Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Hayden Pike, Cliff Marlow

Additional Tags:

Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Ilya Rozanov is a Menace, Protective Shane Hollander, Jealous Ilya Rozanov, Minor Injuries, Alternate Universe - College/University, Shane Hollander's Cottage, Ilya is going to that cottage whether he wants to or not, All the Hollanders love Ilya and so do I, Slow Burn, Contains an injury scene with blood, Not self-harm but a kinda reckless disregard for one's wellbeing, Ilya Rozanov Gets A Hug

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-22 Words: 21,937 Chapters: 2/2

The Long Way Home

Summary

Shane can’t stand his college roommate and teammate, Ilya Rozanov. Can’t stand his arrogance and his messiness and his constant sleeping around.

But then the entire team, Shane included, welcomes their families to campus for Parents Weekend.

And Shane also can’t stand that Ilya is alone.

Notes

Note: In this universe, Shane and Ilya are college hockey players on the same team. Both of Ilya’s parents have passed away - same causes of deaths as the books, they just occur earlier here.

Title is from "The Long Way Home" by Norah Jones, a wonderful song.

Chapter 1

“I think I’m gonna throw up.” 

“Shane,” comes Yuna’s disapproving voice over the phone. Shane reaches his hand up to plug his nose. “It can’t be that bad.” 

Shane eyes the tower of oozing, dirty dishes. As if sensing his attention, the off-balanced mountain emits another wave of stench that has Shane’s eyes watering. “It’s worse. Whatever you think,” Shane warns, switching the phone from one ear to the other and blinking rapidly to clear his sight, “it’s way worse.” 

“Doesn’t each dorm have a student to deal with these conflicts? Have you spoken to the RA?”

“I tried that,” Shane hisses into the phone. “I begged her to talk some sense into him. So finally, we had the meeting. It lasted two minutes. And then -” Shane pauses to let the injustice linger in the air for a moment - “she stayed over in his room.” 

“Oh.” Yuna hums appreciatively. “Well, is he very handsome?”

“Mom,” Shane whines. Seeing the state of their shared kitchen after his roommate uses it is enough to make Shane itchy all over. He thrives in cleanliness; he lives to organize the utensils into neat little stacks and wipe the counters after every meal. He can hardly think in clutter. “You’re missing the point. He’s - he’s my worst nightmare.” Shane wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “I already tried to swap rooms, but the university won’t let me. And everyone I bring around to knock some sense into him, he charms them like some…” Shane drifts off, waving his hands in the air. “… some evil little siren. At this point, I’m like a cat with a mouse in my teeth. I’m bringing him more people to have sex with.” 

“Shane!” 

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” Shane collapses into a wooden chair around their toy-sized dining table, the pile of dishes winking at him in the sterile, institutional lighting of the kitchen. “I don’t mean to complain. It’s just - I can’t live like this. And the worst thing is, he knows that. That’s why he doesn’t lift a finger.” 

“So that’s the plan? Keep cleaning up his messes?”

Shane sighs into the phone, his voice cracking. “Yeah. Guess so.” 

Yuna tsks. “I wish I could go over there and knock some sense into him.” 

“Me too,” Shane whispers. “I love you. Sorry to keep bringing this up.” 

“We love you too. It’s alright,” Yuna assures. Another, deeper voice chimes in: “He sounds like a real piece of work.” 

“He is,” Shane answers his dad weakly. He side-eyes the stack of bowls and plates one last time before clearing his throat. “I should go.” 

“We’re excited to see you next month,” Yuna exclaims. Shane can practically hear her grin. 

“And we’ll get to meet this famed Rozanov family,” David chimes in.

Shane buries his head in his hand. “God. I hope not.” 

“Maybe the apple falls far from the tree?” Yuna tries. 

Shane brings his empty hand to his phone-holding one to roll up his sleeve. “Yeah,” he says dimly. “Maybe.” 

And then he’s hanging up and rolling up his second shirt sleeve. He’s just picked up the first dish in the pile when the front door swings open so hard it rattles the ceiling fan. Shane drops the wet plate into the sink with a clatter.

“Rozanov,” Shane starts as he rounds the corner, forcing authority into his voice. “I thought I asked you to -” Shane cuts himself off. Ilya is not alone. 

Ilya’s sparkling blue eyes descend on Shane with pure amusement dancing in them, as if Shane is a court jester he’s summoned for his own entertainment. He’s wearing a long-sleeve compression shirt that hugs his broad shoulders. The shirt is rumpled at his pale waist, as if someone had been fondling it. With the seam tugged up, the sharp dip of Ilya’s V-line winks up at him. It’s decorated with a smattering of moles like body glitter. 

Shane could have gone his whole life without seeing the moles on Ilya Rozanov’s stomach.

Shane presses his lips together. “Hello,” he offers to the guest Ilya has brought inside: a thin blonde wearing a hulking winter coat. 

“I’m Bella.” She smiles sweetly at Shane. Shane puts embarrassingly little effort into remembering her name. It’s harsh, but he’s seen enough friendly faces cycle in and out of their door to know that Ilya doesn’t fuck the same person twice. Before Shane can open his mouth to respond, she adds: “I know who you are.” She looks at Ilya. “Who both of you are.” She makes a swooping gesture with her hands, like she’s swatting at a puck. “Campus legends.” 

Shane smiles stiffly. His eyes refocus on Ilya. “So, your dishes have been sitting in the sink all week.” 

Ilya quirks his head, as if Shane were speaking French to him. He glances towards Bella, who simply grins back at him like he hung the moon. 

“We have project,” Ilya says finally, nodding to the female guest. He blinks, a slow-growing grin forming on his pink lips, before announcing: “Might be overnight project.” 

Bella slaps Ilya’s arm, giggling. Shane wants to slap his face. 

“That’s fine,” Shane allows, eyeing Bella before turning back to Ilya, “but, in the future, I’d appreciate some notice.” 

Ilya leans in to whisper something into Bella’s ear that has her grinning and gripping his upper arm. Shane only makes out one word of it: uptight. 

“You think I’m uptight?” Shane spits, his face reddening. 

Ilya finally straightens up from where he bent to whisper in Bella’s ear. Ilya smirks so wide at Shane that it might be mistaken as friendly, if Shane didn’t know him any better. “No.” He glances up and down Shane’s body, a heavy look that has Shane shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I said, your pants are tight.” 

And then he’s tugging the girl along, further into their shared apartment, and she does a poor job of covering her face to stifle her giggles as they pass by Shane. They tumble into Ilya’s bedroom and he slams the door, as usual, with the force of a wrecking ball - as if Shane would ever willingly venture into the shithole that must be Ilya Rozanov’s bedroom.

Shane huffs, rolling his sleeves back up again from where they’ve fallen. He drifts back to the kitchen, where he flicks the faucet on and begins scrubbing at Ilya’s first dirty dish. He lost this stalemate, he’ll admit it, but it’s simply because he can only live in self-imposed squalor for so long.

As he works up to the final bowl, he glances down at the black skinny jeans he bought this past summer with his mom. He furrows his eyebrows. “I thought these were in,” he mumbles to himself.

----

There was once a time when Shane admired Ilya Rozanov. Because, of course, there was a time before they met. 

Ilya’s high school hockey accolades spoke for themselves: He came out of Russia’s MHL leading his team in points and assists, wore an A at the junior level, and entered McGill as a top-line forward. Although no one would say it out loud, Shane knew he was being quietly fast-tracked for the C next season if he kept it up.

And so, when Shane arrived bright-eyed to McGill to find that not only was Ilya Rozanov his teammate, but his first-ever college roommate, he nearly stormed the front door of their on-campus apartment out of excitement.

He found Ilya leaning against the dining room table, his golden curls peeking out from underneath a blue beanie with a cigarette poised between his lips. Shane had stumbled into the doorway, knocking over a cardboard box. Ilya hardly flinched.

“Ilya Rozanov?” Shane had asked, cringing at his own formality. It felt odd to see Ilya in the flesh after hours and hours of highlight reels. He looked too pixelated, almost: every detail of him screamed out to Shane, from the arch of his eyebrow to the subtle quirk of his lips. “Shane Hollander. I wanted to introduce myself.” 

Shane’s eyes drifted back to the cigarette, which had just caught light. Shane’s nose twitched. He hunched his shoulders. 

“Oh. I’m - I’m not sure you’re supposed to smoke here.” Shane gestured to the cigarette. What he meant was, I don’t want you to smoke here. 

Ilya pushed his bottom lip out just slightly, forging a path for the smoke to leave from. “Okay.” His deep voice stirred something in Shane. The cigarette smell made him wince before he could pinpoint what it was. 

“You’re an awesome player to watch,” Shane added. 

“Yes.” 

Shane eyed the still-lit cigarette with mild irritation. “So we’re roommates,” he said dumbly. 

Ilya crushed the cigarette butt under his heel against the carpet. Shane was sure that it broke at least five fire code violations. The silence lasted a beat too long for Shane to withstand it.

“Anyways, I should go. They’re waiting for me. My parents,” Shane clarified. “Helping me move in. They’re out in the parking lot.” 

Ilya blew hot air from his mouth into his pale, veiny hands. Shane registered that while he was wearing a beanie, he was otherwise scantily clad in a short sleeve t-shirt. It was loose around his waist, but taut around his shoulders. He must have cranked the window open behind him, letting waves of frigid air in. “Are your parents here too?” Shane continued.

Ilya scratched his nose. Shane noticed there were goosebumps on his forearm. “You will not be so nice when we beat you,” Ilya murmured. 

“We’re on the same team now,” Shane said, attempting a chuckle.

“No. Tomorrow.” 

“Right.” Shane nodded fervently. “The scrimmage.” He grinned wickedly, overcome with an odd sense of gratitude to have a proper competitor at his fingertips who can match his skill. “That’s not happening.” He turned around so he faced their front door again. “I’ll be right back, okay? Just gotta grab my - yeah.” 

By the time Shane returned, David and Yuna flanking him on each side, Ilya was nowhere to be found. Shane looked in the direction of the air he once stood, as if Ilya might suddenly materialize there. The window was snugly shut. 

----

Ilya, Shane learned, is mind-numbingly predictable. Somehow, it doesn’t make any of his antics any less infuriating. 

The first time Shane entered their apartment to find Ilya passed out, his cheek pressed to the rough carpet, was a Friday night that Shane had spent hunkered in the library.

He dropped his backpack at the door. He bent down and shook Ilya’s shoulder lightly. 

“Rozanov,” Shane whispered. “Rozanov.” Ilya let out a deep sigh that reeked of alcohol. Shane leaned instinctively away. “Wake up,” Shane tried again.

His hand moved from Ilya’s shoulder to the base of his neck, where his dress shirt sagged to display exposed skin. Shane knew his hands must have been cold, having come from a long walk across campus. Still, he jumped when Ilya jolted awake.

Ilya opened and squeezed shut his eyes in turn, scrubbing at them. Shane opened his mouth to ask if he’d like a cup of water, but Ilya had slumped over again until his shoulderblades hit the carpet and groaned: “Fuck off.” 

Shane had scoffed, cheeks burning. “I’m trying to help.” 

“And I said,” Ilya had mumbled, nudging his pale nose into the ratty carpet, “fuck off.” 

That was the start of the end. From then on, Shane would often find Ilya passed out on their couch, asleep, like a cat stretched for its afternoon nap. It only took one quick sniff for Shane, like a studious drug dog, to detect whether Ilya was drunk out of his mind or simply sleeping the day away.

The next time Ilya passed out in the entranceway, Shane stepped over his limp body as if dodging gum before it could stick to his shoe.

The dishes piled up, the fawning fangirls continued to drop by without warning, and Shane dug his nails into his palms at each failed attempt at setting boundaries with his roommate. 

One day, he went so far as to drop by a professor of Russian literature’s office. He had dutifully written down, phonetically, what he hoped to communicate to Ilya, what perhaps wasn’t getting through to him in a non-native language.

When he came home, he found Ilya asleep on the couch in his gym shorts, an open box of Chinese takeout balanced precariously on his naked chest. Shane shook him awake with little fanfare. Ilya’s skin felt smooth and warm under his hand.

He read from the piece of paper with trembling fingers. He stumbled through half of the words. “‘Tebe nuzhno nachat' ubirat' za soboy. Mne eto nadoyelo. Yesli khochesh', mozhem pogovorit' po-russki, ya mogu poprobovat.’”

You need to start cleaning up after yourself. I am tired of it. If you prefer we talk in Russian, I can try.

Shane glanced down at Ilya’s bare chest, counting his birthmarks, before his eyes drifted back up to his face. The expression was one of pure, utter glee. Ilya cackled, a mean and snide sound. He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

In English, he said, “Don’t ever, ever do that again.” 

----

Shane, like the rest of the team, withstood Ilya for one reason and one reason alone: He was fucking talented. At their last away game, Ilya put up a hat trick and could’ve had two more if the goalie hadn’t stood on his head.

So Shane should have known that when Ilya strolled into the locker room - arriving later than Shane, despite them leaving from the same apartment - he’d be wearing a self-satisfied smirk. 

Shane is the only person on the team to see just how much Ilya sleeps the day away, yet he still yawns as he shrugs off his shirt. Shane averts his gaze once Ilya’s head of soft curls reveals itself from under the fabric. He tosses it to the side, irritatingly close to Shane’s area of the bench. 

“Think this is yours.” Shane slides the shirt back in Ilya’s direction, forcing himself to suck in a deep breath. 

“You won’t fold for me?” Ilya asks, flashing him a cheeky grin. 

“I’m not your maid,” Shane hisses. He rolls the shirt up in his hands and shoves it against Ilya’s bare chest. Ilya makes no move to grab it, so when Shane lets go it falls to the stained floor.

Ilya kicks it half-heartedly with his foot, dirtying it further. Then, he locks up his locker and leaves it there. 

----

“Rozanov, what the hell? I was open!”

J.J.’s face is blotchy with anger. Ilya skates over to him languidly, his permanently smug grin etched on his lips. 

“Let me explain for you,” Ilya enunciates. “I pass to people I think can score.” 

J.J. crosses his arms, skating so close to Ilya that Ilya can smell his beef jerky breath. “I call bullshit, because you won’t even pass to Shane.” Shane perks up unwillingly at the sound of his name. “And you and I both know he can fucking wipe the floor with you.”

J.J. leans further into Ilya’s space until they’re eye-to-eye. Ilya licks his lips, a motion Shane follows with his eyes. “Can he now?” Ilya asks, tilting his head. 

“Yeah.” J.J. leers at Ilya with more disdain than appropriate directed at a guy who wins them half their games. “He can.”

From across the ice, Shane calls out: “I don’t wanna get involved in this, man.” 

Their coach walks onto the ice, petting his beard. He approaches the tangle that is J.J. and Ilya and pushes only Ilya back with a meaty hand to his chest. “They’re right. Rozanov, you’re hogging. Hayden, you take his place for the drill. Rozanov, you’re on defense.” 

Ilya’s eyes bulge. “Defense?”

J.J. merely laughs, throwing his head back. At the next whistle, Shane wins the face-off - because of course he does - but when he passes to J.J., the puck slips from his stick and stalls along the boards. Ilya regains control of it, and he’s just gearing up to what Shane is astonished to realize is a pass back to Hayden. 

In the fraction of a second that Ilya’s sharp eyes descend on the puck to aim, J.J. comes hurtling out from Ilya’s left. It’s always been Ilya’s weaker side, Shane had thought, and he meant it with no arrogance, because at one point it was Shane’s weakest side too. If Shane and Ilya were on even cordial terms, Shane would have long ago taught Ilya how to protect himself evenly on both sides. 

But he never did. And so the crack of J.J.’s shoulder against Ilya’s chest echoes across the ice, and when Ilya falls, Shane pictures a skyscraper falling: floor by precious floor, inch by inch of pale, uniformed skin. His helmet-clad head hits the ice first before his knees do, which is not how these hits should go. It emits a resounding crack. 

Shane’s pulse rattles in his head. J.J. stares down at Ilya for one second before he picks his gaze up and skates away, confusion marring his face. 

Shane has two observations. One is that the untouchable Ilya Rozanov doesn’t move to stand up. In his heap of muscle and protective gear on the floor, he doesn’t even twitch. The second, more pertinent observation is that no one on the team skates over to check on him. 

Shane has been fawned over for much less: a stumble on the ice, a check into the boards that has him rubbing his shoulder. Hayden had rushed to his side; J.J. offered a quick tilt of the head, and unspoken “You okay?”; Even Cliff Marlow had asked him for a thumb’s up.

Now, they all stand around, watching Ilya like a one-man show gone awry. Shane realizes a beat too late that he himself has made no move to skate closer either. He’s just launched one foot forward to skate towards Ilya’s tangle of limbs when the athletic trainer hops onto the ice and beats him to it. 

“Rozanov? You with me?” Her voice increases in volume the closer Shane skates to them. 

Ilya’s nose twitches against the ice. Finally, he shoves his chest up off the ground with the press of his gloved hands against the ice. “Fine,” Ilya grates. “I am fine.” 

Shane skates to a stop until he’s towering over Ilya, standing just behind their head trainer. She shines a penlight into Ilya’s eyes and he groans, swatting at it like it’s a fly. 

“Can you stand?” She extends a hand for Ilya to take to help himself up. He ignores it and staggers to his feet on his own. Then, his gaze lands on Shane a few feet behind her. His glare is sharp and cutting, as if Shane was the one to knock him down. “You’re coming with me, bud,” the trainer orders. 

“I am fine,” Ilya repeats. He’s staring at Shane when he says it. 

“You can’t argue this one,” the trainer rebuts. “You were unconscious.” 

“I wasn’t,” Ilya tries. 

“You were.” Shane and the trainer say it in unison. Again, Ilya’s glare is directed towards Shane. When Ilya turns back to the trainer, his eyes soften. 

“Okay.” Ilya rubs at his chest through his thick gloves. He skates alongside the trainer, her short arm wrapped around his waist, and steps off the ice like a man to the gallows. 

When Shane turns back to the team, he finds them scattered on the other end of the ice. Something in his gut twists as he joins them again. 

Back in the locker room after practice, with Ilya still in the trainer’s office, Hayden breaks the silence as they shrug off their helmets. “Kinda spooky to see Rozanov like that, huh?”

Their teammates murmur their agreement. 

“It’s damn near the only time we’ve gotten some peace and quiet from the guy,” Comeau murmurs. A couple half-hearted chuckles ring out in the room. 

“Guys come on,” Shane warns weakly. He finds he can’t come up with a proper rebuttal, so he busies himself tugging off his shoulder pads.

“Comeau has a point,” J.J. counters. Shane turns fully to face him. “Look, I don’t feel good about anyone getting hurt. But come on.” J.J. points at Drapeau. “He calls you Five-Hole.” He catches Hayden’s eye. “He calls you Roster Spot.” J.J.’s eyes find Shane’s weary ones, and J.J. chuckles. “And man. The things he says about Hollander.” 

Shane averts his eyes. “Like what?”

J.J. groans. “Does it matter? My point is, he has no fucking respect for us.”

Hayden bites his lip. “No one went to check on him.” 

“But that’s exactly why!” J.J. rubs at his eyes. “We’ve given him so many chances, man. He’s a fucking bully. A bully who can score, but…” He shrugs simply. “If you ask me, that wins you points with the school. Not points with your team.” 

Shane lets the words settle in the damp air around them. He can’t find a fault in the argument, at least not with the fog surrounding his brain, and so he marches off to the showers in silence. 

----

Shane knocks on the trainer’s door long past when the rest of his team has left. The door swings open. Their trainer must be the force who opened the door, and so Shane knows rationally that she must be in there somewhere. But for a moment when the door peels back to reveal Ilya slumped over on a cushioned chair, a dripping ice pack braced against his head, Shane’s mind fools itself into thinking they’re alone. 

Alana’s head of half-gray, half-blonde hair pops out from behind the door. Shane shakes his head as if to clear it. 

“We live together,” Shane says to Alana by way of explanation. “I just wanted to see if…” Shane trails off. If he wants to go home together, Shane finishes in his head. It’s an odd ask, because they never do. 

“It’s good you came,” Alana replies, smiling brightly. She pats Ilya’s shoulder. Shane expects Ilya to shrug it off, maybe even swat her hand away. Instead, he seems to lean into it. “Rozanov here has a concussion.” 

“Mild,” Ilya adds. She rolls her eyes. 

“Mild-to-moderate,” she corrects. “He needs at least two weeks of cognitive rest.” She lifts her hand off of Ilya’s shoulder and reaches for the ice pack. Ilya hands it back to her begrudgingly. 

“Hollander is always on ‘cognitive rest,’” Ilya echoes smugly. It takes Shane a second to register what’s been said. 

“Are you calling me stupid?” 

Ilya shrugs. When Alana turns back around, she’s biting back a smile. “In a way, this is good,” she tells Shane. “His brain isn’t so scrambled that he can’t joke.”

“I don’t think it’s a joke,” Shane murmurs slowly. 

Ilya shakes his head. Shane scoffs and crosses his arms.

“Whatever. Do you want to go home together?” 

Ilya raises his eyebrows. Shane feels his face heat up, the pink blush contrasting with the tan of his freckles. 

“Come on. You know what I mean.”

Alana shoves a clipboard into Ilya’s lap, interrupting Shane’s stream of consciousness. “We’re almost done here,” she tells Shane. She turns back to where Ilya is slumped, his shoulder burrowed in the seat cushion. “Ilya, I noticed you’re the only player on the roster we don’t have an emergency contact for. As you can imagine, for events like today, that’s important information for us to have.” She nods resolutely. “Can you write here -” she points with her pen to the highlighted portions of the form - “two people we can contact in the event of an emergency?” 

Ilya’s eyes flicker over the form. “‘Parent or guardian’,” he reads. Alana nods. He stares up at her. “I need two?”

Shane feels more and more ill-prepared to travel back with Ilya the longer he waits here. “Um, not to interrupt, but did you still want to go back with me?”

Ilya shakes his head, his eyes still glued to the form. 

“It might be safer, given your -”

“Hollander.” Ilya finally looks up. “No.” 

Shane’s face must look as hurt as he feels. Ilya gestures to the room around them. “I still need to shower, get dressed. Just go.” 

Shane nods. He reaches up to scratch his own eyebrow idly. He watches as Ilya scribbles a string of numbers down onto the clipboard that look too short to be a real phone number, but maybe it’s just the angle Shane is watching him from. And then he’s handing the clipboard back to Alana, murmuring something low that Shane can’t quite hear, and shouldering past Shane to head to the showers. 

Shane’s shoulders sag. Alana smiles at him knowingly. “See you Monday, Shane.” 

Shane smiles back stiffly. “Thanks, Alana. See you Monday.” 

----

When Ilya finally does come home, Shane stiffens from his spot on the couch. Ilya trails his hands along their pockmarked walls like a blind man reading braille, leaning slightly against it as he makes his way in. 

“Do you want some water?” Shane asks, already walking over to the kitchen. 

Ilya freezes. His hand on the wall stalls. He gulps before he speaks. “So you are my maid.”

Shane shoves the glass of water towards Ilya, the movement so jerky that the surface sloshes and paints the carpet between them. Ilya doesn’t reach for the cup. Shane feels his face redden again. 

“Fuck you,” Shane spits. Ilya merely grins back at him. Then, he limps to his bedroom door and slams it shut.

----

Nearly two weeks pass where Ilya avoids Shane entirely, and Shane follows suit. Or maybe it’s that Shane ignores Ilya, and Ilya follows suit. Either way, Shane focuses on spending as little time inside the apartment as possible. Ilya, Shane presumes, focuses on moping around all day like he usually does. 

A nagging voice in Shane’s head tells him that Ilya actually should be resting now. He ignores it in favor of staying at the library during and past lunchtime, ignoring the way his stomach grumbles. He won’t step foot in his apartment if he can help it.

Yuna texts him: We’re so excited to see you tomorrow, honey! Coach emailed us the team activities planned for this weekend. We are going to CRUSH the competition.

A second text comes through in the same group chat, this time from his dad: I have tried telling your mother that Parents Weekend is about bonding with you. Not ‘crushing the competition.’ 

Another text: You can imagine her response. 

Shane smiles softly down at his phone. His mother texts back: I just want to show the other parents that the Hollanders don’t mess around. 

Shane texts: Just play nice, please? I don’t want anyone hating my guts because you destroyed their mom at the potato sack race. 

Yuna writes back: I’m SO crushing Mrs. Rozanov at the potato sack race. 

Shane giggles, muffling the sound with the back of his palm. He’s in the quiet zone of the library. A few students send him dirty looks. He sighs, his stomach cramping so severely that he locks his phone and begins tucking his notebooks back into his backpack. 

He can only avoid his apartment for so long, and anyways, he has a few cleaning tasks scribbled on Post-its around his room he needs to clear off before his parents visit. And so begins the trek back to his apartment.

Shane knows something is off the moment he enters: the air is waft with the cloying scent of fish. He wrinkles his nose as he toes off his shoes. 

As per usual, neither he nor Ilya greet each other when Shane enters. He walks to the kitchen, the counters of which he had just deep cleaned this morning. A vein bulges from his forehead. 

“It looks like a bomb went off in here,” Shane scoffs, reaching his hands into his hair and tugging.

Dirtied pans line the stovetop and a stack of food-stained dishes fill the sink. He stomps to the couch, where Ilya is sprawled, his hands behind his head and his biceps bulging. 

“Rozanov,” Shane snaps. “What the hell did you cook?”

“Tuna melt,” Ilya calls out, eyes still glued to the TV.

Shane begins stacking the dirtied pots and pans before he thinks better of it and sets the pile down. It rattles, the sound making even Shane jump. “The next time you decide to just leave your dirty dishes here, I’m going to throw them all away. Do you hear me?”

Ilya’s eyes leave the TV and land on Shane. “Someone comes and cleans.” Ilya removes one hand from behind his head of curls and gestures with it. “Housekeeping, or something.” 

For a moment, all Shane can do is laugh. So he does, and it’s a mocking, mirthless one. He rubs his eyes with his fingertips. “You’re messing with me. I know you are.” When Shane reopens his eyes, he can’t be sure whether Ilya is or isn’t joking. “Do you seriously think someone comes in here and magically cleans up your messes?” 

Ilya merely scratches the back of his head. 

“It’s me. You know it’s been me. I’ve been cleaning up after you every fucking day. Just this morning, I cleaned this entire kitchen, Rozanov, and - and -” Shane cuts himself off, his heartbeat racing. “And you know what? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of you.”

Ilya scoffs. “Then move out.” 

“I tried!” Shane throws his hands in the air, daring a step closer to the couch. Ilya sits up straighter against it, his posture defensive. “Believe me, I tried. They won’t let me.” Ilya’s face twitches, a small change from indifferent to something more. Behind Shane, someone on the TV shouts. “And what did Alana say about screens? Jesus.” 

Shane leans over to grab the remote. Ilya snatches it back out of his hands. “No,” Ilya rebuts. 

Shane scoffs, turning to face the TV. It’s some black and white film with convoluted dialogue. “What is this?” 

Ilya fidgets on the couch. “Twelfth Night.” 

“Shakespeare?”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Is for English class.” 

Shane’s breath slows just slightly. “English 110?” Ilya gives the slightest of nods. “Okay, well. It’s bad for your head. And I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to read it, not watch it.”

“Yeah, like I can read fucking Shakespeare,” Ilya spits. He jams two fingers against his temple, and when he removes them they leave red ovals on his forehead. His tone is so self-deprecating that Shane pauses.

“Are you taking your painkillers?” Shane’s voice is more subdued than before. 

Ilya’s blank stare is answer enough. Shane’s heart rate picks up again. 

“Are you out of your mind, Rozanov? You need to take those.” 

“Yes, so I can go back to winning you games, hm?” Ilya cracks his neck. “Do not pretend you care.” 

“Fuck you. I’m allowed to care.” He can’t pinpoint why it is that he does. All he knows is that all the hairs on his arm are standing at attention, and anxiety creeps up his spine like a slow-moving lava.

Ilya grabs his phone next to him and begins fiddling with the case in his large hands. He doesn’t move to unlock it, just stares down at it like it holds all the answers to his problems. “I don’t like pills,” he whispers, finally.

“Yeah,” Shane huffs. “No one does.” 

Ilya tosses his phone to the side. His laser-sharp gaze zeroes in on Shane, and if it’s not hatred in his eyes then it’s something close. 

“Someone is coming tonight,” Ilya announces, rather cryptically. He stands up from the couch, and for the first time, Shane truly registers their height difference. 

“No.” Shane shakes his head, pointing to the kitchen. “No. Whoever she is, she’s not coming. Not until you clean up your fucking mess.” 

Ilya’s expression turns scandalized. “I’m doing what you asked. Giving you ‘notice.’” Ilya’s hands do big finger quotes on the final word.

“Okay, great,” Shane mocks. “Thanks for the ‘notice.’” Shane mimics Ilya’s finger quotes, making the gesture obscenely larger. “The answer, believe it or not, is still no. You know Parents Weekend is tomorrow. My parents are coming here.” 

“Here?” Ilya gestures to the apartment.

Shane rolls his eyes. “No. I mean, we’re staying in a hotel. But still.” 

Ilya cracks his knuckles. Shane can’t be sure if it’s a nervous tick or a thinly veiled threat. “I will clean. After I am done watching.” 

Shane gulps. He maintains eye contact, although every second with Ilya’s sharp eyes on his feels like it burns. “No. You will clean now, or you'll get the hell out.”

Ilya clenches his jaw. They’re so close to each other that Shane can count his eyelashes. “And go where?”

Shane scoffs and turns his head, partially out of frustration, but also because Ilya’s woodsy musk begins to flood his nose and make him too dizzy to think. “Go to this girl’s apartment if you want. Go wherever. I’m not your fucking mother, okay?” 

Something in Ilya’s expression flashes when he says it. Shane is too angry to notice. 

“I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. I - I feel like I tried, Ilya.” Shane’s voice cracks, and he doesn’t register that he lets the name slip from his lips until he sees Ilya’s eyes widen imperceptibly upon hearing it. “I feel like I really tried to be nice. To be friends. And I know you don’t want that, and that’s fine, but -” Shane points to the kitchen and gulps, voice hard. “I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. You can either clean up after yourself, or you can leave so I can do it.” 

Ilya cracks his knuckles again. A calm Shane would never react, but this Shane feels like his entire body is ablaze, so he flinches when he hears it. 

Ilya blinks, his eyes widening. He takes a careful step back and makes a point of lowering his hands to his sides. Shane can hardly mask the surprise on his face. 

Silently, Ilya turns towards the hallway. He enters and leaves his bedroom in less than a minute, his team backpack slung over one shoulder. Shane notices that as Ilya walks by, his path giving Shane a wide berth, a t-shirt is partially sticking out in a gap of the zipper. 

Shane opens his mouth to speak again. He finds he can’t locate his voice. Ilya opens the front door and disappears behind it. 

What somehow makes it worse is that unlike his bedroom door, Ilya closes this one gently. It hardly makes a sound. Shane sinks to the couch. Ilya’s Shakespeare play still whispers to him from the TV. Shane cradles his head in his hands, his mind aflood with old highlight reels of Ilya’s he used to stay up all night analyzing in high school. 

Ilya Rozanov, age 16, his competition. 

Ilya Rozanov, age 19, his teammate. His roommate. 

Shane crouches in the heavy scent of tuna and the garble of Renaissance dialogue and cries into his hands. 

----

The locker room is abuzz the next morning after practice. 

“I’m ready for this weekend to end,” Hayden whines. 

“What? Why?” J.J. slips off his helmet. 

“My mom already booked us an art class tomorrow,” Hayden groans. The locker room erupts into cackles. “Shut up, all of you!” He glares at them, but he’s smiling too. “I’m telling you all so you don’t lose your minds when she posts the pictures online, okay?”

“I’m still gonna lose my mind,” J.J. smirks. “Hey, Hollander. Are your parents here yet?”

Shane forces himself to speak. “Uh. Yeah. They just checked into the hotel, last I checked.” 

“And you’re going straight there after this?”

Shane merely nods. The double doors to the locker room swing open, and in walks Ilya. Shane’s heart seizes, and his grip tightens on the rusted metal door of his locker. Ilya arrived so late to practice today that he walked straight onto the ice, meaning none of them saw him in the locker room beforehand. If last night hadn’t ended the way it did, Shane might have skated over and questioned whether Ilya had even gotten Alana’s clearance to play again; instead, he stayed silent, and Coach didn’t ask.

When Shane gets a good look at him now, even through the helmet, there is a greyish hue under his eyes. Ilya yawns as he lumbers back inside.

“Where are your parents, Ilya?” J.J. asks, turning the corner in the locker room. 

Shane’s eyes flicker to Ilya just in time to catch his face drop. He plasters a strained, self-satisfied smile in its stead, tugging his helmet off. “If you really want to know,” Ilya drawls, “they’re back in Moscow. Luzhnetskiy Proyezd, 2.” 

“Uh. Okay.” J.J. chuckles, eyes flickering to Shane like they’re privy to some inside joke. “We’ll stop by if we’re ever in Russia, I guess.” 

Shane doesn’t laugh. Instead, he yanks out his phone and types in the address into his Maps app as best he can remember it.

The phone lags, and in the meantime, Hayden pipes in sympathetically: “Sucks they won’t be here. It’d be cool to meet them.” 

“Maybe they’re, like, Russian mafia,” J.J. adds. 

Ilya smacks him on the back. “Maybe I’m Russian mafia.” He grins. 

Shane’s fingers dance on his stubborn phone screen. When the page finally loads, the first search result lands like a stone in Shane’s stomach:

It’s a cemetery.

Shane’s face falls. In bold, blocky letters, his screen reads: Novodevichy Cemetery. It can’t be right. He stares from his screen up to Ilya, whose muscular, naked back is facing his direction as he shirks off his clothes to head to the showers. Then he stares back at the screen again.

Perhaps he mistyped it. Or maybe he didn’t, but the truth is that Ilya’s parents work there. He could ask Ilya, couldn’t he? Hey, I know I screamed at you and kicked you out last night, which broke our two-week long unspoken agreement to completely fucking ignore each other, but what you meant back there - your parents are groundskeepers, right? 

Shane can’t wrap his mind around the alternative. 

He locks his phone and shoves it in the locker. Ilya is already en route to the showers before Shane can catch up to him. He’s smirking as he leaves, which should be a good sign, but then again, he always is.

Shane resolves himself to chat with Ilya once they’re both out of the showers. Shane only shampoos his hair once, and he’s certain he’s still soapy when he drags open the shower curtain, but he cuts corners in his methodical routine for a reason: catch Ilya before he leaves. Ask him a simple, clarifying question. And then run into his parents’ arms and never look back.

Shane re-enters the locker room and scans it. “Where’s Rozanov?” He demands.

“Something happen between you two?” Hayden towels off his wet hair. 

Shane curls his fingers into his palms, forming painful crescents. “No.” He remembers who he’s talking to, and he corrects himself: “Well, yeah. A little.” 

“Sorry, man.” J.J. cuts in. “He left.”

“He, like, fucking bolted,” Comeau chimes in. 

Shane’s special ringtone for his mom rings out in the locker room: “Pocketful of Sunshine.” Hayden claps him on the back as he answers. 

“We’re here!” Yuna’s voice is cheery and bright. David laughs in the background.

“At the hotel?”

“You think we could wait that long? No, sweetie.” Shane can hear her smile through the phone. “We’re outside the rink.” 

“Oh,” Shane breathes. Hayden looks at him funny, so Shane schools his expression. He injects proper enthusiasm into his voice. “I mean, I’m so excited. To see you both.” That part is true; he misses them so much it hurts. 

But something else hurts, too.

“Then come out!” 

David chimes in: “Seriously, bud. We’re freezing out here.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Shane mutters. “I’m coming. See you soon. I love you.” 

“We love you,” Yuna grins. Shane hangs up. 

----

“If you keep kissing me -” Shane mumbles as his cheeks get squished in Yuna’s angular hands - “every time the waiter comes, we’re never going to order.” 

Yuna plants another fat kiss onto his cheek, as if to punctuate the sentence. “I’ve decided: You’re not allowed to leave home.” 

“Mom, it’s a two hour drive.” 

David stares at them fondly across the table. He sets down his menu. “It is, but it’s hard to find a weekend to visit when you’re out traveling for games.” 

“That’s why Parents Weekend is so great.” Yuna nods sympathetically. “So, the idea is that every player’s parents fly out, right?”

Shane nods. “I mean, yeah. Whoever can make it.” 

Yuna smiles at him, a natural grin that transforms her entire face. Shane mimics the expression, biting his lip to keep the smile in check. 

Across the table, David shakes his head incredulously. “You two look so alike. It’s like looking in a mirror.” 

“That’s our Shane.” Yuna leans in and kisses Shane’s cheek again. He doesn’t complain this time. 

----

It’s late at night when Shane realizes the scrimmage that morning did more damage to him than he realized.

“Why don’t I phone the front desk? They must have ice packs.” Yuna pets Shane’s head. Shane is sprawled on one of the massive, King-sized hotel beds in his parents’ room, basking in the scent of clean sheets. It’s so different from his twin-sized, school-issued bed in he and Ilya’s place that he almost cried out when he first sank into it.

“It won’t help,” Shane bites out, flexing his hip experimentally. “It’s nothing serious, I promise. But I need my massage gun.” 

Yuna narrows her eyes. “It’s nearly midnight. Why don’t you sleep it off here and grab it tomorrow morning?”

Shane worries at his lip. “I know myself, Mom. It’ll be ten times worse in the morning if I don’t fix it now.” 

She crosses her arms. “I’ll go with you, then.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Shane says. He eyes Yuna’s matching pajamas and slippers. “You’ve had a long travel day, and my dorm is a quick walk, okay? I’ll take the key card. I’ll be back in no time.” 

“Alright.” She presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Don’t take too long. I need you on your A-game if we’re going to win any of the family games on Sunday.” 

Shane rolls his eyes fondly. “Right. Glad you have your priorities straight.” 

Yuna smirks wickedly. “Always.” 

----

The autumn air is so biting that evening that Shane finds himself slotting his key into the door and letting himself in before he can overthink it.

The apartment is quiet, but the light in the kitchen is on. Shane spots Ilya’s silhouette, facing away from him and towards the window above the sink. 

“Sorry to intrude,” Shane mutters weakly in Ilya’s direction. His voice cracks, and he cringes. “I - I just needed to grab something.” 

Ilya’s figure lists to the side. He stumbles and rights himself, but from a distance, Shane can see a flash of something - some color that does not belong in their eggshell-white kitchen - on his arm.

“Rozanov?” Shane calls out. 

Ilya’s head swivels. He turns around right as Shane comes to a stop in front of him. Shane chokes out a gasp. 

Ilya is staring at him dopily and bleeding tremendously from a gash in his arm. The blood trails down from his forearm to his wrist and fingertips, where it drips down from each fingernail into a growing pile on their marble floor. 

“What the fuck?” Shane mutters, his voice weak. Shane searches Ilya’s eyes. “Hey. Hey. What happened?”

Ilya smiles at him, although there is a nervous twitch to it. His head lolls back, like his neck can’t quite hold it up. “Relax.” He holds up his arm, and the new angle prompts more blood to gush from it. “Accident.” 

Shane doesn’t have to look far to find an opened handle of vodka on the counter next to Ilya. There’s a substantial amount missing. Shane grabs it with one hand, while the other tugs paper towels off a roll. “How much of this bottle did you have?”

Ilya scratches his nose with his uninjured arm. “Some.” Ilya shrugs noncommittally and digs his hand into his curled, mad-scientist hair. “Like I said,” he continues, “accident.”

Shane presses the stack of paper towels against Ilya’s forearm. The material becomes saturated with red in less than a second. Shane reaches for more. 

“How is this an accident?” Shane whispers. 

Ilya’s lazy gaze travels down to the floor. “I am going to clean it.” Shane realizes with horror that Ilya’s socks are soaked with blood, too, from standing in this same spot. “The blood. So relax.” 

“That’s not what I’m fucking worried about right now!” Shane spits, but then Ilya rears back at his tone and Shane’s face contorts. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” Shane guides Ilya with a hand clamped on his uninjured arm over to one of their stiff wooden chairs. When Ilya walks, Shane is baffled by how loose and unregulated his limbs are. He leans all his weight onto Shane, which almost makes Shane’s knees buckle, so then he overcorrects and leans entirely in the other direction, which forces Shane to tug him upright again. 

“You drank a lot tonight, huh?” Shane says it more to himself than anything. Ilya settles down in one of the chairs, and Shane crouches so he’s down on his knees in front of him. “Please, can you tell me what happened?”

Ilya groans, low and throaty. “I am going to clean.” 

“Ilya,” Shane says, his voice as level as he can get it, “I don’t care about any mess. You said this was an accident, right?” 

“I was washing -” Ilya burps - “the dishes.”

Skepticism descends on Shane’s face. “You never wash the dishes.” 

Ilya scowls. “Now I do.” He nods his head in the direction of the dish rack. Shane finds the culprit in question: a large steak knife, one reserved for slicing meats, with a swipe of red at its tip.

“So you were washing dishes, drunk?” 

Ilya nods, a sheepishness to his expression.

“You should never handle sharp objects when you’re drunk,” Shane scolds, because if he’s not listing facts tonight, then he’s worried something worse might come out of his mouth. Ilya’s blue eyes dart from one feature of Shane’s face to the other. They’re so big and open, and the pupils are shaking in this way that has Shane feeling pinpricks of tears behind his eyes as he stares. 

Ilya blinks, and then his eyes become glazed again. Shane blinks too until he pushes back the emotion in his eyes and settles for staring at Ilya’s cut instead. 

Underneath the second batch of paper towels, the gash looks more innocent than the murder scene it evoked in their kitchen. It’s a thin, jagged line. Shane doesn’t want to know how long Ilya was bleeding out before he arrived. 

“Why’d you drink so much tonight? Hm?” Shane tries to keep his voice gentle. He wipes at Ilya’s arm with the dirtied paper towels, swiping even at the stubborn patches of dried blood. He thinks belatedly that this is the closest they’ve gotten to touching off the ice. 

“That feels nice,” Ilya murmurs. He presses his cheek against the cold wood of the chair back. 

“Who can I call for you? Family, a friend?” Shane checks the time on his watch. “It’s morning in Moscow, right?” 

Ilya grins sleepily. Shane notices, and he taps Ilya’s cheek lightly with his palm to keep him awake. “Funny.”

“Funny?” Shane furrows his eyebrows. His knees dig painfully into their rugged carpet flooring. “What’s funny?”

“Try,” Ilya says. 

“Try…” Shane trails off. 

“Try to find someone.” Ilya’s eyes reopen slowly. “To call.” 

The question that has torn Shane apart all day climbs up his throat. With Ilya’s drunken honesty, he doesn’t attempt to dress it up in any way that might be socially acceptable. “Your parents. Are they around?”

Ilya’s eyebrows draw together. Shane corrects, softer: “Are they alive?”

Ilya attempts what might have been a subtle lean forward, but soon he’s careening until his sweat-soaked forehead knocks against Shane’s, and Shane has to hold him up with two firm hands against his chest. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Shane says, and he hates the way his voice breaks, “they might not be.” 

Ilya lets his head hang, so now all Shane can see above Ilya’s chest is his head of golden curls, which smell faintly of coconut. “Bingo.” The way he says it turns it into two words. Bin-go. Ilya drags his head up again, and he’s all smiles now. He jabs a slender finger against Shane’s chest, which prompts another bead of blood to jut out of his arm. “You are smart.” 

Shane feels anything but. “Both of them? They’re both dead?”

Ilya nods, slow and drunken. “First my mother, then my father.” He leans back, relieving some of the pressure in Shane’s arms from holding him up. “Then, hopefully, my brother.” Shane realizes too late it’s a joke. “Ha ha. No, he is fine. Not bad. But I prefer like this: me in Canada, he in Russia. You know?”

Shane nods, forcing a laugh because Ilya is staring at him like he’s searching for it.

“Does anyone know? At school?”

Ilya’s smile hikes up, so it bares his gums. Shane doesn’t know what to make of its stiffness. Ilya’s head lolls, and Shane catches it on its way down with his palm. 

Ilya settles into the touch, and it’s either that he’s losing more and more control of his body or that he’s choosing to nuzzle into it. Shane cups his cheek wordlessly. 

Ilya shakes his head, moving Shane’s hand side to side. “No one,” he says simply. When his lips move, the motion reverberates on Shane’s fingers.

“Oh,” Shane replies. Inexplicably, his eyes fill with tears. He turns his head so he’s staring down at the floor, dropping his hand from Ilya’s face to wring his own fingers. He attempts to blink them away before Ilya notices.

From where he’s sitting above Shane, Ilya reaches one of his large hands down to grip Shane’s chin. He lifts Shane’s face upward, exposing the layer of sheen in his eyes. Ilya hums, low in his throat, and rubs the pad of his thumb along Shane’s chin and down his jaw. 

“Sorry,” Shane mumbles, letting out a wet laugh. He reaches up to dab at his eyes, realizing he has to work around Ilya’s hand gripping his face to do so. He blinks ferociously. “Ignore me. Sorry.”

Ilya opens his mouth, poised to speak again. Shane gulps in anxious anticipation for what’s to come. 

Instead, Ilya closes it and drops his hand from Shane’s face to slap it across his own mouth. Ilya’s other arm reaches across his stomach, bracing it. It’s enough to dissipate Shane’s tears and ignite him to action.

“Let’s get you to the bathroom,” Shane orders. He pushes himself up from his knees to standing. 

Ilya staggers to his feet. Shane clamps a steady arm around Ilya’s waist, somewhere in the back of his mind registering the warmth of it, and drags him to the bathroom.

The moment Ilya sinks to his knees, it brings Shane back to watching that hulk of a boy collapse on the ice. Shane shivers. Ilya’s head flops onto the rim of the toilet, and he gags emptily twice before he vomits.

“You’re okay,” Shane whispers. His hand lifts of its own volition, aiming for the gap between Ilya’s shoulderblades, but Shane pulls away at the last second. He interlaces his hands together in his lap so they don’t do something stupid. He picks at his thumb while Ilya gurgles and groans into their toilet.

From the kitchen, a song comes on: “Pocketful of Sunshine.” 

Ilya lifts his head sluggishly. He has a dribble of vomit on his lower lip. 

“That’s just my -” Shane cuts himself off. “Give me one second.” He takes one step out of the bathroom, before a nagging feeling gets the better of him. He tears off a square of toilet paper and swipes at Ilya’s lip until it’s clean. 

Back in the kitchen, Shane answers the phone and throws Ilya’s dirty napkin in the trash in one motion. 

“Where are you?” 

Yuna’s tone is accusatory, which Shane knows means she is worried.

“I’m still at my apartment,” he says. “The - the Theragun is working really well. But I need more time. Please, don’t wait up for me.”

“But Shane -”

“Please,” Shane repeats. His voice cracks. 

He hears a sigh at the end of the line. “Alright. Remember, breakfast at 9.”

Shane nods. “Okay. Love you.” 

“I love you.” She hangs up.

Shane returns to the bathroom to find Ilya slumped next to the toilet, his head against the glass of the shower door and his eyes blissfully closed. The position bares his pale neck. He looks so unguarded, so open, so unlike the Ilya that Shane has come to know. 

“Done?” It’s all Shane can force himself to say.

Ilya nods against the glass door. “Better.” Again, he breaks it up into two words: Bet-ter. 

Shane gulps. His eyes drift to Ilya’s pale, veiny arm. The gash is no longer drooling blood. Shane kneels onto the floor, eye-level with Ilya once more, and digs under their sink for his first-aid kit. 

Wordlessly, Shane tears open a packet of alcohol wipes with his teeth. He lifts the wipe up with both hands, holding it up towards Ilya as if in surrender. Shane tilts his head, a question. Ilya nods: an answer. 

Shane begins dabbing at the cut, wiping up Ilya’s dried blood until the fissure of his skin is all that’s left. Ilya tenses underneath the wipe, his arm firming with the rush of blood, but he stays quiet. 

Shane tosses the wipe in the trash. He grabs a roll of gauze and surrenders it again to Ilya’s lazy gaze. This time, Ilya scrunches his nose. “Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

Ilya’s eyes flutter shut. Shane panics, perhaps more than he should, and reaches forward to tap Ilya’s cheek again, right by his birthmark. Ilya rouses enough to respond. “I don’t need.” 

Shane places the gauze back in the tin. He lifts up a pack of Band-Aids instead. “How about this?” 

Ilya shakes his head. He rotates his shoulders. Shane notices how they shift and press against the tightness of his cotton t-shirt. “I am fine.” 

Shane huffs. He feels an odd sense of foreboding that this is only a fraction of Ilya’s sober stubbornness. “Pick one, okay? Gauze or Band-Aids.” Shane holds one option in each of his hands, rattling them around to keep Ilya’s attention. He feels, oddly, like he’s trying to entertain a little kid. 

“Just tired,” Ilya mumbles. He blinks slowly. Shane shakes the Band-Aid box and the roll of gauze even harder in his hands. 

“Pick one and then you can sleep.” 

Ilya lifts one arm up - his injured one, Shane notes with slight disdain - and reaches for the gauze. 

Shane lets him take it. Ilya wraps it around his own arm with the pace of a turtle. Shane has to sit on his hands to stop himself from taking over when the wrapping travels much too far up Ilya’s arm, hardly covering the cut. But Ilya corrects himself, until eventually, with half the roll gone, he’s ready to tie it off. 

Ilya lifts the roll up to his mouth, places the gauze between his pearly teeth, and bares them as he rears his head back. The material snaps. Shane stares at Ilya’s mouth long after the gauze has left it.

And then Ilya hands the roll back to him, and Shane dutifully packs it away. He stands up himself and offers a hand to Ilya. The edge of Ilya’s lip upturns, but he doesn’t take it. He uses the rim of the toilet to push himself up instead. 

Shane walks over to Ilya’s bedroom door. He stops outside of it and glances behind him. Ilya is giving him a curious look.

“Can I…?” Shane stares down at the doorknob. 

Ilya hardly seems to hear him. He steps in front of Shane and opens the door himself. Shane busies himself with obtaining a glass of water from the kitchen. When he turns the corner, his heart thunders at the gory scene. He pointedly averts his eyes as the cup fills with water.

Eventually, he does cross the threshold into Ilya’s bedroom. The first thing Shane notices is that Ilya is laying on his back, sprawled like a starfish atop his covers, with each of his limbs hanging limply over the twin-sized bed. It looks doll-like under the lumbering athlete.

The second thing Shane notices is that the room is surprisingly threadbare. Where Shane expects clothes strewn on the floor and a shrine of cups and dishes Ilya can’t bother to bring back to the sink, he finds instead empty shelves and blank walls. The only item on Ilya’s nightstand is a photo printout of a beaming woman with unkempt blond curls. She looks a bit like Alana, Shane thinks, but most of all, a lot like Ilya.

Shane paws at Ilya’s bedsheets, tilting his head curiously. They’re thin and thready, fraying at the ends. Shane sets the glass of water down and taps Ilya’s shoulder. 

“You shouldn’t sleep on your back,” Shane whispers. Ilya groans and shrugs off Shane’s hand. “I know, I know,” Shane continues, “but it could be bad. You could choke on your own vomit. You understand?”

Shane might as well have been speaking French. Ilya doesn’t even twitch. 

Huffing, Shane digs his fingertips into the crook between Ilya’s solid body and the mattress and rolls him over until he’s laying on his side. He contemplates bringing Ilya another blanket, since he’s laying on top of his own, but decides against it. The longer he spends in Ilya’s room, the more it feels like an invasion of some unspoken rule.

Shane rubs his eyes. He spares just one last glance at Ilya’s head of soft curls against his pillowcase before shutting Ilya’s bedroom door gently. When it’s closed, he lets himself lean his body against it until the door holds his entire weight. 

He allows himself this one moment: he sucks in a deep, shaky breath and lets his eyes fall shut. And then he opens them and returns to the kitchen. 

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Shane wakes with a start, his massage gun clutched against his chest like a stuffed animal. 

He hardly has time to register where he is - on the couch, with his legs curled awkwardly beneath him - before he hears a door creak open in the apartment and his stomach drops. 

Ilya stomps his way through the hallway. When he enters the living room, his eyes land on Shane, disheveled and bleary-eyed and scrambling into a seated position, and he freezes.

Shane scans Ilya from head-to-toe: The messily-wrapped gauze has held through the night, but it has ballooned. It looks an awful lot like a floatie a kid might wear in the pool. 

Ilya’s eye bags have turned purple, and he looks paler than even before he vomited his guts up. But maybe that’s just because Shane is staring at him. 

And Ilya Rozanov is staring back.

“Rozanov,” Shane begins. His voice comes out empty. If Ilya hears him, he doesn’t say a word. 

Ilya creeps over to the kitchen. Shane watches as his eyes flicker to the hardwood floor. And then, Ilya threads his fingers into his curls and winces. “Fuck,” he curses. 

Shane shoots up from the couch and walks towards the kitchen, too. He approaches Ilya like one would a wild animal. “What’s wrong?” Shane asks cautiously.

Ilya winces and brings his hand to his forehead. He gestures to the kitchen. Shane looks at it too: It’s spotless and smells distinctly of bleach. 

Shane squints at Ilya. Ilya refuses to meet his gaze, looking anywhere but back at Shane. 

Eventually, Ilya breaks the silence. “You cleaned,” he croaks.

“Yes,” Shane confesses. 

“Fuck,” Ilya mutters again. He drops himself into the same wooden chair Shane dragged him to late last night. 

“Look,” Shane begins, searching for the right words. Ilya still won’t look at him. “I just want to say, I know we left off on - on, well, not the best terms, but there’s no need to feel -”

“Fuck,” Ilya repeats, scrubbing at his face. He mutters something in Russian that Shane doesn’t catch, but his voice deepens with the language switch. He finally looks up enough to make eye contact with Shane’s chin as he asks: “How are you here?”

Shane furrows his eyebrows. “I live here.” 

“Your parents. Hotel.” Ilya eyes the kitchen floor again. 

“I forgot something,” Shane mumbles. “I came back.” 

Ilya scrubs his face again. It leaves a red streak on his cheek. 

“Ilya -” 

“You should go back, no?” 

Shane frowns. 

“Your parents.” Ilya wipes at his nose. 

“I don’t…” Shane takes in Ilya’s appearance once more. “I don’t think I should leave yet.” He sighs. “You said something last night, and I’m not sure if you remember it, but -”

“Hollander,” Ilya interjects. 

“You might not remember,” Shane bulldozes on, “but I really think we should talk about it, because -”

“Hollander,” Ilya repeats, a warning somewhere within it. 

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” 

Ilya crosses his arms. “There is nothing to say.” He pauses, then lifts one hand to gesture to the kitchen. “I wish you did not do that.”

Shane’s eyes narrow. “What, clean it? Clean your blood, Ilya?” Ilya’s face twitches, and Shane feels a flash of regret. “I mean, it wasn’t a problem. Really. It’s fine. But - but I can’t just not address it.”

“I did not on purpose,” Ilya refutes. Shane rears his head back in confusion. “I would not do that. To you, or to anyone. Know this.” He presses a finger against his own chest. “You must know this.” 

“I know,” Shane says, slowly. In the back of his mind, he wishes Ilya had phrased it differently: I would not do that. To myself. “I believe you. Even last night, I believed you.” 

Ilya deflates. He sags back into the chair. “Okay.” 

Shane tries another approach. “I want to thank you for what you told me yesterday.” 

Ilya stares at him blankly. “Did I tell you you have weak backhand?”

“No, and I don’t have a weak backhand,” Shane scoffs. “Win a face-off first and then we’ll talk.”

“I always win face-off.” 

“Not against me.”

Ilya, against all odds, chuckles. “Fine.” Shane is still staring at him, so he adds: “Not against you.”

Shane notices that Ilya’s shoulders have relaxed, just slightly. Now is as good a time as ever. “I’m sorry about your parents.” 

Ilya’s smile drops. “Why ‘sorry’? You killed them?”

“Fuck you,” Shane sputters. “You know what I mean. I’m glad you said it, and it - it’s helpful for me to know, I guess, even though maybe you didn’t mean to tell me.” 

Ilya picks at his gauze-wrapped forearm. “This is what I did not want.” 

“Why?” Shane’s voice is soft. “What’s so bad about one person knowing?”

Ilya shoots up from the chair. Shane has to tilt his head up to meet his eyes, and maybe he should be scared, but all he knows is that he isn’t. “Is bad, because that look on your face.” Ilya waves his hand in front of Shane’s face like he’s casting a spell. 

“What look on my face?”

Ilya frowns. “Pity.” 

“That’s not fair,” Shane denies. Ilya begins stalking over to the couch, so Shane follows him. “I don’t pity you. I just want to - to understand you.” 

“You -” Ilya jabs a finger against Shane's chest - “understand me. Better than most. I am an asshole. I am rude.” He crosses his arms. “You know.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Shane says. He takes a page from Ilya’s book and jams his own finger against Ilya’s chest, hard enough that he takes a small step back. “Give that bullshit to anyone else. Not to me.” Shane points to the kitchen. “Not to me. You may not like it, but you told me… things, last night, and I helped you, and I didn’t complain, and I’m never going to.” Shane crosses his arms. “The least you can do is let your guard down the slightest centimeter so I can be nice to you without you throwing a goddamn fit. Okay?”

Ilya’s lip twitches. 

“Is that pity, Rozanov? You tell me.” 

Ilya licks his lips. He stays quiet.

“Is it, or is it not?” Shane demands.

A muscle jumps in Ilya’s cheek before his face smoothes. “I guess, maybe, no.” 

Shane’s knees feel like spaghetti. He just barely keeps himself upright. “Good.” 

Ilya squints at him. “Good,” he repeats. 

“So.” Shane eyes the clock warily. “Do you have plans today?”

“Uh…” Ilya knows as well as Shane does that casual conversation is foreign to them. He scratches the back of his neck. “No.”

Shane attempts a nonchalant shrug. He can tell from Ilya’s face that it comes off mechanical. “Well. We are going out to dinner tonight. Want to join?”

Ilya’s brows lift a fraction, mouth parting as if he’s misheard. He exhales through his nose. His gaze drags over Shane’s face, searching for the punchline.

“I mean it,” Shane says. “We - um - we’re going to a Russian restaurant.” 

Ilya cranes his head the other direction, where Shane can’t see him, presumably to school his expression. When he turns back, his face is red and he’s biting his lip. “A Russian restaurant?”

“Yeah,” Shane defends. “My dad is, um, a big fan of Russian history. Anyways. Not important. You should come.”

Ilya gulps. His throat has this pinkish tint to it, almost like a rash. “I think no. My concussion. Head hurts.” 

“That’s not your concussion, Rozanov. That’s your hangover.” 

Ilya scowls at him. Shane smiles sheepishly. 

“My parents really want to meet you,” Shane adds, which is a partial truth: his mom does want to meet Ilya, except it’s so she can cuss him out twenty times over. 

“We have never hung out. You want the first time to be with… your parents?”

“I guess,” Shane says weakly.

Ilya scratches his chin. “Maybe. Maybe.” 

Shane’s face brightens a smidge. He glances at the clock again. “I have to run to the hotel. I’ll text you the address, okay?”

Ilya tsks. “Russian restaurant,” he mutters. “Canadians are weird.”

“The weirdest,” Shane agrees, just to say something. He sees Ilya open his mouth, another excuse on his tongue, so Shane is out the door before he can speak it into existence. 

----

“What even is Russian food?”

Shane knew the question was coming, so he recites what he remembers from the menu: “Beef stroganoff. Um, vodka. Meat jelly. Fish. We all like fish, don’t we?” 

His parents stare dead-eyed at him. “So you are saying, you want us to cancel the sushi reservation we booked a month ago,” Yuna summarizes slowly, “to eat meat jelly instead.”

Shane burrows his head in his hands, just long enough to suck in a breath. “I know. I know how it sounds.” He lifts his head up and rips off the band-aid: “I invited Ilya.” 

David’s spoon clatters against his cereal bowl. Other patrons in the lobby glance over in concern. “Rozanov?”

“You hate him,” Yuna supplies, as if to jog Shane’s memory. 

“I don’t know if I hate him,” Shane counters. 

“I remember you saying you do,” David offers. 

“I - ugh.” Shane presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “We don’t love being around each other. Yes. That’s true.” He presses his lips together. He settles for saying: “He doesn’t have any family around here.” 

Yuna tilts her head. “Are they all in Russia?”

Shane responds with a half-truth. “No one is visiting him for Parents Weekend. I just thought it’d be nice.” 

“Oh,” Yuna says. She glances at her husband. “I was hoping to meet his parents.” 

The pit in Shane’s stomach grows. “Yeah.”

“I guess that’s fine,” Yuna says. “Honey, what do you think?”

David shrugs. “I mean, he’s a great player. The only one who can hold their own against you, if we’re honest. That’s something to talk about, isn’t it?”

Shane smiles at him gratefully. “Thanks, dad.” He remembers something, then: “Also, no pressure, but if you maybe want to read up on Russian history, um, that’d be great. I might have given him the impression that you’re, you know, a Russian history buff.”

David’s mouth hangs open. “Shane.” 

Shane gives them both a cautious smile. “I love you?” 

David clicks his tongue once, while Yuna reaches over to grab Shane’s hand. “We love you. Clearly. Enough for freaking meat jelly.” 

----

Shane’s leg won’t stop bouncing against the plush, leathery seat, even after Yuna swats at him for the third time. 

“If he’s not coming, can we go to the restaurant next door?” Yuna asks. 

“He’s coming,” Shane whispers back. He unlocks his phone again, stares at the same chat history he’s seen for the past few hours. 

Shane

Here’s the address: 5024 Chem. de la Côte-des-Neiges

Shane

7 pm tonight. Unless you prefer a different time

And then, twenty minutes ago: 

Shane 

We’re here, by the way. Sitting near the back, the final booth on your right

Yuna rubs Shane’s jean-clad leg. “I think it’s sweet, what you’re doing. But you know the saying: You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. If Rozanov doesn’t want to -”

“He wants to,” Shane cuts in. He glances at his mom nervously. “Sorry. Sorry. Maybe you’re right.” 

She sighs. “I need a drink.” 

They’ve ordered a bottle of red wine for the table and Shane’s parents are sipping it sluggishly when a figure approaches their table in all black. Shane is entirely zoned out, so when he sees just the torso, he mistakes him for the waiter. But then he speaks.

“Hello,” comes Ilya’s deep, rumbling voice. His face peeks out of a thick black scarf like a stern babushka. Shane straightens in his seat. 

“Hi, hello!” Shane’s voice is so artificially enthusiastic that it makes both Ilya and his own dad wince. He stares down at their current configuration in the booth: Shane sits on one side with his mother, and the empty spot is the seat by Shane’s dad. 

That won’t do.

“Here, why don’t -” Shane gets up out of the booth himself, motioning for his mother to step out. She does, all the while eyeing Shane warily. She plops herself down next to her husband, and Shane scoots in further opposite them. 

Ilya sets himself down delicately next to Shane, as if he is not over 200 pounds of pure muscle. Half his butt is off the seat with how far he chooses to sit.

“Mom, dad,” Shane says, “this is my roommate, Ilya.” 

Surprisingly, David speaks first. “Nice to meet you, son.” 

David outstretches his fingers for a handshake across the table. Ilya rears back as if David had swung at him instead. 

“Woah, buddy,” David chuckles. He glances at Shane nervously. He brings his hand back to his side right as Ilya seems to compose himself enough to reach for the handshake, so David awkwardly extends it a second time. 

“It is good to meet you,” Ilya says as they shake hands. Shane takes in his sharp side profile and finds that Ilya is smiling, albeit a nervous and plasticky one. 

“And I’m Yuna, Shane’s mom.” Yuna smiles politely at Ilya. She has enough grace not to reach for him at all.

“It is good to meet you,” Ilya repeats. His voice has this robotic tone to it, like he’s reading from a script. 

“We haven’t ordered yet,” Shane says. He sticks a menu into Ilya’s hands. 

“Oh, no?” Ilya glances at them in confusion. “I was late.” 

“Yes, we waited,” Yuna says, not unkindly. She takes another sip of her wine. “We’re excited to try your cuisine.” 

Ilya gulps. “Yes, my cuisine.” He glances at Shane, and Shane is incredulous to find that his pupils are shaking. “Your, uh, son knows I mainly eat frozen food at school. Nothing like, like this.” 

Ilya hands the menu back to Shane after glancing at it only briefly. When Shane takes it, he finds the areas where Ilya’s hands had gripped it to be moist with sweat. “You know what you want already?”

Ilya realizes a beat too late he’s being spoken to. “Yes, yes. Borscht.” He says the next part to Shane’s mom. “It is very lovely homemade soup for Russians. Everyone eats from the same pot. At home, of course.” 

“Oh.” Yuna tilts her head as she looks at the menu. “It looks like it’s an appetizer. Should we order one big one to share, then? David, what do you say?”

David nods along. “Why not. One big bork.” 

Shane winces at his dad’s pronunciation. Beside him, Ilya chuckles lightly. “Yes,” Ilya agrees. “Only if you want to. One ‘bork.’” 

The borscht arrives piping hot, as do their individual dishes: Chicken Kiev each for Shane and Ilya, and a beef stroganoff for Shane’s parents. 

David pauses after one particularly loud slurp. “So, Ilya. Did you know, at the peak of the Cold War, the world had 70,300 nuclear warheads?”

Borscht dribbles out of Shane's mouth at the abruptness. Ilya gulps his spoonful down, but chokes on it and has to smack his chest to breathe properly again. “No,” Ilya says simply. He turns to Shane. “He really likes this stuff, yes?”

Shane nods. “Yep. Russian history and hockey, that’s my dad,” Shane lies. He turns to his parents, desperate to change the conversation. “So, Ilya is recovering from a concussion.” 

“I am fine,” Ilya interjects with a smile. “All gone.” 

David shakes his head and chuckles. “Jeez, I remember those days. I got - what - five concussions when I played for McGill? What number are you on, Rozanov?” 

“Four,” Ilya replies. “And I am competitive,” he says with a small smirk on his lips, “so you will not have the lead for long.” 

David and Yuna laugh in unison. David’s shoulders shake with it, and he practically shakes the table too. 

“Are you also following this athlete-optimized diet Shane is on? I’m sure he’s told you about it,” Yuna says. 

Ilya glances at Shane. Shane jumps in to save him: “We haven’t really talked about that, no.” ‘We haven’t really talked’ might describe it better. 

“Whatever it is,” Ilya says, “I am sure I am not on it. I am, uh.” He scratches his arm, and only Shane knows it’s his injured one. “I am very hungover.” 

Yuna smiles, but David downright barks in laughter. “How bad is it?” He asks. 

A coy smile plays on Ilya’s lips. He glances between Shane’s parents. “I see two of each of you, so. Bad.” 

David smacks his hand on the table. Even Shane chuckles, stealing furtive glances at the small, victorious expression on Ilya’s face. “You might just need glasses, son,” David chuckles. “Shane wears them, you know.” 

“I would like to see those,” Ilya says curiously.

Shane shrugs, his face hot. He stuffs more chicken in his mouth. “Not if I can help it. I wish I had chosen different frames. I feel like I look like a mouse.” 

“We like your mouse glasses,” Yuna chimes in. 

“Mom!” 

Ilya chuckles beside him. Shane realizes Ilya is actually beside him, meaning that over the course of the meal, he scooted silently closer. “It’s okay to look like mouse if it helps you see. My old Russian coach used to say, ‘Ilya, you do not need to see net. The net is where net always is. Hundred push ups!’” 

Yuna giggles, and both she and Shane’s dad reach up to cover their mouths. Enough time spent with someone will do that, Shane supposes: all their mannerisms are a direct mirror of each other. 

The waiter comes by the table. “Whenever you’re ready,” she says, and deposits the check. She turns to just Ilya and asks: “Kak vam yeda? Otkuda vy iz Rossii?”

Ilya clears his throat. “V Moskve bylo ochen' vkusno. Borshch takoy zhe, kak tot, kotoryy gotovila moya mama.”

She smiles at him and leaves the table. Shane’s parents look on in slight awe. 

“How come she didn’t think we were Russian?” Yuna complains, although with a playful smile on her face. “Don’t I look like I could be Russian?” 

Ilya gives her a once-over. “There is too much… what is it… light. In your eyes. Is like an equation. Less light equals more Russian.” 

She grins at him. “I don’t know, Rozanov. Your eyes are awfully bright. They’re so blue. Shane,” she says as she turns to her son, “you never said his eyes were so blue.” 

Shane glares at her. “It didn’t seem important to mention.” 

“They’re piercing,” Yuna continues. David nods. 

“Piercing?” Ilya tilts his head. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tangle of dollar bills. 

“Ilya, honey, don’t worry about it,” Yuna says. “Shane, explain ‘piercing.’” 

“Oh, um. Piercing, in this case, it means…” Shane trails off as he watches the silent battle of Ilya unraveling his painfully crumpled dollar bills and Yuna swatting his hand away from the check. “It would mean your eyes are very sharp. Very alert. They just, sort of…” Ilya’s eyes leave the check long enough to catch Shane’s gaze. They’re so bright and shiny, his dirty-blond lashes bordering each sphere like a picture frame, that Shane’s mouth goes dry. “They see everything.” 

Ilya acquiesces to Yuna’s credit card. He leaves a few of his crumpled dollar bills on the table, presumably as a tip. “Hollander is piercing also,” Ilya says softly. It must be directed to Shane’s parents, but his eyes don’t leave Shane’s face.

Yuna grins. “He is, isn’t he?” 

----

Back at the hotel, Shane twirls around on the desk chair while his parents lay in bed.

“So, Rozanov’s an interesting one. He’s funny,” David says. Yuna nods.

“Sweetie, you know I trust your judgment,” Yuna says, reaching out to pet Shane’s hair. “So I hope I don’t offend you. But I liked him.” 

“Me too,” David adds. “No offense." 

A small smile spreads on Shane’s face. “None taken.” 

----

The next morning, they arrive at the Martlet training facility for the annual ‘Martlet Mini-Games of Parents Weekend.’ Shane thinks, personally, that the marketing could use a facelift. 

Yuna is buzzing with excitement. She meets Hayden’s parents, who fawn over Shane and pinch his freckled cheeks. Yuna grins at them until they’ve walked away, and then her face drops. “I think the wife has a weak swing. If we can pick our pairings for bean bag toss, I say we go for the Pikes.”

Shane groans. “Please don’t make me any enemies here, mom. I actually like Hayden.” 

“I do too!” She smirks. “Trust me, Shane, I’m a very sportsmanlike person.” 

David shoots Shane a look over his shoulder. He shakes his head slowly and mouths, Lie. 

They arrive in a gymnasium with various carnival games and toys scattered on the linoleum flooring. Each family stands in their own pod, chatting amongst themselves. 

Between a fresh-faced mom of one family and a burly, bearded dad of another, Ilya stands on his own, his hands clasped behind his back. His lips are pressed together. Shane feels something in him weaken.

Shane jogs ahead of his parents and sandwiches himself between Ilya and the dad. “Hi,” Shane breathes.

“Hollander,” Ilya says by way of greeting. His eyes have softened a bit. He’s staring at Shane with more amusement than irritation, at least, which is more than Shane can ask of him.

“My parents had a good time last night,” Shane rushes before the parents in question catch up to him. 

“Everything according to plan,” Ilya nods. “Now you think I am asshole and kiss-up.”

Shane opens his mouth to deny it. He finds it’s easier to let it slide instead. “I wasn’t sure you’d show up today.” 

“Coach made me.” Ilya says stiffly. “Something like, I am ‘too much of an asset not to come.’ You know.”

“What I told you,” comes their coach’s husky voice from behind them, “is that attendance today is mandatory, Rozanov.” 

Ilya recovers from his shock quicker than Shane does. “That’s what I said, no?” 

Coach rolls his eyes and assumes his rightful spot in the center of the ring of families. Shane’s parents stand behind him and Ilya.

“Thank you to all the Martlet families for coming out here tonight,” the coach begins. David lets out a cheer from behind Ilya. “The season’s off to a great start, and today’s about having some fun together. Alright, let’s get started.” He claps his hands together and introduces the first game, a relay race.

Shane half-listens to the instructions. The rest of his attention is on Ilya cracking his neck and his knuckles in sequential fashion next to him. “That’s bad for you,” Shane whispers. 

“Either this or cigarette,” Ilya mutters back. 

The point of the relay is for each family member to complete a challenge in their stretch, before passing a red baton onto the next member to continue the games. There are four sections, so some families will need one member to repeat a leg. 

Shane’s dad is chosen to run the first leg, and Yuna has already claimed the final one. Hayden’s mom clears her throat as the families begin to disperse.

“Ilya, sweetie. Would you like to join our team?”

Shane’s eyes flicker to Hayden’s face, which crumples in embarrassment. Ilya gulps and opens his mouth to respond. “Well -”

“That is so sweet,” Yuna interjects. Her tone is genuine, but Shane can see the gears turning in her head. “But we were hoping he’d join the Hollanders this round.”

Hayden’s mom smiles. “Oh. That’s quite alright. As long as you’re accounted for.” 

Ilya’s lips twitch, a slight upturn that Shane might be the only one to notice. “Yes. Thanks.”

David begins with an awful start, as he can’t play hopscotch for the life of him and thus is forced back to the starting line four separate times. Shane provides their team a partial boost as he manages to aim a plastic bow and arrow at a target faster than both Hayden and Cliff’s families. When Shane outstretches the baton towards Ilya for the third leg, Ilya’s fingers overlap with his own as they curl around it. It’s only a second, perhaps a fraction of one, but Ilya’s sturdy, warm grip sends a thrum of electricity down Shane’s spine. Shane lets go reluctantly. 

Ilya slides his gargantuan body into a purple hula hoop and spins it around his hips as he weaves through orange traffic cones. Shane has to slap a hand across his face to keep from cackling.

When Ilya passes the baton to Yuna, she dribbles a basketball to the far side of the gymnasium and attempts to dunk it. It’s an airball.

In the interim, Marlow’s dad tosses the ball and it swishes through the hoop. His family erupts into cheers. Yuna’s ball goes in next, sealing them in second place. She tsks. 

“Great job, honey,” David huffs as he jogs over. He offers high-fives to Shane, Ilya, and Yuna in turn.

“I let us down,” Yuna says with a shake of your head. “It was my fault.” 

“No,” Ilya soothes. “If anything, was David.” 

That startles Yuna out of her self-flaggelation enough to smile. She turns to her husband and grins devilishly. “You know what, Ilya? You’re right.” 

The games wind down until only one remains: A one-legged potato sack race, with one athlete and one parent sharing the same potato sack and hobbling across the gymnasium. It is decided that they’ll play against each other in pairs until only the top two families remain.

“Even my fantasy team wasn’t this complex,” Shane grumbles. 

His dad is in the bathroom - Yuna warns he might be “blowing it up” courtesy of the fiber in the borscht, which has Ilya stifling a laugh against the palm of his hand - which means that the only pairing that makes sense is for Yuna to team up with Shane. 

Shane glances at Ilya. Ilya seems to understand, because he immediately shuts it down. “I will take video,” he says, and points to the empty bleachers. 

Together, Yuna and Shane hobble in their shared potato sack and cross the finish line a solid few seconds before J.J.’s family does. Yuna jumps so high that she trips over the thready sack, and Shane has to catch her and pull her upright.

Across the gymnasium, Shane’s eyes find Ilya’s. True to his word, he has his phone in his hands and a small grin on his lips. He is the one blip of color in the sea of empty seats.

In the next round, the Hollanders win against the Comeaus. Yuna jumps and trips, again; Shane seeks out Ilya across the gym, again. This time, Ilya’s chin is resting in the heel of his palm, and he’s using the angle to bite at his pinky nail. He briefly stops biting his nail to crack each of his knuckles, one by one, on each hand.

Shane feels something in his chest tighten. Yuna taps him and brings him back to the game at hand. 

Semifinals involve the Hollanders against the Marlows. During this game, Shane trips and his foot nearly pops out of the potato sack, which would have been an automatic elimination had he not caught himself. He saves himself at the last moment and hobbles along, his arm linked with Yuna’s, until they cross the finish line.

They turn around and find Cliff and his mom face-down on the linoleum, groaning. Cliff jumps to his feet first. “Mom down! Mom down!” Cliff shouts. He leans down to help her up, but the fact that he’s laughing so hard he’s doubled over interferes with the effort. 

“Finals!” Yuna grins wolfishly and wraps her thin, warm arms around Shane’s body. Shane returns the embrace as his eyes find Ilya again in the stands. He’s hunched over himself, blinking hard. Shane follows Ilya’s line of sight and locates Cliff’s mom face-down on the floor. She’s laughing, and in fact seems content to stay down there. Yet Ilya’s gaze is hard and unwavering. 

Ilya wipes at his eye. Or maybe it’s underneath his eye, Shane can’t be sure. The motion makes Shane shiver. 

“We’re up against the Pikes,” Yuna instructs. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting -”

“I can’t.” 

Yuna balks. She laughs it off. “Funny. One last go, come on.”

Shane still isn’t quite sure what he’s doing. “Mom, I can’t. My hip still hurts.” 

Her eyes fill with concern. “What? It’s that bad?”

“No, no,” Shane backtracks. He’s going about this all wrong. He spares one final glance at Ilya. He looks like he’s withering. “I’m just tired. I’m really tired.” 

“I get that, Shane, but…” She holds up the potato sack between the two of them. “Hollanders are winners, right?”

Shane closes his eyes. He reopens them, like a thought occurred to him just that second and not a full minute ago. He cups his fingers around his mouth and shouts. “Rozanov!” 

Ilya jolts out of his daze alone on the bleachers. “Huh?”

“Rozanov, sub in!”

Yuna blinks slowly. 

“I will take video!” Ilya shouts back, holding up his phone. 

Shane shakes his head and jogs up to where Ilya is sitting. Up close, he looks pale, beads of sweat lining his hairline. His eyes are as bright and wild as ever. “You have to finish this game. Please. I’ll do your dishes for a week.” 

Ilya squints. “You already do my dishes.” 

Shane groans. “We’re going to talk about that later, by the way. I’m serious. Look at her.” As if on cue, Yuna crosses her arms with a look of genuine dejection marring her face. “That potato sack is calling your name, man.” 

Ilya bites his lip. Hayden’s dad shouts, “Hurry up!”

“For her,” Ilya mutters, glancing at Shane, “not for you. Okay?”

“Fine,” Shane huffs. Ilya moves to stand. Shane snatches his phone from his hands.

“What -”

“Video,” Shane says with a smirk. Ilya rolls his eyes. 

It’s one of those rare moments where Shane simultaneously records a video on a phone, but isn’t watching through the camera at all. He sees with his own eyes as his mom knocks her head with Ilya’s, forming a two-man huddle to discuss their game plan. Ilya straightens up with renewed fervor, his expression stoic. 

He hops from foot to foot, stretching his knees and hips out like they might before a game. Then Ilya sticks one muscular leg into the potato sack and outstretches the rim of it for Yuna to place hers. 

The Pikes must do the same, but Shane is hardly looking. The whistle blows, and then he’s cheering harder than he ever has as Ilya and his mom hop in unison, their hands around the rim of the potato sack like it’s a pair of oversized jeans. 

“You can do it! Come on! Come on!” Shane shouts. 

The Pikes take the lead when Yuna and Ilya jump out of sync. Yuna shakes her head and sticks her arm out, an open invitation for Ilya to link it with his. Ilya hesitates for just a beat at the sight of the arm, flicks his eyes up to Shane, and must see the way Shane is going ballistic in the bleachers because he takes it. 

They hop with the might of a thousand bunny rabbits. When the finish line approaches, with the Pikes trailing too close for comfort, Shane watches as Ilya and Yuna make a split second decision: They lock eyes and then, as if in slow motion, dive across the painted line like they’re jumping off a boat, potato sack and all. 

Ilya’s veiny outstretched arm crosses the finish line first, followed by Yuna’s staticky hair. The sound of their bodies against the linoleum emits a loud thwack. 

In the end, Coach calls it.

“And the Hollanders win!” He bellows. He takes in how Ilya staggers to his feet, cradling his gauze-wrapped forearm but smiling ear-to-ear, and how he offers Yuna a hand up herself. “The Hollanders and - and Ilya, I guess.”  

Shane’s mom runs up to him in the bleachers and wraps him in a hug. 

“Great job, mom,” Shane says, digging his nose into the sleek hair by her neck. They pull apart and Shane notices Ilya standing a step below them on the bleachers, wringing his fingers together. He has a dopey, childlike grin on his face.

“Group hug,” Yuna announces. She waves Ilya over until they form a small triangle on the stands. When Yuna wraps her arms around Shane and Ilya’s neck, the grip is so forceful that it knocks their foreheads together. Shane gets another heavy whiff of coconut. When Ilya’s arm presses across Shane’s shoulderblades, Shane swears he’s on fire. 

Ilya pulls away first, but he’s still smiling. He glances at Shane briefly before averting his eyes. “Good job, Hollander.” 

And Shane wants to deny it, at first; he prepares an “all you” to fly from his lips. But he finds it easier to let it slide instead. And so he accepts the first real compliment Ilya Rozanov has ever given him, and he does so with the unmistakable tint of blush on his cheeks. “Thanks.” 

----

When David and Yuna leave, Shane allows himself approximately eight minutes to feel so homesick his stomach twists.

And then he’s combing his hair back, sliding his glasses on, and hunkering in the library for midterms. 

Truthfully, he doesn’t see Ilya any more frequently than before. Shane comes home after late nights spent in the library and finds Ilya either secluded in his bedroom or sprawled out on their couch, all likely places for him to be. 

There is some newness, however. It’s this: 

“Hi,” Shane whispers as he toes off his shoes. He shakes the snow from his hair and it falls in their entranceway, melting into the knotted carpet. “Sorry,” Shane adds, although he knows he’s the only one who cares about a little water on the carpet.

“Hi,” Ilya replies. He’s curled up on the couch like a pillbug, his legs pressed to his chest and his thick arms wrapped around them. When Shane’s eyes meet his, he unravels, extending his legs and taking up three times the space. Shane smiles despite himself. “How was library?” Ilya asks. 

“Good,” Shane replies. He slips his coat off and hangs it up by the door. His padded feet approach the hallway that leads to his room, but he pauses in the entranceway. He pivots and sinks down on the couch. Ilya swings his legs the other direction to accommodate him. “I thought you’d be asleep by now.” 

“You thought I’d be plastered by now,” Ilya corrects. 

Shane stares at him curiously through the fluff of his dark fringe. “Your English’s really good.” 

Ilya chuckles darkly. “I just know drug words.”

“I’m serious.” Shane watches as Ilya’s pretense of a smile dissolves. His eyes are open, receptive. Piercing. “It can’t be easy, and you’re doing really well.” 

Ilya flashes him a smaller smile. “You are doing well also.” 

Shane isn’t quite sure what that means, just that it makes him gulp. “Thanks.” Shane’s eyes flicker to Ilya’s arm. The gash is starting to scab over. “Does it hurt?”

Ilya shakes his head. He mouths “no,” but no sound comes out. The hairs on Shane’s arm raise, as if he had yelled it instead.

“Good,” Shane nods. He breathes in and out, slowly. “Good.” 

----

A week later, Shane walks in on Ilya washing the dishes. 

Ilya jolts as if he’s been caught cheating on someone; that’s how meek and guilty he looks. He sets the plate in his hands down into the basin of the sink.

“Holy shit,” Shane mutters. 

“Don’t,” Ilya warns. He picks up the sponge again. 

Shane aims for a humorous tone; he is not always known to land where he aims. “Does this mean I have to stop calling you a slob behind your back?” 

Ilya grins. “Does this mean you have one less stick in your ass?” Ilya whines, mimicking Shane’s voice.

“It’s ‘up’ your ass.”

“Your ass,” Ilya corrects.

Shane rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” At the risk of ruining the moment, Shane drums his fingers on their chipped countertop. “How come you weren’t doing this before?”

Ilya reaches for the plate, his wrists dipping into soapy water. His sleeves are rolled up to the crook of his elbow, exposing his veiny forearms. He licks his lips, but right when Shane thinks he’s going to respond, he presses them together instead.

“It’s fine. Doesn't matter,” Shane assures. “As long as you keep it up, I mean.” 

Ilya slides the plate onto the drying rack Yuna bought for them. “I get lazy, sometimes.” He glances at Shane. “You know.” He wipes his jaw, but misses the splash of soapy water that coats it by a hair’s breadth. If Shane reaches over, he could wipe it clean. He doesn’t. “When we had losing streak, those few weeks, I just… And then the concussion. I was too lazy to even get out of bed.”

“I mean, obviously you got out of bed,” Shane replies. “Even with the concussion.” 

Ilya squints at him. He shakes his head and chortles. 

Shane looks at him, really looks at him. “But, to eat, right? You had to get up to eat.”

“Yes, I mean…” Ilya gestures to the kitchen as if the phantoms of his takeout boxes and dirty dishes were active listeners in the conversation. “I do one big meal each day. When I feel like this.” 

Shane’s shoulders slump. “Really?” His voice is soft. “Does anything help?”

“When we win.” He grins simply at Shane like they’re discussing the weather. He gestures to the empty fruit bowl in Shane’s hands. “Give that.” 

Shane does, and Ilya scrubs it with the sponge. “I mean, I feel bummed when we lose, but not…” He swallows his words. “It’s never that bad. What would you call that?”

“Lazy,” Ilya chirps. He racks the fruit bowl on the drying rack and towels off his hands. 

Shane shakes his head. “I see how you play. You are not lazy.”

“I am. Is fine.” He grins again. “My father always used to say this. And it’s funny, because I got it from him.”

Shane doesn’t laugh, although maybe he should, because Ilya’s face falls. “I wonder if you could see someone about this.”

Ilya does a slow blink. “I do not need someone to tell me how to wash dishes.”

“Not that,” Shane says. “For… I don’t know. When you feel really sad.”

Ilya furrows his eyebrows. “What, like a therapist?”

The air is stuffy, suddenly. Shane shifts from foot to foot. “I mean, would it be so crazy?”

Ilya frowns, a slight movement that juts out his bottom lip. “I am not a crazy person.” 

“It’s not for… crazy people,” Shane rebuts. “You can get an appointment through the student health hub. It’s free.”

Ilya bites his lip. “If you have done it, I did not mean to offend.”

“Well, no,” Shane says. “I haven’t. But I’ve heard that it, you know. Helps.”

Ilya rips a paper towel off the roll and wipes the basin of the sink, sopping up all the lingering bits of food.  “Hollander, winning is my therapy. You want to help me?” He tosses the soaked towel into the trash and glances back up at Shane with the self-satisfied smirk of a man who can’t be moved. “Work on your backhand.”

----

The game against Queen’s University is perhaps the one occasion that Coach uses their marketing spend to the fullest. The students in the stands are waving around posters of their own for tonight’s rivalry game. Shane spots one he points out to Cliff: “One Rink. One Winner.” Cliff spots another: “This is War.” 

The team itself is looking worse for wear: J.J. is injured and Hayden is nursing a low-grade fever. Shane skates over to Ilya during stretches. Ilya has his hips spread on the ice, his arms propping himself up in a thrusting motion. Shane tries to look at his face instead. 

“See anyone you recognize in the stands?” Shane asks him. He gets down on the ice next to Ilya, joining his stretch. Shane has only done three reps when Ilya switches to his next stretch, but Shane is quick to join him in the new one. 

“Yes. Shakespeare professor.” Ilya switches to his left leg. Shane does the same. “Fucking hate that guy,” Ilya mutters. 

Shane laughs. He scans the crowd himself. He locks eyes with one of his classmates and waves to her. She jumps up and cheers, her red, glossy hair floating with the motion. 

“Who is that?” Ilya’s voice breaks through Shane’s focus. 

“Oh. Rose,” Shane replies, a smile on his face. “Rose Landry. We’re partners in Econ. The project is - it’s horrible. She’s been such a help.” 

He glances at Ilya to see what stretch they’re doing next and finds he’s not moving at all. Ilya has his knees to the ice, his arms limp at his sides. His eyes are cloudy and his eyebrows pulled. 

“What?” Shane turns to face him fully.

“Nothing.” Ilya wipes his nose with the back of his glove. He starts a new stretch, then stops. “You won’t be home tonight, then?”

Shane laughs, a reflexive and nervous one. Ilya’s nose twitches. “No. When did I say that?”

Ilya smiles stiffly. “You and Rose, no?”

Shane almost laughs again. He stops himself at the look on Ilya’s face. “Uh, no. We’re friends.” 

“She is not your friend.” 

Shane shrinks back. “The hell? How do you know?”

“You are saying,” Ilya enunciates, his entire row of upper teeth bared, “she sees you as just a friend?”

“Yes,” Shane replies, just as slowly. 

“Hollander.” Ilya tsks. He stands up on his skates, so he’s leaning over where Shane crouches on all fours on the ice. “I did not think, after all these years on this earth, you need to be told what you look like.”

Shane blinks, as if the rapid movement can make him understand. He traces his thumb along his own jaw self-consciously. “I don’t get it. What do I look like?”

Ilya drops his chin to his chest, shaking his helmet-clad head. When he lifts it, Ilya’s eyes follow the arch of Shane’s eyebrow, drop down to the slope of his nose, and soak in the freckles that decorate his tanned cheeks. Ilya presses his lips together. “Neveroyatnyy,” he mutters. 

“What does that mean? Rozanov?” Shane staggers to his feet. “Rozanov!”

Ilya is already skating away. 

----

When they get back to their apartment, soaked with sweat and absolutely reeking, Shane stops in front of their bathroom door.

“Can I…?”

“Yes, Hollander,” Ilya replies easily. “I know you have panic attack when you are not clean.”

“I’ll be quick,” Shane promises, and he is: he’s in and out of the shower in ten minutes. He emerges from his room with a loose McGill tee on and dripping brown hair that speckles his shoulders. “All yours,” Shane calls out to the living room.

Ilya is standing still as a mannequin in front of the coffee table, his sweat congealing to form this curly scruff at the nape of his neck. 

“Have you moved at all in the last fifteen minutes?” Shane questions. 

Ilya rolls his eyes. “You will also have panic attack if the couch gets all gross. No?”

Shane opens his mouth to deny it. His shoulders slump instead. “Yeah,” he admits. “Thanks.” 

Ilya returns from the bathroom with a fluffy towel low on his waist. Low as in, Shane can see the sharp cut of his V-line, the moles peppered across his firm chest that seem to multiply as Shane’s eyes travel farther down his abdomen, and a red flush by his collarbone, like the hot water soaked into his complexion and left a stain there. His waist flexes and ripples as he walks, which doesn’t make much sense, if Shane is thinking rationally: isn’t walking all legs? 

Ilya clears his throat. He stands in front of Shane on the couch as if he’s unaware of his body, or how the loose knot on the towel is quivering and how Shane might just scream, in horror or in what, he doesn’t know, if it goes completely undone. 

Ilya, as if sensing this, adjusts the waistband, rolling the edge of the towel over once. Just once, and it’s not enough.

“Need something?” Shane’s voice comes out remarkably even. He’s staring pointedly past Ilya and at the TV, which is not on.

“Yes, uh. Can you look?”

Shane huffs. He does look, for the second time, and it makes his gut twist tighter than the first. “What?” He snaps, petulant.

Ilya’s expression falls. “Nothing.” 

“Sorry,” Shane mutters. He meets Ilya’s eyes, no matter how trying a task it is. They’re oddly innocent, all round and a little starry. Shane wonders, for maybe the first time, if Ilya Rozanov doesn’t know what he really looks like. “Sorry. M’ just tired. What’s up?”

Ilya’s shoulders slump. “Is fine.” 

“No, no, come on.” Shane stands up from the couch. 

Ilya sighs and rotates to the side. Shane squints at Ilya’s pale, bulging bicep. And then Ilya lifts his arm, exposing the skin underneath that stretches taut across his ribs.

Shane winces reflexively. “Shit.” One of his treacherous hands reaches up to touch the sprawling bruise, but he halts it mid-air. “When was this?”

Ilya drops his arm again. “When Hamilton checked me.” 

“Fuck him,” Shane curses reflexively. Ilya has a funny expression on his face. “Well. Are you worried it’s fractured?”

Ilya shakes his head. “It’s not.” 

“Lift up your arm again,” Shane orders. Ilya does. “Have you pressed on it?”

Ilya shakes his head. So Shane does it himself: he presses hard against Ilya’s ribcage, the skin warm and wet under the pads of Shane’s fingers. Another person might mistake Ilya’s expression for stoic, but Shane notices the flinch in his eyes. 

“Hurts, huh?”

Ilya nods. “Yeah.” Then he pauses. “Not bad.” 

“Well, is it a sharp pain? When you cough, or breathe deeply, is it a bad sting?” Shane reaches for his phone. “We should call Alana.” 

Ilya’s eyes widen. “What? No.” 

“It’s probably fractured,” Shane insists. 

“Is not. I know.” 

Shane crosses his arms. “No offense, but you are, like, known to downplay your injuries. If you came to me for this -”

Ilya shakes his head, mumbling to himself. “Stupid. This was stupid.” 

“It’s not stupid,” Shane says. “You need help.”

“I don’t,” Ilya cuts in. He rubs his face with an open palm. He chuckles joylessly against it. “I know it is not fractured. Is just a bruise.”

Shane tilts his head. “What? Just, like, run-of-the-mill bruise?” Ilya nods. “But then why…?” Shane starts and stops. He doesn’t know how to phrase it in a way that won’t make Ilya wilt. “Then why are you showing me?”

Ilya cracks his knuckles again. Shane has learned to recognize it for the nervous tic that it is. “I do not know. I guess…” He scratches at his forearm, picking at the scab. Shane has just enough restraint in himself to keep from swatting Ilya’s hand away. “You helped a lot, last time. I don’t know.” He laughs again, a dark and empty one. 

Shane smiles at him weakly. “Okay, well. I’m glad you think so. I can get you some ice, if you want.” 

Ilya shakes his head again. He reaches his hands up to cover his face, which leaves his towel dangerously unattended. When he removes his hands, his face is beet-red. The flush from his collarbone has spread like wildfire all across his bare chest. 

“I’m having stupid thoughts. I think I also, maybe, hit my head,” Ilya mutters. His voice is frail.

Shane chuckles to fill the silence. He catches his eyes drifting back down Ilya’s torso and he forces them upward. “Yeah. Me too.” 

----

Finals week is like wading through mud. 

All the promises Shane has made to his body, this body that has won him more hockey games than he can count, that has sustained thousands of body checks and petty squabbles on the ice, go out the window. He stays up until three in the morning slumped over his textbooks and downs two energy drinks a day on top of his morning coffee. Ilya must see the cans pile up, but blessedly, he doesn’t mention it.

So when his exams are done, Shane spends about fifteen minutes packing any remaining meticulously folded clothes that aren’t in his laundry hamper into a duffel bag for Christmas break. Then he collapses onto the couch, limbs splayed out like a starfish, and calls it a day.

Ilya is also sitting on that same couch, although Shane’s worn-out body doesn’t register it until his voice comes up a little behind him and a ways above.

“You are not acting much like Shane Hollander, Hollander,” Ilya notes. His voice is deep and rumbling.

“I’m a shell of the person I was a week ago,” Shane mutters.

Above him, Ilya cackles. “The drama.”

Shane groans, low and whiny in his throat. “How are you still standing?”

“I am sitting.” 

“Whatever,” Shane huffs. He reaches an arm somewhere behind him to try to smack Ilya’s arm. His hand collides with Ilya’s neck instead. 

“Shakespeare exam was shit show. But I knew it would be.” Ilya clears his throat. “Russian literature was easier,” he says, and Shane can practically hear his smirk.

“Is that not cheating?” Shane complains. “A Russian taking Russian literature?”

“What, you think we are all the same?” Ilya postulates, and again, Shane doesn’t even have to look at him to see that goddamn smirk. 

Shane extends his legs even farther off the couch, rolling his ankles. He sighs. “When are you going home?”

Ilya responds immediately. “I’m not.”

“What?” Shane sits up abruptly on the couch. His neck twinges in pain, but he whips his head around to face Ilya anyway. “You’re not?”

Ilya shakes his head. His curls bounce with it. They look especially shiny today. Shane noticed a new hair product in their shower; he had wanted to say something about it, but he didn’t.

“So then - what are you doing for winter break?”

Ilya spreads his arms wide, gesturing to their dingy apartment. He grins, a thin one. “You are looking at it.”

Shane’s face must twist into something downright horrified, because Ilya’s eyes widen until he’s reaching for Shane’s arm as if to soothe him. “What, what’s wrong?” Ilya inquires, his eyes searching Shane’s.

Shane smacks his palm to his forehead. “Oh God. I mean, I just assumed. That you’d be - well, why aren’t you? Your brother’s there, right? Moscow? Is it money? Is that why?”

“Hollander,” Ilya says, his voice strong and level, “you are having panic attack. Calm down.”

Shane knows it’s not a panic attack. It’s just this awful, clawing feeling in his chest. A feeling that looks like Ilya, alone in the bleachers with his chin in his palm. Ilya, blood gushing like a river down his arm. Ilya, in a crumple on the ice. 

“Is it money?” Shane repeats, a broken record. 

“We have same scholarship,” Ilya reminds him with a shake of the head. He reluctantly lets go of Shane’s arm. “I just don’t want to go. Long flight, just to see who, my brother?” He shrugs. “I can be annoyed from here, in Canada. For free. Don’t need to go to Russia to do that.”

Shane sucks in a tight breath. “Okay.” 

Ilya smiles, a genuine one that brightens his face. “See? Makes sense.”

“I’ll just give them a call,” Shane mutters to himself. He pulls out his phone. “They’ll be fine with it, of course. You’d need to pack. I mean, I can help with that.” 

A crease forms between Ilya’s brows. “Are you talking to me?”

Shane puts on his strongest smile, which is shaky at best. “Spend Christmas with us.”

Ilya laughs, a breathy and whimsical one. His pupils, though, are shaking.

“I’m serious,” Shane says.

“No.” Ilya crosses his arms. He leans back into the couch to feign nonchalance. “Your family’s only time alone with you? No.” 

“They really liked you,” Shane insists. 

“For one dinner,” Ilya spits. He lifts one finger up for emphasis. “That is not the same as… as what, two weeks?”

“We spend every Christmas at this cottage. It’s where I spend the summers, too. It’s got this gorgeous greenery around it, and even though it’s winter, it’s still nice because we can go sledding, and - and there’s a rink, to run drills -”

“Hollander,” Ilya says evenly, “is not the cottage I am worried about.” 

Shane’s shoulders slump. “They want you there. I want you there.” 

Ilya’s eyes soften. Still, he says: “You don’t know that.” Then, to Shane’s horror, he starts listing reasons: “Another mouth to feed. I’d be random guy in the house. I insulted your father to make your mother laugh. Plus, I snore.”

A dial tone emits from Shane’s phone and cuts Ilya short. 

“Hollander, what -”

A cheery voice on the other line chimes in. “Hi baby! We’re an hour away.” 

“Mom,” Shane begins. In front of him, Ilya is mouthing, over and over: No. No. No. “Mom, can Ilya stay with us during break?”

Ilya curses under his breath. 

Over the phone: “Sure. Of course.” A pause. “It’s good you asked now, actually. We need a tiebreaker. Which does Ilya prefer: pumpkin, apple, or pecan pie? I can also make a chocolate one with little peppermint flakes.” 

Shane tips his head in Ilya’s direction. Ilya perks up, but when he speaks, his voice is croaky. “Maybe, um. Apple.” 

A loud whoop sounds from the phone. “Yes! Fuck, yes!” Yuna clears her throat. “Sorry for the language, boys. It’s just - and Shane knows this - you know how your father gets. He loves my pumpkin pie, but it just makes him so gassy.”

“Is apple the one you wanted?” Ilya asks. His voice still has a nervous lilt to it, but his eyes are alight.

“More than anything,” Yuna whispers. “It’s crazy. It’s like you knew.” 

----

Shane starts the trip off as a horrible host. He falls asleep the second his head hits the headrest.

When he comes to, it’s to the sound of his mom laughing to the left of him. 

“Oh, Ilya, look,” she says, peering at Ilya through the rearview mirror. She tilts her head to the right, where Shane is scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “The king has risen.”

“How long was I out for?” Shane mumbles.

“Long enough,” Yuna responds. “We’re nearly there. Listen, we were playing two truths and a lie. Ilya, do you want to repeat yours for Shane?”

Ilya groans. “He knows which is the lie.”

Yuna’s eyes widen. “He does?”

Shane perks up. “I do?”

“Say it anyway,” Yuna insists. “Shane, don’t spoil it for me.” 

“Okay.” Ilya clears his throat. “One, I broke my nose twice before I was sixteen.” Shane winces at that. “Two, I have never missed a hockey practice. Three -”

Shane bursts out laughing. 

Ilya throws his head back against his headrest in the backseat. “See? Mrs. Hollander. He knows.” 

“Just Yuna is great,” Yuna says. Next to her, Shane is trying hard to stifle his giggles. “What is so funny, sleepyhead?”

“It’s just -” Shane sputters and coughs. He takes a deep breath. “Ilya is, like, always late to practice. When we first met, he told me, ‘you will not be so nice when we beat you’” - Shane says it in a lighter version of Ilya’s accent, which is possibly offensive but a quick glance to the backseat finds Ilya grinning - “and he was talking about, about this scrimmage the next day.” Shane laughs again, squeezing his eyes shut. Reminiscing. “And he was all intense about it. I thought to myself, man, this guy is the real deal. And then, the next day - he didn’t even show up!” 

Ilya attempts, unsuccessfully, to talk over Shane’s giggles. He waits them out instead. Under his breath, where only Shane can hear, he grumbles: “Which is worse, that I miss practice or that you remember every word I say?”

Shane rolls his eyes. He wraps his arms around the back of his seat like sneaky tentacles to try to pinch at Ilya’s legs, the way his mom used to do when he was little in his carseat. 

Even though Shane is staring ahead through the windshield, he can tell that Ilya is dodging Shane’s hands by the sound of his shins banging into the car door and against the back of Shane’s seat.

“You two are like a pack of wild dogs,” Yuna comments. She pulls into a long driveway lined with rose bushes and parks under the shade of a willow tree.

Ilya’s backseat thumping quiets. Behind him, Shane can hear a small voice whisper: “Wow.” 

----

Inside the cottage, Ilya does tentative laps around the living room. Shane lets him, observing him silently on the couch with the patience of an owner letting his dog sniff each and every flower. 

Ilya stops above the fireplace. He reaches one finger up to trace a picture frame on display. It’s Shane at five years old, a painted handprint on a miniature easel between his hands, accessorized at the thumb to look like a turkey. Yuna is kneeling down next to him. Shane’s hair grows past his ears in the photo.

“Ty vyglyadish' tochno tak zhe,” Ilya mutters. 

“What does that mean?”

Ilya shakes his head. “Oh. Yes. I was saying, you look the same.” Ilya turns back to face the older Shane, the one whose shins are tucked beneath his butt on the couch. “Same face.”

Shane grins. “Different hair, though.” 

“Yes,” Ilya notes. “Long.” 

“My mom made me cut it. She likes it short.” 

Ilya turns his back to the picture frame. He plops down on the couch, next to Shane. “Mine too.”

Shane perks up. “Hm?”

“My mom,” Ilya says distantly. He offers Shane a lopsided smile. “She liked my hair short.”

----

The Hollanders are ever-punctual, except for one major task: decorating the house for Christmas.

“This is honestly embarrassing,” Yuna complains. “Ilya, we should’ve had all this up before you got here.”

David halts his tedious task of detangling the Christmas lights that they hang up outside the cottage to cross his arms playfully. “Look, Ilya: answer this for me. How important would it be to you to have the outside of your house lit up for Christmas, when the nearest house is a ten minute drive?”

Ilya chuckles. He and Shane have been tasked with adding ornaments to the tree. “You know, most Russians do not even have Christmas tree. It’s more like a New Year’s tree.”

“Hm,” David hums, as if he’s taking a mental note. “But, Ilya, listen. For the sake of argument, let’s say you had a house in the middle of nowhere, far away from society, which is just how you like it.”

Yuna feigns outrage, a playful smile at her lips. “You are leading the witness! You can’t frame it like that!”

“Fine, fine,” David allows. “If you had no immediate neighbors, would you get up on that ladder, as a middle-aged man, and hang up Christmas lights?”

Ilya tilts his head, considering the question. He fiddles with a little reindeer figurine as he does so. “No. Never.” 

“Well, that’s fine,” Yuna concedes. She turns to Shane, who is on his tippy toes adding an acorn ornament to one of the topmost branches. “But Shane agrees with me. Right?”

Shane successfully stabilizes the ornament. He smiles softly. “Yeah. Decorating the outside of the house: it’s more about the principle.”

“Even though no one will see it?” Ilya furrows his eyebrows. 

“Yes, because you will see it,” Shane refutes. “And you’ll feel the Christmas spirit.” Yuna nods along appraisingly.

“Okay. We’ll all agree to disagree,” David concludes. He looks between him and his wife, and then Shane and Ilya. “One thing you’ll learn, boys, is it’s okay to have different opinions, so long as you have the same values.” He smiles at Yuna. “Keeps things fun.” 

----

On Christmas Eve, David shoos Ilya out of the kitchen after his fourth attempt to help them cook. 

“You already set the table and ran the dishwasher, Ilya. That’s more than enough,” he comforts. 

He and Shane decide to go for a walk around the lake instead. The air is frigid, their breath emerging as clouds as they speak. A single curl peeks out of Ilya’s blue beanie, the same one he wore the first time they met. Shane wants to reach up and tug on the loose strand, and after a few minutes of thinking about it, he does. 

“Am I just a toy to you, Hollander?” Ilya smirks. Shane nudges him with his shoulder. 

After a minute of walking in pleasant silence, Shane speaks up. “So, I know we’re grown and in college and all. And presents are - yeah. And I didn’t want you to think that you needed to get something for me, so that’s why I didn’t bring it up, but -”

“You got something for me?” Ilya asks, his voice small.

“Yeah.” The tips of Shane’s fingers go numb, so he stuffs them in his pockets. 

Ilya stops walking. “Let’s see it.”

Shane blushes. “No. It’s back at the house.” 

“Okay,” Ilya acknowledges. “Mine too.” 

Shane stops walking, this time. “You got something for me?”

“Yes,” Ilya says. He squints at Shane’s expression. “Why, were you not expecting it?”

Shane shrugs. “You didn’t have to, is all.” 

Snow begins falling in handfuls, peppering Shane’s hair where it falls out of his hood. The lake is frozen over, but a few chunks of broken ice float pleasantly downstream. 

“The first idea I had for a present for you, I realized, this cannot be my present to you,” Ilya chuckles. He shakes his head and brushes a chunk of snow out of his eyebrow. “Is more for me.”

Shane finds it’s easier to speak to Ilya when he’s not staring straight at him. Shane analyzes him from the side: memorizes the perfect slope of his nose, the cupid’s bow of his lips. “Well, what was it?”

Ilya takes his gloved hands out of his coat pockets. “Do you want these? My gloves?”

Shane shakes his head. He burrows his hands further into his own pockets. “What was the gift?”

“It’s stupid.”

“But -”

“I saw the therapist,” Ilya admits. He chortles. “See how bad I am at gifts, hm? My gift to you: I am trying to be less fucked up.” 

Shane’s eyes widen. “You went to therapy?”

Ilya glances at him from the corner of his blue-green eyes. “Pussy, I know.”

Shane shoves Ilya again with his shoulder; there are so many layers between them, a jacket and then a thermal and then an undershirt, that neither really feels it. “Stop that. Ilya, that’s great. That - that’s a great present to me. I wanted that. I did.” 

Ilya smiles. His cheeks are bright red, maybe from the cold and maybe from something more. “You are easy to please.”

“Or maybe you’re very pleasing,” Shane quips. 

Ilya stops walking again. He’s staring straight ahead, right at Shane or maybe through him, his shoulders hunched. 

Shane bears the cold to swipe his hair out of his face with his brittle fingers. The strands fall right back. “Ilya?” He asks, tentative. 

When Ilya’s eyes meet his, they’re trembling, dashing from side to side. “I wanted to say sorry.”

“For what?” Shane questions. He can hear his own heartbeat, a dull thrum underneath his skin.

“How I was when we met.”

“It’s fine,” Shane insists. “We - we’ve gone over this, haven’t we? I hardly think about it.” Ilya is still staring at him like he’s something breakable. 

“But I never said it,” Ilya continues, “and…” He buries his face in his glove-clad hands. Shane’s breath hitches. 

“Ilya -”

“My feelings have changed, recently. For you.” Ilya’s voice is muffled beneath his gloves. Shane uses his own hands to tug Ilya’s arms down. When the brutal winter air meets Ilya’s face again, it crumples. “Maybe was not just recently,” Ilya confesses.

“I don’t understand,” Shane whispers. 

“Let me finish.”

But Shane’s mind has already latched onto the words: My feelings have changed. His voice betrays him by breaking when he speaks, his shiny brown eyes pleading. “Did - did I do something wrong?”

Although Shane doesn’t think it possible, Ilya’s face drains of color. His lips part. And then he swears under his breath. “Bozhe, pomogi mne,” he mutters. 

“What does that -”

Ilya goes very still. He blinks once. “Fuck,” he whispers, low enough, but Shane catches it. And then he’s reaching up with the sheepskin glove on his right hand to layer it atop Shane’s freckled cheek. Ilya leans in and hopes he lands where he’s meant to because he’s so scared that he squeezes his eyes completely shut: He kisses him. 

He lands where he’s meant to. Their lips collide, Ilya’s lips soft and parted and Shane’s dry and cold, his whole face cold, but in his chest he’s burning and flushed. 

Shane emits a startled noise before his lips move against Ilya’s. Ilya moves his hands so both of his gloved palms are against either side of Shane’s face, holding him as delicately as he would a cut of glass. He breaks the kiss for just a second, long enough to place the pointer finger of his glove between his teeth and tug it off. He flings it away with the motion of his head, where it lands somewhere on the ice-covered lake with a watery plop that makes Shane jolt. Ilya wraps his warm, bare fingers across Shane’s face to caress his cheek, his mouth pressing deeper and deeper. 

Ilya lets himself move in the direction of the kiss until Shane’s back is wedged against the wooden fence that marks the lakeside trail. It digs in sharply between Shane’s shoulderblades and he lets it. His hands roam up Ilya’s wrists and climb into his hair, beneath his beanie, where they settle. “Mhm,” Shane hums against Ilya’s lips, lightheaded with the feeling. Ilya’s thumb is stroking against Shane’s jawline, maneuvering his chin up and up until the stretch pulls at his throat.

Ilya breaks the kiss and steps back before Shane can recover. Shane is panting hard. Ilya is the first to speak. 

“I maybe should have asked,” Ilya manages, voice weak. 

Of all the noises to come from Shane’s mouth, he is most surprised to find that it’s a laugh. Ilya stares at him like he’s a lunatic. “Holy shit,” Shane gasps.

“Bad shit or good shit?”

Shane just shakes his head, repeating it like a mantra. “Holy shit.”

“Hollander,” Ilya pleads. “Shane.” 

“The team… and, I mean, we live together,” Shane whispers. The cloud of his breath obscures Ilya’s face, just for a moment, so when it dissipates Shane can see it again in all its glory: his wide, eager eyes, his swollen lips, that sharp jaw, the birthmark on his cheek. “This is such a bad idea.”

“You mean…” Ilya scratches his eyebrow with his slender fingers. “You don’t want to?”

Shane bites his lip. “That’s not what I said.” And then he’s tugging Ilya close by his babushka scarf, so fast that he stumbles, and Shane presses his lips to Ilya’s again.

They kiss harder, faster than before. Shane can feel Ilya’s tongue in his mouth, his teeth biting down on Shane’s lip, and their heavy breath fanning against each other’s faces, one person’s heat inseparable from the other’s. Ilya breaks the kiss and leans down. Shane whines, incomprehensibly, until he feels Ilya’s hands at his lower back and he finds himself being pressed against Ilya, torso to torso. Ilya presses his lips against Shane’s again, his hands roaming beneath Shane’s winter coat and his sensible thermal underwear until they latch onto his funnel of a waist, encircling it. 

Shane stumbles back in his lean against the fence. Ilya catches him with one arm around his back, breaking the kiss with a huff. 

“Sorry,” Ilya huffs, looking startled. “I can’t - is like I can’t control myself.” 

“Don’t,” Shane whispers. “Then don’t.” 

Ilya lets his eyes fall shut. Shane pecks the corners of his lips. When he opens them, though, there’s conflict shining within them. “Dinner is soon, hm? We should stop.”

Then, he presses his forehead against Shane’s cheek, leaning against him for stability. He slowly lifts his head up until he can press a chaste kiss against Shane’s jaw. 

“Are you telling me or telling yourself?” Shane’s croaks, breathless. He turns his head to catch Ilya’s lips where they were trailing his jaw, fusing their lips together. 

“I’m trying to,” Ilya breathes hard against his lips. Shane welcomes the warmth.

“Trying to…” Shane continues, confused. 

“Trying to stop,” Ilya groans, wrapping his other arm around Shane’s back. “S’ not working so well,” he mumbles against Shane’s throat. Shane realizes belatedly that Ilya is hugging him, practically, with both his arms beneath Shane’s winter layers, and so Shane wraps his arms around Ilya’s torso too. 

“This is nice,” Shane whispers, his mouth by Ilya’s ear. 

Ilya tilts his head, and Shane realizes with delight that this is the face he makes when he’s trying to remember something, and that there are so many other faces of Ilya’s he has yet to see. “When did your mother say dinner was?” 

Shane laughs softly. He glances at his watch. “Two minutes ago.” 

Ilya noses at Shane’s jaw. He might feel embarrassed if not for the fact that Shane tilts his head, baring his neck for better access. “Fuck,” he chuckles against Shane’s skin. “Ty mne nuzhen.”

Shane pulls back. “Be normal for the next hour, okay? When my parents are around. Can you?”

Ilya makes a small noise of complaint. Shane rolls his eyes. 

“Come on, Ilya. Can you?”

“Yes,” Ilya mumbles.

“Good,” Shane soothes. He runs his hands along the pinkish rim of Ilya’s ear, which has slipped out of his beanie. “And then,” he whispers, “after dinner…” He brushes his lips against the outer shell of Ilya’s ear. “Come to my room.”

Ilya looks like he’s been slapped in the face. Or, he looks like he’s been revived from the dead. Shane wishes he had a camera. He’d take a photo of this expression and frame it.

----

Yuna places a slice of roasted meat onto Ilya’s plate first, then David’s and Shane’s. Ilya is smiling politely, but every time he so much as glances at Shane, his cheeks transform like a chameleon into a violent beet-red. 

David stuffs an obscene amount of potatoes into his mouth. He swallows them after approximately two chews. “So, Ilya.” Ilya startles in his seat and drops his fork. “Did you know that the first McDonald’s opened in the Soviet Union in 1990 in Pushkin Square?”

“Wow,” Ilya comments. He shoots Shane a desperate look.

“Dad,” Shane interjects, “you can stop with the Russia facts now.” 

David drops his head in his hands. Beneath them, he whispers: “Thank God.”

The air is waft with the smell of apple pie emanating from the oven. Ilya clears his plate in about half the time it takes Shane to, but Yuna simply responds by layering another cut of meat onto Ilya’s so he busies himself. He smiles at her, string beans caught in his teeth.

“You know,” Yuna begins, her sparkling eyes watching Ilya chew, “we are really happy you’re here with us. You’re a great player, and you’re a great friend to Shane.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “And I know it can’t be easy. You’re a long way from home.”

Ilya’s eyes dance over his company: Yuna crowding his dinner plate with food, David licking the sauce off his fingers, and Shane with the tip of his tongue jutting out in strict focus, using his fork to maneuver strands of asparagus into partitions on his plate so that none of his side dishes touch.

“Yes, well.” Ilya hopes his grin is dopey in that vaguely happy way, not in the I just kissed the living daylights out of your son, and he kissed me back so hard my lips still hurt, and after I wash these dishes I’m going to go to his room and do it all over again way. Under the table, Shane probes Ilya’s shin with his foot. “Depends how you look at it.”

Chapter End Notes

These two boys have my heart! I wanted to end on a hopeful note - this end para is really the first time we get direct insight into Ilya's thoughts. I will leave you all to wonder what they got each other for Christmas…

I love and appreciate all comments. Please let me know what you think.