Chapter Text
April 2017 — Boston
Ilya didn’t know how long they had been sitting there, but it was long enough to know if he had to listen to the unrelenting tick of the clock for another minute he might just go mad.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Yuna glance up at it more than once. Though their tears had mostly subsided, she remained in the chair next to his with their forearms pressed against each other. Ilya didn’t mind. The touch was an unspoken understanding that they were here for the same reason. For a person they both loved.
He wasn’t sure if her glances were a silent plea for time to speed up or if she shared the same irritation with the noise. But when she rubbed at her temples for the second time, Ilya decided he had to do something. He sat here helpless and small for too long.
He stood abruptly and crossed the room in four steps, hoping he was making the right choice. The sudden loss of Yuna’s contact hurt more than Ilya anticipated.
When he reached the wall the clock hung on, Ilya went to work. Grateful for his professional athlete build that allowed for him to reach where the clock rested easily. He took the device off the wall, turned it over and pried the bulky battery from where it lived. The ticking stopped instantly.
Better.
He hung the clock back on the wall like nothing happened. When he turned back to Shane’s parents with an apology already formed on his lips, they were both staring at him. Both wore faint, soft smiles laced with amusement and something warmer he couldn’t quite name.
It was the same smile Shane wore whenever Ilya did something unexpectedly gentle.
Ilya had built an entire identity around being hard to approach, harder to move, impossible to read. Moments like this betrayed him—his instinct to ease someone else’s discomfort took over.
That smile always told him the truth: Shane saw the difference. And worse—he accepted the parts Ilya tried so desperately to hide.
A quiet laugh pulled Ilya out of his thoughts.
“You beat me to it,” Yuna said, nodding at the clock. “I was going to smash it. You were much gentler than I would’ve been.”
For the first time since they arrived, the room felt like it could breathe. A smile found itself on his lips as he crossed back to his chair and settled in, arm again pressed into Yuna’s.
Also better.
The phone in Ilya’s pocket started to buzz again, but he made no move to retrieve it.
Yuna and David both glanced at him when it continued vibrating. Ilya meant to dismiss it like the calls, but Yuna’s raised eyebrow made him reconsider. He pulled the phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. Marleau’s name stared back at him.
Yeah. He wasn't answering that.
He declined the call without hesitation. The lack of remorse lasted exactly until he looked up and caught Yuna’s expression. It had shifted from curious to something quieter. Resigned.
What did she expect? That he’d answer the man who had just put her son in the hospital?
He didn’t have to wonder for long. Ilya could tell where Shane got his affinity for prying.
“It wasn’t his fault, you know,” Yuna said gently. She looked down at her hands, smoothing her thumb over the edge of a perfectly manicured nail. “Don’t get me wrong, the hit was rough. But it was wrong place, wrong time. The doctor said it was a perfect storm.”
Ilya let the words linger in the air for a moment as he translated the words.
A perfect storm. Fuck.
Now that he knew Shane was alive and breathing, his thoughts finally slowed enough to reflect on what he did on the ice. His tunnel vision expanded and anger started melting into guilt. Marleau hadn’t meant to hurt Shane. Sure, Marleau was a fucking neanderthal, but he would never take someone out like that. Ilya had beaten him senseless anyway.
He would have kept going too. Ilya would have killed him if someone hadn’t dragged him off.
Ilya had assumed intent and cruelty in the wake of the incident. He’d risked everything Shane and Ilya had worked to keep hidden, all because he didn’t take a second to think.
Ilya had never told Marleau about Shane. But Marleau was his closest friend on the Raiders. They spent too many hours side by side for him not to notice the shift. Ilya had been a ghost in his own life. He would attend practice, games, meetings, and then go home to repeat the next day.
His appetite was barely there. His patience ran thin. His eyes were always somewhere else. He’d turned down nights out, brushed off questions, dodged concern with half-answers. Marleau had asked a few times if he was okay and Ilya shrugged it off.
Marleau was stupid, but he was also perceptive. Ilya could almost see from Marleau’s eyes the way his body tensed when close to Shane and when someone mentioned his name, or the way Ilya had to tear his eyes off him.
Shane was the most obvious answer, even if Ilya never said his name out loud.
Maybe he thought finishing a hard check would snap Ilya out of whatever spiral he’d been in or send Shane a message. Instead, it had blown everything open.
“A perfect storm,” Ilya repeated under his breath while his mind settled the facts. “He’d love that. Even now he manages to be perfect. He hates doing anything halfway.” A smile almost tugged at his lips at the chirp.
“You know Shane well,” David said, a subtle smirk touching his face.
They didn’t press him further about Marleau, and Ilya was grateful. He wasn’t ready to forgive him, but he knew that wasn’t what Yuna was saying. She was doing what she was good at—she was grounding him.
Ilya knew he would come around. In time. His grip tightened briefly around his phone before he slipped it back into his pocket.
A few minutes later, another phone buzzed—this time David’s. No one said the next part aloud.
This was Ilya’s cue to leave.
The thought of being away from this room, even for an hour, made something cold slide down his spine. Shane’s parents were his only tether to updates.
The fear must have shown, because David extended his phone toward him.
“Save your number,” he said. “I’ll call you when Hayden leaves… or if anything changes. I promise.”
The promise was more than Ilya could have asked for. It was a quiet acceptance he had never known from his own father. If his heart wasn’t already in pieces, that would have done it.
“Thank you,” Ilya said softly, taking the phone. He triple-checked the number before handing it back.
He didn’t miss the look Yuna and David exchanged.
It took more strength than he possessed to peel himself from the synthetic leather chair and walk toward the door.
He couldn’t bring himself to look back.
***
January 2017 — Tampa Bay
Ilya heard the lock of the hotel door click.
He had been staring at the back of his eyelids for the past twenty minutes, pulse loud enough in his ears to make sleep impossible despite his exhaustion. Between the calls from Russia, the pressure from his coach, and being haunted by Shane every time he closed his eyes, he was depleted. He kept his eyes closed under the illusion he was resting, trying to delay the clock starting. Their near-perfect weekend was about to be ruined.
Ever since Shane ran out on him months ago, Ilya knew this was coming. He figured Shane was smart enough to recognize they couldn't keep going like this, especially after Shane had spent their months apart with a girlfriend. This had to be done; Ilya knew it, and he thought Shane knew it, too.
Still, when Shane mentioned talking on the beach earlier, Ilya had been reluctant to agree, but he’d handed over the keycard anyway. This was the beginning of the end. He didn't have to open his eyes to know Shane had paused across the room; Shane always hesitated, gathering himself. Ilya hated that he knew that.
When the mattress finally dipped, Ilya let his eyes open slowly, pretending he had just woken up. Shane was already looking at him—like Ilya was something rare instead of something reckless.
“Hmph. You are slow, Hollander,” he muttered, rolling his head back onto the pillow. “Not as slow as you were on the ice tonight.”
The insult felt safer than anything honest. Using his last name felt safer, too. The truth was that they played better together than apart. Every move was instinctive. On the ice, they belonged together.
Shane laughed—the sound hitting Ilya in the chest—and brushed a curl from his forehead. The touch was gentle—absurdly gentle for someone who could drive him into the boards at full speed. And Ilya wanted more, but if this was all he would get, he would cherish it. He would find some way to bottle up this feeling and keep it stored forever.
He rolled over to face Shane, finally allowing himself to melt into the moment. He leaned in, breathing in the scent of Shane’s expensive shampoo. He lingered there, memorizing the notes of the scent, wondering if he could find it in Boston just to make the lonely nights feel better.
His hands slid to Shane’s hips, pulling him closer. If he kept him close enough, maybe the conversation would dissolve into muscle memory.
“I love when you pull hair,” Ilya said, meaning it. Small confessions were safe.
When Shane pulled away, intent on talking, Ilya’s chest tightened. He was already braced for the impact of Shane ending it. He wasn't surprised when Shane said he was gay; he had known long before Shane ever admitted it. But hearing it out loud felt like a crack forming in something structural.
“Okay… and so what?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral.
As Shane kept going, the heat drained from Ilya's body. This wasn’t the way he thought tonight would go. Shane wasn't stepping away; he was stepping forward. He was talking about honesty and wanting more. He had mistaken Shane’s look on the beach for resolution, but it had been hope.
Ilya had convinced himself Shane would be the smart one—that he would recognize this would ruin everything. It would ruin Shane. Ilya couldn’t even feel happy that Shane wanted him, because he knew the cost. Since Shane wouldn't end it, Ilya had to.
So, Ilya took the only route he knew: Walls. Cruelty. Lies.
He heard the plea in his own voice even if Shane didn’t. Leave it here. Let it stay survivable. But Shane didn’t back down. He twisted toward Ilya, frustration and hurt written plainly on his face, insisting that Ilya felt it too.
Of course he felt it. That was the problem.
Ilya slipped out of his body.
“What I feel is irrelevant,” he said quietly, because if he spoke any louder his voice would crack. “And you are wrong. I don’t want secret.”
That part wasn’t a lie. He didn’t want to hide forever. He didn't want to live flinching every time someone looked too closely at them. He had spent his entire life without love, and if he finally found it, he didn't want to suppress it. But a "normal" life was impossible, and Shane—golden, marketable Shane—would suffocate under the weight of a hidden life.
Ilya sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wanted Shane to argue harder, to insist. To give him something to hold onto that didn’t feel like a death sentence for their careers. Instead, he heard Shane stand and cross the room.
Every instinct in Ilya’s body screamed at him to turn around. To grab him. To admit he had loved him for longer than he had language for it.
He didn’t move.
“Goodbye, Ilya.”
His name landed softer than any insult ever had.
His hands were trembling, but he forced them still with the ease of someone who had practiced for this his whole life. He told himself this was necessary—that he was taking care of Shane by letting him go. Ilya sat there, unmoving, for what felt like hours, and let the first tear fall.
***
April 2017 — Boston
“Ilya.”
The memory shattered like ice under a blade at the sound of his name. The phantom scent of Shane’s shampoo was replaced instantly by the bitter sting of nicotine and the sterile, heavy dampness of the Florida night.
Ilya didn’t jump. He just took one last, slow drag of his cigarette, watching the smoke vanish into the shadows of the concrete pillar he was leaning against. He was tucked so far back into the hospital’s exterior architecture that he was practically part of the building.
Most people would have walked right past this corner without noticing it. The overhang swallowed the light from the parking lot, and the narrow strip of pavement was shielded from the main entrance by two thick support columns. It wasn’t an official smoking area. In fact, the hospital signs posted near the doors made it very clear that smoking anywhere on campus wasn’t allowed.
That was exactly why Ilya liked it.
He’d spent enough years navigating “no smoking” arenas to develop a talent for finding these little dead zones—places just far enough away from cameras, security, and self-righteous arena staff. Quiet pockets where the rules didn’t quite reach.
There was only one person who would think to check here.
Ilya exhaled slowly, the smoke curling up past his temple as he tipped his head back against the cool concrete.
“I was wondering how long it would take you,” he muttered.
He didn’t need to turn around to know who was standing there. No one else would know to look for him in the exact kind of forgotten corner he’d been disappearing into for the better part of a decade.
And no one else would say his name like that—steady and familiar, but threaded with a quiet remorse it didn’t normally carry.
The cigarette burned between his fingers while the silence stretched between them, both of them knowing there was too much to say and no easy place to start.