Preface

Don’t Let the Sun Go
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/93742091.

Rating:: Explicit
Archive Warning:: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:: M/M
Fandoms:: Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types, Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid
Relationships:: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov, Ryan Price & Ilya Rozanov
Characters:: Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Ryan Price (Game Changers)
Additional Tags:: Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Top Ilya Rozanov, Bottom Shane Hollander, Rimming, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Breaking Up & Making Up, Reunions, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Minor Ilya Rozanov/Original Character(s), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Shane Hollander Speaks Russian, POV Ilya Rozanov, Depressed Ilya Rozanov, Angst with a Happy Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language:: English
Collections:: Gammily’s Bookshelf
Stats:: Published: 2026-10-02 Completed: 2026-10-11 Words: 64,615 Chapters: 5/5

Don’t Let the Sun Go

Summary

After dying in a plane crash in 2021, Ilya wakes up in a nondescript hotel room, identical to hundreds he has stayed in during his decade-long NHL career. Is he in Hell? Mama is not here. Neither is Shane.

But then the phone rings; a representative from CCM wants to confirm Ilya will be on time to his photo shoot with Shane Hollander.

On the way to the rink, Ilya, who learned from the very best, makes a multi-step plan:

1. Texting
2. No sleeping around
3. Friends
4. First names
5. Boyfriends

Ilya made Shane fall in love with him once. He can do it again.

He has to.

Notes

A million smeks and hugs to Dottie, who kept throwing fuel into Ilya's torment nexus and did a phenomenal job betaing with this fic. She's a brilliant writer in her own right, so be sure to check her stories out too!

This fic is complete and will be updating every 2-3 days ♥

See the end of the work for more notes

Chapter 1: Texting

Ilya opens his eyes.

He squints up at the bland beige ceiling. Very odd, if Heaven looks like the thousands of nameless hotels he stayed in over his eleven years in the NHL. Generic heavy curtains – not blackout ones like his home in Ottawa – cover most of the window by the bed, leaving the room in semi darkness.

But then again, Ilya did not picture Hell like this either.

He raises his hands to his face and inspects his normal skin and rows of calluses. No broken bones from bracing himself and getting slammed into the chair in front of him. No charred skin from the plane explosion. He does not feel any pain.

Ilya climbs out of bed and nearly brains himself on the nightstand. He straightens, feeling horribly jittery and off-balance. What the fuck? He glances down at his body. Is he smaller? His center of gravity definitely shifted overnight, and he lost weight. Ten pounds, maybe fifteen. Not unheard of, usually during a playoff run, but Ottawa has not made the playoffs since 2004, and playoffs are four months away, anyway.

Ilya runs to the bathroom, dreading who will be staring back at him in the mirror.

Relief crashes over him as he confirms that it is definitely Ilya Rozanov staring back at him.

Teenaged Ilya Rozanov.

He pokes at his own face in bewilderment, trailing a finger down the spot near his hairline that Papa split open in the middle of a dementia-fueled rage of confusion. He pokes his thigh where, last he checked, he had a long scar from Chiron after he got a little enthusiastic with his greeting, pre-puppy school graduation.

Most damning, the thin line on his shoulder where Shane got a little too enthusiastic after a six week separation – an awful combination of mismatched roadies and an All Stars game that Shane had to skip because of a badly sprained ankle - is missing.

Ilya leaves the bathroom, glancing around the empty hotel room, but his mother is not there, So Ilya must not be dead – or death is far stranger and crueler than he had ever thought.

Before he can figure out much else, a phone rings. He scrambles for it on the nightstand and barely has time to marvel at the ancient model before the call connects. “Hello?” he says.

“Hi, is this Mr. Rozanov? This is Dorothy from CCM,” a female Canadian voice says. “I’m just calling to confirm that you will be at the Hillcrest rink at 10 for the photo shoot. We sent a car to your hotel, which should arrive at 9:30 to pick you up. You do not need to bring anything, but please shower beforehand.”

Ilya reflexively clutches at his phone. “CCM?” he repeats, his voice hoarse. He recognizes this call now. He knows what day it is. He remembers this day vividly, even after eleven years.

“Yes,” Dorothy says, sounding a bit impatient. “The car will be at your hotel in an hour, so please be ready.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, grinning now. “I will be ready. Thank you.”

A pause. “Yes, of course,” she says, a little taken aback by his enthusiasm. “We are very pleased to have you as one of our newest brand sponsors. If you need anything else, please call this number back. Goodbye now.”

“Bye bye,” Ilya says in a daze as he lowers the phone from his face.

Ilya showers with special care. If he is going to see Shane for the first time in almost three weeks, he cannot show up looking like a homeless person.

After one minor freak out that all his hair care products have changed since was 19, Ilya is ready. He shamelessly bribes the limo driver $100, which is probably too much in 2010 Canadian dollars, to get to the rink as fast as possible. His leg jiggles the entire way, his mind buzzing with anticipation.

Shane, he will hopefully see Shane soon.

He still has not written off that this is not the afterlife. There are so many ways this day will go wrong. He could arrive at the rink and learn Shane was hit by a bus on the way there. He could arrive at the rink and learn CCM paired him with some nobody who is not Shane Hollander. Ilya could get hit by a bus on the way there.

Either way, once arrives at the rink, he will know: if Shane is not there, Ilya is in Hell.

* * *

Unlike the first time he did the CCM shoot, Ilya gets to the rink first.

Powerful spotlights illuminate the ice, casting everyone in sharp relief. Crew mill around, sipping awful rink coffee and casting him curious glances

Ilya idly listens as a PA, Harrison, outlines the day’s events.

“We’ll do the photos together first, so then you can get a bit of a breather,” Harrison is saying when Ilya straightens, perking up.

“Together?”

“Uh, yeah,” Harrison says quickly, his gaze nervously darting away from Ilya’s face. “With Shane Hollander? They told you this was a two-person shoot, right?”

Ilya’s grin is blinding and possibly a little deranged. “Yes, they did tell me this.”

“Oh, good,” Harrison says with a relieved smile. “Anyway, he should be getting here in five, so hopefully we won’t be waiting too long to get started.”

“Hollander is always on time,” Ilya says confidently as he stares, hard, at the exit to the locker rooms. “Very punctual.”

Harrison nods once, pleased. “That’s what we like to hear in this business, Mr. Rozanov.”

Ilya is practically vibrating in his seat when shadows start moving in the tunnel to the locker room. And, finally, after approximately 500 hours, Shane Hollander steps onto the ice. He looks very young, a little nervous, and impossibly pretty.

For the first time since he fell out of the sky, Ilya can breathe properly.

Harrison catches Shane before Ilya can, and Ilya is this close to doing something stupid to get Shane back at his side. But Harrison wraps up the conversion in a very professional fourteen seconds, so he gets to live another day.

“Hello,” Ilya says to Shane as he skates closer.

Shane glances around like Ilya might be talking to someone else. “Hi,” he says after a beat.

“You look pretty,” Ilya says honestly.

After a whole summer at his parents’ cottage, Shane’s freckles are especially dark, standing out in stark contrast on his cheeks. He carries himself awkwardly, uncomfortable in a way Ilya has not seen in a very long time in his presence.

Shane stiffens. “You’re painted up too,” he retorts, annoyance radiating off him in waves.

Ilya’s flirty quip falters on his tongue, and his stomach swoops like he just missed a step walking down a flight of stairs. The awful feeling of sudden disorientation — of falling into into empty air.

Because Shane did not catch him like he always does, with his half-pissed, half-pleased little “shut up” or “fuck off”.

No, he seems genuinely irritated at Ilya.

Ilya had forgotten, in all the heady anticipation of seeing Shane again, that Shane from 2010 does not belong to him. This Shane does not know Ilya loves him with everything he has.

This Shane is nineteen, and he is buried so deep in the closet he does not even know it is there. He is just at the very start of his NHL career. No cups. No captaincy. No accomplishments at all, except being the Prospect Cup winner and second NHL draft pick. This Shane is desperate for approval, for real wins. Having mind-blowing, life-changing sex with his career rival is barely on the table – never mind an actual romantic, committed relationship.

Ilya straightens and schools his face in the blank, Slavic stoicism he perfected when asked especially stupid questions by club reporters. He shoves the hurt down deep because there is no fucking way he will ever let that show in front of baby Shane Hollander.

Maybe this is Hell, after all, but Ilya has always been good at taking hell and making it bearable. When Ilya had to go back to Russia to care for his demented father and leech of a brother, he texted a boring Canadian to brighten up his day. When Ilya lost the Rookie of the Year award, he won the Stanley Cup before Hollander, and rubbed it in his face constantly that he got there first.

And when Ilya moved to the most boring city in Canada to captain the worst team in the league and spend more than one day a month with the love of his life, Ilya simply made Shane’s parents love him more than Shane.

This last one was more of a work in progress, but Ilya was making excellent headway.

Ilya can work with this. Nobody knows Shane better – not his brand new Voyageur teammates, not his loving but respectful parents – than Ilya Rozanov. And Ilya has always excelled best when he has a clear goal in mind. He can make Shane fall in love with him faster this time around. Definitely before Shane’s first cup win. Hopefully before Ilya’s.

Game on.

* * *

“Holy shit. I’m sorry. Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Fuck, wow.”

Ilya laughs around Shane’s spent cock, and the vibrations make Shane hiss with oversensitivity. Reluctantly, because Ilya loves teasing Shane when he is all wrung out and fucked out, Ilya pulls off, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. A dribble of Shane’s come slips out, and Ilya licks it back in, relishing in the dark, hungry look in Shane’s eye. But Shane just had his first experience with a man; Ilya should not push for a second round, even though he could definitely make it worth Shane’s time. The panic afterward will not be worth it.

“Sorry? Why sorry?” Ilya asks instead.

Shane laughs too, a tinge too high, too fast. “I don’t know! I just… I wasn’t expecting you to…” He drifts off, going red.

Ilya’s heart swells. Shane just blew someone for the first time, learned he loved the feeling of having a cock in his mouth, and still cannot say the word “swallow”.

“I don’t mind it,” Ilya says. Sure, it is not his favorite taste in the world, but for Shane he would do nearly anything to see the pure, unselfconscious want in those expressive brown eyes.

Shane sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. But instead of getting up and putting on his clothes, he stays sitting, gripping the fitted sheet in between white-knuckled fingers, his spine stretched into rigid line, his breathing coming in short gasps.

Ilya is at his side in an instant. He gently lays a hand on Shane’s shoulder, light enough that Shane can throw him off with barely any effort. Still, Ilya cannot help laughing a little. So predictable, his Hollander.

Shane manages a weak chuckle in response.

Ilya smiles. “You’re laughing.”

“Yeah, well…” He exhales a weighty breath. “This whole thing is a little nuts.”

Ilya shrugs. “But it is fun, no?”

Shane glances at him out of the corner of his eye. He shakes his head, but he doesn’t deny it. “So, um…” he starts. “This won’t leave this room, okay?”

Ilya stares at him. “You think I will tell people.”

“No,” Shane says.

“No,” Ilya agrees. “Phone,” he demands, hand out.

Shane looks up from where he is settling back on the bed. “What?”

“Phone,” Ilya repeats. “I want your number.” He raises his eyebrows as Shane hesitates. “Unless you never want to do this again?”

Shane throws him his phone with the speed and accuracy of the best shot in the NHL.

Ilya grins. He spent enough time around Shane and Yuna Hollander to appreciate the benefits of a good, multi-step plan. So, Step 1: Texting.

Ilya will not wait for their conversation to naturally evolve beyond sexting and meetup times until fucking 2017. That would be intolerable, and Ilya would kill himself for real. He fiddles with Shane’s keyboard settings, keeping one eye on Shane.

After a minute, Shane takes his phone back, squinting at the screen. “What is this?”

Ilya rolls his shoulders and stands up. “My name.” He walks around to Shane’s side of the bed. “Илья Розанов,” he says slowly, sounding out syllables as he points to the corresponding Cyrillic. “If anyone looks at your phone, they will not know is me.”

Shane frowns. “But Russians will.”

“You spend a lot of time with many Russians?” Ilya asks, eyebrows raised. He knows for a fact the Voyageurs team has zero Russians on it.

“Uh, no.”

Ilya throws out his hands as if to say, there you go. He clambers off the bed and hops back into his underwear and jeans.

“Hey,” Shane says once Ilya is almost fully dressed. “What am I saved in your phone as?”

Ilya smirks. “Second Draft Pick.”

Shane’s jaw drops open in outrage, and Ilya leaves to the sound of Shane’s furious, “Fuck you!”

Yes, making Shane fall in love with him all over again will be fun.

* * *

Step 2. No sleeping around. This step actually doesn’t involve Shane much at all.

Ilya still goes out with his team, parties hard, works harder, and never leaves with anyone. Just the thought of groping some stranger in public or in a club bathroom stall makes him gag. He goes home and texts Shane instead.

Shane complains, of course, whining that Ilya woke him up, that Ilya shouldn’t have McDonalds at 2am, that Ilya cannot adopt three rescue dogs because he is traveling and drunk and alone.

With no girls or sex, Ilya’s free time stretches embarrassingly and depressingly long.

He buys a few puzzles to take up a few hours, but all that does is make him think about David and his steady, calming presence.

He gets a yoga mat and joins a yoga class, but bending into every new position reminds him of Shane, Shane’s ass, and the cottage. Ilya really cannot be in public, wearing the tight little yoga pants, with a permanent semi, so he drops it after three weeks.

He tries cooking because maybe if he is good enough, he can make sure Shane never develops his weird rules around food. But Ilya does not remember all the rules, and if he does not remember them, how can he recognize when Shane starts starts obeying them to a fault?

The cooking experiment ends the evening Ilya finds himself weeping over an impossible runny, burned frittata. He stares into the trash where the still-steaming pile of egg mulch has broken into little pieces. Tears are streaming down his face.

He groans, burying his face in his hands. Something is wrong, probably the same something that was wrong before. No surprise that fucking dying did magically make his head better. Turning it off and on again did not fix him. He is just that broken.

Ilya has two choices when he feels like this: go back to bed or talk to Shane.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: Are you awake?

Not his best opener, but Ilya’s brain is clearly fucked today.

Ilya waits in his kitchen, surrounded by his latest disaster, trying not to read too much into the metaphor of it all. Dirty dishes sit piled in the sink. His counter is covered in droplets of egg and stray slivers of peppers, mushrooms, and onion. His spice rack is a mess.

The first two minutes pass excruciatingly slowly; the next three are interminable.

What the fuck could Shane be doing that is keeping him from his phone? Screwing someone else? Meeting Rose Landry seven years early and eloping in record time to spurt out 2.4 painfully beautiful babies?

Ilya shakes his head at his own stupidity. No, Shane is not doing any of that. He is probably calling his parents or out to dinner with Pike because he actually has a life – unlike Ilya, whose only reason for living sometimes forgets Ilya even exists.

At 7:45 PM, Ilya gives up and heads to bed.

The next day, Marley invites him out after practice. They have a two-day break before they take off for their roadie out west, and Carmichael wants to send them off in style.

Ilya, still unable to shake off his mood from yesterday, goes. Maybe all he needs is a solid distraction, and Marley is always up for a good time.

After meeting up and having a few drinks at Carmy’s place – a painfully stereotypical bachelor pad, down to the single bar of soap that travels between the bathroom and kitchen, depending on the need – the Bears head out for a night on the town.

At the first club, Ilya orders the first round of drinks, revelling in the brotherly slaps on the back and “fuckin’ aces, rook!”

Ten minutes later, Carmy says he is thirsty, so Hammy orders a tray of shots.

“Not fucking tequila,” Marley groans as he tips it back. “It’s never pretty after anyone drinks tequila.”

“Speak for yourself. I am always pretty,” Ilya shouts over the music before he brings the glass to his lips.

“Never change, Roz,” Carmy crows heartily as he all but drags Ilya onto the dancefloor.

Ilya dances, drinks, and dances some more.

The sixth time he leaves the dancefloor, nearly stumbling into the bar top as he meets the hard edge way too soon, a little voice in the back of his head that sounds like his Shane tsks. Shane’s face flashes swims before his mind’s eye, brow furrowed like Ilya is an impossible puzzle he will never understand but cannot wait to figure out.

Ilya hands his drink to a rando and bobs along to the music as he reenters the dancefloor. His Shane would be so proud of him.

* * *

At their first match up in October, Ilya hungrily watches Shane all throughout warmups. He could let Shane win their first game. It is not exactly fair, after all. This is Shane’s first month in the NHL, while it is Ilya’s eleventh season.

But LeClaire jerks him out of his thoughts before he decides. “All right, fuck it. Rozanov, get out there, and take the face-off against Hollander. Let’s give ’em what they want.”

Ilya’s resolve to go easy on Shane crumbles as soon as Shane enters the circle. “Will you disappoint them, Hollander?” he murmurs, casting his gaze around the hoards of Montreal fans packed into the stands.

Shane bends down to focus on the ice. “Nope.”

Until right this minute, Ilya felt like he was living a half life. The past two months since the CCM shoot had been nothing short of agony, a practice in superhuman restraint, which has historically never been Ilya’s strong suit. He has never been a particularly patient man. But this, this is where he is meant to be, right here at center ice with Shane Hollander.

Eбать, there goes the puck.

Ilya races after Shane, and clearly a decade of experience is not exactly enough to beat the fastest skater in the NHL. Ilya uses every trick in his considerable book to steal the puck back. But he is stuck in his teenaged body, less muscled, less trained.

The Bears lose. Ilya takes it better this time around; the Bears are still rebuilding. They need a stronger second line, which will not come together until next season. And even then, it takes another two seasons until they come together as a real team to win the cup.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: Congratulations on win
Shane: Thank you!
Ilya: Are you celebrating with your team?
Shane: Yeah.
Ilya: Having fun?
Shane: Yes.
Ilya: Want to have more fun? 🍆💦
Shane: Yes.
Ilya: 557
Shane: I’ll be there in thirty minutes.
Ilya: I will be waiting 🥵

And then Andrei calls and ruins everything. Shane knocks on the door as Ilya is still on the phone, and Ilya lets him in. He is flushed and grinning, and so fucking adorable that Ilya almost forgets his awful mood.

“Go fuck yourself,” he spits in Russian into the receiver as he shoots Shane a strained smile. “I’ll send the money tomorrow.”

Andrei nags, “Send it now.”

“No.” Ilya hangs up before Andrei can tell him to march down to the bank to wire the money.

Shane stands in the middle of the room, hands plastered awkwardly to his side, thumbs jammed into the pockets of his jeans. The personification of discomfort.

“Sorry,” Ilya says to Shane in English as he throws his phone down on the bed. He saunters closer, plastering a smirk on his face. “I believe I owe you congratulations, Mr. Winner.”

Shane frowns, his forehead knitting together in confusion. “Are you seriously turned on right now?”

Ilya blinks. “Yes? I always want to fuck you. Is silly question.” He certainly indicated as much over their text conversations for the past two months. Just enough to remind Shane, but not enough to pressure him or scare him off.

Shane pinks, clearly pleased at the compliment but, judging from the hard set of his jaw, not ready to move on from the conversation he just walked in on. Shane asks, “Is everything okay?” He swallows. “That sounded… heated.”

Ilya sighs. “My brother. Is nothing.” He settles both hands around Shane’s waist.

“Are you sure?” Shane presses before he grimaces. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about it. It’s just –” He breaks off, biting his lip. “You can. Talk to me about that stuff. I mean. We’re friends right?”

Ilya’s mouth falls open.

“Sorry,” Shane apologizes immediately as Ilya says nothing. “Forget I said anything. Sorry. I was drinking with the team, celebrating, so I don’t even know what I’m –”

“Of course we are friends, Hollander.” And before Shane can stammer out another stupid apology, Ilya silences him with a kiss. As he draws back, he explains, “Was my brother wanting money. Is okay. I told him I will send it tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Shane says, relaxing. “That’s generous of you.”

“I am a very generous person,” Ilya agrees as he falls to his knees. “I will show you how generous I am, yes?”

“Fuck yes,” Shane sighs as Ilya unzips his jeans and gets to work.

* * *

Shane completed Ilya’s Step 3: Friendship without even knowing it. They were friends now. Shane even said so! And what a better time to announce it than All-Stars?

Fuck the narrative. It is time to change it, before it gets so entrenched that it takes a Yuna-caliber intervention to undo all the damage.

The plane ride to Nashville is harrowing, as every plane ride is now. He sits alone, leveling his famous Slavic death glare at the first sign of movement towards his corner of the plane. If anyone spots him jumping at loud noises in the cabin or the lightest of turbulence, he will bring this plane down himself.

Everyone is safe.

Wyatt is safely flying with the Marlies, headphones on, having the time of his life, watching the first (and best) phase of the MCU. Bood is napping. Dykstra is telling anyone who will listen about his billion children. Luca is still in fucking diapers, and the other rookies are probably not faring much better. Troy is – Ilya frowns. He has no idea what Troy did on flights with Toronto, as he could not possibly be making goo goo eyes at Toronto’s social media guy in 2011.

They are all safe.

Ilya is safe. He literally flew on this exact flight before and nothing happened.

He curls up tighter in his seat and sips at his flask as he deliberately runs through his list of all the dirty things he will do to Shane Hollander once they check into their hotel in Nashville.

At his first joint press conference at All-Stars with Shane, the first question is not hard: “Ilya, you announced at the beginning of the season that you would score fifty goals by the end of February. You’ve scored 42 so far. Do you think you’ll keep your promise?”

It is one more goal than Shane scored in their last rookie year by this time. Ilya is ridiculously proud of that. “Yes,” he says.

“Shane, you’ve scored 40 goals this year already. Do you think you’ll beat Rozanov to 50?”

“I don’t really think about stuff like that,” Shane says cautiously. “This is a team sport, and I’m happy when my team is doing well. I just try to contribute.”

Ilya blows a raspberry into the microphone. “What?” he asks as every reporter’s head swivels to stare at him, and Shane glares daggers. Ilya says innocently, “You told me you were going to get 50 before me just to shut me up.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and pretends to reread their messages. “At least, I think that is what you said. My English is not good sometimes, you know.”

Shane covers the microphone with his hand. “That was said in private,” he hisses.

Ilya widens his eyes. “Ah, that is my mistake. You should have said I should not talk about our texts to very nice reporters.” He grins and leans closer to his own microphone. “I am sure they will keep big secret that we are friends to themselves.”

Shane mouths, “You are dead.”

Ilya beams. He might be dead, but he is not dead enough to stop annoying Shane Hollander.

A reporter coughs. “From the Toronto Star: Shane, would you like to play on an All-Star team with Ilya in the future?”

Shane immediately turns back around to face the scrum. “Yes, I guess. I mean…” He takes a deep breath “Rozanov's a great player. He’s a real asset to his team.”

Ilya nods. “Is true,” he says happily.

Shane adds, “After I kick his ass tomorrow, sure. We can play on the same team at the next All-Stars.”

Ilya nearly swoons. His Shane took years to say something as crass as “ass” to reporters. In his rookie year, it would have been unthinkable. He barely says “shit” as a fucking NHL captain, and even then, only after a catastrophic loss or particularly offensive question.

Over the assembled reporters’ laughs, the Toronto Star follows up, “Ilya? Same question?”

Ilya leans in. “No.”

Shane blinks in surprise, the corners of his mouth tightening almost imperceptibly. But Ilya catches it because Ilya notices everything about Shane.

“Would make other players too sad to lose that badly against us,” Ilya continues blithely. “Very bad for midseason morale.”

Shane makes a show of rolling his eyes as the room laughs again.

Ilya sits back in his seat, pleased. Shane does not look too mad at him, and the reporters will do their jobs and change the narrative before it has much chance to take root.

“... even this early in your careers?”

Fuck, what was that?

Shane glances at him, and whatever Ilya is doing with his face makes him speak up. Below the table, his foot taps reassuringly against Ilya’s. “I can’t speak for Rozanov, or what it’s like in Boston, but I know the fans in Montreal love their team and definitely are expecting us to turn things around, get back in the playoffs, and win some cups. And, you know, I feel the exact same way. So… I guess my answer is that I don’t really feel any pressure that I’m not already putting on myself.”

“Ilya?” the reporter prompts.

Ilya shrugs. Must have been a stupid question for Shane to give such a nonsense answer. “What Hollander said.”

The rest of the press junket passes without incident, and Ilya more or less sticks to the script. He adds a few clarifying statements saying that he has never let their friendship get in the way of showing Hollander who is better, but Ilya cannot afford any other bombshells to overshadow the update to their rivalry.

Four hours and one shot accuracy competition later, Shane is banging on the door to Ilya’s hotel room. “What the fuck was that?” he demands as soon as Ilya lets him in.

“What was what?” Ilya plays dumb.

“In front of all those reporters!” Shane says loudly before he casts an anxious glance around the room, like Ilya has other journalists hiding underneath the bed and in the next room over, glasses pressed to the walls to listen in. “You told them we text!”

“So? We do!” Ilya says. “God, you are so boring, Hollander. Knowing we are friends is not the end of the world.”

“Isn’t it?” Shane challenges as he steps closer, getting right up into Ilya’s personal space. “It goes against everything we’ve said and done since we got fucking drafted!”

“Big deal,” Ilya scoffs. “We are young. People change.”

Shane shakes his head. “You’re so fucking reckless.” He pokes him, hard, in the chest. “You need to think before you talk sometimes. You know that?”

Ilya raises his eyebrows as he lets his face fall into a carefully neutral expression. “I need to think? Me?” He points at himself. “I think about every single fucking word I say before I say it – or else it would all come out in Русский.” He laughs humorlessly.

Shane looks stricken, but he does not take back his accusation. Too proud, if Ilya knows him at all.

“I will walk you through how I am thinking, yes?” Ilya does not wait for Shane to respond before going on, “So I tell everyone we are friends. I tell everyone we text. I tell everyone we see each other as friends. Now, they see you knocking on my hotel room, and my car outside your apartment and they think, what, that we are secretly fucking like little bunny rabbits? No, they think we are friends who want to see each other.”

Shane falters. “They could think something else,” he says, but his protest lacks his vehemence from earlier.

“They will not.” Ilya exhales a slow breath. “You are panicking over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, asshole!” Shane says defensively.

God, Ilya loves him, but he can be so frustrating. “Fine, is not nothing. Is this,” he holds his fingers millimeters apart, “big of a deal.”

Shane goes cross-eyed to keep Ilya’s fingers in view, and Ilya can’t hold back his snort of laughter. If only all those fancy Calvin Klein photographers could see him like this.

Shane breaks too.

Soon, they’re gasping for breath, leaning on each other for support.

“Just… tell me, next time, okay?” Shane is saying as Ilya tugs him closer to the bed so they can catch their breath somewhere more comfortable.

“Hm?” Ilya hums as he gently pushes Shane onto the covers, nosing at the juncture between Shane’s shoulder and neck, inhaling the barely-there scent of his shampoo and mouthing at his earlobe.

“I probably wouldn’t have told you not to do it,” Shane admits, pushing Ilya up until Ilya is staring down at him. “But I would’ve wanted to know.” He huffs, “I just don’t like being caught off guard is all.”

Ilya nods. “Okay, Shane. Can I suck you now?”

Shane grins up at him. “Okay, Ilya.”

Step 4: First Names obviously goes much better than that whole tuna melt fiasco. Shane does not flee like a maiden who lost her virtue the moment his first name crosses Ilya’s lips, and Ilya even gets some mind-blowing fucking out of it because he actually prepared this time and brought condoms and lube to Nashville.

Being the first person to be inside Shane Hollander twice is not something Ilya ever dreamed could happen, and it almost makes up for the heartache of having Shane but not really having him at all.

Ilya has to physically bite his tongue to stop himself from asking Shane to stay the night. Instead, he lets Shane go with a smile and a flirty wave before he drains all the little bottles of shitty vodka from the minibar.

According to the calendar, Boston will not play Montreal for another six weeks. Fucking hell, how did he do this for seven years? The sheer unfairness nearly brings tears to his eyes. Four years. He only had four real years with Shane, his Shane, who always stayed until the last possible minute, who fell asleep on camera, who once sped a whole 15 kph over the limit because Ilya was having a bad morning, and he could not bear to leave his boyfriend.

And now Ilya is stuck with this Shane, who would flee if Ilya asked him to stay longer than an hour or two. God, if Shane runs from him again, he will probably kill himself for good.

Ilya cracks open a shooter of whiskey and downs it.

* * *

When Ilya gets back to Boston after All-Stars, he throws himself into training with his team. He is still a rookie, not their captain, but he can nudge them in the right direction because when Ilya says something, people tend to listen, whether in the locker room, on Twitter, or on the ice.

Sveta messages early in February.

Света 💅🏽

Sveta: I am finally back in Boston freezing my tits off; We are going out tonight; I will make you regret it if you do not show
Ilya: Fine; Did you bring the good vodka?
Sveta: You’ll just have to see, won’t you?

She lets herself into his apartment shortly after ten. “Ilyusha!” she shouts, adding in Russian, “Where the fuck are you? I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Ilya gets up from the couch to kiss her on the cheek and root around in her purse for the good vodka straight from the motherland.

“Ey!” Sveta slaps his hand away. “No ‘hello, Sveta’, no ‘how was Moscow, Sveta’, no ‘thank you for dragging my sorry ass out of my sad house, Sveta’.”

“Hello, Sveta,” Ilya says obediently. “How was Moscow, Sveta?”

“Better,” she sniffs. “And Moscow was shit, as you know.”

Ilya grins as he goes to get a couple of glasses. “That’s why I didn’t ask,” he calls over his shoulder. He comes back to find Sveta on his couch, her long legs crossed in front of her.

As he pours out two generous drinks, she offers him a cigarette.

And Ilya hesitates. Ever since he woke up in 2010, he had been making a concentrated effort to stop smoking. He had never reached addiction levels – not like his coaches back in Russia – but he craved a cigarette when he was bored or having a bad day. He waves her off. “Coaches say I should stop.”

Sveta raises her eyebrows. “Since when do you listen to coaches about this?”

“Since now,” Ilya says seriously. “Brightman is going to retire next season. We’ll need a new captain.”

“And you think that’s you?” Sveta asks. She takes a sip of vodka, her brow furrowing. “I did not know he was going to retire.”

Ilya shrugs. Brightman will not announce his retirement until the last possible minute, the bastard. The Bears choose Petersmark as their new captain during the off season, but Petersmark flames out spectacularly during preseason, and a group of vets, to Ilya’s complete surprise, pressure management to give Ilya the C.

“Good for him,” Sveta says with relish. “He never had the right instincts to take the Bears all the way. And they have only gotten worse in old age.”

Ilya grins as he sips at his drink. “Last year was embarrassing. It’s good they have me now.”

“Fuck yes,” Sveta says with relish. “I will toast to that. Ilya Rozanov, Captain of the Boston Bears. You will own this city in three years, Ilyusha. The best fucking captain these American fucks have ever seen. Mark my words.”

Ilya just grins and clinks their glasses together. Three years, indeed. Of course Sveta is always right about these things. They chat a little more about Sveta’s job that she will be starting in a week and old friends back in Moscow.

After an hour, they head out to a new club, and Ilya stands back as Sveta works her magic on the bouncer. Inside, Ilya loses himself to the crush of sweaty, gyrating bodies. The good vodka is still freely flowing through his veins, and he cannot tell one person’s hip from another body’s shoulder or someone else’s ass. He bounces in time to the music, his mind finally going quiet in that way he can only find in the club or during grueling drills on the ice.

Collective effervescence, that is what David called it. He had read about it at McGill. The sociology course David had to take was stupid, but the concept stuck with him. It was all about attaining a higher plane of consciousness when in a group all devoted to one thing – dancing, cheering, you name it, David had explained to Ilya as he examined a puzzle piece with the exact intensity Shane reserved for post-loss game tape.

Ilya jolts back to himself, and he nearly elbows someone in the face. God, why is he thinking about David Hollander in the middle of the hottest club in Boston?

He freezes, almost painfully aware of himself.

The happy, mindless place in his head vanishes. An equally overwhelming grief takes its place, a grief for a moment with David that he will, quite possibly, never get. He does not remember what led to that conversation with David at all, so how can he possibly repeat it?

Fuck, he misses David. He misses David and his puzzles, and Yuna and her hockey commentary, and Shane and his everything – he misses the Hollander trio that Ilya came so fucking close to making a quartet.

The previously welcoming crush of bodies twists into a suffocating crowd.

Ilya forces his way off the dancefloor, and the music that had been sweeping him along now grates against his ears, drowning out everything but the ugly swirl of emotions pressing down on his chest. Longing and rage fuel his one-man drive towards the exit, and the bracing, icy wind of Boston in February brings tears to his eyes as he finally makes it onto the curb.

He checks his phone, but Sveta has not texted or called. She probably will not miss him for another hour.

And now, more than anything, Ilya misses his cigarettes. As he waits on the corner for a taxi, the bright lights of a 24 hour convenience store draw him like a moth to a flame.

Shane’s voice nags him in his head as he scans the shelves of cigarette cartons behind the cash register. Malboros. Lucky Strikes. Camels. Newports. Pall Malls.

I will never forgive you if you get lung cancer and die.

The joke is on Shane, though, since Ilya did not get lung cancer, and he still died.

He buys a pack of Malboros, and he can practically feel Shane’s disappointment in the back of his mind. It is almost comforting. After forking over his cash, Ilya stands on the curb, idly thumbing the slick smooth plastic wrapping.

By the time he climbs in the car, the cigarettes are lying at the bottom of the trash can on the corner, and Shane’s voice is crooning Ilya’s praises in his drunken ear.

* * *

Ilya lives for the one night a month he can see Shane. Normally, Boston plays Montreal four times a season, from October through March. Five, if Ilya gets lucky with preseason matchups.

This season, he gets away with two additional nights in the second half of the season. One in late February when Boston is playing New Jersey and Montreal is playing New York – Ilya hops on NJ transit and lies to Shane about visiting a nonexistent friend in Brooklyn. Hopefully, Shane will not remember the name Kip Grady in six years.

Ilya makes it to Shane’s hotel 40 minutes after leaving the Prudential Center (6-5 Bears) and fucks Shane so hard he cries.

And again in April, Boston plays Ottawa (7-2 Bears), and Montreal has a home game against Pittsburgh (4-1 Voyageurs). In the second period, Shane gets boarded, hard, badly bruising his ribs and shoulder.

Three hours later, they meet at Shane’s apartment in Montreal. Ilya takes him apart achingly slowly on a carefully constructed nest of pillows and blankets. He enters Shane inch by inch, ignoring Shane’s increasingly desperate pleas to just fuck him already. When he finally bottoms out, Shane brattily kicks him in the lower back to get moving. As punishment, Ilya presses the pads of his fingers into the darkening bruise on Shane’s side.

At Shane’s sharp inhale, Ilya lets up on the pressure, but he keeps his hand against the tender skin in a silent question.

“No,” Shane breathes, “I’m okay.” He swallows. “It’s just – it’s just a lot. Not bad a lot – just a lot.”

“Okay,” Ilya agrees as he starts moving again, pulling out of Shane just to push in equally slowly.

“Come on,” Shane groans to the ceiling. He weakly kicks Ilya again.

Ilya grins as he squeezes Shane’s side again. “You are being very rude to me tonight, Hollander.”

“It’s rude to not fuck me properly,” Shane growls.

“You are injured,” Ilya says placidly as he enters Shane again. “I do not want to hurt you.”

“I’ll fucking kill you.”

“How can you, with these ribs?” Ilya asks with a grin as he starts to pick up the pace, despite his words.

“Fuck off,” Shane spits, but his words are belied by the way he gasps with the next thrust of Ilya’s hips.

A short while later, Shane comes, fingers clutching the sheets in a white-knuckled grip, chest stuttering with a punched-out groan.

As he comes down, Ilya whispers how much he loves him against the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. Above him, Shane just nods in oblivious agreement, too blissed out to think. It does not matter; Shane will not understand any of Ilya’s Russian endearments for five more years.

In May, Montreal does not make it past the first round of the playoffs, but Shane is hopeful for their chances next year. Boston gets knocked out in their own first round against Washington.

Ilya has only three weeks to mope and live text Shane during the final Meadowlanders vs Manta Rays game before the NHL Awards come around.

* * *

Shane wins Rookie of the Year, and all Ilya can think about is his impending flight back to Russia.

He has not been to Russia in four years. A lifetime. Ilya is an entirely different person than the last time he touched down in Шереметьево. That Ilya had never had Shane Hollander, not for real.

The one bright spot: he will be able to visit Irina again. Perhaps he will tell her all about Shane and their life together, their dreams and plans before everything literally blew up in his face.

Ilya musters an exaggerated, fake smile for Shane when he walks down from the stage in Las Vegas, flashing him a pair of obnoxious thumbs up as he passes. Shane rolls his eyes for all the people still watching him, but the moment he sits down between his parents two tables away, he flips Ilya off.

Yuna shoots him a disapproving look, and Shane drops his hand like it is on fire.

Ilya does not bother to muffle his snicker.

Yuna turns her glare over to Ilya, and he immediately schools his face into something more respectable. He offers her a shy wave instead, which she returns with a bemused smile.

Shane’s face scrunches in confusion, and Ilya turns back to the stage before he does something stupid like walk over and forcibly shove himself back into the Hollander family.

He could play it off as a bit, but he finally has the chance for a good first impression with the Hollanders, and he will not screw it up. Not like last time. When he meets this David and Yuna again, it will not send their only son headlong into panic attack.

No, Ilya can wait until Shane is ready. Ilya went nearly 15 years without a real parent. He can last a few more. Eleven months is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Ilya skips the NHL Awards reception. He received enough pitying noise from his table after Shane’s name was announced, and he is going to get plenty more plus a decent amount of shouting when he goes back to Moscow. He does not need an entire banquet hall full of it in the meantime.

He gets Marley to sneak him a triple vodka and escapes to the roof. With any luck, Shane will find him again.

He is barely halfway through it by the time the automatic glass door whooshes open and Shane Hollander, NHL Rookie of the Year, steps out onto the patio.

“It’s not worth jumping over,” Shane jokes as he approaches.

Ilya’s shoulders instinctively tense. Shane – his Shane – would never even think of making a joke about suicide within Ilya’s earshot, let alone to his face. Ilya knows, logically, he should not hold Shane’s ignorance against him, but the anger and pain rises anyway, threatening to choke him. He washes it all down with vodka. “Is the party over, then?” he asks.

“No,” Shane shakes his head, “I just needed some air.”

Ilya gestures to Shane to join him by the railing. Tentatively, like he might set Ilya off if he gets too close, Shane shuffles next to him, leaving a good foot of space. Ilya holds out his half-empty glass. “Want?” he asks simply.

Shane stares down at it.

Ilya shakes it in a way that might be enticing, if Shane was blind and a totally different person.

“All yours,” Shane declines, polite as ever.

Ilya polishes it off. He does not throw the glass off the roof, although that would probably be extremely satisfying. But Shane would get mad, and this is the last night they will see each other until September, so Ilya needs to hold it together until then.

Shane breaks the silence. “It could have gone to either one of us.”

The fuck?

Ilya stares at him. Oh, the goddamn award. Ilya could care less about who got Rookie of the Year. That hurt scabbed over a fucking decade ago. But Shane looks genuinely nervous about Ilya’s reaction. He is so fucking young – and he does not know, does not know any of it.

Ilya buries his head in his hands. If he did actually jump off this railing, would he see his Shane again? Or would time reset, sticking him even further in the past? Knowing his luck, that is exactly what will happen, and Ilya will wake up back in Russia, even more fucked than before, in the middle of one of those awful years after Mama and before Shane. The two bookends that changed his life forever.

“Who knows how they even decide these things,” Shane adds awkwardly. As Ilya says nothing, Shane asks in a small voice, “It bothers you that much that I won?”

Ilya curses under his breath.

“What was that?” Shane asks and, despite his clear discomfort, he steps closer. Their hands nearly brush, and Ilya could really just throw himself off this roof. It would be the fastest way to put himself out of this misery.

He clears his throat. “Not everything is about you, Hollander,” he says, more tired than anything now.

Shane studies his profile for a long moment. “So what is it then?”

Ilya sighs. “I go back to Russia in three days.”

“Oh.”

Ilya glances at him out of the corner of his eye before turning back to the view.

“You’ll see your brother, right?” Shane tries, always the stubborn idiot. “He can thank you in person.” At Ilya’s blank look, he adds, “For that money you sent him. That’s gotta be nice.”

Ilya laughs at the sheer audacity of assuming Andrei would thank him for anything unless a gun was pointed right at his face. “He would rather ask me for more money.”

Shane looks stunned. “He would do that?”

Ilya shrugs. “As long as my salary is public knowledge, yes, he will keep asking.”

“Ilya…” Shane drifts off, horrified. “That’s awful.”

Ilya clearly finished his vodka too soon. Christ, he should have grabbed the whole bottle, not settled for three measly, mediocre shots. “Not everyone has a nice, perfect family waiting in Canada,” Ilya tells Shane sardonically.

Shane swallows. “I’m sorry.”

Ilya shrugs again. “Is fine.”

“Ilya…” Shane runs an anxious hand through his hair. “Is there anything I can do?”

Ilya turns to him in surprise, but he really should have known better. He might ache for his Shane so much it physically pains him and but this Shane, this Shane is not too far off, not too different, on the inside. “Is okay,” Ilya says with his first real smile of the night.

“Yeah, but if there is anything,” Shane insists, “you’ll tell me, right?”

He is so earnest; Ilya’s knuckles whiten on the railing with his effort not to reach out to him. Instead, he exhales a slow breath, watching the lights twinkling down on the strip 35 stories below them. “If I call this summer, will you answer?”

Shane blinks. “Yeah, fuck, yeah, of course,” he says, the words nearly tripping over themselves in his haste to get them out. He glances around the deserted rooftop before his hand inches closer to Ilya’s, locking their pinkies together. “Of course I will.”

“There is no one here, Hollander,” Ilya says, amused. “You could get on your knees and loudly suck my dick and nobody would notice.”

Shane goes bright red. “I’m not sucking your - your dick out here!”

Ilya smirks. “A shame. Is good lighting for you up here. Very pretty.”

“Fuck you,” Shane says, grinning.

“What room are you in?”

Shane shakes his head with a wince. “Absolutely not. I’m rooming with my parents.”

Ilya purses his lips. “Fine. My room, then. I am in 1128.”

“My parents will notice if I’m gone,” Shane protests weakly.

Ilya rolls his eyes. “You are in Las Vegas. You just won Rookie of the Year award. You can stay up past your bedtime.”

“But –”

“Tell them I took you partying,” Ilya says as he half-turns, crowding deep into Shane’s personal space. “Tell them I am bad influence, yes?”

“Fuck,” Shane breathes against Ilya’s lips. “You are such a bad influence.”

* * *

Like he promised, over the summer, Shane picks up most of the times Ilya calls. They talk about nothing important; the results of the 2011 draft, the shittiest trades (what the fuck was Buffalo thinking?), and other hockey news.

Ilya does not tell him about Irina, but he tells Shane a little bit about his father’s high expectations, his brother’s drug habits, and his niece, who outshines them all.

Shane tells him about his architectural plans for his future cottage and the weather in Ottawa because, at his heart, Shane Hollander is the most boring man in all of Canada.

Ilya hits a real low point when he jerks off to Shane explaining the ideal size and building materials for his indoor rink. Shane only realizes what is happening as Ilya is spilling all over his fist, slick and hot, and Shane is so shocked, he hangs up.

Shane gamely picks up the phone the next day, teasing him that clearly all Ilya has told him about the Moscow club scene is a lie, if Ilya needs to get off at one in the afternoon with a guy in Canada he can’t even touch or see.

The summer passes slowly, but it passes. Finally, at long last, he boards his flight back to Boston.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Hope you had a good flight!
Ilya: Was fine; No crying babies
Shane: Did you sleep?
Ilya: A little
Shane: I have a hard time sleeping on flights too.
Ilya: When does training start?
Shane: 1st of September.
Ilya: Mine does not start until the 3rd; I have never been sightseeing in Canada; Might be fun; I will need a proper tour guide of course; Do you know any? 😉
Shane: Fuck, I’m sorry. I’ll be back in Ottawa the week before training starts, spending time with my parents.

In the taxi back to Boston, Ilya stares down at the two little messages, his throat closing up. He throws his phone down on the seat next to him to stop himself from typing something stupid like, They could show me around too.

This is what he gets for getting his hopes up, for being greedy, for being an impatient bastard. He has only been friends with Shane for a year, of course he would not want Ilya to meet his parents. Why would he? Ilya only spent the last month complaining about his own family. Shane probably does not trust Ilya to behave normally around his precious parents.

In their past life, how long would it have taken Shane to introduce Ilya to his parents, if David had not walked in on them? A few more months? A year? Several years?

In his empty, so fucking empty, house in Boston, Ilya leaves his luggage by the door and falls face-first onto the couch in his living room. He should unpack. He should order groceries or, god forbid, go to the grocery store and move his sorry ass. He should shower, wash the heaviness of Moscow off his skin.

Ilya does none of that.

He understood Shane’s caution about coming out, of course he did. But the pressure of nobody knowing about the most important person in his life — in his world — the loneliness of being the only one in the locker room, never got to Shane the way it got to Ilya.

Maybe it was Ilya’s broken brain, or maybe Shane was just stronger. Either way, Ilya reached his breaking point embarrassingly early on in their multi-year plan. They fought, they mostly made up, and then Ilya got blown up.

Whatever. That is all in the past now. Literally nobody remembers any of that happening, except Ilya, who cannot stop himself from reliving all his past mistakes, over and over again.

And he thought he was doing better. He was following his own plan. He was not being his usual impulsive, selfish self – except when he jerked off listening to Shane debate three types of concrete. Ilya was being good!

And what does he get?

Not an invitation to Montreal. No meeting the Hollander family. No sign of loving parents anywhere he can see.

Ilya pulls out his phone.

Света 💅🏽

Ilya: Back from Russia; Go out tonight?
Sveta: Like you need to ask; Dinner first? I want Thai
Ilya: 👍

He sticks close to Sveta in the club, and she keeps him amused and out of his own head. Every time his thoughts veer too close to things they should not, he catches her eye and she grabs a new round of drinks or shoves him at a new, warm, gyrating body.

At three in the morning, she drags him out for a smoke break, and they wind up just going back to his place instead. He is fucking exhausted. Too full of disgusting American vodka and not enough nicotine, he does not realize Sveta’s intentions until she is plastered up against him, fingers tangling in the fabric of his shirt to pull him even closer. She is soft where he expects muscle, svelte where he expects bulk. God, Ilya has not been this close to breasts in a very long time.

“Sveta,” he starts as his hands settle on her upper arms, gently placing a little breathing room between them.

“You do not want to get laid?” she pouts, blinking up at him in his dark living room.

Ilya swallows. Truthfully, he can hardly deny the evidence that his body is up for a good fuck. He slept with Sveta for many years, so his cock is already perking up like a well-trained, if bad, dog. Still, he tells her, “I can’t.”

“What, did you take a vow of celibacy?” she asks, eyebrows raising. “Did the Irish Catholics in this city finally get to you?”

Ilya purses his lips. “No.”

“When was the last time you fucked?” Sveta asks shrewdly. “You have been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about it all.”

Ilya sighs. He could lie to her, but that would be a first between them, discounting a handful of white lies over the years. “In June.”

Her mouth drops open in horror. “It’s August.”

Ilya shrugs with one shoulder. “Two months. It’s nothing.”

“When was the last time you went more than two weeks without getting any?” Sveta asks flatly.

“In June.”

“Ilyusha.”

Ilya rubs his nose. Does not meet her eyes. “What?”

She places her hands on her hips and stares him down. “What is going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

“‘Nothing’?” she repeats, incredulous. “I - this is not like you.”

Ilya stares. “Because I won’t sleep with you?” He takes a step back, saying coolly, “I did not think you were this desperate for me—”

“Oh, fuck that shit,” Sveta cuts him off. “You know this is not about that.” She pokes him, hard, in the chest. “You can fool everyone else but not me. Something has changed. I know it.”

“You know nothing,” Ilya says as the vodka roils in his stomach and panic crawls up his throat. Sveta cannot know, can she? Ilya barely believes it himself, and he was the one who died and came back to life. He has not been acting that differently, has he? He had not been as close with Sveta since he moved to the US, and he thought the distance might have confused her usually spot-on intuition. But if not –

“Because you won’t tell me!” she blurts. Her dark eyes dart all over his face. “Did Andrei hook you on something this summer?”

“What?” How could she think he would ever let Andrei give him anything he did not confirm for himself three times over? “No!”

She swallows. “Are you getting sad? Like Irina?”

Ilya draws up short. “No, no, nothing like that,” he says, not entirely truthfully.

Sveta jumps on his faltering answer like a fucking bloodhound. “So there is something?” she presses, verbally and physically, getting back into his personal space. “What is it?”

Ilya is both too sober and too hungover for this. He pushes past her into his semi-dark kitchen and pours himself a glass of water. He does not answer.

“Ilyushka,” Sveta prompts, her tone a warning.

“It’s nothing bad.”

“It looks bad.”

“It’s not bad.” He sighs loudly. “Trust me.”

“I will trust you when you tell me. No drugs, no depression,” she lists off on two slender fingers, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were married because that’s the only reason a man would ever—”

Ilya chokes on his next sip of water.

Sveta’s mouth drops open. “You’re married?”

“I’m not fucking married!” Ilya exclaims. “But—”

“But what?”

He stares hard at one of her manicured nails, currently curled around the marble edge of his kitchen island. “There is someone.” Something glittery in the polish reflects the low lighting coming from under his kitchen cabinets.

Sveta blinks. “Someone?”

“Is there an echo in here?” Ilya says sourly. “Did I start speaking French instead Russian? You know what ‘someone’ means, Sveta.”

“Not when it comes to you!” she protests. “You met someone? Is this the same someone you fucked in June?”

“Yes.”

She sags back against the kitchen island. “Holy shit.”

Ilya just toasts her with his water glass in agreement.

“Do you,” she pauses, her brow furrowing as she thinks over her words, “Are you happy?”

“The happiest,” Ilya says, his words painfully sardonic.

Sveta sighs. “So that’s a ‘no’.” Her eyes widen. “Please tell me you are long distance, and she is not fucking with your head by making you wait so long to get some.”

Ilya looks away.

Sveta groans to the ceiling. “I thought you knew better. Fuck, why are you doing this?”

“Because I love him,” Ilya says, his first honest words of the night.

Sveta’s head snaps back to him. “You love him?”

Ilya gives her a stilted nod.

“Oh, Ilyusha,” she coos as she reaches him. “A Russian love story, then? Not an American one with the happy endings?”

Ilya sniffs as her arms wrap around him. “He’s Canadian.”

Sveta groans again, louder this time. “That is so much worse.”

* * *

The 2011-2012 NHL season begins, and Ilya waits five long weeks until the first Boston v Montreal game.

Boston wins. Shane twisted something in his knee in a game against Detroit, and his coach has been keeping him off the ice except for the power play. Ilya scored two goals and got three assists. A good night, made all the better when he is finally balls deep in Shane, fucking him like his life depends on it.

“How are you so good at this?” Shane demands breathlessly.

Ilya just snaps his hips harder, brutally slamming against Shane’s ass. He cannot say that he is so good because he has been sleeping with Shane for nearly a decade, learning Shane’s body by translating every bitten-off gasp and wanton moan like it is his third fucking language.

Shane comes with a truly beautiful sound, spilling all over his own chest. His face is slack with bliss, forehead dewy with exertion, and he is everything Ilya ever wanted but cannot have. Ilya lets himself have two whole seconds of savoring the moment before Ilya roughly flips him over to finish doggy style. “Так красиво. Я тебя чертовски люблю,” Ilya finally grunts into the sweat-slick skin of his shoulder.

Ilya shudders to think about what his face is doing as he says these things, and he definitely does not want to think about the horror on Shane’s face if he understood any of his sappy nonsense.

For a long moment, Shane just breathes beneath him.

“Okay?” Ilya asks.

“I think I got cum on your sheets.”

Ilya snorts as he pulls out. “Is fine. I have others.”

“It’s gross,” Shane says, his tone apologetic.

Ilya ties off the condom and throws it in the trash. On his way back to the bed, he grabs two wet wipes he keeps on his nightstand for this very occasion and cleans Shane off, biting his lip hard enough to hurt. The sting keeps him grounded, keeps him from letting his touch from becoming too tender. “There. Not gross anymore,” he says as he throws them in the trash can too.

“Thanks,” Shane says, a touch awkwardly.

Ilya lays back in bed. “Stay?” he asks, trying not to inject too much hope into the word. He has asked Shane to stay a few times before, not every time, not enough to pressure Shane into anything, but enough that Shane knows it is an open invitation.

“Sorry,” Shane says as he climbs out. “Early flight tomorrow to New York. I should head back if I want to get any sleep.”

Ilya smiles, trying hard to make any humor at all reach his eyes. “You can sleep here. My bed is very comfortable.” He even pats the space next to him for good measure.

Shane shakes his head, one corner of his mouth lifting into a small smirk. “Like you’d let me get any sleep.”

“I can be good!” Ilya protests, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence.

Shane just rolls his eyes and heads into the bathroom to shower Ilya off him.

Ilya drops back to the bed and stares at the ceiling. This is what he expected. This is not a blow or any sort of sign that Shane’s feelings have changed. They have not changed, obviously. Or else Shane would not come over at all.

At least he still comes over. He still answers Ilya’s texts. He even answered the phone all summer when Ilya called him.

Shane leaves the bathroom exactly seven minutes later, hair wet and the kind of relaxed he only gets after sex. Ilya walks him to the door and steals one last kiss in his living room as Shane waits for the taxi to take him back to his hotel.

“Do not go too hard on Hunter,” Ilya says by way of goodbye. “Would be bad look if you broke both his old man hips.”

Shane snorts. “Sure. Beat Carolina for me, okay? Alpen needs to get taken down a peg or two.”

“Alpen is two bad games away from being sent down to AHL,” Ilya dismisses.

Shane laughs. “Exactly. Bye, Ilya.”

“Goodbye, Shane.” Ilya closes the door behind him, and tries to ignore the invisible weight that automatically settles on his shoulders, a very poor replacement for Shane’s presence.

Back in his bedroom, he flops back on the bed, landing squarely in the wet spot. Grimacing, he rolls over and squeezes his eyes shut. A voice that sounds horribly like Shane’s – his Shane – tells him he has to get up, shower, change his sheets, and brush his teeth.

This next step of his plan, Step 5: Boyfriends, has been taking the longest. He can see it dragging out for a few more months, maybe a year – maybe longer. It does not help that Ilya does not know exactly what he did last time to make Shane decide he was worth it. He dismisses nearly every reason as soon as they come to him.

The sex was amazing, yes, but Shane is very good at sex and very attractive. He could find a similar relationship with very little trouble.

The competition was fun, but there are many competitive men out there, especially among professional athletes. It is practically a requirement for entry.

Ilya’s past is tragic; it is true, but tragedy inspires more pity than love.

He presses the heels of his hands against his closed eyes, willing the gathering moisture to stay inside. God, he has no idea how to make Shane fall in love with him again.

Maybe the first time was an irreplaceable fluke, a series of slim chances that Ilya can never retread with any hope of success. Perhaps this is Hell after all: a series of boundless opportunities, a do-over that Ilya can only squander to pieces. Because right now he can see himself fucking it all up a lot clearer than he can see ever getting Shane Hollander to choose him back for a second time. The first time was miraculous enough.

Ilya turns over and goes to bed.

* * *

For the rest of 2011, Ilya goes back to partying too hard and drinking too much. He eats like shit, relishing the little Shane voice in his head telling him off for eating four McGriddles in as many days. He buys a jumbo sized tub of Nutella and tries it on everything in his pantry. Saltines are fine. Plantain chips are delicious. Nori is fucking disgusting.

By late December, Ilya is no more successful at persuading Shane to stay over than he had been in the start of the season.

This second life is so unfair. All Ilya can do is fall more and more in love, while Shane probably thinks he is more pathetic than ever. He does not understand. He keeps giving, giving, giving. And Shane, who is so polite and generous to everyone else in this life, will not give Ilya anything in return. Just orgasms, which are better than nothing, but so much less than what Ilya is used to.

The anger at Shane takes him by surprise, but he funnels it onto the ice and into pseudo-hate sex with Shane that is hotter than hell but leaves him feeling so hollow after. He will not take his anger out on Shane any other way — he is not his father; he is not Andrei. He can be a fucking functional adult who does not rage for hours or shut down for days when things get a little hard. He is not his mother either.

He can do better. Be better.

In the in-between moments, he misses his Shane so badly it makes him want to claw his own skin off, just so the pain in his body matches the pain everywhere else. At his loneliest, he wonders if his Shane would be proud of him, if he would be proud of all Ilya has made happen with his little plan.

Sometimes, he thinks Shane would approve. They are friends now, which required a whole year and a charity to prove last time.

Other times, Ilya knows Shane would hate how unfocused he is; torn between winning at hockey, winning over this Shane, and just fucking drinking himself into an oblivion from the pressure of the first two. Would Shane call him a failure? Maybe not yet, but he could.

The Bears come back from the mid-season break with a six-game winning streak, and Ilya gets an A. Despite all that, Ilya has never been more miserable in his life. His bad dreams have returned, and every night it is a tossup whether the limp hand he finds hanging off the bed is Mama’s or Shane’s.

Ilya does not understand. These bad days, the nightmares, they all did not start years from now last time. He tells Sveta a little bit about it, and she helps him get out of his head. But he can only handle her in small doses — inevitably she will try to pry information about Shane out of him, and Ilya absolutely cannot let that happen.

The days are short; the nights stretch on interminably; and Ilya knows he should do something about it, but that would take so much fucking effort. He already gives it all on the ice; he cannot fathom what Shane would think of him if he started losing on top of everything else.

But in March, he gets a text from Shane.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Hey! I checked the calendar and we both have a three day break at the end of the month.; Do you still need a Canadian tour guide?
Ilya: Yes 🥺
Shane: Great, which airline do you fly with? I’ll let Hayden know!
Ilya: You are not funny Hollander
Shane: I’m a little funny. You can admit it.; Just between us.

Ilya smiles down at his phone. Maybe things are finally turning around. He feels like he could fly and takes an absurd number of shots on goal on the Winged Wheelers that evening, making an even more absurd number of goals.

“Fucking hell, you scare me sometimes, Roz,” Marley says appreciatively as LeClaire swaps out the first line. They have a very comfortable two point lead, so Ilya cheers on the second line, mainly made up of talented but inexperienced rookies and Hammy, their on-ice babysitter.

“Jealous?”

“Dude, I think we all are,” Marley says as he claps Ilya on the back. “Wicked playing.”

“Yes, keep it up, Rozanov,” LeClaire adds over their shoulders.

Ilya heads back onto the ice to open third period.

When LeClaire puts him back out there, Ilya scores his first hat-trick of the year, the stadium rings with the boos of tens of thousands of Detroit fans, and Ilya’s face hurts from how hard he is grinning.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Congrats on the win!; That third goal was fucking beautiful.
Ilya: Yes it was; Much better than your last goal
Shane: You’re such an asshole.; I was up against Martel!; His last game was a shutout.
Ilya: excuses, excuses
Shane: Kjellberg has a .88 SV%; AND he was a fucking sieve in Detroit’s last game against Toronto.; His head hasn’t been in the game this year.; My mom says so.
Ilya: Well if Mama Hollander says so…
Shane: Joke all you want.; My mom’s hockey IQ is better than mine.
Ilya: Is not a joke. I have great respect for Yuna Hollander and her hockey witchcraft
Shane: You know my mom’s name?
Ilya: Of course I do; Yuna is the best manager to second-best hockey player; Everyone knows this
Shane: Fuck you.
Ilya: Soon! 🥵I will buy ticket tomorrow morning.
Shane: Great! Looking forward to it.

In the next few weeks leading up to his trip to Montreal, Shane texts him a frankly absurd amount of sightseeing options.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Do you want to climb Mount Royal when you’re here?; We can hike up Olmstead Trail, and there are four great views to choose from.
Ilya: Will you get all sweaty and wear slutty little shorts like you wear in hotel gyms?
Shane: What the fuck?; My shorts are not slutty!
Ilya: Three inch inseam is always slutty Hollander
Shane: It is SEVEN AND A HALF INCHES.
Ilya: I bet you tell all the girls this 🤭
Shane: I hate you.
Ilya: Be honest; Did you get ruler out to measure yourself?
Shane: Fuck off. And, no, I will not be wearing ANY shorts because it is MARCH in CANADA.
Ilya: You do not value this friendship at all 😭

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Do you want to see Notre Dame Basilica?
Ilya: What?
Shane: It’s a church in Montreal.
Ilya: What kind of church?
Shane: I don’t know. A big, old one?
Ilya: I have seen plenty of ancient boring churches in Moscow.
Shane: Oh right! The ones with the onion-like things at the top.
Ilya: Hollander.; Please tell me you did not just call купола an onion
Shane: That’s what they look like!
Ilya: Fucking English; I look it up myself; It is called “onion dome” in your stupid language
Shane: Ha! I was right.; So, do you want to visit?
Ilya: fuck no

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Do you want to climb Saint Joseph’s Oratory?
Ilya: No because you will not wear small shorts AND churches are a sleep fest
Shane: Well, what do you want to do, then??
Ilya: Fuck you. Eat. Sleep. Fuck you again.
Shane: God.; So you do not want to see Montreal at all?
Ilya: You are so boring Hollander; Fine I will look something up; since all you want to do is religion and exercise
Shane: They’re cultural landmarks, Ilya!

Chapter 2: No Sleeping Around

Chapter Summary

“Ilya!”

Ilya’s head swivels sharply to the left at the sound of his name. “Shane?” he asks, completely bewildered, as Shane Hollander, in the flesh, waves from behind the barrier separating international arrivals from the rest of the airport.

“You made good time,” Shane says with a little grin. “I thought customs would take longer, but you sped through it.”

“Yes, I am very fast,” Ilya says distractedly, marveling at the sight of Shane Hollander, at the airport, to pick Ilya up. In person. What in the world?

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

“Ilya!”

Ilya’s head swivels sharply to the left at the sound of his name. “Shane?” he asks, completely bewildered, as Shane Hollander, in the flesh, waves from behind the barrier separating international arrivals from the rest of the airport.

“You made good time,” Shane says with a little grin. “I thought customs would take longer, but you sped through it.”

“Yes, I am very fast,” Ilya says distractedly, marveling at the sight of Shane Hollander, at the airport, to pick Ilya up. In person. What in the world?

Shane glances around them. “Everything okay?” he asks in a low voice.

Ilya blinks, relaxing like he only can manage in Shane’s presence. “I did not expect to see you here.”

“In Montreal?” Shane teases. “In my city?” He gives a little wave to a group of university-aged guys who are staring at them, and they all whoop in response. One shouts, “Fuck the Bears!”

Ilya gives them his own wave with one finger raised.

The guys cheerfully boo him, and Shane rolls his eyes. He deliberately steers Ilya towards the exit, muttering, “I really can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

Ilya casts him a sidelong look. “Is not a problem, yes?”

Shane huffs a quiet chuckle. “We wouldn’t be friends if it was.”

Ilya’s heart warms just in time to step outside into Montreal in March. “Ебать,” he swears with feeling as a wintry breeze slaps him in the face, and, shit, maybe this city really does hate him personally.

Shane, the asshole, laughs at him. “You just came from Boston! I know it gets cold there.”

“It does,” Ilya says begrudgingly.

“And Moscow winters, that’s gotta be comparable to here,” Shane says conversationally as he points Ilya in the direction of short-term parking.

Ilya shrugs. His last fond memories of winter in Moscow end in 2003.

Mama suffered most at the end of the year, when daylight was a rare commodity that had to be treasured like gold. She killed herself in late December, on the 23rd. When Ilya came home from school at 14:30, he found her. He does not remember dialing 112 on the landline in the kitchen, but he must have because the paramedics came sometime before time Papa returned early from work, and Andrei came home from hockey practice. By the time the doctors left, it was 16:00 and pitch black outside.

Papa shut himself up in his study, making phone calls. Andrei took off to get drunk with his friends. Ilya made himself dinner and left Papa’s portion in the microwave to heat up later. Ilya knew better than to disturb him when he was in his study. He ate his food in his usual chair, fastidiously ignoring the one to his left that Mama always sat in but never would again.

“I have not spent a winter in Moscow since I came here,” Ilya says instead of all that.

“Jeez, is it really that bad?” Shane jokes.

“Yes.”

“Great,” Shane says brightly. “Another thing my city can beat yours at.”

Ilya raises his eyebrows, biting back the retort that Moscow has not been “his” city in more than a decade. If forced to choose, he would say Ottawa, maybe Boston. But never Moscow. Not ever again. He puts on a lofty tone and tells Shane, “Not everything is a competition, Hollander.”

Shane snorts. “What a load of bullshit. People only say there’s no competition if they’re losing.” He roots around in his Canada Goose jacket and points his key fob at a familiar Jeep Cherokee.

Ilya cannot help his fond sigh at the sight.

“What?” Shane unlocks the doors and the car beeps in response.

As Ilya walks around the hood to the passenger side, he says, “I should have known you would drive a car like this.”

“What, a reliable one?” Shane asks archly. “One that is good in snow? And holds lots of stuff?”

“One that is driven by a dad in the suburbs.”

“At least it’s not bright orange,” Shane retorts as he gets into the driver’s seat, “and doesn’t squish me into a pretzel to reach the gear shift.”

Ilya turns to him in surprise. “You know which car I drive?”

Shane makes a face. “Do I know which car you spent two weeks waxing rhapsodic about? Yes, I do.”

“What the fuck does ‘waxing rhapsodic’ mean?” Ilya purses his lips as he adjusts the passenger seat to his large frame. “I do not wax my own car, Hollander. I pay other people to do this. I am a millionaire, just like you, although nobody knows this because your car is reliable,” he spits the last word like a personal insult.

Shane snorts as he buckles his seatbelt. “Sorry. ‘Waxing rhapsodic’ means talking a lot about. Exaggerating, mostly.”

Ilya feigns a dramatic gasp. “I do not need to exaggerate to say my car is better than yours.”

“Can it even drive in the snow?” Shane asks disapprovingly.

“Is what snowplows are for.”

Shane turns the key in the ignition and pulls them out of the parking lot. “And if you need to get somewhere before your street gets plowed?”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Then I send angry Tweets at the mayor until my street is cleared. Simple.”

Shane throws him a fond smile before his gaze snaps back to the road. “You are so ridiculous.”

Ilya relaxes back in his seat. “Big word from the man who drives most boring car in North America.”

* * *

Ilya pops a pair of bunny ears behind Shane’s head as the flash goes off.

“Thank you,” the mom gushes as she ushers her four children back to her side. “We’re all huge Voyageurs fans!”

At least this lady stopped them in the warmest section of the Biodome, the tropical rainforest. In the bright greenery overhead, birds caw and small animals skitter from branch to branch. Behind them, a picturesque waterfall provides lovely background noise to Shane’s boring small talk.

Ilya blows an obnoxious raspberry, which makes the youngest child giggle. “Boo!” He gives a dramatic thumbs-down with the hand not holding his well-insulated winter jacket. “Boo, Voyageurs!”

Shane slaps a hand over Ilya’s mouth. “Do you want to get kicked out of the Biodome? Be quiet! Wha — ew!” Shane yanks his hand away, waving it in the air with a shocked expression. “Did you just lick me? That’s so disgusting!”

Ilya doubles over laughing. Shane really should have known better, his Shane would have never given him that sort of opportunity, but this Shane is still naive to all the ways Ilya Rozanov can fuck with him.

The mom coughs, and they both turn to her. “I, uh, have some hand sanitizer, if you want? Or wet wipes?” She rifles through her purse and produces both.

“Thank you,” Shane says gratefully. He squirts a generous glob of the sanitizer into his hand. His forehead is lightly sweating from the heat and humidity, and Ilya has been refraining from licking him there too for the last fifteen minutes.

“The Voyageurs are weak,” Ilya says in a stage-whisper to the children. “Cannot survive a few little germs.”

“Ilya,” Shane starts warningly.

Ilya ignores him. “You should be Bears fans instead. Bears are strong like, well, Bears. Roar!” He growls playfully, and the kids all shriek with excitement.

“Oh my god,” Shane groans. “I am so sorry about him,” he tells the mom.

She grins. “Honey, if he can entertain all my kids for five straight minutes, we’ll buy tickets to all the Voyageurs-Bears games.”

Shane just rubs a hand down his face (not the one Ilya licked) and makes vague grumpy noises.

Ilya crouches down to get on the kids’ level. “You should root for the Bears. The Bears will win the Stanley Cup before the Voyageurs.”

“There’s no way you know that,” Shane protests.

“Yes, I do,” Ilya says, tapping his temple. “Slavic intuition.”

“Bullshit,” Shane calls immediately, going red as the mother clears her throat pointedly. “Sorry.” He shoots Ilya a reproving look like it is Ilya’s fault Shane said a bad word. “If you had any intuition, you wouldn’t have let Richardson get the drop on you twice in your last game.”

Ilya grimaces. “Slavic intuition does not work like that.”

“Sure it doesn’t.”

“Come on,” the mother says as she starts to herd her gaggle of children down the walkway, away from Shane and Ilya. “Thank Mr. Hollander and Mr. Rozanov for taking a picture with you.”

The small chorus pipes up with five different expressions of gratitude from four kids, and Ilya gives each one a high-five as they pass by.

“So is this is why you came to Montreal? To steal my fans, one-by-one?” Shane asks, amused, as they resume their walk through the Biodome.

“Bah,” Ilya waves a hand, “I do not need to steal any fans. They will all come to my side when we win the cup first.”

Shane aims an elbow for Ilya’s ribs, which he dodges. “In your fucking dreams, Rozanov.”

“Yes,” Ilya hums. “Every night I dream of holding the cup before you.” He glances slyly at Shane. “Is okay. I will let you get back-to-back wins the next year and year after.”

Shane rolls his eyes so hard, it looks like he is trying to roll them right out of his head. “Oh, you’re going to let me?”

“Yes, because you are a friend,” Ilya says solemnly.

Shane cracks up. “You are an asshole.”

Movement overhead catches his eye, and Ilya’s next retort dies on his tongue. “Look!” He frowns, searching for the word in English. Fuck it. He does not want Shane to miss them. He points and says, “Oбезьяны.”

“Des singes,” Shane breathes as he follows Ilya’s finger.

“What?” Ilya is very sure this is not the right word either.

“Monkeys!” Shane corrects, blushing. He glances at Ilya. “Sorry, I heard the Russian, and I guess my brain just went along with the not-English, which, to me… is French.”

Ilya grins. “Brains are funny like that, no?”

Shane hums in agreement. He pores over the little information pamphlet, which Ilya is sure he will have memorized by the time they leave. “Says here they are golden lion tamarins.” He squints, holding it a few inches farther from his face, “They are omnivorous monkeys that primarily feeds on insects, fruits, and small vertebrates.”

“Om-ni-vus?”

“Omnivorous,” Shane corrects. “Means they eat plants and meat. We — humans — are omnivores too, for example.”

Ilya laughs. “You are not this. You are a freak of nature with your weird diet. I am a human omnivore,” he says, sounding out the word carefully.

Shane throws him an exasperated look along with a small smile. “I still eat plants and meat, Ilya.”

“Weird plants. Weird meat.”

“Hey, salmon is a totally norm —”

Ilya swiftly cuts in, “Is not normal to eat salmon with zero butter, oil, or salt.”

Shane frowns. “How do you know how I like salmon?”

Panic crawls up Ilya’s spine, and he fights it from showing on his face. “You told me.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” Ilya scans the surroundings for a change of subject, any change of subject. “How else would I know this?” Puzzled, Shane opens his mouth, but Ilya heads him off, “How do you say черепаха in French?”

Shane blinks. “Say what?”

“Черепаха,” Ilya repeats, pointing at the animal in question, slowly inching along the jungle floor.

“It’s tortue,” Shane tells him as he leans over the railing to get a better look. “Tortoise, in English.”

Ilya’s brow furrows. “Not turtle?”

“Oh,” Shane raises the pamphlet again, extremely close to his face, and, holy fuck, Ilya cannot wait until Shane gets his sexy little reading glasses. “Shit, I always forget how it goes. All turtles are tortoises, but not all tortoises are turtles?” At Ilya’s blank look, he tries, “or maybe it’s all tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises?”

“None of that makes any sense, Hollander.”

Shane sighs. “One is a smaller group within the other. Like, all Bears are hockey players, but not all hockey players are Bears. Get it?”

Ilya wrestles back the manic grin that threatens to break out all over his face and instead shows Shane a very respectable, understanding nod. But, Christ alive, Ilya loves him and his stupid hockey brain so much.

“Come on,” Shane says, embarrassed, “the capybaras are up ahead. Have you ever seen one?”

Ilya has never heard this word before. “A what?”

“Oh, I think you’re going like them,” Shane says he gestures for Ilya to walk faster.

Ilya takes approximately fifty pictures of the capybaras and declares them his new favorite animal by the time they leave.

* * *

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya pants as Shane mouths at his gray boxer briefs, straining hard against his erection.

“God, you even smell good down here,” Shane breathes, his breath hot and damp, even through the fabric. “What the fuck is up with that?”

“I wash myself? I don’t fucking know,” Ilya groans as he weaves his fingers through Shane’s silky soft hair, pressing his face more firmly into Ilya’s crotch. “Eбать, your mouth.”

The precum stain grows as Shane grows more desperate, tongue moving in sloppy licks over the clothed shaft, Ilya’s balls, his fingers digging into the meat of Ilya’s ass. His head bobs with the force of the motion, dragging the fabric deliciously and agonizingly against the head of Ilya’s cock.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ilya chants as he forcefully shoves Shane away, so he can rip his damp boxer briefs off. “On the bed,” he tells Shane.

Shane is all too happy to comply. He scrambles onto the mattress, and Ilya lunges for his pants like a man possessed. They end up in a heap on the floor, quickly followed by Shane’s shirt, boxers, and socks. Ilya crawls up Shane’s body, peppering kisses up his thighs, his abs, his pecs. His palm presses forcefully down on Shane’s shoulder, pinning him to the mattress as he finally gets his mouth on Shane’s. He lowers himself a few inches until his bottom half is laying on Shane’s like the world’s horniest weighted blanket.

He swallows Shane’s next moan with his mouth, reaching up with his free hand to cup Shane’s jaw and position his face so their teeth and noses do not bump together. He slips in a little tongue, and then a little more as Shane whines with impatience.

Shane does not know what to do with his free hands. They flail a little, adorably, against Ilya’s back before they settle on his biceps, squeezing every time Ilya gives his hips a little experimental thrust. So Ilya does it again, harder this time, releasing Shane’s mouth just so he can hear Shane moan in his ear.

Always so expressive, his Shane.

On his next thrust, his cock catches against Shane’s, and Shane’s entire body jerks, like Ilya touched him with a live wire. Ilya begins his descent back down Shane’s body, roughly groping his chest and grinning as Shane lets out a quiet but heady, “Fuck,” before Ilya soothes his manhandling with an equally bruising kiss to his pec. He worries the sensitive skin near Shane’s nipple with lips, adding a bit of teeth just to hear Shane hiss in response.

“You’re gonna leave a mark,” Shane says through clenched teeth.

“So?” Ilya lifts his head to meet Shane’s dark eyes. “Will disappear by the time I leave Montreal.” He lowers his mouth to Shane’s other tit, and Shane can push his head away if he does not want another hickey, but he buries his fingers in Ilya’s curls instead, swearing up a storm as Ilya sucks and sucks and sucks.

Ilya gives him three hickies — one for every orgasm he plans on giving Shane today — before continuing on his path down Shane’s body.

Shane’s cock jumps as Ilya stares it down, and when Ilya lifts his eyes to his face, Shane is bright red. “Very eager,” Ilya teases as he touches a light fingertip to the head of Shane’s cock, and it bobs in midair, suspended purely by Shane’s lust.

“Shut up,” he mutters.

Ilya grins. He presses a flurry of kisses to Shane’s inner thighs, marveling at their strength as Shane calls him a motherfucker over and over and over again every time Ilya bypasses his dick.

“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Shane breathes as Ilya’s lips skim the underside of Shane’s cock before moving to his other thigh.

“Fine, fine, since you are so impatient.”

Shane lets his head fall back against the pillow in sheer relief, so he does not see Ilya’s next move coming.

“Wha — Ilya!”

Shane flails, more from shock than anything else, since he is more than flexible enough to be bent in half.

Ilya holds him fast and spreads his cheeks and dives in, not bothering to explain himself with words. He laves a broad, wet streak against Shane’s hole, and Shane’s bitten-off swears are music to his ears.

Shane moans as Ilya forces the fold deeper, pressing Shane’s thighs into his chest.

He eats him out like a man starved, spearing his tongue in and out of Shane at a dizzying pace. Above him, Shane is whining and twitching, making little aborted thrusts that do not actually get Ilya’s tongue any deeper inside him, but it is cute of him to try.

“Please, please, please — Ilya, god—”

It takes Ilya a second to realize Shane is mumbling actual words. He lifts his head, lips pleasantly numb and a little swollen from their workout. “Please… what?” he teases as he circles Shane spit-slick hole with his finger.

“Please hurry the fuck up and fuck me,” Shane growls.

Ilya grins. “I do not think you are ready.”

“I am fucking–” Shane starts, incensed.

“No, you are not ready yet,” Ilya argues as he shoves his finger all the way in, burying the digit up to his knuckle. Shane exhales a sharp breath, squeezing Ilya’s finger like a vise as Ilya roots around for Shane’s prostate.

“Fuck!”

Found it.

Ilya removes his finger just long enough to spit on Shane’s hole before he shoves two inside and resumes his busy pace. “No, you are not ready yet,” Ilya repeats as Shane’s eyes narrow. “You are too tight.”

“Didn’t know that was a bad thing,” Shane grunts as Ilya brushes up against his prostate again.

“Is a bad thing when I want you open and gaping for me,” Ilya purrs. “Need to fit my fat cock inside you, yes?”

“You know it will fucking fit,” Shane forces out between pants as Ilya presses more forcefully against his prostate, rubbing in a way that always makes Shane lose his mind. “You – you gotta stop soon. I – I’m gonna – Ilya!”

Ilya hums around Shane’s cock, mouth too full to respond. He savors the bitter taste of Shane’s precum, swallowing around the head. He places a hand on Shane’s chest, holding him down as Shane’s entire body jerks, hips buckling, and spine arching as he spills down Ilya’s throat with a muffled shout.

Chest heaving for breaths, Shane glares at him as he pulls off. “What the hell did you do that for?” he grumbles as Ilya wipes his mouth with the back of hand. “I told you I was going to come.”

Ilya grins up at him. “Want you to last longer when I fuck you.”

Shane blinks. “We’re still –?”

“We are still,” Ilya promises as he crawls back up Shane’s body. “I will make you come three times tonight. How does that sound?”

Shane blushes. “Uh, good.”

Laughing, Ilya dips down for a quick kiss to Shane’s lips. Nobody can dirty talk like Shane.

* * *

In the evening, they watch the Toronto vs. Chicago game, which winds up being an embarrassing shutout for Chicago. Shane gives up his laser focus halfway through the second period and blows Ilya right there on the couch. He still keeps the volume on high, though, and tells Ilya to pay attention to the game for him.

Ilya does not.

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya groans before he hauls Shane to his feet and licks the last traces of himself off Shane’s mouth.

“Don’t change the channel,” Shane says breathlessly, and Ilya really cannot love him any more. “I want to watch the post-game commentary,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Ilya falls back on the couch, smiling. It is half past ten o’clock; Shane will want to go to sleep in fifteen minutes.

Shane probably will not kick him out, not after Ilya came all this way to see him.

When Shane comes back into the living room, fighting a yawn behind his hand, Ilya is furiously reviewing strategy #3 to get Shane to let him stay over (begging, while #2 is bargaining, and #1 is pretending to fall asleep before Shane can bring it up.)

Shane sets his empty water glass on the coaster and turns to Ilya.

Ilya looks away from the serious look in Shane’s eye. Fuck it, maybe he should go straight to bargaining –

“I have an extra toothbrush if you need one,” Shane says. “I don’t know why you would forget a toothbrush since we travel all the time, but Hayden has forgot his, like, three times this year already.”

Ilya just barely manages to keep his mouth from falling open.

“I don’t care what side of the bed you want, but I will kick you back if you kick me first,” he says, still as serious as ever.

All the tension, strung tight as a bow string, floods out of Ilya’s shoulders. He grins. “Do not hog the blankets, and I will not kick you.”

Shane raises his eyebrows. “Deal?” he asks, sticking out his hand.

Ilya shakes, not bothering to stifle his snort.

Shane falls asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow, and Ilya carefully waits for his breaths to turn deep and even before he turns over to spoon Shane from behind, shifting his hips away just in case his cock does not get the memo that it is time for bed. He lays a hand on the gentle rise of Shane’s hip. He keeps his touch light, wary of waking Shane up and having to explain himself.

Ilya drifts off not long after, despite his best attempts to memorize the feel of Shane’s warm, sleep soft body along his.

He wakes up freezing cold. He blearily opens his eyes, entirely unsurprised but completely delighted to find half the blanket curled around Shane’s body, the other half falling over the opposite side of the bed, too far out of Ilya’s reach. Smiling slightly, he tugs the Shane burrito closer and burrows his face in the crook of Shane’s neck. Shane makes a sleepy noise of protest at the manhandling, but Ilya shushes him and settles back down to wait for Shane’s morning alarm.

When it goes off some time later, he gently unrolls Shane and goes down on his morning wood before Shane can get out a word of complaint at the cold.

“We should go out for breakfast,” Ilya declares as he wipes traces of Shane’s cum from the side of his mouth.

Dazed, Shane lifts his head from the pillow to stare at him. “What?”

Ilya pats Shane’s side. “Breakfast, Shane,” he repeats, ignoring the flutter of nerves in the pit of his mostly-empty stomach. “We should go get some.”

“I have food here,” Shane protests, but his expression is open and considering.

“You have bird food,” Ilya says with a grimace. “You need more calories than that for today.”

“More calories than yesterday?” Shane asks, amused now, as he props himself up on his elbows.

“Yes.” Ilya crawls up the covers to lay next to Shane, in the same spot, on the same side of the bed that he slept in last night. Because Shane let him, Ilya Rozanov, stay over.

“I guess we could go out,” Shane says slowly. “There’s a place nearby I go with my parents when they’re in town. The food is good, and they’re not usually busy now.”

“Great,” Ilya says cheerfully.

Shane directs him to a vaguely-European styled bistro. This early in the morning, there are only a dozen people seated at the small tables, and nearly every single one turns at their entrance.

“Hello, Mr. Hollander,” the host says, and if he looks surprised at the celebrity in his midst, he does not show it.

“Hi,” Shane says, looking a little discomfited at all the attention. “Two for breakfast, please.”

The host plucks two menus from below their stand. “Right this way,” he says as he leads them at a table near the back by a large decorative fern. Above their heads on the wall hang a row of mirrors, and more than one person abruptly drops their curious stares as he makes eye contact with their reflections.

Shane would probably not call this a date, would probably bolt from Montreal like an team of actual bears is chasing him, but that does not matter. Because Shane is out with Ilya, in public, where people are taking subtle pictures, where news of their outing could wind up on stupid sports gossip sites.

A waiter with shaggy brown hair and a lopsided tie comes by within seconds. “Hello, my name’s Zander, and I’ll be serving you today,” he says. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Black coffee for me,” Shane says. “Ilya?”

Ilya smiles; he cannot help it. In his first life, Ilya had to wait eight years to be seen with Shane, and Shane still was never wholly comfortable existing with Ilya where other people could see them. Not like this Shane is now. “I will have a coffee too. With cream.”

Zander nods and leaves.

Ilya picks up the menu, intrigued. “I have never had poutine before.”

Shane immediately makes a face. “At 10am?”

“You are so boring,” Ilya groans. “What are you getting?”

Shane shrugs. “Probably the salmon platter? I’ve gotten it before. It’s really good.”

Zander comes back with two coffees. “Can I get you any food?” he asks as he sets the mugs down in front of them.

“I will have the black pepper poutine with duck confit,” Ilya says promptly.

“Would you like the egg with that?”

Ilya grins over at Shane. “Yes, please. And extra cheese curds.”

“That is so gross,” Shane says disapprovingly as Zander dutifully writes down his order. “Sorry,” he says to Zander, who just shrugs, unbothered.

Ilya lets out a loud gasp that makes more than a few people turn their heads in the direction of their table – if they were not staring already. Ilya lowers his voice to an obnoxious stage-whisper. “They will deport you for saying this about poutine.”

Shane stares up at the ceiling. “Oh my god.”

“Is national dish of Canada!” Ilya reminds him.

“It does not fit into my meal plan,” Shane deadpans, still to the ceiling.

“Get your own poutine, Shane.” Ilya waves his hand. “I will not share mine with you.”

“That’s fine with me,” Shane shakes his head, “since I don’t want any anyway.”

“I cannot believe you hate Canada this much,” Ilya says sadly.

Shane purses his lips. “I love my country. But I need something with a vegetable, Ilya.”

“Potatoes are vegetable.”

Shane looks deeply disappointed. “Not deep fried and drowned in gravy, they basically aren’t.”

Zander clears his throat. “I can come back later, if you need more time?”

“No,” Shane says quickly, “I’ll take the smoked salmon platter. Can I substitute the cream cheese for something non-dairy?”

“We have a nice, smooth tofu spread, if you would like that.”

“Sounds great,” Shane says with his camera-ready smile as Ilya mimes gagging into his napkin, “thank you.”

Ilya groans loudly as Zander walks back towards the kitchen. “You are so boring.”

“Better boring than bloated before practice,” Shane shoots back.

Ilya’s jaw drops. “You do not have practice for two days!”

“I have practice tomorrow,” Shane corrects, his eyes narrowing.

“Optional practice, which you will be skipping, yes?” Ilya says, leaning in over the table, staring Shane down.

Shane raises his eyebrows. “I won’t skip if you keep testing me like this.”

“Testing? Who is testing?” Ilya asks innocently.

Shane levels him a flat glare. “You, obviously. And I will tie you up and drag you to a Montreal sports bar and leave you with rabid Voyageurs fans, if you keep at it. Give you a taste of your own medicine.”

Ilya raises his mug of milky coffee to his lips, muttering in a low voice, loud enough for just Shane to hear, “Kinky. I did not think you were into bondage, Hollander.”

Shane blushes furiously, dark enough to drown out his faint, wintertime freckles. “Ilya,” he hisses, apparently unable to get any other words out over his mortification. He swallows. “You can’t say – you know.”

Ilya smirks as he takes another sip.

* * *

Feeling like he just ran a marathon, Ilya collapses back on Shane’s bed. “I am dead,” he mutters. “You have killed me, Shane.”

“By what, sucking your brain out through your cock?” Shane asks, his face flushed and mouth curling in a pleased little smile.

“Yes, is your best skill,” Ilya says, patting Shane’s thigh.

Shane snorts. “Not my slap shot or stickhandling?”

“Well,” Ilya huffs a breath, “I am not denying your stickhandling,” he says, gesturing to his spent dick.

“Oh my god,” Shane chuckles helplessly. “That was terrible.”

Ilya just shrugs, unrepentant. It still made Shane laugh, so it was a good joke.

Shane rolls over in bed so he is facing Ilya. “I think I need a break before round two.”

“Round three.”

Shane purses his lips, slightly swollen and clearly a bit tender from all the kissing and blowing he has been doing lately. “No, that thing in the hallway does not count.”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Ilya raises his eyebrows. “You came.”

“Barely! I stopped it in time!”

Ilya snorts. “Okay, Hollander. Round two point five is next.”

“Fine,” Shane rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I need to eat something, though. I’m starving.”

“What do you have?” Ilya asks as he trails Shane back out into the kitchen.

Shane throws him a knowing look over his shoulder. “Nothing you would actually like to eat.”

“Shane…” Ilya whines.

“No McGriddles, no Nutella,” Shane lists with a grin, “no poutine.”

“Then I will just have to eat you,” Ilya declares as he stalks forward and pounces.

Laughing, Shane lets Ilya attack his mouth and crowd him against the dining table until he has no choice but to climb on top of it. The new angle means Ilya has to tilt his face up to kiss him, and Shane wastes no time in burying his fingers in Ilya’s curls, tugging at the small hairs at the nape of his neck in that way that makes Ilya’s knees go weak.

Ilya happily lets them collapse, but once he is face-to-face with Shane’s groin, Shane pushes him away. “No, Ilya, we can’t,” he protests. “I eat here.”

Ilya throws him an incredulous look. “You do not own wood cleaner?”

“Yeah, but –”

“And I am offended,” Ilya argues as he wrestles Shane’s half-hard cock free. “Are you saying I can’t eat here too?”

“Ilya…” Shane says warningly as Ilya gives him a few lazy strokes.

“I can make it fast,” Ilya wheedles. “Is not hard. You are already so desperate for me.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says at the same time that he lays back, legs dangling off the side of his dining table, waiting for Ilya’s mouth.

Ilya grins as he dives back in.

When Shane comes three minutes later, impressive since he has already come twice today, Ilya lets him bask in the post-orgasm glow as he grabs a few paper towels, wets them in the sink, and gently cleans his release off Shane’s stomach. He heads back into the kitchen, dumps the cum-filled paper towels in the trash, and fishes out the spray cleaner from underneath the sink. He picks up the entire roll on his way out, since who knows if Shane will want to only clean the area with his ass germs or the entire table surface for good measure.

“Oh,” Shane blinks up at him as Ilya holds up the cleaning supplies. “That’s nice of you.”

“I clean,” Ilya says. “You get food.”

Two minutes later, the dining table is sparkling, and Ilya wanders into the kitchen to find Shane opening a can of tuna.

Ilya stops dead in his tracks. A coincidence. This is just a coincidence.

“Tuna salad, okay?” Shane asks casually. “I think I have light mayo around here somewhere, and gluten free bread if you want to put in a sandwich.”

Ilya stares. Is Shane trying to give him a sign? Shane had been acting normally all of yesterday during their whirlwind tour of Montreal. And this morning, he did not act out of the ordinary. Shane cannot know. How would he know? Maybe he is remembering something, subconsciously?

Can Shane remember memories that have not happened yet, memories that will never happen because of all the changes Ilya has made?

“I –” Ilya falters.

At the tone in Ilya’s voice, Shane turns. “I also have eggs? I could make you a veggie omelette with non-dairy cheese, but I don’t think you’d like my cashew substitute. It has this strange texture that takes a while to get used to, but the taste really isn’t that far off from the real–”

Ilya clears his throat, and Shane’s mouth closes with a snap. “Tuna is okay,” he says. “I like tuna.”

“Oh,” Shane says, his shoulders sagging. “That’s a relief.”

“I will make,” Ilya says as he nudges Shane out of the way. “You can toast bread, yes?”

“I can make it,” Shane grumbles, but he heads towards the breadbox anyway.

“You will like mine better,” Ilya promises as he roots around Shane’s pantry. He drains the tuna – in water, not oil, a shame – and throws it all into a mixing bowl along with mayo, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame seeds. He even sucks it up and puts in a pinch of togarashi, which will set his mouth on fire but has the kick that Shane likes.

“What are you doing?” Shane asks curiously as he peers over Ilya’s shoulder.

“Making tuna salad. Shush, I need to concentrate,” he says, biting his lip as he tries to remember the last few ingredients. He tosses in a few shakes of garlic powder and ground ginger, silently apologizing to Yuna for using the dried stuff instead of the real thing. But Shane is the one who bought them in the first place, so it is not all Ilya’s fault.

“Okay,” Shane says dubiously.

“Do you have avocado? Cucumber?” Ilya asks.

“No cucumbers,” Shane says. “They’re basically water.”

“Right,” Ilya says. “Can you slice up avocado?”

“Sure.”

Ilya plates the tuna salad and, since Shane is not done with the avocado, pulls down the dried seaweed Shane keeps as an indulgent snack. He sticks it in the tuna salad, a pop of dark green against the soy-sauce stained tuna.

Shane catches him on the way out, saying, “I think the LA San Jose game is starting soon. Do you mind eating on the couch?”

Ilya’s stomach sinks. Just like last time. “No, is fine,” he says dully as he bypasses the dining table and heads for the living room area instead. He sets both plates down on the coffee table, and Shane turns on the television as they both settle down on the couch.

Shane sits and takes a bite of the tuna. He chews, not saying anything. The pit in Ilya’s stomach turns into full-on dread as Shane gives a little twitch of recognition, his eyes going wide and jaw going still.

No, no, no.

This cannot be happening again.

Ilya drops his gaze from Shane’s face to the plate in front of him, staring down the stupid square of nori sticking out of the top.

“This,” Shane swallows, and Ilya’s eyes snap back up to his face, “is really good. What’s in it?” Dumbfounded, Ilya rattles off the ingredients, and Shane nods along, his expression thoughtful. “No wonder. My mom makes something like it.”

“Oh,” Ilya says for lack of anything better to say.

“Most guys don’t know what togarashi even is,” Shane says conversationally as he scoops up a large forkful and piles it on the toast.

“I knew someone who liked it,” Ilya says quietly.

“Back in Russia?” Shane asks as the pre-game coverage goes to commercial. Ilya hums noncommittally in response, and Shane says, “I didn’t know there was a large Asian population there.”

Ilya snorts before he can stifle it. “Hollander. Please tell me you know Russia has a border with China.”

Shane chokes on his next bite of tuna.

“And there are Asian players in the KHL,” Ilya continues blithely. “I believe the Chinese club has one player. Maybe two.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Shane says, laughing. “Was your friend a hockey player?”

Ilya focuses his entire attention on an ad for Verizon Wireless. He nods.

“A good one?”

Ilya’s throat goes dry. “The best,” he says honestly.

Shane turns to him in surprise. “Whoa. Better than you?”

“He always said he was on a better team than me,” Ilya says. “Or his coach was better than mine, but it was him,” he continues, the words spilling out of his mouth faster and faster. “All him. When he skated, it was like lightning. You blink, and he is halfway across the rink. Goalies shit themselves when they realized he is coming.”

Shane’s brow furrows as he turns back to his bowl. “Sounds like a real talent,” he says curtly. “Does he still play for the KHL?”

Ilya is shaking his head before his brain catches up with him. He should not be telling Shane any of this. Too risky, too stupid. But Ilya has always been too stupid to stay away from risks.

“I do not know,” he says, staring hard at this half-eaten lump of tuna. “I… lost him, when I came here,” he adds.

“Lost track of him,” Shane corrects gently.

“Yes,” Ilya agrees, the lie slipping off his tongue as easy as anything.

“Do you think he’s still playing?”

Ilya nods. “I hope so,” he says. “He loves hockey more than I do,” he glances at Shane out of the corner of his eye. “Almost as much as you, actually.”

“Impossible,” Shane scoffs.

Ilya says casually, “He reads hockey books on the way to practice.”

“Big deal,” Shane purses his lips. “I do that too.”

“He watches game tape on Christmas, Hollander.”

“I did that last year!”

“He went to optional practice on his birthday.”

Triumphant, Shane announces, “I won a playoff game on mine.”

Ilya just laughs and laughs and laughs.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: I can’t believe you.
Ilya: What? What did I do?
Shane: You really could not resist giving me bunny ears?; A pic from when we went to the biodome is making the rounds on Twitter now.
Ilya: Oh! I forgot I did that 😄
Shane: You are a child.
Ilya: You look cute, mой кролик!
Shane: See if I ever take a picture with you ever again. Twitter is having a field day.
Ilya: You should show this to the Rolex photographer. Shane Hollander is more than Blue Steel He is also little Bunny Rabbit
Shane: How do you know I’m going to sign with Rolex?; We just finalized the contract.
Shane: Ilya?
Ilya: Your mother told me
Shane: Come on. Seriously, where did you hear this?; It’s supposed to be confidential until June.
Ilya: I do not remember; Twitter? Instagram? Was a few weeks ago
Shane: Shit, I have to talk to Mom.
Ilya: Tell Yuna I say Hi!
Shane: I will not be doing that.

Ilya groans as he flops back on his bed in Boston. Too fucking close. First the way Shane eats salmon, then the Rolex brand deal.

Shane’s secret superpower is pattern recognition. The moment a player uses the same technique more than twice, Shane’s Spidey sense goes off, and he logs it in his ridiculous hockey brain forever.

Ilya cannot screw up again. Shane will think he is a stalker or too obsessed with him.

He taps past the messaging app and pulls up his calendar. Two weeks until Boston plays Montreal. He can last two weeks, but Christ, it is going to be hard.

* * *

The rest of the 2011-2012 season never measures up to those three days in Montreal with Shane.

Ilya meets up with Sveta more often; she has a new boyfriend to tease her about and threaten to steal from her.

In early June, Ilya skips the NHL awards. Neither him nor Shane are nominated for anything this year, and Shane is spending the week in rural Ontario touring possible properties to build his future cottage.

Ilya sends Andrei €15,000 to shut him up and fucks off to Berlin to party and ring in the off-season with style. Sveta breaks up with her boyfriend less than a week later, and she joins him in Naples. During the day, they charter boats and swim in the Mediterranean, and in the evenings, Ilya drags her on easy runs in a silly pretense of “staying in shape”. Really, they are just to make her suffer.

In Nice, they slip and slide on the rocks along the coast and, in Lisbon, they get thoroughly trashed in a club. In a smokey pub on their second night in Brighton, where Ilya is finishing off a beef wellington technically meant for two people, and Sveta is having a liquid dinner, he turns to her.

“Time to go home?” she asks quietly before he can say a word.

“Not home,” he sighs. “But back to Moscow, yes.”

Sveta pulls his plate of pastry flakes and beef scraps in front of her. As she gathers what she can on her fork, she tells him, “You seem better.”

“What?”

“January, February, you were very sad,” Sveta says matter-of-factly.

He frowns. “We hardly saw each other.”

“Exactly.” She shoves the small pile in her mouth. “You never want to see me when you are sad. Like a mangy cat, you always slink away to some dark alley when you are hurting. You hide.”

Ilya bristles. “I am not a cat.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Am I wrong? Were you talking to somebody this winter? Maybe that man of yours?”

Ilya raises his hand to indicate to the bartender to refill his double gin.

“Because I think not,” Sveta continues. “You do not need more fair-weather friends, Ilya.”

“Fuck off.” Ilya’s jaw clenches. “He is not a fair-weather friend. He is –” he breaks off, at a loss as to how to use something as pedestrian as words to describe Shane Hollander.

“I mean it,” she says stubbornly. “If he cannot be there for you then, he does not deserve your heart.”

Ilya mimes gagging into his newly-filled gin. “What’s this about hearts? Are you going soft on me, Sveta?”

“Fuck you,” she says without any heat. “I’m worried.”

“Oh my god,” Ilya says. Now is when Sveta decides to get her head out of her ass and pay attention to his life? When Ilya is finally feeling like he can keep his head above water and catch more than blurry glimmers of sun? Fuck her. Fuck this.

Sveta adds, “You talk about this man you love, but you won’t let me meet him. You won’t tell me anything about him. You are doing long-distance with no plans to change, even though you hate it. You see how none of these things are giving me much confidence in him? Or you?”

Ilya downs the rest of his gin.

“I’m not going to let this go,” she warns as she swallows down the rest of her cocktail.

“Fuck off. I’m not speaking to you about this,” Ilya says harshly as he gets to his feet. He pulls out his wallet and probably leaves too many notes on the table. Whatever, anything to get out of here.

Sveta is quick on his heels, her slim body flitting in the smallest gaps in the crowd by the entrance, not losing him for a second as he muscles his way through, uncaring of who he shoves out of the way and shoulders past.

“Fine,” Sveta raises her voice as she catches up with him on the sidewalk. “I will ambush you later. When you least expect it.”

Ilya flips her off with one hand and flags down a taxi with the other.

“At least give me a name,” she says as a black cab pulls up in front of them.

Ilya glowers at her. “You do not deserve a name.”

Her lips purse. “If you do not give me one, I will make up my own, and I really don’t think you want me asking about ‘shithead’ all the time.”

Ilya sighs. “You can call him Jane.”

Sveta raises her eyebrows. “What the fuck kind of name is that?”

“It’s the only name you’re getting.”

* * *

At noon about two weeks after Ilya came back to Moscow, Ilya hears his father calling for him.

“Papa!” Ilya sets down the package of cold cuts and bounds upstairs, towards the bedroom. “Papa?” he asks as he passes Grigori’s empty bedroom.

“Ilya!”

“What the fuck?” he mutters as he stops in the doorway of his own bedroom to find Grigori with his arms crossed over his chest, a glower engraved on his unshaven face.

“Ilya!” Grigori calls again, angrier this time.

Frowning, Ilya steps fully into the room, although there is no way Grigori did not see him before. “Yes?”

Grigori’s eyes land on him. “Where is Ilya?”

Ilya’s eyebrows fly up. “You’re looking for Ilya?”

“He will be late for hockey practice,” Grigori informs him. “Where is that boy? Ilya!”

“I am right here,” Ilya says in a low voice.

“What did you say?” Grigori says loudly. “Dammit, where is he? If he skips this practice, he will regret it for the rest of his goddamn life –”

Ilya clears his throat. “I will call him.”

“He is not here?” Grigori demands, incensed.

“He’s with Sasha,” Ilya lies smoothly as he stands aside and gestures for Grigori to follow him. “I will tell Coach to bring Ilya to practice. How’s that?”

Grigori huffs. “Cherepanov is too soft on him. I would not put it past Ilya to wriggle past him too. Allergic to hard work, that one.”

Ilya’s expression freezes. Blankly, he tells his father, “Then I will tell Ilya to come here first. Why don’t we eat lunch while we wait for him?” He pointedly starts walking away, not really giving Grigori a choice but to follow.

Ilya persuades his father to eat a sandwich, and they talk about the recent KHL season and what Spartak needs to make it to the playoffs. Not much – just better defense, offense, strategy, and a management team that knows they are not working for a junior league.

At 1PM, Moscow time, he excuses himself to call Shane, who will just be getting back from his morning run at 7AM in Montreal. Ilya lingers at the table, but it appears Grigori has forgotten all about preteen Ilya and his all-important hockey practice.

As he leaps up the stairs, Ilya taps Shane’s contact, and Shane picks up on the second ring.

“What the fuck are the Blades thinking?” Shane launches without preamble. “Extending Kyle Gagner’s contract for four million a year when he never made more than 45 points a season? We scored more than that as rookies.”

“I did,” Ilya says idly as he flops down on his bed. “Not sure about you though.”

“Fuck you,” Shane says, laughing. “We both scored 67!”

“I maybe remember this…”

Shane laughs again, and Ilya smiles. “You’re such an asshole. You played against Gagner more than me last season, before he fucked up his elbow. Worth 4 mil?”

“No,” Ilya says. “He cannot chirp for shit. Last game, he made some comment about fucking my mother. As if I had not heard same thing in my last three games. Like, if you are bringing my mother into this, at least be inventive, yes?”

“Ilya,” Shane says, exasperated, “A player’s worth is not based on their chirping ability.”

“Of course you would say that,” Ilya scoffs. “You cannot chirp for shit either.”

“Fuck off.”

Ilya relaxes back onto his pillows, feeling lighter than he has all day. “See, that is the kind of rebuttal Gagner said after I told him it was nice for Blades to let Make a Wish kid play professional hockey.”

“God,” Shane says. “Every time I think I’ve heard it all, you bust out something like that. Make a Wish? Seriously?”

“What? Is very respectable charity, Shane Hollander!” Ilya fake-reprimands. “Just because you shit on sick kids with cancer –”

“What the fuck? I don’t shit on kids with cancer,” Shane protests. “In December, I went to that Children’s Hospital fundraiser and everything.”

Ilya’s mouth goes dry. “The Children’s Hospital in Ottawa?”

A pause. “Yeah,” Shane says, confused. “You know it?”

Ilya blinks, and he is back in the respiratory wing of Ottawa’s Children’s Hospital, in the patients lounge with the kids who were well enough not to need ventilators or heavy medical equipment. Ilya is jumping up and down, being his usual obnoxious self, the sorest of sore winners over kids with all sorts of deadly diseases.

Before the visit, Harris told Ilya, when Harris was young and just like the kids in there, he hated everyone who talked down to him. He despised the grown ups who acted like the rest of him was as fragile as his heart, who let him get whatever he wanted just because he was sick.

So, Ilya beat all their critically ill asses at Mario Kart, including Troy Barrett, who had not won shit since leaving Toronto, anyway.

Troy was still new to the team, skittish around everyone except Harris. Unsure if he belonged. Smack dab in the middle of epic daddy issues and a breakup.

God, if anyone told Ilya in 2012 that he would one day miss Troy Barrett, he would laugh his ass off – or recommend a concussion check.

But that Troy, and Harris, and Wyatt, and Bood, and, hell, Dykstra and his awful music taste are all years and years away, assuming Ilya even joins the Centaurs at all. If he cannot make this thing with Shane with work, if Shane never falls in love with him again –

Ilya’s chest aches. “No,” he lies. “I do not know it. But,” he clears his throat and blinks hard at the ceiling, “I am sure the sick kids were thrilled to meet the second-best hockey player in the world.”

* * *

July 22nd takes him by surprise: the day Shane put together their plan to start the Irina Foundation and eventually retire together. The day he told Ilya he loved him. The day that, for the first time in his life, Ilya actually believed that he would live past the age of thirty-five.

It was not a conscious thought; Ilya did not have a plan to slit his wrists in the middle of playoffs or something that dramatic. He did not want to die, not really. He was just mostly resigned to it. He was Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov. He was the second-best hockey player in the world. He was going to die young, whether from an accident, hockey, or his own stupidity, he did not know.

But that night in Ontario, Ilya saw a real future spool out, a future with Shane, a future that meant growing old.

Clearly the joke was on Ilya since he did, in fact, die young.

And now in Moscow, in 2012, that summer night in the cottage feels impossibly far away. Ilya stares at Shane’s contact for a very long time before he pockets his phone with a sigh.

It just would not be the same. This Shane has none of the memories and only snatches of the same feelings. Ilya would have to be extra careful, extra cautious. Any contact with this Shane would just remind him of what he had lost.

So, of course, Shane calls him.

To Shane’s credit, he texts four times first. And, because Ilya cannot bear to tell him to fuck off, and Shane has never been great at picking up on subtlety over text, he only calls several hours later after receiving curt responses from Ilya.

“Hey,” Shane says, and despite himself, Ilya’s shoulders loosen and his spine relaxes at the first sound of Shane’s voice. “Thought I’d call while I was driving back from the shoot.”

After a beat, Ilya asks, “Which one?”

“Valencio Pocaterra.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a cologne, I think,” Shane explains. “Or maybe perfume? What’s the difference anyway?”

“I do not know.”

“I think cologne is for guys? And perfume is for girls? Maybe?”

Ilya just hums down the line and stares up at his living room ceiling. His father is at some evening function with Polina, and, for once, Ilya has the house to himself. He has not seen Andrei in four days.

“Anyway, they put me in a stupid shirt with way too much fabric. I thought I looked stupid anyway, but the lighting lady said I looked good, so what the fuck do I know?” Shane sighs. “How does a shirt tell you what a perfume smells like?”

“I do not know.”

“Exactly! So they could at least put me in a something that didn’t make me look like an extra from Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Ilya snorts.

Emboldened, Shane continues, “At least my next one’s Reebok, and I know they won’t dress me up in anything that looks dumb. I’m telling Mom, though, no more days with double shoots. I’m fucking exhausted, and it’s only noon.”

Ilya glances at his clock because if it is noon for Shane, it is dinnertime for him. Huh, Ilya could have sworn it was only late afternoon. He only lost three hours or so. Not terrible, by Moscow standards.

He keeps listening as Shane complains about his busy schedule, occasionally contributing a “too bad,” or “is that right?” or just wordless noises of agreement.

“Hey,” Shane says after a long silence that Ilya only belatedly fills with an asinine, “That sucks, Hollander.” Shane sighs loudly down the line. “Is everything okay?”

Ilya blinks. “Yes.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes,” Ilya doubles down with a grimace Shane cannot see.

“It’s just,” Shane pauses, “you, I don’t know, sound off. You’re not sick, are you?”

“No.”

“Did something happen?”

Ilya turns over in bed, curling in on himself. “No,” he repeats.

“Really,” Shane deadpans, his disbelief evident despite his flat tone.

Ilya bites his lip, his heart pounding. “No.”

“Ilya.”

Ilya stays silent, furiously flipping through ways to get out of this conversation that do not include rudely hanging up. “I am having a bad day,” he settles on.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Shane says at once, and Ilya holds back a groan of frustration. Perfect, just what he needs. Pity from Shane Hollander in between photo shoots for his million dollar brand sponsorships, lovingly organized by his devoted mother. “Anything I can do?” Shane asks. “I’m stuck in New York for the next two days, but I dunno, I could track down Scott Hunter and take embarrassing pictures of him or something.”

Ilya bursts out laughing, the sound surprising even himself. “You would stalk Hunter for me?”

“It’s not stalking!”

“Yes,” Ilya says patiently, “this is what you tell police when they question you.”

“If he’s in public, the police have no reason to arrest me.”

“Why would I want public photos?” Ilya asks, disgusted. “No boring ones of him drinking prune juice or eating early bird special. Get me picture of Hunter and his secret boyfriend.”

Shane coughs loudly. “Excuse me? Boyfriend? How do you know he has a secret boyfriend?”

Ilya sighs and mentally scolds himself for being so reckless. “Calm down. Scott Hunter does not have a boyfriend. His nursing home is homophobic.”

“Ilya,” Shane inhales a sharp breath. “You think Scott Hunter is gay?”

Ilya bites back, I know he is super gay, just like you. Instead, he tells Shane, “Yes, is obvious, no?”

“No, it’s not obvious! How do you know?”

Ilya grimaces. He knows because he saw old man Hunter grind on his smoothie boy in the back of the gay bar Scott Hunter owned, drunk on some fruity-ass cocktail Ilya would not drink if Kyle paid him a million dollars.

But who knows if that will ever happen now. Maybe, because Ilya ate pancakes instead of cereal this morning, Scott Hunter will never come out, and this Shane will marry Rose Landry and have 2.5 kids before getting caught screwing the pool boy who cleans the filters in her fancy LA mansion.

And Ilya will die alone. Again.

“I just know,” Ilya tells Shane lamely.

“So you actually know nothing,” Shane huffs.

“I know everything, Hollander.”

Even though it is not funny, Shane laughs anyway. “Sometimes, I really think you do. Okay, Scott Hunter is gay. Sure. Why not.”

Panic seizes Ilya around the throat. Oh, fuck. Shane knows Hunter is gay. Shane and Hunter are in the same city. He chokes out, “Do not fuck Scott Hunter.”

“What?” Shane yelps. “Why the fuck would I – I’m not gonna fuck Hunter! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Why not? He is hot,” Ilya says, not really certain why he is digging himself deeper into this hole.

“Would you fuck Hunter?” Shane counters.

“No,” Ilya says at once. “One thrust of my dick and he would explode in a cloud of dust.”

Shane bursts out laughing.

Ilya grins, pleased with himself. He lets his eyes drift closed, listening to the sound of Shane’s amusement.

After a moment, Shane says softly, “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“How do you know I am feeling better?”

“If you’re chirping Scott Hunter, you’re feeling better,” Shane says confidently. “You only get quiet when you get upset.”

Ilya squeezes his eyes shut, a pang of longing for the man Shane will become ricocheting behind his sternum. His Shane knew this about him. And now this Shane does too.

Strangely, this development does not feel like hope. No, this is one step closer, but Shane still has so much further to go. He has not ever brought up being closer than they are now, seemingly content to meet up every couple of weeks, never more. He has not let Ilya into his life, just into his bed.

“Everyone thinks you’re just plotting murder or something,” Shane continues, his tone horrifically cheerful, “but I know better.”

Quietly, painfully, Ilya cannot stop himself from admitting, “Yes, you do.”

“Hey,” Shane reassures at once, “that’s not a bad thing.”

Isn’t it? Ilya says nothing.

“Sorry about your bad day, though,” Shane says in a blatant switch of conversation topics. “Is it, um, your dad?”

Ilya blinks. “No, my father is okay.”

“And your step-mom is okay too?”

“She was out with her friends all afternoon,” Ilya says. “I have not seen her all day.”

“That’s good, right?” Shane says. After a beat he adds, awkwardly, “Less family the better.”

Ilya sighs. If it was not for Ilya, Shane would have never been this exposed to the very concept of family who does not love you unconditionally. But no, Ilya had to open his big fat mouth and complain a bit too much, and now Shane has to pretend Yuna and David are not the best parents in all of Canada. It is insulting to them, really.

“Yes,” he says curtly.

“Hey,” Shane says, “would it help to talk about it? Whatever’s bugging you?”

Let’s be honest with each other. For these two weeks, let’s just say what we’re actually thinking. Maybe say how we really feel.

I will try.

Ilya would trade everything he has, his millions, his cars, his captaincy, his house , his visa – for two more honest weeks with his Shane. To step foot in the cottage again, to swim in the lake, to hear a fucking loon. To have Shane without a deadline looming over them like a death sentence.

“I am missing someone,” Ilya confesses, his words barely a whisper.

“Oh?” Shane pauses. “Well, you’re only spending a few more weeks in Russia. Before you know it, you’ll be back in Boston,” he says with faux cheer.

Ilya closes his eyes. God, Shane really sucks at this. He sounds exactly like the time he tried (and utterly failed) to comfort he tried to comfort the losing team of Game Changers campers after a bad scrimmage. Ilya loves him so fucking much. “They’re not in Boston,” Ilya tells him. “I don’t know where they are.”

“Oh,” Shane says in a completely different tone of voice. “That… sucks.”

Ilya smiles. “Yes, it does.”

“Uh,” Shane coughs, “can you find them? Like, hire a private investigator? Do you have them in Russia?”

Shane is such a fucking idiot, and Ilya can hardly breathe with how much he wants him. “Yes,” he says seriously. “We have detectives here in Russia. KGB officers did not all just die when the Soviet Union fell.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says, sounding embarrassed. “So what I’m hearing is that you could track them down – if you really wanted to. You have money. You’ll be in the country for a few more weeks. Plenty of time.”

Ilya inhales, the air shuddering in his lungs. “Would be a waste.”

“Hey, you don’t know that –”

“He’s dead, Shane,” Ilya says pointedly as a hole opens in the middle of his chest. “Gone from this world. Nobody can find him. Not ever.”

Shane sucks in a sharp breath.

“Sorry,” Ilya apologizes into the silence. He rubs his nose, like that can distract himself from the rising self-loathing. “Should not have said anything before you have to act happy for the cameras,” he mutters. Honesty is overrated. He should have just gotten drunk with Sveta and blamed the tears on how awful the club scene in Moscow has gotten.

“Hey, don’t worry about that,” Shane says at once. “I don’t care. That’s what makeup and Photoshop are for.” He sighs. “God, I wish I was there.”

Ilya chokes. I wish you were here now, echoes in the back of his mind from a lifetime ago.

“You okay?” Shane asks, alarmed.

“Fine,” Ilya says as he wipes at the moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Just dust.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Shane starts. “Tell me about him. Whenever Hayden’s missing Jackie, talking about her seems to help.”

The words catch in Ilya’s throat.

“Ilya?” Shane prompts.

He sighs. “He made gross smoothies for breakfast.”

“Ew. What did he put in them?”

Ilya rolls over in bed. “Do not know,” he says even though he can still recite Shane’s morning smoothie from memory.

When Ilya made it, he added a squirt of honey to all the greens and special protein powder. Shane would call him out on it a few times, saying Ilya definitely put something sweeter in, but Ilya would just tell him it was made with love.

Shane would roll his eyes and sometimes blow him in the kitchen about it.

In a true moment of weakness last year, Ilya made it one morning after a horrendous night. No sleep, just an ache in his chest that would not go away. He burst into tears before he could get down three gulps of the stuff.

“Was there matcha in it?” Shane asks critically. “Everyone’s going nuts about matcha, all of the sudden. J.J. swears by it even though it tastes like grass to me.”

“No.”

“Turmeric?”

“No.”

“Sea moss?”

Ilya grimaces. “What the fuck?”

Shane laughs. “J.J. has very experimental smoothie tastes. The worst was the sea moss one. But yesterday he had one with cacao, mushrooms, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper.”

Ilya’s mouth falls open. “How has he not shit his brains out yet?”

“Beats me,” Shane says. “So what was your friend’s poison?”

Ilya groans. “Kale. Spinach. Lemon. Other things.”

“But that’s not disgusting, just normal stuff!”

“Is disgusting when McDonalds is so close.”

“Now that’s disgusting,” Shane says with relish. “Fast food is full of empty calories and doesn’t have nearly enough macronutrien–”

“You sound just like him,” Ilya says fondly.

“Well, he’s right,” Shane huffs.

“He was always trying to sneak vegetables in my food,” Ilya says, “in my pasta, in my burgers. Not even my sour cream was safe! He tried to tell me cottage cheese was the same. Is not the same, Shane.”

“Well, in most recipes –”

“Has lumps!”

Shane laughs.

“Never been so insulted as a Russian!” Ilya adds, really on a roll now.

“I’m sure your national pride took a hit,” Shane teases.

“They would shoot him if he came here,” Ilya agrees, the good humor draining out of him. Shane should never be allowed into Russia, and Ilya would never let him come.

After a long moment, Shane says in a funny voice, “He sounds pretty boring.”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees with a small smile, “You would know best, wouldn’t you?”

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: One week until training starts!; When are you flying back to Boston?
Ilya: Tuesday
Shane: What time? And how long does it take for you, typically, to get over jetlag?
Ilya: Very weird questions today Hollander
Shane: Shut up. I’m trying to be considerate!
Ilya: Why the questions
Shane: Because I wouldn’t want to get into Boston just as you’re ready for a 4-hour nap.
Ilya: You are coming to Boston??
Shane: Well, New York City, on Tuesday for the Rolex shoot. But I was thinking I could fly to Boston the next day.; If you’d like?
Ilya: fuck yes I would like
Shane: Great! I can get in at 8:17 AM or 9:48 AM.; Or afternoon options are 12:47 PM, 2:22 PM, or 4:42 PM.; Whichever works with you!
Ilya: I will buy you 8:17AM ticket
Shane: No way! You got your trip to Montreal. I’ll get my trip to Boston.
Shane: Ilya?
Ilya: Check your email
Shane: What the fuck?? I JUST told you not to buy it!
Ilya: Too late 🤭; Always too slow Hollander
Shane: Shut up.; Thank you.
Ilya: I will be most handsome hockey player carrying Dunkin special just for you
Shane: If you make me eat doughnuts, I will get right back on that plane.
Ilya: Like you could get away from me that easily 😏
Shane: Before I forget, check your email too.
Ilya: What is this?
Shane: Results from my most recent STD panel.
Ilya: Oh
Shane: Do you mind sending me yours?
Ilya: Why
Shane: Because I want to chirp you for getting chlamydia over the summer?; Why do you think???
Ilya: I do not have chlamydia
Shane: You don’t know if you don’t get tested! 50% of men do not show symptoms.
Ilya: Do you have chlamydia?
Shane: Of course not. I just sent you my negative test, asshole.
Ilya: Then why the fuck would I have it?
Shane: From anyone else you’re fucking? Do you really not know how this works?
Ilya: I am not fucking anyone else
Shane: Okay.

Ilya lays his phone face-down on the counter, barely keeping it together.

Every heartbeat pumps more and more rage into his veins. Rage at Shane, rage at himself, rage at being stuck in this stupid timeline. Not only does Shane now know he is Ilya’s only friend with benefits, but Shane is apparently sleeping around. How the fuck did Ilya end up here?

Ilya heads down to the gym early and beats the punching bag until his knuckles split. Dripping sweat and blood, he texts Andrei to take over caring for Papa this evening. Ilya has other plans.

Ilya does not remember much after the first club. The next morning, Sveta says he threw up in between club three and club four, and even after that, she could not convince him to go home.

“Jane is a very lucky man,” she murmurs as she pets his hair while they watch a badly dubbed Pink Panther 2 in her king sized bed.

Ilya just grunts in response.

“You never even considered going home with anyone,” Sveta continues. “I think you actually offended that redhead in The Black Rabbit.”

Ilya has no recollection of The Black Rabbit or a redhead. He shrugs, and his head gives a particularly harsh throb. He closes his eyes, willing his body to stop hating him.

“What color hair does Jane have?”

“Black.”

“Is he pretty?” she teases.

“The prettiest.”

Tentatively, Sveta asks, “When are you going to see him next?”

Ilya sighs and opens his eyes. Of course she wants to talk about Shane when he is hungover as fuck and absolutely miserable. She always pokes when he is weakest. If he did not love her so much, he would loathe her. He meets her dark eyes squarely. “Promise me, Sveta. On my mother’s grave.”

“Of course.” Sveta does not hesitate.

“I mean it,” Ilya says seriously. “If I tell you, you cannot spy on me. You cannot discover who he is, and tell him that you will dump his body in the Charles River.”

To Sveta’s credit, she does not roll her eyes or scoff. Instead, she promises, “I swear on Irina’s grave.”

Ilya resettles himself against her familiar body. “Jane is coming to Boston the week before training starts.”

“Oh, Ilyusha,” Sveta says gently, “That is great.” She gently rubs his shoulder. “Tell me when he leaves. We can meet up, and you can tell about me all the dirty things you did to him.”

Ilya musters up a faint smile. “I’d like that.”

* * *

As it turns out, Ilya risked getting his stomach pumped for nothing. When Shane arrives in Boston, sporting a brand new Rolex, a summer tan, and a dark spray of freckles across his nose and cheeks and even the tops of his shoulders, he gives no sign that he cares that he is the only person Ilya is sleeping with.

Ilya refuses to go to a single museum with Shane. “You will be bored to tears,” he says as Shane rattles off a list of what seems like every single historical site in the city limits as they drive away from the airport.

“Well, then, what do you want to do?” Shane asks waspishly. “And don’t just say ‘fuck me’ the whole time.”

“But is tru–”

“Ilya.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “We will go to Red Sox game.”

Shane blinks. “I don’t know anything about baseball.”

“You will love it,” Ilya assures him. “There are so many statistics to keep track of. Very analytical. Very boring.”

Shane pushes his sunglasses up onto his forehead as they descend into Sumner Tunnel. “Don’t you need to buy tickets in advance? The Red Sox are supposed to be good, I thought.”

Ilya grins. “They are. And I am Ilya Rozanov. I can get tickets.” He does not mention that he already bought them three weeks ago.

Shane sits back in his seat. “I guess a baseball game wouldn’t be too bad.”

“Good. First pitch is at 7:10 tonight.”

“Wow.”

“And you will drink a beer. Is tradition.”

“Fine.”

“And eat a hotdog.”

Shane’s mouth drops open. “Absolutely not.”

“Then they will kick you out of Fenway,” Ilya says primly.

“They will not.”

“Yes they will. You do not know anying about baseball,” Ilya argues. “They will do this. Trust me.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “You’re so full of shit.” He relaxes back in his seat as they hit a bit of traffic halfway through the tunnel.

“Fine,” Ilya says dramatically. “If no hotdog, then you can eat clam chowder.”

“Clam chowder is disgusting. No way.”

“Or pickles,” Ilya says. “Fenway has several pickle stands.”

“Pickles are not a dinner,” Shane says, appalled. “And they’re gross.”

“Boston cream pie.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“Churros.”

“Isn’t that just fried dough?”

“Many cotton candy places too,” Ilya muses as they pick up speed again.

“Pure sugar? That’s not happening either.” Shane groans. “Please tell me this isn’t some weird kink thing where you get off on starving me.”

Ilya throws him a baffled look. “Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Well, I don’t fucking know!” Shane retorts, his face scrunching in frustration. “I hate all those foods.”

Ilya chuckles. “I know. Two concession stands have grilled chicken sandwiches. You can also get burrito bowl at another concourse. Not exactly a macrobiotic diet, but close enough, yes?”

Shane blinks in surprise. “Oh, that’s – that’s good.”

Ilya glances over at him. “I would not take you somewhere where you cannot eat anything.”

“I knew that,” Shane says – a half-lie, judging by his flustered tone.

Ilya grins. “You will need lots of energy for all the plans I have for you tonight.”

“Yeah, that was more what I was expecting,” Shane says as he throws him a relieved smile.

Chapter End Notes

Next chapter up on Wednesday!

Chapter 3: Friends

Chapter Summary

Ilya kicks off the 2012-2013 season with a bang – literally. Their first preseason game is against Montreal, and the night before, he ties Shane down and edges him until he cries.

Chapter Notes

okay now, show of hands, who's ready for a cliffhanger??!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Ilya kicks off the 2012-2013 season with a bang – literally. Their first preseason game is against Montreal, and the night before, he ties Shane down and edges him until he cries.

Petersmark, their new captain, can settle any dressing room conflict – he has even more children than Hayden Pike will – and he can communicate well to management. But his on-ice performance takes a harsh dip basically as soon as he gets the C, and the guys have a hard time following a guy who only excels when he is not in skates.

So, in November, Ilya becomes captain.

Ilya arranges a record number of nights with Shane. They only play each other four times, but Ilya gets three additional nights in by taking two red-eyes up to Montreal and a flight down to DC when Ilya had two days off, and Shane is playing the Comets.

Shane does not invite him to Ottawa to spend Christmas with him and his parents, which casts a damper on the fake holiday. Sveta cajoles him out of his funk, though, by shipping him off to Miami. They walk hand-in-hand down the Lincoln Mall and stuff themselves silly with seafood on Christmas Eve.

For New Years, Ilya heads back to Boston and goes to Marley’s annual party with Sveta. He kisses her at midnight, and she tastes like cherry lip gloss and failure. At 12:03AM, she drags him, drunk, filled with regret, and about to fucking bawl like a baby, into the bathroom. Fuck, he just kissed someone who was not Shane Hollander. How low he has fallen.

Sveta gets him cleaned up, rubs his back, and puts Rose Landry’s miniscule talents to shame when Ilya’s equally drunk teammates ask if she just blew him in there.

Sveta heads back to Moscow for real Christmas in January. Luckily, Ilya has a game the next day, so he spends his Christmas shepherding his teammates through the throngs of Disneyland because they are all secretly terrible children who want to go on rollercoasters and meet Mickey Mouse.

After weeks of subzero New England temperatures, they all go a little crazy in California heat. Carmy insists on riding Space Mountain three times. Vicky hits on Belle, Ariel and Tiana while Sebbins takes on Cinderella and Jasmine. Marley disappears for a solid hour until Ilya finds him arguing with Merlin about pulling the sword from the stone. Apparently this is a rite usually reserved for kindergartners.

With team cohesion and spirits at an all time high, the Anaheim Hawks have zero chance. The Bears handily take the game 7-2, and Ilya spends January and February fine-tuning the team for the playoffs.

In his past life, they made it all the way to their conference final before being knocked out. They will get farther this time.

In early April, Ilya spots a miraculous three free days in a row. He books his tickets to Montreal immediately and takes a picture to send to Shane.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: I have a game that night, but we can meet up afterwards.
Ilya: Shane I also like watching hockey games
Shane: Oh! You want to come?
Ilya: Yes I like to watch Montreal lose
Shane: Fuck you.; Just for that, you can buy your own ticket and watch us win with your own money.
Ilya: 😨; But it is sold out! Only scalpers have tickets left; You will make me sell one of my babies just to see you play??
Shane: What the hell are you talking about?
Ilya: I am thinking the Lambo; She is ugliest of my children
Shane: Okay, now I’m really lost.
Ilya: Poor Lambo. Is not her fault her model did not come with cup holders.
Shane: You are ridiculous.
Ilya: You are one making me sell my first-born to see you play hockey.; Unless…
Shane: Tell will call your name is Schmilya Bozanov.; There is a ticket for you with that name on it
Ilya: What the fuck; That is so stupid
Shane: Oh? You, Mr. My-Cars-Are-My-Actual-Children, are making fun of me?
Ilya: Is good you do not try to joke with anyone else; This is actually painful
Shane: Oh my god, did you actually change your Twitter username to Schmilya Bozanov??

Ilya gets into Montreal an hour and a half before puck drop. He takes a cab straight to the game, all but vibrating with excitement. He has not seen Shane for three and a half weeks, and he has basically been gnawing his arm off in anticipation.

He files into the Bell Centre with the rest of the crowds. A few people turn their heads at the rival captain in their midst, and Ilya flashes them his most charming smile before he disappears into the hoard of Canadians.

“C’est qui là?”

“Is that Rozanov?”

“FUCK BOSTON!”

God, he loves Montreal.

The cashier at the concession stand unabashedly stares as he picks up his chicken tenders with a side of poutine. Ilya just winks as he takes off with his food.

Next door, Ilya nearly causes a traffic jam as he stops dead in front of a stall selling Voyageurs jerseys. HOLLANDER stares him right in the face, blinding white lettering splayed against the royal blue background.

By the time Ilya finds his seat, his poutine is gone, and Hollander’s name is on his back.

Idly munching on a chicken tender, he glances around. With 12 minutes left until the start of the game, the Bell Centre is packed. Neither of his seat mates on either side seem to recognize him. But some guy straight across the ice is pointing in his direction, mouth opening and hands flying as his other hand gestures to his friend.

Ilya points to himself, mimicking the guy’s wide eyes and open-mouthed stare, and the guy goes nuts, gesticulating and clearly yelling his head off.

“What is happening over there?” a teenage girl next to him says, half to herself, half to him.

“I have no idea,” Ilya says serenely. He settles back in his seat and polishes off his chicken tenders.

The girl does a double-take as she takes him in, and Ilya braces himself, but all she does is flush prettily, and, oh, he recognizes that look. “I’m Mellie,” she says with a bright smile.

“Ilya,” he says with a smile of his own. “Have you been to a Voyageurs game before, Mellie?”

Mellie shakes her head. “My,” she pauses infinitesimally, “my friend is a big fan and got us tickets.” She jerks her head towards the empty seat directly to her right.

“Must be a good friend to get good seats like this.”

Mellie shrugs. “I really don’t know much about hockey, but C.J. is really into it.” She turns back to the rink. “Have you been to one of these things before?”

Ilya snorts before he can help it. “Few times,” he says diplomatically.

“Oh.” She gives him another once over, clearly searching for something to talk about. “Whose jersey are you wearing?”

“Shane Hollander,” Ilya says.

“C.J. was telling me about him,” Mellie says eagerly. “He’s the captain, right?”

“Captain of the Voyageurs,” Ilya says, “and runner up for most goals scored this season so far.”

“Whoa,” Mellie says. As the silence drags on, she asks a tad awkwardly, “Where are you from?”

“Boston.”

If she was expecting a different answer from his accent, she does not show it. “Blech, Boston,” she says with an exaggerated grimace. “C.J. hates Boston.”

“Is not that bad a city.” Ilya relaxes back in his seat. “Lots of good food, and lots of swearing, which is funny.”

“I’ve never been.”

“You should go. See a Bears game.” At her blank look, he adds, “Bears are Boston’s NHL team.”

“I’ll see if I like this game first,” she says dryly. “C.J. was telling me it could get violent, and I don’t – oh, hi,” she says as a teenage boy, takes the empty seat.

“You wouldn’t believe the line –” C.J. says distractedly as he hands her a soda and nearly drops it in her lap as he looks up at the pair of them.

Ilya rescues the soda just in time.

“You’re Ilya Rozanov!” C.J. gasps.

Mellie turns to him. “You know him? Oh my god, did he date your sister too?”

“Did he – what the fuck, Mel?” C.J. shakes his head. “No, Ilya Rozanov is the captain of the fucking Bears.”

Mellie blinks. “The Boston Bears?”

“The best team in the NHL,” Ilya agrees with a nod and a smile.

“Holy shit,” C.J. breathes.

Mellie just blinks at him, completely gobsmacked.

“And hey, the Bears aren’t shit!” C.J. says with a hysterical sort of laugh. “You’re literally at a Voyageurs game.”

“Oh, is it? I did not know,” Ilya says, exaggeratedly looking around. “I did not recognize the Bell Centre from this side of the boards.”

C.J.’s mouth just opens and closes, apparently lost for words.

“As I was saying,” Ilya says, “Shane is second-best scorer in the league. Is why he made captain in January.” He smirks. “Four months after me, but he has always been slow.”

“Don’t listen to him, Mel,” C.J. interjects. “Shane Hollander is the fastest skater in the league. He’s a once in a generation talent.”

“Twice in a generation, but okay.” Ilya rolls his eyes. “We have not raced in two years. I am faster now.”

“Will you skate against each other at next year’s All Stars?” C.J. asks eagerly.

Ilya grins. “Is good idea. Yes, I will probably sign up for that event, and make Shane do it too.”

“So you, like, know him? Shane Hollander?” Mellie asks curiously.

“We were in the same draft class,” Ilya says. “I was first pick, of course, and Shane was second. We have known each other for years. Good friend.”

“So that’s why you’re here? To cheer him on?” Mellie asks, pointing at Ilya’s jersey.

“Eh,” Ilya see-saws his hand back and forth. “Is more fun to boo him, but he will probably win this game. The Whalers are farther along in their rebuild than the Voyageurs, but much more lopsided. Their first line is very good, but the rest are shit. And their center is fine, but he’s a cocky little bastard, and the whole team hates him.” He jumps a little at his phone buzzes in his pocket.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Did you get to your seat OK?

Ilya rolls his eyes as he types out his reply. “Hollander is checking in on me,” he mutters as C.J. chokes on his soda. He glances at the pair of them. “He is so boring. No chirping at all. Do you want to take a picture with me to send to Shane?”

“Hell yes!” C.J. exclaims.

Mellie looks a little lost, but she nods.

Ilya takes a quick selfie and sends it over.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: Meet Mellie and CJ; New fans of Boston Bears!
Shane: You are so full of shit.; We’ll see who is fans of who by the buzzer.
Ilya: Yes; Me, I am big fan of Whalers now; whoo go carolina
Shane: Fuck you.; Just for that, I’ll score a hat trick.

From the puck drop to the end of the first period, Ilya barely says a word. Shane plays spectacularly, as always, and Pike does not embarrass himself. Drapeau is a brick wall, and the defense is… fine. They protect Shane when he is in possession, and that is mainly what concerns Ilya.

The cameras do not find Ilya until a commercial break midway through the second period.

A close up of his face flashes on the scoreboard in high-definition, along with Ilya Rozanov, Captain of the Boston Bears at the bottom of the screen for those Voyageurs fans who live under rocks.

An almighty chorus of boos rises from the stands, and Ilya’s smile widens. He stands up in his seat, showing off his new jersey, and raises his hands, encouraging the crowd.

“Wow, they really hate you here,” Mellie says as the camera flips to some bigwig in one of the boxes and the jeers die down.

“They do,” Ilya says happily as he retakes his seat.

On the bench, Shane’s brow is furrowed, and he is heatedly whispering something to Boiziau.

The game resumes.

Ilya can never get enough of watching the love of his life pound lesser mortals into the ice. As Shane scores his third goal of the night and hats go flying onto the ice, Ilya jumps up, yelling his head off.

“What is happening?” Mellie asks, baffled.

“Hollander scored a hat trick,” Ilya crows.

“He scored three points in one game,” C.J. translates. “It’s pretty rare –”

“Not for Shane,” Ilya says proudly.

C.J. laughs. “No, not for Hollander, I guess. He gets a few a season.”

“Four this season, so far,” Ilya adds – boasts, really.

“God, you really are friends, aren’t you?” C.J. asks.

Ilya frowns. “Yes. I did tell you this.”

C.J.’s expression turns defensive. “The way you talk about him in interviews,” he breaks off, mouth pursing. “You’re always chirping him.” At Mellie’s confused look, he explains, “Ilya is always roasting him.”

“Oh,” she says.

“Yes, I need to keep Hollander humble,” Ilya says over a round of disappointing groans – the Whalers’ goalie saved Boiziau’s next breakaway shot. “Or else his head will get too big.” He smirks. “Like mine.”

“But that’s insane,” C.J. argues. “Hollander is, like, the most humble guy in the NHL.”

“That is what he says to the camera, yes. But Shane knows he is the best, and he is… terrible about it,” Ilya says, grinning broadly, “but only if nobody is listening.”

C.J. laughs. “No way.”

“Yes, way,” Ilya says, his heart swelling. God, he feels like he can never talk about Shane enough. “He is also very funny. Nobody knows this either.”

C.J. shakes his head disbelief written all over his face. “Holy shit. I did not expect this when I bought these tickets.”

Ilya shrugs. “Nobody ever expects me. Especially Drapeau.” He squints down at the Voyageurs’ end of the rink. “He must have gotten new glasses since his last game against us.”

* * *

Ilya rings the doorbell to Shane’s apartment, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement. The Whalers put up an impressive rally, but they ultimately fell short of making up the four-point deficit from the end of the second period.

Where the fuck is Shane?

Ilya cannot have beat him here; he stopped at a drugstore to pick up extra lube, two bottles of Shane’s second favorite sports drink, and a toothbrush because, incredibly, Ilya forgot his in his hurry to get to Montreal.

A fucking age later, Shane opens the door.

Ilya is on him in an instant. “Fucking beautiful hat trick tonight,” he murmurs as he breaks away from Shane’s mouth to kiss down his neck, sucking gently at the hinge of Shane’s jaw. “Should be rewarded, I think.”

“No, wait.” Shane pushes him off. “Stop.”

Ilya freezes. “What?”

Shane gives Ilya an actual shove back.

Ilya staggers. Off balance in more ways than once, he opens his mouth, but no words come out. He studies Shane’s face, and dread rakes down Ilya’s spine, digging in deep. Dear god, he has never seen that look in Shane’s eye. Not in the decade he has known him.

“What the fuck were you thinking tonight?” Shane demands, his voice tight with tension and restrained rage.

Ilya violently wrestles back his first instinct to plead for mercy and beg for forgiveness. It never worked when Ilya was a child, and it will not work now. He does not even know what he did wrong.

He squares his shoulders and stares Shane down. He has three full inches on him, and, for fuck’s sake, Ilya will make each one count. “I was thinking,” he says evenly, “I would suck your dick for not losing to the 18th ranked team in the league, but maybe I was being too nice. Maybe you should suck my dick for flying to your city, going to your game, and coming to your apartment to show you a good time.”

“A ‘good time’?” Shane repeats, incredulous. “Is that what you’re calling this?”

Pissed off and confused, Ilya refuses to mirror even a fraction of the naked emotion on Shane’s face. He will not give him the satisfaction. In the most unaffected drawl he can slather on his words, he says, “Yes, I was having a very good time until you decided you wanted to yell instead of fuck.”

Shane all but stamps his foot. “Of course I’m fucking yelling!”

“And why is that, exactly?” Ilya asks, his eyebrows rising. “You won the game. You were going to get laid. What, tell me, is the big problem here?”

Shane’s mouth opens and closes. Finally, he forces out, “My problem is – that.” Shane pokes him, hard, in the chest.

Ilya’s composure fractures. “Me?” he asks, more baffled than anything.

“No – well, yes, but, no,” Shane says, apparently too angry to formulate complete sentences.

“You are not making any sense.”

Shane lets out a wordless noise of pure frustration. “Fuck.” His hand flies out, fisting Ilya’s new Hollander jersey. “I’m talking about this,” he snarls. “What the on Earth possessed you to wear my jersey?”

“Seriously?” Ilya’s jaw drops. “That is what this is about?”

“Yes!”

“What the fuck, Shane?” Ilya groans. “Fine. I will not wear it again. I will burn it when I get back to Boston. Now, can we fuck?”

“No!” Shane lets go of the fabric like it actually burned him.

Ilya throws up his hands. “What is the big deal?”

“The big deal,” Shane spits, “is that I’m not your fucking – fucking boyfriend, Rozanov.”

Ilya’s heart stops dead in his chest.

“Going to my game? Wearing my number?” Shane rants, “That’s not something normal friends do! What the fuck were you thinking? Do you know what people are saying already?”

Ilya can practically feel Shane slipping through his fingers, dangling over an enormous precipice that he can never hope to scale again. “They are saying we are friends,” he tries, placating now, since pissing Shane off even more was clearly not the best strategy. “They know we have been friends for two years,” he forces out, but he can tell from the hard expression on Shane’s face that he is losing him.

“I keep telling myself that it’s okay, but it’s not,” Shane is saying, clearly not listening to a word out of Ilya’s mouth. “I – I can’t keep leading you on like this.”

Fuck that. If anything, Ilya has been putting in 110%, and Shane has been giving him basically nothing in return. He snarls, “You are not leading shit –”

“I am, though!” Shane says wildly. “We kept hooking up even though I knew you weren’t sleeping with anyone else, and you always went out of your way to see me. For fuck’s sake, you’ve taken red eyes on game days. You’ve skipped practice, Ilya.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Is not like I need it. I am better than everyone else on my team. Would much rather get laid.”

Shane exhales an explosive breath. “Look,” he starts, “I get that something happened with your friend. And I guess I remind you of him –”

What the fuck is Shane talking about?

“Your dead friend,” Shane explains impatiently as he registers Ilya’s confusion. “The boring, Asian hockey player.” He scowls. “The best hockey player, according to you.”

Ilya makes an incredulous noise. “Do not tell me you are jealous –”

Shane shakes his head. “That’s not it.”

“No?” Ilya asks knowingly.

“No,” Shane repeats, his voice firm. “I’m not jealous, goddammit. But, Christ, it’s so fucking obvious you loved him. The way you talked about him…”

Ilya cannot believe this is happening.

“I don’t think you have,” Shane swallows, “a fetish or anything –”

Ilya bursts out laughing even though nothing has been less funny in his entire life. Of course he has a fetish. The most obvious fetish in the world. A Shane Hollander fetish.

A furious blush rises to Shane’s cheeks. “But maybe I’m just your type, and that’s why you are attracted to me.” He clears his throat and straightens his spine to his full height. “Anyway, I could pretend it wasn’t a big deal when it was just between us, but you wore my jersey in front of twenty thousand people. And, fuck, it’s too much.”

I’m sorry, you’re too much, Ilyusha. I can’t today.

You just had to hog the spotlight Ilya. Too much, too much, all the time. An embarrassment to the family.

You just can’t help sucking up all their attention can you? First Mama, now Papa. Not me, never me, Ilya. You’re too fucking much for me.

“We’ve been risking enough as it is,” Shane finishes, and Ilya can only watch, his horror mounting to dizzying heights, as Shane stalks past him and opens his front door. “So I need you to leave.”

“Shane…” Ilya drifts off, his English failing for the first time in years as he searches for an excuse, a bargain, any fucking reason to stay. He fails. He has nothing except, “Do not do this.”

“I’m sorry, Ilya,” Shane says, and he truly looks it. “But I can’t anymore.”

Ilya stares at him.

“Please go,” Shane says.

Ilya cannot move, cannot make himself take one step further. Not without knowing, not without fighting. “Do you think you could,” he meets Shane’s expressive brown eyes and restarts, “I know we are not boyfriends now. But do you think we could ever be?”

God, he feels so stupid; he has never been eloquent in English – not like he is in Russian. But this Shane does not even know how to say coffee pot or laundry detergent in Ilya’s mother tongue. All they have is fucking English. And it is so woefully inadequate.

Shane slowly shakes his head, and Ilya cannot breathe. “I don’t think so. No.”

Ilya presses his lips together before he can humiliate himself any further.

“But I – I hope we can stay friends,” Shane says stiffly, opening the door a little wider.

Ilya does not deck him. “Go fuck yourself, Hollander,” he says instead as he steps over the threshold without looking back.

* * *

If he could feel anything at all, Ilya would be so angry at himself for not booking a hotel for the night. But he experiences every thought, every physical sensation, with an awfully familiar detached numbness. He will probably regret his body doing this to him again – god knows he wishes he had been fully present for his mother’s funeral because it was the last time he saw her – but now he is only vaguely thankful he can keep going instead of curling up into a ball of misery on Saint-Paul Street.

With no other options, Ilya flags down a taxi to drive back to the airport. He cannot fathom staying in this cursed city one second longer than he needs to.

The next flight to Boston is in six hours, so Ilya heads to closest car rental instead.

According his GPS, the trip should take five hours.

When the speedometer inches past ninety miles per hour in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire, he hears Shane’s voice in his ear. Fucking hell, Ilya, you’re going to kill yourself like this, and you’re going to deserve it. For god’s sake, slow down!

Ilya arrives back in Boston four hours later, dead on his feet. He stumbles into his house and collapses onto his living room couch. His bedroom is too far. Anyway, Ilya has two days free to wallow in his own festering disappointment, so a cricked neck and sore back really are nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Ilya does not move until dawn. Hopelessly disaffected, he watches the light outside his windows brighten more and more. It will probably be a beautiful day; too bad Ilya has zero desire or energy to to see for himself.

He should have known; he is in Hell.

Ilya never deserved a second chance or more time with Shane.

It was not enough to burn to death in a horrific plane crash. No, the real torture was building his hopes up for three goddamn years, thinking he could make the impossible goal two lifetimes in a row.

No wonder everyone calls him the most arrogant player in the NHL.

Time slips away from Ilya as he lays on his couch, staring up at the ceiling. It takes him a fucking age to muster the energy to piss and drink some water straight out of the bathroom sink. Food involves too many steps, so he just goes without.

He migrates to his bed, eventually, and that is enough excitement for his day.

* * *

Ilya’s eyes fly open, jostled awake by a few annoyingly hard shakes to his shoulder. Sveta’s face swims above him, her forehead crinkled in concern.

“Ilya,” she says softly, “how long have you been here?”

Ilya frowns up at her. “Here?” he croaks testily, his voice hoarse from disuse, “in my own home?”

“Here, stewing in your own juices,” Sveta corrects, pinching her nose and waving her hand theatrically.

Ilya turns over in bed, muttering, “Fuck you.”

Sveta just climbs onto his bed and straddles him with her knees. He cannot evade her in this position, not unless he bucks her off, and frankly, he has zero energy to do that. “Did you hear Marlow?”

Ilya blinks. “Marley’s here?”

“Marley was here,” Sveta says slowly, “two hours ago when you missed practice this morning. He called me because I am the only one with a spare key.”

“Oh.”

Sveta gets off him and sits on the side of the bed. Gently, she runs her fingers through his greasy curls. “Ilyusha…”

Shane used to do this with him. They watched countless hours of games together, Ilya with his head in Shane’s lap to get head scratches while Shane sat up to concentrate properly. When something happened, Ilya would always feel it first – Shane’s fingers twitching against his scalp, the muscles in his abdomen tensing – and then Shane would narrate for Ilya’s opinion on the action.

To Ilya’s utter disgust, tears well up in his eyes.

Sveta does not look away. “Do not tell me this is Jane’s doing,” she says, her voice deadly quiet.

Ilya inhales a shuddering breath. “Don’t,” he warns. “Just… don’t. I know you want to. But don’t.”

“I want to,” Sveta agrees. “But I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

Ilya exhales, aiming for slow and even but getting choppy and shitty instead.

“Do you want to be alone?” Sveta asks.

Ilya twists his neck to shoot her an incredulous look. “Yes,” he says, suspicious, because Sveta is not stupid.

“Okay.” She climbs off him. “I will give you twenty minutes to be alone. I advise showering and shaving during that time. After twenty minutes, we are going out to get you coffee and food.”

“But –”

She lifts her nose into the air. “I do not care if you look like homeless person. You need fresh air, if just to waft some of the stink off you.”

Ilya frowns. “Is this supposed to be comforting? You’re very bad at it.”

“If you wanted someone to cry onto your shoulder and listen to your boy problems, you should have let in Marlow earlier. Maybe Carmichael.” She grimaces. “But you did not let in any sappy Americans, so you get me, who will tell you that Jane is a motherfucking idiot who does not deserve to drink your piss.” Sveta walks around his bed to the door and looks back. “Twenty minutes, Ilya. And then we are leaving. I will drag you out by your ear. Do not test me.”

“I never even heard Marlow at the door,” Ilya confesses.

“Yes,” Sveta says, her tough-love facade cracking a fraction, “I know. Clean yourself up, Ilyusha. Things will be better. I am here now.”

True to her word, Sveta gets him back on his feet. She borrows a Ferrari from the dealership, piles the console with plenty of snacks, and makes sure he stays hydrated on the drive. As Boston gets smaller and smaller in the rearview, she catches him up on the petty drama in another friend group and complains about how hard it is to raise her commission rate.

They head for Hyannis. Cape Cod in April is still blustery and frigid when the wind blows the wrong way off the water – but they are from Russia. A bit of cold has never stopped them before.

Sveta picks up a dirt cheap bottle of wine as Ilya heads next door to a surf shop to browse the very sad, off-season selection of beach supplies. He picks up two outrageously ugly towels, bright orange, which will clash horribly with Sveta’s hair. She looks at him askance as they meet on the street but says nothing as they pile back into the car and head towards the dunes.

The beach is, predictably, deserted, save for the occasional jogger and dog walker. They lay out their towels just above the gentle ridge where the sand starts to slope towards the water, striped with crunchy, dried-up seaweed.

Sveta wraps an arm around him as they just stare at the waves.

Ilya’s mind goes quiet, but the nice calm quiet of relaxation, and not the awful numb quiet of his whole world ending around him.

When Ilya closes his eyes and inhales the salty air off the ocean, he can almost pretend he is back in Russia, on holiday along the Black Sea with Sveta. Irina would be back at the resort, getting a massage or a manicure or her hair done, and Andrei would be bar hopping along the nearby main street. Sergei would be holding court with Grigori in the club lounge, reminiscing about their respective glory days in the NHL and KGB.

Ilya and Sveta would be at the beach all day, pretending to drown each other in the surf and gossiping about the hot lifeguards.

Sveta unscrews the wine bottle and takes a swig before passing it to him to do the same. After he has taken a mouthful, Sveta asks bluntly, “Are you going to be okay?”

Ilya throws her a crooked smirk. “Aren’t I always?”

“No.”

Ilya sighs. He takes another sip of the terrible wine and goes back to staring at the ocean. “I think so.”

Sveta mulls his answer over as two more waves crash against the sand. “Good enough, I suppose.” She squeezes his arm. “Are you going to try to convince Jane to take you back?”

Ilya’s eyes burn with humiliation. Of course she put the pieces together that Shane left him. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

She casts him a sly look. “If I knew who he was, I could help you do it.”

Ilya scoffs loudly. “You just want to know who he is, so you can turn me off him forever.”

“So you admit it’s possible?”

“No.”

Sveta’s shoulders slump. “I don’t understand how,” she says, frustrated. “You’re better than this. You know better than this.”

He shrugs. “I tried not loving him for years. It never worked.” He swallows. “The longest I went without speaking to him was six months. I was the one to told him to fuck off, and I ignored his texts and didn’t ask to meet up. I still thought about him every day.”

Sveta says nothing, and he knows he is disappointing her, has been disappointing her ever since he told her about Shane.

Sveta does not believe in love. She says she has yet to see an example that will convince her it is actually real and not a gigantic conspiracy by Hollywood (opiate of the masses) and scientists (propagation of the species).

Her mother was Sergei’s second wife, and Sveta watched three more marriages implode or quietly die before she left Russia.

When she was a young teenager, she tried to commit. She had a few serious relationships, boys who got angry when she forgot they were important to her or got tired of performing for her limited attention.

As an adult, Sveta takes a boyfriend or two a year. Sometimes they wear her down; after all, she does relish a good chase. Sometimes she dates them to prove to herself that it is all nonsense. She always breaks it off if they get too attached or if three months pass, whichever comes first.

Ilya would never say it to her face, but he does not think Sveta is capable of loving someone like he loves Shane. Her heart does not work like his.

Sveta definitely holds it against him, the unsaid, embarrassing betrayal of falling in love. For several years, their only significant relationship was with each other, as emotionally repressed and fucked up as it was. The one time Sergei Vetrov called them “lovebirds”, Sveta stormed off in the middle of dinner, and Ilya laughed himself sick.

But because he is Ilya, and she is Sveta, they do not talk about it.

* * *

Luckily, playoffs start in a little more than two weeks, and Ilya does not have much opportunity to think much beyond the next goal – the next practice – the next game. They do not face Montreal in the rest of the regular season.

Ilya is determined to get farther than they did in his past life. A cup win would not be unheard of, with how the Bears are playing.

But then Hammy fractures his hand in Round 2, and their three rookies get food poisoning (lobster in Columbus, really?) in between Game 4 and Game 5 of the Conference Final. They have the common sense of babies that have been dropped on their heads too many times.

The Bears bite and claw their way to Game 6, not exactly playing clean, but still playing.

At start of the third period, the Bears are down four when Marley takes a bad hit from an enforcer that easily has 50 pounds on him. LeClaire swaps in the rookie who puked the least after the bad seafood, and Lotto is talented, yes, but this is his first playoff series. He is a little dehydrated and a lot shakier than normal.

Ilya channels his rage and frustration for one last, miraculous goal, but it is not enough to keep them in the running for the cup.

The buzzer goes, and that is that.

Ilya trudges back to the locker room with the rest of the Bears, dejected as fuck and not speaking. After taking a few exhausting questions from the press, he goes to check on Marley, who, of course, feels like shit for letting down the team. Ilya assures him that it is also Lotto’s fault, and they have a weak laugh because it is really Ilya’s fault, as captain, and LeClaire’s fault as the head coach.

“You goin’ out?” Marley asks as the chuckles die painfully fast.

Ilya shakes his head. “With our luck, I will probably get food poisoning too, and shit my way back to Boston. No, thank you.”

“Room service when they finally let me go?” Marley asks.

“You had better be fast,” Ilya warns by way of agreement. “I am hungry, and if you take too long, I will get you the lobster Thermidor.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Marley laughs.

Ilya shrugs as he heads towards the door. “You will just have to find out.”

Ten days later in the airport, waiting for his flight to Moscow, Ilya heads straight to the first bar he sees. And because he likes breaking his own heart, he caves and checks his texts as he waits for his drink. No new messages from Shane. Ilya has no idea why the disappointment hits him like a punch to the stomach; Shane does not even know he is leaving today, nobody does, except Sveta. It is not like anyone else would care, anyway.

That night, Ilya wakes up with his pulse thundering in his veins, panic zipping down his spine. He does not dare close his eyes; all he will see is Shane’s body in his mother’s bed, limp and pale as death. He checks the clock instead and groans. Four hours – he had gotten four hours of sleep.

Summer does not improve from there.

* * *

On his first rest day in Moscow, Ilya sleeps in until noon. He languishes in bed for another hour, dreading what the day will bring. No Shane. Plenty of his awful family.

“This is all you do now? Lazing around?” Grigori demands once Ilya descends the stairs to the kitchen.

“I’m not supposed to train today,” Ilya tells him wearily. He should have stayed in bed until dinner. He has a few protein bars stashed up there, for when he knows the day is going to be too much.

“Ha! No wonder you chose the NHL over a real league,” Grigori sneers as Ilya opens the refrigerator door to grab the water filter. “Can’t train for shit. Can’t play for shit.”

The water sloshes over his glass as Ilya stops himself just in time from retorting that David always said he played better after taking proper care of himself, including rest.

David liked taking care of him. Feeding him, in Ottawa. Checking in on him after losses because Yuna could never resist constructively ripping into the rest of the Centaurs, while David was much nicer to Ilya’s teammates. David liked doing puzzles with Ilya, talking about his time at McGill.

David did not treat Ilya like he was stupid, like he could not understand things because English was not his first language, and he occasionally got hit on the head. If he did not get it, David simply rephrased his point until he did. David never yelled at him for not following; David never got frustrated at him. David just calmly kept talking until Ilya could catch up.

One family dinner, midway through his first season with the Centaurs, Ilya watched as David did the exact same thing with Shane. Shane did not get why Pike was mad at him, and David’s first explanation did not make sense to Shane, so David tried again from a different angle, and comprehension finally dawned on Shane’s face.

He even asked Ilya, Ilya, about crossword puzzle clues that stumped him, which confused Ilya at first. Was he making fun of Ilya? Purposefully asking questions Ilya did not know the answer to?

But then Yuna called from the kitchen table, “He has no idea, Dave, and I don’t either. Goddammit, why do you do this to me every time?”

“She doesn’t like not knowing all the answers,” David said in an undertone, a sly smile spreading across his face like a secret. “That’s why I do it.”

Ilya laughed, delighted at David’s confession. And the first time he could answer a question and Yuna could not, he lorded it over her for two whole weeks. Yuna made David swap out chicken Parmesan for eggplant in retaliation, and Ilya called a truce.

Soft, Grigori would have called David.

Caring, Ilya can now admit to himself.

Shocked and betrayed by his own instinct, Ilya falls silent and lets Grigori yell until he has had enough. When Grigori finally leaves, disgusted by Ilya’s very presence, Ilya slips out the door. He wanders, trying very hard not to think about the Hollanders and failing miserably.

Fuck it, he might as well make a day of it. He hails a cab.

Ilya stops for flowers and gets fucking price gouged for a bouquet, but he does not have the energy to haggle. He has not been here for a year, but his feet know exactly where to take him. Across the street, past the wrought iron gate, through the alley of ancient mausoleums, down the sloping hill towards the newer grave markers, their edges sharp, not yet beaten down by time and the elements.

IRINA ROZANOVA
1970 - 2003
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

“Hello, Mama,” he says to her bland headstone. A dozen others have the same shape and color, and three in this section alone have the same epitaph. His father was so determined she not stand out, not outshine him, even in death.

“I’m back.” With one hand, Ilya brushes off the dried leaves and crusted dirt that settled atop her headstone. In his other hand, the paper wrapped around the lilies crinkles. He glances around, but there are no other flowers, not even dead, old ones, to clear away. No sign that Grigori or Andrei have visited recently.

Bastards.

“I have been thinking a lot about families recently,” Ilya tells Irina as he sets the flowers down under her name. “Good families, bad families. You know what Tolstoy said, ‘all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’?” He swallows against the lump of emotion blocking his throat. “I used to think every family was unhappy, and if they said they weren’t, they were lying or delusional.” He listens to unseen birds chirp in the trees overhead, waiting for a response that will never come.

“But…” Ilya drifts off, “but I’m starting to think there really are happy families out there – just not ours.”

Ilya sits down on the ground and leans against the headstone. The overgrown grass tickles against his calves, and he mindlessly pulls at a few blades for something to do with his hands. “I could have had a happy family. I think. Maybe. But,” he swipes at his eyes even though the graveyard is deserted, and nobody can see him except for his mother, “I ruined it, Mama. I ruined it forever.”

He braces his elbows against his knees, staring out at the sharply curved grave marker for Viacheslav Agarkov, 1928-2009, an enduring inspiration to all – although what exactly was so inspiring about Slava, Ilya has no idea.

“They aren’t perfect,” Ilya adds. “Yuna is judgmental, and David is a bit of a pushover, but they complement each other. She is kinder around him, and he never, ever bends if it means supporting a different side than hers.” In a low voice, he continues, “I think you and Papa were the opposite. On your good days, you wanted to stay inside, trap the joy in our own little bubble, when all Papa wanted to do was show off his perfect family to the world.” Ilya exhales a bitter sigh. “And, well, you know how he reacted to your bad days. Always pushing, pushing, pushing.”

He rubs his nose. “He did not know better, not like I did. But he would never listen to me. I was just a child.” He lets his head fall back against the hard stone. “But even a child could see he see that the more he yelled, the more determined you were to stay in bed.”

The Moscow summer heat sinks into his skin as the clouds shift overhead, but Ilya does not move.

“I miss them, Mama,” Ilya admits in a whisper. “I thought I was betraying you, leaning on Yuna like I did. Letting her look after me when I wasn’t feeling well,” he chuckles wetly, “letting her buy me a proper coat that last winter because she said I had a better head for fashion than sense.”

He sniffs loudly. “But I like to think that you would’ve been happy for me. I had a mother, for a little while. She wasn’t you, but I think she might have loved me a little bit, like you did.” He lifts his shoulder in a half-shrug. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. She’s gone. David’s gone. Shane will never really talk to me again.”

He blinks, hard, at the bright blue sky above him. “I’m all yours again, Mama. Isn’t that nice?”

His mother says nothing.

* * *

Ilya can practically hear Shane’s disappointed voice, telling him off for drinking and smoking and eating chili cheese fries, but Ilya needs the fries to soak up all the alcohol he drank, and the chili to chase the taste of his single cigarette out of his mouth. The cheese is just an added bonus.

Why do you keep eating like a couch potato instead of a professional athlete? Shane nags in his ear. You’re going to feel awful tomorrow, and you know it.

Ilya’s limbs are a little more than pleasantly loose, and his coordination is truly shit – he almost scatters all his credit cards on the bar when he tries to pull one out to pay. But Shane is speaking to him again, and that is all Ilya cares about.

Five months. It has been five months since Ilya has heard from the real thing.

His phone buzzes, and it falls through his tipsy fingers to the floor. Ilya scrabbles for it before he brings the screen to his face, squinting against the blinding light in the dim light of the dive bar.

A text from Andrei asking for money.

Grimacing, Ilya swipes the notification away, and he also banishes a new invite from Marley asking him to come out with the team. Pre-season started a week ago, and while Ilya joined on the first day to give all the wide-eyed hopefuls a captainly greeting, he ditched the other training sessions.

Ilya did not need to hear about the old-timer’s kids, the rookies’ moving back in with their parents, or, fuck, the guys who got hitched in July, the NHL’s unofficial marriage season. He muted the group chat and only set Petersmark’s texts to override, since now he has six children and only responded to the Bears chat if it is literally life or death.

Sveta drapes herself over his shoulders, and he throws her a loose, easy smile. “Having fun?” he asks in Russian.

“More than you.” She pokes him in the arm. “What are you feeling tonight? Blonde? Brunette? Short? Tall? Big tits?” At his blank stare, she tries, “Small tits?”

Shane’s face flashes in front of him, the one from the night Ilya suggested he could marry Svetlana for citizenship — big brown eyes glassy, jaw clenched, mouth pursed.

“No tits!”

“I can work with that. Big dick? Small dick?” Sveta tries next, her tone wicked.

“You’re terrible,” Ilya declares. “Nobody. I will be going home with nobody.”

“Ilya.”

“Svetlana,” Ilya counters childishly, sticking out his tongue when she makes a face at the sound of her full name out of his mouth.

“Really? No interest at all?”

Ilya might throw up at the very thought of being with someone else. Or maybe that is the just the chili cheese fries. They cannot be good for his macros, as Shane keeps telling him.

“Come on,” she wheedles. “There must be someone who can catch your eye.”

Ilya shakes his head, his annoyance rising. “No.”

Sveta throws her hands up in the air. “You are impossible. You just need to get back on the horse, get someone to fuck Jane out of your system, and you’ll –”

“I’ll what?” Ilya interrupts as his irriation turns to blistering hot rage. “I’ll be back to normal again? I’ll fuck you again?”

Sveta looks like Ilya slapped her. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Isn’t it?” Ilya sneers. “We fucked for years, after all. You don’t miss it, a little bit? Someone who could make you scream at night and make you hot chocolate in the morning, in the way you like? It’s the best feeling in the world, you know, when you have someone who knows you like that and loves you back.”

Sveta goes rigid, her long limbs locking, as her eyes go wide. “Shut your fucking mouth.”

“You shut your fucking mouth,” he retorts. “You’re just jealous that I had someone else in a spot you could never fill for me. Green is not a good color on you. Grow up. We aren’t kids. I want more than you can ever give me.”

Truly, that Ilya’s his burden to bear in life. Wanting more, more, more from everyone around him. Making them jump for him until they get too tired of all his baggage or accidentally swallow a whole bottle of pills.

“You are a fucking bastard sometimes, Ilya Rozanov,” Sveta says, her voice pulsating with rage.

Ilya takes one look at her face and pushes past her toward the exit. Night over. Time to go home.

Once they are both out on the street, Sveta calls to his back, “Are you seriously going to become a fucking nun because Jane dumped you?”

Ilya stops dead in his tracks. He does not turn around.

She adds, “He’s not going to fuck you again!”

Ilya stalks off without another word. He tries to shut out his Shane’s knowing voice in his head, but he cannot.

You could start sleeping around. You were the one to suggest it a few years ago, remember? You told me it was for me, but maybe you just wanted to have sex with other people.

“Shut up.”

This is your chance, Ilya, since I will never touch you ever again.

Ilya stops at the corner, completely disoriented. His gait is unsteady from the drinks, and his eyes are blurry with tears, and he does not know where he is or which Shane he is talking to.

I used to think you were cute when you talked big, but that was when you could back it up with results. Now, I think you’re just an unlovable asshole.

“Shut up,” he slurs again. The crosswalk swims in front of his vision, and he leans against the pole of a streetlight, cold and sturdy. He presses he cheek against the metal, trying to breathe normally, but his breath keeps hitching.

Pull yourself together, Ilya, Shane admonishes. Where is the man I fell in love with? You used to be so confident, the guy who could command any room he walked into. That’s guy I fell for.

Ilya sags against the pole, his knees bending like overcooked noodles, spine bowing until he is half-hunched over. But the voice just gets louder. “Shut up,” he mutters. “Shut up, shut up!”

I barely recognize you now.

“Oh, Ilya.” Delicate, long-fingered hands with too few calluses pull him to his feet. He leans against her chest as she makes gentle shushing noises in his ear. “You are so fucked,” she murmurs sadly.

Ilya hums his agreement.

* * *

This season, 2013-2014, is the Bears’ season. Ilya will win his first cup again, even if it kills him.

With everything going on, Ryan Price takes Ilya by surprise.

LeClaire does not make a big deal about the trade, but Ilya does because Price is one of the fucking nicest men he has ever met in this sport, except for Hunter. Ilya makes a show of getting to the rink early on Price’s first day to show him around, and he introduces him to everyone on the team individually, even though half of them have Price to thank for dozens of bruises and more than a few crooked teeth.

“Price!” Ilya calls out to him after his first week of practice on the team – he is just as brutal on the ice as Ilya remembers. “The real Bear among us!” he crows, slapping Price hard on the back in a very manly fashion while giving Price a covert wink.

Price chokes on his own spit.

“Do you drink?”

Price fiddles with the strap of his gym bag. “Um, not much.”

“Fine, we will go out for one drink then!” Ilya says loudly. “Who else is in?”

A couple of the younger players sign up, and Ilya encourages them to ask Price questions on their way to the Bears’ local watering hole. They naturally peel off as soon as they spot a group of co-eds from one of the approximate seven hundred universities in Boston. In their absence, Ilya inches closer to Price. “How are you settling in?” he asks.

“Fine.”

“Where are you living?”

Price smiles wryly. “The Marriott, at the moment.” He shakes his head. “I’m still looking for a short-term rental.”

“Hm,” Ilya hums. “If you are looking for recommendations, South End has some nice places.”

Price shoots him a suspicious look, eyes narrowed above his bushy beard.

“Nice clubs over there too,” Ilya adds because he really cannot be more obvious without hanging a giant neon sign over their table, proclaiming SUPER GAY in flashing letters. “Very friendly men at those bars.”

Price squares his shoulders and straightens to his very impressive full height. “If you have something to say, fucking say it, Rozanov.”

Ilya grins. “We could go together,” he suggests because behind the bravado, Price looks very torn between punching him and fleeing the scene. “Since it has been a very long time since I have found a nice boy to fuck in a club bathroom.”

“Oh,” Price says, looking tremendously out of his depth. “I –” he breaks off, looking a little afraid, despite his size.

“Is okay,” Ilya continues blithely, “We can find you a nice boy too.”

Price just shakes his head, apparently stunned speechless.

“But if that is not your scene, that is okay too,” Ilya says magnanimously.

Price glances around before he gives Ilya a tentative nod, which really does not tell Ilya anything at all.

He sighs. “Look, Price, we are a team, yes?” He does not wait for Price to answer before adding, “And teammates look out for each other. If any of the guys give you shit, about anything at all, you tell me, and I will take care of it.”

“I –” Price’s mouth closes with a snap. “Why are you doing this?”

Ilya lifts one shoulder in a wry shrug. “Because nobody likes being alone.”

Price studies him for a long moment before he lifts his beer. “I will toast to that.”

Ilya grins. “You are all right, Ryan Price.”

Price just stares at him, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.”

“What?”

“That Ilya Rozanov is being nice to me.”

“Hey, I can be nice!” Ilya protests at once even though the criticism is more than fare, judging by his reputation. “Is just too much work, most times,” he adds petulantly.

“But I’m worth the work?” Price asks.

Ilya stares at him. “You are the best enforcer in the league. Everyone wants a piece of you, yes? Is why you are traded so often.”

“Sure,” Price snorts. “That’s the reason.”

“Hey,” Ilya says, “I am happy you are here, okay?” He claps Price on his massive shoulder. “It will be a good season for us. I can feel it.”

* * *

Shamefully, it takes Ilya a month to realize Sveta is ignoring him.

He reaches out a few times, invites her to fancy dinners and parties he knows she will like. She makes up excuses for the first few and flat out does not respond to the rest.

Concerned, he offers her shopping sprees, a day trip to Vegas, a gift card to her favorite, exclusive luxury spa.

Frantic, he sends her a Tiffany tennis bracelet and a weekend trip to some island in the Caribbean where she will never run into her mother.

Nothing.

Света 💅🏽

Ilya: I’m sorry
Sveta: How much did you have to drink before you sent that?
Ilya: Not too much
Sveta: I’ll be the judge of that; And stop acting like a desperate ex boyfriend; It’s fucking embarrassing
Ilya: 👍
Sveta: Your place, tonight at 8; You’d better spring for good takeout
Ilya: Cho Dang Gol?
Sveta: They deliver?
Ilya: They will for what I will pay them
Sveta: I knew I kept you around for a reason
Sveta: Do you remember what you said to me?
Ilya: Bits and pieces; Enough to know I fucked up
Sveta: Good

Sveta arrives at his house a half hour late, enough time for him for his anxiety to spike, die down, and spike again, which she definitely knew and planned on.

They get through dinner well enough, falling into old patterns with the kind of aggressive normalcy that makes Ilya’s skin itch. Growing up with his parents, in his family, Ilya loathes pretense of any kind. Play acting is for children and inside the bedroom or not at all, according to Ilya.

“I’m sorry,” he declares as he pours them each a glass of post-dinner chacha.

“You said that already,” Sveta says, a lilt of amusement in her voice.

“I know,” Ilya says shortly. “I’m still sorry.”

“You don’t need to keep saying it. You’re not Canadian.” She throws him a loaded look, as if he could miss her moose-sized hint.

Ilya scowls. “No,” he says, his voice stiff as the drink in Sveta’s hand. “I’m not.”

Sveta knocks back about half her glass. “I was only trying to help you,” she says reproachfully, “and you spat in my face.”

“You were not actually helping,” Ilya says before he can stop himself.

Sveta’s death glare would quell a lesser man, but he is Ilya fucking Rozanov, and he was there the first time she got drunk at thirteen and threw up an entire slice of chocolate cake down her brand new white dress. Ilya meets her head on – until she reaches over and slaps him upside the head, snapping, “You make everything so difficult, you know that? What the hell kind of apology is this?”

“I’m out of practice,” Ilya complains.

“Tough shit. That’s an awful excuse.”

Ilya takes a sip of chacha.

“Look,” Sveta stares down into her drink, “I’m not jealous of Jane. I’m not. It’s just… I do miss what we had,” she says, her voice hard. “And I don’t mean the fucking. Don’t put words in my mouth that aren’t there.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Ilya says, mostly truthfully.

She tilts her glass back and takes a bracing gulp. “You used to talk to me, Ilya. But then you get to Boston, and sometimes it’s okay, it’s normal, but other times it’s like you forget I exist or that I,” she stares down into her glass like it has all the secrets of the universe, “want to talk to my best friend.” She sighs. “I hate that I have to spell this out for you.”

“I know,” Ilya says quietly.

“I didn’t think talking to me was incompatible with a relationship with someone else,” she says, shrugging, “but what the hell do I know? I’ve never really been in one – as you keep fucking telling me.”

Ilya cringes in on himself. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Fine.” Ilya gets up from the table and pours the rest of his chacha into her mostly-empty glass. “I’ll stop apologizing for being a shitty friend.” He yanks open his freezer and fishes out an unopened quart of Häagen Dazs butter pecan ice cream because Sveta has no taste when it comes to dessert.

They eat it right out of the carton.

“We’re still compatible,” Ilya says after a few spoonfuls. “Of course we are. I was just being an ass.”

Sveta throws him a dubious look around her own spoon.

“I have not been feeling… good,” Ilya says delicately, “even when I was with Jane. And, as you so kindly pointed out, I don’t talk much when I’m not doing well.” He sighs. “It isn’t personal.”

Sveta’s eyes narrow. “It is me. It is always personal.”

“Not about this,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ve been having… bad days. More bad than I like to admit.”

Sveta reaches for him, her fingers curling around his palm. “How bad?” she asks, her voice deadly serious.

“Bad,” Ilya says simply. He catches a glimpse of her face. “But no, not that bad.”

Sveta’s brow pinches in concern. “But it could get that bad.”

“It hasn’t,” Ilya swears. Before she can say something horribly depressing and unfortunately realistic, he says in a rush, “There will always be room in my life for you. It was my fault there wasn’t, not yours.” He jams his spoon back into the carton.

Sveta knocks his spoon out of the way. “Why are you taking so much? You don’t even like it.”

“Sorry.”

Sveta shoves her next spoonful of butter pecan into his mouth, ignoring how it clacks against his false teeth and how he gags as the frozen metal hits the back of his throat. Casually, she chastises, “Didn’t I tell you to stop saying that?”

* * *

Boston does not play Montreal until late October, so Ilya refrains from texting Shane until a week before. After chewing his thumbnail to the quick, he deletes his latest, most desperate, draft and goes with his first attempt.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: Do you have plans after the game?
Shane: My game today?
Ilya: No, MTL v BOS in 22/10
Shane: I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Ilya: What is a good idea?
Shane: Look, I think we still need more space. Time apart has been good, right?

Ilya stares at Shane’s latest message, his jaw dropping at its sheer absurdity. No, time apart from Shane has not been good. Time apart has been terrible, actually.

Ilya cannot get drunk before noon – he still has some standards – so he goes to his home gym and runs until his lungs burn and his legs wobble like jelly. After, he takes a punishingly frigid shower.

He still feels like shit, inside and out.

In November, the Bears have their first roadie out West. Air travel has obviously not been Ilya’s favorite since he fucking died in a fiery, freak airplane incident. But he managed most trips by taking a double shot of something before the flight and distracting himself with the Fast and the Furious movies, Shane Hollander highlight reels, and baiting Scott Hunter fans on Twitter.

This time, though, he foregoes all of that and takes the seat next to Price.

“Hey,” he says in a low voice as the plane starts taxiing. “You want some?” He pulls out a flask and jiggles it in Price’s wan-looking face.

“What is that?”

“Bourbon,” Ilya says.

“No, thank you.” Price sits back in his seat, stiff as a board and terrified. Anne of Green Gables already sits in his lap, a familiar sight.

Thank god, for all Ilya has changed this time around, Price’s comfort book has remained the same.

Ilya takes a sip and stashes it back in his jacket pocket. “Your loss.” He is on just the right side of tipsy. His tongue is a little looser, but his coordination is still reasonably sharp.

After a long pause, Price asks, “Do you always drink on flights?”

“For a few years now,” Ilya admits.

Price shoots him a calculating look.

“What?” Ilya barks defensively. Price should be the last person to judge him. And after Ilya is being such a nice guy too, offering him alcohol and sitting with him on the plane. He did not have to do any of that. He could have just let them both stew in their respective seats, scared shitless and feeling horribly alone.

“I don’t like flying either.”

Ilya rolls his eyes, relaxing a fraction as no (hypocritical) judgment gets hurled his way. “Yes, I can see this,” he says, gesturing up and down Price’s body, his gaze lingering on the way Price is clutching at the armrests.

“Makes the road life hard,” Price mutters.

“Yeah, it does,” Ilya says heavily. Those red eyes to Montreal – Shane is worth it, of course he is – but Ilya cannot sleep on airplanes anymore. With the slightest jolt of the cabin or crackle of announcement over the speakers, he jolts awake, his heart in his throat, blood roaring in his eyes.

No, best to avoid that altogether with booze and car explosions.

The plane finishes taxiing up to the runway, and Price’s hands jump to Anne of Green Gables, clutching it like a lifeline. As the plane starts to build speed, Ilya closes his eyes, trying to shut himself up in his happy place and calm his racing heart.

Queen sized bed with navy sheets.

Wooden headboard.

Too many pillows.

Two bedside lamps with cream colored lampshades.

Floor to ceiling glass windows.

“Have you read it?” Price’s voice comes out of nowhere.

Ilya’s eyes fly open. “What?”

Price taps the cover of his book. “Anne of Green Gables.” As Ilya shakes his head, Price says, “I think you’d like her.”

Ilya squints down at the cover. “Montgomery?” he reads aloud.

“No, the main character,” Price corrects. “Anne.”

“Is she like you?” Ilya gestures to Price’s bushy ginger beard. “You are both redheads.”

Price laughs, short but loud. “No, she’s nothing like me. Anne is more like you, actually. She likes to talk a lot.”

Ilya grins. He does do that.

“She’s pretty dramatic,” Price says, “And when a boy in school made fun of her, she hits him over the head with her writing slate.”

Ilya has never heard of a writing slate before, but he gets the concept of hit over the head easily enough. He asks eagerly, “She is violent too?”

Price shrugs. “If she’s mad enough.”

“Is this a famous book?”

Price’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Uh, I guess so? My sister, Colleen, and all her friends read it in school. It’s pretty famous in Canada.”

Ilya sits back in his seat. “I will buy a copy in Chicago then. There must be a bookstore nearby.”

Price bites his lip, just the barest twitch of his beard. After a moment, he hand over his battered, clearly well-loved copy. “You can start with this one.”

Shocked, Ilya does not take it. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve read it, like, a hundred times,” Price says. “Have at it.”

Ilya takes it carefully. “Thank you.”

* * *

As his text history with Shane gets increasingly distant, Ilya turns to his usual coping mechanisms and escape hatches to distract him from the gaping hole in his chest.

He works his team harder than ever. He is the first on the practice rink in the morning and the last to leave. He watches opponents’ fail compilations for an hour before games for details to get under their skin. He slots in extra ice time with the rookies to strengthen the Bears’ third and fourth line. He sits in ice baths until his teeth chatter, and he cannot feel his extremities.

He also goes out every night they do not have a game. He drinks until he can go more than a half hour without thinking of Shane Hollander and feeling like he just got stabbed in the heart every time he sees a fucking can of Canada Dry.

Shane would probably be ashamed of him. Sure, Ilya is playing some of the best hockey of his life, but everything else is falling apart. His sleep schedule is all over the place. He eats like shit.

This is not sustainable, Ilya.

Ilya nods tiredly along to the Shane in his head. He knows. He is trying. He is just not good enough.

He turns over in bed and tries banish his nauseous stomach and aching head by sheer willpower. Getting up to swallow down some Tylenol is too much work.

You have a game today! Are you even going to be ready to play?

Yes, Ilya will be ready. But the game is not right this second, so let him fucking wallow for once.

You’re going to ruin your career this early? Come on, get up. Like you will have any luck winning me back without at least one cup to your name.

Yes, Ilya knows. Shane has always been a perfectionist with extremely high standards. It is why Ilya even had a chance at all.

LeClaire mentions his concerns the third time Ilya comes into practice hungover.

Ilya snaps, “What do I need to improve on, Coach? Where exactly am I failing the team?”

LeClaire sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know you skated just fine.”

“Yes, I do know this.”

“So, it’s not a matter of skating.”

“Then why are we talking about it?” Ilya asks as he makes to leave, but LeClaire grabs his arm.

Ilya bears his teeth, and LeClaire’s expression hardens. “We are talking,” LeClaire says slowly, “because we just watched a great prospective captain flame out last year. I want to make sure it’s not happening again.”

Ilya shakes his head. “I am fine,” he says brusquely.

LeClaire lets go and crosses his arms over his chest. “The C, that’s a lot of pressure.”

Ilya physically bites his tongue to keep from snapping that he has lived and thrived under that pressure for eight fucking years, that he built two NHL teams up from scratch. Instead, he says again, “I can handle it.”

LeClaire nods. “You’re a good kid –”

Ilya bristles because he may not look it, but he is thirty-two-years-old.

“– and there’s no shame in waiting until you’re ready.”

“I am ready now.”

“More ready,” LeClaire amends.

Ilya glowers at him. Sure, why not. He can go without alcohol. He already gave up smoking. And Shane wants nothing to do with him. What is one more thing Ilya cherished about living?

He spends Thanksgiving at Kruger’s house, their second-line defenseman. German by birth, he usually hosts all the international players for the holidays, if they do not go back home. Ilya puts on a good show, helps clean up a little, and takes a small container of leftovers when he leaves.

But, standing in his boxers in front of his open refrigerator with a little box of leftovers in his hand, he tries to not to lose it as tears stream down his face and a howling despair drags at his heels.

God, he is so alone.

He and Shane have not really talked in eight months.

Ilya cannot bother Sveta; he already relies on her too much. Every time he goes too far, every time he needs a distraction, he calls her. As Ilya knows all too well – everyone has their limit of him. He cannot risk it, not after hurting her so badly. So, texts for now, and only texts. Consistent ones. Like they used to do.

His team – well, his team are all fat and happy with their families. Watching the football game or playing board games or whatever actually happy families do on Thanksgiving. Ilya has no real idea.

The Hollanders usually skipped Thanksgiving, since the NHL only gave the league the American holiday, not Canadian Thanksgiving, off from games. Instead, the Hollanders went all out for Christmas. His last year with them, Ilya baked cookies with David and helped Yuna decorate the tree. On Christmas Day, of course, it all went to shit.

Fuck, if only that was their last fight. But no, he just had to ask for more, more, more on Boxing Day.

Maybe Ilya just sucks at holidays. And families. And love.

Ilya glares at his booze cabinet, untouched since LeClaire yelled at him about his drinking. He goes to bed and tosses and turns for hours before finally falling into a restless doze.

December hits Boston with a snowstorm and record-breaking low temperatures. He hunkers down at home and gets way too involved in trolling Scott Hunter stans online.

By the time Boston shovels herself into a recognizable city again, the Bears’ social media manager has banned Ilya from Twitter for a full two weeks as punishment and tells him to cool it for a while.

At least they win their next series of away games. They head west to Buffalo, Toronto, and Ottawa. Ilya only feels a little bad for stealing the puck from Bood at the first face-off.

And then back to Boston for a two-day break and a game against Montreal.

Ilya spends the off days working out and running drills on the ice until his legs wobble like a baby deer’s.

In the locker room the day of their Montreal game, all the guys chatter good-natured ly the upcoming Christmas break, but Ilya cannot think past seeing Shane for the first time since October.

Maybe Shane has found someone else. He did send Ilya those STD panel results last summer – he would not do that if he was not sleeping around. God, just the thought of someone else touching Shane, hearing Shane make those noises, see him surrender himself completely to pleasure – fuck.

“Dude, you’re gonna snap a lace,” Marley says, jolting him out of his thoughts.

“What?” Ilya lets his grip go slack.

Marley claps him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Rozy,” he says reassuringly. “We’ve got this. Hollander is great, but the Voyageurs have been playing like shit this whole season. He can’t carry the whole fucking team on his back.”

Ilya just nods. He closes his eyes and presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, pushing and pushing until light bursts against his eyelids.

“Roz,” Marley starts, a little quieter this time, “are you okay?”

“Yes.” Ilya straightens up. He is fine. He can do this. This is his year, the year the Bears will finally win the cup.

“Right,” Marley says dubiously. “Look, I’m driving back to Jersey to see my folks tomorrow night, but I can stop by in the afternoon to hang.”

“You do not need to do that.”

Marley just shrugs. “Too bad. You already gave me a key.”

Ilya sticks out his tongue. “Sveta gave you a key,” he corrects.

“Whatever.”

* * *

As Ilya bends down for the face-off, he barely hears Shane’s little, “Hello,” over the sound of his own pulse thundering in his ears. He does not respond and fights for the puck like a man possessed.

He tears down the ice, passes it back Marley when he sees no way around Montreal’s defense, skates around Comeau, snags Marley’s return shot, and drives it right past Drapeau’s left knee.

As the Bears celebrate their first goal two minutes from puck drop, Shane chews angrily on his mouth guard.

Ilya says nothing, glancing away every time he feels Shane’s gaze on him.

LeClaire switches the lines soon after, and Ilya sits on the bench near the third line rookie. He watches Price ram Shane into the boards, and Vicky grab the puck in the chaos. He passes to Hammy, back to Vicky, who shoots to Carmichael, who scores.

The TD Garden light up, and the crowd roars.

Shane looks positively mutinous as Theriault raises his hand to call him back to the bench.

Montreal takes three shots on goal, and Kane blocks every single fucking one.

The first period ends 2 - 0.

It is too soon to call it a shut out, obviously, but Ilya is feeling almost buoyant as he watches Theriault hiss instructions to his assistant coach.

“Got another goal in ya?” Marley asks, elbowing him in the side.

“Two, actually,” Ilya says with a grin. “Want to send Hollander home crying when I score a hat trick on him.”

“Amen to that,” Marley says heartily. “Nothing like sending Montreal back north with their tails between their legs, eh, boys!” he calls, raising his voice to the rest of the bench.

They all cheer.

Two periods later, nobody is cheering.

Not only does Ilya not score any additional goals, Shane scores four, grinning triumphantly as he takes a rare victory turn around the rink to a raucous chorus of boos.

He catches Ilya’s eye, and Ilya freezes, his hands going still and clammy as, for a moment, it looks like Shane is going to skate over to him, but Pike and Boiziau sandwich him in a massive, joyful hug, knocking Shane off course.

Ilya just barely refrains from snapping his stick over his knee in a genuine temper tantrum. But the cameras would inevitably catch every second of the young, inexperienced Boston captain losing his shit, so he keeps a too-small, too-tight lid on his anger.

Immediately after the game, he gives curt, exasperated answers to reporters as they bombard him with stupid questions. They didn’t win because they scored fewer goals, plain and simple.

They also lost because Marley did not kneecap Pike when he had the chance.

When he gets back to the locker room, Sebbins is talking. “You know this is the first time in seven seasons we haven’t had a game on December 23rd?” He laughs as Ilya goes cold all over. “It’s the missus’ birthday tomorrow, and the WAGs are going all out this year.”

Ilya’s gaze falls to the floor as a strange, dark embarrassment crashes over him. How the could he forget? How the fuck could he not realize?

The anniversary of the worst day of his entire life is tomorrow. It will be ten years since Irina died.

And Ilya did not fucking remember.

* * *

Scrounging up a post-game snack takes too much thinking and effort, so Ilya gives up and just goes to bed. Maybe, after a good night’s sleep, he will feel like a human being and less of a empty shell pretending to be human.

But Ilya lies wide awake for hours. By 12:11 AM, he cannot take a single minute more of staring up at his bedroom ceiling, exhausted, sad, and unable to escape the dread that he will always feel like a losing, useless sack of shit who could not save the one person in his life who loved him unconditionally.

He pads downstairs to his kitchen and pours himself two fingers of vodka. “To you,” he toasts his mother in his empty house.

It goes down like water, so he pours himself another. He just needs to get tipsy enough to sleep, and then everything will be fine.

But he does not feel any change once the vodka leaves the glass and slides down his throat, so he grabs the whole bottle and heads to the couch.

He does not bother turning on the television. He sits there in the dark, drinking. It is all very Russian of him.

God, if only Shane could see him now. When Shane was at his lowest, what was he doing? Eating squeaky clean and training until he was more hockey robot than ever.

Whatever. It is not like Shane ever wants to see him – except when he his grinding him to a bloody splatter beneath his skate. Which is his right; this is a free country, anyway. The good ol’ US of A, since Ilya will never be living in Canada again, just across town from the best family he has ever known in his entire life.

Fuck, he never thought he would ever miss Ottawa.

Truthfully, the city could go fuck itself; there was only one half-decent Russian restaurant and the club scene was a joke. But it had the Hollanders and the Centaurs, who were kinder than Ilya ever deserved.

No, all Ilya really deserves is this empty fucking house, filled with nothing that actually matters. He scowls at the bland art on the walls that some generic designer picked, at the open-concept kitchen that Shane had marveled over before he ate the tuna melt of doom.

Fuck this. Ilya cannot look at anything in his house anymore.

He squints down at his watch, waiting until the golden smears resolve themselves into actual numbers. At one in the morning, the night is still young in Boston, thank god.

* * *

Ilya buys a round for the entire bar, and they all clap and cheer and call his name.

A beautiful woman tries to get him to go back to her place, but she is too short, too thin, and too soft in all the wrong places. He lets her down gently.

* * *

The first club is just the perfect decibel of loud. He gulps down another drink and loses himself in the music until his head spins and his limbs go loose. A group of college co-eds yell that they are staying in Boston over the winter break and are looking for a better time.

So Ilya takes them to a second club.

He shoves aside Shane’s voice in his head that is telling him these are all extremely bad choices.

* * *

Ilya maybe does coke in the bathroom of the third club. He is not really sure. Whatever, it is not like he will be drug tested until… he has a few days, probably.

He does a shot of tequila with one of the co-eds who followed him like a horny shadow to two separate nightclubs, her dark eyes never losing him once in any of the crowds. Her equally dark hair falls in a straight curtain down to her mid-back, and, god, Ilya is so tired of not being wanted.

* * *

The post-orgasm clarity nearly makes him throw up.

His fingers are tangled in the long strands of her hair, and her breath is hot against his neck as she pants and moans.

What the fuck is he doing?

When he pulls out, he is numbly surprised to find himself wrapped in a condom. Most likely her doing, since he does not carry them around anymore.

He is out of practice fucking a woman, he can tell that from the vaguely disgruntled look on her face as she hands him his pants and stiltedly offers to call a cab for him.

Out on the freezing cold street, Ilya pauses.

Oh, god. Where is he? What did he just do?

What the fuck, Ilya? Shane’s voice screams at him. How could you do this to me?

Ilya spins in place, trying to figure out which street he is on, which neighborhood he is in. His memories of the past few hours come in flashes – freckle-less cheeks, the strobing lights of the club, her nightstand with a box of scratchy tissues and no reading glasses.

He needs to be anywhere but here. He starts walking on numb, wobbly legs as Shane has a panic attack in his head.

I should have known you would break. You just couldn’t keep it in your fucking pants, could you? You could never really change.

Thank god you died before I ever saw you like this.

This time, Ilya really does throw up.

* * *

Ilya does not go home. The very idea of returning to his dark, empty house makes his stomach turn, so he heads back to that first bar.

They cut him off after only three drinks, and Ilya curses their mothers and grandmothers in Russian and throws a wad of cash at them, but the bartender stands firm.

* * *

Luckily, Ilya lives in a city full of drunk Irishmen. Even at four in the morning, he can find a pub still serving drinks and customers.

* * *

Then the pub cuts him off and kicks him out too, and Ilya finally has no choice but to go home.

* * *

He still has bourbon somewhere around here, and he definitely has that bottle the GM gave him last year, a gift to his very promising new captain.

* * *

“Rozanov?”

…

“Roz!”

Hands – not the right hands, never the right hands, never again – roughly pat his face.

“Shit, fucking shit –”

A slap.

Huh, Ilya really should feel that slap to the face, but he cannot feel anything at all.

“What the fuck did you do?”

“Dunno,” Ilya hums. His brain really is not working right, but he does not care.

“Fuck, fuck! Is that blood?”

A clatter, a phone dropped.

“Okay, you can do this.” Strong hands grab Ilya beneath the armpits and hoist him into a sitting position.

Ilya throws up, all down himself.

Weird, he could have sworn he did not have enough left in his stomach to do that.

“Hold on,” he pleads as he peers into Ilya’s eyes. “You gotta stay awake, man. What the fuck is all this? You nearly gave me a heart attack, thought all of this was fucking blood – hey! listen to me – but it’s just red wine, right? You don’t even like red wine!”

Too much English. Too many stupid words.

Ilya slumps back; it is taking too much effort to be upright. He just needs to die here and never hear a single syllable of English ever again. Maybe he will see his Shane after it is all over, and he can grovel for forgiveness in person.

Chapter End Notes

runs off into the night, cackling and waving a white flag that says, "Next chapter up on Friday!"

Chapter 4: First Names

Chapter Summary

Ilya wakes up with a blinding headache, a nauseated stomach, and a bone-deep shame for things he does not completely remember. He blinks open gummy eyes, and florescent lights spear right into his eyeballs. He slams his eyes shut again.

“Ilya?”

Ilya manages a weak squint out of sheer surprise. “Price?” he rasps.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Ilya wakes up with a blinding headache, a nauseated stomach, and a bone-deep shame for things he does not completely remember. He blinks open gummy eyes, and florescent lights spear right into his eyeballs. He slams his eyes shut again.

“Ilya?”

Ilya manages a weak squint out of sheer surprise. “Price?” he rasps, dumbfounded to see Ryan Price squeezed into a too-small metal chair to his right. Behind him, the green curtain rustles, a nurse or doctor probably passing by to check on the patient next door.

Price jolts to attention. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Ilya says honestly as his head gives a particularly nasty throb.

Price smiles grimly. “You look like shit.”

“Then that makes sense,” Ilya says as he settles back in his hospital bed. “What happened?”

“Marley found you passed out in your house,” Price says. “He said you went on some sort of epic bender last night. You got your stomach pumped and everything.”

Ugh, he vaguely remembers flashes of a bar, clubs, buying a round of shots, dancing, the kind of scratchy bed sheets that would drive Shane crazy –

Ilya makes a wounded noise. He could not – he would never.

He swallows.

Because he did. He definitely did, and he is the fucking worst, doing the very thing Shane had always feared, sleeping with a woman after he had promised that he would never touch anyone but Shane ever again. All those women, for so many years – and he refused them all. But of course he broke his promise. That is all he ever does, break promises, waste potential, and fuck up the good things in –

“Rozanov? Ilya?”

Ilya blinks and finds Price’s hairy face looming over him. “What?” he asks, hoarsely.

“I think you’re panicking,” Price says nervously.

“And?”

“Can you stop?”

The sheer absurdity of the request does, kind of, jolt him out the spiral of panic. “You are incredible, Ryan Price,” Ilya says with a tired laugh.

“Thank you?”

They sit in a not uncomfortable silence.

“So,” Ilya asks eventually, “who took me here?”

“An ambulance?” Price says like a question. “Marley found you at your place. He called 911 and got you set up in the ER, but he had to drive to Jersey an hour ago. He’s a nice guy, a good friend,” he says. “He didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

“Fuck,” Ilya swears with feeling. “I owe him so much.”

“Probably,” Price says. “But I have the feeling you’d do the same for any of us, so.”

“Not Carmy,” he lies.

Price rolls his eyes because he knows Ilya is full of shit. “Everyone else already had plans to head home, so you got stuck with me.”

“I am not stuck,” Ilya says, greatly offended on Price’s behalf. “Is very nice having you here. Are you not going home for Christmas too?”

“Oh, I am,” Price assures him. “But I delayed my flight.”

Alarmed, Ilya tries to sit up. “You did not have to do that for me.” Not because of Ilya’s stupidity and inability to make good choices.

“Hey,” Price says gently, “Nobody likes to be alone, right?”

Ilya’s lip curls. “You are using my own words against me?”

“They’re good words.” He shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. “And I only delayed my flight by a few hours. I’ll be home soon.”

Ilya crosses his arms over his chest. “I suppose that is okay.”

“Oh, and Marley also called your friend,” Price says, “but I haven’t seen her yet.”

Ilya’s mouth goes dry. “‘Her’?” he echoes as his sensitive stomach flips with dread.

And like a terrible sitcom, at that moment, “Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov!” cuts through the busy ER in a strident Russian voice. “Where the fuck are you?”

Ilya cringes back in his bed and turns to Price. “Can you actually kill me?”

Price blinks. “I don’t think the doctors would like that.”

ER visits are never short; Ilya has sat through many of them himself and chaperoned enough stupid rookies through the impossible American healthcare system. He feels well enough to leave after two hours, so of course they refuse to let him go until well into the afternoon. It gives him way too much time to think.

Ilya has always been a stubborn son of a bitch, but after three years, he can finally admit to himself that white-knuckling this do-over by himself is not exactly going well by any definition.

In his past life, he had actually been working on his mental health, and he had not been doing it alone. He had Shane, of course, but he also had the Hollanders, Troy, Harris and Chiron, and Galina.

Now, he no longer has Shane or the Hollanders, and the Centaurs are currently scattered across North America (and Switzerland). But Galina is in Ottawa, and therapists still exist, some even in Boston.

After four hours, Sveta steps out ago to get lunch, leaving Ilya alone with Price. He glances at his lone visitor, still sitting in the comically too-small seat. Price saw someone for his anxiety. He mentioned it at some random lunch at the Camps, begging off an afternoon coaches’ activity because he had an appointment he could not miss.

“I am thinking of getting a therapist,” Ilya announces, apropos of nothing.

Price shifts in place, shocked. “That’s a great idea,” he says sincerely.

Ilya rubs the thin edge of his hospital blanket between his fingers. “You think so?”

Price nods. “Yeah.”

“I think I am not doing so well, mentally,” Ilya says as he picks a stray thread. “Seems like it was only a matter of time until I ended up here.”

Price looks a bit spooked that this line of conversation is continuing, but he soldiers on, “Marley’s really scared for you.”

“But not you, Price?” Ilya asks, amused.

Price rolls his eyes. “Me too.”

Ilya sighs. He has no idea when Price started therapy but he cannot outright ask. “Do you know anyone who sees someone for,” he rubs his nose, “mental health?”

“Not anymore,” Price says, “but one of the guys on the Comets, his wife was a therapist. He said she made him go while he was on LTIR a couple seasons before, and he said it helped a lot.”

Fifteen minutes later, Sveta comes back and dumps a fucking Happy Meal in Ilya’s lap. She pulls out two quarter pounders for her and Price.

“What the fuck is this?” Ilya demands.

“This is your lunch,” Sveta says archly. “If you can keep it down, you get this.” She pulls out a McFlurry with a frankly unnecessary amount of flourish.

Ilya immediately grabs at it. He is not a child. He can have ice cream any time he wants.

“Happy Meal first,” Sveta reminds him as she cruelly holds it out of reach.

“Will melt!” Ilya protests.

“So you’d better start eating,” Sveta points out.

Ilya glowers at her, but she does not cave. He looks to Price, who keeps his eyes trained on his burger, like a coward. He spits at Sveta, “Fuck you.”

Sveta pops a French fry in her mouth. “Eat, Ilyusha.”

* * *

When the hospital finally discharges him and Price leaves for the airport, Sveta follows him home. He tells her he is not suicidal, but she does not believe him. She hangs around, bullying him into taking care of himself.

“I am very worried,” she confesses, late at night as she cards her fingers through his curls. They are curled up on his enormous couch, watching Mean Girls on TBS with the volume turned down low.

“About me?”

“About the Admirals’ chances for the cup – of fucking course you, asshole.”

Ilya grins. “I love you too, Sveta.”

Sveta just gives his hair a hard tug in response. “You have been getting worse, not better.”

“I know,” Ilya says quietly.

“And I do not know how to help you,” she says, frustrated.

“It’s okay.” Ilya pats her knee. Some people cannot be helped. He learned that at twelve years old.

“No, it is not okay,” Sveta shoots back. She sniffs and retreats further up the couch, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I will not be the one to find your body, Ilya. Do not make me do that.”

“I won’t,” Ilya says quietly.

“You cannot promise me that.”

“I can,” Ilya sighs.

“No, you –”

“I will talk to someone else,” Ilya interrupts. “Find a therapist. Make someone else responsible for me, okay?”

Sveta blinks. “You will go to therapy?”

Ilya scoots back up the couch cushions to wrap an arm around her shoulders and kiss her temple. “Yes, for you, I will do it.”

“For me,” Sveta says with a small smile.

“For you,” Ilya repeats. “If it was up to me, I would just drink myself to death again, but –”

Sveta hits him in the face with a pillow, and he does not think that, without Marley, it would have been two days before anyone wondered where Ilya Rozanov was.

The next morning, Sveta finally leaves with a threat that she will be back if he takes any longer than 15 minutes to answer her text messages. She takes all the Tylenol in the house and his belts with her when she goes.

So, on Christmas Eve, Ilya starts his search for a new therapist. He keeps his search confined to the Russian community and finds five good leads within a few days.

On December 27th, before the Montreal vs New Jersey match up, Ilya promises himself not to watch any more of Shane’s games. He cannot keep doing this to himself. Their not-relationship is over, and Ilya has to stop doing reckless, stupid things that just make him think of Shane, hear Shane, and wonder what Shane would say to him.

Ilya lasts 12 minutes into the second period.

Shane is a fucking vision on the ice, skating like the devil himself is on his heels. He rockets past the Meadowlanders’ defense, dekes right, slaps the puck dead center, and –

Misses? The puck bounces uselessly off Doyle’s left leg pad.

Ilya leans forward on his couch, dumbfounded. He knows as well as Shane does that New Jersey’s goalie has a blind spot when it comes to top-shelf shots, not five holes.

What the fuck just happened? He turns up the volume, but the game commentators are just as confused as him. Play resumes, and Theriault swaps the third line in.

Ilya picks up his phone to text Sveta, who also has the game on, but she also has no idea why Shane made that fumble.

Two days later, Montreal plays LA. Ilya does not even make it to second period – he admits defeat and tunes in 16 minutes into the first period.

Shane scores two goals, but he completely screws up three assists, two to Pike and one to Parker. Two go wide, but the last one gets easily intercepted by LA’s defense and a minute later, the goal buzzer reverberates throughout the Bell Centre to a chorus of boos.

What the fuck is up with Hollander?

Света 💅🏽

Sveta: Is he high?; Who was he even trying to pass to?
Ilya: I have no idea
Sveta: Does he have the yips?
Ilya: Shane Hollander doesn’t get the yips
Sveta: It looks like he has the yips
Ilya: No it doesn’t
Sveta: Do you need to get your eyes checked too??; Are you even watching the same game I am?
Ilya: He’s just distracted
Sveta: By what? Comeau’s atrocious defense work?; That’s not news
Ilya: Could be personal issue
Sveta: God I hope not; This is almost painful to watch

Ilya sighs and swipes her conversation away. He checks Instagram and Twitter, but Pike has not posted anything about the health of his children or his wife, and everyone looks fine in the few photos he posts.

And if Ilya lingers on a particular one with Shane and the twins, one hanging off each of his arms, his face scrunched in laughter, nobody will know but him.

Fuck, when was the last time Shane smiled at him? His heart sinks. A year ago, maybe more. Certainly, not during the last time they saw each other, face to face.

Ilya throws his phone to the other end of the couch. He turns the television off and buries his head in his hands. But the silence just amplifies his thoughts.

Shane could be distracted for a number of reasons. Sure, Boiziau and Pike look fine, but maybe something happened with his parents. If Yuna and David –

No, Ilya cannot think that.

Anyway, Ilya has actual memories of Shane playing distracted – of course, they are a bit hazy since Ilya himself was having the shittiest two months of his entire NHL career.

All because of Rose Landry.

Shane probably is not dating Rose Landry. But the last time Shane played hockey this badly, he thought he was in love. He lost focus because his girlfriend was watching him play, wearing his jersey, waiting to reward him after a good game and a win.

Ilya lunges for his phone. Two hours later, he resurfaces from the hockey gossip site rabbit hole, just as angry and frustrated and heartbroken as before he started. While he greatly appreciated Shane’s commitment to his privacy while they were a secret, he fucking hates it now. Nobody knows anything, least of all Ilya.

* * *

Shane seems to recover from his hockey slump by the time the Olympics roll around.

And at the end of January, Ilya gets the call. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation want him to captain their team in Sochi.

Ilya has played these games before. It might have been many years ago, but he spent countless hours replaying them again and again in his mind, fixing what went wrong and strengthening the few things that went right.

As it turned out, Russia was more fucked than Ilya thought. Impossibly, there is more shouting in the dressing room and posturing during practice. Sure, during the games they do not take the same penalties – they take new and different ones. The score still stays stubbornly low, despite Ilya’s best fucking efforts.

They send Latvia home crying, but lose to Slovenia in the quarterfinals.

Ilya might as well have sat out the Olympics altogether. The fallout is exactly the goddamn same, at least from his father. No matter how hard Ilya tries, he is an embarrassment to his homeland for not bringing home a medal.

He once again escapes for the first breather he can – the Sweden versus Finland game. The rink is a welcome reprieve after the stuffy meetings and slimy glad-handing his father insists are necessary to “get things done”, whatever the fuck that means. Ilya is already the best hockey player in the world and looking at an eight-figure contact when he becomes a free agent. He can get anything done – well, almost anything.

Footsteps up the stairs to the upper deck make him freeze.

No.

Not here, not now. Not after all this time.

“Hey,” Shane says out of nowhere because Ilya is actually living in some elaborate torture trial that replays all the worst moments of his life when he least expects them.

Maybe, if Ilya is quiet enough, does not twitch a single muscle, pretends not to breathe, Shane will give up and go away.

The silence drags on. “Sorry,” Shane apologizes, “I didn’t know if you’d answer a text.”

Because Shane has not answered any of Ilya’s texts since fucking October and it is now February.

Too stubborn to be deterred by Ilya’s stony silence, Shane adds, “I just wanted to see how you’re doing?” He phrases it like a question, all nerves and tension.

Ilya gathers every single fucking scrap of courage he has and finally turns to Shane. “How do you think?”

Shane bites his lip and shoves his hands into the pockets of almost offensively cute and fluffy Team Canada fleece. He looks like one of those sheep – the ones with the white wool and black noses. “Sorry about the game.”

“Was expected,” he says shortly. He does not tell Shane there was no way Russia could beat Team USA, let alone Team Canada. He half expects Shane to go, polite apologies taken care of – but Shane stays.

Fidgeting, looking like he would rather be anywhere else in the Olympic Park, Shane stays.

As the silence ticks on, heavy and oppressive, Ilya grinds out, “What do you want, Hollander?”

“I wanted to see how you’re doing,” Shane repeats.

Ilya spreads his arms wide. “You are seeing now. Mission done.”

Shane scowls. “I’m sorry,” he says, a tad petulant.

“Yes, you already said that too,” Ilya says as he turns back to the Finns trying to murder the Swedes and doing a very poor job of it.

“No, not about the game,” Shane’s voice says. “About… everything else.”

Ilya does not dare look away from the rink.

“Because I am. Sorry, that is.”

Ilya swallows.

“I was an asshole. To you.”

Ilya closes his eyes. Shane cannot be serious. To do this, after breaking his heart, after refusing to speak to him or see him. Does he really think an apology will fix anything?

“And, I guess, I missed you,” Shane says quietly, his voice barely over a whisper, but of course Ilya hears him because Ilya is so attuned to Shane, he would be able to hear the near silent swish of Shane’s stick from across a whole rink before it slams into the puck.

What can Ilya say in response to that? That he missed him too? Of course he fucking missed Shane Hollander. Ilya nearly killed himself to stop missing him.

After an unbearably long silence, Shane asks, “If I texted again, would that be okay?”

“What?” Ilya’s eyes narrow. He lowers his voice to a menacing hiss, extremely aware that all of the walls have ears in Russia. “You think I am so desperate for you that I will come crawling back with the mere promise of more texts?”

Shane flushes. “Kind of.” He swallows and looks Ilya dead in the eye. “Shit, yes, I do.”

And, fuck, if Ilya Rozanov has one weakness, it is a Shane Hollander who knows his worth and is not afraid to beat everyone over the head with it, beat Ilya over the head with it.

Shane’s gaze flicks up and down Ilya’s body, and whatever he sees there lets Shane relax for the first time since he climbed into the overlook.

God, Ilya will never get tired of that expression on Shane’s face, that half scared, half awed look when he realizes how much Ilya wants him. “Okay.” Ilya unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “You will send more boring texts now?”

Shane lets out a small laugh. “I mean, I can try to make them more boring, if you’d like.”

Ilya does not say he would like, no matter how much he wants to. Instead, he lies, “Like that is possible.” He turns back to the rink below as the crowd erupts in cheers. “Go, now. Before anyone wonders what the fuck we are doing up here.”

Shane leaves with a smile, and Ilya watches him go trying to hide his own.

Fuck, Sveta is going to kill him.

* * *

Unlike in his past life, Ilya leaves Sochi feeling like the king of the fucking world, no, the universe. Russia made it to the quarterfinal. Shane missed him.

So, his first bad night at the beginning of March takes him completely by surprise. He tries to shake it by texting Shane and taking Price and Marley out to his favorite bar, but on the third day that he wakes up feeling like shit for no discernible reason – Shane was back, the Bears were on a fucking tear, he had not gotten a phone call from Papa in a week – he books an appointment with Yulia Davidovich.

“So, walk me through your daily schedule,” Yulia says in Russian, as usual. “What were you doing before this most recent incident?”

“Normal stuff,” Ilya says, scowling. “Game on Tuesday night. Day off Wednesday. Felt awful Thursday. Was late for practice. Barely got out of bed for game Friday.”

Yulia nods. “What did you do for recreation?”

Ilya makes a face. “I don’t have time for recreation.”

“But you had a day off on Wednesday,” Yulia points out. “What did you do?”

Ilya shrugs. “Worked out a little bit. Watched TV. The usual.”

“Do you enjoy working out?”

Ilya shrugs again. “It’s alright.”

“Okay,” Yulia starts. “I think that is where you start changing things.”

God, no wonder he took so long to go back to therapy. Do all therapist speak like this, vague enough to appear helpful while not really being helpful at all? “What?” he asks, “Where?”

“Finding a hobby,” Yulia explains. “Something to do in your off hours that you actually enjoy.”

Ilya huffs, “I already did that years ago. I tried yoga. I did puzzles. I cooked. None really stuck with me.”

“Were these all new things?”

Ilya nods.

“Then I recommend going back to an old hobby,” Yulia says. “One that you liked before but maybe didn’t have time for when you were drafted or became captain.”

Ilya wracks his brains for any hobby that does not involve Shane, hockey, or having sex with Shane. “Smoking?”

Yulia’s smile evaporates. “Probably not,” she deadpans.

Ilya rolls his eyes. “I didn’t have many hobbies. I’m a professional athlete; all my time was spent training and skating.”

“Skating, then,” Yulia suggests.

“I should skate in my free time?” Ilya says dubiously. Is Yulia determined to make Ilya into a Shane-copy? What is next, should he go on a macrobiotic diet and subscribe to “Architectural Digest”?

Yulia shrugs. “If that is what you want.”

“I do not know what I want!” Ilya says, frustrated. “That’s why I am here. So you can tell me what to do.”

Yulia’s lips thin. “My job isn’t to tell you what to do. It’s to provide an impartial ear for you to talk about things without fear of judgment or repercussion and guide you through treatment plans for your depression. I think you already know this, Ilya.”

Ilya just scowls. Technically, yes, he does. Galina said as much every time Ilya demanded to know why she hadn’t fixed him yet.

“But back to the skating issue,” Yulia says. “There has to be more to skating than hockey.”

Ilya makes a face. “There’s figure skating,” he says. “But I don’t do that.”

Yulia smiles. “I am sure there are many people who would love to see you figure skate.”

“Probably. They’ll be disappointed.” Ilya scrunches up his face as he thinks. “There are beer leagues, but that would be useless because I’m so much better than the other players. I’d just tell them what to do, and coaches don’t like that.”

Yulia straightens in her seat. “Coaching.”

“What?”

“Have you thought about coaching?” Yulia asks. “Not beer league, but maybe for children?” She continues, “When we are feeling low, helping others can really help ourselves. Usually, I recommend something with children, the elderly, or animals. It can give us a new sense of purpose, if we’re feeling adrift or unhappy with the direction other things are going.”

“No elderly,” Ilya says at once. “My father…” he drifts off, and Yulia nods understandingly. They will save that for another session.

“But children or animals?”

Ilya grins, feeling almost buoyant. “Both. I will do both.” Kids loved him at the Game Changers Hockey Camp. More than Shane, even though they were more intimidated and impressed by him. Certainly more than grandpa Hunter or the fifteenth best Voyageurs player.

Yulia lets out an almost imperceptible sigh. “Well, let nobody tell you that you do not aim high.”

Ilya inquires at the community rink the next day, but the front office gets so inundated with questions and requests once they just mention Ilya’s name, they have to bring in management to weigh in. It becomes a whole thing, and Ilya tells them to get back in touch with him over the summer or anytime after playoffs.

Ilya starts volunteering at a local dog rescue the next week. The shelter workers are a bit skeptical about his lack of experience, but once they see his Twitter following and Instagram subscriber count, they welcome him aboard. None of them are hockey fans and have no idea who he is.

The Bears continue their rampage up the rankings, working up to a six-game winning streak against Philadelphia, New Jersey, Tampa, Toronto, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh.

In March, Boston’s next matchup against Montreal looms large.

Things with Shane have been going… okay. Ilya is working with Yulia to manage his expectations, remind himself that he cannot control Shane’s feelings or actions, only his own. The kind of bullshit he knows logically, but he always seems to forget when he is alone in a room with a mostly-naked Shane Hollander.

“I worry he won’t ever want to be with me,” he admits to Yulia after they spend fifteen minutes talking around Shane. “Exclusively,” he sniffs, “boyfriends, you know,” he adds unnecessarily because he really does not like how Yulia lets silence sit between them and tries to put it off as long as possible.

“That is a heavy worry,” Yulia says eventually. “What would your life be like, if that was the case?”

Ilya swallows. “Empty.”

Yulia taps her fingers against her knee. “Are you sure about that?”

Ilya sighs loudly because she is not subtle when she is leading him to a point. “No.”

“No, is right,” Yulia says. “You have your team and a job you like.”

“That’s true,” Ilya begrudgingly admits.

“And how have things been going at the shelter?”

“Great,” Ilya says truthfully. “It’s hard, not to adopt all the dogs.”

Yulia smiles. “You know, you can adopt one. We’ve talked about this before.”

Ilya shakes his head. “I know. I’m waiting for the right one.”

“Could you foster in the meantime?” Yulia suggests. “You mentioned a few sessions ago that it is very hard on you to come back to an empty home.”

Ilya makes a face. “Take in a puppy, love it, only to give it back a month later? No, thank you. My heart is already broken enough.”

“That is fair,” Yulia says. “But, overall, you are enjoying your time at the shelter, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Yulia says. “And we also talked more about letting in Price and Marley, to deepen your friendships there. How has that been going?”

Ilya exhales a slow breath. “Fine,” he says. “Price is easier – he knows I see you, so I can talk about this stuff with him. Marley… Marley is harder.”

“Because you think he would react badly if you broached difficult subjects with him?”

“No,” Ilya says slowly, “I’m certain he would want to know. He was the one who found me in December. He called the ambulance. He called Sveta, my emergency contact. But he hasn’t brought it up, and,” he slumps back on the couch in Yulia’s office, “it’s – it’s just embarrassing.”

“You told me, you once saw Marley trip over his own feet and knock over a whole box of donuts,” Yulia says helpfully, “and eat one off the floor.”

Ilya snorts at the memory. “He is much more coordinated on the ice.”

“I hope that is the case,” Yulia says diplomatically. “But, what I’m saying is, we do embarrassing things all the time. It is unpleasant, true, but sometimes it is worth it to be vulnerable if we achieve a greater intimacy in return. I imagine if, during tomorrow’s practice, you trip over your own skates –”

“Ha!” Ilya crosses his arms over his chest. “As if.”

“– You will be quicker to brush it off in front of Marley than a different player,” Yulia continues as if Ilya did not interrupt at all.

After a beat, Ilya mutters, “Marley is such a good guy. Always happy. Always with friends. I don’t want to upset him.”

“I understand that,” Yulia says. “But it will be a momentary upset. Lows are always less low with someone to share it with. And highs are always better shared, too.”

Ilya used to share everything with Shane, so he knows this is true.

“And Marley is human,” Yulia reminds him. “Nobody is always happy all the time. Maybe, he is hiding his less happy moments just like you are. Maybe, if you tell him about your difficulties, he will feel less pressure to keep up the same good face you do.”

Ilya frowns and changes the subject.

That evening, before he can lose his nerve, Ilya takes Marley to the stickiest dive bar in Boston. They share a pitcher of gross American beer, and Ilya tells the wooden table between them that, in April, the only person he ever loved dumped him, and it started a slow – and then fast – spiral down to the bottom of that bottle of red wine.

“Christ,” Marley says, his mouth hanging open. “That’s fucking insane, dude.”

“Quite,” Ilya says succinctly. He takes a large gulp of beer, grimacing at the taste.

“I mean, I knew something was up –”

“Yes,” Ilya interrupts, “the Bears do not draft blind people –”

“But I would’ve never pictured you as a romantic, Roz,” Marley says loudly. “I – well it seems stupid now.”

“Say it,” Ilya sighs. “It really cannot be stupider than I have been.”

Marley flushes. “I thought you had some girl back in Russia, or something. That’s why you never went home with anyone.”

“No, not in Russia, no.” Ilya curls his lip. “She lives in Canada.”

Marley winces. “Still long distance, though. That blows.”

“I do miss the blowjobs,” Ilya says mournfully. “She loved blowing me, too. Would almost come from sucking me off.”

Marley cracks up, and the tightness in Ilya’s chest he had ineffectively been trying to water down with beer finally loosens.

* * *

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Are you doing okay now?
Ilya: Of course; Harper hits like toddler; No force no coordination; Might be brain damage
Shane: I’m sure he doesn’t have brain damage.; No, I meant after the hospital stay.
Ilya: What hospital??; Nobody went to the hospital
Shane: You went to the hospital after our last game.

Ilya stares at his phone. Carefully, he sets down his coffee and rereads Shane’s latest text. But it is in plain English. Even though it makes no sense.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: That was in December Hollander
Shane: So? We weren’t talking in December.

Ilya groans and just stops himself from writing and whose fault was that. He drains his coffee and rinses out the mug in the sink to waste time.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: I am fine
Shane: I’m glad.; It wasn’t from the game, right?
Ilya: No
Shane: Good! I was pretty sure, and the tapes didn’t show anything, but I just wanted to check.; What happened?

Ilya thunks his head down on the kitchen counter, groaning. Why the fuck is Shane bringing this up now?

He straightens, fingers hovering above his phone keyboard. What can he possibly say to Shane? Not the truth, obviously – Ilya just got him back. Shane cannot know all of Ilya’s bullshit and baggage if he has any hope of making this work again.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: Partied too hard
Shane: Seriously??

Ilya scowls at his phone.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: Yes, you do not know this, but parties are where people have fun and drink lots of alcohol
Shane: Fuck off.; You're the captain! You should set a better example.
Ilya: Relax; Was just me; Nobody on the team was there
Shane: Marlow was with you in the hospital pictures.
Ilya: There are pictures??
Shane: Yeah, they went around Twitter for a day or so.

Great, just fucking great.

It takes about ten minutes, but Ilya finds them eventually. He scans his pixellated face, wan and looking like shit, and a fresh wave of shame washes over him. Marley does not look much better.

моя любовь 🍁

Ilya: What the fuck; US hospital has more spies than Soviet Russia
Shane: Sorry.
Ilya: Were you worried about me?
Shane: Obviously.; But we weren’t talking, so.

Warmth blossoms from deep in Ilya’s chest. He tries not to read too much into it.

* * *

“Oh, Ilya, thank god!” Heather says as Ilya steps in, fifteen minutes late. The Bears lost yesterday, a home game against Brooklyn they should have won. But somehow everything went wrong in the third period, and Ilya could not rally his team together. It was a bad night, and a bad morning too, if Ilya is being honest.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard about the beagle mill the authorities shut down last weekend in Vermont,” Heather continues, “but we took 20 of the puppies, and it’s all hands on deck today. We’ve staggered applicants as best we can, but we need everyone we can spare in the puppy room to answer questions and clean up.” She gives him a thin smile. “Puppies shit so much, oh my god.”

Ilya has never seen the puppy room so crowded. Twelve adults are crammed inside, trying not to step on or in anything, and at least three children are laying on the concrete floor, covered in dogs.

Not up for much talking, Ilya takes over cleaning duties, leaving Caitlin with a C and Sigal to explain puppy care and make sure nobody goes home with the wrong dog.

He scrubs and scrubs, squirting bleach at every questionable puddle and smear. After an hour, the fumes finally get to him, and he excuses himself for a breather. He does not have a full blown headache, but it will get there if he does not stop.

God, he should never have quit smoking.

So instead of heading outside for a real break, he ducks inside the indoor playroom. He waves to Katelyn with a K, off in the corner, half on her phone, half supervising four adult dogs. Two are running around; one is cowering under the slide; and the last has parked itself in front of the viewing window, tongue lolling, tail wagging, and jumping every time someone walks past.

“What are their names?” Ilya asks Katelyn with a K the next time she looks up.

“Those two are Harley and Pigeon,” she says, pointing to the two wrestling with each other. “That’s Luna,” she says, indicating the overeager dog by the door.

Ilya smiles. Luna is clearly going to get herself adopted, come hell or high water.

“And our disappearing act is Antonia,” Katelyn with a K finishes.

Ilya picks up a tennis ball and throws it at the wall a few times. Harley and Pigeon pause at the first smack of the tennis ball against the floor, but they go back to wrestling with each other without chasing it.

Luna barks and goes skittering after the tennis ball as Ilya aims it slightly closer to her, but she also loses interest after two throws.

He glances at his watch. Twelve minutes have passed, definitely enough for his head to recover, and Heather did mention they needed him in the puppy room. He pushes himself off the wall and turns to leave, but movement at the corner of his eye makes him pause.

Antonia is wiggling back under the slide, his eyes never deviating from the tennis ball in Ilya’s hand. She is some sort of medium-sized Staffordshire terrier mix, with a large head, triangle ears that flop over, and short blue-brown fur with a white stripe up her nose and in the center of her chest.

Ilya pauses, and Antonia freezes too.

“Here,” Katelyn with a K says, tossing Ilya a Ziploc bag of dog treats. “See if you can get her to come out.”

“Okay.” Ilya crouches a few feet away from the slide, giving Antonia plenty of room to escape if she wants. “Hi,” he says. He holds out the tennis ball. “You like?”

Antonia just stares, her eyes big and brown.

Ilya gently tosses the ball at the wall, and Antonia does not move.

Ilya frowns. He offers Antonia a treat, but that is not enough, either, to tempt her away from her hiding place.

Ilya gets to his feet, retrieves the ball himself, and tries again.

Nothing from Antonia.

“Maybe she’s not a ball dog,” Katelyn with a K says helpfully.

Ilya shakes his head. “No, she wants it,” he says determinedly without looking away from Antonia. “I know she does.”

Antonia lays her head down on her paws, judging him. Ilya tries not to feel insulted. He throws ball twice more, and, when that does not work, he waves another treat in front of Antonia’s face.

Antonia huffs a massive sigh, like Ilya is the one being difficult.

“Shut up,” Ilya mutters, shoulders slumping. Fuck it, why did he even try? Maybe he does not understand dogs nearly as well as he thought he did. Getting one, caring for one, was always a pipe dream. It would not be the first time he has made this mistake.

Ilya hurls the tennis ball to the other end of the playroom out of pure frustration.

Antonia goes tearing after it, nails scrabbling on the hard floor, paws flying.

“Oh,” Katelyn with a K says, laughing a little to herself. “I guess she just likes a challenge.”

Ilya smirks, vindication surging through his entire body. So, Antonia just has standards. Ilya understands that. He does too.

When Antonia returns, ball clutched tight in mouth, looking smug, Ilya pats her once on the head. “Good girl, Tonya.”

He fills out the adoption paperwork that evening.

* * *

Ilya stares so long at the text the screen goes dark. Around him, the visitor’s locker room atmosphere is jubilant. They did, in fact, send Montreal home crying this time, 3-8 Bears, and everyone was so fucking relieved to come back out on top. “Marley!” Ilya hisses, his panic rising. “I need to talk to you.”

Marley’s head pops through the neck hole of his shirt. “What?”

Ilya thrusts his phone in Marley’s face.

моя любовь 🍁

Shane: Come to mine after the game?; That was some beautiful skating.

“What do I do?”

Marley grabs Ilya’s phone and scans the message.

Ilya groans, “I want to. But I should not, yes?”

Marley stares at him, disbelief written all over his face. “Hold on, is this…?”

“My Montreal girl, yes,” Ilya says impatiently.

“Oh, fuck. A maple leaf emoji?” Marley smirks. “You so fucking corny, Roz.”

“Russians are not corny!” Ilya’s mouth drops open in horror. “Clearly I am delusional if I think you are any help at all.” He reaches for his phone, but Marley quickly holds it up out of reach.

A couple of heads turn at the wide sweep of Marley’s arm, and Ilya’s hissed Russian swears.

“Marlow,” Ilya spits in warning.

“Oh, full-named by Cap?” Carmy taunts. “Someone is in trou-ble!”

“Shut up,” Marley says with a broad grin. “Show of hands, everybody! Oy, listen up!”

More heads turn, and Ilya’s face burns.

“Cap’s girl is booty calling him,” Marley explains as Ilya rears back to kick him in the balls. “Should he go? She fucked him over last time. Real bad. Was not very nice to our dear captain.”

“How good was the sex, Cap?” Hammersmith demands.

Lotto and the other two rookies, Dubek and Latreille, hoot and holler.

“Fucking amazing,” Marley cuts in before Ilya can get a word out. “Roz said she once almost came from giving head.”

Vicky mimes being shot in the heart. Connor’s face scrunches as he says, “That’s not possible.” Dubek makes a disbelieving fart noise with his mouth.

“It is,” Marley disagrees. “And,” he glances at Ilya. “What’s her name?”

Ilya crosses his arms over his chest. “Jane,” he says begrudgingly because clearly there is no shutting this down now.

“She lives in Canada,” Marley continues. “Montreal?” he asks Ilya.

“No, she lives in Calgary.” Ilya throws up his hands. “Of fucking course she lives in Montreal, if she is calling me. How many concussions have you had, Marley?”

“Yeah, Cap definitely needs to get laid,” Vicky says. “Go for it.”

“Shut up, Vicky.”

“Is she hot?” Dubek demands.

Ilya glares daggers.

Dubek holds his hands up in a gesture of no-harm. “’m just saying. You finally beat Hollander on points – that’s something to celebrate for real. You don’t want to end today’s game with an ugly bitch and bad sex.”

Ilya is up in Dubek’s face before he even consciously registers moving. “You say Jane is bad at sex one more time,” he snarls, “and I will rip your dick off myself, and you will truly know what bad sex feels like.”

Dubek gulps.

“The way she moans when I’m buried inside her – like nothing I have ever heard before. Always so eager for my dick, I like to keep her begging for it long before her knees hit the floor. And so desperate to please me, is always down to try anything I want.”

“Cap –”

“Jesus Christ, did you take a trip to Stepford before Montreal?” Hammersmith asks, flabbergasted.

Ilya turns to Marley. “Stepford?”

“Like, The Stepford Wives,” Larsson explains instead. “Sex robots.”

“Jane is not a sex robot,” Ilya says, stung. “She is just happy to see me.”

“There’s happy, and then there’s that,” Carmy says as, next to him, Connors nods in agreement.

Ilya takes a step back from Dubek, as he tries to get his temper under control. “We do not see each other often, with the distance. Makes the times we do see each other more… intense.”

“She must be a fucking smoke show,” Marley marvels.

“Yeah, what’s she look like, Cap?” Lotto asks. “You got a pic?”

“No,” Ilya blurts.

Marley raises his eyebrows.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“She is an athlete,” Ilya explains, glaring around the room. “Do not want any of you chucklefucks bothering her on Instagram or jerking off to her advertisements. So, no. No pics.”

Marley whistles. “She’s a fucking model?”

“If she exists at all,” Dubek mutters. “Girlfriend from Canada, really?”

Ilya sucker punches him in the jaw.

Ilya Grigoreyvich Rozanov does not make empty threats. He is still cursing out Dubek in Russian as Vicky and Marley pull him off and the Assistant Coach rushes in.

They haul him off to talk to management, and Ilya slavically bears a twenty-minute lecture and discussions of banning him from the next game, which ultimately go nowhere because they are too close to the playoffs to bench the captain and leading scorer on the team.

Once Ilya is cleared to leave, he stalks out of the room and nearly stops short at the sight of Marley, waiting for him.

“Not very captainly of you,” Marley says conversationally as he pushes off the wall where he had been leaning.

“Shut up,” Ilya barks as he heads towards the visitor’s exit. “This is all your fault.”

Marley laughs. “Yeah, probably.”

“Why did you tell everybody? I thought –” Ilya breaks off, unsure where that sentence is actually going.

“Jane sounds awesome, apart from the whole dumping you part,” Marley says. “I thought it’d be nice for you to talk to the team about her.”

Ilya scowls. “You are sure you are not concussed?”

Marley rolls his eyes. “Come on, we were okay when Hammy was going through his separation with Miranda. Just think, that could be you!”

“We got blackout drunk and totaled two golf carts,” Ilya says flatly.

“And it was a ton of fun,” Marley protests. “And Hammy didn’t have to get his stomach pumped in the ER four hours later, did he?”

Ilya purses his lips. He says nothing.

“I’m just saying,” Marley hitches his bag higher up his shoulder. “Seems like you had nobody to talk to about this. I fixed it.”

“Oh my god. Do not fix anything ever again,” Ilya groans as they head out into the parking lot.

“Fine, fine,” Marley says, holding up his hands. “So… are you going to see Jane now?”

Ilya scowls as turns onto Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montreal to catch a cab. “Fuck off, Marley.”

“You love me, dude!” Marley calls, blowing kisses as he turns heel in the direction of their hotel.

Ilya flips him off, fighting a reluctant grin.

* * *

“Hi,” Shane says as the door swings open.

“Hello,” Ilya returns politely as he kicks his shoes off. The contrition hits him instantly; he bends down to place them neatly on the rack.

He straightens to find Shane staring at him. Shane opens his mouth to say something, but Ilya covers it with his own before Shane can get a word out.

Ilya does not need reminders about the strict terms of their relationship. The lines are clear. No going to each other’s games. No meeting David and Yuna. Probably no staying over. Friendship only, and even that is on thin ice.

So Ilya must make this time count.

He licks into Shane’s mouth and crowds him against the wall, one hand scratching down the nape of Shane’s neck, the other cupping his jaw, pressing in his nails a little, just the way Shane likes.

“God, Ilya,” Shane gasps once Ilya lets him up for air, kissing a haphazard path over the freckles dotting his cheeks. He sucks at Shane’s pulse point, worrying the skin just enough for Shane to go weak in the knees, and not enough to leave a mark Shane would freak out about later.

“Missed you,” Ilya purrs as his hands travel down, down, skimming past Shane’s waist to grope his ass and get a good grip. “Missed this.”

“I – fuck!”

Ilya grins as he hikes Shane higher against his body, and Shane instinctively grabs onto his shoulders not to fall backwards. His powerful legs squeeze around Ilya’s middle, and luckily all of Ilya’s blood is already south of the equator, or he would be in real trouble.

“Ilya,” Shane groans, half reluctantly impressed, half turned on. “What the hell are you doing?”

Ilya presses a swift kiss to the divot between Shane’s collar bones, the easiest spot to reach without disturbing their combined center of gravity. “What does it look like?” he grunts as he starts moving. “I am taking you to bed, Hollander.”

“Oh.” Shane blinks. “Don’t drop me.”

Ilya snorts as they round the corner to the bedroom. “I will not drop you. I am strong.” Stronger than anyone else Shane is hooking up with, that is for sure. His fingers dig into the meat of Shane’s considerable thighs.

“Fuck yes, you are,” Shane agrees dazedly.

Ilya gently lowers him onto the bed, laughing a little as Shane tugs his shirt over his head, and it snags on his elbow.

“Eager?” Ilya asks, amused, as Shane’s head pops free, scowling adorably.

“Shut up.” He wastes no time in reaching for the hem of Ilya’s shirt too. “Need to feel you.”

Once Ilya is properly half-naked, he plasters himself to Shane’s front. He does not care if Shane just wants to get off and get it over with. Ilya will take his time. He captures Shane’s mouth again, kissing him all over, his bottom lip, the side of his mouth.

“Ilya,” Shane groans as his hard on, barely contained by Shane’s worn sweatpants, rubs insistently against Ilya’s hip.

“No,” Ilya says simply as he goes back to kissing him, peppering kisses all over his freckles.

“Ilya,” Shane tries again. “Come on,” he says, squirming.

“Hollander,” Ilya says, drawing the syllables out, “After everything, you will lie here and take it. You will not be a brat. You will not rush me. You owe me.”

Shane stares up at him. “Are you guilting me into letting you call the shots?”

Ilya raises his eyebrows. “Do you want to be good for me?”

Shane gulps.

“Is what I thought,” Ilya says smugly as massages Shane’s pec, kneading the muscle with the heel of his hand as fingertips brush tantalizingly over Shane’s nipple. He bends down to lick and kiss down his torso, worshiping Shane’s body like no trainer, no physical therapist, no other lover can. He gently pulls at the tied drawstring of Shane’s pants.

“Up, Hollander.” He lightly taps Shane’s hip, and Shane obligingly lifts, so Ilya can slide his sweatpants off and toss them off the side of the bed. “Beautiful,” Ilya murmurs as he feasts his eyes on Shane, splayed out before him, completely nude except for his snow white crew socks. His erection bobs obscenely against his stomach, almost maroon with Shane’s need.

“Shut up,” Shane mumbles, embarrassed. His cheeks darken, his blush spreading across his face. “Why aren’t you naked yet?”

“Because,” Ilya says before he swallows Shane down in one go.

“Fuck!”

Ilya pulls off just far enough to swirl his tongue around the head of Shane’s cock, making Shane hiss another curse.

“Ilya,” Shane moans.

Ilya laves a sloppy stripe up and down, getting Shane all nice and and dripping with a slippery mix of precum and spit. With his slick fingers, he teases Shane’s balls and takes him in his mouth again, not stopping his descent until he can lick around the root of Shane’s dick.

Shane whimpers, hips twisting this way and that, like he cannot decide if he wants more or less of Ilya’s mouth and fingers.

Ilya sets a brutal pace, working over Shane’s cock until he is a mewling mess. Just as Shane’s face screws up, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, Ilya lightly teases Shane’s hole, digging a nail into the sensitive skin for that perfect prick of pain that drives Shane wild, and that is all it takes for Shane to spill down his throat.

As Shane’s chest heaves with the aftershocks of his orgasm, Ilya finally ditches his pants. He crawls back over Shane, drinking in the light sheen of sweat on at his temples, inhaling the faint scent of his pine-scented deodorant, already faint from the effort of evening’s activities. “You ready to start, Hollander?” he breathes against Shane’s ear.

Shane raises his eyebrows. “We haven’t gotten started yet?”

Ilya pulls back to kiss him deeply. “No,” he says as he finally pulls off, licking his lips. He folds Shane in half and gets to work.

He takes his time opening Shane up even though Shane is so relaxed from coming he does not need much prep. But that is no a reason to skip to the end, so Ilya makes Shane writhe and curse on his fingers, getting his hole slick and messy, doing everything he can to make this sex unforgettable for Shane.

When Ilya finally slides inside that tight heat, he nearly cries. God, it has been so long, and Shane feels so good, squeezing him like he will never let go.

Afterwards, Ilya does not ask to stay, and Shane does not offer. But he lingers until nearly one in the morning, a full hour after Shane’s normal bedtime on game days, and Shane does not kick him out.

In the car back to the hotel, Ilya leans back, closes his eyes, and breathes. Tonight went as well as he could have hoped. Shane did not realize how much Ilya was holding back. He had no idea how much Ilya needs him.

Hell, he did not even notice that Ilya never said his first name all night.

* * *

Winning the Stanley Cup is just as exhilarating as the first time.

And because he and Shane are still friends, he gets to invite Shane out to celebrate. Shane refuses, point-blank, to go to the game itself, but he comes out to the third club the Bears hit up; by that point, the older teammates have long gone and the younger ones are too shitfaced to even remember their mothers’ names, let alone Shane Hollander’s.

Shane even drinks a tequila shot, so Ilya counts the wins where he gets them. And he got a pretty fucking big win tonight.

They head back to Ilya’s house, and Shane gets on his knees, and Ilya comes within two minutes. It would be embarrassing except for the fact that Shane comes five minutes later with Ilya’s fingers in his ass and tongue down his throat.

As they wait out their respective refractory periods, Ilya puts on ESPN and lays down with his head in Shane’s lap. If Shane asks, Ilya will blame his clingyness on the alcohol and cup endorphins.

As Shane tentatively runs his fingers through his hair, Ilya can almost imagine the dark floor to ceiling windows beyond show the Canadian wilderness and a lake filled with loons, and not a bland Boston suburb.

They never did this before their fight, even when they stayed over at each other’s houses. Ilya could never relax enough, driven by the burning, all-consuming need to wring as much pleasure out of Shane as he could because, somehow, someway, if Ilya gave him enough orgasms, Shane could decide he was worth keeping around for more.

A slow moment like this would normally make him hopeful because it already feels like more, but Ilya has learned by now never to trust his own hope.

Maybe Shane will never love him. Maybe Shane will only fall in love with him in 2017, like last time. Maybe Shane will take even longer because Ilya has changed too much. Ilya can almost, barely, come around to accepting either scenario. Yulia is right; he will have to work for it, but he can be okay with or without Shane.

He really does not see himself falling for anyone else – if the many people he slept with before Shane did not catch his eye, nobody will – but, for the second time in his life, he can see himself living past the age of thirty.

He pulls up his most recent text conversation and tells Price that, as soon as his back is feeling better, they will go to a concert together. The Boston Pops are doing an evening of Shostakovich soon, Ilya saw. They will do Russian music night for him, and next time they will find a violin soloist for Price.

Ilya checks his messages for an update from the dog hotel where Tonya is temporarily staying. He smiles. Apparently she made a friend, a loud husky named Kubo that is also a frequent guest.

Shit, that reminds him; he has to drag Marley to the shelter in a week when they are done with their Stanley Cup win obligations – Harley is his twin in dog form, complete with the wild curly hair and ability to effortlessly befriend everyone within a five mile radius. Marley will love him, and Ilya will laugh himself sick if Marley actually adopts a dog named Harley.

Ilya sets his phone down and rolls over to bury his face into Shane’s stomach.

“You’re missing the power play,” Shane murmurs.

“Shhh, Hollander. Is a replay,” Ilya grumbles. “I was there. I played it the first time. I do not need to see it again.”

Shane’s warm, familiar hands gently massage Ilya’s scalp. “But it’s such beautiful skating. You’re really magnificent out there, Ilya.”

Ilya curls into a tighter ball. Forget a malfunctioning plane, hope will be the thing that kills Ilya Rozanov.

Chapter End Notes

Last chapter up on Sunday!

Chapter 5: Boyfriends

Chapter Summary

“I – I guess I had a weird dream last night. Still trying to shake it off.”

Ilya sags with relief. “All this,” he gestures up and down Shane’s tense body, “For a bad dream?” He laughs.

“It was a really bad one,” Shane insists, but he is beginning to smile.

“Hm, must have been,” Ilya teases as he steps closer. “What happened, did the Voyageurs get knocked out of the playoff because they played like shit against Philadelphia, and I won the Stanley Cup before you? Oh, wait.”

Chapter Notes

And I don't want to be alone
Sky, don't let the sun go
I'm not ready for the darkness
Swear upon a heartless soul
And I don't want to cry when you go
Stay a little longer, you know
You're making me feel
The monsters aren't real
You're making me feel not alone
From Sara Bareilles, "Not Alone"

See the end of the chapter for more notes

At the 2014 NHL Awards, Ilya cannot find Shane backstage. He checks his watch and his phone, frowning at Shane’s last text message from last night. Something boring about hating the lines the NHL wrote for them.

Personally, Ilya could not be happier with them. None of that stupid, let’s-make-nice for the cameras and an unscripted selfie. No, this time they have some equally stupid back-and-forth about Shane teaching Ilya about sportsmanlike conduct.

Ilya is good to his team. He is good to his archrival team captain, and he does not publicly call out the Admirals’ GM for elder abuse (much). Surely, this is good enough?

Whatever. Even dying cannot turn Ilya into being a good sportsman, apparently.

“Hollander!” Ilya hisses as he scans the left wing before sprinting around to check the right one, again. “Hollander?” he tries even though there’s nobody awkwardly standing around with dark hair, freckles, and that ass. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself. He pokes his head into the bathroom to find a familiar head is bowed over the sink.

Ilya sags with relief. “Hollander,” he says as Shane’s head whips up to stare at him at the sound of his name. “What the fuck are you doing? We are on in five seconds!”

“Fifty seconds,” Shane corrects automatically.

“Yes, fifty seconds, is what I said.” Ilya gestures at him impatiently. “Come – ” he breaks off. “What is wrong?”

Because something is undeniably wrong if Shane’s face is making that expression, eyes rimmed with red, hair a mess like he had been tugging at it, lips bitten nearly raw.

“Nothing,” Shane says, clamming up immediately.

Ilya frowns. “Such a bad liar,” he sighs fondly. “But no time for that.” He reaches out to pull Shane out of the bathroom, and Shane’s eyes go so huge the moment Ilya’s fingers wrap around his elbow, Ilya nearly lets go.

They troop on stage, Ilya shooting Shane one last concerned look before the cameras zoom in.

They recite the script, more or less. Shane flubs his lines twice, which only ratchets up Ilya’s concern. Shane loathes public speaking and rehearses religiously to get every word exactly right. If he is making mistakes in front of hundreds of people – well, Ilya does not think about what must be going on in his head.

After the cameras pan out, Ilya all but marches Shane straight back to that bathroom.

“Okay,” he says as he crosses his arms over his chest as he parks Shane right by the sink, under the best light for Ilya’s scrutiny. “What is going on?”

“Nothing,” Shane repeats.

“Bah.” Ilya waves the word away. “‘Nothing’ my ass, Hollander. I know you. Something is wrong.”

“You know me…” Shane repeats in a funny tone of voice, “because we are friends.”

Ilya goes cold. Shane wants to do this here? In this filthy bathroom after Ilya just won the cup and is about to win MVP? Shane wants to rip Ilya’s heart to shreds, right now? He tries to swallow down his panic. “Yes, we are friends.”

“Oh,” Shane says blankly. “Good.”

“Yes, is good,” he agrees with a frown. “But you, you are not so good. What is going on?”

“Nothing,” Shane claims for the third time. “I – I guess I had a weird dream last night. Still trying to shake it off.”

Ilya nearly faints dead away against the broken hand dryer. “All this,” he gestures up and down Shane’s tense body, “For a bad dream?” He laughs.

“It was a really bad one,” Shane insists, but he is beginning to smile.

“Hm, must have been,” Ilya teases as he steps closer. “What happened, did the Voyageurs get knocked out of the playoff because they played like shit against Philadelphia, and I won the Stanley Cup before you? Oh, wait.”

Shane’s smile widens, and he shoves Ilya lightly. “You’re such an asshole.”

Ilya grins back at him. “You can have the cup next year. My treat.”

“Oh, if I win, it will all be because of you?” Shane asks, amused.

“Yes, I am very generous like that,” Ilya agrees. “Good sportsman, that is me, Ilya Rozanov.”

Shane dissolves into laughter, and Ilya joins in. “Come,” he says as Shane wipes tears from the corners of his eyes. “We have to get back out there sometime.”

“Now?” Shane asks, biting his lip.

Ilya blinks, his gaze zeroing in on Shane’s big, dark eyes. Slowly, he says, “I suppose not.”

Apparently that is all the signal Shane need to sink to his knees. Holy shit. Ilya is not hard, but that does not deter Shane in the slightest. He nuzzles Ilya’s crotch, rubbing his face, his mouth, his cheeks, against the smooth fabric of Ilya’s tuxedo pants as hands skim up the back of Ilya’s legs, over his hamstrings, digging into the muscle of his thighs. With his nose pressed to Ilya’s clothed cock, Shane inhales deeply, sighing a little, like there is nowhere else on Earth he would rather be.

“Fuck, fuck,” Ilya mutters as he quickly pushes his briefs and slacks down in one shove before all the precum gushing out of his cock becomes visible. They have a whole awards show party to get through, and if Scott Hunter notices a jizz stain on Ilya’s pants, Ilya will kill the dinosaur and then himself.

Shane takes him in one long, glorious swallow.

“Fuck, Hollander,” Ilya groans as he struggle to remain upright on weak knees.

Shane’s mouth is perfect, hot, and so fucking wet, he is practically drooling. Shane swallows around him again and again, throat muscles contracting in a delicious squeeze around the unbearably sensitive head of Ilya’s cock.

“Yes,” he hisses through clenched teeth as he rests his hand on the back of Shane’s head. “Suck me.”

Shane, ever the good boy, does just that. He pulls off slightly, only to wrap his hand around Ilya’s shaft before Ilya can complain at the loss of pressure. As he starts to jerk Ilya off, he keeps sucking at the head, laving his tongue over it in broad, messy strokes.

“Fuck, you are so good at this,” Ilya breathes.

Shane makes a little whimpering noise at the praise, and Ilya’s fingers spasm in Shane’s hair as he comes without warning, spilling down Shane’s throat. A punched-out groan escapes him that he just muffles in time with his arm, biting down hard on his sleeve.

“I,” Ilya pants, “I am sorry.”

Shane wipes his chin with the back of his hand. “Why?”

“Did not tell you,” he says, gesturing to Shane’s mouth as Shane gets to his feet. Fuck, English is hard.

Shane snorts. “I don’t care,” he says as he starts to wash his hands.

Ilya tries to step closer, but his legs refuse to cooperate, so he stays where he is. “Do you want…?” he drifts off, waving at Shane’s own crotch, the fabric tenting obscenely.

“No,” Shane says to Ilya’s surprise. “I want to wait.”

“Wait for what?” Ilya asks, completely bemused.

“For when I can take my time with you,” Shane says as he adjusts himself and bypasses Ilya to hold open the bathroom door. “Come on, you have an MVP award to accept.”

Ilya follows him out. “How do you know I will win? You are also nominated.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t win the Stanley Cup, did I?” Shane asks wryly. “They’d be insane not to give it to you after all you did this season.”

Ilya blushes. “Fuck off.”

Shane just throws him a fond smile as the emerge onto the banquet hall floor. The ceremony is still going on, but they save the MVP for the last one of the night, so cannot have missed it.

Shane gives Ilya’s hand a lingering squeeze, and then he is gone.

* * *

The post-awards shmoozing and mingling takes fucking forever. But Ilya finally makes his escape after an hour. He texts Shane “Penthouse 1” and heads upstairs to wait.

Shane does not waste any time. He must take the elevator right after Ilya’s because the door is hardly closing behind him before his phone pings with a text announcing Shane’s arrival.

Ilya ushers him inside. “Hello.”

“Hey,” Shane says before he launches himself at Ilya.

Ilya makes a surprised noise against Shane’s mouth at his ardent greeting, but he gamely wraps his arms around Shane’s middle, staggering a little to keep them upright. Shane kisses him like they have not kissed in years, not weeks. Desperate does not even begin to describe it.

“Fuck, Hollander,” Ilya pants as Shane tries to eat him whole.

“So proud of you,” Shane gets out between kisses as he shoves his leg in between Ilya’s, brushing their hard-ons together. “Congratulations on the win.”

“Thank you,” Ilya says breathlessly.

“What would you like as a reward?” Shane asks, drawing back to study Ilya’s face.

Oh, fuck. Shane so rarely takes control like this – it is so hot and draining all the blood left in his brain.

“Because, I was thinking,” Shane says coyly as he leads Ilya towards the bed in the other room, “that you deserve something really special. Let me show off for you. You can watch.”

“What?” Ilya asks, his mouth going dry. The puzzle pieces of Shane’s odd behavior slot together for the first time all night. But – but that is impossible.

“I thought I would… show you how I… touch myself,” Shane stutters, his bravado gushing out of him like an adrift balloon the longer Ilya stares without saying anything.

Ilya croaks, “Why?”

Shane swallows nervously. “Because – because that’s what you want, right?”

Ilya blinks. “I did not tell you that.”

“Well, no –”

Ilya seizes Shane’s biceps in an inescapable grip. “How did you know I was going to ask you to do that?”

Shane looks away.

“Hollander,” Ilya says, violently squashing down the hope threatening to devour him whole, “how did you know?”

Shane’s mouth works furiously as he fights for the right words. “Because it’s what you wanted!” he finally explodes. “And everything else might be fucked up – and we might only be friends who fuck now – but I can do this part right, okay?”

The relief slams into Ilya harder and faster than he has ever been boarded in his life. “Mоя любовь,” he gasps. “You are here?”

“Wait.” Shane’s gaze snaps back to Ilya’s face, faster than any slapshot. “Are you,” he swallows, “mой фитбол?”

My exercise ball.

The last Russian word Ilya called him before their fight, before Ilya got on that plane.

“Oh my fucking god,” Ilya says, tears springing to his eyes as he crushes Shane to his chest, his throat locking. “Shane, Shane, Shane,” is all he can manage.

Shane came back to him? His Shane, who loves him, who promised to find a way for them to be together, despite everything?

“Ilya,” Shane breathes helplessly as he starts to shake in Ilya’s arms with an incredulous, delirious laughter. “You’re – fuck – you’re alive.”

They both sink to the edge of the bed, and somehow Ilya’s mouth finds Shane’s, and their kiss is messy and too salty and everything Ilya never even dreamed of all at once.

If Ilya thought Shane was desperate before, it is nothing like he is now. He is touching Ilya all over, mouth hungry and insatiable, fingers roving and determined. He shoves Ilya’s shirt all the way off and tries to make quick work of his pants too, growling when the button and zipper do not cooperate.

Ilya kicks them off himself along with his briefs, and Shane is on him once more, sucking open-mouthed kisses all over his shoulders, his chest, his abdomen.

“Fuck, Ilya,” he murmurs against his skin. “Missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, mоя любовь,” Ilya pants as Shane licks a long stripe down his cock.

Shane smiles up at him, uneven and crooked. “Not just my mouth?” he asks before he swallows Ilya down.

“Fuck!” Ilya gasps. “No, not just your mouth. Your Russian. Your cottage. Your – fuck – heart.” All the things Ilya had to work, scheme, and scramble for but never have.

Shane stops blowing him, looking up to shoot him a questioning look, his mouth still full of Ilya’s dick.

Ilya groans.

Shane’s eyebrows raise. He deliberately does not resume the blowjob.

“I did not have your heart,” Ilya explains through gritted teeth. Fuck, he has never been so hard in his goddamn life. “I only had fucking friendship, here.”

Shane pulls off with a lewd pop and steadies Ilya’s stiff cock with one hand so it does not smack him in the face. “What? How did you know they weren’t secretly in love with each other? Like we were?”

Ilya makes a half exasperated, half irritated noise. “Seriously, Hollander?”

Shane gives him a single, infuriating stroke. “Answer the question, Rozanov.”

Ilya props himself up on his elbows to see Shane properly. “I know because he told me. He told me we would never be boyfriends.”

“What?” Shane gasps. “When did this happen? Yesterday?”

Ilya laughs darkly. “Last April.”

“April?” Shane repeats, his mouth falling open. “You have been here since fucking April?”

Ilya throws him a baffled look. “Shane, I woke up here in 2010.”

“Four years?” Shane shrieks.

Ilya slumps back against the bed. Bye bye, sexy mood. He glares up at the ceiling. “Да, the CCM shoot.”

“Jesus Christ, Ilya,” Shane murmurs as he rests his head on Ilya’s hip, nose-to-nose with Ilya’s gradually softening dick. He inhales a shuddering breath.

“You will be proud of me,” Ilya says half-heartedly as he reaches over to squeeze the back of Shane’s neck. “I made a plan. Many steps and everything.”

“A plan to what?”

Ilya swallows. “Become boyfriends. Faster, this time.”

“Oh my god, is that why we talk here?” Shane lifts his head. “This early?”

Ilya nods. “I changed the narrative at our first All-Stars game.”

Shane pushes himself up to all fours, his gaze boring into Ilya’s with a heady mix of single-minded focus and lust. Ilya’s cock perks right back up at the look on Shane’s face. “We’re friends,” Shane says slowly. “We go to each other’s games. Everybody knows we like each other – because you made it happen years ago?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, heat pooling low in his own belly.

“You are such a fucking genius,” Shane growls before he seals their mouths together.

They do not speak much more for a long time after that.

* * *

“I cannot believe you only lasted one day,” Ilya laughs as Shane comes back to bed, walking gingerly and looking utterly satisfied.

“What?”

“One day before you say, Ilya, I am freaking out because I have traveled back in time to suck your dick again.”

Shane grabs a pillow and whacks him with it. “That is not how it happened, and you know it.”

Ilya grins and wraps his arms around Shane. “I never told anyone.”

“Anyone?” Shane blinks. “Really?”

“Really,” Ilya says proudly.

But instead of looking impressed, Shane’s brows draw together. “That must have been very lonely.”

Ilya hesitates. “I –” he starts with no real way to end the sentence because, yes, he was very fucking lonely for a while. He makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat. “No matter. You are here now. Is all better.”

“Ilya –”

Ilya groans at the tone of Shane’s voice. “Fucking hell, Shane. Yes, I know is not really all better. Shut up.”

“Yeah, but –”

“I found a new therapist,” Ilya grumbles. “I am taking better care of myself already, okay?”

“Okay,” Shane agrees quietly. “But if it’s not better, you’ll tell me, right?”

“Sure.”

“Ilya –”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Enough, Shane.”

“No,” Shane swallows, his shoulders tensing. “I’m trying to say something else.”

“What kind of else?”

Shane exhales a slow breath and inhales equally slowly. “I was going to tell you, it’s been four years for me too.”

Ilya stares, disbelieving. “It has been four years since –” he breaks off, unable to say the words out loud.

“Since you died, yeah,” Shane finishes for him in a whisper.

Oh god. Shane buried him? Shane mourned him for years?

At least Ilya had this Shane to find comfort in, a Shane to talk to, a Shane to ask about his boring morning run and what he thinks about Hunter’s imminent retirement plans.

Shane lost his only Ilya.

“I came out,” Shane adds, laughing darkly. “Not that it mattered anymore. But I – I didn’t know how to honor your memory any other way, and you always thought I’d be happier if I was out, so.” A single tear slips out, his voice tight with anger. “I wasn’t, for the record. You were so wrong about that.”

Ilya tightens his arms around Shane. He does not correct Shane, even though Shane is wrong. He did not think coming out would make Shane happier, but, towards the end, he thought he would simply die if he had to live with nobody knowing about them. He had hoped it was the same for Shane, but he was never sure.

“I quit hockey last year,” Shane breathes, his breath hitching.

“You quit hockey?” Ilya echoes, incredulous. “You, Shane Hollander?”

The name Hollander and hockey are so intertwined, so inescapable, not only to Ilya, but to the world. He would have sworn that Shane would only stop playing if he shattered both his legs or became a comatose vegetable.

But apparently a third reason was lurking in the back, out of sight, hidden in the closet.

In the small hours of the morning over the years, Ilya sometimes thought about what his Shane was doing, if he still existed at all. Playing hockey, of course. A little sad when he passed a Russian bakery (that he would never patron, of course, because of the macros) or saw the number 81. Winning cups and filling out the rapidly shrinking empty spaces in his trophy room in his cottage.

Shane had such a clear future before he met Ilya (unlike Ilya himself), so Ilya always thought he would just… go back to that. Play amazing hockey until his age forced him to retire. Become a coach in the NHL. Keep modeling, but for more mature brands. Marry a nice man from Montreal, a man who never called him “boring” or interrupted his sunrise salutations to fuck him quick and dirty on his sexy little yoga mat. Have four or five children, enough to fill all the positions on the Hollander Family Hockey Team.

At the end, Shane would write off Ilya as an unfortunate eleven-slash-four year blip on his way to becoming a legend in NHL history.

Ilya was all but certain it would go down like that, not like… this.

Shane buries his face in Ilya’s chest. “I couldn’t go a single practice or game without thinking about you,” he sniffles. “I was all sorts of fucked up off the ice too, obviously. So, if you were really wondering, I did choose you over hockey, in the end. Not that it made any fucking difference, since you were dead.”

Their last argument. Of course Shane would obsess over it and take Ilya’s stupid, angry words to heart. Ilya and his big mouth and impulsive vitriol.

“Oh, mоя любовь,” Ilya murmurs as he bends down to kiss the top of Shane’s head. “I am here now.”

“Yeah,” Shane says. He hiccups. “So it’s all better, right?”

Ilya chokes out a watery laugh. “Yes, is all better now.”

* * *

“Don’t go to Russia this summer,” Shane says the next morning before Ilya is fully awake. “Come to our cottage. Please?”

“Shane,” Ilya groans. “Is too early for stupid questions.”

“No, look, your dad won’t die for two more years, and you don’t like him anyway. Polina is a pain in your ass, and the less said about Andrei the better. Just… come to Canada. I’ll splurge for the good internet and everything, so you can Skype your dad if you absolutely have to. I… can’t go a whole summer without you. Not again.”

“Question is stupid,” Ilya opens his eyes to see Shane hovering anxiously above him, “because of course I will come.”

“Oh.”

Ilya tugs Shane down so they’re nose-to-nose, breathing in the same air, so close he can smell him. “I went a whole summer without you, last year. Was terrible.”

Shane’s eyes widen. “But I built the cottage this year.”

Ilya surges up, presses a quick kiss to his mouth, and retreats before Shane can complain about morning breath. “In this time, we talk on the phone when I am in Russia. Keeps me sane. Keeps me from murdering Andrei in his sleep.”

“And you… you’re sure don’t want to do that again?”

Ilya kisses him, deeply, with dangerous amount tongue, until Shane draws back, a disgusted look on his face. “No,” Ilya tells him happily, “I am coming to our cottage.” He lightly pats Shane’s cheek before he hops out of bed to brush his teeth.

When he returns, Shane is chewing his lip and staring at Ilya’s open laptop screen.

“What?” Ilya asks suspiciously as he leans against the doorframe.

“Huh?” Shane looks up.

“Your face,” Ilya says, gesturing.

“What about my face?” Shane grimaces. “It’s just my face.”

“You are thinking about something,” Ilya accuses.

Shane’s gaze flicks down to his computer and back to Ilya, so quickly he nearly misses it.

Ilya lunges, and Shane squawks in outrage as Ilya elbows him roughly out of the way to get at the screen. “Why are you looking up flights to Boston?” he asks, genuinely surprised.

Shane goes furiously red.

“Shane?” Ilya prompts.

Shane huffs and rolls over on the covers. To the ceiling, he says, “I don’t want you flying without me.”

Ilya softens. “Дорогой…”

“Look, I know it’s stupid,” Shane says, and to Ilya’s horror, his eyes are going wet and glassy. “And flying is the safest way to travel. Every statistic says so. But I just got you back, and I –” His breath hitches, and Ilya’s heart breaks. “I – I don’t want to be apart yet, okay?” He chances a glance over at Ilya, who his already crawling to drape his body over Shane’s.

“Okay,” he says simply.

“I was thinking, we both fly into Boston,” Shane says. “And then, drive to Montreal and then the cottage. It’ll be more hours in the car, but I think we’re up for it.”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees at once. “Is good plan.”

Shane smiles up at him. “Or we can make a stop at Ottawa? Get lunch with my parents?”

“Of cour –” Ilya breaks off, his brow furrowing.

“What?”

Ilya sighs. He buries his face in the crook of Shane’s neck, explaining in a muffled voice, “Have not met David or Yuna yet.”

“What?” Shane squawks. “The fuck, why?”

Ilya shrugs against collarbone. “He never introduced me.”

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “I don’t know how you did this for four years. 22 year-old-me is a fucking moron.” He groans. “Wait, when you got here, we were 18. Oh my god, that’s so much worse.”

“No,” Ilya pokes him in the side, “I love every version of you.”

Shane shakes his head. “You’re incredible.” He hugs Ilya closer. “Okay, new plan. We’re definitely going to stop at Ottawa. There’s a great Thai place that’ll close next year that makes the best pad kee mao. It’s as spicy as you can get, so don’t steal any off my plate.”

“Hmph.”

“We’ll get takeout,” Shane says out loud, his gaze going distant as he thinks. “Bring it to my parents. I’ll come out to them, and – you too?”

Ilya nods dazedly.

“Good. So we’ll both come out. Mom said she suspected for a while, so we’ll see if that’s actually true. They’ll love you because how can they not, and then, once she gets all her questions out of the way, we’ll head up to the cottage.”

“And we will tell them we are boyfriends, yes?” Ilya asks tentatively. “Not just lovers?”

Shane throws him an exasperated look. “If you think there’s any way I am capable of hiding how I feel about you anymore, you are fucking crazy.”

* * *

For once, Ilya does not spend takeoff or landing forcibly staving off a panic attack. He still dislikes air travel burning passion, but it is certainly more bearable with someone to hold his hand the whole flight.

“Shit,” Ilya mutters as he steps over the threshold of his house in Boston.

“What?” Shane nearly bumps into him.

“I have a dog.”

Shane blinks.

“Her name is Tonya,” Ilya says as he wanders through the house, looking for his wayward pet. “You will love her. Brown eyes, black fur, wants to exercise at five in the fucking morning every morning – you are practically twins already.”

“How did you forget you had a whole dog?” Shane asks, amused as he sets his suitcase by the door and hangs his tuxedo on the coatrack.

“I have had a lot on my mind!” Ilya calls as he checks the far side of the couch and in the kitchen. “Has been busy two days, in case you did not notice.”

Shane laughs.

“Tonya?” Ilya tries again as he heads up the stairs. He finds Tonya underneath the bed. “Come on, good girl,” he coos as he reaches a hand out to stroke her muzzle, the only part of her he can reach. “Do you want to meet Shane?”

“I don’t think she does,” Shane says from behind him.

Ilya twists around to glare at him. “She will,” he insists as he wiggles back under the bed. “She just does not know this yet.”

“Ilya.”

“What?”

“Let her come out on her own time,” Shane says, to Ilya’s surprise. “We can have lunch downstairs or something. She can get used to my voice and stuff. Give her some time to warm up to me.”

Ilya shuffles out from under the bed in record time. “You want to do this?”

“Well, yeah,” Shane says, a tad awkwardly. “She’s your dog. I don’t want her to hate me or force her to be around me.”

Ilya stares. “Since when did you become dog whisperer?”

Shane heaves a large sigh. “After hockey, I had no idea what I was doing. I went white-water rafting. I took a sommelier course; turns out, I hate fancy wine as much as the cheap stuff.” He ducks his head, fiddling with the hem of his tee shirt. “I got a dog. You’d always wanted one, and I thought you’d be happy, wherever you were, to know a dog got a good home.” He shrugs. “So I adopted Bear – don’t,” Shane says warningly as Ilya lights up. “He came with the name. It’s the sixth most popular dog name according to the AKC.”

Ilya says nothing. But Shane adopted a dog? And not just a dog, but a dog named Bear? What are the fucking odds? Ilya grins.

“Anyway,” Shane continues in a long-suffering voice, “Bear had a few issues. Separation anxiety. Food guarding. He howled, like, all the time. The veterinary behavioral specialist told me he was a bad fit for a first-time dog owner.” He smiles wryly. “Of course, I have zero experience getting extremely attached to bad fits –”

“Zero,” Ilya agrees with a firm nod, his eyes dancing.

“So I kept him. He could be such an annoying shit,” Shane shakes his head. “I can’t believe I miss him.”

“Oh?” Ilya asks, his eyebrows raising. “You cannot believe you miss an asshole Bear?”

“Shut up,” Shane says, flushing. “We’ll adopt him together in a few years. I remember the exact date I got him.”

“We can have two dogs?” Ilya asks eagerly.

Shane steps forward to tug him closer and wrap his arms around him. “You fucking died, Ilya. You can get all the dogs you want.”

* * *

They have lunch while they wait for Tonya to come down. Ilya suggests tuna melts, and Shane threatens to hit him over the head with a frying pan.

They wind up making pasta (boring) but at least Ilya can pile the cheese on his while Shane eats his sad, plain noodles.

“Is Svetlana in town?” Shane asks.

Ilya chokes. “Why?” he asks suspiciously.

“Because she goes back to Moscow for a few weeks every summer, and I’d like to see her if she hasn’t left,” Shane says, looking confused at Ilya’s confusion.

“You want to meet… Svetlana?”

Shane nods as he swirls more spaghetti around his fork. “She should know about us.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Shane Hollander?” Ilya boggles.

Predictably, Shane scowls. “Shut up. She’s a good friend.”

“I know that. How do you know that?”

Shane gives his fork another spin, loses half the noodles, swears, and repeats the motion with marginal more success. “After I came out,” he tells his pasta, “she got in touch. Wanted to know me and what made me so special that you abandoned her in Boston for Ottawa.”

Ilya sighs. “That sounds like her.”

“She was the only person who I could really talk about you with.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, dubious. Before, he had hardly dared to hope that Sveta and Shane would get along, even though they both loved hockey. They both loved him. They were both so deeply loyal it made Ilya question what the hell he did to either of them to deserve any of it.

However, Sveta was so far from Shane’s list of approved people, Ilya never tried to even get them in the same country, let alone the same room.

“Call her,” Shane urges. “We’re not staying here for very long.”

“I know, I know,” Ilya says irritably as he taps on Sveta’s number.

“Congratulations,” Sveta purrs as she accepts the call. “MVP, that is a big deal.”

Ilya ignores all that. “Jane wants to meet you.”

“What?”

“Now,” Ilya says, grinning madly. “My place.”

“Ily–”

He ends the call.

“Oh my god,” Shane says, cracking up. “Why the hell did you do that to her?”

Ilya shrugs. “Is fun.”

Sveta arrives twenty minutes later, banging on the door and cursing him out in Russian before he can even open it.

“You’re not going to make a good impression,” he says casually as he leans against the doorframe, blocking the entryway from view.

“Shut up,” Sveta snarls. “Move, Ilya.”

“Now, I want to get some ground rules out of the way,” he says as he does not budge an inch. “Don’t give him,” he switches to English, “the shovel talk.” Back in Russian, he continues, “Don’t ask him for an autograph.”

“Why the fuck would I –”

“You should ask him why he hasn’t won a Stanley Cup yet, though,” Ilya says.

Sveta blinks, her annoyance pausing momentarily. “He’s a hockey player?”

“Yes.”

She elbows Ilya in the kidney, which he was expecting, and kicks him in the shin, which he was not. Christ, at least she’s wearing Adidas and not some horrendously expensive pair of boots. As he hops in place in pain, hissing a little, she shoves past him.

“Shane Hollander,” she gapes, two feet into his entryway, her mouth hanging open.

“Hi,” Shane says awkwardly, blinking a few times. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You’re Jane?”

“Uh, to Ilya, sometimes,” Shane says, “but just Shane is fine. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”

“Why are you treating her like a guest?” Ilya complains as Sveta follows Shane into the kitchen. “She can get her own water.”

Sveta glares at him. “You are so mean to me.” She turns to Shane, who is reaching for a glass from a cabinet. “Why are you dating him?”

Shane blinks, thrown by the question. He glances to Ilya, who shrugs. Ilya still is not entirely sure about that one, to be honest. “I love him,” Shane says simply.

Sveta’s eyes narrow. “You love him,” she says slowly, drawing the words out, her disbelief palpable.

“I do,” Shane says calmly as opens the fridge to pull out Ilya’s water filter. “For many years now.”

Sveta does not accept the water, so he sets it in front of her on the kitchen island and takes a step back. “I saw him in December,” she says bluntly as, internally, Ilya cringes. “You do not do that to someone you love.”

“Ah,” Shane says as he busies himself with pouring his own glass. Over Sveta’s shoulder, he shoots Ilya a questioning look, but Ilya shakes his head. He will tell Shane later. “That wasn’t me.”

“It wasn’t?” Sveta asks, her eyebrows rising.

“Shane,” Ilya says warningly, his alarm bells going off. Shane cannot be doing what Ilya thinks he is doing. When Shane indicated he wanted to tell Sveta about them, Ilya, logically, thought he was talking about their relationship, not, fucking time traveling.

“It was kind of me,” he tells Sveta, ignoring Ilya. “But I’m – well, it’s – ” He takes a sip of water and promptly chokes.

“Shane,” Ilya repeats over Shane’s ugly hacking coughs. “Do not–”

Shane shakes his head. “She should know,” he forces out.

“But –”

“No,” Shane interrupts. “You might be okay doing this alone, but I’m not. I – I’m not good at keeping people at arms’ length while pretending I’m not. So don’t ask me to.”

Ilya does not look at Sveta, cannot look at her face and see her telltale mix of confusion and anger at being left out. She is not normally an expressive person, but Ilya has been reading her for years. So whatever hurt she is feeling, it is only for Ilya to know.

“I do not do that,” Ilya says stiltedly.

Shane throws him a withering look. “Come on,” he says. “You know I’m right. Marley was your best friend from Boston, but he found out about your mom with the rest of the world at the Irina Foundation press conference.”

Sveta raises her eyebrows once Irina’s name leaves Shane’s mouth. Ilya does not talk about her as a rule, as far as Sveta knows.

But Ilya cannot focus past the heavy weight that has just dropped into the pit of his stomach. This Shane has known him for more than a decade. Ilya was so used to a Shane who was still getting to know him, a Shane who did not want to know him that much, that a Shane who really sees him sends him spinning.

And Marley still does not know about his mother.

“Hey,” Sveta says sharply to Shane, “Do not talk to him like that.”

“Fuck,” Shane swears. His gaze rakes over Ilya’s face, and whatever he sees there makes him go pale. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Ilya clears his throat. “You are not wrong,” he says quietly.

Shane’s lips thin. “Maybe,” he says, “but I shouldn’t have said it like that.” He glances at Sveta. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Good,” Sveta says with relish.

“I –” Shane says, “can I tell her?” he asks Ilya, reaching out to lay his hand over Ilya’s. He rubs his thumb soothingly along the webbing between Ilya’s index finger and thumb. “You’ll need her in your corner.”

“I am already in his corner,” Sveta hisses.

Ilya throws Shane an incredulous look. What a fucking stupid question. Too apologetic and too late. “You have to, now,” he says bitterly. “She will never let it go, otherwise.”

Shane lifts his chin. “I can take her.”

“You can try,” Sveta threatens.

“Okay,” Shane inhales a deep breath. “I’m not the Shane Hollander you know,” he starts, and as soon as he speaks, Ilya recognizes the odd cadence. This is Shane’s speech voice; the one he only uses when he has rehearsed something over and over again, determined not to forget a single word.

“I don’t know how or why this happened,” Shane continues, “but I am from ten years in the future. I come from 2024.”

Oh fuck.

Ilya can tell from the way Shane is deliberately not looking at him, that this was meant for Ilya, not Sveta.

Shane was going to lay it all out for Ilya, even though he had to know Ilya would probably not believe anything he was saying. After all, if time travel was real, why was Irina still dead?

Sveta meets Ilya’s gaze, her eyebrows nearly at her hairline. He surreptitiously shakes his head. No interruptions yet.

“We – Ilya and I,” Shane amends as he quickly meets Sveta’s disbelieving face before his gaze skitters away, “were in a real, committed, exclusive relationship until 2020, when,” he pauses infinitesimally, “Ilya died. And I know you probably don’t believe any of this. If any of it was up to you, I would have traveled to save Irina.”

Ilya’s mouth goes dry.

“But,” Shane says, finally turning to Ilya, “it wasn’t up to you – or me, really. I did not plan this, and I don’t have any expectations when it comes to us in this time. All I want to do is make sure you never get on that plane.” Shane ends on a wobbly note, his eyes welling with unshed tears. “But I love you, and I will save your life, even if it means you never speak to me again.”

Ilya pulls him into his arms, tucking his head into the crook of his shoulder.

Shane exhales a shuddering breath, and Ilya presses a kiss to his temple. “I love you,” he murmurs as Shane returns the hug, squeezing him tight enough to make breathing difficult.

“Seriously?” Sveta asks, placing her hands on her hips. In Russian, she asks, “Did he have some post-season psychotic break? No wonder you didn’t want me to meet him.”

Shane pulls away to make his little pissy face for a half second before he schools it into something more befitting a nice Canadian boy. “I am not insane,” he says politely in Russian. “I am telling the truth.”

Ilya’s heart skips a beat.

Sveta looks far more surprised by this than Shane’s crazy story. “You understand what I’m saying?” she asks, her eyes wide. She actually takes a step back.

“I do,” Shane retorts, “because you taught me.”

“Not me?” Ilya asks, offended, in English.

Shane throws him a sharp glare. “You were dead, remember?” And before Ilya can come up with any sort of reply to that, Shane tells Sveta, in Russian again, “You told me, you do not understand how Ilya chose me over Boston and cup wins. You said, I proved I was worth it to Ilya, but I did not prove shit to you.” He smiles coldly. “So I proved it.”

His little monologue is not fluent. Shane uses some awkward phrasing and he speaks slower and more hesitantly than he does in English or French, but he is speaking Russian. Ilya’s mother’s tongue is coming out of Shane’s mouth.

Fuck, Ilya could marry him right this second.

“Proved it by…?” Sveta drifts off.

Ilya glares. She is not usually this stupid. “He learned Russian for you, Sveta.”

“Well, I started for you,” Shane says apologetically to Ilya. “But I only picked up some vocabulary and very basic phrases before you died.”

Sveta looks floored. She turns to Ilya, who shakes his head, inexorably charmed. Shane Hollander may look predictable and boring on the outside, but, inside, he is anything but. Only Shane Hollander would learn a whole new language to spite Ilya’s ex and best friend in the whole world.

Sveta’s eyes narrow as she studies his face with a newfound scrutiny. Eventually, she declares, “You speak like me.”

“You were the only real Russian I talked to for three years,” Shane says dismissively. “That was bound to happen.”

And now Ilya is listening for it, he can hear it too. Sveta’s slight accent underneath the Canadian, the southern syllables from her childhood spent along the Georgian border with her mother before Adrianna moved back to the Caribbean permanently.

“Who wins the cup next year?” Sveta demands.

“No way,” Shane glares “I am not going to tell you that.”

Sveta glares right back.

“Montreal does,” Ilya says to break the tension. “Year after too.”

Sveta whirls on him. “How do you know this?”

Fuck, why does he ever open his big fat mouth? “Ah,” he rubs his nose, “I may also not be from this time, not exactly.”

Betrayal flashes across her face, intermingled with more disbelief. “Ilya.”

“When I died in 2020,” Ilya says, not looking at Shane or Sveta, “I came here too, but in 2010.” He stalks over to the freezer and grabs the good vodka he keeps in the back for special occasions, the bottle he bought only a month ago, once he trusted himself to do so.

Silently, Sveta takes it from him. He cannot look her in the eyes.

“Ilya,” Shane says, laying a hand on his arm.

Ilya shakes his head.

“I need to talk to Ilya alone.” Ilya hears Sveta tell Shane. “Leave us.”

Shane opens his mouth, his gaze flitting between the two of them. After a beat, he says in English, “Yeah, alright.”

Even Sveta looks surprised at his easy acceptance.

“I’ll take Tonya on a walk, if she’ll let me,” Shane continues. “Where are her treats, Ilya?”

Ilya turns and opens the cabinet where he keeps Tonya’s supplies. He hands the bag to Shane, who shakes it exactly three times.

Paws skitter along the hardwood a second before Tonya’s head appears, tongue lolling and tail wagging in excitement. She freezes when she sees Ilya is not holding the bag.

Shane crouches down and holds out a treat for her.

“You will have better luck with a ball,” Ilya says as Tonya stares stonily back at Shane. Ilya fetches a new tube of tennis balls and holds it out to Shane, sighing when he has to physically hand it over because Shane will not lose an impromptu staring contest with Ilya’s dog. God, they really are the exactly same. So competitive.

“Jesus Christ,” Sveta mutters.

Shane pops open the top and rolls out one brand new tennis ball. He lets it drop to the floor, and Tonya’s eyes briefly snap down as it bounces back into Shane’s palm.

“She likes hard throws,” Ilya says helpfully.

Shane hurls the tennis ball at the floor, and the corners of Shane’s mouth lift in a small smile as Tonya’s tail starts to wag. He gets to his feet, making sure the tennis ball stays in her line of sight the whole time.

“There is a dog park five blocks away,” Ilya says. “On Goguen Lane. Can you find it?”

Shane grins as he starts walking towards the door, Tonya dogging his footsteps. “She’ll probably show me. Leash by the door?”

Ilya just nods, conscious of Sveta’s gaze lasering a hole into the side of his head. The front door closes, and he turns to Sveta like a man about to greet the firing squad.

* * *

“So you are not Ilya,” Sveta says coldly in Russian.

Ilya flinches. “I am Ilya Rozanov,” he stays, his voice stiff as the bottle of vodka in her hand.

Sveta tips it back and takes a hearty swallow. “No, you are not the Ilya I knew. Not the Ilya I grew up with.”

Ilya grimaces. “I don’t know if I’m not,” he says truthfully. “I remember growing up with you. I went to the Black Sea with you every summer. I sat with you in Sergei’s box every Gagarin Cup final game.”

A tiny wrinkle deepens in between Sveta’s brows. “So you are my Ilya?”

“Yes?” He sighs. “No? I don’t know,” he repeats. “All I know is that I woke up ten years in the past four years ago.”

Sveta stares at him for a long moment. “And you, what, decided to play along?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Ilya asks with a humorless chuckle. “I had no way of going back. I still have no idea why it happened or how.”

Sveta blows out a long breath and drops her gaze to the bottle between her hands. “What the fuck, Ilya.”

“What the fuck, indeed,” he says heavily as he snags the vodka back. Under the pressure of her probing, judgmental stare, he says stiltedly, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asks, her voice curt. “Did you think I would not believe you?”

Ilya takes a sip. He nods once.

Sveta snorts. “You once convinced Sasha that radioactive mutant men lived in the Moscow Metro tunnels and snatched twinks who rode the train alone.”

Ilya cracks a smile. He did do that.

“You could convince me that you time traveled,” Sveta says in a hard voice.

Ilya says nothing. He probably could have done that.

Impatiently, she prompts, “So why didn’t you?”

Ilya shrugs. “It was easier if I didn’t think about it. I was stuck here. Why bring up things I couldn’t change? I didn’t know Shane would follow me. I thought I would be here by myself forever, and,” he tells the bottle in his hands, “I knew I couldn’t hide my sadness completely, but I could hide this. Why would I tell you I was crazy, on top of being depressed? Everything else was hard enough with you here. I wasn’t going to try do to it without you.”

“But you did do it without me!” Sveta exclaims. “You shut me out.”

Ilya’s mouth opens and closes, no defense of his own immediately springing to his lips. “I’m sorry,” he says eventually, too little, too late.

Sveta scowls and snatches the vodka back. “At least now I know where you got your incessant apologizing from. How long have you been with Hollander, anyway?”

“Before I wound up here, we were together for ten years,” Ilya says as Sveta’s jaw drops open. “Officially only four, though,” he adds.

“Fourteen years?” Sveta breathes. “You’ve been in love for fourteen years?”

“Er,” Ilya colors. “I didn’t know I was in love for most of it, if it helps.”

Sveta makes a face. “How could you not know?”

“It’s only happened once!” he says irritably. “All I knew was that I wanted him. All of him. His attention, his time, his ass. I wanted to get under his skin and stay there forever. I wanted to know everything about him, even the stupid, boring things like what he saw on his morning run.” He shrugs and rubs his nose, feeling uncomfortably flayed open. “I thought I was going insane. Then I realized I was in love.”

“Oh, Ilyusha.” Sveta takes an extra large gulp of vodka, and Ilya gently prises it out of her slack fingers. Half empty, he sets it on the counter behind them and gets them water. Well, he gets Sveta water. He refills Shane’s abandoned glass and drinks out of that. He’ll get Shane a new one when he comes back.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love,” Sveta says quietly, speaking to the water in her hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that about anyone.” She inhales a deep breath. “I don’t think I ever will.”

“I know,” Ilya says. Tentatively, he reaches over and lays a hand on her arm. She doesn’t pull away, and he squeezes gently. “It’s the best feeling in the world, and it also made me want to kill myself. Maybe it’s best it’s not for everyone. You might be lucky.”

She sighs. “A part of me wants it. Another part thinks you’re such a fucking idiot for not running screaming in the other direction.”

He grins. “Shane was actually the one doing the running.”

Sveta cocks her head. “Really?”

“Really,” Ilya echoes with a grimace. “After sex one day, he ran away to date Rose Landry.”

Sveta’s face lights up. “He dated Rose Landry?”

“She is very nice, apparently,” he says sardonically. “She is also very bad at fucking.”

“I think you might be biased.”

“No,” Ilya says vehemently. “She is objectively bad. Shane told me so.”

“Gay Shane Hollander thinks a woman is bad at fucking?” Sveta says slowly. “Wow. Maybe you are meant for each other, if he can’t see beyond his own nose either.”

Ilya groans. “Fine. Maybe, maybe, Shane was the problem. Even though he is the best lay in the world.”

“Ha!” Sveta shoves him. “As if. Clearly, you’re the biased one.”

“No. That’s the truth.”

“I know it’s not,” Sveta says, her voice dripping with condescension, “because you’ve slept with me.” Ilya opens his mouth, and Sveta leans in and slaps her hand across it. “If you say he’s better than me,” she warns, “I will never forgive you or speak to you again.”

He slobbers all over her hand.

“You are so gross!” She rubs her her wet palm against his hair like a psychopath.

“Fuck you!” He frantically tugs at his curls, pulling them back so they do not dry all over the place and make him look like a deranged children’s clown.

Sveta laughs at him, a little too loudly and a little too meanly. He tackles her, hauling her up in a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. She shrieks, limbs flailing, and he dumps her on the couch. He immediately scurries into position, laying his head in her lap before she can get back up.

She snorts. “You are such a cat, Ilyusha.”

Ilya grins. “Myau.”

“Ilya?” Shane’s voice calls from the foyer.

“In the living room!” Ilya answers.

Shane appears around the corner and stares at Ilya and Sveta on the couch.

“Don’t worry,” she says stiltedly after a long moment. “I’m not going to take Ilya from you.”

Ilya snorts. Shane would sooner win Flann O'Brien's Guinness Breakfast Challenge than not worry about this. Even Marley failed the challenge and could not force down all the rashers, sausages, eggs, pancakes, white & black pudding, grilled tomato, home fries, baked beans, and toast.

As Ilya slowly sits up and puts a respectable couch cushion of space between them, she adds, “I will not tell anyone Montreal wins the cup or take a hit out on Theriault. I won’t make bets, rig games, or anything.”

“No,” Shane says dryly as he sits down right next to Ilya, “you’re just going to convince all of your dad’s old NHL buddies that you’re a witch to fuck with them.”

Sveta turns to Ilya. “What the hell? Is he the witch?”

“We played this game before,” Shane says with a small smile that Sveta does not return. “If we could go back in time, what would do? After saving Ilya, of course,” he says with a conciliatory dip of his head.

“And what would you do, Shane Hollander?” Sveta asks reluctantly.

He shrugs. “I never really thought much beyond Ilya, actually. Maybe tell him I loved him earlier? I dunno.”

“So boring,” Ilya and Sveta chime in unison.

Shane grimaces.

Ilya goes to share a delighted look with Sveta, only to find her stone-faced and murderous-looking. Without a warning, she swats him upside the head. As Ilya cries out, she says through clenched teeth, “That is for making Hollander tell me about fucking time traveling, Ilyusha. You’re lucky I love you.”

After Sveta leaves, taking the bottle of vodka with her for “emotional damages”, Shane turns to Ilya. “I think that went well,” he says cheerfully.

“She does not like you,” Ilya says bluntly.

Shane laughs. “Yeah, I got that.”

Ilya raises his eyebrows. “And you think that went well?”

Shane pats Tonya’s head and scratches her behind her velvety ears. “During our first real meeting, she kind of kicked me out of my own house.” He blushes.

Ilya barks a startled laugh. “How the hell did she do that?”

Shane shrugs. “She got mad. I got mad. We started fighting,” he says. “Eventually, it was clear we needed to cool off. She told to take a walk and, uh, I wasn’t really thinking clearly, too caught up in my head, you know, so I just… took a walk. By the time I realized what had happened, I was half a mile away, and she was DoorDashing McDonalds to my living room.”

Ilya stares at him, stunned.

“So, this went loads better,” Shane finishes, adorably pleased with himself.

* * *

They take off for Montreal at 4PM in the afternoon with Shane behind the wheel with strict instructions to go ten miles over the speed limit once they get onto I-89. Ilya’s only instructions are not to give Shane road head on any major highways.

“Are you… upset that I replaced him?” Shane asks carefully about three hours in.

“What?”

“I obviously took the place, mentally or psychically or whatever, of the Shane that belongs here,” he explains, pained. “And you’re telling me you had a four-year-long relationship with him, so I understand if you’re upset that he’s gone.”

Ilya’s head whips around to stare. “You are asking,” he says as he gently pries Shane’s closest hand off the steering wheel to hold it, “if I miss the 22-year-old who blew me off for eight months because he would not commit to being my boyfriend?”

Shane freezes. “He blew you off for eight months?”

“Yes, after I wore your jersey to a game.” Ilya huffs a large sigh. “Said I was being too obvious to everyone with eyes.”

“What a moron.” Shane says before he cracks up. “And you’re serious? He ghosted you for eight months?”

“Yes?” Ilya asks suspiciously. It is very unlike him to find joy in Ilya’s misery, unless Ilya just lost a game. Then he can be impossible to be around. The sorest of sore winners, but only for Ilya.

Shane tilts his head away from the road so Ilya cannot miss his glee. “Like you did to me after Sochi? You only lasted six months, though.”

Oh, this is why Shane thought it was funny. Ilya scowls. “No, not like Sochi. Was nothing like Sochi.”

“It wasn’t?” Shane teases.

Ilya’s scowl deepens. “No because you were not in love with me in Sochi.”

Shane’s joking expression fades. “I guess not,” he says, “but I wanted something in Sochi. More than what we had. But I could barely admit that to myself, let alone you. Anyway, I was worried.” His brow furrows as he remembers. “You seemed… sad.”

“I was,” Ilya admits, almost to his own surprise. “But, Sochi went differently this time. Russia made it to the quarterfinal.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Shane says, turning back to give I-89 his full attention.

“Very sad, though, Canada lost to Sweden.”

Shane’s fingers clench on the wheel. “What.”

“And then Scott Hunter died of old man disease right there at center ice in the final. Was very dramatic. Would have been very sad, but he was so old, you know, very expected –”

Shane blindly swats around the general area of Ilya’s chest. “Seriously? I saw Hunter two days ago.”

“Yes, his old man ghost does not know when to quit either.”

“Shut up. But I still won gold, right?”

Ilya frowns. “Maybe? I do not remember. I was very busy at the Olympics. Dodging very persistent Canadian with weak backhand who just had to talk to me even though he had been ignoring me for ten months –”

“I thought you said it was eight –”

“He was like, Ilya, I have missed your cock so badly for whole entire year. I must ravish –”

“Oh, come on. I’m not that obsessed with your dick –”

“Ha!”

Flushing, Shane continues like there was no interruption, “And who the fuck taught you the word ‘ravish’?”

Ilya shrugs. “Had a lot of time on my hands these past few years. Read a lot,” he lies.

“Really,” Shane says dubiously.

Ilya sniffs. “I was boring, Hollander. It was awful.”

“I have a hard time seeing you being boring at anything,” Shane says, amused. “If you’re boring, then what the fuck am I?”

“Marley thought I had a girl back in Russia,” Ilya says as Shane flips on his turn signal and waits a full ten seconds before actually switching lanes. “Since I never took anyone home or bragged to the boys about conquests.”

Shane’s mouth opens and closes a few times. “You weren’t sleeping around?”

Ilya shakes his head.

“Oh,” Shane says, and Ilya thought Shane would be proud or at least happy, that Ilya did not cheat, but he just looks troubled. A little queasy too.

“Shane?”

Shane sighs, biting his lip. “I – I did. I was trying to move on,” he says.

Ilya’s heart lurches in his chest at Shane’s hesitant tone.

“It’d been three years,” Shane says pleadingly, the words coming faster and faster as his fingers grip the steering wheel tighter and tighter. “I didn’t have you. I didn’t have hockey. I didn’t have Bear yet. I only had myself, and Rose had been telling me for months to get back out there –”

Ilya is going to kill Rose Landry. She has no connection to Shane yet; she will never see him coming. He watched enough of her movies to know not to kidnap her first. Just do the deed and get the fuck out.

“And then Svetlana said I shouldn’t shut myself up like a hermit in the middle of nowhere –” Shane inhales a shuddering breath.

Ah, so Sveta has a death-wish too.

“So I flew down to Boston, and she and Rose took me out to some gay bar in the South End.” Ilya hangs on Shane’s every word even though each one feels like an ice pick to his sternum. Shane continues, “There was a guy. I don’t know. We didn’t even leave the bar – the bathroom, you know.” His eyes well up with tears. “It was awful. I kept thinking about how he wasn’t you. I didn’t finish.”

“I fucked someone else last year,” Ilya blurts. “Only once,” he adds desperately, so Shane knows he was not lying earlier.

Shane’s head jerks around to stare at him.

“I threw up after,” Ilya adds.

And, to Ilya’s absolute confusion and surprise, Shane starts laughing. “Fucking hell,” he gasps out. “We’re really pathetic, aren’t we?”

Ilya does not bother fighting back his own smile. “Just a little. But only for you.”

Shane sniffs loudly. “Yeah, same. Only for you too.” He casts Ilya a sidelong look. “You’re not mad?”

Ilya shrugs. “Are you mad?”

Shane’s jaw clenches. “A little,” he says, clearly lying his ass off. “Are you?”

“A little,” Ilya lies. “But not at you,” he says truthfully.

Shane’s expression softens. “No, not at you. Furious at everything else, though.”

Ilya reaches over to pluck one of Shane’s hands off the steering wheel and squeeze it. “Is fine with me. We can be angry together.”

* * *

What if they do not like me?

Ilya had not been able to bring himself to say the words as they pull up in front of Yuna and David’s house in Ottawa shortly before noon the next day. But Shane maybe senses them anyway, lurking beneath the surface, because he gives Ilya’s hand an extra squeeze as he rings the doorbell.

Not three seconds later, the door flies open. “Shane!” Yuna greets as she pulls Shane into a hug. “What a pleasant surprise!”

They step over the threshold and start slipping off their shoes. “Sorry for dropping by last minute,” Shane says.

“Your dad’s in the kitchen,” Yuna explains. She closes the door behind them.

“This is Ilya,” Shane says once they both straighten up. “Since you haven’t officially met before.”

Ilya’s eyebrows raise at the not-so-faint trace of bitterness in Shane’s voice, but he does not comment.

Yuna throws Shane an odd look, but she does not comment either. Instead, she turns to Ilya. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It is nice to meet you too,” Ilya says, stilted and awkward like he barely passed English 101 and has not been living in North America for nearly twenty years. “You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Hollander.”

“Oh,” Yuna glances at Shane, who throws Ilya an odd look, probably wondering why Ilya sounds like he was just replaced with an alien from outer space. “Thank you. That’s very nice to say. And just Yuna is fine.”

Ilya looks around, unable to help his smile at the pictures of baby Shane on the walls, of Yuna and David’s wedding day. He frowns, pausing at the pair of frames closest to the stairs, across from the doorway to the living room. He was so used to seeing two photos from Shane’s cup wins, but of course they have not happened yet here.

Instead, he finds himself face-to-face with his own face – and Shane’s. They’re both laughing from beneath their brand new CCM helmets, their sticks held in slack grip, their spines curved in mirth.

“What – oh,” Shane doubles back to stare at the photos too. “What’s this doing here?” he hisses.

“I have no idea,” Ilya says. “I was expecting the Voyageurs photos.”

Shane says steps closer into Ilya’s personal space to peer at the photos. “I must have asked my parents to frame it.”

The second photo shows Shane, Hayden, and J.J. at some bar Ilya does not recognize. “I don’t know this one.”

Shane smiles. “This was the first time we made playoffs since I was drafted. You know I don’t go out often, so Hayden convinced the bartender to take a photo.” He blinks. “Mom hung it up here because she wanted to walk past me and my friends every day.”

Ilya glances back to his own face as a strange warmth blooms beneath his ribcage. “Friends?” he echoes. “Yuna thinks we are friends?”

Shane frowns. “Doesn’t the whole world know we’re friends?”

“Yes, but –” Ilya turns away from the photos. “Never mind.”

Shane throws him a confused look, but Ilya cannot explain this to him, so he makes his way to the kitchen where David is putting sandwiches together.

“Hi,” David says with his trademark, easygoing smile. “Nice to meet you, Ilya. Welcome.”

“Thank you for having me, Mr. Hollander,” Ilya says.

“Oh, just David, please, kid,” David says. “Hope you like salmon.”

“I like salmon,” Ilya says. He jerks his head towards Shane who is already getting water for them both. “I would starve at his house, if I did not.”

“Hey! I eat things other than salmon,” Shane protests.

“Yes, gross green smoothies and protein powder,” Ilya says impatiently.

“I have way more than that. I have,” his brow furrows, “eggs!” he finishes triumphantly.

Ilya raises his eyebrows. “Your refrigerator is worse than Soviet Russia.”

“No, it’s not. Plus, you never lived in Soviet Russia,” Shane scoffs.

“Yes, I did!”

Shane throws him an incredulous look. “For, like, six months. It literally dissolved the same year you were born.”

David snorts.

Ilya makes a face at Shane. “You know the year the USSR ended?”

“Yeah?” he says, nonplussed. “I have a vested interest in Russian history.”

“Vested interest,” Ilya mouths, but he has no idea what that phrase could possibly mean. Shane is probably not talking about men’s clothing, but that is all Ilya can get from context.

“It means I have an extra reason to be interested in it,” Shane explains.

“Was the Soviet National Hockey team that good?” Ilya says, watching as David portions out the salmon and doles out a piece of fish and a scoop of rice on each plate. “I always thought my father was exaggerating.”

“What?” Shane’s confusion deepens. “I could give less of a shit about that – well, actually no, because the Soviet men’s team had an epic medal run at the world championships and Olympics, and that was pretty cool – but I’m interested because you’re from Russia, asshole.”

“Oh,” Ilya says, brightening. “I see.”

David glances between them, an odd expression on his face. “Come on, boys,” he says after a beat. “Lunchtime.” He raises his voice to call, “Yuna! Food’s ready!”

Ilya snatches Yuna’s plate before Shane can get it, and they all troop to the kitchen table where Yuna is already sitting, her laptop open and reading glasses perched on her nose.

“Oh, this looks fantastic,” she says to David as she puts her computer away. To Shane, she says, “I’m sorry Lemongrass isn’t open today.”

“It’s fine,” Shane says as he slices off a few flakes of salmon with his fork. “I was probably going to get the fish curry anyway, so this works.”

“That is good,” Yuna agrees. She turns to Ilya. “So, Ilya, congratulations on the cup win, but Shane’s coming for it next year.”

Shane groans. “Mom.”

“What?” Yuna glances at him. “It’s true. You told me.”

Shane shoves more salmon into his mouth.

“I know he will get it next year,” Ilya agrees. “Maybe even the year after too; who knows. The Voyageurs have a very strong team, especially with the new defense trades this off season. They can stop rebuilding and start winning.”

Yuna blinks, a little thrown by Ilya’s compliment.

“He means it,” Shane assures her, kicking Ilya under the table. “He just never says that sort of thing on camera.”

“Of course not,” Ilya says, waving the words away. “It is bad for my image.”

“That is true,” Yuna agrees reluctantly.

“You do not need any more compliments, anyway,” Ilya teases Shane. “Your head is big enough as it is.”

“I do not have a big head!”

Ilya mimes something approximately the shape of a watermelon. “Very big head for second-best player.”

“Fuck you,” Shane says sweetly as Yuna goes red in the face.

“Shane is not the second-best player,” she says sharply.

Shane and Ilya turn to her. Ilya gulps, his stomach fluttering unpleasantly at the look on her face.

“Mom –” Shane breaks off. He shakes his head. “He’s just joking.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” Shane says, his tone brooking no room for argument.

“It was a joke,” Ilya confirms quietly.

“That’s not what you’ve been saying for years,” Yuna says, her tone accusatory.

He shrivels under her flat stare. Barely an hour in, and he has already fucked up. How is this worse than when David found him manhandling their darling baby boy in a pair of tiny swim trunks?

“Mom.”

Beneath the table, Shane’s foot taps against Ilya’s, and Ilya remembers to breathe. It is halting and shallow, but at least he has air again. He nearly jumps out of his skin as Shane’s warm hand settles on his thigh, squeezing reassuringly.

“Dad,” Shane continues, “I have something to tell you.” He swallows, his eyes darting to Ilya who tries to keep it together for Shane, even though he also feels like he is going to shake out of his skin. “I’m gay.”

Yuna freezes, and Ilya is not sure if she is more surprised at the change of subject or Shane’s announcement.

“That’s great, son,” David says without missing a beat. “Thanks for telling us.”

Yuna swallows. She glances away – for just a moment, but Ilya feels Shane flinch next to him. “Yes, thank you for telling us.” Her lips purse as she takes in their lunch guest. “Ilya knows?”

Shane flushes. “Yes. He does.”

Yuna asks, “How long?”

“Have we been dating?” Shane clarifies, his brow furrowing as he tries to follow his mother’s line of questioning.

Yuna’s jaw drops open. “You’re dating?”

Shane makes a face. “What do you mean? Of course we’re dating.”

“Oh, of course you’re dating,” Yuna says, throwing her hands in the air. “We should have just known that too, right?”

“What?” Shane says, clearly lost. “I didn’t expect you guys to know anything.”

“Yes, you didn’t – because you didn’t tell us!”

“I’m telling you now,” Shane retorts, stung.

“And we’re grateful,” David cuts in. “Aren’t we, honey?”

Yuna says nothing, just glowers at the pair of them across the table.

“And we love you,” David continues. “We love you so much, son.”

“Yes, of course we love you,” Yuna says brusquely. She pushes her chair back. “I need some air.”

Shane watches her go, his face screwed up in an ugly expression.

“Go.” Ilya nudges him with his elbow.

“What?”

“Talk to her. Is what you did last time,” he says in an undertone.

“Because she was nicer last time!” Shane hisses back.

“You know your mother loves you,” David says, and they both turn to stare at him. “She’s just surprised and hurt,” he continues. “Just the other day, she was bragging to her book club how close you’ve been recently, lining up all those big brand deals, so this is a little bit of a shock. Look, I can tell her that it’s not her place to take her hurt out on you both or…”

“Or what?” Shane asks waspishly.

“Or you can,” David says. “It might mean more coming from you. I can calm her down, but you can make her understand.”

“Ugh, fine,” Shane says, sighing. He gets up. “I’ll be right back.”

Panic seizes Ilya by the throat once Shane leaves him alone with his father.

“You are not mad too?” Ilya asks hesitantly.

David shakes his head. “I’m surprised and a little sad he didn’t tell us before, but not mad. Not mad at all.”

Ilya scrambles for something to say in response. “That is good,” he says lamely.

David spears a green bean on his fork. “Don’t worry about them,” he says, jerking towards the doorway where Shane and Yuna disappeared. “I pretty much expected something like this. I’ve been keeping the peace between those two for twenty years. This barely ranks in the top ten fights.” He adds dryly, “You weren’t there for bath time in ‘95, but it was a doozy.”

Ilya cracks a smile.

David smiles right back. “I was the one who had to pick up Shane from hockey practice since he and Yuna would get into screaming matches when it was time to leave the ice.”

Ilya can picture it so clearly, tiny Shane in tiny skates, tiny angry kitten face and all.

“Once he threw a stick at her, it was all over,” David says.

“He threw a stick at Yuna?” Ilya gasps. “And he lived?”

“Barely,” David confides. “She threatened to send him to the North Pole until he was 18, but she let him live, especially after I pointed out no hockey games on TV for a week was a better punishment.”

Ilya laughs, and David joins in.

“I’m glad Shane finally brought you around,” David says as Ilya goes still, listening for any shift in tone that indicates David is lying, watching for any tic or tell that betrays the same. “Yuna and I had been wanting to meet you for a while.”

He finds none. “Me too,” Ilya says after too long.

“Shane said your home life was complicated,” David says, apparently oblivious to the inner turmoil roiling Ilya’s insides. “He thought it would be weird for you here. We said you probably wouldn’t care, but he was pretty firm that we meet on your terms.”

Ilya’s jaw falls open. What the actual fuck, Hollander?

“It is not weird,” Ilya says after a beat. “It is nice – very nice – to meet you.”

“Oh? I hope we measure up,” David says mildly. “First impressions aren’t everything, you know.”

Cottage. Groping. Only child.

“Yes, I know,” Ilya deadpans.

“Good,” David says. “And I know Yuna didn’t put her best foot forward today, but she just feels things very deeply. Hurt, sure, but also love. She’s a good mom. Protective, you know. Like a mama bear.”

The corners of Ilya’s lip curl into a wry smile. “Is good Shane did not go to the North Pole and get adopted by a real mama polar bear.”

David chuckles. “Yuna could take on a polar bear any day of the week.”

“Of course she can,” Ilya says dismissively. “And then Yuna Hollander would wear its skin to the NHL Awards.”

Over David’s shoulder in the doorway, Yuna misses a step and Shane nearly walks into her. “I would wear what to what?”

David beams at his wife and son as they retake their seats, both looking distinctly red around the eyes. “I was telling Ilya about the time you tried to exile Shane to the North Pole.”

“What the – David,” Yuna hisses.

“Oh my god,” Shane mutters.

“No, is cute!” Ilya assures him. “You were so devoted to hockey, you were going to board Yuna to stay in your skates.”

“I wasn’t going to board my own mother,” Shane says, affronted.

“You were very close,” Yuna murmurs behind her glass of water.

Shane scrubs a hand down his face, making vaguely disgruntled noises.

“So devoted,” Ilya repeats. He takes Shane’s hand in his. “Is what makes you the best hockey player.”

“Ilya– ”

Yuna starts, chagrined, “Look, Ilya, I’m sorry–”

Ilya ignores both of them. “Because you are the best,” he says seriously. “You are faster, smarter.”

“I have a better team –” Shane starts, blushing furiously.

“No,” Ilya shuts him down. “My team is good too, and I like hockey. But you are hockey. You don’t play for the glory, the money, the rush, or the attention, not like me. I play because I am good at it. You play because you cannot think of doing anything else, so you have no choice but to be the best.”

Shane swallows, his eyes huge and dark. He just nods in agreement.

“Okay,” Yuna says quietly. “I see it now.”

* * *

Ilya’s fingers drum on the steering wheel. Unanswered questions are batting annoyingly against the back of his mind, but he cannot ask Shane, not his Shane who has only been here a few days, and probably does not know anything more than Ilya does about the rewritten past.

“Okay, what is going on?” Shane says, exasperated. “I’ve been waiting for, like, twenty miles. Something is going on with you.”

“Is nothing.”

Shane raises his eyebrows. “We passed, like, two McDonalds in the past half hour. You didn’t say a word.”

“We just had lunch!”

Shane laughs. “Like that has ever stopped you before.”

Ilya stays quiet. These things would only frustrate Shane or make him angry. No point in bringing them up.

“I’m not going to let it go,” Shane threatens. “We have two hours and seven minutes left, and I will get it out of you.”

Ilya sighs.

“Is it my parents?” Shane asks tentatively. “I know Mom was a bit… harsh. And I’m mad at her too. But she really seemed to be warming up towards the end.”

“No, is not your parents.” Ilya regrets the words as soon as they are out of his mouth. “Not really.”

“But kind of?” Shane jumps on the implication. “What did they do?”

Ilya exhales a slow breath. Hedeliberately unclenches his deathgrip on the wheel. “I always wondered why you did not introduce me to them. Was it because of something I did?”

“Like what?” Shane asks, confused. “Did you, like, insult them? Say McGill is a bad school or mom doesn’t know hockey?”

“What the fuck?” Ilya flinches at the very suggestion. “No. That is ridiculous. I respect Yuna and her hockey witchcraft very much. I even told you so. Is in our text history.”

“Oh,” Shane says as he settles back into his seat to think. “Then I have no idea.”

The crease between Shane's brows deepens with every mile of asphalt that disappears beneath the the tires of Ilya’s car. Ilya sneaks a longer glance at the passenger seat. Fuck, Shane is definitely gearing up to launch a new assault on Ilya’s weird mood.

“David said that,” Ilya hesitates, “that you, the other you, said that meeting your parents would be weird for me. Because my family is such shit.”

Shane’s brow furrows. “I’m sure he didn’t phrase it that way.”

Ilya waves his excuses off. “Is the gist.”

“If that’s the case, which I’m not saying it is,” Shane clarifies, “then I kind of get it.”

Ilya’s head whips around, hurt radiating out like a puck to the sternun. “What the fuck, Hollander? You thought I would not be able to be nor–”

“No, no,” Shane interrupts frantically. “Not that at all! I just,” he huffs out an annoyed breath, “I just wouldn’t want to rub your face in it.”

Ilya has no idea what he is talking about.

“Look,” Shane says, looking pained. “When I was a kid, in mites and later, Mom and Dad were absolutely dead set on giving me anything I wanted when it came to hockey, short of dropping out of school. I got all the best gear, the best coach, you know the rest,” Shane says even though Ilya really does not know. “And I could tell some of the other kids on my team were jealous,” he says, his voice lowering with embarassment. “Hockey is expensive, and time consuming, and not everyone had parents like mine. The other kids didn’t, like, take it out on me or anything, but I always felt different. And I guess, I didn’t want that happening with you.”

Ilya aborbs this for all of a half second. “That is very stupid.”

To his surprise, Shane laughs. “I’m very stupid when it comes to you, if that wasn’t obvious by now.”

Ilya dips his head in a small nod. “Yes, I know.”

“What I know for sure,” Shane says seriously, reaching over the console to lay his hand over Ilya’s, “Is it is nothing you did. I bet he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or bring up bad feelings because I have easy parents and you didn’t.”

“Maybe,” Ilya acknowledges begrudgingly.

“Honestly,” Shane says as he leans back in his seat, his tone turning pensive, “he did a lot of stuff that really doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.”

Ilya scoffs in bitter agreement.

“Like, why aren’t you dating now?” Shane asks, naturally spearing Ilya right in the heart, right out of the blue.

Ilya says stiffly, “I have been asking myself that question for years.”

“And you did ask him, right?” Shane asks. “You didn’t, I don’t know, imply shit or talk in circles?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t mention all the girls you were sleeping with in the same sentence?” Shane teases, but he catches sight of Ilya’s stony face and quickly tacks on, “Sorry, too soon, right?”

“I was not sleeping with anyone else,” Ilya says, his voice curt. “And he knew this. We were just friends who fuck,” Ilya says. “I visited him more during the season. If I had a few days off, I would go to Montreal or if we had games close by.”

“Oh,” Shane says, comprehension dawning.

“‘Oh’?” Ilya demands. “What ‘oh’?”

“You were already dating,” Shane says simply.

Ilya’s jaw drops.

“You’d go to your apartment or his, you’d hang out, and you’d sleep together, right?” Shane asks. “And when you weren’t seeing each other, you’d text, right? Pretty frequently?”

Ilya nods. “But friends do this too –”

“I don’t,” Shane interrupts. “I know you had – have – a similar thing with Svetlana, minus the fucking, but that’s not me. If I spent that much time with you, put that much effort into staying in contact, that means more than when you do it.” He shrugs. “You know, on the off-season, I see Hayden, like, twice outside of our workouts? And our entire text thread is, like, coordinating our running routes and stuff. And he’s my best friend. Trust me, if I was doing all that stuff for you, it’s not because we’re just friends.”

“But you said we’d never be boyfriends,” Ilya says weakly.

Shane shakes his head. “That’s just a label,” he says. “And you know how weird I get about big changes, even if it’s slapping a new name on something that’s already there.”

Ilya narrows his eyes at him. “You are being very perceptive. Is very unlike you.”

Shane smiles, but has an undercurrent of sadness. “Yeah, well, I had a few more years to get better at noticing things like that.”

* * *

Stepping foot inside the cottage feels like coming home, in a way that returning to his house in Boston in 2010 and apartment in Moscow the next summer never felt like. He cannot help his wide smile and turns to find Shane wearing the dopiest expression he has ever seen. “God, you really love it here,” he observes.

Ilya seizes his face in between his hands and kisses him deeply. “I love you,” he says instead.

“Come on,” Shane says, jerking his head towards the bedroom. “We should unpack and shower.”

Ilya does not move. “You are so boring, Hollander,” he groans.

Shane scowls. “Well, what do you think we should do?”

Ilya stares at him and waggles his eyebrows.

“No,” he says, backing up, up the stairs. Just one though, to show he really is not serious at all. “We spent two days in the car! I’m gross. You’re gross.”

Ilya prowls closer.

“I haven’t cleaned,” Shane pleads uselessly, “down there.”

Ilya narrows his eyes. “Do I look like I care?”

Shane hesitates. “Uh, no?”

Ilya roughly cups him through his shorts, and Shane makes a strangled noise. “And I don’t think you really care either,” he says as his roving fingers trace the outline of Shane’s rapidly hardening cock.

“I…” Shane drifts off. He drops his bag with a thump as Ilya pulls his shorts all the way down and blows him while they are mostly clothed right there on the stairs.

They do not get around to unpacking until an hour later.

Shane grills burgers for old time’s sake, and, when he forgets to cut the recipe in half again, he uses the leftover patties to train Tonya to sit and roll over. She masters sit in a few tries, but she cannot wrap her head around rolling all the way over. She stops halfway, flat on her back, tongue lolling, tail wagging, and every time Ilya is so delighted he feeds her a bit of hamburger, ignoring Shane’s protests that she will never learn this way.

Shane lights up the firepit after dinner. Like a well-oiled machine or two moving parts of the same unit, Shane sits back on the bench and Ilya folds himself into his lap. Shane’s fingers bury themselves in Ilya’s hair, and Ilya’s hand wraps reassuringly around Shane’s knee.

“Ilya?”

Ilya hums.

“What happened in December?”

Ilya freezes.

He feels more than hears Shane sigh. “Can you promise me something?”

“What, Hollander?” Ilya asks curtly. Fuck, Shane is not going to let this go.

“Can you be honest with me? Like the first time we came here?” Shane’s fingers pause in his hair. “Hey, if you think about it, this is the first time we have been here together. That’s really weird.”

Ilya squeezes his eyes shut, like that will do anything to block out Shane’s earnest words. His Shane, this Shane will not judge him. Probably. He already knows all of Ilya’s worst fears and self-destructive tendencies. He loves him anyway, or he did.

Ilya is safe.

Or, well, his head knows he is safe. His heart is another matter entirely.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Shane promises. “If you can be honest with me and say what you’re actually thinking.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Shane agrees and waits.

Ilya opens his eyes and watches the fire, letting the bright flames burn against his retinas. He stares and stares and stares until he has to close his eyes or go blind. Quietly, he says, “I was very sad in December.”

The fire crackles, and Shane says in a carefully calm voice, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Ilya sighs. “Really, I had been sad since April.”

“That’s a long time.”

“I visited you,” Ilya says. “The other you, in Montreal,” he amends. “I went to a Voyageurs game.”

“Oh,” Shane says, sitting up a little straighter, “I think I saw pictures of that. You were wearing my jersey.”

“Yes.”

Shane chuckles. “You were so fucking hot, wearing my name, in my colors.”

Ilya twists around in surprise, so he can catch a glimpse of Shane’s face. “You think so?”

“Uh, yeah,” Shane says, confused. “It –” he cuts himself off, and Ilya can practically feel the heat of his blush.

“What?” Ilya pokes him in the leg. “Honesty, Hollander. You promised.”

“Fuck you.”

“You said –”

“I know what I said,” Shane complains, “but it’s fucking embarrassing.”

“I nearly killed myself in December,” Ilya says without preamble. “Cannot be more embarrassing than that.”

“What?” Shane gasps, and he yanks, hard, at Ilya’s hair, like he has to feel for himself that Ilya is still here with him. “That’s what you – that’s not fucking embarrassing, Ilya. That’s… terrifying.”

Ilya shrugs and pokes Shane in the thigh again. “What did you think when you saw me wearing your jersey?”

“Ilya, you tried to commit –”

“Cottage rules, Hollander!” Ilya reminds him in a sing-song voice.

“Oh my god, you are impossible,” Shane growls. “Fine. I thought it was the hottest thing I’d seen in four years, and a sign that I’d fucking died and went to heaven, okay? Here I was, in a world where you were alive, where we were friends, where we could, I don’t know, fucking go to the grocery store without people acting like the Iron Curtain was coming down all over again. It was practically everything I’d ever wanted.”

Ilya blinks. “You do know your Russian history.”

“Svetlana got me a book.”

“She did?” Ilya asks, deeply skeptical. “She doesn’t read.”

“And she definitely didn’t read this one,” Shane says with a smirk. “She gave me the longest, driest, most boring book ever written and basically said that I would never finish it. So I totally did.”

He snorts. “You are such a sucker.”

Shane toys with the hairs at the nape of Ilya’s neck. “Apparently I am a sucker for mean Russians who like to troll innocent Canadians. Who knew?”

Ilya keeps snickering.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.”

Ilya keeps watching the fire. “I thought I was in Hell when I first woke up here,” he murmurs, and Shane’s laughter dies off instantly. “I was in a hotel room, and Mama was not there. You were not there.”

Shane’s fingernails skitter along his hairline, brushing against his face. “Sweetheart…”

“But then I got a phone call from CCM, and at the rink I saw you,” Ilya sighs, “and I knew it couldn’t be Hell, not if we were together.”

“Oh my god,” Shane says, his voice wobbly. “I – I’m so glad you weren’t alone.”

The like I was goes unsaid, but Ilya hears it all the same. He sits up and wraps his arms around Shane, pulling him to his chest as Shane’s eyes get shinier. “Is okay, малыш. I am here.”

“But you weren’t,” Shane protests at once, his voice hoarse with emotion. “You were fucking dead, Ilya, and I was in your version of Hell because you certainly weren’t there with me. You were gone. You left me.”

Ilya holds him as the tears fall.

“And I’m so fucking mad at you,” Shane says thickly, “and I love you so fucking much.”

“I am so sorry, моя любовь,” Ilya murmurs as he presses a kiss to the crown of Shane’s head.

“I know,” Shane says, his breath hitching. “I know it’s not your fault. You didn’t mean to go.” He tilts his head up to glance at Ilya. “Tell me more about December.”

“Shane –”

“No, I want to know,” he says, his expression steely.

Ilya sighs. “You know most important part.”

“I want to know all of it.”

So Ilya tells him. After all, he has always been a sucker for innocent Canadians.

* * *

Ilya wakes up with a start. His heart pounds, blood thunders in his ears, and dread crawls like an entire colony of ants in his veins. He reaches over to the other side of the bed, and it is like a sinking to an ice bath after a grueling practice, to feel Shane’s bicep in the dark. He squeezes the muscle, a tad too hard, to tell his stupid brain that Shane is here, Shane is back, and Shane did not, somehow, die in a plane crash, flesh crackling, bones breaking, his teammates screaming all around him.

No, Shane is right here, solid, whole, in once piece. Healthy as can be, by most definitions.

“Ilya?” Shane slurs. “What’s going on?”

Instead of answering, Ilya tugs him closer and presses a lingering kiss to his hair. “Go back to sleep.”

“Hey, wait,” Shane blinks, hard, a few times, “no, if it’s bothering you. I can be awake.”

“I am fine.”

“And I’m,” Shane yawns hugely, “the fucking Queen of England. What’s up?”

Ilya sighs. “Is stupid.”

“Not if it woke you up in the middle of the night, it’s not.” He moves to sit up against the headboard and flicks on the lamp on his side of the bed, casting the dark bedroom in a gentle, warm glow. “A bad dream?”

“Да.”

“What happened?” Shane pulls Ilya up, so he is leaning against Shane’s chest, Shane’s breaths ghosting over the shell of his ear.

“You were in the plane,” Ilya murmurs, “not me.”

Shane is silent for a long moment. “Sometimes,” he pauses, “okay, a lot of the time, I wished that was how it happened.”

Ilya goes rigid against him, absolutely horrified. “No,” he chokes out past the emotion constricting his throat.

Behind him, he feels Shane shrug. “It was a useless thought, since I couldn’t change the past.” He pokes Ilya in the side, and Ilya can hear the smile in his voice, “Yet.”

Ilya twists around to see his face. “You did not die, right? That is not how you came here? Like I did?”

Shane shakes his head. “Just went to bed one night and woke up in Vegas.”

“Wow.”

Shane sighs heavily. “I thought about it,” he says, wrapping his arms around Ilya, so even if Ilya want to punch him or bite him for being so fucking stupid, he could not.

Ilya starts, his tone dangerously quiet, “You thought –”

“But I knew,” Shane continues over him like there was no interruption, “that if you were out there, wherever you were, you would have been so disappointed, so mad at me. So I didn’t.”

Ilya scowls. “Would have fucking killed you myself, if you did that.”

“Yeah,” Shane says fondly, “that’s what I thought.” He rests his chin on top of Ilya’s head. “I had people who depended on me, Rose, my parents, Hayden, even Svetlana after a bit. And Bear, my dog. I wouldn’t have done anything I couldn’t take back.”

“Good,” Ilya says with relish.

“I mean,” Shane amends, “I wasn’t in a good place. Obviously. But you don’t have to worry about anything like that when it comes to me, okay?”

“Okay,” Ilya says uselessly because he cannot say the same, that Shane never has to worry about him dying like his mother.

“I love you so much, Ilya,” Shane whispers. “When I’m going, I’m taking you with me, or I’m not going at all.”

Ilya cranes his neck around to stare at Shane, his eyebrows raised. “Ah, so you will murder me, after all?”

“What?” Shane says, indignant. “That’s not what I meant!”

“Is what you said.”

“Fuck, no, it’s not!” Shane shoves him away. “God, you’re impossible. Go back to sleep. Murdering you, as fucking if.”

Laughing to himself, Ilya snuggles back into the covers and drags Shane down with him, still grumbling.

* * *

“We should go back to the original plan,” Shane says, silhouetted against the pre-dawn light.

Beyond him, beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Canadian wilderness is just beginning to wake up. Birds chirp merrily in the foliage, and Ilya groans in misery and turns over in bed.

“Ilya?”

Ilya lets out an obnoxiously fake snore.

“Ilya.”

Ilya squeezes his eyes shut. “Is this new tactic to win the cup? Make sure I never have full night’s sleep ever again?”

“Shut up,” Shane says. “I’m serious.”

“You are always serious. More crazy question is why are you awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Ilya gripes, “So you make this my problem too?”

“Well, yeah. I can’t really talk to the loons about this.”

Ilya turns back over in bed to face Shane. “There have been many plans. Which one are you talking about?”

“The plan for you to play in Canada – Ottawa.”

Ilya bristles with far too much anger and fear this early in the morning. “Ottawa got me killed,” he says flatly.

Shane shakes his head. “It won’t happen like that again.”

“Oh, so you have become expert in plane engineering?” Ilya asks, eyebrows rising.

“Kind of,” Shane says sheepishly. “I read the crash report, like, a thousand times. I can practically recite it from memory.”

“That is very sad.”

“Shut up. It’s how I’m going to save you.”

Ilya can spend a full decade by Shane’s side and still never fully understand him. “By building me whole new plane?”

“What?” Shane’s face scrunches in confusion. “No, that’s insane. I’m going to phone in a bomb threat.”

Ilya takes a beat to absorb this. “Oh, my mistake,” he drawls. “Calling in a fake bomb threat is, of course, less insane.”

Smug as anything, Shane informs him, “Every time aviation authorities receive a bomb threat, they have to check it out and evacuate the aircraft.”

“Wow, so smart. Can I go back to bed?”

“Come on!” Shane whacks him with the pillow. “It’s a good plan. And… I’ll be going on the plane with you, anyway. So if you die, I will too.”

Ilya sits up, all too awake now. He cannot imagine Shane sitting on that plane with him, silent and white-faced with the knowledge of imminent, fiery death. He forcibly shoves that thought away and reaches for Shane, just to touch him. “What the fuck are you talking about, Hollander?”

“I’m going to leave the Voyageurs,” Shane says grimly. “Dubois and Putnam are going to retire this season, so the Centaurs will have more cap space. And, I think if we let it get out that we’re interested, they’ll make it work. I’ve done all the math. Don’t worry,” he adds, his gaze focused intently on Ilya’s face, “if they cut a few more dead weights, they can still afford Barrett and Hayes when the time comes. Haas too. We have a few years to work that out, though.”

Ilya blinks. “You want to play together?”

Shane nods once, firmly. “I play with you or not at all.” He falters. “If you want that, obviously.”

“Of course I want,” Ilya scoffs. “But I do not see the Voyageurs letting you go in this universe.”

Shane bites his lip. “I think,” he says carefully, “if they learn that I’m gay and married to our biggest rival in the NHL, they will rethink my contract and put me on waivers.” He shrugs. “I haven’t won them a cup yet. They’re still rebuilding, after all.”

“Holy shit,” Ilya mouths.

Shane flushes. Hurriedly, he says, “This isn’t me proposing!”

Ilya snorts. “No?”

Shane freezes, his big brown eyes going even bigger. “Wait, you’re saying no?”

Ilya tugs him closer and kisses the horror off of Shane’s face. “Дорогой, you just said that was not a proposal.”

“Okay, but if it was,” Shane says nervously, “you’d say yes, right?”

Ilya shakes his head. As Shane’s face goes carefully blank, Ilya adds, “I will be one doing proposing.”

Shane’s mouth purses in an enormous scowl. “No fucking way.”

Ilya grins. “I have always been faster than you. I will be faster in this too.”

“Absolutely not,” Shane declares. “Ilya, will you marry me?”

Ilya grins hugely. “No.”

Shane’s jaw drops open in outrage. “What the fuck do you mean no?” He rolls over, draping the full weight of his body over Ilya’s. “Fucking marry me, asshole!”

Ilya laughs as Shane tries to shake him into responding, which does nothing but grind his morning wood directly into Ilya’s right hip. He groans at the slick slide of warm skin – holy shit, how is Shane already leaking this much? How long has he been awake? Was he getting hard thinking about his new Ottawa plan, about new future they will have together? Ilya wriggles a hand between them, but Shane’s hand wraps around his wrist, stopping him inches from his destination.

“Answer me,” Shane murmurs in his ear. “Or you can’t touch.”

Ilya twists his head to stare at him. “You are playing dirty,” he complains.

“Like you wouldn’t do the same, if you’d thought of it first,” Shane scoffs. He ruts against Ilya one more time, cutting off the half-formed retort on Ilya’s tongue, asking again, in Russian this time, “Ты выйдешь за меня?”

All of Ilya’s blood immediately rushes south in a fucking tidal wave. Shane is truly playing dirty. Fuck.

“Yes,” Ilya says reverently, staring up at Shane, magnificent in the early dawn light, his skin shining nearly gold. “I will marry you.”

Chapter End Notes

To everyone who gave kudos and commented, thank you so very much! It meant the world to hear your thoughts and reactions while I was editing and tightening up these chapters. ♥ ♥ ♥

Afterword

End Notes

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Preface

Don’t Let the Sun Go

Chapter 1: Texting

моя любовь 🍁

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Света 💅🏽

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Chapter 2: No Sleeping Around

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Chapter 3: Friends

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Chapter 4: First Names

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Chapter 5: Boyfriends

Afterword