Chapter Text
Monday
Shane drifted out of sleep and felt Ilya’s arms around him.
“When did you get here?” he asked. Ilya made an incoherent questioning sound.
“Why aren’t you in Boston?”
“Why would I be in Boston?” Ilya mumbled, clearly still not fully awake.
Shane opened his eyes because that was a weird question and he wanted to know if Ilya was messing with him.
“What the fuck?” he asked under his breath because he didn’t recognize the room he was in at all. He rubbed his eyes and then looked at his hand and saw he had a ring on his left hand. What? He ran his fingers through his hair to, like, try to clear his head and his hair was way longer than it should have been.
“Ilya?” Ilya finally opened his eyes and whatever he saw on Shane’s face obviously concerned him.
“What’s wrong?” Ilya asked.
“Where are we?” Shane asked warily.
“Home?” Ilya said, like he wasn’t sure what Shane was asking him.
“Where is home?”
“Ottawa…” Ilya said, patiently.
“Why are we…” Shane didn’t know how to articulate his question but Ilya filled an answer to a question that wasn’t close to what he was asking.
“Because we got back from our road trip last night?” Ilya ventured.
Shane sprang out of bed then and started to pace. He realized he was naked and for some reason, it felt like he shouldn’t be naked in front of this Ilya. Which he knew was ridiculous. If what he thought was happening was what was actually happening, he’d had sex with this man. And even if he hadn’t, he was naked around other men all the time. It just felt different in a bedroom than in a locker room. He started opening drawers to find a pair or sweats or briefs or something. He opened like three drawers and none of them had what he was looking for.
“Where the fuck are my clothes?” he said, frustrated. The next drawer he opened had pants that looked like they would fit him and he dragged them on. Ilya got out of bed and came close to Shane and started to pull him into a hug but Shane stepped back and put his hand over his eyes. Again, he knew he was being ridiculous, but here we were.
“I think you should put clothes on,” he suggested.
“Why?” Ilya asked.
“Because I’m not your husband,” Shane said, still holding his hand over his eyes. Ilya was quiet for a really long time. Shane split his fingers to look through them to see Ilya staring at him.
“Other Shane?” Ilya asked. Shane nodded. Ilya started laughing.
“Why the fuck are you laughing? I just woke up in a fucking alternate universe!”
“And you’re taking it super well. Your Ilya gave Shane a blow job when he woke up here. I get a panic attack,” Ilya quipped.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Shane said.
“Why not? You were an asshole to me when I showed up at your door last year,” Ilya pointed out.
“I had every reason to be,” Shane snapped.
“You don’t know my life. Maybe I had a huge fight with Shane last night and we are getting a divorce,” Ilya said.
“Fuck off. I woke up with you wrapped around me like a squid,” Shane said. Ilya grinned. “Can you please put some pants on?”
Ilya gave a long-suffering sigh but opened one of the drawers Shane had recently slammed closed and pulled some joggers on. He went to retrieve a shirt from another drawer that hadn’t had Shane’s clothes in them but stopped and turned around.
“You were surprised I was with you but only because you thought I was supposed to be in Boston,” Ilya realized. “You are back together with your Ilya?” Shane rubbed the back to his neck.
“Um, yeah,” Shane said, with a little smile.
“This is great! What happened? When you woke up and he was there instead of me? We have always wondered,” Ilya said, sitting on the bed looking like he was ready to hear a story.
“It was weird, actually. I woke up at the team hotel. Best we could figure, it snapped back to where I would have been if you hadn’t shown up? But I went to your place to figure out what happened and he was there. We, um…” Shane trailed off.
“Reconciled?” Ilya said with a smirk. Shane blushed and turned his eyes to the floor but nodded.
“Ilya likes to say he needed a miracle for me to forgive him and you were our miracle,” Shane told Rozanov, sitting next to him on the bed.
Ilya smirked with a playful spark in his eye. "I am a miracle?"
Shane rolled his eyes. Maybe he should leave a note for the other Shane apologizing for putting that thought into his husband’s head. "I was being hyperbolic."
"I assume that is big word meaning 'grateful to be in the presence of such a miraculous wonder.'"
“Fuck off,” Shane said.
“If it helped you get back to each other, then I am glad it happened. It was hard in the moment but I came back home and you got your Ilya back, yes?” Ilya said, seriously.
“Yeah, and now I’m fucking here. Why? I have two games this week. I can’t be stuck here,” Shane moaned.
Ilya’s eyes went flat. “You are more anxious about the hockey games than getting back to your boyfriend?” Ilya said, annoyed.
“Fuck, do I have to have this fight with you, too?” Shane asked.
“Nyet, I have already had and won this fight. You still need to get your shit together,” Ilya said. Shane sighed.
“Of course I want to get back to him. But we aren't supposed to see each other until the end of the week. It’s not like I fucking live with him like you do.” Ilya nodded, conceding the point. But Shane felt bad that he had snapped.
“Sorry, you hit a nerve. We’ve been arguing about this, obviously,” Shane admitted. Suddenly he wanted to talk to this Ilya about everything that had been bothering him that was so hard for him to talk to his Ilya about. Things had been so tense between them lately that even trying to have some of the conversations they needed to have ended up in arguments. This Rozanov wasn't Ilya but he wasn't not Ilya either.
“Actually, can we talk about it? I think you might be the only person who’ll understand. I know I'm screwing up but I don't know how to fix it.” Ilya nodded.
“Of course. Come. I will make breakfast and you can talk,” Ilya said, slapping his thighs and standing up. “You want eggs or gross smoothie?”
“It’s not gross. It’s healthy,” Shane argued. Ilya shook his head sadly.
“Same in every timeline.”
“You’re the same in every timeline,” Shane muttered like a lame playground comeback.
Shane sat at the breakfast bar and unloaded while Ilya bustled around the kitchen.
“We were so good last year. It was hard, being apart obviously, but we were really careful to make sure that everything between us was good.”
“Careful how?” Ilya asked.
“Like whenever something came up that was bothering us or whatever, we made sure to talk it out. We had a lot of hard conversations but we always had them immediately, you know? We didn’t let anything linger,” Shane explained.
“This is good,” Ilya said.
“Yeah, it kind of felt necessary after everything. We had a lot of stuff to work through. And we did. So even though the external stuff was hard - the distance and the hiding and whatever - between us, we got to a place where it was easy again,” Shane said. Ilya had finished making his smoothie and placed it in front of him. He took a sip. The taste sparked a memory.
“Do you remember that first morning after you showed up at the cottage when you made me a smoothie and eggs?” he asked. Ilya smiled fondly.
“I thought I could win you over making you things you liked,” Ilya explained.
“You sort of did. The smoothie was so close to what I make myself and you knew how I liked my eggs. My Ilya didn’t know that. Not then, at least. It’s a little bit why I believed your story.”
“But he knows now?” Ilya asked.
“Yeah, and he makes it better than you,” Shane teased. Ilya scoffed. “He learned over the summer. It was the first time we were able to really be together and it was so great. All the work we did all year, it felt like we were in a good place to figure out what came next,” Shane said.
“Yes, the summers were always the best when we lived apart.”
“Exactly. But I think it made us lazy,” Shane said.
“Lazy how?”
“Like, being together, the conversations we had were more about like, what do we do now? Not, this thing is bothering me and we should talk about it. And when the season started again we were out of the habit and not as careful.”
“What things are bothering you?” Ilya asked.
Shane thought about it for a minute. There were the things he wasn’t talking to Ilya about because they would just fight about them and there were things he wasn’t sharing because he didn’t want to burden Ilya with his own shit. This Ilya wouldn’t be able to help him with that stuff anyway. He needed to know how to fix the things he had been fighting with his boyfriend about.
“The big one is that he wants to go public. When we first got back together I told him we would when we were back on solid ground. I know this is the same problem you guys came up against and it worked out fine for you, but it scares me. I know what you’re going to say, but I can’t help that it scares me,” Shane said, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. Ilya stopped in his cooking to face Shane. He looked like he was considering his words.
“You are maybe right to be hesitant,” he said slowly. “You did not have a choice in what he decided 6 years ago. Maybe you don’t feel on solid ground yet, as you say. Maybe you don’t trust him,” Ilya suggested.
“I do, though. If anything, he’s more worried I’m going to leave him than the other way around,” Shane said. “I’m not,” he said quickly at the look on Rozanov’s face. “I’m not, but he worries about it and the fact that I’m hesitating about going public makes that worry worse. And then he gets annoyed and we fight, and I hesitate more. Wash, rinse, repeat.”
“Have you told him that you are scared?” Ilya asked. Jesus, had he?
“I don’t know,” Shane said, honestly. “He pushes me, I push back but I don’t actually know if I’ve told him that it scares me.”
“You said you knew what I was going to say, before. What did you think I was going to say?”
“All the things he’s been saying. That I’m putting hockey above us. That I don’t love him enough.”
Ilya turned to him in surprise. “He says this? That you don’t love him enough?”
“No,” Shane admitted. “But I think he thinks it. He acts like I have one foot out the door because I don’t want to tell the world about us.”
“Is a lot. The being apart makes it all worse. And of course it is scary. The league is filled with assholes. I do not judge you for this, Shane, I promise,” Ilya said.
“I judge me,” Shane said miserably. “He and I, we were gonna learn from your mistakes, do it all differently. But it seems like I’m just making the same mistakes differently.”
“Well, you say your Ilya calls the first switch a miracle for you. Maybe you need another one now and this is why you’re here,” Ilya said.
Shane rolled his eyes. "Come on. It's not the same at all. I don't need a miracle," Shane said. Like you could apply logic to this weirdness, anyway.
Ilya hummed noncommittally and picked up two plates of eggs to bring to the table, indicating Shane should follow him. He paused and turned back.
“You have games this week, you said?”
“Yeah.”
“Is the Voyageurs team the same people as two years ago?” he asked.
“Mostly, yeah. The usual turnover but the core is the same. That's good, right? Your Shane can slot in and play with those guys easily, right? Some of the plays are different but…” he trailed off because the look on Ilya’s face suggested this wasn't a good thing.
“Fuck,” Ilya said.
“What’s the big deal?” Shane asked.
Shane woke up and silenced his alarm. He was alone in bed but assumed Ilya must have taken Anya out for a walk. He got up, still bleary-eyed, brushed his teeth, threw on his running clothes and went into the kitchen to make some coffee. Man, he was tired but it had been a long flight home from the west coast the night before. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took the first sip. His eyes cleared and he looked around. He slowly put the mug down on the counter. In his kitchen. Of his old apartment. In Montreal. Ummmm.
“Ilya?” he called out, even though he knew he was alone. What the fuck? He quickly and frantically started searching for his phone. Where had he put it? The alarm had gone off. Was it still by the bed? No, where was it? He ran through the bathroom and the living room (pulling up the couch cushions even though he hadn’t sat on the couch, or even gone into the living room since he’d woken up). He finally found it on the counter next to his coffee mug and tried to unlock it but his password - his wedding anniversary - didn’t work. Fuck. Um, old apartment, old password? He tried it and ok, good, the phone opened. He sent a FaceTime request to Ilya.
“Where are you?” he asked, frantically, as soon as Ilya’s face appeared. Ilya gave him a weird look.
“What?” Ilya asked.
“Where the fuck are you?” Shane yelled.
“I’m in my apartment, where do you think I am at 6 o’clock in the morning?” Ilya said, annoyed. Shane tried a different question.
“Why am I in my old apartment in Montreal?” he asked.
“What do you mean, old apartment? It just looks like your regular apartment to me.”
“Ilya, what the fuck is going on?!”
“Hollander, stop pacing. You are making me dizzy. Sit down and tell me where you think you are supposed to be.”
“Ottawa. We flew home to Ottawa last night,” Shane said. Ilya’s eyes widened a little bit. He looked thoughtful. Opened his mouth. Shut it again.
“Ok, so…” Ilya started.
“What?” Shane snapped.
“So, remember like a year ago I woke up and didn’t remember we were married?” Ilya said. It took a second for what Ilya was saying to sink in.
“Oh fuck. You cannot be fucking serious,” Shane said.
“I am afraid so,” Ilya almost apologized but also looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“It’s not fucking funny!”
“Is a little funny,” Ilya said, holding his fingers apart to show how funny he thought it was. And then he was really laughing, the asshole.
Shane let out a long groan while Ilya laughed. This was terrible. Christmas was next week and he didn’t want to spend it apart from his husband. Then something occurred to him.
“Wait, when you were with me, you said you hadn’t spoken to your Shane in five years. But you were the first contact when I opened my phone. What happened?” Shane asked.
“You. You and your Ilya, really,” this Ilya said, with a warm smile. Shane smiled back at him. Those two weeks had been really hard for him, mostly because he thought he had lost his husband forever. But he had often wondered about this Ilya and other Shane (as Ilya always called him whenever they talked about it) and hoped they worked things out. Now, knowing that it had been temporary last year, and that it helped this Ilya resolve things with other Shane, it seemed like it was worth it.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” Shane said.
“I’m really glad it happened. I know it was hard for you, thinking you had lost your Ilya and were stuck with me,” Ilya said.
“No, it wasn’t-” Ilya held up his hand to cut him off.
“Is ok. I was not your Ilya. But you helped me to be braver when I came back here so that I could be with my Shane again. I am not upset to see you but I hope it is temporary again because you are not him and he is who I love,” Ilya said. Shane could feel a goofy smile on his face. Yes, the situation was weird but he could still be happy for these guys.
“That’s really sweet, Ilya. I’m really glad you guys are back together,” Shane said. But also, he was stuck in an alternate reality and needed to figure out how to navigate that.
“Enough mushy,” Ilya said, maybe reading Shane’s face that he was starting to worry.
“Yeah, so…” Shane barely knew where to start. Hockey, he guessed, was the most pressing logistical concern, although he also had a bunch of questions about other Ilya and Shane’s relationship. “I’m on the Voyageurs. I guess I should look up their schedule.”
“You are playing in Ottawa tomorrow and then we come there, the Bears, to Montreal, on Thursday before the Christmas break,” Ilya supplied.
“Ottawa?” Shane asked. “I guess the schedules are the same in this world since we were supposed to face Montreal. That’s gonna be weird.” He decided to put off thinking about having to play with his old team against his current team for a minute. Hockey sorted, so next question.
“Ok, so who knows about us? Who can I talk to?” Shane asked. Ilya’s jaw tightened.
“Your parents,” he said.
“Who else?” Shane asked.
“Nobody,” Ilya said, shortly. “Bennett, but he is in Europe somewhere.” Shane decided to leave Eric Bennett out of it because that was weird, and he remembered Ilya saying other Shane had slept with Eric, which was something he didn’t want to touch. He wouldn’t have been inclined to call Eric anyway.
“Nobody else?” Shane was a little surprised.
“No,” he said tightly. “When we first got back together, he said we could tell people when we were on solid ground again but it has been months that we have been good and still you will tell nobody!” Ilya said, his anger building as he spoke.
“Whoa,” Shane held up his hand. “Not me. Him, ok?” Ilya took a visible breath.
“Da, yes. Fine. He will not tell anyone.”
“Does my team know I'm gay?” he asked.
“Hayden and J.J., yes. Maybe some others but I don't know which. You are like that burger place in California,” Ilya said.
Burger place? “Um, what?”
“In and out,” Shane let out a little laugh, despite himself.
This made things trickier. It had been years since Shane hadn’t been able to talk to at least Hayden about Ilya. He knew how hard the hiding had been for his Ilya - and he could see it was having a similar effect on this Ilya. It wasn’t until they were out in the open that he realized how much it wore on him too, especially with J.J. But he couldn’t out this Shane. And he didn’t want to, especially knowing how the Montreal team could be. But if he was playing in Ottawa tomorrow - maybe…
“Ok, I know this is a weird thing to ask but would it be ok with you if I talked to Wyatt Hayes about us? I know you aren’t friends with him but we are, and I trust him. And he isn’t part of either of your lives here, so it wouldn’t be like outing you to the people who your Shane will have to deal with when he gets back.” Troy might have been a better choice in some ways, but Wyatt was more likely to believe Shane’s story (he hoped), considering how much he went on about multiverses in comics.
“You can tell the whole fucking world for all I care. I wish you would,” Ilya said.
“Listen Ilya, I’m not having this fight with you, ok? I understand you're frustrated but it’s not up to me to make that choice for him,” Shane said. Ilya sighed.
“Of course,” Ilya said.
Shane could see Ilya turning in on himself. He hated when this happened, and it didn’t matter that this was a different Ilya who was struggling, it was still Ilya. But there was nothing he could do about it from here.
“What are we doing for Christmas?” Shane asked, gently.
“We are going to the cottage on Friday,” Ilya said, tiredly.
“Ok. Then I get through the game in Ottawa and I’ll see you before the game on Thursday, right?” Shane said. “I mean, we’ll talk before then, obviously. I know I’m not your Shane but it’ll be good to be together, right?”
Ilya gave a small smile, “Yes. It will.”
After he hung up with Ilya he texted Wyatt. He was happy to see that Hazy was saved in his contacts. The only text in the chain was a link to a restaurant in Ottawa with a, “Here’s that place I was telling you about,” note attached to it. On one hand, that made this perfect because he really didn’t want to out this Shane’s relationship to anyone important in his life. On the other hand, this would also make it weird and random to text Wyatt. But…
Shane: Hey! Would you be able to get lunch or something before the game tomorrow? I have something I want to run by you.
Wyatt: Sure! How about that place you recommended? I still haven’t checked it out.
Wyatt: I kind of forgot about it until you just texted and I saw it again. Man, this place looks good!
Wyatt: Oh! Pierogies! 🤤
Shane laughed. Wyatt was still Wyatt in any universe.
Shane: That would be perfect! See you tomorrow. Right before I score some goals on you 😉
Wyatt: Bring it, Hollander.
Group text: Shane, Ilya, Hayden, J.J.
Hayden: We still on for after the game tomorrow?
Ilya: were you planning on being at the game this time? Seems like you missed the last one.
Hayden: I’ll be the one sending passes between your legs, asshole
Ilya: that doesn't sound like you.
Hayden: SHANE, are we still on for after the game and can you leave your dickhead husband at the arena?
Other Shane looked up from reading the exchange with hesitation in his eyes.
“What should I say?” he asked.
“Is up to you. But they will think it’s weird if you cancel. We always see them after games when we play them,” Ilya explained
“Really?”
“Yes. Sometimes I don’t go with you when we are in Montreal but they always come here or sometimes they come out with the Centaurs,” Ilya told him.
“And you guys like, get along?” Shane asked.
“Mostly. Probably as well as your Ilya does,” Ilya said.
“They don’t know about us,” Shane mumbled. It seemed like he was bracing for Ilya to get angry at him about this. But Ilya had lived through this story and saw how much worse it had been for Shane than it was for him when they were outed. Now he could see that all the hesitation Shane felt wasn’t about Ilya or their relationship. Obviously, the other Ilya didn’t have this perspective and was probably as annoyed with his boyfriend as Ilya had been two years ago.
“No? I thought you were going to tell them when I was there.” Ilya hoped that he sounded more curious than accusatory.
“I said I would but who the fuck knows, since I can’t seem to get out of my own fucking way about this.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“I told my parents almost right away. He met them during his first road trip to Montreal last season. Eric because he knew you were with me at the cottage last year. And we told our agents this summer. We have long-term contracts so the best plan we could come up with was to try to get trades to teams in the same city, New York or LA, or at least cities closer together like you guys did. We figured our agents should know why we wanted to move.”
“Makes sense,” Ilya said. Shane’s phone beeped in his hand again.
J.J: Or we could go out with the Centaurs to Monk’s if you want. I always love seeing Wyatt.
“It’s really ok between you and them?” Shane asked Ilya.
“Sure. Hayden is always apologizing for outing us still, which is boring and annoying but-,” he cut himself off at the look on Shane’s face. “You did not know. Fuck. It was an accident, Shane. You should not be angry at him,” Ilya explained.
“I mean, you told me it was an accident that we got outed and that it was better if I didn’t know what happened. And my Ilya said the same thing, he wouldn’t tell me either. But I feel like I’m here now and I should know,” Shane said.
“Yes, you are probably right,” Ilya said, and told him the story about the video getting leaked on Twitter.
“A FanMail? Seriously?” Shane asked.
“Fucking Brad,” Ilya muttered. “So when it happened, your team was pretty terrible to you,” Ilya said, leaving it at that. Shane looked like he was thinking it all through and deciding what questions to ask.
“When you were with me last year, I asked about the playoffs after we had been outed and you said it wasn’t good for me to know what happened,” Shane said. “I can kind of imagine what the team would have been like but is there anything else I need to know going into this game tonight?” Ilya didn’t think he could avoid it. Sometimes the Montreal players still chirped Shane about tripping.
“You tripped. In game seven when you were trying to take the puck off of me. Your team thought you did it on purpose,” Ilya said.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Shane said. “What the fuck? How could they think that?”
“They are idiots. I did not need you to cheat to beat you,” Ilya said. The old insult was almost second nature at this point. Hollander glared at him.
“Are you kidding me? That’s what you’re upset about? And it sounds like you needed me to trip to beat me,” Shane said.
“Anyway, this is what I didn’t want to tell you last year. But you might hear about it on the ice tonight,” Ilya said.
“But not from Hayden and J.J., right?” Shane clarified.
“No, they completely support you,” Ilya said. It hadn’t always been true but Shane and J.J. had worked it out a long time ago and there was no reason Other Shane needed to know about that. Shane nodded. Ilya knew he would need to process but it was better that he knew than be taken by surprise during the game.
“Ok, well if it will be weird for me to cancel on these guys, I guess they’re coming over?” Shane didn’t sound like he was convinced it was a great idea but willing to play along with this life he was in.
Shane: Let’s keep the original plan.
Shane paused and chewed his lip before he sent a second text.
Shane: But the dickhead comes home with me.
Shane looked up at Ilya and asked, “Is that something your Shane would say? I don’t know, I just wanted to see what it would be like to pretend.”
“Is perfect,” Ilya assured him. Maybe Other Shane needed to see and feel what his life could be like if he decided to be less scared.
Ilya:😘
Hayden:🖕
Shane had felt weird sending that text. It was a little surreal to think about his best friends knowing about his boyfriend. Or husband. Whatever. It felt good to be able to joke with Hayden about Ilya. Shane didn’t believe that Ilya would be, like, nice to his friends, but it was cool to see him poking at Hayden playfully. It seemed to Shane like his own fear had gotten in the way of some of the most important people in his life getting to know each other and maybe, in their own way, liking each other. He was interested in seeing how the whole thing worked. But first they had a hockey game to get through.