Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warnings:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Ilya Rozanov & Original Character(s), Ilya Rozanov & Original Male Character(s), Ilya Rozanov & Original Female Character(s), Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter & Ilya Rozanov, Troy Barrett & Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady/Scott Hunter, (Minor)

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Original Characters, Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s), Original Child Character(s), Shane Hollander, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Kip Grady, Troy Barrett, dallas kent (mentioned) - Character

Additional Tags:

Soft Ilya Rozanov, POV Outsider, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Airplanes, Ilya Rozanov is Good With Children, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Drinking, Past Bullying, minor/referenced racism, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, POV Shane Hollander, POV Scott Hunter (Game Changers), POV Troy Barrett, POV Alternating, POV Third Person Limited, POV Third Person, mentioned montreal metros, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros (Game Changers), Boston Bears | Boston Raiders (Game Changers), Internalized Homophobia, Domestic, Assumptions, Soft Shane Hollander, 5+1 Things, Social Media, Twitter, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Mentioned Dallas Kent, Dallas Kent Being an Asshole, Minor Troy Barrett/Harris Drover

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of Ilya Rozanov, through the eyes of others

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-25 Completed: 2026-02-28 Words: 8,222 Chapters: 2/2

No doubt this Rozanov had lots of hidden charms

Summary

Ilya Rozanov was an asshole. Everybody knew this. Sometimes, though, secretly, he wasn't.

Or, 4 times strangers were kind to one another, plus a few times Ilya Rozanov started publicly bashing bigots online.

Notes

title is a slightly altered lyric from Rasputin by Boney M. because yes

Chapter 1

Nakka did not like planes. She did not like the anxiety they brought her when she was on them, nor the process of going through the airport to get to them in the first place. Unfortunately, this flight was not avoidable, as it was too far a distance to drive in the time that she had. Nakka preferred to be as prepared as possible for things she did not like, and so she had done extensive research on planes and airports and the hassles of flying before her trip.

Her flight was direct from Boston Logan International Airport to Montreal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. It would be one hour and thirty-three minutes, on an Embraer 175, and she would be flying Economy. To get to the plane, she would first check in online, then print her boarding pass at a kiosk, pass through security (no fluids over 3.4 oz, all electronics in a separate tray), and find her gate. After she touched down, she would go through security again, then customs, then find the exit and get an Uber to her hotel.

Nakka was prepared. She was even prepared for things to go wrong, as they tended to when it came to flights, and she was ready for anything: unexpected gate changes, delays, being “randomly” pulled aside for extra security checks, et cetera.

What she hadn’t prepared for was losing her noise-cancelling headphones. Somewhere between taking them off for security and arriving at her gate, they had disappeared from her bag and she couldn’t find them anywhere along her retraced steps. She even asked someone at a help desk, but they just looked at her like she was stupid and told her there was nothing they could do.

Fuck.

Her hands began to flap, self-soothing, and she rocked gently from side to side. She’d returned to her gate after searching uselessly for all the time she could spare before her flight, and was in line to board, still without her headphones. Nakka bit back the urge to hum, knowing it wasn’t socially acceptable to do so when surrounded by people.

Boarding went about as smoothly as it could have gone—she knew exactly where her seat was, having memorized the plane’s layout as part of her pre-flight preparation, and her carry-on was light enough that it wasn’t difficult to lift it into the overhead compartment.

She was in an aisle seat, between two men. The one in the window seat next to her looked to be in his thirties, and probably worked some sort of office job, since he was wearing slacks and a blue oxford. The one right across the aisle from her was younger, though not by much, and looked like he went to the gym for a living—his arms were obviously massive, even through his Adidas sweater.

Both of them were wearing headphones, which just made Nakka feel worse about her own. Her hands began to shake again, and she balled them into fists and tucked them under her legs, like crushing a baby bird. She could do this. She could handle one hour and thirty-three minutes. 30,000 feet in the air. Random turbulence. Noisy engines. She would be fine.

The plane began to move, and the flight attendants demonstrated safety guidelines alongside the corresponding pre-recorded announcement playing over the intercom.
They sat down, and the plane stopped moving—waiting for the go ahead to take off, Nakka knew.

Then, they began to accelerate, faster than before. The engines thrummed loudly, sending a steady tremor through the entire aircraft. Nakka clenched her fists hard, nails digging into her palms. The faster the plane moved, and the louder the engines got, the less of a grip she had on herself and her movements. The plane tilted upwards as they left the ground, shaking harder now with turbulence as they ascended, and Nakka couldn’t help it—she brought her hands up to her ears to block the noise out as much as she could, and began to hum loudly. She made an aborted attempt to bring her legs up to her chest, stopped short by the seatbelt fastened over her lap.

Nakka’s eyes were firmly closed, cutting out as much sensory input as she possibly could. She opened them briefly when she felt movement on her left side, and saw the man in the window seat deliberately turning away from her, pressing himself against the side of the plane. She pressed her eyelids shut.

Only a few moments later, the plane still shaking and groaning around her, Nakka felt a tap on her right shoulder. She flinched, and opened her eyes again. Gym Guy from across the aisle had his headphones in his hand, which was outstretched between their seats.

He was offering her his headphones. Nakka took them without a second thought and put them on.

Immediately, all the noise around her dimmed to almost nothing. With her eyes closed, the only remaining source of discomfort was the shaking of her seat, and that soon evened out too as the plane reached its cruising altitude. She could finally relax.

One hour and thirty-three minutes passed in relative peace, and soon enough they were once again safely on the ground. Their descent was a little rough, but with the help of Gym Guy’s headphones, which had some of the best noise cancelling Nakka had ever experienced, it was much better than the initial ascent.

When she got off the plane, she saw Gym Guy waiting just outside the gate, and beelined to him.

“Thank you.” Nakka said, taking the headphones off and returning them to their rightful owner.

He shrugged, lips tugged into a small smile. “Ah, is not big deal. You needed them more than me.”

“Well, I really appreciate it. I have a hard time with loud noises even in any other situation, and planes stress me out.”

“Yes, I saw,” Gym Guy replied, not unkind. “I have someone like that. I am just happy I could help.”

“Yeah.” Nakka said, awkward. “Um, where did you get them? Your headphones? They’re really good.”

Gym Guy examined his headphones as though he’d never seen them before. “Uh, Apple. I think they are the newest Airpods… Pro Max? And, yes, they are very good, but also heavy. Hurts my head sometimes.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Nakka nodded. “Well, thank you again. Seriously. Um, have a good day?”

Gym Guy smiled crookedly, eyes crinkling a bit at the edges. “Yes, you too. I hope you find good headphones.”

Nakka waved goodbye, and they went their separate ways.

Lucy wasn’t a big drinker—especially not alone. It was kind of miserable unless you had a source of fun, and the best source of drunk fun was usually a group of friends. Unfortunately, like most of her things, her asshole ex had taken the friend group in the breakup.

So, here she was, alone, drinking away her sorrows at some random sports bar in a neighborhood as far as she could reasonably get from her own. She was going to be miserable either way; might as well get wasted in the process. And the bar wasn’t bad, which was a plus—all of the tables looked clean, the speakers embedded in the ceiling were playing a rock mix loud enough to be heard but not so much that it was deafening, and everybody else looked like they were having a good time, mostly small or medium groups with a few stragglers on the edges. The loudest crowd in the bar was a decently-sized group of men, all of them weirdly tall and muscular, chattering and laughing over their drinks. A few amongst them looked awfully familiar, for some reason. Not that Lucy really cared. They weren’t bothering anybody.

It was around 10 in the evening, and she was only on her second beer when she caught one of the stragglers, a man with close-cropped brown hair and grey eyes, staring at her from across the room. Aw, shit. She pretended not to notice him, even as he was obviously trying to catch her eye, and instead turned to try and signal the bartender, who was busying herself with a group of college kids at the other end of the bar.

Lucy had obviously had plenty of men try to flirt with her at bars. She was pretty fucking hot, if she said so herself, and she didn’t blame them for noticing that. The flirting game could even be fun, if she was in the mood. But she wasn’t in the mood right now, for obvious reasons. She hoped he picked up on that. Sometimes, if she ignored them, they’d take a hint. Unfortunately, this guy seemed confident. Those were the worst ones.

He swaggered up beside her, oblivious to the pretty clear fuck-off vibes emanating from her hunched shoulders, and she didn’t even try to hide her annoyed sigh.

“Hey,” Mr. Asshole greeted, sitting on the empty stool right next to Lucy. “How you doin’?”

Jesus fuck. Lucy could not deal with this corny ass bullshit right now. She replied without looking at him, deadpan: “Bad.”

In the few moments it took for him to think of a reply, Lucy managed to catch the eye of the bartender and waved her over.

Mr. Dickhead recovered quicker than she’d hoped. “You wanna talk about it? I’ve been told I’m a good listener.” Before Lucy could justify that load of horseshit with a reply—probably in the form of a good ol’ mocking guffaw—he noticed the bartender coming over and flashed a smile. “Maybe I could buy you a drink, help you unwind a bit?”

Lucy raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, but conceded with a shrug. She wasn’t going to turn down a free drink—just one, though, so as to not give Mr. Downstairs Brain any ideas. The man in question grinned at her, a triumphant glint in his eye. Ugh.

He turned to the bartender. “I’ll have a vodka Red Bull, and for my friend here…?” Mr. Douchenozzle trailed off.

“Whiskey, neat.” Lucy filled in. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Mr. Fuckhead repeated, though he made it sound dismissive. God, Lucy could not wait to be rid of him. She’d suffer through a couple more lines of dialogue and then beat him off with a metaphorical stick.

The bartender had their drinks ready quickly, and for whatever reason Mr. Dimwit insisted on passing hers over to her instead of just letting her grab it—probably some misogynistic sense of “chivalry.” He smiled at her, and she returned it with a blank stare. Oddly enough, his grin didn’t falter. This guy was going to be so hard to drive off later. Lucy was beginning to regret accepting this drink. Attempting to avoid eye contact with him, she instead watched the bartender rush into the back room of the bar, presumably to restock everything while there were no immediate customers.

Mr. Jackass took a sip of his drink, and gestured at her with his glass. “So, what’s got you feeling down?”

“Personal shit,” Lucy replied, short. She went to drink from her glass, but right as the rim touched her lips, a large figure came out of nowhere and bumped into her so hard that her glass tipped over in her hands and spilled amber all over the bar. She whipped around, startled and angry, and saw that it was one of the guys from the large, loud group she’d noticed earlier.

He was handsome, all fluffy curls and sharp eyes, but the flirty, cocky sort of grin plastered on his face made him look like an asshole. When he spoke, it was with an accent. “Ah, so sorry. I can be very clumsy.”

“Watch where you’re fucking going, asshole!” Mr. Dickbird shouted, glaring daggers at him. Lucy was regretting ever leaving her house. She should’ve just gone to the liquor store and gotten shitfaced at home, maybe with a tub of cookie dough ice cream and a Gray’s Anatomy rewatch.

New Guy’s gaze flicked from Lucy to Mr. Shitlord, and a dangerous kind of shadow passed over his eyes. When he looked back to Lucy, though, it was gone. “Yes, yes, I said I am sorry. What if I buy you another drink to make up for it?”

Oh Jesus Christ. Privately, Lucy promised herself to never humor another man ever in her life, let alone date one.

Mr. Fuckface was practically foaming at the mouth. “Back the fuck off, man. She’s not gonna sleep with you!”

At that, Lucy finally spoke up, scoffing. “Yeah, and I wasn’t going to sleep with you either. Guys are such obnoxious assholes, holy shit.”

“Hey, I bought you a drink; I was being nice!” Mr. Dumbshit had the gall to try and argue with her, curling his lip. “You’re being really fucking ungrateful.”

New Asshole barked out a mean laugh. “Wow, fuck, you really are obnoxious asshole.”

“She called you the same thing, dumbass. We’re in the same boat.” Mr. Cunthead snapped. Behind him, Lucy could see the bartender reemerge from the backroom and immediately lock on to the situation.

“No, we are not,” New Asshole said, suddenly very serious. He stood up straight for the first time, and it was at that point that Lucy realized how imposing he really was. This guy wasn’t just tall, he was broad, built like a brick shithouse with legs. “We are not the same. I saw you put something in her drink.”

The guy who bought her drink clenched his jaw, eyes wide with anger and, briefly, a flash of fear. Fuck. Fuck. Lucy scrambled off of her barstool and took several steps away from Mr. Actual Fucking Rapist What The Fuck. “What the fuck?”

The bartender reached them, finally, tension obvious in the line of her body as she watched the men face off. “What’s going on here?”

The guy who spiked Lucy’s drink, oh my fucking God, desperately tried to cover for himself. He gestured angrily to Brick Shithouse. “He’s trying to say I put something in that bitch’s drink!”

“Is because he did,” Brick Shithouse spat. “I know what it fucking looks like.”

“Please, I wouldn’t do that for her. She’s not worth the fucking effort, ugly bitch.” Roofie Guy snarled the last two words directly at Lucy. Brick Shithouse stepped in between them without a word, which didn’t really make her feel any better either. Low-grade nausea swirled in her stomach, and her hands were beginning to shake.

The bartender seemed to note the spilled glass of whiskey, considered the situation, and made up her mind. “I’m going to have to ask you both to leave.”

Roofie Guy sputtered for a moment, but even he could see that there was no way to make the situation anything but worse for himself if he fought it. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the bar, tail between his legs. Brick Shithouse watched him go, still poised and ready for action, like an attack dog.

“Hey,” the bartender snapped. “You too, big guy. Out, before I call the cops.”

Brick Shithouse turned to look between her and Lucy. After a moment, some of the fight drained from his body. “Okay, yes, I will go. Sorry. Ah, but I have tab open…”

The bartender sighed. She walked over to the register, keeping an eye on them the entire time, retrieved his credit card, and closed the tab. The moment she was close enough to do so, she shoved Brick Shithouse’s card out at him expectantly.

“Thanks,” He said, taking it. He looked between her and Lucy again, hesitating for a moment. The bartender seemed like she was about to say something else, her expression turning stormy, but he jumped in before she could speak. “Sorry, I wanted to say. I would not have started fight normally but there was no bartender when I got there and I did not know how to stop her—you—drinking. I hope you are okay.”

Lucy nodded, still shaken. The bartender crossed her arms. “Last chance, buddy.”

Brick Shithouse lifted his hands appeasingly, nodded, and turned to go. As he left, he waved at the group of tables housing all of his friends, many of whom groaned exaggeratedly or shook their heads in disbelief.

“Jesus Christ, Rozy! Two hours to get kicked out, that’s gotta be a team record or something,” One of them called.

“Is personal best!” Brick Shithouse (‘Rozy,’ apparently) joked back. He gave a mock salute and pushed the door open, and then he was gone.

“Hey,” The bartender said, softer now. Lucy met her gaze with wide eyes. “I’ve got a water bottle for you—unopened—and there’s a couch in the break room if you want to go sit somewhere quiet.”

Wordlessly, Lucy nodded. That sounded nice, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to get back in her car until her hands stopped trembling so badly.

God, she couldn’t wait to go home.

Shane had always been a weird kid. Even outside of hockey, where he already stuck out like a sore thumb just by virtue of being Asian, he wasn’t like most other kids. He was very quiet, sometimes unnervingly so, and had a habit of staring at people, though he avoided eye contact at all costs. He was a very picky eater, and ate pretty much the same thing every day—it had been a difficult process for his parents to find a meal he liked that met all of his nutritional needs. He had little interest in talking about anything not related to hockey, and thus often bored or was bored by his peers, who didn’t care much about the current MLH standings and strategic playmaking.

Long story short, Shane had been lonely for most of his life. He was too focused on hockey for non-hockey kids, and too different—too Asian, too serious, too talented—for the hockey kids. Well, not entirely. There was one other kid, Joe, who’d been a good friend to Shane up until he moved out of state for a better figure skating program. Keeping in touch was harder afterwards, and without meaning to, they drifted apart.

Then, when he was drafted by the Metros, Shane was put on a line with Hayden Pike, and the rest was history. Hayden, being a professional hockey player himself, fully understood and actively interacted with Shane’s extended hockey rambling, and didn’t get fed up with him even when he went on for far longer than the social norm. He went with Shane to local museums, and ribbed him about his strict diet but didn’t shame him for it, and introduced Shane to his girlfriend Jackie and later made him his best man at their wedding, and then the godfather to their children.

The older he got, the more Shane appreciated Hayden’s friendship. He didn’t really know anybody who was willing to put up with his quirks outside of him, Jackie, or Shane’s parents. The rest of the Metros were nice enough, but it was clear they didn’t really get Shane, nor he them. Even JJ, who was probably the second-best friend Shane had from the team, had a hard time joking with Shane, who took things just slightly too seriously for their senses of humor to mesh perfectly.

Shane was used to being an outsider for a multitude of reasons. When Ilya Rozanov crashed into his life, he found yet another one—maybe the worst one yet.

The thing is: everything else that made him different, he couldn’t really hide. He wasn’t all that white passing, and he didn’t bother to mask his lack of social skills for the most part, since his job didn’t care about that outside of when it came to the press. If he could play hockey, and play it well, he was, for the most part, fine to be those kinds of different. Of course, it was lonely—he only had two close friends on his entire team of twenty-three people. But at least he knew that they accepted his obvious differences, because they’d chosen to be friends with him while fully aware of them.

Being attracted to men, let alone hooking up with his rival, was nothing like that. It wasn’t something people could just look over or ignore—no, it was the kind of thing that, if revealed, would end all of his friendships and his entire hockey career in one fell swoop. Nobody could know. It was a giant, looming shadow over Shane’s entire life, but no matter how hard he tried to convince himself to just stop it, he couldn’t.

Maybe if he’d never even started his thing with Ilya, he would’ve been able to push down that part of himself longer. Sometimes, he wished he’d never accepted that stupid CCM shoot. Though, the longer their thing went on for, the less he regretted it. At the end of the day, Ilya was the best thing that ever could have happened to him. He’d flipped Shane’s entire world on its head, challenging him in ways nothing else ever had, even outside of hockey.

From very early on in their relationship, Ilya knew the most about Shane than any other person in the world, because he was privy to the only big important secret Shane had. This didn’t mean they were as close at the start of their relationship as they would be eventually, of course, but it did mean that there was a level of trust right from the start that didn’t exist for anybody else. Shane could explore a side of himself with Ilya that he couldn’t anywhere else, and Ilya couldn’t tell anybody without also outing himself—not that he would out Shane in the first place. Over time, that trust only grew stronger, despite the difficulties they faced from both each other and the outside world.

So by the time they were official, Ilya had been around to see all of Shane’s little quirks and odd behaviors: his pre- and post-game rituals, his workout schedule, his comfort documentaries, even the order of his shower and skincare routine before getting in bed. He saw the furrow in Shane’s brow while he tried to decipher if someone was being sarcastic, the nervous lip-biting when faced with an unexpected hiccup in his plans, his emphatic hand movements while explaining new plays. He knew how Shane got anxious about surprises, and how he loved certain textures but hated others, and sometimes hummed to himself without realizing, usually in noisy situations like parties. Ilya saw and loved all of it because he loved Shane.

For the most part, Shane didn’t notice how deeply Ilya’s knowledge of his Shane-isms went. That is, until the day his parents found out about them.

While everything ultimately turned out okay, Shane was still shaking out the last of his anxiety by the time they got back to the cottage. He was obviously still full of tension, and kept getting up from where he and Ilya had settled on the couch to pace around the kitchen.

“Shane,” Ilya said, around the fifth time his boyfriend stood up to do a lap of the counter island.

“I know,” Shane said shortly. He raised his hands for one hard shake and then lowered them to hover about his waistline. “I know, everything’s fine, I know. I’m just. I didn’t want them to find out like that, and I know, it turned out okay, and I’m, really, I’m so glad it did, but…”

“But you had a plan.” Ilya finished. Shane nodded, standing awkwardly atop the steps between the kitchen and the living room area.

Ilya stood up and went to him, reaching out to hold Shane’s hands in both of his own. “I have an idea. Come.”

He walked past his boyfriend (boyfriend!) and towards the main bedroom. Shane followed.

“What idea?”

Ilya led him through the door and gestured to the bed. “You go on bed, and I lie on top of you, like heavy blanket.”

Shane’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. His mouth twitched into a close-lipped, vaguely suggestive smile. “Okay…”

“Not like that, pervert,” Ilya rolled his eyes and hit him in the arm. Shane laughed. Ilya continued: “No, seriously, I read it helps for stress.”

“Read where?” Shane asked.

Ilya shrugged. “Internet.” Seeing Shane’s skeptical expression, he raised a finger to cut off whatever denial followed. “Ah-ah. We try it, okay? If it doesn’t help, I can think of other things we can do in bed, also with me on top, yes?”

Shane’s face flushed, grinning helplessly back at Ilya’s Cheshire smirk. “Yeah, okay.”

Ilya maneuvered them both onto the bed. He pushed Shane to lie flat on his back, then lowered himself on top so that he was covering as much as he could of Shane’s body with his own. He tucked his face into the crook of Shane’s neck and relaxed his whole body, so that his full weight bore down on the man beneath him.

He could feel the exact moment Shane went boneless under him, felt the tension seep out of him with each breath.

“‘S nice,” Shane said after a moment, voice thick with drowsiness. Ilya smiled into his trapezius.

“Mm. Told you,” He replied.

Outside, the lake shushed and the leaves rustled. A loon cried, and a skein of geese honked faintly overhead. Eventually, nature’s gentle lullaby rocked them both to sleep, wrapped up warm and safe in each other.

Facu was hiding from Dad. Today was Friday, which meant they went to the park right after school because Facu didn’t have any clubs to do. They’d been playing tag, and Facu managed to outrun Dad enough to duck into a hiding spot without Dad seeing him do so. He balled himself up as small as possible and stifled his giggles, proud of himself. He had plenty of practice from hide-and-seek during recess at school!

Facu heard Dad calling his name, and covered his mouth to keep from laughing and giving himself away. He was so winning this game! Eventually, Dad’s voice got fainter and fainter and eventually faded entirely, too far away to hear. Facu was the best hider ever, for sure. He silently congratulated himself on this achievement. Dad was the best at tag and hide-and-seek, and Facu had finally beat him!

After a few minutes, though, Facu began to get bored. He wanted to go on the playground slide instead. He rolled out of his hiding spot and accidentally bumped directly into someone’s ankles. “Ah!”

The person attached to the ankles stumbled away from him, and yelped something along the lines of goss-puh-jee.

“Sorry!” Facu said, scrambling to his feet and looking up at the stranger. Wow, he was tall.

The stranger looked down at him with a confused expression. “Where the— ah, where did you come from?”

“I was hiding in there!” Facu replied, pointing at his spot—a bush with a hollow spot inside almost completely hidden by branches and leaves. The stranger glanced at the bush, then back to him.

“You have leaf in your hair.” He said.

Facu pouted. “No I don’t.”

“Yes you do. I can see it. Here, I will show you.” The stranger reached a hand out, and Facu jumped away.

“Dad says not to talk to strangers!” He yelled.

The stranger raised his hands in defeat. “Okay, yes, is good lesson. Where is your Dad? He can prove the leaf is there.”

Facu went to reply, but stopped short when he realized that… he didn’t know where Dad was. He looked around, searching the adults in the surrounding area, but none of them were Dad. “I…”

Where was Dad? Facu was starting to get scared. “Dad?” He called, voice beginning to shake.

“Shit,” the stranger said softly. He lowered himself so he was eye-level with Facu, drawing his attention. “Okay, don’t panic, okay?”

“I’m not panicking!” Facu said, chin trembling traitorously.

“Is okay,” the stranger soothed. “My name is Ilya, okay? Now I am not a stranger. What is your name?”

“Facundo,” Facu answered, after a moment of hesitation. “Dad calls me Facu.”

The stranger—Ilya—nodded. “Good name, Facundo. Okay, I tell you what. You will take me back to the last place you saw your Dad, and we will see if we can find him, yes?”

Facu thought on this for a moment. He looked around again, but Dad was nowhere to be seen. Eventually, he agreed. “Okay.”

Ilya stood, and reached out a hand for Facu to hold onto. His palms and fingertips were rough like Dad’s were.

Facu led him to where they started their game of tag, at the very top of the hill behind his bush hiding spot. Despite the vantage point, though, Facu couldn’t see Dad anywhere. He was so nervous that his stomach hurt, and tears began to blur his vision.

“I don’t know where he is,” he said softly, voice wobbling. “Where’s Dad?”

Ilya squeezed his hand. “Hey, hey, hey, is okay, I can help you look. Tell me about your Dad. What does he look like?”

“Okay,” Facu sniffed. “Um, he has short hair. And, and it’s—it’s black. He wears glasses and they make his eyes look really big, and they’re brown.”

“His eyes? They are brown?” Ilya clarified.

Facu nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“Okay. Ah… do you know your Dad’s phone number?” Ilya asked. “Or his name?”

“He wants me to remember his phone number, but I’m not good at it yet.” Facu said. Then he wrinkled his nose. “And he’s my Dad, I told you.”

“Okay,” Ilya said, half to himself. “We will wait here to see if he comes back, okay?”

“What if he doesn’t?” Facu asked.

Ilya squeezed his hand. “We try something else. But now, we wait, okay?”

“Okay,” Facu agreed.

They sat at the top of the hill after a little bit, because Facu’s knees got tired of standing.

“What do you like to do with your Dad?” Ilya asked.

Facu perked up at the question. “I like to go to the park with him! We walk here every Friday after school. That’s what we’re doing today. I also like to cook with him. We made pizza one time! I got to roll the dough and put on the sauce and cheese and—and we put strawberries on it, which was actually really good!”

Ilya hummed. He didn’t speak for a moment. Then, softly: “He sounds like a good Dad.”

“I love my Dad,” Facu said happily. “He’s the best. And he’s really good at games, too, like tag. That’s what we were playing, but then I hid, and he couldn’t find me.” His mood soured at the reminder that Dad was lost. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Probably not,” Ilya agreed. “But, is okay. You know better now, for next time.”

“I guess,” Facu said. They both fell silent again.

Eventually, Ilya got to his feet. “You like ice cream?”

“I love ice cream!” Facu exclaimed, jumping up. Ilya laughed lightly.

“Okay, I will get you some from truck. And then maybe we ask if anybody has seen your dad.”

“Okay!”

Ilya bought a strawberry shortcake popsicle for Facu and a cherry-dipped vanilla soft serve cone for himself, and then they began to do a slow circle around the field that Facu had last seen his Dad in.

“Excuse me, sorry,” Ilya greeted a couple sitting on a picnic blanket. “Have you seen a man with, ah, short black hair, looking for his son?”

“Shit, yeah, actually.” Said one of the women, looking to her partner for confirmation.

“Kid named Facu? Facundo?” The other woman said.

Before Ilya could do much except nod, Facu cut in. “You saw my Dad? Where’d he go?”

The couple pointed them in the direction they’d seen Facu’s Dad go looking for him, and one of them even got up to help them search while the other stayed with their picnic stuff.

Then, just as they started down the path Facu’s Dad had taken, the man himself appeared, apparently having decided to turn around and circle back in case Facu appeared in the spot where he’d lost him. He fell to his knees and sobbed openly as Facu ran into his arms, clutching his son desperately.

“Gracias a Dios, ay, mijo,” he cried in pure relief. “¡A donde desapareciste, Facu, que me preocupaste tanto!”

“I was in the bush, Dad!” Facu said. “I was hiding!”

“Dios, Facu, never do that again.” Dad ordered seriously, still hugging Facu close. He sniffed. “I was so worried, I’m so glad you’re okay. I was so worried.”

Eventually, he pulled away and looked behind Facu, to where Ilya and the woman from the picnic blanket were standing awkwardly a few steps back. “You helped him find me? I can’t thank you enough.”

“Of course,” said the woman, smiling warmly.

“Was no problem,” Ilya added. “I am just glad he has father who loves him so much.”

“Thank you,” Facu’s Dad said again, with feeling. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He tugged Facu back into another hug, whispering the phrase again and again even when nobody else could hear him, like a prayer.

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Ilya Rozanov was an asshole. Everybody knew this. Ilya Rozanov was an aggressive skater with a plethora of biting chirps ready to shoot off the tongue at a moment’s notice. Ilya Rozanov partied often and he partied hard, and had probably hooked up with more than half the women in all the cities the Raiders frequented. Ilya Rozanov was tall and bulky and Russian and mean.

Everybody knew this.

Cliff Marleau had known Ilya since he was a rookie, fresh off the draft to a team that hadn’t won a Cup, let alone made the playoffs, in over a decade. At first he’d really expected Rozanov to be frustrating to work with: aggressive, arrogant, and uncooperative. And while the kid was definitely cocky, and incredibly physical on the ice, he was surprisingly good at adjusting his playstyle to mesh better with other members of the team. He was smart, adaptable, and faster than any other player Cliff had ever had the fortune to play on a line with—truly a once-in-a-generation kind of talent (well, twice-in-a-generation, alongside Shane Hollander).

When he was inevitably named Captain, his ability to weaponize each player’s individual strengths and coordinate around their weaknesses shone ever brighter. Despite this, he never did anything to try and fight the notion that he was a bad teammate or a dirty player, and didn’t seem to want anybody to fight it for him either. For whatever reason, he was satisfied with his title of Russian Menace, and all the negative associations that came with it.

Even outside of hockey, Cliff got the sense that much of Ilya’s public personality was more of a facade than he’d rather have anybody realize. Of course, he was definitely an avid partygoer and very much a player, and for the most part one could be convinced that that was all there was to him. But there were moments where his walls would drop, if only for a moment, and it would hit you just how much more to him there really was. When he got to pet a fluffy dog on the street and his eyes brightened and his face split into a childish grin, or when he was almost immediately named the favorite uncle by every single one of his teammates’ kids for playing with them at team barbecues when no other adults seemed interested.

It took a few years for Cliff to realize just how good Ilya was at hiding everything about himself beyond the most surface-level information. He knew Ilya had a brother, and that his mother was dead. He knew that he liked dogs and that his favorite drink was vodka, and that he had a girl named Jane back in Montreal that he almost definitely had feelings for. And… Well, that was probably it, actually. He didn’t know if he had a favorite food, or all the details of his pre-game ritual, or if he was religious despite the crucifix necklace he always wore. He didn’t know his brother’s name, or what he liked to do in his spare time besides partying.

It wasn’t exactly unusual for guys in the league to be more reserved, of course, but Ilya was different in that it seemed like he was trying very hard to seem like he wasn’t reserved. For all intents and purposes, as far as Cliff could tell, Ilya wanted everybody to think that there was nothing more to him than a vapid party boy who played hockey like he was trying to maul the other team and had no personality beyond Russian and asshole. He couldn’t figure out why, nor was he going to try and push the issue. Because even after almost a decade of sharing a locker room, playing alongside each other, and frequently rooming together for away games, Cliff didn’t feel that he was close enough to Ilya to ask him personal questions like: hey, man, why are you hiding from everybody you know?

All he knew was that Ilya Rozanov was an asshole, but not nearly as much and not in the same way as most people would think.

Scott Hunter didn’t know anything about Ilya Rozanov, basically. He knew he was Russian, and that he partied like he was immune to alcohol poisoning, and that he was an absolute beast on the ice. He knew he was one of the best players in the league, next to Shane Hollander, and that the two of them orbited each other like binary stars. Honestly, though, he tried not to think about Rozanov for the most part, unless they were playing a game against each other.

When he won the Cup and came out in the most public way he possibly could, he didn’t think about Rozanov at all until he saw him at the Kingfisher for “Scott Hunter Night” after his MVP award. Even then, he only said a brief hello and mentally added surprisingly, not a homophobe to his perception of the man before leaving him to do… whatever Ilya Rozanov did at a gay bar. Probably pick up women, still, albeit bisexual ones.

It was only a few weeks later, when Kip brought his name up while laughing at something on his phone, that Scott began to think there might be even more to Ilya Rozanov than met the eye.

“Ilya Rozanov is roasting homophobes on twitter,” Kip said.

Scott looked up from his own phone. “Uh, what?”

“Look!” Kip turned his screen around to show Scott. It was a recent tweet from Rozanov’s official twitter account, which, like most famous people, was usually full of posts from his social media team. However, this post was definitely written by Rozanov himself.

“Kip. What is this.” Scott said, squinting at the screen. Kip took his phone back and tapped something on the screen.

“Just look at the rest of his profile! He’s been on a rampage, it’s really funny.” He replied, giving Scott his phone again, which was now showing all of Rozanov’s latest tweets.

Scott laughed despite himself, looking up at Kip. “Fine, I guess he’s kind of funny. I wonder why he’s so adamant about defending me, though. He hates me.”

“Ah, well…” Kip shrugged. “I may have mentioned all the online shit was bothering me.”

Scott stared. “To Rozanov? You mentioned it… to Rozanov?”

“Yeah, I mean, he’s nice!” His boyfriend replied, as if this was a completely normal thing to say. “He came up to talk to me at the awards ceremony, and, I mean, I was a little put off at first, based on what you told me about him, but, uh… no, he’s a chill guy, surprisingly. And very funny.”

Scott slumped back on the couch, reeling. “Huh.”

“Also…” Kip hesitated, biting his lip. “Okay, you can’t tell anybody I told you this, especially not Ilya, but—”

“Ilya?” Scott echoed, baffled.

Kip ignored him. “I think he might also be gay? Or, well, queer, I guess.”

For a long, long moment, Scott didn’t say anything, just staring up at the ceiling. Ilya Rozanov, Russian Menace, notorious womanizer, was attracted to men, in some capacity. His mind flailed to try and correlate these things to no avail, until—

“Oh, shit,” he whispered, going pale all of a sudden.

“What?” Kip asked, concerned.

“I just realized—” Scott started. “Fuck, Hollander. Shane Hollander.”

“The Metros guy?”

“Yeah.” Scott took a moment to collect his thoughts, pushing himself up to look at Kip more fully. “He and Rozanov have this super intense rivalry going on, right, they got drafted together in first and second place, and… I mean, they’ve got this weird tension between them, and I noticed it but never really thought about it until now. I think they might be…”

Kip stared at him. Scott gestured vaguely. “...Y’know.”

“Holy shit!”

Troy Barrett was determined to learn from his asshole past self. He had a wonderful boyfriend, and a supportive team, and with their help he had finally made the decision to stop being so afraid of what people on the internet thought about him. He’d been posting about sexual assault awareness and support resources on his newly-created Instagram, and Harris had also taken the liberty of making him a Twitter account to cross-post on, to reach more people.

He’d gotten a lot of hate for it from fans, and there were even a few players who had sent him unsavory messages about being a pussy and a liar and things like that. It obviously didn’t feel nice to get comments like that, both because it hurt to know that people thought less of him and also because it infuriated him to see so many people support the toxic status quo.

If he had been doing it all on his own, he might not have continued. But Troy had people on his side: his boyfriend—Troy was still in awe of himself for somehow being able to endear himself to Harris—and his team, and his mom. Most surprisingly, though, his loudest public ally and defender was actually none other than Ilya Rozanov.

Ilya was pretty well known by this point for trolling bigots and other unsavory individuals on Twitter, a behavior that emerged shortly after Scott Hunter’s coming out. When asked, he cheerfully described it as a “hobby.”

So maybe Troy shouldn’t have been so surprised when Ilya began to attack the wave of hatred aimed at his newfound activism.

Troy grinned as he scrolled past several more “Ratio” tweets from Ilya before he finally put his phone down. It was always nice to feel supported like that, especially with how funny Ilya was about it.

Shane Hollander didn’t know it was possible to love someone this much before he met his boyfriend. He loved everything about Ilya, from the softness of his hair and the way his seaglass eyes softened when he looked at Shane, to the way he jumped around the house to entertain Anya, to the way he played hockey, all sharp and fast and physical. He loved how Ilya mimed doing karaoke with a wooden spoon as his microphone to make Shane laugh, and how he tried to find or modify recipes online that fit Shane’s diet while also encouraging him to step out of his comfort zone.

He loved Ilya, and he knew, unquestioningly, that Ilya loved him back. He could see it in everything Ilya did for him, in the way he brushed his teeth before kissing him slow and sweet in the morning and played footsie with him under the table during meals and always had clean sheets on standby and play-wrestled with him over the remote. Ilya Rozanov was, at his core, very mushy.

When he was younger, this was dangerous. Ilya could not afford to be mushy—he had the expectations of his father, his brother, and all of Russia riding on his shoulders. He was a fucking incredible hockey player, and he was Russian, and he was handsome, and he had to uphold all the reputation that came with all of those things combined. He could not afford to be soft.

So, the world came to know an Ilya Rozanov that was a very different person than the mushy one who read books to his mother in bed when she was too tired to get up, and made snow angels with Svetlana, and left trays of milk and food scraps outside for stray animals that roamed the streets of Moscow. And then Shane Hollander came along, and over time, Ilya’s walls began to crumble, worn thin with age and exhaustion. His father passed away, and he stood up to his brother, and he fell in love with a boring, Canadian hockey player and never looked back.

More and more people began to see the veneer for what it was, and eventually Ilya stopped actually bothering to uphold it. He was allowed to be mushy, and happy, and openly in love.

“Because you like to be bad.”

“Hey, that’s not what this is—you and me. Maybe it was, at first, but not now, and not for a long time.”

(I love you, I love you, I love you.)

Chapter End Notes

ending is a little bleh but hey,! what can u do
twitter formatting guide can be found at this link!!!

kudos & comments greatly appreciated as always :))