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, Kip Grady (unnamed cameo), Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau (background), Svetlana Vetrova (mentioned), Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, MLH | Major League Hockey

Additional Tags:

Situationship Era, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, AU - Mysterious Alternate Universe, Forced Proximity, There Was Only One Bed, Falling In Love, Attempt at a 2012 Period Piece, Trying to Solve a Mystery Together, Morning Sex, Road Trip, The Relief of No Longer Being Seen, Sex in a Car, Unconventional first dates, Shane Hollander's Personal Apocalypse, sexuality realization, Way Too Many Hockey Metaphors and Allusions, Dancing in Public as an Expression of Love, Clothes Folding as an Expression of Love, hickeys and marks, Intercrural Sex, First Time Bottoming, Anal Sex, Feelings and Fucking, Hockeypocalypse, Boyfriends, And They Were Swans, Relationship Reveal, Coming Out, Magical Realism, Ilya Rozanov Loves Boston

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-05 Completed: 2026-05-11 Words: 27,456 Chapters: 7/7

All Alone In Our Own Universe

Summary

When Shane Hollander wakes up in a world that never invented hockey, the only other person who remembers is Ilya Rozanov.

(Set in August 2012 – a year and a half after their last hookup, during the flirtatious-texts montage.)

Notes

Chapter 1: Day One

Chapter Notes

Shane Hollander woke up in a bed that was not his own.

This happened fairly frequently, of course, on road trips. But there was no familiar whuffle of Hayden’s snoring in the next bed over, and the season hadn’t started yet. Shane sat up, confused in a bleary pre-dawn way.

Definitely not his bed. He was in a tiny bedroom, sleeping in a bed that was far too small. There was a desk tucked into the corner, and bookshelves mounted above it filled with books. A painting of Montreal from Mont Royal Park hung on the wall, so he was probably still in the city. He had absolutely no memory of this room.

Blinking, his mind still sluggish from sleep, Shane grabbed his phone from the nightstand. Had he gone home with someone? Had he been drinking? Why couldn’t he remember last night? And if he had gone home with someone, where was she?

(Even without memories of the previous night, Shane knew that his mysterious hookup wouldn’t have been a guy. There had only been one male hookup in his life thus far, and he was an asshole who didn’t live in Montreal. He was probably still at home for the summer.)

Shane’s phone told him helpfully that today was August 28th, 2012. His calendar app told him that he had breakfast planned with Audrey at 9 at Pikolo. It was 6:30 now, the sunrise just starting to filter in, so he had time for a run and shower before he left.

Except Shane had no fucking clue who Audrey was.

He shook his head, trying to clear the morning cobwebs. He must have drunk too much last night. He’d never lost memories before. That was scary. Was Audrey his hookup? Did they already make plans? Why was he in her bedroom alone?

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he looked down at himself and frowned. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, but it was a McGill shirt. A man’s shirt. His dad would occasionally wear one of those, but Shane had never owned one. Panic started to curl deep in his belly. Did he get drunk enough to go home with a guy last night, a McGill student who gave him clothes to sleep in? What had they done to each other? And where was he now?

Shane closed his eyes, centering his breathing. He would find his clothes, get dressed, and leave this building. He’d figure out where he was, go back to his apartment, and never drink again.

Fifteen minutes later, he had let himself out of the building. He hadn’t been able to find his clothes, so with mental apologies to his absent hookup, he’d stolen a t-shirt and a basic pair of jeans. (Luckily the guy must have been about the same size.) His mouth felt gross, but there hadn’t been a spare toothbrush in the bathroom, and he certainly wasn’t using the one in the cup on the sink. Whatever he’d done with the guy, it didn’t extend to sharing his toothbrush. He’d thought about leaving some money to cover his clothing theft, but the last thing he needed was some student saying Shane Hollander paid him to have sex with him. (Not that the free kind would be much better.)

Once he was outside, the fresh air helped a little. He’d be home soon. He could do this.

And that was when Shane looked up and saw the billboard.

Rozanov looked dangerously beautiful. Beautifully dangerous? His eyes sought Shane’s from the billboard and held them as magnetically as the real ones did. The tiniest of smirks pulled at the corners of his mouth, and he looked like he would throw you on a bed and crawl over you and make you forget your name. In his Calvins.

Shane couldn’t remember this ad campaign. Even if he’d missed it somehow, surely his mom, with her annoyance at all things Rozanov, wouldn’t have failed to tell him all about the fact that there were billboards in Montreal with Rozanov in his underwear?

Swallowing to help a suddenly dry mouth, Shane pulled out his phone and googled “rozanov calvin klein 2012”.

The results gave him vertigo. He sat down, right there on the sidewalk. Something in his brain was screaming at him about dirt, but it was crowded out by the rest of the internal screaming.

Because the Internet was calmly telling him that Ilya Rozanov was a supermodel, and his Wikipedia didn’t mention hockey one time.

Shane scrolled through the pictures of Rozanov’s work. He didn’t know anything about supermodels, but the pictures were impressive. He looked – expensive, and so flamingly, righteously, soul-destroyingly hot that Shane’s mouth would have been physically watering, if it hadn’t been for his brain shrieking so loudly he could barely think.

As if puppeteered by some external force, his fingers googled his own name.

There were no results about hockey for him either. There were barely any results at all.

Except – here was a picture of a younger him in an ill-fitting suit, holding up a certificate, flanked by his parents. The caption said that Shane Hollander had won some academic award of excellence, and would be attending McGill University in fall 2009 to study architecture.

Shane’s brain was roaring. With numb fingers, he googled “major league hockey”.

There were no results.

He googled “hockey”.

No results.

Five minutes later, Shane sat on a sidewalk in front of what was apparently his own apartment with his own textbooks and his own bed and his own clothing in the closet, and faced the fact that he had woken up in a world that had never invented hockey.

Shane went back inside. He went back to his room and sat at his desk.

There was no Metros groupchat on his phone. When he pulled up his contacts, there was no Hayden, no JJ, no Mitty, no Andy, none of his teammates.

He called his mom and stumbled through an awkward conversation with her about how he was doing (fine) and how his thesis plans were going (good). He tried to figure out a way to ask her if he’d ever been interested in sports when he was younger, but couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound extremely strange. She told him not to forget to go to his professors’ office hours and the department’s weekly coffees, saying it was never too early to build networking connections.

After he hung up, he stared into space for a while. Maybe this was all just a dream.

And then he finally did what he’d wanted to do as soon as he saw the billboard. He pulled up his messages and scrolled down, looking for Lily.

They hadn’t texted in months, not since Rozanov had gone back to Russia for the summer. The last message from Rozanov, which Shane had not read so many times that it was burned onto his memory, had been during the playoffs, when he’d been chirping Shane about the Metros not making it. It had been a year and a half since the last time they’d hooked up, since Rozanov had laid on Shane in a bed at the All Star Game and asked to fuck him, since they’d made plans for next time and then Rozanov had put a finger in him and driven him wild, making Shane come so hard he saw stars.

Shane abruptly couldn’t bear that there was a Rozanov somewhere in this bizarre world who wouldn’t know him, who would look past him without a single blink.

But wait.

There it was. The message thread, far down the list. Everyone else from hockey was gone, but there was Lily, in cold black and white. There were the messages, exactly the same.

Shane hit the call button before he could talk himself out of it.

He probably wouldn’t pick up, he probably didn’t remember, it probably didn’t mean anything that the messages were still there –

“Hello? Who is this? How did you get this number?”

Shane closed his eyes. Rozanov’s voice was strained, but he obviously had no idea who Shane was. The disappointment was crushing. His last hope, gone.

“Sorry,” he said softly. “I think I have the wrong number.”

And then Rozanov took a great gasping breath, and said, “Hollander.”

“I’m not just going to, what, come to New York.”

“Hollander. This is ridiculous. You want to sit in Montreal and go to boring Canadian school and build buildings? You are only other person who remembers. Come to New York.”

“There has to be somebody else,” Shane said. “We could start a groupchat, have everybody brainstorm what could have happened –”

“What is brainstorm?” Rozanov said, then cut Shane off when he started to speak. “No, is not important. Hollander, there is no everybody. There is us. Scott Hunter is quarterback for stupid American football team. Carter Vaughn won Oscar last year. Marly is a bartender at club in Boston and plays guitar in a band. Guitar!”

If Shane thought about that properly, he was going to hyperventilate. “Don’t you have, like, work?”

Rozanov made an impatient sound. “Keep up, Hollander, I am famous model with many fans and beautiful cheekbones. I call agent and she says no photoshoots this week, rest week before Milan. Come to New York.”

Shane said, “If it’s a rest week, you could come to Montreal.”

He could hear Rozanov moving around on the other side of the phone, and the exasperated hum he made in his throat. “You are student, in tiny apartment. I am rich, in penthouse. My bed is better to fuck in.”

“What – I’m not coming to New York to hook up,” Shane hissed at him. “Fucking hockey is gone, Rozanov! There are more important things happening right now!”

Rozanov laughed. It wasn’t a pleased laugh. “I am famous model. My father and brother think this means men fuck me. I cannot go home in this world. You think I do not think this is important problem?”

“Sorry,” Shane muttered, after a second. “That sounds rough.”

“Come to New York,” Rozanov said. “We fuck, yes, we need it. Good for nerves. Then we make plan. Yes?”

Shane looked around the room at the life that didn’t belong to him. “Okay.”

Rozanov’s penthouse was austere and glamorous. Shane didn’t get a chance to look at it for more than a few seconds before Rozanov had crowded him into a wall and attached his mouth to Shane’s jaw.

“Jesus,” Shane said, bucking against him, wrapping his hands around Rozanov’s shoulders. His body seemed the same as ever. At least that hadn’t changed. Shane couldn’t tell any differences in his own, either, even if the amount of muscle he was carrying was frankly ridiculous for a student without hours to spend in the gym every day.

Somewhat to Shane’s surprise, Rozanov didn’t make any quips. His mouth was too occupied, maybe.

“Hey,” Shane said. “No marks.”

Rozanov bit him, making Shane’s hips arch up, grinding their clothed cocks together. “Nobody cares if boring student has hickey. Stop thinking.”

That had always been hard for Shane. Even without the constant background brain screams of no hockey no hockey no hockey, he was acutely aware that this was the first time in a year and a half that they were going to hook up, and that Rozanov had been begging to fuck his ass for the whole time.

“I just got off an airplane,” he said. He tried to keep his voice even, but wasn’t sure he’d succeeded. His hand had somehow migrated to the back of Rozanov’s head, tangled in his curls, and held him pinned against Shane. “Need to shower.”

“I don’t mind,” Rozanov murmured against Shane’s neck, and dropped to his knees.

After trading blowjobs, and a shower that Shane had desperately needed (Rozanov’s water pressure was incredible), Shane found himself on Rozanov’s couch, turning a ginger ale can around in his hands.

“So,” he said, looking at where Rozanov was leaning against the kitchen island, his arms crossed. “You said we would make a plan.”

Rozanov nodded. “Did anything happen in Montreal?”

“Happen?”

“Anything strange.”

Shane tried to think. “Nothing I remember. I’ve been training with Hayden and JJ, getting ready for the preseason. I have a cologne ad to film next week. Oh, I switched meal services like a month ago – the new one has cleaner bulking meals.”

“Hollander,” Rozanov said. “I do not think your bulking caused hockey to die.”

“Shut up. It’s important to get a lot of different nutrients and not just live on, like, chicken and ground beef.”

“Mmm. McDonald’s for me.”

Shane rolled his eyes and didn’t bother replying.

After a minute, Rozanov uncrossed his arms and came and flopped on the other end of the couch. Somehow he made flopping graceful. “There was nothing in Boston.”

“You didn’t piss off some witch girl you slept with?”

It was rude. But Shane had seen the online gossip about Rozanov. Too many pictures and grainy videos of him dancing at clubs, too many girls talking on Twitter about how cute the two moles right by his cock were and about how much he loved eating pussy.

Rozanov turned his head, leaning it against the back of the couch. His legs were spread and his hand was lying lazily along his thigh, drawing the eye down to his cock. Shane could see the line of it underneath the designer sweatpants he wore. “Hollander. I have something important to tell you.”

Shane swallowed. “What?” God, was it a witch? Rozanov broke some woman’s heart, and Shane lost his lifelong dream?

There was a long pause. Then - “Witches are not real thing.”

Shane was, abruptly, furious. “Oh fuck off. You are such an asshole. I’m trying here, okay? Something killed hockey, and now we’re stuck in this horrible world. And fuck, Rozanov, I came, didn’t I?”

Rozanov looked at him. There was something complicated on his face for a moment, and then it tucked itself away behind his eyes again. “Everybody I fuck is happy about it after. No complaints. Yes?”

“Fuck you.”

Rozanov shrugged, one-shouldered. “I set new PR on run on Friday. My father called on Saturday to talk about playing in KHL if there is lockout. Marly and me hooked up with best friends on Saturday night. Very nice girls.”

“I don’t need to hear about your sex life.”

Rozanov smiled, as if at some private joke. “Ah. But you just said witch cursed hockey because of my dick, yes?”

He was so annoying. Shane could barely focus on this horrifying situation they were caught in, because of how badly he wanted to wipe that stupid smile off his face. “I don’t actually think you killed hockey with your dick. It’s not that powerful.”

There was silence for a couple minutes. They sat there, not looking at each other. There was no hockey game to put on the TV in the background. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed.

Then Rozanov asked, quietly, “What do you think happened?”

Against all odds, it sounded like it had been a genuine question. Rozanov’s face was open, curious, the smile gone. His body language was relaxed, his head tilted towards Shane. His legs were still canted open, his dick on display, but Shane wasn’t sure anymore if he was doing it on purpose. Maybe this was just what Rozanov looked like at home.

Shane shook his head. “I don’t know. Have you ever seen Groundhog Day? Maybe it’s something like that. Maybe we hit some trigger, and now we’ll have to repeat today until we figure out what it was.”

“Maybe we wake up in different worlds every morning. Next time, you will be famous singer and I will be beautiful groupie.”

“I can’t sing,” Shane said, which was not the point.

“I think you sing very good.”

It took Shane a second, because Rozanov had said it with just a little twitch of the lips, instead of a full-blown leer. Then it registered. Shane grabbed a couch pillow and threw it at Rozanov’s head.

Rozanov dropped the pillow to the floor, and stood up in one fluid motion. He looked good standing there. He’d never put on a shirt, and Shane was just a man. He had no defenses against that perfect body, or that air of confidence, or that sinfully talented mouth.

He waited for Rozanov to climb on top of him.

Rozanov stretched, rolling his shoulders. “If we wake up in different world tomorrow, then having panic attack tonight is waste of time. I have boring bulking food.”

“You want to make me dinner?”

“Even in wrong world, we still have to eat, Hollander.”

After dinner, which was largely silent, Rozanov sat back and looked at Shane. “This is New York. There is only one bed. It is big.”

Shane wasn’t sure what he felt about sleeping in the same bed as Rozanov. There was the couch, of course, but he knew Rozanov wasn’t about to take it himself, and Shane didn’t want to face whatever tomorrow would bring after a night of restless, broken sleep.

“I will not touch you, if you don’t want,” Rozanov added, and turned away, taking the dishes to the dishwasher. Shane deliberately didn’t watch him load it. Most people loaded dishwashers incorrectly.

Focus. “It’s okay,” he told Rozanov’s back. “Just – I don’t want to, uh. Not while we’re in the wrong world.”

Rozanov turned, eyebrow raised. “You don’t want me to fuck your ass, or you don’t want to fuck at all?”

Shane was sure his face must be bright red. He swallowed. “We can do other things.”

Again something moved on Rozanov’s face, fleeting and gone. “Okay,” he said. “I will change sheets now.”

Shane’s shoulders unclenched a little. He felt a surge of naked gratitude. It would have been awkward to ask, but it would have itched at his spine all night if he hadn’t. “Thanks.”

Rozanov didn’t say anything, but his mouth turned up the smallest bit at the corner, and something in his eyes shifted. Less sharp.

Then he was turning away to his bedroom, and the moment passed.

They didn’t end up fucking in the bed. Rozanov changed the sheets, and they showered together with the amazing water pressure. Rozanov crowded himself up against Shane’s back and reached around, jerking him off with languid strokes while Shane bit his lip and tried not to ask for more, leaning back against that broad chest, knowing Rozanov wouldn’t let him fall.

In bed, Rozanov pressed himself against Shane’s back again, looping an arm over his ribs. “Sleep, Hollander.”

Shane didn’t think he’d be able to sleep one minute.

“Sleep,” Rozanov repeated. He was warm.

Chapter End Notes

Story title is from "Euphoria" by Loreen (2012).

Chapter 2: Day Two Part One

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya try to solve the mystery of the dead-hockey universe, and start a road trip.

Chapter Notes

Day Two

Shane Hollander woke up in a bed that was not his own.

His face was pillowed on a firm chest, and there was a strong arm around him. Before he remembered about the apocalyptic situation he was currently living in, he almost panicked; but when he pulled back, he saw the face of the man holding him, and the memories rushed back in.

Rozanov looked softer in his sleep. The careful way he held his face had fallen away, and there were no mocking or teasing lines. Just a guy, no older than Shane, his curls messy, and his mouth – well. He had a good mouth. Many people said so. Shane wasn’t the only person who couldn’t keep his eyes off it, who wanted to kiss it and make it tremble.

“Good morning,” Rozanov said, in a low groggy husk. His eyes stayed closed.

“Good morning,” Shane said, and did not kiss his jaw or his mouth or the little crinkle between his eyebrows.

An eye cracked open, but the arm around him didn’t loosen. “New world?”

Shane shrugged. “Maybe you’re an F1 driver.”

The smile was lazy, soft. “Better than hockey.”

“Take that back,” Shane said.

Rozanov kissed him, still smiling, just a brief brush of lips. A greeting. He was still half-asleep.

Shane let the kiss happen. He felt well-rested, like he’d never moved an inch all night. He needed to find out what mattress this was and where Rozanov had bought it.

Rozanov’s knee nudged up into Shane’s groin. “You want?”

They should get their phones and google themselves. There were more important things than rolling around in this warm cocoon like horny teenagers.

“I need to brush my teeth,” Shane said. His hand, caught between their bodies, brushed Rozanov’s dick. It was alive under his hand, hard and twitching. He stroked it through Rozanov’s sweatpants, and watched Rozanov suck in a silent gasp of air.

“I make you a deal,” Rozanov said, unevenly. “No kissing until teeth are clean. But I can put other things in my mouth, yes?”

“Rozanov,” Shane said.

Rozanov pulled their hips together, catching Shane’s hand between them. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

There wasn’t a world in which Shane could have said no to this version of Rozanov: golden in the morning sunrise that came in his windows, sinking down and licking the head of Shane’s cock, looking up at him with a wicked smile on his face and his eyes alight.

“Fuck,” Shane breathed, and put his hand in Rozanov’s curls.

Later, after they were both sated and had brushed their teeth and showered, they looked at their phones.

“Same world,” Rozanov said, thoughtfully. “Not new one every day.”

“Maybe it means something,” Shane said, but he couldn’t think of what that might be.

He had always been a plan person. Once you had a plan, you could focus on each step – work hard, follow through, and make it happen. But how could he make a plan when he couldn’t even think of how or why this was happening to them in the first place? How could he figure out what he had to do to get them back to their world, if he didn’t have the first clue for how to start? His mom was always his best planning partner, but she wasn’t here, and she didn’t even know…

Rozanov put his phone down. “Breakfast,” he said.

Shane was yanked out of his spiraling thoughts. “I usually run before breakfast,” he said.

Rozanov blew a raspberry. “You are morning person. Boring. But yes, we can do this.”

“We need to figure out a plan.”

“Sex. Exercise. Food. Good for brain. Good for plans.” He stretched, then hopped up and went to his dresser. “You have clothes, or you want some?”

“I brought clothes,” Shane said. “But – we can’t go running together.”

Rozanov looked at him. “You are famous in this world? People care that Canadian student has hot model friend?”

Shane hadn’t thought about it that way. It was dizzying. People… really wouldn’t care, would they? Nobody anywhere in New York City was going to recognize him. He could literally make out with Rozanov in the middle of Times Square, and even if Rozanov was recognized, Shane would only be a nameless love interest. “Oh.”

Rozanov’s smile was sudden, but not malicious. “Come on, Hollander. I want to beat you.”

“You’re going down,” Shane said, and felt his own answering grin spread across his face.

“That,” Rozanov said, fake-scowling, hunched over with his hands on his knees, “was a tie.”

Shane laughed at him. The scowl didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

New York scrambled around them, like countless ants. Most people paid no attention to them, apart from detouring around with annoyed looks for partially blocking the sidewalk. Those that did rubberneck were doing it because of Rozanov’s arms, which looked especially unbelievable this morning in his tiny sleeveless shirt. Nobody had shouted Shane’s name across the street, or stopped him to ask for an autograph. Some weight on the back of his shoulders had fallen away, somewhere around mile three.

“Come on,” Shane said. “Buy me a smoothie as forfeit.”

“What is forfeit?” Rozanov said, straightening up and following Shane across the street to the smoothie front he’d spotted.

“Like – a punishment, or a reward for the other person.”

“Ah,” Rozanov said, as they went in. “I give you forfeit later.”

And why did he have to say that in that tone, like all of Shane’s dirty late-night fantasies come to life? Even if nobody here knew them, Shane was flushing red.

“Hello,” he said to the guy behind the counter, who was blinking wide-eyed at them. Shane supposed they were embarrassingly sweaty to be going out in public. “Can I get –” He scanned the menu. “A Midnight in Manhattan, please? And can you add pea protein?”

Rozanov huffed a little laugh behind him. Shane shot him a look over his shoulder.

“Sure,” the smoothie barista said. “Coming right up.”

“Smoothie breakfast instead of real breakfast,” Rozanov said to Shane, putting on a mournful tone, as the barista started pulling together the ingredients. “You are mean to yourself.”

“It has blackberries, avocado, kale, and chia seeds. Those are all good for you, Rozanov.”

“Mm. Many things are good for me.”

Shane was not going to flush again. “Are you getting something or not?”

“Maybe I will get When Hazel Met Strawberry.”

Shane looked at the board. “That’s … Nutella and strawberry? That’s a dessert, not a smoothie.”

“Tastes good, though,” the barista said, and winked at Rozanov.

Rozanov grinned back at him.

Afterwards, as they made their way back to Rozanov’s penthouse, Shane said, “Isn’t that dangerous?”

Rozanov, who had tipped outrageously and was now outrageously licking milkshake-disguised-as-a-smoothie drips off his fingers, said indistinctly, “Not everyone is scared of germs, Hollander.”

“Not – Rozanov. Flirting with the smoothie guy.”

Rozanov shrugged. “Cute gay smoothie boy is not scary.”

Shane’s stomach felt unsettled. Maybe the kale and chia seed combination wasn’t a winner. “But –”

“I didn’t offer to suck his dick. You worry too much.”

Shane looked away.

“And he thought we were together anyway.”

Shane looked back so quickly that his neck didn’t appreciate it. “What?”

Rozanov raised an eyebrow. “Gay people have gaydar.” Then he tilted his head. “Except you, maybe.”

“Where did you learn gayd – hey.”

“I learn word because I suck cock,” Rozanov said - on a New York City street where there were people - “and you don't have it.”

“You are unbelievable,” Shane said, and started walking faster.

Rozanov matched his speed. They walked in silence for a minute. Then Rozanov said, “And it is nice, to be in a world where it doesn’t matter.”

Shane took that in. Remembered that the Rozanov of this world had no family, because his family thought he was gay. Which meant that the Rozanov of his world – the man next to him – had a family that would disown him for being gay.

He flashed back to a fight on a rooftop. He’d been half-drunk, and horny as fuck; he’d prepped before the awards, certain that they'd end up celebrating together and he’d finally get fucked, after the snowstorm delay of their plans. And then Rozanov had vanished from the celebrations and gone to sulk on the roof, and when Shane had finally found him, would only say it wasn’t about Shane and offer some bullshit about going home in three days.

Maybe it hadn’t been bullshit. Maybe it really hadn’t been about younger Shane and his drunk horny disappointment.

“Hey,” he said, impulsively, then realized that he didn’t know how he was going to end that sentence. He took a sip of his smoothie. You’re right. I’m sorry. “We should try to see if any other players remember hockey.”

“Yes, we will put post on Internet. ‘Want puck and a good time, call Shane Hollander.’ Or slide into DMs of dinosaur on Cowboys.”

Shane punched his shoulder, not hard but not gently either. “Shut up. No. But you said Marleau was a bartender in Boston. So – we could drive up there and see if he recognizes us.”

Rozanov’s eyes searched his face. “Is four hour drive.”

“Well,” Shane said, clutching the smoothie in his hand, “right now it looks like we have nothing but time.”

Rozanov insisted on stopping at the corner bodega before they left. He flirted with the bodega lady, who must have been seventy if she was a day, as openly as he’d flirted with the smoothie guy. They left her beaming fondly after them, with Rozanov’s arms full of snacks. He’d grabbed a lot of crap, including protein bars. (Shane had strong opinions about protein bars, which were that they were stupid. There was like twice as much sugar as protein - you were basically eating a candy bar.) But he'd also bought sunflower seeds and nuts and a surprisingly decent brand of beef jerky.

When they got in an obnoxiously-yellow BMW, Rozanov turned the radio on low. Once they cleared the city, however, he plugged in an iPod and handed it to Shane. “You choose.”

Shane turned it over in his hand. “Oh, we can do whatever.”

Rozanov drove like he did everything, with a breezy confidence and one hand on the wheel. His eyes flicked over to Shane for a moment. “I want to know what you like.”

Shane winced, just slightly.

Somehow Rozanov caught it. “No,” he said, sounding delighted. “Is embarrassing? You like, what –” and then he was singing, suddenly, off-tune, “this is craaaaazy –”

“Shut up,” Shane said, smiling despite himself.

“– but here's my number, so call me maybe –”

“I think you like that one.”

Rozanov was grinning now. Shane could see the side of it, the flash of teeth.

Shane sighed. “I just – yeah, it’s a little embarrassing. I don’t like listening to music with lyrics when I work out or when I’m doing things. It’s distracting and I can’t concentrate.”

“You work out without anything? Like psycho?”

“Psycho,” Shane repeated, and shook his head. “Wow.”

Rozanov made a little sound with his tongue. “That one I learn from Henderson.”

“On the Nomads?”

“Him first, yes. But after him, many guys think I am psycho.”

Shane looked at him, and thought about it. “I don’t think you’re a psycho,” he said, after a minute. “You’re an asshole, and a troll. But not a psycho.”

“No, this is you,” Rozanov said. “Working out with no music.”

Shane chose a playlist at random and shoved the iPod into a cupholder. “I listen to music! Just, no lyrics. Or white noise.” Usually white noise, but people always got weird when he said that.

“Like Eruption, or Moby Dick?”

“Yeah, those are good,” Shane said. “Or, like, some classical music has a good beat. And movie soundtracks. Chariots of Fire. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.”

Rozanov’s eyebrows shot up. “Tchaikovsky!” He sounded delighted. He pronounced the name differently than Shane had. “I like him. The one with the cannons. That is good.”

“That’s the 1812,” Shane said.

“You have your music? Put on Tchaikovsky,” Rozanov said. “Famous gay Russian. Good theme.”

“Maybe later. I kind of like this, actually.” The playlist he randomly chose must have been a Russian one; he couldn’t understand a word. “Since I don’t know what he’s singing, it’s like he’s another instrument? If that makes sense? It’s not distracting in the same way.”

Rozanov laughed, sounding unguarded, as if Shane had surprised it out of him. It reminded him of Rozanov’s laughter at the CCM commercial, that day that started it all. “I will make you Russian playlist for working out. Metros will lose their shit.”

Shane found himself laughing too, imagining how his teammates’ eyes would bug out if it was his turn to choose the music and Rozanov’s Russian playlist started blasting. “What’s this one?”

Rozanov said something that sounded like “Yes lee tea so mnoy,” which didn’t help Shane at all. But before he could clarify, Rozanov added, “And when you are not working out?”

“Well, my parents loved the oldies,” Shane said. “You know, Simon & Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell. ABBA, Queen. So I grew up with those. I still mostly like classic rock, folk, jazz, singer-songwriters. Alanis Morissette, Feist, Fefe Dobson, Vienna Teng.” He thought for a moment, munching on a handful of walnuts, and offered, “In juniors we listened to a lot of country.”

Rozanov groaned. “No.”

“I didn’t say I liked it! But for me I think it’s hard to get into music at the rink because the guys always play it so loud. I don’t really want my head pounding, you know? If I’m listening to music with lyrics, I kind of want to close my eyes and sit with it. I want it to mean something.”

This was where Rozanov would laugh at him and call him boring again. Anyone Shane ever talked with about music inevitably ended up mocking him. He’d learned to keep his mouth shut at the rink and just deal with the jangling overstimulation of a lot of what the guys listened to. People took it so personally if you didn’t like what they liked, or if they asked for your workout playlists and you didn’t have any. Shane often just lied and said he liked whatever the guy asking him liked.

He wasn’t sure why he’d told Rozanov the truth. Maybe just because Rozanov seemed to know when he was lying. Or maybe it felt wrong to lie to him, when they were the only people in the whole world who believed the other person wasn’t delusional.

“Makes sense,” Rozanov said. “You are only guy on your team who does not need to psych up for game. You are stone-cold hockey killer.”

Shane looked at him. “Careful. That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“Was chirp at other Metros.”

“Okay,” Shane said. “So, what do you listen to then?”

Rozanov held out his hand. “Give. I will show you.”

“No,” Shane said. “You’re driving.”

Rozanov groaned again, feeling around blindly for the iPod. “Give.”

Shane seized Rozanov’s groping hand to trap it, grabbed the iPod in his other hand, and held it out of Rozanov’s reach. “Nope. Tell me what playlist you want and I’ll switch it.”

“I could drive with my eyes shut,” Rozanov said.

“Please don’t.”

Rozanov hadn’t pulled his hand away yet. The August sun turned his curls golden.

Shane changed the playlist. “Here, let’s try this one then.” He stashed the iPod safely under his right leg, and leaned his head back against the headrest.

After a minute, Rozanov said, “Let’s make a deal.” His hand had turned in Shane’s, and his thumb was now slowly rubbing a pattern on Shane’s wrist.

Shane was wary of that tone. “You and your deals. What?”

Rozanov was definitely smirking. Shane could hear it in his voice. “I will keep my eyes on the road. But I will keep my hand on you.”

Shane looked down to their joined hands. “Okay?”

Rozanov let go of his hand. Shane tried not to feel a small sense of loss.

Then Rozanov, like it was nothing, reached over Shane’s thigh and put his hand on Shane’s clothed cock, squeezing gently through his jeans.

“No,” Shane said, immediately. “You’re driving.”

“I will keep my eyes on the road,” Rozanov repeated. “So you will have to help. Take yourself out for me.”

“Rozanov.”

“Hollander.”

The hand on his lap rested there innocently, an offer. There was a healing cut on the second finger. That finger had been inside him at All-Stars last year.

Fuck it.

Shane popped the button on his jeans and unzipped his zipper. He shoved his jeans and underwear down far enough to pull his dick out and put it in Rozanov’s hand.

“There you are,” Rozanov said, softly, running his thumb over the head. Shane darted a look at him, but his eyes stayed obediently on the road. “Good boy.”

“Fuck off.”

Rozanov’s mouth curved. “I was talking to your hockey stick, Hollander.”

“You – fuck you, don’t call it that.”

“I think your hockey stick likes it,” Rozanov said, smearing a drop of pre-cum as he moved his hand. Then he turned his hand up, cupping his palm. “Spit.”

“What?”

“Will feel better if not so dry. Help me.”

Shane stared at the hand on his cock. This was crazy. This whole world was crazy. Shane was crazy.

But Rozanov seemed pretty normal, pretty like himself at least. Offering a handjob in a Skittles-colored BMW was nothing Shane wouldn’t have accepted even in the old world as something Rozanov would do. He could imagine Rozanov bending someone over the bright yellow hood, leaning down and telling them not to get fingerprints or cum on his paint job. He could imagine Rozanov parking at some deserted oceanfront view, putting the top down, and pulling his passenger onto his lap, fucking up into him with that intense look he got on his face sometimes. He could imagine Rozanov in the passenger seat, going face-first into the driver’s lap and opening that hot, skillful mouth…

His own mouth was watering. As if in a dream, he opened it and spat into Rozanov’s hand.

“Good boy,” Rozanov said again, softly –

And his hand was so good. It moved so surely, and Shane wanted it so badly.

The song changed, and Rozanov’s hand found a rhythm, and Shane watched, spellbound.

It shouldn’t be like this, just a hand on his cock, just a handjob. Nobody wrote love songs about how good their lover was at handjobs.

But Rozanov’s hand – and how he didn’t even need to look – and the little twist with his wrist on the upstroke – and the tiny thumb caress that felt like a kiss – and the beat of the song – and the drag and the spit and Rozanov’s fucking calluses –

He was shuddering, he was falling apart, he was throwing his head against the headrest and writhing in Rozanov’s hand and moaning without being able to hold it back.

For a minute, there was only the sound of Shane’s harsh breathing as his heartbeat returned to normal, as Rozanov found a napkin in a cupholder without looking and wiped his hand.

Then Rozanov said, his voice calm, that irritating little smirk back on his face, “That was song that won Eurovision this year. Swedish like ABBA, so you will like.”

“Rozanov,” Shane said. “There’s cum all over my shirt.”

“Next time take it off.” He cut his eyes over to Shane for a moment, the smirk widening into a smile. “You have suitcase. We can stop for lunch and you can change. Don’t worry.”

Shane turned his head away, hiding his own smile. Even though it had been crazy, it had also been crazy hot. Why did Rozanov make him feel like this? Like all the rules didn’t apply? Like all he had to do was whatever he wanted? The world didn’t work that way.

Then something horrifying occurred to him.

“Wait. Could – could those cars and trucks we were passing – could they see me?”

“Hmm,” Rozanov said. “I think mostly you are hidden by door. But maybe people see you. Is hot, yes?”

Shane didn’t have words for how much the very idea terrified him. People, watching Shane Hollander writhe under the hand of a man? People seeing his dick, just flopped out over his jeans, in broad daylight? People looking as he came apart, gasping, as Rozanov made him cry out over the music?

But –

Fuck him, it was hot. Nobody who saw it would know who Shane was. They would have only seen two guys getting hot and heavy together, in one brief moment before they were gone. Nobody would ever know, in this world or his own. Just him and Rozanov.

“You make me crazy,” he said, and leaned his head against the window. He felt overheated, like his skin was sparking.

Rozanov didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he said, quietly, “You make me crazy too.”

They listened to Rozanov’s music in silence for a while. And if Rozanov’s hand ended up next to Shane’s, their little fingers touching, neither of them mentioned it.

Chapter End Notes

Notes from this chapter:

* Yes, the cute gay smoothie barista is who you think it is. ;)

* I am deviating from canon here and having Shane on a different performance diet, at least in the offseasons. I took some inspiration from Tom Brady and Steve Nash's diets, although Brady wouldn't publish The TB12 Method until later in the decade. My take on Shane's diet is that he definitely has issues with controlling food. Whether or not this is just part of him controlling every other aspect of his conditioning and hockey life, or whether he has orthorexia (or develops it over the years), isn't gone into in this fic, which only mentions food in passing. But if you are wondering where the macrobiotic diet went, that is where.

* This chapter took so much googling. I was a young adult in 2012, but trying to get all the little details accurate for the year was tricky. If you notice anything anachronistic, let me know! Thanks to the anonymous helpers who pointed me in the right direction for what car Ilya might drive in 2012.

***

Song inspo for this chapter includes:

Если ты со мной (If you are with me)
Доминик Джокер, 2011

Время для меня прекратило свой бег
Мы вдвоём укрылись в нашем Мире от всех —
Он был создан только для нас двоих
В нём светило солнце глаз бездонных твоих

Time for me has stopped its running
We have hidden together in our world away from everything
It was created solely for the two of us
And in it shone the sun of your bottomless eyes

Shine
Vienna Teng, 2008

Shine with all the untold
Hold the light given unto you
Find the love to unfold
In this broken world we choose

Euphoria
Loreen, 2012 (Eurovision winner)

We are here, we're all alone in our own universe
We are free, where everything's allowed and love comes first

Chapter 3: Day Two: Part Two

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya spend an afternoon in Boston together, and then head to Marly's nightclub.

Chapter Notes

Day Two, afternoon

After checking into their hotel once they got to Boston, they still had a few hours before it would be time to head to the club. Without a hockey game to put on, there was little to do at the hotel, and Shane suspected that they were both thinking about the claustrophobia of being caged up together in a tiny room like always.

It was still surreal to go out in public with Rozanov. In his own city, no less. How many of the people milling on these streets had been to a Raiders game, and cheered for the hockey star striding as nonchalantly as a ghost in their midst?

Rozanov didn't seem to think it was surreal, though. He seemed lighter, as if returning to his city made him happier. He walked briskly and seemed to enjoy playing tour guide. “They had alligators here,” he said, pointing at a water fountain.

“Alligators?”

“Yes. Baby ones. Special exhibit for the park. People fed them live rats. Free show.”

Shane blinked at him. “You saw this?”

Rozanov looked at him like he was a crazy person. “I'm not Scott Hunter. This was a hundred years ago.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know?”

“You think park has alligators now? Everybody will be too scared that they eat kids.”

“You said they were baby alligators,” Shane said, aware that he sounded sulky.

“Ah yes,” Rozanov said, and grinned at him. “Babies.”

Further into the park, they dodged tourists until Rozanov found what he was looking for, a pair of swans in a pond. Lots of people were taking pictures of them. “This is Romeo and her Juliet,” Rozanov said, waving at them like he had personally delivered them to Boston and should be thanked.

“His Juliet. Romeo’s a boy.”

Rozanov smiled again. He was smiling more than Shane had ever seen. Not the cocky smirk he wore in interviews, not the flirtatious smile he flashed at women, not the instigator grin he got right before he unleashed a chirp and made someone drop gloves. Just a regular, simple smile. It made his face look different. “Not this Romeo. They are lesbians!”

“Boston has lesbian swans?”

“Yes! Swan breeder told Boston they were both girls, and was better that way because boy swans are aggressive. Then swans acted like girlfriends and tried to raise family, and people thought maybe breeder was wrong. But now we know – the girls are just lesbians. Happy lesbians. We love them.”

This was not how Shane would have expected Rozanov to be declaring that he loved lesbians. However, there was something almost – charming? – about the way he was beaming at the swans. They were beautiful creatures.

“You really like animals.”

“Yes,” Rozanov said. Shane watched him watch the swans, his face tipped back and golden, squinting slightly against the sun.

“What’s your favorite animal?” Shane asked, as they walked the park paths. It was a beautiful day, although muggy and humid. There was sweat beaded on Rozanov’s neck.

“Dogs,” Rozanov said, immediately. “And crackers.”

Shane blinked. “Crackers?”

Rozanov pulled out his phone. He turned out to mean quokkas; Shane agreed with him that they were very cute. Then Rozanov tried to contort his face to match their various wide-eyed silly grins, and Shane couldn’t hold back his laughter. He looked ridiculous.

They found an unoccupied bench and sat for a few minutes, looking at the flowerbeds and trees. “I like it here,” Rozanov said, his gaze far away. “I run this way a lot. Is peaceful.”

“My mom likes these kinds of gardens,” Shane said. “She kills everything she tries to grow, though. I think she waters them too much.”

Rozanov’s gaze was still far away. “My mother liked them too.”

“I’ll have to bring my mom here if we play each other in the playoffs.”

“Mm,” Rozanov said, his attention returning to Shane. “Yes.” He got up and started walking again, with Shane belatedly following.

After a minute, Shane said, “Is your mother –”

“She is dead.” The flatness of his voice left no room for further questions.

“I’m sorry,” Shane said. He should have guessed. Rozanov had mentioned his father and brother when he was talking about being disowned, but not his mother. And she hadn’t been at the draft.

“It was a long time ago. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Shane said. “But I am sorry. I wish she could have been here with you to see the Garden. And to cheer as obnoxiously at your games as my mom does at mine.”

“This is talking about it, Hollander,” Rozanov said, and sped up.

Shane wasn’t really sure what to say after that. An awkward silence fell.

He didn’t want to think too much about what he’d just learned. The journey to his place in the MLH hadn’t been easy for him. Hockey had never been a problem, but Shane had always felt like the odd man out in a room, having to work just that little bit harder at every social situation. Reading social cues could be tricky, especially when he was physically tired, and he was well aware that only his skill and his results bought him as much leeway as he had. The more it was about hockey, the easier it was; he knew he’d be an excellent captain on the ice one day, when the Metros gave him the C. And he did genuinely care about his teammates, even if socializing demanded more from him than it did from other people.

But while he’d had challenges, Shane had always had his parents at his back. He’d always known he had the loving support of a family. Even if he, say, snapped and dropped gloves in Game 7 of the Cup Finals when Svensson or Flannery called him a slur again, and the Tarantulas scored off the power play and the Metros lost the Cup, and half his endorsements dropped him, his parents would still love and support him. (His mother might have something to say with her manager hat on, which was a whole different issue, but he had never for one moment doubted her love.)

What would it have been like, if he was playing for somewhere far away like Houston, and his mother was dead and the rest of his family were assholes? What would it have been like, if he’d moved to another country at nineteen, not fluent in the language, not knowing a soul, without a supportive family, and been plunged straight into the pressure cooker that was Major League Hockey?

It made everything Rozanov had accomplished on the ice even more impressive.

Luckily, before Shane could spiral too far, a pair of women with a little dog walked towards them on the path. The little dog spotted Rozanov and for some reason decided he was a long-lost friend, straining at the leash to reach him.

“Oh,” Rozanov said, in a tone of utter delight, and went to his knees in the dirt. He sat back on his heels and tipped his face up at the women. “Can I pet her?”

“Sure,” the woman holding the leash said. “No – wait –” to the dog, which planted its paws on Rozanov’s thighs and vaulted up to lick his chin.

Rozanov’s laughter was deep and husky as he scratched the dog behind its ears and seemed not to care at all about how many germs were in its mouth.

“Sorry,” the other woman said, sounding rueful. “Oscar’s a terrible flirt.”

Rozanov looked up at her and winked. “So am I,” he said. “Shane, come and meet Oscar!”

His name hit Shane like a puck to the wrist.

It shouldn’t have. Obviously, it might have looked weird to the women if Rozanov called his friend by his last name. Although maybe they were just in the military, or something like that? But Rozanov didn’t look like someone in the military. Though was that stereotypical, maybe people in the military looked all kinds of ways? Although they were in Boston, didn’t the American military have to have shaved heads?

The women and Rozanov were looking at him. Shane yanked himself out of his spiral and went to undergo the obligatory slobbering over by the dog.

Rozanov was cooing at it, mostly in Russian. “How old is he?”

The dog politely let Shane pet his head a couple times. He seemed to know that Rozanov was his worshipper, however. Shane appreciated that.

“He’s a rescue, but about two,” the woman with the leash said. “The vet says he’s mostly King Charles spaniel, which explains the ears. Not sure on the rest.”

“You have beautiful eyes, Oscar,” Rozanov said, as seriously as if the dog was a girl he was trying to impress.

By the time Oscar was pulled away by his owners, looking longingly back at Rozanov, Shane was convinced that if this had been their world, Rozanov would have ended up offering to dogsit on his days off.

“I didn’t realize you were such a dog person,” Shane said, as they headed in the direction of a restaurant Rozanov said did good fish. (Shane wasn’t hungry again yet, not after their late lunch, but if he was going to have the stamina to make it the whole length of a Cup-winning season, he needed to start off in fighting form. Hunger was irrelevant, just like aches and pains the day after a hard hockey game didn't mean he could skip the gym.)

Rozanov looked lighter around the eyes. “You are not? Hollander, dogs are better than people.”

“They’re all right,” Shane said, and only just managed to keep his mouth straight when Rozanov whirled on him with a scowl. “What? You gonna spear me next game if I say I’m a cat person?”

Rozanov narrowed his eyes. “Cats are not bad. Can be cute. But dogs, Hollander. Do not tell me you don’t like dogs.”

“Or what, you’ll never speak to me again?”

“No,” Rozanov said. “I will send you pictures of dogs every day until you admit you are wrong.”

Shane wondered if Rozanov had had a dog as a kid, but he was learning that Rozanov’s family was a difficult topic for him. “You should get one. What kind would you get?”

“Cannot while I am playing,” Rozanov said, immediately. “Would not be fair to dog, having papa away so much.” He sounded genuinely regretful about this. “Someday. When I am old like Scott Hunter and have ten Cups and my knees do not work. I will go to dog shelter and bring home three dogs. Does not matter what kind.”

“Only three?”

“To start,” Rozanov said, and his lips were twitching.

“Better get a couple kittens too,” Shane said. “Just to round out your home.”

Rozanov touched his elbow to indicate that they were about to turn into the restaurant. Shane wasn’t sure why such a casual, momentary touch should light every nerve ending in his arm on fire. “Maybe.”

“You know,” Shane said, as they went inside, “I bet you could volunteer at an animal shelter on your days off. JJ does sometimes. They need people to socialize the animals, and if you, like, posted cute pictures of the dogs to your Twitter, I bet more of them would get adopted.”

A server came over to them. She was really pretty, and her eyes visibly widened at the sight of Rozanov. Shane wasn’t sure if she recognized him from his modeling work, or if she just needed a moment to collect herself after seeing Rozanov’s shoulders in his sleeveless shirt. Shane could empathize.

Oddly, Rozanov was paying absolutely no attention to her, verging on being rude. “You think they let me? Even if I am not American? They need to do background check, Hollander, they can’t let criminals be with the dogs.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not a criminal,” Shane said, shaking his head.

The server offered to seat them. Rozanov gave her a distracted smile, and they followed her to a booth, where Rozanov slid in across from Shane and promptly continued the conversation. “No, but I have reputation.”

“Dude,” Shane said – and that was not something he was ever going to call Rozanov again, what the fuck. “Playing aggressive hockey is not going to stop a shelter from thanking its lucky stars that Ilya Rozanov wants to pet cute dogs and get them adopted. Plus I think they’d know where to find you if you, like, ran off with a few or something.”

Rozanov smiled at him, small but unguarded, like he actually thought Shane was funny.

The server said, “Can I get you guys started with anything tonight?”

Later that night

Two days ago, Shane would have panicked.

Tonight, he simply looked around him, then said under his breath, “Of course it’s a gay bar.”

Rozanov was already scanning the room, looking for Marleau. In the Uber over, he’d become more excited by the minute. Shane could read it in the set of his shoulders, and the way his chin jutted forward, his eyes eagerly flitting over every face he saw.

Shane trailed behind him, trying to look inconspicuous.

He reminded himself that he didn’t need to be. He was just Shane tonight, just a nerdy Canadian student with an inexplicable professional-athlete body and a face that had put him #1 on the Sexiest MLH Player list this year. He had solid evidence that an extremely hot man found him attractive. He could hook up with anyone in this club tonight, if he wanted to. (Not that he would; abandoning Rozanov for some stranger’s dick would be, well, a dick move.) There was no reason he should feel anxious or intimidated, in this place that Shane Hollander Hockey Player would never have dared to enter.

There was a cute guy in the corner, laughing with a friend. He looked a little like JJ, except shorter and wearing glasses. There was a hot guy dancing, thick with muscle, hairy in a way that made Shane a little curious. There was a tall, chiseled blond guy with earrings and eyeliner, who smiled at Shane as they passed each other.

But Shane was getting distracted from their mission. Hopefully Marleau was working tonight. Though he supposed they could just stay in Boston longer. Shane had a week until classes started at McGill, and Rozanov had a week until he was scheduled to be in Milan. There were probably other sports leagues in the city – surely whatever deleted hockey didn’t delete them all? No, Rozanov had mentioned Hunter played American football. Maybe they could go see a game. Shane bet Rozanov heckled like crazy.

Next to him, Rozanov suddenly paused.

And there Marleau was, behind the bar, looking natural. Laughing. Handing a drink to a guy who looked a little like Hayden, if Hayden was awesome at doing makeup and knew how to dress better.

Rozanov was still frozen next to him. He wasn’t making any move to go talk to Marleau, and they were actually kind of impeding traffic.

Shane understood the nervousness. He felt it too. But avoiding the answer didn’t change it.

He put an arm around Rozanov’s shoulders, like he was just pulling him out of the way of an incoming group of people, and drew him with him to the bar.

“Hey,” he said to Marleau. “We’ll take two Coronas, with lime please.” Then, as if he’d just clocked it, he said, “Wait, don’t I know you? Do you play guitar? I feel like my sister used to date you. Shane Hollander, and this is Ilya. My sister was –” Fuck, what was a girl’s name? “Hayley.” He felt like it was obvious that his voice was stilted, but maybe he’d pulled it off. He’d done his best. Fuck, Hayley Hollander was a horrible name.

“I do play guitar,” Marleau said, smiling. He had a good smile, very gregarious. Shane wondered if he was working in a gay nightclub because it paid well and he got good tips (which, looking like he did, Shane could imagine that he did), or if there were other reasons as well. Rozanov had mentioned that he and Marly had hooked up with girls together. “Don’t remember your sister, though, sorry man.”

He included Rozanov in the rueful smirk, his smile nothing more than the professionally charming one that he might give any customer, his eyes landing on Rozanov’s face and moving on without recognition.

Shane took the Coronas, tipped heavily, and pulled Rozanov bodily away to a booth. He put Rozanov on the side with its back to the bar, sat across from him, and shoved one of the Coronas into his hand.

“Breathe,” he said. The music was loud. Nobody could hear them.

Rozanov was staring into the distance. Shane recognized that look. He’d felt it on his own face, when everything was too much and people just kept talking at him and his brain went somewhere else.

Ever since Shane had got to New York, Rozanov had been different than Shane had seen him before. More – human somehow, less the cocky asshole of the ice and the interview room, and just another 21-year-old guy like Shane, trying to figure out how their world had fallen apart. Even in the middle of all the stress and uncertainty, he’d kept smiling.

Shane wondered, looking back, how much of that had been something he was doing deliberately, to keep Shane out of his head. Taking him apart in the Skittle BMW; teasing him about his music taste; playing tour guide for baby alligators and lesbian swans; gushing about dogs. He still thought most of that had just been them both living in the moment – but subconsciously, had they both known that this was coming, and tried to keep from thinking about it?

“He didn’t know me at all,” Rozanov said, quietly enough that Shane barely heard him. His eyes were still far away.

If Marleau didn’t know them, not even the slightest beat of confusion, was there anyone else in the world who would? They’d been talking all day like hockey was just paused. Like Shane needed to keep up his bulking regimen, like the Metros would lose their shit if Shane played Rozanov’s Russian music in the room, like Rozanov could start volunteering at a shelter on his days off and they’d be so happy to have a MLH star helping out. When we get back. When we get back.

But Shane also knew that there was a week until classes started at McGill, a week until Rozanov was due in Milan. There was a laundry service that would wash Rozanov’s sheets in NYC, and two flatmates in Montreal who Shane didn’t know and who were probably wondering where he was. There was a rugged bartender who played guitar and was probably Rozanov’s best friend and didn’t fucking recognize him.

Which reality was the real one?

Are we stuck here?

Shane could feel the panic biting at his heels. He pushed it down. Rozanov needed help. “Hey. Rozanov. We knew it was a long shot. We’ll come up with another plan tomorrow.”

Rozanov didn’t even seem to register that Shane had spoken.

“You and me, we’re the top two players in the whole fucking league. We’ll put our heads together. Rozanov.”

Not working. Thousand-yard stare was still there.

Shane breathed once. Reached out, took his hand. “Ilya.”

Slowly, Rozanov’s eyes blinked and focused on Shane.

“There’s nothing more we can do tonight,” Shane said. “Tomorrow we’ll make a new plan.”

Rozanov swallowed. Shane could see his throat work. “I need –”

Shane tightened his hold on Rozanov’s hand. “What?”

The music changed, the beat pulsing and arresting, sticking in the brain like a burr.

“I need to forget this fucking world for one fucking minute,” Rozanov said. He sounded wrung-out, exhausted, nakedly bare.

Shane stood up. He didn’t let go of Rozanov’s hand. “Dance with me.” He tried for a smile. “One-time offer only.”

Rozanov looked at him for a long moment. Then he drained the Corona, stood up, and followed Shane to the floor.

Chapter End Notes

Notes from this chapter:

* The Boston Public Garden was the first botanical garden in America, established 1837 (two centuries after the adjacent Boston Common was created in 1634, the first American public park).

* The story about the baby alligators is true. It was in 1901. This Boston Globe article about it is paywalled, but here's a Reddit discussion about the article that includes a picture of a newspaper clipping from the time.

* Romeo and Juliet, the lesbian swans, exist! They have been living at the Boston Public Garden during the summer months since 2003 (in the winters, they are at Franklin Park Zoo). It sounds like they haven't been in the Garden for the last couple of years, unfortunately (the last Return of the Swans event I can find was in 2019, so maybe COVID got in the way?), but they were there in 2012 when Shane and Ilya are visiting.

Chapter 4: Day Two: Part Three

Chapter Summary

Shane dances with Ilya and has some realizations. They go to bed together.

Chapter Notes

Day Two, evening

There was a moment that it was all almost too much. Shane felt outside his body, looking down on the dance floor, watching Shane Hollander dance with Ilya Rozanov.

I’ve seen it all! Hollander just stepped into Rozanov’s arms, and Rozanov pulled their hips together. Are you kidding me?! Hollander’s putting his hands on Rozanov’s shoulders, and Rozanov is shoving Hollander’s shirt up and groping his abs. This place has gone bonkers! They’re grinding, folks, there’s no other word for what we’re seeing on this dance floor here tonight. Hollander is tipping his forehead against Rozanov’s. They’re moving like they want to be horizontal. And is that – yes it is, folks, that’s Rozanov’s mouth behind Hollander’s ear. Unbelievable! Hollander is putting a hand in Rozanov’s hair, and they’re still grinding. Still grinding. I’m not sure if they can actually hear the music, but they’re sure putting on a good show for the crowd here tonight. Goodbye, good night, game over.

He’d imagined it before. Seeing pictures of Rozanov at a club, a gorgeous girl in his arms. Imagined what it would be like to be held like that, so close not a breath could separate them, out in public with the whole world invited to watch. Shane had danced with girls before, awkward and embarrassed; in his fantasies, he’d tried to overlay those memories with the heated way that Rozanov had looked at him in bed the two times they’d hooked up. He’d had mixed success. His stomach hadn’t been sure whether to be turned on or anxious, and touching himself to it had led to conflicted orgasms, good but unsettled.

Dancing with Rozanov was nothing like Shane had imagined.

It was total sensory overload. It was Rozanov’s scent in his nostrils, making him want to bite Rozanov’s fucking throat to get it closer. It was Rozanov’s heavy breathing in his ear, somehow louder than the pounding club music that scraped at Shane’s nerves. It was Rozanov’s hands on him, roving and possessive, the hands of someone who knew his partner’s body and was staking a claim. It was Rozanov’s hips, moving fluidly against him, clinging distantly to the beat, or perhaps only to the beat that they were making between them.

Somewhere Shane Hollander Hockey Player was screaming –

But it wasn’t just Rozanov on this dance floor.

It was Shane’s racing heart, and the ragged edge of his breath. It was Shane’s hands on Rozanov’s traps, and then one sliding daringly down his broad shoulders, pulling him closer. It was Shane’s eyes, moving filthily over Rozanov’s body, knowing that he alone in this club knew what it looked like in bed. The marks that dusted across his body like stars in the night sky – Rozanov’s eyes going hooded when Shane’s mouth sealed around his cock – his plush, beautiful lips parting on a soundless gasp when he came –

Shane had hooked up with Rozanov twice in the real world. Twice. He’d literally come more times with Rozanov in this fake world than in the real one.

Yes, he’d jerked off with Rozanov in mind more than that. He’d always started like it was routine bodily maintenance, like brushing your teeth or getting massages or going to the gym. No need to picture anything, just like there was no need to listen to music while you worked out. But Rozanov always slid back in before long, however much Shane tried to keep his mind blank, however much he tried to only focus on physical sensation.

So Rozanov had been two hookups, and three years of jerking off with his metaphysical presence in the room; his Adonis’s belt making Shane’s breath come harder, his velvet voice sending shivers down Shane’s spine, the wet hot heaven of his mouth tipping Shane over the verge nearly as quickly as its reality had.

But that was all he had been. Shane had hooked up with girls. He wasn’t actually a monk, however much some guys liked to chirp (both on his team and others). He wasn’t a virgin, he wasn’t asexual, and he did know how to please a woman. He was a gentleman and he liked to be good at things, and if cunnilingus was more easily mastered than fucking a girl, then Shane was glad he had a clear path to the goal and the stamina to get the puck over the line. He was no Rozanov, cutting a swathe through the most beautiful girls in every hockey city of the Western Hemisphere, but he had certainly hooked up with girls more times than he had with the man in his arms. It was good for the team to see Shane acting like a normal guy occasionally, and not like a hockey robot who only wanted to go home and watch hockey tape and read his boring hockey books. (Some guys were more-or-less affectionate when they chirped him about being a robot, and some were not.)

And Shane – it was good for Shane to make a girl shudder apart on his tongue and fingers, to hear that triumphant goal horn, to know that he wasn’t broken, he was normal, he could do this; good for Shane to not only touch himself in the dark to the memory of large shoulders and teasing words and the blazing inferno of desire.

He could have had Rozanov every time they played each other. The proof was in the texts that popped into his phone with the regularity and inevitability of Ottawa’s opponents ending up on highlight reels. The desire for him hadn’t been the problem. It had never ever been the problem. But Shane had hesitated for over a year, and would have still been hesitating, back in the hockey world.

Because this – this was the problem.

It was the firestorm under his skin, the pounding of his heart, the column of Rozanov’s throat that he wanted to set his teeth to. It was the throb of his dick, hard against Rozanov’s, and the recklessness that sparked wild within him, as he ground into the perfect hollow of Rozanov’s hip. It was the conflagration that raged through Shane’s body, igniting every part of him, until everything burned to ash, and he was standing clear-eyed in front of the flaming pyre of his normality, in front of the plain and simple truth.

The truth: This was nothing, nothing like dancing with a girl. This was nothing like making her come on your tongue, and making excuses about a long exhausting game when your dick was limply uninterested. This was nothing like grasping vainly at the faint slippery eel of desire, when it had to be found in a girl’s bed, in her pretty hair and kind eyes and beautiful little pants.

It was the reason he hadn’t hooked up with Rozanov again after their fight on the rooftop, the truth that he’d been pretending not to know was lurking all the while, the knowledge that continued hookups with him might force Shane to look at the shadow in the corner of his eye.

It was another planet. It was the difference between hockey and figure skating. It was playing center and not goalie. It was –

They moved together on the floor of a Boston nightclub, in a world where hockey didn’t exist, in a world where they were just two men who wanted each other; and the shadow shifted, and Shane looked it in the face.

Fuck. I’m gay.

The shadow was gone, and only the bonfire remained.

Shane laughed, the sudden certainty running through him with an intensity so strong it hurt. It left relief behind it, the exhausted bone-deep relief of a shootout win, happy but collapsing. Who had he been trying to fool?

Refusing to face the truth hadn’t changed anything. Shane could pull himself out of Rozanov’s embrace and go dance with one of the beautiful bachelorette girls over there right this very moment, could even take her to a hotel and use his mouth on her until she screamed, but it wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t change that he didn’t want to – that he wanted to be nowhere other than where he was.

And maybe Shane was only brave enough to look the truth in the eye here in this other world, where the biggest current threat to him was Boston’s public indecency laws. Maybe this was a nightmare and a heaven, to have freedom and loss so inextricably linked. Maybe.

But the truth was the truth all the same.

He was still laughing, little chuckles, and Rozanov must have been able to feel it. He met Shane’s eyes and arched an inquisitive eyebrow.

Shane leaned in and kissed him, wet and filthy, right there on the dance floor, and let the hand on Rozanov’s back slide down to his ass. It felt like the bravest thing he’d ever done.

Rozanov groaned like he was dying, and kissed him back.

~

Later, Shane looked down at Rozanov in the dim light leaking around the hotel curtain.

They hadn’t lasted much longer at the club before falling into an Uber, making out in the backseat while Rihanna played on the radio. Shane had felt drunk, off of one Corona and the heady intoxication of Rozanov desperate against him, all cool self-assured cockiness gone.

They’d tumbled into their hotel room still kissing. Shane had kicked the door shut behind them, and the emphatic slam had left them laughing into each other’s mouths, sharing air. They’d shed their clothes, a harder task for the way they kept reaching out to touch each other, pausing half-naked like they were drawn together by magnets. Shane had been wild enough for it to leave his clothes where they dropped, hurtling toward the bed and expecting Rozanov’s weight to land on him the next moment. When it didn’t, he’d looked back and seen Rozanov straightening up, Shane’s clothes in his hands; and then Rozanov had folded them, putting them neatly on the chair, and Shane’s mouth had run dry.

“Come here,” Shane had said, not recognizing his own voice.

And now Rozanov was pinned underneath him, not trying to get away, just watching Shane’s face, and Shane wanted, Shane wanted –

Shane met his eyes square. “Fuck me,” he said.

Rozanov swallowed. “You said not when we are in wrong world.”

Shane felt like a live-wire, sparking to the touch. Rozanov’s hand was big and firm on his back, which had never felt like an erogenous zone before but did now. His other arm was crooked up next to his head, with Shane holding it down. Shane wanted him so badly, he could climb out of his skin for it.

“I changed my mind,” Shane said, roughly.

He needed to feel tonight, he needed to be taken out of his head, he needed to fall into Rozanov’s sure hands and not resurface until morning. He was not giving up, he was not, he was not, but if there was the smallest chance that he had heard the goal horn for the last time – if he never again felt the adrenaline rush of a breakaway – if there were no more sticks to tape, no more skates to lace, no more goalies to deke – if he would never again be checked into the boards, or take a faceoff, or score a goal –

Then he wanted to forget it. For one last night.

(And a little, tiny, fiercely roaring part of him, the part that had laughed on a Boston dance floor in acknowledgment of a truth finally recognized – that part wanted to commemorate its self-acceptance in the most fitting way imaginable, by getting fucked through a mattress by a stone cold certifiable 10.)

Rozanov looked up at him, unnaturally still under his hands.

Then he wet his lips, and said, “No.”

Shane went momentarily dizzy with surprise and disappointment, but Rozanov didn’t let him spiral. He said, “No. I will fuck you in hockey world.” The hand that had been on Shane’s back came up to cup the nape of his neck. “It is a promise, yes? You want it so bad –” He paused. “We want it. So we will get back.”

“Rozanov,” Shane said, and blew out a noisy breath. “I already want to get back. Because of fucking hockey. Not fucking me can’t make me want it any more than I already do.”

“Is a promise,” Rozanov said, and shook him slightly by the back of his neck, which had no right to be as hot as it was.

Shane rolled off him, flopping onto his back and crossing his arms over his chest. “Fine. Fine! Suck my dick then.”

It was ungracious and rude, and the beautiful tension that had wound itself up all night had well and truly snapped. Shane forced back the frustrated tingling in his eyes. Fuck Rozanov. Fuck him.

Rozanov’s hand landed on his hip, the fingers digging in just the right amount. Not quite enough to bruise, but enough to be intentional, enough to pull Shane’s attention there. “Maybe later,” he said.

Shane opened his mouth to snap back at him, but then Rozanov was nudging his arms off his chest and leaning in to lick at his nipple, and he just let out an aggrieved huff instead.

“I’m not that sensitive there,” he said, when Rozanov sucked at it, swirling his tongue.

“Not a girl,” Rozanov agreed, his eyes glittering up at Shane, and Shane ignored the way his dick kicked, imagining Rozanov sucking on some girl’s tits and enjoying her breathy little moans.

Rozanov bent his head back down, and said against Shane’s pec, “Means I can do this,” and bit him.

The sound that came out of Shane’s mouth was embarrassing. His fingers went into Rozanov’s curls, winding in hard enough to hurt.

Rozanov sucked at him, sucked with intention -

“Ow,” Shane said, and it sounded harsh in his ears. “No marks, Rozanov, jesus.”

The fingers on his hip were hard enough to bruise now. He’d see them in the mirror tomorrow, five perfect Rozanov fingertips, splayed possessively in purple.

Rozanov let up for a minute. His lips tickled against Shane’s skin when he spoke. “No one in this world cares. No one in other world will think anything but oh Hollander had pretty girl.”

He’d started to mark Shane yesterday too, before the blowjobs against the penthouse door. It mattered to him for some reason.

And – he was right, after all. And, maybe – maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, having Rozanov’s mark on his chest, a mark Shane somehow knew he wouldn’t put on a girl’s.

He pulled Rozanov’s hair, listened to the little groan it brought out of Rozanov’s throat. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Rozanov repeated, in that accent that made the word his own.

“If I can too.”

Except he’d forgotten about Milan – in this world Rozanov couldn’t have marks, it would impact his job. And why did that make Shane’s stomach feel strange, to lose the chance, when he’d never considered it before?

But before he could backtrack, Rozanov said, “Anywhere.”

Oh, and then Rozanov’s teeth were biting down on his pec, and he was sucking again, and Shane held tight to his hair and hooked an ankle around his.

After Rozanov was satisfied with his work, Shane pulled his head up and held his face still between both hands while he put a mark under his jaw. He’d never held him quite like this before. His hands looked so big on Rozanov’s face, and Rozanov’s hands were tight on his shoulders. Shane used his teeth and his mouth, and he could feel Rozanov’s little shudders against his lips, and the way his fingers were digging in again. Shane would have fingerprints on his shoulders too.

He pulled back and looked at the mark he’d left. He knew it would darken. Would it still be there, by Milan? Would they cover it with makeup, while Rozanov smirked and made a joke about sleeping with a vampire? Would Rozanov think about this moment, with Shane’s hands holding him still, in a shadow world where the only real thing was each other?

Rozanov kissed him.

Shane could taste his hunger. It called to Shane’s own, and it spiraled between them. The kiss turned into a duel, into something competitive and desperate. Rozanov was rutting without any real rhythm against the outside of Shane’s thigh, his cock hard and hot.

Wordlessly, Shane used his hand and then his legs to direct Rozanov to get on top of him. Their cocks slid together, and they both groaned into the kiss. This wouldn’t last long.

“Wait,” Rozanov said, his voice uneven. “I have idea.”

“Is it changing your mind and fucking me?” Shane said, and ground up against him again, feeling proud of how Rozanov gasped, a moan stuttering out of him.

Rozanov muttered something in Russian, then leaned over to the bedside table, grabbing something from the drawer that turned out to be lube.

He must have put that there earlier, before they’d gone out, Shane thought numbly, feeling his heartrate speed up. And was it, was it really going to happen now?

Rozanov turned him on his side, pressing up against his back. He was long and sweaty, and his cock was right there. Shane had imagined this so many times. He pulled his right knee up slightly, waiting for the finger to touch his hole like it had at All-Stars, like it had so many times in Shane’s memories as he touched himself and heard the echo of Rozanov’s voice in his ear.

The squelch of the lube bottle was obscene. Shane’s cock jerked in anticipation.

Then Rozanov’s hand was there, and it was wet, and he was rubbing it on the inside of Shane’s thighs.

“What –” Shane started.

Rozanov pulled Shane’s legs together, pushing down on the side of his thigh. “Like this,” he said, right in Shane’s ear, the hair on the back of Shane’s neck standing up –

And thrust.

The choking groan Shane let out didn’t sound entirely human, but fuck. Fuck!

He wouldn’t have been able to imagine how good this felt. How could it be so overwhelming, to have Rozanov thrusting between his thighs, into the warm tight channel he had made, right under his balls? He tightened his legs, making it even better. It felt like Rozanov was fucking him for real, the rhythm of his thrusts jarring Shane, Rozanov’s big hand on his hip holding him in place.

“Fuck yes,” Shane gritted out. “Harder. Come on.”

“You want to take my cock?” Rozanov said, between his teeth. His thrusts sped up. “You want it?”

“I want it,” Shane said. His face was flushed, his heart racing. Somewhere underneath his skin, humiliation bloomed – but it was a good rush, somehow, stoking the flames instead of burning him. “Fucking give it to me.”

Rozanov fucked him, strong and sure and overwhelming, and Shane closed his eyes and let himself just feel it, sinking into it, becoming nothing more than a body a man a person a feeling a dream.

“Taking it so good, so good for me,” Rozanov said, sucking a kiss behind Shane’s ear.

“Come on,” Shane mumbled, fumbling behind him to grab his hip and pull him impossibly closer. “Come on, come on, fuck me.”

And then Rozanov’s hand was in his hair, dragging his head half-around and into a filthy, wet kiss, panting into each other’s mouths, their tongues sliding against each other, as Rozanov fucked Shane’s thighs and got a hand on Shane’s cock, jerking him off fast and perfect –

And Shane was coming, throwing his head back against Rozanov’s shoulder, coming harder than he thought he ever had before, sobbing out something guttural and wordless.

It felt like it went on forever, as Rozanov kept jerking him through it, kept fucking frantic and hard between his thighs, rhythm falling away and desperation taking over.

It was almost too much, Shane starting to whine from the overstimulation, and then Rozanov’s hips stuttered and he gasped out, “Fuck, fuuuuuck,” his voice breaking as he came.

They lay together in the aftermath. Shane could feel Rozanov’s heartbeat against his back, gradually slowing. His own brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton wool, his body languid and weightless. Rozanov’s hand had left his cock, resting almost gently on his knee.

Eventually, Rozanov pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and said, “Shower?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, suddenly feeling the sticky wetness all over him.

Rozanov let him go first. Shane stood under the spray for a while after he scrubbed himself down, eyes shut, thinking and not-thinking.

When he came back in the room, towel around his waist, Rozanov was bent over at the side of the bed, tucking the sheet under one corner. He was dressed in a shirt and sweatpants. There was a pile of sheets on the floor next to him.

Shane blinked at him. “Where did you get new sheets?”

Rozanov shrugged, a hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “I went to front desk.”

Shane crossed to him, kicked the dirty sheets aside, and kissed him.

They didn’t do this. Both times they’d hooked up, back in the hockey world, one of them had immediately left afterwards. There was no reason for them to kiss, with no chance of another round tonight (though Shane’s dick gave a weak half-hearted try at a twitch). There was no reason for Shane to stand at the side of a newly-made bed, with Ilya’s arms around him, their lips soft against each other.

Ilya hadn’t just been thoughtful about the messy sheets. He’d gone to the front desk himself instead of calling down; even though there was no real reason for them to hide in this world, and this was a nice hotel and someone would surely have brought sheets to the room, he’d known that Shane wouldn’t have liked that, wouldn’t have liked the possibility of someone seeing that wrecked bed from the doorway or Shane coming out of the bathroom. He’d got new sheets, and he’d made the bed, and now they were going to sleep together, clean and warm.

Shane pulled back. “Go shower. You stink.”

Ilya smirked at him, but went.

Shane put the dirty sheets in the corner of the room, with a mental note to leave an extravagant tip for housekeeping. Then he pulled on underwear and a t-shirt from his suitcase, and climbed into bed.

When Ilya came back, he didn’t bother with underwear. He slipped underneath the covers and put an arm over Shane’s hip, pulling Shane back against him.

Neither of them said anything.

Shane closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Chapter End Notes

Notes from this chapter:

* I'm adding the book tag, because I'm following its take on Shane's sexual history with women here (which the show never explores).

* There's only one bed in the hotel room. They are large men planning to both sleep in it, and Ilya (who booked the room) would prefer to have enough space to not get elbowed in the face in the middle of the night. If they'd been hiding, they would have each booked a room separately for cover, but there's no reason to bother in this universe.

* When Shane thinks about three years of jerking off to thoughts of Ilya, he is dating to the draft, not to their first hookup. Because book canon again. ;)

* We have name change in internal narration! ♥

Thank you so much for all your kind comments! They mean a lot to me. This is the first time I'm doing a WIP instead of one-shots, so it's all new to me, and the encouragement definitely helps. ♥

Chapter 5: Day Three: Part One

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya come up with a new plan to find others who remember, and get back out on the ice.

Chapter Notes

Day Three

Shane woke up with his face pillowed on a man’s chest for the second day in a row.

This time, there was the smallest smile on his face as he rolled over and fished blindly for his phone on the bedside table. He checked it, then put it down and rolled back into Ilya.

“Still same?” Ilya said, muffled in the pillow.

“Still same,” Shane said, and dragged his teeth lightly over his mark under Ilya’s jaw.

Ilya groaned. “You are awful morning person.”

“Want to try that again?” Shane said, wrapping his hand around Ilya’s cock. “Someone once told me sex, exercise, and food are good for the brain.”

“Sounds like very smart, beautiful person. Best hockey player in the world.”

Shane, already most of the way down Ilya’s body, froze. Then he started laughing, resting his forehead on Ilya’s stomach, his shoulders shaking helplessly. Ilya’s cock twitched in his hand, close to his face, but he couldn’t focus on anything, just kept laughing and laughing.

After a minute, Ilya said, “Are you okay?”

Shane kept laughing. He could hear the hysterical edge of it, but he couldn’t stop.

Ilya sat up and put a hand under his chin, turning Shane’s face up towards him. “Shane. What is wrong?”

The name sobered him, as it was probably meant to do. “Just,” he said, his breath still coming harshly, “one of us is the worst hockey player in the world now.”

Ilya stared at him.

Then he said, “All the hockey players in the world suck cock.”

Shane laughed at him, and then kept laughing, as Ilya’s mock-serious face wobbled and broke, his laughter joining Shane’s. His laugh was beautiful. His eyes were dancing.

“All right,” Ilya said, eventually, his chuckles petering out. “Sex or food first?”

Shane considered. All the dancing and horizontal calisthenics the previous night had made him wake up with an appetite. But – “Well, I’m a hockey player, so it’s my job to live up to that,” he said, and put Ilya’s cock in his mouth.

~

Over breakfast, they discussed their next move.

“There’s no reason to rush to get back to New York, is there?” Shane asked.

Ilya shook his head. “Not really,” he said, around a mouthful of bagel. He’d spread it with a thick layer of peanut butter, saying it was the best American invention, and put it on a plate piled high with eggs and bacon.

Shane, who had oatmeal, eggs, and Greek yogurt with blueberries, did not talk with his mouth full, unlike his breakfast companion. “I was thinking,” he said. “Do you have an Instagram in this world?”

Ilya nodded.

Ilya’s Instagram in their own world had been chaotic, to say the least. He’d never really grasped captions. He posted a lot of mirror selfies and thirst traps, blurry club photos with friends and teammates, and no-context random artsy shots. He almost exclusively followed models and dog accounts, with hardly any hockey follows mixed in (apart from the legendary Ilya Chirpanov account, which posted all Ilya’s chirps and fights, and a couple anonymous artists who drew a lot of artwork of Ilya in various art styles).

Shane Hollander Hockey Player didn’t have an official Instagram. He had an official Twitter, which he didn’t even know the password for, where his mom posted updates. (Shane’s secret Instagram followed only hockey accounts. He was too paranoid about his phone getting hacked to actually follow hot guys, which had been the original reason for it. So he had just followed a bunch of hockey accounts, and if one of them happened to be Ilya Rozanov and his thirst-trapping self, well, he was hidden in plain sight.)

The latest Ilya posts Shane had seen had been 1) a sweaty, shirtless gym selfie (that had inspired some private moments for Shane), 2) a picture of Ilya’s TV with Usain Bolt on it, with clapping hands emojis, and 3) Ilya, Marleau, and a couple other Raiders attempting to do the Gangnam Style dance (Shane thought they should stick to hockey).

“I think you should post something with both of us. Something innocuous, but if someone sees random Canadian student Shane with you and knows who I am, they’ll know we remember.”

“What is – innocuous?” Ilya asked, chewing his eggs.

“Oh, sorry. Innocent? Boring?”

Ilya’s lips quirked. “You are boring, but not innocent.”

“Shut up, asshole,” Shane said, rolling his eyes.

~

Shane stepped onto the ice, looking around him.

Despite facing off against the Raiders for two years in their actual arena (which in this world was solely home to the basketball team they’d shared it with), he’d never expected to be setting foot on the ice of the Raiders’ Wilmington practice facility. But here he was, side-by-side with the most infamous of the Raiders’ brawlers. In figure skates.

“Careful, Hollander,” Ilya said, putting an unnecessarily steadying hand to his back. “Don’t fall.”

Shane shook him off. “I know my way around a toe pick. Do you?”

He’d done two figure-skating summer camps when he was younger. They’d been excellent training for power skating and edge work. He’d met Joe there, one of his best friends as a teenager; they still texted sometimes, both hoping to make the Olympics in Sochi.

“Watch me,” Ilya said, grinning.

It was a Thursday morning in August, and the open skate they’d come to wasn’t crowded. Ilya had offered everyone on the ice $100 each if they’d take a 5-minute break and let him and Shane have a race, and $500 for the best video of it. (They’d probably get banned by the rink, as racing was against the rules, but that was a later-them problem.) Now there was a group of skaters clumped together with their phones out ready to record, excitedly arguing about whether Ilya or Shane was going to win.

“I’m going to watch you fall on your ass, Rozanov. Don’t hit your pretty face.”

It was a thrill to call him pretty. In public, no less. Was this what Ilya felt like, when he called Shane pretty?

“Ready?” said the girl who had elected herself the referee. “Set. Go!”

The skates on his feet weren’t hockey skates. This wasn’t a hockey rink. None of the skaters shouting encouragement knew who they were, or the name of the game they dominated.

But Shane was on ice, in his natural environment like a cheetah on the savannah, and he felt like he could breathe for the first time in three days.

They raced, and Shane was trying too hard to have space for laughter, but it hummed inside him, tangled with all the other complicated emotions wrestling for dominance. Hockey had disappeared, and Shane’s clear, focused, straightforward, black-and-white life had exploded into a kaleidoscope of color; and yet here they were, still, Hollander-and-Rozanov, on ice, side by side.

Ilya beat him by a hair. He immediately started skating a victory lap, hoisting an imaginary Cup above his head. Shane shook his head and caught his breath, annoyed and turned on at the same time. Since when did Ilya know how his way around figure skates? He was even doing a spiral now that didn’t look half-bad. Fuck, why was that hot?

After his victory lap, Ilya went straight into multitasking. He handed out the promised crisp hundreds to everyone, watched the recordings that were shoved at him on ten different phones, and chirped Shane incessantly at the same time. “Was like racing Scott Hunter, you are dinosaur now.”

“From the Cowboys?” someone said. “He skates?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “But it is more falling with style.”

He picked a winner, one that was the least blurry and panned the least dizzily, with an ending of Ilya throwing his head back in laughter while Shane glared at him, hands on his hips. He handed out the $500 prize and his phone number, with flagrant disregard for information security, and when the video came through he posted it to Instagram immediately. Shane, watching over his shoulder, saw that the caption was “beat my good friend hollander today. cup is mine #iceicebaby”

“Thank you, skaters,” Ilya said, with a bow. “We will go now –”

“Noooooo,” said a little girl, who had looked at her hundred-dollar bill like she was Scrooge McDuck. “You have to skate with us!”

Ilya looked at Shane. Shane, who was in no hurry to leave the ice, shrugged.

He ended up working on edge work, losing himself in the remembered drills. Most of the skaters had returned to practicing, but across the rink, Ilya was holding court with a small group of skaters who probably ranged from eight to forty-eight. He looked more comfortable than Shane would have expected; Shane glanced over again, and saw him doing a pairs spin with a middle-aged woman who looked very excited about it. It wasn’t, like, Olympics-level or anything – Joe’s girlfriend Leila was a pairs skater, so Shane knew what that looked like – but it definitely meant that Ilya had been hiding some sort of past.

Shane shook his head, biting back a smile.

~

Afterwards, as Shane got in the BMW and Ilya put the top down, he said, “I should have known that was rigged.”

Ilya widened his eyes theatrically. “What is ‘rigged’? I don’t know this word. I only know you lose, Hollander.”

Shane crossed his arms over his chest, as Ilya backed out of the parking space with more flourish than absolutely necessary. “You have definitely trained with figure skaters before.”

“You have too,” Ilya shot back, arching an eyebrow. “You trained with Joe Ledger.”

“What the – how do you know that?”

Ilya shrugged. The wind was making his curls dance. “You talk about it in interview.”

Shane supposed that was possible. He couldn’t remember anything recent, though. “Yeah, well, it was only a couple summer camps, when I was a kid. You looked good out there.”

“Oh really?” Ilya said, looking delighted.

“Shut up. You know what I meant. With the skaters.” Though he wasn’t wrong. Apparently being a model meant that you owned exquisitely tailored, probably-designer leggings that most likely cost as much as Shane’s gameday suits and made your ass pop in a way that should be illegal. Shane wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a man on the ice look as fucking gorgeous as Ilya did out of his gear. (But then, he was gorgeous even in his usual Adidas.)

“No, tell me more about how good I look.”

Shane was aware that he might be blushing. Why was Ilya always able to read his face so easily? “Not going to stroke your ego, Rozanov.”

Ilya waggled his eyebrows. “I have something you can stroke.”

But over lunch, at one of Ilya’s favorite local places, Shane refused to let it go. “No, seriously. When did you learn how to figure skate? I’ve never heard anyone mention it.”

Ilya chewed obnoxiously, looking at the waiter out of the corner of his eye. “So weird. Francisco is big Raiders fan, always makes jokes. One time we came and Francisco keeps looking at my shoes, and finally I ask why, he says he is making sure McCarthy’s stick is not still caught there.”

Shane remembered that game, with Ilya tripping and sliding on his belly on the ice, with McCarthy’s stick wedged through his skate. And Ilya was right, the waiter was barely looking at them, although he’d been pleasant enough when he brought their food. Certainly there was no recognition there. “Well, model-Ilya lives in New York. There’s no reason you’d spend a lot of time in Boston, definitely not enough time to become a regular here.”

Ilya looked glum about this. “Only person I know who is still texting me is my friend Sveta. She is old friend, from Russia. But she knows fake me here. She is asking me to get her tickets to fashion week shows next month.”

“Same,” Shane said, pushing his food around on his plate. “My parents still know me, but not me.” He hesitated for a moment. “I don’t want to talk to my parents right now. Is that wrong? It’s just – my mom didn’t feel like my mom. I mean, I can tell that she still is my mom, but it feels like… Like, I don’t know, like she’s a clone or something. She’s my mom, but she’s not my mom.”

Ilya didn’t answer. He took another bite of his food.

Oh god. Ilya’s mom. Shane felt super guilty. But he couldn’t apologize, Ilya had said he didn’t want to talk about it. “I know I should be happy I have parents who love me,” he said, awkwardly. Fuck, that made it worse, now he was rubbing it in that Ilya’s father was a bigot. “But it’s actually kind of horrifying. It feels like aliens took over their brains.”

“We will get back the real Hollanders,” Ilya said, quietly. “Before you have time to miss them.”

Shane already did. Sometimes his mom could be too much, but he’d take two hours of her monologuing about his next career opportunities right about now.

This was heavy for lunch, especially in public. He tried to think of a change of subject. Wait. “You never answered my question! How did you learn to figure skate?”

Ilya looked away.

“I mean,” Shane said, belatedly catching up to the fact that Ilya had avoided the question at least twice, “you don’t have to answer that. Sorry.”

Ilya’s hand came up to brush his neck for a second. His face was remote, somewhere far away. “My mother was a figure skater, when she was a girl. Not good enough for Olympics, not in the Soviet Union. So many good figure skaters. But very good. She taught me a little, when I was young.”

“Oh,” Shane said, softly.

Ilya rolled his fork in his fingers. “When I came to Boston, I found a teacher. Sometimes when I – sometimes I schedule lesson, and learn a little more.”

Sometimes when I miss my mother, Shane heard, as clearly as if he’d said it.

“Well, you looked really good out there,” Shane said, still keeping his voice quiet. “Especially with that one little girl you were doing spirals with. She looked so happy.”

Ilya blinked hard. Shane could see him folding himself back behind his eyes, reassembling himself back into his usual self. “Maybe I do Battle of the Blades when I retire.”

“You watch that?” It was one of Shane’s guilty pleasures. “You’d wipe the floor with them. With a figure skating background, and your competitiveness? They’d be dead. Everybody else would just be constantly calling you an asshole while you skated circles around them.”

Ilya smiled. Just a little quirk of the lips. “You will have to do it too. Then we can fight each other all the way to final.”

It sounded like Shane’s personal nightmare, being on the ice but being bad at it. While people watched, on national television. No way in hell. “I’ll cheer you on from the stands.”

“Will you,” Ilya said, and it landed slightly strangely.

By unspoken mutual consent, they changed the subject.

~

After lunch, Ilya pulled up his Instagram and looked at the DMs. “Tits, tits, ass, tits, ah cock, tits –”

“You know you don’t have to narrate,” Shane said, letting his head fall sideways against the BMW’s window.

“Narrate?”

“You don’t have to say out loud what all the photos are.”

“Hollander,” Ilya said, “you are the one who said, ‘Rozanov, look in your DMs and see if any hockey players are there saying oh my god you said Hollander was your friend, what the fuck’. This was your idea.”

“Yes, but.” Shane gave up. “Do you really get that many, uh, body parts in your DMs?”

Ilya looked at him. “You do too.”

Shane flushed. “I don’t!”

“Maybe not as many,” Ilya said, with a considering little noise. “You are nice Canadian boy, maybe some people just invite you for coffee, because they don’t want to scare you. But many. Your mother runs your Twitter, yes?”

“Yes, but I don’t see how that matters –”

“Mama Hollander has, how do you say it, seen some shit.”

Shane hit his shoulder, hard, and then kept on pummeling him while Ilya laughed.

It was a bright day, and with the top down, the sun made everything golden. Shane could feel his freckles getting darker by the second, and the top of Ilya’s ears were a little red. He needed to get some sunscreen on him.

“So,” Ilya said, capturing Shane’s pummeling hand with his own, and continuing to scroll his phone with the other, “no hockey players in messages yet. What do you want to do while we wait?”

Shane shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Sex or sightseeing?”

Shane’s dick was very interested in this proposition. Just being around Ilya seemed to turn him into a horndog he barely recognized. He never had this problem when he was home in Montreal, but now he was sitting in a car half-hard, trying not to squirm in his seat. You literally came like four hours ago, he told his dick, firmly.

“Show me somewhere you like,” he said.

Ilya released his hand in order to take the steering wheel. He looked smug, like he knew exactly what Shane was feeling right then, but all he said was, “I know where.”

~

Shane watched the little fish swimming in the coral reef. It was peaceful, somehow, even with the sounds of excited children’s voices as a constant background soundtrack.

Ilya’s chin hooked onto his shoulder from behind. “If I have trouble sleeping, sometimes I go on Youtube and watch the fish swim. The jellyfish change colors.”

They stood together. The fish swam. A giant turtle went by.

What were they going to do?

Ilya didn’t have a family now. Shane’s parents and Ilya’s friend Sveta didn’t know them; they knew the alternate-universe versions of them, but that just wasn’t the same thing. And maybe the simmering panic in Shane’s stomach was wrong, and someone was going to pop into Ilya’s DMs at any moment and have an answer and a solution. Maybe Shane’s phone was going to ring, and Roger Crowell would be on the line. Maybe Shane would suddenly blink awake in the Metros locker room, safe and sound. Maybe a witch – or, fuck, a talking turtle – was going to suddenly show up and give them a quest to complete to resurrect hockey.

But Shane didn’t think so. Not anymore.

Hayden, JJ, Marleau, fucking Scott Hunter – ninety-nine percent of the people in their lives didn’t have the first clue of who they were. And there were new people, people they didn’t know, who thought they had relationships with them. Shane had two roommates, and a thesis adviser, and probably a whole McGill friend group. Ilya probably had, what, a makeup artist and a groomer and a personal stylist, and a bunch of model friends? Maybe not a girlfriend, or else she’d have been checking in before now, so at least they were lucky there, but – the point was, these lives were not their own.

Would Ilya even like modeling? Did Shane have the smallest interest in being an architect?

And – the question that Shane could barely consider. That one. Did he have an answer?

Ilya’s chin was pointy and dug into Shane’s shoulder. His cologne was subtle, but Shane’s body felt like it was a flower turning towards the sun.

Three days ago, Shane had been practicing with Hayden and JJ, shit-talking their footwork, discussing the CBA negotiations, and making predictions for the season. They’d gone out for lunch afterwards, with Jackie and Emma and Ruby joining them. Shane had bounced Ruby on his knee, and JJ had been talking about how Lefebvre would fit in with the Drillers, after the big trade during the draft. Shane remembered thinking about how he was glad that he wasn’t worried about being traded, about how he planned on being a Metro for life.

Three days later, he was in Boston watching fish, with a man draped against his back in public.

What were they going to do?

And since when had the question become they?

“Want to go see the little sharks?” Ilya said, in his ear. “They even let you touch them.”

They left the fish behind, and Shane turned his head for one last look.

Chapter End Notes

Notes from this chapter:

* I feel strongly that, while Ilya has a Twitter, he is much more of an Instagram person (as seen in TLG). I love the idea of him as a chaotic early-adopter. Summer 2012 was the London Olympics and, indeed, the summer of Gangnam Style.

* The Bruins (aka the Raiders) share their arena with the Celtics. Their practice facility in 2012 was in Wilmington, so I stole it.

* Figure skating training is great for hockey players. With it being canon that Shane is friends with Joe, a Canadian figure-skating Olympian, I definitely think he did some training with figure skaters when he was younger. (I also couldn't help but give Joe a girlfriend, because bless you Vaughny, your heart's in the right place, but not all male figure skaters are automatically gay.)

* McCarthy's stick getting stuck in Ilya's skate is based on this incident.

* Battle of the Blades was a Canadian reality show, originally from 2009-2013, with two revival seasons in 2019-2020. It's like Dancing with the Stars, except it pairs hockey players with figure skaters to learn and perform figure skating routines. Here's a lovely performance by Akim Aliu with professional partner Vanessa James. Just imagining Ilya participating makes me happy.

* Instagram DMs - this is the one time I am knowingly being anachronistic. Pictures in DMs wouldn't come for one more year. Shhh, I just needed them here.

* The New England Aquarium is really nice. My headcanon is that Ilya wasn't entirely lying when he told Shane that he'd watched his documentary to help him sleep, and that he does struggle with insomnia sometimes. Watching soothing aquarium videos on Youtube could definitely help.

* Next up: the guys have an important conversation, and we definitely earn our E rating.

Chapter 6: Day Three: Part Two

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya have an important conversation, and then break Ilya's promise.

Chapter Notes

Day Three, Part Two

After the aquarium, and an impromptu whale-watching tour, they’d stopped at another of Ilya’s favorite restaurants for dinner. Shane had eaten his chicken, quinoa, and vegetables, and let Ilya steal his mushrooms. He’d watched Ilya being deliberately lascivious with his fork, and let Ilya see him watching.

Now they were back in their hotel room. Shane had half-expected Ilya to be on him the minute the door shut, but there was an odd mood in the air. Something hesitant, something heavy.

“Nothing,” Ilya said, quietly, looking up from his phone. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

It was the evening of the third day. Somebody had to say it. “And what if it’s never?”

Ilya turned away.

“I know it sucks. But we have to face it. What if we’re stuck?”

“Why tonight?” Ilya said, still pointed towards the corner. “Video is not even one day old. We don’t need to talk tonight.”

Because I can’t keep living in a fantasy with you, like it’s frozen time.

There was one person in this world who knew who Shane really was. Only one. He wasn’t going to lie to him, not now, not in this room.

“Because I’ve been fighting panic ever since I found out,” he said. “You know that. For the past three days you’ve been doing everything you can to keep me from having a full-on panic attack. And you’re good at it. Thank you.”

Ilya must have heard the sincerity in that awkward thank you. His jaw moved, just for a second.

Shane swallowed, and kept going. “But I can’t fight it off forever. I have to face it. We can’t hide from reality like we’re, what, ostriches with our heads in the sand. There’s only so many Boston tourist attractions you can take me to, Ilya.”

Except they weren’t just tourist attractions, were they? Shane thought they might just be Ilya’s favorite places. His restaurants, his park, his swans, his practice facility, his aquarium. He’d even shared his figure skating, and about his mom. Did anyone on the Raiders know about that, or at least know anything beyond that he’d done a little edge work training?

“We’re not videogame characters who can reset back to a save point. What happens in this world – it matters.” And here it was, the part that needed Shane to set his teeth and commit to the play, even if it got him smashed into the boards. “I’m not the same person who woke up in a new world three days ago. Are you?”

Ilya didn’t answer for a minute. Then he went and sat on the bed, sinking onto it with little of his usual grace. He tipped his chin up and met Shane’s eyes, a challenge in his. “You called me Ilya.”

“You’ve called me Shane too,” Shane said.

Ilya swore in Russian. “The last time, you wouldn’t even let me kiss you. Because someone might see.”

“And now we’re not there,” Shane said. “It’s different.” He bit his lip. “I danced with you at Marleau’s club. I kissed you.”

Ilya gestured at him like this proved his point. “Yes! You did not want it, on the roof. What the fuck are you doing?” His Shane imitation sounded anguished. “You would not meet me for so long, after. And now, what, it is different, just because there is no hockey?”

“Not just because there’s no hockey,” Shane said, although he knew that was a big part of it. But it wasn’t the only part. “I knew you in bed before, and on the ice. I didn’t know you at all, off the ice. And I was scared to learn more, because I liked the little bits I saw, and liking you meant things I wasn’t ready to know about myself.”

Ilya turned his face away.

Well, even if he wasn’t going to ask, Shane was going to tell him. “I’m gay.”

Ilya laughed. It sounded wild, not mocking. “Congratulations.”

“You’re not gay,” Shane said. “But you know enough about me and the league to know why that scared me. I’m already the strange one in my locker room. Too good, too weird, too Asian, too intense. I’ve been told all my life that I have to be a role model for kids who are going to look up to me.” He sat on the bed, careful to give Ilya space. “I just wanted to be normal, in one way at least.”

“Who cares if you are normal,” Ilya said, making it sound like a curse word. His eyes flashed, when he jerked his head towards Shane. “You are not normal. You are the best fucking hockey player in the world – after me,” he added, a second too late. “Who fucking cares if you are fucking normal? That is for stupid people who care about the wrong things.”

The back of Shane’s neck felt flushed. He couldn’t do eye contact right now, but he could feel Ilya’s eyes on him, as physical as a touch. “Well. Anyway. I’ve given up pretending I’m not gay, which is one thing that’s different from three days ago.” He squeezed the sheets in his hand, the pressure helping to ground him. It reminded him of last night, of Ilya tucking clean sheets onto the bed for him. “And I’m not scared of becoming friends with you anymore.”

Ilya made a frustrated sound. Shane still couldn’t look directly at him. “Is that what we are? Friends?”

“I’d like to be,” Shane said. “And maybe –”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Not without something back from Ilya. His mouth was dry, and he was over-ready for a shift change.

“Blyat,” Ilya said, which was the one Russian word Shane actually did know. He ran his hand through his hair, frustration in every line of his body. “I do not know what you want, Hollander.”

“I think I’ve been showing you,” Shane said.

Ilya threw an expressive hand in the air. “Three days! Three days, Shane. You think we change so much, in three days?”

And here was the heart of it all. “I don’t know that we’ve changed so much. Just – maybe let each other see more. I haven’t lied to you one time. And I don’t think you’ve lied to me.”

“Oh, so now you would let me kiss you on the roof? Now you would answer my texts, and let me come to your apartment, and, what, be – together?” His voice cracked on the last word.

Shane scooted closer to him on the bed. Ilya turned his face away again.

Shane Hollander Hockey Player had been so scared of who he was, that he wouldn’t even acknowledge it to himself. Shane Hollander Hockey Player could never have dreamed of a universe where he’d gone this long without holding a hockey stick, or where he’d spent three days on the world’s oddest first date. Shane Hollander Hockey Player hadn’t seen Ilya folding Shane’s clothes, or changing the sheets for him, or telling him about his mother.

“I’m not asking you to – do anything crazy,” Shane said. Hayden met Jackie when he was twenty, and married her a year later, no older than they were now. Lots of hockey players married super young and started families. It wasn’t uncommon, even if Shane’s own nebulous future plans had always been firmly not until after hockey. “We hooked up twice in the other world, and we’ve been on one three-day date in this one.”

His father’s grandparents had met when his great-grandfather was a week away from shipping out to fight in the Second World War. After two dates, Pops had written a letter to his mother, saying he’d met the girl he was going to marry. They’d made it fifty years together. Sometimes, maybe, you just knew.

(Not that Shane was thinking that yet. Even though “mysterious alternate universe forcing you and the guy you’re obsessed with to hang out together” did seem a bit on-the-nose for metaphysical magical soulmate sorts of shenanigans.)

Shane cleared his cluttered mind and focused on the man in front of him, whose face was still obstinately turned away. “I’m just saying this: there’s a million reasons why Hollander and Rozanov couldn’t be together in the hockey world. I can’t think of a single one for why Shane and Ilya couldn’t try to make it work, here in this one. Whatever that looks like.”

Ilya’s hand flexed where it rested on his knee.

“And,” Shane said, “if you’re asking what I want? Hollander and Shane have always wanted the same thing, even if Hollander didn’t always admit it to himself.”

He stopped. Waited. Made Ilya finally ask, “What?” in a voice that husked.

Shane reached his hand out and took Ilya’s chin, turning his face back to him.

It was simple in the end. Just so simple.

“You,” Shane said, and kissed him.

When they broke apart for air, Ilya said, “You are sure?”

“I’m sure,” Shane said. “I want to talk about what we do next, but I want there to be a ‘we’.”

Ilya was quiet for a long moment, and then he said, “Okay.”

It was soft and unadorned. Shane felt his face doing something complicated, as they sat there together and looked at each other, two men alone in a universe.

Then Ilya said, “So what is the plan, Hollander, you are plan person.”

Shane smiled, shaking his head slightly. “The plan is, we drive back to New York tomorrow. You get ready for Milan. I have to decide if I’m going to go back to McGill and finish my last year, figure out if architecture is what I want to do. And if it is, I get my degree, and then I move to New York.”

“With me.”

“With you.”

Ilya’s fingers slid into Shane’s. “And what if I moved to Boston?”

“You’d have to travel a lot if you stayed in modeling, I think,” Shane said. “But if you were okay with that, then I guess I’d be designing buildings in Boston.”

Ilya smiled, but it was still guarded. “And you are really okay?”

Well. That was a different question.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Shane said, tracing the strong line of Ilya’s jaw. “I’m fucking heartbroken. It feels like someone reached in and scooped out half my heart with a skate blade. I’m probably going to dream about hockey, and give you heart attacks when I wake up screaming.”

Ilya hummed slightly. “Or maybe you will invent fun new sport for everyone to get very obsessed with.” He tapped Shane’s temple. “Rulebook is kept safe here.”

Well. Shane did know the rulebook pretty well. He supposed it wasn’t beyond the realm of imagination that he could be the James Creighton of this universe, 137 years too late. “You think people will want to play a new game that some McGill student came up with?”

“I think,” Ilya said, pressing a kiss to the spot behind Shane’s ear that made his heart skip a beat, “that if you and I find someone to make us sticks, skates, and a puck, we can film videos that will make all of Canada want to play Shane Hollander’s strange little game called hockey.”

“It really is a very exciting game,” Shane said, already thinking about it.

“And we are very pretty,” Ilya said, right in his ear, in a purr that should be illegal. “And very good. Lucky that we are the two that remember.”

Shane imagined some of the chucklefucks in the league trying to create hockey from first principles, and shuddered. It would be a huge undertaking even for him, although the scale of the challenge felt more exciting than daunting. Could he really invent hockey? It was the world’s greatest game, and they were both incredible at it.

“Maybe we could do it,” he said, tentatively. “Maybe.”

Ilya’s hand was creeping towards distracting places. “You do not need to build buildings. Build us a hockey empire instead.”

Shane heroically tried to keep them on the subject. “I think I need to finish my degree first. It’s only one more year. Nobody’s going to take a college dropout seriously. And my parents would freak out.”

Ilya sighed. “Is a waste of time.”

“Well, I can make friends with student-athletes and teach them how to play. So then we can film videos with actual hockey in them, instead of just me explaining rules and you flirting with the camera.” And maybe he and Ilya could get to know each other a little better, instead of going straight to moving in together. They weren’t Romeo and Juliet the lesbian swans. Much as Shane’s dick might like the idea.

Ilya tilted his head, conceding the point. “Mmm, maybe.” He was quiet for a moment. “So, this world is not… so bad, then? If we can get hockey back?”

“It’s hard,” Shane said. “If my parents remembered, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. But having them replaced by alternate-universe clones is horrible.” He paused. “But there’s also this guy who’s stuck in this world with me. And he’s funny, and hot, and annoying, and he’s spent the last three days trying to make me smile. He makes everything – just a little bit better. And I – I like him.”

Ilya’s smile was soft.

“Even if he’s the worst hockey player in the world,” Shane said.

Ilya’s smile broadened into a grin, and then he was leaning in and kissing Shane, pressing him back into the pillows.

They made out lazily, no urgency to it. There was no curfew to beat, no early flight. Just them, together, in a bed, with nowhere to be. It could have been any world in the universe, any world with the two of them in its beating center.

After a few minutes, Shane used his grip in Ilya’s hair to tug him back a little. “If I ask you to fuck me now, are you going to tell me no again?”

Ilya ducked his head to kiss the inside of Shane’s other wrist, as Shane stroked the side of his face with his fingertips. “You want?”

Shane knew they both felt the weight of it, the symbolism. There was bittersweet grief in the surrendering of Ilya’s promise, acceptance as it was put to rest. If this was going to be their world, then they would make a start of it tonight, even with the shadows of their ghosts still hovering in the air.

And in the end, it could also just be simple and easy, an act of choosing joy.

“I want,” Shane said, in a soft echo of Ilya’s accent, and traced the curve of his eyebrow. “I want to be the only person you fuck in this world.”

Shane Hollander Hockey Player would never have dared to ask for that, would have expected Rozanov to laugh in his face and never speak to him again; but Shane looked in Ilya’s eyes, and Ilya gave the tiniest of nods.

“Fuck me, Ilya,” Shane said, and pulled his face down, finding his mark under Ilya’s jaw and sucking it into bloom.

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya said, and kissed him fiercely.

Shane had always known that Ilya’s hands were big. He’d seen his grip flex on his stick, as he waited for the puck to drop. He’d watched Ilya absentmindedly brush at a flyaway curl, as he did another shirtless press call that would end up going viral in both positive and negative ways (bringing new fans in to watch hockey was a good thing, but it was a staid, conservative sport and a lot of hockey people didn’t like what they saw as cocksure ego). He’d moaned as Ilya wrapped those strong fingers around Shane’s cock, the veins in his forearm standing out so attractively.

But knowing that Ilya’s hands were big, and feeling his fingers inside him, were two entirely different things.

He knew his mouth was hanging open, and he couldn’t stop the sounds that came out, broken and profane. Ilya seemed to like them, at least. He kept leaning down between Shane’s legs and kissing him, never stopping the cruel heaven of those fingers. He pressed his lips to Shane’s knee, where Shane was keeping himself folded up like a pretzel for him; to the inside of Shane’s wrist, soft as a butterfly’s wings; to the bruise on Shane’s chest, his own livid signature; to Shane’s jaw, his neck, his nose.

Eventually Shane dropped one of the knees he held and let that heel press heavily down on Ilya’s back, forcing him closer. He used his freed hand to yank Ilya by the hair into a real kiss, curling his tongue around silent promises, drinking the sweetness of their matched desire. Ilya kissed back with just as little restraint.

Another time they would do slow and sweet. Maybe in the morning, in the gentle dawn light, both still a little hazy from sleep. Shane had seen the fuzziness of a half-awake Ilya, these last mornings, and it was already something he never wanted to forget.

But now – now was for the soul-altering slide and stretch of Ilya’s fingers. If Shane had known he was gay before, off a few blowjobs and one finger at All-Stars, he knew now with the fire of a thousand suns. He was fiercely angry with Shane Hollander Hockey Player for letting his fear cockblock him for a year and a half. They could’ve been doing this all that time.

“Still ok?” Ilya asked, resting their foreheads together.

“Fucking get inside me,” Shane said, digging his heel hard into Ilya’s back.

Ilya just kissed him again, as those big fingers kept up their relentless assault on the spot inside Shane that was fast rearranging his conception of the cosmos. Shane liked the kissing, he liked it a lot, but he was ready, he was ready.

Okay. Time to adapt.

Shane wasn’t going to put on an act. But there was a difference between an act and a show – and Shane could show Ilya just what he was feeling, in vivid color. He arched up against him, his cock dragging across Ilya’s abs, leaving a slick drip down his happy trail. He moaned, breathy and low, as he tipped his head back in a showy arch into the pillow. He pushed back, fucking himself down onto Ilya’s fingers, trying to set a rhythm.

“Fuck,” Ilya swore, leaving fast, desperate, open-mouthed kisses under Shane’s exposed jawline.

He pulled his fingers out, carefully. Shane still winced at the sudden emptiness.

And then Ilya was there, and he was pressing in, slow but sure –

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Shane had never felt anything in his life as right as Ilya’s cock sinking into his body. He’d been pretty sure that this would be good – everything he’d ever done with Ilya had been breathtakingly hot – but there was “pretty sure” and then there was knowing.

He hadn’t known what it felt like to light up from the inside. Fingers couldn’t capture the moment that Ilya’s cock dragged across his prostate, surprising a guttural sound from the depths of Shane’s soul. Imagination couldn’t picture what it felt like to be full, to be filled, to be actively intertwined with another human being, inside his actual physical body.

Shane had built this body from the ground up. He’d been a wiry kid, never a big eater, always moving and burning energy. But hockey needed strength, so he’d put in the hours in the gym and followed every nutritional plan to near-obsession, until now, coming into his third year in the league, he was at peak fitness. He had the muscle and the stamina and the bulk and the strength, all of it honed through years of consistent daily choices and hard fucking work. This year was the year he would win a Cup, and Shane would carry the team on his shoulders if he had to.

Now his body, so familiar, so constructed and built and perfected, had become a stranger to him. He, who knew its capabilities on a minute level, was struck speechless by how desire could sink its claws in his belly, red-toothed, his slow athlete’s heartrate doubling and tripling between one moment and the next. His neck arched, his back arched, all of him arched up into Ilya; and Ilya slid in the last inches, and they were joined.

“Fuck,” Shane said, so banal, so helplessly beyond words.

“Okay?” Ilya said, breathless, his voice shaking with strain, holding himself still with obvious effort.

And this was another thing Shane had not expected – what Ilya looked like.

Maybe if this had been hockey world, and Shane had finally given in to his hunger for Ilya (and Ilya’s persistent flirtatious pursuits), and they were fucking in the cold half-furnished condo he’d bought, then Shane would have been wholly focused on his own pleasure and the life-changing experience of getting railed for the first time. He could easily imagine falling into this wave of sensation and turning inwards, drowning in its addictive pull.

But this wasn’t hockey world, and it wasn’t Rozanov who was fucking him. It was Ilya.

Ilya, the boy who loved dogs and swans and quokkas. Ilya, the son who skated spirals and remembered a mother he’d lost. Ilya, the lover who took Shane apart and always seemed to think of Shane’s pleasure first. Ilya, the man who’d expertly teased and distracted and redirected about eighteen panic attacks in three days, making what could have been a waking nightmare into something altogether more complex. Ilya – Shane’s Ilya.

Shane’s Ilya was holding himself still above him, leaning his weight on his braced hands, his face as open and unlocked as Shane had ever seen it. Is it okay? his face asked, as loudly as his repeated words. Am I making it good for you?

Shane folded his knees over Ilya’s shoulders, freeing his hands. He put one hand on Ilya’s bulging bicep, and the other in Ilya’s hair, drawing him down. He poured himself into the kiss, giving Ilya all the answers, handing himself over without a word spoken.

And Ilya began to move, and Shane broke the kiss on a gasping shout, and his eyes flew open, and the look on Ilya’s face was an echo of Shane’s surrender, and they were one here in this Boston night, here in this broken world they chose –

Shane let himself fall into the river of desire, pulled under the current with Ilya in his arms.

They were cuddled together under new sheets, when Shane suddenly laughed, leaning his forehead against Ilya’s collarbone.

“What?” Ilya asked, sounding already groggily half-asleep.

“One upside to being gay,” Shane said, with the reckless giddiness of a well-fucked man. “I never have to eat pussy again.”

Ilya’s chest shook with silent laughter. “You did so much of that?”

“Well, yes. They had to have a nice night somehow. And you don’t have to keep a tongue hard. I was good at it.” Shane had never felt more at peace with himself, than he was now as a retired muff-diver. (He could thank JJ for teaching him that particular word.)

“Oh, were you,” Ilya said. His voice was warm, but teasing. “My super gay Jane.”

“Fuck you. It’s all technique. They always came. And don’t you dare say they were pretending.”

Shane felt the kiss to his hair. “I know you have a good mouth. I am just thinking, what makes it so hot is that you want it so bad. You get on your knees as soon as you shut the door, because you want my cock so bad. You are hard just sucking my cock, starving for it. Were you this hungry for pussy?”

“Ugh,” Shane said. “No. Are you?”

Ilya was stroking Shane’s hip with one talented fingertip. “I like eating pussy,” he said. “I like to get my face wet, and use my fingers to get her to come at least three times.”

Shane wrinkled his nose. He didn’t need to hear this. Plus it was gross.

“But I like sucking your cock more,” Ilya said. “You look so pretty when I have my mouth on you, so desperate and wanting. It is the wanting that is the hottest.”

Shane kissed him for that, nipping at his lips.

Ilya wasn’t too sleepy for round two after all.

Chapter End Notes

Notes for this chapter:

* There is definitely a front desk employee daydreaming on her night shift about why the drop-dead gorgeous guy in 1217 keeps needing so many fresh sheets.

* Continuing to prioritize show!canon here (Hayden already being married and having the twins before becoming friends with Shane), but keeping the Hayden & Jackie first meeting story from book!canon.

* "Here in this broken world they chose" is from Vienna Teng's Shine.

* Next up: there be twists afoot.

Chapter 7: Day Eight

Chapter Summary

A week after Shane Hollander wakes up in a new universe, he gets a phone call that changes everything.

Chapter Notes

Shane Hollander woke up in a bed that was not his own.

For the seventh day in a row, he woke in Ilya’s arms.

He stretched, which was more of a wriggle since he didn’t want to wake Ilya yet. He could still feel the slight aftereffects of last night. Not a bad feeling, just there. He’d ridden Ilya until his legs gave out, then hung on as Ilya flipped them and put in his own shift. Fucking Ilya continued to be a revelation, each and every time; they were really getting good at it. Top of the game, whatever game they played.

Also – I think I have a boyfriend now. Shane grinned against Ilya’s sleeping chest. They hadn’t said the exact word yet, but he was pretty sure he was right.

Was there still a hole in his heart where hockey had been? Sure. Did he still miss his real parents? Of course. Were either of those things going to change anytime soon? Nope.

He’d woken up their last morning in Boston with a strange foreboding in the pit of his stomach. Did he believe in witches or magic? No. He believed in what he could accomplish with his body and his stick, and nothing else.

But if there was magic, and if he and Ilya were somehow at the heart of it – which seemed possible, given that no hockey player had ever reached out to Ilya (so it could very well mean something that he and Ilya were the only two who remembered) – then Shane hadn’t been able to think of something more likely to break the glass of their alternate-universe than him and Ilya deciding to be together and fully fucking for the first time. If they were going all Hollywood-ending on this shit.

(Of course, Hollywood endings could vary. If Shane was in a romance, then feelings-and-fucking would definitely break the curse, and they’d live happily ever after. If Shane was in a romantic tragedy, then it might break the curse, but they’d end up back in the hockey world with their memories of this week gone, or only one of them would go back and the other would be left behind, or they’d get hockey back but no longer be hockey players themselves. If Shane was in a sports movie, then they were probably going to play in the conference finals this year and one of them was getting a career-ending injury.)

So the morning after coming untouched in a Boston hotel, Shane had woken up tense, half-expecting to be in an empty bed in his lonely Montreal apartment.

But he’d been big spoon, wrapped around a snoring Russian, and nothing had changed. (Apart from Shane feeling confident and mischievous enough to wake Ilya up by showing him just how much he preferred sucking cock to eating pussy.) With a sleeping Ilya cradled in his arms, that was the moment that Shane finally fully relinquished his old world. If they hadn’t switched back then, it was incredibly unlikely that they ever would. It was time to move on.

They’d driven back to New York that day. Ilya sung along to his music a lot when he was happy. He couldn’t sing. Shane liked that there was something he was bad at, and that Ilya felt comfortable enough to let Shane know it. Brave of him; Shane was definitely going to figure out a way to chirp him for it in the new hockey world he was going to create.

Neither of them knew New York very well, so they’d continued the strangest first date Shane had ever heard of by exploring the city. Ilya loved bagels and pizza, and Shane loved the Liberty game they went to. They visited the New York Botanical Garden, which was beautiful; Shane’s favorite part was the forest, where they walked quietly together, holding hands and breathing in the majestic weight of centuries-old trees. One day they went to the Met, where they spent a full hour in the “Naked Before the Camera” exhibition, before moving on to other galleries. It spoke to Shane, this uncompromising look at the human form as art, and Ilya examined it with a professional eye he’d acquired upon entering this universe.

And every morning and every night, back in the penthouse, they’d christened all the surfaces and sheet sets Ilya owned.

One day they’d come home to find a gorgeous curly-haired visitor who had let herself in with her spare key, and Shane had been introduced to the alternate-universe version of Ilya’s childhood friend Sveta. At first it had been strange. Shane had been surprised to find that Ilya’s poker face was no longer as opaque to him as it used to be, and he could see the strain reflected there that he felt when his fake-parents called. But after a few minutes Sveta had barked something in Russian, and Ilya had sighed and told Shane that she was asking who he was and what the fuck he’d done with her Ilyusha, and twenty minutes later Shane had found himself explaining the hockey rulebook. Sveta had been very intrigued and very smart, and by the time she’d left that night, there’d been another person in this universe who loved hockey. Shane Hollander’s first convert.

Now it was a soft, bright morning, with sunshine sneaking around the sides of the curtains and Ilya snoring softly in their bed. It was their last morning together. Shane’s Montreal flight left that afternoon, and Ilya’s Milan one left that evening. They were already making plans for a week in October where Ilya could come up to visit.

Hard to believe it had only been a week. Such a week it had been; and now Shane would snuggle with his sleeping boyfriend a little while longer, and then get in a round of morning sex. Then breakfast, and packing, and goodbyes –

Shane’s phone rang on the bedside table.

Ilya’s chest rumbled with a groan under Shane’s ear, turning into mumbles that were probably instructions to make the noise stop.

Shane rolled over and fumbled for it. It was his mother’s ringtone, although why she’d be calling him at – oh, it was already 8. Shane supposed they had stayed up late, when they couldn’t resist a second round.

“Hello?” he said, keeping his voice quiet. “Mom?”

Ilya, still incoherently grumbling, dragged Shane’s pillow over his head.

“Sweetheart,” his mom said. She sounded like she’d been crying. “Where are you?”

Shane suddenly felt much more awake. Shit. She must be at his apartment in Montreal. Why was she there? She’d called a few times during the week, and while he hadn’t mentioned that he’d left town, she hadn’t mentioned anything about driving over from Ottawa either. He’d had no clue this was coming. “Sorry, mom, I went to visit a friend. Everything’s okay. Sorry I didn’t mention it.”

“Where are you? Can you come back to the apartment? Now, please? We need to see you.”

This wasn’t good. Whatever was going on with his parents right now, there was a high chance that Shane was supposed to know all about it, and he definitely didn’t. Were they all supposed to be going somewhere? Did he have a deadline for his thesis? Did one of his parents have a health condition? Did Shane?

He’d taken too long to answer. He gulped. “Uh. Actually, I’m in New York. I’m flying back this afternoon.”

“Why are you in New York?”

“Uh.” Because my boyfriend is here? No, this was not how he wanted to introduce Ilya to them. Not that they would know him, so at least he and Ilya wouldn’t have the “Ilya Rozanov, Certified Menace” reputation going against them, but still. It wasn’t every day that your nerdy architect son announced his new supermodel boyfriend, and it was probably a conversation better had in person. “Just visiting a friend. Is everything okay?”

“Is everything okay?” his mom repeated, in her rhetorical-question voice. Shane winced. He’d definitely fucked up. He wished he knew how. “My son goes fucking missing, at a time like this -”

“I’m not missing, Mom! God!” He was sitting up now. Ilya had pulled the pillow off his face and was blinking up at him, looking concerned. “I’m just in New York. I’m twenty-one years old, I’m fine.”

“With a friend?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, making a I don’t even know face at Ilya. But hmm, maybe he could soft-launch things, and then when he did introduce Ilya as his boyfriend, he’d already be someone they knew about. “Just visiting my friend Ilya.”

Something crashed on the other side of the line.

“Mom? You okay?”

“What the hell are you doing in New York with Rozanov?”

Shane’s face must have done something strange, because Ilya was sitting up very quickly. “Shane. What is it? Are you okay?”

“Is he there?” His mom sounded outraged. “Shane –”

“I’ll call you back,” Shane said. He hung up. On his mom. Turned on do not disturb.

Ilya’s face was concerned. Open. Beautiful.

All the panic that had been building for a week came rushing in at once, and Shane choked on it. “Ilya,” he said, strangled, and pitched forward against him.

Ilya pulled him in and held him close, running a hand rhythmically over his back.

Hockey. Hockey rushed back into the void it had left, filling the grieving parts of Shane’s heart. There would be skates again, and hockey sticks, and the familiar weight of his gear. There would be the clarity and focus that always came to Shane on the ice, where everything else melted away except him, the puck, and the game. There would be faceoffs and goals, wins and losses, his teammates and his city and his legacy.

And his family was back, his family and his friends. He could call Hayden or JJ right now, if he wanted, he could open up his phone and call them and they would pick up. Who knew where they had been yesterday, but now they were back. His mom was back. His dad was back. He could call them. His mom would yell at him a lot for hanging up on her, but she was his mom again, not an alien clone, and she knew him.

Except she doesn’t, a small internal voice said.

Because his mom didn’t know the Shane held in Ilya’s arms with a hesitant tenderness, the Shane who found his breathing steadying against Ilya’s heartbeat. She didn’t know the Shane who raced on a figure skating rink, who danced at a gay nightclub, who learned about lesbian swans and looked at beautiful fish. She didn’t know the Shane who’d spent the last week discovering who he was and who he had come to care for.

And Ilya didn’t know yet. Fuck. Shane was letting Ilya comfort him, and selfishly keeping the news from him. He should have said it right away, shouldn’t be keeping Ilya in suspense.

Why was it so hard to sit back and let Ilya’s arms fall away, to tell him that a miracle had somehow happened? Ilya would have hockey back, and his team, and his city, and all his favorite places, and Marleau, and everything he’d lost. Even his awful family in Russia. He’d be happy about it. Shane shouldn’t keep it from him even one moment longer.

Why did part of him just want to push Ilya into the pillows and pretend the phone call never came?

“It’s okay,” Ilya said, against his temple. His voice sounded raw. His hand had never stopped drawing circles on Shane’s back. “It’s okay, Shane.”

“It’s not,” Shane said. Ilya’s shoulder was wet. Shane’s face was wet. “It’s not okay.”

He remembered what he’d said to Ilya in Boston. Shane and Ilya could be together. Hollander and Rozanov – there were a million reasons they couldn’t. Hockey, the League, fans, expectations, legacies, teams, and everything else landed back on Shane’s shoulders with an almost tangible weight. What had seemed possible in their own magical world now seemed farther out of reach with each passing moment.

And Shane’s heart, so recently made whole with the return of his family and hockey – why did it feel like it was breaking again?

Ilya’s lips pressed against his temple, softly, then into his hair. “We will see who wins the Cup this year, yes?”

Of course Ilya knew. Knew from what Shane had said on the phone, knew from how Shane was falling apart in his arms.

At least Shane didn’t have to tell him.

“Boston doesn’t have to worry about your buildings falling down now, Hollander.”

It was the weakest of chirps. Shane could tell Ilya’s heart wasn’t in it. He was trying, though. For Shane’s sake? Did he think this was what Shane wanted? Was he trying to make it easier for Shane to leave, for them both to pretend that the last week never happened? Did he think the Shane in his arms was about to transform back into Shane Hollander Hockey Player, the genie going willingly back into his prison? Was he trying to take them back to chirps and last names, while Shane was literally crying in his arms?

Was he right? Was that what Shane wanted? Did he want to rewind the clock, and pretend that this week never happened, and stitch himself back into the ripped-up seams of the Shane-Hollander-that-was?

Shane closed his eyes, and searched his tattered heart.

And what he found was profanity. Fuck the cowardly part of Shane that knew how much easier it would be, to go back to pretending he wasn’t gay and wasn’t half in love with his biggest rival. Fuck this fucking universe and the homophobic league that would force them back into hiding, when Shane knew now what it felt like to dance with Ilya in public and not care who was watching, to walk hand-in-hand through a forest, to spend time together with a friend as a couple. Fuck Russia and fuck Ilya’s horrible family.

Fuck them all. Because what was important was this beautiful, kind man; this colossal pain in Shane’s ass; this infuriating, charming, complex, dog-adoring, figure-skating, Boston-loving, sarcastic asshole; this man, who was sitting on their bed holding Shane close, helping him recover from a panic attack, and trying to make it easier for him to leave.

And maybe, just maybe, the Shane that he had become over the past week was important too.

The Shane who accepted his sexuality; who wasn’t afraid for people to know it; who pushed them both to face their feelings and have scary conversations; who planned for their future a decade in advance; who was determined to re-invent hockey and give it back to the world; who opened his heart and let the light in.

That Shane had been brave, even though he was scared. That Shane had won his Ilya. That Shane had written a story for them where they could be happy.

Shane pulled back in the circle of Ilya’s arms. He knew his face was covered in tears, and probably snot. He wasn’t going to think about that now. It wasn’t important.

He met Ilya’s eyes, forcing himself to hold the eye contact. “In another universe,” he said, as clearly as he could, “I would have liked to adopt a dog with you.”

Ilya breathed in through his nose, sharp and deep.

“In another universe,” Shane said, “I would have liked to live in that New York penthouse with you, or in Boston, or anywhere we wanted. Maybe Montreal or Ottawa, eventually. I would have liked to learn more figure skating with you, and go dancing together, and invent a new sport called hockey together.”

Abruptly, Ilya leaned forward and dropped his head to Shane’s shoulder. Shane put a hand on the back of his neck, petting his curls. “In another universe,” he said, against Ilya’s ear, “I would have liked to wake up in your arms every morning, or woken you up with my mouth around your cock.”

“Hollander,” Ilya said, his voice muffled, “Just stop.”

“I know that in this universe –”

“Do you want to fuck?” Ilya asked. His teeth grazed the side of Shane’s neck when he turned his head a little sideways. “Before you go. I can fuck you one last time. If you want.”

The pit of Shane’s stomach dropped away.

When Shane didn’t answer, Ilya pulled back, out of his arms. He wasn’t looking at him. “I can drive you to the airport after.”

Shane had been sure – but was he sure – or was Ilya –. He dropped his eyes to the bed, biting at his lip. Had he misread everything? Was he making a fool of himself? Had he been completely wrong, and Ilya didn’t want –

But then his eyes found Ilya’s fingers, and he knew.

Ilya’s tone had been flat, his voice controlled. He’d sounded like the Rozanov of before. But on the bed, his knuckles were white where they clutched at the sheets.

Shane raised his head. “I’m falling in love with you,” he said. “I know it’s way, way too early to say that. I know that in this universe, there are about eighty million reasons why we can’t just come out and be happy boyfriends together, like we could have in the other one. I know it would be way harder, and that we’d have to stay a secret.” He reached out, and put his hand over those clutched fingers. “But I didn’t lie to you when I said that what I wanted was you. In every universe.”

There was a moment where everything was silent. Shane could hear the New York street noise from outside, and Ilya’s harsh breathing.

Then Ilya’s hand turned over, and his fingers threaded between Shane’s.

“Fuck,” Shane said, and he was scrambling over the space between them and into Ilya’s lap, his legs coming around Ilya’s waist, pressing himself as close as he could.

“You talk a lot,” Ilya said, and kissed him.

Shane laughed into the kiss. He didn’t even mind the morning breath.

After a minute, as Ilya started kissing down his neck, Shane said, “Is that a yes? Are the top two hockey players going to be secret illegal boyfriends?”

“Shut up,” Ilya said, but Shane could feel his lips curving into a smile.

Shane scratched his nails through Ilya’s hair, and said, “Because I’ve decided that only my boyfriend gets to fuck me.”

Ilya growled, pushed him down into the pillows, and climbed on top of him. “Maybe you should stop talking.”

Shane used his thighs to pull Ilya down hard against him. “Maybe you should make me.” He could barely keep a straight face; his smile wanted to burst out of him.

It was a different sort of happiness than it had been since Boston. Yes, it was tinged with bittersweet now; having tasted freedom and finally begun to trust it, Shane’s heart didn’t want to force himself back into the confines of his former persona. Nobody in this world knew he was gay, except for Ilya, let alone that they were together, and that couldn’t change anytime soon. They were third-year players, no Cups between them and only one playoff appearance. They weren’t veterans nearing retirement, with less to risk. Having lost hockey once, Shane’s whole body ached at the idea of putting it on the line again. And there was the Russia of it all to think about, in a world where Ilya wasn’t protected, where both his employer and his bigoted country would care far more about Ilya’s sexuality and relationship than they would have in the other.

Shane wouldn’t let anything happen to the man in his arms. Not if he had to hide who he was for twenty years, until they retired with ten Cups between them.

And yes, the happiness was bittersweet, but it was still happiness. He hadn’t lost Ilya. He hadn’t lost hockey, or his family. He was back, #24 on the Metros, back in his place with his past intact and his future bright – except now he had someone at his side.

Shane was competitive as fuck. There was no such thing as “good enough”. There was only optimization, and focus, and daily unswerving commitment, until preparation met talent and Shane could unleash his full potential.

So Shane Hollander was going to have hockey and a boyfriend. If anyone in this league could make it work – could be exceptional hockey players, while falling in love with each other – it would be him and Ilya. He believed.

He closed his eyes, smiling, and held Ilya close.

“Mom, Dad,” Shane said. He kept his spine straight and his head back, refusing to hunch. “This is my boyfriend, Ilya. Rozanov. But you already knew that.”

His parents looked at them with numb, shocked expressions. Why, exactly, he wasn’t sure; if his son had told him, when hockey died I went and lived with my sworn rival for a week, and when you called I had obviously just woken up and he was right there next to me, Shane thought he would have put two and two together.

But maybe this reality – Ilya standing next to him, their hands intertwined – was simply too much to imagine, without the concrete proof.

His mom said, “How long were you stuck there?”

Shane had a flash of some other story, where a week in the hockey universe was five years in the other, and he and Ilya hadn’t been anything to begin with, but had fallen in love slowly, as the only two who remembered. “A week. Same as you.”

“And you – met there?”

“No,” Shane said. He wasn’t going to get into the details, not now. “We've been – For a while now. Before.”

“Were you going to tell us?” his dad asked.

The idea almost made Shane laugh. Tell them? Tell them what? That he’d hooked up with Rozanov twice, and kept resisting getting together to fuck again? That he had been still desperately trying to be “normal”, even though he knew deep down he wasn’t? There had been nothing to tell yet, and probably wouldn’t have been for a long time, until the universe literally smacked hockey out of him and he had to rapidly reconceptualize his entire self-identity.

“Someday, maybe,” he said. “I was trying to not be gay. I really tried. But – well, I am.”

Ilya’s hand squeezed his.

“Did it have to be – you know,” his mom said.

Shane looked at the man next to him. His face was set and braced, the face of a person who had not always known a kind world, who knew too well what it was like to be alone. “I’m sorry I’m dating a Boston player,” he said, not looking away. “I know you care a little too much about hockey. I do too.” He took a breath, still not looking away. “But I care about Ilya more.”

For once in Shane’s life, the other person was the one to break the eye contact. Ilya looked away, turning to Shane’s parents. “Shane is important to me,” he said, quietly. “On ice we are rivals. At home it is different.”

Shane was twenty-one years old, a generational talent on the verge of becoming a superstar. Everything he and his parents had ever worked for – and he was risking it for the man next to him, a man they had no reason to trust.

But Shane was also their son, holding his boyfriend’s hand, asking them to trust him.

His mother took a step forward, and then another, and then Shane was in her arms.

~

They debriefed over pasta. His dad had cooked, puttering around in Shane’s kitchen after running out and getting groceries to stock his empty fridge (“what, Dad? I have my meal delivery or I eat at the rink”). Ilya sat next to him. Their feet touched under the table.

“I can’t believe you two were the only ones who remembered,” his mom said. “Everyone here did. All the hockey players were gone, and hockey too, but we all knew what we’d lost. We’ve been staying with Jackie Pike, helping her with the twins. Well, your dad has. I was busy figuring out what happened.”

“So what did happen?” Shane asked, pushing his pasta around with his fork. His dad had forgotten to get chickpea pasta, and there wasn’t any protein in it. But it was cooked with love, and must be delicious from the way Ilya was shoveling it in. (Unless he was trying to win Shane’s dad over by appreciating his cooking, which wouldn’t be a bad idea.) Shane would just need to make sure to get a full meal later. He had a Cup run to get ready for.

“Well,” his mom said. “You remember that before it happened, the CBA negotiations weren’t going well?”

“Yes,” Shane acknowledged, slowly. “But they’re going to get a deal done in time, right? It’s almost the deadline, and we have preseason coming up.”

“So, let me make a long story short. What I eventually found out was: there was an owners’ meeting on the 27th to talk about it. And Wassertrice said that the players didn’t know how good they had it. He said give them a week to see what their lives were like without hockey, and they’d come back begging.”

“Okay,” Shane said. “And, what? Vancouver has a witch that lives at their arena? Is that how they made the playoffs this year, when their defense was that shit?”

Between bites of pasta, Ilya smirked.

“Apparently,” his mom said, ignoring them, “there was a secret clause in the last CBA that allowed for alternative arbitration. Nobody knew what that meant, when it leaked on Day Two, but it was pretty clear that it had something to do with the situation. We eventually found out that yes, there is a MLH witch, whose job it is to prevent any magical interference in the league. And in this case, to keep negotiations from breaking down.”

“By making sure everyone understood what a world without hockey looked like.”

His mom nodded. “Yes. The witch says they didn’t know what form their “arbitration” was going to take. Luckily for them, they’re anonymous, because when all of you disappeared, we assumed the worst. It was – not a good day.”

“Was it always going to be a week, or did you have to fight them to get us back?”

His mom’s grin was sharklike. She looked a lot like Ilya for a second. “Well, luckily you can’t ratify a CBA without the fucking players. So they didn’t have any negotiating power there. They tried at first to find a way to exploit the situation, but –”

“But your mother was feral,” his dad said, his smile affectionate. “And so were a lot of other people. That Rose Landry actress, she lost two brothers, she led the PR campaign against the league.”

“And Sergei Vetrov’s daughter, she came straight to me, flew up on Day Two. She helped coordinate the international pressure – let me tell you, Russia and Europe were not happy that “MLH nonsense” killed hockey worldwide and vanished all their players.”

Ilya set his fork down. “Sveta is here?”

His mom looked at him, confused.

“Sveta is Ilya’s childhood friend,” Shane explained. “She’s one of the sharpest hockey minds I know. She was going to help me re-invent hockey, in the other world.”

“Reinvent –” She laughed, shaking her head. “Of course you were going to reinvent hockey.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Shane asked, grinning at her. Underneath the table, Ilya’s hand rested on his thigh.

His mom tipped her coffee mug, conceding the point. “So you were busy figuring out how to reinvent hockey, and we were busy trying to figure out how to get you back. Eventually the witch said that they thought the magic had seized on Wassertrice’s words, and that it was possible that you’d be back after a week.”

Shane imagined the stress of the waiting, the not knowing. He wasn’t sure what was worse – having the clone versions of his parents who didn’t know the real him, or having your son disappear and no guarantee that he would ever be coming back. Both were bad, in different ways.

“The big problem,” his mom said, and paused. She swirled her coffee in her mug, looking hesitant. It wasn’t like her. She started again. “The big problem was that we weren’t sure what it was like for you. The witch said that they thought you were in a paired alternate universe, also without hockey, to match Wassertrice’s words. But we thought that meant you’d be like us, knowing hockey was gone. And we were worried –” She trailed off.

His dad said, “We were worried that we’d be gone in your universe, and that you would think it was permanent. That you’d lost hockey, and us, and that there was no way back.”

“And we didn’t.” His mom was glassy-eyed, and Shane quickly looked away. His mom didn’t cry. She just didn’t. “We didn’t know how you’d hold up. Everyone who lost a hockey player, we were all worried that ours – wouldn’t come back.”

Shane imagined it. A universe where Ilya didn’t remember him, where no one did. A universe without his parents, maybe without anyone who ever knew him. Totally alone, without hockey, or anything he cared for.

He didn't know what he would have done. He was glad he never had to find out.

“I had Ilya,” he said. “I wasn’t alone.”

Ilya’s foot tapped his.

His mom cleared her throat. “We came over last night from Jackie’s. We stayed up all night, waiting for you to pop back into your apartment. And then this morning, Jackie texted us that Hayden was back – and you weren’t here.”

Shane got it now, why his mom had sounded so panicked on the phone. To have the hockey players back, but not Shane – “And you called me, and I was in New York. With Ilya.”

They sat with that for a minute, four people around a table, reunited.

“What I don’t understand,” his dad said, finally, “is how you two remembered hockey. If nobody else in that world did.”

“Maybe we are the only ones who are lovers.”

“Not helpful,” Shane hissed at him, aware that his face had probably turned the color of Ilya’s Porsche. In every universe, Ilya’s cars were Skittles.

“No, he might have a point,” his mom said, thoughtfully. This wasn’t happening to Shane. “Maybe it meant that the bond between you was too strong for the magic to dissolve. Friendship is one thing to forget, but if you’ve been –”

“Stop,” Shane said, desperately, not sure how that sentence was going to end.

Mercifully, she left it unfinished. “And if you couldn’t forget each other, maybe the magic couldn’t mess with your memories at all.”

Shane looked at Ilya. Ilya looked at him.

“Mom,” Shane said, “are you saying that we’re, what, some sort of soulmates?”

“Well, not necessarily. That’s a big word. I’ve never heard of anything like the Hollywood version of soulmates happening in real life. You’re not hearing his thoughts or anything, are you Shane?”

“God, no. Thankfully.” He’d never be able to play hockey again, if his brain was constantly being bombarded by Ilya’s mental commentary on what he looked like on the ice. It couldn’t be possible to play professional hockey while being hard the entire game. Every game. All season.

Ilya was grinning. “Not soulmates, no. Better than that.”

Shane wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But – “What?”

Under the table, Ilya’s hand intertwined with his. “We are lesbian swans.”

“I call Romeo,” Shane said, immediately.

Ilya’s smile was smaller now, softer. He was Russian, and they didn’t usually smile this much. But somehow, around Shane, he seemed lighter. Even when his mouth wasn’t smiling, the corners of his eyes were. “And I will be Juliet.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, Ilya’s thumb tracing the side of Shane’s.

Then his mom said, “Well. Now that you’re back, we need a plan.”

“For – us?” Shane asked, not looking away from Ilya. “We need to talk about it first –”

“No,” his mom said. “Or yes. But that can be later.”

Just then, Ilya’s phone rang, and he thumbed at it. “Sveta is calling me.”

“Good. Tell her to come over from the hotel.” His mom looked predatory, something hungry in her eyes. “It’s time to make the fucking league pay for what they did.”

And Shane sat at his apartment table, listening to his boyfriend gleefully join his mother’s plans for revenge, sharing a longsuffering look with his dad, in a world where he could have both hockey and love.

His heart was whole at last.

epilogue

“Good morning,” Ilya said, kissing Shane awake. He tasted like their toothpaste.

Shane groaned. His head felt like a pair of elephants had stomped on it. “Since when are you the first person up?”

“I am excited,” his boyfriend said, yanking the covers off him. “Up. Up. Breakfast, and then we go to the rink. No time for lazybones.”

“Lazybones,” Shane muttered, not sure whether to be impressed by the new vocabulary word or annoyed at the chirp. He pulled himself upright. Why did jet lag always hit him worse than it did Ilya? Shorter flights weren’t as bad, but yesterday had been a lot. Seven hours from Montreal to Heathrow, three hours from Heathrow to Helsinki, and then the hour to Jyväskylä. Plus layovers. He needed about three days to recover.

At least today they were just meeting the team. They were the borrowed MLH pair, here for the duration of the lockout, ready to win some games. It didn’t really matter that Shane couldn’t pronounce the name of the city he’d be living in until the MLH agreed to the MLHPA’s demands. For as long as the MLH resisted the massive public pressure to atone for Hockeypocalypse (hard to spell, fun to say), and the MLHPA held firm, he and Ilya would get to play on the same team. At last.

Missing part of the MLH season wasn’t great, but Shane had faith that the MLHPA (aided by his mom, Sveta, and Sveta’s new best friend Rose Landry) would secure a better CBA, after everything that had happened, and they’d be back soon enough. He was still coming for the Cup this year, even though Ilya insisted he’d get there first.

For now, Shane pulled himself out of their warm bed, in the apartment they’d be living in together, an echo of a world that never was. He kissed his boyfriend, putting hands on his hips to draw him close.

Who knew what the future would bring?

Maybe he’d tell Hayden when they got back. He knew Jackie’s little brother was gay, and that Hayden didn’t give a crap. Hayden didn’t particularly like Ilya, to be fair, but Shane had plans to gradually get him used to the fact that he and Ilya were becoming friends during their time in Finland. Sveta already knew (good luck keeping anything from Sveta), and she’d been nothing but supportive. She’d been the one to persuade them that they could have this, could have this little break from the league and rewrite the rivalry into something friendlier, while still just as competitive. (Marleau knew too - the whole point of Hockeypocalypse from the MLH's perspective had been to make the players more willing to negotiate, so they'd brought their memories of the other universe back with them. Marleau's had included Shane and Ilya making out on a Boston dance floor.)

And Shane's parents were great. The whole experience had been good for their relationship. Losing Shane had shaken his mom to the core, and getting him back had left her so relieved and grateful, that she was more willing to embrace the new Shane. The Shane who was gay and accepted it, the Shane who didn’t want to spend his summers booked into sponsor obligations and filming dates anymore, the Shane who had a Russian menace for a boyfriend and wasn’t going to give him up despite the risks.

(The Russian menace had fully won his parents over within two days. Just watching him with Shane had got them most of the way there already, and Ilya had turned on the full megawatt version of his charm. By day three, he was doing puzzles with Shane’s dad, and taking turns with Shane’s mom and Sveta to roast MLH owners. Shane had fallen a little more in love with him every day.)

“Ready to win?” Ilya asked, sliding his hand around the back of Shane’s head, pulling him close.

Who knew what the future would bring? Shane was twenty-one, in love, and free.

“Ready,” he said, and kissed his Ilya, all alone in their golden sunrise.

Chapter End Notes

Notes from this chapter:

* Surprise, the villain is – Major League Hockey! And the reason for the 2012 period piece is at last revealed. :) Did anyone guess? I tried to foreshadow with CBA negotiation mentions a couple of times.

* Here is an article about the CBA negotiations leading to the 2012-2013 NHL lockout. No NHL witch was involved, however. ;)

* The 2012 "Naked Before The Camera" exhibition at the Met looks like it was really cool! (Warning: nudity.) It closed about a week after Shane & Ilya visited.

* "In another universe I would have liked to adopt a dog with you" is an allusion to the incomparable Everything Everywhere All At Once.

* I based Wassertrice and his comment that started it all on the depiction of Francesco Aquilini in this article, as well as this Reddit post. I have no idea how Aquilini actually acted during the 2012-13 CBA negotiations, however.

* I chose JYP Jyväskylä as Shane and Ilya’s lockout team because 1) Lars Eller of Montreal and Rich Peverley of Boston played for JYP during the lockout, so there’s your Montreal/Boston pair, and 2) JYP had formed a partnership agreement with Boston in 2010, so there was an existing relationship there.

* Bonus commentfic about Cliff Marleau waking up in the hockey universe and remembering Ilya & Shane making out on the dance floor at the club. :)