying a new thing, solo meditation right before and after getting on the ice. He said it was really helping.

On the ice, things only changed a little. That's what Shane told himself: it was only a little different. Not so different that he couldn't still win, as long as he did his best. Shane felt like he didn't get as many passes as he used to, didn't get the kind of defense he was used to. He definitely noticed that nobody was dropping their gloves to defend him when he took a dirty hit. But it wasn't too bad. Nobody wanted to be seen making nice with the queer, but they also wanted to win, and that meant they had to put up with him, whether they liked it or not.

He knew he was asking for a lot, and even though he was disappointed that his team didn't accept him, he understood. As long as it didn't get in the way of the game, it was okay.

 

---

 

"I told him I was Ilya's girlfriend, so he told me." Svetlana clears her throat. "The team has placed him on injured reserve. There was a… Chouinard called it an accident. That's probably what they told him. After the game, emergency services were alerted. Some of the team saw them coming into the hotel, into Ilya's room. They left with him on a stretcher. That's all anyone knows. They didn't tell the team anything. A couple of guys asked if they could go see him but they had to get on a plane early to get home for the game."

She sounds close to tears. Shane doesn't know her well, but he knows enough to know that she's not someone who cries easily.

"Chouinard apologized to me. Said that they didn't think he had anyone that they should call."

At that, the sob that Shane has been holding in escapes. Weirdly, a part of the feeling is gratitude. That Ilya has a team that cared enough to care whether they'd missed the fact that he had a girlfriend.

It mingles with the grief, and the terror, and the rage.

The sheer wrongness of it. That anyone, anywhere, ever, could believe for a second that Ilya had no one. That Ilya was alone.

And worse, that for so long, he had no one. He was alone. That was wrong too, sickeningly wrong, like pressing on a bone bruise.

Worst of all, that maybe Ilya had believed he had no one. Had thought he was alone, when he—

"That's good, right?" Shane makes himself say. "They took him to the hospital?"

"Means nothing," Svetlana answers flatly. "Probably he wasn't dead at the scene, or the team would not have put him on IR, maybe would have made a statement by now. But he could have died in the ambulance, two minutes later, and we would have no way of knowing."

"Stop saying that," Shane chokes out.

"What?"

"That he could have—he—"

"You don't want me to say dead?"

"He can't be," Shane whispers into the phone. "Please, I can't even think it. I can't. It'll kill me too."

He realizes it's true as he says it. Not that he has any intention of doing what Ilya has done, of ending his own life. But that his life would end with Ilya's. Maybe he would just lie down and die of a broken heart. Maybe Captain Hollander would continue to go through the motions, win games, get trophies, and all that would die would be the Shane that lived inside, the one who only Ilya knew. But Shane would not survive this.

 

---

 

It was okay that the team wasn't good about it. It was still better than Shane had feared. It just meant pushing the timeline back a little bit. So Scott Hunter coming out hadn't changed as much as they'd hoped. So it was definitely affecting Shane's play with the Metros, and that meant it would hamstring his career to come out more widely. Okay, it was okay.

He still had hockey. He could still play. No one was kicking him off the ice, no one was doing more than joking about trading him from the Metros. He was still a champion. And he still had Ilya.

Just because he could only have Ilya in secret, a few hours at a time, that was okay. It wouldn't be that way forever, and any time with Ilya was amazing. Was a dream.

If they had to wait until they were ready to retire, they would do that. They'd get through it together. Another ten years hiding. He could do it.

At some point there had been some thrill, maybe, in sneaking around. You like to be bad, Ilya had told him. There was probably a time that that was true.

Shane didn't like it anymore. What he and Ilya had was so beautiful. Loving Ilya was the best thing he had ever done, better than every award, better than two Cups, better than Olympic gold. He wanted their love on display, just like his trophies. He didn't want it to be a dirty secret.

And he especially didn't want it to be a secret he had to keep out of fear. He and Ilya had gone through so much to be brave enough to be together. They deserved to not have to be afraid anymore. They deserved not to feel ashamed of the best thing in their lives.

They'd get there. Someday, they'd get there. They were great players, the best. They'd earned their places, and they would earn them again, and someday no one would be able to question that. Then there wouldn't be anything to be afraid of.

Someday. Hopefully not too much longer. Because a little part of Shane, a part he hated, a part he always tried to push down because there's never been room for him to be this fucking weak, was starting to wonder if he could do it. He loved the game so, so much, but being ignored in the locker room, hearing someone who was supposed to be a brother to him hiss faggot just loudly enough that he can't be sure he hears it, being hung out to dry on the ice enough that his stats were starting to drop and he was getting injured more games than not—he could't help it, it was getting to him. Especially now that he knew something else than the world he's lived in since he was just a kid. Especially now that he knew what it's like to be treated with softness, like he belonged, like he was allowed to want more.

Shane Hollander was the best player in the world (or maybe second-best, depending on who you ask). Certainly the best Canadian player alive. The best Asian player ever. He was a generational talent. That was Shane Hollander, defined.

Like a fool, he couldn't stop wishing he could be who he was without having to pretend to be somebody else.

 

---

 

 

It's 7:27 PM. Twenty-four hours ago, Ilya sent Shane that message. A message that was intended to be his last. Now, Ilya is somewhere in this same city, in a hospital, alone. If he isn't—

And Shane can't find him. He doesn't know what else to do. Where else to look. He's been to every hospital in the Tampa Bay area. Called and then gone in person. They all tell him the same thing. Either that there's no one here by that name or that they can't tell him anything. He has a little shortlist of the hospitals in the second category, because he figures it's more likely that Ilya is in one of the ones that neither confirmed nor denied his presence, but he doesn't know what to do with that information.

He's been to the hotel that Chouinard said the Centaurs were staying at. He interrogated every member of the staff and every guest that would speak to him, dispensing hundred dollar bills in exchange for a lot of people telling him they didn't know anything or weren't working yesterday. A couple of people saw emergency services come in and leave with a big blond man on a stretcher, but they didn't know anything more than that.

He did catch one person who was staying on the same floor as Ilya's room. She told him, in a gossipy tone of voice, like it was fun, that she was pretty sure she'd heard a gunshot.

Shane didn't let himself process that. It was just information. One more thing he knew. One more thing to add to the list.

(A gun a gun a fucking gun Ilya shot himself with a gun Ilya was so miserable that he would turn brutal violence on himself and Shane hadn't known, hadn't seen, hadn't even suspected it was that bad—)

He shoves that thought away. It's not helpful.

He's been checking the news, again and again. Nothing. The Centaurs still haven't said anything except a cheery little post that Captain Ilya Rozanov is out on injured reserve for an undetermined amount of time, and we're all rooting for him to have a quick recovery! Shane scrolls through every single comment, like he's somehow going to find answers on fucking Instagram instead of a bunch of people making jokes about how the Cens are sure to lose now or bitching about how much money the team's wasting on him when he won't even play..

Svetlana calls. "I spoke to Alexei," she says. "That piece of shit, I waited in front of his building for three hours. Came home after midnight, drunk and high. He knows nothing. He got a call from an American number this morning but did not bother to answer. This may be good news, may be nothing, I don't know."

It's probably both. That's all Shane has found, all day, as he's searched. Good news and nothing. Because it's good news, right? That no one has told him that Ilya is— There probably would have been headlines. Or a press release. A photo of him in his jersey, smiling, two dates only twenty-eight years apart, a few lines about his career, and no listed survivors. Supportive tweets from a bunch of people in the league. Shane's team would put out a press release about the foundation and probably get a flood of donations. There would be something, if he were—

But there's nothing. There's just this void. Nothing, nothing, no sign of him. It's like Ilya has disappeared off the face of the earth.

 

---

 

Shane hated how much he and Ilya fought these days. Hated fighting with him. The best days of his life, the happiest he had ever been, was when they were at the cottage together that first summer. Just being together, just feeling what it was to be in love.

They got so little of that, these days.

Shane wasn't stupid, he could tell that Ilya wasn't happy in Ottawa. He'd gone from a winning team to a losing one, from the city where his best friend lived to a place where he had no one, from the place he'd called home since he was eighteen years old to the most boring city in Canada.

All for a boyfriend that he got to see maybe one extra night a month. All for Shane, who wasn't enough to be worth uprooting his entire life for, no matter how many times Ilya said otherwise.

Ilya barely asked for anything in return. The only thing he'd actually said he wanted was to be with Shane in public, sometimes, just as friends. He wasn't used to keeping secrets, not the way Shane was. Ilya had been private about his bisexuality, of course, for logistical and political reasons. But he wasn't like Shane, who was so used to hiding he'd lied even to himself about it for years.

It seemed like such a small thing for Ilya to ask. Shane wished he could find the words to explain to Ilya why he kept saying no, even though he saw how it hurt the man he loved to stay a secret. To explain what it would cost them, what it would cost Shane, in particular.

Because Ilya was bisexual, not gay, and his reputation was as a wild party guy, not a straight-laced sweetheart, and because he was on an accepting and kind team and not, well, the Metros.

And because Ilya was white.

Shane didn't know how to explain that part of it to him. He had no words to talk about what it was like to be the only Asian in a sea of white faces, fewer and fewer people like him as he moved from Peewees to Juniors to the draft to the MLH. He only knew the words his mother had taught him: I don't think about that stuff. I'm just here to play.

He only knew how to not think about all of it. The jokes he's heard since he was a little kid, and not always from other kids. About the size of his dick, whether or not a woman would even be able to feel it, whether he'd ever eaten the other kind of pussy. Having to laugh along, figure out how to hit back just the right amount, because if you didn't laugh along you were the pussy. And worse, if you hit back too hard, you thought you were better than everybody else (something Shane was always risking hearing, because, obviously, he was better than everybody else). You weren't one of the guys. You weren't part of the team.

And hockey was a team sport. If you couldn't figure out how to be part of the team, they didn't let you play.

Ilya had always managed to find the confidence to stand out from his team. To be the asshole, the center of attention. To love it.

How could Ilya possibly understand that Shane wouldn't thrive under that kind of attention? That he would be crushed underneath it, that he would stop being himself if he was dragged solitary and stark under the spotlight?

Ilya was so sad, and Shane saw that, and he wanted to help, of course he wanted to help. He loved Ilya, he never wanted him to suffer.

But Shane was so, so scared.

 

---

 

He asks Svetlana to call Chouinard again and get Weibe's phone number. Maybe Ilya's coach has been in touch with the hospital. Maybe he knows something.

"He won't tell me," Svetlana says. "He doesn't know who I am."

"He knows who I am," Shane replies. "What's his number?"

"What are you going to tell him?"

"The truth." If Ilya didn't want anyone to know about them, if he'd changed his mind and wanted to stick to their plan to stay in the closet, he shouldn't have shot himself.

"You would do that?" Svetlana's tone is unreadable.

"I would do anything." Shane would cut off a limb. He would give up his life. He would agree to never play again. Anything, anything, if he could see Ilya, or even just know that he survived. If Ilya is done with him, that's fine. Shane deserves it after how selfish he's been, selfish enough to drive Ilya to the point of— But Shane can't live in a world without Ilya in it.

Svetlana gives him the number. Shane doesn't think about it. He doesn't let himself consider what it means to take this step. He just calls.

"Brandon Weibe."

"Hi. This is Shane Hollander."

"And why is Shane Hollander calling me?" There's a tone in Weibe's voice. Almost a knowing one.

"Um." He takes a breath. The only person in the hockey world who he has ever said this to is Hayden. "I need to find Ilya. Rozanov."

"He's on leave."

"I know." Shane closes his eyes. "He sent me this text. It seemed like he was going to… I know he went to a hospital, but I don't know which one. I've been looking for him for two days. Do you know where he is?"

"You know, you're the second person in the last half hour to call and ask me that."

"Yeah. His friend called. Svetlana. But I know you don't know her, and you know me, and I just thought that, maybe, please…"

"I do know you. I don't know why you're looking for him." Weibe's voice is oddly gentle. "Any chance you're going to tell me?"

"I'm. He's my." Lover, his brain supplies, uselessly. "He's my partner. Uh. Romantically, I mean. My boyfriend. In secret, for years. It's why he came to Ottawa, so he could be closer tome. Nobody knows. I hope you won't tell them. But I have to find him. I've been looking for him, I can't find him. I have to know if he's…" Not okay, because he knows Ilya isn't okay. "I have to know if he's alive. Please. I can't really prove it, I'm sorry, we've been hiding for so long I don't even have like, a picture of us together. I can send you a screenshot of the text, I guess? Or something? I'd do anything, I—"

"Breathe, Hollander."

It's not easy. He manages.

"I suspected. And that was sort of confirmed, for me, when you called out of a game the same time Rozanov ended up in the hospital. I believe you."

Shane doesn't have time to freak out that someone had guessed his secret. Not when he might be one step closer to finding Ilya. "Do you know where he is? If he's—" He still can't say it. Can't say the horrible word.

"He was alive when the paramedics took him out of the hotel. That's the last update I have, the hospital isn't telling me anything, so I don't know if they'll tell you. But he's at Tampa General ."

"Thank you," Shane croaks. "Fuck, thank you so much."

"Let me know if they let you in, son." A pause. "And just so you know, I won't tell a soul about you and Rozanov. Not until you're ready for people to know."

"Thank you," Shane says again. His voice sounds small to his own ears, lost. He hangs up, maybe a little rudely. He doesn't care.

He knows where Ilya is, now. He'll find a way in. He'll buy the fucking hospital if he has to, he'll scale the walls, he'll do anything.

He calls Svetlana as he starts walking, running, towards the hospital. It's so close, it's easier to get there on foot than in a car. "He's at Tampa General. I'm on my way. I don't know how I'm going to get in, but I'm on my way."

"Alexei," she says immediately. "He is allowed to decide. I will find him, make him call and put your name on the list."

"How?" Not that he should doubt Svetlana's ability to make anyone do anything. He doesn't know her well but he knows she is not someone who gives up.

"Fastest way will be money. That's all that useless asshole wants, is money he doesn't have to earn."

Oh, thank God. A problem he can solve. He has money, plenty of money, more than he'll need even if the league kicks him out tomorrow and he's disgraced and never makes another penny for the rest of his life. "Yes, anything. Give him a million dollars if that's what it takes. Ten million. Please."

"I do not think it will take ten million dollars."

By the time Shane reaches the hospital, she has texted him. You're in. You owe me six thousand dollars. No rush.

The front desk takes an unbearable expanse of time to pull his name up in some ancient computer system. He has to spell Rozanov six times. But it's there.

They tell him that Ilya is in the psychiatric unit. Shane will need two forms of ID, which means going back to the hotel to get his passport, in order to be allowed in. He won't make it back before visitor hours end.

But that's okay. He'll convince them to let him in.

It's going to be okay, because if Ilya is in the psychiatric unit, that means that he's not too badly injured. Not in the ICU, not in surgery.

It means that he's alive.

 

---

 

Theriault called Shane into his office. "I hear you're having some troubles in the locker room, Hollander."

It was unusual for a coach to get involved in that sort of thing. But then, it was usually a captain's job to sort out problems between the guys, and Shane was the captain. Although more and more it felt like that was in name alone. "I guess so. I hope it's not affecting my game, though. That's the important thing."

"You know perfectly well that it is."

He was right, of course. But Shane wasn't the one not passing the puck to the best scorer in the league. He wasn't the one refusing to back up their most valuable player, letting other teams slam into him and try to injure him with total impunity. He wasn't the one spitting toxic poison into the air, words and actions and silences that are inevitably pulling at the threads that tie the team together.

Unless being gay was that toxin. And maybe it was. Because Shane was the one in here, being vaguely lectured at by coach, while everyone else was out for a post-practice drink that Shane hadn't been invited to.

He was so fucking angry. God, he was so fucking angry. He wanted to smash Theriault's fucking teeth in. He wanted to scream in his face that it wasn't fucking fair. He has worked and worked and worked his whole life. He has given up so much. He'd almost lost the man he loves, and has spent years separated from him, years they'll never get back. He'd been called every slur under the sun. He'd broken bones. He'd brought them three fucking cups. Worst of all, he'd let Ilya suffer so that Shane could keep playing for the fucking Metros, so he could win for people who treat him like dirt because of something about himself that he didn't want and hadn't chosen and couldn't help.

Shane's voice was perfectly calm when he answered. "I know it would be ideal if I could stop being gay, but that's not possible. If there's anything you think of that I can do to help the locker room culture, you just let me know, sir."

And he turned and walked out of his coach's office without stopping to see what Theriault said. He walked right out of the practice rink and into his waiting car and all the way home. And only once he was there did he let himself start crying.

He wanted to call Ilya so badly. He wanted to hear his voice, to hear Ilya's righteous anger on his behalf. But Ilya was already carrying so much. He didn't need this, too.

 

---

 

He calls Svetlana to tell her that Ilya is at Tampa General, in the psychiatric unit and alive, as he runs to the hotel, rifling through his suitcase to find his IDs. He keeps losing track of which things he's already looked at and which he hasn't. "So as soon as I find them, I'll go back to the hospital, and then I'll convince them to let me in, and then I'll—"

"No," she says. "You will eat something, and then you will sleep."

He's dumbfounded. "I can't sleep. I haven't seen Ilya yet."

"You can't think straight and you haven't slept in more than 48 hours." Not true, Shane had dozed on the plane, but only for a few minutes at a time. He kept waking up with nightmareish images (Ilya's hand limp in his Ilya's eyes closed forever Ilya's heart in his chest still and silent) he won't let himself remember. "He's safe. In a place designed so that he cannot hurt himself. Eat food. Then sleep. Then in the morning you will see him without making a mess of it."

It doesn't feel right. He shouldn't get to sleep or eat. He shouldn't get to do anything besides look for the man he loves.

"Jane. Are you going to the hospital to make yourself feel better, or to help Ilya?"

"Help Ilya," he answers, automatically, although he thinks it was probably a rhetorical question.

"Then get yourself in a position to help him, and get some sleep."

Shane loves an explicit instruction. Finding something to eat that fits into his diet isn't easy. It ends up being a salad, no dressing, with grilled chicken on it. It doesn't taste like anything.

He doesn't expect to be able to fall asleep, but he's unconscious as soon as his head hits the pillow.

 

---

 

Ilya could tell, of course, that things were difficult with the Metros. He was too perceptive not to notice how Shane was feeling, and too good a player not to be able to see from game footage exactly how Montreal was hanging Shane out to dry on the ice.

They fought about it. They hadn't been fighting as much lately. That didn't feel like a good thing. It wasn't that there was less to argue about, and more that Ilya seemed unwilling to do it. Like he'd run out of the energy needed even to hit back.

So maybe it was good, that they were fighting about this. But that didn't feel good either. Shane felt fucking furious, actually, and he knew it was unfair, but he felt so trapped. Ilya pushing him forward on one side, the Metros shoving him down on the other, the walls of the expectations everyone has always had of him all around.

Ilya loved him and Ilya wanted to take care of him and Shane didn't know how to convince him that they were not allowed to have that. Not yet.

"You're going to get hurt," Ilya said. "You have to do something."

"Of course I'm going to get hurt, I'm a fucking professional hockey player, Ilya. You can't bubble wrap me."

"This is not normal play and you know that better than anyone."

"Okay, fine. I'll fucking do something. What do you want me to do?" Shane had spat back, enraged at that condescending tone in Ilya's voice. "Retire? Trade to the worst team in the league where I'll be nice and safe?"

Ilya's flinch was visible.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean that," Shane said at once. He braced himself. He hoped, intensely, that Ilya would say something cruel back.

Ilya had just shaken his head a little. "Is okay."

"No, it's not. I'm an asshole. Fuck."

"You are not asshole. I am the asshole, remember?" Ilya smiled, like he could still find their old jokes funny.

"You've given up so much, and—"

"No." Ilya's voice was firm. "I have given up nothing. I have done nothing I did not want to do." He kissed Shane, gently, thoroughly. "Is all worth it for you, okay? Even when you are being asshole."

Shane gave in, the way he always did to Ilya. He let Ilya kiss him and take him to bed and make love to him, all tender and careful the way they almost never were with each other's bodies.

Afterwards, there was something in the silence between them that Shane could not name. He searched for the words and did not find them.

"Moy lyubimyy," Ilya murmured against Shane's skin. They were pressed impossibly close together, Ilya still inside him, his chest against Shane's back, his arms around Shane's waist, his lips against Shane's skin. It was perfect.

"I love you so much," Shane said, because there was nothing else to say.

"Forgive me," Ilya said, and before Shane could ask for what, his breathing evened out into sleep.

 

---

 

When Shane was little, when he was feeling especially anxious, he had a peculiar way of calming himself down. He'd hold his breath as long as he could, until his face was turning red, until he could feel his lungs burning, the pressure tight from under his sternum, his head light and spinning. Only then would he suck in air, a wave of relief that swept away the anxiety in its wake.

Seeing Ilya again is like that first breath of relief. He's alive.

Shane remembers, with perfect clarity, the first moment he could have put into words what it meant to be the only Asian kid on the team, in his youth division. He'd always known it, obviously, his mom had always told him he was going to be a role model, but he'd laughed her off. And then he'd been nine years old, and he'd looked around the locker room, and he'd suddenly felt it. Nothing had even happened, but he'd felt it with a suddenness that almost crushed him. The weight of being different, in a sport that was all about being the same, all about being part of a culture and a team and working as one. He knows this isn't fair, but what he'd felt was shame, heavy and dark.

Seeing Ilya again is like that weight of shame. His suffering is written all over him, and Shane let this happen. Weeks, months, years maybe that he had no idea it was this bad.

Ilya, beautiful Ilya, always and forever the most beautiful person he's ever seen. The curls he takes such delicate care of lying lank on his face. His bright blue eyes, dull, dark circles underneath. The lovely heart of his mouth slack. The ridiculous stylish clothes he wears replaced by a set of grey scrubs. His strong body hunched in on itself, moving in slow motion when he moves at all.

Shane has never seen him look so little like himself. His confidence, his light, all gone.

His Ilya. Who is here, right in front of him. Who is alive.

That's all that matters. Whatever else happens, they're going to get through this, together. Ilya's going to get the help that he needs, and he's going to be okay. He's going to be happy again. They're going to have the future they dreamt of.

And maybe, maybe someday, Ilya will forgive Shane for letting him carry this alone. Maybe someday Shane will have done enough to deserve that forgiveness.