Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

F/M, M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

David Hollander & Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander & Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova, Cliff Marlow/Svetlana Vetrova

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, David Hollander, Yuna Hollander, Shane Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Cliff Marlow, Hayden Pike, Sasha | Ilya Rozanov's Coach's Son, Anya | Ilya Rozanov's Dog

Additional Tags:

David and Yuna Have Two Sons, Sick Ilya Rozanov, Family Fluff, Ilya is a Hollander Now, Protective Shane Hollander, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Good Parent David Hollander, Good Parent Yuna Hollander, Minor Violence, Past Child Abuse, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Soft Hockey Boys, Dumb Hockey Boys, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Past Underage Sex, Past Drug Use, Depressed Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Autistic Shane Hollander, Hurt Ilya Rozanov, Shane Motherfucking Hollander, BAMF Shane Hollander, Good Friend Cliff Marlow, Good Friend Svetlana Vetrova, Anxious Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Has PTSD, Irina Rozanova Haunts the Narrative

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of Duty of Care

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-04 Completed: 2026-02-09 Words: 145,224 Chapters: 25/25

Duty of Care

Summary

Ilya Rozanov, get loved.

Notes

Okay, so TWO. I get two HR fics as a treat...

Chapter 1

Shane has always been his mother’s son. From the minute he opened his eyes, he and Yuna have been two intense, loving, slightly obsessive peas in a pod. Shane has always sought to match, then outpace his mom when it comes to commitment and hard work, walking at an impressively young age just so that he could follow her around on two tiny, chubby little feet. There’s no question that hockey has been his heart and soul since the second he laid eyes on the ice, but a part of David will always wonder if that initial spark, that excitement, was a contagious thing from her. 

He loves Shane’s passion as much as he loves it in Yuna, so when he stops to think about it for more than half a second, is it any surprise that Shane fell in love with the first person to actually challenge him at his favorite thing? Yuna can deny it all she likes, but David is sure he won her over purely out of irritation when he trounced her at cards the first night they met. 

The rivalry between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rovanov is the stuff of legends, and while the antagonism might be all manufactured, the competitiveness most certainly isn’t. He doesn’t share Yuna’s concern that Shane has ever let Rozanov win anything. Shane wants to beat Rozanov as much as David imagines Rozanov wants to beat Shane. It’s what pushes them both so far down the path of greatness. 

So yeah, Shane is his mother’s son, which is why he won’t take his eyes off her when she steps away from the table and heads outside, even though she squeezes his shoulder as she passes. David knows why she’s taking a beat. It’s the same reason he drove away without saying a word, and he imagines she will soon feel as wretched about it as he does now. 

He doesn’t care, she doesn’t care, that their son is gay. He doesn’t even care that he’s picked Rozanov of all men.

What he cares about, and what he knows she cares about, is just how much pain they have caused him. Even with the best of intentions, even with no desire at all to judge or reject him, the knowledge that Shane has been living with such a secret, such a weight, for all these years... His beautiful, clever, intense boy, who already practices and plans and creates a hundred scenarios to run through in his head, and not one of the outcomes he will have played out was worth the risk of following through.

He’s doing that now. Thinking and overthinking, slow and methodical, his own process gives Yuna the time she actually needs to acknowledge her feelings and set them aside for Shane’s sake. They need to talk, even more so perhaps than he and Shane do, but it won’t be a long conversation. 

They might need a minute, but once they set their sights on a path, all bets are off. A lane has been chosen, and no act of nature, god, or hockey is knocking them off course. 

They’ll be fine. He knows it. 

Shane carefully picks up his mom’s button-up and follows her outside. 

Leaving David with Rozanov. Ilya. 

Hockey’s most controversial and divisive figure, and a man who quite calmly confessed to being in love with David’s son. 

He should break the ice, right? Ilya looks relaxed enough, but he’s also looked like he’s wanted to tear someone’s face off with his teeth in some interviews, so what does David know? 

He cracks the knuckles on both hands and swings them in front of him in a muted clap. “You like pasta?” he asks, deliberately casual, as though there’s a universe in which a kid Rozanov’s size doesn’t need a boatload of carbs. He looks over his shoulder just in time to catch Ilya’s brow arch, and the almost-smile at the edge of his mouth.

“Of course. You want help?” Rozanov is already on his feet, a surprising amount of grace for a guy who can flatten men twice his size on the ice.

David waves him into the kitchen, a slate of staggeringly deliberate politeness already running in the back of his head. He stirs at the sauce he left simmering, knowing full well that either Shane would be coming over, or they would be going to him. The boy has a bad habit of not eating when he’s upset, something David has long found ways of navigating. When he cooks for his son, he keeps things plain. Simple. Boirng, some might say, but Shane’s always been picky about texture and flavor. 

“So.” Rozanov perches by the counter, all six feet of puck-destroying energy tamed behind a posture so stiff David’s worried he might pull something. “What do you want me to do?”

David gestures with the pasta box. “You can throw this in the pot if you want. Salt’s already in.” He slides it down the counter. Rozanov snags it one-handed.

There’s a silence that wants to be called awkward, but really, it’s just the volume turned way down compared to earlier. David watches as Rozanov considers the box, then carefully unloads its contents into the pan. 

A man with Ilya’s wealth and position can afford his own chef, but he clearly knows at least the basics of how to cook. That’s good. David needs to teach him Shane’s favorites.

“Shane says you like The New Yorker,” Rozanov says. Which… that doesn’t strike him as the kind of material Ilya would read. But again, what does he actually know about the boy?

David nods, and it comes out more approving than he means. “It’s good reading. Beats scrolling Twitter, anyway.” He works the sauce with a wooden spoon. 

Rozanov’s eyes land on the family photos clustered on the kitchen wall. He lingers on the pee-wee hockey picture - on Shane, his smile missing three teeth, and his oversized jersey hanging down to his knees. The look on his face is pure adoration. He catches David’s gaze and startles, guilty that he’s been caught.

“How are you with a cheese grater?” David offers. 

Ilya stands tall and nods as he’s handed a block of Parmesan. 

He’s the one to get Ilya’s number before the kids drive home. He’s also the one to text them both, though it’s Yuna who creates the group chat. They head over, eat more food, drink together, and marvel at how much more like a home Shane’s cottage feels, just by having one extra person in it. Ilya fetches and carries with the easy smile of a man who knows what hills to die on, then calmly manages to veer Shane off a fruit salad-related spiral purely by tugging on the back of his shirt and pulling him back down into his seat. 

“Stop fussing, or I will steal your strawberries,” Ilya tells him, right as he steals one of said strawberries. By the time Shane is done defending his dessert, he’s clearly forgotten whatever it was that was working him up. 

Yuna is beaming the whole drive home, her thoughts running on full volume a mile a minute as she starts planning worst-case scenarios, how they can host both the boys for Christmas, and how she'll set Ilya up with the best real estate agents in Ottawa. 

David tells her that there is no way Shane hasn’t already lined everything up, then opens a private message to Ilya and sends him the recipe for Shane’s favorite protein pancakes. 

Four bottles of premium Russian vodka and a bouquet of Montreal blue flowers the size of a small person end up on their doorstep first thing the next morning. 

Summer seems to fly by, and before they know it, Ilya Rozenov is both the star center for the Ottawa Centars and the subject of almost unparalleled levels of betrayed hatred from his former team. 

At their first home game, David desperately wants to make the drive, show up, and support the kid, but he understands exactly why he can’t. He and Yuna both end up cringing their way through the game. 

“Well there’s no doubt it’s true love,” Yuna says, holding up her glass as David refills it. “Poor Ilya.”

Their shared chat quickly fills with reassurances from Yuna, then from Shane. David adds his own two cents, then messages Ilya directly. He’s not sent anything since the recipe. 

It’ll get better, I promise.

Ilya reads it immediately. 

Three days later, he replies.

Thanks.

Ottawa continues to suck, though if there’s ever an indication that Ilya makes a difference, it’s never clearer than it is come November, when he’s out with the flu. The Centaurs take a battering the likes of which they haven’t seen since last season. 

Both David and Yuna send Ilya their best. David offers to drive up to check in, maybe get Ilya some groceries, but the message remains unread, and he doesn’t want to disturb the kid when he’s most likely sleeping. Besides, when it comes to performance, Ottawa might not be great, but Ilya is both their star and their new hope: someone will be taking care of him. 

A day later, he takes his weekly trip over to Shane’s cottage to check in on everything. Shane keeps telling him he can get a professional service in, but David won’t hear of it. If he continues to look after the place while Shane is out, then he and Ilya can start actually personalizing it. They already have one picture on the mantlepiece, taken the afternoon of their final family BBQ of the summer. David intends to ensure they have at least three more to add to the collection by the new year.

Most of the drive up is spent listening to a panel of puckheads argue, and David has them on at the lowest possible volume, window cracked to let in the late-autumn chill. He gets to the edge of the lake, headlights throwing weird geometric shadows off the new wind chimes Shane hung over the summer. He’d meant to come up earlier, but a blown-down hemlock and two detoured rural routes delayed him past dark, so by the time he unlocks the broad glass door, the cottage is pitch black, with just the mirrored surface of the water outside to reflect starlight in shards.

It takes him a good few seconds to notice that he can’t hear the usual chirp of the alarm waiting to be disarmed. 

Through the glass wall, he scans the kitchen, the stairwell curve, the shadowed living room. The silence is thick, but now that he’s looking, not just listening, he sees the shallow, quick flick and snuff of a blue-white glow. A phone screen, deep inside the darkness, then a second flare as someone shoves it away. He thinks about the baseball bat Shane keeps in the umbrella stand, and then he thinks about the fact that it would never stop a professional thief, or a desperate addict, if that’s actually what this is. All the logic in his head says to back out, call it in, but he’s already halfway across the dark tiles, that one picture Yuna was so proud to frame a nightmare waiting to unfold should the intruder know whose house they are in.

He circles, a panicked, empty ache in his stomach, and finally rounds the end of the kitchen block to see the thing that’s set every hair on his arms to attention.

Ilya is sprawled facedown on the couch. His breathing is so slow and raspy that it barely disturbs the fleece throw half-draped over his back. His phone, the source of the earlier light, lies under one bare hand, battery indicator a thin sliver of red.

He’s never been a shouter. He hovers at the edge of the rug, heart pounding, relief giving way to confusion. Ilya’s face is turned sideways, exposed under a curtain of limp, wet curls, his nose inches from the cushion. Sweat beads along his hairline and hollows darker patches down his jaw and neck. He’s shivering, but the house is fully heated.

David clears his throat once and then again louder. Ilya jerks, spluttering awake, and nearly launches himself off the couch before his obvious exhaustion nixes the move. He slumps onto an elbow instead, gasping, halfway between fight and flight, the garble of Russian following his shock more of one blurred line than any obvious words. David has started learning Russian, but he’s yet to make it past the alphabet. 

Panic over. One crisis averted. Now onto the next. Ilya looks terrible. 

Jesus, kid.” He doesn't mean for it to come out that way, just a father’s instinct tripping on itself, but Ilya flinches like he’s been shot. The instinct in him is to reach out, but he holds back, lets his hands stay visible and empty.

“I’m fine,” Ilya manages. He’s doubled over, coughing raw, but he powers through it, and tries for a grin that just shows more teeth. “Sorry, sorry. Is not-” He wipes his nose with the hem of the blanket, then seems to remember himself and snatches his hand back. “I wash. I clean. Sorry, sorry, sorry.” The words fall out of his mouth like loose screws. “Will not be long. You want I go.”

He tries to sit up, only to list sideways, the room spinning under him. “Not want to mess. Not burden. Please, Mr. Hollander-”

“David,” he says automatically. “It’s just David here, kid.” For a second, his throat fills up at the angle of Ilya’s head: the blank, open terror that hardens into pleading.

“I just need water,” Ilya whispers, “is okay. Will be better. Please. Not to tell… don’t tell. Not…” He forces his eyes shut, and there’s a tremor in him now, poorly masked by the way he hugs the blanket tighter. “Is just flu.”

David has a lot of questions, not least of which is why Ilya is here and how on earth he made the trip in such a state. Instead, he shelves them. Ilya is nothing like Shane, but David knows how to take care of sick kids. Not that Ilya is a child, of course not, but he’s Shane’s boyfriend, which makes him David’s kid by default. 

He heads to the kitchen, turns on the cabinet lights so he can see a little better without blinding Ilya in the process. Water, first, then he needs to get a baseline on what he’s dealing with. 

“One thing at a time,” he says, as soft as possible. “If you fall off that couch, I’m calling an ambulance whether you like it or not.”

He sets about filling a glass in the kitchen and brings the water over. Ilya drinks it in two shuddering gulps, then immediately tries to hack up a lung. He tries to stand again, but David plants a deliberate palm on his shoulder. “Sit,” he says. “Now.”

Ilya goes immediately still. His hands twist where David can see them, the skin of his knuckles near blue-white. “Sorry,” he says again, smaller this time. “Is very stupid.”

“How long have you been sick?”

Ilya frowns. “Day is it?”

“Friday.”

“Hmm. Wednesday?”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes, Is just flu. Will be better tomorrow.”

“I don’t think you’re going to be better by tomorrow,” David says carefully. Telling a man like Ilya something is or isn’t going to happen is just going to trigger a wall of stubbornness.

He reaches for the back of Ilya’s neck to check his temperature, but Ilya winces and jerks away from the touch. David freezes, hand suspended. “Hey,” he says. “Just checking for a fever. That’s all.”

“I don’t…” Ilya’s voice is so small and so at odds with his size and personality. “It’s fine. Not so bad.” He’s got a white-knuckle grip on the blanket, and his shoulders have hunched so far in that his head’s nearly level with his chest.

David makes himself move slowly. No sudden moves. “Okay. Let’s see how you go, yeah?” He heads back to the kitchen. “Have you eaten anything today?”

Ilya shakes his head so carefully it’s almost imperceptible.

“Right.” David finds half a tin of emergency soup in Shane’s pantry and sets about heating it up, doing his best to keep everything noisy and obvious, so there’s no chance for Ilya to freak out again. “You want TV?” he asks.

Ilya shakes his head again, straight into the cushion.

He keeps himself angled so he can see the kid out of the corner of his eye while he stirs the soup. Ilya’s breathing is bad, but he doesn’t cough unless he thinks David isn’t paying attention. The effort to look presentable is almost funny, in a heartbreaking way. David tries to lighten the mood. “You’re making yourself at home, at least,” he says. “You want some Gatorade too?”

“I pay for…” Ilya starts, but then the words trip up, and he ducks his head lower. “Sorry. I clean up. After. I’m not to… to cause work for you.”

David brings a bowl over, the soup piping hot. He wishes he had some bread to mop it up. He has no idea how long Ilya intends to stay, but makes a plan to get fresh groceries in for tomorrow at the very least. “Shane would kill me if I let you starve. I’m pretty sure he’d murder both of us, honestly.” That gets a twitch of a smile, not quite reaching Ilya’s eyes, but it’s there. “Eat what you can.”

Ilya’s hands tremble when he takes the bowl. He cradles it in the blanket, then ducks his head. He’s so very careful not to spill a drop. 

He watches Ilya tip the last bit of soup into his mouth, eyes squeezed shut across the effort. “You want to sleep?” It comes out softer, gentler than David intends, and he tries to close the gap by bustling over, taking the empty bowl before Ilya has the chance to get up and try to clean.

It’s been a good few years since he’s had to put someone to bed, and Ilya’s significantly bigger than Shane was back then. Still, he holds out his hand and waits patiently until Ilya takes it. The heat radiating off the kid is insane. 

“I’m fine,” Ilya says, then almost faceplants on the floor. He’s heavy as hell. David has always winced in sympathy whenever Rozanov has taken someone down on the ice, has raged internally when that someone was Shane, for all that he understands the game. The reality of trying to manhandle the kid up to the bedroom, despite Ilya’s attempts to be helpful, leaves them both out of breath. 

Ilya sits on Shane’s bed, takes a deep breath, and pretty much goes boneless, leaving David with the practicalities of tucking someone his size under the covers. He knows nothing about the boy’s parents, other than that they are both dead, but he can read between the lines of the charity they are founding, and besides… Ilya is in his care now. David will look after him as he would hope another father would look after Shane. 

He leaves the bedroom door ajar and heads back to the kitchen to clean up. Once he’s done sorting through things in his head, he calls Yuna. 

“Everything okay?” Ever practical, she skips right past the greeting. He’s been gone a lot longer than expected. 

“I’m still at Shane’s. Ilya is here with a bad case of the flu.”

As expected, she is immediately in crisis management mode. “Does he need a doctor? What’s his temperature? Does Shane know? I’ll be there in half an hour…”

David leans against the countertop and rubs at the back of his neck, phone pinned between his shoulder and cheek. “He’s out like a light. Besides, I think he’d try to run for the hills if he knew anyone else had seen him so rough. I’ll crash here tonight and keep an eye on him.” He scans the kitchen, keeping half an ear cocked for any movement from the back of the house. There’s nothing but the distant growl of the heater and the faint tick of the fridge.

“You’re sure?” Yuna isn’t buying it, but she’s also running on motherly instinct, and her “Are you sure?” comes sequined with every possible implication. Hospital? Air ambulance? Court-ordered IV fluid?

“I’m sure. Maybe bring him over some groceries in the morning?” he suggests. She already has a go-to list for Shane. He bids her goodnight and leaves her to it. 

David spends the rest of the night with a routine. He sits on the couch and reads one of Shane’s paperback biographies of great hockey players, and checks on Ilya. Rinse, repeat. 

There’s not so much as a whisper from him until close to midnight, when a guttural, choked shout splits the silence. David’s halfway off the couch before the echoes fade. He finds Ilya half-sitting, tangled in the duvet, blue t-shirt soaked from neck to waist. The boy’s whole body trembles, and sweat glistens at his scalp, dark along his temples.

He waits, a habit from years of parenting: the instinct not to startle a waking kid, to let them register your presence before crowding them with concern. But Ilya’s eyes are wild, and the words spilling from his mouth are a breathless, rapid-fire cascade of Russian.

“Hey,” David says, keeping his voice at just above a whisper. “Hey. Easy. You’re okay.”

For a second, it’s like talking to a sleepwalker: Ilya’s gaze slides right past him, lands on the window, then the ceiling, his breath hitching in shallow staccato bursts. David grabs the glass of water from the side table and sets it where Ilya can find it, then, after a pause, sits gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“You’re at Shane’s,” he says, extra careful, the same way he would if Shane were the one lost midway between night and memory. “You’re sick. The flu, maybe worse than that, but you’re safe.”

The Russian stops, replaced by a thick, desperate silence. Ilya blinks.  “Sorry,” he manages, voice raw from coughing. “Sorry. Sorry.”

David waves it off, but stays seated. “Happens to the best of us. You want more water?” He pushes the glass closer. Ilya drinks without comment, not looking up.

“Where did you think you were?” It’s a dumb thing to ask, more the work of empty space than curiosity, but once the silence returns, David can’t not fill it.

Ilya’s lips pinch together. The glass trembles in his hands. “Home,” he says.

Somehow, David doesn’t think he means Ottawa. Or Boston. 

It doesn’t take long to get the kid down again. David’s not sure he’ll even remember waking. 

He naps on the couch, on and off, the bedroom door wide open just in case, but Ilya doesn’t stir again, and when David checks on him at seven the next morning, his breathing is slow and even.

He’s halfway through a mug of coffee when headlights sweep the kitchen in a strobe of white. There’s a hissing, then the front door opens. He meets her at the entry, gesturing for quiet, and she nods solemnly. In the yellow half-light of the kitchen, she looks even smaller than normal, cheeks scuffed pink by the cold, hair banded in quick, practical loops. She practically drops the groceries. “Where is he? Is he okay?” she breathes.

He points upstairs. “Out cold. He looks better this morning.” 

Yuna frets, clearly wanting to see for herself that he’s okay. “I got it,” he says, running soothing hands up and down her arms. “He’s no more trouble than Shane was.” Far less, actually, and Shane has never once looked at him the way Ilya did last night. “How about I see how he is later, and you come over for dinner?” He’s not about to overwhelm the kid when he’s clearly wanting to hide from the world, but if there was ever anyone in need of some good maternal fussing, it’s Ilya. 

Reluctantly, she leaves, no doubt counting down the hours until she can come back. 

It’s a while before there’s any sound from upstairs, and later still before the plumbing in the walls starts up with the hollow thud of a running shower. David has refilled his mug with coffee three, already knowing he will regret it later. He’s thinking about making pancakes when the bathroom’s white noise cuts out, and footsteps start their slow, heavy way down the stairs.

He expects the same shuffling, hunched-over kid as last night. Instead, Ilya looks… not better, exactly, but upright, the big frame bundled in a navy hoodie, hair flattened against his head. His eyes are sunken and bloodshot, but he’s moving under his own steam.

He’s halfway to the kitchen before he sees David and freezes like he’s hit an electric fence. For a second, no one says a thing. 

He tries to pull himself up, stand straight, but his legs betray him and he sways, grabbing the counter. “Shit. Sorry. I thought... Sorry, I’ll be leaving soon. I didn’t think you were…”

David can’t help but let out a long, slow breath. He sets his mug down casually as he can. “You’re not going anywhere. Not today, at least,” he says. He tries to keep his tone light. “You’re going to take a couple Tylenol, eat something, and you’re going back to bed. Or, you can crash on the couch and binge six hours of garbage television with me. Doctor’s orders.” 

Ilya stares at him for long enough that David starts to worry. Then he carefully positions himself on the edge of the couch. 

Good. That’s good. He can stay there while David cooks. 

Mostly, Ilya sleeps. Through the afternoon and into the evening. He makes an effort when Yuna shows up, but if he folded for David, he’s absolutely putty for her. She puts him right back to bed, tucks him in, and kisses his forehead.

David takes the guest room that night, but worry has him stirring a little after three am. 

He has six missed calls from Shane and one message in the group chat, which makes it clear he’s worried by the radio silence. 

Yuna and Ilya are together on the couch when David checks in, the TV volume turned down to a murmur. Yuna’s fingers are slowly combing through Ilya’s hair, lifting curls and letting them fall, the way she used to do with Shane when he was small. Ilya’s head is in her lap, dead to the world and completely unguarded.

Another message from Shane pops up in the chat.

David takes a photo of Yuna and of Ilya sleeping so peacefully in her arms and sends it to him privately. 

Don’t worry, son. We’ve got him.

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

David doesn’t need Google Translate for that one.

He’s not a quick man, not like he used to be, but he is efficient. He steps in, and with every part of his body weirdly tranquil, cocks his fist and drills Alexei Rozanov square in the mouth.

Chapter Notes

If it's just a second part to an existing story, then it counts as the same fic, right??

Still just two, as a treat...

Today has been terrible, and tomorrow I have surgery, so have some more protective Hollanders, now with a side of Svetlana...

When your son is an athlete at the level David’s is, you get used to joining in on the odd event. It’s always a source of pride for him and never a bother. He can, and would frankly quite enjoy, listening to people say nice things about Shane for hours on end.

He knows Shane is a lot more confident in his own skin now. He doesn’t need his mom and dad at his side just to face a room without shutting down. They don’t go to nearly as many galas, press events, or publicity spectacles as they did when he was younger, so in many ways it’s nice to be back into things. Hoping on a plane to DC for a fundraiser is hardly the worst way to spend a thursday Night.

It’s even nicer to actually be here with a specific purpose. Being on the board of the Irina Foundation is one of life’s great privileges, and he’s more than happy to be Yuna’s wingman while she wines, dines, and adeptly convinces very wealthy men and women into enthusiastic donations.

What he’s less keen on, and what he can’t quite get his head around, is the current spiral Shane seems to be veering towards.

The Foundation means everything to him. The work he and Ilya have done over the last year is nothing short of phenomenal. And because it means so much to Ilya, Shane locks in like he does on the ice. Very little makes a dent in that focus, leaving no room for panic.

But here Shane is, clutching a glass of non-alcoholic bubbles in a white knuckled grip.

All three of them, in full formal armor, are arrayed together at one of the best tables, holding court. Half the guests are people like them, folks there with a charity of their own, the unifying focus of mental health bringing them all to a very well-stocked table. The rest are there to preen and to be charmed into giving themselves tax breaks.

Shane can’t stop checking the ballroom for sight lines and gaps in the crowd he can use to stage an assault. Ilya, who has arrived before them and not made a single attempt at a hello, has scattered himself to the four corners of the room.

David is still getting to know the kid, it’s true, but despite all public evidence to the contrary, Ilya Rozanov isn’t a rude man. This is the longest David has been in the same room as the kid without clocking him looking longingly in Shane’s direction.

He tries to make friendly talk with the wife of the Swiss ambassador, but half his brain is busy clocking Ilya’s movements. Every few minutes, the kid makes hard eye contact from across a literal sea of donors in suits, but the second anyone in the Hollander party approaches, Ilya bolts.

All the excuses he might have used in the past hardly stack up when he and Shane are co-founders of the foundation they’re actually here for.

Something, or someone, has that boy spooked.

The last time he’d seen anything like it, it involved a feral kitten Shane tried to rescue from a construction site when he was eight. Shane had left out bowls of milk, offerings of tuna, and even dragged a sleeping bag onto the back porch, but the animal would slink only as close as needed to snatch a bite, then vanish for days.

He can’t help but see the pattern again tonight… Shane is desperate to get close, and Ilya is apparently unable to do anything but keep his distance. Even Yuna, whose powers of persuasion have deflated more than one obstinate billionaire, has given up trying to lure Ilya over. She’s settled for watching with the same tenacity as a surgeon scrubbed in for a long, complex operation.

David tries to relax. There are almost as many men wired up for security as there are donors. There are no members of the press present.

And again, Ilya has a perfectly valid reason to talk to all of them without tongues wagging. It's pretty safe here.

It’s all a bit of a puzzle.

A puzzle that gets extra complicated about three seconds later, when the crowds seem to part way with biblical timing, and a woman makes her way towards them.

The effect she has on the room is instantaneous, which is the kind of social power David suspects you can’t buy, even with three trust funds and a seat on the Met’s advisory board. He watches her make her way through a group of eager Euro-diplomats, her stride unhurried and her copper hair gleaming in the chandelier light as she floats across the ballroom directly toward Shane.

She stops at the edge of their table.

“You,” she says, “are Shane Hollander.” Her voice glides up, accented in a way that might be Tatar or the legacy of five generations of Baltic smugglers. It’s the only time all night he’s seen Shane physically recoil from anything.

“Holy shit,” Shane mutters, immediately raising Yuna’s eyebrow.

The woman smiles. “You know who I am.”

“You’re Svetlana,” Shane says. Yuna finishes her conversation and steps up to David’s side. The look she shoots him is questioning, but all he can do is shrug. Maybe Svetlana is like Cher. Or Beyonce. No last name, and no reason for someone with David's outdated cultural playbook to recognize.

“I am Svetlana,” she agrees. She doesn’t look unkind, or even aggressive, but David gets the distinct impression that she and Shane are both sizing each other up.

“Are you… are you here for Ilya?” Shane clears his throat.

“Yes. But he is being very stubborn and avoiding me.”

“Join the club,” Shane mutters. “He didn't even want me to come tonight.”

Curious...

Svetlana’s smile is sharp but not quite predatory. She doesn’t bother to lean in. “He is upset,” she says. “He should not be here, and he never listens.”

Shane draws a line on the crisp linen with the tip of one finger. “He has as much right to be here as anyone,” he says. “The Foundation is his as much as it is mine.”

She considers, eyes narrowing only slightly, then tips her head, a concession of sorts. “Yes. That might be the problem.”

David is years past the point of wading into Shane’s battles, but he knows exactly how the kid will respond. Shane never has much patience with prevarication. “Why the hell won’t someone just tell me what’s going on?” His voice isn’t loud, but it’s pitched as a puck flipped edgewise into plexi. Yuna gives him a look, a warning, or a reminder, that there are people listening… always, always listening. Even here.

Svetlana laughs, the sound quiet and not unkind. “Ilya loves you very much. But family business, it is for family.”

Shane glares at her. “We are his family.”

At this point, David would usually consider making a subtle exit, leaving Shane to talk without his father listening in through his ear.

He’s too distracted by what is happening over Svetlana’s shoulder, as he catches sight of Ilya in the reflection of the window. The kid is half-hidden behind a pillar, eyes wide and fixed on their table, a rabbit caught in a predator’s sight and too far from cover.

Shane pushes away from the table, glass clinking, and his suit pulling tight across his shoulders. “Excuse me,” he says to no one in particular. He heads toward Ilya, who doesn’t so much retreat as he does spin on his heel and practically run away.

David looks at Yuna for direction. Are they… do they get involved? He’s a little out of his comfort zone here.

She doesn’t look much better, holding her hands up helplessly.

Svetlana’s voice follows after Shane, floating under her breath but meant to carry. “He will not thank you, Shane.” She doesn’t sound cruel. No, if anything, it looks like she’s achieved exactly what she wants.

When she looks back at David and Yuna, she’s all soft charm. “Mr and Mrs Hollander.” She extends a manicured hand, her smile transforming her face.

Yuna's lips barely twitch upward as she takes it. "Hi."

“Perhaps you might want to follow them,” she suggests, smiling softly.

“I think they might prefer some privacy,” Yuna says.

Svetlana shrugs, curls bouncing. “Yes, probably, But see -” she points across the room to a man roughly David’s age. He’s in full regalia, medals on his chest. Two men in dark suits hover at his flanks, their eyes constantly scanning the room. "My papa," she says simply. "Russian Minister for Sport." David is ninety percent certain he was also Sergei Vetrov the hockey player... he isn’t sure where she is going, but listens anyway. “He comes with lots of protection. Police, mostly. I call Ilya to tell him this. I tell him not to come. He does not listen.” Her annoyance looks fond. “He thinks I cannot endure all this,” she gestures at the grand room with a twist of her wrist, “without him.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuna says, “I’m not sure I am following.”

“Papa has four police with him tonight,” Svetlana offers.

David frowns. “I can see three.” Behind the other two, he can just about make out a lurking mountain and figures that’s the guy.

“Yes,” she says. “Fourth is Alexei Rozanov.”

He knows Ilya’s parents are both dead and takes a wild stab in the dark at a brother.

“His parents are dead. And I think his brother might suck. Ilya doesn’t have anyone,” Shane told them, shortly after they first met him.

“He has us,” Yuna had said stubbornly.

As ever, she’s three steps ahead of David and already hurrying after Shane. He catches up quickly.

They find Shane outside the men’s bathrooms, pacing a rut into the thousand-dollar carpet. For once, luck is on their side, and it seems like no one else is around.

Shane doesn’t bother to keep his voice down. “Rozanov, I swear to fucking god, if you don’t open up, I’m knocking the door down.” It wrenches something inside David, the same way it did when Shane missed his first penalty shot, and the whole arena watched his face crumble on the Jumbotron. If Shane is this worried...

Shane shouts, “Ilya, open the door!” and David catches up just in time to see the expression on his son’s face. He’s half a second away from a full panic, but not in any way that David has seen before.

Yuna catches up, her heels clicking with each step, her dress still perfect, her hair more or less holding up, and in the moment, David is so grateful for her, grateful that she’s here to see what’s happening and, if necessary, to back him up against the oncoming freight train that is Shane’s sense of purpose.

There’s a sudden burst of two very angry Russian voices from behind the door.

“Fuck it,” Shane says, and then promptly reminds the world that he’s a wall of solid muscle by kicking the door down.

Instead of scolding him, Yuna, somehow, manages to enter the bathroom first.

David doesn’t beat Shane in, but he’s close behind. There in time to clock, Ilya, shaking and furious and, blessedly, unharmed. He follows the whole journey the kid’s face makes, through surprise and anger to fear, and then, finally, stone-cold fury. Within a heartbeat, he’s in front of Shane and Yuna. Not towering over them, but standing in front of them, a brick wall dividing the room and blocking the approach of a man who is, stunningly, even taller than he is.

Alexei, David presumes. He looks nothing like Ilya.

Alexei’s gaze flicks to Shane, then back to Ilya, disrespect laced sharply with every millisecond of appraisal. He says something in Russian, fast and low, but even without words, his meaning is clear.

Ilya doesn’t budge.

Alexei doesn’t even try to mask the violence brewing, and in the space between heartbeats, David is back in Shane’s cottage, waking Ilya from a fever-soaked nightmare and trying to understand the abject terror in his eyes.

Alexei scoffs. He glances at Shane. Rakes him down and up, leers at his brother, and says something short and sharp in Russian before taking a step forward.

David doesn’t need Google Translate for that one.

He’s not a quick man, not like he used to be, but he is efficient. He steps in, and with every part of his body weirdly tranquil, cocks his fist and drills Alexei square in the mouth.

It’s been what, twenty years since his hockey days? More? Goddamn that hurts!

Shane actually yelps. Yuna puts a hand to her mouth, and for a second, even Ilya looks poleaxed. Somewhere between the shock and the adrenaline, David registers a rather surreal sense of satisfaction.

Maybe… maybe he should be regretting it. He’s not a violent man and never has been.

But all he can think is Christ, that felt right.

Ilya is on his brother before Alexei even starts to recover. He hauls him up with both hands in the lapels of his jacket, barking at him in a firecracker string of Russian and all but throwing him through the doorway into the hall.

Aware that he might have actually frightened his family, David coughs awkwardly. “Right, er… sorry about-”

“I have never been more attracted to you than I am right now,” Yuna announces.

It has the dual effect of stroking David’s ego and grossing Shane out of his stunned silence.

“Oh my god…” Shane whispers, clearly about to tip over the edge until Ilya returns alone, flustered and pasty, and the need to provide comfort overwhelms the instinct to shut down.

Shane doesn’t give Ilya much of a choice before engulfing him in a hug. Ilya responds by folding right into him.

Shane rocks Ilya a little, whispering something that makes the big man sag. Their hug doesn’t soften, not for a second, and for a moment, David’s half-afraid they might both topple over. Then Shane gets his hands up, bracing Ilya’s jaw, and pets his face with the rough, clumsy affection of a collie being gentle with a newborn lamb. The effect is equal parts intimate and completely unselfconscious.

David averts his gaze. Not because it embarrasses him, but because watching his son turn into a man, right here, is like looking directly at the goddamn sun. He never deserved to be this lucky, and if the universe is about to try to tip the scales against them, it can suck it.

Eventually, Ilya untangles himself. He cups Shane’s cheek, checking him for an injury he never had the chance to receive, then drops a fond kiss to his forehead.

Then he steps around him to face David with the expression of a man facing a firing squad. “I am sorry," he says carefully. "I did not intend to involve you in this. I did tell Shane not to come.”

“Maybe next time, tell me why you don’t want me to do something,” Shane says, all of Yuna’s sternness in one squared jaw. "Then I can tell you exactly why you're wrong."

Ilya practically scuffs his heels. “Yes. You are right. Yes. I did not want… Sveta told you?”

“Just that your brother was here. What did he want?” Shane asks, softening again, so much sadness for Ilya in his eyes that David is half tempted to go hunt Alexei down for another swing.

Ilya shrugs. “What he always wants: money. I did not go home last summer. He lost his chance to plead his case.”

Yuna steps forward and puts a hand on his elbow. Ilya startles, then leans into the touch, just as he always does with her. “Did he hurt you?”

The question clearly surprises Ilya, who then thoughtlessly confirms David's worst fears. “Hurt? No. No, I am not fifteen anymore.” He lifts his gaze from Yuna back to David. “I am sorry, though. You should not have been involved.”

David shrugs. He probably does need some ice… “Pretty sure I can guess what he said. And I know when a fella is about to start swinging.”

Ilya looks stricken. “No, no I would have not let him hurt any of you, I swear it.”

“Yeah, he’s talking about you, idiot,” Shane sighs, rubbing a hand down Ilya’s back.

David gets the impression that Ilya’s rapid blinking is as much confusion as it is an attempt to hide his tears.

He pats Ilya on the shoulder. “How about we head back to the hotel, yeah? I’m feeling the need for pizza.”

Ilya looks deadly serious when he says, “I will buy you all of the pizza. You will have pizza for rest of your life.”

Shane shakes his head in adoring despair. “Which will be a lot shorter if he eats pizza every day.”

“Let’s go with a large for tonight, yeah?” Having seen how intensely Ilya handles gift-giving, David is struck by the horrifying image of his entire house, floor to ceiling, filled with pizza boxes.

“If that is what you like,” Ilya shrugs in a way that suggests he’s a little disappointed. “Do you need doctor for your hand?”

David shakes off his worry. “Not the first punch I’ve thrown,” he says, smiling at Ilya in the hope of reassuring him out of that rigid fear.

Ilya nods seriously. “Yes. McGill. I hear is very good school.”

Shane snorts. He rests his forehead to Ilya’s shoulder and presses a quick kiss to the fabric of his jacket.

Yuna hesitates, slipping her arm into David’s and squeezing. “Do we need to worry about your brother, or-”

Svetlana appears in the shadow of the broken bathroom door. “It is handled,” she says breezily, looking Ilya up and down. “Take him back to your hotel, Shane Hollander. Keep him occupied.”

“Er,” Shane blinks, his blush rising.

“Sveta,” Ilya growls.

“Breakfast, Solnyshko,” she beams back. “Your hotel. Nine thirty. You are paying. Bring your co-founder and his parents. I will be making a donation.”

“Sveta!”

Whatever they say next is lost to the rest of them, but Ilya deflates with a look of a man who knows he’s not about to win the argument and isn’t really sure it’s worth trying.

“It was nice to meet you!” Svetlana says before heading back to the party, hopefully with a damn good excuse for why her father is one guard short and the bathroom is missing a door.

David insists on paying the coat check in the lobby while Yuna orders their Uber. Shane and Ilya both have drivers they can use. David just hopes they take the one car, though he understands why they might not.

Yuna doesn’t say anything while they wait, which is how David knows things have gotten serious inside her head. Normally, she narrates every errand and stray thought, and always has. They'll talk about this. About Shane, obviously, but about Ilya, too. He's forseeing a trip to the local library. They'll have some good books that might help them better understand what Ilya needs from them.

The boys linger at the edge of the stairs. He watches Shane study Ilya carefully, waiting to step in and be what is needed the best he can while they’re in public.

Ilya has something of Yuna’s stillness, too, in the way he plants his body like a barricade in front of Shane, but bends his head to catch every word from him as though it’s the axis of his whole night. David wonders if other parents watch their children from across rooms and see not themselves, but someone else’s blood making a second pass through time.

Yuna’s at his elbow, her arm looped tight through his before he even offers. He’s always loved that about her, how she doesn’t bother pretending she needs him for most things, but never hesitates to claim him as hers.

He tells the boys to get moving, but Ilya hesitates just long enough for David to catch his arm, quick but careful. “Hey,” he says, and is surprised by the crack in his own voice. Ilya turns, confusion flickering through that wall-of-masonry face, and David feels the sudden need to be absolutely clear.

He opens his arms, and it’s not at all awkward, just natural, just as he’d done with Shane all his life. Ilya folds down into him at once, and David can feel the heat of him, muscle heavy and shivery under his hands. It’s a crumpling hug, over in three seconds, but Christ, David is surprised how much better he feels after. He hopes Ilya does, too.

“Good job, kid,” David says. When he lets go, Ilya’s smiling, all the shadows of his face lit up with something fragile and unpracticed, and David thinks that maybe this is what it feels like to be proud of someone not for what they’ve done, but just that they’re alive to do it at all.

The boys take the same car back to the hotel. No doubt they’ll make a big play of going their separate ways in the lobby.

When his and Yuna’s ride arrives, he holds open the door and follows her in. As soon as they are shrouded in the dark, Yuna kisses him on the cheek.

“Need ice for that hand?”

David finally allows himself a grimace. “God yes.”

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Part three of the Hollander clan having zero chill when it comes to Ilya.

This one is a lot heavier and deals with themes of child abuse. Everyone is doing their best, with varying results.

Chapter Notes

Who am I even kidding with this?

Part three of however many... mostly I need this and the next part to line up Alexei Gets Punched Part Two.

I wrote all of this bored waiting for surgery, and I edited while still on the good drugs post surgery so. Your mileage may vary with this one...

It’s hard for Shane to find time for much of anything when they’re in season. Game after game after game, home and away, rack up endlessly. Even more so, now, with Ilya being in Ottawa. David and Yuna probably see him almost as often as they did before, but instead of spending the night in his old room, he and Ilya will leave after dinner.

It’s normal, seeing your kid less as they get older, and it just makes David cherish the time they do have all the more.

When he stops to think about it, unless they’re talking drive-by errands, Shane’s not visited without Ilya since that first day. It’s Ilya they see more often, usually for one of Shane’s game nights, which are rapidly becoming the highlights of the week for a whole new reason. David loves watching Shane play, and he loves watching Ilya watch Shane play. He’s slightly concerned that Yuna and Ilya are going to arrange a hit on a ref one of these days, but for the most part, it is wildly entertaining. It’s also doing wonders for his growing vocabulary of Russian curse words. Ilya has a potty mouth in English. In Russian, he’s even worse.

Today isn’t game day for either of the boys. They both actually have a few days of downtime, something that hasn’t happened in weeks. David isn’t expecting to see either of them.

But that’s Shane’s car rolling up the drive. It’s a bit early for dinner, and Yuna is still at yoga, but it’s possible he’s missed an update.

When only Shane gets out of the vehicle, he reconsiders. Ilya’s a fixture now. If he's not here, then something is going on.

Shane trudges through the front door and into the kitchen. He doesn’t make eye contact. Instead, he goes for the fridge, opens the door, and stands there in the cold. He holds the open door so long the little light inside flickers twice, then dies entirely. Eventually, he closes it without taking a single item.

Bad day, David figures. He knows his son’s moods. 

“No Ilya?” he has to ask, even though he knows that if the kid isn’t here, he’s probably a good part of the reason why Shane is. When Shane shakes his head, David aches for him. “Did you guys fight?”

Shane shakes his head again.

Okay. That’s good. Confusing… but good.

He knows how to be patient.

He waits Shane out, occupying himself with the Sudoku collection Yuna leaves for him in the mornings.

Shane circles the kitchen a few times. That’s not a bad thing. When he is really struggling, he can shut himself down entirely. Restlessness usually implies he’s in the process of working something out past thought and into word.

David gives it a little longer than he might have years ago. It’s the cost of letting your kid grow up… learning to not pounce at every sign of trouble. Trusting that he’ll ask for help if he needs it. David is not a fan of taking the mature route, not when Shane is so obviously miserable. How long until Yuna is home?

At last, Shane says, “Do we have any of Mom’s ginger tea still?”

David scans the cupboards, grabs the fancy tin she brought back from Toronto, and sets the kettle rolling while Shane taps out a rhythm on the kitchen counter. When the mug is ready, he pushes it over gently, careful not to slosh, and waits.

“Thanks,” Shane says, barely above a whisper. The steam curls around his face, and he stares at it the same way a fortune teller of old might have. Whatever answer he’s looking for, he’s clearly disappointed when it fails to manifest.

David wants to ask a million questions, but reins himself in. Just.

Yuna will want a transcript the second she gets home, but he is at a loss to explain what, precisely, the emergency is. He’s trained himself not to get ahead of the moment. Shane glances up, then away. His eyes look bruised, hungover from worry. “We’re fine,” he says suddenly, in a way that is almost defensive.

“Good,” David says, in a tone that is casual but not dismissive. He’s sure the boys get in fights. What couple doesn’t? He just can’t quite imagine a world where they don’t figure themselves out right after. They love each other so much and so obviously that David usually feels a little bit stupid for missing it as long as he did.

It takes ten minutes and a refill before Shane deflates. “I’ve been thinking,” Shane starts.

“Always dangerous,” David nods.

The look the kid gives him is withering, and all his mom’s. David holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence.

Shane drags a distressed hand through his hair. “I don’t even know if I should even be talking to you about this,” he admits, which is… a bit of an alarm bell. Then he follows with, “I don’t want to betray his confidence,” and David settles a little. “Not that there’s really anything to betray. It’s like trying to get blood from a stone…” he taps his fingers on the curve of the mug and scowls.

“You might need to back up a little. We’re talking about Ilya, yes?” he ignores the slightly scathing look he’s given and nods encouragingly.

Instead of continuing that train of thought, Shane suddenly veers alarmingly off course. “When I was a kid, you never punished me for anything. Like, ever.” It almost sounds like an accusation.

Curveball. Okay, he can roll with this. “Kiddo, the only rule you ever broke was when you stayed up past curfew to remember hockey stats.”

He won’t lie… the amount of preening he used to do when Shane was little, when other parents would despair over rebelliousness and bad behavior, was probably obnoxious. Shane was an angel. A stubborn, difficult angel who had no sense of self-preservation and absolutely no concept of a happy medium, but an angel. Hell, David often found himself the disciplinarian on the odd occasion Shane didn’t do as he was told, purely because it would inevitably be hockey-related, and Yuna was almost as bad herself.

“Okay, fine,” Shane shakes his head. “But let’s say I broke all the rules-”

“Shane-”

“-and I was rebellious or difficult or rude or… I mean, what would you have done?" Shane is gripping the mug so tightly that David worries it will shatter. That's probably the point. Shane likes giving his hands something to do while his brain claws over something harder and sharper beneath the surface.

"Well… I'd have grounded you, probably," David says, trying to get a feel for what it is Shane is really asking. "Maybe take away your phone."

Shane huffs. "You never even looked at my phone."

"I trusted you," David admits. Honestly, catching Shane doing silly teenage boy stuff with his phone might even have been a relief at one point.

Shane's face goes still, every muscle drawn up and rigid. "Yeah, I know. But what about if I did something really bad? Like, lie about… I don't know, about grades, or skip school, or…" The mug clinks to the counter. Shane's jaw tenses until there's a pulse throbbing at his temple. David gets the impression that the things the kid is listing are a child prodigy’s somewhat naive ideas about what constitutes bad, rather than actual examples.

"I think I would have tried to figure out why first," David says carefully. Shane's looking away, out the window at the late afternoon light, and David's tempted to take his hand as Yuna would, but he doesn't. Some things she can do only because she is a mom. Just as there are some things only he can do as Shane’s dad.

Shane shakes his head, not as a gesture of disagreement, but as if he's rattling a loose bolt inside his own skull. "What if I kept doing it, anyway? What if I was just…" He fishes for the word, and his eyes go flat and uncertain. "Bad? What if I was just bad?"

David can't help it; he lets out a short, surprised bark of laughter, way too loud for the mood. "That's not a thing, Shane. People aren't just bad."

Shane interrupts, voice tight. "But what if you thought I was? What if you really, really thought I was?"

Ah. Right then. “We’re still talking about Ilya, yes?” He knows he’s on the money the second Shane flinches.

Instead of acknowledging the guess, he pushes on. “So that… that’s it? You’d just ground me?”

“I stopped you from going to practice once when you had chickenpox, and I thought I’d traumatized you for life,” David reminds him. “Pretty sure grounding you would’ve got the message across. Besides,” he throws his usual playbook to the wind and does actually take Shane’s hand for this part. “There’s nothing either you or Ilya could have done as a kid that would be deserving of anything worse.”

David says that knowing the cocky, arrogant, brash kid Ilya has always appeared to be on the ice.

He says it, knowing full well that despite almost every word written about him, Ilya doesn’t have a bad bone in his body.

Shane is quiet for a long time, letting the words settle while he works through their meaning. He doesn’t move, but the way he draws his fingers inward, nearly white-knuckled even in his father’s soft grip, makes it clear there is something agonized brewing behind his impassive face.

“I think his dad used to…” He blinks hard, refusing to let the words come out easily. “I think his dad was a piece of shit.”

“Yeah,” David sighs, “you might be right.”

It’s often hard to tell whether Shane is looking for validation or opposition. It’s the same this time when he jolts and looks at David with wide-eyed sadness. “Has he said something to you?”

“Not a thing,” David is honest. He has wondered, sometimes, in a remote, dark-cornered way. He’s seen Ilya in a room with his brother and hasn’t needed a thoughtless rebuttal to know Alexei Rozanov was a man used to bullying his way to his own ends. Brothers can fight. Brothers can hurt each other. In a less terrible world, a cruel sibling might be one horror enough to endure.

But he’s seen it at his kitchen table, too. It’s in the way Ilya moves with deliberate care sometimes, not flinching but checking his radius with every gesture, as if he still half expects a hand to appear, unpredictable and fast, from the dimension just outside his frame of sight. Even players as hated as Ilya Roanov don't watch for imaginary pucks in their own kitchens.

“Shane,” he says gently, squeezing his fingers tight and hoping it’s enough to root him in some stability. “I think this is something you need to be talking about with him, not me.”

Shane doesn't leave it at that; he never does. He drains the last of the tea in one gulp and leans forward, elbows on the table, his hand shaking loose from David’s.

"It's not just that he doesn't talk about it," he says. "It's that he gets weirdly good at hiding things. Like… like last month he played with what was basically a sprained knee, and the only reason I found out is because he almost dropped me down the stairs when it finally gave out."

The image startles David, who remembers with surgical detail every time Shane had knocked his own teeth out, broken a nose, gotten concussed or cut, and still insisted he could play on. He’d taken it for granted that it’s just the way of hockey boys raised at the altar of performance. But of course… if you never had anyone to take care of you, you’d probably get pretty good at not knowing how to handle it when you do.

Besides… hockey’s a brutal sport. More than one kid has blamed a black eye on a rogue puck and smiled his way through the excuse.

Not that Ilya has…

Shane slaps his palm to his mouth like he’s said something out loud he wasn’t supposed to, and now it’s out there’s no taking it back. "Oh god. Is that, like, another sign? Like you just…" He makes a fist and buries it in the hollow of his clavicle so hard David can see the ridges of bone pressing through the fabric. He looks like he wants to throw up.

Thing is… Shane’s come here with that thought already in his mind. Why else would he be alone? Why else would he demand to know David’s boundaries on punishment if not for the knowledge that in this one thing, he and Ilya have never and will never be on the same page?

Validation or opposition.

“We don’t know that,” David says, injecting a note of sternness in an attempt to redirect Shane’s escalating panic. “Shane, we don’t know any of this, okay?”

Shane stands abruptly. The mug nearly goes with him, but he catches it at the last instant, clamping it to the counter. He paces three short steps across the kitchen and back, his hands going up into his hair and pulling hard at the roots, the movement as ragged as if he were trying to wring something poisonous from his own skull.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he says, low and strained. "I have to go. I need-" He stops, but the rest is written clear enough on his face and the panicky, fight-or-flight set to his jaw.

"Hey," David tries, reaching out, but Shane is already moving, barreling through the corridor. The front door slams, reverberating through the house.

David almost goes after him. He's got his shoes on by the time he’s at the door, but then he stops and remembers that this is what nearly thirty looks like for Shane. He’s a whole life away from the kid David used to patch up with Band-Aids and sugar-free popsicles. And whatever this is a spiral, or a freak-out, or a need to physically see Ilya and put his arms around him, it’s not David’s business, not now. Their business is their own, and they’re too grown for him to insert himself straight into the center of the storm.

All he can do is send up a warning flare.

It’s a strange privilege, being one of the few people Ilya doesn’t automatically send to voicemail. This time, he answers after exactly three rings.

“Hello?” Ilya sounds the same as always, his voice flat and nearly bored if you didn’t know to listen for the pulse beneath.

“Hi, kid. It’s David.”

A pause. “Everything… is okay?”

A longer pause, this time from David. He looks at the window, the sunlight slicing through it as Shane pulls away, and thinks of all the things he shouldn’t say. “Shane’s on his way back.” A breath. “He’s in a bit of a state.”

Ilya’s silence is instructive. You can teach a whole masterclass in how a man says nothing. “I understand,” he says, after a time. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Just when he’s about to hang up, Ilya says, “He… is he angry, or just upset?” The words sound so painfully careful that David almost winces.

“Honestly, I think he’s worried,” David says, leaning against the fridge, feeling every one of his years. “He’s got himself tangled in a knot about something he can’t untwist. But you know how he gets.”

Another pause. “Yes,” Ilya says, very quietly. “I know.”

Neither of them says goodbye. David slides the phone into his pocket and stands there, one thumb pressing hard into the line of his jaw. There’s nothing else he can do except wait and trust the kids to work it out.

He gets one message from Shane close to midnight. A short apology and a promise that he made it home okay. There’s no mention of Ilya, or their conversation.

For now, David presumes that’s the last he will hear of it.

A week to the dot, Yuna leaves for her yoga class. Five minutes later, Ilya is on the doorstep.

He should be at practice with his team.

David should have told Yuna about the conversation he had with their son.

Both of them stare at each other, more than a little awkward.

Ilya is carrying a jigsaw puzzle box under his arm. The sight brings him up short, because it’s both not at all what he expected and, somehow, exactly on-brand for the kid. It’s a complicated landscape scene, all honeyed Calabrian stonework and blue-glass sea, and Ilya spins it in his hands like a soccer ball while they stand in silence in the foyer.

He’s traded in his track jacket and team sweatpants for a quietly expensive quarter-zip and tailored jeans that make him look like he’s stepped off a fashion shoot, except he’s all tectonic tension in his jaw and the line of his shoulders.

David realizes he hasn’t actually said anything, just stood there, blocking the hallway.

“Practice canceled?” David finally asks.

Ilya shrugs, managing to look both innocent and guilty at once. “I have better things.” He lifts the box, shrugs one shoulder, and looks sidelong at David. “It has been too long since our last puzzle, no?”

There’s no reason not to, and in fact, it’s better than the hundred scenarios he’s had running through his head for the past week. “Sure,” David says, aiming for casual. “We can use the coffee table again. Yuna’s in her happy place for another hour. Unless you want to wait and surprise her?”

“I think better if less surprise,” Ilya says dryly. He follows David into the living room. They set up on the rug in front of the fireplace.

For the first ten minutes, neither of them says much. They sort through edge pieces, sky versus ground, the bump and click of cardboard the only sound other than their breathing. There’s something quietly transactional about the focus Ilya lends the task. Jigsaw puzzles were not a hobby he would have ever predicted for Ilya, but this will be the fourth one they have done together now. It’s neutral territory, safe and contained.

When David goes to the kitchen to bring over some snacks, he returns to find Ilya already halfway ringed by edge pieces, building a frame with the concentration of an Olympic biathlete.

“You aiming for another record?” David says, a hint of challenge in his voice. Yuna has her cards. He has his puzzles.

Ilya grins, unguarded. “I am very competitive,” he says, and David, not for the first time, realizes just how much Shane and Ilya have in common beneath the surface.

They puzzle in silence a little longer, working opposite corners. The clock ticks, a vintage Bulova that belonged to Yuna’s dad, and David remembers those quiet Sundays of his own childhood when both his parents would coexist in the house like suspended particles, drawn close only by the gravity of a third object.

Ilya breaks the truce first. “Hollander men are very dramatic, yes?”

“It’s been said before,” David sits back and lets his knees creak, shakes out his hands as if prepping them for the next volley of pieces. “Care to specify?”

He’s spent a week imagining all the things that might play out the next time he and Ilya are in a room together. He’s due over to watch Shane’s game in two days’ time. David probably shouldn’t be surprised that the kid has grabbed the situation by the horns and tackled it ahead of schedule.

Ilya doesn’t look up, but his mouth twists in a sly smirk. He slots two bits of coastline together, then lines up another. “Shane is very convinced I am full of secret drama. Drama every day.” He pauses, glancing up. “It is maybe not so true.”

David watches Ilya assemble the blue-green jigsaw world with that same care, and knows the answer will be as much a performance as a confession. “He’s a smart kid,” David shrugs. “And he’s got good instincts.”

Ilya snorts, a dry little sound. “In Russia, most stories are not such a big production.” He gestures at the puzzle: cliffs, sharp and bright, currently all edges all edges. “Russian normal and Canadian normal are not the same thing.”

David laughs. “You ever try telling Shane that?”

“I try all the time.” Ilya arches a brow. “He is very stubborn.” He picks up two sky pieces, turns them over with the pad of his thumb, and only then does David notice the scars there… pale, knobbled, healed with time and rough use. Not entirely different from his own. “When I was back home I have a coach who throws skate at my head. For missing shot in practice.” He shrugs. “That is kind of drama I am used to.”

David stares. “At your head?” It’s not a shock, exactly; it's not an unheard-of story, but still, the image blossoms in his head in full Technicolor. He imagines a teenage Ilya, all sharp bones and raw talent, in a place that’s nothing like the raucous, pampered rinks of Canada.

Ilya shrugs again, this time more like a shiver. “Yes. Next day I didn’t miss, so it was fine.” He slides another puzzle piece into place and looks David in the eye. “Different here. In Canada, if coach yells, you call lawyer.” There’s a faint note to his voice that might be disdain or admiration. Or bafflement.

There are good coaches everywhere. Terrible ones, too. In Canada, and probably in Russia. But no, he can’t imagine any of Shane’s coaches throwing more than a lighthearted smack to the back of a helmet.

Ilya’s brow climbs, fractionally amused. “Maybe this is why Shane and I are always…” He flaps a hand, hunting for a word. “Clashing.”

“Shane has a strong sense of justice,” David proposes. “Something you share, I think.”

He’s read every single news article there is to read about his son’s boyfriend. Some are bullshit. Most are hyperbole. More than one reference to a time when Ilya’s laid someone out for unsportsmanly behavior, both on and off the ice.

Ilya goes on, unfazed. “In Russia, boys are not supposed to be soft,” he says, like he’s reporting the weather. “If you break jaw, you keep playing. If you break hand… well. Use other hand.” He holds up his own, twists it side to side like he can’t remember which way it's supposed to naturally rotate, and David’s stomach knots. “Canada hockey might probably be the same,” he shrugs. “But rules. I am not thinking Shane will ever get this. He is… very much your son.”

There’s affection there, at least as much as exasperation, but Ilya speaks of it as if Shane’s sense of justice and mercy are some admirable genetic mutation and not just human empathy. David snorts, flipping over a puzzle piece and matching it, more by luck than design. “He’s got his mother in him, too.”

Ilya’s mouth softens. “My father thought same of me.”

It’s a strange mix to see on him. He looks like the idea brings him some sense of happiness. He sounds like he’s confessing to a crime.

Neither of the boys has come out and told him what happened to Ilya’s mother. They don’t really have to. You don’t found a charity for mental health and suicide prevention in a dead woman’s name for no good reason.

All David knows is that Ilya was twelve when she died.

“You want to know if my father was a monster,” Ilya says, and David’s brain trips over the casualness. Ilya doesn’t even pause for drama, just nudges a finished section of border closer to the correct quadrant of the table. “He was very normal.”

There’s a fair bit David wants to say to that, but he’s starting to see why Shane came to him and throws a question back. “Was he proud of you?”

Ilya shrugs. It’s not a helpless gesture, but the absence of something more concrete. “Who knows? Is impossible to tell. Probably not.” He nudges an edge piece into place, satisfied. “He liked strong boys. He liked rules. He did not like me, but it is fine. I also did not like him, sometimes.” His voice is perfectly even, oblivious to the way it lands. “I was not a good son. I was not like Shane.” He looks up, not quite smiling, but something nearly as gentle. “I was always trouble.”

David raises an eyebrow. “Was he hard on you?”

If there’s ever been any doubt in his mind just how much Shane loves this man, it vanishes with the glossy blankness of Ilya’s expression. Blood from a stone indeed.

“He was very fair,” Ilya says immediately, and it’s got the rigid, almost mechanical emphasis of something practiced a thousand times. “If I was bad, I pay price. No problem.”

“I think maybe we have a different definition of the word fair.”

“Yes,” Ilya admits. “Probably. Shane thinks so.”

“Shane loves you,” David points out.

Love brings life back to his expression. “Yes. He thinks everyone else should, too. Even if I am an asshole.”

“Even if,” David echoes. “Ilya, how do you think this conversation would be going if the situation were reversed? If you were my son, and Shane was your father’s?”

Ilya looks confused. “My father would have loved a son like Shane.” He hesitates, then adds, “Gay thing aside.”

Yeah, they haven’t even scratched the surface of that one, have they?

“Most people would say you two kids are pretty evenly matched,” David says carefully. He’s years off the ice, but he still remembers how to bait someone, and Ilya, bless his soul, is so very predictable in some ways.

“Oh, but they would be wrong,” he says, his eyes twinkling the way they only do when Shane is the topic of conversation. The kid can switch modes so damn quickly it’s scary. “I am much better, no? It is okay, will be our secret.”

He’s certain this is the one and only time Shane will ever forgive him for what he’s about to say. “Yeah. Probably.” He has a second to enjoy the stunned bewilderment on Ilya’s face before he follows through with, “So given all that, I’m not seeing a single damn reason why any father wouldn’t consider you their pride and joy.”

He’s fully prepared for the catastrophic shutdown that hits the second the words are out.

Everything in Ilya closes off. There’s a stillness to him that is, honestly, more than a little terrifying. “I can see where he gets it from,” Ilya says, the angriest he’s ever sounded with David.

David holds the line. He doesn’t try for another pass or force the play.

This isn’t something you fix in one conversation. Hell, it’s already gone a lot further than he expected it to.

So he refocuses on the puzzle as if nothing’s happened and lets Ilya recalibrate.

Ten, twenty seconds spool out. A minute. More.

He isn't sure how long it takes, but eventually the locked muscle stiffness of fight-or-flight eases from Ilya’s shoulders. He’s still staring a hole in the fireplace when David says, “This whole sky section is going nowhere unless I can get another set of eyes on it.”

That draws Ilya back, though he doesn’t quite meet David’s gaze. “Sky pieces are always most difficult. They all look same.”

“Just means we get to savor the struggle,” David offers, aiming for something like humor. “You want a drink? Seltzer, coke, Yuna’s weak-ass IPA? Is it ever too early for vodka?”

Ilya presses his lips flat, considering, and then he nods. “Coke is good. Thank you.”

It’s a small victory. David finds the cans in the fridge, cracks two, and brings them over. He doesn’t make a thing of it, just sets them down and starts sorting through his pieces.

“I am sorry,” Ilya says, after a minute. “I did not mean to be rude.”

“You weren’t.” David keeps his gaze trained on the cardboard, but lets his tone soften to sincerity. “You don’t have to say a word more on it tonight if you don’t want.” He clears his throat, feeling suddenly too big for his own skin. “But for what it’s worth, you’re not trouble, kid.”

“I am,” Ilya insists, soft as a whisper. He moves a whole half-inch closer to the table, eyes trained on the mess of blue. “But it is okay. Some people are just made like that. Shane likes me anyway.”

“There’s a lot to like,” David tells him. Ilya doesn’t meet his gaze.

David looks at the clock on the wall.

Yeah, it’s definitely time to tag Yuna in.

Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

David goes to see one of Ilya's home games. Misunderstandings follow.

David has to dad harder than he's ever had to dad before.

Chapter Notes

All I can do is watch TV and poke at a keyboard. Apparently, painkillers make me angsty.

On the plus-side, Alexei gets punched again in the next part.

Part of me wants to write Shane's POV on all this, but it would mostly be a long, detailed plan for committing arson in a foreign country, and a message to Rose asking if she knows any good psychics who can curse a ghost.

In the grand scheme of things, David and Yuna decide it’s more important to create a consistently supportive environment than it is to force Ilya to wrestle with anything from his part.

They’ll be there if he needs them, of course, but they can’t change what may or may not have happened. All they can do is provide stability and love in the future Ilya has now.

It’s not hard.

Yuna is in her element. Shane isn’t someone who responds well to anything he perceives as coddling, and he absolutely hates being made a fuss of. Ilya is more bewildered by it than anything, but they learn pretty quickly that absolutely nothing brings him more joy than making the people he cares for happy.

He learns how to play cards with Yuna and practices until he’s good enough that David physically has to banish them from the table any time they play because “It’s three am, one of you has to lose.” They call it a raincheck, and next time pick up the score right where they left off. They’re now at 312 hands to Ilya’s 311.

“I can see why you’d hate him,” Yuna tells Shane over dinner one Tuesday. “Six months. He’s been playing for six months. I’ve been playing this game since I was five.”

“Right?” Shane snorts, bumping his knee against Ilya’s. “He’s such an asshole.”

Ilya preens for the rest of the day.

David always keeps a puzzle on hand for the quieter days. He actually has about thirty now, stacked up on top of his wardrobe. That doesn’t stop Ilya from bringing his own. It’s probably getting out of hand, but it works to drag the kid out of a cycle of trying to find the most lavish and outlandish gifts for birthdays when Shane is able to veer him down the path of trying to find the dumbest puzzles instead. David is grateful. He’s not sure he can handle the idea of his son’s boyfriend buying him a car.

The cars actually are David’s way of reaching Ilya on his turf.

He knows nothing about mechanics, and neither does Ilya. Through Svetlana, though, he’s almost guaranteed to have some shiny new toy every couple of months, working through vehicles the way a kid might collect MLH cards.

David shows up at Ilya’s house on a morning he knows the kid has nothing to do but chew time and hands him a bucket.

Ilya stares at him. “I have service for this already,” he points out.

“I’m sure,” David agrees. He already called Svetlana’s office to check that he’s not accidentally going to trash Ilya’s three-million-dollar Bugatti with the wrong wax. She laughed at him for over a minute. Six hours later, there was a very serious, very glossy rep from Bugattii standing on his doorstep next to a branded box the size of David’s closet and a very detailed set of instructions.

Bugatti - and Svetlana - might have gone a little over the top with everything they sent, but there’s more than enough to start them off, and Ilya will humor David just about anything. Even if he does a poor job of pretending he’s not about to call Yuna for backup.

The trick with Ilya, he’s noticed, is to get him past the point of boredom. Predictably, it takes only ten minutes for a man who has likely never washed a car before in his life to discover the potential of high-powered foam canisters. The first time, he manages to coat himself, David, and a neighbor’s terrier in a snowdrift of blue foam. The next, he lines up every car in the driveway and does a full comparison matrix. By the end, David’s not sure whether the cars are actually any cleaner, but there’s something very satisfying in watching Ilya chase a mountain of bubbles across the lawn, unguarded and beaming.

He can see why Shane gets so insufferable about him.

What they figure out, over time, is that Ilya is happiest not when they indulge him, but when they loop him into the rituals of their family. He likes the order. He likes the pattern. At some point, David realizes that there’s a subroutine running in Ilya’s head at all times, a little tally of what needs to happen and what’s likely to go wrong, and if you give him a role to play - set the table, shuffle cards, pick up the groceries - he blooms under it. If you catch him with praise out of nowhere, it ruffles his feathers, but give him a job, and he attacks it with the single-mindedness of an industrial machine. Then he’ll bask in every positive thing any of them has to say about him.

It takes time, but he grows less wary about what’s expected of him. If anything, he starts enforcing the family rules. By May, he’s the first at the stove when it’s pasta night, and the last to leave the table, even when he has to get up for practice at 5am the next day.

David starts to forget what it was like to worry about Shane. It seems impossible, given the last twenty-eight years of his life, but seeing him and Ilya together, he feels like they’ve both managed to reach some higher-level equilibrium, something less delicate than love, more enduring than joy. One day, they’ll get to share it all with the world, but until then, at least they have this.

Ilya’s happy. Shane is happy. Yuna’s happy. All is pretty much right with David’s world.

That flips one chilly Saturday early into the season. Shane is back in Montreal and Ilya’s been tied up for weeks with training. The few times he does come over, he’s usually asleep on the couch within half an hour. The last time was over ten days ago.

He has a home game tonight. Among the many things David thinks are wrong with the situation the boys are forced to be in, up towards the top is the knowledge that Ilya never has any family cheering for him at his games.

Yuna wants to come with him, but reluctantly agrees that Shane Hollander’s mom is a slightly more well-known face than his dad’s. She’s not all that graceful about staying behind, sulking on the couch even when David gives her a kiss goodbye. He dresses in anonymous navy, and buys a single ticket up in the rafters.

He nurses a coffee, letting the cheap arena caffeine scald his tongue, and watches the other solo fathers in the crowd. Two rows down, a man with three sons. To his left, a sullen young woman is glued to her phone, ignoring both the pregame and her dad’s commentary. David blends in, even if the stadium is half empty.

Warmups end with Ilya scoring two effortless goals off and taking four slapshots in a row that clang loudly off the boards. It earns him some good-natured heckling from his own teammates until the game starts. They're playing the Rangers, and with each new pass, the defenseman shoulders Ilya a little harder. David can tell the team is trying to rile him, trying to spark something beyond that dead-eyed precision.

The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with how Ilya plays. But there’s a whole lot wrong with the Centaurs.

Ottawa gets railroaded from whistle to whistle. Their goalie flops with all the drama of a drowned cat. Defensive lines collapse like they’ve never met off the ice. Ilya is everywhere, backchecking hard, setting up the only line that seems to have any pulse, but most of his teammates are skating two gears slower than him. Every time he comes off, he gulps water and sits statue-still behind the glass, never speaking to the coaches or chirping at the other team. There aren’t even any visible tantrums, just… calm. It’s not even the ‘fuck you’ kind of calm David remembers from his own playing days. It’s a surgical, glacial, almost-detached level of restraint.

By the end of the second, the score is 6-1. Most of the home crowd doesn’t bother coming back for the third.

At some point, toward the end of the period, David realizes Ilya has clocked him in the stands. When the buzzer sounds, and the rest of the mob trickles out, his phone buzzes in his jacket.

‘I’ll be 30 mins’ the text reads.

Thirty on the nose, there’s a sharp rap at the window of his car. David pops the lock and waits for Ilya to climb in. He’s not really sure what comes next. He hadn’t even been planning to make his presence known. He’s sure Ilya is embarrassed, and probably miserable, so the least he can do is try to be supportive.

There’s a short, metallic sound as if Ilya’s jaw slams shut at the exact moment the door clicks. Ilya stares down at his hands, sleeves pulled over his knuckles. After a moment, he says, “You are disappointed.”

Of course he is. He knows what Ilya’s sacrificed to be closer to Shane. He hates that this is the price he has to pay.

David puts the car in gear. “You must be.”

“Of course,” Ilya says quickly.

He doesn’t want to leave it hanging there, but Ilya has already started buttoning himself inward, in folds and clasps and psychic knots. Even when he says "thank you for coming," it’s not gratitude but a formality, confirmation that the only appropriate response after a botched day is to acknowledge the witness.

David puts a hand on the steering wheel and gives Ilya time to say whatever he wants, but the kid stays locked up. So be it. Get him out of the public eye, safe and warm, maybe get a proper meal into him. This is a man built entirely out of responses to pressure; sometimes, subverting it is the only play that works.

All the things he wants to say: it’ll get better; it was just a bad day; I am so grateful to you; I am so proud of you… Ilya won’t hear the words, not yet. Not from him. He’ll let Yuna take the lead there and then back up her play once Ilya’s a little less defensive.

The car is silent for the time David gives him to argue, then he puts it in drive and merges out. He takes the long way, the darkening roads along the canal all veined with salt lines and tire tracks. He leaves the radio alone, letting the only noise be the defroster and the hush of asphalt.

For the first few kilometres, Ilya says nothing. David can feel the energy collecting in the passenger seat, but he doesn’t look over. He’s learned that, too. Direct gaze can feel like a challenge with boys like Ilya, and tonight he’s dug way, way down.

Ilya says nothing as they miss the turning that would take them to his place. As if he’s about to drop the kid off alone in that big house of his. He needs his family, even if he doesn’t know how to ask for it.

The lights are still on when they pull up to the drive. David waits Ilya out, aching for the solid wave of misery radiating from the kid. He breathes out a sigh of relief when Ilya eventually hefts himself out of the car.

Yuna is waiting for them inside. David’s not told her he’s bringing Ilya home, but she’s draped his favorite blanket over the couch, and there’s the sweet, earthy scent of borscht coming from the kitchen that makes it clear he’s made the right call.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Yuna pulls Ilya into a hug, and the first hairline fracture appears in the surface of the kid’s face. Ilya manages a full two seconds before he pulls away, running a hand down his jaw. There’s something close to panic in his eyes when David closes the front door and shuts out the cold.

Ilya stands hunched, only half-present, as Yuna ushers him to the kitchen table and starts to dish up. The borscht sits steaming in bowls, bright magenta against the white enamel, and Ilya goes even greyer at the sight.

David does his best to keep the conversation light, but it’s like performing for a brick wall. Every question lands without bounce. “Want some bread?” He pushes the basket closer, but Ilya gives it the same grim attention as a condemned man might his last meal. “Game was a nightmare,” David tries, a little more force behind it, hoping to at least get a spark of competitiveness.

Ilya folds his hands into fists on the tabletop. He waits two long beats, then nods with a bleak little smile. “Is tradition,” he says. “Centars always lose to Rangers. It is like law.” He ladles the soup, not eating, then sits rigid, glancing at nothing but the red rim around his bowl.

Yuna slices him a hunk of bread, placing it deliberately on the edge of his plate. He doesn’t move, so she tears it in half, as if to make it easier. Ilya finally takes the smaller piece and clenches it in his hand until it reshapes, a pale, starchy lump. David remembers teaching Shane how to roll Play-Doh into a snake, how the kid’s fine motor control was nonexistent until Yuna put a hockey stick in his hand. It takes effort not to smile at the memory.

Clearing his throat, David tries again. “There’s a box of puzzles in the living room if you’d rather-”

“No, thank you.” Ilya’s voice is flat. He sets the bread down carefully and, after a moment, pushes the entire bowl across the table, away from himself. “I am… I would rather we… if we could just...”

David and Yuna share a look. Ilya struggles sometimes, when he is really upset, but somehow David gets the impression that it’s not English that’s causing the problem.

They settle back and wait. Yuna pours them all some water, and David drinks just to have something to do with his hands.

After a few minutes, Ilya looks at Yuna, his eyes so bright David thinks he’s about to cry.

Then he swallows, squares his shoulders, and faces David. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

David aims for encouraging. “Go on,” he says.

“I am sorry,” Ilya tries again, slewing the words this time to both of them in one sweep, and it comes out weighted, nearly breaking the table in half for how heavy it lands. “Very sorry. I do not want you to have to do this.”

Something in the room seems to raise a couple of degrees, a subtle but certain increase in pressure. He glances at Yuna, who is already watching him, her brow pinched so tightly he can see each individual line pulling between them. She has no clue where Ilya is going with this, either.

He tries a little humor. “Do what, exactly? Eat soup? Because you don’t have to finish if you don’t like it. No one’s feelings get hurt.”

Ilya huffs. No, that’s not the sound. It’s a swallow, but so loud and painful, David’s own throat prickles in reflex. “No, is not the soup,” Ilya says, lips working around the words like they’re made of gravel. “It’s just-” he presses both hands flat against the table, then, without warning, looks Yuna square in the face. His artificial cool reasserts itself, snapping everything rigid, bracing for a collision.

Yuna’s voice is steadier than David expects. “Ilya, whatever it is, you can just say it. You can tell us anything.” The word anything hitches up on the last syllable, a flash of emotion so brief it nearly escapes David’s notice.

Ilya nods. “Okay.” The nod keeps going, head bobbing up and down until he visibly forces himself to stop. “I would rather just get it over with. If you don’t mind.” The chair squeaks as he shifts his weight, but his eyes don’t stray from David’s.

He tries to give Ilya a little more runway. Clearly, the kid is expecting something stratospheric. To be told he is a failure, to be belittled and berated for a lack of perfection. David doesn’t want to jump the gun. He wants to actually say the right things at the right time. To give Ilya the words of encouragement he so clearly needs. “You can take your time.” He says it gently, deliberately. “No pressure.”

Let us help you, kid. Tell us how.

“I… please.”

Yuna cocks her head to one side in thought. “Honey, what do you think is about to happen?”

David can’t stop himself from frowning. Surely she can’t mean what he thinks she does?

He’s so much sharper than he means to be when he asks, “Ilya?”

For the first time, David watches as someone manages to flinch only with their eyes.

Yuna jerks back in horror so quickly she sends her water glass flying. The break shatters all of them from a tense, horror-ridden stalemate.

David can only sit and stare, almost numb to the rest of the room as Ilya launches to his feet and hurries to clean up the broken glass.

Now he’s not locked in his head, the words spill out of him in earnest.

Ilya drops to his knees, hands already gathering the biggest pieces, eyes raking for slivers. He’s all apology, assuring Yuna with a firm, “It’s okay, don’t touch, I have it,” and repeating it, his voice pitching up each time she looks like she’s going to try and help. “Is fine, don’t worry at all. Very easy. An accident, yes?”

An accident, he says, looking up at David from behind lowered lashes.

There’s a cue there. A line Ilya is all but pleading with him to finish.

Feeling somewhat detached from his own body, David reaches over and takes Yuna’s hand, hyperaware of the way Ilya tracks his movement. “No harm done, honey,” he says, offering reassurance to Yuna in Ilya’s stead. She squeezes his hand back so hard it hurts.

David can see the impulse in Yuna to kneel right there and gather the glass herself, but Ilya’s tone leaves no room. So she sits back, clutching David’s hand, her face drawn with worry, and watches while Ilya sweeps the shards into the towel, then hustles them to the trash. He rinses the towel, folds it, and double-checks the floor with the pads of his fingers, picking up the tiniest flecks. Only then does he stand, both hands raised like a man backing from a crime scene. He grins, big and forced. “Not the first time I do this.”

He marches the bin outside, probably to be sure no one gets poked by even a single sharp edge. When he comes back in, he pops a new glass from the cupboard, fills it for Yuna, and sets it gently on the table. “Try again?” he asks, and he’s so determinedly calm that David gets the impression he’s not so much trying to convince himself but the universe in general.

“I don’t know why I did that,” Yuna says, like she’s confessing to a priest. “Thank you, sweetheart.” She can’t seem to look directly at Ilya, her dark eyes drawn down to the table as she cycles through a hundred different thoughts. Wherever she is, she’s a mile ahead of David.

Ilya is all softness when he looks at her, and the sweet, earnest boy she best brings out in him smiles at her. “It is best, perhaps, if you wait in the other room, no?”

The first tear rolls down her cheeks. “No, Ilya. I’m not going anywhere. Sit down, sweetheart, please.”

Ilya obeys her, miserable in the face of her tears. He can’t hide the way he shakes now, his attempt at a smile flickering and dying. “I am sorry,” he sniffs. “This will be the only time, I will make sure of it.”

“Kid,” David pleads, “I need you to tell me what’s happening here. Have we done something to make you feel unsafe?”

Ilya looks surprised. “No. No, you are wonderful. You are very kind, and I… I do appreciate you coming to the game. Maybe this, maybe it is actually better.” He takes a deep breath. “I do not think you want to do this. That is why I am sorry. I will make it easier for you, if I can.”

“Ilya,” Yuna calls his name, a gentle encouragement for him to raise his chin and meet his gaze. “You are not going to be punished. Not by me. Not by David-” she places a gentle finger against his lips before he can interrupt. “-and you will not punish yourself on our behalf. Those are not the rules here.”

“Okay, fine. But let’s say I broke all the rules, and I was rebellious, or difficult, or rude, or… I mean, what would you have done?" 

Jesus Christ, he’s going to be sick.

“I know,” Ilya says earnestly. He takes her hand when she lets him and leans forward. “Shane was not-”

“No,” Yuna says firmly. “Not because Shane did or didn’t do something, and not because you did or didn’t do something. Not ever. Not for any reason.”

The look on the kid’s face is adoring. “It is okay,” he assures her. Again, he looks at David. “Really.”

He can see Yuna’s frustration brewing as she struggles to reach him, and with it comes a sudden, violent reframing of the past five minutes.

Yes, Ilya is trying to comfort her. More than that, though, he’s watching David watch her.

He has never seen a picture of Irina Rozanov. He doesn’t know if Ilya looks more like her or his father. Yet he’s struck by the dizzying image of a woman with Ilya’s curls, sat at a table much like this one, crying as Yuna is crying now.

If David ever raised a finger to Shane, Yuna would go for his head with the skillet. He wonders if Irina ever did the same. He wonders what it cost her, and he knows from Ilya’s reaction alone that avoiding failure was never just about protecting himself, but protecting her as well.

There is absolutely nothing Yuna can say that will make a difference, not when Ilya has already played this script out before.

David is utterly terrified as he gets out of his chair, steps up to Ilya, and sinks down to his knees. From the floor, Ilya towers over him. As big as he is, David can still see the little boy he was in those wide eyes.

“Ilya. Son. Listen to me. I’m not angry with you. I’m not disappointed with you. You could lose every game for the rest of your career, and I’d not be disappointed with you. But, and here’s the important part okay? Even if I was, I am never going to hurt you. Nothing you will ever do will change that.”

He’s not sure what scares him most: having the power of abject terror over a man who has known for such a relatively short length of time, or the knowledge that Ilya is so clearly starved for anything close to familial affection that he’s latched hard and fast onto David and Yuna and left himself wide open for hurt in the process.

It’s Shane, he realizes. Ilya does nothing halfheartedly. For Shane, he’s upended his whole life.

For Shane, he’s willing to risk the most tender, vulnerable parts of his heart.

Worldlessly, Ilya stands and offers his hand. He helps David up off the floor, but doesn’t immediately let go.

“I think,” he swallows painfully, “I have offended you. That was not my intention. I know you are not…”

Not the problem, that’s what he doesn’t say. Ilya doesn’t think David is the type of man to hurt someone like that. Honestly, that might be easier to contend with.

No, David’s not the problem, Ilya is. Ilya’s the type of person who drives even people he loves and respects as he does David and Yuna to have to punish him. It’s all on him.

It breaks David's heart that he thinks like that, but it also gives him a way forward. He’s done with caution. If Ilya’s not actually scared of him, David can make ground.

He keeps his grip on the kid’s hand and pulls him in for a bone-aching hug.

He holds on, squeezes the air out of both of them, and doesn’t let go until it’s clear Ilya is ready. The kid is trembling again, not from fear, but from the aftershock of something so long overdue it’s fossilized into his bones. The way he fits, just barely, into David’s arms, is unnervingly reminiscent of wrestling a much-younger Shane into his lap after a loss. Those first crying, shaking moments always seemed endless, but the letting-go part, that happened fast. It’s the same now, the tightness releasing all at once, like a wall crumbling under pressure.

He pats the kid, a gentle, awkward rhythm, waiting for the sound of his own heartbeat to stop ringing in his ears. Then Yuna slides her arms halfway around both of them. She presses her cheek against Ilya’s back, but her eyes stay fixed on David, wild with grief and a kind of awe. The three of them stand there, anchored together, until Ilya’s breathing goes from shuddering to steady.

He’s the first to speak, not quite a whisper but somehow smaller than his normal voice. “I do not want to make mess of things.”

“You’re not,” Yuna says, rubbing circles between his shoulders, working some ancient mother-magic. “We love you. There’s nothing you could do that would ever change that.”

Ilya sniffs, then tries for a smile without turning around. “You say this now, but you will have regrets.”

He hauls Ilya in even tighter. “Don’t sell yourself short. You're stuck with us for life. Win or lose.” He means it, and somehow it comes out in the exact cadence his dad used, a generation ago, for entirely different reasons.

When at last Ilya lets go, stepping back and only half hiding the red in his eyes, Yuna pulls him toward the stove. “Eat something. You don’t have to, but it’ll help. I promise.” David can see that she wants to spoon-feed him, as she once did for Shane, but she settles for warmed bread and a replenished bowl, now that the table’s clear of broken glass.

Ilya sits, and this time he doesn’t flinch when David and Yuna take the chairs on either side. He doesn’t eat at first. Instead, he looks at both of them, one and then the other, reminding himself what a dinner table should feel like.

He tries to apologize again, but Yuna interrupts him with a look. “We’ll hear no more of that. Not tonight.” She pours him another glass of water, and when he tries to protest, she hushes him, hands folded over his, absolutely impossible to out-mother.

David thinks about all the times Ilya’s brought groceries, or left flowers on the porch, or swept the cottage for every scrap of dust, thinking it would earn him a place at this table. He wonders what it must be like to be so hungry - no, desperate - for the tiniest scrap of belonging that you never stop expecting to lose it again.

He and Yuna let him be, mostly, talking about random things: a story on Yuna’s phone about a dog who rides the city bus, the new puzzle David found with a double-sided print that’s sure to drive everyone insane, memories of Shane as a toddler - Ilya likes those the most, always craving more of Shane wherever he can get it. They don’t mention hockey, not once. They don’t mention Ilya’s brother, or his father, or mother, or any of the hundred stories that hang, unsaid, in the air between the three of them.

By the end of the meal, Ilya’s breathing is easy, and his hands no longer tremble. He sags a little in his seat, and Yuna brushes a wayward curl from his forehead. “I think you need a good night’s sleep and a proper home breakfast tomorrow, yes? Shane’s old room is all made up. You can sleep in his bed.”

All the better than going back to an empty house. David’s not sure he wants to let the kid out of sight until he can tag Shane in.

“Call Shane,” he says with an encouraging smile. “We’ll turn the TV up.”

Ilya’s smile wobbles. “He will know I am, ah, upset.”

“Yep,” Yuna agrees. “And you can let him make you feel better.”

“Yes. Okay. I… thank you. For borscht, and-”

He trails off, much to David’s relief. If Ilya thanks him for not being a piece of shit, he’s going to lose his battle with the tears building in the back of his throat.

Ilya excuses himself with a murmur and his phone already in his hand, crossing to the back deck before he's even finished the thought.

David cleans up while Yuna pours them both a glass of wine. Neither of them says a word, not until they sink down together on the couch and she curls into his side. Then a sob crawls out of her throat, and she presses her face into his chest.

He runs his fingers through her hair and tries to get a grip on his own heart.

“How much are flights to Moscow?” She eventually sniffs.

David huffs. “Think we’re a bit late for that, baby. He’s a few years dead already.”

He thinks on that and wonders if things were different, would Ilya, six three and built like a brick shit house, not raise a finger in his own defence? Would he accept what he thought he deserved even now?

Was that what summar was like for him, every time he went back to Russia? Did he lose to Shane and go back to that?

David’s never hated a dead man so much in his entire life.

“I don’t know,” Yuna sniffles. “Bet he’s got a grave we can pee on.”

“God, I love you so much.”

“We’re keeping him,” Yuna says, as if that were ever up for debate.

“Yeah,” David agrees.

They always did want more kids.

Chapter 5

Chapter Summary

“Just a word of warning,” David says to Ilya in January, the next time he’s over. “Shane’s making a manual. For you.” He says you, but it’s obviously designed for the care and feeding of Ilya, not for Ilya himself. “It’s very detailed.”

Chapter Notes

Ok so I lied, we needed THIS then the Alexei chapter... we needed a little softness before Shane gets to dropkick someone...

The calendar David and Ilya reference is from the second chapter of Detail Oriented, but the long and short of it is: Shane keeps a very detailed diary. Ilya is surprised to learn that, despite all the secrecy, he is in it.

David figures Ilya must tell Shane something, because Shane is in New York when they all go to bed, and by seven am, he’s in their kitchen. He just about manages to greet David and Yuna before he locks himself and Ilya in his childhood bedroom, and there’s neither sight nor sound of them until after midday.

“I told coach it was a family emergency,” Shane says over salad at lunch. He looks like he’s not slept all night, and there’s something fiercely, uncharacteristically confrontational lingering in his gaze.

David doesn’t think Shane has called out of work a day in his life.

Ilya doesn’t look much like he’s slept either, though David knows he was out when Yuna checked on him a little after midnight. His eyes are bloodshot, and his shoulders are hunched.

He and Shane are both too big to share a single chair at the kitchen table without physically sitting in each other’s laps, but they’re not far from it. Every time Shane shifts, Ilya’s body follows, seemingly without his knowledge, a flower following the sun as it moves through the sky.

David isn’t going to ask what they talked about. If they want him to know, he’ll know.

Shane obviously knows something. Possibly more than anyone else alive. That’s progress.

None of them really talks as they eat, but the silence isn’t uncomfortable. Ilya doesn’t take his hand off Shane’s back. Shane doesn’t seem to notice when he sinks his fingers into Ilya’s hair every few minutes.

David is achingly, helplessly proud of them. Both of them. Ilya, for obvious reasons, and Shane, who never handles big emotional events well, but who is fully locked in and radiating a level of calmness David isn’t sure he’s ever seen from him before.

His pride is a physical thing, a bursting blossom of warmth in his chest he’s not realized has been missing since bringing Ilya home.

His sadness is physical, too. An ache that lives at the back of his throat, twisted with an almost childish desire to stomp his feet and curse the world for making the lives of these two boys so much heavier and more complicated than either of them deserves.

After lunch, he loads the dishwasher alone. Shane gently harasses a listless Ilya out to the drive.

“I’m gonna take him home,” he says, his eyes glassy. “Thank you. For taking care of him.”

David knows Shane well enough to know he won’t welcome the hug he desperately wants to bestow on that minute, too wired and too raw to process much more than he already is. He cuddles Yuna close to his side instead.

Ilya stands tall and looks them both in the eye when he says his goodbyes, another grateful whisper blurted before either of them can stop it.

The second he’s in the front seat of Shane’s hire car, he folds back in on himself, but it’s clear he needed to put the effort into playing a part.

David doesn’t need it. Neither does Yuna. Ilya does. He needs the status quo. He needs to pretend, just for a minute, that the past twenty-four hours - the past twenty-eight years perhaps - never happened.

“Call us,” Yuna pleads. “For anything.”

David trusts Shane when he nods and says, “I will.”

Life continues, and the season rolls on.

Yuna goes a little overboard with Christmas. Shane never gets much time off over the holidays, so they’ve always been very lowkey about things.

Not this year.

“You don’t think this is a bit much?” Shane is usually more aligned with his mom than with David, but in this, the two of them are in lockstep.

David, who has decades more experience, knows better than to protest. Shane walks right into Yuna’s trap.

“Nope! Go hang the lights,” she instructs, thrusting a cardboard box into his arms.

Shane takes it more out of instinct than desire. “You know, Ilya is taller,” he points out.

“Ilya is busy,” Ilya announces. He’s sat at the kitchen table, his big shoulders hunched over and his tongue between his teeth. It’s a comical expression on a man currently sporting a very swollen nose and the proud remains of a black eye from his last game. The carefully baked gingerbread pieces in front of him just need frosting.

Both Ilya and Shane can cook.

Neither Ilya nor Shane can really claim much in the way of artistic skills.

For a man with such fine motor control, bless him, Ilya has zero talent for working with icing.

He makes up for it with wild enthusiasm.

“Take the ladders,” Yuna says, patting Ilya gently on the head as she circles around him. “David, I think we need more potatoes.”

They have probably got five kilos of potatoes already.

David nods. “Got it!” Hey, if it gets him out of the house before he's coopted into anymore Christmas chaos...

“I can get them,” Shane says hopefully.

Not a chance, kiddo.

Yuna does not dignify either of them with a response. She’s already fluttering over Ilya’s shoulder, fussing with the tiny bag of royal icing and dispatching a constant, cheery meteor shower of encouragement. David takes his cue and shrugs his coat on, but something stops him at the kitchen door.

He lingers, leaning on the frame, watching as Ilya’s concentration narrows to nothing but the uneven walls of his creation and snowdrifts of frosting sliding out at odd angles from the roof.

Instead of doing what he’s told, Shane sets the box of lights down on the end of the table and hovers in almost exactly the same posture David is currently standing in.

Ilya leans in closer, anchoring the walls of the gingerbread house with thick white seams, and Shane hovers just behind his elbow like a particularly intent foreman. He’s frowning, but it’s not his usual brand of exasperation, and the set of his mouth is focused, almost reverent.

“You know,” Shane says, tilting his head to one side, “the load-bearing capacity of those buttresses is pretty questionable.”

Ilya looks up at him, indignant. “I do not know this word. Buttress.”

“Bracing. Support.” Shane picks up one of the trees from the kit and twists it between his palms like he’s working a stress ball. “Are you gonna put a candy garden in, or what?”

“I have not even finished the walls!” Ilya shoves the tree toward him, a direct challenge to keep interfeering with his masterpiece and face the consequences.

“Your house is crooked,” Shane observes.

“Oh! Mister Architect! It is artistic,” Ilya retorts. “You want perfect, get ruler and make blueprints.” David doesn’t point out that, technically, he and Yuna have already done that when they rolled out the dough. He's not that dumb.

“This is not a spectator sport,” Yuna scolds, fussing with Ilya’s curls. “It’s very beautiful, honey, don’t listen to him.”

Ilya sticks his tongue out at Shane.

Yeah, that’s David’s cue to leave them to it.

Ilya flies to Vancouver two days after Christmas. David feels his bones creak as Ilya sweeps him up in an enthusiastic hug and promises to be back a week Friday so they can finish the puzzle they began the night before. He’s laughing when he’s set back down, watching as Yuna is spun around in a happy circle by a man who probably ate half his bodyweight in sugar-coated gingerbread inthe last few days.

“You’re gonna miss your flight,” Shane points out, grinning, as he leans against the wall. The boys have been on their best behavior the last few days, but David is absolutely certain Shane’s hair wasn’t that messy before he went to start helping Ilya pack.

Ilya sets Yuna down, kisses both her cheeks, thanks her for what has to be the fifteenth time, then bounds over to Shane. He puts a hand very respectfully on Shane’s hip, then smacks a kiss to the side of his mouth in a move that’s clearly meant to exasperate more than arouse. “Do not miss me too much,” he tells Shane.

“I won’t even notice you’re gone.”

Ilya shakes his head in mock despair. “Do your parents know they raised such a terrible liar?”

“It’s a family trait,” David offers. They’re all pretty terrible at it.

“Yes,” Ilya nods. “It is genetic.”

“Good-bye, Ilya,” Shane stresses, unable to hide the besotted affection in his gaze.

“Farewell, Hollanders!” Ilya says, blowing them all a ridiculously exaggerated kiss, then bounds towards his car with the energy and enthusiasm of someone who knows something is to be continued, not ended.

The second he’s pulled out of the drive, Shane spins on his heel, brow furrowed and expression fixed. “I have three hours before I need to head out. We have work to do.”

David looks longingly at the back of the couch. He loves these boys with his whole heart, but dear god, do they have a lot of energy. He needs a nap.

Yuna hasn’t had anything to do since Ilya finished helping her clean the kitchen that morning, and is already bored. "Fire away!"

Shane heads to his bedroom and returns with his laptop.

Coffee. David is going to need so much coffee.

“-and this is for green flags, aka things I know he’s cool with,” Shane points at the screen of his laptop. He’s got a twelve-tab, color-coded spreadsheet open and has spent the last ninety minutes working David and Yuna through the single most comprehensive personality study David has ever seen. “You can filter, so we have provisional, which means approach the subject with caution, and this one is for stuff that’s either up in the air, or I think needs more data before we can go with it as a safe zone,” Shane continues, jabbing at a heavily-annotated cell. David can’t make heads or tails of the color code, but Yuna is rapt: she’s already asked for filter access twice and keeps nudging her way in closer to the keyboard.

David loves his son more than anything. More than life. This is still the most insane thing he’s seen in a very long time. At first, David assumes it’s some fantasy hockey project or new CRM for the Foundation, but when he reads the column headers - Favorites, dislikes, food, TV, books, pet peeves, Comfort tolerance (scale 0-10), Touch/Noise/Light Triggers, Sleep Cycles - it becomes clear that Shane isn’t inventorying his team ahead of the new year, but cataloging a single human being.

“This, er, seems a little intense, even by your standards,” David hazards. But his voice is soft, not in warning, just idle awe for the mania of the thing. In some families, this would be called obsessive, but in theirs, it’s just love with a sidecar of pure data-nerd insanity.

“Look, he’s not easy to crack,” Shane says. He sounds defensive, but there’s something openly worried about the way he combs his hand across the trackpad. “He’s not, like, hiding things on purpose. Except for the thing with the balloons. That’s a last resort. He’s just… not used to people giving a shit about him.”

Yuna cocks her head, a sly smile flickering on her face. “And you do.”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Shane says, like it’s so stunningly obvious it seems ridiculous to argue,

Yuna takes in the whole presentation, arms folded, chin propped on her fist. This is so far up her ally it is criminal.

That pride comes rushing back. This right here is Shane’s attempt to process everything.

It’s not just pride, though; it’s awe. Awe at the audacity and application, the one-brain-cell-different line between obsession and stewardship. David lets Shane run this show, lets Yuna hover her own mouse-cursor intellect over the data-dense grid and ask pointed questions about “safety protocols for emotional regression” or “mitigating factors for household drama.”

Shane, in full project-manager mode, highlights a row in Ilya’s “Consolation Procedures” and proposes a role-play scenario. Yuna snorts, leans in, and counters: “You can’t soothe him with food if you haven’t solved the underlying problem, Mr. Systems Thinker.” She points at a cell: “Double up with distraction, then deploy comfort.” Shane writes this down. The spreadsheet grows. It’s possible they have just invented the world’s first ISO-certified care routine for a single man.

David sits back, sips his coffee, and tries to picture what it would have been like if, all those years ago, someone had built a blueprint like this for him. If his own parents had done more than guesswork and wishful thinking, had tried this hard. He’s not sure if he’d be touched or terrified at the scrutiny.

He watches as Shane and Yuna debate the appropriate “baseline scruffiness” for Ilya’s preferred state of being, how best to comfort him post-loss (“DO NOT REITERATE LOSS,” in bold red), and how to navigate his pronunciations of ‘oregano’ (“Just let it go”).

By the end, the spreadsheet is dense enough to choke a hard drive. Shane says, “Well. Now we have everything.” He looks tired, translucent with relief, and when he closes his laptop, it’s like shutting the lid on a time capsule.

“Are you going to show this to him?” David asks, not entirely joking.

On the one hand, Ilya is famously prickly about letting his walls down, and David is not fully certain how he’d respond to anything so… detailed.

On the other hand, there’s absolutely nothing sexual to be found on the chart at all, which suggests Shane has at least regulated some of his completionist tendencies.

Some things a father just simply doesn’t need to know.

And Shane, his scientist, his tactician, his kid who never once played a game at less than the highest possible stakes, is channeling all that single-mindedness into a compendium of Rozanov facts and figures. Yuna is impressed. David is overwhelmed, a little. Way back when Yuna was pregnant, he’d read that obsessive collecting was a comfort response for some kids, whether it was rocks or bugs or baseball cards. It makes him want to laugh and cry at the same time.

“I mean, probably,” Shane shrugs. “There’s nothing in here he cares about people knowing. It’s just… organized, now. I’ve missed a lot. He sucks at answering questions, and I suck at asking the right ones, so like… playbook.”

“You know,” David scratches his chin. “This could probably be classified as corporate espionage.” There are MLH coaches who would sell their souls for this level of insight into their most hated adversary, both before and after his transfer.

Shane taps the bottom of the screen. “That’s why I deleted the hockey tab. It’s not new, though. I made that one years ago. Tried to use it to predict his play for a while, but he’s such an asshole, he kept throwing off the data.”

David and Yuna share a look, each of them blaming the other’s influence. “Of course you did.”

“Just a word of warning,” David says to Ilya in January, the next time he’s over. “Shane’s making a manual. For you.” He says you, but it’s obviously designed for the care and feeding of Ilya, not for Ilya himself. “It’s very detailed.”

If he has to walk the fine line between humoring Shane’s way of coping with the mountain of trauma he’s now realized his boyfriend has, or preserving the blossoming trust Ilya has in David, he knows where the line has to fall.

He knows it’s a call Shane would want him to take.

Ilya grins, wide and deliberate. “He tells me. He lists the categories. Is there a section for how not to be kicked out of family?”

David almost drops his piece. “Ilya!”

“No, is funny, really!” Ilya looks at him from beneath a tangle of hair, genuinely delighted. “If there is, I must see it. It will be very useful. Do you think it comes with diagrams?”

He’s joking, and not joking, and David knows Ilya’s sense of humor is the barbed-wire kind, meant to draw blood if you’re not careful with it. But he follows the thread. “He’s got at least sixteen charts. Touch tolerance. Sleep hygiene. That one’s a scroll all on its own.”

“Sleep hygiene,” Ilya repeats, deadpan. He mutters something under his breath that David’s secret Russian lessons helpfully half translate into a sentance he immediately wants to delete from his brain. He neither needs nor wants to know what the two of them do behind closed doors. “It is fine,” he says with a wave of his hand. “He is very boring with his systems. Like his calendars.”

David arches an eyebrow, not sure why he’s surprised that Ilya has already encountered Shane’s terrifyingly detailed calendar system.

Ilya looks very pleased as he adds another puzzle piece to the cloud he’s restoring.

“You know about the calendars?”

“Yes! I am purple!”

He doesn’t laugh, not quite, but there’s a twitch in David’s cheek for the enthusiasm in Ilya’s tone. He wishes, suddenly, that he’d known years ago that difference: some kids like Shane need organization like oxygen, and others, most people and certainly Ilya, just need the context to read it as love.

“He goes through so many colors. I can’t keep up,” David says, shaking his head.

Ilya shrugs. “It is Shane. And knowing him, there will not be anything on there that would embarrass him, so…” he shrugs as if to say he is beyond embarrassment. 

David sets down the piece of the puzzle he’s holding, failing to find where it slots in place. “Does it bother you?” he asks quietly.

Ilya gives him a look, his brow up, and mouth a curl of amusement. “Why would it?” He taps his temple. “Is how he makes sense of the world. Everything needs rule, yes? A system.” He cuts a glance at the living room, where Yuna’s left her knitting on the ottoman and every coaster lines up at perfect right angles. “Lots of things about me he wants to understand and doesn’t know how.” He looks down for a moment, thinking, but when he raises his chin and meets David’s gaze with a fierceness that takes his breath away. “I am happy that he does not understand,” he says, not unkindly. “I do not want that to ever change.”

What David can see, all at once, is how fragile the whole arrangement is. That it’s a series of small, sharp edges and careful acts of will, stitched together day by day. The only thing holding it all together is how none of them lets on how easily it might come apart.

He’s not sure whether to envy Ilya his embrace of chaos, or to envy Shane for his spherical, air-tight logic, where every problem is a mechanical thing, assembled or repaired with enough cleverness and glue. Maybe David envies them both; he certainly loves them both, for how different they are, and for how strenuously they refuse to bend one another into the same shape. How hard they both fight to protect what needs protecting.

He leans back and watches Ilya put the puzzle together, moving with an economy of effort that’s somehow gentle, even when he is irritated by the sameness of the sky pieces, or mutters about ridiculous Canadian jigsaws.

David clears his throat and tries to find a place in the middle where he can meet them both.

“Well, I can tell you now, there’s no ‘how not to be kicked out of family’ section, but maybe we can add a blank tab, just so we remind you that there’s nothing you could ever do to make that happen.”

A slow smile spreads across Ilya's face, crinkling the corners of his eyes before reaching his mouth. His fingers pause over the puzzle piece he's been turning. "Shane will murder you if you touch his spreadsheets,” he says, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Then he will murder me for enabling you. With the same knife, probably."

"Eh, between the two of us I think we can teach him how to compromise." David leans back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath him.

Ilya presses a hand to his chest, fingers splayed dramatically over his heart, eyebrows shooting upward in theatrical horror. "Don't you dare!"

Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

“I get it, man. It’s fucking Rozanov. You fuckers have been archenemies forever. Only person who gets to fuck with him is you, right?”

Shane is going to fucking pass out. “Something like that,” he says weakly.

Chapter Notes

Ah, the first of the Shane POVs!

I will preface this all by saying from the very start: no one is going to figure out their secret. A, that's not what this story is, and B, they're all fucking idiots with a dozen head injuries and half as many braincells between them.

We've had protective parents, we've had (and are about to have so much more) protective Shane. Now to add protective teammates who don't really have a fucking clue what is happening but fuck it.

“-Marly, you’re with Drapeau, which leaves-” the bus jolts as it veers off the road and into the driveway of their hotel. Ilya, who’s been named as Captain for the weekend, much to Shane’s professional irritation, holds on to the luggage rack next to his head and keeps his balance. He’s standing at the front, reading out the list of room allocations. When he gets to the last names on the list, the look on his face pitches the entire bus into howls of laughter. “Who the fuck is responsible for this shit?”

The only names Ilya has yet to read out are his and Shane’s.

Drapeau, who has the seat behind Shane, reaches over to clap him on the shoulder. “Good fucking luck, buddy!”

Shane is going to fucking kill Ilya. And then suck his dick. He’d been planning on booking a room in a totally separate hotel just to grab a few hours with him before the All Stars game, but this…

“Why does he get luck?” Ilya demands. “Where is my luck? I am one who will be in fucking coma from boredom.” Ilya is so much better at this bullshit than Shane is. Shane’s doing all the work of trying not to smile like an idiot. Fortunately for him, he’s been told many times that his default expression makes him look like he hates the world.

“If you’re gonna kill him in his sleep, do it after the fucking game,” one of the MLH reps calls from the front. Shane shrugs as if to say he can’t make any promises.

Marlow, who’s somehow gotten more obnoxious since he fucked up Shane's season the year before, doesn’t look at either of them when he says, “You’re lucky, man. Roz’ll be out getting his knob polished until four a.m.. You’ll basically have the suite to yourself.” He’s turned around sideways in his seat, huge legs blocking the aisle. Ilya leans forward and kicks him in the calf.

“You know this is why I fucking transferred,” Ilya tells him. Most of the guys are grabbing their things, ready to roll out into the hotel and relax a little. Shane already has his backpack on his knee.

Marlow snorts. “Sure, you moved to Assfuck Canada because you-”

“Wait,” Ilya interrupts him. “There’s a place in Ottawa called Assfuck? Since when are Canadians that fucking interesting?”

Ilya’s really fucking endearing when he asks for clarification on a phrase he doesn’t have any cultural reference for. Especially when context just makes him look even more confused. This time, though, Shane would like to just die quietly in the back of the bus instead of listening to his secret boyfriend use the word ‘assfucking’ around some of the best players in the world.

“Middle of nowhere,” Marlow clarifies. Ilya is still cackling by the time they make it to the lobby. Shane has to take his key when they’re handed out because he’s too busy wiping his eyes.

“Behave, boys,” their media rep says, her sternness holding a desperate edge of a plea that kicks Ilya right back into the fucking giggles.

Shane spends ten seconds annoyed at him, the creeping panic that sneaks up on him when he thinks about getting caught testing the hinges on the box he tries to keep it locked in.

Then he realizes that literally no one is giving a fuck. At best, they don’t even notice, and at worst, they think Ilya is just… being Ilya.

Shane’s boyfriend is an idiot, and he loves him so much.

“Wait up, boys! Group selfie!” Drapeau’s already got his phone out, and Marlow’s drifted in to fuck up the framing, so Shane bites the inside of his cheek and lets Ilya throw a bear paw over his shoulder, which is grotesquely unfair considering the rules they operate under right now. Ilya’s laugh is so warm it melts right through the layers of his jacket, and with the press of bodies around them as half the team tries to squeeze in means he can almost relax into it for a moment.

As the elevator doors close, Shane watches the numbers flutter in red, one at a time, feeling the heat coming off Ilya’s skin. He’s not touching, not even looking, but every nerve in Shane’s body is one step ahead.

There are eight of them on this floor. Ilya and Shane’s room is smack bang in the middle of the allocations.

“Try not to push him off the balcony,” Drapeau says to Shane before moving to the next door and trying to fish his keycard out of his pocket.

Ilya says, “Don’t worry, he knows you will not win if he kills me.”

“Oh fuck off,” Shane groans.

“Bang on the wall if you need us to call security!”

Shane barely gets the door closed before Ilya, hoodie still looped around his massive shoulders, detonates into laughter again, and he loses his own fight with the smile that’s been bubbling in his chest.

Shane turns and lets his bag drop to the carpet. “If you ever, ever use the phrase ‘Assfuck Canada’ in my presence again, I’ll-” He doesn’t get an end to that sentence; he crosses the room in three steps and tackles Ilya back against the closest of the twin beds. “Tell me you didn’t fucking fix the rooms.”

He wraps his arm around Ilya’s torso as if he can physically wring all the noise out of him, and it works, sort of. Ilya huffs, not oxygen-deprived but surprised, then immediately nuzzles into Shane’s throat, catching him in a counter-hold so tight Shane’s not sure how both of them don’t just slide down to the carpet in a tangled heap.

“You had your little grumpy face on the whole trip,” Ilya says, voice muffled. Shane can barely hear him above the rush of blood in his ears, but he does, and it’s so fond it makes his toes curl. “It was very cute.”

“Fuck you,” he laughs.

Ilya pretends to look shocked. “But Hollander, these walls are so thin and-”

The single best way to shut Ilya up is to kiss him.

He lets go of half the air in his lungs and crowds Ilya flat onto the crumpled duvet, knee braced on the edge of the bed, then just goes for it. Ilya’s laughter vibrates through the point of contact and straight into his teeth, which is stupid and unfair and makes Shane so happy he doesn’t even care about the smudged ring of sunscreen on Ilya’s neck or the scratch of new stubble. He wants to bite him, so he does. He tastes of sun, sweat, Chapstick, and the faint sweetness of the mints he was popping on the ride. Shane drags it out just long enough to make Ilya’s next laugh nearly break into a hiccup.

“Is this how you thank your captain?” Ilya wriggles, not trying to get away, but grinning up like a shapeshifter knowing exactly which version of himself is going to drive Shane insane.

“Captain, huh? Doesn’t that make this a gross misuse of power?”

Ilya’s eyes darken. “I think you like it when I misuse my power, no?”

He’s already got Ilya’s shirt collar twisted up in one fist, their faces close enough that if the door wasn’t closed, the whole goddamn hallway would be able to see how Shane wants to eat him alive. The only thing keeping him from climbing Ilya like a jungle gym is the knowledge that they’re one unfortunate noise complaint from everything blowing up in their faces.

“Shut up,” Shane whispers, knuckles digging into Ilya’s shoulder as he drags him further onto the bed. He can feel how wound-up Ilya is; he’s radiating a full-body tremor, and maybe that’s anticipation or maybe that’s the fact that Shane hasn’t been able to get a minute alone with him in weeks.

“No, see, we have a problem,” Ilya hums. “I would very much like to fuck you now, but we play game tomorrow and for once we are on the same side, yes?”

“Your dick isn’t gonna cripple me,” Shane says dryly.

“Clearly I am not trying hard enough.”

Shane has a million snappy comebacks, but once their mouths actually meet, they all drop out through a trapdoor, and it’s just Ilya’s hands and Ilya’s heat and the trampoline bounce of his heart in his chest. Everything goes very suddenly, very sloppily sideways. They are on the bed, then off it, the press of Ilya’s thighs against his and the stretch of his own hoodie bunched up against his ribs. The rest of the world is a fuzzy afterthought, and for once, Shane doesn’t care enough to try bring it back into focus.

When Ilya comes out of the shower, Shane is half tempted to close his laptop, get down on his knees, and chase the beads of water that cling to his abs with his tongue. He doesn’t. He has some self-control, and it would defeat the purpose of taking a shower in the first place.

“Why are you working?” Ilya groans. He towels off his hair and pulls on a pair of jeans.

Shane is in the process of adding the brand of mint Ilya discovered at the airport to his spreadsheet. “You’re not work,” Shane points out. “Heading down to the bar?”

Ilya kisses him right where his jaw meets his neck. “Yes. Marly has not stopped texting me. I think he’s lonely now I, his very best friend in the world, live in Canada.”

“Cool. I’m gonna head to the gym for a bit, but I know the guys were talking about grabbing something to eat later, so I’ll join you then?”

Ilya’s mouth is wet and he tastes like toothpaste, which under other circumstances would be hilarious, but not when Shane’s trying to get his heart rate down from the stratosphere.

“Gym?” Ilya’s voice is a velvet crush against Shane’s ear; he drapes his big arm around Shane’s neck, peering over his shoulder at the spreadsheet. “Your legs still work? I am bad boyfriend, clearly.”

Shane smothers a smile. “The worst.”

Ilya slides fingers between the collar of Shane’s shirt and his skin, stroking slow and lazy patterns. Shane lets him see the latest additions and marvels, not for the first time, how gooey Ilya gets whenever he sees it. Ilya might be the one who says Shane is horny for organisation, but Shane has never sucked someone’s dick after looking at an Excel file before. That’s all Ilya.

“Is this how you are in all relationships? Workaholic?” There’s a heat in the question that pulls a smile out of Shane despite himself. “Or is it just for me?”

He nudges Ilya off with a flex of his neck. “Oh, just you. You defy categorization. It takes a lot of manual input,” Shane deadpans. Ilya makes a strangled sound like he’s been wounded.

“I’ll give you manual input,” he growls, trying to get Shane out of the chair.

Shane clicks the laptop shut. This could get messy, and he doesn’t really trust Ilya with anything breakable when he gets like this. “Go make sure Marlow hasn’t traumatized the bar staff. I’ll see you in a bit.” He leans back in the chair, watching Ilya’s face for the satisfaction of it, and the way his stubbornness cracks just a little before the sharp edges go all cartoon-sunny.

He expects pushback, but Ilya shrugs the way only someone with complete confidence can. “You’re lucky I like you, Hollander.” He tugs a clean t-shirt from his duffel and drags it overhead in one motion. “Do not be late.”

Shane flips him off. When Ilya finally leaves, he slams the door closed with a thud, his shout of “Sorry you’re so boring, Hollander” loud enough for half the hotel to hear.

Shane hits the gym and works out for forty-five minutes, which is just enough time to draw his focus away from the abstract spreadsheet of Ilya’s soul and back to the precision of his own body. The gym is empty save for a woman on the elliptical, and she ignores him. By the end, his shirt clings damply to his collarbone, and the roar of blood in his ears dials everything down to a manageable hum. He texts Ilya: Benching your ass into next week. <3

It’s a lie; he can barely keep form on the last set, but the principle is what matters. Ilya’s quick reply is a string of eggplants, followed by a photo of his beer and a warm-up basket of fries. Shane is about to hate him when Ilya texts again: don’t worry they do rabbit food too I checked.

Ilya doesn’t make spreadsheets. That’s not how his brain works. But he never once forgets a single thing that’s important to Shane. He’ll run his mouth about most of them, but he won’t forget.

He showers. He towels off with one of those generic hotel squares that smells like everyone on Earth and bleach. Then he puts on his cleanest jeans, his T-shirt with the tiny vanishing hole near the seam, and the red sweater Ilya likes because it makes Shane “look like a hot librarian.” It’s ridiculous. He wears it anyway. He’s half tempted to wear his glasses as well, just to fuck with him, but he’s not that cruel.

The bar is loud but not unmanageable, at least not for someone who’s done most of his socializing in packed stadiums. The lighting is on the dim side, a football game on mute above the bar. At a table near the back, the team has set up shop. Three pitchers are already going flat, and someone’s dropped an obscene amount of mozzarella sticks in the middle of the table.

He passes a group of tourists who stare at him with open-mouthed expressions and orders a beer, mostly to buy himself a little peace. If anyone comments on how unusual it is for him to have a bottle in his hand he can make a joke about Ilya driving him to drink.

Speaking off… yeah, there’s Ilya. Even in a room full of very tall, very fit men, he stands out. His grin is unmistakable, visible even at the weird angle Shane is looking from, and he’s animatedly chatting to two of the rookies, both of whom look at him like he personally invented hockey.

Shane doesn’t blame them. He envies them. He wants to look at Ilya like that in public, too.

Shane is content to observe as he waits for his beer. It’s what he does best. He’s looking at Ilya’s hands, big and battered and so delicate on the glass, and wondering if he can find a way to squeeze in next to him at the table just to feel the warmth of leg against his own when someone drops onto the stool beside him.

“So you’re the one who fixed the room allocations, huh?” Marlow’s reflection stares back through the bar mirror, brows wagging.

Shane’s stomach turns to lead. “What?”

“It’s decent of you,” Marlow nods.

“It’s what?” Shane hopes to fuck his voice doesn’t sound as high-pitched and terrified to Marlow as it does to him.

Marlow looks at him, then away, then back again. His mouth works around whatever he's trying to say, but his lips don't open until he's rolled them hard between his teeth. It's not nerves - Shane is convinced you could drop Marlow naked in the middle of Times Square and he'd ask to borrow a phone for a selfie - but something more like embarrassment.

“Look, I, er, know we’ve not really spoken since -”

“You broke my collarbone?” Shane finishes wryly.

And gave Shane a concussion. And nearly gave Ilya a heart attack.

Marlow winces. “Yeah. Sorry again. But I just mean… Roz ain’t so bad. We were worried when he transferred. Leave him unsupervised for too long, and he gets fucked up in his head sometimes. But you guys have that charity, and you’re doing this with his brother and-”

Shane is internally losing his shit over the fact that there’s someone else in the world who knows even a fraction of the kind of man Shane knows Ilya is, and that he can’t start listing off all the ways Ilya is, in fact, the single greatest human to ever fucking exist.

It doesn’t change the fact that he’s got hockey reflexes. “The fuck did you just say?”

Marlow looks confused. “Roz ain’t so bad?”

“His brother!” Shane demands. Fucking ironic that he’s talking to a man who knocked him out cold and made his head ring for three days straight when he kinda feels like it’s happening again.

Marlow brightens. “Oh! Yeah. Like I said, it’s decent of you. He never fucking talked about his family. Ever. I’m glad you’re helping them sort shit out. Fuck knows that idiot needs someone to check his stupid sometimes.”

“Marlow, I swear to Christ if you don’t start making sense, I won’t wait until we’re on the ice to break your face! What the fuck are you talking about?”

Maybe it’s because Shane has the reputation he does, or maybe it’s in his expression, because something clearly cracks the dense fucking rock that is Marlow’s skull. He looks over at Ilya, then back at Shane, his brows pulling together in confusion.

“Roz’s brother. I thought you-”

Shane only envies his father for one thing, and that’s the fact that he got to break Alexei’s face and not Shane.

He’s pretty sure he’s not fucking breathing. “He’s here?”

“Yeah,” Marlow frowns. “I saw him in the lobby. He said you guys were planning some kind of surprise, but he couldn’t get hold of you and-” Shane loses track of what he’s saying. He needs to have eyes on Ilya, but the second he does, he’s thrown back into his childhood bedroom, trying to find a way to physically crack open his ribcage and make enough space inside his chest for Ilya to crawl in and hide from the world.

In the few moments he’s ever managed to think of Alexei and not feel himself overcome by a wall of heartbroken rage, he’s just about managed to understand why Ilya is more sad about his brother than angry. He would watch. Father would make him. Then he would have to…

Those moments never last. How can they?

Right now, Ilya is safe. He’s smiling and laughing and is surrounded by people who, even if they don’t particularly like him (they don’t know him they don’t know him they don’t...), would drop gloves in a heartbeat in his defense, just because he’s one of theirs.

It’s… okay, Shane can work with this. He doesn’t recognize his own voice when he asks Marlow, “Where is he?”

The stupid asshole finally seems to realize he’s made a monumental fuck up. “He… I, er, got reception to make up a new key for your room,” he admits. “He said he didn’t want to ruin the surprise and I- fuck, you really didn’t set this up?”

Shane doesn’t give a single fuck about Cliff Marlow, but he’s just enough rational thought left to recognize that the poor bastard thought he was helping. Ilya won’t blame him.

Ilya never fucking blames the right people.

Shane makes the kind of eye contact with Marlow he only ever makes at center ice. He gestures towards Ilya. “He does not leave your sight, am I clear?”

“Crystal,” Marlow matches his seriousness. “Should I call sec-”

Shane is already out of the bar and halfway across the lobby.

Should they call security? Yes. Probably. That would be the sensible thing to do.

If he does that, they probably won’t let Shane break every fucking bone in his cruel, spiteful, cowardly fucking body.

Waiting for the elevator does nothing to temper his rage. All it does is give him time to fucking think.

Shane knows Ilya’s family are fucking awful. He’s known it since the words “My father is police. My brother is police… I don’t want to find out.” broke through a block of understanding Shane didn’t even know existed.

And since then there have been signs. So fucking many of them, because yeah, Ilya is terrifyingly good at keeping secrets, but he’s also really fucking bad at not trying to give Shane everything he wants.

Shane has an overactive imagination. He catastrophizes everything. Everything. So when it becomes clear that punishment means something very different for Ilya, he can’t stop thinking about what that means.

And when he does, Ilya is the frightened twelve-year-old boy who just found his mother’s dead body. That’s who he thinks of. In a fucking gyroscope of the worst possible things, that’s who he pictures crying and scared and in pain.

Ilya knows he’s like this. He fucking knows, which is why he tolerates the speadsheet Shane keeps just to stop himself from freaking the fuck out.

He knows Shane’s imagination runs away with him if he doesn’t have the details to set every image clear in place.

He knows, and he still won’t tell Shane anything more.

His silence does the job for him.

Grigori Rozanov is lucky he’s dead. Alexei is going to fucking pray Shane lets him join him.

He’s at their door, knuckles white on the keycard before he’s even conscious of it. It slips in crooked. The ready light takes a half-beat too long.

He opens the door and Alexei is there. Seated on the edge of the furthest bed in a smart shirt and tie, his beard neatly trimmed and his hair combed back. There’s a bottle of shitty hotel red balanced on his knee. The shape of Ilya thrums in the muscle-memory of their builds - the way he slouches is identical, the way he swings a finger over the bottle’s neck - except everything else is off, a crude, pirated copy of a masterpiece. Shane’s stomach tries to curl into his spine.

“Mr. Hollander,” Alexei says in careful English. “I am wanting to have-”

Shane is on him before the sentence finishes. Despite his career, he’s not a fighter, not by choice, but his body hijacks itself, bootleg instinct before thought. He grabs Alexei by the shirt, hauls him up, and slams him against the wall. It’s not a clean move. Shane nearly headbutts him and his momentum folds them both into the drywall. His knuckles crunch from the collision, but he’s already punching, short and dirty, and nothing like how they teach you to brawl on the ice.

“I want to talk!” Alexei shouts, his mouth full of blood. He tries to push Shane sideways, but instead he takes a punch to the gut that makes him fold. Shane wants to break every rib, and rearrange his face until it’s unrecognizable, until not even Ilya could imagine a single point of comparison between them.

He’s aware, in a dull academic way, that someone in one of the other rooms could call security. That he could lose his career in this one five-second burst. He wants it anyway. If it means this monster never gets anywhere near Ilya again, he wants it.

He thinks he’s got it locked, tempered, sharp in a way that’ll carry him through the next punch and the next, but hands twice the size of his own clamp down around his shoulders and jerk him backward. He’s pretty sure it’s Marlow, because his grip is too strong to be some random security guard, and because Marlow’s the only one dumb enough to get between a wild animal and a bleeding carcass.

“Easy, easy, Hollander-” Marlow lines himself up between them, playing interference with the easy, violent grace of a guy who’s brawling twice a week like clockwork. “You’re gonna get yourself a suspension, man-”

“Fuck off,” Shane spits. 

Marlow doesn’t move. He looks at Shane, then at Alexei. “You’ve got five seconds to get the fuck gone, or I let him finish you off.”

Alexei coughs. The noise is ragged and wet. He wipes a sleeve across his mouth and leaves a streak of blood from cheek to cuff. “Where is Ilya?” He demands, a red-toothed snarl that’s more animal than man.

Marlow punches him before Shane gets the chance. “Hollander has started one fight his whole fucking career,” Marlow tells Alexei, who is down on one knee and groaning. “So all this tells me that you’re the scum of the fucking earth. Get the fuck out before we call the cops.”

Marlow's warning shot at Alexei doesn’t even slow the guy down. He spits a thick red glob into the carpet, grins, and then starts hauling himself up for the next round. Shane isn’t sure if that’s a Rozanov thing, or a Russian thing.

Shane can think of a dozen ways to finish this. All of them illegal. Probably half would get him banned from the league and the other half in jail. He wants to go for it anyway, but the sound of running feet explodes in the hall, and in the space of a heartbeat, there’s a flood of players crowding into a room that already feels claustrophobic.

None of them looks like they have a clue what is happening.

All of them are ready to fight someone.

And in the middle of them all, frozen in shock, his face bloodless, is Ilya.

The rage leaves Shane in an instant. He wants, more than anything, to push through the crowd of bodies, wrap him up in his arms, and hold him.

He can’t, and not just for the obvious reasons. Ilya will never forgive him if he does anything to shake the foundations on which most of his public personality is built. Hell, Shane will never forgive himself.

Without the fear and without the love, all Shane can do is fall back on the one thing that has never let him down.

“Please escort this gentleman from the premises,” he says to no one in particular, every lesson of authority he has learned as captain infused into his voice.

They don’t know what’s happening. They probably don’t even know who Alexei is.

But they can see Shane, who never fights, and they can see Ilya, who rarely misses the chance to, and they draw their own conclusions from there.

Alexei isn’t so much escorted from the room as he is hauled off his feet and dragged.

He shouts for his brother.

Ilya doesn’t move.

Shane’s used to game days, used to locker-room chaos and road-trip shenanigans and the cartoonish pecking-order of boys who have known each other only as long as it takes to bleed together on the ice. This is different. The room is packed, but everything, everyone, is orbiting Ilya, who looks like someone’s dumped him in an ice bath.

Marlow is first to react, bracing one hand on the wall as he yells over his shoulder. “Take him out back. Talk to security. O’Brian, tell them the bare fucking minimum, then go talk to Shanna and make sure she’s briefed in case anything fucking leaks.”

Six players, four of whom Shane has never shared more than a basic hello with, haul Alexei out to the service stairs.

Drapeau and Calder are already closing ranks, trying to peel off the teammates crowding in so that there’s a buffer zone. No one knows what happened, but everyone in the room knows exactly whose side they’re on.

No one’s touching Ilya, not yet. All these giant men, tiptoeing.

Drapeau leans in, voice pitched low, “Let’s get you cleaned up, man,” and Shane lets himself be steered away, because if he gets closer to Ilya, he’ll start screaming. All the injuries he’s had, and nothing ever hurt like watching Ilya stand there, shellshocked and alone. He hates that he can’t just collapse the space between them.

In the mirror, his face looks wild. Drapeau wets a paper towel and hands it over, then stands there awkwardly with his hands at his sides until Shane says, “Relax.” He waves his hand, tries for a smile that doesn’t stick. “I’m fine.”

Drapeau knows him better than most in this temporary little team, but he nods. “You good to keep an eye on Roz? We all vanish, and they’re gonna send a search party.”

Yes, please fuck off!

Shane nods. “Yeah, no, it’s fine. Give us a bit, and I’ll bring him down later.”

Does he know? Do any of them? Can they guess? Surely someone is going to look at him and see?

But Drapeau just nods. “You’re good?”

“Yeah,” Shane says quickly. “It’s-”

“I get it, man. It’s fucking Rozanov. You fuckers have been archenemies forever. Only person who gets to fuck with him is you, right?”

Shane is going to fucking pass out. “Something like that,” he says weakly.

“We got you, bro.” Drapeau heads back into the main room and hollers, “Everyone the fuck out, I want shots!”

As soon as the door clicks shut behind the last departing pair, Marlow makes a show of stretching, all performed indifference, but it’s obvious his attention is fixed on Ilya, who hasn’t moved from the spot by the wall where everything detonated. Shane wants the room empty - he needs it like fucking air - but Marlow blocks the egress, his shoulders spread wide, eyes scanning from Ilya to Shane and back again.

He rubs his jaw and drops his voice. “Hey, Roz. You good?”

A flick of Ilya’s hand, palm up, a marionette approximation of “fine.” He does not, Shane notes, take his eyes off the spot where Shane nearly put Alexei’s head through the wall.

He waits, just a second, then shrugs and moves for the door. “You need me, I’m in 513,” he says. “If you’re gonna stay in and order room service, text me later okay?” Door sighs shut.

Their room goes quiet.

It’s not a good quiet.

Shane presses the heel of his palm into his forehead. “If you don’t feel safe… if you want security, or want to go to another fucking hotel, or need anything-”

Ilya shakes his head, but he’s not there. Not really. He’s standing in his father’s house, or his brother’s, or somewhere thousands of miles east.

“I’m calling the front desk,” Shane says, and it sounds incredibly, inexcusably stupid the minute it leaves his mouth.

“No.”

“Just to make sure he didn’t-”

“No,” Ilya says again. Louder this time.

There are things he’s made charts for, color-coded and bulleted, but this isn’t one of them. What’s the protocol for after something that happens now? What’s the protocol for having someone you love haul you out of the burning past and back into the present, and then you still have to pretend to be a functioning person for the next forty-eight hours?

Shane walks over and stands beside him. “You want water? Or, I don’t know, vodka or?”

Ilya says nothing.

And Shane knows he doesn’t particularly like being touched when he’s overwhelmed, but the exception, always, is for Ilya.

He’s gonna take a risk that it works both ways.

He touches Ilya’s arm. Just that, at first. Then, because Ilya stands rigid and distant, Shane crowds closer until bare inches separate them. He puts two fingers under Ilya’s jaw and tilts up, until their eyes lock.

“Ilya. Look at me.”

The disaster is right there. Not rage, just something leveled out and flattened and almost harmless, except for how hollow it feels.

“You’re safe,” Shane says. Words are always his least effective tool, but right now he knows they’re important. “You’re allowed to be freaked. But you’re safe.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, and it’s flat, a joke of an okay. He won’t move, so Shane moves him, guiding both their bodies to the bed. He presses down on Ilya’s shoulder until he’s sitting, then kneels in front of him, hands on Ilya’s knees. He wants to crawl into the gravity well between them and bury himself there until the world narrows to something manageable.

His knuckles are split. He figures the pain is supposed to matter, but it doesn’t. All he can see is the way Ilya’s hands, brutal and clumsy, twist in on each other.

Shane hates that, so he untangles Ilya’s fists and holds them in his own.

It’s not enough, so he leans in and crushes his forehead into Ilya’s palm, breathing deep enough that his ribs threaten to cave. Hot tears threaten at the corners of his eyes, and he blinks hard, refusing to let them spill.

Then Ilya asks, flat and distant, “Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Shane says immediately.

Ilya nods. “Good. That’s good.”

“Ilya…”

Shane is kneeling, but Ilya slides off the bed and onto his lap, wrapping himself fully around as much of Shane as he can manage.

Ilya’s weight knocks the air out of him, but Shane wraps his arms around his broad back and lets him closer still. He fits his fingertips to the sharp curve just beneath Ilya’s shoulder blades and presses, slow and steady.

He doesn’t say any of the things that want to claw up his throat. Not, "you never have to see him again”, or “I won’t let anyone close enough to hurt you”, or “I fucking love you so much it makes me homicidal and that should scare me but apparently fucking not.”.

Instead, he knots his fist into the fabric at Ilya’s side and scrubs the back of his knuckles in circles, like comforting a child out of a nightmare. He expects Ilya to buckle, to collapse or let the world catch up to him, but he just sits there, a live wire spliced with a dead one, shivering faintly in Shane’s grip.

For three, four, five heartbeats, it’s like holding a mannequin. Maybe the only thing that gets through is the sound of Shane’s own breathing, which he tries to slow, tries to anchor to something long and regular, something living and present.

When he tries to pull back just an inch, just to look at Ilya’s face, he gets nowhere. Ilya isn’t moving. His hands are cold where they clutch Shane’s ribs, and how is that possible, when he burns fever hot everywhere else?.

Shane swallows hard. “Ilya.” He softens, voice gone vapor-thin. Then he tries the world Svetlana taught him over breakfast after Alexei's last fucking appearance, one he uses so carefully because it turns Ilya’s bones to mush every fucking time. “Solnishko. Hey.” There’s a tremor from Ilya’s throat, but no words.

He buries his nose against Shane’s hair, lets out a shudder that ghosts over his skin like frost on glass. Shane kneads at Ilya’s shoulder, slow like clockwork.

He pushes his palms up under Ilya’s shirt, finds skin, and runs his hands down the arch of his spine. Ilya’s breath hitches, but the shivering, at least, seems to slow. “Listen,” Shane says, quieter. “He’s not coming back. The guys have him handled.” He says it less because he believes it, and more to test if Ilya is processing any of it. If he’s actually in the room with him.

“You’re safe, okay? I promise. You’re safe.” Ilya nods. Shane feels it pressed to the side of his neck.

“Do they know?” Ilya asks, but it’s slurred. Distant.

“About us? No,” Shane reassures him.

“No,” Ilya shakes his head. “Me. That I’m…”

Shane kisses him before the word weak or failure cross his lips.

When they finally break apart, Ilya whispers, “I’m tired,” and Shane gets that he doesn’t mean physically.

“I’ve got you. You can rest.”

They lose track of time like that. Ilya’s head on Shane’s shoulder, the numbness in Shane’s legs almost distracting from the ache in his chest. He’s happy to stay there as long as necessary.

It’s probably an hour, but it might be more before there’s a careful knock on the door.

Shane winces as he manages to get Ilya up and seated in one of the chairs by the window before he opens it.

The entire team are stood out in the hallway. Both Marlow and Drapeau are clutching a stack of pizza boxes ten high apiece.

“Can’t let Cap starve,” one of the rookies says bravely.

It’s like a whole-ass rescue operation, but with pizza and cheap beer instead of trauma specialists. Around the TV, they arrange the furniture into a saggy, communal horseshoe. Drapeau has a six-pack of Diet Coke balanced on his knee, and a hockey tape bracelet snapped around one wrist. 

Marlow pulls Shane aside to tell him that Alexei has been ‘dropped off at the airport’. Shane has a vivid mental image of the bastard being shoved in the trunk of an Uber, but that’s probably wishful thinking. “We got a buddy system sorted. Until he’s back in Ottawa.” Then he smacks Shane on the collar he didn’t break, and flops on one of the beds. "Roz," he says, voice pitched louder now, "if you don't eat, I'm gonna tell these assholes about the schnaps incident."

Shane expects Ilya to ignore him, but indignation works miracles. “Go fuck yourself, Marly,” he says, and while it sounds flat in comparison to his usual animation, it has the effect he wants it to as the room erupts and the careful quietness evaporates.

Marlow doesn’t say a word about what just happened, not the fight, not Alexei. No one in the room does. Everybody just starts talking about room service and tomorrow’s lineups, who will be interviewed by Sportsnet, who has a shot at picking up some popstar who is there for the pregame. It's achingly normal.

He watches Ilya for signs of fallout. At first, he thinks his smiles are fake, but the more time passes, the more real they start to look. Maybe it’s the pizza, or the crap beer, or maybe it’s just an understanding that they’ve got his back, even without knowing why.

He’s still pale, but he eats. He lets Marlow throw a full can of Coke at him and catches it out of the air. He chirps back, soft but perfectly, waspishly Ilya, whenever someone needles him about the game tomorrow.

Every so often, Ilya tips his head and shoots a quick look at Shane, as if to check whether this is actually happening. Shane meets his gaze every time.

For the first time, he’s not resentful that he has to share Ilya with anyone. Yes, he’d kill to still have Ilya in his arms, but maybe it’s more important that there can’t be a single doubt in Ilya’s mind that anyone or anything is getting through a room full of pizza-fueled hockey players to get to him.

“Hey Hollander, want some pizza?” He doesn’t clock who is asking, because Ilya blinks and the twinkle in his eye returns.

“Gimme. Hollander doesn’t do fun food. Marly, order him some fucking salmon.”

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” Shane says, because he’s expected to.

Ilya winks at him, his smile so soft. Then shoves an entire slice of pizza in his mouth at once.

Chapter 7

Chapter Summary

Shane thinks of the photo pressed into Ilya’s chest, of the child Ilya barely survived being, and feels a cold, crawling awareness gathering between his ribs. 

Grigori burned everything except for the cross. Did Ilya have to choose between the only thing he had left of his mother and his own skin, his own safety?

Ilya sets the photo gently on his lap and curls his fingers over Shane’s, the cross caught between them. “I wasn’t allowed to wear it until I earned it,” Ilya says, thumb pressed to Shane’s. “My brother never won anything. I won under fifteens junior championship, so-”

What kind of fucking psychopath makes his sons fight for the only thing they have left of their mother?

Chapter Notes

So this one is very soft and rather sad, but it is also BIG on the comfort. They're making ground.

Please mind the tags, as Irina and Grigori are the main focus of this section.

On a lighter note: I see you wanting a Marlow POV, but if I give him his own chapter, then Hayden will want one, too!

“Shane Hollander.”

There was a time Shane kinda hated Svetlana Vetrova. Before he ever met her, when she was the one name Ilya could wield with a sharp edge, and it would take his breath away how intensely he could dislike someone without even knowing what they looked like.

Now he has met her, now he has her number in his phone, and she is the reason Shane can keep his bar stocked with Ilya’s favorite vodka. Now, he has far more deserving people to hate.

She’s sweet, and she loves Ilya, and those reasons alone are enough for Shane to like her. But by Christ, he’s always going to be mildly terrified of her.

“Hey! Yeah, is now a good time?” He thinks she’s in New York, but he knows she travels a lot between Europe. “I can call back, if you’re busy or-”

She has a very particular way of laughing at him that makes him feel like she views him as Ilya’s pet, not his boyfriend, but he doesn’t think she means any harm with it.

“What do you need, Shane?”

“I wanted to ask you about photos,” Shane starts, and his voice comes out scratchier than he intended. He clears his throat and tries again, but Svetlana’s already locked in.

“Of your boyfriend?” she says, all teasing. “I have thousands. Want baby pictures? He had a very squishy little face. Like piglet.”

Shane can’t help the small huff that escapes him as he tries to imagine Ilya, who had cheekbones you could cut glass with at eighteen, while Shane was still clinging to his baby fat. Fuck, but that’s cute. He presses on before he loses focus. “No, not of him, I… of Irina. Are there any pictures of her?”

The air shifts on the line, the signal slow, or maybe the gravity well at the center of the new topic. Svetlana doesn’t say anything right away. Which is weird. He can actually imagine her tilting away from the phone, assessing him with her wolf’s smile and wondering if he’s worthy to see pictures of Ilya’s mother. Shane nearly bails on the question. He could hang up, but his fingers knot in the fabric of his sweatpants, thumb pressed hard into the seam, and he might rip his own leg off if he doesn’t get an answer.

“No,” Svetlana says. One word, perfectly still.

“No?” Shane doesn’t get it. “None at all?”

“None that I know of. After she...” She pauses. “After she died, Grigori burned all the pictures of her. And all letters. Anything from before.” Her voice gets strange at the corners.

Shane feels lightheaded. “He… he has her crucifix.”

He can almost see the sneer on Svetlana’s face when she answers, bitterness cut deep into her words. “Yes. He earned it.”

What the fuck does that mean? It occurs to him, not for the first time, that the key to the cypher that is Ilya’s past is within easy reach. Svetlana has known him all his life. She knows more than anyone. She probably saw much of it.

Shane can’t bring himself to ask her. There are so few people Ilya can count on. Shane's not about to compromise the trust he has in the two people he loves most.

The silence between them could be carved into stone. Shane picks at a loose thread on his thigh, tugging until it snaps. “Okay. That… that answers that, I guess.”

Svetlana takes pity on him. “She was a very beautiful woman. People say they look alike, but you have to know her face to see it. You do not need pictures,” Svetlana says, voice going soft where she normally would go sharp. “You have Ilya. Yes?”

“It... it’s not for me,” Shane admits.

He’s not sure why her answer hits him so hard. He’s spent years, actual years, learning the shape of every hole in Ilya’s life. He knows there aren’t family photos because he’s never seen one, not in Ilya’s home, not on his social media, not for the foundation, not even in those scavenger-archive clippings the networks run where someone, somewhere, tries to trace a thread backward through time and explain away the brilliance of Ilya Rozenov.

But the confirmation from Svetlana hits like an open-palmed slap. Of course. Of course there are no pictures. Of course the man who gutted his own family would make her absence absolute, atomize her memory, and salt the earth so nothing could grow again.

He swallows and drags in a breath. “It’s, um. His birthday soon. I was going to…” Christ, it sounds so fucking stupid. “I was going to get one of her pictures framed for him. Something nice. I thought-" He doesn’t finish. There’s nowhere to go with it.

Svetlana, blessedly, fills the silence. “He would have loved that.”

Desperation makes Shane stupid. “Maybe… maybe I could hire someone? To look?”

Svetlana laughs. “You want to hire a private investigator to find a photograph of your boyfriend’s long-dead mother?”

Okay, so when she puts it like that…

“Bad idea?”

“I’ll send you my guy.” Shane rubs his temple where a headache is forming.

“You have a guy?” Of course she has ‘a guy’. She and Ilya are practically powering every cheesy Russian stereotype Shane’s ever encountered.

"Goodbye, Shane Hollander." Her voice softens just slightly. "Give Ilushka a kiss from me." The line goes dead before he can respond.

Svetlana’s ‘guy’ is a sixty-something-year-old man named Sergei who has absolutely done way worse things than hunt down a photograph of a dead woman, but who listens to Shane’s request when they meet over Skype and nods as if he’s been entrusted with nuclear launch codes.

Three weeks, two days, and fifteen hours later, there’s a courier on his doorstep handing over a thin, letter-sized envelope.

He closes the door with a careful click and sets the envelope on the kitchen counter. He’s got to see it in full, get it sorted in his head before he can even think about how to give it to Ilya.

He’s pacing, circling the granite like a caged animal. The thing is, even knowing what Sergei does for a living, even knowing exactly what he’s asked for, Shane isn’t sure what he expects. A blurry scan, maybe, a photo of a photo, watermarks and creases, evidence too indirect and shameful to be cherished.

But when he slides the contents out, the crisp 4x6 falls into his hand, perfectly preserved, glossy as a pearl. He sits down hard, the motion scraping his chair across the tile, and stares at it for a full minute before he even blinks.

Irina is younger than he’d imagined. She’s in her twenties, with wild, curly blonde hair pinned back into a barrette that seems ready to surrender at any second. Her smile is gentle and a little shy, with shadows on her cheekbones that look like exhaustion.

And then there’s the kid she’s holding from behind, with her arms looped around his waist and chin braced on his little shoulder.

Ilya, barely four or five, is small and round-faced, but even then, there’s something arrested and kinetic in the set of him, the way his head turns full toward her, gazing up at her with a total, furious adoration that borders on religious.

You could gut Shane open with the look on his face. He’s laughing, but you can see, even then, that he has no idea how to be careful with love. The only thing that seems to anchor him to this earth is the gravity of her arms around him.

Shane is lucky. Grief is not something he knows well at all. He’s never met the woman smiling at him from the photograph, will never get the chance, and he’s breathless with the pain of it.

How does Ilya stand it? How does he remember how to breathe?

Shane can’t give this to him on his birthday. He can’t. They’re going to Shane’s parents. They’re having a family meal. It’s supposed to be… fuck. Okay, before. He’ll do it before.

There are just so few moments they get to spend together, and Shane knows this is something he can’t just hand over and move on from.

That’s fine. He can plan.

People like to tell him he’s a control freak. Ilya calls it living ten minutes ahead of his own body, which is a pretty romantic way to say “bordering on the pathological.” The point is, he’s ready for this.

He’s been ready for weeks. He keeps the photo in the bottom drawer in his office, the one place he can be sure Ilya won't find it.

He goes through the possible timelines, the likely responses, the species of fallout Ilya could generate from being handed a piece of the past he’s spent years surviving. He maps them all out with the same confidence he used to have dissecting D-parties in junior league, and still his hands are sweating by 7:45 am the day he plans to give it to him.

His plan is simple. Overwhelm Ilya’s nervous system in a positive direction for hours, until his brain is fully relaxed.

Shane literally has a spreadsheet for this very reason.

The precision is asinine, but if you’ve seen Ilya navigate the world with a memory like an uncauterized wound, if you’ve watched him flinch at kindness more than violence, if you’ve held that big, beautiful body together with nothing but the words “I love you, you are safe, you can rest,” you’d do the same thing.

Step one: don’t be suspicious. They have a pretty well-established way of doing things when their days off actually align. Shane’s not about to put Ilya on edge by fucking with that. It has the added bonus of helping with Shane’s own anxiety. He’s nervous as fuck, and few things settle him like Ilya taking him apart and putting him back together again.

Step two: food. This one is harder to achieve without tipping Ilya off, but if Shane swaps out his usual fish for steak and ‘accidentally’ makes too many fries, then it’s not much harder to whip up some extras to load onto Ilya’s plate. The hardest part is not chasing Ilya out of the kitchen when he gets distracted halfway through the prep and drapes himself along Shane’s back.

“You are neglecting me,” Ilya whines, trying to shove his hands under Shane’s t-shirt, his chin on Shane’s shoulder. “I am so uncared for.”

Shane swats his fingers with a spatula. “I’m sorry, did I hallucinate bouncing on your dick an hour ago?”

Ilya’s smile is somehow filthy and pleading all at once. “But that was so long ago!”

“You’re a fucking menace, Rozanov.” It’s a feature, not a bug. Their kitchen doesn’t feel right unless there’s a threat of chaos and/or sex in the air. He swears that Ilya’s arms have their own centrifugal field, and before he knows it, Ilya’s gotten a palm up under his shirt, fingers splaying warm and rough across his stomach.

“You’ll burn yourself,” Shane says, deadpan, because that’s how he deals with the high-grade meltdown inside his ribcage.

“Is worth it,” Ilya mumbles, mouth moving lower, shower-damp hair brushing the edge of Shane’s jaw. “You smell like lemons, Hollander. This is new thing?”

Shane almost upends the pan. “I just washed my fucking hands - can you back off for two minutes?”

“No,” says the overgrown toddler clamped to his back. “Never.”

He wrestles Ilya off, which is only possible because Ilya is running at half-speed, more domesticated housecat than apex predator, today. There’s thirty seconds left on the steak and honestly, Shane feels like he might crawl out of his own skin if he has to spend it not touching Ilya, but he’s got a plan to stick to. So he elbows Ilya in the ribs, gently, and orders him to go get the beer. Or water, or whatever, Shane doesn’t care, he just needs a second to reset.

“You are so mean,” Ilya calls, but when Shane turns to scowl, he’s already halfway to the fridge, scratching at the back of his head.

Shane slides the steak from pan to plate, piles up the fries, and arranges the salad with the kind of care that’s probably pathological. He wipes the rim of Ilya’s plate. The whole time, he’s thinking about the photo, and his chest gets so tight it’s a miracle he can breathe.

Ilya returns, two beers in one hand and a bottle of water in the other, which he plunks down dead center on the table with a thunk. Shane shoves the food at him, then leans against the counter and watches Ilya eat, because that’s the only way he knows not to fall apart pre-emptively.

“You are weird today,” Ilya says when he’s halfway through the steak. “Everything okay?”

“Thought I was always weird,” Shane tries for normal, but his voice is sharp and thin. Okay, so apparently he’s not subtle.

“Well, yes, but,” Ilya says, and waves one hand in a vague circle. “You are eating carbs. Do I need to drive to Montreal and kill someone? And can it be Pike?”

“Maybe I feel like being a little wild,” Shane shrugs, hoping for casual.

He has a fucking spreadsheet. This shouldn’t be so fucking hard.

Ilya raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t say anything else because he’s the perfect boyfriend, and he never picks the wrong fight with Shane’s stupid brain.

Crisis averted.

Step three: comfort. Once dinner is done and the dishwasher is loaded, Shane drags Ilya over to the couch and pushes him into the cushions. Then he fetches the blanket and throws it over his lap.

“Hollander-”

“Quiet,” Shane says, making sure Ilya’s toes are covered. “Just… stay there a minute, okay?”

“Shane-”

Shane leans in and drops a lightning-fast kiss on his lips. “I’ll be right back.”

In the lamplight, the gold crucifix at Ilya’s throat twinkles.

Shane ducks into the office, ignoring the way his hands feel practically numb, and collects the photo. It’s framed now, and wrapped in silver blue paper.

He trudges back into the living room. Ilya is where he left him, streaks of gold in his hair and a bewildered look on his face. He’s not even spread out, just compressed in the corner of the sectional.

Shane’s tried so hard to make sure this is the right way to do it. He’s triple-checked the world for sharp edges. Moment of truth.

He carefully places the gift in Ilya’s hands. “Here,” he says, because every other possible thing has been scrubbed out of his throat by anxiety. “Happy early birthday.”

Ilya flicks his gaze up, mouth twitching at the corners. “You are very early,” he laughs, delighted. He gives it a little exploratory shake, then looks to Shane for instruction. Shane shrugs. “You are so nervous,” Ilya tells him, suspicion feigned, “is it a bomb?”

Possibly not far off.

“Open it,” Shane says, tightening his hands in the blanket, hard enough that his forearms ache where muscle meets bone.

Ilya peels the paper with careful tugs. There’s no sound in the room but the wet slap of tape yielding and the crumple of paper. The wrapping comes loose in a single, shimmery sheet, leaving the simple frame bare in Ilya’s hands.

He stares at it for so long the light in the room seems to shift. Shane can’t breathe. Ilya brings the frame closer, running a thumb along the edge in a way that’s almost reverent. He doesn’t speak, just turns the frame over, then back again, knuckles grazing the glass as if to test whether any of this is actually real.

Shane’s rehearsed versions of how Ilya might react were all too small. There’s a clarity to the hurt in Ilya’s face that makes him wish he’d never started, and the way Ilya holds the picture tells Shane that it was always going to land like demolition, no matter what he did.

Ilya’s fingers, once, then twice, retrace the edges of his mother’s face. It’s even more noticeable now, how much they look alike.

He has his mother’s eyes. Beautiful, and so sad.

“Where-” Ilya has to cough and clear his throat. “Where did you find this?”

Shane crawls up to sit on the arm of the couch, nudging himself into Ilya’s space so he can lean on Shane and not the cushions.

“I hired a guy,” he admits. He doesn’t admit to just how many thousands of dollars it cost him to do so. Ilya doesn’t need to know that. “But I don’t actually know where he found it.”

Ilya nods slowly. “I haven’t seen her face in so long…” The desperation in his voice tears something in Shane’s chest. He folds himself around Ilya’s shoulders and presses his cheek to the top of his curls.

“I had it scanned,” Shane tells him. “There’s a backup saved to the cloud. You won’t… you won’t ever lose this one.”

Misery folds Ilya over. He presses the frame to his chest and turns himself in Shane’s embrace, one arm looped around Shane’s calf, the other clinging to his mother.

There, wrapped in Shane’s arms and totally cocooned from the world, he takes a breath.

“She was beautiful,” Shane mumbles. “Just like you.”

“Yes.” Ilya sounds strange, muffled, like he’s not talking to anyone at all. “My father hated this most.”

Now, there’s a new air in the room. Heavy and charged. Shane can practically see the tectonic plates of Ilya’s self-control colliding under his skin, the tension snaking up his arms right to his jaw. He waits. He won’t speak first.

“I wanted her to come back. I asked every day. I wasn’t a child. I knew she was gone, but I-”

He was a fucking child.

Shane holds him tighter and sinks his fingers into Ilya’s hair. “He was so angry at first, and then…” he shudders. “Then I think it was easier for him. Poor Grigori,” something bitter tugs at his voice. “So sad. We will give him promotion. We will find him new wife. Everything that was left of her had to go.”

Ilya’s voice is thin, not a thread but smoke. “Everything that was hers - her scarves, her notebooks, the pictures, little things she made for us, all her stuff - he piled it in the courtyard and poured kerosene over it.” Ilya’s breath hiccups, and Shane can feel the tremor through his whole body. “He told us never to cry for her again, or-”

Shane’s heart claws against his ribs. He sees the boy in the photo with his mother, sees her arms looped around him, and that brightness in his face. He tries to picture the same kid watching her memory go up in flames, standing on scorched earth beside a father who would erase every trace of love. He can’t imagine Ilya, stubborn and brilliant and always fighting for joy, being told to shut it all off, to become nothing but a hollowed-out echo.

Ilya says nothing for a while. His jaw works around words that won’t come.

Shane tucks his arms tighter. He doesn’t want to push, but he wants Ilya to know that he can say anything. He can say everything.

“He burned it all. Lyosha - Alexei - he… he tried to stop him.” From way Ilya turns his head, hiding his eyes, Shane knows he’s at the very edge of himself. “He screamed, and he fought, and father…” Another silence, brittle as ice. “He held Alexei’s hand in the fire. So he would learn not to touch what was not his.”

Shane hates Ilya’s brother. He probably always will. But in that second, he feels nothing but pity.

But this is the first time Ilya has ever acknowledged his father’s violence, and he’s struck by the terror of what that actually means.

When Ilya falls silent, Shane breaks his promise not to push. “And… and you?” He lets his fingers fall to Ilya’s throat, brushing Irina’s cross.

“I wanted to crawl into the flames and be with her,” Ilya admits.

The sob that chokes its way loose from Shane’s chest just makes Ilya clutch him tighter.

Shane thinks of the photo pressed into Ilya’s chest, of the child Ilya barely survived being, and feels a cold, crawling awareness gathering between his ribs. 

Burned it all, except for the cross. Did he have to choose between the only thing he had left of his mother and his own skin, his own safety?

Ilya sets the photo gently on his lap and curls his fingers over Shane’s, the cross caught between them. “I wasn’t allowed to wear it until I earned it,” Ilya says, thumb pressed to Shane’s. “My brother never won anything. I won under fifteens junior championship, so-”

What kind of fucking psychopath makes his sons fight for the only thing they have left of their mother?

Ilya’s voice drops even lower. “I thought after Sochi he might… but he forgot. That was good, I think.”

Shane holds still, and lets Ilya come apart at whatever pace he needs, his own body iron-tight around him. A squeeze at the back of Ilya's neck and a thumb skimming the cross where it shivers against his pulse.

He doesn’t dare talk. Doesn’t dare break the surface of the exhausted, shuddering silence. He just pets Ilya’s hair, runs his thumb over the curve of his skull, the nape of his neck, again and again, smoothing down the hot, sharp places he can reach. He’s an anchor for as long as Ilya wants to keep him, a ballast against any tide.

“Sorry,” Ilya finally whispers.

“No,” Shane shakes his head, his cheek pressed against Ilya’s crown. “I should have asked you, I’m sorry, I-”

The world spins as Ilya dags Shane off the arm of the couch and into his lap. He sets the photograph carefully down, then wraps Shane up in both arms.

Shane’s never found a word for the thing that happens to Ilya in moments like this. It isn’t a breakdown, and it isn’t a meltdown, and it sure as hell isn’t a panic attack in the way he gets them. It’s just… he goes quiet. A current runs through his body that cuts all his wires at once.

Shane lets himself be held. Ilya is the axis around which he’s always wanted to orbit, and he’ll let Ilya keep him like this, not moving other than to press kisses against Shane’s jaw and cheek and brow. He runs a hand along Ilya’s forearm, feeling the tremble, but also the settling, like a ship righting itself in deep water after a storm.

He thinks about the kid in the photograph. Baby Ilya, gap-toothed and smiling, a chaos swirl of energy cradled in the arms of a woman who never got to exist in Ilya’s adult life. 

Ilya says nothing for a long time.

He lets Shane run fingers through his hair, curling them gently at the nape of his neck, and the silence is easy. It’s almost meditative, the repetition, the mutual assurance that there’s nowhere to be and nothing they have to do except exist in the same square foot of space. Shane can feel his breath, uneven, against his cheek. It’s as close to peace as he’s ever felt in his fucking life.

“You are insane,” Ilya finally whispers, voice so low it’s hard to tell if he means it as a compliment.

“Yeah, but you like that about me,” Shane whispers back, because if he doesn’t, he’ll combust.

He expects Ilya to chirp him, but instead, a huge, shuddering laugh escapes. Then another. The tremor turns warm, and Ilya hugs Shane so tight he can’t think straight. “You are fucking insane,” Ilya repeats, this time clearer, almost gleeful. He nuzzles into Shane’s throat. “I want to carry you everywhere. I want to swallow you whole. You are…” The words stutter out, like he’s trying them on for the first time. “No one has ever done anything like this for me.”

“I love you,” Shane says, because it really is the simplest thing in the world. “I want you to have everything.”

When Ilya pulls back, he's so understated that it wouldn't register as anything to anyone who didn't know him, but Shane does; he can see the effort it takes for Ilya to look him in the eye and not start crying openly, the struggle to keep his voice even when he says, "I love you, too. Thank you."

No shit, Shane thinks, thank you. Like anything short of razing Russia to the fucking tundra would ever make up for what was done to him. Even so, the words land, and the way Ilya says it is how people say grace at a table, full of hunger and reverence and maybe a little bit of disbelief that they're even invited.

Shane angles his chin so he can kiss Ilya again, unhurried and easy, and anchor for them both. When they stop for air, he lets their foreheads rest together. “You know where you want to put it?”

Ilya drops a kiss to the tip of Shane’s nose. “I have an idea.”

As promised, Shane emails Ilya the digital version of the photograph.

The framed one goes to the cottage and sits on the mantlepiece over the fire, in pride of place amongst their growing altar of family.

Chapter 8

Chapter Summary

“Oh shit,” Cliff says, the thought only just occurring to him. “Dude, you’re having a panic attack.”

The glare Rozanov shoots him might be murderous if not for the fact that he looks about five seconds from passing out. He makes a horrifying, half-choked sound. “Is not panic attack.” 

“I mean, I think it fucking is,” Cliff shrugs helplessly.

Chapter Notes

Again, you can suspend your worry about anyone discovering Ilya and Shane's secret!

Enter one Cliff Marlow: Big of heart, dumb of ass.

Cliff is definitely overwhipping his eggs. That has to be it. He’s done every other fucking thing right.

He wipes the spatula on the edge of the glass bowl and glares at the glossy, faintly collapsing foam. The recipe sits on the counter, all but annotated in blood and tears: “room temp whites, superfine sugar, NO YOLK, not one atom.” He’s spent the better part of a month perfecting the formula, vowed he’d master it by the end of the season, and now the damn thing looks like someone took a dump at center ice and left everything to thaw.

It’s gotta be the eggs. The recipe says to beat them gently, but gently is fucking hard when you’ve got hands the size he does.

Fuck it all, he’s trying again. He is not losing to a fucking soufflé.

He’s folding the next batch when his phone starts to ring. He glances at the display, breath catching a little. “ROZY,” it reads, all caps. Oh, so the motherfucker has remembered Cliff’s number, has he?

Cliff licks a knuckle, wipes it on a towel, and swipes accept.

“He fucking lives!” he says, then realizes his voice is too froggy, too much coffee churning through his system, and clears his throat. “You dying or in jail?”

The sigh at the other end is full of Rozanov's typical drama. “Neither one,” Roz says, flat-voiced. “I am in Pittsburgh. You are awake, yes?”

“No, I’m talking to you in my sleep. You knock your fucking head on the ice again?” Cliff asks, then swings the bowl in a half-circle to check if the fold is even.

Rozanov tells him to go fuck himself. After seven seasons with Russia’s answer to the Terminator, Cliff probably knows more Russian curses than English ones.

“Please tell me you’re not calling to talk shit about our penalty kill,” Cliff says, only half-joking.

“Why would I? Is not my fucking problem now,” Rozanov rumbles out a laugh, and it’s cute he thinks Cliff can’t see right through him. “What, you think I still care about your sad little team?” He tries to set the phone under his chin and listens for the faint huff Rozanov always makes before he gets to the point. "I need you to do a favor for me,” he says. “Is very important. Also, what’s that sound?”

Cliff goes still and prays Roz can’t hear the embarrassing squelch of a spatula against glass. He puts the bowl down and wipes his hands. “Nothing. I’m cleaning the kitchen.”

“Are you baking again?”

“I don’t fucking bake,” Cliff lies. He’s not even sure why he bothers. He likes to fucking bake, so sue him. Roz sure as shit likes eating the end results.

“The fuck you don’t,” Rozanov interrupts, probably pissed he’s not there to taste test. “Are you making cake? Jesus Christ. Do I need to stage intervention?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“That is problem, no? Want me to hire you a hooker?”

Why the fuck does he miss this asshole?

Cliff takes a breath, braces himself one-handed against the fridge. “Get to the point. You want a favor, ask for it.”

Another low, knowing laugh. Cliff doesn’t have to see his face to know Rozanov is grinning, probably with his tongue pressed against his upper teeth. “My favor is very small. You know Petrov, yes?”

Of course he fucking knows Petrov. Ivan Petrov, rookie defenseman, twenty-one years old, but with the tunnel vision of a much older pain in the ass. 

The kid signed with the team the year Rozanov left for Ottawa. 

Cliff is his fucking Captain.

Christ, he hates Roz sometimes. Most times.

“What about him?”

“He’s at Legacy,” Rozanov says.“You need to go pick him up. Now.”

Cliff glances at his phone for the time: 2:18 a.m. Fuck, maybe he does need an intervention. “You’re fucking kidding me.” He pulls a t-shirt over his head and tries to look for car keys at the same time.

“Lucky you, Captain,” Rozanov says dryly.

And fine, keeping the kids outta trouble comes with the territory, but Petrov isn’t one of his problem children. Shy little fucker practically still calls him sir.

“And you know he’s there because…?”

“Bartender recognized him. She has my number.” Cliff takes that to mean she was one of his semi-regular hookups when he was still in Boston.

Where are his motherfucking keys…

In his jacket pocket. He takes the Audi, which is by far the least upsetting to get valeted if he ends up babysitting a puking infant who can’t hold his drink. He’ll send Roz the bill.

“Text me when you’ve got him,” Rozanov says. Then he fucking hangs up.

He wonders what kind of disaster it takes for Rozanov to call him personally, but he’s not in the business of speculation. He’s in the business of solving problems before they get anyone suspended, hurt, or on TMZ.

The parking lot at Legacy is a half-lit mess, a string of backlit luxury cars and one Jeep on three tires. Cliff spots Petrov instantly, partly because the kid’s hair is the color of orange construction cones and partly because he’s hanging out the back seat of an Uber.

The kid is collapsed across the knees of two girls, and he’s retching weakly into a paper bag someone’s supplied from the bar.

The girls spot Cliff first, their eyes going wide at the sheer unit of a man approaching at this hour in a T-shirt and shorts. “Wow,” says the non-crying one, voice flat and unimpressed. “This your dad, babe?”

“Girl, that’s Cliff Marlow!”

Cliff ignores the comments and crouches until his face is on their level. Petrov is making low, wet noises into the bag, but his eyes find Cliff and are wide with guilt and gratitude.

Cliff says, “Get up, kid. You’re making a scene.”

Petrov doesn’t get up. His face is the color of sour milk, and he sounds like he’s about to try eject the rest of his insides. Cliff’s not in the mood for the drama. He grabs the collar of Petrov’s jacket and, with a single tug, gets the kid halfway vertical. The girls let go like he’s contagious.

“He said he was taking us to his place after and now he’s, like, dying,” says one of the girls, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. 

Cliff stares at the girl and instantly clocks the dynamic here. Fuck his life. He’s too used to drinking with the likes of Roz and St-Simon, and he’s pretty sure Rozanov was spat out into the world with a smoke in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. Petrov is half fucking Russian. Isn't being able to hold his drink one of the laws of citizenship?

Petrov manages to ungum his jaw enough to speak. “I’m sorry. I’m so-so-” 

“Don’t puke in my car,” Cliff says, cutting him off. He doesn’t actually care, but the threat is usually enough.

Petrov’s chin wobbles. “I don’t wanna go h-home with them.” His English is a lot better than Roz's was at his age.

“You’re not,” Cliff says. “You’re going to bed, and if you’re quick about it, I’ll let you die in peace.”

The kid is asleep and drooling before Cliff gets his seatbelt on. Christ, he’s too old for this.

He fires Roz a text:

Got him

And then, because fuck knows what kind of headline he’d be dealing with in the morning if Roz hadn’t called him, he adds:

Thanks

He gets a thumbs-up emoji back, followed by: Send me cake.

A month later, the Ottawa Centaurs play Boston at home and get absolutely massacred 6-2. Both the Centaur’s goals go to Roz. You’d think he’d murdered the Pope if the volume of boos he receives when he steps onto the ice meant anything.

Cliff’s not particularly worried about his ego, not when he still gets that giddy little grin of his when playing in Montreal, a city that might actually try take a hit out on him one of these days, Boston or no Boston.

But fuck it, Roz is back on home turf, and he doesn’t have to fly out for another thirty-six hours. Cliff is getting that boy fucking wrecked if it kills one or both of them.

He's never understood people who can turn their feelings off between the rink and real life. For him, the anger and the joy - his, theirs, everyone’s - is a kind of fuel. After a loss, he lives for the lizard-brain pulse of rage. After a win, he needs to fucking sing.

After today, though, he feels the giddiness of a solid victory burn out in seconds. What’s left is a thumping, echoing emptiness, like he’s been hosed out with disinfectant and left to dry in a walk-in freezer.

Roz is a bastard, and it’s all his fault. Playing against him is supposed to be the one part of this whole scenario that doesn’t suck. The least he can fucking do is make it not feel like Cliff just ran over someone’s fucking pet.

It’s so fucking stupid, when the Real World slouches back in, and you realize you’ve got a team scattered in a hundred directions and you’re supposed to be the glue, the captain, the big C, but the only guy you’re thinking about is the one the city has seppuku’d out of the lineup.

You know what? Fucking sue him. He misses his best friend. If Roz doesn’t like that, then he can suck Cliff’s dick.

The rest of the team are at war with their gear. Jerseys are punted into the baskets, and pads are shed and racked for cleanup. The little cluster of rookies in the far corner is already hunched over their phones, thumb-popping through every subtweet or Instagram meme up before the Zamboni’s first lap. Cliff grinds the heel of his hand into his eye socket and tries to remember how to be a functional member of society.

He pulls up Roz’s number on his phone.

After party? He texts. Then, because he’s feeling sentimental, fuck it, he’s allowed, he adds, 'Don’t care if you stink like Centaur blood.'

He waits. Two minutes go by. Across the room, Petrov gets his stick caught in the slats of the bench, swears loud enough to get a dirty look from the trainers, and then immediately apologizes to the whole room, even though nobody actually gives a shit.

The phone buzzes. 'Five minutes. Ur 1st round.'

Cliff’s halfway into jeans when the door slams open and Ilya motherfucking Rozanov strides in like he never left, black jeans, leather jacket and damp curls a full blast to the past. There’s a beat of pure silence. Cliff watches every goddamn eye in the room pin to him.

St-Simons, who is the size of the Liberty Bell and just as loud, thumps his fist against the lockers. “Motherfucker!” he says, voice curdled with pure joy.

Even the rookies - kids who are supposed to hate Roz on principle now he’s not theirs - are grinning.

“Ah, I knew you missed me!” Rozanov crows.

“Like a fucking STI,” Cliff grunts. He is not feeding Roz’s fucking ego. “The fuck are you doing back here?”

“I am still everyone’s favorite,” Roz shrugs. “Which is not hard, given-” he flaps his hand at everyone in the room and is immediately called every name under the sun. He flops down dramatically on one of the benches and doesn’t seem in the least bit upset by the battering his team just took. “Take your time,” he tells Cliff. “I know how long it takes for you to look like a human again.”

Cliff flips him the bird, already feeling better.

It’s a weekday, and most of the boys have places to be and WAGs to please. More than half of them have kids. The old-timers chatter with Rozanov before reluctantly heading home, leaving Cliff to sign off on his post game report before reaching for his jacket.

Petrov is the only other player still left in the locker room. He’s changed into sweatpants but only has one sock on, more preoccupied with crawling along the floor in search of something.

Cliff sweeps a glance to his left, where Rozanov is gearing up for maximum nuisance, folding himself into a hunched squat to peer at Petrov, who doesn't notice he's being quietly stalked by one of the most terrifying men he'll ever meet.

Roz tips his head, wolfish. "You lose something?"

Even from here, Cliff catches the wince. The kid hasn't stopped sweating since the third period, and his voice is mangled from excitement and not enough sleep. "It's fine," he says, muffled, as he levers up a section of mat. "Probably nothing. It’s here somewhere…"

"Ah, is very normal to panic this much over nothing," Rozanov drawls.

Petrov pushes up and runs his hands through his mop of hair. "I just… I can’t find my tags.”

Ah. Shit.

“You were in the military?” Roz’s skepticism is fair.

“No, no,” Petrov mumbles, almost twisting himself upside down to reach under the bench. “They were my mom’s. Kinda… I dunno, a good luck charm, I guess. Fuck!” 

“Did you have ‘em before we hit the ice?” Cliff asks, scanning the floor of the lockerroom for anything that immediately stands out.

Roz rises from his bench, crosses the room, and fishes Petrov out by the scruff of the neck. Then he lifts the bench completely off the floor.

The tiles don’t budge, but the rubber of the bench's legs peels up with a hot pop, revealing a scatter of lost socks, muscle tape, and three years' worth of petrified gum. There are no tags. Petrov looks sick. “Fuck, fuck…”

It’s a weird silence. Cliff expects Rozanov to make a joke, maybe. But Roz sets the bench down and kneels, his face more or less even with Petrov’s. No smile now, just weird, bladed attention.

"You are sure you wore them today?" Rozanov asks, very soft. Petrov nods in misery. He looks like he’s about to cry.

Cliff’s not seen the kid’s mom at any of their games. His dad they can’t fucking shake off, even at away games, but his mom is never in the picture.

Fuck it. “Shit falls out of gear all the time. I’ll call in a favor with Puccio, he’s got half the maintenance crew in his phone.”

Petrov looks up, eyes red and shiny. “I’m sorry. I know it’s fucking stupid…”

Roz says, “It’s not stupid,” before Cliff even has a chance to speak.

“Hang tight,” he says, half an eye on Rozanov, who looks like he’s about to try and upend the entire locker unit. “Let’s go through the gear.”

They do, the three of them. Cliff checks the dry rack while the kid yanks apart his whole locker: every pocket, every tie-in, trying to will the tags back into existence by sheer force of panic. 

They’re at it for over an hour, recruiting maintenance and any stragglers to the search. Petrov tries to stammer out some excuse to stop them from helping. Cliff shoots it down the first three times, because they’re a team, kid, they can fucking help. The fourth time, Rozanov growls something at him in Russian, and Petrov shudders before nodding and accepting the help.

That’s when the kid’s dad shows his face, stern and frowning, no doubt wondering what the fuck is taking him so long. Roz shoots Cliff a look he has no fucking clue how to interpret, then turns on the Rozanov charm. Any complaints Petrov’s old man was about to air are quickly sidestepped in the face of Russia’s greatest sporting export. Rozanov steers the old bastard out towards the offices.

In the end, they find the tags in the shower, stuck in the drain grate.

It's past eleven when the last of the rookie's panic drains away. Petrov, dog tags looped around his carrot-colored hair, tries to thank them both at least three different ways before Rozanov finally shakes his head and tells him to fuck off home.

He's got the kid's dad in tow - a rail-thin man built of attitude and sinew. The old man looks past Cliff, not at him, which suits Cliff just fine. He watches in the benchroom mirror as they exit through the far doors, Petrov's hand twitching nervously at his neck.

Cliff expects Roz to chirp him about the whole production, but he just sits there on the bench, eyes flat. Marlow's spent most of his professional life tuning himself to the channel of Rozanov’s moods; he can read this frequency from the parking lot, even if he doesn’t really know how to interpret it.

“Buy you a drink?” Cliff says, grabbing his parka from a peg. “You did half my job for me tonight.” Rozanov shrugs, which is roughly equal to anyone else saying, “Fuck off and die.”

Yeah, he knows exactly how this is gonna play out. Roz gets in one of these moods, and there are three directions he can go in:

Either he’ll head out, get laid, and down half a bottle of vodka, or -

“Changed my mind. Not in the mood.” He at least tries to look apologetic, but clearly the window between the excitement at treading old ground and the disappointment of such a brutal loss is smaller than Cliff’s expected.

But there is a third option. Cliff saves it for special occasions. Times when he’s actually worried Rozanov is gonna drink himself into a coma, or the attention he’s getting at a club is just the wrong kind.

“The fuck you are,” he says, throwing an arm around Roz’s neck and hauling his miserable ass up. “I got a bottle with your name on it.” And when Roz tries to protest, he adds, “And a new recipe I worked on over the weekend.”

Every fucking time. Roz squints at him. “Chocolate?”

“And peanut butter,” Cliff says gleefully. There’s no one else around, and Rozanov will keep his secret. “Come hang out, and I’ll let you take a box home with you.”

Rozanov looks thoughtful. He raises a hand to touch the chain around his neck, then flashes Cliff a sideways smirk. “I will do you this favor,” he says seriously.

“How fucking magnanimous of you.”

“Hmm, that is a big word. Do you need me to explain it to you?”

“I fucking hate you,” Cliff says, steering them towards the parking lot, one arm still thrown around Rozanov’s shoulders, the two of them no doubt looking fucking crazy as they bump into each other and everything else around them. “Seriously though bro… fucking Ottawa?”

Roz huffs, breath fogging in the frigid air of the parking lot. "I know."

“Dude, you better be getting some A plus fucking orgasms outta this.”

“I cannot complain,” Rozanov shrugs.

“I’m gonna meet her one day, right?” Cliff's fingers tap against Roz's shoulder, still draped under his arm. It makes sense, he supposes, that he’d go to Ottawa for his Montreal chick. It’s close enough, and it’s not like the fucking Metros would take him. Hell, it’s the only reason he can think of, because it’s sure as shit not the city. “It’s been fucking years, bro. I want an intro!”

“Hmm, no,” Rozanov replies, eyes fixed straight ahead, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“You worried she’ll like me better? I am taller and way fucking hotter.” Cliff gestures at himself with his free hand.

He's not heard Rozanov laugh like he does in fucking years.

Another six weeks, and it’s Boston’s turn to head to Ottawa. They win, but only by a point this time. It’s not the hometown crowd advantage, that’s for sure. More than two-thirds of the fans are in Raiders shirts.

It’s a good game. Might’ve been a perfect game if Petrov hadn’t made a play for Rozanov and been practically put through the barrier for his trouble. The whole thing is clean, but it’s a long-overdue reminder that the Centaurs might not be the best team, but Rozanov is still a fucking terror to go up against in any form.

Roz is waiting for Cliff after the final whistle. “How’s the kid?” he asks.

Cliff’s shoulder is fucking killing him as he rolls his arm into the sleeve of his coat. It’s fucking freezing outside. Boston in winter is bad enough.

“Broken arm,” Cliff grunts, annoyed that the kid will be out for the next few months. “Clean break, though, by the sound of it. Gonna head down and check on him.”

Rozanov nods. “I will come with you.” He obviously feels bad. He won’t apologise, not when he did nothing wrong, but Cliff knows him well enough to know that squishy part of him that occasionally emerges around the rookies.

The Raiders have full use of the Centaur’s clinic, which is set up on the lower level, past a gash of corridor lined with shredded mats and garish decal stickers of their embarrassing fucking mascot. He hates the smell of these places: old sweat and cleaning alcohol, a chemical bite that lingers in your nostrils after even a minute inside. He’s one of those fast healers, never needs sedation, prefers to white-knuckle his way through fixes and tapings even when it would make sense to just accept the needle. So the sight of Petrov’s name scribbled in green marker at the end of the row just puts him in a mood.

Rozanov walks beside him, not exactly matching pace but close to it. Cliff tries not to think about how weird it feels, bringing the ‘enemy’ in to see one of theirs, but the guilt on Roz’s face is a rare enough sight that he figures the universe can spare him this one.

Inside the exam room, it’s quiet. Petrov’s on the padded table with his jersey sleeve snipped up past the shoulder, skin already purpling at his wrist. His face is white, clammy, but he sits up straight and stubborn, his gaze glued to the wall. The doc’s off in the corner prepping a cast. 

Petrov Senior stands over his son, too close, voice barely above a growl, the words in Russian. He’s not shouting, but the sound claws at Cliff’s nerves anyway.

The kid finally breaks. He responds in kind, his voice lined with humiliation, but steady enough to pass for brave.

His dad ignores him, snaps a string of words so sharp Cliff can tell they’re an insult even without a dictionary. He’s all sharp gestures and anger, and it takes half a fucking second once the kid flinches for Cliff to decide the old bastard needs evicting.

He's about to step in and get the old man gone, but Rozanov gets there first.

Now Cliff is scary because he’s a big motherfucker.

Rozanov is scary because he’s a big motherfucker, and because he’s a little fucking crazy.

He also isn’t a guy to waste energy. Not on the ice, not in the weight room, and sure as hell not here. He crosses the tile in two steps and clamps his hand on Petrov Senior's shoulder. The old man yelps something, half startle and half dog-snarl, and Rozanov hauls him backward so fast the chair scrapes out from under him and smacks the linoleum with a crack.

“We will be right back,” Roz says to the wide-eyed doc, and then they’re in the hallway before Petrov's dad catches his balance again. Cliff's pretty sure Rozanov does it on purpose, letting him twist free for a half a second just so he can see what the old bastard does when he hits open ground.

He’s not so much there to provide backup as an alibi.

There’s a short, sharp exchange of Russian, then Rozanov has the old bastard against the wall by his throat.

Cliff makes a mental note to talk to management. Petrov’s father is off the fucking visitor list back in Boston.

He makes another mental note to talk to Johnson, the kid’s roommate.

Not being able to follow the conversation is a bitch, but the subtext is kinda fucking heavy. Somewhere in there is most likely a threat, one underlined by the fact that Roz has his prey scrabbling to keep his feet on the ground.

Cliff’s thrown back into a hotelroom, watching Shane fucking Hollander of all people, go to town on Roz’s brother. He doesn’t need someone to draw him a picture.

He leans back and lets Roz do whatever he fucking needs to do.

What he doesn’t like, what he really fucking doesn’t like, is that Petrov’s one of his. He’s Cliff’s responsibility, and he fucking hates that he’s somehow missed how bad things are.

It’s different with Rozanov. He’s never seen him with his family; he’s not been there to miss the things he’s clearly fucking missed with Petrov. And now he’s wondering how often the fucking prick was messing with the kid right in front of him just because Cliff doesn’t speak the same fucking language.

Christ, he fucking hates people sometimes.

Rozanov is leaning in close, and he’s all fucking teeth. His voice is lower now, and twice is fucking scary for it. He says something that makes Petrov Senior nod awkwardly in his grip.

Then he takes a step back and holds up his hands.

The sonovabitch fucking books it. Not back into the clinic room where his son is getting patched up, but straight towards the exit.

“The fuck did you say to him?” Cliff says mildly, annoyed that he doesn’t move fast enough to clock the asshole himself.

Next time. If he shows his face again.

Rozanov doesn’t answer him at first. His chest is heaving like he’s played three periods straight through.

Cliff ducks back into the clinic. Petrov looks half-wrecked and hasn’t even managed to redress himself. Kid’s chin is tilted, his eyes pinned to the tile. Cliff clocks the white band circling his wrist, the fresh cast, the way he keeps flexing his fingers and glancing at the door like he expects the old man to slither back in.

“You good?” Cliff asks, not bothering to lower his voice. Petrov blinks. Some of the sweat has dried on his brow, hair stuck flat to his forehead. He looks up at Cliff, all fucking wet eyes, and Jesus fuck, does Cliff feel old.

“Yeah. Sorry about…” Petrov shrugs, wincing when the broken arm moves. “Is… is my dad, is Rozanov-”

“Don’t worry about him,” Cliff bats away the question. “Don’t worry about any of it. He's not coming back tonight.”

Cliff wants to say a lot of things. Stay away from your old man. Next time just look at me and I’ll throat-punch him myself. Instead, he jerks his head toward the door. “Call Johnson, he’ll get you back to your room. I’ll tell the others you’re headed home. Tomorrow, you and me are gonna talk, okay?” And because he knows the kid, he tacks on, “You’re not in any fucking trouble.” Petrov’s lips flatten, an almost-smile.

Cliff nods slowly. “You’re a fucking Raider. Remember that.”

Petrov nods quickly. “Yes, sir,” he blurts. Cliff’s about to tell him not to fucking call him ‘sir’, but diverts himself before the words are out.

“Marley,” he stresses. “Or Cap if you gotta.”

God save him from these fucking children. “Sure thing, Cap.”

Cliff grunts and heads back to the door. They probably need to check with security. And then fuck, get Petrov and Johnson a new fucking hotel room.

Time to make sure Roz hasn’t gone full Hulk and punched through a wall. Cliff steps into the corridor-

-and Rozanov is on the floor. Not really collapsed or sprawled, just…down. Legs straight out in front of him, back to the painted cinderblock, his hands fisted in his hair as if he’s trying to anchor his brain into his skull by sheer pressure.

“The fuck, man,” he drops down to his knees next to Rozanov. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Roz says, lying through his fucking teeth. Cliff can barely see the blue of his eyes at all, and he’s whiter than the ice they skate on. “I’m fine.”

Which is why his chest is rising and falling like he’s running a fucking marathon. No, actually, they’ve done a fucking marathon. They sailed right the fuck through it.

This is something totally fucking different. “Hey, hey, you gotta breathe, bro,” he says, aiming for encouraging and setting his hand on Roz’s knee.

“I am fucking breathing,” Roz snaps, and okay, yes, true, he technically is, but he’s not breathing right.

“Okay, fuck, maybe breathe less?”

Roz clunks his head back against the wall, his eyes closed.

“Roz?”

Rozanov makes a sound. Not quite a word, but definitely not silence.

The noise he makes is getting raspier, like his chest is full of wires. He thinks of how fast Roz can bench two-fifty, but doubts he could get him to stand up right now if the room caught fire.

"You havin' a heart attack or something?" He says it cool, but also not.

"I am fine," Roz hisses, which is not how fine people usually sound. Cliff glances down the hall. Completely empty. He sends out a prayer that it stays that way. Last fucking thing anyone needs is for Petrov to step out into whatever the fuck this is.

“Take a minute,” Cliff says, slower, fighting the urge to fill the air with bullshit just so it feels less like a vacuum. “Or, uh, you want water? Or, fuck, a punch in the face? Sometimes it resets your, uh, system?”

Roz barks a laugh, or maybe a cough. Cliff can't tell. "Just give me second. I am not…" He clicks his tongue. “Fuck…”

“Oh shit,” Cliff says, the thought only just occurring to him. “Dude, you’re having a panic attack.”

The glare Rozanov shoots him might be murderous if not for the fact that he looks about five seconds from passing out. He makes a horrifying, half-choked sound. “Is not panic attack.” 

“I mean, I think it fucking is,” Cliff shrugs helplessly.

Rozanov is full on shaking now. “I know what a fucking panic attack looks like!”

“Like fucking this!” Cliff yells, then winces. “Sorry, sorry… okay, okay, just like. Deep breaths.”

Roz gets this weird look, somewhere between 'fuck off' and something Cliff can't even begin to read. "I am not having panic attack," Roz says, through his teeth, like just saying the word is beneath him. "I am just-" He breaks off to suck in a breath that rattles straight through his chest.

"Hey, you want me to call someone?" Cliff asks, because holy fuck, he is not qualified for this. Fuck, he’s a shit Captain. Fuck… he’s an even shitter friend.

Roz shakes his head in furious, tiny jerks.

"Ambulance? You want me to get one of the docs?"

A hiss. "No. Not ambulance. Not a doctor. Is not…"

But then Roz jams a fist into his thigh so hard it makes Cliff flinch. The other hand still claws at his hair, like he's thinking of yanking out a chunk. He’s going a weird ash color, breathing so sharply now it cuts right through the white noise hum in the corridor.

Cliff doesn't know what to do except keep him grounded. “Just fucking-” he says, and then stops because there’s nothing to follow that with, just a silent press of energy. He reaches over, puts his palm to Roz’s forearm, feeling the tremor all the way to his own teeth.

Roz bats him away with no coordination. “Fuck off.”

“Okay, but I’m not leaving,” Cliff says, which is as much an admission of defeat as anything he’s ever said in his life. “You want me to call your girl in Montreal? I’ll do it. Jane, right?”

“I will- fucking-” Fuck everything, Cliff’s making it worse. “In the fucking- fuck!”

He tries to bang his head against the wall again. “No, okay, absolutely the fuck not-” What follows can, at best, be described as an attempt to wrestle fucking jello. To the shock of absolutely fucking nobody, Roz is the least helpful sonovabitch on the planet.

But Cliff does manage to get an arm between him and the wall, so that’s something.

“Dude, I gotta fucking call someone!” He says, more panic now than anything. He can feel Rozanov’s pulse under his hand and fuck.

"Fuck this," Cliff mutters. "Fuck. Fuck." He tries the trick his own dad used when Cliff was thirteen and broke his leg and nearly passed out from the shock: count down from ten, take the biggest breath at every odd number. But Roz won't even meet his eyes. The shaking is only getting worse, and his jaw is so tight the muscle looks like steel cable.

"Okay, listen, I'm calling an ambulance." Cliff fumbles for the phone in Rozanov’s jacket pocket.

"No," Roz jerks upright, snatching for it but nearly topples himself right over. He's sweating through the neck of his shirt, eyes huge, the veins at his temples throbbing visibly. "No," he says again, voice vibrating in the hollow of his throat. Cliff’s never seen him like this. Even the time his shoulder crunched out, and he had to have it popped back in, Roz bit through it, gum-line bleeding, straight-faced and cussing. This is different. This is something he can't punch, can't skate through, can't bottle up with a joke.

He tries again, more desperate. "Fucking fine, who do you want me to call? Say a name and I’ll do it, I swear to-"

Roz palms his forehead and shakes his head, but the word tumbles out in a weird, nervous staccato. "David."

David could be someone from the Centaur’s management. He could be another player. He could be Roz’s fucking gardener. He doesn’t know and doesn’t care; he just waits with a shrill kind of patience for Roz to unlock the phone and wilt.

David is the second name on his call log, right under Jane. Cliff jabs the speaker icon and waits, bracing Roz’s shoulder so he doesn’t collapse.

The phone rings four times before someone picks up. A man’s voice, not young, not old, and so fucking Canadian. “Hey, kid, how’re you doing?”

Oh thank fuck, he’s reached a more adult-y fucking adult.

“Hey,” Cliff croaks, “it’s, fuck, I’m here with Rozanov. Ilya. And he’s, uh, I think he’s-” Maybe fucking dying? “He can’t breathe, and he’s shaking like a motherfucker, and he won’t let me call an ambulance, and he’s definitely having a fucking panic attack and-”

“Put him on,” David interrupts.

“I,” Cliff fumbles with the phone. “You’re on speaker.”

“Ilya, son, can you hear me?”

Roz is silent long enough that Cliff has to give him a little shake. “Yes.”

“Okay, great. I’m getting in the car now. Where are you?”

He can just barely make out the sound of a car door closing and an engine gunning. “Stadium,” Cliff says, “minus two, medical level, just past the Zamboni pit. It’s empty.”

“Good.” The word comes out quick and clipped, like an order. Then, softer, “Are you a player?”

Cliff blinks, swipes his palm over the back of his neck. “Uh, Marlow. Cliff Marlow, Captain, Boston. Friends a long time.” His voice goes weird at ‘friends,’ and he can’t bring himself to say ‘I care about this asshole more than just about anyone.’ Not to a stranger.

David goes quiet, and Cliff can hear the turn signal click in the background, a car accelerating. Then, low and so soft he barely catches it: “Ilya? How you hanging in there, kid?”

“I’m fine,” Roz mumbles, his voice thick. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“You’re doing great,” David says, and Cliff decides he doesn’t care if he’s the barista from Roz’s favorite coffee shop; he fucking likes him. “How’s your breathing?”

“Fine,” Roz says, like the lying fuicking liar he is.

David clearly doesn’t believe him, but he is willing to humor him. Maybe that’s the trick? “I want you to meet me outside, okay? Can you do that? Cliff is going to help.”

Damn right he is. He can do that at least.

“Roger,” Cliff says, but Rozanov doesn’t move when he tries to help him up. If anything, his legs go even more rigid, calf muscles bunching under Cliff’s grip.

He crouches down, right in front of Rozanov’s face. He expects the usual: a glare, a muttered fuck off, something to deflect, but Roz’s eyes are wet and flicking between the floor and his own knees. He’s not even blinking. Christ.

“Okay, I got you,” Cliff tries again, real gentle this time. The motion of getting upright is all Cliff’s doing. Roz might be a big bastard, but right now he moves like he’s made of wet paper. Even then, he resists, hunches his shoulders, and fuck, is he… is he crying?

Something breaks and reknits itself under Cliff’s sternum. He’s never seen Roz like this. 

“Come on, buddy,” he says, slinging Roz’s arm over his shoulders. Roz’s breathing is raw and full of snot, and he’s making no effort to hide it, tears welling and running down his face and holy shit, Cliff’s going to murder someone. Maybe himself. He’s fucking everything up.

The phone’s still live; David’s silent, listening. Cliff walks them both in lopsided steps toward the staff door. He can’t process what’s happening except for the tactile, stupid things, like the scent of the shitty shower gel Rozanov’s used to wash his hair and the scuff of their soles against the floor.

They get to the door, and he hits the crash bar with his thigh. Cold, iron-scented winter air hits them both in the face, so sharp it stings. Roz makes a blurted, keening noise, and Cliff almost drops him.

Cliff steadies Roz against the wall, one hand splayed across his chest, holding him upright. There’s no one around, just a few lights burning like dirty suns over the loading dock and the infinite, gaping dark beyond the stadium. He feels the rattle of Rozanov’s chest, the almost-wheeze at the fringes of each breath, every tremor of those huge muscles locked down tight.

Then a car slides up, headlights low. It curves to a stop so close the air moves, then the driver’s side door is open, and there’s a man; mid-fifties, maybe, cropped silver hair, not tall, but with the placid violence of a fellow player. He’s in a fleece and bluejeans, nothing fancy.

He looks weirdly familiar.

“Thank you,” he says to Cliff, like they’ve met before, and takes Rozanov’s arm. Roz, who until now has let himself be moved only by the certainty of gravity, tracks him with the panic-bright eyes of a caged animal. David’s voice drops, just for him, and the words are so gentle Cliff feels like an idiot for how badly he’s botched this.

“I got you, kid, you’re okay.”

Cliff expects Roz to be Roz and to try to deflect with that usual brand of barbed wire humor, but instead, he just nods, his breathing already starting to slow.

“There you go. Let’s get you home, huh?”

Cliff runs so hard into the next mental roadblock that he almost fucking trips. “Thank you for coming,” he says, and he means it. “But I don’t fucking know you, or what you are to him.”

David blinks at him, clearly surprised, but when he doesn’t immediately have an answer, Cliff decides to reassess his liking.

David's hand is on Roz’s elbow, gentle but locked. Not the first time, maybe, and Cliff knows that move, he’s used it on his own fuckups. He swings his attention from Roz to David and back. Something's fucked here, but he can't puzzle out what, not in the dark with his own breath making clouds in front of his face.

Christ, he wants to trust this. Wants to trust that Rozanov has called him for a reason. But David is way too familiar with him, and he knows Roz doesn’t have people like that in his life.

He starts to pull back, only for Roz to practically slide out of his grip. “Dad,” he just about manages to mumble. “S’my dad.”

Cliff just about drops him in shock. David doesn’t look much better. He looks like he might be about to cry himself.

“Ilya…”

Roz turns his face away from both of them.

“Help me get him in the car,” David then says to Cliff.

Cliff just fucking nods.

Roz is steadier on his feet with both of them, so it’s easier to get him in the front seat than it was to haul his ass out of the building.

“Sorry,” he mutters to Cliff.

Fuck it, now he’s about to cry, too. He leans in, cups his palm around the back of Roz’s neck, and bumps their foreheads together. “I got you, brother,” he says. “Call me tomorrow.”

Roz nods.

Cliff and David share the farewell nod of shared responsibility, and he stays in the parking lot until he can no longer see the car in the distance.

Fuck, he’s tired.

He needs to check on Petrov. And he needs to talk to coach. And he needs a fucking drink.

Roz doesn’t call him, but he does text. Cliff’s at the hotel watching the Metros and the Admirals fight for their first game point.

Sorry, he says again.

Fuck off Cliff texts back. How’re you feeling?

Like I go run over by a zamboni. How’s Petrov?

Fine. Think he’s in love with you now. Cliff is 100% gonna murder the kid's father if he ever shows his face, but management is on it.

He’s got good taste. Drinks on me next time.

Damn fucking right they are. Cliff hasn’t slept a fucking wink. He’s fucking aged.

The TV does its usual close-up of the family seats. He spots a few familiar faces, including Pike’s small army of kids. Shane Hollander’s mom is sat next to them, chatting to one of the girls.

Cliff sits upright with a jolt.

He fucking knew he recognised David. David fucking Hollander.

His phone pings. Another message from Roz.

Can you not say anything to anyone? Please?

Aside from the fact that he thinks this is the first time Rozanov has ever used the word ‘please’ with him, Cliff almost sprains something texting back.

Not a word. Promise.

Christ, Roz likes to be fucking difficult, doesn’t he?

Damn right Cliff isn’t saying anything to anyone. If Ilya Rozanov wants to hook up with Shane Hollander’s fucking sister, Cliff is staying well the fuck out.

Chapter 9

Chapter Summary

Shane looks at them both as if they’re being ridiculous. “I’m not sending you to Russia in economy.”

“He is right, that would be cruel,” Ilya shrugs at them, before shooting Shane a heavy sideways glance. “We will be talking about this later, but-”

“No buts,” Shane says, pleased with himself.

The look Ilya shoots David is pleading. “Am I ever going to win an argument with him?” He asks, all his prickly edges softened by exasperated fondness and, if David’s not wrong, just a sprinkle of relief that someone’s taken the choice out of his hands.

Yuna answers for him. “Not a chance. Sorry, honey.”

Chapter Notes

Hahaha okay so warning on this one. I broke myself a little. Maybe a lot. David, Yuna (and me!) are doing their best with a very sensetive subject...

I am over the moon that everyone had so much fun with Cliff and I promise he will be back (with extra hands on deck) shortly. We're slowly kinda veering into the territory of The Long Game, so there will be bits and pieces set both within that timeline and after.

It’s a rare day that David and Yuna get to host both the boys together. Rarer still when they don’t arrive smiling. David knows for a fact that he’s never seen Shane so happy, so often, and he’s certainly seen Ilya smile more than ever, but he doesn’t think that counts given the kid’s famous glower.

Both smiles are absent today as they trudge in together in full hoodie-and-joggers camouflage, and drop their bags with a synchronized, exhausted slump.

David goes to get them both drinks and uses the excuse to give Yuna the heads-up. ‘I don’t know!’ he mouths when she gestures in a way that suggests he’s supposed to magically know what’s happening.

“Food’ll be ready in five,” he says, sliding Shane his ginger ale and Ilya his Coke. “You boys okay?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, just as Shane answers at the same time.

“No.”

Ilya leans back and casts his gaze at the ceiling, visibly praying for patience. “I thought we said we weren’t doing this here?”

“You said,” Shane frowns. “I think we need an outside opinion.”

“There’s nothing to have an opinion on!” Ilya shoots back.

David is still wrapping his head around whether this is their version of banter, some playful friction in the boys' dynamic, or the beginnings of a world-class meltdown. He sits, lowering himself onto the battered kitchen chair, and is about to try to redirect the conversation when Yuna, bless her sweet, undiplomatic soul, beats him to it.

“Is this about the game last night?” she asks, mostly to Shane, but her eyes flick to Ilya, reading the iceberg beneath the surface. “We talked about it. The calls were-” she makes a face of polite disgust, “-interesting...” David will give her points for that one. It’s not easy when the boys play face-to-face on the ice. They enjoy it far more than he and Yuna do, that’s for sure.

There’s a moment of silence. David watches Shane set his jaw, telegraphing his own exasperation by flattening his hands over his knees and not moving. Under the table, Ilya bounces a foot in place, rhythmic and mechanical, but otherwise sits perfectly still.

“It’s not about the fucking game,” Shane says, then realizes who he’s speaking to, ducks his head, and mumbles a stitched-together apology. He’s defensive, scrunched in a sweater with the sleeves pulled down until they almost swallow his hands. It’s probably Ilya’s.

“Okay,” David encourages, trying to channel the slow, implacable calm that always works with his son when he’s starting to spiral.

“It’s not,” Ilya agrees, softer. He glances at David, as if seeking some kind of anchor, then looks away so quickly.

“Dinner,” Yuna announces, to no one in particular, and starts ferrying dishes to the table. David takes this as the invitation to nudge the conversation, to try and normalize whatever is happening before it flares into real drama. He dishes up the salmon and puts a little extra bread on Ilya’s plate, and only then asks, “So what’s new, then?”

Ilya, it seems, would rather sand his own skin off than answer. He looks at Shane, then at the table, jaw flexing so hard David half expects the sound of grinding enamel.

Shane's eyes dart to his parents before he blurts out, "Ilya' s going back to Russia," his voice cracking.

"For three days!" Ilya protests, hands flying up, fingers splayed in exasperation.

"Apparently," Shane continues, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, "I can't change his mind-"

“You can’t!” Ilya cuts him off.

“And I can’t go with him-” Shane's knuckles whiten as he grips his own forearm.

"Out of the question." Ilya crosses his arms tightly across his chest, that scowl of his fixed firmly in place.

Shane looks between David and Yuna, desperation softening his features. "So I think you guys should go with him instead."

Ilya's mouth falls open, eyebrows shooting toward his hairline. "Wait, what?"

“If you have to go-”

Ilya’s exasperation is almost its own physical entity. “Yes!”

"-and you won't listen to a goddamn word I say-" Shane's face flushes crimson. “Then I think mom and dad should go with you. You can tell people it’s something for the Foundation and it won’t even be a lie.” Shane hisses through clenched teeth, trembling visibly. Tears cling to his lashes, unlikely to fall but there for the world to see, his misery mirroring itself in Ilya, who folds like a house of cards at the sight of them.

David resists the urge to reach over and pat Ilya’s shoulder. Welcome to the rest of your life, kid. He can’t stand that look either. At least Ilya only has to deal with it on one front. David has Shane and Yuna to contend with.

“Shane,” Ilya says gently, reaching up to brush his thumb under Shane’s eye. “Stop. I’m not going to a war zone. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“If that was true,” Shane says stubbornly, managing to both lean into the touch and stare Ilya down at the same time. “Then you’d let me come with you.”

Ilya drops his hand and looks back at the table. No one has touched their meal yet.

Yuna jumps in before the silence slides from tense to awkward. “I mean, we can…”

They can?

“Of course we can,” David says quickly. Yuna looks at him expectantly, and for the nine-thousandth time in his life, he remembers how concrete her yes becomes once it is out of her mouth.

He nods, but keeps his gaze mostly on Ilya, who already looks like the whole idea is physically painful. He draws himself up, shoulders back. “No. Thank you, but no. It’s really not a big thing. I take care of it, then I come home.”

Yuna doesn’t buy that for even a second, no matter how smooth or soft Ilya tries to play it. She sets her fork down and folds her hands beneath her chin. “You don’t want company, or you don’t want help?”

Ilya keeps his eyes on his plate. The tips of his ears are already flaming red. “It’s not about that. You are very busy, and it is too much trouble.” He shrugs with one shoulder, a practiced maneuver, graceful and designed to minimize drama and deflect the force of attention away from himself.

It’s also a giant green flag to push harder. It can be hard to tell when Ilya genuinely doesn’t want something, but when he hides behind the excuse of being an inconvenience or bother… that’s code for "‘I don’t actually know how to ask for what I need’.

Shane, still rigid, doesn’t let him hide. “You’re not a trouble, Ilya. I’m booking the tickets.” He already has his phone out. By the speed he’s moving at, David would bet cash on him already having the details lined up, ready to hit go.

“You’re not booking the tickets,” Ilya mutters, but the words are weak, and the second they escape his mouth, he shoots Shane a pleading look. “Shane-”

“Done,” Shane says, bulldozing right past the attempted puppy-dog defense with the same stubborn intensity that’s won him two Stanley Cups. “You want me to eat thirty thousand dollars because of your pride?”

“Jesus, Shane!” Yuna scolds him while David tries to shake the ringing from his ears. Sorry, how much?

Shane looks at them both as if they’re being ridiculous. “I’m not sending you to Russia in economy.”

“He is right, that would be cruel,” Ilya shrugs at them, before shooting Shane a heavy sideways glance. “We will be talking about this later, but-”

“No buts,” Shane says, pleased with himself.

The look Ilya shoots David is pleading. “Am I ever going to win an argument with him?” He asks, all his prickly edges softened by exasperated fondness and, if David’s not wrong, just a sprinkle of relief that someone’s taken the choice out of his hands.

Yuna answers for him. “Not a chance. Sorry, honey.”

Shane tugs on the back of his neck until he can pull Ilya in and press a kiss to his forehead.

The sigh of defeat Ilya lets out is one David recognizes on a spiritual level. “Don’t worry, kid,” he says consolingly. “You get used to it.”

Ilya does try to give them a get-out, promising to sort the flights out with Shane before listing a long parade of reasons why they neither need nor should want to come.

He watches Ilya try two, then five more times to deflect, to carve some space back out from Shane’s plan. It’s a master class in futility. The more Ilya tries to orchestrate his own isolation, the harder Shane and Yuna clamp down, and instead of backing off, they triangulate, fixing him like a bug on a pin. Ilya puts up just enough protest to make his point, then folds and lets whatever is happening just happen.

From the kitchen, David opens a browser window and starts looking at the weather in Moscow, at hotels, at whether he’ll need a plug adapter or to pack a proper coat and scarf. He makes a show of it, so Ilya can see him, so Ilya knows what side they’re on.

Shane already has a list on his phone, seeming to operate on the assumption that if he convinces Ilya he’s more of a glorified tour guide than someone in need of parental supervision, he’ll accept his fate more easily.

The kicker is that it actually works. He has some paperwork to do, he says, see his lawyer, and run some errands. That’s it. The rest of the time, he will be at their disposal.

It’s a marvel to watch. Shane’s the least manipulative person David has ever met, but he’s a master when it comes to navigating Ilya’s guardrails. And Ilya, it seems, not only knows it but thrives under it.

After dinner, before the boys head back to their place, Ilya lingers in the hall while Yuna fusses with the plates. He waits, expectant. When David joins him, Ilya tries again: “You know, you really don’t have to-”

David hears his own father somewhere in his voice. “You’d be doing us a favor, kid. It’s on the bucket list.”

It wasn’t, but it is now, so it’s not really a lie.

Ilya flicks his gaze away, uncomfortable, but the tips of his ears are pink with pleasure. He nods once, short and decisive, then hoists his coat over his shoulder and calls for Shane, who’s already shouting goodbye to Yuna. They leave just as the rain picks up again, Shane driving, Ilya in the passenger seat, faces lit by the blue fog of the dashboard.

David stands at the window until the taillights disappear, then goes to help with the last of the dishes. Yuna snags his arm before he can reach the sink and leans against him. He presses a kiss behind her ear. “You are not peeing on that man’s grave,” he warns sternly.

Personally, he’s more in favor of arson.

She makes a non-committal sound before wriggling free and getting back to work.

Oh yeah, he and Ilya need to get themselves some kind of club t-shirt.

Once he gets his head around the idea, Ilya does what Ilya always does when he’s out of his depth, and doubles down at a rate of knots.

A driver meets them at their house and takes them straight to the airport, where Ilya is already drinking in the lounge. They keep their greetings semi-professional, there as board members of the Irina Foundation, and don’t try to match him in the number of refills he gets from the bar.

There’s a fascinating but rather sad transition in him already; the fashion, if that’s what the kids call it, that he usually favors is preemptively swapped out for clothes that look both tailored and wildly expensive. His hair is styled differently. His posture is more toy soldier stiffness than languid stalk. They’re still on Canadian soil, but already Ilya’s shed the comfortable skin of his daily life for… whatever this is.

David’s never been to Russia before. The closest he’s come is Riga, thirty years back, during a weeklong leadership conference that just happened to coincide with the parade for Latvia’s independence. He tries not to compare the two cities, but after arriving in Moscow, even filtered through the antiseptic blur of first-class lounges and blacked-out Mercedes vans, he’s shocked by the scale of everything.

It’s Ilya’s city, that much he can tell almost immediately. A place stamped on his very being. It’s poise and opulence and fierce defiance. Someplace beautiful, whose offering of warmth, hospitality, and excitement is only matched by the quiet suggestion of more bubbling below the surface.

He should be jetlagged to hell and back, but the blitz of sensory overload has short-circuited the usual aches and slow brain fog. He slept on the flight, but not well, and only in increments: a series of half-awarenesses interrupted by the tapping of Ilya’s foot across the aisle, the rustle of newspapers, the soft sound of Yuna’s breathing from behind the barrier between them.

He’s surprised how much comfort he takes in the ordinary anxieties.

They check in at the Four Seasons, a stately building of glass and stone that glows golden in the evening.

Their suite is larger than their house, probably, with a view that eats the skyline. The Red Square is an ornate, toothy smile below: in one direction, the pastel delirium of St. Basil’s, in the other, the memory palace of Lenin’s mausoleum, low and black as a brick of charcoal. If he cranes his neck, he can see the thread of the river, silver-grey and busy even at this hour of the day.

Ilya’s room is next to theirs. This, he says, is for safety. No idea if that means their safety or his, but David doesn’t feel unsafe. From the way they’ve been treated since boarding the plane, he kinda feels like he’s travelling with royalty.

He’s just not prepared for how little of the man he knows makes it through the customs line at Sheremetyevo.

Maybe that’s not quite right. It’s still Ilya, but all the small things he’s grown to love are held in tighter check: the way he protests Yuna’s insistence on proper hydration, the bite of his humor dulled to a faint, metallic scratch, the flare of possessiveness or pride… that’s all dialed so far down that David keeps wondering if there’s some secret contract he’s signed when he boarded the plane.

It’s hard not to remember that first cookout with the kid, and how Ilya had looked like someone who wanted nothing more than to wedge himself into a new orbit, to build gravity out of shared jokes and easy comfort. Here, the only time Ilya seems wholly present is when he’s scanning the landscape through layers of old paranoia and new responsibility.

The worst part, perhaps, is not the change in him, but in those small parts David does recognize. In those few seconds, David sees the tragedy of Ilya Rozanov through a whole new lens.

A part of Ilya loves this city. It’s clear in the moments that peak out behind the cautious veener.

He wonders what it must be, to leave a place so young and for such dark reasons, and then boomerang back, as much a stranger here as you are at home. How do you carry an entire city inside your body when every visit is a reminder that you get to belong here only for as long as you’re useful?

“Thank you,” he says again as they’re all seated for dinner in a building dominated by a huge glass dome. “I promise you will have a good time.”

David’s always considered himself a respectful man, but there’s a special kind of etiquette to foreign restaurants he’s never quite adjusted to. Ilya walks them through a menu that’s written in English. David’s tempted to ask to see the Russian version just so he can compare them and practice.

“It’s a very beautiful city,” Yuna says while they wait for their starters.

“Hmm, yes,” Ilya agrees.

“Somehow not what I expected,” she adds.

Ilya snorts. “Yes, I am sure. Shane is convinced it is like a bad movie and silovik will pounce the second I land.”

David and Yuna share a quick glance. This might be one of those times the boys are on the same page, but reading two different translations of the text.

“Well, we appreciate you letting us tag along.”

“Is nothing,” Ilya waves the comment away. “Shane is happy that I have supervision. He will sleep now at least, I hope. I told Pike I would murder him if not.”

“I don’t think he wants us to supervise,” David points out, suddenly not sure Ilya actually understands the source of Shane’s anxiety.

He doesn’t need to worry. Ilya quickly shakes his head. “No, I just mean…” he leans back and slowly circles the base of his glass against the table. “I have not done a good job explaining it to him. Russia. He knows only the parts that I hate and the things that I would leave behind. But there are good parts. Beautiful places. Things I would show…” he pauses, shakes his head, and forces a smile for them. “But it’s easier to see, I think, than to hear.”

“There’s really no way he couldn’t visit?” Yuna’s got that look in her eyes that tells David she’s plotting a way to force the MLH to bring an entire team of North American players over to Moscow just to provide them some cover.

From Ilya's soft little laugh, he sees it, too. “He is not the issue.”

David doesn’t have to live their experience, and he can’t really comprehend their fear, because Shane hangs out with Hayden all the time. He and Ilya have even ‘buried the hatchet’ to a large extent, at least in the eyes of the press. Why can’t a man show his business partner his own city?

“You really think it would be that obvious?” He looks carefully around to make sure they can’t be overheard, but Ilya’s got them a table perfectly positioned for privacy.

Ilya shrugs. “For him? No, I don’t think so. For me, yes.”

“I don’t understand,” Yuna admits. David is right there with her.

Ilya considers, then says, “Outside of Russia, I am very scary, no?” By this point in time, David knows exactly what photos of dogs to send him to turn him misty-eyed, but he knows what the kid is getting at. He nods. Ilya continues. “Here… not so much.”

“Honey, you look like a Bond villain,” Yuna’s blunt response shocks a choked laugh from across the table. “It’s true! A very handsome Bond villain, but...”

“Ha! I told you, bad movies! I blame Rose Landry. I do not like her new film. I don't think even she likes her new film.” 

The conversation veers, as it so often does, but that's fine. 

By this point, David knows how to pick his battles.

On their first morning, he and Yuna walk to Red Square while Ilya meets with his lawyers and has an appointment with the Ministry of Interior. They meander the next few hours away under the looming presence of the bright, ice-cream-cone-topped spires and try to focus on being tourists and not worry about things they know, rationally, they don’t need to worry about.

Ilya is fine. There is absolutely no reason for him not to be.

He joins them at lunch in a little cafe almost besieged by pigeons, loses a silent battle with David over who settles the bill, then spends the next three hours as a riveting tour guide as they wander along the riverbank.

“I came here with school,” he tells them, “sometimes with my father. It is mostly for tourists. Or government.”

When he’s not filling them in on a tidbit of history, he’s looking at his phone with exasperated fondness. “Wait,” he says, ducking around so he can stand between Yuna and David, phone extended. “I will have no peace unless I do this.”

He sends the selfie to the family chat.

A second later, all three of their phones chime with Shane’s response.

Miss you guys

Another minute later, a picture follows: Shane, half-buried under stuffed animals, a toddler drooling on his knee, and Hayden’s twins trying to balance on his shoulders. He somehow looks both besotted and long-suffering all at once.

“Aww,” Yuna says fondly, holding her phone close to her chest.

Yuna’s gaze is stuck on the photo, and David’s is on Ilya, who is, for the first time since they left the airport, smiling so wide he practically glows. David’s not sure he’s ever known someone who can smile with their entire chest. He can see why Shane is obsessed. The effect is nuclear.

Ilya texts something that doesn’t end in the family chat.

For the first time in a very long time, David realizes something.

He wants grandkids. Not just as an abstract thought, not some hypothetical little people he can conjure in his imagination.

He wants this. Shane and Ilya’s kids.

For a second, he wants nothing more than to steal Shane back from the pedestal of adulthood. The impulse is as quick and biting as it is impossible. He wonders if that need ever fades, or if you’re just always some giddy, idiot parent trying to cling to one moment even as you crave the next.

It’s incredibly selfish to hate the fact that any chance of children is likely more than a decade away, but the feeling hits regardless. His knees are going to be a mess by then, god help him.

“We must buy gifts,” Ilya announces. “We will find teddy bears the size of Shane and get four of them. Pike will hate it.”

They don’t find any quite that big, but the ones Ilya does pick out need separate suitcases to transport back home, and that’s enough of a win to satisfy him.

The second day of their three-day trip, Ilya takes another meeting with his lawyers, this time in their offices, while David and Yuna enjoy a late breakfast at the hotel.

They go to the Museum of Cosmonautics, where David loses track of nearly four hours, enjoying himself so much. A late lunch is followed by Ilya deciding that Yuna needs a necklace they see in a small boutique, and that Shane will apparently be devastated if Ilya doesn’t bring him back the world’s most garish shirt. David can’t imagine either Shane or Ilya wearing it, and decides it’s best not to ask.

A little after six, Ilya goes quiet again. “I have a stop to make, if that is okay?”

“We’re on your timetable, kid,” David assures him.

Ilya nods cautiously, gives directions to their driver, then pulls an envelope out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He doesn’t try to hide what is inside when he reverently plucks a glossy photograph from inside.

David has seen it before. It sits in pride of place on the mantle above the fireplace in the boys’ cottage.

Or rather… he’s seen a version of it. In this one, there is no sign of Ilya’s younger self. Only a tight close-up of his mother’s face.

Ilya catches them looking. “It is fair,” he says, answering a question neither of them dares to ask. “And it… it should not be one more thing I have of her that he does not.”

They stop outside a glossy, towering residential building, where two suited doormen wait. One opens the door on Ilya’s side.

“I will be a second,” he promises, raising the photograph to his lips before carefully sliding it back into the envelope.

Yuna’s fingers curl around David’s as they watch Ilya speak quietly to the doorman, someone who clearly knows him, if the easy, familiar smile on his face means anything. The conversation is over in a minute. Ilya hands over the envelope, clasps the man’s elbow, then gets back into the car.

Yuna, seated in the middle, cups Ilya’s face in her palm and holds him close so she can kiss his cheek.

Beyond handing over new directions, Ilya says nothing for the rest of the drive.

When they stop, he flips a switch and cheerfully announces that he’s got tickets for the ballet.

On their last day, they’re all awake early, and there is a somberness between them all that underlines exactly why they are there.

Nothing Ilya has done so far actually requires a trip. He could have gone to the consulate. He could have taken a video call with his lawyers. Hell, he probably pays them enough that they could have flown to him.

They don’t have to talk about it. Yuna wears the smart black dress and cardigan she bought just for the trip. David wears his suit.

Ilya’s mouth trembles when he sees them.

“It’s… two places. It might take time,” he says as they climb into the car.

“We’ve got all day,” David tells him.

Ilya’s parents are not buried in the same place.

They visit his father first, in a cemetery that’s seen more than three hundred years of grief.

Ilya gets out first, swinging the rear passenger door open for Yuna and then David, pro forma, but with the odd, detached courtesy he’s adopted since landing. He walks a few steps ahead, then stops cold, evidently recalibrating. The graveyard is huge. David’s knee twinges at the prospect of trekking through the maze, but he keeps pace. He’s thankful Yuna hangs her arm through his. She doesn’t need the support, but it anchors him to remember how many families have walked this same slow pace, following in the paths of those before them.

David has a suspicion that this isn’t a place just anyone can be buried. Even with his limited skill, he can see the same names on clusters of headstones. Family plots, stretching back through the centuries. When they finally stop, they’re standing at the resting place of Ilya’s grandparents. His great-grandparents. Their parents.

Morbidly, David can’t help but wonder if Alexei will choose to be laid to rest here, or if he will seek out the sanctuary of his mother.

They could be standing at the grave of the last Rozanov to sleep in this place.

David can’t make much of the inscriptions, but the newest marker stands out: a polished headstone with Ilya’s father’s name, lines of gold leaf curling into the dates, and a short inscription he’s not yet practiced enough to translate.

There are two red carnations, both fresh, laid against it. A duty and a dignity for a man who squandered everything precious in his life.

Ilya stands at the grave in bone-deep silence, shoving his fists into the pockets of his coat. He doesn’t move, doesn’t bow his head, doesn’t cross himself or kneel or even blink for nearly a minute. He stands tall, as cold and hard as the statues that surround them, and says nothing.

For all their attempts to find some levity in the horror they have slowly been uncovering, David and Yuna say nothing. They match their posture and stance to Ilya’s, and they wait. What Ilya needs from them will always outweigh the desire to have the last word with a man they have never met.

Inside, David is seething and prays that whatever part of Grigori Rozanov might linger in the world, it can hear his thoughts.

He’s everything you could never be. He’s a better man than you could ever even begin to perceive.

And, viciously.

He’s ours now. We will love him until he no longer remembers what it is to starve, and then we will love him even more.

When Ilya is done, Yuna slides her arm from David’s and into his. David puts his hand on Ilya’s shoulder and squeezes. They walk back to the car like that, together, side by side.

Irina Rozanova is buried in a place so far removed from the spectacle of her husband’s resting place that it is almost humorous. It’s barly five minutes drive, but Irina’s grave is the first he’s seen today that looks alive.

Both have been immaculately cared for, but where Grigori’s seems to represent the duty and discipline of a son honoring a father, there can be no question in anyone’s mind that the woman buried here was anything less than the center of someone’s world.

A stone angel stands watch, surrounded by more flowers than David can count.

Ilya doesn’t say anything to introduce the place, or her, or himself. He kneels right on the ground, resting on his heels.

David and Yuna hang back and let him whisper words to the breeze.

For ten minutes, they stand there, Yuna’s head on his shoulder, and wait.

Then Ilya looks back at them with pleading eyes, and they close the gap until they can both rest their hands on his shoulders.

“Mama, this is David and Yuna,” Ilya says. “They are very good to me. You would have been friends, I think.”

David’s eyes burn. If there was nothing he could say aloud to Grigori, there’s so much he wants to say to Irina.

“You have such a wonderful son,” Yuna’s voice is so clear and so steady. David knows she’s been thinking about this for as long as he has. “He is so kind, and so brave, and there is so much love in his heart.”

Ilya chokes back a wounded sound and tilts his head until it bumps into her wrist. David shifts until he can cover her fingers and the back of Ilya’s neck at the same time.

He adds. “And he is loved. By so many people.” It kills David that Shane isn’t here. He hopes she knows how true his words are. He hopes she can see and that it brings her peace.

Yuna crouches down so she can wrap both her arms around Ilya from the side. He starts to fuss, worried about her dress, but he settles when she just squeezes him tighter. “We’re going to take such good care of him,” Yuna promises.

Ilya says nothing. Not at first, not for a long time. He keeps his spine upright, so rigid it must hurt, but the angle of his neck is soft and almost apologetic, and it says everything there is to say about the power dynamic here. David’s never really been a believer, but he’s certain something in the ground has claimed every part of Ilya that ever belonged to this city. Maybe this is the only place he can claim it back.

After, when Ilya’s hands finally unclench, Yuna presses her hand to the small of his back and they gently, like guiding a child on the ice for the first time, help him stand. He’s streaked with mud right up to the knee. He swipes at it, attempts a laugh, and fails, tears cooling on his cheeks.

“We can go,” Ilya says finally, voice gone to sand as he wipes his face with the back of his hand.

“You sure?” David doesn’t want to rush him.

But Ilya just sniffs and nods. “Yes. I am ready to go home. Thank you. For coming with me.”

They keep on either side of him, not for the support; he is as tall and strong as ever, but because the idea of him not knowing they are there for even a second is more than either of them can stand.

That night, Ilya takes them all to a place that, at best, can be described as a hole in the wall. There’s no slow, carefully enunciated dialogue with a waiter who speaks English, only two old, heavily tattooed brothers who shout at each other across a room the size of David’s kitchen and bring out plates of food without ever taking an order.

Now, a good few hours since leaving the cemetery, Ilya has slowly started to lose some of the petrified-stone stiffness in his shoulders. He’s not fully relaxed while they’re poured shots of vodka out of a plastic bottle, or when he teasingly proves that it’s thick enough to eat with a spoon, but it’s the closest they’ve seen him to it all trip.

Yuna is the first to break the mood, holding her shot glass closer to the table, murmuring, “If we drink any more, you’re going to have to roll me back onto the plane.” Her laugh is airy and sweet, and it takes David back a decade or two. It’s probably been that long since he was in a place as… questionable as this one. He likes it a lot more than the hotel.

Ilya tips his glass. “Last one, I promise. Then Raf.” At this point, David and Yuna are just rolling with it. She might be silently building a plan to start a Canadian import of this sketchy vodka syrup, but it wouldn’t be her craziest plan.

Their nerves are all soft enough by now that it’s easier to bypass the kind of small talk they once might have needed to make. “You sure you’ve done everything you need to?” Yuna asks.

Ilya nods carefully. “Yes. I think so.” Once upon a time, that might be all they’d get. Instead, he looks thoughtfully at his glass, then continues. “Last time I was here, I did not want to come back, but I expected to. I did not think the future would be anything different. Now I think… I think this is a proper goodbye.”

Yuna reaches over and gives his hand a quick squeeze.

Ilya’s answering smile is a look they’ve both been missing the whole trip. “I know you do not want to hear it,” he says, carefully making eye contact. “But I am grateful.”

There are so many things they can say to that, but at this point, Ilya wants to hear them all as little as they want his thanks. “You’re so welcome,” David says instead.

Over the next twenty minutes or so, the tiny little room starts to fill. It’s late, but more than one family comes in, small children in tow, and the minute one of the kids clocks the English, they’re under the intense scrutiny of three kids well under the age of ten. They speak so fast that David can barely follow them, then scatter in boredom when Ilya gently shoos them back to their parents. He’s apparently far less exciting than the foreigners.

Ilya’s smile settles into something more serious as he watches them start to climb a rather dazed and exhausted-looking man, whom David can only assume is their father. The littlest one stands on his knee, her hands on his hips, then shrieks with giggles as she’s swept up for tickling.

“It is not illegal here,” Ilya says, his voice pitched low. It’s unlikely anyone can either hear or understand them, given the noise, but he doesn’t take any chances.

David leans in a little. “What isn’t?”

Ilya’s lips thin. “Disciplining your children. In schools, yes, but not… not at home.”

Yuna’s knee knocks against David’s under the table.

“It is not… it is very old-fashioned,” Ilya says quickly. “Most do not approve. Lots of people want to change it. Normal for grandparents, maybe, but not so much others.”

David sips carefully from his glass while Ilya continues.

“There is law being drafted now. Maybe it will pass. I hope…. I think perhaps it might make a difference. Or maybe it won’t. Maybe it will just be talked about less.”

Christ, that’s a minefield, and the last thing he wants to do in that moment of openness is start digging into the semantics the very first time Ilya broaches the subject. But god, maybe he should…

Ilya takes a shuddering breath. “If… if I have children,” he starts, looking at them both until it’s crystal clear that he means if I have children with your son, “I will not be old-fashioned. It is not something you need to worry about.”

It’s a slip that breaks David’s heart, and one that, sickeningly, fills him with relief, because in that one indirect confession, Ilya’s given him an in.

“It’s not,” David says firmly. “Not even a little.” he waits until he knows he has all of Ilya’s attention. He takes a careful breath, then pushes on. He doesn’t know if what he’s about to say is right, or even accurate. He thinks it is, but most of the time he feels so overwhelmingly out of his depth that all he can really do is trust the things he does know. About Ilya. About his own beliefs.

It takes him longer than he anticipates to formulate his next words, but there’s a gentle, understanding sort of patience in Ilya’s expression that makes it clear he’s used to as much with Shane.

There’s just as much of David in his son as there is of Yuna.

That thought settles something in his chest.

“You know there’s not really a difference, right?” he asks. When Ilya cocks his head, confused, he pushes on. “Whatever cultural disconnects there might be, Russian, Canadian… whatever reason is given to try and justify it… I don’t… I don’t know if the law is what makes the difference.”

Maybe it does. He hopes it does. But no matter how hard he tries to get his head around the idea, no matter how many times he tells himself that his experience isn’t universal, he can’t find a single part of himself capable of that kind of comprehension.

“And maybe… maybe it makes it easier to internalize, or… or try to excuse, I don't know, but I think if someone is going to do something like that, then they’re probably going to find a reason to do it no matter what.”

Ilya shakes his head, and for a moment the light shifts, and David can make out the ghost of the boy he used to be, hurting and wild, forced to metabolize everything except the one thing that gave him an escape.

They’ve been walking down this path for so long now that David knows where the cracks in the stonework can be found. He expects Ilya to go silent or change the subject, and is, as always, ready to let him. Their progress is slow, but it is progress.

Then Ilya says, “If I had a son, and if he… if I was old-fashioned… I think. I think that would be my fault, and not his.”

Yuna inhales sharply, her knuckles white around her glass.

David isn’t sure he is breathing.

“I think he would not deserve it,” Ilya finishes.

“No,” David agrees. “He wouldn’t.”

When Ilya starts to nod slowly, his focus fixed somewhere over Yuna’s shoulder, David knows they’ve reached the end of the line for now. Ilya’s at capacity, and they’ve pushed further than ever. A year ago, Ilya would have walked out. A year ago, he wouldn’t have phoned David at his most vulnerable, desperately seeking security he’s never been able to find outside of Shane.

A year ago, they would not be here.

Ilya doesn’t look upset, only thoughtful.

And a year ago, David’s non-existent Russian would never have allowed him to summon over their host and insist, with a terrible accent and all the wrong grammar, that he pay the bill, not Ilya.

Chapter 10

Chapter Summary

Hayden leans forward, heart hammering. He was fucking right. Ilya is going to break Shane's heart. Just not in the way he feared.

Chapter Notes

Welcome back, AO3, please don't leave me again!

Time to introduce Hayden. Who... try not to be too mad at him! Timeline-wise, we're early in The Long Game here for most of it, so Hayden knows what's going on and is still trying to figure out how to be in a room with Ilya and not want to kill each other. There are no other spoilers (I think?) for TLG.

This chapter does deal with fairly heavy themes of child abuse. But! Also a pretty big breakthrough. I promise the next one will be a lot more chaotic/fun.

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has left comments so far. I am trying to catch up with replies! I'm honestly a little stunned by how kind and generous you're all being, so thank you!

The final score is 4-3, and Hayden decides it’s a lot less fun beating Boston now Rozanov isn’t playing for them.

Okay, no, it’s still fun. Beating Boston will always be fun, but there’s always been something extra special about wiping that smug smirk off Roanov’s face. Especially at home. He says as much to Shane when he comes out of their shared hotel bathroom and sits on the bottom of the bed to put on his very boring, very sensible socks. Hayden’s socks have fucking monkeys on them.

“I’m starting to think you have a crush on him,” Shane says in that dry, snarky little tone he gets sometimes. Anyone who thinks Hollzy isn’t fucking hilarious doesn’t really know him.

The same goes for anyone who thinks he isn’t a huge asshole sometimes. It’s literally one of Hayden’s favorite things.

“I’d rather put my balls in a blender,” he replies. He is willing, reluctantly, to accept that Rozanov isn’t the devil incarnate, but that’s where he draws the line. The bar is in hell, and Rozanov frequently goes for the limbo championship. Literally the only good thing about him is his taste in cars. And maybe that he, on occasion, makes Shane smile. “I’m just saying.” It’s a lot more fun to beat someone when you kinda want to murder them a little bit.

Only a little. Mostly. For some reason, one that’s probably concussion-related, Shane loves the Russian asshole, and Hayden is doing his very, very best to be a Good Friend in an attempt to make up for all the years he’s not been.

Sooner or later, though, Rozanov is going to break Shane’s heart, and Hayden can kill with a clean conscience.

“Hmm,” is all the response he gets from Shane. He can deny it all he likes, but it’s obvious even he doesn’t enjoy the win as much as he used to.

Hayden sits upright against the headboard. A distracted Shane is usually a red flag for intervention. Or at least a distracted Shane who isn’t glued to his phone. Maybe they need to hit a bar? They don’t need to drink, but it’s been a long few weeks on the road, so any change of scenery is going to be a welcome one.

It occurs to Hayden that he’s never been out drinking with Shane in Boston.

Because Shane was always hooking up with Boston Lily, who is Ilya fucking Rozanov, and yeah, maybe they do need to drink. Or he does. He can drink for Shane, too.

When Shane looks at him from over his shoulder, his dark eyes are bright and worried. “Do… did Marlow seem weird to you?”

Well, there’s a question. “Marlow’s one head injury away from being a vegetable,” Hayden points out. “He’s always weird.” When Shane looks away and starts to chew on his lip, alarm bells ring. Shane doesn’t hold grudges against anyone, which is one of his more annoying personality traits. He’s not still pissed with Marlow, which means… yeah, he doesn’t know what it means. “Why?”

Shane doesn’t say anything for a while, which means he’s circling a bunch of thoughts. It usually gives Hayden ten, maybe fifteen seconds to decide if he needs to let him stew or stage an intervention. Thank god for hockey reflexes.

“He asked me how Ilya’s doing. There was a thing a while back. With him and my dad. Marlow saw it.”

Okay, there’s a bunch to unpack there, starting with the fact that, when they’re on the road, and on the rare occasion his name actually comes up in conversation, Ilya is always, always Rozanov. “Fuck,” Hayden leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “You think he knows?”

“No, probably not,” Shane admits. “We didn’t think he recognized my dad. Ilya says, and I’m quoting here, ‘Marly’s a good guy, but his braincells are lonely’.”

“God, he’s an asshole.” A funny one, but Hayden will swallow bleach before he admits it.

Shane's face does that thing where his eyes go all soft, and his mouth quirks up at the corner. "Yeah."

Hayden throws a pillow at him. "Jesus, you're disgusting. I can practically see the little cartoon hearts floating around your head."

When Shane catches the pillow and his expression shifts from lovesick to that familiar crease between his eyebrows, Hayden rolls off the bed and starts rummaging through Shane's suitcase.

Marlow might be a dumb sonovabitch, but he and Rozanov are two lumbering, murderous peas in a pod. If there was something to worry about, one of them would have thrown a punch by now.

"If Rozanov says you're fine, then you're probably fine." He tosses a blue button-down at Shane's head. "That asshole has many, many flaws, but he's not exactly taking out billboards about your secret romance. Come on, we're going out."

"I'm not really in the mood to-" Shane starts, but Hayden's already shoving his feet into his shoes.

"Dude," Hayden cuts him off, grabbing Shane's wallet and slapping it against his chest, "you have spent years missing out on the sheer fucking joy of being Shane Hollander on a night out in Boston. You can remind everyone that they hate you more than they hate your boyfriend."

Shane rolls his eyes. "I love that you think that's reassuring."

"What are friends for?" Hayden grins, dodging the wadded-up sock Shane launches at his head. "Besides, if anyone's gonna kick your ass, it's gonna be me. I've got dibs. Years of dibs."

Hayden’s wife is the best wife to ever wife. Ever. And the ice pack she settles lightly over his face is maybe a better feeling than any sex he’s ever had. Maybe. “Ow, ow…”

Jackie's cool fingers brush his jaw as she adjusts the ice pack. "You're worse than the baby," she chides, leaning over him and deliberately letting her hair tickle his neck. "Stop squirming and lie down."

"I am down!" Hayden protests, his head fucking ringing. He reaches for her wrist, misses, and flails dramatically. "Look at me all down and everything."

She catches his hand mid-flail and presses it back to the mattress. "Are you going to stay still?"

"What if I get lonely?" He tugs at her until she perches on the edge of the bed.

"I can go wake the kids up?" She threatens, but she's already reaching for the bottle of painkillers on the nightstand, shaking two into her palm.

"I am a statue. A tree. A calcified tree. I am planted, I am-" He opens his mouth obediently when she taps his lips with the pills.

"A fucking idiot," she says fondly, holding a lurid pink straw in a glass of water to his mouth. "Who should know better than to try stop his fall with his face."

He swallows the pills, then grins up at her despite the pain. "My hands were busy scoring a goal!" The best goal, he might add. Scott Hunter can kiss his ass. He tries to pout when she rolls her eyes, but that hurts as well.

He's starting to drift off, her hand in his hair, when some asshole rings the doorbell. He starts to sit, because it's the middle of the night. They're not expecting anyone. Do serial killers use doorbells?

Jackie pushes him back down with a firm hand on his chest. "Stay put, tough guy." She reaches for her phone, tapping to check the front door camera. Her playful expression shifts. "Huh. I think it's for you."

"Tell whoever it is I'm dead." He burrows deeper under the covers, wincing as the movement jostles his face.

"It's Shane."

"Then tell him I'm definitely dead and I'll see him tomorrow at practice." He peeks out with one eye, catching the worry lines forming between Jackie's brows.

"I think, shit, I think he's crying?" She's already on her feet, reaching for her robe.

Hayden nearly gives himself another black eye falling off the bed, tangled in sheets and panic because what the fuck. Jackie steadies him with both hands. "Easy! Jesus, you're going to-" But he's already stumbling toward the door, ice pack abandoned.

It is Shane. And he is crying. Wet and miserable in the rain, his eyes red. Worst-case scenarios immediately start running through Hayden’s head. Shane is a lot more sensitive than most people know, and his anxiety is hardly the best-kept secret, but fuck, he doesn’t ever really cry.

One look at Hayden and Jackie, both dressed for bed, and he folds himself smaller, which is a solid feat for someone built for a high-speed, brutal impact sport. “Sorry,” he says, not looking either of them in the eye. “Shit, fuck-”

Hayden grabs him by the front of his parka and drags him over the threshold.

Jackie’s fingers brush his back as she retreats to the kitchen, no doubt to brew up a batch of coffee. That leaves him with nothing to worry about but Shane, who he practically has to wrestle out of his wet clothes, into a pair of his own tracks, and dump in front of the fireplace under the seventeen thousand fucking designer blankets Jackie insists they need.

Turns out she’s right, as always, and they do need them.

Shane doesn’t talk, which is normal when he’s upset, and he doesn’t really help, which is also standard. But he doesn’t make things difficult, and he doesn’t go into a spiral when Hayden cautiously touches him. That’s only happened once in the past, but by fuck did it leave a wildly traumatic impression.

“Hey, sweetie,” Jackie waits patiently until she can press a cup of black coffee into Shane’s hands. He flashes her a grateful, wobbly smile, but doesn’t make eye contact.

She then passes Hayden his own mug and makes a small gesture with her head to let him know she’ll be in the kitchen. They both know Shane well enough to know he’s a better chance of getting through to him if he’s alone.

Christ, he loves her so much.

Adrenaline and the painkillers both kick in to leave his head the clearest it’s been all day as he sits down in the chair opposite Shane. “Your parents?” he asks, keeping the questions simple. Shane shakes his head. Okay, that’s good. “Did someone say something at practice? Do something?” He doesn’t want to believe anyone on their team would be like, a violent homophobic asshole, but fuck, too many of them have proved they are somekind of homophobic asshole, so what the fuck does he know?

Thankfully, Shane shakes his head again, but his hands are trembling so badly the coffee sloshes over the rim of the mug. Hayden lunges to steady it, wincing as his bruised face throbs. Okay, they might not be ready for coffee yet. He sets both their mugs down on the side table.

Which just leaves…

Yeah, he's going to fucking murder Rozanov tonight. He grabs a tissue from the side table and gently dabs at Shane's wet knuckles.

"Did he hurt you?" Hayden's voice is low, dangerous.

"What? No! Jesus!" Shane pulls back, eyes wide.

"I had to ask!" He tugs the blanket higher around Shane's shoulders, tucking it in like he does for his kids.

"Did you? Fuck, this was a bad idea. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" Shane starts to stand, physically retreating even faster than he can dissociate.

"Sit your ass down, Hollander." Hayden guides him back with a firm hand on his shoulder, then crouches in front of him despite his aching body. "Talk to me."

Shane's eyes dart to the doorway, checking for Jackie. "I'm fine," he whispers, fingers twisting the edge of the blanket.

"Okay." Hayden reaches out, gently untangling Shane's fingers before he can fray the expensive fabric.

"Really." Shane pulls away, tucking his hand under the blanket.

"I totally believe it." Hayden shifts his weight, wincing as his knee cracks. "This is in no way out of character at all." He leans forward to dab at a tear track Shane missed.

Shane jerks back. "We're not fighting. Ilya's done nothing wrong-" His voice catches.

"-and I don't believe that." Hayden's hand hovers, uncertain whether to touch or retreat. He’s never actually been in this position with Shane. Comforting him after a fight or a break-up or whatever the fuck is going on. He feels a little sick at the idea of something upsetting Shane like this before… and Shane not having anyone to talk to about it.

"Jesus, Hayden, please don't." Shane's shoulders curl inward, defensive and small.

He lets out all the air in his lungs and tries to reset. “Okay, fine. So he’s not evil, and I don’t have to murder him-” the jury is still out on that one, but Shane finally meets his gaze, and he looks angry enough that Hayden backs off.

Hayden leans forward, his knuckles white against his knees. "Okay, so... is he hurt? Or like, sick or something?" He watches Shane's face for any flicker of reaction, mentally preparing a list of hospitals to call.

Shane laughs bitterly, which isn’t much of an answer, but then he shakes his head, fingers back to picking at a loose thread on the blanket.

"Christ..." Hayden runs a hand through his hair, wincing as his fingers brush against the tender spot on his scalp."Buddy, you gotta give me something here. I don't know how to fix this."

"Nothing to fix." Shane's voice cracks. "I just... fuck, needed company, I guess. Stupid, I'm sorry." He shrinks further into the blanket cocoon, hunched miserably.

"Don't be fucking sorry, asshole." Hayden tucks the blanket tighter around Shane's trembling shoulders, his touch gentler than his words. "Do you want me to call your mom?"

"No." Shane's head snaps up. "He'll probably be there."

"Rozanov? At your parents’?" Hayden's hand freezes mid-adjustment of the blanket.

"I mean, I hope so." Shane's eyes dart away, defensive.

Hayden had a concussion check when he headbutted the ice, but maybe he's not actually passed, and he's still waiting for the ringing in his ears to clear. He presses his fingertips against his temples, trying to massage away confusion. Nothing else is making much sense.

“Okay, so you what… just wanna hang out?” He tries again. As frustrating as Shane can be when he doesn’t actually use his fucking words, it beats the alternative. When Shane nods, Hayden slumps onto the couch next to him and grabs the TV remote. “And I don’t gotta kill anyone?”

“It’s too fucking late for that,” Shane says bitterly. Cryptic motherfucker. At least he relaxes a little, leaning back into the couch.

Hayden can chew his own arm off later, that’s fine.

Jackie sticks her head in shortly after they settle on one of the seventeen million superhero films he has on demand. She kisses him softly, then squeezes Shane’s knee, and retreats to bed with orders that he take more painkillers if he’s still awake in four hours.

Shane shifts guiltily and starts to retreat again. “Fuck, sorry Hayd, I should let you-”

“I will hot-glue you to this fucking couch, so help me,” Hayden threatens. He’s a girl dad. He does arts and crafts. He has a hot glue gun. And it has glitter glue, so…

Apparently, he says all that out loud because it makes Shane let out that little huff of a laugh of his, and loosen up a little more.

They’re maybe halfway through someone trying to destroy New York when the doorbell rings again.

“Stay,” he orders, shoving Shane back into the couch. They’re both a little bleary-eyed by that point, and Shane’s still in his head enough not to immediately start complaining, so Hayden jumps on the advantage and ignores the way his knee twinges when he gets to his feet.

No prizes for guessing who is at the door.

"Rozanov." Hayden's jaw clenches, his bruised face throbbing with renewed pain.

"Is he still here?" Rozanov stands rigid on the doorstep, his eyes darting past Hayden's shoulder. Looking for Shane.

"He says I don't need to punch you." Hayden shifts his weight, blocking the entrance completely. "Do I need to punch you?"

"Pike-" Rozanov runs a hand through his disheveled hair, the dark circles under his eyes matching Shane's.

"I'm not fucking around!" Hayden jabs a finger into his chest, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "What the fuck did you do?"

And of course Shane can’t fucking do as he’s told, because he calls Rozanov’s name, and apparently to fuck with the fact that this is Hayden’s house. One minute, Rozanov is blocked outside, the next minute Hayden is firmly - and somehow, hilariously politely - physically moved to one side so he can wrap his stupid Terminator arms around Hayden’s best friend.

Having sustained more than one bruised rib thanks to the Russian menace, he’s kinda surprised that he’s not just bodyslammed into the wall.

Rozanov's voice breaks on the word "Sweetheart," his hands trembling slightly as he cups Shane's face, his thumbs brushing away fresh tears.

Shane clings to Rozanov's jacket, knuckles white. "This is literally the opposite of what we agreed."

"Yes," Rozanov murmurs, carefully tucking a strand of hair behind Shane's ear. "But I only agreed because you were sad, and look." His eyes scan Shane's face with such tender worry it's almost painful to witness. "You are still sad, so you might as well be sad with me."

That's... oddly sweet.

Concussion. It's 100% a concussion. Hayden touches the tender spot on his scalp again. He's probably in the ICU that very minute, and this is all a very weird dream.

“I’m not sad,” Shane says, as if he’s not been silently crying for the past few hours. Hayden and Rozanov make the exact same sound of disbelief at the same time. “And the whole point was to let you be sad without me being sad making you more sad.”

Hayden massages his temples, wincing at the tenderness. "Okay, not to take Rozanov's side on anything here, but that's dumb as fuck," he says, his voice gentler than his words.

"Pike is right," Rozanov nods, one arm protectively wrapped around Shane's shoulders, thumb absently stroking the fabric of his shirt.

"Did that fucking hurt?" Hayden asks, watching how Rozanov's eyes keep scanning Shane's face, cataloging every detail.

"He is, what do you say? Like a broken clock?" Rozanov pulls Shane closer, pressing a kiss to his temple.

"Motherfucker, why do I even try?" Hayden sighs, but there's no heat in it. "Shane, you know where the guest room is. I'm going to bed before my brain starts leaking."

"Hmm, no," Rozanov shakes his head, carefully brushing Shane's hair from his forehead. "I am not having sex in your house."

"Jesus Christ!" Hayden throws his hands up.

"Shane is always less sad when I suck his dick," Rozanov says matter-of-factly, but his eyes are soft with worry as he fusses.

Fuck the concussion. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe this is hell…

"Ilya-" Shane flushes, leaning into him despite his embarrassment.

"Get out of my house, Rozanov," Hayden groans, heading for the stairs. "Shane, you owe me fucking breakfast. I want bacon. So much fucking bacon."

"Hundred percent. Thanks, Hayd."

Hayden is still grumbling to himself when he crawls into bed alongside Jackie. He trusts Shane to lock up behind them more than he trusts himself not to throw something at Rozanov’s head. He hates it when the people he loves are sad and there’s fuck all he can do about it.

Jackie turns over and curls into his side, her warm breath fanning against his neck as she nuzzles closer. Her voice is thick with sleep when she murmurs, "Everything okay?"

"Yes. Maybe." Hayden kisses her forehead, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo as he pulls the comforter higher around them both. "I still think I should kill him a little."

She pats his chest with a drowsy hand, fingers curling into his shirt. "In the morning."

Sure. Fine. In the morning.

In the morning, he ends up too distracted wrestling the kids into eating their breakfast to plot Rozanov's grisly death.

"Daddy, I want the purple spoon!" Ruby whines, flinging Cheerios across the kitchen in her displeasure at the plain old boring white spoon she’s been given.

"The purple spoon is currently hosting a spa day in the dishwasher," Hayden says, dodging a flying cereal. "How about the-"

The doorbell rings. Again. If it’s anyone other than the ghost of Maurice Richard himself, Hayden is moving.

Through the window, he spots Rozanov's dark blue 1961 Maserati gleaming on his driveway like a trophy.

"Sonovabitch," he mutters, wiping sticky hands on his sweatpants.

But there's no sign of the Russian menace, just a man in a suit holding a digital pad. "Please sign for delivery."

Hayden scrawls his signature while scanning the yard for an ambush. "Where's Rozanov? Hiding in the bushes?"

The courier's face remains professionally blank. "Paperwork is in the trunk, sir."

A second car pulls up. The courier climbs inside, and they're gone before Hayden can process that the Maserati is still there.

He approaches the car like it might contain a bomb, or worse, Rozanov himself. Finding only a folder, he's on the phone to Shane in seconds.

"Did your boyfriend just gift me his fucking car?" Hayden demands shrilly. More specifically, did Rozanov just gift him the fucking car of his dreams?

"Ilya!" Shane yells down the line. Then fucking hangs up on Hayden to the tune of, "—seriously, we talked about this—"

What the fuck is his life right now?

Rozanov - Ilya - is growing on him. Like black mold creeping across the wall, maybe, but it’s happening.

Shane adores him.

Jackie thinks he’s sweet and funny and hot, and that’s usually where he makes her change the subject.

The kids think he’s the coolest thing ever, to the point where it takes at least a week after any time he babysits for them to stop saying ‘Okay’ in a terrible attempt to replicate the way he speaks. The second they come out with a single word of Russian, Hayden is going to break his face, but for now…

Hayden gives back the car. Partly because fuck him for thinking he needs payment for looking after his best friend. Mostly because Shane and Jackie yell at them both. It lives at Shane’s place now, though, and he’s encouraged to ‘borrow it’ every few months when he needs an hour or two of peace and quiet.

Growing. So long as he keeps his mouth shut, which is practically never.

Still, it’s hard not to at least tolerate a man who will drive two hours at the drop of a hat to look after Hayden’s kids when shit hits the fan with Jackie’s family, and Shane is in Toronto for a commercial about… something.

Shane thinks Ilya’s bored. Thinks he’s lonely. Hayden is tempted to point out that Rozaonv has probably never been lonely in his life, but figures it might actually be true. It’s not like the man is fucking his way through every city he visits anymore, and god knows he probably doesn’t have any friends the way he runs his mouth.

Jackie stays with her folks that night to help her dad look after her mom, leaving Hayden to hold down the fort back home. It’s late, and he’s tired as hell, but the kids will most likely be in bed, and even he’s not enough of an asshole to send Ilya back so late at night.

He’ll be hospitable. Offer him a beer. Maybe try find something likable behind all that sarcasm…

After dropping his keys in the pot by the front door, Hayden takes the silence in and figures he was on the money with the kids being asleep. He expects to find Ilya making himself at home on the couch.

Instead, he's in the kitchen, hunched over the sink with his shoulders up around his ears, surrounded by what looks to be the thousand and one pieces of the vase Jackie's grandmother gave them for their wedding. Blood drips steadily from his hand into the porcelain basin.

He whips around as Hayden enters, eyes wide before narrowing defensively.

"Pike." The word comes out clipped, tense.

"Everything okay?" Hayden steps closer, scanning the room for signs of a bigger disaster.

"Children are asleep. We read the moon story fourteen times." Ilya's jaw works back and forth. "I broke your vase, by the way. It was very ugly. You are welcome." His hand trembles slightly as he tries to hide it behind his back.

"…What? Jesus, are you bleeding?" Hayden lunges forward, grabbing Ilya's wrist before he can pull away.

"Very ugly," Ilya repeats, trying to tug free, scowling as the movement reopens the cut.

"It's a family heirloom," Hayden says absently, tightening his grip on Ilya's arm. He's not sure they're supposed to be anything but ugly.

"… I… well, if it must be fixed-" Ilya's voice falters, the usual confidence cracking.

Hayden yanks Ilya's hand back over the sink, blood spattering the stainless steel. "Shut up and stop bleeding everywhere." His pulse hammers in his throat. Shane is going to fucking kill him.

"Yes, that is how blood works." Ilya's fingers twitch in Hayden's grip. "Tell it to do something, and it listens."

"You're such a fucking asshole." Hayden tears off paper towels with his teeth, pressing them hard against the wound. Ilya hisses but doesn't pull away. So much for mending fences. Christ, he’s tired.

"Yes," Ilya replies, jaw tight. "One who broke your vase."

"I don't-" Hayden rubs his eyes with his free wrist. When he checks under the towel, he can see there are multiple cuts on Ilya’s fingers. They all, fortunately, look pretty shallow. "I don't think you need stitches. What even happened?"

Ilya's gaze darts to the shards, then back to Hayden's face. "Well, I saw the world's ugliest vase and thought to myself, 'even Pike is not so tragic as to think this is-'"

Hayden slams the roll of paper towels onto the counter. "Why are you like this?"

"Allergic reaction to ugly things." Ilya's voice is steady, but his knuckles have gone white. “But fine. I have a contact who can fix. You have a bag, yes?”

“What? Yeah, it’s not-” Hayden kinda hates the vase. That’s not the point. Why the fuck is Rozanov being so deliberately confrontational? “Fuck me, just sit down. I have a first aid kit upstairs. Park your ass and fucking wait, or I’ll call Shane.”

Ilya's eyes flash. "Fine."

"Fine!" Hayden's hands clench into fists.

Finding the kit means tiptoeing up the stairs to the master bathroom, which feels like a fundamental flaw in their system. His heart hammers as he passes the kids' bedrooms, planning some Mission Impossible-level stealth.

A floorboard creaks. Ruby's door inches open, her small face appearing in the gap.

"Hi daddy," she whispers, clutching her stuffed rabbit.

Hayden swallows hard. "Hey, baby, what are you doing awake?" He summons his best smile and marvels at how much steadier he feels just from seeing her.

"I feel bad." Her bottom lip trembles.

He crouches down, scanning her face. "Did Uncle Ilya give you too much candy again?" Someone is already bleeding, so naturally they need to add puking to the mix…

"No. Maybe." She glances nervously down the hallway. "Promise you won't tell him I told you? He said it was our secret." The floor drops out of Hayden's stomach, his pulse roaring in his ears.

"Pinky swear," he manages, extending a trembling finger.

"I broke nana's vase." Her words tumble out in a rush. "I didn't mean to! We were playing hide and seek and it fell over!"

"Thank you fucking jesus..." He exhales sharply, then catches himself. "Sorry, baby, no, it's okay, I'm not mad." Relief crashes through him, followed immediately by rage. He grips Ruby's shoulders gently and squeezes. "You should always tell me these things, okay? Always. You're not... no one else has ever told you to keep a secret from me, right?"

Ruby fidgets, twisting her rabbit's ear between her fingers. "Mommy told me not to tell you she was the one who forgot Chompy at the salon last week."

A laugh escapes him despite everything, his chest loosening. "Other than mommy."

"No." Her eyes, so much like Jackie's, search his face. He’s not sure he’s ever loved anyone or anything as much as he does her that second.

"Okay, let's get you back to bed, yeah?" He brushes her hair back, and is kinda proud his hands aren't trembling.

"You're not mad at Uncle Ilya?" Her voice quivers.

Oh, he is homicidally mad at Uncle Ilya. His jaw clenches so tight his teeth might crack. "No, baby." Once he has her back in bed, he tucks the blanket around her small shoulders, presses his lips to her forehead, and waits in the doorway until her breathing deepens. His heart hammers against his ribs, and he might just be having a fucking heart attack.

After grabbing the first aid kit, he storms downstairs to find Ilya exactly where he left him in the kitchen, blood-stained paper towel still wrapped around his hand.

Hayden slams the kit onto the counter. "Never, ever tell my children to keep secrets from me!" His voice shakes with barely contained fury.

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, then Ilya's face drains of color so rapidly Hayden thinks he might pass out. "What... no! Fuck, fuck, no that's not..." He lurches forward, his chair clattering to the floor. His eyes dart wildly, like a cornered animal. "Pike, I would never-"

"Jesus Christ Rozanov, it's a fucking vase!" Hayden slams his palm against the counter, making Ilya flinch.

"I..." Ilya's bloody hand trembles as he rakes it through his hair, leaving crimson streaks on his cheeks. "I did not want you to be angry with her."

Hayden crowds into his space, jabbing a finger at his chest. "She's an unholy terror who thinks the laws of physics are optional and walls make the best coloring pads. I'm almost always angry with her! What the fuck is wrong with you!"

"I..." Ilya backs up until he hits the refrigerator, magnets from a dozen family vacations cascading to the floor. His breath comes in short gasps, rising and falling in a crescendo of panic. "I should go. I am very sorry. I did not mean... I would never, I swear I would never-"

That’s the thing, though. Like him or loathe him, he’s never once had any doubts about trusting Ilya with his kids. Not since he and Shane watched them the first time. He’s never had a reason to.

Fuck, he’s pretty sure he still doesn’t have a reason to. Once his blood pressure calms the fuck down and he can understand whatever stupid fucking logic Rozanov is operating on…

"Rozanov. Ilya-" Hayden reaches for him, but Ilya twists away.

"Tell Jackie I am very sorry." He's already halfway to the door, leaving bloody fingerprints on everything he touches.

"Ilya, come on. Just..." Hayden's stomach twists as he watches Ilya fumble with the lock, hands shaking so badly he can barely grip it. "Just sit down, okay? You're bleeding everywhere."

"No, I' m-" Ilya's eyes dart wildly around the room, never meeting Hayden's. His chest heaves. "Sorry. Very sorry."

And before Hayden can say another word, Ilya has wrenched the door open and fled into the darkness, leaving nothing but a bloody handprint on the doorknob and the sound of uneven footsteps racing down the driveway.

Hayden doesn’t sleep that night. He also doesn’t call Shane. Whether that’s the right decision or not is half the reason he can’t shut his brain off.

He’s got three days, tops, before they’re back in practice, and he has to face his best friend. Shane will ask how it all went. He’ll be desperately seeking some kind of confirmation that Ilya and Hayden are becoming friends, and Hayden doesn’t know if he can sell a convincing lie when he doesn’t even know the answer himself.

For the entire day, he has to listen to the kids' demands to know when Uncle Ilya will be back, and to their complaints that Hayden only lets them watch Frozen three times in a row, not five. Wrangling them takes up all of his energy and most of his focus, and it’s nice not to really think about anything more complicated than the rules of The Floor Is Lava.

He tells Jackie when she's back. She drops her purse on the counter, keys clattering against the granite as he explains. Her eyebrows climb higher with each detail, then furrow, then climb again. She paces the kitchen, stopping to grip the back of a chair so hard her knuckles go white. Watching the emotions play across her face comforts him somehow. It's not just him being too dumb to function.

"Have you tried calling him?" She asks eventually, rubbing at the crease between her eyebrows.

"Not sure this is a conversation for the phone," he admits, absently wiping at the refrigerator door, trying to erase a spot of blood he’s long since cleaned up.

"No. Maybe not." She chews her lip. "Jesus, poor Ilya."

"Poor Ilya? You're not mad at him?" Hayden's hand freezes mid-wipe.

"Oh, I'll wring his neck when I see him again." She mimes the action, then her hands fall helplessly. "Then probably hug him."

"Huh." He blinks at her, lost.

"Go see him." She grips his forearm and pulls him in close. "Figure it out, or decide how you're going to tell Shane he can't bring his boyfriend round again."

"Wait, we're banning him?" His stomach drops.

"Until you talk to him, yes." Her eyes are worried but firm, the same look she gives the kids when they're about to learn a hard lesson.

"You think he would-" Hayden's voice catches. He can't even finish the thought, unsure when he stopped thinking of Ilya as a threat to the people he loves.

"I think we need to know what he was thinking." Jackie paces three steps, then turns back. "And I am sure it’s going to be okay. Once you talk to him."

"Do you wanna come and-" He gestures vaguely, already knowing the answer.

"Oh no, this is between you." She shakes her head, squeezing his shoulder. " Besides, it's been two whole days since I've seen Moana. I might forget the words..."

Which is how Hayden ends up driving to fucking Ottawa.

It's a little after midday when he arrives, and he's prepared to wait around until Ilya is home if he's at practice, but the lights are on, and he answers when Hayden buzzes the front gate.

He looks fucking terrible. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes, hair unwashed, wearing the same clothes from two days ago. Jesus, he should have fucking called Shane. He’s not even sure how Ilya made the drive back in one piece.

"Hey. So… we should talk," Hayden says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Ilya steps to one side to let him in, gaze fixed somewhere over Hayden's shoulder. They awkwardly work through the round of 'something to drink/eat/smoke' before finding themselves standing around the kitchen island, Ilya's unbandaged hand twitching against the countertop.

"I gotta know what that all was," Hayden says, surprised by how calm he sounds when his heart is pounding like he's in the final minutes of overtime.

Ilya nods and swallows hard as if he has been expecting the demand. "Yes. It is… you will be patient with me? I have not… these are not words that are easy." His accent thickens with each halting phrase.

"Shit, yeah, of course." Hayden's stomach clenches with a dread he can't name. Years of enjoying every second Ilya’s not been wearing that fucking smirk, and now he wants it back with a need bordering on desperation.

"And you must promise me you won't tell Shane." Ilya's eyes finally meet his, pleading.

"I don't know if I can do that." The words taste sour in his mouth.

Ilya looks wrecked, shoulders curling inward. "No. Of course. That… that is fair. But I owe you explanation." He looks like he’s going to be sick.

But as much as Hayden really, really wants to call time, he can’t. "Yeah." His throat is suddenly dry.

"My father, he…" Ilya's eyes dart around the room, lingering in the few places the walls of light don’t reach. "Was not like you. When he was angry, the results, um, consequences? The consequences were not the same. I did not want Ruby to be in trouble." He hunches further. It doesn’t make him look smaller. He’s still fucking huge. Somehow that’s worse. This is Ilya Rozanov.

"What… what would he have done? About the vase, I mean?" Hayden's voice drops to barely above a whisper.

"If I broke family heirloom?" A muscle jumps in Ilya's jaw.

"Heirloom maybe isn't the right word. I don't think it's valuable or anything." Hayden's words tumble out too fast, as if they might somehow change what's coming.

Ilya doesn't seem to hear him. "Beat me, yes? Probably with belt." He says it matter-of-factly, like discussing the weather. "And I would have stayed at table until I fixed it." He unconsciously cradles his injured hand against his chest.

Hayden thinks of his bloody fingers and feels bile rise in his throat. The kitchen tilts sideways for a moment.

Hayden's knees nearly buckle. He grips the counter edge. "Oh my god..."

"I am... learning this is not normal." Ilya taps his temple with two fingers, gaze fixed on the floor. "Sometimes is hard to remember. Is not an excuse."

"Okay. Shit." Hayden runs both hands through his hair, tugging until he can feel something other than wild panic. "Okay, that's... fuck, that's fucked up. Shane doesn't know?"

Ilya's shoulders hunch further, and it occurs to Hayden how epically fucking wrong it is that he’s the one standing here right now. "He knows enough. The details… they would be upsetting. More upsetting." His voice drops. "You saw how he was that night."

No shit. Hayden's stomach churns. He's fucking upset, and he's not in love with Ilya. "That's what that was?"

"We have different ideas of normal." Ilya shrugs, the movement mechanical. "I don't always know until I have already upset him."

"So what, you've just never told anyone? Ever?" Hayden's voice cracks.

Ilya's eyes flick up to meet his, then dart quickly away. "There is not much to tell."

Heat floods Hayden's face. "Right. No. You being abused as a kid has absolutely nothing to do with you thinking I'd beat my kid, or you lying about it, or getting her to lie about it, or giving me a fucking heart attack, or-"

"I am sorry for that." Ilya's jaw tightens. Then he adds, almost inaudibly, "Was not abuse."

Hayden leans forward, heart hammering. He was fucking right. Ilya is going to break Shane's heart. Just not in the way he feared. "Yeah, no, one hundred fucking percent it was."

"Right. Of course." Ilya's hands begin to shake. "That is why you are here, no? So you can prove you were fucking right, that he's better off with anyone else and-"

"Fucksake!" Hayden slams his palm against the counter, making them both jump, and the guilt it brings tips everything over the edge. "I don't fucking like you Rozanov. We're not friends. I don't have to tiptoe around your fucking moods!" He steps closer, voice dropping. "So maybe fucking listen when I say that what happened to you was fucking wrong, it was absolutely abuse, and even though I think you are a huge fucking asshole, you didn't deserve any of it!"

Ilya stares at him, mouth slightly open, eyes wide with something that looks terrifyingly like hope.

"Shane loves you." Hayden's voice cracks. "You make him happy. And all of this bullshit makes it crystal clear you love him, so like..." He swallows hard, refusing to look away. "That's basically all I fucking want, okay? You're a good man. My kids love you. My wife loves you. So I will fucking learn to love you even if it kills both of us!"

"Fuck," Ilya chokes, and slumps to the kitchen floor, his back against the counter. His shoulders shake once, twice, though no sound comes out.

Hayden's stomach twists with shame. He just screamed at a man who'd been beaten as a child. About being beaten as a child. What the fuck is wrong with him? Shane is a thousand percent going to kill him. He wouldn't even blame him.

He circles around the island and slides down until he's on the floor opposite, careful to leave space between them. "So that didn't come out right. Sorry."

Ilya wipes roughly at his face with his good hand. "And everyone says I am the asshole."

"Yeah, well." Hayden picks at a loose thread on his jeans. "Guess you don't have a monopoly on that."

Ilya glares at him, but there's no real heat behind it. His eyes are red-rimmed.

"I mean it, though." Hayden offers quietly, not quite meeting his gaze.

"Which part?" Ilya's voice is rough. "We are not friends? You don't like me?"

Fuck, he really is the asshole, isn't he? Hayden's chest aches with the realization.

"The other stuff," he murmurs, risking a glance up.

"Right." Ilya's jaw works.

"Seriously." Hayden reaches out, hesitates, then awkwardly pats Ilya's knee once before withdrawing his hand. “And I don’t hate you anymore, so like… we’re heading in the right direction?”

Ilya's mouth twitches, a ghost of that infuriating smirk. Thank fuck. "So in fifty years…" He wipes his face with his sleeve, then seems to notice what he’s wearing for the first time. He pulls a face.

"Maybe we'll have worked our way up to casual acquaintances." Hayden shifts, wincing as his back protests against the hard cabinet. "I might even remember your birthday."

"Can't wait." Ilya's voice is dry as dust, but there's something softer in his eyes now. "Will send you reminder text."

Hayden picks at a scuff on the floor. "You really should talk to Shane, though. He loves you."

"I know." Ilya fiddles with his shirt cuff. He looks like he needs to sleep for a year.

"He'd want to support you." Hayden glances up, catches Ilya's gaze. "Not just the highlight reel, man. The whole you."

Ilya's throat bobs. "I know."

"He'd definitely punch me for saying that shit to you." Hayden rubs his jaw, wincing at the phantom pain.

"Maybe... maybe we are even?" Ilya's eyes flick up, hopeful as a stray dog offered scraps.

Hayden snorts, then reaches over to help him up off the floor. "You were trying to look out for my daughter. So. Probably I still owe you one."

"Hmm." Ilya's mouth quirks up at one corner. "You want vodka? Is medicinal."

"Only if you take a fucking shower first." Hayden waves a hand in front of his nose. "You smell like six-week-old kit."

"Okay, yes." Ilya's shoulders relax a fraction. "But only because I am generous host. Not because you are right."

“Course not.” 

He watches Ilya head in what he thinks is the general direction of the bathroom and slumps back against the island. Fuck. Fuck. He doesn't now what to do.

He pulls out his phone and sends Shane a text:

When's Ilya's birthday?

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

So you will notice that this chapter is much shorter than the others. Mostly that's because this one, of all of them, is the most spoiler-heavy for TLG, and we needed to cover a few things before getting to the next big arc. Hopefully you won't mind too much!

Behold the return of Marlow, who, despite his very best intentions, is driving everyone around him to hard liquor.

Warning for brief mention of homophobia.

The Boston Raiders are a pack of savage fucking hyenas. Or vultures. Or some weird hybrid. A starving, stinking, single-minded hoard who have just burned through a few thousand calories in training and have neither the patience nor fucking manners to display any kind of chill.

“I swear to fuck, Marly, if you give me blue balls on this shit, I will fucking-” St-Simon is the worst, and he’s bigger than Cliff, which makes him like, one of maybe five people in the league. He’s not quite frothing at the mouth, but he looks like he can and will commit violence if he doesn’t get his own way, and not for the first time, Cliff wonders if maybe he’s flown too close to the sun.

No man should have this kind of power.

Maybe he needs a taser?

“Sit the fuck down dipshit,” he grumbles, trying to untangle himself from his training jersey. “Can I at least fucking shower first?”

There’s a loud, unanimous cry of “No!” from the team in the locker room, and an echo from the showers he assumes is the same.

Fucking fine. He reaches up to the top shelf of his bench and pulls down a large Tupperware box. He’s had to get one of the big cake-sized ones because it takes a lot to feed a hockey team, and he was getting sick of juggling multiple boxes.

If he sets it down in front of them, it will take all of three seconds for the room to descend into a full-on brawl.

Turns out that with enough practice, it is possible to make sugar cookies more addictive than fucking crack cocaine.

“Oi!” he yells. “Line the fuck up.”

One by one, he doles out cookies to every player. He’s got them fairly well, if not fully, trained by this point, and so long as they follow the rules, he can usually do a full allocation without any bloodshed.

The string of “Thanks, Cap,” and “Love you, Cap,” and “I would have your babies for more of these, Cap,” is very fucking satisfying.

Petrov is no longer last in line, no longer the rookie, but he grins ear to ear as he shoves a cookie in his mouth whole.

It’s pretty much his fault. After that whole bullshit last season with the kid’s old man, Cliff somehow ended up adopting the little shit like a stray fucking dog. With zero clue and a fair amount of panic, he wound up trying to teach the kid how to bake.

Petrov is the worst fucking baker he’s ever met, but he is a far better assistant than Roz ever was. As a result, they now have the world’s best cookies.

“Thanks, Cap,” Petrov says, his mouth full. Cliff rolls his eyes.

It’s pretty satisfying. As Captain. But also just… in general. He feels better knowing he can look after the monkeys in his fucking zoo, and it’s good not to have some weird, secret baking double life.

There was only one comment at the start that he can’t fully remember. Something about ‘baking being really fucking gay’. It came from one of his least favorite defensemen and ended when Petrov punched him in the face, and the rest of the team, in fear that their supply might get cut off, kicked him until he apologized.

“Holy fucking shit-”

Now he’s fed the hoard, Cliff’s not paying much attention to the room, more focused on stripping down as fast as he can so he can take a shower. The back of his thighs are on fire, and he really, really wants to just stand under the heat for a couple of minutes.

“Fuck! They’re okay, right?”

“There’s no, like… nobody died…”

“Fuck, someone needs to call Roz-”

That gets his attention. He’s down to his boxers and one sock, half the room huddled around O’Brien and his phone. The sudden shift in mood feels a lot like being dumped in an ice bath.

“What’s going on?” he frowns, joining their huddle.

Petrov’s eyes are very wide and very young when he looks up at Cliff. “The Centaur’s plane caught fire.”

Marlow’s phone is in his hand before anyone can add anything.

“Pick up you sonovabitch,” he mumbles, feeling both weirdly floaty and like he’s eaten an entire box of his own cookies all at once.

The room is silent while the call rings. An hour later, or maybe after five seconds, Rozanov answers.

“Still alive,” the asshole says, “sorry to disappoint you.”

“Motherfucker!” Cliff yells at him. He has to sit down and quickly finds himself shoved sideways onto one of the benches. Roz chuckles, and he sounds fucking terrible. There’s a lot of noise in the background. Cliff makes sure the call is on speaker. “Where are you? I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Aw, I love you too.”

“Fucker. You okay?”

“Yes, no one was hurt. It was just very… dramatic.” Cliff interprets that as ‘wildly terrifying and super fucking traumatizing’ in Roz speak. He’s better at translating these days.

“Thank fuck.” The headache that explodes behind his eyes is the kind of adrenaline crash he only really gets after a full-on brawl. “Hey, everyone’s here.”

There’s an abnormally subdued collection of “Hey, Rozy,” from the team. Most of them look shaken, even the new guys who don’t know Rozanov well. They spend half their lives travelling and a good chunk of that time on a plane. It’s fucking scary.

He makes a note to talk to management. Someone with more clout than him needs to reassure everyone that shit like this is a fluke and they’re not all gonna die flying to fucking Pittsburgh.

“Hey,” Roz finally responds, sounding just as weird and awkward as the rest of them. “Fuck, I gotta go-”

Go be Captain to a team that all thought they were gonna die. Yeah. Jesus. “Catch you later, brother. Glad everyone’s okay.”

“We’ll send you some of Cap’s cookies,” St-Simons adds. “They’re definitely worth nearly fucking dying for.”

Roz hangs up on them mid-laugh.

Cliff is distressed enough to be wearing his suit when he makes his way up to management the next day. They have a game that evening, at home, thank fuck, but if he doesn’t do something, he’s gonna be a mess on the ice and drag everyone down with him.

A statement has already gone out on social media in support of both their former Captain and their colleagues. The bosses have been doubling down on safety and will speak to the team both before and after the game. Pretty much all the internal boxes have been ticked, at least from an admin perspective.

There’s no real reason to be standing outside of Svetlana Vetrova’s office. He’s not even sure what she does, only that she’s important, knows everyone despite only working with the team for a couple of months, and used to hook up with Roz on a semi-regular basis.

Okay, so there are two reasons to be standing there.

He knocks politely, annoyed by how much he’s sweating already.

A call of “Yes,” invites him inside.

Roz’s Jane is either a fucking goddess or the ugliest woman alive because Svetlana might be the single most beautiful person he’s ever laid eyes on. He’s no fucking clue how you move up from that. Her red hair is pinned up in a riot of tight curls, and there’s something about the way she’s done her makeup that makes her eyes fucking luminous.

She looks surprised to see him. “Captain, what can I do for you?”

Roz’s accent isn’t nearly as lovely as hers is. Maybe because he’s usually swearing at Cliff. But he could listen to her talk all day.

“Marlow?”

Shit. Yes. He clears his throat. “Yeah, hi. I, er, just wanted to check up on you.”

She raises an eyegant eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I know you and Roz were close. Are close.”

“Oh,” and she has the prettiest fucking smile. “That’s sweet, thank you. Sit.” She waves a hand at the couch opposite her desk. He perches, trying not to look like quite the oversized gremlin he knows he is. “Drink?” She has a mini fridge in the cabinet behind her desk, probably for the fancy money folk.

Cliff tugs at his collar. "Oh, no, thank you, ma'am."

She spins the lid off a bottle of sparkling water and leans back against the desk, crossing her legs at the ankle. "You American boys are so polite." Her lips quirk up at the corner. They’re very pink and very-

"Er-" Cliff's eyes dart to the window, then back to her face.

"Ilya is fine. I spoke to him yesterday." She takes a sip, watching him over the rim of the bottle.

"Oh, yeah. We did too. The boys, I mean. We called." He shifts his weight, the leather couch squeaking beneath him.

"He will have appreciated that."

Cliff hesitates, rubbing his palms against his thighs. Now for the second reason he’s here. Which will hopefully distract him from the first. "You, er, know about Jane, right?"

Her eyebrows shoot up. "What?"

"Ilya's girl."

Svetlana sets her bottle down with a sharp click. "His girl."

"Yeah. You know about her?" Cliff leans forward.

"He's told you about Jane?" She's standing straighter now. Does that mean she does know? Or she doesn’t?

"Oh fu— no, this is Roz we're talking about." Cliff waves his hands. "Anyway, we - the boys and me - figure she's probably fucking - sorry - freaked out about everything, so we got like, some stuff together to send to her."

Svetlana blinks slowly. "...you made a gift basket for Jane?"

"Yes!" Cliff brightens. "Only we don't know how to get it to her. None of us have Hollander's number, and like, I don't even know what that dynamic even is because I can't find shit about her online so clearly it's super private and-" he figures that anyone who goes to those kind of lengths to stay anonymous in this day and age deserve not to have idiots like Cliff starting shit for them. The last thing he wants to do is piss Rozanov off because he fucked up his girl’s peace. Hollander’s never talked about her before, either, but he’s a weird one. He’s super open about some shit and a fucking clam about others.

"One minute." She holds up a manicured finger, turns to her cabinet, and pulls out a bottle of vodka. She pours a shot, tosses it back, and wipes her lip with her thumb. "Okay. Continue."

Cliff stares at the empty shot glass, then back at her face. "So... can you use your managerial powers to figure out how we get it to her? It's nothing crazy. Mostly like, bath bombs and stuff. We didn't have much time."

He had to keep it super top secret as well, which meant no telling the WAGs, who would probably have done a better job at knowing what shit to include. Cliff has mentioned no names, no details, only that Roz has a girl and she’s probably feeling pretty fucking upset right now. The boys rallied as best they could.

When Svetlana just stares at him, he starts to worry he's overstepped. She tilts her head, red curls catching the light, and taps her fingernail against the empty shot glass. "You are a very sweet man," she finally says, leaning forward slightly.

Cliff shifts on the squeaking leather. "Just, you know, trying to… he's fucking difficult sometimes."

"Most times," she chuckles, standing and smoothing her skirt. "Leave it with me." She shifts around her desk, perching on the edge closer to him.

"Awesome!" Cliff jumps to his feet, nearly knocking over a small decorative plant. "I don't know how to thank you."

Svetlana's lips curve upward. "You can buy me dinner."

"I can?" His eyes widen. "I can! Yes!" He's nodding like his head might fall off.

"Have a good game, Cliff." She brushes invisible lint from his jacket sleeve, fingers lingering. Oh, he likes the way she says his name… “Try to win.”

He swallows. “Yes, ma’am.”

After they slaughter Toronto 4-0, Cliff sends Rozanov a text:

If I take Svetlana out to dinner will you kill me?

A minute later, he gets a response:

Worship her or she’ll kill you herself and I’ll help hide your body.

He types:

So that’s a no to murder?

Roz replies:

She likes Italian

It takes maybe five minutes into dinner for Cliff to decide that he’s possibly a little in love.

It takes maybe five minutes the next morning for both of them to decide that doing anything more would be a very, very bad idea. She’s just started her new position. He’s got no fucking chill… it could be awkward. Very fucking awkward.

Better to just be friends. Good friends. Who maybe, on occasion, have the best sex Cliff has ever had in his life.

They’re just not, you know, dating or anything.

Which is fine. Totally fine. In no way does it result in him nearly burning his kitchen down while trying to decode exactly what her perfume smells like. Petrov earns his keep with that one, fire extinguisher at the ready.

Five tequila shots at the hotel bar is what leads him to knock, maybe a little drunkenly, on Rozanov’s hotel room door at the next All Stars game, tripping over his own feet and slamming shoulder-first into the wall opposite.

"Rozanov? You in there?" He raps his knuckles in what he thinks is a rhythm but sounds more like a woodpecker having a seizure.

“Yes.”

Cliff leans his forehead against the door. “We’re going out. I need my wingman.” Who better to guide, advise, and generally distract him than his best friend, who was also not dating the woman Cliff is absolutely not in love with?

“Where?”

“I don’t know!” Why so many fucking questions? Why so much fucking tequila? “Some club?” Any club. “Can you open the fucking door?”

There’s a sound from inside the room that comes straight out of a prono. “I can’t right now. Sorry.” Cliff freezes, hand still on the handle.

“Shit. You’ve got a girl in there with you, right?”

“Maybe.”

Jesus Christ, of course he does. “Probably two or three. Have a good night, you fucking legend.”

He heads to the hotel bar and doesn’t make it any further, too fucking deflated to bother trying to round up anyone else. Most of the guys are married. Or in a relationship. Or fucking around.

Which… shit. Fuck, he's stupid. 

He switches to beer. No, okay, he needs to be more sober for this. His own drama needs parking.

Two hours and three separate attempts to get his phone number later, Cliff has just about sobered up enough to formulate a plan. He’s going to accost Roz at breakfast and shake him a little bit until Cliff is satisfied he’s not in one of those moods of his.

He’s spared the elaborate mission when Roz joins him at the bar instead.

“No club?” Roz asks. His cheeks are faintly pink, and his hair is still damp. He doesn’t look like he used to after a bender, but maybe it’s been so long now since Cliff’s seen it that he’s forgetting shit?

"No. I, er, needed to clear my head, I guess." Cliff knocks over his empty glass reaching for it.

"You good?" Roz catches the glass before it rolls off the edge.

The room tilts slightly. Maybe yes. Maybe no. Currently not his actual problem. "Are you good?"

“I’m great.” Roz's eyebrow twitches upward.

"I was worried, you know," Cliff says over a sudden burst of laughter from a nearby table. "After that thing, and then the shit with the plane..." and his shitty team, in his shitty city, alone without his friends, and now this. "You can tell me. If you're not. You know... good."

Roz blinks three times in rapid succession. “I have no idea what is happening right now.”

"No?" Cliff leans in, nearly toppling off his stool. "So you and Jane are good then, yeah?"

Roz freezes, his face doing that thing it does when he wants someone to back the fuck off. Like Cliff is fucking scared of it. “What?”

"I mean, how does it work? It's serious, right?" Cliff's hands start moving before his brain catches up. "It's gotta be serious, you moved to fucking Canada. She good with you… You know…" he tries to find the right hand gesture to convey ‘does she care that you’re fucking around on her in hotels or am I gonna be really fucking disappointed in you right now’ and ends up with more of a flail.

Roz stares at him. "Vodka." He orders from the bartender without breaking eye contact with Cliff. "Don't stop pouring until you run out of glass." He downs half of it in one gulp, then says, “You are asking me what? If I am cheating?”

Cliff's hands fidget with a soggy napkin, tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces. "I'm asking if you're okay. You're an asshole, but you're not, you know, an asshole."

"Right." Roz stares into his glass, swirling what remains.

"Fuck, I know what I mean." The napkin shreds scatter across the bar.

"I'm glad someone does." Roz's voice drops lower. "What's going on with you?"

"Fuck if I know." And fuck if he wants to talk about it. Cliff's eyes burn slightly, and he blinks hard. "I wasn't gonna, you know, make a big deal or anything upstairs. It's your life, brother. I just..." He trails off, watching Roz's grip tighten on his glass. "You can get kinda self-destructive sometimes. Don't want you fucking up a good thing if you've got it."

"Cliff-" Rozanov starts, then looks away, his jaw working.

"I'm not judging! I'm just..." Cliff's voice cracks. "Worried."

Roz meets his eyes, something unreadable and wounded there. "You're a good man. And I don't want to lie to you, so." He slides his empty glass away. "Leave it. Please."

Fuck. So much for shaking some sense out of him.

“Just… promise me you’re not gonna do something fucking stupid.” He’s seen Rozanov in some dark, scary places before. He doesn’t want a repeat.

Something softens in Roz’s expression. “That’s what you see?”

“I see someone who ninety percent of the time is the toughest, scariest fucker I’ve ever met.” It’s the other ten percent that worries him.

Roz stares at his vodka for a long moment. When he looks up, a smile slowly replaces that thousand-yard stare of his. "Cliff fucking Marlow," he laughs, but there's something raw beneath it.

"Don't be a dick." Cliff's shoulders slump.

Roz reaches across the bar, puts a hand on the back of Cliff's neck, and squeezes - the same gesture from a hundred victories, a hundred losses. "Talk to me about Sveta."

Cliff groans, puts his arms on the bar, and buries his head in them, the weight of everything suddenly too much.

“I think we need the bottle,” Roz says to the bartender.

“Holy fucking shit!”

That’s the only appropriate combination of words to Cliff’s hard-earned but frankly fucking glorious Oreshki, but they’re not uttered in response to his latest pre-game delivery.

He’s got a weird sense of reliving the same memory as Petrov holds up his phone, and everyone clusters around him. “Is that Shane fucking Hollander?”

Cliff is taller than most of them, so he can loom over their shoulders for a better view.

It’s not Shane Hollander looking back at him, but Hayden Pike. Why are they watching a video of Hayden Pike?

Oh.

Oh.

Again, Cliff’s phone is in his hand before he realizes it.

Roz’s phone goes straight to voicemail. Like that’s gonna stop him.

He yells into the receiver. “Did I send thirty fucking thousand bathbombs to Shane Hollander?”

Chapter 12

Chapter Summary

“Coach,” Cliff nods, his eyes wide and his face white. “Boss. Bosses.” He nods at the closest cluster of people, then turns his attention to her. “SOS. Major fucking SOS.”

Svetlana stares at him. They’re not dating, but they’re also not not dating at this point, one step away from the relationship she knows he wants and held in place only by her loyalty to Ilya and the fraying threads of her sanity.

It means they’re pretty good at not crossing any lines in public.

Or at least she’s very good at not crossing any lines in public, while he looks at her like a lovesick puppy every time they’re in the same room. He’s one of about four men who do, though, so they get away with it.

But she knows he would never interrupt her work unless it was an actual emergency.

Chapter Notes

I continue to be blown away by you all! Thank you. I am also over the moon that Sveta/Cliff entertains you because they're not going anywhere!

Warnings for this part: Ilya's depression and his (very lightly) hinted at suicidal ideation from TLG. As chapter 11, this part covers the aftermath of the plane incident, and the immediate aftermath of Hayden's video. I adored TLG, but there were a couple of things I really wanted to explore that simply didn't have time for in the book.

Sometimes Svetlana thinks she has spent fifteen years waiting for a call to regretfully inform her of her best friend’s death.

He was born sad, she thinks. Sad, and soft, but loved enough that sadness became spring, and softness was merely sweet, and that might have been enough to see him through.

Then things change, and the balance tips, and there isn’t nearly enough love in his life to make up for the hate. She tries. She helps. She hopes. But weeds grow in the garden of her mind, and she knows that one day there will come a time when nothing and no one will tip the scales back in his favor.

She will lose him to that sadness, or to a world too hungry for his misery that it will bleed him dry in the search for one last drop.

So when she gets the plane call from her counterpart in Ottawa, it doesn’t matter that he’s alive, that no one was harmed, that he’s walked away shaken but without the scars he needs for the world to know to tred fucking lightly… she maintains her dignity, ends the call, types the words I love you and sends them to him, locks her office door, sits carefully down on the couch, and bursts into tears.

Less than a week later, she uses the excuse given to her by a team of sweet, stupid men and boards a flight. 

Svetlana shoves her case into Ilya's chest, darting around him before he can pull her into a hug. Her throat feels tight, her hands unsteady. She busies them with her coat buttons and watches him from the corner of her eye. He's swapped out his usual wardrobe for tracks and a long-sleeved sweater, and he looks so very fucking tired.

"Oh sure," he tries to sulk and fails. "Come on in."

She turns her eyes on the floor as she steps inside, counting the tiles in the entryway. One, two, three. Deep breath. Four, five. Her heartbeat finally slowing after days of erratic pounding.

"Just ignore me, that's fine. Make yourself at home." Ilya pouts, like he hasn't kept a spare toothbrush for her since he bought his first place in Boston.

"Stop it," she manages, voice steadier than she feels. She drops to the floor, ostensibly to remove her boots. When he crouches beside her, she allows herself to lean sideways, just enough for their shoulders to touch. The warmth of him - alive, breathing - sends a tremor through her that she hopes he doesn't notice. She doesn't look at him when she says, "I would never have forgiven you if you'd died in a fucking plane crash."

“I leave you my cars in my will?” He offers a joke that is weaker than either of them can stand.

She plays along because she has to. “And the Ducatti?”

“Yes, because your dad resurrecting me to kill me a second time is exactly how I want to enter the afterlife.” His attempt at a smile falters, eyes darting to the window, checking for escape routes in his own fucking house.

"That' s fair, you should-"

He drags her into his arms, engulfing her in the kind of hug only he has ever given her. She feels him trembling, his heartbeat racing against her cheek, and she wraps her arms around him tight enough that they both ache.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into her hair.

"Not your fault." She rubs slow circles between his shoulder blades, the way she's done since they were kids.

"I'm still sorry." He folds himself over until he can hide his face in her shoulder. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”

It’s easier when they can both speak in their own language, but that doesn’t change the fact that all too often they both end up talking around the thing they want to say. She’s never sure how much of that is the way they were raised, or just who they are as people.

“Don’t be stupid,” she chides. “It’s not cute. Jesus…” He sinks his fingers into her hair and holds her tight. It’s something he only ever does when he’s desperate for a tether, and something she only allows when she knows they both need to let him. How many times has she scolded him for messing up her curls over the years?

Nearly as many times as he's helped her fix them, she supposes.

They pull apart, and she nudges at her case with her foot, watching his face. "That's for you, by the way. Or Jane, at least."

"What?" Ilya's eyebrows scrunch together adorably.

She flicks his forehead. "Your former team, ably led by my new favorite hockey player-"

"Since when am I not your favorite?" He clutches his chest dramatically, staggering backward like she's shot him, a brightness in his pale eyes that expresses without words how grateful he is for the stability of a distraction.

Svetlana grins weakly, following him into the living room. "Since Cliff is taller."

"Cliff, huh?" He waggles his eyebrows, recovering instantly to poke her ribs.

She dances away from his fingers. "Yes, Cliff. He was worried your girlfriend Jane would be upset by your casual brush with death-"

"It wasn't really a brush." Ilya flops onto his couch, arms spread wide. "More like a drive-by."

"-and wanted to get her something to cheer her up." She perches on the arm of the couch, watching confusion bloom across his face. "It's pretty much all bath bombs and Timmy vouchers."

Ilya blinks rapidly, mouth opening and closing. "What?"

"Yeah." She can't help the laughter bubbling up as she watches him short-circuit. "He asked if I knew about Jane, and if I could get it to her." She pats his cheek. "Tell Hollander I'm keeping the lavender ones.

"What?" Ilya's eyebrows shoot toward his hairline.

"Did I break you?" She pokes his ribs, making him squirm. "Your face is doing that thing."

"Yes. Maybe." He runs both hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up wildly. "They bought Shane bathbombs?"

"Lots of them." She spreads her arms wide to demonstrate the volume. "Like, industrial quantities."

"And he gave them to you?" Ilya catches her wrist mid-gesture, tugging her closer as if proximity might make her explanation clearer.

"Yes." It’s impossible not to laugh at him. "To give to Jane Hollander."

"...who the fuck is Jane Hollander?" His fingers tighten around her wrist, eyes wide with bewilderment.

"That would be Shane's imaginary sister." She grins, watching comprehension dawn slowly across his features.

"Marly thinks Shane has a sister..." Ilya releases her to press his palms against his temples.

"Yes." She leans in conspiratorially. "And I let him, because otherwise that pretty head would have imploded, and I really enjoyed sitting on it."

Ilya groans, "Fuck me," and slumps back against the cushions, hands over his face. He peeks through his fingers. "I need a drink..."

"Oh, you need a drink?" Svetlana snorts, shoving his shoulder. "I had to explain five kilos of scented bath bombs to border control. They actually put on gloves to search my bag." She mimics the agent's suspicious face, eyebrows raised impossibly high.

That's what tips him over the edge. Ilya's whole body convulses with laughter as he slides sideways, landing with his head in her lap, legs dangling over the armrest. "Did they-" he wheezes, clutching his stomach, "-think you were smuggling drugs inside unicorn glitter bombs?"

"Stop," she orders, fighting her own smile as she flicks his forehead. "It's not funny."

"It's hilarious," he gasps, wiping tears from his eyes. "I love that fucking idiot so much."

It’s late enough that they should really be going to sleep, but between Yuna Hollander’s home-knit blanket, half their bodyweight in sushi, and the heat of Ilya, Svetlana is perfectly content to stay right where she is, snuggled into the couch.

She misses moments like this now that Ilya is no longer in Boston. The sex was always fun, but she can get that anywhere. It’s the intimacy she craves.

The intimacy and the peace. Ilya has been her safe space almost all of her life. She's tried, with varying degrees of success, to be his. Mostly, she fears she has failed.

"How is Shane?" She twirls a strand of his hair around her finger.

"It scared him," Ilya admits, shuffling until he can tuck his arm around her and fiddle with the edge of the blanket.

"It scared all of us." When Ilya doesn't respond to that, she pokes him gently in the ribs until he squirms and swats at her hand.

"It's not like I'm their Captain anymore," he says, catching her finger before she can poke him again.

"Yes, because that's the only reason they could possibly give a shit." She rolls her eyes and tugs her finger free.

"Marlow's a good guy," he says, not even trying to be subtle as he changes the subject. He tilts his head to look up at her, eyebrows raised.

She huffs and shuffles deeper into the couch, nudging him until his head is on her belly. She strokes his hair, grateful he can't see her face and know how close he is to breaking her heart. "I know."

"Good player, too." He tucks his arm over her hip, as much a cuddler now as he was when they were children, and she was the only soft thing in his life.

"As if I'd fuck him if he wasn't," she scoffs, flicking his ear. "I have standards."

"Is he better than me?" He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

"Fuck your ego, Ilyusha," she laughs, giving his hair a gentle tug. He hides his grin against her stomach, nuzzling closer. "He takes instruction better."

Ilya snorts and pats her arm with a gentle squeeze. "Poor bastard. Be gentle with him."

"If that's what he wants, sure." She flicks his ear playfully, making him yelp.

"So..." He wiggles his eyebrows, "are you gonna see him again, or-"

"I work with him. Yes, I am going to see him again." She tugs a curl, watching it spring back.

"No!" He pokes her side right where she's ticklish. "I mean-"

"I know what you mean." She swats his hand away. "It's complicated. People already think I fucked you for the job." Predictably, he tries to push up on his elbow, indignant. She sinks her fingers into his curls and holds him still, scratching his scalp in that way that always makes him melt.

"I'd already transferred when you joined!" He relaxes under her touch despite his protest. "Which, awful fucking timing, by the way."

"Yes, but men don't like women knowing more about their favorite thing than they do." She traces a heart on his forehead with her thumb. She doesn’t even bother getting annoyed about it. If it’s not rumors of Ilya calling in a favor for her, it’s ones of her father doing it. Hockey is a shit-show like that, glacially slow to change for the better, no matter how hard she pushes that rock up the hill.

"That's stupid," he mumbles, eyes half-closed.

"Very," she agrees.

"Marly's not like that. Right?" He catches her hand and squeezes it. Ilya has good instincts, and he's frighteningly observant, but he trusts her more than he trusts himself most of the time.

"I don't think so." She intertwines their fingers. "Maybe we will see."

"Maybe?" He frowns up at her, concern replacing contentment.

She sighs and tries to find the gentlest way to phrase what she wants to say next, absently playing with his fingers. "I don't like lying to people I'm dating." There's no way to avoid it, not if it goes any further. Cliff and Ilya are friends. Svetlana and Ilya are friends. If she and Cliff ever try to be more than what they currently are, the conversation will eventually circle back to Jane. God knows it's only three concussions and Cliff's bafflingly trusting nature that have saved them this long.

When he looks up at her, she hasn't seen that expression on his face for a long time. He’s spent so much time and energy hiding from everyone, including her, that she doesn’t actually know if it’s a good thing he’s not trying now. It’s hard to tell if his walls are actually coming back down, or if he’s just too tired to hold them upright. “Sveta…”

She shakes her head and presses a finger to his lips before he can say anything more. “No.”

There’s every chance Cliff will say nothing. He loves Ilya, and he’s a good friend, but they live and work in a world that makes it hard to predict which side of rational people will fall when something shifts in their worldview.

She’s more than willing to lie to protect Ilya’s career. Shane’s too.

And there’s probably nothing at all she is unwilling to do to protect his life. The consequences for Ilya being outed are far more perilous than those for Shane, and will remain so until his Canadian Citizenship is stamped. Not that she thinks he cares much about that at all.

Another thing she might lose him to.

She boops his nose. " So your new coach is better." When he swears at her colorfully, she laughs and mimics his pout. "Yes, I too can change the subject!"

“Why do I miss you so much?" he asks, nuzzling against her hand until she resumes a rhythm of gentle touch.

"Because you are all soft on the inside like zefir," she says, ruffling his hair affectionately. She pokes his cheek. "Big scary hockey man made of marshmallow."

He catches her finger between his teeth, not biting down, just holding it there with a playful growl before releasing it. He's quiet for long enough that she thinks he might have fallen asleep. She traces the shell of his ear, memorizing its shape. The bleed of adrenaline that's powered her through the last few days ebbs away now the world is right and safe again.

"I didn't want to die," he whispers into the quiet.

"What?" Her finger stills against his temple.

"When the plane caught fire. I thought, 'I don't want to die now'." His voice drifting as if she’s not there to hear. "That... that is new, I think. Wanting to stay. It's always been nothing. Or-"

She knows she's shaking. She knows she's holding him so tight it must hurt. Her tears fall silently into his curls as she presses her lips to the crown of his head.

She holds him for a long time. When she finally wipes her eyes, the world looks glassy and refracted, but lighter than before, as if letting the sadness out made room for more breath. Her hand finds his, and she squeezes hard. “You must always want to stay,” she says. “It is not optional. You are not allowed to leave me here with these idiots.”

His chest shakes with silent amusement, but when he tilts his head to look up at her, the familiar wolfish smile is back in his eyes, sharp and bright as ever. Her beautiful boy, born to sadness, always finding a way to break back through the surface just before he drowns.

Ilya's hand finds hers again, thumb brushing over her knuckles. "I'm glad you like Shane."

She traces the lines of his palm with her fingertip. "He is very likable." She tucks a curl behind his ear, letting her hand linger against his cheek. Ilya leans into her touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. The sight makes her chest ache. Ilya, who guards himself so carefully with others, has always been soft with her. And now with Shane.

"He is," Ilya murmurs, turning his face to press a kiss to her wrist.

She cups his face between her hands. "So are you."

"Hmm." He smiles against her palm.

Her fingers tighten involuntarily. "Tell me," she pleads, throat constricting around the words. "If you change your mind."

“About what?”

“Staying.” She thinks of the thousand ways he could slip through her fingers and wonders if her mother ever had this conversation with his. It made no difference then. She refuses to let them walk the same paths.

“I will try.”

She loves hockey. She loves hockey. So fucking loves fucking hockey and-

And she might murder Desjourneys slowly if he doesn’t pull his head out of his ass and listen to what she has to say.

Coffee through her bloodstream. Two cups in, she can actually see the future, or at least the vaporous trails of it, and it is not Desjourneys leading the Raiders in a playoff run. Not unless the universe finds a way to bench the man for gross incapacity, and maybe tie his shoes together at the blue line for good measure.

Svetlana squares her jaw and jabs a finger at the massive wall screen. All the team execs and a raft of local investor creeps have crowded into the glass-walled war room for the monthly data review. "You are not listening," she says, and even keeps her tone gentle, because American men need you to soft-glove it at first. "We’ve run the data. If we focus only on even-strength, the entire defensive scheme falls apart second period. The spread here, look-"

She swipes the chart, expanding the sharp red Corsi plummet. "We are pretending this is about the third line forwards, but it is not," she says, smiling at him the way her mother once smiled at a drunken party guest who vomited in her purse. "Nothing to do with them. We can score goals if we're not pulling three men out of the zone for every dump-in."

“I hear what you’re saying,” Desjourneys says, clearly lying through his ass. “But we know the formation works best when-”

Cliff Marlow doesn’t so much step into the office as he does fall in and nearly take the door with him.

“Cap?” Desjourneys gets to his feet.

“Coach,” Cliff nods, his eyes wide and his face white. “Boss. Bosses.” He nods at the closest cluster of people, then turns his attention to her. “SOS. Major fucking SOS.”

Svetlana stares at him. They’re not dating, but they’re also not not dating at this point, one step away from the relationship she knows he wants and held in place only by her loyalty to Ilya and the fraying threads of her sanity.

It means they’re pretty good at not crossing any lines in public.

Or at least she’s very good at not crossing any lines in public, while he looks at her like a lovesick puppy every time they’re in the same room. He’s one of about four men who do, though, so they get away with it.

But she knows he would never interrupt her work unless it was an actual emergency.

“Gentlemen,” she doesn’t look at them, just grabs her purse and her jacket, and heads for the door. “Please excuse me.”

Cliff's voice booms down the hallway as they sprint toward the exit. "If you fire her, I quit!"

"You're under contract," she reminds him absently, her pulse hammering in her ears. Her heels skid on the polished floor as she struggles to keep pace.

"I'll break both my fucking legs." His jaw clenches, eyes wild.

"What is happening?" She grabs his arm when they reach the stairwell, fingers digging into his bicep. He passes her his phone with a trembling hand. The screen blurs before her eyes, but she doesn't need to see it clearly. She knows.

"Cliff," she starts, throat closing. Her stomach drops, the floor vanishing beneath her. "I-" The words won't come. She looks at him for confusion. Betrayal. Embarrassment. Disgust. We'll see, she told Ilya.

God, she doesn't want to see.

He takes her shoulders in his big hands, steadying her as the stairwell seems to tilt. "Hey. Look at me." His thumbs press gentle circles against her collarbone. "Our flight leaves in an hour," he says, voice firm.

Svetlana searches his face, her heart still racing. "You're not angry with him?"

"Who, Roz? No." His eyes flash. "I'm gonna fucking murder Hollander, but that's a separate fucking issue."

Relief leaves her dizzy. She grabs a handful of his tight training shirt and drags him down to kiss him hard. When they both have to stop to breathe, she takes a step back and steadies herself. "We're dating now."

His arms wrap around her, solid and sure. "Oh yeah, no, absolutely," he says, then starts fumbling for his keys while still holding her. He drops them, stoops to grab them, and nearly knocks their heads together.

"I need to call him," she says, already scrolling through her contacts.

"It's going to voicemail." Cliff rubs the back of his neck, brow furrowed. "I tried like six times."

"Of course it is! He just got outted on the fucking internet!" She paces three quick steps, then back. "Jesus Christ. How... how is everyone taking it?"

"The boys?" He scratches his temple, blinking rapidly. "I dunno. Same as me, I guess? I mean..." He gestures vaguely with both hands. "He fucked a lot of fucking girls."

"Yes." More than Cliff can guess, and for a whole lot longer than he probably should have been doing.

"Just..." Cliff squints at the ceiling, then back at her. "Just to check. Jane is definitely-"

"Oh yeah," she nods, preparing for the blowup.

"Okay, cool." His shoulders relax slightly as he holds the door for her. "Be kinda shitty to cheat on a girl with her brother."

If she falls in love with this ridiculous man over this, she will never let Ilya hear the end of it. "Please never change."

Chapter 13

Chapter Summary

“Sorry,” Shane clears his throat, setting down his napkin. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but Marlow, why are you here?”

Marlow shrugs. “Me? I mean… Rozy’s my brother, man. I wanna help, obviously. And tell you that if you break his heart, I’m gonna break your other arm.”

Ilya’s growing smile snaps off like a broken hinge. “The fuck?” He tenses, chair scraping.

Shane simply nods. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”

Chapter Notes

Okay, so tissue warning for the first part. Chaos warning for the second.

General content warning for Ilya's depression, as well as one mention of underage sex and drug use.

Hopefully the timeline is fairly self-explanatory - this will be the last repetition of the same time period, I promise! Lots of characters had Strong Opinions about the plot. We're deviating a little from the book now, but more in a missing scene kind of way than anything else.

There are months after Russia where they see Ilya more than they ever see Shane. If he’s not at their house, they are at his.

They set a pattern for the winter, comfort in the regularity of it. Weekday suppers when he’s not on the road or playing a game, weekends split between whoever has the better dessert recommendation, and an open invitation that Ilya never fails to accept. Until he does.

First, it’s the late text about a double-booked meeting, then “impossible to get away, sorry,” then nothing but silence. David checks his phone so often he starts to hate the shape of it in his hand. When Ilya finally does visit, he’s distant, not cold exactly, but on a frequency that shreds anything in the vicinity of easy conversation. He sits at their kitchen table and picks at his food, and quickly leaves before they can get him to tell them what's wrong.

Maybe it’s a bad stretch with the Centaurs, maybe it’s exhaustion. But after the third month, every “sorry” starts sounding more like an apology for existing than an excuse.

David doesn’t want to keep track of how long it’s been since they last saw him without Shane. He has a notion that hard numbers might make it worse, so he marks time instead by the subtle shifts in Yuna. First, her well-practiced patience, then the collecting of little gifts for “the next time he comes over,” and eventually, an anxiousness that cycles fast and hot, then cold, like April weather. 

He doesn’t want to ask what’s changed. Shane, in his way, keeps the door open with updates, always optimistic. Work is busy for both of them, the season is brutal, and Ilya’s new team, improving by degrees then slipping back, is a permanent grind. “He’s just tired, Dad,” Shane says, and David hears it: a knotted, peevish concern under forced casual. Both the boys are bad at being the first to admit they’re hurting.

He knows the boys are fighting more, stress and circumstance adding friction to a relationship already fraught with complications. He never really worries. Never doubts for a second that they won’t find their way back to each other in days if not hours, and he’s right. Even their worst blowups are over with the new tide.

But he worries. They are both so isolated. Shane by a team who do a poor job of even pretending not to care once they know he is gay, and Ilya by everything else. It feels endless for both of them, this idea that they can’t be what they so desperately need to be. Another year? Another five? Another ten?

They’re in Mexico when the Ottawa Centaurs plane catches fire. Shane just about manages to talk them out of jumping on the first flight home, but it’s only when Ilya phones, his voice soft and apologetic as he assures them everyone is fine, that they realize just how off-kilter everything has become in such a short amount of time.

He’s been so enthusiastic, so desperate to be part of Shane’s life, part of their family, that he’s set the tone and pace for pretty much every aspect of how they have treated him since.

It’s one thing to read him when they are together, to know how hard and how far to push against the walls he hides behind. They make mistakes, and they learn, and they do both quickly.

But no matter how they might feel about him, Ilya isn’t their son. They don’t push the way they do with Shane. They don’t force the matter, knowing that if they don’t, no one else will. Ilya gives them just enough that they can’t claim he’s completely avoiding them, but it’s an aching, agonizing void compared to what they originally had.

All David can conclude is that they’ve overstepped. The initial excitement and hunger Ilya might have felt has faded with time, and now he’s trying to enforce a boundary with them that they all veered past far too early in their relationship.

He waits until a time when the rhythm of an athlete's week slows just enough that Ilya might answer his own door. He keeps his hands at ten and two for the whole drive, hands tight on the wheel when he tries to summon Yuna’s stubborn optimism. She’s the one who tells him Ilya has a night off, and the stiff, embarrassed worry in her voice is so sharp it leaves an imprint on his heart. They agree, somewhat reluctantly, that both of them might feel like an ambush, not a peace offering.

After what feels like a lifetime of waiting, Ilya buzzes David past a gate that has never been barred to him before and meets him on the porch. The look on his face isn’t surprise, just resignation, exhaustion, and the sense that he has already had time to game out every scenario where this conversation ends in disaster. He doesn’t wave, but his posture softens when David gets out, and for a second David allows himself to believe the kid is glad to see him.

He mutters a “Hi” that dissolves in the cold. “Come in,” he says, not meeting David’s eye, just holding the door open and pulling at the sleeve of his hoodie until his wrist threatens to disappear inside.

Ilya’s house is too big for just one man, especially one as careful as he is with space. He bought it to share with Shane one day, but the absence just makes it feel empty.

“You, er, want something to drink?” Ilya gestures at the fridge, then seems to regret offering. 

“Water’s great.” David makes an effort, tilting a smile, but Ilya’s already at the sink. He fills two glasses and passes one over, his fingers blotched with red and a couple of small adhesive bandages. Injuries, or nervous picking? Hard to say. He doesn’t sit until David does, and when he does, he chooses the chair opposite, leaning so far forward his elbows almost meet above the table defensively.

“It’s good to see you,” David says, frowning at how stupidly old-fashioned it sounds. He means it, but it lands stiffer than any conversation between them ever has, including that first meal.

Ilya nods and doesn’t meet his gaze.

“I’m glad you’re alright. Must have been pretty scary.”

“Is okay. Shane was more upset.”

Shane had been beside himself. David and Yuna weren’t much better.

When Ilya starts to absently run his finger over the rim of his glass, David bites the bullet.

“I can’t help but feel like maybe we’ve overstepped somehow," he starts cautiously. Ilya shifts but doesn't look up. "It wasn’t intentional, and the last thing Yuna and I want is to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Ilya's expression shatters. His eyes meet David's, suddenly swimming with tears, his chin trembling as he shakes his head with such violent desperation that droplets scatter from his lashes. "No. No, you have done nothing wrong. This... this is not you." 

David's been so sure Ilya would try pretend nothing had changed that the immediate acknowledgement leaves him a little stunned.

"Then what' s going on with you, kid?" he leans forward, stomach knotting.

"Is nothing." Ilya's voice cracks, betraying him.

"Ilya..." The kid looks away, tears now streaming unchecked down his flushed cheeks, breath coming in short, controlled gasps. "Hey, hey, talk to me." David abandons his chair, dragging it around the table with a harsh scrape. He sits close enough that their knees touch, feeling the tremor running through Ilya's leg. "What' s going on?"

"I love Shane. Very much." Ilya says, almost out of the blue.

"I know." David's throat tightens. "There' s not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for knowing that."

"And... and I love you, too. And Yuna." Ilya's hands twist together, knuckles white. "You are... I've wanted..."

"And we love you." David reaches out, squeezing Ilya's forearm. The kid flinches, not away but into himself, as though the kindness physically hurts.

"I know Shane loves me." Ilya's voice drops to a whisper.

"Pretty sure he thinks the sun rises and sets at your command," David attempts a chuckle that dies in his throat when he sees Ilya's expression.

Ilya's smile flickers, watery and gone in an instant. His hands shake as he wipes roughly at his face. "If that changed..."

"I don't think that's possible." 

"If it did..." Ilya's voice breaks completely.

Understanding dawns, sinking heavy into David’s chest. He leans forward, watching Ilya's face tremble as he tries to wipe away tears with the heel of his palm. “Is this because you two have been arguing?” I’ve only ever been in love with one person. He sometimes forgets just how young they are and how long it has taken them to get to where they are. “You know that’s normal, right? Couples fight sometimes.”

“Yes. But." Ilya's breath hitches, his shoulders hunching forward. "But if he changes his mind-" His voice cracks again, and he presses his fist against his mouth, eyes squeezing shut.

David reaches across the table, confusion giving way to concern as Ilya's entire body seems to fold in on itself. He doesn't think he's going to be able to knock Ilya off his spiral, so he waits, heart hammering against his ribs.

"I don't know if…" Ilya takes a deep, shuddering breath that sounds like it's being ripped from somewhere deep inside him. His eyes, when they open, are red-rimmed and devastated. "It is hard. Being alone." His voice drops to a whisper. "Harder, though, when you had something before that."

David's throat tightens. He slides his chair closer, puts his hand on the back of Ilya's neck, and pulls the kid into a fierce hug. For all his avoidance before, Ilya collapses against him with a small, broken sound that makes David's chest ache.

Ilya has thrown everything into loving Shane. He and Yuna have known that from the start and have done everything in their power to offset that loss.

They've loved him, and he's blossomed in the warmth of that love.

They've not for one second stopped to imagine the terror it might bring to a man who has lost the things Ilya has lost. David's family has brought him in from the cold. Without them, Ilya faces a vast, isolated tundra.

Somewhere along the line, David’s forgotten how to talk about love in the way that’s useful. He can tell you everything about what it does, about the operative mechanics, the daily maintenance, the thousand small humiliations and delights required to keep it running. But he’s never been able to describe the shape of it, never known the way to talk a person through the absence, or the threat of absence, or the panic that comes when the thing you depend on most could, theoretically, be snatched away at any moment.

So he says what he knows. He says, “You won’t be alone, even if, in some impossible world, things with you and Shane didn’t work out.”

He wants the idea to register. It doesn’t. “You say that, but,” Ilya manages, gathering the words close before letting them spill, “love does not work for me like this. It is not…” His whole body slumps.

David wants to refute that, but even the sharpest arguments can’t get at what lives underneath Ilya’s skin. “Listen,” He says, sterner now, because what else is there to do? “Everyone who knows you, everyone who loves you - Shane especially - does so because you make it impossible not to.” Ilya shifts, attempting to pull away.

"I'm not-" his voice catches, his body trembling against David's chest.

David holds him tighter, feeling each ragged breath that rattles through him. "I know that people who were supposed to care for you and protect you have let you down in unforgivable ways." His hand moves in small circles between Ilya's shoulder blades, where tension has knotted his muscles into stone. "And I know that makes it hard to believe what I'm telling you. That's okay. I can keep saying it."

Ilya pulls back just enough to reveal red-rimmed eyes, tears clinging to his lashes. His fingers twist the fabric of David's shirt.

"We're not them, okay? We love you. That's never going to change for Shane. And it's never going to change for us."

"I loved my father." Ilya's voice is laced with shame. "Sometimes, at the end, he forgot the things about me he hated enough to love me back." His eyes dart away, focusing on something distant.

"Ilya…" David searches his face, trying to understand the depths behind those fractured words.

"I hated him, too." The confession comes out in a whisper, followed by a violent shudder.

"I know, kid. That's okay."

"I don't know what's wrong with me." Ilya's face crumples, fresh tears spilling over.

"There's nothing wrong with you." David cups the back of Ilya's head, alarmed by the raw desperation in his voice.

"I don't want to be like this." Ilya presses his forehead against David's shoulder, his next words muffled but unmistakable. "I miss you."

David doesn’t know how to respond to that, and not for the first time, wishes he were someone who could conjure comfort out of thin air. He lets them sit in silence for a while instead, pressed together at the kitchen table, his hand never leaving the slope of Ilya’s neck, his heart thundering in his chest. It feels strange, the vast loneliness in this kid that is nothing like the vast loneliness in Shane.

David’s arm aches with the effort of making enough space for Ilya’s broad shoulders, and his chest aches with the knowledge that a man can live for so many years without finding a single place to come undone and not be punished for it.

He holds steady, breathing in time with the shudder of Ilya’s lungs. “It can take a long time to get used to being loved,” David says, the words simple and unadorned. “But Yuna-” he can’t help but manage a crooked smile - “is about to burst if you don’t come around for supper soon. She’s baking your medovik and trying to knit mittens big enough for those monster hands. You know how happy you make her, right?”

A wet laugh bubbles up from Ilya, just shy of a sob. “She is going to make me fat.”

“Think of it as extra padding for some of those takedowns.” David gives him one final squeeze, then lets go. “You’re not going to lose us,” he says. “Jesus, kid, you’re stuck with us.”

Ilya sniffs and scrubs his hand over his face, leaving a red mark across his cheekbone. He nods, shoulders still trembling slightly. "Okay."

David squeezes his shoulder, thumb brushing against the worn cotton of Ilya's shirt. "When are you in practice next?"

"Wednesday?" Ilya's voice steadies as he leans into the touch, some of the tension visibly draining from his neck.

"Good. Go pack a bag." David stands, offering his hand to pull Ilya up. When Ilya takes it, David doesn't let go immediately, instead clasping his other hand over their joined ones. "You're staying with us tonight, okay? We can watch Shane ruin Detroit’s day."

Ilya's mouth twitches toward something almost like a smile. "Okay."

It’s rare that they order takeout, but once they have Ilya on the couch between them, neither David nor Yuna wants to leave long enough to cook.

They send for pizza. Shane scores a hat-trick that does, in fact, ruin Detroit’s day.

“He’s going for your record,” Yuna teases Ilya, fussing with the blanket they’re sharing.

Ilya burrows deeper into the couch in a way that makes David’s spine ache just to watch. “He can try,” he says with a smirk.

There have been full-blown invasions planned with less detail than the one David and Yuna concoct after Hayden Pike brings the hockey world to its knees.

They know before Shane calls. Yuna is on a first-name basis with everyone of note within the MLH. Her phone is a nonstop barrage of calls from news outlets looking for a scoop, from brand managers, and from the owners of the Montreal Metros.

People want answers.

And she’s prepared. There will be no official statement until they’ve spoken to the boys and their agent to align, but they’ve been waiting for this moment ever since Shane said the words “And this is Ilya. Rozanov. But you know that.”

Shane calls them shortly after and tells them they don't need to worry. He lies and says he's okay. They let him, reassure him, then spring into action the second he hands up.

“My plane lands at two fifteen,” Yuna says, wrapping a scarf around her neck. “I should be in the city before the office closes, and I’m not leaving until I’ve got some reassurance.”

“Call me when you get to the hotel,” David tells her, grabbing his keys.

He snags her wrist and holds her close, both their frantic heartbeats finding solace in the staccato of the other. “They’ll be okay,” he promises, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

“Yes,” she agrees, with all the furious determination of a woman who will force her reality into being by sheer stubbornness of will. God help the MLH. Nothing and no one can prepare them for the wrath she is about to unleash.

Her phone rings, and she’s answering it and out the door with a quick farewell kiss. “Harrison, you want to think very carefully about the next words out of your mouth-”

David takes a moment to steady himself.

Yuna can wage war in a way he’s totally unequipped to replicate. There’s a sense of grief for how hopeless he feels, one he can’t afford to lose himself to.

He allows himself a minute to process in silence.

He’s not worried for Shane in the ordinary sense. Shane will survive. He’ll do what he always does: push down and in and through, keep his head up, put his game face on, minimize himself to a weather system of impenetrable calm while, inside, the real work happens, invisible and violent. David worries for all the parts of his son left over at the end of it. The extrusions and projections and warped little edges that make up the actual person behind the highlight reels. He worries because his own record, as a father, says that if they're not careful, that initial pain will build in layers, atomic and indestructible. 

And Ilya? He doesn’t know how to name what he feels for Ilya. He’s never had to parent a man who’s already been burned by life the way Ilya has been burned. He’s terrified that even with Shane at the center of this storm, it’s Ilya who’s going to come apart first. It’s the fatigue. Not of combat, but of a peace that’s promised and never delivered. Ilya’s been holding up a roof with his bare hands for so long that there might not be any muscle memory left for what it’s like to live beneath one.

He knows what comes next will be brutal in ways he can predict and, worse, in ways he can’t. The calls. The headlines. The speculation, the assumptions, the barroom talk, and fan forum poison that seeps everywhere, always, because the game will never be just a game to the people who need it most.

He wants to protect them from all of.

One minute only. Then David is in the car and driving.

Ilya has updated his security, so David pulls into the boys’ drive just in time to see Cliff Marlow punch Hayden Pike in the face.

Svetlana is on her phone, watching the one-sided brawl with an unreadable expression.

Shane is doubled over, hands on his knees, while Ilya rubs his back.

The sound of his car door opening is the only thing that distracts Marlow and Pike from another swing. Ilya looks up, and the naked relief on his face is breathtaking.

Okay, crisis management.

Cliff’s voice shakes the last clinging fog from David’s brain: “Do you have any fucking idea what they will do to him?”

On the porch, Hayden is clutching his jaw, but that’s not what gets David. The look Marlow is giving him is pure, white-hot rage, and so nakedly protective it momentarily eclipses everyone else. Svetlana watches with a cold resolve in the set of her shoulders.

Marlow lunges forward, fists clenched. " No fucking answer?" His voice rises to a roar that makes David flinch. " We all know the Metros hate Ilya fucking Rozanov, but I didn't know you actually wanted to get him killed."

"Shut the fuck up, Marlow!" Ilya's knuckles are white where they grip Shane's trembling shoulders. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"I Googled-"

Ilya barks a harsh laugh. "Oh, you fucking Googled, that's great-"

"What do you mean get him killed?" Hayden's face is blanched, sweat beading at his hairline despite the cool air.

David steps between them, heart hammering against his ribs.

"It's fucking illegal in Russia!" Marlow bellows, spit flying. His chest heaves with each breath, veins standing out on his neck.

David thinks back to that restraunt on Moscow. To Ilya’s soft, self-deprecating smile, and his quiet certainty that if anyone there even saw him with Shane, they would know.

It’s hard not to imagine a worst-case scenario from a place that holds men in Ilya’s position to the highest of impossible standards. Not when the world loves nothing more than to watch as Icarus falls from the sky.

Hayden staggers backward like he's been struck again.

Shane wrenches himself from Ilya's grip, a strangled sound escaping his throat as he stumbles into the house. The door bangs against the wall.

"Sweetheart-" Ilya reaches after him, panic flashing across his face. David wants to do exactly the same thing Ilya wants to do, and follow his son.

"I need... just give me a minute." Shane's voice cracks, his footsteps unsteady as he disappears inside.

David's pulse pounds in his ears. "Everyone inside. Now." His tone leaves no room for argument. "You boys done?"

Marlow's jaw works, tendons standing out as he glares at Hayden. He gives a single, sharp nod.

David grabs Hayden's shoulder, feeling the violent tremors running through him as he steers him through the door.

In the living room, Ilya paces like a caged animal, five quick steps each way, eyes fixed on the hallway where Shane vanished. His breathing comes in short, shallow bursts.

David can’t imagine handling things nearly as well if he and Yuna were in either of their positions.

Svetlana snaps her phone shut. "That was Sasha. He's back in Moscow."

Ilya's mouth thins to a white line as he drums his fingers against his elbow. If the news has broken in Moscow…

David leans forward. "How bad is it?"

She meets Ilya's gaze without flinching, one eyebrow arched. "They’re saying that he's a traitor, a disgrace to the country, thank god his parents are dead so they don't have to live with the shame, fuck the Americans, no wonder he didn't win us gold…"

Ilya snorts and rolls his eyes, bitter and cold. "Oh, so nothing new, good."

"What the fuck?" Hayden whispers, his voice three pitches higher than usual. The bruise on his jaw is already coming up purple.

Svetlana flicks an invisible piece of lint from her sleeve. "Pretty much. He's coming out later this week."

Marlow’s forehead wrinkles. "Who?"

"Sasha. He wants to help." 

The name doesn't seem to mean anything more to Marlow than it does to David.

Ilya somehow manages to look even more unhappy than he already does. "Yes, because having the guy I fucked as a coked-out fifteen-year-old in town is going to be very fucking helpful."

"What the fuck?" Hayden repeats, now pacing in tight circles.

David stares at his hands, chest hollowing out. Every time he thinks Ilya has run out of ways to break his heart…

"You tell him that," Svetlana says, examining her manicure. "He knows everyone that we need to worry about."

Hayden stops pacing to grip his own hair. "I thought we weren't worrying!"

"We're not," Ilya snaps, jaw clenched.

"I mean… Petrov said-" Marlow starts, looking between them all.

Ilya cuts him off with a slashing gesture. "Petrov is fucking twelve, he doesn't know shit."

Hayden drops into a chair, face pale as paper. "I am so fucking sorry, Roz."

“Motherfuck,” Ilya sighs. “Okay, enough. Pike, fucking relax. I’m not angry, it’s not your fault, you’re not about to get me fucking killed, okay, so fucking breathe.” Hayden nods frantically. “Sveta, for the love of fuck, please take Marly and-” he switches into Russian, Svetlana’s eyebrow arches. Marlow clearly has no clue what is being said. David, unfortunately, does, but he’s going to die pretending he doesn’t. He just about manages to look clueless when she takes Marlow’s hand and leads him towards the stairs. Ilya breathes out heavily through his nose. “Okay. Dad, can you please-” David’s heart trips. He just about manages not to cry.

“I’m going to make everyone some food,” he suggests, taking pity on Ilya, who looks so grateful that David’s chest aches.

Ilya shakes his head. "Thanks. And I am going to make sure my fiancé hasn't had a fucking heart attack." He strides out, shoulders tight.

Shane's in the kitchen, staring at the unopened refrigerator, knuckles white against the handle. David waits in the doorway as Ilya crosses the room in three quick steps, turning Shane around and pulling him close. His large hand cradles the back of Shane's head, fingers threading through his hair.

He hates that this is happening. He hates that there is so very little he can do.

"Shane. Breathe," Ilya whispers, pressing their foreheads together, thumbs brushing across Shane's cheekbones.

"I'm breathing." Shane's fingers twist into Ilya's shirt.

"Good." Ilya kisses his temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

"God, Ilya." Shane's voice breaks.

"I know. But we will be okay." Ilya's arms tighten, lifting Shane slightly onto his toes.

"I can't lose you." Shane buries his face in Ilya's neck.

"You won't." Ilya rocks them gently, one hand rubbing circles on Shane's back. "Marlow's being a fucking drama queen."

"But-"

"But nothing." Ilya pulls back just enough to frame Shane's face with both hands. "Why do you think I went back? My passport is good. My visa is good."

"But what if Ottawa drops you and-"

"They won't." Ilya kisses him firmly, then softly. "They remembered they like winning, and they need me for that. Besides... they are good people. I think." David hopes so. He fears the Metros will prove to be the opposite. 

David takes the time they are distracted to start pulling together enough food to feed four hockey players and their quietly high-strung companions.

He’s not the world’s greatest cook, but he’s fed enough starved hockey players over the years to know what’s best for a crowd this antsy. He hunts down three packs of chicken thighs in the freezer, sets them to thaw, and starts a batch of rice so large it threatens to erupt from the pot like a geological event. His reward is the soothing hum of the vent fan and the metallic clatter of stove knobs as he re-centers his world around this small, manageable circle of control. The kitchen is his refuge. Always has been.

Ilya ends up perched on the counter, arms and legs wrapped around Shane, who doesn’t seem to want to do anything other than stay right where he is. There’s nothing there but comfort and grounding, devoid of the awkwardness they might once have tried to avoid in his presence. They need each other, and they need to know they’re not alone in the fight. David hums softly under his breath as he works.

By the time he is done, Shane is calm, and Ilya soft. Hayden enters the kitchen with red eyes and a lurid bruise. Svetlana and Cliff join hand in hand. She looks entirely unruffled. He… does not.

They all squeeze in around the oak table, knives and forks clinking against plates piled high with chicken, steaming rice, and crisp salad. When Shane hesitates over his first bite, Ilya pokes him in the ribs with his elbow.

Svetlana leans forward, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “This is really good, Mr. Hollander.” She smiles across the table.

“David,” he reminds her, not for the first time.

She laughs, nodding. “David. Teach Ilyusha this one - rice is not his forte.”

Ilya bristles, scooping extra chicken onto Shane’s plate. “I’m getting better!”

David grins around a mouthful of rice. “Definitely one of my best students.” Ilya’s chest puffs with pride.

“Sorry,” Shane clears his throat, setting down his napkin. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but Marlow, why are you here?”

Marlow shrugs. “Me? I mean… Rozy’s my brother, man. I wanna help, obviously. And tell you that if you break his heart, I’m gonna break your other arm.”

Ilya’s growing smile snaps off like a broken hinge. “The fuck?” He tenses, chair scraping.

Shane simply nods. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”

“No, it fucking isn’t!” Ilya barks. “That’s my fucking fiancé you’re threatening!”

Across the table, Marlow’s face lights up. “Dude! Congratulations!” He claps so hard his knuckles crack. It makes Svetlana giggle. Hayden finally peeks up, fork halfway to his mouth.

“Jesus,” he murmurs, eyes wide.

Marlow holds up open palms. “All good, bro, just saying it in case no one else has.”

“Want a beer?” Shane offers him, clearly satisfied with the answer in a way Ilya is not.

“No, he doesn’t,” Ilya grumbles as he gets up and grabs a handful of beers from the fridge, regardless. “Do not do that shit again. I am still pissed Pike was the one who got to punch you.”

Marlow accepts a cold bottle and freezes, eyes widening. “Oh fuck, yeah. Shit. Okay.” He sets down his beer, stands, and circles the table until he’s in front of Ilya. He claps his hands, squares his feet, and leans forward for balance. “Lay it on me.”

“Don’t you dare,” Svetlana waves a slender finger at Ilya. “I like his mouth as it is.”

“I think you mean jaw,” Hayden offers weakly.

“No, I don’t.”

For a man with four children, it takes Hayden an embarrassingly long time to get her meaning, and then he sure does blush easily. David pretends it goes right over his head.

Ilya takes Marlow by the shoulders. “If I hit you,” he says slowly, “the last of your brain cells will fall out of your ass.”

“Yeah, but do I really need ‘em?” Marlow shrugs, grinning.

Ilya throws back his head and laughs, looping an arm around Marlow’s shoulders in a brutal hug, then delivers a playful cuff to the back of his head. “Hurt him again and I’ll rip out your fucking spine,” he says cheerfully, settling back next to Shane. He drapes his arm over the back of Shane’s chair and looks to all the world like he’s never been happier. Give Ilya a crisis to fix and a goal to work towards, and he's unstoppable. That's probably where they've been going wrong until now.

Give Shane time to join him, and the MLH better pray Yuna ends them all before the two of them get the chance to engage.

“No,” Shane shakes his head and sighs, “you won’t.”

“All’s fair in love and hockey,” Marlow says wisely.

"So..." Svetlana raises her bottle. "Plan?"

Shane takes Ilya's hand, rests it on the table in front of everyone. "Yeah, I've got some ideas."

Chapter 14

Chapter Summary

"So you have a type. I'm shocked." Shane's voice is breathier than he'd like.

"And he speaks French." Ilya demonstrates with a whispered phrase against Shane's ear that makes him shiver, revenge for the time Shane affectionately called him mon choupinou, and he walked face-first into a wall.

"Lots of people speak French, Ilya." He tries to sound unaffected and fails.

Ilya's smile turns wolfish. "And he hates hockey."

Shane's eyes narrow, suddenly more focused. "Okay, that's suspect..."

Chapter Notes

I can't believe this started as a one-shot... now I'm apparently on a mission to explore every single relationship Ilya has ever had with anyone... I might need an intervention.

This part is insanely long, so I split it into two parts.

Content warnings for discussions of underage sex, mentions of homophobia and homophobic language, and child abuse. There's also a bit more spice in this one than in previous chapters, which is partly why it's as long as it is.

There's also a TLG spoiler which happens between this chapter and the previous one, which, for those of you who haven't read, basically consists of Shane losing all of his chill and basically telling the MLH to get fucked or back off. It is by far one of my (and Ilya's) favorite Shane moments from TLG.

Shane dreams of a city he’s never been to, and a people he’s never met, and the man he loves dying scared and alone and in pain.

It’s all abstract, the cause never clear, but he’s seen Ilya with a bloody face after a game enough times to know exactly how crimson beads will trace the curve of his lip as gravity takes its grip, and he knows the exact devastation of watching his eyes light up when he sees Shane and forgets his flesh is split and bones are broken.

In his dream, he’s not there physically any more than he would be in reality. There’s no comfort to be offered in presence or touch. Ilya dies, and he does so with a final smile, that bemused little grin of his that was made for Shane, and tells him he thinks that even this is worth it.

His body shifts. The air trapped in his chest bursts out with a solid collision of force, and when he blinks, eyes that were empty and dead look back at him with aching sorrow. They gleam with the low yellow light of the bedside lamp, and the colors of their bedroom replace the wash of blood that blurs his vision.

“Shane,” Ilya calls his name, his whole body stretched atop Shane’s, grounding him in the weight and feel of being totally engulfed. “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

He blinks, and the hallucination of blood smears into nothing. Only their room, only the low lamp, only the real Ilya’s hands cradling his face.

He tries to answer, but the voice in him is burned away, nothing left in his mouth but a rasp of air. His hands find Ilya’s arms, locking around them tight enough to press against the same bruises he left the night before. His own skin is cold and wet; sweat or tears, maybe both.

"Shane," Ilya repeats, softer, each syllable feathering out over the puncture wound of his name. "You are awake."

He tries to say yes, but the word snags. Ilya sits up just enough to trade proximity for a better grip, one hand firm on Shane’s jaw, thumb dragging a rough line over his cheek. Shane shivers all over.

It’s so stupid. He’s not a kid, not prone to nightmares the way Ilya can be because he was a child when the dark things in life found him. He curls forward and tries to press his face into Ilya’s chest, but Ilya is stronger and won’t let him hide.

"You dreamed again," Ilya says, voice even. It's not a question. "It was not a good one."

He makes a noise. Ilya bows his head and presses their foreheads together. They breathe like that, their eyes closed, skin to skin, in a nimbus of sweat and cotton and the sour-tin taste of panic. Shane tries to push air through the tight, raw spot in his throat, but it’s like his lungs have turned to concrete. Every part of him that isn’t pressed against Ilya wants to go cold and numb.

He surfaces slowly. Ilya is petting his hair, gentle and endless. He should say something. He should apologize for waking Ilya in the middle of the night again. Five fucking nights in a row, now.

Instead, he jams his fingers, hard, into Ilya’s ribs. The press of them is almost a bruise. He can’t help it. He needs to feel the terror ease out of him by force, if that’s what it takes. The first time made him clamp up hard, but Ilya likes it, he says. Needs it. Wants to know that the body he’s spent a lifetime building can be the canvas for everything Shane needs.

They don’t talk for a long time. The clock on the nightstand says 3:11, and Shane tracks every second by the sound of their breathing. Night whittles the world down to only that.

It’s Ilya who finally says, "You want water?"

Shane shakes his head, still pressed against him.

Ilya snorts, a quick exhale of warmth. "You want to be held?"

This time, he nods.

He expects Ilya to tease him for it, but he just shifts his weight and pulls Shane’s body fully into his own, limbs in an awkward twist of blankets and knees. The vein of heat through Ilya’s chest is enough to anchor him. He doesn’t let himself relax right away, doesn’t trust the magnesium-fine wires in his bones to ever stop sparking.

“I’m gonna fucking kill Marlow,” Ilya whispers into his hair.

Shane shakes his head. It’s not Marlow’s fault. Not really. It’s just his brain, out of control and fucking malicious. So many of the things Shane feared about being outted have come to pass that he can’t untangle himself from the one thing that hasn’t.

He’s scared, that's the truth of it. Not for himself, not of the gossip or the league’s malicious little weeds, not for the people he thought were his friends, but for Ilya. It’s a terror so big and granular it feels like a sandstorm in his chest. In the dream it’s all so vague, but the terror isn’t ambiguous at all. The internet is a hydra, every head spitting out a new version: defector, traitor, degenerate, and there are people out there who latch on to a foreign law with a perverse kind of glee. Turns out the one thing to dull the sting of the rampant homophobic abuse aimed in his direction is the utter rage that consumes him when some nameless, faceless, cowardly fucking asshole suggests his fiancé would just love prison.

Ilya shifts, his fingers finding the line of Shane’s jaw. “You have to stop.”

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” Shane mutters, but it’s obvious he did. He tries to get his breathing under control, but his heart isn’t getting the message.

Ilya grumbles, wordless, and tugs Shane’s hand up to his chest. They're warm, a scar notched across two knuckles from a fight he shouldn’t have lost. “You are… what is the word?” He hunts for it in English, always methodical, even when out of it. “Not ‘a mess,’ but… messy. You are a messy sleeper.”

Shane manages a sound, halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Do you wish you didn’t know that?”

“No.” Ilya’s voice is clear, insistent. “I wish I could be here every night. Make sure you don’t-” He breaks off, then pulls Shane tight enough that he can feel the exact place their ribs line up. “-don’t get stuck.”

The real world is about to creep back in, and while the need for secrecy is gone, it doesn’t change the fact that they don’t sleep in the same bed every night while they’re playing.

He’s starting to think that needs to change. He can do the drive some nights. Ilya can do it others. Then it’s just the endless cycle of away games to navigate and-

Shane wants to let go of the dream, but it’s welded in. “Do you ever, like, think about what it would have been like if you were there?” He regrets asking the second it leaves his mouth. He’d promised himself, in so many ways, not to make Ilya answer for the whole goddamn world.

Ilya is silent for a long time. When he speaks, it’s soft, heavy. “No.”

“But-”

“No buts,” Ilya injects. “Listen to someone who knows, yes? There is enough for us to fight without picking battles with, ah-” it’s so fucking late, and he looks so fucking tired, but Shane waits until he lands on the word, “hypotheticals.” The way his eyebrows draw together when he thinks an English word is stupid is one of Shane’s thousand favorite things about him. Right after the smirk he wears when explaining a Russian word that is definitely a hundred times more stupid.

Shane lets out a breath and tries to settle. “You’re right.”

“It happens,” Ilya nods.

He finds his voice, or at least the shredded remnant of it. “I’m sorry you can’t go back.”

He waits, but Ilya doesn’t offer more. Shane wants to say something, soothe something, but it all turns to gravel in his throat. Only when Ilya adjusts, shifting their bodies so Shane is curled utterly into him in an arrangement that makes him feel so much smaller than he actually is, does Ilya speak again.

“Is okay.” It’s not, but Shane knows him well enough to know that isn’t what he wants to hear right now. “I am sorry your dreams are bad.”

He almost asks how Ilya does it. How he can blank out a whole continent-sized chunk of his past, how he can wake up and eat and skate and smash men into the boards as if none of the poison ever got into his blood. But he knows the answer, or at least the shape of it. It’s less of a choice than a necessity.

“Tell me something,” he mumbles, pressing his face to the swell of Ilya’s shoulder. “Like… ugh, just… anything. I don’t want to go back to sleep empty.” It’s a shit request, needy and weird, but Ilya is a bottomless well of stories, even if most of them are so wild and funny they can only be partly true.

Ilya is silent for a long while. Shane knows better than to rush him. The trick is to give him space, keep his own breathing easy, and above all, show no hunger for any particular answer. He waits, letting his gaze blur over the dark slice of window, the world outside smudged up in the dark.

Then, quiet and unsure, Ilya says, "My mama used to read to me. When I was small. She had a book. Pushkin, but for children. Little stories for before bed."

Shane doesn’t say anything. Mentions of Irina are to be treasured and committed to memory.

"I would get in trouble, often," Ilya says, a wry exhale lightening the confession. His fingers tap a restless, skittering rhythm on Shane’s forearm. "My father… he was not patient. I would be sent to bed, always, even if it was not my fault. Sometimes…" He hesitates. "Sometimes there was belt, yes. Or he would make me stay outside before, even if it was very cold."

They are confessions to a hurt Ilya is slowly learning how to articulate. Tiny pieces of a picture sanitized in a way he thinks will satisfy Shane’s belief in validating his past experiences and the line he needs to hold so as not to be consumed by them.

Shane holds him tighter and kisses every part of him he can reach without moving from his arms.

Ilya is warm and soft and calm when he continues. "But when it was over, my mama, she would come with tea, and bring the book. She would make voices for every character. Even, ah, animals." Ilya smiles at the memory. "She had the softest hands. I remember this very clear. Always smelled like bread, or like, the lavender soap we used. She would teach me the endings to each story by heart, so if I could not sleep, I would repeat the words over until…" He trails off, the memory brightening even as it burns. "until I was not scared anymore."

Shane presses their fingers together, palm to palm, the heat of Ilya’s skin grounding in a way that is almost embarrassing.

"What kind of stories?" he asks. His voice comes out rougher than he means it.

Ilya shrugs. "Always ending with hope, I think." He flashes Shane a tiny, sideways smile. "Or cannibalism.”

Shane stiffens, not sure if he is serious or not. “What?”

“I mean… still Russian stories,” he says, shrugging with Shane in his arms.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Absolutely!”

Ilya’s mouth curls around a protest, but his arms snake tighter around Shane’s waist. “You are very mean,” he says into the curve of Shane’s skin. “You make me fall in love, and then you are a bully.” Ilya’s hand starts wandering under the edge of the blanket, skimming over Shane’s ribs, pausing to pluck at the line of his hip. It’s meant to distract, maybe, but mostly it just makes him want to never let go.

“I’m not a bully,” Shane mutters, which is exactly what a bully would say.

Ilya’s mouth, already at his ear, parts in a silent laugh. He nips, then rolls, pinning Shane under the immovable gravity of his chest. Shane yelps, then clamps his jaw to keep the sound in. They're not alone in the house. Ilya snorts in approval, digging his fingers into a ticklish spot above Shane’s knee.

“Stop,” Shane hisses, but he’s grinning, and Ilya’s big hand is now tracing lazy circles along his hip. He considers retaliating, but one sweep of Ilya’s leg and he’s flat to the sheets, helpless and panting.

“Hmm, I like these noises better,” Ilya murmurs, grazing his lips over the salt-damp edge of Shane’s temple. He’s still murmuring Russian, gentle and familiar syllables spun out like thread. Shane can just make out the rhythm of it… stories, unfinished and safe, even if he only knows every fifth word.

He could fall asleep like this, glued to the mattress, pressure and heat pinning him to a world spinning too fast.

Or he could push. The need that lives under his skin reminds him that they’re together. They’re safe. Ilya is here, in his arms.

“You know… I can just ask Sasha when he gets here tomorrow. This morning.” He’s playing with fire, and he knows it. The subject of Sasha is a strange one, the result of a screaming match between Ilya and Svetlana that cycled from them standing at opposite ends of the living room, both red in the face, to them sitting together on the couch eating ice cream not fifteen minutes later. Shane still isn’t sure what to make of it.

Ilya frowns down at him, shifting his weight to pin Shane's wrists above his head with one hand. "Ask him what?"

"About cannibalism in children's stories." Shane tests the grip on his wrists, not really trying to break free.

"Oh, you can't trust a word he says, promise," Ilya laughs, his free hand sliding up Shane's side, finding that spot between his ribs that makes him squirm.

"What's he like?" Shane asks, arching slightly into the touch.

Ilya's eyes darken. "You'll hate him."

"I won't!" He protests, twisting beneath Ilya's weight. "I like Svetlana!"

Ilya dips his head to nip at Shane's collarbone. "Sasha is not Sveta. Trust me. You will be very glad when he goes back."

"Jesus," Shane gasps, half at the sensation, half at the conversation. "Is he that much of an asshole?"

"He's not an asshole." Ilya's voice drops lower, his thumb tracing Shane's bottom lip.

Shane catches the thumb between his teeth, then releases it. "Then I'll like him!"

"No. You will not." There's something possessive in how Ilya's thigh slides between Shane's legs.

"Okay, why?"

Ilya's mouth hovers just above Shane's. "Well... he is pretty."

"So you have a type. I'm shocked." Shane's voice is breathier than he'd like.

"And he speaks French." Ilya demonstrates with a whispered phrase against Shane's ear that makes him shiver, revenge for the time Shane affectionately called him mon choupinou, and he walked face-first into a wall.

"Lots of people speak French, Ilya." He tries to sound unaffected and fails.

Ilya's smile turns wolfish. "And he hates hockey."

Shane's eyes narrow, suddenly more focused. "Okay, that's suspect..."

Ilya smothers his laugh against Shane’s chest. He lets go of Shane’s wrists to cuddle him ferociously.

"Okay, fine, I' m not saying I won't be a tiny bit jealous," Shane admits, sucking in a breath when Ilya's hand starts to dip lower." He was the first guy you were with."

"Not sure we were ever 'with' anything." Ilya shrugs, casual. "We got drunk, we got high, we fucked. First time was terrible, so we kept at it until it wasn't." He nips at Shane's earlobe.

Shane shifts beneath him, suddenly still. "Terrible how?"

Ilya chuckles, fingers tracing idle circles on Shane's hip. "Terrible like all sex is when you are fifteen. It was awkward and painful and clumsy." He presses a wet kiss to Shane's neck. "First time is always bad, no?"

"Mine wasn't," Shane whispers, eyes searching Ilya's face. His first time was beyond anything he could ever have dreamed of because it was with Ilya.

The look in Ilya’s eyes is worshipful, and it curdles something in Shane’s chest. He shifts them, Ilya obediently moving where Shane wants him until Shane can curl half over his chest and feel the steady thump of that strong heart beneath his ear.

“I am glad,” Ilya says, as if he wasn’t the whole fucking reason. He seems to notice the shift in Shane’s mood, because he keeps his arms loose and comforting around Shane’s waist.

It is late. Early. They do need to sleep. Ilya kisses the crown of his head, then awkwardly stretches to turn off the lamp.

Somehow, Shane gets the impression that Ilya is right.

He is not going to like Sasha at all.

They sleep well past Shane’s usual alarm, waking only for Ilya to grunt, stab a finger at Shane’s phone, then hurl it across the room. For once, Shane doesn’t care about missing his workout. All he wants to do is stay right in this bed with Ilya boneless and warm in his arms.

Sometime closer to what normal people call a sensible hour of the morning, their bedroom door creaks open, and Svetlana sticks her head through the gap. “I’m taking Anya out,” she tells them.

Ilya’s face is smothered half by a pillow, half by Shane’s arm. “Am I ever getting my dog back?” he asks, not moving.

“My niece and I are bonding,” she says, closing the door behind her. Unlike Marlow, who could only pry twenty-four hours out of the Raiders before being dragged back to Boston, she’s using her annual leave to camp out in one of their guest rooms.

She spoils Anya more than Ilya, something Shane didn’t think was even possible.

Shane hears the door close and the click of her shoes on tile fading down the hall. He lets his eyes fall half-shut and floats. The warmth, the haze of the sheets, the whiff of Ilya’s unreasonably expensive deodorant… it’s almost enough to let the lingering ache of his dream drain out and dissolve. But Ilya’s mouth is tracing slow, lazy shapes up the column of his throat, the hand that isn’t pinned under Shane’s shoulder is making a meandering trip south, and Shane catches himself, half-smile fighting through, thinking this has to be an actual crime now, to feel this… this safe. This wanted.

Ilya sighs, a fussy, extravagant groan. “Stupid morning,” he mumbles, shifting to pin Shane flat. “We must get up. Or we will be late for… life.” He then doesn’t move for another five minutes.

They disentangle only because the air is getting chilly, and Ilya can be coaxed, eventually, into a full-body stretch that pops the vertebrae of his back with a noise like bubble wrap. He drags himself upright and sways, still half-asleep. His hair is a mess, the lines at his eyes a little deeper, a little softer than they were this time last year. He’s so fucking beautiful it makes Shane dizzy sometimes.

He drags Ilya with him, not quite by the wrist but not quite letting him go, into the bathroom. Shane adjusts the shower. Ilya, never one for half measures, goes straight for the tap and overcranks it until steam billows out in clouds. Shane’s learned that you can’t make Ilya do anything he doesn’t want, but with enough coaxing, you can guide him toward it. He palms Ilya gently between the shoulderblades and nudges him under the spray.

They slot together perfectly, as if the universe had intended it all along. Shane likes the way water beads along the notch of Ilya’s collarbone and races down to the places Shane wants to map with both hands. He likes the heavy ridge of his shoulder, the way his hair curls even tighter when wet, the sudden, easy strength of his arms pinning Shane to the tile when he tries to duck away from a blast of cold. He could spend eternity in here, tracing the muscles built from a lifetime of work, of ascending pain, of wanting, and rarely ever receiving.

Shane gets the soap, lathers hands, and pushes them up Ilya’s chest. Ilya grins, conspiratorial, letting it happen.

Shane slides soapy fingers down to Ilya’s waist, circling just there, not going lower, making him shudder with anticipation. Water streaks over his stomach, through the perfect geometry of his abs. Shane could draw them with his eyes closed, he could chisel them from memory, he could make a church of this moment and believe in it more than anything else.

“Tell me what you want,” Shane says, not sure which of them is more surprised to hear it.

The friction of their skin is a live wire, the heat of it out of scale with the water. Ilya’s hands are everywhere. He nips at Shane’s jaw and bites a line down his neck. Shane can’t resist, not with the animal hunger in his chest and the memory of his dream still ghosting the corners of his vision. He needs the living Ilya, the here-and-now, the proof.

One hand finds Ilya’s hip, the other tracing the strong grip of his wrist, marvelling at the raw power there. He likes pinning Ilya, but only because he knows Ilya could break free at any second. The claiming is always mutual, always an experiment in who needs the other more. Shane pulls Ilya’s arm up, crosses it over his own, and pushes them both against the tile. The contact, chest-to-chest, is breathtaking. He draws patterns into wet skin, feeling Ilya’s breath stuttering out in uneven exhalations.

“Have I told you how fucking hot you are?” Ilya asks, after a long, shivering pause, and Shane almost laughs. Instead, he torques a little, smirking into Ilya’s neck.

“Not today.”

“So fucking hot,” Ilya says, and the low, dangerous tilt is real. “You have always been the most beautiful man in the world,” he shrugs, squeezing Shane tight, “then you blackmailed the entire MHL, and I get hard just fucking thinking about it.”

Shane snorts and almost bumps his forehead against Ilya’s. “I didn’t blackmail them, ” He bites the shell of Ilya’s ear. “I threatened them. The blackmail comes later.”

He maintains that half the threat had come from having his future husband scowling next to him when they were dragged into Cowell’s office, but he’s happy to accept anything that drives Ilya this crazy.

He clings a little tighter as Ilya lifts him, the heat between them going from simmer to a full boil as the water splatters off both their bodies, slicking every inch of skin. It’s about the control and the surrender, always, and Shane’s gut flips as his back meets the tile and Ilya mouths at his throat, tongue hot and searching.

He hates that the world gets to call this a scandal. Hates that the best thing to ever happen to him is, for other people, a fucking headline. But right now, he only has to think about how Ilya shudders, how the water drips from the corner of his mouth, the flush painting his neck and chest as Shane grinds in harder, matching his pace, giving as good as he gets. Every groan and sigh vibrates through their ribs, syncing in a feedback loop that drives them both crazy. The rest of the house, the city, the world itself could go radioactive, and Shane would still feel safer than anywhere else on earth.

Ilya likes him desperate. Most of the time, he’s too fucking smug to pretend otherwise, so the friction ratchets up fast. A hand on Shane’s throat, a slow glide of palm against his dick, until he’s squirming, sucking air, losing himself in the dizzy black-out of close contact. Ilya uses his size to pin him, but it never feels like a threat. Shane lets himself be slammed, just a little, into the wall, and wonders for the hundredth time how he ever thought that having this once, twice, three times a year could ever fucking be enough for him.

There’s a rhythm to it, something that doesn’t get explained or even discussed, just happens in the how, the what, the when. It’s not about getting off, not really, or not only. It’s a liturgy. It’s a way of saying all the things they couldn’t afford, and now don’t need to say out loud.

Ilya’s grip is a perfect, rhythmic pressure, strong fingers mapped exactly to the places that make Shane’s voice embarrassingly high. He gasps and bites his own lip, tries to blot out the rest of the world, but the hard knot of need in his chest is thrumming all the way to his fingertips. It takes effort not to melt, not to just give himself over to the crush of thigh and hand, to the sensation of Ilya’s mouth finding every unsteady spot of his pulse.

He wants to say something, a half-lame apology for being so close so quick, but the sound comes out as a velvet, broken gasp. Ilya’s mouth sweeps Shane’s jaw, the edge of his lips, and that’s it. There’s no warning, not even a second to brace. Shane comes hard, a full-body tremor, hands vice-gripping Ilya’s upper arms. The world goes black-edged and luminous.

He’s panting, boneless, when he realizes that Ilya isn’t done. Not even remotely. The filthy bastard is grinning huge, cocky, and so pleased that for a second it stokes up a new flare of competitive energy in Shane’s chest. That’s the thing, right… Shane can never just let himself lose, not even in this.

Shane’s spent his whole life on the ice, and he knows how to make his body do the things he wants it to, even when muscle and bone are unsteady and out of alignment. He locks up, steadies himself against the tiles, then sinks down to his knees.

Ilya’s fingers tangle in his hair, scalp burning and then sweet as he thumbs over the back of Shane’s neck, using pressure more than force, a direction instead of a command.

He works him slow, methodical, with the same patience he brings to the ice, training every nerve to focus on the shape and heft of Ilya in his mouth, to the heat of him, to the way Ilya’s fingers are knotting in his hair and at the same time smoothing the edge of his jaw like he can’t decide if he wants to push or pet. Shane is greedy for it. He sucks harder, flattens his tongue, and Ilya’s head knocks against the wall with a wet thud. He tastes salt, hears a wordless rush of Russian above him, and rolls his gaze up to find Ilya staring down, pupils blown wide, a look of pleading and awe that would be strange if it wasn’t so fucking sincere.

It’s Shane’s favorite thing, honestly: the power to unravel him. Most people see Ilya and assume he’s just one big chunk of brute force, a slab of ego, nothing that can be softened by a night out or a hard check to the kidneys. But here, Shane knows all the secret seismology of Ilya’s body… where the old scars twinge, how his knees knock when he’s about to lose it, how the space above his hip bone is sensitive as fuck, and how a single nip there will short-circuit whatever’s left of his self-control.

Right now, Ilya’s only self-control is in not breaking Shane by accident.

Still, Shane is good at taking a beating, and he’s good at winning. He slides his fingers under Ilya’s ass to anchor himself and bobs his head with a rhythm that matches the pulse pounding in his own ears. He can tell Ilya is getting close; the grip on his hair is iron and the low whine in his throat is cresting higher. Shane pulls off just before the finish, grins up, and, before Ilya can protest, uses one hand to jerk him, slow and tight, until Ilya slams both palms to the wall and spills, shivering, every line of his body burning with it.

Shane hates cliches, but for a second, he really is the king of the fucking world.

“So…” Shane says a few hours later. They’ve poured themselves into clothes, fumbled their way through a meal closely resembling breakfast, and now await the return of Svetlana, who has gone to pick Sasha up at the airport. “What exactly does Sasha do?”

Ilya is down on the floor trying to remind Anya that he is her favorite human, the two of them lazily playing tug with a fluffy pink rabbit. “Hmmm, he is a model, I think?”

Well, that might have been nice to know in advance. “Oh.”

Ilya looks up from the floor, his fingers still tangled in the pink rabbit toy. His eyes catch Shane's with that familiar spark. "Shane, you are also a model, you remember this, yes?" He cocks his head, lips curving into a teasing smile.

"I'm a brand ambassador," Shane argues, crossing his arms over his chest. He leans against the kitchen counter, trying to look dignified.

Ilya abandons the toy to Anya and crawls a few steps closer. "I spent two years jerking off to a photo of you 'brand ambassador-ing' fucking Speedos." He reaches up to tug at the hem of Shane's shirt, fingers brushing skin.

Shane's breath catches. "You did?"

"Yes, Hollander, I did." Ilya's voice drops lower as he rises to his feet, closing the distance between them. His hands find Shane's hips.

"Oh." Shane swallows, unable to stop the smile spreading across his face. "That's... nice."

With the way Ilya is looking at him, it is so very tempting to get back down on his knees. Instead, Anya’s ears perk up as the front door opens and Svetlana calls from the hall.

Ilya takes a step back, his expression already closing off.

When Sasha appears behind Svetlana, Shane’s first response is confusion. Yes, Ilya has a type, and yes, Sasha is pretty, but he and Shane could not be more different if they tried. If anything, Sasha is more like Ilya. There’s a languid, stalking set to his shoulders and an intensity in his dark eyes that makes Shane question just how the hell the two of them actually worked.

It’s a pretty picture, Shane will admit that with only a small stab of jealousy, but the logistics of it all are a roadblock he can’t yet navigate around. 

Sasha greets Ilya in Russian. Svetlana flicks his ear. “English,” she scolds.

“Sasha,” Ilya nods. “Thank you for coming.” He sounds like he means it, but the words don’t match the expression on his face. He doesn’t look annoyed, angry, or worried. Just rather… blank. “This is my fiancé, Shane. Shane, Sasha.”

Shane doesn’t know what he expected, exactly, but Sasha seems both fragile and predatory, his face all sharp planes and slant, hair as black and blunt as spilled ink, his hands expressive and elegant, waving as he squares up to the room. He’s taller than both of them, but carries himself like everything in the world is unfolding for his amusement. His handshake is distractingly warm. “Shane,” Sasha says, drawing out the word as if teasing out flavor in a rare food. He holds Shane’s hand a beat too long and at an angle that makes it impossible to ignore the pressure of his thumb on Shane’s knuckles. Then he lets go, with a twitch of a smile and a little bow.

“Nice to meet you,” Shane replies. His voice sounds wrong. Thready. He wonders if he’s projecting or if the way Sasha’s gaze skates over him, up and down, is actually as assessment-intensive as it feels.

He hates that the first thing he does is glance at Ilya for a reaction. Ilya is good at masking, but Shane knows him well enough to spot the things he might miss on others. He sees the tiny tic at one corner of Ilya’s mouth, the internal translation happening as he tries to resynch his sense of self to the force field Sasha brings with him.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Shane offers, defaulting to host as a way to buy time, to not have to invent a personality for the circumstances. “Coffee? Water? We have soda.”

Sasha’s eyes flick to Svetlana, then back to Shane. “Coffee would be good.” He sinks into a chair. His posture is comfortable, but there’s something bright in his gaze Shane can’t name. “Thank you.”

He’s surprisingly polite. So why does Shane feel an immediate, irrational urge to dislike him?

Ilya has a stupidly expensive and even more complicated coffee maker that Shane can distract himself with.

He busies himself with the mugs and unearthing the sugar that only Ilya uses. The sound of water is grounding, and the clink of ceramic is almost soothing. He slides the tray across the counter, dividing them up, and sits at the island across from Sasha. For a few seconds, nobody says anything.

Svetlana is texting furiously on her phone, her nails clicking. The only other sounds are Anya’s paws on the tile and the creak of Ilya fiddling with a coaster. He looks miserable.

Sasha breaks the silence. “So. This is your home?”

Shane is not sure what to say. Technically, it is Ilya’s, not his.

“Yes,” Ilya says.

“Is very nice.”

Ilya says something in Russian that Shane doesn’t understand. Svetlana doesn’t look up from her phone. “English,” she repeats. It makes Shane squirm a little. He’s making good progress, but the rules are so insanely complicated, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t just skip ahead to the useful bits. That’s not how he processes things. He has a Russian tutor who promises him that everything will click any minute, and then he’ll be flying through the rest, but the timeline is fucking frustrating.

“I would have called,” Sasha answers Ilya in English. “If you’d answered your phone to me once in the past five years.”

Ilya looks like he wants to disappear into the granite of the countertop.

Shane takes a seat, bracing himself with both hands on the counter. “So. How long are you in town?” He feels like he’s making smalltalk at another work party.

Sasha shrugs. “As long as needed. I have business in Toronto next, but nothing urgent.”

He glances toward Ilya, then to Shane. The eye contact is surgical, a quick cut and then gone. “Mostly, I’m here for you both.”

Shane blinks, swallowing against a raw patch at the back of his throat. “What does that mean?” Another sip of lightning-strong coffee. How the fuck does Ilya enjoy this?

Sasha’s hands splay, elegant. “It means, things are… not quiet in Moscow,” he says. “Some people are very angry. Some people are… opportunists. There is confusion. Mostly, there will be consequences.”

He’s back in that dream, and Ilya is dying. He waits for the panic and finds only the calm before a penalty. “You mean for his safety.”

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Ilya scoffs. “Everyone is watching too many shitty fucking movies.”

“Oh,” Sasha quirks his head to one side. “You’re not going to play anyone from Russia, ever? No internationals? No-”

“What difference does that even make?”

“You’re an embarrassment,” Sasha says wryly, the insult lobbed without fire. “You know how people feel about that.”

“I lost the Olympics to Latvia,” Ilya rolls his eyes. “No one fucking kneecapped me for that.”

"No," Sasha's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "If I remember, your father took care of that."

The room temperature seems to plummet. Shane doesn't recognize his own voice. "What?" When he thinks of Ilya's relationship with his father, he's almost always a child. Thinking about Ilya, the man Shane met, still being in that position...

Svetlana's fingers freeze over her phone. Her eyes dart up, then immediately back down, a clear choice not to get involved. That tells Shane far more than any denial.

"Enough, Sasha." Ilya's voice cuts like a blade.

Svetlana resumes tapping her phone. The silence stretches taut as a wire. Shane notices Sasha's knee bouncing under the table, a rhythmic counterpoint to the clicking of Svetlana's nails.

"We don't need to hash out the past," she says finally, as if sensing that without her intervention, Sasha and Ilya are too locked, and Shane is too busy remembering how to breathe. Still, she's not looking up. "That's not why he's here."

"Why are you here?" Ilya pushes back, the line between his brows settling deeper.

Sasha leans forward, elbows on the table. "I only want to help," he says, voice dropping to something soft.

Shane's jaw tightens. He shifts his chair closer to Ilya's.

"And what's in it for you?" Ilya doesn’t quite lean towards him, but he does angle himself in Shane’s direction.

"Fucking hell, Lyulya." Sasha shakes his head in amusement. "Maybe I am worried about you."

"That'll be a first."

"And maybe my father is worried about you." Sasha ignores him, his gaze flicking between them both. "You've done well for yourself. Nice home. Handsome fiancé."

Shane's pulse hammers in his throat. "Your dad was his coach, right?"

"Yes." Sasha traces the rim of his mug. "Until he abandoned us for America."

"I didn't fucking-"

"Believe it or not, most people back home remember you pretty fondly." Sasha wets his lips. "It's been long enough that they've forgotten that mouth of yours. Most of them, at least-"

"Okay, this is not happening," Shane snaps, standing abruptly. His chair scrapes across the floor. The whole fucking world knows about him and Ilya, which means he doesn't have to sit back and watch someone eye his fiancé like a meal. "You don't talk to him like that. Not in our home."

"Apologies," Sasha says, not looking sorry at all.

Ilya runs his hand down Shane’s arm. “It’s fine,” he says reassuringly. “Sasha doesn’t actually know how to have a conversation with someone unless he’s flirting.” Somehow, Ilya now looks more at ease. As if he’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and now that it has, he’s found his balance again.

It’s a language Shane has never spoken and probably never will. When Svetlana snorts and says, “That’s the truth,” he wonders if he’s actually going crazy.

“I’m just saying,” Sasha continues. “You’ve more support back home than you’d think.”

His eyes never leave Ilya's face, searching for a reaction.

Ilya's jaw works silently. He reaches for his mug but stops halfway.  “That’s nice. I don’t actually care.”

“No? It doesn’t mean anything to you to know that there are people back home looking at you and thinking that maybe they can be more than the cock-sucking degenerate everyone is telling them they are?”

“Big fucking word, Sanya.”

Sasha shrugs, running his tongue across his bottom lip. "I fucked a lot of Englishmen. You'd be surprised how many of them want to get held down and fucked by a vata." His eyes lock with Shane's, something predatory in his smile.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Shane mutters, sliding off his stool and heading in search of more coffee. This is the guy Ilya grew up with? He doesn't even want to touch the other thing Sasha said. He knows exactly what it's like to be held up as some standard of attainment, and it's the last thing he wants for Ilya.

“Would it kill you to not be a total cunt?” Svetlana sighs, fixing a look of disappointment on Sasha that Shane doesn’t really understand.

“Probably,” Ilya says, most of the tension in his shoulders having drained away. He rolls out a knot in his neck and winces. “Watch your fucking mouth around my husband.”

“Fiancé,” Shane points out from the counter, immediately wanting to put his brain in the blender.

Sasha opens his mouth but closes it again when Ilya growls out a warning. He holds up his hand. “I am sorry,” he tries again, sounding more genuine this time. “It is a habit,” he says. “It has been a long time.”

“Which is it?” Shane demands, his voice hard. “Habit or-”

Sasha laughs, his own posture loosening. “Oh, I like him.”

“No,” Ilya warns. “You don’t.”

Sasha’s gaze lingers just a half-beat longer than is polite, as if he’s catalogued every fleeting twitch in Ilya’s jaw and now wants the same access to Shane’s. Shane resists the urge to get up, walk around the block, and process, but he’s not about to give ground in his own kitchen, not when the entire international hockey apparatus might or might not be gunning for his fiancé.

“Back to the point,” Svetlana encourages, as if this kind of back and forth with Sasha and Ilya is totally normal. It’s nothing like the way Shane has seen Ilya interacting with other players. Ilya and Marlow seem to communicate only via insult, but this is different.

He wonders if it’s because the two of them were intimate, then he isn’t sure how to take that thought forward.

“There’s not going to be a KHL Pride Night, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Sasha grins, showing the sharp tips of two canines. “But there’s potential for this to, ah, shift the needle. With the right management.”

Ilya snorts. “You should talk to my mother-in-law,” he says wryly. Shane moves to stand next to him, settling when Ilya’s thumb hooks into the belt loop of his jeans, and he settles his hand possessively on Shane’s hip.

That might be the best idea Shane’s heard since Sasha walked in. He might be fucking terrible at reading the room, but his mom will know immediately if Shane is being irrational. And his dad will be able to tell them both why they feel that way.

“They’re coming over for dinner,” Shane blurts.

Ilya looks up at him. “They are?” He sounds horrified, which tells Shane it is a good idea. There’s no way Sasha is going to flirt with Ilya in front of their parents.

“Yep.”

Svetlana laughs and shakes her head. “Well, this will be fun.”

Chapter 15

Chapter Notes

Standard content warnings for the previous chapters apply.

Before anyone comes for me about the moose, yes, I know! I promise I know! Also, when you get to that line IN the moose story, I promise it ends well.

The SOS Shane sends to the family group chat consists only of the words: dinner, 7, bring Ilya’s vodka. And a gun.

Ilya immediately follows it with: Everything is fine! No guns needed :)

Shane adds: 2 guns

David figures Sasha’s visit is going well.

“So… to clarify,” Yuna says from the passenger seat of their car later that evening, “we’re going to dinner with our son, our son-in-law, and our son-in-law’s two ex-partners, one of whom might be a drug addict and the other one thousand percent has criminal connections.”

David frowns and checks his mirrors as they merge with traffic. “Do we think she does?” Svetlana is incredibly well-connected, but that doesn’t mean she’s that kind of connected. Though he’ll admit she is a little terrifying for someone so young.

Yuna doesn't look impressed. She tightens her seatbelt and stares out at the traffic. "How else do you think Shane got that picture?"

"Same way you would have," David says reasonably, signaling for a lane change.

"Yes. And I would have hired a criminal." She's joking. Mostly. She digs through her purse, checking her phone again for messages. "And I notice you're not denying the drugs thing."

David navigates around a slow-moving truck. "We're not jumping to any conclusions." Granted, it’s hard not to jump, given the devastatingly casual way Ilya can just drop a bomb mid-conversation, then carry on as if the room isn’t suddenly full of cadavers.

"I'm not jumping!"

"There's a little bit of jumping." He reaches over and pats her knee, eyes still on the road.

"I'm just saying I'm worried." She gestures sharply at a car cutting them off. "We don't know why this Sasha is here-"

"I imagine he just wants to support his friend." David's voice remains steady as he slows for a red light.

"Right, and what exactly can he do that Svetlana and her not-criminal connections can't? Or that we can't, for that matter?" She fiddles with the air conditioning vent, aiming it directly at her face.

"Honey-"

"I'm overreacting," she sighs, leaning back against the headrest.

"It's been a rough week." He takes the turn onto the drive of Shane and Ilya's house and punches in the security code.

"I just worry about him." She's already unbuckling before they've fully stopped at the top of the drive. “Both of them.”

"I know. But let's remember that Ilya is a grown man, a professional athlete, and he's been in more fights than everyone else in this family put together." David puts the car in park and squeezes her hand before she can rush out.

There is an ongoing theme of chaos in their sons’ lives right now. David is relieved to see that no one is throwing any punches, but the scene they walk into takes a second or two to get their heads around.

Ilya and Shane are in the middle of cooking. Or Shane is, at least. Ilya is ricocheting against various points of the counters, his phone glued to his ear, while Shane seems to be doing a good job of juggling dishes without getting hit in the face by one of Ilya’s flailing arms. Anya looks up from her bed in the corner, then decides nothing is more exciting than more sleep and immediately slumps back down again.

“-would I know if it’s supposed to fucking flash? What? No! Jesus, the water is not supposed to be on the floor! No, no, why would I-” David and Yuna share a look. “Haas, Haas, Luca,” Ilya pinches the bridge of his nose. “Would you calm the fuck down. You call a service, no?”

Shane makes several failed attempts to move around Ilya as he works, exasperation growing every time Ilya ends up in his way. He makes another move to duck under Ilya’s flailing arm to get to the utensils behind him, huffs, checks his hip into the counter, then, with one arm around Ilya’s waist, physically hoists him off the floor and plants him over by the island.

It’s impressive. Moreso, perhaps, because he immediately carries on cooking, and Ilya continues his conversation without missing a beat.

“The fuck does the gym have to do with…” Ilya’s expression shifts from confusion to disbelief. “Do I look like someone who has a fucking clue what a spin cycle is? You know what, wait-!”

Shane doesn’t look up from where he’s chopping chives, but he does hold out his hand for Ilya to pass him the phone. He tucks it under his ear and continues to chop. “Hey. It’s Shane. Hollander. What? Yeah, I guess that Shane Hollander...” He reaches out and snaps his fingers at Ilya, who slides the pepper shaker across the counter. “Have you turned the water off? Okay, yeah, there should be a tap-”

Ilay, who looks incredibly stressed, finally notices David and Yuna and immediately pours them both a glass of wine. It’s only when they circle to the other side of the kitchen that they see Svetlana at the table, sitting opposite a very tall, very good-looking kid around Ilya’s age. Sasha, he presumes. Ilya tops both their glasses.

In Russian, Sasha says, “I always knew you’d make someone a good wife.” David thinks he’s mistranslated until Ilya snatches Sasha’s wine, downs what he just poured, then sets the glass down with a scowl.

Sasha laughs and refills his own glass.

“My in-laws, David and Yuna,” Ilya says, staring unblinkingly at Sasha while Svetlana stands to press a kiss to both David and Yuna’s cheeks. He switches to Russian to add, “If you upset either one of them, I will kill you.”

David’s always admired his wife’s ability to smile with her entire face, even when it’s just to bare her teeth. Sasha’s presence spikes Yuna’s charm reflex to a level usually reserved for intransigent officials and high-strung billionaires. She accepts her wine with both hands, thanks Ilya with a gracious murmur, and turns to Sasha. “Lovely to meet you, Sasha. Is this your first time in Canada?”

“Hmm. Yes. It’s not somewhere I have had any cause to visit before.” Sasha says, his smile bright and just on the edge of teasing. His English is almost perfect, only the slightest burr to some of the vowels. He’s dressed casually, but there’s something precise about his manner, a deliberate neatness even in the way he holds his wineglass, almost like he’s weighed and measured how it will look in his hand before picking it up.

He wonders if Shane’s noticed, but his son is still on the phone, diagnosing an appliance crisis with the patience of a man who’s has had far weirder conversations. He does keep one eye, very specifically, on Ilya.

“It’s always nice to meet one of Ilya’s friends from Russia,” David offers carefully. Social warfare is Yuna’s thing, but David isn’t completely useless. There’s a lot of familiarity in how Sasha holds himself and the challenging gleam in his eyes, and he’s momentarily taken back to the first time Ilya was in their home. That awkward, formal body language he wore when first meeting them was so far removed from the cocky, aggressive persona he’d built over his career that it had taken a full recallibration on David’s part to understand.

Sasha leans back in his chair, swirling his wine. “Oh, Ilya and I aren’t friends.”

“Well fuck you, too, asshole,” Ilya frowns.

“How long has it been since you saw each other?” Yuna asks, cutting off Sasha’s response.

Sasha's eyes flick to Ilya before answering. “Five years, give or take.”

That clearly takes her by surprise. “Oh, wow.”

Svetlana chuckles, nudging Sasha with her elbow. "For Slavic men, that is not so bad."

Shane slides up to Ilya and hands him his phone, their shoulders brushing. "I love you," he says matter-of-factly, his thumb tracing a small circle on Ilya's wrist. Ilya's expression turns from thundercloud to full beam in an instant. Shane tilts his head. "But in what world are you the person to call about a broken washer?"

"Right?!" Ilya exclaims, throwing his free arm around Shane's waist. "I am his Captain! He's supposed to call me for booze, bail, and bad decisions!"

“Do you even have a washer?” Svetlana snorts, eyebrows raised.

Ilya looks thoughtful for a minute, his nose scrunching. David tries to imagine him doing laundry and gets an immediate error message.

"Yes," Shane snorts, poking Ilya in the ribs. "It' s in the garage."

"Is that what that thing is?" Ilya teases, catching Shane's finger and holding it. "What? I send it out!"

"We' re gonna work on that," Yuna tells him with a wink, unofficially announcing the great domestication of Ilya Rozanov.

"Good luck," Shane laughs, pressing a quick kiss to Ilya's temple. "Come and be useful," he tells Ilya, tugging him by the belt loop back over to the counter.

Svetlana laughs and shakes her head, her dark eyes darting from Sasha’s flawless expression of polite interest to Shane.

The boys are pretty affectionate with each other, and it’s entirely possible this is just a spill-over from business as usual with a sprinkling of understanding that they don’t have to be careful anywhere now, least of all their home.

But David knows his son. Shane is not happy.

David is used to being at a table where he’s the only one who doesn’t catch the beginning, middle, and end of a joke in English, let alone Russian. He also knows just enough now to sense when things are about to erupt. He catches Sasha leaning over to Svetlana, voice so low it’s almost a hum, and then says something that includes Ilya’s name, the verb for "to suck," and… Christ, was that the word for "barnyard animal?"

Svetlana doesn’t so much as blink. She just tilts her chin up and gives Sasha a look as frigid as the surface of Pluto.

Over in the kitchen, Shane and Ilya are too preoccupied to hear anything. Yuna cocks her head, getting the sense that something isn’t right.

David, unfortunately, chokes on his wine. Bad timing. And also fuck Sasha.

Who clearly is not expecting anyone else to know what he’s just said. David tries not to look at him, but the silence that rings out is so sharp, it’s hard to avoid. Sasha stiffens and then looks up and finds David’s gaze locked directly on him. There’s a heartbeat of disbelief: the kid’s mouth opens, closes, and then the mask falls off his face entirely. The color drains from his face, fast and uneven, leaving his skin ghastly under the overheads. He stands so abruptly that the wine in his glass sloshes up and over, dark red against the white. He doesn’t offer a word, not even to Svetlana, just turns and bolts for the back door, leaving it cracked behind him.

For a moment, nobody moves. In the kitchen, the boys don’t even register the drama, intent on a low argument over whether or not Shane’s ‘pasta’ actually qualifies as an edible food choice. Svetlana, her lips pressed together so thin they’re white, aims an approving glance at David. He feels an electric pop of adrenaline, like he’s scored a goal from nowhere.

"This was a bad idea," Svetlana whispers, and her laugh is sharp, nearly brutal. She wipes at the little puddle of wine with the sleeve of her shirt, then massages her temples with both hands. “Fucking men.”

Yuna reaches over and squeezes her arm before heading off in search of a cloth.

David is by far the least qualified person to do what needs to come next, but he is, apparently, it. He stands. Svetlana inclines her head just so, a soldier’s salute.

The backyard is mostly dark. The air is cold and carries the smell of other people’s smoke, city, and wood, and a faint chemical haze from the pool cleaner. David scans the dark. Nothing at first, then movement on the far side of the yard, at the edge of the little patio. The faint glow of a lit cigarette.

He’s always hated confrontation. He wishes for a second he was the kind of person who could just go back inside and ignore it. But he thinks of Shane, of Ilya, and he knows if he’s learned anything at all, it’s that sometimes you have to barge into people’s pain and sit with them in the dark.

Ilya has already lost so much of his past. David will try to salvage this for him if he can. Ilya was little more than a stranger when they first met, and he’s managed okay there, he thinks.

He crosses the stones slowly, so as not to startle a man already on the edge. At the edge of the pool, he pulls up a chair. Sasha doesn’t look up. He does hold out a pack of cigarettes.

David looks over his shoulder, then shrugs. He’s done worse things to break the ice. He lets Sasha light one for him and can’t help but feel like he’s back in college trying to navigate the impossible angst of early adulthood.

Sasha flicks ash into the darkness, his shoulders hunched. "I am a poor recipient of your hospitality," he says heavily.

David watches the ember glow brighter as Sasha inhales. "Wasn't me you insulted. That was an insult, right? I'm still learning."

"Oh yes." Sasha's laugh is a brittle thing. "Very crude. Very cruel of me."

"You usually cruel to your friends?"

Sasha's cigarette freezes halfway to his mouth. "Ilya isn't my friend." His voice hardens. "But yes. Perhaps. Him especially. He is easy to be cruel to." The self-loathing in his voice is unmistakable.

There's a lot to read into that, but David knows better than to sink his teeth into such obvious bait.

He shifts in the uncomfortable patio chair. "You came a long way to do it."

"Yes," Sasha chuckles without mirth, grinding his cigarette butt into the stone with more force than necessary. "Sveta's idea. It upsets her that we are no longer so close." His fingers immediately reach for another cigarette, betraying his agitation.

"I guess it's hard to maintain a friendship over such a long distance." David watches the tremor in Sasha's hands as he lights up.

Sasha's eyes flash in the darkness. "Is it? They managed." The bitterness drips from each word.

"Do you really think he's in danger?" David asks, trying to understand what drives him.

Sasha exhales a plume of smoke that hangs between them. "No. Not really. If he were in Moscow, perhaps, but even then..." He shrugs, a jerky movement. "His career would be over, maybe."

"And yet you came all this way..." David leaves the question hanging.

Sasha stares at the house, at the warm light spilling from the windows. "Ilya..." His voice catches. "Attracts trouble. And bad people." He looks down at his own hands as if they're evidence. "I wanted to know if Shane Hollander was worth the risk."

More bait that David doesn’t rise to. He doesn’t need anyone to validate Shane’s worth and never will. What he does lean on is the idea that Ilya attracts bad people. With the exception of his family, something of which is entirely out of his control, the overwhelming reality David has seen is quite the opposite. People gravitate to that kid like moths to a flame. Even if, and perhaps even because, they really, really don’t want to like him.

If you ask the people who know him, almost all of them will say he’s an asshole. And almost all of them will drop whatever they’re doing to help him, no questions asked. Sasha included, he suspects.

David leans forward, elbows on knees. "So why be... what did you call it? Cruel? Why be cruel to him?"

"I'm not jealous, if that's what you're thinking." David takes a drag of his cigarette and remembers why he quit. The smoke scrapes his throat like sandpaper. God, did he ever actually enjoy this?

"I never thought that." He might. Perhaps. Though he's not sure if that would mean Sasha was jealous of Ilya, Shane, or what they have.

Sasha's fingers drum against his thigh, a restless rhythm. "Most people do. Or did. Especially when we were kids." They're kids now, David thinks, in the way anyone over twenty years younger than him is a kid.

David watches a moth flutter near the porch light, drawn to its inevitable doom. "Your father was his coach, yes?"

Sasha smiles, all teeth, no warmth. "Yes. Ilya was his favorite. Ilya is most people's favorite." His voice curdles on the last word. "This was good for me, you understand? People would say 'Poor Sasha, his father does not love him,' but sometimes no attention is better than all the attention."

This is the coach Ilya will recall with amusement that borders on affection, who physically and psychologically tortured him in the name of perfection. Forget the horrors of Grigori Rozanov, whose brutality was tied inextricably to shame, failure, and a harrowing betrayal of the most fundamental foundations of parenthood. They're slowly starting to nudge Ilya down a road of understanding there.

His coach, though... if Grigori's brutality was a 'punishment', then that asshole's was an 'incentive'. That pain is one Ilya looks back on with pride.

David is starting to think people need to take a fucking test before they're allowed to father children. Or just... exist around children in general.

He takes another drag, flicking ash onto the stone. The ember glows accusingly in the dark.

"That's still gotta be pretty rough." He'll say this for Sasha - the way he and Ilya hold themselves against the world might be similar, but that's where the comparison can stop. It took months to get this much out of Ilya, and that was with Yuna and Shane for backup.

Sasha's laugh is hollow as he stubs out his cigarette, grinding it with unnecessary force against the stone. "Hm. Rough, yes. He felt very guilty, I think. Then angry for it." He reaches for another cigarette, hands trembling slightly. "Very easy to be, ah, cruel, to someone who thinks they owe you something, yes?"

"And does he?" David leans forward, studying the man's face. Is that what this is? Is that why he's here, carrying all this bitterness across continents?

Sasha's eyes flash with something like amusement. "This works well for you, does it? This ah, benign Canadian father thing." He gestures vaguely at David, smoke trailing from his fingers. "Stupid question, obviously it does." He takes a long drag, exhaling sharply. "Fuck, how am I having this conversation sober?"

David shifts in his chair, the cool night air against his neck helping him keep his focus. "Maybe you needed to get some things off your chest?"

"Be careful with him, David Hollander." Sasha's voice drops, almost tender in its warning. "He'll do anything you ask if you look at him like that."

"Everything okay?" Both of them startle as Shane appears, materializing from the shadows of the patio. David doesn't know if it's a good or bad thing that his son is the one to seek them out. Then Shane's eyes narrow, jaw tightening, and he knows it's a bad thing. "Since when do you smoke?" he demands.

"1986," David says with a sheepish smile. "Don't tell your mom." As if Shane isn't ten times more capable of reading him the riot act than even she is. Yuna fell in love with him when he was smoking. She'll only kill him a little bit.

Shane's attention shifts, his stance widening as he faces Sasha. "Are you done being an asshole?" he demands, hands clenched at his sides.

Sasha looks up at him, a bitter smile playing at his lips. "Probably not."

"Cool. Try harder then, " Shane's words cut through the night air as he jabs a finger toward the house, his shoulders tight. "He's already upset."

"I'm not upset," Ilya announces, joining them with arms wrapped around himself against the chill. "Actually, no, that is a lie. It's fucking cold, and you're all conspiring."

"We're not conspiring," Shane and David say at the same time. David winces at the synchronicity.

Sasha snorts, flicking his cigarette ash. "We're talking about you, Lyulya, not to you. Shoo."

"Bite me." Ilya's breath clouds in the cold air.

"You'd like that." Sasha's eyes glint with something dangerous.

Ilya is about to respond when Shane steps forward and answers for him. In French.

"Let me make one thing perfectly fucking clear," he snarls, stepping into Sasha's space. "This stops. Right fucking now. You want to help him, you want to 'be his friend', then you find something kind in that bitter, twisted fucking shell and you show him only that."

Ilya's eyes dart between them, hands fluttering nervously. "No. What? No." David watches the color drain from his face as he fails to follow a single word of the conversation.

David pats him gently on the shoulder. This could go very badly, very quickly.

"You don't flirt with him. You don't mock him." Shane's finger jabs the air with each point. "I don't give a shit if that's how you've always done it. Figure it the fuck out. Lie through your fucking teeth if you have to, I don't care. There are two people in this house who have beaten the absolute shit out of his brother, and I have no problem at all doing the same to you."

Sasha's face cycles through an encyclopedia of emotions before he finally settles on something pleased.

When he responds, he sticks to French himself. Ilya all but whimpers, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "You've met his brother?" Sasha asks, leaning forward.

"And I broke his face. So did my dad." Shane's knuckles whiten at his sides.

"I thought Canadians were supposed to be nice." Sasha's eyebrow arches.

"We are! At least until you fuck with the people we love." Shane's voice drops an octave.

"A deal then?" Sasha taps ash from his cigarette with deliberate care. "You tell me how it felt to make that fucker bleed, and I will be nice."

"No. You will be nice because you want Ilya to be happy. And I'll tell you because I really want to do it again. Deal?" Shane holds out his hand, the gesture somehow both diplomatic and threatening.

"What the fuck is happening?" Ilya looks like he's about to faint, eyes wide as he stares at the incomprehensible exchange.

Sasha grasps Shane's hand, and they shake, the cigarette smoke curling between them like a pact sealed in blood.

“What's going on out here?” Yuna sticks her head through the patio door.

Ilya, despite looking like he’s only half a second from trying to drown himself in the pool, reaches out and snatches the cigarette from David, clamping it between his teeth before Yuna can see.

“We are making friends, Mrs Hollander,” Sasha says politely.

Yuna’s gaze narrows, but she nods, her expression softening when it lands on Ilya. “Honey, no, you were doing so well.”

Ilya stamps out the cigarette and scuffs his toes. He doesn’t lie to her, but David is suddenly struck dumb with affection.

A sense memory blooms in David’s ribs. Shane, at sixteen, doubled over with laughter so hard he almost vomited, breathless because of some hockey-mad friend at summer camp who dared him to do something insanely stupid and technically brilliant, and he didn’t have it in him to back down, even then. He remembers the ache in his face from smiling, the ancient parental reflex to ruin the perfect moment by freezing it, labeling it, dragging it out like a badge, and demanding everyone admire its shine. The best he can do now is witness. He watches as Shane, made solid by years, steps up to Ilya and kisses him with a possessive, blink-and-miss-it ferocity that David did not know his kid had in him.

They are both way too old for it to be embarrassing. The look on Shane’s face is all sharp angles and adoration when he pulls back and tugs Ilya by the hand through the patio door, his shoulders looser now, every atom of worry has been siphoned off by the contact.

Sasha lingers a second, watching their shadows collide against the bright rectangle of the kitchen window. He doesn’t say another word, just flicks an unreadable glance at David, and follows.

David stays a moment longer. He needs a second. The air’s cold and raw, the loss of sun making the pool steam up and glow, but he wants to commit the scene to memory before the warmth inside swallows the dark. Residual anger simmers under his ribs - anger at the fathers who leave so much damage behind, and at a sport that only knows cares enough to condemn when backed into a corner - and he lets it settle there, a bar of old iron to keep his own backbone straight.

He steps into the kitchen and is immediately handed a glass of wine by Yuna, who slides it into his grip with a look that suggests she’s clocked the smoke on him and knows exactly what Ilya just did. She’s in her favorite dress, hair pinned back by a silver clip, and all the weeks of tightness around her eyes have melted out and been replaced by something so very soft. They stand side by side, watching their sons cross and re-cross each other’s space, collide and bounce and orbit like binary stars.

Sasha, with his own wine, leans against the counter, shoulder to shoulder with Svetlana, who leans her head against his. He looks calmer now. Less a predator likely to strike, more a stray who has accepted the hierarchy of the space he’s just been invited into.

“I shall tell you the moose story,” he announces, drawing a look of pure glee from Svetlana.

“Yes! Oh my god, I have waited two decades for this.”

“And you will wait another two!” Ilya threatens.

Shane puts a hand on his hip to shift him out of the way. “Tell the moose story, Sasha,” he says, grinning at the look of outrage it wins him.

“Are moose in Russia as big as the moose in Canada?” Yuna asks.

“Bigger,” Svetlana, Ilya and Sasha say as one.

“Ilya tried to adopt one,” Sasha continues.

“Ilya will poison your food,” Ilya threatens.

“Ilya will be quiet if he knows what’s good for him,” Shane says sweetly.

“Monster. I’ve created a fucking monster.”

"Are we telling the real version, or just the one that’s safe for Canadians?" Sasha asks, glancing slyly at Yuna and David. “There is much blood, much tragedy, much-”

“Lies. All lies,” Ilya mutters, but from the way he pushes his wine well out of Sasha’s range, he's expecting a full character assassination.

David feels the warmth creep up his neck. He’s no stranger to the transformative power of a good story, and his entire career as a father has basically been narrating a highlight reel of Shane’s brilliance.

Sasha drums his fingertips on the table, measuring his entertainment against Ilya’s annoyance. “When we are maybe eight, nine? No. Later, it was after you broke my nose. Eleven. Yes, eleven, because he is finally almost the same height as me.”

“I remember this,” Svetlana says, her voice syrupy with anticipation. Ilya flips her the finger.

“In winter, we are sent to Kazakhstan for training. Well, Novosibirsk, but that is practically fucking Kazakhstan,” Sasha says, directing the punchline toward Yuna for effect. She smiles, the kind of smile that’s halfway polite, halfway gimme-the-popcorn.

“It’s Siberia,” Ilya huffs. “That is dramatic enough for a Canadian audience.” He doesn’t look upset, but he’s also not yet smiling. Shane’s focus is very carefully split between him and Sasha, his trust only going so far. David wants to pat his arm in Advance Sympathy, but then Sasha has momentum, and there’s no stopping the story now.

“Every morning, we have to run the perimeter of the training facility. Five kilometers, maybe more. There is this moose. Real moose. Very ugly-”

“Not ugly,” Ilya says, a hint petulant. “She was a baby. Only little.” David isn’t sure what Ilya’s idea of a ‘little moose’ really is and isn’t sure he wants to know.

He’s mildly horrified at the idea of eleven-year-olds being around any kind of moose.

Sasha ignores him. “Instead of being a good, normal coach and telling kids to avoid moose, my father decides to make it fun. One day, he offers a challenge: anyone who can outrun the moose gets an extra ten minutes in bed that morning.”

“We were up at four,” Ilya says in disgust. Shane rubs his arm consolingly. Ilya is, to the best of David’s knowledge, not a morning person.

Yuna chuckles. “Were there a lot of winners?”

“Oh no,” Sasha says, grinning. “The moose is lazy. It does not chase unless provoked. But some idiot,” he winks at Ilya, who pulls a whole new bottle of wine from the rack behind Shane’s head, “he decides maybe he can train the moose. Make it team captain. Make it play hockey."

“You really have always wanted a dog, haven’t you?” Shane says softly. Anya, who up to that point has been fast asleep by the fire, pricks her ears with the sixth sense of knowing when she is needed and trots over to Ilya.

He bends down and hoists her up into his arms, cuddling furiously.

Sasha shakes his head, looking fond. "Three days, he’s leaving salt licks in the snow for it, trying to teach it how to come, training it like a puppy. First time it actually shows up when he calls, everyone thinks we’re going to die."

Svetlana can barely contain herself now, red spreading up her cheeks, and in the kitchen, Shane leans back against the counter and lets a snort of laughter through his nose. Yuna’s smiling, wide and delighted, and David tries to imagine the logistics of a wild moose wandering a Russian sports facility, coached into compliance by an eleven-year-old boy.

"You… really thought you could train a moose?" he asks, and the disbelief in his voice is not even a fraction of what he’s actually feeling.

"It worked," Ilya says, chin up, full of pride and little interest in how crazy he sounds.

Sasha shakes his head, giving Shane a knowing look. "For two days, maybe, but then Ilya gets greedy. Our last lap, he brings out black bread, which drives them fucking insane. He holds out the bread, and moose comes - very fast - chases him all the way across the compound and through the gym door."

“Oh my god,” Shane gasps, and David finds himself grinning, not even trying to hide it. “How did you not die?”

"Because I am very fast! It was fine," Ilya insists. "Training was stupid that day anyway. Better with moose."

"It trampled the gym, broke two windows, left shit on the mats," Sasha says. He’s laughing now, maybe for the first time since he arrived. "They call for animal control-”

“Who were in the fucking bar at mid-day,” Ilya huffs. Anya licks his cheek, pleased to be the center of his attention.

“-so father tells us to get rid of it ourselves or he’ll shoot it in the head."

And just like that, the conversation veers from amusing and abstractly horrifying to a potential nightmare. Neither Sasha, Svetlana, nor Ilya seems to notice.

Svetlana’s got her hand over her mouth to hide the giggles. "Wait, so what did you do?"

"I suggested we use him as bait, but I was overruled because he was the best goal scorer. We chased it out with brooms," Sasha shrugs. "Like idiots. But the next morning, the moose is back outside eating snow. Lyulya’s has been feeding it from his pocket the whole time. He trains the fucking thing. It follows him for a week, right up to the day the fancy people from Moscow come to watch us practice."

Ilya shrugs, but he can’t hide the glimmer of pride. "Was good moose," he says. "Kind. Not like some people."

Shane is laughing openly now, bent forward with the force of it, and David’s own chest aches with the effort not to join in. He remembers Shane at that age, all teeth and oversized pads and the kind of oblivious optimism that could convince a grizzly to run drills if only it would stop and listen.

"So what happened to the moose?" David asks, genuinely invested.

Sasha waves a hand. "They let it go north. Ilya cried for a week." His smile is gentler now. "And then, next summer, he is still talking about the moose," Sasha is saying. "Like, will not shut up about it. Tells everyone how someday, when he is rich, he will have three, maybe four, just for himself." He flicks a glance at Ilya, inviting him to deny it.

Ilya shrugs again, wrestling Anya into a gently captive snuggle while she squirms and licks his chin. "Moose is a good animal," he says, bouncing her like a baby. "Not like bear, which is a dumb asshole. Or a wolf, which is a sociopath."

"How about a Loon?" Shane asks, his eyes gleaming as he reaches for the wine bottle to refill Ilya’s glass.

"The fuck is a loon?" Sasha frowns, holding up his own glass when Shane reaches over.

Ilya's whole chest inflates. He carefully hands Anya to Shane, who forgets a lifetime of professional coordination as he tries to balance her and the bottle. "It's a fucking nightmare!" Ilya says, leaping up and pacing, as if he doesn't have one tattooed on his skin. "Look-" he taps frantically on his phone, nearly drops it, curses in Russian, and then shoves it in Sasha's face.

"The fuck is that?" Sasha recoils, spilling wine on his sleeve. "Why are its eyes red?"

"Because it is fucking possessed!" Ilya throws his hands up, narrowly missing David's nose. "There is an entire fucking species of Canadian birds that need an exorcism!"

Svetlana leans forward, cutting off Ilya's impending wildlife lecture with the precision of someone who's done it a thousand times. "Wait, wait, I just realized…" Her eyes glitter as she reaches for her wine glass. "Since we are doing storytime."

"No," Ilya says flatly, immediately telling David he wants to know this story.

Svetlana grins wider. "You don't know what I was going to say!"

"I don't care!" Ilya lunges for her wine glass, but she yanks it away, wine sloshing dangerously close to the rim.

"I bet Shane does!" She ducks behind Shane like he's a human shield.

Ilya points a threatening finger. "Shane better keep quiet if he knows what's good for him!"

"Yeah, Shane's willing to take the risk," Shane laughs, catching Ilya's wrist and pulling it down. "Go on."

"So we're seventeen, and bored, and Ilya wins the fight for the tv remote—" Svetlana starts, dodging as Ilya throws a napkin at her head.

"No. No, absolutely not!"

"And I don't even know how it came on-" She's laughing too hard to finish.

"Oh, it came on because he made my dad record it," Sasha says gleefully, reaching across to rescue her wine.

"Dinner's ready," Ilya announces, already backing toward the stove.

"No, it's not," Shane says, hooking a finger through Ilya's belt loop to keep him in place.

"Five hours of CHL Junior hockey, featuring one Shane-"

"No!" Shane gasps, releasing Ilya instantly. "What?"

"I will burn this entire house down," Ilya whines and drops his head to Shane’s shoulder.

david leans a hip into the counter and watches his son try not to blush as Svetlana pantomimes a romantic slow-motion goal celebration. Ilya makes a show of trying to climb into the refrigerator, only to be thwarted by Anya underfoot.

He throws a handful of arugula over his shoulder in lieu of a napkin, and Shane retaliates by popping a cherry tomato into Ilya’s wineglass when he’s not looking. Even Sasha, so smooth and angular in a way that would seem predatory if he hadn’t already surrendered every bit of venom, adds to the madness by adding an enthusiastic pantomime of Ilya swooning over Shane long before they ever met.

David can only watch while the entire menagerie shreds decorum. It's chaos theory meets family dinner, and if he’s honest, this is the best he has felt about the world in… possibly years.

He’s so caught up in the scene that he almost doesn’t notice Yuna slip up beside him.

She leans in, voice pitched quiet for only him. “It’s always chaos, isn’t it?”

“I read somewhere that means they’re happy,” he says.

She makes a noise, half-laugh, half-sigh. “You did this, you know.”

He shrugs and lets himself lean into her warmth just enough that his chest stops aching in the way it always does when she’s not nearby. “Oh no, I think they figured it out themselves.”

Yuna watches the kids. “You’re a good dad,” she murmurs.

He loops his arm around her shoulders and kisses her brow, grinning as Shane throws his head back and laughs in a way David doesn’t think he’s ever heard before.

“I’m trying.”

Chapter End Notes

Standard content warnings for the previous chapters apply.

Before anyone comes for me about the moose, yes, I know! I promise I know! Also, when you get to that line IN the moose story, I promise it ends well.

Chapter 16

Chapter Notes

This part has been named in my head as Ilya (and Hayden) Vs the Metros.

Warnings: by far the heaviest chapter in terms of homophobic language, attitudes, and abuse, including the use of slurs. We're dealing with the fallout from the FanMail incident. Ilya is on the warpath. Timeline-wise, this is March-May of the 2020/2021 season.

Writing hockey is haaaaard! It's also likely going to be Monday now before the next update, sorry about that!

Somewhere in some stuffy little cubicle, there will be someone, perhaps multiple someones, dissecting every game played between Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander in an attempt to build a timeline of where they were in their relationship when they played.

They’re gonna have a fucking doozie with this one.

“The fuck,” Drapeau calls from the crease, a tiny bit worried but mostly fucked off as Hayden circles around him and tries to remind his diaphragm how to work. He flaps one hand, all there is really time for, as he races to catch up to Shane.

Nobody’s been expecting the Centaurs to put up this much of a fight. Ottawa’s turned a corner this season, maybe because of their near miss in the sky, maybe because they finally have a solid front line.

And fuck, it’s been awkward as hell ever since Hayden torpedoed his best friend’s entire fucking life, but this is the first game they’ve played since the FanMail incident, and it’s never been like this before.

The Centaurs are on the fucking warpath, and it’s not just Rozanov.

It’s that more than anything that tells Hayden this isn’t just some spat between him and Shane that’s spilled out onto the ice. Shane’s getting his fair share of attention as he always does, the single biggest threat in the game and number one target for any opposing team. He gets checked, and he checks right back, and whatever fucking foreplay the two of them have is pretty much business as usual.

It’s the rest of them.

Ottawa is playing Shane as if he were an opponent.

They’re playing the Metros as if they’re a fucking enemy. It’s Boston all over again. Worse, maybe, because they know what to expect from Boston.

There’s a fine line between playing a game against someone you want to beat versus playing a game against someone you need to see lose, and oh boy, have they sailed right fucking over it today.

Hayden moves to intercept Barret before Rozanov can pass to him and diverts just in time to watch J.J. move a fraction too slow in his check and get shouldered right over the barrier and into the pit.

“Oops,” Rozanov says as he skates past, the nonchalant tone of voice in total odds to the look of cold disdain on his face.

Hayden’s fairly sure Ilya’s taking the… less than stellar way the Metros are treating Shane far more personally than Shane is. And Shane is taking it pretty fucking personally.

“Fucking hell, Hollander,” Gagnon grumbles, fresh out of his own collision with the human tank that is LaPointe. “Can you go suck his fucking cock and calm him the fuck down!”

You’re not supposed to punch your own teammates, but Hayden’s more than a little pissed that Rozanov gets one in before he has the chance.

Rozanov ends up in the bin. Shane expresses his displeasure by scoring their first goal.

“You’re a piece of shit,” Hayden tells Gagnon when they’re on the bench, stunned when the sonovabitch actually looks offended.

“What? They’re railroading us!”

“Right. And that’s how you talk to your Captain, is it?”

It makes Hayden a little sick whenever he thinks about some of the shit that gets said. Moreso because there’s so much that doesn’t have any real malice behind it - it’s just the casual homophobic bullshit you get in every locker room - that it’s hard to know what is meant as an insult and what’s just talking shit.

He guesses that means it’s all a fucking insult, and he hates the world and himself a little more every time it comes up.

Congratulations, Pike. You’ve been waging a psychological war against your kids’ godfather his entire career.

Shane and Rozanov spend the second period circling each other, always in orbit, two lunatics with gravity set for a collision course. Third period, Rozanov gets a power play, and the puck’s basically a missile coming off his stick. Hayden tries to block the passing lane, gets low and wide, and still can’t stop the force of the guy, not even a little. He's not holding back for a second. Hell, it’s like he’s actively trying to make a point and using absolutely anyone in his path to do it.

The puck clangs off Hayden’s pads, and before he can load up to clear it, Rozanov’s right there, catching him so hard across the shins that the pain is instant, electric, padding or no fucking padding. Hayden almost goes down, keeps his balance, and then Rozanov - motherfucker - leans in and hisses. “Fucking handle this or I will.”

On the one hand, totally fair. On the other - “Fuck off, Rozanov!” He pushes back and misses. Rozanov whips around and fucking scores. There’s a second of silence, then a bay of pure rage from the home bench.

He respects the bastard for it. It’s what he would do if it were him and the world was stacked six miles high on one secret and one person. But still, doesn’t make it less of a pain in the ass to be on the wrong end of it.

There are five minutes left on the clock, and the Centaurs’ third line is still playing like they’ve got a two-man disadvantage to make up. Hayden’s pretty sure he’s been slashed seventeen times this period, and not one fucking penalty gets called for him. Hell, Rozanov could probably pull a shiv out of his sleeve and the ref would just blink and say "watch your stick."

Boodram goes for him, hips square, thighs spread like the world’s biggest barn door, and Hayden can hear his breath like the flare of a bear on the other side of a tent wall every time he closes for a check. Haas, of all people, is jawing at Shane the whole time they’re scrumming for the puck in the corner, and Hayden sees the way Shane keeps his head low and eyes away, sticking with his play and not letting any of it get under his skin.

If the Centaurs are all teeth, then the Metros are all bone. Bad, splintered bone.

Hayden pushes off after the dump-in and clocks Rozanov bearing down on him, red-blotched and fixed, having clearly decided Hayden’s the last human on earth worth showing any mercy. Rozanov slams him good, less of a hit and more of a rearguard action to keep the puck out of a Metros stick’s range. The boards vibrate forever after, and Hayden feels his breath pop out in a tiny boyish “oomph” that he hopes is drowned by the crowd or at least by the stream of Russian that Rozanov launches out like a curse.

Thing is, Hayden knows this isn’t Ilya pissed about the video. That ship has sailed already, even though Hayden’s been expecting it. On the ice, Ilya has every excuse to get a little payback, but hasn’t.

He can’t even be mad. Shane is miserable, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t get it through to the fuckers they play with that nothing has fucking changed.

The puck is always in motion, but never for more than a second at a time does it belong on a Metros blade. Haas and Rozanov control the neutral zone like they own the fucking patent, so every time the Metros try to clear, someone strips, denies, or, in J.J’s case, eats a puck straight to the chest.

Shane still manages to fight past them for the winning goal.

The game wraps with the final whistle, calling an end to a bloodbath beyond anything either side has seen in a long fucking time.

They file into the locker room like men who’ve just been chewed up and spat onto the pavement. Guys are chirping, but it’s not the good stuff, not the loose-limbed post-win relief where everybody’s in on the joke.

Hayden shoves his pads into his bag and takes his spot next to J.J., who’s head-down in his gloves and not moving.

It starts with Gagnon, of fucking course. Who else would open his mouth first? “Hollander, you want to maybe keep your boyfriend off a power play next time?” he calls, snapping the tape off his stick for emphasis.

Across the room, McLean coughs out a laugh. Like they weren’t all fucking battered at every turn by every fucking player.

Shane lifts his head, angled slightly so Gagnon’s in his periphery but not getting eye contact. “They outplayed us,” he says, voice flat. “That’s on all of us. It was a lucky win. We need to do better.” It’s a line right out of Coach’s playbook, bland and deflective.

Gagnon makes a face, like he’s disappointed there’s no fight in Shane tonight. “Sure, but maybe if you were focused instead of-” He gestures vaguely, and blows an exaggerated kiss.

Hayden yanks the tape off his own sticks and tries not to snap it. “Are we doing this?” he says, half under his breath, but loud enough for Gagnon to catch.

Gagnon shrugs, hands up. He looks at Shane and then around the room, sizing up how much support he’s got, which tonight is probably more than usual, and usual is more than half the fucking room. “Just saying, man. Keep your personal shit off the fucking ice.”

Shane doesn’t answer. He stands, turns so his back is to them, and starts working the clips of his padding, slow and meticulous.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Hayden says. “We’ll rack up more points next time.”

“Yeah, we better or we’re fucked.”

Hayden doesn’t even want to think about that. He wants to win every game because he wants to fucking win, not because they’ll stake Shane out for the slaughter if they don’t.

Fuck, he’s got to do something. Shane is just standing there, staring at the inside of his own locker, cheeks drawn tight and jaw ticking. Not so much processing as absorbing. For a moment, Hayden wonders if he might gut Gagnon right there with a shard of skate blade. Instead, he packs out at a normal pace and heads for the showers, out the farthest end, not talking to anyone.

“Fuck it. We’re all going out for a drink,” Hayden snaps, at a breaking point that’s been brewing for too long, guilt and frustration bubbling over. They need to sort this shit out. They need to get back to normal.

Only, fuck, normal is kinda the problem, isn’t it?

Andropov laughs mockingly. “I think Hollander probably wants to get fucked by Rozanov again. At least we don’t have to participate this time.”

“Motherfucker, quit it!”

He fires off a quick text to Jackie, desperately relieved that he married a woman who’d be more pissed at him for not dragging the boys out to fix their shit.

He glances at Shane once he comes back from the shower, his tight jaw, arms folded, already dressed, and wonders how the hell he’ll convince him to come along.

In the end, he doesn't need to worry. Shane is listless and not paying much attention as they shuffle into the lot an hour later and almost collide with Rozanov, who is leaning against a streetlamp, smoke curling around his head.

“Holy motherfucking jumpscare!” Hayden clutches his chest. “Jesus, Rozanov!”

“You’re all fucking pussies,” Ilya drawls, smoking and grinning like the little shit that he is. Helpful. So fucking helpful. Forget the nightmares Hayden is having of Ilya getting murdered by men in fuzzy fucking ottar hats; he’s going to die in a Montreal parking lot.

Everyone’s eyes flick to Shane, who clears his throat. “Seriously?”

Ilya shrugs, shoulders relaxed. “Not a question. All of you. Except Hollander. Maybe Pike.”

Hayden snorts. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Ilya’s smirk widens. Drapeau snarls simultaneously. “Fuck off, Rozanov.”

Rozanov lifts an eyebrow. “It is fine. I wouldn’t expect more from a bunch of homophobic assholes.”

“Ilya-” Shane warns, voice taut. Rozanov is playing with fucking fire.

But J.J. blurts, “Fuck you! We don’t give a shit that he’s gay.” Hayden stifles a triumphant grin. Leave it to J.J. to spill their guilt on a silver platter. They fucking do give a shit. They give a shit about both.

Ilya’s grin morphs to a smug smirk. “Good to know. So it’s me you have a problem with, not my cock.”

Shane presses a hand to his temple. “Five minutes. Can you survive five fucking minutes-” but then he stops, eyes flicking to Ilya’s face. Hayden feels his chest tighten. There’s one hell of a trust exercise going on right now.

Ilya lifts his hands, palms out. “Truce. Tonight, we drink. You get to know me, and next time I can beat you minus the fucking drama.”

Andropov snarls, “Oh fuck off!”

Shane surprises everyone by nodding. “It’s a good idea.”

Ilya flicks a glance at him. “Don’t look so shocked. Miracles happen.”

Drapeau crosses his arms. “We’re not drinking with you, Rozanov.”

Ilya’s grin turns predatory. “So it is my cock you’re afraid of.”

“Jesus,” Hayden mutters, rubbing his temples. “Executive decision: one round on Rozanov’s tab, then we call it.”

Ilya makes a breezy gesture: naturally. “Listen to your assistant captain. He’s occasionally right.”

Shane pinches the bridge of his nose. “Remember that quitting-while-you’re-ahead chat we had?”

“Yeah. Boring,” Ilya says, and Shane - and Hayden - can’t help the grudging, exasperated laugh that follows.

It’s J.J who says, “So… where the fuck are we going?” He's trying, at least, which is more than can be said for the rest of them.

“I know a place,” Ilya offers.

Thing is, Hayden’s never been in this kind of situation before. Ever. He doesn’t even mean this specific one, this Chernobyl-level destruction of someone’s life. Just… in general.

He gets on with pretty much everyone. He has the perfect life, with the perfect family, and sure, he works for it, but most things just come easy for him. Everything slots so neatly in place that it doesn’t require much in the way of effort or thought. Jackie is a huge part of that, he knows, but he’s always been determined to meet her halfway, and he thinks he does a decent enough job of it.

He just loves people. He loves his wife. He loves his children. He loves his family. He loves Shane. He loves - doesn’t like, and that’s an important distinction - Ilya fucking Rozanov.

He doesn’t have ‘enemies’. He doesn’t have feuds. He can’t remember a time when he was genuinely angry at anyone or anything.

No, not true. It was Ilya, but that’s also one of the things he’s come to not like, but love about the bastard.

Point being… he doesn’t actually know how to proccess what’s happening now.

He doesn’t know how to handle the huge amount of harm he’s caused.

He doesn’t know how to handle the fact that he’s never been as good a friend to Shane as he thought he was being.

And everyone is being so fucking nice to him about it. Because he’s Hayden, and things just come easy for him… forgiveness included it seems.

He’s fucking grateful for Cliff Marlow, of all people, and then so fucking sick with guilt he stops sleeping long enough for Jackie to make him take one of the sleeping pills the doc gave her after Arthur was born.

Ilya starts sending him news articles, translated from Russian, of a gay professor at some big college in Moscow, a pair of lesbian pop-singers, and some actor who seems to be banging every cast member he stars with, regardless of gender.

See, it basically says, calm the fuck down. There are queer people in Russia. They’re fine. Stop being so dramatic.

Only they lead Hayden down a fucking rabbit hole of other articles, other reports, most of them highly critical, but too many of them pushing for more. He spends hours in bed in his perfect house with his perfect family and his perfect life, and tortures himself with what might have happened, or what could still happen if Ilya ever had to go back.

Then he pivots to hate crimes in North America, in sports, in Canada, in Montreal… better stats than Russia, maybe, but still too fucking high.

Then it’s Shane he imagines in those headlines and he fucking loses it.

There’s a fundamental flaw in Ilya’s plan. One Hayden isn’t sure whether he or Shane has fucking clocked, but he does.

The boys are latched onto Rozanov as the villain of the piece. It brings every dark, nasty, resentful feeling to the surface because it gives them a more palatable excuse for their bigotry.

At best, their Captain is gay and has really shitty taste in men.

At worst, their mortal enemy has breached their fucking defences and corrupted their commander-in-chief.

It’s so fucking stupid.

Get to know me, is the unspoken plea in Ilya’s offer of drinks. Know me as Shane’s partner, not that guy you really hate.

It’s not necessarily a bad plan, not really. Hell, it worked for Hayden.

No, the problem, and he’s honestly fucking stunned neither of them can see it, is that while Hayden might not have taken the Rozanov Reveal the best, he’s also not been a total dick about it. And he’s never, not once, treated Shane the way the rest of them have.

He’s not done enough to stop it, and that’s on him, but he’s not been an active part of it.

With the possible exception of J.J., who is on thin fucking ice, you can’t say the same for anyone else in the team.

Get to know me. Know me as Shane’s partner, not that guy you really hate.

So it's all well and fucking good, if not for the teeny tiny fact that Ilya despises the lot of them. He’s clearly trying things Shane’s way for now, but Hayden can’t see it lasting.

Though he is morbidly curious if anyone has the balls to fling the shit they do at Shane in Ilya’s direction.

For the most part, Shane will absorb in silence. He’ll turn in on himself, try to double down and focus, and prove himself to a team that wouldn’t be where they are if not for him. His anger and resentment come in short, tightly controlled bursts and are, for the most part, ignored.

Hayden doesn’t see that passivity lasting very long if they try shit with Ilya. Not from Shane.

And fuck, if they try shit with Shane, Ilya will go for blood, and Hayden will help him, and how the fuck is this their lives now?

Why the fuck can’t people just be chill?

“This is such a bad idea.” Shane sounds almost detached from his body, squashed between Ilya and Hayden for the ten minutes it takes them to take a cab to Ilya’s ‘place’. They’re split between three cabs, a number of the boys citing one excuse or another to fuck off home and ignore the olive branch being waved threateningly in their direction.

J.J. meets Hayden's gaze in the reflection of the window from the front seat, shoulders hunched up to his ears.

"We can go back to my first plan," Ilya offers, voice light but eyes sharp.

Shane pinches the bridge of his nose. "You're not setting the Bratva on my team," he says tiredly. "You don't even know anyone in the Bratva."

"I might." Ilya's thumb traces slow circles on Shane's wrist.

"Crowell wouldn't have his kneecaps if you did." Shane's voice is flat, but there's the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

J.J. clears his throat, shifting in the front seat. His eyes dart to the rearview mirror, then away. "Is, er, he giving you shit still?"

Ilya is holding Shane's hand in his lap, fingers interlaced. "Hmm. No. Shane blackmailed him." He leans in, lips almost brushing Shane's ear. "It was very sexy."

Hayden swallows hard and looks out the window. Sexy and Shane are not words that belong together in his mind, and not just because Shane is basically his brother. He's got eyes. He can appreciate, like objectively, the aesthetics of someone.

Shane is adorable. He's not sexy.

Ilya is handsome. Also not sexy.

"You what?" J.J. twists around, nearly strangling himself with the seatbelt.

Shane's ears redden. "There was no blackmail, Ilya, you gotta stop telling people that."

"That it was sexy?" Ilya's voice rises, deliberately louder. "It was!"

"Please stop saying sexy in public." Shane sinks lower in his seat. "Or that I blackmailed Crowell. He tried to blackmail us. I just... didn't let him."

Ilya's gaze settles on the back of their driver's head, a smirk tugging his soft expression into something more familiar. He winks at Hayden, who feels his stomach drop.

Sonovabitch. He knows exactly what he's doing, doesn't he? How long before "MLH boss tries to blackmail outted superstar players" hits the fucking headlines?

It’s hard to think of him as anything other than a volatile mix of snark and brawn, especially when next to Shane, who is so careful and considered about the things he says and does.

Then Hayden just has to remember Ilya goading him into a fight over that fucking vase. And why he did it.

Recklessness is a weapon Ilya wields with incredible care and precision. And never at the expense of someone he’s made himself responsible for.

Maybe this won’t be a disaster?

Under Rozanov’s cryptic directions, they end up outside an unmarked door south of the river.

Once they’ve all unloaded, Drapeau asks, “Are we going to a Russian bar? Are we going to get shot?”

“Would improve your game, maybe,” Rozanov says, holding Drapeau’s stare for a full second. “But it’s not a Russian bar. Sensitive boys like this one,” he tips his chin at Hayden, “need safe spaces.”

Hayden can’t do anything but laugh, because the alternative is actual violence. “I’ll drink you under the fucking table, Rozanov,” he says, too loud, but it breaks up the tension in the huddle. He can’t, and he knows he can’t, not when he’s seen Ilya knock back neat liquor for three hours solid and barely get buzzed.

The first round is vodka, surprise surprise, poured in ridiculous, waterfall shots from a block of ice that looks custom-ordered for the circus surrounding it. Hayden knows a trap when he sees one. He swallows the burn, ignores the twitch at Gagnon’s upper lip, and watches as the tension in Ilya’s face drops by barely a degree. The guy’s a master class in controlled chaos.

And there’s Shane, stone-faced, orbiting the table, never quite letting his guard down. He’s the guy you want next to you in a riot, and the guy you want on your side when you have to face the aftermath, but this is so far out of his comfort zone it’s unreal. For both of them, probably.

“Drink up, Montreal!” Rozanov pounds the table, sloshing a little out of each glass.

Hayden snorts. “Bring it, asshole.” He downs one, then another. It’s more or less ice-cold antifreeze, and he manages not to gag. Rozanov blows him a kiss. Hayden flips him off.

It’s a chemistry experiment. The more they drink, the less they posture, and the more the team splinters back into old patterns, only now there’s an undercurrent of something else.

He’s not really sure if it’s a new kind of war, or if the war has already happened and this is the aftermath of the peace treaty.

J.J., always the first one to lose the plot, leans across the table with a smirk. “So… why Hollzy, huh? I thought you fucking hated us.” He’s at least trying to aim for neutral teritory…

Rozanov tips his glass and shrugs. “That is an easy question. You are all very hateable.”

Shane’s laugh is a bark, out of nowhere, the first real sound he’s made all night. “That’s what we’re starting with?”

Hayden’s always been the peace-keeper, and he’s functionally immune to shame. Still, he looks to Shane, who is letting his head drop into one hand in mildly horrified despair, and then to Rozanov, who tips the next round for the table like it’s a Catholic sacrament.

Drapeau musters the guts to keep things going. “Come on, Rozanov. Least you could do is get us drunk before you insult us.”

“It’s not really a question, though,” Hayden jumps in. “Montreal and Boston hate each other and we always have. You still fucking bleed gold even if you did turn Canadian.”

Ilya shrugs one shoulder in agreement.

“Did you actually move to fucking Ottawa for Hollander?” Andropov asks. He looks like confusion is about to melt his brain.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Ilya shakes his head and bats his eyelashes. “I did it to be closer to you, Andy!”

Andropov’s expression curdles. “Fuck you, cocksucker.”

Ilya bumps Shane’s thigh with his knee, ostensibly to derail the look of cold fury that replaces his discomfort. “Yes,” Ilya laughs, waving for more shots. “Top three players in the league all like sucking cock. Maybe you should try it, no? Might make you a half-decent player.”

Hayden doesn’t know what is funnier, the look on Andropov’s face, or J.J. nearly choking on his shot with a burst of laughter.

“Putting this out there,” Hayden says mildly. “Next person who wants to be a fucking bigot is getting his head put through that wall.” He gestures at the brick off to their left. Most of the boys look vaguely apologetic and shuffle uncomfortably in their seats.

“Oh no, do not stop them, Pike, it is a turn on for me. Makes me hard. ” He makes a vaguely suggestive gesture with his free hand and immediately spikes the collective blood pressure of everyone at the table.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Ilya!” Shane snaps.

“Sorry, sorry. I cannot help it. They are too much fun to play with.” Rozanov smiles, slow and authentic, raising his own glass. “You wish to know why I hate Montreal, yes?” The question is rhetorical, but everyone leans in, suddenly seven years old at a bonfire, waiting for the shaman to tell the ghost story so they can shove him in the flames as soon as he’s told it.

Rozanov slouches, arms open wide against the back of their booth, all ease, but Hayden catches the slight tic in his jaw, the grinding. He’s playing a part. “It is easy. You are all the same: very pretty, expensive teeth, little dogs, big egos, yes? But,” he says, and Hayden hears the hook, “on the ice, you do not play like it. You play like a pack. You win ugly, but you win.” He flicks his gaze toward Hayden, something like amusement hiding in the edge of it. “I respect this. But it is very, very annoying.”

J.J. cackles. “Jesus, was that a compliment?”

Ilya shrugs. “Closest I think anyone is ever going to get,” Shane says, deadpan from his side of the booth.

Hayden almost chokes on his drink. He looks to Shane with wild eyes… are they seriously doing a bit? But Ilya is nodding, not even pretending to deny it.

“If I did not like playing you, it would be very boring. Is good to have enemy who tries.” Ilya’s face softens, almost imperceptible, in Shane’s direction. “But now you must all be nice to me. My Shane says so.”

Gagnon and Andropov shoot a look at each other, clearly unhappy, until Shane barks out a laugh.

“The fuck they do,” he says. “We’re going to destroy you next game!”

“No, I don’t think so…”

“Hate to break it to you, Rozanov, but he’s right,” Hayden shrugs.

"We’re gonna fuck you up,” J.J. adds, then looks at Shane. “I got it right this time, no?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Shane says wryly.

“No, it is not happening. I am the best player in the league, so, my team will win.”

“Bullshit,” Gagnon barks, thumping an empty glass to punctuate it. “You’re not even the best player at this table.”

Rozanov grins, slow and sharky. He leans in, elbows on the sticky veneer, and lowers his voice like he’s about to confess a crime. “I think I am.”

“Oh fuck you, Rozanov. Shane is ten times the player you’ll ever be-” J.J. snaps.

Hayden folds his arms, grinning wide and reckless. Ilya Rozanov is a devious motherfucker, and he kinda loves it. “You’re good, but not that good. Shane’s a machine.”

A fiery blast of crosstalk erupts, all of them talking over each other: Gagnon listing off stats, Andropov bellowing about power plays, even Drapeau, who’d once muttered that he didn’t care about “math,” lurches into a rant about Shane’s plus/minus.

“Okay, okay, so wait,” J.J. yells, slamming his shot down for punctuation, “Shane’s why we won the Cup two years ago. And the year before that.”

“Didn’t you break your wrist in the semis?” Rozanov asks, deadpan, as if the insult is just a logical conclusion.

J.J. bristles, sputtering. “Yeah, ‘cause you fucking two-handed me, you psycho!”

Rozanov lifts a shoulder, unrepentant. He looks at Hayden, as if he’s got a tally sheet in his head and he’s currently updating it. “Go on, tell me why Shane is better than me.”

It’s so on that for a second, Hayden forgets this is a war, and the two of them are on the same side. “Okay, one, he’s got a higher career points per game than you.”

“He hasn’t played as long,” Rozanov counters, but his smirk says keep going.

“You were in the same fucking draft!” Gagnon all but bellows.

“Which I came first-”

“Fine, but you still have fewer Cups,” Andropov blurts, which Hayden will admit is kind of a low blow, but also an excellent one.

Rozanov just blinks. “He has literally one more.”

“That’s still more, bro,” Drapeau says, gesturing wildly with his empty glass. “And in the World Juniors-”

“I outscored him,” Rozanov says, and this is true according to the back of Hayden’s brain, where all hockey trivia lives.

“And who won?” J.J. crows.

Rozanov shrugs again. “Canada has luck. Poor referees.”

“Okay, and obviously Hollander’s got a better playoff clutch.” Andropov leans in, counting on his fingers. “Every time you go down, he drags us back. Like, three hat tricks last postseason.”

“Four,” Hayden corrects, and feels a little swell of pride for remembering.

Rozanov smirks, then finally looks to Shane. “Your boys are very loyal,” he says, like it’s an insult and a compliment both.

Shane’s face is red - not from the water he’s drinking instead of vodka, but maybe from the table of assholes throwing a rave in his honor - but he just shrugs. “They’re not wrong. I’m better than you.”

The slow, wolfish smile on Ilya’s face is no camouflage for the glittering flash of satisfaction in his eyes. “More shots?” he asks innocently.

Still loudly and furiously outlining all the ways their Captain is the greatest player of all time, the boys keep drinking, Shane slowly begins to lose some of the lines around his eyes, and Hayden makes a firm decision never, ever to wage a battle of wits against Ilya Rozanov.

Things get better. Marginally. If he really fucking squints and lies to himself over and over again.

The locker room banter continues with little change no matter how often Hayden lays down the law. The only difference being a new, sickly kind of thoughtlessness in ‘well of course we don’t mean Hollander, he’s not that kind of gay’. It’s excuse after excuse, but at this point, Hayden is just clawing for any minute of peace. He gets in three fights when Shane isn't looking. J.J. gets in two. They both get chewed out by management.

But for a couple of weeks, the team doesn’t forget how much they hate Ilya, they just remember how fucking good Shane is.

Then Shane trips. Ilya scores. Montreal are out of the playoffs.

And the house of cards built on Shane’s stoic ability to absorb weeks of their abuse collapses in the aftermath.

Hayden isn’t surprised to find Ilya on his doorstep a day after crashing out against the Admirals.

He is a little surprised when Ilya kisses Jackie on both cheeks, exchanges some frankly ridiculous secret handshake dance with all the kids, and then produces a set of tickets to La Ronde with a flourish. “Shane is in the car,” he tells her.

For some reason, and shamefully without his noticing, all four kids are dressed, in their shoes, and ready to go out.

Letting Shane give his wife Ilya’s number was a bad fucking idea.

“See you later, baby,” she says, kissing Hayden goodbye.

A year ago, Hayden might have made some kind of token protest. Now, he just nods.

“Bye, daddy!”

“Have fun,” he says, weaker than expected.

“Is he mad at me?” Hayden asks Ilya as soon as the door is closed. Shane didn’t even come inside. He didn’t even say hello.

“No,” Ilya grunts. “He did not want to come. Montreal is hard right now, but I made him feel sorry for Jackie.” Yeah, juggling four kids at a theme park is a superhuman ask of anyone, even his incredible wife.

“But he’s upset?”

“Of course he’s fucking upset!” Ilya roars. Hayden’s never heard him so angry before. “How do we fix it?”

Hayden’s first instinct is to gut-check a plan. Get the lay of the land. But Ilya’s already halfway across his kitchen, pacing, his arms crossed over his chest, trying to physically contain the battery acid rage inside him.

“He - fuck!” Ilya says, cutting off, standing at the window above the sink, staring into nothing. “He will not talk. He will not-” Ilya tips his head, squinting as if the effort can sharpen a thought that keeps slipping away. “He won’t let me in.”

Hayden crosses the tile and joins Ilya at the window, gripping the edge of the counter so hard the Formica creaks. “This is my fault.” Hayden’s voice is so tight, it sounds like a parody of itself.

“No. No,” Ilya shakes his head, not angry at Hayden, or at least not only at Hayden. “You did not do this.” Then, after a pause, he says, “They did.”

Hayden sits down hard on one of the little wooden stools he’d once assembled for the kids, half hoping the physical impact will hammer his brain into a productive gear. “He’s never been like this before.” Which, Christ, isn’t even true. Shane has always been a master of containment but never of self-negation, and there’s a difference.

“He’s,” Ilya starts, then presses both palms to his eyes. “He thinks he can fix everything if he just… takes it.” Deep breath. “But he can’t. I don’t want him to. I want-” His words fracture. “I want you to tell those fuckers to stop.”

Hayden does. He’s tried. Meetings, one-on-ones, little motivational talks laced in through practices, a couple of flat-out threats. A handful of black eyes. But there’s only so much you can do when you’ve already lost the room, and Hayden knows he’s left it too late. He knows that his own idea of the boys was always at least a little bit of a lie.

He drums his fingers on his knees, drowning in the stale, humid air of his kitchen, in the guilt that sticks even more than the reek of roast chicken and dish soap. “I can talk to Coach again,” Hayden says, but it comes out flat. He doesn’t even believe in that avenue of hope.

“Your fucking coach isn’t going to do a fucking thing,” Ilya says, voice low. “You know this.”

Hayden does know. The culture comes from the top. Always has.

“Ilya-”

“He gave you fuckers everything,” Ilya snarls. “What else do you want?”

Hayden knows Ilya isn’t expecting a magic fucking solution. He’s here because he needs to rage with someone who loves Shane, who has been in that room with him, and that’s all. But god, there’s not fucking much Hayden wouldn’t do to be able to give him an answer.

“Ilya-”

“Tell me! What the fuck do they need? I’m the problem, yes? You lost to me. So what do I fucking give you assholes to fix it?”

Hayden’s talking to a man who went to a bar in a city that hates him, with a team who want his blood, and baited a room full of homophobic assholes into forgetting their own shit long enough to remember who the fuck got them where they are. It’s the kind of courage that deserves a better fucking outcome than this.

“It’s not about you,” he says as gently as he can. “It’s not really even about Shane.”

“Then what the fuck is it about? I don’t fucking understand! It’s legal here! I’m fucking marrying him! What’s the fucking problem?”

Hayden sags into the stool, all the wind knocked out of him by Ilya’s voice. He’s not yelling anymore… he’s just… tired. The lines on his face look years-deep, a permanently set scowl, but it’s the raw, helpless bafflement that guts Hayden most.

He wants to help, but all he’s got is this pathetic, paralyzed guilt. I don’t know,” he manages. “I think maybe the boys… fuck, I never thought it could get this fucking ugly.” He rams the heel of his hand into his eye socket, hard enough to see stars. “I don’t know what to do, man. Every time I try, it just gets worse.”

Ilya’s hands are trembling now, the skin at the edges of his fingernails chewed raw. He pushes up, pacing in a clipped, military zigzag between the fridge and the mudroom door, then stops dead, head hanging, every muscle vibrating with the backlog of failure.

“You do not fucking quit, Pike,” he says. “You do not.” He turns, face hot and wet with angry tears, and Hayden is absolutely frozen by the helplessness mania looking back at him. “Nobody gives a fuck what I say about it. I’m another faggot, yes? You can make them fucking listen.” His wild grin doesn’t hold; it’s all teeth and rage and the savage effort to protect something with nothing but the force of knowing he’ll die without it.

Hayden’s heart is racing. He fights himself, thinking he should reach out, clap a hand on Ilya’s shoulder, but he doesn’t trust himself to move without bursting open. “You can’t fucking say that about yourself, man,” he says softly.

Ilya barks with laughter. “Oh, you think I fucking care? I’ve heard that shit since I was your kids’ age. I don’t give a fuck.”

Hayden’s heart skips a beat. “Doesn’t make it okay!”

“I don’t fucking care! All that fucking matters is him!”

“He’s lucky to have you,” he says. It’s the smallest, truest thing he knows how to give.

Ilya looks at him, then away. “Is not fucking enough,” he spits. “I want them to bleed. I want them to hate me enough to leave him the fuck alone.”

They tried that already.

“It doesn’t work that way.” Hayden means to say it more gently, but the words land dead and flat. “Look, I’ll-” He starts, then has no idea what comes next. Murder the whole team? Call a fucking press conference? None of it fixes what they’ve broken.

The lid comes off too fast off Ilya’s rage. “He’s scared to tell you he wants out.” His voice is low, a flatline, and so much more damning than a scream. “You know how fucking bad it has to be to make Shane Hollander hate fucking hockey?” A shaking inhale. “He only stays for you.”

Hayden is going to be sick. “You can’t fucking put that on me.”

“Yes. I can.” Yeah, Hayden supposes he really can. “He thought if he won you another fucking cup, you’d like him again.” There’s something utterly ruined in Ilya’s confession, and it tips Hayden over the edge into tears.

How the fuck has it come to this?

“I honestly thought… fuck, I don’t know what I thought.” Hayden palms his face, hard, then lets himself hang in his misery for a minute. “I guess I thought the boys would just get over it. Be pissed off for a few games, but then realize it’s all the same as before. They’re not… I didn’t think they’d actually turn on him.”

Because he tripped. Because he was human. Because they were waiting for any excuse.

Ilya looks at him then, face wet and furious, the look in his eyes so old Hayden wants to die. “They’re not going to stop,” he says. “You know this.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Hayden tries. He means it. He’ll break them in half if he has to. But it sounds pathetic even to his own ears. He has talked to them.

Ilya shakes his head. “You can’t fix it.”

“He’s not going to quit the team,” Hayden tries, “not now. Even if he wants to. He’s too stubborn and-”

“Don’t you fucking get it!” Ilya slams both palms on the counter, his voice ricocheting off every hard surface, “That’s what I am scared of! I want him to quit, Pike, I want him to live. I want him to come home. I want to wake up next to him every fucking morning, okay? I don’t want him waking up every night fucking terrified! I don’t want him anywhere fucking near Montreal! You don’t fucking deserve him!”

It’s the most he thinks Ilya has ever said to him in one go. And he knows Ilya isn’t necessarily including him in that ‘you’, that there’s probably a nuance in emotion and language that’s missing right now… but he takes it in, anyway. It’s not wrong.

He swallows back his tears and nods. “Okay. Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

Ilya’s jaw clenches. “You trusted me once. With the most important thing in your life. I am trusting you now. When he comes to you, you will be happy for him.”

“Okay,” Hayden whispers.

“Swear it.”

“I swear,” he promises.

Shane leaves the Montreal Metros in May. Hayden spends every minute of downtime he has practicing how to smile in the mirror. He keeps his promise. He convinces Shane he’s happy for him, and just about convinces himself that he doesn’t want to burn the city down every minute of every day. He’s never hated his job, or his team, or himself more.

In June, he opens the door and has a fucking heartattack.

“Motherfucker,” Cliff Marlow says, scowling over the rim of his sunglasses.

“Er-”

“Oh! Hi, Cliff!” How the hell is Jackie on first-name terms with Cliff fucking Marlow? Why is she? “And you must be Svetlana!”

Ilya’s Russian… ex-girlfriend?… is arm in arm with the Boston captain, smiling sweetly. Hayden doesn’t know which of them he’s more terrified by.

“Er-” he tries again. “Come in?”

Why are they here? What is happening?

Cliff and Svetlana are dressed like they robbed a Vineyard Vines catalogue and the Hermès store, respectively, and Hayden’s brain melts further as Jackie swans the entire circus into their kitchen.

“We brought babka,” Svetlana says, as if that explains everything, and hands over a box bigger than two of Hayden’s kids. She’s dazzling in a way that makes the countertops look cheap and the light bulbs seem laced with sedatives.

Marlow crosses the threshold, takes off his sunglasses, and the silence that follows is full of judgment, but in a way that reminds Hayden of the time his dad’s mechanic friend found him supergluing the dipstick back together in his first car. It’s a “son, I know what you did, and you’re an idiot, but I’m not gonna rat you out” kind of vibe.

Svetlana eases her arm free of Marlow’s like she’s done this diplomatic dance a thousand times and is only mildly bored by it now. She hugs Jackie, then Hayden, her grip strong and surprisingly warm. “You have a beautiful house. Smells like cinnamon and…” Her nose twitches. She leans in, eyes bright. “Lysol?”

He shrugs. “Four kids. It’s that or raise them in a Petri dish.”

For a split second, Hayden wonders if this is it. The hit squad. The inevitable reckoning. Maybe in Russia, this is how they do it?

No. Ilya’s not the type to subcontract murder.

“Why are you here?” He says, aware he’s whining and already wincing at the look Jackie shoots his direction.

“God fucking help the Metros if you’re their brains now,” Marlow says, which… Hayden has at least ten more braincells than he does. Probably more! “We need to start planning."

They do? "For?"

"July? Wedding?”

“What?”

“You’re Shane’s best man?” Marlow says slowly.

“I am?” He is? Shane’s invited him, and they've talked a little about ideas, but…

He pulls out his phone. Shane answers on the fourth ring. "I'm your best man?" Hayden's voice cracks.

"Obviously?" Shane says slowly. 

"Oh..."

Something in his voice brings Jackie rushing to his side. “Babe?”

“I’m good,” Hayden sniffs. He tells Shane he's sorry to have bothered him before hanging up, then immediately bursts into tears in the middle of his kitchen.

Chapter 17

Chapter Notes

There is one more part to round up TLG arc - namely to answer the question of whether the combined powers of Svetlana and Jackie are enough to control the chaos of a group of hockey boys planning a bachelor party, but also with some sickly sweet romance because the boys deserve it.

For the most part, I have written around scenes for TLG, or looked at them from another angle. This chapter is different. I have nothing against the wedding scene in TLG, except that I very selfishly wanted to write purely self-indulgent sappiness. And wedding vows. This might be the most ridiculously over-the-top gooeyness I have ever committed to word, and I do not care!

Small content warning for discussion of depression and suicide.

David isn’t sure how bedtime has ended up being sometime between the hours of two and four am. No one is even awake for Yuna to verbally evicerate, but that doesn’t stop her from burning the candle at the kitchen table, poring over a binder full of contracts and war plans.

David helps by cooking, cleaning, and massaging her shoulders while she spends four hours on the phone bargaining, blackmailing, and belittling some of the most successful ad agencies on the planet.

They might have very little power to change things for Shane on a day-to-day basis, but they’ll both be damned if hockey’s bigotry extends to the ambassadorships he has.

Companies want money, that’s all. And Shane makes a lot of people a lot of money.

“I understand, Mrs Hollander,” someone will usually say. “We’re totally in support of Shane’s lifestyle, that’s not changed. But when we signed the contract, he was playing for Montreal… we just feel…”

Few have been brave enough to go beyond the ‘just’ part.

David hasn’t felt this helpless before. He’s not sure he’s handling it with the grace he wants to show.

“Honey,” he leans in low to press a kiss behind Yuna’s ear. “Come to bed. This will be here in the morning.”

He tries, but it’s pretty damn hard to banish the churn in his gut. It tastes of bar metal and ozone, sticky and anxious on the roof of his mouth. The world is different, in subtle ways, since Shane stopped being an idea and became a target. The press, the public… everyone with an internet connection and two free brain cells has opinions, and most of them are trash. Their kid is trending for the seventh week straight, and the ping of Yuna’s email alert is the ticking clock on a bomb.

She gets the last word on every call, but then she sits there, eyes dark and wild, tracing imaginary maps on the rim of her mug. She’s not crying. If anything, it’s a fury so choking with dignity it scares him a little.

She checks her phone, lips pursed in a half-dozen directions at once, and makes a sound somewhere between a bark and a purr. “Fourteen PR teams, David. And not one of them has the balls to say it out loud.”

If he had a dollar for every time in his life he’s cleaned up after a midnight brainstorming session, they’d have enough to buy their own goddamn hockey league. “It’s still early day. Let it ride for a bit.”

She looks up, eyes shining with cold fury. “Oh, I’ll let it ride. I’ll ride it into a fucking volcano. The next time some asshole ‘misplaces’ a deliverable, I’m going to leak the emails myself.” He opens his mouth to tell her that’s a bad idea, but she’s not even listening. The next second, she’s back braced over her laptop, pulling up a spreadsheet of contacts. Little rows of corporations, all full of bland, decent progressive posturing and not a single spine among them.

David reaches over her to close her laptop. "Bed," he says, massaging the tight knot at the base of her neck with his thumb. " The boys are coming round for breakfast, and I' d like to be a functioning human being."

She swats at his hand, but leans into his touch with a sigh. "I' ll be in shortly."

Yeah, he’s heard that before. Alright, here we go…

They’re not kids anymore, but it’s as easy as it ever has been to sweep her up into his arms and cradle her against his chest.

She clutches his shirt, half-heartedly trying to wiggle free. "David!" 

"Yuna," he says, pressing a kiss to her temple as he navigates around the kitchen table. "Your war can wait until morning."

She tucks her head against his shoulder, surrendering. "Fine. But we're getting up early."

“Whatever you say, honey.”

Everything is a lot less stressful in the morning. It’s a miracle what a few hours of sleep will do for you.

David wakes first, as he always does, rolling from bed to cold air with a practiced shuffle that keeps his back from rebelling against him. He meanders down the hall, collects the paper, and puts on the coffee. Through the kitchen window, the world glows with predawn gold, soft on the flower beds. He stands there for a long, quiet minute, cradling the hot coffee and letting his mind do the anxious arithmetic of a parent not certain what the day will bring.

Yuna appears right on cue with bare feet, braided hair, and her glasses perched at the end of her nose. She wordlessly takes the mug from his hand, sips, and sighs. This is their real marriage license, the unspoken contract of who gets the first mug and who brews the next. They don’t talk at first. She’s not one for words before sunup, and he’s happy to exist a while in the company of clinking spoons and the soft thrum of the settling radiators.

He’s wiping up the mixture for protein pancakes when he hears the groan of tires on the drive. “They made good time,” he says. Yuna only arches an eyebrow, but he can see her mouth twitching around a smile.

The boys arrive together, always together now, trailing wet footprints and new laughter. Ilya is tucked in a very impractical leather jacket, and Shane is looking so much more relaxed now that he’s free from his obligations to a team that has humiliated and betrayed him. Anya trots at their heels and immediately heads to her box of toys.

Ilya sweeps both Yuna and David up in one of his exuberant hugs while Shane shakes his head fondly and starts pouring them both some coffee.

They look good, David thinks. Better. There’s a rested, open look about Shane, and even Ilya’s usual intransigent scowl is dialed back a notch, something hard finally giving way behind his eyes.

“You boys sleep okay?” Yuna asks, full of worry, even as she struggles herself.

Ilya shrugs, feigning nonchalance, but shoots a loaded glance at Shane and fails to hide the start of a smile. “No sleep,” he says. “Tell them, Shane.”

Shane clears his throat, toying with the mug’s handle, and won’t quite meet David’s eye. “I might have a shot at playing next year,” he says. He says the words in a way that suggests he thinks they’ll be a surprise, as if there’s a world in which Shane Hollander wouldn’t start a bidding war the second he became a free agent.

David's hands start to tremble as he slides a mountain of pancakes onto the table for everyone to dive in. He drops into his seat, too breathless to hope that something is finally going their way. "For Ottawa?"

"Yeah." Shane fiddles with the edge of his sleeve. "There are slots open. They just need to figure out budgets and stuff."

"It is figured," Ilya waves a dismissive hand, sliding a mug of coffee toward Shane with his pinky extended like a waiter at a five-star restaurant. "I told them I will take a pay cut."

"What? Why?" Shane’s eyebrows shoot up. "You'd be devaluing yourself as a player! You'll never negotiate those kinds of rates again unless you win a cup and-"

"We will win many cups," Ilya interrupts, bumping his shoulder against Shane's. "And then I will retire."

"But-"

"I do not know if you know this," Ilya leans across the table, whispering conspiratorially while stealing a bite of Shane’s pancake right off his plate. "But I am about to marry a very rich, very handsome man. He will spoil me, and keep me in the manner I am accustomed to."

Shane rolls his eyes but can't hide his smile. "Oh, he will, will he?"

"Yes." Ilya nods solemnly, licking syrup from his thumb. "And I will become a WAG, and you must pay for my hair, and my nails, and my-"

"These nails?" Shane tugs one of Ilya's fingers and then one of his unruly curls, twirling it around lazily. "And this hair?"

"Yes." Ilya catches Shane's hand and kisses his palm. "And I will cook for you, and organize other people to clean for you, and I will give you lots and lots of-"

"You can stop talking now!" Shane flicks Ilya's ear.

"Foot massages." Ilya grins, ducking away.

"Asshole." Shane's cheeks flush pink.

"So... end of July?" David asks, clearing his throat and pulling them back on topic while Yuna silently slides the syrup closer to Ilya's reaching fingers.

"It's on the table," Shane nods, absently straightening Ilya's collar. "Fingers crossed, I guess."

"I told you," Ilya shrugs, stealing the syrup back. "It's figured. We will be the first husbands to win the cup together."

Yuna sniffs and reaches for her laptop. "Mom?" Shane frowns at her.

"Don't mind me, honey," She says, typing furiously. "I'm just telling Rolex to suck my dick."

A week before the wedding, David is helping Shane plot out formations in his and Ilya’s backyard, keeping him company while Svetlana and Sasha ‘borrow’ Ilya for ‘very important shopping purposes’. Ilya had looked a little like a man being kidnapped as he’d been all but physically dragged from the house.

“I’ve updated the spreadsheet,” Shane says, almost out of the blue. He and David are shifting a rather large, rather heavy planter from by the patio over to the far wall to free up a better throughfare into the house. “You and mom… You should look at it. When you have a chance. There’s a new tab. It’s… It’s a lot. You’ll want to be sitting down.”

At this point, they’ve pretty much run out of colors for Shane to use. “What’s this one for?” David asks, a hint of teasing to his tone. He doesn’t think there's anything left to cover. Anya has her own tab with very, very specific dietary instructions.

Shane is carefully not meeting his gaze when he answers. "It's... I called it the Irina Protocol."

David goes very still, something cold growing in his chest. The planter slips from his grip, landing with a dull thud that sends soil spilling across his shoes. He doesn't move to clean it up.

Shane continues, setting down his end and mechanically brushing dirt from his hands. He's calm, and his voice is even. There's no panic or stress in his posture. Only a seriousness that tells David everything he needs to know. "He was diagnosed with depression last week."

David's throat constricts. He tries to swallow but can't. His fingers press against the rough stone of the planter's edge until they ache.

"He has a therapist, and they're starting him on medication. And... and he's not suicidal, but he said that maybe one day he might not not be suicidal, like his mom, and..." Shane swallows before carrying on. "And it won't be like last year. He can't pull away and hide shit from me like he has done. I'll be there, and I'll be looking after him, but if I'm ever away, or, or I don't know, if something happens..." Shane's eyes finally meet his, and David has to look away, blinking rapidly. "Then you should know what he'll need."

David tries to put the pieces together in his mind and finds it surprisingly easy. They’ve known Ilya has been struggling… god, of course they’ve known… The signs have always been there, and the cartography of his past has slowly shifted into better focus with time.

He glances at Shane, who watches him with a studied blankness that would fool anyone but his father. “Is he talking to you?” David says softly. “About it all?” It’s good that he has a therapist. Honestly, if anything, that is the surprise.

“He’s… not fully. But more than he did before. He-” Shane cuts himself off and shrugs. “It’s not easy for him. He doesn’t like knowing it upsets me.”

Of course not. Ilya's a caretaker at heart, for all he fakes at being a hurricane. 

"You think he'll let us help?" David asks, kneeling to gather the spilled soil with his bare hands.

Shane's mouth twitches, and he huffs out a breath, almost a laugh. His shoulders drop an inch. "He already does, Dad. I haven't actually thanked you for that."

"For what?" David looks up, dirt smudging his fingers.

"Loving him." Shane's voice catches. "It used to scare me, knowing how alone he was. I hated thinking that no one else knew the man I did."

David's chest aches. "Kiddo... you don't have to thank me for that. He’s a very easy man to love."

"Yeah. He is." Shane sniffles and rubs his hand over his face, smearing a streak of soil across his cheek while trying to wipe away tears. Something fierce and protective swells in David's chest, watching his son stand there - so grown up and still so much his little boy.

"Shane-" He stands and tugs his son into his arms, feeling the slight tremble in Shane's shoulders as he holds him. David presses his palm against the back of Shane's head, the way he did when Shane was small. "It's going to be okay, son. You're not alone in this. Neither of you are."

Their world is so much bigger now than it was before. They're going to play on the same team, live in the same house, and be surrounded, always, by the people who love them most.

Shane eventually pulls away, eyes red-rimmed but clearer. He clears his throat and reaches into his back pocket. "I, er, I've been working on my vows."

He hands David a folded piece of paper, creased from being carried around. David only manages two lines before his vision blurs completely. "Kiddo, you can't say this to him in public. You'll break him."

Shane puffs up his chest stubbornly, a flash of the determined little boy who once declared he'd be the best hockey player in the world. "I've been hiding how much I love him for thirteen years," he says, voice steady despite the lingering dampness on his lashes. "There's no way in hell I'm letting him be more unbearable about shouting it from the rooftops than I am."

David laughs, carefully refolding the paper and pressing it back into Shane's palm, covering his son's hand with both of his own. "You two ever going to stop competing?"

"Nope!" Shane grins, the sun catching on his wet cheeks.

“Cater for fifteen or so,” Shane said. There are a lot more than fifteen people in their backyard. So many, in fact, that David has to duck into the kitchen after a couple of minutes just to avoid crying for the fourth time that day.

He and Yuna both cried in the car on the way over. He cried again when he saw his little boy, so beautiful, so happy…

Then he cried on Ilya, and Ilya cried back, and they both made promises to each other that they were done with tears and that would be the last time.

David is a terrible liar. Ilya is getting worse.

Now he and Yuna are making their way to their spot in the garden. It’s all very informal, very last-minute, really, but no one will deny them pride of place amongst the spectators.

“This mascara is not waterproof,” Yuna sniffs fiercely. “I think I should sue.” She looks so incredibly beautiful, the sunlight clearly loving her almost as much as he does.

“Yeah,” he agrees, forcing the word around the lump in his throat. He’s not going to fall apart again, he’s not going to…

“Honey,” Yuna brushes his cheek with her thumb. “We can’t cry more than they do.”

“We probably will…”

“Oh god, it’s starting…”

The garden is a diorama from another life: sunlight angling through maple leaves onto stone and glass, a puzzle of friends and teammates, everyone dressed up in the best version of themselves. There are people here from three continents, all milling together in happy clusters.

David has no model for this. When he was a kid, a wedding was a dim church, a froth of white, the woman in a veil. This is heat on the back of his neck, sharp blue sky, all of it riotous.

He can see the tremor that kicks through Shane’s smile as Ilya joins him outside, and he knows it’s not nerves. What gets David is the sense of permission in Shane’s unmasked joy. He has never seen his son smile like that, full and oblivious.

And if there’s an afterlife, and if that afterlife includes hockey, then surely this is exactly how the greats watch from the rafters: knowing the sweaty, unglamorous work it took to get here but forgetting about all of it, watching the next generation take the ice hand in hand and thinking, hell yeah, go for broke.

The justice of the peace is a woman named Nancy who is clearly up to the task of wrangling a crowd like this one. At her call, the ceremony starts, and a hush falls upon the crowd.

Typically, the boys are a riot to watch as they work their way through the exchange of rings. David is achingly glad Ilya forgoes his middle name.

Shane's hands tremble slightly as he takes Ilya’s in his own. He doesn’t have notes. Every word, no doubt, is committed to memory and practiced over and over again. "Ilya,” he starts, making it all of one word before Ilya has to suck in a shuddering breath. “I owe you everything. " His voice catches as he casts a quick look around the garden, a smile growing as he meets Ilya’s gaze again and continues. "You gave up your comfort for my peace. You gave up parts of your life so I could keep mine. And you're right, I am a slow fucking hockey player-"

"With beautiful freckles," Ilya mumbles, already pink. Shane grins at him, reaching out to brush his thumb across Ilya's cheek. The interruption he's expecting arrives as he knew it would. David takes a second to turn and drop a kiss on Yuna's freckles, the salt on her cheeks matching his own.

"But I saw it," Shane continues, his eyes never leaving Ilya's face, not willing to let him actually divert the moment. "I will never treat it as normal. I will never treat you as an afterthought." He swallows hard. "You are selfless. And you are kind. And you're such an asshole." The affection in his voice tightens the grip on David's heart. He's not sure how Ilya's still upright as a tear slips down his cheek. Shane reaches up to catch it with his thumb.

"You wade into my head when I get stuck in there, and god knows trying to beat you has been like eighty percent of my career. You drag more out of me than I knew I had." His voice drops to a whisper that somehow fills the garden. "I am better because you refuse to let me hide. I am stronger because I know you won't let me fall. And I love you for it, even when I roll my eyes."

Shane takes a deep breath, his fingers interlacing with Ilya's. "So here is what I promise: I will protect your softness. I will fight for your rest. I will notice when you carry too much, and I will take weight off your shoulders." He presses their foreheads together briefly. "I will not keep score unless we're on the ice.” There’s a small smatter of laughter that gives Ilya a much-needed moment to readjust his rapidly slipping composure.

“I will not make you earn love. I will not punish you for caring more than anyone else. I will speak the truth, even when it is hard, and I will apologise fast. I will build a home with you, not just a life. I will make space for your chaos and your calm."

Shane's voice breaks as he finishes, "And when the world gets dark, come back to me. When you’re tired, come back to me. When you doubt yourself, come back to me. I will choose you on ordinary days, not only the big ones. I will keep choosing you, every day, for the rest of my life." He lifts Ilya's hand to his lips. "You are safe in my heart. Always."

David can barely see a thing through the saltwater film in his eyes and Yuna’s hand squeezing his is the only thing keeping him from bursting into full-body sobs. Ilya, towering and trembling, and nothing like the persona he’s ever shown the world, stares at Shane with so much raw adoration that he feels like a voyeur looking through a window into a life curated only of love. Ilya’s the first to break. He surges forward and catches Shane’s mouth with his, and Shane doesn’t even hesitate, opening for him, the entire garden sighing as if the collective force of their love might stitch something new and possible into the world.

Ilya’s kiss is desperate, Nancy loses her place, and Shane, the little shit, pulls back just enough to mutter, “We haven’t got to that part yet.” His voice, cracked from crying, floats through a rumble of laughter from the crowd.

Nancy clears her throat, trying for dignity but smiling so wide it falls a mile short. "Mr. Rozanov, that's a preview, not the main event."

Shane’s shoulders shake with silent laughter as he rests his forehead against Ilya’s. "Pretty sure that’s against the rules," he whispers, only to dissolve into laughter when Ilya tries to go back in for seconds. Shane wraps his arms around Ilya’s back, tugging him close, as if the entire world could end, and he’d still choose just to be here, tangled up with his ridiculous, impossible man.

David tries to keep it together. He glances at Yuna, and she’s got mascara down to her chin and zero concern about it, smiling through tears, eyes riveted on their boys. Svetlana and Sasha are beaming. Hayden and his brood are close to the front of the crowd, all four of his kids in matching outfits, even the youngest, who is methodically eating petals from her own flower basket. The boys' teammates, current and former - Russian, Canadian, everything in between - have abandoned decorum and are elbowing each other in celebration. J.J., Marlow and St-Simons are possibly about to strain something to keep from crying. It’s a kaleidoscope of joy and utter, catastrophic love.

Nancy clears her throat again, but her voice catches. "Would you like to finish the vows, or…?"

Ilya, unrepentant, shifts his hold on Shane but doesn't let go. "I am very ready," he promises, which sets another ripple of laughter through the crowd.

Shane wipes his eyes and takes Ilya’s hands in his own. Even from the crowd, David can see the way they steady each other, the tiny tremor in both sets of fingers, the silent promise that they’re in this together. Forever.

“Ilya, your turn,” Nancy prompts, voice finally smooth.

Ilya exhales, laughter catching in his throat. “The fuck am I supposed to follow that?” he asks, cheeks pink.

Shane grins, brushing a loose curl from Ilya’s forehead. “You could say it in Russian?” he teases.

“I could say it in French,” Ilya shoots back, tone mock-threatening.

Shane’s brow arches. “You don’t know French.”

Ilya’s lips twitch. “No? Maybe I do now, maybe-”

“Ahem.” Nancy clears her throat again, half-smiling as she catches them exchanging fond, exasperated looks. Ilya’s laughter fades into something tender, his gaze softening as he studies Shane’s face.

“Shane…” He bows his head, swallows, then looks up, eyes shining. “You are the most boring man I have ever met.”

Shane’s eyes widen and he mouths “Wow,” melting into a grin that lights his whole face.

Ilya nods solemnly. “It is true. You are so boring, with your boring car that got us out of that snowdrift last year, and your boring music that helps me sleep on planes, and your boring food that has probably lowered my cholesterol a little.”

“I knew it!”

“Quiet,” Ilya murmurs, voice warm. “I am telling everyone about your boring. Also about your stubborn, but I think they know this, yes? You lock-in, and nothing will move you. Nothing will stop you - and I am very persuasive!”

Shane chuckles, leaning his head on Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya’s fingers thread into his hair, brushing a tender kiss across his brow before nudging him upright.

“These things I love about you. Your boring and your stubborn. And your freckles. There are ninety-seven of them on your cheeks, if anyone is curious. I count them every night.”

“I’ll update Wikipedia,” Shane snorts, his eyes crinkling with laughter.

“And you will stop interrupting. Though, yes, this is another thing. You are funny. And an asshole. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not know you.”

Ilya breathes in, gaze steady. “When did it start, that is what people ask us. And you are not good with dates somehow, which is fucking insane given your calendar system and-”

“Ilya-”

“Sorry.” He does sound a little contrite. “I know when it was for me. I was seventeen, in a country as cold as mine, trying to get by in a language that didn’t make any sense, and this beautiful boy, with beautiful freckles and a beautiful smile, came up to me and shook my hand. Then told me not to smoke.”

“It’s so bad for you,” Shane sniffles, brushing at the corners of his eyes.

“I know, sweetheart.” Ilya gently cups Shane’s cheek. “And I know I was waiting for something that you weren’t. Then you shook my hand again, and I figured that maybe this was just a Canadian thing. That maybe you were all like that. Then I met Pike, who is a dick, and-”

“Dude! Now?” Hayden exclaims, trying to pretend he’s annoyed and not using his sleeve to wipe away his tears.

Ilya waves away Hayden’s comment with a flick of his wrist, then continues. “Then you fucking beat me in our first face-off, and I knew. It was very annoying.”

“Sorry,” Shane whispers, voice trembling.

“No, you’re not.” Ilya smiles, a tear slipping down his cheek. “What I am trying to say, in a language I still think is stupid, is that I have loved you, and will love you, always. You are so kind, and so gentle with the world, and you made it safe for me to try to be the same. And then you gave me a family…” he breaks off and looks away, utterly overwrought, shoulders shaking.

Shane says, “Skip to the next part,” with a heated kind of urgency.

Nancy nods quickly. “Shane, Ilya, you have pledged your love to one another. By the authority vested in me by the Province of Ontario, I now pronounce you joined in union-”

Shane sweeps Ilya into a fierce, desperate kiss. Ilya latches on to him like a dying man.

“-and you may now kiss,” Nancy chuckles, her words lost under a thunderstorm of cheers let out by a collection of loved ones all clearly desperate to find relief from their own tears.

“Oh boy,” Yuna says shakily. She turns into David’s chest, and he just has to hold her until they both manage to find some semblance of dignity and poise. “You crying too?” she asks, rather pointlessly.

“No,” David sniffs.

He is, after all, a very bad liar.

Chapter 18

Chapter Notes

Wow! I am insanely blown away by the response to the last chapter! You are far, far too good to me, thank you!

You'll have to forgive me though. The bachelor party really, really didn't work with the wedding. I might add it on to the end of the fic as one of the deleted scenes I've got, but hopefully the combined chaos of Hayden and Cliff's best men speach will tide you over instead.

“She needs a better agent.” Ilya’s voice is a rumble in Shane’s ear, and a reminder to reach over to the coffee table and snag a few kernels of popcorn between his fingers. It’s a criminally indulgent evening, the perfect follow-up to a day plucked right out of one of Shane’s wildest, most boring fantasies. Waking in Ilya’s arms, walking Anya, chatting with their neighbors, deciding on their new favorite coffee shop together… all of it hand in hand.

The man Shane has spent his entire adult life believing to be the most beautiful person to ever walk the earth is now, somehow, impossibly moreso. Ilya fucking glows in the sunlight, and after so many years hiding in the dark, there's an almost obsessive need growing in Shane’s chest to make up for all the time they have lost. He’s always assumed himself a private person, but he’s starting to think that might have been terror talking, not desire. He wants to show Ilya off to the world. 

Ilya opens his mouth obediently for Shane to feed him popcorn. He tastes perfectly sweet and a little bit salty when Shane follows with a little kiss.

“Hmm, I could get used to you hand-feeding me.” The indulgent, sleepy look on his face is battling for dominance with Shane’s top five favorite expressions.

In Ilya’s defence, Shane has to hand-feed him. He’s pretty much pinned, his long body sprawled out on the couch with only a single cushion for his head. Shane is mostly on his side, but lying fully on top of him, propped up by the back of the couch and the rest of the pillows that were displaced earlier in the evening. Ilya has one arm between Shane and the cushions, only really able to move enough to comb his fingers idly through Shane’s hair.

His other arm is trapped under Anya, the only guardrail she has saving her from one sleepy stretch and a tumble onto the floor. Shane isn’t sure how he’s comfortable, but every time he threatens to move, Ilya makes a sad little sound.

He might like to claim that Shane has him wrapped around his little finger and can break him with one sad look, but Shane defies anyone to look into those big blue eyes of his and not be immediately overcome with the urge to smother him with kisses until they are no longer sad.

Shane snorts and nuzzles into the blanket, drawing it up to cover Ilya’s bare arm, then presses his face into his shoulder. Anya’s a liquid heat sprawled against Ilya’s hip, snout buried in the hem of his hoodie. The weight and warmth of all three of them make it impossible to move, so he doesn’t.

It’s supposed to be Ilya’s night to pick their movie, but somehow, they ended up watching Rose’s new blockbuster. In Russian, because they promised next time around, they’d let Shane ‘absorb the language by osmosis.’ That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, Shane’s eyes flick to the subtitles every second line. His Russian is coming along in leaps and bounds now, especially as he has more time to dedicate to private lessons, but movies are weird.

He has to be careful when and where he uses his growing skill, especially when it usually ends with him face-down on the nearest semi-stable surface. Shane asked Ilya, in Russian, what he wanted for breakfast, and then lost the rest of the morning. When he finally remembered how to make his legs work again, it was well past lunchtime.

It’s mostly sexy, kinda hilarious, and just a little bit sad. Even more so now Ilya and Svetlana only speak English when she’s in town as a consideration for Shane.

Shane can’t give him anything from his homeland, not now, but he can make sure he can give Ilya this at least.

Even if that does mean suffering through some truly terrible voice acting.

Rose’s voice - dubbed with bizarre glee by some gravel-voiced Russian actor who gets none of her actual cadence - shreds through the living room as the heroine punches three goons in the throat, rips a radiator off a wall, and smashes it through a second-story window. The subtitles lag a half-second behind. Ilya grumbles about translation quality, and alternates between giving a running commentary and making a huffy little sound whenever the line doesn’t match the subtitles.

The movie flickers, lighting up the draped furniture in blue-bright neon. He can feel sleep coming for him, but resists; he wants to memorize this, the density of Ilya under him, the contentment that sits so far back in his chest now it’s structural. Under him, Ilya’s breathing thins into a distant, slow rhythm. The commentary fades.

He tries to focus on the movie, but the motion of the screen blurs in his periphery, and the low rumble of Ilya’s breathing takes over everything else. Shane’s always been good at holding completely still, a skill from childhood, maybe, from the hours spent shadowboxing his own thoughts and the insomnia that came with them. Now, with Ilya’s warmth grounding him in, he finds that stillness melts into something more desperate, a need to fuse his atoms to Ilya’s and stay there.

The couch is a huge, deep, very expensive faux-collapse-in-and-don’t-get-up type of thing, so Shane angles himself to reduce the pressure on Ilya’s arm and ends up with his lips pressed into the curve of Ilya’s shoulder. The movie’s a punchline now, a fake world flickering off to one side, while the real world distills down to the heat and the faint, salty-sweet scent rising from Ilya’s skin.

He’s not surprised Ilya drifts off. It’s the only time he ever truly lets his guard down, besides the brief, wild-circus window right after sex, when the rules of the world dissolve, and Ilya will let Shane hold him for as long as he wants. But he never slides off into a deep, proper sleep gently. There’s a drop, a cliff, and then he’s stone-still, breath so even it could be fake.

It’s one of Shane’s favorite things. Knowing that he can give Ilya this. Even more so after the past few months, when stress and fear and furious helplessness have kept them both awake into the night. The worst has happened. They’ve survived it together and come out the other side.

Shane’s barely more awake himself, and he lets the current pull him under. It’s a safe drift, or as safe as anything has ever been; the knowledge that Anya is asleep, the doors locked, the world briefly held at bay. He dreams, sometimes, in the spaces between, little half-dreams, not even full scenes, just colors, touches, the impossible weight of wanting to preserve this moment exactly as it is.

He doesn’t know when he slips under, but the next thing he’s aware of is the quiet sound of Ilya talking in his sleep. It jars him awake, rips him out of the shallow coil of sleep with a spike of adrenaline. He doesn’t move at first, too groggy, maybe, or too resigned to the ritual: Ilya dreaming, then waking, always so quiet about it, never loud, never dramatic. Just tense. Just gone, for a second, into that black water on the other side of the glass.

He waits, and half-hopes Ilya will settle, that the noise from the TV will mask things enough that he can let it slide. He rubs his thumb soothingly over Ilya’s heart, hoping to help lull him back under.

But the voice on the TV gets louder, an actor pitching a raging string of angry Russian curses punctuated by the rising crescendo of Ilya’s heartbeat.

It’s only when Anya whines, woken by Ilya’s distress and flexing her paws against his ribs, that the words switch from mutter to a low, urgent string. Still nothing Shane can parse, but the curve of Ilya’s jaw goes rigid, and for a second, every muscle under Shane turns to stone.

He’s hit with a jag of helpless rage at Ilya’s family, at a world that made this the soil his favorite person grew up in. He tucks his face in closer, pressing his nose to Ilya’s collarbone, and breathes. Just that. His breathing soothes Ilya. He knows that already. Anya hops off the couch and then climbs up onto the arm so she can nuzzle the side of Ilya’s face, and Shane shifts. He drops his weight more solidly along Ilya’s chest, boxing him in and holding him steady.

On the TV, a window shatters as Rose dives through it, her escape followed by a furious bellow of threats Shane only half translates and a scream of pain as she lands.

Ilya jerks.

“Fuck-”

He scrambles for the remote, jams his thumb on the power button, and tosses it aside just in time to press both his palms to Ilya’s cheeks.

“Hey,” he whispers, not even sure if it will get through the wall of sleep or if he’s just talking to a fever dream, “You’re safe. You’re home. I’ve got you.” He says it again, softer. “I’ve got you.”

At first, nothing. Just the arrhythmia of their breathing, the press of hands. Then Ilya’s body gives a single hard twitch, and Shane can feel, within that span of skin, the slam of his heart in full flight.

“Hey,” Shane says again, forehead pressed to Ilya’s temple, like it’s magic, like he can smother a nightmare in brute proximity. “It’s me. Just me. It’s okay.”

He waits for Ilya to come up through the layers. Shane sees the split second of confusion: his eyebrows pinched, his mouth pressed tight, a sharp breath pulled in, the first gasp after being underwater too long.

“Sorry,” Ilya murmurs suddenly, the word caught somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. He’s blinking now, awake, and his hands rise automatically, one to cup the back of Shane’s neck, the other to steady Shane’s wrist where it cups his cheek. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah,” Shane murmurs, brushing a thumb over Ilya’s cheek. “It was cute as hell for almost five minutes, then you started threatening to kill someone in your sleep, so.” The joke’s meant to land light, but Shane’s voice wobbles, and he hates that it’s obvious.

Ilya’s brows dip, and he tries for a sheepish smile, but the leftover static of panic is still flickering behind his eyes. “Shit. Sorry.” Then, squinting, “Did I say something? I don’t remember.” Anya whines and licks his cheek. Ilya lets go of Shane’s hand to flail above his head and scratch her behind her ears. “It’s okay, sweet girl, I’m sorry I woke you.”

Shane hates himself just a little as he steadies his breath and asks, in careful Russian, “What did you dream?”

He almost expects Ilya to brush the question off, maybe change the subject, or joke about Shane’s terrible accent. Instead, his jaw flexes and he says, as if genuinely surprised, “I don’t know.” He brings his free hand up to press the heel of it, briefly, into the hollow below his eye as if it might press the dream into recall. “Is gone,” he says, switching back to English. “Is not interesting.”

Shane scans his face for the usual tells, but all he sees is a flat, exhausted transparency. He doesn’t want it to be nothing. He wants there to be something he can fix. He wants at least a clue, enough to start piecing together the next protocol. Not knowing is a calcifying, slow chill under his ribs.

He shifts, propping himself up on his elbows, angled so his weight brackets Ilya in. He moves in close, their noses nearly touching. “There’s nothing you can’t tell me,” he murmurs, fighting to keep his voice steady.

Ilya blinks, then shrugs. The distant, unbothered patience in his face is slipshod, patched together over something more defensive. “I really don’t remember. I swear on your freckles.” He huffs a breath, and this time, there’s a hint of a smile in it.

He knots his fingers in the fabric of Ilya’s sleeve. “I do worry, you know.” He means to sound flippant but comes out small. “You’re going to be my husband, but you won’t even let me keep you company in a dream.” He tries for a laugh, but it’s a ghost of itself. “A little bit rude.”

Ilya turns his head and smirks up at him, arch and practiced, then lets it fade. “You don’t want what is in my head, Hollander.” He shifts, careful not to disturb Anya, leaning into Shane’s space until their foreheads touch. “Things up here… they don’t matter so much. That’s for the doctors to fix, yes?” His hand squeezes the back of Shane’s neck, grounding and reassuring. He catches Shane’s fingers with his other hand and presses them together over his heart. “This is for you.”

“You don’t need fixing,” Shane mumbles. “And…” he hesitates, hating how close he sounds to whining, and hating even more the idea of pushing Ilya into something he doesn’t want.

It’s just…

He kinda has to push. Gently, yes, but still.

“You promised you’d let me help.”

"I know," Ilya says, quiet and steady, and Shane hates how much it comforts him, and how much he still needs it after all these years. "But you are helping," Ilya says, more deliberate this time. He lifts their joined hands, pressing Shane's palm flat and leaving it there. "You help. Right now, you are helping. Just by being here." Anya shifts above them, climbs up the pillow, and sighs loud enough to puncture the tension. Ilya laughs, just a little. "She says you help too." He lets go of Shane's other wrist, bending his arm behind his head, and stares up at the ceiling.

Shane hasn’t realized he’s been holding his breath, but the release is a hot, stuttering relief. Still, he wants to understand and needs to be in on it. If not the dream, then the aftermath.

"You really don’t remember?" he asks again, the same way he used to circle back on lines of play, every practice, every post-game.

Ilya sighs, and the last haze of adrenaline in him seems to drift out with the breath. "Sometimes it is a person. Sometimes it is a sound. Sometimes…" he shrugs, mouth shifting uncertain, "…sometimes it is just cold." He slides his gaze over to Shane, and something in his face goes soft. Resigned, maybe, but not defensive. Just Ilya, letting himself be held. "It is not like a movie," he says. "It does not make sense. It does not… it doesn’t stay, when I am with you."

There’s a click in Shane’s chest, like something settling into an old groove, and he presses a careful kiss to Ilya’s temple. "You don’t have to talk about it." 

Ilya makes a face, a smirk for the ages. "Then why the big fuss?"

Shane laughs, stifling the sound in Ilya’s arm, and tries to pinch him, which is impossible from this angle, but he does it anyway. "Because I worry," he says. "Because I’m allowed to." He’s suddenly, almost painfully aware of how new this all is: a life where he gets to see Ilya every morning, where the world’s not in crisis every second, where the only thing he has to do is make sure the man he loves is okay.

Ilya seems to read his mind. "You are very boring," he says again, but with so much warmth. He curls his fingers in Shane’s hair, and the petting is so gentle Shane almost can’t stand it. "I want to keep it like this," Ilya says, so quiet Shane almost misses it. "Just… here. With you."

Shane nods into the crook of his neck. "I’m not going anywhere. You’re marrying me, remember?”

Ilya's smile finally turns fully soft, all traces of his dream wiped away by happiness. "Is that what we're doing?"

"Asshole," Shane grumbles, grateful. 

"Next time," Ilya promises. "If I remember. I will tell you."

Shane nods and settles, consumed by Ilya's warmth. There will be a next time. And he can be patient. Until then... joy, only. Peace. Safety. He can guard Ilya's sleep until Shane's claim on him as is legal as it is profound, and then he can wage a whole different kind of war on his husband's behalf.

It’s done. They’re married. Ilya is Shane’s husband.

He still half expects the rush of nerves to knock him sideways. He’s waiting for that static fuzz that takes over when everything around him is so much. He’s full to the brim, overflowing with emotion. The world is a cacophony of riotous feeling, and he’s never been good at weathering those kinds of storms without locking parts of himself down. But as he stands holding Ilya’s hand, threading every bone and sinew together in his heart, he feels nothing but this rare, perfect clarity.

After holding his breath his whole life, he can breathe now without conscious thought. It’s… It’s giddying.

The crowd is a fever behind him, all shouts and laughter and chaos. Ilya is trembling, a seismic sort of shake he tries to hide with a smile and a clumsy attempt to brush tears from under his eyes. Shane kisses him anyway, right on the wet skin under his lashes, and the sound that breaks out of Ilya is half-laugh, half-sob.

“Didn’t you swear we’d stop crying?” Shane says, not even trying to hide that he’s crying too.

“We made it five minutes,” Ilya rasps. They probably didn’t even make it two.

“Progress.” Shane glances over the garden, stunned by so many delighted faces. His parents are collapsed into each other, barely upright. Jackie has her entire brood trying to distract J.J., who is openly weeping into his sleeve. Svetlana seems to be wrestling Sasha for custody of a champagne bottle. Their new teammates are beaming from ear to ear with no hint of the disgust or hatred that threaded through most of his former team. Hayden and Cliff Marlow are conspiring… which…

Shane can count on one hand the number of times he’s been drunk. At least two of those fingers he’s assigning to the bachelor party, those two assholes arranged. He doesn’t feel bad about it or embarrassed. If anything, he’s only annoyed that he wasn’t sober enough to fully appreciate the fact that they managed to get Ilya drunk.

He takes another breath, and the world slots back into something like sense. “You okay?” he asks, tight and low, for Ilya only.

Ilya’s smile is a flicker, but the warmth in it cuts through all the noise around them. “Best day of my life,” he says, then blinks, looking suddenly startled.

Shane’s chest does that thing it always does when Ilya says something sincere, like a fuse blowing out under his ribs. He could stay here, just like this, forever, watching the wind rise and fall in the trees behind Ilya’s curls, sun-soaked into the back of his neck. But someone in the crowd starts a cheer, and suddenly people are surging forward, all hands and claps and babble. Ilya gets mobbed in a hug that nearly lifts him off the ground. Shane laughs as he’s yanked into it too, half-dragged by Marlow, then by Hayden, whose grip says everything he needs to with exactly zero words.

The next thing he knows, they’re sitting side by side at the little table that has been dragged from inside. Someone hands him a glass, and someone else hands him another as soon as that one is done, and the taste of champagne is so cold and bright it’s like he’s never had it before.

He twists sideways and tucks his arm around Ilya’s waist, pulling him in close enough to feel the small aftershocks still rolling through his body.

For all that he wants to stay like that for the rest of the day, lost in the love and safety and happiness around him with Ilya at his side, he does end up doing the rounds. He has so many people to thank. So many more than he’s ever thought possible.

He ends up with the rookies first, most of whom look politely baffled to be at Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s wedding. They remind Shane a little of himself, with so few experiences in life outside of hockey that, beyond the initial compliments on the ceremony, there’s not much for them to talk about other than hockey. And oh boy, are they excited to talk about it with Shane.

He’s rescued after ten minutes by Luca Haas, who seems to enjoy every one of the few years he has on the rookies to wrangle them into giving Shane a break. Collectively, even with Haas, they’re all like fucking babies to Shane.

Svetlana and Sasha catch up with Shane while he’s refilling his glass at the makeshift bar, the din of the celebration keeping everyone’s voices at a hush-shout. Shane blinks, recalibrating fast. He hasn’t actually talked to Sasha all day, and Svetlana’s been moving through the party like a comet, dazzling everyone in brief, controlled bursts.

"You clean up good, Hollander," Sasha says, sidling up and seizing Shane’s hand with a drama that would have played on stage just fine. Svetlana giggles and leans in, heavy on his shoulder, so he has to brace both of them.

"You didn’t tell me you were this sappy," Svetlana says. It’s aimed at Shane, warm and a little wry, the way she’s always treated him. "I nearly died of dehydration, all of those tears you two made everyone cry."

“I’m glad you could make it,” Shane says earnestly, untangling his hand from Sasha, who simply laughs at him. “I know it was all pretty last-minute, but it means everything to Ilya, having you here.”

“I have not seen him like this since we were children,” Sasha says, keeping his voice pitch-perfect for the party, just loud enough to bury the thickness in it. “He was almost too soft, then. Maybe softer than you. It made things very dangerous for both of us.”

Shane frowns, not sure if it’s the ribbing or the honesty that confuses him. “Dangerous for you?”

It prompts a tight laugh from Sasha, not exactly a laugh at all. “I would get in fights for him, and he would get in even bigger ones to protect me. We were always bleeding, one of us.” He shakes his head with a comic sort of astonishment. “He’s stubborn - this you know. Sometimes, I think, better he learns to be hard.”

Shane’s never in his life been grateful for anything about Ilya’s childhood, not for one molecule of it, but he thinks he gets where Sasha is going.

“He doesn’t have to be, anymore,” Shane says, lifting his glass toward the garden, where Ilya’s surrounded by a mob of children and teammates, all shrieking with laughter as he balances three kids on his back and tries to walk to the deck steps without bucking them off. Their parents are laughing behind him, phones recording the chaos for posterity. “That’s all I ever wanted for him.”

Svetlana, with a look that could double for a slap and a kiss at the same time, tucks her arm around his. “And for you?”

He hesitates, not wanting to be morbid or drag the vibe down, but he can say things to them that no one else can ever really understand. “I wanna keep the lights on for him,” he says. “I think he’s spent enough time in the dark.”

“What is it you say? Misery loves company, no?” Sasha takes his own drink and twirls the stem between his fingers. “Take it from someone who tried to keep him there…” Sasha is a relatively new piece of the puzzle that is Ilya’s past, and he’s a man made up of lots of sharp edges. Ones, Shane suspects, that end up cutting Sasha as often as they cut Ilya.

“You’ll need help sometimes,” Svetlana offers, a new kind of gentleness in his voice Shane hasn’t heard before. “Make sure you ask for it.” She leans harder into his arm. “It is a gift,” she says, voice pitched only for him. “How loved you both are.”

Shane tries to muster a response, but it gets stuck somewhere behind his teeth. He tilts his head toward where Ilya is making a spectacle of himself in the grass, trying to hold a conversation with their dad while Hayden’s twins try to climb him. “They’re mostly here for him,” he says, but the words come out without any edge: just pride, easy and bright.

Sasha grins and waggles a finger in his direction. “You’re wrong. I asked around. They are all hoping you will get drunk and dance.”

“I don’t dance,” Shane says, and doesn’t bother trying to sound convincing.

"That’s a lie," Svetlana says, smiling wide. "You would do anything for him. And there is no him without you, so..."

He huffs and can’t help but roll his eyes at the melodrama. "Pretty sure that’s not how it works," he says, but she’s not having it, and he’s not sure he wants to argue.

“Uh oh,” Sasha nudges Shane with his elbow and draws them from a conversation that threatens to turn heavier than the day deserves. “Your boy is about to put all his braincells to use.”

In the space where Ilya and Shane exchanged their vows, Hayden and Marlow have taken up position.

“Oh Christ,” Shane chokes out a laugh. He abandons Svetlana and Sasha and makes a beeline for Ilya.

He barely makes it in time. Hayden’s already got a glass in one hand and, with the other, is fending off Marlow for microphone supremacy.

There’s a shift in the crowd. People turn to look, the conversation dying down in anticipation. Shane reaches Ilya’s side and is immediately tucked under his arm. Hayden, ever the showman, executes a full one-eighty and bows deeply to the audience. Someone yells “Speech!” and now the whole garden is in on it.

“So!” Hayden grins.

“For those of you who don’t know us,” Marlow clears his throat. “This asshole is Hayden Pike. He plays for some random team in Canada, I don’t think they’re very important-”

Shane half expects both J.J. and Hayden to protest. Hell, he expects his mom to protest. Instead, she shouts “Boo!” Sometimes Shane thinks she’s taken their betrayal worse than he has. Ilya squeezes him tight and presses a kiss to the side of his head.

Hayden just goes straight to, “And the lumbering neanderthal next to me is Cliff Marlow. We’ve only got a limited window of coherence for him before he goes back to grunting, so lucky for you all, we’ll keep this short.”

Marlow makes an absent swing for Hayden’s head, missing only by millimeters. “I’ve known Roz since his rookie season. For some reason, coach thought I’d be the best person to show him round town. Pretty sure you can guess how that went.” There’s a smattering of laughter from the crowd, and a few hoots from the Boston players.

Hayden swipes the mic, all cat-burglar nonchalance. "For those of you wondering if this is a roast or a best man speech, yes." He lets it hang for a second as the crowd cackles, then leans into the pause, eager for any excuse to wind both Ilya and Shane up. "I’ll start with Rozanov. I’m genuinely proud to call you one of my oldest enemies, and now,"-he glances at Shane, maybe expecting him to crack-"a friend by association, if not by choice."

Ilya blows him a kiss, beaming.

Hayden slaps a hand on Marlow's shoulder, which Marlow takes as a cue to try to break his fingers. Hayden doesn't flinch, just leans in further. "Back in the day, we studied Rozanov’s game tape like it was porn. Which I now realize basically was porn for Shane…"

"Whose side are you on?" Shane demands, flushed but not embarrassed the way he imagined he'd be if someone mentioned porn in front of his parents. He jabs Ilya in the ribs when he feels him shaking with laughter.

"Don't worry, buddy, we' re getting to you," Hayden grins, dodging the napkin someone throws at his head. "Duck and weave, baby!"

Marlow wrestles the mic back. "Nobody in Boston likes you, Hollander, which is the highest form of compliment you'll get."

"Fuck yes!" St-Simons shouts, raising his glass so enthusiastically that champagne sloshes onto Troy, who flips him off. Shane snorts and shakes his head. In what world is half the team from his oldest set of rivals drinking champagne in his garden…

“But if I say there was some confusion among the boys when dipshit here dropped that video-” he jerks his thumb at Hayden, who rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. Shane offers him a soft little smile in assurance. “It’s not because we knew Roz was a notorious slut-”

“What’s a slut, daddy?” Ruby pipes up from the crowd, tipping Ilya into a silent fit of giggles.

Hayden, panicking, says, “Ask your mom - wait, no, that came out wrong, fuck me-”

"I have many, many rich, good-looking friends, Jackie," Ilya drawls, straightening his tie with exaggerated suaveness. "Talk to me after, yes? I make good matchmaker."

“I might take you up on that,” Jackie says wryly, dropping one hand to cover Ruby's ears before giving up the attempt. Four kids... Shane is exhausted thinking about it.

Marlow grunts. "Can I continue?" He taps the mic impatiently against his palm.

Hayden nods, looking rather faint, and gulps down his drink, then steals someone else's from a nearby table.

“So not because of that, or because he was making out with Shane Hollander. It was because we probably should have seen it coming. Nothing, not booze, babes, or Dunkin, brings Roz as much joy as slamming Hollander up against a hard surface.”

"Who the fuck gave them a microphone?" Shane demands with a dizzy kind of bewilderment as he watches his mom inhale a sip of her drink and nearly choke. He turns to Ilya. "You did this, didn't you? This is your fault." Ilya is too busy cackling to try look innocent.

"I mean the barriers! On the ice!" Marlow says quickly, miming a hockey check with his free arm. "You know, in a game!"

"Sure you did," someone catcalls from the back.

Shane is a little worried Ilya might actually injure himself he’s laughing so hard. He’s sure as shit the only thing keeping him mostly upright as he wheezes, one hand clutching Shane's shoulder and the other flailing at his side as he tries to breathe.

Hayden recovers just enough to take the mic back. “What we’re trying to say… you inspired us in the room. You inspire us now. The world hasn’t been fair to either of you, but you dug down, and you fought, and you won, and that’s better than any cup will ever be.”

He hands the mic back to Marlow. “You’re the toughest sonsofbitches I’ve ever fucking met.” Shane really wants to point out that there are children present, but he figures that ship has sailed. He knows for a fact that one of Arthur’s first words was ‘fuck’ and never plans on letting Hayden live it down. “You watch each other's backs. We’ll watch yours. It probably doesn’t feel like it, but there are more people on your side than not. You might think all this is gonna make you a target, but we’ll be watching… they ain’t just gonna be facing you. They’ll be facing all of us.”

Shane's breath catches in his throat, and his eyes sting. Ilya's arm tightens around him, a silent acknowledgment of what they both know is coming next season. Knowing it won't be just them against the world means more to him than he ever thought possible.

"Damn fucking right," Bood calls from the crowd, sloshing champagne as he thrusts his glass skyward. "They fuck with you, we fuck with them!"

The collective shout of agreement from every player is a roar that echoes in the very foundations they're building their lives on. Someone starts a "Ho-llan-der! Ro-za-nov!" chant that has Ilya beaming like he's just scored in overtime.

"We're still gonna beat you," one of the younger Boston kids - Petrov, Shane thinks - yells, jumping onto a chair that wobbles dangerously. "But that's cos you're getting old now, not cos you like cock or anything!"

Shane watches his mom tip into a silent fit of laughter against his dad’s shoulder and wonders if it’s possible to physically exist outside of his body.

"The fuck are you teaching him, Marly?" Ilya shouts, half-way between insulted and proud, lobbing an olive that hits Marlow square in the forehead. Marlow's indignant response is lost to the sound of Ottawa firing back on their behalf, complete with a few choice gestures that would earn them game misconducts on the ice.

"Are all Canadian weddings like this?" Sasha drawls from the back of the garden.

"Are you done?" Shane raises an eyebrow in Hayden's direction, trying and failing to hide his grin. What’s the point in fighting the tide? His life is glorious chaos right now… he might as well embrace it.

Hayden nods frantically. "Shane, Ilya, we love you. Thanks for the free booze. Please never divorce, I don't think either of us can do this again!" He practically throws the mic to Dykstra, who has used the speech to seize control of the sound system, immediately blasting "All We Do Is Win" as Hayden slinks up to Jackie, blushing and contrite.

Marlow heads for the two of them, and Shane braces himself for even more chaos. Instead, they’re both swept up in a hug that only he and his insanely long arms can bestow, bones creaking as they’re enthusiastically smothered with affection.

“Fucking love you,” Marlow says, and Shane thinks he’s talking to Ilya until a very bristly kiss is smacked on his forehead.

They’re set down long enough for Marlow to wrap his arm around Ilya’s neck and pull him into something that looks as much of a headlock as it does an embrace. “Don’t fuck this up, Rozy. You got a good one, so don’t be a shithead, yeah?”

Ilya wriggles free and socks him on the arm, which Shane now knows is sky-high levels of affection from them both.

“Not gonna have your influence every day,” Ilya shrugs, failing miserably to hide just how happy he is. “Shouldn’t be fucking hard.”

“Ha! You two fuckers have a good night, yeah? I’m gonna go find my girlfriend.”

“Tell her I love her and she’s out of your league.”

Marlow leaves with a boom of laughter, and for the first time in what feels like hours, there’s no one immediately demanding either of their attention. Shane puts his head on Ilya’s shoulder and takes a deep breath.

“You good?” Ilya asks, one hand on the back of Shane’s neck, his thumbs rubbing the same soothing circles they always do when Ilya knows he's overwhelmed. 

“I’m so good,” Shane replies. Then he switches to Russian. “I’m with my husband.”

In Ilya's defense, he only kisses Shane when he sweeps him off his feet and spins him around. But he also doesn’t let Shane come up for air until someone yells, “Get a fucking room!”

Then he pauses long enough to yell, “It’s our fucking house!” before he’s kissing Shane again.

Chapter 19

Chapter Notes

I don't even know what this chapter is. Honeymoon porn, maybe?!

Soft. Everything is soft.

So you know what that means for the next few parts...

Also... how in the holy hell is this 100k?!?

No matter what Ilya might say, Shane’s Circadian rhythm is pretty useful. He can choose, if he really wants, to stay in bed and indulge himself once he wakes up. It only really happens if Ilya is in that bed with him, but the option is there. Normally, though, he wakes, stretches the residual sleep from his spine, then goes about his day.

If there was a time to ignore it, that would be today. The morning after his wedding. His first day as a married man.

He’s actually kinda resentful that he can’t.

He has to extract himself from under Ilya’s arm before he drags himself to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, Ilya is exactly where Shane left him, half smothered by a pillow. The affection that spikes beneath his ribs is a little bit sickening.

That’s Shane’s husband.

After bending to pull on a pair of boxers he thinks are his own, Shane adds a tag onto that mark of ownership.

That’s Shane’s husband. And his husband is a fucking maniac.

It’s honestly a little mortifying that it’s still so hard not to blush when he thinks of some of the things they get up to, but he’s never been more grateful for his mom’s militant planning than he is right now.

In eight hours, they fly out for their honeymoon. Two weeks in the Mediterranean. Nothing but sun, sea, and Ilya in a very expensive, very private villa right on the beach. Privacy is the important part. Not because they want to hide, but because there’s no way in hell Shane can swan around in swim trunks in public right now.

And he’s sure as shit not about to let Ilya.

He feels - and when he catches a glimpse in the mirror, clearly looks - like he’s been fucking mauled.

It makes him more than a little giddy knowing that if he plays connect the dots with the fingerprint smudge bruises on his ass and thighs, they’ll match Ilya’s hands.

And it makes him fucking feral when he lets his gaze wander the broad expanse of Ilya’s back and sees the marks he has left on his husband.

He loses, god, he doesn’t even know how long, just staring at the red tracks of his fingernails stretched across muscle. It wasn’t even like last night had been particularly rough, far from it. They just… maybe got a little carried away.

Maybe he can crawl back onto the bed, kiss his way from the oddly delicate arch of Ilya’s ankle to the tender spot at the back of his knee, along one of those strong thighs, across his perfect ass, and then gently, soothingly, follow the trail of his own passion all the way up to the hollow of Ilya’s throat so he can kiss him awake and they can do it all over again to the point where the fifteen hour flight is almost unbarable and…

And there’s a reason Shane isn’t still cuddled up to his husband right now.

His suitcase is already packed. Ilya’s is too, technically, though Shane is the one who packed it, and he has no idea if Ilya is happy with what’s gone in. His promise to Shane of ‘I’ll do it before we leave’ is horribly open-ended, leaving Shane to picture him flinging things around the bedroom five minutes before their cab arrives.

Since it’s probably considered bad form to murder your husband before the honeymoon, Shane did it for him. Now, though, he’s not really sure he shouldn’t unpack and start again. He can keep the esentials - underwear, toiletries - but there are a lot of very expensive, very… European clothes hanging in Ilya’s closet, and they’re going to Europe, which likely means Ilya will want to fit in with the fashion. Shane’s pretty sure he could turn up in a trash bag and still be the hottest man alive, but he’s sat through enough of Rose’s cheerful musings on ‘appropriate fabric combinations’ that he’s more than a little terrified of committing some fashion faux pas that will get Ilya banned from Europe entirely.

He unzips the case and starts pulling things out. The tank tops can stay, obviously, though he really hopes Ilya just avoids shirts, and maybe pants, for the entire trip. He goes back to Ilya’s closet in search of the lightweight, very soft black shirt he’s seen Ilya layer with in pap shots. He’s not sure if it’s just really old and well-loved, or if it was designed to be almost translucent in the right light, but his throat gets a little dry just thinking about wrestling Ilya out of it.

Or maybe throwing it on himself as a coverup on a lazy afternoon…

Why didn’t he pack it the first time?

When he turns around to head back to the case, he almost has a fucking heart attack.

“Jesus!”

It might be a stretch to say Ilya is awake, but he’s out of bed. Mostly. He’s brought the sheets with him, and looks like a very rumpled butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. There’s a lurid purple mark on his throat that Shane abruptly remembers giving him somewhere between his first and second orgasm.

“Hey,” he says, torn between sympathy for waking him and the burning urge to put a matching bruise on the other side of his neck. “Sorry if I-”

Ilya opens his arms and wraps them around Shane, engulfing him in a cocoon of warm sheets. He hoists Shane just enough off the ground that he can walk them over to the bed, then plants them both back in the middle of the mattress with a thud that shakes some of the air from Shane’s chest.

Shane’s immediately mortified by how easy it is for Ilya, half-asleep and running on pure muscle memory, to find him, wrangle him, and pin him where he belongs. The mattress is a trough in the ocean, every movement receding to the center in a slow collapse of body and will. The sheets are warm and heavy, and Ilya’s skin, every inch of it committed to Shane’s memory, feels impossibly familiar against him. There’s nowhere else he would rather be, but his brain, the traitor, keeps tallying to-do lists even as he melts under the weight.

Ilya mumbles and tugs Shane closer so that their bodies are pressed together, elbow to knee. It’s so deadeningly simple, so absolutely perfect, that Shane almost gives in. Almost.

But his brain won’t shut off. It’s running through the e-mail confirmation for their car at the airport when they land, mapping out the drive they decided to make instead of hiring someone to pick them up, flagging the three calls he’s got to return before noon, and the missing passport stamp from 2019 that might, might cause trouble at customs. He tries to keep his mind on the slow thud of Ilya’s heartbeat, tries to focus on the feather-light drag of Ilya’s fingers down his spine, but the thought parade just keeps marching.

“Shane,” Ilya mutters, voice all gravel and petulance, not even opening his eyes. “I can feel you thinking.”

“You married me. It’s literally your job to know what I’m thinking now,” Shane says, but already he’s smiling and, okay, he can let himself relax maybe two percent more, just because of how violently Ilya’s body hates to let him go.

Ilya doesn’t move, just smashes his nose into Shane’s temple and makes a small, contented noise. “You are going to stress yourself out and then throw up on the plane,” Ilya says, achingly fond of Shane’s neuroses for some unfathomable reason. “There is only one way to solve.”

“Hammer my head with a rock?”

This time, Ilya cracks open a single eye, and Shane wonders if the ocean they’re heading to will be nearly half as pretty. “No. We go back to sleep.”

Shane opens his mouth to protest, to argue that the airline’s instructions on hand luggage has been reworded since last year and if he waits too long to check he’ll be stuck talking to a robot and the robot will absolutely get their names wrong and the passport thing is probably a non-issue in Spain, but then Ilya yanks the sheet over both their heads and makes it a cave. Now it’s just darkness, and Ilya’s chest moving under his. Shane tries one last time to argue. “We’re gonna be late,” he whispers.

“No, we’re not.”

“You can’t know that.”

“We have an afternoon flight. It is not afternoon. It’s barely fucking morning.”

It is, and Shane hates to admit it, barely morning.

He can hear the faint breeze that drifts through their open window, the tick-click of their bedroom clock, and underneath it, the slow, steady breath of Ilya, probably already asleep again, which is, honestly, infuriating. He twists his hand free and tries to pin his brain to the heavy heat under the blankets. It should work. It doesn’t. Even the best sleep-aids in the world can’t shut off the possibility clusterfuck that is airline efficiency, lost baggage, or the very real chance that some careless customs agent in Ibiza will decide that Shane’s perfectly legitimate paperwork is, in fact, a cunning forgery.

He sighs, not even quiet about it. Ilya lets out a low, distracted rumble in something Shane cannot believe qualifies as language, then drags him in tighter. “If you do not stop, I will have to tranquilize you,” he mutters. “Like a baby horse.”

“I’m not…” But he can’t even defend himself, because of course he’s vibrating with anxiety. “What if the cab’s late?” he whispers, just to see what Ilya will say.

Ilya rolls, pins Shane flat to the sheets, and stares at him, blurry and unimpressed. “Then we wait five minutes and get another. They have many cabs in Ottawa.” He squints, then drops a quick kiss to the tip of Shane's nose. “If we forget something, we buy it. This is the magic of credit cards.” He smiles, satisfied.

That’s it. That’s the entire plan. Shane Hollander, Olympic-level worrier, bested by the simple, brute logic of Ilya Rozanov, Husband and Certified Problem Solver.

They’re going to be late, they’re going to lose their luggage, and none of it will kill them. They can buy another toothbrush, another phone charger, even another shirt if Ilya spills coffee on him before they’re through security, which is, let’s be honest, almost a guarantee.

He laughs under his breath, more a shaky exhale. “You’re not even worried.”

Ilya’s eyes go slitty-lazy, then he shrugs and kisses him again, this time sloppier, heavier, like he’s got all the time in the world. “You worry enough for the both of us.”

Shane wants to argue, but doesn’t. Instead, he lets himself get kissed stupid, and when the sheet is yanked, and they both tumble lower, he surrenders the last of his panic to the wild, drifty calm that always comes when he’s with Ilya. After a couple of minutes of that, he forgets entirely what he was supposed to be worried about.

They lose two hours to the cavern of blankets, and another to a rush of last-second packing that is, for once in his life, completely effortless. Anya is already with his parents. They lock up the house with no drama. And their cab is on time.

Ilya, finally awake, is a smug asshole the entire drive to the airport. Every time Shane wants to say something snarky in response to that smirk, he just has to catch a glimpse of Ilya’s wedding ring, and he goes gooey all over.

He doesn’t usually mind airports, which is the only thing that makes all the travel he does bearable. The order, the implicit rules, the sifting of people into lines and queues and moving walkways is the kind of highly regimented chaos that soothes him. But traveling with other people is hell, and traveling with Ilya is its own special layer, because Ilya has a deeply held, utterly deranged conviction that every airline employee is there for his entertainment.

They arrive well ahead of time, which Shane knows is the bare minimum for his own sanity, but Ilya insists on cutting it unnervingly close because, “No one is ever truly late until they start shouting your name,” Which: technically true, and in a cosmic sense comforting, but not when they’re standing in the hellmouth of YOW Departures, wall of humanity pressing in every direction and the overhead screens blinking out delays like coded threats.

Shane can do security alone, has done it thousands of times, and knows exactly what he can get away with, how many layers to wear before the scanner, when shoes come off, how to empty his pockets in the most efficient way possible. But Ilya is touching everything. He chats to the guy in front of him in the line, offers a running critique of everyone's approach to the conveyor belts, and, when Shane points out the literal sign about liquids, Ilya grins and says, “No one reads signs,” and promptly forgets to take his water bottle out of his bag.

A security agent sighs as she retrieves it. “You want to keep this?” she asks.

Ilya shrugs. “Unless you want it?” He’s flirting, Shane realizes. Not even intentionally, just being himself, buoyed up on the insanity of travel and the immune-to-shame vibe of a man who thinks life is winnable if you push hard enough.

They’re flagged for a random search. Ilya, delighted, volunteers both hands. “It is my first honeymoon,” he says cheerfully to the slightly star-struck agent assigned to him.

“It’s your only honeymoon,” Shane sighs, enduring his own check with barely controlled anxiety, suddenly far more worried about Ilya opening his mouth and saying something ridiculous than he is about a bomb magically appearing in the lining of his pants.

The wand buzzes at Ilya's shoulder, prompting a slightly unhinged grin. "Metal plate."

"That'll do it," the agent laughs, stepping back as Ilya immediately starts gathering his belongings, dropping his phone twice in the process. "You boys have a good vacation. Looking forward to next season."

"Oh! Send me a message on Instagram!" Ilya says brightly, swinging his backpack with such enthusiasm it nearly takes out the agent behind him. "We will get you tickets for the first home game."

Shane feels his face burning as he frantically tries to stuff his belt back through his loops. "Ilya, you can't bribe a government official!" he hisses, stumbling as one shoe remains half-off.

"What bribe? Tickets?" Ilya throws his hands up, accidentally launching his water bottle into the air. It clatters across the floor as three TSA agents turn to look. "That's not a bribe! Bribes involve money! Or someone's organs!"

"Jesus fuck, I am so sorry," Shane mutters, lunging to retrieve the bottle while trying to shove the end of his belt through its loop. He shoots the agent a desperate look. "Can I take him... away now? Please?"

"Yeah, you're good." The agent is clearly fighting laughter. "Have a safe flight."

"Thank you so much," Shane gasps, dragging Ilya by the elbow as his husband cheerfully waves goodbye to everyone in a ten-foot radius.

Shane ducks as Ilya swings around to walk backwards, narrowly missing a display of duty-free perfumes. "How did I ever think you were the cool one?" Shane demands, grabbing the strap of Ilya’s bag and redirecting him before catastrophe strikes, even though Ilya seems to just know exactly where everything is around him. "How?"

"I am very cool," Ilya points out, somehow managing to unzip and rummage through his bag while walking backward through the terminal. "Besides, I am your husband now. I am contractually obliged to annoy you out of that-" he taps Shane on the forehead with his passport, nearly dropping it, "-spiral of yours."

"You caused the spiral," Shane accuses, catching the passport mid-air and tucking it into Ilya's front pocket, a smile breaking through despite himself. "Are you like this every time you're at the airport?"

"I don't go on vacation," Ilya shrugs, stopping abruptly to buy a chocolate bar from a vending machine and offering half to Shane with a ceremonial bow. "If you think about it..." he pauses for dramatic effect, chocolate melting between his fingers, "we are vacation virgins."

"Excuse me?" Shane snorts, accepting the messy offering.

"It is our first time!" Ilya announces loud enough for nearby travelers to turn and try to decide if they recognize them. “But okay fine, we do it your way.” He clears his throat and lets his face settle into that infamous Rozanov stare.

Shane bursts out laughing before he can stop himself. And he eats the candy, because fuck it, they’re on vacation. And they’ve definitely worked up an appetite.

They do, in fact, end up losing Ilya’s case.

The luggage carousel realizes its moment in the sun and, instead of his suitcase, regurgitates a bouquet of battered gym bags and one suitcase so old it looks like it belongs in a museum.

Shane watches it lumber around twice, his own neat black case perched at his feet, and tries very hard not to point out that he was clearly right to have a little bit of a spiral.

He also tries not to look directly at Ilya’s face, which is frozen in an expression so perfectly baffled that Shane wants to photograph it for the wedding scrapbook.

“I don’t see it,” Shane says, just to confirm the obvious. And to avoid saying 'I told you so'.

“No, it will come,” Ilya says, in that steely, hope-pulverizing optimism that’s fueled every lost hockey game of his life. “Maybe it's just late?”

“It’s been half an hour,” Shane points out. “They’re about to start loading the next flight.”

Ilya doesn’t reply. Instead, he stalks the perimeter of the carousel like a bouncer waiting to eviscerate a particularly disrespectful patron, hands jammed into the pockets of his travel track pants. Shane can’t help remembering all the cute outfits he’d packed for Ilya in that suitcase. Goodbye, little pool-beach ensemble. Goodbye, super soft black shirt. Goodbye, mesh tee with the little cap sleeves that hugged his shoulders so lovingly...

He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s a little heartbroken for the mesh tee.

The carousel lurches to a stop with a high-pitched whine. Shane rocks back on his heels and clears his throat.

“Credit card, right?”

“Or I could stay naked the whole trip,” Ilya shrugs, annoyance lasting less time than it takes Shane to conjure a mental image of Ilya ordering some ridiculous fruity cocktail at a bar in his birthday suit.

Yes. And at the same time, a huge, resounding no.

He makes them stop by lost luggage, fills out the paperwork on Ilya’s behalf while his husband grabs them coffee, and starts concocting excuses to never leave the house.

When they pick up the hire car, he immediately regrets letting Ilya convince him they need a sports car. Even if the shiny red convertible is exactly up Ilya's street.

“I am driving,” Ilya announces, despite it being Shane’s name on the booking. “This is Europe, yes. It will be very confusing for a Canadian.” The car, a two-seater with leather seats, comes with a manual transmission and a dashboard filled with more cryptic warning lights than the bridge of a spaceship.

“You know we drive on the same side of the road,” Shane points out, checking his belt. He’s been in a car with Ilya before. It’s fine...

It’s… apparently very different to drive on an island than in a big North American city.

“I can drive, you know,” Shane points out, flicking the radio off its static station and then, out of habit, re-reading the directions to their first stop.

“No, you navigate,” Ilya insists, making an extravagant show of one-handed steering, the wind whipping his hair into a perfect storm behind him. “You are like Google, but for boring.”

“I’d like to arrive in one piece.”

“Of course.” Ilya smirks. “We have to die later, in bed. From too much sex.”

Ilya, infuriatingly, pilots the rest of the drive with absolute confidence, ignoring the lane lines like they’re gentle suggestions and flipping other drivers off with a cheerful, universal panache. He also sings along to the radio, loudly and off-key, in Spanish.

Forget the driving… Shane is going to die just looking at his husband. There’s so much joy in his chest that there can’t be room for anything so pointless as his lungs or heart. Every time Ilya beams at him with that big, lopsided smile of his, curls wild, his wedding ring glinting in the sun, that feeling just grows and grows.

He wonders, just for a second, what the chances of them driving off the road would be if he just leaned over and put his head in Ilya’s lap and maybe-

No. No. Bad idea. He can wait.

But fuck, it’s obscene how pretty Ilya is. He’s a menace, even to sunlight.

Feeling wildly daring and almost reckless with desire, Shane says, “Since when did you ever stick to the speed limit?”

It’s a taunt he’s hoping will prompt Ilya to get them to their location a little faster. One that backfires almost immediately.

Ilya lets the challenge hang between them, as hard to ruffle here as he can be on the ice. He flexes his fingers on the wheel, then slants a look so hot over his sunglasses that it prickles the back of Shane's neck. There’s nothing safe about his energy, nothing casual at all.

The next pass is a little too aggressive. Shane’s head thunks into the headrest as Ilya overtakes a local van on a hairpin, laughing low when the driver honks. Shane’s pulse spikes, and he can't decide if adrenaline or want is burning him up. The road turns, winding higher, and on one curve there’s a sudden break in the rocks leading to a disused pull-off with a crumbling stone wall and a dramatic sweep of ocean below.

Ilya yanks the wheel, hard. The car skids in beside the wall. Engine still running, they lurch to a stop so sudden that Shane is instantly, violently awake for the first time since dawn the day before.

“Jesus!” He twists, his heart kicking.

For a second, he isn’t really sure what is happening as Ilya takes his sunglasses off. Then he leans into Shane's space, bracing a hand on the back of the headrest.

He tugs Shane in for a kiss, rough, closed-mouth, then softer. Then open, hot, and deep enough to knock Shane’s head sideways, one hand sliding up to grab his jaw, the other walking up the inside of Shane’s thigh.

“We’re… fuck, Ilya, anyone could see,” Shane mutters, breaking for air, but he can’t stop smiling, can’t stop the shudder that goes down his spine as Ilya nips at his lower lip.

“Better keep your eyes open then, yes? Be our lookout.” Ilya’s palm finds his cock. Christ, he’s already half-hard and embarrassing himself. He tries to protest, reaches to push Ilya away, but Ilya captures his wrist, pins it to his thigh, and just stares at him. There is nothing in his face except hunger and awe, like Shane is the only thing that can fix the ache inside him.

“What, fuck… what are you doing?”

“Sometimes you are so slow, Hollander,” Ilya says. “It is lucky you are so pretty.”

“I’m not slow,” Shane says through his teeth, but he is. Slow to ask, slow to take, slow to ever believe Ilya could want him this much, every second. But the evidence is right here, now, the hand cupping him, the mouth already dipping to his neck, tongue painting little circles along the line of his pulse.

It escalates with no warning. Ilya gets the button of his shorts undone, the zipper yanked, then is crowding in, yanking him forward by the hips with such single-minded intent that Shane only manages an “Oh fuck-” and then there’s a mouth on him, hot and perfect and demanding. It’s circumnavigating and rearranging his entire nervous system, a hotwire loop from cock to spine to the thumping pulse behind his eyeballs.

There’s no build-up, no time to do anything but sink his free hand into Ilya’s hair and hold on for dear life. They’re still technically on a public road, he’s pretty sure anyone headed to the lookout would have full view of them, and it’s such a deranged and dangerous thought that it pulls a laugh out of him just as Ilya sucks him down all the way.

The heat of Ilya’s mouth crowds out every other sensation. He’s not gentle; it’s a deep, greedy pull, Ilya’s hand locked around Shane’s thigh, holding him so tightly that Shane could, if properly motivated, divide into atoms and dissolve in the salt air.

“Ilya, oh fuck!”

The sound that comes out of his mouth is obscene. He clamps down on it, palm over his own face, but that just leaves him wide open, nothing but the ache of Ilya’s tongue and the vise of his fingers and-

There’s a flash of panic - window, Jesus, where even is the window, is anyone watching? - but the world’s already collapsed to the heat of Ilya’s mouth, his hair bunched between Shane’s fingers, and the way he doesn’t pull back or even slow, like he wants to milk every last drop of release from Shane’s body and his brain at the same time.

It feels inexplicably like the most dangerous thing they’ve ever done.

He slumps back, limp, ribs creaking as he laughs through the aftershocks. Ilya sits up, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, and glances over at Shane with a smile that’s both beautiful and evil. “Feel better?”

“What the fuck was that?” He feels a little dizzy, and that’s only partly due to Ilya’s mouth.

“A blow job, last I checked.”

“Are you-?” Shane huffs a sound that would qualify as a whine if he were the type of person who whined. Which apparently he is. “Fuck, you can’t just… in a rental car. Why?”

Ilya shrugs. “Because I wanted to?” He stretches, twists, the taut bunch of his bicep framed perfectly by the open window. “And because you looked like you were about to climb into my lap. I am a very safe driver, Shane.” He says the last part so seriously, Shane wants to smack him.

“We-” Shane starts, then kind of giggles even as he’s trying to keep it together. “We should - fuck - can I - will you let me?” He can form a full sentence; he knows he can…

Ilya licks his lips and rubs Shane’s knee in soft, hypnotic circles. “Oh no, no. No, we are going to drive very safely to the villa, and then you are going to unpack everything, nice and neat, the way I know you want to…” Shane shudders because, yes, damnit, he does want to get everything unpacked, and it’s very annoying that Ilya is using that against him. “And if you are very, very good, I will fuck the jet-lag out of your brain.”

“And… and if I’m not?”

Ilya puts the car into gear and pulls them back onto the road. “Hmm. Then I will take a long, hot shower and jerk myself off, and you won’t be allowed to touch until you make it up to me.”

“That’s fucking mean,” Shane scowls. It’s one thing for Ilya not to touch him, but Shane isn’t actually capable of being in the same space, the same bed, and not being allowed to touch him.

“So be good,” Ilya says as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Annoyingly, it kinda is.

The villa is a slice of paradise, almost out of a catalogue. They’re greeted by a polite couple who give them a tour and promise very discreet on-call service. They live five minutes away and can be on hand with anything they need. Shane initially thinks groceries, but has the sneaky suspicion they could ask for pretty much anything within reason and have it delivered in a heartbeat. He doesn't trust Ilya not to ask for sex toys.

They leave with a cheery wave, and Shane half expects to be shoved up against the door the minute they’re alone.

Instead, Ilya helps him unpack, obligingly hanging items and placing them where he’s told. Shane is relieved to spot an array of spare toiletries laid out for their use in the en suite. He loves Ilya and has had his mouth on pretty much every part of him, but that doesn’t mean he’s in a rush to share toothbrushes. For some reason, Ilya finds that hilarious.

For some other reason, there’s Canada Dry in the fridge. Ilya hands him a can and leads him out onto the veranda.

Shane’s halfway through cataloguing the impossibly blue sky when Ilya grabs him by the wrist and tugs him with a single, coordinated motion that has Shane folding into his lap on one of the loungers. They both should be far too big for it to work, but Ilya maneuvers until Shane’s sitting sideways, legs slung over his, a hand bracketed around Shane’s ribs.

It’s ridiculous, and he loves it. He loves the view, the air, the weight of Ilya under him, the fact that if he just relaxes his fingers, their wedding rings press together in a near-perfect line.

They don’t even have to talk. It’s just the ocean and the wind and the soft motion of Ilya rubbing gentle patterns on Shane’s side, thoughtless and sweet.

Ilya breaks first, always does. “We're moving here,” he announces, squinting at the horizon with a kind of tragic longing. “I am done with Canadian winter. I am tropical now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Shane snorts, tipping his head back to rest against his shoulder. “You can be the one to tell the team.”

“They will be on my side.”

“It is very pretty,” Shane agrees.

“You are very pretty,” Ilya nuzzles at his neck. “I am excited for freckles.”

“What?”

“You get more freckles in the sun. They come out everywhere. On your nose and right here, and,” Ilya squishes a thumb under the curve of Shane’s cheekbone, “on your collarbones.”

“Okay. Are you going to count them?” Shane tries to sound annoyed. Fails. It’s not possible to be annoyed when Ilya is counting your freckles with his thumb.

“Yes. We must keep Wikipedia informed.”

“Of course,” Shane snorts, and shrugs Ilya’s hand off just so he can redirect it, lacing their fingers together. “You know I’ll just burn if you keep me out here.”

“I will rub you with lotion. Every day. Two times, if it helps.”

Embarrassment, sharp and strange, pricks at his jaw. How? How? “You will?”

“Of course. I am a very caring husband.” It's said entirely seriously. Shane laughs and lets himself imagine it, Ilya fussing over him with SPF 80, methodically hitting every inch just to be sure. “I buy you a big hat.”

“Oh god.”

“Sexy,” Ilya promises. “I'll get a matching one.”

“I am not wearing matching hats.” Shane tries for dignity. “That’s where I draw the line.”

Ilya frowns at the horizon, then has the gall to look genuinely contemplative. “If you say no to matching hats,” he says, as if it’s a non-negotiable clause in their marriage contract, “what will we match with? T-shirts? Maybe I get you a shirt with my face on it.”

Shane gives him a pained look that is only a little exaggerated, knowing that the second he gives ground, there will be something on Ilya’s Instagram. “You’re insane. You’re actually insane.”

“Thank you, yes.”

It’s new, this ability to sit and do nothing, to fill silence with teasing and not feel the ticking of a clock somewhere. Two months ago, Shane might have sprouted fungal anxiety at the thought of all this unstructured time. Now, with the infinity of the view and Ilya’s sun-soaked skin wrapped around him, he feels his busy brain soften around the edges.

Ilya seems to sense it, because he tightens his arms and asks, “When did you ever do this? As a kid. Vacation. What was it like for you?”

There’s a grain of curiosity, a real question, in the way Ilya studies the back of Shane’s hand, tracing over his wedding ring with the tip of his thumb.

“What, like an actual vacation?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, deadpan. “You go to Disney World, or… what do Canadian children do for vacation? Eat a lot of soggy cheese fries?”

Shane laughs, and the sound comes out bright, not strangled. He lets his head fall back to rest on Ilya’s shoulder, sunlight spattering his eyelids. “Mostly, I did hockey camps, if I’m honest. Summer, winter, whatever. My mom would build practice schedules into any trip.” If he goes looking, he can unbury memories of sunburned shoulders, jelly sandals, days at the lake smudged with sunscreen. But even those are tinged with the sound of stick taps, the thump of pucks against makeshift goals, parental voices ticking off drills. “We did a couple of family trips, though. Once to Japan? I think I was twelve. We went to some of the places her parents lived, and I tried really hard to learn Japanese.”

Ilya looks at him suspiciously. “You do not speak Japanese.”

Shane does, in fact, speak a little Japanese. About as much as he speaks Russian, though, granted, a whole lot more rusty. He grins and tells Ilya he wants to suck his dick in the best translation his tired brain can manage.

Ilya looks decidedly unhappy before hooking his arm under Shane’s knees. He hauls them both up off the lounger with barely a grunt of effort and carries Shane to the edge of the pool.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Shane yelps, grabbing at Ilya’s shoulder.

Ilya fucking dares and always does. He doesn't even hesitate. Shane has exactly two seconds to brace for it, feet kicking out uselessly, then they're both airborne, a tangle of limbs and weightless bickering, the world going sharp and blue before they hit the water with a noise like an artillery shell. He goes under, soundless for just a heartbeat, the shock of it swallowing everything into a saline hush. He surfaces, slicking hair out of his eyes, blinking up at the violent blue above him. Ilya punches up right beside him, shaking water from his curls and grinning like a demon. Their shouts bounce off the stone terrace, drift down to the ocean below.

“Fucking hell, you could have broken both our necks,” Shane blurts, grabbing the side of the pool.

“I am a pro athlete. You are very safe in my arms,” Ilya proclaims, but the sincerity in his face only lasts a second before he dunks Shane again, hands on his shoulders. Shane comes up gasping, laughter bubbling despite himself.

He doesn't fight it, couldn’t if he wanted to, with seventy percent of Ilya now physically merged into his personal space. Ilya’s hands cup the back of his head, water streaming off them both. For a second, they just hover, adrift in the cool, sunlit prism of the pool. Then Ilya kisses him, open-mouthed and thorough, tasting like chlorine and the aftershock of adrenaline.

They surface for air and then do it again. Every time they come together, it’s slightly messier than before.

“Are you trying to drown me?” Shane huffs, when he manages to catch a breath.

“You’re so dramatic.” Ilya noses his jaw, his wet hair slapping Shane in the eyes. “I love you.”

Shane tries to scowl, but he splutters out a laugh instead. It’s stupid, how warm he feels, how his chest hurts with wanting and having all at once. “Asshole,” he says, and lets Ilya push him back, pinning him to the tile at the deep end. Even when Ilya cages him in with both arms, Shane isn’t caged at all. He could slip out any time, but he doesn’t want to. He bobs in place, arms looped lazily around Ilya’s neck, eyes scrunched against the sunlight.

“I love you, too.”

“Can you say that in Japanese?” Ilya asks, looking hopeful.

Shane can, so he does, and he decides that no, the ocean has absolutely nothing on Ilya’s eyes.

For all his teasing, Ilya goes pink across the shoulders and nose far faster than Shane does. Within a couple more days, he’ll be golden, but for now, it gives him the look of a permanent blush. It turns Shane positively gleeful, and it gives him an excuse to chase him around with sunscreen.

Three days into their honeymoon, and they’ve done little but eat, sleep, and fuck under the sun. It’s weird how tired they both are, how lazy and slow they’re content to spend their days, but he supposes that’s the comedown of months, possibly even years of stress and fear.

Shane falls asleep in Ilya’s lap, tucked under his arm, and once, rather memorably, sprawled out over his back. Even if he wakes overheated and sticky, he’s never in a rush to be parted. Ilya does the same and is still decidedly upset they can’t both nap on the one inflatable sunbed that floats on the pool.

Now, he’s half asleep and boneless on a bed Shane has given up making every time they use it, and Shane… has an idea.

He leaves Ilya sprawled on his stomach and goes in search of supplies. There’s leftover aloe in the minifridge outside. He brings it back with two bottles of water and a full arsenal of SPF.

He sits beside Ilya, on the mattress, and just… looks at him. Sometimes he thinks their honeymoon is basically a shrine to the seven deadly sins. Right now, the whole room is just a temple of indolence, scent of skin and ocean, piles of towels and clothes that Shane’s given up on putting away, and Ilya, stark and beautiful, boxer-briefs and broad shoulders and tangled gold in his hair.

Ilya shifts - some semi-lucid instinct in his lizard brain kicking him toward the cool side of the sheets - and Shane seizes the opportunity, drizzling a line of aloe down the knobs of his spine.

Ilya’s “Mnnghff” is so aggrieved it’s almost childlike.

“Marriage,” Shane says, rubbing his hands briskly together, “demands I care for the rare and delicate species known as My Husband.”

He digs his thumbs in, working small circles, moving methodically. Each vertebra gets its own customized dose. His skin’s hot - not terribly so, but definitely a little cooked. It makes him smile, a spike of secret giddiness. A sun-warmed Ilya is a trusting, utterly unguarded thing.

He tries to roll away. Shane pins him with a forearm and keeps going.

He switches to the sunscreen, cold and white, and massages it in with the same gentle pressure, mapping out all the places too freshly pink to be ignored. The whole time, Shane’s brain is busy cataloguing the new geography of Ilya’s body, the way the backs of his arms, always pale, have gone a glossy peach, his freckles blooming in constellations Shane knows better than his own mind.

By the time he’s halfway through the ritual, Ilya is so melted that he barely makes a fuss when Shane flips him like a pancake and gets going on the fronts of his shoulders, then kneads his way down to the planes of his stomach.

“Are you even awake?” Shane asks, poking at the soft undercurve of Ilya’s bicep.

Ilya's eyes remain closed, but his lips curve into a smile. "Yes. Very awake." His voice is warm honey in the afternoon light.

"I can't believe we finally get to pop our vacation cherry and we're sleeping through most of it." Shane traces a reverent finger along the slope of Ilya's collarbone, tracing a scar so old and faded it’s easy to miss. An injury he knows Ilya never got from hockey.

Ilya's hand finds Shane's thigh, fingers spreading possessively. "Never understood how fruit was involved, but yes, Hollander. You took my vacation virginity, congratulations." The way he says Shane's last name is half-tease, half-prayer.

"Technically, you took mine, too," Shane says, his heart skipping as Ilya's thumb draws lazy circles against his skin.

"What happened to Japan?" Ilya's eyes flutter open now, seeking Shane's face like it's the sun he’s been blossoming under.

"I wasn't married when I went to Japan." Shane leans down and brushes his lips against Ilya's forehead. "Everything we've done since is basically the first time."

Ilya reaches up, cups Shane's cheek, and asks, "Does that mean I was a terrible brute on our wedding night?" His smug tone belies the tenderness of his touch.

"When we broke one of the bedside lamps and lost most of the buttons on our shirts?" Shane laughs, tweaking one of Ilya's nipples between his fingers. "Yeah, babe, you ravished me good."

"So if we divorce, and get married again..." Ilya's eyes dance with mischief, but his arms tighten possessively.

Shane shakes his head, pressing their foreheads together. "No. You're mine now. I'm not letting you off the hook that easily."

Ilya's smile softens. "Hmm. Yes, okay."

“You know… it also means that it was your first time, too.” He leans in so he can rest his forehead against Ilya’s, their noses brushing. It comes out soft. He means it to. “No one else got to have this with you.” Shane’s not sure what he’s trying to say, only that he means it, that he wants Ilya to know everything he gives, Shane takes in like a gift. He doesn’t want to say it directly, doesn’t want to break the spell of lazy sunshine with anything so clinical, but he wants to replace every bad memory Ilya has like a bead on a string, each one brilliant and clear and only - exclusively - belonging to them.

He wraps an arm around Ilya’s neck, rolling with him on the mattress, tumbling the sheets and pillows to the floor. “I want all your firsts,” he says, low and shaky. “I want all of them, even if they already happened.”

Ilya hauls in a long, ragged breath, all emotion, but he's hanging on to Shane so tight he might leave bruises. His eyes shine wet in the honeyed light. "Then I will just be yours?"

"Yes," Shane whispers, kissing Ilya's cheeks, his jaw, his forehead, everywhere he can reach, each kiss a promise, a vow as scared as the one shared on their wedding day. "My husband. My Ilya."

Ilya's hands tangle in Shane's hair, pulling him down for a kiss that Shane wants to last forever. "Okay. Yes. That is… I would like that."

Chapter 20

Chapter Notes

So after all that softness and warmth...

We're now in full speculation territory for post-TLG, and there's a fair bit I want to explore, so buckle up.

Previous content warnings in place for homophobia, racism, depression, suicide, and the complicated feelings that surround them.

I will state that Ilya's experience with antidepressants is absolutely NOT the standard for everyone, but that's also why I've not gone into detail about what drugs he's taking, or what dose. It really is different for everyone. But this is fic, and we're on the hurt side of the hurt/comfort divide, so pinch of salt etc. I can't believe it's taken 100k to get him to this point, but we're here, and the next few parts specifically are going to be unravelling a lot of the trauma that's been bubbling below the surface.

David is enjoying a well-earned nap after a day of tidying the yard when he’s woken, rather abruptly, by Yuna shoving her phone under his nose.

“Bhuh?” He flails blearily, catching her wrist in an attempt to make the image less blearily.

She’s in a state. Her thumb jabs at the phone, flicking through a gallery of what looks to David like a thousand paparazzi photos of Shane and Ilya trying to get coffee at an airport. They’re cute pics, at least from his perspective. Shane is wearing that soft, exasperated little smile he wears when Ilya is at his most hyperactive. Ilya looks like a kid in a candy store and is practically hanging off his arm.

“What the hell is this?” she demands. Not a question. “Have you read these?”

David wipes the sleep from his left eye, then the right. “Honey, it’s clickbait. The truth will perish in a server farm somewhere long before the first fact makes itself known.”

She zooms on the screen. Under a shot of Ilya with his arm draped around Shane’s neck, mid-laugh, the headline shrieks: “TERMINATED: ROZANOV'S SOFT NEW LIFE OFF THE ICE?” Another: “IS HOCKEY’S BAD BOY WHIPPED?” A third: “WHO IS REALLY WEARING THE PANTS IN THIS RELATIONSHIP?” Someone has helpfully photoshopped Ilya’s face onto a dog in a baby sling, cradled to Shane’s chest.

It’s honestly a step up from some of the more crude headlines he’s seen over the past few months. And knowing Ilya, something he’ll probably be more than a little entertained by. In some ways, he’s an incredibly sensitive man. In others, that ego is bulletproof.

She’s up now, stalking to the fridge. He can tell she’s really in a spin because she doesn’t even bother with a glass before slugging milk from the carton. “It’s childish! Like they haven’t won three cups between them!” There’s a bit of summer-thunder glee breaking through her indignation.

David is, frankly, grateful. They get a lot of nasty comments aimed at them, but it’s the cheap material that lands the hardest. He sits up and swings his legs off the ottoman. “It’s a thousand times better than the crap they got in the spring.”

Yuna huffs, rounding on him with the carton like an accusation. “I think we should let Ilya take them all out at center ice, one by one. Flatten their smug little faces. That should make a meme.”

David grins, warmth curling through. “You used to hate his play,” he says, and it’s meant as a gentle nudge, but he gets a look from her so sharp he almost hears the whine of a whetstone.

“I hated when he played against Shane,” she corrects, setting the milk down with a thud. “But now?” She points, one finger flashing. “That’s our boy out there. I want him to obliterate people. Smash them to atoms.” She crosses her arms. “Metaphorically.”

“Metaphorically,” David grins. “It looks like they had fun, though.” Aside from one rather unhinged FaceTime that ended with Ilya diving bombing off the side of a boat, contact during the boys’ time away has mostly consisted of very cute pics to the group chat, and Ilya breaking Instagram with a picture of a bucket-sized cocktail complete with two straws, and the caption ‘@HaydenPike tell your wife we miss her’. That, according to Shane, was the compromise he’d managed to talk Ilya down to.

“Have you spoken to Harris?” he asks, knowing for a fact that she scares the life out of the Centaurs’ social media manager. Now there is a man whose job he doesn’t envy. Especially not for the upcoming season.

She glances sideways at David, lips pinched, expecting him to say something to make the internet less absurd. Eventually, she’s the one to break. “They act like Shane’s a soft-hearted woodland creature, just waiting to be led astray.” A sniff, wounded pride on behalf of her son.

David huffs. That would be the racism, but he doesn’t need to tell her that.

She scowls, stabs at her phone again, and scrolls to another image. “Look at the way they frame all of this. “HOLLANDER’S ‘BIG FALL’ FROM GRACE”. Big fall! They’re never going to let that go, are they? And now every moron on the internet thinks Ilya’s some kind of… I don’t know… evil soviet sex spy!”

Okay, that one he knows for a fact had Ilya in stitches. Shane, not so much, but he’s taken anything to do with their outing and Russia far harder than Ilya has.

David has to admit, it’s almost funny how easily the media paints Ilya as the Big Gay Menace, corrupting Hockey’s Favorite Son. He knows for a fact that Shane not only directs the debauchery, but he schedules it, coordinates snack breaks, and color-codes the aftermath. He rather wishes he didn’t know it, but he does. Still, there’s a little twist under his ribs at how easily the world scraps all that in favor of a simple story.

He crosses the kitchen and slides an arm around her waist, rests his chin on her shoulder, and watches as the text ticker at the bottom of her phone scrolls through a list of “influencers” weighing in on “the drama.” She leans back into him with a tired sigh, tension melting away only a little.

Then eyes narrow in that way David knows all too well. "You know..." she says, in that very even tone of voice that always means she's plotting something, her thumb hovering over her phone screen. "Technically, I have access to Shane's social media accounts..."

"No," David scolds, wrapping his arms more firmly around her waist. "Absolutely not."

She tilts her head back against his shoulder, looking up at him with mock innocence. "I could just..."

"Yuna!" He presses a quick kiss to her temple, trying not to smile. She huffs, leaning into his embrace. "There's absolutely nothing you can do that wouldn't be pouring fuel on a fire. Ignore it," he murmurs against her hair. "They'll shut everyone up when they win the cup next season."

Her body softens against his, fitting perfectly against him after all these years. "You know what's going to be beautiful?"

"What?"

She turns in his arms, eyes bright with mischief. "The look on every one of these assholes' faces when our kids stomp them into the ice. I can't wait." Her fingers play with the collar of his shirt as she continues, "I'm going to get every single game on a billboard. And then I'm going to buy up every ad slot Seiko has ever owned and fill it with pictures of Shane and Ilya holding that cup." She's practically vibrating with maternal pride, her smile wide and fierce. "I have already drafted out the emails."

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, his chest tight with affection. He loves her so much he almost can't stand it.

Not only does Yuna have drafts written, she has multiple versions lined up and ready to go. No one holds a grudge quite like his wife, and by god is she going to make sure everyone who turned their back on Shane will not only live to regret it, but likely lose their job in the process. 

That's undoubtedly going to be the topic of conversation when they head to the boys' place for lunch. 

Or it would be, if the need to make ad execs cry isn't immediately erased from their minds when Shane opens the front door.

It’s been less than a month since their wedding, and even less time than that since the photo of the two of them at the airport started to circulate. No time at all, really, and yet… Shane looks exhausted. He’s still wearing the sun-kissed look of a man who hid away in paradise with his new husband for two weeks, but dark circles ring his eyes like bruises.

“Shane…” Yuna sounds horrified. David is horrified.

Shane rubs the heel of his palm into his eyes and summons up a wobbly smile. “Ilya’s out back with Anya. Can you… just go slow with him, okay?”

“What’s going on, kiddo?”

“I was gonna call and tell you not to come, but I don’t wanna fight with him again and… I don’t know, maybe it’ll do him good.”

David glances toward the patio doors, the bright glare off the glass making it hard to see anything beyond the green. “You’re fighting?” There can be a dip after the honeymoon, he knows that from experience, and it must be so much more intense for the boys, given all they had to overcome just to get where they are now. After meteoric highs and some pretty catastrophic lows, 'normal' is probably a shock to the system.

The hesitation in Shane’s eyes is enough to give him heartburn. The kid tilts his chin up, comes close, then stares at the floor. “No. Not exactly.” He’s seen Shane exhausted and burnt out before, seen him stretched too thin by the life built around him. Hell, he probably looked worse during the fallout of the FanMail incident. It’s just… god, he looked so happy last time they saw him. So healthy and alive. It's hard to imagine Ilya letting him get so bad without staging a full on intervention.

“They started him on antidepressants earlier in the week,” Shane explains, leading them through the house. He doesn’t blink. “It’s a… Christ, I don't even know. Titration, I guess. They want to see how he reacts, adjust up if needed. It’s been… a lot.”

David closes the distance between them, not a hug, but a grounding touch along Shane’s upper arm. “He’s been sleeping?” He knows from friends that sleep can get pretty weird when starting antidepressants sometimes.

“Not for the last,” Shane checks his watch, “Thirty-five and a half hours.” His voice is very small. Jesus, okay, well, no wonder Shane looks so bad. 

Yuna is all business. “When did he last take them?”

“This morning. They make some people drowsy so he started off taking them in the evening, but he couldn’t sleep, so he swapped, and now… he’s not sleeping at all.”

David's hands flex at his sides. "Any other side effects?" he asks, because it helps to have some baseline to work back from instead of dissolving into worry.

Shane nods, his fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against his thigh. "Yeah. The usual, according to the docs. Dizziness. Nausea. He can't eat." His voice cracks. "He's convinced it'll go away in a couple days, but I've been reading, and it… it can get bad before it gets better, if these are even the right drugs and-"

"Shane-" David steps forward, placing both hands on Shane's shoulders, steadying him.

Shane pulls in a slow breath, and David's chest aches in echo, that old familiar flutter of parental helplessness.

Yuna moves in, gently easing David aside. She pulls Shane into her arms and guides him down to rest his head on her shoulder, one hand cradling the back of his neck. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do, okay?" She waits until Shane slowly nods against her. "Dad is going to work his magic and pull something nice and light together for lunch."

David nods, squeezing Shane's arm. Absolutely. He can do that.

"You're gonna go take a shower and lie down for a bit-" Yuna continues, her thumb brushing away the moisture gathering at the corner of Shane's eye.

"Mom-" Shane starts to pull away.

David presses a firm hand to his son's back. "You can't help him if you're dead on your feet, honey. You leave your husband to us, okay?"

"He's…" Shane swallows hard, looking between them. "Don't take it personally. If he's an asshole. He's feeling pretty rough."

Yuna looks amused, smoothing Shane's rumpled hair. "I'm not scared of Ilya Rozanov, Shane. Go on."

Reluctantly, Shane does as he’s told.

Yuna squares her shoulders and heads straight for the patio. David follows, not out of obligation but because he’s had his own face-offs with insomnia, and there’s every chance Ilya will respond better to them in Russian. It's hard enough operating in one language when you're exhausted, let alone two. 

He half expects to find the kid up and about, maybe pacing the yard like a caged thing, or at a stretch working through some kind of grueling, masochistic exercise routine. Instead, Ilya’s planted on the edge of one of the low garden walls, eyes fixed on the hedge, every part of him slack as a puppet left abandoned. Anya sits at his feet, looking almost as miserable as he does.

And dear god, does he look miserable. And like he's about to either pass out or throw up at any second.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Yuna says, keeping her hands tucked at her side, her voice the careful, gentle version reserved for concussions and heartbreak. “Will you come sit inside with us?” He can tell as quickly as she can that they need to get Ilya horizontal, and preferably away from so many sharp, hard surfaces. 

He doesn’t answer, but after a minute he stands, slow and weirdly careful, and trails after her past the grill and through the glass doors. David steps aside to let him pass, trying not to react to the way Ilya’s face has gone waxy around the mouth, his cheekbones sunken, and his dull eyes the only color in his ashen face.

They end up in the living room, where Yuna pulls a fleece throw off the back of the couch and arranges the cushions into a makeshift nest. Ilya sits, then shuffles, clearly uncertain how to fold himself into the space of domestic comfort. His hands hover and then commit to a knot at his knees. He looks anywhere but at them.

Yuna settles in comfortably, almost swallowed whole by the enormous couch, and with a gentle tug of encouragement, pulls Ilya down with her.

David isn’t really sure how much Ilya is really conscious of, but Yuna’s always been able to turn him soft as putty. He folds, turns his back to the room, and lets her guide his head down onto the cushion in her lap. “There you go,” she soothes.

Ilya’s broad shoulders are a wall to the world, one David is careful to respect as he helps Yuna settle the blanket around them before shuffling off to the kitchen. 

It’s an hour almost to the dot when Shane comes back downstairs. The kid has powernapping down to a carefully timed science, but looks only marginally better when he joins David at the kitchen table. “He’s with your mom,” David assures him. “They’re fine.” With any luck, Yuna will have won the war with whatever refused to let Ilya rest. 

Shane nods slowly, rubbing his eyes. The poor kid has never been very good at knowing how to handle things he can't immediately fix or take action on. 

There’s soup on the stove and a salad cooling in the fridge, both of which he portions up for his son. Shane’s appetite is always quick to go when he’s stressed or worried, but it’s also the one area David feels little guilt at using his systems against him. Remind Shane that his efficiency will drop if he doesn’t properly maintain his body, and he’ll scowl his way through a meal. It’s a little underhanded, but he works with what he’s got.

David eats when Shane eats. It takes a while, but once Shane has a few sips of the miso, he seems to grow back into himself by increments, color returning to his face, if not quite light to his eyes. David finds reasons to linger, leaning back with his coffee, pretending to scroll through the news on his phone. 

Eventually, Shane drags a hand across his mouth, scrubbing away the shadows of fatigue. “It’ll be better when pre-season kicks off. When he has something else to focus on.” It’s an awkward pivot, but one David recognizes instantly; it’s how Shane has always tried to steady himself, by pinning his heart to the clean white lines of a game plan.

“You know how your coach is going to want to play things with the two of you?” David can play along for as long as Shane needs to ground himself.

“Not yet, but Ilya and I have some thoughts. Kinda all depends on the wings, and he’s pretty confident they can run with it.” Shane shrugs, but his face goes stiff with a kind of anticipation that’s been missing the last few months with Montreal. “We’ll be fine. We already started tuning the lines, even if the top six is in total disarray.”

David hums, waiting for more. Shane’s brain is a thing of beauty in these moments, all algorithm churning and analysis, always a new permutation waiting in the wings. It’s mostly what David misses most about having him at home… that chance to watch it unfold live, like the world’s most delicate clockwork.

“People know how we play each other, and they can probably make some guesses how we’d work on a line after the All Stars, but we’ve got room to get really creative with us both at center.” David feels something close to glee, thinking of the annihilation the two of them will enact, and not just for Yuna's sake. It’s something to go up against Shane Hollander. Something else entirely to go up against Ilya Rozanov. But at least in the past, their opponents had to manage them only in short stints. Now, it will pretty much always be one or the other. And Shane is right. If they can get Haas, Boodram, and Barrett on the same page, then they can really fuck with people. David’s a little giddy already.

David leans forward with a conspiratorial grin and asks, "When do you play Montreal?" 

Shane rolls his eyes, flicking a stray crumb at his father. "Don't you start. Ilya's bad enough. The guys are already placing bets on how long it takes him to throw his gloves."

"You taking that bet?" David waggles his eyebrows.

"Of course not." Shane straightens, affecting an exaggerated air of dignity. "I wouldn't dream of demeaning the sport like that."

David reaches across to ruffle his hair. "Uh huh? Which one is cutting you in?"

Shane ducks away, flushing pink as he smooths his hair back down. "Bood," he admits, lips quirking. "Mostly to mess with Ilya."

“You tease that poor boy too much,” he says, knowing exactly how Shane will react.

“That ‘poor boy’ is a menace!” But any playful protest quickly falls flat as the reality of their day sinks back in. “What if this was a bad idea?” Shane asks softly. He jams a finger against his temple, breath shallow. "What if it doesn't work? He was happy, Dad. He was really happy, and now it's like… I’ve never seen him like this. Even when it got bad last year. What’s the point in taking something that’s just gonna turn him into a zombie?”

David wishes he had an answer, but all he can really do is listen.

Shane sighs, his voice tight. "I know the first couple of weeks can be bad. I get that, I just… fuck I guess neither of us thought it would be this bad." He laughs, a short, brittle hiccup, and David wants to reach across the counter and hold him the way he used to when the kid was five and couldn’t sleep after a loss. "It's selfish, right? I just want him back the way he was before."

David shakes his head gently. "It’s not selfish to want something to be easy for once. And look, maybe this dose isn’t right, or he’ll respond better to a different drug, or no drugs, I don’t know, but you have to give it some time, okay? I wish you didn’t, but you do." He wants to say more, but doesn’t. Sometimes the hardest part of parenting is letting your child sit with their own pain, not heading it off at the pass, no matter how badly you want to.

"It's just… it's scary," Shane says, knuckles white around his mug. "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and he'll be gone, not because he wants to be, but just because-" His voice falters, but he doesn't look away. "He was so present," he says, and David knows what he means. They’re going through the kind of emotional rollercoaster David doesn’t wish on anyone. "And now he's just… gone somewhere in his head and... it's dark in there." The fear in his face is a kind David will never get used to.

He wants to tell Shane that it isn’t going to last, that Ilya’s going to swing back up just like everything is perfect. But he knows better. This isn’t an overtime deficit or a missed shot that gets evened out in the next period. It’s a long game, and sometimes you just never do more than even the score.

“He’s still talking to his therapist?” David asks, because that’s ground, something tangible they can latch onto.

Shane nods, lips pressed tight. “Yeah. He called her this morning. She said to call Terry if things don’t improve by tonight.” That fear seems to be enough to see them to the end of Shane’s patience. He pushes back his chair, heading to the living room. David follows.

They find Yuna and Ilya in a perfect tableau of enforced domesticity. Ilya on his side, coiled tight around an armful of blanket, his legs tucked up, hair a wild map of exhaustion, with Yuna sitting at his head gently raking her fingers through the knots. Anya sprawls in solidarity by the couch, her chin flattened to the floor, ears splayed. The TV is running some sort of nature program on low, deer pushing velveted antlers through mist at the edge of a lake.

Shane stands beside the couch, uncertain, hands fidgeting in the hem of his shirt. “He’s out?” he whispers, looking hopeful.

Yuna doesn’t turn, but her hand stills and then starts again, in slow, steady strokes. “For now. Don’t get your hopes up. I think he’s dreaming,” she murmurs, and tugs gently enough on a curl to lull Ilya into a deeper sprawl. The kid’s eyelids flutter, but he doesn’t wake.

David nods to Shane, letting him decide whether to join or observe. He perches on the opposite side of the couch, picks up a day-old newspaper, and lets his eyes blur the blocks of type. He usually likes the crosswords, but his mind is full of maps, the kind with ghostly overlays of all the ways things can go wrong if he stops paying attention.

Shane doesn’t trust the peace enough to sit down. He stands sentry, not watching the TV so much as taking inventory of every microshift in Ilya’s breathing. After a while, when some of the paranoia seeps out, he drops onto the rug, tucks his knees up, and folds his arms across them, chin balanced on his forearm. Every few minutes, he looks up to check the rise and fall of Ilya’s chest.

David tries not to stare. He does the crossword, lets his mind run slow over the clues, but the words knot up. Yuna’s hand never stops moving, even when Ilya shudders in his sleep. 

The afternoon stretches thin, and the only thing that changes is the drift of sunlight along the carpet. He takes Anya around the block, thinking to let her run around and burn off some energy, but she wants to be back as much as he does. No one has moved at all while they’re gone, so he fetches Yuna some coffee and waits at her side to hold her mug between sips, knowing she can’t reach anything stable enough to set it down on.

Somewhere in that nebulous time when afternoon becomes evening, Ilya starts to fidget.

It’s small at first, tiny twitches in his toes, a flex of fingers that pull at the edge of the blanket heaped over his thighs. Then it gets worse, shifting into a full-body tension that ropes along the line of his neck and jaw, his shoulders jackknifing forward like he’s bracing for a collision. Yuna keeps up her soothing, barely-there touch, but her fingers move from idle to a deliberate anchor, pressing slow circles just behind his ear.

David tries not to hover. Instead, he stands by the archway, cradling his own coffee and pretending his focus is on the TV It doesn’t stop him from cataloguing the way Ilya shows his distress… no sound at all, but a bad tremor in his hands and the rise of a high, thready intake of breath.

Shane shifts, one knee up, laying his palm over Ilya’s ankle and gently massaging circles with his thumb. “Shhh, it’s alright.”

Then Ilya jerks. Not quite awake, but lost in the undertow of some nightmare. He tries to burrow deeper into the blanket. Then the noises start. Not words at first, just tiny, animal whines, every mechanism he’s got for holding back the world melting from the inside out.

Yuna catches David's eye and nods once, sharp and clear. They’ve practiced this. Her wonderful mind is made for numbers and business more than it is for linguistics, but she’s a militant student.

They’ve talked, the two of them, about the times Ilya has slipped and called David ‘dad’. About the near certainty they both have that he probably won’t do the same with Yuna. Replacing a monster, even one Ilya loved, is a different thing entirely from replacing a woman crystallized in perfection by trauma and grief.

The plan has always been to keep things clean and simple. Not to attempt to replicate something neither of them understands, but to offer another kind of reassurance in its place.

“Sleep,” Yuna says, her Russian slow and careful. “You’re safe. Sleep.”

On the floor, Shane looks silently devastated as the tension immediately bleeds from every line in Ilya’s body.

He twists in Yuna’s lap, lashes fluttering as if on the verge of waking, and then, in a voice hoarse with sleep, whispers the way a child’s heartbreak reforms as an adult’s plea. “Why did you go? Why did you leave me here?”

Shane is off the floor and pacing before the last word is spoken, all but shaking as he blinks back tears.

Yuna doesn’t speak Russian. She likely doesn’t understand exactly what Ilya asked. She can probably take a guess, regardless.

“I love you,” she says, the other phrase they’ve practiced, then repeats, “You’re safe. Sleep.” Her accent is thick, but there’s a cadence to it that softens Ilya’s breathing, slowing the chitter and catch of his breathing.

Ilya’s not awake. David knows that. It doesn’t stop the next words he breathes from breaking his heart. “Should have stopped him,” Ilya mumbles. His breathing shudders, a long, slow wind through the ruins of whatever nightmare held him. Then he flinches once, goes loose, and settles into the deep, boneless slack of actual sleep.

Shane turns and steps onto the deck as soon as Ilya stills. He keeps his head down, shoulders set and urgent, muscle memory alone trying to haul him through panic. The door clicks shut behind him. His face is blank as polished marble, but his hands are shaking.

David waits a beat, lets the quiet re-settle around the room, then follows. Yuna holds up a hand when he passes in a warning not to rush, so he ghosts through the kitchen, collecting the mugs and cleaning them to soothe the chaos as he goes. He should give it longer - a full five, maybe ten minutes, let Shane walk it off - but he can’t. He returns the clean mugs to their home and slips outside.

The late-summer air hits like balm after the bricked-in tension of the living room. Shane stands by the edge of the main path, back to the house, his head tipped up to a sky already turning navy. David walks over, careful to shift his weight loud enough that Shane won’t startle, and settles on the bench facing the yard, puts his elbows on his knees, and waits.

They do this sometimes, the two of them. Stand or sit, shoulder to shoulder. No eye contact, nothing said. He lets the minutes unspool. Insects drone the summer’s last warning from the flowerbeds. Somewhere in the far distance, music starts up, a kid’s party in the hazy dusk. Shane doesn’t move.

When he speaks, it’s so low David nearly misses it. “I don’t know how to hate someone as much as I do them.”

David recognizes the fracture in his son’s voice, the faint, barely-there quaver that means Shane is holding on by threads. He sits with the words and lets the confession breathe between them. There’s a deep, evolutionary part of him that wants to suggest violence, find the source of Shane’s hatred and throttle it out of the world, but it’s too late for that. The damage is old and set deep.

He spits on the memory of Grigori Rozanov, privately, and for the hundredth time. He’s been dead for years and still manages to scuttle through the ruins of his son’s dreams. David hates the old man on Ilya’s behalf, on Shane’s, on behalf of anyone who ever lost sleep because of the selfish destruction of a father.

There’s no good answer to hatred. It’s not a puzzle the way hurt is. Hurt, at least, can be tended, cleaned, stitched if necessary. Hatred just breeds more of itself, a self-consuming fever. If anything, watching Shane struggle with it makes David hate the dead man even more.

But the real target is Alexei. He’s alive, which makes him easier to blame. There’s a dull, persistent drumbeat in David’s head, the echo of every story he’s been able to assemble about the older Rozanov boy. Whatever loyalty the word ‘brother’ suggests, it’s been torched, salted, and bulldozed out of meaning between him and Ilya. It’s not even really anger that registers… just the stunned, hollow awe of what people are capable of inflicting on each other when they share blood and nothing else.

But what sticks, more than anything, is the look Shane is starting to hide when Ilya says something good about his mother that is really little more than the one faint silver lining in the life of a child shaped deeply by trauma. What can a boy do, when the only person who ever loved him right is gone, and everyone left is watching? That’s the question he knows is circling Shane’s head. The same one he struggles with as a parent, no matter how badly he wants to sit only with empathy. How could she leave, knowing what she was consigning him to?

How could anyone abandon their children to a terror like that?

That confusion, that anger… honestly, that’s what scares David the most. Shane, too, he supposes. Because once it fades and that empthy creeps back in, he knows Irina Rovanova loved her sons. He can see it in the way Ilya glows with her memory. She loved them. And she still did what she did. How horrifyingly bleak was her life, despite all that love? It's an inescapable reminder that maybe love isn't enough.

It’s a strange kind of jealousy, David thinks, that primitive urge to claim a monopoly on suffering for the ones you love. Shane is sick with it, turned inside out by the knowing that even dead parents can still wield power. He wonders how often Ilya has spoken to his mother’s memory, sent silent messages across whatever boundary exists, and asked her why she didn’t stay, just once, just long enough to save him.

David knows there’s no lesson to be drawn from this, no wisdom to transmit. He wants to find a lever to flip, a word or a gesture that will let Shane set it down and move on. But the bench is all splinters, and the world is still spinning, and the only wisdom David has is that there’s no fixing it tonight.

Shane settles down beside him, close enough for David to put his hand over Shane's, thumb running small, idle circles. "You're allowed to hate them."

"Even…?"

"Even."

"Feels pretty shitty."

"Never said it wouldn't."

Shane snorts, some of the tension ebbing from his shoulders. "Thanks." He scrubs his free hand across his face, fingers pressing against the dark circles under his eyes.

David reaches up to squeeze the back of Shane's neck, the way he used to when Shane was small and hurting. "We can't help how we feel, kiddo. Just what we do with it."

"Maybe punching Alexei again would help?" Shane's voice cracks on his brother-in-law's name.

"Sure. Or you could-"

"I know… fuck, I know." Shane's shoulders slump further, the fight draining out of him. "I just… I don't know how the hell he coped after that hit with Marlow. I wanna climb the walls, and I know exactly where he is. I can see him breathing. I can touch him."

David doesn't know either, irrationally guilty that he'd not been able to offer some comfort back then. He wonders what might have happened if Ilya had given in, if he'd come to them and told them he was in love with their son. Would they have even believed him? Would they have sent him away, and maybe ruined the chance of the kind of relationship they have now? Would they have listened to Ilya Rozanov, Shane's famous rival, captain of the man who had knocked their boy unconscious?

He pulls Shane closer, wrapping an arm around shoulders that have carried too much, too young. "He's a tough kid."

"Yeah," Shane says bitterly, leaning into his father's embrace with the exhaustion of a man who's been standing guard too long. "The toughest."

They stay outside until the last of the sun dips below the trees, then Shane takes a deep breath. He's back in the game, all that fear and hurt back under control.

"You wanna head back inside?" David offers, pushing himself up from the bench with a slight grunt.

"Yeah, I think mom needs tagging out." Shane rubs at the back of his neck, the gesture so familiar it makes David's heart ache.

"Oh, I don't know, she's got sudoku on her phone," David says, lips quirking into a half-smile. "She's probably got another few hours in her."

David trails Shane through the sliding door, the hush of the kitchen giving way to the TV’s burble and, under that, the soft drone of Yuna’s voice. She still has Ilya locked to her side, one hand tracing loops at his nape, the other lazily flicking at a puzzle on her phone as she hums under her breath.

It’s a long time before Shane gets the nerve to lean in, mouth close to Ilya's ear. He whispers something in Russian. David doesn’t catch it all, but it’s quiet and urgent, the kind of phrase you’d murmur over a fevered brow. Ilya, still well and truly gone, barely twitches. Only the tiniest scrunch in the corner of his eyelid betrays anything behind the wall of sleep.

The worry knotting Shane’s brows softens into affection. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair, I guess. Come on then.”

David settles on the arm next to Yuna and watches, quietly impressed, as Shane gently tugs Ilya’s arm around his neck. He stills, waiting to see if the movement will wake him, but when Ilya doesn’t twitch, Shane tucks his other arm under his knees and lifts him off the couch.

“You with me?” Shane murmurs, adjusting his grip on Ilya’s thighs.

Ilya’s lashes don’t so much as flutter. Not even the faintest sound. Shane shakes his head, then cranes sideways so he can bump his cheek to Ilya’s without dropping him. “I’ll take that as a no,” he breathes, already moving for the stairs.

“Need a hand?” David offers, always taken aback by just how strong both the boys are.

“Nah,” Shane says quietly. “I got him.”

“If he wakes up, give us a call, and we can bring you up something to eat.”

“Thanks. For that. And this. And just... maybe don’t mention anything, when he wakes up.” David isn’t sure if Shane means the dream, or what’s happening right now, but he imagines Ilya will be mortified either way. He doesn’t have to be, not with them, but some instincts take a lifetime to break.

“Any time, honey,” Yuna smiles. David squeezes the back of her neck, tethering the livewire he can see sparking behind her eyes. They wait until Ilya and Shane are out of sight before sliding into each other's space. “I think I hate the universe,” she admits, tilting her head against his shoulder.

“Little bit,” he agrees.

Chapter 21

Chapter Notes

Sorry for the delay!

Chapter warnings: depression, suicide, mentions of domestic violence and child abuse.

This part is pretty damn heavy for Shane and Svetlana. They're doing their best (and both should really have their own therapists! Sveta, looking at you espeically babe...). Again, this is not the universal experience of depression or suicidal ideation. We're also looking at everything through the lens of someone who was a child themselves when most of this was happening, so take a pinch of salt, etc.

Not sure if you'll be pleased or worried to know Sasha will be back on the scene in the next chapter...

But! A little silver lining! This all takes place BEFORE the TLG epilogue....

Svetlana’s new phone is at least twice as smart as her boyfriend, and nearly as multifunctional. It tells her the best time to eat breakfast, and then scolds her when she forgets to input her hydration. It tracks her menstrual cycles with the intensity of a border collie and, two days ago, delivered a push notification suggesting “reduced strenuous activity for the next 36 hours.” Last time she checked, working in professional sports, men’s professional sports especially, was never all that good for anyone’s stress level, even out of season. Especially out of season.

Her phone also tells her, with the obnoxious optimism of a machine that doesn’t know any better, that it’s been eight days since either Ilya or Shane looked at their messages.

“I still say they’re just having a lot of wild sex,” Cliff says, not for the first time that day. He somehow manages to hold his own phone and both their cups of coffee in one giant hand, patient as she listens to ‘This is Ilya, I will never listen-’

She scowls, throws her expensive, shiny, useless fucking phone into her purse, and gratefully takes her coffee. Cliff barely remembers where he parks his car, but he has never once forgotten her order.

The departure lounge is pretty quiet for the time of day, and for once, Ottawa isn’t bitterly cold and buried under several feet of snow. “This is Ilya,” she points out, finding it weird as she always does, using his government name. “He’d take at least one call just to brag about the wild sex.”

Maybe not quite… he is very protective of Shane, but he’d send her a suggestive emoji at the very least.

The last time he left her on read for this long, she’d ended up on a flight to Moscow and had to drag his reckless, self-destructive ass out of a mutual friend’s houseparty. Then spent the next two days half convinced he was going to die in his sleep. She’s still not fully forgiven Sasha for that one, and he knows it. That was ten years ago. He sometimes takes a few days to get back to her, but not a week. Not longer.

And Shane is too polite to ignore her on the rare instance she messages him directly.

"Babe-" Cliff reaches for her free hand, thumb stroking over her knuckles.

She's going to spill her coffee if she clutches it any tighter. An elderly couple walks past, shoulders brushing, matching plaid luggage trailing behind them. They look totally, obnoxiously Canadian in their happiness. 

"You think I am being irrational," she says, testier than she means to be, but doesn't pull her hand away.

Cliff shrugs, lacing their fingers together. "I mean, I thought that when you booked our flights, but like… worst case scenario we accidentally see more of their junk than we wanna and grab a couple days vacation." He tugs her closer, presses a quick kiss to her temple. "Look-" he lets go of her hand to fish a guidebook out of the back pocket of his jeans.

"…how often have you been to Ottawa?"

"Way too often," he shudders, bumping his shoulder against hers. "But that's for work. Doesn't count. They got a lotta museums."

Because, as it turns out, he’s a museum guy.

Every day she learns something new to love about this ridiculous man. “Thank you. For indulging my…” she doesn’t even know what to call it, other than a gut instinct. Paranoia? None of them is the same person they were as kids, but some instincts are just dug in far too deep.

When he looks down at her, it’s with that sweetly serious furrow of his brow she knows to mean he is being nothing but earnest. “Maybe I haven’t known him as long as you have,” he admits, “but I do know him pretty well, and I’ve seen him make some… questionable choices. If you’re worried, then I think maybe you’ve got good reason.”

“I really hope I don’t.”

" Yeah, me too." Cliff hefts both their carry-ons with one arm, using his free hand to flag down a cab from the lineup. " I kinda like Hollander. And I'm not gonna lie, I am psyched to play the two of them. Be a pity to have to kill him before the season starts."

Svetlana doesn’t think Shane is the problem. He’s never been the problem, even if he has been the catalyst. But maybe she’s been stupid to think he could be the solution. She knows better than most how hard it can be to fight the tides of Ilya’s moods, no matter how strong a swimmer you might be.

The cab pulls up with a squeal of brakes. As Cliff loads their luggage, Svetlana stares at her phone one more time. Nothing.

"Let' s hold off on the murder for now, Zaya," she says, sliding into the backseat.

"What' s that one mean again?" Cliff ducks his head to join her, his knees wedged against the front seat.

She doesn’t even hesitate to explain. Most men would take offence at being called any variation of a bunny rabbit, but Cliff just grins at her. Thanks to Ilya, his knowledge of Russian has three very clear lanes: how to tell someone to fuck off, how to tell them that ‘the puck is right fucking there, idiot’, and how to order a drink at a bar. It’s probably best that he keep it that way.

Their cab waits patiently outside the gate of Ilya and Shane’s house, and the long delay before someone answers the buzzer doing nothing to help her nerves.

Then Ilya’s voice answers, full of gravel: “What?”

He’s okay. And she’s so suddenly, breathlessly angry she can’t think, just leans between the front seats so she can answer. “You’re alive, good. Now let us in.”

“What? Sveta? What are you doing-”

“We’re here to murder you, shithead,” she snaps, sticking to Russian to avoid spooking their driver. These Canadians can be very delicate sometimes. “Open the fucking gate!”

Before Svetlana quite finishes gnashing her teeth, the lock emits a faint clunk, and the gates swing open at a stately, smug pace. Cliff looks at her sideways, and for a half-second she catches her reflection in his sunglasses, hair squiggling everywhere, her face stretched tight. She rearranges herself quickly, smoothing worry and irritation back to a faint, breezy smile that lasts for all of five seconds.

The cab spits them out by the front door. Stressed, anxious, and increasingly annoyed, she stomps ahead while Cliff lingers to settle up, bantering with the cabbie and giving a tip so juicy it makes his eyes bulge. That’s a man who is never not trying to make friends, she thinks lovingly, and shoves the front door before it even rings.

She steps over a very expensive dog bed, rounds into the main living space, and finds Ilya half-collapsed on the sectional, feet bare, chin in his hands, hair a mushroom cloud over his face. This is not a man who has just spent eight days post-honeymoon in a wave of domestic bliss with his adorable Canadian husband. He’s a raccoon who’s crawled in from the highway after getting hit by three cars.

On the arm of the same couch is Shane. Stock-still, bone-white, a sheen to his skin as if he’s been ill, or hasn’t left the house all week. The only movement a muscle feathering in his jaw. He doesn’t notice her at first, or at least, gives no sign.

She inhales, then plants both hands on her hips. “Let the record show that I tried to be nice,” she announces in English. Her voice ricochets off the ceiling and wall, and Ilya startles.

He stares, eyes wet and slitted. “You are never nice,” he says, but the push lacks teeth. More curious than defensive, and that terrifies her the most.

Cliff ambles in behind her, his bag cinched over one arm. “Yo,” he says to Shane and Ilya, casual as someone entering a mid-week dinner party, and not at all like a man walking into a psychiatric triage.

Ilya blinks from Cliff to Svetlana to Shane, and then gives up, rubbing both hands over his face in a motion so practiced she’s certain it’s all he’s been doing for hours. “You could have messaged first,” he says, sounding… not angry. Not even resigned. Just tired, threadbare to a spectacular degree.

Surprisingly, it’s Cliff who answers first. “Motherfucker, we did! Multiple times a fucking day. For like a week. I don’t care how much epic fucking sex you two fuckers have been having-” he pauses, considers, then says, “no, not true. You assholes deserve epic post-wedding sex. But literally one fucking message. You worried the fuck outta Lana, and I care a little I guess and-”

She puts her hand on his arm before he can try to pretend he’s not baked nearly five hundred sugar cookies in the past few days.

“Do you have the flu?”

It’s Shane who answers her, and he sounds as if he’s either been screaming for a week or hasn't said a word. “No, it’s not-”

“The plague? Are either of you fucking dying?”

Shane cringes. “I’m sorry. You didn’t have to come. I didn’t realize how long it’d been-” he shakes his head and looks like he’s coming up from being underwater.

She assesses the room just long enough to assess the worst of the damage, and they both look like they’ve been dragged behind a truck. She rounds the coffee table and plucks the phone out of Ilya’s hands, inspects the screen, finds nothing but a half-written message to, of all people, the Centaurs media liaison.

"Spasibo," she snaps, and hurls it onto the cushion beside him. "This is how you treat your new husband? Look at him!" She can hear the acid in her voice, and she wants to turn it off, but every cell in her body is firing an alarm. She wants to slap him, crawl into his lap, and wring an answer from him with her bare hands, in that order.

Standing over Ilya, she studies the lines of his face and the bruised coastlines under both eyes. He folds his enormous hands into a knot of fingers and slides his gaze to a spot on the wall, refusing to look at her, or at Cliff, or at Shane.

Svetlana sighs, long and slow, and drops onto the couch next to his head. "Alright," she says, softer. She tugs at the blanket, bunches it to cover his feet, and finds herself smoothing it flat, thumb worrying at the fringe. "The fuck is going on?"

At this point, she’s terrified to find out.

Shane lets out a hoarse, desperate sound, something between a laugh and a choke. Cliff’s eyebrows shoot up as if he’s impressed by her efficiency.

Ilya rolls his head back against the couch, his eyes flat and enormous, looking up at the ceiling as if he’s checking for water damage. "No one is dying," he mutters, voice barely audible. “Nothing is wrong.” But he says it in that subsonic register that means everything is wrong, and Svetlana has known him long enough not to let him get away with a lie.

She slides her hand onto Ilya’s ankle, squeezing hard. "Try again. And don’t fucking lie to me."

He flinches, not from her touch but from the effort of keeping his face contained. "I am just tired," he says, finally glancing up at her, a fraction of his old bravado surfacing. "There is nothing new. Just tired."

She narrows her gaze, then swings to look at Shane, who seems to be sliding back and forth between hyperfocus and total disassociation. "Shane? Explain."

It occurs to her that Shane might not actually know how to handle Ilya during one of his episodes. It’s not like they’ve lived together until recently, and Ilya’s pretty good at being okay right up until he’s not.

She’s… fuck, probably being too harsh with both of them, and can’t understand why she’s so much more frantic now than she’s been in a long time.

The silence is loud as a drill bit going into concrete. Ilya drags a hand over his face and sits up very, very straight. For a half-second, Svetlana thinks he’s going to say something useful. But when he meets her eye, the message is fuck off in fifty-point font. He sets his jaw, then, with the deliberate care of a not-so-benign volcano, stands up and walks out of the room.

Not a slam, not even a door. He just leaves. She listens to his footsteps ticking away down the tile, and then nothing at all.

Shane watches him go, posture collapsing in slow motion. He sits on the far edge of the couch like a pebble against a breakwater, hands locked together, skin around his mouth gone nearly white. Svetlana’s about to snap at him for letting Ilya be so dramatic, but she doesn’t actually know Shane well. She might be willing to be rough with Ilya in an attempt to drag him out of his head, but somehow she doesn’t think the same approach will work with him. And even if the defence of his husband might kick-start Ilya’s engine, Shane doesn’t deserve to be the sacrificial lamb at anyone’s altar, even Ilya’s.

Cliff looks between them, reading her face for a cue. She gives him nothing. Instead, she flops backward, propping her feet up on the table, arms flung wide. “Well?” she says, in her best I-promise-I-don’t-bite tone of voice.

Shane’s lips quirk at the edges. It’s not a real smile, but it’s the closest he seems able to get. “Sorry,” he manages, his voice a scraped-out shell. “This is… uh, not what we were expecting, either.”

“He’s not sick.” She’s certain now. Ilya is a foul beast on the rare occasion he gets sick, cranky, and irritable until he keels right over and becomes tame as a newborn foal. If he were sick, he’d have told her to fuck off, then asked her for soup.

Shane shakes his head, then looks down, then fixes his gaze on her so intent it almost burns. “He’s fine. He’s not sick. Nobody's dying. But the, uh-” He starts a sentence, then aborts. Tries again. “The adjustment is harder than we thought.”

Svetlana’s own shoulders pull in tight, and she gives Cliff a sidelong nudge. “Go see if he’s okay?” she murmurs, and Cliff lumbers up after only a brief hesitation. Gods, she loves him. All muscle and huge heart, and he doesn’t even care if he’s clearly out of his depth. Off he goes, a sacrificial bear sent to pen the other one in his cave.

Svetlana leans forward, elbows to knees, and fixes Shane with the look she usually reserves for asshole billionaires who confuse power with competence. “Explain.”

He actually laughs, but the sound is smaller than she’s ever heard from him. He scrapes a palm over his face, lets it drop, and starts again. “They put him on something. New. For depression.” He flinches, like the words are little wasps. “He’s never… I mean he’s never taken anything like it, before. He’s not… it’ll help, we hope, but it’s fucking with his head.”

Something sharp and wild unspools behind her ribs. “He’s taking anti-depressants?”

Shane blinks at her, and for a second she wonders how the fuck this man survives a career at the very top of a brutal professional sport when he looks so incredibly, genuinely earnest.

“It’s a good thing. Or it will be. Eventually.”

There is something about the way he says it that makes her want to slap him and hug him simultaneously.

Since when does Ilya Rozanov admit there is anything wrong with him, much less agree to a daily pill designed to fix it? That’s not his style and never has been.

She wonders if Shane Hollander has any idea of how much of an impact he’s had on the man he married.

Shuffling around on the couch, she kicks off her shoes and draws her heels up beneath her. “Tell me?” she asks, softer now. This is a world she knows so little about.

Shane doesn't fidget, but she can see the need for it restraining every muscle. "He's always managed," he says after a pause, staring past her as if the house is full of ghosts. "You know. On his own. Or by… by not giving a shit what anyone thinks, not caring if he spiraled, just… riding it out. Or working himself to the bone… or something.” Yes, she knows his something. “But that… wasn't working. Not once he left Boston. It just. Got. Bad. And I didn’t see it. I wasn’t… looking. I’m sorry. I know… you’ve always…"

“You’re not his keeper, Shane.”

“Yes,” Shane says fiercely, his dark eyes flashing. “I am.”

Svetlana pulls a knee to her chest and listens, quietly cataloguing the ways she’s failed, in all the years, to push for anything resembling medical help. She’s not proud of it. Grigori did not teach his sons to treat sickness with science. He’d have thrown them into a frozen lake before letting them take a pill for sadness. She knows this. She lived in it. Still, it stings. Something fierce and unspoken between the lines of Shane's dedication.

Shane sits forward, elbows braced on knees, hands twisted together so hard they might fuse. "He doesn't want anyone to know," he says. "He thinks it's…" It’s a long time before he finishes the sentence. "He thinks he should be able to handle it.”

“Ilya’s ideas of ‘handling things’ usually involve ignoring them,” she reminds him. She wonders how much of herself at twenty-one found that heroic, instead of gut-wrenching.

The words seem to help a little, because Shane closes his eyes and nods slowly. "It’ll get better. I know he will. But this week just…" He exhales, all the air leaving his chest at once. "Sucks." Shane's mouth quirks, self-mocking.

Oh, she knows that expression. “He’s being a dick, huh?”

“No! Well, yes, Kinda. He doesn’t mean to be.”

“Have you tried throwing things at him yet?” She chuckles, remembering a time she’d emptied some tech billionaire’s exotic fishtank over his head three nights into his first trip home after signing with Boston. The water had sobered him up pretty quickly. That, and the very large, burly security guards flailing around trying to rescue some very expensive tropical fish. They’d been chased out giggling, then fucked in the back of a limo.

It was hard for him to be back home after months of freedom in America. He’d just needed to blow off some steam…

She expects amusement, or exasperation, but Shane scowls at her. “No,” he says flatly. “I think people hurting him is half the fucking problem.”

The anger in his voice draws her up sharp. She’s never hurt Ilya.

But fuck, maybe she hasn’t helped the way he needed to be helped.

How many opportunities has she missed?

Shane digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and shakes his head. “Fuck, I should go check on him-”

She reaches out and catches his arm. “Don’t. Leave him to Cliff.” She likes the way Shane listens, the way he tries to absorb five inputs at once and never pulls that face some men do when a woman interrupts them. Svetlana leaves her hand on his forearm so he can't bolt. She keeps her own voice pitched just above a whisper so that even if Ilya is two rooms away, he’ll miss it unless he’s grown preternatural hearing along with his new painful self-awareness.

“Come on. Let’s go get coffee.” She squeezes gently, then leans back as if stretching her spine, angling her head to scan the halls for the inevitable return of one or both of their soft, giant men.

“We have coffee in the kitchen.”

“You need to leave the bunker, Hollander. Cliff can babysit. You need some freshair.”

“I’ll open the patio.”

Shane tries to pull his arm loose, but she’s had Ilya and Sasha and assholes her whole life and knows how to keep someone sitting.

“Shane-”

“I’m not leaving,” he says flatly. “He doesn’t like being left alone when he… when he’s like this.”

That’s not really true. Or it wasn’t. Maybe it is now. It’s not like any of the things he used to do are options for him now.

She also knows that a good third of whatever misery Ilya’s internalizing right now will be a direct result of Shane’s wet, exhausted eyes.

“Cliff will drive him crazy, don’t worry. He won’t even know you’re gone.” She phrases it cruelly, because sometimes that’s what it takes. She’s seen Ilya weaponize his own suffering, usually without realizing it. “He’s going to come out of that cloud and hate himself. Seems counterproductive.”

She expects another round of protest, but Shane just deflates, gaze falling to his hands. He doesn’t even have the energy to glare at her properly.

“One hour,” she promises. “Then you can tell us to fuck off and leave you in peace.” She might not be able to help Ilya much, but she can do this at least. She can look after the most important thing in his life.

“I could tell you to fuck off now,” he grumbles.

“You could,” she agrees, tugging him up off the couch. “But you won’t.”

The look Shane shoots her is equal parts sullen, angry, and adorable, and it’s no wonder Ilya tripped overhimself falling in love.

“Half an hour,” he counters.

Despite her promise that they can slip out unnoticed, Shane still insists on checking with Ilya first.

He and Cliff are in the kitchen, half the cupboards open and upended. Ilya’s sat at the island, eyelids heavy, scowl etched deep.

She’s afraid Shane is going to give in and change his mind, the ache in him visible when he looks at Ilya. She doesn’t give him the chance. “I’m stealing your husband,” she announces.

Ilya says nothing for long enough that Cliff picks up on the social cue. “Have fun! You mind if I use this stuff?” It’s Shane he asks, and Shane who startles, so fixed on Ilya that he’s missed the chaos in his kitchen entirely.

He opens his mouth. Closes it again, and sways a little on the spot. She claps her hands and starts herding him towards the door before he can begin to hyperventilate. “Have fun, boys.”

Shane insists on driving. She’s willing to pick her battles here, and he honestly looks like he might start to cry if one more thing is taken out of his control.

He also knows the best place to get coffee, and by the time they pull into the parking lot, he’s locked all that vibrating anxiety under his skin.

Shane kills the engine, and they sit in silence. He wants to ask her something. She can tell as much from the tension coiling in his shoulders.

“You knew his mom,” he says eventually.

Svetlana hesitates. One of the things she respects most about Shane is that he doesn’t look for the easy way out of a problem if he knows it would come at someone else's expense. Ilya is a difficult man. She says that having loved him her whole life. Understanding him, living with him, seeing behind that smile and knowing what lies behind it… not an easy task for anyone.

He’s come to her for help before, but never answers.

If he’s asking her now…

“Yes…”

He draws his brows together, weighing each word carefully. “He… he’s dreaming about her. I mean, he dreams a lot, but since he started taking the meds, it’s gotten worse.”

Svetlana watches his face sharpen under the gold dome of the afternoon. He studies the traffic passing on the road beyond the parking lot, looking for a distraction he can track with his eyes. He chews the inside of his cheek, glances at her in the mirror, then back at the cars, clearly afraid of meeting her eye and finding something he doesn’t want.

She could spare him, pretend not to notice, but it is always worse when people make you beg for context.

“She was a good woman,” Svetlana offers, keeping her tone neutral, not too soft. The worst thing you could do for Hollander was make him think you pitied him. “She was very beautiful. Polished, funny, even. She had his sense of humor. Or he has hers, I suppose. I’ve told you this before.”

Laughing instead of crying. Misdirecting with a smile and a joke when the truth and everything around it hurts too much to acknowledge. As a child, she’d not noticed, or at least not understood.

She tells Shane what she knows now, with an adult’s understanding. Irina was a good woman. A good mother. The best she was able to be, at least.

She’s not always felt that way.

She’s grown and seen more of the world. When she thinks of Irina now, she does so somewhat removed from her mother’s howling rage of grief and guilt, and Ilya’s silent, shattered trauma. She thinks of a woman who was always so kind to her, who fused and fed and cared for her like a daughter. Who’d smile through bruises, and make games out of silence.

It helps, knowing she is older now than Irina was when she had both her sons. Makes it easier to look back with sympathy, rather than anger.

“She loved him more than anything,” she says, because that’s the one part with no orbit, no deviation. “She loved both of them. But she was maybe… how do you say, not made for this world.”

She’s expecting the next question. She’s spent enough years cycling questions in her own head to recognize the thoughts winding across Shane’s face. He doesn’t look at her, but his hands work at the soft backs of his knuckles, rubbing as if repetitive motion can whittle down the problem to a single, graspable shape.

“Is it true,” he asks, small and steady, “that sometimes there’s nothing you can do?”

For all that he is her age, for all that he carries all the impossible brightness of a man born, raised, and living with brilliance, Shane looks, in that moment, like a child. Svetlana wants to touch him, wants to let her hand rest with absolute certainty atop his fist the way Irina would have, but it will make him soft, and he does not want to come apart. She knows because she was the same.

She considers not answering, but that would only make it worse, so she tells the truth. “Sometimes, yes,” she says. “Sometimes it is not about loving or being loved. Not about what people do, or don’t.” She hunts for the English word, sharp, but still. “It is chemical. Biological. Not fate, or laziness or a curse or-” She gestures upward, sweeping the world’s cruelty into a single dismissive flick. “It is like any other disease. It wants to end itself.”

A long silence settles. Shane almost shakes, and he blinks, two deliberate beats to blink away whatever’s brimming. She waits, because it is the only thing to do for him.

“I always thought there had to be a reason,” he says. “Like, someone had to have made a mistake, or...” He trails off and laughs, a thin, citric spill. “Like if you love someone hard enough, you can just… keep them.”

“You think she was not loved? She was. By many people.” Just as Ilya is loved now.

She can see the distress building in Shane’s dark eyes. “But his dad-”

“Was a cruel man, yes. That did not help. But if you are asking me if she’d have made the same choice were she free of him… I do not know. I-” It’s the one thing she won’t let herself think about. The one thing she can’t. “Many people make the choice she did. They did not all marry cruel men.”

“So what? Nothing I do is going to matter? He could just wake up one morning and decide he wants to die, and there’s fuck all I can do about it? No. No, fuck that.”

She’s said the wrong thing. Shane’s mouth twists, his expression sickly, and for a second the gold-bright car glints and the world seems horribly, horribly thin. This is usually the moment people cry, but he doesn’t. His whole face just… smooths out, like the threat of feeling is something to be shaved off or starved into submission.

Svetlana wants to scream at him to stop being brave; it’s pointless. There isn’t one person in this tight universe of theirs who ever benefited from being the last person standing in the emotional fallout. Not Ilya, not her. He won’t be different.

He stares straight ahead, hands gripping and ungripping the steering wheel. “I just-” he starts, voice strangled, “-what the fuck am I even supposed to do then? Just sit here and hope it works out?”

She doesn’t know if he’s talking about this specific spell, this moment of trial and error while Ilya wrestles with the reality of asking for help, or if he just means in general. Possibly all three at once.

The stubbornness in him gives way here to a panic she understands down to the smallest spinning neuron: what do you do if love isn’t enough? Where do you turn, if every day you could lose the person you would die to protect, and there are no rules, no fixes? How do you anchor yourself, if each morning you wake to the chance that you’ve already lost? She lives her life curled around this fear. It eats meals with her at the kitchen table; it sleeps beneath her pillow, chasing her from dream to dream. It wears her best friend’s face.

She looks at him and recognizes, with a pinch, her own fierce, unyielding want for an answer. The urge to make meaning out of pain. She could lie to him and say, "Yes, you just have to hope," but that would be a betrayal. She can at least give him something to hold onto.

It’s desperate, the way he waits for her. She thinks about those years, after everything, after Irina, when she believed, with the absolute certainty of a child, that if she could just be present enough, affectionate enough, carry enough of the burden, she could keep her best friend alive when he wasn't even sure he wanted to be. It is the same velocity of love that made Irina’s last few years endurable, and the same that made them vanish in a single, razor-bright instant.

She can’t give him comfort, but she can at least give him something. “You help. You love him. You kick him back into reality when he needs it. And you wait, I suppose. For the medicine to work.” She leans back and lets the seatbelt press into her sternum until she can feel her own pulse. “But you can’t take the sadness out of his blood. Not forever.”

This doesn’t help - of course it doesn’t - but now his face is pinched, the lines around his mouth deepening. At least he’s not hiding.

Shane shakes his head, hard. “But what am I supposed to actually do? If he gets bad, what do I do? Do I call you? Or his therapist? Or…” His panic is a teeth-on-tin sound, ugly and familiar. 

Svetlana feels herself rise to the moment, smoothing the shape of her answer in her head. It’s unfair to dump this burden on him, but it’s more unfair to let him keep believing in some movie-script version where everything is okay just because the words are said aloud. “You’re doing it. The rest is on him.”

“Yeah, that’s not good enough.” He snaps. “Give me something.”

For a second, she wants to lie to him, wants to protect him from the truth, the way no one ever bothered to protect her and Sasha and the rest of their little constellation of survivors. But Shane doesn’t need a shield, he needs a compass.

He’s so very different from Ilya in so many ways but one: give him a goal he can reach for, and he’s going to achieve it at any cost.

She’s tempted to let him. If he spins out of control, Ilya will follow and tether him back towards gravity. He’ll pull himself out of the dark to keep Shane in the light.

It would be the easier win. It’s worked before.

But she thinks of their wedding day, the open, unguarded joy in Shane’s eyes, and she thinks about that night after the plane went down, and the words Ilya whispered to her. “I didn’t want to die.”

This might be the first time Ilya actually has a chance to start healing some of those hurts. And yes, fine, chemicals, but it must help, surely, not to have additional monsters chasing you in the dark?

It must help to have someone who is his match in everything to keep him moving forward.

The question is… does she trust Shane Hollander with something she swore she’d never tell a living soul? Does she let him build a picture in his mind that is only a little true, that ignores the very real reality of Irina’s situation, and lets him lock onto something he can make work within his ability to process the world?

Does she have a choice? 

She tries for a sound, a laugh, finds only the gravel in her own throat. "Okay," Svetlana says, leaning in to catch his gaze, "what I tell you now… you cannot ever repeat. Not to Ilya. Not to anyone."

The way he looks at her, fierce and hollow and so desperate for something, she knows he will do what she says. It’s in his face. In the tightness running up the left side of his neck. He’ll take it, whatever it is, so long as there is something to do.

"I won't," Shane promises, his voice dropping to a rough whisper that barely disturbs the stale air of the car.

"I mean it. It would destroy him." Her fingernails dig half-moons into her palm.

“Jesus… no. I won’t. I promise I won’t.”

“She was going to leave him. Irina. With Ilya and Lyokha. She asked my mother for help.” The words taste like copper on her tongue, and for a second, she’s back in her childhood home, listening to a conversation she had no right to hear, and knowing even then, even as a child, that the secret could never escape the cage of her ribs.

She can see Shane trying to process what she’s telling him, reprocessing facts in his head so he can better arrange them.

“What happened?”

She shrugs, a lightness in the movement at odds with how she feels. “Ilya signed with the school at CSKA. His father and Sasha’s were friends. If she left Moscow, she would have taken hockey from him. And she wouldn’t leave without him, so-”

"That's not his fault!" Shane's voice cracks like thin ice, the words exploding from him.

"Of course not." She reaches across the console, not quite touching him. "But that was your question, wasn't it? Why did she do it? Was it inevitable?" The car seems to shrink around them, the air thick with ghosts. "I don't know. I can't. But she wanted to leave, and couldn't, and if she had... if the love in her life outweighed the hate..." Her voice trails off, a path disappearing into fog. " I don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps this is where Ilya is different? The hate is behind him. And it hurts, yes. But the future he has, she never could."

It might be nothing more than a beautiful lie. One that fate calls her on with a mocking smile.

Shane does deserve more than to be the sacrificial lamb, his heart laid bare on the altar of Ilya's demons... but Svetlana is apparently not above arming him for a fight with little more than hope, fragile as spun glass.

And there is very little she is not willing to do to save Ilya’s life.

They don’t get coffee.

Shane says nothing else, only putting the car in gear and driving straight back home. She doesn’t push him, frankly too exhausted herself to do much but cycle around a catalogue of failures. She’s not done anything to ease Shane’s burden, stress or upset. She might have added to it.

She thinks she’s maybe done little but add to the problem for both of them, right from the start.

She tries. She always tries, but her efforts are a band-aid on a bullet hole, and she does little but watch as Ilya bleeds out and gives himself a few more injuries just to ignore the one neither of them knew how to fix.

Back in their kitchen, Cliff is waving a cookie-batter-covered spatula around in the air, splattering dough on one of the cupboard doors. “-like a fucking baby! I mean, full-on fucking purple in the face! Thought he was gonna explode all over the boardroom!”

Ilya, glazed and not attempting to hold himself upright, watches the show with an expression of utter non-comprehension. His elbows are planted on the kitchen counter. Each time Cliff emphasizes a punchline with a dramatic sweep of his hand, Ilya blinks, just barely, like he’s reacting on a ten-second tape delay.

“-and so O’Donnell, and you know that fuckhead couldn’t find his own ass with a map and a compass, he’s like, he’s like, ‘Guys, can we please make one goddamn decision,’ and this one-” Cliff points the spatula at Svetlana, beaming as soon as he sees her, “-she’s sitting at the end of the table, poker face, fucking queen that she is. And she just loads this slide deck, and it’s, like, I shit you not, a hundred twenty fucking slides, just all the results, all the research, all the stuff the analytics team said they couldn’t pull together, but she did it in like three days and-” he breaks off to pantomime the faces of the trainers, wide-eyed and melting, “-and they're just, like, crying. Like actual tears, man!”

He grins, aiming the spatula at Ilya. “You ever seen a man in his sixties just straight up lose composure and fuck off to the parking lot? Fucking beautiful!”

She wants to point out that at no point did anyone cry. They just looked mildly constipated.

She also wants to kiss him. To curl up in his arms and just not… think.

Shane crosses the room and folds himself down next to Ilya. He smooths the hair off Ilya’s forehead and kisses him, not his mouth, just the space between his eyebrows, soft and sure. If Ilya feels it, he doesn't show it, but when Shane draws back, Ilya's fingers snag the inside of his wrist and bring his hand up, pressing Shane’s knuckles to the corner of his own mouth for a beat. He doesn't say anything, and it’s hard to know if he just doesn’t have the energy or the words. Shane settles in beside him, their knees touching, and lets Ilya keep his hand for as long as he wants.

“You got more chocolate chips?” Cliff asks, narrowing his eyes at the bowl he’s mixing. “Don’t tell me this-” he lifts a sticky slab of dough, letting it glorp from spatula to bowl, “-is the kind of house that only has kale and those expensive carrot sticks?”

He looks to Shane for confirmation, but it’s Ilya, head lolling to rest against Shane’s shoulder, who mutters, “Middle left. Next to wine.” Cliff makes a delighted noise and roots through the pantry.

When Cliff finds the bag, it rattles open with a victory crow. He dumps half the contents into his batter, stirring with the enthusiasm of a Border Collie in a snowstorm. Svetlana lets the chaos reassume its pattern, observing as Cliff flings toned biceps and butter with equal force. If he’s doing it for her benefit, good. It helps. If he’s doing it for Ilya’s, better. Shane, meanwhile, hovers, every molecule of his body pointed at Ilya, soaking up the silence that falls between each of Cliff’s enthusiastic stories.

She sets herself on the far side of the island, within reach of both, arms folded to keep the shaking at bay.

Almost as if he can sense her distress, Ilya, Shane’s hand still tucked in one of his own, reaches for her.

She doesn’t mean to close the gap as quickly as she does. She doesn’t mean for her eyes to fill with tears, either.

Ilya’s hand is fever-warm and dull at the joints, nothing like the casual power he so often radiates, softened with bruised heaviness. He doesn’t look at her, just drags in a breath, chest rising in a two-stage effort, and then, so quietly that she barely hears it, speaks.

“Thank you. Both of you. For coming.”

Cliff, elbow-deep in cookie dough, mutters, “Fucking idiot,” like them being there is the most obvious thing in the world, but if he’s got anything to add, he keeps it rolling in the soft way he does, no edges, no pressure.

Moving as if everything hurts, Ilya kisses Shane’s knuckles again and stands. He turns to her, and wraps his arm around her, dropping a fond kiss to her forehead.

Then he heads to the sink and starts digging around in the cupboard beneath it.

Shane, anxious and wringing his hands, asks, “What are you doing?”

Ilya comes up with handfuls of products. “Cleaning my husband’s kitchen before he has a heartattack.”

The laugh Shane lets out is more of a sob than anything. He rubs at his eyes and flashes Ilya a grateful, shaky smile. “Yes, please.”

Chapter 22

Chapter Notes

Yes, I know Lemaire was East Coast. Let's pretend he transferred!

Warning. This one will hurt. We're digging into Ilya (and Sasha, and to some extent Svetlana's) more self-destructive tendencies. I will maintain that there is no real 'villain' here, but Sasha doesn't exactly come across well in this part. Neither he nor Ilya is in any way a reliable narrator.

Content warnings for: some of the physical side effects that come with anti-depressants, mixing alcohol and prescription drugs, miscommunication, Shane's near-perpetual sense of panic, and the implication that Ilya, Sasha, and Svetlana made very questionable decisions under the influence of drugs and alcohol in the past.

Yes, the driving thing will be picked up again...

Today is a good day. Or a better one, at least. 

They’ve had their first night in nearly ten days where Shane didn’t wake up to an empty bed. He’s not found Ilya huddled outside, sometimes smoking but mostly just… staring into nothing. He’s not had to wrestle his husband back inside and stuff him under three extra blankets just to chase the cold from his skin because god fucking forbid Ilya wear more than just his boxers to wander the house aimlessly.

No, today is a good day. He’s not had to coax Ilya into the shower, or remind him to finish brushing his teeth because he zoned out between setting down the toothpaste and picking up the brush, and lost ten minutes just staring into the mirror. He doesn’t have to remind Ilya to drink water, or his supplements, or that single little pill they’re all hanging their hopes on, even as it wreaks havoc on their lives.

They have breakfast with Cliff and Svetlana before the two of them go off to the National Gallery, then phone their parents to check in. Ilya holds his own in the conversation better than he has all week.

They walk Anya, who is as much a physical embodiment of Ilya’s improved mood as anything, as she bounds beside them, her tail enthusiastically inflicting carnage on any flowerbed she happens to get too close to.

They curl up together on the couch, Shane tucked under Ilya’s arm, fingers in his hair, and catch up on the tennis that Shane publicly, and Ilya secretly, likes to watch.

Shane makes them poké bowls for lunch, and Ilya keeps that down, too. He naps in the afternoon with Anya on his chest, letting Shane catch up on some of the emails - and friends - he’s been neglecting. Most of them react to his message of ‘Hey, sorry we dropped off the radar!’ with a variety of suggestive emojis.

It’s a useful cover, even if it does strike Shane in the tender places beneath his ribs to think that less than a month ago their world was nothing but sunshine and joy, and now there are days Ilya can’t stand to look at him, let alone touch him.

That’s happening less often. Today is a good day.

Shane has lived a life of endless competition long enough to know when to take the victories you’re given.

A baseline of nutrality is better than the loneliness of being locked outside of someone’s pain. He’ll take quiet and calm and soft over cold and distant and absent. Certainly over fear.

It’s just…

No. No, he’s being stupid. Worse, he’s being selfish.

Setting aside his laptop, he circles the back of the couch and leans over Ilya, his fingers brushing the sharp lines of his cheeks. The team trainers are going to have a fit when they see him. Assuming, that is, that he’s fit to start the pre-season in a couple of weeks. There are no rules about players not being allowed antidepressants, but Ilya has to be physically capable of playing, and if Shane were his captain and not his husband, he’d be outright refusing to share the ice with him right now. He’d be a liability.

That in itself is not helping Ilya’s moods.

Shane lets his fingers brush gently over the tight furrow between his brows. He knows that sign. “Hey,” he whispers, coaxing Ilya back to the world. “Painkillers?”

Headaches are apparently another side effect. These drugs better be fucking miracle workers because they’re sure as shit extorting one hell of a fee for their work.

Ilya keeps his eyes closed. “Hmm. No.” Then he squints open one eye. “Why are you up there?”

"Because I like looking at you," Shane says with a kind of hopeless adoration that would be mortifying if there were any witnesses, but Anya is snoring upside-down with all four paws in the air, and Ilya is warm and open and not about to make a joke. Shane lets himself run a thumb gently along the tiny scar by Ilya’s lip, the one that only shows in those days between being fully shaved and sporting a proper beard, and lets the moment last as long as it can.

It’s not enough. It hasn’t been enough for days, now. Every second he isn’t touching Ilya feels like borrowing time against some future disaster. He knows it’s unhealthy, that the logic doesn’t make sense, but so little has in the past ten days. He circles around to settle on the couch, careful not to disturb Ilya or crush Anya beneath him, and curls up so his head rests on the broadest part of Ilya’s chest.

Ilya’s arm comes up automatically, draping around Shane’s waist, and the familiar weight of it nearly cracks him in half. Closest thing in the world to peace. Ilya’s hand finds the hem of his shirt and rubs slow circles just there, barely above the line of skin, and Shane shivers at the contact.

Anya muzzily stretches her back legs and lets out a noise that’s equal parts yawn and howl. Her paws thump into Shane’s thigh, then relax again, anchored by the certainty of her two humans present and together. If anything, the ease of it breaks Shane in a new place. If he blinks wrong, if he thinks for even a second about what he’s terrified of losing, he’s going to come apart.

"Ilya," he says, barely a whisper, unsure what he’s even asking for.

Ilya’s palm drifts up Shane’s back, cupping the back of his skull, the streak of warmth there so infectious that Shane can’t help but melt closer. "I have you," Ilya says, simple as gravity, and Shane lets him, lets every muscle unravel and every panic chuff back down to static.

Somewhere in the week and a half of hell, he’d forgotten what it meant to be on the receiving end of that particular drift of Ilya’s affection, the way he folds people into his orbit when he can’t find words or muster a joke. There’s something in his touch, a permission, almost, to set down every single thing he’s been carrying. Shane isn’t sure he deserves it, but right now deserves doesn’t matter.

He sighs. Ilya’s chest moves beneath him, a deep tectonic rumble, the kind you feel more than hear, and it’s so familiar, so deeply wanted, Shane could scream. "Sorry I was weird last night," Ilya mumbles into his hair. "It’s not so good with my brain right now. You are doing okay?"

Shane nods, pressing his forehead into the curve of Ilya’s collarbone, because he can’t look him in the eye and not dissolve. "I’m fine," he says, and it’s even almost true, in the sense that fine can mean half a dozen different things depending, Ilya’s here, and he’s okay, and so of course Shane is fine. He’s fucking ecstatic.

“Is getting better, I think,” Ilya mumbles. “Less-” he flaps his hand against Shane’s back, lost for the right word.

He wishes he could let that be enough. And maybe it is, objectively, on-paper, Match of the Day level “enough”. Ilya’s arms around him, Anya’s soft fuck-you little snores, the world pared down to this hazy zone of plausible comfort. But his own body betrays him, tuning itself to every tiny movement from Ilya, desperate to get closer, to fuse every inch together. Maybe he’s been spoiled. Or maybe it’s just the shock of the last ten days, but he is starving for touch. It is not enough to have Ilya’s hands on him, not enough to be drawn into his axis by gravity. He wants hunger, wants all of it: wild, dumb, excessive, the kind of tactile madness they used to roll through every day as if it was nothing.

He feels so guilty even thinking it, with Ilya so hollowed out and raw, but the need licks around his ribs. It’s hard not to resent the pill stealing Ilya’s appetite for everything, even for him. Even when he knows, logically, it isn’t about him, can’t be about him, he wants to shake something loose. To pin Ilya, press their mouths together, and demand the world back to normal.

Maybe he’s an asshole for it. Maybe he always is, with how much he wants, how greedy he’s always been for Ilya’s attention. But he doesn’t know how else to feel. He doesn’t know what to do with the ache. It claws up in him even now, in this gentle, hazy moment, and by the grace of a split-second of impulse, he shifts so his face is nuzzled into the side of Ilya’s neck and stays there, breathing in his skin until his vision washes a little fuzzy with it.

Ilya says nothing, just rubs between Shane’s shoulder blades, patient and unhurried, as if he knows and is letting Shane have this, have him, in whatever small way matters most right now.

Shane waits, expecting Ilya to do what he always does and turn it into a joke, or escalate, or roll them both off the couch, destroying the quiet. He doesn’t. Maybe he can’t. Maybe he’s too tired to. But that’s a thought Shane is too selfish to have. He tilts his head up, just enough to see the shadow of Ilya’s jaw, and asks, “Okay if I stay here?”

Ilya answers with a kiss to the top of his head. “Always.” Then again, as if to prove the point, opens his palm up for Shane to thread their fingers together.

He pushes his luck, sliding a little further up so he can see Ilya’s face. Pale, yes, and thinner than Shane likes, but eyes clearer and more steady than they’ve been in days, the ghost of a smile shaping his mouth. He wants to say something, a real thing, but words stick in his throat.

It’s not the time to talk about the future or how long this is going to last or how scared he still is every time he starts to think about how much the last few days have rewired their whole lives, and a huge fucking chunk of how Shane even approaches the world.

It’s not the time to tell Ilya he misses him. Not when Ilya is fighting for both of them. Not when he’s in Ilya’s arms.

But having it all but turned off, suddenly and without warning, the absence of the things that made them them makes his want a physical ache: under his ribs, in his fingers, in the ruined, soft part of him that only ever registers enough when his skin is flush against Ilya’s.

It’s not about sex. Not exactly. It’s about Ilya’s hands, about the way being held down and apart and completely possessed always soothes something thrashing and wild inside Shane. Lately, it’s like being denied oxygen. He can breathe, technically, but every molecule feels a little hoarded, a little stale, like he’s waiting for Ilya to exhale just so Shane can prove to himself they’re really still in the same room.

Now, with Ilya burned out by the new meds, the closest they get is what’s happening right now: Shane’s face against Ilya’s collar, the faintest scratch of his jaw, the salt and warmth of him. Static. Soothing, yes, but less than the bone-deep crash that used to leave his ego in pieces and his brain all spongy and open, reeling.

It’s embarrassing to even admit to himself. He’s not supposed to be like this. Needy. Pathetic. To want more, with everything Ilya’s going through, feels selfish and small. But somehow it makes him want to crawl inside Ilya’s skin and stay there, just for a day. Maybe a week.

He wants to be for Ilya what Ilya has always been for him. A place of protection and permission. He wants to be the bedrock on which Ilya can build a new mechanical system to run his life, free from self-destruction, loneliness, and a sense of unworthiness.

He can’t - he won’t - let Ilya think, even for a second, that the way he makes Shane feel is in any way more valuable than the way Shane feels for him.

He can sense that pushing Ilya any further right now would be like snapping a stretched-out tendon. There’s something about the way he holds Shane, gentle and patient. The way his thumb moves in slow, careful circles at the base of Shane’s spine, the way his chest rises slack and slow, as if the most energy he can summon is just enough for this. It’s a privilege, even so. Shane is aware of it in every cell: not everyone gets this. Not everyone gets to want like this, or to be wanted, even if just for the comfort of presence.

He lets himself stay there: unproductive, unfascinating, hopelessly greedy for nothing but the inching rhythm of Ilya’s hands and the coarse beat of his own heart.

When the tennis broadcast ends in a blur of points and replays he didn’t see at all, Anya rolls off Ilya’s chest and gives an impressive dog-yawn, mouth stretched so wide her tongue curls back like a ribbon. Ilya pets her absently as she jumps off the couch, and the movement sends a muscle flick through his whole arm.

Ilya inhales a long, shuddering breath, making a show of stretching out beneath Shane like a cat in the sun. He rolls his head with a brittle pop and fixes Shane with a knowing look.

He untangles himself, only so he can roll Shane properly into his lap. This time, there is no pretense of casual. Ilya holds him like something essential that’s slipped behind the couch and almost gotten lost, palming Shane’s jaw, thumb insistent on his cheekbones. The tenderness is still there, but just beneath it, the old heat is waking up, determined.

“I have not been good at this,” Ilya says, the words coming out on a sigh that’s half apology, half threat. “Making you happy. I will do better.”

Shane wants to protest. To say you don’t have to, you already do everything, you’re allowed a break, but his brain has gone sideways, shorted out by the pressure of Ilya’s thumb and the single-minded devotion with which his husband is suddenly staring at him.

There are words he wants to say. Words he needs to say. But Ilya’s always been able to completely reroute the circuitry of his brain with a look. Now the band of his wedding ring presses into Shane’s cheek, and it’s hard to fucking breathe, let alone think.

“I am happy,” he manages, or tries to, but the words aren’t helping. There’s a width to Ilya’s pupils he hasn’t seen since their honeymoon, a calculated draw on every moment. He’s focused, not just clear-eyed, but dangerous in the way a storm can be dangerous… amazing to behold, until it hits.

“Let me take care of you,” Ilya says, as if he’s demanding a favor, not offering one. He nuzzles in, mouth to Shane’s jaw, then kisses a line up to his ear, just so the whisper can land directly inside Shane’s skull. “You miss the way I touch you. I know this.”

He wants to argue that they should wait, that Ilya’s not up to this, that he doesn’t need it, but the argument is ash in his mouth. All the justifications for its absence that he’s had lined up, practiced in the shower, in the dark before sleep, melt instantly in the heat of Ilya’s touch.

“Ilya, you’re-” he says, but Ilya interrupts him by shifting, drawing Shane’s knees over his thighs, a strong hand slipping under the hem of his shorts and raking up the back of his thigh, fingers pressing just hard enough to overwrite the last of Shane’s logical brain.

“I am tired,” Ilya agrees. “But I am not dead.” He noses down the side of Shane’s jaw, bites at the hinge, and says, “And I will not see my husband neglected.”

It’s so unfair, how easily Ilya reads him, how quickly he can find the thing Shane is most desperate for and hand it back to him with a single, forceful touch.

There’s nothing left in his skull but a bright wash of hunger. Shane wants to be devoured, to be praised, burned up, rebuilt by Ilya’s hands. When Ilya’s hand clamps around the back of his neck, it isn’t to crush or lead, it’s to steady. Fingers curl, a thumb fits under his jaw, cradling him where he sits. Not a vice, not the breath-choking grip Shane sometimes asks for. It’s gravity, drawing him closer.

“Touch yourself for me,” Ilya rumbles, voice sanded rough.

Shane’s mind doubles back, certain he’s misheard, then his heart trips and oh. Oh. He nods stupidly. His hands feel foreign, unfamiliar, clumsy, but Ilya’s touch on his nape is direct and grounding. He slides a palm between his own legs, hips rolling up to meet it before he can even try to look chill. His other hand grabs Ilya’s thigh, the muscle honed and warm under his knuckles, grounding him, mooring him to the moment.

Ilya does nothing but hold him. He’s not passive, not absent, but present, his gaze raking over Shane’s face, his throat, the flutter of his pulse. He just… watches. There’s no mocking, no edge to it, just a coiled, breathless focus that makes Shane want to melt, unravel, and show Ilya every embarrassing, needy part of himself.

He palms himself through the soft fabric of his shorts, as helpless as an animal in heat. The sensation goes molten far too quickly, and he gasps, letting the tightness in his chest out with a whimper. He wants to touch Ilya, but Ilya is holding him where he is, like a leash made of bone and old promises.

There’s something hungry in Ilya’s eyes, shaded dark and feverish. He shifts his grip from the nape of Shane’s neck to the column of his throat, too loose to be restrictive, too firm to be anything other than a promise.

He wants to climb out of his own skin, the force of wanting so much when Ilya is right here, right under him, beautiful and alive and with Shane right now in the moment.

He lets Shane set the pace, work his own hand in slow, aching friction, and it’s maybe the most possessed he’s ever felt. The pressure of Ilya’s palm on his throat isn’t tight, not even close, but it says mine. With every pump of his hand, the air around them seems to compress, distance fuzzing out at the edges until it’s just him and Ilya and the small, greedy universe between their bodies.

His own sounds shock him. The hand around his throat tilts his chin up, thumb brushing along the underside, and Ilya’s gaze doesn’t leave him. He says nothing, only watches, bright eyes locked to Shane’s flushed face, his own lips parted as he watches.

It’s not enough. It’s almost too much. Shane jerks himself in rough, fast strokes, desperate to see Ilya react, to see his patience fray and snap.

He feels Ilya’s thigh flex under his palm, the muscle trembling, and it brings Shane right to the edge. He tries to muffle the next sound, but Ilya’s hand squeezes just a little, not enough to choke, just enough to say no, I want to hear this, I want you to make every noise for me, good boy. Shane bucks into his own hand, the wordless pressure spilling over. He’s right there, seconds away from wreckage, and Ilya’s thumb drags slow over his lower lip, a clear invitation.

He gets the message, lets his mouth fall open. Ilya pushes two fingers past his lips, easy, not forceful, and the taste of his skin resets Shane’s whole nervous system. He works his fingers, mouth slack and eager around them, almost sobbing with the burn in his lungs. It’s everything. It’s too fucking much.

He comes with a helpless, low sound, messy and too soon, bracing himself against the bulge of Ilya’s thigh. He can’t move for a beat, not even to let Ilya’s fingers go. He just slumps there, wrecked, the ring of Ilya’s grip on his neck and his fingers in Shane’s mouth the only thing holding him to the moment.

Afterwards, he’s adrift, clutching at Ilya’s wrist, needing another anchor point, something to keep the world real.

He slumps forward against Ilya’s chest, wrecked and sticky and weightless, aware that the thump of his own pulse is so high it’s now floating somewhere outside the room. For a second, he forgets words completely. Every signal in him routes outward, vacant and spent, until the only thing left is the faint tremor of Ilya’s grip and the afterimage of his own need.

He tries to move, but he’s puddled, arms jelly and neck limp, and Ilya just wraps him in tighter, careful like Shane’s made of something valuable. He mouths at Shane’s temple, strokes the whorls of his ear, the buzz of his voice not so much outside as deep in the architecture of Shane’s skull. “You are so beautiful. I love you so fucking much.”

Shane floats on the edge of the high for a minute, letting himself be cradled. He expects Ilya to reach for him, do what he always does, get his own after he’s wrung Shane out and coax things from Shane’s body he never knew it was capable of. But when he finally drags himself up to look, Ilya’s hands are perfectly still and his shorts are… flat. Nothing. There’s no evidence of arousal at all. Not even in the way he breathes, or doesn’t. Just locked in, tightly braced, all his effort spent entirely on Shane.

It takes a moment to process what that means. In the aftermath, everything is a millisecond more raw, and the implications carve a humming gap in his brain. Shane knows - he knows, because Terry told them, because the internet is full of warnings - so the sadness that comes is glacial, a slow melting hurt that trickles straight into the pit of his stomach.

He does a quick, scrambling mental check for how to fix it. Should he get off, offer, beg, try to return the favor, or pretend not to notice? Should he put a hand in Ilya's shorts, try to coax a response, or would that be worse? The quiet that settles is a little too cold for what just happened.

Ilya must see it flash across his face, because his hand comes up to card through Shane’s hair. “It’s okay,” he says, voice gentle and a little shaky. “I feel good. I love watching you. That’s enough.”

Fuck. He wants to cry, or at least make a joke, or do literally anything to banish the shame curling up his spine. The fizz of afterglow and panic sits coiled in his chest, wrestling for dominance. He doesn’t want Ilya to see the hurt, or think that something is wrong, but he can’t force the right words past his tongue. He should say thank you. Or I love you. Or let me try, let me make you feel good, too.

He moves to bury his face in Ilya’s shoulder, but the blanket of failure won’t settle unless he wriggles closer and lets Ilya squeeze him in, pressed so tight that the lines of their ribs feel soldered together. It only makes the ache worse, knowing that he’s warm and lazy and sated while Ilya… isn’t. Not in any of the ways that once mattered. Worse still, Ilya looks at him with that dopey, soft, half-drunk kind of love, as if he really means it.

He tries to recover. “Fuck,” he jokes, muffled into Ilya’s throat, “I’m so fucking easy for you.” Then he’s angry at himself for turning it into a punchline. He doesn’t want Ilya to feel like he’s not grateful for it, or that he has to apologize. This isn’t about Ilya’s dick or dopamine or whatever it is that the pill is bullying out of existence today. He just wants Ilya.

“Yeah, you are,” Ilya whispers, sounding exactly like his usual smug, post fuck self. It’s almost disorientating.

“I could… I want…” Shane tries, but he can’t finish. He’s not even sure what the end of the sentence is. I want to make you feel good, too. I want you to want me like you used to. I want this not to matter. I want to not care, but I do.

“Next time,” Ilya says, and Shane hears the faint tremble underneath the calm. He’s grateful for the promise, but it rings like wishful thinking, like something Ilya says to keep the circuit from shorting out. “For now, you just… stay here, okay?”

He stays. He melts as close as he can. He lets Ilya maneuver him so that his cheek is wedged against the slope of Ilya’s jaw, one ear pressed to the steady, primal drum of Ilya’s pulse. It’s the safest place in the world, his favorite axis of the universe. Still, the shame itches under his skin and refuses to go away. He wants to get up, wants to clean up, wants to scream, wants to never leave Ilya’s arms…

It’s not that he’s not grateful. He’s so grateful it’s embarrassing. It’s just… he’s spent his entire life learning the rules of give-and-take, and this new set of physics senses only asymmetry and loss. The world has always taught him that it’s better to take less than you give, to decline so no one ever thinks you expected it. Being the one who receives, with nothing to offer back, makes Shane want to crawl clean out of his body and evaporate in the sunlight.

Which, he supposes, is exactly what Ilya’s been dealing with for his entire fucking life in some way.

“Stop,” Ilya whispers, kissing the crown of Shane’s head. “We’re okay.”

Shane shivers.

They are. Or will be. Today is a good day.

Everything is wildly, perfectly comfortable, from the heatless glow of the electric fireplace to the casual, almost thoughtless weight of Ilya’s hand on Shane’s thigh. Shane has his arm on the back of the couch, one hand casually playing with the curls at the nape of Ilya’s neck, and there’s not even a hint that either things are wrong, or bad, or anything less than completely expected.

It’s been enough to work through a decade of defensive hiding with Hayden, someone he’s known and loved most of his life. Now they’re in front of two people who were all but strangers to him a year ago, and it just feels… normal.

“-flight got in this morning, but he’s got a shoot today, so I guess we’ll see him sometime tomorrow.” Svetlana is curled up on the armchair opposite, one calf casually hooked across Cliff’s. He’s by far the weirdest part of all this, always having struck Shane as the physical embodiment of the brawny, macho sport they all play. He’s an absolute unit of a man, bigger than both Shane and Ilya, loud, clumsy, and honestly, the exact type of guy Shane would have been most afraid of knowing their secret.

He’s also the reason Shane and Ilya were woken at three am a couple of days before their wedding, a distraught Ivan Petrov seeking intervention in what was apparently a month-long attempt to make macrobiotic cookies that ‘didn’t taste like actual shit’. Ilya tagged Svetlana in on that one.

It’s honestly pretty sweet. Cliff’s apparently sailed past the revelation of both Ilya’s sexuality and his relationship with Shane with little more than an exchange of the pretty colorful insults he and Ilya seem to communicate in, and Svetlana playing him a clip about wine from Schitt’s Creek.

He brought a bottle of rosé to pair with the cookies he baked for their wedding. Shane isn’t sure if it’s now an inside joke or a genuine attempt at allyship. Possibly both.

Either way, it’s hard not to like a man who is immediately and without question ready to start a fight in Ilya’s defense. Or, for that matter, who is part of the highly select and morally fucking righteous circle of people who have punched Alexei Rozanov in the face.

And honestly, if Shane liked women, he might be willing to marry Svetlana himself. He’s starting to think she’s more than eighty percent of the reason Ilya’s survived long enough to find himself here in Shane’s arms. For reasons both heartbreaking and stupid. The more stories he’s able to pry out of her and Sasha, the more apparent it becomes that teenage Ilya was a bit of a fucking idiot.

“He’s bringing the butter, right?” Marlow asks, gathering their empty glasses in one big hand and gently untangling himself from Svetlana so he can do a kitchen run.

“He’s bringing you twenty kilos of French butter, yes,” she rolls her eyes. “And he’s done the paperwork for customs. It’s, and I quote, ‘weirding the fuck out of the hotel concierge’ as we speak.”

Ilya snorts. “Not even close to the weirdest thing we’ve smuggled into a hotel.”

Cliff lets out a booming laugh as he returns with four full glasses of ginger ale. Ilya can’t drink on his meds, and there seems to be some kind of silent understanding of solidarity among the rest of them. “Fuck, remember the fucking alligators?” Shane is not prepared for the sound Cliff makes, which is a strangled mixture of a dying walrus and a schoolgirl shriek. Ilya immediately cackles with the kind of laughter that only comes from something deeply, transcendently stupid.

It might be the most beautiful sound Shane has ever heard.

“Do I wanna ask?” Shane asks, giving up. He tangles his fingers in Ilya’s shirt, as much for his own comfort as to keep him from falling off the couch laughing.

“It was not a real alligator,” Ilya manages, breathless. “They were inflatable.” He gestures with both hands, as though the details matter to the story's structural integrity. "A hundred inflatable alligators."

Cliff can barely breathe. “Best All-Stars prank in fucking history.”

Svetlana steeples her fingers, observing them with the air of a talent agent at a cattle call. There’s a little smile pulling at her lips that Shane is pleased to see after the weight and hurt of the past few days. “Please explain.”

Ilya extricates himself from Shane’s grasp, probably just so he can use his hands more efficiently. “Okay. You remember Tampa?” He doesn't wait for agreement. "I come in from the pool and find seven inflatables in my room. Seven. Alligator. Big green. They put eyes on them, you know, the googly ones." Ilya mimes as though this explains everything. “Arena has more. Hallways, everywhere. There were at least a hundred.”

“Hundred and forty-three,” Cliff corrects, not to be outdone.

“They put one under my sheets!” Ilya howls, so much louder than he’s been in weeks that Shane startles, but he can’t help smiling. “In bathroom trash. In my fucking toilet-”

“Mine was in my shower!” Cliff adds, shuddering. “Gave me a fucking heart attack.”

“Then at the game, when Zuckerman comes out to do press, he opens the dressing room and finds every single one lined up in front of his stall. Alligator army.”

Cliff wipes a tear from his eye. "They had hats. Tiny, tiny hats."

Svetlana is deadpan, as if this sort of thing is the normal currency of her social circle. “Who did it?”

“Lemaire,” Ilya drawls, with the self-righteous heartbreak of a man who wishes he’d thought of it first. “Fucker is still pissed about being shit at hockey.”

“Didn’t he get nominated for Rookie of the Year?” Svetlana raises her eyebrow delicately.

Ilya bats the question away. “Was always going to be me or Shane. He was window dressing. Ugly window dressing.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Shane says fondly. “And for the record, it was me.”

Ilya flashes his teeth. “Yes. My husband has lots and lots of trophies.” There’s soimething smouldering in his eyes that immediatly makes Shane blush, just remembering that day when…

“Wait,” Svetlana narrows her eyes, “Hollander, weren’t you at that game?” Her voice is pure glee.

“Some of us were actually there to play hockey,” Shane sniffs, and immediately regrets it, because now Cliff is howling again and Ilya is trying to smother him with his arms. He doesn’t point out that a fucking bomb could have gone off in that hotel and he wouldn’t have noticed, not with the combined dopamine hit of both having Ilya on the same team, and knowing Shane hadn’t completely fucked things up back in Boston.

Ilya presses a kiss to the side of his cheek. "Yes," he murmurs against Shane's skin. "Which is why you were Captain. And why I rescued you."

Shane turns to face him. "What?"

"Yeah, Rozy was not fucking happy," Cliff snorts, tipping his glass toward them. "Should've fucking known he was whipped back then."

Ilya straightens up, puffing out his chest. "No, it had nothing to do with Shane," he defends, trying and failing to convince anyone. "It was Lemaire and those fucking West Coast assholes trying to sabotage our game. It was my duty as assistant captain!"

Shane's not sure if he's annoyed at being left out of the joke, relieved by Ilya knowing him well enough to know he'd have one hundred percent freaked out at the idea of someone having access to his hotel room, or really fucking grateful that missing the whole thing meant he didn't chicken out later when he finally got Ilya alone. That whole trip was the perfect storm. A hundred inflatable alligators might have fucked that up.

Which says more about their weird lives than it probably should.

"He hung him over a balcony," Cliff laughs, slapping his knee and nearly spilling his drink. "By his ankles."

Shane whips his head around, mouth falling open. "What?"

"I needed the key he used to get into your room and wrangle inflatables," Ilya shrugs defensively, fingers fidgeting with the hem of Shane's shirt. "And it was a ground-floor room!" he adds with a wink.

This was before they talked. Before Shane bared his heart. Before Ilya dared to be vulnerable.

But for some reason, the idea of Ilya dangling the tank that is Lamaire over a very carefully landscaped patch of tropical flowers is wildly entertaining. No wonder he'd been so pissed when both Ilya and Shane scored. Shane nudges Ilya's shoulder with his own. "Jesus! Any other wild prank wars I've missed?"

Ilya looks thoughtful, tapping his chin dramatically, then clearly settles on a decision. "Nope," he says, popping the 'p' with exaggerated innocence.

Shane flicks his ear. "Liar."

Ilya catches his hand and kisses his palm. "Love you!" he sing-songs.

"You can't say that every time you want to get out of trouble!" Shane tries to pull his hand away, but Ilya holds tight.

"Can't I?" Ilya waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

"Jesus Christ…" Shane tries to sound exasperated and fails. Ilya's smiling. He's laughing. There's more light and life in his eyes than there's been for days.

It's… god, it's a good day.

It’s an early night for all of them, but Shane doesn’t mind. The evening wears Ilya out, but he’s still soft and smiling when he snuggles under the sheets and tugs Shane into his arms. “Today was good,” he mumbles, mint sweet on his breath and his limbs lax and heavy over Shane’s.

Shane is struck breathless and dumb with how very much he loves his husband. He has to kiss him before he speaks. Ilya seems more than happy to oblige him. It makes Shane’s upset from earlier in the day seem even more selfish and petty. Ilya loves him. He still wants him. This is nothing more than a brief spell imposed by a medical condition, no different from what would happen if Ilya were physically injured. It’s silly even thinking for a second it could be anything else.

He’s just tired. Very tired.

“I love you,” Shane whispers into his shoulder, in English, then in French, and Japanese, and finally Russian.

“I love you,” Ilya whispers back.

Shane falls asleep pretty quickly, dead to the world until he feels Ilya shift against him, rolling onto his side. The clock on the bedside table helpfully tells him it’s ten minutes after midnight.

“Ilya?” Shane calls, ready to follow. Ready for another night of restless, hollow-eyed insomnia.

Instead, Ilya gently eases him back down. He has his phone under his ear, and in the quiet of the bedroom, Shane can makeout the heavy pulse of music from the other end of the line. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. It’s just Sasha.”

He traces the delicate tip of his finger down Shane’s nose and over his eyes, his voice a soft, calming wave easing Shane back under.

“T’im fuck off,” Shane grumbles, awake just enough to be annoyed at anyone who is disturbing their peace so late at night.

Ilya chuckles and heads for the hall, closing the bedroom door behind him. Anya does little more than huff, clearly as unimpressed as Shane is.

He falls back asleep. He must do. And it’s the cold that wakes him. They keep the bedroom temperature low to compensate for the fact that they both sleep tangled in each other’s arms, and half the time they have an extra blanket in the form of Anya. When Shane blinks awake, shivering, it’s past four am, and he’s freezing.

“Ilya?”

There’s no answer. No familiar sound of Ilya’s breathing. For a second, Shane forgets about Sasha’s call and bolts upright, suddenly petrified that Ilya is once again outside, staring blankly into space, and that he has been for hours. He jumps out of bed, scrambles his way into a pair of tracksuit pants, and stumbles for the bedroom door, just in time to hear a godawful crash from downstairs.

He’s out in the hall before he realizes what’s happening, followed by Anya. They both nearly crash into Cliff, who appears from the guest room at the opposite end of the floor, not totally awake but rapidly on his way there.

“Ilya!”

He takes the stairs two at a time, Cliff right behind him. The pounding in his ears is louder than the actual sound, but Cliff shouts his name and pumps ahead, launching down the next flight like an avalanche in gym shorts. Shane's bare feet slap the hardwood. He has the wild hunch that Anya is faster than both of them and that she’ll get there first for whatever, whoever, is clattering about the house. He has a horrible mental image of Ilya hurt, or bleeding, or-

But it’s not blood waiting for them, it’s laughter, broken and wild and echoing off the glass, spilled light, raucous as a frat house. Shane slams around the corner and sees a hat trick of chaos: the front door swung wide, the night air slapping him to full consciousness, and in the entryway, a tangle of bodies knocking boots and elbows up against the credenza. Anya careens into the knot with a yodel, tail arced like a scimitar, and detonates any attempts at dignity.

Of the three, only Ilya looks remotely upright, and that’s a technicality: he’s upright the way a fallen signpost is upright, leaning on Sasha’s shoulder so hard it makes them one being, two men welded by stubbornness and whatever the fuck Sasha is using to prop Ilya’s deadweight. Sasha’s half-crouched, both arms around Ilya’s waist, giggling around a joint so fresh Shane can almost taste it at the back of his throat. There are two buttons on his shirt in entirely the wrong hole.

Ilya is trying to say something, but it comes out a moan. He’s wearing only the very threadbare, barely decent jeans Shane has fully banned him from leaving the house in, and a white t-shirt that’s soaked through. He looks like he’s been dragged chestdown through a hockey rink and then left to marinate in tequila for forty-eight hours. When he sees Shane, his face spasms in confusion. He’s so fucked up he can’t even fake sober.

Sasha, on the other hand, lets out a cackle so pure and delighted it’s almost cute. “Opa! We have made an entrance!” His accent sounds hungover and cheerful, heavier than the last time Shane heard his voice in person. “Honey, we’re home!”

Shane’s blind panic recedes an inch as it morphs into something more complicated: a five-alarm cocktail of giddy relief, shock, and absolutely volcanic fury. “Is he fucking drunk?” He doesn’t ask Ilya, because Ilya is clearly barely fucking conscious, though he’s trying valiantly not to let his head lol backwards. He’s not even wearing socks.

Sasha grins, nearly falling as he tries to display Ilya for inspection. “Yes! Luylya, show him your tricks.” He shoves Ilya towards Shane, both hands open like he’s presenting a bottle of wine.

Ilya, contravening all laws of physics and dignity, sticks the landing. “Shane!” he manages, then sways forward.

Shane rushes forward, gets an arm around him, and ends up shouldering most of his dead weight. The smell is a miasma of smoke, sweat, vodka, and sour-sweet club air. Ilya tries to kiss his nose, misses, and licks him on the cheekbone instead.

Appearing behind Cliff, wearing only his t-shirt and an expression that’s surely the mirror image of Shane’s own, Svetlana stalks straight over to Sasha and grabs him by the front of his shirt. “What the fuck is going on?”

Sasha, who apparently has always and will always be an unsober disaster, just grins at her, all teeth and sick charm, then shrugs. “He was bored,” he says, “and I missed my friend. We talk, we drink- don’t worry, I drove. He is fine.” He attempts a little bow, one hand across his stomach, and Shane honestly wants to punch him so hard his bones pulse for the rest of his natural life.

“You fucking drove?”

Sasha opens his mouth, but Shane cuts him off, every word acid on his tongue. “What did you give him?” It comes out thinner and higher than he wants, but the tremor in his hands makes up for it. He shoulders Ilya to the bench, props him upright, and tries to peel the sticky shirt off his chest to check for damage. Anya sniffs and circles, whining.

Sasha blinks, as if the question is offensive. “Nothing! He’s boring now; he doesn’t do coke. Just vodka. Shitty fucking vodka, maybe, but-”

“He’s on medication!” Shane grinds out, and the echo on ‘medication’ is a thousand conversations about what will and won’t kill someone, about serotonin syndrome and what happens when you swamp a brain already held together by string. “He’s not supposed to fucking drink you piece of shit!” A lazy swipe of Ilya’s hand tries to cup Shane’s cheek, misses. He’s smiling, sweet, and vacant. Shane wants to scream.

“It’s not like I held him down and poured it down his throat!” Sasha snaps, defensive and increasingly angry. “But wait, all of his bad decisions are mine, no?”

He wants to slug Sasha, just right in his stupid, vodka-glossed face, but Ilya slouches into his shoulder, and Shane has to anchor him upright with a handful of t-shirt. The cloth is clammy with sweat, a weirdly familiar heat, and the way Ilya's head wobbles on his neck, all loose muscle and lazy grin, makes Shane’s wild, teeth-rattling terror instantly laced with an equally wild streak of white-hot, helpless anger.

"Fuck you!" Shane says, low and sharp and older than anything he’s ever heard come out of himself. "Why the fuck was he even with you?" He was home! He was safe in their fucking bed...

Sasha’s face - whole body language, really - goes rigid. For half a heartbeat, he looks down. Not in shame, but gathering up all the spiky disaffection that’s been, apparently, waiting for just this moment to detonate. "Oh, sorry," he sneers, voice thickening back to Russian. "I can’t possibly fucking think why he’d want to get out of this fucking cage and have some fun-”

Shane glances at Svetlana in desperate hope for backup, but she’s gone sharp-edged and rigid, sickly pale and disturbingly frightened. Cliff is barely holding back, fists balled and violence brewing behind his eyes.

"Ilya," Shane tries, kneeling in front of him. Ilya's eyes slide open, then snap closed as if the brightness is slicing right through them. Up close, there's nothing of joy or mischief in him, only the automatic pilot of ancient, well-practiced escape. "Baby, what did you drink?"

He can kill Ilya later. After he knows if he needs to drive his husband to the fucking ER.

He mumbles something, then, with herculean effort, opens his lips. "Just… one shot," he mumbles. “Not supposed to drink. Don’t… don’t tell Shane, he’ll be upset. S’already upset…”

Yeah, there’s no way this is just one shot’s worth of damage. Not with the way Ilya used to drink. It can’t be…

He’s not even sure he wants it to be true.

“When the fuck did he even leave?” Cliff asks. He braces one big hand on Ilya’s shoulder, helping to keep him upright. Shane wants to break all of his fingers. The idea of anyone touching Ilya right now is more than he can handle.

“I needed a fucking ride,” Sasha snaps. It’s Svetlana he’s looking at, though. Her, he’s recoiling from. “Not my fault he looked fucking miserable when he turned up.”

“Shut up!” she says, absolute venom in her tone. “You fucking moron, you could have killed him!” She’s shaking, Shane realizes, actually, physically trembling with it. “God, you never change! It’s always everyone else’s job to pick up your mess! You think it’s cute? He’s not fucking seventeen anymore! You’re not seventeen anymore!”

Sasha, still drunk and open-mouthed for a split second. Then all the good humor burns away, and he bares his teeth. “Yeah? Well, at least when we were seventeen, he actually had fun. You remember that, Sveta? Don’t act like you weren’t right there with us!”

He's shaking. Not with fear, not with panic. Shane is vibrating with such concentrated rage that he thinks he might short out something vital. Every muscle in his jaw is cement and his teeth ache. Years of dealing with mindfucks on the ice, with the terror of being seen, of being known, and the ever-present churn of everyone wanting a piece of him, and yet this… this is the first time he thinks he genuinely might, under the right lighting, actually kill someone.

Svetlana’s voice is a blade, too fast and too fucking angry for Shane to fully follow what she’s saying.

Sasha wheezes, “Go fuck yourself, Sveta, I-” and it’s a mistake, because Cliff is standing too close for shit like that. Cliff’s hand wraps Sasha’s bicep, and the next second, he’s outside the threshold, the door rattling with the force of his ejection. There’s a second, a shuffle of feet and muttered cursing, then nothing as he slams the door behind them both. The house suddenly feels four times as big. Every echo of Ilya’s labored laugh, every gasp for air, is stark in the hush.

Shane takes a breath to steady himself and realizes he’s still shaking, one hand gripping Ilya’s wrist so tight there are pale marks on the skin. “You fucking asshole,” he says, and there’s no affection in it. There isn’t any anger, either, not in the way he normally does anger, only pure, undiluted disappointment and terror. Ilya blinks at him, his expression wavering back and forth between that cold facade he used to show the world, and the man Shane married. “You don’t get to fucking do this,” Shane spits, because anything else would be weepy and he’s not going to lose here, not with Sasha gone and Ilya clearly more drunk than Shane has ever seen him.

He looks at Svetlana for backup, but she’s slumped hard against the wall, rigid as a statue. Cliff is out front. Shane can hear the rumble of his voice now, and Sasha’s shriller protests, but it’s muffled through the closed door and doesn’t matter, not right now.

Ilya, for his part, is barely present, still weaving, eyes rolling up. “S’not his fault. Should’ve…” he mumbles, and Shane’s not sure if he wants to shake him or hug him. He does neither. He sits back on his heels, scrubs both hands over his face, and breathes. “Don’t let him hurt him,” Ilya groans, trying to push himself upright. “Not his fault… Shane, please.”

It’s Svetlana who jerks into motion, her face wet. “Fuck you,” she sounds as furious as Shane feels as she throws open the front door and steps out in time to stop Cliff from breaking Sasha’s whole face.

“M’sorry,” Ilya mumbles. “Didn’t mean it. S’fucking stupid…”

“Yeah, you fucking are!” He takes Ilya’s face between his hands and holds on, hard. “Do you have any fucking idea how dangerous this is?”

“S’worked in the past…” Shane waits for the next shoe to drop, the inevitable escalation. Instead, Ilya slumps, eyes glassy, and mutters, “I can still be fun.” He looks up at Shane, a wet anger pooling in his eyes. “You want for me to be fun, yes? Not this. Not with the crying, always. You hate it. Everybody hates it. I fucking hate it.”

Shane is furious. Every particle of self-pity and anxiety goes up in a ball of bright white hate for Grigori, and Alexei and Irina, for Sasha, and, yeah, for Ilya, too… all of them complicit in this ongoing, self-eating cycle he’s supposed to be free of. "You are not a teenager anymore," Shane spits, voice shaking. "You have a fucking life. You have people who love you. You don't get to just… you can’t do the things you used to fucking do, okay? You can’t go out and get drunk, or high, or fuck your way through half the fucking city or-"

“I didn’t! Shane, no! I wouldn’t!” The words tangle up and topple out, staggering with the effort to be believed. He tries to get both hands up, like he’s pleading a case to a jury, but only gets as far as pawing at Shane’s shoulder. "I didn't!" Ilya says again, jerking away from Shane's grip, wincing as if Shane hit him, not just held his face. "I didn't touch anyone! Not… I wouldn't."

He says it like it’s not just a defense, but a full-bodied, soul-deep apology, the kind you only make if you’ve been accused of it before. Which is insane. It never once crossed Shane’s mind that Ilya would cheat on him. Not in any meaningful way, not after everything they’ve been through. Not now, when every cell in his body is still tuned into the gravity of this man. From the minute Ilya said the words ‘I love you’, Shane has never worried about that. About losing him to something easier, maybe, but not to betrayal.

But Ilya is terrified. Even in his wasted, half-blackout state, he’s holding Shane’s sleeve like a lifeline, staring up at him through a curtain of wet hair. "I say no, now! He stops."

“He shouldn’t fucking start,” Shane says furiously, and he’s right back to wanting to fucking kill someone.

He can feel the air pushing at the base of his skull, a panicked, scraping sensation, like static crawling over his scalp. Sasha's words echo, stick and catch - "Don't act like you weren't right there with us!" - and all Shane can see is the way Sasha looks at Ilya, like they’ve done this before so often it’s normal, like maybe there's some file-folder full of fucked up rivalry and need between them that Shane will never understand.

He can’t fucking do this. He can’t have this conversation right now. Not with Ilya this drunk. Not with his own soul trying to crawl its way out of his chest.

“Marlow!” he barks through the open door.

Cliff sticks his head in. “You good?”

Shane is so far from good its not even funny.

“He stays in the guest room. I want him here in the morning.” When Ilya is sober, Shane can decide if he needs to kill the asshole, call the fucking cops, or just drop-kick him to the fucking airport.

Svetlana drags Sasha back into the house by his arm. Shane’s more than a little pleased to see he’s got a busted lip.

Shane hauls Ilya upright, wraps both arms around his ribs, and steadies him with brute force. “We’re going to bed,” he says, because anything else - questions, accusations, confessions, a repeat of Sasha’s name - would be a betrayal of everything Ilya has ever trusted him with. “You’re done with all this.”

Ilya doesn’t fight him. Not even a little. He folds in, tucks his head against the side of Shane’s neck, and breathes damp, sticky-warm air down Shane’s neck. In the logic of their bodies, there’s a rightness, a pattern. If one of them is failing to stand on his own, the other simply does it for both of them. He marches them down the hall, half-carries him up the stairs, and through the dark with Anya shadowing each step, nails clicking slow and uncertain, like she’s unsure whether to intervene or to let them figure it out. Shane can relate.

“Sorry,” Ilya mumbles, boneless as Shane sets him on the bed and starts to peel him out of his clothes. He stinks of booze, and he needs a fucking shower, but neither of them has the energy for it, and it’s not like Shane plans on sleeping.

Ilya’s out before Shane can even wrestle him out of his shirt. He doesn’t stir when Shane rolls him onto his side, or when he drags over one of the chairs by the wardrobe and settles down for the watch.

He doesn’t twitch when Shane starts to cry, silent and in small gasps, because yesterday was a good day, and today… they might be worse than when they started.

Chapter 23

Chapter Notes

Shane: If only there were a way to communicate with this man I love instead of talking past each other at cross-purposes.

Also Shane: wait a minute...

When I started writing this story (or rather when I admitted to myself it wasn't just a cute oneshot) I twisted my brain into knots trying to figure out a way for Shane and Ilya to have this conversation in a way that felt true to character. This... was not what I anticipated, but what can I say? Shane fucking Hollander, everyone.

Also Cliff. My boy. My not-so-idiot angel. I have no chill at all about Cliff (or Sveta and Petrov) and have been looking forward to paying this plotline off for like, 80k...

We're on the home stretch now... which is good because oh boy do I need a nap.

It’s worse.

Within an hour of putting Ilya to bed, Shane is helping him stumble to the bathroom, where they spend the rest of the pre-dawn trying to keep Ilya upright long enough to eject the meager contents of his stomach, along with what sounds like half his internal organs.

He gives up hauling Ilya back to bed after the third trip, dragging a pillow and sheet from the bed and trying to keep him at least a little comfortable as he sweats and shakes and clings to porcelain. In the short windows between, Shane has to snap and snarl and smack Ilya’s hands away just to clean him up.

For three hours, Ilya cycles between telling Shane to fuck off and begging him not to leave.

By ten am, they’re barely speaking at all. Shane wants to take him to the ER. He settles instead for calling the Centaur’s Team doctor.

Terry was the one to prescribe Ilya the meds in the first place. Within twenty minutes, he’s making a home visit and helping Shane drag Ilya back to bed. Someone, Shane suspects Svetlana, has changed the sheets while they’ve been locked in the bathroom.

Terry stares at Ilya for a good ten seconds before breaking the silence with, “Well, you’ve managed to surprise me, which is a rare thing these days.” He’s got a black go-bag over one shoulder, already unzipping it. “Congratulations. You’re the biggest idiot I’ve had to patch up all year, and that includes the time Hazzy nearly split his tongue open during a pregame with Vancity.”

He has the kind of face that always looks mid-frown, but Shane’s tired brain really hopes it's all affection. Terry moves fast, propping Ilya’s chin, making him look straight ahead to check pupil dilation, then rummaging through a case for a digital BP reader. Ilya’s skin is cold and sticky, and even with the hallway light off, he’s got his eyes clamped mostly shut, just a sliver of blue, fever bright and glassy.

“I’m fine,” he slurs, sounding about as far from fucking fine as possible.

“Is he going to die?” Shane blurts, and immediately wants to fold himself into the wall.

Terry, unbothered and brisk, clamps the monitor to Ilya’s arm. “Not today. Another couple of drinks and it might have been a different story, but-” Terry glances up, sees the panic on Shane’s face, and softens a little. “Hey. Good instincts calling me. He is gonna be fine. Even if he feels like shit.” He quickly starts an IV, prepping the line with deft, well-practiced movements and total calm.

“Good,” Shane snaps, immediately regretting it. He doesn’t want Ilya to feel as bad as he clearly does.

Ilya’s still staring glassily at the ceiling, not even flinching as he sets the canula. Shane turns away, but when he looks back, the tube is already snaked into a vein, clear liquid creeping down the drip. He swallows and tries to keep himself upright, tries not to throw up out of sympathy.

Terry stands so he can talk to Shane at eye level, the line trailing from Ilya's hand to the little drip bag propped on the headboard. “He’s massively dehydrated, but we can fix that. His blood pressure is good, pulse is strong. His body’s fighting off two huge chemical whiplash triggers, so it’s just going to suck really, really hard. That said…” He turns to look over his shoulder at Ilya, who’s not listening, “...keep an eye on him for the next twenty four hours. If he starts becoming confused or loses consciousness, call an ambulance. Odds are that crazy metaoblism is gonna come through, though, so… try not to worry.”

Shane can’t help it; he laughs, a wild, near-hysterical little noise that breaks the logjam in his throat. “You’re sure he’s going to be okay?”

“Yeah. He’ll feel like he’s dying for about twenty-four hours, but he’s not.”

Ilya, maybe just to prove the point, groans, his eyes still closed. “Is fine,” he manages.

“Yeah, you can shut the fuck up,” Shane says, too exhausted to be as sharp as he wants to be.

“Go easy on him. It’s always hit-or-miss with these meds. Some people can drink just fine. Others… not so much. Unfortunatly it’s one of those fuck around and find out kinda things, which is why we tell you to just... not do the thing.” Terry looks back down at Ilya. “All that aside, how are you getting on with the dose?”

“Was getting better, I think,” Ilya mumbles. He looks and sounds furious. Like he has any fucking right to be mad when it’s his own fault he’s back to feeling like shit.

Terry grunts his understanding. "That's how it usually goes. Next time, let's not try to reverse course with straight ethanol." He checks the line, seemingly satisfied with the flow. Then, with Shane, he’s softer. "You look like someone hit you with a brick. Why don't you let me babysit the idiot, get yourself a quart of water, food, maybe an hour's sleep?"

He wants to protest. Say something about being totally fine, that he can hold it together, that he's not the one who almost coded himself with shit vodka, but even standing here, the rush of relief is black-edged and hollow. He can feel his own nerves chewing the inside of his mouth raw, his tongue thick and coppery, his whole body locked on a hair trigger between action and failure. The idea of letting go for even a minute makes his head buzz with static.

Still, Terry's right. If he doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't stop shaking, he's going to be even less use than Ilya.

"We need an hour or so for that drip," Terry says, "and I can talk anyone into a coma. Trust me. I’ve wrangled worse bastards than Rozanov." There's something in the way he says it, real and unfussy, that makes it just barely possible to believe him.

“I’m right fucking here,” Ilya grumbles. Shane checks his face, still gray, still tight with nausea, mouth pressed in a miserable line. His hand is cold, but the pulse at his wrist is steady, and with every slackening second in his features, the panic in Shane's chest eases. There's nothing left for Shane to do but pace the perimeter of his own worry, or take the out Terry is giving him.

He squeezes Ilya’s bicep gently, lips brushing the sweat-slick hair at his temple. He’s fucking gross, and Shane loves him so much. “I’ll be back. Gonna go eat something before Terry gives me a needle too.”

Ilya’s eyelids flicker, but he doesn’t open them. “Don’t need babysitter,” he mutters, fading into the pillow.

“Shut up and deal with it,” Shane says, and it’s almost fond.

By the time he gets to the kitchen, hands still shaky, the tension in his ribs is giving way to just plain exhaustion. Even his brain, usually the first to amuse itself by staging a full recitation of every fuck-up, is too fried to dig up a new flavor of self-recrimination. It feels blank, hollowed out. He needs to put together a blender full of frozen fruit, protein powder, and yogurt, a thousand-calorie smoothie, before he ends up hypoglycemic.

The kitchen is occupied. Cliff and Svetlana are on one side of the island, quietly passing playing cards back and forth.

Sasha, almost as pale as Ilya, is a hunched figure of misery opposite. In the morning light, his bust lip is almost black.

Shane really likes Cliff Marlow.

“That your doc?” Cliff asks, looking up over his handful of cards and accidentally showing them all to Svetlana, who folds them down with a shake of her head. “How’s he doing?”

Sasha doesn’t meet Shane’s eyes. “Is he okay?”

Fuck you, is what Shane wants to say. Instead, he pulls out the blender, dumps in his ingredients without bothering to measure them as he usually would, then turns it on high, loud enough and long enough that Sasha’s hungover expression turns green and waxy.

There’s so much Shane wants to say to him. Or scream at him. But he can’t fucking focus on anything beyond stopping his hands from shaking. He looks at Cliff instead. “Next twenty-four hours might be rough, but he should be okay.”

Still, it’s Sasha who answers. “Good, that’s good.”

Shane doesn't dignify him with a response. He finishes the smoothie, pours it into the tallest glass, and drains half in one go. Cliff is saying something, maybe about hangovers, maybe about coffee, but none of it is for Shane. He pushes past them, leaving the glass in the sink, and takes the stairs two at a time to the landing.

He could sleep, but the idea of closing his eyes even for a minute is like an invitation to drown. Instead, he detours to the storage closet he made Ilya reorganize, and he grabs the caddy of cleaning supplies. He purposely doesn’t look at Ilya or Terry as he cuts through the bedroom to the en-suite. He wipes surfaces, bleaches them, and scrubs until the scent of sickness is gone and only the ghost of it remains in his mind.

He doesn't think about why it helps. He doesn't need to. There's no higher consciousness to appeal to, just the need to scour down every evidence of a bad night until some part of the world is right again. He finishes the mirror last, so his own horrid reflection is the only thing left, and even that's easy to smear away with a towel.

When he's run out of places to clean, he collapses onto the floor, knees drawn up, and lets the cold tiles sting his bare feet. 

He thinks about going back to check on Ilya, but the idea of him slack, gray, and with a fucking doctor hovering is more than Shane can handle.

Shower. He needs a fucking shower.

He spends a long time under the water, alternating between full-hot and bracing cold, willing it to jolt him awake enough to function again. He can't cry again. The pressure behind his eyes is real, but it can't find a way out. So he braces his head against the tiles, lets the water beat down on the nape of his neck, and tries to remind himself that Ilya is okay, they had a good day before, and they’ll have more in the future.

By the time Shane throws on fresh clothes and pads back into the bedroom, Terry is sealing up his kit, IV already spooling into an orderly coil at Ilya’s elbow. The air’s a sharp cut of rubbing alcohol and bleach, overlaid by the cotton-candy thread of those cheap hospital bandages. Ilya’s lying on his side, breathing a damp, shallow rhythm into the sheets, one hand squashed into a fist beneath his jaw. His eyes are closed. If not for the deep corrugation of his brow, he’d almost look comfortable.

Terry stands up and stretches his shoulders. “He’s through the worst of it. I’d keep him hydrated, maybe try a little food in a couple hours if he feels up for it.” He leans in, voice lowering out of habit, “Let him sleep. And if he gets confused, or his temp spikes, call me right away.”

“Thanks,” Shane says. He can’t manage more. The words feel sludgy in the back of his throat, and he’s too tired to wrestle them into shape.

Terry looks at him with mild interest. “You alright?” It’s not just politeness. Now that the crisis is over, he’s got time to notice the world outside the end of an IV needle.

“I’m fine,” he says, because he is.

“I have enough difficult patients as it is,” Terry says wryly. “You’re supposed to be one of the smart ones.”

“Really. I’m okay.”

He waits for Terry to push it, but the doctor only shrugs as Shane walks him to the front door. “I’ll be booking you both in for a visit before pre-season. Try to make sure you both show up looking human, yeah?”

“Yeah. Of course. Thank you. Seriously.”

“Part of the job. We’ll call this growing pains, yeah?” There’s something sharp and knowing in his gaze as he follows Shane through the house. “Rozanov is a dick, but he’s one of my better-behaved menaces. The boys look up to him. If we need to get you more help, I expect you to tell me.”

It’s a gentle reminder that they both have more at stake here than just their own issues. They don’t have all the time in the world to get this right.

“We will. I promise.”

Terry seems satisfied. “Alright, Hollander. I’ll see you soon.”

Shane closes the front door behind him, his fingers still on the knob, when Cliff’s hulking frame fills the hallway. He folds his arms over a broad chest. “Hey, man… you got a sec?”

Shane’s jaw tenses. He should be upstairs, beside Ilya, watching him breathe. But manners, drilled in by his dad, win over impatience. “Yeah. What’s up?” 

Cliff shifts his weight, boots thumping on the floor. He rubs the back of his neck, massive biceps bunching under his shirt. “It ain’t my place-”

“You flew to another country to check on him,” Shane points out. “Not sure there is any other place for you.”

“Right. No, that’s… yeah.”

“Cliff-”

“I won’t keep you. I just, fuck, I’m not the smartest guy. I know that. I miss shit. All the fucking time. Missed shit with Roz when it was right under my nose.”

Shane’s heart stutters. “You and me both.”

Cliff’s gaze drops. “He, er, ever talk to you about Petrov?”

Shane leans against the door, rubbing his eyes. “The kid on your team that used the word cock in front of my mom?” God, that feels so long ago.

Cliff snorts. “Yeah. Now the annoying roommate I can’t trust unsupervised in my kitchen. But, okay, I’m not spilling shit here or anything. He and I talked a lot. He fucking worships Roz, so like, any chance to pay him back…”

Half the time, Shane has no clue what Marlow is talking about. He’s got a mind like a sack of cats and expects everyone to keep up with the chaos. It’s probably why he and Ilya get on so well. “For what?”

“Putting the fear of god in the abusive sack of shit that is his father.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I missed that one, too. Roz fucking saw it. Little fucker is perceptive as shit. And it pissed me off. How the fuck did I miss it? Anyway, I talked to Lana about it, and she said this thing I will never fucking forget. And I think it’s maybe why people can have the same conversation and hear totally different things.” He says 'people'. Shane hears 'you and Ilya'.

“Okay…” Shane’s pretty sure the world is turning grey at the edges.

Cliff steps closer, a wall of muscle and concern. “Abused kids grow up speaking a language you can’t learn if you didn’t experience it.” The air sticks in Shane’s throat, choking back any sound he might want to make, and stopping his heart from trying to crawl out of his chest. Cliff continues. “Roz, Sasha, they fucking speak it. You, Lana, me, we do our best, and maybe we can try to make sense of the why, but the how is fucking harder.” He lays a heavy hand on Shane’s shoulder. “They’re fucked up. They make bad choices. That bit we can maybe get. How they reach the conclusion that they’re good choices…” he shrugs a little helplessly.

Shane’s vision swims. That’s what it all comes back to, isn’t it? Depression is a sickness, a chemical imbalance, one that they can treat. The rest of it, though, the cake under a thick layer of really shitty icing, is baked in a flavor Shane has no idea how to identify.

The story Cliff and Ilya shared the day before swims to the surface of his mind. Tampa was many things, but perhaps most significantly for Shane, it was the first time Ilya ever accepted Shane’s desperate need to care for him.

There’s a part of that night he thinks of often, usually when he doesn’t have the words or the emotions big enough to express just how much of Shane’s entire fucking soul is Ilya’s. That moment between the most terrifying words he’s ever said, ‘I think I like you maybe a little too much,’ and Ilya’s ‘I’m not,’ that Shane knew instinctively would have been finished with the words ‘worth it.

It’s confused him, confounded him even, that Ilya couldn’t just see how badly Shane loved him. That he, Ilya Rozanov, bright and beautiful and fierce and fucking incredible, would think for a second that he wasn’t worth everything.

But that is how Ilya thinks. That’s his default mode. One that might take Shane a lifetime to break him from.

And if he thinks that, then who the fuck knows. The synapses that have to misfire to bring him to that conclusion might be the same ones that convince him of other equally fucking stupid shit.

Like not waking Shane up to tell him he was going to pick Sasha up. Like going to a club after days of barely keeping down a single meal, and drinking on meds he doesn’t fucking understand, and switching right back into a headspace that recognizes alcohol, and music, and Sasha, and feeling like shit and following instinct through to its inevitable conclusion.

He feels sick, thinking how much worse it could have gone. “You… you hit him, though.”

Cliff’s lips twist in a rueful grin. “Well, yeah. No one talks to my girlfriend like that, you kidding me? You can be fucked up, like, for legit reasons, and still be a dickhead.” He steps back, eyes soft. “Anyway… something to think about, maybe? They’re both fucking idiots, and shit has consequences, and they gotta face em, but just…” He hesitates. “The shit you and I wouldn’t think of? That’s what they’re used to. Instincts are hard fucking things to fight.”

He squeezes Shane’s shoulder, then turns for the kitchen. “Oh. One more thing. You need a Kitchenaid. I’m sending you one with a pasta maker. You’re gonna love it.” He looks over his shoulder, flashing Shane that famous grin like he’s not just triggered a landmine between them.

“I…” he’s about to vanish, and Shane needs to get the words out. “Marlow?” Cliff hovers in the doorway, curious. “I don’t think you miss shit.”

Cliff shrugs, massive shoulders rising. “Sure, I do. I just try to make up for it when I catch up.”

Ilya is awake, damp from a quick shower, and sitting on the end of the bed by the time Shane makes it back upstairs. The IV has clearly helped, and he looks more aware than he has all morning.

Shane hovers in the doorway, uncertain and hating it until Ilya holds out his hand and Shane rushes to him.

There’s nothing in Ilya’s face but apology, open and unguarded.

“I fucked up,” Ilya says, chin shaking as he tries to keep eye contact, fails. “I fucked up everything. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I am-” The words stumble and stack on top of each other, as if he wants to cram an apology for every single mistake into one rushed onslaught.

Shane stares, and just standing there, he feels his sternum fissure like old wood. The night’s tension, the fight, the panic… and what is he supposed to do, yell at him? The ghosts of the last few hours, the whole script he’s rehearsed for confrontation, for anger, evaporate before they can condense to words. All that’s left is the shape of Ilya’s hand protecting his from the world, the lines of his face crumpled with shame and bruised fatigue, and the idiotic, overwhelming relief that Ilya is conscious, alive, and wants so badly to be forgiven.

Shane can’t stand for another second. He drops to his knees, to the safest, most grounded place in the world, and rests his head on Ilya’s thigh. Ilya’s hands flex and catch in Shane’s hair, and the rush of warmth is everything, a snapped cable finally sparking back to life.

“I was scared,” Shane says. It’s all that comes out, poured out of him, and when it does, his own voice shreds in the middle. He blinks it away, but it makes it worse. “I was so fucking scared, Ilya, you can’t fucking do that to me again, I can’t…” The rest stutters, gets dragged down into a noise Shane never wants heard by another soul, and then he’s crawling up and letting himself be crushed against Ilya’s chest, desperate to be held just as much as to comfort.

“Never again,” Ilya says it so firm and low, right in his ear, like a vow he’s reciting for a crowd, but there’s no one else here. Just the two of them and the ghosts. “I swear to you. Not ever. Not on purpose, not by accident. I won’t scare you like that again.” He cups Shane’s face and forces him to look up. “You are everything, you understand? Everything. I will fix this.”

Shane nods, embarrassed by the mess of himself, but it doesn't matter. He trusts Ilya. He believes him. He listens to the wild, steady hammer of Ilya’s heart, to the frantic rush of his own, and they’re still in sync, even through all of this. He closes his eyes and soaks up the gentleness as Ilya rocks them both.

He curls his fingers through Ilya’s tangled hair, pressing gently against bone. “How’s your head?”

Ilya catches his wrist and kisses it, then cups his cheek and kisses him there, too. “Nothing I don’t deserve.”

“You don’t deserve pain,” Shane protests, and watches the words fly right over his head. Christ, Cliff is right, isn’t he?

Pain is pain is pain, and Ilya simply doesn’t understand the difference.

“I don’t deserve you,” Ilya counters, kissing him again. “But I will try. Every day.”

You deserve me. You deserve everything. Shane’s said both things before and assumed Ilya actually understood him.

Jesus, they need to do things differently.

Ilya pulls him into another tight, breathless kiss, then pushes Shane’s hair off his forehead and stands, shaky but upright and nearly himself again. The old, stubborn heat is banked low in him, but it’s all the more ferocious for being held in check. When he offers his hand, Shane takes it, mindlessly, desperate, so fucking grateful for a point of contact to steer by.

The hallway is too bright after the dim bedroom, but Ilya’s grip never slips. They creep down the stairs, the hollow ache in Shane’s knees chased by the pitch-perfect sensation of Ilya’s fingers laced in his. For a guy with linebacker hands, Ilya’s always able to walk the perfect balance between gentleness and strength. Today, it feels like a tether, vital and unbreakable.

The kitchen, when they get there, is as awkward a tableau as you could script for the fallout from the night before. Svetlana lingers at the counter, hugging her elbows, her hair a mess of bedhead and static. Cliff stands at the sink, methodically wiping down a spotless countertop, studiously chill. Sasha’s at the table, a mug of black coffee between his hands, eyes blown wide and haunted. When Shane stops to think about it, there are far more relaxing places for all of them to be. They’re waiting on him. Or Ilya.

Shane isn’t sure what to expect when Ilya stops. He lets go of Shane’s hand and hooks his arm gently around Sasha. There’s a private exchange there, words spoken so soft Shane can’t process more than the timbre, something fond, and devastating. Then Ilya presses his lips to Sasha’s crown, and Sasha flinches but doesn’t recoil. He rests their foreheads together for a breath, then thumbs away something from Sasha’s cheek. “I will call you. But not for a while,” Ilya says, louder now, for everyone’s benefit. “You need to get a hotel. And sleep. I’m going to send you a phone number. You will call it. Until then…” There’s gravity in the words. Not a rebuke, not exactly, but a closing of the circle.

Sasha nods, hands shaking. He looks at Shane then, one raw, haggard glance, as if to check whether he’s allowed to hate himself as much as he clearly does.

“He’s coming with us,” Svetlana tells them. “To Boston.” It’s a silent assurance that Sasha isn’t going to be left to his own devices. One Shane is surprisingly relieved to hear.

“I’ve already got one weird Russian roommate,” Cliff says brightly. “One more can’t hurt.”

Sasha says nothing for a long while. Ilya steps away, pouring himself into the pure necessity of motion. Making coffee that he hands to everyone, a kiss and a murmur for Svetlana, and that weird half shoulder-shove grunt thing he has with Cliff. He opens windows to let in air, then rummages through the pantry until he finds Anya’s favorite treats, and distracts himself by bribing her out of her bed to be fussed over.

Shane almost misses it, the moment Sasha comes over. He’s a shadow on the edge of the kitchen, arms folded, long fingers drumming on his own ribcage, his eyes fixed on a blank spot between Shane’s feet and the fridge. Shane watches him and waits. Not because he wants to make Sasha suffer, but because he’s learning, finally, that some things can’t be fixed just by demanding answers.

Sasha’s voice, when it comes, is so quiet Shane almost misses it. “I am sorry,” he says, not looking up. “I did not mean to make you… I thought I was helping. I was not.” The way he says it, soft, maybe embarrassed, but not defensive, chips at something bitter and hurting in Shane’s own chest.

He expects himself to be angry, but all he finds is a tired, familiar ache. “Ilya’s mistakes are his,” Shane says, and it’s a relief how much he means it. If it helps, if anything can help, he wants Sasha to know that. “He gets to choose how he fucks up. That’s not on you, or me, or anyone.”

Sasha’s gaze jerks up, the haunted look shifting, surprised. “It is on me a little.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Shane says, and, weirdly, it makes both of them relax a fraction. He and Sasha will probably never be friends, and yeah, Shane wants him far, far away from his husband, but that can be enough for now.

It’s weird how much you can fit into half a day. How many emotions can he roll through, and how much can unfold in such a short period of time. By midday, Cliff and Svetlana are steering Sasha through the front door and into a cab. Shane doesn’t know how to thank them, or what Ilya says to each of them, but there’s a comfortable notion that they don’t actually have to conclude anything. Next time, they’ll just pick things right up again.  

He’s honestly looking forward to seeing them in better circumstances. Preferably after thrashing Boston at a home game…

Though the peace and the privacy in the house are welcome, Shane can’t help but feel like everything is still waiting to slot into a place that no longer has the same shape.

He makes them both something for lunch, hates the way Ilya looks green before taking even the first bite, and makes his decision. He considers hiring a driver or leaving it for another day, but he’s more awake and clearheaded after his shower, and he’s driven far more strenuous routes on less sleep.

While Ilya curls up with Anya on the couch and stares flat-eyed at a documentary Shane knows for a fact he isn’t actually watching, he goes to their bedroom and packs.

He just needs the essentials. They have pretty much everything else already waiting for them. The only thing missing is groceries, but he puts in an order for next-day delivery and fetches everything they need for the rest of the day from the kitchen. The only thing they don’t already have set up is for Anya. She can barely be budged from Ilya’s side most days, but hers is the only attention he attracts as he packs together her favorite bed, a handful of toys, and enough food for the week, just in case the store tries to substitute her favorite brand.

It freaks him out, the way it always does, that they can be in the same room and Ilya doesn’t even notice. It’s taken a long time to understand that Ilya isn’t so much ignoring him as he is everything.

He packs the car first, then does all his checks in the house. Windows closed, taps off… all the little things Ilya teases him for, that Shane can’t stand for him not to mention today. He buckles Anya in her special seat on the back bench.

“I’m gonna go get your dad,” Shane tells her. “And we’re gonna go hide for a bit.” He supposes she doesn’t much care where they go so long as she’s with them, but it does give him a little spike of pleasure to imagine how much she’s going to enjoy herself. She’s a good girl, and playful. She probably been missing Ilya as much as Shane has. For someone who has never really wanted a pet, or entertained the idea of having a dog, he won’t deny how nice it is to bury his face in her fur and just listen to her steady heartbeat. No wonder Ilya does it so often. “No chewing the seats,” he warns her, earning himself a look he swears she’s learned from Ilya.

On the way back inside, he grabs Ilya's Nikes and brings them with him into the living room. The TV flickers blue shadows across Ilya's unmoving form, his eyes vacant, fixed on nothing. It's the same as it was before, with Ilya's focus and moods rising and falling with the tides. Fortunately for them, he's really good at taking advantage of timings.

Shane kneels by the couch, blocking the screen. He doesn't speak, just takes one of Ilya's bare feet in his hands, cradling the arch with a gentleness he wants to give Ilya more than just about anything. He slides on the first Nike with the care of someone handling blown glass.

"What?" Ilya blinks slowly, surfacing from the deep waters of his mind, and pushing himself up on his elbows. His hair falls across his forehead, curls flat and limp. He looks more bewildered than annoyed, his movements sluggish as Shane methodically fastens the laces of one shoe and moves to the next.

"We're going out," Shane says, voice low and steady, the same tone he uses to coax Anya through thunderstorms.

"Now?" Ilya's voice cracks, as if speaking once again requires effort he can barely summon.

"Yep." Shoes secured, Shane rises and slides his hands under Ilya's arms, lifting him from the couch with careful strength. Ilya's body hangs like wet laundry against him, heavier in his listlessness than he ever is when fighting on the ice. Shane adjusts his grip, one arm around Ilya's waist, anchoring him.

"Shane, please, I don't-" Ilya's protest dies halfway, his shoulders slumping further.

"You feel like shit," Shane says, brushing his thumb over Ilya’s lips. "And you're gonna keep feeling like shit until you don't. And I wish it were different, but the world's not waiting for that to happen." He presses their foreheads together, breathing the same air. "So you're gonna come with me and do as you're told, okay?" He kisses Ilya gently on the lips, a promise more than a demand.

Ilya's eyes close, lashes dark against pale skin. "I'm so fucking tired..."

"I know. I know you are." Shane's thumb traces the shadow beneath Ilya's eye. "All you gotta do is walk to the car with me. You can sleep on the drive."

"Where are we going?" Ilya asks, voice small, his fingers unconsciously tightening in Shane's shirt.

"Where I should have taken you right from the start. Home, baby. We're going home."

Ilya's face crumples, a dam breaking. He hiccups back a sob and nods frantically, pressing his face into Shane's shoulder to hide the tears that start without his permission.

Shane holds him there, one hand cradling the back of Ilya's head, waiting out the tremors that run through him. He knows why they didn't go to the cottage from the start. He wanted to be close to a hospital, to Terry, if there were problems. And Ilya, even in his darkest moments, didn't want to taint their sanctuary with the shadows he's been fighting.

That was then, when they still believed there might be a quick fix, a way to outrun the cold war that's been waging in Ilya's mind most of his life.

Now Shane knows better. He needs the solid ground of the home he built, the place where his confidence never wavers. And Ilya needs to sleep in his arms in the bed where he first believed someone could love the whole of him, even the broken parts.

"Wait," Ilya mumbles against his neck, pulling back with sudden worry in his bloodshot eyes. "What about Anya?"

"She's in the car with the bags." Shane smooths Ilya's hair back from his forehead, a gesture so automatic he doesn't realize he's doing it.

"You packed already?"

"I packed." Shane guides him toward the door, one step at a time.

"I... I could have helped." The guilt in Ilya's voice is a familiar weight.

"I've seen how you pack, Rozanov." Shane's smile is small but real, his hand steady at the small of Ilya's back. "That's not help."

Ilya doesn’t actually sleep on the drive. He holds Shane’s hand in his lap, his fingers warm and heavy as the city rolls into the countryside.

There’s a stretch of road a little past Carleton Place where the world falls away on either side, and you get a last, kingfisher flash of lake before it’s just a world lined with trees still bright in their summer grandeur. Shane always loved how this drive, in particular, has the ability to peel the world off him, layer by layer, until he’s nothing but a kid again, until his brain feels raw and bright and almost brand new. He doesn’t say any of this to Ilya, just keeps their fingers laced and navigates the blacktop as the road eats the last of the afternoon.

He glances over every few minutes. Ilya’s level gaze doesn’t shift from the horizon. Even when he doesn’t need to, Shane checks the rearview for Anya, curled up and snoozing in her seat like she’s engineered herself to be portable and oblivious. She likes driving, thank god.

He turns off the radio partway through the second hour and lets the silence replaster his skull. It’s a trick he learned, when things get loud inside: you make the world quieter, and eventually your brain gets bored with screaming. Ilya traces the inside of Shane’s thumb with his own. A constant, steady reassurance that he’s there, and awake, and not going anywhere.

By the time they arrive, the sky is a riot of color as the last of the summer sun dips below the golden waters of the lake. Shane throws open all the doors to air everything out, then takes Ilya’s hand in his own and leads him down to the deck. The cushions and blankets are still neatly folded from the last time they were there, comfortable and familiar enough that it’s easy to set up the couch and push Ilya down to wait while he starts a fire.

Anya’s mission to explore every nook and cranny of the yard is broken only long enough for her to confirm they’re staying in one place, then she’s off on an adventure. “Do loons attack dogs?” Ilya looks worried as he fusses with one of the tassels on the blanket.

“Loons are basically ducks,” Shane teases, the flames catching quickly as he fiddles with the fire. “No. They don’t attack dogs.”

Ilya’s ability to trust him on anything loon related remains as thin as ever.

Shane nudges him over with his hip and settles onto the bench. The night smells like pine and lake and faint smoke, and the heavy hush sprawls out around them. He can feel the draft off the water through his shirt, but it’s quickly replaced by the warmth of Ilya’s body as he sits bundled in the blanket, hands tucked between his knees, his face cast in alternating gold and shadow by the flames. He tries to tuck the blanket over Shane’s legs, but quickly goes boneless when Shane pulls his head down to his lap instead.

"Are you still angry at me?" Ilya asks, quiet but plain, as Shane settles the blanket back over them both.

Shane smooths a tasseled corner, shoving down his first, bitter answer. He isn't sure what he feels. Anger is easier than fear, easier than the hollow that panic leaves behind. "I’m not angry," he says, and knows it's only half true, but he doesn't take it back. "I’m scared. You scared me." It comes out a lot smaller than he wants, so he clears his throat and stares into the flames, fighting the urge to set all of the fuel on fire in one go and leave nothing but a pillar of heat.

"I am sorry. You do not have to forgive me," Ilya says after a long time. "If you want to be angry, I would prefer it. It's a very normal response."

Shane shakes his head, not looking up. "I’m always gonna forgive you. I want you to just… fuck, I don't know. Tell me. About things." He can hear the plea in his words, the ugly, needy seam of his own voice. It's amazing, he thinks, how quickly a person can go from solid to threadbare.

The sound Ilya makes is more breath than a laugh. He’s a knot of live wires and tension, and Shane’s usual calm-down routine is taking longer than it ever has. He reaches out, brushing a loose strand of hair from Ilya’s forehead, fingertips warm and steady.

“It was stupid,” Ilya admits, his voice tight. For a second, Shane thinks that is all he will get, the confession not unexpected, but more of a concession than an admission. Until Ilya continues. “And selfish. With you. And with Sasha. I know him. I know what he’s like. We were feeling bad, and wanted to feel better like we used to, but… it never made me feel better." The words are a whispered confession, one Shane has already pieced together from context.  "It was just more bad. We would use each other and then pretend.”

“You hurt each other,” Shane says softly, thumb tracing slow circles on the back of Ilya’s neck.

“Yes. Sveta… she sees the best in people. And she brings out the best in us. Enough to balance how we would get when we were alone, maybe.”

Shane’s brow furrows, stuck for a moment, and wondering if he’s somehow missed something else. “I don’t think she’d want you both to still be friends if she thought you were bad for each other.”

“No. Probably not. We aren’t bad friends. When we are just friends. But… he wants to be seen, and I wanted to feel something, and… I stole his father.”

It’s such a stupid, ridiculous, impossible thing that it lands right next to ‘you don’t like me’ and ‘I’m not worth it’. Shane treats it the same way.

“You didn’t steal his father. His father was an asshole. Whatever you did to each other as kids doesn't have a standing on what you did last night. You’re responsible for the shit you do, nobody else. You went out, and you got drunk with someone you know brings out the worst in you, and then you got in a car with someone who could have killed both of you, or somebody else.” That part is particularly hard to let go.” You scared the shit out of the people who love you. You made yourself sick. You put yourself in a bad situation that could have gone so much fucking worse, and the next time your brain tells you that any of those things are a good idea, you’re gonna remember that there is no fucking life for me if you’re not in it.”

He means every word, and it’s all too easy to remember that spike of terror after the plane. He’s never going to be able to forget that soul-shattering understanding of just how quickly his entire world had nearly just... ended.

“Shane-”

Shane brushes a fingertip along Ilya’s cheek, steadying him. “I’m not done, baby.” he must get his tone right, because Ilya relaxes instead of tenses. “I think sometimes you and I say shit to each other that we think fucking lands, and it doesn’t. Our brains are weird, and they don’t talk the same language, and there’s not a simple translation for half the shit we need one for. So… I have a solution.”

“I don’t know if sex is the answer this time.”

Shane chuckles, warm and patient, tucking a loose strand of hair behind Ilya’s ear. “I was talking about hockey.”

Ilya starts to shift against him, trying to roll until Shane settles him back in place. “What?”

“You heard me. It’s the one language we both fucking speak.”

“I get that… but what does it have to do with any of…” he flaps his hand in the air.

He holds onto Ilya, thumb at his cheek. "Think about how you play. As center. As captain," Shane says. He keeps his tone light, but under the surface, there's an aching clarity. "You’re first in, last out. You touch every part of the game."

Ilya’s not following, not quite. But the rhythm and pattern of familiarity calms him, gives his brain rails to run on. Shane can feel the moment his focus sharpens.

"You're running the ice," Shane says. "You take faceoffs, support both D, run your cycles, come low in the zone. You talk, you watch, you always have something to do. Every shift, every read, it’s all you." The lilt of his voice is pure locker room, tactical and direct. "But when it goes bad, when the team is off, you play harder. Take triple shifts. Hide your own pain to keep things moving. If you’re tired or fucked up, you push it because the team needs you." He looks down at the blanket bunched around Ilya’s hand, the frayed edge thumbed raw, and swallows. "You don't pull yourself, not unless you physically can't stand. Because you know the team is better with you on the ice."

Ilya is so still now, soaking it in. Shane keeps going, stretching the analogy until it fits the shape of Ilya’s life.

"The real danger shift isn’t the first one, or even when you're running hot mid-game. It's that late third period. You're beyond gassed, but you take one more shift, and the other guys pick it off, and the only thing left to do is hope someone breaks in time." He lets it hang long enough for the image to land. “You think the team’s better off with you out there, even when it’s not true. Even when you know for a fact that it’s not true.”

This was the part he needed to get right. He clears his throat, watching the rise and fall of Ilya’s chest as he processes. “That’s what your brain does when it gets dark, isn’t it?” The words leave a taste like copper on his tongue. “It tells you to stay out there… to not bother anyone with how you actually feel. Until you miss a pass, and it fucks you up so bad you’re sure everyone else’d be better off if you just stepped off the ice and let the game go.” The bounce in his voice is gone, replaced by a thrum low in his chest that’s all urgency, no grace. “You could’ve benched earlier, but you didn’t. You should’ve known better, and now the consequences are worse than just losing the game.” He drags his thumb around the curve of Ilya’s ear and goes in for the kill. “You trip, and the other side scores, and you know it was an accident, but everyone around you says otherwise, so maybe you were wrong. Maybe you did throw the game. Maybe you always wanted to.”

Ilya’s voice is aching. “Shane…” he shifts forward so he can press a kiss to Shane’s knee.

Shane has always liked the way a game collapses into pure pattern. If you’re paying real attention, nothing ever comes out of nowhere. They teach you, young, to see the telegraph, the heartbeat of the opposing bench, the way a coach signals change in the angle of his stance, or the way a defenseman’s eyes dart to the gap just before a breakout. You learn to spot the tells, and then build redundancies, default breakouts for when you’re running on fumes or caught flatfooted. You build structure so you don’t have to feel your way through hell on the fly.

It isn’t elegant, but neither is surviving the onslaught of a third period down by four goals. You get up. You take the next shift. You crawl through a minute’s worth of rotations and hope the other guys’ mistakes shine a little brighter than your own.

He holds those analogies together now, mapping their crooked lives onto a Venn diagram of game situations: how it turns time into double overtimes, how the only thing less forgiving than a rival’s forechecker is your own body after sixty hard minutes. Ilya processes the world in much the same way. A litany of tasks and silent decisions, all filtered through his nerves that still, in the very depths of his body where base instinct lies, associates failure with disappointment, and disappointment with abandonment, humiliation, and pain.

Shane knows that, now. He saw the first year they played together, each circling the other like two satellites in an ugly little solar system, orbiting ruin. He just never understood it. 

He thinks he does now. He sees it in the way Ilya’s body settles against him in the quiet, when the desire to disappear is coupled with the unconscious need to be weighted down, to not float off the planet entirely.

He can work with that.

“Let’s pretend you actually got off the ice for a minute," Shane says, keeping his tone neutral, a careful half-smile at the corner of his mouth. "Let’s say you give yourself the shift. What happens?"

Ilya rolls over onto his back, his head still on Shane’s lap, and blinks, slow, fuzzy, fighting the analogy as if some part of him wants it to pivot into a punchline, but the rest needs it too much to let it die. He watches Ilya contemplate, the line of his throat illuminated by the shifting fire. “Maybe I just come back to the bench,” Ilya says, hedging. “Or not. Is up to the coach.”

Shane smiles, because, yes. That’s it. That’s the play. “You come to the bench,” he says, “and you sit. You get water, maybe a tape job or a breather, swap out your blades, get PT on that fucking knee of yours... but you keep watching the ice. You rest your lungs, your legs. You let someone else take a turn, for once. When it’s your shift again, you’re ready.”

He nudges Ilya to look at him, holds his eyes so there's no mistaking that this is about more than running lines. “You try to hoss every shift, you’re gonna break. So we fix the bench. You’re halfway there. You’ve got Galina, you’ve got Terry, you’re finding the right drugs. Fuck, your bench is pretty fucking solid already.” He strokes a thumb along Ilya’s brow.

He can see how badly Ilya wants to argue, but there’s no heat left for it. There’s just the blinking, exhausted relief of being seen, and for once, he doesn't look away from it.

“You're not the only player on the ice, baby. You’re not the last line of defense.” He takes Ilya’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “If you need to sit, you sit. We sub in. We don't lose you to a bad fucking line change.”

Ilya shivers and doesn't try to hide it. “Sometimes I do not want to play at all.”

His chest aches with the force of wanting to fix that hurt. “So you don't. That’s what IR’s for.” He presses their hands together so hard it hurts. “And when the captain gets benched, who takes over?”

The chuckle that rumbles through Ilya’s chest is soundless. There’s a whole galaxy of stars reflected back at him in Ilya’s eyes. “AC,” he says, reaching up to cup Shane’s cheek.

Shane catches his fingers and kisses his palm. “And who’s your AC?”

“Boodram,” Ilya says, deadpan.

The laugh that he startles out of Shane breaks the silence around them, and the glorious, living noise of the rest of the world seeps back in. “Shut up!”

“Sorry,” Ilya smiles at him, sitting up so he can crawl into Shane’s lap and kiss him. “Sorry. You. Always you.” The effect is immediate. They pull the plug on a clogged drain, and suddenly the whole mess is washing out to the lake. Ilya breathes, really breathes, and slumps into Shane, heavy and rough and all-at-once, a bear-hug that strangles Shane’s ribs. They almost tip sideways off the bench, and for a second Shane tastes smoke and salt on his lips, which could just as easily be the cold air as the tears sticking Ilya’s cheek to his own.

He’s never felt more like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. He’s spent years trying to use stupid words when he should have just been chasing Ilya with a fucking hockey stick. It works for them in bed, of course it would work outside of it as well.

Ilya kisses him, hard and hot, hungry in a way Shane’s missed like a lost limb. The fire is burning, and Anya’s barking at loons, and Ilya is so fucking warm, his arms strong and his kiss as familiar as oxygen.

“Nice pep, Captain Hollander,” Ilya says, mouth bruised into an awe-tinged smile, breath warm against Shane’s cheek. “Is shame I’m not coachable.”

Ilya Rozanov, never about to miss a chance to try bait his opponent. Shane’s almost giddy thinking about being on the other side of it next season.

He groans, but it’s all he can do not to laugh. “Bullshit. With the right incentive, you’re the most coachable player in the league. You just need to like the game.”

“Sometimes I need to hate it a little, to play better.”

Shane knows that better than anyone. He kisses the sharp edge of Ilya’s jaw, grinning. “I give you full license to be an asshole if it means you come back to the bench.”

“Always. Yes.” Ilya vows.

Chapter 24

Chapter Summary

Please know that writing hockey is a LOT harder than writing action. Or sex. Who knew?! Is this what's realistically going to happen? I don't know, and I don't care. We're in wish fullfilment teritory at this point.

This is probably really the last 'main' chapter. The next, and last part, is a bonus pov... prizes for guesisng who...

It’s entirely possible that Yuna and David are in the wrong house. Yes, that’s very much Anya bounding up to them in demand of affection, and yes, that’s Ilya’s brand of music playing over the radio, and yes, they recognise Shane’s voice calling them from the deck out back, but everything else is…

Covered. Floor to ceiling in places, with post-it notes, charts, data sets, and seemingly random words and letters. They’re all in colorful little clusters, seemingly some cohesion behind the chaos in a way that suggests Shane’s influence, but otherwise utterly incoherent.

In the hall. In the kitchen. The living room… there’s lots written in Shane’s neat, square, orderly letters, and just as many in Ilya’s surpringly elegant cursive. There are even a few ones heavily underlined, in the woodpecker-heartbeat-monitor bouncy scribble of Russian cursive that frankly fills David with a little dread. If Shane can read that, then the two of them are going to be unstoppable.

“Maybe we should have checked in on them before now?” David whispers to an equally wide-eyed Yuna. They’ve both been a little stir-crazy these past few weeks, trusting Ilya and Shane to reach out if they need help, but otherwise leaving the two of them to work through the changes in their lives without the added pressure of having their parents hovering over their shoulders. They’ve spent the last week up at the cabin, so David can only assume things are going better.

“Pre-season starts next week?” She offers, shrugging a little as they step through the patio doors. David isn't sure what that has to do with it, but he accepts it might be one of those things wildly above his paygrade.

“Yes!” Ilya cheers as soon as he sees them, bounding over to bundle them both up in a hug at the same time. He still looks tired, thinner in the face than he did before, and sharper at the edges, but that familiar twinkle is back in his eyes. “This is good timing. Tell Shane vegan cheese is not a thing.”

Shane, with the patience of a saint who has had this same conversation at least six times in David’s hearing alone, turns from where he is manning the grill and lifts his eyebrow. “It is literally a thing.”

Ilya throws his hands up dramatically. "It makes no sense! We have the moo-cow burgers but not the moo-cow cheese!"

"Man's got a point," David tells his son, reaching over to steal a cherry tomato from the salad bowl. He's brought the drinks - soda and ginger ale - and makes sure everyone has a fresh can.

Shane flips a burger on the grill, his hair falling soft over his forehead, longer than it's been in a long while. "It's lower in saturated fat and has no cholesterol."

"Shane has me on fancy diet," Ilya pouts, leaning against the deck railing and watching the smoke curl from the grill with longing eyes.

"Terry has you on a medical meal plan," Shane huffs, though his lips twitch upward. "Shane is being nice enough to make it fun for you."

Ilya's shoulders slump. "Yes. Okay. Is true."

Yuna takes a seat at the big table, adjusting her sunglasses as the large blue parasol casts dappled shade across her face. "Did your checkups go okay?"

"Shane is fit as a violin," Ilya says, making a swooping motion with his arm.

"Fiddle," Shane offers, pressing a spatula against a sizzling patty.

Ilya waves dismissively between them, not seeing the difference, and pulls a face. "I am weak and feeble now, but there is time to fix."

"He says 'weak and feeble' like he didn't bench two fifty this morning," Shane snorts, sliding a perfectly charred burger onto a waiting plate. That's more than the average hockey player weighs. David isn't sure he even needs to lift more, but Ilya just looks annoyed. "And he's going to listen to Terry and Daniel because he's been sick and not training, and his husband will murder him if he puts his back out before our first game."

Ilya bats the order away with his hand, then makes a show of biting the end off a carrot stick from the bowl of salad overflowing in the middle of the table. David catches his eye and winks conspiratorially while Shane flips another burger.

"How are you feeling?" Yuna asks, reaching across to squeeze Ilya's forearm gently. "Are the meds any better?"

Ilya's expression softens at her touch. "Hmm. Yes. Mostly. Is not so bad now." He steals a slice of cheese from Shane's cutting board, earning himself a gentle swat with the spatula. He chews cautiously, then seems to accept that Shane’s substitute isn’t as bad as he feared.

"You're not pushing yourself too hard?" Yuna watches as Ilya chews, then nudges the salad closer to him in worldless encouragement to eat more.

"No, no. I am making good line changes." Ilya gestures with another half-eaten carrot toward the grill. "Shane is making me rest. Is very bossy with the timer."

"And the post-its?" Yuna asks, her eyes flick toward the house.

Ilya's eyes light up. He crowds in next to Shane at the grill, eagerly arranging perfectly charred bell peppers and zucchini on a serving platter. "Ah! You saw," he laughs, stacking buns in preparation. "Is classified. Very secret. You will see soon, maybe. Or not."

Shane's mouth quirks upward as he finishes up. "Almost ready for field testing.”

"Weibe already texted me three times this morning." Ilya plucks a cherry tomato from the plate, popping it into his mouth with a conspiratorial wink at David. "He is excited."

Shane slides a spatula under a sizzling patty as Ilya holds up a plate for him to dish out. "How many do you want?"

"Eight," Ilya says, stretching one arm wide to indicate the quantity.

Shane places exactly one burger on the plate.

Ilya clutches his chest dramatically. "I shrink away to nothing!"

“Finish one. Then we’ll talk.”

For all his complaining, Ilya ensures both David and Yuna’s plates are well stocked with both burgers and vegetables. Then he shoots Shane a truly pitiful look, and Shane sighs as if he hasn’t got another half dozen burgers still on the grill.

David takes that to mean Ilya’s appetite is returning. He curls his hand around Yuna’s under the table and squeezes. He can see she wants to ask more questions, but for once, she's willing to wait and let the madness play out. 

Ilya manages his first burger, then a second. "Plastic cheese is not so bad," he admits, going for a third. 

"You know they make vegan ice cream," Shane tells him.

Ilya looks disgusted. "Don't push your luck."

Once pre-season starts, they pretty much have to accept that time with the boys becomes a once-a-week thing at best. It’s far less than either David or Yuna wants, but it gives them the distance to better appreciate how much they both blossom once they’re back in the thick of things.

Shane thrives on the order of a well-regulated routine, and Ilya, for all his chaos, makes some pretty huge strides forward once he locks back into the day-to-day normalities of his life. He might be at his best in the eye of a storm, driven by chaos and sheer velocity, but it’s pretty obvious that only works for him when the bedrock he can return to is solid. He’s made Shane his North Star, but hockey is his Ursa Major.

David’s more than a little excited for the season to start. Enough that he’s temporarily replaced Yuna as the font of all online information, greedily absorbing anything said, written or argued about the Centaurs. He's bored. He's lost his puzzle partner. Rabbit holes are, in fact, very much a thing he now understands.

It all means he’s the one to call Yuna over when the team’s official Instagram account updates with a new training video two weeks before the first game of the season.

“It just went up,” he tells her, letting her step into the circle of his arms so they can both watch it at once.

“As you can see, it’s all business for the boys ahead of next month's opening game against Montreal,” the cheerful voice of Harris Drover informs the internet as the video opens on the team gym. “And obviously, we have a new addition to the team in the form of Ottawa’s own Shane Hollander-”

There’s a chorus of cheers, hoots, and general noise from the players, though none of them stop what they’re doing. David has seen hundreds of behind-the-scenes videos over the years. Ones taken in the team gym always seem to be popular, though David’s never really understood why they’d beat out the more traditional interviews, especially when those give you a glimpse into the way the players think off the ice. Yuna and Shane agree with him, but it just makes Ilya laugh and announce ‘this is why Hollander’s are my favorite’. Apparently, they're all missing something.

He catches a glimpse in the corner of the video of Ilya maintaining a pretty impressive speed on one of the treadmills, positioned between Haas and Hayes. He's looking so much better. 

The video and Harris seem to be more interested in giving the fans footage of Shane, though, and David won’t deny himself a little fizzle of pride in knowing that his boy’s mere presence on the team has broken the collective hockey brain of the entire league. Seats to the opening game have already sold out.

“Hollander adds some serious intensity to the team! I mean, look at this man, he’s a machine!”

If by machine Harris means ‘capable of the kind of physical feats most can only dream of,’ then yes. Shane’s working through a set of pull-ups, each movement smooth and clean, looking wildly, almost insultingly, effortless. He’s in his own little world, in that half-meditative state of mind that he likes to go to when working out, and seems utterly oblivious to Harris, the camera, or just about anything. Something he makes clear when he finishes one set and follows the next upward momentum until he’s doing a handstand atop the bars. He holds the position, lowers, then repeats.

David’s shoulders ache in sympathy.

He's so impressed that he completely misses Ilya finishing up his run, only spotting him when he steps fully into frame. He reaches up with one hand, grabs the bar between Shane's grip, and with just as much ease, hoists himself up one-handed until he's high enough to smack a kiss to Shane's forehead.

Startled, Shane opens his eyes and starts to laugh. He's skilled enough to control his own descent, but David doesn't miss the way Ilya moves, ready to catch him if he can't. "Seriously, Rozanov?" There's no mistaking the fondness in the demand as he lands lightly on the balls of his feet.

Ilya's grin is utterly shameless.

"Hey!" Dykstra calls, leaving his own station to stalk over, dramatically clutching his chest. "How come we don't get that kind of affection? I'm hurt, Cap!"

"Oh?" Ilya raises an eyebrow, bouncing on his toes. "You can do that, can you?" He gestures at the bar expectantly.

"Obviously!" Dykstra, who is about twice as wide in the shoulders as most doorways, is a man built for digging in and letting the world bounce right off him, not hanging upside down. He flexes both arms, drawing whoops from across the gym.

"Okay! Anyone who can do that gets forehead kiss from their captain." Ilya claps his hands together, eyes gleaming with mischief.

"Is that a promise or a threat?" Boodram asks, joining them, already rolling up his sleeves.

Ilya looks thoughtful, tapping his chin. "Do it two times, and you get one from both of us," he jerks his thumb between himself and Boodram. "Three and I let you wear my gold medal for a day."

“You don’t have a gold medal,” Shane points out.

Ilya, shamelessly, just shrugs. “Yours, mine, is same thing now.”

"Can I finish up, please?" Shane says with a mostly affected sigh, though he's already stepping aside to make room for the impromptu competition.

"God, you're so boring, Hollander, fine." Ilya tosses him a towel that Shane catches without looking.

Behind them all, Wyatt Hayes pulls himself up into a handstand that's as impressive, if not quite as graceful, as Shane's. Someone starts a slow clap that builds into cheers. As soon as he hops down, he holds out his arms expectantly, taking an exaggerated bow. Ilya, always obliging, grabs his face with both hands and drags him down for a very sloppy kiss to the forehead.

When he lets go, his smile is all teeth. "Alright you-" there's a long string of beeps that make David snort, "-back to work!" As if he's not the one who detrailed everyone. He punctuates the order by snapping a towel at the nearest player.

There's a lot more beeping that follows from the rest of the team, along with a barrage of wadded-up towels aimed at their captain's head.

The video jerks a little, as if the person holding the camera is trying not to laugh. “We’ll see you soon, Centaurs fans!”

David lowers the phone.

“I can’t decide if that's brilliant or crazy,” Yuna admits. She and Harris can’t be left unsupervised for more than a few minutes without plotting. It’s a learning curve for her. Harris’s job is to protect and promote the team, not just one player, but they’re both pretty aligned when it comes to their interests. It’s Ilya who frequently adds a spanner to the work, usually by poking fun at another player online. Poor Scott Hunter seems to be his favorite target.

David shifts closer, his thumb rubbing gentle circles on her elbow. "What do the comments say?"

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, scrolling her own phone with her thumb, a soft blue glow across her face. "Hashtag 'Get Rozanov The Gold'."

"Of course they do," David laughs, leaning to press his lips against her temple. His arm slides around her shoulders, pulling her against his side. "I bet he loves that."

"There's some... not nice stuff," she murmurs, nestling her head into the crook of his neck, "but mostly it's... good. Supportive. 'Couple goals'."

"I mean, I think we have them beat there," he tells her, gently taking the phone from her hand and setting it face-down on the coffee table. They might not be pulling any wild moves in the gym, but far be it from him to let the side down when it comes to spontaneous gestures of affection.

It’s not really a surprise that the league schedules Ottawa’s opening home game against Montreal. There are rumors that they wanted to set the two teams’ first clash in Montreal. David isn’t sure who threatened whom, but he’s desperately glad the boys have the home advantage.

The crowd is dense as engine grease. Every seat packed with jerseys in every possible shade of Centaurs red, old fans and new packing the pews, along with a fair tail of denim and plaid. David can spot, at a glance, at least two dozen Hollander 24s and as many genuine Rozanov 81s from his vantage in the family section. It is, per the league office, 'strictly monitored' for security and privacy, which means two ushers and a sign reading 'FAMILIES & GUESTS ONLY' in English and French. If anything, it makes the surrounding seats even more desirable. There’s a perimeter for the fans to lean over, a little fence for their hopes and hate to pile up against.

David has been to hundreds of games in his life, but never with a pulse like this. It’s the double-edged blade of pride and fear, knowing both his boys are skating tonight. More likely, it’s the sense that the entire city has signed on for one massive, collective question: Is Shane Hollander what made Montreal great, or were they collectively so good his own ‘deficiences’ got lost in the glow? Will Canada’s golden boy shine brighter in his home exile, or will Montreal rise higher than ever without him? Will Shane show the league exactly what it means to come home with a chip on his shoulder and a score to settle?

And how the hell is Ilya Rozanov going to perform as captain with his one-time rival, now husband, on the roster?

The noise is hellish. David wishes, not for the first time, that half the hockey fans he’s known over the years had a volume dial or at least a mute function. There’s a steady, low drone of expectation, above which the hollers and chirps and “Let’s go Centaurs!” spike and thud like a cardiac monitor on the fritz. Yuna is in her element, ducking in and out of the rows, welcomed into the family fold with the same enthusiasm Shane has been. Her lipstick is a war-flag red tonight, and she’s wearing Ilya’s jersey. David is wearing Shane’s, and they plan to switch at least once throughout the game.

The sound the crowd makes when Shane steps onto the ice is unlike anything he’s heard before. Yeah, he’s David’s boy, but he’s Ottawa’s son, and they’re deliriously excited to lay their claim.

He’s asked, before the game, if that made him nervous, and Shane, calmer, more confident, and so incredibly mature, just grinned and shook his head.

It’s the only right answer. Shane Hollander is home, doing the thing he does better than anyone else on the planet, side by side with his husband. What, exactly, is there to be nervous about?

Yuna nudges him gently in the arm. “Poor Hayden, he doesn’t look happy.”

No. He doesn’t. David can’t say he blames the poor guy. It’s not the way anyone wants to make Captain. It’s sure as hell not the crowd you’d want to face in your first away game, either.

The bizarro electricity of a sell-out crowd always floats David somewhere between the verge of a panic attack and total, blood-humming euphoria. He’s not a religious man, but he understands the cathedral metaphor now, twenty-six thousand people bellowing for slaughter, faces painted and shirts borrowed from the backs of minor deities, and all of them, all at once, loaded and cocked for whatever comes next.

It’s just a game. He’s told himself that forever, a mantra for the nerves, but he’s also watched a fight at a youth tournament that ended with an ambulance. He’s seen grown men cry, kids hurl themselves over the glass, and he’s seen Shane, seventeen years old and frustratingly calm, shut down a stadium with nothing more than the blade of a stick and the right line read at the right second. He’s seen all of it, but nothing like what’s happening on the ice right now.

It’s a little odd, not watching Shane take the first faceoff, but he’s no less proud of Ilya, who squares up at center ice and steals the puck faster than David can follow.

He’s watched Ilya play so many times. Even long before anyone knew what he and Shane were to each other. He knows the kid’s style almost as well as he knows Shane’s.

It’s a surprise, then, when he’s hunted down by Montreal’s defense, that instead of leaning into the contact like he usually does, he pivots. Ilya’s a terrifying player to square up against, even for the bigger guys, and he can take a beating in a way few can match. He typically invites violence and brute force, knowing he can outlast and likely overpower his opponents. If David didn’t know better, he’d assume Ilya’s injured the way he ducks and darts around plays he’d usually steamroll through.

When he’s off the ice and tagging Shane in long before he’d usually hit the bench, he knows he’s not the only one wondering if something is wrong. There’s a confused buzz in the arena that ebbs into excitement when Shane’s skates hit the ice, then explodes thirty seconds later when the hardcore fans put the pieces together.

Yuna smacks his arm three times in a row. “David! David! David, are you seeing this?”

“We’re watching the same game, honey,” he assures her, though that might be a lie. He’s not sure he believes his own eyes.

On the ice, Shane, who is by no means a small player, but who usually favors agility and complex technicality, barrels through the Montreal defense like a sledgehammer and smacks the puck into the net.

A housefull of brightly colored laser-light chaos snaps into crystal clear focus as David finally catches up and nearly suffocates with paternal pride.

There’s been a lot of noise the past few months. Ever since Shane signed for Ottawa. There are probably thousands of hours of commentary speculating on how Hollander and Rozanov might play together. On how Ottawa might handle two huge hockey personalities and their drastically different styles of play.

Shane and Ilya are known entities. Teams spend millions building plans to counter their play and exploit the strengths and weaknesses of each style.

David is pretty fucking certain no one has entertained the scenario of them swapping styles. He sure as hell hasn't.

Shane is the one to drop his gloves when Luca Haas gets a stick between his ankles and is taken down hard.

Ilya is the one to flip one of Shane’s most famous moves on J.J., pulling off a skill everyone knows he’s capable of, but rarely gets to see him take the time to set up.

He follows it with a brutal bodycheck he is known for, and when Shane’s back at center, he’s snapping back into that pinpoint ruthlessness of technique he’s built his whole career on.

It’s an insane approach. One that doesn’t just throw Montreal wildly off their game, but that shows everyone watching just how good the entire Centaurs bench is. It’s one thing to play at the same pace and skill as either of the league’s star centers, but it’s something else entirely to pull that off when the two of them swap play styles with little or no warning.

The crowd loves it. David thinks he might have perminant scaring from where Yuna has her nails sunk into his arm.

David’s not much for analytics, but even he can see the first ten minutes are a bloody symphony. What happens next… he’s pretty sure there will be lectures, podcasts, full-tilt Tikhonov dissertations about it in the morning. By the time the Centaurs go a man up in the first period, he’s pretty sure he’s seeing not just history, but some new genus of hockey.

Okay, he might be exagerating a little… but still!

And when Shane and Ilya take the ice together… Power-play units normally serve their own function, clockwork sets and slot assignments so ingrained that they run on lizard-brain instinct, but what Ottawa does with their lineup is freakish, almost blasphemous. It’s sure as hell confident.

Ilya goes through a faceoff, and instead of bullying in for the puck, he bounces off the circle, popping through the seam like a live current. Shane, who usually ghosts lanes, instead skates in straight, snaring two defenders and dragging them into a high-speed suicide pact. For three seconds, the puck is a blur behind the net, then Haas drop-passes to Ilya, who knifes in backwards, pivoting on one foot. Shane skids into position, point-blank, arms cocked for the one-timer, then - shocking everyone, including the defense and definitely his dad - he slacks off, lets the puck drift, and then a half-beat later, chip-tips it through the five-hole so soft that it barely settles in the net before the world explodes.

Yuna is screaming with a ferocity he’s never seen, her voice raw. Not far away, a squadron of toddler-aged Centaur fans drops whatever they’re eating and starts bouncing and shrieking along with the grown-ups. David finds himself on his feet, clutching both of Yuna’s hands, and their joy is reckless. As Shane circles and points at the home stands, Ilya hooks his stick around Shane’s waist and drags him into a brief, whiplash embrace before they're both hit at speed by a cheerful Boodram.

David can’t even hear Yuna over the roar, but it’s all right. He knows exactly what she’s thinking.

It keeps happening, this deranged ballet. Montreal tries to flatten Shane, but he ducks out, only to be replaced at top speed by Ilya, who happily absorbs the hit and then launches a pass right through the slot. Shift after shift after shift, violence and silk, one after the other, and then swapped to a backhand. Barrett and Haas, who should feel like eternal third wheels but don’t, take brutal advantage of the focus being paid to their centers to lay down an avalanche on Drapeau in goal.

By the end of the second, all pretense of restraint is gone.

Given their lethality, you’d expect Montreal to avoid triggering a power play, but Ilya’s superpower is getting under people’s skin and forcing fuckups, and he probably doesn’t even have to try very hard tonight, the way things are going.

Their next powerplay, they roll Ilya, Boodram, Haas, and Barrett out, forgoing defense, and wrapping with a goal so beautiful they’ll be replaying it with Luca’s name for the rest of his career.

And if it feels like a missed opportunity not having Shane on the line, all that happens is he’s there to underscore the bloodbath when he sweeps in after they swap out and adds insult to injury with another goal.

It’s not the worst defeat Montreal has ever known, but it’s not far off, and it sure as hell hammers the message home to anyone watching.

David’s still clutching Yuna’s hand when the final buzzer turns the arena into a volcanic eruption of sound. Montreal’s bench looks desperate for the tunnel, Drapeau openly sagging into his pads after the last breakaway shreds him for an empty-netter. Ottawa collapses into pandemonium: gloves, helmets, bodies flying, the team in full pileup with Boodram and Haas at the bottom, and Shane three heads deep, swarmed by most of his new teammates, half of them laughing, half of them screaming his name. Ilya circles behind, not joining the melee.

Instead, he skates the blue line in measured, deliberate strokes, chin high, face fixed and sheathed in sweat. He’s not grinning in celebration. Not even a little. He looks like he’s waiting for a verdict to be read before a firing squad, or maybe like he’s the one passing judgment. He completes a slow circumference of the home zone, gaze flicking along the glass, scanning every wedge of fan and camera, every inch of the ice. And then he stops dead center in front of the penalty boxes - where the camera crews are bracketed like artillery - and freezes.

For a long, weird second, he just stares down the lens, the jumbotron helpfully showing the whole stadium a close-up. It’s not a mean look, not angry, but something hard, edged with threat and the silence of a man who has spent far too long hearing what people thought of him and is finally, absolutely done listening. The crowd, caught in the act of chanting his name, drops into a hush, a vacuum so abrupt David can actually hear his own pulse. Then, as if the entire arena gets the joke all at once, the noise detonates, a howling, foot-stomping, impossible roar that shakes chunks of dust off the lighting rigs above. Ilya stands there, letting the sound wash over him, until he decides, at a time known only to himself, that it’s enough.

He looks into the camera for another beat, eyes black, all sharklike certainty. Whatever message he’s sending, it’s clear: you can say what you want about previous seasons, or what kind of captain he is, or the way he plays, or what you suspect about his private life. He doesn’t care. This is his team. He’s not fucking around.

Then he turns, shakes the hair out of his face, and instantly becomes chaos incarnate, a huge grin replacing that steel, steamrolling the team pile on Shane like a bowling ball through a bunch of blissed-out pins.

Yuna shrieks, which makes David laugh so hard he nearly cracks a rib.

On the ice, the scrum turns shambolic, with Ilya scooping up more than half the line and herding them over for the final handshake. He and Hayden, who looks more than a little shellshocked, shake hands, then Ilya grabs him in a hug and hoists his hand in the air in a show of recognition that David doesn’t think either side was anticipating. There’s a confused rumble from the home fans that isn’t helped when Ilya lets go of Hayden’s arm, skates back a pace, and flips the bird at the rest of the team.

That, the crowd likes.

“Oh, that’s not going to go down well,” Yuna laughs. It won’t. It will probably land him with a fine. He doubts Ilya will even notice.

Shane grabs a handful of Ilya’s jersey and yanks him back before anyone can decide they want to throw a punch. By the looks of it, Hayden and J.J. are the only reason no one does.

If anyone was expecting some huge show of affection between Ilya and Shane, they might be disappointed. Shane, his arm hooked around Ilya’s neck, presses a hard kiss to his husband’s cheek, but that’s it. It’s no more or less than a hundred, maybe even a thousand other players have done with members of their team.

Down at the private concourse, security herds a small gaggle of families and plus-ones through the tunnel toward the players’ lounge, with parents, spouses, and significant others bunched tight in a way that’s more animal than social. The air is dense with adrenaline and post-game sweat. It clings even to the clothes of those who never set foot on the ice. David’s always found the chaos after a major win borders on animalistic, a bite and snarl softened just enough with victorious laughter. There’s no one here tonight who isn’t hovering an inch off the floor, not even the ones pretending to grumble about parking or traffic or Harris Drover’s shameless mugging for the cameras.

Yuna, by some miracle of will and sharp elbows, stakes out a prime spot near the far wall, the best vantage for the exodus of athletes that always marks the start of any postgame. She’s vibrating, eyes bright, cheeks flushed, jersey swapped to Shane’s with the speed of a professional costume change. David keeps a hand looped protectively at her waist, not because she needs it, but because it keeps him from vibrating straight out of his own skin alongside her.

The first trickle of players slinks out and down the tunnel on a current of chatter and cell phone flashes. A parade of staff follows, bouyed by the tide of victory.

Then it’s their stars, in a loose, lolloping bunch, all sweat-soaked hair and black eyes, whoop-laughing, and chest-pounding their way up from the corridor. Hayes and Boodram lead, alternating between bear-hugging team staff and pulling faces for Harris’ camera, but there’s a visible gravity to the gap between them and the two men that trail just behind, orbiting but never quite colliding.

Shane and Ilya.

Shane has a towel draped, superhero-cape-style, over both shoulders, bouncing as his stride sweeps the hallway with every step. Ilya, shirtless, jersey balled in one fist, is the axis on which this room spins, and yet he looks more at peace than David’s ever seen him. There’s nothing of the interview-stoic or snarl-grin of old, just a slow-burn contentment that radiates even now, in a place built to devour men’s egos and spit out their smiles if they are anything less than perfect.

It hits David with such force that he’s almost knocked sideways off his feet by the swelling pride. It’s not just Shane he’s staring at, but the man his son has grown up to stand beside. For a half-second, he’s every parent with a nervous child, rooting for a win and now, almost, on the verge of weeping into his sleeve.

There’s a scrum just shy of the family zone, near the top of the tunnel. The boys in the group, hands still sticky with sweat and adrenaline, crowd to bask in the joy and hyperactive focus of a post-home game win. They haven’t so much set the stage as launched themselves into the stratosphere. Pundits will be talking about tonight's game for years.

Harris pounces the second he wiggles through the huddle, beaming ear to ear, Gen behind him looking equally as ecstatic. “Rozanov! You want to do a quick post for socials?”

Ilya, glistening with the sweat of battle and the last remnants of his dignity, wipes his mouth with a towel and gives Harris a slightly dazed up-down glance. He’s wired, even David can see it, vibrating with adrenaline. “Ah, no, give them Bood and Haas. I am with my parents now. And then,” he adds, loud enough to catch the boom mic trailing behind Harris and Gen, “I am going to take my husband home and fuck his brains out. You can use that for social, if you want.”

The resulting cackle from the team’s winger is so indelicately loud that it drowns out even the crowd’s continuing aftershocks. Yuna does her level best not to crack up.

Harris, forever unflappable, clicks his phone off and turns to Gen with a stage-whisper, “I’d love to see the analytics on that engagement.”

Ilya turns to David and Yuna and blinks, for a moment bewildered that two parts of his world are colliding, then furiously red at his own indelicate language. David, not missing a beat, deadpans, “Wait, you boys have sex?” He says it with the stone-faced earnestness he once reserved for bugging Shane about periods on his report cards.

For a beat, even the noise in the tunnel hiccups. Then Ilya throws his head back and howls, the sound so big and delighted that it rattles the hardware up in the rafters. He doubles back, still laughing, and catches David in what can only be described as a bear hug squared, arms locked around both David and Yuna. “Oh my god, you are best. I am so sorry.” His voice carries the lilt of someone only just holding it together, an old, breakneck joy in his words. He loosens his grip only to plant a kiss on the top of each of their heads, loose-limbed and clumsy with affection. “We absolutely do not ever have sex.”

Shane, caught in the wake, sidles up, sweat-soaked and beaming, and peels the three of them apart so he can drag Ilya down into his own orbit. Only when he’s sure that Ilya is well-braced does Shane allow himself a long, deep, chest-rattling laugh.

“Gross,” he says, but there’s affection wound through every letter of the word, and his grin is so wide that it looks like it might split his face. He bumps his forehead to Ilya’s, then, in a voice that suggests he’s either been worn down by habit or no longer cares, says. “Please stop talking about our sex life in public. Or with our parents.”

“Whatever you like, lawnmower, I will give you moon if you ask, yes?” Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s cheek, and David is pretty sure he’s mistranslated the Russian in his sentence. Either that or he really, really doesn’t need to know.

He's expecting something else to follow, but what ends up disorienting him is how fast the tunnel empties and how, for all the chaos, it’s very quickly just the four of them tucked off to a side wall, still catching their breath. The holler and drone of the arena is a distant pulse, filtered through the concrete and insulating rubber of the player’s lounge. In the strange hush, there’s a shock of tenderness, and it makes their inner world louder and more real than whatever’s happening outside.

David says what comes to him, and not what he’s had rehearsed all game. “That might have been the best goddamn hockey I’ve ever seen.” He aims it at Shane, but it snags on both of them, and the effect is immediate. Shane’s mouth crooks up, a lopsided, wary smile, and Ilya practically glows, the overload of pride in his face so raw it almost feels like a secret they shouldn’t be allowed to see. They both try to brush it off, each in their own way. Shane ducking his head and blinking hard, Ilya rolling his eyes as if the only possible response is to act like it wasn’t even a contest.

“We’re serious!” Yuna butts in, clutching her jersey tight to her chest. She’s not loud about it, but the way she looks at them, her eyes bright and damp, makes David almost dizzy with how much he loves this perfect, tiny little family. “You two were incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud.”

She aims it at both of them, and for a moment, the memory of Shane at seven years old, skates too big and jersey swallowing his arms, flits so sharply through David’s mind that he can hardly see the men in front of him for the little boy he used to be able to pick up and set on the kitchen counter. He looks at Ilya, a man he’s seen whittled down to a bruised and bloody core, but who is here, upright, holding himself without apology, and he thinks that maybe the most important part of their story isn’t that they survived, or that they won, but that they did it together.

Yuna throws her arms around both their boys, to hell with the sweat. “I’m going to say it again,” she says, voice trembling, “I have never been prouder of anyone in my life.” Shane half-laughs, half-wheezes, and the vibration of it shudders out through all four of them, like a heartbeat skipping a beat and starting up again, stronger.

Ilya’s eyes are liquid in the sharp light, and David hates that this might be the frist time a parent has said those words to him since he was a child.

“You,” David says, fixing Ilya in place with a hand clap to his shoulder, “Are everything we ever dreamed for our son. And the single best gift this family could have possibly received.”

If David’s measured the months of Ilya’s transition to their family in victories and setbacks, the glow of this moment feels like a win no one would have dared predict, let alone bet on.

There’s a raw, lost look on Ilya’s face, one that never quite vanishes, but it’s sweeter now, suffused with embarrassment and a crazed, sappy pride. He’s standing so close, with Shane’s arm still around his neck and Yuna’s hand locked around his waist, that David half-worries about oxygen exchange.

He’s not sure Ilya has a response… kid’s never been any good at this sort of talk, and he watches the way he absorbs, the words hitting like pucks to an unpadded chest. Red flushes up his throat all the way to his hairline. He tries twice to say something, gives up, and ends up ducking his head, nuzzling into Shane’s shoulder, young and bruised and nothing like the man who pretty much challenged the entire MLH to a bare-knuckle fight.

Shane takes pity on him. “He’s not bad at hockey, either,” he says, startling Ilya out of an inward spiral and into a semi-indignant snort of amusement. He’s no longer the boy who stood in their house and confessed to a love he barely had the words to describe. He’s not ashamed, not boxed in by lies he never felt he had a choice but to uphold. He’s Shane Hollander, and he just proved it to the entire world.

He's the center of Ilya Rozanov's entire universe.

"Wow," Ilya drawls, flexing his fingers dramatically against Shane's jersey. "Not bad, huh?"

"Adequate," Shane agrees, pinching Ilya's side between his pads. "Room for improvement."

"Oh! Oh, this is how you speak to your captain, huh?" Ilya squirms away, jabbing a retaliatory finger into Shane's ribs.

"It's how I speak to my husband." Shane catches his wrist mid-poke, thumb brushing over Ilya's pulse point.

Ilya's protest dissolves into a poorly suppressed grin as he runs his other hand through his sweat-soaked hair. "That is worse!"

David catches Yuna's eye and gives her a conspiratorial wink. "You boys go shower."

Shane loops an arm around Ilya's waist, pulling him closer and checking the clock on the wall. "You don't mind waiting?"

"Oh no," Yuna says, already tapping at her phone screen, one delicate eyebrow arched high. She straightens her jersey with her free hand. "I have a lot of emails to work through."

David rocks back on his heels, practically bouncing with anticipation. After that performance? He bets she does.

"Rolex?" he asks, watching his wife transform into business mode right before his eyes.

Yuna's fingers fly across the screen. "Among others."

"You sending draft C or draft D?"

"Draft A." Her voice is laced with gasoline, ready to burn the bridges so many brands tried to barricade them from crossing when the boys were outed.

"Oh shit." David's face splits into a wide grin. God, he loves watching her work.

Ilya leans back into Shane's chest, tilting his head up to look at him with adoring eyes. "Do I want to know?"

"Draft A is the 'fuck you' draft," Shane explains, his mouth quirking into that familiar half-smile. He tugs Ilya by the elbow toward the lockers.

"Wait," Ilya protests, spinning around to face Shane and walking backward. "I liked the Rolex ads. You barely wore any clothes in those ones." He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

"I'm sure my mom can find new sponsors I can take my clothes off for," Shane says, catching Ilya's hand and squeezing it. "Just for you."

Ilya beams. "Yes. Good. I love our weird family."

"We love you too, asshole." Shane tugs him closer as they walk. "Now what the fuck was up with that pass Berkes made?"

“Right? Fucking amateurs-”

Their voices drift off as they round the corner and vanish from sight. David shakes his head and follows Yuna, who is already on a call, all that intensity Shane has inherited, laser-focused on making an exec cry. He can't stop smiling.

Weird might be putting it lightly, but David loves them, too.

Chapter 25

Chapter Notes

Okay, so... 150k later, that 'one shot' is finished.

I am emotionally pulverized, in need of a nap, and not sure I ever want to watch another hockey replay in my life (lies).

I am also grateful beyond words for the kind messages I've received while writing. There's a lot of heavy stuff in this story, and I hope that any of you who can see yourself or a loved one within these words know that there is love and beauty and joy and friendship waiting for you. The world would be a far worse place without you in it (and for real, it's pretty fucking horrifying right now, so let's not tip those scales any further, okay??)

I'm gonna drop this link here as a global resource: https://www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts/

And also this one, because everyone I hear all of you who wanted an Anya POV and I am very sorry to be disappointing you: https://www.dogoftheday.com

Also! Did you know you can listen to this as a podfic???? You can, because Semperfiona is incredible and is posting every week! Link at the bottom of the page.

Finally, because Ilya deserves a voice even if he's not entirely sure how to use it for anything other than chirping...

“Tell me a story?” The soft, sleep-hued sound of Shane’s voice is a string knotted tightly around the fissures of Ilya’s heart. He has these moments every day, far too many to count, when Shane does or says or looks or exists in a way that hits out of nowhere and sends Ilya love-drunk and a little stupid. They’re no less devastating when he can see them coming.

He’s a solid, grounding weight in Ilya’s lap, his skin warm first from their bed, then from a shower, and now from Ilya’s arms. He smells like them, clean and a little like Ilya’s shower gel, his distaste for scented things never winning over his need to crawl under Ilya’s skin even when they’re trying to wash up.

He’s got that very specific little smile he only ever gets when Ilya has the time to take him all the way out of his head, make him sob, and then not stop kissing him until they re-enter the atmosphere.

He’s so fucking beautiful that Ilya sometimes forgets how to breathe.

Ilya strokes his thumb across a constellation of freckles and nearly fucking chokes on his own affection. “What kind of story?”

They do this a lot now that they live together. Now that they’re married. Shane is admittedly not the best storyteller when it comes to building an atmosphere, but he’s fucking hilarious, and he sees things in a way that makes everything around him just radiate with goodness. Ilya looks for details, for the things below the surface, trying to find meaning where maybe none exists, and Shane just cuts through it all with a reminder that sometimes a bird really is just a fucking bird. He tries to remember that. It’s easier, with the ink on his skin. Easier still when Shane traces the lines with his fingers and looks at him with those big, soulful eyes of his.

“Not the chicken house one.” Shane fidgets a little on Ilya’s lap, shuffling until he’s able to rest his head on Ilya’s shoulder. It never fails to short out the logical functions of Ilya’s mind, the way Shane is physically his equal in almost every way, but can make himself small when he wants to lose himself in Ilya’s embrace.

“Ah, no, I will protect you from Baba Yaga,” Ilya promises, dropping a fond kiss to his brow.

“Starting to understand why all the Russians I know are so fucking weird when they’re out there telling kids about canibalistic houses with chicken legs for foundations.”

Ilya is absolutely not telling him how many nightmares he had about that when he was little. Nor is he letting the comment go without reminding him that, “Sorry, this coming from the man who tells me stories of giant half spider women and murder toilets?”

Shane hides a grin against Ilya’s chest, a soundless chuckle rippling through his ribcage. He has absolutely no room to complain about Russian stories when, by Ilya’s approximation of everything Shane has told him, Japanese stories are straight-up fucking nightmare fuel.

“Okay, fine… no chicken legs.”

“One that has a happy ending,” Shane says, and this time his voice is almost shy under the crooked, still-new confidence of marriage. He runs his thumb over Ilya's shoulder, a soft back-and-forth, and lifts his head to look up at him. There’s nothing in the world that makes Ilya feel more like a witch’s familiar than the way Shane studies him when he wants something. “The ones where someone sleeps on a stove and steals magical birds for a Czar.” He smirks. “Preferably no cannibalism.”

“That limits the field a little.” Ilya frowns as he tries to decide which kind of story to tell. His mama liked the long, sorrowful kind, bitter roots and all, but the ones from his teachers were shorter and funnier, like cartoons. Both were true, in a way. He’d been, for a while, the kind of child always reading ahead in the book. It was easier to let stories substitute for the real thing, and it helped, sometimes, to know the end of her tales before she got to them. Patience, she would tell him, her lips against his brow, the happy endings are worth the pain.

It’s easier to believe her now than it ever was before.

Easier enough that he can maybe tell Shane a new story. Or an old one.

“I’ve told you of Morozko, yes?” For many children, Baba Yaga is the monster from which they hide in the dark, but the witch in his mama’s stories can be as much a heroine as she is a villain. It’s Father Winter, with his all-seeing eyes and cold hands, impartial and unforgiving, whose presence settled the deepest under his skin.

“The guy who’s not quite Santa?”

“Not quite,” Ilya nods. “Like, ah, Jack Frost?” He’d bought his niece a book of American fairytales when she was born. He doubts Lyosha kept it long enough to give to her.

“Yeah. The one about not abandoning your kid in a forest and being nice to strangers.”

“Is a fairly common theme,” Ilya chuckles. “Forests are scary no matter the country and strangers will probably try put you in soup.”

“That’s still cannibalism, Ilya.”

“Is not the same,” he insists, but Shane is chuckling, and the sound plucks the tightness out of Ilya’s chest.

Ilya considers his path through a parable, searching the brambles for the softest entry. He wants to give Shane a happy ending. He wants it in the world-actual way, not as a story gloss but as a thing for the man in his arms, the man who’s filled every gap he was certain would never close. It’s hard not to want to shape the past to serve the now.

He strokes his thumb along Shane’s brow, gentle enough to leave him blinking slow and easy, barely present at all. No one else on earth ever let themselves be this defenseless with him, not before Shane. No one has ever trusted him so totally, so honestly, and with all the abandonment of logic.

“Okay. I will tell you story. But you must listen all the way through, no interupting” He presses a firm, warning thumb to Shane’s chin. He only does it because he knows for a fact Shane won't be able to help himself. “Promise?”

Shane’s eyes crinkle a little at the edges, but he raises one palm, solemn, and says, “Yes, Captain,” in Russian. Ilya bites his ear gently in retaliation. 

“So,” he says, shifting Shane until he’s curled tight to his chest, considering his next words carefully. “There was once a girl... Is this okay?” 

“I assumed regular girls still exist in Russian fairytales. Can’t all be bog-hags and evil stepmothers,” Shane deadpans, and Ilya snorts, tracing slow, lazy shapes into his neck. He'll change it if Shane asks, but the distance, small though it is, feels necessary. And maybe a little pointed.

“Funny you say. There is a stepmother in this one, but okay. There was once a girl. She lived at the edge of the forest in a cold, dark country. She did not always live here. Once, she lived in a big castle with her mother. But her mother died before the story even begins.” That part, he thinks, is always true. Someone smarter than he is has probably written whole papers on the prevalence of dead mothers and wicked stepmothers in fairytales worldwide. “So to the forest they go. Her father is…” He hesitates, distracting himself with the way Shane’s dark hair falls across his brow instead of picking at his nails until they are bloody. “He is not so good, but let’s say he works very hard and is tired all the time.” Shane doesn’t interrupt, but there’s a not-quite-comfortable shifting between them.

“Father remarries to a woman who is very beautiful, but all her beauty runs the wrong way… into her hair, into her skin. None goes into her heart. This is not her fault. She is just a victim of the narrative.” He emphasizes the last word, honestly impressed with himself for remembering it, given the fact that Shane upended his entire reality a minute and a half later.

Shane pats him on the arm in that faux-condescending-I’m-proud-of-you way that makes Ilya want to swallow him whole.

“The girl does not complain. She does her work, she is patient, she helps as she can, but her new mother is cold like frost, and her father is angry, because she does not fix what he has lost.” Shane’s quiet, his hands circling Ilya’s ribs. “One winter, father says, ‘girl, you must help us survive. We are very poor. Go out and find the best wood. Bring it home on your back. If you do not, we will all freeze.’” He draws a finger from the arch of Shane’s shoulder down his spine. “He does not say, ‘And don’t come back without,’ but maybe he thinks it.”

Shane goes so very still that Ilya almost loses his place in the story. “So she promises not to fail, and goes out into the night, and it is so cold she cannot feel her fingers. She walks and walks, and when she is almost dead from cold, she sees something strange in the snow. A man, more ice than flesh, beard white and long, coat made out of fur. In his arms, a burning flame.”

“Morozko,” Shane says, one hand curling around Ilya’s own. He frets, the way he always frets, that Ilya might be cold. As if that is ever possible when Ilya has him in his arms.

“Mm.” Ilya hums. “He is not a kind man, but he is fair. If you bow to him, if you are polite and not proud, he will not hurt you. But…” He shrugs, then curls a palm against the heat under Shane’s jaw, not sure if he is soothing himself or Shane as he strokes gently. “The girl is very tired. She kneels in the snow, and she asks Morozko if he will help her.”

“Am I gonna like his answer?” Shane rarely ever touches the crucifix that dangles at Ilya’s throat, but he does today, and it feels warmer.

“Maybe. Nothing is for free, no?”

Ilya settles the bones of the story on Shane’s skin, every word carefully measured, more careful even than when he holds Shane’s pulse under his fingertips and risks everything precious on the raw instinct of knowing what it is that he needs.

“Morozko says, ‘Why should I help you, girl? The strong live. The clever survive. Why not go home if you are so cold?’ She tells him what her father says, and he laughs, because on other side of the forest is a land of sunshine and warmth. "‘Then keep going’, he tells her, ‘what does it matter what your father said?’ And it is a good question, the girl thinks. Why would she want to go home when there is nothing waiting for her but duty?” Ilya braces himself, not because Shane needs a buffer from the story, but because he does. He can feel his husband's breath against his throat, warm and steady, his strong heartbeat a metronome for Ilya to match with his own.

Shane’s thumb chases a sliver of scar on the bump of Ilya’s collarbone, one that has never settled into smoothness. “What does it matter what she wants?” Shane whispers, his voice muffled.

He’s a smart one, Ilya thinks, softer for it, but he keeps the rules and continues the story. “She has to go back. She made a promise to her father. And to the stepmother, though she does not say it aloud. So she kneels and says, ‘I gave them my word.’ Morozko is old, he likes courage. He likes children who are obedient and good. He takes her to a tree so tall it touches the sky, and so wide a hundred people could not circle it with their hands, and tells her she must chop it down before dawn. ‘If you do’, he says, ‘you will never be cold again, and your family will thank you every morning for they will forget the touch of winter,’ and then he leaves her alone in the woods.”

“I don’t know if that’s even possible,” Shane frowns, already trying to do the math in his head. Ilya hides his face in Shane’s dark hair and resists the urge to squeeze him the way he does Anya.

“They hadn’t invented chainsaws back then,” he says, turning to rest his cheek on the crown of Shane’s head. “And this is a fairytale, not a documentary. But she is clever, this girl. And probably too stubborn. She finds a rock, one as hard as your skull-”

“Asshole.”

“-And all night she chips, chips away at the tree. She is so cold she forgets her own name. She dreams of the castle with lights in the window, of food and warmth and her mother’s touch. But she does not stop. She made a promise.”

There is intent in Shane’s arms now, wrapping around his ribs, cinching him tighter. Ilya breathes through the ache. “When the sun comes up, Morozko returns. He sees the girl, blue lips and eyes still open, and a mountain of wood stacked high into the air. He is not a sentimental man. But fair is fair. He lifts her up and shakes the snow from her. He gives her his fur coat, and a flame she can carry in her palms, and says, ‘Take this home, child.’”

Shane pulls him closer and lifts his head until their noses touch. “What about all the wood she chopped?” He sounds indignant, his sense of fair play offended, and if the world ever tries to create a kinder, more empathetic, gentler man than Shane Hollander, it might collapse under the weight of its own achievement.

“It’s not about the wood,” Ilya promises him. “It is the fire. That is Morozko’s gift. That is the prize for doing her duty.”

“I mean… historically speaking, gifts of fire don’t tend to work out so well,” Shane muses, his voice sleepy and close to the bone. “Like… you can warm yourself or burn the house down. Or get your liver pecked out by birds.”

“Exactly.” Ilya buries his face in Shane’s hair, lets it tickle his lip, remembers snow-matted wool and the sticky smell of old radiator heat. He’s so far away from that world now. “And this flame, it burns her. Like a hurt that doesn’t injure. Pain that doesn’t show on the outside. No, ah, blisters.” Shane draws Ilya’s hand to his lips, kissing each fingertip. Ilya is glad they are not face-to-face. “When she returns, father looks at her and says, ‘Where is the wood?’”

He waits. Shane never interrupts a sad part, not unless he thinks Ilya needs to breathe. “She shows him the flame. She thinks he will be happy, but he is angry. ‘This is not wood. You are not enough to keep us warm.’” Ilya presses his teeth together, tries to control the old, stupid feeling that makes his skin feel two sizes too tight.

“I’d like to see him chop a tree down with a rock.”

“Probably would not go so well,” Ilya agrees. “But the father, he sends the girl away again. ‘Trade the flame,' he tells her.‘Come back with something useful.’ She goes to the forest again.”

Shane’s hands tighten for a second. He wants to reach in and change the story, muscle the world into sense. But he doesn’t. He waits. Ilya loves him for that. “This is the worst part,” he says, knowing it’s not. “She spends all night looking, feet numb, hands burning, eyes full of smoke… but Morozko is not there, and now she cannot touch the trees without burning the whole forest. She cannot do her duty. Then she remembers what Father Winter told her. That there is a land beyond the forest. There, perhaps, she might find someone she can trade her fire with.”

“Does she?” Shane’s question is soft, a thread in the dark.

“Of course,” Ilya says, because children’s stories are mostly about suffering, but not about giving up. “She walks through the forest, then past a lake as big as an ocean, until she comes to the place Morozko told her of, and there she meets a prince. And he is kind, and brave, and very handsome, and she is sad, for a while, thinking she cannot touch him. That the flame in her hands will burn him as it might the forest. But the prince…” Ilya tangles their fingers together until he can press his palm to Shane’s. “He finds this very funny, because he too has flames in his hands, and when they touch, neither of them burn. He saves her, in every way someone can be saved.” He buries a kiss in Shane’s hair and lets his nose press tight to his temple. “They are warm together.”

He can feel Shane’s pulse matching his, maybe even outpacing it. A gift. He’s allowed them, now.

“What about her father?”

“Well… Morozko maybe likes the girl more than he will admit,” Ilya says, a kernel of guilt expanding in his gut. It will fade in time, but it’s there, and he can’t pretend otherwise. “He goes to the edge of the forest. He wants to see what she has done with her prize. Instead, he finds only a cold, dead house, and her father withered inside. ‘Did your daughter not return?’ he asks, angry that his gift could be wasted. ‘Yes,’ her father says, ‘but we wanted wood, not fire.’” Ilya lets out a breath and sinks into the warmth of Shane’s arms. “And so Father Winter does as Father Winter always does, and there is no duty to bring the girl home.”

“Did she stay with the prince?” Shane’s voice is a thread, tugging lightly at the edge of the story.

Ilya draws the question into himself, turning it over. “Yes. She stays. And she is happier than she ever thought she could be. But sometimes she misses the forest. It is impossible to forget where you were made, even if it was a cold place. Even if sometimes it felt like nobody wanted you there.”

Shane pulls himself from Ilya’s arms long enough to crawl into his lap and tangle them together. “I think she’s allowed to miss it, or hate it, or love it. All of the above.”

“Yes. Probably. It was her mother’s land, and that means something, but-” he thinks home is this now. Shane. Them. 

“But the prince has a kingdom of his own,” Shane finishes for him, nestling in, tucking his chin over Ilya’s shoulder, and folding his arms tighter around Ilya’s waist. “And despite being an only child, does actually know how to share.”

"We are still talking fairytales, yes?" Ilya murmurs, yelping when Shane reaches between them and pinches his nipple hard. "Ow!"

"Shut up!"

"Okay, sorry, sorry! The prince is very generous, and very mean!" Shane arches an eyebrow, pulling back just enough to curl over and gently kiss the sting from Ilya's skin. "And he can keep doing that all he wants," Ilya encourages, sinking his hand into Shane's hair, hoping for more.

He's only a tiny bit disappointed when Shane settles with another kiss, then wraps his arms back around Ilya's neck. His thumb traces slow circles at the nape of Ilya's neck, his breath warm against Ilya's collarbone. "I like your stories," he whispers, pressing his lips to the hollow of Ilya's throat, his fingers brushing the warm gold resting against his skin.

"Even when they are sad?" Ilya asks, cradling Shane's face in his hands, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones.

"Sad, happy, weird... all of them." He leans into Ilya’s touch, eyes fluttering closed. Ilya supposes that's true. Shane just likes knowing.

"I like your stories, too," Ilya whispers, drawing Shane back until their foreheads touch.

"Even the homicidal toilet ones?" Shane smiles against his lips.

"Maybe not that one," Ilya murmurs, and kisses him the way he wants to kiss him for the rest of their lives.

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