Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, The Bell Centre | Centre Bell (Arena)

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Magical Realism, Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Outing, Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Curses

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-19 Words: 10,555 Chapters: 1/1

cloche

Summary

"What's happening?" asks the lone Raiders fan that Shane has found himself next to, a young woman with St. Simone on the back of her black and gold jersey.

Her friend, a handsome woman in Metros' blues, explains, "Une malédiction. A curse." Her Québécois accent lifts the ends of her sentences into a lilting melody.

"Oh." The Raiders fan frowns, concerned. "Does someone have it out for Hollander? Shouldn't sporting arenas be protected against that?"

Her friend laughs. "It's Centre Bell itself who has it out for Hollander. You've never heard the story about the TD Garden trying to eat Magic Johnson?"

Or; The Bell Centre carries a hundred years of hockey and all of its grudges. Ilya must traverse its depths to save Shane.

Notes

All the French and Russian is cobbled together through wordreference, forum searching, and google translate. I really tried to make it sound natural, but I'm a dumb monolingual. Please let me know where I can make things a little smoother. Also all the franglais is just me writing the way I've heard people talk. I'M SORRY OKAY.

Also, I'm not really a sports person. I started being one just this year, and my knowledge is almost entirely hockey. If I got any details glaringly wrong, please blame wikipedia. And also me for writing outside my skill level, and writing a long study of a building I've literally never been to.

EDIT: There are so many typos I'm only noticing now jesus christ, I will come back to slowly fix these

It takes seven minutes for the curse breakers to get on the ice, which is about five minutes too late. They're supposed to be parked out front with the ambulance, in case of any emergencies, but they must've been taking a smoke break or something. They probably didn't think they'd be needed. It's been a while since hockey needed a curse to be broken.

It's a team of two people, a man and a woman. The man is tall and lithe, with a five o'clock shadow and sallow skin and a seemingly perpetual exhaustion bruising underneath his eyes. He hobbles onto the ice with the gait of a newborn giraffe, quickly overtaken by his female companion. She's a graceful, dark skinned woman with a hijab neatly pinned to her uniform.

She glides over to the mound of ice that's grown against the boards behind the Raiders' net. She pops her gum as she kneels and pulls out a thin, many-pronged gold instrument. Her name-tag reads Nafisa, and it glints with the golden light as she strikes the mound, pauses, and then declares, "Ouais, c'est la malédiction."

"Oh, sans déc!?" Shane scoffs, but no one reacts—for good reason too. The Bell Centre is much too preoccupied with the ice encasing his crumpled body. Shane can't blame them for ignoring the irritated remarks of a disgruntled ghost.

His words are also swiftly drowned out by the excited tittering of the crowd. "What's happening?" asks the lone Raiders fan that Shane has found himself next to, a young woman with St. Simone on the back of her black and gold jersey.

Her friend, a handsome woman in Metros' blues, explains, "Une malédiction. A curse." Her Québécois accent lifts the ends of her sentences into a lilting melody.

"Oh." The Raiders fan frowns, concerned. "Does someone have it out for Hollander? Shouldn't sporting arenas be protected against that?"

Her friend laughs. "It's Centre Bell itself who has it out for Hollander. You've never heard the story about the TD Garden trying to eat Magic Johnson?"

"Oh, so now I have to know about basketball to understand hockey?"

Shane leaves them to their conversation, meandering closer to the glass. He tries to push through it but again, the ice repels him. For as incorporeal as he is, for all the people he's able to pass through, the Bell Centre's glass walls are an unyielding barrier. He's a helpless spectator to the unfolding scene—Nafisa and her colleague, Marc, pulling out all sorts of instruments and attachments as they survey the scene of the crime.

He can still hear the Metros fan explaining, "It's neither hockey or basketball, c'est the arenas. They hold grudges, tu vois? Centre Bell particulièrement."

Yes, Shane knows. They've received a lot of training about it. All MLH players have, but the Montréal Metros especially. Their sports psychologist has a specialization in harm reduction and curses. He's spent years trying to get them to understand the importance of distancing themselves from the game in some way, shape or form.

"This building is younger than a lot of you, but it inherited seventy-one years of grudges from the Montréal Forum," he told Shane in his rookie season, his eyes glinting sharply over his glasses. "It's a lot for a team to carry, and you've managed to siphon all of it."

Siphon. Shane repeats the word to himself now. As if he chose to shoulder the Bell Centre's vendetta. As if he wanted to receive the ire of every goddamn rink in the Eastern Conference.

"But wait," the Raiders fan is saying from behind Shane. He can hear the frown in her voice. "Why would Hollander be cursed by the Centre– Bell Centre, shit you've got me saying it the French way too!"

It's an astute question from someone unfamiliar with sports. She's right. This isn't the way that it's supposed to go.  

Dozens of players from both the Red Sox and the Yankees have been entangled in the grass of their rivals' stadiums. There are specific international laws about what to do when a soccer stadium tries to devour a visiting rival. The rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird began in the NCAA, but the Garden and the Forum were more than happy to inherit it, so much so that the Garden's floorboards tried to swallow Johnson during the 1984 NBA finals.

Hockey was certainly no exception, hell, Montréal hockey was a prime example. The Montréal Forum actively tried to kill Clarence Campbell for suspending Maurice Richards back in 1955, and Campbell wasn't even a player. But he punished Montréal's star player based on his actions in a game against Boston. To Montréal fans and to the Montréal Forum, that made him an enemy. That made him the target of their revenge.

"It is strange," the Metros' fan muses. "Rozanov seems completely fine."

Shane can't really see the Raiders bench from here, behind the net. Partly because Nafisa and Marc are standing and whispering to each other with pinched expressions, a rapid stream of hushed French that Shane can't hear in the commotion. The crowd has gotten noisier, wondering why it's taking so long for the curse to be confirmed, for the most entertaining part of the evening to begin.

Shane could move closer, he could check on Ilya himself if he wanted to. He should move closer, just to check on his team. To see if anyone else has been affected by the curse, if anyone else's spirit is wandering around the Bell Centre's stands. Maybe even to check on the Raiders, to see if one of them got clipped by the curse.

He doesn't, because it's pointless. He knows that they're fine. He knows that it's just him that was cursed. Just Shane being punished.

Shane looks up, blinking rapidly. He looks past the jumbotron, currently replaying the moment that it happened: Shane taking possession of the puck and trying to make a breakaway towards the Raiders net. Shane looking back at Ilya, grinning like a fucking fool, entirely oblivious to Marleau's incoming check.

Shane crumpling to the ice the moment before Marleau connects, his limp body skidding to hit the opposite wall with impossible momentum. Shane hitting the wall and sticking there, frost creeping up and over his body, layers of cloudy ice encasing him, entombing him, even before the whistle can be called.

The scene flickers in his periphery as he looks at the rafters. At the banners of Montréal's dynasty, his two meagre cups just a speck in the franchise's proud history. At the retired numbers of legendary players—Maurice Richard's nine, Serge Savard's eighteen, Patrick Roy's thirty-three—proud white numerals stark against Montréal's signature blue.

Shane has always loved Montréal's blue and the way that they filled the Bell Centre. The stands in Montréal are stacked so steeply that it feels kind of like a tidal wall. A tsunami of passion threatening to crash down and flood the rink. Whenever Shane's played at home, it's been with the tide of Montréal at his back, propelling him forwards towards victory.

He's never once felt like he might drown. Not until now, when he has to choke down the saltwater threatening to spill out of him and ask, "Did you know?" His voice cracks humiliatingly. He's glad that no one around can hear him. "Are you– are you mad at me?"

The Bell Centre does not reply, but the Metros' fan is wondering, "Didn't Hollander break up with Rose Landry recently? Could be a love curse, peut-être."

"The Bell Centre would curse its own captain over love?"

"I am just wondering! I do not know everything about hockey, you know that, right?" Shane glances back at them. They're elbowing each other playfully. "Perhaps Centre Bell liked the way Landry looked in his jersey."

The Raiders fan scoffs and starts to retort, but the stern voice of the announcer suddenly rings out from overhead, "We apologize for the delay."

"Nous nous excusons pour le retard," the female French announcer echoes smoothly.

"We will now begin the curse breaking process–"

"Nous allons maintenant commencer à briser la malédiction–"

"With the assistance of–"

"Avec l'aide de–"

Shane slams his hands uselessly against the glass. "Ilya," he chokes out. "Don't. Don't."

Ilya, of course, does not hear him. For one, he's too far away. He's still only at centre ice, skating over slowly amidst the mix of cheering and booing. There's more cheering than booing, for once. Everyone appreciates a show of good sportsmanship, even Montréal fans with a generational hatred for Boston.

But even if the arena was entirely silent, Ilya probably wouldn't be able to hear Shane. His face is dark and troubled and pained. He seems lost in his thoughts. He seems hypnotized by the Shane Hollander-shaped mound of ice.

Through the din, Shane can make out the Metros' fan explaining, "It's been a while since hockey has seen a rival curse breaking! You should be lucky that you get to see one at your first game. It's quite fun. We'll get to see it on the jumbotron!"

The Raiders fan doesn't seem impressed. "Isn't curse breaking kind of… private?"

"It's all entertainment!"

And it is. In just January of this year, Shane was similarly entertained by the clips of Peyton Manning breaking Mile High's curse on Tom Brady. It was the only time he bothered tuning into the American Football season. Shane is an athlete, but athletes are, by trade, entertainers. He's paid to win cups, but he's also paid to be entertaining while doing it.

He knows that Ilya's just doing his job as well. That Ilya wants this about as much as Shane does. That Ilya is only letting Marc and Nafisa clip the necessary bells and whistles onto his gear because there's nothing else he can do.

He is Shane's rival. Ilya's eyes turn gold when he plays in the Bell Centre. He has been knighted as the TD Garden's chosen, just as Shane has been by the Bell Centre. They are the Boston and Montréal rivalry. Even if it makes no sense for Shane to be the one encased on by the Bell Centre's ice, it only makes sense for Ilya to be sent in to find him.

But still, Shane pleads, "You can't do this Rozanov. Ilya. Please, you can't– you can't let them see–"

Marc is explaining to Ilya, "This is… unusual for a rival curse, but the motions should be the same. You will have to search to see where Centre Bell is hiding him. You will have to convince the Bell to let him go. You will have to claim–"

"I know," Ilya cuts in, and Shane can't hear his voice but he can see the tension in Ilya's jaw. He can see the sheer terror in Ilya's eyes. He can see the way that Ilya's hand shakes as he starts to take off his glove.

Nafisa stills him with a hand on the wrist. "These have to stay on until you see him, d'accord?"

Ilya's adam's apple bobs. "Right."

"Don't," Shane moans, slamming his hands on the glass. "Ilya, don't, please–"

Shane keeps begging, even as Ilya kneels on the ice. Even as Ilya reaches out a hand.

By the time that the curse breakers have finished their incantation, and the arena has begun another round of applause, and the world is disappearing into bright blue light, Shane has run out of breath entirely. He can only fall to his knees and pray that when the light fades, he's somewhere else.

//

Patrick Roy's number is the one most recently retired. It happened in 2008, the year before Shane got drafted and thirteen years after Roy was traded to Colorado. Shane was only four back then, but his mother still bemoans the incident: the humiliation that Roy was subjected to by Montréal's coach, the bitterness with which Roy left Montréal, the fact that Colorado went on to win the cup that same year.

"We went and watched Roy's first game against Montréal after his trade, y'know," she would tell Shane in a wistful sigh. "February 5th, 1996. One of the last games in the Forum! People thought Colorado was crazy for starting him. They thought the Forum would certainly try to take him."

Eventually, Shane learned to start finishing the story for her. "But Roy spent the whole game in net," he'd dutifully recite. "Thirty-nine shots against, and he only let in two goals. Some people said he made those saves with bright blue eyes."

And his mother would grin at him proudly, and Shane would grin back excitedly, and they'd both dissolve into giggles when his father inevitably groaned something along the lines of, "Yes, bright blue eyes, the beloved son of Montréal. Can we please tell a different story, for once!"

Shane used to dream of his number hanging beside Roy's. Twenty-four next to thirty-three.

//

It should not be possible for ghosts to blink spots from their eyes, but it takes a good few moments before Shane's vision comes back to him.

He's been moved, it seems. He's nowhere near the rink now. He's up in one of the L suites, the box seats where Rose would sit when she came to his games. It's empty, because this is still a regular season game and the demand for box seats really only increases when they properly enter the playoffs.

If they enter the playoffs. Shane's not sure if Montréal can scrape together the last few points needed to qualify without him. He knows that he was probably scratched the moment that he hit the ice.

"Can you hear me, Rozanov?" Marc asks. Even this high, Shane can see the way that the man flinches at the sound of his voice over the speakers. Nafisa glances up from her strange, compass-like device to snicker at him.

"...yes, I can," Ilya replies, his voice staticky like it's coming through a walkie-talkie. It probably is, Shane realizes, or whatever archaic curse-breaking tool that serves as the equivalent of a walkie-talkie. He once read an article about the repeated attempts to modernize curse-breaking gear, and all the mysterious ways that it has failed.

The only piece of modern technology that has managed to be both integrated into curse-breaking and consistently updated with the latest advances is, for some reason, the camera.

The jumbotron flickers and Ilya comes into view, standing in the store of the Bell Centre. The crowd gives a muted cheer of bizarre, misplaced tribalism: look, that's our arena!

Ilya's mouth twitches. "Do you have to cheer for a building that you are in?" he asks, getting a ripple of laughter from the crowd. "You can walk out of the arena and see this very same shop right now. You probably should. We will destroy you once this is all done."

There's more laughter and a lot more booing. Shane probably isn't the only person yelling obscenities at the screen, but he doubts that anyone else is snapping, "What the fuck are you doing right now?"

He doesn't expect to hear his own voice ringing through the Bell Centre's speakers. It's not loud, nor clear, but the words are distinct. It sounds like he's speaking from underwater, from another room. The crowd gasps, and Shane gasps with them, clapping his hands over his mouth. That's heard as well.

The people on the rink are like ants from this high up. Shane can barely make out the way that Hayden curses and J.J. grip tightens on his stick. He can see that Nafisa and Marc are gawking at each other, but he can't tell whether it's surprise or horror or confusion that's splayed across their faces.

It's with painstaking detail that he watches Ilya's expression shift from humour to shock to hope to apprehension. "Did you hear him?" he asks. The crowd cheers again—Shane doesn't recall any other rival curse breaking involving audience participation.

There's a beat, and then Marc splutters, "Hollander!?"

Shane tightens his grip on his own face. He's never heard Centre Bell so quiet. He's shaking with tension, straining to try and hear the sound of his breath, but the air is completely silent, save for Marc repeating his name, again and again and again.

"Hollander? Shane Hollander, can you hear me? Can you respond to my voice?"

"Sa voix était trop nette," Nafisa mutters. She has no mic, but Shane hears her voice with perfect clarity, as if he's standing on the ice with her. "Une malédiction de la rivalité devrait durer plus longtemps!"

Shane's heart hits the pit of his stomach. He's already fucked it up, he's already given too much away—but Marc is shaking his head. "Ta gueule!" he hisses back. To Ilya, he says, "We heard that, Ilya, but it could be an illusion by Centre Bell. An image of your rivalry to… uh… comment dit-on te provoquer?"

"Provoke," Nafisa snips at him as the crowd starts to murmur. "As-tu niaiseux?"

"Provoke you," Marc repeats. Ilya's expression flickers into one as doubtful as the crowd's gossiping. There's not a damn person in the building who would think that Shane was trying to taunt him. The sheer, genuine terror in Shane's voice was as clear as day.

It takes a moment for Ilya to reply, a slow and dry, "...okay." 

Shane exhales slowly, quietly. He tries to bring his heart down from the rabbit-quick pace that it was. He thanks Ilya, as best as he can, for not calling out his name. Shane wouldn't have been able to stay quiet if he did.

Marc starts to guide Ilya through the Bell Centre. He instructs Ilya out of the store and into the alumni lounge, as if Shane's spirit might be among the honoured players that decorate the walls. He makes Ilya meander through the lobby for a bit, more of a perfunctory check than an actual search, before leading him through the imposing steel doors that guard the Metropolitans' locker room.

It's the same path as the guided tour, Shane realizes belatedly. Another part of the experience, the entertainment. It probably makes more sense in the context of an actual rival curse—a member of the home team proudly honouring their franchise. The team and its victories, the epic battles fought on their home turf, the legacy that built the rivalry, only to put it all aside and heroically save their rival.

"It's my game to play," Manning told Mile High back in January. Brady's spirit had been left unconscious in the second 'O' of the Bronco's endzone, limp and lifeless, like a spoil of war. Manning's orange jersey blended into the orange paint that spelled out his team's name, as he said, "This isn't your fight. You don't have to settle this for me."

Ilya's black and gold jersey is not discordant with the dark blue carpet of the Metros' locker room, but it certainly stands out. When he lingers in front of Shane's locker, scanning the neatly arranged belongings. His closed bag, his stacked rolls of tape, his phone left face down at the top of his locker. When he reaches out for them, Shane's breath hitches, the ground shifting beneath his feet.

"Rozanov," Marc cuts in. "No hunting for secrets, okay?"

A soft laugh ripples through the crowd. Marc has really found his stride in public speaking. Shane is probably the only person in the room who notices the muscle that jumps in Ilya's jaw.

"Okay," he replies. He turns around and moves out of the locker room, disappearing down the tunnel and into the rink. Shane grits his teeth and exhales his relief through his nose.

The rink that appears on screen is entirely empty. The crowd seems surprised by this, maybe almost disappointed. It fades quickly in the face of their shock when Ilya skates over to the net where Shane should be and finds nothing at all. No lump of ice, and no limp body.

"This is normal," Marc rushes to reassure. "Sometimes, the arena holds a spirit somewhere else."

The crowd breathes a sigh of relief. Ilya doesn't even seem to have been worried in the first place, at least no more worried than before. He asks, "Could he be in the stands?"

Marc nods. "Probably. You will have to check."

Next to him, Nafisa shakes her head, gesturing to her device and murmuring, "Il décèle pas ici Hollander." Again, the crowd doesn't react. The Bell Centre is only letting him know that he hasn't been found.

Still, Shane watches with baited breath as Ilya hops the barrier into the stands and starts to peer down the rows. He doesn't look particularly hard, especially not in the lower rows. In fact, he seems to be rushing towards the top of the stadium. Shane's heart lurches when Ilya skips the last two rows entirely to the top level.

Marc seems to frown. "Rozanov, wait–"

"I do not have to walk everywhere, no?" Ilya hums. There's the quietest note of impatience. Shane might be the only one here who can hear it. As the crowd rumbles with discontent, Ilya tilts his head and asks, "Get me to the L suites."

"Rozanov–" Marc protests. By his feet, Nafisa quietly reaches for another instrument and spins a dial. The image on the jumbotron lurches, Ilya yelping in surprise as he's suddenly sent rocketing up several floors. Marc squawks, "Nafisa! Stu fait maintenant!?"

Nafisa doesn't even look at him. She keeps staring up at the screen, at Ilya bracing himself on the wall of the L suite—the suite that Shane is in, he realizes suddenly. He can see on his jumbotron the exact angle of the jumbotron that Ilya is looking at, except that jumbotron is blank. The suite that Ilya stands in is empty.

Ilya starts to move through the space slowly. Peering around corners, looking in cupboards and behind doors. Shane lets his hands fall away from his mouth and stands slowly, wobbling slightly on his skates. He walks over to the counter that overlooks the rink and leans against it, standing between the second and third stool from the left.

After a moment, he watches on the jumbotron as Ilya leaves the suite and moves toward the balcony. Shane's breath catches, and then escapes in the lightest breath of a laugh when Ilya finds his place between the third and fourth stool to lean against the counter.

The crowd's murmuring has risen to chattering. Marc is trying to give more instructions, but Shane lets it wash over him. He just keeps staring at the jumbotron, at Ilya standing next to no one and looking at a dark screen. He ignores the flicker of movement in his periphery. Doesn't let himself inhale the familiar scent of Ilya's sweat and cologne. Doesn't give into the temptation of looking, because he knows that he won't find anyone standing next to him.

There's no one standing next to Ilya on screen, and there's no one standing next to Shane right now.

"You are hiding from me," Ilya says. Shane hears the words whispered in his ear before he sees Ilya's lips move. "Are you embarrassed? Your fall was only a little funny, I promise."

Unbidden, Shane feels his lips twitch up into a smile. He feels his heart push and pull in his chest, pumping his blood like the ebb and flow of a tide. His skin is so cold and his face is so numb beneath the ice. He stays silent, closing his eyes and breathing Ilya in. Ilya doesn't seem to mind, even as the crowd crescendos with anxiety, even as Marc starts insisting, "Rozanov, you have to do another search, he might be–"

There's a gasp. Shane's eyes fly open, and he looks up to see Ilya on the jumbotron, watching Shane on the jumbotron. Shane, in the L-suite, the same L-suite that Ilya is in. Shane, watching Ilya, watching Shane, watching Ilya. It's a tiny image, framed within a frame of a frame. It's not small enough to blur the way that Shane twitches.

When Ilya chuckles, Shane feels his breath ghost across his body. "Found you," he grins, and he reaches to the side–

And grabs air.

Shane watches Ilya watch Shane slump with relief. Ilya watches Shane watch Ilya whirl around with furious concern. "Blyat," Ilya curses, his voice tripling in on itself.

"Rozanov!" Marc barks, alarmed. "This is highly unusual behaviour. Leave the box, or we have to pull you out. Do you copy?"

Ilya does not even acknowledge him. He snaps. "Quit being difficult–"

"If you do not respond, we will eject you–"

The crowd has started clamouring in alarm. Shane hopes that Hayden and J.J. aren't too scared. He could check, but he doesn't want to look away from the jumbotron. He can't look away from the knitted worry between Ilya's eyebrows, as he watches Shane watch Ilya.

"Rozanov we are pulling you in five, four, three–"

"Shane," Ilya begs, his voice breaking, and Shane crumples into laughter.

It feels like the whole world goes silent. Too silent—Shane's never been someone who laughs that loud. He breaks into small, wheezy chuckles in the shortest bursts. It echoes for far too long, doubled and tripled and quadrupled over itself through all the layers of scenes and speakers. It almost sets Shane off again.

"Rozanov," Shane tries. He can't keep it professional, he can't keep the note of fondness out of his voice. He opens his mouth and works his jaw, peering past Ilya on the jumbotron to watch himself on Ilya's jumbotron. Have his shoulders always looked so… small in his gear?

Ilya croaks out, "Hollander." It's a piss poor attempt at buttoning things up.

Keep it neat, Shane hears his mother saying. Sometimes you have to talk around the truth. It's tiring, but it saves you a whole lot of trouble.

He says, "I don't think you'll find me with a typical rivalry curse protocol." He has to close his eyes to withstand the echo of his voice. "For one, it seems clear to me that this is anything but a rivalry curse."

The audience titters. Ilya doesn't wait for them to quiet before huffing and saying, "Oh, so you think you're smarter than the experts?" Shane doesn't reply. He just smiles and clenches his fists in his gloves to stop himself from reaching out to Ilya. In the silence, Ilya sighs and then admits, "What do you think this is, then?"

"I don't know," Shane admits. He thinks about the ingredients in his fridge and the recipe that he has bookmarked on his phone. The vodka he bought yesterday to put in his freezer. He confesses, "But I don't think the Bell Centre is too happy with me right now."

Ilya's breath hitches. The crowd erupts into dismay, into chaos.

There are countless cases of players being called traitors to their teams, to their franchises. Arenas, as vindictive and spiteful as they are, are hardly ever vengeful things. They're places of play, of community, of joy. They are not the kind of places that try to bury someone alive, try to entomb their soul in their depths and bowels. Not even the soul of a division rival. A historic opponent.

The Forum tried to kill Campbell back in '55, yes, but only because he was an enemy. Only because the Forum thought he hurt one of their stars.

Shame curdles in Shane's stomach at the wildfire of questions that blitz through the crowd: What did he do for the Bell Centre to curse him? What did Shane Hollander do to betray us, the team that took him and raised him as their own? What horrific secret are we about to discover about our star, our captain, our former pride and joy?

He wants to duck and cover his ears and hide. He wants to run out of the building and into the streets. He wants to disappear and never be found again. But there's something tugging in his chest, the tide pulling away, so Shane chases it and opens his eyes.

He's not sure when he turned his head to face Ilya. If he even chose to do so in the first place. Maybe the Bell Centre decided to grant him mercy, or maybe this is part of his punishment. But Shane wets his lips with his dry tongue and drinks in the sight of Ilya's outline, the spectre of Ilya cast in glimmering shades of gold.

He looks as if he's been spun with sunlight. He looks like the water at the cottage on  a clear summer's day. He looks like a memory that Shane never got the chance to make, and it's all he can do to send his thanks to the Bell Centre for entrusting it to him anyways.

Ilya, he thinks next, and Ilya's head whips like his name was screamed. His eyes blow wide and his lips part. The crowd is still shouting—again, Shane gives his thanks to the Bell Centre for at least offering him some privacy in his final moments.

He thinks, I keep the key to my cottage on my bedside table. He wants to reach out, wants to take Ilya's glittering face in his hands. Shane clenches his hands tighter in his gloves and insists, don't go to Russia for the summer. Please. Go there. Enjoy it for me instead.

It's strange, the way that Shane is able to see the shock cross Ilya's features, as blurry and indistinct as they are. It's followed by understanding, then by horror, and then by… anger.

Shane tilts his head. Ilya? He thinks, searching. Are you okay?

"Are you serious?" Ilya snaps, his voice suddenly as clear as crystal. The rink goes quiet. Shane's slowing heart rate stumbles in his chest. "Hollander, are you fucking kidding me?"

"Rozanov?" Marc asks warily. "What's going on?"

"Hollander's pissing me off," Ilya growls. The sunlight swells, and then it's gone. Shane splutters, turning out to look at the jumbotron, just in time to watch Ilya vault the balcony.

The crowd shouts. The Raiders' bench shouts. Marc shouts. But Ilya doesn't fall. He glides, almost like he's skating down a hill, hitting the ice without so much as a bump and launching off toward the Metros' dressing room.

"Rozanov," Shane blurts. The crowd gasps again. Shane wants to swallow his protests, but Ilya is storming towards his locker. "What're you–"

"I'm making things right," Ilya snaps. He grabs Shane's phone from the top of his locker. He doesn't take off his glove to type in his password. He uses his nose to punch it in: nineteen, nineteen.

There's a click, and the back wall of Shane's locker swings open like a door. The crowd gasps. Hayden rockets to his feet. Marc curses at the top of his lungs. Nafisa's whole face lights up as she grabs another device and flicks a switch.

"Ilya," Shane whispers. He watches Ilya pause, the world already bleeding white at the edges. He works his jaw to find the words, but all he can muster is the faintest breath. "Please. Don't."

Ilya's mouth twists into something slanted and wry. "I'm making things right," he repeats, now so much softer. Shane drops his head into his forearms as the world drops away once again.

//

It takes a lot for a player to incur the wrath of their former arena. More often than not, an arena's response is difficult to label as merely wrath.

After Luís Figo abandoned Barcelona for Real Madrid back in 2000, any game he played in Barcelona's Camp Nou quickly turned ugly. The moment Figo came within reach of Barcelona's crowd, they would pelt him with whatever they had on hand. Beer cans, bottles, lighters—in 2002, Figo's second time wearing a Madrid jersey in Camp Nou and a full two years after his trade, someone threw a pig's head onto the pitch.

Camp Nou did not try to bury Figo. It did not even try to curse him. But it did not give him shelter. It did not protect him from the fury of its fans.

//

Nafisa is a soccer fan. She does not support Madrid or Barcelona—she has inherited her family's curse of supporting Arsenal. She also does not know a lot about hockey. She probably should, given how often she finds herself at the Bell Centre.

But she is familiar with curses and arenas. She's very familiar with rivalries and the ways that they manifest. She's intimately aware of the average arena's temperament and its attitude towards the star player of a rival team.

When the Bell Centre lets Rozanov in, Nafisa goes "Huh."

When Marc glances at her curiously, she waves him off, insisting, "C'est rien."

She's still on the clock. There'll be plenty of time afterwards.

//

Shane opens his eyes to find himself sitting in the stands. The air is completely still, as if it's never been breathed. Shane doesn't look around to try and find the crowd. He looks up at the jumbotron. At Ilya on the screen, standing in a stairwell. He's out of his uniform and dressed in all black, in formalwear. Funeral attire. 

Ilya looks around, somewhat confused—and then his eyes flash with understanding. "This is where you were during that call," he murmurs. Shane hears confused chattering. It sounds like it's coming from the other side of the world. But still, he hears it, and his heart stumbles in his chest. "I thought I heard an echo."

"Ilya," Shane whispers. It's a plea and a warning and an exclamation. It's a sound that lands at his feet, dead and useless as Ilya darts up the stairs, blindly running down the hall to room eighteen-fourteen. He tries the handle, but the door doesn't budge. "Ilya, wait–"

"Vot by ty byla seychas zdes," Ilya smiles at the door. "That is how you say it, okay?"

The door clicks. Shane watches Ilya's smile twitch imperceptibly wider before he pushes down the handle and passes through.

Ilya has to squint as he walks into the brightness of his bedroom. He doesn't linger long enough for his eyes to adjust. He takes one look at the dark, rumpled sheets, huffs out a laugh, and says, "You don't have too many questions. You don't have enough. I like when you ask them."

The crowd explodes into an uproar as Ilya spins on his heel and walks right out. 

Shane is just as surprised as Ilya is when he steps into the hotel room in Tampa. This bed is still made, but the door doesn't work when Ilya jiggles the handle. Ilya's eyes dart around quickly, frantically. He doesn't seem to be able to hear the clamouring of the noisy crowd—or maybe he does, and he just doesn't care.

"Please stop," Shane asks. He tries to be stern, but his voice can't help but quiver. Ilya looks at the ground and frowns for a moment. "Please, just–"

"It wasn't just you." Ilya looks up. His eyes flash, bright and brave and a brilliant shade of blue. Shane sobs dryly around his next breath. "I felt it too. It was nice. And it wasn't nothing."

He pushes down on the handle, rips open the door to room twelve-seventeen, and disappears down the hall.

Shane watches Ilya wander onto an empty dance floor. He flounders for a moment before looking up and shouting through the deafening music, "I only kissed her because I thought you were watching! I went home alone!"

The doors to the club swing wide open as Shane gawks at the screen. The distant crowd is in an uproar as Ilya sprints out of the club, his grin wild and free.

It doesn't even falter when he walks into his living room and finds two paper plates that are covered in crumbs. It twists a little, gets a little wry, but again, Ilya laughs when he admits, "I looked up your stupid diet to know what you could eat. I fucking hate tuna." 

Shane's hands come up to cover his mouth to smother his breathless, helpless laughter. "That wasn't clear at all," he barely manages before Ilya turns on his heel and walks out his front door.

It's Shane's apartment next, where Ilya says that he wanted to leave behind his sweater, but he was too afraid that Shane would want to give it back. Then, a hotel room in Boston, where he mutters how stupid he felt for buying a place so far away from downtown, how he should've got one closer to the Garden so he could've had Shane over sooner. Then Shane's place again, at sunrise. It takes Ilya a moment before he figures that this was over the summer, when he was in Russia, wanting to text Shane but not managing to find the courage to.

There's a nauseating mortification growing in Shane, watching Ilya walk through bedrooms and hotels to recount their shared moments. Watching Ilya walkthrough every time that they've touched and fucked, letting the whole world know just how often they craved each other. Just how weak they were, unable to resist fucking their goddamn rival.

Then Ilya walks into the visiting team's locker room in the Igloo. In Pittsburg, where Shane was doused in champagne to celebrate his second cup. Ilya's eyes melt. "You weren't lucky," he smiles. "No one's wanted it and worked for it harder than you have."

"Fuck you," Shane spits. He has to be careful not to spit out his heart where it's hammering in his throat. "Fuck you, Rozanov, fuck you."

Ilya walks through the end of the 2016 through to 2015, back to Shane's first cup and then back through the new year to the start of the 2014 season, tracking his own blood through the memories as he spills his guts, over and over and over again.

It feels endless, the number of secrets Ilya kept, the moments where he wanted to say something but chose to bite his tongue. I like your boring room in Montréal; I think I'd sleep better next to you in Boston; I wonder if you miss me the way I miss you in Ottawa, in his parent's living room in the middle of the afternoon, when it was midnight in Russia and Shane had been certain that Ilya was warming someone else's bed.

It feels hopelessly finite, seeing the four or five moments each season that they get to spend in each other's company. It hurts even more to see the rare exceptions: An extra night together in February of 2015, because they both went to the All-Star game. A lazy morning in Montréal when they played each other in the 2014-15 pre-season.

The night of the MLH award show, in the summer of 2014.

Ilya stands in the penthouse, his shirt open and vodka in his hand, staring at the bed when he says, "If you asked me to stay, I would have said yes. But I knew you wouldn't, and I was okay with letting you leave that way."

He looks at his reflection in a filthy bathroom and says, "You terrified me here. You made me scared of myself. I didn't know how much I was able to want."

He stands on stage and looks out at an empty crowd. He leans into the mic and confesses, "I still have these photos saved. I look at them more than I'd like."

He stands in the wings and laughs sheepishly. "I wasn't with anyone. I was in the bathroom and freaking out. Sorry."

"Fuck you," Shane snorts, his knees tucked to his chest and his chin propped on his knees. "You dick."

Ilya smiles like he can hear him. He exits left to go through a dozen different moments across six months. The locations are sporadic: Hayden Pike's couch, Shane's living room, the Metros' locker room, a plane about to taxi, the gym, the back of an uber, the roof of a building, Shane's living room again. He says the same thing each time: I wanted to reply. I wish I replied. Replying felt like a weakness. Replying felt like losing. I was worried that I wanted it more than winning.

Shane has to close his eyes when Ilya sets foot on Russian soil. He can't look at Ilya's face when he brokenly whispers, "You didn't seem real. You seemed too good to be true. I think you would've broken me if I let you any closer. I'm sorry I tried to break you back."

"Fuck you, Rozanov," Shane whispers into his knees. He keeps his face there. He doesn't let himself look when the door creaks open. He doesn't have to look to know that it's his apartment again.

Shane bites his lip until he bleeds when Ilya says, "This night was like a revelation," and holds his breath until the door clicks shut again.

When he finally opens his eyes, he's surprised to see another hotel room, one of the ones Shane stayed in at some point in the two years that they only texted. That was back when Ilya seemed almost too honest. In a way, he's almost proven right when Ilya looks around, sighs, and looks at the ceiling to guiltily admit, "You were really starting to piss me off here."

It still makes Shane laugh. It's quick to die out when Ilya leaves the hotel room and stumbles onto a rooftop in Vegas in a too-small tuxedo. The wind whips violently through his hair. It's too dark for Shane to properly read his expression. He watches Ilya walk to the railing and stare out at the skyline.

He sighs, "I think I did hate you here. For winning, and also for not understanding. For clearly wanting but still walking away."

Shane's lip twitches. I think I hated you as well, he thinks, but does not say. He sits in silence as he watches Ilya clamber over the railing and jump off of the roof.

The crowd shrieks with alarm. Shane doesn't even blink. It feels all too fitting to watch Ilya crash through the wall of room one-two-two-one with a knowing, cocky chuckle. Nashville, the All-Stars game. He stands and shakes the dust out of his hair, and then frowns with confusion.

"Was this a secret?" Ilya asks, looking around. "You felt like a dream."

Shane's entire face goes hot. He wishes he could throw something at the screen watching Ilya pivot on his heel and leave.

The next room isn't fourteen-ten. It's not the showers at that rink in Montréal. It's not the rink where they shot the commercial. It's Ottawa, a few days into the new year, the day that Canada got their revenge against Russia in the finals of the International Prospect Cup.

Ilya stands at Centre Ice in a uniform he hasn't worn in five years. In the uniform of a country he might never get to represent again, after tonight. Guilt makes a knot out of Shane's stomach. It'd double over and knot again if not for Ilya raising his voice to declare, "Your chirp was so shitty and your wink was so lame, Hollander! But for the first time in my life, losing a game did not feel like the end of the world!"

As Ilya skates off the ice, Shane notes that his shoulders have never looked looser.

Ilya emerges from around the corner, ducking his head against the bitter Saskatchewan cold. "Can the secret be that this is even worse than Russia?" he grumbles around his cigarette. There's a distant laugh from the crowd. Shane realizes that at some point, they stopped gasping with shock. At some point, they started watching in enraptured silence. Ilya grins like he heard them, like he's playing to the crowd when he says, "I joke, I joke."

He sighs, leaning against the outside wall, the same way he did back in 2008. He doesn't quite look the same as the way Shane found him. He's older, noticeably so. His jacket sleeves are too short, awkwardly exposing his wrists. His eyes are more tired, and his jaw is more square.

He makes a pleased noise when he finds his lighter. It works on the first try, catching the end of his cigarette, from which Ilya takes a long drag. He takes even longer to blow it out.

"At first I thought you were fucking with me," he says to the clear blue sky. "Then I thought that your freckles were quite cute. Then, I thought you were an obvious idiot. I thought you would get chewed up and spit out, Hollander."

"That's not a secret," Shane replies, frowning. "I think you've made that pretty fucking clear."

Ilya laughs like he can hear him. He drops his cigarette and stomps it out. His voice is bitter when he murmurs, "Sometimes I wish you never came to say hello," words that are almost whipped away by the wind.

They don't go unheard. Someone in the crowd gasps. Shane's heart plummets. Ilya grabs the door and pulls it open, and walks into Regina's Brandt Centre arena.

Shane hears the door screech open behind him. The world doesn't disappear into white, but it blurs with the tears that flood his eyes.

//

Wayne Gretzky and Billy Smith had to rescue each other nine times in two years across two sets of Stanley Cup finals.

Smith would be devoured by the Edmonton Oilers' Northlands Coliseum within moments of entering the premises. Nassau Coliseum had a sense of humour, however. It would always wait until the Oilers got their first goal against the Islanders before taking Gretzky away.

In game 2 of the '84 cup playoffs, Smith found Gretzky chained to a pipe in the boiler room of Nassau Coliseum. According to the watching curse breaker, Gretzky was not very happy to see him. "Your rink is as annoying as you are," he allegedly told Smith. Nassau did not have a jumbotron back then. If the curse breaker lied, then the world would be none the wiser.

That same curse breaker also claimed that Smith spent a good few minutes laughing before asking Gretzky, "What if I left you chained there for the rest of the game?"

To which Gretzky scoffed and said, "As if you've ever resisted dropping the gloves against me."

The curse breaker claimed that Smith aimed his gloves right for Gretzky's chin to perfectly shatter the curse. They went on record saying that it was the first time a rival curse had ever broken so beautifully.

When asked about Smith's curse breaking skills, Gretzky laughed and said, "With how much he hates me, you would hope he's good at it!"

//

Shane doesn't turn to look at the door that slams shut, nor at the footsteps that echo through the empty Brandt Centre as Ilya descends the stairs. He keeps his eyes trained on the blank jumbotron, but he can't smother his twitch when Ilya says, "Hollander," nor when he says, after a beat of silence, "Shane."

The only thing that makes him respond is the smack of Ilya's glove hitting his face. "Ow!" Shane splutters. "The fuck was that for!?"

He whips the glove back at Ilya, who unsuccessfully tries to dodge it. It glances off his ear as he laughingly protests, "Sorry, sorry! I was trying to test and see if it works!"

"Of course it wouldn't, dumbass!" Shane snaps. "It's not a rival curse!"

Ilya's eyes get sad. "I know," he says simply, sinking into the seat next to Shane. He looks around the arena. "This is way smaller than I remember."

"It's Regina," Shane mutters. "Of course it's small."

He only flinches a little when Ilya's hand finds his nape. "Hey," Ilya soothes, not letting him run. "Hey, it's okay."

"It's not," Shane groans. He drops his feet to the floor and doubles over to bury his face in his hands. "I could hear them, y'know? The entire time you went through– went through everything."

Ilya pauses. The seat creaks as he shifts around. "I don't hear them now."

Shane's stomach swoops. "Great," he spits out. "Either the last thing they heard was that you wish you never met me, or they're going to silently watch you–"

He loses his words there. How can he even describe this situation? Is Ilya dumping him? Defining their relationship? Outing him? Giving up? Choosing his own safety?

Again, Ilya squeezes either side of Shane's nape. "Everything that you just worried about is wrong," he says firmly. There's a beat, and he clarifies, "Is wrong now, at least."

Shane turns to glare at him out of the corner of his eye. "But I was right?"

Ilya grimaces. "Before the game, I planned to…" he gestures vaguely. Shane fills in the blanks. Break it off. End things. Come to his senses. "And I think… I think the Bell Centre noticed."

Shane blinks, and then frowns. "What? No, it didn't. The Bell Centre can't talk to you."

This time, it's Ilya's turn to put his head in his hands."It talks to the Garden," he grumbles, his ears turning pink.

"I– I'm sorry?" Shane gawks at him. "The Garden–"

"Tattled," Ilya grumbles. He looks flushed and absolutely humiliated. He lifts his head to shout, "Tattled like a fucking tattle tale!"

A door slams ominously shut, making them both jump. There's a breath where they look at each other, terrified, and then crumble into laughter. Shane sways into Ilya's side as Ilya drapes himself over Shane's back. When Shane gasps, Ilya wheezes. When Ilya pushes, Shane pulls.

Between their tandem tides, Shane's racing pulse finally manages to slow.

"You didn't have to be so dramatic," Shane complains, looking up at the ceiling of the Brandt Centre. He can see shimmers of blue among the rafters, bits of the Bell Centre bleeding through. "Jesus Christ, I thought you hated me!"

The air gets warm for a moment. For that moment, Ilya's eyes seem just a bit bluer than before, which is why Shane protests when Ilya jokes, "I think this place hates me." At Shane's insistence, Ilya amends, "Or at least, hates where I am from."

Another flash of blue. They dissolve into giggles again. "Does that mean I have to get the Garden's blessing too?" Shane wonders, tucking his face into Ilya's shoulder.

"Maybe." Ilya muses. "Hopefully it isn't as mean about it."

"Hmm," Shane hums back. "How mad is your team going to be?"

Ilya snorts. "I think they'll just be happy to know why I was so upset after the club."

"Lucky," Shane grumbles. "Mine's going to be furious."

"Fuck them," Ilya scoffs. When Shane doesn't respond, he pulls back, holding Shane by the shoulders and looking deep into Shane's eyes. "I'm serious, Hollander. Fuck them. You have the Bell Centre on your side. Who cares what the team thinks?"

Shane smiles at him weakly, but he can't help but add. "There's a world outside the Bell Centre. A world who just watched all of that."

Ilya cups his jaw. "Your freckles look like bits of gold," he murmurs.

"Pay attention."

"How can I?" Ilya grins, boyish and sly. "You are looking so beautiful that I cannot think of anything else."

Shane kicks him. "I fucking hate you," he mutters, even as he blushes. Ilya doesn't even give him the dignity of a cocky retort. He just grins even wider. "Ugh. How do we even break this curse? Is this even a curse? Can they just… let us out?"

He starts to look around, starts to call out for help, but Ilya takes Shane by the chin and pulls his face back. "I have heard that you need a true love's kiss," he teases, to which Shane flushes and groans and swats at him.

What Shane doesn't do is dodge or move away. Shane stays right where he is, even though his heart is in his throat, and lets his eyes flutter shut for Ilya's lips to nudge gently against his.

With it, the whole building seems to tremble.

Shane pulls back for just a moment to whisper into the corner of Ilya's lip, "You better fucking come to my cottage, for the record."

Ilya's breathy laugh ghosts along his philtrum. "Will it curse me?"

"...the wildlife might," Shane has to admit. Seriously, it can get weird out there.

Ilya just beams at him. "Then you will just protect me," he says, his blue eyes even brighter with their glimmering flecks of gold. Shane can only pull him in again.

It's deeper this time, and their helmets clack together as a result. Shane gasps as he crumples the lapel of Ilya's blazer. Skates bump against dress-shoes, and a glass of vodka goes careening to the floor. Shane can taste it on Ilya's tongue, and then he's tasting tuna, then ginger-ale, and then breathmints and tequila. His teeth are twenty-five in Ilya's nineteen year old lip, but he feels eighteen again when Ilya sucks his tongue into his mouth. Ilya's hair is golden in his hands and Shane's blood is blue as it pumps in his veins.

The walls creak and groan with their ebb and flow, against the crashing of the tide.

"We're both in tuxedos out in public," Ilya breathes into Shane's mouth, laughing when Shane groans and bites his lower lip, and only laughing harder when the ceiling caves in and they're swept away by golden waves and a blinding light.

//

Shane's bedroom tried to curse him when he was fifteen. That was the year he was granted exceptional player status by Hockey Canada, allowing him to start his prospect career one year early. He was moving to Kingston to play in the Ontario Hockey League. 

Shane's bedroom wasn't too happy about that. The morning of his flight, Shane woke up to find his limbs impossibly twisted in the sheets. He spent about three minutes trying to get himself out before giving up and calling for his parents.

It might've worked to at least inconvenience them, if their flight hadn't been in the evening. The entire time that Shane was untangled, the closet door creaked and moaned like it was trying to cry.

"I'm sorry!" Shane kept repeating, horrible guilt twisting him up inside. "I tried to get drafted here but Kingstson got to me first!"

The window shrieked as it opened. Shane looked to his mom in fear and asked her if he should try to get himself traded back.

There was one moment terrifying where she looked ready to yell her head off before his dad intervened. "Shane, buddy, please don't give up your career for your bedroom," he laughed. A poster sulkily hit the floor. "C'mon, you know I'm right! Besides, I think we both know the real reason you're throwing this tantrum."

To Shane's amazement, the curtains ruffled their sheepish response. "Wait, I thought you were jealous!" Shane blurted. He craned his neck to look at his blue walls. At the marker drawings he scribbled when he was nine and the accompanying doodles he watched appear over the years. At the yellowing poster of the Centaurs he got for his sixth birthday that should have disintegrated by then but stayed stubbornly put together. At all his medals and trophies, shining brilliantly without Shane ever having to dust them.

"Bud," his dad smiled. "Your room just wants you to be okay."

Shane found himself alarmingly close to tears. He fought the blankets as best as he could to sit up, staring up at the popcorn ceiling to promise, "I'll be okay. Trust me. I'll come back and tell you all about it. I won't put up a poster without you, I swear!"

There was a beat, and then the blankets fell loose around him. Shane made sure to keep his word, and his door damn near fell off its hinges with how hard it creaked its greeting.

He still brings a poster whenever he visits home, even though the hinges have been silent for years. 

//

The first thing that Shane feels is cold. His lips are numb against Ilya's mouth, which is almost scorchingly hot in comparison. It'd be pretty painful if he wasn't immediately overwhelmed by the next sensation—wet.

"What?" he mumbles against Ilya's mouth.

Ilya beams as he pulls away. "It worked!" he happily declares. Then he blinks and looks around. The blood is quick to drain from his face. "Oh. Oh no–"

"Ouais," Nafisa sighs miserably. "It is not nice right now."

"Sorry?" Shane squeaks, mortified. If the entire rink hadn't already melted into an inch and a half deep puddle, he's pretty sure his flaming blush would do great at thawing out the ice.

Overhead, a slightly perplexed announcer is saying, "Uh, I think that the game is cancelled?"

The female French announcer sounds equally confused. "Le match est probablement annulé."

"We apologize for the inconvenience."

"Veuillez nous excuser pour la gène occasionnée."

People have started booing. Idly, Shane mutters, "Oh, they were really formal about that," which makes Ilya start cracking up.

"Hey, Roz!" They both turn to Boston's bench. Cliff Marleau is hanging off the edge of the barrier, hollering, "Quit laughing, asshole! The fuck is the Garden gonna do to us when we get home!"

This close, Shane can see every millimeter of joy as it flickers across Ilya's face. "Ah, you do not have to worry!" he shouts back. "The Garden only likes me!"

Next to Marleau, Connors cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, "Fuck you Roz! And you too, Hollander!"

"HEY! You leave our capitaine alone!" J.J. bellows. Shane turns and immediately groans at the sight of J.J. trying to wade through the water on his skates. He's still holding his stick, for some reason. "You Boston cocksuckers!"

"J.J.," Shane wearily calls. "Get out of the puddle and back on the bench."

"Yeah, tell him, J.J.!"

"Don't fucking encourage him, Mitty!"

Marleau starts to clamber over the barrier. "You wanna go, Boiziau!?"

"Oh, let's fucking go!"

Shane looks helplessly at Hayden. "Dude," he pleads.

Hayden wrinkles his nose. "I do not wanna wade through all that water in my gear," he calls back apologetically. Some cheers have started up in the crowd.

Ilya decides to be just as unhelpful. "Drown him!"

"Quit it!" Shane hisses, swatting him, accidentally splashing some of the water in the process. He suddenly becomes aware of just how awful it feels to be in soaking wet gear. "Aw, wait, this sucks–"

"You guys could go," Nafisa helpfully offers. She's started packing her gear up. Marc, on the other hand, is mournfully clicking an unresponsive mic pack. "That was pretty unconventional, but we don't have any follow-up we need to do."

Ilya and Shane look at each other, and then past Nafisa to the two hockey players slowly wading towards each other. "I do not want to be anywhere near that," Ilya decides. Shane nods quickly.

Nafisa just shrugs at them, startling when someone from somewhere in the arena bellows, "KISS AGAIN!"

More people cheer. Ilya grins at Shane. "Well?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Shane stares back at him. "It can't be this easy," he blurts.

Ilya's eyes soften as he unclips Shane's helmet. "Why not let it?" 

"It can't," Shane uselessly repeats, still turning his face to nuzzle into Ilya's ungloved palm.

Ilya thumbs over Shane's cheek as he tosses Shane's helmet to the side. Nafisa grimaces at the splash of water that hits her, prompting Ilya to break eye contact and mutter an apology.

Some of Shane's tension leaves in his ugly snort of laughter, one that crumbles into a longer, brighter sound at the way that half of the arena is chanting, "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" and the other half is chanting, "KISS! KISS! KISS!"

"Okay, yeah," Shane concedes. "At this point, fuck it. The Bell Centre clearly approves."

Ilya's entire face shines with his smile. He helps Shane up until they're kneeling in front of each other, face to face. Ilya's eyes are bluer than the banners in the rafters. In them, Shane's reflection glimmers with flecks of gold.

"Oh!" Shane realizes suddenly. He holds Ilya's now curious face a little tighter and looks him in the eyes to tell him, "I love you. By the way."

There's a beat. A fan somewhere nearby demands, "Wait, they haven't even said it yet!?"

"I love you so fucking much," Ilya laughs, too loud and too bright for Shane to even kiss him properly.

Not that it matters. The arena is in an uproar, booing and cheering and jeering and celebrating. Between their skates and the water, the refs are struggling to break J.J. and Marleau apart. Shane and Ilya's veins are alight with gold and blue. Everything is happening all at the same time.

The water ripples around them with the quietest breeze, one that ruffles the banners in the rafters. If you could hear them, you'd swear that it almost sounded like laughter.

//

"On va se faire virer," Marc bemoans.

Nafisa pats his arm and very kindly does not say, "Toi? Probablement. Mais pas moi."

//

Shane almost had to sit out his first game in Boston—he set foot in the TD Garden and almost fucking collapsed, the entire building converging upon him with spiteful anger, making his gut churn and his head spin. He would've been sent to the hospital if the Bell Centre hadn't steeled his spine and steadied his head, thousands of miles away.

One of the most iconic clips of his career came from that game in Boston. Shane got slammed against the wall by a defender twice his size. He should have fallen, but he didn't. His eyes sharpened with a bright, brilliant blue, a colour that streaked behind him as he stole back the puck from that defender, blitzed around the defenders, and scooped up the puck behind the net to tuck it into the top corner.

The home crowd erupted into outraged cries of disbelief. Through the cacophony, you could still hear the echoing whispers of a familiar chant, the home crowd at the Bell Centré joyously cheering, "Olé, Olé, Olé!"

A Boston sportscaster called it a Michigan delivered straight from Montréal. The top comment on the reddit post of the clip remarked, I guess the Bell Centre's knighted Hollander as its champion, I guess.

Another career defining clip came from that game. A moment that happened two minutes after Shane's goal, when Ilya Rozanov's eyes turned gold in the middle of a breakaway, glittering streaks of flame trailing behind him as he shot past four defenders to slide the puck between the goalies legs.

The cheers were absolutely thunderous. Shane thought that the roof of the Garden might come crashing down. The sportscaster didn't have anything clever to say about that. "Well," he just laughed. "In true Boston fashion, Rozanov and the Garden are quick with their response, and they made sure to do it even louder than Montréal."

The top comment on that clip read, God, I fucking love hockey.