Chapter Text
Ilya is not having a good day. No, he is not having a good day, week, month, or, really, life. But today is especially terrible.
Every time he closes his eyes, he relives the moment that Marlow slammed into Shane. The sound of it, pads and helmets cracking, Shane falling limply to the ice with a horrible thud. It rings in his head over and over, a sick metronome.
After all these years, Ilya is very good at pretending. To be fine, to not care about Shane Hollander, to be more or less unflappable.
He knows he’s failing that, now. He can’t stop the way his leg is bouncing, eyes peeled to his phone screen as he reads every scant article about what happened tonight. There’s so few details, only things Ilya saw with his own eyes, and it leaves a terrible fear gnawing in his gut. He can hardly breathe around it.
His teammates stream around him, already showered and getting ready to leave while he is still half-dressed in his disgustingly sweaty uniform. If Shane could see, he would probably threaten not to sleep with Ilya until he’d washed three times.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? Shane isn’t here.
Not in the guest locker room, of course, but in the arena at all. Because he was taken away on a stretcher. No one knows anything in person either, just reading the same articles as Ilya; but word is that he didn’t even see the Metros’ medic—he was taken right to the hospital.
It’s serious. Whatever’s wrong with him, it’s bad.
Possibilities swirl in his mind, each one worse than the last. He’s glad that his teammates are giving him a wide berth, because he feels crazy, on the edge of a cliff just waiting to hear if he should jump over or not.
Hospitals didn’t scare Ilya, before. Getting hurt is part of hockey. He’s gotten enough injuries to last a lifetime, and because of that, those bland rooms with their beeping machines and harsh lights are like a third home, after Shane’s sex dungeon and every hotel room across North America.
Now, though.
Now he is imagining Shane there in that impersonal, uncomfortable bed. He imagines Shane, not moving. Shane’s face pinched in pain, his body stiff and his face a horrible mix of pale and bruised. Shane, saying something to the paramedics that Ilya could hardly understand in the cyclone of noise there on the ice.
Is he okay? Does he need surgery? Is he awake? What if he’s not awake? What if he’s not okay? What if it’s so bad that Shane is never the same, what if he hit his head too hard and can’t remember anything? What if—
The not knowing is a brand new pain. He has survived watching both of his parents wilt in their own ways, slow but inevitable. It happened right in front of him, both times, even his father whose decline was obvious in every phone call. What is he supposed to do with this—this sudden shock, this freefall where he has no information at all?
Shane is fine, he tells himself, trying to believe it. This is not like Mama or Papa. He is only injured. Nothing more.
He sounds, he realizes faintly, exactly like Shane. Or like how he himself does when he’s trying to calm Shane down.
It’s only his phone buzzing in his hand that keeps him from throwing up, or shouting at Marly again, or throwing himself out the door in only his gross socks and underlayers and running all the way to HGM.
Of course it’s not Shane messaging him, there’s no way even if Shane is completely fine, but Ilya’s heartbeat still jumps when he first checks—and falls when he sees who is texting.
For an odd second, Ilya has to blink at his phone. He could never forget his mother tongue, but sometimes it takes a moment for his brain to switch from Russian to English or back, and right now—when his brain is empty of everything but fear and the need to see Shane whole and unharmed—he feels sluggish and slow. Everyone around him is speaking English, and his mind is a jumbled mess of both.
Then what Sveta said actually registers.
Call you?, Ilya thinks numbly. No—he is in no mood to talk stats with her. Not even the knowledge that the Metros will certainly fail to get another cup this year could distract him right now.
Ilya doesn’t know if Shane will get to play any the rest of the season, of course, but the chances are bad. And without him, the Metros will fail. Shane will be devastated, and the thought sits heavy in Ilya’s chest, his fingers twitching with the need to comfort him.
Switching back to the conversation with Jane, he leans forward, free hand coming up to tug on his ear.
A terrible thought occurs to him. Did he do this?
Chest tight with the breath he can’t let loose, Ilya rereads and rereads their last conversation. He was only teasing Shane about getting distracted. They have both spent their whole careers kicking the other’s ass on the ice, almost never letting what they did outside of it impact their performances. But today, Ilya sent these messages. And today, Shane looked back at him—for only a split second, to show off how effortless it all is for him, that asshole—and it cost him everything.
Ilya sighs sharply, scolding himself, Not everything, do not say that.
That makes it sound like Shane is dead. And Shane is not dead. He cannot be.
The universe may hate Ilya, but it does not hate Shane. Probably, he’s fine. Maybe the doctor is telling him what a good Canadian boy he is, practically born on the ice, nothing broken because Shane has never had a serious injury in all his years of playing professionally.
Ilya is not being fair, and he knows that. It’s not Shane’s fault that any of this happened.
It’s also not his fault that Ilya was going to break up with him tonight.
They aren’t together to break up, but there’s no better way to say it. It’s not like before, where Ilya could take six months of ignoring him to freak out in peace. Not that that worked out well, anyway. No, now there’s so much more between them—their first names, tears and being held, sex that feels so intimate Ilya can’t breathe, and three words in Russian that he’ll never be able to take back.
So no, Ilya can’t ghost him. It’s too big to say they need to ‘part ways’ or ‘end the arrangement’ or whatever other phrases people use.
He’s just grateful that Shane doesn’t know how bad it’s gotten. How far Ilya’s let it go.
What is he supposed to do now? He can’t end it if Shane’s in the hospital. He can’t even get in to see him without putting their secret in danger.
Exhaling sharply, he pushes away every wish that things were different. They’re not. This is the situation they’ve created, and now they have to deal with it.
Across from him, Hammersmith says, “Roz, man. What the hell is going on with you?”
“Nothing,” Ilya says at once. He stands and turns away from the room, facing his stupid stall so no one can see his face.
“Hollander will be fine,” Sebbin tries from a few spots away.
“Of course he will,” Ilya snaps instead of saying what he’s really thinking, which is, How the fuck do you know that? You didn’t see the way he fell—you didn’t see how messed up he was after. How do you know he will be fine? “He is perfect hockey player, he will walk it off.”
There’s silence after that, the kind that makes Ilya’s skin prickle uncomfortably. He knows what it’s like to have to talk about someone silently because they’re still in the room with you. The guys he’s been playing with for years have perfected it.
The rookies, though. Ilya hopes he was never so naive and stupid. He hears one, Varkov, whisper, “Why the fuck does he care anyway?” and Carmichael hiss back, “Shut up, rook, unless you want him to chew you out too.”
Ilya steams, glaring at his stupid gear. This isn’t good behavior for a captain to have, and he knows that, but it’s impossible to feel guilty for the way he bit Marlow’s head off. Marly is one of his closest friends, but Shane is—Shane. And Marlow should have been fucking looking, should have tried to stop himself when he realized what was going to happen, even if he only a split second to do it in.
Getting pissed off won’t help anything. Marlow has already left, scolded and bruised by the fifteenth best Metro.
”блять,””Fuck,” Ilya snaps to himself. He forces himself to start getting undressed, ripping all of the sweaty layers off with prejudice.
And then Yuna fucking Hollander texts him.
Once again, it’s like Ilya’s brain glitches.
Yuna Hollander… got his number from Hayden Pike? Two people he has rarely if ever spoken to, yet who are undeniably important to Shane. Two people who have absolutely no reason to have his phone number.
His eyes scan back up and snag on that name. Lily.
She thinks she’s talking to Lily.
Ilya’s hands move before his brain. He doesn’t bother to worry about where she could’ve heard the name from, not when he knows Shane never talks to anyone about what they do. No one should know about Lily, but Mrs. Hollander somehow does. She is offering him some kind of information, and he doesn’t care what he has to do to get it—pretending to be Shane’s Boston hookup is nothing.
He doesn’t know Mrs. Hollander, but he is so grateful to her. She tells him right away, and very clear: Shane is injured but he is okay. He won’t play for the rest of the season, not with a fucked up collarbone and an old friend, the concussion.
But he is okay. He’s not laying there almost dead, while Ilya is still here, stuck in this locker room, so fucking far away from him and with no way to get there.
Everything sucks, but Ilya finds he can breathe a little easier.
He doesn’t know why his hands take him to the chat with Jane. Muscle memory, probably. He’s spent years rereading every single text.
It doesn’t feel better, really, to say any of this to Shane. Not when he knows he won’t see it possibly for days, his brain too broken to handle any screens.
But it does help him settle a little. Shane is okay for right now. There is nothing he can do about it.
He goes to shower, the last one by far. Instead of lingering like he likes to do, he washes himself as quickly as possible, leaving his hair slicked back and dripping down his neck. He doesn’t wash it, some part of him having never planned to—no, he dreamed all day about the shower he and Shane would have taken tonight, enjoying the sex dungeon’s water pressure and Shane’s new, but still very meticulous routine. First Ilya’s shampoo and conditioner, which has to sit, then Shane’s which doesn’t. Shane has never let Ilya wash his hair for him, but he thought maybe tonight would be different, tonight he would offer and if Shane didn’t want to do it, then Ilya would say, Am just returning a favor, Shane and pout until Shane gave in. Then they would wash their bodies, and Ilya would take a long, long time loosening all of Shane’s muscles until he was putty in Ilya’s hands, and—after they got out—he would grab the bottle of lotion before Shane could, and offer a massage and…
And then Marlow hit Shane. And none of that was going to happen anyway. Not when Ilya was going to stop all of this once and for all.
Every time he thinks about ending it, it feels like being stabbed. He can’t not have Shane in his life. He doesn’t know how to be a person without Shane orbiting just within his reach. But all the same, he can’t let this go on any longer. Already, he’s fucked up, already he’s made it too serious. They can’t be anything more than friends with benefits, and Ilya knew that, has known that this whole time, and he still let himself fall—
The pathetic, down-bad—as his teammates say—part of him thinks, Why break it off with Shane when things are only just now going well? Think about everything you could have. Fuck Russia, fuck the MLH. Don’t you want to be happy?
That last part sounds suspiciously like Shane.
Ilya clenches his fists, tying the towel around his waist violently. His nose flares as his breath picks up.
This is exactly why he has to end it. What is he doing, thinking they can be happy? What is he doing, dreaming of showering together? Not just at a time like this, when Shane is so badly hurt, but at all. They will never have anything so domestic. He’s just torturing himself.
Vicky gives Ilya another look as he comes storming back into the locker room. Sitting on the bench, he only hesitates for a second before deciding to speak up. “Christ, man, you look wrecked. I know it was kind of freaky to see Hollander like that but—”
“Stop. Talking.”
Ilya ignores him once he gets to his stall, his mind going in furious circles. Shane, hurt—the dream of taking care of him the way he’s taken care of Ilya these past few weeks—the reality that Ilya was going to have to break up with him—not break up, they aren’t even together—but they could be—but Shane is hurt—
He pulls all of his clothes on roughly. Despite himself, they are his sex clothes, easy to put on and easy to get off. At some point, he realizes he’s clenching his jaw so hard that he’s getting a tension headache, but he can’t stop.
It doesn’t help that his phone won’t stop fucking buzzing. Snatching it up, he hopes it will be Yuna Hollander, but no.
Sveta replies immediately, but Ilya ignores her for a moment. He has to get out of here.
Outside, Montreal is as alive as ever. The world hasn’t stopped just because Shane got hurt.
Ilya swallows down the poisonous hatred he suddenly feels for this city and this sport, who have both chewed Shane up and spit him out without a care. Who have made it impossible for them to just—be.
He stands there in the street for a stupidly long time. Shane will be angry, but he pulls out a cigarette and smokes, ignoring every eye that lingers on him, wondering if he’s actually that Raider. If his hands are shaking, he’ll blame it on the spring chill.
When a cab pulls up, Ilya stubs the cigarette out and throws the butt in his pocket. See, Shane? I didn’t litter.
“Where to?”
Ilya almost says HGM. The stupid French words are on the tip of his tongue, take me to Hôpital général de Montréal, before he remembers. Ilya Rozanov has no reason to visit Shane Hollander, especially not when even his own parents haven’t seen him yet.
If he was smart, he would give the name of the hotel the Raiders are staying in. Instead, Ilya gives the address to Shane’s sex dungeon.
The whole way there, Ilya’s phone buzzes. It’s not Mrs. Hollander, so he doesn’t care. He stares out the window, trying not to think of anything at all.
When they arrive, he overpays the driver and walks around the building to the back door, pulling his keys out only once he’s right there. He’s never been inside without Shane, even though he’s had a key for a while. It’s more fun to meet him here, to tease him about it being a sex dungeon just to hear Shane say, “What the fuck, no it’s not. Don’t call it that. Asshole.”
Will Shane mind that Ilya is staying here? Maybe. Maybe not. But Ilya can’t go back to the hotel and pretend to be normal, and if he can’t go sit at Shane’s bedside, then there are no other options.
Inside, it’s weirdly silent. The whole building is empty except for him. No one knows that he’s here, no one knows anything.
Emotion crawls up Ilya’s throat so fast he almost chokes on it, his face twitching as he forces it down. If he cries, it will be real. If he cries, he will be weak and there’s not even a Shane here to kiss it away.
Throwing his bag down, he finally bothers to look at his phone, desperate for a distraction.
Ilya swallows roughly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He doesn’t—he can’t do this right now. Not with Sveta.
Even the fact that she’s texted him is enough to remind him how fucking alone he is. Shane may be in Montreal, but he is impossible to get to, and Svetlana—the only other person in the world who cares about him at all—is hours away in another country.
His breath is shaking when he texts back, trying to be flippant.
When he reads that message, his body reacts like it used to when he was a child. He goes rigid, his ears ringing and eyes tunneling on the danger.
Sveta thinks she knows about Jane, asks him about his mysterious friend sometimes in leading ways that Ilya pretends not to see. She knows that Jane is not a girl.
She’s not supposed to know that Jane is Shane.
He can’t stop the tears. They pool in his eyes and drip, one at a time, down his cheeks that burn with embarrassment and grief.
Shane is not dead. Shane is fine. It’s not like Mama or Papa, except that once again, Ilya cannot be there for him—cannot be with him—instead he’s sitting here in his and Shane’s shameful secret and—
He can’t, he can’t do this. He can’t keep pretending. Not that Shane is Jane, or that Jane doesn’t exist at all, or that Ilya isn’t fucking in love with him. Not even that he doesn’t want to talk to Sveta.
His hands are shaking when he presses the button. She picks up before it can even finish ringing the first time, and the sudden sound of someone else’s breathing cracks him right open.
“Света,”“Sveta,” is all he manages to say.
“Oh, ИльюшкаIlyushka.” Her voice is softer than normal, and he presses the phone to face like it’ll teleport her to him. “Tell me what happened. Is he okay?”
Ilya flops back onto Shane’s fancy couch, and can’t stop the sob that rips out of him. He can’t stop for a long, long time.