Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova, Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova

Characters:

Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Grigori Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Platonic Soulmates, Cosmic Quantum Entanglement but make it romantic, Worldbuilding, Soulmate Pseudoscience, Unique Soulmate Sex, Epistolary Componenets, Forced Proximity, Bad Parent Grigori Rozanov, Irina Rozanova Haunts the Narrative, Ilya Rozanov Needs Therapy, Canon-Typical References to Suicide, Having a soulmate doesn't fix everything, Angst with a Happy Ending, Racism, Self-Discovery, Identity Crisis, Ilya and Svetlana are PLATONIC SOULMATES, Light Dom/sub, Under-negotiated Kink, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Hollanov has sex to avoid discussing the horrors, No love triangles or threesomes, 18-year-olds are not always very self-aware, No homophobia because we deserve it, Inspired by Poetry, Tags that matter a lot to the author but not to the plot:, Shane Hollander doesn't eat salmon and brown rice. He just eats food and it's not a thing, Ilya Rozanov does not talk like a caveman, Bisexual Hayden Pike, In fact all the hockey players are a little gay, Translating Russian is Not Required to Read This

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-29 Updated: 2026-10-20 Words: 109,949 Chapters: 21/24

Every Atom

Summary

They had quietly, in the vacuum that he now realized always existed between them, made a universe. Rearranged their souls and lives into one.
---
Shane Hollander knows that having a soulmate can be a death sentence for his hockey career.

Ilya Rozanov knows that having a soulmate can just be a death sentence.

But no one gets to choose their soulmate.

OR Shane and Ilya shared the deepest kind of soulmate bond that makes it physically painful to separate for long periods but still have to discover what it means to choose each other.

Notes

Huge thanks to closetfascination for beta and cheer reading. It has made this fic better. Much love and appreciation to Ktspin for the hockey. Anything correct about hockey is because of her and closetfascination. Anything wrong about hockey is on me because I refuse to watch sports where people get CTE

This fic was lightly inspired by "Where I Does Not Exist, Nor You" by Kath_Star

I love soulmate AUs, but they make me ask SO many questions. One that wouldn't leave me alone was: what if your soulmate is a bad person? Are they just not a bad person to you, but they still are to everyone else? That's kind of messed up.
So that was churning when I read the first 2 or 3 chapters of "Where I Does Not Exist, Nor You" and my head exploded because I was like Soulmate AU with so many RULES!! So I didn't use any of their mechanisms; in fact, I tried to steer myself away from any overlap with their story to create my own world. When I started this, there were only 3ish chapters published (months ago!) I know that there are more now, but I have not read them, so any overlap after that point is coincidental. I read it so long ago that I honestly don't remember much about it anymore. I am very excited to catch up once I get this published!

I transliterate 99.99% of the Russian. Anything that isn't transliterated is immediately translated, except once on purpose when you're not meant to know what the one word means but you can probably still guess based on context.
"This is dialogue in English."
«This is dialogue in Russian.»

This fic includes adaptations of Walt Whitman’s A Song of Myself. This poem is all about an ever-expansive concept of identity and selfhood that is very thematically relevant. You don't need to know anything about the poem to read this, though. It's not a lot so if you don't love poetry, it's only a few lines here and there.

In the poem, identity as a single person “I” melts away into a version of identity that includes all beings, all things, all atoms. It is a profoundly democratic way of understanding the worth and beauty of all beings (human and non-human). It is long, but worth taking the time to listen to if you’re interested. I think poetry should be listened to, so find a YouTube video or read it aloud to yourself. But, again, it's not at all required.

The other reason I picked this poem is, to quote the illustrious Scott Hunter, that it is “gay as hell.” I like to think that Walt Whitman would also have an excellent time in Ibiza, too.

Whitman wrote in first person, present tense. I am writing in third person, past tense, so I have taken Whitman’s spirit of the universality of ideas and changed them within the text to be third person past tense.

I said this in the tags, but I know some people skim/don't read tags to avoid the spoilers, but if you're concerned about the Svetlana & Ilya dynamic, you can find some spoilers here.

Ilya and Sveta are platonic soulmates. There are references to them having PAST sexual history together, but nothing once Shane comes onto the scene. They definitely have less implied sex than in either book or show canon.
There is no love triangle. No romantic jealousy between Shane and Svetlana. They get along quite well through this whole thing. There are no threesomes.

This fic is pretty much all written, but it needs more editing. The chapter count might change as I rearrange things and add/cut epistolary pieces.

I absolutely Frankenstein('s monster) show and book canon. It's all over the place, and I am not sorry.

 

If you catch typos, do let me know in the comments. If you have other feedback for me and are willing to discuss via Discord or something, I would love that, but I don't want it in the comments.

Chapter 1: Simple Bonds

Chapter Notes

Made in Canva

Ilya stepped out of the jet bridge and into an airport. One much bigger than he expected for the fucking middle of nowhere Canada. He was greeted by a billboard of two women gazing longingly at each other under a sky full of stars. The ad was perfectly designed to drag the viewer’s gaze through the same, synchronized pattern. He first saw the dark-skinned woman in the foreground. Then, he followed her gaze to her partner, their clasped hand, and finally took in the text; it was the same pattern followed by everyone, even a sleepy Russian whose eyes felt like sandpaper. It was almost by compulsion—like the universe had some secret commandments he could not help but follow. He didn’t need to understand the words. The meaning was clear.

This could be you.

Pay us, and you’ll find your soulmate.

Billboards like these were in every city Ilya had ever visited, and each of them made him feel grateful that he had already met his soulmate.

There were few people at the airport at this time of night. Ilya passed by all the empty shops and stores, disappointed: hungry and queasy at the same time after so many hours in a pressurized tube.

Once all his teammates gathered together, they made their way out of the security area—leaving the nebulous realm that exists on the far side of metal detectors and X-ray machines. The only part of the world that didn’t count as anywhere. The automatic doors whooshed closed behind Ilya, nearly catching his roller bag in the process. Now he was in Canada, not “just the airport.” His mind thrummed with pleasure as he approached his soulmate for the first time in months. The intrinsic knowing of another person filled him, seeped through his mind, changed how he perceived the world around him in some fundamental but indescribable way. People who had a cerebral bond knew. For people who didn’t, it was like trying to imagine ultraviolet light.

His eyes moved instinctively to the medium-height girl standing with two cups in her hand, exactly where he expected her, underneath a large tree, surprising for the inside of an airport. All its branches drew his gaze straight to her. As if he needed that. He never had to scan a crowd for her auburn ringlets or luminous brown skin. He simply knew exactly where she was at all times—the benefit of their bond. It was difficult for him to remember a time before that was true.

His pleasure at seeing her and the coffee in her hand was echoed by her mirrored joy at seeing him. As he walked toward her, fighting down the urge to run, she set the cups down on the tree’s pot and opened her arms.

A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag

He lowered his chin to the top of her head, finally in his favorite place in the world. The shine of her, the rush of her affection, and the coconut oil scent of her hair told him that he was home.

«I can’t believe I let you drag me somewhere that has worse tea than America,» Svetlana said into his chest in Russian.

«Oh, then it’s too bad that I forgot to bring your tea,» he said while doing his best to feign guilt.

He knew she’d never buy it. She was too perceptive, too in tune with him after a lifetime to be tricked. She knew that he’d gone to the tiny teashop on the corner of her street and bought as much of her favorite blend as he could.

«Liar,» she sighed and pulled apart, feeling as reluctant to be separated as he did after their last semester apart.

«Ilyukha, tell your girlfriend to hurry up,» his teammate called from the exit.

Ilya kept holding Sveta’s hand and turned to face him.

«Shut the fuck up, Sasha,» Ilya said with a grin.

Sasha, unlike most other people, did understand that Sveta was not his girlfriend, never had been, but didn’t miss a chance to tease them anyway. Ilya grabbed his bag and hurried after his teammates. The bus was idling at the curb, diesel fumes hardly noticeable in the cold, dry air. Waiting for his turn to load his bag, Ilya stared up at the sky and was surprised to see Gemini right above him—twins linked together in one constellation. His zodiac sign, not that he believed in that shit, but tonight it seemed to hang huge in the sky. He stared until someone nudged him closer to the van.

The smell of exhaust grew stronger as he waited and mingled with cigarette smoke that blew into his face and made his teeth ache with need. Once he’d loaded all his bags under the bus, he crammed into the seat next to Sveta and grabbed his coffee, grateful for the warmth of the cup in his hands. He wasn’t sure exactly how cold it was, but he was familiar with the way that depth of cold in the predawn light punched the air from his lungs and stiffened his fingers within minutes. His knees dug into the seat in front of him, and his shins hit the supposed footrest that couldn’t fully move out of the way anymore. At least the bus was warm and the coffee hot.

The bus was quiet in an oppressive sort of way, full of travel-weary hockey players, coaches, and a few parents who’d been able to make the trip. Ilya was incredibly thankful for Sveta in that moment, able to fortify himself mentally with her relatively well-rested state, even if it didn’t actually make his body any less weary. He felt immeasurably grateful for her waking up early to greet him at the airport when she could’ve just as easily slept in and met him at the hotel. He felt her brighten under his gratitude, and his spirits lifted even more.

She launched into a story about her latest fight with her father. He wanted her to return to Russia for her school holiday, but she insisted on seeing Ilya and returning home with his team in time for the religious holiday in January. Her annoyance, despite getting her way, washed over him. He adjusted the cross necklace at his throat.

«Svetlyachok, please, I’m too tired to be annoyed or block you out. Tell me something happy or keep it to yourself.»

She rolled her eyes at him, but he felt only fondness layering over her lingering exasperation. Ilya watched her close her eyes and felt her presence recede from his mind. The annoyance evaporated, but so did her bolstering wakefulness. He was left only with his own exhaustion. She continued to complain about her father. Ilya did his best to take in what she said and wished his fights with his own father were about wanting to see each other more.

At the hotel, he got to skip the lengthy check-in process since Sveta had already been there and gotten their room. Upon entering, Ilya collapsed on the closest bed, and Sveta jumped on top of him, her weight a comforting presence on top of him. He tried to pull her up to kiss her, but she turned her head and kissed his cheek.

«Gross, Ilyushka. You need to shower, brush your teeth, and sleep before you even think about touching me.»

When Ilya emerged from the shower, Sveta had turned on the TV and was in the middle of a reality show that was too loud, too bright for the time Ilya’s body was insisting it was. He tried to listen, but the English flowed in one ear and out the other without leaving any meaning behind.

«What is this, Svet?»

«A mess,» she said, laughing.

Ilya felt her genuine amusement. He never understood what she saw in these kinds of shows, but it was hard not to love them when she did.

«It’s called Web of Life. It’s about all these terrible soulmates, and truly, they deserve each other. It started with two men who have a cerebral bond, fell in love and got married,» she said, gesturing as they kissed on screen. «So then, on vacation in Spain, Victor met his somatic soulmate, Lola. Victor and Lola have a profound bond on top of the somatic connection. But they only have platonic feelings. Still, the second they bonded, they had to stay together for weeks. Being separate was too painful, they claimed. But Victor’s husband had a huge project due at work, so he couldn’t just stay in Spain while Victor’s went to a bond center for six weeks.»

Ilya snorted at how dramatic some people with profound bonds were. Granted, he and Sveta had the much more common “simple” connection. Their minds were linked, sharing emotions but not thoughts. They couldn’t read each other’s minds—more like their moods. Pain, joy, and love all could be given and taken across their bond. But being separate didn’t hurt. It fucking sucked, though. But their connection wasn’t reliant on distance, which made Sveta’s four years at the UN International School in New York miserable but survivable.

Sveta continued:

«Lola also had a cerebral bond herself, Giselle. And Giselle is super jealous of Victor, even though she literally knows that Lola doesn’t love Victor like that because they’re in each other’s minds. But Lola and Giselle both manage to get soulmate visas and move to the US so they can all be together. But Giselle still hates Victor and Kai.»

Sveta continued to describe these people’s sordid bonds as Ilya watched them shout at each other, growing exasperated at their constant confrontations and not being able to understand them.

«Is this even real?» He asked skeptically. Having multiple soulmates wasn’t exactly uncommon, but having so many people have multiple soulmates was unheard of. And one of those being a profound bond was really rare.

«Who cares? It’s entertaining,» she replied. She began translating the show as best as she could as she felt his annoyance peak. His barely-passable English was a sore spot for him, one that her near-native fluency pressed on.

«Ugh, these profounders are always so pretentious about their bond. How ‘no one can understand their sense of oneness.’ How the simple links just don’t compare. Their connection is like two oceans flowing into one another.»

He blew a raspberry in solidarity. Sveta was his whole world, and he couldn’t imagine being more connected to anyone. Their minds stayed linked on opposite sides of the world. How much more could a so-called “profound” bond be?

The show kept playing a rabble of noise that he stopped even trying to parse.

Not for the first time did he wish that their bond would let him access actual information in her head. Then he, too, could be fluent and would likely have gotten much better grades in school.

Ilya moved through his haircare routine half-heartedly, barely feeling his soft curls through his fingers. He would likely run into NHL scouts and coaches and needed to make a good impression. Sveta could clearly sense his inattention.

«Bring me your products. I’ll do it,» Sveta said.

Ilya sank down gratefully at her feet and felt her hands move deftly through his hair. Her nails scraped softly against his scalp in a soothing massage. He continued to watch TV, wishing it had Russian subtitles so he could learn. It was hard for Sveta to listen and translate quickly enough to keep up with the show, but she was able to catch him up as the too loud and aggressively cheerful commercials blared.

«We will not be doing this,» Sveta said, waving her hand at the screeching argument on screen. «If your somatic has another soulmate too, someone has to start blockers. It’s too much.»

Ilya stiffened and said:

«No one is taking blockers. I will not have another bond. You’ll be the one with a second bond, not me.»

He felt her genuine remorse for bringing up blockers.

«I think you will,» she said. «You’ll fall so in love and marry them. You’ll sign with Boston, and I’ll live next door to you in a mansion you’ve built for me with your NHL money.»

The rest of this well-worn argument played out silently. They’d had it so many times that they could’ve done it that way even without their connection. He’d insist he wouldn’t have another soulmate, that somatics were nightmares for contact sports. She, knowing hockey was only half the reason he refused so vehemently, told him it would be okay. And he would relent, as usual.

«Anything for my Svetlyachok,» he said.

«And my hot wife,» she added.

«Or hot husband. Your ex was hot,» Ilya said.

«No. Men are dead to me. Only women, and unbonded this time,» she laughed, but Ilya felt the pang of sorrow underneath her bravado.

«Hypocrite. But fine, I’ll have the hot husband. You have the hot wife,» he said, hoping to make her laugh. He tried to reach through the bond and take some of her sadness.

«Stop that. You have enough. Plus, you need to sleep.»

As she said this, she maneuvered his bonnet onto his head. He rolled his eyes.

«If you ever tell anyone that I have this, I will kill you,» he said. She did not call out his lie.

He crawled into bed, barely noticing the scratch of the overly washed sheets and was asleep within moments.

---

Regina, Canada

December 2008

Shane Hollander’s life was organized. Everything had its place physically, but also mentally. Hockey took up the most real estate. Plays, teammates, ambitions filed neatly away in his mind, put in places he could access without really thinking. Physically, his room was tidy and covered with paraphernalia—awards, jerseys, photos, posters of NHL players. His gear had a place in the garage. He had routines for how to keep it all clean.

He had a small amount of mental and physical space for non-hockey things. Mostly his family. A few friends. Just enough for school to get good enough grades.

He knew who he was.

Subject: Shane Hollander
Category: Self
Subclass: Hockey Player
Tags: Center, Captain, Organized, Dedicated, Future NHL Pro
Misc Tags: Gay, Awkward, Unbonded, Single

He knew himself best when he was on the ice. To that end, his body was buzzing with the high, like a star going supernova, that he only got from hockey. He hadn’t tried any other ways, but he knew that it wouldn’t be half as good as being up 4-1 in the final few minutes of the third. He skated off what he knew would be his last minutes in the game.

His teammate, Kyle Whittaker, skated on, and Shane winced internally. Witty was a good player, great even, but he’d been at a bond center for a month, off the ice for two, and had only recently returned to practice in a non-contact jersey. But he had to admit, this game was the perfect time for him to jump back in. Not too physical, and they had such a lead that he shouldn’t need to push himself too hard. Shane felt bad for him; he was set to enter the draft next summer like Shane, but those plans had been thrown into upheaval when he’d developed a somatic bond with the boy who moved in across the street from him.

During practice, Shane had watched Kyle and his now-boyfriend Mitchell do their own exercises, learning to separate their body’s sensations, while the rest of the team ran drills. When they concentrated, they could stop sharing for a few minutes. Long enough for a shift on the ice. They tried blockers, but apparently the side effects were too much for both of them.

Shane turned around and glanced into the bond box. Mitchell was there, teeth gritted, failing to keep the terror off his face. The other partners, especially the coach’s wife, were trying to coach him in holding their boundaries, but the rest of the partners were cerebral, and it apparently wasn’t the same. Shane wasn’t sure who he felt worse for, Mitchell, whose body could now be subjected to all the pain of a brutal contact sport or Witty, who’d been training his entire life to go to the NHL and now might either choose not to go to spare his partner or get passed over by teams who didn’t want to deal with the hassle.

 It was the perfect place for them to practice holding themselves apart. The Czech Republic was not real competition for the Canadian team. It was essentially a warm-up game. Shane thought Mitchell must be doing well because his heart-rate monitor wasn’t spiking.

The first 30 seconds of the shift went well enough. Witty connected two passes like he hadn’t missed any time at all. The problem came just moments before his shift was over when he got checked by a Czech defenseman after taking a shot on goal. The contact didn’t look particularly hard by hockey standards, but Shane heard Mitchell howl behind him. The heart rate monitor pinged, and Mitchell’s breath was labored. Their boundaries had collapsed, and Mitchell was sharing the pain and exertion of Witty—all because the hit broke their concentration. Witty made a beeline for the bond box to check on Mitchell, frantic, sweaty—his face a rictus of concern and guilt.

“Oh my god, Mitchell, are you okay? I’m so sorry. I’ll keep practicing. I won’t let you feel this again…”

Shane tried to tune out Witty’s litany of apologies and was grateful that he didn’t have a soulmate. It wasn’t that he didn’t want one—just that a somatic was nearly always a death sentence for hockey players, and contact sport athletes in general, and it seemed like a violation. He recoiled from the idea of sharing something so intimate with someone who was practically a stranger. He was more disposed to a cerebral bond, since that’s what his parents have, but it never seemed worth the risk.

He already knew how he felt about bonds. He’d classified it long ago.

Subject: Soulmates
Category: Career Ruiners
Subclass: Nightmares
Tags: Lack of Control, Distraction, Failed Cost-Benefit Analysis, Avoid at all costs.

Shane’s team scored once more in the final minute. The Czech defense completely collapsed; Witty should’ve gone back out for another shift for the last minute, but coach had let him skip it.

When the game was over, they made their way back to the hotel together, knowing they would be reversing the journey too soon for anyone’s liking. Early the next morning, they trudged back to the rink for their next game, and the games and laps between the hotel and arena quickly blurred together. They won almost all of their preliminary round games. Canada’s only real competition was Russia.     

His mom, Yuna, had been almost as obsessed with the Russian team as Shane was. Both of them watched as much game tape as they could get their hands on—grainy and shaky as it often was. He watched the tapes over and over like a compulsion and was eager to watch them in person.

Shane got his chance a few days later when Russia and the other teams playing in Saskatoon bused down to Regina for the semis and finals. Yuna, Shane, and even his father, David, watched closely. David, by any reasonable standard, was a huge hockey fan—had played hockey in university—but Yuna and Shane regularly burned him out. So, when Shane said he was surprised that David was watching the US/Russia game, David replied:

“Well, I feel like I’ve been eating dinner with Rozanov for weeks and had Yuna’s obsession burning through my brain. Least I can do is watch the kid play.”

Shane chuckled and once again was glad he didn’t have to worry about blocking his hockey obsession from anyone.

The game wasn’t quite a blowout, but it was clear that Rozanov was living up to the hype and that the Russian team was very, very good. The Russians played a very different style of hockey than Shane had seen in person. Physical, brutal. Shane thought of Mitchell and knew there was little chance that Witty would get on the ice during the inevitable Canada-Russia final. That would make things tough. Witty was the lynchpin of their second line; without him, the team lacked depth.

As Shane watched, he imagined his body skating in Rozanov’s style—explosive first strides, dominating cuts to the net that lost none of his momentum. Rozanov didn’t quite have Shane’s nearly magnetic stick handling ability, but he didn’t need it. He simply played through people without breaking stride. Shane could almost feel his long, powerful strides in his legs.

After the game finished 4-2 in favor of Russia, David said,

“Well, kiddo, looks like you have your work cut out for you.”

At the end of the game, Shane had interviews with a few scouts. The men always went out of their way to share that these were casual, low-stakes interviews. They were anything but. They might not be part of the formal draft process, but his mental file of interview prep and media training had grown thick in the past year as he practiced more and more.

After the interviews, Shane was filled with an unpleasant mixture of anxious attentiveness and exhaustion. Walking across the parking lot, wind blowing fiercely across his face, hoping for nothing more than a giant dinner before going straight to bed, he almost didn’t turn around when he heard a side door slam shut, but the goosebumps coursing down his back compelled him to see who it was.

He was pretty sure he saw Ilya Rozanov dart around the corner. Shane had been hoping for a chance to meet his only real competition before facing him on the ice, but their disparate schedules hadn’t made that easy.

Taking off before he could second-guess himself, he called to his parents,

“I’m going to go say hi. I’ll be back in a sec.”

His mom said something that was carried away by the wind. Hopefully, the car would be warmed up slightly by the time he got back. As he rounded the corner, he realized that Rozanov had likely ducked to this side of the building because it was a windbreak, and he was smoking.

Still walking, Shane watched Rozanov emulate a brooding cliché and felt not entirely in his body. He’d never been into bad boys; he didn’t understand the appeal. His two boyfriends had been very respectable guys he’d had no qualms introducing to his parents. But taking in Rozanov’s dark peacoat and toque, and his ease as he leaned back against the building, with one foot popped up, bracing himself on the wall, he thought just maybe he understood it a bit better

He realized he was staring as the desire to introduce himself warred with the part of him that was aghast that not only was he smoking, but he was doing so in front of a no-smoking sign. As he got closer, Rozanov stepped away from the wall, revealing that he wasn’t alone.

A dark-skinned girl with curly auburn hair, wearing a much newer-looking dark peacoat, was on Rozanov’s far side. Shane watched as Rozanov turned, took a deep drag on the cigarette, put one hand on the wall, the other on her waist, and leaned down and kissed her.

Shane stopped dead in his tracks, trying to decide if he should turn around.

Just as he’d decided that yes, he definitely should, the girl playfully pushed him away, exhaled the smoke that Rozanov had blown into her mouth, and stole his cigarette. Before his body had caught up with his mind, the girl said something to Rozanov in Russian and gestured at him.

Rozanov looked over, and Shane felt frozen for an entirely different reason as he met Rozanov’s piercing blue eyes. Dark blond curls poked out haphazardly beneath his toque. He had high cheekbones, pink with the cold and a square jaw. Shane took in his full, red lips and his whole body pulsed for a moment with something it took him a moment to place. Want, stronger than he’d ever felt before, coursed through him. Rozanov’s lips parted slightly. Shane imagined him licking his lips and tried to stop his body from trembling. 

God, of course, he was unbelievably hot. Shane could practically feel the contour of the muscles beneath his thick jacket.

It wasn’t enough that he was a generationally talented hockey player and Shane’s only real competition in the upcoming draft, but he was devastatingly handsome with a gorgeous girlfriend.

Fuck.

And they were both staring at him. She was nearly as beautiful as he was handsome. He might not be interested in her, but that didn’t make him blind.

And they were still making eye contact. Surely, it had been too long now.

“Um, hi,” he said, continuing to walk forward. “I’m—”

“Shane Hollander, yes. We know,” the girl said with the barest hint of an accent.

Shane shook her hand as Rozanov lit another cigarette and took a drag. Shane could feel the smoke burning in his lungs, but it was more pleasant than he thought it would be.

“Svetlana Vetrova,” she said and dropped his hand. She stepped back and added, “And this is Ilya.”

When Ilya didn’t react, she elbowed him. Ilya held his hand out, but made no move to step forward, leaving Shane to close the distance. When he touched Rozanov’s warm, dry hand, it was such a strange sensation. As Rozanov’s large fingers curled around his hand, it felt like he was shaking his own hand for the briefest of seconds. Warmth was radiating out from his palm, tingling like it did after it went to sleep. He broke contact quickly and made himself close his slightly open mouth. His eyes left his hand and moved back to Rozanov, who seemed to have felt none of it.

Still hoping to get some kind of reaction, or even a word out of Rozanov, he said,

“You’re an awesome player to watch.”

That earned him a cocky smile, and Shane hated the way it made his eyes twinkle like stars in the sky.

“Yes,” was all Rozanov said.

Shane let that hang in the seemingly infinite space between them, seeing if he would add anything. Instead, it felt like he’d weaponized the silence, trying to take him out at the knees. The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall.

Shane knew how to classify him now.  He could box him up and put him away and dodge his blows.

Subject: Ilya Rozanov
Category: Rival
Subclass: Phenomenal Player
Tags: Center, Captain, Fast Skater, Weak Crossovers
Misc. Tags: Asshole, Avoid at all costs, Arrogant

Ugh.

Shane prided himself on the honest and accurate classification of everything in his life. So, he updated the schema:

Subject: Ilya Rozanov
Category: Rival
Subclass: Phenomenal Player
Tags: Center, Captain, Fast Skater, Weak Crossovers
Misc. Tags: Attractive, Asshole, Avoid at all costs, Arrogant

It was just a fact, not a feeling. Unimportant except in the objective sense of accurate classifications. His feeling was that he needed to get the hell out of here.

“Okay, well, I should go. It was nice to meet you,” he made sure that he was looking at Svetlana as he said that.

He turned away and heard Rozanov start to say something, “You will,” maybe, but Svetlana cut him off.

“Don’t be a dick,” she said, in English, so Shane assumed it was for his benefit.

“You like my dick,” Rozanov said, also in English.

Shane tried not to react, but had to physically stop himself from running away as he heard them both giggle. His lungs still burned and didn’t stop until he reached his parents’ warm car.

---

As Ilya skated lazily to center ice, Hollander hopped the boards for the face-off.  Russia was up 3-2 with five minutes left in the second. All three of Russia’s goals had happened when Hollander wasn’t playing. Ilya had watched the Canadian’s almost lose to Sweden the day before and knew that if Whittaker didn’t take the ice, the game would be a relatively easy win.

It was his fourth face-off against Hollander. Across the circle, he took in Hollander’s appearance again. His jet-black hair was hidden under his helmet, but his large, dark eyes never met his. Ilya tried not to stare at his flawless skin, dusted with freckles across the bridge of his nose. Hollander was nearly the same size as him, making their gameplay about more than just being able to overpower each other.

Ilya felt his resolve harden. His last three attempts to get under Hollander’s skin hadn’t worked. It was pissing him off. He took a certain kind of pride in how effectively he could piss off his opposition. He was excellent at reading people, and with how flustered Hollander had been when they met, he had incorrectly assumed he would rattle easily on the ice. Ilya, just like his father, was rarely wrong in his impression of people.

But Hollander kept himself locked down with a steely determination. Ilya had called him slow, made some very specific and accurate insults about his goalie’s performance, and shot off a classic “your mom” joke, and Hollander had just blinked at him and won two out of three of the face-offs.

Ilya had another idea; he had seen the heat when Hollander had looked at him and was pretty sure it wasn’t only a competitive streak. This tactic was a bit riskier—more of a nuclear option. But those were Ilya’s favorites. He didn’t, as a rule, flirt with hockey players. But this wasn’t flirting. So, Ilya had looked up the word, practiced saying it. He hadn’t done it because he’d barely managed to stop himself from gasping when he saw Hollander. It was just good chirping material.

They bent into position.

Hollander, again, said nothing. And Ilya understood how much this would rattle many other players. The refusal to engage, sharp eyes not making contact, concentrating only on the puck. Ilya had never faced someone with such laser focus.

“Your freckles are pretty,” Ilya said.

Hollander inhaled the same breath as Ilya, finally meeting his eyes, his taunt. It was more than Ilya bargained for, seeing his soft brown eyes momentarily stripped of their intensity, freckles shining under a layer of sweat. Hollander’s refusal to be mastered made his heart lurched in his chest. His whole body tingled for a moment in some kind of recognition that brought a smile to his lips.

The heaved challenge from the east that moment over his head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether he shall be master!

Sweat stung his eyes. He broke eye contact just in time to catch the puck. He pulled it back on his backhand and sent it straight back to his teammate before streaking off. Playing against Hollander brought out the best hockey Ilya had ever played. His edges were flawless, and he handled the puck with far more accuracy than normal.

His team cycled the puck until he got a wrist shot past two Canadian defenders that Ilya wouldn’t usually have attempted with Hollander hot on his heels, but with his elevated control, he connected the pass perfectly, allowing Sasha to bury the puck between the Canadian goalie’s pads.

4-2

Ilya skated by Hollander and couldn’t resist saying,

“I told you he was bad,” and laughed as he practically felt Hollander’s hands itching to take a swing at him. He wondered if Hollander would’ve if fighting was allowed. He didn’t seem the type, but Ilya thought that it would be fun to find out.

Ilya sat on the bench and watched Hollander take another face-off. Hollander was playing a much more physical game than he was known for. Hollander was smart, using his incredible focus to keep the puck practically glued to his stick and flit around opponents like they were cones. But Ilya watched how well he adapted to his team’s style, checking players with a ferocity that would make the Russian coach proud.

Ilya couldn’t quite catch his breath on the bench. His breathing had slowed slightly since he’d sat down, but usually after a minute, he had recovered. He watched Hollander take a double shift, and Ilya kept puffing on the bench, trying to control his breathing by drinking water slowly. It didn’t help. He could barely feel Sveta’s excitement, watching such a close, fast-paced game.

Fuck, maybe he really did need to quit smoking.

The game picked up intensity as the third period drew to a close. Ilya felt like he hadn’t caught his breath until the gold medal was placed around his neck.

When Sveta came out to congratulate him on the ice, she said,

«Well, you might’ve just secured your number one draft pick with that win,» she hugged him, and he barely felt her recoil at the stench. «But if Hollander keeps playing like that, the race isn’t over yet. He was incredible.»

Ilya pouted.

«Who’s your soulmate, again?»

She laughed and pushed him backward.

«If I give you compliments, your head will explode and then so will mine.»

Ilya tried to soak up the victory, the smell of ice, sweat, and coolant, the comforting presence of Sveta. He knew that he had another long six months before he would see her again, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

---

Toronto
May 29, 2009

Head Coach of the Boston Bears, Patrick LeClaire, and GM Andrew Edmonds sat down and indicated that Shane should take the seat opposite them. Their side of the table was covered with papers, scouting reports, analyses, sample contracts, and printed-out emails. Shane’s side was blank; he had nothing to fidget with, but this was a good thing. He kept his hands clasped in his lap and reminded himself to sit up straight.

“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Mr. Edmonds, Coach LeClaire,” Shane said. He had already shaken their hands when he entered the room, but if this wasn’t the time for the utmost formality, Shane wasn’t sure when would be.

Edmonds smiled at him kindly,

“We’re very happy to be talking to you, Shane. You’re one hell of a player.”

“Thank you,” Shane responded.

“But a lifelong Voyageurs fan. That’s a tough sell in Boston,” LeClaire said, but Shane saw the teasing glint in his eyes.

Shane had prepared for this; he’d spent his entire life being told who he was, which labels could apply to him and what boxes he belonged in. He’d had to quietly create his own, to remind himself of who he actually was and not who he was told that he was. And then he’d done the same for others, trying to understand who they really were.

So for his prep for this interview, he had many pages in files dedicated to Boston, literally and mentally. His mom was openly one of the biggest Voyageurs fans, and all the Hollanders went to as many games as they could attend, given Shane’s own busy schedule. So, he rehearsed how to push back without seeming defensive or apologetic.

“I look good in black and gold, I promise, and I love Dunkin’ Donuts,” Shane said with a grin. Then he added more seriously, “Moving teams, getting used to new institutions, is part of the game, sometimes. Though I hope to be a valuable enough player not to be traded, I am adaptable.”

Shane knew it was a good answer and hoped he was correctly interpreting the look on their faces as approval.

Edmonds asked the first real question.

“Okay, Shane. Starting with the basics, making sure nothing has changed. You’re unbonded? No one would be joining the bond box?”

“No, sir. I’ve been very focused on hockey. Not a lot of time out looking.”

“Clearly, that’s paying off for you. Bit of a lone star, aren’t you?” LeClaire said. “Maybe you should go to Texas.”

He chuckled at his own joke, and Shane smiled, but he didn’t get it. It didn’t match his tags.

The questions continued, asking him about all aspects of training, his mentality about hockey, time outside the rink, and anything else they could legally get away with. Shane’s answers came out just as he’d practiced. He was nervous, of course. These two men would decide the number one draft pick and likely where he’d spend the next 20 years of his career. His on-ice performance counted for a lot more than one interview, but with him and Rozanov so evenly matched, his answers here could make all the difference.

When it was over, Shane shook both men’s hands and repeated the same performance a dozen more times with different teams. None of the rest of them mattered as much to Shane. Boston was the first pick. If he wasn’t going there, he was going to Montreal. Still, he made as good of an impression as possible with every team.

The next day, Shane felt awful as he woke up—his head hurt, and he was vaguely dizzy, but he got dressed and went down to breakfast as if nothing was wrong. He had never thought that his inclination toward anxiety and catastrophizing would be a small comfort to him. But he had practice in hiding how he was feeling, putting it away, and focusing on hockey. So that’s what he did. Or tried to do, throughout the morning as he was put through the paces with the full gamut of fitness tests.

Focusing on hockey worked better when he was actually playing hockey and not surrounded by men monitoring his every breath. But Shane kept breathing. The mask on his face itched, but he didn’t dare scratch and risk messing something up. He hated these tests, but he was almost done with his VO2 max test.

“Done,” the technician said. “Thank you, Mr. Hollander.”

Shane took off the mask as quickly as he could and allowed the tech to remove the heart rate monitor. At least now he had a good excuse for the dizziness and elevated heart rate that had plagued him all day. No amount of water, electrolytes, Advil, or heat patches had touched his headache. Still, he could see his readouts and knew that his results were on par with previous ones. So, he was none the worse for how off he’d felt all day.

This odd feeling wasn’t helped by the fact that he kept bumping into Ilya Rozanov. Shane had been hoping to avoid seeing that smug asshole until the actual draft. But they kept running into each other, sometimes nearly physically bumping into one another. Violating “avoid at all costs.” If Rozanov didn’t look equally as surprised, a little pale even, as Shane each time, Shane would suspect Rozanov was trying to fuck with him as he’d been so determined to on the ice. Instead, they just always seemed to be getting water, grabbing a snack, or, once, to Shane’s immense embarrassment, going to the bathroom at about the same time.

Shane only had one more test before the whole thing was over tomorrow, and that one was just an MRI. No way to mess it up or do well. All he had to do was lie down.

After the final test was done, Shane was given his results. The same one that every NHL team was now receiving. He scanned the results. He didn’t understand every section of it, but he was familiar with most of the fitness test results. He’d done well. Exceptionally well, even. Now all that was left was to wait to hear if his name would be called first next month.

Chapter End Notes

At the end, I'll include the actual line of poetry and line numbers

Lines 26-27
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag

Line 159
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall

Lines 558-559
The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!

Chapter 2: Elevated Bonding Markers

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya's combine reports had some interesting info that the Bears' admin discussed on a phone call

Chapter Notes

I like to include these epistolary snippets between some chapters. I love world-building and foreshadowing in this way. If you don’t love these things, you can skim/skip them without losing plot. If I write an article or little something that is 100% vital to the plot, I’ll put it in a proper chapter.

I have done a lot of research for this fic, but I have no idea what an actual combine report would look like. But I made one that hopefully wouldn’t make everyone’s eyes glaze over, unlike the real one I suspect.

We’re touching a bit on the physiological mechanics of how bonds work. I did research, but this is definitely pseudoscience/medically inaccurate. Please continue to bring whatever suspension of disbelief you have about soulmates existing in the first place to this.

If you only read one of these bits, choose

the phone call. It's probably the most foreshadowing.
The rest is maybe a more interesting way to info dump.

NHL Prospect Combined Medical & Fitness Test Results

Prospect: Shane Hollander
Citizenship: Canadian
DOB: 05/10/1991
Shoots: R
Position: Center
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 190 lbs

Athletic Testing

VO2 Max: Elite
Anaerobic Power: Elite
Lower Body Power: Above Average
Agility: Elite
Grip Strength: Elite
Recovery HR:  Exceptional

Injury Review

No significant injury
2 minor concussions (age 13, age 17)
Prior shoulder dislocation (L): no current limitation
Knees/Hips: Full ROM: no current limitation

Cardiac Testing
Resting HR: 46 bpm

High variability during rest test

ECG: Normal sinus rhythm
Echocardiogram: Normal
Pulmonary Function: Average for professional athlete
High baseline Vagal tone

Neurocognitive MRI Results
Status: Unbonded
No acute abnormalities
Compared to Unbonded Age Group Averages:
Elevated baseline insula activity
Elevated anterior cingulate cortex activity
Mildly elevated brainstem activation during stress test
Increased interoceptive network connectivity

Overall Medical Grade

Full Clearance, Low Risk

Immigration Status:

Canadian Citizen
Eligible for US work visa
No criminal or civil offenses.

---

Prospect: Ilya Rozanov
Citizenship: Russian
DOB: 06/15/1991
Shoots: R
Position: Center
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 199lbs

Athletic Testing

VO2 Max: Exceptional
Anaerobic Power: Elite
Lower Body Power: Elite
Agility: Above Average
Grip Strength: Above Average
Recovery HR:  Exceptional

Injury Review

No significant injury
1 moderate concussion (age 16)
Hairline Ulnar Fracture (R), (age 13): no current limitations
Knees/Hips: Minor meniscus tear (L) (age 16). Full ROM: no current limitations

Cardiac Testing
Resting HR: 42 bpm

Some variability during rest test

ECG: Normal sinus rhythm
Echocardiogram: Normal
Pulmonary Function: Average for professional athlete

Mildly elevated baseline Vagal tone

Neurocognitive MRI Results
Status: Bonded
Type: Cerebral
Subclass: Simple
Status: Stable

No acute abnormalities
Compared to Bonded Age Group Averages:
Mildly elevated baseline insula activity
Mildly elevated anterior cingulate cortex activity

Overall Medical Grade

Full Clearance, Low Risk

Immigration Status:

Existing US Visa
Bond Partner is a US citizen, so Rozanov can work under a soulmate visa in the US.
No criminal or civil offenses.

---

NHL Website
Official Policy on Bonds and Soulmate Safeguarding

Policy Statement

The NHL does not discriminate on the basis of soulmate bond status, type, or absence thereof. All players are evaluated equally with respect to eligibility, performance, and participation.

The League is committed to:

Maintaining competitive integrity;
Ensuring player and partner safety;
Preventing undue advantage or harm arising from bonded relationships.

Bond Classifications

Cerebral Bonds
Characterized by heightened emotional or cognitive awareness between individuals. No direct physiological synchronization is present.

Somatic Bonds
Characterized by measurable physiological co-regulation, including shared or mirrored responses to physical stimuli, including exertion, stress, pleasure, and injury.

Cerebral Bonds — Compliance

Cerebral bonds present no direct physical risk. Clubs must, however, account for potential information sensitivity.

Required measures include:

Confidentiality agreements (NDAs)
Restricted exposure to strategic or proprietary discussions where appropriate
Media and communications training
Guidance regarding third-party interactions, including agents and betting entities

Somatic Bonds — Medical Oversight

Somatic bonds require active monitoring during competition due to potential cumulative physiological load.

Primary risks include:

Impaired recovery for athletes due to partner’s activity;
Increased fatigue and injury risk, including overtraining and rhabdomyolysis;
Unintended redistribution of physical strain leading to competitive advantage.

Clubs must ensure:

Continuous physiological monitoring of the partner during competition
Independent third-party verification of in-game and training metrics for both partners
Documented workload management practices.

Players may not intentionally manipulate shared load in a manner that compromises safety or fairness.

Disclosure

Prospective players are required to disclose any known soulmate bond(s) prior to entry into the NHL Draft. Failure to disclose a pre-existing bond may result in medical review, temporary removal from play, and/or disciplinary action as determined by the League.

Soulmate bonds identified or formed following draft eligibility are subject to League review. In such cases, the League Medical Compliance Division will determine appropriate monitoring, reporting, and participation guidelines on an individual basis.

Clubs and players are expected to report newly identified bonds in a timely manner. Delayed reporting may result in additional review and corrective measures where applicable.

Bond Leave

A Player who has undergone a recognized Bonding Event may be placed on Bond Leave for a period not to exceed six (6) weeks. The Player shall remain under contract, and the Club may designate a temporary roster replacement without penalty.

Clubs based in Canada shall provide administrative support for immigration and partner relocation and coordinate access to applicable government benefits, including healthcare and paid leave where available.

Players based in the United States may be eligible for job-protected unpaid leave under applicable law, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, subject to eligibility requirements. Clubs are not required to provide additional paid leave. Players may qualify for Short-Term Disability pay. Players may elect to obtain supplemental bond insurance to cover relocation, partner care, and related income disruption.

Privacy

Bond status is considered confidential medical information. Unauthorized disclosure is prohibited.

---

Transcript of Phone Between Boston Bears, GM Andrew Edmonds, and Bears’ Head Doctor Isabella Cervantez

IC: Hey Andy, thanks for picking up. I know you’re in the middle of draft madness.
AS: I have five minutes before we have our final sit-down.
IC: That’s why I’m calling. I assume you’ve seen Hollander’s medical report.
AS: Of course, and Rozanov’s. And I read your analysis of the results. So, tell me why you’re calling.
IC: I couldn’t stop thinking about Hollander’s results. Enough that I asked for the full MRI and the one from his previous concussion last year. The results are incredibly rare. I’ve actually never seen someone get an MRI at this stage before.
AS: Stage?
IC: Well, of course, it could mean nothing. There are no guarantees here. It’s not an exact science. But compared to a few months ago, his bonding markers are significantly elevated.
AS: So what? He has a new bond?
IC: No. I think he’s forming a bond. I would bet money that in the next few weeks or months, it happens, depending on when he sees them again.
AS: I see. Any way to know which type?
IC: Officially, no. It’s so hard to get imaging like this. I honestly want you to sign him just so I can write a case study. It’s almost impossible to tell externally when someone is about to form a bond, so unless they just happen to get a brain scan done and have a recent result to compare it to, there’s no way to prove anything. It’s why there is so little data on any of this. But the vagal tone is interesting. Again, I’m really guessing here, but gun to my head, somatic.
AS: Interesting. And why wasn’t this in your report last night?
IC: Well, I just got last year’s MRI results. If his activity were consistent between the two, I would say that he just has a predisposition to bond, but this might show one actively forming. And… well, discriminating based on bond status is illegal.
AS: Definitely. Not something we would discuss via email. And Rozanov?
IC: Well, he’s bonded. Cerebral. Less than a 13% chance that he forms another bond. His bond markers are slightly elevated because he’s seeing her for the first time in months. The data on that is pretty clear. An initial spike after long separations, then a return to baseline.
AS: Thanks, Isabella. This is huge. Honestly, Hollander is so good, it might be worth the liability. But Rozanov is equally as good and perhaps less… complicated. We have a lot to consider.
IC: Glad I could help. Ciao, I’ll be watching the draft.

Chapter End Notes

Does your brain also make you think about the HR implications of magical realism when you write, or is it just me??
Just me? cool cool cool. HA. This is what I think about when I am out for a walk. I don't know how to make it stop, so I dictate into my notes app and turn it into these things.

Lastly, I can write a fic where homophobia doesn’t exist, but I cannot write a fic where America has universal/free medical care and adequate parental leave (I based bond leave on parental leave). Sorry. Maybe if they did, I’d move back (I wouldn’t.)

Chapter 3: Entangled Stars

Chapter Summary

They had quietly, in the vacuum that he now realized always existed between them, made a universe. Rearranged their souls and bodies into one.

Ilya was spiraling. Brain, finally, catching up to the fact that he’d woken up into his greatest nightmare. The one thing he would have done anything, given up everything to avoid.

Chapter Notes

My chapter lengths are none of my business. Please don't expect any consistency between them.

This chapter is probably the one I've worked on the most out of all of them. So I might not update quite as frequently as the first three have come out. But there will be updates at least once a week. Maybe more with the pairing of a short epistolary chapter with a regular plot one.

See the endnote for references!

June 27, 2009
Los Angeles, California

Shane was going to throw up and punch Rozanov. Maybe not in that order. It was like déjà vu of the combine last month—he felt like shit, and Rozanov was fucking following him around again. Like just now, into the bathroom, and not in a fun, cruising sort of way. Not that Shane did that kind of thing, but his gay friends made sure he was aware it was an option. But Rozanov was probably being a dick, and if he was going to puke, he didn’t want to do it in front of that asshole.

Rozanov had been smirking at him all day, so fucking pleased with himself. Like Shane standing in second place next to him was the natural order of things. Each time they had to interact, his eyes twinkled in a way that Shane thought should be illegal when he was suffering from food poisoning or whatever was wrong with him.

They’d had to constantly be around each other. Shane had been polite; Rozanov had not. He spent the day trying not to wonder if he were a blond-haired, blue-eyed white person, would he have still come in second? Did Rozanov’s mom remind him that he needed to be a role model to all the little Russian boys watching? It wasn’t fucking fair, but he knew that already.  

And none of that made him want to know what his lips tasted like any less.

Even though he knew it had to be cigarettes, which would be disgusting and not at all worth it. Plus, he didn’t really think he’d be into hate sex, and either way, definitely not into dudes with partners.

It felt like the fluorescent lights were boring into his skull and the chemical orange cleaner burned his nose. He whirled when he heard the swish of the door behind both of them.

“Why are you following me? What’s the point in fucking with me right now?” Shane asked, voice echoing off the beige tile and making his ears ring on top of everything else.

Rozanov’s eyes widened, and his skin paled to a sickly yellow hue under the harsh lights. He took a deep breath in through his nose before he responded. Shane tried to pretend that seeing Rozanov so thrown off didn’t bother him.

“Am not. You followed me.”

“I’m literally in front of you, idiot.”

Nausea roiled through him. He needed to get out of here. He’d rather throw up in a potted plant than let Rozanov hear him hurl. He’d probably think it was about the draft and not the bad chicken he assumed he ate last night. At the thought of the food, his whole body shuddered.

Shane mumbled “whatever,” more to himself than the confused douchebag in front of him, turned on his heel and ducked out a door at the end of the hall.

LA didn’t really have what anyone would qualify as fresh air, but the cool outside air helped settle Shane’s stomach, and he almost felt back to normal. After a few more deep breaths, Shane returned to the lobby, where the other recently drafted guys were making plans to celebrate. It was absolutely the last thing that Shane wanted to do, but he refused to be viewed as a sore loser, and neither bad chicken nor Russian antagonists would stop him.

Shane sidled up next to Pike, another of Montreal’s draft picks in the later round. Shane was still assessing him. He had introduced himself earlier, and Shane was hoping to ride his coattails into whatever social situation was coming.

Subject: Hayden Pike
Category: Teammate
Subclass: Acceptable Player
Tags: Teammate, Wing, Weak Wrist Shot
Misc: Extrovert, Potential friend(?)

As he walked up to the group, he barely registered the sea of white faces, too used to it to bat an eye. It was hockey. This was how it was.

One guy, some low-level pick going to Tampa, who had a spaghetti stain on his jacket, was talking about some club he’d been to the night before. Shane could not have remembered his name or anything about him if his entire signing bonus was on the line. Spaghetti Stain did not deserve mental real estate yet. He’d likely spend a few years in the AHL.

“Where are we going? I will buy first round.”

The accent hit him like a punch to the chest, and his whole body lit up as Rozanov rejoined the group.

The raucous cheer that followed was not dampened by the fact that almost none of them were of legal drinking age. The chatter was indecipherable, and at the rate the group was going, they would stay in the lobby all night, trying to make a plan. Rozanov was back, though, and clearly used to taking charge, so he was able to coax the group into some sort of plan based on Spaghetti Stain’s friend, who was a bouncer and would “definitely not ID them.”

Shane wasn’t staring at Rozanov. He just happened to look at him a lot. He couldn’t quite stop. Definitely couldn’t stop himself from noticing that he was looking sweaty. Shane was hit with another wave of nausea so strong that his knees almost buckled. And he felt floaty. Like his body was renegotiating its relationship with gravity, possibly threatening divorce.

Like he might float on his back, white belly bulged to the sun, and not ask who seized fast to him.

He stood there, swaying slightly, and heard someone, probably Hayden, speaking. He desperately hoped someone would hold onto him. His gaze was unfocused, and when he processed the hand on his shoulder, he jumped slightly and saw Rozanov also startle at something out of the corner of his eye.

“Dude, are you okay?” Hayden asked, probably not for the first time.

He decided that he probably should not discover in public if the nausea would go to him or gravity in their imminent separation.

“Yeah, sorry. Food poisoning. I think I gotta bail.”

Shane walked away without a backward glance as he heard Spaghetti Stain telling everyone to meet back in the lobby in one hour to leave.

---

After splitting off from the other draft picks in the lobby, Ilya walked to the elevator next to his father. Grigori Rozanov had said maybe a dozen words to him all day. He was never sure if the days were better when his dad spent the entire day lecturing him or ignoring him outright. But he’d long given up hope that a better, third option would emerge in the pattern of their days.

For now, they walked in silence down the quiet hotel room hallway, and Ilya, on this night that was supposed to be one of the best of his life, indulged himself in a way that he so rarely did and imagined. Instead of his father walking next to him, it was his mother. Her foot falls almost silent in the plush carpet. He tried to picture it. She would be shorter than him, but he couldn’t imagine her as anything besides larger than life. Bright smile and playful glimmer in her eyes anytime it was just the two of them. He could no longer remember her voice, but he imagined she’d squeeze his hand or wrap him in a hug and say:

«You have embarrassed us by coming here, to this weaker league.» His father’s voice cut through his fantasy, as if he’d felt the way Ilya was dreaming.

«Sorry, sir.»

He wasn’t sorry, and Grigori knew it. His father loathed the way Ilya refused to bend to his will on this one thing. His stomach roiled, and he felt increasingly light-headed. It had been happening to him on and off all day.

«You come here for money and ease of American excess. Always lazy—Never considering me. Nor your obligations to your family or country.»

Ilya had reached his door and fiddled with the key card in his pocket. He wanted to slip inside. He wanted to slam the door in his father’s face. Instead, he waited to see if that was the beginning or end of his rant. They were at least somewhat in public, and Grigori cared for his image more than anything. So, Ilya was not entirely surprised when his father turned on his heel and went to his room a few doors down. He waited until the door closed before he opened his own.

Sveta greeted him with a sad smile inside and pressed a small glass into his hands. He had imagined the night of the draft many times, how he would celebrate being selected first. He imagined the party, or at least the bar. Who he’d hook up with—how many people he’d hook up with, even. Ilya’s visions could have served as a prayer to Dionysus. None of his dreams had involved queasily staring down his first shot of vodka. Sveta said Americans called this pregaming, which made no sense. No game was about to happen. Sure, in his vision, maybe the night would end with someone puking. Not him. Russians don’t puke from drinking.

He’d already told her how he’d been feeling throughout the day when she’d asked.

«I can’t sense anything wrong, Ilyusha. You might just be getting sick.»

He was a little dizzy and nauseated, but his primary feeling was just of wrongness. The sensation tugged at a memory, but he couldn’t focus on it.

The weight of the whole day swirled through him, seeping into his skin in a way he usually refused to allow it to. His father’s calculated indifference, his stupid indulgence into imagination, the flashing lights, the adoration, the way Shane stupid Hollander’s brown eyes burned into him. It settled in his stomach like sludge.

He drank the vodka and exhaled through his teeth. Sveta threw a packet of pretzels at him that clearly came from a plane. The saltiness cut the burn of shitty Canadian vodka and crunched pleasantly between his teeth. But none of it made him feel any better. He lay down and tried to breathe through it.

He wanted to take 10 more shots and dance all night. He wanted to pull Sveta on top of him and let her ride him until he forgot anything but her. He wanted to sweat until every foul thing he absorbed today was excised and his body felt like something he understood again.

«Should I keep getting ready, or do we need to reschedule?»

«Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow night?»

Her concern rippled through him, and she pressed the back of her hand to his forehead.

«Well, you don’t have a fever. I don’t think. I don’t know how you’re supposed to tell like this, honestly.»

He stifled a laugh. And just like it had off and on all day, the sick feeling receded and was replaced by restlessness. He hadn’t woken early enough to fit in his workout, and his body seemed keen on reminding him.  

«Fuck. I need to run or something.»

«Ugh, seriously? I thought you were sick?»

He felt a brief flash of genuine annoyance before her concern returned.

«You look great,» he said. «You should go out with the group.»

She took a moment, clearly assessing how he was doing. He would have to be actively dying for her to skip the chance to dance in favor of taking care of him.

«Okay, Schmidt looked hot so»…

He threw a look over his shoulder.

«Ugh, no, he isn’t. His clothes were stained. Don’t forget to block me if you hook up with any of them. I do not want to know.»

He felt her pleasure at having riled him up and distracted him, at least for a moment.

«Well, he’s no Hollander, but he’s not coming, and now, neither are you.»

Ilya thought about the way Hollanders’ gaze pursued his body despite his clear dislike. His accusation of following him. He obviously wasn’t, but they had wound up in the same spots a lot.

«I don’t think you’re his type.»

She laughed in response, and it was warm and bright like it always was. He looked at the shirt he’d picked for the night, a tight, bright floral pattern that he’d leave half unbuttoned and acid-washed low-rise jeans. Then he eyed the t-shirt and shorts that were balled up in his suitcase. His restlessness doubled. He needed to start running. He kind of felt like he already was. He kissed her cheek on the way out the door.

«Text me where you go. And when you leave. You call me, and I’ll be there in 5 minutes.»

She rolled her eyes, but he knew she loved his protectiveness as fiercely as he loved hers.

He rode the elevator down to the gym on the second floor. It was late enough that he didn’t see anyone on the way and figured he would have the place to himself. Which is why he was surprised to see, through the small window on the gym door, Shane Hollander running on the treadmill. He wasn’t running very fast—seemed like he’d set an easy pace to be there for a while.

Fucking great.

So handsome. His already damp back soaked his white shirt and made it cling to his straining muscles. And yet his looks seemed wasted on someone who was already proving to be the most boring guy in the league. Going on a long run the night of the draft instead of going out and celebrating. Though Ilya supposed that if he came in second, again, to his purported rival, he would also not want to be out celebrating. Ilya watched him through the door for several moments—the movement of his muscular calves with each step—and felt the longing twinge in his own. He should turn around. Leave Hollander and his stupid fucking freckles and bitable calves in peace. But Ilya wasn’t one for peace and didn’t think he could turn around if he tried.

Plus, he needed to get whatever this was out of his system. Through sweat or vomit or blood—whatever way it wormed itself out from the depths of him. The wave after wave of nausea had condensed into a dense rock in the center of his body, unaligned with any organ. But it pressed in on itself, tighter and tighter, making him acutely aware of the confines of his body—the comically tiny space he was compressed into and felt like he needed to peel off his skin to free it.

There were only two treadmills. Hollander didn’t react until Ilya was already moving next to him. He didn’t say anything, but did shoot Ilya a dirty look. He just watched Ilya set a slightly faster pace. Ilya would let Hollander show him up when pigs fucking fly.

To his credit, Hollander snorted and immediately turned up his speed. Ilya waited one moment, then turned his up. Barely faster. Ilya got the sense that Hollander was torn between flipping him off, leaving altogether, and tripping him. But boring, polite Canadian that he was, he just kept running. And kept upping the speed on his machine.

Shane’s increase in speed meant that his stride fell in rhythm with Ilya’s slightly longer one, and their feet hit the revolving tread in a metronomic thud-thud of four feet acting as two: once, twice, and before their feet hit the ground a third time, the universe briefly moved faster than light, and he felt what he was about to become.

Oh fuck.

He tried to reach for his necklace but by the time his foot struck again, his body and the one next to him compressed into the space between them, perfectly and impossibly entangled for a moment before they ripped apart in twin explosions that hit him like a high stick to the face and the best orgasm he’d ever had; his last sensation was the bone-jarring vibration of four feet hitting a machine. They expanded, pure energy driven into light and matter—a primordial soup of everything that used to be two people, now following a blueprint they had each carried half of their whole life.

Yet his legs—their legs?—kept hitting the treadmill. Rhythmic striking of left feet and right feet, not breaking stride, until their hands—no, his hands reached up. Ilya was confused. Either way, the emergency stop was pressed, and he–or they– rocketed off the end of the treadmills and collapsed against the wall.

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.

Each breath, each cell, their very marrow, no longer remembered its origin, and their newly formed universe was rendered opaque by a fog no light could penetrate. In it, there was no two. No point in labeling which element came from which person. The only laws were the desperate, violent connection between them. It could’ve taken 380,000 years or 380,000 Planck seconds.

Slowly, the universe opened its eyes.

His gaze came into focus, and he saw dirty blond curls next to him as he felt his shoulders touching one another. Marked and owned. Offset by the other half. But that’s not how shoulders worked. Shoulders didn’t touch themselves. They brushed against other shoulders.

He felt all the parts of himself and not an inch nor a particle of an inch was vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

He closed his eyes and was lost again to the swirling condensation of elements into the first stars—two burning orbs now entangled. One was him, yet so was the other.

Ilya burned and spun happily, content to float forever.

This was the way it was always supposed to be.

«Find yourself, Ilya.»

Svetlana's voice reached him like a cold wind over his body. And that startled him. She could only get through so clear a thought in moments of extreme distress. It had only happened once before. She had impressed the words deeply into him.

He reluctantly forced his eyes open and slowly examined his body—felt along the outsides where his shoulders, arms, thighs, and calves pressed together—sticky with sweat and covered in goosebumps. Though they both felt equally like his, he only found he could move half of it. But that was fine. He knew moments before that only being able to move half of his body would horrify him. But he’d been so small then. Now, he felt perfectly sized. He couldn’t move his stomach, and that never bothered him; this was no different.

Slowly, in his mind, he traced the half of his body that he could move and focused on that, feeling himself cool and noticing again how the orange-y chemical cleaner couldn’t mask the smell of sweat pounded into rubber. He heard deep breathing next, almost gasping over dry lips. He moved his tongue to wet his own. As he wiggled the limbs he could control, he felt sensation return to them in a painful yet relieving pins and needles.

He kept tracing the outlines of his body— his tongue, every atom of his blood, formed from this soil, this air. He still felt himself in that other person, but understood better that it wasn’t him. Not in the same way as these two legs and two arms were.

Blinking, Ilya turned to the person next to him, face in profile. He had short dark hair, deep brown eyes, freckles, and a square jaw. Every atom of his blood was born of the same soil and air. Bore the same marks. Offset the same self. His chest was heaving, and his body glimmered with sweat.

He continued to trace the outline of himself, trying to apply the techniques to block Sveta that had become second nature. It wasn’t the same, but he slowly felt himself able to establish some boundaries between himself and the man next to him.

He continued staring at the gorgeous man. And the thought came to him unbidden,

Mine.

He recoiled from the possessiveness. He was not that kind of person. He never thought of anyone, even Sveta, as his. But he didn’t feel like he owned Shane. He was Shane—he had marked him. And Shane was him.

They had quietly, in the vacuum that he now realized always existed between them, made a universe. Rearranged their souls and bodies into one—Ilya almost lost himself in it again.

Christ, he sounded pretentious, like one of those profounders.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Ilya was spiraling. Brain, finally, catching up to the fact that he’d woken up into his greatest nightmare. The one thing he would have done anything, given up everything to avoid. But he couldn’t stop staring.

He realized Hollander was not really present—his body was fine, but he didn’t have the practice to set up boundaries. Ilya felt a fierce wave of concern wash over him, and he tried to shove it down along with the burning weight of his own emotions. Panicking wouldn’t help either of them.

God, how could he explain how to do this? Without her light to guide him, he would’ve been stuck there. Maybe if he could just get him to move a little bit.

“Hollander. Can you hear me? Move your toes.”

Nothing happened.

Ilya reached out and physically shook Hollander’s feet.

“You do that now.”

Ilya stared intently until he saw Hollander’s feet move.

“Good,” Ilya said, and he continued helping Hollander, talking him through moving all the parts of his body. By the time they reached his head, Hollander’s gaze wasn’t so vacant.

“You are in your body now, Hollander?” 

Ilya watched Hollander swallow reflexively and felt half-wonder and half-horror; it felt like he too had swallowed but hadn’t.

“I guess, I mean… I don’t even know. I feel so big. But I’m glad gravity got the nausea.”

Ilya nodded at what he assumed was an idiom he didn’t understand. He felt his shoulders tighten as tension flowed through him. It didn’t feel like his.

“Yes, keep feeling your body,” he said.

They continued to sit there and breathe, their sides pressing together. Ilya continued to map the contours of his body, but he was exhausted and felt all his barriers slipping.

“What happened?” Hollander said. “Did I faint?”

Ilya shook his head, but neither of them seemed to be able to speak. He knew they should get up. Ilya bent his knees and slid his feet up, and Hollander copied him, but they stayed like that for a while until Sveta burst through the door. Her outfit was disheveled, and she had her heels in her hand. Her body glitter was enhanced by the faint sheen of sweat covering her like she was glowing.

« Ilyushechka, what happened? Are you okay? What’s wrong?»

Without another thought, he stood and took a step towards her. But immediately, he felt like he was being torn in two. Ilya stumbled and fell into a lunge position with his head bowed. At the same time, Hollander hissed in pain. They simultaneously moved their calves so they were pressing together once again, and the rending sensation faded. Part of Ilya’s mind marveled at how precisely he knew where Hollander’s body was; the rest of him responded to Sveta.

«Bonded. We fucking bonded.»

Sveta raised her eyebrow, appraising him quickly and deciding he was fine enough. She turned her eyes to Hollander.

“Shane, are you okay?”

He groaned and said, “Just peachy.”

She laughed and clearly sensed Ilya’s confusion at the word.

«He said he’s doing okay. But sarcastically,» she continued in English, “Peach like fruit. Peachy means good. Only, most of the time it actually means bad.”

Ilya decided this wasn’t the moment to dig into that.

«That didn’t feel like what happened when we bonded. I could hardly feel you. It was like you had slipped away from me. It was terrifying.» Sveta said.

He glanced back at Hollander, head down, eyes still more vacant than present. Nothing like the calm, determined look Ilya had always seen on his face. He startled at how much it bothered him. He returned his gaze to Sveta and tried to block the depth of loathing he felt.

«I’m sorry that I scared you. You’re right. It wasn’t like what happened when we bonded,» he said.

Her face took on a pained expression, but Ilya couldn’t tell if it was because she could feel his pain or she just knew him that well.

«You think this is how all somatic bonds feel?»

«No.»

They stared at each other for a moment.

«It’ll be okay, Ilyushenka,» she said.

It wouldn’t, so he didn’t respond.

“We need to go somewhere. What room, Hollander? What is your room number?” Ilya asked.

“409,” Hollander responded blankly.

“Your room is closer,” Sveta said. “You two collect yourselves, and I’ll see if anyone is in the hallway.”

She swept out of the room, but Ilya could feel her attentiveness through the bond and the small window in the door.

“Didn’t faint, did I?” Hollander asked. “Not food poisoning.”

Ilya shook his head, watching the understanding, and subsequent horror, show on his face. He had to look away. Of course, he was horrified. This was a waking nightmare.

 “Will be easier to move if we lean into… it,” Ilya said.

Hollander didn’t say anything, but Ilya’s involuntary huff in unison with Hollander’s said enough. Still, he felt the thin boundaries between them dissolve—not completely like when they first connected. But he felt a bit like he had fallen into this newly made world. It was cosmically beautiful there—somehow in space with bright stars blinking overhead in constellations that reminded him of Hollander’s freckles.

Ilya had thought they might still need to verbally coordinate their movements to avoid separating, but they didn’t. He knew how Hollander was going to move and how each movement would feel the same as he would with his own body. They stood, transferring their brief touch from their calves to their arms. It was as simple as keeping his own left hand and right hand together—took no more thought than that. With that easy connection, they walked to the door where Sveta was waiting outside.

“Okay, Svet?” Ilya asked

She nodded, and the three of them made their way to the elevator and into Hollander’s room without further incident. In the room, Ilya and Hollander collapsed onto the bed, and Sveta sat on the opposite one, facing them.

She looked at both of them, tilting her head from side to side, taking them in.

“So you two cannot physically separate? That means…”

The words rippled out from her like a wave that seemed small in the ocean but hid as a tsunami that razed everything in its path.

---

Shane was aware that he was in a hotel room, sitting on his bed. He heard murmuring, but he was lost in space again. He stared up at the stars and enjoyed the floating sensation. He had found himself briefly but dissolved again, walking here. It was pleasant, existing in only his body—knowing he was anchored to someone; gravity was much less important than everyone made it out to be.

“Hollander, come back. Move your toes again, and roll your ankles, like stretches, yes?”

Shane instinctively complied with that voice and followed the path up his body and slowly felt his boundaries return. His vision sharpened, and it felt like someone had removed the cotton balls from his ears. Ilya was staring at him intently while Svetlana was making tea for them.

He felt completely out of control. He couldn’t sort, couldn’t organize any of this. His greatest fear had ripped apart every box, every file, every note he’d ever made, leaving him with no reference for anything that was happening. 

His entire left side was in contact with Rozanov. The places where their skin touched buzzed pleasantly, but he needed more. He pressed his arm into Rozanov’s more before he really thought about what he was doing.

“Sorry. Thank you,” Shane mumbled as he flushed with embarrassment. He was glad at least he had tamped down the impulse to crawl into his lap.

“Ah, my Canadian is back.”

Shane saw the start of Ilya’s smirk as he said that, but he turned away quickly, stomach roiling at the casual claiming.

“Fuck off.”

Svetlana carried three mugs over.

“Peppermint or chamomile?” She asked him.

“Um, chamomile.”

She set the mug in front of him and handed the peppermint to Ilya along with a packet of sugar.

Shane bobbed his teabag in the water and watched the concentration of yellow water seep throughout the cup. He kept his mind busy by continuing to feel the outlines of his body and attempting to ignore all the sensations from the man next to him. 

“It will get easier,” she said. “You won’t have to try so hard for long.”

“I know,” he snapped. Then immediately added, “Sorry.”

He heard both of them fail to stifle a laugh and felt his annoyance double. He realized that Rozanov could likely feel the tension in his body and tried to relax.

They drank their tea mostly in silence. Svetlana and Ilya talked quietly in Russian for a bit, and Shane reminded himself that he wasn’t annoyed about that because he didn’t care. He didn’t like Rozanov, and right now, he didn’t care much for Svetlana. After most of his tea was gone, she said,

“You two should go to bed. This took a lot out of you,” and then she said specifically to Shane, “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

He hated how kind she sounded—wished that she would be condescending or jealous so he could hate her in peace. Instead, she was beautiful, kind, caring, and not judgmental. Why wasn’t she jealous?

Shane and Rozanov shifted so their calves were still touching as he stood and hugged her. Shane didn’t like it and definitely didn’t feel resentful. The door clicked closed as Svetlana left. Rozanov looked down at him.

“Bathroom?”

Shane realized suddenly that yes, he did need to go to the bathroom, and equally as mortifying, his skin felt itchy and sticky with dried sweat, and he would absolutely need a shower if he wanted half a chance of falling asleep tonight. This was fine, he assured himself. No different really than using a urinal or showering in the locker room. He’d seen lots of guys naked, and it was literally never a problem—even the others he knew were gay. It was just too unsexy an environment.

“Yes, I need to, uh, pee.”

“I know,” Rozanov said dryly.

Right, fuck.

“Maybe it won’t hurt so much to separate, now?” Shane suggested

There was no real way to predict how long the intensity of the initial bond would last. Could be hours; could be days. But he didn’t remember hearing about this side effect of not being able to separate. Tentatively, they started moving their legs apart, but each grunted in pain almost immediately. Shane was used to pain, so if it were just him, he could probably push through it. But some deep part of himself recoiled at seeing the scrunched expression on Rozanov’s face and immediately moved his leg back.

“Guess not,” Shane said. “Let’s go.”

In the bathroom, Shane turned on the shower, and they awkwardly shuffled around so they could each use the toilet in pretend privacy. When they were done, and the water was hot, Rozanov stripped off his clothes and gestured at Shane toward the shower.

“No fucking way. I am not showering with you.”

Attractive had been a miscellaneous tag he remembered. Not something to do anything about.

Rozanov simply shrugged and stepped in while Shane sat on the toilet and put his hand on Rozanov’s knee. It was hunched and incredibly awkward.

“I hope you take fast showers.”

“Mmm. Sort of. I usually jerk off, but tonight maybe not so good an idea. Unless…”

Shane’s hand tightened involuntarily on his knee as a bolt of arousal punched through his core. Rozanov continued:

“You want to—”

Shane cut him off.

“Fuck no.”

How could he think about something like that when his whole world had been torn to shreds and rearranged in a way that defied any way he knew what to do with?

“Okay. Done soon then.”

And true to his word, he was done a few minutes later. When he turned off the water, Shane grabbed a towel folded on the counter and passed it through to him. Rozanov pulled back the curtain, and Shane fought his body against having any kind of physical reaction to the wet, muscled man that he was physically incapable of not touching. Rozanov perched himself on the edge of the tub, transferred his hand to Shane’s knee, and Shane stripped and got into the shower. He scrubbed his body fast and hard, desperate to get his clothes back on.

When he turned off the water, he saw a towel poking through the curtain. He quickly dried himself and put on the lotion he’d left at the edge of the tub. He was still a bit too wet, so it felt watery, but it was enough for the night.

They walked back into the room and walked to Shane’s suitcase. He realized that Rozanov didn’t have any other clothes and dug around for his softest pair of shorts while he found his boxers. Handing the shorts over, he asked,

“These okay?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The politeness unnerved him.

“Do you have anything that you need to do in the morning? Meet up with your family?” Shane asked.

“Yes, my father. But I think we have to cancel plans. You?”

Rozanov pulled out his phone while they were talking.

“Breakfast with my parents. But if I tell them I’m sick, they’ll still check on me. I don’t know. I’ll have to think of something in the morning. We need to… talk, I guess.”

As Rozanov held the phone to his ear, his posture changed. Back rigid, eyes downcast, and one hand fidgeting uselessly at his side, the other moving his cross necklace along its chain. When his father picked up, Rozanov turned away from him, and Shane watched his entire body tighten even more, felt his own body tense in turn. The conversation sounded terse, and Shane wasn’t sure if it was because it actually was or that Russian sounded harsh to his ears, but his whole body grew more and more stiff as the conversation went on. He couldn’t understand the words, but there was no easy or loving goodbye.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine, Hollander.”

“Are you sure because—”

“Is fine. Time to sleep.”

It really wasn’t his business, he supposed, so he climbed into bed. Shane turned on his side so that his back was to Rozanov, who was lying on his back with his arm resting against Shane. It was more contact than Shane had ever wanted to have with him, but not nearly enough now.

“I hope you don’t snore,” Shane said, which made Rozanov laugh darkly.

“Goodnight, Hollander.”

He pondered the mess he now found himself in. Because people were generally supposed to love, or at least like, their soulmates. But that wasn’t exactly how the bond worked. A soulmate was a biological reality. A promise whispered between two bodies, even if they’d rather stay silent.  Nothing could manufacture feelings but forced proximity, primordial connectedness, and the fact that bonds only seemed to form between people who worked well together usually did the trick.

So he knew that most people did love their soulmate platonically or romantically. In the same way that hormones and brain chemistry are supposed to make parents love and care for their kids. But reality often had other plans. And just like with loving parents, a bond didn’t stop it from being complicated as hell.

Based on all their interactions, he and Rozanov could never love each other. He wasn’t even sure if they could learn to like each other. They were so different. He didn’t know what to do with the idea that these thoughts bothered him. They didn’t fit in the Ilya Rozanov file he used to have, even if he could find it in the wreck that was his life now.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to. They’d figure out how to block each other out in the next few weeks. He’d learned to permanently block Rozanov, or hell, take blockers for the rest of his life. That had to be better than living like this with fucking Ilya Rozanov. And it wouldn’t impact his career. That was not an option.

All in all, he was not expecting to get a good night’s sleep with these thoughts swirling and his sense that gravity was no longer a force but a person. Plus, he’d never shared a bed with someone before, well, not for sleeping at least. He liked his space and wasn’t sure he’d be able to fall asleep with Rozanov touching him, but his mind started to relax.

Wrench’d and sweaty—calm and cool then his body became,

They sleep—They sleep long.

Chapter End Notes

This chapter is probably the biggest "swing" as a writer that I have taken, so I'd love to know what you all think about it!

Any predictions on the very normal way Shane is going to react to this in the cold light of morning? Or how long he can continue to convince himself he doesn't like Ilya?

Also, any questions on how the bonds work? I hope I'm explaining my world clearly, but let me know what questions you have. If the answers are spoilers, I won't reveal anything, but I'm happy to clarify because I've thought about these mechanics a lot.

The bond-forming scene is based on the Big Bang. I used NASA's overview as a simplistic reference for it: https://science.nasa.gov/universe/overview/#big-bang

It was also lowkey inspired by quantum entanglement, which I know isn't how quantum entanglement works. This isn't how anything works; I'm not trying to write scifi. It's speculative fiction that refuses to commit to a genre but dabbles in being magical realism, and literary sports romance, or whatever. But mostly it's fanfiction

A Song of Myself Quotes in order of appearance:

214
The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them

391-393
What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.

58
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

6
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,

1310-1311
Wrench'd and sweaty — calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep — I sleep long.

Chapter 4: Soulmates, Crowns, and Ruin

Chapter Summary

WordPress blog post: Making of Modern Myths

A comparative mythology of soulmate bonds

Chapter Notes

Me (after writing a mythic daemon AU): I won’t include any mythology in this story. It’ll be totally different

Also me: Approximately .23094 after coming up with this idea for a world, writes another fake blog about myths

WordPress: Making of Modern Myths

Soulmates, Crowns, and Consumption: The Three Lives of The Crown of Glass

One of the things I find most compelling when I dig into different versions of myths, sacred stories, and fairytales, is not just what changes but what emotional throughlines survive. These different versions of stories give us a peek into the different shifting values and fears across cultures and through time.

Across three radically different versions of The Crown of Glass—the original Brothers’ Grimm tale, Disney’s 1994 animated romance Ever Us, and the psychological horror film Velvet Mind—the same skeleton remains visible.

Each tale begins the same way: a beautiful (because of course beauty is equated with goodness, but you can see my other rants about that here) young woman meets a powerful man, discovers he is her soulmate, and is swept into a life of wealth, status, and intimacy beyond anything she previously imagined.

Through these tells we can see how humanity has grappled with soulmate bonds and attempt to answer the question:

Is this bond, the deep merging of two people, an epic fantasy or a horror?

In the original Grimm story, the soulmate bond is both miraculous and dangerous. The heroine, Solène, believes her profound bond to the prince elevates her above ordinary people. She withdraws from her family and views herself as separate from the community she once belonged to until her isolation turns on her when the prince reveals himself to be wicked.

Modern readers are often surprised by how politically grounded the ending is. The heroine does not defeat the prince through the power of love, but through reclaiming her relationships outside of him. She escapes, rebuilds her ties to others, and—with their help—outmaneuvers him politically, taking the crown for herself. The soulmate bond is never portrayed as evil, but the story repeatedly warns that love without identity becomes unstable.

Disney’s Ever Us preserves almost all of the imagery while removing nearly all of the suspicion about the merger of two souls. The young maiden, the iconic Princess Solena (whom I dressed up as for Halloween 3 years in a row), still meets the prince. There is still a stolen crown and a threatened kingdom. But the emotional cadence changes completely.

Princess Solena’s life outside the romance disappears in its entirety. Instead of isolation being a warning sign of the loss, exclusivity becomes proof of true love. The prince is not controlling; he is perfection incarnate. The threat comes externally through the evil Queen Vilanetta, transforming the story from one about interpersonal power into one about protecting romance from outside corruption.

Even the soulmate bond itself changes function. In the Grimm version, the profound bond intensifies dependency and distorts perspective. In the Disney adaptation, the same intensity becomes literal magic. Their love grants them the power to reclaim the kingdom because the film assumes their total fusion is inherently pure.

The famous climactic sequence—where the couple defeats the queen through the strength of their bond—reads almost like a direct rebuttal to the Grimm tale’s anxieties. It is worth noting this was Disney’s second most successful movie of the 90s era, only following The Lion King.

Then Velvet Mind (2005) arrives and restores those anxieties with terrifying precision.

Like the earlier versions, the film opens as a jewel-toned fantasy: a young woman, Selena (Natalie Portman), develops a profound bond with a wealthy, impossibly charismatic CEO, Maxime (Jay Hernandez) and is absorbed into a world of yachts, private clubs, designer drugs, and elite social circles. Much like Solène entering the palace, she initially experiences the relationship as transcendence. The bond feels intoxicating because it is intoxicating.

But where Disney interpreted soulmate fusion as healing, Velvet Mind asks what happens when emotional intimacy becomes a personal epistemological rupture.

The Maxime does not twirl his mustache or consciously manipulate Selena in the traditional sense. The horror emerges because he genuinely experiences himself as the victim at all times. Through their cerebral bond, his paranoia, self-pity, resentment, and emotional distortions bleed directly into her perception of reality. Gaslighting becomes almost impossible to identify because his feelings are sincere, even when they are monstrous.

This story says that the soulmate bond does not reveal truth. It destroys the ability to distinguish individual truth.

What makes these three versions so compelling together is that none of them actually disagrees about the seductive power of soulmate bonds. All three portray the connection as overwhelming, transformative, and identity-altering. The disagreement lies in whether that transformation should be trusted.

With a violent ending that will be scarred into my retinas for many years, Velvet Mind answers with a question of its own:

What lengths would you be forced to go to if you found yourself bound to a monster?

Chapter End Notes

I was also going to make this a Substack like it is in my daemon AU, but Substack didn't exist then, so WordPress it is!

Chapter 5: Locked in Orbit

Chapter Summary

Ilya and Shane examine the meaning and effects of their bond in the daylight... and also in the shower.

Chapter Notes

Please let me know if you see typos!

The first thing Shane noticed was that he woke up before his alarm, but with the faint light peeking through the curtains, he knew it must be close. His awareness still felt expanded between his and Rozanov’s bodies, but he wasn’t lost in their little universe. He could find the edges of himself, and pulled together the bits of him that had been cast into the stars. He kept his eyes closed, hovering in that hazy realm between sleep and wakefulness.

The second thing that he noticed was that they were not in the same position that they had fallen asleep in. Rozanov was now curled around his back, legs intertwined, and it genuinely took Shane a moment to determine which were actually his. The heavy hand resting much too low on Shane’s abs should’ve been a warning.

Because the third and fourth things that Shane noticed were almost simultaneous: he was rock hard, straining against his boxers, aching twice as fiercely from the twinned sensation in Rozanov’s body, except his cock was nestled against Shane’s ass. And he had been rocking back against Rozanov in his sleep, and his body had continued to move until he forced himself to stop. The doubling of lust was overwhelming, but he was not going to grind into an unconscious person in general and not ever against Rozanov. The thought tasted like ash in his mouth. The acrid sensation grew as he started to slowly put some space between their bodies, but the hand around him tightened. Shane could break through it, except he didn’t want to. Rozanov was holding him and it felt better than anything else he’d ever experienced. Definitely better than the first time he had sex— though it had been fine. It was probably better than learning he’d been drafted to Kingston at 15.

That thought was enough to jolt him into full wakefulness, and he shifted away. He did try not to wake Rozanov, but their bodies were synced, so Rozanov took a deep breath, rolled onto his back, and Shane mirrored him. He turned his head and sent a quiet smile over to Shane. Shane felt his breathing quicken as panic about their situation truly set in for the first time. He watched as their chests rose and fell in rapid unison and couldn’t tell whether he was making them breathe so quickly or if Rozanov was pushing them to the verge of hyperventilation. His body had always been something he could rely on without a second thought. He was in perfect control of himself; he had to be to perform at an elite level. His margin for error was as thin as the blades on his skates, and now that had been ripped away from him. His body didn’t even feel like it belonged to him anymore.

This was going to be the end of everything for him.

The end of hockey.

The end of independence.

The NHL quietly got rid of every somatic who touched the ice.

He’d fought tooth and nail to prove he belonged there, working twice as hard as anyone, everyone else.

He’d forced himself in, carved out a space despite all the odds.

Shane realized that Rozanov had slowed his breathing, but Shane’s was still racing. He couldn’t match it— couldn’t slow it down. He felt a bit like he was floating in his head but not in the place where Rozanov also was. Rozanov was maybe saying something, but his ears were ringing. It was hard to think.

Rozanov’s body moved away from him, and the tearing sensation jolted through every nerve, returning him painfully to his body. His breath was still coming too fast, but he felt in control of it now.

“What the shit?” he wheezed.

Rozanov pressed the sides of their bodies together.

“You were… freaking? Made me panic too. Sorry.”

Shane grumbled, but it had technically worked, so he tried not to be too upset. He tried to put his panic aside. It was usually easy enough to do, but now he found it had nowhere to go.

Shane just stared at Rozanov and tried to focus his anger and panic onto him, but that didn’t feel fair. His career was just as fucked. He likely wouldn’t have picked this anymore than Shane would’ve. He noted how soft he looked in the dim morning light, dirty blond curls fuzzy at the edge, framing his face; his blue eyes were gentle, and all the lines of his face were relaxed. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anyone else look so sexy with a speck of sleep still in the corner of one eye. It shouldn’t be possible, and it definitely wasn’t what he should be thinking about right now.

He shook his head and tried to focus. He had awoken into a new paradigm—the first day of forever. He didn’t understand how to reconcile everything he grew up believing about soulmates, how they completed you, with what he knew about Ilya Rozanov.

Shane tucked him in a box labeled rival and asshole and never expected to need to examine its contents ever again. Now he was holding its shredded remains, trying desperately to find another label so he could put it away again. Anything besides what he wanted to do: write across every scrap mine. But Rozanov didn’t belong to him alone, did he? He already knew what it was like to have a soulmate.

“When did you and Svetlana bond? What was it like?”

“We were small. I just turned six. I do not really remember a time when we were not bonded,” he paused, and then spoke more slowly. “But it did not feel like this.”

That made sense; a somatic and cerebral bond must feel very different.

Still, they’d been so young, about as young as people could bond, he thought. Shane hated the vile coil that snaked its way through him. He sat up, moving his foot to rest against Rozanov’s leg. As he did, he stretched, putting his hands behind his head, arching his back, and tipping his head back, gently stretching his entire upper body. He felt a pang of lust shoot through him that had not originated with him. He froze mid-stretch and threw a dirty look at Rozanov.

“Don’t do that,” he scolded.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “Was hot.”

Shane scoffed and tried not to think of how much he’d wanted Rozanov since they first locked eyes.

“I would not do anything you do not want.”

Shane lowered his arms and said, “I do not want.”

Rozanov did not rebut his lie. He could feel Shane’s interest, but that was not the same as wanting to act on it. Shane’s arousal was just a normal thing that happened when he woke up, magnified by Rozanov’s similar state.

“Soon, we’ll be able to separate, and you can go back to Svetlana or all the other women… I guess people you usually see. I have absolutely zero interest in joining Ilya Rozanov’s harem.”

Shane’s stomach turned over at the thought of him with other people. He just hoped it wasn’t strong enough that Rozanov felt it. He saw the other man’s brow furrow slightly in confusion.

“Kharem?” Rozanov repeated the apparently unfamiliar word.

“Like a group of people you keep around to sleep with. Like kings and queens used to have.”

“Ah, гарем. Almost same word,” Rozanov’s face split into a delighted smile. “So you think I am a king? Good to know.”

Shane rolled his eyes.

“Of course, that’s what you take from that, asshole.”

Shane felt his calf cramp and moved his leg up so that he could drive his thumb into the knot. He didn’t feel the knot in his muscle, so he moved his fingers up and down, searching for the problem. Then he noticed Rozanov was also massaging the same spot.

“Sorry. I think it is my problem. I get these.”  

Shane pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t know how to deal with his body feeling so out of control.

“Fucking seriously? I hate this. And you’re not pressing hard enough. You’ll never reduce the knot like that.”

Shane knocked his hand out of the way and drove his thumbs into the knot. He was not gentle and had to resist the urge to shout in pain, too. Instead, he wiggled his toes, trying to distract himself. He moved his thumbs in small circles and felt the knot shrink slightly, enough to take the edge off.

“I would think your hands would be stronger, given that you have to grip a stick for your job and your proclivities,” Shane was ranting, words coming out in a quick stream. “I hear those outings keep you exceptionally occupied—I really can’t believe you’re both okay with sleeping with other people.”

Rozanov looked genuinely puzzled.

“You talk like this to confuse me on purpose,” he stated flatly, “Sleeping with other people. Like sex?”

Shane eyed him suspiciously.

“Yes. Your girlfriend, Svetlana. Most people with partners don’t sleep around like that.”

That made Rozanov laugh.

“You can’t say ‘sex,’ Hollander? Is too dirty word for little Canadian boy?” Rozanov made a dismissive hand gesture and added, “Sveta and I are friends. Sometimes we have sex, but mostly we don’t.”

“Shut up. I can say sex. But I watched you stick your tongue down her throat.”

“Have you kissed people before, Hollander?”

“What? Of course I have.”

“And you were in love with all of them?”

“No. I mean… I liked them. Was attracted to the guys, but I’ve never been in love.”

The words hung awkwardly in the daylight of this new bond.

Rozanov said with a shrug, “So Sveta is a platonic soulmate. Best friend in the world, but a simple bond. What we have is different is… I don’t know the word… not simple?

Shane felt like the floor dropped out from under him. Profound bonds were something he didn’t even let himself think about. It was too rare and too all-encompassing to imagine. Too ruinous.

“You mean a profound bond. No, we fucking do not. It’s bad enough it’s somatic. It’s not… I don’t even like you.”

If Rozanov had a reaction to his words, Shane didn’t feel it.

“Yes, sad for me too. But I know the difference, Hollander. I lived with a simple bond my whole life. It does not feel like this. If this was simple, we would not have to touch like this.”

 He felt dizzy. He felt like he needed to sit down despite already being seated.

A profound bond. People with profound bonds could only be apart for days, maybe a week or two max. But he’d have to, need to, see Rozanov almost every day for the rest of his life. But maybe the worst part was that he would want to. As rare as profound bonds were, people with them who didn’t want to be together, who pushed the bounds of their ability to separate, were virtually unheard of.

He curled up so his head was between his knees. He felt slightly better in that position, but was hit with a huge amount of guilt as he realized that he was making Rozanov dizzy, too. Shane made an effort to even out his breathing. He needed to let go of his panic. It wasn’t going to help anyone.

Shane felt Rozanov move next to him, leaning into him a bit more. The contact was grounding, but he didn’t feel any more in control of his body.

“Sveta is almost here. I think she has food and coffee.”

“Mmhm. Can you tell she has coffee through your bond?”

He tilted his head. “Not exactly. But she feels very… happy with herself. So probably coffee.”

---

Hollander grabbed the cardboard drink container from Sveta and immediately gulped down some coffee. As Ilya wrapped his arms around her and touched his chin gently to the top of her head—not enough to mess up her hair—he noted that it felt different. Before, when they embraced, she had been everything to him, his whole world in his arms. And it wasn’t that she meant any less to him; nothing could shake their bond; there was simply more to him now.

Ilya wasn’t sure exactly what she sensed from him; his thoughts and feelings were so jumbled he couldn’t begin to pull them apart. When they woke up that morning, stuck together like they belonged, Ilya was reminded of the visions? images? from the moment they bonded, twin stars locked together forever in orbit, and for a moment he felt like he was filled with the warmth of those suns until Hollander ripped himself away.

Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath’d hooded sharp-tooth’d touch!
Did it make him ache so, leaving me?

Sveta’s concern brushed his mind and wrenched him from his thoughts, but it wasn’t all he felt from her.

«This might be good for you. Healing,» she said.

«You’re just happy that you were right,» he responded and felt that flash of smug satisfaction because she absolutely did love being right, regardless of the circumstances. But it faded when Sveta saw the way that Hollander still had his hand on Ilya’s torso.

“Okay, so still have to touch. So this is not a simple bond,” she said. “But you should be able to separate a little soon, I think. So, you have a plan? Find a bond center?”

Sveta’s concern and Hollander’s terror flowed through him in a jumbled mixture.

Hollander responded first,

“Absolutely not. That’s not an option. No one can know about this.”

Ilya was relieved that Hollander was on the same page as him. Somatic bonds were a death sentence for NHL players, and their profound connection was the headsman.

“Going to bond center, registering bond is a problem. Not going to bond center will also be a problem,” Ilya said.

Everyone went to a bond center for a week or two after a new bond formed, but profound ones could take longer to settle. The centers filled out official paperwork, helped people stabilize their connections, and provided logistical support. People often had to uproot their whole life to live near their new partner, but the centers smoothed the whole process and helped people learn to live with their new connection.

“First of all, the US centers are all private, and any halfway decent one is super fucking expensive—”

Ilya cut him off, “Oh, Voyageurs not give a signing bonus to their second pick?”

“Fuck you. Second, you have to know that if they figure out either of us has a somatic bond, we’ll never get to play. We won’t get ice time, or they’ll send us to the AHL, or find some reason to trade us. There’s like one guy with a somatic bond, and he barely plays anymore.”

Ilya and Shane started moving wordlessly back to the bed to sit on the end. Sveta sat on the one facing them. Hollander’s shoulders were growing increasingly rigid, and Sveta’s disquiet was growing. Ilya was trying to find a space in his body or mind that belonged to him and felt stuck.

“Yes, Stinson hasn’t been getting the time he used to,” Sveta said. “He was moved down to the third line, but that’s because he’s been playing like shit since he got back—not as aggressive as he used to be. The Redwoods were right to do this regardless of the bonds. You two were expensive rookies. Are excellent. It might be different for you.”

Hollander continued to tense, making Ilya’s shoulders and jaw feel rigid. He couldn’t sense the actual anxiety, but could feel its effects in his body. It was making Ilya anxious, which was making Sveta more concerned. He really needed to get a grip on these bonds, but he was already exhausted. He needed to eat. He rifled through the bag Sveta brought and found some breakfast pastries and fruit.

“But that’s how it always goes. Somatic guys don’t make it to the draft. And if they bond after, their minutes dwindle until they’re traded and never get another contract.”

Ilya held up both the apple and a pastry for Hollander to choose from. He grabbed the apple, which pleased Ilya because he wanted the pastry. Although what he really wanted was to massage the tension out of Hollander’s body. They were barely touching—enough to not feel the pain, but not enough to satisfy him right now. He—or rather, the bond—wanted Hollander wrapped in his arms and feel the sun again.

“Yes, we both know this. Plus, all the, um, things on the body? To make it fair… мониторинг,” Ilya said.

“Monitoring,” Sveta said. Ilya made note of the cognate; he’d likely need it again.

“Monitoring. It is hard. Expensive. Especially on different teams. Teams do not want to have to do that, easier to get rid of players.”

Ilya started to unwrap the pastry.

“Do not eat in bed! Crumbs!” Hollander exclaimed. Ilya rolled his eyes, and they both shuffled over to the tiny desk. “The NHL makes monitoring into this huge production, but it’s literally just heart rate monitors. If you’re not blocking, your heart rates are synced. If you are, then they’re different. It’s stupid they make it into this big thing.”

They all mulled this over while they ate and drank the coffee.

“Not telling anyone—not getting any help is dumb. The centers exist for a reason. Figuring this out takes weeks. BUT,” she said as Hollander went to interrupt her, “letting people find out would probably ruin your careers. So, you only have two bad options.”

Hollander was brushing all the crumbs from the pastry into a trash can, and the absurdity of the situation became too much for Ilya. The panic he’d been trying to hold at bay overwhelmed him. His ears rang and his vision tunneled. All he could feel was the tightness in his body and the press of Sveta’s worry, and he was dimly aware that he fell into Hollander. The gravitational pull of their feelings was rapidly becoming more than Ilya could take. He strained, trying to hold onto his walls, but the force of it was inexorable.

Painless after all he lay exhausted but not so unhappy.

 His body melded with Hollander again, and it felt amazing—the deep connection he felt for and from both of these people soothed him as he gazed up at the stars. If he stayed here long enough, could he track their progress across the sky? Would he see the scorpion chase the hunter over the years? Or were there new constellations here? He floated like that for a while, until he felt himself surface. He felt his head in Sveta’s lap, head nestled against her stomach, so he felt the vibration of her singing, a Russian lullaby, in his upper body.

But he felt nothing else from her. She was blocking him—her mind entirely absent from his. He never liked it when they had to block each other, but he appreciated it right now.

Hollander, somewhat to his surprise, was curled around his back, but as Ilya came to, he had propped himself up on one arm. With the other, he was running his nails gently along Ilya’s back. The pressure, the speed, the exact way Hollander was doing it was so achingly familiar; he felt tears well up immediately. No one else had ever been able to duplicate the way his mom scratched his back. But Hollander—he could tell when he was getting it right because he could feel the effect it had on Ilya in his own body.

«Ilyushenka, what’s wrong now?» Sveta asked.

Ilya couldn’t respond, but he knew the wave of grief and longing that hit him would’ve likely broken through to her. Ilya wasn’t sure exactly what Hollander could feel but knew he could tell something was happening.

“Should I stop?” He asked in a voice as soft as Ilya had ever heard.

“No, please. It feels wonderful.”

Ilya almost sobbed as Hollander continued. He couldn’t believe Hollander was doing this for him, nor could he control his upwelling of affection.

“You scared me,” Hollander said. “You scared us, I think. But Svetlana realized you were probably just overwhelmed pretty quickly.”

Ilya breathed in deeply, reveling in all the touch and care he felt.

“She is very smart,” he said.

“I think I should leave soon. I will keep blocking until you two are more stable. You need to rest. Stabilizing a new bond is exhausting. It’s barely been 12 hours for you two. Sleep will help.”

“I will miss you,” he said.

At the same time, Hollander said, “Thank you, Svetlana.” 

Sveta slid out from underneath Ilya and put a pillow in her place. Hollander stopped scratching his back and curled around him more fully. Ilya felt his breath in his hair as he drifted back to sleep.

---

Shane woke up suddenly, heart racing. He didn’t think he’d been asleep long, but he was disoriented. Ilya was in a similar state next to him. But he was relieved that Rozanov looked peaceful. Shane could hardly believe the depth of his terror when the other man had collapsed into him suddenly. His blind panic seemed to short-circuit rational thought and skipped the part of his brain that didn’t care for the other man. His mind finally caught up to the reason he’d woken so suddenly. Ilya sat up too, and both their heads turned toward the door as they heard loud knocking.

“Shane. Shane!” his mother’s voice called. “Are you in there? Please open up.”

Fuck, he’d forgotten about his parents. Hadn’t figured out an excuse. Their flight was tomorrow, but he was going to need to stay longer until he sorted things out with Rozanov.

“Your mom?” Rozanov asked.

“Yes. Fuck. What should I say?”

Shane wasn’t sure how Rozanov could pull off such a cocky fucking smile so soon after waking.

“That you have someone in here with you?”

“What? No. No way. And if I tell her I’m sick, she’ll want to come in and help.”

“Mmm. Tell her you are hungover. Maybe she will let you handle it yourself.”

“Ugh. Okay. Stay here,” he started to shuffle away. “Okay, sorry if this hurts. Will you be okay?”

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Yes, Hollander. Go.”

Shane slid off the bed and stood up, breaking contact at the last possible moment. It still hurt like his body was torn in two. Maybe less bad than last night, but worse than most hits he’d taken in hockey. He heard Rozanov stifle a grunt as he curled in on himself a bit. Shane had to fight every instinct not to turn around.

His mom was still knocking, and now, the sound was unbearable to his quickly frying senses.

He cracked the door open, but kept his foot firmly behind it, so she couldn’t force her way in. He saw both of his parents.

Shane leaned into the door, not able to support all his own weight. It felt like every cell in his body was straining backwards, trying to get to Rozanov. The worst thing was knowing Ilya was feeling the same. He was violating laws coded deep in his psyche: don’t hurt him. Just thinking about causing him pain made his own redouble.

“Shane, what’s wrong? You look awful.”

“Hungover.”

“Shane. You know it’s not legal for you here. And it’s not a good look.”

Shane merely grunted in response, desperation growing to take his soulmate’s pain away.

“He’s young, Yuna. Let him celebrate. Plus, it looks like he’s learned a lesson,” his dad said. “We’ll bring you something to hydrate.”

Shane could hardly get out his response: “No. Have some. Sorry. Bye.”

His dad laughed, and he closed the door on them. He knew the disapproval on his mom’s face would bother him later, but he simply couldn’t care right now. Shane moved as quickly as his feet would carry him, throwing himself back into Rozanov’s arms, tucking himself under his chin and wrapping as much of his body around Rozanov as possible.

“Fuck, this is awful,” he said. His breath was still ragged. He didn’t know what to do with this instinctive need not to hurt Rozanov. Until a few hours ago, his primary feeling toward him was wanting to punch him.

They stayed like that for a while, long past the time when their breath had evened out, and heart rates returned to normal. He didn’t have to think quite so hard about staying in his own body—instead able to enjoy the physical sensation.

Shane pulled back slightly and looked into Rozanov’s eyes. He was greeted with a small smile, one at odds with the smirk Shane had seen up to this point, and he melted a little into his gaze.

It was kind of a nice moment, until Rozanov had to ruin it.

“I’m horny, sort of.”

Shane pulled back, nearly breaking all the contact between them.

“What the fuck?” he said as he assessed his body. “No, you’re not. What the fuck?”

Rozanov shrugged.

“Just a little. I will be more soon. I have high, um. I like to have sex a lot.”

Shane did feel tight, somehow. Like his body was tensing, building to something.

“Yeah, no shit. Why are you telling me this?”

“Probably will need to take care of it before we can fully block.”

Shane closed his eyes and tried not to picture Rozanov touching himself. The way his hand might slide down his abs and slowly sink below the waistband of Shane’s shorts and begin stroking.

His pulse picked up, and he tried to burn those images out of his mind.

“Jesus, fuck. Can’t you just wait? Use a little self-control.” 

“Sure, but then I will be very horny. So will you. Is probably worse that way. Can take a long time to block more than a minute or two. But is it up to you until we can block.”

The worst part was he knew that Rozanov meant it; his face was entirely absent of his usual teasing smile. He would wait even if the horniness killed both of them

And then he wondered why he was fighting it?

Rozanov was his, or he thought more uncomfortably, was him. More like one being with two manifestations. A profound, somatic bond was as connected as two people could be. It wasn’t that somatic bonds were deeper than cerebral ones, but they were more visceral. The gap was in knowing something and feeling it. The moment they told anyone, they would simply belong together; any legal and most financial hurdles, thanks to the Canadian government, would be waived in the face of their connection. And all it would cost him was the thing he’d worked his entire life to achieve.

So he was stuck with this horny fucking asshole like a blade hanging over his outstretched neck.

Who was stupidly hot.

Who was completely terrible.

Who was massaging his shoulders?

“I’m sorry,” Rozanov said in a way that sounded genuine. “I was not trying to… make it more hard.”

Shane tried to wiggle out of his hands, but his effort was halfhearted, so Rozanov’s fingers followed him.

“Whatever, go jerk off. We can touch pinky toes or something. I don’t care,” Shane said.

“If I do that, you will come too. I would not make you feel that if you don’t want.”

Shane tried to sound unaffected, as if the idea of Rozanov giving him an orgasm meant nothing.

“I’ve had an orgasm before, Rozanov.”

“Ilya. You are my soulmate, and we are talking about orgasms. I think you should call me Ilya.”

Shane wished he had a better argument against that. He didn’t know how to hold onto Ilya. The shape of him felt foreign. Rozanov was durable, someone Shane could yell at and slam into the boards, but Ilya felt delicate in his hands. Precious, even.

“Okay, Ilya.”

“You have had sex before?” Ilya asked.

That did make Shane turn around—Ilya’s hands still clamped on his shoulders.

“What!?” he sputtered indignantly. “Yes, of course. Do you really think I haven’t?”

Ilya just shrugged. “Everyone says hockey is your boyfriend. Hard to have sex with hockey. Maybe your glove?”

Shane saw the teasing in his eye as he said, “Oh fuck off. I had a boyfriend. Two actually. Not for very long. I was too busy. Have you had a boyfriend?”

Rozanov shook his head. “No boyfriend. No girlfriend. Just Sveta and people I meet at parties.”

Shane’s eyes narrowed, and he tried to shove down the displeasure. Before he could say anything else, both of their stomach rumbled.

“Room service?” Shane suggested. “And a movie? There’s not much we can do until we can stop touching.”

Shane realized that he’d laid a perfect bait for Ilya to make another innuendo, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he grabbed the remote and started flipping through the channels, turning on the subtitles and looking for something to watch while Shane looked over the menu.

---

They watched the movie, ordered more room service, tested the bond—still fucking hurt, and watched another movie, which they both fell asleep during. They woke up clinging together. Ilya was no longer sure who was holding on to whom, or if it really mattered.

After the second movie, Ilya could tell Shane was restless. Ilya felt like he had a stone in his throat paired with vague nausea. Plus, he was genuinely turned on by being intertwined with Shane. But only one of those things was something he could fix.

“Shit. I need a cigarette.”

Shane’s head whipped over to him.

“Oh, is that what this feeling is? You shouldn’t be smoking, and now you’ve made it my problem.”

Ilya ignored him as he dug around the stuff Svetlana had dropped off and found his pack and a lighter.

“You can’t smoke in here. I’ll get charged.”

Ilya rolled his eyes.

“I’ll pay you back.”

“I don’t want to be around that shit.”

“So, you want withdrawal on top of everything else right now?”

“You’re such a fucking asshole.”

Ilya did genuinely feel bad about putting Shane through this. He didn’t smoke very much, but he would feel it if he went too long. Ilya smoked with his head as far out the window as he could go. The nicotine burned through him, and he felt steadier than he had since they bonded. When he ducked back in, Shane immediately said:

“Shower, I don’t want to smell that shit.”

Ilya groaned, but they walked over to the shower together. He turned on the water and took off his clothes. He pretended not to notice the sharp intake of breath he was forced into, nor the arousal he felt from Shane.

Ilya stepped into the shower and tried to wash himself quickly, hoping to hedge his body’s usual desire when taking a private shower. But it had been too long between travel, jet lag, and waiting for Sveta to get in; it had been three days since he had an orgasm, which was three days longer than he usually went. Still, he tried to ignore his growing erection.

“Stop that,” Shane gritted out from the other side of the curtain.

“Am trying,” Ilya quipped. “But I told you. I usually jerk off in the shower.”

Shane groaned.

“That clogs the drains. You shouldn’t do it there.”

“Oh my god, Shane. You are so boring,” Ilya said as he tried to focus on his annoyance and not anything else. “Plus, you are not helping.”

Ilya heard Shane start to rebut him, but he was in no mood, using all his self-control in other areas.

“You cannot lie to me. I can feel it.”

Shane’s tension running through him felt different from his own—his own feeling was more a desire to be in as much contact with someone as possible, but Shane’s body screamed for release but strained somehow. Inside him, these feelings locked together, spinning faster and burning brighter. It was too much. He stopped trying to clean himself, trying to keep focus. To keep talking.

“It’s okay. It’s not… you do not have to—”

He didn’t know where he was going with that sentence. He was beyond making plans or rational thought, even in Russian. The relatively chaste hand on his knee was driving him crazy.

He stopped the water and, without looking, extended his hand back to grab the towel Shane offered. He dried himself perfunctorily and wrapped the towel around his waist as securely as humanly possible.

Ilya pulled back the curtain and stepped out of the shower—heard Shane’s labored breathing alongside his own. At this point, he was going to need to break contact and take the pain if he couldn’t act. His whole body thrummed, every nerve pulling toward Shane.

Shane was seated, rigidly hunched over on the side of the tub, so he couldn’t see much, but he could feel him straining, neither willing to move first. Ilya couldn’t understand why Shane was holding back, why he didn’t want this.

His attraction was clear. Ilya had seen it before the bond, and now he knew that Shane wanted him—or Shane’s body wanted him. His reluctance stung a bit.

But Ilya knew how fickle somatic bonds could be—how little love they could hold.

So he steeled himself to take a step back, inflict the pain that was the only thing that could keep him from touching himself.

But Shane’s hand wrapped firmly around the back of his knee, and he felt Shane release whatever careful control he had over his desire. The full force of the feeling washed over him, and it was his lover suffocating him, crowding his lips, thick in the pores of his skin.

His breath hitched, but he didn’t notice if he exhaled because Shane’s other hand hit the edge of the towel, fingers brushing his skin that already felt full of him. His whole body shook, and he wasn’t sure if the feeling started in him or in Shane.

Shane’s head was still down as Ilya half asked, and half said,

“You will regret this?”

At his words, Shane moved his fingertips up the inside of his thighs, brushing his fine hairs, and leaving goosebumps in their wake. He tilted his head back, and Ilya met his gaze—still sharp with determination but growing hazy the longer he looked.

“No.”

Shane licked his lips as his eyes began to roam over Ilya slowly, as his hand kept delicately stroking his inner thighs. His finger nearly brushed Ilya’s balls but stopped maddeningly short every time. He held as still as possible to keep himself from throwing himself on top of Shane or whimpering. Shane’s other hand began tracing the lines of abs up his chest. And then he couldn’t take it anymore; he lifted his hand to cup Shane’s face, using his thumb to trace the freckles along the bridge of his nose. They were both so hard, and Ilya didn’t know how to contain both feelings, and it seemed neither did Shane. He stood, withdrawing his hands from beneath the towel, squeezing his waist and pulling him closer until their bodies were flush against each other. They hesitated briefly, for a moment just breathing the same air. Their lips met, crowding with surprising gentleness, each savoring, for just a moment, the sensation of their first kiss in every pore.

They didn’t move for a small eternity.

But the sweetness quickly faded into the depths of their need. Shane’s mouth opened for his tongue before he even sought entry. They were no longer moving as two people, but halves of a whole.

They ground their hips together frantically in desperate, unskilled motions. He traced kisses along Shane’s jaw to his ear and licked and bit the sensitive lobe, drawing out soft moans from him until Ilya whispered:

“Touch me.”

Shane obeyed instantly, tearing away the towel and wrapping his hand around his cock, and he almost came right then. Shane froze, like he didn’t want it to be over either, and let Ilya settle for a moment.

Instead, Shane peppered gentle kisses across his collarbone, just holding his cock, and Ilya needed more. He thrust into Shane’s hand and groaned. His hands snaked their way into Shane’s hair, and the silky strands felt perfect threaded between his fingers. He tugged gently, and then harder when he felt Shane’s dick twitch in response.  

Shane tried a few tentative strokes, rubbing his thumb over his slit and causing Ilya to gasp, before he felt a doubling sensation through his own hand, and Shane hit a perfect rhythm—as if he’d touched Ilya many times before. Because in some ways he had; he was pulling on Ilya’s muscle memory, and Ilya was flooded with all the best parts of touching himself, knowing exactly what felt good, and having someone else touch him. At the flick of his wrist, they both let out groans.

He could feel how good this felt for Shane too, and that fact only heightened his pleasure. Their eyes met, hooded with lust, and Ilya could see the stars in them. He was obsessed with the little sounds Shane made just from touching him.

After a few more strokes, the friction edged into too much, and Shane paused briefly to allow him to pour lotion into his hands. Shane’s grip tightened, and his other hand moved to his balls to tug them with an irresistible amount of pressure. Shane hissed into Ilya’s neck in response to his own movements.

They didn’t need to speak, not when they felt each other so effortlessly, but he breathed into Shane’s shoulder, “Yes. Just like that. Is perfect.” And felt the praise burn like a fire through both of them.

He felt Shane’s hot, wet mouth at his neck, kissing and sucking until he found the spot under his jaw that made him moan loudly, the sound echoing across the tile as the delicious feeling echoed across their bond.

“More, Shane,” he panted.

“Oh god, Ilya,” Shane gasped and moved his hand frantically. Ilya felt how close Shane was. His own untouched cock pressed against his boxers, dripping and driving both of them to the brink.

For a brief second, Ilya realized that Shane was tapping his sensation, pulling more of the pleasure into himself, driving his own orgasm, and Ilya wanted to flood him with all of it and watch him completely unravel before his eyes. He drove his hips up into Shane’s hand and hurtled both of them into the dual pulsing pleasure of release, feeling his own in Shane’s hand, and Shane’s inside his pants. 

His head collapsed onto Shane’s shoulder, both breathing hard, riding the aftershocks and enjoying the tremors in both of their bodies.

Shane pulled back first, looking at him with hazy eyes still full of stars and said, “Now I need a shower.”

Ilya chuckled as he pressed another kiss to Shane’s mouth. He felt Shane wrinkle his nose.

“You still taste like cigarettes. Brush your teeth.”

Ilya moved to the sink and grabbed his toothbrush while Shane took off his pants and stepped into the shower. It took them both a minute to realize that they were no longer touching, as if some part of them knew it would no longer hurt. Their eyes met, and he felt a heady mixture of relief and grief.

Shane’s eyes darted away as he said, “This is good. I think. We can stabilize our bond. Figure this out.”

Ilya made a noise he hoped passed for agreement and was grateful when Shane pulled the shower curtain closed between them.

Chapter End Notes

This was my first smut scene. I have succesfully posted 7 other hollanov works that only really implied smut until this point. But I couldn't write this story without sex. The plot demanded handjobs okay??

The plot will have... other demands later.

If you have tips or pointers or ideas for me on writing smut, I'd love to chat via discord or something similar. I'm not looking for critical feedback in my comments, please!

I never remember to add these until after I hit post :/
642-643
Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!
Did it make you ache so, leaving me?

853
Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,

1172-1173
My lovers suffocate me,
Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin,

Chapter 6: Legal Rulings

Chapter Notes

Huge thanks to bgayle1206 for joining as beta!

I AM NOT A LAWYER. I just listen to a lot of what Nina Totenberg has to say (iykyk). I spent an unreasonable amount of time figuring out the logic of these cases. This is what I think about when I’m out walking in the evenings and furiously dictating into my notes app.

Obviously the laws of Canada are also just as meaningful to this story, but I don’t understand how parliamentary systems & judicial systems in Canada work in enough detail to write something like this. However, the vibe is that Canada has similar or better everything than the US (I know this isn’t literally true, but like it also is right now 109429% true.) So please assume that similar things apply there. The US can use Canadian case law as persuasive, but not binding, precedent. And Canadian tells me the reverse is true. But again, I cannot say this enough: I am not a lawyer or a judge.

Also, there probably won't be epistolary parts between every chapter. I'm hitting them hard in the beginning, but I make no promises to always have them!

US Supreme Court Case

ROBINSON v. BIOLEXNA PHARMA, INC. (1993)

 Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Bond Status Protection Act was enacted because Congress recognized a simple reality: soulmate bonds are not a matter of personal preference or choice. For some individuals, particularly those with profound somatic bonds, separation can produce measurable physical and emotional effects that significantly limit major life activities. As such, bond status constitutes a protected class with all the legal protections afforded to such status

Jeffrey Robinson was repeatedly denied promotion because Biolexna Pharma, Inc. assumed that the travel associated with the position was incompatible with his bond. Rather than determine whether accommodations would allow Robinson to perform the essential functions of the job, the company treated his bond status itself as disqualifying.

The Act does not require employers to disregard legitimate business needs, nor does it require accommodations that would impose an undue hardship, financial or otherwise. What it requires is an individualized assessment of the employee and the position at issue.

Reasonable accommodation may take many forms. Modified travel schedules, adjusted assignments, temporary relocation assistance, or support for bonded travel may all be appropriate depending upon the circumstances. The Act leaves room for flexibility because no two bonds, workplaces, or positions are exactly alike.

There will, of course, be circumstances in which accommodation is not possible. Certain occupations may involve operational demands, safety requirements, or extended separations that cannot reasonably be altered. In those cases, an employer may conclude that accommodation would impose an undue hardship. The Act does not require employers to do the impossible.

It does require them to try.

Biolexna denied Robinson opportunity based upon assumptions about profoundly bonded individuals rather than on an individualized determination of whether accommodation was available. The Bond Status Protection Act forbids precisely that form of discrimination.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

---

Marcus Jackson v. National Football League et al. (2007)

Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner Marcus Jackson, a former collegiate football player, alleges that respondents unlawfully discriminated against him on the basis of his somatic bond status when no team selected him during the 2005 professional draft.

Jackson points to evidence that, prior to bonding, his performance statistics were comparable to those of several drafted athletes at his position. Respondents, however, relied upon Jackson's complete collegiate record, including the final five games of his senior season, during which his production declined substantially.

Jackson argues that this decline resulted not from athletic limitations but from restrictions placed upon him by his university following the formation of his bond. He contends that professional teams were therefore obligated to disregard those statistics or otherwise account for the circumstances under which they were produced.

We disagree.

Robinson requires employers to consider accommodation. It does not require employers to ignore evidence of diminished performance, nor does it authorize courts to second-guess professional evaluations of talent.

Respondents did not exclude Jackson because he possessed a somatic bond. They evaluated him using the same materials available for every prospective player: game footage, athletic testing, medical evaluations, and performance statistics. Whether those evaluations were wise, shortsighted, or unfair is not a question for this Court.

Jackson may be correct that actions taken by other institutions contributed to his decline in playing time or statistical production. If so, remedies may exist against those institutions. But respondents cannot be held liable for relying upon information that was lawfully available to them at the time they made their decisions.

Robinson guarantees equal opportunity, not professional selection.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

Chapter End Notes

I really wanted to write RBG's dissent in the Jackson case but I've already spent too much time working on this part.

I have a whole backstory for Jeffrey Robinson and his career in big pharma sales in the 90s.

I also believe Marcus Jackson goes to law school after this and becomes one of the ACLU's top lawyers.

Chapter 7: Bond Research

Chapter Summary

They all knew the basic steps of stabilizing a bond that were splashed across all the websites they visited.

• Establish a new equilibrium
• Develop blocking techniques
• Solidify conduit capabilities
The problem wasn’t understanding what they needed to do. Everyone knew how bonds work. The problem was how to do it.

Chapter Notes

I'll get into the calendar stuff later as it becomes more relevant, but this is pretty much the real Habs/Bruins preseason schedule from '09-'10 season for anyone who's a stickler for realism.

Under the lackluster water pressure in the relative privacy of the shower, Shane started to reconsider the benefits of having a somatic soulmate because holy fucking shit. It was primarily still a nightmare, and still failed the cost (everything), benefit (previously: nothing, update: good sex) analysis. Still “avoid at all costs” even if that ship had sailed. Perhaps “avoid revealing at all costs” fit better now. But damn, he did not know that giving a hand job could feel like that.

It wasn’t his first hand job. That dubious distinction went to Tyler Robinette, who at 16 asked Shane to give him skating lessons after school. Shane had been confused because Tyler was a good skater, but gave him tips anyway. Tyler still kissed him and then drove his car to a parking lot with too few street lamps, where they gave each other mediocre hand jobs awkwardly over the center console. His teammates later teased him for not knowing that skating lessons were a universal code for, at least, holding hands, and probably more.

He was glad that Ilya wouldn’t pretend to be interested in something just to hold hands. But Shane did have a few skating tips for him. Ilya dropped his left shoulder on his crossovers; it was almost imperceptible, but he did it every time. His edges weren’t as clean as they could be. Not that Shane was really going to help him become a better hockey player, but he noticed.

Shane left the bathroom and dressed quickly. Ilya was lounging on the bed they’d been sleeping in, one hand above his head, the other clicking through TV channels. Shane stared at him, unsure of where he should go. Part of him wanted to lie back down next to Ilya, but most of him still needed distance.

He decided to sit on the other bed, facing Ilya.

“So, we should talk. Uh, make a plan or something.”

He needed to start rebuilding his life. Ilya muted the TV and turned his head to give him an inscrutable look.

“We probably need to stay here for a few weeks to figure this thing out. Learn to block each other.”

Ilya made some kind of noise in his throat that Shane didn’t really know how to interpret, but decided it was agreement for the sake of keeping the conversation moving.

“When I get back to Canada, I can try to get a prescription for blockers—”

Shane hardly got the word out when Ilya cut him off with a stream of angry Russian. He felt the same pang of anguish like a knife to the chest that he’d felt earlier when Ilya had been overwhelmed: an emotion so fierce he felt it physically. His heart was racing all of a sudden.

“No blockers. No. It isn’t s…” Ilya’s voice broke.

Ilya shook his head slowly.

“Blockers don’t work on profound bonds at all.”

The pain was still eating away at him, but it was lessening as his heart rate slowed.

“Then we have to figure out another way to deal with this. We have development camp in like 10 days. This is a nightmare. Can we be apart long enough by that time to even go?”

“I don’t know.”

They just stared at each other, feeling this problem loom over them like an insurmountable hurdle. Shane tried to push through into something concrete.

“Rookie camp starts September 8^th for me. When is yours?”

“10 September, I think.”

Calendars worked for Shane. The date was the date. It was fixed and predictable. On this side of July, the middle of September was a comfortable distance away. The most time people spent in bond centers was 6 weeks, so they could do this.

He thought about their schedules:

Montréal: 

Fri, Sep 18       vs. Florida

Sat, Sep 19      vs. Ottawa

Sun, Sep 20     @ Ottawa

Mon, Sep 21    @ Boston

Tue, Sep 22     vs Pittsburgh

Fri, Sep 25       vs Boston

Sun, Sep 27     vs Buffalo

Boston Preseason

Wed, Sep 16    @ New York

Thu, Sep 17     @Toronto

Sun, Sep 20     vs New York

Mon, Sep 21    vs Montréal

Wed, Sep 23    @ Columbus

Fri, Sep 25       @ Montréal

Sat, Sep 26      @ Columbus

“Okay, Boston and Montréal play twice in the preseason. And with the media hype, we will probably play those games, so we’ll see each other on the 21^st and 25^th of September… If you come to Montréal with me until the 9^th, then it’s less than two weeks until we’ll see each other.”

“You have Montreal’s schedule memorized? You were drafted yesterday. Did you memorize Boston too, or did you know you would be second?”

“Fuck you. I know every team’s preseason schedule.”

Ilya’s eyebrows rose, but Shane wasn’t sure if he was impressed or thought he was out of his mind. Probably the latter.

“That’s not important right now,” Shane said. 

Two weeks wasn’t very long. Surely they could do two weeks. He’d be so busy that he’d probably barely think about Ilya.

“Two weeks is a long time for this. Will be uncomfortable. Probably,” he paused, searching for a word, “distracting.”

“We’ll be fine. We’ll be busy and fine and see each other in two weeks.”

It would be fine because it had to be, but Ilya didn’t say anything. But Shane felt his tension as he looked determinedly back at the TV, but the sensation passed quickly.

“You seem to know a lot about this? No one in my family has ever had this kind of bond. It’s supposed to run in families, right?” Shane asked.

The distance stretched out between them, a strip of hotel carpet that held the span of continents. Their bond was the bridge they had to build over the gap of oceans and cultures that divided them, but its instructions were in a language neither of them could read.

“Yes. It does,” Ilya said through clenched teeth.

“Oh. So someone in your family has one?”

“Yes. Had one.”

Ilya closed his eyes, and for one brief moment, Shane couldn’t feel him at all.

His face was completely blank

His awareness of Ilya flooded back to him as he saw Ilya fiddle with the remote and turn up the TV volume. The sound grated on him as he tried to understand what was happening in this conversation. Watching Ilya, he felt this confusing mix of wonder and revulsion at this bond. It felt so normal, so natural. Deep in his core, he knew it was the way he was always meant to be, but it didn’t lessen the feeling of violation. He didn’t ask for this—didn’t consent to this prison shaped like another man. He’d gone in one second from “me” to a permanent “we.” A union with no minister, no “speak now or forever hold your peace.” Shane would’ve spoken. Would’ve objected if he had the chance. He would still know who he was. He wouldn’t—

“Do you ever stop panicking?” Ilya asked.

He realized that he had hunched over, palms pressed into his eyes, elbows digging into his thighs. Ilya was leaning toward him, not quite touching him.

"Yes," he snapped. On further consideration, sensing that lying was futile, “I don’t know. No. It’s kind of a big deal. My everything is turned upside down.”

“Yes,” Ilya said solemnly. “Is like a permanent nightmare.”

Shane heard Ilya’s voice break and felt like he’d been slapped. Yes, this was his exact nightmare, but hearing Ilya call him a nightmare hurt something deep inside him. But the overwhelming, painful pull to Ilya and the sadness from him was starting to override his own feelings. He felt his own heart break, too, at the depth of Ilya’s pain. He reached out to take Ilya’s hand, and hopefully relieve the pressure that was building behind his eyes, but Ilya swatted it away.

“Do not do that.”

He jerked back as if he’d been burned.

“The chest feeling the… I don’t know. Sad you feel for me. Is physical. I feel it. I do not want that.”

“I don’t pity you, Ilya,” Shane said. “My body just reacts to the idea of you being in pain. I can’t help it.”

The words came out more harshly than he’d intended. He held another part of Ilya: sensitive. About this bond, about his family, about being pitied. Shane didn’t know what to do with these contradictions.

They didn’t talk after that. Ilya moved back to the bed, and Shane lay down on the one he’d been sitting on. He grabbed his phone and saw he had several texts from his parents. They wanted to go to dinner in the restaurant across the street to celebrate. He told Ilya about the plans, and he and Sveta made reservations to also have dinner there.

They both got ready in silence; all the while, every part of him was reaching toward Ilya. And holding himself back made his muscles burn more intensely than any workout he’d ever done. The lactic acid buildup from muscle strain caused instant soreness. His body continued to work in overdrive until he might’ve made some pathetic whimper because Ilya lay back down and patted the bed next to him, and all of his resolve crumbled. He propped himself up on pillows next to Ilya and pressed their sides together. All the pain in his body eased immediately, and he tried to focus on how good it felt instead of how he was Ilya’s nightmare.

---

Sveta sat down across the table from him. It was early for dinner, so the restaurant was not very busy. They’d been able to get a table relatively close to the Hollanders. Neither of them was sure how long they could go without contact. More than a few minutes in their hotel room made him feel like his body was on fire, the pull to go to Shane overriding everything else. But Shane had insisted that not going to dinner with his parents would cause more problems than skipping it would solve.

So Ilya made a reservation for the Brazilian steakhouse and wore the clothes that he meant to wear celebrating last night. He knew it was a bit flamboyant for dinner, but Sveta dressed to match. They both loved to show off.

«Stupid country. Can’t even get a drink,» he said.

«I know. But you probably shouldn’t drink right now anyway. Hollander would feel it. And he looks like he’s in enough trouble.»

Ilya frowned at the way Shane’s head was down, and his hands were fidgeting with the cheesy bread, picking it apart into small pieces instead of eating it. He felt an unfamiliar wave of guilt crash through him. Shane’s parents hadn’t seemed that upset earlier in the day, but what did he really know about them? Neither he nor Sveta had any idea what good parents were like. Both of their mamas were gone at a young age, though Sveta’s mama was still alive. Sveta’s father simply didn’t have enough hours in the day and used money to make up for time or affection.

He kept one eye on the Hollanders while he listened to how Sveta had distracted his own father during breakfast before he’d left for the airport. She had to navigate the delicate situation of having their fathers in the same place

Grigori clawed his way up through the ranks of the party and then survived the tumult of the 90s in Moscow to eke out his position only to see Sergei immediately ascend to a much higher position by rights of dubious familial connection and foreign money. Such a pandering to international diplomacy wouldn’t have happened when the party was in power and, to Grigori, now stood as a symbol for all of the corruptive influence of the West. But his hatred was theoretical rather than personal. An unfriendly face in the neighborhood that could easily be ignored until Ilya and Sveta turned six and almost immediately bonded.

Then the dislike became personal in the face of semi-forced proximity. They were now expected to socialize. Sergei, for his part, was happy for the bond. The Rozanovs were well-connected enough to be respectable and even occasionally useful but not enough to pose a threat. In his turn, his father was clever enough to use the connection to a powerful and wealthy family to his advantage despite his obvious resentment. If Sergei clocked how his father truly felt towards him, he never showed it. And perhaps that made it all the worse for his father—that even his disdain wasn’t bothersome. The only time his father ever flatly refused Sergei was not sending Ilya to the same prestigious international school in New York as Sveta. He still hoped to quash Ilya’s dream of going to the NHL and refused to let him spend any time in America.

He and Sveta usually had a system to keep the two men from talking directly as much as possible, so sending Sveta as their only interference during breakfast was asking for trouble, but what choice did he have? Adding to that his refusal to say a proper goodbye to his father and his decision to stay in the U.S. for the summer, no matter how long it would be until he saw him again, would mean there was hell to pay. But the prospect that it would be months until then sent relief coursing through his body like a cool wave, and he saw Hollander’s shoulders drop incrementally as he shot Ilya an inquisitive look.

It was all becoming too much. The growing pull of Shane. The need to sink into his flawless skin and feel his arms wrapped around his body. The need to have him burned. They’d planned to meet in the bathroom if it got bad enough. He tried to hold out.

Saw himself in prison shaped like another man,
And felt the dull unintermitted pain.

Sveta was eyeing him closely.

«How are you handling… everything?» She asked.

«It’s fine.»

«Ilyushenka, talk to me. It’s not fine. It might be one day but right now it’s raw.»

A waiter came by offering them some sort of meat on a stick. Ilya didn’t catch the description. He said yes and took a bite without even tasting it.

«Sweetheart, tell me–»

«I said it’s fine, Svetlana.»

Ilya saw her visibly recoil and felt immediately guilty.

«I miss you. It’s weird to go without you for so long,» he said.

«I’m right here, but I don’t like this. I hate blocking like this,» she said. «I wish…»

He was wishing right alongside her.

«Are you… mad? Or jealous? This won’t change anything between us. I promise.»

«Ilya,» she said seriously. «Of course it will change things. It already is. We’re not going to Nikolina Gora. It’s not bad; it’s just… not the same.»

Her eyes glimmered with tears, and he hated that she was keeping it from him—hated himself even more for causing it. They so rarely had to be outwardly vulnerable with one another. He felt off-balance, so out of sync with her.

Her family had a house in Nikolina Gora that they would go to every summer for as long as possible. It was a beautiful, old house and a small town they could run free through. They spent as much time as they could outside of the house, ducking her father or whatever au pair he’d hired. It was the place they looked forward to going all year, and now it was ripped away. He was stuck in L.A.—couldn’t go to Russia without Hollander and couldn’t bring Hollander to Russia without raising a lot of suspicions.

«You could still go. You don’t have to let me stop you.»

«And be there without you? Leave you two idiots alone? I don’t think so.»

Even if she wasn’t in his head right now, he could still read her. He knew what she looked like when she held something back.

«What’s wrong, Svet?»

For a moment, she looked so young, like the girl who ran into his mama’s arms when her own mom moved back to Trinidad or the barely older version who held him when they both lost his mama. She had grown into such a beautiful and strong woman that Ilya almost thought she’d buried this part of herself, and he felt the familiar rush of love and protectiveness that he always felt when it came to her.

«Don’t forget about me, Ilyusha. I couldn’t handle that.»

Her lip trembled, almost imperceptibly.

«Never. I could never. You are my light, Svetlyachok.»

He grabbed her hand on the table and squeezed. He felt wracked with guilt. He thought about how different he felt today, how much bigger he felt. He had this whole universe inside of him that only Shane could understand. He didn’t want to lose her in that, but shared her concern. He tried not to let the worry show on his face and instead stuck his tongue out at her. She laughed a little weakly before she pivoted the conversation into something neither of them really cared about but felt safe.

More waiters came by with more food. Ilya laughed at her dry remarks about how drunk and idiotic everyone was last night and swallowed whatever made its way onto his plate in large chunks that slid uncomfortably down his throat. The burning sensation was growing, like a pulsing push trying to drive him back into Shane’s arms.

Finally, it overwhelmed him. He looked at Hollander and saw the same painful need written across his face. They both stood up and walked toward the bathroom. He led Shane into the family bathroom instead of the men’s room.

He heard Shane grumbling, but he didn’t really protest. In the bathroom, Shane threw himself into the arms of his prison. The relief was instantaneous, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to be closer. For a moment, he tried to hold out and then realized how stupid that was—Hollander was feeling the exact same way. So, Ilya turned and wrapped his arms around him, and slipped his hands under Shane’s shirt. He felt his whole nervous system recalibrate; no longer fighting gravity.

“How much longer do you need to stay?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. A while. I’m supposed to fly back with them tomorrow, and I’m not sure how to explain to them that I can’t.”

“You are not going to tell them?”

“No way. Not right now. They would definitely force us to go to a bond center regardless of hockey,” Shane said. “My mom does love me more than hockey, but it’s close.”

Ilya couldn’t stop the way he flinched at that.

“I was joking. My mom loves me. She wouldn’t want me to do this. My dad definitely wouldn’t. That’s why I’m not telling them.”

He nodded, rubbing his cheek against Shane’s and loving the feeling.

“I will not tell my father.”

“Oh, okay. What about—”

Ilya cut him off, cursing himself for saying anything.

“We need to get back. You leave first.”

A few moments later, Ilya made his way back to the table. The clattering of silverware, the heavy smell of meat, and the hard chair all grated on his straining body. Hollander’s unwelcome invasion and Sveta’s absence pricked at him like thousands of needles in his skin.

He saw Sveta take a deep breath in and felt a sense of wariness from her that managed to get through her block.

«Have you told him about your parents? Your mom?» She asked.

«No.»

«You need to tell him. He needs to know.»

He felt that all-too-familiar wave of anguish that he knew both of them could feel. Sveta grabbed his hand, and Shane cast him a concerned look. Ilya bit his cheek so hard he tasted the tang of iron.

«No.»

«But it would help you both.»

«Please, Svet. I can’t do this right now.»

She squeezed his hand and reached through the bond to take some of the pain. He rarely let her, but in that moment, he had no ability to resist or block her, so he took the relief.

The rest of dinner passed uneventfully; he and Shane managed to brush against each other a few times in the salad bar line to keep from needing another bathroom trip, but by the time that the bill was paid, he was completely exhausted.

Shane and his family walked just ahead of them back to the hotel. He was on the next elevator and waited until Shane’s parents were in their room down the hall to slip into his room. Ilya barely managed to get his shoes and pants off before collapsing on the bed that Shane was already lying on.

Shane curled around the back of him and touched his nose to the back of Ilya’s neck. Sveta stood, uncertain what to do.

«I need you too, Sveta. Stay, please.»

It was the longest they’d ever had to block each other out. And while it didn’t carry the physical pain that separating from Shane did, it was still uncomfortable and wrong. Shane propped himself up on an elbow, and Ilya sensed he was looking at Sveta.

“Would you like to stay, Svetlana? There’s another bed. I know you’ve been apart for a while and that sucks.”

She smiled, and Ilya felt her appreciation, curiosity, and only a small tinge of resentment flow through him as she stopped keeping him out. He let himself go, all his boundaries softening and floating in this precious space.

--- 

Shane woke up a second day in a row with Ilya Rozanov wrapped around him, and felt strangely detached from the thought that he would likely wake up that way for the rest of his life. It felt nice, and he hated it.

But he also woke up with a to-do list forming in his mind

Short-Term List:

Task: Have breakfast with his parents
Subtask: Lie to them again

Afternoon:
Task: Find a new place to stay
Subtask: Delegate to Svetlana?

Task: Avoid development camp
Subtask: Find illness bad enough to miss camp but not go to a hospital

Task: Actually contact the trainer he told his mom he was staying in California for

Task: Learn how to block his connection to Ilya, hopefully forever

The thought of so many things to do made him restless. He tried to keep his body still and quiet, but Ilya woke up.

He mumbled something in Russian; Shane was pretty sure. He couldn’t tell if he was intentionally using it to curse at him or couldn’t conjure English so early. He certainly didn’t want to have to produce French right now.

He turned his head toward Ilya and said,

“I need to meet my parents for breakfast.”

Ilya groaned theatrically, which Shane thought was quite rude considering that Svetlana was still sleeping.

She yelled at him in Russian, and Ilya fired back something that Shane just somehow knew was meant to insult him.

He mentally added to his long-term goals:

Task: Learn Russian
Subtask: Find a language book

Nice. Easy.

Realistic.

He and Ilya got ready while always staying in contact. It took no more thought than putting on his socks or brushing his teeth.

“This is kinda freaky to watch,” Svetlana said. “You just know where each other are without looking.”

Shane was trying not to think about it, but knew it was weird even though it felt normal.

“Yes. Proprioception of each other’s body.”

Ilya quirked a brow.

“Pro what?”

“Proprioception. Like, knowing where your body is without looking. But we can do that with each other.

“Mmm. No. We do not have this word in Russian.”

“That cannot be true,” Shane said.

«Проприоцепция,» Svetlana said, which sounded like basically the same word and made Shane laugh.

They went to breakfast. It was nearly as awful as dinner, but they had more excuses to get up since it was a buffet.

Shane did his best to act like nothing was wrong. His dad had teased him enough about still being hungover at dinner, but his mom seemed to have moved past it. He didn’t know how to lie to his parents. He’d never really had to before. Sometimes he had carefully arranged the truth or lied by omission, but he’d never had a system for this and was probably bad at it.

His dad kept looking at him in a way that made him suspect that his dad knew something more was going on, but thankfully, he didn’t press. Shane was so out of sorts that he wasn’t sure how he could’ve responded if he had.

His mom didn’t seem to notice and spent the whole time grilling him about this trainer he was supposedly dying to work with. Shane had googled just enough to confirm that what he’d heard from some other guys at the draft was true. There was a really good trainer in the area, and many athletes traveled to work with him.

He knew, despite all the questions that she asked, she had likely done more research than him. And if she didn’t approve, then she would try to talk him out of it instead of giving him the third degree.

“It’s not all about brute strength!”

Finally, his dad cut through the fourth question about the trainer’s approach to training balance and flexibility.

“So, Shane, where will you stay? Do we need to extend your stay at the hotel while you figure it out?”

“Oh, um, yeah, a few days would be helpful. But then some of the guys have a house. I might stay with them.”

“Well, send us all of their names and contact information.”

“Yuna,” his dad said. “Have fun this summer. We’ll see you in just a few days during camp. Call us as much as you can. We’ll miss you.”

“I’ll call you all the time. Just like from Kingston.”

He said goodbye to them in the lobby. Their flight was in a few hours. His head was pounding, and his teeth ached, but he didn’t dare touch Ilya until they were in the elevator.

---

They spent the morning huddled around Shane’s laptop researching profound somatic bonds. Information was sparse, but they learned that even if they wanted to go to a bond center, the only one in the U.S. that could accommodate them was in New York, and the only one in Canada was in Vancouver.

Simple somatic bonds or even profound cerebral bonds could be stabilized anywhere. Only their specific type of bond came with an inability to physically separate for extended periods.

They all knew the basic steps of stabilizing a bond that were splashed across all the websites they visited.

• Establish a new equilibrium
• Develop blocking techniques
• Solidify conduit capabilities

The problem wasn’t understanding what they needed to do. Everyone knew how bonds work. The problem was how to do it.

Every private clinic had its own licensed methodologies, and none of them put that information online for free. Some were based on Buddhist meditation techniques, others appropriated indigenous practices, but most claimed to be backed by proprietary research promising quick results. Every public clinic in Canada was boring but effective, sharing their pedagogical approach, but nothing had practical to implement.

The lack of specific information sent them through increasingly poorly designed websites. Broken flash images, Comic Sans font, and links to sources that didn’t exist littered these sites made by people trying to live off the grid—except for grifting online. They encouraged techniques like micro (or macro) dosing LSD or intentionally not working on their bond and allowing it to develop “the natural way,” like “cavemen” did.

“This is all useless,” Sveta said. “We’re not going to find anything here.”

Shane slammed the lid of his laptop down. Ilya moved his neck back and forth, trying to break up the tension coursing down his spine. It didn’t work, and Shane didn’t seem like he was in the mood for a back massage. He turned to glare at Ilya.

“You’ve done this before. Shouldn’t you know what to do?”

“I was six. So young. Brain is still…” he paused and searched for a word that didn’t really come: “soft?”

Shane mumbled something Ilya didn’t entirely catch, but definitely heard “brain’s still soft.”

“Stop being an ass. He’s talking about neuroplasticity. Kids adapt quicker to this kind of stuff,” Sveta said. She had been acting as a translator all morning and was probably the only reason he and Shane hadn’t ripped each other apart by now.

Ilya wasn’t sure but got the sense that Shane didn’t actually like Sveta that much, but he wasn’t rude to her. And she was more than capable of putting him in his place if he was.

Shane tipped his head back and rubbed his temples. He shifted next to Ilya, and they deftly readjusted their connection from their legs that had grown sweaty where they touched.

“Sorry. Don’t you remember anything about how you did it, though? Anything helpful at all?”

“We went to a clinic. But it was Russia in the 90s,” Sveta explained. “Everything had fallen apart and was barely scraped back together. I know our parents talked about going to a clinic in the UK, but Ilya and Irina didn’t speak English, so it wouldn’t have been that helpful. We ended up somewhere in Moscow. We played a lot of games. Mirroring each other, then moving opposite one another. Hide and seek normally, then in our minds, somehow. Building mental walls of Lego.”

Ilya laughed, remembering their mental games. Imagining hiding from one another in their heads. Feeling his mama’s arms around him as he tried to sit still and picture a secret room. It had been such a great week. Just the two of them and their mamas.

“Hide and seek? Lego? So, we need to imagine building a wall between us?” Shane asked.

“Maybe. Kind of. We have completely different type of bond,” Ilya said.

“You two might need to figure out how to disentangle, распутаться, yourselves to block,” Sveta said.

Ilya felt shivers run down both of their spines. The wrongness of the idea coursed through both of them—not just that the thought was repugnant but impossible.

He looked at Shane and saw the same feeling behind his dark eyes, accompanied by a tightness at the corners of his mouth. Ilya saw, in the shades of the brown eyes glinting back at him in the light, a vision that didn’t belong to him, but he had seen anyway. A head, bowed forward, dirty blond curls limp with sweat, a mole he’d only ever seen in the mirror—a separate look on his own crucifixion and bloody crowning. He remembered now.

“Are you two okay?” Sveta asked. «lyushenka? Are you alright?»

Shane held his gaze, and Ilya felt himself slipping under its weight. For a moment, they were both back there; in that moment when they became one.

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you

He didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse. Sveta’s concern bled through the connection before she sealed herself off tighter.

“Did you say something?” Ilya asked.

Shane shook his head. “I thought you did.”

Sveta’s awareness poured into him, rooting around in his head, trying to find what was wrong. He turned to her and grabbed her hand, and she withdrew from his mind, though her face still looked worried.

“Are you two okay?” Sveta asked with more exasperation and concern.

He turned back to Shane as he spoke: “I do not think we can.”

“Can’t what?” She asked.

«Disentangle,» he said, breaking the spell and blinking painfully at the dryness in his eyes.

They all just breathed for a moment, trying to understand what that meant.

“But,” Shane said, “you blocked me for a second yesterday, I think. So, it is possible.”

He had?

“When?”

“Um, yesterday. When we were talking.”

“We talked a lot yesterday. You will need to say more, so I know what I did. How to do it again.”

Shane looked out the window, and Ilya wished he could feel Sveta to know what she was thinking. Her expression was neutral.

“Oh well. It was just when we were… Well, when I said that…”

Ilya waited none too patiently. Hollander took a breath that Ilya felt deep in his diaphragm.

“When I said profound bounds tend to run in families.”  

Sveta’s face flashed a mixture of concern and sadness before returning quickly to neutral. He met her eyes, which were also brown but much lighter than Shane’s. They always seemed to radiate their own light even in the darkness.

She gave him a look that he didn’t need their bond to interpret. You need to tell him might as well have been stamped on her forehead. Hollander had been crowned and crucified right next to him.

Ilya cleared his throat and said: “Yes. They do. My parents had the same bond. It was… not good for her, my mother. Was bad.”

“Irina?”

He didn’t pronounce it right, but Ilya couldn’t quite find his voice to correct him. He dimly heard Sveta coach his initial vowel sound into something softer and less anglicized.

The silence hung heavily, but Ilya kept his feelings in check. He so rarely heard her name and said it even less. But it had been spoken twice today, like they were calling her into the room. He knew Hollander hadn’t missed the past tense of it all.

Ilya tried to put it away. Close it off. He needed to change the subject.

“I blocked, but you used—how you said it—conduit capabilities,” he said the words slowly, probably butchering them.

Most people simply said pushing or pulling, or giving or taking of feelings or sensations across the bond. Sharing joy and pain, mentally or physically, depending on the bond.

“You pulled my muscle memory.” He knew that phrase from hockey. It was an aspect of the bond they hadn’t discussed yet; the ability to access muscle memory in short bursts was interesting but complicated.

“I did?” Shane asked. “I don’t remember that. I don’t know how I did.”

“Mmm, yes, you were very focused. ‘In the zone.’”

Shane’s brows were still pinched, and his lips turned down quizzically.

“After the shower. Your hand. You pulled from me. Was not the only thing, but it is okay. I like to share.” 

Ilya watched the realization spread across his face, blushing brightly under his freckles, and Ilya felt his own cheeks heat simultaneously. And that was annoying. He seldom blushed—hated when it happened. But he loved watching the pink spread across Shane’s skin. Ilya began to draw conscious breaths to avoid Hollander’s quicker pace.

Sveta, to her credit, didn’t respond, but she did open the connection to share her giddy amusement for a moment.

Shane began stammering nonsense that hovered somewhere between a refusal and an apology but didn’t contain enough recognizable words to be either.

“Relax, Hollander. No big deal. It is normal, probably.”

Sveta attempted to be diplomatic, “Well, it’s good you know that you can do both, even if it was unconsciously. Seems like it's in response to… heightened emotions. Now you just have to practice doing it consciously.”

“Can be like science experiment. We do the same thing, but change one detail; see if it is different. Then keep trying.”

Shane tried to look disapproving, but Ilya could feel the flashes of arousal that didn’t originate with him.

“I’m not sure that will really be the most effective approach,” Shane said.

“Well, what is your idea Mr, uh, Scientist? Probably something boring.”

Hollander’s idea was boring. Worse than Ilya imagined: meditation. Ilya groaned as he explained the little he knew about it and how it was similar to the way Ilya had coached him into returning to his body. Ilya would never admit it, even to Sveta, who would know anyway, but it was a good idea even if his own proposal was more fun.

Chapter End Notes

Yes, they are at Fogo de Chão in their dinner scene.

As I've mentioned, one of my driving questions with this fic was what happens if your soulmate isn't a good person? In most soulmate fics, Grigori and Irina are understandably written as not having soulmates, but I wondered how much worse would it be for Ilya if they were? Sorry Irina :/

Chapter 8: Unbonded Myths TEDTalk

Chapter Summary

Why do some people never form soulmate bonds?

It’s a question that plagues theology, anthropology, neuroscience, philosophy, literature, politics, even pop culture. And despite all the certainty people project onto the subject, the honest answer is:

We don’t know.

Chapter Notes

I was bored and made cover art for the fic that I dropped into Chapter 1. You can check it out there if you want.

These pieces of worldbuilding are usually fairly directly tied to Shane and Ilya’s story. This one isn’t much of a direct tie-in because it’s a relic of a time when this was going to be a very different story. I might expand on what I originally envisioned for this story later and how it ended up almost 0% as I outlined, but for now that would be spoilers. Regardless, I wrote this. You can read it if you want. If this were a real book, it would 100% end up on the cutting room floor.

TED Talk: Myths of the Unbonded

Transcript:

[Applause]

Thank you.

I’m Lihn Nguyễn, communications director at the International Center for the Rights and Prosperity of Unbonded Individuals, and I spend a lot of my life answering the same question phrased a hundred different ways:

Why do some people never form soulmate bonds?

It’s a question that plagues theology, anthropology, neuroscience, philosophy, literature, politics, even pop culture. And despite all the certainty people project onto the subject, the honest answer is:

We don’t really know. And most people who claim to know are probably trying to sell you something. 

Before we dive in, modern research generally prefers the term “bond partners” over “soulmates,” but linguistically we lost that battle years ago. Soulmate is emotionally satisfying. Bond partner sounds like you owe money.

[Laughter]

Language is immensely important, but more important than what words we use are the ways we talk about soulmates and ideas about why some people have them and some people don't.

And most myths about unbonded people tell us far more about social anxieties than science.

Something Must Be Wrong With Them

This is probably the oldest and most persistent myth.

That unbonded people must be neurologically or spiritually deficient.

But after centuries of study, there is still no measurable difference in cognition, empathy, attachment capability, or physiology between bonded and unbonded populations.

The overwhelming majority of unbonded people are simply… people.

They Don’t Meet Enough People

Portraying unbonded people as antisocial or reclusive is a common trope that feeds into this misconception.

One of my favorite historical counterexamples is the writer Mason DeVille, who spent most of his life secluded in the Sierra Nevada mountains from age fourteen to sixty-five. He still formed a soulmate bond.

In fact, according to his journals, he only saw his soulmate, Mathias Brown, once a year because Brown insisted on making the trip out to visit him.

So, if hiding in the mountains for 40 years isn’t enough —

[Laughter]

— then social exposure is probably not the determining factor.

Their Soulmate Died Before They Met

This one sounds tragic enough that people rarely question it.

And yes, it probably happens.

But statistically, it cannot explain the global unbonded population.

If soulmate loss before meeting were the primary cause, then historically unbonded rates should change with infant mortality rates, but as you can see on this chart, they do not.

Modern medicine has slightly lowered unbonded percentages over time, but not enough to support a meaningful correlation.

Their Soulmate Lives Somewhere Far Away

So this is another one that is, again, technically possible individually but not really supported at the scale of humanity.

But if geographic isolation were the main barrier, we would expect bond formation rates to rise dramatically alongside globalization. Instead, rates have remained remarkably stable across centuries.

Apparently, fate had access to passports long before we did.

[Laughter]

Unbonded People Are More “Evolved”

This myth tends to emerge from the opposite direction.

Rather than viewing unbonded people as deficient, it reframes them as superior. More independent. More advanced. Less biologically constrained.

Treating soulmate bonds as a simple evolutionary advantage or disadvantage ignores how different bonds are. Some bonded individuals spend weeks unable to physically separate without pain, disorientation, or loss of bodily autonomy.

Whatever soulmate bonds are, they are not cleanly optimized systems. 

Evolution is messy. Human attachment is messy. And trying to sort people into “more evolved” and “less evolved” categories has historically gone very badly for humanity. Creating a hierarchy in which bonded and unbonded people fall into these categories flattens their individual characteristics to the detriment of all. 

Unbonded People Cannot Commit

Another very popular and very damaging one here. Longitudinal studies show divorce and self-reported infidelity rates among unbonded individuals are statistically similar to those of bonded people who marry outside their soulmate bond. And they report equal rates of long-term, meaningful friendships.

Take a look at any number of real relationships, romantic or platonic, and you will see that there is no magic formula for commitment that the bond provides or doesn't.

People still have to choose to commit regardless of bonds.

People With Multiple Bonds Are ‘Taking’ Bonds From Others

Yes, this is real. I know it sounds outlandish. But no, it obviously is not true.

This conspiracy theory mostly originates from darker corners of the internet where users refer to themselves as “unbies,” meaning unbonded.

The logic is essentially that people with multiple bonds are somehow monopolizing soulmate connections and leaving others unbonded.

Dual-bonded individuals have remained historically stable at roughly ten percent of the population across recorded history. Meanwhile, unbonded rates fluctuate somewhat between nations and across socioeconomic conditions, averaging roughly twenty percent in many developed countries today.

Conclusion

Finally, maybe the most important thing we can admit about soulmate bonds is that they are still largely mysterious. And it is dangerous to confuse mystery with moral meaning. Not bonded does not mean broken or unloved. Being unbonded is just another way to be human.

Thank you.

[Applause]

Chapter End Notes

My headcanon (is it headcanon if it's your own story) is that Andrei doesn't have a soulmate and has always been salty that Ilya has one and gets involved with the toxic unbies on like 8chan or whatever. But since this story is before Grigori gets very sick, Andrei is not as relevant to the story.

As I said, I don't have epistolary stuff between all chapters. I have a few more things sketched. But if there's anything about the world you're curious about, let me know. I might be able to work it into something.

One bit that I haven't written anything about and won't, but spent too long thinking about was what if people with profound somatic bonds get drafted to war or if they can enlist. (We're not touching any war things in this fic dw.) I feel like they couldn't get drafted unless they were both men of a certain age. Clearly I'm from the US because my brain wonders how soulmates status would interact with the US Military Industrial Complex. (BOOOOO, for the record) Anyway... I'll just be in my corner wondering how people with somatic bonds deal with getting surgery or some shit.

Chapter 9: Unstable Earth

Chapter Summary

Ilya and Shane try to stabilize their bond and learn how to block.

They do about as good a job stabilizing as they do communicating, which is to say it doesn't go well.

Chapter Notes

CW: mentions of domestic violence. It's not very detailed and only in flashbacks. If you want to skip/skim, it starts at "His father probably hadn’t planned for it" and you should be good to start again at «Please, mama.»
Previously on Every Atom:
Finally able to separate for a few minutes without pain, they start making plans to stay in LA, and Shane has to continue to lie to his parents at breakfast. They try to research their bond to learn how to stabilize it, but the internet in 2009 is not very helpful. Predictably, Shane suggests that they meditate. Ilya suggests they have sex. Svetlana continues to have more emotional intelligence in her pinkie than both of the boys combined.

Just a reminder that the italics that aren't Ilya or Sveta speaking russian are quotes from A Song of Myself so interpret them poetically, not literally (vibes ya'll.)

Shane’s parents had extended his stay at the hotel by a few days, but they would need somewhere to stay for the rest of the summer. Svetlana left shortly after Shane began explaining his meditation practice to look for a place. Shane didn’t like the idea of not picking the place he would live for several weeks, but also didn’t want to go out in public holding hands with Ilya. Instead, he made a list of things he needed. It wasn’t all that much: his own bathroom vanity, a blender, gym access, and a place to run.

She left them, or he suspected him in particular, with the only thing she’d learned doing her own research: by the end of six to eight weeks, they would settle into the maximum amount of time they could spend apart without being in pain. It would be anywhere from a few days to two weeks at the absolute max. Until then, fighting the urge to touch would do nothing to hasten the stabilization of their bond. Research was limited because forcing separation was so painful that any studies were deemed unethical, but what little there was suggested that fighting it, at best, caused unnecessary suffering, and at worst, actually made it take longer. 

Which was how Shane found himself sitting in Ilya’s lap, shirtless, trying to meditate.

It was not going well.

They had started by trying to sit cross-legged with just their knees touching, but the burning need for more contact had been distracting. Shane had wanted to sit back-to-back but had somehow let Ilya talk him into this arrangement. It hardly made sense. They were practically the same size. Ilya only had less than half an inch and maybe a few pounds on him. Ilya could’ve just as soon sat in his lap. But Shane was trying to compromise or something.

“Stop squirming,” Ilya said.

“Sorry. Have you been able to meditate or do anything?”

“I am very aware of my toes. This is all because every time I focus, you move, and then you say I must start over.”

“Sorry.”

The theory Shane had cobbled together was rather simple, if unproven. Their first job was to reestablish the boundaries of their bodies. Even if they felt entangled in the other, they were still literally two separate bodies. Their DNA was their own, even if it felt like some of his atoms were once Ilya’s. Shane hoped that increasing his awareness of his body would eventually allow him to shut out Ilya when needed.

The next step was to try to practice mindful awareness of the other person’s body, hoping it would help them figure out the push-and-pull dynamics of their bond. Shane told himself that it wasn’t just because he wanted to pull on Ilya in that way he had after the shower again, but because being able to do this was the key final step in having a stable bond, so he’d learn to do it.

He suddenly felt two broad arms wrap around his chest and stomach, crushing him into Ilya’s chest, stopping his fidgeting. The pressure and increased contact with Ilya, in part, soothed him, and in part, felt very interesting. His breath hitched, and his skin tingled where it was flush with Ilya.

Ilya nuzzled the side of Shane’s neck and tipped his head up to murmur into his ear, “You like this, Hollander.”

It wasn’t a question. Ilya could feel just as clearly as Shane that he did.

But this was not what they were supposed to be doing.

At all.

He forced his arms away from his sides, breaking Ilya’s grasp, and twisted away. He wondered if Ilya had been determined to keep him there if he could have broken his hold. Ilya was just barely bigger than him, and that was new. He hadn’t dated or hooked up much, but as an almost 6ft tall, aspiring professional athlete, none of the guys had even come close to matching his strength. It sent a thrill through him.

Shane started feeling, cataloguing, his mind quivering at how expansive he felt in this new bond. Ilya was only barely taller, but his legs were much longer. Large glutes and quads. He felt the longer femurs and bulkier calves. But Shane’s torso was longer; his shoulders were proportionally broader; his wingspan was slightly longer. He was pretty sure he could bench more than Ilya, even if his pecs looked more prominent. His mind whirled, feeling every minute detail of what was hardly different from himself.

Was this then a touch? quivering him to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for his veins

The longer he was in this moment of examination, the tighter he felt his shoulders getting. It started with dull pain on the top of his shoulder blade. Shane wasn’t fully aware of how his body had been positioned after escaping Ilya’s grasp, but as he was feeling his way down their spines, he realized his back was once again resting against Ilya’s chest. This time, only his upper back.

The pain was getting sharper, spreading across his traps and up his neck. But in this state, he realized that he could tell it was from Ilya. Ilya’s shoulders and neck were tightening. He was the one getting a headache. He was not a stranger to strong feelings, but this was unlike anything he had felt before. He couldn’t name it, but he leaned into the physical sensation more, examining it.

This time, he was more conscious of what he was doing, examining the contours of their bodies inside and out, simply trying to understand the discomfort. He instinctually hated Ilya being in pain. As he studied the feeling, he could feel the way the sensation was halved, their bodies reflexively sharing it. Their new default setting. Experimentally, he wrapped his awareness around the sensation and pulled, taking almost all of it into his body. Every part of him tensed, overwhelmed by its force until it was all ripped away from him. For a flash, he was alone in his body, too cold and hollow by half.

Suddenly, he was falling backwards, engaging his core at the last minute to stop himself from slamming into the ground before he thought to open his eyes. Ilya had moved quickly away from him. But he still felt connected, not lost like when they first bonded, but deeply aware.

“Stop.” Ilya’s tone was completely flat. Shane didn’t entirely process the words, still hazy in feeling. “Hollander. Get away. Get OUT.”

That snapped him out of it. He realized that he was shaking, his body was sweaty, his heart racing, breath shallow.

“Sorry, Ilya. Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry.”

Ilya was still sitting on the ground, curled around himself, looking pale with widened eyes. Shane scooted toward him and reached out. But Ilya flinched away from his hand. He was saying something in Russian. Shane was really worried; he couldn’t understand how he could’ve hurt Ilya, but clearly, he had done something.

“Ilya, what’s wrong?”

“I did not mean to. I do not want, never wanted this.” His tone was completely flat again. He said once more:

“Go away.”

And this time Shane listened, still shaking as he left the hotel room. 

He didn’t go far. He just slumped outside of the door

Shane had felt like he was making progress in figuring out this thing between them—how to gain some separation within the togetherness—but then Ilya had completely lost it. He didn't think that he'd hurt Ilya, and if that was the case, why wouldn't he have wanted things to continue? It had felt so good to connect that way, but he could understand how it might feel invasive. Ilya had said the bond made him uncomfortable. They felt very similarly about the bond— it was a nightmare, but that was why they needed to do something about it.

Shane thought back to his teammate from the Prospect Cup, Witty. It had taken him three months to fully block through a hit. Ilya could obviously take a hit, but they needed to be able to figure it out quickly to play a fair game. Witty hadn’t entered the draft like he’d originally planned. He hadn’t given up hockey entirely, but was going to play at McGill, maintaining his ability to enter the draft later and earning a degree if he didn’t. The thought of it made him sick.

He heard Ilya’s phone ring and was surprised he even had a working phone since he was only planning on being here for a few days. Shane assumed he was talking to Svetlana because he thought he heard “Svet-something” a few times, but he might have been simply talking about her.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat crumpled outside the door, head resting against the beige wallpaper, but his skin started to burn with the need to touch Ilya. He wondered if Ilya would look for him, but he didn’t. He could tell Ilya hadn’t moved from the exact position Shane had left him in, but he could feel a complicated, painful twisting sensation emanating from Ilya that he guessed was backed by an intense emotion.

His heart rate and breathing had slowed somewhat, and he felt cold sitting in the over-air-conditioned hallway with sweat cooling on his skin. He continued sitting until the carpet wore patterns into his legs and the hotel doors dinged, releasing a loud group of parents and children in his direction. He realized how strange he looked and stood up to go back inside.

His head rushed as he stood, and all his joints ached. As he faced the door, he remembered that he didn’t have a key. So he knocked and waited. Ilya obviously heard him; the only question was if he would let him back in. Based on the pain he still felt from Ilya, he wasn’t sure. It was taking up more and more of his concentration. They needed to be back in contact.

Shane couldn’t fathom what Ilya had been feeling that gave rise to such a visceral reaction, except that it was enormous and grievous. If he didn’t answer soon, Shane was likely to slide down the door again.

But he heard the latch release. Ilya didn’t open the door for him, but turned the handle so Shane could push instead. He expected Ilya to embrace him right away, but he just turned and walked to the bed, curling up in a tight ball. Shane didn’t exactly think it was an open invitation to touch him, but what else could they do? Their bodies had decided for them. So he curled around Ilya’s back and made himself list all the reasons this bond was bad for both of them.

---

They were floating above a violent world—orbiting a land of towering volcanoes, spewing molten lava that seeped down its edges, leaving the land hard and black and lifeless. The volcanoes spewed ash and rocks in all directions along with gas that left the air unbreathable. The land itself shifted and expanded as they watched, masses colliding and rending in spasms that shook until the gash was visible on the surface. There was no safe harbor as meteors rained down, pelting the land and leaving giant pockmarks on its face.

They watched the ferocious, shifting world with a horrible fascination. It was brutal and cruel and cared not for hospitality. They each, in their own way, felt that this was right somehow. It reflected something true but unnamable. But the alien landscape held its own kind of beauty. In its ever-shifting nature and under the hail of meteors, there was an understanding that lived in the marrow of the land: And that a kelson of the creation is love. It was an opportunity—not a promise of goodness, but a chance to become something new.

In the same instant, they realized that their orbit was bringing them closer to the planet with every rotation. The sky around them was mottled and purple like a bruise. It was streaked through with lines of red as if someone had run their bloody fingers across the sky. That too seemed right, reflecting the fearsome power of its creation.

Slowly, they made their way down to the surface where the land was cool but sharp as their feet made contact, and unsteadily, they tipped forward, holding onto each other for support. It should’ve felt foreign, but they knew it was homecoming; sharp volcanic rocks raced up to meet their feet with every step, cutting into them like they had every right to do so. Each step they took stung, but when they looked back, they saw their bloody footprints seep into the rocks like this place hadn’t scraped them hollow from the inside out in its formation. But together they marveled when they saw the delicate leaves of grass poking their tips through the bloodied steps.

---

Ilya woke up not too long after he’d fallen asleep. He wanted to feel better.

But he didn’t at all.

Sveta said she couldn’t be back until dinner time, and Hollander was still asleep. It was probably a good sign that he’d stayed asleep. Their bond was stabilizing a little, even if he felt less stable than ever.

He sat up slowly, leaning back against the pillows, and looked at this beautiful, dangerous man he was now bound to. Cosmically destined to ruin.

He slowly left the bed, past his clothing scattered around his suitcase and Hollander’s perfectly packed and folded one, and crept onto the tiny balcony. It had one rusty, wrought-iron chair and a table that barely fit more than an ashtray. Each piece wobbled on spindly, uneven legs, and he rocked himself back and forth at the odd angle. It wasn’t soothing, but he needed the motion.

He quickly pulled out a cigarette and lighter. The smell of it mingled with the dryness of air that hadn’t known a proper rain in years. It seemed to complement the smog and the noise pollution from the highway that was backed up with bumper-to-bumper traffic as far as he could see. The nicotine didn’t help the way it usually did, either. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Shane’s awareness had crept through his body. It didn’t feel bad—quite the opposite really, but knowing his father had been able to do that to her made him sick.

And then he’d done the thing he worried about the most—shoved all his pain into Shane. Or maybe Shane had taken it. But probably not. It had been all him and nothing could fix the way he’d been able to do that to someone he was supposed to care for as himself. 

Treacherous tip of him reaching out and crowding to help them,
His flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from himself.

Striking bolt after bolt of pain into Hollander. These past—how long had it been—maybe 36 hours, time felt a bit meaningless, was like watching his biggest nightmare play out in front of him: someone bound to him who didn’t want to be. Forever. Inescapably.

Hollander was trapped with him.

«Mama, please help. I don’t want it to be like it was for you.»

His father probably hadn’t planned for it to be that way either. But he knew the quiet violence of this cycle already, saw how perfectly it had already played out. He traced the ridges of his father’s inky fingerprints on his soul. He’d hurt Hollander—sent his pain into him somehow. He’d crossed the thin line that allowed him to pretend he wasn’t his father. He knew if he looked down, his hands were just as black. Marring Shane with marks that he could never scrub away.

All he could see was his mother, crumpled on the bed or the couch or the floor. His father berating her for how she affected him, but rarely striking her. Nothing that would cause him pain. He’d martyr himself in regret and self-pity and cram all the pain and black feelings he ever had into her.

Because it was her fault for making him feel this way. She should carry it.

He saw his father stepping over her one night, toward the end. A time when it was so bad she couldn’t even drag herself to the couch. Ilya watched his father continue on, self-satisfied, with his evening while Ilya was powerless to help her.

«Please, mama. There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me.»

He toyed with the gold cross on his neck. He believed in God, abstractly, but his mama was the one he talked to, reached for in the dark. He knew that she stayed with him and believed that she was looking out for him. But now he wondered if she was an omen. The horns from the traffic sounded like an alarm, everything warning him of the future born from what was in him.

The tears flowed freely down his face and dried quickly, leaving his face feeling tacky and puffy. He held back the wracking sobs he felt building in his chest until suddenly all the sadness lifted.

He mentally scrabbled after it. He hated when she did this, always tried to stop her, to reclaim the pain she didn’t deserve. But she had honed her technique over the years. Hitting like an elite strike team, extracting the target and securing it beyond his reach before he could even register what was going on.

Without the emotional anguish, the thoughts were still there. But it wasn’t in him. It was in her, poison and ink. Every awful thing he knew about himself still clung to him, but it was like a fire slowly running out of oxygen. Eventually, he leveled out.

His cigarette had gone out, and he tried to relight it, but his fingers shook too much. He heard the balcony door creep open and felt Hollander lean into him. Ilya wanted to plant his face in Shane’s stomach and breathe in his sleepy scent. He settled for the feeling of Shane’s densely packed muscles against the side of his arm.

“Look, I’m sorry about before. I’m not trying to invade you, or I don’t know. I just need to figure this out so I can be myself and play hockey.”

Of course, for him, this was all about hockey. Shane had no real idea who he’d been saddled with. He wondered if Shane had done something in a past life to be punished in this way. There was no way it was anything he’d done in this life to earn this kind of life sentence.

Sveta had only locked away his sadness, not any other emotion. But without that one, he often felt devoid of life. It was the other reason he hated when she took this feeling; sometimes it was all he had left.

“Okay,” Ilya said.

It was all he could manage. He wanted Shane to go back inside, but he stood there like maybe he was waiting for something.  Ilya didn’t move either, cigarette and lighter limp in his hands as the sun slowly rose higher in the sky. He was getting hungry, but it was such a passing feeling that he barely registered it.

He wasn’t that surprised when Shane grabbed the lighter and cigarette from his hands, waiting for a reprimand, but he was surprised when Shane brought it to his mouth and clicked the lighter. Ilya felt a faint tingle in his fingers and mouth as he realized that Shane was pulling on his muscle memory. He was about to inhale—

“Don’t,” Ilya said as he tried to reach for the cigarette. But it was too late. He felt the smoke hit Shane’s lungs, almost instantaneously causing a racking cough. Shane doubled over, clutching his chest like he was trying to hold his lungs together. Ilya worked hard to regulate his own breathing to keep from coughing too.

“What the fuck, Hollander? What were you thinking?”

Shane, of course, couldn’t answer. Ilya went inside, filled up a cup with lukewarm sink water and brought it back out.

Shane was still coughing, eyes bloodshot, tears streaming down his face.

“I thought you wanted me to quit. Now you want to start smoking?”

“No,” Hollander said indignantly. “I just wanted to see if I could. Use your muscle memory. I thought that since you smoked, it wouldn’t be so bad for me.”

That made Ilya laugh a little darkly.

“You are an idiot. Your lungs have never smoked. You used my muscle memory, sure, but that doesn’t make you a smoker.”

“Clearly,” he said with a cough. “That’s disgusting, by the way. Worse than I imagined.”

Ilya noticed that Sveta had stopped keeping him from his feelings. But it was manageable now. She pressed through a quick but intense feeling of love before she resumed her block. He still hated her absence.

“Is impressive you could do that.”

“Yeah, I think I kinda understand the idea now, of pulling. Maybe not pushing or blocking.”

Ilya thought that was interesting. Blocking was almost always the easiest thing to learn. He resisted making a joke about Hollander being good with his hands because he thought it might shatter this uneasy transition out of the morning.

So, all he said was, “You teach me after lunch.”

---

They spent the rest of the day working on their bond, eating, and napping, stuck in an ill-defined truce. They avoided talking about it. Which was difficult because Shane didn’t know what it was, and he still felt the aftereffects of it—a bit shaky, fatigued, and overall disconnected from his body. He could sense the shape of its edges, but he couldn’t see into it with any detail. Clearly, Ilya’s parents had a bad bond. It was rare but not unheard of. But Shane had never known anyone like that. Some of his classmates’ unbonded parents had nasty divorces, and domestic violence existed, but rarely between soulmates. It made a sad kind of sense that Ilya would fear ending up like his mother in this bond, and Shane just hoped Ilya would see that this wasn’t the case with them.

He could understand wanting to avoid this thing that was ruining both of their futures, but that was impossible. So, Shane just tried to talk around it and not sink back into that place that made Ilya so panicked. 

They made some small progress throughout the day. Ilya was better at blocking and could hold it for a few seconds. Shane hadn’t managed that. They didn’t have a lot of options for practicing pushing and pulling. But Shane tried to use Ilya’s muscle memory once again to do his hair after the shower. It had kind of worked. Shane had laughed at the way Ilya regarded his hair with horror when Shane was done.

Ilya had tried and failed utterly to do the same thing by refolding his clothes the way he liked, and then refused to listen when Shane tried to explain the method to him with words. The farther they got from the morning, the easier it felt between them. But the air stayed heavy with a tense peace that wouldn’t solidify into anything useful. Ilya was even polite to him, which was unnerving.

Nothing really felt settled until Sveta came back with In-and-Out, which she had insisted they had to try. He’d never had it before, but they seemed to cover absolutely everything in cheese and some kind of onion sauce. It was delicious but really filling. Shane watched with horror and fascination as Ilya ate two double-doubles, two baskets of fries, again covered in cheese and sauce, and a large chocolate shake. He’d complained about how bad the shake was the whole time, but it didn’t stop him from drinking it. It wasn’t like he didn’t eat the same amount of food at times, but so much grease and cheese. He could practically feel his pores and arteries clogging by association.

Her presence seemed to soothe whatever was run ragged in Ilya, and Shane felt his shoulder relax for the first time in hours.

The next morning passed similarly to the first one. Sveta went to finalize their short-term rental while they worked on their bond.

After lunch, they decided they needed to work out. It was the longest either of them had gone without exercising, and Shane could tell that his sleep was affected. The trippy, cosmic dreams probably weren’t helping but that was also something they didn’t talk about. So, they went to the gym. He had originally intended to run on the treadmill, but once he saw the twin machines, he couldn’t quite stomach it and opted for the row machine that would give him a better total body workout anyway.

They had decided to take turns working out, the other practicing blocking as they would need to do during practice and games. He kept the workout light. It was such an odd feeling; their bodies instinctively shared the sensation of strain, making the workout feel incredibly easy, but it was still only Shane’s muscles doing the work. This was the advantage somatic bonds had during games. They could push harder during competition and feel it less, at least in the moment. But it also made over-training injuries and even rhabdomyolysis much more common for somatics.

Right now, since Ilya could only hold the block for a few seconds at a time, he couldn’t hit a good rhythm. Halfway through a pull, all the combined effort would hit him, then return to being halved. It was jarring. The physical activity seemed to have reignited Ilya’s asshole tendencies, and he was surprised to find that more relieving than irritating.

“Fucks sake, Rozanov. I can’t hit a rhythm like this.”

Ilya gritted out, “Eh, your form is terrible anyway.”

“That’s because you can’t keep the block going.”

“No is because you do all the pulling with your arms. You are supposed to push back with your legs mostly; it makes rowing with arms and core easier.”

Shane glared at him.

“My form is fine.”

“It really isn’t… I do this a lot. Maybe see if you can find it in me?”

He did try, but it was a whole-body memory, and he had only been able to pull in parts or pieces. Despite his inability, he kept rowing, and Ilya decided to correct his form the old-fashioned way. He put his hands on Shane’s back, making him sit up straighter and telling him when to start pulling his arms.

 Since they had been touching almost constantly for nearly three days, having Ilya’s hand on his back shouldn’t have felt particularly arousing, but he loved the feeling of Ilya’s palm flat on his sweat-soaked skin even if it was through his shirt.

And he had this growing feeling like he wanted to crawl under Ilya’s skin. Or have Ilya crawl under his. It went beyond just wanting to touch or even find release. He wanted to be consumed by someone. He noticed that feeling stuttering in and out as Ilya blocked him. It seemed like this was what Ilya described as being horny. It felt more abstract than how Shane usually felt, which was a more straightforward warmth and tingle in his groin and an erection.

The way Ilya’s hand roamed around his back, under the guise of correcting his form, he was experiencing both forms of arousal.

His timer went off after 20 minutes, and they switched. What typically would’ve only been the warm-up to his workout was now the whole thing. He’d rather have a few easier weeks than risk injury.

He wished that he had an excuse to touch Ilya, but they could now go about 30 minutes without touching before it started to hurt. They had no way to know if this was a normal timeline or not, but it was nice to make progress. So, he had to settle for watching the sweat drip down Ilya’s face and neck while he tried, and still failed to block him out at all. The sweat made it hard to want to. Instead, Shane felt the sensation of work in his own body and tried to push that into Ilya. When he temporarily dislodged it, Ilya grunted under the doubled strain and then hit himself in the chest with the handle when the sensation returned to Shane, and he hadn’t properly compensated for the feeling.

“That was not blocking,” Ilya huffed.

“No, I pushed.”

“Little warning next time.”

“Yeah, it’s not fun, is it? It’s hard to do.”

Shane kept practicing pushing with a little success. But the whiplash was getting to him. The snapping pull of their bonds and then the sudden slack between them was deeply destabilizing. He was only trying to push the sensation, but in the absence of Ilya’s burn, there was nothing.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

His throat burned along with his muscles. But it wasn’t really even his muscles burning. Just the proof of the unseen— the only thing that felt real—Ilya.

He pushed anyway.

Tried to push away the nothingness. To excavate the self that blew up on a treadmill. But he didn’t know how to remove an absence, couldn’t cut away the hollowness where he used to be, and couldn’t budge what grew in its place.

“Shane? Where did you go?”

He didn’t know how to answer. It had no name: the thing, the place between them—wherever they went in their dreams. At least he assumed Ilya was having the same too-real dreams. But maybe it was just him, slowly losing it. He felt out of control and only knew he was moving by the feel of cooler air on his skin and the ding of the elevator.

He only knew need and want. Flame and ether.

When they got back in the room, Shane pulled Ilya backwards, and Ilya opened his arms instinctively. But that wasn’t what Shane wanted. Or it wasn’t all Shane wanted. He leaned in to kiss Ilya—he was feeling so needy. But Ilya, sensing the way his body was moving, ducked away in the last moment.

He remembered then: this was still Ilya’s nightmare.

Shane stepped back, hoping his post-workout flush hid his embarrassment. He stood in the arc of the air conditioner, feeling the cooling breeze of the filtered air. He had forgotten for a moment how Ilya didn’t want him. How yesterday had gone.

“Sorry, I, well, shouldn’t assume, I guess.”

He ran his hands through his hair and hoped the hotel would collapse in on him.

“No, is okay, Shane. But I don’t know where you went back there. I make you feel things you don’t want.”

He knew the way Ilya felt was affecting his body. He couldn’t control their connection. Couldn’t define it in English or French. He knew Russian fell just as short. He couldn’t block. He had so little control of anything right now. This felt like the only choice he could make. To fan the flames or extinguish them.

“I clearly do that to you, too. It’s a two-way street.”

Ilya quirked one eyebrow. Idiom, right.

“The bond. It goes both ways.”

That brought a wide and playful grin to Rosanov’s face.

“Ah, like me.”

And then he laughed quietly at his own joke. The sound filled something in him. Like the ruins of himself were a little less barren than they had felt a moment ago. It was a reminder that something was growing in all that space.

The sweat was now mostly dried on his skin, leaving him feeling sticky and a little itchy. He felt much less sexy now than he had when he first watched Ilya row, but none of that lessened the want, so he said,

“Look, this whole thing is kinda fucked, right? We didn’t get a choice. But neither of us wants to force sensations, feelings, on each other. So we’re on the same page about that.”

Fuck, why did he speak in so many idioms? He took a breath and made himself speak a little slower, not exaggeratedly slow, just to stop his ranting speed.

“We barely know each other. But we’re both stuck in a foreign country. Our bodies are outside of our control. Our careers could be ruined. You said that this is your nightmare, and I get it. So if you don’t want me, don’t want to do anything, that’s fine. But it could also just be a release. A choice that we can actually make, if we want.”

Shane remembered to fill his lungs with air and notice blood thrumming through him and just accepted the way he could feel his cheeks burning because he had fuck-all control over the way all his feelings echoed through Ilya right now.

He was just offering casual, no-strings-attached sex to his soulmate. As if that was possible.

As if he wasn’t
The smoke of his own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
His respiration and inspiration, the beating of his heart, the passing of blood and air through his lungs

So maybe viewed from that angle, sex wasn’t a big deal. It wouldn’t make things better, but it probably wouldn’t make it worse. What did it matter if he put Rosanov’s dick in his mouth when sometimes he felt like his very own heartbeat and all the air he had ever breathed? Which was weird, and he should stop thinking about it like that.

“Wow, Hollander, such romance. Is this how you get all the boys? We have nothing better to do, so might as well.”

“No, shut up. That’s not. No,” he said lamely.

“No,” Ilya said, stepping into his space again. “No, pretty boy like you. Big, strong, nearly a rich and famous athlete. They just throw themselves at you. Beg you to take them home.”

“Fuck off. Like it’s any different for you.”

“Maybe. Are you jealous?”

Ilya took another step toward him.

“No.”

He mirrored Ilya’s step in, and they crashed into each other, mouths meeting inelegantly. Ilya bit his lip and felt how much he loved it.

He moved his mouth down Ilya’s neck, kissing and licking, buzzes whispered into salty skin. As he raked his hands down Ilya’s back, Ilya moved them toward the bed and shoved him back so he was sitting at the foot of the bed.

He took in Ilya towering over him, lips red and skin flushed. The blue in his eyes was a tiny ring around his iris. Ilya’s gaze raked over him, like he was planning what to do with him. He decided to help Ilya and scooted back on the bed as he put one hand on his thigh, not quite touching himself. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, exposing more of his neck. He slipped his hand under his shirt and slowly moved his palm up his body, caressing his flexed abs, letting his shirt ride up in the process.

His hand reached his pec beneath his shirt, and he squeezed, then rolled his nipple between his fingers. Ilya couldn’t see precisely what he was doing, but he could feel it and the sharp arousal coursing down his body.

He opened his eyes and saw Ilya’s gaze glued to the hand that was still hidden under the shirt. He seemed to have forgotten how to move.

“See something you like, Rozanov?”

“Fuck, Hollander. Such a tease.”

He flushed and bit his lip in response and enjoyed feeling Ilya’s reaction to it. He leaned forward, pressing his mouth to the bulge in Ilya’s shorts. He nuzzled and mouthed at the fabric while running his hands all over his legs, gentle touches that sent shiver after shiver through both of them. He could feel Ilya growing desperate, thrusting a bit. He wanted to see how long Ilya could hold out and delighted in teasing him.

Ilya groaned and whined with frustration, but seemed too lost in the feeling to do anything else. Finally, Shane gave in to his own impatience and curled his fingers around Ilya’s waistband, looking up for agreement. Ilya looked down at him, eyes half closed and glazed with lust.

But he shook his head no.

Shane dropped his hands and moved his face away. But before confusion could really set in, Ilya dragged him to the end of the bed again and sank on his knees between his legs.

“Your turn, I think.”

This time, Ilya grabbed his shorts and looked up at Shane, who quickly nodded his approval. In that moment, Shane couldn’t imagine denying this man anything under the sun. He cried out in surprise as Ilya had his shorts off and dick in his throat in practically one movement. Ilya didn’t move, though; he just held Shane in his mouth, and he marveled at how incredible it felt.

“Oh my god, Ilya. Holy shit,” he said, and Ilya still hadn’t moved, and he couldn’t stop himself as he thrust up involuntarily as he almost rocketed over the edge already. Ilya clamped both hands around his hips like a vise and held him in place. He pulled off and looked sternly at Shane.

“Stay still.”

The words did something to him, and all he could do was nod and try to contain the whimper. Ilya didn’t go straight back to sucking his dick. Instead, he began teasing the tip, and Shane strained against the urge to move, to fuck Ilya’s mouth until his eyes watered. He could clearly feel how much Shane wanted that and seemed to delight in teasing him after working him up.

“Good. I know how much you want to move, but I like this,” he said as he sucked one of Shane’s balls into his mouth. He was shaking all over and moved one of his hands towards Ilya’s hair, but Ilya pulled back again.

“No.”

Even though Ilya was looking up at him from his knees, Shane felt vulnerable. For a moment, he thought about pushing back, seeing what Ilya would do if he did move, but he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to think about what he was doing with his hands or anything else, so he simply put his hand back down and felt the Russian words he didn’t understand roll through him like the praise he felt them to be.

He was so hard it verged on painful. He cried out in relief when Ilya took him into his mouth again, slowly at first and then began bobbing his head, cataloguing every sensation he pulled from Shane, repeating the ones he felt him enjoy the most.

Each twist of his tongue drew a cry or a curse out of him. He tried desperately to move, but Ilya’s hand held him in place, and he felt powerless to do anything but sit there and be taken apart. He was flying close to the edge, and realized with desperation that he would make Ilya come too. He wouldn’t get to taste him. And he was as desperate for that as he was for his own release.

But he couldn’t hold onto the thought, couldn’t hold onto anything. All his focus, all he could feel was the relentless way Ilya swallowed him, Ilya’s nose hitting his stomach. He imagined doing the same, wanted it fiercely, and suddenly, all his pleasure ratcheted up.

It was all he could do to give Ilya a warning.

“Shit. I’m close. I’m—”

And he broke apart like all his nerves were struck by lightning, and he came for what felt like a small eternity down Ilya’s throat. His body, his mind lost in the pulsing pleasure and aftershocks until Ilya pulled off of him and looked up.

Shane could hardly control his core, and he slumped forward into Ilya and was once again grateful for how strong he was. Ilya ran his fingers gently through his hair as Shane struggled to control his breathing.

It took a few moments for him to realize that while his body was limp and spent, Ilya’s was strung just as tightly as he was before. Still yearned for release. It was the most out of sync they’d felt since they bonded.

Shane pulled back from their awkward embrace and gave Ilya a curious look.

“You didn’t finish? How?”

Ilya’s lips pouted, but his eyes kept their heated look.

“You blocked me—kept it all for yourself.”

Shane shook his head, trying to clear away the fuzz.

“I what? How? I don’t know how to do that.”

Ilya moved to sit next to him.

“Well, your dick does. Very selfish. Not wanting to share how good I make him feel.”

Shane tried hard to think about what he’d done as his body hurtled toward release.

This the touch of his lips to him, this the murmur of yearning,
This the far-off depth and height reflecting his own face,
This the thoughtful merge of himself, and the outlet again.

He’d imagined the taste of his skin and weight on his tongue.

“No. I’m sorry. I do want to share. It was unconscious.”

“Unconscious means like greedy. Or rude?”

Shane tried to read Ilya’s expression to see if he was seriously asking or not, but couldn’t tell.

“No, asshole. I wasn’t thinking about being selfish. I was thinking about how if you came, I wouldn’t get to reciprocate.”

Ilya nodded in approval.

“Yes. Reciprocate. This word I like. Still selfish of you. Now you get to come twice.”

Shane’s stomach flipped. “I don’t think that I can. Not so soon.”

Ilya crawled on the bed and moved back to lean against the pillows, and Shane started pressing light kisses onto his calves.

“I guess it depends how good you are at blow jobs.”

In the end, they both got what they wanted. Shane got to taste him, and Ilya got say I told you so when Shane came again.

Chapter End Notes

619-622
Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from myself,

95
And that a kelson of the creation is love,

(kelson: keelson, the timber supports for a ship's keel.)

1309
There is that in me -- I do not know what it is -- but I know it is in me.

53-54
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

21-23
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,

379-381
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,
This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,'
This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

Chapter 10: Ice and Afterglow

Chapter Summary

Shane, Ilya, and Svetlana go skating. Seeing Svetlana skate so well has Shane momentarily questioning his sexuality (dw, still 100% gay) and sheds light on new complications from their bond. The three of them settle into routines and get to know each other better. It goes really well because Shane is very not jealous and Ilya is a great communicator.

Chapter Notes

Huge thanks to Skargasm for joining as a beta! I forgot to give them a shoutout last chapter but thank you!!

No epistolary content this time, but this chapter is a few thousand words longer.

I usually would use an accessibility reader for one final pass, but I'm afraid that I am getting sick and just want to get this up. If you don't hear from me for a minute, then it's because I caught the illness passing through my husband's work (covid??) Keep your fingers crossed for me, please!

Edit: Okay I can already tell I might be getting sick because I forgot a title, chapter summary and a previously on when I first posted:

Shane and Ilya practice meditation techniques to figure out how their bond works. During one such meditation, Ilya panics and snaps at Shane to get out of him and the room. Shane leaves confused and upset, thinking that he hurt Ilya. They have a weird shared (?) dream. Ilya is upset and in a dark place, thinking about the bond his mother had to endure with his father. Shane tries smoking a cigarette which goes as poorly as we all would guess that it would. They do some light exercise, which makes them both horny and Shane manages to block Ilya for the first time ever so that he can give Ilya a blow job.

One Week Later
July 5, 2009
Los Angeles, California

The stain of his panic never really left the hotel room, so when they moved to the rental place, Ilya was determined not to repeat his mistakes. He didn’t want to hurt Shane, and he was getting more control over the bond. So surely, despite what his father always told him, he could be good.

He wouldn’t do that again, and Shane would be okay.

Shane let out a frustrated-sounding cry as he beat his head against the wall.

“Ouch,” Ilya said dramatically, rubbing the back of his head. It hadn’t actually hurt.

“Sorry.”

Shane, once again, had failed to block him in their mental exercises in any meaningful manner. They had been practicing for days, and he was having more success pushing and pulling sensations and muscle memory, but almost no success blocking.

“You are very sex-motivated,” Ilya said, and Shane threw a pillow at him.

“Fuck off. This is hard.”

He felt like he deserved a medal for not making a joke right then.

Though he was teasing Shane, it was very much the truth. The only time Shane had effectively blocked him was to stop Ilya from orgasming so that Shane could give him a blow job. But he hadn’t been able to block him at all since then.

He was learning that Shane didn’t tolerate failure and was trying, though not very successfully, not to find that frustration adorable. Shane had grown increasingly frustrated that he had gotten much better than him at blocking and was starting to get the hang of pushing and pulling. Shane was still much better than him in that area, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.

And since there was only one way Shane had been able to block, there had been a lot of blow jobs. They used nearly every surface in their short-term rental except in Sveta’s room. Shane had almost gone through an entire bottle of bleach cleaning up after them. And Ilya was almost entirely certain that he couldn’t get tired of getting a blow job or even giving them to Shane, but he did wonder if his dick was going to fall off; plus, his jaw and throat were pretty sore. 

They had tried all kinds of meditations and visualization: Outlining his body in his mind, like he was drawing a border around it, worked best for Ilya. When he was first learning to block Sveta, he would imagine hiding in a secret room she couldn’t find, but he didn’t need that anymore for her. He could simply do it. So, he knew eventually he wouldn’t need the visualization. But for now, it worked.

Shane had tried that. He’d imagined putting on armor, stopping the flow of a river, hiding under a blanket, and even building a wall of Lego.

None of it helped.

Ilya privately thought that he knew what the problem was, but he wasn’t sure how to bring it up to Shane without making it sound like he wasn’t trying hard enough. But Ilya was pretty sure the issue was that Shane didn’t actually want to block him. Ilya felt the same. Being cut off from Shane felt like taking a plunge in an ice bath and staying in—he could do it, but it felt deeply unpleasant and unnatural. And blocking him for too long felt like it would be just as harmful as staying submerged in ice.

But he needed to be able to block Shane—to cut himself off from shoving every horrible thing that happened to him into Shane. Especially right now, while Shane couldn’t protect himself. He needed to finally, for once in his life, learn control, be disciplined. As he was constantly reminded, he’d never succeeded when it was only about himself. But Shane shouldn’t be made to endure that. So he would learn to control himself.

Shane was gritting his teeth so hard trying to concentrate that Ilya’s jaw hurt even more.

“You will break your teeth doing that. Relax.”

Shane didn’t move except to flip Ilya off.

“Whatever. You have too many teeth for a hockey player anyway.”

“We have 65 days until preseason starts, and I’ve been able to block you exactly once. We need to be able to block by then for all the testing. But our first games are only 73 days away, and we absolutely have to block for three minutes by then.”

“You will not be playing a three-minute shift in a real game, let alone an exhibition game.”

He felt the way Shane’s entire body went rigid.

He hissed, “You don’t know that. We need to be prepared.” 

“Ugh, Hollander, you are stressing me out. Fucking relax. We will be able to block for three minutes by then. I promised.”

He saw Shane react the way almost everyone does when told to relax, which was, decidedly, not to relax.

“It’s not just that. Taking a hit breaks your concentration. It took my teammate months to maintain a block through a hit. We barely have that much time.”

Ilya remembers how fortunate he’d felt that Canada’s second-line center hadn’t played in the Prospect Cup final last December. He tried not to feel guilty about that now. They’d had this conversation every day for a week. Each day, the number grew slightly smaller as they made very little progress in the face of time’s relentless onslaught.

He’d learned that nothing he could say would make Shane feel better in this situation. Ilya went to the fridge and got out the fried rice they’d eaten for dinner last night. All that could be said for it was that it was technically edible. None of them knew how to cook.

No matter what they cooked or how much they cleaned, the entire place smelled like cumin and fried dough from their downstairs neighbors. It was strongest after breakfast, but lingered in a comforting way throughout the day. It always smelled better than whatever they had cooked in the cramped kitchen.

“Come eat, Hollander.”

“I don’t want more shitty fried rice.”

“Is your fault the rice is still crunchy.”

He was eating directly out of a pot. They didn’t have any Tupperware, and it felt stupid to buy some.

“It would be fine if we had a rice cooker. Plus, you put way too much soy sauce in. It’s practically soup.”

They had one frying pan, two pots, one big and one small, four plates, four bowls, four sets of utensils, and 4 cups: 2 were glasses and two were mugs. They were constantly doing dishes. Ilya was mentally rehearsing his response when he set the pot down.

“Don’t just leave that in the sink, Ilya!”

 The doorbell saved him from doing the dishes for the third time that day. A harried-looking delivery woman made Shane sign for a package that was nearly as big as Svetlana. It was his hockey gear and what seemed to Ilya like a year’s supply of protein powder.

“Finally,” Shane said. “I was worried we’d have to cancel our reservation tomorrow.”

Ilya had bought new gear already. It wasn’t worth the hassle or cost to have his stuff shipped over from Russia on such a tight timeline. It was not exactly what he envisioned being the first thing that he spent his signing bonus on, even if it was only a small fraction of it, but truthfully, he was just as eager to get back on the ice as Shane was.

The next morning, Ilya woke up to the sound of the blender and knew, between that and Hollander’s fucking cheerful disposition in the morning, that he was not going back to sleep.

He shuffled down into the kitchen and glared at Shane, who was practically skipping around the kitchen, as he gathered what he needed to make scrambled eggs. The one dish none of them had managed to mess up.

“6 a.m. smoothies cannot be a regular thing. This is…” he waved his hand around in the absence of words he had no hope of finding at this moment. “This is bad.”

Shane rolled his eyes.

“It’s not bad. The smoothies are good. And good for you. It’s part of my morning routine. I need this.”

“And I need to not know what it feels like to murder my soulmate before I can block him.”

Shane turned and raised one eyebrow at him in an expression that was startlingly familiar to Ilya.

“Don’t be dramatic, Rozanov,” Shane said and started cracking eggs into a bowl.

“Am very serious. Smoothie means death, Hollander.”

Ilya fixed him with his most serious glare, and contrary to all of Ilya’s intent, his stupid soulmate laughed in his face. It was a deep and real belly laugh that he likely would’ve found infectious even without their bond.

Shane slid a smoothie over to him, and Ilya sniffed it with suspicion. It was green sludge.

“It’s better than it looks. I swear. Taste it, and if you still don’t like it, you don’t have to drink it.”

“How many… leaves did you put in this?”

“There’s one cup of spinach. That’s why it looks like that but you can’t taste it.”

Ilya, for reasons that were honestly beyond him, took a sip of the vile concoction and found that it actually tasted fine. Chocolate, fruit, and something else.

“Mmm,” Ilya said noncommittally. “What is in here?”

“The protein powder is chocolate flavor, plus I put in bananas and peanut butter. It’s good, right?”

Ilya, embracing his future country of residence, decided to plead the fifth and sipped in silence.

Shane, entirely undeterred, kept telling Ilya all about the benefits of all the ingredients and more details about the protein powder than Ilya suspected that the product’s own sales reps know. Ilya got the coffee pot going and tried to pay enough attention not to be rude.

He finally cut Shane off.

“They pay you for this?”

Shane blushed, and Ilya fought his impulse to trace the contours of the color with his thumb.

“No,” Shane mumbled. “But my mom thinks once I really start playing, that it’s possible.”

Shane started asking him questions about his agent, someone his father was friends with, and his manager, someone else his father was friends with, and how international partnerships worked, as if Ilya had any idea about that. During these questions, Ilya finally had enough coffee to notice the notebook and pen lying open on the kitchen table nearby.

It was filled with Shane’s uncertain scrawl.

А а   В в   Ъ ъ   Г г   Д д   Ё ё   Е е…  

The entire Cyrillic alphabet written over and over.

Ilya thought his heart had stopped. But Shane didn’t notice, so it probably hadn’t. There was absolutely no reason for Shane to learn Russian. It was maybe the sweetest thing Ilya had ever seen in his entire life, including the golden labradoodle puppy named Moxie that had rocked Ilya’s entire world a few days ago outside the nearby taco truck. He didn’t know he could have a dog with matching hair and was going back daily to try to see her again.

The alphabet was also incorrect. He’d gotten some letters mixed up. 

 Shane was still busy cooking the eggs, and Ilya knew him well enough to guess that openly correcting him might embarrass him. So Ilya drew some arrows indicating which letters were wrong and then rewrote the alphabet below Shane’s last line.

А а   Б б   В в   Г г   Д д   Е е   Ё ё…

Ilya startled slightly as Sveta came up behind him. With a gentle hand on his hip, she plucked the coffee cup from his hand and beamed down at the notebook.

---

The drive to the rink that was supposed to take one hour took almost two with traffic. They’d booked ice time in a place that Shane was somewhat offended to learn was also called Ontario. Svetlana, to his surprise, came to the rink with them that morning. She spent most of her days out doing something, returning in the evening to hang out with them before going out again at night. Shane was never entirely clear on the details but knew she had friends in the city or was making friends in the city.

He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. He relied heavily on his ability to sort and label what he knew about people, keep it organized in his mind. But it all still felt so chaotic; he felt like he was learning to live on a whole new planet and know how it worked. He struggled through the exercise

Subject: Svetlana Vetrova
Category: Soulmate in Law (?)

There should be a word, shouldn’t there? For your soulmate’s soulmate? It was a common enough thing. The lack of an accurate term made his brain itch.

He sifted through what else he knew about her. She knew everything about hockey. He knew how to deal with that. She was effectively a translator between him and Ilya. Her family was obscenely wealthy. Shane had been trying to pay her back for rent until Ilya googled her parents’ individual net worth, and he’d decided it wasn’t worth it. She was surprisingly kind and down to earth despite that. But she felt too big, too bright for him to neatly organize.

It left him uncomfortable. Like his skin was too tight, but he didn’t know what to do about that either. So he tried to ground himself in the familiarity of the rink. The sound of the compressors running and the feel of his skates on his feet.

He glanced over to Svetlana, and to his surprise, she was the first on the ice and breezed across it as comfortably as any hockey player or ice skater he’d ever seen, which Shane did reflect probably made him an asshole. So he should add “excellent skater” to her tags when he figured out his own mind.

Ilya apparently took in his surprised expression and said,

“Her father is Sergei Vetrov, and she probably could be professional ice skater but likes to dance better.”

Shane, whose mouth had already been half agape, fell the rest of the way open. He was an incredibly famous Bears’ goalie in the 90s. He needed an entirely new system to organize this information.

“And you’re just now telling me this?”

Ilya simply shrugged like it had slipped his mind. Shane was replaying all the games he’d watched of Vetrov with Ilya’s play style. Since Vetrov was a goalie, it was difficult to draw direct lines between them.

“You grew up with Sergei Vetrov? Did he teach you how to skate?”

Ilya shook his head.

“No. He is busy, important man in the government now. But we worked together a little, and he made sure I had the best teachers.”

Shane wondered if her family counted as part of the oligarchy, or if they were simply rich and connected. Either way, he was grateful for Svetlana’s black card, which had cleared several hurdles for three barely 18-year-olds living in one of the more expensive cities on the planet, since their signing bonuses were still moving through bureaucratic systems.

Shane put his helmet on and kept watching Svetlana. He hadn’t bothered with his pads, but a lifetime of coaching had drilled wearing a helmet into him. He watched her flow across the ice, powerful yet graceful in a way that hockey players weren’t trained to be. Seeing her move, he couldn’t help but wonder why Ilya wasn’t in love with her. Why were they, mostly, just friends? Shane was 100% sure that he was gay, except watching her move made him wonder if he wasn’t 99% gay and 1% not.

But no. He was simply fascinated by her form and attracted to good skating intellectually, not sexually.

Ilya reached up and gently closed his mouth; the smell of cumin clung to him even here, mingling with his own personal scent. He stepped past Shane, taking his warm scent with him, leaving Shane to chase him.

When he and Ilya both stepped onto the ice, everything made sense, like the last binding between them clicked into place. He found an answer there to a question he’d been indirectly wondering about all week: Why was Ilya his soulmate?

The answer was, like most answers in his life, on the ice. It hung in the air like the cold smell of ice, refrigerant, and sweat. It glared down at them from the fluorescent lights. It occupied every empty seat and roared louder than any crowd. It was in all the little markers that told Shane that he was made for this. That all ice was home ice.

There was that in Ilya, too.

And he hadn’t fully appreciated it until the moment both their blades cut across the ice in sweeping arcs—a birthright written into their bones.

He thought he was supposed to stand alone at the top, but now understood they would always be together. They would keep climbing until no one else could reach them, but it would always be together.

It was always meant to be.

Ilya was stunning on the ice. Shane had watched him skate in person and on hours and hours of tape, and he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of it. And they fit together so beautifully. He marveled at the way they passed the puck between them effortlessly. What they were doing wasn’t any warmup or drill any coach would put them through. The way they weaved around one another was more like dancing than hockey.

It was profound, maybe spiritual. Shane didn’t pray, but if he did, this would probably be how he did it. But it was also deeply grounding in its normalcy. When they were both on the ice, pushing and resting at almost the same time, it felt natural. Work done by two bodies, shared amongst two bodies. It’s why most people with somatic bonds could sync their exercise schedule with their soulmate and live relatively normal lives. The issues would come when their schedules didn’t line up, and they went through the rigors of two professional athletes, compromising their ability to recover and potentially masking the severity of injuries.

Unlike the workouts they’d done so far, they didn’t hold back. He couldn’t hold back on the ice any more than Ilya seemed to be able to. They transitioned into normal warm-ups, racing across the ice, passing, and shooting. Svetlana played alongside them for a bit—she had clearly grown up with a stick in her hand and complained relentlessly about the poor quality of this borrowed one. But she began to coach when they got serious and fed them pucks as needed. As she heckled Ilya for the same issue Shane saw in his crossover, he wondered again why Ilya had never fallen in love with her. She was perfect. Shane wondered if he was now in love with her and had crept down to only 98% gay.

Ilya also seemed to be feeling like his old self because he was an absolute menace, playing much harder than was warranted. Shane felt himself matching his competitiveness, but Ilya kept poking and crowding him, always pulling back before actually slamming into him. He chirped relentlessly, and Shane was going from fond exasperation to genuine annoyance.

Things came to a head when Svetlana was drilling them in picking up rims. Shane had worked hard over the past year to hone the perfect angle to chip the puck out to the far blue line. It was the millimeters of difference in the angle that gave him such exceptional puck control and was one of his few clear advantages over Ilya.

So when Shane felt that odd tingling in his hand, he just knew what Ilya was up to and, for maybe the first time in his life, saw red. He slammed a switch off in his mind’s eye, and everything in his body went from echoes, ripples, buzzed whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine to nothing.

Or not quite nothing but lack. Again, unseen and unproven.

A crater where a person used to be.

It was over in an instant, and everything flooded back in a quivering touch.

Ilya looked ecstatic, completely at odds with how he felt in that moment. He tried to shake it off, and Ilya skated up to him and hugged him, knocking their helmets together.

“You did it, Shane!”

The belonging he’d felt just moments ago seemed to have evaporated in the dry air. The roaring applause had been swallowed up by the relentless drone of the HVAC. Nothing made as much sense as it had before. He tried to understand the feeling of lack, but couldn’t begin to classify it, so he just added it to the pile of unidentifiable and misshapen things he was holding.

“You mean you were pissing me off on purpose? To see if I could get mad enough to block you?”

Svetlana skated over, with a knowing look on her face.

“Mostly yes,” she said. “But also, he is still an asshole.”

Ilya gave her a playful shove.

“Hey, I use my powers for good today. Or is that supposed to be well? Used my powers for well…?”

He scrunched his nose.

“Good was right,” Svetlana said.

Shane at least knew what to think about Ilya being an asshole. It was still his primary tag. 

“Like you won’t be just as pissed when he steals The Rozanov,” she added.

Ilya roared as Svetlana took off, clearly expecting this reaction, and their delight seemed to lighten his load. Ilya gave chase. His whole body was humming with joy, and it pushed into Shane—erasing his confusion and doubt. He was faster than her, but she had a head start and was more agile than he was. It was like watching a cheetah and a gazelle race across the savannah if those animals also yelled at each other in Russian the whole time. Shane was obviously on her side and concentrated very hard on conjuring the switch in his mind and turning it off, breaking the circuit. Without the rage, it was difficult to move. And it wouldn’t stay open. He had to imagine holding it down, only managing to keep it there for a few moments at a time.

Eventually, and probably because of Shane’s intermittent blocking, Ilya yielded, and they skated back over to him, all three huffing and puffing.

“What the fuck is The Rozanov?”

“It is my shot. Top secret. No one knows.”

“So you’ve never done it before? That means it’s not real.”

“I am saving it for NHL. It is strategy, Hollander,” he paused before getting an evil look on his face. “Strategy is when you have a plan—”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Rozanov.”

Shane waited for Ilya to tell him more, knowing he was never one to miss a chance to brag. But Ilya didn't seem seemed inclined to, which made Shane sudden take the whole thing a lot more seriously.

“So no one knows. You’ve never done it in a game. How do you know it will work?”

“I just know,” Ilya said.

Shane opened his mouth to argue, but Svetlana cut him off.

“My father helped him. They worked on it together. How to sell the fake.”

He was sufficiently impressed. If Sergei Vetrov helped him refine his move, it probably would work.

“And you’re already calling it The Rozanov? Isn’t that a touch arrogant, even for you?”

Shane tried to keep the animosity out of his voice, but he had the memory of how alone he felt while blocking out this man who had just spent the last hour reminding Shane that he was kind of a dick, so he knew that he didn’t entirely succeed.

Ilya simply shrugged.

“Well, what is this ‘Rozanov’?”

Ilya smirked, and Shane remembered how often he’d wanted to punch Ilya before they bonded.

“I will show you the first time we play the Voyageurs,” he said, affecting a terrible French accent for the Montreal team name.

Shane stared into his bright blue eyes and tried to picture it. Their first NHL game against one another. the hum of the crowd, the jostle of teammates on the bench, and the blue home jerseys, but now, it felt like so much was stacked against them. He wanted to ask if Ilya really thought they’d still get to play, despite everything, but was too scared to hear the answer.

Since you both went to the effort of bringing your pads out, you should put them on. Humor me for a little experiment.”

Svetlana had him take the puck up the left lane, telling Ilya to stop him against the boards. The first time, Ilya skated up to him, pivoted at the last second, putting his hands on him to stop.

“Faster, like it’s real.”

He reset, moving up. This time, Ilya pinned his hands and stick against the board.

He wasn’t sure what Svetlana was doing, but getting past Ilya didn’t seem to be the point.

“Again. Ilya, stop him. He could get around all of that if he were really trying.”

Shane moved again. This time, Ilya got in front of him, so his right shoulder met Ilya’s left, but instead of pinning his stick to the board and planting his left skate, Ilya let himself get pushed backward. Shane took advantage of the poor technique to get some distance and skate away with the puck.

Svetlana chided Ilya in Russian.

“Okay, Hollander. Show him how to do this. Put him into the boards. Don’t let him get past you.”

He looked between them for a moment, trying to figure out if Ilya knew what game Svetlana was playing, but his face was expressionless.

“Move, Rozanov.”

He glared at her and took off in a flurry of scraping ice. He was so fast. Shane would never admit how difficult he was to catch. Still, he skated toward him, lined up to finish the check until something in him revolted at what he was about to do. He pivoted right at the end and got in front of him, stopping their momentum much too slowly in order to avoid a true collision.

They stayed like that for a moment, in what could only be described as an embrace that had very little to do with playing the puck.

“Do you see the problem?” Svetlana asked.

«Fuck,» Ilya swore. It was the first word Shane had learned in Russian.

Shane echoed the word, which earned a small, warm smile from Ilya that, for a moment, almost made everything seem okay.

But it passed quickly. If they couldn’t properly check each other, they couldn’t play against each other. And there was no way they wouldn’t be pitted against one another. The league was already playing up their rivalry. Even when word got out that they were friends or whatever lie they concocted, their teams were still bitter rivals.

He moved out of Ilya’s arms, determined to dig down to find more resolve from a well that was quickly running dry. This was just another task to complete. Another hurdle to clear—same as he’d had to do every step along the way.

“Again,” he said. “I’m going to do it this time.”

They got in position again. Shane raced toward him at full speed, but at the last second, dodged and hit the boards while Ilya skated by.

“Again.”

And again, he failed.

Over and over until finally, when he’d lost track of how many times he’d failed, he managed to finish the check, slamming into Ilya with a force that would’ve rattled both their bodies without the bond. Shane had been able to do it because, as he made contact, he took all the pain of impact, leaving Ilya with just the vibration.

A small, pained sound escaped Ilya and broke his concentration.

“No,” he said coldly. “Not like that. If you do that, you must block. You must not let me—”

But Svetlana skated up.

“Shane! Wonderful. Time is almost done,” she turned to Ilya. “You go now. Hit him. He is tough, I promise.”

They ran the drill ten more times, and each time, Ilya stopped short of a full check. When Shane tried to assure Ilya that he could handle it—that Ilya himself had left a nasty bruise the last time they played. But it didn’t matter. By the time they heard the next group approach, Ilya no longer met his eyes. Their time was up. They made their way off the ice and headed home.

---

July 20, 2009
Los Angeles, California

Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised Ilya that playing hockey was a turning point for Shane and their bond. Once Shane had figured out how to block a little, he was like a dog with a bone. Or more specifically, the labradoodle Moxie with her hair that matched his and her adorable stuffed lamb toy—Ilya was still constantly going to the taco truck constantly to see if she was also there.

Shane made this adorable scrunched face every time he started blocking, which made Ilya want to take a picture and frame it.

Over the past few weeks, they made a lot of progress in stabilizing their bond. Realistically, they would probably still be at a bond center. More research said that it took, on average, six to eight weeks to fully stabilize a bond like theirs. And given that they were essentially fumbling around in the dark, they would be lucky to do it that quickly.

But they could maintain a block for 3 minutes and go almost six hours without needing to touch one another, although they rarely did. It was enough that they could actually start working with the trainer Shane had lied to his parents about. They got more time on the ice, and he had occasionally been able to fully check Shane a few times, but it felt so wrong. Less bad than when Shane checked him, and he couldn’t stop himself from forcing the pain into Shane. He tried to block, but it was difficult to hold onto as his brain rattled around his skull during a hit. They were making progress, enough to occasionally allow Shane to relax and feel confident in their plans. He still felt less certain that this wasn’t all going to turn to shit the first time they had to be apart for two weeks or more, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to say that to Shane.

The three of them fell into an easy rhythm, all compatible as friends, which perhaps wasn’t surprising given that they were both his soulmates. But it felt sort of wrong to use the same word for his relationship with both of them. Yes, he shared a connection with both of them, but other than that, it felt entirely different. He figured that since having multiple soulmates wasn’t common, and profound somatic bonds were quite rare, few people had experienced both directly to understand how different they were. That had to be why the world was content to call them the same thing.

One of his favorite parts of these weeks was watching Shane and Sveta’s relationship develop. They had taken over as the primary cooks. Shane was much more likely to actually follow a recipe, and Sveta had a better sense of spice and flavor combinations from her mom’s adventurous cooking, leaving Ilya as the primary cleaner between them.

In many ways, Sveta and Shane had an easier time talking and getting to know one another than he and Shane did. They talked about everything. Their families, hockey in every era, and growing up biracial, Ilya’s many shortcomings were among their favorite topics. Shane asked her about Russian food, her career goals as an aspiring professional dancer, and what different cities were like. She asked him about Japanese food, the differences between the US and Canada, and his time in the Major Juniors. Sometimes he felt like they got along better than he did with Shane.

But they didn’t have these landmines that they were constantly avoiding. He and Shane talked about the bond logistically, but not the bond itself. They talked about blocking, but not how terrible it felt to do it. They discussed the details of the season, but not the giant question mark that hovered over their NHL careers. They talked about Shane’s parents, but never Ilya’s.

But the thing that surprised him the most was that Shane did not want to have or even discuss doing more sexually. He was more than happy to continue doing what they had been doing, but whenever Ilya brought up penetration, Shane clammed up. Ilya could not fathom why, given how exquisitely eager he was for everything else, but didn’t want to push too much. He didn’t want Shane to think he felt entitled to anything but, well, he really wanted to fuck him. And he knew that Shane wasn’t a virgin before they’d hooked up. They’d discussed it in a basic sense, but Shane wasn’t forthcoming with details.

He brought it up a few times, simply stating that he had condoms and lube or saying he wanted to fuck, but Shane had politely demurred or run his tongue around the tip of his cock and effectively ended the conversation. He’d given it a rest for over a week. It was the only area of his life where he did honestly try not to be an asshole.

But then Shane was sucking on his lip and grinding against him, and too much blood was in his dick, not his head, so he blurted out,

“Blyat, Hollander, I want to fuck you.”

And Shane froze with Ilya’s tongue still in his mouth until he let out this hysterical little giggle. 

“You want to what?”

“Fuck you, Hollander… I want to bury myself inside of you so deeply that I forget my name.» He thought he had finished the sentence in Russian, but was still having blood flow issues, and the way Shane’s dick twitched against him wasn’t helping.

“You want to fuck me? You don’t want the other way around?”

That made Ilya pull back slightly to get a better look at Shane’s face. He was usually good at picking up on these kinds of things, but maybe he’d read Shane wrong. He shifted so he was next to Shane. Shane shifted so he was reclined against the pillows and the headboard.

“You like to top?” he asked Shane.

The room around them was dark; only the streetlights shining in through their windows cast a dim glow on them, so he couldn’t technically see Shane’s blush, but he felt his own face heat, though he wasn’t embarrassed. Ilya loved watching Shane blush in equal measure, as he hated it since it made him turn just as red.

“You are embarrassed.”

“What? No. Shut up.”

Ilya ran his hand across Shane’s cheek and gently massaged the base of his scalp in the way that gave both of them goosebumps.

“Tell me what you want. Or what you don’t want.”

Shane took a deep breath, and he wondered if Shane would steer him away from his soft spot, continue to protect himself. Ilya was quietly pleased when he said,

“I have only topped before. The other two guys that I told you about. They were very into a strong top. Which is fine, you know? Like I get it. But that whole thing didn’t do much for me. I mean. It’s not like I didn’t… finish. I just liked the other things more.”

Ah, this was something Ilya could work with. He couldn’t wake him up from this nightmare. He couldn’t stop himself from ruining Shane. But he could help them forget for a little while. Could sink into the one simple and great part of this thing between them.

“You will like to bottom, a lot, I think. If you want to try.”

As he spoke, he ran his hand down Shane’s side and felt him tremble.

“Yeah? What makes you think that?”

“Well, I like to top, a lot. We are soulmates for a reason.”

The words tasted bitter in his mouth. The random cruelty of the universe was the only real reason he could think that they would be stuck together. But it did make them physically compatible. A fleeting silver lining. They were both breathing a bit faster, but to Ilya’s surprise, Shane fully broke contact between them and sat up.

“Actually, I was doing some reading about that.”

“About what? Fucking your soulmate?”

“Yeah, actually. It can be different with bonds like ours.”

“Different how? We have already been having sex.”

Shane nodded seriously, and he wondered when and how Shane had found this information.

“We have but only with one of us… doing stuff to the other. Not both of us, um…”

He debated torturing Shane slightly to spell out exactly what he meant because he loved watching him hesitate and talk around things. It was the complete opposite of how he acted in the actual act, and the juxtaposition of his prudish words and his lust-driven actions did something for Ilya. But in that moment he wanted to come more than he wanted to torture Shane.

“Shane, please, I am dying here, and I just want you to touch my dick.”

“Shut up. It can just be a lot, I read. Like when we first bonded or the… dreams. Easy to get lost in, especially the first few times. So we should just know that might happen.”

That was interesting. The moments after they’d bonded were a haze of things Ilya didn’t really know how to describe. But it wasn’t bad necessarily. Anytime he felt close to Shane was amazing for him.

“Okay, great. I will fuck you so good we will both go out of our minds. Okay. Good, can we please get on with the fucking.”

Shane’s brown eyes twinkled with about the evilest glint he’d ever seen in them.

“Hmmm. I don’t know. I was thinking I’d probably just read and go to bed.”

Dirty liar. He could feel the heat pooling in both of their cores and knew he was only responsible for half of it. He thought about Shane’s indifference to being the stronger person with his partners and wondered if he would like the opposite. Ilya wasn’t honestly sure he was that much stronger than Shane, but that didn’t matter if they pretended…

Shane flipped on the lamp on his nightstand and got up and flipped off the overhead light. He made a big show of not looking at Ilya, who was still lying propped on his side. Shane sat up against the headboard and grabbed his book. He opened his book and carefully removed the bookmark that was a Polaroid of him and his parents from when he was 8. The sick freak had kept track of the same bookmark for 10 years.

Shane sighed contentedly, like he wasn’t half hard and toying with Ilya like a cat with a mouse. Oh, Ilya was going to ruin him.

He took half a second to block so Shane couldn’t anticipate his movements. He sat up quickly, yanked the book from Shane’s hands and resisted the urge to toss it aside like he wanted to and instead quickly placed it back on the nightstand.

Shane started to protest when Ilya grabbed his calves and yanked him down until he was lying on his back. He struggled to sit back up when Ilya climbed on top of him and collapsed, trapping Shane’s arms between them and using his full weight to hold him down. They both were breathing heavily—Shane still trying to extract his arms and throw Ilya off of him, but maybe not trying as hard as he could. He let go of the block, and yeah, Shane was definitely into this. They had both gone from half to fully hard.

“I don’t think you really want to read, Shane.”

Shane continued to squirm below him, but he was no longer even pretending to use his whole strength.

“Let me up, idiot. I was just getting to the good part.”

Ilya chuckled and propped himself up, freeing Shane’s hand that he distinctly didn’t use to push Ilya off. He made a show of thinking about it, and then he lowered his mouth to Shane’s ear, letting his hot breath coast over it.

“No. You can read when I’m done with you.”

He felt the shiver go down Shane’s back as he nipped at his earlobe.

“What are you going to do to me?”

He pulled back so he was looking at Shane. His eyes were already hazy with lust, and both of them were breathing deeply. He saw a small, shy smile creep onto Shane’s face, and he leaned down to kiss the corner of his lips where they curved up.

“I want to fuck you, Shane. Can I fuck you?”

“God, yes. Please.”

Embarrassingly, Ilya barely contained a squeal and likely hid whatever idiotic look he had on his face by kissing Shane deeply. When their lips met, he felt like he could breathe again. Sometimes it felt like he was holding his breath, holding himself back, and it was only when they were like this, touching each other, making each other feel good, that he was really himself anymore.

Shane sighed into his mouth, and he wondered if Shane felt the same, but he didn’t have much time to consider it because Shane’s wiggle that was a pretense of getting away from Ilya became deliberate rolls of his hips, and he groaned when Shane’s erection pressed into him.

He started kissing Shane’s cheek, jaw, throat, tasting his slightly salty skin that he thought might be an aphrodisiac designed especially for him. He slowly worked his way down Shane’s body in a shower of kisses and nips. He felt his own lips burn into Shane’s skin in a heady rush. Shane’s own hands were caressing his back before he threaded one hand into his hair and used the other to squeeze his ass, goading him into grinding down harder.

Ilya—instead—shifted his weight off of Shane, who let out an exasperated huff at the loss of pressure as Ilya kept kissing down his torso and stripped off each of their boxers in turn. Shane was still thrusting up, now into nothing, and as Ilya’s lips reached the jut of his hip bone, he grabbed him and held him down. Shane tested his strength, and Ilya gripped tighter, keeping him still, and oh god, he really liked that. Ilya smirked as he kissed the crease of his thigh, thrilled to discover something else Shane was into.

He kept kissing, down to Shane’s knee and back up the other side, all the while holding his hips still. He could feel the building tension in Shane’s body.

“Are you going to fuck me or what?”

“Mmm. I don’t know. You said you’d rather read, so I think I need to spend more time convincing you.”

“I’m convinced. Really.”

He looked up; Shane had propped himself up so he could watch Ilya kiss him. His whole body was flushed and already covered in a light sheen of sweat—already growing desperate. But Ilya knew it was important to take things slowly right now; he wanted Shane relaxed. And maybe he wanted to hear him beg a little bit.

“I’m not sure. Just being thorough.”

He winked at Shane and went back to kissing and licking everywhere except where Shane wanted him to. Shane was huffing, perhaps trying for disapproval, but each one came out a bit closer to a moan.

Ilya paused to grab the lube, and Shane huffed out a “Finally,” which almost made him want to draw it out even longer, but he was feeling just as desperate.

He pressed his finger against Shane’s rim, slowly circling it and licked the head of his cock before taking the tip into his mouth.

“Relax, okay?”

Ilya pressed his finger into Shane’s tight hole and felt his muscles clench and relax. Ilya put his finger in slowly, stopping when he felt Shane tense. He moved his mouth over the tip of Shane’s length as he worked his finger inside Shane, moving gently and searching for—yes, there. Shane cried out as he hit his prostate and felt the jolt through his whole body. Ilya tasted the burst of precome and sighed happily on Shane’s dick.

After a moment, he added another, slowly working Shane open, deliberately avoiding his prostate and drawing increasingly desperate whines out of Shane. His own body was drawn taut, and he had to hold himself back from grinding into the bed and making them both come too soon.

Bringing his focus back to Shane’s body, he added a third finger, stretching him and enjoying the feeling filtered through Shane more than he had when he’d tried it himself. Shane was starting to move more, to ride his fingers. Ilya knew he was almost ready, but wanted to hear him beg a little.

He searched again for that spot, hitting it faster this time, and fuck, that felt good. Shane was leaking constantly now in his mouth, and he was obsessed with the taste despite how crazy he knew that sounded. When he released the head of Shane’s cock, he grunted in frustration and moved to grab himself. Ilya batted his hand away.

“Still think about your book?”

“Huh? No. Please. Fuck.”

“Please, what Shane?”

“Please fuck me.”

Shane’s eyes were closed, but Ilya put on a considering face anyway.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure you really want it.”

He could feel Shane’s jaw clenching, probably warring with himself, trying not to play Ilya’s game but knowing it was the fastest way to get what he wanted.

“Look at me.”

He intended to draw this out more, but when Shane’s eyes snapped open and crashed into Ilya, it stripped away all the control he was pretending to have. He was ensnared and would have done anything Shane asked in that moment.

“Please,” Shane said, but it felt like a compulsion.

Ilya put on the condom and lube with shaking hands and then crawled back up Shane, whose eyes had never left him, drawing him back toward him. Shane drew his legs up, wrapping around his hips, and Ilya was nudging his entrance with the head of his cock. Shane ran a hand up his back and gave him a quick nod. He slowly pushed in. Every atom of him was screaming to drive in deep and hard, but he held back, feeling the hints of pain coming from Shane.

“Okay?”

“Yes, more.”

Ilya kept moving until he completely filled Shane and waited, letting Shane adjust to the sensation. He couldn’t feel pain anymore, but also wasn’t quite getting pleasure. He thought staying still any longer might kill him, but it seemed like a good way to go.

“Fucks sake, Rozanov. Are you going to move or did you come already?”

«Brat,» he said, entirely losing English.

Everything else was swept away with it as his whole body, his flesh and blood, played out lightning strikes between them. Ilya had no sense of time or place—only the movement of both halves of him and the doubled pleasure building down his spine, in his core. He wondered if he was forgetting something. Then forgot that too.

Shane’s hot breath moved down his neck, making him drive into Shane harder. Shane moaned, arching and meeting each thrust. He buried his nose in Shane’s hair and breathed in his tea tree oil shampoo and the cumin that clung to everything. He could feel everything—his consciousness stretching again between the two of them, feeling equally in his own body as in Shane’s.

He felt both of them unraveling at the seams, not just in the usual way he came to expect from an orgasm but in some more fundamental way, like the night of the draft, but this time it didn’t hurt. He couldn’t honestly tell if it was his hand or Shane’s that wrapped around Shane’s dick and gave them that final push over the edge, only that they were both gasping and shaking. He felt Shane clenching around him as he pulsed and cried out and lost himself completely. In rolling waves of pleasure, they were thrust back into that strange world that seemed to belong to them: the previously bruised and bleeding sky was now dark and calm, awash in stars, streaked with comets. He saw the land that had transformed into softly rolling hills and towering trees in the distance and wondered for a moment if scraping himself hollow to make this place was a fair price. He then thought nothing at all and was instead nowhere and everywhere, folded into Shane and felt nothing but peace.

Minutes or hours later, they both panted and trembled in the aftershocks, in a time lost listening to each other. A small part of him knew the whole thing had been over embarrassingly quickly but couldn’t imagine how he could possibly last any longer when it felt like that.

He forced himself to pull out of Shane gently, held onto the condom carefully, and rolled to the side, breathing only slightly slowed.

When he’d recovered a bit more, he got a warm towel from the bathroom to help Shane clean up. He was still boneless and lost in the haze as Ilya wiped him down and tucked him in his arms as he murmured words to him in Russian that would likely embarrass them both, but he didn’t care.

When Shane began running his fingers across Ilya’s forearm, he lifted his head and playfully whispered in his ear,

“So I was right. You liked, yes?”

And to Ilya’s satisfaction, Shane was still too lost in the afterglow to be self-conscious and just let out a breathy yes and drifted off to sleep.

---

The next morning the bed was empty; Shane had already left for a morning run. He was somewhat breathless and definitely felt a burn in his legs, but Shane was trying to keep it from him. He was likely hitting the heavy part of his run, and that had woken him up.

He wandered into the kitchen to see Sveta wearing one of his old shirts that hung partway down her legs, short hidden underneath, pulling a Trini bake out of the oven. It was one of his favorite breakfasts, and his stomach rumbled appreciatively. Ilya poured himself a cup of coffee and was just starting to add cream and sugar when Sveta whirled on him. He was trying not to pant in the kitchen. He could breathe manually, but it required focus.

«Did you forget something last night?»

He was pretty sure he had forgotten everything at different points last night. He’d felt like he was forgetting something but was too swept away in sensation to think about it.

Fuck.

He forgot to block her. He hadn’t even noticed if she’d blocked him or not.

«Sorry, Sveta. It was… a lot.»

His pulse picked up at the memory, escalating it more. He felt the horrible sensation of his face turning red and tried to tell himself it was probably Shane’s fault.

«No shit. You almost made me come in the back of a taxi. I could hardly block you.»

She was torn between amusement and annoyance. He was confused. Their bond wasn’t usually like that. The few times they had sex, their mutual pleasure did heighten things, but nothing like it did with Shane. They usually blocked each other unless their partners were into that kind of thing, but it was rare that it all worked out.

«I didn’t know it would be so intense for you, too. I’ll work on it.»

«Part of me doesn’t want you to. Holy fucking shit, it was hot.»

They both erupted into a fit of laughter, falling into each other and enjoying a moment together that felt like before. Ilya wrapped his body around hers and put his chin on her head while she grated the cheese to stuff inside the bake. He felt his breathing ease and the burn lessen. Shane was likely starting to cool down. Sveta recounted the rest of her evening, going out with the hip-hop dance team who’d let her join their practices. They stayed like that until Shane walked in.

Dripping with sweat, dark hair plastered to his forehead, Ilya felt an immediate heady pulse of arousal. Shane froze, taking in the scene.

«Good morning, Shane,» Sveta said warmly.

«Good morning, Svetlana,» he replied in hesitant Russian.

Ilya felt her glow of affection at his attempt, which was marred by the way Shane seemed to lock down his expression. Ilya didn’t feel anything in particular from him, though, so he let it go.

“I’ll just, uh…” he said and gestured to the bedroom.  He heard the shower turn on and started slicing into the bake, hovering his nose above the steam to savor the coconut scent. He knew Sveta was staring at him, but he was too busy stuffing cheese into the warm bread.

«So, have you talked about it?»

Ilya took a bite and had to start sucking in air. It was burning his tongue, but he didn’t really care. The melty cheese and soft coconut flavor were more than worth it.

«About what?»

 She gave him a cutting look.

«About what, Ilyushka? About you two. And about your parents?»

He shrugged, and she let out a stream of curses interspersed with the word “men,” which she also made sound like an explicative.

«We never had to talk about it.»

«That is the dumbest thing that I have ever heard. And that means something when you think about all the dumb shit you’ve said in your life.»   

He gave her the most wounded look he could pull off, which she resolutely ignored. Instead, she cut him another slice, put in what he considered an insufficient amount of cheese inside but she insisted was normal and shooed him into the bedroom with it as the shower turned off.

---

The bathroom was tiny—steam choked the air within seconds of the hot water turning on, and the paint looked like it fondly remembered the Reagan administration. Its only redeeming quality was that it wasn’t full of mold. In the shower, the plastic curtain kept clinging to his legs as the cool air tried to rush in, and Shane was glad for the hour he spent scrubbing it when they moved in. It was an uncomfortable sensation. He kept trying to lean away from it as his thoughts twisted around, constricting and cutting into him. It wasn’t because the two of them wrapped up together looked wrong, but because it looked so right.

The two of them, childhood best friends, soulmates, each stunning in their own right. They spoke the same language and shared the same culture. Their parents were probably all friends. Every single thing about them spoke to how they belonged together.

How could they not love each other? Anyone could see how they belonged.

He had felt Ilya’s arousal as he had her in his arms. He hadn’t even bothered to hide it—slapping Shane in the face with the depth of their relationship. Ilya might be everything to him, but he was not everything to Ilya.

And he’d let himself forget that in the easy rapport he’d developed with her and how good it felt to fall asleep in Ilya’s arms each night. He turned up the heat, hoping the water would burn out the memory of Ilya’s hands on him.

He’d let himself ignore that Ilya was probably waiting for them to be able to block to sleep with her again or with other people. He wasn’t a complete asshole, and in the depths of their connection, he’d let himself forget that he barely knew his soulmate.

He didn’t know anything about his parents or friends. Their bodies were connected but that was only part of them. Seeing Ilya’s chin resting on top of Svetlana’s hair and Ilya’s arousal while he was wrapped around her highlighted the gap. Made him remember how he felt like nothing when he blocked Ilya. But he still had her.

When he walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, he was surprised to find Ilya waiting there for him with a plate of food. The bed was dipped under him as he sat jiggling his leg while he waited. The room was not much bigger than the bed, so he had to shuffle by Ilya. It felt odd to go so far out of his way to not touch him.

“Sveta made a coconut bake. It is very, very good. Not too sweet. You will like.”

Ilya extended the plate to him, and for a moment, the food blocked the cumin sent with the warmth of coconut. He tried not to think about how he’d probably enveloped her the whole time in the tiny kitchen as she’d made it. His thoughts felt prickly as he took the plate and set it down in favor of getting dressed.

“How was the run?”

“Fine.”

“It didn’t wake me until the fast part. That’s good.”

“Yes.”

Ilya did a bad job of pretending like he wasn’t watching him get dressed. He took a deep breath and began trying to regain some needed distance in a room that didn’t make that possible.

“We can be apart long enough and probably block long enough that you can sleep with Svetlana again, if you want.”

Ilya took a deep breath.

“You mean sex or actual sleeping?”

Shane shrugged and tried to keep the tension out of his body.

“She’s your soulmate, too. You’ve complained about how you had to be apart for years, and then, you bond with me. You must need to be with her just as much.”

“Yes and no. Was very hard to be apart from her for so long. But I do not… need to be with her the same as you. My bond with her and bond with you…”

He said something in Russian that Shane didn’t understand.

He let out an exasperated throaty sound and walked to the door. 

«Светлячок,» Ilya said, repeating the phrase.

“Umm. Different ballpark!” She walked to the door, stuck her head in, and said, “Different kettle of fish, I think.” Then, promptly shut the door again.

“Kettle of fish?” Ilya said skeptically.

He made a dismissive motion with his hand.

“Look. I know the same word gets used for bonds like me and Sveta and you and me. But they are so different; it should be different words.”

“Okay, so they’re different. That’s fine. It makes sense. But you still want to have sex with both of us. I felt it. Just now”

Ilya rolled his eyes and Shane felt a white-hot wave burn through him that he barely managed to contain, but clearly didn’t conceal from Ilya, because he raised his hands in front of him in a way that Shane didn’t find as placating as he suspected Ilya meant it.

“Shane, I was looking at you. Had nothing to do with her.”

Shane narrowed his eyes, but Ilya kept talking anyway

“Sveta is mostly like my sister but—”

“Oh, do most people have sex with their sister in Russia?”

“—BUT not exactly like my sister. We barely did anything. She moved back to US when she was 14. We only see each other for a few weeks a year. Okay, so sometimes there was sex, but we just wanted to spend time together. It wasn’t a big deal to either of us.”

Shane couldn’t stop seeing how comfortable they looked together.

“Why, though?”

Ilya’s brow scrunched.

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you love her? Why wasn’t it a big deal? She’s your soulmate. You look perfect together.”

Ilya’s face relaxed, and he turned his head to the side. He reached a hand out to Shane, who had just been hovering near the dresser, and Shane gave in to the weakness and walked into his arms.

“When I was little, I thought it would happen, but it didn’t. Having a soulmate isn’t the same as being in love.”

Shane felt him shrug and wondered if Ilya couldn’t or didn’t love someone as seemingly perfect as Svetlana, who would he love?

Chapter End Notes

42-43
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

The photo bookmark that someone kept track of for like 15 years is a very real thing that my friend did. I cannot keep track of a bookmark for one book, let alone any longer. I can mostly just find my spot in a book, though, so I don't really need them.

Chapter 11: Summer Media

Chapter Summary

Glimpses into the media attention the trio garners over the summer!

Chapter Notes

These are articles that would’ve come out during chapter 10 and a little in chapter 11, so they happen in parallel.

TSN

Hollander and Rozanov to Miss Development Camps

By Aubrey Bilieti
Staff Writer

July 6, 2009

The first and second 2009 NHL Entry Draft picks will miss their clubs' development camps due to an undisclosed illness.

The Montreal Voyageurs announced Monday that second-overall pick Shane Hollander will not attend camp, while the Boston Bears confirmed that first-overall selection Ilya Rozanov will also be absent.

Neither organization provided details beyond saying both players are receiving treatment and are expected to make a full recovery.

The illness has also delayed offseason training plans for Hollander and Rozanov, who were expected to begin working with skills coach Tony Grachev later this summer.

Hollander is coming off a standout season with the Kingston Blizzards, recording 93 points in 62 games while serving as team captain. Rozanov posted 69 points in 54 games with CSKA Moscow's junior program, also as team captain.

Both organizations indicated the illness is not expected to impact the players' long-term development.

--- 

TSN

Top Draft Picks Hollander and Rozanov Surprising Summer Training

By Aubrey Bilieti
Staff Writer

July 15, 2009

Boston Bears’ No. 1 draft pick Ilya Rozanov and Montreal Voyageurs’ No. 2 draft pick Shane Hollander surprise hockey fans by remaining in Los Angeles after the draft.

Both players are training together this summer with the highly sought-after Tony Grachev and the Grachev Performance Center after reportedly making a full recovery from their respective illnesses that kept them from their teams’ development camps.

Since the two were drafted to infamous rivals, most hockey insiders expected little love lost between Hollander and Rozanov. Most expected a budding rivalry, not the two top prospects working with the same trainer this summer and a budding friendship. But according to Grachev, they’re a great match, and he often pairs them together during skating and conditioning sessions.

“These two feed off each other and push one another,” Grachev said. “Their competitiveness follows into every drill and every lift. I swear those two wouldn’t leave the ice if we didn’t chase them off with the Zamboni.”

The Grachev Performance Center is known for a more expansive fitness regimen than standard training programs, including mobility work, stretching, and even the occasional Pilates session.

“Most of the guys are skeptical, even joking around, when they first get on the reformer,” Grachev said. “But let me tell you, none of them are laughing when they get off.”

Hollander has said he sought out this program specifically because of this approach. When asked how Rozanov joined the program, Hollander said:

“We were talking during the draft to some guys who’d worked with him last summer, Miller and LeMar. It was the kind of thing we were both looking for.”

Matt Miller was drafted 10^th overall to the San Jose Redwood, and Miguel LeMar was drafted 13^th overall to the LA Reyes. Both are training with Grachev this summer.

The two are expected to meet on the ice again in the preseason. The first Montreal vs. Boston game is in Montreal on September 21.

---

TMZ

EXCLUSIVE! Russian Heiress Svetlana Vetrova Makes LA Scene Debut with Future NHL Stars

July 20

It isn’t easy to make a splash on the LA party scene, but Svetlana Vetrova’s packed schedule (and packed men!) has done just that. She’s been spotted out most nights since she arrived in LA, often with the crew from Stomping Ground, a newly formed dance group.

Svetlana is the daughter of Boston Bear’s former goalie and current Russian Sports Minister Sergei Vetrov and the only granddaughter of Anthony Mouttet, CEO of T&T Petrochemical Inc.

A few nights ago, she had a very interesting night out. On one arm was soulmate and regular coconspirator, soon-to-be NHL star, Ilya Rozanov. These two are known in the Moscow club scene and have long been rumored to have an open relationship. On her other arm this weekend was the other budding superstar, Shane Hollander. All three have remained in town since the NHL draft.

Sources close to Svetlana said the three started with a cozy dinner at Street, run by Susan Feniger, before heading out to several LA hotspots. Svetlana could be seen dancing with both Ilya and Shane throughout the night, but the purported rivals were also seen in a steamy dance with each other. They have declined to comment, leaving friends to wonder what is going on with these three.

Chapter End Notes

It’s important to me, for accuracy, to note that the non-Spanish-speaking population of Californians would continue to absolutely butcher Spanish, and this team name would be pronounced like “Rays” instead of how it should be (Looking at you, Point Reyes National Seashore)

The portion about Pilates is dedicated to one of my favorite niche type of instagram reels, very strong men absolutely struggle bussing pilates and LA is a funky enough place to make that happen even in 2009. I lived in CA (mostly the bay but also SoCal for a tiny bit) for like 8 years, so in terms of making fun of CA, the call is coming from inside the house

Chapter 12: Shifting Boundaries

Chapter Summary

The trio navigates the rest of the summer: training, changing relationships, and smoothie disasters. Everything goes well... until it doesn't.

Chapter Notes

Shane is learning Russian and is not great at it because learning a new language is hard. I tried to do research to understand common mistakes that Shane would make because it doesn’t seem fair to write Ilya with imperfect English and then give Shane perfect Russian. But my understanding is that a lot of those mistakes are simply things that English doesn’t have, like incorrect/inappropriate diminutive use/ incorrect gender of things/ endings of words. Thus, it is difficult to represent those things in English. So what I have tried to do is keep his word choice very basic and stilted, choosing awkward words or phrases to reflect his beginner status.

Special shout-out to my betas. I got this chapter to them before I came down with Covid. (I'm fine now. I wasn't very sick.) But then emerged from my illness and realized that I needed to add a scene, which they got back to me so quickly.

Previously on "Every Atom"

Shane has a hard time learning to block Ilya until Ilya (on purpose) tries to use his muscle memory for hockey. Neither of them likes the feeling of blocking each other out. They then discover that they physically/mentally have a hard time doing something that would hurt the other (like checking each other.) Shane discovered he does like bottoming (shocking, I know.) Ilya struggles with feeling like he's dumping pain and hurt into Shane. Shane struggles with jealousy about Ilya's bond with Svetlana.

The rest of July went by in what could almost be described as a normal summer for just-drafted hockey players. Ilya felt the fatigue build in layers like sedimentary rock. The first layer was the bond. It was still exhausting to block. Building the mental strength took time. On top of this endeavor was a constant vigilance. Ilya was always alert for a moment when he would push strong feelings into Shane, and a burning desire to be disciplined in a way he knew was unnatural to him. A few days after skating, when enough time had passed that they could plausibly have recovered from the “horrible illness” that kept them from their development camps, they started working with Tony. That meant full days of skating, conditioning, active recovery, massage, prehab, and fucking Pilates, six days a week, after which they came home barely able to shovel food into their mouths with limp noodle arms. Contrary to what they told the media, Grachev Performance Center was one of the last places he would’ve chosen for himself. He put up with Pilates because it was actually an incredible workout but drew a firm line when it came to sound bathing and Reiki. LA was a fucking weird place. 

When they had a modicum of energy, they took turns massaging each other’s sore muscles and fighting over the good foam roller. They usually had just enough energy to get off before they passed out.

Twice, when they didn’t have training the next day, Shane let them drag him to clubs that were 18 and up, or where Sveta had a connection. He seemed to enjoy watching Ilya and Sveta cut loose and occasionally admitted to having fun himself. Sveta was such a good dancer that she even managed to make Shane look passable when they danced. It surprised him that if Shane wasn’t in the mood, he didn’t want to go without him. The few times he did go were when Sveta’s need to dance burned through him, and she had no one to go with. He wasn’t going to let her go clubbing alone, and if she didn’t, she’d be restless and irritable. He’d learned when they were out that Shane didn’t like being drunk, so Ilya avoided more than a drink or two for his sake.

The main change that August had brought was that Sveta had dropped her polite façade in front of Shane. She’d managed to keep her mess contained to her room and conversations in Russian for about three weeks until her stuff, physically and emotionally, started flowing into the common spaces. Ilya tried to clean up after her for Shane’s sake, but more than once Shane’s physical exasperation had woken him, and he’d emerged into a living room littered with an inexplicable number of wet towels, overturned dining room chairs, empty bottles, and chip crumbs strewn everywhere.

Shane did not seem to appreciate that Sveta only acted this way around close friends and family. It was a status Shane would’ve inevitably gained, but was formalized when Shane went home early from training with a tweaked ankle. Ilya was told the story from both of their perspectives, with Shane omitting how awkward he reportedly was.

“Do you want me to stop cuddling with Ilya?”

Shane froze while readjusting the ice pack on his ankle.

“What?”

“You and I both can feel that it is not like that. Not about sex or whatever.” Here, Sveta reported with no small amount of delight how furiously Shane blushed. “But if it bothers you, I can stop. No big deal.”

Their reports differed on how long they went back and forth on how it wasn’t really his place, and he wouldn’t tell Ilya what to do. Sveta said what finally broke through was that he wasn’t telling Ilya what to do but telling her how he felt, and it wasn’t the same thing. She finally wrangled the truth out of him—no, it didn’t really bother him. He knew something was bothering Shane, but he didn’t seem to be lying when he said that wasn’t a problem.

Until this part of the story, Ilya believed Sveta’s version in the minor discrepancies, but after this point, he found Shane’s version to likely be more truthful. Sveta said she told him she appreciated that because she’d had a difficult call with her mama that morning and could really use a hug. Shane said she then nearly collapsed in a puddle of tears like a marionette doll whose strings had been cut.

Sveta’s relationship with her mama was nearly as fractious as his with his father if you replaced inability to do anything right with physical and emotional abandonment. Phone calls with her mama were more likely to leave her in tears than anything, which was why he believed Shane’s version of events.

Shane, understandably alarmed, limped over to her and shuffled her onto the couch as she feigned supporting his weight while actually just leaning on him, making them move like a three-legged crab. When they got on the couch, they both agreed that Sveta did help him elevate his foot, and then tucked herself in next to him. This development was quite alarming to Shane, who reportedly kept his hands hovering above her until she asked him to scratch her back like he did for Ilya. Sveta said he continued to act like he’d never touched a woman before, which was probably not far off from the truth, until she told him that as long as he didn’t grab her tits, it was fine.

To the shock of all three of them, Shane had replied, “Okay, so grabbing your ass is fine then?”

But then Shane started scratching her back in earnest, which reminded her of Irina and drove her back to tears. He and Sveta had talked about it—the wonderful and uncanny sensation like Irina was reaching out to them across time. It wasn’t muscle memory on Shane's part; it was him experimenting with pressure and pace until it felt right to Ilya and became his own muscle memory. It was beautiful to have a little piece of her back even though it hurt. While he did that, according to Sveta, she told Shane all about her mom divorcing her dad and moving back to Trinidad when she was 10, and subsequently being shipped off to boarding school at 14. According to Shane, she cried and snotted into his shoulder, mumbling in Russian between deep breaths.

Eventually, Sveta cried herself to sleep, and Shane, stuck both by a foot he needed to rest and a sleeping human, also dozed. That was how Ilya found him, and Shane reacted like Ilya had walked in on them having sex instead of napping. As if Ilya hadn’t known, at least in the broad strokes, what had happened. As if Sveta’s distress, followed by the feeling of Shane trying to walk on his injured ankle, culminating in Shane cuddling with a small body, could lead Ilya to any other conclusion than the obvious. As if seeing them like that hadn’t made his heart feel so full it felt like it would explode. He knew he must’ve had the dopiest smile on his face as he approached them on the couch before gently but not gracefully lying atop both of them, sweaty and smelly and maybe happier than he’d ever been in his entire life.

Ilya suspected that if Shane realized how Sveta’s newfound comfort around him would manifest, he might’ve been a bit ruder to her in that moment. But Sveta now more or less claimed him as family and gave him the full Svetlana Vetrova experience.

Following an emotional blow-up with her mom, she usually sought out somewhat self-destructive behavior. This one was in the form of a self-described torrid affair doomed to fail with a woman in her late 20s named Elsie, and she had spent most of the last week at Elsie’s house, only occasionally stopping by to exchange clothing. She never did laundry, so Ilya didn’t know where the clean clothes were coming from. She was happy for now and too wrapped up in her own emotions to bother him about Shane.

On one Saturday night when they were both too tired to leave the house, Ilya was partway through an episode of Weeds as Shane swept the floor nearby. He was moving the broom with such a righteous fury that it was kicking up more dirt and hair than was actually being gathered. As Shane pulled long, dark hairs from the broom’s teeth, he grumbled,

“Didn’t think I’d have to deal with this being gay.”

“Oh, men can’t have long hair now, Hollander?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He wasn’t sure why he loved winding Shane up like this, but it was a temptation he wasn’t strong enough to resist.

“You think I should cut my hair to be more manly. Buzz it off, probably.”

He wished he had recorded the wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression that flashed across Shane’s face. He mimed snipping his hair, and Shane lunged at him, flattening him on the cushions, his hands around Ilya’s wrists, and pinning them above his head. Ilya turned his wrists experimentally. He wasn’t sure if he could break free, instead rolling both of them off the couch, crashing onto the thick rug. He wound up on top of Shane, this time pinning his hands above his head.

These were the moments Ilya lived for. The teasing. The way Shane’s face scrunched in frustration and the tips of his ears turned pink. All the little ways he tried to retaliate but only made Ilya like him more. It was so much more than Ilya ever thought that he’d have with someone.

Streaks of golden light struck Shane as the sun tracked its way to the horizon. His face and arms glowed with the radiance Ilya always saw in him. Both of their breathing picked up.

It had been almost two months, and Ilya had controlled himself all except that first time. He found himself wondering, maybe for the first time, if everything would be okay. Really difficult, but okay.

He was proving to himself that he could protect Shane—keeping him free from his own worst impulses and the burden of knowing how wrong this bond could go. He could do that for Shane, so his brightness would never diminish.

Ilya wouldn’t have missed the way Shane’s body grew tight with his hands pinned, even if it wasn’t mirrored in his body. He let go of Shane’s hands, cupping his cheek in one hand and fitting the other between the floor and the small of his back. Shane didn’t move an inch, and his obedience sent a dizzying wave through Ilya. He wanted to devour this man.

He leaned down, hovering his lips just above Shane’s,

«мой родной.»   

“What does that mean?”

“Eh, literally is probably dear or sweetheart? But it’s more like my own or my soulmate. Sounds weird in English. Russians are more creative, though. Much better nicknames.”

Ilya was now intimately familiar with the look crossing Shane’s face and the wonderfully filthy things that were usually going on in his head. Unfortunately for them, they heard the rattle of a lock in the front door that meant that Sveta was home. Ilya already knew that she was tipsy, but he had expected her to stay out all night.

They disentangled their limbs and sat back on the couch as she came in with a few friends, whisked them into her bedroom, and closed the door. Shane raised one eyebrow at him, but all Ilya could do was laugh.

The next morning, Shane had made breakfast, and Sveta’s had grown cold before she emerged from her room. She’d gone back out at some point with her friends and was horrendously hungover. Ilya was blocking her because he couldn’t handle her misery right now, and he couldn’t make it any better except by reheating her bacon.

«Good morning, Svetlana,» Shane said.

Instead of her usual reply and simple conversation about breakfast, as was their routine, she snapped:

«You have to stop calling me that. I cannot be Svetlana so early in the morning.»

Shane clearly clocked the annoyed tone but looked at Ilya expectantly for a translation.

«It’s 11 a.m., Svetlyachok. Surely that’s not too early to be Svetlana.»

She flipped him off.

Shane still looked between them, confused.

“She wants you to call her Sveta. Says she is too hungover to be Svetlana right now.”

Ilya wanted to bottle up the way Shane’s nose wrinkled.

«Sorry, Sveta.»

«Say sorry with coffee.»

Shane gave Ilya a cutting look, but did get her coffee and added the amount of milk and sugar she liked.

«What do you name her?»

«What do you call her? I call her Svetlyachok,» he modeled for Shane. “It’s the glowing bug. That flies.”

“Firefly or some people say Lightning Bug.”

“Yes. Svet means light.”

Ilya turned back to Sveta, who was nibbling suspiciously on a piece of bacon.

«You are such a ray of sunshine.»

«I’m deciding where I will vomit. On you is an option.»

Ilya backed up, tugging Shane with him.

“We will leave our little light alone to her misery.”

Shane tsked softly and flopped down on the bed. His shoulder was still bruised and sore, so Ilya started rubbing arnica into it. He didn’t like the greasy feeling on his fingers or the way the scent clung to him even after a shower but couldn’t deny that it helped. They both gritted their teeth as he worked on a knot that always formed in Shane’s pecs.

Shane hissed out:

“I’m not living with her after this.”

Ilya tried to laugh but only managed a grimace as the knot refused to release.

“This is why I always tell her that I would buy her a house next door.”

Shane nodded his approval and tucked himself into bed, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to nap. Ilya curled around him and squeezed tightly, making Shane’s entire body relax even more.

Ilya tried to picture it. Would Shane also want a house next door? Either of them could’ve moved into the empty bedroom in the rental at this point, but neither had. Ilya tried to avoid going in there, as if refusing to acknowledge it would exorcise the haunting possibility. And whether Shane only wanted to live next door or in the same house, when could that even happen? By rights, their careers should last 20 years if their bodies could pay the tax that ice demanded each year. It would be 20 years of stolen hours after games and counting down the days of summer. If he could pretend that the physical distance would help him control his impulse to hurt Shane, then maybe he could find some comfort in it. Instead, he tried not to imagine the inevitable pain when long road trips kept them apart and how that would hurt Shane just as much.

It was, in many ways, unfathomable. His body couldn’t picture being parted from Shane. And his mind had no scale that could encompass 20 years. He hadn’t even been alive that long. And that was assuming they could keep this thing a secret for that long. From this side of the timeline, it felt impossible.

In 20 years, they would have taken more shared breaths than they ever breathed alone, but would still live countries apart—pulled one way by the sport they were born to play and another by who they were born to be. He wondered if they could survive it.

---

After their nap, he and Ilya were in the kitchen eating lunch; they had discovered that it was difficult to mess up sandwiches and so they ate a lot of them. Svetlana—Sveta reemerged from her room, not looking any better than when she woke up. She called out something to Ilya that Shane couldn’t catch, except her girlfriend Elsie’s name. She flipped Ilya off as she left, and they didn’t see her for a week.

Shane still didn’t quite understand her, and had no more ability to neatly understand and label her than he had a few weeks ago. Though he did know more about her. He still didn’t have a better term than soulmate in law, which was clunky. He also knew that even though she was genuinely kind and thoughtful, she was very rude to people she liked.

Rude was probably the wrong word because he understood it was loving, but he didn’t have a better one. Shane was weirdly flattered that he was among those she was rude to.

Things with Ilya were not necessarily clearer despite knowing him much better after weeks together. Now, he knew the shape of Ilya beyond what he felt inside of him. The way he took up space in their house. How many of his teeth were fake. The pattern of moles on his chest. How an animal dying in a movie caused him physical pain.

In this way, he traveled the new universe of Shane and Ilya. He made a careful map of the places that Ilya allowed him to explore and wondered endlessly about those spaces he was denied access to. In quiet moments, he studied the map, trying not to feel like the parts he couldn’t sketch were missing pieces of himself. He felt marked and conquered by Ilya entirely; his tongue, every atom of his blood, formed from this soil, this air that was them. But perhaps that was unfair. He was no more flaying his soul bare than Ilya was.

And he had privacy, at least in his own mind; only his strongest feelings seeped into Ilya. What privacy did Ilya have? Nowhere in his mind and body belonged to him solely. He never seemed resentful, but Shane couldn’t imagine a life with no refuge. So, Shane was determined to let Ilya keep the places of himself that he could. Even if Shane found them by accident and cut himself on their surface.

So he tried to be content with what he had—all the versions of Ilya that he knew. Ilya-in-the-morning came in several states: normal, hungover, sore. All versions were horny. Ilya-on-the-phone was always the same: sullen and withdrawn. This was a place Shane was not allowed. The place of father and brother. The conspicuous lack of mother. He knew the outer shape of it but not the terrain. He didn’t know if it had ever been a nice place to be, given the way it clearly wasn’t now. Trying to coax Ilya out of his sullen mood with sex or a joke was blind luck, whether it would get his head bitten off or the best head of his life. Shane took the risk about 75% of the time.

For the most part, this attempt at internal cartography ran in the background of Shane’s mind. Summer training with Tony took up more bandwidth than either of them had most days, leaving them worn and exhausted. Their bodies broadened and filled as they packed on muscle and padded themselves with as much fat as they could to better insulate themselves against the grind of the season.

Every day became a contest between the calories they could take in and the bigger and bigger plates they loaded onto the bars on their backs. Shane’s glutes and quads grew much stronger as he tried to keep up with Ilya’s PRs, rippling with stretch marks that Ilya traced with his tongue.

Ilya was doing just that as the water coursed over him in the shower, warm steam fogging the air around them and relaxing his tight muscles—until he had to cut the water.

Ilya made a protesting noise without removing his mouth.

“LA is in a drought. We need to save water.”

“God, Hollander, you will kill me with all this dirty talk.”

Shane opened the shower curtain, but Ilya didn’t let him go.

“Let me dry off and put on lotion.”

“Stop, is too much. I’m going to come.”

Shane scoffed and threaded his fingers through Ilya’s wet curls and tugged. Ilya stood up but not without the feeling of arousal ricocheting through both of them. Ilya gently towel-dried himself, then Shane and started putting his lotion on him. One of the first times they’d showered together, Ilya had whisked him into bed, skipping this vital step and paid for it later when his skin was tight and dry and a sensory nightmare for both of them. Now he took great care in massaging the lavender-scented cream into his skin as often as he was allowed. Shane floated in the sensation, falling into their connection. Not much, but enough to feel a pleasant haze after an exhausting day.

“I think smelling this makes me hard. I don’t even like lavender.”

Ilya pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, at odds with the throbbing in his core. He teased him with his lips until Shane needed more and bit his lip, just on the edge of too much and drew a hiss from Ilya.

Ilya pulled back, blue eyes alight with desire, and licked his swollen bottom lip.

«Tell me what you want me to do to you.»

Shane felt his whole body tremble.

“Ilya, I can’t—”

Ilya took a step back, cool air rushing to cover his skin and kept moving into the bedroom.

«You can. You want me to touch you? You tell me in my language.»

His cock pulsed beneath the towel into the rough fibers. Ilya had been talking to him in Russian during sex for weeks, telling him what he planned to do to him. But Shane was already loose at the seams and wasn’t sure if he could conjure English, let alone Russian.

He moved toward Ilya. When he got close enough to try to lean in, Ilya put one hand out to stop him.

«Tell me. You want my hands, my mouth, or my cock?»

«C-cock»

«And this is how you ask? So rude, rodnoy.»

Shane whimpered at the nickname. Ilya managed to surprise him by pinching his nipple hard and making him cry out. His hips thrust forward, seeking more friction than the towel could provide.

«Ilyusha, please, I want your cock.»

«Good. Where do you want it?»

Ilya was running his fingertips across his abs and hips, ignoring his dick that had already started leaking.

«Anywhere, please. I want anywhere.»

He tried to reach out and touch Ilya, to end this game by getting his hands on him, but Ilya pinned his hands to his sides.

«No. You’ll tell me first. On the bed, on the dresser…against the wall?»

As he said it, the image of Ilya driving him into the wall flashed through his mind, and he moaned. Ilya chuckled, tightening his grip around his wrists, already knowing the answer

«Please. Wall. I need w-wall, please.»

Ilya released his wrists and lazily walked toward his nightstand. He grabbed the lube and held up a condom.

“Do you want this?”

Shane was surprised he’d asked in English. Maybe this wasn’t part of the game. Their clear test results had been in the mail when they got home. It had been his idea.

«No, Ilyusha. I want to feel.»

Then Ilya was crashing into him; gone were the teasing kisses and pretense of being unaffected. Ilya claimed his mouth as his back hit the wall, but he hardly felt the texture on his back with the way that Ilya was already sweeping his tongue into his mouth.

He groaned and felt his knees start to buckle.

He ran his hand down Ilya’s back, letting his short nails gently scrape his skin as Ilya’s lips moved to the hinge of his jaw and sucked.

“Please, Ilya. Fuck.”

He was rutting into Ilya’s thigh, as the towel fell away.

«I don’t understand you.»

Ilya moved his thigh away, and he whimpered at the loss of sensation.

«Oh god, Ilyusha, please. More.»

The word kept falling from his mouth, more, more, more.

Ilya flipped him around, pressing his face and chest into the wall. Ilya was pressed against his side, and although Shane could feel his rigid erection against his hip, Ilya stayed still. Shane thrust his ass back into the air, too needy to be embarrassed. He heard the cap click on the lube and sighed with anticipation when Ilya brushed his fingers over his hole.

«Yes. Like that. Please.»

When Ilya pressed one finger in, he arched his back more, trying to sink deeper.

«Don’t move. You asked to be fucked against the wall, so you will be.»

His hips jerked, grinding into nothing, and he tried to still the movement.

Ilya added another finger, moving in and out until they were deep enough to hit the spot that sent lightning through both of them. He did it again, and again.

Ilya was throbbing against him, and the rough drag of Ilya’s cock on his leg and the shock waves Ilya was driving into him were almost enough to send them both over the edge. Ilya added a third finger, and Shane focused on the stinging stretch and pleasant burn.

«Maybe next time I’ll stretch you on my cock. You’d like that.»

Would he like that? The idea certainly appealed to him in that moment, yielding and stretching deliciously around him. Lost in the fantasy, he barely noticed Ilya turn him around, only feeling the cool air on his face and chest for a moment before Ilya was covering him again.

Ilya’s hands slid down his thighs, and he wrapped one leg, then the other, around his hips, clamping down. He moved until he felt the head of his cock as his opening. He must have added more lube when Shane was fantasizing because Ilya began to thrust into him, shallow at first.

His head tipped back, hitting the wall, and he begged:

«Harder. Please.»

Ilya set a punishing pace. His own dick bobbed uselessly between them, leaking pre-come, angry and red.

His legs burned, as did Ilya’s, but they couldn’t stop. Shane leaned forward and managed to catch Ilya’s earlobe between his teeth, scraping then licking until all he could do was moan into Ilya’s ear and hold on.

«Fuck. You feel so good. I could fuck you for hours. You take it so well.»

«Ah. Yes. Make feel good.»

They panted into each other’s mouths as Ilya said,

«Could make you come just like this,» and fucked him harder. «But not tonight. Touch yourself.»

His hand moved before his brain had fully translated—barely fitting into the hot space between them. His cock was slick and sweaty and he barely had to grab it before they both fell apart, his whole body spasming.

“Fuck, Shane. Ahhh,” Ilya cried out and pulsed inside him while he felt the wet splashing of his own come on his stomach and chest as the pleasure spun through them both.

“Holy shit,” he said as he tried to remember how to breathe. His head tipped forward onto Ilya’s shoulder, and he felt his feet lowered to the ground, with Ilya’s weight still pressing him into the wall, likely the only thing holding him up.

They both sank into their universe until the come cooling on his stomach and running down his legs started to bother him, and he returned to himself. Ilya peeled away from him, breath still ragged.

“Don’t know why we showered before this,” he panted. “Waste of water.”

Ilya barked out a laugh, picked up his still-wet towel and marched them back to the shower.

---  

September 1^st, 2009

The calendar on the fridge had been taunting Shane for a week. He hadn’t known that time could betray him. Even on the ice, time never felt personal. It was a fact, an opponent of sorts, but one that always won. The real fight was with the other team. But now, the calendar on the wall felt like his enemy. Each day brought him closer to the world that wasn’t this—to a time when he wouldn’t wake up wrapped around Ilya, in a house that wouldn’t always smell like fried dough and cumin. And he wasn’t sure when he’d gone from wanting to get away from Ilya as soon as he could to dreading that moment. When exactly the nightmare had morphed into something less easy to understand. Not a dream, for he still had so much to lose, but something he felt comfortable in. He thought, or maybe just hoped, that the same was true for Ilya, but every once in a while, he’d catch Ilya staring at him like Shane was his damnation and felt a very real fear before Ilya shut him out. So maybe nothing had changed for him and was fine because Shane still refused to reclassify soulmates as anything but a disaster.

But time didn’t care if he was living out a nightmare or the realization of who he was meant to be or somehow both at the same time. July and August were hot and indifferent and had continued passed while he was too busy training and falling into bed with his soulmate to notice. But their summer was almost over. Their little universe had been punctured on occasion by calls home, media interviews, and hockey logistics, but now they faced a full breach. A collapse of the entire system.

A reminder that shared dinners, training together, and cute dogs at the food truck were never real life.

We can do this.

They had a plan, a calendar that this time maybe wouldn’t betray them. All the times that they would be nearby or even occasionally in the same place outside of playing one another. The list was short. Manageable. They were incredibly lucky with their schedule this year and the Olympic break. They would be able to see each other—appease their nervous systems. Play hockey.

Maybe enough time would pass that they could wake up from the nightmare.

They would watch each other’s games as much as possible, so the person playing didn’t have to focus on blocking. When that wasn’t possible, well, there was a reason they’d been practicing it all summer.

They would execute the plan. And it would be fine. And no one would worry about the absolute inability to see each other for almost 20 days at a time.

It would be fine because this was the thing he’d been working towards his entire life, and he was excited to start his NHL career finally. Sneaking out to drive to Fort Myers, a rough halfway point between Tampa Bay and Sunrise, after their respective games in October ended at 10 p.m. to see each other for a few hours wouldn’t be a problem. Lots of guys went out after the game to celebrate. Ilya would definitely go out after the games. Maybe he would pick up people again? The thought made Shane want to vomit. This wouldn’t be so different from just going out partying after a win.

He was just nervous. That was understandable.

But he was okay, and it would be fine. Because they had a plan and plans didn’t betray you the way bodies and soulmates sometimes did. And when they did, he just made a new plan. That’s why everything was fine.

The same way it was fine that the entire kitchen was covered in smoothie and that Shane’s entire front half was covered in smoothie. He’d even gotten a mouthful of protein powder and Greek yogurt. And it was not a sensory nightmare.

And there was smoothie dripping from the ceiling, which was fine.

He’d forgotten to put the lid on the blender because he was tired after his run and not because the calendar was haunting him—definitely not because the blank stretches could ruin them. 

He first wiped off his face, spat the protein powder and yogurt that flew into his mouth into the sink, and got to cleaning. When Ilya came back from the grocery store, he was on a chair, using a damp rag on the end of a broom to try to clean the ceiling. He had only succeeded in making more of the ceiling covered in smoothie—popcorn ceilings weren’t built with this in mind. 

“Whoa, Hollander. I wondered why my heart started racing.”

“Shut up.”

He had cleaned up everything he could find.

“Eughh,” Ilya said as he put groceries away, then peeled off one sock that was now damp with brown splotches and a spinach leaf. Apparently, he’d missed some drops that had gone farther afield. 

“Sorry,” Shane mumbled and kept poking the ceiling. He now had fine white dust coating the smoothie residue on his face, hands, and clothes.

“Enough, Shane. That’s not working.”

Ilya walked up and grabbed the broom from his hand, set it aside, and got a cloth to run across his face.

“We’re going to get charged for this.”

“Yes. After all the shit you gave Sveta, you are the reason we will get cleaning fee.”

Ilya tried to wrap his arms around him, but he ducked the embrace, unwilling to make Ilya dirty like he was. 

“What’s wrong, Shane?”

Shane took a deep breath, but all the words died in his throat. Ilya didn’t push, perhaps sensing something in him that was too locked down for him to coax out.

---

Sept 5, 2009

If Ilya ignored everything before he bonded with Shane, and everything that would happen after they left their rental for the last time in a few hours, it had been a decent summer. Nice, in many ways, to be away from his family but weird because he didn’t expect to be homesick. He barely was, but on those occasions, he and Sveta would brave the traffic to go get specialty ingredients from a faraway grocery store and try not to butcher whichever dish they were craving.

«I am ready to go to airport,» Shane said with only a little hesitation. Ilya was impressed and a bit annoyed at how quickly he was picking up Russian. His bags were neatly packed and tucked into the corner in a stark contrast to the piles of clothing Ilya had strewn across the bed. Ilya had been complaining loudly about packing for longer than it would take him to actually pack.

«Ilyonok,» Sveta’s voice called out from the other room condescendingly, «fucking pack already. I will leave without you. Don’t test me.»

«What is Ilyonok?» Shane asked. «It sounds like kitten?»

“Mmm. No, not at all like kitten. It is a nickname for big and strong. She says big, strong Ilya.”

«You don’t say truth,» he said, raising his voice. «Sveta, Ilyonok is Ilya kitten?»

«Svetlana, I will curse your entire bloodline,» Ilya said, but she paid him no mind, and her voice rang out, high and clear with betrayal from the kitchen where she was using the last of the food to make sandwiches.

«Yes, like kitten but not just kitten. It is like baby or little one. -onok can be used with many words.»

Ilya groaned and fell on the bed as Sveta switched to English and entered the room.

“So if you say слон, it just means elephant. But you say слоненок, it means baby elephant. He is being a big baby.”

Shane laughed, and Ilya couldn’t help but enjoy the sound.

«Both of you get out of here,» he cried. “Betrayed by my own soulmates.”

He began dramatically throwing things in his bag, not even bothering to fold them. Both of them laughed at him, and it was wonderful. Ilya felt the same twist in his gut that they really were packing to leave.

As their laughter subsided, he whirled back on Shane.

“You do not call me this. It is too much.”

«Okay, Ilyushenka.»

He turned, with a dramatic gasp, intending to tackle both of them, but Shane escaped his grasp, and he only managed to grab Sveta, who laughed hard until he took the best revenge that he knew how and started messing up her hair. Unfortunately, Ilya’s curls were just as fussy, and she gave him the same treatment until they called a truce.

«You teach him such evil things!»

Shane watched all this from a few meters away with a goofy smile on his face. As they disentangled, Sveta gave him a playful shove. It wouldn’t have mattered much except his knees were momentarily locked, so he took a stumbling, half step backward, and his foot slipped on one of his shirts, sending him glancing off the side of the bed and then crashing down on his left wrist and elbow.

Stupid. He knew how to take a fall and putting all his weight on one wrist was absolutely not the way to do it.

Pain flared through his wrist, and he heard Shane cry out; both now dressed in the garments of agony, remembering he was only feeling half the pain. Shane’s pained breaths hit him, livid in his chest.

Both of them moved toward him, but Sveta got there quicker.

«Ilyushenka, are you okay? What hurts?»

He cradled his left arm against his body instinctively, pain pulsing through his whole left arm continually. He experimentally flexed his fingers but stopped when he heard Shane’s breath hitch.

And then, all of a sudden, the pain was gone. His wrist still felt off somehow, but in a detached way, free from the radiating agony.

He did not ask the wounded person how he felt, he himself became the wounded person,
Ilya’s hurt turned livid upon him

Shane sat heavily on the bed, holding his arm in the same manner as Ilya did. Ilya heard his pained grunt and the shifting of the mattress, but all he saw was his mama curled in on herself, wracked in silent spasms of pain she was forced or guilted into carrying.

And Ilya lost track of himself. He’d thrown his pain into Shane. He didn’t even know how he did it. He hadn’t meant it—hadn’t wanted this sharp intake of breath. It didn’t even hurt that badly, probably just a sprain. He didn’t think he moved, but he threw himself at Shane’s walls, in a sea of torment, doubt, despair, and unbelief. Not caring who or how but needing to make it all stop.  

He heard voices back and forth, but no words reached him until the pain rushed back into his wrist and he realized that he was squeezing his own arms, and it hurt. He felt the right side of him against the cool wood floor and the way his spine curved, tucking himself away. He released his grip and returned to cradling his wrist delicately. It hurt a lot less than it had moments or perhaps hours ago when he fell.

His hearing came back in a rush, and he heard Sveta trying to coax him to sit up. His whole body was still shaking as he did, but she dutifully inspected his wrist, gently moving it. He could feel that Shane was still curled up on the bed, body tense and trembling like Ilya.

He brushed off Sveta’s ministrations and went to curl himself around Shane, but froze.

His fault.

He did this to him.

He couldn’t look at him, coward as he was and turned and fled the room before he could make everything worse.

He looked around the kitchen with its half-finished sandwiches on the island and Sveta’s bags in the living room. A place he’d grown comfortable enough to deceive himself in. Where the belief that maybe he wasn’t playing out old patterns—wasn’t turning into the monster from his nightmares.

All lies.

He knew the truth. The proof was curled up on the bed just behind him.

He needed to get out of here and remember who he was.

He barely felt himself turn the door handle or heard it swing shut behind him. He took off down the cracked sidewalks. The air was hot and dry. Most of the plants were brown and dusty. Even the succulents looked withered with the drought. The smog above hung interminably. Not like real clouds with interesting patterns but enough to block the sun.

He needed to learn to keep Shane at a better distance. To train his body to rely on him less, so he wouldn’t instinctively shove his pain into Shane. He didn’t deserve that.

His hands were still shaking as he leaned against a brick wall a few blocks away, trying to catch his breath. His mind felt like it was vibrating alongside the rest of him. He couldn’t sense Shane or Sveta and wasn’t sure why.

The dead vines crunched against his back and dug into him, but it didn’t stop him from sliding down into a heap. Head in his hands—bone weary.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and a wave of love invaded him. All affection that he didn’t deserve.

«Ilya, you need to take care of your hand.»

He shook his head.

«You should take care of Shane.»

«Shane is fine. You are the one who is hurt.»

He saw Shane’s crumpled form. And let out a sob.

«Ilya, pull it together. He is only confused. I have told you all fucking summer to talk to him and you refuse. This is what happens.»

This was exactly why he hadn’t told him. He wanted to prevent this exact situation.

«Don’t make us miss our flight. We need to leave soon.»

He should miss the flight. Shouldn’t be near him to hurt him again. Except that wasn’t how any of this worked. There was no distance that would lessen their connection. He would keep shoving pain into Shane even if he went back to Russia.

There had been no distance, no escape for his mother either. She’d just had to deal with it until she couldn’t anymore. He couldn’t let Shane break like that.

«Ilya, it doesn’t have to be like this. You’re only making it worse. Get your shit together. I’m going to say bye to Elsie.»  

He heard her go and still felt nothing from her. She must be blocking his misery. Good, she didn’t deserve it either. His whole body felt like it had seized up, and he didn’t know how to relax. The sidewalk was hot underneath him, maybe starting to burn his exposed skin as his mind burned with recrimination

Only the thought that it would hurt Shane drove him back onto his feet.

He wandered, at home in his misery and dark memories, but not for too long. He walked by the taco truck, hoping to see the labradoodle Moxie. He’d already said goodbye and given her a stuffed hockey puck as a toy, but he hoped she’d be there again. She wasn’t. Some instinct carried him back to what they had called home for two months. He found his bags were packed, and the house had been cleaned, both likely by Shane since Sveta would have simply heaped his clothes into a trash bag and claimed that she didn’t understand how mops worked. So he breathed in the scent of cumin one last time, placed their keys in the lockbox, and left with only a stained kitchen ceiling left to mark the time they’d spent there.

Chapter End Notes

I wrote the hair convo MONTHS ago, before Buzznor happened, so it is coincidental.

If you are frustrated about the lack of communication, small spoilers

I swear they're going to have a conversation at the beginning of the next chapter. It won't be like a full one, but it will be much more than this. Ilya is just too attached to his own martyrdom until the end of this chapter.

Song of Myself:
845-846
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person,
My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

Chapter 13: Fighting Gravity

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya have a much-needed conversation and tell the world a little bit about their relationship while navigating training camp and being separated for the first time.

Chapter Notes

Thanks to Skargasm for the cover! It's now linked at the end of the work, so check it out! :)

Every time I add a chapter, I go "oh fuck I need a chapter title," then panic and vomit something out.

Their schedule is based on Montreal and Boston’s real preseason schedule in 2009

CW: Mentions of domestic violence and canon-typical references to suicide. It is spoken about very generally.

Previously on Every Atom:

Shane and Ilya spend the summer doing intense training that doesn't leave them with much free time. Shane and Sveta grow closer as friends and Shane and Ilya fall into a comfortable rhythm of being together while not talking about things. Ilya is trying to protect Shane from how bad the bond was with Ilya's parents. Shane starts to feel the impending weight of the calendar, and how little they will get to see each other and ends up blending his smoothie without the lid on. As they are all packing up to leave LA in the beginning of September, Ilya falls and tweaks his wrist. He thinks he pushes all his pain into Shane and flips out, leaving the house. Sveta runs out of patience with him and Ilya makes it back home to find that Shane has packed up all of his stuff.

Sept 5, 2009

When Ilya got back to the house, they needed to leave. They’d needed to leave 20 minutes ago, so Shane paused to force Ilya’s wrist into a brace before they loaded into the taxi. Taxis, airports, and airplanes weren’t conducive to the kind of conversation that they needed to have, so they didn’t talk much. He dozed on the plane and woke up with Ilya’s head propped on his shoulder.

By the time they made it to Shane’s hotel room in Montreal, he was exhausted from the volatile morning and spun out from international travel. When he turned on the water for the shower, he expected Ilya to join him. Ilya knew there was no way he would let him into bed with airport and plane germs all over him. But Ilya didn’t.

He also didn’t use Shane’s need to put on lotion as an excuse to initiate foreplay, which was possibly the first time he’d missed that chance since he realized the opportunity it presented.

When Shane left the bathroom, Ilya was sprawled dramatically on the tiny grey microfiber loveseat in front of the windows, which gave them a lovely view of the parking garage and another concrete building. His injured wrist was lying across his chest protectively, but his other hand had clearly been running through his curls, which were now completely frizzy.

Sighing, Shane asked, “How’s your wrist?”

Ilya didn’t even look at him when he said, “You know is fine. Barely even hurts. It is probably better tomorrow.”

“You should still get it checked out.”

Ilya remained stiff and said, “If it still hurts when I get to Boston, I will talk to trainers about it, okay? I will keep taking medicine so that it doesn’t hurt you.”

“I’m not worried about that, like you said. It doesn’t really hurt. We’ve both had worse. But I don’t really understand what happened after you fell.”

He had deliberately avoided asking a question, knowing that would make Ilya shut down again. Continuing to feign nonchalance, he put on his pjs and ran a comb through his wet hair.

“It was hard for me to see you hurt because of me. I do not like.”

Shane walked over and sat on the coffee table by the sofa. It was barely wider than he was, and he wasn’t sure it was up to the task of supporting his weight, but the sofa was barely made for one hockey player, let alone two.

He started scratching Ilya’s scalp in the way that usually made him lean in and practically start purring like a cat, but this time it barely elicited a weak smile. Shane used his other hand to tilt Ilya’s chin toward him and force him to make eye contact. It was usually Ilya’s move.

“I know. It’s the same for me. That’s why we worked on checking each other all summer.”

This was usually the point when Shane would brag that he was much better at doing that than Ilya, and Ilya would say he was more skilled and didn’t need to rely on such brutality to win. It was such a ridiculous lie that neither he nor Sveta had ever found it worth arguing. But this felt different from their previous banter.

He waited to see if Ilya would say anything, but of course, he didn’t.

«Ilyusha, tell to me. This is not the same… Seems excessif.» 

He shook his head. He was way too tired for Russian. That last word had been French. His brain did that sometimes; under pressure to produce “not English,” it spat out French by default. Ilya’s English was much stronger than his Russian, but Shane could feel how exhausted he was, and the tension as he tried to hold himself together.

“Ilya, something else happened at the house. Please talk to me.”

He said nothing. Shane, determined, scooted forward on the coffee table and started trying to wiggle on top of Ilya. Instead, he sat up and allowed Shane to crawl into his arms. Together their breathing evened out, and he felt their synchronized heartbeat as their chests pressed together.

“My father would hurt Mama. He would not usually hit her or anything. But take everything bad in his body and shove it into her. She hurt so much, for so long. My father didn’t share. He made her take it all.”

Shane felt like his whole world tilted on its axis as the words hit him like a physical blow. The thought of ever doing anything besides taking pain, soothing Ilya was anathema to him. And he knew instinctively that Ilya felt the same. Why else would one of the most physical centers he had ever played suddenly stop slamming into him?

“Jesus, Ilya. I don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry that happened to her, to you. I hope you know that I would never do that to you. I promise.”

Ilya’s eyes were squeezed shut so tightly that Shane could feel it. He guided Ilya’s head to his shoulders and scratched his back in the very particular way that he liked. The gesture sent shivers down their spines.

“Did your mom—I mean—is she not alive anymore?”

A faint sob escaped from Ilya, buried in the crook of his neck. Ilya shook his head.

“She die when I was двенадцать.” His accent was much thicker than usual.

Shane counted quickly in his head. He knew up to 100 in Russian.

Twelve.

«Ilyusha, I am sorry.»

He wanted to ask what had happened to her, but he felt the tears flowing down his neck and the tense way Ilya was grabbing the back of his shirt. He felt Ilya’s tightening shoulders, roiling stomach, and a profound sense of being off balance. This was already too much.

Had his father somehow caused Irina’s death? Would he have been able to physically do that? Ilya had said that he usually didn’t physically harm her, but usually meant that sometimes he did.

He thought about practicing checking Ilya again. How he’d somewhat been able to overcome that aversion. And he’d bragged to Ilya about it, felt proud that he could. Now it added to the nausea he felt from Ilya. Shane pulled off Ilya’s shirt and pants, guiding them both into bed. It was too much; they were both fraying at the edges. His thoughts blurred as his body felt like it dissolved into Ilya’s. As if full skin-to-skin contact wasn’t enough, and they both needed to fall into the universe they made, where only they could see the stars. 

---

The Next Day
Sept 6, 2009

Ilya saw Shane open his mouth and close it again. He’d been doing this since he got back from his run. All through breakfast, his mouth would open and close like a fish trying to breathe on land. He might’ve found it funny, except he was still emotionally wrung out from yesterday, and he was pretty sure he knew what Shane was going to ask.

What happened to her?
Did she know they were the cause?
Was it an accident?

He didn’t know—there was no way to know. She hadn’t left a note. So maybe it really was an accident. But he doubted it.

Strangely, Ilya felt lighter, having told Shane the truth, but immediately felt guilty too because he had only made Shane carry that weight. It was just another complication he was heaping onto his soulmate.

Shane opened his mouth again, took a deep breath—Ilya braced for the question—and then Shane closed his mouth again.

Ilya put down his fork and knife, drained the rest of his latte, and walked back toward the bed. Shane would leave soon, and Ilya hoped he didn’t find his nerve before he had to go. His back was to Shane, so he didn’t see Shane open his mouth when he finally said:

“Do you want to meet my parents? They want to drive over and have dinner tonight.”

He thought maybe he heard a record scratch as he felt himself, once again, blush as Shane did.

“I don’t want to tell them about the bond yet. But I still want you to meet them. They’re curious about you after hearing me talk about you all summer, but I haven’t told them that you’re here right now.”

Ilya assessed Shane; he seemed nervous but not panicky. And his fish-mouth gaping seemed to have stopped, so that seemed to be all Shane wanted to ask him. No one had ever wanted to introduce him to their parents before. He wasn’t the bring home to the family type. But then here was Shane, looking at him, trying and desperately failing to play it cool.

Shane dropped his gaze. His nose scrunched, crinkling his freckles, and Ilya wanted to bite something it was so cute. He wrapped Shane in his arms and sank his teeth into his trap.

“Asshole, get off me! We said no more marks.”

He was not biting hard enough to leave a lasting mark, and Shane was only halfheartedly trying to push him away. He clung on tighter, but did stop biting.

“Can’t help it, rodnoy. Your freckles. They kill me.”

“Idiot,” Shane said without any heat. “I need to go. I don’t want to be late.”

Ilya stepped back.

“So, we won’t tell them about the bond, but you say you are very close with them. Will they not notice that something is… different with us?”

“Oh. I didn’t really think about that. I guess I thought they would think we’re friends.”

“Are they stupid?”

Shane gaped at him, and Ilya remembered how immune he was to insults on the ice. It hardly seemed like the same person standing in front of him.

“What!? No, of course not.”

He started eyeing his clothes, thinking about something to wear, but remained conscious of Shane’s demeanor. This seemed like the perfect setup for a panic attack.

“So, what will they think?”

Shane didn’t answer for a moment.

“Maybe we could say that we’re dating?”

“Hollander, are you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

Shane didn’t answer with words, but his body responded loudly, violently. Shane’s desire coursed through both of them. And god, Ilya didn’t deserve him.

He should say no to all of it. Let Shane hide him like his dirty secret. And if he thought for one moment saying no would stop him from hurting Shane again, he’d do it. But it wouldn’t, and Shane wanted him against all reason.

And he wanted Shane because, of course, he did. Who wouldn’t want Shane Hollander?

And saying no would only make him sad, and Ilya had caused him enough problems already. So he let the smile he was fighting show on his face and hoped it reached his eyes too.

Shane moved toward him, but he stepped back playfully.

“I need to change. I cannot meet my boyfriend’s parents like this.” 

He gestured at his Adidas track pants that were slung indecently low and his lack of a shirt before turning to the clothes that Shane had insisted on hanging in the closet, even though he would only be here for a few days. Shane forced him into a sharp inhale.

“Stop. Dinner is hours away. But yes—to the boyfriend thing?”

Ilya turned back to face him, completely expecting the heat that rose in his cheeks. This was genuinely going to be a problem when they were in public together, but Ilya put that aside for now.

“I think this is the normal word, yes? Sort of a stupid word, but English is stupid.”

“You want to tell people we’re boyfriends?”

No, he wanted to scream from the rooftops that this man in front of him was his. And he wanted somewhere to hide Shane where he could never hurt him again. And he wanted to tease him until both of them flushed and Shane looked at him like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hit him or fuck him.

He picked the last option.

“Shane Hollander. We have been fucking for two months, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And living together, sleeping in one bed even when we didn’t have to anymore, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you are my soulmate, and we have to physically stop ourselves from touching at all times, yes?”

“Right.”

“And now you ask me to meet your parents?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“So, I think boyfriends is not so much as that.”

He felt laser focus trained on him, working to peel away the layers of his mind.

“Boyfriends don’t usually hook up with other people.”

Ilya raised one eyebrow at that.

“Hollander, you think after having sex so good that I black out and leave my body, I am going to enjoy a stranger?” He saw the face Shane was making and decided to save them both the struggle. “No, Shane. I do not want to.”

“I don’t want to either.”

He knew he should feel guilty about this, but then he saw the way Shane was looking at him right then—the way his body was pulsing with need—and felt it should be illegal. It knocked away all his guilt and anxiety about their bond, because nothing that made Shane’s face look like that could be bad.

Shane shone like gold when he cupped Ilya’s face and leaned in for a filthy kiss, which Ilya returned by biting down on his bottom lip until Shane moaned into his mouth. When Shane’s hands started playing with his waistband, he grabbed them and held them against his side.

“Rodnoy, you will be late. You are going to have to wait to fuck your boyfriend.”

Shane groaned in frustration.

It should have been ridiculous that such a paltry word held that kind of power for either of them when he was

the far-off depth and height reflecting his own face,
or thoughtful merge of himself, and the outlet again.

But no one could know that. What they were to each other couldn’t be quantified or described—only spoken of in abstract terms. But “boyfriend” was clear. Concrete. It could be held up, examined, and maybe more importantly, shared.

He didn’t realize how much that mattered to him until that very moment. Staking a claim in this man that he could show the world. Maybe it was only a drop of water compared to the ocean of their connection. But it was something. Maybe if he could learn to be a good boyfriend, he could also learn to be a good soulmate.

Ilya pressed one more quick kiss to Shane’s lips and then started getting dressed for training camp. And if, while changing, he took his pants off more slowly than was strictly necessary as he felt Shane’s gaze on him, that was his business.

---

Ilya’s meeting with his parents was memorable for being unremarkable. When Shane had called and asked if their dinner reservation could be changed to four people because he wanted Ilya, his boyfriend, to come, his parents had reacted with so little surprise he couldn’t tell if they were deeply shocked or already knew. He guessed the latter because his mom had called him after the TMZ article was published and warned him to be more careful because he didn’t want to get a reputation. Shane rolled his eyes, but it was an easy promise to make because it wasn’t as if he liked going clubbing, even if he had enjoyed dancing with Ilya a little. She’d asked if he—or if Ilya and Svetlana wanted to clarify anything about their relationship publicly; he said there was nothing to clarify. Ilya and Sveta had never been together like that, but her family’s PR team always advised them not to talk about it lest they provide more fodder for gossip.

Shane had been somewhat worried that his parents somehow wouldn’t like Ilya—his mom certainly hadn’t had anything nice to say about “that arrogant party boy” after the world juniors or the draft, but he had spent the summer talking positively about Ilya. His parents had obviously been surprised when he told them he was living with Ilya and Svetlana because the (completely fabricated) other house of guys he’d originally planned to live with was sadly full.

So by the time they sat down at one of their favorite French restaurants in Montreal, he’d primed his parents to be open to liking  Ilya. And Ilya could charm the pants off a snake. So between all that and the safety of hockey talk, dinner went smoothly.

If Shane had to guess, he would say Ilya won his mom over with his brutal takedown of Sean Avery’s return to the game. He had originally been suspended for calling his ex-girlfriend, who was now dating another hockey player, his “sloppy seconds.” When she poorly disguised her surprise at how vehemently Ilya denounced his toxic behavior, Shane tried to rebuke her, but Ilya beat him to it.

Flashing his crooked smile at her, he said, “I am an asshole. Not a monster. I do not think about people, partners like this.”

Shane wasn’t sure if there was a moment that won over his dad. Maybe David didn’t need to be convinced in the same way his mom did. The fact that Shane had deemed Ilya worthy might’ve been enough for him. Or it might’ve been the moment Ilya joked about how the Bears were going to win the Stanley Cup this year, despite not having made the playoffs in the past four years, with such playful confidence that Shane had let out a deep belly laugh that made Ilya feign injury:

“Rodnoy, you hurt me.”

Then David had asked what the Russian word meant, and Ilya had turned red so fast that Shane barely had time to block when Ilya mumbled “Sweetheart.”

Whatever it was, by the time dinner was over, both his parents had Ilya’s phone number and had promised they’d cheer for him, not the Bears, in all his games except Montreal. Ilya had joked about sending them each one of his jerseys, and Yuna had said that no Boston gear would ever darken her doorstep. On that playful note, they said goodbye, and Shane left feeling lighter than he had since before the bond.

---

Shane blinked as one of the guys flickered the overhead lights. He felt his nose scrunch up and schooled his features. It was so tame compared to some locker room antics that it shouldn’t have even registered except for harsh awareness of those cursed fluorescent lights.

Someone else threw a towel at the Light Flickerer, and he stopped. It was the end of the first day of rookie camp, and it was all the worst parts about hockey in Shane’s opinion—a bunch of guys figuratively and only occasionally literally measuring their dicks. In the past, Shane had kept his head down. He learned to prove his skill on the ice. Everyone here was competing for a spot, and few of them would see real gameplay. Still, Shane tried to sort out his competition, and was finding that it wasn’t only Sveta he had a hard time neatly organizing.

He thought maybe it was because she was so close to Ilya, so bright, so beyond what he knew how to handle. But he knew how to handle a locker room of fellow jocks. And yet each of them refused his classification.

Light Flickerer was another center. He’d been drafted the year before and played in the AHL. It wasn’t that Shane understood him any better or worse than he had before the bond had disrupted his entire world, but he didn’t need to think about it so explicitly. He could just understand them. Light Flickerer was testing the room, seeing whose skin he could get under to give himself an edge. Shane just seemed to know that he could spin it into something fun and win the guy over. He grabbed his iPod that he’d bought mostly for meditation, but Ilya had loaded some music onto. While plugging it into the speakers, he said,

“Hell yeah, dude. Getting us pumping.”

And played one of the songs that, honestly, he found loud and obnoxious, but Sveta and Ilya loved, so he thought it was popular.

“Ooooh, shit Hollsy,” Light Flickerer said, and began flicking the lights to the beat. Shane immediately felt like he was in a club and had many regrets, but Light Flickerer was smiling at him, and the rest of the guys were dancing as they got ready, tension mostly forgotten.

Shane had always had a good handle on the locker room—as captain of his juniors team he’d had to be, but no one would’ve ever called him fun. This was new. Not bad, but he didn’t really understand where this instinctive reading of people was coming from.  

It wasn’t bad, but it was confusing. Between this latest development and the long days of a hectic training camp, he almost didn’t notice when Ilya left.

Almost.

Shane was grateful that Ilya was there to come back to during those first chaotic days when everything he had been working toward since his parents tied tiny blades to the bottom of his feet at age three had reached its zenith. Ilya could help him hold the exhaustion that came from finally putting into motion the plan that was the product of every missed vacation, every delayed car maintenance, everything his parents denied themselves so he could make it. His parents never framed it this way, never let him know the true cost—they didn’t do this as a financial investment like so many parents. But it didn’t stop him from doing this math, from feeling the weight of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they’d poured into him. It was one of the first things he learned to classify—to need to break down, analyze, and label before he could put it away. They did it because he loved it, because he didn’t know who he was if he wasn’t playing hockey.

They did it because he was exceptional.

So no, he wasn’t a financial investment to either of his parents. But he was an investment of a different sort to his mom. She paid the blood tithe to hockey alongside him. She laughed off every “joke” about being a tiger mom, played nicely with every parent who knew less about hockey than she did at age 16, and smiled at everyone who called her a bitch to her face when she refused to back down. She didn’t blink and didn’t complain, all to create a role model for “all the kids who don’t see themselves represented in hockey.” As if they were some mysterious group of people instead of Asian kids.

But for three precious days, Shane got to come home, if he generously called his hotel room and a mid-tier Marriott “home” to Ilya, who came the closest to understanding the pressure Shane faced as anyone. Ilya felt the weight of being an investment that demanded a high return; he knew what it felt like to be an expensive and finely calibrated machine that would either meet expectations or be scrapped. And even if no one expected Ilya to be a model minority, or even a particularly good person, he’d grown up with Sveta, who, in her words, “made damn sure he knew how the world actually worked.” So, for three days, Shane was able to have and to hold his entire world in one place.

But then those three days ended in a haze of media availability, fitness testing, drills, scrimmages, and testing lines. Ilya had to leave to start his own camp—to become the load-bearing piece to his team just as he was expected to be.

In the non-media-trained part of his brain, Shane wasn’t actually worried that he wouldn’t secure a spot on the team and be sent back to the juniors any more than he was worried that fate would happen to Ilya. But he was also not quite as cocky as Ilya, who had already bought a penthouse in Boston. Such a move would’ve been a ridiculous thing for a rookie to do, except that the housing market was completely upside down, and someone handed a stupid amount of money to an 18 year old, and Shane planned to do the same thing after he’d secured his roster spot. 

So when it came time to say goodbye to Ilya, he hardly had the energy to feel sad. He did, of course, but in an abstract way. He would see Ilya again in 11 days, which didn’t sound like very long when he ignored the way they’d hardly had more than two hours apart since June.

The first few days after Ilya left, he returned to his hotel after the absolute whirlwind he’d endured and found it easy to ignore the absence on the other side of the bed. After all, he spent the nights on the phone with Ilya, trading stories about other rookies and learning to negotiate what was reasonable information about your day to tell your soulmate/boyfriend and what was information that could provide your team’s biggest rival with a competitive advantage.

It was maybe even nice, for a night or two, to take over the whole bed and not wake up without sheets. But that faded quickly in the face of a too-cold bed and mornings that came too early even for him. Shane thought that he was prepared for all the aspects of being away from Ilya—how it would hurt, and how it might impact his hockey. But he had never stopped to consider that he would simply miss Ilya, miss his boyfriend, his soulmate. The labels still made him giddy, but right now it was tinged with melancholy. He wanted Ilya back here, or wanted to be there with him. Whatever let them be together.

The five days of rookie camp passed in a grind, but a relatively normal one for hockey except for a few adjustments he hadn’t accounted for. He had taped his arches in the exact same way since his first season in juniors. He’d perfected his technique, getting the perfect amount of support. But when he was done and tried to put on his socks and skates, something felt wrong, missing. He closed his eyes. He wanted to tape his toes, which he never did.

He texted Ilya.

Shane: How do you tape your feet?              

Ilya: Have to tape my tiny toes after I broke them. Why?

He taped his pinkie toes to the ones next to them and immediately felt like that was right

Shane: Fuck your pinkie toes             

Ilya: ???

He flew through days of morning and afternoon practices, learning systems, conditioning skates, and special teams work. All the while, he would get flashes of Ilya: his leg would burn when Ilya did conditioning, or a phantom check would roll through him. These sensations were all his body’s little reminders that it was not alone. The strangest thing was when he realized that, if he concentrated, he could feel the exact position Ilya’s body was in, standing, sitting, skating, or lying down. It didn’t matter, and he had no other context for his surroundings, but his awareness of Ilya’s body wasn’t limited by sight or distance. He tried not to think about it because it made him feel lonely.

He made easy friends on the team, especially with Hayden Pike, because Hayden stuck to his side and rarely shut up. He was a good skater, and Shane was pretty sure he wouldn’t get sent back down, even if he was not going to get a ton of ice time his first year. Hayden was also charming in the blond-haired, blue-eyed, loud sort of way that was not unlike Ilya. Unlike Ilya, he was affable, if a bit clueless. He was the exact kind of person the league loved—attractive enough, talented enough, charismatic enough, and on track to marry by 21 and have 3-5 kids by 30. He was nice, but not interesting or threatening to anyone

On Saturday, the last day of rookie camp, Shane was filling Ilya in on the assist he’d gotten off Hayden in a scrimmage.

“Pfft. Hayden. He should leave you alone.”

“What? No, he’s my friend. You told me you want me to get along with my teammates.”

“Yes, with people who are good at hockey. Not Hayden Pike.”

“You’ve literally never seen him play. You don’t know if he’s good or not.”

“Exactly. I have never seen him. Never heard of him. If he was good, I would hear. I hear nothing, so he can’t be good.”

Shane rolled his eyes even though Ilya couldn’t see it on the phone call.

“He was a second-round draft pick! You’ll like him if you meet him. He always saves me a seat at meetings or at lunch.”

“No. I do not like this.”

“Don’t be stupid, Ilya. There’s nothing to not like.”

“He has a crush on you.”

“What? No, he doesn’t! We’re friends. He’s the only guy who’s not constantly trying to one-up me or convince me they’re good enough for the team.”

“Because he couldn’t do either of those things, and he is, um, drying up over you?”

“He’s what?”

“You say this in English? Um, he likes you and is sad. In Russian we say this.”

“No, we don’t say drying up in English. Pining or maybe wasting away? But Hayden is not doing either one of those things.”

“So, he doesn’t like men?”

Shane blushed and knew Ilya knew the answer to that.

“See! Impossible for anyone who likes men not to have a crush on you. You must tell him you have a boyfriend. Break his heart early.”

“I will not brea—” he interrupted himself with a yawn, “not break his heart, Ilya. Not all bisexual men automatically find me attractive.”

«Yes, they do. Now stop arguing and go to bed. It is late.»

«You stay on the phone again, please?»

They had each signed up for a phone plan that had unlimited nighttime minutes, so they could fall asleep together. The first few nights, the call was disconnected in the night by his phone going dead, but once, they had also gotten to wake up together and pretend it was the same thing. Ilya had gotten an iPhone and was telling Shane to upgrade, so his phone wouldn’t disconnect in the night. But Shane’s BlackBerry was perfectly fine, and he didn’t have time to learn how to work a phone that only had four buttons right now.

Four days after Ilya left, the main camp started, and the veteran player returned. That first day, when the locker room filled with men he’d watched obsessively, he felt deep in his bones that he had finally made it. He savored that feeling, and the pride that went with just a moment.

His phone buzzed in his bag with a text from Ilya.

“Hollander. That a girl you are texting with that face?” J.J. Boiziau asked.

J.J. was a huge Haitian-Canadian defenseman who’d be on the team for two years. Shane was on the bench and tilted his head and neck as far back as they would go to look at him. The first time J.J. had crowded his space like this, Shane had been intimidated by this man who had 7 inches and 75lbs on him, but his captain, Brett Polyak, seeing the look on his face, pulled him aside and explained that J.J. had no boundaries physically or socially, but was harmless.

So this time, Shane fought the urge to recoil and instead responded smoothly,

“Uh, no, a guy. Boyfriend, actually.”

He saw Hayden perk up at that before deflating slightly.

“Mon Dieu, des bébés amoureux.”

Shane was saved from answering any more questions by another vet joining the conversation and lamenting that the rookies were wasting their best years of pulling in committed relationships. He and Ilya had decided that hiding in plain sight was the best strategy for avoiding someone finding out about their bond. That way, if anyone noticed something, it could be ascribed to being in a relationship, but he still did not want to announce to the entire locker room that his boyfriend was Ilya Rozanov.

Word had spread that they were living and training together, but Sveta’s presence had obscured what was really happening to most hockey fans. Though his mom did tell him that certain corners of the internet were very interested in what was going on between him and Ilya or him and Sveta or him and Ilya and Sveta. Shane hoped he never found those corners.

Coach Thériault poked his head into the locker room.

“Hollander, I have 5 minutes.”

Shane hopped up and followed his coach for the quick meeting he requested. He knew this disclosure and ask were risky, but he hoped by framing them this way, he’d ensure that he’d be playing both games against Boston in the preseason.

When he entered, Thériault flipped on all the overhead lights and illuminated an office decorated more with piles of papers, half-filled mugs, and golf balls than anything personal.

“What can I do for you, Hollander?”

“Well, I thought you should know… I think I need to disclose that I’m dating someone, sir.”

Thériault chuckled and picked up a golf club, positioning himself as if he was going to putt.

“I don’t need to know every time you get your dick sucked, kid.”

Shane bristled at the casual vulgarity. It was far tamer than a lot of what he heard in the locker room, but he hoped that the head coach of the Voyageurs would be better.  Shane watched the way his body moved as he swung and thought something looked off about the motion, but wasn’t familiar enough with golf to know what.

“Well, my boyfriend is sort of on the Bears. Rozanov, actually.”

That made Thériault pause mid-swing and glare down at Shane in the chair.

“I promise it will not be an issue. I want nothing more than to beat him, sir.”

Thériault just whistled at him beneath raised brows.

“He beat me at the Prospects Cup, sir. I have a score to settle. Test me against Boston in the preseason, and I’ll prove there’s no conflict or anything.”

Shane felt himself hovering on a knife’s edge; it would technically be illegal for them to discriminate against him for who he was dating, but it would also be very difficult for him to prove that was the reason.

“You’ve got balls, kid. I’m going to have to kick this one over to HR, but if they give it their bullshit approval and you play well against Boston, then I don’t see an issue.”

Shane’s entire body relaxed, and he knew Ilya would guess that this conversation went well based on the size of his reaction.

“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t.”

Thériault pinned him with a stern expression, and Shane realized that if he were anything less than the player Montreal was planning its rebuild around, he would be packing his bags right now.

“And kid. Don’t tell the team. I don’t want any… distractions.”

Shane felt a chill go down his spine as Thériault’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

---

Ilya sped his way through rookie camp with a growing sense of unease—nothing to do with the camp itself but with what he knew must be coming. They knew they would have between a week or two before things got… bad. He wished he could ask his mama, or really anyone, how painful being separated from Shane would get. Instead, they just had to wait and see.

His current state was almost a nice distraction from how overwhelming the first few days were. Shane was so precise about how he taped his feet and his hockey stick, and now, Ilya found that he was too. He had to add an extra 15 minutes to his routine; otherwise, his feet felt all wrong even though he did not need the arch support.

When he told Coach LeClaire that he was seriously dating Shane Hollander—yes, that Shane Hollander—LeClaire just gave him a look up and down with one eyebrow raised and said: “I hope you like paperwork, Roz.”

He was laughing as he walked away, but turned over his shoulder to say, “Curfew still applies in Montreal. I will fine you.”

Ilya did get a whole pile of documents about disclosing conflicts of interest and clearly outlined what he wasn’t allowed to tell Shane, which was practically everything. He emailed pictures of every page to Shane, who read them to him on one of their calls and helped him understand the technical language.

His English had improved so much through immersion this summer; he rarely found himself struggling for basic words. But that was without mouthguards, overlapping conversations, and yelling across the ice. He felt like he was flying blind, nodding and laughing when other guys did, mimicking the drills they ran, and falling into the tough-guy Russian stereotype by not responding. He learned quickly that if he started the banter with a chirp or a joke, the rest of the guys would carry the conversation and assume he was following along.

Ilya did what he did best; he watched interactions even if he didn’t understand all the words, and he could read their intention. Body language wasn’t exactly universal, but Ilya could translate it much more easily than English. Long days of drills, conditioning, and testing lines, all while interpreting sentences from English, were almost mentally and physically exhausting enough for him to forget the sword of Damocles hanging above his head.

It didn’t fall in one great sweeping arc, but rather cut into him gently as if it had been lowering the entire time, slowly, and he’d simply failed to notice it. One week after he’d left, he woke up with a dull headache. It wasn’t even very painful and wouldn’t have been noteworthy—except that Ilya didn’t get headaches unless he was hungover. And Russians didn’t get hungover, so again, Ilya didn’t get headaches. He went to the trainer before morning practice and asked for paracetamol, and she looked at him like he was speaking Russian. It was the same word, so it was especially hard for him to say in English. He concentrated and, without really thinking about it, pulled on Shane and said, completely without an accent, “Can I have paracetamol, please?”

He could feel the difference in the way “have” came out of his mouth, and how he got the emphasis on the third correct syllable of the medicine without trying. He’d used Shane’s muscle memory for English. It never occurred to him that this was possible; it was stupid not to put it together in retrospect but thrilling.

The trainer looked at him, equally surprised by his perfect diction. Nevertheless, she still didn’t have any idea what he was talking about.

Fortunately, another vet, Brad Hammersmith, walked in and apparently knew what Ilya was talking about.

“He wants Tylenol, Maggie. You have a headache, rookie?”

She pulled out the biggest bottle of pills that he had ever seen. He stepped back and felt all the blood rush out of his head. There were 500 pills in that one bottle, and he’d seen another unopened one next to it.

Hammersmith saw his reaction and chuckled,

“It’s so convenient, right? You can go buy that for like 10 dollars at any store. You’ll probably need it!”

Ilya nodded shakily, thanked Maggie, swallowed the pill, and tried to forget about the thousands of little white pills sitting so casually in that training room. He wasn’t even sure if that cabinet locked.

That night, Shane told him he, too, had a headache, but apparently had his own personal supply of 500 pills to manage. That night, Ilya fell asleep wrapped around a body pillow, and Shane fell asleep with pillows wrapped around his back, and if they concentrated on the shape of each other’s bodies, it almost felt like they were sleeping in each other’s arms again.

The next morning, his headache was a little worse, and his joints felt achy in a way that he maybe could blame on hockey, but knew it wasn’t the true cause. He like he was being pulled, like the gravity that anchored him to Shane was getting harder to resist. Shane had his first game tonight, at home, against Tamp. Ilya should be home in time to catch the second and third periods. But he would have to rely on physically feeling Shane hop the boards and start skating before then. He had his stupidly expensive heart rate monitor and special watch in his bag. Shane had shown him approximately 83 times how to download the data and store it on three different hard drives—just in case. He’d put them on 30 minutes before the game started, approximately when he’d been wrapping up for the day. Tomorrow would be the same thing, except it would be Ilya’s first game. They were lucky that Shane wasn’t playing in the game in Ottawa that night.  And they’d see each other again in three more days, if he excluded the rest of today. They planned to meet briefly before the game. His penthouse was close enough to TD Gardens to make it possible for a brief hello. He certainly hoped they’d be doing more than saying hello, but if all he did was get his arms around Shane, he would be happy.

He got home and immediately made his way to the TV, flopping down on his oversized couch. He turned on Shane’s game and turned the volume low, so he wouldn’t miss hearing the doorbell when the pizza arrived. He was exhausted and sore, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep with Shane or Sveta playing with his hair, because what was the point in having two soulmates if he still came home to an empty house? Sveta would be in Russia for three weeks, and traveling off and on during the fall until she started at Harvard in January.

He caught the end of a prescription medicine ad that, for some reason, featured a talking bee. He shook his head; Americans were so weird. But then the game came back, and Shane hopped the boards. Watching him skate, seeing the blue and red 24 jersey fly across the ice, he felt the pure, unadulterated joy from Shane. And watching him play, being the one blocking during Shane’s shifts, clearly made a difference. Though he hadn’t seen the first period, the commentators repeated multiple times how Shane was playing much stronger after the first period, ascribing it to settled nerves and gained confidence, but Ilya guiltily knew the truth. Even though they were capable of blocking, it was hard over a long period, like having to squeeze your hand into a fist and hold tight while still doing everything else they needed to do. It was so easy to let go accidentally, and no matter how hard they concentrated, it was tiring. They could do it, but it was exhausting.

The heart rate monitor showed Ilya’s normal sitting heart rate while blocking. It was fascinating to watch it climb rapidly when he let go of the block while Shane came off the ice. But otherwise, Shane’s first game was a good proof of concept. And Ilya’s game the next night was more of the same. They could play great hockey and mitigate any competitive advantage.

If their pain at being separated had progressed linearly, Ilya might have allowed himself to relax. But it seemed to grow exponentially—a situation that was still manageable, but only for a few more days. Going from a barely there headache to a persistent but easy-to-ignore one, to a dull ache throughout his body was annoying. It was a distraction—a part of his mind was always thinking about the pain, in addition to the part of his brain that was always thinking about Shane. During the 60-90 seconds he was playing, he could put it all out of his mind. But that was only 15 minutes and 17 minutes, respectively, in the two games he played before he saw Shane. The rest of the time, it hurt. And the pain only heightened his worries about what would happen when the time they were physically separated stretched into two, three, or four weeks. It seemed that while one sword had fallen, many, many more were still dangling above them.

---

Shane could feel his pulse behind his eyes and down the strain in his neck. He was attacking the knots there with a lacrosse ball, knowing it wouldn’t make an ounce of difference. The ibuprofen and Tylenol hadn’t done much of anything, and he couldn’t keep taking them at this same pace for the next 20 years. It wasn’t bad when he was busy. But Ilya’s first game had ended, and he was waiting for him to get home so they could talk and fall asleep together. It didn’t relieve a ton of their symptoms, but it still made him feel better.

He was dozing fitfully when he heard his phone ring.

“You were sleeping. Sorry.”

“No. Well, I mean, yes, kinda, but I didn’t mean to.”

“It has been a lot, yes. Oh. I forgot. Hollander, listen.”

Ilya cleared his throat, and Shane felt a barely-there tingle across his lips, tongue, and throat.

“I would like some water,” he said without a trace of his Russian accent, rounding his lips perfectly to make the ‘w’ sound in want and water that usually came out as ‘v.’

“Holy shit! No accent.”

“No accent. If I try very hard. Not worth it most of the time, but I can practice. Feel how words are supposed to be and have no accent for real.”

Shane felt his gut clench.

“I would be very sad if you lost your accent completely.”

“You would?” he asked, which this time came out like ‘vould.’

“Yeah. It’s nice. I like it a lot.”

And that might’ve been it if his body didn’t betray him and get warm and tingly thinking about just how much he liked hearing Ilya’s low, accented voice. 

“What do you like hearing me say, rodnoy?” He asked, voice a little bit deeper.

His dick twitched at the nickname as a shiver shot down his spine.

“You like it when I call you rodnoy,” he said. “What else do you like?”

He felt breathless when he said, “Everything.”

“Tell me one thing.”

“I like when you… give me instructions.”

He felt pleasure flood through Ilya as the heat rose in his cheeks.

«Good boy,»

Shane wanted to be furious and feel condescended to. He wanted to tell Ilya to fuck off and forget it. But instead he loved it. And Ilya had definitely felt the way his body was responding. He could practically hear the smirk in his voice when Ilya said,

 «Do you want me to tell you what to do now?»

He heard rustling fabric through the phone and imagined Ilya running his hands over his pecs and down his stomach.

«Yes.»

He was already getting hard. He wanted to touch himself but more than that wanted to be good for Ilya. And fuck if that didn’t rattle something in him. He hadn’t really realized how much he cared what Ilya thought. How much he needed to know Ilya thought he was good.

Ilya said something else in Russian, but between his recent realization, headache, and growing lust, he only caught the word for “open” and “my” and “bed.”

“Sorry. I don’t think I can do Russian right now.”

Ilya hummed, “Open the drawer on my side of the bed.”

His side of the bed. That sent another pulse through him. Shane was still in the hotel room, having just seriously started the housing hunt.

He heard Ilya’s footsteps and knew he was walking into his own bedroom.

When he opened the drawer, he found the lube he expected and,

“You see the black box? In the back?”

Shane set the box on top of the bed and opened it. There was a purple dildo inside.

“Fuck. Ilya.”

“You like?”

“Yeah.” He ran his fingers up it. It wasn’t exactly as big as Ilya, but it was close.

“Good. Get undressed.”

Shane hurried to shed his clothing and put them all into the hamper instead of folding them.

“Okay.”

“Now get on your knees.”

Shane sank down onto the carpet, fast, sending a jolt through his legs, now closer to eye level with the dildo lying on the bed.

“Yes. I will fuck your mouth.”

He felt Ilya stand up, wherever he was.

“What?”

Ilya’s voice changed, losing its sexy rumble. “I thought it might feel as close to real as possible. Like with the pillows. But we do not have to…” He tapered off, sounding more unsure than he typically did.

“No. I want to! I think you’re right. I just don’t know how you come up with this stuff.”

Ilya laughed, but then Shane felt a tremor roll through him as he felt Ilya move like he was taking off his shirt and started touching himself. Both of their breaths hitched.

He groaned and rubbed his hands up and down his inner thighs.

“You want to suck my dick?”

“Yeah. Please. Yes.”

Shane, pushing down how silly he felt on his knees, alone in his bedroom, held the dildo in his hands.

“What do you want to do to me?” Ilya asked.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on Ilya’s body. How he was standing, his erection. His mouth watered.

“Wanna lick you.”

“Do it.”

Shane licked the thick length and around the head. It tasted faintly of plastic and nothing. Not at all like Ilya’s warm, salty skin and musk that he loved. But he imagined it and shivered. He heard the click of a bottle of lube as Ilya mimicked the wetness.

“More, Shane. Take all of it.”

Shane moved his mouth over the dildo, feeling its weight on his tongue as he took it all the way into his throat and held all of it. He swallowed around it and heard Ilya gasp.

“Fuck, Shane. You feel so good. Such a good mouth. Now move.”

He began bobbing his head, hollowing his cheeks, and sucking, as Ilya moved his strokes in time with Shane’s rhythm. He heard the wet sounds of Ilya’s hand all around him, blending with the obscene noises coming from his mouth.

“Yes. Like that, rodnoy.”

Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes as he continued taking Ilya’s cock deep into his throat, feeling it pulse as he sucked. Shane moaned around it, enjoying the wonderful fullness of his body as his mind emptied of anything that wasn’t the dick in his mouth.

Ilya was continuing to praise him but had switched to Russian, and it faded to background noise as he moved relentlessly up and down his length.

His own cock was hard and leaking, desperate to be touched. Without conscious thought, he moved his free hand to stroke himself.

“No. Shane. Do not touch yourself yet.”

He whined around Ilya’s dick, and the vibrations made him moan.

“One hand on me. One hand behind your back.”

Shane obeyed and continued working his swollen lips over Ilya.

“Good. Now pull back. Just the head. Open yourself for me.”

Shane pulled back and missed the weight in his mouth, rolling the head around with his tongue. It was only when he went to use the lube that he realized he was still only deepthroating a dildo, not Ilya.

He froze, body flashing cold, mind reeling.

“No thinking, Shane. Get the lube. I want to feel your fingers inside you. I want my cock in your mouth again.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said with a hoarse voice. He coated his fingers and reached between his legs with one hand and held the dildo with the other. “That’s it, Shane.”

The angle was awkward; he could only reach just enough to stretch his rim, not enough to reach very deeply. He worked one finger in, slowly loosening himself, but he felt impatient. His dick was aching for friction.

“Can I add another?”

“Yes.”

Shane worked another finger inside of himself, opening himself quickly.

“I’m ready. Please.”

“No. Add another. I’ll tell you when you’re ready.”

Shane worked in a third finger and kept mouthing the head of Ilya’s cock, tongue on the spot just under the head that Ilya loved. He kept working himself open and went pleasantly fuzzy as Ilya kept telling him how good he felt.

“Shane, get on the bed. Wrap the pillows behind you. Good. Now I want to feel how ready you are for me. Yes. Just the tip, you can put it.”

Shane hissed as he pressed in just the tip, feeling the delicious stretch as he leaked precome against his tight abs. It was not nearly enough.

 “More. Please. I need more.”

“Desperate for me? Want to feel me fill you up.”

Shane whined, using all his self-control to stop himself from moving, from grinding down on Ilya or fucking his own hand.

“So good. I love how you stay. How you listen.”

Shane felt his whole body light up as the words washed over him until he couldn’t take it anymore.

“God, Ilya, please. Unghh, please. Please, I need it… I can’t.”

He was babbling, sex drunk and desperate.

“Fuck me, Shane.”

And he finally sank all the way in, and Shane grinded down hard, feeling Ilya wrapped around his body, inside him, driving into him, and he matched every thrust.

He adjusted the angle so each stroke hit his prostate and left him digging his nails into his thigh to keep from touching himself. He tried to form words to ask to come, but all he could do was moan and whimper.

“Not yet. I think you can hold on a bit longer.”

He was right there, but his face scrunched, and he held himself back by sheer force of will until all he could do was slip out of his body and into the bond, where he floated in pure pleasure.

“Now, Shane, come for me now.”

Shane shot back into himself as he shattered while the shockwaves rolled over his entire body, and he came in ripples that coated his stomach and even his neck while he simultaneously felt Ilya still and pulse inside him, until they rode the aftershocks together.

He fell back into the bond, completely removed from his body, where he was himself and Ilya. He sensed Ilya in there, too—the place where they were always together.

After drifting and maybe even dozing, Ilya’s voice coaxed him back into his body.

“Shane. Shaaane.”

“Mhhm?”

“You need to clean up. You will not be happy with me if you fall asleep like this.”

In that moment, Shane wanted to argue that he was perfectly happy, and Ilya could just wipe him down like he often did. But he was already feeling sticky and probably needed to rinse in the shower and get a new comforter. As he began to move, he realized with startling clarity that he also still had a dildo inside him. He pulled it out and felt horribly empty.

Ilya wasn’t there at all. A sudden swell of sadness washed over him at the realization, and he felt tears prick his eyes.

Not here.

“I know. But we are always together.”

Shane heard the tremble in Ilya’s voice that mirrored his own.

He sniffed. He grabbed the phone and headed to the bathroom. He took a deep breath and tried to keep from falling apart.

“I’m going to shower; I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

“Okay, me too, Shane.”

And then he felt something creep up inside of him or into the space in the conversation where something else should go, but it didn’t feel like the right moment.

So, he just said, “Bye,” and hung up.

After he’d showered, changed his quilt for his winter down blanket that was probably too hot for the weather but luxuriously fluffy, and plugged in his phone, he called Ilya back.

“Next time, tell me to take off the duvet. It's so embarrassing to ask housekeeping for a new one.”

Ilya laughed, “Okay, Shane. Next time I’ll tell you.”

Shane adjusted the pillows around him until he stilled at the unusually soft sound of Ilya’s voice:

“Did you like that? Did I do good for you?”

“Holy shit, Ilya, yes. It was so good that I forgot you weren’t actually here. It really did feel like we were together. Did it feel like that for you, too?”

“Yes. Was nice.”

“Well, I don’t know where you learned to do that, but Jesus, I’m glad you did.”

He found that was mostly true and only a little, felt like a knife to the kidney to think about Ilya ordering someone else around like that.

“No, I learn that nowhere. I have told people what to do a little, like you already. But never so much. But you liked it. I just pay attention to what you like.”

Shane felt himself sink further into the bed, realizing that it was something they shared for the first time together, and there was no knife to the kidney.

“Oh, well, yes. I really liked it. You did a very good job paying attention to me.”

He felt Ilya glow with genuine warmth and pride, which made Shane’s heart flip until he said,

“Yes. I am a natural. Perfect the first time.”

“Okay, asshole. I guess that’s what I get for giving you three compliments in a row. I’ll keep better track next time.”

“No, Shane. Keep telling me.”

“No. You’re already a monster. Just go to bed.”

“Sex monster.”

“Absolutely not. Never say that again.”

“What about—”

“NO. To whatever that is. Good night, Ilyusha.”

In the few moments between closing his eyes and falling asleep, he realized that he didn’t have a headache.

Unfortunately, the headache returned in full force before he was even finished with his breakfast and lingered until Montreal played in Boston days later. Fortunately, his roommate, Hayden, seemed very happy to have the room to himself and cover for him, in exchange for a future favor, of course. So, Shane was able to spend the night at Ilya’s penthouse.

Their next game against each other was only four days later in Montreal.

After the game, Shane was trying not to limp as he was walking out of the arena toward his car. One of the athletic trainers was just a bit behind him and called out:

“Hey Hollander, you hurt?”

The trainer, Morgan, jogged to catch up to him.

“You didn’t come see me. Did you pull something?”

Shane’s brain was frayed, and his body felt like, well, he’d just lost in overtime to his boyfriend and his team’s archrival in his own barn. He’d also played in Ottawa last night and had barely slept since they drove back that night, and Shane’s internal clock still woke him early. He could be missing several toes and wasn’t sure if it would register, let alone a fake limp.

Shane just blinked at Morgan, already having forgotten what he said.

“Hollander? Are you okay? Is something wrong with your hip flexor?”

Nothing was wrong with his hip flexor.

“Hey, Morgan, sorry. I’m beat, but I’m fine. Just sore. I’ll get some ice on it and be fine in the morning.”

Shane wasn’t sure if it would be more suspicious if he started blocking Ilya and stopped limping or if he continued. He tried to split the difference and walk normally but not blocking. He must have grimaced because Morgan said:

“Come see me before you do anything tomorrow.”

“Sure thing.”

“That means no morning run, Hollander. I mean it.”

He smiled at Morgan. He was a nice guy, and his husband and daughter had been around after the first game and asked for his autograph. It was the first one he signed after he’d finally gotten time on the ice in an NHL game and felt like a real Voyageur.

“Yes, sir,” Shane said in an attempt at humor.

“You know it’s funny, your boy pulled his right hip flexor and quad tonight, too.”

Shane froze; he wasn’t sure for how long, but hoped that it wasn’t for a suspiciously long amount of time.

“Yeah, he twisted weirdly trying to take the puck off Polyak, I think. I haven’t talked to him after the game yet, but I hope he’s okay.”

It had happened halfway through the third period, and Ilya hadn’t been back on the ice. But Shane could feel that it wasn’t a serious injury, though he might miss a few days in favor of rest and rehab.

“Maybe you have a sympathy limp!”

“A what?”

“Well, like sometimes when someone gets pregnant, their partner gets sympathetic pregnancy symptoms, even if it’s a dude. It’s wild stuff. Maybe you have a sympathy limp.”

Morgan was laughing, so Shane decided to just chuckle alongside him, even though he didn’t really understand the joke.

“I’ll be better tomorrow. Can’t say the same for Ilya, I think. But that’s got to be a good thing for us.”

While Thériault had told Shane not to discuss his relationship with Ilya, Ilya had been given no such order from LeClaire or anyone else. So, he had happily told the entire Bears organization, before they played for the second time, that he was ecstatic at the chance to embarrass his boyfriend on home ice after Montreal had won their first game at TD Gardens. And word had spread through the notoriously gossipy hockey world quickly.

The past 24 hours had been, to use his mom’s phrase, like drinking out of a fire hose. He had denied requests for interviews from every organization that ever thought about having a sports column. Shane had stayed offline, which was not much different than usual. His agent had put out an official statement, as had both teams, confirming the relationship and ensuring that all the necessary guardrails were in place to ensure fair gameplay.

Shane was trying to make it very clear to his team that he was very much rooting against Boston at all times. But he could tell some of the guys were offended that he hadn’t told them directly. Part of him wanted to explain what Thériault had told him, but he knew that might just land him in a different kind of trouble. So instead, he kept his head down, laughed at their jokes even when they were laced with cruel edges, and waited for the novelty to wear off.

Chapter End Notes

380-381
This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

Chapter 14: Hidden World of Bonds: Select Works Depicting Profound Bonds

Chapter Summary

Special exhibition at the Met showcasing artwork depicting profound bonds.

Chapter Notes

If you usually skip these chapters, that's fine. Just do me a favor and look at the Lia Halloran work for a second because that sort of became the inspiration for a lot of this fic (more details in the end notes).

Okay, I am not super knowledgeable about art. I love going to museums and learning, but I don't really know how to talk about art with much technical proficiency, but I thought this was an interesting idea. So almost all of the language comes from the website talking about the real work (usually the museum where it's housed but sometimes news articles).

The only thing I wrote is the intro and bits about soulmate bonds within the art description. So if it's discussing the soulmate bond of the artist, that is fiction; the rest is fact. The website where I'm pulling the information is linked in the "read more" for each work of art. Full citations can be found in endnotes.

Hidden World of Bonds: Select Works Depicting Profound Bonds

Hidden World of Bonds showcases works that illustrate the mysterious space that emerges between people with profound bonds. It brings together works from many eras to demonstrate how each bond is unique.

Individuals with a profound bond often struggle to articulate how their connection feels. Throughout human history, artists have attempted to depict what words struggle to convey, including startlingly accurate ‘landscapes’ of places that humans had not visited at the time, including underwater coral reefs and moonscapes.

The art spans centuries, styles, mediums, techniques, and subjects, yet shares a throughline of soulmate abstractions. These works range from stunning but earthly landscapes such as Hercules Segers to abstract renderings inspired by astrophysics, as in Lia Halloran’s work. As a whole, the collection invites the viewer into spaces that are intensely private and sacred to the bondholders to be part of something beyond human understanding.

Two Nocturnal Landscapes

Monogrammist IAR of IAP
1656

Almost nothing is known about this artist apart from their initials and the fact that these reflect their bond. These are two landscapes. The smoking volcano and cool stones depict the land as the bond was still settling and still seems tangible three centuries later. The second depicts a more mature version of the bond, including a tunnel, implying infrastructure is possible even in the dream world. The artist worked from dark to light in order to capture the evening atmosphere. The color white is reserved for the sparsely shining moonlight and rippling water.

Read More

Rocky Landscape with a Man Walking to the Right

Hercules Segers
1625–1630

Little is known about Hercules Segers or his bond. He his considered a mystery man of the Dutch Golden Age and what little is known is contradictory. This extends to his works, showcasing his profound bond. Many of them depict barren landscapes, rocky landscapes that have an air of desolation. However, Segers was reportedly very happy with his bond.

In the matter of technique, he was even farther ahead of his time, mixing media in a way that no one else thought of doing until the 20th century. Instead of using ordinary printer’s ink, Segers often smeared his etched copper plates with oil paint, or with a combination of ink and paint. He also printed on paper prepared with a colored ground, or else on cloth, such as linen. He was even known to print on his bed sheets, shirts, and underwear—much to the distress of his wife, according to a 17th-century biographer.

Read More

Solar (positive), pt 15

Lia Halloran
2020
On loan from a private collection

Lia Halloran’s work invited reflection on how a person can shape and be shaped by their bond. As one of the most abstract bond representations in the collection, it shows that not every bond space manifests in the same way. Halloran made this print donated it to an auction benefiting Fulcrum Arts — a LA-based nonprofit at the nexus of art, science, and social change, advancing the equitable representation of women, people of color, and LGBTQ artists.

Halloran’s paintings represent various research foci, including planet formation, galaxy formation, gravity, and black holes. Halloran was particularly interested in exploring the sun as the ultimate universal and timeless constant.

Like many of Halloran’s other works, the print was created by painting a negative and using the cyanotype process to make a positive image. She calls this a “solar selfie,” as the cyanotype painting of the sun was created by light from the sun. This practice is determined by the position of the sun and the Earth in space, a process that reflects the astronomical imagery portrayed in her works. Cyanotypes are typically used as a photographic printing process, but by using this method to create paintings, Halloran resists the historically strained dialogue between photography and painting. By creating artworks about science, she also pushes against the divide between art and science. She believes that the two disciplines rest on the same foundation: curiosity about the natural world.

Read More - Marginalian

Read More - Chapman

Retreats in the Spring Hills

Unidentified artist
First half of the 12th century. Song dynasty

Retreats in the Spring Hills is datable stylistically to the early twelfth century, when artists began to experiment with archaic styles, including the "blue-and-green" landscape manner first made popular in the seventh century. In the twelfth-century revival, the flat blue-and-green color scheme was used to evoke feelings of an antique Golden Age. Artists adopted this style to create dreamlike visions of idyllic mountain retreats or Daoist paradises or their profound bound, in contrast to the naturalistic, predominantly monochromatic landscape depictions of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Read More

Sketches of the Inhabitants, Animal Life and Vegetation in the Lowlands and High Mountains of Ceylon (1867)

Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez
1867

Drawn first with a soft pencil on green-colored, varnished paper then painted over in oils depict the first seascape executed by an artist under the seas. Jovanovic-Kruspel et al. (2017) praised them as “a mixture between romantic-lyric underwater-landscapes and super realistic observations of the inhabiting organisms”—a characteristic nineteenth-century intermingling of the aesthetic with the scientific. Von Ransonnet-Villez sketched these while submerged in a diving bell, he was said to be inspired to go to such lengths after the death of his soulmate to come as close as possible to their connection without her. Though these works belong firmly in the naturalist tradition, he said they also functioned as an homage and reminder of the world he lost.

Read More

PLATE XXII
ASPECT OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN BY THE EARTH, AS IT WOULD APPEAR AS SEEN FROM THE MOON

James Nasmyth, with James Carpenter
1874

In an intimate rendering of their cosmic world, the craggy lunar landscape is shown beneath a dramatic eclipse of an Earth-like planet passing in front of the sun. Nasmyth created this plaster model from his own profound bond with James Carpenter and telescopic observations of the real moon’s surface. Scientific observation collides with little-understood soulmate bonds to render a land that is familiar and uncanny.

Read More

Chapter End Notes

If you wanna read me yapping about finding this artwork and more inspiration for this fic

I wanted to pick art that was from around the world, but I also didn't want to appropriate art from different cultures. I was looking for works that are in the public domain, and landscapes like I was looking for from places like South America, Africa, SE Asia, etc. are often not in the public domain yet from what I could find. I could be very wrong about this, but I did spent a while looking (I also spent a lot of time on the British Museum website. Booooo)

I also tried to only use art that could be interpreted as part of a bond with only a slight twist rather than rewriting the history of the art (like with von Ransonnet-Villez). He really made this art by going down in a diving bell and sketching; I just added the soulmate twist. For example, in my research I found "Lokapurusha the Cosmic Man," which visually would work well for my story, but I would've had to completely ignore the actual cultural meaning of this art as a representation of creation for my storytelling, and that felt icky.

The Lia Halloran art is the only one that isn't in the public domain, but I think this art like incepted me and made me write this whole story so I kinda had to use it. I have this exact print in my house. And after I first wrote the first pass at the bonding scene in ch 3, I felt like I hadn't described how much Shane and Ilya were changed and connected, so noodling on that led me to making it mirror the Big Bang (that eventually gave rise to the whole little universe that they have in a way I wasn't expecting when I wrote it). After that, I walked by that print again and was like, "Huh, that's a visual representation of what I'm trying to write in this story." And THAT gave rise to the Whitman quotes peppered throughout. So yeah, that piece was pretty foundational to this story being told.

Monogrammist IAR of IAP, Two Nocturnal Landscapes, 1656. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. nos. RP-T-1986-46 and RP-T-1986-47. Public domain.

Hercules Segers, Rocky Landscape with a Man Walking to the Right, First Version, c. 1625–1630. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-H-OB-823. On loan from the City of Amsterdam. Public domain.

Lia Halloran, Solar (positive), pt 15, 2020. Cyanotype on paper from painted negative, acrylic, and ink. Escalette Permanent Collection of Art, Chapman University.

Unidentified artist, Retreats in the Spring Hills, first half of the 12th century. Song dynasty. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, bequest of John M. Crawford Jr., 1988, accession no. 1989.363.8. Public domain.

Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez, Sketches of the Inhabitants, Animal Life and Vegetation in the Lowlands and High Mountains of Ceylon, as well as of the Submarine Scenery near the Coast, Taken in a Diving Bell, 1867. Vienna: Printed for the author by Gerold; sold by Robert Hardwicke, London. Public domain.

James Nasmyth and James Carpenter, Plate XXII: Aspect of an Eclipse of the Sun by the Earth, as it Would Appear as Seen from the Moon, c. 1870–1874. From The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite. Published by John Murray; lithographed by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son. Public domain.

Chapter 15: Falling Sand

Chapter Summary

Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. Except the opposite of that.

Shane and Ilya do everything in their power (have phone sex) to stave off the ever-worsening effects of spending so much time apart. Shane tries to fight the concept of time. Ilya shows off.

Chapter Notes

CW: Hockey by a non-hockey person.

I did my best. I fucked up my youtube algorithm watching so much gd hockey. I'm sure some of it is wrong. If there are tiny tweaks I could make that would make it better/less jarring, I'm open to that in the comments. If I need to rewrite the whole thing, maybe just skim hard and forgive me?? Some of this language is lifted straight from TLG, so if you have an issue with what Ilya does, I didn't create it.

I've said this before, but I pulled the real 09-10 Bruines/Habs schedule to figure out how this would work for them. I exported the calendar into Excel so I could find all the overlaps or "nearby" cities. It took so long :/ Expand this if you wanna read me yapping more

I looked for any time they were within 5 hours of each other, which was slightly more often than I would've guessed, but I think I made some small tweaks to the Fall schedule, but very few. And I used real concepts, so like them playing in Phoenix on back-to-back nights is a real thing. Tampa Bay and Sunrise "overlap" is a real thing. I didn't know when they would have a night game vs. an afternoon game, but then I read much later, after I wrote this, that they'd probably only have afternoon games on weekends, and I didn't check which days of the week these dates fell on, but I mostly assumed they were playing evening/night games.

Honestly, they got so lucky with how the schedule worked out and the (upcoming) Olympic break. If their schedule had been like the real '17-18 schedule, this either would've been a different story or I would've had to pick a different year.

Previously on Every Atom (this recaps a bit more than just the last chapter):

Shane and Ilya have worked really hard to stabilize their bond but realized that they have a hard time doing something that would hurt the other. Neither of them can check the other on the ice at first, and both have to work hard to overcome this. Shane does it better than Ilya. Ilya lives in constant fear of hurting Shane, and the moments when he gets hurt and shoves his pain into Shane. However, this also hasn't happened since the end of the summer. Ilya finally tells Shane more details about his parents' bond and how his father used it to hurt his mother.

Shane and Ilya establish that they are not just soulmates but also boyfriends right before Ilya meets the Hollanders, who are instantly fond of Ilya. Shane can no longer do his neat little mental categorization tricks for people, but it doesn't seem to impede him getting to know his new teammates and securing a spot on the Voyageurs.

They start to feel the effects of being apart: headaches, joint pain, fatigue, and discover that the more realistic they can make their phone sex, the more relief they feel, which means that Shane gets to pack his dildo on all road trips.

November 4, 2009 

Shane’s whole life was minutes and hours that stretched into eternity and precious seconds that he ran through his fingers like sand. Like an hourglass haunted the corner of his vision.

The Rolex that he was contractually obligated to wear counted down the 5 hours until warm-ups.

His body tallied up the 264 hours since he’d seen Ilya.

He bore the weight of time in his bones. A heavy absence. Like the falling sand escaped the hourglass and fell onto him instead.

He knew how to count a 20-minute period, when to save his energy and when to push. Carefully honed instincts told him the exact moment he should leave it all out there.

He knew no scale to measure the 11,520 minutes until he saw Ilya again. He had no way to save his energy—so he could dole it out for the moments he needed it the most. There was no correct timing, no moment to push. Every minute was a grind against the pull of his body to his soulmate.

There were other numbers—ones that other people cared about.

3^rd line
2^nd power play team
Faceoffs: 54.8%
Average TOI: 17:12

He did care about those too, but those numbers held no weight. People wrote articles about every second he was on the ice. They wrote about how “Hockey’s Hottest Boy Toys” both scored on opening night and how many points they were racking up. They wrote a lot about the 50 goals Ilya swore he'd score this season and everyone acted like Shane had said it too. Their careers just as entangled as their bodies—as if they were one and the same, which they were, but no one was supposed to know that.

No one wrote about the measly 14400 seconds they’d get to spend together. No one else saw the hourglass either.

After the last preseason game, they had to go thirteen days apart until they could both sneak out of their hotel rooms in Tampa Bay and Sunrise, Florida and drive three hours each so that they could meet in Fort Myers, only to sleep in each other’s arms for four hours before they had to turn around and drive back. Then it was another 14 days until they did the same thing from Philly and New York, which brought them to their first 18-day, 25,920-minute, stretch of absence. He didn’t want to know how many grains of sand that would be.

He hoped that the way they felt while apart would plateau instead of building each day, but he knew Ilya was skeptical of that ,even though he didn’t say anything. But what choice did he have except to hope? The sand kept falling.

So Shane tried to only look straight ahead and concentrate on overcoming the embarrassment that took hold when he’d needed to figure out how to discreetly pack the dildo as he traveled, make sure Hayden never saw it, and rent a separate room so he could use said dildo.

First, they only had phone sex at night, but as they were pushing a full 14 days apart, they added a morning call to their routine.

It was always hot; Shane could never quite wrap his mind around the way it really felt like Ilya was with him in those moments, which became even more intense after Ilya bought a fleshlight. But it was sometimes difficult to get started. Chronic pain, exhaustion, the feeling of obligation, and most of all the fucking hourglass were real boner killers.

And the pain was starting to affect their play. Their bodies couldn’t handle the strain, and Shane found it increasingly hard to push it aside on the ice. He was sluggish, missing passes because he was out of position and taking shots a moment too late, after the goalie already had a read on him.

It was perhaps what Coach Thériault would expect from a 19-year-old rookie, but it was not what he expected from Shane Hollander. In the morning skate in Atlanta, the day before he’d finally see Ilya again, Thériault pushed him harder; he was weak, slow.

He finished a passing drill. He’d connected with Hayden, but it wasn’t as sharp as it could’ve been.

“Again”

His head felt like it was splitting open, driving out his ability to think. He was flagging hard, and Ilya was in his own practice, blocking him out as best as he could, struggling just as much. He couldn’t fight the weight of time and the distance between them much longer.

“You good, dude?” Hayden asked.

“Yeah, just a headache.”

Hayden placed a gloved hand on top of his shoulder pads. Shane imagined he was giving it a squeeze, though he couldn’t feel it.

Thériault dismissed them, and he wondered if he’d be benched during the game.

“Sucks. You get a lot of headaches. Has that always happened?”

Shane ducked his head, trying to hide whatever look was on his face.

“No. It’s new. I’m managing it though.”

“Okay. Let me know if you need anything,” Hayden said.

He skated off the ice, eager to find a barbecue restaurant before the game. He had said he’d wanted to go too, though he was regretting it because he had no appetite. Still, he knew he needed to eat enough calories each day or the problems he had would only get worse. More numbers that refused to cooperate.

At the restaurant, hickory smoke and grease hung heavily in the air. He felt the aroma settle into his hair, his nose and clog his pores, like he was taking on calories by osmosis. The tiles forgot they were supposed to be white before Shane had been born but squeaked cleanly as dozens of feet passed over them. Every table in the place was full. Their private room was a bunch of long tables covered in red and white gingham plastic tablecloths that were easy to wipe down when it inevitably got covered in sauce. He sat at the end with Hayden and J.J. Hayden usually tried to get them a spot toward the end of the table because he knew Shane preferred it. Hayden has also gotten J.J. to sit with them since the three of them were becoming fast friends. And yes, Shane could see Ilya’s point that maybe Hayden had a small crush on him.

But J.J. was usually the one all over him. J.J. was all over everyone. He loved to hug, and he kissed everyone on the cheek. On the rare occasions that Shane went out with the team, J.J. spent most of the night with one arm draped around him, protectively.

An intimidating woman who was clearly already over their shit came to take their orders and yelled at them until they finally quieted down and spoke one at a time. She gave the distinct impression that she could and would pick up and toss out anyone who bothered her.

He ordered a pulled pork sandwich, a side of ribs, onion rings, and okra. The okra was the only vegetable that hadn’t been fried or drowned in mayo but were still delicious. The ribs were maybe the best thing he’d ever eaten in his entire life. Even J.J. was quiet for a moment, fully engrossed in his brisket and the extra cornbread that the server had slipped him. Half the team had ended up coming, and he wondered if it would’ve been more cost-effective if they had just ordered an entire pig instead. (The menu said whole pigs needed to be ordered at least three days in advance, and Shane had never seen a crew of hockey players organize anything but plans to black out that far ahead of time.)

Shane thought it was a wonder the tables weren’t bowing under the weight of all the food and hockey player elbows leaning on them. He had gotten down half of what he ordered but that wasn’t enough, so he kept picking at it as he looked around. The walls were covered in sun-faded photos of alleged celebrities who visited, along with newspaper clippings of contests the owners had won. No part of the decor did anything to muffle the sound of 15 loud men talking simultaneously, however.

“Tell us about your boy, Hollywood,” Mitty called down the table over the clamor. All the guys quieted, interested in the answer.

Shane’s first Rolex ad had come out that week, and the guys had immediately switched from the standard Holly or Hollzy he was used to into Hollywood, and he couldn’t quite figure out if they were making fun of him in a friendly way or not. The mixed feelings about him and Ilya seemed to have mostly passed and the team was eager to fold him into the ever-present conversation of increasingly implausible and outlandish sexcapades.

“What do you want to know?”

“Is he always an asshole?”

“Uh, yeah, pretty much.”

“Oh, Hollywood, likes them mean,” J.J. said, bumping his shoulder. “I see you.”

“God, his soulmate is hot. Tell me, did you go to Paris?” Drapeau asked. “I mean, she was with you guys all summer. No way you didn’t.”

The guys all started talking over one another and staring down the table at him. Hayden touched his arm gently.

“Um. No? We were in LA all summer, training. But Svetlana was there, yeah.”

All the guys started absolutely losing their shit. Shane looked down at his hands and the food growing cold on his plate, and he knew he should be embarrassed but wasn’t sure why.

So he didn’t hear who said,

“Rozanov will teach him soon enough. You know he must be an animal in the sack.”

Shane’s head whipped up. This was nothing he hadn’t heard before a thousand times on all his teams. Honestly, it was tamer than half of the things the guys said, but he usually managed to stay out of it. His juniors teammates would chirp him for being practically celibate or wanting to fuck the concept of hockey, but his love life was mostly non-existent, so they had limited material to work with.

But now stories about him and Ilya or him, Ilya, and Svetlana were splashed across the internet and print media. The sports world talked about them because of Shane and Ilya, and the gossip magazines talked about them because of Sveta.

“Are you guys vers or are you boring?” Drapeau asked. “I don’t like to pick, so if a guy only wants to do one, I make sure he knows he’s not the only ass in town.”

“Damn straight. But can you see Rozanov bottoming? There’s no way.” Comeau said. “I don’t like that kinda stuff much, but sometimes my wife likes to—”

“Okay, boys. Let’s get out of here before they start charging us for damages,” Polyak said. “We have a few hours before we leave for the game, so go back to the hotel and rest. I don’t want any of you chucklefucks getting up to anything between now and then.”

Polyak started checking the bill, and Shane started to zone out. His whole body was pulsing, each beat of his heart sending a wave of pain through him. Shane didn’t really remember getting back to his room. He felt like he was falling apart and had no idea how he was going to play a game in a few hours.

He looked at the time and called Ilya anyway. It went straight to voicemail like he expected, since Ilya should be on a flight to Detroit. By the time Ilya landed, Shane would need to leave for warmups. Thinking about playing in this condition made him want to vomit, which didn’t help things.

He knew what would help, but Ilya was stuck on a plane. Planes had bathrooms, though, and Shane was feeling desperate and knew Ilya would be no better. Getting off this way wasn’t quite as good as when they set it up like they were together, but it still helped.

He would just make himself hard, nothing that Ilya couldn’t cover up with a jacket or tuck away if he couldn’t go to the bathroom. But if he could and started touching himself, then he would know it was okay. He glanced around the room. Hayden had fallen asleep, so he quietly went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and got under the hot water. He hoped Atlanta wasn’t in a drought. He wasn’t going to be able to stand for long, hopefully, so he took a towel and put it on the bottom of the tub and laid on that while the warm water ran over him. It wasn’t comfortable, but the water felt nice.

He ran his hands down his torso and then he closed his eyes and imagined it was Ilya touching him instead. It didn’t take long, and he realized that he had been using Ilya’s muscle memory.

It felt so good. Not quite as good as having Ilya’s actual hand around him or even his voice in his ear, but very good. He wasn’t going to last long and made himself stop. To wait and see if he felt anything from Ilya.

It wasn’t immediate, but sure enough, a few minutes later, Shane felt the distinct feeling of Ilya beginning to stroke himself. Shane was still hard and thinking about Ilya sneaking off and trying to stay quiet, but the idea that someone might still hear him drove him wild.

He didn’t fight to stay in his body; he wanted to float away from the pain for as long as he could. He reached that space as he always did, floating down gently through the stars. The stars were so bright—part of the sky streaked white with their density, and he had understood for perhaps the first time how the Milky Way got its name. He didn’t think the same constellations were here, but it was hard to pick out any among all the twinkling stars. Shane gently reached the grass at the same moment as Ilya. It was cool and dewy on his bare feet. They both looked around as they walked towards each other—exchanging brief glances around. He didn’t think much had changed since the last time, but their time here had been so quick, and all he cared about was Ilya. It was such a relief to see him, and spend time with him, even if it was like this. The warm air whipped around him as he ran, trying to reach Ilya, knowing it wouldn’t last—not with them so far apart. And as soon as he was within arm’s reach, he was pulled away. Back in his body. Back on the shower floor. He felt the tears slip out.

He slammed the shower handle off, wiped away the tears and the water, put on whatever item of clothing was at the top of his suitcase and fell into bed as his headache started creeping back in.

 He napped until Hayden’s alarm went off. When he checked his phone, he saw a text from Ilya.

Ilya:
Fuck Hollander that was so hot )))
Good luck tonight

His head still hurt, but he was able to ignore the falling sand as he headed out the door.

---

The Next Day
November 5^th, 2009

Ilya was finally in Montreal. Their game wasn’t until the next night, but Shane had gotten back to town earlier that day. He knew Shane was waiting for him already. Shane was trying to play it cool and wait in his new car while the Bears shuffled out of the bus, sorted their bags, and checked in to their hotel. But Ilya was more than willing to take whatever shit the team gave him to relieve the way his body throbbed and pulled.

He glanced around: The coaches were all inside, sorting through hotel assignments and keycards. He imagined that Shane was very keyed into him at that moment, so even if he didn’t see Ilya wave him over, he would feel the motion of his hand.

As soon as he moved his hand, the door of Shane’s black SUV popped open. Seeing the movement, Marlow and Carmichael looked up, and Marlow let out a loud wolf whistle. Marlow was a well-intentioned idiot, and Ilya was increasingly fond of him. He found himself explicitly labeling people in a way he never used to. Cliff was a friend and a meathead joke. Carmichael was an incorrigible flirt with a keen awareness of other players’ weaknesses. Ilya had never thought so explicitly about the people around him. He’d always simply relied on his instincts, which he still did, but he felt like he could almost see these little tags attached to people now.

“Hollzy,” Carmichael yelled across the parking lot. “Shouldn’t be surprised to see you here. Can’t stay away from our boy, can you?”

Ilya’s cheeks heated up, but he was already moving toward Shane so no one could see their shared blush. The second he got his arms around Shane, he felt all the pain vanish. It felt like every cell in his body individually relaxed. Like he’d been submerged in warm, healing waters and never wanted to get out again. Like the way the first drag of a cigarette would hit before he had a bossy soulmate who mostly got him to quit. Christ, he’d missed feeling Shane in his arms. He inhaled deeply, and it felt like he’d done molly—his skin felt amazing.

He whispered in Shane’s hair, “You bought a Toyota?”

“Shut up, asshole. It’s a hybrid. Good in the snow.”

“A hybrid?”

“Well, we fly so much. I thought it would help.”

Before he could respond. Marlow was grabbing Shane, and they broke apart. 

“Cliff Marlow, nice to meet you!”

They shook hands, and Ilya felt how stiff Shane was. Ilya bumped him with his hip.

“I’m Shane Hollander. Nice to meet you, too.”

“I fucking know, rook.”

A small line of Bears had formed behind Marlow to greet him as if they hadn’t already played two full hockey games against each other.

“Look, Hollzy,” Victor St. Simon, one of the alternate captains, said. “I don’t make the rules; my wife does. And she said you have to join the PIP chat. As both a Partner and Important Person, it is simply a requirement. She is literally burning the idea into my head right now since she knows I’m in Montreal.”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that like a conflict of interest or something?”

“Probably,” he joked. “But seriously, there’s no sensitive information in the chat. And for every practice that you’re not in the group, Rozy’s going to have to do extra conditioning. Coach approved.”

He groaned as Shane flashed his rare mischievous smile to St. Simon.

“I’m not actually opposed to that.”

A bunch of the guys laughed.

“Ooo,” Marlow said. “In trouble already. It’ll only get worse after we fucking crush you tomorrow Hollzy.”

“You wish, dude. You’re not going to know what hit you.”

The banter continued as Ilya just stared at Shane. He loved watching Shane chirp his teammates. He loved this version of Shane, at home amongst idiot hockey players. A lot of people thought this was the act—that the hyper-focused hockey machine they saw was the real Shane, but Ilya knew the opposite was true. He was under so much pressure to be perfect and to laugh along with all the “jokes” at his expense, so seeing him a little more carefree and silly warmed his heart.

“Roz do us all a favor and fuck him so good he can’t skate straight tomorrow,” St. Simon said.

Shane’s nose wrinkled briefly before he flattened his face, and he slipped his mask back on.

“Shane could lose a leg and still skate better than you, Vicky,” Ilya said, trying to save Shane from having to respond. “Fuck off all of you. Let me say hi to Shane.”

“I’ll get your room key, Roz, but you have like five minutes max,” Marlow said as the guys shuffled away.

He wrapped himself around Shane again, hand snaking up the back of his shirt to try to touch as much of him as possible.

“Sorry about them. You would skate perfectly no matter how good I fucked you.”

“Uh, thanks, I think? Whatever. It’s not like I don’t hear worse every day. I guess I’ll come back after your practice? And remember tomorrow’s dinner with my parents. They’re excited to see you again and watch us play in person.”

Ilya smiled at them.

“Will they be in their Rozanov jerseys?”

“You know my mom burned those.”

“Mmm. I think your dad hid his. He will wear it.”

“Fuck off. He’s my dad!”

Shane shoved his chest playfully,

“You need to go.”     

Ilya pressed a quick kiss to Shane’s lips, grabbed his bags, and joined the last of the guys shuffling into the hotel room, eagerly awaiting getting to see Shane properly after practice.

---

The ground was colder than Ilya remembered, but not unpleasantly so. He didn’t think that he could find any situation when Shane was wrapped around him unpleasant. They were naked, laying on the bank of a river. In the distance, he knew it fed into a giant lake, though they had never been there. It should’ve been uncomfortable—the ground beneath them had committed to being sandy or rocky and instead was both. He should’ve been covered in sand with rocks digging into his skin between them but he was as comfortable as if he were in bed. There had been some sort of weight on him for the past… weeks? Months? He couldn’t quite remember. But it was gone now, so that was what he really cared about.

They had been by this river for a long time, swimming, lounging, and simply existing. But always touching. They had also made out a lot, deep, passionate kisses and soft languid ones, but never escalating beyond that. It was more having as much skin-to-skin contact as possible rather than finding release. They’d had sex recently, but exactly how long ago escaped him.

The river was familiar and foreign all at once. It reminded him of summer and Sveta—long days outside running through town and absconding from parents and nannies, hiding in the trees and the banks of the river. It was one of the only places he’d felt true peace since his mama died. This looked like the river near her summer house, but that once didn’t open onto a lake nor was it surrounded by the soft rolling hills and waving tall grass.

He was in his favorite place with his favorite person. He did wish Sveta was here too but had some instinct that this wasn’t a place for her. It wasn’t for anyone else but them. Shane wasn’t moving, but he was being pulled. He wanted to go to the lake, but Ilya had needed to stay here, somewhere familiar, somewhere that, despite the incongruous details, was home. He’d spent so long in a foreign city with ridiculous accents whose founders used cows walking through swamps in their urban planning. He wasn’t sure that was actually true, but driving around it certainly felt true. It also felt like the cows would be better drivers. There was a lot he liked about Boston, but either way it wasn’t home.

Next time, he’d said to Shane as he gazed longingly in the direction of the lake. And Shane, sensing his need, had settled into his side again. Lying like that for so long, it was difficult for him to recognize where he ended and Shane began, and it was more difficult to remember why that was an important distinction.

It was difficult to tell how much time had passed because the sun didn’t move across the sky like it should. The pull Shane felt was becoming overpowering—different from his longing for the river. It was pulling him up, away from this place. Neither of them wanted to go, but they could no longer keep their feet on the ground. The stars flew past in a blur until they faded into the tan wallpaper and white ceiling of Shane’s hotel room.

Light streamed through the thick, chevron blackout curtains that weren’t entirely closed, which struck Ilya as strange. It should be evening. Shane was stirring on top of him, slowly peeling—literally peeling—himself off.

Shane made a noise of open disgust. Shane had collapsed on top of him onto his own cum after they’d orgasmed, and however long they’d been by the river had been long enough for the cum to dry and stick them together even more than their sweat had done. Ilya felt disgusting, and Shane felt worse, as he was more sensitive to sensation and covered in more fluid.

Despite the currently unpleasant tactile sensations, Ilya felt better than he had in 20 days. Nevertheless, he was ravenous. They’d planned to have sex, zone out, nap, and then go to dinner, which made how light it was outside confusing.

Shane had left bed, and Ilya mourned the loss of his touch, so he got up to follow him to the shower. Shane, sensing the way Ilya was going to press their bodies together, said,

“Do not come near me. This is awful.”

Ilya didn’t blame him; Shane was viscerally uncomfortable. As they walked across the hotel room, Shane picked up his phone and squinted at it.

“It’s 9 o’clock.”

That couldn’t be right. It was light outside. If it was 9 p.m., it would be dark and that would mean they’d been out of it for three or four hours. They’d never timed it, but it was never more than thirty or forty minutes, approximately. It would explain why he was so hungry. They should’ve eaten hours ago. He was pretty sure that was ultimately what had pulled them out. Shane was positively ravenous. Ilya had a snack after practice, but Shane had come straight over after his own practice, only eating a protein bar since they would go to dinner soon.

“Ilya, it’s 9 a.m. It’s morning.”

Ilya bumped into Shane, knocking his phone out of his hand. Ilya grabbed Shane to steady him and kept shuffling them to the shower, too stunned to say anything else. They weren’t gone for three or four hours—it was closer to 15 hours, almost long enough to miss two meals. No one they were so hungry.

“Fuck, I’m going to be late.”

“It’s optional morning skate, no?”

Shane gritted his teeth, and Ilya had his answer. The team might say it was optional, but Shane had never considered it so. Shane turned on the water, and the room immediately began to fill with steam. Shane seemed intent on burning off his top layer of skin with the scalding water. Ilya turned it down slightly so they wouldn’t literally get burned.

“Shower and food is more important than skating. You don’t have any clean base layers anyway. Not enough time to go home and make it to practice.”

Shane was so tense. It seemed like he was wearing his shoulders as earrings. They stepped into the shower. It was just big enough for both of them, and he let Shane get under the water first since he was the grosser one.

“It’s never been so long before,” Shane said.

“No.”

“Do you think it was because we were gone for so long? Like we couldn’t really get there while apart?”

“Maybe. I don’t know what else it could be.”

Could they get stuck there? Or would hunger and thirst always wake them up? They both had voracious appetites. He was honestly surprised it had taken so long for that to rouse them. He was even less sure what they could do about it. This wouldn’t be their only long stretch of absences. They would need to plan for this better.

“Where is that? It felt like you.”

“Mmhm. It was kind of like Rublevka where Sveta’s summer house is. The river was like that. But not quite. Real place is flat, full of mansions and trees, no small hills and big grass. We go there every summer. Is my favorite place in the world.”

Shane seemed to consider that while he moved out of the water so Ilya could start getting clean. The smell of his sport shampoo filled the air, and Ilya realized that he didn’t have any of his hair products. He knew he’d be much better off just rinsing his hair instead of subjecting his curls to crappy hotel shampoo.  It was not going to be his best hair day.

“It was nice. I have a place like that, our cottage on the lake. I grew up spending summers there. I want to take you there.”

They’d both started scrubbing themselves with washcloths. They took turns washing each other’s backs, and it did feel like he’d shed a layer of skin by the time he actually felt clean. By the time they were clean, dry and clothed, he thought Shane was on the verge of eating one of their legs. The hotel breakfast was nearly over, but it probably wouldn’t look good to his team for Shane to be there after Ilya had not been in his room all night. Although he wasn’t really sure what difference it would make. If his coaches had realized that he hadn’t been in his room overnight in Montreal, they would know he was with Shane. If Marlow had successfully covered for him, then it wouldn’t be that strange that his long-distance boyfriend came to have breakfast with him. In the end, it didn’t matter. Marlow had covered for him, though he’d gotten a lot of shit from him for it, and there were only scraps left for in the breakfast room, so they grabbed a few muffins and found the nearest diner, each ordering two full meals to try to make up the calories they’d missed.

---
Later that night
November 6, 2009

Bell Centre practically shook from the force of the crowd’s screams when Shane stepped onto the ice to take the faceoff against Ilya. The fans’ energy at Bell Centre was practically an opponent of its own. The decibel reader was on the jumbotron, only goading the crowd to get louder as they hit 102, then 103 decibels.

Shane had grown up attending Voyageurs’ games and probably heard it louder than this during a playoff series, but this was for him. It was the kind of noise that canceled out his other senses. He could only see the crowd as he waved to them—he could no longer smell the sweat, ice, and rubber combo that permeated everything, and could only feel their energy pouring into him. This, this moment right here, was what it was all for. This feeling was worth everything he sacrificed and validated everything he was still fighting for. This would likely be his high-water mark for hockey until he lifted the Cup above his head.

Shane was currently skating to center ice—a testament to the power of the league’s marketing team. After the second game against Boston, he was convinced that Thériault would never let him take a faceoff against Ilya. He had a goal and an assist in the two games and had taken the puck off Ilya multiple times. So, no one could genuinely accuse him of going easy on Ilya or Boston. In fact, a columnist had broken down both games and compared them to other games and found little difference.

They were both blocking, not taking any risks. Blocking still felt like he was squeezing his fist as tightly as he could while needing to use both hands, but he was stronger now. It no longer took all of his mental energy to hold the block. If he wanted to block Ilya, he did, even if it was tiring. As Shane moved toward him, he thought about how strange it felt to look at Ilya and not feel him. It was off-putting to only be aware of him on the ice in the same way he was aware of every other player.

Shane was ready for this, though. He knew Ilya too well to let him get into his head. He thought his lack of response might get to Ilya even more now than it clearly had when they played at the World Juniors. He got into position—gaze down—focused. The crowd was so loud, ecstatic to finally see the first Hollander-Rozanov faceoff.  Ilya said very slowly and deliberately around his mouthguard:

«First face-off. Try not to lose too badly.»

«I won’t.»

«You will show them what a good boy you can be?»

What Shane had not counted on was the Pavlovian reaction his dick had developed to Russian. Ilya could’ve said anything, and it would’ve gotten to him, but the fact that he said khoroshiy mal'chik, good boy, made his taunt hit just that much harder.

Shane tightened his grip on his stick, but there was zero chance Ilya missed the shade of red he must be turning. Still, trying to respond would only further distract him.

He steadied his breathing and wondered where the hell the refs were. He felt like he’d been holding this pose for 10 minutes. Were they told to draw this out?

Eventually, the puck did drop, and Shane won the faceoff.

But Ilya intercepted a pass and took off through the Voyageurs’ zone. Shane raced after him, but Ilya was too far ahead, using his incredible speed to make sure no one caught him. When Ilya reached the net, he switched to his backhand, and in the split second before he took the shot, Shane realized what he was doing. Ilya had left the puck where it was, faking the backhand shot and forcing Drapeau to move. Then, lightning fast, Ilya fired a forehand wrist shot over the goalie’s shoulder. The goal light flashed. And then he turned around, face glistening with sweat and split into a huge, genuine smile, which he quickly schooled into his signature cocky smirk and winked at Shane.

Winked.

Before Shane could even figure out what kind of face he was making or how to respond, Ilya was engulfed by his teammates. In Bell Centre, an eerie quiet descended as they processed what Shane knew had to be The Rozanov. All he could hear over the rushing in his ears was the whooping cheers of the Boston players and Ilya’s roar of victory.

“You should probably close your mouth, man,” J.J. said.

He snapped his teeth together and tried not to think about watching his face over and over again in the inevitable highlight reels of this goal.

His body was at war with itself; he burned with rage that he had let a Boston play show them up on home ice, but he also pulsed with a distinct mixture of pride and lust that his fucking soulmate had just pulled off that move.

He dropped his block and immediately felt that Ilya already had. Ilya’s head snapped up from the pile of Bears, and they just stared at each other while their arousal, pride, rage, and relief swirled between them. They did need words; he could see perfectly what Ilya was saying in the space between them

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

 He hadn’t realized how he was moving toward Ilya until Hayden skated past him and said,

“You can fight with him later about it. Our shift is over.”

Shane changed course and went to the bench.

With three minutes left in the third, Montreal was down by one but had the extra man. The Rozanov had changed the momentum of the game, and its brutal declaration still echoed through the cowed crowd. Shane was determined to give it an answer. He won the faceoff cleanly, and the puck moved around the perimeter.

Boiziau, Pike.

Across.

Shane was already moving toward the net. The pass connected, and he took the shot immediately. It hit the goalie’s pads, and Bell Centre groaned, but began to pick up in volume. The Bears iced the puck and forced them to regroup. 

Boston’s penalty kill was top of the division. The Voyageurs hadn’t converted on any of them this game, and Shane knew there would be hell to pay in practice tomorrow.

He tried to steady his breathing as Boiziau reached the blue line and passed.

Comeau. Pike. Hollander.

No looks. The Bears maintained a perfect box and closed any seams immediately.

Back to Pike. He feigned left and the penalty kill shifted with him.

The goalie committed as to Pike’s fake before he sent a risky pass through a barely-there seam where Shane was waiting.

Ilya read the play and was close enough to check Shane before he could get the puck off. Or he should’ve been.

But Ilya hesitated.

It might not have been obvious to anyone else, but Shane could feel it. The part of Ilya that put him above everything else. The part that had no place on the ice but they each carried with them nonetheless.

By the time Ilya tried to block the shot, it was too late. He’d given Shane the split second that he needed to get the puck in the net.

After the game, Shane realized that he was lucky that the rest of the Voyageurs surrounded him to celebrate because it stopped him from being able to make a scene with Ilya. He wanted to scream in his face.

He had never felt so angry. But once his teammates moved away from him, he’d regained enough composure to realize that getting in Ilya’s face would only make things worse. Instead, he dropped his walls, letting his palpable rage out. But with it, he felt Ilya’s probable guilt in the roiling of his stomach, and the shame that clung tightly to his hunched shoulders.

It took the edge off his rage, but he still refused to look at Ilya as he skated off the ice. The power play was over, and both teams sent out their first line to try to break the tie in the final minutes of the game.

When he passed by Thériault, his coach gave him a single nod, and Shane wondered if he would smile for anything less than the cup.

After the game, none of the media questioned either of them about Ilya’s hesitation. When Shane watched the tape, it looked like Ilya bought the fake alongside the rest of his team and had simply responded a moment too late.

Shane should’ve gone out with his team. They’d even told him that he could bring Ilya, but he couldn’t stomach the thought. Instead, he drove straight to Ilya’s hotel and waited in the room Shane rented. It was much easier for Ilya to avoid the appearance of breaking curfew if he stayed in the same hotel. He paced for what felt like hours, hyper-aware of Ilya, sitting, likely on the bus, walking to his room, and changing. He wondered if Ilya was deliberately stalling, trying to let Shane’s anger recede with time.

He still wanted to scream at Ilya, to try to make him understand what that hesitation could cost them. But Ilya knew. Of course he did. So when he heard the knock at the door, and they finally fell into each other’s arms, he found himself fighting back angry tears, but no longer solely directed at Ilya.

“You can’t do that, Ilya. If anyone noticed—”

“I know, Shane. I’m sorry.”

“You know what they’d say about me. They’d say you know I’m not good enough to beat you. That you don’t think I can handle it. They’d take it as proof that I don’t belong on the ice.”

“Shane.”

Ilya squeezed him harder. It felt like he was trying to force all the air out of his lungs but not unpleasantly. The tight embrace was soothing. A few tears rolled down his cheek and fell onto Ilya’s soft cotton shirt.

“I know it’s not true, but shit like that makes it seem like it is.”

«Rodnoy.»

“Don’t rodnoy me. I don’t get to make mistakes. I have to be perfect, or I don’t get to play. I thought you got that.”

He still wanted to scream—at Ilya some but also at the world. Shane buried his head in Ilya’s neck and enjoyed the faint smell of his tea tree oil soap while Ilya ran his fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry, Shane. I didn’t mean to.”

“But you did. I can take it. I’m not some weak thing you have to protect.”

Ilya’s body gave a small spasm, and Shane couldn’t quite tell if it was a hiccup or sob or something else.

“I really am sorry, Shane. I know you can take it, Shane. You know it’s just instinct. I will do better. Knock out one of your teeth next time.”

“This is fucked. I hate this so much. What we have is so good. It shouldn’t have the power to cost us everything.”

«I know, rodnoy. Me too. But it didn’t change the end of the game. If it makes you feel better, you still lost.»

He tried to twist out of Ilya’s arms halfheartedly, but Ilya held him in place. Instead, he pulled his head back and looked Ilya dead in the eyes, seeing a hint of the playful sparkle there.

“Asshole! It’s important to me that you understand that’s not how that works.”

Shane tried to be serious, but it felt too good to be in Ilya’s arms. And the pinch to Ilya’s brows and the faint downturn of his lips juxtaposed so sharply with the way he looked on the ice, shining with sweat and pride and lust. And Shane wanted it back. He wanted the Ilya who could not be tamed or pinned down by words or by fear—the Ilya who owned all the ice he ever touched.

 A faint smile tugged at his lips, contrasting with the wet tear tracks he still felt on his cheeks. Ilya cupped his face, wiping them away, and smirked at him while he said something in Russian that Shane didn’t understand wholly, but clearly ended in khoroshiy mal'chik.

“That was a dirty fucking move, Rozanov. You knew exactly what you were doing to me. Too bad it didn’t help you win the faceoff.”

Ilya blinked at him, wide-eyed and innocent at the same time that he pressed his thigh between Shane’s legs.

He groaned as he leaned his head forward into Ilya’s shoulder.

«No. It’s too bad for you that I didn’t need it. Tell me, rodnoy, did you like The Rozanov?»

Shane saw the stunning move again in his head and felt the flames of pride and arousal that he had on the ice. Ilya rubbed his thigh against his burgeoning erection.

«I think you did. But maybe not as much as I liked hearing the crowd’s silence. Have you ever heard them that quiet, Hollander?» he asked as he moved both of them backwards toward the bed.

Shane tilted his head so his mouth was against Ilya’s ear and whispered, “Fuck. You.”

Ilya threaded his fingers through his hair and pulled his head back sharply, and he saw the heat in Ilya’s blue eyes as he thrust against Ilya’s leg.

«I felt what you wanted on the ice. How you needed me. What did you want more? To get down on your knees or for me to fuck you in front of everyone—show them how well you take it?» 

He tried to lean in and kiss Ilya to make him shut the hell up. But Ilya tugged firmly on his hair and moved his leg from between Shane’s legs. He tried to press his hips into Ilya again, but his other hand held him back—a challenging glint in Ilya’s eye played out like lightning strikes in his blood, but he said nothing.

«Show me. Show me how you wanted it on the ice.»

He kept his eyes locked with Ilya as he sank to his knees.

Chapter End Notes

Bell Centre is generally considered one of the loudest NHL arenas. It regularly registers over 100 decibels. This is a logarithmic scale, not a linear one. It was once so loud the vibration registered on the Richter scale.

I will throw in a bit of hometown rep that the football stadium in Kansas City is the loudest arena in sports, but they're building a new stadium, so in a few years it won't be. I don't actually care about sports, but when you're from the Midwest, sometimes you cling to any and all 15 minutes of fame for your city.

1332-1333
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

Chapter 16: Texting

Chapter Summary

Texts between different combos of Shane, Ilya, and Sveta. One between Witty and Shane. Plus, Shane gets a very warm welcome into Boston's PIP chat.

Chapter Notes

I would not recommend skipping this one if you often skip epistolary stuff.

The PIP chat gets a little crack fic-y for a second. I simply couldn't control myself. My favorite micro trope is when WAGs (or in this case PIPs) openly thirst over Shane in their chat, so I've adapted that to fit this fic. I didn't have everyone introduce themselves because I don't think we'll see them again, so it doesn't matter so much if they're a partner or soulmate (or both!)

Remember, Witty was Shane's teammate on the Juniors who didn't play against Russia in the final because he had a new somatic bond. He also decided not to enter the draft and is playing hockey at McGill. Also, Andrew Edmonds is the Bears' GM who we've met briefly during the combine :)

Ilya

November 14 9:52 PM

shane can i get a tattoo

You

What?

of a bear

You

No, I wasn’t asking what you wanted. I was asking what the fuck?? But absolutely the fuck not.

would be so cool. plus its my body

You

My body. Only I get to leave marks.

fuck hollander

You

I'm serious, Ilya. No tattoos.

i see why u like this hollander so hot

You

Don't get hard! I'm on the team bus!

You

Oh fuck you, Rozanov!

Sveta

November 16 12:03 PM

You

When are you back in Boston? Ilya’s so annoying right now

you think he’s annoying? You don’t have him LITERALLY in your head pinning for his boyfriend

You

I miss him too. I don’t miss him complaining about how neglected he is by both of us, though.

I feel bad. He’s lonely but then I don’t feel bad because some of us are SINGLE

You

You and Elsie broke up again?

yeah. she’s not leaving LA and i’m starting school in a few months so it just doesn’t make sense

You

Do you want to talk? I have some time if you don’t mind me doing some meal prep while we talk.

Ilya

November 18 10:14 AM

You

Why are you so hot

i know very sexy. unfair for you

You

No, I feel like I’m burning up and my back aches.

oh i have a fever

You

Jesus, please take something.

running a fever is good for you

You

I have practice!! Take a Tylenol

so bossy

Sveta

November 22 2:33 PM

Ugh I can’t believe I have to start school soon

You

Gross. Glad I’m done with that.

You

Can I ask you something?

I don’t know how I could explain where the clit is better without showing you

You

JESUS. I NEVER asked you that in the first place. You just started telling me anyway.

i love watching ilyas face turn red like that. thank you. its truly a gift

You

ANYWAY. Why are you going to Harvard if you want to be a professional dancer?

Like most of the annoying things I do its because of my mom. She’ll cut me off if I don’t go to business school. She thinks I’ll grow up and take over the family business.

like hello. Im not going to run a petrochemical company anywhere except into the ground. But I'm smart as fuck so Im going to kill it at Harvard. Plus the Crimson Dance Team is really good. Then have my own dance company one day or something. I have a dream board

You

you’ll be great at that. I have practice so I have to go but I miss you

love you!

You

Love you too!

Света

November 22 1:59 AM

dinner tonight? we can watch shanes game <3

You

cant team dinner tonight my turn to buy those fuckers lobsters

(( tomorrow?

You

maybe

Света

November 23 10:59 AM

is shane coming here for Christmas or are you going there? Can I come. If my mom asks what I'm doing I want to have plans

November 24 8:03 AM

??? Christmas ???

You

not sure will ask shane and get back to you

You

elsie coming?

no

You

sad for you. you need to get laid. be less annoying for both of us

fuck you

Sveta

November 25 8:19 PM

Ilya wont tell me anything about Christmas. What are we doing?

You

I told him yesterday I would come to Boston. I have a game against Carolina on the 24, so I’ll fly in. I'll leave on the 26.

did you buy me something nice?

You

Of course!

Did your mom pick it out?

You

No!

If I saw Ilya would he be bright red right now?

You

I hate you. We went shopping together, okay?

You

Can't wait to see you

miss you too Shane <3

Witty

November 27 7:45 PM

Hey Hollzy! Sick goal last night. You're killing like we knew you would.

You

Great to hear from you! Thanks. I saw your highlight reel. Nice work. Hows McGill?

It's awesome. Not getting quite as many minutes as I would like but I love university.

You

I'm glad that you like it overall. I'm sure you'll get more time the longer you're there. Still considering going for the draft?

Yeah man for sure. I'd still like to I think. Blocking out Mitchell has gotten much easier, so it doesn't hurt him really anymore. But you how it is with these kinds of bonds

You

Oh, good. I remember you saying it was really tiring. When did it stop being tiring?

took a few months

You

Nice. What made the difference?

some was just practice but we had some good techniques from the bond center

You

What were the techniques

Its kinda hard to explain but mostly just visualizations.

Anyway, it'd be cool to hang again. Will you be around for Christmas break?

You

I only have one day off and I'll be in Boston. I don't get much of a break :(

Yeah that's a crazy schedule. Hopefully it'll be me one day too

You

I'm sure it will be! Listen I gotta run to PT, but we'll find a time to hang.

great catching up. good luck out there!

Boston PIPs

November 30 7:56 PM

Haley (Marlow)

Everyone, welcome Shane Hollander to Boston’s PIP chat! Only a few months late :)

Ken (Connors)

welcome Shane!

Marcus (St. Simon)

OMG i have been WAITING for this moment. Fuck he's so hot. I just wanna pinch his cheeks

Ken (Connors)

oh i thought he was already in the chat lol. which cheeks?

Marcus (St. Simon)

whatever he'll allow

Jen (Miranov)

I think you should be equally concerned with what Roz would allow

Ken (Connors)

no for real he seems very territorial

Svetlana (Rozanov)

oh Shane is going to LOVE this chat

Anton (Dubek)

by love do you mean hate

Svetlana (Rozanov)

yes this is going to be amazing for me

Jen (Miranov)

youre evil. Have I mentioned how much that does it for me?

Svetlana (Rozanov)

sounds familiar ;)

Ken (Connors)

take your sexting out of the group chat

Anton (Dubek)

no no I wanna watch

Marcus (St. Simon)

sorry we all moved on from SHANE HOLLANDER much too quickly

LaToya (St. Simon)

too quickly? You've been thirsting after that boy since the draft

Marcus (St. Simon)

we were ROBBED of Hollander (no offense Svetlana)

Svetlana (Rozanov)

oh none taken. I wasn't surprised Boston picked Ilya after the juniors but Edmonds has an excellent track record of poor decisions

Jen (Miranov)

oh god dont stop. Im close

Ken (Connors)

but seriously hollander is so hot. I cant wait for him to join. Do you think we can get him to a wine night?

Haley (Marlow)

OH MY GOD I CANT LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR 5 MINUTES

Haley (Marlow)

I DID ALREADY ADD HIM TO THE CHAT

Ken (Connors)

oops

Marcus (St. Simon)

my bad

Svetlana (Rozanov)

this made my week

welcome Shane!

Jen (Miranov)

Welcome Hollander! As you can tell were very excited to meet you and very normal

LaToya (St. Simon)

Welcome Hollander! Please ignore them and tell me who i need to make shut up besides Marcus and Ken

You

Hello everyone. It's very Nice to meet you all. Thanks for the warm welcome!

Marcus (St. Simon)

aw look hes so formal and sweet

LaToya (St. Simon)

I'm going to remove you Marcus

Anton (Dubek)

Welcome Shane!

Sveta

November 30 8:47 PM

You

Are the PIPs always like that?

you made them extra horny but yea. They’re as bad as the player honestly

You

great

is Ilya joining the Montreal chat?

You

No. They're more exclusive. It's a SaS chat.

spouses and soulmates only!?

You

Yeah. But everything I've heard about it seems awful and petty, so it's probably for the best

still, he should be in it. sorry

You

thanks <3

have you talked about this summer? you're coming to Russia right?

You

Yes! We talked dates, but I'm leaving the specifics up to him. It's not a long trip but I'm excited

we usually go to my summer house for a bit. I want to bring you!

You

sounds amazing!

Chapter 17: Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter

Chapter Summary

Shane, Ilya, and Sveta celebrate Christmas while frustrations rise between Ilya and Sveta. Shane and Ilya (mostly) enjoy the Olympics and continue to actually talk about things.

Chapter Notes

CW: Canon-typical discussions of suicide.

Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter = Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together

I got some great advice from Glaciere about where Sveta's dacha would likely be located. They said that Rublevka is a better location, so I've changed it in the previous chapter. Nothing else changed, just the name. Apparently, they would still call the multi-million-dollar mansions "dachas," which is a funny parallel to Shane's giant house which is still called a cottage because that's just the word for it even if implies something much more modest.

Previously on Every Atom:

In the first day after their bond, Shane said he would get a precription for blocking medication and Ilya told him blockers don't work on their kind of bond specifically. After getting injured, even in minor ways, Ilya has a history of freaking out because he thinks he's pushing his pain into Shane. This hasn't happened in a while, but Ilya's paranoia about hurting Shane continues to manifest when he hesitates before checking Shane on the ice during a game which leaves Shane angry and sad. The boys barely weathered their first 20-day stretch apart and ended up knocked out for 15 hours since they'd been apart for so long.

Svetlana has been traveling, seeing her parents and her (now ex) girlfriend Elsie and popping in and out of Boston until she starts at Harvard in January, which shouldn't be possible for undergrads, but both of her divorced parents are rich enough to open doors that should be shut and think that's enough to buy her love.

Oh Web of Life is a trashy reality TV show that Sveta got Ilya and Shane into this summer about Giselle, Lola (married, simple cerebral bond) Kai, and Victor (married, simple cerebral bond). Over the summer Lola and Victor formed a profound but platonic somatic bond, and Giselle and Lola had to move to the US. Giselle hates Victor and Kai. This isn't that important, but it is referenced.

December 24^th, 2009

Shane only had two days off at Christmas and flew in late after an afternoon game in Carolina instead of going back to Montreal. Their schedule had been just manageable since the 20-day stretch. Shane had a few days without games in mid-November when he went to New York to see Ilya, they both had a few days at the end of November, and they played again in Boston in early December. It was a grind, but it was becoming increasingly familiar. They figured out that if they’d been apart for more than two weeks, they couldn’t have sex right away or they’d risk knocking themselves out for +12 hours. Instead, they curled up and simply relaxed their boundaries, no longer sensing where one person began and the other ended. By the morning, they were stable enough not to lose themselves for hours, but it never felt quite as good as it had after they’d been gone for so long. However, they’d been extremely lucky that they had barely had to push two weeks since November.

Ilya had spent the day before Christmas Eve drinking Baileys and putting up a tree since he had a game on the 24^th too. It all felt oddly early to be doing this sort of thing, but Americans were wrong about many things, including winter holidays. They both had games on New Year’s Eve, but Ilya at least would get to be home, but wouldn’t get to celebrate with Shane.

After Shane arrived and approved of the tree, he and Sveta had argued about whether they should open presents right then, as Sveta wanted, or Christmas morning, like Shane wanted. Shane won the argument by simply falling asleep in the middle of it from exhaustion, head in Ilya’s lap and feet tucked under Sveta and her cashmere blanket. He protested when Ilya scooped him up and carried him to bed, but not enough to actually get Ilya to put him down.

Once he’d put Shane into bed, Ilya walked back down to say goodnight to Sveta and turn off the lights. She was sitting at the table, hands wrapped around a steaming mug. Ilya started shuffling around, turning off all the little lamps and electric candles Sveta had placed everywhere so they never had to turn on overhead lights. He was thinking about how right it felt to have Shane waiting for him in his bed upstairs. But annoyance was slipping into his mind from Sveta.

«What?»

«What he says. Fuck you.»

«Christ, so sensitive.»

«You know what? Yes, I am sensitive. I’ve been having a fucking shitty month and my best friend and soulmate has been ignoring me.»

«Ignoring you?! You’re at my house every day that you’re not off on some vacation. You live next door. You’re still here more than I am.»

She scoffed, and he felt the tumultuous mix of rage and hurt that she’d been holding back. The sticky black wave washed over him, clinging to him and weighing him down. It brought him up short. He’d never felt something like that from her—or at least not directed at him. He walked over and put a hand on her shoulder.

«What’s going on, Sveta?»

«You’d know what it was about if you hadn’t spent the past six months so fucking self absorbed,» she said, ducking his touch. He felt her emotions constrict around him, poison seeping into his skin—stirring his own dark mood.

«I see you more than anyone who isn’t my fucking teammate. »

«And what do we talk about? Your hockey team, Shane, how much you miss Shane. How much it hurts. When was the last time you actually asked me how I was doing, checked if I needed anything?»

He pulled the chair next to her out. It scraped along the floor, and he threw himself into it.

«Don’t blame Shane for this.»

«I’m not. Shane has been a wonderful friend. He knows what’s going on in my life because he asks.»

«He didn’t tell me anything was wrong.»

He knew that Shane and Sveta kept in touch, even calling each other with some regularity. If he thought about it too much, he was afraid he would melt into a puddle of goo. But apparently that wasn’t enough for Sveta.

«He shouldn’t have to.»

«Fuck. Fine. How are you,

Sveta?»

The silence dragged out between them as they glared at each other over the table. He was very familiar with this glare—had been on the receiving end of it more times than he could count, but never had her eyes seemed so cold. The warm light he always looked for, that still felt like home to him despite how much his life had changed, was gone.

«Go to hell, Ilya,» she yelled at him. He knew her loud words hadn’t woken Shane. He could feel that Shane hadn’t moved, but he still glanced up the stairs nonetheless. Sveta rolled her eyes at him.

«Don’t be like that. You want me to check in with you, so I’m fucking checking in. What the fuck is going on with you?»

«When have you ever not known, Ilya? We’re finally in the same place, and we’ve never been so far apart.»

«What do you want from me? These past six months have been hell for me. I’m sorry I’ve been busy.»

«I KNOW, you piece of shit. I know how hard it is for you, but you have no idea how hard it’s been for me. To see you struggling so much, to keep you at arm’s length. To be heartbroken and alone. To feel like I can’t talk to you about my mom because you’re carrying too much. Everything is so different now. We’re not even going to my dacha this summer. You said you wouldn’t forget me but you have.»

He winced internally and her smug look told him he hadn’t managed to keep it from her. Her family’s summer home was in Rublevka. They went every summer for at least two weeks. But this summer, between spending time with Shane’s family, training, and seeing his godforsaken father, there simply wasn’t time. It hurt him to not go, and Shane had seemed disappointed too after hearing about it from Sveta but understood all the constraints on their time. Shane was battling his mom to do less with his brands. Rublevka was his favorite place on Earth, and the weight of missing it for another summer was heavy.

But Sveta wasn’t done. He felt her prepping for the kill.

 «Plus, my girlfriend broke up with me, and I’ve been trying to keep it from you because I know how much you’re going through. But you haven’t been there for me.»

«Elsie broke up with you? When?»

He felt it then, all the other hurt and sadness that she’d been keeping from him. He knew she had a hard time sleeping after bad breakups. Before, she’d crawl into his bed, and he’d play with her hair until she fell asleep. But she hadn’t done that. Part of it was that their relationship had changed. They didn’t cuddle or sleep in the same bed anymore. They would still cuddle on the couch or play with each other’s hair while they talked—the same way she would with Shane or any of her other close friends. But she hadn’t even told him about all her struggles. She was once again trying to take care of him. It killed him to realize how much she’d been hurting—how much she was dealing with on her own. He’d been so consumed with being a good boyfriend and soulmate to Shane that he’d forgotten to be a good soulmate and friend to Sveta.

«More than month ago. I told you it was tragic and doomed from the beginning. I know what you’re thinking. Poor little rich girl. No real problems so she has to invent them.»

He stood up and pulled her up with him. He wrapped his arms around her and crushed her into his chest. It felt like a part of himself clicked back into place, warm and cozy after being cast out for so long. She had always been so warm and so bright even in her darkest moments. He hadn’t realized how dimmed she’d been until this moment.  She squirmed and pushed against him, but without any real conviction.

«Sveta you know I know it’s not like that. You’re allowed to hurt. I’m sorry you’re hurting. And I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you. Don’t hide it from me. I promise I can take it. I don’t want to be left guessing how you are doing.»

«Martyr. I am going to make sure you feel it.»

«Good We both know money doesn’t buy happiness.»

«Or a parent’s love,» she said as she nuzzled his chest and wiped snot on his shirt. « I’m still mad at you.»

«Okay. I love you too, Sveta.»

He stayed up for a while with Sveta and listened to her complain about Elsie. Her heartbreak was already waning, and she’d decided that she was over dating anyone and was going to only have one-night stands for the next year, absolutely no feelings whatsoever. He rubbed her back while she cried and laughed at herself and talked about her mama’s latest emotional manipulation and her father’s absence of an real affection. Ilya crawled into bed well past midnight, feeling a heavy mixture of guilt and relief that he felt so good with Shane while Sveta was hurting.

The tension between them wasn’t exactly gone in the morning, but it was far from their first fight so they knew how to love each other through the anger. Ilya knew she loved him more than she was mad at him and wondered again how he could ever deserve these two wonderful people in his life.

 They opened presents in the morning, and he tried not to think about how shitty he had treated Sveta, or how this bond might still ruin Shane’s life, or how this was the wrong time for all of this. December 25^th meant nothing to him, but the best two people in the world were in his house, and they had the whole day to just enjoy being together. They ordered way too much food from an incredibly fancy restaurant that had a Christmas catering package. All they had to do was reheat it, and they had all improved at cooking enough not to burn anything.

His favorite moment was when Sveta finally convinced Shane to put on Web of Life and watch Giselle, who, defying all statistical probability and common sense, had formed a second soulmate bond, bringing the show up to five people with four soulmate bonds. This convinced Ilya that the show was fake but all the bond were legally registered and how could they fake that? His enjoyment had little to do with the show and more to do with the way they all curled up on the couch together and ate until their stomachs were bulging.  It was a day of extra celebration because he learned that he would be playing for Russia in the Olympics in February. Shane found out five days later that he would be playing for Canada, but he pretended to be surprised about it.

February 2010

Before the Olympics, they met on the ice twice more and managed to see each other three other times without breaking curfew too egregiously since New York and New Jersey were so close, and they had afternoon games. Shane drove over when Ilya had a game in Ottawa. And they played against one another just before the Olympics. During the game, Ilya knew that he was far less physical against Shane, but he didn’t flinch as he had in November, and most importantly to him, he had not dumped his pain into Shane since the summer. The scoring race between them heated up. Both were on track to clear his proclamation that he’d score 50 goals, and Ilya loved how determined Shane was to not only clear the mark, but beat him—even if he steadfastly denied having either goal in public. The competition set his blood on fire and the way Shane had fucked him the night he pulled ahead in the scoring race, during a game against one another no less, made Ilya think that losing might still work out pretty well for him.

Ilya was giddy in the lead-up to the Olympics. The best part was that though he’d offered to fly his father and brother over to watch the games with Sveta’s dad, they declined since they were planning on attending the games in Sochi in four years. Ilya felt guilty at what a relief that was.

They traveled to Vancouver together, and on the flight, Shane had compared their schedules for games and practice to see when they would have overlapping free time and what other games and events they could see. Shane was very excited that they would be able to make the most of the curling events that he wanted, and Ilya couldn’t imagine anything he wanted to watch less.

Ilya had never felt anything quite like the pride and thrill of walking in the opening ceremony under the white, blue, and red of the Russian Flag. When the announcers called out the Russian Federation, he felt goosebumps prick his entire body beneath his white jacket with the red firebird motif. When he first saw the jacket, he thought it was nice but the pattern wasn’t as noticeable as he would’ve liked—respectable but not flashy. The high collar was practical against the cold, and the baseball caps and the back of the jacket read “Russia” in English, which felt offensive to him.  But as he walked into that stadium, he heard the crowd cheering and the whooping of his fellow athletes, and he knew he would keep the jacket forever.

In the past eight months, he’d hardly had time or energy to miss anything but Shane. But hearing himself surrounded by Russian in all its different accents and feeling the way his entire body relaxed, free of the ever-present weight of translation, he ached for the place he hadn’t said goodbye to. While spending less time with his father and Andrei was a relief and half of the point of moving across the world, he was struck by everything he missed all at once. But he didn’t want to be sad right now, so he took in the crowd again. Sveta was in the crowd and he could feel her beaming with pride that he was representing their country like this. He knew Russia, especially the men who ran it, was far from perfect, but it was and would always be home.

He tried to memorize every detail through misty eyes. The colored lights on the crowd blurred into a stunning kaleidoscope, and Ilya only paused briefly to try to understand what the hell was going on with those statues because they looked like they were mummies? It didn’t seem very Canadian to him, and he made a note to ask Shane about it later. 

He enjoyed the rest of the opening ceremony. His favorite part was when the giant polar bear made of lights showed up, and the whole stadium was lit up with balls of light. It was stunning, and he felt himself caught up in the Olympic magic and was very glad he and David had practically forced Shane into participating in the opening ceremony instead of practicing more.

After the ceremony, the schedule was almost luxurious compared to an NHL season. The time they could spend together could be measured in days and weeks instead of minutes and hours. On the nights when neither of them had games the next day, they snuck off to Sveta’s very fancy hotel suite and stayed in the extra room, able to enjoy waking up slowly next to one another in a way they hadn’t since the summer.

He went to one of Shane’s games, another almost unheard-of luxury, and cheer when he scored without getting murderous looks from whichever Boston fan was typically in proximity to him.

Watching him skate in person was like watching an artist create their masterpiece. Shane carved the ice, and Ilya felt that he wouldn’t have been any more impressed had he watched Michelangelo carve David. But watching Shane play also lit a fire in him. They would meet on the ice at some point depending on how the initial rounds went. Ilya had beaten him the last time it was Russia vs. Canada and was determined to do it again. He wondered if it would taste sweeter to win against Shane, again, on his home soil, than it had the first time.

He also finally got to meet J.J. and Hayden off the ice. J.J. was on Team Canada, but Hayden wasn’t. He had managed to get tickets to several events, though, so the five of them, including Sveta, met for dinner a few times. It was fine because J.J. and Hayden both spent most of their time trying to flirt with Sveta, so Ilya felt less territorial around Hayden, who definitely had a crush on Shane. How could he really blame him? Hadn’t he felt the same when he first saw Shane?

He remembered so sharply how much he’d wanted Shane from that first electric moment their hands had touched. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if Sveta hadn’t been there. Was that why they had bonded? Had he marked him even then? If he had wanted him less, would Shane be free of him? Or had he wanted Shane because of the bond even then?

He wondered if it should bother him that he wasn’t sure, but the answer wouldn’t change the way he felt. He wanted Shane, and now Shane was his. It still caught him off guard sometimes—the way he’d look at Shane and all he could think was mine.

Shane Hollander was his.

It was a heady thought, especially when coupled with its twin. He just as much belonged to Shane. It was horrible and selfish, and he wanted to regret it still. But he didn’t anymore. He wasn’t sure he’d entirely made peace with it, but he had accepted it at this point.

Shane, feeling the rising heat in his body, tried to glare at Ilya for getting him worked up at dinner but failed miserably. Ilya moved his hand up Shane’s thigh, and Shane swatted it away before continuing his conversation with Hayden. Sveta was engrossed in a very flirty conversation with J.J. It didn’t surprise him they were getting along so well—from what Shane had said, J.J. was always the life of the party and very touchy-feely, two things Sveta was always drawn to. Shane poked him and drew him back into his conversation, which was, predictably, about hockey, specifically, if Hunter would start his inevitable mid-season collapse before or after the Olympics.

 ---

Ilya’s Olympic journey was over much sooner than he had hoped it would be. It shouldn’t have been; Russia had all the components of a team that would medal—their captain was a great leader, their goalie was one of the best in the NHL, and they had depth in skills and Olympic experience. And yet somehow the whole was less than the sum of its parts. They didn’t work, and even worse, no one could figure out why. Their coach (loud but effective) tried, the captain (old, tired, but an icon) tried, all the players (an assortment of electric, fun, serious, but all achingly Russian) tried. But their efforts weren’t enough.

He had been in a funk since the loss to Canada. It hadn’t been a good game, and while nothing really made losing easier, he hated having such a poor showing against Shane. One of the redeeming parts about having to block him while they played was that it was still so fun to play. This hadn’t been fun. Hadn’t been fun for him, at least. He assumed Shane had fun because crushing an opponent so thoroughly was always fun.

He didn’t usually find sounds or other sensory input to be overwhelming, not in the way Shane did. But he wondered if Shane was shunting some of that into him right now because his ringing phone was frying his every nerve. It seemed to ring far longer than a phone call should. The vibration on the table in his room in the village and the aggressive ringtone froze him in place.

And he kept staring as it turned into a missed call. For all the call had alarmed him, it wasn’t a surprise. His father never missed a call after a loss. He had made a habit of picking up quickly before he could overthink it. If he let the phone ring too many times, then he wouldn’t answer. And the fog of knowing he had to return the call clung heavily for hours—obscuring everything else with its interminable grey pallor. Even across the ocean, he didn’t dare find out what would happen if his father had to call him a second time.

But this time he just stared at his phone as it rang. Until his voicemail picked up after what felt like a geological age.

He had thought, maybe, that playing in the NHL would change things, if not for his father, then for him. That maybe getting more and more minutes on the ice, and more money in his bank account would fill the place inside of him where his father’s love or pride or maybe even just the barebones of parental affection should have resided. But that void stayed empty.

Even Shane’s devotion and Sveta's love couldn’t fill what his father should’ve given him. Anything he’d gotten from his mama had long since dried up.  

He knew somewhere within himself that “not disappointed” was a sorry high watermark for most relationships, and yet that was all Ilya had ever achieved. He hadn’t embarrassed his father at the Prospects Cup and now was sure that was as good as it would ever be.

But all he ever got from his father was a cavern where feelings should have been, dripping a sludge of indifference and outright derision that he could feel calcifying inside him. The place was cold as that gold metal they’d slung around his neck in Saskatchewan and just as easily forgotten—packed into a box and lost in a dusty storage room or discarded by a stepmom he despised whose only real crime was resembling his mother without an ounce of Irina’s warmth. Polina was cold and empty—far more deserving of the family name than his mother had ever been.

He looked down at his phone. This was exactly why he answered on the first ring. So maudlin. So performative in his suffering.

He checked the time. He knew Shane was practicing. He could feel it even if he didn’t know the schedule. It was just late enough in Moscow that his father could have put his phone away but not so late as so be unreasonable.

He called before he could think about it anymore.

His father answered on the first ring.

«You have some nerve calling me»

«Sorry, sir.»

«Apologize to Russia. You were given a great honor, to play for your country so young. And this is how you show your gratitude. Your mother raised you better.»

«Yes, sir. Sorry.»

«Such a waste of your talents. Your brother has none. He clings to the feet of men who should kiss the ground beneath him. But he has no mind for anything besides what’s between his legs or up his nose. But you could be so much more than this.»

Ilya sighed. He was almost as familiar with Andrei’s list of deficiencies as his own. His father was right. Andrei was an idiot. Too high on coke or busy trying to get his dick wet to see how people cashed in on his good name.

«Not you. You know how people work, Ilya. You see what makes them tick as I do. You could rise higher than I ever could. And what do you do with it? Ice skate in America and lose when your country needs you?»

He waited a beat to see if his father expected a response or was only using silence to build anticipation.

«I am pitied at work. Everyone around me has sons who follow in their father’s footsteps. Who make something of their talent and ambition. No one else’s sons have snorted away their privilege or are too lazy to make proper use of their talents.»

Another pause. Ilya knew this one was for effect. Once his father got going, there was no telling when he could stop.

«Yet you insist on being drafted by the greedy American pigs. Who do I have to come home to? All three of you have abandoned me. Pah, what son of honor leaves his father alone to entertain lesser men?

«All my career I worked for my country, thinking my sons would follow. That my connections would help. You have my talent, Ilya, and you waste it. My whole career, for what? So Andrei can be a dirty cop? You have made my life for nothing, Ilya. You were the point. The one who could have been something. Now look at you.»

Ilya felt the tendrils of Sveta and Shane probing him, clearly clued in to his distress. He blocked both of them, wishing he could shut down his father as easily. He had zoned out for a minute, though, but his father’s words cut him down to the bone. Past that even, cracking open his ribs and exposing his beating heart.

«You are like me, Ilya. My son…»

He kept going but all he could hear was those words echoing through him, shoved in through the hole in his chest to burrow into his heart and filter through his entire body.

You are like me.

Ilya tuned him out in earnest this time. But he was more than familiar with the cadence of this conversation and could add in “Yes, sir” as needed without taking in the exact words.

He’d been packing up his stuff in the village when his dad called, but as the conversation dragged on, he had started wandering aimlessly. Shane was gearing up for practice, and someone was amusing Sveta. Eventually he walked by a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes. He’d pretty much quit in the fall—Shane’s disapproval and the team’s doctors’ badgering had helped him grit his teeth through the nicotine withdrawals.

He felt the way Shane stiffened when he took in his first lungful of air and fully expected a series of texts berating him for smoking and citing lung cancer statistics. But his phone didn’t buzz. He just felt Shane push the nicotine feeling into him, whether because he didn’t want the buzz or he wanted to let Ilya have all the associated relief it provided, he wasn’t sure. But he relished it and even looked forward to Shane yelling at him later because it weirdly made him feel cared for.

---

Two days after they met on the ice, Shane had almost the entire day off after some media, and they planned to spend their day together. There was one curling event that he was begrudgingly attending, but then they planned to go to Gastown, where Sveta had made them a dinner reservation for just the two of them.

Things between with him and Sveta were better since Christmas. He made sure he asked how she was doing, and she stopped shielding her emotions from him. It was a lot to carry at first, but he found he felt much more settled in himself once he got used to it. Even when her feelings were heavy, he could handle them. She’d still block him out a bit more when he’d been apart from Shane for a long time, but it was an improvement for both of them over the fall.

At the dimly lit table tucked into a private corner of the steakhouse, Shane was fidgeting in his seat. Ilya realized it was incredibly stupid to sit across from him, so Ilya slid into the booth next to Shane, and Shane’s whole body relaxed. They were wearing long sleeves and long pants, so only their hands could touch, but it was enough for the moment.

«This…nice,» Shane said, frowning. He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but his Russian had gotten worse since he was no longer living with him and Sveta. He’d picked up more vocabulary while studying, but not speaking or hearing it much had taken a toll on his fluency.

“Is this our first date?” Shane asked

It was Ilya’s turn to frown. They’d been to dinner over the summer, but always with Sveta, and then the season had taken all their time and energy. 

“I guess it is.” He moved his arm around Shane’s back and pressed his nose into Shane’s hair. It was half a kiss and half just inhaling his scent. The clean smell of shampoo mixed with something specific to him. He tilted his head so he didn’t have so much of Shane’s hair in his nose but left the side of his cheek pressed to Shane’s head.

“Do you think we would have ended up together even if…” Shane trailed off, body slightly stiff as he remembered that they were in public.

Ilya tried to take deep breaths and keep his heart rate from picking up, but he couldn’t fool Shane. Sveta was starting to get tipsy and nosy about their date, so he blocked her. This wasn’t for her. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of not being with Shane. It didn’t feel like something his brain could seriously entertain.

“I am very charming. You would not be able to resist.”

Shane snorted and tried to shove him without actually putting any effort into moving him away.

“Charming is maybe the last word I would’ve used to describe you.”

That made Ilya laugh softly.

“You did not like me very much.”

“You didn’t make yourself easy to like.”

Ilya brought his other hand to interlace with Shane’s under the table.

“But you thought I was hot. So, it would work out. I am sure.”

«Arrogant,» Shane said.

«Who taught you that word?»

«I look it up. For you.»

Their appetizers arrived: whipped bone marrow and crusty bread, seared Gulf shrimp with zucchini basil polenta, corn relish, and grilled orange beurre blanc. Shane said that beurre blanc meant white or clear butter and neither of them knew what grilled orange had to do with that. After having a bite, he still didn’t really understand, but it was so good he didn’t care.

They fed each other in a way that probably would’ve given away their connection if anyone was paying attention, but the restaurant was packed, and the serving staff was swamped, so no one cared about two teenagers quietly wrapped up in each other in the corner.

They sat there in almost comfortable silence, except Shane was doing the fish mouth thing again, so Ilya knew he was working himself up to saying something and was curious what he would eventually say.

“I’m glad we’re together, and if it took bonding to do that, then I think that I am okay with that. We’re making it work.”

Whatever Ilya was expecting, it was nowhere near that. It didn’t exist in the same universe as that. He honestly didn’t think that universe existed.

You are like me, Ilya.

“You don’t regret it?” Ilya wasn’t sure how he managed to force the words out of his throat. It felt like they clawed their way out of their own volition. He took a drink of water, and the ice water did nothing to soothe how ragged he suddenly felt.

“I wish it was easier for us. But I think, if I had to choose between not having a bond, so not being with you, or having a bond and being together, I’d pick you.”

Ilya felt like he’d been set on fire, half agony, half hope. It never even occurred to him to wish for this. That he could be worth such a feeling. He had been trying so hard to be a good soulmate, a good boyfriend to Shane. To keep control of himself and have discipline. But he realized just then that he’d never expected to succeed.

Like me, Ilya.

His heart was still racing, and he realized that his entire body had gone stiff at Shane’s words. Then he felt Shane move, almost imperceptibly, creating just millimeters of distance between them. He had no idea what kind of feelings Shane was getting from him or how long the silence had stretched.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel that way. I know this is still maybe impossible, but I just...”

He hesitated, and Ilya didn’t really know what to say exactly—how to get out this complicated swirl of emotions that wanted him to keep Shane as close to him as possible at all times and the other part that demanded he keep Shane safe, especially from himself

“Shane. I never wanted this kind of bond. I would free you from it if I could. I want you to be safe more than anything. I hate that I hurt you. But I am glad I have you.”  

A huge lump was forming in his throat, and he knew he should block Shane from this—not bring him down with all this mess. But he couldn’t. He was breathing deeply, refusing to have a complete breakdown between courses at dinner and further ruin a lovely night.

“I wish it could be like that. I wish we could be together and not hurt each other,” Shane said.

Ilya’s head was now fully resting against Shane’s shoulder while Shane ran his hand soothingly up and down his leg.

“You don’t hurt me, Shane.”

“When we’re apart, I do. We spend so much time just… managing the problem.”

“Is the same for both of us. That is the bond. Not you.”

“I know that, but I sometimes feel like it’s my fault. And you just said you hate hurting me, so I think you feel the same. It’s just like an instinct.”

Like me.

“Yes. But you don’t push—”

Fuck. What was he thinking, saying that? He’d done so well keeping it from Shane, and now here he was just blurting it out.

“Don’t push what? What do you push? You’ll barely even check me. My grandma used to check me harder than you.”

Shane laughed at his own memory, and Ilya felt resigned. He supposed it was silly to think that he could keep this from Shane forever. Shane would figure it out at some point. Maybe if he knew, he could guard against it better. 

“No, I never mean to. You know. Even when I do, I don’t mean to.”

“What are you talking about, Ilya?”

“Like when I make you feel my pain.”

“That’s the bond. That’s not you.”

“But like after I hurt my wrist. I made you feel it all. I pushed it all into you.”

Shane cocked his head, brow wrinkling and mouth downturned. He said slowly:

“Ilya, you didn’t do that. You’ve never done that. I did that. I didn’t really even mean to. But, like you said, we don’t like seeing each other hurt. So I took it from you basically as a reflex.” 

He felt like his whole world had stopped spinning, and everything in their private universe had ground to a halt. He tried to think about those moments. The first time Shane had probed his depths, when he’d hurt his wrist, when Shane had first checked him. All these times that he’d hurt his soulmate. But they were coated in a murky film. He couldn’t remember them well, all flashes and fear that made his pulse pound erratically just thinking of them.

But he didn’t think Shane would lie to him. He was a terrible liar, even if Ilya couldn’t feel the way he squirmed when he tried. He trusted Shane, beyond a doubt. He just wasn’t sure he trusted himself. So, he let go a little bit, dissolving the distance between them since his skin felt too tight, trying to really understand what Shane was telling him. Everything was still, not spinning again. In the light of this fragile peace, he knew that

The past was the push of him, them, all, precisely the same,
And what was yet untried and afterward was for them, him, all, precisely the same.

He did not know what was untried and afterward,
But he knew it would in its turn prove sufficient, and could not fail.

He slowly came back to himself and realized that there was more food in front of him. His steak had arrived. It was still hot, and Shane had only managed a few bites, so it might not have been that long, but that could be because Ilya was sprawled across him in a way that made eating difficult. It was probably also way cuddlier than Shane wanted to be in public, but he didn’t feel uncomfortable.

They finished their meal in a far more contented silence and then took a car back to Sveta’s hotel room to spend some time together.  Sveta was still out at some party or another. Ilya would spend the night here since he didn’t have a game the next day, but Shane needed to stay in the Athlete’s Village since he had a game tomorrow. They plopped down on the overly stuffed couch that clearly was made for appearances and not for sitting comfortably, but Shane was sitting with his head and torso across Ilya’s chest. It didn’t seem comfortable, but he seemed happy about it.

They flicked through the TV channels, trying to find something that wasn’t the Olympics to watch. They saw an episode of the Web of Life reality show out of nostalgia and not because they cared. The five soulmates were doing a crossover episode of House Hunters.

----

The TV flashed colorfully in the dark room as the couples? The polycule? The clusterfuck of five people with four soulmate bonds was looking for a secluded, multi-acre property where they could all live communally but was also within a 30-minute commute to downtown for a few of their jobs. The search was not going well.

Shane was not really paying attention, though. He was replaying the dinner conversation, trying to understand what had happened. He had told Ilya that he would pick being bonded to him if that were the only way they could be together, and Ilya hadn’t exactly returned the sentiment. But it didn’t feel like a rejection either. Something else happened that Shane didn’t know how to classify.

Ilya had thought he was what? Pushing his pain into Shane? Like his dad did?

When Ilya first told him about the bond, he assumed that Ilya would fear ending up in a situation like his mother was in. It literally never occurred to him that Ilya would be afraid of becoming his father. The same Ilya who Svetlana had to learn how to take his sadness and lock it away to give him a break from himself for a few moments, because he refused to burden her. She told him how hard he’d fight anything like that. Ilya thinking he was like his father was so ridiculous that Shane wanted to laugh, but instead, he felt awful.

“Just say whatever you’re thinking, Shane.”

“Sorry.”

“You open your mouth like a fish. It’s killing me.”

Oh, damn. Shane was not prepared to actually produce a question that made sense. He was trying to sort through his feelings and understand Ilya’s. Maybe he could just start with an observation about what happened with dinner or a very open-ended question.

“You thought you were hurting me on purpose, making me feel all your pain. Like your father did.”

Fuck.

Fuck that was not how he meant to say that. That was going to make Ilya—yeah, panic flooding his whole system. He could feel the cortisol coursing through his body.

“Sorry.”

 To his credit, Ilya did respond, “Yes.”

“That is like the complete opposite of you, though. I cannot imagine you ever doing that—even thinking about it.”

Ilya’s whole body was frozen, and Shane crawled into his lap, wedging his arms between Ilya and the back of the couch. He wished they’d taken their shirts off; they had both put on comfy clothes after dinner, but it was suddenly way too many clothes.

This was why he didn’t talk until he had everything perfectly planned out. Otherwise, this happened. He was so fucking stupid.

“I’m sorry, Ilya. I didn’t mean to. You’re not like that at all. I always thought that you were afraid of being like your mom. Not the other way. You could never.”

Ilya sniffled into his neck again, and he hated that Ilya had somehow been reduced to tears twice on their date. They had so little time together that ruining it with this felt like a violation.

“I am not like her. She was so strong and brave.”

Shane’s heart broke as he floundered for something to say. He felt incredibly out of his depth here. It didn’t seem like contradicting Ilya was really doing much good, telling him he was so strong and so brave didn’t seem like it would reach him. So he tried switching course.

“Would you tell me about her?”

And he did, finally. He told Shane about the blue floral house dress she always wore, how she’d been so proud when Ilya lost his first tooth, and how she’d taught him to skate before he could really remember anything but the feeling of flying alongside her. He described how loudly she would cheer for him at his games, even if he didn’t score, and the beautiful cakes she made on his birthday. But he also talked about how she was depressed. He didn’t know the word at the time—just that she was tired and had to lie down a lot. His father made it worse, shoving all his bad feelings into her, berating her for the symptoms he felt when she was too tired to block him anymore. He said he didn’t know if being stuck with his father caused her depression or just made it worse. He didn’t know if there was ever a time when they’d been happy together or why such a beautiful, loving person was destined to be tied to such a horrible, hateful one.

“My father never helped her. He shut out all her pain. And when he got sick of it, he made her start taking blockers.”

It wasn’t that blocking medication didn’t work outright, but it wasn’t strong enough to work on their type of bond—not at a dosage anyone could safely take. The side effects became unbearable to most and could cause permanent organ damage. It wasn’t something anyone was meant to take long term, even in low doses. Shane had looked it up at one point. He believed Ilya, but he was curious.

“Did it help?” Shane had a feeling he knew the answer, but didn’t want Ilya to have to carry it alone anymore either.

“They worked a little, but probably made her depression worse—side effects can be terrible. It blocks some but makes other things bad. I don’t think she knew that was why. She didn’t have a doctor, my dad just bring her the pills. I looked it up later, about the pills.”

“What happened?”

“The pills made her more depressed. Made it harder for my father, so he make her take more pills. Many mornings, my father yelled at her all morning for making it hard for him to work. He said she needed to try harder. Every time he did this, she took more pills.” Ilya broke off and wiped his face with his sleeve. He wasn’t really crying anymore. Shane didn’t feel much from him at all. 

Shane tried to keep rocking him, running his finger through his hair.

“He kept huge piles of them. So many pills, so they could never run out. One day, she took all of them. So many little empty packets. One day he yelled at her like he usually did. I don’t know why that day was different. I don’t know if she was trying to hurt herself or just trying to get him out of her. She didn’t leave a note, but I think it was not an accident.”

Shane squeezed both his arms around Ilya and held him as tightly as he could. He wasn’t really sure it made Ilya feel any better, but it was at least something to do.

“You said you were twelve?”

“Yes. I found her.”

“God, Ilya, I’m so sorry.”

Shane really, genuinely had no idea what to say. Probably there was nothing he could do. This was what professionals were for. He didn’t know what else to say, so he sought Ilya through their bond instead, reaching for him, knowing where he was hiding. The blank parts of the map suddenly filled in in an awful, violent clash of lines and colors that represented this barren place. He heard what living and buried speech was always vibrating here, what howls restrained by decorum that Ilya suddenly let loose. They stayed there, together, reclaiming the land. It wasn’t much, hardly visible, but a hope that someday it would be a place that knew grass.

He only returned to himself because his feet had fallen asleep, squished under his legs as he straddled Ilya, and his hips ached from being splayed. He groaned as he moved, and the pins-and-needles feeling shot through his feet. He needed to leave. It was starting to get late, and he needed a good night's sleep before his game. But he couldn’t just leave Ilya on this note.

He wanted to comfort Ilya in the only other way that he knew how. Shane pulled Ilya down so they were lying facing each other. Shane began peppering kisses all over Ilya’s face, jaw, and neck, trying to ignore the way his knees popped as he straightened them.

He propped himself up and gently scraped his teeth along Ilya’s earlobe.

“I want to make you feel better. Do you want that?”

He could feel the way Ilya was thickening already, but resisted grinding into him until he knew Ilya actually wanted this.

«Yes, Hollander. Make me feel good.»

Shane, predictably, shivered at the Russian and bit harder at Ilya’s ear, drawing a groan from Ilya that shot straight to his dick. He’d never quite gotten used to how quickly one of them getting hard did the same thing to the other, but he loved it.

He went back to kissing Ilya, sucking on his lip, and was rewarded with another gasp as they thrust against one another. He paused briefly to pull Ilya’s shirt off and then his own, immediately running his hands over Ilya’s tight abs. Seeing Ilya follow the movement of his hands and shake slightly beneath him made him know exactly how he wanted to make Ilya feel good.

He stood up from the couch, and before Ilya’s frown could fully form, he scooped him off the couch, one hand under his knees, one hand on his upper back, bridal style. Ilya squeaked in surprise as Shane grunted slightly, straightening, but he could deadlift more than Ilya’s weight.

«Rodnoy, I thought that this was my job.»

«Fuck off.»

«But you like how I’m so much stronger than you»

“Asshole, you know very well that I can lift more than you.”

Shane was carrying Ilya across the marble floor and tried not to trip when he stepped onto the thick rug in their bedroom. Ilya was grumbling about their various PRs, but Shane was concentrating on not dropping him the last few steps. Ilya was squirming a bit in his arms, clearly trying to make Shane’s life more difficult. Shane decided to drop him on the bed instead of placing him gently as he’d envisioned.

Shane was breathing deeply from the exertion and watching Ilya’s chest move up and down too, fascinated by the movement.

“So, what is the plan, Mr. In Charge Man?”

He did have a plan. He just wasn’t sure he could get the words past his tongue.

«Make you feel good.»

«Yes. How? Tell me and maybe I will let you»

“Let me?”

Ilya scooted back into the middle of the bed, and knowing what Shane would say, stripped the duvet off the bed so he was reclined on the pillows. The only light in the room was spilling in from the living room, but Ilya was illuminated against the white sheets, drawing Shane in like a moth to the flame.

He could do this. Ilya did this to him all the time, and they were kind of one person, so he crawled onto the bed until he was looming over Ilya and bent down to nibble on his earlobe.

«Rodnoy, are you going to—»

“Shut up,” he said directly into Ilya’s ear. “I am going to eat your ass and then finger you until you are begging me to touch your cock. And maybe I will, or maybe I’ll make you come just like that.”

Shane pulled back and had never seen that look on Ilya’s face before or felt his whole body freeze in the same way. His mouth was slightly open, cheeks coloring. His eyes still held their playful glimmer, but this expression was different from normal, as if it had been trapped in amber by Shane’s words. He wasn’t sure how to interpret that. He reached up to caress Ilya’s cheek and loved the way he leaned into the touch. He scanned Ilya to see if he was going to respond or move at all. When he didn’t, Shane said,

“If that’s okay.”

Ilya drew a deep breath that expanded both of their diaphragms.

«Holy shit, yes.»

Shane stopped looming over Ilya as he said,

«Over.»

Ilya ripped off his pants, flipped flat on the bed, and tucked a pillow under his hips so fast it made Shane’s dick ache. He looked incredible. The light from the living room cut a line across Ilya’s left shoulder and head, burnishing his curl and highlighting one mole on his upper back. Shane traced his fingers from mole to mole all the way down his back with a featherlight touch until he reached the swell of his ass. Shane hoped he’d never have to pick a favorite part of Ilya—he loved every inch of him—but if he did, it would likely be this. Shane kneaded the strong muscle and loved how it moved beneath his hands.

“Is this your plan, Shane? Are you all talk?”

Shane leaned down, blocked him quickly, and bit his ass cheek, hard. Ilya moved his hips deeper into the pillow—his yelp turning into a groan partway through. Shane dropped the block and licked the now-reddened skin. Ilya’s arousal was heightening. He’d liked the bite, and Shane filed that information away under “interesting.”

Shane kept kissing and licking, moving his mouth along the line where his ass met his thighs, occasionally peppered in little nips that made Ilya squirm even harder. He was already breathing hard, thrusting his ass in the air a bit, and Shane had hardly done anything. 

He grabbed both cheeks again and pulled them apart, taking a moment just to admire the view. He ghosted a few barely there licks to his hole, and felt words rising up in Ilya’s throat that he bit back.

“Going to beg for me already, Ilya?”

Ilya let out a huff of air that sounded like a mixture of “nyet” and “no” and undermined himself further by thrusting backward once again. But Shane was also over the teasing, blocking Ilya so he couldn’t anticipate Shane’s movements. Shane pressed his tongue against Ilya’s hole and began to lick.

He made his tongue soft and flat at first, moving it broadly across Ilya, taking deep satisfaction in the filthy moan he heard. The feel of Ilya on his mouth, the sounds, the taste, all of it was making Shane feel incredible even though he was blocking Ilya. He moved his tongue around the rim in flat licks and flutters until he started using his tongue to work Ilya open a little until he could just poke his tongue in.

«Don’t stop, fuck. Shane.»

Ilya was heaving and grinding, but Shane didn’t want him to come yet. He wanted to do this forever, to survive on nothing but Ilya’s ass. Shane hauled Ilya’s hips up, so his hips were no longer on the pillow and he couldn’t cheat with any added friction. The angle was a bit harder for him, but more than worth it. He let go of the block so Ilya could feel him working up the saliva in his mouth just a second before he let it drop directly onto his opening.

Ilya swore and gasped, and Shane used his tongue to push the spit into him, kissing and licking and enjoying the way he could feel how much Ilya loved this. He didn’t want to stop, but he wanted to give Ilya more. When he moved his mouth away, Ilya whined and craned his neck around, looking for Shane.

“I think you’re ready for more.”

Ilya let out a garbled non-word that sounded encouraging. Shane moved to grab the lube from the nightstand.

“Did you invent a new language, Rozanov? Because that wasn’t a yes in any of the three languages I know.”

“Si,” Ilya said.

Shane rolled his eyes and swatted Ilya’s ass cheek playfully. He moved his fingers over the still-red bite mark he’d left, a visible sign of Shane’s claim on this gorgeous man laid out before him.

“You liked this bite. You want me to do it some more?”

“Sí.”

“Sí, por favor.”

Shane wasn’t sure if Ilya knew any more Spanish beyond yes. Admittedly, “yes, please” was the full extent of his own knowledge.

«Please, Shane.»

It wasn’t as much as Ilya often made him beg, but truthfully, he didn’t think he’d be able to hold out as long as Ilya did. One plea was enough to have him diving back in face first, more than eager to taste him again.

He tried to squirt the lube on his fingers without taking his mouth off of Ilya, but he wasn’t that coordinated and dropped a glob onto the sheets. He tried to scoop it up mostly ended up smearing it around. Ilya, feeling his fumbling actions, snorted at him. In retaliation, Shane blocked him. He saw Ilya tense up, clearly expecting a bite. But Shane squirted the lube onto his fingers and waited until he saw Ilya relax. Then he bit him.

There was no yell this time, just a deep groan that set Shane’s blood on fire. He sucked on the mark and moved his finger to Ilya’s hole. He brushed the rim and felt it flex.

“Relax, okay. I got you.”

Ilya let out a shaky breath and relaxed. Shane slowly began to move his finger inside. He felt the burn that he loved so much and slowed down more, knowing even if Ilya was used to feeling it from Shane, it was different when it was happening to you. Eventually, he’d fit his finger in up to the second knuckle.

“Okay?”

«Yes, keep going.»

Shane slowly began to move his finger until he found the right spot and felt a jolt zap both of them, punching out simultaneous groans. He started blocking Ilya again, wanting him to have all the pleasure and kept his finger moving.

Ilya began gently rocking back into him, and Shane continued to curl his finger inside Ilya. The sight of Ilya moving, his finger disappearing inside Ilya’s body, the steady moans and Russian swears, and the way the light made Ilya’s hair glow like a halo was almost too much for Shane. Too beautiful. He wanted to pray to this beatific vision—he wanted to grab his aching dick and come all over him.

He wanted to add another finger, but he wanted to hear Ilya ask for it more. He increased the pace, knowing it likely wouldn’t be enough to get him over the edge. Ilya was moving more insistently now, practically fucking Shane’s hand. Shane grazed his teeth along Ilya’s ass, and Ilya stopped moving. Shane slowed his finger down slightly, hoping it would get to him,

«More, please, rodnoy—» Ilya kept rambling, saying things that Shane didn’t understand in his slurred Russian.

Shane clicked the lube open and drizzled more onto Ilya and his own fingers. He slowly began working two fingers inside until he was able to reach his prostate again, hitting it harder and wringing ragged gasps from Ilya. Ilya was getting close to the edge, and Shane wanted to see it.

«Over,» he said, withdrawing his fingers from Ilya, who cried out with the loss.

Shane helped guide him onto his back and thrust his knees toward his chest. He sank he’s fingers back in, and this was so much better, seeing every groan and the spasm of his abs. His mouth was moving soundlessly.

“Do you wanna come, Rozanov?”

«Please, Shane. Fuck it feels like this will kill me»

Ilya was on the brink of orgasm just from Shane’s fingers, but Shane was not far behind from the obscene view in front of him. Ilya’s eyes were open, staring at Shane with open need.

“You look so fucking sexy, Ilya. Beautiful. I’ve never seen anything half as good as you.”

«I need it, Shane. Please. I’m so close. So…»

Shane needed it too. He took his other hand that had been lifting Ilya’s legs and grabbed his dick. It was hard and hot, wet at the tip. He stroked him once, and then again. Then Ilya was coming, shooting over Shane’s fist and onto his own stomach and chest. His whole body rippled and spasmed as he screamed louder than Shane had ever heard him before. Shane stroked him through it until Ilya was soft in his hand and squirming with the overstimulation.

He had never seen Ilya look so wrecked. It was hotter and filthier than anything Shane could imagine. He got his own pants down off, bunched around his feet as he straddled Ilya. He ran his hands through Ilya’s cum and used it as lube as he began jerking himself off. He was no longer blocking, letting Ilya feel the pleasure ratcheting up in both of them. Ilya’s own body was desperately fighting itself, too soon to get hard again but doing so anyway. He hadn’t expected that. Their only other non-simultaneous orgasm had a decent break in the middle. This was something else, though.

Ilya was squirming under him, still half out of his mind with the haze of orgasm. Shane reached down and squeezed Ilya’s nipple and felt both their dicks kick.

“Ilya, look at me.”

He just squirmed, too spent to thrust properly but trying nonetheless.

«Eyes, rodnoy.» At the pet name, Ilya’s eyes flew open, hooded and distant, but clearly seeing him.

«Is it okay?»

 “Sí.”

Shane moved his fist faster, while squeezing Ilya’s pec. The soft sound Ilya made sent him over the edge, shooting into his fist and adding more cum to Ilya’s chest while Ilya came again in a great shudder of overstimulation that rocked Shane just as much. He just managed to avoid collapsing onto Ilya and instead fell, so he curled around the side of him.

They weren’t gone long, just long enough to feel the grass between their toes. They’d been together so much lately that there was no concern about staying for hours. So only a few minutes later, Shane felt Ilya moving next to him in bed.

“Are you back?” Shane asked

“Mmm.”

“Shower?”

Ilya laughed.

“If I can use my legs, I will shower with you.”

Shane tried to control how pleased with himself he felt from Ilya, but probably failed. It didn’t help that Ilya’s legs did genuinely wobble when he took his first step. After the shower, he didn’t want to leave Ilya, but really needed to sleep. So, he settled for texting Sveta that Ilya had a rough night and would love company. He left Ilya tucked into bed and wasn’t even sure if he’d be awake when she got back, but she would never be mad to be with him when he needed it, even if he was asleep the entire time.

---

Shane had won a fucking gold medal.

If Ilya’s team had to be embarrassed in the quarterfinal by a 3-7 loss to the Canadians, at least it was to the team that won it all. At least his fucking soulmate won gold, and he could go out and celebrate with him. His team had left before the gold medal game, so there was no one he cared about seeing him out partying with the Canadians. And the media seemed to love his support of his boyfriend and the fact that he was watching with Shane’s parents. He hadn’t spent much time with them, so it was nice but a little awkward.

He rushed to meet Shane after the game and an endless onslaught of media. He had to be content to share him with his parents. The team went to a bar that was too loud to talk but still had an open kitchen so they could order an obscene amount of food. He and David cajoled Shane and Yuna to take a shot in celebration, which was more than Yuna usually did. David did exactly one more with the team before both Shane’s parents sipped champagne and talked to other players’ parents until the place got even louder, and they left. Shane got into the spirit and took a few more shots, but Ilya helped him deflect the rest of them because he didn’t want him drunk for his reward later. They took photos and made out on the dance floor and stayed out way later than Shane usually allowed himself to. When the swirling red and white lights and the steady thump of bass that seemed to replace their heartbeats became too much, Ilya probed Shane for the overwhelm and siphoned as much of it of it into himself as he could so Shane could have fun. And Shane was not exaggerating how unfun that was, but seeing him high on life and flushed with victory was more than worth it.

And Sveta was right there with him, cheering on Shane at the game and partying after. Ilya danced a few songs with her too. He’d made a point to go out dancing with her at least twice a month—more if he had the time, and happily pretended to lead while she literally and metaphorically danced circles around him.  

An hour or so later, he caught her eye mid-conversation with J.J. Their first night at dinner, she spent an hour talking to J.J. He could tell J.J. was just humoring her hockey talk at first because she was hot and watched it slowly dawn on him how insightful her commentary was. He saw the growing confusion on his face until Shane, of all people, tipped him off that this was her version of foreplay with hockey players. Tonight, she’d pulled him into a private corner to probe the line between dancing and dry humping. Ilya really hoped the hotel room was well insulated because it seemed like it would be busy later. He hadn’t talked to J.J. much, but Shane only had nice things to say to him, and he seemed decent enough for a hookup for her.

When they got back to the hotel room, Shane was stumbling more from exhaustion than alcohol. It seemed like Sveta and J.J. had either passed out or not returned yet. Ilya glanced at the clock and realized that it was not far from the time that Shane usually woke up for the day. Shane was fumbling with getting his pants off, and Ilya was more than happy to help him. He pulled his pants down to his ankles and then pushed him onto the bed to finish the job.

Shane scooted back, head on the pillows with a sleepy smile on his face. Ilya was surprised because Shane would usually be hard the second Ilya took off his pants, but also always insisted that they shower after a sticky, sweaty night. So he lowered himself over Shane, kissed him, and asked, “Do you want your reward now, or when you wake up?”

Shane’s smile grew, but his eyes stayed closed.

“Now.”

He held himself above Shane, and in less than a minute, Ilya could feel that he was asleep. He lowered himself gently next to Shane, gently rolling him onto his side, and curled his body around Shane’s. He wrapped the blankets around them as best as he could, glad the bed was giant, so it mostly covered them.

He felt Shane’s body and wondered if it was possible to open his ribcage and put Shane in there so they could always be together. Which was a totally normal thought to have about your secret soulmate. Because he loved him. He loved him so fucking much.

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t realized that until now. But they were so busy, and he had been so scared. He was still fucking terrified. He believed that Shane was telling him the truth about taking his pain. But it didn’t feel true. But maybe now he could keep telling himself it was true and one day he would believe it.

He ran his hand over Shane’s arm and leg, across his stomach and chest, touching every piece of him he could reach because he never wanted to stop. He loved him, and Shane loved him too. He was pretty sure.

What else was Shane saying when he told Ilya he would risk having this fucked up bond if it was the only way for them to be together—saying that he would risk his future in hockey to keep him. What else could that mean in Shane Hollander speak except I love you?

It felt so precious in his hands, this thing they’d grown between them. It might have been planted in the soil of their bond, but they’d been the ones to water it. They’d protected it and allowed it to grow. Let the leaves spread until a few tiny sprouts, almost invisible to the eye, turned into more blades of grass than they could ever count. It wasn't the bond anymore. Or maybe it had never only been the bond. It was something they had made together.

He guessed it must be the flag of their disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

He wanted to wake Shane and tell him right then, but as the thought crossed his mind, he realized he was already dreaming of a place where a leaf of grass was no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Chapter End Notes

Ilya: Refuses to ever tell anyone anything that's wrong with him
Also Ilya: My suffering is performative

My plan was to let Ilya do well in the Olympics, but Russia IRL did not do very well at this one and I don't know enough to invent my own Olympics schedule, so I just went with what actually happened.

Descriptions of the opening ceremony and the athlete's outfits are from this video.

Chapter 18: The Tom and Kurt Show

Chapter Summary

A little glimpse at a pregame radio show before the first Montreal/Boston game after the Olympics

Chapter Notes

This chapter is unbetaed because I forgot to send it to my betas and it's been so long since I updated that I just wanted to get this out!

Tom: Welcome back to The Team 990. Right now, we have the pregame show for tonight’s Boston vs. Montreal game. These two teams are about to play almost back-to-back games. It’ll be interesting to see how they bounce back after the long Olympic break.

Kurt: The top question on everyone’s mind is: will the Montreal Captain play? His status is unclear after a bumpy recovery from a knee injury last season. But of course, fans are most excited to see the NHL’s favorite couple: Hollander and Rozanov.

Tom: Did you see photos of Rozanov cheering on Hollander at the gold medal game?

Kurt: No, where did you see those?

Tom: Twitter. Look at them.

Kurt: What’s Twitter? You just have that on your phone? Is that one of those social medias? Oh yes, Rozanov looks very enthusiastic there.

Tom: Yes, Kurt.

Kurt: Well, Twitter or not, when word first got out about Hollander and Rozanov’s relationship, many fans wondered if this was the end of the legendary Boston/Montreal rivalry, with each team’s future stars clearly infatuated with one another, but if anything, it seems to have only ratcheted up this season.

Tom: Imagine if they ever break up.

Kurt: Well, we’ll leave that speculation to the tabloids right now. Though with the way Rozanov was cheering for Hollander in that gold medal game, it seems unlikely anytime soon.

Tom: We’re not going to see any of that camaraderie on the ice tonight.

Kurt: That’s right, Tom. Those boys play viciously against one another, although not that physically.

Tom: It’s interesting to see the change in Rozanov’s game in particular. His play style against Hollander is very different—smarter. He really shows off his finesse when usually he would opt for brute strength.

Kurt: But it’s so effective! No one can accuse him of going easy on Hollander when you look at the results.

Tom: It shows what kind of player Rozanov is capable of becoming with a few more years under his belt. It might be easy to miss how smart a game he can play if not for these glimpses against Hollander.

Kurt: And you could say that Rozanov is impacting Hollander too. An inside source at Montreal says that Hollander is often staying after practice, and guess what he’s doing?

Tom: Beats me.

Kurt: Practicing “The Rozanov.”

Tom: See, that’s the kind of thing they’d love to know on Twitter.

Kurt: If you say so.

Tom: Is he any good at it?

Kurt: Apparently, it was a tricky start. It’s a tough move, but it sounds like he’s making some great progress.

Tom: Can you believe a rookie pulled out that move outta nowhere and then, in the post-game scrum, declared it “The Rozanov,” and everyone just said, “yeah, that sounds right.”

Kurt: Kid's got balls. You gotta hand it to him.

Tom: Both of them are incredibly impressive. Both are on track to have 50-plus goal seasons. Both teams have a real shot at making the playoffs for the first time in several years. And the question isn’t will they'll be nominated for the Calder, but which of them will win it. They are their only competition!

Kurt: And who will get the C first? Both teams’ captains are eyeing retirement. It’s impressive stuff, Tom.

Tom: Sure is, Kurt. And we have all the coverage you need of the game tonight. Stick around. We’ll be back right after this break with a look at both teams’ likely starting lineups.

Chapter End Notes

Would the Rozanov actually be a difficult move to pull off? No clue, but in the text it's treated as a hard move so that's what I'm going with.

Chapter 19: 24 Days

Chapter Summary

The boys play two games against each other in quick succession and then reckon with their longest separation yet, 24 days.

Chapter Notes

I know it's been a minute. I rewrote basically this entire chapter. The first time I read it, when I came back to it, I was very underwhelmed with everything, so I think this is much better.

Heavy Pseudoscience Alert: I am not a scientist or doctor or literally anything useful in that regard. I cannot even reliably spell pseudoscience. I did research to try to make this whole thing semi-plausible and borrow some real word jargon, but like this is an *interpretation* so just maybe go with me on this? If you are a useful scientist/doctor and have terminology that might fit better, lmk and I can edit so I look smarter :) I just don't want things to be so wrong they're jarring to people if I can help it.

Previously on Every Atom:

The boy's longest time apart has been 20 days, which was brutal. They barely managed and were in pain the entire time. They had a lot of phone sex to cope with the distance, but it grew less effective the longer that they were apart. They haven't had to be apart that long since November thanks to good schedules and breaks. Sveta and Ilya fought at Christmas but made up relatively easily, and Ilya promised to check in with her more.

Ilya finally shared the full extent of his father's abuse of his mother and how that led to her death. Shane finally learns that Ilya thinks he's been shoving his pain into Shane, and Shane is able to reassure him that is not what is happened. The Olympics are in Toronto, and Russia does not do well. Grigori berates Ilya for not living up to his potential, for being so like him, but failing to deliver. Shane wins gold and they celebrate long and hard. Sveta and J.J. hook up.

February 5, 2010

Their first game back after the Olympics was against each other in Boston, which almost felt like a waste of their careful allotment of time together during the season, except that no time spent with Ilya felt like a waste.

It had felt stupid to Shane to fly back to Montreal to then fly with the team to Boston the next day, but he’d done it. He’d been able to get lunch with Ilya before the game, and Ilya had booked a room in the same hotel as Shane. They knew they were under extreme scrutiny in each other's cities and wanted to at least give the appearance of behaving. Hopefully, with that in mind, the times that they did actually sneak out to meet one another in different cities wouldn't seem as big of a deal if they were caught.

It has been nice to get back to his team, playing with the Olympic team, winning gold, had certainly been a dream come true, but they weren’t the guys he’d been playing with for months. The Voyageurs had really found a groove before the Olympics, and he wanted to maintain that momentum, hoping two weeks off for most of the guys provided a needed recovery window. The practices had been okay, but tonight, in Boston, would be the chance to prove it.

The Bears, or one Bear in particular, had other ideas about Montreal’s chances.  Ilya was playing like he could get revenge for the Olympics somehow, even though several of Shane’s Canadian teammates played for the Bears, and one of Ilya’s Russian teammates was on the Voyageurs. That didn’t matter to him, though; he wanted to beat Shane.

In the second period, the game was not going well. Shane was playing well, of course, but nothing was connecting for the team. Passes that shouldn’t have missed were intercepted—often by Ilya. Shots that should’ve found the back of the net were artfully deflected. And Boston was getting deeper and depper under their skin as the gap in the score widened.

A few times, Shane almost found himself smiling on the bench when both he and Ilya could relax their boundaries. His joy was infectious—like electricity zapping through his veins, giving him energy and reminding him that hockey was fun.  

But it wasn’t a good look to seem giddy on the bench when your team was down two points, especially to your boyfriend’s team. He schooled his face and glared at Ilya when the moment arose. However, that only emboldened him.

During one face off Ilya chirped:

“Hey Hollander, Montreal remembers the puck is supposed to go in the net, yes?”

Shane didn’t say anything.

“Maybe you don’t remember. This is okay. I’ll show you.”

And then that fucker won the faceoff and scored within 30 seconds. A goal that put him ahead in their scoring race. Shane tried to hold onto his seething rage, use the fire to burn out the happiness from himself and from Ilya if he could manage.

On their next shift, Shane had the puck, and Ilya shocked the hell out of him by slamming him into the boards. He winced and scrabbled to resume the block he’d dropped in surprise. Ilya skated off with the puck without a backwards glance.

Shane, in the split second before he took off after Ilya, was hit with a realization, almost as forceful as the check had been.

I love him.

It wasn’t a revelation, really, but he’d sort of been avoiding facing it dead on. He’d certainly never thought it in such black and white terms before. It had been lurking somewhere between his conscious and subconscious mind, like a rabbit, camouflaged in the tall grass and high-tailing it at the slightest breeze lest it be seen. And now here it was, caught in the open, shaking and frozen.

Get your head in the game, Hollander.

His body had been moving the whole time in a futile chase against Ilya—just always that little bit faster than him, like his body was less strictly subject to the laws of physics and he used it to find these unreal bursts of speed. Shane could’ve been laser-focused, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. When Ilya hit that stride, only god could stop him. And god didn’t seem to be a Voyageurs fan tonight. Marlow had J.J.’s number all night, and Ilya slalomed through the rest of the team as if they were cones. Shane caught up just in time to get a front-row seat to a textbook-perfect goal and wondered how he could continue living a life without him, save for a few hours every few weeks, and how he could ever give up playing against him like this. He marveled that having a soulmate had been something he once dreaded. This was amazing.

He did currently want to strangle Ilya, but in a loving way.

He tried to hold onto that feeling at the end of the game. In the end, the Bears absolutely flattened the Voyageurs 4-1, thanks in no small part to Ilya going on an absolute rampage and coming close to his first hat trick, but Drapeau had a lucky save rather than a skillful one.

Sveta had been at the game and surprised Shane for a moment by showing up at the bar where the Voyageurs were commiserating instead of meeting up with Ilya. She gave Shane endless shit about the game, which disguised the good advice that lay underneath it. He had played well, so she didn’t have much for him personally. Her appearance made a lot more sense once J.J. showed up, and she quickly abandoned him to give the same advice to his teammate.

That left him with Hayden to drink in companionable silence. Shane kept checking his phone for a text from Ilya to say he could leave his own celebrations. He knew it wouldn’t be there because Shane could feel that Ilya was still dancing. And had just taken another shot. He settled into the booth and ordered another ginger ale. Any of his teammates would’ve ordered him a beer, but he wasn’t in the mood.

“You guys are pretty cute together. If weirdly codependent for 18 year olds,” Hayden said, nodding to Shane’s phone.

“Thank you? I think.”

“It’s weird, though. At the draft, I would’ve sworn that you hated his guts.”

“I kinda did,” Shane mumbled

“So what changed? How did he change your mind? I wouldn’t think Rozanov would go for the hard-to-get types.”

Shane felt himself panic and felt Ilya stop dancing, clearly picking up on the discomfort. He blocked Ilya and hoped he’d go back to having fun. His joyful excesses hadn’t lessened since he left the ice. He carried it into the locker room and onto the dance floor. And, based on Shane’s interpretation of his actions and the buzzed feeling he had despite only drinking ginger ale, he’d carried it into a few more shots than normal. Ilya didn’t drink much or often anymore because he knew Shane didn’t like it. Ilya had jokingly complained to him on more than one occasion that his tolerance was shot and he was an embarrassment to Russia. Shane took a few deep breaths and dropped the block so Ilya could feel that he was fine, though he did try to push as much of the inebriating effects into Ilya as he could.

“Oh, we started talking after the draft when we ran into each other in the hotel gym and realized that we had a lot in common.”

Shane squirmed in his seat and tried to force himself to stop, but Hayden knew him well enough to see through the bluff.

“Sure. You were talking… Is that like code for him blowing you in the gym?”

His whole body turned bright red instantly, and he started fidgeting with the straw in his ginger ale.

“Absolutely not. No. Just about like training. That’s how we ended up with Tony.”

Hayden eyed him narrowly.

“Whatever, dude. Keep your secrets. I don’t care anyway. I need you to be my wingman.”

Shane returned his suspicious gaze. No one in his entire life had asked Shane to be their wingman.

“What? Why?”

“Why? I think that’s obvious.”

“But aren’t wingmen supposed to be smooth or likeable? They hate me here.”

He gestured to the Bostonians surrounding them, who had likely spent the entire game cheering at their embarrassment.

“No, dude. They love to hate you. But they love you because they love Rozanov. So you don’t have to be smooth. You just be yourself, and I will look smooth in comparison. Like when a not-that-cute girl surrounds herself with ugly chicks to seem hotter.”

Shane was offended on multiple fronts, but before he could say anything, their Captain, Brett Polyak, limped out of the bathroom. He’d been fighting a knee injury that was getting progressively worse and had been a scratch for the game tonight. Shane was surprised he’d come out at all.

“Bedtime, rookies.”

Hayden glanced at the clock.

“We have another hour until we need to leave.”

“Well, I’m on babysitting duty, and I need to leave, which means you need to as well.”

Shane could feel that Ilya had stopped dancing, so he hoped he was leaving soon and didn’t protest, though Hayden certainly did. He threw down objectively too much money for two ginger ales and grabbed his coat.

Ilya arrived just a little bit after him in the hotel room. Shane greeted him at the door and jumped on him like he hadn’t seen him earlier that day.

“Fuck you, that second goal was beautiful.”

Ilya just smirked at him in response—blue eyes twinkling and pressed his back into the wall. Ilya was certainly tipsy, but not drunk or out of control. It seemed to heighten the vivacity he’d had all night, and right now, in Ilya’s arms, Shane relished the feeling, the ability to let go and simply be in a way that he only seemed to find with Ilya. Shane threaded his hands through Ilya’s hair and pulled him into a soft, warm kiss. He felt all the love that he’d recognized on the ice flood back into him, and he put it all into kissing Ilya sweetly.

He sighed into Ilya’s mouth when Ilya deepened the kiss and traced his tongue over Shane’s. They stayed like that for a while until Ilya gently lowered his feet back to the floor. He knew Ilya could feel the way the love felt alive in his chest, a thing that had grown and lived right next to his heart, and he felt the same in Ilya. Ilya had put him down, but was still pressing into him, still touching their foreheads and hovering their lips centimeters apart

So Shane almost didn’t need to hear it, but Ilya whispered into that tiny gap anyway,

“I love you.”

Shane responded with a phrase he looked up an embarrassingly long time ago,

«I love you, too.»

The tiny gap became unbearable, and their mouths crashed together, and they moved inelegantly toward the bed, eager twisting limbs and kisses broken by toothy smiles were more a hindrance than help but made everything a little bit better anyway.

Their clothing was barely shoved out of the way, stretching around their budging thighs and still snaked around arms, and they were grinding against each other before they were even fully horizontal. Their movements were jerky with need and edged with slightly too much friction, but everything felt bright and wonderful and perhaps not exactly new but renewed.

Because this wasn’t horny desperation in the face of a seemingly world-ending bond, or scorchingly hot but medically necessary phone sex. This was simply because they wanted to, because they loved each other and that made him feel brilliant and alive in a way he usually only felt on the ice.

Ilya managed to shuck their pants off properly so he could spread Shane legs and press them onto his chest as he pressed into Shane. It didn’t hurt, so Ilya must have prepped him when Shane was out of his mind with feelings. He felt full and wonderful. He just needed Ilya to move. He started trying to move himself, but only had enough room to squirm. Ilya grabbed his hips and held him still.

«Look at me, rodnoy.»

Shane struggled to get his eyes open but he met Ilya’s gaze and felt like Ilya was looking into his soul.

«I love you, Shane, and you are mine.»

The words crashed him, rippling through him like a breeze bowing the tall grass, and he needed Ilya to move, to fuck him and show him how much Shane was his. But Ilya still had him pinned down, and he was stuck, panting with need.

«Tell me,» Ilya said.

Shane didn’t think he had any air in his lungs except what Ilya had breathed.

«Yours. Only yours.»

The words struck them both again. But it wasn’t all of it. It was only half of the truth because

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.

So Shane grabbed Ilya’s face and repeated

«I love you, Ilya, and you are mine. Tell me.»

Ilya lowered his face so his forehead rested on Shane and his cross necklace pooled in the hollow of Shane’s collarbones,

«Yours, Shane. I am yours.»

And then Ilya started giving himself to Shane, moving rhythmically and reverently. He had barely started, but the buildup, the words, the way they were both so affected, was spinning him out of control.

“Ilya, wait I’m going to—”

“Do it, Shane. Come for me.”

And Shane did, and for a moment, he felt his own orgasm until it suddenly doubled and pleasure flooded out of every pore, every atom of him with such an intensity that he blacked out a little as his body arched and writhed and barely registered that he came so hard some reached his throat. It took him a while to come down from that and feel his body again. When he finally did, he was clean, but his whole body was incredibly sensitive. Still, he let Ilya roll him over and settle behind him. Shane’s breathing was still ragged, but Ilya seemed to have overridden his own and was breathing slowly and steadily behind him until Shane could match those breaths.

Shane’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and his brain struggled to piece together what had happened.

“Holy shit. Did you…?” was all that he managed.

He felt Ilya smirk into his hair.

“Yes.”

Ilya had pushed all his pleasure into Shane as he came, and Shane’s mind boggled first that he had enough control to do that and second that he had done it.

“Good, yes?”

“Fuck, Rozanov. I think I met god.”

They both laughed.

“But it doesn’t really seem fair for you.”

Ilya pressed kisses into his hair and neck and Shane shivered as the feeling felt magnified.

“This was your reward for winning gold. But you fell asleep that night. But seeing you like that, Shane, my god. I would do it again a hundred times.»

Shane was too blissed out to be embarrassed, so instead he said,

“Only a hundred?”

Ilya, impossibly, tried to press more of their bodies together.

“Well, I would say a million times, but I think you do not know this word in Russian.”

 Shane laughed because that was true. He hadn’t made it past one thousand.

“I’ll get you back next time. I might just need like three days to recover.”

March 18, 2010

He was aware of Sveta creeping around his apartment because of the bond and not because of any sound she was making. Still, her presence annoyed him. Not in a personal way. She wasn’t doing anything wrong and was, by all accounts, actively helping him. But he was a piece of shit, and everything annoyed him currently, including himself.

He had been in too much pain to really sleep, so he had made a very effective list of people and concepts that were pissing him off. He’d been over it many times, and while it was possible that the order of aggravations changed somewhat with each pass, the principle was solid.

• NHL Scheduler
  1. He recognized that this was likely done by multiple people but was represented here as one.
• The Bears Travel Coordinator
  1. Again, likely more than one person
• The Voyageurs’ Travel Coordinator
  1. Actually, they should probably be number 2 just because fuck the Voyageurs, and this was probably a group of French fucks who collaborated to ruin his very existence
• The Inventor of Soulmate Bonds
  1. God? Ilya had several bones to pick with god, so he could put this on that list as well
• Pain Receptors
  1. Those motherfuckers should be the top of the list.
  2. Dealing with routine hockey injuries and a soulmate-related pain was a fucking nightmare
• Heat and/or Warmth
  1. It made his ice packs warm, and he didn’t have the strength to get up for new ones right now
  2. His feet were really hot under this blanket, but again, no strength to move

So all in all, Sveta poking around his house was low down on this list but still annoying. He felt the weight of her expectation in his mind and opened one eye to see her hand extended towards him with several white pills in them—paracetamol that she’s lovingly kept hidden in her apartment and doled out to him at regular intervals. She left quickly once he’d downed the pills.

It had been almost 20 days since he’d seen Shane, approaching the longest they had been apart. A record they would soon break. He knew that Shane tracked their time apart down to the minute or second. It soothed some part of his brain that craved order and labels. Ilya preferred not to think about it directly if he could help it. As if avoiding knowing the exact number meant it couldn’t hurt him as much.

He had forgotten how painful it had actually been to be apart. It was the kind of pain that brains weren’t designed to hold onto in great detail, so when Ilya had recalled what it had been like, there were only swaths of grey and the impression of an agony. But now he knew it intimately. The way it would swell and never fully recede around his phone calls with Shane. When they pushed it away, he could feel that it was simply waiting around the corner for the moment when they hung up to start its inexorable creep back.

He wondered occasionally if the separation could kill him. If, at some point, they’d both collapse and no one would know what was wrong with them until it was too late. With the way the sensation built each day, it didn’t seem impossible.

He’d known when he entered the draft that he was signing up for a lifetime of injury and pain. It was inevitable. He knew his body was tough enough to take it—he’d always bounced back from injuries quickly. This kind of chronic pain was never something he’d considered.

It was hard not to feel guilty for putting Shane through this. He’d been trying to shed those feelings since the Olympics, but the bond had to be his fault. It ran in his family, and he wanted Shane. He wanted to own his freckles, sharp brown eyes, and warm hands from the jump. He wanted, and he took. And now they hurt.

You are like me, Ilya.

But he hadn’t been hurting Shane like he thought he was. He might not trust himself, but he trusted Shane not to lie to him about something this important.

So he tried to hold onto that knowledge and the way Shane loved him. He hoped one day they’d make him fast enough to run out from his father’s shadow. But the shadows cast a wide arc, and it hurt too much to run right now.

A sharp, escalating sound and accompanying rumble let him know he needed to get up from his not-nap and get ready for practice. The thing was, lying down didn’t actually make it hurt less, and neither did moving or skating make it hurt more. In that way, it was different from an actual injury. He wondered if the pills even did anything to help this kind of pain, but he wasn’t willing to put Shane through the experiment of not taking them even if Sveta would allow it.

He flipped on a few lamps and gently probed for Sveta to come back. She was pissed off too, for her own reasons. Her father had called. He’d canceled his trip to see her over her spring break. She wasn’t surprised, but it never lessened the hurt.

They had worked out that Sveta sharing or unloading her emotions verbally, but also through the bond, could somewhat overwhelm him and tamp down the pain he was feeling. It never wholly stamped them out, but it provided some temporary relief. Even when the feelings were negative, it was still easier to be mad or sad than in physical pain. So he relished her pressing all her anger and frustration into him for a few minutes while he readied himself for practice and ate a snack. He tried to pay attention to the details.

This particular story was almost a trope in her life. Her father made plans to see her. She’d told herself not to get excited, but she had anyway. He canceled and sent some lavish gift instead. The gifts never lessened the feeling of neglect, but this one was particularly enraging because it was a very expensive purse from the same company he’d always purchased from in lieu of a meaningful apology when he was had fought with Sveta’s mama during their marriage. By the end, there had been a whole closet in their house full of purses and no mama, so even seeing the label made her want to vomit.

Ilya hugged her as tightly as he could and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He wiped the crumbs he’d accidentally left behind.

“How’s J.J.?” He asked coyly.

He instantly felt warmth envelop him and smiled back at her. He’d felt the budding happiness from her that he associated with the start of a relationship since the Olympics.

“He’s none of your business,” she replied, but he could feel the lie.

She was dying to gush about the latest “adorable” thing he had done, which, from Ilya’s point of view, was just basic things like calling her when he said he would and not hooking up with other women behind her back. Shane claimed to have given J.J. the shovel talk, but Ilya doubted he was as menacing as he could’ve been, so Ilya was going to try the next opportunity that he got.

He listened and rolled his eyes on cue as he put on his coat and shoes, while she flopped down on the couch and started looking for something to watch.

“Why do I pay for two apartments again?” he asked.

She flipped him off, and he headed out the door, already missing her, and tried not to hear his father’s words as the pain washed over him again.

---

March 26, 2010

It had been almost 24 days since he’d seen Ilya.

Shane had studied the calendar from every possible angle, looking for a hare-brained way to meet up. He’d even gone so far as to look up how to charter private flights to meet in Oregon when he was in LA and Ilya was in Vancouver, or fucking Nebraska when they were splitting the coasts. But nothing worked. Anytime the Voyageurs even thought about being on the East Coast of the US, Ilya’s team was on the other side of the country. But there hadn’t been anything they could make work except putting their heads down and enduring.

By day 20, Shane was a walking headache. His joints loudly protested even basic movements in a cacophony of resounding aches and pains—his body the unwitting conductor of what had to be hell’s own symphony. His muscles burned as if someone had actually set him on fire. They were on the phone as much as possible. Shane had masturbated so much his dick hurt, but not doing it hurt worse, so he just kept going and decided if it fell off he likely wouldn’t notice much, given everything else.

Making Shane’s life worse was the fact that all the momentum Montreal had before the Olympics hadn’t returned. Their Captain had been playing off and on with a knee injury, which left a rotating cast of alternates filling in as captain. The team lacked cohesion and leadership, and while Shane was playing more than ever, it wasn’t clear if it was going to be enough to clinch a playoff spot.

Even looking past their 24-day drought, there would be the playoff schedules to contend with. They couldn’t plan how they would make it through that because talking about it might jinx it, and there was no way to know how it would shake out until it was happening.

The summer felt so distant, like a mirage on the horizon that might blink out of existence at any moment. It was hazy in the heat, but Shane could just make out the shady palms and stretches of blue that promised an oasis from an underperforming hockey team and an untenable soulmate bond.

Still, summer would come, and Shane was looking forward to the days of relaxation and Ilya. They had plans to spend time at his parents’ cabin and had even discussed telling them that they were soulmates. Shane felt comfortable that they’d be supportive since they’d have a year’s worth of data to prove they could make this work as is.

They also had plans to go to Russia. Shane was excited, and Ilya was alternately ecstatic, listing places he’d take Shane and food they’d eat, and sullen, seemingly when he remembered he’d have to see his father.

So everything in his life was currently a jumbled mess. But the worst of it was almost over. They just had to get through their games tonight first. It was a bit of a worst-case scenario for them. They hadn’t seen each other in so long, and both played at the same time, so they couldn’t even try to block for one another, needing to save their ability to do so for their own time playing. Shane hated these nights—everything felt too loud and wrong.

He kept a close eye on his heart rate monitor. His heart rate was more erratic than usual, and they seemed to have a harder time blocking after so long apart, like their bodies were rejecting any further separation. It was still clear when he was blocking, though, so he didn’t think there’d be an issue if they ever needed the data, but it was just another factor pointing to the wrongness of their situation.

Shane was zoning out, staring at his watch.

“You’re obsessed with that thing, dude,” Hayden said to him on the bench.

He’d gotten comments about his obsession with his heart rate. The guys loved to tease him for being such a freak about it. He did think that the data was interesting and gave him some helpful insights. His resting heart rate slowly climbed up after being apart from Ilya, only to reset while they were together.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s important.”

Shane had learned that if any of the guys had started asking too many questions, he could bore them with all the information their heart rate could provide and try to convince them to buy one. He’d been surprised when J.J. had actually bought one, but none of the other guys had. It was generally an effective way to kill a conversation. Shane wondered what Ilya said about his. It had never occurred to him to ask.

---

Coach whistled for his line to go out. It was midway through the third period, and they were tied with Buffalo. Shane had not been playing his best hockey in the last week. It was perhaps not surprising, but he was determined to prove to himself that he could overcome this issue, and this game had been okay so far. The crowd in Bell Centre was predictably getting more rowdy as the clock wound down, with the game still tied 1-1. They needed every goal they could get if they wanted to make the playoffs, and Shane was determined to rise to the occasion and get Montreal into the playoffs for the first time in three years.

The crowd roared as Shane was on a breakaway, flying up the ice. He’d been practicing The Rozanov—without any of Ilya’s muscle memory—but he wasn’t quite fast enough on the switch to use it here. He kept his gaze forward when, all of a sudden, his body was falling toward the ice. Had he tripped?

He wasn’t sure until a white-hot blaze of pain shot through his shin, and he yelled loudly. He hit the ice, and everything went fuzzy.

Someone was calling his name.

He needed to get up. He knew he was doing something important.

People were talking, yelling around him, but his ears were ringing too much to hear what they were saying.

He felt himself being jostled.

He tried to open his eyes, but felt too heavy to move. He groaned, and then the pain returned. His right leg was pulsing with sharp pain, occasionally spiking even worse when his leg was moved or was it Ilya’s leg moving? He couldn’t quite tell.

His leg hurt so much, compounding the pain he felt in every single speck of him. If he was injured, how could he get to Ilya tonight?

Ilya.

He needed to keep this from Ilya. He tried to block him out, but everything hurt too much, and he couldn’t block, couldn’t even envision the switch he used to have to imagine to block him. His head was so fuzzy, and his vision swam.

“Shane. Where does it hurt? What happened?”

“Leg,” he said, and managed to point at the one that hurt.

He had two seconds of clarity when the pain in his leg, and what he realized in those two seconds of clarity were concussion symptoms, were gone. He was left with only the usual aching pull toward Ilya that now felt almost mild in comparison. As he was piecing together what must’ve happened, it all flooded back into him, and he was pulled back into the blinding pain.

He wasn’t hurt. Ilya was fucking hurt. He needed to get his shit together and check on Ilya.

He wasn’t hurt.

But he still had all the symptoms of Ilya’s concussion and couldn’t fight his way through them enough to block them out.

He felt himself being loaded onto a gurney and, for just a moment, felt the same exact sensation from Ilya, and the last thought that he had before the paramedics administered pain medication was that they were probably completely fucked.

He came to drifting consciousness in a private hospital room. His parents had been at the game and had seemingly followed the ambulance here.

Several doctors were in the room and were the ones who were trying to rouse him. 

He heard bits and pieces of what they were saying

no MOI consistent with… not broken… elevated levels… likely in a lot of pain from…

None of it really made any sense to Shane, and though his body hurt a lot less than it had before, he wasn’t in the mood to talk to the doctors.

He felt his mother’s warm, dry hand on his face and leaned into the soothing touch.

“Shane, baby. The doctors want to try to help you. Can you tell us about Ilya? Is he your soulmate, Shane?”

That cut through the fog, and he remembered.

He remembered he needed to keep a fucking secret. He heard a beeping pickup that hurt his head even more.

“No. No, he’s not.”

He felt his dad’s firm hand wrap around his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Shane, you’re not in any trouble. We just need you to confirm it so they can help you.”

Shane tried to find either of his parents’ gazes, but it was so difficult to keep his eyes open, and the lights were so bright.

His throat burned and ached with the words he couldn’t say. Instead, he nodded.

That seemed to set off a whole flurry of activity, fortunately none of which required Shane’s input, so he lost himself in the loose feeling of medication and felt grateful because, for the first time in days, something took the edge off of his agony.

When he was next aware of what was going on, it was because he was because the cold night air whipped his face as he was loaded into an ambulance again. He was still loopy from the pain medicine and was incredibly confused as to why that was happening, but somehow still managed to fall unconscious again. He woke up with his mom’s hand in his as the ambulance came to a stop.

 He realized that he was no longer strapped to a backboard or in a neck brace, but he was gently strapped to a bed that was in an elevator. He blinked at the bright lights, and the next thing he knew he was in another hospital room.

And there was Ilya.

Seeing him, his face twisted in pain, brow shiny with sweat and discomfort, cut through some of Shane’s fog and made him ache for an entirely different reason. Ilya was in an oversized hospital bed clearly designed for two, and Shane used all of his extremely limited wherewithal to crawl in next to him. All the wires running off him were on his right side, clearly prepared for Shane to be on his left. As soon as they touched, Ilya’s face smoothed out, and Shane’s entire body relaxed. The concussion symptoms were still there, and his leg still fucking hurt, but it all felt so much more manageable now.

As he was settling in, his mom said, “Careful. His leg.”

He didn’t stop and only said, “I know,” as he lay down and wrapped his body around Ilya’s left side, tugging his loose hospital gown down so Shane could rest his cheek directly on Ilya’s chest and fell quickly into nothingness.

---

The stars swirled around him. From this angle, they seemed to be impossible colors, pinpricks of reds, pinks, blues, and greens that passed him by—some in a rush and some at a languid pace that suggested they had all the time in the world. But he kept blinking back to a bed, to beeping and to a dull pain, one foot in each world. Shane was beside him in both, but he felt like he was stuttering in and out of existence. It was like the world’s slowest strobe light, bright white overhead bulbs and vast blackness of space. It was making them vaguely nauseated.

Ilya loved the moments of floating like this because who else got to float without a suit among the stars? But he felt like he was in the stars when Shane was in the bed, and they kept missing each other. He hoped they would find each other in place, but even in the brief moments they were together in the stars, they stayed there in a slow orbit above the planet in an unchanging sky.

The other somewhat perturbing realization he had after a while—it was really impossible to sense the passage of time—was that they couldn’t move. They seemed locked in this position. Wherever he was, he was on his back, and Shane was on his side.

After an indeterminate amount of time, they suddenly shifted while they were both flung back into the bright white bed. Ilya hadn’t tried to move this time. He simply did, and he found himself suddenly wrapped around Shane’s back, their bodies shaped into exactly the same position. Mere moments after that, they were hit with simultaneous waves of euphoria that Ilya recognized immediately as a drug-induced sensation, though this was not one he’d experienced before.

He felt wonderful. The aches of not being with Shane and the pain of something else he couldn’t quite place melted away as they both, finally, fell through the stars and felt the grass between their toes.

They were there for a long time, first floating in the lake and eventually lounging on the banks of the river that reminded him of his childhood hideaway near the dacha. The grass grew tall along the banks—one way it was distinctly unlike the river near the dacha. The grass wasn’t one type of leaf or plant but more than he could count. Many looked similar, sharing wide green blades that shot out at the base with tips that bloomed into white fluff or seed clusters or little flowers.

They hauled themselves out of the river and nestled in tall grass, already dry and not itching in this place's strange magic. Curled around each other, they couldn’t tell who was holding whom, and they had an even harder time remembering such distinctions mattered. They hadn’t spoken in what must’ve been hours. They rarely needed to here—not that they could read each other’s minds or even emotions like he could with Sveta. He felt a pang at her absence here.

They took a deep breath, nostrils filling with the smell of leaves and pollen, soil and decay, lake water and skin that combined into a sweet smell better than any perfume Ilya had ever known. He let his head tipped back and looked up. The sky was streaked with brilliant oranges and pinks, shadowed by a deep, royal purple. Ilya spent several minutes staring at it and noticed that while the color shifted slowly, the sky didn’t grow darker at all.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

What was it? He tried to think, but everything that wasn’t the feeling of Shane and the grass beneath him felt distant and fuzzy.

“Hockey?”

That made Shane laugh.

“Are you just guessing the mostly likely answer? Either way, you’re right. You were playing in Ottawa and went down hard.”

He winced as the memory came back to him in pieces. Less so the details of what happened and more the fear that Shane would feel it until the pain and confusion overrode everything else. But the fear crashed into him again, and his eyes widened in fear. He’d been running his hands up and down Shane’s arms, following the pattern of his freckles but now gripped him tightly.

“Are you okay?” Ilya asked.

“I wasn’t injured, but I went down too. That level of injury, plus the concussion—there was probably no way for me to block that out. Maybe if we had been near each other more recently, I could’ve held it back. But I couldn’t.”

Ilya resumed his tracing of Shane’s body. The sky had continued shifting overhead; scarlet now dappled the sky, but there had been no actual progress toward sunset.

So, everyone knew then. Even if people at the Montreal game didn’t know why Shane went down, it wouldn’t take a genius to realize they’d gone down in the same second. The implications were obvious to anyone. They probably knew what had happened before either of them had reached the hospital. He said as much to Shane who nodded.

“They made me confirm it. But they already knew. Our vitals were all over the place, even if it wasn’t caught by like 30 different cameras and replaying across every TV in North America.”

It was maybe inevitable, this result. It was hockey, and one of them was going to go down eventually. Go down hard enough that the other couldn’t hide it. They hadn’t thought about it because there was nothing they could do to prevent it. No amount of practice blocking or time on the ice could really prepare them for this.

“We were stupid to think that we could get away with this,” Shane said bitterly.

“You are not stupid, Shane. Maybe we are um, naivnyy,” Ilya paused, the English word on the tip of his tongue.

“Naïve?”

“Yes, same word, okay, but you deserve to play hockey. You deserve everything”

Ilya had long given up on the idea that the universe owed him anything. But Shane was different. He was entitled to everything. To hockey, to Ilya, to kindness, to the stuff that made the stars and the grass beneath them.

 «You deserve it too, rodnoy,» Shane said.

But Ilya heard a different voice, one he couldn’t shake no matter where he went it seemed.

Like me, Ilya.

He held in a wave of emotion as Shane ran his thumb over a blade of grass arching above them and rippling in the breeze.

Shane said, “What is it?”

How could he answer Shane? Was he talking about this place or the grass? Either way, he didn’t know what it was any more than Shane did.

He looked around. The grass stretched as far as he could see in gentle, rolling hills. He wondered if they could become part of it, too, or if they already were.

At Ilya’s shrug, Shane asked,

“Do you hurt Sveta? With your bond?”

He tried to read Shane’s face or sense any strong emotion from him. But he couldn’t pick up anything. Shane was more unreadable to him than he ever had been. Why was he asking these questions? Shane knew he’d never hurt Sveta. He liked to play a physical game of hockey and maybe even enjoyed some of the fights, but he didn’t actually like to hurt people.

“Would you hurt the grass?”

Ilya scrunched his brows in confusion. Of course, he wouldn’t. Even if some blades were smashed beneath them, the grass was resilient. It would still thrive.

“Then why do you think you would hurt me, Ilya?”

In that moment, connected to everything around him in the clouds, the breeze, the grass, the dirt, and Shane—most of all Shane—he realized he would never hurt him, not in the way he feared he would. Ilya felt his lower lip tremble at an upwelling of emotion. Shane’s face broke into a rare, easy smile, and Ilya’s heart melted. He hoped he could remember this when it was time to go.

“I won’t let you forget.”

He knew there might be moments that he still forgot, but Shane would remind. And they would come back to this place where everything felt clear and sweet—his soul, the grass beneath him, the wind, Shane beside him. There no longer seemed to be a line between what belonged to him and what did not. He pulled Shane into him, and they stared at the sky, watching the sun refuse to set.

---

Shane woke in a haze of pain and confusion. The feeling grew right along with his concern for Ilya, who was still asleep. Still drugged—his body was beginning the healing process. He heard noises before his ears truly started processing sound again. They were still curled together, with Ilya at his back.

His mom was gently mussing his hair as she said his name.

“Shane, there’s someone here to help you. Can you sit up?”

He groaned and hid his face in his hand. Ilya stirred a bit but didn’t wake.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Hollander. He can stay just like that.”

He heard a few steady steps move closer to him.

“Shane, I’m Dr. Yvonne St. James. I’m a psychologist who specializes in profound bonds. I imagine that you are having some difficulty blocking Ilya between the concussion symptoms and the medication.”

He grunted. He hoped it worked as an acknowledgement.

“That’s completely normal. But I can try to help you if you’re willing to work with me.”

Shane would do a lot to stop feeling as bad as he did right now, but then immediately felt guilty because that meant Ilya would be dealing with it alone. He couldn’t do that to him. He shook his head no.

“I understand, Shane. I have the same kind of bond as you, and I’m sure you don’t want to let him carry the pain alone.”

“Sweetie, it would be good for you to be clear-headed for a few moments to talk to the doctors for Ilya. You will still be helping him, and it wouldn’t be for long.”

Shane accepted that what his mom said was true because it basically always was.

“How long were we out?” Shane grumbled, still speaking into his hands.

“It’s tough to say exactly. You didn’t go down easily but about 18 hours.”

Shane was coming back into his body more fully—finally registering sensation beyond just Ilya’s pain. He was still from being in one position for so long, and there was an IV in his right arm which was gently swathed to his body, likely to stop him from moving. He was ravenous but far too nauseated from Ilya’s pain to eat.

“I just want to give you the techniques. It’s up to you if you use them,” the doctor said.

Shane moved his hand from his face—he really was so hungry, so he nodded okay but made no effort to move or do anything else.

“Okay, Shane, I want you to imagine that you are in the forest right now. Look around you. You don’t need to tell me what it looks like, but I want you to picture it clearly.”

He did. The forest was dark and misty. Full of leafless, gnarled oak trees that looked frightening in silhouette. He didn’t like this place. He didn’t like that he knew Ilya was there, too.

 She kept talking, telling him to look for a path and imagine that path widening and heading uphill. It took a long time. He felt like he was walking for ages, and he hurt. But she kept directing him as he made very slow progress. She told him that the trees were thinning and the sun was growing brighter. He kept walking up the hill until he emerged above the tree line, into the light and onto a stunning mountain top with clear, fresh air.

He realized that he’d slowly left behind the pain and brain fog and was blocking Ilya. But it felt different than it ever had before—gentler, instead of something he needed to keep gripped so tightly.

He sat up and blinked at his surroundings. He felt like he should be light sensitive, but wasn’t. He turned and saw Dr. St. James sitting in a chair while his mom stood at the foot of the bed. He tried to smile at her, but he instead felt, with some horror, that his eyes were watering. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself.

“How long can you usually block for, Shane?”

 He took Ilya’s hand and wished it would wrap around his. Instead, he just felt the callouses.

“Um. Like 5-7 minutes at a time? Is that normal?”

He saw her glance at her watch.

“It’s not abnormal. But it is on the lower end of the spectrum. I just need some basic information from you to take care of some paperwork.”

He felt the reality of their situation sink in at that moment. Paperwork would make it official. Everyone would know.

His coaches.

The league.

Everyone knew already.

Fuck. Ilya’s father probably knew already or would soon. He couldn’t imagine how that was going to go, but had a hard time imagining it going well. He wanted nothing more than to fall apart in that moment and give in to the rising panic, but he couldn’t. Maybe there was no way out of this, but he still needed to be strong for Ilya. Perhaps Dr. St. James could sense his distress.

“The questions are simple. We have most of the information we need from your parents and Ilya’s team. And this will make you his next of kin, legally. We have been in touch with Svetlana Vetrova and his father in the meantime.”

Shit. Okay, well, he trusted Sveta, but being able to make decisions for Ilya was good, though he hoped Ilya would recover soon so that it wouldn’t be a real issue.

“When did your bond happen?”

“The night of the draft, June 27^th.”

He heard his mom take a deep breath, but she didn’t say anything.

“And you didn’t go to a center. Or tell anyone?”

He shook his head. “Only Sveta, Svetlana knows, knew because she could feel it.”

Dr. St. James’ lips grew tighter. Ilya shifted restlessly next to him. Shane tried to touch him more, but it didn’t seem to help.

“How long can you be apart before you begin to feel symptoms?”

“About eight days. But it’s not really a big deal until 14 or 15 days. Is that normal?”                    

“Dr. St. James, I don’t know if you follow hockey, but when a hockey player says ‘not a big deal’—”

“I was born and will die a Voyageur fan. I know how tough they are, Mrs. Hollander. I’ll put an initial estimate of 14 days, but you’ll need separation monitoring to determine when your bodies start to experience withdrawal symptoms.”

He saw his mom nod approvingly out of the corner of his eye. He returned to looking at Dr. St. James. Her features were very carefully neutral. She had cool, black skin, and small braids pulled back in a low ponytail. Her expression was calm and felt nonjudgmental. He wondered who her soulmate was. He’d known a few people with somatic bonds in his life, but no one else with a profound bond.

“Shane, that’s well within the normal range, but it had been 24 days since you last saw each other. How do you manage that?”

He felt his ears turn bright red as he looked down at his hands. He returned his gaze to the doctor’s face but couldn’t meet her eyes.

“We were going to see each other tonight—last night, I guess. We had a plan,” he said defensively.

“Walk me through it.”

Shane explained how, after their first long separation, they’d been gone for so long that they didn’t rush back into that place.

“I know it might not feel that way right now, but you are very fortunate to have ended up here. Your bond had destabilized since you’d been apart so long. You might not have been able to reach your bond space at all. Then you would’ve separated without resetting the clock, so to speak. Or the two of you would’ve been there so long you risked serious dehydration and malnutrition.”

She paused, letting the information sink in. Shane felt a bit beyond emotional reactions now, so he simply nodded. He had known, in some ways, that they were fucked, but hearing her describe the precise level of fuckedness was upsetting.

“Given the issues you had when you arrived here, I suspect the former. We had to give you ketamine to induce interpersonal neural synchrony.”

Shane knew he should ask what she was talking about, but he was fading.

She turned her wrist to glance at the clock. “We’re at about six minutes, Shane. I have the information I need for the paperwork, so we can pick up this conversation in a few minutes. Rest for the moment.”

He drifted again. He heard the doors open and close a few times until Dr. St. James’ voice caught his attention again, and she walked him through the mental exercise to help him block Ilya. It was a little faster this time.

This time, when he opened his eyes, his mom was gone.

“How are you feeling?”

“My body is fine.”

Truthfully, Shane felt a bit beyond panic right now. He was sure it would find him and the reality of everything would crash into him, but right now, it all still felt theoretical. And most of his concern was just for Ilya.

“What actually happened to him?”

“He has a moderate concussion and a tibia and fibula fracture.”

Not ideal, but not as bad as hockey injuries could be.

“So, you and Ilya had been apart for 24 days and still managed to play professional hockey. It’s quite impressive. How do you manage your symptoms?” 

He knew he was turning red again.

“I’m a doctor, Shane. I can assure you that I’ve heard it all before.”

He breathed in through his nose.

“Uh, phone sex? Like we talk to each other and that lets us reach that place where we’re together? Like our little universe. It’s a bit different each time?”

It sounded stupid and fake when he actually had to describe it in words.

“I know what you're talking about. The clinical term is ‘bond space,’ but it’s hard to describe. Most bond partners describe it differently. The brain creates images to help process how it feels more concretely. For you, it looks like a little world. That’s perfectly normal.”

He’d been opening his mouth to ask just that and felt so relieved that she understood. He wished Ilya was awake. They hadn’t had anyone to ask questions to, so having someone who could answer questions felt like a miracle.

“What other techniques do you use to reach bond space?”

“What?”

He looked back at her. She had a faint smile on her face. It had an air of professional warmth that Shane knew he’d never achieved. Neutral, yes. Warm, no. She was taking notes here and there.

“There are many ways to reach bond space. Sex is one of them. The other most common one is meditation. For some people, light exercise or making music works. Almost any shared mind/body experience can work as long as it’s meaningful.”

“I… what?”

Shane’s brain felt like it was broken in a new and different way.

“That never happened to us. Not while exercising at least. The other things… Ilya hates meditating.”

Her expression didn’t change, but she did stop writing for a moment.

“So just sex then?”

Fuck, Ilya would be having a field day with this. He wanted to bury his head in his hands, but tried to remember that he could be a professional too and had a reputation for being difficult to rattle for a reason.

“Yes. Just sex. But maybe we can explore the other things later.”

“These are things a bond center can help you with even still. What you have managed on your own is impressive, if clinically inadvisable. But there are likely tools and techniques that would help both of you going forward.”

He just nodded. This information just piled on top of everything that had happened in the last 12 hours that he had no idea what to do with. He got overwhelmed, rested and then Dr. St. James walked him through one more round of visualization to block Ilya. It still wasn’t easy, but it was growing easier each time.

“How did you learn about your bond, Shane? Tell me what you know.”

He explained their relatively futile online searches in the hotel room and their fumbling experiments with sex and hockey. She nodded, occasionally raising the barest eyebrow at something she likely considered particularly ill-advised. He suspected learning to block each other out via blow jobs and outrage was likely not what happened in a bond center.

“Put very simply, Shane, you have four states of connectedness, or lack thereof, within your bond. The first is the “blocked” state; then the “entrained” state where you feel connected but like two distinct people. Next is the “converged” state where your boundaries relax, and you feel less distinct, and more like one being. Simple bonds only have the first two states. Profound cerebral bonds have three. But profound, somatic bonds have one more, which is called, perhaps a bit bluntly, “bond space.” That is where you go to the little place you have made.”

Shane nodded, marveling at this free flow of information, trying to cram it all into his not concussed but not, not concussed mind. He really wished Ilya were awake to learn this.

“You should probably expect researchers to reach out to you about your experience, as well as wanting access to your medical records for analysis. No one has any record of bonded people being apart this long and going to the hospital separately since probably Germany in the ‘40s. So, you should consider if you’d grant them access. Anything they publish would be anonymous.”

Sure, anonymous. Never mind how publicly they’d just been outed. But also, was she talking about Nazis? Literal Nazi experiments. Shane shook his head.

“I think I need to go to sleep.”

She nodded and walked out the room. He heard his mom say something to her as she entered the room, but he was asleep before she sat down in the chair by the bed.

---

Ilya woke up suddenly—only an instinctive awareness of Shane curled against him stopped him from bolting upright. He appreciated that fact when the headache hit him a few seconds later.

He groaned, and that woke Shane, who sat up blearily, eyes crusted with sleep, drool drying on his mouth and impressions of fabric on his cheek that looked like blades of grass.

Ilya looked around. David was there, sitting in a chair, reading some magazine that he couldn’t make out. With both of them stirring, he put it down and took off his reading glasses.

“Morning, boys,” he said while glancing at his watch.

How long had he been asleep? What had happened? Memories started coming back to him. He remembered playing in Ottawa, he remembered pain and sirens, and then he remembered Shane.

He didn’t need all his memories to fill in the gaps. He registered Shane’s fingers anxiously picking at the threads of the blanket pulled up to their chests. He reached his hand up to still Shane’s and found that though he could reach, he couldn’t fully bend his elbow because of the IV.

He looked over at Shane and winced at the brightness, even though the blinds were drawn.

“Are you okay?” He asked Shane.

“I’m not the injured one.”

“Yes but…”

His eyes shifted to David, then back to Shane.

“Everyone knows, Ilya.”

He figured. He kept himself from nodding to save his head and instead brought his hand to Shane’s face like he was trying to see it with his fingers. He couldn’t quite reach, but Shane leaned into his touch.

“You should block me.”

Shane shared with Ilya that he had been blocking him off and on; filled him in on all of the information that Dr. St James had shared, as well as the regular news regarding Ilya's condition. The good news was that they could be discharged that afternoon. They had a meeting with the Players Association before meeting with the NHL tomorrow, and their respective teams after that.

“Yuna has been coordinating. Ilya, Farrah has been working with your agent but has been taking the lead. He seems very uncertain of what to do,” David explained

Ilya snorted.

“He is bad. You can say it. I don’t like him, but my father does.”

David gave a stern frown so reminiscent of Shane that Ilya could practically feel it. He’d assumed all those looks came from Yuna, but clearly, there was a side of David he hadn’t seen yet.

“Let’s talk more at home. I’ll let the doctors know you're awake. They can start the paperwork.”

Getting home hurt, even in the back of Yuna’s spacious SUV—a relic of the time she drove a bunch of little hockey players around—was still brutal, but they kept him on “the good stuff,” and once they got to the Hollanders’ house, he fell asleep in Shane’s arms the moment his head hit the pillow.

Chapter End Notes

Homophobia isn’t a thing, and they are very publicly dating, but Hollanov still manages to get outed somehow

Also, Dr. St. James is a professional and would never say this, but she is deeply unsure if what Shane and Ilya did is the most impressive or stupidest thing she’s ever heard of from profound soulmates and decides that it’s probably both.

Chapter 20: Internal Emails

Chapter Summary

The Bears and Voyageurs have much to discuss

Chapter Notes

I know in reality, a lot more people would be involved in these emails: Assistant GMs, Ops Staff, HR, many lawyers. IDK how front offices work but I know how corporate emergencies work. But more people would just be difficult to follow so please accept my limited roster of people in favor of readability. I think most of us get enough emails with too many people IRL and don’t need it here.

This is very much a vibe rather than an accurate depiction of exactly what would be in these emails and everyones job titles.

CW: sexist language and racism

Also, everyone's title is in the email signature but here's a summary anyway:

mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com – Head Coach
dweinsberg@mtlvoyageurs.com –Chief of Legal Counsel
cbrady@mtlvoyageurs.com – General Manager
jnnadozie@mtlvoyageurs.com - Chief of Medicine

patrick.leclaire@bostonbears.com, Head Coach
andrew.edmonds@bostonbears.com General Manager
isabella.cervantez@bostonbears.com Chief of Medicine
walter.chini@bostonbears.com Chief of Legal Counsel

To: patrick.leclaire@bostonbears.com
andrew.edmonds@bostonbears.com
mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com
cbrady@mtlvoyageurs.com

From: mwizowski@nationalhockeyleague.com

Subject: Rozanov/Hollander Investigation

Hello All,

I'm sure you've had just as long a night as I have.

As a reminder, the League has instituted a media blackout pending the release of an official statement later this afternoon. Until then, please direct all inquiries to League Communications. Following the statement, clubs should refer media to that release and refrain from further comment.

As discussed on this morning's call, the NHL has opened a formal investigation into the previously undisclosed profound somatic bond between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.

The NHLPA has advised that the bond formed following the Entry Draft. Based on the information currently available, there is no indication that either player violated League policy during the draft process. The focus of the investigation is their subsequent failure to disclose the bond and whether any competitive advantage resulted from its concealment.

We have been advised that the players maintained private physiological monitoring records throughout the season. Hollander's agent will be providing identical copies to both the NHLPA and the League. Review of those records will begin immediately. The IOC has already reached out. We will also provide them a copy but will not coordinate directly on the investigation or outcomes.

While no official timeline has been established, we expect the review to conclude within approximately 5–10 days.

Pending the outcome of the investigation, Hollander and Rozanov are suspended from all League activities. This will not affect Mr. Rozanov's medical treatment or rehabilitation.

Mr. Hollander has expressed confidence that the available data will demonstrate no prohibited exertion sharing or other competitive advantage.

We will provide updates as appropriate.

M. Wizowski
NHL Commissioner

---

To:  mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com
cbrady@mtlvoyageurs.com
dweinberg@mtlvoyageurs.com   

From: jnnadozie@mtlvoyageurs.com

Subject: Hollander Bond Report        

Hi,

I’ve just gotten the official bond report from Queensway Carleton. The details are attached but in summary:

Hollander is physically cleared for all activity. He is uninjured.

However, given the nature of Rozanov’s injury and concussion, it is more difficult for Hollander to block him out. When not blocking, Hollander feels the effects of a leg fracture and a moderate concussion.

According to Hollander, they didn’t typically block during practice or other exercise because they couldn’t maintain it long enough. So, while this won’t be a problem for games, it might be a problem for practice.

It’s not clear how long the leg will be too painful for Hollander to skate on without blocking or how long the concussion symptoms will last. We are probably looking at 3 weeks of modified activity, at least in practices.

Big Picture:

Hollander and Rozanov need to spend at least 8 hours together every 8-13 days. Severe symptoms begin at day 14, so legally, that’s the limit. Through their first separation, from this point, they will be subject to withdrawal monitoring since these numbers are self-reported. The window could be tighter than that.

I’m also coordinating with Janice in HR about hiring Pentel Athletics for official bond monitoring for Hollander going forward. She’s getting in touch with the Bears’ HR to coordinate scheduling, payments, etc.

I have also emailed my contacts at Biolexna about the research they’re doing as discussed in our meeting. I’ll follow up when I have more.

Best,

Johanna Nnadozie, M.D.

Voyageurs Head of Medicine

To: mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com
dweinsberg@mtlvoyageurs.com
jnnadozie@mtlvoyageurs.com

From: cbrady@mtlvoyageurs.com

Subject: Re: Hollander Bond Report

Thanks, Jo. Appreciate you working with the hospital to get this info quickly.

The coaching, AGMs, Ops staff, and I have reviewed and discussed this situation. We have a lot of concerns, everything from our ability to get Hollander and Rozanov together as often as required to the extremely likely event that this happens again.

To clarify, every time Rozanov gets a concussion, is Hollander out of commission?

If so, this is a major disruption to our operations.

Dan, I know you’ve been working to outline everything we need to do, legally speaking, for accommodations. But can you also put together options if we go the trade route? It can’t be illegal for us to trade him because of this, can it? He doesn’t have any protections in his contract.

-Chris
General Manager

To: cbrady@mtlvoyageurs.com
dweinsberg@mtlvoyageurs.com
jnnadozie@mtlvoyageurs.com

From: mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com

Subject: Re: Hollander Bond Report

I want it to be clear that I don’t think this kind of instability is something we can build a team around.

Rozanov’s a liability.

I do not allow liabilities onto the ice.

I do not allow other teams’ players to have an impact on our players. Rozanov is probably using Hollander’s muscle memory. Any training we put into him goes straight to Boston.

Hollander has talent. If Rozanov wasn’t in this equation, this kid could be the next two decades of Montreal hockey. But this is a problem that isn’t going to go away.

-M.T.
Head Coach

To: mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com
dweinsberg@mtlvoyageurs.com
jnnadozie@mtlvoyageurs.com

From: cbrady@mtlvoyageurs.com

Subject: Re: Hollander Bond Report

I hear you, Michel. It is not against any rules in the NHL or any other sporting organization that they cannot practice with each other’s muscle memory. Blocking wouldn’t allow them to use it during a game. But this is a rather unique situation here.

Regardless, we’ve seen Hollander practicing the Rozanov all year. He was bad at it when he started. If he was using Rozanov’s muscle memory, he wouldn’t need to practice, and if he did, it would’ve gone a lot smoother for him in the beginning.

Chris
General Manager

To: cbrady@mtlvoyageurs.com
dweinsberg@mtlvoyageurs.com
jnnadozie@mtlvoyageurs.com

From: mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com

Subject: Re: Hollander Bond Report

Hollander’s a good kid. I don’t doubt that he’s not using Rozanov’s muscle memory if he says he isn’t. Might just be that he can’t. But we have no way of knowing if Rozanov is doing the same. You know what a showboat he is, the reservations we had about him during the draft. And Hollander might be too passive to stand up for himself. Probably just lets that Russian asshole walk all over him.

This kind of liability, this kind of baggage, is not the Montreal way.

Plus, look at these headlines: 

ESPN: Hollander Confirms Cover-Up in Soulmate Scandal
TSN: Why Hollander Makes Rozanov a Better Player
CBC Sports: Hollander Engineers Secret Soulmate Contact System
And Dobber Hockey had a whole piece about all the times Hollander didn't play as aggressively against Rozanov as he usually does. It's fucking damning.

Jo, have you heard back from your contact at Biolexna about that research study for people with Hollander’s condition? I want to know ASAP.

M.T.

To:  mtheriault@mtlvoyageurs.com
jnnadozie@mtlvoyageurs.com
cbradley@mtlvoyageurs.com

From: dweinsberg@mtlvoyageurs.com

Subject: Re: Hollander Bond Report

Chris, Michael,

Assuming Hollander and Rozanov are cleared of any implications of cheating, we’re required to engage in the accommodation process before making any employment decision based on Hollander's bond. We should move forward with Dan's recommendations and document what accommodations are attempted and whether they're effective.

Hollander’s contract allows him to be traded at any point within the trade deadline, and a trade is not prohibited simply because Hollander has a profound bond. However, I would not recommend pursuing one until we can demonstrate that reasonable accommodations have been considered and that the ongoing operational impact cannot reasonably be addressed to mitigate any potential liabilities. This is simple since the trade deadline has passed. We have time to try before it opens again.

Jackson is helpful here; it does not prevent organizations from making legitimate personnel decisions based on operational realities.

If accommodations prove unworkable over the remainder of the season, I'll put together our options once the trade window opens.

Dan
General Counsel

---

To: walter.chini@bostonbears.com
isabella.cervantez@bostonbears.com
patrick.leclaire@bostonbears.com

From: andrew.edmonds@bostonbears.com

Subject: Re: Rozanov Medical and Bond Report       

Thanks for the report from Queensway Carleton, Isabella. Looks like we can expect Rozanov at practice in 6 weeks—with the potential to return if we make a deep playoff run.

Patrick and I have discussed the bond problem with the coaching staff, and we’re aligned in using next year as confirmation that we can make it work. Rozanov’s tough as nails. The kid scored 51 goals so far.

Plus, their agents indicated that they plan to spend 4-6 weeks in a bond center during the off-season.

Walty is going to make sure that we do all the paperwork, but I’m confident we can make it work.

-Andy

General Manager

To: andrew.edmonds@bostonbears.com
isabella.cervantez@bostonbears.com
walter.chini@bostonbears.com

From: patrick.leclaire@bostonbears.com


Subject: Re: Rozanov Medical and Bond Report      

Agreed, Andy. Between us, Rozanov’s soulmate could be the Devil himself, and I’d want to keep him.

Actually, that might explain a 51-goal season for a rookie. And it’s not even April!

And I don’t know if you’ve heard from our spy network, but I’m hearing rumors Montreal might be looking to trade Hollander in July.

Completely out of their minds if that’s true.

Those two went twenty-four days apart, and Rozanov still put up a goal and an assist against Ottawa before he got hurt. Imagine what they'd do if they weren't skating under an illegal amount of "undue hardship."

During the Olympics, Hollander won gold, and if a single other player on Russia’s team knew how to lace up his skates, Rozanov would’ve dragged that team to the gold medal game too. They’re not even 19 yet. How many rookies even make the Olympic team?

Basically none?

I can smell the Cup from here.

We need to be ready.

-Pat
Head Coach

To: andrew.edmonds@bostonbears.com
isabella.cervantez@bostonbears.com
patrick.leclaire@bostonbears.com

From: walter.chini@bostonbears.com

Subject: Re: Rozanov Medical and Bond Report      

Patrick, please do not refer to the Partners and Important Person chat as a “spy network.” 

We are not discussing trades. We are discussing hypothetical possibilities.

Also, nothing described below was "illegal." The organization had no notice of any bond requiring accommodation and therefore no legal obligation to provide one. The Boston Bears have always complied with applicable bond accommodation law.

Walter
Chief Legal Counsel

To: walter.chini@bostonbears.com
isabella.cervantez@bostonbears.com
patrick.leclaire@bostonbears.com

From: andrew.edmonds@bostonbears.com

Subject: Re: Rozanov Medical and Bond Report      

Calm your tits, Patrick. Montreal’s going to make everyone else sell the farm to get Hollander if they even trade him in the first place. I can’t see Brady letting him go so easily. They’re going to try to make it work. They’ve already reached out to HR to coordinate monitoring.

Even if they do, these boys are going to be competing for the highest-paid player in the league for the next 15 years. Can you win a cup with Hollander, Rozanov, and no defense? Plus I've never been convinced that Hollander is the right culture fit for Boston

We’ll have to see what develops,

Andy

To: andrew.edmonds@bostonbears.com
isabella.cervantez@bostonbears.com
walter.chini@bostonbears.com

From: patrick.leclaire@bostonbears.com


Subject: Re: Rozanov Medical and Bond Report      

Relax Walty. Nothing illegal is happening. Just the PIPs being gossipy. If that's illegal, every NHL spouse and partner in North America is going to jail. Also, I know you told me you’d trade your firstborn as part of the deal to get Hollander. Don’t act innocent.

Andy, you forget I know that smug Montreal son of a bitch. He fucking hates this. I guarantee that his panties are all in a bunch and he has Brady in his pocket. You can’t tell me you don’t think Rozanov and Hollander would take team-friendly contracts to play together. Hollander will do whatever Rozanov tells him. It'll be fine. Imagine what they could do on the ice if they didn’t have to block.

-Pat

Chapter 21: Murmurs of Yearning

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya deal with the pain and fall out from Ilya's injury until it all becomes too much.

Chapter Notes

CW: Racism (more info in the end note)

I realized that I've missed adding the Whitman quotes at the end of a few chapters, so I am going to clean that up ASAP.

This means that I forgot to explain that the conversation in the meadow is not a quote from that poem but is structured similarly to several stanzas that I have made my own to fit this story. Starts at line 99

And I wanted to mention that I have a very concrete image of the meadow, grassy area: the Flint Hills. I love the Flint Hills because you'll see the most stunning sunset of your entire life, and for them, that's just a Tuesday. Anyway, because 99% of you have no idea what I'm talking about, here are some links:
Konza Prarie. I'm not trying to trick you into donating. It's just a pretty picture
The first few are just landscapes but then we get some excellent senior photos thrown in
The rule of thirds, I guess

I don’t know what concussion protocols were in 2010. But I know that the NFL only publicly acknowledged CTE-related issues in 2009, and I assume they were the first, with the NHL behind them. Smartphones were common, tablets were brand new, but people weren’t spending the same amount of time on them. I don’t think there would be a discourse around “screen time.” Everything I found mentioned “cognitive rest.”

I know a lot of people have a headcanon that David does all the cooking and I generally agree with that, but I think that Yuna has a handful of Japanese recipes she ate growing up that she breaks out on special occasions.

Previously On Every Atom:

Riding the high of winning the Olympics and playing each other in two almost back-to-back games, Shane and Ilya go into their longest-ever separation: 24 days. Ilya has Sveta's help and support, though she can't offer him much.

The same night that they are supposed to finally be able to meet up, Ilya takes a hit while playing, leaving him with a concussion and a broken leg. Shane was also on the ice when Ilya was injured and went down at the same time. Both boys were rushed to the hospital, where doctors (and the whole world), seeing replays of the injuries and reading the scans, realized that they are soulmates and nothing is actually wrong with Shane except that they've been apart for too long.
Shane is brought to the hospital where Ilya was, and they can finally be together. However, they were apart so long that their bond started to destabilize, and the doctors had to give them ketamine to induce a similar body state to allow them to go to their bond space. They spend a long time in the meadow, where Shane finally has a bit of a breakthrough in telling Ilya that Ilya doesn't hurt him through the bond.
While Ilya is asleep, Shane talks to a doctor who gives him some much-needed information about the 4 states of their bond and the fact that there are ways besides sex to reach their bond space (Ilya is devastated when he learns this news). They leave the hospital, legally soulmates and likely in deep shit with the NHL.

March 30, 2010

The first three days he and Ilya spent at his parents’ house were a whirl of headaches, brain fog, and fatigue. His parents were versed in concussion protocols, so they were in good hands. Shane knew that they wanted to talk to him, but, initially, he was in no state to carry on a conversation.

On the fourth day home, he stumbled out of the office-turned-bedroom they were staying in so that they didn’t have to navigate the stairs. He was feeling a bit more like himself since the symptoms were getting better and the Tylenol was kicking in. He was using his still-limited brain power to try to walk normally, fighting his instinct not to put pressure on a broken-feeling leg. He had thought he’d gotten used to recognizing Ilya’s injuries and ignoring them, but resisting the urge to compensate for this level of injury that he felt through the bond was much more difficult. 

He partly walked, partly hopped, and partly limped to the kitchen table. His mom put a cup of tea down in front of him, and as he was stirring in the milk, she set down two huge, fluffy Japanese pancakes covered with powdered sugar and quartered strawberries. He rarely ate anything this sweet anymore, but they had been one of his childhood favorites. He dug in immediately and sighed contentedly as the pancake practically melted in his mouth. Ilya was going to lose his mind over these, and that thought made Shane happy.

“How are you feeling, son?” His dad asked.

“I’m okay,” came out automatically. He saw the way both of his parents focused on him. “Better today, I think. My head feels much clearer. No headache right now. The leg is still… tough.”

“And Ilya’s the same?” His mom asked.

“Well, his leg is actually broken, so that’s probably worse, but yeah. He’s still asleep, but no headache.”

For a moment, his mom’s face was frozen in a confused mixture of concerned, pinched eyebrows and a softly upturned smile. He felt guilt wash through him once again. He hadn’t told them. He wanted to. They had a plan. And he’d failed.

“I’m sorry,” he said into his plate of pancakes.

He heard his mom put down the spatula as his dad set down his magazine.

“For what, Shane?” His dad asked.

He wished Ilya was awake. He took a deep breath and gently blocked him, trying to let him keep sleeping.

“For everything, I guess. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. I was planning to this summer. We’d talked about it. Since we thought we could prove that we could make it work. But, well, I guess maybe we proved that we can’t. I just… I’m sorry.”

Neither of his parents said anything for what felt like an eternity. He felt tears welling behind his eyes and tried to blink them away so they wouldn’t fall onto his pancakes. He knew he’d let them down. Let his team down. Let himself down.

“No, Shane. We’re sorry. We’re sorry that you felt like you had to hide it.”

He tried desperately to relax his shoulders and take a few deep breaths, but he struggled to do either. His mom put a hand on his shoulder, and he leaned into her in a way that he hadn’t in so many years. But he remained just as rigid, feeling like just as much of a disappointment as he had before he apologized.

“I knew you wouldn’t approve. You’d make us go to a bond center. Then everything you did, everything you gave up would be for nothing. We’d never get to play. I just want to play hockey”

“Shane, you’re right. We’d have told you to go to a center so you could be safe and healthy. So you wouldn’t have to put yourself through everything you’ve gone through this past year. Because we love you.”

His dad squeezed his hand.  

“But then it would’ve all been for nothing. All the time, all the money. I wouldn’t be a hockey player. I wouldn’t be a role model. I probably won’t be one anymore.”

His eyes were closed, still leaning against his mom. Both of his parents were completely silent.

“Shane, I’m sure you are still going to play hockey,” his dad said. “But we didn’t support you playing hockey so you’d give us something back. It is wonderful that you are showing other boys who look like you that they can play hockey. But you don’t owe it to anyone to be a role model. You just need to be yourself. That’s enough.”

He felt his mom’s hands tense around him.

“David, you know it’s not that simple. You know the pressure everyone is putting on him—the extra scrutiny he faces just because of what he looks like. And so many kids do look up to him.”

 “But none of that means we need to add to that pressure, Yuna. Shane is a dedicated, responsible, and respectful person. That’s more than enough. Far more than most other hockey players.”

“David…”

He knew what she was going to say. This wasn’t the first or the tenth time they’d talked about this—crafting an image that insulated him from the rabble. That made him as close to untouchable as possible. Clean games, well-spoken, respectful to fans and the media, and enough brand deals than to cement his image a telegenic generation talent who transcended the insular world of hockey to join the pantheon of athletes of color such as Serena Williams and Yao Ming. He’d been good at it, and he understood where his mom was coming from. He knew he’d somehow come out of this scandal looking worse than Ilya even though by the very definition of being soulmates, they’d been in it together.

“We didn’t cheat. Whatever else they might say. We never cheated. I have more copies of the data. You can look at it.”

His mom squeezed his shoulder.

“Shane, we never for a minute thought that you did,” his dad said. This must have been so difficult to manage on your own.” 

He looked up at his mom. He could feel a headache creeping back but couldn’t tell if it was from Ilya or how tense he himself was feeling.

“It wasn’t great at first—when we had to touch all the time but had to be apart. But after that it got easier. The summer was actually kind of nice.”

The kitchen was quiet for a moment. Outside, there were the sounds of cars driving by and someone mowing their lawn, but the ambient noise felt distant from the moment they shared. The silence was laced with the weight of the three of them trying to understand the new reality they were living in.

“You told Dr. St. James that you bonded the night of the draft," his mom said. "So, you weren’t actually hungover the next day?”

Shane snorted.

“No. At that point, if we weren’t touching, it felt like I was being ripped apart. If you had seen us, you would’ve known”

“Oh, Shane," his dad said. "That sounds terrible.”

 “Telling you I was hungover was Ilya’s idea. By dinner we could separate but only for like two minutes before it hurt.”

His mom made a little hum of disapproval, and he wasn’t sure if it was the idea that he would drink so much that he got hungover or that Ilya encouraged him to lie. His dad looked upset, though.

“So, you were in a lot of pain because you weren’t ready to be separated from Ilya, but you came to dinner anyway.”

He nodded.

“And then you let us lecture you and tease you about being hungover?” His dad’s voice sounded rough in a way he’d never heard before.

He dropped his gaze back down to his cooling pancakes and nodded again, not trusting himself to speak. He hated having to lie to them and hated even more to remember how much it had hurt to be apart from Ilya.

He felt his dad’s hand on his arm.

“I’m so sorry, Shane. I was happy thinking you’d gone out and cut loose for once. I didn’t mean to make it worse for you.”

He looked over at his dad and saw the frown on his face and a glimmer of unshed tears in his blue eyes.

“It’s okay, Dad. You weren’t mean. It was just teasing.”

His dad squeezed his bicep.

“I just wish that you weren’t alone through it.”

“I wasn’t. I had Ilya, and even Sveta. We made a pretty good team—although I’ll never live with her again.”

His mom moved to sit across from him and raised one eyebrow at him. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “She’s messy.”

His dad let out an amused huff, knowing Shane and Yuna’s disdain for disorder.

“So was this just a random bonding, or does this run in Ilya’s family?” His mom asked.

Shane shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’t want to answer for Ilya, but he didn’t want Ilya to have to talk about it either.

“It runs in the family. His parents.”

He could see that information land and could practically guess the question that they were going to ask next.

“Were they able to help?”

Shane realized that he was biting the inside of his cheek and stopped.

“No. It wasn’t a good thing for them. His mom is not alive, and his dad is…”

What could he say about Grigori Rozanov? He’d never met him, never even spoken to him. He only knew the man by the damage he’d done, jagged wounds in Ilya’s psyche and the cavernous space where his mother should be. Ilya barely spoke to or about him, but his specter haunted their relationship all the same.

“My dad is a fucking asshole and the reason my mom is dead.”

They all startled at the sound of Ilya’s voice coming from just outside the office. He wasn’t used to Ilya being able to surprise him like that. Ilya hobbled on his crutches toward the table and lowered himself down into a chair while Yuna went back to making pancakes. Shane couldn’t tell whether the tension emanating from him was because of the conversation or what was due to his injury.

Both his parents issued hasty apologies but understood that this wasn’t a great topic of conversation. David instead asked Ilya how he slept and started talking about his plans for the day. Ilya moved on quickly when Shane shoved his half-eaten plate of pancakes in front of him. Neither of them had much of an appetite, but he figured Ilya would eat these even if he were actively vomiting.

After finishing his own plate of pancakes, Ilya said:

“I’m sorry. For doing this to Shane.”

“Ilya—” Shane began, but his mom cut him off.

“Honey, you didn’t do anything to Shane. This happened to both of you.”

His dad picked up the conversation fluidly,

“We’re not mad at either of you. We understand why you made the choices you did, even if we wish it had been different. We just hope that you both feel comfortable telling us important things in the future so we can support you.”

Ilya looked about as lost in a conversation as Shane had ever seen him. Shane's heart ached to see him so baffled by simple parental support. Even though Ilya had been in their house for the past three days, this was the first time either of them was lucid enough to have a conversation.

Shane glanced around at everyone and said:

“Sooo. Everyone’s sorry, but no one did anything wrong. Is that what we’re all telling each other?”

“So Canadian,” Ilya said. “Very polite.”

They all laughed, and the sound cut through the strain that had been building all morning. Ilya leaned over and poked Shane’s cheek.

“You have ruined me.”

Yuna tried to feed Ilya a third plate of pancakes, but this conversation had exhausted both of them.  They made their way to the couch where his parents put on a popular vampire movie that had just come out on DVD. Unfortunately, it was the second one in the series, and none of them had seen the first, so Shane fell asleep while lying on top of Ilya. Even though looking at the TV too much gave him a headache, Ilya apparently watched the entire thing because he didn’t want to wake Shane up to change it and suffered through what he said was a horrible movie with a hot wolf.

---

April 3, 2010

Despite what Shane thought might happen after their investigation and endless meetings with the NHL and Voyageurs, he was not immediately kicked off his team and forbidden from holding a hockey stick ever again.

Farah had been working with the players’ union to compile all their data to prove that they hadn’t cheated. They each had several interviews with the NHLPA reps, the NHL, and the IOC. Since Ilya was still injured, these all took place awkwardly in the living room or on their back porch. The strategy was simple. Outside of not reporting their bonds, they hadn’t done anything wrong. Not reporting the bond wasn’t nothing, but being honest and fully cooperating should lessen the damage. Farah had been unflappably kind to him through this entire process and was essentially acting as both of their agents since Ilya’s agent had continued to prove himself worthless, and Ilya had told him to do anything and everything that Farah said. He was expecting a rather large bill for all her overtime and was more than happy to pay it.

She indicated that the NHL seemed to be discouraging anyone from examining too closely why two star athletes felt they couldn’t reveal their bond and open themselves up to a discrimination investigation or lawsuit. The hope was that, if there was no evidence of cheating, they would likely face a slap on the wrist. There might be more issues with the International Olympic Committee. If they invalidated Shane’s goals and assists, Canada would still have won all their games. So even if they stripped him of his medal, it didn’t seem like they would strip the whole team.

The Bears were also expressing their full support to Ilya in public and behind closed doors. The Voyageurs, however, were more reserved. They spoke at length about the accommodation they would provide. Every word, according to the union reps, was language clearly approved by their lawyers. They made Shane sign several documents acknowledging all the accommodations they were able to make, including the gaps in the schedule when he could see Ilya and a general plan for the playoffs, depending on whether they made it. With their captain and starting center still intermittently out of commission due to his knee, and Shane’s suspension, it was a long shot. If Shane returned soon, they had a chance.

He was reading to Ilya when his phone rang. They were sitting on one end of the oversized green sectional, and Ilya was lying with his head in Shane’s lap. He held the book in one hand and played with Ilya’s hair with the other. His hands moved as he read Farah’s name on his caller ID. He put his bookmark in Anne of Green Gables and set it down on the arm of the couch. It wasn’t a favorite of his by any means, but it also felt wrong to him in some instinctual way that Ilya had never read it.

“Hi Shane… Hi Ilya, I assume.”

She had quickly figured out that they were only within arm’s reach of each other and thus might as well assume she was talking to both of them.

“Hi Farah. Any updates?”

“Yes. Good news. You’re cleared by the NHL. Your suspension is over and both of you are getting fined. I’m not sure how much. I’d guess an amount that sounds high but won’t really matter to you. Shane, you can go to practice tomorrow.”

“I will go to practice too,” Ilya said.

Farah chuckled but had learned quickly not to engage Ilya’s antics.

“No official word from the IOC, but this is a good sign that you’ll keep your medal, Shane. Though no promises.”

The relief coursed through both of them. He hoped like hell he wasn’t going to lose his medal, but he’d rather keep playing in the NHL, so he’d take the win.

“Thank you, Farah.”

“Of course. We’ll stay in touch about how things go in Montreal.”

When he hung up, he looked down at Ilya, who had his eyes closed and wore his familiar smug smile.

«So far, so good,» Ilya said.

«I can… uh… sit in car to Montreal?»

«How does your Russian keep getting worse?»

“Well, you only practice Russian with me when… So if you want me to actually learn, then you have to speak to me normally.”

Ilya laughed.

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to come to Montreal. You should stay here where my parents can help for a bit longer. I can make the commute as much as possible.” They both knew the drive over would be horrible, not that separating for even a night seemed appealing. It was simply the lesser of two bad options. Shane went to pick up the book again, but Ilya reached back behind him and grabbed his wrist.

“Your parents aren’t home.”

Ilya moved his head so that the back of it was resting on Shane’s dick, a pleasant weight that felt nice, but shouldn’t have been arousing. Except it had been 28 days since they’d physically been together, not over the phone, not that he was counting.

“You’re not cleared for physical activity yet,” Shane whined, trying to keep himself under control.

«I think I’m allowed to move my hand.»

“We’re in the living room.”

«So let’s go back to the bedroom.»

“The door to that room is mostly glass.”

“Shane, you are so boring. Your parents won’t be home for 5 hours, and even if they come back early, we will hear the garage door.”

Ilya turned his head as far as he could without moving his leg and started pressing kisses into Shane’s torso, through his shirt, and Shane immediately wished he wasn’t wearing it.

His breathing picked up as he felt Ilya’s appreciative rumble in his lap.

“Wait. Wait. Let me get stuff.”

Ilya grumbled but moved his head so that Shane could get up. He started his awkward shuffle walk on his not-broken leg to get a few towels from the hall closet.

“Hurry up,” Ilya shouted at him.

“Fuck off.”

Shane felt a physical thrill run through him that was all Ilya, and before he had a chance to wonder what had gotten into him, he felt Ilya wrap his hand around himself and begin stroking. He’d already been struggling to walk since he was half hard and limping, but now felt his legs turning to jelly beneath him. He wanted to stop right there and touch himself. He wanted to run back into the living room and throw himself on top of Ilya.

He forced himself to keep moving toward the laundry room where there were clean towels.

Ilya picked up the pace and his own dick throbbed against his briefs.

“Fucks sake, Rozanov.”

«I told you to go quickly.»

«You’re not helping.» 

As if to prove the point, Ilya tightened his grip just a little and began moving faster.

Shane had reached the towels, folded on a bench in the laundry room. The clean, warm smell of the dryer hit him. He leaned down to grab the towels, but Ilya felt him bend over and shouted:

«Fuck, Hollander. Yes. Like that.»

 In that position, doing anything besides cupping himself through his shorts became impossible. He had one hand braced on the bench and was thrusting into the other. He felt Ilya gently tug on his sack and it punched a gasp from both of their lungs. God, they were right there; he was going to come in his pants in the laundry room.

He felt a deep groan leave Ilya, and right before it was too late, Ilya stopped.

Shane felt like someone had cut all the strings holding him up and almost fell face-first into the bench. He caught himself with his other hand and punched the towels in frustration. He was so hard; he felt like he was going to explode.

«I fucking hate you,» Shane called down the hallway as he grabbed the towels and started shuffling his way back. Ilya was not touching himself, but he did take off his shirt and start slowly running his hands all over his chest and neck, the way he usually did to Shane.

When he finally got back to the couch, Shane stopped for a second to take in Ilya: flushed, breathing heavily, eyes hooded with lust as his soulmate said, «No, you don’t.»

«No…» he said with a smile.

He put the towels down, helped Ilya move to the longest part of the sectional, placed a pillow under his knee, and kept his broken foot elevated. He started reaching for Ilya’s shorts, which he had pulled back up, but Ilya grabbed his wrist.

«No. Take off your clothes.»

Shane removed each piece of clothing slowly, letting Ilya watch him drag his hands all over himself. When he was naked with his clothes in a neatly folded stack on the coffee table, he looked at Ilya. He could see the outline of his erection and could feel the ache there from having come so close already. Even though he was the one standing above Ilya, the uninjured one, he felt vulnerable.

«Such a shame you can’t get on your knees for me like this. But I’m sure you’ll figure something out.»

Ilya widened his uninjured leg, so it was off the side of the sectional, foot flat on the floor. It made just enough room for Shane to slot himself in, mouth instantly finding the hard bulge at the apex of his thighs. He started pressing open-mouth kisses to it, mouthing the tip through the fabric, slowly turning the cotton dark. The feeling of Ilya being just out of reach, along with his pleasantly musky scent, was driving Shane wild. Shane’s hands went to the hem of his shorts, but Ilya grabbed both of his wrists and held them tight.

He didn’t stop working Ilya with his mouth as he whined. He said something in Russian, but Shane couldn’t understand what. He made a questioning sound.

“I said you are greedy. Should I give you what you want?”

Shane loved it when Ilya teased him like this. He loved how much control Ilya used, and the moment he finally broke and admitted to being just as needy as Shane was one of his favorites. He stopped just long enough to say,

“Please. I want it.”

Ilya released his wrists, and Shane slid the damp shorts and boxers down Ilya’s body and gingerly moved them over his broken leg. These were the moments Shane most appreciated their perfect sense of each other’s bodies.

He looked at Ilya. He was so fucking hot. Shane couldn’t believe he was this lucky, and when he saw the almost drunken look on Ilya’s face, it seemed like he felt the same.

“I fucking love you so much,” Shane said.

Ilya’s eyes sharpened and heated.

“Good. Show me how much.”

Shane moved back between Ilya’s legs but swatted his stomach.

“You’re such an asshole. Now I don’t want to.”

Ilya’s hands slipped into Shane’s hair, and Shane allowed his head to be pulled down to Ilya’s dick.

«I love you too.»

Shane tongued the tip for a moment.

“Better.”

“Rodnoy, please suck my dick.”

And Shane was happy to oblige, taking Ilya into his mouth and holding him there. He loved this feeling. He felt like he could live here. Ilya tried to thrust into his mouth, but they both felt the flare of pain in his leg, and Shane wrapped both hands around Ilya’s hips to hold him still. Instead of moving his hips, Ilya began moving Shane’s head up and down, slowly at first, but faster as Shane adjusted to taking him deeper. Ilya had never done this before. He’d always let Shane be in control, but he loved this. Feeling Ilya use him, making himself and, by extension, both of them feel good. And Ilya could sense precisely where his limit was, where a good overwhelm veered into too much. But Shane even kinda liked too much. He wanted everything Ilya wanted to give him. Ilya was getting close, and Shane was struck with inspiration.

The sounds Ilya was making were obscene. Gasps and moans filled the air, alongside filthy Russian and the wet sound of Ilya fucking his mouth. He reluctantly pulled off and wiped his saliva off his face with the back of his hand.

Ilya looked at him like he was going to pounce on him, leg be damned. Before Ilya tested the limits of his mobility, Shane straddled him, simultaneous groans escaping as their erections brushed together. Ilya was panting hard. Shane took both of their cocks into his hand. Ilya’s was still shiny and wet with saliva. Shane worked the precum gathered at the head and then hovered his mouth above their dicks and let his spit drip onto them.

«Fuck, Shane,» Ilya rasped.

He began stroking them. This was definitely not going to help them last much longer after they’d danced on the edge twice already. They were too far gone to kiss, just panting into each other’s mouths. Ilya’s grunts were growing more desperate. Ilya’s hands were gripping his ass tight enough to bruise, and Shane’s other hand was threaded through Ilya’s hair, pulling hair and relishing the sensation he felt through the bond.

«So good, Shane. Such good hands.»

Shane moved his hand faster. He wanted to watch Ilya come. It had been so long, but he could feel both of their bodies tightening, ready to snap, and just before their release, he wrapped his awareness around all of his building pressure and pleasure and, as he broke, slammed it into Ilya.

Both of their cocks pulsed and spurted, coating his hand and Ilya’s chest. Ilya’s whole body shook harder than he’d ever seen him. For a moment he was silent, but then he screamed out Shane’s name as he writhed under the weight of two orgasms. His eyes were open but vacant, and the tremors never seemed to stop. It was the single hottest thing Shane had ever seen in his entire life. Watching Ilya come undone so fully was so much better than his own orgasm. Ilya was gasping, sucking in deep breaths, and Shane collapsed on top of him, controlling his own breathing so it was steady. Ilya’s face looked so relaxed, with the trace of a smile on his lips. He looked so young.

His own body felt pleasantly relaxed—not as electric as it usually felt after sex, but he still felt good. He was worried it would be like another round of edging, but it wasn’t at all. He barely even missed his own orgasm when he got to do that to Ilya. He could see why Ilya had liked it so much. Shane let go of the boundaries between them and relished their feeling of oneness. Ilya was out of his body, floating and mercifully not in pain, which was Shane’s real goal. He loved this, the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair. This the touch of their lips, this the murmur of yearning. Though the sticky sensation and fear of his parents coming home would drive him up out of Ilya’s lap sooner than he wanted, he let himself just enjoy this pain-free moment a little longer.

---

The next day, the locker room fell silent when Shane walked in. He'd debated getting there at his usual early time, but then he realized that he'd probably have to go through the awkward experience of the guys arriving individually - he'd thought that getting it over all at once would be better. Now that they were all staring at him, he wondered if he’d made the right choice.

Should he say something?

“Uh. Hey guys. Glad to be back.”

His eyes darted around the room, searching for a friendly face. The ones staring back at him weren’t exactly hostile, but they weren’t friendly either. They were mostly blank or surprised. Maybe they hadn’t been told he’d be back today. The press release was going out this afternoon.

“If they didn’t tell you, the league cleared me. We never cheated or anything.”

J.J. stood up from his bench, currently filling in for Brett as captain.

“That’s good, Hollywood,” he said. “Glad you’re back. We need you.”

Shane blocked out the pain in his leg so he could walk normally to his stall. As he moved, chatter broke out around the locker room, but it was more subdued than before. A few stalls away from him, Hayden asked:

“So why do you keep practicing the Rozanov, if you can just do it with his muscle memory?”

Shane didn’t think that Hayden had meant to ask as loudly as he did, but a bunch of the guys had clearly been listening.

“We don’t do that. Not for hockey. You think I’d let him take what I’ve practiced to improve his second-rate crossovers? Hell no.”

That made most of the guys laugh. Shane knew Ilya had pretty much fixed the issue with his crossovers, but that wasn’t the point. He continued:

“He has, like, one good move that I can learn on my own. Not worth it.”

“But surely he uses yours,” Hayden said.

“No, absolutely not. I’d kill him, and he knows it.”

“But like. How can you stop him? He can just take it. He’s so aggressive, and you’re so quiet.”

“I absolutely can stop him and would if he tried, which again, he doesn’t.”

Hayden just shook his head, and he heard a few skeptical sounds around him.  

The locker room seemed split. A few of the guys gave him affectionate claps on the shoulder and said they were glad he was back, but many of them shot him wary glances. Shane started gearing up for practice. Sitting in his stall was a giant monitoring contraption. It was about twice the size of his previous heart rate monitor. He rolled his eyes and started strapping it around his torso. It didn’t even have a watch that let him monitor the results. Instead, it fed into a machine that was monitored by someone from the fitness testing companies that the two teams had hired. It did have real-time alerts if it detected synchronization, which the company would use to signal his coaches, and he’d be pulled.

He’d have to wear it anytime he or Ilya played, which was exactly what they had been doing except bigger, more expensive, and more annoying. He still had to wear it during practice to ensure that he wasn’t overexerting himself. He hadn’t originally worn his heart rate monitor during practice since he didn’t care about that data, but he had to start after he was lying to the guys about caring so much about his heart rate data.

While he was figuring out how to attach the ends, Comeau said, “Damn, Hollywood, look at that. You love that shit.”

He finally clicked the ends together and looked up at Comeau, confused. He searched his face for a hint of teasing, but it didn’t seem like it.

“Uhm, sure, I guess. But they don’t really give me the data.”

Comeau looked genuinely sad for him. “That sucks, dude. I know you’re like, obsessed with your heart rate. You look at your watch so much.”

Shane wasn’t really sure if he should spell it out for Comeau or not when J.J. cut in.

“Câlice, you are the reason everyone thinks hockey players are idiots. But I guess so am I since this asshole got me to wear one too.”

Shane mumbled an apology to J.J., but noticed he still had his heart rate monitor on, so he decided not to feel too bad. He got the rest of his gear on. Maybe he’d feel more normal once he was on the ice. His modified training schedule included a lot less conditioning and weights since he was constantly in pain, but he was expected to fully participate in practice.

It didn’t go well. Shane was fighting himself the whole time. He could skate, but he instinctively tried to use his right leg as little as possible. It took all his concentration to skate normally, and no matter what he did, it hurt. He started sweating almost immediately. The pain, the concentration it took to ignore the pain, all piled onto the usual rigors of practice, and he found himself flagging hard before it was almost halfway through.

He was out of position in a drill when Thériault yelled at him to sit. He didn’t want to sit. He wanted to fucking play hockey, but his body couldn’t take much more, so he glumly moved to the bench, hauled himself over the boards and plopped down hard.

He’d been blocking Ilya as much as he could, but that too was tiring. He was used to doing small but intense spurts to match his effort on this ice. The constant need to block the pain during practice wasn’t something he was good at. Dr. St. James had sent them a few exercises to practice, but she said that to really make progress, they’d need to dedicate a few weeks to figuring it out in a bond center once Ilya was no longer concussed and hockey wasn’t ruling their lives.

He participated intermittently in the rest of practice and tried to ignore Thériault’s glare as much as he could. He might have been concerned about how much he would play, except their captain was still out, and they desperately needed him at center. He resolved to show them that nothing had changed in the game.

He had just stripped off his pads and was about to take off the rest of his gear when Thériault walked in.

“Hollander, Brady wants to talk to you now.”

Shane’s blood chilled in his veins. Guys only got called to the GM’s office to be told they were being traded. But it was well past the trade deadline, so it couldn’t be that. Were they putting him on LTIR already? It didn’t make sense for the GM to be the one to tell him that, though.

He made his way up the stairs and into a minimalist, impeccably clean office that felt worlds away from the rink, the locker room, and the other team areas where he spent most of his time. His body felt like jelly, more like he was watching himself climb the stairs, open the door, and ask where Brady’s office was. The receptionist immediately showed him back. He barely took in his surroundings, had no idea if the smell of the rink permeated these rooms too and didn’t register any of the furnishings.

He looked up and realized that he was sitting on a couch. Across from him, on the other side of a glass-top coffee table, sitting in two identical chairs were Brady and an intense-looking man with very pale skin and a sharp, charcoal suit. His thick, dark hair swooped off to one side in a way that looked casual but Shane suspected took quite a while. Everything about him exuded competence and control.

“Thanks for coming, Hollander. Have you met Dan before? Our Chief of Legal Counsel.”

He didn’t think that he could feel more apprehensive than he had before, but his body found a way. By now, Ilya had clued into his distress and was probing Shane to try to see what the matter was. His phone was still in his locker, but he knew Ilya was texting and calling him. He could feel his thumbs flying across the screen.

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

He couldn’t remember if he’d already shaken his hand and didn’t want to embarrass himself by doing it again. He settled for simply making eye contact as he spoke.

“Should I, uh, have a lawyer? Or someone from the union?”

Brady laughed, and it was like an icy wind.

“Oh no. We just have an exciting option for you to help with your… situation. It would make things easier for you. Dan is just here to make sure I explain it properly.”

Dan gave him a short nod while his face remained completely impassive.

“Of course, if you want that. We can wait, but we just want to tell you about a new option. You don’t have to decide now.”

“Okay. What is it?”

Shane had a sinking feeling that this “option” would not bode well for him.

“Our team doctor, you know, Dr. Nnadozie?” he paused, and Shane nodded. “Well, Jo has some contacts at a pharma company, Biolexna. And they have a new class of blockers that seems to work on profound bonds. It’s still in clinical trials, but we could get you in.”

Shane couldn’t have heard them right.

“You want me to take blockers? But they don’t work on profound bonds.”

“Well, these ones do, apparently. They’ve been researching them forever after they had some legal issues in the ‘90s with profounders. It’s been a real tricky thing for them to crack, Jo tells me. We thought you would want to take them. It can’t have been easy for you, standing up to Rozanov like that. This would help.”

Dan cut in immediately, his voice cracked like a whip through the room.

“This is one accommodation we’re proposing. You don’t have to decide right now. We know this idea can be…distasteful. Take some time to consider it.”

No. Shane absolutely could not bring this up to Ilya. He would…well, Shane wasn’t entirely sure what he would do, but it wouldn’t be good.

“We’re sure you, both of you, want to do everything you can to keep playing. This would make it so much easier for both of you. And would make sure that all your many skills stay in Montreal—make sure Rozanov’s not taking advantage of you.”

He wondered for a moment how differently this all would have gone if he’d been offered this option when they first bonded. Before he really knew Ilya, before he heard his parents’ story, maybe he would have agreed. But he also remembered how repulsive Sveta’s suggestion of disentangling was immediately. So maybe not.

He knew he needed to tread carefully. He needed to play their game and not reject it outright.

“I can assure you that Ilya doesn’t use my muscle memory even in practice. We don’t do that, and I would have no issues stopping him if he tried.”

“Of course,” Brady said. “But still, it must be difficult for you given your differing natures.”

Differing natures? Fuck, he wished he didn’t understand exactly what Brady meant by that. They were both professional hockey players for Christ’s sake. They were not that different in nature and temperament. Ilya just got to be a little shit, while Shane had to be nice and respectful and then be punished for being nice and respectful.

Ignoring that because addressing it would mean losing his shit on the man who controlled his entire future, and another man who looked like he ate younger lawyers for breakfast, Shane tried to focus on logistics.

“How does it work? Would I just take them before practice and games?”

They exchanged a look, and Shane felt his stomach drop.

“No. It can take a month for them to fully take effect. You’d take one dose in the morning and one dose at night during the season. You could take a break over the summer.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting them to be, but the reality was somehow worse. He wouldn’t feel Ilya for most of the year.

“What about the side effects? Would I still need to see Ilya every two weeks?”

What if he didn’t feel Ilya and didn’t see him for weeks or months? Chills ran down his spine. His brain felt like it was splintering. He knew he was freaking Ilya out. He could feel the echo of panic through their bond. He knew he should block Ilya, but he couldn’t manage it.

“Well, it’s still in clinical trials, so that’s what they’re figuring out. We can ask the doctors when we talk to them. And of course, we could still arrange to see Rozanov if you need that,” Brady said.

When.

Not if. It was a suggestion in name only. It was a when.

“No. No, I can’t do that.”

Brady sighed. “Is that your idea or Rozanov’s? Besides, there’s no need to decide right now, son. Take some time and make up your own mind.”

Shane stood up. Did they think Ilya had that much control over him? It was like they didn’t understand their bond at all. His hands were sweaty; he could feel where his nails were digging into the palm of his hand.

“I’ve made up my own mind. I don’t need any time. I cannot do that.”

Brady stood too, but Dan remained seated as he spoke:

“This is one of the best accommodations we have, Shane. I’d advise you to think carefully about this.”

He only nodded and left the room without another backward glance. By the time he reached the locker room, nearly everyone was gone. He knew he must smell, and his skin would be tight and itchy. But he couldn’t feel any of it. He could only feel Ilya’s rising panic. He grabbed his phone and texted Ilya.

Talk when I’m home. 30 min

He showered, dried himself, and drove home on autopilot. His mind was still reeling from what they had proposed and the implication of rejecting it.

Did he just light the tattered remains of his career on fire?

---

Ilya wasn’t sure if he was glad no one was home to see him like this or mad that he didn’t have a distraction. Sveta had wanted to come, but she had classes, and he’d convinced her not to when they spoke the day after his accident. He wished he’d asked her to come now. He could feel her concern at his distress. Something was desperately wrong with Shane. But he wasn’t hurt, so Ilya couldn’t figure it out. He’d called Shane more times than he could count. He should have been done with practice, but he wasn’t responding.

Ilya wanted to pace. He wanted to run to Shane’s side. He wanted to hurl himself in between Shane and whatever was making him feel like this.

It started with a deep-seated panic, like his whole body was vibrating at a low frequency. It was not unfamiliar to Ilya, even if it never got any less distressing. But it had slowly morphed into a cold nothing. But not the nothingness that meant Shane was blocking him. This was shutting down—protecting himself from something.

And he couldn’t do anything. He was stuck on this stupid couch with his stupid broken leg. All he could do was sit on the leather couch and stare at its creases in an attempt to stop staring at his phone. The couch was many years old, perfectly broken in and soft. The lines in the leather seemed to shift as his eyes lost their focus—shapes emerged. He saw some faces in profile while others were full. They all seemed to be staring at him. They shifted as he looked at them. Faces melted away as new ones emerged so that he was never quite able to pin them down. He felt like they were all around him, all judging him. He heard a faint buzzing, but he couldn’t look away from the ire he’d slowly, clearly earned.

One of the faces was much larger than the other. It was moving. He tried to shift his eyes toward it, but his eyes felt heavy and a bit crusty.

“Ilya.”

He felt himself gently shaking and realized that his eyes weren’t open at all. His lids still felt weighed down. He remembered that he’d taken a pain pill while he was trying to get a hold of Shane. His alarm had gone off, and he hadn’t wanted to add rising pain to whatever was going on with his soulmate. He must have dozed off.

“Ilya.”

His whole body was too heavy to move. The shaking had stopped, and he felt Shane gently lower himself onto his lap. He smiled as he felt their limbs intertwined.

He woke up again a little while later to Shane playing gently with his hair.

“Hey, sleepyhead. A little more awake now?”

“Maybe. Sorry.”

There was a reason that he wanted to be awake when Shane got home. What was it? Shane was worried about something, maybe? Anxious.

“Are you okay?” he asked Shane.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

Ilya frowned; he could feel more tension seeping in through the bond as he woke up a bit more.

“But?”

Shane’s body went rigid and flashed cold as it had earlier. That was the first thing that really tipped Ilya off that something was wrong.

“I already said no, but the Voyageurs offered me a chance to take a new type of blocking medication.”

Ilya sat straight up. Pain rolled through his leg, and Shane winced. Shane clung to him and shifted with Ilya so he didn’t fall off, but he was at an awkward angle. He slowly lay back down.

“How is that possible? It doesn’t work.”

Shane filled him in on the limited details he’d gotten, and then said, “I didn’t ask many questions. I just said no.”

Ilya couldn’t believe it was really that simple for him. He felt wide awake now, as if all the medication in his bloodstream was incinerated the moment that he heard what Montreal was asking Shane to do. He was very familiar with how much influence a team could wield to get their players to follow directives.

“They just let you say no?”

“They cannot force me to take medication against my will.”

“But they could… They might—”

“I know.”

The implication cut into him deeply like the strike of a sharp blade. It didn’t even hurt at first. But he could see it sticking out of him and knew the pain would come. Ilya wondered when he had gotten used to the Sword of Damocles hanging above him, or the series of them that he had spent the last nine months dodging. Somehow, he never saw this one coming.

Ilya didn’t feel his hands shaking until Shane grabbed them and held them firmly. He opened his eyes and saw Shane’s serious, composed face, so close to his face that he had a hard time focusing on them.

“I would never take those,” Shane said as Ilya felt him repress a whole-body shudder. “Okay? It’s not an option. It never will be.”

Not taking them was the better of the two options, but only in the sense that a quick, clean decapitation is probably better than slowly bleeding out from dozens of painful wounds. But maybe it was only better for Ilya. Maybe Shane would be better off taking the medicine. His career definitely would be. And was disallowing someone from taking medicine any better than forcing them to?

“You should take them if you want to.” Ilya had no idea what his voice sounded like in that moment. He might’ve shouted it, or perhaps made no sound at all, because Shane didn’t respond, but he did slowly sit up. After a long beat, he said:

“I know you don’t mean that.”

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut. Had he stopped breathing? He felt beyond such a basic bodily function. He forced himself to draw a shaking breath and said, “I don’t want to make you—”

But Shane cut him off before he could figure out where he was trying to go with that sentence.

“You are not making me do anything. My team tried to make me do something, and I said no. That’s it.”

It wasn’t the nothing that Shane was pretending like it was. It was, in fact, possibly everything to Ilya. Nine months ago, it would have felt Earth-shaking to him to see Shane so matter-of-factly pick Ilya over hockey, but now what struck him most of all was how natural it seemed. The ease with which Shane had made his choice matched how easily Ilya knew he would also pick Shane.

«I’m sorry I am making your life harder. I wish it was different.»

“You are very easy to love, Ilya. It’s everything else that is hard, but never you.”

April 7^th

Ilya was pretty sure his ass was fused with the Hollander’s couch. Or it at least had an indent of its exact shape.

Shane had left the day before to leave for an away game in Philadelphia, and he was playing perfectly fine hockey. Just as fine as he had three nights ago at home.

Yuna clicked her tongue as the on-screen version of Shane’s pass was intercepted and he turned to give chase.

There was nothing technically wrong with his pass. There was nothing technically wrong with any part of his game tonight or three nights ago.

He was playing good hockey. But Shane Hollander didn’t play good hockey. He played great hockey. At his full capacity, Shane would’ve read the play better and likely not made that pass. Everyone on the couch knew it.

Sveta had shown up the day that Shane had left, taking a few days off school so she could be there for Ilya. She’d tried to book a hotel, but Yuna and David insisted that they had an empty room for her. She had immediately won them both over with bottles of expensive vodka and wine and effusive praise for the people who had raised the best hockey player in the league. The two women immediately fell into conversation about hockey and essentially hadn’t stopped, leaving David and Ilya to give each other exasperated yet fond looks.

Ilya felt Sveta’s loving nudge in his mind and against his side.

It was his fault this wasn’t going well. Shane was exhausted. Ilya was too. He was blocking Shane as much as he could. Even on the bench so the pain wouldn’t wear on him. Shane was blocking when Ilya couldn’t anymore, but the mixture of pain, constant blocking, and playing two and a half periods of professional hockey was doing him in.

Ilya’s leg was feeling a lot better compared to two weeks ago. But it still hurt despite the meds he’d been taking. He usually would’ve outright refused so many little pills, but he took them for Shane. Regrettably, if he took enough to stop the pain fully, they’d both be loopy.

The camera cut to Shane skating off the ice with a grimace, and the announcers started talking, once again, about their bond, the investigation, and Ilya.

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut and tried to tune it out, but still heard:

“… skating on a broken leg. Gotta respect the effort.”

Before Sveta muted the TV, Yuna sat back down next to Ilya as David sat in his armchair. The third period was starting, and Yuna pushed a bowl of popcorn into his hands. He scooped a handful and offered the bowl to Sveta.   

His head was starting to hurt. He wanted to keep watching, but it would only hurt Shane. Instead, he closed his eyes and lay down with his head on Sveta’s lap. It wasn’t easy to curl into a ball like this with his cast, but he managed to do so carefully, without aggravating his injury.

Instead of watching the game, he felt for the moments Shane hopped the boards and started blocking. He immediately began sweating; the strain on his body was becoming more than he could take, but he muddled through the end of the game.

Montreal won. They were playing viciously for a playoff spot, and the points were close.

At the end of the night, Ilya threw all the random sweatshirts, hair ties, socks, and toiletries he could reach that Sveta had left strewn across the living room at her until she picked them up. She had made a good impression so far, and Ilya was not going to let her ruin this for both of them.

Two days later, the Bears insisted that he attend their game in Montreal, and it was worse. They were both exhausted from blocking as much as possible during morning skate. Getting to the stadium felt like it took as much effort as a game of hockey usually did. His muscles burned from trying to hold his right leg still. He was in a nice box with a comfortable seat and a place to prop up his leg. It would have been fine if his soulmate wasn’t playing professional hockey.

But again, by the third period, Ilya was weak, sweating, and fighting a tremor in his hand. His leg throbbed in a way that it hadn’t in a week, but he was hesitant to take any more painkillers and make Shane even more out of it. There were no good options left for him. Instead, again he just tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe through it.

Yuna hovered over him like a mother hen, forcing him to drink water and eat some crackers so she could make him take more ibuprofen after Sveta narc’d on how bad he felt. The Bear’s trainer came, and they wheeled him down to a private room where he could lie down. It shouldn’t have been so difficult; they’d managed times when both of them were playing all year with much greater ease.

Around him, the trainers were on the phone with different doctors, talking with Yuna about a bunch of different medical terms he doubted he would understand in Russian, but Sveta translated when he had the wherewithal to ask.

Eventually, he felt Shane head down the tunnel, and they gave him some much stronger pain medication.

The Bears had won 3-1. Shane had the assist on the Voyageurs’ only goal and had a few other good shots. But the Bears’ defense was almost impenetrable that night. It wasn’t Shane’s fault, except that everyone expected perfection, and he was still only good. Still, Ilya thought, he’d had one goal and two assists in the three games that he’d been back. He was likely a lock for the Calder since Ilya was out for the end of the season. Ilya thought that he should be nominated for the Masterton as well for overcoming “immense personal challenges,” but he doubted anyone would want to reward either of them for lying about their bond.

The Bears had planned for Ilya to do a little media after the game, but it was clear that it wasn’t a good idea. Because Ilya was in such rough shape, the Voyageurs also allowed Shane to skip media, and they climbed into the back of Yuna’s car and fell asleep leaning against one another while Yuna and Sveta dissected the game and each team’s playoff chances.

---

April 9^th, 2010

The past day and a half had been an absolute nightmare. It was everything that Shane knew would happen if their bond was revealed, but played out in slow motion. He assumed that if they were discovered, his career would be over the next day. Instead, it seemed to be dying a much, much slower and more bureaucratic death. He knew his refusal to take blockers was the root of this issue. The discourse was that he was somehow both the mastermind of the situation to cover up their bond and too weak-natured to properly stand up for himself against Ilya. As if Ilya wasn’t the soft one. He understood the logic in the underlying idea to take blockers. If they worked, if the side effects didn’t wreck him, it would undoubtedly make hockey better. But even dragging himself through this interminable purgatory of pain and training, it would never be worth it. Especially not when half the idea behind it was so blatantly racist.

Making their lives more difficult, Boston was demanding Montreal make more modifications to Shane’s practice and training schedule, citing the clearly negative impacts on their players’ health. Montreal didn’t think it had any obligation to consider Ilya’s health and was only required to consider Shane’s needs.

Plus, it was nearly time for Ilya to start PT, which would increase the strain on them and the amount of time that they needed to block. Montreal wanted to delay it until after the playoffs, but Boston understandably refused not to have Ilya start PT as soon as possible.

Boston claimed it was trying to see the bigger picture, stating that this would be a template for accommodations if Shane were the injured party. Their union reps were also in the mix, advocating for Shane and Ilya in ways that Shane didn’t completely follow but trusted when Farah said they were acting in his best interests.

His mother was setting up meetings with lawyers and had somehow been won over by the Bears’ GM despite once having threatened to find his house and egg it when they knocked Montreal out of the playoffs several years ago. 

Shane wanted to scream. He wished someone had just taken his skates and broken his hockey stick instead of all this bullshit that he was sure was going to end there eventually. Every email, every meeting, every new accommodation, every implication of what the bond must be like for him, felt less like an attempt to keep him and more like a paper trail proving they'd tried just enough before they inevitably gave up on him.

But who would trade for him? Montreal was sending a clear message: he was not a player a team could build their franchise around. Shane Hollander, Canada’s Golden Idol, was nothing more than fool’s gold. And no one wanted a player with a somatic bond, especially any team in the West who would still be required to make sure he saw Ilya at least every two weeks.

Shane stewed on all of this for the millionth time as he sat, reclined in his seat on the airplane. He put his headphones on, but nothing was playing, and put a sleep mask over his eyes. He hoped he’d fall asleep, but it was more to make sure no one would talk to him. Hayden had sat down with him as the plane took off but quickly moved to join a poker game once they were allowed. He had never apologized for what he’d implied about Rozanov taking advantage of him and had doubled down in another conversation. Shane tried to avoid talking to him as much as possible.

Around him, conversations blurred into the roar of the airplane’s engines. His mouth was dry, but he couldn’t find it in himself to ask for water. He knew he should get a snack or some gum to chew because his right ear wouldn’t pop regardless of how he moved his jaw or plugged his nose to try to clear it. Instead, he wallowed in his misery.

His two road games were not much better than the previous ones. He had two assists and a few unlucky bounces that meant he didn’t score. His body felt wrung out. Even though Ilya’s pain was not nearly as bad, it seemed to have plateaued, like it couldn’t heal under this kind of strain.

That night, after losing to Carolina, he called Ilya, but they didn’t have much to say to one another. They each felt guilty—Shane was impeding Ilya’s healing, and Ilya made it harder for Shane to play hockey. Neither of them held it against one another, but they both felt guilty in ways they hadn’t figured out how to let go of.

Shane was actually surprised he didn’t feel worse. Losing to Carolina had all but guaranteed that they wouldn’t be going to the playoffs. Instead, it felt like a relief.

He was curled up on the hotel bed. Hayden was out commiserating with the team, but Shane barely had the energy to order room service. He was curled up on the bed, phone squished under his ear. He hadn’t even gotten under the covers and was lying on top of the comforter, trying not to think about how little hotels washed them.

The air conditioner rattled and blew directly on him in a way he hated, constantly blowing over his skin and making him feel more ragged instead of soothing his battered skin.

“I’m sorry, Shane,” Ilya said again.

“It’s not your fault,” Shane said again.

The silence stretched between them. He’d seen Ilya two days ago and would be back in Montreal tomorrow, but he’d never felt so far from him since they’d bonded. Their connection, the love he had for Ilya, was just as strong, but it felt like their orbits had arced farther from one another than should be possible.

He closed his eyes and thought about how much his life had changed in the past 10 months. Everything in his life had been neatly ordered around hockey. The ice was his center of gravity until his world imploded and rearranged itself into something beyond his ability to organize. He felt its beauty and knew there would never be any more perfection than there is now, nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Because he had, for a few moments, everything he ever wanted. His soulmate loved him and was waiting for him at home. He had a legendary rookie year; he’d scored 54 goals. He would likely win Rookie of the Year.

He had his cake and was eating it too. And it tasted like cardboard.

He knew it wouldn’t last.

“I don’t think I can do this, Ilya.”

He felt Ilya stiffen, and they both winced at the jolt that ran through his leg.

“Can’t do what, Shane?”

He closed his eyes. His bones felt tired. He laughed when he thought that this was how Ilya said Scott Hunter felt, but it didn’t pass his lips.

“This. Hockey. Everything. I don’t… I can’t keep doing this.”

He felt the devastation punch through Ilya and added that to the laundry list of things that he felt guilty about, but he couldn’t lie to Ilya either.

“Shane…”

Ilya switched to a stream of Russian that Shane probably couldn’t have followed on a good day.

“I’m sorry. I still want to. It’s not that. It’s just… not working.”

Their breathing hitched, and Shane wasn’t sure who’d caused it.

“Will be better when I am not hurt. Was fine before.”

Shane grimaced. He felt his nails threaten to break the skin of his thighs—he was gripping them so tightly. His phone was hot under his face and hurt his ear.

“Was it fine, Ilya? Is being apart for weeks fine? It was hell. We’re not,” his voice broke, “we’re not supposed to be apart like this.”

“Rodnoy, I know, but…”

“But what, Ilya? Montreal is going to trade me. I was already the Asian hockey player, but I got to play because I was perfect. And I’m not anymore. I’m both some manipulative mastermind and too weak to stand up to you. And no one wants to pick up someone with a somatic bond regardless. We know that. It’s the whole reason we hid all this shit. If they can’t trade me, they’ll just put me on LTIR until my contract expires.” 

“You are not those things, Shane. Fuck those racist assholes,” Ilya said. Shane could feel the way he was holding his voice back. The shouting Ilya refused to let out. “If Montreal does trade you, someone will want you. You’re going to win the Calder. What fucking team wouldn’t want you?”

“MY TEAM. I was supposed to be Montreal Hockey. I never wanted to be this symbol of diversity, but I did it so I could play. And now they don’t fucking want me. All they care about is making sure I can’t sue them. But they’re basically telling the entire League that I am not worth the hassle. It doesn’t matter how good I am.”

He heard Ilya’s sniffles through the phone and his heart wrenched.

“I’m sorry, Shane. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s just not fucking fair. You lied too. You got injured, and Boston still wants you.”

He felt Ilya tense, then relax as he said, “Well, I am very good at hockey. The best, probably.”

He marveled for a moment at Ilya’s fucking nerve, and then he laughed. He laughed so hard that his cheeks began to burn and his sides ached. It was a wonderful change from the ever-present ache of arrested recovery and chronic pain that had plagued them for weeks.

How did he always know? How did he know that was the moment to pull Shane out of a spiral?

When he finally got his breathing under control, all he said was “fuck you,” but knew Ilya heard what he really meant.

“I will tell Boston to trade for you.”

He wiped some of the tears from his eyes,

“That’s not how trades work, Ilya.”

He could practically hear Ilya rolling his eyes.

“So be proactive. Have your Farah talk to teams once you can. Don’t wait around for stupid Montreal.”

He was so tired. Even considering that felt impossible. The weight of the season, the weight of expectations, the weight of the distance between them. It felt like too much. He didn’t know what to say.

“Sleep on it,” Ilya said. “You shouldn’t decide anything right now. Right now, we should jerk off. Do you want?”

Shane grimaced.

“We should practice meditating again.”

Ilya groaned.

“No, Hollander, please. I’m already so bored, and now you want me to meditate? My soulmate is so cruel.”

 Shane felt a fond exasperation. Truthfully, he’d rather use Ilya’s option, but he felt that they should at least have the option to meditate if they needed it. They couldn’t keep sneaking into the bathrooms on planes. And not having to rent an extra room at almost every hotel would certainly be nice. He sat cross-legged with his hands resting gently on his knees so Ilya would know that he was serious and waited for Ilya to get comfortable as well. Reaching their bond space this way was much gentler, more peaceful; it felt like softly floating rather than completely fading out of his body. When he eventually drifted back to himself, he felt more centered and connected to Ilya.

He liked this way of connecting with Ilya too. It was an easy way of being together that they so rarely had time for in the rushed hours they stole in the past months. He relished the quiet compatibility between them, a space to just quietly be their truest selves.

 But still, he knew his soulmate. Ilya was not lying when he said that he was bored, so Shane checked the time. It was early. Hayden wouldn’t be back for a few hours—longer, if he found someone to go home with. He was still on the phone with Ilya, but it was almost dead. He plugged it in and then very deliberately grabbed himself through his shorts. Ilya gasped and said,

«No, finger yourself. That’s how you can get yourself hard.»

Shane rushed to obey with a wicked grin on his face.

Chapter End Notes

I really debated how much of Montreal's reaction to this would be based on racism or how much was just about the bond, but it feels disingenuous to me to pretend that Shane and Ilya would receive the same treatment for the same problem today, let alone in 2010 because that would be easier for me to write. I think we can point to a million situations like these that show unequal treatment for the same issue based on skin color. I wanted to make sure the inherent illogicality of the team's and public's reaction came through in the way Shane was being described as both the "mastermind" of their cover-up and somehow "too weak" to stand up to Ilya. Like, how can he be both?? But this is how this stuff plays out time and again. And we know that Ilya is the one who "pulls punches" against Shane, so to speak, but he just gets away with it because everyone is focusing on Shane.

In canon, Ilya has a somewhat equalizing factor of being a queer Russian, so they both have a lot to lose if their relationship gets out. But here, without the homophobia, Ilya has much less to lose. His struggles are all internal and with the bond itself.

All this to say is that making sure these issues are depicted with care is very important to me as I learn and grow as a writer. I want to write about sensitive issues with nuance, and I know I probably won't do it perfectly, so one of my betas is also a sensitivity reader and helped me craft parts of this. If you want to chat about anything going on here or have thoughts for me, I'm on Threads and Discord. I also have an author email, so we can find a way.

On the lighter side of things, when I was googling what movies were released on DVD in late March 2010, the most popular one was New Moon. It tickled me to think that David was renting movies for the boys to watch and was like, "oh I've heard these are very popular," and doesn't realize its the second one in a series so then they all just watch New Moon and are confused and don't like it. Very nice dad coded to me.

42-43
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

378-379
This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair,
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,

Works inspired by this one

Epub Cover inspired by “Every Atom” by WitWandWolfbird by sk_inspired (skargasm), skargasm