Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Svetlana Vetrova, Kyle Swift, Kip Grady, Hayden Pike, Harris Drover

Additional Tags:

Coming Out, Anxiety, Autistic Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Has PTSD, Good Friend Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Internalized Homophobia, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Depression, Unreliable Narrator, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Supportive Boston Bears | Boston Raiders (Game Changers), Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Hollanov Making Their Drama Everyone’s Problem, The Fruit Cocktail Agenda, irregular updates, Kyle Swift Canon Accurate Lore(ish), Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Player Shane Hollander, Tags May Change

Language:

English

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Subscriptions:Tracking

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Published: 2026-02-26 Updated: 2026-04-23 Words: 33,533 Chapters: 9/?

Once More Around the Sun

Summary

After Shane walks out post-tuna melt, Ilya Rozanov walks through hell to remind himself who he is, a man ready to salt the fucking Earth for his people.

Shane’s not even pretending he’s capable of being rational about it, he isn’t, his world is falling apart at the seams and he’s fairly sure he’s losing his mind.

Notes

Historically, every time I post someone in my life fucking DIES so… let’s see how starting off a long yearning fic goes.

This first chapter is basically a flashback/snap shot of where we are now. The deranged thoughts inside one Shane Hollanders very confused little head. The second chapter is the actual “Start”. 🥰

I started in 2002 and I have a “Trained and Traumatised on LiveJournal” level thick skin. 😁😁 Please point out mistakes and errors of any kind!

Chapter 1: Coke and Ginger Ale

December 2016 - Montreal

ShaneShaneShaneShaneShaneShane…

Hollander.

He’s been hearing it in his dreams for going on six weeks now. Ilya’s laboured confession. Because that’s what it was, right? Shane’s not that crazy. You don’t cum with your name on someone’s lips like that unless it means something. You don’t ask someone to stay unless you want them to - surely?

Shane is fully aware there’s a little memorial in his mind that has carefully and religiously tracked every single time Rozanov has said his name over the years, he knows this. That stupid little voice he just can’t seem to hog tie into submission that’s been hoarding shreds of affection and compliments and damn butterflies like it’s building a life raft for the rest of his stupid heart. So yeah, he’s very very ashamed to admit that he remembers all of Ilya’s “Shane’s” over the years.

None of them were even remotely like this one though. He’s heard Shane Hollander in just about every rolling tone you could imagine - soft and teasing with promise, biting with the blunt force trauma of a board check, and even media ready drawled, like they were no more than coworkers with beef.

All taunting or whining or media trained. All in public. All fully birthed into the world.

Shane Hollander. Purred out in rolling Russian like an infinitely smug cartoon villain. Is that xenophobic? He’s not even sure any more, but he thinks Rozanov would probably like the stereotype for his media persona, less for his life.

It’s ludicrous, really genuinely ludicrous, to be so many years into whatever this is and freaking out because the guy you fuck panted your name when he came. Or at least his version of your name, the one that he will never be able to forget now, the one that belongs to him and him alone. Shane’s not even pretending he’s capable of being rational about it all, with ”Fuck, Shane” ricocheting around in his skull like some sort of haunting, he’s losing his fucking mind.

“Stay.”

Fuck he’s going to have nightmares about that word. Ilya - because he understands now, in this at least, that it was Ilya asking him, not Rosanov, not the hookup, not casual - Ilya, lips pressed plush against his, eyes soft, and all but begging, slouched against him in soft sheets. It’s a heady feeling in hindsight. There’s a lot of feelings Shane is having in hindsight about that day, and he’s just about ready to lay down and scream into the carpet about it.

He’s been tearing every second of their interactions to pieces in his mind for the best part of a decade and just when he thought he’d finally learned where the boundaries of “Is just fun Hollander. Is just sex. God, you are so boring!” sat, Rozanov had yanked it right out from under him. He hates that it’s hard for him, that his near preternatural instincts on the ice abandon him with his skates. He’s bad with people, he’s awful without his media training, and as very much proven, he’s downright cataclysmic in the face of human emotion. Maybe if he keeps his skates on next time the world will make more sense and he won’t fuck it all up with his stupid anxiety. Maybe he won’t get the chance. Maybe - this was his chance, and he ruined it.

The worst part of it all though, what he still sees every time he closes his eyes, is that he can picture how he’d left him. Every single fucking time Shane closes his eyes it’s miles of long limbs slouched in the sofa cushions and pink flushed cheeks still glowing from orgasm. It’s Ilya, a wild halo of curls, eyes building confusion and fear and disappointment. He’s carried that expectation of pain since he was seventeen, alone in a new country half a world away from home and Shane’s only just realising now that he’s only ever seen it directed at him twice.

Rozanov, seventeen and spooked, instinctively prepared to defend himself and being handed kindness instead. Ilya, defenceless and trusting, gutted and abandoned in his own home. For a second of vicious self hatred Shane hopes he never contacts him again, never gives him an opportunity to hurt him again. That seventeen year old in the beanie deserves better.

Shane’s been pacing the kitchen throughout his doom spiral ever since he opened the fridge and tried to grab a ginger ale - there’s coke in the fridge, Coke Zero, and it’s Rose’s, but it’s scalded him all the same with the throw back even weeks down the line. Shane doesn’t want it here, doesn’t want Rose here - or - doesn’t want these traces of her where someone else should be. It feels like he’s laced one skate too tight, or missed a tag on his jersey, a bug bite on his psyche he just can’t shake itching at him until it explodes in a fit of panic or rage and leaves gauges in his skin, leaves scars in the world around him. He’s exhausted to his marrow about it all and self aware enough to know he can’t sustain it. He loves Rose. They’ve been dating for over a month, long late nights on the phone and marathon text message conversations he’s never really had with anyone before. He loves it. She’s weirdly obsessed with motorcycles and he’s genuinely terrified of her taste in books but he really really loves being with her too - just not how he needs to love her, not in all the ways that matter. Not how she deserves.

So when the phone rings - he answers - it doesn’t matter that he isn’t in love with Rose, he loves her anyway, for less than that, he’ll always answer.

“I regret answering this call.”

“Shane!” She screeches, making his eardrum tingle. He loves her laugh, it reminds him of Mite’s and Peewee’s weirdly enough. When the girls and boys had still been bunched together and he got ridiculed for being a disgusting boy not a Metro’s man, not half Japanese, not ga- “We want to spend time with you!! I know you don’t really do - well much of anything - during the season, but we’d love to see you! Cody will be there! And Miles and probably Maria. Pleeeease? They want to see you! Cody’s little cousin is in the draft next year!”

Shane’s not sure he wants to do much except microwave his meal plan and curl up in bed - after throwing every can in the apartment directly in the garbage - but he’s watched his mum and dad long enough to know that some battles are easier surrendered early than late.

“What are we doing?”

“Yes!!! Yes! I knew it! Eh- bear with! Hold please cutie!“ He loves this. It’s soothing something in him already, which he kind of hates too, but listening to Rose finish up the details with her friends feels as close to community and team as he’s felt in a long time. They’re not his but he is hers, and that’s enough for them.

He can hear Miles in the back, droll and sarcastic asking why the fuck she phoned if she didn’t have a plan but Shane’s not mad about it. It’s kind of nice to know someone was more interested in his company than the plan he might just have been politely invited along for.

“Okay so Miles and I are finished but I still need to scrape off my second skin and Maria has to pack up - have you eaten? No it’s only five, how about Khristo? They’ve got that baked sea bass thing you liked and the dressings are all vegan?”

“That sounds amazing Rose.” He desperately, desperately, wants to fall in love with this woman. “Eight? I can met you guys down town and save you doubling back.”

“Amazing! See you soon handsome!” ’Bye Shane! See you later cutie! Miss y-‘ the silence after the click is so warm he manages to wrangle down the remaining panic and rage. Rose adores him, her friends adore him, her brother - well, seems to like him as well as a big brother can be expected to - and despite an entire adult life of avoiding social interaction like the plague, Shane likes them too. They’re boisterous in the same way J.J. is but all with a calm underlying steel that reminds him of Hayden, and his dad, and Joe. Shit. Joe. Abandoning his existential crisis he scrawls ‘call Joe’ on the white board on the fridge, underlines it twice, and settles on water from the bathroom instead of the PTSD episode waiting in the fridge.

🏒 🏆 🏒 

Khristo’s is busy when he arrives, despite leaving early Rose and her little gaggle have beaten him there and the seat on the bench to her left is wide open for him to slide into. When she greets him with a now familiar open mouthed kiss he blushes to his chest and slips an arm around her waist. She’s wearing jeans and a sparkly gold top that’s going to leave glitter on him for days but he’s so fucking glad to see her he can’t bring himself to care right now. Instead he tucks his face into her hair, hiding from Cody and Maria’s chirps about public displays of affection and soaking up the warmth of her skin. It’s safe here, to enjoy her touch where it can’t get out of his control, grounding. Not quite perfect but necessary and comforting all the same.

“Hey.” God he’s such an idiot. Of course she noticed. “You doing okay handsome?”

“Long day.” Understatement of the Cola and ginger ale fuelled panic attack century. “Mums negotiating a deal with Aston Martin, she’s really happy about it.” Not a lie.

“I adore your mother, but has she ever considered Xanax? Didn’t you literally just get back from Rolex?”

“Yeah but - Aston Martin.” His mums not wrong, neither is Rose, but - Aston Martin.

He does get the sea bass, with the garden salad and all its tiny unidentifiable micro-greens. Dressing on the side that he ignores and gives to Maria when she complains about rich people portions and not being one of the Famous People Eating Disorder Division. He takes a couple of her fries when he’s offered and the burst of garlic and salt on his tongue washes away the little niggle of temper at his diet choices.

“What was the draft like?” Cody asks, apropos of nothing, licking garlic butter off his fingers. “My baby cousin is up next year and he’s bricking it.”

“I’m not really sure what the actor equivalent would be-“ Shane knows of Cody’s cousin vaguely, all the captains watch the draft prospects to some degree, but he can’t really picture the kid. Plays center, fast, agile, still growing into his legs and a wicked assist ratio for his age. He’ll place high for sure and Montreal won’t even get a look in after three cups in a row. Shane’s fairly sure they’re angling for another goalie anyway. “It’s like - you spend every minute working for this goal, and someone comes in and tells you if you’re good enough. Or you’re not. It’s terrifying.”

“That’s reassuring.” Cody’s chuckle is lovely even when he’s being droll, low and warm, sparkling blue eyes in a pale European face making it feel like a full body experience. He looks like he fell out of a ski commercial and Shane’s never been quite sure how to take him. He’s Rose’s co-star in the new X-Squad, all lean lines that apparently make him the “perfect speedster”. They’ve also had enough conversations now that Shane knows Cody incorporates some skating into his physical performance, that he’d learned as a kid, and it had landed him the job because he ‘moves with intention’. Still doesn’t know what that means though - surely every movement is made with intention? Still isn’t quite sure how to handle his surprisingly cutting dark humour.

“So I shouldn’t wind him up any more than he already is?”

“Not if you want him to make it to rookie season.” Shane laughs. “My draft I was so scared. God. You wouldn’t believe how nervous I was, it felt like I’d forgotten how to tie my skates.”

“Surely the great Shane Hollander wouldn’t forget that!”

“Well he managed to get on the ice so there’s that.”

“Weren’t you second pick overall?” Rose doesn’t mean it to sting, she’s just proud, boasting about him to her friends, but second place still smarts all these years later, and the reminder of Rozanov bites hard. He wishes vaguely that he’d ordered dessert so he could at least have something to do with his hands that isn’t clinging to his sweaty beer bottle.

“Yeah. Montreal drafted me. I’ll probably retire there, if I don’t mess it up before then.” Like everything else in my life.

“Oh trust me I know.” Cody says. “You and Rozanov were all I heard about for months. Years. Millennia.” He whines, flopping dramatically into Miles shoulder and laughing. “Oh my god Cody, Hollander is so fast! Look at his edges! Holy shit Cody! Did you see Rozanov! Look at that!”

“Yeah yeah. Tell him to listen to his coach and work on his telegraphing. I’ve watched his tape and he thinks he’s too quick to catch. He’s going to get caught by a defence man and flattened.”

“Yes Capitain!”

In the end he has a really nice night, and the promise of an early practise in the morning along with more shooting for the celebrities takes him home before Rose can offer to come back with him. He tries not to feel guilty about it.

Lying in bed, clothes folded, freshly showered and mind still ticking over on a brisk simmer he lets himself just stew in the night. They’re scheduled to go out for a group meet up and clubbing after the game in Boston next month and he hates clubbing, but this group of people, this network that Rose is helping build around him make it seem a little less - everything.

Maybe he might even have fun. Quietly, as he slips off into a deep, exhausted sleep his brain coughs up one last image of Ilya, bathed in sunlight and smiling like the sun.

Chapter 2: The Great Defeat

Chapter Notes

I am playing fast and loose with canon and the timeline for everything. I know virtually nothing about hockey and I'm using google extensively to fill the gaps. I also simply cannot be bothered crying over the time jumps - so we’re working with “As close as, and potentially totally wrong!”

I am twisting a bunch of stuff but if there is a character that exists in canon who does the role of someone I've assigned a random name please correct me!!! It's not because I didn't choose them it’s because I forgot which positions everyone plays 😭

Early January 2017 - Boston, Montreal vs Boston

Roz spent the months leading up to what would later become known as 'The Great Defeat' in what could only very sympathetically be referred to as a huff - and what Cliff Marleau privately recognised as Defcon 2.

Realistically the Boston center was an absolute nightmare both on and off the ice regardless of any new or old emotional upheaval, but Cliff - four years his senior, and hardened Rookie Handler of the Year circa 2008 - had watched Roz grow into his first playoff scruff. After years of pulling his best friend in and out of career suicide and hockey stardom in turn he figured he knew Nothing from Something. This was definitely Something. And Something was shaping up to be wildly different from Nothing and Leave It Marly, Jesus Christ.

Cliff knows November is bad. Knew Roz had found his mother's body at twelve and that the run-up to the 24th was a slow building pressure cooker of rage and drive and viciously bottled grief his friend didn’t know how to share. Cliff also knew that the week after that particular anniversary should be an excess of shoulder grabs and back slaps interspersed with hugs and unspoken apologies for the vicious training regimes and Cold War intensity of their play revision. He'd take the team for pizza instead of bag skates, and he’d laugh for the first time in weeks. This wasn’t that. The mood never lifted. Whatever deep aching void had crept over his best friend was sinking its teeth in.

Cliff had always considered that particular fortnight in November Defcon 1 back in the rookie days, days before the kid had the C, and a team that supported him enough to weather his temper. Days when he went home hollow-eyed and reeking of vodka and woman, buzzing from whatever was offered on the side that night because he couldn’t even trust himself to be angry with them yet.

Nobody recovered from that sort of loss as far as Cliff was concerned, and learning more about the rest of Roz’s family over the years had only cemented that fact one overheard phone call snippet at a time. The kid who rolled in from Russia needed a fucking family, and Cliff - wearing the A long before his next Captain earned his letters - was going to make sure Boston damn well delivered.

Among the minefield of Rozanov’s life Cliff also knew the 1st to the 8th of January was a weird time. He’d never quite figured out the how or why of it, but for those few days Roz would swan dive from his light hearted day-to-day menacing and plunge into the depths of his party animal mask. Even years later, after he’d started to settle, for those cold winter days he’d disappear; dancing and clubbing and snorting and fucking whatever he laid his hands on. By comparison, Cliff wasn’t even sure Roz had left his house this week.

On the 14th - on the 14th Roz would re-appear, fresh as a daisy, hair a static halo of fluffy curls, and eyes just a little sad on the edges. Without fail he would come laden with oranges and spiced biscuits and a coin for every member of the team. He'd been weird as hell about it that first year, hung over beyond belief and declaring with furious determination: "Is Russian tradition, say thank you! Oh my god, Americans so rude! Next will say don’t like ginger!". Cliff had bought more ten ruple coins on eBay that night to repay the favour every year after and it had become A Thing. He still wasn't entirely sure why mandarins and oranges weren't the same thing, but Roz was happy to eat them both regardless of Cliff’s apparent idiocy.

Among the long list of things he’d learned over the years was also the fact that every year like clockwork, during the draft, Roz smoked a half pack more than his odd one or two a day. That in the weeks after, at training camp, he shadowed their new rookies like a particularly curly mother hen, making the first games of every season a lesson in violence for any old guard players looking to weed out the unwary with a dirty hit. Knew he trained those same rookies, in their own volunteered time, with a passion that left them exhausted and panting on the ice, full of quiet confidence they probably hadn't earned yet.

He knew Roz walked around with wads of $100 bills handing them out like candy to anyone who looked like they could use one.

He knew Roz liked extra pickles from the Russian deli down the road, and the slaw with the beetroot in it, and the weird ham that gave Cliff heartburn. Knew he ate far more beef and cabbage than anyone should humanely have to endure. Knew he'd go out of his way to toast a single Moscow Mule at some point in May. Knew he'd stopped doing toilet coke, and started propping up the fizzy coke industry instead.

But what Cliff didn't know was why Roz's long-standing Montreal girl had ripped their Captains heart clean out of his rib cage and plunged the entire bloody team into a funk of venomous silence that still felt like it was bleeding from the walls three months later.

Roz chatted to the team about just about anything these days, they’d built a family here that felt closer than most, and he’d grown into his fists quick enough to ensure himself some confidence in the room. Roz would and did talk about just about anything, at length, with enthusiasm and to the point of insanity for any willing or cornered audience - except Jane. Jane lived in his password protected vault. Unspoken. Unknown. And to Cliff - who really wanted to shake the stupid puck bunny within an inch of her life right now - untouchable.

"You good Rozy?" Honestly, Cliff's a bit hesitant to ask, the way the Cap's wrapping his stick like it's someone's throat, but the team is awkward and stifled, and they can't go up against Montreal without his head in the game. Montreal might be weaker as a whole than Boston, but Hollander was three-quarters of a team all by himself.

The boy who looks back at him doesn't look twenty-five, he looks eighteen, fresh in the locker and lost at sea, eyes just a fraction too bright and glassy for the atmosphere. Cliff's never so much as said boo to a woman, but right now he fucking hates this Montreal bitch.

It works though. Like the clouds clearing Roz slants him a smile, still a little fragile on the edges but rapidly filling into a sleek, vicious smirk as he nods his thanks and clatters to his feet. His stick smacks out a rhythmic thump on the floor until every stick and boot in the locker room is beating out a rolling thunder. In his stall with the other Rookie’s Durant had his hands over his ears, but he’s grinning big enough to split his cheeks.

"Listen up you handsome fucks!" Oh, they are so on. The thunder peters out, Rozanov, wild and vicious filling the ringing silence. "I have been in bad mood. Is true. Have worked you, maybe harder than you deserve. Not as many hugs as usual. Is very upsetting." God Cliff loves this. The way the team rumbles a chuckle and pitches a round of chirps back at the smirking badass in their center. "But tonight you show me you are worth my time. Tonight you show me why this team is legacy! Tonight we show Montreal what it means to step onto our ice! Who are we?!" THUMP!

"Boston!"

"I not hear you old women. Who are we?!" THUMP!

"Boston!"

"Once more. For every goal I will score tonight. Tonight we make Montreal and Holland eat their fucking skates! Who the fuck are we?!"

"BOSTON!"

🏒 🏆🏒

"Aaaand welcome back to TD Gardens folks! This is stacking up to be a helluva season for the Boston Raiders, who burst into the scoreboards early with their 5-1 win against the Ottawa Centaurs last week."

"I think it's safe to say Boston is going to be looking to carry that momentum on to the home ice advantage tonight Marc! Is there any bigger competition than Montreal's Shane Hollander and Boston's own Ilya Rozanov fighting it out on the ice?"

"They must have had a relaxing break because they've both come off the line full throttle so far this season! Between Montreals surprising early win back in November the Raiders must be out for blood. I gotta say - I'm hoping for some good hockey tonight!"

"I don't think there's ever a risk of that with these two powerhouse teams on the ice Ron - and is that, yes it is, looks like Rozanov is bringing in this years newest draft for an introduction - Jace Durant, nineteen years old and fresh off the laundry line, what an experience to play with hockey royalty your first season, let's hope the kid’s paying attention!"

"I don't think there's any risk of that Marc! Look at them move, Durant might have been lower down on the draft pick this year but it looks like Boston has been teaching him his left from his right, god that kid's fast-"

"In a world of hockey legends, you're fast or you're last Ron and with Shane Hollander on ice - he's going to have to be fast!"

"Officially clocked as the fastest player in the league for his fifth year running if you can believe it!"

"He's quick on his feet, but with the team showing some cracks in last weeks game against Tampa, can he keep up with the powerhouse that is a focused Boston?"

"We'll have to see!"

Roz wins the face-off. Cliff isn't close enough to see if Hollander chirps him but he knows Roz doesn't even lift his head, sees him snatch the puck from a surprisingly slow Hollander and pitch himself headlong down the ice with it in a straight shot. He doesn't tap it out to his wingers, doesn't even flinch when Boiziau tries to sneak under his left side and the absolute madman brute forces his way through the lingering Metros to slam the first goal of the game down single handedly.

"Seven seconds Ron! That's got to be some sort of record!" The announcers howl as Boston converges on their Captain. Montreal looks staggered.

It doesn't get better for them.

Whatever emotional constipation has lit a fire under Roz's literal ballsack has spread like an inferno through the team and that display of brutal forward play sinks into their bones. Despite being a renowned forward player, Roz is a surprisingly gracious team mate who passes and assists readily to get the goal. Punching through an entire team isn’t his usual style and it's thrown the ice for a loop. Montreal crumbles, with Boston rallying to their Captain's call for war and the better half of a decade on the ice together, Boston doesn’t even hesitate, they sweep.

"I wonder what Montreal are thinking here Marc? This is play like we've never seen from Rozanov and Boston."

"And Durant scores! First goal of his career in what is shaping up to be a record-breaking grudge match!"

"And Marleau sinks it! This is how it's done!"

"And goal from Pike! Montreal are scrambling tonight Ron! I feel like we have to ask - where the hell is Shane Hollander?"

"He's on the ice Marc but it sure doesn't look like anybody is home."

"A fourth goal off an assist from Durant for Ilya Rozanov. Has Boston been feeding this kid the magic beans? I thought he was a lower-level draft pick!"

"Maybe that's just what a Captain like Rozanov will do for a team."

"And another for Boston! Marc! The energy! The drive! The power being displayed here tonight, I don't know what Montreal did to start this fight but Boston is ending it!"

Cliff almost, almost, feels sorry for Montreal when Boston rocks their shit with a staggering 7-2 win in what is easily a decade's first. Hollander is on the bench already, and Pike is sitting on the ice in what looks suspiciously like some sort of breakdown.

They didn't just beat Montreal tonight, they gutted them.

Exhausted and sweat slick, Cliff drags his ass back down the tunnel with the rest of the team. The locker room is an explosion of noise in the aftermath of victory and he can’t help but let it settle him a bit. Someone is playing Who Let The Dogs out from a tinny phone speaker and Durant has been thoroughly doused with what looks to be several bottles of pretty decent champagne. Good, he deserves it, kid played a monster of a first game.

Out of the chaos, but watching attentively Roz is sitting on his locker bench looking mildly irritated and a lot tired. He’d usually be getting undressed like his ass was on fire by now, typing furiously to his Jane and blushing himself into a small masculinity crisis. He doesn’t look like he’s ready to throw himself into the harbour, but he doesn’t look like a man who just humiliated his life long rival so badly they might have to flee the country either.

There’s something stubborn sitting around his jaw that Cliff doesn’t like, something that looks like resolution and walls going back up and steps in the wrong bloody direction. This is his team, this is their moment of glory, and this is the Ilya who fell out of Russia and into Cliffs very clumsy hands. Vaguely unimpressed with everything, clenching his jaw to hide a mouthful of blood. This is the Ilya of November come too early. Bruised and grieving and smothering in his own throne room.

He’d been brutal today, vicious Russian league training resurfacing to punch through gaps he'd long since learned to skate between; riding the boards with vicious intent in every borderline legal check. This is an Ilya who fears nothing and no one, and for a brief moment, Cliff wonders if maybe they should be thanking Jane. For the breakup that caused the meteoric win obviously, but also for keeping whatever this is under lock and key for the last eight years - because if there's one thing Cliff knows - this up and down isn't sustainable. Not for the team, not for Roz.

Someone's going to get hurt.

Chapter 3: All The Things You Said

Chapter Summary

I re-wrote the first two chapters because I realised I was out of sequence and had forgotten to add a side character I’ll need later. Beefed them up a bit as well.
As always I have a thick skin and no beta so please point out mistakes because I can’t see them anymore!! 😘 😘

Early January 2017 - Post Boston vs Montreal

He doesn’t know why he lets Rose convince him to go out after the game. He’s in bits, the world slow and syrupy around him from the minute he gets on the ice and after, all he can think - hysterically - is that this time his instincts abandoned him on the ice too.

The room is devastated. Even before Shane catapulted them to the playoffs in his rookie season, this sort of beating isn’t something Montreal have had to deal with in decades, and it burns beyond belief that it’s happened under Shane’s Captaincy. He’s exhausted, and embarrassed, and deeply, humiliatingly guilty, because it was his fault. He fucked up. He left his brain at home and brought his broken heart onto the ice. He did that. Rozanov did it too, but apparently his heart knows how to fucking skate. He’s never seen him like that, has the bruises blooming under his ribs from being bulldozed to prove it. Rozanov plays hard but he’s rarely seen him out to hurt. He doesn’t know the man he met on the ice today, and he’s equally convinced that Rozanov hadn’t known him. Definitely hadn’t wanted to.

“Enough!” Theriault barks into the throng of bitching and snarling players milling angrily around the room. He’s one of those strange men that goes sickly grey with rage, and he looks about ready to tear Shane’s head from his shoulders. Around him, the bumblebee yellow and black of the Raiders visitors room blurs and pulses on the edges. “What the fuck was that Captain?”

“Shitty fucking Captaining, Sir!” Shane barks back, because it’s expected, because Coach is right, it is his fault. He should have adapted, should have had his head in the game, should have-

“I don’t think I need to tell you again Hollander.” Theriault growled, ducking his greying head and shoving his snarling maw in Shane’s face. “Just because GM wanted you for Captain, doesn’t mean you can sit on your fucking laurels and leave your team out to dry!”

Shane did. He hasn’t always. He’s built a legacy at Montreal from the beginning, he knows that. But today he did. He did leave them out to hang. Because he’s stuck in his head about a fucking hookup. So he lets coach scream at him, he nods and apologises to the team, he tells them they deserve better from him. He means it. And he lets Rose take him out to forget.

He hates clubs. Really. He can’t get away from the thought. He’s drinking beer and Miles fed him a shot of tequila earlier that has made his teeth buzz and he absolutely hates it here. There’s a cloying warmth in the air that reminds him a bit of the locker rooms after practise; too many bodies in too smalll a space, but there are rules in a locker room and they include not touching.

There are no no touching rules in a club. Rose is writhing flush down his front with her hand on his belly; Miles missing for now, probably getting more champagne and shots for Shane to dodge. The crowd packed around them. It’s suffocating. He’s literally suffocating. The sound system is radiating through his rib cage and he feels like the soft edged cold syrup feeling that’s been clinging to him all day is roaring in his ears.

He likes it usually, Rose is comforting and Miles is supportive with his racy humour that pushes Shane’s boundaries and opens him up to conversation he’d otherwise bow out of with embarrassment. He likes Maria as well, wherever she is. But he absolutely cannot stand clubs.

Maria though. Just in case.

As soon as he finds her he wishes he hadn’t looked. She’s a grown woman, and more than capable of handling herself, but watching her go on tiptoe to whisper in Cliff fucking Marleau’s ear is a teetering step closer to the edge of what is beginning to feel like nuclear meltdown. Of course the Raiders are here. Because this day just keeps getting worse. Because this bloody life just keeps throwing him axes. Marleau is bad news on the ice, but he’s a decent sort of guy in general, so Shane leaves Maria to it and focuses resolutely on Rose. The room is swimming around him and he can feel Ilya in the crowd watching him.

Shane doesn’t remember learning how to track Ilya in a room. Just remembers it existing, like his instinct for the ice. He never loses the puck, he never loses Rozanov. Facts of life. But he’s never had to deal with it in public before, never had to deal with it knowing he tucked tail like a coward and ran.

He catches sight of him just as Miles gets back - Miles who has no sense of personal space, and who is tucked up tight behind him pushing the limits of friendly further by the second. In another moment he’d maybe care about that. In another moment where the walls aren’t closing in around him and the music isn’t turning to static in his ears. Because in this moment Shane is watching Ilya. Ilya who looks soft, and perfectly at ease in the lights and the pulsing bass, Ilya, who for just a moment brings all the sound and smells and touch rolling back in like the tide. He needs to get out. He might genuinely lose the entirety of his collective shit if people don’t stop fucking touching him and he needs to get away from Ilya Rozanov in brilliant white and leopard print kissing a woman like he wants her.

Of course Ilya wants her, she’s beautiful, and at least he likes bo-

He barely makes it to the VIP lounge before his legs give out, dumping him into the couch as far away from the piercing ceiling lights as he can manage. Head between his knees and gasping for breath as everything he’s been crushing down all day erupts.

It’s all coming crashing down. He thought he could do this. End the dangerous teenage fling that he’d let grow far beyond reason. Meet and fall for the girl. Love and play hockey. Live happily ever after. Represent loyalty and tradition with Aston Martin. He has to be able to do this. God his mum will be so disappointed with the game.

By the time Rose finds him again he’s surrendered to having had a bit of a cry and he’s nursing a beer. The buzz hasn’t left him, but the cold in the lounge has settled his breathing and given him room to pretend again. She’s delighted when he says he’s tired and by the time they’re in the taxi together it’s too late.

“Let me make you feel better.” Please.

🏒 🏆 🏒

That night in Ciel cinches it for him. Or maybe it’s what happens after, but he just can’t bring himself to blame Rose, even by association. These last few weeks with her and Miles, Cody, Maria, Evie, and her world have been exhausting in ways even the playoffs have never been. Shane has learned to enjoy going out just a little; as long as it’s quiet, as long as the food is right, and as long as the lighting isn’t searing. But he has to admit in the lingering taste of garlic and chips fried in seed oils on his tongue and the tang of a light Spanish beer Maria had introduced him to still clinging to his lips… Rose has been good for him. He’ll be exhausted and it’ll take him two days to recover enough energy to want to talk to people again but he hasn’t weighed his breakfast in weeks. It’s… liberating? God she’s been so good for him.

She’s so beautiful; soft spoken and smooth talking, just the right amount of rough around the edges and absolutely made to boss him around. She’s running him in circles with her constant stream of excitement and enthusiasm, utterly fascinating when she gets going, hilarious and vibrant in everything she does. She leads with such confidence that he can’t help but follow, whether that means helping her put down a slice of cake during the season or experimenting with eleven new drinks until they’d found one that he liked. And sex with her… sex with her doesn’t make him feel… broken.

Weirdly, sliding into her warm-wet-ohfuck-what-am-I-doing feels a bit like coming home. Not coming home with Him, nothing could ever feel like… he’s never actually felt that… they’ve never had the chance… no… not doing that… more like dropping his weight on Hayden when he’s exhausted after a win; sinking into the corner of his couch after publicity events; salmon and brown rice. That’s awful. What the fuck Shane. Rose would kill him if she knew but somehow it makes this… survivable.

He knows to take his time, he hasn’t done exactly this before but he’s fit and healthy and he doesn’t think he’s stupid so - he knows how to do this - but not like this. Not with someone who isn’t… It’s not enough. But he can be good for her, he can be good for her, and he can make this work. He can support her, and attend her premiers, go dancing and hold her hand, can sink into her after and think of comfort, of brown rice, and eventually, of only her… he can be better. He can make this work. He will be better. He will make this work.

He can’t make this work.

The sex goes okay in the end. Okay is probably the best he can justify honestly, having spent most of it focusing on listening to Rose. Focusing on how it feels to roll into her, again and again, how she reacts to timing, pressure, using his height to tuck her in and avoid her mouth… it’s like learning a new play on the ice, it’s never perfect the first time… desperately trying to channel the devastating rolling tide thrusts he’s usually on the other end of. He definitely doesn’t figure it out all the way that’s for sure.

But waking to Rose leaving - that settles cold and soft and inevitable in his bones. She’s leaving. And every time Ily- every time a previous partner has left his bed Shane has felt it to the quick. Every time, Shane has felt… brittle. At least a little. In different ways. He’s never once felt this… Felt nothing.

He doesn’t care that she’s leaving. He’s… relieved.

He likes Rose, and he had sex with her, and he’s looking forward to finishing their argument about whether or not panda’s deserve to be extinct, because Rose is a psychopath for hating pandas, but he’s fine. He’s fine that she’s leaving and she deserves so much better than fine. She deserves someone who cracks open inside when she turns her head and catches their eye across a crowded room. Deserves someone who melts at the scent of her on his skin. Deserves someone who would tear apart the world to stay with her another hour.

She deserves better. She deserves sunshine. So when she suggests they have dinner - just the two of them - he knows.

She deserves better. And maybe… maybe so does he.

Chapter 4: Big Stupid Idiot Bruise

Chapter Notes

Italics - Russian

I cannot stand scrolling for translations and I am not clever enough to do the click on translations yet so it’s all italics!!! 😁😁

I’ll be back to work soon but for now - a new chapter!

Please correct any mistakes or errors! It has been many many years since I wrote anything of any real structure and planning and I welcome constructive criticism/editing notes 🥰

Early January - Boston, The Day After

When Ilya wakes the sun is already low on the horizon and his bedroom is a sun drenched nightmare of sticky Ilya, stale cigarette smoke and old beer. It might be January, but floor to ceiling triple glazed windows have turned the room into a greenhouse, leaving the air stale, parched and faintly hostile to Russian survival. Somewhere under all the man funk as Sveta would put it, there’s a hint of orange and clove from the scented candle on the dresser, but like Ilya’s will to live, it’s fighting a losing battle against the atmosphere.

Laying still as he contemplates the merits of simply ceasing to exist, Ilya lets half lidded eyes squint against the glare while staring into the void where his motivation used to be. He finds himself wishing fervently that he hadn’t opened them at all and takes a moment to squeeze them shut again in the vain pretence that the world doesn’t actually require him to get up today.

Uncomfortable awareness is creeping in around the edges. There are crumbs in his sheets, an open can of Coke, half a sleeve of crackers and an empty packet of cheese slices on the bedside table. His tongue tastes like something furry and unquestionably dead; his knee is throbbing like a bitch. He should have put boxers on after his shower, the heat in the room is making his balls stick to his leg, but he hadn’t bothered and now there’s probably cracker crumbs in his ass.

While logically Ilya knows he left his clothes from last night abandoned in a trail of sloth that stretches from the front door to the en suite - the obnoxious fucking shirt that’s taunting him from his bedroom floor is the main target of this afternoons particular wrath. Lying directly in the path of the encroaching afternoon sun and stinking up his room with the scent of bad decisions, is the white and leopard print nightmare. He’s pretty sure he loved that shirt yesterday.

Unfortunately waking up brings with it a growing list of consequences for Ilya as he finally dredges up the energy to roll onto his back; his stomach is twisting and revolting where it sits pressing painfully against his bladder. This is quite possibly one of the most miserable days of his life. He feels like shit. In pure defiance of his rumbling guts he rolls onto the other side of the mattress into blessedly cooler sheets - if he waits long enough, the urge to piss will probably disappear again and he can maybe sink back into the void.

Instead of actually chasing that, something he’s supposed to be avoiding, he makes the executive decision to check for today’s most prominent crisis and reaches carefully for his phone. Miraculously it’s where it belongs, on charge and tucked under his pillow. His notifications are running wild about the game, texts from Svetlana, bullshit from Alexei, the team going bananas in the group chat, and Instagram racking up hits like it’s open season, all vying for his attention. Nothing from Jane. Obviously.

Probably this will be last text message he ever sent. Ilya ponders, a deep despondency settling into him as he stares at Jane’s “Here.” sitting innocuously at the bottom of their text threads. Ironic. Jane will never be here again, Ilya made sure of that.

Instead of texting something remarkably needy and entirely stupid Ilya doom-scrolls until the heat and disgust of his own filth finally forces him out of the duvet. His body is battered and sore in a way that’s usually satisfying but somehow still feels like regret. He doesn’t regret playing what might just be the best game of his career of course, could never regret it, but he feels it all the way to his marrow that he’s not a rookie anymore. Performance like that costs more than blood and sweat on the ice. His ribs are tight and there’s a bruise the size and colour of a winter plum blooming on his knee that he doesn’t even remember earning. A shower and food will do him good right now though, even if the thought of either makes him want to sleep for a week.

After the world longest piss he calls Svetlana. It’s as easy as breathing, the familiar lethargy and despondency triggering a Pavlovian desire for comfort. Just the sight of her contact picture alone lightens his mood, he loves her curls.

“Ilyusha,” she greets, older and infinitely warmer than the ancient contact photo suggests. She hates that picture so much, dressed in his black and gold rookie season jersey and devastatingly hungover with her mascara raccoon eyes. He’d renamed her contact to Zoro for nine months and even years later the thought brings a smile to his face. “You played like a Russian yesterday. I imagine you are regretting that just a little this afternoon, yes?”

“I hurt in places I do not remember being born with Sveta.” He groans, pathetic and whining like only she ever sees. “I’m getting old like Scott Hunter.”

“Hockey makes everyone old,” she scoffs. “And yet somehow you are all still just little boys pulling pigtails.” The familiar banter gets him off the mattress and heading for the shower. She knows this dance; the days he doesn’t have the wherewithal to drag himself out of bed, or wash, or eat. Days when the darkness in him is quiet and pervasive in whispering him back into bed and sleep. Days where he just needs eyes on him and unspoken company to get himself through the motions. Sveta knows too, nearly two years his senior and vividly familiar with the time before and after his mother's death. Childhood in Russia is short. Instead of dwelling, Sveta fills the silence deliberately, giving him an anchor and borrowed motivation. “ESPN is running with ‘The Prince of Russia’ headlines again.” Ilya fucking loves that nickname, always has. Likes to think about it before bed sometimes, writing himself into the story; a second son, banished from a harsh kingdom, persecuted by a villainous brother and a callous father - searching for redemption and a way to lift the curse on his lands. Maybe homophobia is a dragon he has to slay. Or love is his poison without cure. There’s certainly no princess at the end of this story if his recent attempts to distract himself have been any evidence. He loves women, but he’s not entirely sure he likes them anymore. Doesn’t seem to like men anymore either. Doesn’t seem to like much of anything except Sveta and vodka. Maybe vodka and craving comforts he does not deserve is his curse.

“They’ll be pleased about that at home.”

“You are hilarious this afternoon! Winning has given you jokes!”

He doesn’t bother searching out a place she can’t see him to put his phone, she’s seen everything there is to see and more besides, just slots her into the shower caddy with his shampoo and frowns at her as the steam begins to build. God he needed this. He might never get out.

“You make better noises in the shower than between my thighs. I feel like I’m intruding.” She’s smirking just right to pull him out of his head.

“Oh my god - shut uup!” She’s not wrong though, the hot water is incredible now he’s actually in it, tension he hasn’t even realised he was carrying bleeding out of his shoulders. He feels small today. Like sleeping in the sun has shrunken him. “I am a bruise. One, big, stupid idiot bruise.”

“But a very handsome and successful stupid idiot bruise.”

“Come to Boston, I need a massage. Did I fall on my ass yesterday?! My fucking ass is-”

“Hollander checked you with his hip in the second period, your delicious ass probably got caught between his delicious abs and the boards, and got pinched a little. Don’t be a baby.”

Shane. The check comes back to him viscerally now she’s reminded him, pinned hard to the boards and battling for the puck. Possibly Shane’s only real bit of fire the whole game and he’s pretty sure it was an accident.

“I’m pretty sure that was an accident. Hollander doesn’t check with force on purpose.”

“Maybe your five goals and being out-skated by a rookie will do that to a man.” Or maybe it’s a reminder that this what they are now. That Ilya is now just like everyone else in Shane’s eyes. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who’d be able to bring himself to hurt someone he was sleeping with, even within the bounds of hockey. But then what does Ilya know. He didn’t think he was the type to run out on someone after promising to stay either. Maybe Shane checks players this hard all the time and Ilya has just never felt it before because in some small way - he was Shane’s. It’s a stupid, sappy, hopeful thought that has no place in his shower so Ilya throws it out.

“Durant is doing well. Tell me what you think.”

“He isn’t Shane Hollander-” Fucking hell Sveta, take the hint. “But he is good for his age. He needs focus. Last night was a win but it is not a pattern maker Ilyusha.”

“Don’t scold me in my own shower Sveta.”

”Shut up and wash your hair again, your curls are flat every time I see you. Durant needs confidence. He borrowed it from you last night, and that is to his credit, but he needs his own. You will fix this - yes?”

“You are a slave driver.”

“You need purpose. You’ve been sitting on your fat ass sulking about Jane for months. I’m sick of it.” Fucking hell Sveta can be a cunt when she wants to be. “Durant is - I think he’s quieter than maybe the Raiders are used to. Not so big on the party, a good boy. You will teach him how to be a Raider and he will reward you with less late appearances in the first and third period.”

“Why not the second?”

Her casual shrug is still beautiful, and once upon a time he’d have reached for his cock and let his eyes wander over her exposed collarbone. She has a little scar on the right from chasing him through her mother's gardens - she hadn’t cried when the hedge caught her hair and ripped her dress, but she’d tried to make him cry when she finally caught him below the plum trees and walloped him.

“Conditioner. Let it sit util I say.” The conditioner is the good stuff she buys him for Christmas and ‘just because’; bright with rosemary and lemongrass that clears his brain of the fog a little, and familiar, with something a little spicy and sweet that she calls amber and saffron. Ilya doesn’t think colours have smells but he’s not going to bring up the old argument again now. ”He’s young and shy. His confidence kicks in by second period because he has realised no one is looking at just him. I imagine in practise he lasts until third, with all that masculine energy in the room, but in a real game he runs out of reserves and starts to doubt himself early - it makes him hesitate early and late. He is a good player Ilya. Just too much in his head and not his feet, hips and his hands. He needs to trust himself. Do not waste him.”

“You are frightening.” he states plainly, giving her a long and flat faced frown. “Have you ever thought about being a coach?”

“One idiot hockey player to keep alive and successful is plenty thank you. Rinse and wash your face with the magic flannel.”

“I’m still not convinced where the magic is.”

“If you had to wear makeup for that pretty face you would. You have such beautiful skin Ilya.”

She’s laying it on a little heavy today, so maybe he really does look like he needs to wash his face.

“I will wash with the magic towel Sveta. But now I’m going to put my hand on my dick, and-”

“I would not want to embarrass you by being so beautiful you cum at the first touch. I will go now.” God he loves her so fucking much. “Use the moisturiser Ilyusha. I will know if you didn’t!”

“Yes yes. Harpy. Go. I love you. Thank you. Come see me. Be bossy where I can murder you.”

“I love you too, Ilyusha, you do not thank family. Send me pictures of your dinner! I miss American food!” No she definitely doesn’t but she’s kind about it nonetheless and he appreciates that more than he has words for in any language.

By the time he’s finished the fifty-six step skin and curl routine Svetlana has him on and has forced down two bacon cheeseburgers to fulfil his dinner obligations, he feels a bit more human. He’s picked up his trail of destruction like some sort of pathetically hungover Hansel and Gretel and put the laundry on - double scent boosters because he’s not an animal. He’s picked all the extra bacon off the extra burgers too because the salt is addictive and the idea of his meal plan approved snacks sounds like depression incarnate right now.

After, he sends a snap of the dinner detritus to prove he’s fed and watered before settling into the corner of the couch to peruse the channels. He hates these days, where all he wants to do is sleep. Hates the part of him that loves them, the part that wishes every day could be spent in bed channel surfing and scoffing onion rings and ignoring the pressures of real life. He knows he isn’t really lazy, knows that his depression has lulls and peaks he can’t control, but on off days like this with no practise to get him out of the house and no team to disappoint he’s left with only himself, and Ilya is so very tired.

He’s not surprised in the slightest when Marly and Connors rock up at the door a little after dark. Both of them are still buzzing and hyped from the game yesterday, a little hungover, flush with the particular energy of a night spent in good company and pulling him into a recap he could really do without.

Today is a day for concerned loved ones making their presence felt apparently, and Ilya is short on those some days so he will suffer it.

Chapter 5: The Great Gay Realisation

Chapter Notes

Editing? Lol. I don’t even know who’s driving this bus. If you see continuity errors please let me know - the more I study this plot the more confused I am - did Shane and Rose have a hotel room after Ultraviolet/Ceil? How long was it until the dinner? I can’t remember. We’re flying by the seat of our pants.

Thank you so much for the comments, kudos and bookmarks!! You are all SO appreciated.

Early January 2017 - A Few Days Later

Of all the things she’s ever had to do, taking herself to meet Shane for dinner a couple of days later is possibly the most awkward yet. She likes him, really likes him, loves that they have the type of easy flowing rapid fire banter that she misses out on with friends who expect her to be consistently available. Shane understands. He plays away from home half the year and spends countless hours being dragged in to unexpected work stuff at the drop of a hat. If Montreal says jump, Shane Hollander will figure out how. So he’s busy. But when he’s there he’s also entirely present in their conversations and after years of nonchalant ‘play it cool’ guys, she can’t get enough of it.

She isn’t in love with him. He’s gorgeous, something all of her friends agree on emphatically, but Rose is pretty sure it’s gorgeous in some sort of ‘too pretty for women’ stereotype. That’s probably not very PC of her but she likes that they get to drop their media training together and just talk shit like young famous people. He gets her stupid soul crushing diets and he gets the paparazzi, the nosy media and the pressure of having to be perfect. She also gets why the media has jumped on their relationship like feral dogs. He’s arguably the biggest name in hockey in two decades. She’s arguably the most successful American actress of her generation. They sound like a Hallmark film.

And they would be, she can picture it, summers spent around bbq’s with her brothers discussing hockey and trades and draft potential like they aren’t trying to get the stars out of their eyes in his presence. Her dad foisting off minor chores, because he’s a blue collar man and he knows hockey players aren’t exactly the brains of the operation when it comes to Real Life. Her mum trying to feed him something that doesn’t have a breakdown of its mineral content and microwave instructions on the front label. He fits. They already love him and they only met the once near Christmas for the obligatory Meet the Family dinner. But in every way he fits perfectly something else is just a single step out of alignment. She’s fairly sure she knows what too.

She’s almost certain she’s going to lose him because of it.

By the time her driver collects her from the hotel she’s giving herself heartburn about it all. She’s dumped boys before, more than her fair share honestly if she has to add them up. But Shane… she really really likes him. She has to tell him, obviously, she pretty sure he doesn’t know or hasn’t let himself think about it and it isn’t fair to her, or to him really to keep trying - but she’s going to miss him sooo much.

She loves the way he listens so patiently to her rants about the damage ecotourism can do and the falsely inflated diamond market; isn’t sure what she’ll do with herself in makeup for five hours at stupid o’clock without his texts - obviously awake and already deep in his schedule. She likes having a stable and sensible man in her life who she trusts not to get someone else pregnant. She likes the way he frowns and swears up a storm and is secretly such a little bitch about things that annoy him. He cares about things like water processing plants and argues viciously for the worst couple combo’s on Love Island. He makes her want to be so much better than she is as a human being.

The drive to the restaurant is quieter than she usually prefers but she’s biting her lip and tumbling through every variation of “Shane. I think you’re gay. Would you care to respond?” that she can feasibly think on and rapidly losing the war for something gentle to say. She likes that too, that he gets it that Rose, Rose Landry, not the actress but the human, isn’t actually all that gentle. Or subtle. She’s still no closer to any good ideas by the time they pull up.

🏒 🥅 🏒

He’s going to lose her.

The feeling is buzzing through his nervous system already, adrenaline and fear like the pump before the puck drop. She’s perfect and he’s fucked it up.

The thing is he’d really tried, tried to be a normal boyfriend. He goes out with Rose and her friends, he texts back and he grudges her absolutely none of his time. He doesn’t love going out, but clubs were usually fun after a couple of Rose’s fruity drinks and the company has brought him out of his shell the last few months in a way he knows he did actually really need. She makes him better. And he fucked it up because his stupid dick doesn’t like women.

They’ve gone to art festivals together, street markets and museums that had been more up his street. They’d gone to the farmers market to buy ingredients for breakfasts and he’d woken up knowing that the most beautiful woman in the world was going to force him to eat something that hadn’t come out of a blender.

Rose got it was the thing. She was more famous than him, richer than him, bigger fanbase than him… she understood what it meant to be in the public eye and under scrutiny at all times, and she cared about the image she put forward as much as him. It wasn’t some vainglorious yearly visit to a children’s hospital or a signed check to an orphanage when Rose was being charitable - it was weekends spent at schools and working with the homeless. It was millions of dollars in donations yes, but it was also her actual physical presence in fighting for higher pay and protections for staff, supporting the elderly and volunteering at soup kitchens. Rose genuinely whole heartedly gave a shit about people.

She genuinely, whole heartedly, gives a shit about him.

The knowledge that he’s losing her feels a little like drifting loose from his moorings - I’ve already lost Ily- he is going to miss her so much.

His parents love her. Obviously. They’d met her at a game and fallen completely for America’s Sweetheart. Rose loved them too. He’d gotten on great with her brothers in December and it felt like everything he’d ever thought he was supposed to have and nothing he’d ever actually wanted. Fucking First World Problems Shane, Jesus Christ. But… he didn’t want it. He couldn’t make himself love her the way she deserved to be loved. Whatever fucking jokester had created him must have been having a really good laugh because the ‘Prince of the NHL’ was gay. Gay. Gay. Gay. He could say it now, if only to himself. The first time he’d truly let the word sit in his mind over lunch, he’d looked at the tuna in his salad and wondered whether or not he should tell Rozanov. It seemed like maybe it would be one of those Not Quite Right things, to tell the guy you’ve been fucking for eight years that you were gay, but it was new to Shane. He hadn’t known. Had tried very very hard not to know.

The stupid fucking thing is that he’s always considered himself… well… “Husband Material”. He enjoys carrying bags; he likes filling the dishwasher just right; he’s financially stable and he knows how to put a bookcase together. He designed a cabin, he has jet skis in his boathouse. He’s never done drugs and he’s never so much as considered violence outside the fight for a puck. He remembers dates and buys gifts that he’s spent hours agonising over. He’s not great at conversation or sharing his feelings but he’s learning. He’d be a really good husband. Rose is… she’s supposed to fit. She’s so perfect and she still doesn’t fit.

Whether it’s the thought or the chill in the January air in Montreal he’s not sure but he shivers anyway. Should probably have got a cab but it’s only four blocks from his condo. The walk was supposed to give him time to figure out what the fuck to say. Maybe ‘Rose. I love you. But not like that. Unfortunately my dick just hates women. Nothing to be done. It’s stupid crazy about this fucking Russian and I don’t know what to do about any of it. Can we still text every day and go for dinner with you and your friends though? I really enjoyed that.’ Maybe not.

Maybe if he’d never met Rozanov in the first place he could have fooled himself that this warm and comfortable thing he has with Rose is what it’s supposed to be. Maybe he could have convinced himself that loving her was a life he could live in instead of just endure.

The restaurant is beautiful, snow piled against the walls in all its grubby city glory, and he knows, instinctively that his assumption about dinner isn’t wrong in the slightest. Rose likes artisan, and hidden gems; she shares his love for finding the little vegan places only the back corners of Instagram seem to know about and the smoothie bars in town that put real fruit in their drinks.

'Calypso’ is posh.

And professional.

And her car is parked on the roadside waiting.

🏒 🥅 🏒

“You’re so cute. Have I told you how cute you are?” What the hell. He is in so much trouble right now. He should have written a speech or memorised some lines for this. What was he thinking. Honestly! Shane might not be the most emotionally intelligent guy out there but even he knows that’s a helluva opening statement from your girlfriend. She looks like she’s trying so hard to be gentle and he doesn’t know why and it sends every half prepared snippet of speech screaming into the void of his anxiety. He feels like he’s going to have a literal heart attack.

“No. I mean, maybe.” Get a grip Hollander, you’re losing it. Tell her you’re gay. Tell her you’re sorry. Fix this. Or leave. God don’t tell her you’re gay. You can’t tell anyone you’re gay. What are you thinking. Tell her it’s been fun. You’re sorry but it’s not working out. It’s not her, it’s absolutely definitely you.

“Well, you are. Miles is extremely jealous.” Shane thinks he knew that, Miles is… touchy with them both.

“Of me?”

“No! Of me!”

“Oh!” Shane laughs. That… doesn’t make sense- ohhhhh. “Oh! Oh!” Because Miles is gay. Hollander you fucking idiot.

“Did you not notice that Miles is gay?” He’d noticed Miles was touchy.

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.” He hadn’t. He really genuinely hadn’t. Should he have? Oh god is he gay-blind? He didn’t even know he was gay until last night. Is he going to spend the rest of his life alone because he can’t spot other gay men?

“Well. He is. And he’s lowkey in love with you.”

That’s… kind of terrifying actually? “Oh.” The room feels a bit like it’s closing in, he’s cold all over and there’s sweat beading down his back. Oh god oh god oh god.

“Does it surprise you that Miles is gay?”

“No!” Too high pitched. Bring it down a notch. “I mean, of course not, no.” Better?

“Well. A lot of actors are. They’re just not all out.”

Obviously. He knew that. It makes sense. He’s heard the talk in locker rooms ‘cocksucker, fag, pansy’ he doesn’t imagine Hollywood is any easier. “Are there any, like, gay hockey players? I mean yes, obviously there are, but are there any openly gay players?”

Why would she ask that? Oh fuck, does she know? Had his stupid dick and his stupid fucking everything given it away somehow? Is she going to tell someone?

“Yeah, uh, no. I mean yeah there are probably gay players or whatever, but none that have said it… publicly.” The league would tear them apart. You can’t be gay in hockey. You just can’t.

“Huh.” The way she says it sounds like disappointment and pain and he doesn’t have the single first fucking iota of a clue what to do with that.

“Sorry, I don’t think I’m going about this the right way. Um…”

“Going about what?” The way she reaches across and takes his hand - like someone has died. Like she knows.

“I really like you Shane.”

“I like you too.” He does. He likes her so much. Why isn’t it ever enough?

“But I have a feeling that… maybe I’m not doing it for you?” Fuck. She knows.

“No, hey, don’t apologise… I just… I have a feeling and… and maybe I’m completely off base here but… I don’t know… I feel like maybe you’d rather be kissing… Miles?”

After that it’s a torrent of awkward stuttering. She’s got him pinned to rights, no doubt. No escape. Despite his best efforts, despite everything he’s given up and every effort he’s made - busted. He’s so fucking sorry. He doesn’t even know what for.

“Hey, it’s really… it’s really okay.” Shane is going to cry. As if his movie star girlfriend telling him he’s obviously Too Gay To Hide It isn’t bad enough, he’s going to embarrass them both even more by bursting into tears right here in this stupid, fancy, ocean themed bar.

“It’s not. I do like you, I really do. I like talking with you, I like being with you, I like all of it. I know… the sex stuff is a problem but…”

“It’s not a problem…. A problem is something you can fix… we’re more like… a square peg in a round hole.” Wow. If it wasn’t for how much he really genuinely likes her he thinks he’d be offended but that single sentence is so Rose that he can’t avoid a snotty wet huff of amusement. “Ew. No. I’m sorry. Forget I said that. Um… we just. We’re not meant to fit. And it’s really fine, I just don’t think that we can keep trying.” She is absolutely not wrong. He thinks maybe if she hadn’t called him on it he would have kept trying. What the fuck does he do now? Cats out of the bag. But despite everything, despite the gaping hole in his chest and the fact he can’t really feel his fingers anymore - he trusts Rose. Doesn’t make the words any easier to find but it’s nice to realise he does trust her anyway.

“You don’t owe me any explanation.”

He really does.

“You really don’t. Can I ask if you’ve ever been with another guy?” Rozanov. Ilya. Sharp agile eyebrows and quicksilver grin. Long lines of muscle and golden skin. That first day in the showers and the unadulterated thrill of a knock on his hotel room door. He’d never been with another guy before. Still hasn’t. But he has been with Rozanov more times than he should, more times than he wants to remember right now. Instead of explaining he dredges up a nod.

“Have you ever told anyone that before?”

He’s not sure when his body took over but he’s shaking his head before he realises.

“Was it different? With a guy?”

Stairwell kisses come back to him in technicolour detail with a flush of heat that feels dangerous for public consumption. Rozanov sucking his dick into his throat. Rozanov fingering him open in his condo in Montreal. Rozanov texting him slutty pics with his dick and cum plastered on his abs in full HD. Rozanov sitting, arms open and defenceless on his own couch, wondering why the floor had been ripped out from under him. Silence from a text thread that had chirped for months.

“Of course.”

“Was it better?”

Always. Every time. Even when it was bad. I think I did it wrong. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make it right.“Yeah. It was uh - it was better.” Can’t get much deeper in the shit than this. “The thing is I- I kinda prefer being the hole rather than the peg.”

They both burst into awkward giggles. He’s tearing up a little bit, split open and bleeding on the floor but it feels so fucking good he’s not sure he can stop right now.

“You should follow Miles back on Instagram.” He will absolutely the fuck not be following Miles back on Instagram. Miles and his touchy paws can stay all the way away from Shane and his Instagram. Besides, he might only just have realised he’s gay, but he’s pretty sure him and Miles are even less compatible than him and Rose. Am I even gay? Is it just Rozanov?

They have an incredible dinner after that. Somehow the weight off them both has opened up a new level of understanding and closeness. He’s been walking on eggshells for months in little ways he hadn’t even noticed and now that it’s all out in the open he feels lighter than he has in years. Is this what it feels like? Coming out? Being accepted? Being himself? Is this what he’s been missing out on?

Rose - in that determined female way of hers - talks him out of both the sea bass and the salmon, citing stressful endeavours, his visible weight loss from the season, and celebration of his Giant Gay Realisation as an excuse for pasta.

Later, when she captures his hands outside Calypso and pulls him close there’s no tension in him at all. He loves her so much.

“Let’s be friends. Not some bullshit ‘let’s stay friends thing’ let’s be real friends. Like best friends. I don’t want to miss you tomorrow.”

Shane isn’t entirely sure if that’s one of those things girls just say to make everything easier but he wants it so badly he can’t deny her. He’s so alone. The thought of going back to his empty condo without the ability to text her fills him with cold dread. He’s spent two years texting Rozanov with ever increasing frequency - the thought of losing her now and going back to that gaping silence is terrifying.

“We can talk about boys.” She whispers conspiratorially. Shane’s blushing. He can feel it. “It can’t be all scruffy beards and bad personalities in the locker rooms.” It is at Montreal.

“I’d really like that.”

God it feels good that someone knows.

Chapter 6: Christmas

Chapter Summary

Sveta comes for Christmas and finally gets to the bottom of things.

Chapter Notes

Editing - don’t know it. Please point out any and all mistakes! I have stared at this and shuffled it and read it so many times that I can’t even understand the words anymore.

January 6th 2017 - Boston

Ilya’s week has not gone to plan at all. Christmas is falling directly after his home game with Vegas and it means Sveta has been forced to fly in on Christmas Eve instead of her usual two days before. Frankly he’s considering lying down on the ground and kicking his heels and screaming about it. Missing her is a permanent ache below his solar plexus even when they live in the same city, but her recent months in Moscow have left him limp and lost without her.

Cutting it this close to missing their traditional Christmas Eve has been giving him hives for days, but he’s grateful for her presence this year in whole new ways so he’ll do his very best to keep his whinging to a minimum. She’s here. She loves him. He won’t be alone for Christmas. That’s all that really matters. Maybe a little bit of whinging… he does so badly need to be spoiled just a little after the winter he’s had so far. Surely he’s earned a bit of coddling at Christmas. They can fit in all their little traditions over the rest of the week if they have to, what matters is that she’s here tonight and he’s not leaving the safety of her lap until the world starts to make sense again.

Sleeping has become a lose-lose situation this year for Ilya as night after night he’s found himself awake and restless until the early hours of the morning. Even jacking off has lost its sparkle, abandoned for late nights of overthinking and deep restless dreams that only come with the dawn. The exhaustion he can’t seem to escape swamping his days. Nothing works. He knows he’s drinking too much, smoking more besides, running himself thin and brittle on the ice in-between. He’s burning his reserves in ways he can’t replace this season and Sveta, with her eagle eye for hockey and keener eye for him is sure to mention it - if only to remind him that he owes his life to her a hundred times over and she alone is allowed to collect.

Tidying helps sooth his nerves but the place has been cleaned within an inch of its life the last few months and he’s starting to suspect that that might also be something he has to promise her to cut back on. The list of things he’s not supposed to be doing seems to be growing exponentially, so instead of scrubbing the hob for another hour Ilya surrenders and decamps to the gym to set himself up for a hard run on the treadmill. He can’t go out until Sveta arrives - she won’t text to say she’s on her way, catching him in the middle of whatever he’s doing at any given time seems to be one of her chief pleasures in life - but he can let the rhythmic pound of his feet take him out of his head for a while. She likes him sweaty. Win - Win.

With the gym comes the usual flood of half conjured memories he can never seem to escape. Hollander has never seen this room - Ilya had much better use for him elsewhere - but most home gyms are similar enough that that first night in the hotel basement always comes back to him anyway. Hollander had looked so good hot and sweaty and flushed to perfection. He can picture him, rose high on his cheeks and satin black fringe slicked to his brow, all of it reflected back at them in the mirrored wall so Ilya could appreciate every single angle. He looks the same when he’s taking Ilya’s cock, so no, Ilya won’t ever truly shake off his ghosts in a gym.

Vaguely, he contemplates if he’s horny enough to sit on the stationary bike and jack off over his thighs to that particular memory. Not that there’s much point with his recent string of self-inflicted orgasms having hardly been anything to write home about - not that he still has a home to write to.

“Where the fuck is buttons.” He’s not asking anyone in particular. He doesn’t have a cleaning service, the only person who could have hidden it is him and sometimes he thinks he spends half his life tidying and the other half looking for the things he has tidied. There - on the rowing machine. The fuck? He doesn’t even use the piece of shit. Tightening the drawstrings on his sweats a little he bumps the volume down from ear splitting to moderate.

Searching through Netflix is an exercise in frustration after that - he’s got the English version on, Russian subtitles, but the Italian bakery guy on tv is no easier to understand. Watching tv like this is an old habit, so ingrained it’s almost self soothing now, built from days spent on YouTube learning English and trying to make sense of his new life in Boston. Even now it’s still good practise for all the accents he meets in conference rooms and media, his English isn’t as good as it could be and he’s well aware that’s purely been laziness. He knows he drops sentence structure and limits himself in his English conversations. He knows he isn’t actually as stupid as America seems to think he is. Thinking in Russian is just so much easier. None of these things make Carlo the Cake Boss Guy any easier to understand. Stupid languages. The cake is cool though.

By the first mile of thundering footsteps he’s completely entranced with a twelve foot monstrosity of the solar system made entirely of cake and Italian exuberance. How the fuck are they going to get it to the customer? With great difficulty appears to be the real answer, but it makes it to the - museum? - by his mid point cool down. One of the older guys is rolling bagels like a wizard, yapping in heavily accented English Italian that only half makes sense in the subtitles. The slap, roll, thump, rhythm of dough being stretched and formed matches the beat of Ilya’s trainers in a way that tickles his brain just right while he contemplates what to start with for dinner tonight. He’s ordered a feast for himself and Sveta but his appetite has been lacking recently.

By the third episode he’s a sweaty mess with tired legs and a vague craving for red velvet so he lets his cool down phase linger and takes a minute to asses his mental state.

He’s been trying to do more of this - be more ’aware in the moment’ of his changing moods and what kicks off the bad ones. His YouTube algorithm and its pointed recommendations of therapy adds that feel far too targeted itch in back of his brittle mind. He knows he’s not doing great. He’s performing the best of his life probably; 5-1 in Boston vs Vegas, a nine game winning streak, and a complete no show for the usual sense of fulfilment, pride and victory he associates with winning. It feels like running up hill, like dreaming of his mother, like wanting Shane: the goal so clear in front of him, but no matter how hard he chases, never any closer. He’s fairly sure he’s depressed. High functioning depression. Little splash of eating disorder. Nothing crazy. Most athletes have them. Isn’t sure if it’s all part of his curse or his karma for being stupid enough to ask the impossible of the world. Both maybe. Probably yes.

Showering is easier after his run. As much as he teases Hollander about his obsessive cleanliness, a fully functioning Ilya Rozanov does not like to sit in his own filth for long either. And he has cookies to warm; it’s Christmas.

Sveta does eventually arrive. No text, no warning, just the clatter of too many bags and too much determination spilling through his front door and into the kitchen like a tinsel tasseled nightmare.

“You look like Christmas threw up all over you.” There’s cranberry red - sparkly fur? Is glitter fur a thing now? What is happening to fashion? - on the hood and hem of her parka and it’s clashing viciously with the truly obnoxious green hoody she’s jammed below it. Throughout the entire nightmare ensemble is a speckling of fine water droplets and the last of the lingering snowflakes she’s picked up on the walk up the drive. “One day you will explain to me how most beautiful woman in world also wears ugliest clothes known to man.”

“Fuck you!” But he catches her anyway, cold and damp and fresh with the scent of winter, tucking his face into her garish hood to hide in her neck where he can take his first deep breath in months. She lets him stay, because of course she does. “I missed you.”

“Missed you.” He repeats, just a little wet and thick.

“Of course you did.” God he loves her so much.

“Let me go now so I can make myself beautiful for you.” She’s always beautiful. He doesn’t remember meeting Sveta, knows that in Moscow their mothers had been close, connected by their fathers, and high society, and eventually by being left at home with the children while the men did Something Important. Sveta’s father had retired from America the year Ilya was born, returning to Moscow permanently as a hero and a governor in the new regime. Sveta’s mother, American and in love, had eventually followed.

“You will be as beautiful to me at eighty as you were at twelve and twenty-one and soon thirty.” He teases, knowing the jab about her age will make her hiss like a cat. He’s giddy with satisfaction when she narrows her eyes and bares her teeth at him.

“Tsh Ilyusha. It is not too soon for me to return your Christmas gifts.”

“Are not Christmas gifts!” Ilya accuses, pulling away and gesturing wildly to sell his outrage. “- are New Years gifts that you did not bring because you abandoned me!”

“You went to Marleau’s! I was in Russia!”

“Pfft.” He snorts at her as he waves a dismissal. “Betrayed by my own sister.”

“I don’t think siblings usually fuck as often as we have.” Cackling he turns back to continue unpacking the food he’s ordered specially. It feels good to banter with her like this, to have her scent in his nose and her warmth lingering on his skin. He has missed her so much.

“What is word then? Oh sage wisdom of stupid English language.”

To her credit she pauses and thinks for a minute. They do this often, her English is naturalised, her mother is American, she spent the first two years of her life in America and every summer, American thanksgiving and Easter thereafter. Russian and English are equal on Svetalana Vetrova’s tongue and she has spent the best part of several decades trying to convince him to advance his own. This game, communicating in English when he could just be thinking normally is tiresome, but he appreciates it.

“Just because you didn’t learn until you were older than dirt and shitting it about embarrassing yourself at the draft doesn’t mean you can’t keep up now.” She accuses gently. She very carefully does not call him lazy - she never has. “I think maybe soulmate - but not the fairytale kind. The kind that means - always and forever.”

“That fucking vampire show Sveta - I swear is like you enjoy seeing me cry. Did you see the season final-“

“- finale -“

“Shut uppp! Did you see? Enzo. Now - that is vampire I would invite into house! Help me put away cake. I bought medovik and will be yuck left on the counter.”

“Caroline is the only correct choice and I will fight you on this.”

Dutifully Sveta helps with the cake before taking five minutes to put her shopping and luggage in the guest room. She’ll sleep with him while she stays, she always does, Christmas in Russia wasn’t good for either of them as children really, but she likes her own space to unpack and spread her detritus across the room unchallenged. Sveta, despite her meticulous and frightening intelligence, is not tidy.

“If you turn guest room into raccoon hotel I am putting you on street for dog catcher!” He yells into the hall, balancing boxes of mixed pirozhki and a carton of rich beef schki in both hands as he attempts to unstick the fridge door with his elbow. Why is so difficult to open fucking fridge after just closing? Stupid fucking thing.

They usually bake sweets together in the days before Christmas Eve, traditional spiced pryaniki that his mother taught him as child, and an obscene southern apple pie recipe that is Sveta’s American grandmothers family legacy. This year Ilya has bowed to their limited time scale and delegated the traditional twelve course Christmas dinner entirely to the Russian cafe in town; they don’t do catering or takeaway but Ilya is persuasive, and rich, and has earned a little special treatment an entire career into their lunch menu.

“Did you go to Gnezdo?”

“Oh. So you can sniff out babushka’s cooking but cannot put coat on hook?” Her glittery cranberry nightmare is still on the kitchen table where she’d left it - he’ll put it away later. “Yes. Am eight years deep in deli sandwiches. Cannot eat anywhere else. If I post Instagram of other cafe Zosia will never feed me again.”

“You know you don’t have to post everything you eat?”

“How very dare!” Flicking her curls he pulls her in for a second, longer hug now she’s dressed down in his Raiders shirt and sweats. “Zosia would never forgive. Instagram is for sexy gym selfies and food. Will fight you on this.”

“It’s for marketing.”

“Sandwiches and ab’s is best marketing!” Gently, he shakes her side to side. “Am marketing Gnezdo to stupid Americans who do not appreciate cabbage. Maybe they see ab’s, see cabbage, say ‘Yes. With ab’s like that Ilya Rozanov knows best food. I eat cabbage at Zosia’s and have ab’s too.’”

“Sometimes I wish you appreciated cabbage a little less.” Wrinkling her nose at his feigned offence she dances back out of reach. “Come. I am tired, and you’re walking like you’ve been fucked by Marleau. You ran too hard. Watch tv with me.”

Later he knows she will hold him close in her lap and ask him gently what happened with Jane, why he is so sad this year, why he has not been partying throughout Christmas as usual. He’s not sure he has the answers this time. He doesn’t know what he did. Not really. Only that it was enough, in all the wrongs ways.

🏒 🏆 🏒

Boston settles around them in the same way it has for years. Not the sharp, electric version of the city that lives in headlines and hockey arenas, but something softer, older, something that exists in the spaces between streetlights and pub doorways. Beside Svetlana, Ilya walks with his hands shoved deep in his pockets like he’s trying to fold himself into someone smaller.

The city is ethereal on Christmas Eve, the warmth of the city rushing through every open door, floods of cheers billowing from every cracked window as they wander down the river towards midnight mass. She loves this place so much, this little church that has become a symbol of endurance for them since 2009, when two wet and tear stained children had followed the recommendation of a grumpy Russian sandwich maker and attended their first service together in a new home.

The Noble Orthodox Mission is an old building with a small parish of locals who have come to know them both well enough over the last near decade to nod in greeting. Babushka’s and an eclectic smatter of youth who gravitate to this little haven every chance they get. Sveta still remembers the first time they’d walked through those wrought iron gates, clinging to each other and steeped in pain, searching for safe harbour and a taste of home, even if that taste was bitter.

She’s not really religious herself, doesn’t follow the strict doctrine Ilya had been raised with at his mother's heels, but she’s grown up with midnight mass as non-optional regardless. Appearances in Russia were often more important than substance, and devotion to a faith was a fundamental element of politics and society in Moscow. She thinks she hates it. Not just the church but religion in general. Would never step foot on holy ground again if not for her poor pain stained Ilya and the ghosts he carries in his wake.

NOM, as Zosia had called it, was not entirely like home, but would probably suit them just right. She’d seen right through them immediately, bare months into their new lives and lost, of course she’d been right. NOM was perfect. Rich with history the little granite tower hall boasted ancient stained glass in every colour of the rainbow and hosted knitting circle nights and fund raisers with too many children. But despite its deeply traditional architecture the young priest who had greeted them that first night had been a refreshing surprise. As it turned out, NOM welcomed one and all.

Inside, the air is warmer, thick with candle smoke and something faintly sweet, the damp scent of warm wet people gathered in a small dry place. It settles something instinctive and several people nod to them as they enter, small acknowledgements built from years of rare but regular attendance. The parish is small enough that they are known here, if not well, then at least well enough to acknowledge.

Ilya dips his head in greeting, his usual charm muted but present, and follows Svetlana down the aisle with the same unconscious deference he has always given her. Trusting her implicitly to lead him.

He looks ethereal here, warm candle light lifting the exhaustion from his eyes and making his golden skin glow with youth. She marvels at him a little as she shuffles down the bench and tucks in to his side - despite being one of the most hedonistic people Sveta has ever had the pleasure of meeting, he is angelic here in the shade of God.

“Faith suits you Ilyusha.” You should be at home here, should have been heavenly, you did not deserve what was dealt you for the sin of being you. You did not fall Ilyusha. You were pushed. She’s a little vindictive even in the warmth and welcome here. Whatever is crippling him has torn his wings from his shoulders and Svetlana will burn heaven itself to find the answers.

“Da. Haven’t burst into flames yet.” He winks, wane but devilish. When he bows his head it looks like punishment.

“You look like you are asking for forgiveness,” she murmurs under her breath, just enough for him to hear.

His mouth curves faintly in reply, but it is a tired thing. “Maybe I am.”

“For what?” Gently, gently Sveta, walk softly with him, something is broken here, something new. He doesn’t answer right away. That’s another thing that’s new, thinking before he speaks with her. It’s been getting worse for years, his Jane, his secret, this secret he keeps even from her. Instead he watches the flicker of candlelight along the far wall, his gaze distant and unfocused in a way she has learned to recognise as dangerous for his health.

“Everything.”

She doesn’t really listen to the service, following the well remembered steps and thinking of her lost loved ones where appropriate but mostly she ponders the man beside her. Her best friend. Her first and only love. Her person. He’s smaller here, tucked deep into his ratty hoody and crushing his beautiful curls under a beanie in an effort to go undercover. He looks ridiculous beside her, young and defiant and lost behind the mass of her lush fur coat - annoyingly, even in his incognito hoody he’s still eye catching. Lips trapped in that permanent pout that makes him look bratty and young, barbed tongue catching attention while those glacial eyes and that devastatingly perceptive brain dissects you down to the marrow.

It’s been muted recently that glow, even on FaceTime and midnight calls she can hear it on him - like someone cut all the joy out of him and poured back nothing but apathy and recklessness. Her poor baby Ilya, who is so full of joy for the world, crushed between his conflicting faiths and bloodied by life so deeply that it's seeping from his pores. She doesn’t know what his Jane has done this time, what his not so secret lover has done to tear him apart this deeply, but she intends to find out.

They don’t speak much on the walk back. They never really have on nights like this, where her fathers shadow and his mothers ghost haunt them.

The city has fallen asleep, the distant sounds of life smothered beneath a fresh dusting of snow and biting cold. Fresh powder crunches faintly underfoot, and Ilya keeps closer to her than he usually would in public, his broad shoulder brushing hers every few steps as though he needs to make sure she’s still here with him. He’s radiating misery.

Eventually they’re close enough to the city that the pleasure of the walk is fading, and they grab an Uber, leaving behind the familiar whisper of the river and the ache of memories honoured for another year.

Inside, the warmth hits them immediately, along with the faint lingering scent of spices and sugar and something distinctly, stubbornly Ilya. His house is immaculate of course - it always is - but reaching to hang her coat on the hook reminds Sveta that there is something restless in the house now, something stretched and thin at the edges, as though Ilya’s ingrained fastidiousness has been sharpened into something obsessive. She’ll have to whip up some mess and ruffle his perfect curls. The place feels like it might explode if she so much as sneezes and it’s itching her wrongwrongwrong.

Instead of hanging her wet coat on the hook where it belongs she tosses it, wet and heavy, over the arm of the couch with deliberate carelessness. Watches as those eyes target it, narrow, and purposefully pull themselves away without comment. His thick lips pucker just beautifully with irritation. God she loves this idiot so much. What a performance her silly boy is putting on for her.

“You are going to tell me what is wrong,” It is not a request.

“There is nothing wrong. Everything is fine.” LieLieLie. She waits. He lasts exactly twelve seconds before his shoulders drop.

“Everything is maybe not all completely fine,” he admits, childish to a fault. Snorting her amusement she cocks an eyebrow, being gentle with him has its place, but she has been gentle for weeks, now it’s time to lance the wound and draw the infection. “Probably not, yes.”

“Will you tell me now?”

“There is something you do not know?” His smirk is thin, offering her a last out from what is likely to be a painful conversation for them both.

“Ilya.” What is she going to do with this stupid boy, and his fragile heart? “It is time, no?”

Despite how much she wants to rip it out of him with her bare hands she doesn’t push him again, after all these years of pulling thorns from his paws she knows better than to force this issue too hard. This biggest of issues. Her Ilya has always been loud in his silence, expressive in the way his body carries his secrets long before his mouth ever opens. Tonight, he pours them vodka, bullies them both into comfortable clothes and hustles her into his bed as if he’s scared she’ll disappear.

Gently, as if he expects to be rejected, as if she could, he settles his bulk into the mattress and puts his head in her lap with a sigh that borders on despair. To a stranger she imagines he would still look like Ilya Rozanov; arrogant, loose-limbed, demanding even in his sweatpants; but she can feel the difference in the way he doesn’t quite settle his full weight against her. Even here in his own home, in his own bed, fat and loose from too much good food, pillowed in her lap - historically his safest place - he’s scared.

“You are thinking too loud,” she says eventually, when it seems he really will take this secret to the grave and her patience has entirely run out.

He snorts softly, but doesn’t look at her. “You say this every time I think.”

“Yes,” she replies easily. “And I am always right.”

Gently, like soothing a child, she sinks her fingers into his curls and watches the flatscreen. He’s put on some Animal Planet nonsense on mute, a self soothing instinct from years gone by that tells her more about his current mental state than he probably knows himself.

“It’s over.” He doesn’t clarify. Of course he doesn’t need to, Sveta knows everything, even the things he’s never told her.

“I know Ilyusha,” Rubbing his neck and shoulders is instinct, and graciously ignoring the damp patch growing on her stolen t-shirt is mercy. Her poor boy has not cried in so long, she thinks he needs this.

“I don’t know what I did wrong.”

It all pours out after that, Shane fucking Hollander, the one and only, the bitch who had her Ilyushka’s heart in his ungrateful mitts and threw it away.

“He was so cute Sveta,” Inexplicably he’s still smiling about it. “So tiny in his hat and his gloves, telling me ‘No silly Russian boy, no smoking, is bad’.” She very much doubts those exact words have ever crossed Shane Hollanders lips but he’s so fond in the recital she can’t call him on the exaggeration. “All freckles and awkward Canadian. He shook my hand twice.” High praise indeed apparently. “You know he made me wait two years to fuck him?” Shane Hollander. A stronger man than she for sure. “First time - he bought whole fucking building Sveta - like crazy person - just for place to get fucked.”

“You-?” This does surprise her a little, but he nods, avoiding her gaze and flushing ruby red from his ears to his throat.

“Yes. With him was my first time like that.”

“Does he know?”

“What? That I was virgin top shaking in socks? That literal virgin golden boy was first and last ass I stuck my dick? Ah, you think I am completely suicidal yes? Too many concussions? Of course he doesn’t know I never topped before. Coming to America was new start Sveta, you said this, no?”

She doesn’t acknowledge that elephant in the room, Sasha is a wound in both their ribs but he is still theirs, she wouldn’t have offered that soft underbelly of information either. But knowing what she knows she can’t help the itch to climb out of bed and tear the stupid man limb from limb as Ilya spills his guts and his heart in carefully smothered sobs all over the sheets.

“I asked him to stay,” Ilya confesses finally. “I asked him to stay, he said he would stay, and he… and he ran.” The heaving ribs below her hands shudder as they rise and fall in rapid flutters. “I thought he would stay.” It’s that, more than the years of seesawing situationship, more than the months of depressions and relentless hockey madness, it’s this, this childlike whisper is what cuts her to her core. Because her Ilyushka has been hurt so many times by so many people, he trusts so few now, and he had trusted Hollander enough to ask for something.

Ilya, the man who had no one but her had trusted Hollander enough to ask him to stay. And the stupid cowardly fuck had run.

She’s going to ruin the bitch.

Chapter 7: Flirting With Destruction

Chapter Notes

I have edited nothing. All mistakes are my own. There is STILL nobody driving this bus 😭

Thank you so much to all the support this has received so far! I am wildly grateful to every kudos, comment, bookmark, subscribe, and read!!

As always - I am a 2002 LiveJournal veteran so please don’t hesitate to point out errors or voice your opinions! This is a freedom of expression comment section! Constructive criticism and exploratory commentary is very welcome!

Mid January 2017 - New York

Figuring out he’s gay might actually be the thing that ends Shane for good. He’s survived the draft, and the Olympics, and dating one of the most famous women on Earth. He’s even survived his mothers never ending list of sponsors and their various supporting acts - a laundry list of responsibilities reaching as far back as he remembers, responsibilities he appreciates but has never had someone to share with. He knows how lucky he’s been obviously, knows he’s rich and famous and healthy, but he’d always expected to have someone the way his mom and dad have each other. Someone who was his, someone they would love and appreciate but whose priority was him. His person. Being gay… being gay has never factored in to that plan and that need. And now here he is, nine years and an entire lifetime into a career, an adult, learning that his whole plan was a no go from the beginning. His whole life built on a foundation that never existed. It’s too much. It’s far, far, too much.

So he does what he does and he breaks it down. He’s gay now. That’s fine. Being gay is fine. It’s twenty-seventeen, the NHL won’t have it but he had nine years of- Being gay doesn’t mean that he can’t find… something, surely? Oh god, he’s going to die alone and be eaten by the neighbours fat Persian. So yeah, he’s spiralling a little, but dealing with the harsh realities of being legitimately obsessed with dick might be what pushes him over the edge. It’s not even his own dick. It certainly can’t be any random dick. No. In all its unholy glee, his stupid obsessive compulsive fuckhead of a brain has decided to latch on to Ilya Rozanov’s dick specifically. As if he doesn’t have enough problems in his life without adding ’rivals unparalleled thrust game and its career ending connotations’ to his list of basic daily requirements. Maybe he can slide it in between the spirulina and the green lipped mussel extract in the pantry.

He’s going insane. He can feel it. His lungs feel full of poison oak, and his guts are making noises he’s never heard before. He had to take two showers today because he keeps breaking out in a prickle of sticky anxiety. It’s like a greenhouse in his brain stewing him from the inside out with clamouring priorities that can’t finish their sentences. He’s going to have to move to Antarctica. It’s the only answer.

It’s not like he usually spends his days visiting shopping centers or playing cards at his local casino, but frantically googling ’How to recognise other gay people’, ’Can gay men have traditional marriages’ and ’How to tell if someone is a top’ is not where he imagined his life would have led him after Rookie of the Year, enough trophies for a dedicated room, two Stanley Cups and a gold medal. He’s genuinely terrified he’s going to be stuck in this After Rozanov limbo until the stars go out.

It’s not like Rozanov is even that special. He’s viciously skilled on the ice sure, and in his most honest moments Shane will admit that no one has ever really pushed him like Rozanov does, but Shane spends the vast majority of his free time with people who are - objectively - some of the most beautiful in the northern hemisphere. He shouldn’t be this hung up on a dickhead from Russia who sends him so many mixed messages he’s surprised he’s not turned into a fruit cocktail. He doesn’t really understand why gay men are referred to as fruity either. There’s a whole fucking subculture here that Shane’s completely blind to. Is he allowed to call other queer people fruity? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t feel very fruity. He feels a bit like wholewheat toast maybe; bland, and fibrous and nobodies real first choice.

Maybe Rose could point him in the direction of someone definitely gay? It’s twenty-seventeen after all, as he keeps reminding himself - he can’t possibly be one of only two queer men looking to keep things quiet. Rozanov had figured him out before he even knew himself, Shane has the highest hockey IQ in history, it can’t be that difficult to learn the language. There must be someone else out there that can take this messed up piece of him and make sense of it.

But he can’t imagine just folding his clothes and sinking to his knees for someone else. What if they laugh? Should he start teaching himself to throw them on the floor? He’s not sure he could concentrate on sex if they’re scattered across a dirty carpet. What if the guy doesn’t trim his pubes? Or hasn’t washed his dick? He’s not sure he’s ready for that. He’s not sure he’s that level of gay. Rozanov smells like the ice when he’s in Shane’s bed. Like hockey, and warm skin, and the salty musk of well earned muscles. What if they don’t want to kiss him? What if they don’t touch him like Ily- What if it’s different? The ridiculous thought is enough to throw him out of his spiral - of course it would be different. It’s a whole new person. That’s the whole point of this. The whole stupid fucking point of sitting here with his phone in his hand like an idiot trying to figure out how to do this. But what if it’s bad? What if the only person he’s ever going to enjoy being with is Ily- Rozanov. What if it’s Rozanov or no one? What if he had his chance and he ruinedruinedruined it.

By the time he’s worked himself into a tizzy about the future doom of his romantic life the burgeoning arousal that kicked off his Googling in the first place has long since withered and he’s back to where he started - in his hotel room in New York, phone out, and a circling drain of bad search ideas percolating in a brain full of greenhouse gasses. Biting the bullet he types in ’Gay bars near Greenwich Village, New York’ hoping against hope to prove just one thing - he can be with someone, anyone, who isn’t Rozanov, he can find someone to spend his life with, and rely on, and maybe open up to, someone who isn’t going to kill his career and make his parents hate him, someone who might make this whole being gay thing liveable. The list that bounces back is… extensive. And intimidating. What if someone approaches him? What if no one does? After a few more minutes of furtively scanning Yelp reviews he does the only logical thing he can think of and calls Rose.

“I don’t know how to be gay.”

It’s a testament to Rose’s affection for him that she doesn’t even hesitate before bursting into immediate and ugly cackling laughter - honestly, he doesn’t know what he really expected but ever since Rose sat him down and made him have The Conversation there’s a feral little part of him that delights in being able to just throw it out into the world.

“I’m pretty sure you do actually-“

“Not that!” Jesus. He can feel the blush ripping down to his toes. “I don’t know how to… am I allowed to say fru- what if I’m Gay Blind?”

“What?!” Shane’s not really sure what the confusion is, it seems like a fairly obvious and very substantial concern right now. There’s a significant chance he’s never going to have sex again and if he never has sex again he’s going to spend the rest of his life pining over Ily- Rozanov. This cannot be allowed to come to pass. Shane wants to be someone’s everything. That means taking his chances with dating, and Shane refuses to be this bad at anything, even having a secret sexuality.

“What if I don’t have gay radar?”

“Gaydar.”

“Rose!”

“Shane…” He’s starting to wonder why he ever thought this was a good idea - calling Rose. Being gay. The whole thing. Maybe he can just go back to not being interested. Focusing on his career. The way his season is going he’s really got bigger worries than his sex life anyway, but Hayden keeps mentioning how he plays better after seeing Lily and if he tells him to go get laid one more time Shane might flip and strangle him with his jersey.

“Honey, take a deep breath. Rewind for me a few steps and start from the beginning. What’s going on?”

“I can do that.” He can do that, right? “I don’t want to die alone so I googled gay bars in New York.”

“Ohhhhhh!” Enlightenment breaks across Rose’s face alongside the humour. “You’re going out on the pull!”

“No! Yes? I’m still in my hotel room.”

“Of course you are sweetie.” He hates her.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.” No, he doesn’t.

“Help me. Please.”

He has no earthly idea what he thinks he’s doing here but Greenwich Village is gorgeous, and thick with interesting architecture that immediately captures his notice. Winter in New York is always a bit of a toss up between ugly piles of dirty ice or an almost fairytale dusting of fresh powder and currently Shane feels a bit like he’s stepped into a Hallmark movie with the little flurries of puffy flakes drifting around him and the snow capped wrought iron gates everywhere.

His ludicrous Googling spree has left him with an assortment of knowledge about the area that feels both entirely insufficient and somehow also Far Too Much. There are restaurants that cater entirely to his diet requirements and stunning parks where he could run if it wasn’t January. There is a drama and art scene here that Rozanov would love, the music and the gregariousness of the place spilling over into the streets in joyful outbursts and snatches of song that would appeal to him all day long just as they make Shane flinch and hunch his shoulders. But Shane can’t text him that. They don’t do that anymore. Shane knows the rules, remembers the empty desolation of the six month silence after- before Sochi. But he also learned the lesson. You don’t kiss the hookup like you mean it, and when you do and the hookup runs out - they don’t text you. That’s what hookups do. They don’t do more and they reset the equation when they do. Montreal taught him that. Sochi and Vegas enforced it. Like brand endorsements you don’t quite gel with, you take a break and you let the dust settle before you re-establish the previous status quo or you go your separate ways with grace. There are rules so these things don’t get out of control, so they don’t become Issues - and this cannot ever, even for a fraction of a second, become An Issue. Even the thought of it turns his stomach, tripping his steps.

It doesn’t stop him missing him though; doesn’t stop him wishing desperately that he could purge this ball of vitriol and loss rolling in his gut at the source. But they don’t do that. They meet up, they fuck, they care about each other, in that loose sense that anyone who has shared space for nearly a decade must to keep a secret and get naked together. But they can’t ever be more. They can’t step outside the framework. They don’t get dates, and shared meals, and shared beds, and staying over. They don’t get to stay at all. Shane might wear Rolex, but he must never think for a second that he is Rolex - he’s rented talent. Rules. Framework. Reliability. Success.

So Shane Hollander is in New York’s Gay Mecca dressed in pressed trousers and a Belstaff like some sort of dick detective looking for proof he doesn’t already have ‘Property of Russia’ stamped on his ass like some queer ugly duckling. He’s studiously not thinking about things he can’t have in the same way he’s not thinking about how he’ll never have a wife, two point five kids and a golden retriever. He’s gay. His career-long-rival-turned-fuck-partner likes him enough to feed him and cuddle him and say his name and Shane absolutely cannot allow that to stretch beyond the utter catastrophe it has already become. So instead of thinking about how Rozanov is blowing through the opposition like tissue paper now he’s free of whatever they were, and the way he won’t even look at Shane on the ice - Shane is burning through anti-anxiety methods faster than he can find them and learning more about LGBTQ+ history than he’s comfortable with. It itches below his skin like an infection.

They’re everywhere though - the pride flags - little rainbow rectangles announcing their presence from every window and every flagpole. He’s on a gay pilgrimage in the heart of the motherland and he’s almost certain he’s having some sort of violent allergic reaction to it.

There. It’s not hockey but the old ‘Sports Bar’ sign tucked in between two towering brownstones calls to him regardless, a familiar lighthouse in a storm of emotional upheaval. He gravitates to it with singular purpose. He has absolutely no idea how to be gay, but he can figure that out later maybe. Right now, surely a beer in a sports bar is safe enough? He’s pretty sure they watch baseball in New York. He can learn about baseball, that’s a good start. Go outside on his own, to a sports bar, drink a beer, and learn about baseball.

Kingfisher opens up just lovely, warmth and the soft murmur of a small but content crowd spilling out into the chill. He can do this. He can figure this out. Start easy.

🏒 🥅 🏒

He has made an enormous mistake.

Kingfisher is a gay bar.

Shane has walked, fully unaware, into the ninth circle of hell and it’s wearing the face of a skinny blonde with ten million miles of blue eyes. The blonde is light and shaggy, not curled, and the blue is deep ocean bordering on grey, not glacial, but the smirk - the smirk is one hundred percent predator and it’s so familiar in its appearance it gives him whiplash. ”Hi stranger, I’m Kyle,” has hands with black painted nails and rough palms but he’s obviously delighted with Shane’s discomfort when he takes the opportunity of a handshake to get all ten fingers involved, rubbing his thumb daringly over Shane’s knuckles and fluttering his middle fingers up the inside of his wrist. He feels like he’s been groped.

“Leave the man alone Swiftie,” the girl behind the bar with him barks. “Sorry hun, don’t mind him, he thinks you’re straight and lost.” Does she know he isn’t straight and lost?! Well, he’s definitely lost. Is he radiating gay all over the room simply by being here? He hasn’t even ordered a drink yet.

“Um,”

“What can I get you?” Saved by the angel in the sequin tank top.

“A beer please. Thank you.”

He hates it here. The barman is shameless, in his too tight button up and his painted on jeans, and the girl is looking at him like his skull is made of glass, gay thoughts just rolling around like loose pucks. He’s fairly sure the guy in the ratty Admirals cap in the corner probably recognises him even though he hasn’t lifted his head from his books once since Shane walked in. That hat’s from the 2008 draft and the guy wearing it has shoulders like a Defender spilling out from his short sleeves. This was such a stupid idea. There’s no way gay New Yorkers won’t recognise him, he’s on their buses in his fucking underwear, what was he thinking. The bar itself isn’t bad, it reminds him of some of the little places his dad likes to hole up to watch British football during the World Cup, with its smoke stained ceiling tiles and lighting that hides a thousand sins. Even the cheap lager scent in the air is the same. It’s disconcerting to find himself somewhere that feels so familiar and yet so incredibly alien at the same time. It’s making him shake.

“I’m getting the feeling you need this.” Kyle, thankfully keeping his wandering fingers to himself this time, and looking a little rueful around the edges, pops a beer bottle down in front of him and asks for $7. This one at least, has no idea who he is. So obviously Shane does the worst possible thing he could, forgets about his carefully chosen undercover dick detective disguise entirely and hands the guy a fifty.

“Keep the change.” This has got to be some sort of repetitive head injury induced stupidity. That is not how you go unnoticed in what appears to be the gayest university sports bar in existence. What the fuck is he doing? Kyle’s eyes light up like the Fourth of July as he dumps the change in the tip jar and slides the receipt back across the bar for Shane to pocket.

“Big spender. I’m not usually that pretty before the beer.”

“Sorry. Habit.” StupidStupidStupid. Jesus fuck what the actual fuck is he thinking. FuckFuckFuck.

“We are not complaining, hot stuff.” And Shane might be Gay Blind but he’s not an idiot; blonde and handsy is giving him such a thorough once over he can feel the heat of it through his snow damp coat. Can feel himself blushing to the tips of his ears too - the last person who looked at him like that… miles of golden skin, tiny bubbles, slick and glowing from the workout on the ice, the thunder of the shower and the scent of cheap rink 3-in-1. Hands slipping over rink conditioned ab’s and down to- Rozanov…

Shane’s been looked at like prey before, he’s being looked at like a meal right now. It hits him like a board check, the weight of it all. He’s in a fucking gay bar in New York the night before an Admirals game. What was he thinking?

Panic, thick and hot and fast rockets up his spine, bringing his stomach lurching into his throat as he stumbles out of his stool so fast it careens onto the floor behind him with an ear splitting, bar silencing cacophony. Every head in the room lifts on instinct, locking on him frozen in fear like a fucking deer in the headlights. Draft Hat locks on to him like a guided missile of rapidly widening brown eyes and stubble but Shane is gonegonegone.

“I’m so sorry. I’m in the wrong place. Thank you for the beer. I’m so sorry.”

The door hasn’t even shut behind him before his feet catch up to his brain and take him off down the street in a panicked dash, ice conditioned strides eating up the distance as he backtracks through the city and bursts, chest heaving, sweating, and sick to his stomach, out of the elevator and into his hotel hallway. His head is spinning, deep gasping breathes hauled from his lungs and shaking hands fighting him for every action. He needs his room key. Where the fuck- the receipt crinkles as he drags it out, thick sharpie catching his eye.

“You’re hot. Text me. 😘” Kyle, has drawn a beautiful little emoji above his number, rendered in the quick perfect lines of a skilled artist doodling.

Fuck.

Chapter 8: In Another Life, I Would Be Your Friend

Chapter Summary

In another life - this life - Hayden is the friend Shane deserves.

—

I should really have added this to the last chapter to preserve my pattern but it wouldn’t come into the light until today - so here we are.

Chapter Notes

13th January 2017 - New York - Later That Night

The first time Hayden had genuinely started to suspect something was a little bit not right about Lily was when he finds himself laying it all out for Jackie in bed every few weeks. The hiding, the ferocious blushes, the religious text checks. The whole it has been YEARS of it all.

They do this all the time, lie in bed and catch up on their days, it’s become their own time, without the kids, to reconnect and keep up with each other even through the torture of away games during the season. But pregnant and painfully stubborn Jackie needs her rest as much as Hayden can convince her of it, so he weaponises his long standing love for their afternoon cuddles and gossip sessions, and keeps her in bed with every little detail of his days he can remember even when he’s on the road. Just like all the times before, that gossip eventually returns to Shane, and their never ending concern that their favourite person is missing out on… this.

Not him and Jackie this of course. But this beautiful thing he has with her that Shane should get to have with his own love. Hayden loves his wife. Not the way some of the guys on the team say they do; guys with a girl in every city or a subscription to four different dating apps under four different alias’s. Really loves her. Like hasn’t noticed another woman in a decade loves her. But not noticing other women means he has way too much time to notice everything else - including his best friends weird as fuck outfit when Shane bursts back into the hotel room at a sprint, sheet white, clutching his keycard in one hand, a scrap of paper in the other and panting like he’s just run the length of Manhattan. He’s wearing a fucking Sherlock Holmes coat. And pressed trousers. And an LA ball cap. He’s also the exact same shade of terrified he’d been on what Jackie refers to as D-Day.

Hayden had told Jackie everything obviously. How Shane usually stammered out some made up excuse to go see his Super Secret Boston Lily. How he always played better after, and had a lightness about him that never appeared anywhere else. How Hayden just wished they’d get it together and live happily ever after because Shane deserved to have his own Jackie and he was desperately, desperately nosy to meet the woman who made his best friend blush at his phone like that. Shane deserved someone who loved him just exactly the way he was, who made him smile and feel at home. So he had told Jackie. How Shane had gone out before a game for the first time ever and Hayden had thought this is new, is this it? Is this is when they figure it out? only then Shane had stumbled back into their hotel in Boston looking like he’d witnessed a tragedy and claimed he was fine while he shook apart at the seams. How he’d come back in men’s athletic wear at least two sizes too big for him. Hayden would bet his entire life savings that Shane has never even heard of MISBHV, MISBHV only have one brand ambassador, and it isn’t Shane Hollander. Shane’s girlfriend is fucking Ilya Rozanov.

Jackie, when he tells her on the phone in the bathroom doesn’t immediately set him on the right path. But she does gently guide him to it over the course of many carefully worded questions. Lily. Secrecy. Sponsorship clothing that does not belong. Boston. Montreal vs Boston. So the next day, when Shane plays the worst game of his career, and Rozanov literally tears them apart on the ice, it’s not a huge jump. Hayden isn’t actually an idiot. Boston Lily isn’t fucking Ilya Rozanov. Boston Lily is Ilya Fucking Rozanov.

The weeks after confirm it. Lily, and the adoring smiles and fiercely competitive energy she conjures in Shane, are gone. There aren’t more pre-game texts flurries, no sneaking off for whispered stairwell conversations, no ferocious blushes and phone guarding. She’s taken not only his confidence and day to day happiness but his entire foundation with her. Him. Fuck.

They watch it happen in pieces, him and Jackie, the way Shane finds reasons to stop coming by for dinner, and the way the group chat they have fostered for nearly a decade begins to turn performative. He’s pulling back, shutting down, retreating to a version of himself Hayden remembers from after the Draft, but worse, because this Shane Hollander is losing his grip on hockey, and without hockey, Hayden’s scared stiff his best friend is losing his grip on everything else.

It starts with their cataclysmic 7-2 defeat in Boston, trips over a 2-1 win in Tampa, and slips into a 0-2, 1-3, 0-1, 2-4, 3-4 loss in every city after. It’s the longest run of defeats the Metro’s have experienced since 2006 and Shane is the epicentre.

Everyone, from ESPN to the GM knows that Shane Hollander is the golden goose that brought the Metro’s screaming out of the gate as soon as his skates hit their ice in his rookie season. They know that he pulls the entire team behind him like a comets tail, kicking and screaming, into wins that rightly, they probably don’t always deserve. It’s never been a secret. Headlines like “Second Pick Disappointment” became “Generational Talent” and “Hockey Dynasty” and “Future Hall of Famer” before Shane was even out of rookie training wheels. He’s Captain before the smoke has cleared. Every man in Montreal knows that whatever fame they coveted for themselves has been erased by the sheer power that is the new Prince of Hockey, Canadas Golden Boy, Shane Fucking Hollander. Everyone except Shane Fucking Hollander.

Hollander who walks like he’s expecting the walls to close in and smother him. Hollander who apparently thinks that if he’s just quiet enough, unassuming enough, nice enough, the greasy sheen of jealousy burning in the veterans eyes will eventually turn to acceptance. Hayden was drafted by Montreal too, he remembers standing with the other rookies watching Shane and Rozanov duke it out for best of the best, knows he himself was best of the leftovers at most. With well adjusted social skills and a little over a year older he also knows better than to think this team will forgive strength any more than it forgives weakness. So Hayden does what Hayden does best. Like when he met Jackie in a crowded bar in Montreal fresh off a pre-Draft loss he doesn’t even remember and just knew she was the rest of his life dressed in a mini skirt and a can-do attitude. He grabs on tight before the wolves can sink their teeth in and he doesn’t let go. It’s the only way he knows to hold on to the best things in his life and protect them from the sharks. Wrap them tight and bare his teeth at anyone who thinks they can hurt the good in his world.

Here, in January, with Shane just having burst in the door like the hounds of hell are on his heels Hayden feels that instinct raise its head again and decides to finally be the best friend he’s always tried to be, even if it steps all over Shane’s delicate sensibilities this time. Enough is enough.

So of course “At least you’re wearing your own clothes this time.” is the fuck ass comment that comes out. It startles both of them so hard Shane actually starts breathing again.

“What?!”

“Shane, buddy, sit down. We need to talk.” Hayden grimaces. “I didn’t mean that how it came out. Just - are you okay?”

“Hayden,”

“Oh god, don’t cry, come here-“ Shane buckles into him like so much wet tissue paper, big frame collapsing under whatever this is to grip tight and frantic at his back. They're much the same height, but Hayden’s got ten kilos on him so setting his feet to catch them is as easy as catching his daughters.

“You know,” he murmurs, hands rocking that big body carefully as it heaves. “Jackie says I’m infantilising you when I say you make me feel like a dad - but crying in my arms about boys is really giving me such good practise for being a girl dad.”

“You know.” It’s so soft it breaks his heart, like Shane’s worst fears have just been dragged out into the world and paraded for all to see.

“Shane buddy. I’m your best friend. Your brother.”

“Oh god,” fuckshitfuck-don’t hyperventilate bud-shit-no-fuck. “You know.”

Shane is trembling against him, curling himself into a ball that takes them both crumpling to the floor in a rough tangle of limbs - the ridiculous flappy coat he’d put on earlier fouling their arms and keeping him thankfully bound fast in Hayden’s arms. He’s roasting, sweat damp and shivery like he’s run for miles, fighting like he’s ready to run more. What the fuck happened tonight?

“It’s okay bud. It’s okay. I love you. This doesn’t change shit okay? Your stupid fuckhead of a brain better be listening to me right now. Shane. Shane. This is nothing. This is just you. It’s always been you. You’ve always been you. You’re okay. You’re safe. I love you.” Somehow - miraculously - the stream of unfettered nonsense spewing from Hayden’s brain at mach jesus seems to be working; Shane’s still breaking his heart but he’s not fighting like a drunk raccoon to escape across the hotel floor anymore. “It’s going to be okay. I know - well I don’t - you’re gonna have to tell me the rest - but it’s okay. We’re okay. You’re safe.”

Eventually the storm calms, long minutes of mindless muttering and absolute nonsense he doesn’t really remember working to sooth his idiot best friend off the ledge.

“Are you hurt?” It’s what he should have asked first. He knows Shane went out to a bar, he’s pretty sure he knows why as well, but this reaction isn’t normal, Shane shuts down, he doesn’t shatter.

“No,” Comes the thick, wet reply. “Just stupid.”

“Nu-uh. Absolutely the fuck not. We’re not doing that. That’s my best friend you’re insulting. Three times Stanley Cup Winner, Olympic Medalist, Rookie of the Year, Gay Icon- oof! Jesus. Okay. Not joking about it yet. Too soon. I get it.”

“When did you -“ You can do it bud, c’mon, you got this. “When did you figure it out? How?”

“Put the big sad eyes away Hollander you don’t have gay stamped on your forehead. You came home in Lily’s sponsorship gear with the broken heart of the fucking century. You’re not slick.”

“Oh god- oh god- oh god-“ And he’s fighting again, struggling with the coat, and all the legs, and somehow an elbow in Hayden’s-

“Ouch! Fucking watch it! Stop that. C’mere you little shit.” Hayden doesn’t have brothers but he does have a scrappy chaos goblin of a Jackie so he pushes off with his leg and slams the struggling idiot into the carpet like the Winger he is. “Quit it! Nobodies running back out into the snow today, and nobody is elbowing me in the balls again.” Pressing his best friend into the carpet is not how he imagined this going but he’ll take it if it lances the infection that’s spread between them. “You’re good Holly, you’re safe. It’s me. Chill.”

“Oh god-“ this time it’s thin and weak and all the considerable strength seeps out of Shane in one long gasping sob. “You can’t tell. Hayden please. You can’t say-“

“I’ve known for months Shane. I didn’t even tell you.”

“Okay. Hic Okay. Okay.” Each hiccup seems to bring Shane further back into his body, limbs softening and fight slacking out of him until they both realise, almost simultaneously that Hayden has him pinned to the floor spread eagle and flustered. For a moment it teeters on the sort of blindingly awkward that most men would jump back from, terrified for their masculinity, but Hayden is Shane’s god damn best friend, and he’s perfectly secure in his masculinity so he grins, cocksure and giddy, and still holding both Shane’s trembling wrists in one hand he puts on his ridiculous sports caster voice instead.

“And Pike takes the win. Hollander on the ice, will his ego survive the hit?” Miraculously it works. Shane coughs out a laugh, that shatters into a giggle, and rapidly tumbles down the hill into hysterical.

“Oh my god get off me.”

“No running.” For good measure he squeezes the wrists trapped in his hands. Watches in childish delight as Shane blushes crimson.

“No running.” He repeats dutifully, opening his hands in acquiescence.

“Now take that stupid coat off and tell me why the hell you just came in here like the world is ending.”

🏒 🥅 🏒

It’s nothing like telling Rose. That’s the first thing he realises, as he drags off his stupid coat and watches Hayden hang it on the door. First of all, Rose hadn’t wrestled him to the fucking floor about it. But the fight has had the unexpected consequence of smacking the burst of adrenaline right out of him and somehow it’s taken most of the panic with it so he finds himself shimmying onto the edge of his mattress and clasping his hands awkwardly between his knees with a weird sense of peace in his head that he hasn’t felt in months. It’s late, and he’s tired, and he’s cold now that he thinks about it, sweaty and shivery with leftover emotion like he’s just played the game of his life.

So he lets Hayden hustle him into the shower, lets him sit on the loo and ramble about his day like they’re in the locker room and nothing’s changed, even though for Shane everything has. It’s a little weird, but it’s closer to routine than Shane’s felt in a long time, Hayden’s never had any sense of privacy anyway, so he hums where he thinks he’s supposed to and he doesn’t think about what it means that Hayden’s known for months apparently and hasn’t said shit. Hasn’t changed at all. He even lets his pushy best friend shove him into bed, with water and a protein bar and the shameless audacity to climb in after him.

“We’re doing this properly.” Hayden declares, kicking him to make space and shimmying down into the sheets like a kid. It’s nice. “I’ve seen the movies. There’s rules for these things.” At least one of them seems to have some idea of what is going on.

“Okay.” He doesn’t really know what else to say. “You don’t infantilise me.”

“I absolutely do. It’s my way of showing love. It’s also my way of being insecure. Jackie has a whole dissertation about it in her notes app. We’re working on it.”

“What do you- how do you-“ He doesn’t know what he wants to ask. His brains still stuck on this somehow all being okay. The earlier fright and embarrassment has faded a little. Apparently this is a safe space, maybe not safe from well meaning physical assault, but safe from homophobia and lost friendships. Hayden will help him figure the rest out.

“Infantilise you?”

“Oh my god stop saying that!” Smacking him feels good, feels normal. So just to be a shit Shane does it again. “No! The… the other- the gay thing.”

“Hey buddy. Can I just - I just want to say - sorry that’s my knee - move over I want to look at you for this.”

“Romantic.”

“Shut up.” Hayden does finally manage to roll over, pointy limbs and cold feet taking no prisoners. “Listen for a second okay.”

“Okay Hayds.”

“Shane. You’re my best friend. I love you. Okay? You get that? For real. Brothers forever. You’re uncle to my kids. You’re Jackie’s bestie. This changes nothing for me. I just know you better now. And I’m so proud of you. I need you to hear that.”

“Okay Hayds.” He means it this time, tearing up again, and feeling blubbering and gutted. Hadn’t known until right now how much he really, really, needed to hear that.

“But I need to know what happened tonight. If you’re okay.”

“I went to a gay bar.”

Shane spills it all, tears welling up as he explains the logic and the method and the madness. How he’d worked himself into a tizzy and he’s fairly sure he’d been recognised. Hayden listens to it all, reassures him than running out of a gay bar might be A Bit Not Good if the media gets wind of it but that it certainly won’t out him. Listens as he churns up his guts from Saskatchewan to November - minus the NSFW parts.

“He was just… standing there in the shower. I didn’t know what to do. He ended up in my hotel room - it was…” It was one of the best nights of my life. Miles and miles of golden skin and the fluttering terror of the unknown. They’d been so young. Just babies, pushing limits and tempting each other and it had been one of the best nights of Shane’s entire life. He remembers going to his knees, inexperienced and sloppy and probably absolutely terrible - but Ilya had been kind about it; flustered and breathing hard and too close to the edge from very little like he hadn’t ever had anyone suck his dick either. Of course he had, he’d fucked his coaches son and probably a thousand women by the time he came to America. So Shane might not have been any good but he’d been embarrassingly eager, and ridiculously smitten. He’d folded his clothes and Rozanov had grinned at him like it was the best thing he’d ever seen in his life. He’d felt… seen.

“He spent two years trying to get me in bed.”

“He did not.” Hayden is scandalised. This is evidently the best gossip he’s heard ever and Shane can’t help but smirk a little. Rose had promised him this, and they have, but it’s different with Hayden, who has been sharing secrets with him for a lifetime and actually knows Ilya.

“So we kept just… meeting? Games in Boston. Games in Montreal. Whenever we were in the same city? Hotel rooms and Awards. Vegas.” Vegas. He cannot tell Hayden about Vegas. Can’t tell him about the six months of silence after the first time they fucked or the catastrophic night at the Awards that Shane will never forget. “I was stupid in Sochi. I was worried. Wanted to check he was okay. I didn’t understand about-“

“Russia?”

“Yeah. Russia.” Didn’t know that Ilya yelled at his brother and had brisk frantic worry over his father. Didn’t know why his mother hadn’t come to watch him play at the Olympics, or why he’d looked so desolate in the stands that day watching the figures skaters. “I don’t think it’s easy for him. There. Russia.”

“Always imagined he was kind of a rich spoiled city brat to be honest. Isn’t that what ESPN says?”

“I don’t think so.” Ilya, who grins like the sun coming out when Shane folds his clothes before sex. Ilya, who touches him gently, like he knows what hurts from personal experience. Ilya, who’s first instinct is to defend himself and bite back twice as hard.

“And it just… kept happening? We started texting more, just stupid shit. Chirping. But the last few months before Rose-“

“It was different?”

“I think so.” Frantic kisses, and lingering touches, mapping each other bodies like every time could be the last time. Kisses before they left, just incase it never happened again. Grasping, constantly, for the next stolen moment.

“I - we broke up? I don’t know. We weren’t together but I think maybe he wanted to be? And I… freaked out.”

“November?”

“Yeah- before-“

“The Game That Shall Not Be Named.”

“He asked me to stay. Made me food. Said I should stay the night. We cuddled. Fell asleep. It was-“ How does he explain that a single nap with Ilya is the most at peace he’s felt in his adult life? That waking up in his arms for the first and last time was as close to heaven on Earth as Shane’s ever going to get. “-it was really nice. And I fucked it all up.”

“Buddy-“

“No it’s true. He just… he was so good to me Hayds. Still… him… obviously. But… it was different this time. Like he was… I don’t know. Trying to know me. And I freaked out. I’ve been interrogating him for a decade with my stupid idiot questions and I freaked out that he used my name.”

“A deca- right - not the point. What do you mean your name?”

“He called me Shane.” Hayden, wonderful, loving, understanding Hayden who has wrestled Shane into a carpet and ripped his insecurities out at the roots is obviously trying very, very hard, to understand but now Shane’s said it out loud- “Oh my god that sounds so stupid.” It gasps out of him in a hysterical giggle again, more tears, and Hayden, blessed, angelic Hayden, is gathering him into his arms before he even realises he needs it. “I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid bud. Just… it’s been a lot yeah? A decade. Jesus. Okay. Can I ask questions?” Sniffing Shane nods. That feels easier than whatever this is. He can do questions. Maybe questions will stop him feeling like he’s cut himself open and pulled his guts out on to the mattress.

“When you say a decade?”

“Summer before rookie season.”

“Fuck. No! No, not like that. Sorry. Just. That’s before I met you. That’s longer than I’ve been with Jackie. I’m just - just processing. You’re good. Wow.”

“Not… not like you and Jackie, we weren’t-“

“Okay buddy, I get it. But you wanted to be?”

Shane doesn’t know. He did once, back in Montreal, the first time, soft hands and eye contact that felt like it meant something. Before he’d ruined the moment with a too sentimental kiss and sent Ilya running for six months of painful silence and an emotional evisceration in the stands at the Olympics. He knows obviously. Knows he’d wanted it since that first day in Saskatchewan maybe. Or the shower. Or the first time he lifted him off his feet and dumped him on the mattress. Or the first time he took him into his throat. Also knows that six months of silence and a fortnight in Sochi then a weekend in Vegas had nailed that coffin closed hard, trapping his heart in the cracks.

“I think I did. Then I couldn’t. So I didn’t.”

“You couldn’t?”

“Hayden.”

“Okay. Stupid. But Shane-“

“We can’t Hayden. Ily- The rivalry. The league. He’s Russian.” Hayden obviously hadn’t considered that last one as he sighs deep and breathy across his head and nods as understanding lands. He thinks about it so loud that Shane can almost hear the gears turning. Hayden is far from stupid, Jackie wouldn’t put up with that, but his intelligence lies in his emotions, not necessarily his world views.

“Buddy- like. Don’t freak out okay. But… if you’ve been fucking for a decade… surely you could… I don’t know… keep fucking in secret but like… also be in love?”

Shane… has never actually considered that. Hadn’t thought it was an option. Had assumed it wasn’t allowed. Was that what Ilya had been trying to ask him? With tuna melts and affection and ‘Shane’? Had he been asking all that time? All those months of building texts threads, the memes, the teasing that wasn’t about sex, the check in after hard checks - had they been building something? And Shane just… hadn’t noticed? Fuck, had he led him on? And run away?

“Oh god. Did I - Hayden - Hayden - what did I -“

“Hey hey! Hey! Calm. Deep breaths. We’re good. It’s okay. We can figure this out.”

“We can’t. I can’t. I fucked it all up. I ran-”

“Shane. I’m gonna be real honest with you here and I just want you to sit with it for a second okay? Dad voice. Just for a second. Yeah?”

“Yes dad.”

“Shut up. No listen. I’m serious.” Shane’s listening. He’s bone weary and shaking and about ready to over think himself into another crisis - but he’s listening. “You’ve been living this secret for your whole life, and that must feel - fuck I don’t even know - huge, but it’s not- you are not the only closeted hockey player in the world. He is not the only closeted Russian on Earth. ”

Fuck. It’s not that simple. It can’t be that simple. If it really is that simple then Shane’s thrown it all away for nothing. He’s let Ilya build this thing between them from stolen moments into hour long texting conversations - months of idle chatter and flirty banter - and then he’s thrown it all back in his face when he tried to bring it into the light. When Ilya tried to reach back and bring them together. He bought me ginger ale. 

“It’s not that simple Hayden - the league - the rivalry - the fans -“

“Fuck them.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You’re Shane fucking Hollander. Fuck. Them. Unless you guys are planning to blow each other on Fifth Avenue I feel like you can give yourself a little bit of slack and just… not play along.”

“Not play along.”

“Don’t be rivals.”

“Don’t be rivals.”

“Bud you can’t keep just repeating what I say.”

“We can’t-“

“Why not?”

“The league-“

“The league will what?” Shane blinks as Hayden hauls him out of his chest to give him a little shake and an aggressive amount of eye contact. “They’ll what Shane? Put the two of you in a cage match and make you fight it out at gun point?”

“Maybe.” He sounds ridiculous, even to himself. “The guys-“

“Mitty is friends with Sampson in Ohio. Caumaeu is friendly with Dallas fucking Kent. You can have friends on rival teams. J.J. might as well live in Florida with Roberts. You can have massive, colossal, dickhead friends on other teams.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It is. If you say it is.”

It can’t possibly be that simple. Nothing in Shane’s life has ever been that simple. The fans would revolt, he’d be dragged through the mud by the media, his sponsors would be outraged, his parents-

“I can hear you spiralling.”

“I can’t Hayds.”

“Okay bud. I believe you. I don’t agree, but it’s not my life. We’ll figure it out.”

“I can’t be gay Hayden.”

“I’m gonna level with you Holly. I think you’re a few years too late for that.”

“Shut up.”

“Shane Hollander, Rookie of the Year, three times Stanley Cup winner, Olympic gold medalist, first gay NHL player in history. Bud, I don’t know what to tell you. But you were literally made for this crushing gay responsibility. I fear you may be this good at hockey just so you can get away with being gay hockey Jesus - OUCH!”

It feels so good to laugh again, even scrabbling with Hayden in bed like children, shoving with knees and elbows and smothering ridiculous chuckles that take him back to their rookie season when they were both just children far away for home and scared and under too much pressure.

“I should have told you.” His head lifts and falls in a wave as Hayden shrugs his shoulders under him.

“You don’t owe anyone a coming out Shane - except maybe yourself. But not me. Not Jackie either - though I’ll be honest - she figured it out before I did- stop trying to escape! God damnit. She loves you. Lay the fuck down. She’s been giving herself heartburn trying not to set you up with some twink from Yoga.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Oh my godddd. How the fuck did you pull Rozanov? A decade? Are you sure? Ilya Rozanov? Russia’s Greatest Fuck Machine? And you don’t know what a twink is?”

“Fuck you! Don’t call him that, oh my god, shut up.”

“Well. I’m just saying. Wait. What about all the girls? What about Rose?”

“He’s bi. We’re not exclusive or anything. Rose and I… we do love each other, I think we trauma bonded - but we’re not compatible. I mean it Hayden, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Jackie already knows.”

“Jackie doesn’t count. If it got out he could never go back to Russia.”

“Seems like a pretty good reason for it to get out honestly.” Panic and shame sweep through him in equal proportions, matched by the instant guilt and regret on Hayden’s face. “I didn’t mean it like that. I wouldn’t do that to anyone. Not even Rozanov. Especially not you.”

“No. I… sometimes I think it would all be easier. If we’d just been caught. If it all just blew up and… happened. But it can’t Hayden. It doesn’t matter any way. It’s over now.”

“Do you want to come out? Not Rozanov and you. Just you. You could you know. Just… be yourself, fuck everyone else. Fuck the league. You’re a millionaire. Start your own fucking league.”

“Hayden…”

“I know bud. Not that simple.” Yeah, not that simple. But somehow, it actually does feel like a really simple way of putting it for something that suddenly feels a lot smaller than it did yesterday.

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

“Not hating me.”

“Shane-”

“No. I just mean. For this. For… wrestling it out of me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Not because I owe you, I heard you, just, I still wish I’d told you. That I’d trusted you.”

“I know you trust me Shane. That doesn’t mean you owe me. But yeah. I wish you’d told me sooner too. I wish you hadn’t been doing this alone all these years. But we’re here now.”

“You’re a really good dad Hayds.”

“Shut up. Go to sleep you fucking muppet.”

Miraculously, despite his absolutely colossal panic at Kingfisher, and the months of doom spiral he’s been circling, he does actually sleep, curled up in Hayden’s arms like a child - just a little infantilised, but a lot loved, entirely accepted, and feeling completed protected.

Chapter End Notes

I know Shane only has two Stanley Cups at this point in canon but three feels better for my plot needs so three it is! Let’s just imagine everything fits. 😉

Bonus points to anyone who spots the little plot Easter eggs hidden in the drama today 👀

Chapter 9: The Drag Path

Chapter Summary

News of Shane Hollanders “Incident” hits Boston first.

It’s honestly impressive how so little can become so much so fast - or it would be if it was happening to someone else.

Sveta begins to lay her snare.

——

My take on how the stupidest little thing can become a media apocalypse when taken out of context.

Chapter Notes

January 14th 2017 - Boston

Dropping off his Christmas gifts is by far one of the best parts of Ilya’s established Christmas routine. He’d been terrified the first time he did this, under strict orders from Sveta to give her city a chance. She’d spoken of Boston with love and enthusiasm his entire life, like she couldn’t imagine a better place for him to land. Like it was fate that he end up in the city that had made her after she’d come all the way to Russia to find him. She’d been right, of course. She always was in the end.

Boston had embraced him in all his little idiosyncrasies almost immediately, most of the guys matching him for both their own Christmas and New Year traditions, welcoming and embracing his without hesitation. Seamlessly adding in more excuses to party and accidentally making Ilya feel more at home than he ever had. He loves this team. Can’t help but tell them every time they come off the ice, just in case one of those times is the last.

He knows it’s not necessarily a healthy habit for him - treating every goodbye like it might be final. But he hadn’t said goodbye to his mother, and it’s the last truly innocent regret he has in life. If he has a car wreck, if one of them gets traded, if he is right, and he is too much like his mother… if nothing else, his boys will know he always had their back, always cared.

So it’s with the full weight of this self-imposed duty that he scouts the rink early and drops off his little baggies of treats along the way, like Morozko. One day, he’s fairly sure someone is going to feed him his skates for stinking up the entire rink with ginger, but it won’t be during Christmas.

He loves this place too. No matter where he is in the world, the one thing that has always stayed the same is this - the scent of ice and rubber and too many athletes in too close a proximity; the gentle hum below his feet of the refrigeration, and the bustle of techs and crew going about their endless duties. When he was younger, he used to pretend that the hum was an engine, that the confines of the rink were a ship travelling through space, something vast and untouchable and completely separate from the outside world. He’d lie on the ice after bag skates that made him throw up and think - I will earn this. I will earn my path through the universe. If this is the price, I will pay it. It wasn’t until he came to Boston that he’d realised he’d been Laika - trusting, ripped from the only world he’d even known and sent to burn up, alone, in the dark, to foster someone else’s growth. Nobody gives a shit about him, just the results he produces. Just the fame, the money, the status. Maybe they’d put a statue honouring him in Moscow one day. Maybe one day the only people who would remember him would be those who liked cautionary tales about strays - how trust and hubris, became whether the ends justified the means. He knows it’s not a fair thought, there are people all over this building who cares about him, Sveta loves him. He isn’t dying alone. But every so often he feels like Laika was the lucky one all the same.

By the time he’s stopped by the GM’s office, swung by to pester his coach, and childishly tiptoed through the abandoned media lounge pretending he’s a cat burglar, he’s almost late for practise. Marcus, the GM, isn’t in this week, he’s in Tampa preparing for the upcoming Head Honcho’s meeting during the All Stars game that Ilya has been trying very hard to forget about. Instead of pausing to chat like he normally would, he leaves his little bag - sans perishables - on the desk in the empty office as a welcome home. Coach gets double snacks instead because he puts up with more than he really should.

It’s nice to be back. He feels lighter after his time with Sveta, like he’s found an equilibrium he’d lost somewhere along the way. He can feel it, the way his stride has a bounce in it as he eats up the path from the front office to the locker room, and the whimsy that invades his urge for mischief today. He slept well, he feels alive for the first time in ages. So obviously, he kicks through the locker room door and struts straight in to fucking Hell.

“What the fuck is happening here?!” It’s not often that Ilya has cause to yell at his team - but Jace Durant sitting in his cubby with his knees tucked up to his chin sobbing, and surrounded by a milling pile of shoulders, is shaping up to be his best opportunity yet. The boys are all fluttering around the rookie like startled butterflies, hands up and a furious angry bees murmur of panicked male nonsense spilling out from the huddle. Ilya’s surprised the poor brat can even breathe with all that jersey and idiot blocking the flow of oxygen.

“Roz. Thank fuck man.” That is not what Ilya had expected. Durant - barely scraping nineteen and built like a weeping willow, has no sooner heard his voice than he’s crashing through the crowd of the team and hurtling into Ilya’s arms like a stray puck. “We’ve been trying to tell him-“

“Shut fuck up, Marly.” Ilya snarls. Durant is a bit of an odd duck for Boston - a low-level Draft pick of a Forward that they hadn’t really needed but had chosen anyway. He’s quick, though. Whatever the scouts had seen in him has blossomed like a weed in Boston, and somehow he’d ended up attached to Ilya’s hip like a barnacle. They’ve been skating together for months now; the little Winger isn’t the best skater in the league or the strongest, but he’s by far one of the hardest workers Ilya’s ever met. And he’s clever as a fox when he stops thinking with 150% of his monthly adrenaline allotment. He’s shy, and still a little unsure of his place in all this, just like Ilya had been at seventeen, finding his feet in a new language and a new country.

“Roz.” Because Marlaeu was there for Ilya, and has a bond that can neither be ignored nor silenced by his Captain's aggression, he blunders on, completely immune to the threat in the room and determined to get his point out. “Check the news.”

“How about you tell me, while I decide if any of you need to die today.” This doesn’t look like a fight, or hazing, or whatever the fuck Ilya’s first protective instinct had thought it was, but it still doesn’t make any sense.

Connors. Brave, stupid, kind-hearted, Connors is the one who finally takes his life in his hands and shows Ilya the Instagram post that will change the course of his life. He’s wearing his jersey and socks - no trousers - like he got caught in the crossfire mid-change and somehow his stupid hairy legs being out is what sticks, even when he opens his mouth and says the most unlikely thing Ilya has ever heard.

“Hollanders been caught running out on his boyfriend at a gay bar.” In Ilya’s arms, Jace wrenches in a breath that sounds like it hurts. It must. It punches into Ilya’s gut like a sledgehammer, leaving nothing but fear and rage in its wake. Hollander had a boyfriend? A public boyfriend he takes to gay bars?

“We don’t know he was running out on him!” St Simon chirps from the back - like that could possibly be relevant here.

“We don’t know it’s his boyfriend.”

“In fairness, we don’t know anything.” At least Price seems to have two fucking braincells to rub together Ilya muses, as he scrolls Connor’s phone and tucks Durant a little deeper into his chest. The rook is shaking like a leaf and the concerned over-watch from half the team does nothing to cover the fact they all know why but have absolutely no idea how to help.

“Okay chuckle fucks. Get out on ice. Rook and me have talk, then come fuck you up - yes?”

Getting the team out onto the ice so they can have a moment of silence is one thing, the guys are obedient and fast and soon enough it’s just Ilya and his rookie standing in the middle of an offensively loud bumblebee black and yellow locker room that smells a bit too much like cedar. Calming Durant down from his panic attack proves to be entirely another. The kid's obviously queer, his little crush on Ilya and his bigger crush on that little Draft prospect everyone is talking about has flourished in the relatively safe haven of Bostons locker room. He hasn’t told anybody outright, nobody that Ilya knows in the NHL has, but he’s nineteen, he’s not Jason Bourne.

“Okay Malysh, is just me, is okay. Not so scary now without Connor’s hairy legs out, no?” Fuck, it hurts. He’s there again. Barely old enough to know his own mind and sobbing his heart out because of this thing inside him that can’t be changed. He can see Sasha now, twenty months - an entire lifetime of maturity - ahead of him, whispering to him in soft Russian that it will be okay. He won’t tell. He didn’t mean to kiss him. ‘We have the same secret, yes? It’s okay Ilya. No need to be afraid.’ He’d been fourteen and so sure that this ferocious thing that hurt was love. It takes effort to shake off the memory, shrug off the grip of thin fingers bruising his arms, and find the Jace standing in front of him instead of the Sasha. This isn’t the same. He is not his past. “Is okay Rook. You are safe. Just your Captain and team here. You are safe here.” Slowly, whether it’s the hug or the constant reassurances, or the fact nothing seems to be immediately falling apart, the kid in his arms stops crying. Someone must have told coach that there’s shit going down because no one has blundered into the locker room muttering about optional skate and non-optional home times, but they can’t stay here forever either. “Is okay. We sit for a while, yes? Just sit.”

“I’m gay.” It’s painfully tiny. Barely a whimper above the pervasive hum of the refrigeration units under the rink, but it’s all he needs.

“You know, I thought maybe you were just secret Hollander love child? Embarrassed that new daddy is gold digger.” Miraculously it works. Durant takes it as intended and snorts out an ugly, snotty laugh that has him blushing scarlet and bouncing away to wipe his nose and scrub at his face.

“God, Roz, you’re such a twat.” There’s so much affection in the kids voice Ilya can’t help but reach out and scruff him back into a headlock, he needs this too, this affirmation of the affection between him and his team, him and his rookie, scrubbing his knuckles through his hair until Durant yelps and fights out of his grip puffed up like a cat. “I hate you. I don’t know why I told you.”

“Because I am spectacular, obviously! And team will be spectacular too. This first time you tell someone?” Ilya’s been thinking about this for two years, and his entire career; whether this group of people he’s curated into a blade is safe with his own secret. The rook shakes his head, offering a small smirk that says ‘You’re not that special old man.’ so Ilya lets it go. He knows the guys will be good, he can’t tell his own secrets, can’t risk idiot men letting something slip through affection if not malice. Hasn’t tolerated malice in his room since he took the C: Sveta had helped there too, helping him shift out a goalie who’d been so old and knock-kneed and racist that Ilya was going to lose his Visa for murder. He knows that the wide, adoring hope in Durant’s eyes is something his younger self had needed and never had. Won’t let it be something this kid ever has to suffer if he can help it. “This is good team. I have made it good team. Good coach. Good management. Good PR. You know this.”

“The league-“

“Fuck the league.” Ilya groans, he’s so fucking tired of the league. It’s in no way lost on him that he is endeavouring to become the person he needed when he was this age, maybe the person he still needs now, but he can’t deny he’s also suddenly just too fucking old and tired and hurting to give a shit. This kid has something special in him, and the league can eat his ass if they think he’ll watch it crushed. “I not say coming out is best idea right now - maybe after Captain Paparazzi has been little forgotten, if you want, we figure out maybe - but here, in this room, on this ice. Is all good, Malysh.”

And it is. After they’ve kitted up and been welcomed back into the thrum of bodies with back slaps and a thorough investigation of the social media hell-storm that’s wracking up on Twitter.

🏒 💻 🏒

Harris Drover was a lot of things the average NHL front office wasn’t generally particularly fond of: too fat, too hairy, too loud, too gay, but too stupid had definitely never been one of them. So when he wanders in to the rink that morning and feels the stutter in the expected rhythm of his day - he puckers his butt and heads for his office to figure out what has caused the disturbance in The Force, already knowing that today will be a Very Long Day.

Despite his Spidey senses tingling, it starts off well enough. It’s the 14th, and with no game scheduled there’s optional skate instead as per adopted Russian tradition, so of course he finds his customary Christmas clementine in a little recycled Prada gift bag along with an aluminium tin of assorted treats he neither recognises nor feels any real desire to eat. He loves sweet things, but Roz’s Christmas offerings always come loaded with ginger, and Harris isn’t afraid to say that he’d rather eat his own feet than suffer through that. Price or Marleau will eat them, disgusting degenerates.

Roz, despite being very aware that Harris hates ginger in all its surly forms, will continue to gift them because he is generous with his traditions, but he’s still an asshole and this is still his tradition - where chocolate and hazelnut praline play absolutely no part. They’ve had the discussion before. Harris is pretty sure he can get Ilya to cave to chocolate orange as a compromise eventually, but currently the Cold War of Sweet Treats is an ongoing conflict Harris is definitely losing.

There’s also a little Russian coin, his fourth, one for every Russian Christmas he’s been with the Raiders. He’d gotten his first one, and a stern talking to about why his spice preferences were irrelevant, not three weeks in to his new position - he’d also gotten a rich dark latte from the little Russian Cafe down the street because Roz might not care to change Christmas, but he did feel guilty Harris was fielding questions about whether or not the team had been doing coke in Ultraviolet last night. Harris figures you win some, you lose some when you work with stinking rich hockey boys all day long. The fact they had been snorting margarita salt off the bar on dares like the absolute boneheads they all were did not reduce his workload.

But today is just - today is just rolling all down hill.

Today starts with him making it all the way to his office - and promptly tripping over the raggedy ass skates someone has left abandoned behind his desk like a land mine. The attached PostIt explanation - ’Charity Auction :) ‘ - does not alleviate the military grade idiocy in the slightest.

Today proceeds with spilled coffee that somehow ends up in Harris’s shoe; a soggy ankle the outlier of a blast zone that extends up the desk, into the drawers and all over his laptop. His poor innocent laptop, which he really, really, needs right now because his Inexplicable Feelings of Doom have been growing arms and legs. In the arena below him, the boys are all tucked together on the ice like schoolgirls, which can only mean much larger trouble than spilled coffee.

Every so often, Harris wishes he’d stayed where he was when he got this job offer. That he’d ignored his ego and his pride and his flattered vanity and told Marcus to Fuck. Off. when he’d slid into his DM’s all those years ago. Knows he wouldn’t have - ever - but still fantasises about it now and then. How peaceful his life could have been if Marcus Right, the Boston Raiders GM, hadn’t hunted him down on an anonymous Instagram account to offer him a job. Harris had been just as surprised as he thinks he deserved to be. Hockey thirst trap editor had not been on his very public Media Manager CV, but Bostons young GM had claimed himself ‘a millennial with a vision’ who needed Harris and his ‘eye for chemistry’ and hired him because of it anyway.

Dredging an old pair of sweats off the back of the office couch, he starts mopping up his breakfast - he’s going to feed those skates to whoever left them there instead of in plain fucking view like a normal human being.

He’s not really sure why the boys in arena giving it their best to form a nest of bodies is setting off his warning systems today - they laugh often enough, and hug it out almost as often - but Ilya’s been a tyrant for months and this kind of open emotion has become thin on the ground recently. They’ve all been worried. Marleau’s been in his office on a biweekly basis bemoaning his Captain's apparent heartbreak, like teenagers, the lot of them. This should be a good thing, the boys bonding together again. It shouldn’t stir dread in his stomach like this.

But Harris had taken to professional management like a duck to water, just as Marcus had said he would, coaching the Raiders media presence into a force to be reckoned with over the years that followed. His boys were a handful, obviously. Between gambling losses, drunk shenanigans and a whole laundry list of hotel room damages - how the fuck did a grown man fall asleep with a Super Bowl size tub of tahini in his bed anyway? - Harris had spent every day since trying to finish his first coffee of the day without someone starting a PR fire. He’d developed a sensitive nose for these things. Or a sensitive stomach, as the case may be. His heaving guts were telling him today was not going to be that day.

“Brilliant start, Drover,” he mutters to absolutely fucking nobody as he mops up and fires his soggy Reeboks at the wall in disgust. “Just… phenomenal start. Ten out of ten on the execution.”

When he glances down into the arena again, Price, in the infinite wisdom that only comes with age, is tucked out of danger on the bench - still staring at his phone with a suspicious amount of interest - and minding his business. The same cannot be said for the rest of the pack.

There below him, clear as day and guilty as school boys Harris can see them - Cliff, looking like the lanky giant he is looming over them all; Durant, still hesitant of his place in the group but somehow front and centre; Hammersmith and St Simon stumbling around as they playfully push each other about over whatever this newest drama is… and Connors because it’s always bloody Connors with the phone in hand when shit hits the fan, gesturing wildly at Ilya. Ilya, who has a scowl, furrowed between his brows so deep it might actually stick like that. Ilya, who Harris has learned to trust and sort of read. Ilya, who is Not Happy.

Undoubtedly something interesting is happening, and Harris’s beloved link to the outside world is currently mainlining Dunkin’s.

The first headline comes with the cold wash of shock that only happens when something truly unfathomable has occurred. It’s not… world ending. Or it is, but not in the way he expected, considering how the boys are cracking up a storm on the ice now that they’ve shattered back into drills. The headline news is obvious enough after a quick google - god Harris hates working from his phone - but it’s no less surprising for its many many different renditions throughout the wider scope of social media.

‘Homophobic Hollander? Shane Hollander Flees Gay Bar in Greenwich Village.’

'Canada’s Golden Boy in Gold Digger Drama?’

'Gold Digger Swift Picks Wrong Pocket’

'Hollander Spotted Running From NYC Queer Hotspot’

'Shane Hollander and Disgraced Olympic Ski Protégé Caught in Confrontation?’

They’re endless… hundreds of articles debating whether Hollander ran out of a gay bar like his ass was on fire because he was breaking up with his secret hookup, his broken-hearted gold digger boyfriend, or because he’s a such a raging homophobe he had a panic attack at the sight of a real life gay man.

None make a lick of sense.

For one, Shane Hollander is Straight, with a capital S, he’d bet his painfully single ass on it.

Harris has been obsessed with hockey since Hollander was still in peewee’s. He’s managed his professional side of the Greatest Rivalry Known to Man for four years. He’s probably more familiar with Hollanders public life than Hollander is. You don’t spend a decade of your life reviewing footage frame by frame for the perfect music edit without learning a thing or two about the subject matter.

The only person Harris knows better than Hollander is Ilya, and only because he’s had the pleasure of having to bottle up his raging parasocial tendencies to get to know the real asshole beneath, which puts Ilya just above Hollander - and Jensen Ackles - in the list of people Harris knows Way Too Much about. He’s been raking in hundreds of millions of views on footage of Shane Hollander since the Draft, and the man is so straight coded it’s actually impressive the laws of physics even let him in to a gay bar. Shouldn’t there have been some sort of anti-magnetism at work? Shouldn’t he have bounced off the door like a confused but well-meaning bumblebee?

“Dude’s so straight he fumbled Rose fucking Landry - gay affair, my ass.” Because the only thing less likely than Hollander being gay is Hollander having a secret gay relationship with the most infamous twink in winter sports memory.

“Harris?” Startled from his doom-scrolling and the building disgust at the dredging up of ancient history, Harris glances up to find a still scowling Ilya hovering in his doorway like a particularly well-groomed bat.

“Jesus Christ, Roz, warn a man.”

“You have seen news?” It’s unlike Ilya to go straight to the point, he’s usually got something to say about Harris’s old man heart needing the exercise, but right now, he just looks - worried. It’s sweet of him. He’s done this before when Big Gay News broke - checking in.

“Yeah. Come in. Shut the door.” Obedient, in a way he doesn’t normally give for free, the big Russian slinks in and closes the door quietly but firmly behind him, before slumping into the office couch and manspreading all over the floor. He’s still in his gear, but there’s a grim edge hanging around him that’s making him look fifteen years older than he is, and he’s in his socks. Stupid kid. “Where the fuck are your shoes?”

“Forgot them. How bad?”

“Which part?”

“I don’t… are you okay? There will be no - what - fall back? Against the community?” It is an incredibly sweet and thoughtful thing to ask, especially when something larger is obviously hogging his throat, but it’s Ilya all over, pressing his own concerns down to make sure everyone around him is comfortable first.

“That-“ Is not a simple answer. “Is not a simple question.”

“Please? My English-“ his hand is shaking a little when he flags it in the air absently. He is shaking now that Harris looks a little closer, a fine tremble vibrating below the heavy jersey that’s making him look brittle and smaller than he is. Ilya’s English is great - but stress and exhaustion have always robbed him of it, and this feels worse than any of those tired days of the last few months. “My American tsch! Worse.”

“You read the news?”

“Hollander is big secret gay homophobe slut with gold digger twink drama.”

That is… actually probably exactly how Harris would have put it.

“Honestly, that part isn’t that big a deal.” Harris doesn’t bother softening it. Ilya has come with what looks like a lot of questions, but his primary concern is the most complicated. “What happened isn’t a big deal. It’s actually really bloody stupid. But the media…”

“And Montreal.” Shit, Harris hadn’t even thought of Montreal yet. They’re going to flip. “Can you do media thing? Where you lay it out like we are idiots? What is happening - what might happen? What we do? What we must not do? Team is… concerned.” Which means Ilya is concerned. Unbidden, Harris glances down at the ice where Durant is skating distracted loops, still staring at his phone. They haven’t discussed the fact Jace Durant is almost certainly gay, but Ilya had figured Harris out before he’d even opened his mouth or flashed his Pride pin, he’s absolutely no doubt that the ludicrously perceptive Russian has clocked how this might become a bigger issue for the team and their vulnerable rookie. Based on the huddle this morning and how grey Ilya is on the edges - it probably already has.

So Harris slips into work mode and does what he does best - protect his guys.

“Okay. There’s basically two trains of thought at the moment: Hollander found himself in a gay bar and freaked out. Or… Hollander went to a gay bar and… freaked out.”

“Is not true.”

“Well. One of them has to be, but I know what you mean. No. I don’t think so, either. But it doesn’t look good, and I’m struggling to see a third option that makes this all just disappear.”

“It is trending on Twitter.” Probably the understatement of the century. Even Ilya looks depressed at the thought, elbows on his knees and chin propped in his hands like he needs the support. He’s always loved the rivalry, but he’s not the type to take pleasure in someone’s genuine pain unless they’ve really earned it, and even in his heyday of rivalry edits, Harris knows fine well that Hollander hasn’t earned this.

“Montreal are going to have to issue a statement soon. They’re playing right now - Hollander probably hasn’t even seen it yet. They… don’t have a lot of options to let this just play out until after the game for a statement. It’s a bloodbath already.”

“Can you tell me options? What you would do?” Harris snorts.

“Montreal is old school. They would not do what I would do.” Kicking the skates that are somehow still in his flight path out of the way, Harris traipses over to the mini fridge in the corner. “You want a Coke? Here. Yeah, so Montreal - they’re not going to like this. If it were you in this absolute pig sty, I’d just submit an asylum claim and post some pro-queer charities until the storm blows over but-“

“My visa?” Surprised by the knife sharp interruption, he glances up to find Ilya staring at him with those pale eyes and a dark frown.

“Yeah. If somebody thought you were gay or homophobic, I feel we’re not running with homophobic - yeah?”

“I am not homophobic.” He scowls, as if Harris - who Ilya has lunch with once a week and pesters endlessly for visitation rights for access to his dog - is actually accusing him of it. “Or gay.” He tacks on belatedly.

“Obviously.” He frowns back, thrown and starting to really pay attention. The Coke in his hand is cold and grounding, the burst of sugar on his tongue calming. Ilya is not calm. Ilya is sitting on the edge of his couch, with his stupid legs halfway across the office, in his stupid dirty socks - very much not calm. “Roz, I need you to like - not freak out when I ask this, okay? I know you’re not homophobic. Obviously. You’re one of my best friends here. But is there something… is there something else going on here that I need to know about?” Did you fuck Kyle fucking Swift? Am I going to have to start writing asylum requests? “Do I need to start worrying about a tell-all from Swift?” Instantly, Ilya frosts over, the concern bleeding from his eyes to be replaced with that staunch Slavic impassivity that he uses on the ice. He hasn’t just shut down, he’s completely retreated behind the Captain's mask. This is the Ilya Harris accidentally asked about his family in twenty-fifteen.

“No. I have never met other guy. Am concerned about team.” Durant isn’t out. Durant isn’t very important. Durant isn’t currently trending Top 3 on Twitter. Ilya says he has never met Swift. Oh, shit. Do not pass go. Do not ask further questions.

“Okay.” He really needs new words. “Okay. Let’s workshop this. I’ll need to call the team and Marcus later, you might as well help me do the leg work.”

“I am not good with-“

“No, no,” flapping at him, god he needs to get a grip. “Just sit there and look pretty. You’re good at that.” Finally, Ilya cracks, a soft little smile curling one edge of his mouth.

“Okay. That I can do.”

They break it down from there. Not a single shoe between them.

“Version one: Hollander walks into a gay bar, realises where he is and books it like a racehorse. Internet thinks - fan-dabby-dozzy - we caught ourselves a homophobe.” Ilya’s mouthing ‘fan-dabby-dozzy’ with a little pout of bafflement, but he’s nodding as if this thought had occurred to him too. Which it almost certainly has, Roz might not be media trained as such, but he is media literate in a way that genuinely sometimes terrifies Harris and his team, when the little shit uses it to his advantage.

“Is not true, but I see a lot of this, yes.” Ignoring that erroneous little titbit, Harris plunges on, drawing emotional support from his half can of Coke in the face of what is shaping up to be… bigger than he is qualified for.

“Version two: secret gay affair. Dramatic breakup. Hollander ran out because he’s heartbroken and fragile and possibly listening to Adele in an Uber somewhere.” And isn’t that interesting now Harris is watching for it; the way Ilya’s whole body shudders like he tried to stand and caught himself just before his body went into action. It creates an odd rolling flinch that ends in scrunched toes, and a brief flash of the most devastated expression Harris has ever seen on the man. There’s something much larger going on here than Hollanders media troubles.

“Version three, if I had to guess; he wandered in, got spooked by Swift and bolted when he realised what it would mean if the public got wind. That’s the angle I’d run if I were his manager. Avoid drawing attention to Swift and avoid being accused of exactly everything he is currently being accused of.” Bingo.

“Swift?”

“You’ve heard of him, I imagine.”

Every winter sports enthusiast in the past two decades has heard of Kyle Swift, the Olympic ski protégé who’d roared on to the slopes at thirteen with a career trajectory that Red Bull were surely following. How the kid had been made the face of the Vermont tourist board before he could drive; how they’d mentioned the Olympics before he’d been old enough to sign his own contracts; how he’d been the new shiny Vermont advertising campaign before- Before.

Before he’d been caught fucking his boss, his much older, much richer, very much married boss - whose wife had just happened to be such a raging homophobe that she hadn’t just divorced her husband and taken everything, she’d also torn apart the life of the barely legal kid twenty-two years his junior in the process.

It had been a media frenzy in the queer community - the comments had been a war zone for months - a vulnerable young man taken advantage of by a powerful and influential figure; and the twink who’d thrown away his career to seduce a married man twice his age. It had all erupted around the same time Harris had been debating whether or not he wanted to move to Boston for a job offer that was too good to be true. Swift was still the queer benchmark for why coming out in sports was #JustNotDone. He’d disappeared. Abandoned his career, uprooted his life, and vanished off the face of the Earth. Apparently, to New York. To barkeep. And cause international incidents in the hockey community.

“Skier yes?” Ilya muses, some of the tension seeping out of him. “Got caught fucking some old guy and ran away.”

“Abused and groomed by a man he loved, disowned by his family, kicked out of his home town, and disgraced from his very promising career.” Harris clarifies, frowning so the severity sinks in. Ilya, in true Slavic fashion, just nods and finally cracks his Coke as if all this very important context is entirely irrelevant.

“Okay. So what does it mean?”

“Hollanders fucked.” He doesn’t pull the punch, never has. Ilya knows him well enough to have come here asking questions, and if Harris is even vaguely right about this… he deserves to know the full extent of what is happening here before it catches him in the crossfire and sets his life on fire. What the fuck was Hollander thinking?

“Cannot be that big a deal, surely. Running out of bar.”

“If it were you, it wouldn’t be. If it was Cliff, or Connor’s, or Durant - I could smooth this over in five minutes. Say you needed to shit really bad and you’re weird about public toilets. You all do enough weird fucking shit that this wouldn’t even be in the news, Roz. You literally had a scrap with a drag queen like - eight months ago, in the street.”

“Eh! Was not scrap! Was tussle! She left glittery scratched ass print all over hood of Pagani Harris. Was not my fault!”

“Sequins. Sequins ass print - you still can’t call a drag queen a ‘fat ass’ in public, Roz. Or at all for that matter.”

“Had very fat ass. Tried to tell me was her car like custom neon green matched her pants suit. Not my fault!”

“Moving on…” Ignoring the sullen throwing of hands on the couch, he wrestles himself back to topic before he gets another Ilya Rozanov rant and distraction thrown at him. “Listen, Boston is a circus. Marcus knows you all, loves you all, and we lean in to the madness. It’s also horrendously, unavoidably queer. But Montreal-“ Ilya is already nodding, his pursed frown speaking magnitudes. “Montreal are going to fuck this up. They’re not built for this. Between the legacy narrative and the Prince of Hockey mantra, they’ve been pushing forever… either they’ve got a homophobic golden boy or they’ve just outed their star player.”

And that’s it. The facts. The absolute, devastating truth of the matter. Because while something like this would fly for any one of the Boston boys without much ruffle, and wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow in Toronto or Ohio, this… Shane Hollander, the NHL’s golden goose, homophobic or gay, Harris honestly isn’t sure which is worse.

“Outed? You think-“

“I don’t think the guy I spent ten years editing is an asshole. That’s what I think.”

“They could bury it.”

“Oh they could try,” Harris nods, that’s what he would do, grass someone else in for something embarrassing but ultimately harmless and take the heat off until it settled, but Boston is a storm, they’re accustomed to weathering waves - and Montreal… isn’t. “They won’t be able to though. There’s no good angle here - if they ignore it the media will paint Hollander an asshole like Kent within the week. If they challenge it… they’re backing either a homophobe or a queer.” Neither of which Theriault will want, but one at least will be manageable. “And if - hypothetically- they came out supporting the LGBTQ+ side? Well. Congratulations. Now you’ve got every dinosaur in the league clutching their pearls and asking when the Vatican of hockey got political.”

Ilya’s mouth tightens as he rubs his nose and sniffs a little, thinking very hard and obviously not liking his conclusions.

“There is no way out?”

“Ilya - can I - I know I said - look, just, nothing leaves this room, okay? Nothing. On my job and on our friendship, I swear to god. But is there anything - anything - about this situation with Hollander that’s going to come back and bite me in the ass?”

Yes. Yes, there is. Because Ilya doesn’t react at all, doesn’t tense up; doesn’t flinch; doesn’t laugh, just rolls his head in his hands to send Harris the most languid look of disinterest anyone in the history of hockey has ever mustered, ponders for a second then says “Nyet.” like it costs him something.

“Fuck.”

“I said no.”

“You hesitated.”

“Is nothing to come back on Boston.” Ilya says again, and Harris hears him very clearly. On Boston.

“Okay. We’re just going to - assume that’s accurate.” Harris is going to throw up. “Bostons angle - we stay out of it. I mean it, Roz, we cannot get caught up in this. I’ll talk to management, but you cannot be caught up in this.” Because Harris has watched more tape on these two idiots than anyone else alive, and he’s seeing it in fifty-six new shades of light. You don’t spend years cutting footage, years watching every angle, every expression, every offhand interaction, without building a mental profile so detailed it borders on invasive. Harris has made a career out of reading people through a screen, out of understanding what sells and why, and Shane Hollander has never, not once, pinged outside the neat little box the media, and Montreal, have built for him. But Ilya is flashing warning signs like the Fourth of July, and Harris only knows one of them well enough to judge first hand. Shane Hollanders insurmountable branding has finally suffered a wound, and Ilya Rozanov is bleeding all over Harris’s couch about it.

“If you say anything about this, a post, a comment, a like, they’ll make it about the rivalry. They’ll make it about both of you. And they will find it. You are Switzerland. You are Jon Snow. You know nothing and you wish everyone well. You know you can’t be seen supporting this, Russia will flip.”

“There is nothing to find.” Harris might be reeling, but he is not stupid. He’s stumbled into something that is either going to define his career or fucking destroy it, regardless of Ilya’s perfect mask. There is no wiggle room for secrets and bullshit here.

“This is the NHL’s worst nightmare, Ilya. They’ve spent decades trying to make sure something like this never happens, and now Hollander is in the middle of it. They don’t want gay players. They don’t even want fucking Pride tape. And now the biggest name-“

“Hey!”

“- in NHL history is trending alongside ‘gay bar’ and ‘homophobic’ and ‘secret relationship’ and everyone is going to want to pick a side.”

“He just ran out of bar Harris.” It’s pitiful, that such a sad sound can come out of one of the most vibrant people Harris knows. It’s not right that the world should be crushing someone as full of life as Ilya below its boot, but the last few months are suddenly beginning to make a lot more sense than Harris wants to think about right now.

Ilya’s swan dive into violence on the ice. His abject misery off it. The months of suicide drills and bag skates the team have been weathering since Rose Landry appeared in their peripherals. Years and years and years of glances and board checks and the spark in an eye that you begin to think you’ve imagined. Too many hours staring at a screen. Five years ago, Harris would have been frothing at the mouth finding this out. He’d be in the comments screaming at randomers about gay rights and privacy and progress in the sport. He’d be making fan art. Now, with one of his best friends in front of him suffering - even indirectly - from the consequences of those actions; he just feels sick. Because Ilya cannot fall foul of Russia over Hollander; his dad is dying, he needs to be able to go home.

“Yeah. He did. And running just slaughtered his career.”

Because, as it turns out, the only thing less likely than Hollander having a secret gay relationship with the most infamous twink in winter sports memory - is Hollander having a secret gay relationship with the most infamous playboy in winters sports memory.

🏒 🏆 🏒

By the time Ilya makes it back to his locker everyone has cleared out, and he feels like he’s walking through fog. The group chat is popping off with support for Durant in his coming out to the team, but even the proof in black and white that his guys are some of the good ones just makes him feel sick. Because they’re so small. Realistically, he knows that not everyone in the league is a massive dick, but it’s all or none when the cost of mistaken identity is your future. He’s worked hard on this room, erasing even passing racist and misogynistic language from the team. It still slips in, so does the odd bit of homophobia, but it’s never barbed with intend, readily retracted when it lands wrong. They’re good people who call each other twat, and pussy, and dickhead, and slut, but it’s flavoured with affection and it tastes like it means safety and security and acceptance. It’s the type of banter and chirping that creates a family without demonising a culture. Ilya didn’t have that, he had Sveta, who would rip out a man’s lungs for challenging her, and Sasha, who could tear apart a life with only the edge of his tongue. Ilya had his hands in his pockets and a snarl on his lips and fear in his heart - and now he’s here, playing guard dog to the next generation when he can’t even make the man he loves feel safe in his arms. He’s pathetic. Pretending. He’s going to let them all down.

Launching his skates across the locker room happens before he even realises they’re in his hands - the cacophony of five grand scattering across the Raiders logo completely at odds with the relief he should be feeling right now. His skin feels too tight.

The spins hit him second, dizzying spirals that take his legs out from under him and leave him gasping on the bench. Harris knows.

Ilya adores Harris. Chiron, his dog, is possibly the only consistent point of light in his life this winter, but the man is too clever for his own good, and he knows Ilya too well. He’s gotten sloppy, given something away, should have told him about Durant, should have just pushed he was worried about their rookie.

StupidStupidStupid

And now that there is nothing to know is when he slips up. He knows it could be worse, could be someone who isn’t bound by several metric tonnes of confidentiality agreements, could be someone from the league, but it doesn’t stop his ribs trying to close down on his lungs.

For a second, his vision swims, greying at the edges and cycling through a sickening whorl of white noise and a burst of static so loud it wipes out everything else. He’s going to be sick.

He needs Sveta.

Fumbling for his phone is an exercise in memory over dexterity, his fingers are numb, and he can’t really read the names in his phone book when he’s this stressed out - hates that it isn’t Cyrillic, hates that Russian feels so far away from him even here, where everyone worth talking to - coaches, team, managers, social media - only communicate in English. Sveta will answer him in Russian. Sveta will know how to help.

“Ilyusha?” He’s so fucking embarrassed when the first sound that rips out of him is a sob.

“Sveta.”

“Are you safe? Are you hurt?”

“Da. I am just… freaking out.”

“Oh Ilya.”

“Is all falling apart Sveta. He ran away and now is all falling apart. I don’t know what to-”

“Breathe Ilya. With me.”

It helps. She’s obviously at the office, he can hear men in the background and the familiar buzz of the salesroom, all a soundtrack he’s overheard a thousand times. She won’t go somewhere private, not his perfectly composed Sveta who is surrounded by stupid Americans and obscenely expensive cars and who has never broken her composure in the entirety of her three decades. Making sense of his shit down the phone is just another Tuesday for her.

“You saw the news?” When he finally blurts it out, he wants to slap himself silly - of course she saw the fucking news. It’s everywhere. She probably knew before Twitter.

“Has someone said something to you?!”

“No, no Sveta. I am not entirely fucking stupid. I was careful. There is nothing to connect me to Hollander. Not any more.”

“It would take a lot of pressure off him to drag you in to this, Ilya… Russia… If he throws you under the bus…”

“I love you very much, Sveta. But you will not say things like that about him again. He would never. I know you think he is the world's worst piece of shit right now, but he is… he is a good man, Svetlana. Whatever else happened between us, I promise, he will not bring me into it.”

“I trust you.” She might trust him, but she certainly doesn’t sound like she believes him. “You need to stay away from this Ilyusha. Far away. I know you support where you can, charities, donations, GoFundMe, but you can’t risk it with this. Russia would- well, I think it’s best we never find out, yes?”

“My visa.”

“I’m glad your first worry is your visa and not your life.” she growls.

“Ah but you would marry me no?” This is safer, this is what he needed, Russian, and biting nips to help him rebuild his walls. He’s sweated up a storm in his leftover gear, and his skates are probably a write-off, but he’s breathing again. “Give me fancy American passport and make me beautiful trophy husband.”

“Always and forever Ilya.” she recited dutifully, voice thick with warmth and good humour. Of course that moment of stability is when she chooses to stick the knife in. “I am coming with you to the All Stars.”

“Nyet. Eh. No, the fuck you are not. What the fuck Sveta?” Ilya has Things To Do at the All Stars. He has Captain Gay Bar to hunt and butcher.

“I will not letting you go in there and ruin your life over some fuck ass Canadian moron, Ilyusha!”

“You think I’m stupid enough-”

“I think you are in love,” and it board-checks him like a fright train, the vitriol in her voice. “I think you are in love, and your heart is bleeding, and that with one smile, you will crawl back to his heels so he can hit you again. He does not deserve you, Ilya. And I will not let you throw away everything you worked for. I’m coming.”

“I do not need a handler, Sveta.”

“Then I will come as your girlfriend.” She smirks, the catty rage evident in her tone. “And then no one can say anything about the obsessed star crossed hockey rivals.”

“Sveta-”

“I booked the flights four hours ago Ilya, Marcus has already texted to see if I’ll go over his speech before the budget meeting - they’ve called a full closed door for all the GM’s to meet with the Commissioner already. This isn’t going away. You cannot get involved in this, Ilya. It’s so much bigger than you realise yet.”

“Okay. Okay. I believe you. I will see you in Tampa.”

“Pack something fun. I love you Ilyusha. Stay off social media. Eat something. Go to Zosia’s. It will be okay. You will be okay.”

For the space of a few breaths, he’s almost convinced he will be, until the bitter little thread of - Karma. Fucking karma Hollander. This is what you get for running. Always running. And now look. - tears through him. There’s a rage bubbling under his skin he doesn’t know how to channel, a vicious, self-destructive thing that makes him want to lose his shit on Twitter and put the bi flag on Facebook. That wants to tell Alexei, and his father, and Russia and the league, who think this is worth a closed door meeting, to go fuck themselves.

Opening his last messages with ‘Jane’ he stares at ‘Here’ and tries not to shatter across the tiles. Hysterically, he giggles instead. He’s done everything right. He’s stayed away from the man he’s in love with, he’s played the best season of his life, he’s given everything for this, for the win, and it’s all falling apart anyway. Shane is not here, Shane will never be here.

But Ilya has this nonetheless; a team that love and support him, Sveta, who will rearrange the world to protect him, and this… this room… in its garish black and yellow, where he is king and Hollander is nothing but politics.

Shane might have taken his walls and his defences, but he can’t touch Ilya here in his throne room, on his ice, on his foundation.

Chapter End Notes

Editing? Never met them…. Any understanding of hockey legalities? Absolutely none. Suspend your disbelief. I’ve not got spoons to figure out hockey law AND write boys in media agony.

Please point out any mistakes, errors or inconsistencies! I have raging ADHD and a perfectionist soul - the errors are abundant! The perfection less so!

I stole Harris. Sorry Ottawa. I’ll write about Happy Ottawa Team Family in another fic, right now I just needed a media manager and it couldn’t be anyone else.