Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova, Ilya Rozanov & Irina Rozanova, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova, Irina Rozanova, Hayden Pike, Cliff Marleau/Marlow, Rose Landry | Mentioned

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Wishes, Angst, Memory Loss, They're strangers again, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, POV Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Pining, Post-Scene: The Club in Episode: s01e04 Rose (Heated Rivalry), professional yearner ilya rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Visits Irina Rozanova's Grave, Suicidal Thoughts, He's miserable, Soulmates, Kind Of, Timeline What Timeline, more irina in here than i thought there'd be, Eventual Smut, Anal Sex, Shower Sex, happy ending I promise, no beta we die like ilya rozanov wishes he had

Language:

English

Collections:

Anonymous

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-05 Completed: 2026-03-24 Words: 28,467 Chapters: 3/3

ghost of you

Summary

“Look,” Shane began, hitting the edge of the basin with the flat of his palm. “I don’t know if I did something to piss you off, or…or what, but you’re being fucking weird. The phonecall? And this? What is this?”

Before he’d even really processed Shane’s words, Ilya was standing directly in front of him, grabbing his lapels, pulling him closer. Then his shoulders sagged and their foreheads met. Ilya could feel Shane shift, moving away, but Ilya kept him still. It felt so good just to have Shane near again. “You would not believe me,” Ilya murmured.

Shane let his shoulders slump in acquiescence. He gave a little shrug. “I’m already having a tough time believing that you’re acting like this.” He laughed weakly, and Ilya envisioned what it would be like to tilt his head just slightly and press his lips to Shane’s. Would he reciprocate? Pull away? The latter. The latter. Obviously.

Or, after Ilya takes the girl from the club in Montreal back to his hotel room, he falls asleep wishing that he and Shane had never been anything at all, and wakes up to a world in which that’s true.

Chapter 1: part i: just the stranger i know best

Chapter Notes

based on this post by @ticklefighthockey on tumblr.

i know barely anything about hockey. i really did try for this to make sense, but if there are inaccuracies or hockey-related nonsense, pretty please just look over that. we all know why we're here.

i've both seen the show and read the books, so aplogies if I mix the canons a little bit. shouldn't be too distracting, but still. from the club scene onward, the timeline is nonsense. sorry about that.

also, i think ilya's proficiency with english fluctuates a little here. i'm sorry about that, as well. i figured that the heightened emotions would have that affect. i don't think he sounds too obtuse.

STRONG warning for suicide & suicidal ideation.

Hope you enjoy! And I apologize in advance. Gets worse before it gets better. lol

MONTREAL
2016

The world swirling around Ilya narrowed to the feeling of the woman below him. His head felt fuzzy, his vision blurry around the edges, his chest so tight he could barely breathe, but he moved with ease. He was familiarized with this feeling, after all, from that really bad period back home. Back when all there was to do aside from crumble was drink and fuck. His hands skimmed the woman’s lower back, settling in the curve of her spine where her ass pushed outwards. He could shove past this, couldn’t he? 

The woman—Sarah or Sally or something like that—had been overexcited to meet him in the club. When, almost absentmindedly, trying not to stare at Shane and Rose across the room, Ilya had reciprocated her advances, she’d only turned up the intensity, grinding against him, her lips on his hairline, on his jaw. Which was fine. He didn’t mind, exactly. She was blonde. Pretty. Nice, probably. They hadn't done much talking. 

She seemed to be enjoying herself, at least, her back arching off the hotel bedspread, tits pressing against Ilya. He wanted to turn her over so that he didn’t have to see her face. She had such a nice one, too, but he couldn’t bear to look at it. All he’d be doing would be picking out the differences between her and Shane. Her light blue eyes and high cheekbones. Her distinct lack of freckles. It was bullshit. 

And he couldn’t even justify it with wanting to spite Shane. With wanting to make him jealous. Because somewhere, in Shane’s perfect apartment with the too many pillows and the hard furniture that Shane claimed ‘promoted a non-sedentary lifestyle’, he and Rose-fucking-Landry were probably making fucking love in his bed. Ilya and Shane had done that. At least once. Maybe twice. Who gave Rose Landry that right? Did Rose Landry know what Shane liked? Did Rose Landry teach the king of the NHL how to suck cock?  

“F-fuck…” Sarah/Sally said, grasping at Ilya’s shoulders, her head pressed into the mattress, her tits bouncing with his thrusts. “Ohmygod…” Her eyes squeezed shut, glittery makeup smudging down her cheeks. 

Ilya said nothing, just pretended to bite back a moan. He adjusted his pace, hips snapping into hers in an Olympic tempo. He needed this girl out of his fucking room as quickly as possible. He needed quiet. Needed to take a fucking shower. “Да, yes. You are going to cum now? You are still good?” He wanted to dissolve into the feeling of her, into the tiny noises she let slip past her lips, into how easy it would be just—to just love somebody like her. 

But he couldn’t. His jaw ticked and he shut his eyes, tightening his grip on her hips. All Ilya could see was Shane’s expression from across the club, his face washed in blue and pink, his stupid perfect skin aglow, his eyes shimmering and his jaw set. The tremble in his chin. 

Sarah/Sally nodded fervently, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yeah. Yeah. Fuck—you, I…This is crazy…”

She kept blabbering, but Ilya wasn’t listening. He tuned back in when she let out a long moan, her thighs shaking and her breathing stopping for a few seconds before it returned in gasps, her body limp on the sheets. 

Ilya wiped his brow and pulled out. He stood, removing the empty condom, tying it out of habit, and throwing it in the trash can beneath the television stand. “You should probably go,” he said, keeping his body angled away from hers. His voice was low and scratchy, thick with everything he hadn’t let slip. “I have game tomorrow. Important. Need sleep. You know.” He ran a hand through his damp hair, and then over his face, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, vision buzzing into dark, noisy static. 

“Yeah,” Sarah/Sally breathed, and Ilya heard her begin to collect her clothes from around the room. If it had been Shane, the process wouldn’t have taken so long. God, Ilya, stop doing that. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be watching.” 

Ilya nodded, gaze flicking between the floor and the window, before finally landing on her. “Okay.” 

She looked wrecked. Flushed and still breathing hard, her hair and makeup ruined, neck and jaw littered with rapidly darkening hickeys. He might have taken some satisfaction in that if he didn’t feel so awful. She stood awkwardly by the door before giving him a nod and a small smile and stepping out of the room. On the other side of the door, a loud sigh sounded. 

Ilya let out his own noise of relief, sitting down heavily on the foot of the messy bed, steadying his shaking arms on his knees and burying his face in his hands. A breath shuddered out of him, shoulders jerking. What was he even so torn up about? So his not-boyfriend was dating a movie star. So what? So what? What did he care? 

Unbidden, a tear escaped his eye. He wiped it away and leaned backwards, kicking his pants fully off and peeling his shirt over his head. Thankfully, Sarah/Sally hadn’t been too intrusive, and the bed was still in mostly good condition. The sheets were cool against his hot skin. An emergency siren sounded somewhere on the streets below, screaming itself into eventual silence. Ilya’s heartbeat had returned to its normal pace, but each squeeze felt more intense, like his heart was trying to disappear into itself. 

He rolled onto his stomach, pulling a pillow into his arms, wedging one between his knees. He buried his face in the softness, drowning out the city noise. He should shower, really. 

“Anyone else. Anyone but you. Please. I don't have the strength.”

If only he’d never met fucking Shane Hollander. 

“I don’t understand what is it you fucking want from me, Alexei.”

“America has made you stupid as well? Or you are concussed from losing so many times, eh? We need money. Not everyone is big hockey star like you! And папа is worse every day,” Alexei spat into the phone. 

They’d stopped speaking in Russian together. That kind of familiarity was no longer expected. Home didn’t taste right on Ilya’s tongue; not when he was talking to his brother. English was a nice way to distance Alexei.

He took a deep breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. His hair was still messy from sleep, his eyes red. And he still needed that fucking shower. “I can’t keep pouring money into your mouth,” he said, voice resigned. He leaned backward against the half wall partitioning the tiny kitchenette and the suite, fingers curling around the ledge. “Where does it go, Alexei? I give you all this money and I still have to pay for dad’s doctors.” 

“I have a wife. A daughter to feed, Ilyukha!”

“I give you more than enough to keep them healthy. Where does it go? Up your fucking nose?”

Alexei barked something that Ilya didn’t quite catch. It was fast and crunchy with static, distorted by the phone. Angry.

Ilya hung up. He could find some other way to keep his niece fed than to deal with her stupid father. He threw the phone onto the bedspread and grabbed a fistful of his own hair, pulling hard. He wanted to scream. 

“Must be nice.” That's what Shane had said that first time at the MLH Awards when Ilya had told him that he was set to return to Russia in less than a week. He didn’t understand that home didn’t necessarily mean home, did he? 

Ilya peeled off his boxers and half-wandered into the bathroom. The air in there was cooler, the tiles like ice under his bare feet. Quickly, though, it filled with steam, the heat condensating on the cool mirror, fogging up the glass. Ilya stood beneath the showerhead, feeling the scalding water sluice over his skin. He needed to burn all of this off. Needed to burn off Shane. Needed to do something to rid himself of this feeling. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself. “Fuck.”

THREE MONTHS LATER

Ilya had done a very good job at not texting Shane. He hadn’t even tapped into their chat. Hadn’t even tried. He’d let it be buried by other messages, ones from Svetlana, from his teammates, from his agent. He hadn’t even seen “Jane’s” contact since that night.  Because he was completely capable of managing this. Of pushing all of that away. He was practiced in the art of suppression—why did this have to feel so different?

He was in the locker room, staring at his cellphone. It was resting in his cubby, taunting him. Usually, before, he’d be thinking of something lewd to send Shane, bending over his screen, forehead against the wooden cubby. But he couldn't today. Couldn’t break this horrible silence. 

“What’s with the face, Roz?” Marlow asked from the low bench where he sat, lacing up his skates.

“No face,” Ilya said, keeping his eyes on his cellphone, like maybe he was willing it to ping, willing Shane to reach out and say something. Anything. “Is not stupid Montreal girl, either. So keep your idiot mouth shut, Marly.” Maybe that was stupid to say, maybe it drew unnecessary attention to his ‘Montreal girl,’ but tensions were high and Ilya’s heart couldn’t fucking calm down. 

Marlow gave him an odd look before his expression broke into a smile. “Montreal girl? Fuckin’ hell, man, you don’t tell us anything, do you?” He nudged Connors with his elbow, jerking his chin towards Ilya. “Rozanov’s got a Montreal chick.”

Connors furrowed his eyebrows, glancing Ilya up and down. “Since when?”

Ilya tried to hide the surprise on his face, but he probably wasn’t doing a very good job. Ilya had an excellent poker face, but when it faltered…shit, there wasn’t much to be done in the way of recovery. But there was no way that they’d forgotten. Maybe they were giving him an out. He shook his head, adjusting his helmet slightly. “Since never. Marlow is stupid.”

Marlow raised a hand to his chest, right over his heart. “I’m hurt, Roz,” he deadpanned. “And here I was, happy for you.”

Ilya scoffed, shook his head, and tried to make his pounding heart stop throbbing against his ribcage. 

The crowd was fucking loud. They always were, but it seemed like tonight everybody was especially excited. He knew why, too. Tonight was one of the Stanley Cup qualifying games. But more important than that: tonight was Boston VS. Montreal. Shane Hollander VS. Ilya Rozanov. He had to wonder how the people didn’t get sick of it. 

Ilya’s leg bounced wildly and his gaze drifted toward Shane on the other players’ bench. Shane, who kept his eyes on the ground. Whose jaw was set, a muscle jumping beneath his skin. He always got like that before games—nervous, and for no good reason. 

“Where is Rose?” Ilya asked him without really thinking, half-shouting over the clamor from the crowd and the music blaring from the speakers above them. He gestured toward the box. “I do not see.”

Shane jerked but didn’t look over for a moment. When he did, it was slowly, and with reluctance. He pointed a finger at himself, eyebrows twitching marginally downwards. “Me?”

Ilya felt like he’d been slapped. “Yes, you. Where is Rose Landry? You were too boring for her?” Or did something else happen? Did you end things? Why? Who broke things off? Did I have anything to do with it?

Shane glanced around the rink, eyes darting everywhere but to Ilya. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Sorry.” He shifted in place, gripping his stick tighter. 

Ilya wanted to huff and yell at him. Rose Landry! Beautiful movie star girlfriend who gets to do everything I can’t! Who gets to wear your fucking jersey and kiss you on Instagram! But he didn’t. He just hummed, eyes lingering on Shane’s freckled cheeks before drifting downwards, to his full lips, to the chin that still remembered the quiver from that night in the club. “1309,” he said. “If you are over.” 

Shane furrowed his eyebrows, and then really looked at Ilya, gaze flicking up and down his body like he was looking for something that might clue him into a big secret. “What are you talking about?” he asked finally. “Why are you talking to me? Just…Jesus, can’t we just play? Are you trying to psych me out or something?”

Ilya’s heart stuttered in his chest. He turned his head away, staring down at the space between his skates. “Sorry,” he muttered. 

Had he misread something? Misunderstood a word? Or was Shane being purposefully elusive? Was this another one of his ‘fuck you’s? His ‘we’re not meeting anywhere’s? Ilya decided it was that. 

During the faceoff—it was Ilya and Shane because it was always Ilya and Shane—Ilya tried to make up. He gave Shane a tiny smile, really just the slightest upturn at the corners of his mouth, and looked up at him through his eyelashes. 

Shane, however, kept his expression set, his eyebrows low and gaze hard. He won the faceoff.

Ilya stayed up all night in his hotel room, getting drunker and drunker until he felt like his limbs were made of jelly. Even if Shane did show up, Ilya wouldn’t be good for anything. Not that he was good for anything when he was sober. 

He was curled on his bed, phone screen illuminating his face. His head hurt and the area between his eyes ached, but he needed to stay awake. Headline after headline, and none of them gave him what he wanted. 

↺ shane hollander dating
↺ shane hollander rose landry
↺ rose landry breakup
↺ person pretending not to know you
↺ word for person i want forever but not dating
↺ what am i supposed to do
↺ shane hollander breakup
↺ shane hollander dating who

Unfortunately, Shane had always been private. And, being so deeply unproblematic, uninteresting to cover, and therefore completely absent from the media aside from sports-centric outlets and blogs. God, Ilya would kill for a gossip magazine. He felt hot tears sting the back of his throat. 

Ilya gave in. He tapped into the messages app and scrolled. And kept scrolling. Until he hit the bottom of the list. What? No, he must have missed it. Ilya scrolled back up. No Jane. 

He hit the search bar. Only one contact. A thread from five fucking years ago.

Jane Tampa blahblah: I had a great time. 😘

Where was Shane? Had he blocked him? Even if he had, Ilya didn’t think it would erase the conversation. Ilya sat up, feeling his chest begin to heave. Had he done something? Had his stupid stunt in the club inflicted irreparable damage? Shane wouldn’t do that, would he? Shane…he and Ilya felt the same way about each other, didn’t they? 

But Ilya remembered his phone number. Couldn’t forget it, really. He spent so many hours staring at the numbers punched into the keypad, waffling between hitting the call button or staying silent. He wished he’d called. God, he wished he’d called. 

Ilya took a deep breath and sniffled, quickly inputting Shane’s phone number before holding it to his ear. It rang twice, then Shane picked up. “Hello?” Shane said. “This is Shane.”

“I know,” Ilya said. “Are you alone?”

“Who is this?”

Ilya’s face crumpled, and he raised a hand to his temple. “Shane—”

“Rozanov?”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“How do you have my number?” Shane’s voice was harsher now, not mean, exactly, but frustrated. He had the same exasperated tone a teacher might take on with a misbehaving student. “What do you want? Called to gloat, did you? Because I fucking get it. You remind me enough.”

“Shane—”

“You don’t need to be such an asshole, Rozanov,” Shane said. There was some noise in the background, but Ilya couldn’t make out what it was. Shane sighed, and it came crackling through the speaker. It wasn’t like the little sighs he used to let out when Ilya touched him, not like the tiny moans he’d release into Ilya’s mouth. 

“I’m not being asshole!” Ilya snapped, but his voice broke. “Why didn’t you come?”

“Come where?” Shane asked. He must have picked up on the distress in Ilya’s tone, because his voice softened, and Ilya could imagine what his face was doing on the other end. His eyebrows lowering, his eyelids closing as his lips met. “Why are you calling me?”

“My room,” Ilya said. “I told you number and you did not come. Why? It has been months. And you are…you are not still with Rose, I don’t think.” He felt pathetic, talking like this. Begging for some kind of explanation. If this was some kind of ‘taste of his own medicine,’ situation, Ilya really didn’t appreciate it. He’d never outright pretended not to know what Shane was talking about. He’d made promises and followed through. He’d held Shane’s face in his hands that first night in Vegas. Made him smile. What was this bullshit? This wasn’t like Shane at all. 

“You mean on the ice?” Shane asked. There was some shuffling on the other end, and then the noise faded. He must have moved away from other people. “Why would I come to your room? Who is Rose?”

Ilya scoffed. “‘Who is Rose,’” he echoed. “Rose Landry. Very famous. You fuck her all the time, I’m sure.” 

Shane was silent. “No, I don’t. Rose Landry? The movie star?”

“Your girlfriend,” Ilya supplied.

“I don’t have a girlfriend. I’ve never met Rose Landry. Are you okay?” 

What killed Ilya, really, was how concerned he sounded. And how much Ilya liked listening to him talk. Already, his heartbeat had begun to slow. Maybe, if he stayed quiet, Shane would just keep talking. Maybe he’d keep that soft tone. Maybe he’d stop trying to fuck with Ilya. “I’m okay,” he said. Shane probably didn’t want to talk about Rose. Maybe it had ended poorly. “And the other part?” 

“Rozanov,” Shane began. “There’s resources…and stuff, you know. For people who are, um, struggling. Crisis lifelines. I could call one…if you need me to? I don’t know the one for the States, but I could, um, find it?”

“Hollander,” Ilya cut in, forcing back his stupid Judas tears. Thankfully, his voice came out steady. “You do not want to fuck? Fine. We don’t fuck. Lying is…fuck, the phrase…waste of breathing.”

“Sorry, what? I don’t think I hear—”

Ilya hung up. Shane could leave a message, if he wanted to. 

Ilya really, really hoped he’d leave a message. He needed something to listen to. Some Shane-on-demand. Given that Shane never sent nudes, his voice would have to do. 

But something was wrong. Something was really, really wrong. The only time Shane had ever denied Ilya’s advances was the 2011 All-Star game, and even then, it wasn’t really denial, just…postponement. 

It hit him then, with horrifying clarity, that Shane didn’t remember. There wasn’t really another explanation for the way he’d behaved, for the blank way he’d met Ilya's eyes on the ice, as if looking through an irritating swarm of gnats. For the utter confusion he’d displayed over the phone just now. 

Panicked and scared—for what, he wasn’t sure. The loss of Shane? Was he grieving? Ilya couldn’t grieve again—all Ilya could do was clutch his pillow tightly, mind racing, flush with possible causes, possible futures, but, above all, possible alternatives. Because this couldn’t be real. 

In the morning, Ilya scrolled mindlessly through Twitter through bleary eyes. 

There was a video of them pre-game, on the benches, Ilya looking over at Shane, Shane giving him a small, polite nod, a muscle in his jaw ticking. Ilya fighting the urge to keep glancing at him, to press unnecessarily close; close enough to breathe in his scent of laundry detergent and coffee. But Shane’s dark eyes stay trained on the ice between his skates, not on Ilya. 

Because really, this wasn’t Shane at all. Just a body that looked like the man Ilya loved. 

He saw people posting the stills from the commercial they’d done together in the summer of 2010 in honor of some anniversary Ilya didn’t care to understand. It looked mostly the same, but there wasn’t the slight uptick of Ilya’s lips that the editors hadn’t managed to catch in post. Shane’s eyes were dull.

At least, Ilya thought, if Shane had died, there would be a body to mourn. A funeral. One he wouldn’t be able to attend, but still. There might be pictures. He could look at those.

That was bullshit, though. He wouldn’t be able to handle Shane’s death. He’d have to stop playing, probably. He’d have to go back to Moscow and throw himself at a thousand other people to dull even an ounce of the pain he felt. 

‘Shane,’ he’d moaned, like an idiot. ‘Fuck, Shane.’

For a heartbreaking moment, he’d received nothing but silence in return. ‘Ilya,’ Shane had murmured back.

And Ilya’s heart had soared. He’d just looked at him for a moment, at this man who’d said his name. The one that mattered. Said his name while he touched him under the sun that poured in through the huge windows. The room—light, open, so different from the heavy muskiness of hotel rooms that usually pervaded their encounters—rang with the word. 

Shane had been in front of him, on top of him, and he’d loved him enough to say his name. Was it love? Ilya sure thought so. It was for him. Love. God, love. 

‘I...I can’t do this.’

And the warm weight above him had been gone, muttering something about a team meeting. Ilya’s head, still fuzzy from what had just happened, struggled to process whatever it was that passed Shane’s lips. 

‘Hollander.’ Fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I said that. I didn’t mean to. I can put it back. I can stop feeling whatever it is I’m feeling. Just stay. Stay. 

Shane had left.

He hated looking at Twitter. Everyone on there was just speculating. And he knew that, but it still hurt to see people comment on Shane’s personal life like they knew him at all.

Did Ilya know him at all? No, probably not. He knew Shane. Intimately. In some of the deepest ways. But he didn’t know his parents’ names. Or his favorite food. 

In an ideal world, Ilya would know everything. Shane would tell him offhandedly and Ilya would do something to show that he remembered. Shane would be taken aback, but there’d be a small smile tugging at his lips and a sparkle in his eye. He’d pull Ilya close and—

But he wouldn’t. Because for some reason, he didn’t remember. Of that, at least, Ilya was certain. The way Shane looked at home while trying not to acknowledge whatever was between them was nothing like the way he’d looked at him at their last game. This new look was blank and vaguely confused. Concerned, even. It was like there was a different person behind Shane’s dark eyes. 

What happened? Had he hit his head? Suffered from kind of acute, Ilya-specific memory loss? 

Or was it something else? 

Montreal came rushing back. The club. The night with Sarah/Sally. His stupid plea. Was this his own fault? No. No. That wasn’t real. Ilya couldn’t bend reality like that. If he could, he wouldn’t miss his mother so badly. But what else was there? He racked his mind, trying to find any reasonable explanation. But there wasn’t one. Not one that he would rationalize, anyway. 

Not one that made any more sense than somehow wishing the man he loved into a husk of himself. 

ONE WEEK LATER
BOSTON

He told Svetlana. Well, told her officially. She’d known. 

They sat across from each other at Ilya’s glass dining table, the room around them feeling empty and cold. She offered to cook, but Ilya had turned her down. Easy Mac worked fine. 

Sveta’s fingers were steepled, her lips pursed. Her brow was furrowed in concern. Ilya couldn’t really blame her. He looked awful; his hair messy and his eyes red, his wardrobe consisting entirely of worn boxers and old hoodies. He looked like something terrible had happened. He supposed something terrible had. 

“Ilyusha...” she began, but her voice trailed off into nothing. “You’ve never mentioned anyone named Jane before.”

Ilya felt like crying again. “Does not matter. I think…everyone forgot. I don’t…” He choked on the words. “I don’t know what happened. I think it was my fault.” He hated this. Hated feeling so vulnerable. It wasn’t even that he thought Svetlana might have made him feel worse—in fact, he knew she wouldn’t—but it was the state of this transparentness that scared him. 

Ilya was built around people. They were his scaffolding, as much as he hated to admit it. His mother had been one of the only bright spots in his dark, cold childhood home, and Shane had been the best fucking part of playing professional hockey. The best fucking part of living in America. The best fucking part of being alive. And now, both of them were gone. Erased. 

With neither Shane nor his mother, Ilya wasn’t sure what he was built out of if not love and longing. 

Without Shane, Ilya didn’t know how much of himself was left. 

“Why do you think that?” Sveta asked. She cocked her head at him, curls bouncing around her face. She was so beautiful, Ilya thought. So beautiful and here and willing and I don’t want her at all. 

He didn’t want to tell her about his stupid wish or the night with Sarah/Sally. But, reluctantly, he did. 

She listened—of course she listened—biting her index fingernail between her teeth, nodding on occasion. 

“But that wasn’t what I wanted. It had to be him.” Ilya finished. He thumbed at the wetness under his eyes and glanced down into his bowl of watery mac and cheese. He didn’t like it that much. He wished it were his mother’s cooking. Or, at the very least, smelling of home. “I don’t know what to do. I feel...how you say. Душевнобольной. Insane.”

Svetlana let out a breath and reached across the table, palming Ilya’s cheek. She brushed his tears, too. Her fingers were softer than his. “You can deal it but you can’t take it, eh?” she said with a small laugh. “Maybe he’s trying to show you how it feels.”

Ilya exhaled hard and pulled away from her, folding his arms over his eyes and leaning back in the dining chair. “No. He would not do this. He does not talk like this. Even when he is angry at me, we fuck.”

“Maybe not anymore,” Sveta offered, her tone calm. 

“Does not explain why internet says he never dated Rose Landry. There were so many pictures. Articles. TMZ, whatever,” Ilya grouched. “The whole world knew that they were fucking.” 

“Yes, but wishes can’t come true, Ilyusha. You did not wish Shane Hollander into forgetting you. Maybe you had dream.”

A dream. “Yes, I dreamed eight fucking years, Svetik! Fuck!” He leaned forward again, propping his elbows on the table and burying his face for a second before pulling back and carding his hands through his hair. “That makes sense. Obviously.”

“You said you called him,” Svetlana said. “What did he say? How did you know his phone number if his contact was gone?”

“I remembered,” Ilya said, his voice crabby and full of self-loathing. “But does not matter. He was like...like I was some weird stranger. Like he was scared.” 

“Well, what did you say to him?”

He cringed away, ducking his head. “Asked him why he didn’t come to my room. Asked him where Rose was. If they had broken up. Was stupid. I was drunk.”

“Maybe he was scared.” She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. “You yell when you are drunk.” Her lips twitched into a half-smile, but she seemed to think better of it, and her expression schooled. 

“No. Was the wish.” Ilya said. Because it had to be. Nothing, aside from some stupid fairytale magic could break he and Shane like this. Ilya had gotten close before. In Vegas, and in Sochi. In Montreal, too. All he ever did was toe the fucking line. But he always reeled Shane back in. Always made sure that all of the stupid things Ilya said didn’t soak through his perfect skin. He couldn’t bear that thought. “Can only be the wish.” 

TWO WEEKS LATER
MOSCOW

Sludge had collected on the pavers running through the rows of gravestones. Ilya toed at it, his head leaned against the top of the headstone he was sitting on, legs spread wide and shoulders slumped. 

Thin cirrus clouds striped through the pale sky, wispy and delicate enough to be broken up by the harsh wind that cut through the trees. 

The stone, which was large and flat, big enough for Ilya to lay down on (though he didn’t), had an upright part near the head of it. It was a small statute of an angel, with her arms outstretched, her eyes closed. Beneath it, at the angel’s feet, were the words 

Irina Dmitriyevna Rozanova
Wife, mother
1974 - 2003

When he was younger, Ilya considered scratching beloved before mother, but the stone had been treated with something that made it impervious to his pocketknife. Go figure. 

He always thought that once he finally got out (if he ever did), he’d have a second headstone made. One with words that reflected the person his mother had been and not just the purpose she’d served within their sterile home. The slab could live in his backyard, or somewhere. It didn’t matter where her body was buried, he thought. Her spirit would follow him. 

The sky was gray, the sun shining dimly through thick clouds. It would snow again, soon. Ilya considered staying with the grave. Considered letting himself be buried under inches and inches of snow that would turn to thick ice once the sleet came down. Mummified beside his mother. Maybe he’d see her. That was one small comfort. 

He could just die. That was always an option. But behind that dull desire—the one to disappear, to do something reckless and make the world stop spinning—was two separate, contrasting fears. The first was that an afterlife might exist. An afterlife, a comfort to some, would just damn Ilya to an even more inescapable eternity. One where he’d surely be punished. Maybe he’d deserve that. Probably, he’d deserve whatever they had in store for him.

The second fear was a little bit more inspecific, but it was sharper, jabbing into his sides whenever he considered suicide. 

And that, of course, was the desperate fear of being unfulfilled. Of being just one game away from breaking a record, of having his name matter. Of spiting fucking Alexei. Of telling Shane that he loved him the next time they met in a Hilton or whatever it fucking was. Of hearing Shane say it back. 

The alternative, the flip side to this very same worry, came in the form of Ilya imagining watching unexpected people attend his funeral. Would Shane come? Before, he might have. Or he might have sat stiff as a board, suit pressed carefully, unable to step out of his car. Ilya didn’t know. He never would. 

Really, though, he didn’t kill himself because he didn’t have the guts. How fucking fitting. 

“Мама... “ he muttered, knocking his head against the stone, like somehow he could rouse her from the dead, make her reply. “I think you would be very disappointed in me.”

He paused, giving her time to answer. But she didn’t. Unless, of course, you counted the rustle in the trees to his right. 

She would be disappointed. To hear him thinking like this. To see what her son became in the wake of her passing. 

They’d been so close. Even when she was having especially difficult days, which Ilya didn’t quite understand back then but knew that she wouldn’t be up for Durak, he’d lay with her, squished up between her body and the couch as she slept. Alexei had never done that. He’d snitched on Ilya and his mother to their father.  

“I should have wished for you back, instead. I should have left everything I had with Shane alone,” Ilya said, voice quiet. His lips were beginning to chap. “You would have loved him. But he’s gone now. I don’t know how souls work, but maybe my Shane is with you.”

Snow began to fall softly. Why couldn’t she rise? Rise and take him into her arms, cheek against the crown of his hair, her fingers stroking his shoulder, tender whispers in his ear. 

“I don’t know what to do, мама.” 

2017
LAS VEGAS
MLH AWARDS

Ilya didn’t know how he was going to face him. The phone call had been embarrassing, but an anomaly. He’d had to fight not to call every night, but, thankfully, his iron will calloused and hardened over, becoming stronger than the pain it belied. Ilya was good at that—building tough tissue over anything that smarted at him wrong. 

Now, though, he and Shane were introducing an award category. Together. 

In the award show bathrooms, Ilya splashed water on his face. Cold and stark—perfect to dull how much his chest hurt. There was music playing outside and the sound of two hundred or so spectators speaking amongst themselves. It was just pre-presentation chatter, but Ilya couldn't help the creeping worry that they were talking about him. Maybe Shane had publicized the phone call somehow. Maybe everyone knew. 

If they did know, there was a fucking multitude of reasons why that would suck. 

On in five. Five...four...Ilya couldn’t tear his gaze away from the mirror. He adjusted his expression, hardening his eyes and setting his jaw. That was better. Now he looked like Rozanov, not Ilya. He glared at himself, wiped his hands on a thin paper towel, chucked it in the trash, and stormed out of the bathroom. 

Shane was standing so close to him. Last time they’d done this, Ilya had reached out for him, slid his hand down his back, whispered to him in the bathrooms after the show. Then they’d fucked in Ilya’s hotel room and he’d almost ruined it again. 

Their script was similar to the one they’d been given three years earlier. Playfully stilted, meant to be delivered with the broken English Ilya no longer had. Shane played his part well, looking exasperated and put-upon, but ultimately friendly. 

Ilya couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Usually, he had a hard time leaving Shane, but the Shane out there wasn’t his Shane, was it?

Somehow, Ilya had managed to recalibrate his personality, managed to turn him into a distant caricature of the real one. 

Which one was the real one? Shane, as he would have been had Ilya not entered his life, or Shane as Ilya knew him? But, Ilya thought, framing it like this placed a tremendous amount of importance on himself. It wasn’t really that he thought he’d changed Shane’s life that much, but rather a tendency to assume responsibility. He’d done it with his mother, too. She was gone, and that was his fault. Shane was gone, so it had to be his fault, didn’t it? There was nobody else to be blamed. 

He made it back to the bathrooms before he could be dragged into a mindless conversation with people he didn’t know nor cared about. That was suspicious, probably. Ilya Rozanov didn’t disappear from parties. 

“Rozanov.” The voice came from the opposite end of the bathrooms Ilya had returned to. It wasn’t really attention-seeking, just an acknowledgement. 

Ilya didn’t look up, just grabbed the edge of the sink harder, his knuckles going white. “Hollander.” He didn’t say Shane. He didn’t meet his eyes or let himself look at the other man’s face because he’d been doing good. Fantastic, even. 

“You’ve had a good season, haven’t you?” Shane said as he stepped beside Ilya, moving to flick on the faucet of the basin before him. 

“You are still wearing that horrible cologne?” Ilya asked, keeping his eyes on the drain embedded into the porcelain bowl, letting his gaze flare out and go fuzzy. “I thought you did not like it.”

Shane turned the sink off. “Um...No, this is...I’m sponsored.” Ilya could imagine the expression on his face—the tightness around his mouth, the slightest crease between his dark eyebrows. “Sorry, who told you that I don’t like this one?”

Ilya turned away from him, grabbing paper towels from the dispenser. “You did.” I know lots of things, he wanted to add. I know all about you. You laid your head on my chest and I ran my fingers through your stupid hair. Because I love you. 

“Look,” Shane began, hitting the edge of the basin with the flat of his palm. “I don’t know if I did something to piss you off, or…or what, but you’re being fucking weird. The phonecall? And this? What is this?”

Before he’d even really processed Shane’s words, Ilya was standing directly in front of him, grabbing his lapels, pulling him closer. Then his shoulders sagged and their foreheads met. Ilya could feel Shane shift, moving away, but Ilya kept him still. It felt so good just to have Shane near again. “You would not believe me,” Ilya murmured. 

Shane let his shoulders slump in acquiescence. He gave a little shrug. “I’m already having a tough time believing that you’re acting like this.” He laughed weakly, and Ilya envisioned what it would be like to tilt his head just slightly and press his lips to Shane’s. Would he reciprocate? Pull away? The latter. The latter. Obviously.

Ilya grit his teeth and, with a titanic amount of effort, stepped back. He ran a hand through his curls, pushing them back and out of his forehead. He glanced down at Shane’s feet, at the scuff marks on his dress shoes from rubbing them together when he sat down. 

Shane lagged behind, straightening a half second after Ilya did. Selfishly, Ilya wondered why. “But, are you, um…okay? Your play hasn’t really suffered, but you seem…angrier,” Shane said, making a sweeping towards Ilya with one hand. “Angrier than usual, anyway.” He huffed out a weak laugh, like maybe he was actually worried.

“I’m fine,” Ilya said. He set his jaw and gave Shane a small, cordial nod. Then he pushed him, palm slicking against the shoulder of Shane’s suit.

Shane staggered backward, his eyebrows twitching. “Rozanov—” he began, but before he could finish, Ilya was gone.

It was one thing to be hated. That, Ilya could handle. Half of America hated him. But this complete…erasure…that was something he couldn't stomach. If he’d somehow made Shane angry enough or upset enough to cut ties, at least that would be concrete. That would be another thing to add to Ilya’s list of things he’d ruined. What was this, even? Magic wasn’t real. Wishes weren’t real. Nothing was. Not even Shane. Not anymore. 

TWO MONTHS LATER
TAMPA

“You pronounce my name wrong,” Jane said, adjusting her bra. “Can Russians not do ‘j’s or something?” 

Ilya shifted on the bed. “Yes,” he said. “Is very hard for us.” He could pronounce them fine. He hoped that she didn’t know any other Russians.

She nodded, pursing her lips as she slipped her shimmery top over her head. “I read that people who learn a new language can’t self-correct because they can’t hear the error if the sound doesn’t exist in their native language. Isn’t that cool?”

He shrugged. “Yes. Very.” 

She flashed him a wide smile as she stepped into her skirt. “I didn’t think you’d ever text me, you know. Figured you’d have some supermodel wife or something.” 

“Ah. I wish.” Inwardly, he cringed. Avoiding those words would probably be best. Then again, waking up tomorrow with a wife wouldn’t be as bad as waking up without Shane. Maybe it would. Well, not if it negated his other wish. Ilya could do that, at least. “But no.” 

“You, like, totally could,” she said. “If you wanted to, I mean. Marry a supermodel. You’d make super hot babies.” 

He shrugged again, twisting his fingers in the sheets absently. “Maybe one day.”

He didn’t like that thought. Babies. Ilya wouldn’t be a good father, he knew that. Fucking up your children ran in his blood. Half of his blood, anyway. But he couldn’t just hope and pray to inherit his mother’s gentle touch, not when the alternative was becoming his own father. 

“You should marry someone with a name you can pronounce, though,” she offered, bending at the hip as she laced up her fancy heeled boots. “No more Zhayns.” She grinned again and waved, her hand lingering on the doorknob. 

He huffed and raised his hand. “Yes. Yes. Smart idea.”

“Text me!” she called, slipping away, the door clicking behind her. 

He was not going to do that. 

Ilya slumped against the headboard. He sighed—loud, exaggerated, a display of his turmoil for nobody at all. He reached across the bed, hand searching for his cell. He grabbed it and sat back up, He considered checking Twitter. Considered calling Shane. Instead of doing either of those things, he texted Sveta, which was probably for the best. 

Ilya: Will you be in Russia this summer?

Sveta: For part of July.
Sveta: Why?

Ilya: No reason. You’ve been busy lately. I’ve missed you. 

Sveta: Oh. Yeah.
Sveta: How are you? Is everything okay?

Ilya: I’m fine.
Ilya: I miss him, Sveta. 

Ilya stared at the message.

I miss him.

He’d sent it without really thinking. And Svetlana probably thought he was insane, missing somebody he’d never had. 

ONE WEEK LATER
MONTREAL

Shane felt weird. He’d felt weird for months. Uncomfortable in every room, vision lagging a fraction of a second behind when he turned his head, an unexplained heaviness on one side of his body. At first, he’d chalked it up to exhaustion—hockey wasn’t easy on his body—but as the feeling persisted, Shane grew more and more worried. His play was suffering, and everyone he knew had been eyeing him with concern. 

“Maybe it’s the new supplements you’re taking,” Hayden offered, sitting on the foot of the bed, eyes darting back and forth as Shane paced the room. “They’re pretty intense, right? You said that.”

Shane had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie. His jeans were crumpled in a dejected pile on the floor, and he was in only his boxers. “Yeah,” he said. “But I've never felt like this while trying something new before. Can a supplement do that? It’s just, like...vitamin D.” 

‘Well, what else has changed?” Hayden asked. “All you do is play hockey.” 

Shane opened his mouth to object, but found that Hayden was right. “Maybe I’m sick,” he said finally, sitting down in the gray armchair pushed into the corner of the hotel room. “Maybe I have cancer, or something.” 

Hayden huffed a laugh, angling his knee up and propping his elbow on the joint, his hand holding his chin. 

“I don’t know. I started feeling it after...” Shane paused. He hadn’t told Hayden about his interaction with Rozanov in the bathrooms, about how pained Rozanov’s gaze had been. About how much it looked like it hurt to pull away, and...and how Shane had struggled to step back, too. “The MLH Awards. Vegas, last year. Were you there?” he finished. 

“Nah,” Hayden said. “That was around the twins’ birthday. And I wasn’t nominated for anything.” 

“Well, that was when it started.” Shane’s hand drifted to the back of his neck, where he thumbed at the skin. It was an old habit, one he didn’t necessarily like, because it’d become a tell. And Shane didn’t need people knowing what he was thinking, not more than he already showed on his face. Sometimes, he stood in front of the mirror, making expressions at himself. Usually, they were subtle, but his eyes always betrayed more than he’d like. 

“You presented with Rozanov, didn’t you? He’s always such a dick. Did he say something to mess with you?” 

Well, not quite. “Kind of,” Shane admitted. Then he let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. Telling Hayden just exactly how fucking weird Rozanov had been felt like a breech of privacy. The phonecall had been some kind of fracture, he was sure of that, at least. Maybe Rozanov was unwell. Mentally. There was pain growing in Shane’s chest, right beside his heart. “I don’t know. He’s been weird lately, hasn’t he?” That was about all Shane could divulge. Weird.

“Yeah. He plays like he has a knife in his side. Every time he scores a goal I’m surprised the whole fucking rink isn’t covered in blood. All jerky and mad,” Hayden said with a little laugh. Then his expression shifted, and he met Shane’s eyes. “But seriously, dude. Maybe you should see a doctor.” 

“They’ll just tell me to take a break. And I can’t do that.”

“Maybe...maybe it’d be good for you, man.” 

Shane’s head whipped up. “What?”

Hayden held up his hands placatingly, lips twitching downwards. “No, no, dude, not like that. You’re a beast on the rink—we wouldn’t win half as much as we do without you—but you’re driving yourself into the ground.”

“I’m not taking a fucking sabattical.”

“Shane—”

“Hayden.”

Something was wrong. That was just about all Shane had managed to deduce. He’d visited his parents a few days ago, and they’d said about the same. Yuna had offered a probiotic yogurt drink, and David told him that he was ‘probably just in a funk.’ Neither of them were exceptionally helpful, but their presence made Shane feel a little better.  

It was midnight when Shane made the stupid, stupid decision to call Rozanov. He’d saved his number after the phonecall, mostly just because he figured he’d need it someday. And how he did. 

Shane was sitting in the bathroom, back against the edge of the tub, phone squished between his shoulder and his ear. He’d started feeling so out of it a week after Vegas. And Rozanov had been so fucking weird lately that, well...correllation didn’t equal causation, but the two seemed pretty fucking correllated. 

“Hey,” he said when Rozanov had picked up. “It’s Hollander.”

“I know,” Rozanov said quietly. “Why are you calling?” His voice was strange. Distant, cold. Nothing like the playful antagonism—or even the broken confusion—from before. 

“In Vegas, you said that there was something ‘I wouldn’t believe even if you told me.’ What was it?”

“Hollander. Is not a good idea.” He sounded weary and tired, but he spoke through gritted teeth. 

“I feel crazy,” Shane admitted. “Like my skin’s too big. Or too small. Or something.”

Rozanov was quiet.

“And I started feeling like that after...after the bathroom. Do you know why?” Shane pressed. He was never good at pressing. He wasn’t confrontational, but he wasn’t a pushover, either. He just...preferred fighting through agents, rather than face-to-face. 

Shane heard breathing on the other side. It was steady, but thick and slow. “I do not want to talk on the phone,” Rozanov said after a few moments. “We play in Miami in two weeks. I will tell you then.”

Before Shane could reply, to half-beg Rozanov to just tell him now, the line was dead and Shane was alone again. 

“He called me, Sveta!”  Ilya said, thrusting his hands into the air. He probably looked stupid, completely naked and sprawled out on his couch. “And we’ll see each other in Miami!” God, just being able to express his excitement in front of her was exhilarating. For so long, one of the largest parts of his life had been completely closed off to one of the most important people in it. Why hadn’t he told her? Fear? Maybe that was justified, but at the same time, he knew that her allegiance was with him, not with the policies and attitudes of their home country. Of course he hadn’t lost her. He didn’t think he could handle losing anyone else.

Svetlana laughed and wrapped her arms around him, pulling his head to rest on her lap. Her bare skin was warm under his ear, and when she bent to plant a kiss on his side, her hair tickled his shoulders. “And you’re going to tell him?” she teased. “You’re going to tell him that you’ve lived your whole lives together, eh? That you grew old together?”

“Was not whole lives,” Ilya said in English. “Just, eh...eight years.”

“Eternity,” Sveta groaned. “At least with Shane Hollander...not so bad.” She grinned against his skin, biting down softly. 

Ilya bellowed, disrupting their position. “Do not ruin my good thing, Sveta. Was mine first.” 

 She hummed, tracing a circle on Ilya’s hip. “Ah, yes. I forgot. Dream Shane Hollander was your husband, or what?” 

He tried not to show much that affected him. Husband. God, he could barely imagine. Even before, back when their relationship was anything at all, Ilya didn’t think that he’d ever thought that something like that was possible. That didn’t mean he’d never fantasized about it. Because, fuck, did he ever. Them in tuxes, Ilya watching Shane come down the aisle, holding him close on the dancefloor, moving slowly even if the song was upbeat—

Svetlana flicked the side of his head and laughed. “Mm.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Ilya protested. “Was wish.” He didn’t want to think about it for too much longer—lingering on that night was dangerous, more so that he wanted to admit. Remembering himself like that, clutching at his pillow like he could somehow will it to transform into Shane’s body, pleading so absolutely nobody for his pain to disappear, that was maybe worse than feeling it had been. 

Her expression softened a little as she shifted, settling him back onto her lap, his hair brushing her bare thighs. “I don’t have to worry, do I?”

Ilya shook his head mutely. He felt something heavy weigh in the hollow of his chest, growing faster and faster until his ribcage could barely contain the loss. He missed the excitement from just a few minutes prior. Even now, he was surprised that he’d managed to survive everything from the past year. Not his father’s death—that was easy to accept, given the fact that he’d been an asshole and already gone—but losing Shane. If it had hit him a few years earlier, Ilya might not have been able to justify sticking around. No, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that he was able to justify sticking around, it was that his calluses were hard enough to protect him from making that choice. He didn’t have the guts, did he? Of course not. 

“No,” he said. “No. I spoke to my mother.”

Her fingers found his head, twirling in his soft curls. “Okay. I believe you,” she said quietly.

2003
MOSCOW

The room was quiet. Quiet enough that it felt like all of the sound, all of the energy in the room had been sucked out. Only a muffled, thumping hum remained. Or was that the sound of Ilya’s own heartbeat pounding in his ears? His bare feet sank a half-inch into the carpet as he stood there, unable to reconcile the sight before him with what he knew was real. 

She wasn’t dead. 

That wasn’t a thing that could happen to his mother. Death was for the animals he saw on the outskirts of the woods. For the small mice his father didn’t think twice about doing away with. For people in newspapers. Not Irina. Not his mother.

But she was so still. Her hand hung off the side of the bed, fingertips almost purple from the amount of blood pooling in her extremities. Her hair—so like Ilya’s—haloed her beautiful face, spilling around where her head lay on the pillow. Her cheek was smushed into the mattress, her eyes closed, tears staining her lower eyelids. Horrifyingly, vomit puddled under her mouth. 

Ilya thought he might be dead, too. He couldn't breathe. It was so quiet. 

“Mama,” he whispered, taking the smallest step forward. He felt like he was moving through a vacuum, the weight of her death in the air extracting any urgency from his movements. He might as well have been swimming in molasses. “Mama, are you sleeping?” 

Nothing came from the woman on the bed. 

“You need to wake up. It’s not funny, mama, please—” His voice broke on the final word, and Ilya suddenly felt very, very young. “Dad will be angry about the mess,” he added, fingers twitching at his sides as his eyes fell to the vomit on the bedspread. His only thought, horribly, was that he needed to tell his mother about this, because she would know what to do. 

He took a step closer and his knees buckled. They were face-to-face, now, Ilya’s ear against the mattress as he searched her face for any sign of life. “Mama,” he repeated, with an air of desperation. 

Irina’s necklace glinted in the thin strip of light coming in from the door Ilya had left ajar. Ilya needed it, he decided. Because when his father found the scene, he’d scrub it raw. With trembling fingers, he reached around her lolling neck and unclasped the chain. Her jaw fell open as she was jostled, and his hands shook further. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I’m sorry, mama, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

The necklace pooled in his palm, and he grasped it tightly. Her eyes were more open than they had been before, and Ilya could discern absolutely nothing from them. His mother had never been blank like this before. 

But she wasn’t blank, not really, because all of her goodness, all of her life, had been superimposed onto her corpse. 

Anger bubbled behind his ribs—how could she leave him? How could she leave him and Alexei? If she’d run away, at least, and left them that way, he might have been able to find some peace by imagining her happy somewhere. 

But greater than the anger was the sadness. Ilya had been sad before, but not like this. His body felt much too small for his heart, and his limbs felt much too heavy for their size; disproportionately dense with grief. 

He was blinded by it. Deaf to the world. There was comfort in that, he thought. Maybe that had been his mother’s final gift. Besides the necklace, which he tucked absently into the front pocket of his pants. This incapacitating misery was something Ilya decided he needed more of. Because if it broke, if the nerve endings repaired themselves, he might be forced to actually sit with the feeling. Numbness. He could do that. 

He barely heard the footsteps behind him, and didn't really register when the strip of light from the hallway widened, illuminating most of the darkened room. 

“Ilya,” came from behind him. “What is this?”

“Лёха.” Ilya didn’t hear his own voice. “She—mama—” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word dead, to cement her passing to anyone other than himself. He’d found her. He’d loved her. It only made sense that he too should be the keeper of this. 

Alexi was very quiet. He didn’t step further into the room, just stood in the doorway, casting his silhouette over Ilya’s back and his mother’s face. “She’s dead?” he asked. 

Ilya nodded into the mattress.

“She was sick?”

Ilya didn’t know how to answer that. Yes, she’d been sick, but not in a way he thought Alexei might understand. Alexei had never noticed.. Never napped with her like Ilya had. Maybe that came with Ilya being little, being small and soft enough to be welcome. Maybe it wasn’t Alexei’s fault—but it was. Even if it wasn’t, it was. Ilya knew enough to be able to garner that from Alexei’s silence, from the way he didn’t enter the room or move to touch their mother. 

“Should we tell father?”

“He’s working,” Ilya said, each word coming out as a gasp from his effort to hold the tears back. Maybe he could slot into his mother’s arms now and she’d hold him tight and they could fall asleep together again. And she’d wake in the morning. And they’d be somewhere else. 

“You tell him, then,” Alexei said. “You’ve always been the favorite. He won’t be angry." 

Ilya just shook his head, moving closer to his mother, like somehow he could envelop her, kickstart her heart with the erratic beating of his own. “Брат, I can’t.”

Alexei’s next words came with a gruffer twinge, and Ilya realized that he was also holding back tears. “Ilya,” he repeated. 

He shook his head again, letting his eyes close as he breathed in the floral scent of his mother’s perfume that still permeated the room, trying to block out the acidity that crept in at the edges. “You’re older,” he said. “You’re older.” That was unfair and he knew it, but he also knew that there was no possible way he could survive telling his father. Alexei would have to do it. He just would. 

Alexei choked something back and slammed the door, leaving Ilya and his mother alone and in darkness once more.

MIAMI
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ALL-STAR GAME

Ilya’s fingers lingered for a long time on the edge of his pocket before he knocked. It was going to be hard not to press Shane up against the wall and kiss him breathless. That usually came right after knocking. Back when they were something, anyway. Knock, kiss, touch, fuck, leave. That was how it tended to go. Not that last time, though, in Ilya’s Boston house. Then, they’d taken things slower. Fallen asleep. Let themselves linger in the moments between pleasure. 

Shane cracked the door open and peered through the gap before opening it fully. He was dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He shifted on his feet, closing the door behind Ilya. “This is so weird,” he muttered. 

He looked so beautiful. Hair damp from what Ilya guessed was a post-flight shower, skin warm and aglow in the lamplight, his eyes dark, rimmed with sooty lashes. His hand on the back of his neck, gaze cast downward. Something throbbed deep in Ilya’s chest. 

“Yes,” Ilya said. “Weird.” It wasn’t weird at all. They’d met so many times like this, under cover of moonlight and heavy curtains. The only thing that was different was the distance between them. 

Shane sat on the foot of the bed, sitting on his hands before pulling them out from under himself and folding them in his lap. “Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been able to get comfortable in months. Everything feels weird,” he huffed, looking down at the floor. 

Ilya wasn’t sure where to sit. So he didn’t, just leaned against the low console table against the wall opposite the bed. “Yes,” he repeated. “I had that at first.” A lie, mostly. He didn’t have anything. This wasn’t like a disease; these weren’t symptoms. What Ilya felt was, probably, grief. What was Shane grieving? An immense hope began to bloom in his chest, one Ilya felt needed squashing. This was probably disconnected; there was no way that whatever Shane was feeling had to do with Ilya. Ilya had already accepted that. There was nothing to be done; there was no one to remember. 

“Can you sit down or something?” Shane asked lamely. “Fuck, you’re making me nervous.”

Ilya nodded, not taking his eyes off Shane. He didn’t think he could, even if he tried. He slid until he was sitting on the coarse carpet, back against the table. He wanted to conjure up some snark, but couldn’t find the energy. 

“Can you tell me?” 

The words seemed to ring out through the room, catching on the softer parts, sinking into the bed, the curtains, the towels in the ensuite. He had to wonder if the next guest to book the room would be able to hear them.

Ilya brought a hand to his temple, blowing out a long breath. “Is going to sound like lie. You will think I am crazy. Fucking душевнобольной.” He couldn’t let himself hope that somehow everything they’d built together could be recovered. But there was that flicker again—a small portion of his heart begging him to believe. 

“I don’t want to play, Rozanov. I already feel fucking insane.” Shane’s voice was no louder than before, but harsher; angrier. “And you know something. Is this about the game? Because we’re playing on the same team, so there’s no reason to fucking…fucking withhold it from me. Unless you’re just being a dick to be a dick.” 

“You do not understand!” Ilya shot back. 

“Don’t I? Why don’t you explain it to me then?” Shane clenched his fists in his lap, finally meeting Ilya’s gaze. “You’ve been acting like a different person since our game in Chicago last year.”

Oh, so he wanted to talk about acting like a different person. “Because I am different person! You changed me!” he snapped. “I do not know the person you remember me as, but he seems fucking horrible. You are…the same, mostly. But I see so many little…little changes. I miss Shane. My Shane. You are not him.” 

Shane was quiet. Ilya had disclosed far too much. But he had nothing to lose. He couldn’t lose Shane again, and he didn’t really give a fuck about the league any more. He could find something else to do. Coach, maybe. It didn’t matter. It was a wonder Ilya hadn’t cried. 

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

“Yes, I know,” Ilya scoffed. “You do not know anything.” 

“Tell me. You said you would.”

“It will take a long time.” 

“We don’t need to go anywhere until tomorrow night.” 

Ilya was cornered. Cornered by Shane, but mostly by himself. It would hurt more to discover that there was nothing to be done about his situation than it would be to numb himself to the prospect entirely. 

The trouble with callouses was that they worked great for protection but hurt like hell to be torn off. The skin beneath was rawer and pinker than anywhere else on the body. “We were something,” he said finally. “For a long time. Since the rookie season. Before then.”

Shane opened his mouth to speak, but Ilya held up a hand. For the first time that night, Ilya looked away from Shane’s face.

“I know that isn’t true anymore. But it was. It was big secret, you and me. I…I loved you, I think. But it was very hard. It was very hard to love you. You were dating Rose Landry. We could not be together.” And I wished it away, was the final part to that sentence. Because it hurt too badly to watch her do everything with you that I wasn’t allowed to. 

“We weren’t,” Shane said. “I don’t understand what you’re—”

“I made a wish,” Ilya said. He felt childish, saying it like that. A wish. How fleeting, how juvenile a word. And somehow it had shaped the face of Ilya’s entire life. “Hurt too much to know you. So I wished…that I did not.” He glanced back up at Shane, taking in his expression. 

It was tight—confusion and pain blending into something that hurt Ilya to even witness. Shane shouldn’t ever look like that. It was a failing on Ilya’s part. 

“It worked,” Ilya continued. “But it is only that you forgot. I remember.” The last word came out a little choked, like it had to force itself through Ilya’s constricting throat. Remembrance. What a fucking curse that was when it was only a mirror. 

Then he was quiet. 

“That’s not possible,” Shane said with a small shake of his head, staring at Ilya. “That’s not real.”

Ilya shrugged, turning his head away from Shane so that he wouldn’t see the tear gleaming in his eyes, his cheek pressing against the cold wood drawers of the console table. “I said you would not believe me.” His voice wobbled. 

“Yeah, but I mean, I didn’t—”

Ilya swiped his eyes and looked back at Shane. “Is what I had to say,” he said. 

“Rozanov—”  

“Don’t. Don’t fucking call me that, Hollander. Losing you hurt more than loving you, so I have answer now, yes? Yes? I can go? I told you everything.” He felt angry, even though he knew it was just sharp fear. He stood abruptly, knocking his ankle against the foot of the table. He locked his jaw in an effort to keep from yelping. 

“I didn’t fucking mean it like that, Rozanov,” Shane said, one of his hands jerking away from his lap, outstretched in the air between him. Ilya didn’t know what he’d do if Shane actually reached out, actually touched him. So his eyes darted away and he moved towards the door. “I just…I don’t understand how that’s possible. And I don’t know what the fuck that has to do with my feeling like shit.” 

“Because!” Ilya shouted, turning. He didn’t care if the people in adjacent rooms heard. It didn’t matter. Nothing did. Not anymore. Not now that he’d really, truly lost the only thing he’d ever needed to protect. Shane looked meek, sitting there on his hands. But his jaw was set and his eyes were hard. Ilya couldn’t parse through his gaze anymore—maybe he’d lost that ability, or maybe this Shane didn’t show as much as his had. “Because maybe you are feeling what I am feeling, yes? If wish can be real, then why can’t we?”

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? If somehow, Ilya could wish Shane into this husk of himself, why couldn’t Ilya wish back the man he’d known? The man he’d loved?

Why did this temporary power only exist to ruin? 

“Rozanov,” Shane repeated, infuriatingly, and stood, crossing the room to place himself between Ilya and the door. “Are you taking anything?”

Was he taking anything? “Yes, I am on fucking cocaine, Hollander. What is this?” Ilya said, jerking his body away from Shane’s, despite his every instinct screaming at him to lean closer. 

“You’re acting fucking psychotic, Rozanov!” Shane said harshly, his eyes glinting in the lamplight, dark brown refracting the golden glow into Ilya’s own gaze. 

Ilya recoiled further. That was a word his father had used, occasionally, to describe Ilya’s mother after her passing. (“Your mother was unwell, сын. She was weak. Psychotic. Strong people do not let themselves fail like she did.”) Hearing it now still felt like an insult to her, even when it slipped past Shane’s lips without a second thought, without any regard at all. But how could he know? This Shane didn’t know anything about Ilya. Or his mother.

He couldn't be here anymore. Couldn’t look at Shane's stupid, perfect, completely unfamiliar face. 

All this Shane looked like now was a stranger. One Ilya knew best. 

Ilya stared at him for a few more moments, chest heaving, before slamming the door behind him and stalking down the endless, liminal hotel hallway. 

Shane probably shouldn’t have said that. Probably shouldn’t have pushed Rozanov away. The way the other man jerked away like Shane’s touch burned him replayed over and over again as Shane stood still in the shower, staring straight ahead into the white tiles.

He was worried. Really, he was. There was zero reason for Rozanov to have been acting the way he was, to have been saying the things he did. Except for drugs, or some kind of psychotic break. Why else would he claim all of those things? That he and Shane were, what, lovers? It was ridiculous and so completely unfounded in reality that there was nothing to do about it but worry. 

He’d need to call somebody.

“A fucking psych eval?” Ilya spat into the phone. “Am fine. Do not need...fucking...fucking shrink.”

“Somebody was worried about you,” Anna said calmly. “And based on what they said, they had reason to be. If you’re fine, the evaluation shouldn’t impact your position. It’s on Wednesday, when you’ll be back in Boston.”

“Who said something? To the league? Hayes?” Ilya had his cell squished between his shoulder and his cheek, moving all around the room, gathering his strewn clothes into his suitcase. They flew to Chicago that night, almost directly after the game. It’d been scheduled horribly, but Ilya didn’t mind. He didn’t want to spend any more time in the same city as Shane. 

“That’s confidential, considering the circumstances of their worries.” So it was Shane. Ilya knew that he’d sounded crazy, but reporting the contents of that conversation to management was something he didn’t think—that was a lie. Of course Shane would. Because he cared. And because he didn’t understand how much that fucking sucked. 

“Anna, look,” Ilya began, folding a pair of sweatpants, using his stomach as a flat surface. “Was Hollander?”

“It’s confidential, Ilya. We’ll see each other in Boston, okay?”

“I do not need an evaluation. I play good, yes?”

“The league is concerned about more than that.” 

“Anna.” He felt like crying. He wouldn’t, though. He hadn’t cried in earnest for years. The closest he’d gotten to that was last night. Or maybe the last time he’d been in Moscow. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to cry. “I’m not crazy. I don’t want the... whatever word you said.“

“It’s been mandated. They’ll restrict you from playing if you don’t cooperate.” 

He let out a long sigh. He knew what the results would be. He’d be crazy, and he wouldn’t be able to play, and everything—everything—would be over. “Anna,” he repeated, pleading, like his stupid agent could do anything to help him. Maybe he could pretend. Deny whatever claims Shane had made; prove his lucidity.

“I know, Ilya,” Anna said, voice crackling over the phone. “But you’ll just have to suck it up for a few hours, and then everything will be normal again, yeah?” 

“You think I’m crazy, too?”

“No. This is probably something dirty on Montreal’s part.”

“Ha.” At least she trusted him enough to tell him who it was. Montreal was synonymous with Hollander. “Yes. Bad team, need to knock me out, eh? Tell everyone I’m crazy?”

“Attaboy.”

The game went fine. Selfishly, Ilya couldn’t help but think about what it might have been like to play on the same team as Shane had Shane been the one he knew. It would be fun, to play together like that. Without needing to maintain the façade of hatred. 

On the flight home, he slept. He didn’t mind the turbulence. Hell, let the whole thing crash. 

BOSTON

“Do you know why you’re here, Mr...Rozanoff?” the evaluator asked, leaning back in her chair, crossing her legs as she drummed her long nails on the clipboard she held. 

Ilya didn’t have a seat that reclined, which he thought was a little unfair. “Rozanov,” he corrected, ignoring her question. Nobody here said it right, but her pronunciation was egregious. He was used to (and expecting) the lack of stress on the second syllable, the softening at the end, but she managed to change it entirely. 

“Forgive me,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Mr. Rozanov, do you know why you’re here?”

“Somebody made a...report,” he said, setting his jaw and meeting her gaze. He needed to look put-together; stable. 

“That’s right. Do you have any idea what they might have reported?”

“No.”

“Hm.”

As the evaluation continued, the woman seemed to grow frustrated with him. Unprofessional, Ilya thought, but understandable. He was good at pissing people off. He hadn’t meant to bug her, though. Maybe it was just something about his nature. Or maybe he hadn’t understood her fully. She seemed hellbent on saying things in the most complicated, obscure ways. 

He didn’t say anything about Shane. Or his wish. 

Ilya was having dreams. Nightmares, really. Except in the dreams, he was so unbelievably happy that the real horror came from waking up to the distinct lack of that joy. 

In them, he’d be laying somewhere with Shane. Usually in the sun. Sometimes it’d be a hotel room, huge windows letting in streams of light that spread across their sleepy faces. Sometimes it was a park, under the sky, on a picnic blanket, Once, it’d been a hammock. Ilya liked that one, since the fabric forced them to lay on top of each other. 

In all of the dreams, they were avoiding a responsibility. A game, or event, or some other thing. Shane would stir and whisper ‘we need to go soon.’ Ilya would press his lips into Shane’s hair and shake his head. ‘We have time,’ he’d say, even when they definitely didn’t. Shane would accept this easily, humming into Ilya’s bare skin and letting his eyes close again. 

Then he’d wake, alone. 

On the occasion that he didn’t dream of Shane, he dreamed of his mother. Of her face when she would watch him skate as a kid, how she’d cheer loud enough that he could hear her over the clamor from the stands. How, when he’d first begun skating, as little more than a toddler, she’d held him upright even as he clung to her legs. 

In the morning, he had no one to lean on. 

Svetlana was caught up in her own business, which Ilya couldn’t blame her for. She didn’t have time for him. He wouldn’t deserve it, anyway. A woman like her deserved more than him. 

For the first time in a long time, Ilya realized that he might be lonely. There was very little to be done about that, aside from try to fill the hole in his chest with mindless hookups, with beautiful girls who blended into one homogenous form, girls who were so much, and utterly not enough. 

To call Shane his reason for living was dramatic. And unfair. But a little bit true.

All of this washed over him as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, not really seeing himself. Ilya didn’t want to play another fucking hockey game. Didn’t want to see Shane and have to stand so close to him. Have to look into his fucking eyes from inches away and bite back everything he wanted to say, knowing what Shane thought of him. Didn’t want to do anything but stand there and hate himself. 

Maybe he did have the guts. Maybe he could be like his mother. Take this from her, too. If he couldn’t inherit her goodness, maybe he could inherit her courage. 

Ilya had absolutely nobody left. People—social creatures, he remembered being told—had always sustained him, to a certain degree. He didn’t like acknowledging that. Somebody like him should have been able to manage on his own. He shouldn’t have needed to lean on others. Least of all on Shane. 

Would it hurt? Would that stop him? When had he ever let a little blood get in his way? 

Suicide wasn’t an option. Ilya couldn’t—wouldn’t—kill himself. If there was one thing Ilya was good at, it was winning games instead of sticking the barrel of a gun in his mouth, feeling the oiliness of the metal cloud his taste, feeling the weight of it on his tongue. Ilya wasn’t going to kill himself. Not unless he couldn’t help it. 

Christmas came and went. 

Ilya found that he couldn’t help it. 

MONTREAL

“You hear what happened?” Hayden asked him, glancing up from his unlaced skates to meet Shane’s eyes. 

Shane shook his head and went back to stuffing his things into his bag. “No,” he said. “What happened with who?”

He still didn’t feel better. In fact, he felt worse. His whole body seemed to hum with desire for something Shane couldn’t pinpoint. His limbs felt even heavier. There was a dull smarting deep in his bones. His play was beginning to suffer, but he didn’t want to think about that. He’d power through. He always did. Selfishly, he was glad Rozanov hadn’t been on the ice tonight. Shane always felt worse whenever he was around. 

“With Rozanov,” Hayden prompted. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, pushing back the brown strands. There was a stiff patch on the side of his head where Ruby and Jade had stuck a clump of slime to his scalp while he napped on the couch, and his fingertips caught in it. “Why he didn’t show.” 

“Rozanov never misses a game,” Boiziau offered, like somehow this was knowledge neither Shane nor Hayden had. 

“Yeah,” Hayden said as he pulled his jersey over his head. “The Raiders made a statement. Apparently, it’s bad.” 

Shane felt his heart stutter strangely. He glanced down at Hayden, then looked back into his cubby. “How bad? He’s hurt, or something?”

“Something like that,” Hayden said. “They haven’t released anything specific, but he’s out for the season.” 

“You’re kidding,” Boiziau said. He was grinning, teeth pearly in the fluorescent light. “Rozanov’s down?”

“Hey,” Shane said. “That’s not—We shouldn’t talk about other players like that. It’s unsportsmanlike.” And for some reason, it made the throbbing at the base of his skull intensify. Horribly, Shane was beginning to think that how awful he was feeling was more tied to Rozanov than he’d thought. After the phonecall he’d made last year, spurred by the strangeness of their Vegas encounter, and the rendezvous in Miami that’d ended so poorly that Shane made a call to the Raiders’ management, he’d accepted two things. One being that whatever connection he’d made between Ilya’s presence and the strange, inexplicable wrongness that he felt wasn’t as strong as he’d made himself believe. The other being that Ilya Rozanov was far from being as collected as he seemed on the ice and in interviews. Far from being okay. 

“Unsportsmanlike?” Boiziau echoed with a laugh. “It’s Rozanov.”

“Yeah, but if he’s hurt or whatever, we shouldn’t be acting like it’s a good thing. I don’t care that he’s an asshole,” Shane said. 

Hayden nodded, tilting his jaw up towards Shane. “He’s not wrong.” 

Boiziau threw his hands in the air and laughed loudly. Usually, Shane didn’t mind that everything about J.J. was loud, but tonight, he just wanted to get out of the locker room and past the sports journalists in the hallway and home, where he could sit down and think for a fucking second. Maybe call somebody. Maybe figure out what happened to Rozanov. 

Why did he even care?

He didn’t. He didn’t care, but there was something hot and angry pulling on his spine. Desire, maybe. He didn’t want to think about that, either. 

 

Shane (Не отправляйте сообщения!!!): Hey. Heard you’re done for the season. Is everything okay? Metros are rooting for you, if that isn’t weird. 👍

The message was just staring at him, its electronic brightness piercing into his eyes. The room was dark, and Ilya’s head hurt. Mostly, though, he just felt numb. Through bleary vision, he tapped out a message, disobeying the direct instructions he’d left for himself.

Ilya: Am fine. Metros are bad, do not need their cheering.
Shane (Не отправляйте сообщения!!!): Fuck off.
Shane (Не отправляйте сообщения!!!): What happened? Was it an accident?
Shane (Не отправляйте сообщения!!!): Sorry. I’m prying. You don’t need to tell me. 

He wanted to. Ilya wanted to tap the tiny video camera symbol in the corner of the screen and see Shane’s face. Hear his voice. 

Ilya: Family. 

That was a lie. Shane could see right through it, Ilya was sure, even if he didn’t know exactly what the Raiders had publicized. 

Shane (Не отправляйте сообщения!!!): Oh, okay. The statement made it sound like you were injured. Good to know you’re okay!

He couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t keep engaging in what he knew was futile. Not when his throat was raw from the tube and his stomach ached. Not when his mind kept replaying the few fuzzy moments when he was finally, finally free. The moment his eyes opened to fluorescence and professionals who were, for some reason, exceedingly interested in saving his life. The life Ilya didn’t want. The one he’d almost been free of. 

Ilya needed to put the phone down. He’d never done what was in his best interest, though.  

Ilya: Yes, thank you.
Ilya: Now you can win cup, yes?
Shane (Не отправляйте сообщения!!!): That’s the plan.

Rain was coming down outside. He didn’t know what time it was—he’d been awoken by the phone—but he knew it was late. Water ran down the large windows surrounding his bed in thick rivulets, droplets falling in heavy sheets onto the roof. 

He’d cried last night. Actual tears that rolled down his cheeks and collected in the dip of his collarbone. He’d showered afterward, then raided his medicine cabinet. Everything after that was a little bit hazy. He probably wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t made the idiot decision to sit outside in the fading sun, slumped in a lawn chair. Apparently, a very nosy woman and her dog were the deciding factor in his suicide’s patent failure. 

There’d been no woman and dog in 2003. Just Ilya. And he’d been too late.

He went back to sleep.

Chapter End Notes

comments are moderated just because i'm sick of bots. love ya, hope you enjoyed! part two very soon.

talk to me on tumblr!! :)

Chapter 2: part ii: i want you to love me

Chapter Notes

so sorry about the delay!! life got in the way & editing took slightly longer than expected. booooo

but i hope part 2 is satisfactory, i had a lot of fun writing it !! thank you so much for all of your lovely comments, i truly cannot even express how happy they made me, even if i didn't reply.

ahem. now, come along, kids. happy ending time!

2017
DENVER

Four weeks after Miami, Ilya Rozanov beat the shit out of a man in a bar situated at the far end of one of the busiest streets in the whole of Colorado. 

The Raiders had managed an unsurprising victory, and Ilya and a few teammates went out for drinks much later than usual. Most of them, though, decided to stay in and get some rest before an exceedingly long flight the next morning. Ilya only really kept tabs on Marleau and St-Simon, but even that level of awareness went out the window when he got shitfaced enough. 

He hadn’t gone into the night intending to beat the shit out of anybody, for the record. But after being incessantly harassed, touched—on the neck—and shouted various obscenities at, the alcohol in his bloodstream began to pilot his actions. 

Before the man was laying on the sidewalk, blood pouring from his broken nose, mixing with the watery snot from when he’d started crying, he’d been stuck to Ilya like glue, following him from table to table without so much as a foot of distance. He’d brushed the back of Ilya’s neck with his rough, callused fingertips more than once, slurring vulgarities in his ear. 

And every single word just made Ilya’s ire bloom. 

“Get away from me,” he’d tried. “Fuck off.” 

The man had just snickered and touched Ilya’s ear. “F-fuck…y’so fucking sexy…I see you on TV, imagine what you’d look like without the gear…touch myself to it—come all over myself…fuck, you—you oughta p-punish me, or…somethin’,” he’d said, his drunken words blending together. 

Ilya was no stranger to people thinking he was attractive, nor to unsolicited advances like this one. Sometimes, on a few, rare nights, he didn’t mind them so much. It was nice, to a certain extent, to know that he was desired by people he didn’t know. It helped him get hard. Helped him fuck Shane better, knowing that he needed to live up to that image. 

But it hadn’t been one of those nights, and Shane didn’t know him correctly. And this man seemed utterly incapable of taking a fucking hint. 

“Fuck off!” Ilya had shouted over the music, shoving him. “I will call fucking police!”

The man had staggered backward, but quickly regained his footing and reapproached, a strange expression on his face. 

For the first time in his life, Ilya had been afraid that he was going to be hurt in a significant way. 

It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight this man off—Ilya had at least four inches and a good twenty pounds of muscle on him—but he didn’t know if he had both the energy and the will to. If he was pushed to the ground, he didn’t know whether or not his brain would deem standing up worth the effort. 

And the man had been touching him again, whisper-yelling something that sounded like: “Oh, I…get it…fuck, sexy…knew you were into kinky shit…” And Shane was gone and his mother was dead and Ilya was just so fucking drunk—and before he’d really computed what was happening, the man had lead him outside and was pressing up against his body, the thick heat of him burning though their clothes. 

Ilya hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t wanted any of it. Casual sex was fine. Casual sex with fans, even, was fine. He didn’t care. Truly, he didn’t care. But he just—just couldn’t—

“Oh—what the fuck, man? I—fuck!” The man had gasped as the back of his head cracked against the sidewalk. Immediately, his eyes had begun to well with tears. 

Ilya had let out a growly noise and straddled him, the thin skin of his knees tearing as it ground against the gritty concrete. His fists connected with the man’s nose. 

And he hadn’t been able to stop. Because it had felt so good to hurt. To pour all of his pain into his fucking guy who hadn’t left him alone when he’d asked. To watch him cry and make him bleed. 

None of it was fair. He’d had somebody. A real, living, breathing somebody, who cared about him. Who he’d made vanish. Who he hadn’t been able to reel back in. So if Ilya went to prison, it wouldn’t matter. And it wouldn’t matter if he lost his contract, or his work visa, or whatever else. 

It wasn’t fair, either, to be hurting this man. He knew that, dimly, but the ache in his knuckles was the closest he could get to that ache in his jaw he missed so badly, and it wasn’t like he was going to kill him. Ilya was well-practiced in not killing people. 

Marleau and St-Simon had pulled him up by the armpits, drunkenly calling him an Uber and sending him back to the hotel, telling Ilya over the blood rushing in his ears that they were going to sit with the man, call an ambulance, and tell them that they’d found him that way. 

Dimly, Ilya had been grateful.

PRESENT
SAN FRANCISCO
TWO MONTHS AFTER ILYA'S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE SEASON

Shane can see himself standing in the foyer of an unfamiliar house. Its walls are all window, huge glass panes that span from the light colored floor to the high ceiling. “Did you have this built, or do you know who did?” he hears himself ask. His voice is different than usual. It’s…unguarded. Then his body turns, and he’s face-to-face with Ilya fucking Rozanov. 

Shirtless Ilya fucking Rozanov. Who smiles, taking a few steps toward Shane, crowding him against the marble kitchen island. “Mr. Real Estate,” he murmurs. 

Not-Shane stammers something, but Rozanov is already pressing him into the island with his hips, hands moving to side of his head as he—what the fuck. Not-Shane goes along eagerly, parting his lips and allowing Rozanov access, moving his hand when Rozanov gently nudges him to, allowing the other man to push him up onto the counter. Shane’s legs come up around Rozanov’s waist, his hands fisting in deep golden curls. 

Not-Shane and Rozanov are in bed together, hips rolling together, lips connected, Shane’s palm flat against the wall above Rozanov’s head. Rozanov is buried deep inside him, and not-Shane isn’t at all distressed about this. In fact, he’s letting out obscene sounds, eyelashes fluttering on his cheeks as he struggles to keep his gaze trained on Rozanov’s face. 

When Shane woke, the first thing he did was glance across the room to the bed where Drapeau slept. Shane was, embarrassingly, very hard. Even though his teammate was deaf to the world, Shane pointedly covered himself as he stood and half-limped to the bathroom. He needed a shower. He needed…something. Having a fucking sex dream about his…his what? What was Rozanov, even? 

They were rivals. But Rozanov, recently, seemed to think that they had some kind of history. Granted, Rozanov was having some kind of mental breakdown, but still. And Shane felt something toward him. More than he had last year, anyway. It was less emotional, and more like his body held the memory of something his mind didn’t. Like when Rozanov was near, every nerve ending was screaming for Shane to do something. For Rozanov to come closer.

And now he’d had a dream about getting fucked by him. Fitting. 

Shane was pissed.

He undressed quickly, trying not to groan at the feeling of his underwear rubbing against his obvious arousal, and flicked on the shower, stepping beneath the stream before giving it a chance to heat up. 

The water hit his skin like ice. His shoulders shuddered as he adjusted to the temperature, teeth chattering for a moment before the water warmed and he could relax completely. The comfort didn’t solve his problem, though, which only seemed to grow worse and worse as Shane turned the dream over in his mind repeatedly. 

He shut his eyes and let his head fall backward as his hand moved lower, fingertips brushing up the length of his cock as he began to stoke. 

He came hard, a few minutes later, hating himself. Rather, hating Rozanov. 

Maybe hate wasn’t the right word. 

BOSTON

The rain kept up for months. It was dark outside, and the sun rose late and set early. Ilya slept a lot. There was little else to do. It was midnight, or close to it, when his phone rang. 

Blearily, he reached across the messy bed for it, blindly tapping at the screen in an effort to get it to stop. Unfortunately, though, he hit the wrong button.

“Rozanov.” Shane’s voice came through the speakers before Ilya could hang up, and his heart stuttered. Why was Shane calling? He had a horrible, sinking feeling, a heavy glob of stone deep in his stomach. He laid back down, letting the phone rest on the pillow beside his head.

“Don’t do this,” he murmured, voice rough from sleep, accent thick. English was always more difficult right after waking up. He dreamed in Russian, after all. And sleepiness made his mind fuzzy. So did Shane.

“I’m sorry about last time,” Shane said. His voice wavered slightly on ‘sorry,’ and Ilya was once again reminded of how he’d been that first time in Vegas, teary-eyed and angry, yet utterly eager to melt into Ilya’s shoulder, malleable enough to calm down once Ilya pinched his cheeks together and whispered in his ear.

“Does not matter,” Ilya said into his pillow, closing his eyes. It, of course, mattered. Without last time, Ilya wouldn’t have needed to get his stomach pumped in a tiny hospital outside of Boston. Maybe that wasn’t fair to say. He couldn’t blame Shane for his own failings. 

“Look, Rozanov. Fuck, I—” Shane cut in, sounding urgent and a little panicked, like if he didn’t get the words out, they might disappear, fade away into the air between them.

“Нет. Пожалуйста.” 

“Could you just listen to me for one fucking second?”

“Hollander.”

“I know that I’m being unfair. Just…listen, for a fucking second, okay?”

Ilya didn't want to listen. Because there was no universe in which whatever Shane had to say was anything other than devastating, anything other than salt in the wound. What did he even need to say badly enough to call him in the middle of the night?

“If I ask you something, you won’t think I’m crazy?” The uptick at the end of Shane’s sentence made Ilya nervous. It was a question. A plea, even. 

“I won’t fucking report you to…to администрация, if that’s what you’re asking,” Ilya said. He’d meant it snarkily, but it came out tired, weary. That, at least, wasn’t in question. Ilya wouldn’t. Even if he probably should. 

“I’m sorry about that too.”

Ilya, for lack of a better word, ached. Something inside of him was smarting, contracting ceaselessly in an attempt to alert his mind of the fact that it was Shane speaking to him. Not the blank slate that had been Hollander. This man, the one on the other end of the line, more closely resembled the one that had been Ilya’s. The one that walked him all the way down the stairs that first time they’d really slept together. 

“You do not understand how hard it is to hear your voice,” he said, forcing his voice lower in an effort to conceal the pain it belied. 

It was a few moments before Shane spoke. “I had a dream.”

“Oh, you dream about me now?” It was impossible to cover the anger he felt. Ilya was always angry. His grief was laced with anger. His love was laced with anger. At least, it’d begun that way. It ended that way. But there was a brief moment in the carrythrough in which there was nothing but the base emotion. In which he could love Shane without hating himself for it. But that had passed.  

“Shut up. Rozanov, shut up and just listen to me.”

Ilya shut up, trying to squash the stupid, naïve hope rising in his throat. 

“I had a dream, but it felt different than a normal fucking dream, okay? It felt like…like something that’s already happened. Something I just don’t remember.” 

The words hit Ilya like a truck. 

He was no expert in wishes or alternate realities or erasing the person you loved the most, but Shane’s words sounded like was...hope. Like maybe this Shane was exactly the same as the other one. Like maybe he’d been wished into forgetting, but kept the memories somewhere. Like maybe he could get them back. 

“It was about you,” Shane added, and Ilya had to physically clamp his jaw to keep himself from letting out an inappropriate sound of celebration. 

“About me how?” he asked, calmly. Steadily. He couldn’t let his wavering inflection betray what he was feeling. He couldn’t come on too strong. 

“You…and me. We were…intimate?”

That was one way to put it. But there was no version of Shane that’d use the most descriptive term. His roundabout ways of describing their arrangement was one of the things Ilya loved about him. Embarrassed at his own want but utterly unable to quell it. 

“You told me that we used to be something,” Shane said. He sounded almost meek, like a small child reminding somebody of a promise they’d made. “In Miami.”

Ilya said nothing. He needed to let Shane get it out sans-interruptions. 

“I didn’t believe you.”

“No. You didn’t.” You called me psychotic to my team manager. I had to get an evaluation. I had to lie to them, because really, I am crazy. 

“If I told you what happened in the dream, would you tell me whether or not it…it was ‘real’?”

Please tell me. Please. I want to hear it from your mouth.

“God, I sound like a fucking lunatic.”

Ilya stayed quiet. Lunacy was the last thing he wanted this to be attributed to. 

“Say something.”

He didn’t.

“Rozanov.”

“Yes. Fine. Tell it to me.”

Shane took a deep breath. “We were in a…a house, I think. It had a foyer. Huge windows. It was early, I think. Before noon. Or maybe after that. There was a fireplace in the living room, and the floors were birch, or something. Light. I asked something about who built it. You weren’t, uhm, wearing a shirt.”

Oh. He’d been doubtful as to whether or not Shane had dreamed anything real, despite the white-hot faith coursing through his veins, but to hear him detail that day, the last real one they’d had together, in hesitant, stilted sentences was more than Ilya could handle.   

“Well?”

“Keep going,” was all he could choke out. 

Shane huffed something, a sharp breath coming over the speakers. “It’s hard to remember. But then…I was sitting on a kitchen island. And we were…”

“Kissing, probably,” Ilya offered. He rolled onto his side so that he was facing the pillow his cell rested on. For a moment, he could almost imagine that it was Shane. That they were laying face-to-face, lips only inches apart, Shane’s body heat seeping through the mattress until it warmed Ilya, too. 

For a moment, it seemed so real. As the tangibility of Shane’s return increased, so did the vividness of his ghost.

“That. And then, ah, other things, later.”

“Where?”

“A bed. Navy sheets.” 

“Is mine. I am in it right now. Comfy.” It used to smell a little bit like Shane, but that was gone. It’d been gone for almost two years. Beneath the smell of sweat and cologne, though, Ilya could almost sense it again. It seemed like Shane was pouring in from under the baseboards.

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

The line was silent for a moment. 

“It happened, then? You…remember it?” Shane asked. It sounded like he hated the words. Like they scared him. 

“Да.”

It was quiet again. Ilya couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He’d ruin it, if he opened his mouth. So he waited for Shane to speak, closing his eyes and imagining that he could reach out and touch him.

“So…what the fuck does this mean?”

Ilya didn’t know. But his chest was full of so much stupid, stupid hope that he couldn’t think straight. “Did you like it?”

For one heartbreaking moment, Ilya was sure that Shane would say no. Maybe this iteration wasn’t interested in men. Maybe the dream had been a horrible invasion. A nightmare.

“Yeah.” Shane breathed the word out, like it was forced from his chest. He said it with a hint of resignation, of shame, of resignation. But there was something else, too. Something Ilya couldn’t pinpoint. 

“I want to see you. Talk to you in person.” What he wanted was to make sure that this—whatever this was—was real. At this point, Ilya wouldn’t put it past his own stupid mind to hallucinate something like this. He was pathetic, wasn’t he? He shouldn't have cared so much. He shouldn’t have loved so much. If only he could take it back. If only he could have wished Shane back into himself that night in Montreal. If he hadn’t made the first wish to begin with. 

“We can’t.”

That was evidence to this being real. If Shane had been a creation of Ilya’s own mind, he wouldn’t have protested what Ilya wanted. He would have agreed eagerly and been there the next minute, by some desperation-induced miracle. 

He would have been the man Ilya remembered. 

“Hollander.” The plea slipped past his lips before he could stop it. 

“I thought you were having family problems. Are you in Russia?”

The lie wasn’t worth keeping up. “No. Boston,” Ilya said. 

Shane didn’t press. “I’m in California.” 

“You want actual tour?”

“Of where?” 

Ilya wanted to cry. Of where. “The house,” he said, “from your dream. Is mine.”

“We shouldn’t.”

“Just to talk.”

“Rozanov…” 

“You said it yourself. Shane, пожалуйста.”

It was quiet again. The rain outside continued coming down, near deafening in the otherwise silent room. Ilya was very aware of his own breathing. 

“Is okay. You are busy, probably,” he added after a moment. I tried to kill myself because of how much I love you. I was too weak to lose you. Please come over. I want to see your face, he thought. That part, however, was omitted.

“I can stop by. Maybe in February.”

“When?”

“I don’t know the date. We play the Raiders then. So I'll be in Boston.”

“I will give you address.”

“Okay.”

Quiet again. Ilya didn’t want to end the conversation, but while he spent the beat between sentences desperately searching for something to continue it, Shane said:

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Ilya replied. He wanted to add Shane at the end, but he was worried that it might scare him off. And he couldn’t do that. Not now that he was just within reach. Now that he was coming over. Now that Shane had dreamed about him. 

The call ended. 

Ilya rolled onto his back, breathing hard. He couldn’t let himself be as hopeful as he had been for their meeting at the All-Stars game. This time, at least, he didn’t think Shane would report him for being fucking insane. Maybe they could talk—maybe Shane would be receptive. 

Maybe, somehow, he’d get him back. 

TWO MONTHS LATER
BOSTON

“Where are you going?” Hayden asked, glancing up from his cellphone. His legs were crossed, his shoes still on, even though he was laying on top of the hotel bedspread. He waggled his eyebrows at Shane, smiling. “Seeing anyone?”

Shane zipped up his coat, slipping into his sneakers as his eyes darted between Hayden and the door. “Stupid PR thing,” he muttered. “I’ll be back before the dinner.”

“I wasn’t invited?” 

Shane shrugged. “It’s a…thing for captains, I think.”

Hayden made a face but nodded, waving his hand at nothing as he looked back down at his phone. Probably texting Jacki. 

Shane sat in his car for twenty minutes before turning it on, watching his breath puff and dissipate in the still air. Was he really about to go do this? About to go make nice with Ilya Rozanov over a wet dream? 

Yes. He was. 

He also had no fucking clue what to expect. Rozanov wanted to talk, whatever that meant. Shane didn’t really want to recount the dozen or so similar dreams he’d had in the past two months, all of which were laced with a vividness Shane almost never experienced in his sleep. All of them consisted of an encounter between him and Rozanov, some more explicit than others, but all intimate in nature and spectated on by an unfamiliar Shane trapped inside some other, more comfortable, body. He felt like a voyeur. 

Finally, he smacked his hands on the steering wheel and started the car.

Ilya, for the first time in months, cleaned the house. He usually kept it fairly clean, but since Tampa, he’d let it go. Clothes were strewn everywhere, and dishware was piled high in the sink. But Ilya threw the heavy curtains open and tidied manically for two hours before getting in the shower, drawing squiggles in the condensation the large glass panel separating the wet and dry areas of his bedroom, tilting his head back and staring upwards, through the large skylight and up at the tree boughs peeking into frame, dotted with the beginnings of fresh spring leaves. 

He hadn’t been able to play for months, and the world had become slightly amorphous without the routine, twisting and warping into something better survived alone. Ilya liked hockey. Loved it. But he didn’t need it in the same way Shane did. 

Ilya thought, probably, that he needed Shane in the same way Shane needed hockey.

But, maybe, it was going to be a good day. Maybe he’d get to see Shane’s face without needing to look away. Maybe he’d get to touch him. Kiss him. Fuck, Ilya would sell his soul for a kiss from Shane Hollander. 

He toweled off and stood in front of the mirror, making eye contact with himself until his vision blurred. The redness around his mouth from the incident a few months prior. No. Fuck that. It wasn’t an incident. His father had said the same about Irina’s death. It was an accident. An unfortunate event that was better not discussed. But both Ilya and his mother had attempted suicide. The only difference was that Irina had been successful whereas Ilya had been foiled. 

That was perhaps a dishonest way to phrase it. He’d survived. Maybe, soon, that’d be a good thing. 

He did his hair and got dressed before settling on the couch and waiting for Shane to arrive.

Which he did, roughly half an hour later. When the knock sounded, Ilya jolted upright like an animal hearing a gunshot. He stood, scrubbing a hand over his face and then through his curls, taking a deep breath, and adjusting his waistband before starting for the door. 

“Hey,” Shane said, shifting awkwardly on his feet. He was wearing a pair of khaki-colored pants and a black t-shirt, which poked out from under his white hoodie. 

Ilya nodded, stepping back from the doorway to allow Shane enough room to pass. He closed the door behind the other man, shoving his hands in his pockets and trying not to press Shane up against the nearest wall and grab his face and—

Shane let out a long, shallow breath. “Oh,” he said, turning in a small circle once he passed the foyer. “Yeah, this is the house…what the fuck…”

“Is nice place; maybe too big for me,” Ilya said, leaning on the edge of his kitchen counter. “Same as from your dream?” he asked in what he hoped was a casual enough tone. Shane had already said that it was, but there was something about the allure of flat-out confirmation that Ilya desperately needed. Is this house the same as the one from your dream? Are you the same man I lost?

Shane nodded. He turned away from taking in the rest of the open layout to look at Ilya. “Yeah. It is. This is fucking…insane, Rozanov, what the fuck?”

“Can I—” Ilya cut himself off. God, he was pathetic, wasn’t he? Begging to touch Shane after the slightest indication that he still contained all of his memories, even if they weren’t fully accessible. “Sorry.”

Shane didn’t seem to notice. He sat down heavily in a dining chair, gripping the edge of the table until his fingertips turned white. His face was blank, his jaw tight. “Fuck, Rozanov…what the fuck does this mean? You were—what, you were right?” 

“You don’t need to act so surprised,” Ilya said softly. “I am usually right.” 

“Not the fucking time, asshole,” Shane grit out. “Oh my god, I think I’m gonna vomit. Fuck. I keep having these dreams—I’m driving myself crazy.”

Ilya crouched in front of Shane, tentatively placing his hands on Shane’s thighs before relaxing into the touch when Shane didn’t pull away. “Is okay,” he said, trying very hard not to let his own excitement spoil the sentiment. “Is okay, you are okay.” 

Shane was breathing hard, his eyes shut tight. “No. Fuck, Rozanov. Fuck. This is so crazy. I don’t understand. You—you were actually telling the truth. We…we were, what, lovers?”

“Shane,” Ilya said. “Breathe and then we talk, yes? In and out. Easy-peasy. Come on.” He rubbed up and down Shane’s thighs in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. The Shane he’d known had always found touch grounding, and that Shane and this one were beginning to exhibit more similarities than Ilya had originally thought. 

Shane stopped talking, closing his mouth and sucking in hard through his nose. His jaw began to untense as his eyelashes fluttered on his cheeks. God, he was so beautiful. The slope of his nose, the dip of his cupid’s bow, the smattering of freckles across his perfect face.

“Okay,” Shane breathed, keeping his eyes shut. “Fuck, sorry.”

“No, is okay,” Ilya said quietly, hands still moving as his eyes darted over Shane’s features before meeting his gaze. “Scary, probably. I was scared. Maybe not scared. Sad, mostly.”

Shane opened his eyes, dark irises falling to Ilya’s. “When?”

“After the game in Montreal last year,” Ilya said with a huff. “After the…club.” 

“Oh.”

“I didn’t mean for it to work.” That was the crux of the matter. He hadn’t meant for it to work. Even while wishing Shane away, he’d wanted him to stay. But cruelty was a function of pain, after all, and Ilya had quite a bit of that, all coalescing into one tacky wound, one he’d dug his fingers into in Montreal. 

Shane stared down at him for a few moments, and Ilya realized that he was still moving his hands. “I’ve had a lot of dreams,” Shane said. His cheeks tinged pink. “About us.”

“Will you tell me?” Ilya asked, standing and gesturing for Shane to follow him into the living room, which he did. Ilya sat on the couch, in the same place he had while waiting for Shane to arrive, and watched intently as the position on the other end was quickly occupied. “What do you know about us?”

Shane ducked his head. “Just that we…fucked a lot, I guess. It’s most of what I…is ‘remember’ the right word?”

“You know me? What I am like?”

Shane sighed again, letting out a little breath. “Different that I thought,” he said. “Still kind of a dick.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and Ilya’s heart clenched.

“Do you remember what you are like?” Ilya asked, moving incrementally closer to him on the  couch. 

Shane looked up at the ceiling, shoving his hands in the pocket of his hoodie. “Happier, maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never…I’ve never been like that before. While having sex.”

“You have a lot of sex, then?” Ilya teased, just because he could. 

“Shut up,” Shane said with an amused huff. “I…get around.”

“Do you?” That was one major difference between this Shane and his Shane, then. His Shane did not ‘get around.’ Ilya suspected this one didn’t either, though.

“Yeah. We’re famous—you know how it is.”

“For me, maybe. For you?”

“Yeah! Shut up, man. I was just saying that it’s never been that way before. I’ve never really….wanted it, like I did in the dreams,” Shane finished lamely, gaze darting to Ilya for a split second before shifting back to the opposite wall.

Ilya’s mouth felt dry. It was unfair, really, that Shane was sitting there, saying things like that. It was an outside perspective on Shane’s insides, an interior spectatorship. Ilya wouldn’t have been able to garner any of this without this stranger. This stranger who somehow knew more than he did about man that, really, he’d never met. “Tell me what you remember,” he repeated. “I want to hear.”

Shane flushed deeper. Then he huffed and crossed his arms. “What do you want to know?”

“You have a favorite time?”

“Maybe the first.” 

“First for what?”

“You know. Sex. All the way, I mean.”

“I was good to you, then?”

“Very,” Shane said, ducking his head. “Sorry. It feels weird to talk about. I don’t know whether or not that guy is...me.” 

“Good,” Ilya said. “Am glad.” He was. Going into that night, his biggest fear had been being disappointing. Which was, of course, unfounded. But still. He remembered how Shane had looked, the edges of his face aglow in lamplight, his eyes dark, that small smile on his face.

And eventually, how the muscles in his back had looked, jumping and contracting as he clutched a pillow beneath him, legs shaking. It’d been a good night; Shane had walked him down to the door. 

The room was quiet for a moment. Ilya didn’t know what to say. He wanted to lean over and kiss him. Maybe more. But that wasn’t allowed, and so he didn’t. “I think you are him, probably,” he said after a beat. “Probably, yes.”

“Don’t know who else I’d be,” Shane added. “And I didn’t mind it. Being him, I mean. When he—when I—was with you.”

Quiet. Ilya’s heart was pounding against his ribs, threatening to break free in the form of a long-winded, emotional sentence. Or tears. Or a touch. Or anything. It’d been so long. It’d been a year. Before Vegas, he might have been able to survive that long without Shane. But something had changed, something cosmic had shifted, and now that was impossible. He was an addict. He was in withdrawal. All he needed was one fucking hit, and he might be able to sustain himself for a little while longer.

He might be able to muster up some gratitude for that nosy woman and her goldendoodle. 

But it was fine. It was fine if they didn’t. It was fine if Shane reverted back to his blank self and yelled and called Hayes and left. It was fine. 

Ilya would be fine. 

The look on Rozanov’s face was simultaneously reassuring and so fucking scary that Shane didn’t know what do to. It was softer than anything he’d shown before, even in Tampa, when his sadness had been tinged with fury. Now, though, in the thin afternoon light, he looked almost adoring. There was still an edge of misery to the expression, the corners of his mouth forced down, tears smudging in his periphery. 

Every word that passed Shane’s lips only served to make it worse. Somehow, he seemed to be hitting a consistent soft spot. Like pressing on a bruise. Or an erogenous zone. It wasn’t that he was lying, exactly, he couldn't be honest, either. Because he had no idea what that Shane had been feeling while Rozanov touched him like that. All he knew was what he was thinking while he relived them. Apparently, they were similar. 

Maybe he was the same man. Maybe he didn’t exist within the vacuum of whatever he’d become without knowing it. He harbored a lot of the same feelings. The same pull towards Rozanov. 

He felt so much better since stepping through the doorway. For the first time in months, Shane didn’t feel like he was wearing somebody else’s skin. 

He was beginning to regret making that phone call to the Raiders’ management. 

“Tell me about him,” Shane said stupidly. “About that…version of me.” 

Rozanov kept staring at him, eyes glassing over. He seemed to be resisting the urge to blink, like he was afraid he might return from the momentary darkness to find that Shane had gone away again. But eventually he conceded, glancing down at his lap as he blinked away the tears hanging in his lower lashes. “He was very boring,” Rozanov said, clearing his throat. “So you are the same in that way.” 

Shane huffed, but felt his heart flip in his chest. 

“But you are different too,” Rozanov continued, shifting on the couch. “You are scared of me.” 

Shane said nothing. Scared wasn’t right. Maybe he had been, earlier, before Tampa. Before he dreamed through the entirety of their relationship. But no, not really. They’d just been coworkers. Shane hadn’t cared for him much, but Rozanov’s persona had long since lost its effectiveness for Shane. “I’m not,” he said. 

“You are,” Rozanov said. “He would let me touch him.” 

Before Shane could even compute what was about to leave his mouth and all of its potential consequences, he was saying “I’d let you touch me.”

Rozanov’s head snapped around, blue eyes piercing into Shane’s. With their brightness amplified, so too was the darkness beneath them. He closed his eyes, head tilting downward, shoulders shuddering as he inhaled deeply. “You are being unfair again.” 

As soon as the words had passed Shane’s lips, he knew he meant them. Maybe he hadn’t lived through everything in the same way Rozanov had, but that just made the intensity of his longing all the more real. Because he had the horrible feeling that he was about to beg for those dreams to be realized. “Rozanov,” Shane said, moving quickly across the length of the couch, standing on his knees over Ilya. His hand shot out, thumb brushing over the other man’s jaw. “I’d let you touch me,” he repeated. 

Ilya’s eyes opened, and his own hands moved to Shane’s waist. Shane had to actively fight not to show on his face how hot the spike of arousal that shot through him was. “You’re serious?” Ilya asked. His jaw still looked tight, a muscle ticking in time with his heartbeat. 

“Yes.”

The affirmation had less than half a second to hang in the air before Ilya was kissing him. 

A real kiss. Deep. Ilya rolled Shane onto his back, pressing him into the couch cushions, weighing him down with his body in order to make sure he wouldn’t fly away. Shane was solid and warm beneath him, abs jumping as Ilya slipped his hand beneath Shane’s shirt, a feeling Ilya sorely, sorely missed. 

“Fuck,” he breathed into Shane’s mouth. “ебать, это ты.” 

Ilya was probably crying, but he couldn’t tell. His tears might have been mixing with his saliva, or that salty taste might have been blood. Either way, he was kissing Shane, and Shane was kissing him back, and nothing else in the world mattered at all. 

MARCH
VANCOUVER

Shane realized with a start that he could never tell Hayden. 

Before Boston, he hadn’t told Hayden because he didn’t know whether or not anything Rozanov had said was real; because he didn’t know if what he was feeling had anything to do with that. Now, though, it became apparent that Hayden could never know. Rozanov was their rival. Had been for close to a fucking decade. It didn't matter that Shane was beginning to remember their relationship outside of his dreams or that he’d kissed him, How would Hayden ever be able to understand? The situation was utterly unbelievable, even if you removed the aspect of Rozanov’s—Ilya’s, he had to keep reminding himself—wish, their relationship needed to stay secret.

Even if that was growing increasingly difficult, given the fact that Shane felt the constant, incredibly inconvenient urge to be with him all the time. To talk to him. To be touched. It was getting out of hand. And it didn't help that Ilya was no longer on the ice, which meant they never saw each other on the road. But the season was coming to an end, and the Metros hadn’t made the playoffs, so April was free. 

There was just one game left. 

One game, and then he could go home. And Ilya would make the drive, and they’d be together for a few days. To sort something out. Memories flitted through his mind, vignettes of a life, a relationship, he’d never actually lived. It was torture.

Shane didn’t know what he wanted from the few days together. Relief? Peace? Did he want Ilya to draw some hard line in the sand—like Shane probably should have almost a year ago—or did he want them to...be something again? 

He’d need to figure that out before they met again. 

Hayden had his hands high above his head, a goofy grin splitting his face. The music in the bar was loud and Shane was having trouble hearing whatever Hayden was saying. He felt like he was underwater, simultaneously part of a larger, fluid entity, and isolated in his emotions. A few of the other guys didn’t like partying, but they didn’t have the unique burden of captaincy that practically mandated Shane join the rest of the team for their celebratory bar tour. “Dude,” Hayden slurred, gesticulating clumsily. “Look at Mitty.”

“What?” Shane asked, turning his head to face Hayden head-on, knocking an elbow against the bar. “Shit.” Then he turned in the direction Hayden had gestured, scanning the undulating mass of bargoers for Miitka.

He was towards the middle of the room, and engaged in an exceedingly...passionate dancefloor embrace. 

“He’s eating her fucking face,” Hayden said with a laugh, smacking his shoulder into Shane’s. 

“Reminds me of you and Jacki,” Shane muttered, turning back to stare at the woodgrain in the bartop. It was nice. He’d like a dresser with a similar pattern. “You two met in a bar. Made everyone watch you swallow each other’s tongues.”

Hayden snickered, nodding, head bobbing on his neck. “Touché, Hollander. Touché.”

Shane downed a gulp of the beer he really didn’t want to be drinking. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being drunk, he just hated that the alcohol dulled his inhibitions. He liked his inhibitions. He did like, however, how the gulp made his mind a little fuzzier. Because he needed his thoughts dulled. He couldn’t stop thinking about a memory he’d gained recently. This one wasn’t from a dream, but was spurred by an article he saw about Rose Landry, the actress. 

He’d dated her. Well, the version of him that had actually lived through Vegas, and Sochi, and Boston had dated her. He felt a little bit perverted for having memories of her naked. 

Most of how he thought about her came down to Ilya, though, which seemed to be how most things he thought about these days were. He thought about how her body felt pressed against his in the club before he broke away and found Ilya. About how her hair felt under his fingers. How soft her breasts were against his chest. About how none of it came anywhere close to what he’d felt that first time with Ilya. 

And how what he’d felt was becoming increasingly synonymous with what he needed to feel. There was nothing and nobody in his life in any substantial way that could provide him with that high except for him. 

They were going to see each other soon. Shane tried to fake nervousness to himself, but it was futile. All there was swirling behind his ribs was excitement. Joy, even. 

He’d fly back home tomorrow. If everything went to plan, he’d have a few days alone with Ilya. Maybe they’d touch each other again, maybe Ilya would put his hands all over Shane’s body and suck out some of the persistent tenseness that only ever faded under his fingertips. Ilya was an excellent stick handler, but he was a better Shane handler. Which was saying something.

Hayden nudged him again, smiling dumbly. “You look happy,” he slurred, drawing out the ‘oo’ in ‘you.’ 

Shane froze, shoulders tensing. He hoped, for both he and Ilya’s sake, that Hayden was wrong. A physical attachment—dependency—was bad enough, but an emotional one was unbearable. “Just the win is all,” he said, gripping the can in his hand tighter. 

“Sure, man,” Hayden acquiesced, his tone dismissive but happy nonetheless, eyes sparkling. Then, under his breath, he added, “Whatever Captain says.”

TWO DAYS LATER

Ilya was practiced at moving through TSA, accustomed to getting through it as quickly and efficiently as possible after so many years of moving from city to city. Driving two hours outside of Ottawa in a mostly silent rental car, though, was a different story. The radio didn’t work and most of what filled his ears was the dull thrum of the tires on the road. 

His heart was pounding. And, as much as he tried to stop it, he could feel a wave of sadness rising in his chest, and soon, he was trying hard not to cry. This was happy. This was a happy thing, so why couldn’t be hold himself together for two fucking days? He didn’t want to scare Shane. But his hands shook on the steering wheel. 

Even though he was alone and surrounded by quiet, the airport clamor still echoed around him. The TSA agents’ orders had sounded more like gibberish than usual. Not for the first time in his life, Ilya had wished he could dub over their voices with Russian. It wasn’t as bad as it had been when he’d first moved to Boston, back when he’d had to pause and manually translate everything in his head, significantly halting conversation, but he still wasn’t perfect, and it only got worse when he was upset. 

But he wasn’t upset. He was happy. He was so, so happy. At least, he should have been. 

There was a bend in the road, and on the other side, two rows of pine trees framed the road. It was early morning, and things were still gray, but the sun was beginning to rise, and it shone through the needles, bright pink-gold hanging over the road. 

It was nice. Ilya took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, taking a breath, before opening them and resolving not to cry again for a while. 

Forty-five minutes later, he parked in front of Shane’s cottage. 

It wasn’t really what he’d expected, but it meshed better with Shane than whatever Ilya had been imagining would have. It was angular, built with warm-toned wood, with a gravel driveway and large, blank-looking windows.

It was also an exterior he recognized.There had been some sort of sports featurette a few years back in which Shane had walked the producers through the building, including a lingering shot of him deep in a crescent lunge in front of the lake behind the cottage. Which Ilya very much appreciated the editors for including in its entirety. 

He sat in the car for a few moments, listening to his own breath, for a few moments before unbuckling and getting out of the car. He hadn’t packed much, just clothes and miscellaneous charging cables, so his only luggage was a backpack he’d owned since he was seventeen. 

Ilya stood on the concrete stoop and tried to imagine how Shane would look when he opened the door. 

Everything felt like it was crashing down around him. This was undeniably pivotal. It had to go well. The blood was rushing in his ears and he couldn’t seem to lift his hand to knock. 

Nothing in the past few years had gone like it was supposed to. And all of it had been his fault. If only he hadn’t made the wish, if only he hadn’t failed like that. 

But now, he had the opportunity to rebuild. His life was hurdling in the right direction, but here was a break in the tracks he didn’t know whether or not he could bridge. 

It was sink or swim. Shane, or nothing. 

He knocked.

“One second!” came from inside, and Ilya had to white-knuckle his own thigh to keep from opening the door himself. 

But a second later, it swung open, and there he was. 

Shane was dressed in light heather gray sweatshirt and black pants, the pockets of which his hands were shoved into. His hair was neat, but overstressed, like he’d been fiddling with it. And his expression shifted when his eyes met Ilya’s, the corners of his mouth relaxing, the muscles around his eyes easing, giving him a softer look. “Hey,” he said. “You came.” 

“Yes.” Ilya wanted to pounce him, wanted to press their mouths together until Shane was gasping for air. He wanted to be close. But the boundaries between them were constantly shifting, and Ilya didn’t know where he stood. So he cleared his throat and made a vague gesture with his free hand. “Can I come in?”

Shane nodded, stepping to the side. His gaze followed Ilya as he passed through the doorway, shutting the door behind him. The house smelled woodsy, but clean. Like a scented candle and laundry detergent. Ilya wanted to smother himself in it. 

He set his backpack down on the floor, leaning it against a narrow gallery table. When he turned back around, Shane was just a few inches away.  

“You smell like sweat,” Shane said, his fingers skimming Ilya’s shoulders, the touch tentative and searching, like he wasn’t sure whether or not Ilya would pull away. 

But Ilya had to refrain from shuddering. His eyes closed and he felt himself relax, muscles untensing as he breathed Shane in. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Long flight, hot in the car.” 

Shane moved closer, his nose bumping Ilya’s. His breath fanned over Ilya’s lips, hot and fresh, since Shane brushed his teeth three times a day when he could, instead of just two. Their mouths brushed, Shane’s lips parting as they both fell back into this.

Ilya’s hand snaked up Shane’s back, and then he was sliding his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of the other man’s neck and pressing their lips together, slipping his tongue into Shane’s mouth, tasting the special fluoride-rich toothpaste that still clung to his tongue and the interior of his mouth. He groaned into the kiss, his other hand falling to Shane’s hip. 

When they broke apart, Shane rested his forehead against Ilya’s, and again, Ilya needed to make sure the catch in his breath wasn’t too obvious.  

“I heard something,” Shane said after a moment, his dark eyes moving back and forth between each of Ilya’s. “From Comeau. About you.”

Ilya stiffened, but tried to relax. The last thing he needed was to get tense. Mentally, he flipped through his Rolodex of things he totally didn’t want Shane to know. It could be anything. Anything at all. Maybe it would shatter the careful balance held between this reality and the one Ilya remembered. “Comeau does not know anything,” he said. “And there are many rumors about me.” 

“I don’t think it’s a rumor, Rozanov,” Shane said. “It sounded—God, I don’t know—it sounded real, okay? I think it’s real.” 

“What is it, Shane?” Ilya asked, pulling away slightly, putting necessary, safe distance between them. Suddenly, he was scared. Scared, maybe, that the person Shane knew him to be had done something terrible. Scared that there was some kind of irreparable divide between them, one that Ilya was responsible for. 

“Gil overheard a conversation he wasn’t supposed to, and kind of…got the idea that you…”

“Fucking spit it out, Hollander.” He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but every moment he didn’t know what Shane was thinking was a moment he didn’t know how to fix it. Ilya was observant, but he couldn’t do damage control without knowing exactly what aspect of their rapport was damaged. And he couldn’t stand the thought that 

“That you dropped out of the season because you tried to kill yourself,” Shane finished. He looked down at the floor, then to Ilya—momentarily lingering on his eyes—and back to the floor again. 

Ilya’s heart dropped. No, no, no, no, Shane didn’t know about that. He didn’t. Nobody did. He raised his hands, like maybe he was going to cover his face. But he didn’t, just placed them on the back of his head and moved across the room, facing away from Shane. “Stop talking,” he said, circling around by the kitchen island. “You—stop.

“I think we should talk about it,” Shane said, following. “I—Ilya, I think—”

Ilya leaned against the island, white-knuckling the countertop. “Shane.” 

“Rozanov, I mean it, I’m fucking mad at you, okay?” 

Ilya was silent and Shane, for the life of him, couldn’t work out the expression on his face. It was tense around the eyebrows and mouth but otherwise stony.

“And I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I can’t help it. Why did you do it? Because of me? Why didn’t…you should have called, or something.”

“Oh, yes, fucking, just—just call the guy who reported me for being psychotic, yes, fucking obviously! Tell him I am—I am what? What are you going to call it? Crazy?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense, Ilya—Rozanov—I know, okay? And you’re not—” Shane huffs, eyes closing. “You’re not crazy, okay? You were just…I don’t know, hurting?” he said, slightly quieter. 

Ilya bristled at the word. Shane, at least, could pick that up. But he still didn’t know what he’d said wrong. Maybe ‘hurting’ was too much of a blanket statement. But at the same time, Shane couldn’t deny his own anger. It wasn’t fair for Ilya to be treating him like this, like some kind of stranger. Shane as he existed and the Shane Ilya remembered overlapped in more ways than they missed each other, especially now that Shane was mentally caught up with his own history. 

Shane knew him. He did. He remembered, now that they were together again in any kind of meaningful way. He wondered, not for the first time, if he’d been more indulgent in Miami, if maybe his memory would have returned faster. But it was better not to get caught up in things like that.

Ilya muttered something in Russian, and his voice faltered at the tail end of the sentence. He looked…tense, coiled tight enough to snap, like a dog grown tired of mistreatment, upper lip curling over the teeth they know how to bite with. “I am not sick.” Ilya said after a moment. “I am fine.”

“Did you do it because of me?” Shane asked before he could stop himself. The words hung in the air between them, blending and forming into a thick membrane that seemed far too tough and impregnable to breach. “Sorry, I—you don’t have to answer that,” he added, more quietly. 

Looking at Ilya now felt like literally looking at a dream. It would have made for sense for him to be some kind of figment of Shane’s imagination than the actual Ilya Rozanov, standing in his foyer, trying not to cry. While having those dreams, Shane, dimly, had been aware that things wouldn’t be the same when they were in the same room. Because the dreams—his past, his lost memory—those events hadn’t been informed by his memory loss. Dream-Ilya, of course, wouldn’t behave the same way. Dream-Ilya hadn’t had Shane torn away from him, not yet. 

He still didn’t say anything, just clenched his fists tighter, knuckles turning white as he forced the blood—the feeling—out of them in favor of rage, of numbness. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane repeated. “I’m so sorry about all of this. I can’t…I can’t fucking imagine. I have most of the memories back now and I…we definitely weren’t perfect, but I don’t know how I’d handle losing you. You just…you need to treat me like him. Please. I’m him. I remember, Ilya, all of it. ” 

Ilya could barely hear him. Only a select few words were distinct enough to make out of the rushing blood in his own ears. “So sorry…weren’t perfect…losing you…I’m him. I remember, Ilya.” Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

The world felt narrow and claustrophobic, containing only Ilya, Shane, and the transient ghost of him that had been clinging to Ilya’s shoulder for the last three years. 

Things wouldn’t be the same. He knew that. He’d known that. They weren’t the same men from that day in Boston, nor from the club in Montreal. Ilya had been plunged into fire, and Shane had chased him through it. They were, irrevocably, changed. Charred in places, still burned and smarting in others. But even greater than the scarred portions were the untouched ones. 

Ilya didn’t realize he was moving until his arms were looping around Shane’s neck, fingernails biting into the muscles on his back, head buried in the other man’s shoulder. “Fuck,” he choked out. “I’m sorry.” I love you, he wanted to add, but didn’t. That would be too much all at once for Shane, and so Ilya would have to hold it back. At least for a few hours. Even though the words felt caged in his chest, banging on his ribs and begging for release. 

Shane’s hands came up to hold him back, grip tight but not bruising, his bicep squishing against Ilya’s ear. Shane began to sway ever so slightly, tilting their bodies forward and the back, with all the gentleness of the ocean lapping at the shore. 

Ilya’s breath shuddered. Then it caught, when Shane’s lips connected with his temple. 

“We should shower,” Shane murmured. “You reek.” 

Ilya, of course, caught the ‘we.’ “Yes,” he said, but didn’t break apart yet. He needed to relish this, even if the prospect of him and Shane showering together peeked over the horizon. While he’d sorely missed sex, it wasn’t what felt the most important to regain. He closed his eyes. Shane was still swaying, and Ilya felt very, very young.

It was a few minutes before they separated. 

Shane led Ilya to the bathroom. Walking through the house, Ilya couldn’t help but imagine Shane wandering around, alone. Maybe he read Architectural Digest naked on the couch. Maybe he played solitaire on the coffee table in silence. The cottage was comfortable and plain—minimalist, rather—exactly the kind of place Ilya could envision Shane unwinding in. It smelled vaguely of pine and the fresh laundry scent he’d identified earlier. It was nicer than Ilya’s place in Boston. Calmer.

The bathroom was equally tranquil. The windows faced the backyard, and as a result they were huge and shiny, overlooking the lake. The ceilings were vaulted, giving the room a huge, airy feel. Afternoon light poured in from the windows, reflecting on the tiled floors and walls, pooling in dappled, caustic patches. 

The shower was in the corner, encircled by curved glass panels. It was big. It had a bench. And a rainfall showerhead affixed to the ceiling. And shelves that were inset into the tile wall, holding Shane’s miscellaneous shower products. Two-in-one shampoo and conditioner. ‘Sandalwood’ scented bodywash.

Ilya tried not to pay too much attention to the minutiae of Shane’s life here. Which got easier once Shane pulled his shirt over his head, revealing the toned chest and stomach Ilya knew he worked hard for, the defined obliques that led between his legs…

Shane folded his shirt over his arm and set it on the countertop beside the sink before unbuttoning his pants. 

It was only when Shane was fully naked that Ilya realized he hadn’t done the same. Usually, he got his clothes off in a matter of seconds, but it was hard to concentrate on buttons or zippers when Shane was standing there…looking like that…with his toned thighs and abdomen…with his dick that smeared against the inside of his left leg—not hard yet but beginning to fill out—with his freckles, which seemed to glow in the golden afternoon light. His sparkling eyelashes. 

Shane had been reliving their encounters for the past few years in his dreams, experiencing them firsthand, for all intents and purposes, but Ilya hadn’t slept with him in three years. While it wasn’t a particularly long drought for the two of them, the circumstances surrounding the abstinence made it all the more painful. The last person he’d slept with at all was Jane, in Tampa. She’d been fine, but not him. Not Shane. 

Still staring, Ilya undressed, mimicking Shane and folding his clothes, despite his instinct to let them crumple in a pile on the floor. And all of a sudden, they were back in familiar territory. Naked, wanting, each daring the other to make the move and engage the two. 

Shane nodded once, like he was reminding himself that he needed to move, before taking a few steps over and turning the shower on. His ass, Ilya thought, looked exceptional. This version of Shane clearly paid more attention to his glutes. 

The water was still freezing when Shane stepped beneath it. Usually, Ilya would have waited a moment for the temperature to rise, but the sight of Shane like that, with his eyes closed and his shoulders back as the water plastered his hair over his forehead, looked so unfathomably appealing Ilya couldn’t help himself from diving beneath the spray. He pressed up against Shane, pinning one of his arms over his head and one behind him, the contrast between the icy water and Shane’s perpetually warm skin heightened his senses, making him feel like some kind of animal. One that needed, more than anything, to be close. 

Shane’s mouth opened before their lips even connected, letting a quiet moan disappear into the kiss once Ilya pushed forward. His dick—pinned between his own thigh and the inside of Ilya’s—had filled out, growing hot and tight-feeling, which even Ilya could pick up on. His own cock was experiencing the same, bobbing against his stomach. He released one of Shane’s hands and grasped at his pec, kneading the flesh there. 

Ilya wasn’t particularly good at words, no matter which language they were in. Words always, always failed to describe exactly what he was feeling, exactly what he meant. What he was fluent in, though, was touch. 

His free hand traced down Shane’s bare hip, the now-hot water cascading over both them thankfully drowning out his own thoughts. He could barely believe that they were both where they were—naked, warm, together. He met Shane’s eyes again, and he could feel the tip of his own nose going hot as tears blurred his vision. “Fuck,” he breathed, moving impossibly closer. “It’s you.” 

Shane was receptive, leaning into the gentle pressure from Ilya’s hand, his eyes closing. His eyelashes flooded with shower water, blurring his features and making him look like some kind of garden statue under heavy rainfall, so serene and solid. “It’s you,” he echoed. 

Ilya, suddenly, couldn’t take it anymore. He sank to his knees, nose burying in Shane’s pubic hair as his tongue darted out, licking over the base of his cock. 

Shane’s whole body shuddered at the contact, his hands automatically moving to Ilya’s shoulders, steadying him. “Are you sure—?” he started, but was cut off by a sharp gasp when Ilya began teasing the head. “F-fuck, Ilya…”

There was no better sound in the world in that moment than Shane’s small ‘fuck, Ilya.’ Ilya would have moved mountains to hear it again. Would have killed people. Luckily, though, all he had to do was take Shane into his mouth, which he was more than happy to. A choked moan came from above him, and Shane’s fingers tangled in the curls at the back of Ilya’s head. 

“Ohmygod,” followed in one breath, forced out of Shane’s throat by a very particular move Ilya knew would bring him close. “You—you need to stop, m’not gonna last if you—ohmygod, Ilya, f…fuck…”

Ilya closed his eyes, hollowing out his cheeks and bobbing his head purposefully. He didn’t want to pull off of him, didn’t want to separate at all. He’d eat Shane, if he could. Or ask Shane to eat him. But Shane would probably say no. Human flesh probably didn’t comply with his macrobiotic diet. 

But Shane was squirming away, and although Ilya was positive he knew how much Shane would be able to handle, there was no point in playing that game tonight. So he popped off, staring up at Shane through bleary eyes, his skin already flushed from the water and Shane’s proximity. He squeezed the backs of Shane’s thighs before standing, one hand trailing up Shane’s body to his face, two fingers nudging at his slightly parted lips. 

Shane took them eagerly, gagging when Ilya’s fingertips poked the back of his throat. His eyes fluttered shut and his hips rutted into Ilya’s thigh. 

Ilya gripped Shane’s waist, spinning him around so that he was facing the wall. Shane’s hands flew out to steady himself, palms flat on the large tiles. A soft gasp fell from his lips, but it was muffled around Ilya’s fingers, which he withdrew, still coated in a layer of saliva, and used to nudge at Shane’s asshole, his other hand a steadying force on Shane’s hip. “Is okay?” he asked, panting, jaw aching. “You’re okay?”

Shane nodded vehemently, letting his forehead knock against the tile. “Yeah. I—yeah. Yes. Please.” 

Ilya nodded, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades, lips staying there as he began to slowly work Shane open. It would have been easier with lube—the water did barely anything—but Shane’s body slowly relaxed under his touch. “Perfect…” Ilya whispered to himself. “Fucking perfect.” 

His own erection was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, slapping against his stomach, precum smearing in his bellybutton, skin hot and nearly painful. The head of his cock bumped Shane’s entrance, and Shane jolted. 

“N-not here,” he gasped out, turning his head just enough so that he could be heard without being forced to make eye contact with Ilya. “It’s…slippery. Let’s get on the bed?”

Ilya was still for a moment, barely comprehending the fact that Shane wanted to fuck him in bed. In his bed. The last time they’d dared to get naked somewhere so intimate, Ilya had destroyed it. One soft, strained Shane was all it had taken. But this time would be different. He knew that, somehow, deeply. So he nodded, kissing Shane again. “Yes. Yes. Da. Okay.”

The water had only just warmed up, but Shane shut it off with shaking hands. He stepped out of the shower, keeping Ilya close, and reached for one of the fluffy towels that was folded in a stack on a shelf beside the shower. He began to dry himself off, eyes closing, and his breathing seemed to deepen and steady.

“Do you have to do that?” Ilya murmured quietly, knocking his forehead against Shane’s shoulder, nuzzling at the hard bump where his collarbone jutted up. He rocked his hips into Shane’s. “I want to fuck you.” 

It was ninety-five percent that. Pure, burning desire. But the other five…well, he needed to avoid the whole trying-to-kill-himself conversation from before. And he thought Shane might be particularly amenable to a lack of conclusion after being fucked within an inch of this life (which Ilya very much intended on doing). And besides. He wasn’t going to kill himself.

Shane looked down at him like he was crazy. “You want to…get in bed…all wet?” “We will be wet anyway,” Ilya said. Every moment that stood between him and finally burying himself in Shane was a moment, as far as Ilya was concerned, wasted. He rubbed his hand over Shane’s chest and stomach, resisting the urge to dig his nails into Shane’s pecs. To leave some kind of lasting mark, to make sure that Shane was his, that even if Shane woke up tomorrow without memory of this night, he’d know he was somebody’s.

Shane just shook his head, swiping over his body with the towel again before pulling away from Ilya enough to do the same for him, drying him with a firm yet gentle touch. There was a smile on his lips. “You know…” he began. “I don’t feel so crazy anymore.” 

Ilya hummed, enjoying the feeling of Shane touching him. The towel was soft. 

“I started feeling…weird, a few months ago. I told you. It’s gone,” Shane said. He stopped drying Ilya and put the towel in a woven hamper in the corner of the room. “It was losing you. Or maybe my memory. The body keeps the score, right?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “You told me.” 

Shane looped his arms around Ilya’s neck, and Ilya instinctively found himself grabbing Shane’s thighs, coaxing him into a position where it would be easier to lift him into the air. Shane, maybe subconsciously, followed his lead, and soon Ilya was carrying him out of the bathroom, banging his hip on the edge of the freestanding bathtub, though he was too engrossed in Shane to even feel the pain. 

Shane was a little bit too heavy to carry for prolonged periods of time, but Ilya liked the burn in his forearms and biceps. He’d feel it forever if it meant having Shane in his arms.  

And then they were in the bedroom, and Ilya was crawling on top of Shane, pressing wet-, open-mouthed kisses up his body until he landed on his lips. He’d never get tired of that taste. He straddled him, knees digging into the mattress on either side of Shane’s hips. 

Shane kept his hands cupping Ilya’s cheeks, almost cradling his face. He drew his legs up, thighs pressing against Ilya’s back. “Fuck, Rozanov,” he breathed, eyes closing again. “Fuck.”

Ilya knew he probably wasn’t processing everything. His brain probably couldn’t comprehend that this was happening, that Shane was here and warm and pliant and remembered. In the morning, or maybe later, it’d all hit him and he’d crumple to the floor in a puddle of tears. But tonight, he wasn’t crying. He’d survived, and he was kissing Shane, and everything was okay. Ilya kissed Shane’s neck hard, but aborted the motion after a second.

“No one will see,” Shane murmured, rolling his hips upward, tilting his head to the side and baring his neck. “Off season; you can—” His head fell back as Ilya’s fingernails bit into the hard muscle of his side, sucking a mark onto the side of his neck.

“How do you want to do this?” Ilya asked, his voice breathy. “On your stomach, on your back…?”

“Back,” Shane replied immediately, eyes opening. They were so dark—so fucking pretty—that Ilya was sure he was going to die. “I want to look at you.”

Ilya nodded, trying not to let the way his heart squeezed affect him too much. Tried not to let it show on his face. “Yes, okay. Okay, where is lube?” 

Shane jerked his chin toward the left bedstand. 

Ilya leaned over, yanking the drawer open and retrieving the bottle. Scooting down on the bed, positioning himself between Shane’s spread legs, he squirted a dollop of the stuff onto his fingertips. “Is okay?” he asked again. “Ready?” 

Shane nodded, and Ilya could see him trying to relax into the pillows. “Yeah.”

“Hey,” Ilya said, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Is okay, you will be fine. The body keeps the score, eh?” 

“Oh, fuck off—ahh…ngh, Ilya…” Shane moaned when Ilya poked into him, one finger at first, and then two. His back arched up off the mattress, one fist clenching in the duvet, the other reaching blindly toward Ilya. 

He tried to keep himself from grinding down against Shane’s bedspread, knowing how much he hated stains, but it was fucking hard. He was fucking hard. “Fuck, Shane,” he breathed. He curled his fingers inside him, drawing a sharp gasp and a buck of the hips from the other man. “Ready?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. 

Dimly, he wondered if Shane was scared. This Shane had never actually lived through sex with another man, even if he remembered it. But when he glanced up and caught sight of the expression on Shane’s face, all of Ilya’s worries dissipated. Shane looked like was on cloud nine, lips parted and eyes closed as he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, Ilya, please…”

“Condom?”

Shane shook his head, grasping at Ilya’s shoulders as Ilya moved back on top of him. Their lips connected, and Ilya’s mind raced. No condom.

“Okay.” Ilya’s mind went quiet. He didn’t bother contesting the statement—Shane had sounded so sure. And if Shane was sure, then Ilya had no business at all questioning it. One of his hands found Shane’s hair, brushing through the thick, dark strands. The other wrapped around his own dick, lining it up. 

The sound Shane made when Ilya finally pushed in was enough to make him cum. It was choked and mouthy, torn from somewhere in his throat. His body felt like it was vibrating under Ilya’s touch. “Ohmygod…”

And Ilya was worried again, for some fucking reason. He didn’t want to overwhelm Shane. Especially not right now. So he shoved his fingers into Shane’s mouth before drawing back and thrusting back in, feeling a little better when Shane sucked them in deeper. 

He could already feel his orgasm building, but he quickened his pace, hips snapping faster. His free hand moved to Shane’s chest, kneading. “Ah, fuck…you are so pretty,” Ilya said. His capacity for dirty talk had all but vanished, leaving him feeling raw and exposed. He leaned forward, sucking another mark onto Shane’s neck. 

“Ilya,” Shane moaned around Ilya’s fingers, hands finding Ilya’s back, fingernails scraping down his bare skin, leaving behind red almost-clawmarks. “Ilya, please—”

“You are close?” was all Ilya could manage, pressing a kiss to Shane’s neck, jaw, cheek, eye. Anywhere he could reach. “Fuck, you going to cum?”

Shane nodded, his face flushed and skin coated in a sheen of sweat. His eyes flicked up to meet Ilya’s, deep and glossy, welling with tears. He spat out Ilya’s fingers, breathing hard through his mouth. “Y-yeah. Ilya—fuck, Ilya…fuuck. I—” He moaned, body shuddering, the back of his head bumping the headboard as he was forced backward from Ilya’s thrusts. “Fuck, I love you—”

Ilya’s vision blacked out. Everything dulled to a homogenous hum. Everything, except for those three words. I love you. 

When the world faded back in, both of them were panting into each other’s mouths. Shane’s eyes were closed and there was a tear track down one side of his face. 

“I love you too,” Ilya gasped. And then he was crying too, in earnest. Big, heaving sobs. His arms wrapped around Shane’s neck and he pulled out without much thought, adjusting their position so that Ilya was lying on one side of the bed, his tears smudging into Shane’s chest. “F-fuck. Fuck, I am sorry…” he tried, swiping at his eyes with the heel of his palm. 

Shane was frozen for a split second. Then he was grasping Ilya’s face, kissing over each eye. “No, it’s…it’s fine. It’s good to cry. You can cry.” 

And cry he fucking did. It was almost forty minutes until his sobs had diminished into hiccups and he stood, wetting a washcloth in the ensuite and cleaning both of them up. 

It was futile to think about things anymore. Ilya couldn’t think. All he could do was lay there, pressed against Shane, and bask in the overwhelming sense of calm that washed over him. Shane stroked up and down his back, tracing circles on the curve of his spine. They were absentminded, almost affectionate. And Ilya could hardly believe that Shane wanted him at all.  

But his wish had come true twice now, and everything was okay.

He’d done and undone something. Ruined and repaired. That was life. 

In the morning, light diffused around the edges of the day slowly. Ilya had slept deeper than he had in years, unencumbered by the nightmares that had previously defined his sleep. There was a small portion of him that had been afraid he would wake up to find himself back home in Boston, or being carted away to a hospital. That had been suggested after his attempt. But Ilya knew that hospitalization would only make him worse, and they couldn’t make him do anything but videocall a therapist—whom he lied to—twice a week, so the idea had been dropped. 

But he didn’t wake up to any of that. He woke up exactly where he’d fallen asleep: curled against Shane’s side, head squished between Shane’s cheek and shoulder, one leg thrown over his waist. He could feel Shane’s steady breaths on the top of his head, his chest rising and falling in tandem. 

The sheets were cool but the sunlight through the windows combined with the heat of Shane’s naked body kept him warm. He still felt exhausted from crying so hard last night, worn out and empty, but in a good way. 

He pulled Shane closer, pressing a kiss to neck, to his jaw, to his lips. “I love you,” he whispered around the tears that he hadn’t even realized clung to the back of his throat. “Fuck…Shane…my Shane…I missed you…I love you…you’re here…I love you…”

Спасибо, Боже. Спасибо, мама. 

Thank you, God. Thank you, mama. 

Just to cover his bases. 

Chapter End Notes

thank you so much for reading! hope it was sufficient medicine for part one. i had *so* much stuff i wanted to shove into this fic, but not all of it fit!!! aughh

talk to me on tumblr!!

rebloggable here

i'd love feedback — i never write stuff like this. comments + kudos are greatly appreciated !! i will give you a kiss on the mouth

if you liked this you will probably (maybe) (potentially) like my other wip

Chapter 3: part iii: i love you, i'm glad i exist

Chapter Notes

thank you guys SO much for all the love on this fic!! i absolutely did not anticipate it lol

an epilogue wasn't originally in my outline, but there was some stuff i needed to wrap up. usually when i have trouble starting a new project, it's because the last one isn't actually finished.

hope you enjoy!

MORNING

Shane sat on a stool at the kitchen island, one hand wrapped around a coffee mug and one under his butt. He swayed on the stool slightly, spinning an inch or so left, and the right again. His hair was mussed, morning light streaming in over his face. 

Ilya had his elbows propped on the counter, chest bare and shorts low. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Shane. 

They’d had breakfast and showered, dampness still clinging to their skin. It was still early, though, and the day was empty. Well, not empty. Full of Shane. Ilya couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought that was a possibility. Maybe in Boston, after he’d convinced him to stay. But now it wasn’t just possible, it was happening. And Shane remembered him. All morning, he’d been having trouble articulating just how happy he was. 

Shane was staring at him, his lips twitching upwards. 

“What?” Ilya asked, looking down at the floor before being drawn back up to Shane’s gaze. 

“I missed you. I didn’t know it, but I missed you.” He smiled wider. “And now you’re here.” 

Ilya deflated, everything bad pouring out of him, replaced by light. He stood up and moved around the island to press against Shane’s side. “I am here. Both of us.” He sounded sappy and a little drunk, but he couldn’t keep what he was feeling trapped inside his chest. It would be a disservice to himself, really. He kissed Shane’s hairline with an exaggerated smack and added, “Of course you missed me, anyone would miss me. People who have never met me miss me. I am wonderful.”

Shane huffed a laugh but leaned into the touch, his head brushing the space between Ilya’s stomach and his armpit. He nosed at Ilya’s bare skin and murmured, “I do still want to talk about what you said yesterday.”

Ilya stiffened, but raised his hand to stroke through Shane’s hair as he waited for Shane to continue. He knew what he meant, obviously. Well, he was pretty sure. 

“About your…attempt,” Shane said, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to…I don’t know, fuck this up. But we need to talk about it, probably.”

“Yes, probably,” Ilya echoed. “I will not distract you by getting you naked this time.”

Shane got a little pink. “Yeah. Please don’t.”

Both of them were quiet for a moment, and birdsong from outside came in through the crack under the door. Ilya tried not to let it remind him of what it had sounded like that day in Boston, tried not to let himself worry that today would end up the same. Because that was fucking ridiculous. And it wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t going to happen. 

“Do you think you’ll…try again?” Shane asked quietly, his own hand moving to brush circles on Ilya’s hip, fingers dipping past his waistband. Not in a sexual way, just a…lowering of walls. Clothes didn’t matter so much now that they’d seen into each other’s souls. Maybe that was dramatic. 

Ilya immediately shook his head. “No,” he said. “I have always—” He cut himself off with another firm shake of his head. Shane didn’t need—or care—to hear about his thoughts on suicide or his mother’s death. 

But then Shane’s fingers were under his chin and Shane was standing up, crouching slightly to meet Ilya’s gaze and then straightening up, bringing Ilya’s stare with him. “Tell me,” he said.

Ilya sighed and closed his eyes before opening them again and letting his gaze fall to Shane’s lips, his nose, his eyebrows. Anything tiny to focus on would work. “My mother, she died,” Ilya said. “She killed herself. I always thought…I always thought I would never be like her. But then I lost you and I—” his voice broke. He swiped at his face with the heel of his hand. Fuck. No. Today was supposed to be perfect and bright and big and full of Shane. It wasn’t supposed to allow him any time to rehash the feelings that had led him there. Rehashing feelings, Ilya had learned over the past two years, was rarely beneficial. 

But Shane was still looking at him like he cared, holding tightly to Ilya’s shoulder and abandoning his coffee because he wanted to listen. 

“I lost you and I realized that it is very easy to kill yourself,” Ilya continued, more softly. “It is so easy to die.”

Shane’s eyebrows knit. “It shouldn’t be easy, Ilya.”

Ilya just shrugged and held his hands up. “I did not have Svetlana, I did not have my mother, I did not have hockey, not really, and I did not have you. I think we are only…only what our lives are, da? And everything in my life was dead.” 

Shane just looked at him, his expression completely blank, until there was a quiver in his lower lip and he hid his face in Ilya’s shoulder. “I’m so fucking sorry, Ilya,” he said. “I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t—”

Ilya cradled the back of his head and sucked back his own tears. Only one of them could cry at a time. “Is okay,” he murmured into Shane’s crown. “Is okay, wasn’t your fault. You are here now.” 

“But I just—and you were all alone and you almost—” he gasped, and that made Ilya worry, because while he’d never seen Shane cry in earnest, he knew that it would hard to curb Shane’s tears once they came. 

“Is okay,” he repeated. “There was nothing you could have done, you could not have known. I am alive, you are alive, we are together.” He wrapped his arms around Shane, breathing in the smell of him. It was still surreal to have him so close, to have him in his arms. 

“But you could have—” 

“I did not,” Ilya said resolutely. Then, quieter, almost a whisper, he pleaded, “Please stop crying.”

Shane took a deep breath and his snuffles stopped, for the most part. “Yeah.” he said. “Sorry. That’s enough.” 

Shit. His heart caught, and Ilya cupped Shane’s cheek, brushing one thumb under his eyes, the tears clinging to his dark lower lashes catching on Ilya’s thumbnail. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I just do not like to see you cry. You can cry. You let me cry on you for an hour last night, is only fair.” 

Shane stared at him with glossy eyes, his lower lip still trembling. “Yeah, okay,” he said, then hid in Ilya’s shoulder again. “I don’t need an hour, just give—give me a second.”

Ilya nodded, continuing to stroke up and down Shane’s back, applying what he hoped was soothing pressure.

He cried for a few more minutes before his shoulders stopped shaking and he pulled away, keeping his arms looped around Ilya’s waist. He wiped his face. “Okay. Thank you.” 

Ilya laughed and smiled, expression splitting in earnest for the first time all morning. His happiness had been tentative until now. But now Shane knew everything, and both of them had cried, and Ilya really had cemented to himself that suicide was far, far away, and everything was okay again. 

And when Ilya leaned in to kiss him, Shane kept being real.

The water from the lake was fucking cold. Shane had said, as they walked down to the gravelly shore, that it was ‘a little frigid’ but Ilya felt like he was being turned into a human ice cube. Maybe it was just that in Russia nobody was stupid enough to get in the water, and swimming was done in heated pools, because they weren’t idiots, but he was entirely unprepared for being submerged in freezing cold lake water. 

Shane, somehow, was fine. He waded in up to his hips without so much as…well, jerking around like he was being attacked by a swarm of bees, which was Ilya’s chosen approach. He turned around, fingertips skimming the surface, the water coming up to his toned abdomen. “Is it too cold?” Shane asked mildly. His eyes were still a little pink from crying earlier.

Ilya glared at him. “You did not tell me your backyard was Antarctica, Hollander,” he grumbled, moving closer to Shane, seeking both his touch and his body heat. 

“I thought Moscow was really cold,” Shane said, looping his arms around Ilya. His hands were freezing cold but apparently he didn’t notice. 

“Yes, but we do not swim in Lake Volga in fucking February, Shane,” Ilya grumbled, smushing even closer. “You are superhuman.” 

Shane laughed—a bright, clean sound—and Ilya felt something in him thaw a little bit. “I didn’t think you’d be so affected,” Shane said, holding him tighter, propping his chin atop Ilya’s head. 

“You should warm me up,” Ilya murmured, his voice singsongy, as he kissed Shane’s shoulder, lips connecting with the other man’s cold skin. One of his hands moved to rest on Shane’s ass, fingers dipping past the elastic waistband of his swim shorts.

“Ilya…” Shane began, but his hands were already moving to palm Ilya through his own clothes. “That’s…unsanitary.” 

Ilya grumbled and kissed his shoulder again. “Ah, yes, I forget, crabs will eat my foreskin. Shane…” The last word came out a little desperate, which he might have been embarrassed of a few years prior, but he had been through too much and he was too happy now to feel even an ounce of shame. 

“What if it’s bad for the fish?” Shane tried again, fondling Ilya’s balls through the wet fabric. 

“Then they will not swim in the…cum areas. They are not looking, моя любовь…” Ilya nuzzled into Shane’s neck, sucking a mark there, beside the one he’d left the previous night. 

“Fuck, whatever, okay,” Shane conceded when Ilya poked into him, sagging forward as his legs began to tremble. It was just one finger, but maybe the intensity of last night paired with the residual exhaustion from his tears in the kitchen had worn him out. He let out a loud moan and grabbed Ilya’s dick when a second was added. 

Ilya jerked forward but didn’t falter the way he was touching Shane, keeping his movements steady and predictable. They were both still clothed, still standing four or so feet away from shore, still wrapped around each other and (on Ilya’s part) shivering, but he felt too lost in how easy it was to be with him, in how they could do this outside and no one could see, in the fact that the sun was christening their relationship for the second time ever, in the shock of the cold water against his skin contrasting the heat of Shane’s touch, that it was no trouble at all staying focused.

Shane finally shoved Ilya’s swimshorts away and began touching him in earnest, long strokes that Ilya almost wanted to call adoring, as he mouthed at Ilya’s neck. Ilya loved the feeling of Shane’s lips over his pulse. 

When Ilya added a third finger and stuck his tongue into Shane’s mouth, Shane practically keened. “Fuck, Ilya. Fuckfuckfuck…”

“Is okay,” Ilya said, pulling away ever so slightly. Both of them were paralyzed, breathing into the other’s mouth, bodies moving in tandem. “Is okay. Come for me,” he breathed into Shane’s mouth. He wasn’t going to be able to last much longer if Shane kept doing what he was with his fingernail, and he much preferred when they finished together anyway. 

“Ah—I—Ilya—” Shane gasped, jerking forward as he came, teeth skimming Ilya’s neck.

Ilya followed shortly after, cumming over Shane’s fist. 

The water rippled around them. 

Ilya, still panting, pinched Shane’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, bringing him up to meet his gaze like Shane had done for him in the kitchen. “You are okay? All good?” 

Shane’s pupils were blown, his expression fucked out and happy, an almost dopey smile curling at his full lips. “Fuck,” he breathed, kissing Ilya again. “Yeah. All good.”  

Ilya had to stop himself from grinning. “Okay,” he said. “Do you want to go inside or maybe swim?” It was a question of obligation, really. Whatever Shane said, Ilya would be fine with. Shane could suggest that they take all their clothes off and go mountain climbing, and Ilya wouldn’t be opposed. Maybe that was a bad example, because just the thought of it made him a little hard again. 

“Maybe…” Shane shook his head, like he was trying to clear something out. “We’re all, I mean.” He gestured at their swimshorts. “Gross.” 

Ilya considered, briefly, suggesting skinnydipping. But, upon further reflection, decided that his dick would fall off if it were left completely bare in the ice cold water. “Then we go inside,” he said. “Was nice swim in Arctic waters, but enough for me.”

Shane nodded and straightened, somewhat shakily. “Okay. Inside. We’ll…” He waved his hand. “I have a fireplace.”

“Ooh, Mr. Fancy,” Ilya teased as they both got out of the water. “Mr. Fireplace.”

“God, shut up.”

They showered again before changing into different clothes. 

Ilya watched from the sofa as Shane built the fire, shamelessly admiring the ripples of muscle on his back, the squishiness of his stomach as he bent over. He wanted to come up with something snarky to say, but found his arsenal was completely empty. 

The best he could do was open his arms and let Shane climb in beside him, close enough so that Ilya could still kiss his head. 

And everything was okay. Shane knew. Ilya knew. They knew each other. If he closed his eyes, Ilya could almost pretend that none of it had happened. That they were still in Boston, that Shane hadn’t left. 

But that wasn’t a good way to think about what had happened. He was aware of that much. He couldn’t discount it, couldn’t block it out of his mind, as much as he’d like to. Because it had happened. And they were both different. 

But they were also the same in every single way that mattered. And even if Ilya would have trouble sleeping for years, it would be okay, because Shane would be in bed with him. And even if Shane had lapses in his memory, it would be okay, because Ilya would be there to remind him, to fill in those heartbreaking gaps. 

They had each other in every way that mattered.

Chapter End Notes

thank you for reading! comments + kudos are greatly appreciated. lmk what you thought! if it was bad then ummm part 2 was actually the real ending

talk to me on tumblr @sunskine

i'm working on another hollanov fic !! this one is mostly shane's pov, & i'm very excited for it lmao. i'll link it here when pt one is up!