Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types, Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova, Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Rose Landry

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Sentinel Shane Hollander, Guide Ilya Rozanov, Soulmates of Sorts, No beta we die like Grigori Rozanov, Sensory Overload, (of sorts), Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Lack of Communication, Developing Relationship, Accidental Bonding

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-02 Updated: 2026-10-21 Words: 36,475 Chapters: 7/?

hard rime

Summary

Ilya avoids skin contact with known sentinels as much as he can. It’s unlikely for compatibility to be high enough for a physical reaction. Ilya’s already managed to be a difficult guide. He can’t risk exposing his secret for the sake of camaraderie. But Hollander is pretty, and Ilya is not thinking about him being a sentinel, or the danger, or the pull he’s felt since he laid eyes on Hollander in person. He’s just thinking that he wants to touch him.

So he does.

And the touch sparks, bright and instant.

OR

Shane is a sentinel and Ilya is a guide. For the sake of their secrets, they should keep their distance. They don't.

It saves both their lives (and ruins them)

Chapter 1: prologue

Chapter Notes

Hi again!

I'm back with the beginnings of the Sentinel/Guide AU I teased like. Three (3) months ago. Oops. To be fair, rl has been chaotic since then, but I am officially Moved and will hopefully have more time for writing again! This chapter is really more prologue with heavier exposition/set up, because I realized I almost never see Sentinel/Guide AUs anymore in newer fandoms. And that is a SHAME because I love this trope and it produced some banger fics that were formative for me as a writer when I was starting out. Please don't carbon date me with that information. Anyway.

Would love for this to spark a resurgence of this AU, please and thank you.

This is obviously my own twist/version of this trope. I will be trying to roughly explain in text, but if anyone wants a more detailed primer, let me know I'm happy to include one in the endnotes.

As always I have no beta and all mistakes are my own. This prologue really fought me, but ideally this fic will cover through at least 2017-18ish. Some dialogue in this chapter is taken directly from the show.

Enjoy!

cw: death of a parent, brief ableism

As long as Ilya Rozanov can remember, he’s dreamed of ice.

When he is a boy, he dreams of skating, the slap of a puck against his stick, the way snow sprays upward when he corners sharply. Ilya dreams of his father’s pride, the weight of a medal around his neck, his mother clapping from the stands.

After, he dreams of cold. The feeling of numb fingertips, air stinging the inside of his nose. The coolness of his mother’s hand when he found her. That frigid, vast emptiness of death, and the gap a soul leaves. Ilya comes Online then. In the house, with his father at work and his brother out. In the living room, studying the American hockey games with his nose inches from the screen, Ilya wakes that extra sense just in time for his mother to leave him frozen.

He rises from the rug in a daze, stumbling over his feet, desperate to be wrong.

He is not wrong.

Ilya does not tell his father. Instead, he lets the ice solidify, a shaky shell around the core of him. This is how Ilya survives. This is how he protects himself.

~

Shane Hollander is 12 years old when his first sense comes Online. Unfortunate that it’s hearing, in the middle of a game, after he scores and the buzzer shakes through his entire body. He falls to his knees and screams, ripping his helmet off to press gloved hands over his ears. It doesn’t muffle the sound. Nothing muffles the sound. He’s pulled off the ice, sequestered in the coach’s office, his parents on either side of him. Their voices are grating, high-pitched with worry.

“–no family history–”

“–just the one? I haven’t noticed–”

“–don’t have to call the Center–”

“I’m fine,” Shane says. It feels like he’s shouting. He presses more firmly over his ears. Sentinels and Guides aren’t necessarily common in Canada, but he’d learned the basics in school like everyone else. He imagines his hearing like a dial and turns it counterclockwise.

On the ice, Jack stumbles, skates swapping from confident strokes to clattering irregular steps. The puck slides, rubber against ice, the sharp clack of a stick making contact–

His parents’ breathing. His mother’s—a bit faster than usual. His father’s—trembling on the exhale.

Shane takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. “I’m fine,” he says, more firmly. “We can pick up some pamphlets from the Center or something. I don’t need to go to one of those camps.”

The Canadian Center for Sentinels and Guides doesn’t require registration or attendance, not like they used to. They operate more as a resource now, offering information and counseling, a limited amount of training for those who need additional help. Some type of matchmaking service for those that require a pair. Shane doesn’t need that. Shane can’t waste time on that.

Fancy hearing or not, he’s meant to play hockey.

“Let’s think about it, okay?” His mom says, rubbing a hand up and down his back.

There’s nothing to think about. Hockey comes first.

~

The summer before he joins the Russian World Juniors team, Ilya sneaks out to the woods with Svetlana. Sasha is away, dropping their trio to a duo. In the years since his mother’s death, Ilya has grown very good at sneaking. He pretends it is planning, careful listening and observation of their parents’ schedules. But really, Ilya drills a hole in his icy shield. Opens a small gap in the barrier that prevents him from losing his mind. And he feels.

Mr. Vetrov is in his office. His mood fluctuates between flagging focus and the beginnings of sleep. If Ilya and Svetlana were to peek through the window, he would be slumped over his desk, head resting in his hand. Svetlana’s mother is truly asleep, the deep, restful kind. So Ilya makes a careful ladder of his body and helps Svetlana climb down from her window.

He keeps the drilled-open hole narrow. Focuses only on the Vetrov’s, and not on their neighbors, their neighbors’ neighbors. Not on the bustling, thriving Moscow that wants to widen that gap into a chasm.

Inconvenient. That’s what this guide business is. Deeply inconvenient from the start. Ilya can’t just have an empathetic knack that barely registers. Something small and minor that’s easy to hide. Instead, if his self-built shields waver, he’s consumed. This is his curse. Because Ilya feels too much to function alone. And his only choice is to endure.

His research is careful, done on public computers or library books he doesn’t remove from the building. The Soviet Union has a long history of using Sentinel-Guide pairs as military or strategic assets. Even today, sentinels are often granted powerful positions in the Russian government. Guides are offered as chattel and compensation. It is, supposedly, an honor.

Ilya makes due with his own willpower. Leverages the ice that plagues him into a strength. And he survives.

It’s not so dire for sentinels and guides in North America. Ilya is not stupid enough to believe that things are perfect, but he holds onto the hope that things are better. Just one more reason Ilya will get himself into the MLH if it kills him. Too many parts of himself that he cannot help—being a guide, enjoying men as much as he enjoys women—that mark him as incompatible with Russia.

It’s fine. It’s all fine. The Russian Juniors team is the next step on his long journey elsewhere.

“You are being very quiet,” Svetlana observes. Ilya blinks. They are deep into the woods now, far enough into the park by Svetlana’s house that the lights of Moscow twinkle like distant stars.

Ilya rolls his shoulders. Wishes he could slide the weight right off of them. “Sorry. I am too busy admiring your beauty, Sveta. Did you get a haircut?”

“Stop deflecting. Why are we sneaking out to the park instead of a club? Usually you want to drink and party, Ilyukha.”

Ilya shrugs. “Sasha likes the clubs more than me. He isn’t here to complain and it’s a nice night, so…” Ilya does like drinking, likes blurring his thoughts, and fogging the minds of everyone around him. But sometimes, clubs are too busy. A pressure against his dome of ice, testing for weakness, searching for cracks. Somedays, Ilya wakes up and knows it would be stupid to take the risk.

The park is peaceful, quiet. Light pollution means that even once Ilya leads them to the hill he scoped out earlier, they can’t see much of the stars.

He senses, rather than watches, Svetlana roll her eyes. But she doesn’t push. Only waits patiently for Ilya to drop an old quilt onto the ground before she sits. He has condoms too, just in case they feel like fucking. Sex is still new enough for both of them. Fun and silly and illicit. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s less risky fucking Svetlana than it is fucking Sasha. He likes to think he’s getting better at it, better at making them both happy.

Ilya lays back on the grass and stares up at the sky. Most of the bolshaya medveditsa is visible. Ilya wonders what other constellations lay beneath the surface. What he could see in another place, another time, another life. One day, he’ll find out.

It takes Ilya a long time to realize something is wrong. That under the rustle of leaves, the faint rasp of his own breath, the quiet has changed.

The hairs on his arms prickle. Ilya tilts his head to the side. Svetlana stares up at the sky. Unblinking.

The absence in her gaze, the distance, chills Ilya to the bone. He remembers his mama. The way her eyes looked at nothing, long after her soul was gone. No, no, this cannot be happening. Hands trembling, Ilya cracks open his icy dome.

It could be catastrophic, this sudden dissolution of his shield. Ilya understands, distantly, that the breadth of his range continues to expand whether he looks at it or not. But they are far enough from the city itself that he mentally stumbles, rather than collapses.

The constellations of Moscow flicker to life. Love and lust, intertwined with violent rage and inconsolable grief, the deep peace of sleep, joy alongside sadness. And there—so much closer and brighter, Ilya’s Polaris—is Svetlana.

She’s alive. That’s Ilya’s first thought. For all that her presence feels murky, drifting further and further away, she isn’t gone. That means this is fixable. But what–

He follows her gaze to the sky. Considers how easy it is to get lost there, how deeply he longed to see more. Blyat.

Svetlana’s father is a sentinel. He received special dispensation to play hockey for several seasons, before he was subsumed into the Russian government. Ilya has never witnessed a sentinel zoning. From his research, he knows that it can be dangerous, more so the longer it persists. As a sentinel becomes so hyperfocused on a single sensory experience that all else falls away, including bodily needs and their awareness of reality.

This is what guides do. For every additional sense a sentinel wakes, zones increase in frequency and severity. A single-sense sentinel can manage on their own easily for the rest of their lives. Two-sense sentinels are generally stable alone, provided they possess strong mental discipline. Three-sense sentinels almost always need a guide to stabilize them, to support their control, to lend a helping hand. They may last a short time on their own, but not forever. Four- and five-sense sentinels bond with a guide, or die.

Pulling a sentinel from a zone is what Ilya is for. But he has no bond with Svetlana and no real training. He has no one to call for help.

Ilya’s choices are to carry Svetlana back through a mile of woods or to let her die, like his mama. Neither of these options are acceptable.

Ilya places his hand on her exposed arm. Her skin is chilled to the touch. He finds her again in his mind, the brightest star. He imagines casting a fishing line, a gossamer thin thread to pull her closer. Then he raises the ice around them. Paper thin, far too fragile to skate on. He does not know how to make it thicker, when she is so far away.

“Sveta, can you hear me?” Ilya asks.

She twitches. Emboldened, Ilya tries again. “Listen to my voice, Sveta. I think you’ve come Online and fallen into a zone. You need to look away. Cross your eyes or something. Stop staring at the stars.” Mentally, Ilya tugs at their connection. “Come back to me, Sveta.”

At a loss for other ideas, he covers her eyes with his hand. After a long, fraught second, her eyelashes flutter against his palm.

“Ilyukha?” she asks, voice groggy. “What happened?”

Heart in his mouth, Ilya doesn’t answer. Only pulls her upright into a bruising hug. He can’t make his fingers let go for a long, long time.

~

Shane’s second sense comes Online gradually.

He misses the specific moment, because, even before that lapse on the ice during the game, Shane has always been… sensitive. More likely to flinch at specific sounds, to squeeze himself into small spaces for the sheer euphoria of it, to dislike certain moisture-wicking fabrics so much that his mother avoided the entire brand.

He has vague memories of being small, of sitting at the pediatrician with his parents. Shane remembers feeling like he was under a microscope, answering for something that he did wrong.

“Shane’s just a little quirky,” the doctor said. “He talks, and he’s very polite to adults. Some kids are just picky about things. I wouldn’t worry.”

Quirky. At 16, Shane knows that the descriptor lives in his medical records still. He’d seen it, under behavioral observations, when gathering his registration information for the Canadian Juniors team.

If all goes well with his admission to the team, Shane will start billeting in August. Up until now, his parents have either traveled with him or made due with camps in Ottawa. But for Shane to be a top MLH prospect… that all has to change. He needs to grab onto his independence with both hands, let it carry him into an uncertain future.

And Shane is ready for that future. Coming online as a sentinel wasn’t exactly in his original daydreams as a kid, but it’s not a terrible obstacle. The MLH has plenty of active players who have a strengthened sense or two. Shane’s even heard that one or two guys have owned up to some minor guide ability, though that’s a lot more frowned upon. From what Shane knows, there’s even a three-sense sentinel out West, who brings their guide on every road trip. It was pretty big news a few years ago. Shane remembers looking at the tiny woman with perfect blonde hair and makeup sitting practically against the glass at every game.

The sight turned his stomach. Shane isn’t sure why, exactly. But he doesn’t need that anyway.

One-sense sentinels are universally fine on their own. Shane’s got the grounding techniques down, recognizes when his hearing starts to stretch, to drift too specifically. He keeps a mental hand on the dial at all times, tweaking it when needed on the ice or at school or at the family cottage listening for a loon call in the distance–

Well. Shane’s got it under control, that’s all.

But his control is so dogged, so unwavering, that he doesn’t notice the second sense.

Maybe he notices himself becoming more irritated with the tags on his shirts, at his one shin pad with the worn out strap. But Shane doesn’t realize anything is wrong until his going away cookout. His dad has been so excited to fire up the grill, invite over their Ottawa friends and Shane’s current girlfriend (that he should really break up with), and the grandparents that they actually talk to.

And Shane is going down early to help. He plans to, at least. To endure the cheek pinches and hair ruffles as everyone declares how proud they are of him. The Canadian Juniors Hockey team, what an accomplishment–

But Shane gets a bit… lost. He starts changing, rifling through his closet for a tshirt. And wow. Shane’s never noticed before, how different cotton can feel. The way that he can read the age of a shirt in the way it drags against his fingertips, the subtle bumps in the thread count a message of wear. And there’s something there, too, about the color of the dye.

Shane can feel the difference, when he focuses, between the darker pigments and the bleached threads. It’s funny, because his mom uses a detergent for sensitive skin but Shane swears he can feel fragments of dirt that didn’t wash out completely, a grittiness that makes him want to toss everything back into the washer–

“–ane? Shane, what are you doing?” His mom’s voice is so far away. Instinctually, Shane leans more on his hearing, loosening his grip on the dial, and it’s this that makes him realize. He has a second mental hand, and there is a second dial he can, should, grip.

Shane stumbles away from his closet. His hands open and close, useless fists that pinch his palms the wrong way, and his shorts scratch against the fine hairs on his upper thigh and the seams on his socks scrape at his toes and the air against the bare skin of his chest feels like summer and how is that possible and–

And Shane holds two dials and turns them down, down, down.

His mom stands in the doorway. Her hand hovers in the air, like she started reaching out and then thought better of it. Shane wishes he could hold her hand, wishes the thought of it didn’t make his skin crawl. “Shane?”

“I, um,” Shane swallows. His tongue is so heavy, so solid and realized and tangible. “I think I’m a two-sense sentinel.”

~

Ilya finds Regina in December cold, gray, and boring. The flight itself had been strangely meditative, especially once they’d begun crossing the Atlantic. It was the first time in years that he’d felt most of the cloud of humanity disperse. The pressure on his thick walls of ice had vanished. A strange vacation.

Regina brings the pressure back.

For all Ilya’s relentless self-studying, being surrounded by so much English is overwhelming. The accent is strange, the chosen vocabulary bizarre, and everyone keeps apologizing before Ilya has a chance to string together a response. The hockey is good, at least. Ilya’s determined that the Russian Juniors team will be walking away with gold.

Even after laying eyes on the only other player in his age group that might put up a fight. Shane Hollander, #24, Center, Canadian, and technically brilliant. Ilya’s caught some of his game tapes, but it’s nothing compared to witnessing him live and in person.

Ilya’s skin itches, watching him. He wants to meet Hollander on the ice for a face-off, wants to slam them together against the boards, test his mettle and see which of them is better. It’s Ilya, of course. Maybe Ilya can propose some type of race, after Russia takes the gold. He imagines sprinting across the ice, spraying snow, the thrill of the chase–

Ilya slips away from the rink, when official practice finishes and the rest of the players drag their feet changing. Finds himself a lonely stretch of concrete, and tries to shelter his lighter from the breeze long enough for the cigarette to catch.

Ilya senses him, before he hears him or sees him. A tightly controlled ball of curiosity, intensity, and a bit of anxiety. Laced through with filaments of determination, excitement, and–

It’s rare, for Ilya to see someone so clearly with his walls up. But maybe he’s subconsciously drilled a hole for Shane Hollander, the only player who could one day be his match.

He approaches Ilya’s turned back. Ilya adjusts, still carefully not watching Hollander’s approach, but ready for:

“Ilya Rozanov? Shane Hollander. I wanted to introduce myself.”

Ilya studies him, here, out from under the spotlight, the prying eyes. His first thought is that Hollander is young. Ilya knows that Hollander is in the same age group, 17, maybe even a month or two older than him. But Ilya hasn’t felt that young since he found his mother, since the entire world of pain and lust and greed started pouring into his mind and never stopped. There’s something fresh about Hollander, a fragile center that he hasn’t yet learned to encase as thoroughly as Ilya.

His second thought is that Shane Hollander is pretty. Not in the same way as Sasha, who wears his lanky limbs and high-cheekbones like a painter’s muse. Hollander is pretty in a deeply masculine way. He’s Ilya’s height, clearly packs just as much muscle. His face is framed by a strong jaw and the hand he offers is large and calloused. But then Hollander has freckles scattered across his cheeks like mini-constellations and his eyes are warm, and soft, and deep.

He’s really fucking pretty.

His third thought is that he shouldn’t have accepted Hollander’s hand, bare skin to bare skin.

Ilya avoids skin contact with known sentinels as much as he can. It’s unlikely for compatibility to be high enough for a physical reaction. Ilya’s already managed to be a difficult guide. He can’t risk exposure for the sake of camaraderie. But Hollander is pretty, and Ilya is not thinking about him being a sentinel, or the danger, or the pull he’s felt since he laid eyes on Hollander in person. He’s just thinking that he wants to touch him.

So he does.

And the touch sparks, bright and instant. A flash of possibility, of connection, pings off and through Ilya’s shield, fireworks scattering across the ice.

“Shit!”

“Blyat,” Ilya swears. He drops Hollander’s hand. As if he’s touched open-flame and not skin.

Ilya concentrates on keeping his hands steady as he flicks his lighter again. Of course the cigarette catches this time, easy as anything. Of course.

“I, uh,” Hollander’s eyes are blown wide. “Wow. I didn’t read anything about you being a guide?”

There’s nothing for it. “Is not on stats page, because is secret, da?” Ilya rolls his eyes and continues, because Hollander looks mildly confused. “Very, very big secret. I cannot play hockey, if people know.” The English feels clunky on his tongue. Though he practiced with Svetlana, it is much harder to order the words when he’s wondering if his life is over before it’s really begun.

But as soon as Ilya mentions hockey, Hollander’s hands fly up. A universal sign of surrender. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I, uh, won’t say anything, I promise. You’re an amazing player to watch.” He sounds so earnest. It’s unnatural.

Ilya assesses Hollander’s emotions. There’s only honesty, surprise, and a bit of remaining confusion. Nothing deceitful or bitter or dangerous. Interesting, when one word from Hollander could eliminate the threat Ilya poses. He’d have no competition for top prospect. An easy path to number one draft pick. And yet.

“Thank you,” Ilya says quietly. The words burn. He takes a drag off his cigarette, to wash the taste out of his mouth.

“Oh, uh,” Hollander starts. “I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke here?” Hollander makes a gesture, like he’s puffing from a cigarette. It’s cute.

He draws out his response. Stares at Hollander until he starts to shift uneasily.

“You have smell for sentinel sense?” Ilya asks.

Hollander shakes his head. Ilya can feel that he’s embarrassed, flustered. But he also radiates the same… curiosity that’s keeping Ilya responding to him. “No, uh. I’m– I have hearing. And touch. I just meant because there’s a no smoking sign–”

“Sorry,” Ilya smiles, as mock-sincere as he can. “I do not read English. Will work on this, yes?” It’s a lie. But the way Hollander’s aura of mortification increases entertains him. He knows when Hollander makes the decision to flee before he says a word.

“I, uh, should get back. They’re probably looking for me.” Then, apparently on instinct, Hollander offers him his hand again. “Good luck in the tournament.”

Ilya looks incredulously from Hollander’s outstretched hand to his face. Sees the moment Hollander remembers and winces, trying to withdraw. Ilya isn’t sure why he stops him. Why he folds their hands together and rides out the initial spark to feel the sunshine warmth of Hollander underneath.

He doesn’t regret it. Not when Hollander’s confused lust drowns out everything else.

“You will not be so nice when we beat you.”

~

Rozanov is drafted first overall. Shane isn’t mad about it, he’s not, but he’s certainly not happy about it either. He feels worse when Rozanov slants a smirk in his direction and Shane abruptly remembers that the other man can probably feel his jealousy.

Shane’s still reeling, six months later. Ilya Rozanov—the only other player in their age group to challenge Shane professionally—a secret guide. Shane thought he understood the need for subterfuge, knew the MLH’s conditional acceptance for what it was. Don’t be too different, too other. Sentinels get somewhat of a pass, but guides are weak.

Shane’s never believed that. Knows it’s not true after meeting Rozanov. Then, curious, he looks up Russia’s policies on sentinels and guides and realizes he’s understood nothing at all. Christ, Rozanov risks prison time by not disclosing. But what’s his alternative? Shane can read between the lines of ‘important government asset’ just fine, thanks.

He won’t say a word. It would be a shame, to never take the ice with Rozanov again.

After the photos, Shane grits his teeth through socializing with the Metros ownership. Maybe it’s a cop-out to let his mom handle most of it. But she’s good at it, in a way Shane will never be. He’d rather smile and nod. And maybe, just maybe, loosen up his grip on his hearing.

Shane doesn’t intend to intrude. Or, maybe he does, but he’s not trying to hear anything personal. He assumes that Rozanov, like Shane, is probably so much decoration for whatever conversation the Raiders are having with his father. But it’s been six months and Shane can’t get him out of his head. He wants to know more, wants to understand why Rozanov’s touch felt like the perfect, biting sharpness of fresh ice.

Shane hears: “He can be, how you say, lazy.”

“I find that hard to believe, the way he plays!”

And finally, Rozanov, “I promise to work very hard for you.”

Shane’s shock makes him miss the next bit. Rozanov? Lazy? He can’t imagine his dad ever saying something like that to the Metros GM, especially when it’s obviously not true. There’s an exchange in Russian. And then Rozanov’s eyes find him immediately, sharp, knowing.

Shit. Shane’s been caught. He turns his hearing way down, faintly vindicated that Rozanov’s been paying him such close attention empathically too, even if they’re both being rude. Whatever, it’s not like Shane’s really eavesdropping on something private. It’s a party, for fuck’s sake.

That night, he finds that he can’t sleep. When redoing his evening routine fails to help, Shane resigns himself to leaving the room to find the gym. Even over his music, he hears the door open. Rozanov picks the bike next to him, because of course he does. Shane loses this race, too.

Shane’s skin is alight. Even with two firm hands on his senses, he burns, sweat dripping distracting lines down his back, his thighs. Every panted breath from Rozanov rings through him like a gunshot. At least if his senses are going haywire, Shane’s not stretching across the hotel. Just here, in this room, legs almost touching and mirror fogging with their closeness.

Rozanov says something about Boston, about Montreal. For a breathless second, Shane wonders if he’s zoning on the line of Rozanov’s neck, vision crackling into place.

But Rozanov breaks his trance so easily. Their hands brush as Shane reaches for the bottle. Frigid electricity, still.

Shane puts his lips to the bottle, feels the dampness Rozanov left behind for only a second, before Shane tastes him.

There’s plastic—Shane can taste the chemicals, the manufacturing—and sweat—not from Rozanov’s face, this tastes older, less localized, like maybe this bottle was tossed in with used gear or gym clothes—and a bitterness that means Rozanov should probably wash the bottle soon before the mold really starts to take off. Then Shane tastes his spit.

It tells him too much, far, far too much. What Rozanov drank before the gym—vodka—what he ate for an after dinner snack—cheeseburger and fries—and for dinner at the party—a selection of hors d'oeuvres—and for lunch and for breakfast and for–

For–

Rozanov tastes of something also uniquely him. Maybe that should be disgusting. But Shane thinks he could get lost in it, loves the way Rozanov’s spit tastes, wonders what it would taste like from the source without all the additives distracting from it.

Rozanov’s whispered, “More,” sounds like a shout, and Shane’s legs burn where they overlap, and the taste of him is–

Is–

Fuck.

Shane survives the rest of their conversation on pure spite and adrenaline, trying desperately to stretch two hands across three increasingly loosened dials.

Fuck!

One sense wasn’t in the plan, but it was fine. Two senses were definitely not in the plan, but it was survivable.

Three senses is a fucking disaster.

~

Chapter End Notes

"Hard rime is formed by the rapid freezing of supercooled water so that the droplets freeze more or less individually, leaving air gaps. Near the ground, it is deposited mainly on objects exposed to at least moderate wind. In the windward direction, the deposit may form a thick layer. In the free atmosphere, hard rime may form on the parts of aircraft exposed to the relative wind. Hard rime is rather adhesive, but can be scratched off the object." - World Meteorological Association

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Maybe Shane should feel conflicted. His mom clearly thinks he’s bought into the rivalry everyone is already talking about. And Shane is happy that he and Rozanov will enter their rookie seasons together. It’s less opportunity for Rozanov to widen the gap between them.

But Shane really postpones his rookie season because having three enhanced senses is a fucking nightmare.

Mentally, it feels like playing a sick game of whack-a-mole. Every time Shane tamps one sense down into something less grating, another one derails him entirely. He can’t loosen up on his hearing, because that way lies madness. Even at his parents’ cottage, Shane can never forget how loud nature is. Birds and rustling leaves and the lapping waves against the lake shore. On the rink or in the locker room? Forget it.

Chapter Notes

Hi again!

I'm so excited so many people were into this idea and willing to come along into this trope with me. Thank you for all the awesome comments! I promise I read and adore them all (multiple times), I just get overwhelmed and turn that energy to writing instead, which is... probably a good thing?

I did up the rating on this fic, for reasons related to episode 1. We are not rewriting all of canon to the same extent as my other longfic, but we will be hitting some major plot beats. (Please god let this not be as long) I debated whether to leave this as mature but. Well. You'll see.

I have no beta, so all mistakes are my own. I probably should've sat on this for another round of edits but I was excited.

Enjoy!

Trope info wise (skip if you don't care): this will be more of a fusion/use of concepts from The Sentinel, rather than faithful to the canon. In general, I'll hopefully be explaining as I go, but if something isn't clear please let me know and I'll answer in the notes! Questions so far:

Power imbalance for sentinels vs guides: I've found a lot of the time in this trope Sentinels are generally perceived as 'stronger' with guides being 'weaker.' Not quite to the extent of A/B/O dynamics, but along those lines. In this universe, it leans more 'harmful stereotypes' than 'deep societal injustice' but I'll be exploring this more later

Bonds/Bonding: this will also be a future plot point, so my answer is wait and see ;p

Summer 2009

When Shane tells his mom that he wants to postpone his rookie season and play one more year in Juniors, she’s confused but agrees easily enough. Shane’s a terrible liar, and he’s not sure why she buys his excuse of “coming in a bit more experienced” and wanting “an international win first.” Then he sees the news about Rozanov spending one more year in Russia.

Maybe Shane should feel conflicted. His mom clearly thinks he’s bought into the rivalry everyone is already talking about. And Shane is happy that he and Rozanov will enter their rookie seasons together. It’s less opportunity for Rozanov to widen the gap between them.

But Shane really postpones his rookie season because having three enhanced senses is a fucking nightmare.

Mentally, it feels like playing a sick game of whack-a-mole. Every time Shane tamps one sense down into something less grating, another one derails him entirely. He can’t loosen up on his hearing, because that way lies madness. Even at his parents’ cottage, Shane can never forget how loud nature is. Birds and rustling leaves and the lapping waves against the lake shore. On the rink or in the locker room? Forget it.

So that leaves him with a horrible balancing act between his skin aching like it’s been abraded with sand and his tongue telling him the unabridged history of everything that passes his lips. It’s really hard to stomach his dad’s garlic shrimp pasta when he can taste the metal of the knife used to mince the garlic and the dirt it grew from and ocean water and the shrimp’s shit (which is algae and sand and decaying plants and–).

The alternative is that Shane moves as little as possible so that his clothes don’t strangle him as he shovels food down his throat. The faster he finishes the sooner he can brush his teeth and let his tastebuds be overwhelmed by mint and fluoride and calcium carbonate.

His mom and dad share a look over dinner, the night Shane almost chokes trying to inhale his cheeseburger (the charcoal on the grill and the chicken his dad made two weeks ago and the plastic bag the buns were in and–).

“Shane,” his dad starts, voice careful. “Is everything… alright? You’ve seemed pretty on edge lately, kid.”

That’s always been his dad’s role in their family. Easing all of them into the tricky emotional conversations that Shane and his mom struggle to navigate. The two of them have always been the planners, the problem solvers. His dad likes to remind them that feeling some kind of way about a problem is necessary too.

Shane could tell them. But if he tells them, it’s going to become a thing.

Three senses aren’t manageable without a guide, and his mom is too logical to let him ignore that. She’ll insist on talking to the league, maybe even to the Center. She’ll turn all of her attention to match-making, when Shane can’t be tied to another person like that right now. He needs to focus on hockey, not… managing a relationship with a stranger. He doesn’t even have the bandwidth to manage a relationship with his girlfriend, which is absolutely the reason why he should break up with Jessica.

(Definitely not because Shane’s been dreaming about the taste of Rozanov’s spit and wondering what his sweat would taste like and what his hands would feel like wrapped around Shane’s–)

“I’m fine,” Shane lies. “Just thinking about the season. Hey, mom, do you think I should get a nutritionist?” Maybe if he eats obsessively healthy and organic, his sense of taste will be less debilitating. At least he could stop tasting pesticides, probably. That’s what organic is, right?

His parents exchange another look. “I can look into it for you, honey. You don’t want to wait until next year? The Metros should have someone on staff.”

Shane thinks about waiting a year. Then he thinks about inevitably having to disclose that this is a sentinel issue to his employers and well. “I’d rather have them work for me privately.”

~

Shane gets things under control, for the most part. He’s fucking grateful that his third sense is taste, not smell or god forbid vision. After all, Shane spends most of his day not needing to put things in his mouth.

The issue of his mouth guard is tricky. Shane’s first idea is to soak it in some type of strong, overpowering flavor to drown out anything underneath. He goes with a concentrated mint, similar to the toothpaste which has become an almost pleasant three-times-a-day scouring. Thank fuck he tried it at home before he brought it to the rink.

The mint overwhelms his sense of taste so entirely that Shane almost can’t stop the zone in time. He gives himself a migraine while fumbling his control of his hearing, then ends up needing to soak in the extra large bathtub his parents installed once hockey started to get serious. Shane’s found that if he fills the tub up with skin temperature water, leaves only his mouth and nose above the surface, and goes very, very still, his sense of touch dims. Showers are terrible because of the constant new input, but a calm bath lets him ride out the worst of the mint without going insane.

His second attempt is desensitization. Shane stores his mouthguard in an airtight case and starts carrying it around with him. He pops it in whenever he can get away with it, forcing himself to go about his day normally no matter how much the ethyl-vinyl-acetate wants to derail him. Shane’s parents have bought him custom mouth guards for years, so he likes to think they’ve had slightly less contact with other distractors.

It’s hellish. Shane’s dad catches him at it several times and stares at him like he’s lost his mind, but at least he doesn’t bring it up to mom. And it works, mostly. Shane becomes almost mouth-blind to the taste of his guard and it doesn’t affect his performance on the ice. It only takes once for him to realize he should never put it back in after it falls out.

Shane becomes so careful about not dropping it mid-game or practice that he practically stops chirping. Standing still and giving tips to his teammates is one thing. But otherwise he keeps his mouth shut so it doesn’t ruin the good thing he has going.

Bizarrely, his coach compliments him on it.

“Keep an eye out, boys. Hollander’s already acting like a real professional. All his focus on the game.”

Right. Yeah, sure.

Whatever works.

He breaks up with Jessica. Shane is going to do it anyway, really. But then she’s so excited to see him after the draft, and he drives them out to the lookout to talk, and she pulls him into the backseat and well. Sex with her wasn’t great before. Shane is kind of embarrassed about it. She tries not to show it, but Shane knows the penetration wasn’t… ideal. The oral was usually okay, even if he kept closing his eyes and half-imagining her with a stronger jaw and biceps the size of his neck.

Shane figures he can go down on her and at least give her a good memory for the road. He wasn’t great at this either at first, but when he closes his eyes and focuses, he’s better now.

Except she pulls him in for a kiss. And Shane remembers how three senses are terrible for this actually.

She tastes like chapstick, artificial cherry that’s so starkly chemical it almost makes him gag and her spit tastes like mints except underneath is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she had for lunch and the eggs on toast for breakfast and she has a bad habit of gnawing on her pens and Shane can taste the ink–

Shane mentally loosens his grip on his sense of touch until the press of her skin is unbearably, too warm and tacky with lotion, but he’s at least not going to zone on the remnants of a Bic ballpoint. “Wait,” Shane says, leaning away. “Jessica, wait. We need to talk.”

There’s no amount of turning his hearing down that can make the silent drive home less awkward.

~

January 2010

Team Canada wins Shane’s second World Juniors. The gold medal game is against Russia again, and Shane finds himself hyperaware of the very second Ilya Rozanov steps onto the ice. They haven’t overlapped at all this tournament until now, and it’s as if all of Shane’s senses tune into him specifically. Rozanov’s heartbeat, the heat of his body, (the remembered taste of his spit).

Shane’s spent a lot of time in the past six months finding an equilibrium with the whole sentinel thing. But he’s also dedicated a lot of time to studying Rozanov. Understanding how he plays, his strategies, the way he visualizes the game. And Shane’s ready for him.

He’s long abandoned his mouthguard by the time he shakes Rozanov’s hand with a smirk. “See you in October.”

Even though Shane has his hearing turned down, he swears he can hear Rozanov’s heartbeat tick up.

~

July 2010

The offer from CCM comes as a surprise.

Shane wasn’t the number one draft pick. He can’t remember a time where CCM’s season-teaser ad didn’t feature the top draft pick starting that season. Then his mom explains the rest, that Rozanov will be there too, that they are already planning to start building the narrative around their rivalry.

Shane hates it, a bit. Not that Rozanov isn’t incredible to play against. Fast, instinctive, flirting with the edge of dirty. The first player in years to provide Shane a challenge to throw his whole game against.

They’ll be rivals in practice. But Shane wishes this didn’t feel like a marketing ploy. Like hockey is being sidelined for a bigger story and contrast that tucks Shane neatly into a box. He’s already seen some of the articles, about Canada’s new Golden Goose, an Asian-Canadian Sentinel as the face of MLH diversity. Rozanov, of course, is the Asshole Russian Playboy, who wants to burn it all down. Sometimes, Shane thinks reporters really should’ve gone into fiction writing instead of journalism.

Shane imagines he can feel it. The moment Rozanov enters the rink they’re using for filming.

He dials up his hearing in time to catch Rozanov at hair and makeup.

“Ah, ah! My curls, they are… fussy, yes? I bring my own things. Here,” Rozanov tells someone.

Shane rolls his eyes. The woman carefully applying foundation around his hairline flinches.

“Sorry, Mr. Hollander. Am I–”

“No,” Shane hurries. “Keep going. I was just thinking about, uh, hockey?”

“A man who knows how to take care of his hair?” This voice is feminine, sly. It takes Shane a second to translate it into flirting. “What are they putting in that Russian water?”

“Must be same thing they put in Canadian water, yes?”

What a fucking asshole. Shane’s pretty sure if he tried that line, it would be a one-way trip to humiliation. Rozanov, of course, earns a giggle.

Crouched at center ice for filming, Rozanov speaks first.

“You look pretty, Hollander.”

Shane doesn’t think it’s meant as a dig. Not really. There’s none of the sneering teasing he’s used to from guys on his teams. But still: “Fuck you. You’re wearing makeup, too.”

“Yes,” Rozanov’s lips twitch into a smirk. “I felt you getting annoyed. They liked me better than you.”

Fucking hell. Of course Rozanov was being nosey. “That’s rude, you know. Using your shit to figure out what I’m thinking.”

Rozanov rolls his eyes. “Feeling, not thinking. And you are лицемер… hypocrite, I think?” Then he lowers his voice, teasing, “Mr. Sentinel.”

Maybe Shane should feel bad about eavesdropping, but considering Rozanov’s just as nosey as him, he doesn’t care. That’s what he tells himself, even though Rozanov can both probably see his embarrassment and feel it.

It’s really fucking hard to keep a straight face around him. They skate up to each other, again and again, and Shane can hear Rozanov clench his jaw to smother a laugh. Each time, the creak of bone pushes Shane right over the edge.

Doing their individual segments is both better and worse. Shane doesn’t have to keep a straight face for the camera, but he should be listening to his mom. Instead, he’s listening to fucking Rozanov. Fucking Rozanov, who apparently decided his individual segments need constant, annoying commentary.

From his place at the top of the lower bowl, Shane hears every whisper:

“Did you see me corner, Hollander? Should take notes, might help.”

And:

“This is what goal looks like, when backhand is not weak.”

And:

“Ah, they make me film again. I am too fast for cameras. Not problem you have, no?”

And:

“Guy with big, marshmallow microphone. Is he brother to овцы, sheep? Why does he laugh like that?”

He’s so annoying. Shane directs his hearing more broadly and has to admit that one sound tech does kind of bleat when he laughs.

“Shane? Are you listening to me?” his mom demands.

Right, he’s a professional. Rozanov’s distracting him on purpose probably. Finding out that Rozanov arranged this entire shoot doesn’t do anything to dissuade him of that. Worse, Shane’s not even sure what his own tangled emotions mean. With his luck, Rozanov understands his reaction better than he does. It’s mortifying.

Shane hurries to the shower, as if he could finish his routine without seeing Rozanov again. Of course, he hears him coming. Rozanov enters the locker room with a cheerful little whistle. His uniform hits the floor with soft thumps. Then his footsteps take him to a showerhead just close enough to be suggestive. Even with Shane’s iron grip on his sense of touch, his skin feels hyper-sensitive. Each pulse of the water, the glancing weight of Rozanov’s eyes, the warmth of his body.

He looks. He can’t help it.

Rozanov is all corded muscle, sinuous as he runs a soapy hand down his chest. Shane’s eyes trail downward, to the dark hair curling below Rozanov’s stomach. To his ass. Christ, what’s his glute routine to end up with a result like that?

Shane forces his eyes away. Except they land on Rozanov’s face and to Shane’s complete mortification he’s staring back. Expression knowing and just a bit smug as he flicks his gaze over Shane’s body. Shane glances down, hopelessly, desperately wishing for the floor to open and suck him in.

Shane’s half-hard, his dick flushed, from nothing more than the sight of Rozanov in the shower. What the fuck. What the fuck? Is he some kind of pervert now?

He expects anger on Rozanov’s face, maybe disgust. He doesn’t expect Rozanov to leave his eyes resting on Shane’s dick long enough to make it awkward or for him to slide a hand down his chest to grip his own cock. Rozanov strokes himself, just the once. And his dick is big, bigger than most Shane’s caught glimpses of in the locker room.

What is Shane doing? He spins to face the wall, sweeps his hearing out to make sure they’re alone. “Not here,” he grits out.

Shane loses track of how not here turns into him giving out his hotel room number. Into him changing his clothes five times because each option feels like sandpaper. Into him sitting in the dark, listening to each time the elevator opens and closes on his floor. Wondering which one will be Rozanov.

He can tell by his footsteps. Rozanov’s a little late, 9:06. Shane barely lets his first knock land before he’s yanking open the door.

Rozanov steps inside, calm and unhurried. But Shane can hear that his heart is beating fast, as if he took the stairs.

“We should talk,” Shane says. His eyes fall to Rozanov’s lips and stall there. He’s only waiting for his response. Obviously.

Rozanov hums. He takes one step, then another, until Shane finds the wall at his back. “Talk about what? I can feel how much you want me, Hollander.”

Shane swallows. “This is a bad idea.”

Then Rozanov’s hand is on his chin, tilting his face and Shane’s mind goes blank, still. That first touch is like the jolt of ice pressed to overheated skin. A fizzle of connection, potential. Then there is only the grip of Rozanov’s fingers, the heat of his breath teasing his lips. “Very stupid, yes,” Rozanov tells him. “Wanting is not doing. If you really do not want–”

Fuck it. They’re already bound by one secret. What’s another? Shane shakes off Rozanov’s grip and crashes their lips together.

Three senses is a bitch.

How Shane forgot this part, he’ll never know. Kissing Jessica was an overstimulating nightmare and kissing Rozanov should be no better. It is, though. Better.

Because Shane diverts just enough control of his touch, and Rozanov’s body against his isn’t tacky and overwarm. It’s fire, flames licking under his skin in a way that feels good instead of agonizing. It’s Rozanov’s hand in his hair, fingers catching, and Shane can feel the tug on each individual follicle. It’s the cold wall at his back and the soft bumps of Rozanov’s chapped lips against his own.

And it’s–

Rozanov’s spit from the source is better. He tastes like ash and vodka, which should be disgusting, and every meal he’s had, and also his toothpaste. But he also tastes the same way his water bottle tasted almost a year ago. Something else, something indescribably masculine and Rozanov and perfect.

Shane gives as good as he gets, as good as he can when it feels like he’s being swept away on a sea of sensation. Overstimulated, but content with it, for perhaps the first time in his life.

“Fuck, Hollander,” Rozanov says, pulling back to gasp a breath. Shane takes the chance to lick the side of his neck. To taste the difference in Rozanov’s sweat, to get lost in it. But there’s something he wants to get his mouth on even more. He’s been wondering, since the showers (since Draft Day).

Shane fumbles with Rozanov’s belt. Then he drops to his knees.

There’s a voice in the back of his head, reminding him that this is a terrible idea. Shane doesn’t have a good enough grasp on his senses for this. Doesn’t have a stable enough career or a strong enough reputation, or, hell, a solid enough understanding of his fucking sexuality. Shane doesn’t even bother telling the voice to shut up. He just pulls his lips over his teeth and clumsily fits Rozanov into his mouth.

At first, it’s all tactile. Rozanov’s dick is warm. The sensation of foreskin is different from Shane’s experience with his own dick. His tip presses against the inside of Shane’s cheek. Distantly, he hears Rozanov mutter a curse. Shane readjusts. Tentative, he slides more into his mouth and sucks.

That’s when the taste hits him. Rozanov’s skin is different down here, muskier. Shane can make out the faint traces of soap, bitter on his tongue, like the one the hotel offers. And then Rozanov leaks, a bit. Shane chases the taste. A muted saltiness. He searches his memory for comparisons, not salty enough for butter, but a strangely thickened version of the gargle his mom made him do when he had a sore throat as a child. Shane likes it. Maybe more than he should. Because his brain connects it to Rozanov, to sex, to the arousal burning deep in his gut.

Shane’s lost in it. More than he’s been lost in any meal, in any kiss. He wants to understand this down to the molecular level, to write novels to it so comprehensive that other people can grasp the profundity of this taste.

The world falls away, or maybe Shane drifts. He can’t feel his body. Doesn’t remember what he was doing. Only knows this.

And then there’s a string looped around him. Shane’s not sure where, exactly, but his brain translates it to his wrist and tells him the thread is cold. That it’s pulling him, tugging him somewhere. Shane doesn’t want to let go of the taste, of the perfect sensation, but the string is so insistent. He’s weightless anyway, existing in some kind of zero gravity that eliminates drag.

There is a warm hand on his cheek, damp with sweat and calloused. Half his face is pressed against smooth skin. One ear tuned to a thrumming, racing heartbeat. The other ear hears:

“Fuck, Hollander. Come back. You cannot die zoning on my dick. Very bad for both of us. I want one Cup first, before I am in jail for murder.” There’s more, in Russian, that he doesn’t understand.

But Shane finds, with the assistance of the thread on his wrist, he can hold onto all his senses. For all that the thread is thin, when Shane presses it to the mental dial that controls his sense of taste, it forms a fragile shell of ice. Freezing the intensity somewhere close to normal. It leaves his other hands free to grab onto hearing and touch. His grip feels sturdier, even, more stable and sure than it has since before he ever came Online.

Which leaves Shane plenty of mental space to realize exactly what happened.

“Fuck,” he breathes. He’s not sure he’s ever been more mortified in his life.

“Hollander?” Rozanov demands. “You are back, yes? Not zoning?”

Shane nods against Rozanov’s chest. He wants to keep hiding there, but Rozanov is basically a stranger. He pulls back from where Rozanov has fallen to his own knees, pants undone, dick soft and spit-wet. Puts space between them until his back hits the far wall.

“I am so sorry,” Shane starts. “Fuck. This is a disaster.” He can’t meet Rozanov’s eyes, can’t even look at him. He finds a stain in the carpet and pretends it’s the most interesting thing in the room.

“My dick is so good, he almost kills you. Is compliment, maybe,” Rozanov says. His voice is light, but Shane’s not stupid. He can hear the tension.

“I didn’t know that would happen,” Shane says weakly.

Rozanov barks a laugh. Involuntarily, Shane’s eyes drift. One of Rozanov’s hands digs into the carpet. His knuckles are white. “Why did you lie?”

Shane blinks. “What?”

“You say sentinel senses are hearing, touch,” Rozanov’s hand leaves the carpet to punctuate his speech. Shane follows it inadvertently, just long enough to glimpse the clenched line of his jaw. “Not taste. I did not know to be careful. Why did you lie?”

Careful, Rozanov says. Like he takes some type of responsibility for Shane’s stupidity, for Shane dropping to his knees, for Shane being so eager to suck his dick that he forgot why it was a bad idea.

“It’s, uh, new,” Shane admits. “Only since last summer. No one knows.”

Silence. For a long, drawn out moment. “No one knows,” Rozanov finally repeats. “No one knows you are three-sense sentinel?”

Shane shakes his head.

“Ah, you are stupid?” Rozanov asks, voice conversational.

“What? No!”

“You are stupid,” Rozanov continues, as if Shane hasn’t spoken. “Because I know three senses means you need guide.”

Shane bristles. “I don’t need shit. I’m fine on my own.”

“Yes, so fine, you zone during first blowjob.”

Shane’s face burns. “How do you know it’s my first?”

Rozanov’s look is withering.

“Whatever,” Shane rallies. “Like you’ve done this so many times.”

Rozanov shrugs. “I have before, yes.”

Unbelievable. Of course he has. Why wouldn’t Rozanov be able to make Shane feel like a naive idiot in every possible way. “Who?”

“My coach’s son, back in Russia.”

“Are you stupid?” Shane demands.

“Maybe,” Rozanov says. “But I am good at secrets, so.”

Right. “Thank you,” Shane mumbles. He shifts uneasily. “For, uh. Anchoring me, or whatever. Dying on your dick would’ve stopped me from winning the Calder, so I owe you one.”

Rozanov snorts. “In your dreams, Hollander. But is no big deal. I have friend back home who is sight sentinel. I helped her before with zones.”

“Still,” Shane insists. “Thanks.” And then he has no idea what else to say. They sit there, silence stretching and unfurling until Shane thinks he might burst with it.

“You can, ah, make it up to me. If you want.”

Shane’s head jerks. His eyes finally collide with Rozanov’s. There’s no judgement, no disgust. Only more of that burning consideration from the locker room, from the showers, from center ice. Shane’s mouth dries. “You’re kidding.”

Rozanov leans back on his hands. His shirt is still on, but he spreads his knees wider on the carpet. It draws Shane’s attention back to his cock, jutting proudly free of his underwear. “I am no kid, Hollander. Will make sure you don’t zone on my dick, this time.”

Shane fights himself. But only for a second, only briefly. Then, feeling ridiculous, he crawls forward.

Rozanov yanks him off after what can only be a minute. He’s panting, eyes wild as he feeds Shane his thumb, presses down on his tongue. “Fuck, Hollander. Can feel how much you love it.” Shane’s cheeks heat, but he lets Rozanov pull him to his feet, strip him of his clothes.

Shane’s senses are under control, held there by him and Rozanov combined, but he’s still on fire. Sex has never been like this before, never been so consuming, so addicting. He likes sucking Rozanov, likes the weight of his dick, the taste of his skin and his pre-cum. Even likes the way Shane’s so messy at this still, spit dripping down his chin.

Rozanov returns the favor. He’s clearly done this before, takes Shane apart with such finesse that it’s no competition at all. And that’s before Rozanov pulls off and tells Shane, “I want to try something. Your touch-sense. Can you turn it up, just for little Shane?”

“What?” Shane gasps, brain stuttering.

“Think it could be fun, yes?” Rozanov smirks. “I won’t let you zone, Hollander.”

So Shane tries, imagining Rozanov’s hands cupping his over the dial. Directing it to one place only. Rozanov lowers his head again and Shane splinters.

He comes back to himself panting and slick with sweat. Not cum though, because of course Rozanov swallows. His senses are back to a low baseline, Rozanov’s shoulder pressing against his own. “Not bad, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Shane wheezes.

Detangling Rozanov from Shane is a tricky, cautious thing. Shane brushes his teeth first, before carefully assuming control of his dials. When Rozanov withdraws completely, they both wince. The string is strangely sticky, fighting their separation. Shane wobbles for a second, but it’s like some of Rozanov’s strength is left behind, an afterimage. He finds his footing, and Rozanov must as well, because his expression has returned to its usual cocky neutrality.

“You won’t tell anyone?” Shane asks.

Rozanov scoffs. He tugs his shirt back on over his head, and Shane watches the play of muscles in his back. “Who would I tell? We are collecting secrets, Hollander.”

“Right, sure,” Shane nods.

Rozanov hesitates at the door. His hand rests on the handle. He turns back to Shane, lips parting. But Shane’s already got this. He stretches his hearing, confirms the hallway is empty. “Don’t worry,” he tells Rozanov. “The coast is clear, no one’s out there.”

Rozanov’s mouth firms into a flat line. He nods. “See you in October, Hollander.” Then he’s gone.

Shane drops his head back onto the pillow. He listens to Rozanov call the elevator and only dials his hearing down when the doors slide decisively shut.

This can never happen again.

Chapter End Notes

Could I resist a snarky nod to my other longfic title? No, no I could not.

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Linking feels like the first step into sunshine after months of gray winter. Ilya can breathe and think and relax without the world ripping him to shreds. He hasn’t realized how heavy his dome of ice has become. That the pressure on Ilya’s shields has increased steadily, devastatingly. It’s only now, with the distance and relief Hollander grants, that he sees how far the cracks have spread. That’s… not good. Probably bad.

Chapter Notes

Hi again!

We're back with Ilya POV :) I am using franken-canon here, with both book and tv flavorings. We are still following canon semi-closely right now, but with hopefully enough twists to keep it interesting!

Thank you for all the comments and continuing excitement for this fic! I'm glad people enjoyed my interpretation of how Shane's senses would play into his canon personality, I had a lot of fun with that.

As always, I have no beta so all mistakes are my own.

Enjoy!

Fall 2010

Boston is nothing like Moscow.

It’s small, less people stacked on top of each other. If Ilya wanted to walk from one end of the city to another, he could do it in a few hours easily. Boston itself is also… young. Before he arrived, he didn’t understand what people meant by ‘college town.’ There are so many places with universities, more than Boston even. But proportionally, by landmass and population, it’s absurd.

Ilya walks around downtown on September 1st just to experience the chaos. Maybe Ilya should be at home. Many of the students are Ilya’s age, or a year in either direction. But he feels ancient next to them, like he’s been worn and beaten down into something older.

The university students project so much, all the time. First heartbreaks and failures and pent up rage. The emotions batter against Ilya’s shield, a constant patter of destructive rain.

And it’s still better than Moscow. But Ilya thinks that has little to do with the ‘guide’ of it all, and everything to do with who he had to be there.

The food is foreign, the locals speak in confusingly accented English, and the first time Ilya rode the green line through Boylston, he thought the screeching meant they were all going to die. But Ilya doesn’t need to shield himself from the physical and mental manifestation of his family’s disappointment, doesn’t need to be hyperaware of the moods of everyone around him. An improvement.

Hockey is good. Beyond a few initial bumps, the Raiders are good to him. They’re an older, more seasoned team in general, looking to start a rebuild. Ilya befriends some of the younger guys, but he gets along best with Cliff Marlow.

Marlow takes Ilya under his wing. Helps him look for apartments and pays off bouncers to get him into bars. He has Ilya’s back on the ice, smooths the way with the older guys. In a different life, Ilya imagines that Alexei would’ve done similar things. If Alexei had kept it together under the weight of their father’s expectations and the death of their mother. If they’d held onto any of the warmth Ilya remembers in the fuzzy memories of early childhood.

Whatever.

There are two sentinels in the Raiders locker room. One is the backup goalie, who has enhanced smell, rather than anything useful like sight. The other is the Captain. Enhanced hearing, like Hollander, and vision. If Ilya knows his MLH history, he’s only the second sentinel Captain in the history of the league.

Ilya’s careful, around both of them. Doesn’t brush bare skin, after the initial, heartstopping handshakes. It’s not like he expects potential to appear after the fact, but he’d rather be safe than sorry. Even though Hollander was just a fluke.

There are no guides.

It would probably be fine, if they knew about Ilya. While ‘feeling emotions’ carries some feminine, emasculating connotations in North America, it’s not institutional like it is in Russia. But Ilya doesn’t say anything. To his knowledge, there has never been a guide Captain. Ilya will be the first. So be it.

~

Ilya anticipates the first Boston-Montreal game for weeks. He wants to face Hollander on the ice again, wants to steal the puck and a win right out from under him. Maybe, if they’re careful and lucky, they can hook up again.

Ilya’s hardly been celibate, since moving to Boston. He’s already picked up with enough regularity and—to be frank—success, that he has the beginning of a reputation on the team. Ilya doesn’t dare to pick up any men though. Not yet, not when he’s just starting to get a pulse on the city. Boston’s famously gay friendly, Massachusetts the first of a handful of states to have legalized gay marriage. The league is a different story. And even if Ilya had his choice of the entire city, Hollander was different.

Ilya wanted him from the very moment he laid eyes on him. When he saw the freckles in person, the bashfulness. If Ilya is being perfectly honest, he maybe wanted him from the moment he saw him skate, on grainy tapes back in Russia. Hollander is all precision and grace on the ice, clean where Ilya leans feral. But Hollander has that same killer instinct that Ilya does, the one that sees opportunities and takes rather than dithers.

Fucking him was more intense than Ilya would’ve ever imagined.

He didn’t knock on Hollander’s door expecting to establish an anchor. But watching and feeling Hollander zone on his dick was just as terrifying as Svetlana’s zone. Ilya established the link because he had no other choice and then fucked Hollander because it felt good.

Hollander became the center of Ilya’s attention, the focus of his abilities. And abruptly, the rest of the world was quieter, less demanding. It was as if Hollander was the sun, outshining the millions of nagging stars so completely that Ilya didn’t have to see them anymore. Peace and quiet and solitude that Ilya hasn’t known since he lost his mother.

He craves it again, the relief. Desperately, achingly.

The Bell Centre is alive. Ilya can feel the buzzing hatred directed toward him and the Raiders. But on the ice, it’s always been easier to hold the shield firm. Or maybe Ilya simply ignores things better, when hockey consumes him.

Ilya asks Hollander: “Will you disappoint them?”

He should have asked: “Will you disappoint me?” Because despite Ilya muttering the digits of his phone number under his breath for half the game—hoping no other sentinel, including his fucking Captain, wonders what he’s doing—Hollander never texts.

Between that and the Raiders’ loss, Ilya leaves Montreal in a shitty mood.

~

January 2011

In Nashville, Ilya tries again.

Not right away. But considering the help at the press conference, he figures Hollander’s open to it. Hollander nudges Ilya’s foot, exuding forced happiness when Ilya should give a positive answer, forced annoyance for a negative. It’s not perfect, with these annoying reporters and their intentionally long-winded questions. But it helps. At least Ilya ruins their petty enjoyment of his struggle.

During the actual game, Ilya strikes up a conversation with Hollander on the benches. He talks quietly, positive that Hollander will hear everything just fine. Ilya says, “Think I’m going to bed early tonight.” Then he steps onto the ice, skates toward center ice, and doesn’t look at Hollander at all when he mutters, “One two two one.”

Another shot. Ilya will try this last time and give it up. If Hollander only wants one night, then Ilya will get over it.

But Ilya feels him coming up the hallway. He mentally checks the rest of the floor. Hunter is asleep next door, along with another player around the corner. Every other room is empty. Probably at the hotel bar or elsewhere. Ilya should be out drinking with his team, too.

Instead, he takes his time walking to the door, drags his feet. He hopes Hollander hears him doing it, and understands it to be the petty revenge it absolutely is.

Ilya cracks the door.

“Can you move any slower?” Hollander demands. He shoves his way in, and Ilya hides a smile.

“What? What is the problem? We both know no one is coming.”

Hollander’s irritation spikes. “I can hear someone in the room next to you!”

Ilya steps back, leans against the wall. He sees Hollander’s eyes dip to the hollow of his throat, down the line of his body. Feels the bolt of lust. “Mmm, yes. But Scott Hunter is sleeping. Is past grandpa’s bed time.”

The lust diminishes. Not entirely, though, Ilya notes with interest. “Scott Hunter is in the room one over? Are you fucking insane?”

Ilya waves it away. “I will feel him if he wakes up, is no problem. Are you chicken?”

Hollander looks like an angry kitten. But when he shoves Ilya’s shoulders back, he’s all fire and strength and surety. “You’re such an asshole,” he says. He kisses Ilya anyway.

It’s so fucking good. Like Ilya remembered. Hollander bulks just as much, presses his thick, hard muscle against Ilya. He can never forget who he’s kissing, what Hollander is capable of, and it drives Ilya insane. Hollander must’ve brushed his teeth before he came here, because he tastes like mint as he bites at Ilya’s lips, forces his tongue into Ilya’s mouth. Ilya pulls him closer.

“Fuck.” Ilya’s head thumps against the wall. “Get on your knees.” Hollander drops before he’s finished the last word. It’s only when Ilya’s pants are undone and Hollander is eyeing his dick like it’s a five course meal, that Ilya remembers the problem. “Wait–” Ilya starts.

Hollander doesn’t wait. He licks at Ilya’s cock like he’s starving for it. The words are knocked from Ilya’s lungs, and he has no chance to regain them because Hollander sucks him down. He tries to pay attention to Hollander, make sure he isn’t zoning, but it’s no use. Ilya tugs him to his feet and into his arms.

It’s not easy to lift him. But Ilya does it anyway. He likes that Hollander likes it, finds it so hot that his arousal nearly blinds Ilya to everything else. Hollander bounces, as Ilya drops him on the bed.

“You have been practicing,” Ilya says.

To his surprise, Hollander turns bright red, “What? No! I mean, I could’ve, I guess, but I was busy–”

Ilya snorts. “Not sucking dick, Hollan–”

“Don’t say my name.” Not very Canadian of him, interrupting.

“What? You want to call me sir?” Ilya smirks. “Because yes, can be fun, but is too much for nice boy, I think.”

“Fuck off, Ro–” Hollander shakes his head. “Asshole. No, I mean if anyone else has enhanced hearing we’re fucked.”

Ah. Ilya hasn’t thought of that. It’s not likely, with sentinels and guides being a proportionally minor group, but it is risky. They make special sentinel-proof hotel rooms, but there’s no realistic reason for Ilya to request one of those. Something to workshop. “You can call me asshole, then,” Ilya decides. “And I will call you котёнок.” He could’ve gone with asshole, in Russian. But didn’t Ilya just think that Hollander looked like a grumpy cat? Who cares if some people use it as an endearment. It’s obviously fitting in this case.

“What’s that mean?” Hollander demands.

“Means horny, because you are horny for my big–”

In a flash, Hollander sits up and tugs his sweatshirt over his head. Then he throws it in Ilya’s face.

“Ah, котёнок. You are being bad.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Hollander demands. “Get over here.”

“Take these off, first.”

Together, they get Hollander undressed and then Ilya crawls on top of him. They kiss again, and again. And Hollander stays there, doesn’t get lost. Ilya steals a breath. “I meant. You practiced your control, yes?”

“Oh,” Hollander gasps. “Yes, but.” He hesitates. “Maybe we should anchor? Just in case.”

Ilya smothers a sigh of relief. “Да, yes. Just in case.”

Linking feels like the first step into sunshine after months of gray winter. Ilya can breathe and think and relax without the world ripping him to shreds. He hasn’t realized how heavy his dome of ice has become. That the pressure on Ilya’s shields has increased steadily, devastatingly. It’s only now, with the distance and relief Hollander grants, that he sees how far the cracks have spread. That’s… not good. Probably bad.

Hollander tenses and then melts into the mattress. Ilya presses them together, chest to knee.

“Fuck, that feels good,” Hollander breathes.

They lay like that for a moment. Until it starts to feel too good. Then Ilya slaps Hollander’s hip. “Roll over. On your stomach.”

He slots them together again, Hollander’s back to his front. Ilya’s dick brushes the curve of Hollander’s ass. At the touch, Hollander freezes. The rush of his apprehension stops Ilya in his tracks.

“Have you ever?” He presses a kiss to Hollander’s shoulder when he shakes his head. “Do you want to?” Hollander doesn’t answer. But Ilya feels his tangle of emotions, desire and fear and nerves rolled into one. “You’re scared.”

Hollander protests immediately. “I’m not–” He starts. Then he sighs, annoyed. “I hate when you do that.”

“Is okay to be scared,” Ilya says. “We do not have to.”

“Fuck off,” Hollander snaps. “I have a thing, okay?”

Ilya trails his fingers over the curve of Hollander’s ass, dips into the crease and notes the way Hollander’s body pulses with familiar pleasure. “Ah, you have touched here before. A thing? What color?”

“I’m leaving,” Hollander says, making to crawl off the bed. But Ilya can feel that he doesn’t mean it, only intends to tease. He rolls them, until Hollander is under him and he can meet his eyes.

“I want to fuck you, котёнок,” Ilya tells him. “Promise I can make you feel better, like last time.”

Hollander’s eyelashes flutter. His lips press together so tightly they turn white. “Not, not here,” he finally pushes out. But Ilya can taste the reluctance. “Not with Scott Hunter next door and no soundproofing. If one of us forgets and says a name–”

Ilya sighs. “Is good to worry about. Because I would fuck away your brain, yes?”

Hollander scoffs. “Whatever, asshole.”

“Okay. Next time then,” Ilya offers.

Hollander’s happiness is brighter than Ilya expects. “Next time,” he repeats. “But where–”

“You are homeless?”

“No!” Hollander rolls his eyes. “But I have neighbors, and–”

“Fuck, котёнок,” Ilya groans. “Is no big deal. We figure it out. Maybe I rent sentinel hotel room, yes?”

“Wouldn’t that be obvious?” Hollander’s anxiety spins faster. “Someone might–”

“You are having a panic attack. It’s just a plan to fuck.” But Hollander doesn’t calm until Ilya kisses him, again and again, until he’s gasping for breath.

“Stop worrying,” Ilya tells him. And miraculously, Hollander decides to listen. There’s no hotel ban on blowjobs at least. The focusing-his-touch-sense trick works like a charm.

“Can I–” Hollander heaves in air as he slides down Ilya’s body. “I want– My sense of taste–” He looks at Ilya beseechingly.

“Блять,” Ilya curses. “Yes, yes. I will not let you zone.”

Hollander moans, when Ilya’s pre hits his tongue. It takes everything Ilya has not to come immediately, like a virgin. He doesn’t last long.

They don’t snap the tether until Hollander’s dressed. Ilya’s reluctant to let the noise back in. He’d rather be subjected to Hollander’s pointless anxiety. There’s that same stickiness, as Ilya pulls them apart. He’s never had this problem with Svetlana, but then, they’ve never fucked with a link either.

Hollander hovers at the foot of the bed. “About Montreal–”

“For fuck’s sake,” Ilya sighs. “Text me, I will tell you hotel to come to.”

Hollander blinks. “I don’t have your number.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “You didn’t write it down? So boring, котёнок.” All that risk for nothing.

“You didn’t give it to me!” Hollander protests.

“Yes, I did. First game, remember?”

Hollander gapes at him. “I would fucking remember that. We didn’t even talk! When–” Hollander’s eyes widen. “Is that what you were muttering under your breath during the game?”

“Yes, the fuck?” Ilya says. He should’ve known. There is a philosopher or someone, who said «Никогда не приписывайте злому умыслу то, что можно адекватно объяснить глупостью.» (Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity). Of course Hollander is a moron. “You think numbers are something else?”

“I thought you were reciting stats or something,” Hollander says. At Ilya’s look, his feeling of offense increases drastically. “You seriously think about hooking up during a game?”

“Do not pretend. I feel you think about it too.”

“Shut up,” Hollander snaps.

Ilya sighs and rolls off the bed. He really has to do everything around here.

Even though programming himself as ‘Asshole’ would be funny, it isn’t exactly subtle. He goes with Lily and Jane. That should do the trick.

~

June 2011

Hollander wins the Calder.

Ilya beat his own personal goal for his rookie season, but that matters to no one. Not to his father, not to the league, and not to himself. Hollander deserves the win, of course. But Ilya deserved it too, with a measly few points between their stats by the end of the season and one lousy playoff round.

Whatever. Ilya would be over it with a single drink. If he got the chance.

Instead, his phone buzzes in his pocket. Ilya pulls it out to see his father’s name and winces. It’s morning in Moscow, but apparently not early enough for his father to give him grace. Ilya finds a doorway leading to a stairwell and picks up the call.

His father wants to berate him. Remind Ilya that he gave up an illustrious and honorable hockey career in the KHL only to lose in the MLH. That he should’ve won the Calder and the Cup in his rookie year. That to do anything less was to dishonor them.

“Lazy!” he barks. “I have always said this about you. You are lazy and you squander your potential. You shame me. We will discuss this more next week.”

“Yes, Papa,” Ilya responds. During moments like this, Ilya steps outside his body. Drifts away. Lets himself operate on autopilot until things stop hurting quite so much.

For at least a minute, Ilya doesn’t realize his father has hung up. Then he shoves his phone toward his pocket. Fumbles the first attempt and has to take a deep breath until he can try again. Ilya’s hands tremble. He needs a cigarette, that’s all.

The roof is quiet, empty. Ilya avoids the closed bar and walks to the empty stretch on the other side. Leaning against the railing, staring at the flashing lights far below, he settles back into his body.

Detachment is risky. Ilya’s mind goes somewhere else to protect himself and his shields waver. Coming back hurts, like he’s peeling off his own skin to patch the cracks his distance left behind.

Drifting in Vegas was a mistake. Ilya tastes bile in the back of his throat. He bends over and presses his forehead to the cold metal. People feel so much here, so intensely. Forget Boston college students. People in Vegas are drunk. High off the euphoria of a gamble or desolate with the loss of obscene amounts of money. They are getting married and fucking and doing absurd quantities of drugs. They are winning awards they’ve dreamed of their entire lives and losing them.

Christ. The hard rime protecting the fragile components of Ilya’s brain has chipped away. Leaving him exposed. It would be easier, to let himself be consumed, drowned in the feeling. Much simpler.

But Ilya is not his mother, he won’t be, he can’t be, no matter how much he misses her. He can’t drift forever, can’t crumble. He straightens up, feeling a bit like that stupid Greek myth with the world on his back.

The roof door opens, and Ilya knows.

Fucking Hollander.

The snow cancellation in February meant missing the chance to fuck. Of course, the game was rescheduled, but it was slotted in between an already stacked Boston road trip. Ilya and his team landed in Montreal for the game and flew out almost immediately after.

It’s hardly like two hookups and links made Ilya reliant. But now, fresh off his shields wavering like they are tissue paper instead of ice, he thinks a break months ago would’ve helped. Ilya’s range must still be growing. He’s afraid to look at it too closely, but he gets the dizzying sense of a larger and larger world outside his dome. Spinning out, like he’s been given a telescope to see just how big the galaxy is.

“Thought I heard you up here,” Hollander says, leaning on the railing beside him. His emotions are just barely fuzzed and blurred. At least one of them got a drink.

“You are drunk, good for you,” Ilya says back. Without his permission, his tone turns nasty. “Managed not to zone on some shitty champagne?”

“Fuck off,” Hollander snaps. “I took a few shots, okay? Quick, no big deal. Loosened up on my hearing, that’s all.”

Ilya wishes loosening was an option. Wishes he could lose some of the perpetual tension in his jaw, and neck, and mind. Hollander is lucky. “I am not your mother. Do not care.”

“Why are you being such an asshole?” Hollander demands. “I win one fucking thing and you decide to be a dick?” His outrage flares, hot and sudden. It swings a hammer blow at Ilya’s shields. Only his grip on the railing keeps him upright.

“Is my name, yes?” Ilya grinds out. “Asshole?” Maybe Hollander will leave. If Ilya drives him away, he can shatter in peace and put himself back together. Or maybe he’ll just die from it.

Hollander clenches his teeth. To Ilya’s dismay, underneath Hollander’s irritation lies a pearl of genuine hurt. He’s not projecting it, probably not even thinking about the fact that Ilya can sense it. But the hurt is another swing, amplified by Hollander’s closeness. “It could’ve gone to either of us. You’re not even going to congratulate me?”

Ilya wobbles. He’s not sure whether the waver is internal or external. He locks his knees, just in case, and turns on his nastiest glare. “Not everything is about you, Hollander! Fuck!”

That does it. The pearl grows into a rock big enough to choke. Hollander takes a step back. “Whatever. Fuck. I’ll see you next season, I guess.” The moment he looks away, heading toward the door, Ilya drops his expression. Hunches over and presses his forehead against the railing. Maybe if he pushes hard enough he can shatter his skull and use the fragments of bone as reinforcement.

It’s too much. It’s all too much. His growing range, the lack of relief, his brief dissociation splintering cracks he can’t afford. And Hollander, feeling so much so close. With his stupid fucking emotions and presence that’s louder than anyone else Ilya has ever known. Ilya sinks to his knees, trusting the glass to stop him from tumbling dozens of stories to the ground.

Guides can’t zone. Ilya researched this, knows as much from his covert reading. The unlucky few—given more than one brain can handle—just go fucking insane instead. What a shitty headline that would be. This just in: Russian Phenom Ilya Rozanov Locked Away Following Calder Loss. At least he wouldn’t have to go back home and face his father.

Ilya hears the crack and feels the physical fracture down the length of his spine. His back arches, away from the edge. Vegas rushes into the gaps.

Devastation after a failed bet, but there’s layers of guilt, built up like scar tissue, like this is one more in a long list of failures–

Pleasure, cresting in waves, teetering toward a mind-wiping orgasm and the other person nearby is all intense focus and desire, guaranteed success–

Tipsy to buzzed to drunk, blurring emotions and feelings and swinging them between extremes like a pendulum–

Excitement and greed, because something is going well, and recklessness creeps–

Confusion, searching for someone, something, they’re missing–

Fear, sudden and overwhelming–

Rage–

A thread, stiff and unnatural, poking, poking, poking. Concern and determination and terror. Crowding away the others at the site of the crack, trying to wiggle in clumsily, an aquatic creature navigating land. Through the delirium, Ilya reaches out. He pities this thread, wants to help it and he cups it mentally and–

And–

Hollander. Sentinels can’t do this, can’t initiate links like guides. But Hollander is stubborn and clever and makes his own openings on the ice when he needs to. Why should this be any different? He projects his emotions so intentionally that he creates a lure so irresistible that Ilya has to cast a line. Has to link them.

Hollander is there and everything is quiet. He always drowns out the rest of the world, but this time it feels purposeful. Like he’s tucked Ilya inside his chest cavity. Nudged him in place next to his heart and his lungs so all that he can do is breathe him in, listen to his beat. Ilya stays.

“Rozanov?” Hollander’s voice trembles. “Are you– are you alright?”

“Да,” Ilya rasps. He swallows around his dry mouth. “Yes, maybe. Soon.” He feels his body blink back into awareness, piece by piece. Ilya is sitting awkwardly, still on his knees, weight numbing his calves. Half of his face is against the glass, temple to cheek, the contact uncomfortably wet. Hollander’s hand squeezes at the junction of Ilya’s neck and shoulder, several fingers pressed to bare skin above his collar. Ilya’s whole body feels damp, sticky in his tuxedo.

He opens his eyes. Hollander looks like Ilya would expect, given what he senses. Terrified. But he meets Ilya’s gaze head on, none of his usual dodging or evasion. “Your heart was beating so fast,” Hollander whispers. “Really fast. I thought–” He cuts himself off.

Ilya hums. “Ah. Is just, I am afraid of heights, yes? Very embarrassing.”

“Stop it,” Hollander says, voice serious. “I’m not– not fucking stupid. That wasn’t normal, asshole. What the fuck was that?”

Ilya sighs. “Is not a big deal. Happens sometimes.” He’s exhausted, down to the bone. Somewhere, distant, Ilya can tell his brain is picking up the pieces. Refreezing the shield with Hollander inside. Hopefully stronger this time.

“Not a big deal?” Hollander’s volume crescendoes. It makes Ilya’s head pound. “Guides aren’t supposed to zone!”

“Is not a zone,” Ilya admits, cornered. “And does not happen to every guide. Only when your,” Ilya fights for the English word. But he’s done enough reading on the topic here, away from Russia’s censorship, that his lexicon yields. “Range, is too big. Very rare, but I am special, of course. Usually is fine, but tonight was just,” Ilya shrugs, “too much.”

“Fuck,” Hollander breathes. “So why don’t you have a sentinel then? It would clearly help–”

Ilya shoots him a pointed look. “I wonder,” he says flatly. “Mr. Three Senses.”

Hollander winces. He opens his mouth to respond. Closes it. Then Hollander tries again, “What triggered it?”

Ilya looks away, down over the Strip. “Enough with the questions.”

“No,” Hollander says. His voice is firm. “I can kind of feel you trying to patch your shield up, or whatever. It’s a mess. What happened?”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Not one thing. I go home soon. My range keeps getting bigger. Vegas is very busy and loud, lots of intense emotions. Mr. Rookie of the Year is extra loud.” He’s not going to tell Hollander that he detaches sometimes, that he’s possibly like his mother. They aren’t anything to each other. Nothing more than an unwise repeat hookup.

“Oh,” Hollander says. “Sorry.”

“So Canadian,” Ilya complains. He shifts, trying to force sensation back into his legs. “We get up now, okay? Before my legs stop working, too.”

Hollander hesitates but steadies Ilya when he wobbles. They’re standing far, far too close. Ilya feels when Hollander’s thoughts turn in a different direction, eyes drifting down and then away. “How long, uh,” Hollander swallows. “How long do you need? To stabilize or whatever?”

Ilya hums. “At least two, I think.”

“Two hours?”

Ilya shakes his head. He straightens Hollander’s tuxedo jacket. “Two orgasms, at least.”

“Oh. Oh. Um.” All of Hollander’s other, more annoying emotions are swept away. He’s so easy, really. Ilya likes it more than he should, for a hookup. “I have a sentinel suite, but I’m sharing with my parents,” he says, regretful.

Ilya pushes down his disappointment. Frankly, he’s too exhausted for anything complicated, but still. “My room, then. Is not sentinel suite, but,” Ilya grabs Hollander’s chin, “you can be quiet, котёнок?”

“Fuck off,” Hollander says. “What’s your room number?”

Ilya leaves the roof first, the distance barely noticeable. Hollander really is loud.

This should be the last time they link. Ilya will figure himself out over the summer, figure out some other solution. But it’s fine, if it’s for fun, right? Just for sex. Meaningless.

Ilya’s not sure if the foreboding turning his stomach is his emotion or Hollander’s.

~

Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

With an intensity that surprises him, Shane wishes they could swap. For a day, Shane wants to be the guide. He wants a free pass into Ilya’s emotions, a chance to understand what he means since he never fucking says it. Let Ilya have the senses, the hearing and the touch and the taste. Shane just wants to peel him apart, study all his layers, and finally figure out why the two of them are always playing a stupid game that only Ilya knows the rules of.

Chapter Notes

Hi again!

We are back with the next chapter! Once again, I adore and appreciate all the comments on this fic. I love reading all of your theories, and how much everyone is enjoying this. I'm really enjoying delving into this verse/trope myself!

While this fic follows a lot of show canon, there are some sections of this chapter that pull more heavily from the books. Would also like it to be known that I'm not a smut writer, but I literally couldn't figure out how to write this story without it, so you're welcome I guess? I'm doing my best.

As always, all mistakes are my own. Prepare for a little bit of time jumping, and hopefully enough divergence to be interesting still!

Enjoy!

~

Fall 2011

Maybe it makes him an asshole, but Shane feels better about his and Rozanov’s arrangement after the awards.

Because the thing is, Shane can’t stop thinking that he’s using Rozanov. Sure, he’s mostly got this three senses thing under control, but linking with Rozanov is a break—an intermission between periods. Rather than constantly fight for control, Shane lets go. Releases his grip on the tight reins of his life and trusts Rozanov to keep him sane.

It’s good. For Shane, that is. But even though it was only twice before Vegas, he couldn’t shake the certainty that the whole thing was painfully one-sided. Sure, Rozanov got a few orgasms out of it. But Rozanov can and does get orgasms as easily as Shane picks up groceries. Things were unbalanced.

Not anymore, though. Shane’s pretty certain of that. He’d been sure something was wrong. Rozanov had seemed… off, all night. Shane’s almost developed a sixth sense (ha) for when Rozanov is being nosey and poking around his emotions. Can’t really tell, but Shane’s pretty sure he’s never wrong.

And Rozanov didn’t. Not even when Shane turned his hearing up with the excuse of taking shots, and heard him take a phone call that crackled with angry Russian. So he sought him out, flinched back from Rozanov’s sneer, and beat a hasty retreat. He had a hand on the door before he realized something was wrong with Rozanov. And that Shane could help.

Rozanov’s an idiot for handling things on his own, but Shane’s also an idiot and a hypocrite, so he keeps his opinion to himself mostly.

The summer helps Shane recharge, as always. He feels like he’s gotten the taste thing mostly under control. He eats the same meal-prepped foods and he’s learned all about organic farming and eco-friendly packaging and if it gets a little bland, sometimes, it’s better than the alternative. When Shane needs to change it up for a team event or family dinner, he’s perfected the exact overstimulating balance of touch and hearing that allows him to eat without zoning. He doesn’t much enjoy those meals either, given the risk, but it’s fine.

Would it be weird to ask Rozanov to stay for dinner, just so Shane could bring some Timbits and order in poutine?

Anyway.

Shane marks down the date of the first Montreal-Boston game. They play on a week-long roadie first, which means Shane has to take the initiative and book a separate hotel room. Rozanov offers his place, in a series of suggestive texts that cause Shane to put his phone down and shower cold before he can respond.

Don’t you live in a fancy apartment building asshole?

yes of course i am rich

Do you have a doorman?

ah. yes but i can make big distraction, send him strippers

Not a fucking chance

So Shane books a hotel room. He’s not 21 yet, and that significantly limits his options. He picks the one furthest from his team’s hotel and selects their ‘top-tier sentinel suite.’

Rozanov arrives ten minutes after Shane texts him the room number. He must’ve been waiting nearby, which Shane tries not to feel flattered by. They’re on each other in a heartbeat.

Boston eked out a win on home ice, and Shane’s buzzing with post-game adrenaline and frustration. He wants Rozanov to push him down, claim him as a prize. Rozanov groans into his mouth, bites at Shane’s lips, like he knows what Shane’s thinking.

He probably does, given the way they linked as soon as Shane got Rozanov’s shirt over his head. “Fuck,” Rozanov breathes. He lifts himself off Shane’s chest, dimpling the mattress to either side of Shane’s head. Shane chases his lips, arching up, only for Rozanov to move his hands to brace on Shane’s shoulders instead. He’s so fucking strong. Especially so early in the season, Rozanov’s packed with all his summer bulking, heavy and solid. What does he bench? 250? Hockey players focus the most on their legs, Shane’s thighs are his strongest muscle, but he’s not sure about Rozanov. His biceps bulge obscenely

He means to ask, but then Rozanov grabs his chin and all thought drifts away. “Do you still want?”

“Want?” Shane echoes.

Rozanov’s smirk shouldn’t be so attractive, when it makes him look like such an asshole. “Want me to fuck you, Hol–”

A burst of laughter from the hallway freezes them both. Shane barely stretches his senses, and hears:

“The guys want us to meet them at the Tam to start.”

“The Tam? That place is tiny, for fuck’s sake–”

“But then we can head over to Faneuil, I guess there’s a new place–”

Rozanov pinches Shane’s side. “Ow, what the fuck?”

“Thought you booked sentinel-suite?” Rozanov asks, unimpressed.

“I fucking did,” Shane snaps. He arches up, reaching for the bedside table, and this time Rozanov lets him. He recently upgraded to the iPhone 4S, and he opens the mail app to his reservation. It’s there, in tiny print. Sentinel-suite, with highest quality sound proofing, thorough cleaning with inoffensive detergent and chemicals, blackout curtains and dimmable lights.

Rozanov hums. “Sheets are not very soft. Think you got scammed, котёнок.”

“Fuck.”

They settle for Rozanov spitting messily into Shane’s hand, and then guiding him to jerk them both off. The feeling of Rozanov’s dick pressed against his in the tight squeeze of their grip is overwhelming. Heat and sticky skin and not enough slickness.

“Next time, I book room,” Rozanov says as he buttons his jeans. “You have bad taste. I will fix this.”

“Fuck off,” Shane snaps back. Now that he’s not focused on swallowing Rozanov’s spit, he can admit that this hotel is worse than the one his team’s staying at.

“Next time,” Rozanov says again, with a wink.

~

But next time, Montreal’s flight out of Logan airport gets pushed up, to avoid potential sleet. Shane cancels on Rozanov from the team bus. Rozanov takes almost an hour to reply. Shane’s pacing the boarding gate, when he finally gets:

weather is cockblocking. team taught me this word

Shane fights a smile. He doesn’t want Hayden or JJ to ask any questions, nosey as they’ve gotten about his dating life. They’re almost definitely Shane’s friends now, but it’s still annoying.

The weather isn’t sentient, asshole

Rozanov replies quickly:

you make me look up boring english words.

next two games are in montreal, yes? you have hotels you like?

Shane hesitates. The next Montreal-Boston game is two months away, right before the All-Star break. That’s plenty of time for Shane to do his research. He could even book a few trial nights in sentinel suites around the city. Come up with an excuse if anyone asks, something about apartment renovations.

Or…

I’ll get back to you

~

January 2012

Shane waits in the back stairwell for Rozanov’s message. He hears a car pulling away, slow footsteps. As soon as he receives a here, he pushes open the heavy metal door.

Rozanov’s hovering in the dark alleyway, glancing around like he expects someone to jump out at him. “You will murder me?” he asks.

Shane rolls his eyes. “Get in here, asshole.”

Rozanov sighs, but steps in obediently. “You are rich. Why do you live in creepy warehouse?” Even as he asks, he’s stepping into Shane’s space, bullying him against the wall.

“I don’t, um,” Shane swallows, forces his eyes somewhere besides Rozanov’s lips. “I don’t live here. And it’s not a warehouse, it’s an industrial loft. It was converted almost a decade ago but–”

Rozanov links them abruptly, and Shane shuts up to bask in the feeling.

Usually they wait, the few other times they’ve done this. Until there’s at least the paper thin excuse of sex. But maybe Rozanov missed this, needed this, just as much as Shane. He’s a bulwark against the intensity of Shane’s senses, a quiet oasis. Rozanov rests his forehead against Shane’s and closes his eyes. It’s uncomfortably intimate, but the unease passes. Shane figures they’re going to be even more intimate in a few minutes. And Rozanov looks tired, shadows underneath his eyes.

It feels intrusive, to stare. So Shane closes his eyes too, and breathes.

When Rozanov finally speaks, Shane smothers a flinch. “If you do not live here, who does?”

Shane clears his throat, and that’s what finally makes Rozanov lean back. Immediately, Shane misses the warmth of his forehead, but he doesn’t go far. His fingers cup Shane’s jaw, tilting his head for Rozanov’s inspection.

“Um,” Shane blinks. “No one? I bought the building, but I haven’t started renting it out or anything.”

“You own this?” Rozanov raises his eyebrows. “Mr. Real Estate.”

Shane scowls. He shoves at Rozanov’s chest. “Fuck off. It’s an investment property.”

“Mr. Businessman.”

Bravely, Shane ignores him. “I thought I could renovate it. Industrial lofts are pretty notorious for poor sound isolation, you know? It’s all the open space, the big windows. But I have the contact of an architect that specializes in dedicated sentinel spaces. She thinks we can turn the building into specialized housing, since it’s a niche that Montreal doesn’t really have.” Rozanov’s studying him as he rambles. Shane wishes that the whole emotions thing went both ways. He’d love to know what Rozanov was thinking sometimes. It’s unfair. “And I thought I could keep one unit for myself,” Shane pushes on. “That way we’d have somewhere to. You know.”

“Somewhere to fuck?” Rozanov asks plainly.

“Shut up,” Shane says on automatic. “Yeah, to fuck I guess.”

“Can’t believe you bought me whole building, just to get me to fuck you,” Rozanov says. He presses closer. Shane’s slumped a bit against the wall, and it means he can feel Rozanov’s half-hard cock press into his stomach, through their layers of clothes. “This is good. I am not cheap date. Remember this, okay?”

“Fuck off,” Shane repeats. “I just didn’t want to be ‘cockblocked’ again.”

Rozanov laughs and then looks surprised at himself. “Fuck, Hollander. Sometimes you are funny. I know it is only happy accident, but still.”

“Whatever, Rozanov,” Shane says. Hearing his name like this feels good, after spending so long sticking to nicknames and insults. He wonders how much better ‘Shane’ would sound, and then shoves that thought somewhere far away. This time, when he pushes at Rozanov’s chest, he puts actual force into it.

Rozanov stumbles back, while Shane’s already turning for the stairs. “Race you,” he calls. Even after Rozanov tries to check him over the railing, he still beats him. Shane intends to give Rozanov a shortened tour, once he gets the door locked. The place is barely furnished. After all, the sale was only finalized last week, no matter how much Shane tried to expedite the process. He’d had to ask his mom for help with some of the paperwork, and that opened a whole can of worms. When he talked about wanting to create a sentinel-proofed apartment, she barely let him finish, demanding to know whether he was losing control of his senses.

“No, mom,” Shane said. “Everything’s fine. It would just be nice to have a place to relax more in the city, you know?”

Shane’s still not sure how much she bought the excuse. Fully aware that his lies have continued to stack over the past several years, Shane thinks it’s only a matter of time before they topple. Three senses, linking with a guide, the guide being Ilya fucking Rozanov, and now a building? Some days, Shane feels like a fraud. It’s worth it, probably, for this.

Rozanov doesn’t let him start the tour. He pins Shane against the door instead, crashing their mouths together so forcefully that Shane nearly brains himself on the wood. Rozanov’s hand cushions the back of his head, scratches at his scalp.

Fuck, kissing Rozanov never gets old. Shane almost forgets, between games, what he tastes like. He wishes he could label and categorize what makes Rozanov, Rozanov. Sure, he can usually taste the remnants of a disgusting cigarette or his last meal. But Shane’s pretty sure he could taste the spit of a hundred people and he would know Rozanov blindfolded and deafened.

Rozanov starts to pull back. Shane catches his bottom lip between his teeth and bites, a little harder than he means to. It works though. Rozanov groans and kisses him again.

“Enough, enough,” Rozanov says. He grabs hold of Shane’s chin, stops him from taking more. Maybe Shane should protest the way Rozanov handles him. How he moves Shane’s head and sets the rules and the pace and makes him almost stupid with lust. But he, unfortunately, knows that Rozanov does these things because Shane likes them. Stupid fucking guide abilities. “You have bed in here, Hollander?” Now Rozanov’s looking around. Eyeing the piles of wood, the cans of paint stacked near a ladder, the gutted cabinets in what will be the kitchen. “We could try kitchen island, but seems risky.”

“There’s a bed,” Shane protests. His voice is embarrassingly breathy. He swallows, and does his best to not sound like someone who almost just came in his sweatpants from a little kissing. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Rozanov follows him up the loft’s stairs to the second floor, where the bedrooms are. Shane pushes open the last door, the only furnished room and an ensuite. He hears Rozanov snort.

“What?” Shane demands.

“You think you have enough pillows? Or maybe you need more.”

Shane’s cheeks warm. “I hired a designer, okay? You’re such an asshole.”

Rozanov clicks his tongue. “No, that is not my name tonight. Rozanov,” he emphasizes, right before he grabs the bottom hem of Shane’s sweatshirt and tugs it over his head. Shane barely has the chance to blink and reorient. He thinks about stooping to fold it, but then Rozanov pushes him backward and Shane hits the bed with a bounce. Rozanov strips off his own shirt as Shane scoots up the mattress, wiggling out of his sweatpants. Rozanov crawls over him, braced above Shane’s body in a wall of heat that sinks into his bones. “Or maybe,” he says, voice casual. “If you are very, very good, it can be Ilya.”

Shane freezes. He’s sure Rozanov gets hit with the full measure of his shock. “What? Are you serious?”

Rozanov shrugs. “No one to hear us,” he says. Shane thinks he’s still trying to sound casual, but he can see the tension in Rozanov’s jaw. “Ilya is less syllables to scream.”

“Syllables?” Shane repeats, dazed. “I, um.” He remembers his own thought, his desire to hear Rozanov say ‘Shane.’ It feels greedy, to want more when even hearing Hollander like this is novel, special. But what’s a first name, really? They’re just two hockey players who fuck sometimes, it’s not weird to use first names when they’re fucking. Especially given that Shane bought a building just to be able to say ‘Rozanov.’ It’s been almost two years, that has to mean first names are normal, right? “Okay, sure. Ilya.” He tries to copy how Rozanov said it, instead of what he’s heard from countless commentators.

Rozanov looks surprised, and then cautiously pleased. “Your accent is terrible. Very Canadian.”

“Fuck off,” he says. When Rozanov keeps staring at him, expectant, Shane flushes. “Oh, yeah. You can– I mean, if you want–”

“You are so nervous, Shane,” Rozanov says. Fuck, his name does sound good in Rozanov’s mouth. His accent curls around the vowel, and Shane feels a pulse of lust. Rozanov probably feels it too. “You do not think it will fit?”

“I’m not nervous,” Shane protests.

“I will go slow.” Rozanov pats his hip. “Take these off, now. You have lube, condoms?”

Shane reaches and pulls out the bottle and the strip of condoms. When Shane glances toward Rozanov, his eyebrows nearly disappear into his curls, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Ah, you think this is enough?”

“You’re such an asshole, Ilya,” Shane complains.

He lets Ilya press him to the bed, shudders as their dicks brush together. “Tell me if it is too much, or not good,” Rozanov says. When Shane doesn’t reply, too focused on glancing down their bodies at the sheer girth of Rozanov’s cock, a hand grabs his jaw. “Shane.”

“Right, yeah. Of course.”

Rozanov studies him for a long moment. Then he nods, and starts kissing his way down Shane’s chest. Shane shivers, when Rozanov’s lips brush over his nipple. He gasps at the kiss to the tip of his dick. But when a finger drags slowly behind his balls, finding the sensitive skin of his rim, Shane tenses.

He forces himself to relax immediately. “Sorry.”

Rozanov rolls his eyes. “No apologies. Focus your touch sense, yes? On your dick for now.”

Shane listens. It’s overwhelming immediately, but Rozanov keeps his touches light, teasing. He breathes on Shane’s dick, and the brush of air makes him moan. By the time Rozanov wraps his lips around him, Shane’s swearing, “Fuck, Ilya.”

Rozanov makes a sound that vibrates through Shane, and then there’s a finger, slick with lube teasing at his rim and pushing inside.

Shane’s first thought is that it feels strange, wrong. There’s pressure, and the faintest stretch, familiar from when he’s tried out his dildo. But it doesn’t feel like anything special. Then Rozanov crooks his finger, searching.

And oh, fuck.

Shane arches off the bed, and Rozanov has to pull off his dick so Shane doesn’t choke him. “Good?” he asks, like a bastard.

“Yes,” Shane snaps. “Fucking do it again.”

He does.

Shane experiments without Rozanov telling him to. Tries increasing his sensitivity to touch around his ass. Everything explodes in intensity. The stretch, the pressure, the fullness. He sees stars when Rozanov brushes his prostate. Frantically, Shane dials everything far, far back. “Wait,” he gasps.

Rozanov stops immediately. “Too much?” He starts pulling his finger out, and Shane clamps a hand around his wrist.

“Don’t you dare,” Shane says. “I just. I just need a minute, okay?” He watches Rozanov’s eyes drop to his dick, before a grin creeps over his face.

“You like it, Shane.”

“No fucking shit, Ilya.”

When Rozanov finally pushes inside, the burning heat of his dick is slightly dulled by the condom. Shane’s grateful, or else he might have come immediately. He has his sense of touch dialed low, and it still feels like so much.

“Breathe,” Ilya whispers, biting at Shane’s earlobe. He’s stroking Shane’s side like he’s a spooked horse.

Shane breathes. And then he tells Ilya to move.

It’s good. It’s so fucking good. Shane felt crazy before, the first time Ilya blew him and he realized what people got so excited about when it came to sex. That’s nothing, compared to this. Shane’s consumed by him, consuming him. The taste of him, when their mouths collide. The feeling of him inside, the sweat slicking every place their skin brushes. The sound of him thrusting, wet and obscene, overlaid with his pounding heart.

There’s a moment, where Shane thinks they’ve become one person. A strange doubling, where he’s the one gripped by warm heat and feeling desire about to spill over–

Then Shane is coming, and he’s not thinking at all.

When Shane blinks the spots from his vision, he realizes breathing is hard not from the orgasm, but from the weight of Ilya crushing him to the mattress. He can’t figure out how to make his voice work, but his grumble is enough. Ilya rolls off him with a groan. “You have killed me, Shane. I am dead.”

Shane manages to force his arm into working, just to smack Ilya in the chest. He leaves his hand there, and Ilya doesn’t move away. It’s not cuddling. Even if Shane’s calling him and thinking of him as Ilya now, they aren’t friends. They’re catching their breath, that’s all.

Ilya stumbles to the shower first. Shane sits up with a wince. He can still feel their link, Ilya lending his strength to Shane’s sensory control, and Shane presumably shoring up Ilya’s shields. He doesn’t experience it the same way Ilya does. Or at least, Shane doesn’t think so. He doesn’t get any emotions from Ilya, only a vague sense of presence. Probably Ilya’s subjected to every minute detail of Shane’s racing thoughts. The link seems… sturdier than it used to. Shane remembers the feeling of that first zone, of the thin thread wrapped around his wrist. To Shane, the thread appears more like a rope now, thick and sturdy.

When Ilya finishes, Shane showers alone. It centers him, reminds him of all the neat boxes he keeps this thing tucked into. By the time Shane reenters the bedroom in a towel, Ilya’s fully dressed. He’s stripped the bed, which is nice of him.

“I am late for curfew,” Ilya says.

“Right, yeah,” Shane nods. “Should we…” He taps his temple.

“Brace,” Ilya tells him.

Snapping the tether is always strange. Shane hates it. The link resists each time, clinging like those fly traps his mom hangs in the kitchen. When Ilya starts pulling this time, Shane yelps in pain. He would be more embarrassed, but Ilya’s Russian cursing drowns him out.

“What was that?” Shane demands. He tries to focus on his irritation, rather than the bolt of fear.

“One second.” Ilya frowns. There’s a tug again, and it’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt. The tether still resists, but Shane can’t say whether it’s stronger. There’s a bit of sweat at Ilya’s temples when Shane finally feels them disconnect.

“Is it…” Shane trails off. He doesn’t know what to ask, exactly.

Ilya shakes his head. The line of his jaw has lost its softness, his face neutral again. Shane isn’t sure when that started to irritate him. It shouldn’t. This is nothing, only a hookup. “Is fine. Just tricky today.”

“Right,” Shane says.

Ilya waves goodbye and slips out the door before Shane even reaches the bottom of the stairs. Whatever.

~

At the All-Star game, they are back to hotel rooms. Ilya’s (Rozanov’s?), because there are fewer players on his floor, but that means no sentinel suite.

“Hello, котёнок,” Ilya says, after he’s kissed Shane’s lips tender against the wall.

Shane blinks. It’s not that Ilya calling him horny, or whatever, is bad. But he kind of liked the sound of Shane. Maybe that’s a problem after all. “Asshole,” he says.

Ilya smirks. “Hm, maybe. Would keep my mouth busy. But we would have to gag you, yes?”

Shane’s stomach warms at the thought. Ilya’s eyes darken. “Get on the bed.”

Ilya disconnects the tether before Shane catches his breath. It comes easier than it had a week ago, but the absence leaves him strangely cold. “I better head out, get some sleep before my flight,” Shane says.

Ilya’s already scrolling on his phone. He glances up quickly, and Shane feels his gaze like a brand. “Bye, котёнок.”

~

It fucks with Shane’s head, a bit. He’s Shane only in Montreal, in the building he’s slowly renovating. Where his own name rattles around his skull, a pleasurable pinball. In hotel rooms, stolen time, he is котёнок. Teasing, distant. It didn’t feel like a transaction before, but it starts to feel that way. Like outside of Montreal, their time together is a pressure release, an exchange of orgasms and a brief tether break. And everywhere else, he is Hollander. An opponent to chirp, to resent.

Shane knows it makes sense. There are just different rules for different places. He’s always enjoyed order and routine, used it to map his life. But… he’s not sure his Ilya boxes are so rigid. Because once he thinks of him as Ilya, he can’t really stop. Sure, he says Rozanov, and asshole. But underneath that is Ilya.

That’s… probably not good. Dangerous, even. They fuck on the couch in spring, and Shane is still Shane and Ilya is still Ilya, but they don’t linger. During, it’s fantastic, but after, Shane’s not sure who turns to the door more quickly.

Shane convinces himself that it’s just an adjustment period. Once the season ends, they’ll both get their heads on straight. Hell, maybe Shane will even get the guts to end things. To stop making things difficult once and for all. Especially before this all gets… messier.

Ilya texts him less over the summer. They only make it to the building once, in October. The March matchup has the Raiders flying out the same night as the game, and they don’t hook up during the playoffs. Ilya fucks him rough, sweet talks Shane into dialing up his sense of touch. Shane comes so hard that he can’t make his body stop trembling for almost 15 minutes after. Ilya is perfunctory but kind, cleaning him up. He keeps the tether until Shane can sit up on his own.

That’s the longest link they maintain for the 2012-2013 season.

Shane tries not to take it personally. Ilya clearly still wants to fuck him. Maybe he noticed the change in the tether too, the strength of it. Shane’s no guide, and if Ilya thinks this is the best solution, Shane will follow his lead.

During the summer of 2013, Shane travels for a few weeks. He goes to Mexico with Hayden and JJ, and then Europe, to shoot some brand deals his mom scheduled. And Shane, discreetly, picks up a few guys. After the first try, he learns not to kiss any of them. It’s too distracting, too many chances for an unpredictable taste. Blowjobs are fine, because Shane spent a mortifying few weeks doing the same desensitization tactic on condoms, that he used for his mouthguards.

It’s okay, good mostly. He can’t relax fully, like he can with Ilya. Shane’s all too aware that if he zones, he’s fucked. He tops a guy in Italy and Shane finds it fun enough, but, overall, the inferior experience. Bottoming in Mexico is better. The man spends a little too long on prep and is noticeably smaller than Ilya, but it’s definitely enjoyable.

Shane’s not really sure what this means for him. He picks up women less than once a season, and it’s never great. But that means he’s probably like Ilya, right? Likes both, but maybe men a little more or something. Whatever, Shane’s not worried about it.

He’ll meet the right girl, years from now, close to retirement probably. And then he can put the guy thing behind him. Maybe she’ll even be a guide. Shane ignores how the thought makes his skin itch. When he focuses hard enough, he can even picture some blurry children.

Right now, he just has to care about hockey. Shane and Ilya have a good, stabilizing thing going. There’s no reason to push it.

~

December 2013

Shane pushes it.

Because Ilya’s car takes a bit to arrive, and they’re waiting in the stairwell. Ilya kisses him, to kill time probably. And it’s soft, good. Their lips have been magnetized tonight, even when Ilya fucked him so hard that sitting is kind of uncomfortable.

So Shane asks, “Are you excited for the Olympics? Is your family going to come watch?”

Ilya’s face shutters. Their link is long-broken, but Shane doesn’t need it to know he’s crossed a line. “My father, maybe.”

Shane rallies. “Right, sure. My parents are disappointed they can’t come, but my mom’s planning to stay up to watch all the games live.” And then, because Shane apparently can’t miss an opportunity to make things worse, he asks, “Do you want to, you know, meet up at all?”

Ilya speaks over his last few words, voice firm, almost angry. “No. We cannot talk in Sochi. Do you understand?”

Shane doesn’t really. Ilya probably has a good reason, but the rejection still stings. “Okay.”

Ilya’s lips part. Then his phone buzzes. “My ride is here. Bye, Hollander.”

“Bye, Rozanov,” Shane says. He feels the distance opening between them, a yawning abyss.

~

February 2014

Russia flames out of the tournament spectacularly.

Shane watches all of their games, tells the other Team Canada guys that it’s like reviewing tape. But really, he’s watching Ilya.

Ilya plays well, undeniably. But he’s a class above the rest of the guys on the team. There’s a few other MLH players, but the majority are KHL. Shane knows from news articles that a few of the Russian players in the league stayed back in the States, claiming injury so they didn’t exhaust themselves for the playoffs. What it means is that Ilya plays great, and his team can’t keep up with him. He adjusts, because he’s captain, but Shane watches him hobble himself. Slow his skating, overreach for clumsy passes. And their goaltender is clearly nursing some type of shoulder injury.

Shane knows Russia’s fucked from the first game. They make it out of the group round by the skin of their teeth, but lose to Latvia in the quarterfinals. It’s a brutal game. Shane watches Ilya’s post-game press, even though it’s not subtitled. No matter how he plays it off, Shane can tell he’s miserable. He wonders how much of those dark circles are attributed to the loss and how much is the literal feeling of his country’s disappointment.

Shane had a couple close calls himself in Sochi. For a terrifying moment, he thought his smell sense was coming online. It turned out that all of the rooms in the dorm just smelled like that and bothered everyone. Things are constantly loud here, all the time. But Shane can still focus on hockey, which has always helped. What does Ilya have?

That’s why he sends the text.

Hey! U doing ok?

There’s no response.

By the time he sees Ilya standing at the top of the bowl of the men’s figure skating performances, he’s genuinely worried. Shane’s not stupid. He gets that Ilya’s hiding a lot in Russia. The guide thing, the guy thing. But Shane will also never forget the look of him crumbled on that roof, shields flying apart at the seams.

He just has to make sure. Check that Ilya’s being grumpy, not about to get himself caught or have a breakdown or something.

Shane says, “Hey,” and Ilya’s eyes don’t even leave the ice.

“Not here.”

Shane feels a flare of frustration, and he hopes Ilya feels it too. He takes a deep breath, and tries again. “No, not–” Shane clears his throat. “I saw you up here, I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

Shane hears and sees the clench of Ilya’s jaw. “Fine. Go sit down.”

With an intensity that surprises him, Shane wishes they could swap. For a day, Shane wants to be the guide. He wants a free pass into Ilya’s emotions, a chance to understand what he means since he never fucking says it. Let Ilya have the senses, the hearing and the touch and the taste. Shane just wants to peel him apart, study all his layers, and finally figure out why the two of them are always playing a stupid game that only Ilya knows the rules of.

“We didn’t–” Shane starts.

“We are not anything,” Ilya says. He sounds disinterested, but Shane sees his fingers tapping at the metal railing. He focuses on that, rather than the zing of hurt Ilya’s probably revelling in. “Go away, Hollander.”

Shane almost listens. But he remembers a similar scene after the rookie awards. Ilya lashing out, because his shields were failing and he wanted to fall apart in peace. If that’s what’s happening now, Shane owes it to them both to stay. As far as he knows, he’s one of two people in the entire fucking world that knows Ilya’s secret. He tries again. “Are you okay? You know, with…” he trails off. Hopes Ilya hears ‘with your guide thing’ in the silence. “I mean, you didn’t answer my text.”

“Fuck, Hollander!” A stormcloud rolls over Ilya’s expression. He finally looks away from the ice, and the weight of his gaze makes Shane take a step back. “That’s none of your fucking business. No, I didn’t answer your boring text. Now will you go?”

None of his fucking business? Maybe not, but Shane’s the one who saved his ass their rookie season. Ilya’s the one that keeps linking them every time they meet. Shane’s not expecting Ilya to share his secrets, but a status update doesn’t feel like an unreasonable ask.

“Fine, fuck.”

He hopes Rozanov’s too distracted with his own shit to pay attention to Shane. Because he heads back toward the stadium walkways, but pauses just out of sight. He waits for at least fifteen minutes, to make sure Rozanov doesn’t collapse. Then Shane finds his seat and puts Rozanov out of his mind.

~

Spring 2014

Montreal plays in Boston twice in March. The first is an away game. Shane ignores his message from February, still unreplied to and types:

Are we meeting after the game?

He’s not surprised when he doesn’t get a response. The season has only just started back up after the Olympic break. The Raiders are playing like they’re on fire, so focused that Rozanov doesn’t even chirp him on the ice. Montreal loses, and Shane doesn’t worry about it.

The second game is at the end of March, a home game. Four months isn’t the longest they’ve gone without linking, but Shane can admit he’s looking forward to a little relief. Even if it’s just an hour of quiet, he’ll take it. He sends Rozanov the address of their building, in case he forgot.

Shane waits. Two hours after he’s cleared the press, he’s pretty sure that Rozanov isn’t coming. It’s humiliating, but Shane tries to reframe it as disappointment. That’s all. Rozanov doesn’t even text him back.

Montreal goes out before the Conference finals, a series of unfortunate injuries leaving them all bruised and disappointed. Shane’s never happy about losing, but he’s almost at peace with it. As April turns to May, Shane’s sense control begins to, not waver exactly, but feel more precarious. He gets more headaches, particularly after loud games, and tries a few different brands of sentinel-proof noise cancelling headphones. He starts sleeping at the renovated building at least once a week, for its sound-proofing. His skin constantly feels like it’s been rubbed raw, like Shane scrubbed too hard in the shower, and everything aches. All of his meals are unappetizing.

It doesn’t affect his hockey. Shane won’t let it. But he’s also relieved to have a break. To head to his newly built cabin, designed by the same specialized architect.

The Raiders win the Stanley Cup. Shane watches the last game at Hayden’s house with the team, studies the tears streaming down Rozanov’s face, and he aches. Clearly, whatever they were doing is done. Shane’s glad, really. Less distractions, less chance of him becoming reliant on Rozanov. He’ll take the summer and get over it. Maybe travel again.

Then he gets the call to present the sportsmanship award. Shane can’t think of a good reason to refuse, so he goes.

Backstage, he waits for Rozanov to appear. When their call time starts to approach, Shane dares to stretch his hearing. He doesn’t hear Rozanov’s voice, but Shane surprises himself. He thinks he can pick out Rozanov’s heartbeat, the specific sound of his breathing. There’s nothing that distinct about it, but Shane knows.

Rozanov splashes water on his face and starts walking toward Shane.

His hand on the back of Shane’s jacket burns, like dry ice.

Even after Rozanov stops touching him, Shane feels it. He dials back his sense of touch further, lets his mouth fill with the taste of his own saliva, and still his skin aches. Shane knows intimately, each callous and line on Rozanov’s palm, the width of it and the bruises his fingers leave. As far as Shane knows, there’s no such thing as zoning on the memory of a sensation. But his brain seems to be giving its best shot.

The second they’re off-stage, Shane beelines for the bathroom. He knows where to find it, after eavesdropping on Rozanov earlier. He lets the door slam shut and hunches over the sink. With his eyes closed, he presses his palms flat to the granite. Shane turns his focus to the chill of it, how it radiates up his palms, the microscopic cracks and breaks in the smoothness.

He leans harder, clinging to his control by a thread.

That’s when Rozanov walks in. Shane knows, without opening his eyes. The sound of his gait, the rasp of his breath, his heart beating a bit faster than normal. With his ears tuned to Rozanov, he feels the imaginary press of his palm less.

“Ah, котёнок. You bend over like this to tempt me, yes?” Rozanov drawls. He hears him lean against the wall, feels the weight of his gaze.

Shane straightens and glares. “Are you fucking serious? Don’t give me that shit.” He wants to spit out Rozanov and hold it up like a barrier between them. Doesn’t want to call him asshole, and agree to everything it implies.

“You’re angry,” Rozanov says.

Shane thinks about hitting him. About swinging a punch. Shane’s a hockey player, he knows how to fight, knows how to make a hit count even if he rarely involves himself in scrums on the ice. It would probably make him feel better. “Don’t fucking do that,” Shane says.

“Why are you zoning?”

Shane flinches. “I’m not fucking–”

Rozanov hums and steps into Shane’s space. He grabs Shane’s jaw, a spark of ice, and where Shane half-expects a link, Rozanov instead tells him, “Open.”

Shane parts his lips, unprepared for the two fingers Rozanov sticks into his mouth. Shane can still taste the soap, from when Rozanov was in the bathroom before the presentation. He tastes like metal and a little like dirt, underneath the sweat. Shane can taste the miniscule fibers of his own suit jacket still embedded in Rozanov’s fingertips, a nearly undetectable ash from his last cigarette.

It’s not a tether. But Shane relaxes into the taste, finds himself recalibrating his senses anyway. His eyelids flutter. Then Rozanov removes his fingers.

“Better?” he asks, voice smug.

“Fuck off,” Shane says hoarsely. He tilts his chin up, looks Ilya square in the eyes. “You fucking ignore me for months, act like I don’t exist. What do you even want from me?”

Ilya’s face is unreadable. “To hear you say congratulations.”

Shane turns away. “Congratulations, asshole. Are we done now?”

“Ah, I think no.” Ilya’s hand on his shoulder spins him back. “If you mean it, you would suck my dick.”

Shane’s anger wrestles with his lust. Thankfully, for the sake of his dignity, the anger wins. “Fuck you, you suck my dick.”

“Okay,” Ilya shrugs. “You win MVP, I suck your dick. If I win, you come to penthouse sentinel-suite and do whatever I say.”

Shane’s stomach flutters. It’s a bad idea. But right now, he’s not sure what he wants more. To be fucked or to link. He hesitates.

Then Ilya kisses him. Messy, his tongue pushing spit into Shane’s mouth. Fuck, he missed this. Missed the taste of Ilya, the feeling of lips against his own, the surety of a stupid, satiating decision.

Ilya steps back. Shane sucks his lips over his teeth, to savor the taste of him.

“See you later, котёнок.”

~

Chapter 5

Chapter Summary

He regrets ignoring… Shane for six months. Regrets the distance he began imposing even before the cut off. Regrets not linking them in the bathroom tonight when he felt Shane start to zone. Regrets fucking him so coldly, when Ilya could’ve held him instead and soothed the starving beast inside his chest.

Regrets not kissing Shane, not once after the bathroom.

Ilya thinks about throwing up, when he feels Shane’s emotions turn, intensify. Embarrassment, hurt, anger, Ilya can handle. The wave of Shane’s self-recrimination, gnawing internalized disgust, is a bridge too far. Ilya’s shit—his desperate, half-baked plan to protect them both—isn’t worth this.

Chapter Notes

Hi 🫣

Sincere apologies for the unintentional hiatus. This chapter fought me so fucking hard. Writer's block like you wouldn't believe. I also had social plans and started playing animal crossing again for the first time in five years, but it was really the writer's block I swear.

Thank you for all the wonderful comments!! I love reading everyone's theories, some of which are maybe accurate... but I guess we'll see ;)

This chapter feels like an introspective mess, but hopefully it's still enjoyable! I need to not look at it anymore. Shout out to the people in the heated rivalry fanfic subreddit for talking me through some of my blocks and letting me bounce ideas off of them. No beta, so any and all mistakes are my own as usual.

Enjoy!

tw: discussion of dementia, and kind of similar passive suicidality to Ilya's other chapters

June 2014

Ilya is a fucking idiot. He won the Stanley Cup, though. And the Conn Smythe. And the Hart Memorial, so at least he’s a fucking idiot with a lot of trophies.

The idiocy started in 2011. Probably before that, if he counts shaking Hollander’s hand for the first time. Or maybe it was lacing up his first pair of skates that did it.

Ilya does not go back to Russia after fucking Hollander post-Calder loss and ‘figure things out.’ He goes back to Russia and deals with his father’s disappointment and Alexei’s grubby fingers reaching into his wallet. He sees Svetlana and thinks about asking her to link, just for a pressure valve and talks himself out of it.

Ilya has always been a city boy. But that first summer, he reserves a cabin in the middle of nowhere, so removed that there’s no electricity, no cell service. He rents an ugly car and drives himself into the middle of the woods for a week. And, there, Ilya drops his shields completely.

It’s… bad. He knew it would be, really. But remote as he is, at least ten kilometers away he can sense the edges of the tiny hamlet that mark the beginning of civilization. If Ilya stretches, he could investigate it fully. It’s enough to know he’s fucked, that he’s living on borrowed time. A when, not if, of mental collapse.

He either announces himself as a guide and loses his freedom, or sticks it out in America and loses his mind. The largest passive range for a guide that Ilya finds documented is roughly 200 square kilometers. Bigger than Boston, an expanse that boggles Ilya’s mind to even contemplate. He would estimate his range to be a quarter of that, and he’s barely managing. Of course, that unlucky bastard was bonded to a sentinel.

Hollander helps, for now. Ilya wants to fuck him. Outside of the sentinel thing and the linking, he finds Hollander interesting. Sexy, hot in an awkward way. Ilya wants to see him fall apart on his cock. And if Ilya’s time is limited, he wants Hollander to scream his name at least once.

‘Rozanov’ sounds sweet, with his dark head thrown back, freckles glistening with sweat. It still feels… less special, almost. Hollander calls him that on the ice too, in interviews. Shouldn’t this be separate, different? Because when they fuck, when they link, Ilya knows every inch of him. Understands each rise and fall of emotion, each spiral and racing thought. The tether is unbearably intimate and he thinks maybe he should be ‘Ilya’ and Hollander should be ‘Shane.’

Stupid, risky.

As idiotic as he’s ever been.

It’s casual. It’s fine. When Hollander calls him Ilya, it’s hot and Ilya pushes inside so carefully and that’s even hotter. There’s a moment where Ilya loses track of himself and becomes Shane, crawls inside him.

It’s the best sex he’s ever had.

Except, when Ilya is showered and ready to leave, he feels for their link to disconnect them. The link is usually a thread. But now it’s a vine, a nerve ending, filaments and dendrites sinking beneath the skin. For a terrifying minute, Ilya thinks he won’t be able to break it.

He does. And it hurts. Shane flinches, which makes Ilya feel guilty, but Ilya’s just thankful he didn’t lose complete control of his shields. Separation carves into him, like a particularly determined knife, and Ilya knows it shouldn’t. The occasional link with Svetlana has never felt like this.

His subsequent research is inconclusive. Ilya sits with his English-Russian dictionary and reads about ‘high compatibility’ and ‘initializing bonding’ and finds nothing about what to do when the link is your inconvenient and impermanent fuck buddy. He wants to be linked to Shane all the time, he wants to sever the part of his brain that cursed him with these abilities, he wants to forget altogether the boundaries between the two of them, merge into one being, one terrifyingly-excellent-at-hockey monster that never separates.

Ilya’s always done this. Made himself sick with wanting things he can never have.

After their second All-Stars, Ilya devises his own plan. He’ll limit his time linked with Hollander, recreate the distance he’d stupidly let shrink. Maybe he can ease them away from tethering altogether. It’ll probably kill Ilya in the long run, but they’re short on options. Hollander is only a bandaid. Without Ilya as a release, Hollander will finally get over whatever idiocy made him hide three senses and find a guide he can actually bond to. It’s for the best.

He can see the distance confusing Hollander, but Ilya knows he won’t really push back. Ilya doesn’t let himself think about compatibility or what could have been. He soldiers on, as best as he can for as long as he can. Hollander asks about meeting up in Sochi and Ilya knows this has to be it. They have to stop, for the sake of Ilya’s secrets, for Hollander’s future.

They don’t link for the rest of the season. Ilya doesn’t text Hollander either, doesn’t try to fuck him. He wins a Stanley Cup instead.

It’s not easy. The lack of relief for his shields is painful actually. Ilya finds himself sliding closer and closer to the precipitous slope of madness. He buys a house outside of Boston, the very edges of Newton where at least the population density is less and the commute to the newly opened practice facility in Brighton isn’t terrible. It doesn’t really help.

Svetlana can tell something is wrong. She cups his face when the last of the team files out of his most recent after-party the week post-finals. Ilya’s a little tipsy, almost happy, and feeling much better with fewer people on the property.

“Do you need to link?” she asks. Not once has she offered. It’s always Ilya, noticing a tinge of unsteadiness to her senses, capitalizing on the opportunity for both of them.

“Okay, if you want,” Ilya shrugs.

The weight lifts. Svetlana lets him put his head in her lap, and lulls him to his most peaceful sleep in months with careful fingers in his hair. When he wakes, she looks serious. “You’re hurting yourself,” she says.

Ilya disconnects them. He doesn’t want her receiving any insight. Not when he needs to lie. There’s no pain, snapping their tether, no resistance. Of course not. Ilya’s only unlucky enough to be compatible with one asshole. The crushing weight of everyone else batters his shield, searching always for a gap, a fracture.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sveta.”

She twists his ear, more teasing than painful. “I don’t need a link to know you’re lying, Ilyusha. It’s a guide thing then?” When Ilya says nothing, she sighs. “Maybe it’s time to talk about–”

“No,” Ilya says. His tone is harsher than he intends. When she opens her mouth again, Ilya continues, “I will not be trapped in Russia. I won’t be some rich man’s tool.”

“I’m not telling you to–” Svetlana starts.

Ilya cuts her off again, feels her irritation spike to the level that precedes her storming out. “Enough! Fuck! Just leave me alone.”

She leaves him there, like Ilya knew she would. He tells himself he’s grateful.

He makes it to late June, and welcomes the strange dejà vu. To the awards show in Vegas with all its noise. To spotlights and speeches. To Shane Hollander, pissed at him and spiraling closer anyway.

One last time. One last fuck can’t hurt. Ilya won’t link them, but he’ll take Hollander apart. Ilya knows him, inside and out, doesn’t even need to touch him to bring Hollander to the edge. He does touch him, does fuck him rough, refusing a tether, refusing a kiss. Because Ilya wants too much.

Hollander leaves. He climbs out of Ilya’s penthouse bed, all tightly coiled hurt and embarrassment, and doesn’t look back.

Ilya doesn’t turn to watch Hollander, but he tracks him across the room anyway. The rapid steps into his underwear, the slower pace of buttoning his shirt. And all the while, the sickening swirl and tumble of his emotions. Ilya… regrets.

He regrets ignoring… Shane for six months. Regrets the distance he began imposing even before the cut off. Regrets not linking them in the bathroom tonight when he felt Shane start to zone. Regrets fucking him so coldly, when Ilya could’ve held him instead and soothed the starving beast inside his chest.

Regrets not kissing Shane, not once after the bathroom.

Ilya thinks about throwing up, when he feels Shane’s emotions turn, intensify. Embarrassment, hurt, anger, Ilya can handle. The wave of Shane’s self-recrimination, gnawing internalized disgust, is a bridge too far. Ilya’s shit—his desperate, half-baked plan to protect them both—isn’t worth this.

He slips out from between the sheets. Naked, he turns the corner to find Shane fumbling with his shoes. His face reflects the emotions that Ilya despises. Shame, misery—a sticky, nauseating phlegm choking them both.

“Shane,” Ilya says. Despite the purpose of the sentinel-suite, the safety it offers, the first name cuts into Ilya’s soft spots. Shane straightens, one shoe still in his hand. Ilya feels his wariness. Cautious and bitter.

“What? What else do you fucking want from me, Ilya?”

“A kiss,” Ilya tells him. And then he takes it before Shane’s shock settles.

Ilya steps forward, crowds Shane against the door. Fits his fingers around the sharp lines of Shane’s jaw to move his head where it needs to go. Shane lets him, leans into it. Closes his eyes before Ilya has even brushed his lips.

A kiss is not a tether, not a link. But Ilya thinks he wouldn’t trade this, not even for hours of relief. Shane’s remaining shoe bruises the top of Ilya’s bare foot on its way to the ground. And then Shane’s hands are in his hair, and the kiss turns, deepens. Without a direct anchor, they’ve clearly come to the mutual decision to crawl inside each other instead.

Shane pulls back first, head tilting back. “Fuck,” he manages, “I can’t–”

But Ilya barely hears him. He bites down the line of Shane’s jaw, presses his lips to the hollow of his throat, drags wetly to the lobe of his ear. Then he takes the soft skin between his teeth and tugs. Shane moans. Ilya feels every thought, every negative emotion dissolve, in favor of Shane’s knees quaking. Ilya pushes harder, bracing his weight. And then he kisses him again.

Time stretches, gooey and liminal. Ilya’s not even hard, not this soon after. Their usual hungry heat is replaced by something warm. Something… soft. It’s a terrible fucking idea. But Ilya can’t stop himself. Shane doesn’t stop him either. They’ve never just kissed like this. Without the prelude to sex. It’s painfully intimate.

Ilya only steps back when he can’t ignore their mutual exhaustion any longer. Shane’s head dips forward, like he’s chasing Ilya’s lips. Ilya watches him blink back into focus, the slow ordering of his emotions. There’s none of the internalized hatred and shame left. Only a slow-growing confusion, beneath the tiredness.

Ilya imagines fluttering kisses over Shane’s freckles, holding him. Falling asleep together under the covers and waking up to Shane’s face in sunshine.

“See you next season, Hollander,” Ilya says.

Shane stares at him. His confusion balloons, masking something strange and new that Ilya hasn’t felt from him before, can’t quite identify. “Right, yeah. Have a good summer.”

~

Ilya does not have a good summer. He extends his one week in the Russian wilderness to two, and it barely keeps him steady. Svetlana spends most of the summer in the States. His brother’s addiction is spiraling, making him meaner and more useless.

And there is something wrong with his father.

Ilya has been cataloguing facts and incidents for years. Collecting pieces to form a puzzle that this summer only confirms. Dementia, according to the doctor Ilya pays to come out to the house. Unclear when, exactly, it began. Ilya can pinpoint moments of forgetfulness all the way back to his last Juniors’ season. But things have begun to turn for the worst.

Even compared to the Olympics, Ilya notices a change. By seven or eight at night, his father becomes a different man entirely. Anxious and paranoid, concerned about the shades being down and getting home safe when he hasn’t left the house all day. Ilya starts sleeping there, after Polina calls him crying. Grigori sometimes wakes before dawn to get ready for a job he retired from 10 years ago. Polina barely keeps him from leaving the house the first time, and Ilya’s not blind to the bruise on her cheekbone.

Ilya learns to sleep lightly, tuning his abilities even in sleep to his father’s emotions. When Grigori wakes, Ilya wakes.

During the day is better, mostly. Sometimes Ilya forgets anything is wrong. There’s a whole regimen of medications Ilya struggles to keep track of. He starts searching for a full time nurse to take over, when the season starts. It’s his first big fight of the summer with Alexei.

“Papa should be looked after by his family!” Alexei insists. “He should not be embarrassed by some stranger in his house!”

“Polina cannot do it! Are you stupid? She can’t stop him from leaving in the middle of the night and freezing to death, Alexei!” Ilya takes a deep, steadying breath. “I’m gone for most of the year. I’m hiring someone to help.”

Alexei shoves him. Nothing new. Ilya could shove back, put his years of fighting on the ice to use, but he doesn’t. He never has, with his family. Once, Alexei almost beat him half to death for sleeping with his girlfriend, and Ilya just let him. He’s not sure why. Maybe some part of him is always hoping that they’ll stop on their own. Snap out of it, become a better family. Foolish.

Alexei’s rage is a familiar, prickling thing. It batters Ilya’s shields relentlessly. But maybe, like Hollander and his senses, he’s become numb to it.

He notices the smug clarity of a self-serving idea immediately. “Fucking pay me to do it, then,” Alexei snaps. “I’ll take care of him, like a good son should. And you can run back to America like a fucking coward.”

It’s a bad idea. Ilya doubts Alexei can be trusted, but the other choices are equally terrible. He’s right, that their father will likely be upset with the presence of a stranger, during his moments of lucidity. And he is not advanced enough in his disease to agree to any kind of care home.

So Ilya concedes, and starts sending Alexei more money.

~

Fall 2014

Ilya needs to end it with Hollander (Shane?).

He knows better, thinking he can keep the sex without the rest of it. Without linking, without getting attached, literally and figuratively. Because Ilya likes Hollander. Likes playing him, facing genuine competition on the ice. Likes kissing him and, worse, laying with him as they let their endorphins level out. Likes Hollander’s dry humor and absurd trust in Ilya to keep him level. Ilya needs to end it, because he wants to keep Hollander, and that’s not a thing either of them can offer the other.

Besides, Ilya’s the one attached, the one in danger of falling entirely. Hollander is safe. Ilya has a direct insight into how he’s feeling, and there’s none of the saw-trap holding Ilya hostage. Ilya needs to end it before they’re both irreparably doomed.

When the pre-season schedule releases, Ilya is relieved. They fly into Montreal and back out the same day to Washington. He doesn’t even need an excuse.

But Hollander doesn’t seem to care. He shocks Ilya by texting first, before the game even, when usually that gets Ilya scolded. Are we meeting?

you are desperate for my dick? Ilya texts back.

Fuck off, asshole.

Ilya mouths at his cross, leaning against the locker room wall. His first instinct is something provoking, to work Hollander up. But that is a slippery slope, sure to send Ilya sliding right into Hollander’s bed. Which he can’t do.

we fly out after game. you have to play with asshole alone this time Jane.

Ilya watches the typing bubbles pop up once, twice, three times. They vanish without a new message coming through.

On the ice, Ilya takes one look at Hollander and feels his stomach twist. It’s hard to pinpoint why. Hollander is all tightly controlled determination, focused intensity, like he always is. But the mindset feels thinner, fragile, almost. Crouched at the face-off dot, Ilya studies the barely there dark circles. It’s the first time he remembers seeing Hollander look tired.

Ilya chews his mouthguard, debating. He can’t exactly ask Hollander if he’s feeling okay, not when they hate each other publicly.

“Excited for my second cup win? I am thinking I should get bigger trophy room now, so I am prepared,” Ilya says, as the ref readies to drop. Hollander rolls his eyes. It’s the most animated Ilya sees him all game, outside of chasing the puck. At least Hollander’s hockey is fine. The Metros lose 3-2, but Hollander walks away with a goal and an assist.

~

Except Hollander’s hockey isn’t fine. As he does every year, Ilya studies Hollander’s tape almost closer than he studies Boston’s. And Hollander has started this season with the first ‘slump’ of his career. His points per game average is below 1, which has never been true in all the years Ilya’s followed him. It’s incredibly early in the season to even be talking about averages, but 10 games in for Montreal, the commentators have stopped talking about shaking off the rust and started hinting at hidden injuries.

Ilya wants to ask Hollander, goad him. But his campaign over the past several years has worked too well. The last time Ilya texted Hollander about something unrelated to hooking up was the summer before Sochi. It’s for the best, really.

In spite of himself, he hopes Hollander will break the silence anyway.

But he doesn’t, not until the morning of the first Boston-Montreal home game. Ilya opens his eyes to a hotel address, one that has actually functioning sentinel suites, as they discovered after extensive trial and error.

Ilya swallows down his nausea. Forces his fingers to type: can’t tonight, busy.

He watches the three dots for a concerningly long time. But what delivers is short.

Are you fucking with me?

Ilya can almost imagine what Hollander’s emotions must feel like. The toxic bubbling of misery, the sharp burn of anger. Probably no worse than Ilya’s own upset. He doesn’t respond and hopes that, for once in his life, Hollander catches a hint.

It certainly seems so, given that Hollander can’t meet his eyes on the ice. And he can’t match Ilya either, like he has every other game of their careers. Instead, Hollander plays… erratically. He’s too early, stick ahead of the puck as he overskates passes. He’s slow to recover from each check against the board, and Ilya understands why people have begun to speculate about an injury. And this time, Hollander’s usual game focus is far overshadowed by everything else he’s feeling. Poorly concealed pain, and instability.

This is no upper body injury. This is Hollander losing control of his fucking senses.

Ilya shouldn’t, doesn’t feel guilty. Hollander’s an adult. Even Ilya links with Svetlana occasionally to release the pressure and the world will never know him as a guide. If Hollander continues to suffer in silence, that’s his own problem.

Boston wins 4-0.

Ilya waves off Marlow’s attempts to drag him out. He’d be miserable company now, worrying about fucking Hollander. Who he has no right to worry about. Ilya sits at his kitchen island, phone open to the room number from this morning. Would Hollander even be there, if Ilya went? He can’t.

This is for the best. Because clearly Hollander has reached a breaking point. And he must know it, must be close to accepting the need for a better, more appropriate guide. Some nice girl that will fit in with the rest of the Montreal WAGs, even if Hollander would probably prefer a man. After everything Ilya did to push him here, he can’t fumble things at the finish line.

His phone vibrates across the table with an incoming call. Ilya’s already braced for an argument with Alexei, who hates taking care of their father just as much as Ilya expected. Then Ilya tilts the screen enough to see:

Jane

Hollander has never called him, not once in the past five years.

Ilya picks up before he can talk himself out of it. “Hollander?”

“Rozanov, hey,” Hollander says, and his voice cracks. It’s the first time Ilya has heard his voice since Vegas and he sounds like shit. Even his media appearances have been shorter, less frequent. “Listen, I know you’re busy–”

Ilya winces. Even though Hollander’s team hotel in the North End is more than 15 kilometers away from Ilya’s house, even though his specific presence should be buried in so much city noise, Ilya imagines he can feel him. The desperation, so bitter and pleading. “Hollander–”

“Please,” Shane Hollander whispers, the phone’s mic barely picking up his voice. “I know, um, that you don’t want– And that’s. That’s fine. Really it is. I’ll never talk to you again, I promise. But, can we just, just this once? It’s messing with my hockey.”

Ilya’s resolve crumbles. It’s stupid, so stupid, but how often does Hollander ever say please? Ever beg like this? Sentences and words so fractured that Ilya can barely make meaning out of them. A supplicant one refusal from shattering entirely.

Ilya wants to beat Hollander, kick his ass from one end of the rink to the other with the time he has left, but not like this. Not because Hollander zones so badly he goes on IR.

“I will text you my address,” Ilya says, right before he hangs up. One more time can’t do any more damage, can it? He’ll convince Hollander to find a different guide after.

~

The last time Ilya saw Hollander this nervous, he was 19 and dropping to his knees to suck his very first dick. Even knowing how this needs to end, Ilya can’t help the brief bolt of lust accompanying the nostalgia.

Hollander keeps his hands in his sweatpants as he trails Ilya inside, eyes darting nervously. When the front door clicks shut, Hollander stumbles. “Oh. You have sentinel soundproofing here?”

Ilya shrugs. Pretends he isn’t cataloguing the thinning of tension around Hollander’s eyes. “I like my privacy.”

“Who’s your architect? They’ve even done something to muffle the echoes inside from different rooms, I think–”

“Hollander,” Ilya interrupts. Part of the problem, outside of their stupid compatibility, is that he finds Hollander’s boring rambling hot. Clearly, whatever is going on with his emotions is terminal. “You are here for a reason, yes?”

Hollander’s face barely twitches, but Ilya senses his flinch anyway. “I’m sorry,” he starts, and then shakes his head. “Or maybe I’m not, I don’t know. I clearly did something wrong that you won’t fucking tell me, and it’s fine. Like I said, you don’t ever have to talk to me again after this. I just, can we please fucking link?”

Ilya sighs. He sinks into a stool, bracing his elbow on the kitchen island. He flaps his hand until Hollander sits too. “Hollander,” he starts, then amends, “Shane. Is not– you did nothing wrong. But linking is a bad idea, I do not think–”

“You keep fucking doing that!” Shane’s voice cracks. “You keep fucking– fucking redrawing the lines. I’m Shane and then I’m Hollander and then I’m fucking котёнок. And you’ll fuck me and tether, except then you won’t and you act like I’m an idiot for not understanding why you keep changing the fucking rules.”

Ilya’s own temper flares. “Did not realize you needed things written in official hookup rulebook,” he says, nasty. But he doesn’t need another concealed flinch to douse his annoyance. He tries again. “You have not found nice guide in Montreal? Would be much easier.”

Shane blinks. Shakes his head. “I don’t– You know I don’t want a guide.”

Ilya shrugs. He’s not sure why Shane’s words sting. “Yes, I know this. But seems like you need a bond, if you want to keep being second-best hockey player.”

“Hypocrite,” Shane retorts.

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Maybe. But you can do this without being arrested, so is different, no?”

“What we were doing was working fine,” Shane insists. “My senses were manageable, and you can’t pretend you didn’t benefit too. I’m not, I don’t need a crutch.”

Christ. And Hollander doesn’t even intend to spit in Ilya’s face. He just does it naturally. Ilya could tell him. That they were heading down a road to Ilya becoming his permanent crutch, like it or not. But most people view bonds as something guides initiate and control and finalize. Ilya hasn’t done anything on purpose, and he half-blames Shane’s stubborn clinging to his shields, but explaining that seems pointless.

Ilya knows to be on watch now. He can stop things from sticking, probably. Maybe. Somewhere, distantly, he hears Svetlana’s voice calling him a moron.

“We can link tonight. If you promise to look for guide in Montreal after,” Ilya bargains. He sees Shane open his mouth to argue, and cuts him off. “No, listen. This is not permanent fix, okay? I am a, a clock-bomb–”

“Time-bomb,” Shane corrects.

Ilya glares. “Fucking– Yes, a time-bomb. My brain will explode like rookie awards. I don’t know when, but you should have a fucking plan, Hollander.”

Instead of anger, the first thing Shane projects is fear. It doesn’t last long, before it’s buried under fury. “Don’t fucking say that. Your brain won’t fucking explode, asshole.”

“Uh, yes it will.”

“Then find a fucking sentinel!” Shane snaps.

“Okay, I will be kidnapped by Russian government, sure.”

“You’re impossible,” Shane says. Ilya can see the tension crackling between them, a living thing. “Just link us already.”

“Fine,” Ilya says. Even though it’s almost a year since the last time they did this, it’s so easy, so familiar to cast a line into Shane’s mind. Shane grabs him back, clumsy and illogically effectual and then. Then.

It’s simultaneously like being hit by a truck and finally collapsing into bed after the longest day of his life. Like Ilya has been attending a year long concert seated directly in front of the loudspeaker, bones shaking apart, so battered by the noise that the absence of it is almost painful. There is only Shane. And he is loud, but only in a way that the white noise Marlow plays on roadies is loud. Something that Ilya can lean on to drown out everything else.

Distantly, he feels Shane drawing on his control to level off his senses. Can sense the cascade of relief and exhaustion so strong that Ilya is surprised neither of them cries.

Linking with Svetlana is nothing like this. Doesn’t hold a candle to this level of relief.

Ilya blinks and Shane is looking back at him. Hollander’s expression is so similar to the way he looks after an orgasm that Ilya almost laughs. Maybe he does laugh. He can’t tell with Shane trying to crawl inside his mouth.

Whatever is traveling back and forth along their tether makes Ilya feel insane. Ilya likes sex, craves it to keep himself steady. He’s never felt like this, like he’ll die if he’s not inside of Shane in the next thirty seconds. When Ilya tries to stand, it’s pure luck that the stool tips over instead of their tangled bodies.

“Couch,” Ilya gasps between kisses. Their lips make a wet sucking sound as they separate. “Couch, now, Shane.”

Shane nods and then they’re stumbling and falling over the back of it together. Time passes in flashes of images and sensations. Their clothes hitting the floor. The tear of fabric. The clicking cap of the lube Ilya keeps in an end table. Shane warm and pulsing around his fingers, Shane straddling his hips, Shane sinking onto Ilya’s condom-covered dick.

They can’t seem to disconnect their lips. When Shane bounces away, Ilya crunches upward to keep them breathing hotly into each other’s mouths. Ilya might be talking, but he’s definitely not speaking English and probably not Russian either. Some language only they speak. Maybe he would be more embarrassed, if Shane wasn’t scratching lines into his shoulders, moaning like he’s being ripped apart.

When Shane comes, he squeezes around Ilya’s cock so tightly that Ilya has no choice but to follow.

By the time Ilya finds his way back to his own body, the sweat on their skins has cooled. Shane lays on his chest, perfectly still and for once not complaining about the fluids gluing them together. “You are okay?” Ilya croaks.

Shane nods. Not asleep then. “Yeah. Yes. For the first time in months, I think.”

Ilya forces away the guilt, the fact that he feels like Atlas freed from the weight of the world. Holding Shane, crushed under his body, is the steadiest he’s been in his life. Ilya would keep him, if he could, if it was at all possible. He would bottle this feeling, to tide him over if they were ever apart.

If it wouldn’t destroy them both.

Ilya needs to break the link, before–

“Can I,” Shane says, voice quiet, “I mean, do you think we could… stay? Linked like this? Just for a little while.”

Fuck. Ilya needs to refuse. Shane doesn’t know the risks, what drawing this out could cause. Ilya opens his mouth to say no.

Shane’s stomach rumbles so violently that Ilya feels the vibrations against his skin. “You didn’t eat after the game?”

Shane’s sigh raises goosebumps across Ilya’s chest. “Food has been hard, lately. My taste sense.”

Ilya makes a decision. Prays to his mother’s god that it doesn’t bite him in the ass. “Up, up. I will make us dinner. We can break link after.”

Shane rolls to his feet. Ilya feels his cautious relief, and then mild discomfort as he processes the stickiness. “Shower first, maybe?”

“Fine,” Ilya relents. “I will preheat oven.”

“What are you going to make?” Shane asks.

Ilya shrugs. “I think I have ingredients for tuna melts.”

~

Chapter End Notes

ha...

Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

The tether grants Shane a euphoric stay of execution. Connecting with Ilya feels like finally nailing a tricky maneuver on the ice after weeks of practice. Relief and satisfaction and pure sweaty joy. Shane’s never gone from zero to horny so fast in his life. He briefly contemplates the phrase ‘feeling whole again’ before he shoves it down so deep that not even Ilya can sense it. And Shane still wants more.

Chapter Notes

Hi!! Sorry it's been a minute again... I was busy, but I'm feeling inspired again now so fingers crossed I can ride it for a bit! This chapter poured out of me and kind of grew out of control so I split it here, which I uh, apologize for in advance. But I wanted to give you all something!

As always, thank you so much for all the comments and excitement for this story! I adore reading your speculation and it genuinely motivates me so much.

This chapter is certainly uh... pivotal. I'll leave it at that!

I hope you all enjoy!

CW: vague mentions of death/dying, non-descriptive emetophobia

Fall 2014

Shane has always thought his career would go out with one decisive bang. A hit gone wrong when he’s pushing forty. A triumphant exit after his tenth Cup win. Even a tragic accident off the ice that ends things permanently. Hockey can never be forever, but Shane intends to stretch it for a long time.

He never anticipated a slow, embarrassing collapse after only four years. Except that’s what happens, at the start of the pre-season.

Training camp was bad enough. He’s been bumped up to captain, so Shane gets to use organizing drills with the rookies as an excuse for why he’s a bit more careful, a bit more hesitant. With his hearing so sensitive, he’s constantly recalculating, reaching too early for pucks that sound frighteningly close. He feels every check along the length of his skin, an imprint of his jersey driving him fucking insane. Scrimmages are rough, rougher than he’s experienced in years, but at least the practice rink is only so many people, so many voices.

He thinks it’ll be fine. Sure, Rozanov flies out early, but they can squeeze in something quick after and then Shane will level out. Be back to peak performance. Except Rozanov can’t meet. Shane muscles through the game with pure stubbornness. Gritting his teeth, it takes all of Shane’s mental energy to stay engaged in hockey and not zone. But he does it. Montreal loses, but it’s close.

Maybe Shane can continue like this, force himself through it until October when their flight out of Boston isn’t until the afternoon of the next day. He can hold on. He can.

After the first game of the season, his mom calls.

“Honey, are you hurt? Did you pull something?” her voice crackles over the phone, and Shane winces at each subtle variation in speaker output.

“I’m fine,” he says.

After the fifth game of the season, Theriault forces him to the trainers. “What’s wrong with him?” he demands.

The trainers run panels and pull his body into different contortions, and Shane wants to be sick at the uncomfortable slide of latex gloves over his skin. The bumps in the rubber drag like sandpaper. When their watchful gazes turn away, Shane pokes at his skin, sure that blood should be seeping from his pores.

“He should be fine,” the trainers say dubiously.

After the tenth game, Hayden drags him over to JJ’s for beers and ‘guy night.’ Shane pretends to sip without bringing the bottle to his lips, because even the brush of glass threatens to tip him over the edge. Hayden gives some awkward speech that he and JJ clearly rehearsed, that ends with, “We all get the yips sometimes. Once you relax, you’ll shake them off no problem and start tearing up the ice again.”

“You’ll be fine, capitaine,” JJ assures him.

Shane will be fine. Shane will be fine, because Montreal flies to Boston, and in Boston, Rozanov– Ilya will fix him. Then Shane will move on, put this horrific start to the season behind him, and lead the Metros to the Cup.

can’t tonight, busy

His fingers tremble. Shane wants to type a million things.

Fuck you.

This is your fault, you fucking did this to me, made me fucking reliant on you and now you’re cutting me off?

What did I do wrong? Tell me and I’ll apologize I’ll fix it please just tell me

I saved you in Vegas and this is what you do when I need you?

I miss fucking linking with you because my brain is dripping out of my ears but I think I also just miss you

I hate you

Why don’t you text me anymore? I watched Detroit’s game last night and I saw the way Victoire cornered and Hayden thought I was crazy for saying he needs surgery but you see it right? You always fucking see it

But even as Shane crafts them, he knows he can’t send any. He surprises himself, with the direction of his thoughts, with the horrifying gravity of his own longing. Embarrassing, to want a hookup this much. Maybe Rozanov could sense this, even though Shane couldn’t, and he’s trying to decline politely. ‘Sorry, Hollander, the sex is not good enough for strings, goodbye.’ Would it even be strings? To be, what, friends on top of occasional stabilizers?

Shane thinks all of this. And even if he could send any of the pathetic fucking messages, his fingers won’t stop shaking long enough to type out anything longer than: Are you fucking with me?

Shane revisits his mental drafts after another terrible game. One in which Marlow’s checks almost made him zone twice, and he couldn’t look at Rozanov for longer than three seconds at a time.

Instead of opening their messages, Shane presses call. Ilya folds.

The tether grants Shane a euphoric stay of execution. Connecting with Ilya feels like finally nailing a tricky maneuver on the ice after weeks of practice. Relief and satisfaction and pure sweaty joy. Shane’s never gone from zero to horny so fast in his life. He briefly contemplates the phrase ‘feeling whole again’ before he shoves it down so deep that not even Ilya can sense it. And Shane still wants more.

More tethers, more time, more Ilya. More, more, more. He’s so fucking greedy. Not what many people might think, when it comes to Shane. But he’s always struggled to be content with what he has. Being good at hockey isn’t enough, he has to be the best. Winning isn’t enough, he needs to win the Cup. He wants better control, greater freedom, and higher frequency orgasms.

And, regrettably, Shane wants more Ilya.

Shane pins Ilya to the couch with his body, hopes desperately to sneak their encounter into overtime. But it just makes it easier for Shane to tell when Ilya starts to stiffen, readying to disconnect.

“Can I,” Shane cuts himself off, swallowing down have more of you? “I mean, do you think we could… stay? Linked like this? Just for a little while.”

Shane dreads Ilya’s answer. Waits for the refusal. And then, once more, a stay of execution. Two in one day feels extraordinary.

Ilya crowds him into the shower. They can’t seem to separate for longer than a heartbeat. Shane’s surprised to see his own neutral soaps for sensitive skin mixed in with Ilya’s bottles. But he doesn’t complain when Ilya pours far too much body wash over Shane’s chest. He mouths at Shane’s earlobe as he scrubs luxurious circles into Shane’s pectoral. It’s the first time in months that physical contact hasn’t felt painful. Shane sags back into him, lets Ilya hold his weight.

There’s plenty of room in the shower to spread out. Fuck, they could probably stand in separate corners and wash without touching. Instead, Ilya spins Shane by the hips, sliding their fronts together until Ilya is slick with soap too. Their soft dicks brush. Sensitivity makes Shane flinch. But then it transitions to something nice, intimate. Ilya’s hands rub down Shane’s back, dimple his ass.

Shane sighs. Hopes Ilya can’t hear the breathiness of it. He tucks his head down to nip at Ilya’s neck, so he doesn’t have to look at him.

They’ve had sex in hotel showers before, quick handjobs or Shane’s knees clacking against the porcelain. But this is somehow more intimate, more tender. Shane’s stomach twists, and he knows Ilya can feel the hesitant pleasure that Shane doesn’t know what to do with.

“Pass me the soap?” Shane mumbles against Ilya’s neck. He lets the gel ooze between his fingers. As he drags his hands along Ilya’s back, he keeps their chests pressed together, centers his gratitude for Ilya’s perusal.

“Not playing fair, Hollander,” Ilya groans. “I can’t go again now if you want me to fuck you later.”

“You’ll be fine,” Shane dismisses. But he leaves Ilya’s dick alone.

Putting on dirty clothes after a shower is terrible. Shane’s senses are low, unbothered, but that doesn’t stop his nose from wrinkling, rubbing the greasy-dirt-sweat material between his fingers. Ilya snorts. A stack of clothes smacks Shane in the chest and he has to drop his shirt to stop them hitting the ground. They’re soft, against his fingers, the type of cotton blend that Shane prefers because something about the manufacturing process smoothes out microscopic burrs in the thread.

Shane’s never worn someone else’s clothes before. Given all the information that he can pick up, it’s always seemed invasive. But here Ilya is, offering it up freely. He slides on the briefs and the sweatpants. The black t-shirt falls open, revealing a glaringly yellow Raiders logo.

“Absolutely not.” Ilya juts his bottom lips out, in a move Shane wants to call a pout. It’s such a devastating look, that Shanw throws the balled up shirt at Ilya’s face just to hide it. “I’m serious, try again.”

He accepts the offered plain black t-shirt gratefully.

The longer that Shane is here, the more his head clears. Months and months without a tether, on the brink of sensory overload, had led to painful knots of tension… kind of everywhere. Ilya unwinds them all.

“Come now, I will cook,” Ilya says.

Shane watches from the counter, accepting a cold can of ginger ale. He’d cut back even on this one vice recently, the carbonation too much of a threat to his equilibrium. It tastes so much better like this, taste sense muted to nothing. “Can we keep the link until after we eat?” Shane asks, abrupt.

Ilya leans his hip against the counter and raises an eyebrow. “You are afraid I am bad cook?”

“What? No,” Shane shakes his head. “I just haven’t, you know, enjoyed food. Lately. In a while.”

Ilya’s expression is unreadable, tense. “Yes, fine. You can hide from my delicious cooking.”

They move to the living room. Ilya sprawls in the middle of the couch and Shane hesitates. They don’t really do this, or they haven’t recently. They ordered room service together sometimes, the early seasons, before their hookups grew briefer and more perfunctory. But that was never this. Should he sit next to Ilya? Or further away, facing him, so they can talk? Or–

Ilya rolls his eyes and grabs Shane by the wrist. Shane finds himself plastered to Ilya’s shirtless chest. It’s warm there, comfortable. He lets himself be held.

“You said you were a time-bomb,” Shane says, careful, when the New York replay goes to commercial break. “What did you mean?”

Ilya’s chest jolts. “Fuck, Hollander. You want to fight about this now?”

Shane shrugs, pleased when Ilya doesn’t shove him off. “We could, maybe, not fight about it? And just talk.”

“That does not sound like us,” Ilya says.

“Just try, okay?” Shane swallows. He’s been rolling the words over in his head, once his higher-thinking capabilities returned after their orgasms. “Time-bomb sounds… bad.”

“What do you know about guides?” Ilya asks, after a pause so long that Shane almost gives up on the conversation.

“Not a lot,” Shane admits. “I don’t know that much about sentinels either, even though I am one. Hockey comes first.”

“Yes, yes, you are hockey robot,” Ilya waves his free hand. “Sentinels, they become more uh… unstable with more senses, yes? More likely to zone?”

“Fuck off, I’m not that uneducated,” Shane complains. “I remember in Vegas that time, you said something about your range being bigger than usual.”

Ilya winks. “All parts of me are above-average size, yes.” Shane rolls his eyes. “But guides, instead of senses, have a range… scale. Most guides, it is very small. They feel one room, maybe. I read some, it is skin contact only. A big range is considered, one square kilometer. That is considered overwhelming, can be dangerous without a sentinel to balance, yes?”

One kilometer sounds terrible actually. On a bad day, Shane’s hearing stretches around 2-3 kilometers for a normal conversation. That means he knows exactly how many people fit in a kilometer. The sheer number of different emotions would be absurd. “Is that your range, then? A kilometer?”

Ilya’s laugh rumbles up through his chest into Shane’s. “Ah, no. No, not for long time. Ranges grow, yes? Like you pick up senses. My passive range is maybe, 50 square kilometers? Can stretch in one direction about 15 or 20 maybe.”

Shane stiffens. What the fuck.

Ilya continues. “Guides, we do not zone, but we get lost too. Is a lot of input, lot of feelings. We build shields, so things are less noisy, but shields are only so strong. If your range is so big and you cannot shield,” Ilya shrugs. “You have many seizures. And then you are смерть мозга, brain dead.”

Shane sits up. His stomach twists, hunger overtaken by nausea. “You think this is going to happen to you?”

Ilya shouldn’t be so calm, shouldn’t say so casually, “Yes, one day. I hope not soon, but I don’t know.”

“What the fuck. No seriously, what the fuck.” Shane can’t sit and listen to this. He clambers to his feet. He paces in front of the television, jittery. “You’re just going to die?” He chances a glance at Ilya and finds his face twisted in a stubborn mien, that almost certainly precedes stonewalling. “No.”

“No? You decide these things now?”

“Fuck off,” Shane snaps. “I know I might be– that I’m a hypocrite too. But you can’t just die.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Oh, but Shane Hollander can tank his career and zone if he wants?”

Shane stops his frenetic route to level Ilya with a glare. “Yeah, and so what if I zone? As long as I’m in public, which is when I would probably zone anyway, someone will call for help and then I’ll be pulled out. I’m pretty sure they can’t just stop seizures. And you have to initiate a link, which you can’t do if you’re, you know. Dying.”

“I know this, Hollander. But if Russia knows I am a guide, with range like this, I am good as dead anyway.” Ilya has the nerve to sound fucking bored.

“Then don’t go back to Russia,” Shane says. “Get American citizenship, or something. You’re good enough at hockey that it can’t be that hard. I know other guys have done it.”

Ilya blinks at him. Then he leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, head tilted so Shane can’t see his face. “My father… he is sick. I need to– I have to go home still.”

“Oh.” Shane deflates. He can’t imagine not being able to see his parents if they were ill. “Could you bring him here?”

“I think he would die from the shame,” Ilya says. When he finally lifts his head, he looks exhausted. “Maybe, in a few years, if…”

“If,” Shane nods. He feels vaguely like he’s been placated, so Ilya can avoid the conversation, but he’ll take it. He’ll take anything that isn’t Ilya, what, resigning himself to seizing to death?

The oven dings.

“Sit,” Ilya says. He brushes his hands down his sweatpants, as if he can wipe away the conversation. “I will grab the food. And another ginger ale.”

The tuna melt is fucking delicious. Hell, it might be the best thing Shane’s eaten since his taste sense came online. Maybe it’s more an oasis in a desert situation, given how long it’s been since the last time he ate food. But he tells Ilya that it’s good and means it.

“How’d you stay sane, then? Without linking I mean?” Shane asks, brushing crumbs away from his mouth.

“I link with Svetlana, sometimes,” Ilya says.

Shane hopes that whatever emotion gathering in his chest is as indecipherable to Ilya as it is to him. “Oh.”

“You really do not link at all? Many pretty women want Shane Hollander,” Ilya teases. He leans forwards, dragging a blunt fingernail lightly over Shane’s cheeks. “None are guides?”

Shane tilts out of reach. “I mean, I guess. But I don’t, I mean, I don’t want anyone talking to the press is all.” It’s a half-truth. There would be a lot of questions, if someone leaked to the press that he has three senses instead of two. Shane still tried once. During a trip this summer, when he was as sure as he could be that the woman had no idea who he was. He overheard her talking to her friends at the bar about being a guide, and he figured why not? The lack of linking with Ilya was killing him after all.

She cast a line into his mind. Gossamer thin. And Shane’s revulsion was so instinctive, so total, that he blocked the anchor before it had time to settle. He’s still not sure how he did it exactly, but she sat back on the bed, annoyed. “I thought you were a sentinel?” she demanded.

He escaped the encounter doubly glad that she didn’t recognize him.

What he doesn’t say to Ilya is this: that the idea of someone else in his head makes Shane sick to his stomach. He knows it doesn’t work like that, that a guide can’t just see all of his secrets and know everything about his life. But Shane can’t bring himself to trust that. There’s so much he’s lying about, so much hiding. So much of his life day-to-day structured around feeling awkward, perpetually out of place. He’s supposed to allow a stranger to see that, feel that?

Shane let Ilya in when he was too dumb and too young to know better, compatibility a crackling live wire between them. The idea of tethering to someone else now? It’s unthinkable. Maybe ten or fifteen years from now, Shane will feel differently. He’ll have to hide less then, probably. He’ll learn to extend that trust to someone else. But just, not now. Not when Shane’s house of cards is so tenuous.

“You do not have sex with anyone else?” Ilya asks incredulously, something unknown curling over his voice.

“What?” Shane blinks. “Of course I– What the fuck?”

Ilya sniffs, rubs his nose and looks at the television. “I don’t know… Is only, nice Canadian boy tries to suck my dick when he is nineteen and almost zones so…”

“Fuck off,” Shane says. His ears burn. “I don’t kiss them, okay? As long as I don’t kiss them, it’s fine.”

For some reason, Ilya perks up at this. “Ah, I see. And you are selfish too? Do not… what is the word… reciprocate?” When Shane stares at him blankly, Ilya opens his mouth and makes a lewd gesture with his hand.

“You are such an asshole,” Shane shoves his shoulder hard enough to tip him over. “If you have to know, I did the same thing I did with my mouthguard, okay?”

Ilya blinks. Then slowly, his lips turn up. “You are saying you sucked on condoms and oral dams for weeks?”

“I fucking hate you,” Shane informs him.

“Not as much as you hate fucking strangers with brand preferences. Do you ask before you pick them up?”

Shane sighs, “I bring my own.”

Ilya’s laughter is so loud, that Shane imagines he tastes some of it. A warm bubble passed between them.

They don’t end up fucking again. But Ilya spits into his hand and it’s hot and perfect to grip them together. They both played a full game and should be sleeping. Shane should’ve been back at the team hotel hours ago. But this connection—the uncontrollable, inadvisable pleasure—is too good to cut short.

Ilya comes first, for once. He whispers hoarse, sleepy encouragement into Shane’s ear. “Cum now, Shane,” he orders. And Shane does.

They slide sideways. Shane pins Ilya to the couch again, though this time it is admittedly less calculated. He blinks at the time on Ilya’s tv stand. Christ, it’s almost 3 am. Their flight is at 1pm, catapulting them into a roadie trekking through New York, New Jersey, and Toronto. Shane’s going to be fucking exhausted. They need to break the link, so that Shane can at least get a few hours of sleep.

Except Shane adjusts his neck and finds Rozanov’s eyes closed, his breathing slow and even. Fuck, he must’ve fallen asleep. Shane didn’t even notice.

Shane knows he’s been sporting some pretty terrible dark circles. His mom recommended several sports psychologists and sleep specialists, while his dad bought him his preferred melatonin brand. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just… stay for a while.

They did just play a full game of hockey. Shane was… terrible, frankly, but it was still grueling, demanding. It would be a shame to wake Ilya up now. And besides… Shane will absolutely sleep better, like this. Linked, with Ilya muting his senses. Why sacrifice it for a hotel room with thin walls?

Shane closes his eyes. Just for a couple hours. Then he’ll leave, like they always do.

~

Shane blinks awake to golden sunlight striping warm lines across his face. He must’ve shifted in the night, because most of his bodyweight is on the cushions, but his cheek is stuck to Ilya’s pectoral with a combination of sweat and drool. Gross.

Shane squints at the window over the arm of the couch, hoping to estimate the time without having to deal with ungluing them. Shit. So much for a couple of hours. It looks like full daylight outside.

Struck by the fear that he’s missed his flight, Shane pushes himself upright. He hears Ilya grumble and start to stir, but he’s more focused on the time.

9 am, holy fuck the team’s bus leaves for the airport at 10. “Ilya,” Shane hisses. “Wake up. You need to unlink us, I have to go.”

To his credit, Ilya looks sleepy and confused for only a moment. Shane engraves the expression in his memory, for when he’s feeling particularly pathetic in Montreal. Then Ilya’s sitting up so quickly that their skulls knock together. “Ow, fuck.”

“We fell asleep?” Ilya demands. “Fuck, Shane.”

Shane’s not really sure why Ilya’s the one radiating something close to panic. He’s not about to miss his bus. Boston’s starting a stretch of home games and he probably doesn’t have practice until the afternoon.

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t set an alarm either, shit.” Shane scrambles off the couch and winces. His body hates him for his choice of sleeping location, particularly after a game. His borrowed clothes are creased, but at least Shane can’t see any obvious cum stains. His mouth tastes like something died in it. “Can I borrow a toothbrush?”

“You are worried about brushing your teeth right now?” Ilya says, sounding stressed.

“Only one of us is a sentinel,” Shane says flatly.

Ilya scrubs a hand over his mouth and mutters something in Russian. Then he stands, also wincing, “Fine, fuck, might as well do this with minty breath.”

Shane claims an unopened toothbrush and tries not to feel weird leaving it on the side of the sink. It’s not like they’re dating or anything, but Shane slept incredibly well and maybe a future planned sleepover wouldn’t be terrible. For mental stability.

After splashing water on his face and using the toilet, he finds Ilya hovering outside the bathroom door. Shane almost walks into him. “Hi?”

“Come,” Ilya says, impatient. “We need to break the link.”

“Right,” Shane says feeling weirdly disappointed. He follows Ilya to the couch and sits back down. This is the longest they’ve ever been tethered together before. He remembers the strange pain of the first time he brought Ilya to the condo. It’s always been fairly uncomfortable to separate, and he imagines that this one will probably hurt the most.

Ilya sits next to him and closes his eyes, brow furrowed in focus. Shane waits.

And waits.

And… waits?

Ilya opens his eyes. The expression on his face is… terrible. One Shane hasn’t seen before. Shane doesn’t understand, but feels his heart pick up pace, like his body knows what’s happening before his brain has puzzled it out.

“Is it gone?” Shane asks. “I didn’t notice–”

But of course it’s not gone. Even when it hadn’t hurt, Shane has always been very aware of taking back control over his senses. The transition of power and redistributed weight of his burden.

Ilya says nothing.

Shane swallows. “You need to break it, Ilya. I have to go, before the bus leaves. Fuck, Hayden’s probably been texting me…”

Ilya says nothing.

“Is, um,” Shane starts, voice cracking, “is something… wrong?”

Finally, Ilya moves. He shakes his head slowly, that horrible blankness still in his eyes. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“I can’t break it,” Ilya says. He sounds like he’s delivering a terminal diagnosis.

“Yes, you can,” Shane snaps. He knows they can both feel the fear shivering along Shane’s bones. “This isn’t funny. Just snip it.”

A flash of temper. “I cannot just ‘snip it,’ Hollander, fuck. I pull it out, disconnect, whatever.”

“Then pull harder,” Shane insists.

Ilya scowls, but his eyes close. What follows is the strangest experience of Shane’s life. There’s nothing, and then it feels like someone trying to pull his organs out from his skin. His brain through his nose and his heart up through his mouth and actually fuck, his lungs are about to burst through his ribs. Shane thinks he screams. Or maybe Ilya screams.

The pain stops.

Shane’s on the floor. He’s not sure when that happened. Ilya’s slumped against the back of the couch, dripping with sweat. Soaked to the skin in a way that should only happen after the most intense workout of their lives.

Ilya’s eyes flutter open. He locks gazes with Shane for one intense second, before Ilya frantically grabs a blanket and vomits into the makeshift bag.

It’s beyond disgusting. And Shane can’t even focus on it, because he feels his brain catching up and spiraling into a panic so intense that his fingertips go numb.

“Fuck. Fuck! What the fuck, Rozanov?” Shane pushes up to his feet. He sways. “Did you fucking bond us?”

Ilya shakes his head. “No, no. That is… additional step. I think we have… initialized the process?”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Shane says. He can’t feel his lips. He’s going to have a fucking panic attack. This is his actual worst nightmare. He pictures the other guys in the league who are sentinels, their dutiful guides and wives following them around the country to each game. What’s Shane supposed to do? Tell management they can only play Boston now? Add Ilya to the fucking WAGs chat? They can’t be fucking bonded. They’re not even dating.

“It is– we are special case,” Ilya says, clumsy, “because of compatibility. This is why I did not want to–” He cuts himself off.

But Shane isn’t stupid. He can fill in the rest. The absolute rage flaring in his stomach overshadows the panic, at least. “You knew this could happen, and didn’t fucking tell me?” He steps back.

Ilya scowls. “I told you, we should stop linking–”

“But you didn’t tell me why! Is this why you were hovering outside the fucking bathroom?” Shane’s voice rises, half-hysterically. “I wouldn’t have fucking–”

“This was going to be the last time,” Ilya defends. He moves to stand and then sits back down hard, swallowing audibly. “I thought, one more couldn’t hurt, yes? You begged me Shane, fuck, what was I supposed to do?”

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” Shane says. He wrestles his voice under control, even though he knows Ilya can absolutely feel his emotions roiling under his skin. Can they even play hockey against each other like this? Will the bond distract them? Is it considered cheating or collusion? Can Shane even play hockey at all now? He’s already tanking the start of the season, and he needs to win the Cup, and now this. “Is this thing going to let me get on my plane, or am I stuck here now?”

Ilya flinches. It doesn’t make Shane feel better. Only adds to the complicated spiky ball of feeling in his stomach. “I don’t know. Most people do this on purpose, before full bond. But we have not, ah, meditated together so it is still partial thing, I think.”

“Great,” Shane says, “just– just fantastic.” He takes a few more steps back. Spots his phone and hotel room key on the kitchen island.

“Shane,” Ilya says, eyes widening, “Hollander. Wait. Is supposed to be short-term before full bond. We need to figure–”

“I can’t,” Shane interrupts him. The panic is returning, stronger than before. He needs to get out of this house, find somewhere private to completely lose his shit. But nowhere will be private now will it? Because he and Ilya are partially bonded or whatever, and that means he gets a 24/7 direct line into how much of a mess Shane is. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I can’t do this.”

“Hollander–”

“I’ll, um, I’ll text you,” Shane manages. And then he flees.

~

Chapter End Notes

please don't kill me

Chapter 7

Chapter Summary

Deciding to run is easy, but actually leaving is the hardest thing Shane has ever done. When he feels like torturing himself, he likes to think that he and Ilya are magnets. Shane is South and Ilya is North or vice versa. It doesn’t really matter.

What matters is everything else. The League, the public, their teams, fuck, even Shane’s mom. Everyone seems to get some sick pleasure out of setting them against each other. Positioning them just so. Do they see how frantically they’re drawn together? Do they get some kind of perverse joy out of watching Ilya and Shane brace against the inexorable pull, trudging in opposite directions against a headwind?

Chapter Notes

What's this? An actually timely update on this fic?

We did it! I was so motivated by my own cliffhanger that I actually got this chapter out. Yay!

As always, I adored reading all your comments on the last chapter. Sorry not sorry for the hurt feelings. There are some pivot points that I can't stop myself from including in every universe. This chapter is another one. Obsessed with all of your theories (and nerves).

Prepare for some lore and some heavy thoughts in our second Shane chapter in a row. As always, all mistakes are my own.

Enjoy!

Deciding to run is easy, but actually leaving is the hardest thing Shane has ever done. When he feels like torturing himself, he likes to think that he and Ilya are magnets. Shane is South and Ilya is North or vice versa. It doesn’t really matter.

What matters is everything else. The League, the public, their teams, fuck, even Shane’s mom. Everyone seems to get some sick pleasure out of setting them against each other. Positioning them just so. Do they see how frantically they’re drawn together? Do they get some kind of perverse joy out of watching Ilya and Shane brace against the inexorable pull, trudging in opposite directions against a headwind?

Probably not. When Shane restrains his bitterness enough for rationality, he can acknowledge that the League and the public have categorized them as repellent forces. Would never even guess at how hard Shane and Ilya work to stay apart. Their separation is a universal constant.

Or, it was.

Shane doesn’t notice at first. Perhaps that’s the one mercy of Ilya’s supposed range. The car gets him back to the team hotel with 15 minutes to spare before the team bus leaves. He rushes through packing, ignoring the thick cord stretching west, and tugging tugging tugging.

“Cutting it close there, buddy!” Hayden says. He smacks Shane’s shoulder and then shakes him gently. A week ago, Shane would’ve barely staved off a zone from just that friendly touch. So many kilometers away, and Ilya is still bracing him. It’s simultaneously incredible, and makes Shane want to be sick.

“– Shane?” Hayden’s teasing tone fades. “You okay, dude?”

“I’m fine,” Shane tries to say. And, fuck, his voice sounds terrible. Gravelly, unsteady. He’d probably been the one screaming then. Which is. Fine.

“Okay…” Hayden drags out the vowels. “Well then, Mr. Fine, we need to go like, now, if you don’t want to miss the bus.”

Shane lets himself be tugged out of the room. Fuck, he hasn’t even changed, only layered on the Metros sweatshirt Hayden threw at his head. Usually, re-wearing the same clothes he slept in would be driving him insane, unable to focus on anything except the accumulated dead skin and oils.

But today, he’s unbothered. Because of Ilya.

Shane really notices the stretch for the first time at Logan airport. It’s not painful, exactly. Or at least, not yet. He resists opening maps on his phone and plugging in Ilya’s address. Tracing the line of distance between them to see if Ilya estimated correctly.

Instead, he waves Hayden off once they’ve dropped their carryons at the gate. “Just going to run to the bathroom,” Shane lies, “see if the shops have anything my parents want.”

He’s grateful now for the sweatshirt. Shane pulls the hood over his head and tries not to feel like he’s doing something wrong, as he walks the concourse to the next terminal before he dares to stop and sit. There, far from the nosey prying of his team, Shane pulls out his phone.

partial bond sentinel guide

He scrolls through the results. Most articles are essentially the same explanation of a temporary anchor to support a zoning sentinel. Shane skims past ‘fragile’ and ‘short-term,’ looking for anything that says ‘permanent’ or ‘can’t break the link with my fuckbuddy please help.’ No luck.

Shane tries again.

permanent partial bond sentinel guide

The results this time read more like a how-to guide. They explain the best way to meditate with a partner to achieve a permanent, life-long bond. Some delve into the specifics, reminding Shane again why forever isn’t an option. Maximum distances apart that would stop them from being in different cities. An other-worldly partnership, where the line between separate selves blurs. A two-way connection that would both give Shane insight into Ilya’s emotions and allow some limited sense-transfer between them. While understanding what the fuck Ilya is thinking half the time could be nice, it’s also obviously impossible for them. Even if Shane wanted it, which he doesn’t. And neither does Ilya.

At the bottom of one article, he finds a brief section discussing the dissolution of life-long bonds. Shane reads:

Given the nature of permanent sentinel-guide pairings, breaking a bond is extremely difficult to impossible. Forced separations, such as those caused by the untimely death of one member of the pairing, result in a phenomenon known as Sympathetic Withering. Sympathetic Withering is fatal in 95% of cases on average. Paired sentinels enter a zone within seconds of their guides’ deaths. Known as a ‘Wither Zone,’ medically trained guides are unable to offer a stabilizing link or support a sentinel in self-regulating. Paired guides Wither within 24-48 hours of their sentinel. Symptoms of guide Withering include frequent and uncontrollable seizures that lead to brain death.

In rare cases, where baseline compatibility is low and a bond was achieved with significant chemical support, a slow stretching may be attempted. In three recorded cases, a bond was dissolved without the death of either the sentinel or the guide in question.

Permanent sentinel-guide bonds are a serious matter. As a romantic or sexual relationship is not a prerequisite to the link, some sentinel-guide pairs may divorce but continue to cohabitate. An estimated 1-2% of all permanent pairings exist in this manner.

Fucking shit. Shane’s never heard of Sympathetic Withering before, which seems like an incredible failure of the public education system. Do other people know this? That tying themselves up permanently might literally lead to seizures and death?

He imagines being linked to Ilya this way. If Ilya died…

Shane would be upset, obviously. Sure, they aren’t dating, but he’s known Ilya since they were teenagers. He took quite a few of Shane’s firsts, kept him stable during some incredibly difficult situations. Ilya makes hockey fun, more fun than it ever was in Juniors with little-to-no competition. But it’s not like Shane would die without him. Or want to die, in some horrific Wither Zone or whatever.

Even if the thought of no Ilya has him remembering the feeling of his organs being sucked out through various orifices. That must be unrelated.

Anyway, while horrifying, this information still isn’t what Shane needs. Absolutely no meditating with ‘clear intent and consent from both parties’ happened last night. And they can still be apart from each other, so.

Shane tries one last time, even if thinking of Ilya’s words reminds him of his banked fury:

accidental partial bond sentinel guide high compatibility

Shane clicks through three articles, before he stumbles on one that’s actually useful.

Premature Initial Bonding occurs in less than 1% of all sentinel-guide pairings. When two adults with high compatibility create a temporary link (i.e., one used to assist a zoning sentinel), individuals may experience a semi-permanent faux-bond. Symptoms include discomfort breaking or disconnecting said link, as well as perceived ‘thickening’ of the connection over time. With long or repeated exposure, an initial bond may begin to exhibit features of a true anchor. These include: increased pain at separation, inability to dissolve the link, and limited bleed-through of abilities.

Premature Initial Bonding indicates a positive sign for long-term partnership. Those who exhibit similar symptoms are more likely to have success creating a permanent bond. While an initial bond does not provide the same degree of benefit as a life-long link, it may serve as a temporary stabilization tool. Some risks do exist. Bond specialists often recommend a transition to a full bond as soon as possible. Sentinels may experience greater sensory control, but in the event of a zone, are unable to form new temporary links with other guides. In contrast, a permanent bond occupies a separate center of the sentinel-guide mindscape, allowing fully tethered sentinels to accept help from outside guides if their own is incapacitated.

That doesn’t sound great, but it could be worse. Shane skims the next several paragraphs, eyes peeled for how to get rid of this thing. He finds what he’s looking for towards the end of the article. After far too many sections about the role of the guide and how to convert things to a full bond.

Premature Initial Bonding, while not intentional, cannot occur without some degree of willingness from both parties. Though neuroscientific study of sentinel-guide relationships remains a new and limited field, emerging evidence suggests those with high compatibility present with similar patterns of brain activity in response to stimuli. In cases where both parties wish to dissolve an initial bond and are unable to do so themselves, the advice of a medical professional is recommended.

Sentinel-Guide Specialists may administer chemical suppression to disrupt compatible brain activity and provide support constructing mental barriers to block said bond. Both parties should reach out to their primary care physician for a referral to a specialist.

And that’s it. No helpful guide for how the two of them can solve this without having to come out to a doctor. Frankly, Shane can’t see how they could make up an explanation that isn’t clearly sexual. ‘Sorry, we checked each other too hard on the ice and have a bond now. Please help it go away’? Yeah right.

A message from Hayden appears at the top of his phone:

Were getting ready 2 board. Where r u?

Fuck. Okay.

Well, it’s not like Shane really expected to find a magic fix on the internet. He thinks about the slowly stretched permanent bonds. Maybe the same principle will work here. If Shane gets on a plane and travels further and further away, the bond might just dissolve. Right?

He sidles up next to Hayden at their gate just before their group is called.

“Jesus, dude,” Hayden complains. “I thought you got lost.”

“Sorry,” Shane says. His voice still sounds like shit. He hopes that his smile is somewhat convincing. “You mind if I take the aisle seat this time?”

Hayden stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “I guess? Are you sure you’re okay? You always want the window seat. Like, every time we’ve ever flown together.”

Shane shrugs. Hopes that it looks casual, and not like he’s announcing to everyone around that he’s lying. “Might’ve eaten something bad. I want a clear shot to the bathroom just in case, that’s all.”

If anything, Hayden looks more alarmed. “Should I get a trainer?”

Shane waves him off. “It’s fine. I have it under control.”

There’s a moment shortly after take-off, when Shane thinks this is it. The cord between them draws taut, as Shane presumably leaves Ilya’s comfortable range. Shane waits. For seizures or zones or whatever. Or, preferably, for the bond to snap.

None of that happens. By the time the pain starts, at least the seatbelt light has turned off. Shane shoots Hayden an uneasy smile, hurries to the bathroom, and then vomits profusely. The nausea and pain don’t fully abate, but instead Shane starts to feel… stretched. The thick cord becomes more of a rope, then a strand of yarn, then a string, and then it is the fishing wire that started everything in Toronto.

Still it doesn’t snap. Shane walks unsteadily back to his seat and accepts Hayden’s offered mint.

He spends the short remainder of the flight thinking about the mental barriers mentioned in the article. Shane is a fairly vivid visualizer for certain things. Hockey, for one. His senses for another. And always Ilya, and the tenuous connection between them.

With his eyes closed, Shane tries to picture different options. A closed door. But the fishing wire slips through the gaps between the hinges. It finds holes in a brick wall, solid cement, nailed wood. When Shane imagines a tar-like sludge, a giant blob of it, he has better success. It’s challenging to maintain, given that without the presence of the wire all of Shane’s senses fall to him again. But the barrier, at least, doesn’t require constant awareness like his sense of hearing and touch and taste do. Sure, it makes Shane feel weighed down and slow, but in comparison to the rawness and constant state of almost zone from before Boston, it’s still an improvement. Not a long term solution but…

By the time they land in New York, Shane thinks he can compartmentalize this. Enough to play this roadie at least. Then he’ll figure out what to do next.

~

Shane’s hockey is no longer a disaster. He still feels somewhat slow, and weighed down. But he’s not practically buzzing out of his skin and about to zone at least. His reaction time goes back to normal, he recovers faster from checks, and Montreal starts to win again.

They end their road trip with three straight victories and the energy in the locker room shifts. Shane tries not to let it bother him, how easily most of the team exchanges the resentful glares for cheerful back slaps and shouts of his name. He just never realized how fragile their regard is. It’s fine.

His mom stops calling him every day to ask if he’s sure he hasn’t pulled something, and the commentators stop talking about the ‘Hollander Slump,’ and everything is all so much better. Hayden’s the only one who keeps watching Shane carefully. Like he can tell something isn’t quite right, but doesn’t know what.

Shane is perfectly aware that he can’t keep this up forever. Whatever boon getting a 12 hour break from his senses granted him will wear off, and then what? Can they really keep using each other as a crutch?

They have to figure out how to break the bond.

Shane still hasn’t texted Ilya. He watches Boston game tape, and the Raiders are doing fine. Continuing a similar pattern of wins and losses as they were before the league’s star players fucked it all up.

Shane blames Ilya, at first. Maybe that’s not fair of him. But Ilya’s the one who initiates their links, and Ilya’s the one who didn’t say anything to him, and Ilya’s the one who failed at breaking this connection.

Except Shane’s traitorous brain replays their argument again and again.

I did not want to–

I told you we should stop–

You begged me–

And he comes to a worse conclusion.

He’s still pissed at Ilya for not telling him this was a possibility. But when it comes down to it, the real fault lies with Shane.

All the way back in 2010, Ilya only linked with him because Shane zoned. Shane has always been the one clinging to their links, greedy for every extra second. Shane is the one who forced their tether that last night, when Ilya had clearly been trying to break things off.

Because with this new perspective, he can see that’s what the past few years have been about. Ever since that first time at Shane’s investment property, Ilya has been pulling back. Putting distance between them, trying to protect them both from this eventuality. Hell, if Shane hadn’t been so persistent, so fucking needy and greedy and desperate, Ilya probably would’ve succeeded a long time ago.

Shane’s the one who caused this.

Because he does like tethering with Ilya, trusts him to cushion the frenetic energy of Shane’s senses. Shane likes when they lie skin to skin, when Ilya fucks him so well they practically become one person. Since the beginning, Shane has hated walking away from their encounters. So if anyone’s longing has messed with things, turned something harmless into a fucking trap, it’s Shane.

Guilt replaces anger and it makes Shane feel worse.

He’s not in love with Rozanov or anything. But he does like him, as a person. Shane enjoys their intimacy, the sex and all of the softness before and after. To an extent, Shane can even admit that he covets Ilya’s attention. Felt his stomach curdle when Ilya mentioned linking with other people, has always felt something similar at Rozanov getting papped with his model of the week. Shane thinks it must be wires getting crossed somehow. Between rivalry and linking, he’s gotten confused.

Shane’s always been a person attached to his patterns and routines. He doesn’t like changes or alterations, and he must’ve slotted this thing with Ilya somewhere more integral than he intended. And now he caused this.

So Shane can’t text Ilya, can’t reopen this conversation until he has a solution. Until he can fix his mistake.

October turns to November.

Two weeks after Boston, after they trounce LA, JJ stops him from getting on the elevator.

“I am taking you out, capitaine!” JJ insists. “Change your clothes, put on something that is not Metros gear. We are in LA. There is no better time to find ourselves some hot actresses, ouais?”

“I’m good, JJ,” Shane says. “I just want to rest after the game, get ready for a push, back in Montreal.”

JJ snorts. “Push? In November? We are already better in the standings, now that you have remembered how to skate. And you will play even better if you get fucking laid!”

“I don’t–” Shane’s stomach turns at the thought of having sex with a stranger right now. It feels wrong, when he’s still linked to Rozanov.

JJ shifts tactics. “If you come tonight, I will not ask again for a month. No, two! Please, capitaine, come be my fucking wingman. The rest of our teammates are too ugly.”

“Fuck yourself, Boiziau,” Couillard says, pushing past them to the elevator.

“And,” JJ continues, unbothered, “you are the only one with your face on billboards. That is social capital, mon ami.”

Shane folds. “Fine. But you don’t drag me out for two months, and I’m not staying out too late.”

JJ gets them into a private event, because of course he does. His connections to interesting people are somewhat of a legend on the team, and Shane should’ve known that would extend to Los Angeles. Some music awards show attended by the rich and famous books out a club for their after party and before Shane can think of asking to go somewhere a bit less insane, JJ is ushering him inside, greeting someone with a backslapping hug.

Shane’s not a complete recluse. He watches a lot of movies on planes. He knows who Pitbull is, for fuck’s sake. But he lets JJ drag him around by the arm, through the crowd of well-dressed people, pointing out celebrities as he goes.

The music is so loud that it becomes a touch sensation as well, vibrating up Shane’s legs. He holds on tight to his senses, and regrets agreeing to this.

JJ forgets that Shane is sentinel, sometimes. Or doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s not alone, really. The whole team never mentions it, never asks him about it. Maybe it’s because Shane doesn’t talk about it either. They all think his godawful diet is about nutrition, but Shane can’t exactly tell them that he has a whole extra sense undocumented in his medical files.

So Shane is pretty sure it never crossed JJ’s mind that a party and place like this would be a sensory landmine. That, hell, part of the reason Shane rarely goes out with the team is because he doesn’t want to risk a zone.

But it’s only been two weeks since he got a break from his senses. Shane is as fine as he gets. He’ll deal for a couple hours, and then head back to the hotel.

It only takes 45 minutes for Shane to lose JJ to a crowd of well-dressed musicians. He takes the opportunity for what it is and heads for the walls, far from the speakers. Spying an empty booth, Shane slides in and takes a second to breathe.

The booth isn’t empty.

Shane shakes hands with Rose Landry, the actress who starred in the free movie shown on their flight from Montreal to LA.

It’s a surprisingly nice conversation. She recognizes him as an avid hockey fan herself. They share similar experiences navigating fame and advertisements and the horrors of increasing social media expectations. She’s funny and beautiful and interested in hockey. While sometimes Shane misses signals, he’s aware that she’s flirting. Hell, if he unclenches his hearing just a little, he can hear her heart pick up speed when he rolls his shirt sleeves up to the elbow.

Shane wants to want. Last year, Shane probably would’ve convinced himself to sleep with her. But there’s a sludgy blob of tar taking up space in his head that reminds him not to drag anyone else into this fucking mess.

“Let me buy you a drink!” Rose says.

When they come, the glasses are sticky. Shane wraps a napkin around his drink and braces. He can only infinitesimally let up on his hearing if he doesn’t want his head to explode. So he eases up on his touch sense as much as he can, until he’s hyperaware of his seams, careful to keep his bare skin far from any surface.

He swallows the mixed drink in three big gulps. Too many flavors. Citrus and the vanilla and oak of the rum and the carbon dioxide of the tonic water and the soap used to clean and sterilize the glasses, but not enough, because the last person who drank from this had something with vodka–

Rose stares at him, glass halfway to her lips. “Well, I wasn’t expecting–”

“Shit!”

Cold liquid splashes against his shoulder, down his wrist. Drips and pools on the table.

He’s dimly aware of someone in very tall heels apologizing profusely, smacking dabbing? at his shirt with sandpaper a napkin. Instinctively, he pulls back on his sense of touch, but the drink lingers in his mouth between his teeth, in the crevasses of his cheeks.

Shane needs to get out. He needs to get out now.

“Don’t worry about it,” he hears his voice say, from very far away. “Excuse me.”

Shane doesn’t run, because he can’t draw attention. He sticks to the edge of the dance floor and moves away from the speakers until he sees a glowing exit sign. He tries not to breathe or move his tongue or adjust his arm and thinks shit shit shit.

Shane is outside.

This is worse, maybe. So many sounds in the city and a breeze ruffles his wet shirt and Shane licks his lips without thinking and–

And–

He finds somewhere dark. A parking lot. He clings desperately to his control even though it’s all slipping away from him and he pops the buttons on his wet shirt. The echoes ring for so long when they hit the pavement. And then Shane is in his undershirt and his arm is still sticky but it’s better, partly, it’s better.

His knees threaten to give out but sitting would be bad, would introduce so many extra variables. He squats instead. Breathes through it and breathes and breathes.

Rose Landry is crouching in front of him.

Shane can’t escape the sound of her voice not even with his ears ringing, because he can’t escape the sound of horns honking and buzzing streetlights and so far away he might be imagining it the crash of waves on the beach.

“Shane! Shit, I think you’re zoning, I’m so sorry.” A long pause that is not silent because there is so much. Shane wants to tell her to go away, to leave him alone, to let him embarrass himself privately, but words are so fucking far. “Listen, I don’t advertise it or anything, but I’m actually a guide. Not very strong, but I’m going to help you, okay?” And then she’s closing her eyes and focusing and Shane wants to tell her stop, don’t bother, you can’t–

It’s like an electric shock. The opposite of the potentiality between Shane and Ilya. An unpleasant warning that crackles through them both. Rose forces it anyway. Right up until she moves to stand in a space already occupied.

She bounces off. Rose sits down hard on the dirty pavement in her dress and stares at him. There’s no room in Shane’s brain to wonder what she’s thinking. Thankfully, she tells him. “I don’t know what’s happening, but you already have a bond there. I don’t know who– But you need to use it, Shane. Please.”

Shane wants to say no. Because that bond shouldn’t be there, he got them into this mess, and Shane shouldn’t benefit from it. But Shane doesn’t want to die. He could die from an unstopped zone. And no one knows that the only person who can help him just played a game in Detroit, 3,000 kilometers from here.

Shane closes his eyes. He imagines the tar washed away by one great cleansing wave and feels lighter, looser. And there is the fishing wire. Shane doesn’t understand how. They’re so far apart, it should be fucking impossible.

But Ilya is there. Shane leans on his strength, his control, his surety. Imagines the weight of Ilya’s thumb pressing on his tongue, the sweat-ash taste. The divots and ridges of his palm, squeezing Shane’s bicep appreciatively. The sound of his heartbeat, slow with sleep and fast with pleasure. The sound of his skates cutting into the ice.

Shane finds equilibrium.

When he opens his eyes, Rose Landry is still there, thumb hovering over her phone.

“Oh, thank fucking god,” she says. Her arm drops to her side. “I had no idea how I was going to explain this to 911.”

~

“So to summarize,” Rose starts. She raises her hand to count off her fingers. The sleeve of her baggy sweatshirt slides halfway down her arm. “You met a guide and had perhaps the most intense spark of potential I’ve ever heard of. You have an entire third sense you’ve hidden from everyone including your parents. You started hooking up and linking with this mystery guide. Not linking made you play the worst hockey of your career.” Rose taps her thumb to end the list of Shane’s humiliations. “And now you accidentally got stuck together, which is apparently a thing that happens often enough that it has a name.” She tilts her head. “I’ve literally never heard of this before. Really racking up failures of the US education system here.”

“Canadian too,” Shane says wryly.

After Shane helped her to her feet in that LA parking lot, Rose fucking Landry insisted on bringing him back to his hotel. She forcibly saved her number in his phone, texted herself, and informed him they would be getting dinner the next time she was anywhere near Montreal. Shane felt like too much shit at the time to protest and Rose deemed New York ‘close enough’ to hop on a plane two weeks later.

She acquiesced easily when Shane asked to get takeout, away from prying ears. So Shane texted her the address of his sentinel-proof condo. And now he has an A-list celebrity in the living room of the place he bought to secretly fuck in. It’s jarring, somewhat, to see Rose Landry wearing sweats, curled up in his lone armchair. Especially since the only other time Shane met her, she was dressed to the nines. Like this, Shane can almost imagine they’re friends.

“And you can’t just, permanently bond with this guide, why, exactly?” Rose asks. “I mean, really, Shane. This sounds like a romance movie script.”

Shane’s ears burn. “It’s not like that. We’re not dating.”

Rose laughs. “Are you sure? I can count the number of people I’ve linked with on one hand, and most of them are family members. Bonds are pretty intimate.”

Shane shakes his head. “It’s just a pressure valve. Helps us both, uh, equalize, I guess,” Shane almost chokes on a pronoun. “She links with other people. Besides me, I mean.”

“I’m not convinced,” Rose says. “No, seriously. Because you cuddle with them and share meals and text each other about non-sex things–”

“Not for a while.”

Rose waves him off. “Whatever, but you did. If you ask me, that sounds more serious than just sex. You said you helped them once too, right?”

“Yeah, kind of,” Shane hedges. “Her range is pretty big, and I guess guides need a break too sometimes.”

“Another thing I’ve never heard of,” Rose mutters. “But anyway, even if you’re not dating now, what’s stopping you from making it official? You’ve yet to say that you aren’t interested.”

“We can’t,” Shane says. He tries to think of an explanation that she’ll accept. “I mean we literally can’t. Neither of us can relocate with our jobs.”

“You could get traded to a closer team,” Rose suggests, like it isn’t the craziest thing Shane has ever heard.

“Yeah, no. I can’t control trades. And my ELC only ended in 2013. We negotiated my current contract to end when I’m eligible for unrestricted free agency in summer of 2017, so I have better leverage. I’m stuck until then.” That had been a whole ordeal. Shane’s mom was of the opinion that he should sign a max length 7-year contract with a delayed no-movement clause coming into effect once he was eligible. But Shane’s agent Farah insisted that Montreal was lowballing their salary offer for the current contract. Assuming Shane manages to actually win some Cups, he’ll be in a much better negotiating position in 2017.

If his brain doesn’t explode from this unfinished bond before then, at least.

Rose’s teeth indent her bottom lip. She sighs and uncrosses her legs. For the first time since he met her, she looks hesitant. “I know I barely know you, and this might be way out of line. But is the reason your guide can’t move because they’re also a… player?” Rose winces. “That sounds bad. I don’t even mean–”

Shane’s heart rabbits into his fucking throat. “I, uh. What are you trying to–”

“It’s okay!” Rose insists. She raises her hands, palms out. “It’s really, really okay. I would never tell anyone. But I just get the feeling, maybe, that this is all a little more complicated than just a girl with a busy job.”

Shane stares at her. He could be zoning again, with how far away words feel. There’s no way that she means what he thinks she does. “I don’t understand.”

“Is your guide maybe… a guy?” Rose says, voice delicate.

Shane wants to be sick.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. There’s something about him then, something that other people can see. He’s dealt with gay ‘jokes’ his whole life, right there alongside the Asian jokes. But that’s just part of hockey. And sure, it sucked a little to figure out it was partly true. But Shane does hookup with women.

“I’ve slept with women, before,” Shane says. His voice shakes. He feels like an asshole saying it, especially to a woman, and somehow it sounds like he’s lying.

“And guys?” Rose asks gently.

Shane flinches.

“It really is fine,” she says quickly. “Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but honestly I went to theater school, Shane. I’ve had more gay boyfriends than straight ones. And you haven’t checked out my boobs at all, which maybe shouldn’t be damning but,” Rose shrugs.

Shane hasn’t, has he? Because he doesn’t do that. Sometimes he does, when he’s decided to pick up during the season to get the team off his back. But honestly, they usually take care of most of the flirting for him. It’s not damning, necessarily. Shane doesn’t check out guys in the locker room either, but he does… notice. Nice arms, or abs, or dicks.

Oh holy fuck. Shane isn’t supposed to be having this crisis right now. He’s literally bonded to his fucking rival, he doesn’t have time to panic about his fucking sexuality on top of it.

Ducking forward, Shane sticks his head between his knees. He tries to breathe through the ache in his chest. Bizarrely, terribly, he wishes Ilya was here. There’s nothing more grounding than Ilya, taking up every ounce of sensory input, every inch of Shane’s cortical matter.

“Am I fucking gay?” Shane chokes out.

“Maybe?” Rose sounds stressed. He feels the couch dip. She doesn’t touch him, thankfully. “This is a panic attack, right? Not a zone? I’m sorry I keep fucking this up.”

That makes Shane laugh. It’s strangled, but it still interrupts the rapid pace of his breathing enough for him to catch a full breath. And then another. Shane stays hunched. Because, frankly, he doesn’t want to look at Rose’s face for this.

“Say, um. Say hypothetically, my guide is a man. We still can’t– We couldn’t. His contract–”

“Oh shit,” Rose says, delighted. “He’s actually another player? I only said that because it was ‘player’ or calling you both ‘bees’ and that sounded stupid.”

“Fuck,” Shane breathes. “I don’t– Forget I said that.”

“Forgotten,” Rose promises. “You were saying?”

Shane clears his throat. Studies the wooden grain of his floorboards. “Even if, I mean. The thing is, this is my fault.”

Rose says nothing for a long moment. “What do you mean?”

Shane’s eyes burn. “It’s my fault. I mean, it’s his too, for not fucking telling me we could get stuck like this. But I know he doesn’t want a, a fucking bond. He only did it the first time because I was zoning! And I just kept pushing him and pushing him to tether, and then this happens. He must fucking hate me.”

Rose whistles lowly. “Okay, can you sit up? I feel silly talking to your back.” Reluctantly, Shane uncurls. He still can’t bring himself to look at her face, but he turns his body towards her to show he’s listening. “I feel like maybe you’re missing something really obvious.”

“What?”

“I mean, Shane,” Rose says, “you realize you both had to want it, right? Like, that’s the whole thing about sentinels and guides. You both have to want a bond for it to happen. Even the temporary stuff, you have to be open to it! But I have never heard of two people bonding in any type of permanent way unless they both really, really want it.”

Shane swallows. “That’s, that’s not–”

“Like years of research have gone into this,” Rose says. “You literally can’t force a bond. Even if some people need drugs to help them form one, both people have to choose for it to stick. And people tried to force it! That’s why some countries had all those issues with unwilling partnerships,” Rose wrinkles her nose. “I mean, I think technically it doesn’t have to be love. You can want it for logical reasons, which I guess doesn’t stop family or national duty, but you definitely both have to be open to it.”

Shane feels like he’s taken a high stick to the face. Dimly, he hopes that Ilya can’t sense any of this. That the distance is far too great for him to experience all of Shane’s emotional fucking highs and lows since he removed the block.

He thinks of Ilya, saying, time-bomb. Of checking, over and over, that Shane was okay. Of all the chances he had to break the link, when instead, he kept letting Shane suggest longer. The way he touched Shane so gently in the shower. He thinks about those first seconds after they tethered again, when the ecstasy running through them both was so profound, so intense. Two neutron stars spiraling into collision, into a black hole of need.

It’s not that Shane isn’t angry. Ilya withheld extremely important information. It’s not that he thinks they can have a permanent bond. Obviously they can’t, not while living in two different cities.

But hockey is so much better like this. Shane feels grounded, steady, for maybe the first time since he was 12, senses screaming to life on the rink. If Ilya could maybe, possibly, want this too… Shane doesn’t want to give it up. Doesn’t want to give Ilya up.

“Tell me if I’m crazy,” Shane starts, “but…”

~

The Metros have two days off following their next home game. Practice is mandatory on the second day. The first day is an optional skate. Shane has never missed an optional skate before. Too much responsibility, as alternate and then as captain. Too much pressure to bring the Metros into relevance. Too much guilt about being a bad role model.

Fuck it. Shane books a plane ticket.

~

Chapter End Notes

(bet I made you all nervous for a second there huh)