Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Hayden Pike, Rose Landry, Miles (Game Changers), Svetlana Vetrova, Original Female Character(s), Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

Magical Realism, Witchcraft, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Ilya Rozanov Gets A Hug, deep dives into the NHL schedule to make my story about witchcraft in a fictional universe "realistic", all roads lead to the cottage, some cottage anyway, Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts, Grandmothers, witch grandmothers, Pre-Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Post-Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Protective Shane Hollander, nantucket, Historical Accuracy, but with witchcraft, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Hungry Ghosts and related stories

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-23 Words: 29,938 Chapters: 10/10

Hungry Ghosts

Summary

Shane knew what people said about sharing true names: that it made sex better, like fucking bare except with all your witch senses involved, that even for people with no witch gift to speak of it was like your entire body was on fire. It probably wouldn’t be like that with Ilya, because sex with Ilya already felt like his entire body was on fire.

A universe in which the stakes for tuna meltdown are totally different and also kind of the same. Love, witchcraft, and true names.

Note: If you read this before 3/23, I recently realized that a key scene at the end of Chapter 7 didn’t make the leap from my google doc. Now fixed! Now with more feelings!

Notes

Chapter 1: my blood started running wild

Ilya

Names had power. Ilya knew that. Everyone did. Names didn’t give you control or domination like in some of the fairy stories. You couldn’t bind someone’s will with their true name, even if you had a strong witch gift, but you could reach them. Maybe if you combined the name with something else – blood or spit or hair – you could do more. Maybe. It wasn’t linear, or reliable.

People said there were spells to learn someone else’s true name, but Ilya didn’t really believe that. Not that he could learn those spells himself, even if they existed. He wasn’t a witch, he didn’t think, though sometimes he wondered if his mother had been one. It would explain a few things, like why she had married his father. A witch gift would have been a risky secret, especially after the Soviet crackdowns. But witch gifts were confusing. There were a million stories about them, but beyond agreeing that witch gifts did in fact exist, every story was different. There were witch schools with precise technical specifications for every spell and witch schools that made elaborate potions and engineered magical materials and witch schools that mostly used poetry and witch schools that barely used words at all.

They all agreed that names were special, though.

Parents knew their children’s true names, of course, because that was where names came from: the full moon naming ceremony, or the ritual in the forest, or sometimes, in cities, just drawing a circle of tap water and salt on the baby’s forehead. There were different traditions. Probably in Canada there was some kind of paperwork for it. Married couples usually knew each other’s true names, but not always. Sometimes children knew their parents’ names. Not usually in Russia. Siblings mostly knew, though Ilya thanked his lucky stars that his brother didn’t know his. Sometimes friends. Svetlana was the only person besides his father who knew he was named Ilya. They had told each other, when they were young and believed their friendship could never change, before they really understood the danger. They’d been lucky. Their friendship had changed, bent, grown, never broken. But it was always a risk. It always meant something.

In hockey, with blood and teeth on the ice and superstition thick in the locker rooms, people were careful. Using your family name was okay. Nicknames from the family name, even better. Ilya had been Rozyonok for a while in Russia, when his brother was around, but in America he could just be Roz. Sometimes people would invent a public name – usually actors had one, or people with a lot of siblings – but hockey nicknames worked well enough.

He did wonder about Hollander’s name, sometimes. Just once in a while, though. Ilya was good at not thinking about things.

In fact, just now he was carefully not thinking about the Bears’ afternoon game against Montréal that coming weekend. He had scheduled his cleaning service to come a day early, the Thursday rather than the Friday, but he had avoided thinking about why. Connors, who seemed to have friends all over the league, had mentioned that Montréal would fly in early on Friday and even invited Ilya to go out with some of his friends on the Voyageurs. Ilya liked Connors, but he had said, “Another time, yes? This day I am busy.”

Ilya had not quite been able to avoid thinking about what he might be busy doing. He had been not thinking about it for several weeks. They were always in hotel rooms, or sometimes at Hollander’s apartment in Montréal. Always at night, in the dark, snatching an hour or two and then sneaking out through the utility door in the alley or checking the hotel hallway before letting themselves out. There was never enough time. There was nothing to be done about that, so he didn’t think about it.

He couldn’t help the images that flashed through his mind. If, instead of walking out into the cold post-game night, or kissing goodbye while a cab waited, he could go back to bed with Hollander after they fucked. In the afternoon. He could see it: Hollander’s freckles in the sunlight, Hollander on his couch watching hockey, Hollander sleeping in his fucking bed. It was better not to let his mind stay there. He thought instead about Hollander’s sweet desperate mouth, his round hockey ass and heavy muscular thighs, the way he would just let Ilya. Safer terrain.

But this weekend the Voyageurs flew in on Friday morning, and the game wasn’t til Saturday afternoon. No morning skate. Almost 24 hours between when Hollander would arrive in Boston and when they would both be expected at the rink. It might be the only time this year that they had this chance.

Ilya added some ginger ale to the grocery delivery order. He texted the cleaners to have them come Thursday. He let himself think about what he might want to eat on Friday afternoon. Maybe something more personal than one of the meals from the chef service a lot of the team used, but still not too complex for his limited kitchen skills. As a rookie, he’d lived with one of the alternate captains and his wife, and they had taught him to make tuna melts. There were a couple of cans of tuna in the cupboard already. Pickles in the fridge, of course, always. Mayonnaise, yes. He made sure the grocery order had cheese and baguette. The good baguette from the real bakery, not the grocery store stuff. North American bread was terrible.

Maybe a smoothie for breakfast on Saturday? He had protein powder, of course, but maybe Hollander would like something with frozen fruit. He ordered blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, mango, pineapple, peaches, and a block of frozen spinach. Some bananas probably. He added a Vitamix to his cart, since it wasn’t like he made smoothies for himself. Eggs. More bread, a couple of varieties, one of them high protein and gluten free. Some almond butter and a jar of unsweetened fruit spread. Did Hollander drink coffee? Tea? They had been doing this thing for so many years and yet Ilya knew so little about him. He drank that terrible sports drink, the one that had too many vitamins and tasted like dirt. Ilya added some of that to the order too.

By Wednesday, he was having so much trouble not thinking about things that he considered ordering more pillows. Condoms and lube were in the nightstand, sheets would be clean, but maybe Hollander would want more pillows on the bed. In the middle of checking overnight delivery times on Amazon, Ilya tipped his head back on the couch and blew out a long breath. No.

Since not thinking about it was a lost cause, he let himself sink into the idea. He wondered how he could get Hollander to stay. Asking beforehand would never work. He needed to make it a game. Maybe after they fucked. Wait until Hollander was relaxed. Bring him back to bed and fool around more. Again, the images: the two of them in Ilya’s shower, Ilya kneeling on the floor to suck him off, pulling Hollander back down in the bed, smirking, “I’m not done with you yet.” Yes, that was the right tone. Keep it light, sexy. This thing was supposed to be light and sexy. Brushing his fingers through Hollander’s hair and kissing his face, his neck, his beautiful shoulders. Whispering “sweetheart” into his collarbone. Fuck. That was not at all the right tone.

Stupidly, even worse than all the rest, he imagined telling Hollander his name. It was a stupid idea. They were not anything, and even if they were anything he could not have a rival player knowing his name. He went out on the balcony for a cigarette. He knew Hollander didn’t like the smell indoors, but fuck, at least that would satisfy Ilya, knock him off track. Anything so he could get back to not thinking.

—-----—-----—-----—-----—-----

It went fine. It went better than he’d expected, honestly. Hollander made it to his condo. Ilya made fun of his nervous real estate talk and pushed him up against the counter and kissed him. It was good. The sex was good. The sex was always good. Hollander was above him, riding him: Hollander’s hand on his chest, his powerful thighs working him up and down over Ilya’s dick, his face and hair sweating. Then Ilya rolling him over, the impossible tightness of Hollander’s body pulling him over the edge, the tide of orgasm pulling him down against Hollander’s sticky chest. Resting his face in the crook of Hollander’s shoulder, lips pressed against his collarbone, tasting a splash of come and the salt of Hollander’s skin. Ilya wondered if Hollander knew how spectacular he was, how beautiful, how special it was that as soon as Ilya touched him all the anxiety and tension fell away.

And then after, when Hollander had cleaned up and seemed like he might be thinking about leaving, Ilya barely thought about saying, “Stay.” He had already thought about it too much, so in the moment, he could sound casual. Hollander came back to bed and they made out, gently, sated for the moment. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched someone that way: not hungry, or angry, or in a hurry. Just soft, adoring, open-mouthed kisses until they fell asleep.

They watched hockey, of course. He made the tuna melts. They talked. He wasn’t sure what to talk about but his mind kept circling around to who else Hollander might be sleeping with. He talked about Svetlana, trying to warm Hollander up to the idea of talking about what, exactly, they were doing here by talking about what they did with other people.

It was … it wasn’t perfect, that was for sure. For one thing his couch was too big. He was hungry for touch at the best of times, but it was agonizing to have Hollander in his house, wearing his clothes, without touching him. He didn’t think about that, as much as he could manage it, but he did sit closer to Hollander when he brought the tuna melts. For another, Hollander did not seem to understand why Ilya was telling him about Svetlana, and thus refused to tell Ilya anything he didn’t already know. Ilya could feel this energy between them, like there was something neither of them was saying, and it made him restless.

When his father called, and he had to talk him down and call his brother, it seemed like it should have interrupted that energy. But instead Hollander had known who he was talking to, had known the Russian word for father, which Ilya found impossibly charming even though the other part of his brain knew that “papa” meant father in both English and French.

Ilya couldn’t help pulling Hollander into him on the couch then, stroking his silky black hair, kissing his head gently. The energy started moving again. It was almost a tangible thing, a silken cocoon tightening around them until Hollander was the only thing he could feel. Hollander’s breath through his soft pants, Hollander’s clever hands touching him through the fabric, and then both of them rutting up against each other, dicks finally out, hands pulling them together, the friction unbearably good, Hollander over him again, both of them shirtless, faces tipped together. They shared one breath, one heartbeat.

“Are you going to come for me?” Hollander asked him, and Ilya thought he might come just from the way Hollander asked the question.

“Fuckin’ make me.”

Hollander held his hand out for spit and then they were just wet enough, sweat and spit and pre-come together. They came, falling over the edge at almost the same moment, their come splashing up Ilya’s chest and mixing. Ilya’s mind whited out and a word formed on his lips, a word he hadn’t known until that moment, whispered in their shared breath.

“Shane.”

They were staring at each other, wide-eyed, shocked, almost kissing, when Shane (Shane) whispered, into his mouth, “Ilya.”

The relief was catastrophic, like a dam breaking, scouring every cell in his body clean. Ilya tilted his head back and pulled Shane down into a kiss, raw and open and uncontrolled. For a moment he could feel only the flood of sensation and emotion that tumbled them together. But even as it passed through him he could feel Shane pulling away, still kissing him but less, less, and then suddenly Shane was out of his arms. Ilya couldn’t process it. He curled his body slightly, bracing against the sudden cold.

Shane was saying he couldn’t. He had to go. He had to leave. Something about a team meeting. Ilya tried to keep his voice level but he knew everything was in there: the mask, the anger, and underneath it all the black river of loss he shouldn’t be letting anyone see. “You forgot team meeting? Sure.”

Shane was leaving. Ilya was sitting on the couch, abruptly cold and sticky, and Shane was leaving. Ilya reached out his hand. “Hollander.” They could go back, nothing had to change, they could pretend this had never happened, they could be Hollander and Rozanov and mean nothing to each other. He would take it. He would take anything he could get.

Shane was standing, clutching the shirt of Ilya’s that he’d been wearing, tears in his eyes. “Thank you for the, uh, for the tuna melt.” Always the polite Canadian boy.

“Hollander.” There was nothing he could do to stop Shane from walking away, but he begged anyway.

Shane was gone.

Shane

Shane’s head was ringing. It was all static. He couldn’t think, head full of tears and fury and the wrongness of the whole situation. He had managed to get his clothes back on, at least, though there was probably still come on his stomach. He needed to get a car back to the hotel before someone saw him losing it in the stairwell of Ilya’s condo building. He did a breathing exercise: in for four, hold for four, out for six. It didn’t work. He punched the wall. The pain in his knuckles finally got through, and he breathed raggedly. In for four, hold for four, out for six.

Ilya (Ilya, what the fuck, how the fuck did Shane know his name) was a witch. Had to be. Had somehow set an elaborate trap for Shane. Was probably laughing at Shane now, at how stupid and desperate he’d been, how he’d played right into Ilya’s plan. God, was Ilya going to trip him up with his name tomorrow during the game? What could Ilya do with it? Unlace his skates? Shatter his stick? Freeze his blades to the ice?

Shane tried desperately to remember the mandatory health class he’d taken in high school, but he hadn’t been paying much attention to anything that happened off the ice. Along with condoms and birth control and not using drugs there’d been some kind of unit on magical health and safety. He vaguely remembered something about name magic being tricky. Unpredictable, and harder to ward against than other kinds. He hadn’t really paid attention, because how would anyone ever know his name?

The team witches were pretty good at keeping luck tokens and curses and come-hithers and charms out of the rink, but the perimeters were set up to keep magic out, away from the players and the ice. They weren’t designed to stop name magic inside the boards. It had probably never occurred to anyone that players might tell each other their names, any more than it had occurred to them that players might suck each other’s dicks (for 6 years, his traitor brain reminded him). But now Shane was going to be the first NHL player to have his name used against him on the ice. Ilya must be planning something awful.

The problem was, Shane couldn’t square his own terror with the shocked, open expression on Ilya’s face. Or with the undeniable fact that he now knew Ilya’s name. He could not quite manage to think of him as Rozanov. Even as he imagined disaster after disaster, part of him still felt the echo of those words in his body, the incredible sweetness of Ilya’s mouth against his, the way they had breathed the names together.

He set his mouth against the memories and picked up his phone to call the cab.

Ilya

The bitch of it was, Ilya could see why Shane would run. They knew each other’s names. He had no idea how the fuck that had happened, but he’d spoken first, so Shane would inevitably believe Ilya had done something on purpose, set some trap. Their whole — whatever — had always been an exercise in trusting the wrong person, but sharing true names was on a different level.

It would have been less dangerous to fuck raw. He could take antibiotics and be rid of gonorrhea, but he would never forget Shane Hollander’s name as long as he lived. Neither of them would ever have done it on purpose. The name had just been in his mouth, and he had said it. But Shane (Shane, not Hollander) wouldn’t believe that.

Shit, Ilya wouldn’t believe it either, if it had gone the other way. He had never even heard of someone learning another person’s name by, what, spontaneous telepathy? Maybe a witch could force you to reveal your name, or maybe it could be tricked out of you, but he wasn’t a witch and he hadn’t tricked Shane.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, mind a stunned blank. When he came back to himself he realized that he was still covered in their mingled come, long since cooled and matted into his chest hair. It was disgusting, but there was something weirdly comforting about having proof that it had been real.

In the shower, Ilya’s brain slowly stuttered back into gear. What could Shane do with his name? Ilya had absorbed all the usual taboos and prohibitions but he hadn’t really thought in much detail about what they meant. He hadn’t needed to. Could Shane use his name to curse him? With injuries or bad luck or who the fuck knew what else?

He realized a minute later that he should be thinking about what he could do with Shane’s name, but his entire body recoiled from the idea of using it against Shane. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach just thinking about it. He nearly threw up on the shower floor before shoving the thought as far away as possible. No. Shane would never believe that he was safe, that Ilya would never use this secret against him, but it was still true.

Chapter 2: God doesn't always have the best goddamn plans does he

Shane

Shane had built up the Boston game into a mythical catastrophe, but in the end it was just a hockey game. It was a pretty terrible hockey game, all things considered, but it was terrible in a normal, unmagical way. Ilya (Rozanov, fuck) barely made eye contact at the face-off dot. Shane was all tangled up in fear and anger and something else he didn’t want to name, and he couldn’t sink into the hypnotic flow he often reached during games. Rozanov (Ilya) was similarly nervy and aggressive, without the usual finesse to either his chirping or his plays. Montréal won, so Shane couldn’t even suspect Ilya of doing something subtle and underhanded.

It should have made him feel better, that the catastrophe hadn’t happened, but instead he could still feel it looming, certain that the wave would break over his head at any time. Maybe Ilya was saving it for the playoffs. Maybe Ilya had done something to him that he couldn’t identify but which would compound into a series of disasters until he would never be allowed to play in the NHL again. He didn’t look at his text thread with Flower, but it was there, sliding further and further down the list of messages.

Back in his apartment in Montréal, he could finally think. He needed to talk to someone. He didn’t understand what had happened, but surely there were experts for this kind of thing. Shane longed to leave this problem on someone else’s doorstep nearly as much as he feared having to discuss it with anyone else.

His mother was a witch, of course. Not professionally, but she’d done the usual year of training expected for anyone with a witch gift, in her case at some Canadian witch school that seemed to involve a lot of fairly boring magical load calculations and reference books. Though she had also painted a luck sigil for the entryway of their house in Ottawa. It was made in a Japanese style with a single continuous brush stroke, and it made his eyes swim when he looked at it too directly.

Shane could not talk to his mother about Ilya Rozanov. She would pin him with her eyes like a butterfly on a board, and he would open his mouth and tell her that someone knew his name, and that the someone was Ilya Rozanov, and that he, Shane Hollander, the son she had raised to be disciplined and careful and responsible, had been fucking Ilya Rozanov since their rookie season. And then he would simply evaporate into the ether, which at least would end his embarrassment, but would also definitely end his hockey career.

No. Not his mother.

Not Pike. Not Dagsy. Not any of the other Voyageurs, that was for sure. He tried looking it up: “name magic how does it work” got him an explainer from HealthLink BC about how names were tied up in people’s energy. It didn’t have anything that wasn’t obvious. Don’t tell anyone your name unless you trust them completely. So probably not the archrival you’ve been casually sleeping with for 6 years, got it. Thanks for the advice, HealthLink BC.

“Name magic how to learn someone else’s name” got him a bunch of official explainers about how unethical that was, and some reddit threads speculating about whether it was even possible. No one seemed to have a clear idea. “Name magic learn name during sex” was almost entirely porn.

Probably the responsible thing to do was to go to the team witches.

There was usually a witch at practice. Witch work wasn’t allowed on the ice, except for the Zamboni witches, and using it for training was basically treated like doping: people definitely tried to get away with it, it didn’t seem to reliably work but maybe it helped some around the edges, and there was a constant cat and mouse game between the league and the various workarounds players came up with. So, usually at practice there was a witch keeping an eye on the situation, and players would get scanned before every game to see if they were using some kind of witch token or magical enhancement, or maybe had picked up a curse somewhere out in the world. Shane had been nearly out of his mind with worry that the scan would pick up whatever witch work Ilya must have used, but he’d come up clean when they scanned him before the game. The team witches were mostly looking for active witch work. Maybe it had just been a momentary thing, not something that had left a residue or an open channel.

The trainer witch today was a middle-aged woman named Rooney, with ropy arm muscles that suggested she spent a lot of time in the climbing gym and pale brown eyes that seemed to see right through him. He racked his brain for how to bring it up. “I, uh, do you ever have issues with name magic in hockey?”

Her left eyebrow went up perhaps a millimeter. “Not very often. Why?”

“Um. No reason, I was just reading something about it.”

The eyebrow went up one more millimeter. “You don’t strike me as the type to chase that kind of thrill.”

What could he say? He hadn’t chased that thrill, but he’d certainly chased a different kind of thrill, and then this problem had found him.

“No, no, it’s not about me, it was just, a friend was showing me something.”

She gave the smallest possible snort. “People pass a lot of things around. Sharing names is a bad idea in a sport like this. Wrap it up and keep it quiet and you shouldn’t have any problems.”

Shane blushed furiously, since she was obviously talking about sex. It’s not like he didn’t know what people said about sharing names: that it made sex better, like fucking bare except with all your witch senses involved, that even for people with no witch gift to speak of it was like your entire body was on fire. It probably wouldn’t be like that with Ilya, because sex with Ilya already felt like his entire body was on fire. It explained why people bothered to take the risk, though. He just didn’t know how to explain what had actually happened, because he hadn’t done anything. It had just happened.

He gave up. The trainer witches were not going to be able to help.

Ilya

Thank God Svetlana was back in town. She had agreed to meet up at a club the same day she flew in from Russia, and Ilya had carefully not thought about why he was so relieved that he didn’t have to wait to see her. Boston clubs were pretty boring, overall, but he really just wanted liquor and music and Sveta’s familiar presence, and even Boston was up to providing that. They’d done a few rounds of tequila shots, Ilya stooping to grab his with his teeth after they licked the salt off each other’s wrists. The dancing had been good, and now he was drunk and tired and taking a break, leaning on Svetlana in one of the alcoves by the wall.

He loved her so much. It was strange to love her so much and also enjoy sleeping with her, but still not have any romantic feelings about her. It would probably be simpler if he did. He cut off the thought.

He almost said her name, but loud as the club was, he still wouldn’t take that risk.

“Vetrushka. Have you ever told anyone else your name?”

She looked at him, probably trying to figure out if he was jealous or something. Whatever she saw in his face made both of her eyebrows fly up. “What the fuck did you do, my friend?”

“Nothing, it is nothing, I did nothing.”

He had forgotten that she was a witch. In Russia people still kept it quiet, and in Boston you needed a license, so she didn’t really practice much. But she had spent at least part of every summer with Baba, her terrifying, diminutive paternal grandmother in Russia, and at least part of every winter with Nana, her terrifying, diminutive maternal grandmother in Trinidad. Ilya had mostly thought of those as times when Svetlana was not around and therefore he had to spend even more time playing hockey and avoiding his awful brother.

“Don’t give me that shit, you can’t lie to me like you lie to everyone else. I know your name.”

“Look, I….” He trailed off, because he had forgotten how much harder it was to lie to someone who knew your name. And he didn’t really know how to explain what had happened, because he’d never heard of anything like it happening before. But she was looking at him with that fierce expectant gaze. He knew he was going to have to tell her eventually. It would be easiest now, loose with liquor and exhaustion.

“I did not tell anyone. But someone still knew.”

She looked skeptical. “Like a spell? Someone tricked you out of your name like in a fairy story? Was she a frog princess? Do you have to kill Koschei the Immortal now?”

He shook his head. “No. No, it’s not like that. Listen, I didn’t do anything. I swear it on my name. He just knew. And …I knew his name. But I don’t know how he knew it. He did not tell me.”

He realized a moment later what he’d said. Well. Svetlana did know that he sometimes slept with men – they’d even done it together – so it was not a disaster even if she realized the exchange of names had happened half naked. Which she probably would. But it was rare for him to forget to be careful, even with Svetlana, especially for a secret as serious as this one.

Her eyebrows came down and her eyes narrowed. “Were you in bed when this happened?”

That didn’t take long.

“Not in bed, no, but …” He moved his hand a little. He wasn’t sure what the gesture was for we were fucking but not in a bed. Sometimes with witch work these things mattered.

“Okay, I get it, I’ll let you skip the details. For now. How long ago?”

One week, two days, ten hours, and thirty seven minutes. He settled for, “A bit more than a week.”

“You did not tell him anything? Nothing?”

“No! I would not tell him. I am not taking stupid risks anymore.” Much, he added silently. Except for the way the whole situation with Shane was a stupid risk. “And I knew his name. How the fuck did I know his name? He did not tell me aaaanything. He would never. He is much more careful than I am.”

“Mmm.” She looked back out at the dance floor, lost in thought. “Tomorrow I have to sleep. Then you have a game. The next day I will come to your house and we will talk about this.”

He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or terrified. No point figuring out which. Probably both. If Svetlana Vetrova said they were going to talk about it in three days, that was what they would do.

Shane

Shane was not panicking. He was simply taking a considered approach to a legitimate risk which had serious implications for his hockey career. After the failure with the team witch, he had gone back to trying to learn about spontaneous name sharing online. He had read, conservatively, 85% of all internet sources on the topic. The problem was that almost all of them were about people telling each other their own names during sex. There didn’t seem to be any documented accounts of whatever the fuck had happened with him and Ilya, though how you would document something like that he didn’t exactly know. There were a handful of cases where people claimed to have magically known each other’s names, but they mostly seemed to have involved some kind of witch work to open a bond.

There did seem to be a lot of pretty terrible romantic movies where people spontaneously shared their own names, and a few — which were considered wildly unrealistic — where true love made their beloved’s name appear in their minds. Sometimes they then used the name to rescue their beloved from aliens or sorcerers or vampires.

The idea was … he wasn’t sure if he would have found it romantic before, but now it just made his eyes prickle and his gut clench.

Having exhausted the combined non-pornographic resources of the internet, Shane examined his alternatives. A few years earlier Canada had launched a witch work accidents hotline (844-WITCH-CA) modeled after the poison control system. Shane thought about buying a burner phone to call it. He wondered if he’d watched too many bad spy movies on planes, but he couldn’t shake the fear of someone figuring out it was really Holly, number 24 on the Montréal Voyageurs, asking about what to do when someone knew your name.

So he called with a burner phone and a fake last name, and found himself trying to explain the situation in his media French. He was still pretending the other person was a woman, because obviously. The hotline witch was a man, with a calm low voice and a Quebecois accent, who eventually said that he wasn’t an expert on name magic and he’d never heard of this happening, but it didn’t sound like there was an emergency. If Shane was really sure he hadn’t accidentally shared his own name, he should get checked for curses, but most likely there was some non-magical explanation, and also there wasn’t much to do about name magic. If he were doing an in-person consult, the witch might be able to see any lingering magic from whatever had caused it.

Shane felt like he had somehow failed to get across various key elements of the situation, which was not surprising since he had carefully left out most of the details. He got checked for curses before every game with the rest of the team, he was sure he hadn’t shared his own name, and also what the fuck.

He did order an evil eye amulet, because someone on Reddit said it got their crazy ex to stop using their name against them. He couldn’t wear it on the ice but there were good wards at the rink anyway. He also got an evil eye ward for his front door, and for the rear view mirror of his car. Pike saw the car one and chirped him endlessly about it. Asked him if he was going to make the whole team wear them like that guy Tav on the Guardians who insisted everyone had to wear his tia’s amulets. Come to think of it, Shane wondered if Tav’s tia was still making amulets. Maybe she’d make one for him if he promised it wasn’t for hockey.

He had never been very good at not thinking about things, and this was no exception. The problem was that, as much as he couldn’t stop thinking about the risks, he also couldn’t stop thinking about Ilya. Ilya breathing his name, yes, Ilya’s hands on his hips while they fucked, yes, but also Ilya’s hands in his hair, impossibly gentle. The Beast of Boston making him a tuna melt. Sometimes when he thought about it for too long, his eyes got that tight prickly feeling again.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

The Voyageurs were in Houston now, after an early flight in for the next day’s game. Curfew was in two hours.

Shane had been thinking, for the last few days, that no one in Texas would know who he was. In Montréal he was always visible. Here, he could probably wear his jersey to dinner and people would just wonder what sport the Voyageurs played and why he was such a fan. Going to a witch shop in Montréal would be an absurd risk. Here, if he paid cash and used a fake name, probably no one would have any idea who he was. He always had some US cash around anyway, but there was an ATM in the hotel lobby and he pulled out a couple hundred dollars. It was only the sensible thing to do.

He didn’t think he did a great job excusing himself from dinner – Pike rolled his eyes and said “okay, weirdo” – but he did get out of the steakhouse and into a cab by himself.

He’d found a witch shop that had good reviews, in what one of the local websites called an artsy neighborhood. It was in a strip mall with a nail salon and a hamburger joint, although as the cab drove away and he checked the location on his phone, he realized, with a sinking feeling, that both the hamburger joint and the bar across the street had a lot of rainbow flags. Artsy must have been code for gay. Now he was standing in a dark parking lot in the Houston gayborhood about to go ask a witch for advice about his gay sex magical security breach.

He could turn around. He could! He could get a cab back to the hotel. But part of him was curious what it would be like to be briefly invisible, to be able to ask his questions and see if someone could give him an answer.

The witch shop was dimly lit and cluttered, with a large wall of books, another wall of bulk herbs and supplies in jars, and a large piece of furniture that seemed to have been a library card catalogue but now had cards reading things like “barnacles” and “juniper seeds (strung)” and “teeth (sm, hen)”. There was a person whose gender he couldn’t work out at the counter, with shaggy hair and a large scarf draped around their neck, and a handful of large paintings that looked like what you’d expect to find in an artsy witch shop.

He felt like he was having an out of body experience. For one moment, he was a different Shane Hollander, who had somehow not become obsessed with hockey at age 4, had not played major junior, had not been drafted by the NHL. Had maybe instead come out in high school and gone to college, and was now wandering in to a witch shop, maybe to get a reading, on his way to the gay bar down the street. He had never wanted anything but hockey (hockey and Ilya and to make his mother proud), but that vision felt like a hook in his chest.

Then the person at the counter said, “Can I help you?” and the illusion shattered and he was Shane Hollander, hockey player, again.

The shop had a tiny back room for readings and witch work, and a different witch – short, dark skinned, head shaved, heavy silver chain – stuck his head out in response to the counter witch calling, “Lee! Customer.”

Back in the room, Lee sat in a battered wingback chair and gestured at Shane to take one of the other two. There was a round table between them with a candle melted to it. Shane had been thinking about how to explain the situation since it had happened (one week, three days, six hours, and twenty two minutes ago, but who was counting), but he still hadn’t had much luck.

“I’m looking for, like, an explanation of some weird stuff that happened to me.”

“Sure, sounds good. We get that a lot. It’s $80 for a half hour.”

Shane put the money on the side table and tried to figure out how to explain. “So, uh, someone found out my name, but I don’t know how. I didn’t say it, and I’m really careful – I don’t use it on anything or tell anyone. I’ve never told anyone. Obviously my parents know but they’ve never met this person.”

“Do you understand why they might have done this? Is this someone who has some kind of grudge against you? Or some motive that would lead them to try to learn your name?”

Shane snorted. He couldn’t help it. Ilya had all kinds of grudges and motives, but he didn’t really understand any of them. “Um, well, we’re competitors. Like professionally. I’m not a witch and I’ve never heard that he is, but I guess you don’t always know? But he’s already had a lot of chances to use it and I don’t think he has. The really weird thing, though, is that I know his name too. I didn’t set out to learn it, and I didn’t mean to. But I do know it.”

Lee leaned back in the chair. “Are you seriously coming in here with a gay version of Midnight Angels and asking me to figure out how it could be real? Next you’re going to tell me that you both had each other’s names pop into your head while you were fucking.”

Shane hadn’t seen Midnight Angels. He mostly didn’t watch romantic movies. They made him feel antsy and weird, and also anyone who watched them on the plane got chirped pretty aggressively. Miitka watched them anyway, but goalies were allowed to be weird. He had read about this one in his comprehensive overview of the internet but he hadn’t paid much attention, since it was fiction. “Uh.”

He also seemed to have waited too long to deny that he had been … fucking … when it happened. Or whatever. Rubbing off on each other was close enough, he was going to literally combust if he had to explain exactly what he’d been doing.

“You are, aren’t you.”

“Okay but. It happened. I haven’t even seen Midnight Angels.”

He could feel his stubbornness rising like a blush. This had been his last idea. He wasn’t bullshitting or trying to play games, he just needed to know what the fuck had happened. “Can you just, like. Do whatever it is you do and try to figure out how it happened and if there’s anything to do about it?”

Lee sighed. “Sure, okay. I’ll give it a shot. Here.” He held out a candle to Shane, then started scraping the melted wax off the middle of the table.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Have you really never done a witch reading before? Hold it in your hands, maybe breathe on it a little. Think about the problem you want answers about. Lick the wick.”

Shane choked. “Oh, just lick the wick? Isn’t that where my problems started?” He didn’t know where that had come from. Ten minutes ago he couldn’t have imagined making a joke about sucking dick where another person could hear, but maybe that other Shane was here, giving him the courage of a decade of being out, like it was just normal.

Lee chuckled, like people made jokes about blowjobs to him every day. Maybe they did. He was laying out a circle with a piece of chalk on a string, and then sprinkling gray salt along it.

“So it sounds like this wasn’t a serious relationship, then? In the stories it’s always true love that makes it happen.”

“Uh. No. No, definitely not.” He wasn’t sure why his stomach twisted when he said that.

Lee reached out for the candle. “Did you lick the wick, though? It’s going to work better with a little spit to anchor it.” Shane hadn’t yet. He put the wick in his mouth. It tasted like cotton and had a waxy honey smell. Was he using enough spit? How much did you need for the spell?

Lee gestured to hand it over. He took the candle and flicked out a lighter to melt it back on to the table. He was adding pink salt now, in a circle inside the gray, and then a ring of tiny polished amber beads. He made some complicated gesture over the candle, then lit it with the lighter.

Shane felt – something. He didn’t know what. He sure as fuck had never felt it before. There was a second heartbeat in his chest, his skin was on fire. He could smell snow and cigarettes and something else, a warm body smell, and the salt ocean. He couldn’t see anything at all.

He came back to himself to find the candle out and the little witch regarding him with an odd expression. “Maybe you weren’t bullshitting me after all. Looks a hell of a lot like love.”

Shane knocked his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. Motherfucker. Would no one give him an answer he actually wanted.

Ilya

Svetlana was due over soon, so Ilya was brooding. Russians didn’t blush, but they did brood. Two nights earlier, he’d been outside a club, smoking a cigarette in the falling snow, when he’d felt … something. A tug on the line, another pulse, Shane’s presence almost tangible in the winter street.

Sveta walked in without knocking. Why would she knock, she’d always had a key. Waved him to the couch. “Sit. Now tell me what happened.”

He wanted, in equal parts, to lay everything in her lap, to never think about any of it again, and to curl possessively around every moment like a dragon refusing to share its hoard. That day had been different from anything else he’d ever experienced, and as disastrously as it had ended, something in him clung to it. But, well. Svetlana Vetrova was perhaps the only person he loved, and she was here, and maybe she could explain what the fuck had happened. So. Time to suit up.

“I told you. I was with someone. I cannot tell you who it is. I said his name. And then he said mine. Neither of us is a witch, I do not think.”

“Hmm. And this was the first time you were with him, or not?”

“No, it was not the first time.” At her impatient gesture: “We have maybe known each other six years.”

“Six years.”

What could he say? Eight years since they’d met, six years (four months, three weeks, one day) since the hotel room in Toronto.

“So. And was anything different this time?”

“Yes, many things.” First time in daylight, first time sleeping next to each other, first time making Shane food, first time watching hockey together, first time speaking Russian in front of him. First time with Shane on top. More than anything, the first time he had allowed himself to feel the tenderness of his own heart when he was with Shane. He didn’t say the last one.

“Hmmm.”

She pulled a little gold cylinder, like a lipstick, from somewhere in her bag. One twist, it opened, and she licked her index finger and dipped it in. She held it out to touch his forehead, and his ears popped.

“Hmmmmm.”

The cylinder turned out to contain another compartment. She licked her finger again, grimacing at the taste of whatever had been on it before, and dipped it in the second compartment. Touched his forehead again. The hairs on his arms stood up and an intense wave of itchiness swept him from head to feet. He scrubbed his arms.

“What the fuck, Sveta.”

“Shhh. I’m working.”

A third compartment, another powder, another touch. This time he sneezed.

“Okay, I think we’re done.”

“So? What happened?”

“Mmmm.” She looked at the fireplace. “You are not really a witch, but your mother was. You have a little gift. Tied to love, so it doesn’t come up much, yes?” She looked back at him. “You did not know you had a witch gift?

He shook his head. “How did you know?”

“Mmmm.” She turned her gaze back to the fire. “We have been friends a very long time, and I know your name. And we love each other, that too. I thought you knew. Not very strong, but then you don’t use it. Not so common either. The team witches would not notice. Very hard to see a gift that isn’t being used, and most of them are only careful with gifts that matter for hockey.

“So, you fall in love. You bring him to your house, you feed him, you fuck him, you sleep beside him. You weave a spell. He must have been part of it, for it to work. Maybe he has a little gift of his own. And in the end, something opened the way. Probably a body fluid, maybe come or spit or both, unless there was blood. You do play hockey.

“Not very common, but it happens sometimes. More common if you bottle everything up. Six years is a long time, a lot of energy with nowhere to go.”

Ilya was staring at her in horror. He had fallen in love? In love? With Shane Hollander?? This was worse than being cursed. Worse than gonorrhea. Worse than getting knocked out of the playoffs.

She turned back to him. Whatever was on his face changed her expression completely, leaving her caught between appalled sympathy and imperfectly suppressed laughter. “Ilya. Ilyusha. You did not know?”

He shook his head mutely.

“All these years. You have been texting this person who is in your phone as ‘Church’, you have been sleeping with him this whole time, and this is how you found out you are in love with each other?”

Ilya couldn’t speak.

She cupped his cheek in her cool hand. “Oh, Ilyusha. Have you talked to him about it?”

“No. He. He left, as soon as it happened. We have not talked since. He must think I did something to trick him, to learn his name so I could use it against him.”

She didn’t ask what he was going to do. They both knew he couldn’t do anything. They both knew the stakes, or at least his version of them: his father, his brother, Russia, hockey. The reality was even worse than she knew. If love had opened the way, Shane was in love too. The knowledge sat in Ilya’s chest like a stone. Ilya could ruin not only his own life but also Shane’s, having somehow witched Shane into falling in love with him.

He wasn’t going to cry. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He didn’t.

Chapter 3: I was a hero early in the morning

Shane

Meeting Rose Landry was a thrill. Shane was famous, but he was hockey famous. Rose Landry (it was a pseudonym, of course, the whole thing always said together like roselandry; most actors had a fake name they used for work) was actually famous.

It was also strangely comfortable. For all that Shane was an only child and she had three brothers (Big Lands, Landsy, and Landxavier, who was sometimes Xav), they had a lot in common. He’d never really talked about the pressure and isolation of being a superstar with someone who got it, and had also been one from a young age. They were champagne problems, he knew that. Rose Landry knew that. But they were his problems, and it was nice to meet someone who understood them.

A little over a week after they met she came to his game against Denver. They had seen each other a few times since the first night, out at bars and restaurants, with her friend Miles (another fake name). The conversation was always easy, flowing, the way it almost never was for Shane: talking about her filming schedule, Miles’s viciously funny accounts of his adventures on Grindr, how the season was going. Listening to her gossip with Miles felt, again, like he had briefly entered a different reality, where he was a different Shane Hollander and it was normal to be gay. It was normal to Rose Landry and Miles, anyway, even if Miles wasn’t out publicly because it could make him a less marketable star.

They hadn’t gone home together yet — he’d been busy, tired, hadn’t felt like disrupting his routine — but the media explosion had been tremendous anyway. It felt good to get the kinds of backslapping congratulations the other players always got. Less good to hear the crude comments, but it was totally within bounds for him to shut that shit down if they were dating.

He liked her. She was funny, and smart, and she seemed to like him. Maybe he could forget this thing with Ilya. He had been unable to stop thinking about his visit to the witch shop, about that other life where he had not tried desperately to keep his interest in men a secret even from himself, and of course about Ilya Rozanov and his fierce kisses and sad furious eyes. But maybe this would fix him. He liked Rose Landry. He liked spending time with her. He kissed her good night after the party and something in his body recoiled, but surely that could be fixed with time.

The Voyageurs had a longer homestand, so Shane and Rose Landry had dinner the next day. He invited her home, because he had sort of run out of reasons not to. Coming in through the front door, he was forcibly reminded of Ilya, whom he had always snuck in through the alley. Ilya had only been to his apartment a few times (seven), but he was the only other person Shane had brought to his home for ... sex? A hookup? Was it even the same thing? He could see the ghosts of their time together all through the house: Shane launching himself at Ilya as soon as they’d made it inside, pushing Ilya against the wall, Ilya’s solid muscle against him, Ilya’s curls in his hands, the joy and terror and delight. Here was the staircase; how many times had they barely been able to make it up the stairs because they couldn’t stop kissing? (Five, his brain unhelpfully told him.) He remembered stopping on the landing and sinking his teeth into the meat of Ilya’s shoulder as Ilya gasped, Ilya’s hands holding him steady, both of them shaking against each other. You could bite surprisingly hard without leaving marks. Ilya liked feeling his teeth.

He turned back to Rose Landry, who had taken her shoes off and was looking at him expectantly. He felt a wave of dizziness. “Would you – would you like a glass of water?” In the kitchen, he handed her the water. She took the glass and reached up to kiss him. The dizziness returned, worse as he tried to kiss her back, until he broke away and gasped and held on to the counter. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Are you feeling okay, Holly?”

He tried kissing her again, but the dizziness broke over his head and he stumbled, almost fell.

“I’m, uh, not sure. I feel dizzy.” He gripped the counter until his knuckles whitened, head dropping almost to his chest. After a moment he looked up at her, expecting to see disgust or irritation on her face. There was nothing but concern.

“I think – I don’t think I can do this. Us. I’m sorry. I really like you.”

She made a thoughtful noise. “Holly, I hope I’m not getting into stuff that’s none of my business. But I’ve been wondering if this might not be exactly the right thing for you.”

“You have?”

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, yes. I really like you, I’ve had a lot of fun this week, but it doesn’t seem like you’re all that interested in kissing me.”

Shane looked at the counter. Dark granite, golden hands, the white peaks of his knuckles. Be brave, bold robot, he thought. He had seen the phrase spray painted on a wall near a macrobiotic restaurant in Toronto once, and he thought of it sometimes. People weren’t entirely wrong when they said he was a hockey robot, but maybe that wasn’t all he was.

“Can I ask you something? Miles is gay, right. And he trusts you not to tell anyone.”

Rose Landry was looking directly at him. “I would never.” She moved her hand flat across the counter, cutting off the idea. “Never. It’s nobody’s choice but his. A lot of actors are in the same situation. It’s not fair but he deserves whatever privacy he can get.”

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Be brave, bold robot. “I think I’m gay.”

She didn’t look surprised. Still that same open-hearted look. “Have you ever said that to anyone before?”

He shook his head. Be brave. “I … it’s not the first time I’ve thought it. But. I don’t think I can avoid it any more. I mean, if I’m not into you, what woman would I ever be into?”

She laughed. “Okay, that’s pretty high on the list of ‘things my gay boyfriends said to me when we broke up.’ Usually I just get a lot of ‘it’s not you it’s me.‘“

“You have a list? This happens to you a lot?”

“Babe, theater school and hockey are really, really different. Listen. Holly. I like you. Let’s be friends, like for real friends. Want to watch some hockey? I’m sure there’s something we can catch from the west coast.”

Shane did not mention that he DVRed every game and could watch any of this season’s games at any time. They just watched Vancouver play Denver on Shane’s enormous couch. Rose Landry shit-talked the teams endlessly. She didn’t know quite as much about hockey as Shane or his mother, but she knew enough to make it fun. Honestly, she knew more than some of the less interested Voyageurs. The dizziness didn’t return.

—-----—-----—-----—-----—-----

The next morning, Shane woke up early and went on a slow easy run before practice, just to wake up his body. It was going to be a shining deep winter day, Montréal in fine form: the sidewalks clear, the parks snowy, the beautiful buildings of the old city and the new apartment buildings contending against the sky together. The sun was just coming up and the dawn light shone pink and golden in the sky, the streets still shadowed. He had a usual route which took him along the path by the river.

On this day he needed, for no reason he could name, to get as close to the water as possible. He ran north along the river past the quays and the ferry dock and out to the old clock tower, right to the very edge of the Saint Lawrence. He stood at the railing in the cold and blew out, seeing his breath shining pale against the golden morning. The trees on the other bank were dark, inky against the glowing sky, and the railing glittered with frost. The river was silver, icy, sinuous, dangerous, the frozen surface a shining lie that would bear no weight. For a moment he smelled the ocean. It was ludicrous, impossible: the cold sat deep in the air, the hairs in his nostrils froze with every breath, and it was over a hundred kilometers to the estuary. Yet something in him reached out, out, along the current of the seaway, dreaming.

He stamped his feet and shook out his hands and turned for home. Two days until the game with Boston.

Ilya

Ilya was losing it. He was playing fine, almost as well as usual, but everything off the ice was a hot mess. Photos of Shane with Rose Landry were all over social media, all over the TV at the team gym, inescapable no matter where he went. People talking about how Holly managed to land that sweet piece of ass.

He had never in his life been jealous of a hookup. Seeing Svetlana take someone else home was like seeing another lion in his pride bring down a gazelle. They all ate well. This — he had to exert all his considerable discipline to keep from thinking about it. He felt the gravity not only of Rose Landry but of everything he had and hadn’t said that day.

He wasn’t sleeping well. He wasn’t eating well, which was going to be a problem given how hard it was to keep weight on during hockey season. He’d mostly stopped smoking before that disastrous day with Shane Hollander, but he needed it right now.

Two days before the game with Montréal he woke up early. Earlier than usual. The night before he had felt even more antsy and unsettled than before, a wave of dizziness hitting him a few times, but this morning he felt a little better. He dressed for the cold — not like Moscow, of course — and went out into the morning light.

He lived in the Seaport District. An easy walk to the waterfront from his condo, and today he wanted to see the water. The sun was fully up by now, this far south, and it gleamed against the glass towers of the condo buildings. He walked out to the end of one of the piers, past the ferries, and stood there smoking. The harbor didn’t freeze in Boston, and the water was clear and calm, shining dark in the sunlight. He could smell the ocean, and, just for a moment, despite the clear sky, snow. A sense memory of some kind, maybe. He felt like if he stared at the water long enough, something would happen.

He finished his cigarette and put his hands in his pockets. Two more days.

Chapter 4: I ain't no hero in the night

Shane

Shane and Rose Landry might have given up on dating, but they were getting to be friends. The media hadn’t realized the difference, since they still went places together in public and kissed (on the cheek!) goodbye. Shane didn’t want to use her as cover – he wouldn’t have asked her to intentionally pretend – but it was undeniably convenient to allow the misunderstanding.

She couldn’t make the Boston game, but Shane didn’t really mind meeting her at Ciel afterwards. Sure, he didn’t really dance and he barely drank during the season. He didn’t like loud noises, flashing lights, or lots of people in his space. But he did like talking shit with Rose Landry and Miles. And he didn’t really mind dancing with them, when there wasn’t any expectation for him to pick up a woman or escalate things with Rose. It felt good to let that other self have a little air, and there wasn’t a hockey player alive (other than Ilya Rozanov, his traitor brain reminded him) he could trust with this secret. Miles didn’t know, exactly, but he knew Shane wasn’t dating Rose Landry and he was gay himself and he knew which questions not to ask. So. It was a plan. Now he just had the game to get through.

As soon as Shane stepped into the Bell Centre, he knew Ilya was there too. He wasn’t sure how, but it was like some part of his body (probably not his dick, but who knew) was magnetized to Ilya Rozanov’s specific polarity, and he could walk the lines of the magnetic field directly to the center without looking.

It was better on the ice. Probably the Zamboni witches did something to dispel witch fields. Even though there wasn’t supposed to be any witch work done in the arena, people still tried. The noise in Shane’s head got worse every time he went back over the boards to the bench.

As they finished warm-ups, he realized that he had mostly stopped worrying that Ilya would do something to him with his name. All at once the fear came rushing back and he stumbled, almost fell.

They took the first face-off against each other. Of course. That was how it worked, being the top line centers. Shane was waiting for the chirp, the distraction, the spell, whatever trick Ilya was going to use to knock him off his game, but Ilya’s face was a blank mask. Shane was waiting so hard that Ilya won the face-off.

Usually games against Boston were electric, Ilya’s presence on the ice a shot of adrenaline, pushing Shane to play his heart out. His heart already felt like it wasn’t inside his chest, though, and he felt unbalanced, shaky. Ilya was off too. He was a little slow, a little imprecise. His chirping was usually perfectly calibrated to piss people off so they took stupid penalties without getting him in trouble, but he was actually enraging people today, taking stupid penalties and brutal hits. Shane wasn’t sure anyone else would notice the difference, but he did.

The Voyageurs won, but it felt like a struggle. In the locker room, Shane was hit by another wave of dizziness, sudden enough that Pike noticed. “You okay, bud?”

Shane shook his head. Bad idea. “Just feeling weird.” He held still.

After a moment it passed.

Ilya

He couldn’t spend the whole evening in this fucking hotel room with Connors. He couldn’t. He looked at himself in the mirror, palms flat on the bathroom counter, eyes black pits, face smudged with bone-deep exhaustion.

He hadn’t tried to pick up for months. Not since Shane had left his house. He had avoided thinking about why, but now he wondered what the fuck he was doing. Shane hadn’t spoken to him the entire game. Why would he? Shane must think Ilya had stolen his name like a witch in a story and was waiting to be turned into a lizard. Well. What did that matter anyway? Shane was with Rose Landry. Ilya and Shane were not anything, could not be anything, no matter what Sveta had said about them being in love. Love was not an option. He might as well get laid.

He tore himself away from the mirror. “I need to get laid.” Connors looked up from the room service menu in confusion. “Is Montréal. We find a club. TELL PEOPLE!”

Ciel was much like other clubs. Less boring than the ones in Boston, maybe. There was a bar, a dance floor, lights. The music was too loud to really talk but people tried anyway. Hot women, fashionably dressed. Hot men, if you cared to look at them. A VIP area. And, horrifyingly, Shane Hollander. In the same way that he had known at the rink exactly where Shane was at all times, Ilya could feel Shane’s presence at the club as soon as he came within the walls of the building. Surely it was impossible. Shane hated clubs. But there he was, at a table in the VIP area with Miles and Rose Landry, laughing and gesturing. Ilya had seen him relaxed like that maybe once, in Ilya’s apartment, before Shane had walked out.

Ilya’s chest hurt. He needed a drink. That would help him stop thinking about this nightmare. He removed his attention from Shane, peeling it back one tendril at a time. It was like wading through muck to get to the bar, but he did manage to order two vodka shots, then throw them back. He and Shane were not anything. There were many beautiful women here. It would have to be enough. He would make it be enough.

Shane

Shane could feel something rising in his body. He wasn’t sure what it was. He wasn’t drunk; he’d been nursing the same beer since he arrived. It was like the magnetic orientation he’d felt at the rink, like Ilya Rozanov was on the dance floor and Shane could feel him, but that seemed impossible. Of all the clubs in Montréal, why would Ilya be here? But the feeling persisted, mixing with a wave of dizziness that made him lose the thread of the conversation entirely.

When Rose Landry and Miles pulled him on to the dance floor, it was maybe the most he’d ever enjoyed dancing. No pressure, no expectations. Miles flirted with him a little, casually, like breathing. But he still felt that strange pull in his chest, and the waves of dizziness came and went. “I need – the bathroom.”

As he picked his way through the dance floor, he realized that the magnetic pull was, in fact, taking him somewhere specific. There was Ilya Rozanov, dancing with a beautiful blond woman and kissing her neck. Shane stopped, staring. Ilya was like the sun, blinding to stare at directly, but Shane couldn’t look away.

Ilya met Shane’s eyes. He had stopped dancing. He was staring back at Shane, nearly frozen in place. Shane had no idea how long they were stuck there, eyes locked, the entire rest of the club gone from his perceptions. It could have been a second or a minute or an hour. He had no idea what his face was doing.

He felt – he couldn’t name the feeling. He’d never felt it before. Shock and betrayal – unearned, he and Ilya were nothing, he had always known they were nothing – but also something deeper, all the way in the core of himself.

He panicked and ran, heading blindly towards the bathroom.

Ilya

Ilya wasn’t sure he would have been physically capable of not following Shane Hollander through Ciel. It was for sure the most indiscreet thing he had ever done in his life, maybe aside from staring directly at Shane, like a mesmerized mouse at a cobra, while he was supposed to be dancing with some woman with perfect highlights. He didn’t have to guess where Shane was going. He could just feel it. There was a large accessible bathroom on the first floor. He went down the stairs and found the door and tried it.

Shane had, very uncharacteristically, not locked the door. Ilya did not hope that Shane expected him to be following, because that would be insane. But the door was unlocked, and now Ilya was inside with Shane. He had just barely enough presence of mind to lock the door behind him. Shane had his head down, hands on the enormous stone sink, nearly hyperventilating.

At this distance, Ilya couldn’t think at all. His body moved on its own, arms coming up around Shane and pulling him close. He could feel Shane’s breath slow, and suddenly Shane’s mouth was on his. Suddenly everything made sense. Ilya couldn’t have said what made sense, but Shane’s mouth was opening under his and Shane’s body was pressed against his and Shane’s hands were on him, one tangled in his curls and one sliding up his back under his shirt and he didn’t have to think. He knew what to do. He could devote himself to kissing Shane, to pulling Shane against him and grinding his own leg in between Shane’s, feeling how Shane was hard for him already. Running his hands up under Shane’s shirt to feel the incredible muscle of his back, bringing one hand around to roll Shane’s nipple between thumb and finger, hearing Shane moan and gasp against him.

And then his mind caught up with him and told him: Rose Landry. The wave of dizziness almost knocked him down. He repeated the words out loud. “Rose Landry. You are here with her.”

“What?” Shane pulled back. It seemed to take a significant effort for him to focus on Ilya’s face and stop grinding against Ilya’s dick. “No, no, we aren’t … that’s not what we are. We’re friends. Nothing more. We didn’t even sleep together. The media stuff is – they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

The feeling in Ilya’s chest changed shape, roaring. He had never been possessive but this was good, it was so good, he could have this, it was his. He pulled Shane against him harder, encouraging him to grind more. His hands were fumbling at Shane’s belt, his zipper, the button, his boxers, he couldn’t move fast enough. He needed to touch Shane. His own dick was throbbing in his pants, aching against his jeans, but he didn’t care. He wanted Shane’s pleasure, wanted to taste the sounds he would make. He got his hand on Shane’s cock. He wanted to suck Shane’s cock and devour his ass and fuck him for hours and kiss him the entire time. He wanted to tie Shane to his bed and keep him there for months, hockey season be damned, but he couldn’t wait. His hand slid along Shane’s dick from root to tip, falling into the rhythm he knew so well, his other hand crushing Shane against him, kissing, the impossible heat and wetness of Shane’s mouth promising him everything, wave after wave crashing through him.

He could feel Shane shudder as he came, Ilya’s mouth catching the sounds he made, Ilya’s hand slowing, gentle, til Shane whined from overstimulation but still bucked his hips against Ilya, looking for more. They were still kissing, Ilya leaning against the wall and holding Shane against him as the aftershocks rippled through him. They stayed like that for a long moment, longer than Ilya expected, longer than he had dared to hope, just breathing.

Shane opened his eyes. “Wow.”

Ilya turned his face away. He wasn’t blushing. He wasn’t. He didn’t want to go back to the world where they had to use words. It was so much easier when their bodies talked.

He pulled away a little. “Here.” He wiped his hand on a paper towel and pulled Shane’s underwear up, his pants. Zipped his fly, buckled his belt. He was still unbearably turned on but the dizziness was coming back, just a little, creeping around the edges. He gripped the bar behind him. “Fuck.”

“Ilya,” (the sweetness of his name in that voice), “are you okay?”

“Sorry. Dizzy.” Shane wrapped his arms around him and the dizziness was better, a little, but as soon as Shane stepped back from Ilya to look at him the dizziness swamped him and he slumped against the wall. “I will be okay. You can go, I will wait a little and come out. Maybe check no one is there waiting.”

Shane was looking at him with concern. “Ilya. Don’t be an idiot. I’m not going to leave you here like this. Are you drunk?”

“Nyet. Very little to drink.”

“A concussion?”

“No. Is fine, my head.”

He needed Shane to go. He needed Shane to stay. He couldn’t think, but he could feel the fear of what came next. This had already been too much. Shane would inevitably leave, as he had before. Nothing had changed. It was better to send Shane away now, before it got even more painful. There was no reason for Ilya to be dizzy. Surely it would pass if he could just breathe, and wait, and be alone. But every time Shane moved away the dizziness rose, and his head swam.

Shane

Shane didn’t know what to do. Ilya seemed to be fine as long as Shane was touching him, but every time they stopped touching, Ilya let his weight sink against the wall and started breathing shallowly.

Ilya didn’t want to admit it when Shane asked, but when he answered, “No, Hollander, I am fine on my own,” Shane only frowned and said, “You’re not nearly as good a liar as you think you are.” He wasn’t sure how he knew Ilya was lying, but he was entirely certain of it.

He had to think. It wasn’t that easy. His mind and body were still ringing like a bell from Ilya’s touch, more emotions than he could name crashing through him. All he wanted to do was pull Ilya into his arms and float in the current of feeling, which coincidentally also seemed to be what Ilya needed. But they couldn’t stay in this bathroom forever.

He got his phone out of his pocket and texted Rose Landry. He couldn’t leave Ilya, and he couldn’t get Ilya anywhere on his own. Even walking with Ilya through Ciel would be shocking if anyone noticed. Maybe Rose Landry and Miles could help him get Ilya out of the club. At least the accessible bathroom was tucked away in its own area, and there was an exit that he didn’t think would trip a fire alarm pretty close by.

A few minutes later there was a quick rap on the door. Miles said, “Don’t worry, just us.”

Shane opened the door and Rose Landry and Miles slipped in, carrying their coats and Shane’s. Miles’s eyes widened. Shane had tried to clean up, but his mouth was still kiss-swollen, his hair disheveled. It probably smelled like come under the air freshener. It wasn’t exactly subtle. He was just going to have to trust Miles and Rose Landry both. “Look, I just – I found him over here and he’s dizzy. I don’t think he’s drunk but I can’t leave him like this, and it’ll be chaos if I’m the one walking him out.”

Miles forbore to suggest what would ordinarily be the most obvious solution, namely getting one of Ilya’s teammates from the dance floor to take him back to the hotel. Shane couldn’t do that anyway. He couldn’t leave Ilya dizzy and vulnerable like this any more than he could fly away like an eagle, carrying Ilya in his talons.

“Where are we taking him?” Miles asked.

“My apartment I guess? I don’t really have any better ideas.”

“We’ll need an Uber XL, I think. Put him in the back and hope we get lucky getting out the door. I think he’s least noticeable if he’s walking with me. Put him with you or Rose and there’ll be a way bigger story if we get papped. You and Rose can walk out the front door to draw any paps, and we’ll come around the corner and pick you up. Give me his coat ticket and call the car?” This was evidently not Miles’s first time trying to discreetly maneuver a large adult man into a car while avoiding unwanted attention.

Ilya got the coat ticket out of his pocket. “Spasibo. Thank you.” It was a measure of how bad he must be feeling that he was tolerating other people managing him.

By the time Miles got back, Ilya seemed to be feeling quite a bit worse, since Shane couldn’t just press up against him while Rose Landry was standing half a meter away. Ilya managed to walk himself out next to Miles, but it was slow going, his hand on the wall for stability. Once Miles had texted that the car was in the right place, Shane and Rose Landry went out the front, just in case, but they didn’t see any paps. They made it into the car with no attention.

Shane slid into the back row with Ilya and felt Ilya sigh in relief when Shane pressed against his side. Shane was just congratulating himself that the situation wasn’t any worse than it needed to be – which was quite bad enough – when Miles turned to Rose Landry, who was buckling her seat belt in the middle row of the SUV.

“Why didn’t you tell me he’s a sex witch?” he hissed at her.

“Who? Rozanov? I’ve never met him before.”

“Not him! Holly! What were you thinking?”

Rose Landry started laughing. “Miles. Miley. Mielifer. How on earth would I know about Holly being a sex anything?”

Miles looked unimpressed. “Gods above and below, Rose.”

Shane felt like he’d been hit on the head. A what? A sex witch? Him? What the everloving fuck was going on?

Beside him, Ilya started laughing softly and didn’t stop.

Chapter 5: I got watering holes in my hands

Shane

Shane was, frankly, pretty desperate to get Ilya into his apartment, alone, and then preferably into his bed, also alone. Presumably Ilya had a flight the next morning but they could figure that out after. Right now, Ilya was fine as long as he was touching Shane. (Something purred in Shane’s chest at the thought, telling him that he should rub himself all over Ilya, and he frantically told himself this was really, completely not the time.)

When the car got to his building, he tried to wave off Miles and Rose Landry, have them drop him in the alley so he could sneak Ilya in via the fire door.

“No way, babe. You got us involved in this, I am absolutely not missing whatever Miles has to say to you now.”

Miles just shook his head and muttered something under his breath about idiot hockey sex witches with no training or discipline, which Shane thought was extremely unfair. He had lots of training and discipline.

They reversed the maneuver from the club. Shane and Rose Landry got out in front of Shane’s building to draw any attention and left the key for the alley door with Miles and Ilya in the car. Before Shane and Rose Landry went inside, she leaned in the car door to speak to the driver and said something in French that Shane didn’t quite catch, then handed the driver a wad of cash. When Shane asked, she told him, “I just said that if he wants to talk to the media or gossip to his friends about any of this, I saved his name and plate number on my phone, and I know people who can make him regret it.”

“You threatened our driver?”

“Lightly threatened. I also tipped him $200 and rated him five stars.” She shrugged.

Then they sent the car around to the alley with Miles, Shane’s key, and Ilya. Shane had fretted about Ilya’s dizziness, but Ilya seemed to be doing a little better after the ride home, now that he’d been leaning against Shane for a while and had stopped trying to make Shane leave. Shane and Rose Landry had stopped the elevator on the second floor to wait for Ilya and Miles, who met them a moment later.

Rose Landry was having a great time. “It’s like a spy movie!”

“A really stupid spy movie where the big secret is just that some people were hanging out and didn’t want it to be all over hockey Twitter,” Shane grumbled.

“Hanging out,” said Miles tartly. “Is that what you were doing in the bathroom at Ciel.”

Shane blushed, but he couldn’t exactly stand on his dignity when Ilya was pressed along his entire right side, and his underwear was still a little sticky. Ilya snickered.

Ilya

Ilya wasn’t sure what was going on, but he felt, strangely, more relaxed than he had in months, maybe years. Certainly more relaxed than he’d felt since the day he had fed Shane tuna melts and they had learned each other's names. Everything felt a little farther away. It was like being drunk, except he was nowhere near drunk on two shots of vodka. He could still feel the edge of arousal from earlier, but his body also felt loose and soft. Perhaps most of all, his iron drive to control every situation – with a joke or an insult or a kiss, by picking a fight or turning the direction of play – was somehow muted. He could still feel it, a song at the edge of hearing, but no longer the driving rhythm of every moment.

They spilled into the apartment and Shane got him onto the couch, pressing right up against him. It was shocking, honestly, to see Shane so casual about other people seeing them not only together but touching. He didn’t know what to make of it. Shane must trust Rose Landry and Miles, but Ilya couldn’t quite see how that would have happened so quickly. He wasn’t sure he would touch Shane this way in front of Svetlana, and he’d known her since they were children and trusted her with his life.

Shane said there were seltzers in the kitchen, but didn’t make any move to go get them. Also uncharacteristic. Usually Shane was careful to follow the rules of hospitality, even for Ilya during their hook-ups, when Ilya couldn’t possibly have been less interested in a glass of water and also obviously knew where the bathroom was.

Miles scrubbed his hands over his face. “Do you have anything stronger? No, don’t answer that, we won’t be here that long.”

Shane squirmed against Ilya. “You can just go. I really appreciate all your help but I think Rozanov is going to be okay. And, uh, I’m really not a sex witch.”

Miles gave Shane an incredulous look. “Did you not have to go through mandatory aptitude testing in high school? I thought that was Canada-wide.” Russia didn’t have any testing, because getting called a witch still felt like an accusation.

Shane looked confused. “Of course I did, but I’m not a witch at all.” It was pretty rare for hockey players to be witches. A handful of goalies, one defenseman in Minnesota, a forward in Houston. The league had a lot of rules about it, but more than that, it was the kind of thing that led to endless media questions and stupid articles. Players went later in the draft than they should, their contracts a little worse, faster to be traded.

“That’s just.” Miles scrubbed his hands over his face. “Were you not paying attention? Were you just – did they do it before you started jacking off?”

Shane squirmed again. Ilya thought maybe he was blushing. “They did the aptitude testing before I, uh, like, realized some stuff about myself. And I don’t think I paid much attention. I was probably thinking about hockey.”

Miles shook his head. “You’re a sex witch. I’m a sex witch. Not a very powerful one, but sex witches learn to recognize other sex witches because if you hook up with them and you’re not careful, sometimes shit gets weird.” He gestured at Shane and Ilya. “Usually it doesn’t get this weird. Usually people don’t find out they’re sex witches because they’re doing sex magic in a club bathroom. Usually they know about themselves and manage their own energy.”

Rose Landry’s expression was some kind of unholy glee with just the tiniest admixture of genuine concern. Ilya kind of liked her. “Wow,” she said. “Mr. Sex Witch. I didn’t know what I was missing.”

Ilya couldn’t help it. He started laughing. “Wait. You are serious? You are talking about Hollander? He is sex witch?” He couldn’t make the anxious near-virgin who’d been so embarrassed by his own desires add up to a sex witch. Sex witches were supposed to be legendary lays, Casanovas who could pull anyone. More like Ilya, in fact. Then again – his entire body flushed at the memory of the first time he’d fucked Shane. He didn’t keep track of how many people he’d fucked, but it was a lot. Men and women both. No one had ever felt like Shane.

Miles turned on him. Uh-oh, it was his turn. “And you! What are you doing? You have some kind of unstable bond with him, but you can’t be seen in public together? Do you know nothing about managing energy? You were just going to send him away and pass out in that bathroom? I don’t know exactly what kind of witch you are, but it doesn’t seem like you know what you’re doing either.”

“I am not a witch,” Ilya said mulishly. He certainly was not going to talk about his own witch gift, and how he had somehow used it to trick Shane Hollander into falling in love with him.

Miles sat down heavily in a chair. “Goddesses of all realms preserve us. I thought being raised Orthodox Unitarian was bad, with everyone going on and on about how you have to steward the gifts of the gods and witch work classes every Sunday and Wednesday, but I guess it could have been a lot worse. I don’t know what’s going on with you all. My grandmother could probably figure it out but it’s too late to call her tonight.”

Miles paused. He looked like he was trying to think through some things. “Was this the first time? Because if it is, that would probably make it easier to fix.”

“No.” That was Shane, quietly, almost mumbling. “No, it wasn’t the first time.”

Ilya looked at Miles defiantly. “Is a secret.” This was important. “You will not tell anyone this. Any of it.”

Miles rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m not going to tell anyone,” he said scornfully. “You think I need a tabloid payout when I’m making X Squad money?”

He thought for another minute. “Okay. Well. I’m probably going to regret this, but both of you give me your numbers. I’ll send you some basic exercises for managing witch gifts, the stuff we teach kids. I’m not sure what’s going on with this bond situation but they should help regardless. And if you want, I can try to find someone safe to help. Someone discreet. I’ll ask Grams, but I won’t tell her who I’m asking about, and you can let me know if you want to talk to whoever she finds.”

Ilya felt vicariously embarrassed by the idea of asking anyone’s grandmother for help dealing with sex magic, but Miles didn’t seem concerned, and it was his grandmother.

“Okay,” Ilya said. It was probably the fastest way to get Miles and Rose Landry out of there, which Ilya very much wanted. Something was happening between him and Shane. Ilya might not have any witch training but he knew something was different, and it was hard to follow when there were other people to worry about and so much English to translate. He wanted desperately to be alone with Shane again. “Okay.”

Shane, pressed against his side, looked at him briefly and handed over his phone to Miles.

So it was all arranged, and Miles and Rose Landry were ready to leave. Shane thanked them for their help. Ilya managed to get out, “Yes. Thank you. I am glad you did not leave me in that bathroom.”

Ilya felt Shane shift against him, squaring up his shoulders for something. Shane turned to Miles. “Uh, I won’t. It won’t hurt him or anything if we. If we, um…”

Miles, long-suffering, said, “It’s much too late now. Might as well enjoy yourselves. If anything, it might help stabilize whatever it is.”

Rose Landry cackled.

Shane

The door finally, finally, closed behind Miles and Rose Landry, and he was alone with Ilya. The wash of relief was almost as good as an orgasm. He turned back to Ilya and almost melted into him. He couldn’t stop kissing him. There was something so tender inside him, something new unfurling in the space where the fear had been, and the tenderness was in his mouth as he kissed Ilya and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.

After what felt like forever but also the barest moment, he paused. The relief had washed away his thoughts for a while, but his brain had started to suggest things to him again. In particular, Ilya might have curfew tonight and definitely had a flight the next day. Also Shane needed a shower, and at some point they would need to sleep. He was trying not to think about the fact that this evening had solved exactly none of their problems, but his brain was suggesting that that, too, was something to take seriously. He was terrible at not thinking about things, but he tried. Maybe he could think about one thing at a time.

He was still touching Ilya, gently, his fingers soft on Ilya’s neck, the line of his jaw, his stubble. “When do you need to be back?”

“No curfew tonight. Is after game. Flight is not early. Eleven I think.”

It was just after one in the morning.

“Come take a shower with me?”

They barely spoke. The feeling between them was so delicate, so precariously balanced that the wrong noise or movement might shatter it. Shane got Ilya a toothbrush from the box in the hall closet. They took their clothes off, Shane putting his carefully in the hamper in the bedroom, Ilya leaving his on a chair for the next day. In the shower, Ilya soaped Shane’s hair and body, moving Shane this way and that, kneeling to kiss his inner thigh, his hip, til Shane was panting and hard again. He knew, somehow, in that tender place, that Ilya needed to be touched too. He pulled him up and kissed him, under the falling water, and got him to bend his head, let Shane card his hands through Ilya’s hair, pushing it back, running his hand along Ilya’s cheek and then pulling him in to kiss again and again. Their bodies slid against each other, slippery, hot. He bent to suck a mark into Ilya’s chest and stopped. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Is okay. I like it. And …” Ilya seemed reluctant to complete the thought. With one of those flashes of clarity, Shane knew he was thinking that no one would know, from the mark, that it had been Shane who left it. Shane didn’t want to think about how Ilya’s teammates would assume the blond woman from the club had put her mouth and hands all over Ilya. Ilya didn’t seem to want to say it, either.

Shane bent his mouth to Ilya’s shoulder and sucked and bit until it bloomed purple and Ilya gasped under him, his hands coming up and twisting in Shane’s hair. Shane moved to Ilya’s chest, his clavicle, his ribs, leaving mark after mark, the water pouring down across Ilya’s body and his face. When Shane brought their mouths back together, Ilya was panting, open-mouthed, making sounds that might once have been words in Russian, and then, “Shane. Shane.”

Shane whispered, “Ilya,” and then, finally, brought his hand down to Ilya’s cock, brought his own cock flush against it. He could feel Ilya’s hips moving against him, grinding, slick with water, and then Ilya’s orgasm, and then his own.

They leaned their heads together and let the water wash over them.

When they had dried each other off and gotten into bed, when Shane had pulled Ilya’s head onto his shoulder and leaned down and kissed him again, when they were starting to drift, Shane asked, “Do you understand what was happening tonight?”

He could feel Ilya shake his head. “Nyet. No. Never in life have I felt anything like this night.”

“Neither have I.”

There were so many more words tangled up in his mouth, but the tenderness was there too. He kissed Ilya again, the perfect bow of his mouth, the mole on his cheek, the gold of his eyebrow. He breathed out a long sigh and let sleep pull them both under.

Chapter 6: I keep thinking things

Ilya

They didn’t have much time in the morning. Ilya needed to get back to the hotel, collect his suitcase, and get to the airport. Waking up with Shane had been almost unbearably sweet. He wanted to bolt, and he also wanted to sink back into the bed and ignore his flight. He settled for brushing a kiss along Shane’s shoulder, then getting up and brushing his teeth and getting ready for the day.

They ate breakfast. Toast, protein shakes. Shane was wearing gray joggers and no shirt, which Ilya thought was unfair to him personally, given the limited time they had. Still, he knew there were things he needed to say before he left. He had to be careful, though. Shane knew his name. He would probably know if Ilya was lying, but maybe he wouldn’t know if Ilya didn’t say everything he knew.

“I want you to know. I did not try to learn your name. I would not. And I will not use it against you. Not ever.” All of that was true.

Shane looked at him steadily, the morning sun through the windows lighting his eyes amber. “I know. I mean, I didn’t know when it happened. I was panicking. But I know that now.”

Ilya didn’t know what he felt, to have his word so immediately accepted.

Shane said, “I don’t know what happened or why, but I won’t use your name against you either.”

Ilya felt a splash of icy shock. He had been so worried about what Shane thought of him that he had forgotten to worry about his own safety. All this time he’d been worrying about Shane’s fear, but he’d been just as vulnerable.

As fast as the moment came, it went. He knew Shane wouldn’t do that, had maybe known it since the beginning.

He wanted to say Shane’s name one more time before he left, but he didn’t.

On the plane, Ilya leaned his head on the window and pretended to sleep. He couldn’t think about everything that had happened. His mind skirted around the impossibility of their situation. Nothing had changed. His father, his brother, Russia, hockey. At the same time, it felt like something must have changed. He had the marks on his body to prove it. And he felt — tired, a little shaky, but back in his body. Hungry. He wanted a long run, and a steak, and to win a hockey game, and to fuck Shane Hollander until neither of them remembered anything but each other’s names. It felt good to want anything at all, after the misery of the last month.

Well. He could get three out of four this week, probably.

Shane

It was different, being with the team now. On the rower at the practice barn, he looked at the scene in the mirror, people lifting and warming up and doing stability exercises and consulting the trainers. He wondered what would happen if the team knew.

Miles seemed pretty sure that he was a sex witch. It would maybe have been ok if he were like Ilya, with a long string of hook-ups to prove his virility. But there was a lot of uneasy gossip about sex witches in hockey, mostly about women. Sex witches were supposed to be sirens – beautiful, maybe, but a little terrifying because you might go home with them even if you didn’t want to. Slutty and magnetic. “She’s got to be a sex witch” was an all purpose excuse: for cheating, for getting married, for getting divorced. He imagined people seeing him that way, the sex witch who’d ensnared Rozanov, and felt a familiar horror.

Shane couldn’t remember how old he’d been when he’d first heard another kid spit “that's gay” on the ice. Probably before he knew what being gay was. Definitely before he knew that it meant him. He did remember the first time someone had called him a faggot. He had been 12. Maybe 11. He had done something different in the celly, he didn’t remember what, and a defender from the other team had called him a faggot for it. He had realized with a cold clarity that he could not be a faggot and also be Shane Hollander, hockey phenom. He had to choose.

He had chosen. He had made his choice and lived with the consequences. But he hadn’t really understood the cost.

It was different now that Rose Landry and Miles knew, too. A breath of air in the strangling secret of his — whatever — with Ilya. He had always thought of coming out as a single choice, the uniform mass of hockey culture arrayed against him, but it was actually many choices. He had told Rose. He had let Miles see, even without telling him. Pike might be okay. His wife had a gay friend and Pike had never said anything bad about him. Shane had even met the friend and his husband at Pike’s house one year for Thanksgiving. The kids seemed to like them. It seemed like they saw them a lot.

Dagsy, maybe. Drapeau would be awful.

His coach would be terrible. He didn’t know if any coaches would be actually cool with a gay player, but Theriault definitely wouldn’t be.

He thought of his friend Dev, a figure skater he’d trained with for a while in Ottawa. The figure skating drills had been really good for his on-ice agility, though he’d been selective about mentioning them. Maybe he could catch up with Dev next time he was in Ottawa. He wouldn’t even say anything, just. Dev was gay. It would be nice to be around someone who would be okay with it, even if Shane didn’t test it.

That made him think of Vaughny at the Sochi Olympics shaking his head about the figure skaters and saying, “Brave as hell.” Vaughny would probably be okay. He seemed like the kind of guy who had a lesbian sister and made a big deal of it. You could do worse. It would be nice to have someone like that on his team.

He thought — it was like being plunged in icy water, he almost missed a pull on the rower — of Ilya. Ilya, who was Russian, who didn’t understand why Shane asked if he liked Russia or was safe there, who had shaken his head and said, “Is home.”

What would happen to Ilya if someone found out about them? That Ilya was … probably bi, right? That maybe he was also a witch? Careful as they had mostly been, they’d also hooked up in a bar bathroom, and Shane had needed help to smuggle Ilya out. Did Ilya have permanent residency or whatever they called it in the States? A green card, right? Would the Bears let him play if he got outed? Would he be deported if he couldn’t play hockey? If he did have residency, would Russia still have leverage over him through his passport? Could they threaten his family?

Anxiety was no stranger to Shane. But usually the anxiety just talked to him about himself, about his fear that he would fail and everyone would see. He had never felt it ratchet up tighter and tighter about somebody else. He’d just been warming up on the rower, nothing serious, but all of a sudden his heart was pounding like he’d come off a two minute shift.

He wanted his mom. He wanted, fiercely, to tell her about Ilya. He was long past wanting to crawl into her lap like a child, but he knew, without question, that Yuna Hollander could fix it. Did Ilya have anyone who could fix it? Was his agent even looking out for him? He didn’t know a lot about Ilya’s family, because Ilya didn’t talk about them. It seemed like a bad sign. That conversation on the phone had sounded angry and tense, and the one time he’d seen Ilya’s father, he had seemed furious and disappointed, even though his son had just gone first in the NHL draft. Who was going to protect Ilya?

Shane realized that he had fully abandoned the rower. Pike, next to him, raised an eyebrow. He breathed. He got back to work.

Ilya

It had been a long roadie, but Svetlana bullied him into going out the day after they got back. He met her at the club. She took one look at him and said, “You look better.” They danced a bit, drank a bit. The music was good. A lot of Rihanna and Dua Lipa. They took a break when Miley Cyrus came on. Svetlana looked over at a woman at the other end of the bar who’d been eyeing them. She had spiky dark hair, muscular arms, and a lot of piercings. “We could take her home.”

Ilya shook his head, regretfully. “She is very hot, but it is not a good time for me.” He hadn’t been able to read much of what Miles sent. It was mostly in fairly complex English, though Miles had tracked down a copy of the basic exercises in Russian. But he’d been able to decipher enough of the other readings to understand that whatever spell he had accidentally made had created a bond of some kind, that the bond was probably unstable, and that as long as that was the case, sleeping with someone else would probably end with “more weird shit happening,” in Miles’s words. It sort of made sense, given how bad things had been in the bar in Montréal.

Svetlana’s attention snapped back to him. “Is this about what happened in November?”

Ilya wanted to lie. It would be easy to lie. Svetlana would know, but he could probably get around it somehow. He also didn’t want to be alone with it. He wasn’t, really, not the way he had been before. He was in a group chat with Miles and Rose Landry and Shane, and he and Shane were texting. Nothing serious, just hockey and shit talking and sometimes flirting. But he didn’t really know Rose Landry or Miles, and in a lot of ways he didn’t know Shane.

“Da. Yes.”

“You did not tell me? I have been so worried about you.”

That was an uncomfortable sensation. People shouldn’t be worried about him.

“Ah. Yes. Yes. I saw him, on the last trip. We are… We are not together, exactly, but we are talking again.”

Svetlana looked far too much like a hungry raptor, considering she was a beautiful woman in a slinky dress.

“He is a hockey player?”

Ilya realized he had miscalculated. This was a direct yes or no question, and it would be nearly impossible to get around. But they were speaking Russian, the club was loud, and he wanted, so much it nearly scared him, to stop hiding this, at least here, with her. She already knew that he was in love with a man. She might be able to narrow it down, but she probably would not be able to figure out that it was Shane. Probably. She was a witch, and she knew everything about hockey.

Trust would always be a leap in the dark. Also, he had waited too long to answer for her to believe him if he denied it.

He swallowed and nodded.

“Hmmmmmm. Well. I hope he deserves you. Also if he hurts you again, I will rip out his heart and eat it with onions. You can tell him I said so.”

“It is a secret, Vetrushka, you know that, right?”

“Obviously. But seriously, Roz, you look so much better. You feel better in my witch senses. It was a bad secret, but now it feels like a good secret.”

He didn’t know what to say. She was right. “Vetrushka. Do you know anything about agents? If there is one who might be good for people like me? I have been thinking that sometimes secrets do not stay secret, and my agent …” He grimaced. His agent was the one his father had found for him. He needed someone who could learn that he was a love witch who had been secretly fucking Shane Hollander for six years and not blink. Maybe that was a tall order. At the very least, he needed someone who would not walk away in disgust, who would help him navigate the morass of rules and contracts and front-office gossip and find a situation where he could still play hockey and wouldn’t have to go back to Russia.

Svetlana preened and also rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know about agents. I will text you the name and number for the right one. Tomorrow.”

“Thank you. You should go over to that girl. She is looking at you, not at me.”

Svetlana rolled her eyes again but let him get away with it. “Yes. I think I will see if she has any more piercings under that shirt.” She kissed him on the cheek and slipped past him through the crowd.

He pulled up the text thread with Church. He didn’t deserve to be talking to Shane. He’d witched Shane into loving him. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but he could not forgive himself for it. Shane certainly would never forgive him, if he knew. He texted Shane anyway.

Shane

Shane was diligently reading some of Miles’s articles when he got Ilya’s text.

Flower: Are you having boring night?

The Voyageurs had played an afternoon game in Philadelphia and then flown to Chicago for a game the next day, so now Shane was unwinding in his hotel room. He was almost ready to go to sleep, truthfully, even though it was an hour earlier in Chicago. It was nice to have his own room. He liked Pike, but he didn’t sleep as well with Pike in the room.

Hollander: Just reading some of the witch articles Miles sent

Flower: Wild night with Mr. Sex Witch

Hollander: Shut up

Flower: Watched your game. Was good.

That was unexpected.

Flower: I would have made that last shot though. Could have been a hat trick.

There it was.

Hollander: Fuck off! You would not!

Ilya really was such an asshole. The last time they had seen each other had been so different that he had almost forgotten. This felt safer, anyway.

Chapter 7: and my love's on a funeral pyre

Shane

Shane got to the hotel for the All Star Game early in the day, before most of the players had arrived. He was settling into his room – lining his socks up in the drawers, arranging his toiletries on the counter, hanging up his suits in the closet – when his phone lit up on the nightstand. It was Ilya, of course.

Flower: 1217

Shane started laughing. He was in room 1219. Ilya must be across the hall or something. Or… was he in the adjacent room? Was that really possible? His eyes followed the line of the room and caught on … was that … seriously? There was a door that didn’t seem to go anywhere. It wasn’t the closet, or the bathroom. He opened it. There was another door on the other side, presumably into another hotel room.

His heart was pounding. He opened the door to the hallway and looked at the room numbers. Sure enough, 1217 and 1219 were right next to each other, with a connecting door in between.

Ilya wasn’t in the room yet. He knew that with whatever sixth sense had told him where Ilya was in Montréal, though his perceptions seemed a little less frantic than they had been that weekend. He closed the door and leaned on it and tried not to hyperventilate. He really couldn’t stop laughing.

It was an almost unbelievable stroke of luck. Good or bad, he wasn’t sure. Things had felt so new and fragile when he’d been with Ilya in Montréal, but none of their problems were solved, and that feeling had started to fade. They weren’t talking, just texting a little. Ilya could be such an asshole. And the reading Shane had been doing about bonds was, if anything, making him feel worse.

Witch bonds weren’t that common. Apparently everything with him and Ilya was weird. Whatever spell gave them each other’s names seemed to have created some kind of bond. He was surprised that the witch trainers hadn’t caught on. Maybe it wasn’t actively using energy. Maybe it was just something they were, now, the way names weren’t the same as a curse or a charm, they were just part of you.

But usually witch bonds happened with married couples, after a long time. Or sometimes witch partners would make a bond so they could share energy. They didn’t spontaneously arise between rivals who fucked a few times a year. And they weren’t easy to break. Shane and Ilya would have to do some kind of witch work together, or maybe even get someone else involved. Miles had categorically refused, saying he knew just enough not to fuck this up even worse. Maybe his grandmother could help, but Shane cringed away from the thought. They’d have to figure something out. It didn’t make any sense to keep a witch bond when you weren’t even – whatever.

The name part wasn’t really fixable unless they both wanted to change their names. He felt embarrassed that he wouldn’t even really consider that. He didn’t want Ilya to forget his name.

He’d been moving around the room almost on autopilot, refolding his shirts and plugging in his charger, but now his head snapped up. Ilya was coming. He didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t texted Ilya back, but probably Ilya would know he was nearby. He should have gone out.

He could hear Ilya letting himself into the other room. He pulled his courage together and knocked on the connecting door.

Ilya

Ilya had just made it into the hotel room, toed off his shoes, and dropped his bags on the floor when there was a knock at a door inside the hotel room. What the fuck. The knock came again. Was someone stuck in the closet? He walked over to the door warily and opened it, ready to jump back.

Shane fucking Hollander was on the other side. He’d been able to feel that Shane was close, but he’d been carefully not thinking about how close or where or when he would see Shane again. And there he was in the adjoining room. He looked so good, too. He was wearing some kind of almost translucent linen shirt and ocean blue shorts. Ilya’s hands itched to touch him. For a long moment they just looked at each other.

He started laughing. He couldn’t help it. What the fuck was the universe doing? “You will murder me again?”

Shane looked a little like a wet cat, but maybe he was laughing a little too. “I don’t know, maybe! They gave me the next room, maybe the league is trying to give me a clear shot at you.”

“You asked for room next to mine? So desperate for it, hmm?”

“No, fuck you! I didn’t ask for it, this is just the room they gave me.” Shane’s eyes were sparkling, though, and his mouth twitched.

Ilya couldn’t stop laughing. This had to be some kind of joke, but he didn’t know who was making it or how. He had always wanted more time, wanted it so desperately that he’d fucked everything up, and here was Shane Hollander in the next room. “Maybe they line up all the rooms for players from best to worst. First me, then you, then Scott Hunter.”

“Fuck off, I’m beating you in goals and points right now.” But Shane was grinning, eyes crinkling, looking at him, leaning on the wide white door frame between the rooms. “We’re on the same team this year, maybe they wanted to give us a chance to get to know each other.

Ilya was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. “Maybe we have something in common. Could surprise people.”

He could see Shane’s face smoothing out into serious lines. “Ilya. We should talk.”

He didn’t want to talk. If they talked, he would have to tell Shane things. “Later.” He knew how to make Shane stop thinking. He moved closer, let his hands ruck up Shane’s shirt. He couldn’t resist murmuring Shane’s name. He pressed Shane against the door frame with his hands, his hips, his mouth, feeling Shane tilt his head into Ilya’s kiss and grip Ilya’s shoulders. “Later we talk.”

The first round was easy, just letting Shane get on his knees and suck every thought and feeling he’d ever had out through his dick, right there in the connecting doorway between their rooms. After, he laid Shane out on the bed in his own room. He wanted to go slow, make Shane wait and beg, but he mouthed at Shane’s balls while lazily stroking Shane’s dick and Shane shuddered and came all over himself, and also on Ilya’s face and in his hair. Ilya didn’t mind the mess but he did need a shower, and by the time he was done people had started to trickle into the hotel. He and Shane had friends to meet, drinks, dinner.

After the dinner, and the drinks, and the friends, Ilya was braced for Shane’s side of the connecting door to be closed. But when he got back to his own room, it was open. Shane was sitting on his own bed, reading something on his phone, wearing a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. Ilya was entranced. He tapped gently on the open door. The sweet, unguarded smile on Shane’s face almost knocked him down.

“I did not know you wear glasses.”

Shane looked around, like he was surprised too. “Oh, yeah. It’s recent. I just wear them for reading.”

Ilya wanted to say I love them but it was too close to I love you, which would be an awful thing to say given the circumstances. He really shouldn’t be doing any of this.

He settled for saying, “Soon you will not be able to see the puck.”

“God, fuck off, I can see the puck just fine, it’s not six inches from my face.” He went to take them off.

Ilya said, “No, no, leave them on.”

Shane looked back at him, surprised. Ilya continued, “I want you to see my dick. Do not want you to get confused when it gets close to your face.”

Shane rolled his eyes and put his hand back to his glasses.

“No. Seriously. Leave them on.” He crossed the room to Shane’s bed and slid his hand over Shane’s neck, along his jaw, tipping his face up for a kiss.

It was easier not to think when they were touching. Shane made a little noise and then Shane’s mouth was opening for him, Shane pulling him down on top of him on the bed.

They had managed to get out of their clothes and were lazily kissing and rubbing against each other when Shane froze. There was a sound in the hallway, voices, laughter. Ilya raised an eyebrow. There were dozens of other hockey players and their guests staying at the same hotel. If they were heard … it didn’t bear thinking about, especially since they knew each other’s names, could say them. But Shane liked that edge of fear and embarrassment, sometimes. It felt better when it was part of the game between them.

“You will have to be quiet,” Ilya said softly. “I do not think you can do it.”

Shane huffed. “Of course I can be quiet.”

“Can you?” Now it was a contest. He knew Shane would like that.

Ilya put his mouth on Shane’s neck, licking, sucking, then slid one hand deliberately, firmly along Shane’s side down to his hip, keeping Shane pinned against the bed, feeling the strength of Shane’s body under him, his other hand fisted in Shane’s hair, his cock grinding against Shane’s heavy, muscular thigh. He mouthed gently at Shane’s nipple, then sucked, swirling his tongue, moved up to lick at Shane’s armpit, soft hair rich with the clean smell of Shane’s body. Shane was gasping, biting his lip, trying desperately to be quiet. How had Ilya ever imagined that he could give this up?

“Can you be quiet while I fuck you?”

Shane breathed in sharply, still biting his lip. “Yes, fuck, come on,” he whispered.

Ilya grabbed the lube from the nightstand and rolled Shane over, keeping one hand in his silky hair and letting the other slide down, pushing Shane down against the bed while pulling one leg up.

Ilya stayed there, body flush against Shane’s, as he slid one finger, then two, into Shane’s hole. His skin was on fire everywhere they touched. Shane was panting, breath ragged, hips squirming. Ilya was touching Shane everywhere, surrounding him, and Ilya in turn was drowning in Shane’s pleasure.

“Ask me to fuck you,” he whispered, a little mean, the way Shane liked it. He felt more than heard Shane’s gasp, the moan he caught back in his throat. “Shhh.” He turned Shane’s head and kissed his throat, licked it, sucked the tender skin into his open mouth. He kissed Shane’s mouth, pressed his fingers inside Shane’s hole. “Ask me.”

He thought Shane might tell him to fuck off but he was past that, eyes hazy and unfocused. Shane said, quiet as a breath, “Ilya. Ilya.”

Ilya would have given Shane anything he wanted in that moment, his heart out of his chest.

“Fuck me,” Shane whispered. “Please, I need you, please, please fuck me. Ilya.”

Entering Shane was almost too much. The heat, the pressure, Shane’s body under his, Shane’s skin sweat-slick against him, Shane’s hair held in his hand — Ilya was shaking apart. He fucked in slowly, Shane’s body tight around him, opening for him a little at a time. He whispered, “Shane”. He licked Shane’s earlobe, his neck, the beautiful muscle of his shoulder, pushing against Shane with his mouth, his hands, his cock, and heard Shane moan under him into the pillow.

“Shhhh, remember.” Ilya slid his fingers into Shane’s mouth, fucking into him as Shane sucked greedily. Ilya could hear the roughness in his own voice as he clung to his last scrap of control. “Would you like if they could see? If everyone could see how you take me?”

Shane shuddered under him, pushing his hips back into Ilya, sucking fiercely on Ilya’s fingers as his orgasm rolled through him. Ilya fucked into Shane again, feeling him shiver in overstimulation, hearing him whisper, nearly silent, “Please, please, please, Ilya.”

Ilya was coming too, breaking like a wave, shattering into spray.

They rested against each other, washed up by the tide. Ilya pulled out and threw the condom in the trash and then they just lay there for a long moment, drifting together.

Shane murmured, “Stay, tonight?”

Ilya didn’t think he could form words. He didn’t try. He just burrowed his head into Shane’s shoulder and breathed. He stayed.

Shane

The weekend felt like a fever dream. It would have been too risky to sleep in the same bed if they’d had to sneak through the halls, but they had adjoining rooms. Shane could just leave the door open and Ilya would come in. They would fuck, and fall asleep together, and wake up in the same bed. The sex was … he couldn’t think about it, and he couldn’t think about anything else. It was like having a boyfriend. He’d never imagined he could have a boyfriend at the All Star Game.

Only he didn’t really have a boyfriend. It was a lie. It was something that had happened, a bond they were stuck with, that was endangering both Shane and Ilya.

Other people must be able to see them. How could they not? Ilya kissed him on the cheek during the game itself. It only stayed secret because it was so unimaginable to everyone watching. If that ever changed, if someone had the imagination to wonder why Rozanov had kissed Hollander, if someone had eyes to see Shane’s face change when Ilya shook water all over him, it would be right there in the open. And then what? Shane would be a laughingstock.

It would be worse for Ilya. He would be in real danger. The NHL was bad enough, but Shane had been reading articles about Russia, now that he’d realized the risk Ilya was running with him. There were laws against promoting homosexuality, which included just, like, existing as a gay person. Probably being the best man at your sister’s gay wedding counted too. Definitely being caught in a hotel with another hockey player. People could be charged and convicted even if they weren’t in the country. It was selfish of Shane to put Ilya at risk like this. Ilya wasn’t gay. He could find someone else, a woman, someone who wouldn’t have to be a secret.

On their last night, Shane woke up around two to find Ilya sitting up in bed in the dark. He lay there himself for a while, looking at Ilya’s profile, before he sat up. He could tell Ilya wanted a cigarette.

In the dark, he didn’t worry as much. He wanted to touch Ilya, so he did. He turned on his side and said, “Hey,” and leaned his face into Ilya’s hip.

Ilya turned to him. “Shane. You are awake.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Ilya.” The name felt sweet in his mouth, illicit, beautiful. “What are you thinking about?”

Ilya didn’t say anything for a minute. When he finally spoke, his voice was bleak. “My father. My brother. Russia. Hockey.”

Shane kissed Ilya’s hip. “Your parents are … what are they like?” They’d never talked like this, but it was the middle of the night and they knew each other’s names and they were sleeping in the same bed and fuck, Shane wanted to know. He realized he had been storing up everything he knew about Ilya – the constellation of moles on his right shoulder, the taste of his mouth, the way he could seem reckless while staying precisely in control, his name – like a little row of treasures on a shelf. He wanted more.

“My father is … he is sick. Dying. Also, old-fashioned? Military, police. I am disappointment to him.” Shane held perfectly still, listening, even though hearing that made him want to punch Ilya’s father. He wasn’t much of a fighter but he could probably take a dying old man who deserved to be punched. To be disappointed in Ilya of all people. “My brother … he is planning. Where the money will come from, when our father dies. I am disappointment to him as well, probably.”

“Your mother?”

“Dead.”

Shane breathed out against Ilya’s hip. “Oh Ilya. I’m so sorry.”

“I was young. It was many years ago.” As if it didn’t matter. Shane knew that wasn’t true, but Ilya didn’t need to be pushed right now. Shane thought about what he knew about Russia, and hockey. About the dangers, known and unknown.

“Do you miss Russia?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Is home, you know? But. Is risky. I have been thinking of what happens when secrets do not stay secrets.”

“What would happen to you? If you got … outed?”

“I do not know.” He paused. “I do not want to find out.” That pretty much summed up how Shane felt about his coach, his teammates, the Montréal Voyageurs, the NHL, and hockey fans worldwide finding out that he was gay, except maybe Ilya was talking about prison instead of just public humiliation.

Ilya’s father, his brother, Russia, hockey. It had felt more and more like something was changing between them. Here were all the reasons it couldn’t change. Shane felt selfish, again, imagining that anything could really have changed when the risk to Ilya was so much worse. He felt selfish that he had just accepted the gift of this weekend, had not understood what he was taking.

He sat up in bed. They were going to have to leave, and they really did need to talk. “Ilya. I’ve been reading the articles Miles sent, from his grandmother. We have some kind of witch bond, right?”

Ilya nodded.

Shane could barely say what he had to say. “It would… it would probably be safer for you if we didn’t have it. She said – we can break it, there’s a ritual we can do. We might be able to do it ourselves, or we could get her to help us. There’s the bye week in February. It takes some set-up. It won’t do anything about the names but we could just ignore that part, I guess. Do… do you want to do it?”

Ilya said, carefully, like he was choosing his words, “Is what you want, no? I will do it.”

Shane said “Sure, yeah. It’s a plan.” The lie tasted like ashes in his mouth.

Chapter 8: I can't believe in those hunters and kings

Shane

Shane: Hey. I think I need to talk to your grandma.

Miles: ok…

Shane: We need to break the bond.

Miles: oh boy. are you sure? bc … I mean… idk dude it’s ur life but I saw u two together and that’s not what it looked like u wanted

Shane: We can’t. It’s too risky. He could get deported and end up in prison.

Miles: u realize doing witch stuff when u don’t mean it gets pretty weird pretty fast? esp when ur whole witch gift is about desire

Shane: Can your grandma help me or not?

Miles: fine, fine, it’s ur business. I’ll talk to her

Shane: NO NAMES OK

Miles: yes dude I get it, gotta keep that closet door shut tight

Miles’s grandma lived on Nantucket, which turned out to be a tiny island out in the Atlantic Ocean, east of Boston. What the fuck was she doing on Nantucket, Shane wanted to know. Getting there was going to be a project.

It was a little complicated. Grandmother Ross (apparently Orthodox Unitarian witches used “grandmother” as a title, even though she wasn’t Shane’s grandmother and Miles called her Grams) offered them her spare room, but Shane didn’t want to. He told himself he was hoping that they could break the bond themselves, which she had said might be possible, but also she lived with one of Miles’s aunts and some grandchildren. That seemed like a lot of people to know about them. He was trying not to think about how it might actually be fun to hang out with Ilya during the bye week, whether it would snow, whether the beach would be pretty, whether they could have a fire.

They had five days off, two of which would be eaten up with travel. They needed to be in the same place for the ritual, and they needed to be able to get to Grandmother Ross the next day in case it didn’t work out and they needed her help. So the sensible thing to do was to find a place to stay on Nantucket. It would be better if it were discreet, not in either of their names, and with no innkeeper or driver to notice them. Shane asked Rose Landry. It seemed like something movie stars might need. She texted him back right away:

Rose Landry: lol I gotchu bb

The travel agent she sent him was almost psychotically efficient. In short order they had a reservation for a guest house on a huge compound, directly on the beach and adjoining conservation land. The rest of the compound was empty during the winter, so they would have plenty of privacy. The guest house itself came with snowshoes, ice skates, cross country skis, bicycles, a wood stove, a hot tub, and a Jeep for driving on the sandy beach. The agent had arranged for advance grocery delivery and a charter flight from the Boston airport. A driver would leave the Jeep for them at the airport with the keys in the glove box, car theft apparently being unknown on Nantucket. Shane guessed it made sense. It was an island. There wasn’t really anywhere to go. The whole enterprise was eye-poppingly expensive, but what was the point of all those stupid commercials if he couldn’t make this nice for them.

He stopped short. It wasn’t going to be nice for them, was it. Fuck.

Ilya

Ilya knew it was better this way. It was. It was. It had to be.

Shane had been lying. He knew that, of course he did. He probably would have known even without the witch bond - lying that close together, he could practically hear Shane’s heartbeat, and Shane really was a terrible liar. With the bond, with the taste of Shane’s name and his skin fresh on Ilya’s tongue, he’d felt the wrongness of the lie in the back of his own throat.

He was smoking on his balcony, in the dark, because Shane didn’t like the smell when he smoked inside. That was probably stupid and self-defeating in its own right. What did it matter what Shane liked? Yes, Shane had lied. Shane didn’t want to break the bond. But Shane had, for whatever reason, been strong enough to see their impossible situation clearly and cut it off despite whatever witchery Ilya had used on him. If Ilya hadn’t been so weak, he would have done it himself.

He remembered, suddenly, a shard of a memory from his childhood. His memory from before his mother died was spotty, as if broad swaths of it had simply been erased by her death, and the remaining, fragmentary images floated in the wide, smudged pages that had once held his memories. But now one of them was resolving back into view, viciously clear. His father screaming – not uncommon – at his mother this time, not at him. That she was a witch, she had bewitched him, she thought she owned him but he was a man, she wouldn’t get away with it this time. The memory cut off but he knew what would be on the other side of a memory like that.

He was shaking but it wasn’t the cold. At least he hadn’t permanently trapped Shane into whatever witchery he’d made. At least when the black river rose up to claim him it would be more like an accident than his mother’s death had been. He didn’t actually want to die, but there was a relief in knowing it would come for him eventually. At least Shane would get out of the snare, would live, would find someone better, would forget him, would not grieve when that day came.

He couldn’t see a lot of stars, but he tried counting the ones he could see. Strange that it was the same sky here and in Montréal and in Moscow. The same ocean, too. He could see the harbor from the balcony. The moon was the barest crescent. Somehow the salt air touched his face, whispered to him, let him breathe in and out.

Fuck. It was going to be a long two weeks.

Shane

Shane had started practicing the witch exercises Miles sent him right away, so at this point he’d been doing them for over a month. He did have discipline. Plenty of discipline. He was going to have training too. He thought maybe he was getting better, but he couldn’t really tell. They were mostly about connecting to his own energy and figuring out how to regulate it. Orthodox Unitarians didn’t go in much for props or long complicated words in their spells.

Some of the exercises were embarrassing. Miles was completely certain that Shane was a sex witch. Shane had trouble believing it himself, but every time he expressed his skepticism, Miles just rolled his eyes. Anyway, being a sex witch meant that sometimes he had to jack off or think about arousing things. Mostly Ilya, since he was trying to be honest with himself. And then he had to try to figure out where the energy was going, and whether he could create boundaries, or see what was happening around him differently, or reach out on purpose.

One night, while he was doing his witch practice before bed, one hand on his dick and a smallish plug in his ass, he could feel a dark tide rising around him. There in his bed he felt a strangling sadness, a river of loss that threatened to sweep his feet out from under him. It tasted like Ilya, somehow. The feeling scared him. He breathed into it, focusing on his dick in his hand and his breath in his lungs. He remembered the silver of the St. Laurence that morning in December, that ocean smell in the deep cold, and imagined a soft breath traveling along the water, a current connecting him to Boston harbor. He was hard but there was no urgency to it. He kept touching himself, slowly, keeping the arousal just at the edge of focus. After a long time, something shifted in the energy. With no warning at all, he shivered and came. He felt tears prickling in his eyes but they didn’t fall.

That was weird. Fuck. Maybe it was a hallucination.

Ilya

Ilya didn’t have to avoid Svetlana, because she was in Russia for a few weeks. She’d be back during the bye week, but he’d be gone by then. Instead he was avoiding his team, and Marleau and Connors specifically, and the Russian players’ group chat most of all. It was hard to know what he wanted these days, other than to brood about Shane. He used to pride himself on his iron control over his thoughts, but lately it had gotten harder and harder to maintain.

It wasn’t as bad as those weeks in December after Shane had fled Ilya’s apartment, when he had seen pictures of Shane with Rose Landry every day. He could eat. He could sleep. Sometimes, at home in the dark, he would try the witch exercises Miles had sent to him and Shane. He would feel into the places where he felt love. Shane, Svetlana, the memory of his mother. Sometimes the tears would rise in his eyes, sometimes the dark river would reach for him, but sometimes he could breathe through it, one hand on his chest, a little beeswax candle in a gold candleholder on the bedside table to keep time. Sometimes it felt almost like Shane was with him, a soft breath against his cheek.

One night, he saw Shane have a scuffle on the ice with a winger from Florida whom Ilya knew to have particularly rancid opinions. Usually Shane didn’t fight. Too valuable to the team to risk the penalties, plenty of other people to defend him. But this time he sat in the penalty box looking furious, shaken, embarrassed. He’d never been able to keep his feelings off his face, and Ilya wondered what had happened. He tried to reach out along what he’d started thinking of as the bond with Shane, but he couldn’t feel it. He wasn’t sure if he was wrong about the bond, or if he just couldn’t reach Shane at the rink. The Zamboni witches were probably keeping everything out.

Later that night, he set up his candle and sat in his bed and tried again. He remembered having Shane in the bed with him, breathed into the warm feeling in his chest, felt the current connecting them. He could smell the ocean through his closed windows. All at once he could feel a twist in his gut, a wash of shame and self-hatred and fury. It was the exact emotion he’d seen on Shane’s face in the penalty box. Ilya’s left hand pressed against his chest. Oh, Shane. He breathed into the feeling. Suddenly, strangely, he felt himself getting hard. As his dick hardened, the bad feeling was softening, melting away. A kind of calm peace swirled with the arousal, and his other hand moved down to cup his dick. He stayed there, breathing, and a few minutes later gave a quiet gasp as he came, his hand barely moving.

Why couldn’t they just text like normal people. Fuck. A few more days and this would be over. He tried unsuccessfully to ignore how badly he wanted to keep it.

Chapter 9: you rust it just right in the light, it's gold, it's golden

Chapter Notes

Shane

It was dark by the time they got to Nantucket. Shane’s flight from Montréal to Boston had been a little late, and then he had to get a cab to the private terminal even though it was only about a mile away. He even had a checked bag. At the last minute he’d grabbed a pair of skates out of the hall closet, thinking of the skates at the guest house and how, if he could skate with Ilya, he didn’t want to be doing it in shitty guest house skates that probably wouldn’t even be the right size.

It all took forever. By the time he got to the private terminal, Ilya was already on the plane, which was probably good for discretion. It wasn’t at all impossible that another of the Bears would be taking a private plane somewhere for the bye week, and Hollander and Rozanov getting on a plane to Nantucket together would be hard to explain.

The plane was tiny, the ride bumpy, and the pilot was right there, so they barely spoke to each other. They couldn’t see the island that well, flying in, but they could see the ocean. The night sky was bright, with thin high clouds like fish scales lit silver by the full moon. The ocean shone under it, moving restlessly. Nantucket was a long wing-shaped sandbar leaning out into the ocean, almost shockingly low, the land dark against the shining water with little clusters of lights strung out along it.

The mood stayed quiet while they drove the fifteen minutes from the airport to the guest house. Even in the dark the island was beautiful, windows glowing warm in the dark night, snow shining in the moonlight. Shane wasn’t sure what to say. They were here to end something that had never truly begun.

As they brought their bags into the guest house, Shane felt abruptly tired of his own fear. He pulled off his shoes and stopped, turning, then hesitated. Ilya wasn’t looking at him.

“Ilya,” he said softly, and Ilya’s face snapped up to his. Ilya’s face was a mask – the one he wore at press events, at parties where he didn’t trust anyone, at the Olympics after his defeat, the one he’d worn the two times Shane had seen him with his father. Shane felt sick, seeing it here, with him. This was what was coming for them.

“Ilya. Can we – I know we have to break the bond tomorrow, that’s what we came here for. But… I just. Can we have tonight? I miss you.”

They didn’t say things like that to each other.

Ilya’s face changed, surprised, softening. “Okay,” he said. That was all, but the mask was gone, and when Shane reached out his hand Ilya came easily into his arms, warm and strong and alive.

Ilya

Ilya knew he shouldn’t be letting this happen with Shane, but really, the damage was done. Breaking the bond would be awful, but they weren’t going to do it tonight. At least when Shane asked for something, he could give it. Shane wouldn’t be asking if he knew Ilya had witched him, but surely at this point, with the end coming, Ilya didn’t have to tell him. It was a relief that he wouldn’t have to confess what he’d done.

And of course, he didn’t want to sleep awkwardly in separate rooms, or not talk to each other, or not touch. Not when he could feel Shane’s strong arms around him and Shane’s mouth soft and warm on his and Shane’s body tucked against him in the bed. He wanted that, and for one last night he could have it.

He woke up early, uncharacteristically, because Shane was moving around the room.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t sleep and it looks like the sunrise is going to be beautiful so I thought I’d walk down to the water.”

Ilya didn’t think he could sleep either. “Okay. I will come too.”

Outside the air felt deeply cold. It had been a cold winter in Boston, all the ponds freezing, ice even forming along the harbor in a few places. The wind was picking up, and Ilya pulled his hat down over his ears and adjusted his scarf. He should have worn gloves.

There was a little scrambly path down a bluff to a sandy beach, and then the ocean. Standing at the water, he felt like he was at the edge of the world. The ocean went out forever in front of him. The sunrise was red, gold, brilliant over the water, with great banks of heavy clouds lined up to the horizon. The waves looked bigger than they had from the plane, rising up and curling and then crashing down, roaring in his ears, the wind whipping the spray at them. It smelled like snow, and salt water.

“Fuck. This is beautiful, Shane.”

“I’ve never been here before. Have you?” Ilya shook his head, and Shane continued. “I like the ocean but I don’t go there a lot. I usually go to my cottage, or when I was growing up my parents had a cottage. Lakes, not ocean.”

“It is very large. Makes me feel small, but maybe in a good way.” He’d never been someplace like this.

Shane laughed and looked around. They were the only people on the beach, and they were all wrapped up in their winter clothes, much harder to recognize than usual, and of course no one knew they were there. Ilya was still surprised when Shane leaned over and kissed his cheek, right there in front of the sunrise.

Shane

They needed to break the bond, but Shane kept putting off getting started. He knew he had been avoiding reading over the instructions because he didn’t want to read them, didn’t want to think about what it would feel like. It felt so good to just be here with Ilya. They sat on the couch and played Mario Kart for a while. Ilya insisted on being Princess Peach every time, and kept making absurd moves that wrecked his racer but made Shane laugh anyway.

Besides, it had started to snow. Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d been somewhere pretty and quiet in the snow. The storm had started to pick up after they’d come back to the guest house and cooked the breakfast the chef had left them (a huge scramble of eggs with spinach, mushrooms, and goat cheese – they were both at the point in the season where they needed to fight to keep weight on). There were fat swirling flakes by eight, and it was snowing in earnest half an hour later. By eleven there were two inches of fresh powder outside and he couldn’t stand it anymore.

To his surprise, though, Ilya was the one who said, “Let’s go outside!”

They bundled up into their winter gear and went outside. It was like the whole world was gone. They could hear the wind, but even the little trail down to the water was entirely obscured. The road and the driveway were filling up, the dark brown trees acquiring heavy coats of white, and the snow whipped and whirled around them. Shane stuck his tongue out and felt snow dissolving on his tongue, and then suddenly got hit with a snowball on the side of his neck.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH” he shrieked, but then it was on. He and Ilya were tossing snowballs at each other as fast as they could make them, until finally Ilya tackled Shane into the snow and kissed him breathless, Ilya’s mouth burning hot in the cold air. Shane hadn’t had fun like this in who knew how long. Everything always felt so serious.

Once they were inside, it still didn’t seem like the time to start the ritual. There was snow all down his neck and in his socks and under his waistband, and his jeans were caked in snow and starting to soak through.

Ilya looked at him and said, “You are cold. You are delicate flower from sheltered Canadian city.”

“Fuck off, the winters are colder in Ottawa than in Moscow,” Shane grumbled, but he let Ilya peel him out of his snowy clothes right there in the entryway and pull him into the shower and warm him up properly. The hot water helped, but what really warmed him through was feeling Ilya’s body against his, Ilya’s mouth open to him, and the fire of orgasm burning through both of them and through the bond.

Then they were in sweatpants and soft tank tops and it was time to make lunch. Ilya really was so beautiful. It was impossible for Shane to look away.

He let himself relax. They didn’t actually need to do the ritual today. They had three days. They could try tomorrow, and if it didn’t work they could always go see Grandmother Ross on the third day.

Ilya

The power went out a little before dinner. It had been snowing all day. There were probably 9 inches of fresh snow on the ground. Shane had been incredibly relaxed all day, and somehow the same feeling of relaxation had soaked into Ilya. If he was going to have this, knowing how it would end, he might as well enjoy it.

Shane looked up sharply when the power went out. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Power went out, I think.”

Shane scrunched up his forehead. He really did look like a grumpy kitten sometimes. “Did you know there was going to be a big storm?”

Ilya shook his head. “No. I saw a little snow on the weather, but I did not think it would be like this.”

“Huh. We might be stuck for a bit.” Shane didn’t sound unhappy about the idea. He looked at his phone. “I can’t get any signal, so there’s no way to check the forecast. We should see how the heat works.”

The heat turned out to be a forced air furnace which didn’t work with the electricity out, but there was a big wood stove. Shane frowned. “Do you know how to start a fire? I was never in scouts. Always hockey in the summer. My parents have a grill but it’s gas.”

Ilya nodded. He remembered summer trips to the dacha. Sometimes he and his mother would go, when his father was too busy, and roast potatoes in a cast iron pot in the evenings. He swallowed against the memory. “We need paper. Newspaper, if they have it. And little sticks.”

There was wood in the garage, and a big piece of leather with handles to carry it. Ilya’s first try didn’t work and left the room all smoky, but he added more paper and more of the little sticks Shane said were called kindling, and eventually the fire blazed up. They would need to keep it nice and hot. The house was sturdy and weathertight but the wind was howling outside.

There were pillar candles and flashlights in one of the kitchen drawers. Shane got a whole stack of them out and set them around, and then set about lighting them.

“Ooooh, romantic,” Ilya teased, and immediately regretted it.

“Shut up! We just need light.” But Shane was laughing too.

It was romantic. Ilya decided that candlelight just couldn’t help being romantic. Shane looked gilded in the flickering light, his eyes dark pools, his mouth unbearably sweet. Ilya could hardly stand to look at him, but he also couldn’t look away.

It felt more and more like they were in their own little world. His father, his brother, Russia, hockey – it all felt a million miles away. Only this was real. He knew that was a lie, but he couldn’t help wishing this world could be true instead of the other.

—-----—-----—-----—-----—-----

Ilya had been awake for a while. It was the middle of the night, but he often slept badly, and someone needed to stoke the fire occasionally. He wasn’t exactly thinking. With the wind howling outside, and the soft hiss of the snow on the roof, and Shane breathing softly in the bedroom, he could stare into the fire and reach an almost hypnotic state.

It didn’t startle him when Shane appeared in the doorway. Shane didn’t seem like he’d just woken up. He was achingly beautiful in dark soft pants and no shirt. Ilya gave himself a point for keeping the house warm enough. He knew what was coming in the morning, but it hadn’t come yet. For now he was still allowed this.

Shane came to sit on the couch next to him. Ilya could feel him thinking, the delicate gears and cogs of his mind bringing him to a decision, and he felt a stab of fear when Shane took his hand and said his name.

“Ilya. I’ve been thinking.”

Ilya couldn’t speak. It was a dream and a nightmare at the same time, everything he wanted and couldn’t have.

“I just. I’ve been thinking about the bond. It’s stupid, it’s selfish, I know how risky it is for you, I know it’s not fair. But. Ilya. I have to tell you. I’m trying to be brave. I think I would regret it forever if I didn’t. I love you. I don’t know how we could do it but I. I want to try. If you want it. I love you.”

Shane’s eyes were wide, his whole heart in his face.

Ilya wanted to say it back, maybe more than he had wanted anything since he had given up on wanting his mother to be alive again. But that would be wrong. He couldn’t lie, though, he couldn’t send Shane away saying he didn’t love him. He would have to tell him. He could feel the agonizing pressure of the tears in his eyes.

“I am sorry, Shane, I am so sorry.” He could see Shane pulling away from him. The words tumbled out. “I did not tell you, I should have told you. I am a witch. I did not know, I swear it, not until after. My gift is – it is to do with love. I do not know what I did, I would never have tried to do this, but some way, it happened. I witched you to love me.”

“What?” said Shane. He looked confused.

Ilya thought his explanation had been reasonably coherent, considering the emotional toll and the language barrier, but he drew in a breath to try again.

“No, sorry, I understood what you said. But Ilya, that’s not how it works.”

Now it was his turn to be confused. “What?”

“I only read a little bit about love witches, but it’s in some of the stuff Miles’s grandma sent us. I’m sorry, I should have found you Russian versions, I wasn’t thinking. I was afraid of the same thing. If I’m a sex witch, I must have witched you to want me, because how the fuck else does someone like you take that kind of risk for someone like me?”

Ilya wanted to dispute that, but Shane was talking fast, the words tumbling out. “But that’s … it’s not how it works. People say all kinds of shit but it doesn’t work like that. If you’re a sex witch or a love witch, you can draw power from sex or love. You can’t make them. Not even the really powerful sex witches can make someone want them. Same with love. Love is like, it’s the biggest thing there is. It’s so huge. You can’t make it with a spell, even if you were the most powerful witch in history. If your gift is tied to love, it just means your witch power comes from love.” Shane laughed. “I’d been wondering how the name thing happened. I didn’t think it could have been just me. But this makes sense. We were both – it was both of our gifts, together, and being at your house, and just feeling everything. Six years is a long time to have all that energy with nowhere to go.”

Ilya felt like he’d just been checked hard into the boards, and also like he’d just won the Cup. He couldn’t breathe. He wiped his face. Somehow there were tears.

“Shane. Wait. I did not witch you to love me?”

“No. No way. It would be totally impossible even if you had the greatest witch gift ever and studied your whole life. And honestly I don’t think either of us is much of a witch talent. We’re beer league witches at absolute best. No. I just love you.”

Ilya let out a breath that was almost a sob. “Shane. I love you so much.” He said it again in Russian. He needed to say it in his own language, his mother’s language. The words he had been carrying in his heart for – maybe years, really.

Shane was climbing into his lap on the couch, Shane’s arms were around him, holding him. The tears were falling. “Sorry. Sorry,” Ilya whispered.

“Shhhhh I’ve got you. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He buried his head in Shane’s shoulder and gripped Shane tighter. Maybe too tight, but Shane was strong.

“Say it in Russian.” Shane’s voice was vibrating against the bones of his skull. He wanted to keep it forever.

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he said, pronouncing the words slowly and carefully.

“I’m going to learn Russian. It’s not fair that we always have to talk in my language.”

“Probably you learn it in a week, no accent. Perfect Moscow Russian.”

Shane said, “I don’t know what to do about all the practical stuff. I know it’s really hard, I know there are so many things stacked against us, but I just. I want to try. If that’s what you want.”

Ilya nodded. “Yes. Da. Shane, I want it so much. I love you. We will try. It will still have to be secret, but we do not have to lie to ourselves. To each other.”

Shane’s arms tightened around him, and Shane’s mouth came down on his. It was new and familiar at the same time. His heart was full and his cheeks were wet, and Shane’s mouth was on his, and he had not done anything unforgivable after all, and Shane loved him. Shane’s skin was bare and hot in the firelight and he slid his hand up the heavy muscle of Shane’s back, into the silky hairs at the nape of Shane’s neck.

His body was still ringing with all the feelings – love and joy and the amazing relief of not being a monster after all, and more he wasn’t sure he could name in any language – and he kissed Shane, over and over and over again. He could live in this kiss. Nothing else was real.

Then their bodies were moving against each other, and all at once Shane was panting over him, kissing his neck and biting hard so that Ilya felt a blaze of pleasure radiate out from each place Shane put his mouth. He thought maybe he could come just from the pressure on his neck, but Shane was pulling his shirt off and saying “Ilya, Ilya, fuck,” and then getting their dicks out so they could rub against each other. It was like that day in November and also nothing like it.

Ilya was gasping Shane’s name over and over again, saying “Shane” and “please” and “I love you.” Shane said, “Fuck, Ilya, fuck, I love you, I’m going to make you,” and brought his hand up for Ilya to spit in. The wetness was enough, finally. Everything was enough, and too much. Their hands were moving and their dicks were sliding against each other, and Shane’s mouth was open against Ilya’s, Shane’s hand brushed Ilya’s nipple. Together they fell over the edge, come splashing up and mixing again, as they whispered each other’s names.

Chapter End Notes

The NHL’s bye week is now attached to the All Star Game, but in 2016-2017 it was spread out across January and February. The real Boston and Montréal teams had their bye weeks at the same time, February 12-17, which is when this chapter takes place.

The real deviation from our universe is that the weather is deeply cold, cold enough to support pond hockey all winter in Nantucket. That probably hasn’t been true in decades. You can read more about how Nantucket's climate has changed over the last two hundred years here: https://n-magazine-archive.com/frozen-in-time/

Ilya and Shane could have known there would be a big storm if they’d read the forecast discussion on weather.gov, which is much more informative than just looking at the little icons. But they are not middle-aged lesbian dads, at least not in this story, so they wouldn’t.

Chapter 10: a steady hand to ring, a readiness of things

Chapter Notes

Shane

Shane woke up feeling pleased and anxious and protective and smugly satisfied and deliriously happy. It was a lot of feelings. Making himself a hockey robot had for sure had its advantages. This was better, though. Last night, after they had cleaned up and stoked the fire up hot, they had gone back to bed and slept hard, curled up together. He wasn’t sure they would always sleep like that – it was probably too hot and he liked having a little space – but that night he had wanted Ilya’s skin against his much, much more.

He looked out the window. The weather seemed to be clearing up a bit, but there was almost two feet of snow on the ground outside. They were snowed in. The power was still off. Probably he should feel anxious about it but he mostly felt relieved. Their bubble was intact. Anyone who wanted to bother them would have to already be on Nantucket, and maybe snowshoe over personally. Maybe the ferry was still running? Probably no planes for a while.

He looked over at Ilya, who was waking up. Ilya’s face had no mask at all, only the pure sweet light of love in it. Shane couldn’t speak, so he reached out and stroked his thumb along Ilya’s collarbone.

“Was not a dream?” Ilya said.

“No, sweetheart.” He didn’t know where that had come from, but he was keeping it. Ilya was a sweetheart. “I love you. We’re going to try.”

Ilya burrowed into his hip and kissed him. “I love you.”

They got up and brushed their teeth, because Shane really wanted to kiss Ilya but morning breath was too much for him, and made out a little, lazily, feeling the wonder of what had happened. They made breakfast. Shane’s goals for the day were pretty much just to relax with Ilya, and go out in the snow, and also eventually to get fucked.

He was hoping to get fucked slowly. They never had enough time, but today they could take all day. He wanted Ilya to finger him until he was begging to be fucked, and then he wanted to turn the tables, ride Ilya until it was Ilya’s turn to beg to come. Maybe he could come on Ilya’s dick, and then let Ilya fuck him til he was almost sobbing from overstimulation.

It was a good day. They accomplished all of Shane’s goals by three in the afternoon, and there was still a little daylight left. The wind and snow had calmed down for good. The power still wasn’t back but it was warm in the house from the fire, and they’d moved the refrigerated stuff into a cooler in the garage, which seemed to be about the right temperature.

Ilya handed Shane a ginger ale and leaned on the kitchen island and said, “So.”

Shane took the ginger ale. “This looks serious.”

“I am only thinking. We will have to make a plan. If we are trying this, I need to have plan for if Russia finds out. I am very careful, but I can still make mistakes.”

“Do you… do you have anyone you can trust?”

“Yes. My friend Vetrova. She is helping me find new agent.”

Shane felt an uncomfortable squirm of jealousy at that, which of course Ilya could feel too.

“Is not like that with us. She is a friend, only.”

“But you fuck her.” He remembered how clear Ilya had been about that.

“Yes, sometimes that has happened. But is nothing more for us. Good friend, good sex, but not… is not like with you. We are not in love.” Ilya was blushing as he said it, but he was also looking at Shane so earnestly that Shane would have known it was the truth even without knowing Ilya’s name.

“Okay. Okay. I’ve never had anything like that but. She’s important to you, right? I want you to have someone you can trust.”

“Da. She is the one who told me I was in love with you. Maybe when you are in Boston you can meet her. Would be fun surprise. She knows I am in love with someone, with a man, but finding out it is Hollander would be a very good surprise.”

Huh. “Okay. So she’s helping you find a new agent. And then … I think we should talk to Grandmother Ross as long as we’re here, just in case there’s witch shit we don’t understand. And I think. I don’t know what we’ll do but I should tell my mom. She’s really good at fixing shit.”

“She is a witch?”

“Yeah, she is, but that’s not why. She just makes shit happen like no one I’ve ever met. I don’t know, maybe that’s witch powers. Bureaucracy witch. I’ve always been scared to tell her I’m gay, but I think she could help us make a plan and that’s more important. She’ll be okay. I don’t think she’ll be happy about it but she’ll see how much you matter to me.”

At that, Ilya came around the island and took the ginger ale out of his hands and kissed the breath out of his lungs.

He drew back. “Ilya. Is your family … can you trust them?”

Ilya shook his head. “No. They are… it is only my father and my brother. My father is sick. Dying. He would not accept a son like me. My brother … I think if he knew this he would threaten to make it public, to get money from me.”

Shane was scared to ask but he wanted to know Ilya. It wasn’t just the pretty parts, loving someone. “You said your mother is dead?”

“She died a long time ago. Fourteen years.”

“How… how did she die?”

Ilya’s eyes were full of tears. “She took pills. I don’t want … she was so wonderful, but so sad too. My father… always he was saying she was a witch, she had bewitched him.”

Ilya paused a long moment and then finally said, “I was the one who found her.”

Shane’s heart clenched. What must Ilya have thought, when he learned he was a witch too? That his gift was to do with love? “Oh Ilya. Ilya. I’m so sorry. I love you.” He wrapped his arms around Ilya and held him, feeling the luck that Ilya was alive, his breath, his heartbeat, the warmth and sweetness and sorrow.

It was hard, learning to have feelings and be brave. He was muddling through, and now Ilya didn’t have to be so alone.

It was a good day.

Ilya

On their third morning at the house in Nantucket, the power came back on. Ilya wasn’t happy about it, but he supposed it had to happen eventually. Someone had come in the night and cleared the road and the driveway. Cell service was back up too, so they could text Grandmother Ross and get an invitation to come to her house around 10. It was a beautiful day, icy and clear, with a few little clouds lingering in the sky.

Before they left, they walked down to the beach for a moment, just to see the ocean. The waves were wild, still, foaming up on the sand, and all sorts of flotsam had been tossed up. Ilya picked up a piece of sea glass, wincing at the cold on his bare hand, and passed it to Shane. It was a big piece, almost as wide as his palm. The blue glass must have been very thick before it went in the water.

Shane smiled at him, brighter than the sun, and slipped it in his pocket.

—-----—-----—-----—-----—-----

Grandmother Ross’s house was, like all the other houses on Nantucket, covered in some kind of wood shingles that had weathered to a silvery gray. It was in one of the numerous little towns on the island, a few streets and a tiny store and gray houses that all looked a little alike. Ilya had expected another terrifying, diminutive witch grandmother, but Grandmother Ross was actually fairly tall, a strong-looking woman with dark skin about the same tone as Miles’s, hair in twists that fell almost to her shoulders, and a smooth face that could have put her age anywhere between forty and seventy.

When they had left their scarves and hats and coats and boots in the front hall and made it to the warm kitchen, a cozy space with patterned tile floors and a wide wood table Ilya didn’t have to be told was a family heirloom, she turned to them. “So, you’re Miles’s friends that he won’t name, huh?”

Shane squirmed in discomfort, but Ilya said, “Yes. We are sorry. It is complicated for us, if people know about our situation. We are grateful to you for seeing us, Grandmother Ross.”

She cocked her head. “Huh, yes, that tracks. Pretty manners you’ve got. Okay. First we’re going to have some tea.”

The kitchen smelled of spices and something tart Ilya didn’t recognize. Grandmother Ross took a pot off the stove and made three mugs appear from a cabinet, and poured some kind of red liquid through a strainer into the mugs.

“You’ll both need honey.” Ilya could feel Shane squirm again, but Shane didn’t need to be told that when a woman who was both a witch and a grandmother put honey in your tea, you drank it.

The tea was not like anything Ilya had ever drunk before. It was full of warm spices, and something that tasted like the tart smell he hadn’t recognized. “This is delicious. What kind of tea is it?” he asked.

“Mulled sumac. Rosses have been foraging sumac on this island for two hundred years, and some of the other sides of the family long before that.” She looked at them wryly. “Surprised we’ve been here that long?”

In truth Ilya didn’t know enough about who lived where in North America to be surprised that there had been a Black family on Nantucket for two hundred years, but he could be polite. “I do not know about the history of this island, at all.”

“Hmmm, and why should you, you have your own history. But Nantucket isn’t like most places in America. The colonizers who came here were Orthodox Unitarian, mostly. We believe in stewarding the gifts of the gods. I’m sure Miles told you about that. It’s why we all get witch training, no matter how strong or weak our gifts, but it also meant no truck with slavery, or wiping out the native people. The whaling industry was this whole island for most of the 19th century, and commercial sense is a gift of the gods too, so we did well. There were free Black people and free native people and people from all over the world who came for the whaling business. Everyone lived here together. It was one of the Ross family who integrated the schools here, and that was in 1846. Well. Anyway. That’s not what you came here for.”

They looked at each other and at her, trying to figure out where to start.

“Miles tells me you’ve got some kind of witch bond, and that one of you is a sex witch, and the other one is – he didn’t say what kind of witch you are, but he seemed to think it was kind of a mess.”

“My gift is to do with love.” Ilya felt himself blushing at this grandmother knowing his boyfriend was a sex witch and he was a love witch. He was sure Shane’s face wasn’t much better.

Grandmother Ross laughed, not unkindly. “Young people. I’ve been a sex witch since before you were born, you’ll scandalize yourselves a long time before you scandalize me. It’s not my only gift but it’s one of them.”

Ilya wasn’t sure what “scandalize” meant, but Shane said, “Miles said we could trust you. I just … I want to tell you all of it, but I need to know it can stay a secret. It could be really dangerous for him if this gets out.”

Her dark eyes turned serious. “I can’t say I understand your situation exactly, but I know about secrets that can get people killed. No one will hear any of this on my account.”

She listened intently as Shane explained the situation: that they were hockey players, that Ilya was Russian where being gay was illegal and being bisexual counted as gay, that they had been sleeping together for six years but at first “uh, it was, we weren’t” until she laughed and said she understood, that they had pretended it meant nothing even after that had changed, and that they had accidentally made a witch bond and learned each other’s names three months (two days, eighteen hours) before.

When Shane was done, Grandmother Ross steepled her fingers. “Well. That is a very interesting story. Very interesting. You poor sweet boys. It must have been a mess for you.”

It had been. She must have been able to see the memories on their faces, because she nodded again sharply. “But what do you need now? Miles said you were here for help with breaking the bond. And I can help with that, if you want, but that’s not the energy you came in with today, and it’ll be harder and hurt more if you don’t mean it.”

Ilya shook his head. “No. That was our plan, Miles was not wrong. But we have made a new plan. We do not want to break the bond.” Just saying it made his heart thump in his chest.

Shane nodded. “No. Uh. We want to be together. We just, it’s been really hard. We’ve been having a hard time managing the bond. We had some bad times. Better when we aren’t rejecting it, I think, but neither of us really knows anything about witch stuff. Or being in love. And I’m a little worried that the team witches will notice. I don’t think it gives either of us any kind of unfair advantage but it would be a bad problem to have if they did pick something up. We were hoping maybe you could help us with it.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I think I can do that. Hold out your hands, and then take each other’s hands.”

They both reached out their hands to her and to each other. Her hand was warm and strong in Ilya’s, and very different from Shane’s warm, strong hand on his other side. She closed her eyes, and Ilya felt a pulse of energy move through him and hold, like they had completed a circuit. The feeling of energy stayed for a few minutes and then seemed to settle.

Eventually Grandmother Ross opened her eyes and let go of their hands, but he and Shane kept their hands together under the table. It scared him a little, to let someone see them touch, but Ilya didn’t want to let go of Shane’s hand at that moment.

“Okay, I think that should stabilize things for you. Does it feel better?” Ilya thought about it and nodded. Shane nodded too.

“I just helped the energy settle a little. You’ll still need to do your witch exercises, to keep it flowing in the right channels, but if you don’t use your witch bond at the rink or during training, I don’t think anyone will notice it. It’s not something you’re doing, exactly. It’s part of who you are, now, like name magic. The Zamboni witches are probably good enough to stop you trading energy on the ice even if you did try, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it. Especially with your gifts. You probably don’t want to be sitting there getting turned on during the game.

“The being in love part, well. Be kind to yourselves, be kind to each other. It takes some figuring out.” She laughed, and then continued.

“All right, boys. Normally I’d invite you to stay for lunch with the grandbabies, but if I’m understanding your situation right you only have one more night together and then you’ll have to be mostly apart for months. I think you should probably skedaddle. Go take care of each other.” She winked at them, and Ilya wondered if he could die of blushing.

They both thanked her profusely. Shane used more words but that was because he was cheating. As they were wrapping themselves back up in their winter clothes, one of the grandchildren came running out into the hall. Grandmother Ross scooped her up and twirled her around, then settled her on her hip. Ilya thought the grandbaby might have been three or four. “Say goodbye to the sweet boys!” Grandmother Ross told her, and the child waved and said “bye tweet boys,” and they headed out, into the wide brightness of the snowy world.

Shane

Back at the guest house, Shane felt like he was vibrating out of his skin. He only had one more day with Ilya. He’d been sort of hoping the storm would keep them on Nantucket, but the power was back and the plows were out. The travel agent had texted him to say that their flight back to Boston would run on time the next day. Shane’s flight to Montréal was more of an issue, since that was commercial and air travel was still an ungodly snarl. But the travel agent was monitoring it with raptorial intensity, and had assured him that he’d make it back one way or another. Worst case scenario he’d charter a last minute flight. At least the money had, in fact, made it nice for them.

He could feel Ilya watching him as he paced in front of the large windows. There were so many things to figure out. Would they be able to see each other this summer, or would Ilya need to go back to Russia? Shane would need to come out to his parents, and then break the news that he did have someone special, and it was Rozanov, the Beast of Boston. He would need to meet Ilya’s friend Vetrova.

Finally Ilya stepped in front of him and stopped him, large hands holding Shane’s shoulders. “Shane. Beloved.” Fuck, that he could just hear those words. “Let’s go skate.”

“What?” That wasn’t what Shane had been expecting. But just before the turn for the driveway of the guest house, they’d seen a frozen pond, and some people out with shovels who looked like they might be getting ready to clear it.

“We need to go outside. Will be fun, no? I do not remember last time I got to skate outside.”

Neither did Shane, really. He could remember being a kid and skating on the Rideau canal in Ottawa, or playing pond hockey, but skating had been serious business for a long, long time.

“Ilya, that’s crazy. This close to Boston, and they skate — they’ll definitely know who you are.” They’d probably recognize Shane too.

“So? Is not illegal to skate on ponds. You can wear — what is in English, balaklava? The hat that goes on your face? So they will think you are a robber instead of hockey player.” Ilya was laughing.

Shane shook his head. “It’s balaclava in English too. But Ilya, what if someone recognizes us together?”

Ilya kissed Shane on the cheek. “Is not illegal to have friend on other team, either. Come skate with me. I will not tell anyone how much you like it when I suck on your balls.”

Shane rolled his eyes, but he also went to get his skates. He didn’t wear a balaclava, but he did wrap his scarf around his chin and pull his toque down low and put on sunglasses. Just, you know. On general principle.

They walked down to the pond, over the tiny rise that was all Nantucket had in the way of hills. Their boots kicked up little clouds of soft snow, which eddied around their feet. The pond was covered in snow, surrounded by thin-branched willows and the occasional larger tree, and there were a handful of people working on clearing it with shovels and push brooms. There was a dog, too, a big dark furry floof who came bounding up to them and slobbered on Shane’s knees.

“Ugh,” Shane said, grabbing some snow to wipe off his pants, but Ilya was already leaning over and petting the dog, his face all scrunched while he cooed and tossed a snowball for it to chase. It was… adorable. He wasn’t used to thinking of Ilya as adorable.

Shane wasn’t sure what to say, but Ilya asked if they could help, and they grabbed two of the push brooms and started clearing the ice. Someone had brought a weird bucket with a plastic pipe frame sticking out of it and a towel on the pipe, and as they gradually cleared the snow off, a woman started pushing the bucket around the ice. The water came out gradually, into the towel, and froze to the ice, and Shane realized it was a homemade push-powered Zamboni. She caught him looking and laughed. “I’m not much of a witch but I can keep the water warm enough for this to work.”

Finally the rink was cleared, and they put their skates on. A few people were trying some figure skating tricks. There were a couple of little kids wobbling on their skates, and some older kids playing. The dog ran around, sliding on the pond ice and barking cheerfully at everyone. Shane and Ilya just chased each other around the pond, weaving in and out and playing tag until they were breathless and laughing. Ilya couldn’t stop smiling, and neither could Shane. He could smell the cold air, and the salt of the ocean, and the clean snow. His heart was shining in his chest, and Ilya grabbed his hand and pulled him along, and they were flying together over the ice.

Chapter End Notes

Nantucket is actually very, very interesting. I knew absolutely nothing about it before I wrote this fic, so many thanks to Sarapod for helping me learn. It’s a sandbar leaning way out into the Atlantic Ocean, and in the 19th century it was a whaling port. Most of the white residents were Quakers, who were both very devout and very commercial, and also much more likely to be abolitionists than your average early American bear. Nantucket Quakers in particular were among the earliest to reject slavery. Nantucket Friends Meeting published a rejection of slavery in 1716, and pressured its members to free the people they had enslaved beginning in 1732.

Between Quaker abolitionism and the wildly multicultural nature of the whaling industry, Nantucket was a notably racially integrated place quite early, and there were free, prosperous Black residents starting in the late 18th century. The schools were, in fact, desegregated in 1846.

I don’t mean that it was a racial utopia – Black and indigenous people were enslaved there during the 17th and 18th centuries, and many other forms of racism persisted after slavery ended on Nantucket – but it was a place where Black residents could live and prosper and participate in public life.

 

Here are some cool articles about Black history in Nantucket:

• Nantucket’s Black Heritage Trail
• The Nantucket History Association’s "Abolition to Suffrage" page, including some interesting information about abolition, Black residents, and school desegregation
• You can learn a little about Grandmother Ross’s ancestor, Eunice Ross, at the NHA's page about desegregation.
• An Atlantic article about Black Nantucket
• I have not read Away Off Shore, by Nathaniel Philbrick, but Sarapod recommends it and shared a number of facts from it with me.